60016 - What do you wish you had saved for?

[Dead Cat]

Heaps of guacamole, Dragon Lady! Did you always use so many parentheses, or have I simply not noticed? Oh, by the way, you forgot one

[Dragon Lady]

I think this a topic DL is passionate about...

How'd you guess? Y'know, besides the fact that I labeled it as a soap box in my very first post. And have written a novel or two about it.

Heaps of guacamole, Dragon Lady! Did you always use so many parentheses, or have I simply not noticed? Oh, by the way, you forgot one

Y'know, as I left the computer last time, I had this nagging thought that I missed a parenthesis. I dismissed it. Never dismiss the punctuation promptings!

Oh, and yes. I just use a lot of parentheses.

[thebigcheese]

Also, he does a pretty dang good job of making up for it monetarily by writing said programs and getting paid for them.

I think it's really, really cool when people do stuff like this. Figuring out how to make money from buying the stuff you want. Brilliant!

A couple of related examples... My brother is easily the most wired guy I know. He likes to buy a lot of electronics (audio/visual equipment, heavy-duty computer equipment, photography equipment), and he offsets the cost by renting it out through his business. In most cases, the price of two rentals pays for whatever he bought. Awesome! Similar thing with my husband. Several years ago, my husband picked up a couple of huge speakers and started a DJ business. Those speakers have paid for themselves many, many times over, and he's probably going to buy a set of nicer ones in the near future. Plus, it's been really nice to have the extra income. He makes like $300 from each gig, and the vast majority of his gigs are just easy wedding receptions. So, lesson learned? It takes money to make money. And if you play your cards right, the benefits can heavily outweigh the initial investment.

Meanwhile, I've been tinkering with some ideas of my own. Furniture restoration is probably the most interesting one I've considered. Which means I get to buy tools

(Yes, I'm a girl. And yes, I love power tools. So sue me.)

[krebscout]

(Yes, I'm a girl. And yes, I love power tools. So sue me.)

Was anybody going to?

[thebigcheese]

Well, let's just say I've gotten some interesting responses from people before. Raised eyebrows, obvious disapproval, boys feeling uncomfortable about dating me because I know more about tools and have more tools than they do...

[Yellow]

thebigcheese, I feel uncomfortable about dating you too, but that's not about the tools.

[Dragon Lady]

thebigcheese, I feel uncomfortable about dating you too, but that's not about the tools.

[ahem.]

My sister-in-law does a lot of woodworking. In fact, she's making my nieces a dollhouse this year for Christmas. My brother's drafting the plans, and she's gonna build it, which I think is awesome.

[Marduk]

thebigcheese, I feel uncomfortable about dating you too, but that's not about the tools.

Hrmm, because of her husband, or your wife?

[Tao]

Heaps of guacamole, Dragon Lady! Did you always use so many parentheses, or have I simply not noticed? Oh, by the way, you forgot one

heh, I find this amusing that this occurs in the same post referencing Yellow's programming. Can you have a grammatical segfault?

Well, let's just say I've gotten some interesting responses from people before. Raised eyebrows, obvious disapproval, boys feeling uncomfortable about dating me because I know more about tools and have more tools than they do...

Hmmm, it would seem to me that someone should be more attracted to an individual whose strengths overlap their weaknesses. People can be odd.

[Marduk]

Hmmm, it would seem to me that someone should be more attracted to an individual whose strengths overlap their weaknesses. People can be odd.

We're not all vulcans.

[Katya]

Hmmm, it would seem to me that someone should be more attracted to an individual whose strengths overlap their weaknesses. People can be odd.

We're not all vulcans.

More specifically, having one's masculinity threatened overrides "opposites attract."

[ahem.]

Hmmm, it would seem to me that someone should be more attracted to an individual whose strengths overlap their weaknesses. People can be odd.

We're not all vulcans.

Are SOME of us Vulcans??!

Fascinating.

[Marduk]

implied=/=specified.

[Dead Cat]

Hmmm, it would seem to me that someone should be more attracted to an individual whose strengths overlap their weaknesses. People can be odd.

We're not all vulcans.

Are SOME of us Vulcans??!

Fascinating.

I'm actually 1/9 Vulcan. It's not enough for pointy ears, but that can be easily fixed with a mechanical rice picker--I just keep forgetting to check eBay for one.

[Laser Jock]

I'm actually 1/9 Vulcan. It's not enough for pointy ears, but that can be easily fixed with a mechanical rice picker--I just keep forgetting to check eBay for one.

I was about to quibble with this (because 1/9 isn't a binary fraction), but it turns out 1/16+1/32+1/64 only gives you an error of 1.5%. Close enough. (You can get more accurate by adding more fractions to the approximation; 1/16+1/32+1/64+1/1024+1/2048+1/4096 is only 0.02% off.)

Though that's all irrelevant if Vulcans don't reproduce in pairs. (Do any Star Trek nerds care to shed light on the subject?)

[Dead Cat]

I'm actually 1/9 Vulcan. It's not enough for pointy ears, but that can be easily fixed with a mechanical rice picker--I just keep forgetting to check eBay for one.

I was about to quibble with this (because 1/9 isn't a binary fraction), but it turns out 1/16+1/32+1/64 only gives you an error of 1.5%. Close enough. (You can get more accurate by adding more fractions to the approximation; 1/16+1/32+1/64+1/1024+1/2048+1/4096 is only 0.02% off.)

Though that's all irrelevant if Vulcans don't reproduce in pairs. (Do any Star Trek nerds care to shed light on the subject?)

Vulcans definitely reproduce in pairs--pon farr, anyone? As for myself, I donated 1/72 of my Vulcan DNA to charity.

[Wisteria]

Going way back in the conversation- how did you like the Orchestra on Temple Square, Dragon Lady? My roommate is a violinist in said orchestra so we often get easy free access to tickets, although I wasn't able to go this time around.

[Dragon Lady]

Going way back in the conversation- how did you like the Orchestra on Temple Square, Dragon Lady? My roommate is a violinist in said orchestra so we often get easy free access to tickets, although I wasn't able to go this time around.

It was great! Yellow loves and appreciates music way more than I do, so he could probably tell you better than I could. (I also had gotten less sleep the night before than normal, so I maybe dozed a bit here and there.) But they did have a brass ensemble that I loved! Probably because I'm biased toward the trombone. Aren't they just so fascinating to watch?

And for what it's worth, the tickets were free. I just went to the website and told them how many tickets I wanted and they mailed them to me. Easy as pie.

[Wisteria]

Right. The word free didn't really belong in my answer- I was going for saying that I get very easy access to tickets, even though it's not that hard to get them in the first place. If I'm lucky and stay on my roommate's good side, I might get to go hear David Archuletta with the choir without putting forth any additional effort. I will be every teenage girl's envy.