Sissy, Destructor of Mankind

My friend Maureen used the e-mail address fluffy@destroyerofworlds.com (Fluffy, Destroyer of Worlds!) and that encouraged me to come up with a few silly names of my own:
Sparky, Enemy of Kin
Truffles, Eater of Mom
Trixie, Annihilator of Babies
Skittles, Plague of the Universe
Sissy, Destructor of Mankind
Dolly, Flaming Blade of the Gods
Dee Dee the Doombringer (thanks PJ)
Cutie, the Widowmaker
Tina, Reaper of Souls (PJ again)
Baby, Keeper of Souls (Maureen)
Frisky, Dominator of Wills
Flossy, Taker of Innocence
Samantha, Harbinger of Death (PJ)
Fanny, Corruptor of Children
Dina, Render of Hearts

Then there’s their opposites:Destructo, Wetter of Beds
Brutus, Who Fears Children
Strongus Maximus, Who Wears a Kilt

I encourage you to leave your own suggestions as a comment to this post!

Hotter Inside Than Out

I don't understand why, at 4:00am, well before the sun comes up, it is considerably hotter inside than out, even when the window is open.  It's 56 degrees outside and 75.5 degrees inside.

What's more baffling is that, when I open the window further at 4:30am, the temperature goes up a half degree over the next 10 minutes.

The temperature outside rises to 60 Fahrenheit, according to my desktop widget, and still my apartment seems to be heating up, another half degree over the next half hour, two feet away from the open window.

Now I'm wondering what is causing the temperature inside to rise at this time of the morning.  In an hour or two, we can say it's the sun beating down on the apartment building, causing the walls and therefore the air inside to warm up - but the sun isn't up yet.

I turned off the pilot light in our heater months ago, so it's certainly not that.  I seriously doubt my computer and my body heat are warming up the apartment faster than the open window is letting in cool, 60 degree air.

So what do you think causes this odd phenomena?  Maybe it's all the hot water in our apartment!  ( Hot Water From Cold Faucet )

Hot Water From Cold Faucet

So last year I made a Blog post about our hot water coming out of our cold water faucet: Plumbing.

Just to make sure you read that right - hot water comes out of the cold water faucet.

This only happens in the early morning, between 4:00am and 5:00am. The hot water might last for 10 minutes or much longer, sometimes 20 or 30 minutes. I'm talking about very hot water here, the maximum temperature the water heater can put out, far too hot to actually take a shower.

Yesterday morning Kristin spent between 20 and 30 minutes running the water, waiting for the hot water to stop. This morning, she demonstrated how even in the bathroom sink, the hot water is coming out of the cold water faucet.

I have explained this to our landlord countless times. The problem is, our landlord can't even conceive of this situation, so she doesn't interpret the problem correctly. She must think I'm explaining it wrong (cold water from the hot water faucet), or maybe she thinks I'm playing a joke on her. I just know that for years now, it can be a real difficulty taking a shower in the morning because the water is too hot. The end result is that nothing ever gets done to fix it.

I've also explained this issue to many friends, including people with plumbing experience - everyone says that it's impossible, that it can't happen, and this again moves me no closer to an answer.

So again I ask the Internet - what can cause the cold water faucet to run hot for 10, 20, even 30 minutes before it gets cool enough to take a shower? And how do we fix it?

Update- The "fix" appears to be leading a new pipe directly from the cold water draw to our apartment. I don't think this will help the neighbors though.

Cop Parks Rudely

To prove that anyone can park rudely, please see this wonderful photo of a cop parking rudely!

I actually took this photo in January, along with these other two pictures, but I had a month's worth of pictures stuck in a folder on my computer I forgot about.

I'm sure glad that I found these photos (taken on my pda) because pictures of cops parking rudely are real gems.

If you check out these other pictures, you'll see someone who doesn't even pretend to be interested in parking correctly.

It seems easy to park rudely at Trader Joe's. Honestly, the spots in the aisles in front of the store are very small, but there is a parking area for larger vehicles. People just don't want to walk that far.

See more pictures like these at www.youparkrudely.com

How to Do Things

I've been getting into eHow.com lately - both writing articles, and reading other's articles.

One time I did a search for a wacky article subject:  How to raise the dead.  I found an article, but wasn't too impressed, and vowed to someday write a better one.

I've put in several requests for article topics, but I haven't seen them posted on the eHow request pages yet.  This list of article topics includes:

How to ...

• Contact an Alien
• Hide a Body
• Destroy Your Neighbors
• Win the Game of Life
• Talk to Animals
• Cool the Earth
• Blow Up the moon
• Melt an Iceberg
• Sucker the Rich
• Catch and Cook Squirrel

These are, of course, a bit more exotic than the topics I've written for eHow so far:

• How to Clear Cache in Mozilla Firefox
• How to Clear Cache in Internet Explorer 7
• How to Change Your Home Page in Internet Explorer 7
• How to Use the Address Bar
• How to Choose Which Drives to Index in Windows Vista

I figure I have to work my way up to those more dramatic topics, so I'm starting with the simple ones now!

Video Quality

Let's see if overall video quality wins out to get more views, better ratings, and better reviews!

Here's a video I took two nights ago (on 5/30/2008) of Led Zepagain performing Rock and Roll at Northridge Park for the Recreation fest:
Led Zepagain - Rock and Roll - Northridge Park

Here's the same band performing the same song at The Grove in Anaheim in what is admittedly a pretty good video:
Led Zepagain - Rock and Roll - Grove of Anaheim

Not just tooting my own horn, but I think that the Northridge Park video has better sound quality and is a more interesting video.  Will it get better ratings and more views?  That all depends on how many people rate it and share it!

What's your opinion?  You can leave a comment on this Blog post, or on the video.