A Few Quick Notes 152

-Today has been a somewhat overcast, damp day. Instead of nice forms of precipitation such as snow or hale, we received batches of rather unimpressive drizzle throughout the day. This drizzle was accompanied by temperatures just hovering slightly above zero, allowing for plenty of slush and water at each intersection.

-If I recall correctly, some snow removal was done in my part of town yesterday night, or certainly between last night and Saturday.

As I was operating under this assumption, I was somewhat surprised to hear the snow-removal procession moving my way this evening. More upsetting was that they decided to do this while I was trying to take a nap.

-Nithum and I have started the cupboard and closet emptying process that must be complete by tomorrow morning at 8:30. Though we have to stay out of the apartment for at least four hours after the treatment, they haven’t given us a precise time at which we might expect the treatment to occur, or some way of knowing when we might expect to be able to make it back into the apartment.

The particularly strange thing about the process is that they request that we don’t clean the treated surfaces for a month. This would seem to be a somewhat hazardous concept as they locations in question are where we store our food, plates, cups, and glasses. Maybe it is that the stuff they are using to keep cockroaches away isn’t all that poisonous.

-Last night I happened to notice all kinds of flashing lights at about 9:30 or 10:00 PM. Once I got up to survey the situation I learned that about four fire trucks were responding to some kind of situation at the large apartment building across the street from us. All kinds of people had exited the building and were standing on the front steps. Fortunately, after only a few minutes the investigation found nothing dangerous and the residents were given the all clear signal. What an inconvenience in the winter.

-Today I was introduced to a social tagging game that has been developed by the McCord Museum. Strangely, the goal of the project is to accumulate a wide variety of words to describe photos, yet points are given for common answers. This means that the best way to win is to supply the most obvious answers, though this may be completely contrary to what the project is hoping to collect. It seems a somewhat ill conceived concept, or that the game is promoting something contrary to the primary goal of the project.

-I guess in the very near future I might want to check out some of the preliminary Super Tuesday results.