Resolution 1:
Remember I have a blog, and actually update it.
Resolution 2:
Attempt to leave house and do fun things so there is something to say on said blog.
Resolution 3:
Use fancy new camera I got for Christmas to take fun pictures and post on said blog.
Well, it looks like I've got my work cut out for me. Happy New Year to the 3 people who probably still check this. :)
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
mishaps, mayhem and more travel issues
Oh hey.
So my travels were fantastic. Well, let me rephrase. My trip was fantastic, the actual travels were pretty much as per usual. Specifics? Ok, you talked me into it.
My trip back to Michigan started out rocky the night before I left. Returning to my apartment Friday evening after hanging out with the girls, I turned on the light in my bedroom and saw this:
Yes, that would be the ceiling fan and overhead light hanging halfway to the floor, directly over my bed. Now, as it was 9:30 at night, my landlord's office was closed, but because that is not an unreasonable hour I thought it might be possible to get the maintenance guy over there that night if I called right away. Riiiight. About two hours after leaving my first message, I left a second one informing the answering service that I was leaving town for a week the next morning and I would like for someone to at least let me know when the fire hazard would be taken care of.
In the back of my mind was also the fact that I had someone staying at my apartment from Saturday to Tuesday and that chances were my friend would prefer not to sleep under something that could fall on him. Whatever.
Luckily, I finally got a call back at 6:30 Saturday morning and said friend reported that the fan was fixed by the time he arrived Saturday afternoon. Which was approximately 4 days sooner than I expected, but then again it's entirely possible that the landlord wants my apartment on fire about as much as I do. In the end it doesn't really have to do with my traveling, but it was too close to be mere coincidence. I ended up getting into Lansing about 10 minutes early on Saturday, though.
Anyway, the week was swell. I'll do my best to post about actual events later (hopefully less than two weeks from now)
The day of my trip back Sunday began ominously. Headed out for a farewell lunch with my family I remarked that it was snowing rather hard and wouldn't it be funny if my flight were canceled? After lunch I checked my flight status online, saw that it was still on time and left for the airport. Of course, once I arrived there my flight's departure was sitting at one hour after its scheduled time. Eh, no problem. Well, the one hour became an hour and a half, which became two hours, which ended up being almost 3 and a half hours. But we took off. And word was that everything out of Chicago was delayed, so there was a chance I was still going to make my connection.
Obviously I did not make my connection. I was supposed to have a two hour layover, I took off three hours late and my connection was delayed an hour. Which translates to: as my first flight was landing, my second flight was taking off. Still, I was not phased. I figured there were probably still at least a couple of flights from Chicago to Boston that night. I was right, there were three. The nice United lady with the longest fingernails I have ever seen put me on the 7:45 flight, which was already delayed until 9:10 (central time). All three of the remaining flights to Boston were now going to be leaving between the hours of 9 and 10. All this time, the weather was getting progressively worse, but the airport was still open, flights were still taking off, the outlook was good.
We boarded our plane, we got the wings de-iced, we taxied out onto the runway. At this point, I began fading in and out of consciousness, figuring I'd wake up when we got to Boston, go home and continue sleeping. If you've read this blog with any regularity, you know that by now I should know better. And, in my defense, I was not at all surprised when the pilot came on the air and said that we had to head back to the gate for more deicing because of snow buildup on the wings. I was even less surprised when we got back to the gate and the pilot announced that the flight had been canceled (sound familiar?). However, since the only thing I was going to be missing was work, I wasn't exactly broken up.
We filed back off the plane and waited for some agents to come and tell us when we were going to be getting out of Chicago. There would be no flight that night. All the flights on Monday were completely sold out due to the holiday travelers. Right when it seemed definite that a mutiny was about to take place, we were assured that a special flight at 6am was being scheduled just for us, we were guaranteed spots on that flight, no worries.
If you're wondering about the other two Boston flights, yes they took off. It was just us and one other flight to San Francisco that got canceled. My luck is amazing. Of course, because it was due to the weather, the airline was not liable, so they were not about to pay for a hotel room. They were offering discounts, but when the hotels in the area run about $400 a night regularly, you're still looking at about $150. Not so much. Most of the flight hunkered down on some benches and settled in for the night. Or what turned out to be about two hours of actual sleep after standing in line to get our receipts for the next morning's flight (now moved to 11:15) and talking amongst ourselves for awhile, and before the cleaning crew came through to vacuum by our heads at 4am.
By this time, we had bonded as fellow stranded passengers. My two new friends and I went off in search of the earlier flights to Boston in order to put ourselves on the standby list in hopes that we could actually get out of there as soon as possible. While in line we picked up a fourth comrade and we waited hopefully to hear our names called. No such luck on the 6:40.
After a breakfast break we were off to try our luck on the 9:20. One of my friends was called, and we immediately turned on her (not really). We were extremely jealous as it was looking more and more like we were going to be stuck for another few hours. Then, like a Christmas miracle, about 5 minutes before scheduled departure they started calling off names like Bingo numbers. In the end all of us made it on the flight! Hooray! We landed in Boston at about 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time, all our bags came on the same flight we did (hooray!), I called a cab (not a scary drunken one, but one I called myself from Winthrop which I'm pretty sure I will do every time from now on) and made it to my apartment about 2. A full 23 and a half hours since I had left for the airport the day before.
I walked in, crashed onto my couch, and stayed there until I woke up again about 7. I was up for a couple of hours (though definitely not coherent as evidenced by the voicemail I left my brother, which he responded to with a text saying he'd just call me tomorrow because i sounded dead), and then got back in bed at 9, where I stayed until this morning (and could have stayed much longer).
Phew! When I got to work this morning I got a standing ovation, and I was informed that my new nickname is Typhoon Jessie, and also that no one is ever going to travel by plane the same time I go anywhere. Probably a good idea. :)
So my travels were fantastic. Well, let me rephrase. My trip was fantastic, the actual travels were pretty much as per usual. Specifics? Ok, you talked me into it.
My trip back to Michigan started out rocky the night before I left. Returning to my apartment Friday evening after hanging out with the girls, I turned on the light in my bedroom and saw this:
Yes, that would be the ceiling fan and overhead light hanging halfway to the floor, directly over my bed. Now, as it was 9:30 at night, my landlord's office was closed, but because that is not an unreasonable hour I thought it might be possible to get the maintenance guy over there that night if I called right away. Riiiight. About two hours after leaving my first message, I left a second one informing the answering service that I was leaving town for a week the next morning and I would like for someone to at least let me know when the fire hazard would be taken care of.
In the back of my mind was also the fact that I had someone staying at my apartment from Saturday to Tuesday and that chances were my friend would prefer not to sleep under something that could fall on him. Whatever.
Luckily, I finally got a call back at 6:30 Saturday morning and said friend reported that the fan was fixed by the time he arrived Saturday afternoon. Which was approximately 4 days sooner than I expected, but then again it's entirely possible that the landlord wants my apartment on fire about as much as I do. In the end it doesn't really have to do with my traveling, but it was too close to be mere coincidence. I ended up getting into Lansing about 10 minutes early on Saturday, though.
Anyway, the week was swell. I'll do my best to post about actual events later (hopefully less than two weeks from now)
The day of my trip back Sunday began ominously. Headed out for a farewell lunch with my family I remarked that it was snowing rather hard and wouldn't it be funny if my flight were canceled? After lunch I checked my flight status online, saw that it was still on time and left for the airport. Of course, once I arrived there my flight's departure was sitting at one hour after its scheduled time. Eh, no problem. Well, the one hour became an hour and a half, which became two hours, which ended up being almost 3 and a half hours. But we took off. And word was that everything out of Chicago was delayed, so there was a chance I was still going to make my connection.
Obviously I did not make my connection. I was supposed to have a two hour layover, I took off three hours late and my connection was delayed an hour. Which translates to: as my first flight was landing, my second flight was taking off. Still, I was not phased. I figured there were probably still at least a couple of flights from Chicago to Boston that night. I was right, there were three. The nice United lady with the longest fingernails I have ever seen put me on the 7:45 flight, which was already delayed until 9:10 (central time). All three of the remaining flights to Boston were now going to be leaving between the hours of 9 and 10. All this time, the weather was getting progressively worse, but the airport was still open, flights were still taking off, the outlook was good.
We boarded our plane, we got the wings de-iced, we taxied out onto the runway. At this point, I began fading in and out of consciousness, figuring I'd wake up when we got to Boston, go home and continue sleeping. If you've read this blog with any regularity, you know that by now I should know better. And, in my defense, I was not at all surprised when the pilot came on the air and said that we had to head back to the gate for more deicing because of snow buildup on the wings. I was even less surprised when we got back to the gate and the pilot announced that the flight had been canceled (sound familiar?). However, since the only thing I was going to be missing was work, I wasn't exactly broken up.
We filed back off the plane and waited for some agents to come and tell us when we were going to be getting out of Chicago. There would be no flight that night. All the flights on Monday were completely sold out due to the holiday travelers. Right when it seemed definite that a mutiny was about to take place, we were assured that a special flight at 6am was being scheduled just for us, we were guaranteed spots on that flight, no worries.
If you're wondering about the other two Boston flights, yes they took off. It was just us and one other flight to San Francisco that got canceled. My luck is amazing. Of course, because it was due to the weather, the airline was not liable, so they were not about to pay for a hotel room. They were offering discounts, but when the hotels in the area run about $400 a night regularly, you're still looking at about $150. Not so much. Most of the flight hunkered down on some benches and settled in for the night. Or what turned out to be about two hours of actual sleep after standing in line to get our receipts for the next morning's flight (now moved to 11:15) and talking amongst ourselves for awhile, and before the cleaning crew came through to vacuum by our heads at 4am.
By this time, we had bonded as fellow stranded passengers. My two new friends and I went off in search of the earlier flights to Boston in order to put ourselves on the standby list in hopes that we could actually get out of there as soon as possible. While in line we picked up a fourth comrade and we waited hopefully to hear our names called. No such luck on the 6:40.
After a breakfast break we were off to try our luck on the 9:20. One of my friends was called, and we immediately turned on her (not really). We were extremely jealous as it was looking more and more like we were going to be stuck for another few hours. Then, like a Christmas miracle, about 5 minutes before scheduled departure they started calling off names like Bingo numbers. In the end all of us made it on the flight! Hooray! We landed in Boston at about 1:00pm Eastern Standard Time, all our bags came on the same flight we did (hooray!), I called a cab (not a scary drunken one, but one I called myself from Winthrop which I'm pretty sure I will do every time from now on) and made it to my apartment about 2. A full 23 and a half hours since I had left for the airport the day before.
I walked in, crashed onto my couch, and stayed there until I woke up again about 7. I was up for a couple of hours (though definitely not coherent as evidenced by the voicemail I left my brother, which he responded to with a text saying he'd just call me tomorrow because i sounded dead), and then got back in bed at 9, where I stayed until this morning (and could have stayed much longer).
Phew! When I got to work this morning I got a standing ovation, and I was informed that my new nickname is Typhoon Jessie, and also that no one is ever going to travel by plane the same time I go anywhere. Probably a good idea. :)
Friday, November 14, 2008
lousy New England sports obsessions
Allow me to quickly tell you how I'm mildly bitter that ABC preempted regularly scheduled programming on the East Coast last night in order to broadcast the Jets-Patriots game.
Now, I am a fan of the football, I enjoy watching it on Sunday afternoons and especially on Thanksgiving. I am NOT, however, a fan of this "Thursday Night Football" that the NFL network started when approximately 10 people nationwide get that channel. The reason I am not a fan is because people out here are so insane about their sports teams that of course there had to be a way for everyone to watch it, so they put that on instead of Grey's Anatomy. Which means I have not seen it yet. Which is total crap.
Oh well, at least it's Friday!
Now, I am a fan of the football, I enjoy watching it on Sunday afternoons and especially on Thanksgiving. I am NOT, however, a fan of this "Thursday Night Football" that the NFL network started when approximately 10 people nationwide get that channel. The reason I am not a fan is because people out here are so insane about their sports teams that of course there had to be a way for everyone to watch it, so they put that on instead of Grey's Anatomy. Which means I have not seen it yet. Which is total crap.
Oh well, at least it's Friday!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
why not? It's NYC
I spent this past weekend in New York City, having loads of fun. I was there to see Grace and a little bit of HG and basically get out of town for a few days.
I took the bus down, and let me just tell you how much of a fiasco it was Friday night. I did a good job (I thought) researching all my options and picking a bus line that was both cost effective and not shady. I bought my ticket online a few weeks ago, and this company has a progressive ticketing system, so I got my round trip for $24. Well.... the story is there was traffic Friday night which was delaying everything. Not entirely surprising, for a Friday evening. The bus we were scheduled on didn't show up by the time we were scheduled to leave (at 6:30), so they found this spare bus and some guy to drive it, so we took off about 15 minutes late. Part way to NYC we pulled off the highway into some shady business park area with no explanation. We ended up at a totally sketchy bus depot that looked more like a place to do a drug deal than to park a bus. At first we thought we were making a pit stop for snacks or a bathroom break, but that was not the case.
Our driver got out of the bus, met up with this guy, they checked out some maps for awhile, and chattered along, all with no explanation to anyone. The first driver took off into the unknown, and the new guy took over the driving. It seems that this new driver didn't exactly know his way to NY, and thanks to the super helpful (read: annoying) girls sitting behind me who kept google mapping the way from where we were, I knew exactly when he took a wrong turn to add another 20 minutes to our route. It took us a full 5 hours to get to Penn Station, and this was only because one of the passengers directed him where to go after he got lost and calling Boston for directions didn't help at all.
The icing on the cake of this awesome bus ride, however, was the girl sitting next to me. The first two hours were totally fine. She listened to her iPod, she texted from time to time, she read her Twilight book, she tried to sleep. Well, she got a phone call at that two hour point that set off a chain of drama the likes of which I have not seen in years. From what I gather, someone got fired or resigned from their job, and somebody was spreading the news. Somehow, my seat neighbor ended up getting blamed for the spread of this gossip and it took not less than TWELVE impassioned phone calls to everyone she knew to clear things up. Drama, drama, drama.
I was staying at Grace's sister's apartment in Queens for the weekend, and Alice had sent me very explicit instructions on how to get where I was going once I arrived at Penn Station. What Alice did no count on, however, was that I would be an hour and a half later than scheduled. The last hour or so of my bus ride I was getting more nad more frequent phone calls and text messages from Grace and her sister wondering about my status. So I'm standing at the corner in front of the Madison Square Garden, dragging my suitcase, holding my bags, talking on my phone to assure my friends that I am finally on my way and probably looking more than a little crazy when some guy tried to hand me his cd. I kept saying "no, no" to him but he wouldn't shut up or stop trying to put the thing in my hand so finally I took it and started to walk away. Of course he then tried to collect money from me, which I knew would happen, but I was pretty much at the end of my rope at that point so I threw the cd back and him and told him to get the hell away from me. I finally made it to the appropriate station and boarded the N train to get to Queens. Only to be kicked off the train one stop later at Times Square because they were doing work on the tracks all weekend, and started at 12:05am Saturday there was a break in service so I needed to switch trains for a portion of the ride.
At about 12:30am I got to Queensboro Plaza, which was where I needed to switch back to the original train line. At this point Alice and Grace informed me that I should just stay put and they were coming to get me in the car because sitting around waiting for me to get there was driving them crazy. I finally made it back to Alice's at about 1am, and could not have been happier for my journey to be at an end.
The weekend itself was pretty splendid, it was lovely to see my Grace and play in the city. I did some pretty good shopping, got to wander around with HG for awhile, and do some touristy things. Here are a couple of pictures:
The ride back was pretty good, I paid $5 to take an earlier bus Monday morning, we arrived in Boston on time, our bus driver was called "Mama T" and she brought snacks for everyone. How cute is that? As a bonus, she knew the route and we got there in a reasonable amount of time.
It was nice to have today off and I'm really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but at least it's only going to be a three day week and then another weekend!
I took the bus down, and let me just tell you how much of a fiasco it was Friday night. I did a good job (I thought) researching all my options and picking a bus line that was both cost effective and not shady. I bought my ticket online a few weeks ago, and this company has a progressive ticketing system, so I got my round trip for $24. Well.... the story is there was traffic Friday night which was delaying everything. Not entirely surprising, for a Friday evening. The bus we were scheduled on didn't show up by the time we were scheduled to leave (at 6:30), so they found this spare bus and some guy to drive it, so we took off about 15 minutes late. Part way to NYC we pulled off the highway into some shady business park area with no explanation. We ended up at a totally sketchy bus depot that looked more like a place to do a drug deal than to park a bus. At first we thought we were making a pit stop for snacks or a bathroom break, but that was not the case.
Our driver got out of the bus, met up with this guy, they checked out some maps for awhile, and chattered along, all with no explanation to anyone. The first driver took off into the unknown, and the new guy took over the driving. It seems that this new driver didn't exactly know his way to NY, and thanks to the super helpful (read: annoying) girls sitting behind me who kept google mapping the way from where we were, I knew exactly when he took a wrong turn to add another 20 minutes to our route. It took us a full 5 hours to get to Penn Station, and this was only because one of the passengers directed him where to go after he got lost and calling Boston for directions didn't help at all.
The icing on the cake of this awesome bus ride, however, was the girl sitting next to me. The first two hours were totally fine. She listened to her iPod, she texted from time to time, she read her Twilight book, she tried to sleep. Well, she got a phone call at that two hour point that set off a chain of drama the likes of which I have not seen in years. From what I gather, someone got fired or resigned from their job, and somebody was spreading the news. Somehow, my seat neighbor ended up getting blamed for the spread of this gossip and it took not less than TWELVE impassioned phone calls to everyone she knew to clear things up. Drama, drama, drama.
I was staying at Grace's sister's apartment in Queens for the weekend, and Alice had sent me very explicit instructions on how to get where I was going once I arrived at Penn Station. What Alice did no count on, however, was that I would be an hour and a half later than scheduled. The last hour or so of my bus ride I was getting more nad more frequent phone calls and text messages from Grace and her sister wondering about my status. So I'm standing at the corner in front of the Madison Square Garden, dragging my suitcase, holding my bags, talking on my phone to assure my friends that I am finally on my way and probably looking more than a little crazy when some guy tried to hand me his cd. I kept saying "no, no" to him but he wouldn't shut up or stop trying to put the thing in my hand so finally I took it and started to walk away. Of course he then tried to collect money from me, which I knew would happen, but I was pretty much at the end of my rope at that point so I threw the cd back and him and told him to get the hell away from me. I finally made it to the appropriate station and boarded the N train to get to Queens. Only to be kicked off the train one stop later at Times Square because they were doing work on the tracks all weekend, and started at 12:05am Saturday there was a break in service so I needed to switch trains for a portion of the ride.
At about 12:30am I got to Queensboro Plaza, which was where I needed to switch back to the original train line. At this point Alice and Grace informed me that I should just stay put and they were coming to get me in the car because sitting around waiting for me to get there was driving them crazy. I finally made it back to Alice's at about 1am, and could not have been happier for my journey to be at an end.
The weekend itself was pretty splendid, it was lovely to see my Grace and play in the city. I did some pretty good shopping, got to wander around with HG for awhile, and do some touristy things. Here are a couple of pictures:
The nice man AAA sent to fix our flat tire Saturday morning. Oh, did I forget to mention that?
A view of Central Park on our way to brunch Sunday morning
This mobile art deal HG and I checked out Sunday afternoon
The view from the subway platform in Queens as I was waiting for the train to head home Monday morning
The ride back was pretty good, I paid $5 to take an earlier bus Monday morning, we arrived in Boston on time, our bus driver was called "Mama T" and she brought snacks for everyone. How cute is that? As a bonus, she knew the route and we got there in a reasonable amount of time.
It was nice to have today off and I'm really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but at least it's only going to be a three day week and then another weekend!
Monday, November 03, 2008
Holy crap I'm posting with pictures even!
This is what it looks like when you totally rock out your Halloween costume:
Yes folks, that is textbook drunk, bitter bridesmaid. You love it. (You also like how great I am at looking really really drunk? Though I do feel it's necessary to point out that this picture was completely staged.
This one, however, totally candid:
And so attractive, too. :)
We had some pretty fabulous Halloween costumes...check this out to see a couple of the other ones!
I hope all your Halloweens were festive!
Yes folks, that is textbook drunk, bitter bridesmaid. You love it. (You also like how great I am at looking really really drunk? Though I do feel it's necessary to point out that this picture was completely staged.
This one, however, totally candid:
And so attractive, too. :)
We had some pretty fabulous Halloween costumes...check this out to see a couple of the other ones!
I hope all your Halloweens were festive!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Happy Halloween!
Happy Halloween everyone! I hope everyone has something super fun and fabulous to do this weekend, I know I do. :)
I have decided to dress up as a crazy, drunk bridesmaid. I know, I know, it's quite a stretch. Either way, it's gonna be legen-waitforit-dary. Pictures will follow.
So, I'm not sure how much I'm 'allowed' to say about this next part, but I'm gonna throw caution to the wind and tell you anyway. As of yesterday I have two new nephews! Twin boys, born yesterday evening. Everyone is doing pretty well, last I heard. My older brother is very touchy about the sharing of information on the interwebs, however, so I will hold off on further details until and unless I get the ok from him (though, ahem, I'm sure if anyone were really dying to know, they could always drop me an email and I would be happy to share the news on a more one-on-one basis).
I hope everyone has a good weekend!
I have decided to dress up as a crazy, drunk bridesmaid. I know, I know, it's quite a stretch. Either way, it's gonna be legen-waitforit-dary. Pictures will follow.
So, I'm not sure how much I'm 'allowed' to say about this next part, but I'm gonna throw caution to the wind and tell you anyway. As of yesterday I have two new nephews! Twin boys, born yesterday evening. Everyone is doing pretty well, last I heard. My older brother is very touchy about the sharing of information on the interwebs, however, so I will hold off on further details until and unless I get the ok from him (though, ahem, I'm sure if anyone were really dying to know, they could always drop me an email and I would be happy to share the news on a more one-on-one basis).
I hope everyone has a good weekend!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Drunk Santa
Because I know you love these crazy people stories.
Last Friday after a shopping trip and dinner with Alisa, we were partaking in some adult beverages at a bar near her boyfriend's shop. At the time we got there (approximately 7:30) there were a total of 5 people at the bar, not including employees. Us, the gentleman we were sitting with, and two guys down at the end of the bar, one of whom bore a close resemblance to Santa Claus. Now, Santa had definitely been tossing back a few, and from the looks of it, he'd been doing it for awhile. Apparently the younger guy he was sitting with got a kick out of him and kept buying him drinks. Strong ones, from what I could tell. Our friend Drunk Santa was swaying to and fro and slurring his speech something terrible. Little by little, people started trickling into the bar and the bouncers took up their posts at the doors, all the while Drunk Santa continued guzzling what I like to think was whiskey (I think all grizzled old men should drink whiskey. It just seems right), and his new friend showed no signs of closing his wallet and cutting off the drinks anytime soon. Eventually we lost interest in the Drunk Santa show and about an hour went by.
What happened next took approximately 60 seconds start to finish.
From the other end of the bar I heard what sounded like a door slamming over and over. I looked over to see Drunk Santa repeatedly lifting the counter flap (you know, the thing they lift to walk under, I don't know the proper name for it) and slamming it back down while gesturing wildly about something. People in the area were starting to look a little nervous. The bartender told him very firmly that he had to stop doing that, or he would be asked to leave. Apparently (the bartender told us later) Drunk Santa responded by threatening to kill him; which translated roughly from the Latin is, "please throw me out, I've had enough."
In record time, the bouncer flew in from the front door, grabbed Drunk Santa in the 'guy getting tossed out of a bar' hold and made for the door. But Drunk Santa would not go quietly into that good night, and for an old guy wrestling with someone about half his age, I gotta say he held his own. As they approached the door he threw out both of his arms and braced himself against the sides of the wall so the bouncer physically could not eject him, despite several attempts at different throwing techniques. In the end it took three guys to get him out. One on each side pinning an arm down and the bouncer to push as hard as possible to actually get him out the door. This tactic was apparently so forceful it landed Drunk Santa in the middle of the street. Luckily, there was very little traffic just then so no harm done, but wow. It was something to see. I'm still amazed he never tried to get back in, but the bouncer did shut the door behind him so maybe that proved too great a barrier to overcome.
The remainder of the evening was fairly uneventful yet still fun, mostly because we just kept retelling the story of Drunk Santa to each new person that came to join our little group. Good times.
As a quick recap of the rest of my weekend, Saturday most of the day was spent with some friends watching the MSU game (tragic) and eating Cheesecake Factory and then watching the Red Sox game all the while drinking Sam Adams Oktoberfest (which is really really good. You should get some, it's delicious and by the way when did I become a beer drinker? Very weird). Sunday I did nothing (it was pretty great) and during the week I'm as lame as lame can be so there's no story there, as I'm sure you're all very tired of my tv recap posts. :)
Now then, everyone do your part and watch Pushing Daisies tonight! If they cancel that show I will take it very personally and put the blame on all of you. I'm serious. (ok you're right, I'm not. But I will be very sad)
Last Friday after a shopping trip and dinner with Alisa, we were partaking in some adult beverages at a bar near her boyfriend's shop. At the time we got there (approximately 7:30) there were a total of 5 people at the bar, not including employees. Us, the gentleman we were sitting with, and two guys down at the end of the bar, one of whom bore a close resemblance to Santa Claus. Now, Santa had definitely been tossing back a few, and from the looks of it, he'd been doing it for awhile. Apparently the younger guy he was sitting with got a kick out of him and kept buying him drinks. Strong ones, from what I could tell. Our friend Drunk Santa was swaying to and fro and slurring his speech something terrible. Little by little, people started trickling into the bar and the bouncers took up their posts at the doors, all the while Drunk Santa continued guzzling what I like to think was whiskey (I think all grizzled old men should drink whiskey. It just seems right), and his new friend showed no signs of closing his wallet and cutting off the drinks anytime soon. Eventually we lost interest in the Drunk Santa show and about an hour went by.
What happened next took approximately 60 seconds start to finish.
From the other end of the bar I heard what sounded like a door slamming over and over. I looked over to see Drunk Santa repeatedly lifting the counter flap (you know, the thing they lift to walk under, I don't know the proper name for it) and slamming it back down while gesturing wildly about something. People in the area were starting to look a little nervous. The bartender told him very firmly that he had to stop doing that, or he would be asked to leave. Apparently (the bartender told us later) Drunk Santa responded by threatening to kill him; which translated roughly from the Latin is, "please throw me out, I've had enough."
In record time, the bouncer flew in from the front door, grabbed Drunk Santa in the 'guy getting tossed out of a bar' hold and made for the door. But Drunk Santa would not go quietly into that good night, and for an old guy wrestling with someone about half his age, I gotta say he held his own. As they approached the door he threw out both of his arms and braced himself against the sides of the wall so the bouncer physically could not eject him, despite several attempts at different throwing techniques. In the end it took three guys to get him out. One on each side pinning an arm down and the bouncer to push as hard as possible to actually get him out the door. This tactic was apparently so forceful it landed Drunk Santa in the middle of the street. Luckily, there was very little traffic just then so no harm done, but wow. It was something to see. I'm still amazed he never tried to get back in, but the bouncer did shut the door behind him so maybe that proved too great a barrier to overcome.
The remainder of the evening was fairly uneventful yet still fun, mostly because we just kept retelling the story of Drunk Santa to each new person that came to join our little group. Good times.
As a quick recap of the rest of my weekend, Saturday most of the day was spent with some friends watching the MSU game (tragic) and eating Cheesecake Factory and then watching the Red Sox game all the while drinking Sam Adams Oktoberfest (which is really really good. You should get some, it's delicious and by the way when did I become a beer drinker? Very weird). Sunday I did nothing (it was pretty great) and during the week I'm as lame as lame can be so there's no story there, as I'm sure you're all very tired of my tv recap posts. :)
Now then, everyone do your part and watch Pushing Daisies tonight! If they cancel that show I will take it very personally and put the blame on all of you. I'm serious. (ok you're right, I'm not. But I will be very sad)
Monday, October 20, 2008
how i met that other chick
So I'm checking in quickly to tell you how freaking good How I Met Your Mother was tonight.
It was so freaking good.
And I mean, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I am SO happy that Stella is not the mom. I like Sarah Chalke and everything, but I did not like her as potential love interest for Ted Mosby, architect.
Random thoughts:
- Robin is the coolest, I totally dug that speech she gave to Ted
- I want a job with a chimp that throws marshmallows at my head
- the first clue this wasn't going to work out should have been the fact that they were getting married at a vegan yoga resort. Yikes
- why was Stella's ex like 50? He seemed very old and more than a little weird. Further evidence that she was all wrong
- I'm a little sad that Barney can't keep it in his pants long enough to get back with Robin, even if it's only for a minute
It was so freaking good.
And I mean, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I am SO happy that Stella is not the mom. I like Sarah Chalke and everything, but I did not like her as potential love interest for Ted Mosby, architect.
Random thoughts:
- Robin is the coolest, I totally dug that speech she gave to Ted
- I want a job with a chimp that throws marshmallows at my head
- the first clue this wasn't going to work out should have been the fact that they were getting married at a vegan yoga resort. Yikes
- why was Stella's ex like 50? He seemed very old and more than a little weird. Further evidence that she was all wrong
- I'm a little sad that Barney can't keep it in his pants long enough to get back with Robin, even if it's only for a minute
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Presto Chango
The before:
The after:
I love nothing better than having my hair cut really short after growing it out for a year and a half.
Glorious.
The after:
I love nothing better than having my hair cut really short after growing it out for a year and a half.
Glorious.
Monday, October 06, 2008
Things Remembered
So on Saturday, as anticipated, I made myself a little nest on my couch and stayed there pretty much all day watching movies. It was swell. And also kind of disgusting when I think about how little I actually did in a 24 hour period. Yea. It's possible I need to leave my house a little more.
Anyway, at some point on Saturday afternoon I suddenly remembered that I know how to knit, even though it's something I haven't done in approximately 6 months. I figured I'd give that a shot so that at least I would be able to see progress in my laziness. So far, so good, this is two days' progress on a pair of socks for my mother:
I really like the yarn, it's soft and cozy feeling. It's Jawoll Cotton Superwash by Lang Yarns. I don't know much about it, my mom picked it up because I told her if she bought some sock yarn I'd make her a pair of socks. I think it's a good trade, I get free yarn and she gets new socks. Anyone else interested in this type of arrangement, you just let me know. :)
Friday I was at dinner with my old pal Sacha, and while expressing typical existential angst (that would be me expressing the angst - not an uncommon thing) he suggested I check out this book:
He cautioned me that it was over 1,000 pages. I assured him I could handle it. He agreed I'm probably up to the challenge. I'll keep you posted. I feel like this is one of those important books I probably should have read before now in life, but better late than never eh?
Anyway, so I was in the bookstore, buying this heavy (both literally and figuratively) book and my brain practically begged me to get something to balance the seriousness, so on my way past the clearance section I picked up this:
The cover makes me cringe, I want to cover it with a grocery bag like in junior high. I started reading it on my way home (while working very hard to hide the cover so no one would see I was reading a book with lip marks on the front) and it's basically just a slightly classier smut book, but whatever it's entertaining. It's the literary version of a mindless chick flick, but I don't hate it. :)
Meanwhile, I already miss the weekend, and I'm on my second glass of wine.
Anyway, at some point on Saturday afternoon I suddenly remembered that I know how to knit, even though it's something I haven't done in approximately 6 months. I figured I'd give that a shot so that at least I would be able to see progress in my laziness. So far, so good, this is two days' progress on a pair of socks for my mother:
I really like the yarn, it's soft and cozy feeling. It's Jawoll Cotton Superwash by Lang Yarns. I don't know much about it, my mom picked it up because I told her if she bought some sock yarn I'd make her a pair of socks. I think it's a good trade, I get free yarn and she gets new socks. Anyone else interested in this type of arrangement, you just let me know. :)
Friday I was at dinner with my old pal Sacha, and while expressing typical existential angst (that would be me expressing the angst - not an uncommon thing) he suggested I check out this book:
He cautioned me that it was over 1,000 pages. I assured him I could handle it. He agreed I'm probably up to the challenge. I'll keep you posted. I feel like this is one of those important books I probably should have read before now in life, but better late than never eh?
Anyway, so I was in the bookstore, buying this heavy (both literally and figuratively) book and my brain practically begged me to get something to balance the seriousness, so on my way past the clearance section I picked up this:
The cover makes me cringe, I want to cover it with a grocery bag like in junior high. I started reading it on my way home (while working very hard to hide the cover so no one would see I was reading a book with lip marks on the front) and it's basically just a slightly classier smut book, but whatever it's entertaining. It's the literary version of a mindless chick flick, but I don't hate it. :)
Meanwhile, I already miss the weekend, and I'm on my second glass of wine.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
My plan for a better tomorrow.
Yesterday, in what was a completely necessary bout of retail therapy after the issues that never fail to pop up at work, I purchased three movies in anticipation of what will be a glorious movie weekend extravaganza in which I will be a total hermit and probably not change out of my pajamas once. These movies along with the new Netflix movies that should be heading my way (I sent back three movies today that I'd had for over a month and didn't manage to watch a single one the whole way through. I don't know how I managed to get three depressing movies all at once, but I will have to be more careful in the future. In case you care, they were Magnolia [boring and depressing], Atonement [couldn't bring myself to keep watching a movie I knew would only get more depressing as it went on], and The Crow [which I did not remember putting in my queue and couldn't even convince myself to take out of the little sleeve]) should pretty well keep me entertained for two days.
Anyway, while making my purchases online yesterday, I was made more aware than ever of a disturbing phenomenon that is ruining this country (or at least, it's really annoying). Every single one of the three movies I bought (Sex and the City, Iron Man and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) had special collector's editions of the DVD available. And I know that at least in the case of SATC, the collector's edition came out before the regular edition. These are all movies that were released on DVD within approximately the last month.
People, please. Stop the madness.
On principle, I bought only the regular DVDs. I can live with spending $17 on a movie, but I see no reason to spend $23 for a cover sleeve and bonus features I will never watch. However, it's about more than just the money. You shouldn't be able to take just any ol' flick, slap a fancier cover on it, put a bunch of random stuff on a 2nd disc (or 3rd) and call it a "collector's edition". I brought this theory up with Toni today and we determined that some conditions need to be met before something has earned the right to have a "collector's edition":
1. The movie needs to have held up for a MINIMUM of 15 years. As in, people still need to love it. The Godfather, The Sound of Music, The Princess Bride, stuff like that.
2. The collector's edition should absolutely not come out BEFORE the regular edition. That shouldn't even require explanation.
3. Any collector's edition should come with some sort of prize that makes it worthwhile. Because as previously mentioned, most people will never actually watch all the bonus features. Most movies don't need them. Not unless...
4. There should be some sort of drama surrounding the initial release of the movie, some sort of untold story that needs to come out, or a director's cut that blows the original out of the water but was not released theatrically because the studio never thought it would work, something like that. This is not absolutely mandatory, but it doesn't hurt.
5. It should be part of something bigger that would cause someone to actually have a "collection" (and not just a movie collection). A series of movies, a cultural phenomenon, etc. This ties right in with the prize thing.
I don't think this is an unreasonable list of demands. Can't we all agree? Now, I admit that I do own several collector's editions, and that not all of them meet all the requirements. But the buck stops here from now on. No more.
Let me tell you what the absolute best collector's edition I have ever come across is. The Ultimate Superman Collector's Edition (which I got for Christmas last year) meets every one of the above mentioned conditions. The original movie it still great 30 years later, each movie was released on its own before this came out, it included both the 2000 extended version of the original movie and the Richard Donner cut of the 2nd movie (meets the requirements of #3 and #4), and it includes all 4 of the Christopher Reeve movies as well as the 2006 movie, not to mention a cartoon and several of the bonus feature discs, which I haven't watched. But that's ok, because even though I'll probably never watch all that stuff, it was still totally worth it just for fact that it came with seven movies and a cartoon! There might even be a mini Superman comic in there, but I'm not quite sure (and I'm not at home to check).
And while I'm ready to admit that the day might come when any of these three movies might merit a collector's edition (though I have serious doubts about at least one of them), that day has not yet come.
My advice to you all for today is: Watch Pushing Daisies tonight at 8:00pm on ABC. Its first (albeit abbreviated) season was really really good, and I just love it. Admittedly it's one of those "quirky" shows, so if that's not your thing you might not like it, but seriously. Just check it out.
If it gets cancelled I will be very sad, particularly in a season where that janky new 90210 is popular. That would be wrong in every possible way. All I'm sayin'
If it gets cancelled I will be very sad, particularly in a season where that janky new 90210 is popular. That would be wrong in every possible way. All I'm sayin'
Monday, September 29, 2008
Do yourself a favor
and go to Alisa's blog. She's always putting up fabulous recipes and home decorating ideas, and it's lots of fun. But seriously, homegirl is a freakin' GOURMET.
Last weekend we were celebrating a birthday in our little group, and Alisa made this. It was so unbelievably good I decided that I would go out on a limb and try to make it myself from the recipe on her blog. Which I did tonight. It was actually a pretty fast thing to make and it's DELICIOUS. I won't lie, mine is not even close to as good as hers, but it's still tasty and I filled up two tupperware containers which will provide lunch for the next two days. Woop!
This is how mine looked (hers was also way prettier):
And coupled with a glass of wine (yea, I'm classy with my $9.99 wine) should make for an excellent TV watching night. Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Heroes. I'm giving Heroes a chance to hold my attention this season, after what we'll say was a subpar plot choice for season 2.
Last weekend we were celebrating a birthday in our little group, and Alisa made this. It was so unbelievably good I decided that I would go out on a limb and try to make it myself from the recipe on her blog. Which I did tonight. It was actually a pretty fast thing to make and it's DELICIOUS. I won't lie, mine is not even close to as good as hers, but it's still tasty and I filled up two tupperware containers which will provide lunch for the next two days. Woop!
This is how mine looked (hers was also way prettier):
And coupled with a glass of wine (yea, I'm classy with my $9.99 wine) should make for an excellent TV watching night. Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and Heroes. I'm giving Heroes a chance to hold my attention this season, after what we'll say was a subpar plot choice for season 2.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Season Premieresssssss!
So, yea. Got a little carried away with the s' there, I'm not sure what happend. But you'll also note that I'm too lazy to go back and fix it.
At any rate, as I'm sure you're well aware, last night was the 2 hour season premiere Grey's Anatomy spectacular of bloody medical drama.
I pretty much loved it. I thought the trio of ladies who came in from the limo accident were all very good and I loved the scene when Kathy Baker was exclaiming over one of the men they brought in only to find out later that he wasn't actually her husband, just her best friend's husband who she'd been having an affair with. Shame on you, Kathy Baker! (and can I just quickly tell you how much I love her now that she's moved from the 'crazy mom' to the 'interesting older lady' character? She used to always play someone's crazy mom or something. I didn't love it)
This may be sacrilege to Shonda Rhimes, but I'm just not sure how I feel about the army guy. I think it's a good idea for a character and I definitely think it's about time Christina got some play, I just don't know about that actor. Did anyone else find it wooden and awkward (and maybe even a little creepy) when he said, "YEA, SO" while he was getting out of the ambulance and the chief asked him if he really trached (sp?) a guy with a ballpoint pen? I don't know, delivery was off or something and it just set the tone all wrong for me. Maybe I'm being nitpicky. Wouldn't be the first time.
I did like the whole Christina impaled by an icicle situation. I like seeing her as the patient when she's bossing everyone around and being rude as opposed to season two when she had the ectopic pregnancy and spent an entire episode crying. This was way better.
I'm super glad Rose is gone, but I did think it was kind of anticlimactic that she just up and went to pediatrics after basically stabbing Derek in the middle of an operation. Yea yea "accident" whatever, she is a scrub nurse and she should know better, I think she should have gotten in trouble. But then this is Grey's Anatomy and Izzie got to keep her job after cutting some guy's LVAD wire and almost killing him, so I guess they can't really punish Rose for scratching some guy's hand, right?
Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good episode and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season (at least the closest thing we got to trying to save a deer this time was Derek telling Meredith that she was like a deer), but I'm a little bitter that it'll be two weeks before there's another new episode. I am not much of one for waiting.
Now then, obviously since I watched Grey's live yesterday, I had to wait until today to watch The Office online. It was a tough call, especially when Toni called and invited me over to watch with her. I wanted to go, but I knew that I would just end up trying to jump into Grey's in the middle and then I would get frustrated that I didn't know what was going on. Anyway, now that I've seen The Office, here are my thoughts:
I just really never get tired of Jim & Pam. They're so super cute and the whole proposing at the rest stop lunch meet-up because he couldn't stand waiting any longer might be the cutest thing ever.
The rest of the episode was quite excellent, but I gotta be honest, the only thing that really stands out for me is the engagement thing. Loved it.
And the only other thing I have to say is hooray for the weekend, it could not have come soon enough!
At any rate, as I'm sure you're well aware, last night was the 2 hour season premiere Grey's Anatomy spectacular of bloody medical drama.
I pretty much loved it. I thought the trio of ladies who came in from the limo accident were all very good and I loved the scene when Kathy Baker was exclaiming over one of the men they brought in only to find out later that he wasn't actually her husband, just her best friend's husband who she'd been having an affair with. Shame on you, Kathy Baker! (and can I just quickly tell you how much I love her now that she's moved from the 'crazy mom' to the 'interesting older lady' character? She used to always play someone's crazy mom or something. I didn't love it)
This may be sacrilege to Shonda Rhimes, but I'm just not sure how I feel about the army guy. I think it's a good idea for a character and I definitely think it's about time Christina got some play, I just don't know about that actor. Did anyone else find it wooden and awkward (and maybe even a little creepy) when he said, "YEA, SO" while he was getting out of the ambulance and the chief asked him if he really trached (sp?) a guy with a ballpoint pen? I don't know, delivery was off or something and it just set the tone all wrong for me. Maybe I'm being nitpicky. Wouldn't be the first time.
I did like the whole Christina impaled by an icicle situation. I like seeing her as the patient when she's bossing everyone around and being rude as opposed to season two when she had the ectopic pregnancy and spent an entire episode crying. This was way better.
I'm super glad Rose is gone, but I did think it was kind of anticlimactic that she just up and went to pediatrics after basically stabbing Derek in the middle of an operation. Yea yea "accident" whatever, she is a scrub nurse and she should know better, I think she should have gotten in trouble. But then this is Grey's Anatomy and Izzie got to keep her job after cutting some guy's LVAD wire and almost killing him, so I guess they can't really punish Rose for scratching some guy's hand, right?
Anyway, I thought it was a pretty good episode and I'm looking forward to the rest of the season (at least the closest thing we got to trying to save a deer this time was Derek telling Meredith that she was like a deer), but I'm a little bitter that it'll be two weeks before there's another new episode. I am not much of one for waiting.
Now then, obviously since I watched Grey's live yesterday, I had to wait until today to watch The Office online. It was a tough call, especially when Toni called and invited me over to watch with her. I wanted to go, but I knew that I would just end up trying to jump into Grey's in the middle and then I would get frustrated that I didn't know what was going on. Anyway, now that I've seen The Office, here are my thoughts:
I just really never get tired of Jim & Pam. They're so super cute and the whole proposing at the rest stop lunch meet-up because he couldn't stand waiting any longer might be the cutest thing ever.
The rest of the episode was quite excellent, but I gotta be honest, the only thing that really stands out for me is the engagement thing. Loved it.
And the only other thing I have to say is hooray for the weekend, it could not have come soon enough!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
woop!
Two hour season premiere of Grey's tonight!
And I can only hope that will be enough to get me through the next 8 hours.
Longest. Week. Ever.
And I can only hope that will be enough to get me through the next 8 hours.
Longest. Week. Ever.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Ink'd
Hello again.
So, earlier I thought I wasn't going to post about this because I didn't want my parents to flip out or anything, and I was going to just ease them into the idea, but then I thought, eh? I've already moved 5 states away on what basically boiled down to a whim, so after that there's probably not much that will phase them. Might as well just rip the band-aid.
(though I did tell them ahead of time and warn them it was going up in a post. I don't like secrets, but I also don't like to induce strokes just for shock value)
I got a tattoo yesterday! Now, here's the story: I picked out this tattoo when I was 18, newly arrived at college and wanting to be a rebel (because, you know, it's not like every other 18 year old college student gets a tattoo). The thing is, I never actually did it because a) I was afraid that 5 minutes after I got it I would hate it, b) I couldn't justify the cost , and c) I am a total chicken. Cut to 9 years later, I have never wavered in the design I wanted, and Alisa's boyfriend is a talented tattoo artist who stubbornly refused to take my money, so I sucked it up on the pain front and bit the bullet!
This is the process:
This is the finished product (well, the color is a little off because it bled kind of a lot):
And this is what it looks like today (see how the color is so much better?):
The today shot is a little farther away because it was brought to my attention that it's hard to tell how big it is in the close-up pictures. It's in a spot that is easily and usually covered with clothing, so you really can't see it unless I want you to (don't you feel special that I want you to see it?) yet it's not in a place that's completely indecent. The tricky part is that for the first few days I have to clean it and put this ointment on it several times a day and due to the placement on my back I have to do this interesting twisting maneuver in order to do that and I won't miss it when that was no longer required. :)
Oh, and it's a little star guy from the Care Bears. They live up in the cloud city. Specifically, it's this little guy, minus the Easter Egg he's holding:
Cheesy? Yes. Do I love it anyway? Yes. Stars are my favorite shape and this is really just a friendly little star. What could be better?
I love it! (and my parents both took it like champs, thanks guys!)
So, earlier I thought I wasn't going to post about this because I didn't want my parents to flip out or anything, and I was going to just ease them into the idea, but then I thought, eh? I've already moved 5 states away on what basically boiled down to a whim, so after that there's probably not much that will phase them. Might as well just rip the band-aid.
(though I did tell them ahead of time and warn them it was going up in a post. I don't like secrets, but I also don't like to induce strokes just for shock value)
I got a tattoo yesterday! Now, here's the story: I picked out this tattoo when I was 18, newly arrived at college and wanting to be a rebel (because, you know, it's not like every other 18 year old college student gets a tattoo). The thing is, I never actually did it because a) I was afraid that 5 minutes after I got it I would hate it, b) I couldn't justify the cost , and c) I am a total chicken. Cut to 9 years later, I have never wavered in the design I wanted, and Alisa's boyfriend is a talented tattoo artist who stubbornly refused to take my money, so I sucked it up on the pain front and bit the bullet!
This is the process:
This is the finished product (well, the color is a little off because it bled kind of a lot):
And this is what it looks like today (see how the color is so much better?):
Oh, and it's a little star guy from the Care Bears. They live up in the cloud city. Specifically, it's this little guy, minus the Easter Egg he's holding:
Cheesy? Yes. Do I love it anyway? Yes. Stars are my favorite shape and this is really just a friendly little star. What could be better?
I love it! (and my parents both took it like champs, thanks guys!)
just a quickie
So yes, I'm aware that it's been awhile. But I was on vacation and then birthday celebrating, Rock Band playing, recovering, and having my brain fried repeatedly at work.
The brain frying is still taking place at a level which is making me sort of hate my life from 9am-5pm Monday - Friday, but that's fine. It's only temporary, right? I hope?
Anyway, I am spending a lot of time hating feeling like I'm wrong ALL THE TIME at work NO MATTER WHAT. And yes, I'm having a bad morning.
The real point of this super short post is to celebrate the return of all new TV! How I Met Your Mother premiers tonight! Yay! At least there will be something to look forward to in this @$^#%$!@ day. :)
The brain frying is still taking place at a level which is making me sort of hate my life from 9am-5pm Monday - Friday, but that's fine. It's only temporary, right? I hope?
Anyway, I am spending a lot of time hating feeling like I'm wrong ALL THE TIME at work NO MATTER WHAT. And yes, I'm having a bad morning.
The real point of this super short post is to celebrate the return of all new TV! How I Met Your Mother premiers tonight! Yay! At least there will be something to look forward to in this @$^#%$!@ day. :)
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
spotted
Spotted: One super creepy kid (teenage) who rides the train with his parents and sits unreasonably close to other people with his super creepy extra-long fingernails. Said individual is oblivious to other passengers trying to avoid excessive contact with strangers on the train and only leans in further when said passenger tries to move away. Weird teen seems to see other people as pieces of furniture, and not as strangers that should not be touched if possible.
Spotted: One older, balding, uber-curly haired man with the general look of a computer programmer from 1995 talking very loudly on his cell phone at a crowded bus stop. Snippet of conversation overheard: "well, she's...I don't want to say promiscuous (icky chuckle) but... she's 'free'." Several passengers standing around said individual seen sharing looks and raised eyebrows at said man's choice of location for his very public conversation. Man seemed rather dirty and creepy to be talking in such a judgy manner about other people (this author totally realizes the hypocrisy of judging people for being judgy, and she's surprisingly ok with it).
Spotted: One body building, quite probably roided up (based on the strange hair growth and body acne) wearing a shirt that says "The police just pulled me over for carrying these guns" with arrows pointing to his arms. The sleeves of this gentleman's shirt were cut off so that it was more of a muscle shirt exposing an amount of chest that could be described as overly intimate at best when one is in a situation where it's possible one will have to touch other people. Skin on skin contact is to be avoided at all costs (unless you're carrying around "guns", apparently). Man blasting "Billie Jean" on his iPod and other passengers spotted avoiding eye contact at all costs to avoid laughing.
It's been a good couple of weeks on the MBTA. :)
Spotted: One older, balding, uber-curly haired man with the general look of a computer programmer from 1995 talking very loudly on his cell phone at a crowded bus stop. Snippet of conversation overheard: "well, she's...I don't want to say promiscuous (icky chuckle) but... she's 'free'." Several passengers standing around said individual seen sharing looks and raised eyebrows at said man's choice of location for his very public conversation. Man seemed rather dirty and creepy to be talking in such a judgy manner about other people (this author totally realizes the hypocrisy of judging people for being judgy, and she's surprisingly ok with it).
Spotted: One body building, quite probably roided up (based on the strange hair growth and body acne) wearing a shirt that says "The police just pulled me over for carrying these guns" with arrows pointing to his arms. The sleeves of this gentleman's shirt were cut off so that it was more of a muscle shirt exposing an amount of chest that could be described as overly intimate at best when one is in a situation where it's possible one will have to touch other people. Skin on skin contact is to be avoided at all costs (unless you're carrying around "guns", apparently). Man blasting "Billie Jean" on his iPod and other passengers spotted avoiding eye contact at all costs to avoid laughing.
It's been a good couple of weeks on the MBTA. :)
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Quest
So next weekend I'm going to a wedding. Something new and different for me, I know. :)
Anyway, I have this new dress that I will be wearing, it's black and white, it's very cute.
I decided that what this new dress really needed was a pair of new shoes to go with it. I had something very specific in mind. I wanted a pair of burgundy colored, patent leather pumps with a round toe (with my freak toes, I can't pull off the pointy shoe). I thought that would be the perfect amount of color to go with the dress. I figured that as per usual, because there was something so specific in my head, there was absolutely no way I'd find anything close to what I wanted. I was prepared for this inevitability.
After work I went to DSW to see what I could find and imagine my shock when suddenly, there they were. The exact pair of shoes I had in my head, albeit with a slightly higher heel. They were perfect, they were glorious. They were $170.
My poor little heart sank. In my endeavor to be more fiscally responsible, there's really no way I could justify spending $170 on such a specific pair of shoes that I probably wouldn't get that much wear out of. I forced myself to put them down and search the rest of the store. I searched the entire first floor, the special occasion shoes, the everyday shoes, the flats, nothing caught my eye. I went up to the second level and searched the entire clearance room, there was nothing. I searched the first floor again. There were a few pairs that were similar and probably would have worked, but nothing as perfect as that first pair. I decided that I might as well just try them on at this point, what was the harm in that (dangerously close to convincing myself to spend the money)? It's probably a good thing that I did, actually. The heels were just a little too high and as I'm pretty clumsy without 4 inches of heel, I decided that was the final nail in the beatiful shoe coffin.
Happily, I was able to console myself with these classy babies:
They won't go with the dress, obviously but they're just so adorable! I decided I couldn't possibly be expected to live without them. Maybe not the perfect fairy tale ending to this particular shoe tale, but a good one nonetheless. And let's be honest, it's not exactly like I'm lacking in shoes, I'll definitely be able to find something to wear with my dress.
Anyway, I have this new dress that I will be wearing, it's black and white, it's very cute.
I decided that what this new dress really needed was a pair of new shoes to go with it. I had something very specific in mind. I wanted a pair of burgundy colored, patent leather pumps with a round toe (with my freak toes, I can't pull off the pointy shoe). I thought that would be the perfect amount of color to go with the dress. I figured that as per usual, because there was something so specific in my head, there was absolutely no way I'd find anything close to what I wanted. I was prepared for this inevitability.
After work I went to DSW to see what I could find and imagine my shock when suddenly, there they were. The exact pair of shoes I had in my head, albeit with a slightly higher heel. They were perfect, they were glorious. They were $170.
My poor little heart sank. In my endeavor to be more fiscally responsible, there's really no way I could justify spending $170 on such a specific pair of shoes that I probably wouldn't get that much wear out of. I forced myself to put them down and search the rest of the store. I searched the entire first floor, the special occasion shoes, the everyday shoes, the flats, nothing caught my eye. I went up to the second level and searched the entire clearance room, there was nothing. I searched the first floor again. There were a few pairs that were similar and probably would have worked, but nothing as perfect as that first pair. I decided that I might as well just try them on at this point, what was the harm in that (dangerously close to convincing myself to spend the money)? It's probably a good thing that I did, actually. The heels were just a little too high and as I'm pretty clumsy without 4 inches of heel, I decided that was the final nail in the beatiful shoe coffin.
Happily, I was able to console myself with these classy babies:
They won't go with the dress, obviously but they're just so adorable! I decided I couldn't possibly be expected to live without them. Maybe not the perfect fairy tale ending to this particular shoe tale, but a good one nonetheless. And let's be honest, it's not exactly like I'm lacking in shoes, I'll definitely be able to find something to wear with my dress.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Randomness
So, remember that book I was reading last week? Yea. Pretty much as bad as I anticipated, but not for the reason I expected. In my opinion, it's not the best idea to write a fluffy chick-lit book and include sentences like "the ability to oscillate between obstreperous conviviality and sententiousness was one of the prerequisites for being elected class president." Um, I'm sorry but are you serious? Who talks like that? It's one thing to need a dictionary when you're reading literature or a textbook or something, but a $4.98 clearance girlie book? No wonder it was on the clearance shelf, lady. Yikes. I mean, I'd like to think that I have a fairly respectable vocabulary, but here are the words I had to look up in order to make sure I knew them in just that one sentence (courtesy of my American Heritage Dictionary which I have a large degree of fondness for):
obstreperous: noisily and stubbornly defiant
conviviality: fondness of social pleasures
sententiousness (which I would like to point out that firefox doesn't recognize as a word): 1. Terse and energetic in expression; pithy. 2. Given to pompous moralizing
It would be one thing to use these in an ironic way in this one instance, but it was like this for the WHOLE BOOK. Ugh. It wouldn't have been a terrible story if the author wasn't trying so hard to prove she was smarter than most of the people who would be interested in reading her book.
Labor Day was lots of fun, there was an abundance of badminton. Which I'm pretty sure I haven't played in years, but I forgot how much I love it. It might be one of the funnest games ever. Sadly, my feet may be permanently grass stained. After two days of scrubbing I've got most of it out, but there is still a greenish tint to the bottoms of my feet. Yuck. Also, I'm sore in places that haven't been sore since I quit softball due to all the diving and falling and tripping and sliding. Yea, when I play badminton it's a very physical game. Or I'm just really uncoordinated. You choose.
I'm so excited about the return of new TV, but can we discuss the new 90210 for a minute? Um.....wow. I did not enjoy it. I didn't watch the original when new episodes were airing (because I wasn't allowed, my parents were very mean ;) ) but during college and various stints in unemployment I became a fan. When the only bit of dialogue that stands out is this:
mean curly haired girl: are you breaking up with me?
emo lacrosse player boyfriend: I'm breaking up with us.
You may have some problems. Now, I'm willing to give it another week or so because the guys that are writing it have done good work in the past (Freaks and Geeks) and I'm hoping they can step it up. I try to keep an open mind, because if you go back and watch the very first few episodes of lots of popular series they aren't very good. I'm hoping they just need to find their flow or something. Also, can I just say seriously? Could the girls on that show be any skinnier? I don't think they could. Yikes. I'm afraid that most of them are going to fall over due to the disproportionate weight of their hair.
Gossip Girl, on the other hand. Excellent season premiere. It's good to know that I can get my over priveledged, unrealistic high school soap opera fix somewhere this television season. :) Last season I totally hated Blair, this season so far she is my new hero.
obstreperous: noisily and stubbornly defiant
conviviality: fondness of social pleasures
sententiousness (which I would like to point out that firefox doesn't recognize as a word): 1. Terse and energetic in expression; pithy. 2. Given to pompous moralizing
It would be one thing to use these in an ironic way in this one instance, but it was like this for the WHOLE BOOK. Ugh. It wouldn't have been a terrible story if the author wasn't trying so hard to prove she was smarter than most of the people who would be interested in reading her book.
Labor Day was lots of fun, there was an abundance of badminton. Which I'm pretty sure I haven't played in years, but I forgot how much I love it. It might be one of the funnest games ever. Sadly, my feet may be permanently grass stained. After two days of scrubbing I've got most of it out, but there is still a greenish tint to the bottoms of my feet. Yuck. Also, I'm sore in places that haven't been sore since I quit softball due to all the diving and falling and tripping and sliding. Yea, when I play badminton it's a very physical game. Or I'm just really uncoordinated. You choose.
I'm so excited about the return of new TV, but can we discuss the new 90210 for a minute? Um.....wow. I did not enjoy it. I didn't watch the original when new episodes were airing (because I wasn't allowed, my parents were very mean ;) ) but during college and various stints in unemployment I became a fan. When the only bit of dialogue that stands out is this:
mean curly haired girl: are you breaking up with me?
emo lacrosse player boyfriend: I'm breaking up with us.
You may have some problems. Now, I'm willing to give it another week or so because the guys that are writing it have done good work in the past (Freaks and Geeks) and I'm hoping they can step it up. I try to keep an open mind, because if you go back and watch the very first few episodes of lots of popular series they aren't very good. I'm hoping they just need to find their flow or something. Also, can I just say seriously? Could the girls on that show be any skinnier? I don't think they could. Yikes. I'm afraid that most of them are going to fall over due to the disproportionate weight of their hair.
Gossip Girl, on the other hand. Excellent season premiere. It's good to know that I can get my over priveledged, unrealistic high school soap opera fix somewhere this television season. :) Last season I totally hated Blair, this season so far she is my new hero.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The all Jane Austen, all the time blog post
(ok, not really, I promise)
So today's title comes from the movie (and possibly the book, I can't remember) The Jane Austen Book Club. Lest I be accused of not giving credit where credit is due.
I spend a lot of my time in bookstores, being a lover of reading and having to literally walk right past a Barnes & Noble on my way home (which I really needed in addition to my eBay habit and my Amazon habit. Crap). An ever increasing number of the books I see in my perusals are some variation on a Jane Austen theme, and many of them even have Jane Austen in the title. To date I have purposely avoided these books, because I figure they will simply be fluffy stupid things that I will hate reading and I will just get mad that the book was even published in the first place.
Anyway. Yesterday I was at B&N trying to use up the rest of my birthday gift card and I bought this book from the clearance shelf called Jane Austen in Scarsdale or: Love, Death, and the SATs. I know. Not a promising title, right? Yea, I'm pretty sure it will be exactly the kind of book I described above, but here's why I bought it. It's the only one of these I've seen that's based on Persuasion, which is my favorite Jane Austen book. I feel like it's generally overlooked, which is unfortunate. Everyone likes Pride & Prejudice or Emma or Sense and Sensibility (I like them too, don't get me wrong) and those are the ones that generally get adapted or "expanded" upon (have you seen all those books that are supposedly about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy after they get married? Ugh.). As for me, I've always identified more with Persuasion, I'm a big fan of the whole second chance, fixing the mistakes of your youth, etc. If you haven't read it, check it out.
So, I bought the book because it was $4 and even if it's terrible it'll keep me distracted on the subway. I'll let you know.
My other story for the day is about this jacka** sitting next to HG and I at this restauarant on Tuesday. I can't believe I forgot about him the other day, but it came back to me in full force today. So we're sitting there, enjoying the nice evening and enjoying the patio atmosphere and after a fashion this really loud, abrasive sound comes up behind us. It was this guy, shouting to his friends repeatedly that he couldn't see them. He yelled it every time they waved to him. It was like this:
wave
"No, I can't see you!"
wave
"Nope, still can't see you!"
At that time I was thinking to myself, "oh geez, this guy is super loud and really obnoxious. I really hope he's not coming here."
Well, obviously he was coming to eat at the same place. With a big group of people. Who had apparently been drinking for the last 4 hours. They sat at the table next to us and this guy was seriously so loud that I couldn't hear myself talking, let alone HG. They ordered like 4 pitchers of sangria (because clearly their level of drunk at 6:00 on a Tuesday was not drunk enough) and kept getting louder and louder, and louder.
And then they pulled out a deck of cards. At a restaurant. To play drinking games. I don't know the game they were playing, but our friend Loud Guy was in charge apparently and he was trying to keep everyone honest. It went something like this:
"Hey. Hey that's two points. Hey you got two points. OH YOU HAVE TO DRINK! Pick a partner and you both have to drink. I'm going to explain the rules. I have the same card as you. Oh I have to drink. Oh man. Oh hey let's play Euchre. No, you can play with 8 people! Everyone wants to play! Everyone knows how to play! WE'RE PLAYING!"
It was at this point that I turned to HG and said, "um, it's time to go before I turn around and punch this guy in his face. Seriously."
And on that note, I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!
So today's title comes from the movie (and possibly the book, I can't remember) The Jane Austen Book Club. Lest I be accused of not giving credit where credit is due.
I spend a lot of my time in bookstores, being a lover of reading and having to literally walk right past a Barnes & Noble on my way home (which I really needed in addition to my eBay habit and my Amazon habit. Crap). An ever increasing number of the books I see in my perusals are some variation on a Jane Austen theme, and many of them even have Jane Austen in the title. To date I have purposely avoided these books, because I figure they will simply be fluffy stupid things that I will hate reading and I will just get mad that the book was even published in the first place.
Anyway. Yesterday I was at B&N trying to use up the rest of my birthday gift card and I bought this book from the clearance shelf called Jane Austen in Scarsdale or: Love, Death, and the SATs. I know. Not a promising title, right? Yea, I'm pretty sure it will be exactly the kind of book I described above, but here's why I bought it. It's the only one of these I've seen that's based on Persuasion, which is my favorite Jane Austen book. I feel like it's generally overlooked, which is unfortunate. Everyone likes Pride & Prejudice or Emma or Sense and Sensibility (I like them too, don't get me wrong) and those are the ones that generally get adapted or "expanded" upon (have you seen all those books that are supposedly about Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy after they get married? Ugh.). As for me, I've always identified more with Persuasion, I'm a big fan of the whole second chance, fixing the mistakes of your youth, etc. If you haven't read it, check it out.
So, I bought the book because it was $4 and even if it's terrible it'll keep me distracted on the subway. I'll let you know.
My other story for the day is about this jacka** sitting next to HG and I at this restauarant on Tuesday. I can't believe I forgot about him the other day, but it came back to me in full force today. So we're sitting there, enjoying the nice evening and enjoying the patio atmosphere and after a fashion this really loud, abrasive sound comes up behind us. It was this guy, shouting to his friends repeatedly that he couldn't see them. He yelled it every time they waved to him. It was like this:
wave
"No, I can't see you!"
wave
"Nope, still can't see you!"
At that time I was thinking to myself, "oh geez, this guy is super loud and really obnoxious. I really hope he's not coming here."
Well, obviously he was coming to eat at the same place. With a big group of people. Who had apparently been drinking for the last 4 hours. They sat at the table next to us and this guy was seriously so loud that I couldn't hear myself talking, let alone HG. They ordered like 4 pitchers of sangria (because clearly their level of drunk at 6:00 on a Tuesday was not drunk enough) and kept getting louder and louder, and louder.
And then they pulled out a deck of cards. At a restaurant. To play drinking games. I don't know the game they were playing, but our friend Loud Guy was in charge apparently and he was trying to keep everyone honest. It went something like this:
"Hey. Hey that's two points. Hey you got two points. OH YOU HAVE TO DRINK! Pick a partner and you both have to drink. I'm going to explain the rules. I have the same card as you. Oh I have to drink. Oh man. Oh hey let's play Euchre. No, you can play with 8 people! Everyone wants to play! Everyone knows how to play! WE'RE PLAYING!"
It was at this point that I turned to HG and said, "um, it's time to go before I turn around and punch this guy in his face. Seriously."
And on that note, I hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
A distraction from the fact that I have nothing to say
Because I'm so clearly lame and so clearly have nothing interesting to say, here are some random photos to share with you:
My favorite flowers, white roses (which were given to me for my birthday and got better looking as the week went on - yes this photo is from June):
The State House, where the governor of Massachusetts does his business (wait, that came out wrong. He works there) taken while sent out on an errand at work one day in July:
One of the cupcakes from a friend's bridal shower (they were both fancy AND tasty! Also from July):
Hmm, maybe I should take some current pictures? Maybe I should find my camera?
And there you have it. This weekend we say farewell to HG who is returning to his favorite city to finish up school after an extended internship in Beantown. He could not possibly be happier to leave, and I have to say I won't miss the constant comparisons between NYC and Boston with Boston always coming up short. But I will miss him, the social circle will be noticeably smaller.
In other news, my brain is mush after work most days, which will probably continue for the foreseeable future. Once things settle down a little, I promise, I will be better. But at the same time, I don't have a lot to report because other than work I don't do much!
My favorite flowers, white roses (which were given to me for my birthday and got better looking as the week went on - yes this photo is from June):
The State House, where the governor of Massachusetts does his business (wait, that came out wrong. He works there) taken while sent out on an errand at work one day in July:
One of the cupcakes from a friend's bridal shower (they were both fancy AND tasty! Also from July):
Hmm, maybe I should take some current pictures? Maybe I should find my camera?
And there you have it. This weekend we say farewell to HG who is returning to his favorite city to finish up school after an extended internship in Beantown. He could not possibly be happier to leave, and I have to say I won't miss the constant comparisons between NYC and Boston with Boston always coming up short. But I will miss him, the social circle will be noticeably smaller.
In other news, my brain is mush after work most days, which will probably continue for the foreseeable future. Once things settle down a little, I promise, I will be better. But at the same time, I don't have a lot to report because other than work I don't do much!
Monday, August 18, 2008
ugggghhhhh
I killed it.
There was beige stuff all over the flipflop when I was finished. I knew it was some kind of mutant bug. I had to hit it SIX TIMES.
I might never come into this room again.
There was beige stuff all over the flipflop when I was finished. I knew it was some kind of mutant bug. I had to hit it SIX TIMES.
I might never come into this room again.
Help!
Ok seriously another giant killer bug just started flying around my living room. It's currently taking refuge behind my DVD shelf. I'm terrified. This thing could murder me in my sleep and in fact it may have been biting my feet in my sleep for the last few days.
If you don't hear from me in a few days, please send help.
If you don't hear from me in a few days, please send help.
I had a weird day. All morning I felt like something terrible was about to happen, when in reality it just ended up meaning that work was going to suck. So after work I went to see Tropic Thunder which didn't suck nearly as much as I expected it to and then I met up with HG for a quick slice and a beer. I did get a free small soda at the movie, so that was pretty cool.
Alisa has the fabulous tale of my Friday night, which was pretty spectacular. Saturday night we did more boy friendly things (read: watched the Olympics and drank gin) so we all hung out together.
And now I feel like I need to give in and write about the hyper addictive series known as Twilight. If you look to the side at what I've been reading, you can see that they feature prominently. I resisted and resisted them, I see these things all over facebook about them and I didn't know much of what they were about and it seemed pretty annoying and weird and I wanted no part of it. But then I saw the trailer for the movie and I was like, welllllll....I kind of want to see the movie and so I should probably read the books. So I bought them all on amazon and pretty much dedicated the last week and a half to reading them. All. Twice. Yea. I spent the entire day Saturday inside my apartment to read the 4th one and I told everyone not to bother me all day so that I could stay in my undisturbed cocoon of vampire love. Yikes.
I don't know if they put crack in the pages or what, but wow. Those are some crazy books. I'm a little ashamed to say that I totally loved them, but then again, you all know how I love Harry Potter and other such children's/young adult's books so it can't be that surprising.
So, yea. Read them all. Twice. In a week and a half. And now I'm feeling a serious Twilight hangover. Aaaand this is why I don't have a life. :)
Alisa has the fabulous tale of my Friday night, which was pretty spectacular. Saturday night we did more boy friendly things (read: watched the Olympics and drank gin) so we all hung out together.
And now I feel like I need to give in and write about the hyper addictive series known as Twilight. If you look to the side at what I've been reading, you can see that they feature prominently. I resisted and resisted them, I see these things all over facebook about them and I didn't know much of what they were about and it seemed pretty annoying and weird and I wanted no part of it. But then I saw the trailer for the movie and I was like, welllllll....I kind of want to see the movie and so I should probably read the books. So I bought them all on amazon and pretty much dedicated the last week and a half to reading them. All. Twice. Yea. I spent the entire day Saturday inside my apartment to read the 4th one and I told everyone not to bother me all day so that I could stay in my undisturbed cocoon of vampire love. Yikes.
I don't know if they put crack in the pages or what, but wow. Those are some crazy books. I'm a little ashamed to say that I totally loved them, but then again, you all know how I love Harry Potter and other such children's/young adult's books so it can't be that surprising.
So, yea. Read them all. Twice. In a week and a half. And now I'm feeling a serious Twilight hangover. Aaaand this is why I don't have a life. :)
Monday, August 11, 2008
Really weird bad luck
Over the weekend, I was taking a walk around my neighborhood and while simply attempting to step up a curb, I managed to somehow smash only the middle toe of my left foot. This is especially weird because I have these freaky toes that are all the same length, so it seems as though if I were going to smash one, I'd smash them all, right?
But look:
(I told you my toes were freaky.) Only the middle one. Bruised, a little scraped and swollen on the side (which you can't see in the picture as it's hidden by my other toe). Anyway, all weekend I continued wearing my flip flops or going barefoot and since it was rainy I spent a lot of time in my apartment reading. Then today I put on regular shoes so that people wouldn't have to look at my freaky toes (except you guys. Don't you feel special?). Yea, it kind of hurt. Stupid toes. And I know you love the flip flop tan lines and the super bright toenail polish.
After work today I stopped at CVS because in myobsession concern about my pores I needed to buy more pore strips (again, aren't you guys so happy about all the fun things I'm sharing today?), where I purchased both strips and a package of facial masks. I was all excited about a deep pore cleansing evening until I opened the package of pore strips and SOME JACKASS HAD GONE THROUGH THEM IN THE STORE AND TAKEN OUT ALL THE STRIPS. They left the little instruction packet in there so I could still feel stuff rattling around and didn't realize that it was empty. It makes me so furious when people do stupid things like that. So now I have to go back to the store tomorrow and convince them that I did not remove all the strips and then attempt to cheat the store. Stupid stupid shoplifters. And of course the thing that really gets to me is that I must have picked up like 4 boxes trying to find one that didn't look tampered with. Of course.
Anyway, to round this out, here's another gratuitous picture of the view from my window on a sunny day, simply because we haven't seen much sun around here in the last couple of weeks and I miss it:
But look:
(I told you my toes were freaky.) Only the middle one. Bruised, a little scraped and swollen on the side (which you can't see in the picture as it's hidden by my other toe). Anyway, all weekend I continued wearing my flip flops or going barefoot and since it was rainy I spent a lot of time in my apartment reading. Then today I put on regular shoes so that people wouldn't have to look at my freaky toes (except you guys. Don't you feel special?). Yea, it kind of hurt. Stupid toes. And I know you love the flip flop tan lines and the super bright toenail polish.
After work today I stopped at CVS because in my
Anyway, to round this out, here's another gratuitous picture of the view from my window on a sunny day, simply because we haven't seen much sun around here in the last couple of weeks and I miss it:
Friday, August 08, 2008
Yea, so...
So Tuesday at work I had my annual performance review. I have to say I wasn't exactly looking forward to it because a) who looks forward to a performance review and b) I had gotten quite the verbal smackdown in the middle of June for my behavior/work/attitude/whatever. I was hoping that it wouldn't just be a rehashing of all that business, but I couldn't be quite sure.
I would like to take the opportunity right now to also tell you that having to fill out your own self evaluation is both stupid and pointless. Can you explain to me how my evaluation of myself will have any effect whatsoever on what my boss thinks of me? Will it change my changes of getting a raise? Will it change her mind if she thinks I've been slacking in a certain area and I think I haven't? Will we even go over what I thought of myself? The answer to all of these questions is no. Self evaluation, while a good thing to do in your real life, is simply busy work when it comes to your job, in my opinion.
Anyway, I'm happy to report that I did not receive another verbal lashing, and that on the whole they still seem quite taken with me, which is always nice to hear.
Then I opened my big mouth and said that I was finding myself with a couple of hours a week with not much to do, and that that was perhaps not the best use of my time if I could be doing other stuff to help take the workload/stressload off of some other people. My boss took it under advisement and said that in the coming months she would see what came up and then see if it was something I'd be interested in. I figured, fair enough, works for me.
Enter Wednesday morning. Said boss says to me, "do you have a free minute? Can you come into my office and shut the door?" At this my heart immediately sank into my kneecaps and I said, "uhoh." In my experience the sentence, "can you come in and shut the door?" has never been followed by something good. Until now. I shut the door and she offered me a new opportunity and a whole lot more responsibility. I accepted, and I'm happy to say that it came with a fairly generous raise in my salary which is always welcome.
But seriously, I'm so incredibly tired right now. That was perhaps the three busiest days of my working life. Ever. With no sign of a slow down. Now, given the alternative of sitting at my desk and organizing things for the 2465754452th time, I'll take being ridiculously busy. But at the moment I'm still sort of stunned at how quickly things changed, trying to figure out how this new role will fit into my old one, and basically just trying to catch my breath.
It's been a week, I'll tell you that.
I would like to take the opportunity right now to also tell you that having to fill out your own self evaluation is both stupid and pointless. Can you explain to me how my evaluation of myself will have any effect whatsoever on what my boss thinks of me? Will it change my changes of getting a raise? Will it change her mind if she thinks I've been slacking in a certain area and I think I haven't? Will we even go over what I thought of myself? The answer to all of these questions is no. Self evaluation, while a good thing to do in your real life, is simply busy work when it comes to your job, in my opinion.
Anyway, I'm happy to report that I did not receive another verbal lashing, and that on the whole they still seem quite taken with me, which is always nice to hear.
Then I opened my big mouth and said that I was finding myself with a couple of hours a week with not much to do, and that that was perhaps not the best use of my time if I could be doing other stuff to help take the workload/stressload off of some other people. My boss took it under advisement and said that in the coming months she would see what came up and then see if it was something I'd be interested in. I figured, fair enough, works for me.
Enter Wednesday morning. Said boss says to me, "do you have a free minute? Can you come into my office and shut the door?" At this my heart immediately sank into my kneecaps and I said, "uhoh." In my experience the sentence, "can you come in and shut the door?" has never been followed by something good. Until now. I shut the door and she offered me a new opportunity and a whole lot more responsibility. I accepted, and I'm happy to say that it came with a fairly generous raise in my salary which is always welcome.
But seriously, I'm so incredibly tired right now. That was perhaps the three busiest days of my working life. Ever. With no sign of a slow down. Now, given the alternative of sitting at my desk and organizing things for the 2465754452th time, I'll take being ridiculously busy. But at the moment I'm still sort of stunned at how quickly things changed, trying to figure out how this new role will fit into my old one, and basically just trying to catch my breath.
It's been a week, I'll tell you that.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
yick.
So there.
Now that I’ve concluded the ‘justification for being lame’ portion of this post, I will move right on into this week’s version of ‘why I have a bad attitude on Tuesdays’. I know you’ve all been missing these posts. Don’t lie.
The first reason I have a bad attitude this morning is because my day started off with a battle royale against a gigantic flying bug in my shower. Some of you know how my shower is like the Axis of Evil of my apartment, but recently I had been getting cautiously optimistic that things were turning around. Or at least, it was functioning properly for a change. I should have known it would find a new way to try and ruin my mornings. I have no idea where this thing came from, how it got in there, or even exactly what it is. It looked like some kind of giant mutant moth/ugly butterfly or something. As soon as I saw it sitting on the window sill (and can I please just interject here and ask whose brilliant idea it was to put a giant window inside somebody’s SHOWER? And not up high where the water can’t reach it like you would think. It’s huge, right at normal window height, getting soaked with water all the time and I’m sure the wood on the window sill is completely ruined) I started bombarding it with water because in my head it’s a universal truth that if you see a bug and you are near water, it’s better to drown it than squash it. Plus, this thing was huge and I’m not sure smashing it with my shampoo bottle would have been terribly effective.
Unfortunately, the wings on this monstrosity acted like a suit of armor that protected it from most of the water. Don’t get me wrong, I got a couple good shots in there, I held my own, but I’m pretty sure the thing is still not dead. The best I could really do was get it to hide behind the blinds where I trapped it and continued to throw water at it for another couple of minutes, and then I got out of there as quickly as possible. I’m going to have to come up with a plan of attack for when I get home from work to finish it off. Oh my GOD I hate bugs. It would be worthwhile to me to find a husband just so I never have to deal with another bug as long as I live. But realistically that’s probably not a good enough reason for marriage.Alas. Also, you see? You see how the bugs are out to get me? The attack begins....
Now that I’ve concluded the ‘justification for being lame’ portion of this post, I will move right on into this week’s version of ‘why I have a bad attitude on Tuesdays’. I know you’ve all been missing these posts. Don’t lie.
The first reason I have a bad attitude this morning is because my day started off with a battle royale against a gigantic flying bug in my shower. Some of you know how my shower is like the Axis of Evil of my apartment, but recently I had been getting cautiously optimistic that things were turning around. Or at least, it was functioning properly for a change. I should have known it would find a new way to try and ruin my mornings. I have no idea where this thing came from, how it got in there, or even exactly what it is. It looked like some kind of giant mutant moth/ugly butterfly or something. As soon as I saw it sitting on the window sill (and can I please just interject here and ask whose brilliant idea it was to put a giant window inside somebody’s SHOWER? And not up high where the water can’t reach it like you would think. It’s huge, right at normal window height, getting soaked with water all the time and I’m sure the wood on the window sill is completely ruined) I started bombarding it with water because in my head it’s a universal truth that if you see a bug and you are near water, it’s better to drown it than squash it. Plus, this thing was huge and I’m not sure smashing it with my shampoo bottle would have been terribly effective.
Unfortunately, the wings on this monstrosity acted like a suit of armor that protected it from most of the water. Don’t get me wrong, I got a couple good shots in there, I held my own, but I’m pretty sure the thing is still not dead. The best I could really do was get it to hide behind the blinds where I trapped it and continued to throw water at it for another couple of minutes, and then I got out of there as quickly as possible. I’m going to have to come up with a plan of attack for when I get home from work to finish it off. Oh my GOD I hate bugs. It would be worthwhile to me to find a husband just so I never have to deal with another bug as long as I live. But realistically that’s probably not a good enough reason for marriage.
The second reason I have a bad attitude this Tuesday is every time I see a story about Brett Favre coming out of retirement I want to fly to Louisiana
(have I mentioned that I’m excited football season is around the corner? Because every week in the fall there’s something to do on Sunday afternoons. Yee haw)
So, over the weekend I watched two movies I’d been meaning to see for years but never got around to it: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Rushmore. The first one was really weird, and I’m not exactly sure why it’s a comedy. Didn’t really like it. I like George Clooney as an actor, but I’m not so sure about him as a director (I wasn’t a big fan of Good Night and Good Luck either, but I know it was all critically acclaimed like this one, blah blah blah. I think really it’s just further evidence that movie critics in general are strange people who are basically out of touch with reality and the general public. Then again maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough to like it. Which could be why I’m not a movie critic). It’s like it was too weird to have an opinion about. Rushmore was hilarious, but then again I like Wes Anderson and I think all his movies are pretty great.
(have I mentioned that I’m excited football season is around the corner? Because every week in the fall there’s something to do on Sunday afternoons. Yee haw)
So, over the weekend I watched two movies I’d been meaning to see for years but never got around to it: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Rushmore. The first one was really weird, and I’m not exactly sure why it’s a comedy. Didn’t really like it. I like George Clooney as an actor, but I’m not so sure about him as a director (I wasn’t a big fan of Good Night and Good Luck either, but I know it was all critically acclaimed like this one, blah blah blah. I think really it’s just further evidence that movie critics in general are strange people who are basically out of touch with reality and the general public. Then again maybe I’m just not sophisticated enough to like it. Which could be why I’m not a movie critic). It’s like it was too weird to have an opinion about. Rushmore was hilarious, but then again I like Wes Anderson and I think all his movies are pretty great.
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