I've been dancing a long time. So long, in fact, that I no longer think "haha!" whenever two guys dance together—I try to figure out if they're dancing well.* My experience has taught me that there are generally two types of guys who dance with other guys: goofballs, and pretty good dancers.

[*It takes the better part of a decade to reach this point.]

Daniel and I danced a foxtrot this evening.** This probably wasn't the wisest decision we could have made, as there were some three-odd cameras in use throughout the practice. I led, as I cannot follow to save my life; following takes a sort of perception (intuition?) that I wholly lack.

[**We, obviously, fit in the "pretty good dancers" category. *cough*]

One time, as we passed a photographer, he yelled out which one of you is leading? It was an honest question from a guy who didn't know anything about ballroom dance. I chose not to take it that way.

ICE BURN. Holy crap. My lead got totally dissed by a n00b with a camera.

...

Later in the evening, Jon was telling Daniel and me about his visit to the newly-formed Argentine Tango Club. According to him, argentine tango has no real steps, and is led with an absolutely limp frame. [The frame in waltz, say, is the loop formed by the lead's and follow's arms. Arms are kept fairly firm, so when the lead turns, his arms turn—and so does the follow.] Jon's follow told him that follows do their thing by trying to maintain a constant distance from their lead.

Daniel then told Jon that the actual, honest-to-goodness lead in argentine tango is (essentially) a full-upper-body lead. Daniel demonstrated this by positioning himself as a lead to Jon's follow: quite far away (unfocused-eyes distance), far away (half of unfocused-eyes distance), still a bit too far away (I can barely see light between you two), and standard position (woah there). Janis and I found this demonstration quite entertaining; I asserted (and maintain) that the only way Daniel and Jon could have gotten closer would have been to use respect knuckles.

For the last month I've been tracking an elusive bug at work. The durn thing successfully eluded my progressively more determined traps, striking in a manner that was far too standard to not be a bug, but far more random than your run-of-the-mill glitch.

Things got so bad that I was releasing new versions of my program just to add extra error-handling code so I could try and find the bugger.

Today I finally caught and exorcised Moby-Dick, as I had taken to calling the bug. Wholly unsatisfying. Bitter without the sweet. A one-line copy/paste job solved the issue, which turned out to be based more in the human realm and less in code.

The real question is, though: what does Ahab do once he's caught his whale?

Others have wished you a happy Pi Day, but how many people have wished you a happy White Day? I haven't even seen one.

Then again, I haven't been looking.

Also, my RSS backlog is now 2300 posts. I long for the simpler ways of bygone days. Perhaps I need to start being selective about the anime blogs I subscribe to, or perhaps I should (I don't know) read some posts.

...

Went to a West Coast Swing dance tonight. It was either dance, or sit at home alone... not sure that dancing was the right choice, since I was tired and had no rhythm. I did get to see my delinquent (w.r.t. attending dances) friend Sophie, though, and I always have fun dancing with Emerald... so it wasn't all bad.

On a whim, I bought the first two volumes of Strawberry 100% a while back, and I finished reading the second one last night. Aside from being typical male fantasy (i.e. somewhat-generic male surrounded by beautiful girls), it struck me of a modern-day Kimagure Orange Road. Guy (albeit with no psychic powers) has two girls in his life—the popular one who's his girlfriend, and the quiet, *cough*superior*cough*, friend—and can't choose between them.

And then, at the end of the second volume, the romantic triangle seems mostly resolved. And then and then, a third girl shows up.

Cut.

Further detail: this manga has a total of 19 volumes. Worried that the series would become a "girl of the week" affair, I read up on it on Wikipedia. Apparently they turn off the new-girl faucet after there are a total of four girls involved. (A love pentagram pentagon is cool, right?) And then I spoiled myself.

In Bizarro Kimagure Orange Road, Kyosuke ends up with Hikaru. Madoka is right next to you, you goddamn idiot!

Suffice to say, I'm not sure what to think of the series right now.

...

In unrelated end-of-high-school news, I recently heard that the second of my two perpetual high-school crushes has gotten married. Woo.

My nose has been... sub-optimal, lately. I've been congested beyond the influence of pseudo-pseudaphedrine for the last couple weeks, and in the last couple days it's started running a bit.

Then, this evening, I started smelling things in the environment that simply weren't there. Earlier it was skunk (ew). Now? Popcorn.

My boss, who's a bit younger than me, wanders around to see if I'm staying late. Specifically, she asks if she can "leave like a ninja."

I size her up, and then tell her that she doesn't have the skills to be a ninja. There's a guffaw from the peanut gallery.

She, in turn, tells a story about a time when she and a friend decided to be ninjas and spy on a mutual friend, despite wearing white sweaters. My head hits the desk at the mention of their outfits.

She leaves a few minutes later, and the security system beeps as she opens the door—as it does every time the door is opened. I comment to my cubicle-neighbor, See? She didn't leave like a ninja.

Long story short: I'm tired. I have an idea about how to get myself updating here more often, but it involves rearranging things a bit... and I'm tired. Ugh.

In the interim (and, at the least, so that there's something in the archives for February), enjoy two kitten pictures. Oh, The Gray One is now also known as Tessa.

And, no, my idea on how to post more often is not to turn this into a kitten blog.

It started snowing in town about 4pm yesterday. Combined with the bitter cold we've been having (at least, bitter cold for these parts), and the fact that my house is on a hill that doubles as a wind tunnel, and that snow was quickly compacted into a nice layer of ice outside my house. The spot in front of my driveway. in particular (why me?), resembled the surface of an ice rink.

My sister wound up parking for the night at the top of the hill. As we were gingerly stepping back down to the house, we passed a guy walking up—foot traffic was huge last night, and I imagine the number of cars parked in unusual spots was similarly huge—who sarcastically commented how much fun this whole snow thing was.

This morning, there are kids screaming past my house. On sleds. In the street.

Huh.

Edit: Those ain't no kids; them's college students! They're a bit bigger than kids, but apparently not much brighter. =D