In the jailhouse now.

I don't know why, but every time I give blood and they ask me the standard pre-req question, "have you spent 72 hours or more in juvenile detention, jail or prison?"... I always, always, always crack up.

I really don't know why.

All I want for my birthday is...

GAAAAAR!!

Or maybe this handy bi-lingual (mouse over the photo) warning to others.

Recently recommended.

And now I get to share the love.

First, my new favorite holiday movie. C'mon, when else do you get to see Denis Leary screaming RIGHT TO THE FACE of two-time Oscar winner Kevin Spacey?

Second, my new most disturbing movie. At times the "acting" was rather atrocious (or maybe people really do talk that way?), but the plot and main character's performance were overwhelmingly memorable. And... well... disturbing.

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* Okay, at the time this movie was made Spacey wasn't a two-time Oscar winner. But c'mon, when else do you get to see Denis Leary screaming RIGHT TO THE FACE of Valladolid International Film Festival's 1992 "Best Actor" winner?

Reason #843 to love Samuel L. Jackson.

GENUIS. I CANNOT WAIT.

More here. And here. And here.

I thought I'd never say the phrase "I thought you'd never ask."

It's such a cliche, such a silly phrase. Such a bad-romantic-comedy thing to say. I really hoped to get through life without having said it.

Took a wine country train tour today with the folks. We had a nice meal and then retired to the lounge car for coffee and dessert. Unlike the dining car, which (of course) had tables, the lounge car had seats directly facing the windows so we could all have a nice view. We were sitting next to another family of three, two parents on holiday visiting their son who was about my age. We exchanged some pleasantries and went back to our respective conversations.

After about 20 minutes of us (the kids) saying things and them (our hard-of-hearing dads who were sitting next to us) saying "What?!", and us (the kids) repeating what we had just said, we (the kids) looked at each other. Having said about two words to each other before this, the conversation went something like this:

Him: "I'm going to stretch my legs for a minute, would you like to take a walk through the train?"
Me (getting up immediately): "I thought you'd never ask."

In case you've ever wondered.

The TV Yule Log, C-SPAN featuring 20 hours of non-news and 4 hours of real news, and the Blue Collar Comedy guys were invented solely for my father.

Just to set the record straight.

(Hey - I have a freakin' fiber optic fake Christmas Tree. Judge away.)

Ladies and gentleman, I give you...

... a really long movie with incredibly drawn-out longing wistful looks between Beauty and the Beast!

I mean really. I know it's a love story and all, but PLEASE.

Other than that, and the dinosaur fights* (which were cool in and of themselves but seemed thrown in just so that Jackson could show off his crew's CGI skills - which, in my untrained opinion, were overall not as clean as in the LOTR films), and the fact that it's three hours long, and I'm sorry but who gives a flying fig about Jimmy Elliott and how was he critical to the film?, and have I mentioned the over-extended puppy dog eyes between Beauty and the Beast?...

Other than that, it was pretty good. The Beast's expressions were touching. Jack Black was great and Tom Hanks' son also did a fine job. I was on the edge of my seat during a few of the scenes. There was enough random humor to lessen the intensity. Did I mention Adrien Brody? Adrien Brody.

So given all that, it was worth almost every penny of my $6.

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* If you do see it, watch for Lumpy actively smoking while he runs like hell from the dinosaurs. I bet he thought that character trait up himself.

Unrelated - when I was in eighth grade I pretty much lost faith in "the Almighty" and all that surrounds it because my Sunday School teacher could not give me a definitive answer as to why the dinosaurs weren't in the Bible. "They weren't important to the story," she kept saying. If only this magical place had been around! Why didn't a T Rex swallow Jonah? Why weren't there two brachiosauruses (brachiosauri?) and two pterodactyls on the Ark? Did God kill off the dinosaurs? All your answers in one convenient Southern Baptist tourist trap! Now how much would you pay?

(Are you officially scared for mankind right now or what?!)

I can't even begin to imagine what to call this.

I always forget how much mental awareness living with people requires. For the past three days with the parental unit, I have had to be totally conscious and paying attention for about 17 hours a day. It's made me so tired that every time something funny/ridiculous/endearing happens and I think, "I so need to write about that!", it just oozes out of my cerebral cortex and into the void I like to now call my memory.

Unrelated, we watched Alfie (the original) tonight. I can say with certainty that I am no better off because of it.

Slippery Teflon From Utah.

I got an email from the folks today saying they'd checked in, gotten their "A" seats, and were very anxious about the visit.*

Yeah, you and me both. All three of us. Number one, for the record, they DO NOT clean when I go home so I shouldn't have to when they come out here. I managed to clear off the counter and table, which I've been meaning to do since last Monday, and I'll vacuum tomorrow before I head to the airport. But that's IT.

Number two, I have already anticipated the questions surrounding this, and I actually have reasonable answers. But how to explain all the pirate paraphernalia (including a friend's wedding pirate photo), seven seasons of Buffy, cat hair in the refrigerator (gross but true), and the orange couch and matching chair? How, I ask you?

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* I assume they actually meant "excited." I may have transferred some of my own feelings into the interpretation. You must understand, I live alone by choice. And I live 3,000 mile away by choice. Not that I regret asking them out here... And not that my apartment is much smaller than their house.

I am SO SURE they feel the same way when I come to visit ("Jesus when can we have our routine back?!"), which is why I'm not feeling so guilty about any of this.

"So far I'm not making this up."

Cute kittens here (takes a while to load - impatient people can go here and click on "Go Behind the Scenes at the San Diego Zoo"). Cute puppies here (Kid Rock has a heart - who knew!). Cute panda here.

And to soak up all the sap from ooohing and aaahing over those videos... 2005's Most Sarcastic Anchorman Award goes to... this guy!!

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DISCLAIMER for all these videos: I can't figure out the best way to link to them so I think they might not all play properly and also that the loop plays. E.g. you might get the Nascar video after the puppy video. YEEHAW!!

Having a very Brady Christmas.

Tonight I did something I thought only happened in sitcoms featuring small children. I used a different washing machine than usual, and I guess that one was more sensitive to the amount of detergent than my normal machine. When I opened the door 39 minutes later, giant waves of soap suds flooded out.

Crap.

That was way too humiliating to call the building manager about. So I ran to get a big plastic bag, cleaned out as many suds as I could, and re-ran the cycle (WITHOUT adding more detergent of course). The second cycle seemed to clean up most of the leftover detergent but the towels still had the sound of wet soap suds when I put them in the dryer.

Oh well. I'll just consider it my latest invention - towels that you take into the shower with you! For complete and easy scrubbing! Soap included.

He puts the "Oh Jesus H Christ" in "Christmas."

Seriously?!?! How has he not been impeached? I truly do not understand. We really have two more years of this shit?

And speaking of Jesus H Christ, this afternoon at Trader Joe's I stood in front of a talkative 93 year old who kept saying how unbelievable it was that we had to be so p.c. about Christmas. "I mean, 'happy holidays?' Really now."

I bet these folks would disagree.

You're that clever shark, aren't you?

My apartment is right next to the elevator, and I can hear when people are getting on/off. It's not loud or anything, just audible. I noticed a while back that Luna had taken to running to the door in what appeared to be expectation of a visitor, whenever she heard the elevator open on our floor. I thought that was pretty odd since I hardly ever have people over. Odd, or perhaps smart. Perhaps she was ready to stand guard, to hold down the fort should a stranger or land shark break in and try to rob or eat us.

Today the phone rang and she ran to the counter, sat under the phone and meowed.

I'm starting to think she's just lonely. Maybe it's time to invest in these babies.

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Reason #457 why I should not have kids - THAT'S my solution to the problem. (OK it's a sarcastic solution. But still.) Although, to be fair, both she and Riley once loved to watch the Discovery channel and Microcosmos. I'm not sure why that stopped. Now she's got the Cirque du Soleil squirrels outside for entertainment.

Spam spam spam spam.

Subject: "Or count on sailing."

Um, OKAY!

In other email news, I got my weekly monster.com job search results today. The first on the list was "pre-kindergarten teacher." There are so many things wrong with that.

Best non-criminal job I ever had.

And then this reminds me of my part-time job in college. The evil parking department, which gave out meter-expired tickets the MINUTE your meter expired, and REALLY EXPENSIVE tickets if you parked in a red zone for two seconds to drop off a paper, had a cool alter ego. They had a service that gave you a jump if you drove to campus on a rainy day and forgot to turn your lights off because you were late for your exam. Or changed your tire because you had a flat and couldn't deal with it before class because you were late for your exam. Or gave you a lift to the gas station if you ran out of gas on the way to the exam you were late for. Or popped your lock if you left your keys in the car because you were running to your exam (late).

Being late for exams was not a prerequisite for this service. It was just the reason I heard a lot. But I got paid to sit around a lot and occasionally drive the campus parking truck out to revive dead batteries or change tires or open locked cars or (very rarely) take people to gas stations.

It was the beginning of my career in customer service... and grand theft auto.

The commies are coming - holiday stylie!

This reminds me of the float we made in ninth grade for the homecoming parade. The theme was Olympic galaxies or Olympics of the future or something like that... So we created a float around the main centerpiece of a big Olympic torch and had "alien" competitors in various Olympic costumes.

Everyone said our torch looked like a big flaming feminine hygiene product. Shockingly, we lost the float competition.

Cupie doll to the first person who works this into their next insult or rant: "big flaming feminine hygiene product." Bonus prize if you're male.

I feel fine enough I guess, considering everything's a mess.

Long post - it's been a long day.

There are a few bands I will see whenever possible, whenever they come around, no matter what the cost, or the venue (though I DO hate assigned seating*), or the timing**. One is the Violent Femmes.*** Another is They Might Be Giants, because you just never know what they're going to do. A third is the Barenaked Ladies. Unlike the previous two I also listen to the Ladies' albums on a regular basis. So they are a special breed of "must-sees."

Tonight's show was absolutely needed because I had the most wretched morning at work.**** I was in a horrible mood right before the show, and I had a terrible time finding parking (which SO did not help my mood - however, now I have a good cheap parking lot to recommend!) but once I got in my seat I knew I was in for a good time.

I got there right as they opened. Well, right as the local elementary school choir opened. These cute little kids from a local choir that they'd recruited sang several holiday songs... and part of the way through, the band came out to play and sing in the background. And then the kids left and the band sang really good and/or really fun songs. Some holiday related, some not. And the crowd was SO into it. And I was SO into it. And then Steven Page did a fabulous opera-like version of some Christmas song that I can't remember right now (man, that guy can belt out a song - I will never forget his voice during their improv version of "Memories" a few years ago). And they jovially bantered a lot between songs. And they encouraged cameras and videotaping. And they did a lot of re-enactments of random 80s songs/videos. And someone threw a stuffed monkey onstage during "If I Had A Million Dollars" and Steve stuffed it in his pants and poked the monkey head out through the zipper of his jeans and the band cracked up.

I wish I could entertain people like they do. Or even like they entertain themselves.

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* Tonight's show featured someone nearby who smelled like pee or maybe it was patchouli (I can never tell the difference), and two gals right next to me who talked the whole time. After several "Oh My God SHUT THE FUCK UP" conversations in my head, I managed to kindly ask them to lower their voices if they insisted on talking through the whole show. Turns out the kind, non-abrasive request worked. WHO KNEW?!

** I have the unpaid job day-long meeting this Saturday, and I have a lot to do in prep for it. I hope I can get it all done Thursday evening. Lord knows there is a lot to do.

*** (I think I need Roman numerals to keep up with all these footnotes...) I will never forget a local radio show at a stadium that I went to about ten years ago, where the entire balcony decided to form a "train" and dance up and down the balcony aisles throughtout the Femmes set. And at no other time during the other bands in the show. It was really energizing. Damn, I am getting old.

**** At approximately 10:16am I was THIS close to just outright quitting right then and there. Teeth and eye benefits be damned.

My 2006 resolutions.

Maybe if I make resolutions now, instead of on 12/31/05 or 1/1/06, they might actually stick. I hereby resolve, in 2006, to:

• not yell at that one person at work EVER AGAIN
• have a new job by April (alas, might have to stick it out for the benefits*)
• quit my unpaid job
• go to more plays and local band shows, and watch more hockey games
  
• spend more time with Her Majesty
• meet more single people (not that I don't enjoy spending time with my married/married-with-kids friends but...)

OK that's enough. Don't want to overdo it.

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* Of late I have been dying to get my teeth whitened. Not BRIGHTSMILE white, just a little less coffee-, tea- and wine-stained. It's probably the most vain cosmetic thing I have ever contemplated... Well, seriously contemplated. That whole eyebrow wax thing was totally spontaneous and slightly on the "I wonder what this will look like" side. (But I am sooooo going back next month.)

ANYWAY. I have caps on two teeth that I need to replace when I do get the whitening thing done and if I wait until April the cap replacements are free. Considering I just overdrew my checking account, and I would like to buy a house sometime in my lifetime, anything that's free is sounding pretty good to me.

Oh and also I can't see out of my glasses or contacts anymore so I should probably get those replaced too. Also essentially free next year.

Please contact your friendly IT support...

Today I kept getting a "page not found" error when I tried to access our internal help desk system to research an issue. I picked up the phone and called the local help desk to see if it was just me. It was not just me.

The very nice IT support person gave me the case # of the internal help desk system reference number for the case I opened regarding the access issue. So that I could follow up on the issue via the internal help desk system. Which I could not access.

I swear, over and over again, that I do not make this stuff up.

The semi-annual girlie post.

Today on a whim I got my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. After the wax she did a little extra tweezing. I have tweezed before but I've never had anyone else tweeze.

That experience was much like when you go to the dentist and the cleaning lady flosses your teeth for you. (That is to say, weird.)

I believe the children are our future.

Today I had the opportunity to sit next to a random high school student for a few hours. Boy. High school has really changed since I was there. When he wasn't commenting on how hung over he was, or saying how cool it was that possession of certain drugs didn't buy you jail time, or talking about how the club scene in the city sucked, he asked variations* of the following questions:

• Is Delaware a state?
• Do they have Banana Republic there?
• Saturday counts as the weekend, right?
• Oh my God you're THIRTY??

Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHOW THEM.

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* Actual questions changed to protect the (hopefully) innocent. Except the last one. He really asked that.

I'll take the best of your bad moods...

I really had to drag myself to the local radio station's annual holiday concert last night. When I bought the ticket a month ago, I did really want to see the White Stripes and Death Cab for Cutie. But yesterday I was sooooooo tired and cranky after a long hard week and just wanted to go home.

Several ticket-sale-attempts-via-CraigsList-during-the-day later, I headed into the city to try to sell my ticket outside the concert. Turns out I was not the only one with that idea. Crap. So I figured, well, I'm here, might as well just go. Normally I don't mind going to shows alone. Or plays, or movies, or whatever, alone. I don't have to worry about anyone other than me having a good time and I can decide when it's time to leave. However, the main attendees at this show were high school kids and I was strikingly aware of how old I felt.* I found a seat upstairs in the "parents who can't stand up for 4 hours straight who are chaperoning their kids" section, though, and we old folks all had a good time.

The first band I saw was this one. They're one of those bands that I find interesting to see live, but only when they open for someone I really want to see. Their drummer was really amazing, but a lot of their songs sounded like Rush meets Zeppelin... which only reinforced the "I feel old" sentiment. Alas.

And then Hot Hot Heat came on (oh THEY'RE the ones who sing that catchy bandages song). And THEN.

I'm not sure why I thought Death Cab for Cutie would put on a tame performance. It's not like they're a particularly mellow band. But they TOTALLY ROCKED OUT. Several times they even kicked amplifiers and speakers over. They engaged the crowd throughout. And they did Company Calls, which is my favorite DC song ever (even though I still don't know why).** So that 50 minutes alone was worth my evening.

And then the White Stripes... Forgive me Jack, but the sound was terrible (overall but particularly for them) and they just seemed like they were completing a chore by being at this show. I left after about five songs, when I walked downstairs to see if the sound was better and I still couldn't make out a word of "We're Going To Be Friends." Which is a one-man acoustic song. You know the sound is bad if you can't hear that.

Thus ends my commentary on last night's show. Other than to say, I need to remember this the next time I buy a ticket well in advance of a show I know nobody I know would be interested in attending. JUST GO. You will be glad you did.

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* Sitting up in the balcony looking down on the floor of about 5,000 people, I was highly amused watching the various mosh pits and crowd surfers. Jesus, ten or twelve years ago that would've been me. Good times, good times.

** Second only to The Sound of Settling, which I correlate directly to work... OK who am I kidding, I really love everything they do.

"Grace" must get it from me.

I was at the dentist today for my regular 6-month tartar intervention. There's a new hy... hi... tooth-cleaning lady so she was asking me all sorts of questions (of course while my mouth was gaped open and she was poking around - really, have these people not SEEN the Cosby dentist skit?).

Anyway. I guess she noticed something weird on the inside of my bottom lip and asked if I'd had any "trauma" there. I patiently pointed to the HUGEMONGOUS SCAR (okay maybe it just feels that way to me) from where I busted my lip open falling off a swing when I was four years old. "Oh wow! They did a really good job stitching that up - I barely noticed it." Uh-huh... Riiiiight.

Then she asked about the caps on my two front teeth, and I explained how I fell off my bike in second grade and broke my fall using my teeth and the handlebar. "You were busy as a child!" Uh-huh... CLUMSY, more like.

And then I started thinking about my other scars over the years. I really don't have that many to speak of (nor did I ever break any bones knock on wood)... The only other significant scar was from when I was 14 or so, and my brother played a prank on me by locking me out of the house when I stepped outside for a few minutes, and then turned his music up so loud that he claimed not to hear me knocking or ringing the bell. So I pounded on the door, and rang the doorbell, and then pounded on the glass, and at some point my arm went right through the window. I'll spare you the details. But I will say that they didn't do such a good job stitching that one up, you can still see the "holes" where the stitches were.*

Of late I have scars on my arms from burning myself on oven racks... (At the rate I'm going, my arms could someday look like this.) And all the bruises I find these days but can't remember where they came from.

Yeah, well. My mom hasn't called me "Grace" (with implied air quotes) all these years for nothing.

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* He eventually heard my screams and came upstairs to open the door... And then he went a little pale at the sight of all the blood, and gave me the most genuine hug he's ever given me. Minus all the bleeding and pain, it would've been kinda sweet.

Two things I wish I had invented.

Number one. (Check out the video at the bottom of the page.)

Number two. (I don't see anything about reducing the noise factor so you can sneak up on people - maybe I just missed it - but if that doesn't sell these babies nothing will.)

Man. I really have to get moving on that patent for the car tail-lights that light up more brightly depending on how hard you press the brakes. Especially since people already beat me to the butt-warmer seats.

Because what's a blog...

... without cat posts, apparently?

• Name = Luna
• Generic Nickname = Stinky
• Nickname When Bad = NOBADKITTY!!
• Nickname When Playing With Cat Toy = "Grace" (yes, with air quotes - she ain't at all)
• Nickname When Sitting = Her Majesty
• Nickname When Stretched Out On The Floor Waiting To Have Tummy Rubbed = Seal
• Nickname When Meowing Loudly And Incessantly For No Apparent Reason = OMGSTFU!!!
• Nickname When Walking On Me At 4:00 AM = Ummmrphhhhgoaway
• Nickname Reflecting How Cat Came To Be In Possession = Sleeping On Her Brother In The Litter Box At The Humane Society
• Nickname When Sitting On My Lap And Stretching Up To Touch My Chin While Yawning = Why I Love You

But what would Jesus do?

Way to prove your manhood, Scott Stapp - pick a fight with a bunch of scrawny goofballs. How convenient that you just released a solo album... I smell a publicity stunt!!

I hate that guy.

One of these things is not like the other.

Can you guess which one just doesn't belong?

• I am so glad I can watch east coast hockey games not broadcast on television through a webcast from Comcast.
• I am so glad that in a week and a half, I'll be on vacation for two weeks.
• I am so glad the package I stayed home to receive did not get delivered today.

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John LeClair now plays for Pittsburg? What the hell?!

THIS IS JUST TOO FREAKY!!

I can't get over how freaky this is. I just zoomed from my house, to my parents' house, to a random place in Arkansas.

I need my log cabin in the mountains IMMEDIATELY. I'm starting to get the shakes.

Attention Hollywood.

Yesterday I hung out with my friend who was under the weather, and she wanted to watch West Side Story. We had both seen it eons ago and had vague memories of it being somewhat amusing.

Two and a half of the longest hours of my life later, we were not so amused. Aside from the obvious - white people in bad makeup with bad accents playing Puerto Rican people, every stereotype in the book on prominent display, many really really bad songs that went on forever usually accompanied by really really bad choreography - the worst part was that Maria didn't die in the end. What kind of Romeo and Juliet adaptation is THAT?

And what the hell was up with the beat influence? I'm so sure two rival gangs in NYC in the early '60s went around snapping their fingers and saying "Cracko Jacko!" and "Great, daddy-o."

There are reasons that Broadway shows stay on Broadway instead of becoming movies. Ahem.

Behold: time suckage.

Part of my thought process when I clicked on this... "Roses and guns? What do roses and guns have to do with band names? ... D'oh."

[No, I really DON'T make this stuff up.]

How many of the 75 band names represented in this image can YOU find?

Now that's what I call service.

It was with great trepidation that I recently sent my iPod back to Apple for repairs. (It's been shutting down for no apparent reason, and the battery doesn't charge like it should.) They sent me the box to return my defective device about a week and a half ago, but since it's my saving grace on a daily basis and especially during workouts, I was really, REALLY reluctant to hand it over. Sad, I know, but true.

I had until 12/9 to return it, so I took a big gulp and sent it in last Wednesday. Today I got an email stating that the repaired device (which I am hoping is just a brand new one) is on its way back to me and should arrive in 2-3 days.

To which I say, RIGHT ON.

I am a therapist-specializing-in-codependency's wet dream, I would bet.

Spam spam spam spam.

It was really hard to resist opening this recent spam email with the subject:

redundant toad Jarred Burnsl

But I think that I will add "redundant toad" to my list of insults. Along with "is your head an EMPTY COCONUT??" which my friend's 9 year old recently inquired of her.

Hello again, ten pounds I recently lost.

So evil of them to HAND ME THE RECIPE for one of the only drinks I now consent to purchase from them. Just to irk them I will publish the recipe here (it's not like we couldn't just figure it out on our own anyway!):

Starbucks Eggnog Latte
Start by blending your favorite cold eggnog with cold whole milk in a 2:1 ration and steam until it reaches 145 degrees F. Note that eggnog scalds more quickly than milk, so be careful not to overheat.

1. Steam: Eggnog-milk mixture to 145 degrees F.
2. Add: One shot of brewed espresso to cup.
3. Fill cup with: Steamed Eggnog-milk mixture to 1/4 inch below rim.
4. Top with: 1/4 inch Eggnog-milk foam mixture.
5. Garnish with: A sprinkle of nutmeg.

How to thank an 8-year old.

I spent quite a bit of time today trying to write a "thank you" card to a coworker's 8-year old son, who voluntarily donated 1/3 of his annual allowance to his (and my) charity of choice for 2005. It was truly ridiculous.

I kept going back to the card his mom had written: "[Son] gets $3 a week, $1 of which he has to put into savings, $1 of which he can spend (but never does) and $1 of which he gives to the charity of his choice."

He's EIGHT... That's damn fine parenting in my book.

Snap. Crackle. Pop culture.

Tonight on the bus I saw an advertisement for Good Vibrations.* I can only guess that the approvers of that ad thought it was a Berkeley hippie thing.

Come the hell on, people. I mean, Michael Stipe and Billy Bragg spontaneously ad-libbing lyrics to it back in the 90's was funny, but this (which is now a goddamned real live TV commerical) is soooooo not.

We'll give you $1,000,000 to bob for apples in a vat of cow's blood... But we'll only give you $100,000 for losing LOTS O'WEIGHT and keeping it off. YAY AMERICA!!

Thank God for the latest Virgin Mobile commercials which put the holidays into perspective.

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* Do not click when children or coworkers are present.

Who needs kids...

... when you have a cat that can manage to get food all over her head when she is startled by a loud noise during her dinnertime?

Aye carumba.

Wreck the halls.

Since learning that my parents decided to accept my invitation to come out for Christmas, I have been very much against the concept of holiday decorations. There are a few reasons behind this - namely that red, gold and green absolutely do not go with my orange, avocado and mustard living room decor; and also it seems sacrilegious to try to create my own tradition just for this year when there are years and years of tradition in their attic that I could never come close to replicating (nor would I want to, nor do I want to create my own tradition just yet).

Then I saw this at Target today - on sale for $14.99. And all bets were off. My brand new Charlie Brown FIBER OPTIC Christmas tree.



That's right, you can't really see it from the photo, but there's fibers and optics going on in this little 3 foot sucker. And chances are low that Her Majesty will eat it - bonus.

And then I just went nuts with the rest of the decorations. This place is going to look like a cyclone hit it before too long.

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Does anyone besides me remember that Sesame Street Christmas album from 1975, not the re-versioned album but the original pre-Elmo one complete with the Bert/Ernie/Mr Hooper story and the Spanish songs? Yeah - this one! MUST. HAVE. IT. Bid on this and you're on MY LIST.

God, eBay scares me. And also makes me wish I'd saved a lot of the fond memories from my childhood. If only they had this on CD... This and this I heard enough in my first 22 years and don't really have to ever hear again... but I miss the other two dearly.

One down, three to go.

I did see Walk the Line today. There's a scene where Johnny is talking to June and she asks him if he's alone on Thanksgiving. Us single folk in the audience snickered.

I really don't think anyone other than Joaquin Phoenix could've played this part well. He has the rugged good looks, and can kinda sing like Cash. Hell, Cash chose him to play the part. But all I could think about during the scenes where Cash recounts losing his brother, and goes through withdrawal, was how easy (and yet so hard) it must've been for Phoenix, having had similar experiences.

(OK, so I also was very focused on how utterly hot he is, but that's a story for another day. But I do officially forgive him for The Village now.)

Maybe she needs more steroids.

Today going home on the elevator a woman had her cat with her - the woman didn't want to leave the cat in the car while she ran upstairs, and also someone in her department had wanted to meet the cat. The cat was in a carrier, of course, and the woman politely asked if anyone was allergic to cats before entering the elevator. On the way down I admired and petted this beast of a cat, who looked a lot like Luna in terms of fur and eye color but not so much size, and started to think.

Maybe all the other cats that seem GINORMOUS to me are actually normal-sized cats, and Her Majesty is just a puny-sized cat, and I just don't see it because she's my only perspective. I haven't had another cat to regularly compare her to since Riley, and even he was a GINORMOUS cat.

If so, that just makes me love her even more. And call her "Runt" often and honestly, of course.
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I have often wondered what "bring your pet to work" would look like for Her Majesty. I'm guessing she would spend some time eyeing the hawks that float in the sky outside my building, and some time "talking" to people who would be more than happy to give her the love I CLEARLY don't give her (or so you would think, listening to her whine all the live-long day), and a lot of time sleeping in cozy corners. For now I'll stick with the "YAY JEANS" rule and see if I can work the "bring your pet to work" day sometime in the next few years.

"How to evade a stampede of shoppers."

My friend gave me a "Worst Case Scenario 2005 Survival Calendar" either for Christmas or my birthday. I can't remember.

At times it has provoked thought ("How To Survive If Trapped In A Lion Cage," "How To Jump From A Moving Car," "How To Cross A Pirhana-Infested River" - in what life might I need this information? it sounds like a much more interesting life than the one I lead now).

At times it has contained some highly useful information ("How To Lose Someone Who Is Following You In A Car," "How To Avoid And Survive A Hit And Run," "How To Carry Someone Who Is Passed Out," "How To Win A Bar Fight" - all perfectly feasible situations in the life I currently live).

And sometimes, like next week's, it's just funny. So for anyone about to hit the malls on Friday for a little holiday shopping, I offer the following advice from the 2005 Worst Case Scenario Survival Calendar:

• "Stay focused and visualize your goal... Reacting early and decisively in crowds affords you your best shot at survival."
• "Avoid herd mentality... Avoid the temptation to join the herd - you cannot shop if you cannot see the merchandise."
  
• "Do not move toward the oncoming herd. You risk being trampled..."
• "Maximize your movement options... stay on the edge [of the crowd]."
• "Wear proper shoes."
  

OK maybe it's just funny to me... because I need to hit the malls on Friday.

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Others are amusing too, and each one has a diagram or cartoon to accompany the advice... I especially like the cartoon for "How To Escape If Trapped In A Walk-In Freezer." It's a guy trapped in a walk-in freezer laying face down inside a cardboard box with a big tub of ice cream and a spoon next to him.

Flippity floppity floo.

My thought process tonight went a little something like this:

[5:22pm.] Shit! I need to finish what I'm doing and catch the bus so I can get home and drive the less than mile back to the gym (the really cheap one that closes at 7pm)... [On the way to the bus stop, about a minute too late.] Shit - there goes the bus. I should just forget the gym tonight and do laundry instead. I could walk home and that would at least be something. [Starting to walk home.] Nah, I'll go to the gym and do my usual workout and catch the bus all gross and sweaty. [Starting to walk back toward the gym.] Nah, I'll just go home and do laundry instead. [Arriving at the crosspoint of gym vs bus.] Nah, I'll go home and get my car and have a shorter time at the gym and not offend people who have to sit near me on the bus. [At the bus stop.] Nah, I'll just go home and do laundry. [On the bus.] I should just go to the gym and do what I can in the 45 minutes I'll have left.

And so I did. And I ran more than I usually run in a shorter period of time I usually bother to do anything. Dammit, I have dropped between 12-15 pounds (depending on the day) and a lot of my old clothes actually fit again and I'll be damned if I'm going to gain it all back and have to go through this again. Dammit.

And then I went to the gym and came home and ate something healthy and now I'm hungry but I keep thinking about how my convictions need to stand for something. Dammit.

Randomness.

I talked with a few friends today about making the change to a job where you don't have any formal experience but where you think you could be really good (writing... in some capacity that involves getting an assignment, finishing it and moving on to the next assignment). One friend (who does not know about this here endeavor) suggested I start writing as a hobby and then see if I can "donate" articles for exposure. He had some other good ideas too. But I am guessing this here endeavor doesn't really count as something valuable in that arena. It's really just a channel with which to rant and vent...

Why did I start getting Sunset magazine in the mail? I really don't understand...

Many people seem really shocked that I have no plans for Thanksgiving. In case there was any doubt - rest assured, I don't WANT any plans for Thanksgiving. Plans other than going for a run and then eating too much, seeing this or this or maybe this or perhaps this, and of course drinking lots of wine, and of course hanging out with Her Majesty, and of course watching this, that is. Really truly I mean it. The 'rents visiting for Christmas is more than enough holiday for me to take this year.

Speaking of 'rents - I am officially boycotting this. And you should too. For the love of all that is holy, leave a good thing alone, will you, Hollywood??!

I haven't seen Evil Dead II yet.

I can't believe that I have sat through almost every Freddie and Jason movie, but it took me 24 years to see this flick. So sad. I especially loved the last 20 minutes - it was almost like Sam Raimi was playing the "how much glop, guts and gore can we spray directly into Bruce Campbell's face" game. Genuis.

And can I be the first to say please God no? Why must they do this? Why, I ask you?

"Victory through mediocrity."

No, I don't mean that a young monk was recently excused from performing a portion of a monk's duties.

I mean what my friend uttered after a less-than-rousing - rather annoying, actually - game between the Raiders and the Redskins. But hey, we won. Yippee.

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You so knew I was going to blog that, right?!

Question of the day...

... do I apply for the job where I don't really understand one "requirement" but have experience in all the other "requirements"?

I'm thinking yes. Maybe I can wing it.

Pot kettle black.

I was highly amused at the young couple sitting next to me in the theater, scoffing at all the "nerdy" teeny boppers in the back who squealed in delight for the Narnia and King Kong previews... in the theater on opening night for Harry Potter Part IV. Uh huh.

Tonight was my first real endeavor into Hogwarts land, and now I get why people are into the Harry Potter phenomenon. I can't say that I will go forth and read all the books and see all the other movies though... Hermione gets on my nerves, Ron needs a spine, Harry reminds me too much of Frodo, and quite frankly I just can't take the stress that accompanies long-term emotional investments with fictional characters anymore. (I think the Lord of the Rings trilogy really did me in. I DON'T KNOW THEM. THEY AREN'T REAL. IT'S JUST A FREAKIN' MOVIE.)

Perhaps if I had a life of my own I would feel differently. For now, though, I'll stick to things like Nip/Tuck. When the show is done, I can think, "boy, what assholes," and move on.

I could go around the world 3.6 times!

I have seven weeks of vacation saved up. SEVEN WEEKS. How did that happen? I've already taken several weeks off at a time this year. So weird. And crazy.

So... where should I go? :)

Sharing the pain.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! indeed. What the hell part of EMMY WINNING does Fox not understand...? Fucking America and their fucking need for blood and guts and gore and violence. How about a LITTLE HUMOR for a change, for Christ's sake?!? Read the fucking NEWSPAPER for your blood and guts and gore and violence.

Ahem. Sorry, I just really really really like this show. It made Monday worth looking forward to.

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No worries, Bluth-loving comrades. I am certain that some cable channel will pick it up and run with it. It just better not be HBO, because I don't get that channel, is all I have to say.

What's not to love?

I never watch MTV and I haven't read Spin in eons (until yesterday at the airport - it's such an airport magazine) so I'm a little slow on the pop culture uptake these days.

I liked their music a lot before seeing any of their videos, but now I just have to say that I am so in love with all four members of Franz Ferdinand.* It's quite pathetic, really.

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* For the easily-startled or "hardly working" IE users - this link opens up their latest video which automatically starts playing. I don't know how to get it to play in Firefox. Anyway, allegedly, the lyrics for this song came directly from conversations overheard at a party. I'm such a sucker for art imitating life imitating art.

And stop calling me Shirley.

On the flight to Southern California yesterday, I sat next to a woman who found out this weekend (while on a business trip in San Francisco) that she'd lost her house in the tornados in Indiana. LOST HER HOUSE. Literally. According to witnesses she'd spoken to on the phone, the roof was blown off, everything got sucked up through the hole, and her house was ripped off the foundation and carried 300 feet away. She was holding up pretty well, considering she hadn't seen the damage and she had no idea what was still there, where she would stay in the meantime, if she even still had her car...

I walked off the plane marveling at her ability to revel in the fact that she and her husband, and their animals, were not on the property at the time. Instead of getting mired down in the loss and sadness of the whole thing, she was thankful for what she still had. Truly inspiring lesson for us all.

And then on the flight home tonight, I sat two rows up from someone who apparently passed out on the flight. It was really interesting to see the flight attendants react - they were immediately by her side, on headsets talking with (what I guess were) medical assistants, on the loudspeaker asking if there were any medics on the flight. And all the while graciously apologizing to the folks who'd ordered drinks that they were not going to get during that flight.

These events were interesting and inspiring and memorable, but next time I fly can I just have one of those jive dudes in the seat next to me? I can help - I speak jive.

Soy un perdedor.

Note to self - next time you think about bringing the folks out for the holidays, check the expiration date on your free tickets BEFORE offering.

Note to readers - if you have an expired free Southwest ticket, you can get the expiration date extended for a mere $50. Ask me how. Might not seem worth it for an in-state flight, but for a coast-to-coast trek over the holidays, it is. She says, four hundred fifty bitter dollars later...

The senior rates at Southwest are also quite good... if you happen to be flying a senior who wasn't going to change their mind about coming out after hearing that their return flight would land at home after midnight with an hour's drive still ahead.

HA-ha!

I cannot help but gloat that all of Arnie's propositions were vetoed by the general public in our state. I did actually read each proposition, do additional research, and make educated decisions about all of them. But I can't say I'm surprised that a lot of people "just said no" on principal alone. And I can't say I completely agree with that - but I can't say I completely disagree either.

And yes, I was dismayed but not shocked that Prop 73 was as close as it was... Did those "yes" voters not see Dirty Dancing, for Christ's sake??

In other election news... BOO to the Bible Belt.* YAY to the Borough.

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* I can't make excuses for Texas. I gave that up a long, long time ago. But Kansas? I know there's not much going on in Kansas - wouldn't a few curved roads be a more interesting time investment than this issue, though?

Mon Dieu!

What the hell is going on in France?? I really need to get over this policy of not watching/reading the news for days at a time.

Don't forget to vote ...

... for the 2005 Weasel Awards! Winners announced November 8. Some were really hard choices, especially the weaseliest individual (it was really a toss up between Dubyah and Tom Cruise).

(Oh, and don't forget to vote in this election either.)

Oh, and seriously??

WTF happened to all my Firefox bookmarks, settings, etc?? They're all gone. All of them. And I swear I did NOTHING to cause that to happen.

Where were you when I needed you, Susan?

Why I suck at being a leader, exhibits A through H:

A. A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice. - James Callaghan

B. There's nothing more demoralizing than a leader who can't clearly articulate why we're doing what we're doing. - James Kouzes and Barry Posner

C. Whoever is providing leadership needs to be as fresh and thoughtful and reflective as possible to make the very best fight. - Faye Wattleton

D. Leadership can be thought of as a capacity to define oneself to others in a way that clarifies and expands a vision of the future. - Edwin H. Friedman

E. The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. - Tony Blair

F. Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it. - Marian Anderson

G. I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people. - Indira Gandhi

H. Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences. - Susan B. Anthony

TO JEANS!

Oh my God. I can't believe I forgot to mention this yesterday. After the offsite a few of us learned we could wear jeans to work whenever we didn't have any mucky-muck meetings.

Talk about the easiest way to boost morale. I gotta buy more jeans.

Hmmm...

They changed this Sunday's church sermon topic from "The Joy of Sex" to "The Joy of Friendship" recently. Unless I totally hallucinated that whole sex thing. I really don't think I did, though.

The church is right next to a middle school. Wonder if that had anything to do with it.

Or perhaps it's a conspiracy. "Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you."

At least I don't have to go to church on Sunday now.

Start 'em young, I always say.

This made me laugh. Arrrr.

"You know how I know you're gay?"

Last night I saw 40-Year Old Virgin. On the Parkway's 2-for-1 night. Thank God.

Here is my review:

It was a guy flick. In case you couldn't tell from the quote used as a subject for this post.

That's cool - we have our flicks. You need yours. You want to imagine meeting a grandma as hot as Catherine Keener? Go for it. You want to think that doing nothing but asking questions is the way to seduce a girl? OK. You want to brag about your "accomplishments"? Whatever. While you do that, we'll be watching John Cusack movies and cursing the day that you were born.

I will say, in its defense, that the very end of this movie was worth EVERY SINGLE PENNY of my $2.50.

And damn, Paul Rudd is hot. But, even several movies later, I still don't know what it is about him.

I thought 30 was bad.

I have walked past Searching For Debra Winger so many times in the video store* because I thought it was about... well... what the hell happened to Debra Winger after Terms of Endearment.

But now I know it's about this. And it's by her. And I am soooooo renting it.

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* Yeah, I have Netflix. Yeah, I go to the video store. Just when I walk the long way home and pass by it... and have 2 more days till I get my next Netflix fix.

Yeah, I have no life. What of it??

"We accept you, one of us!"

Last night I watched Freaks for the first time. This movie made #15 on Bravo's list of 100 scariest movie moments.* I don't know... It was a very sad movie. But scary? I wasn't scared.

The only thing to really freak me out (no pun intended) was the armless, legless guy who lit his own smoke and squirmed across the ground like a snake. But then I started thinking, shit - if he can do that and seem to be at peace with it, what the hell am I always bitching about?

I am probably the only person I know who would find inspiration in a movie like this.

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* Jaws was #1? Seriously? The Exorcist and The Shining were way scarier than Jaws. It was a freakin' mechanical shark, for Pete's sake. And I don't care what you say, Freddie still creeps me out. Not as much as the silver ball flying down the hall in Phantasm, where about ten feet from the kid's head, metal spikes shoot out of it. And Pinhead? Hello?? Still gives me shivers.

So... What's YOUR favorite scary movie?

Note to self.

Stop volunteering for public speaking events even though it's a skill you would like to develop. Especially public speaking events that you think will be one thing, but that you know will morph into something stupid and impossible.

I am sooooo going to church this Sunday.

The church I pass going to and from work has a marquee of sorts in front, where they advertise the next Sunday's sermon topic. I had a sense that the church was pretty liberal in its preachings based on previous sermon topics, but this week's sermon, "The Joy of Sex," pretty much nailed the coffin shut on that topic.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Garrrr, matey.

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One day I will learn how to trim extraneous edges off photos. I promise.

All I knew about Moliere, I learned from the Breakfast Club.

I'm not sure how I got out of reading any of Moliere's work in school, but I did. I wish I'd been more exposed. This afternoon I went to a high school drama department's adaptation of The Imaginary Invalid featuring a friend's daughter in a starring role. She was amazing, and except for one flubbed scene (not hers) which resulted in the other actor saving the day, it was... Well, it was pretty much what you'd expect of a high school drama department performing a Moliere play.

During the performance, I was taken back to my high school days of stage crewing for 42nd Street, Guys & Dolls, Dracula, Brigadoon and Our Town.* Being on stage crew was way more fun to me than being on the stage itself. We used to stand behind the curtain and mock the actors, we had all the dances memorized and performed them (quite poorly, I might add) behind the scenes, we had massage circles on both sides of the stage during a particular scene of each show, and we got to wear all black. We had a time.

But the best part each time was the cast party the last night of the show. About 20 or 30 kids would hole up in some unfortunate parents' house, where we would spend the next 12 hours or so drinking Coke, playing pool and cards, flirting (as high school kids are wont to do) and basically just bonding with each other. There was never alcohol or drugs - or if there was I didn't know about it - it was just good clean fun, for one night every six months or so, the pretentious drama students interacting with the stage crew dorks and band geeks in total unadulterated harmony.**

I kind of wish I'd stuck with it throughout college, but I didn't. Maybe I lost my tolerance for showtunes. Maybe I didn't want to taint the great experiences I had in high school. Maybe I was just lazy.

Yeah, that's probably it.

Anyway - support your local high school theater performances! You're pretty much all they have left these days...

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* Really now, is there a high school drama department that hasn't done Our Town?

** I will go to hell for all these stereotypes, I'm sure. Not saying they are always true, but trust me, at my high school they were. 100% of the time. Well... except for that hot drummer I had a crush on for 3 years.

I would walk 500 miles.

I chaperoned a tour of a local university today as part of my unpaid job (which got me out of my paid job - HOORAY!). I was struck by the fact that, despite the unfamiliarity of cell phones going off in class, teachers lecturing using powerpoint, and students sporting laptops and fancy white out for note taking ...

Everyone still packed up 10 minutes before the end of the lecture to head over to the dining hall, where they would shovel in as much food as they possibly could and then burn off every single calorie in their 9-mile trek to the next class.

The more things change... the more they stay the same.

Is it just me...

... or does Harriet Miers look WAY too much like Tammy Faye Bakker?

Clinton Portis.

I swear, if this particular email subject hadn't been from my brother, I would've thought it was more spam spam spam spam.

I got a very amusing report from him today about his encounter with former-Miami-Hurricane-current-Washington-Redskin-player Clinton last Thursday, where he got some things signed and informed Mr. Portis that he would score 2 touchdowns that weekend.

He did ("and then some" - quotes added because, well, I don't watch football so I would have no idea).

Fuck the Magic 8 ball. I'm asking my brother any yes/no questions from here on out. And I am soooooo archiving this email for future humorous reference.

Do not give money to your wife. Do not give money to your wife. Do not give money to your wife.

This has Darwin Awards written alllllllll over it.

She stood up by sitting down.

Thanks for all that you did. Rest in peace.

"Dirt and migrating and more dirt."

This, courtesy of the yeti, is currently making me laugh. Especially this, about The Great Gatsby, because in a sense I am a FOP*:

"It grieves me deeply that we Americans should take as our classic a book that is no more than a lengthy description of the doings of fops."

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* Though not in the sense that this comment intends. At least, not usually.

F'ING FOX!!!

Read this. You'll understand.

OK, really now, I promise this is the last I will say about the matter on any web site, anywhere.

"Competition is a sin."

I agree with some other things that John Rockefeller said, but not really this one. Mainly because I am one of the most competitive people I know. It usually comes out when I am up against guys, or doing something that is typically a "guy" thing.

Like tonight, I went bowling with some folks, and I beat all the guys - by actively trying to beat all the guys - even though most of us hadn't bowled for many years. Same is true when I play poker and guys are at the table - I just want to win.

I blame this on two things: my brother, who used to take pictures of the final scoresheet when we played Scrabble and he would win with a score triple that of my own... Pictures, for God's sake... And an ex-long-term-boyfriend, who couldn't stand to lose, and unfortunately transferred that behavior to me.

But I don't really think competition is a sin. For many reasons, so few things cause me to challenge myself these days. If I have to rely on friendly competition - and it's always friendly, at least I try to make sure that it's always friendly - to keep me on my poker or bowling or interviewing or exercising toes, then so be it.

The cows have come home.

I saw the sweetest cat at the mobile adoption center outside the pet food store. She was about 3 years old, pure white, docile and loving, and she had a stuffed elephant that had to go with her should she be adopted.

And then I saw the cutest damned stuffed cow at the drugstore and HAD TO HAVE IT. I'm not a stuffed animal freak, or a cow freak, but put the two together and I'm in trouble. I don't have a secret stash though - my only other stuffed cow to date, Clarence, sat on the dashboard during every road trip I took between 1994 and 1997 and is a little worse for the wear because of it, but still damned cute.

Anyway, I wondered if Luna might like a stuffed animal like the cat up for adoption today. She likes things she can knead.


I don't think she likes Clarence Jr. too much. Shame... he's so soft and squishy.

"Life sucks, and then you die. And then it still sucks."

I'm not sure why it took so long for me to discover Dead Like Me... and I'm REALLY not sure why it got cancelled. I'm sure I'm not the first to say that it's so nice to see Jasmine Guy in a bitchy role.

I am SO not kidding...

I just got a Match "wink" from the guy this song was written about. YARG.

And speaking of the nice view from my office...

Yep, that's the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a rare, clear day that I can see the Golden Gate Bridge from my office. Usually it's just a lot of fog and maybe the Bay Bridge.

I don't know why people want to live in San Francisco. Look out your window, and you see Oakland. Live in Oakland, look out your window and you see this.

Belated Friday five.

Five things I like about my job, in no particular order:

• I can wake up at 8:10am and be sitting at my desk at 9:01am.
• They feed me lunch sometimes.
• I have a nice view from my office.
• It only takes about ten minutes to walk to Unpaid Job for a lunchtime meeting.
  
• Every day brings a new and interesting challenge.

The fact that I didn't use one swear word in that last bullet indicates to me that my funk is finally lifting.

How can one little checkbox cause so much pain?

For the past few months, off and on, I have been trying to figure out what the hell I could have done to my home version of Firefox that resulted in me not being able to see images on some web sites (like this one - I couldn't see the dots or images) but not all web sites. I uninstalled and reinstalled, that didn't help. I checked all the settings 867 times. I knew it was just me because I could see everything fine on Firefox at work.

Today I was determined to fix this thing so I went through each setting again, checking or unchecking boxes one by one until I found the culprit (oh, so I don't want to load images from the originating web site only).

Of course, now it makes perfect sense and I feel like a bit of a tool. At least I can also see all the navigation and images in Netflix, and I can remove the IE icon from my toolbar - both of which make me very happy.

THIS is why I'm not a programmer. You always want to know why, well - take it in.

Laughing to keep from crying.

Me and You and Everyone We Know will probably not like this movie very much. Unless you liked this movie a lot, in which case you will probably like it quite a bit.

And speaking of Tom Solondz, I didn't care for the film itself but I liked what he did with Palindromes - switching out the main character with multiple different actresses throughout the film made it seem like this situation could apply to anyone, anywhere. It also upped the "depressing" factor by about 12 because of that, though.

"You lie there and be ironical."

If I'd only gotten to episode five in the series, I would've been SO VERY hooked before the movie was even a concept in Joss's geeky brain. I got the emotion, the characters, the everything he was trying to convey. And yeah, now I'm SO VERY hooked.

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And um, can you believe this is a Wikipedia entry? I'm not sure if I should be appalled, or amused... or indifferent...

Funk not only moves, it can re-move, dig?

I am so very tired of this funk I've been in for the past two weeks. I don't even know the cause of it - usual suspects of Paid Job and Unpaid Job and Lack Of Overall Life are no more prevalent than usual. Although it has been an odd few weeks at Paid Job. And Unpaid Job, now that I think about it. Not unbearable, just odd.

Lately all I've wanted to do is come home, watch TV, hang out with Her Majesty, eat crappy food, not go to the gym and feel guilty about not going to the gym. And it's getting old.

So I beg of you. If I must have the funk, make my funk the P. Funk. It's got a much better beat than the funk I'm in now.

Thought o' the day.

It's far less depressing to get an email saying "we've decided to fill this position with an internal candidate" than it is to get an email saying "you suck."

I'm not crazy, I'm a scientologist.

Oh dear GOD. If I ever push a 5 to 9 pound tiny squirming person out of my body you had better believe there will be mass amounts of drugs and screaming, and probably an iPod playing at full blast, involved.

At least Tom doesn't have to worry about Tony calling him. (Check out comment #3. My sentiments exactly.)

Where is that damn t-shirt, anyway??

But... they give me free tickets.

Leave it to Moby to spoil a good thing. At least he redeemed himself with this other post.

"In other news... *the dead walk the earth*!"

What's that? Well, of course I loved Tim Burton's Corpse Bride. What a silly question.

"Gun control means using both hands."

A while back, a friend sent me a link to this site. I've been thinking about it off and on since hoping to have an intelligent response... Haven't gotten very far with that, other than to say that the "eye for an eye" theory doesn't resound with me, I wish guns didn't exist, I don't see the fun in hunting animals just so you can stuff them and display them proudly in your den, I'm so very tired of our country being reactive to problems instead of proactive... but I don't think it's realistic to make guns illegal in our current (figurative and literal) state.

In my efforts to come up with an intelligent response, I ran across a site where stats come alive! I don't know about you, but being 8th on this list doesn't make me too happy. Nor does being 9th on this list. Other fun stats:

• I wonder what Liechtenstein's secret is?
• Hey, look, we're not #1!
  
• If I lived in Yemen, I'd be having my mid-life crisis right about now.
• Forget Canada. I'm heading to Denmark...
  

90 degrees to the rest of the world.

Today this song and this song are particularly relevant. I am hoping it's just a phase.

"I’ve been making shows of trading blows...

just hoping no one knows... that I've been going through the motions ... walking through the part ... nothing seems to penetrate my heart ...."

Today I learned (is this getting old yet?) that there is a local theater group performing Once More With Feeling. I'm really not sure how I feel about that. But I have inquired about tickets.

I also discovered that it's pretty easy to give constructive feedback when you are emotionally detached from a situation. And finally, it's next to impossible to have a thoughtful reaction to something when you are presented with the fact that two entities are moving in polar opposite directions and both directions directly impact you.

Less vague, more Buffy: "Where’s there’s life, there’s hope. Everyday’s a gift. Wishes can come true. Whistle while you work. So hard. All day. To be like other girls. To fit in in this glittering world. Don’t give me songs... Give me something to sing about. I need something to sing about."

Extraordinary machine... ?

Today I learned that I do not like Fiona Apple's new album.

Kudos to the Sally O'Malleys of the world.

Not that she reads this blog, or that she knows about this blog, or that she NEEDS to know about this blog... but today is my mom's 65th birthday. Happy birthday, Mom.

I talked with her today. As usual the conversation went all over the place*, but she did spend some time telling me about her navy blue shoe shopping success and how she wants to get a similar pair of black ones to wear when she's dead. Apparently, they're quite comfy.

(Mom has always been rather aware of, and rather blatant about, her mortality. Ever since I can remember she's reminded us that she wants to be cremated and her ashes sprinkled over her parents' grave sites, despite the fact that my father wants her to be buried next to him and it's illegal to sprinkle ashes... Hey - maybe that could be my felony!)

I called upon those hours upon hours of watching Six Feet Under and reminded her that you can't see shoes in a coffin. She stated (again) that she wants to be cremated. I said, "then what the hell do you need 'dying' shoes for?" And she laughed. And I laughed.

This type of conversation with one's own parental unit probably sounds awful. Morbid. Disrespectful. But really, it's just honest. Recently I have been blatantly aware of how little time I have left with my parents. I want to know about all their medical situations. I want to advise them on how to make the best of their situation with their crappy doctor. I want to honor their requests around ceremonies and services and burials, and have therefore had to ask a lot of weird questions, and use a lot of weird humor while doing so. And them sending a copy of their wills was just eerie.

I have seen my friends go through parental losses and have tried to be a better daughter as a result. I have realized how much I care about them and how much they have sacrificed for me. I have also been painfully aware of the fact that I'm 3000 miles away and don't talk to them nearly enough.

But not enough to move BACK THERE. They are more than welcome to move out here, but I am not going BACK THERE.

Dammit.

I'm not.

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* She's not on the verge of Alzheimers or anything... she's just old. And retired. And has a lot to say about it. And a lot of free time with which to do so.

"We must develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learnings."

Today I learned several things:

• the remake of "Masters of War" by Pearl Jam is a surprisingly good workout song
• Beverages & More is doing it's periodic "buy one the second one is $0.05" sale (woohoo!)
  
• clarifying the "die!" that you scream at the asshole who keeps cutting you off on the road with "...someday!" really lessens the guilt that follows
• Fiona Apple has a new album
• I can do the elliptical for 40 minutes, burn 350 calories, and still walk afterward
  

By sharing, am I leveraging? Scott Adams wants to know.

Happy days indeed.

Arrested Development is back. Scott Baio is now a character. If they bring Joanie Cunningham in as a guest love interest I might have to protest, but for now... Happy happy joy joy.

Snot rockets.

Yeah, it's that kind of post.

I've been doing this thing lately where I reflect upon what I learned during the day. So, for example, yesterday I learned that weddings can be fun.

Today I learned (saw it firsthand, in fact) that there really are people who shoot snot out of their noses instead of using tissues. This particular guy was in a friend's car at the time, and nicely opened the car door before shooting his snot rocket, but missed the ground and hit the car door instead. So he wiped it with his hand and wiped his hand on his jeans. It seemed to defeat the whole purpose of the activity.

... I'm starting to rethink this whole "learn something new every day" concept.

"Violence is going to ensue!"

Surely I am not the only one amongst us Joss fans (well, that wasn't with me tonight) who has seen Serenity. Surely I'm not.

Oh. My. God.

I haven't been this into a movie since the first installment of Lord of the Rings. Not that it remotely reached that caliber or anything, but man, was I into it. It started out kind of slow, then picked up and didn't slow down. Not once. It had its holes* and flaws** but overall just exemplified the vision of someone*** who's watched The Empire Strikes Back, the Matrix and Cowboy Bebop one too many times... but not in a bad way... and then finally gets ample funding to have a really good time making a really good movie.

This is all in my humble opinion. Of course. Oh, and Nathan Fillion? HOT. Have I mentioned that lately?

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* The most pointed, to me, being that if River is really psychic she should've been able to see all the bad stuff (not just the Reaver sitches) before it happened and prevent it. I'm hoping that the DVD series, which I am just delving into, explains the limitations around her psychic abilities.

** Is Mal's wardrobe any suggestion of how the boys will be dressing in 500 years? Yeesh. And um, Inara, where did all your clothing changes come from? Did you really bring them with you when you fled? Or were those the "sundries" you left behind on the ship?

*** I really have to wonder. Is the strong female character so common across his work a direct result of his mom dying when he was younger? I'm sure there are web sites and geek conferences and water cooler conversations devoted to this topic.

Spam spam spam spam.

Latest favorite spam subject: "cattle, will it work out?"

I don't know about you, but I think that's a perfectly reasonable question.

File under: recently viewed.

Saw: one of the best thrillers I have seen in a long time. Kind of a mix of Silence of the Lambs plus Scream plus... um... Vulgar. I don't know - I made all that up - but it held my attention and caught me off guard at the end. Attentive viewers will get it right away.

And movies I wish I hadn't bothered with, because I only made it through about 30 minutes before I gave up:

• L.I.E.
• Cry Happy Funny
• The Tao of Steve
• National Treasure
• Mystery Science Theater 3000: Mitchell
  

Value add.

Over the past few days I have really begun to question the value I am bringing to my job. Jobs. Paid and unpaid.

If I left, would I be missed? Would they replace me, or would they restructure the work I was doing to better fit into the overall strategy (as well as the line-towing mentality) and hire accordingly? Would they remember the questions I raised and see them as valid issues to address going forward?

These are all rhetorical questions. I think I partly know the answers though. And I think I partly agree with the answers... which really bugs me... but it's a direct result of having a bloody forehead from all the headbanging.

So for now I'll fantasize re-enacting the scene from that commercial where the guy walks into a meeting and says "Sorry I'm late - had a job interview. NAILED IT!"

And I'll keep raising the questions.

Those crazy Amish.

Watched Devil's Playground recently, a documentary on Amish teens going though rumspringa (apparently the equivalent of MTV's spring break for college students). This documentary stated that despite what, to the English eye, might seem to be downsides to the Amish way of life (patriarchal societies, horses and buggies, no health care) 90% of kids who go off on rumspringa return to the Amish way of life.

I'm all for shunning technology, working in the fields and/or with your hands - all that jazz. But, aside from the overall sadness I felt for the kids with 8th grade educations who thought that Wal-Mart and alcohol were "the real world"... I couldn't get over the fact that those damn bonnets would just drive me batty.

Dilly-dallying, carrots... oh, and assless chaps.

Catching up on the past few days' activities...

I talked with a few people about a job last Friday.

Wait, let me preface this to say that I am not one to dilly-dally about things. When my truck died, I bought the first car I test drove. After the third street riot outside my last apartment, I signed a lease for the first potential apartment I walked through. I was running errands one day last year, had a random thought about buying an iPod, and did that same day. Some might substitute "think at all about" for "dilly-dally about" in that first sentence, but these things have all worked out well for me.

So back to our regularly scheduled blog. I talked with a few people about a job last Friday. I wasn't really interested in the job walking into the interview (which might be why the discussion went so well? hard to know). They seemed very interested in my abilities, they seemed very intelligent and nice, and the project seemed challenging enough and a good match with my skills. Walking out of the interview, I was pretty sure I would sign up. Fortunately, I thought about it quite a bit this weekend and decided that it had enough drawbacks that it would be a "frying pan into fire" kind of situation, which I most certainly do not need. And so for once I chose to dilly-dally and put a concentrated effort into figuring out what I really wanted to do, rather than jumping on the first opportunity that would get me out of my current sitch. Pro-gress.

Next. Had a very productive conversation with some people today and left the meeting feeling like THEY GOT IT. I realize that it's just the dangling carrot of possibility moving closer to my reach (but still just out of reach!) than it has been in the past, but I haven't been this optimistic in... well, years, probably. Almost curious enough to stick it out a little longer. Almost, but not quite.

Finally. Next time someone invites me to a San Francisco street fair, I am doing my research first.

Next to godliness.

Cleaning the oven always seems like such a great idea while I'm spraying the Easy Off... Eight hours later, not such a great idea. Bah.

Bag lady.

Recently I have tried to be very good about reusing bags - remembering to take the canvas bags in my trunk when I go to the grocery store, only asking for a bag at the drugstore when I really need one.

The only bags I had when I made the smelly cheese purchase this morning were a bag with a stuffed monkey for my friend's new baby, and my purse. I didn't want to risk the monkey smelling like cheese so I put the cheese in my purse instead, just temporarily.

Ha. Seven hours and one smelly purse later, I developed a new rule: when buying smelly cheese, always get a bag.

Belated Friday five.

Top five "it's all about the little things" from this week:

• iced oatmeal raisin Luna bars - mmmmm.... carbs be damned
  
• finally catching up with my oldest friend back east who just had a baby
  
• buying a tiny "future Oakland Raider" shirt for said friend's new baby (finally, someone had a boy!)
  
• making it to the gym three days in a row and no resulting eye incidents
  
• seeing Roseann Barr at Cobb's last night
  

(I randomly found out about her show Thursday and was kinda surprised to get a ticket. Earlier yesterday my friend had me worried that she was all into scientology and tee-totalling these days and therefore the show would suck. All fears ceased when she started talking about how drugged up we all are, and how the only one who really needs drugs is Tom Cruise. It was all gravy from there.)

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Addendum: today I saw someone wearing a t-shirt, "I'm not crazy - I'm a scientologist." Must. Find. This.

I feel the earth move under my feet...

I am becoming increasingly convinced that there is a God and s/he is suddenly very pissed at our country.

Wonder what the final straw was...

Spam spam spam spam.

Recent spam email subjects:

• Is need on chutney postulant? (I know chutney is good. And occasionally I need it. But postulant?)
• To understand a abysmal rejoin. (Sooooo relevant to work right now.)
• As read as gooseflesh hidden. (See below.)

Last week while procrastinating for the big interview* I happened upon Supernatural. OK, I mostly kept the channel there after Gilmore Girls because that one guy is hot, but then the plot actually captured my interest. I need to see how it goes tonight** but based on last week's episode, this show could be a distant cousin to the X Files. Although no gooseflesh was involved, there was a lot of hiding under the blanket and saying "NO DON'T DO THAT DON'T GO THERE ARE YOU CRAZY?!!"

________________
* I am 99.9% certain I did not impress them, possibly - probably - because I spent two hours watching TV and procrastinating answering really, really hard questions the night before. Damn you, WB.

** I must watch My Name Is Earl (I do love Jason Lee) during the first half of tonight's Supernatural, but if the X Files is any indication I will easily be able to catch up at 9:30.

Restored faith in humanity.

South Park's parody of the Terry Schiavo case actually won an Emmy.

God bless America.

"Your greatest creation is the life you lead."

That's the tagline for Tarnation.

Really don't know what to say about this film, other than "holy hell" and "next time I complain about my life, remind me about this movie." I highly recommend it if you're into this kind of thing.

A, O, let's go.

The best part about the rafting trip on Friday was that the only one of us who fell in, was our guide. OK, that wasn't the best part - but it was quite a relief - and pretty darned funny.

We on the boat stopped laughing at him after he tortured us with "surfing" (also known as holding us in a rapid and tipping the raft until we were all getting blasted with icy cold water, then turning the raft and drenching the other side) for about ten minutes. But the other guides aren't going to let him live that down for a loooooooooong, looooooooong time. "Dude, we just saw a leg fly up and 'bloop'!"

Bleeeaaaaggghhh.

So... why can't potential employers just call your references and ask them to describe how perfect you would be for a job? Why do they sometimes preface the conversation with "well we really want someone with more experience but let's talk to you anyway" (hooray for self-fulfilling prophecy!)? Why do they always want to know your life goals and career plan when all you want is a steady job that you can leave at work at the end of the day? Why is the only area I feel comfortable talking about, the area of creativity?

Bleeeaaaaggghhh...

It's not a tumor.

And to round out this post-o-mania of a day, I must relate a story from this weekend. It was Saturday night around 3am and I'd just woken up with a killer migraine (which I only get every 6 months or so). I laid down for a while in the dark with an ice pack on my head. After a while I got bored and turned on the TV, but switched the contrast to dark, just so that I had something to listen to.

Sometime in the middle of a replay of a classic SNL episode, which they apparently do on Saturday nights at 3am, there was some kind of brief infomercial about lupus. The man talked about how lupus affects women more often than men, younger rather than older, and how it includes symptoms like fatigue, arthritis, weight loss, vasculitis and... migraines.

Please don't misunderstand. I don't mean to downplay the seriousness of this disease. I'm just trying to verbalize how impressionable one can be at 3am when one has an ice pack on their head. The evils of television, if you will.

My thought process at that time: "Hmm. I have been really tired for no reason lately. And I've had arthritis in my knees since I was ten. And those pants fit again. And that eye thing was just weird. And now I have a migraine."

The next day I got on the old WWW and looked up info on lupus. I'm monumentally optimistic that I don't have it. But I made an appointment next week... just to be sure.

"Two fer one, dude!!"

Although to my short-lived dismay they didn't do "July, July," last night's Decemberists show at the Fillmore was really incredibly good. So good, in fact, that I actually found myself nodding along to the guy walking out behind us after the show who kept repeating this saying to everyone who came within two feet of him:

"It was like, two fer one, dude! I expected something amazing, which was, like, one, and then they, like, totally EXCEEDED it, which was like, two fer one!"

Why I will always love Michael Stipe, exhibits X&Y.

Can I be the first to say that I am not a big fan of Coldplay's latest endeavor? I gave it the college try at the gym tonight, really listening to each song as I tried not to die on the jogmaster.* Made it through about 30 seconds of each song and had to skip to the next one.

This happened with Live too - after four amazing records filled with angst and pain and suffering and politics, their fifth album stunk. Just like Chris, Ed found love and had a baby, and could only make happy cheery lovey "life is wonderful" songs as a result.

Thank God some things will never change.

____________
* I don't know what it's really called. I do know that it hurts.

Damn you, James Lipton.

Why? Why did you have to do an Inside the Actor's Studio with Johnny Depp? Every time it comes on, no matter what I am doing at the time, or where I need to be, or how exhausted I am (like last night at 1am), I am physically incapable of turning the channel or turning off the TV.

I have the entire interview memorized. I know when he's going to hide behind his hair or when he's going to sweep it out of his face, I know that he called his dad "Pop" and his mom's name is Betty Sue, I know when he's going to be humble in his response and when he's going to be confident with his answers. I know that his favorite curse word is "shit." I know that Hunter Thompson shaved Johnny's head for the Fear & Loathing role. I know...

Well, you get the idea. I really don't need to see this particular episode ever again. And yet I watch. Again, and again, and again.

Damn you to hell, James Lipton.

Premium reaction.

Yesterday I filled up my tank - 8 gallons - and paid $30. I only bought "plus" grade but my reaction was more of the "premium" variety.

A coworker friend wisely suggested we start saying "premium!" in place of other expletives at work. I'm down with that.

Thumbs go down.

When my brother was here a while back, he kept raving about Tommy Boy. He couldn't believe I had never seen it, he couldn't believe it only got one star, and when he got back home he kept sending me TV Guide listings of when it would next air.

On general principle, if something airs regularly on TNT, there's a low chance that I will like it. If something has a lot of slapstick humor, there's a low chance that I will like it. If something has Dan Ackroyd, there's a low chance that I will like it. But sometimes my brother and I enjoy the same stupid things, so I put it in my Netflix queue and recently sat through it.

It seemed like David Spade and Chris Farley had fun making it. That's about the only nice thing I can say about that movie.

And, probably just because of all the controversy (oh and because Vincent Gallo is HOT - crazy psycho narcissist - but HOT) I watched The Brown Bunny last night. One of the first opening credits was "written directed produced edited by Vincent Gallo"* so I had a good sense of what I was in for... I beg to differ with Roger Ebert, though. I found Elephant more self-indulgent and offensive than Gallo's effort (which just bored me, frankly).

________________
* IMDB also credits him with cinematography, casting, production design, art direction, set decoration, costume design, makeup, art, camera operator...

Warning: exercise is hazardous to your eyes.

Or, the TMI Post. Or, Why Getting Older Is For The Birds.

After I started going to the gym early this year, I woke up one morning with a red dot in my eye. It was all I could see whenever I looked in the mirror - I felt like I had the world's biggest zit on the tip of my nose. (Of course no one else really noticed.) A coworker advised me that it was a broken capillary and that it would go away soon. It did.

I've been lifting the same amount of weight ever since, under the guise "I'm not lazy I'm just trying to tone rather than build muscle yeah uhhuh that's it." Yesterday at the gym I upped the weight on a few of the machines, just for fun. I could feel myself straining a little but it was a "good" strain... Yunno, like a "good" hurt. When I got home I noticed a dark bump under my eye, about the size of a jellybean, that wasn't there before I left for the gym. It didn't hurt, it was just obvious. Once again, it was all I could see when I looked in the mirror - which I did frequently last night hoping it would go away. This morning the bump was gone but the darkness wasn't and no amount of concealer could make it go away. I could only presume that I broke a blood vessel. A different coworker advised me that it would go away soon. It's starting to fade.

But I have to wonder - broken capillaries, broken blood vessels... What on earth (or in my eye, I should say) will break next?

Just call me Jeb Bush.

I spent a ridiculous amount of time at work today ballot-stuffing votes for the theme to a fun new program I signed up to lead. (And also recruiting others to help me ballot-stuff.)

I mean, people, please. I KNOW what to do with a pirate theme. Beach theme? Ehhhhh, maybe. Sports theme? Anyone who caught my baseball-themed presentation on "the project from hell," where I basically threw in baseball terminology incorrectly and frequently, only because the World Series was upon us at the time and I wanted people to pay attention to the topic, knows that I don't do sports. But pirates? Shiver me timbers, I am SO there.

Here we go again.

And then every thought I've had today seems meaningless and stupid in light of what's going on in our own country. Thanks, Anne, for this link. And thanks to others who've reminded me today, and who continue to remind me...

All I need to know, I learned from What Not to Wear.

I have this rule that I can't buy more clothes than I have hangers for. In with the new, out with the "something I barely wear anymore." This ensures closet-user-friendliness and, in theory, a tax writeoff when I donate all the "barely worn" stuff twice a year, but I always forget to get a receipt.

Anyway. The glitch in that concept was that last year I'd gained a little weight so half my clothes didn't fit, and new clothes were kind of a necessity. So about a year ago I put a bunch of summer clothes, and clothes that didn't fit at the moment, into boxes at the bottom of my closet and went shopping. TLC fans will know that Peter would not have approved of this move, but hey. One self-help program at a time.

Having lost a little weight recently, and having spent a good portion of the last year watching episodes of TLC's What Not to Wear, I decided to attack my closet today with a vengeance. I went through every boxed item with a critical eye: A) did it now fit? B) regardless of how cute it was, did it make me look short/fat/overly-pear-shaped/like I didn't have a waist? C) was it a color other than black, brown, green or white? D) really now, would I ever wear it again knowing what I know now?

I ended up with a large donation pile, including several skirts I've been hanging onto that are so adorable but just don't fit me well. And a nice pile of "hey wow this fits again!" which pleases me greatly because I SO HATE TO SHOP. Although I also have a nice pile of "crap I need to iron this stuff" which does not please me so greatly because I SO HATE TO IRON.

And I do still have a small pile of "ten more pounds and these will fit again," but I have promised myself that if I don't lose ten by Christmas they are all goners. It helps that I do most of my shopping at Ross - wear it once, you've pretty much gotten your money's worth. Anything after that is gravy.