YES
You're Camejo-Buchanan!
As Peter Camejo, you have strong convictions that you take with you wherever you go. You
believe in peace, justice, and a very un-American way that challenges big business and the status
quo. You want to shake things to their very core, but can never seem to quite get a foothold in
your endeavors and often fall a little short. In spite of all your egalitarianism,
you live in a rather spoiled suburban environment.
You select Pat Buchanan as your running mate to pick up some extra votes in Florida.
Take the 2008 Presidential Ticket Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
This is a cheat, I guess, since I already bulletined this up on MySpace, which is something I try to not do (both crosspost and post bulletins on MySpace, that is).
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak. | |
| The Inland North | |
| The South | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The Midland | |
| Boston | |
| The West | |
| North Central | |
| What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes | |
I saw my new favorite graffiti on the bus tonight, which read "fuck window advertising!" and filled me with joy and warmth. It's been bugging me about how ever since downtown Field's changed over to crappy Macy*s they just keep pasting ads up onto the huge display windows instead of actually putting displays in them. Why be able to see through glass when you can look at a big paste-up of a couple of ugly white people pretending to get excited about some stupid shit? So yes, "fuck window advertising,' indeed. Cub Foods, please stop making the LRT look like a giant hoagie. I'm watching you.
Have you seen the TheraFlu ad where the guy looks straight out of Carnival of Souls?! DUDE.
I need to put this somewhere where I remember where it is.
Oh yes.
Beverage of the evening: Le Grand Noir Chardonnay-Viognier (highly recommended, especially if you can buy it at Costco)
I'm not doing a very good job of keeping this place up, am I? I'll tell some stories.
I have a new job, a good job, a job that pays, a job that satisfies my artistic needs. That means I am in smoothed-out mode for the most part and basically not caring about much of anything, which is I guess like being on drugs without having to take drugs. Whoo.
I went to see an ophthalmologist today and my eyes are like a zillion times worse than they were two years ago. Well maybe not a zillion times, but I got an interesting reaction when they put up my current prescription for my left eye and asked me to read the eye chart and I could only read the three-letter line. And even then I was mostly guessing.
Chris: "Don't you get headaches?" Oh, yeah.
Oh YEAH. And my brother had his big 40th birthday party and made bacon cheeseburgers on Krispy Kremes. You know what they're called.
They were shockingly not disgusting and actually quite delicious.
I mean, look at that. LOOK AT IT. How can something that pretty be so bad for you?
Honestly.
One day at my new job I get a message on my voice mail. I pick it up and it is one of those robot voice pager things. The voice said:
I left you a check on the dining room table. Great show last night.
Intriguing! I wish robots would leave me checks on dining room tables. I saved the phone number for grins. I'll have to actually try and look it up someday, when I'm not lazy and coasting.
A few days later I get on the bus to go home and the seat that looks most appealing to me turns out to have a half-empty bottle of diet Coke lying on it. I sit down and drop it in the seat in front of me.
Some guy gets on later and sits in the outside seat of that row, so as not to disturb the half-empty bottle of diet Coke on the inside seat. OK. That guy gets off the bus. A woman sitting in the row ahead of that one on the other side of the aisle gets up and swear to God pounces on the half-empty bottle of diet Coke, brings it back to her seat and proceeds to drink it.
Good show.
Great show!
Today was kind of a drag, because each day I work a 9-hour shift and get paid for 8 hours of it -- you know, they tell me I get a break and all that but I never take it -- and somehow I ended up working like 11.5 hours straight. And I don't get paid for that, mind, and won't. I don't get comp time, I don't get overtime, and the work I did is certainly all for nothing. And now I'm allowed a generous one-day weekend before I'm back in the office Monday morning after losing an hour to daylight savings.
The sad, sad irony of it all was wearing this T-shirt today. Someone send me back to hustla school.
The good things: Tomorrow is WrestleMania Sunday, so the house is full of WrestleMania snacks. Chris is making some kind of crazy thing in the crock pot for tomorrow and he has provided me with Dutch Crunch and Oreos. This house is LOUSY with Dutch Crunch and Oreos. Spectacular.
Another good thing is KINGS WIN KINGS WIN. WE'RE #8. PLAYOFFS BABY PLAYOFFS. Brad, once again, exhibiting signs of a playoff beard. My stress is lifting just looking at it. You can't see it in this picture, but he's standing next to ICE CUBE!
Oh, OH, and then "Liza With a Z" tonight. It was beautiful. I got to say FOSSE! a lot while watching it, which I always enjoy. AND! she had the most fabulous fake lashes and I sat mesmerized, coveting them. Obscenely long ones.
Suitably inspired, I put on my most outlandish set of lashes (Shu Uemura #79!) and now I'm sitting here in my in my slippers and crazy lashes watching Superman II. C'mon, people, where the party at?
I've been working too hard so I haven't been here.
Something exciting happened today, which is my bus got hit by a car on the way to work. I was in a subway that ran over somebody once, but I've never been in a bus accident.
It was not a great way to start the day as it was already over 80 outside, and there I was all happy and air conditioned and vegging out listening to something off of "Soft Sounds for Gentle People" when I hear some brakes screeching and see this car careening around a corner at about 50 mph into the oncoming lane (ours) heading right toward me.
I of course did what anyone else would do, which is sit there and stare in anticipation of What Was About to Happen.
The car plowed into the bus approximately at the seat behind me, ricocheted into the SUV next to us and then ran head-first into the bus behind us.
We were all stopped at a light, so it was about the best possible situation for us all to be in, I suppose.
I have always been curious about what would happen to a metro bus in a city traffic accident and let me tell you something, the bus kind of wobbled a little bit and that was it. No one got hurt. The most painful thing was having to walk to another stop and wait for another bus in the heat. And me downwind of the patchoulli-drenched Goth dude who wears the Marlboro fanny-pack. (He seems like a nice enough guy though.)
I think the only person who got hurt was the woman driving the crazy car, but she managed to make it out of the car and over to the sidewalk. Between my bus and the SUV, I guess we absorbed a lot of her velocity or whatever (yay high school physics is good for something) because if she had gone straight into that last bus, things probably would have turned out a little differently.
The whole thing had me feeling pretty good, actually, because we totally got plowed and the bus hardly budged. Suddenly the experience of riding a bus seemed a lot safer, and I only ended up about 15 minutes late to work. Bless you, mass transit.
And to think that ended up being the highlight of my day. Yes, the rest of the day sucked that much. Good times.
I think there was some kind of IFC movie trivia challenge around here somewhere tonight but I was too deflated to go. Also, eew, IFC movie trivia, like on that one show. You know the one, the one with those guys. You know. Eew. That would have been like way too few degrees of skeevation.
I think I need to get a job being the Thirsty Traveler.
But hey you know something?
YOU KNOW SOMETHING?!
There actually are real good times happening and not sarcastic good times!
Someone awesome is coming to Minneapolis and we are so excited!!!
Look who else awesome is coming to Minneapolis at the same time. Can you believe this?! THIS MEANS SOMETHING
I've done a zillion new things at Staraoke but I haven't listed them because I've been BUSY. I did "I Don't Want Your Love" by Duran Duran. Including the RAP. Stuff like that. "Baker Street." "Eminence Front." Hot business.
Someone read my mind and made an Oblique Strategies Widget. I wish it was a little more glossed up in that Dashboard way but hmm, it'll do.
Aren't Weezer too old for this crap? This is "Walk Like an Egyptian II." And how much makeup did they slap on that one guy, I mean seriously. Gross.
The Spurs and Tim Duncan and the NBA are boring, but The Year in Brad Miller is most certainly not. #4 even makes me cry a little.
I'm scattered, but I'll live.
Tonight I surpassed 20,000 songs on my iTunes and didn't even notice it. I'm tired. Through forensic analysis, It appears song #20,000 was "Non-Stop to Brazil" by Astrud Gilberto, from The Shadow of Your Smile (1964). Yay Astrud Gilberto.
I was all set to make a big post, but then I launched ecto and it told me there was an update, so I updated and lost all will to post. UNTIL NOW.
Basically, I'm excited because there's a new Saint Etienne single coming out, and it's here. It's great. It's all about courting death while you're walking home, which is fantastic. "Got cash in my pocket to last the weekend/ And I got features I quite like and don't mind keeping." Sarah's driving a white Mini in the video. It's like some kind of sign!
See, I decided the thing to keep me working is the promise that I might make enough money to buy a Mini. A pepper white Mini Cooper S with black stripes. That is my vision and my motivation.
Also, I have no idea if there's just crazy crime around here, or maybe I just notice it more because I have to deal with it at work on a daily basis. Living in NYC I guess I never paid it much mind, because if it wasn't like completely brutal, it didn't make the news and I never heard about it? Like I'd hear about the homeless dude who smacked people over the head with bricks, or the serial hypo stabbings, or when all those people got murdered at Wendy's and Primal Scream dedicated a song to them when they played at Hammerstein Ballroom.
But here, random fondlings? Bank robberies? Dudes on BMX bikes robbing people on their front lawns at gunpoint? That's everyday stuff everywhere and I think hmm, how strange. Then again, I actually have to pay attention to local crime every day now, so I suppose my views have become a little distorted.
Anyway, this ties into the new Saint Etienne song because I was just thinking about all the dangerous-walking-home scenarios in my life, like riding home on the subway and walking back to my apartment plastered at 4 a.m., alone, and the only time I ever felt threatened was that time the sidewalk was paved with rats like I'd walked into the Secret of NIMH.
I don't feel threatened around here, but should I be? I don't know. I probably should have constantly felt threatened when I was in New York, but when you take the M96 from First Avenue to Broadway in the middle of the night enough times, you begin to think you're immune to everything.
That's kind of what the song is about, I guess. OK. That's what I was trying to get to.
Anyway, this all becomes fascinating when you take into account that some woman got sexually assaulted last week in the middle of the day around Marquette and 8th Street, which is basically the Minneapolis equivalent of raping someone in the middle of Rockefeller Center in broad daylight. It's ludicrous.
Plus double plus, who wants to go near Marquette in the first place? Every other entryway is a frigging parking garage thruway. You will get mowed the F over. Also, the sidewalk is about three feet wide. Give me a break.
Now, what makes this SUPER hilarious is that Metro Transit, or the City, or whatever, decided they're starting this new "experiment" where they're no longer running buses on Nicollet Mall between 6:30 and 11 p.m. on weekdays! Which is perfect timing, you know, because I actually like to take the bus because a) I'm lazy and b) if I walk across town I'll end up buying more shoes at Saks Off Fifth~~~. But that's my own personal problem -- just think of all the hot fun criminal opportunities opening up for everyone else to contend with.
Oh wait, here's the explanation about the bus shutdown business:
It is a test -- designed at the request of the City of Minneapolis and the downtown business community -- to see if the heart of the city could become even more livable by shifting buses to other streets.
I'm supposed to get out of work at 6, but I usually don't, or CAN'T, therefore I'm not able to hop a crosstown bus by 6:30. Therefore my options, if I'm not walking, would be to bus crosstown on Hennepin or on Marquette. Hahaha what?
It's not as bad as all that really -- I just wanted to make that map.
I really should have put little danger skulls around Gaviidae and Marshall Field's, but that would have taken too much effort. (I'm not shopping at Neiman Marcus anymore. We have "issues". You know, "Not putting merchandise in the customer's bag after the customer pays for it" issues.)
Hey look! I made my post after all.
Did you know Crow II is running again? He's right here and he says hi.
I need to do this more often. I need to start doing RBRT again. I need to keep carrying this laptop around where ever I go until all of this becomes like uh, I just sit around here in bed typing and not actually watching anything on TV.
My eMac, Crow II, he's a little unhappy right now. I guess he is jealous of SOL and he kind of stopped working for the time being. Poor Crow II. He's beyond help and I think we have to bring him to a so-called Genius Bar where all the young nerds and skinhead lesbians will say "Uhhh" and eventually figure out to try everything we've already tried, including our own patience har har. Poor Crow II though. He's too young to be going through this.
Tiger didn't do him in, incidentally. I think he just has a bad allergic reaction to something. Poor Crow II.
Do you watch "The Contender"? Love it. Love it. Love it. So awesome.
I am so bored with everyone on American Idol I can't even be bothered to say anything about it. I can't believe it's practically over already. "I'll start writing about it next week ... ohh."
It's raining out right now and it is so awesome.
Speaking of awesome, I found the awesomest thing today. Check it out check it out, National Weather Service RSS feeds for watches and warnings and forecasts and I'm obsessed.
Next we should get a NOAA Weather Radio and make Paul proud.
WTF is CBS making a fake Project Runway with eew, Tommy Hilfiger.
This laptop business is frigging handy. No wonder Crow II is upset.
Hahaha! So I went to leave a comment in that last post and it told me I was not allowed to leave comments, right, and I was all like "what" so then I looked and realized I had totally done something to ban all IPs from commenting like totally by accident back when I was getting a bunch of comment spam. Now I'm about as dumb as Einstein! Way to go Einstein. Yeah, it's fixed now.
"Your voice is truly your instrument, and it is an entire orchestra." I think that's what Paula said tonight? That's crazy.
We're drinking the Bailey's we liberated from my parents' liquor cabinet. At least I'm drinking it. It was in a special "1997 edition" container and the label says it would be best enjoyed by December 1998. So I guess that makes it finely aged. It tastes a little like bubblegum. That's slightly odd. I just started sneezing and my ears are ringing a bit. Oh well, at least I don't have to work tomorrow.
I was supposed to work seven straight days to cover for someone who just quit, but I got lucky and got the day off tomorrow. Go Team Me. Now I have to work on Friday, but dude whatever. Better four days on/ one day off/ three days on/ one day off than seven days on/ two days off, right? I think that's reasonable.
So today, I got to spend my first full-time weekday at work. Did I tell you I got promoted to full-time? No? Well I did. After less than two months, I think that's making pretty good time.
I got Chris to drop me off at the express bus stop and everything, although I ended up taking the local because it was almost empty. I felt responsible. I got on this bus and this crazy cranked-out guy got on and started having this conversation with his "lady" about wearing corduroys. It was outstanding. Even with my headphones on, I could still make it out. I need to write it down before I forget. He asked everyone if he could borrow their phone "just for a second" and then when he finally proceeded to sucker this guy into lending him his phone, he made about 17 calls on it. Tremendous.
My throat feels a little itchy. Is that supposed to happen?
So you know I broke down and got the domestic version of the new Doves album because I'm still waiting for my limited edition linen slipcased CD/DVD package to arrive from the U.K. and I simply could not wait for the music anymore, man.
I got to listen to it about twice and plus some and it's really really wonderfully good. At first it reminded me a little bit too much of American Music Club's Mercury which is hardly a quality complaint, certainly, because I love that album to death, but it was just feeling too familiar in an un-Dovesian way. But then I got over it. It's great. It's DEECE. And Jimi, you know, Jimi's still hot. Yes, I've seen what his hair looks like now. I know. I know. There's trust there, you've got to understand me.
Here's my track-by-track what I remember of it without going back and listening to it to doublecheck things.
1) "Some Cities" - ooh. The first two lines are like "I think I've seen you before/ I think we should settle a score" or something, and how can you not love being greeted with that to start an album.
2) "Black and White Town" - the single, I quite honestly can't get enough of it. Very unlike the rest of the album in its jollity bumpfulness but a good introduction to its eerie Morricone elements with all that hot processing, which I took to be throwing the piano line from "Just Got Lucky" by JoBoxers down an echo chamber. And J.G., you know, he's still very foxy.
3) "Almost Forgot Myself" - lovely. Oh my. It's simply Sheila Divine, and I mean that literally. You will be amazed.
4) "Snowden" - the chimes are BACK. Very lovely, with the Morricone-ness and some Goldfrappy theremin oooohs to punctuate it. Is this the next single? Can't complain. There's one of many "mans" in this one, where the first lyric is something like, "I said, man, can you help me out?" and I begin to suspect J.G. is familiar with using that word the same way I use "dude" only I think his version sounds much better.
5) "The Storm" - one of the Williams ones, like a George Harrison song on a Beatles album. Swirly. I guess it takes part of the Ryuichi Sakamoto score from Snake Eyes, right, and I'm curious to know if they even saw that awful piece of crap or perhaps if they share my curious affection for Gary Sinise. I'd enjoy sitting down with J.G. to discuss the complexities of A Midnight Clear if not the entire Keith Gordon oeuvre. We could have a nice side conversation about the works of John Heard. Anyway, there's this weird stop-start looping of the samples where the cut-offs become the percussion, basically, and I'm drinking expired Bailey's so I could be writing in Farsi right now for all I know.
6) "Walk in Fire" - this is where I can't make up my mind yet because it's the obvious centerpiece of the album, yet it's basically an American Music Club cover of "There Goes the Fear." The resemblances are uncanny. Check back with me in two years, this will probably be my all-time favorite song.
7) "One of These Days" - actually right now, this is practically my all-time favorite song.
8) "Someday Soon" - and this is practically second.
9) "Shadows of Salford" - another Williams song, see above.
10) "Sky Starts Falling" - cute cute cute! Probably cuter than it's intended to be. PEPPY. I think I need to read the lyrics and I'll change my mind.
11) "Ambition" - and we float on, or out, or ... ? There's a big helping of Eitzel in here, so I need to reserve judgment on this for a bit. Also the first time I heard it I was in Walgreens and I don't really remember it enough.
There it is.
And don't forget:
Still foxy.
'Sup nerdlingers. Today's my birthday. I'm 35. I'm an old lady. An ooooold lady. I'm now in the 35-49 age bracket on surveys. That is depressing! I honestly was taking a lot of surveys leading up to this day so I could deny my own mortality just a little bit longer. I still get carded though. Sometimes I don't have my ID on me, and then I don't drink. Which is crazy, because I'm OLD! Look at me. I feel 50.
Remind me to tell you about the time I went to Flannery's and for whatever reason they had a guy working the door who was convinced that my drivers license was fake, and therefore he refused to let me in. This was a bar where I was a regular, and me being, like, probably 31 at the time. And the door guy was showing my ID off to people in the bar (people who looked to be about 17) being all, "Hahaha, she thinks people would believe she's 31! Next time she gets a fake ID, she needs to be more realistic!" It was horrible. I mean, I was a REGULAR at this bar. And finally one of the bartenders (known for reasons beyond explanation as The Gay) saw what was happening, bless his heart, and cursed the guy out and let me in, thank God. That was a nightmare. All I wanted was drinking and dancing and my friends, which are my favorite things ever.
I've had other experiences like this and it's the worst feeling in the world. People trying to tell you that you aren't who you actually are. Hope I never get my identity stolen else I go on a murder spree. Hey, why am I talking about this when it is a time of CELEBRATION because it is my BIRTHDAY!!!
Dudes, check this out. It's my birthday and I got a job. A JOB. Oh yes. I got a job but I'm not going to tell you where because it's EXCITING and SEXY. AND on top of that, the Kings won. What a fabulous time to be alive.
Tonight we went to karaoke and my brother and his girlfriend were there, and they gave me a giant vat of amaretto and a bottle of sour mix. It's like they KNOW me! I also sang and they indulged me in a fourth song even though I would not normally have gotted it, because it is my birthday and I am special. People sang me birthday songs and gave me things, complete strangers, and it was lovely. What did I sing? Oh yes.
I have nothing else to say at the moment other than happy birthday to me. Yeah.
Hi! Sup nerds. So Chris got a job and he starts on Monday. With that in mind we went and did KARAOKE since who knows when we will be able to do that again with any authority or Taste for Fun. What did I do?
I should have other things to talk about, and I do, but I don't right here. It's just one of those things. Oh! You know something, you should go read Scott Christ's The 2004 SC 100, which even if you don't watch or pay attention to wrestling ever, is still a very entertaining and enlightening read. Because honestly, who even writes anything intelligent about wrestling anymore? Practically no one other than Scott and Cubs. These guys, they mean it. They keep the fires burning and whatnot, and in an even more awesome way than REO Speedwagon.
The Kings are here. If not tonight, then later today. Oh man! My husband was talking me into letting him assist me in stalking a certain member of my favorite team. Which is adorable. But I can't take him up on it, because already tonight he demonstrated his majesty by taking me on a trip to Costco and buying me a) pills and b) booze. My two favorite things. And I'm not even exaggerating.
This is what we came home with.
Whee. We went out and voted at our local cute old schoolhouse which was a million times cuter than Emily Dickinson, my old polling place in NYC. We didn't have to wait in line for anything. There was a decent sized line of election-day registrants. Minnesota got it lenient like that. Pretty much all college freshmen, it looked like. Two girls were walking out when we walked in and one of them was whining about how there were "waah, too many names." Oh, thank you for canceling out my vote with your idiocy.
Paper ballots, what a gyp. They hand you this ballot and a pen and a folder to carry it around in and you're on your own. You even feed it yourself into this ballot-reading machine which for all I know could have been a giant paper shredder. And then I got an "I Voted" sticker for being a good girl. I was hoping for the cool "draw a line to complete the arrow" business but no, it was "fill in circles next to the person's name" like a standardized test. We had like a zillion judicial slots to vote for and only like four of them were contested, so it was just filling in circles for the sake of filling in circles and it took too frigging long and ow my hand hurt.
I miss my old gigantic booths with the curtains and the spooooky lighting where you flip the switches and then pull that phat lever and it goes CATHHHHHUNK and you're like oooooh yeeeeah with satisfaction. Where I went today, all the little privacy tables were taken up so I had to sit on the gym floor and fill out my ballot in the wide open space like I was taking a quiz. For a moment I recaptured my youth! But it was weird.
Also? No bake sale. At Emily Dickinson, there was always a bake sale. Weak.
So old Josho was a mere stone's throw away from us yesterday doing that swing state celebrity crap. Someone must have realized that this particular hometown boy is a far more appealing spokesmodel than Captain Overexposed Ashton K, who was here last week being ANNOYING. "I'm a celebrity ... DO WHAT I SAY. I'M AWESOME." Whatever dude. Anyway, I could have seen Josh's chocolate milk moustache up close and in person. Look at that thing, it's ludicrous. Although I have to respect him for continuing to wear it for so long when it is so disgusting. He looks like an emaciated, 14-year-old Tom Skerritt. Or my uncle Paul circa 1972. It is not cute. But it truly makes him a Real Minnesotan, and I give him the thumbs up for that.
A certain organization with the initials ACT auto-called us yesterday and instructed us to report to the wrong polling place. This continues to fill me with an intense rage. The kind of rage that forces me to continue to eat leftover Halloween candy. Should I report them? Probably. I'll figure out how to do that eventually. I mean, idiots. IDIOTS. I'm completely infuriated. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to vote for Bush out of spite. (But I'm not going to.) (OR AM I?!?) (No I'm not.) Honestly. I'd be interested to know what other registered third-party households ACT is doing this to, you know? Can they even comprehend the gravity of what they're doing? Can I punch one of them in the throat? IDIOTS.
OK. I am going to back up and focus on that retarded moustache. It somehow gives me peace.
I'm glad Halloween's over. I'm not a big fan of it. I'm a fan of the concept, maybe, but the execution is lacking. Little kids in costumes? Adorable. Adults in costumes? Pointless. Parties full of people in costumes? Disgusting. I don't want to willingly subject myself to a worst nightmare situation that is cloaked in the pretense and false promise of Having Fun. It's too much work even to come out looking like crap, whereas you can apply the same amount of work to look fabulous and functional. I speak only the truth.
We bought five bags of candy, not being sure what the neighborhood turnout would be like, and we only got one doorbell at like 8:15. There were about six kids though, most of whom were apparently made up to look like the cast of Dead Presidents (so cute!) so I gave them tons of candy and prayed no one else would show up. We turned the lights out at 9. It was fun having a reason to turn our front porch light on, finally.
I think we probably didn't get people because a) we have like a ton of steps to get up to our house and people are lazy, and b) our landlord downstairs has a very large dog that would bark very loudly when human voices could be detected, so I guess that was a deterrent. Also we didn't have any decorations up or anything, but you know, Halloween decorations are useless. I save all that energy up for Christmas. That translates to two Hello Kitty LED mini-trees and maybe, if we're lucky, a string of lights. I spare no expense to catch the spirit.
Anyway, we're now swimming in an excess of mini Hershey's bars, Jolly Ranchers and Chewy SweeTarts (a.k.a. edible, fruit-flavored cocaine). We've got Reese's PB cups too, but there's no such thing as having too many of those.
I just realized today that this year will be the first year I've spent Thanksgiving with my family since 1987. Imagine that.
Sup nerds. I've been feeling a little bit too much like this lady on the left to write much in here lately. Let me tell you what is making me insane. Someone from my Former Place of Employment emailed me about doing some work, and since it was for a different department from the one I used to work for, I deliberated then decided, "OK, I will give this a shot." It should not have been such a difficult decision for me to make, but guess what? They find a way to make me regret doing it anyway. And these aren't even the people I expect to suck at all times! I gave them the benefit of the doubt! And they haven't even given me any WORK yet. Let me map this out for you, because I care about clarity and organization.
I saw Shaun of the Dead. It's adorable! The first hour was fantastic. The last half hour, it kind of fell apart and the tone shifted too far to "fighting zombies and fire and guns and explosions and gore" and lost the magic, I thought, but it's still highly recommended. You could tell they were sort of saving up all the gore shots for that one big disgusting part. That was kind of unnecessary. Still, highly recommended! The record collection fight scene, priceless. And Goblin's theme from Zombi is still the best zombie music in the world. Every zombie movie should use it. Zombie zombie zombie.
Also tonight we saw John Cale. He's adorable! I hadn't seen him for ages. Oh! He was great. Also great that he was supporting such a great great album that made the show even greater. There are few things as delightful as watching a 62-year-old man play a Flying V, and play it like he could use it to KILL PEOPLE. Oh! He's just the best. I wish I could remember the crazy time signature he was using for "Leaving It Up to You" because it was hot. He did "Frozen Warnings" and also "Venus in Furs" (!!!) which was not only awesome? But also great. Unfortunately it inspired some of the more learning-disabled people to begin shouting out requests for other VU songs. Yes, I'm sure he'd love to play "Heroin" just for you. At the table next to us were Harold and Kumar, I swear, and they were so happy to hear everything that came off their prized Close Watch: An Introduction to John Cale, so much so that when "Cable Hogue" started up, Harold suddenly contracted autism and began rocking violently back and forth in his chair with total disregard for the laws of rhythm. I'd never see anything like it. And for "Cable Hogue," even.
Afterward we went to Perkins and I had a ham and cheese omelette. The perfect end to the evening. Now I can look forward to people continuing to not get back to me before the weekend. Delicious!
Karaoke? OH MY GOD WHAT HAPPENED.
(Take the above with at least one grain of salt, because I worked in an office that had at least one, if not at least two, copies of Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too in each and every giveaway pile.)
(But seriously, I love that insipid little song.)
(And a lot of that album.)
(Yes.)
(I do.)
I'm depressed that I didn't get to do another song because I wanted to dedicate it to the ugly-ass androgynous couple that was DOING IT in the seat directly behind me. Thunder in the Valley Nick was laughing and making the Universal Signal for "doing it" (index-finger-in-other-hand-"OK" sign) so I got totally grossed out and proceeded to email Jane on my OGO, then clap loudly during Cayenne's rendition of "On the Wings of Love" and then take my keyring out and jingle it like it was frigging sleigh bells right next to their heads. Then the waitress came out and shoved a bill in between their faces and yelled "WHO PAYS THIS TAB?!" I now love her forever.
It was an eventful evening. Happy Birthday Sue!
Hey, you know something?
Especially and most of all, Happy Birthday Jane. I wanted to do a song for you, and I was going to do a song for you, but they stopped me. You are missed. You are loved. You Are My Lady.
Hey I redesigned a little. The title display still keeps coming up a little too slow for my liking but it could be stuff I'm running elsewhere on my computer. I'll try it again. But if it takes a while to come up for you, let me know and I'll F that B up.
You know what I want is one of these. Or maybe I'll just get a cardboard playhouse like I got for Christmas when I was five? One of those Eames Management Chairs would spruce it up nicely. Although if I could afford one of those, I'm sure I could afford my own portable soundproof office. Oh man. I'm gonna DREAM about it.
Karaoke last night. WHAT DID I DO. You bet I did it.
The Sox/Yankees game ended while my brother was singing "Karma Police." Hmm.
I was up all night watching "SCTV" Vol. 2 so now I think I'm ready to take a nap. BYE
I should be paying more attention to the "Arrested Development" marathon than I am, since we really have no business dropping Real Money on the DVDs on Tuesday. I'm all about the Hot Cops.
This is a sick house. We're both sick, so sick. Sick sick sick. We haven't left the house for days. Combine this with the INSANE fresh paint fumes from the stairwell (the guy finally finished the job today) and it is a wonder we are not hallucinating faeries and gnomes running around the house. Well, I guess I'm only speaking for myself. But it's not like I can smell much of anything, yet I am experiencing an overwhelming chemical sensation in my respiratory extremities when I breathe. This must be what carbon monoxide poisoning is like. I wish we could open the windows and get some fresh air but hey guess what? It's 38º outside. And raining. I don't think asking for pneumonia is a good idea.
Tonight is the second Kings/Rockets game in China. The first one was fun, even if the Kings lost, but winning wasn't the point and all that. Plus if the Rockets lost, the crowd would have been so sad. And we don't want that. I hope I can manage to be awake when it's on.
This is all exciting news, I know. Eh. I got nothing, but holy crap, check out Brad Miller on a camel.
My husband was watching "Cheaters" (this is entirely my and my brother-in-law's fault) and I overheard him saying, "Yeah, you go," and "That's what they did to R. Kelly." To the TV. I'm not kidding.
Oh, and I added a few pictures over here.
Hi! You might have noticed that I got into the iTunes affiliate program, right. Which is awesome and I love it. But I just can't bring myself to link to iTMS stuff in the course of daily blog action, as it feels so very wrong and out of place.
See, I like linking to stuff, all kinds of stuff, fun stuff even, and I don't want you to wind up thinking, "Oh, I'm not going to click on that link because she may be trying to sell me something" and oh, the nerve. Not that I'm trying to sell you anything. I'm really not! Honest!!! I'm just trying to point out things that could result in the awesomeness and happiness of awesome and happy living. And God. And the Bible.
Like, I could link to stuff for sale other places on the Web, right, and I certainly have with no damage to my conscience whatsoever, but I feel uncomfortable linking to stuff where the sale of that stuff might result in me getting a tiny bit of pocket change in return. This is clearly why I have no money, ever. Because I have shame. SHAME, people. I know that if I could somehow convert my Emitt Rhodes search visitors into pennies, I would have a nice pile of coffee money. (I drink a lot of coffee.) But I'm not someone who would ever write something like, "I can't believe what Britney Spears did yesterday!" where the link is to buy a remix or something. You know me better than that. Yes you do.
Doing consumer-y stuff that could result in my being rewarded by the sale of goods and services, that'd be like bringing you here under false pretenses. And false pretenses are wrong, no matter what Theresa Lopez-Fitzgerald says. That's why I give you Recommended by Ruby Trax — because one under-updated blog is simply NOT ENOUGH.
This charmer of an opening graf, plus bonuses. Or should I say BONERSES.
PARIS : Marat Safin described him as having the best touch on the tour and now David Nalbandian aims to employ his exquisite feel for the ball to smother Gustavo Kuerten's hopes of a fourth French Open title. ... "He has very good hands," said Safin after his four set defeat. "He has such a great shot, really great hands." -- Channelnewsasia.com
Oh! So we've updated to MT 2.66666666661 (and that's probably as far as we'll be updating for the foreseeable future) and moved everything over to the new box, in case you had any trouble trying to reach us over the last few hours (unlikely). The downside is that the free ride is over and this is all smacked onto a pay-for server, but the upside is that man, it's so much faster than the old one. Now I no longer have to sit in green envy of Cubs' super speedy MT comment windows. And I thought it was just something *I* was doing wrong! So yeah, if you experience any weirdness or broken images or things missing or whatever, let me know, but I think we nailed everything. Heh heh, nailed.
I just applied for another job, and it's in Minneapolis. It's one of those uh-duh type situations where I'm of course the absolute perfect candidate and no one else should possibly be considered other than yours truly. It's to be the editor for a news Web site. You know, the exact same job I used to do? Only for a newspaper and not a cable news department. I'll be interested to see how I manage to not get this one, as that seems to be the pattern these days. But I'd really like it if they proved me wrong!
Our apartment is a complete disaster because management came to get in the crawl space on Thursday, right, so we had to dismantle our closet and take the door off and take everything out of the wardrobe and move the wardrobe out and blah blah hopefully without breaking any bones or dying. Didn't all this just happen the other day? Yes. Anyway, they got all finished and we were just about to start putting everything back when we noticed that they'd put another note on our door informing us that they need to get in there again ... Monday. Today! So we just left everything where it was, all day Friday and all weekend. All our clothes are on hangers, they're just stacked on our couches in the living room because we can't hang them back up yet. Piles of luggage and purses and T-shirts everywhere. I can't believe how stupid this is. I wonder if they'll give us another note when it's all over today to say they need to pop back in there on Thursday again for like two minutes. If I have to move my shoes one more time I will slit my wrists. I swear they're doing this just to torture me.
Today is also Christopher's last day at XO, and that's all I'm going to say about that!
I'll get around to catching up on "Idol" and Kraftwerk and the Kings and all that later. I just couldn't do any of that without grousing some first.
A while ago we bought these simple syrups at Williams-Sonoma, and they rule. Actually I bought them while my husband protested violently. One is flavored with Meyer lemon, the other with vanilla bean, so there are little flecks of vanilla bean all suspended up in it. I figured that I could make some awesome cocktails with them, and today I proved myself right.
First I made a variation Cosmopolitan that was just plain vodka (Skyy), Cointreau, cranberry juice and the Meyer lemon syrup. It ruled. But I used the last of our cranberry juice. Then I made up something that is vanilla vodka (Absolut ... it tastes like marshmallows!!!), orange juice, Cointreau and the vanilla bean syrup. I am now on my second one. This drink rules. I'm telling you, it is unreal. I'm a genius.
I almost don't care about the game today, but I do. The whole reason I started drinking already today was the game, because I was freaking out and throwing newspapers over my head and Christopher said, "You need to be drunk." So I followed his instructions, that's all. The game was bad, though. It was really bad. So I just hope that the Kings were concentrating all their suck into this game and will go crazy insane fantastic for the next two. Yes.
You know how much I hate the Lakers? I hate the Mavericks almost as much. These are my ... my two most hated teams in the universe. I hate them. Steve Nash looks like a frigging serial rapist lizard man. Words can't describe how much I hate him. And Nowitski, eew, forget about it, he is a creepy stalker. Which is only solidified by his "Trophy Love" commercial, am I right people? Yes. The people know. And that frigging thug Najara. Eew girl, eew. I hate that f-er.
While we are on the subject of, um, dudes, it's all over between me and Bobby Flay, just so you know. The reason is here.
Jose Giovanni passed away today of a brain hemorrhage at 80. The only reason I know about him is because he wrote the screenplay for Le Trou, which translates to The Hole. Yes, the entire movie is about digging a hole. I'm not even exaggerating. I think ... Jacques Tourneau directed it? I think that's who it was. (EDIT: Jacques Becker. It was Jacques Becker.) I saw that bitch up in Lincoln Center, on a double bill with John Huston's We Were Strangers, I think, which is the movie that made me fall in love with dead John Garfield. Or maybe that was on a double bill with He Ran All the Way, which also made me fall in love with dead John Garfield. Oh man, I can't remember. I swear I associate We Were Strangers with Le Trou. But I also associate We Were Strangers with He Ran All the Way. It was so long ago. I don't know what to believe anymore. I'll get to the bottom of this eventually. In the meantime, how about a gratuitous image of John Garfield
in his final movie, He Ran All the Way, with Shelley Winters
and, um ... let's go with The Man, Vlade Divac
stop killing me
Right now, the #10 most downloaded song at the iTunes Music Store is "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something, which seems to prove that Pepsi drinkers are retarded. Speaking of which, if you have any spare Pepsi/iTMS codes that you don't want to redeem, feel free to send them my way! I want that Beyoncé rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner"!
Thanks to Janest. I really should check Quizilla more often. I don't know how I ended up with this result? But I think I like it! Also it makes me a bit dead, I guess. Oops. And yet, awesome.
You are Captain Murphy. You've lost your mind, but you have more fun without it.
Which Sealab 2021 character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Can I just say that I love love LOVE ecto, no-initial-cap aside. It is a swell update of Kung-Log for the 2K4. I didn't "dig" (as the young people would say) Kung-Log because it didn't format my stuff correctly, plus the name brought taking a dump to mind. So this is good stuff, right. No more slooooow updating in my browser! I can publish whatever stupid thing comes into mind with The Greatest of Ease. I'd go as far to say I can publish the shit out of it. Oh so much glee.
Ooh look a makeover. I'm feeling restless again! I think the purple text for links and stuff is a bit too ... neon for my tastes really but I had to do something that matched my new spektakulon title grafik up there since it made the old purple look all grimy. Maybe I'll get used to it, maybe I WON'T. Also maybe now I'll turn my attention to adding more postcards and things to the main site over yonder if I'm feeling so itchy to be creative.
This was also, I might add, spurred on by my discovery that Extensis released an update to Suitcase X1 that was supposed to address compatibility issues with Panther and guess what? It ... still BLOWS. I'm like, hey, can I install more than 50 fonts into this thing at one time without it crashing? Woo woo no! I can't. What a charming feature, I love it. So I went back to the old reliable sturdy huggable Font Reserve yet again and I am still certain that Extensis is never going to update it ever. I bet they would even do anti-updates that would devolve its functionality back in time if they could, like it would suddenly work with OS 7 only or something. Font Reserve 3.1.3, now System 8.5 compatible! Hahaha. Oh man Extensis, way to start 2004 on my butt list.
