Geek in Heels - Page 89

Jun 17, 2011 • In Art/Design, Funny, Twitter, Web

U.S. Cities According to Twitter

Did you know that 66% of Twitter users don’t list an actual location on their profile? And while I assume that most seem to do this for privacy reasons, there is also the fun factor (such as “Justin Bieber’s Heart”).

InboxQ has sifted through various geotagged tweets in order to bring us a map of the United States if it were left up to the Twitterverse. Many of the city nicknames seem appropriate, but some have be scratching my head in confusion. I had to google “Whale’s Vagina” to discover that it is a term coined by the movie Anchorman (because “San Diago” means exactly that).

Do you reveal your actual location in Twitter? If not, what do you use instead?

Via Geekosystem.

Family Resemblances

When Claire was first born, no one could really say who she looked like — there were moments here and there when she looked like J’s father, and flashes when she resembled me…but no definitive comments of “Ohmigosh she looks exactly like ______!” as you see with many other babies.

One of the few pictures where she looks like me

These days, everyone says that Claire looks like her uncle (J’s brother). Not only do they have similar features, they make the same facial expressions, so it’s quite comical when they’re sitting next to each other, or staring at each other with the same one-eyebrow-cocked expression.

Even my own mother, who was at first a skeptic, cracked up when she first saw them together — “Be careful!” she told me. “Others might think you guys did something bad if they see how much Claire looks like her uncle!”

(And I always tell my SIL that the reason she loves Claire so much is because Claire looks so much like her husband!)

Last weekend, my mother sent me a picture with her iPhone. “I think you were about six months old here…see, Claire DOES look like you!”

I love my dad’s hair in this picture.

I was pleasantly surprised for two reasons: (1) my parents could not afford a camera when I was younger, so there are very, very few baby pictures of me and my sister and I could not recall seeing this one before; and (2) I could really see some likeness! Especially in the hair pattern and big chubby cheeks.

A shot of Claire when she was six months old

I always feel bad for J that his firstborn doesn’t look anything like him. So with this episode in mind, I decided to take a look at his baby pictures to see if there’s a resemblance…

And there isn’t much. 🙁

You gotta admit that he was a cute baby though, and Claire definitely has his eyebrows —

A recent picture of Claire, for comparison:

And, just because I think nekkie pictures of babies are so adorable…

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that BebeDeux will look like J. I think that having a daughter who looks like him will help ease his longing for a son. Plus, J looks exactly like his mother, and his mother is quite an attractive lady!

Rosa de Agua

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you — the picture below really is a water rose.

Photographer Fer Gregory describes how he created the stunning image:

To take this picture I made a basic “rose” shape out of a plastic bottle, I taped it to a twig and then I placed them upside down to pour the water over it.

The shot is composed of several shots to make it look like there are petals, below are some photos that made this shot along with the set-up.

Impressive! I really did think that the image was entirely computer-generated at first glance!

Via My Modern Met.

The Past vs The Present

Times, they are a-changin’!

Via The Daily What.

P.S. — Gotta love the little detail on the last panel!

If Programming Languages Were Boats

I happened upon this hilarious post over at CompSci.ca Blog. It has certainly led to some great comments as well as some friendly debating among CS nerds…

Turing

Turing would definitely be a kayak. It’s small. It’s human powered. It’s often used as a beginner “boat.” And it’s also very Canadian.

photo by naokomc

Java

Java is a cargo ship. It’s very bulky. It’s very enterprise~y. Though it can also carry a lot of weight. Will carry a project, but not very fun to drive.

photo by cfarivar

Perl

Perl is a tugboat. Powerful enough to tug Java around, in 80 characters or less.

photo by xeeliz

Ruby

Ruby is difficult to describe. It’s sleek, sexy, and very fun to drive. Here’s a picture. Very trendy.

photo by Tony Falcon

C

C is a nuclear submarine. The instructions are probably in a foreign language, but all of the hardware itself is optimized for performance.

photo by Ryan C. McGinley

HTML

HTML isn’t really a ~~programming language~~ boat.

photo by ascendeddaniel

Personally, I was surprised that Python was left off the list. But I was delighted to see what commenter “jpc” wrote:

Python would be a catamaran. Light and functional, with conspicuous spacing.

What kind of boat would your favorite programming language be?

Second Baby Purchases

Update on the bloody mucous: I’m still spotting and cramping a bit, but it has definitely lessened so we won’t be going to the ER. Needless to say, I didn’t get much sleep last night. And since I am supposed to be taking it easy (and the nanny isn’t available on Wednesdays), J took the day off from work today so that he could watch Claire and tend to my needs. I’m trying my best to rest, but I am having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. As such, I am momentarily keeping myself busy on the interweb while I wait for my Unisom to kick in.

One bright side to having another girl — especially one so close in age to the first — is that we will not need to purchase many new baby items. I had always joked that if BebeDeux turns out to be a boy, we will dress him in Claire’s old clothes in order to save money, but I knew that in reality, we would have passed down the non-unisex outfits and toys to J’s cousin (who is expecting a girl this September).

Another big bonus is that BebeDeux will be born in the same season as Claire. 🙂

That being said, there are a few big items that we know we will need to purchase…

The first on our list is a new carseat. We will probably get a convertible carseat for Claire to use, and let BebeDeux use Claire’s current infant carseat. According to my go-to book for baby purchases, the Britax Boulevard CS seems to be the best fit for our needs:

Sure, it is one of the more expensive convertible carseats on the market today. But it is also one of the higest-rated for safety, can be used up to 70 lbs, and fairy easy to use (from what I’ve read). We also figure that we can use one of the many 20% off coupons we receive from BRU when making the purchase later this summer.

The next item on our list is a stroller. We debated getting a separate stroller for BebeDeux, or even getting a double stroller for both babies.

Then we remembered that one of the reasons we had decided on our current stroller, the UPPAbaby Vista, is because you can add a Rumble Seat to it, like so:

At first I was a bit hesitant — would Claire be content sitting on the bottom? If anything, I could see her kicking up at the BebeDeux!

I then took a look at the instruction manual and found the following page:

Until BebeDeux gets big enough, you can set it so that the babies face each other! Sold!

The last item on our list is a place for BebeDeux to sleep. We know that for the first couple of months of her life, she will sleep in Claire’s old bassinet, but we have yet to decide what to do once she outgrows it. Claire’s room is cramped enough as it is, so I doubt that we can fit another crib in there. I actually suggested that J and I take the smaller room and let the girls share the large master bedroom, but he vehemently refused.

So we will most likely end up having a crib or a Pack N Play in the living room or our bedroom, but we haven’t decided yet. Either way, we will need to get rid of some furniture and move a bunch of stuff around. Obviously, we hadn’t thought as far ahead to a second child when purchasing our 2-bedroom condo. 🙁

Several people have asked me if we will be having a baby shower for BebeDeux. I am currently on the “no” side of the fence on this one — I had thought that having a baby shower for a second/third/etc child is a faux-pas unless the children are far apart in age, or a different sex, no?

And while I believe that every child should be celebrated, I’m not sure that asking people to fork over more of their hard-earned money for a second time in two years is the best way to go about it.

J thinks that we should at least have a registry just in case anyone wants to buy us a gift (because not everything can be reused, and there are a few items here and there we did not have with Claire that we would like with BebeDeux), but I’m not sure about that either.

Perhaps a sip-and-see after the baby is born? What do you think?

How “Go the F**k to Sleep” Just Got a Million Times Better

Remember when I wrote about the book Go the F**k to Sleep?

Well, it just got about a million times better. How so? Well, Audible.com has just released an audio version of the book…

And it’s narrated by none other than…

Samuel L. Jackson!

Seriously. If you could have picked ONE person to read this book, who would you have chosen? I know that I would have gone with Mr. “Snakes on a motherf**king plane” in an instant! 😆

The best part?

You can download it for FREE at http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B00551W570.

LOVE it.

Via Best Week Ever.

Update: Boing Boing reports that Werner Herzog will also be doing an audiobook version, to be unveiled at an event to launch the book at the New York Public Library.

Level II Ultrasound (And Some Blood…)

Today J and I trekked down to the hospital for our Level II Ultrasound. We were excited to see BebeDeux again, but more excited to definitively find out the gender of our impending one.

BebeDeux was not cooperative right from the get-go. The ultrasound tech actually told us that just from the way the baby was moving, she would guess that it is a girl — from her experience, boys tend to be a lot more cooperative during their Level II Ultrasounds. (Any of my mommy readers care to confirm her observation?)

We ended up pausing twice — the first time for me to gulp down some cold water, and the second time for me to walk around a bit — just to get BebeDeux in a more favorable position. But the more we tried, the more that BebeDeux would do the opposite of what we wanted.

“This baby…” the ultrasound tech muttered on more than on occasion while shaking her head.

An hour and a half later, we were finally able to get all the images and measurements that the technician needed…including the money shot.

Our OB was correct — BebeDeux is a girl!

And here are the pictures we received…

Can you spot the thumbs up?

Her feet went from being near her head to behind her head.

A 3D image of her face. This isn’t the best shot, but there were
moments when I swear she looked exactly like Claire.

A profile shot. Her nose seems more upturned than Claire’s.

I have NO idea what this is. Can anyone venture a guess?

The money shot. Can you see it? The three dots in the middle?

Legs! (And you can see her head behind her legs!)

My favorite one of the bunch.

The tech was really nice and tried her best to get us some good 3D images of
the baby’s face. No luck. She either kept pressing her face against the placenta…

Or she would try to cover her face with her arms and/or legs.

I thought that all the poor-quality ultrasounds I had gotten — with my previous pregnancy as well as this one — were due to old machines, but apparently that is not the case. The ultrasound tech asked me at one point if I am an avid athlete, or if I do tons of crunches every day. When I replied no (I haven’t done a single crunch since I first got pregnant with Claire), she sounded surprised and said that I have very strong, thick abdominal muscles…and that’s the reason the ultrasound images are so blurry. Good to know! (And perhaps the reason I was able to deliver Claire so easily?)

We returned home in good spirits and began to spread the news that yes, it has been confirmed that BebeDeux is a girl. We had dinner, put Claire to bed and were set to relax for the evening…

…then I made a trip to the bathroom to find (TMI alert!) a huge glob of bloody mucous in my underwear.

I had experienced some bleeding last month, so I wasn’t too concerned at first. But then I remembered that last month’s bleeding was just blood, while this time was bright red blood mixed with mucous. I knew that it couldn’t be from the ultrasound, since everyone was done abdominally and not transvaginally. I also recalled that I had cramping all day yesterday, which I had just chalked up to expanding pains.

I then realized why I was so uneasy — this was exactly what my mucous plug looked like before I went into labor with Claire!

I immediately called our doctor’s messaging service and waited around for the on-call OB to return my phone call. After some precursory questions, the doctor told me to get lots of rest and to come in for a checkup if the bleeding continues through the night.

J has ordered me to bed and I am praying that all is well. I am experiencing some cramps again, but I can’t tell if it is psychosomatic or not.

It’s going to be a long night.

Paper Coasters by Terada Naoki

I am loving these paper coasters by Japanese designer Terada Naoki — the delicate profiles, the shadows they cast, and (perhaps the best part) how they can be stacked on top of one another to create more elements.

Unfortunately, they only seem to be available in Japan at the moment. 🙁

Via HolyCool.net.

Dirty Easter Egg in Harry Potter 3

Did you know that in the closing credits of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, you can see some mischief being managed on the Marauder’s Map?

So it’s not nearly as bad as some of the Disney’s dirty easter eggs. But one can’t help but wonder what the owners of the footprints are up to in the little corner alcove.

Via OMG Facts.