What is making you happy right now

[Ominous Gamer]

Booked the venue and have a date: 29/05/2013

Hell of a wait, we were thinking March next year.

[RandBlade]

Her family lives in Canada so a lot to sort out.

[Kazuha Vinland]

So right now, I just had to fix a friend's computer by applying thermal paste correctly and lowering temps by 30 degrees Celsius.

Fun part?

In return he let me listen to his Stax SR-507 headphones. Let's just say they cost more than a thousand dollars alone, and he also brought quite a hefty amplifier and DAC. Sound was and at the same time because I'm meant to buy Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro which is the best for 200$.

Edit: Seems the top of the line Stax, SR-009, is the best headphones in the world. For 4,300$, they kinda should be!

[BalticSailor]

Apparently, I personally know someone who doesn't believe in evolution because "it's just a theory".

And I have my reasons to post this in the happy thread.

[Hazir]

Was at the gay pride canal parade today from 11.00, first time in my life I am drunk before 6 pm. Had a great time on board of a surplus US army tug boat, drank wine, votka something and cuba libres, got a sunburn, danced a lot, and felt real good about the dutch government and the city of Amsterdam having a float in the canal parade.

Just came home and feel really great. And drunk I am affraid.

[littlelolligagged]

And drunk I am affraid.

So drunk that you can't spell afraid, even.

Sounds fun, though.

[oldmunchkin]

Yard sale is OVER!!

Mommymunchkin came up with the brilliant idea to enter us in the round robin yard sale thingy they did here the end of July. Only 1 major problem...The Kid and I got to do all the preparatory work such as dig shit out of storage, bring it all to town to look thru, set up tables and sale items, and keep the masses happy! Oh well, Mom is happy to have the extra money, and The Kid and I are just happy to be done with it!

Also making me very, very happy is the fact that, after a lot of work, The Kid and I finally have his website to the point we can begin to drive traffic to it! I don't know if I'm allowed to post a link here, so someone let me know if it's ok! I am very proud of the work my son has put into this project and am doing all I can to help him succeed!

[Timbuk2]

AntarcticA
AustraliA
AmericA
AfricA
AsiA

[RandBlade]

You've joined Alcoholics Anonymous?

[CitizenCain]

Anonymous vows to take on more bad cops. Murderers, in fact.

Or does this belong in the unhappy thread, since I'm finding it damned hard to hate Anonymous these days?

Well, YMMV, but I think it's great to see them taking on something that actually matters, and people that are actually evil, instead of whatever the trivial leftie cause of the moment happens to be.

[Kazuha Vinland]

Happy: I was the last person to lay down the order for the discounted headphones Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro. Those units went away blindingly fast. Anyway, I'm happy about that as it was the model I have had my eyes on for a while now.

Semi-groove: The Beyers sound better than they look. In fact, they're the worst looking headphones I've owned. On the competing arena we got the HifiMan HE-300 which retails at an amazing $300. They look so darn much better, is a 2011 model, and I kinda expect them to be better than the Beyer. Yet I have no way to test them as they need to be imported, which is a deal-breaker.

[Bitter Jeweler]

My b-day present...HDTV, and a DVD player that streams Netflix!
Makes life at work so much better!

[littlelolligagged]

What are you watching?

[Bitter Jeweler]

Avatar, the last air bender.



Spent the whole day at work cleaning construction mess, floor refinishing mess, and my messes.

Moved things around, made some shelves, and tried to organize better.
It felt good leaving a spic and span shop, but losing a whole day of actual work is gonna bite me in the ass this week!

[littlelolligagged]

Oh. I thought you were watching the cartoon series the kids like.

Which is fine, it was better than most (but no Phineas and Ferb). Just a little far-fetched.

[Bitter Jeweler]

The cartoon series was pretty good. I enjoyed it. They are bringing it back, too!

[littlelolligagged]

So I hear.

[RandBlade]

Almost certainly fake but this made me laugh

Reported in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle last year;

Be sure and cancel your credit cards before you die!

A lady died in September and MBNA bank billed her for October and November for their annual service charges on her credit card.Then added late fees and interest on the monthly charge. The balance that had been £0.00, now is somewhere around £60.00.

A family member placed a call to the MBNA Bank:

Family Member:
'I am calling to tell you that she died in January.'

MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'

Family Member:
'Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.'

MBNA:
'Since it is two months past due, it already has been.'

Family Member:
So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?'

MBNA:
'Either report her account to the frauds division or collections, maybe both!'

Family Member:
'Do you think God will be mad at her?'

MBNA:
'Excuse me?'

Family Member:
'Did you just get what I was telling you . . The part about her Being dead?'

MBNA:
'Sir, you'll have to speak to my supervisor.'
Supervisor gets on the phone:

Family Member:
'I'm calling to tell you, she died in January.'

MBNA:
'The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.'

Family Member:
'You mean you want to collect from her estate?'

MBNA:
(Stammer) 'Are you her solicitor?'

Family Member:
'No, I'm her grandson' (Solicitor's info given)

MBNA:
'Could you fax us a death certificate?'

Family Member:
'Sure.' ( fax number is given ) After they get the fax:

MBNA:
'Our system just isn't set up for death. I don't know what more I can do to help.'

Family Member:
'Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her.
I don't think she will care.'

MBNA:
'Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.'

Family Member:
'Would you like her new billing address?'

MBNA:
'That might help.'

Family Member:
' Heaton Cemetery, Heaton Road, Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.'

MBNA:
'Sir, that's a cemetery!'

Family Member:
'Well, what **** do you do with dead people on your planet?'

MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.

[Catgrrl]

The cartoon series was pretty good. I enjoyed it. They are bringing it back, too!

This I am happy about! The movie, as much as I wanted to like it, pretty much stank.

[Bitter Jeweler]

I enjoyed the movie, I've heard others complain about it. I was entertained.

[Catgrrl]

I was just expecting more...pizzazz I guess. I should have known better, it is my fault for raising my expectations too high. I know there's only so much you can do with live action films but the fight sequences seemed so dull compared to the show.

[Ominous Gamer]

last air bender?

I felt the same way. the way humans move IRL is so much slower and clumsy comparing to the cartoon. I couldn't help but focus on just how ridiculous the actors were, as if their actions weren't fully connecting with the effects.

[Kazuha Vinland]

Wait a minute.. you watch the Last Air Bender, but not anime?

[Lor]

25th August will be a great day - Not only do i celebrate my birthday but I also get my house keys.

[BalticSailor]

Chemistry-related happiNess.
Many times I've been asked to explain what exactly am I doing at work, in a way that non-chemist would understand. The best (and only one I've ever used) way to sum it up is - I make pretty colored powders (to be honest, I have made a fair share of ugly powders and a couple batches of incredibly ugly goo, though none of them are my end products - they're either intermediate products that get turned into something more sightly in the next reaction step, or side products which are disposed of). If someone is really curious about what do said powders do, I offer two answers - the official one (they belong to a fairly wide class of compounds, many of which have found use as antihypertensives, and if one searches the literature carefully enough, they'll find these molecules posess antioxidant properties, some of them might potentially have anticancer activity, etc.) and the "real" one - those pretty powders sit on the shelf, and, well, look pretty.

Which is fine by me at this point, really. However, a while ago I managed to create a new member of this family of compounds, which... Well, putting it simply, is prettier than the others.
Some of my compounds and intermediates glow under UV lamp - I've had a bunch that glow blue, a few of them have yellowish-green glow. Oh, and I've seen a mixture where one of the constituents has a red glow on TLC plate, though I failed to obtain that one in pure form. Oh well.
The new compound does look pretty under UV lamp - a very good green fluorescence is observed even in dilute solutions. What makes this different from the others is that the green fluorescence can be observed even in daylight. This is particularly easy to observe in a tiny glass vial which has small crystals of the compound all over its wall (I wanted to grow a single crystal for X-ray crystallography, but the compound preffers to grow thin, long needles) - the tiny yellow needles, when observed at certain angle, appear lime green. Pretty!

[Catgrrl]

Hooray for pretty chemicals!

[CitizenCain]

Chemical happiness... chemicals making you see purty colors... sounds like a good time, though not the type of good time normally associated with science.

[BalticSailor]

To some extent, that kind of chemical happiNess and visual effects has happened at work, too. Accidental exposure to an intermediate which, apparently, was "biologically active", and quite a decent skin permeator. Fun times, and somehow I managed to continue working just fine, though the sudden onset was a tad scary.

I should take a pic or two of the pretty compound tomorrow. Right now it's 1 AM over here, and apparently sunlight (most likely the UV component thereof) is necessary for the best fluorescent effect.

[GGT]

Good thing you're not blind, huh BalticSailor.


Feeling kinda happy hearing the press talk about the Iowa caucus and the Iowa State Fair. It's a great State Fair....I was lucky enough to have a friend living in Davenport for a few years, otherwise I'd never have gone. Then she moved to MN and I found out how great midwestern County Fairs can be. Clean (unbelievably clean), easy to walk, slow-paced yet full of action and information about farming and animal husbandry, crop genetics, seeds experiments (even tasting popped corn hybrids).

The Indiana State Fair had gotten too large and we used to need trolleys to cart us around. But they DO have the best corn-on-the-cob ever. Now I'm in PA and we have "regional" fairs, with fowl from Delaware and sheep from Maryland. It hasn't changed much in years, other than which company runs the Pig racing contests. I'm not far from Harrisburg, our state capital, but don't know anyone who considers that the hub of our state, let alone our fairs. That is where parents take their kids to Monster Truck competitions (been there, done that). But to get the flavor of agriculture and animal husbandry/4-H....it's all in the regional Fairs, where kids take naps in the stalls with their animals, and live in trailers with their parents for weeks at a time.

[earthJoker]

Flying to Brazil tonight. I probably wont be that active here the next 3 weeks.