it's the room with the fire in it. the one we don't go in much.

[phosfate]

Today I got sent over to the Haunted Orphanage for a class in Excel. This was much more interesting than it sounds.

When I woke up and got breakfast, I couldn't help but notice that the icebox smelled kind of funny. Not the is there dead food in here? kind of smell. More like, I don't know, a lake or a lawn sprinkler.

A bit later, when I was getting a bottle of Diet Pepsi to put in my bag, I noticed that the very bottom was a smooth, molasses-colored sheet of frozen something. WTF??? Coolant? Motor oil? Angry chocolate milk?

Nope. Six-pack of soda bottles on the bottom of the fridge had, near as I can tell, half-frozen and then gone PRRRRRRSSSSHHHHHHH!!! all over the fridge.

Well, ick.

I soaked some of it up, but had to leave for my class.

I also finally found the source of last winter's mystery smell. When Mary and Vali visited last year, they abandoned a clove of garlic in the far corner of the crisper, where it used its chameleon-like powers to become invisible, but not instinkable. The poor thing is petrified and harmless now, but could only be seen if one happened to be on one's hands and knees in front of the fridge, soaking up massive amounts of cold, flat soda. So, good thing really.

Okay, I'm lying, not good at all.

Still better than the furry fruit cocktail of ought-six, however.

Comments

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I actually kind of enjoy making Excel jump through hoops. You can do cool automagical things with it. ("Show me how much money I spent on groceries last year! Wow. Now hide that number and never show it to me again!")

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

The instructors got pissed at us, because the main project was about some school's summer reading program.

"Okay, wait. This guy's got 30 kids in his class and this guy's got eight. How is that fair?"

"It's how they do it nowadays."

"But that's bound to affect the outcome of their reading performance!"

"They're sorted by ability."

"I'm sorry, but 30 kids is too many. And how fair is it to have eight special ed kids competing against 30 regular kids?"

"Look, we just made it up, okay?"

"It's gonna mess up the stats. The parents are gonna ask questions."

"Look, it's not a competition! The deal is if ALL the kids in the school collectively read a thousand books, then the principal will shave his head and donate it to Locks of Love."

"All right. But I'm hearing now that the hair doesn't always go where it's intended, and..."

"LUNCH!"

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

Hee hee! Y'all are bad.

BTW: "Haunted Orphanage"?

n.b.: haunted orphanage probably not actually haunted.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

http://www.nebraskahistory.org/images/histpres/nebraska/11357.jpg

http://www.nebraskahistory.org/images/histpres/nebrasko/Whitehall2.jpg
The red brick outbuildings (you can see a bit of one in the far right of the second picture) are used by the state gubmint for training employees.

Whitehall (Olive White House)
The Neo-Classical Revival style house was built for Mrs. Olive White, widow of C. C. White, owner of the Crete Mills from 1888 to 1895. Mr. White was a member of the Nebraska Wesleyan University's Board of Trustees for many years and an avid supporter of the institution. After her husband's death, Mrs. White moved to Lincoln, where she built the residence in 1910 near the Wesleyan University campus. Since 1926 the house has been used by the state of Nebraska as a home for children.

Now that I think about it, the actual C.C. White building on the Wesleyan campus has a rep for being haunted. I think it's supposed to time travel. "Hey, look, buffalo!"

[ashenmote.livejournal.com]

Oh ewww. Soda means it's with sugar?

Mysterious smells haunt me. One time we had a gone bad potato that was in the kitchen but would only project it's smell into the corridor, not the kitchen itself. That made it hard to find.

Kind of like an displacer beast.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Diet soda, thank God, so just horrible dark food coloring.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

You know the weird thing about Diet Pepsi?

If I spill it on my clothes, it doesn't stain. The dark spots just vanish when they dry.

[nonseqmenagerie.livejournal.com]

The garlic clove story reminds me of the onion that tried to eat my fridge. When I was living in LA, my fiance and I made Thanksgiving dinner for my graduate student friends who didn't have other plans. One of my friends decided that she would help by making haluski (cabbage and noodles) to go along with everything else. She got to my kitchen and sent my fiance for "the biggest onion you can find."

He returned with one of the largest onions I've ever seen - I'm six feet tall, and it dwarfed my hands. My friend used half of it to make the haluski, and the rest of it went into the fridge, where we promptly forgot about it.

We went to move out of the apartment the following June and began cleaning the fridge - we remembered the onion, and dreaded the squish that we would feel when we went to grab it out of the fridge. There was no squish.

In fact, there was resistance.

The onion was apparently reluctant to move - it had grown through the Saran Wrap layering and begun to twine around the bars of the level above it. Somehow, in the cold darkness of the fridge, the onion had decided to not decompose, but instead to thrive and begin trying to take over the fridge.

Fortunately it hadn't yet develop thumbs, which gave us the advantage in knife wielding. A few hacks later, and it was tossed into the trash, with great ceremony.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

D:

I would never, ever stop screaming.

My sympathies.

[theodicy.livejournal.com]

You eat out a lot, don't you?

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

I like me a nice sammich. And raisin bran.

[wolfy-writing.livejournal.com]

You know, I imagine an Excel class with ghost-orphans would actually be quite interesting.

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

They weren't much help.

Some of the live orphans rattled around in the vending machines. I suppose it was their break time. Y'know, from dipping the little matchsticks in sulpher.