In Japan, SPF50+ is everywhere and comes in a variety of formulas and price ranges. I brought home a few different kinds so I could Google translate the bottles at leisure and also do Science and maybe create the information I wanted when trying to figure out the difference in each formula. So! Warning: flesh ahead. Also, note that I am a different colour than you.
Biore sells three readily-available formulas for a face-friendly SPF50+ face goo, all around $8-12 each:
Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence
Biore UV Aqua Rich Aqua Protect Lotion
Biore UV Aqua Rich Aqua Protect Mist
okay but like what does that mean
Biore UV Aqua Rich Watery Essence is a thick lotion. I used it on my face because why not.
Biore UV Aqua Rich Aqua Protect Lotion is a milky lotion weirdly reminiscent of calamine lotion. Very runny and seemed to dry out a little but dispersed into my skin well enough.
Biore UV Aqua Rich Aqua Protect Mist is a fine, clear mist. I wish I bought more of this kind; it’s great to have in the car. Ultimately I brought it inside to use as a final setting spray for hair and face before heading outside, them UVs be nasty.
The last gratuitous shot of my chicken leg is all three lotions rubbed in and before my current bake in the sun. Will add results this evening. Science!
I was laid off from Shopify on Tuesday. It was unexpected, although the writing had been on the wall for a while. Management kept saying layoffs weren’t happening, but the stock didn’t bounce back after the split and the questions were starting to get pointed. I’m not gonna lie – I was very upset when it happened and I cried for hours. Losing your job sucks. Our team went from around 24 people to 8, so most of us got cut and I feel terrible for everyone – those who lost their jobs, and those who have to pick up the slack of 16 people. I don’t think this is over, as we were drowning with work before they cut the team by two thirds. Fewer people does not equate to fewer work.
However, now that I’ve slept on it and did some math, I’m much better. I’ve been given a paid summer off! I will enjoy it for as long as my brain will allow (I get very very antsy when I don’t have income coming in), and I’ve got some interesting leads to follow. I’m sort of stalling on the resume update because it is probably my very least favourite thing to do in the whole universe and is impossibly hindered by my inability to sell myself seriously, but that’s my goal for today. Yesterday I mailed out tincture, returned something I panic-bought, and bought mushrooms for tonight’s dinner. Today, I will do laundry, make cannasugar, and update my stupid resume. One day at a time. How do you be a Lady of Leisure? I feel like this might require some fluffy mules.
I’m not all that torn up about leaving Shopify. They’re no longer the tech darling in Canada, and the mission was starting to get messy. I definitely miss my former co-workers, as I worked with some truly amazing people that I never got to meet in person (something I’m going to be sore about for a long time). The whole team was supposed to come out to Vancouver at the end of August for our long-overdue in person meeting, and I was really looking forward to it (albeit terrified at the whole “meeting new people” part) – if they still come out with the tiny team, I’m gonna crash the meeting to say hi. It won’t be the same, but it’s as close as I can get. I’ll have to stalk the others online.
I am sad, but not broken.
I will eat the cannasugar until I am less sad (and way more broken).
Anyone need a technical writer? I know where you can get 16 or so. I’m the shiny!
first you get the sugar, then you add the weed, then nothing else matters
Several weeks back, a friend told me about tinctures. I am nothing if not easily swayed by complicated arts and crafts, so I did some reading and set about to make some tincture. And I did! Here are words:
I am having a fiiiiine Friday. Friday holidays should become a regular thing. Much less stressful than holiday Mondays.
I was going to share a whole whack of pot reviews at once, but I’ve also been wanting to put in my own words the differences in dry pot vs wet (called “sticky” which is marginally less fun), and indica vs sativa. This information is online several thousand times over, but this time it’s in MY words (which are clearly better than other, more boring words). You ARE here for the words, right? The nudes are on my OnlyFans.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading to learn more about the world of marijuana, because I’m finding my new hobby so very interesting. Starting with the word “marijuana” – did you know it has roots as a slur, because it was demonized by politicians in the 20s and 30s who associated it with Mexican people to make it seem like foreigners were bringing deadly drugs into the US? It was the start of Reefer-Madness-like propaganda to make marijuana out to be a very, very bad thing (how’s that war on drugs going? good?). This is why it’s routinely referred to as “cannabis” everywhere you look today, because although marijuana is no longer considered a life-destroying devil plant, that name is heavily associated with people being awful to other people. So, cannabis it is.
Dried weed vs sticky weed: I was under the impression that dry weed is bad, because Ed always made noises about how dry his old pot was. That was an assumption on my part, because all his weed is dried so I thought that’s what “bad” pot looked like. Turns out, dried weed is fine – ALL weed is dried to some extent – but OLD dry weed is pretty bad because most of the good stuff has leeched out. You can rehydrate it with some moisture packs, but it’s better to have fresh flower on hand. Why? That comes in the curing of the plant: after it’s been harvested, it’s dried for some time. “Sticky” weed, the stuff that comes looking and smelling like a dang salad, still has all the resin visible on it. This kind of weed is preferred for smoking, as it’s extra dank thanks to the resin still hanging out on the trichomes (wiggly bits). It’s apparently the holy grail of pot, and highly sought after.
This is where I complain that it fucking figures that I’d gravitate towards the expensive fancy pot instead of the cheaper stuff.
What’s the deal with dried pot? It’s basically the same stuff, but has been cured for longer resulting in a much drier (and harsher) smoke. It’s not BAD, but it just doesn’t have the same level of tastiness when compared to sticky pot. It’s definitely not something to be avoided, though, for one very good reason:
Dried weed is much lighter than sticky weed, meaning you get more of it for the same price you’d pay for sticky weed.
I can even science this shit out for you right now!
4 sticky grams of Dutch Crunch from Skookum Cannabis ($10.71/g)
4g of dried Ghost Train Haze from Color Cannabis ($7.25/g)
It doesn’t look like a big difference at this scale on this scale, but scale up quickly it does. If you’re looking to get the most bang for your buck, dried is the way to go. It’s also the preferred kind of weed for use in edibles. I might be wrong on this, but I think the only kind of flower you can get online from OFFICIAL DISPENSARIES is dried – at least, that’s what I found on BC Cannabis. YMMV.
Before I decided to start my own collection of weed and weed peripherals, my only exposure to any of it was through Ed and I didn’t ask any questions. A couple of months into this, I now have a favourite type and a favourite strain and a favourite way of doing things. Excessive? Probably, but what the actual fuck else am I going to do? Nothing, that’s what.
I’ve been buying most of my weed from Bud Mail, which I really like. I’ve previously mentioned their black tin series, which is expensive af but you get a ridiculous amount of extremely good weed for your money. I sort of thought all pot was the same, but that is apparently like thinking all wine is the same or all beer – s’not true. Armed with a little bit of knowledge, I was able to determine that I’d been buying some top shelf stuff – and other online vendors also had their OWN kind of top shelf stuff, and it was all different and new. A large tax return later, I have a pretty impressive collection. Some recent finds have been from Mota Cannabis (where I’ve previously bought a lot of edibles) – their top shelf collection is called Mota Exotics, and out of the four flavours I bought, I’ve tried three and really like them. Today’s choice is Lilac OG, a very smooth indica that apparently makes me wordy but without the teeming pretension of my other notable wordy highs. Note to self: use this more often. It makes you a great deal less insufferable.
Okay, sticky > dried. What about sativa vs. indica?
Sativa weed is happy time social fun weed. It makes both Ed and I very talkative, which sounds good except then all the weird circular thoughts I have come out of my mouth instead of staying in my head or going on Twitter where they belong. It is very fun when you’re in a group, even if everyone else is sober, because you can and are willing to carry every conversation at once. I think I’m funny when sativa high, but I also have a greatly inflated sense of my own hysteria, so I could be vastly mistaken about that.
Indica, on the other hand, is a quiet, introspect high. It’s no less of a ride than sativa, because you’re still having all the same weird thoughts but you just sort of .. enjoy them by yourself. People often use indica for concentration or sleep, because it can be very relaxing and you sort of like being all quiet and alone with your thoughts, without distraction. The downside of this is the couch-lock: you will reeeeeeally like your couch. And you’re kind of hungry. Do you want salty or sweet? Yes. You want both, and maybe some of that, and this looks good, and now you need to do groceries because you ate everything.
Indica is also used as an appetite stimulant, if you aren’t getting your eat on.
I don’t have a preference for indica over sativa, because I associate my favourite buzz with the particular strain. I’m starting to be able to tell the difference in hybrid weeds as well, which are a mix of both. Some will have more of one than the other, leading to descriptions like indica or sativa-dominant hybrids.
I’ll save the nonsensical pot reviews for next time. Time for me to enjoy the rest of my Good Friday in my oasis!
I purchased an Ancestry DNA kit for myself and a friend late last year, and after some procrastination and queuing, I got my results back today.
I am somewhat disappointed to learn there are no Maury Povich-style reveals in my past – my results did not show that I am secretly African, or mysteriously uncategorizable, or any anything at all that I didn’t expect, with one exception:
I am 1% more Great British than I am East Asian.
They HAVE to let me in now, right?!
damn ethnics
This means I’m definitely not adopted and living a huge lie like I always hoped feared – it’s pretty much spot on with what I’d been told all my life. Some of the smaller percentages were interesting, too – at some point, several of my ancestors dipped their dingle in places far from home. The complete breakdown is as follows:
Asia East: 41% Primarily located in: Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma), Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Singapore, Brunei, Palau (and Malaysia, which isn’t on this list but is included in the big blue blob)
Asia Central: 9% Primarily located in: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Pakistan (all those letters! #blessed)
Great Britain: 42% Primarily located in: England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Germany, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Italy (YEEEEEEEAH and also I’ve often claimed I’m half Malaysian/half European mutt, so hooray for proof)
Polynesia: 4% Primarily located in: Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand (Maori), Micronesia, Philippines, Melanesia, Hawaii
Trace Regions: 4% These are listed as tiny amounts appearing in your DNA and possibly by accident, and include Ireland, Iberian Peninsula, and Europe West
This was a pretty neat exercise. The Ancestry DNA test isn’t as detailed as the 23 and Me test (which covers health conditions you may be at risk for, genetic traits, potential drug responses, etc), but it’s also half the price. I might give the other test a try down the road, as I don’t know much about my medical history .. but for now, this is just one more piece in the “lemme in the UK” dossier I’m building just in case. Also, is cool. And I got to spit in a tube! Totally worth it.
Part of my job at The Lab is to ease new people into our environment and give them some knowledge so it looks like they know what they’re doing. I get all fresh meat for a couple of hours on their first or second day, we go over company policies and internal systems, and I send them on their merry way. It’s a good system.
Early last year – not long after I had started working here myself – a new guy joined one of our teams. We made plans for me to do my training thing the following morning, and I left him to the devices of other people for the day.
The next day rolls around, and it’s a wet one. I rode my scooter to work, and was rewarded with a torrential downpour – my pants were soaked right through, and I was late getting into the office. I ran to my desk then to the new guy, explaining that I was having a pants emergency and needed 15 minutes to wring myself out and then we could get started. He said fine, I tried to dry myself off as best I could, and we started the meeting.
We adjourned for lunch at 12, and started the meeting up again at 1. However, the new guy was nowhere to be seen. I told the others to hang on while I went hunting for the new guy, but when I was unable to find him, we continued without him. Whatever; I was sure there was a good explanation for his absence and we could just catch up later.
There was a good explanation, alright – the new guy quit. He walked into HR, told them he was quitting, and left after less than 36 hours on the job.
Why did he quit so suddenly?
MY PANTS WERE WET.
I am dead serious. He quit the company because my pants were wet. Specifically, he told HR that it was “the most unprofessional and ridiculous environment he had ever been in”, that I was “sloppy and inappropriate”, the rest of the team were “rude and incompetent”, and he had never been subjected to such an insult as being asked to delay a meeting because someone had wet pants.
Me and my inappropriately sloppy wet pants are unprofessional, ridiculous, and fucking hilarious.
He quit because my pants were wet!
This guy wasn’t some 60 year old from the Mad Men era; he was a fat slouchy neck beard who had mouth-breathing issues and an enormous chip on his shoulder. His team manager and I were pulled into HR to talk about the issue, and luckily she was just as incredulous as we were – we weren’t in trouble (although she did ask me to refrain from telling new people about my pants); it was just a formality because he lodged a complaint. WET PANTS! QUIT YOUR JOB AND RUN AWAY!
It later came to pass that another coworker in a different department knew this guy – he had worked at a company that this chap had just been fired from. He was fired because he took issue with something the team manager did, and reacted by throwing his headset down, sweeping everything off his desk and launching himself at the manager, swearing and yelling. Police were called. He went nuts and had to be escorted off the premises. None of this was known when he interviewed, and HR really wished she HAD known – it was actually noted that no one was really sure about this guy because he was “a little weird”, but we were desperate for new staff so they took a chance they would later regret.
It’s now become a running joke – when a new hire shows up for work on his or her third day, I congratulate them for making it further than this guy.
It’s been a while, but he’s resurfaced. He actually works for a client of ours, and had to call us for something. He’s been coming down to our office and demanding to speak to managers, throwing his (considerable but nonexistent) weight around, and barking orders left and right. He’s threatening to take his business elsewhere – except “his business” is the company he works for, and the company he works for is a tiny one-office non-for-profit CO-OP. He’s in absolutely no position to be making the demands he’s making, and I’ve personally volunteered to kick him in the nuts the next time he shows up at our offices trying to bitch us out and get the home numbers of managers because he thinks he deserves the same level of service given to our largest customer (who, for the record, don’t get our home numbers either). The fucker tried to get me in trouble, and for him to show up again with that kind of attitude means that it’s on. I’m small but mean. Try me.
I have a Performance Review scheduled for 3pm on Friday.
This will be my first real performance review (other than the mini end-of-probation one I had last June) since 2001. I’m not *too* worried – after all, I am totally awesome – but there is still some apprehension.
I’m not up on my Bribing the Boss trends – cookies? Beer? Have we moved to straight cash yet? Money would sort of defeat the purpose as I’m angling for a substantial raise, but I still feel the need to cement a good review with underhanded trickery.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t think too hard about getting a raise. Last time I was sure I was having the Salary Increase Discussion I was actually fired instead.
I may never know what makes me do those things I do.
I’m trying to write some documentation at work, and I know I’ve written something on it before I so go digging through my folders for old files. I find something I’d apparently written on the topic last February, so I open it up to see if it might help:
VOIP Training Outline
Overview:
What is VOIP?
Why would someone want it?
Setup:
What is required?
What connections are installed to run VOIP?
What equipment is used?
What information is the end user provided with?
Support:
What do we support?
What kinds of questions will be asked?
Should I know how to program the entire handset?
When should I escalate?
Catastrophe Actions:
What do I do when giant lizards take over the city?
When should I call the VOIP Mothership for assistance?
.. seriously, what the hell. Why do I DO things like that? And why am I so very amused at my own misdeeds that I will probably never stop?