Pen-Elayne on the Web

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-14T21:17:00.008-04:00

Are you not entertained? You may be by Minerva:

Via Laughing Squid.

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-13T20:14:00.001-04:00

Witness the pure genius that is Pure Genius! Great, great AI takedown. Via PZ Myers.

Incremental Forward Movement

2026-04-12T19:57:00.001-04:00

Like a friggin' wristwatch's second hand. I gave myself two major chores to do today: steaming some lighter tops with the summer-like weather on the horizon, and catching up on finances. Both were accomplished, and I even made some headway on my list of Where I Have Money Now, but that felt way too much like work so I'll finish it another time. (Especially after throwing away lots of old maps and timetables made obsolete by yon internet.) Tomorrow we get the laundry done, put away my winter comforter, and get back into the weekday routine.

Blossoms Everywhere

2026-04-11T19:32:00.005-04:00

And of course that means allergic lethargy (allethargy?), at least in the Riggs Residence where we seem to be affected more and more every year by the colorful and lovely and very welcome spring buds. I mean, welcome in the sense that it's really been a tough winter, but it's very hard for us to sustain any kind of energy when we're this wiped all the time, despite allergy meds. So we had been thinking about car shopping but, after seeing the craziness on the roads despite it still being spring break (commuting to and from the fairly empty supermarket was a breeze), we opted to stay inside. I still want to accomplish some things, and even made a spring cleaning list of sorts, but it's all dependent on our pollen tolerances (pollerances?), outside noise (lots of screechy childers during this spring break), and not overdoing it.

Down to Earth

2026-04-10T22:01:00.015-04:00

Well, both NY baseball teams are losing, so it's a good evening to watch the crew of Artemis II splash down in the Pacific off the coast of San Diego. Everything was so lovely and precise! I'm both elated that we're exploring space again and disappointed that it took us this long. Without a made-up international rivalry things just don't get done, I guess. But we're certainly trending in the right direction there, and I hope the same for my personal and professional life...

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-09T20:28:00.014-04:00

Still a bit too cold for me but things are trending upward weather-wise, so check out this interactive isometric pixel art map of almost all of NYC (via Laughing Squid). I say "almost" because you cannot see our house from there, this map considers us part of Yonkers rather than the Bronx so, you know, bummer.

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-08T20:35:00.004-04:00

Looks like we may be through the last of the April cold, and once my IT band exercises bear fruit and I can walk properly again maybe I'll go looking for some cool things on the sidewalk using the Worldwide Sidwalk Joy map (via BoingBoing). First I just need to stop being so chilly...

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-07T20:59:00.005-04:00

Why am I so hungry? And yet, I'm not on Reddit or any of the other umpteen forms of social media because I'm An Old, so you'll have to discover We Want Plates for yourself.

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-04-06T19:52:00.007-04:00

Busy week so far (and it's only Monday!), so running links to sites of interest instead. Today we examine the food storage guide Does It Last? (via BoingBoing). The title's in Spanish but it still works with the English language.

Easter Consolidated and Cleaned

2026-04-05T21:28:00.004-04:00

Lots of really good stuff accomplished today. I cleaned the bathroom a bit, got through all the issues of my local paper, and tackled the surprisingly large task of consolidating all our tax returns and stuffing them into an accordion file that used to hold some returns (not in order), important papers, and immigration stuff. The latter has now been moved to an expanding document portolio that used to hold a lot of my old Rothstein Kass stuff (most of which was thrown and I kept a few things in my "office stuff" under-bed storage), and the accordion file is now in the library with all our tax receipt boxes. Rob's currently shopping for a decent shredder as we really only need to keep the last 7 years' worth of receipts, and we now have to concern ourselves with all the stuff currently in our loft space as we try to downsize our possessions in the next couple of years prior to my retirement. But one thing at a time!

Paper Working

2026-04-03T22:28:00.013-04:00

My brother and I spoke this afternoon after Rob and I got home from grocery shopping (finally found Cadbury Creme Eggs the day before Easter, had to get a few just because Wacky Tradition), and I think I have my old pension sorted out, but I need to speak with someone there on Monday because I should have been receiving it starting in 2023! In any case, seeking a copy of our marriage certificate to scan and print out to attach to said pension paperwork led me to realize that I need to redo a few more files, as I found a lot of Rob's immigration paperwork (and all our important papers like birth certificates and such) mixed in with some old tax returns, and we had newer tax returns in a totally different place, so I'm going to do what I do best, consolidation. Meantime, Liverpool is out of the FA Cup (what a miserable score, glad I napped during that game) but both New York baseball teams are winning, so I'll take it!

The Heat Is (Back) On

2026-04-03T20:23:00.027-04:00

As I'd feared, despite the fact that a few partners I support took Good Friday as a vacation day, I had enough work to cover most of the day. I wound up taking a little over an hour as PTO, watching baseball and so forth, but mostly making sure all my work stuff was put to bed over the weekend. It wasn't easy, given the place was freezing this morning. We found out the landlord had turned the heat off at the end of March rather than the end of May, and my complaint to the super had him 'round remarkably quickly to turn the heat back on again. We also got new mailboxes to replace the crap ones he'd installed a couple years ago which fell apart almost immediately. So that's done. Tomorrow after shopping I speak with my brother about tackling my pension plan from my first long-term job, which came due three years ago although I didn't have any notification of same, so it'll be nice to have that behind me. Things are finally coming together and becoming organized, now I have to concentrate on a couple more medically-related things and perhaps some *gasp* spring cleaning.

The Holiday Seasonable

2026-04-02T21:03:00.005-04:00

The weather turned chilly again just as my hallux and IT band were starting to feel better. The big toe always reacts worse in rainy weather, but today's pain couldn't compare with the night before last, so I got through my workday more or less fine. I mean, I just went across the street to the Moynihan Food Court for a ramen lunch, so I made sure not to do a lot of outside walking until I left a bit early (heck, with Holy Thursday and Passover traffic was practically nil so I got in super early as well) to make the backpacked trek to the post office (rent check mailed) then the subway. Result? Very little pain when I finally got home again! But something tells me I'll have more work than anticipated on Good Friday tomorrow...

The Clown Makes Fools of Us All

2026-04-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

White Rabbits and happy April Fools' Day, Pen-Elayne on the Web's official high holiday! When democracy threatens to crumble around us it's hard to keep our sense of humor, but it's also critical because that's our way of being critical of the madness. Robin found some nice corporate April Fools' Day sites here, here are some from Auntie Beeb, and I positively love this one courtesy of the Great British Bake-Off. Want more? Here are some aviation-related AFD things, and I really giggled at this entry from our NYC mayor's office.

A Wander Too Far

2026-03-31T21:13:00.007-04:00

It was so nice and warm today that I just had to take in at least the entrance to the High Line. Unfortunately my IT band acted up by the end of my walk to the subway, and I had no knee brace on, which meant tons of pain in my left hallux by the time I got home. Definitely sitting still for the next few days! I just hope I'll be able to sleep, I'm in way more pain than I'd anticipated. Fortunately I've gotten all my client meeting scheduling done and submitted month-end timesheets and expense reports for all my folks, so maybe tomorrow will be an easier day.

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-03-30T20:58:00.005-04:00

Work-from-home was fine today, I was able to forget about my right arm pain whilst putting out fires, and I'm in good enough shape for tomorrow. The only frustrating thing to most of us exec assistants was that our expense application didn't work for much of the day, and of course expenses are due month-end. It wasn't quite enshittifiation but it did remind me of this:

Via BoingBoing.

Diminisushi Returns

2026-03-29T18:13:00.004-04:00

As expected, the trip to Jersey did a number on me, but we had to do our grocery shopping, so I figured let's make a treat out of it and go to the ShopRite in the same strip mall as "our" conveyor belt sushi place. Oddly, neither of us was in the mood to overeat, which was probably good for supermarket stuff but not so good for our preferred treat. Still, we were back and watching TV (currently catching up on Deadloch on Amazon Prime) and just resting by 2 PM, so that will help when trying to recover enough to schlep into the Manhattan office on Tuesday. In the meantime, hoping a nice shower tomorrow evening will loosen some of these arm muscles and tendons not used to driving so much.

Thanks for the Momories

2026-03-28T20:04:00.003-04:00

Today I made my last trip to Bayville, to drop off my copy of the key to Mom's and Dad's final house and to sift through their belongings to decide what had the most sentimental value to me that I wanted to cherish it. Turns out, their lives were their lives, and I came back with a handful of photos and a bauble or two, but their lives ran their course and now even the love letters are All Just Stuff. I feel put through an emotional and physical wringer, having not driven four hours (2 there and 2 back) in almost two years, and of course all the tears and such. I'm quite the wreck now, but happy that I got to see my brother, go over a lot of estate stuff, and that I never have to make that drive again. Next time I go into NJ it will likely be to get a new car. Now to summon up enough energy for grocery shopping tomorrow...

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-03-27T21:20:00.005-04:00

Here's a cool video about everyday items that have secret functions:

Via Laughing Squid.

Silly Site o' the Day

2026-03-25T21:13:00.007-04:00

Ooh, beware the scary numbers!

Via Laughing Squid.

Limited Plans

2026-03-25T20:47:00.003-04:00

It's still too, well, March-like to think about making any plans, but this Saturday Robin and I meet my brother at Mom's old place to go over some of her stuff as well as estate matters, and we've just solidified those particulars. I have two or three fairly time-sensitive medical things I want to take care of, dentist and podiatrist and blood draws and so forth, and lots of friends I want to see now that all is okay with the car and my eyesight, but all that will wait until April. I have a good handle on my job duties at the moment, had calls this afternoon with both my fellow EAs whom I'm mentoring as well as my supervisor ("I know what both your short-term and long-term career plan is" she jokingly began our call), and finally wrapped up at least the first stage of my client meeting scheduling (emails have gone out to all the EAs on that end). And I hate to say it, but I have even successfully created an AI agent to take information from my higglety-pigglety schedule and create a table for me putting all the meetings in chronological order, saving me at least a couple hours. As AI use is pretty much mandated by my firm and is part of my goal setting this year I'm glad that's done. We also saw the Paul McCartney bio about his life in the 1970's, which was very well put together and really tight visually, so that was another good reason to work from home today. And now pre-Opening Day baseball is on (Yankees versus Giants) so must go...

Meets and Greets

2026-03-24T21:34:00.030-04:00

The weather wasn't rainy but had turned a bit colder, so I had to don the winter jacket this morning and wound up waiting 10 minutes at the transfer point from the express to the local bus, so that wasn't fun. However, I knew what awaited me at the office - a tasty bagel and lox sandwich with all the trimmings, and tons and tons of meetings with folks I hadn't seen in awhile. That's really my main incentive for coming into the office in the first place, seeing folks including the partners I support (even the ones I used to), fellow exec assistants, pretty much anyone I run into now that we're all in the same building rather than three different NYC locations. It filled my day pretty quickly, and guaranteed I don't have to come in again for the rest of the week as we're only mandated two in-office days a week and I'm pretty beyond exhausted. At least it kept me from thinking too much about how this would have been Mom's 95th birthday had she lived just a few more months. And yesterday was, I think, the 18th anniversary of Dad's death, so wherever my parents are (even if it's just in my heart and memories) they're together now, which is of some small comfort. The candle has been lit to remember Dad and now Mom, and now we move on because time travel does go both ways, but we move only forward in real life and look to our memories and dreams to move backwards.

Always Get Me Down

2026-03-23T20:32:00.009-04:00

I schlepped into Manhattan on a very rainy Monday because I was asked to oversee the start of an inspection for which I was in charge of all the preparatory logistics. Fortunately it went off without a hitch, and since I'm doing two consecutive days in the office this week I was able to leave everything in a locker leaving me unburdened for the commute home. It's just about stopped raining now but the cold lingered. I think we were all taken in by False Spring.

Taxes Done and Dusted!

2026-03-22T16:42:00.001-04:00

Well, that's a relief. The last time we do taxes on our own. With all the assets I'm inheriting from Mom's estate in 2026 it's just going to be too complicated to do this ourselves next year. Besides which, our eyes are getting to the point where we're having major trouble reading fine print, whether it's on a W2 form, a driver's license, even on a TurboTax screen. Best let a professional do it; after all, we can afford that little luxury now. My list of assets is going to wait until I see my brother next weekend at Mom's old house to go over all her belongings, decide what I would like to take or suggest giving to her brother in his assisted living apartment. Should be among my last trips to that part of New Jersey. But first I need to get through "PCAOB Week" at the office. Then only a few more days until April!

Sprrrrrrring!

2026-03-21T20:28:00.000-04:00

I've decided to store my long winter coat in the home office closet tomorrow. Today we were so warm in the living room when we returned from food shopping that we actually ran the air conditioning for awhile! I know part of it is that the landlord has yet to turn off the heat, but knowing March (and after the winter we've had) I'm reluctant to mention it to his office as I'd rather the heat run and not need it than the other way around. I'm not even calling them about the annual rent increase letter, which ought to have gone out by now. Nope, that's on them! Meanwhile, we rested up a lot for tomorrow, when we plan to get our taxes done and when I finally start making a list of all my current and expected financial assets (which in the old days we used to call bank accounts and credit cards).