The Lyorn's Den

It's the middle of the dog days, yet, thanks to daylight saving time, the bright part of the year is over. When I get up, the sun is not yet in the sky, and I bicycle through thick, cold mist and arrive at work with my wool clothes covered in silver grey water drops.

Of course, going home, it is still hotter than a nice autumn afternoon should be, and my bicycle is loaded with clothes that are suited only for the cold unholy hours of early morning.

Well, spending a little time in town after work, to window-shop and eat ice cream, is no fun when you are dragging around your winter gear: So at least DST saves me some money for what it costs me in daylight.

Did I mention I hate it? (Don't answer that.)

Heute morgen war die Sonne noch nicht aufgegangen, als ich aus dem Haus ging, und es war hundekalt.

Wenn ich in einem Monat an einem klaren Morgen aus dem Haus gehen werde, wird die Sonne noch nicht aufgegangen sein, und es wird hundekalt sein.

Wenn ich in einem guten halben Jahr nach einer sternklaren Oktobernacht aus dem Haus gehe, wird die Sonne noch nicht aufgegangen sein, und es wird hundekalt sein.

Die Sommerzeit verlängert den Winter um zwei Monate. (Aber dafür darf man dann in der größten Nachmittagshitze heimradeln.)

http://www.initiative-zur-abschaffung-der-sommerzeit.de/

Dear pep-talking management guy,

You are probably aware that having people work dead drunk, or stoned out of their mind is not the road to high quality.

So why do you think telling me that a certain piece of work was finished by people at three in the morning, or after repeatedly getting only two hours of sleep will in any way engender trust in the quality of the work done?

the Lyorn

***

And while I'm at it:
Why crunch modes do not work
Why we have to go back to a 40 hour week to keep our sanity.

It's freezing again. I slept very badly. If I had a second power outlet in the bathroom, I'd have brought the electrical heater from home weeks ago and plugged it in. Stupid useless DST. I want that hour back. With interest.

I read that in Russia they are going to *stay* on DST now, to spare people the miserable week after switching. Of course, that means that in winter you'd have to wait until, what, half past ten or so for daylight. Jikes.

I mean, what's the fucking *use*? Either our sleep/wakefulness cycles are adjusted to the sun, in which case the whole exercise is completely useless for anything but spreading misery, or we are not, then we could just all get up at 4 in the morning and enjoy the longer days (NOT).

Who ever developed the bright idea that anything lesser than a major tectonic shift could mess around with the length of the day? And yet every year someone with less awareness of time than a stupid mayfly (you live only one day, you'd be a lot more mindful of one hour!) let their metaphors go off the rail into stating these things until they believe it themselves. And everyone gets a miserable week.

We had tea and cake again today (recipes soon), and for no good reason at all got into diet talk. Which is a hot button issue for me. As in, I can do it for hours, but I regret every single minute of it while they are happening, and I become far more angry and frustrated that I ever should be at any endeavor I'm not getting paid for.

( Cut for, you guessed it, diet talk )

As I've been doing some exercise now I have started to look around for what people are writing, and occasionally crunch some numbers. Which is not good for my blood pressure. (Although, what is not good for one's blood pressure in general is probably good for mine, because mine needs some raising.)

( Cut for exercise, weight and fail which might really spoil a person's day )

Related: Why Everything's Harder Than You Think.

Just finished a whole-series-in-one-day marathon with the gang.

( Here be spoilers )

12. It was weird seeing the places in Cardiff where I've been two months ago on TV again.

ETA: 13. I am now re-reading rm's and kalichan's Harbour because it will make me feel better.

(well, Dreamwidth, to be exact, but it overlaps)

Jonathan Tweet (Ars Magica, Sorcerer's Crusade) makes a total ass out of himself on his LJ by a) believing in evo psych gender essentialism, and b) using it to explain why so few women play role playing games.





The guy has clearly spent too much time designing character classes and now believes that everyone is born into one.

Well. He does kind of apologize and says he has never before realised that some boys only gaming groups behave badly towards girls who want to play. Remember, this is the guy who wrote for White Wolf. Which had fucking essays on this fucking topic in their fucking magazine in fucking 1994.

The German word for this is "merkbefreit".

ETA: jhkim dissects in more detail.

This is a little embarrassing, but I'm so frustrated that I need to whine.

I have this secret and highly ambitious goal of being, one day, able to jog one whole kilometre without intervals of walking to catch my breath, regain control of my balance and wait for the pain to go away. I could do it when I was eleven -- before puberty, chocolate and the lack of sports bras made 100 metres long-distance for me.

So I check the internet for advice on how to best get from here to there without keeling over dead or something equally unpleasant. And every one, every single page says, "don't run so fast that you would not be able to carry on a conversation", and "start with running for two minutes, then walking", and "keep your pulse in this-and-that range."

Which makes me go, WTF?

There is literally no jogging speed so slow that I could carry on a conversation doing it. When I was 16, jogging two kilometres took me 35 minutes (walking would have taken 20), and I would not have been able to carry on a conversation for any part of it. (That was in gym class. I got sent home afterwards for coughing my lungs out. Took me days to get my breath back.) These days, to keep jogging at any speed for two minutes, I need a good day, and four weeks of training beforehand. And going by the pulse frequency I get on a crosstrainer on half that effort, it's probably forty to fifty over what is recommended.

Well, one plan says, "start with walking 30 minutes". Yeah, I can do that. I can walk 30 minutes, or 60, or 240, or the whole day, no problem. I just cannot run.

This sucks.