My helpful editors:

In the caption to Figure 3 I caught an instance of "different ... than". No! The usages of the comparatives (in both British and American English) are "greater than", "lesser than", "similar to" and "different from". Both "different than" (now common in the USA) and "different to" (now common in the UK) are simply WRONG.

In the third paragraph of Section 2 (and elsewhere), there are places where I have changed "compared to" to "compared with"; one thing can be compared to another if they are found to be similar, but you find out if they are similar or not by comparing one thing with another.

Compound adjectives require hyphens, independent clauses are separated by commas, the word "data" is a plural form, and quotation marks go outside of punctuation on this side of the Atlantic. We do not capitalize basin when referring to a geographic feature. Please look over the attachment carefully.

(though the last one wasn't directed at me)

An author must have a tough skin.

Just the fact that I have people that I can call "my editors" is a huge step towards publication!

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Someone ripped out our garden yesterday... yes, they just ripped up all of the tomato plants, took out all of the bricks that made the wall around the garden, and then filled the garden full of dirt, leaves and rocks.

The tomato plants were still covered in tomatoes, though it is unlikely that they would have ripened because we had a mild frost a little while ago. Some of them were still ready to take off the vine, though. We also had two little raspberry bushes, more like sprigs, which only bear fruit in their second or third year. Luckily these weren't pulled out, they were just completely crushed and smothered by leaves and rocks. I cleared the rocks and leaves away so that they could see the sunlight. I might just dig them up and bring them inside.

I also noticed that there were a bunch of tiki torches in our garbage. Worried for my tiki torches, I went in the unused front door to check on them. They were there, but my gorgeous wooden table and chairs were gone. I went to the Johnson and Wales students' apartment on the second floor and asked them if they knew where my table was. Yes, they did, they had taken it. They were sorry, they had taken it one night and they had meant to put it back but they figured we probably only used it in the summer anyway...

I got the table back and angrily set it up in our apartment. It was dirty and scuffed. They were clearly making pancakes and bacon, which permeated my whole apartment, but now their friends have come over and they're smoking weed. AGAIN. There's nothing worse than having the smell of pancakes and bacon overcome by the scent of that hideous life-wasting drug. All they've done since they moved in was to smoke cigarettes and weed, have huge parties with tons of sketchy people, and play loud music.
Now I realize why my landlord hates renting to Johnson and Wales students and why he let the second floor sit empty for the entire summer in the hopes that he could find somebody else, anybody else to rent the apartment.

The Johnson and Wales students didn't destroy the garden, though, meaning that it must have been the guy who "keeps up the lawn". Which he doesn't, really, because it looks like shit.

/angry rant

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Well, a couple of my girlfriends and I got together and made cupcakes and watched RAMBO: First Blood.

I was a little worried about what they would think, because Rambo: First Blood is hardly the kind of movie you gather a bunch of friends around to watch on a Friday night. They liked it, though, and they said that it wasn't at all what they had expected.

I think most people who have a predefined notion of what Rambo is all about would find it to be not at all what they expected.

We promised Zebo that next time we'd watch Anne of Avonlea. We'll have to make something fitting for that occasion like hunks of flame-broiled meat.

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My friend says that most of her confidantes tend to be male, because she relates to them better. She says that I'm an exception because I'm not as catty as others. Nor do I gossip or talk behind people's backs.

I told her that it was because I AM SECRETLY A MAN!!!!!!!


jk lolololicopter. But seriously people, girls aren't that bad. A lot people need to stop talking about each other behind each other's backs. The only time I see girls being catty is when they think that some other girl is after their man, and the level of their ire depends on the girl and the audaciousness of the transgressor. For my part, if a girl was after my hypothetical man, I would naturally tell her to step off. Actually I wouldn't even have to, because my man wouldn't take none of that. But since such girls and such men remain hypothetical, I will say that I have made a special effort to stay out of the web of gossip and negativity tornadoes that inevitably invade every workplace.

It has meant that I often have no idea what is going on...

...but it's worth it in the end. I keep track of people's lives insofar that I know when their birthday is so I can bake them a cake. This brings me less drama and more of what is really important in life: cake.

Part of the problem is my perennial sobriety, one could say. Things about which one usually gossips tend to happen long after the drunk people have bored me all the way home. Plus sobriety is a remarkable way to steer clear of accidental romantic entanglements. Romantic entanglements in the workplace are a definite no-no. As the Welshman always says, "Don't shit on your doorstep."
Incidentally said about the above friend.

Wise words, Welshman. Wise words.

Still, we all know that I am still just trying to procrastinate on my Mercury paper.

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Well, I fell asleep across two office chairs for a while... I'd better go home now or I might not make it. The last thing I want is to wake up here tomorrow morning. Been there, done that. Same Mercury paper, actually, a mere four months ago when I thought I was finished with it forever.

Writing this paper is like... falling off a house... onto a bicycle... with no seat. Repeatedly.

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But writing this paper about Mercury is like pulling teeth.

Actually worse, because I'd kind of like some of my teeth to be pulled at the moment.

Writing this paper is like stabbing myself repeatedly in the eyeball.

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