A Life Set on Shuffle

Conversation With My Mother Part...I forget.

2012-01-26T15:20:00.000-05:00

I dislike grocery shopping. It's kind of boring and the other people shopping drive me nuts. So as a distraction I decided to give my mother a call:

Me: So in Karate there are two moms and their son in my class.
Mom: Oh really? That's awesome!
Me: I know, I thought so too! I mean I kind of guessed when I first started but I wasn't 100% sure and today I heard the boy call both of them "Mom".
Mom: Well you have always had good gay radar.
Me: Haha you mean "gaydar", and yes I'm pretty good at recognizing others.
Mom: Do they know you're gay?
Me: Nah, not many people guess about me. I fly under the gaydar.
Mom: You do?
Me: Yeah, I'm a stealth bomber! They don't see me coming.
Mom: *Choking followed by hysterical laughter*

I think I need that on t-shirt or something.

Finally, a Real Update

2011-12-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I've taken the time to write a decent post. With the holiday season here work has been ridiculous which doesn't leave much time for a personal life. Keeping busy has it's pros and cons; I don't get bored and my bank account thanks me, but I don't have as much time for the things I love.

So when I do have time, I take complete advantage of it and you can find me doing one of three things; reading, writing, and making headway through my Netflix queue. Although, most recently I've added podcasting to that list. My friend and I started one about a month ago and it has been a lot of fun.

As far as reading goes I was able to finish The Hunger Games series. Each book kept me wanting more but I was a bit dissatisfied with the ending. I'm not one to criticize writers on how they end their stories, in my opinion it is a world that belongs to them and their decision should be respected but this time all I felt was disappointment.

I also started reading George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series. That one is going to take me awhile to get through but so far I like it. I expected I would since I loved the show on HBO so much.

Yesterday, I started reading The Help. Two days ago I rented the movie having never gotten around to seeing it in theater, even though I really wanted to. I can't remember the last time a movie has moved me so emotionally. Even when Dobby died in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part 1 I didn't cry, I admit I got a little misty-eyed but tears did not fall. I was glad I chose to watch The Help by myself because there was no way I could have kept those tears back. To top things off, when I watched it a second time the next day, I cried again. Naturally, after that I had to run out and buy the movie and the book.

When it comes to my writing, I only write for myself. I don't ever talk about my writing with my friends or family. Part of it is because writing is the one thing I get nothing but enjoyment out of and I'm afraid sharing it will change that. The other part I have come to believe stems from a fear of failure. Cowardly, but honest. In my mind, I have failed at so much that this is the one thing I want to protect. The one thing I want to keep close and guarded because failure at this, would mean I have failed at everything I ever wanted to do with my life. And that would just suck.

In Other News...

2011-12-05T03:50:00.001-05:00

...Coda and I put our tree up yesterday. I was quite excited about it because this is my first very own Christmas tree.

I bought a real one and got all of the lights and ornaments for decorating. I got Coda a stocking to hang and I've got some presents to wrap already.

And yes, that is a hat as my tree topper.

Christmas Playlist 2011

2011-12-05T02:22:00.001-05:00

Every Christmas I look forward to putting together my Christmas playlist. All year long I keep my eyes and ears pealed for new songs to add to my growing collection of Christmas music (106 songs and going strong!). I have only one requirement; each Christmas song has to be original or unique in some way.

Don't get me wrong, I love the classics, but every time I step into any kind of retail location that's all I hear and it gets a little old. That is why I put these lists together, they're songs that you won't hear being played in the stores or on the radio, but they're well worth listening to and have as much to do with Christmas as the classics.

Without further ado, here for your listening pleasure, I give you my 2011 Christmas Playlist.

13. "Elf's Lament" by Barenaked Ladies featuring Michael Buble
The Barenaked Ladies never fail to make me laugh and I thought the song was adorable coming from an Elf's point of view.

12. "A Great Big Sled" by The Killers featuring Toni Halliday
The Killers always put out great music and this Holiday song is no exception.

11. "I Miss You Most on Christmas" by Bowling For Soup
I originally bought the Bowling For Soup Christmas album because it was fun and catchy, but it was the vocals that caught my attention on this original song.

10. "Step Into Christmas" by The Puppini Sisters
One listen was all it took to make me fall in love with The Puppini Sisters. They take you to an entirely different time with their music and I loved this song for that.

9. "Christmas Island" by Kristin Chenoweth
<3. Kristen Chenoweth. Enough said.

8. "Winter White" by A Fine Frenzy
I've always had a soft spot for A Fine Frenzy, so you can imagine my excitement when I found this song. It's not traditionally Christmas-y, but that's the whole point of this list.

7. "The Christmas Waltz" by She & Him
Oh Zooey, how I love everything you do.

6. "Baby Come Find Me at Christmas" by Rachel Yamagata
Rachel Yamagata! I haven't listened to her in years but this was such a beautifully done song I couldn't resist.

5. "Always in the Season" by Pomplamoose
Not everyone can take a great song and make it better, but Pomplamoose does that on a regular basis. Their original music is no exception either.

4. "White Christmas" by Lady Gaga
I didn't think I could love Lady Gaga any more than I already do, and then she released her Holiday EP.

3. "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" by Ella Fitzgerald
No Christmas list would be complete without a little Ella and her amazing voice.

2. "In the Morning" by Jack Johnson
It's not banana pancakes, it's better.

1. "Dear Santa" by Jay Brannan
This is my favorite Christmas playlist find. I had never heard of Jay Brannan when I saw this on iTunes and two seconds after I pressed play I was pressing buy.

It's a bit shorter list this year than it was last year but to quote one of my favorite movies "more isn't always better, sometimes it's just more." This year you might also notice I went for more of an easy listening feel to the playlist as opposed to the last couple years that have been mostly rock/alternative songs. I'm actually really pleased with the list this year and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

Vlogbrothers Nerd Fitness

2011-10-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

I was sitting at home enjoying my delicious Chinese lunch special when I came across this video during my journey through the backlog of vlogbrother's videos.

I am confident in saying that I know I'm not the only one that feels smug and self-satisfied when they come across a video of other people painfully sacrificing to stay healthy as you indulge your demanding taste buds. I even went so far as to smirk when I came to the conscious realization that I was sitting cross legged in front of my laptop stuffing my face while he, John Green, clearly worked so hard to make the video so I could sit cross legged in front of my laptop and stuff my face.

And then I got to the "dodge and deflect" part of the video where I promptly choked from taking a bite of my previously delicious rice noodles and laughing at the same time.

Karma, you bitch.

Coda Vs. The Bath

2011-10-19T22:22:00.000-04:00

Guess what?

I made my first YouTube video today.

Well, not really, I just used YouTube as a way to put the video on my blog, and I'm not really in it. But it's a start.

Anyway, here you go.

Gay Card: Revoked

2011-10-04T02:16:00.001-04:00

Tonight, at work, while I was cleaning up to go home, I got to joking around with one of my Nerd Herd guys. I knew from day one that he's gay, but the big shocker was that apparently he didn't know I'm gay too. Until tonight.

The following tomfoolery ensued:

"Dude, what's up with these laptops on my counter? I'm trying to clean up here."

"Oh," he responded, "we were working on those earlier."

Jokingly I said in my best Cali-girl attitude voice, "Um, what are they still doing here then? I need them gone, like, yesterday!"

"Excuuuuse me, but we were just too busy to be bothered." Then he gave me a dirty look while he put them on a cart.

"Don't mess with me, Diva. I will take you down," I said as I snapped my finger at him.

He stopped and turned and said, "you want to see Diva? This, is Diva." And then he went into full-on Diva snap mode.

Needless to say I was practically on the ground I was laughing so hard. After I was finally able to catch my breath I managed to choke out, "you got me there. My snap was nothing compared to yours."

"Well, you kind of have to be gay or black to pull off the snap."

"Still," I said, wiping away tears from laughing so hard, "we lezzies have nothing on you gay boys."

Long pause.

And then he responds with, "I did not see that one coming."

"What?"

"You're gay?"

"Of course I'm gay," I said surprised. "You seriously didn't know that?"

"I've never seen you at the [Insert local gay bar here]"

"I rarely ever go."

At this point we went into discussion of different topics, the LGBT center at the University, gay comedians we liked, until inevitably we got around to talking about musicals.

"Have you seen Spamalot?" He asked.

"No, I'm not a fan of Monty Python."

"Avenue Q?"

"No."

"Wicked??"

Sigh, "no."

"Gay card, revoked."

"What?!" I gasped. "You can't revoke my gay card just because of that. I've been dying to see Wicked I just haven't had the chance yet."

"Your status is still revoked."

So that is how I lost my gay card tonight. Then again, everyone's reaction to me coming out as gay is always with surprise so it's not like I really had it anyway. I think it's time to break out the "No one knows I'm a Lesbian" t-shirt. I'm getting tired of flying under the radar, it's a total drag.

O, Christmas Tree

2011-10-01T13:15:00.001-04:00

I just realized that this is going to my first Christmas in my house. That means I get to put up my very own Christmas tree and everything. I don't have any decorations though. I'm kind of excited about it all. This means I get to pick out my own tree and decorate it myself.

Last year my grandma decided not to put up a tree or do much decorating. I was so busy with work I really didn't say anything but when Christmas day rolled around, it just wasn't the same.

I will never go another Christmas without at least having a tree up. I know it's all superficial and that the day is about spending it with loved ones but there's just something about having the tree standing there shining that gives it that little bit more meaning.

Fuck Off, Facebook

2011-09-29T01:23:00.002-04:00

Dear Facebook,

Please quit sending me bogus "notifications" trying to get me to log in to my account. I don't give a shit or you wouldn't be sending me these "notifications" about things I "might have missed" last time I was on. I "missed" them for a reason. I don't care when someone says "Had Taco Bell for lunch, taking a nap now." So kindly understand that I just don't give a flying fuck and quit spamming my inbox. I only have an account so people don't gasp in horror whenever I tell them I don't have a Facebook page and justify my reasoning for the next 20 minutes.

Thank you,

Tin

P.S. If you say I have to log in to disable the notifications I. Will. Cut. You. At no point did I have to enable these notifications, so eff-to-the-u.

P. P. S. Don't take it personally. Have a lovely song to make you feel better.

Holy Swizzle Sticks, Batman!

2011-09-29T00:35:00.003-04:00

It's obvious I have no particular purpose for this blog other than to use it as a place for my thoughts on random topics. I don't write for anyone but myself, which is evidence by how crappy a lot of the writing is on here. But ever since I wrote this short post, it gets on average 20 to 30 hits a day, and on the rare occasion a couple hundred.

I really didn't think too much of it, I just figured it was a topic a lot of people were interested in. I know I still think about that post quite a bit because it was a "Eureka!" moment where I went "Intrusive thoughts? Aha! So I'm not crazy! There's a perfectly logical explanation for this. Go psychology."

And I crossed that topic off my list of things to worry about.

That was, until I happened to check my statcounter for the first time in months and I see that my blog had over 2,000 hits yesterday on that one post. I'm curious why so many people are searching that single phrase all of a sudden but all I can figure out is that they're all coming from google searches.

Ah well, tis a mystery and ever shall remain one.

Words With Friends

2011-09-22T22:39:00.000-04:00

I like words. Words tend to like me. We have a mutually beneficial relationship, words and I, in the sense that I know a lot of them. So it wouldn't come as a surprise that I also like Words With Friends.

I started a recent game with my brother and half way through I used the word "dulcet". The following conversation ensued.

Doug: I call shenanigans!
Me: Huh?
Doug: Do you even know what that word means?
Me: Of course, it means to be sweet.
Doug: Oh, I thought you were cheating.
Me: Dude, I'm minoring in English, I don't have to cheat.

Mouse Trap

2011-09-15T22:40:00.001-04:00

I mentioned previously that I have a mouse. I have spent all summer trying to catch the little bastard but have failed so far.

Two fucking minutes ago he was crawling around in my ceiling. I could hear the little shit scratching against one of the beams. That's the last straw.

I'm going Mouse Trap on the fucker. I'm going to cover every inch of my house in mouse traps.

Not really, but it's time to break out the big guns. I avoided putting poison down, because the last thing I want is for Coda to get into it. But I was at Home Depot the other day and found some covered things that are dog proof that hold the poison for mice to get.

So get comfortable you little fucker. Come next payday I'm buying a shit load of them and you're going to be in cheesy mouse heaven very soon.

So. Tired.

2011-09-13T23:46:00.000-04:00

This whole working 40 hours a week and taking 15 credit hours is not leaving me with very much sleepy time. Although, surprisingly I have managed to keep up with my homework in all of my classes thus far. In all honesty though I haven't had that much. I have an outline on a paper for my Health Care class due in a week and I still haven't picked a topic.

The reason I'm taking the class is because it was a subject that I'm not at all familiar with. I figured it would fulfill a graduation requirement and I might actually learn something at the same time.

I didn't plan ahead on that one.

Now it appears that might prove slightly detrimental to my grade if I don't pull something out of the hat soon.

I'm not too worried though, I always come up with something.

To go slightly off topic but still stay in the range of talking about class, let's do a review on my professors, shall we?

We've got:

Professor Baldy, who teaches my Media Management class. I like him, he even reminded me to respond to one of our class Blackboard topics when I forgot, instead of just docking me the points.

Then there's my Shakespeare class with Professor Don't-worry-we're-not-going-to-do-a-lot-of-acting-in this-class. We've had to act out a scene in every class so far.

I also have Professor Talks-too-fast-to-understand-half-of-what-he's-saying and Professor Corn Dog. So named because he tells terribly corny jokes at the beginning of every class. Trust me, they're so bad they don't even bear repeating.

And last but not least, because he's the one I really wanted to talk about,
there's Professor "Right?"

Just to give you a little context, this guy is the one teaching my Communications in Business class. He's supposed to be teaching us how to properly communicate in a business setting and he also happens to be the Professor that teaches Public Speaking as well. It drives me nuts being in his class. It's not the material, that's fine, your basic Comm stuff so far; sender, receiver, decoding the message, symbols and their multiple meanings, context, etc., etc., ad nauseam.

No, what bugs me about this guy, is at the end of every sentence he tacks on the question, "right?" I noticed he did it a lot on the first day but it didn't really bother me because I figured it was just first day jitters, since we were his first class to teach at the university, blah blah blah. Not a big deal, he'd drop it eventually.

Wrong.

The second day of class we were 15 minutes in and I wanted to bang my head on the table, he kept saying "right?" so damn much. Finally, I couldn't even listen to him, all I kept waiting for was the "right?". I started keeping count. Every time he said "right?", I put a little tally mark at the top of my paper. I gave up when I got past 300.

The class is only an hour and 15 minutes long.

Today it was a challenge but I managed to get past a few of the "right?"s to at least make it bearable. He's a nice enough guy and all, and I do find the class interesting, but good lord if you're a professor that teaches Public Speaking you should at least be a little more conscious of what you're saying, or better yet, what you might be communicating with that reflexive "right?".

My Kryptonite and Other Ramblings

2011-09-10T00:35:00.001-04:00

I'm sure I've discussed this on my blog before but I have a weakness for shoes. Girly, I know, but I'm not talking about the pointy heeled ones. I'm talking about the super comfortable, wear-them-every-day-and-only-take-them-off-when-you-go-to-bed type of shoes. You know, the Converse kind.

I tend to form unhealthy attachments to my Converse. Any time a pair of shoes that I've been eyeballing on their website goes on sale it's an insta-buy. I can't resist. I get the shakes, break out into a cold sweat and whip out my bank card. On the less dramatic side, I rarely ever buy the shoes at full price, so when they do go on sale I grab them before my size sells out.

Tempt me with the promise of a new pair of Converse and I'll rob a bank for you. But then I'll keep the money for myself and buy more Converse with them. It's a vicious cycle.

Currently, I have 5 pairs; 2 Chucks, 3 Skater. There are 2 more pairs that I'm keeping my eye, but they're newer so they won't be going on sale any time soon. But I check it weekly anyway.

I need, help. It's seriously getting out of control. Do they have a self help group for this kind of thing? A Converse Anonymous? Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter because I wouldn't go anyway. I love my Converse way too much to give them up.

I'm excited because this weekend at work it's jeans and kicks days, which means we get to wear jeans and whatever shoes we want....Guess what shoes I'm wearing?

....The highlight of my week is wearing jeans to work

....FML.

I lead such a boring life, but I kind of like it that way. It leaves me with plenty of "Me" time. The older I get the more I turn into a hermit.

When I'm not at work or school, I'm at home doing one of three things; sleeping, playing Xbox 360, or doing something on my laptop. Exciting stuff, I tell ya.

Between work and school though I'm "working" more than 70 hours a week so that doesn't make me sound like such a loser.

In other news, it hit me this week in class that I'm going to be graduating in a year so I need to figure out what kind of job I want to have when I finally get that little piece of paper that I paid a shit ton of money for.

I don't know what the fuck I want to do.

I'm not afraid to work hard so that isn't the problem. It's figuring out where the hell I should even be looking and how do I get my foot in the door?

It's such a terrible job market to be going in to that all prospects seem bleak.

Maybe I'll move to Hawaii and become a beach bum.

Back to School I Go

2011-09-07T23:20:00.000-04:00

Classes started this week. I'm going to be a busy girl once again. I barely had time to say good bye to sleeping in until 1o'clock, or sitting around the house playing Xbox 360 in my pajamas, before I was scrambling to get all of my books together and make it to class on time. [Instert frowny face here.]

Once again all of my classes are 300 level which I expected since I'm finally going into my last year, although technically I won't graduate until August next year. Four of my five classes are typically what I expected, lots of work, lots of writing and research, but at least the professors don't seem terrible.

I can already tell my English class on Shakespeare is going to be my all time favorite. I'm already excited and I've only been to it one time so far. The professor is really enthusiastic about the plays, and we won't just be studying the scripts we're also going to be looking at the performances as well. We're going to be reading Titus Andronicus, Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Read it), Twelfth Night (Read it) and King Lear. My professor also arranged for us to go see Titus being performed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario on the 24th, which I'm very, very excited about.

In other news completely unrelated to class, I got a new car. I effing love it, it's a 2006 Chevy, in a kick ass red, oh man I keep coming up with excuses just to drive it everywhere. This is the first time I've had a car that wasn't almost as old as I am. I'm probably going to post a pic just to show her and Coda off together. I have yet to really settle on a name for her; you know, every good car has to have a name. I've been leaning toward Penny maybe, since she is a saucy red head, but we'll see how that fits.

TWSS

2011-08-24T02:19:00.002-04:00

I was at my uncle's over the weekend. With Doug being here this week we've been making the rounds with the family so everyone can see him before he flies home. I hadn't been over to my uncle's in a few weeks so when I came up his sidewalk I wasn't expecting to run into a bush, which is exactly what I did.

One of his shrubs hadn't been trimmed and I didn't see the branch hanging over the sidewalk and it whacked me in the face.

My uncle was at the front door waiting for us when we walked in.

"I think your bush just attacked me," I said still rubbing where the branch hit me.

Without missing a beat my uncle respond with, "that's what she said!"

I couldn't help but laugh because it was absolutely perfect and unexpected. Sometimes I feel "that's what she said" is used way too much but at other times, it's the only appropriate response.

All I Ever Wanted

2011-08-17T00:36:00.004-04:00

I saw Life As We Know It for the first time today and thought it was cute. A nice fluff movie that I didn't have to think while watching and could get a few laughs on the side. Essentially, a no-brainer, which I definitely needed as much as I've been working lately.

After the movie was over I let the credits roll while I straightened up until this song came on:

The second the strings started to play I was hooked and caught myself just sitting and listening to the song without even meaning to. I'm a sucker for strings and a good beat. Which this song has both, add the drawn out vocals and I was a goner. While I sat and listened I even briefly thought to myself the strings strongly reminded me of OneRepublic. So it didn't come as a shock when in my Google search it came up that the song was written by Ryan Tedder aka the frontman for OneRepublic although I was surprised to find out it was Faith Hill who was singing. To be honest though, the lyrics? Not that great, a bit too cliche for me but I figure 3 out of 4 isn't bad at all.

Surprises

2011-08-06T22:46:00.004-04:00

It always comes as a surprise whenever I am asked out, or asked for my number by a guy. I think it's because I know I'm gay and I assume everyone else does as well. I don't hide it and I certainly don't deny it. I'm definitely not the brand of gay girl that likes to flirt with the boys, to me flirting is like a prelude for more, and there is no way I would be preluding anything with the male variety.

Tonight, I was on my way to a movie with a friend from work and needed to stop for gas. It was one of the rare times I had cash on me so I headed inside to prepay for the pump. As I'm walking up I wasn't really paying any attention to the person I was walking behind until he noticed I was behind him and held the door to the gas station open for me. I smiled and thanked him politely as I stepped inside.

From the way he was holding the door open from the inside for me, he was still angled closest to the register so I was going to let him go first. He waved his arm and told me to go ahead and this time I smiled and thanked him out of surprise. I paid for the gas and headed back outside and started pumping it when I noticed the guy walk to the car next to mine. I went back to watching the pump meter when I heard him say something and turned to look when I realized he was talking to me.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" I asked him.

"Your gas, I would have pumped it for you if I knew you were going to do it yourself," he repeated again.

I raised my eyebrows in genuine surprise at such an old fashioned comment. And while the feminist in me would never have allowed it, I appreciated the thoughtfulness of his remark at the same time.

"How chivalrous of you," I said as I chuckled lightly. "Thank you anyway."

He took a step toward me and held out his hand. "I'm Mike."

"Nice to meet you Mike, I'm Amanda." I returned his hand shake.

"So can I call you some time?"

Surprised again, even though I should have seen the signals by then. I hesitated for a split second, trying to figure out a way to let him down nicely because I already liked him for his politeness. So I said the first thing that came to my head.

"Sorry but I'm already seeing someone." I always feel guilty after turning someone down, but I have found the easiest way of doing it is telling them you're seeing someone else so they feel you have a legitimate reason for saying no, rather than just saying no to them. Honestly, I rarely if ever say it's because I'm gay. 1) It opens up a whole other can of worms and 2) I can usually make a quick getaway if I just stick with the "seeing someone" comment.

"You are? That's too bad," he replied.

By that time I was done pumping my gas and as interesting as things had been I needed to get going because my friend was already waiting for me at the theater, Re: quick getaway. I said good bye and drove off. On the way to the theater I tried to evaluate what could have encouraged him to ask me out. I wasn't wearing anything out of the ordinary, a light Columbia jacket, jeans and Converse. My hair was just in a pony tail and I didn't have any make-up on.

In the end the only conclusion that I could come to was that he took my politeness as potential interest.

A Post Buffet

2011-08-02T01:06:00.003-04:00

It's been over a month since my accident. My hand still hurts from time to time. I can't really grip anything too hard or I get a sharp pain up to my wrist and it hurts just making a fist. My knee is still sore to the touch on the side. It doesn't hurt to walk on it but if I have to kneel down or squat it really hurts. That sucks the most because before my accident I had been doing a lot of different work out exercises and I wasn't having any problems with it at all and now I feel like I'm back to square fucking one. It's frustrating. The only cool thing out of it is the scar on one of my knuckles, although it itches like a bitch some times.

I still have a small bump on my forehead. I wonder if that's going to go away completely. The doctor said when the mirror hit me in the head it crushed tissue and it would take a while to heal. I remember when I went back to work after my accident one of the guys I work with noticed the bump on my head and asked me about it. I told him about the accident and how the rear view mirror hit me, and he points to the other side of my forehead and goes, did it get you there too? I looked at him for a second and said, uh no that's just how my forehead is. He apologized quickly and I cracked up at him because he's always so nice and his face was too funny not to laugh. To make him not feel so bad I told him not to worry, my forehead does stick out a bit.

New topic.

I took Coda up to my grandfather's at the lake last week. I've never seen a dog who fights me so hard when it's time for a bath have so much fun playing in the water at the lake. Seriously, she constantly tries to climb out of the tub when I'm washing her but the second she set paw into the lake she was splashing around like a mad pup. Crazy dog. It was fun to watch her having so much fun though. She even got to go for a boat ride, which I was a little nervous about at first but she was really calm and sat nicely the entire time.

She and my grandpa also became best buds. She would check on me through out the day but she followed him everywhere and he loved it. He kept teasing me about it and trying to make me jealous and I let him have his fun. He misses having a big dog of his own ever since my grandma got her two small poodle mixes and vetoed getting anymore bigger dogs. I'm hoping to go back once more before the end of the summer.

Switching topics again, I started watching True Blood. Holy fuck that show has a lot of sex, but when the writers aren't too busy making their characters have crazy monkey sex, the show isn't half bad, even funny with lines like "I'm a fairy?! How fucking lame is that?"

Although at times it does seem like an R rated version of Twilight with the whole Edward/Jake vs. Bill/Eric rivalry, especially since they've thrown werewolves into the mix.

Tonight

2011-07-14T18:09:00.001-04:00

I'm incredibly saddened that tonight will be the last time I see Harry Potter premier in theaters.

Summer Reading and the BBC

2011-07-12T20:45:00.006-04:00

Since I got my iPhone I've been reading a lot more. It's so convenient to have the iBook app right on my phone and just whipping it out whenever I know there's going to be a long wait...(heh, that's what she said.) Because most of the classics are public domain, I downloaded a ton of them and have been gradually making headway.

So far I've read Jack London's, The Call of the Wild, such a good book if you haven't read it, The Scarlet Letter and Little Women.

Currently, I'm reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I got the strong urge to read the book after seeing the BBC mini-series Jekyll, which is currently streaming on Netflix, *hint* the show is Uh-Mazing *hint*.

Next, I feel like going on an Oscar Wilde kick and reading The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest.

In other news, Torchwood made the jump to Starz. I practically had a Nerd-gasm watching the first episode. It was great, drawing in some well known names like Bill Pullman and Mekhi Pheifer to add to the previously British cast. Though I was glad to see the show picked up where it ended with BBC, I wonder how new comers are going to take being thrown in the middle of a cast of characters that already has a long history.

If you watch Dr. Who at all then you'll understand when I say the mid-season finale gave me a full on Nerd-gasm. I have fallen completely in love with the show, even more so than I thought I could. Since the new Dr. Who series had premiered I would catch an episode here and an episode there, but I never actually took the time to sit down and watch from the beginning.

Halfway through season 1 I was hooked, but season 2 would be my ultimate demise where I fell head over heals for David Tennant as The Doctor.

The 10th Doctor and Rose were effing MTB and there was no arguing with me.

After the end of season 4 I was determined to cross my arms and pout, refusing to like Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor.

I failed miserably. What can I say, bow ties are just so cool.

Matt Smith's adorable awkwardness and brilliant acting as The Doctor swept me off my feet and assuaged any previous worry or doubt I had about my love for The Doctor.

Little Visitor

2011-07-10T01:01:00.002-04:00

There is a mouse in my house. That sounds like a title to a children's book, but I will tell you right now it is not going to have a G rated ending.

I was letting Coda back in from outside when I happened to look over towards the end of my kitchen and saw him scurrying along the back wall to get out of sight.

My literal reaction was "Oh hell no little dude. You have to go." So now I get to make my way to Home Depot to pick up some mouse traps and hope he's the only one. Maybe Coda will do me a favor and get rid of him for me, she's pretty good about spotting stuff. She's hilarious to watch when she sees a fly or a moth or pretty much anything with wings.

Accident Part 2: The Scene of the Accident

2011-06-24T16:21:00.004-04:00

Now that I'm feeling a bit better I can go into a little more detail about the accident.

I was on my way to work that morning and as I was going through an intersection a car in the left turn lane turned right in front of me and I full on nailed it. I had a green light so I think I had less than a couple seconds to hit my brakes and went head on into the side of her car and then bounced off and went into another car that was sitting at the red to go across the intersection. So I had the fun off two impacts.

When I hit the first car, the impact shoved the engine back into my car and so both of my knees went into the dash. That was probably the worst part, they hit the dash so hard that I couldn't feel them at first. I remember sitting in my car trying to stop hurting enough to move and all I could do was force myself to take shallow breaths. Scary.

One of the people driving behind me was an off duty EMT and he was the first one to come up to me after the accident and poked me hard in the middle of my chest telling me not to fall asleep because I was still stunned from the impact and wasn't moving. He happened to poke me right where my seat belt had come across my chest and boy did that wake me up. I sat up in my seat so quick that if I hadn't already hurt my neck I probably would have then. He had me sit back and take my seat belt off and asked me some questions about where I was hurting, if I could move my legs and get out of the car. I finally got some feeling back in my legs but by that point they were hurting so bad all I could do was wiggle them a bit. He reached around behind my neck to press on my spine and tell him if that hurt, it didn't. It was the muscles on the right side and my shoulder that hurt. The next day all I could figure was when I knew I was going to collide with the first car, I turned my face away and tensed up my shoulder and then when we hit I jarred them pretty good.

After he checked to make sure I didn't have any spine injuries he asked me if I knew my name, how old I was, standard questions because I had quite a bump on my head. I hadn't even realized there was anything wrong with my head by that point because I was still foggy, and when I reached up to lightly touch it I felt like I had a softball sticking out of the right side of my forehead. When I put my hand back down is when I noticed my left hand had been hurt pretty bad, it was bleeding quite a bit and I could only move my pinky and thumb.

At that point I was aware enough to do an injury count, I moved my right arm and that hurt my shoulder, my hand was hurting, I had some burns on my arm from the air bag, a few cuts from glass. I was shaking and my chest was really sore from the seat belt but nothing too serious, mostly though my knees were my focus, every thing else paled in comparison because they hurt the worst. All of this, from the time of impact to me finally regrouping enough to take in my aches and pains and surroundings was only a minute or so.

Strangely enough, my first reaction after I was able to think some what clearly was "I need to call work and tell them I can't make it in." When my uncle found out I called my work before the ambulance even arrived he commented that I better use that for incentive for a raise. I laughed.

After I got off the phone with my work I was still a bit disoriented and instead of calling my grandmother like I should have, I called my mom who lives in Florida. All I can remember thinking at that point was I need to talk to mom. I have no doubt that it was a comfort thing because my mom and I are super close and once she got on the phone and I told her what happened I broke down crying. I was hurting, disoriented, I didn't know if anyone else had been hurt, I was pretty sure my car was toast, and all I wanted was to talk to my mom so she could make it all okay.

Once I was showing I was fully aware of everything a lady who was on the phone with 911 handed me her cell. The dispatcher asked me some questions about my injuries and asked if I needed an ambulance and I said yes. After I handed the lady her phone back my mom was still on my cell and was also on her boyfriend's phone calling my uncle and my grandmother to see who could get to me first.

At this point things start to get a bit blurry, I can't remember if the ambulance or police arrived first, but I do remember an EMT coming over and checking my injuries and seeing how serious everything was. She checked my neck again because I had said the right side hurts and they made me put on a neck brace, which quite frankly was more irritating that my neck pain. What sticks out in my mind the most though is when she reached down to check my right knee and she pressed on it and I nearly broke down crying again because it hurt so bad I just blurted out "please stop touching me". So she had me move my legs again and try sliding them out of the car, which with some effort I could do, it just hurt like hell but by that point I knew nothing was broken so I managed to suck it up and do as she asked. The EMT walked away and a police officer came over and started asking me some questions about what happened, what direction was I driving in, how fast was I going, did I have a green light, was I wearing my seat belt, things like that.

I asked the police officer if the other two drivers were okay and he said there didn't seem to be anything too serious, we were all banged up and hurting but everyone would be okay. That was a sigh of relief.

After every one else had been packed up into an ambulance and taken away I was next and the EMT's had me see if I could get out of the car on my own. My left leg wasn't nearly as bad as my right so I was able to stand up and support my weight on that one but every time I tried to put weight on my right leg it kept trying to give out on me. So the EMT's supported me while I hobbled onto the gurney and they had me lay down. Once they got me into the back of the ambulance they took a better look at my knees and I couldn't help but laugh when the lady goes, "We're going to cut your pants off and don't freak out, they're already ripped and ruined anyway." She must have a lot of people complain about having their clothes cut off.

While I was laying there and they were asking me some more questions I saw the side door open out of the corner of my eye and I heard my uncle telling me he was here and that he was going to follow me to the hospital. He reached in and patted my shoulder and like a total girl I started to cry again because it was a relief to know he was there.

When the EMT's were done going over all of my injuries the lady hopped out and we headed for the hospital.

My uncle managed to get a picture of my car after I was on my way to the hospital.

If you click on it, the picture should expand.

Car Accident: Guardian Angel

2011-06-22T00:47:00.002-04:00

Today, I totaled my car. Let me tell you something about a head on collision at 40 mph...It fucking HURTS.

Thankfully, I don't have anything too serious, a concussion (man you should see the knot on my head, I'll probably put a pic up soon), and some cuts, bruises and jammed appendages. But looking at my car it could have been so much worse. I'm not usually a religious person but when my mom said "you had a guardian angel watching over you," I found it a bit hard to argue.

One Dog For Sale

2011-06-18T00:59:00.003-04:00

Anyone want to buy a dog? Name your price and she's yours! She's great with kids, has never bitten or shown aggression of any kind, loves being pet for hours and is a faithful companion on long walks. What's the catch, you say??? There's no catch, why would you think there's a catch? Did someone tell you there was a catch, who was it? Huh?! WHO TOLD YOU THERE WAS A CATCH????? Oh alright, here's the catch...SHE FUCKING CHEWS THROUGH EVERYTHING!

In the last two, almost three, months that I have had Coda she has chewed through my favorite pair of shoes, a cord for my only living room lamp, my ether-net cable, the battery charger for my camera, the charger for my cellphone, countless papers and napkins, the trash, a pair of jeans that fell out of my laundry basket, my dish sponge, not to mention Jesus' head and her bath towel.

But today was the last straw. She pushed me one step too far this morning. Usually in the morning, Coda and I have a routine. We wake up, I let her outside while I take my shower and get ready for work and by the time I'm done she's ready to come back in. This morning though, things deviated from our regular routine. My alarm went off and I got out of bed, but Coda didn't get up like she normally does so I figured she didn't have to go outside yet. I think nothing of it and hop in the shower and leave her to sleep some more. When I get out of the shower and change into my work clothes I see that Coda is up and about now so I ask her if she has to go outside and I get a tail wag in response so I know that's a yes. We head downstairs and that's when I see it.

Coda had chewed through the cord of my brand new vacuum. The brand new vacuum that I have used three, count them, one, two, THREE, times since I got it. And that was it, that was the last straw that broke the camels back. I saw red, and Coda new instantly that she was busted big time.

I was really quite disappointed that she had done that because I am not the type of person that likes to lock a dog up when I'm gone, growing up we always had dogs that roamed the house while we were gone and so I feel guilty when I leave and she has to be put in her cage. And with how well she had been doing the past month I was ready to give her that chance again, but then she blew it and now she has to stay locked up while I'm at work or taking a shower. Le sigh, why do I feel like the bad guy when she's the one that ruined my vacuum?? Dumb dog.

I'm Evil

2011-05-28T01:07:00.003-04:00

Coda and I have been butting heads a lot lately, mostly with her trying to eat EVERYTHING she sees, including non-edible items. One of the things she does that I have been working very diligently of breaking her of is begging. I absolutely can not stand begging so I am very strict on that and never give her food while I'm eating and always drop it in her bowl when I do give it to her.

Today, I stopped by Sonic and got a Cherry-Limeade and while I was drinking it I noticed Coda was continually begging. So as an experiment I decided let her taste lime juice and see if that would deter her from begging at all. I pulled a lime out and when she reached for it I squirted the juice into her mouth.

I will say that it didn't stop her from begging but the face she made when she tasted the lime juice was hilarious. I didn't know dogs could make faces like that but she did.

Apparently I Missed the End of the World...

2011-05-26T03:17:00.002-04:00

...Or so that's what the internet tells me. How is it the first I am hearing of this?! Man, that would have been the perfect excuse for a party. Oh well, I'm in luck since the world obviously didn't end and the date has been moved back. So save the date, party at my house, we can all get drunk and dance around to Lady Gaga. Sounds like a plan!

Shall I Tell You a Story?

2011-05-20T00:20:00.002-04:00

I want to tell you a story, would you like that?

Imagine a day; a day like any other.

You wake up, get dressed, go to work, and walk miles in your well worn work shoes. You come home, do some of your daily house chores, play with the dog, change into street clothes and slip on your favorite pair of Converse that are just as worn as your work shoes with just as many miles but are so much more loved than they are. You run some errands, come home again, kick off your shoes, make some dinner, settle down for bed and begin to drift off for the night.

Only, something is amiss. What could it be? You toss and turn, no luck. You pause and listen. Do you hear it? That squeaking sound. Where is it coming from?

You sit up in bed, look around and listen some more. The sound is coming from under your bed. You draw up childhood memories of monsters under your bed, waiting for you to set one foot on the floor so they can bite it off.

You throw a pillow down first, just in case.

The squeaking stops.

You hold your breath and listen harder. You hear it again, squeak, squeak, squeak. It's a steady cadence of squeaks this time.

Completely befuddled, you throw off the blankets, climb out of bed and take two quick steps then freeze. That's when you spot it, at the end of your bed. Just there, do you see it? The source of the squeaking sound. Your eyes adjust to the darkness and to your horror you begin to take in such a terrible sight.

At the foot of your bed, a huddled black mass takes shape. Its fur is black as pitch, covering a well muscled body designed to pounce on its unsuspecting victims in the night. Its snout is long and pointed, filled with blindingly white teeth, so sharp they could chew through anything. But what terrifies you the most, is what you see gripped tightly between its dangerous claws.

You gasp!

The creature looks up at you without moving its head and continues to gnash its teeth. You're frozen in horror, because with every chomp of its jaws a high pitched squeak emerges.

"NO!" you yell, as you dive for that precious object held between the beast's hideous jaws. It dodges right. You dodge left and come up victorious, cradling your "precious" in your arms.

The beast looks up at you in confusion, and wags its tail.

In your arms you hold what was once the most beautiful, perfect, right-half of your favorite pair of aqua blue colored Converse shoes. Forever mangled and disfigured, you take a moment to mourn that shoe. You look down at that innocent size 9 and a single tear falls from the corner of your eye and travels down your cheek. The squeak you had heard was from the beast's teeth rubbing against the leather of the shoe. As if it were crying out in pain to be rescued from the heartless animal.

The tear dissolves and your anger filled eyes turn on the beast. It cowers, sensing that it has finally crossed a line and slinks toward its cage. You remind yourself that turning a dog into an area rug is illegal, no matter how nice of one it would make.

Don't fret my darlings, this story has a happy ending.

Out of your moment of defeat an idea emerges. You take to the internet like a woman possessed, scouring page after page of shoes until you find just the right ones. And there they are, one pair red and one pair black, but both as closely identical to the mangled one you hold in your hand as they can get without being the same shoe. You take the plunge, add them to your cart and check out.

Shipping takes two days, and you impatiently wait. You wait to see if your gamble is going to pay off. Was it possible to even come close to the perfection of those dearly departed pair of shoes? Could one pair, let alone two be as everlasting?

The shoes arrive.

You pull them out of the box, lace them up and take in that unmistakeable new shoe smell. You slip the first pair on, wiggle your toes, roll back on your heels and dare not hope. But that little voice in the back of your head whispers, "could it be?" You take them off and gently set them aside as you grab the second pair and put them on and follow the same process; toe wiggle, heel roll.

As you sit there and slowly take in the ramifications of what has just happened, Beethoven's Ode to Joy begins to play in the background. A miracle, a once in a lifetime shoe miracle, has just taken place! Both shoes fit perfectly, and both shoes are just as amazingly comfortable as the recently deceased pair! Oh, happy day!

The End

I told you it had a happy ending. And in case you were wondering, this and this are the shoes that I got.

Coda Vs. The Rake

2011-05-11T10:56:00.002-04:00

Let me just say, the rake won.

The weather here has been really nice lately, sunny and warm with a slight breeze, perfect weather before it gets hotter than an oven the next two months. I had the last few days off so I took advantage of the wonderful weather to do some yard work. I was raking the yard trying to get some dead leaves from around the house and the dead grass when I noticed Coda kept avoiding the rake, she would skirt around to my other side placing me between herself and the rake. I held out the rake for her to investigate so she wouldn't be scared of it, she slowly inched up, sniffed the rake and relaxed a little.

As I continued raking Coda decided she wanted to play, she would bite and bark at the rake and then chase the leaves as I pushed them forward. It was cute and funny and we had a good time while I finished the yard up. By the time we headed back inside Coda was no longer afraid of the rake so I leaned it up against the side of the house and we settled down for the night.

This morning I let Coda out and went about my usual routine, my yard isn't completely fenced in so I use a tie-out, only I noticed Coda was being awfully quiet outside. Usually when she's out there I can hear her running after squirrels or barking at birds. I go outside to check on her and I find her cowering at the corner of my house. I tried to get her to come to me but for some reason she wouldn't move.

After a moment I notice that the rake is laying on the ground right on top of her tie-out leash. I forgot I had leaned against the side of the house and she must have knocked it over. Coda got up her courage and tried to move toward me but every time she moved, the rake would move too and she would get scared again. I was cracking up when I saw what was going on. It was one of those, awww-I-shouldn't-be-laughing-at-this-but-it's-really-funny-and-cute moments. So I rescued her from the evil rake and she bee-lined it for the door.

In the end the score was The Rake 1, Coda 0.

You know you had a good time when...

2011-05-08T00:31:00.001-04:00

...you end the night getting kicked out of a bar.

:)

Good times.

A thought...

2011-05-06T02:25:00.001-04:00

I feel a random questionnaire coming on, now if only I could find a good one. I haven't done one in at least a few months, it's definitely time to fix that.

Felt like updating...

2011-05-01T01:52:00.001-04:00

...even though I really don't have anything to update about. Things have been keeping me busy so I haven't had the time I would like to write. And when I am writing I'm usually working on the half finished NaNoWriMo novel that I started waaay back in November. Yep, still writing that even though I've changed the ending about three different times. It's fun though, keeps the imagination sharp, you know? Do I pull a Joss Whedon? Kill off a major beloved character? Or a John Green? Bringing some ultimately profound life lesson into the mix? Or do I leave things open and loose with a few ends to continue writing if I need something to keep myself occupied? Who knows, I think it depends on my mood while I'm writing.

Things with Coda have been...challenging. I swear when she's not eating something she's not supposed to she's getting into other trouble. I'll elaborate more on that later this week if I have time.

Work has sucked donkey balls this past week. I think all of the fucking psychotic customers have come out of the wood work lately. The one that tops them all is this insane lady who accused me of stealing fifty dollars from her, told me to shut up when I explained to her that I didn't steal anything from her and then called me a bitch. She's lucky I needed my job more than I wanted to punch her in the face. Thankfully, my managers are on my side, they pulled the tapes and confirmed that I wasn't lying about not stealing money. That's probably what has pissed me the most off too, I don't care that she called me a bitch so much as I can't stand people who steal and accusing me of stealing just makes me that much more angry.

I finished watching Dollhouse finally. I can't remember why I stopped watching the 2nd season midway through, probably got busy with work or school but last week I had 3 days off in a row and decided to marathon season's 1 and 2. I also saw the King's Speech which I absolutely loved, I can see why it got so many awards.

I'm looking forward to Friday, a bunch of people from work are going out together and I think it's going to be a good time. I get along really well with everyone going, plus the place we're going to sells Long Islands in these mini trash can things. Yuuuuuummmm!

One of the girls that's going is really funny because we play really well off each other, we can get a conversation going and just keep it escalating with our ridiculousness. I think our latest funny/wrong conversation was about the weather and amount of murders taking place in the city lately. She mentioned something about how in the winter time everyone stays in doors and makes babies and the summer time everyone wanders around at night killing each other. And I said well at least it's a good form of population control because it all balances out so there's enough room for the babies. One of the other girls I work with looks at both of us with a face of horrified amusement and then punched me in the arm for what I said. I just think she was mad because I made her laugh at something so wrong. Sometimes that's the best kind of humor. It eases the tension about serious topics and helps relieve the stress about the fact that it's only going to be May and there have already been more than 20 murders in the city so far.

I just noticed my clock says 1:43am. I love you too clock! That's one of my favorite numbers. For as long as I remember that has been a little code between my mom, my brother and I. It's not a secret or anything, but I remember my mom using it when we were younger and didn't want to embarrass us in front of our friends by yelling "I love you sweetheart!" like you see in movies and such. She would always just say "one four three" and we would know and shout it back. We still use it to this day, I'll get a text with just 143 in it. One of my friends Kini asked me once why we didn't just say I love you and I didn't know the answer until I thought about it for a moment and told her it was because they mean the same thing. The number has become completely synonymous to the words for us.

Well, I think this post has rambled on enough and I've covered multiple topics that I wanted to talk about. So I shall say goodnight sweet world, 143!

Coda and the Stairs

2011-04-23T11:38:00.000-04:00

The stairs in my house are really narrow and kind of steep. I mean so narrow and steep that when I was buying a bed I had to run home real quick to measure the stairs and make sure it would fit up them. I had to get a full instead of a queen because of that! And even then it took three delivery guys angling it just right to get it to fit. I don't even want to think about when I move out. As I said, narrow and steep.

When I first got her, Coda was afraid to go up and down the stairs, she would get her momentum going and not stop for anything. She still does this, only now instead of having to coax her up and down the stairs, she insists on climbing them with me. I'll be walking down the stairs when all of a sudden I hear this herd of elephants coming behind me and these lyrics pop into my head, "move bitch, get out the way, get out the way bitch, get out the way", so it's either make way or let her plow me over because she is not stopping.

So if you hear that I ended up in a full body cast from falling down the stairs it's because I didn't move out of the way fast enough and Coda took me out.

Coda's First Trip to the Vet

2011-04-21T10:22:00.003-04:00

Coda went to the Vet today. She was such a good girl I couldn't believe it. I could see immediately that my training every day with her has started to sink in because she listened to me when I made her sit and behave around the other people and animals.

She only had to get two shots today, I wanted to have her tested for heartworm and get her last round of distemper shot taken care of. This was the first time I had ever been to this particular vet clinic, and I really liked the vet there so we will definitely be going back.

Next week though is going to be the big one. On Wednesday she's going in to be spayed. I know it's a routine procedure but I can't help but feel a little worried about the whole thing. I just worry that after the surgery, getting her to stay calm is going to be a challenge. She has so much energy and loves to play that I don't want her to go and pull any of her stitches. I guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

Michigan Weather

2011-04-18T08:16:00.004-04:00

One thing about Michigan weather that everyone seems to forget is that it sucks. Just when you think summer time is on its way, Mother Nature hits you in the sweet spot and runs away laughing maniacally.

This morning I woke up around 6am to let Coda outside. I noticed it was a bit chilly and could see my breath but nothing really out of the ordinary for a Michigan spring morning. I let Coda back in and we both lay down for a little while longer, me in bed, Coda on her blanket next to my bed.

A couple hours later I'm disturbed from my dozing by a strange noise. As I lay in bed trying to figure out what that sound is, I decide to get up and look out my window because for all I know it could be someone breaking into my car or something. I pull back the curtains on my window and this is what I see:

A week ago Sunday it was 80 degrees outside and today it's snowing. Fuck you very much Mother Nature.

And now I'm going back to bed to sulk.

Coda ate Jesus

2011-04-17T11:58:00.004-04:00

A few days ago I was awoken early by the lovely sound of someone knocking on my door. I groggily stumbled downstairs to see who it was. I opened the door and saw two women in there Sunday best and knew immediately what they wanted. Coda, forgetting her manners when greeting people, tried pushing through the door to lick them to death, but they didn't know that.

After eying Coda for a moment I could see they decided to make things short and sweet, stuck the pamphlet through the screen door inviting me to the service and hurried off. Pamphlet in my hand, I looked down at Coda with her ears perked up and tongue hanging out and decided she didn't look particularly ferocious. I shut the door and tossed the pamphlet down onto an end table because that was closer than the trash and I just wanted to go back to sleep.

Later that day as I was getting ready for work I saw something laying in the middle of the living room floor and when I picked it up this is what I found:

I couldn't help but laugh that the only thing Coda chewed off was the head. But of course chewing on things that are not her toys is bad so when I showed her the pamphlet she gave me this face:

How can you scold that? So she got away with that one and I have started calling her Hell Hound in the process.

Coda

2011-04-16T10:00:00.000-04:00

Blog, meet Coda.
Coda is ridiculously hard to take pictures of because she is so black.

I couldn't get a picture of her standing up but Coda is a pretty big dog.

She likes to wait for you to rub her belly.

Coda likes playing fetch and eating snacks, especially her ham bone. She likes crawling under my bed and sniffing EVERYTHING. She's very nosy and must know what you are doing and what you might have in your hand. She is very smart and catches on quickly.

Coda does not like loud noises, walking with the leash (we're lead training right now and she does not appreciate not being able to pull all she wants), being told she can't get up on the furniture or jump up on you.

Since I brought her home last Friday, things have been going really well with Coda. Aside from a few puppy antics, Coda is incredibly well behaved. When I got Coda I knew she was supposed to be house broken but I took that with a grain of salt, luckily I need not have, she has yet to have any sort of accident in the house. I also figured I would have to crate Coda when I went to work and was astounded when I left her home alone for 7 hours straight (after I made sure there was absolutely nothing of value she could get into) just to see if she would get into anything and she didn't.

Day one with Coda was interesting. Obviously, she was a bit anxious not understanding what was going on and the excitement of leaving the Animal Control Center and meeting new people didn't help. But once we got home and it was just her and I she calmed down a little. She quietly explored the house, leaving no inch unsniffed. I put her crate together which she hated immediately and frankly, after living in a cage for the past few weeks, I can't blame her.

After a few hours I started to pick up on Coda's quirks. For some reason she likes crawling under my bed. I've never seen a dog do that before so I'm not sure what that's all about. I thought at first maybe she was scared and hiding from something, but when I got down on the ground to check on her she just laid under there, tongue out and tail wagging. Another thing that I can only guess Coda picked up from her previous owners is that she will not sleep anywhere but in front of the front door.

Something that surprised me though, once I got Coda home she barely barked. When I saw her at the control center she was barking up a storm in her cage and would get the other dogs barking too. I figured with some training I could teach her to stop but that wasn't necessary. The only time she does bark is when she thinks she hears something close to the house, which I am very grateful for since the neighborhood I live in is not the best, but it's not the worst either.

The first night was a long night because she would not settle down. I crated her thinking she would need it until I could figure out if she was going to destroy my house, it took a while but after a couple hours she fell asleep. I set my alarm to get up in the middle of the night and let her out, not knowing if she could hold it through the night or not yet. When I let her out I decided since it was pretty warm out I would sit on the back steps and make sure she went to the bathroom before I let her back in. I could hear a train passing by and Coda was wandering around the yard when all of a sudden the train blew it's horn and all four of Coda's paws came off the ground. I have never seen a dog jump so high from a flat standing position like that, and let me tell you it is really funny to see.

After I comforted her and stopped laughing Coda and I went back inside. When she still refused to go back into her cage I decided to just let her sleep where she wanted and see how she did the rest of the night. As I expected she slept in the living room where the front door was, but when I came down in the morning I found her in an arm chair after I told her she couldn't sleep on the couch, the brat.

The second day was interesting as well, on top of everything I also learned that Coda is a dominant dog. I kind of figured she would be, since she pulled on the leash so much and was quite adamant about not doing anything she didn't want, such as going back in her cage or giving up the ball in fetch (which I taught her to bring the ball back, now she just won't give it up). She made it quite obvious she wants to be the boss and I made it quite obvious that was not going to happen. Which is subsequently why she hates lead training. After the first time I took her for a walk and my hands and wrists ached from her pulling so hard I knew there was no way that was going to happen again and bought her a Halti collar. She fought it very hard at first but after about half an hour she was walking without pulling anymore.

Coda also decides when she wants to listen, she knows commands such as "sit" and "down" and "come here", but if there isn't any incentive for her to comply she pretends she doesn't hear you. We're working on that. With all that being said Coda is still a great dog. She's very social and loving and will sit in front of you all day if you just keep petting her. She made me laugh the first time she flopped down in front of me, belly up and feet in the air, waiting for me to scratch her stomach.

So far the things Coda and I are working on is:
-Lead training (going very well)
-Getting her to listen to and obey basic commands EVERY time not just when she wants
-And teaching her not to jump up on people (she doesn't jump up on me very often anymore but she gets very excited when visitors come over)

Coda and I will continue to work together and hopefully make some better progress.

Conversations With My Mother Pt....I forget.

2011-04-13T10:23:00.006-04:00

Over Gmail:

me: hey, are you in your office alone?
Mom: No, I have someone coming in to work on my computer. Why? Need me to call you?
me: no, I was just going to send you something really funny but inappropriate for work to read.
Mom: oh that is ok you can send it. I look at porn most days.
me: WHAT?!
Mom: lol my job kiddo, porn pops up almost every day reading isn't going to get me into trouble
me:...WOW.

For those of you that don't know, my mom works at a software company and tracks down where malware and spyware are coming from. Which basically means she gets paid to surf the internet all day. And for your educational information most malware comes from porn sites.

What a fun conversation to have with my mother at 9:30 in the morning. What's even better is that after my initial shock, I just shrugged it off and we continued with our chat.

The link I gave my mom to read was this one. After she finished reading she messaged this back to me:

Mom: I so would love to respond with comments about bragging that my daughter is a lesbian and the reactions I get from previously sane folks lmao. much like her once I find out it bugs them, I fuck with them.

And yes, just reconfirm my mom does brag about me being gay in that whole "My daughter is an honor student!" "Yeah well, my daughter is a LESBIAN!!!" kind of way. It's true, I've seen her do it.

P.S. Someone needs to make a bumper sticker that says "My lesbian daughter could kick your honor student's ass."

The Puppy Hunt Begins

2011-04-07T20:15:00.004-04:00

Ever since I moved to Michigan and away from my family dog, I have wanted one of my own. There's just something about having a dog in a house that makes things so much better. The lovely greeting at the door when you come home, the whining when you're not paying enough attention to them, the playful pounce onto the bed even when they know it's off limits. I miss it all.

So, what did I start planning the day I moved out? Finding a dog. I've been searching CraigsList, Petfinder and websites for local rescues. A week ago I saw that a volunteer from the local animal control posted on CraigsList pictures of the dogs they have available for adoption and I was a goner. One of the dogs looks like a black lab/border collie/retriever mix. They had her listed as 10 months old, friendly and already house broken. I wanted her immediately but I waited.

The next day I checked the site again and she was still available. I waited some more, still there. It was the weekend so when Monday rolled around I checked again and she still had not been adopted out. The entire time I made myself wait, it was for a reason. I was evaluating my situation, could I be responsible enough to own a dog? Would I be able to properly take care of it, walking, feeding, vet checks, etc.? Was I really ready for a dog? Oh Hell Yes I was!

Finally, this morning I broke down and visited Animal Control to see her in person and get a feel for her personality. Immediately I could tell that she was energetic and playful as she pressed up against the cage waiting for me to pet her. I asked one of the volunteers if I could take her out of the cage for some one-on-one time, and I was told there was a fenced-in area outside where she could run around. When walking her out on the leash I noticed she would need a bit of lead training, but that was to be expected.

As we got outside I noticed it was a little muddy out but I really didn't think anything of it. I should have known better. We got into the fenced area and already she was jumping around excitedly because she knew she was going to be let off her leash. (I can only imagine being kept in those cages the level of stir craziness those dogs must get to.) I reached down to un-clip her leash and before I was even able to stand all of the way up, I was covered, head to toe, in mud. In all of her excitement and jumping around she had splashed mud onto her legs, and then onto my pants. The moment I let her off the leash she jumped on me dragging her muddy legs from my shoulders all of the way down to my waist before running off to play.

Looking down at my coat all I could think was "Well, at least it's black and it'll wash easily." After that I added teaching her not to jump up to the list of training she would need. When she was done running around and came back to me I checked her for aggression by playing with her ears, gently pulling on her tail and rubbing her snout to see if I would get any negative reactions. For me that was a necessary test because I have a 7 year old little cousin who loves dogs and I couldn't have a dog that would snap when touched in a place it is protective of. She calmly sat there while I patted her down.

After letting her run around for a little bit and throwing a ball for her to chase (notice my use of the word "chase" because she does not fetch them, she only chases them) we went back inside and I felt my heart strings tugged when I tried to put her in her cage and she didn't want to go back. She kept trying to get me to play with her but she listened and climbed back in. Trying to force myself not to jump at the first dog I liked, I checked out a few other dogs. One in particular was such a sweetheart and if I hadn't been allergic to him I probably would have seriously considered adopting him.

I went home and changed out of my muddy clothes and thought about adopting the dog some more and finally came to a decision. Tomorrow morning I'm heading in to adopt my very first dog of my own! It's exciting because I've wanted one for such a long time, but I also wanted to make sure I was being responsible to the prospective dog as well. Before I head to the control center I'm going to pick up a cage because one thing I couldn't determine was if she's a chewer, but I'm betting she is with the lab in her.

I told my mom about the dog I liked and she asked me if I picked out a name yet and mostly I hadn't, I do like the name Coda, but I also want to see what sounds she responds to best. When I mentioned she has a white stripe on her chest in all of that black fur my brother goes "oh, so she's like a reverse skunk, you should name her Flower!" For those of you unfamiliar with Disney cartoons, Flower was the name of the skunk in Bambi. I immediately vetoed that idea.

Since it's getting late and I have some puppy proofing of my house to do before I pick her up in the morning I'm going to end things here. I have no doubt I'll be updating with lots of pictures later this week.

Getting Settled In

2011-04-03T22:08:00.003-04:00

It's been just over two weeks since I moved into my house and I am freaking loving it. Getting the house set up has kept me super busy on top of working full time. So here's a little recap:

Day 1 (Friday): I got the key and immediately went in a cleaned everything out. I may be messy and disorganized but I am CLEAN, meaning I scrubbed, shampooed, vacuumed and swept every conceivable surface.

Day 2: My uncle and I moved my stove and fridge in and all of the big stuff I had, book shelves, boxes, etc.. Needless to say at the end of the day my back was killing me from all that heavy lifting. I also got my very first house guest in the form of a bat. My uncle and I searched high and low trying to figure out how he might have gotten in but couldn't find anything so the only thing we figured was with the door open so much he must have snuck in without us noticing.

Day 3: I had to work that morning but after I got out I loaded my car up with more boxes (how the fuck did I fit so much shit into my room?!?!) and my sleeping bag to crash on the floor. Someone asked me the next day if it was scary spending the night alone in a new house, and honestly I wasn't bothered at all, I just remember thinking it was really quiet.

Day 4: I worked all day and started unpacking when I got home.

Day 5: See Above.

Day 6: Word of me getting my own place had spread through out the family and my great-grandma's brother had an entire living room set he was getting rid of. I said yes without even seeing the couch and chairs, I figured free was free, but I couldn't help laughing when I went to pick them up with my uncle. They were a vintage 1960's living room set. The couch and two chairs were a horrible puke green color with that futuristic stylization that the 60's were famous for. I loved them instantly. The best part was when my uncle looks at me and goes "I don't think these were ever sat on. Do realize how much this is worth?!"

Day 7: More work and unpacking with some grocery shopping thrown in.

Day 8: I went to Sears to pick out a bed for my new house. It was exciting because I had never picked out a bed before and naturally I had to test them all out. But after nearly a week of sleeping on the floor all of them felt heavenly on my back, luckily I found just the one.

Day 9: I had the day off so I decided to tackle the majority of my errands. I scooped my great-grandma up and we hit the stores. I needed basics that you never really think about until you don't have them; dish soap, garbage bags, ketchup, cooking utensils, etc.

Day 10-13: Work as usual.

Day 14: My bed was delivered! The funny thing was I was dressed for work when they came to deliver it and when I answered the door the Sears guy looks at my uniform and goes, "Traitor." I couldn't help but laugh and told him, "if only we sold mattresses." After they assembled the frame and left I flopped down on my bed and didn't want to move. I cursed having to go in to work but once I got home I swan dove onto my bed and didn't leave it until the morning.

Day 15 (Yesterday): For the past two weeks I had been hard core stalking the CraigsList furniture section and found some amazing finds. I got two brand new end tables that matched my book shelves perfectly for $15. A dresser for $30. But my favorite so far has been this real wood maple kitchen hutch. I love when people just want stuff gone, this lady asked $65 for it and I offered $35 figuring I would get an email back that went something like "Hahahahahaha...fuck off." but instead she said Sold! and told me to pick it up Saturday. When I got there to pick it up I couldn't believe she let it go for so little, I don't know much about furniture but looking at it I knew enough to know that she probably could have sold it for a couple hundred. Now it's sitting beautifully in my kitchen making my other cupboards jealous.

Day 16 (Today!): I went grocery shopping again. I think I've shopped more in the past two weeks than I have the entire past year. Now that I have my own kitchen, I have to stock it. Since I have become quite adept at cooking and would even go as far as to say I enjoy it I've noticed there is a lot my kitchen is lacking and it's making me mad because it's hindering what I can cook. One thing I did buy the moment I moved in was a CrockPot. I think everyone should learn how to use a CrockPot, it is a fucking life saver when you have to work all day and just don't have time to cook. All you do is prepare your food, drop it into the cooker, put it on low and leave for work. When you come home you have amazing-ness all ready for you to eat.

So far it has been great having my own place. I love it. People keep asking me if I'm lonely by myself and I just shake my head because clearly they don't know me and my hermit-like ways.

So excited!

2011-03-15T23:21:00.002-04:00

So guess what? I'll bet you'll never freaking guess because I never would have guessed it myself! But guess anyway. Have a guess? I'M FREAKING MOVING INTO MY OWN PLACE ON FRIDAY!

AAAAHHHHH! I'M SO EXCITED! It may just be a little one bedroom, two-story house, but it's MY one bedroom, two-story house.

A few weeks ago I decided it was time to move out and get my own place. My grandmother and I have been driving each other crazy and I'm just plain ready to be on my own. I have been ready for years but things just never worked out that way until now. I actually have a steady well paying job and the place I'm moving into is ridiculously affordable.

Since I was approved to move in I have been hardcore stalking the appliance and furniture sections on CraigsList. In case you didn't know this about me, I am one of the BIGGEST online bargain shoppers, I never pay full price for anything. For instance, just this week I got a fridge and a stove for a hundred bucks. A HUNDRED BUCKS! Not a hundred bucks each, not a hundred bucks and change, just a hundred bucks.

Getting everything ready for when I move into my house has made me feel like "Little Betty Homemaker" but I'm loving it. I don't care, I can't wait to move in and start decorating. Me, decorating!

So that's what I've been up to these past couple weeks and why such a long silence on my blog. I'm not even close to being done packing but that's because rather than just packing everything up I've been going through everything and getting rid of all the stuff I don't want to keep anymore. Fun stuff.

Water for Elephants

2011-03-06T01:28:00.003-05:00

A couple years ago a friend in class recommended I read a book called Water for Elephants, claiming it was her all time favorite book. So with a small amount of interest I picked the book up thinking it would be a casual read but instead I instantly fell in love with it, finishing the book in a couple days.

Today, to my complete surprise I was browsing a book store when I saw it was #1 on NYTimes Paperback best-seller list and printed down on the lower corner of the cover was "Now a Major Motion Picture". Five little words that can instantaneously strike fear and hope into a book lovers heart. Fear, that someone will go and ruin a story you love for a few extra dollars, and hope, that maybe it will be done properly and you will get to see a wonderful world come to life.

After running home and jumping on IMDB.com, I have to say my fear has been assuaged and my hope is in full blossom after seeing this trailer:

I have to say I am actually quite excited for this movie, it looks amazingly well done.

Lazy Day

2011-03-04T19:32:00.002-05:00

Today, this was my anthem. And it was a wonderful day. I slept, I read, I played xbox, I read some more, I ate what I wanted, I didn't answer my phone when it said work was calling, I slept some more, I stayed up late. It was my fucking day and I owned it!

My work likes to call me to cover shifts, a lot. Part of it is my fault because usually I say "yes" when they call. But when I worked eight days with only one day off, I was starting to run a little ragged and I began to get tired of hearing "oh hey, I know it's your day off but can you work tomorrow?" So today, when I finally got a day off, I refused to do anything that involved leaving the house, getting out of bed, heck if I felt I even had to move too much I wasn't doing it.

And I'm off to be absolutely unproductive some more.

Baking-Mini Pizzas

2011-02-25T22:25:00.004-05:00

On Fridays my little cousin normally comes over and while I was at the grocery store I was pondering what to make for dinner for her and I. Considering it's a Friday night, naturally my first thought was pizza. But I pushed that aside thinking, we do that too often.

So I was left with a thought, how do you one up the food of all foods? The best of the best? I mean really, you can't get any better than pizza for a 7 year old. What should I do?

And then I had a moment of genius...

You miniaturize it!

Mini pizzas. Fuck. Yeah.

The only way to make something better that can't already be improved upon is to make it smaller! And if I see you shaking your head over there I would like to point you to the frozen food section where you can get everything miniature. Mini corn dogs, mini tacos, mini ice cream bites, and don't let yourself get hung up on the word "mini".

Anything with "personal" in front of it is just a way of saying "we took this giant ass lasagna and made it small enough for just you to eat without having to invite an army over to finish it." See what I mean? Mini.

So I was left wondering how to make mini pizzas. Luckily for me, my mom bestowed me with enough culinary skills to kind of guess. I did a process of elimination, the hardest part was figuring out what to use for the crust, it was a toss up between bagels and english muffins, and bagel bread seemed too thick so english muffins it was!

Next stop, the do-it-yourself pizza section. You know the one, where they hang all of those gross looking pre-made crusts that can only taste like chalk and rubber mixed together, next to the jars labeled "Pizza Sauce" that look suspiciously like the jars two isles over labeled "Spaghetti Sauce".

Then I grabbed a bag of mozzarella cheese and a bag of pepperoni (I found ones that were mini pepperoni! Hey, it was a mini kind of day) and I was out the door.

I get home and my aunt and uncle drop my cousin off and we get to work making our own pizzas.

Ingredients
1 bag of Mozzarella Cheese
1 box of Thomas English Muffins (don't go cheap here, get the good brand)
1 jar of pizza sauce
And pizza toppings of your choice, keep in mind though you can only fit so much on after the sauce and cheese.

Cooking Instructions
-Preheat oven to 350 F
-Cut the muffins in half and spread them evenly on a cookie sheet. I found that six halves fit comfortably on a standard sized sheet.
-Layer your ingredients on the muffins, sauce first, then cheese, then toppings.
-Put the tray in the oven for exactly 10 minutes. If you like your crust really crunchy leave it in for 2 more minutes max or the english muffin crust will start to burn.

And Voila! You have yummy mini pizzas and you're fist bumping with your little cousin for being the Betty Fucking Crocker of mini pizza making.

I think these just became my new favorite thing to make because clean up was a piece of pie, put the spoon you used for the sauce and the cookie tray in the sink and you are DONE.

Guess what I'm having all week?

Question

2011-02-21T22:44:00.002-05:00

Riddle me this...

If Arkansas is pronounced "Ar-kan-saw" then why isn't Kansas pronounced "Kan-saw"?

I want to know!

I was just reading an article about Arkansas and this question occurred to me and makes absolutely no sense why they're pronounced differently but spelled the same.

W.

T.

F.

Funny Stuff

2011-02-21T05:33:00.000-05:00

I was checking out the Bloggies for this year because it's always a great way to check out some pretty amazing blogs. I came across a blog called Effing Dykes and so naturally being a big gaymo myself I had to check it out.

Fuck if I didn't immediately start laughing my ass off. The lady that writes the blog is freaking HI-larious. Some of the posts are about sex, some about giving advice, others about asking questions, but all of them are about lesbians and her running commentary on everything is perfect.

Instant subscribe on my google reader.

And yes I'm posting this early in the morning because I have been up all night reading the blog. In case you were wondering.

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap

2011-02-20T16:15:00.002-05:00

I forgot how much I love this song. Just listening to it, no distractions, just feeling the music.

where are we?
what the hell is going on?
the dust has only just begun to form
crop circles in the carpet
sinking feeling

spin me round again
and rub my eyes,
this can't be happening
when busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines
all those years
they were here first

oily marks appear on walls
where pleasure moments hung before the takeover,
the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

hide and seek
trains and sewing machines (oh, you won't catch me around here)
blood and tears (hearts)
they were here first

Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmm that you only meant well?
well of course you did
Mmmm whatcha say,
Mmmm that it's all for the best?
of course it is
Mmmm whatcha say?
Mmmm that it's just what we need
you decided this
whatcha say?
Mmmm what did she say?

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs
speak no feeling no I don't believe you
you don't care a bit,
you don't care a bit

(hide and seek)
ransom notes keep falling out your mouth
mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut outs

(hide and seek)
speak no feeling no i don't believe you
you don't care a bit,
you don't care a (you don't care a) bit

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
oh no, you don't care a bit

(hide and seek)
oh no, you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit
you don't care a bit

Sometimes...

2011-02-16T17:00:00.002-05:00

...I feel like my life is one of those drama riddled Lifetime movies. Or maybe a Jodi Picoult novel. Maybe both.

Anyway, it's been a while since I last posted. Partly because I've been sick, partly because I have a new addiction and it rhymes with mumbler. But mostly because my mind has been going in circles a lot.

Let me give you a little back story. When I was 18, I found out I had a younger sister that I had never met who had been given up for adoption by my mother at birth. For years it had just been my mom, Doug and I. The three musketeers. So imagine my surprise when my mom sat my brother and I down and explained she had given her middle child up for adoption because of certain extenuating circumstances.

Being young and completely broadsided by something as jarring as that I initially reacted with anger. In my mind she had given up the sister I had always wanted and I questioned what kind of person my mother was to give up a child. Both reactions were entirely selfish and immature but I didn't realize this at the time. Now that I am older and have had years to mull over the facts I understand why my mom gave up her middle child and kept Doug and I, and I also believe wholeheartedly it was the right decision.

After I had calmed down once I got the news, I was actually glad she had been given up for adoption. I understood that it was not only the right choice for my mother, but the right choice for the baby as well. Given the childhood that I had, filled with the serious abuse by mother's ex-husband all I could think was that I was glad she never had to go through what I went through.

In spite of the abuse, I never blamed my mother. It was a very well kept secret from her and the moment she found out she reacted with all of the ferocity of a mother bear protecting her cub and dumped his ass in prison, making sure he stayed there for a very long time.

Now, five years later, the child my mom gave up for adoption has contacted the family in an effort to get to know her, Doug and I. At first it was a bit of a surprise because I don't think any of us were expecting her to contact us. I could hear the hesitation in my mom's voice, she was worried about how my brother and I might react but I think we both put her worries to rest.

My brother's reaction was to respond with "Mom, calm down, how is this much different than anyone else just wanting to get to know us?" That is Doug for you, he never makes a big deal about anything and just rolls with whatever comes his way.

My reaction was a bit more in depth, mostly because my mother and I are so close, I could sense how worried she was so I made it my job to reassure her. I told her that I had my curiosities about getting to know her and that just because my mom gave her up for adoption didn't mean I was going to automatically shun her over some irrational fear that my mom would care more for her. I am so not that insecure. I comforted my mother as best I could and let her know that if K was interested in getting to know us I was fine with it.

And so we've messaged back and forth a few times. Things are in that, just getting to know you stage but as expected, no one is making a huge deal about it.

Sometimes I wonder though, how exactly did my life end up being grounds for a Lifetime movie? All I wanted was a regular, dull, "boring" lifestyle where the highlight of my day was reading a good book or watching my favorite TV show.

I jokingly blame my mom for that and she agrees. She says she must have asked in a past life for an exciting life this time around and I can't argue with her. Because one thing is for sure, her life, and consequently, mine and my brother's lives, have never been boring.

F-U-C-K

2011-02-08T01:47:00.002-05:00

Fucking fuck mother fucker!

My mom is sick again.

I didn't really mention it on my blog before because it was something that really scared me and I didn't want to go all emo and shit on here. I remember saying something about her surgery but that was about it. The surgery went well and she was healing pretty quickly.

I called her yesterday after work and I knew something was up. I could hear it in her voice when I asked her what was wrong that she didn't want to tell me that she was throwing up again.

The doctors are sending her to a specialist.

Before her surgery I was debating about moving back to Florida, but now I'm seriously considering it.

I'm not sure what to do. All I want is for her to get better. Maybe I'll wait and see what the specialists say before making my decision.

I wish they would just figure out what the fuck is going on.

The White Stripes Broke Up.

2011-02-05T19:46:00.002-05:00

My Brother

2011-02-04T10:30:00.005-05:00

Doug is flying back to Florida today and I'm really going to miss him. He and I haven't always been close as brother and sister but as we each get older we get along more and more. This trip he and I have had a blast hanging together and actually getting along for almost the entire time. I took this picture of him while we were visiting my grandfather for his birthday.

He's especially patient with me when I stick a camera in his face or need help taking pictures.

Last night we were hanging out and I had him helping me with a picture when we got to goofing off and he sticks his stomach out at me and I crack up at him because I'm like "Dude, when you do that it looks like you're pregnant!" (he has this freakish ability to stick his stomach out really far) and he goes "Sweet!"

At which point he pulls this pose:

And I'm on the ground wheezing and crying because I'm laughing so hard. I guess that was his impression of what a pregnant woman looks like. So naturally I'm like "do it again! I NEED a picture of this." It took forever just to get that picture because I would start laughing and he would start laughing and then we were both laughing so hard we had tears in our eyes. This continued on for several minutes until finally I got a good picture. Ah, good times.

I plan to get a print out of this picture and frame it so that whenever I'm in a bad mood I can just look at it and laugh.

After we had recovered from laughing so much he looks at me and goes "you're really going to miss me aren't you?"

"Yeah bud, I am."

A Bit of Crazy

2011-02-03T00:15:00.003-05:00

My family is crazy. You might think I'm exaggerating, that all families have their eccentricities, but mine is crazy for real.

My brother and I have had a running joke for a little while now, and it goes, if we wanted to see if who we were dating really loved us, all we would have to do is introduce them to our family and see how long they last. If they make it through without running away screaming, then we are to marry them on the spot. Interestingly enough, my brother and I both have yet to bring anyone home to meet the family.

In all seriousness though, we depend on each other for our breath of normal in all of this craziness. Lately, my brother and I have grown closer now that we're bother older and reasonable again. Granted we still bicker and argue, that'll never change, but we always have the other when things get out of control crazy.

Sometimes though, I just wish it could be like it used to be. Just my mom, my brother, and I. All three of us fit well as a unit, but when you add the rest of my family, excluding my uncle, we fall apart because my mom feels she has to fix my family and control their craziness. It stresses her out so much that I wish she could just leave them all alone to their ridiculousness and relax.

Unfortunately, her sense of family responsibility won't let her. It's almost as if she doesn't have that switch of self-preservation when it comes to family. She lets them get to her and eat away at her and control her in a way that nothing else can. On the other hand because of this, my brother and I have adapted. Seeing the way my mom becomes around the rest of my family, Doug and I don't feel that same sense of familial obligation.

Mind you, we do still participate as a family, but we don't push our selves to give and do more than we feel is comfortable. My mother on the other hand will push herself to the limits and run herself ragged while the rest of the family walks all over her, taking everything she does for granted. Doug and I learned early on to close ourselves off before it even gets to that and just deal with the fallout later.

Sigh. Don't you just love families? Mine just seems to get crazier with age. And although I am no where near perfect or normal, I fear, that if I don't jump ship soon, they're going to make me just as crazy.

You learn something new every day...

2011-01-20T23:07:00.004-05:00

...even if it is useless information.

A customer came into work today and wanted to return one of the Xbox 360 Slims. We have to test that sort of thing so I took it over to the "nerd herd" counter to have it checked out, but when I saw they were busy I decided I would just test it myself since I'm familiar with them.

I plug it all in and turn it on and it powers up fine. I go to turn it off when I notice the power button feels different. I take a closer look and tap the button to power it back up and gasp in surprise.

Me: Oh my god the new power buttons are touch sensitive!
Nerd Herd Guy: Um, yeah...
Me: I didn't know that! (I stare in awe as I lightly tap the power button on and off a few times.)
Me: Wooooaaaaah. (At this point I see the manager staring at me)
Me: Don't mind me, I'm just easily amazed. (He cracks up at me as I package the Xbox back up to do the return.)

I couldn't help being so amused by the power button. It completely took me by surprise because I have tested and played with the new Xbox 360 Slim multiple times and I only just now noticed the power button was touch sensitive.

Hey, I see you laughing. Don't laugh, I'm the type of person that if you give me something shiny I'll be entertained for hours. Which just means I'm rarely bored.

Conversations With My Mother Pt. 4

2011-01-19T22:55:00.000-05:00

On Life Insurance:

Mom: Hey, just wanted to let you know that I got a new life insurance plan through work and I put you, Doug and Jon as the recipients.
Me: Thanks for letting me know. You know what this means now right?
Mom: You're going to put a hit out on me?
Me: No, no. We're just going to fake your death. Drive your car off a bridge into the bay, maybe cut off a finger so the cops find some sort of body part so they don't declare you a missing person and we have to wait 7 years to get the money.
Mom: Not the finger, I'm rather attached to them. Maybe I can get the doctors to give me back my uterus and we can use that and all they'll find is a floating uterus?
Me: OH GROSS! Oh my god, that was a good one, but gross!
Mom: (A ridiculous amount of laughter on her end) Your brother just had the same reaction.

Conversations With My Mother Pt. 3

2011-01-11T22:26:00.004-05:00

I had called my mom after her surgery to see how she was feeling:

Me:How've you been today, feeling better?
Mom: Okay, still a bit sore but I've been relaxing and we watched How to Train Your Dragon 7 times.
Me: Holy...7 times??
Mom: I know. It might just be the movie, or maybe it's the drugs I'm on but How to Train your Dragon is just adorable!

Rollerblading: Potentially Hazerdous to Your Health

2011-01-08T15:11:00.003-05:00

Today I'm going rollerblading for the first time in years. If you don't hear from me by next week don't worry. It just means I fell and broke my neck.

I Could Quote You Buffy All Day Long

2011-01-06T22:52:00.004-05:00

I don't think I've expressed my love for Buffy the Vampire Slayer enough on this blog. Just so you can grasp the enormity of my love for that show I'll elaborate. I Fucking LOVE that show. Elaborate enough for you?

I love Joss Whedon's writing, yes even the campy first season stuff. I loved the acting, yes even the campy acting. I loved the crappy special effects. I loved it all! And I still do, forget that past tense ridiculousness, I lovelovelovelovelove, less than three multiplied by a sideways eight, LOVE Buffy.

Part of it was because when it came to BtVS I had something I could relate to as a teenager. And no it wasn't the vampire slaying, although that would have been cool. It was the characters and the stories.
I remember the first time I saw Tara and Willow as a couple a little light bulb kind of went DING! and it gave me a window into a part of myself I was just beginning to question. So, naturally, I was (SPOILER ALERT!) devastated when Tara died, but part of that was because of my strong attachment to the character and what she meant to the show.

And thanks to Neflix's instant streaming I have all 7 seasons at the tip of my fingers, literally. Since I've had Netflix I've watched through the entire series a minimum of five times. I can't even count how many times I've seen some of my favorite episodes (re: The ones with Tara and Willow).

Most likely, it'll come as no surprise to you that I have Buffy quotes going through my head all day long. Especially, now that I just finished watching season 5 (Glory had such great lines).

I was at work today, and this guy comes up to my counter and I saw he had a laptop in his hand. I asked him if he needed to see the "Nerd Herd" and he said yes, but he also had a return. So he goes "You know, two birds, one stone." And I cracked up, because in my head I finished the line with "BAM! You have yummy dead birds," a la Glory from season 5. The guy kind of looked at me like okay that wasn't really funny but I'll laugh too. Good stuff.

Conversations With My Mother Pt. 2

2011-01-05T03:54:00.003-05:00

Mom: I'm un-friending you on Facebook. My profile is going to be strictly for work.
Me: Wait til I tell everyone, "my mom un-friended me on Facebook, can you believe it?!" This is gonna be great.
Mom: Oh jeez.

Me: Why are you calling me at 5 in the morning?
Mom: We're leaving for my surgery, you wanted me to call you.
Me: OH! I thought you meant 5 at night.
Mom: No, you crack head.
Mom: There's a girl jogging this early, she's a crack head too.

Christina Perri - Another Music Post

2011-01-04T14:13:00.004-05:00

I know I just posted last night about Automatic Loveletter but oh well. I have found a gem of a musician and I am in lurve with her songwriting. Christina Perri.

You've probably heard of her, she debuted her song "Jar of Hearts" on So You Think You Can Dance this summer that blew up the charts. I heard it on the radio for the first time yesterday and was hooked. Her voice has a smokey quality and the song had emotional impact that immediately caught my attention.

So last night, while I should have been dreaming, I scoured the internet for more of her music since she doesn't have an album out anywhere and I hit a gold mine. She has a Youtube page that she posted a ton of her music to and WOW. I thought "Jar of Hearts" was good, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. This girl has a talent for songwriting that reminds me so much of Sara Bareilles. And you know me I love anything and everything Sara Bareilles related.

I noticed a lot of what she writes on guitar is more centered around the lyrics, but what she writes on piano is amazing. Two of the songs she wrote for piano immediately became my favorites the moment I heard and I was so torn that they're not available for download anywhere. It kills me that this much talent can not be in my iTunes!

The first one is titled "Mine" and this is the song that made me go crazy over what she writes on the piano.

This second song is simply called "You".

Ugh! So much talent I can't stand it! I can promise you the second she comes out with an actual full length album I'll be snatching it up.

I see that most of her music is centered around love which isn't unusual, 90% of what is played on the radio is, but she does it in a way that makes it seem almost original.

And as a bonus, I really enjoyed this one as well.

OMG Automatic Loveletter

2011-01-04T01:27:00.003-05:00

GUYS! Oh my god, guys! You will not believe what I just found! Automatic Loveletter released a full album! A full freaking album! I can't express how freaking excited I am!!!....!!!

Back in the day when I used to spend nearly all of my free time scouring Myspace and music stores for new bands I found Automatic Loveletter and fell head over heals in love with their EP. But now they actually have a complete album out with Sony!

From the release date it looks like the new album came out in June and I can't believe I'm only finding it now.

The new album is called Truth or Dare and from what I've heard of it so far it's pretty darn good. "Let It Ride" is really great and what looks to be the most popular song on the album. I think what I love most about Automatic Loveletter is that the lead vocalist, Juliet Simms, has such a unique sounding voice.

I am so excited I stumbled across her new album which was completely by coincidence since I was looking up a different artist and happened to see it in the "Listeners also bought" section.

Winter is Dumb Without Snow

2011-01-03T07:54:00.002-05:00

Just before New Years we got this warm front that came in and melted all the snow. It got up to 55 F and I even went without my jacket it felt so nice. Two days later it dropped back into the teens and I'm freezing my ass off again. Only this time there is no snow on the ground. Do you realize a winter without any snow on the ground is completely pointless? The whole reason it gets cold is so it can snow, but without snow THERE'S NO REASON IT SHOULD BE THIS FUCKING COLD!!!

Conversations With My Mother

2011-01-03T00:27:00.002-05:00

Ever since I was a kid I've always had this knack for knowing exactly what to say to traumatize my mom or get a really funny reaction out of her.

I was on the phone with my mom and I mentioned wanting to see the movie Black Swan.

Me: Natalie Portman is in it, I love her, but anyway rumor has it she has sex with her understudy or something like that.
My mom: Oh, boy.
Me: Well you know me, Natalie Portman and lesbian sex, I'm so there.
My mom: *silence then a lot of coughing*
Me: Are you okay?
My mom: You just made me choke on my drink!

It was all very amusing, I try to give her an "Oh jeez my daughter is ridiculous" moment every time I talk to her. You know, gotta keep her on her toes and all. Heaven forbid she starts thinking I'm an adult.

My 365 Project Begins Anew

2011-01-02T07:48:00.005-05:00

Last year I attempted to start a 365 project and that fizzled quite unexpectedly early on. With the new year beginning I figured it was a perfect time to try again.

I took this yesterday evening.

While I was driving home from work I noticed the sunset was amazing. We had a cold front headed towards us and you could literally see the wall of clouds moving in:

I drove home as fast as I could, grabbed my camera and headed back out to find a good spot to get a clear shot of the sunset, but when I drove past the electrical towers silhouetted against the sunset and the swirling clouds I couldn't pass that one up.

I also started a new Tumblr page for my 365 project. I can't wait until I get more pictures up because it's going to look soooo preeeeetty with the theme I'm using. Go here if you would like to see more of my pictures as I go along.

Fun at Work

2011-01-01T16:29:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned before that I work with some interesting characters. One of them being the manager of my department. Technically, she's only the temporary manager while our actual manager is on maternity leave.

Anyway, this woman is hilarious. We had a small reprieve in the 30 seconds where there wasn't a line at customer service so I was trying to get things taken care of and put away when my manager comes up behind me and goes "Oh my god I have a cramp on my butt and it really hurts."

I paused for a moment thinking to myself, did she really just say that? When I realized she really did say that and cracked up.

"You have a butt cramp?" I asked her still laughing and she's kind of dancing in place when she says "Yeah it's right on the cheek and it hurts every time I walk!" I'm kind of just shaking my head at her with a bemused look on my face when a girl I work with at the desk comes up and asks why my manger looks like she's in pain, to which I frankly respond "D's got a pain in the ass."

Ah, good times.

Saying Goodbye to 2010 and Welcoming 2011

2010-12-31T14:55:00.000-05:00

It has been an interesting year filled with new experiences. For some reason this year really seemed to fly by faster than the others before it. Here, to make my profound closing statement for me, are Calvin and Hobbes.

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011.

Fucking Fuck Fuck.

2010-12-31T00:06:00.002-05:00

I can't wait until the holidays are over. I'm really starting to hate my job with a passion. People are getting worse and worse. I think I used every swear word in my vocabulary. I even used "cunting" at some point, of course that one I totally stole from Skins. I liked it, has a nice ring. I'll have to use it more often.

Naturally, all of this swearing was going on in my head while I was trying my best not to explode. But in all honesty it's not entirely the customers fault that things have been so stressful. My manager has been trying out a regular employee at customer service to see if she has the ability to move to our department and she is such a bad fit for working at the desk. In order to work at customer service you have to be 3 things; fast, able to multi-task, and willing to take initiative. You can't stand around waiting for someone to give you work to do, you have to see what needs to be done and do it. To save myself from going on a rant, I'm just going to say she is none of those things.

I'm the type of person that doesn't say anything negative, because I refuse to get into the middle of any "she said, he said" type of games. So I've been keeping my mouth shut about the whole situation. Finally, the other day my manager was talking to one of the other girls that I work with and she came right out and said how terrible this girl has been. The clouds opened up and the Hallelujah choir came over the P.A. system. No really though, it was such a relief that I wasn't the only having an issue with this girl.

So, fingers crossed after the holiday she goes back to the floor because I might just lose my mind otherwise. And I mean brain melting out of my ears, blank stare, cart-me-away-in-a-padded-van-and-a-white-coat kind of lose my mind.

Cuddling Fuzzy Pants

2010-12-29T09:44:00.000-05:00

This morning I woke up cuddling my pajama bottoms. How exactly that happened I'm not quite sure. I forgot to mention for Christmas, I got an awesome pair of pajama pants made out of that super soft and fuzzy fleece material that is also really warm and perfect for wearing in the winter.

Since Michigan winters can be a bit cold even with the furnace on, I usually sleep in a pair of flannel pajama pants and a long sleeve t-shirt. Last night I decided to try out my new pajamas. When I went to sleep they were secured tightly around my hips with the draw string. As I slowly woke up I began to take in my surroundings, my first reaction was that I was really comfortable and I didn't want to wake up. It was warm under the blankets, I had a really nice dream that I was coming out of and something warm and fuzzy was pressed against my cheek.....wait a minute, there should not be something fuzzy touching my cheek.

At which point I immediately woke up all of the way to figure out where this strange invasion of fuzziness had come from only to discover that at some point in the night my pajama pants had migrated off my legs and become clutched firmly in my arms. If you've ever woken up to something unusual or out of place then you know it can be a bit disorienting at first. I remember looking at the pants in my hands thinking, hey these are just like the ones I wore to bed last night. *lifts the covers to see I don't have any pants on* These ARE the ones I wore to bed last night, how the hell did that happen and why am I cuddling them??

I can only guess due to them being so warm I kicked them off in my sleep, which is not surprising because I don't like being hot while I'm sleeping and has happened before. I've just never woken up actually cuddling the pants I've kicked off.

It certainly was an interesting way to wake up.

My Top 10 Most Listened to Songs of 2010

2010-12-28T03:22:00.004-05:00

I saw someone do this on Tumblr and I thought it was a great idea since I love music so much.

According to Last.fm (which isn't entirely accurate because I never remember to sync my ipod, but it's as close as I'm going to get) my top 10 most listened to songs of 2010 are as follows:

10. "Fuck You" by Cee-Lo Green
This song was very catchy and I thought the music video was amusing.

9. "King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles
Oh, Sara Bareilles, how I hearted the shit out of your music this year. I have loved her and her music since the day I found her on Myspace before she released her first major album. And I love that the rest of the world gets to share in something as lovely as her music with me.

8. "Uncharted" by Sara Bareilles
I think what caught my attention most about this song was the lyrics. While the instrumentals are of course amazing, I love how she's always heavy on the piano, the lyrics narrated a part of myself I rarely address. I have a slight issue with being painted into a corner and having things too planned out, which is a bit self contradictory since I plan everything. But every now and then I have to break out of my well laid plans and breathe before I suffocate myself from my need to have to control my entire future. Shit happens.

7. "Holden Caufield" by Hailey Wojcik
I really disliked the book when I finally read it because in spite of the main narrative of the book that people are ultimately effed up, beneath it all I couldn't get past the fact that it mostly sounded like a rich kid whining constantly. But one good thing came out of it, I probably wouldn't have loved this song as much as I did without having read the book.

6. "Gonna Get Over You" by Sara Bareilles
I don't think there's much more I can say about my love for Sara and her music without repeating myself ad nauseum. Lyrics and instrumentals, bitch.

5. "Amnesia" by Hailey Wojcik
Not only was Hailey Wojcik my ultimate Indie find of 2010, but she was my Indie find of the decade. I loved her music and lyrics immediately and "Amnesia" was a great commentary for many relationships. Since the release of this album she has teamed up with another fellow musician to release an EP titled The [VOY-check] which also happens to be the proper pronunciation of her last name, Wojcik. While I'm not a huge fan of the EP, I think it lacks some of the originality that her album Diorama was absolutely filled with, she is an extremely talented lady and worth a listen to, if you haven't already.

4. "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga
You really didn't think I was going to make it an entire year without Lady Gaga on my top 10 did you?

3. "I Don't Do Boys" by Elektra
This song was stuck in my head for the longest time thanks to it's ridiculously catchy lyrics.

2. "Boys Boys Boys" by Lady Gaga
I find it extremely amusing that this song was played just as much as "I Don't Do Boys" but hey, it's Lady Gaga and I absolutely loved the line in the song "you taste just like glitter mixed with rock and roll".

1. "In My Sleep" by Austin Hartley-Leonard and Kendall Jane Meade
I fell in love with this song at first listen. I remember I was wrapped up in a typically heart breaking episode of Chuck sitting in front of the T.V., clutching my pillow, shouting "Nooooo! Sarah you're meant to be with Chuck! Why are you doing this?!" when this song came on and everything in me stilled immediately and I was held in complete awe at how beautiful this song is and how perfectly it fit with that exact moment in Chuck.

And there you have it my top 10 list of 2010. Stop by next year around this time for my top 11 list of 2011! (See what I did there? Couldn't resist that one. I might just follow through on it too.)

Christmas Aftermath

2010-12-27T13:58:00.005-05:00

How was everyone's Christmas? Mine was good. I stuffed my face with lots of yummy food and deserts. My family has a tradition where every Christmas we make what we all just call Assyrian Stew but really the actually name for the stew is called "Kurrish".

The tradition has been going since my Great-great grandmother immigrated to the U.S. from Persia during WW I. This dinner is something I look forward to every single year because we only have it at Christmas and it is sooooo delicious.

The stew is made up of tomato juice for the base, green beans, onions, cubed pieces of beef and pork, and 2 or 3 hungarian peppers for flavoring. Depending on the size of the pot you're making you let it simmer for about 4-6 hours keeping in mind the longer it cooks the better it tastes. Then, when it's all set to eat you pour the stew over rice (and not that minute rice crap, actual baked in the oven rice) and serve with a side of pocket bread and green onions. I personally prefer not to have any of the pocket bread because I would rather enjoy the stew as is, rather than filling up on bread. Usually, we also have hummus and tabouli on the table as well which is eaten with the pocket bread, but I've never cared for either one since I was a kid so I choose to leave those off my plate.

This Christmas was nice and relaxing even though it had less of a Christmas feel to it because of how busy I've been with work and the lack of time to prepare for the holiday. I wanted to put up a Christmas tree with my grandma but either she was working or I was working so we never had the time together to do it and eventually it just came down to us not putting one up. So instead my grandma, with the help of my little cousin, decorated the hibiscus we have in the living room.

I thought it was really cute, and Vern (Yes I named my plant) even decided to give us a pretty Christmas flower in the middle of winter.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T00:54:00.003-05:00

This describes my childhood Christmases to a T. My brother and I used to get up ridiculously early to check out our presents and shake them and try to figure out what they were before we woke my mom up at dawn.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T23:37:00.001-05:00

R.I.P. Mophead, the best dog in the world. Thanks for all the fun and love Fuzzball, and for being the Hobbes to my Calvin, we'll all miss you more than you know.

I got a call tonight from my mom saying that our family dog passed away. We knew it had been coming, he started to get sick and the Vet said he had developed pretty bad dementia and there was nothing they could do for him other than put him to sleep. And until you see a dog with dementia you can't imagine how heart breaking it is to have a family pet look at you and not immediately recognize you and wag his tail at the sound of your voice.

When I visited Florida back in October I basically said my goodbyes because we all knew he wasn't going to be around much longer. I'm going to miss him like crazy.

Random Things...

2010-12-24T04:39:00.001-05:00

...That are on my mind at 4:25am. This is what happens when I'm supposed to be sleeping.

It's Christmas Eve, I need sleep so I can deal with last minute shoppers at work later today. But am I sleeping? No, instead I'm talking about one of many favorite subjects of mine. Me. Hah, I wish I were joking.

~ I have finally started to put my dream of traveling across the world into motion. I'm so excited even though I'm still a couple years away from actually going.

~ Yesterday, while I was finishing some last minute Christmas shopping I saw a girl not much older than I am, holding a sign that said "Family woman and student. Will work for food." I always just use my Debit card so all I had was $2 dollars on me. I gave it to her, smiled, and wished her a Merry Christmas. She bravely took the money and thanked me. As I turned away I could see her wipe a tear from her eye before she hardened her resolve again. All I could think was "Oh baby girl, whatever it is, I hope it gets better."

~ For the first time in my life, up until a week ago, I made a real prayer. I just want my mom to get better.

~ I have resigned myself to a lifetime of bachelorettehood because all of the gay girls in this city are either taken, psychotic, players, not interested in me or way too far out of my league. And to that I say, "Hello, Singledom. Pull up a chair and have a beer with me, looks like we're going to be here for a while."

~ I miss school.

~ I absolutely love Bruno Mars' latest album, Doo-Wops & Hooligans.

~ How am I not asleep yet? This is ridiculous.

~ It seems like the older I get, the more introverted I become. I don't think that's a good thing.

~ Oh crap, I forgot to pick up my comics yesterday. I wonder if the shop is going to be open today.

Where's a Bazooka when you need one?

2010-12-21T18:51:00.006-05:00

Remember how this morning I was all cool with it being super busy with the one "unique" customer here and there? Well I fucking take it all back.

Today was ri-god-damn-diculous. I wanted to shoot myself in the face with a bazooka, that would have been more enjoyable.

PEOPLE, you're supposed to be spreading Christmas cheer and loving thy neighbor and celebrating the birth of baby Jesus and shit. Don't take it out on me because you waited until the week before Christmas to start your shopping.

Fuck.

I feel a little better now.

That Moment When...

2010-12-21T03:45:00.000-05:00

...You're awake at 3:30am and you know you have to be up for work at 7am and you're kicking yourself for passing out in bed so early after you got home yesterday evening.

Yep, that's me right now. I got home last night around 6 had dinner and passed the eff out. While I may only be averaging about 35-40hrs at work, it's surprising how much more tired I feel with the holiday rush. During the regular season we at least have a moment to catch our breath at customer service, but now we're lucky if we even get a break in a 7hr shift. That's just how insanely busy it is. But not only is it physically tiring, it's mentally exhausting as well, especially when dealing with the unreasonable customers. Hence, the need to go home and pass out.

Which brings me back to being awake in the early hours of the morning when I'm supposed to be sleeping. Instead I'm going to update my Christmas Playlist. Remember this post? Well I've found a few new songs to add. The first being one that is completely free to download which you should do immediately, because it's totally awesome.

The song is called "I Need My Baby By My Side (On Xmas Night)" by The Bumbers.

This song is very reminiscent of the 70's punk rock era with a very Christmas feel to it. So if you're like me and you loved bands like The Dead Milk Men, Black Flag and Dead Kennedys, you'll really enjoy this song. Plus, it's ridiculously catchy.

The second song I have to add is "Wish List" by The Neon Trees.

If you listen to the radio at all you've probably heard their hit "Animal" which seems to be playing on repeat. Not that I mind, I think it's a really good song but I was surprised at how great this song was as well. So if you're looking to expand your Christmas Playlist then this will be a great addition.

And last, while this song isn't exactly uplifting with Christmas spirit, I had to download it because of the artist. The song is "Alone This Holiday" by The Used.

Of course the song itself is great, jut be prepared to drown your sorrows in a cup of your grandmothers special eggnog by the time you're finished listening to it.

That's it for my Christmas Playlist update. I can't promise I'll be back before Christmas so just in case, have a great holiday and be safe!

Christmas Retail Craziness

2010-12-20T01:44:00.002-05:00

With Christmas right around the corner things have been ridiculous at work. We're so busy every day I seriously wonder if there really is a recession going on in this country.

As usual, being so busy means I'm interacting with a wide variety of people, and for the most part everyone has been very pleasant and nice. But every now and then I would get an "interesting" character in.

Last night while I was working, this guy and his wife come in to pick up an order they placed at another store to pick up in our store. There's a slight delay in the system so we hadn't received the order and I told them it would be 10 or 15 minutes before I could pull the order up, but they were more than welcome to shop while I got their product and waited for the order to generate. The lady walks away and literally not even a minute later comes back to say she can't wait that long. I kind of raise my eyebrows in surprise because most customers just say okay and wander off for a bit.

So I double check with my manager, because I know a way around the system but it means we have to cancel the order and the store they placed the order with will lose the sale and we generally don't like to do that. I cancel the order and let the lady and her husband know they can just grab what they were buying and check out at the front registers and they won't have to wait for the order anymore.

They both head off again and I assume they're going to get whatever they wanted and check out but again the lady comes back and just stands at the customer service counter. I see her standing there and I'm thinking okay maybe there's something else she needs, so I ask her if her husband found the item or if they needed help with something else. The woman just looks at me and says "I thought you were getting it."

Mind you, it's almost Christmas time so customer service always has a line of people and all of us girls working the desk are busting ass to make sure we get everyone through as fast as possible. I say "Okay, give me a moment and I'll get it for you." I pull up their canceled order to see what they were getting and I see that it's a stereo system and I get the product number to make sure I grab the right one. On my way to get the item I pick up a cart for them so they won't have to carry it out thinking it'll be big but nothing I can't handle getting down.

I head to the department I know it's in and I see the woman's husband standing by a stereo system so I figure that's the one he must need. I look at the box and I think, "hmm, that's a bit bigger than I thought it would be but I can manage." The box is probably about 5 ft long 4 ft wide and 3 ft deep. I see one sitting on the bottom shelf and I go to pick one end up to slide it on the flatbed cart and immediately my reaction is "holy fucking shit this bastard is heavy."

I'm almost done sliding this huge ass box onto the cart when the guy goes "Wait, not that one. I want that one. The one you're getting has a hole in it." I look up to see where he's pointing to and I see another of the same system but higher up on a shelf about shoulder height to me. I look at the guy and back at the box and I'm thinking to myself "he's joking right?" I check to see what hole he's talking about in the box I have and see there's a small ding on the corner where it looks like the box might have been scraped in shipping but you can see that there is Styrofoam protecting the corners. I tell him as much but he still insists that he wants the other box.

To kind of give you a better picture of the situation, this guy that is telling me he wants me to get this stereo system down in a box that I could easily fit in with room to spare is about 6'2''. So I tell him it's going to be a moment, I have to run and find someone who can help me get it down. Normally, I'm the type of girl that's like "pfft, I don't need a guy, I can do it myself." And I can, but with the box being bigger than I was, I had to admit defeat and get help. I grab the first guy I see and he's really nice about me using him as the muscle and we reach up to start to move the box down when another guy comes up behind me and takes the box from me and the two guys get it down easily. They set the box on the cart and walk off leaving me, the freshly rescued damsel in distress, and I'm thinking to myself "way to reinforce gender roles Amanda."

Lots of Snow!

2010-12-13T15:04:00.003-05:00

If you haven't heard, the Midwest received quite the winter beating by mother nature this weekend. I can't remember the last time we got this much snow before Christmas arrived but it has rekindled my love for the winter.

I love snow. I think it's really pretty and it can be a lot of fun to play in. While I don't necessarily enjoy driving in it, and it wasn't very much fun having to wade through a snow drift to get to my car last night after work, I still enjoy seeing it on the ground. The arrival of snow means curling up with a blanket and a good book. Sipping hot chocolate at every opportunity. SLEDDING! Building snow men with my little cousin and so many more fun things.

So here's to winter, enjoy it while it lasts and drive safe out there.

Foreign Films

2010-12-10T07:02:00.001-05:00

I like long walks on the beach, dancing in the rain, foreign films...wait, no I just like foreign films.

In all honestly, how many people really like foreign films in those classified ads anyway? I do. Well, not that I've placed an ad in the classifieds (do they even still have those, what with CraigsList now?) but I do enjoy foreign movies.

Growing up, I was always that strange child who enjoyed things a typical child wouldn't have. I loved listening to classical music and opera, watching ballet and musicals, and reading Shakespeare before it was ever assigned in school. I remember always being told I was weird because of those "likes" by my friends and family. I didn't care, they were and still are some of the things I get the most enjoyment out of.

I was first introduced to foreign movies in high school. It was the last day of class before summer started and to kill time my teacher ended up putting on a movie titled La Vita e Bella or Life is Beautiful. Class ended before we could finish the movie but I was hooked.

A few weeks later I was hanging with a friend and we decided to walk into town and rent a movie, I saw that one on the shelf and said something about how good it had started out in class so we rented it. If you've seen the movie then you won't be surprised that both of us ended up sitting on the living room floor, glued to the T.V. with a box of tissues between us. The power of the story the movie told resonated with me and it is still one of my favorite movies to date.

I still get weird looks when something is brought up about foreign movies and I tell people I like them. Not that ALL foreign movies are good, I think it's mostly the culture difference in the stories that are told in the movies. Where American cinema can crank out the same movie multiple times and all they change are the setting and the characters, but the plot stays basically the same, i.e.; boy meets girl, they dance around liking each other, finally girl and boy fall in love and all is perfect, happy ending, etc. etc., it can get boring.

And so every now and then I'll put on a movie from France or Italy or wherever that I've heard was really good, or read the reviews on and I'm always reminded of how much I enjoy them. When I tell people that, I always get the comment about "I can't stand subtitles" which I understand, sometimes it can be frustrating where I wish I just spoke French/Spanish/Italian/German and so on and so forth, so I could just watch without the distraction of reading at the same time. While most movies now come dubbed in English if you prefer, I would rather have the subtitles because I find the words not matching up with the lips far more distracting than just speed reading.

For the most part though, I just stay quiet about those things I enjoy, the classical music, ballet, opera, foreign films and all that because either people perceive me as trying to appear above them, or they question my enjoyment of them.

But now with Netflix I have more and more access to foreign movies I normally wouldn't have come in contact with. Before, movie stores either had a very limited foreign section or didn't have one at all. Just one more reason for me to love Netflix.

So, before I go, here is a list of foreign films I've enjoyed a lot that anyone else interested in checking out might be interested in as well. These are the English titles since it would probably be easier to find them that way.

1. Life is Beautiful

2. Amelie

3. Pan's Labyrinth

4. Love Me if You Dare

5. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

6. La Vie En Rose

7. Let the Right One In (Soon to be an American remake Let Me In)

8. Spirited Away (If you're in the mood for something animated, but the again you can never go wrong with anything by Miyazaki)

A Gleeful Christmas Filled With Traditions

2010-12-09T05:00:00.003-05:00

After the new Glee Christmas themed episode this week I've had Christmas music on my mind constantly. I have yet to buy the Glee Christmas album, but after hearing Chris Colfer sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside" I'm definitely going to. I wasn't expecting to hear a male duo sing that song which is traditionally sung by a male and female pair, but of course I loved it immediately.

How can you not love that cuteness?

Growing up, my Grandfather really influenced my love for some of the great classics; Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Louis Armstrong, Patsy Cline, Dean Martin, and so many more. He was always humming or whistling music by those amazing artists. And without fail, every year when winter set in, I would always catch him singing "Baby, It's Cold Outside." Since then, it has always been my song of choice for the winter season.

Another tradition I have, every year around this time I scour my iTunes for all of the Christmas music on there to create a kick ass Christmas playlist. While all of the classics, Bing Crosby, Burl Ives, Motown Holiday, bring back memories of childhood Christmases spent with family I like finding modern Christmas music by young artists or completely original music.

Here is the list I created this year :
(Click the links if you want to listen to the song on YouTube)

1. "Merry Christmas Baby" by Brighten Ft. The Maine (Starting things off once again this year, this is such a great song.)

2. "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone

3. "Last Christmas" by Wham! (I also have three other versions of this song by The Main, Jimmy Eat World and the Glee Cast, I think it's safe to say I like this song just a little bit.)

4. "Santa Stole My Girlfriend" by The Maine (This is a completely adorable and amusing Christmas song)

5. "Christmas Tree" by Lady Gaga Ft. Space Cowboy (I couldn't resist adding this one. I love all things Lady Gaga and she even manages to make a Christmas song dirty.)

6. "Mistletoe" by Colbie Caillat

7. "Don't Shoot Me Santa" by The Killers

8. "My Only Wish (This Year)" by Britney Spears (Don't hate, I've liked this song since middle school)

9. "Little Drummer Boy" by The Almost

10. "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home" by Anberlin

11. "His Favorite Christmas Story" by Capital Lights

12. "All I Want for Christmas" by My Chemical Romance

13. "Sleigh Ride" by Relient K

14. "Ho Ho Hopefully" by The Maine

15. "Santa Baby" by Everclear

16. "I Believe in Us (This Holiday)" by A Rocket to the Moon

17. "Santa Clause is Thumbing to Town" by Relient K

18. "Christmas Won't Be the Same Without You" by Plain White T's

19. "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause" by The Jackson 5 (This one is such a Christmas classic that I couldn't help sneaking it in.)

20. "Merry Christmas, Here's to Many More" by Relient K

I hope you're enjoying your Christmas season this year, don't forget to spread plenty of joy and cheer around then have yourself a cup of grandma's special eggnog.

Hungover.

2010-12-05T11:40:00.002-05:00

I present to you a Haiku.

Hungover.
By Tin

Long Island Iced Tea.
Woke up drunk, now hungover.
Where's my water glass?

Last night one of my closest friends turned 30 and she was having a massive birthday party to celebrate.

Lots of fun and drinks were had...

Too many drinks...

My head hurts...

I probably shouldn't have chugged both of those Long Islands...

Halestorm - "I Get Off"

2010-12-03T08:00:00.002-05:00

I have this small obsession with finding songs that are really hot. And I don't mean "hot" in the sense that they're popular. For the longest time "I Feel Perfect" by Porcelain and the Tramps was at the top of my list and it still is, but I recently re-discovered a song by Halestorm called "I Get Off" which has been my new favorite.

Take a listen:

The music video isn't that great. For a song like that I felt they could have come up with a better video for it, but whatever. Now the lead singer is freaking gorgeous. As a female myself I try not to objectify women too much, but day-um. She rocks on the guitar, has that bad-ass Joan Jett-esque voice and is smokin' hot...where the hell can I sign up???

I remember hearing the song a year ago while I was going through a friends Zune (I knew, who buys Zunes?) and was like "Fuuuuuck dude, this song is amazing!" But as I started listening to new music it eventually rotated out of my play list and I forgot about it until I heard it on the radio the other day. I'm surprised it took as long as it did to hit the radio but at least someone took notice.

Their album, also called Halestorm rocks pretty well for the most part. There are a few songs on there that make for great music to listen to when you're pissed off. A few of my favorites off the album are "Love/Hate Heartbreak", "I'm Not An Angel" "It's Not You" and "Better Sorry Than Safe". The lyrics are good as well, but the instrumentals are pretty typical to most rock albums, meaning it's the same 3 chords played throughout each song.

If you're looking for a new rock group to check out definitely give this album a listen. It's not ground breaking but it's worth some of your time.

Aha a Moment to Blog!

2010-12-02T16:16:00.002-05:00

It's been far too long my little blog. I'm only working a few hours today so you and I can spend some much needed time together.

It started snowing yesterday and I would just like to point out that the people still driving 70 mph on the highway like it's summer and causing accidents are morons. Yeah, I said it. You idiot people act like you have never driven in the snow before. It's fucking Michigan!

Luckily, I just got new tires on my car that morning, which couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Driving home last night on pure ice was freaky but my brand spanking new tires had some great traction and my car didn't even slide once, woohoo!

After what could have potentially been a really bad accident on Thanksgiving I have been very on edge when it comes to driving in bad weather lately.

So drive safe out there everybody and remember, it's winter, slow the fuck down!

Holiday Madness

2010-11-23T23:05:00.002-05:00

The holidays are definitely in full swing, especially if you work in retail. I've had to throw in the towel with Nano, I wasn't expecting to work nearly as much as I have been so in the past week I've had zero time to write more than a paragraph or two at a time. Tomorrow I have to work past midnight to help the store get ready for black Friday. I'm finally starting to get a taste of what it's going to be like after Christmas and I'm starting to dread it.

Working at customer service I have to deal with people's issues which wasn't so bad when I started back in September but as the customers get more, shall I say, unique? Eccentric, maybe. I feel like I'm starting to lose my mind. Working out on the floor was so easy, I just had to help people find what they needed and I was done. Now I'm starting to think to myself, "really? I asked to move up to customer service???" Haha, and I'm sure the nice raise I got was a great incentive but some days it's just not worth it.

Oh well, it'll be a nice relief when things calm down after the holiday returns are done. So for now my posting is probably going to be a bit irregular depending on my work schedule and if I just crash on my days off to recuperate.

Harry Potter Tonight!

2010-11-18T18:14:00.007-05:00

Update: Gah, I just got back from Harry Potter and if you didn't go see it tonight then you need to see it ASAP. No, seriously, go. Now. Drop what you're doing and enjoy 155 minutes of mind blowing awesomeness. God I loved that movie and I'm already excited/saddened for the second part next year. I'll elaborate more on that this weekend when I finally have a day off work, but take it from me, it's well worth the $8.50 (or more for IMAX).

The first half of the seventh Harry Potter movie starts tonight at midnight! I'm so excited. Harry Potter was such a big part of my child hood growing up, that whenever a new movie opens up it almost feels like an old friend I haven't seen in a very long time is in town. I'm proud to say I've seen every Harry Potter movie in theater. Yes, even the not so good ones. Still, I love it. It's a tradition I don't plan on breaking.

Literally, as I was writing this post I got a call from my friend who went to get our tickets at the theater saying we needed to get there early because the line was going to be ridiculous and I'm not the type to say no. I said "Heck yes! I'll be there whatever time you want to be there" because I'm not the type that wants to wait last minute, half the fun is standing in line hanging with your homies and waiting to get in.

For everyone going tonight, I hope you have a fun time. For everyone not going, I can't fault you it's going to be insane.

P.S. Just to show my nerd factor I'm totally wearing a Harry Potter shirt tonight that I got at TeeFury. Woot!

P.P.S. I almost forgot, check out this funny clip from MTV of the Harry Potter Cast trying to speak with an American accent.

Twilight blows, haha.

Cheese Ball

2010-11-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Every year around the holidays this church near my grandmother's work goes around selling cheese balls.

Let me tell you, it is fucking heaven in a plastic container. Grab a box of ritz crackers and you have cheesey, crunchy deliciousness. For those of you that have never had a cheese ball (the 12-year-old in me snickers every time I type that) it's made up of cream cheese, cheddar cheese, a teeny tiny bit of minced garlic and parsley, rolled in chopped pecans.

Whenever my grandmother comes home with one I just want to dive right in and never stop. Some people love chocolate or candy, I love cheese. So this is like crack to me.

Hilarious Websites

2010-11-16T09:00:00.001-05:00

If you haven't already heard of it, you need to check out DamnYouAutoCorrect.com immediately. You will literally laugh your ass off. I first heard of the site thanks to Dorothy Snarker and at first I thought she was exaggerating at the hilariousness of that site.

I stand corrected. I was literally laughing so hard I was crying. So prepare yourself.

Another interesting site run by the same people who do Damn You Auto Correct is Epic WTFs. This site was okay, it had some interesting and disturbing stuff on there but I had nothing better to do when I stumbled upon this:

I immediately shouted "Oh my god I remember that guy!" at my computer. I also remember that Tiger made that incredibly long putt as well.

This picture was taken at the Buick Open the last year it was, well, open. With the way the automotive industry tanked Buick couldn't afford to renew their contract so it's no longer the Buick Open anymore.

My uncle managed to score two free tickets for him and I to go. It was the first time I had ever been to a golf tournament and it was surprisingly more fun than I thought it was going to be.

It's funny, the shit you can find on the internet.

Julia Nunes: So Good Live

2010-11-15T00:30:00.000-05:00

I'm so glad I got to see Julia Nunes live. She's such a talented musician. It's literally just her and her ukulele/guitar on stage. That's it, no drums or back up vocals to cover up any mistakes, just her. And what's even better she acknowledged when she messed up on a song and played the wrong chords and ad lib'd lyrics about playing the right chords next time, so funny.

As promised I got a couple shots with my camera for you. Although, I almost didn't. I don't understand why people do it, but it happens every single time I go somewhere to take pictures. This 6ft+ giant thinks "hey, I'm going to step right in front of the 5'3'' girl who has a camera in her hand and is clearly trying to take a picture." Ugh, I just want to knee cap those people and be like "hah, what now bitch? How's it feel to be down on my level? Not so great when I stand in front of you now, is it?" Sigh, anywayyyyy, I'm done ranting. Here are the pictures.

I love this one, it looks like she's about to cut someone in the audience.

Sing it girl!

And just for fun...I couldn't resist taking this one when I saw what was going on.

That girl was knitting the entire concert. I didn't get it either. I elbowed my friend and pointed her out and she literally turned to me and went "Yes, that sounds like a great idea, I would love to go concert knitting with you." Good times.

Sadly, I couldn't get a picture with Julia Nunes. My friend that was with me had no idea how to use my camera and when I asked her to take one of me and Julia she gave me a look that said "if you hand me that camera I am not responsible for what comes out of it." Looking at the picture after, if I hadn't seen she didn't have a single drink all night, I would have thought she was drunk when she took it. It was literally just a blur of color, so all I could do was laugh.

Like I said the concert was great as expected. She played her original music along with a few covers. The song that got the most audience participation was "Build me up Buttercup". It was great when a group of people from the audience started harmonizing with her, but the best part was after the song when she was talking about how Buttercup was a total bitch and needed to be dumped immediately.

Julia Nunes

2010-11-14T01:55:00.003-05:00

Tonight I'm going to see Julia Nunes LIVE! How effing cool is that? I'm so flipping excited. She was in Michigan while I was in Canada and I was so bummed I missed her. I mean it figures, the one freaking time I'm out of the country and she's here? Damn.

But a couple months ago I was cruising her website and happened to click on her tour dates, and there it was. I literally squealed like a little school girl, called up my friend and told my work "sorry homies, Julia's in town, I need the night off."

So, finally, tonight's the night. I called ahead to see if the place her and Ben Kweller (heh, his last name makes me think of that Buffy episode with the "queller" demon) are playing at would let me bring my camera in and they said Yes! So you can look forward to some pictures tomorrow.

And with that I will say "Peace out!" and leave you to enjoy this awesome video of hers.

Knee Scooter

2010-11-13T20:46:00.003-05:00

Today, I was at a craft store trying to find something to create a portfolio for some of my photography that I've done. As I'm walking past aisles I see a lady in her early 60's with a broken leg pushing one of these:

My immediate reaction was to wonder to myself how fast she can get going with that thing and burst out laughing at the mental image of a bunch of old grannies racing them.

Sometimes I really do crack myself up.

I Love You More Than All the Blog Posts In All the World!

2010-11-12T22:27:00.001-05:00

I have a little cousin that's six and whenever she comes over we always hang out and have fun.

Clearly, loads of fun was had during that photo-thon.

She's always had this thing where whenever I say "I love you" to the little squirt she always goes "I love you more" and starts an "I love you" war. She always cracks me up with those and she has come up with some cute ones.

"I love you..."

"A thousand times around the earth."
"Longer than we could live combined."
"More than a whale can drink water."
"Bigger than the sky is blue."
"Bigger than the universe times a cajillion, million, thousand gajillion, KAH-ZILLION!"
"More than all the sand on earth. Even the ones at the bottom of lakes!"

But my all time favorite that she said today was...

"I love you more than how long a zombie could live!"

Ah, I've taught her well, zombies and all.

Fresh Ink: Blair Butler Awesomeness

2010-11-12T00:00:00.001-05:00

As my friend put it, I'm a "closet geek". I wouldn't necessarily consider myself to be closeted about my geekiness, but she says it's because to look at me, no one would assume I'm a geek so unless I wore a sign that said so, that makes me closeted. I can find several flaws in her argument but for the sake of this post I'm not going to get into it.

One, and probably the biggest, contributing factor to my geekiness is the fact that I read a lot of comics. I love DC, I love Marvel, I love Image, I love it all. So imagine my reaction when I found out not only does G4 pay someone to review comics for their website and go to comic-cons, but it's also a girl, and an extremely cute one at that!

Blair Butler does the G4tv.com Fresh Ink video reviews of comics that come out every week. She also reviews must read Graphic Novels, as well as features guest hosts such as Gerard Way and posts interviews with comic book writers and artists. She's funny, she's smart, and she's easy on the eyes so if you read comics and haven't checked her out yet, then what are you hanging around here for?

I first started watching Blair's reviews a year ago and even though it took me 2 whole months to go through her back log of previous reviews, it was more than worth it. From her recommendation I found comics I never would have thought to read. Not only does she do a good job reviewing comics and steering watchers away from comics not worth the cover price, she does it without putting the creators of the comic down. As she put it, she sees comics as the creators baby and no one likes to be told their baby is ugly.

Blair is smart in her reviews, she's knowledgeable about the writers and artists and her blooper outtakes at the end of every video are hilarious. So, check her out at G4tv.com/freshink or just click through for the website.

Finally! The Old "Glee" Returns

2010-11-11T03:15:00.001-05:00

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't watched this weeks episode of "Glee" you'll probably want to skip this post.

This weeks episode of "Glee" was so good. It reminded me of the old "Glee" where it wasn't so much about the music as it was about the storyline and the music complimenting that. Although, this episode the music kind of got in the way. I'm glad to see character development show up once again.

So, Kurt's mysterious love interest finally makes an appearance. His name is Blaine ("Blane? His name is BLANE? That's a major appliance - that's not a name!" I'll let you be my BFF if you can guess what movie that quote is from).

I like him. He's cute and charming and nice, which is just what Kurt needs after the bullying he put up with from that behemoth jackass that keeps locker checking him. I swear every time that hulking ignoramus pushed Kurt I wanted to kick him in the face along with everyone else who just walked by. In spite of that, it was interesting to see the development behind that character.

I did have my suspicions, he was far too interested in targeting just Kurt for him to be anything other than a total closet case. I did like how the writers played it though. It makes sense, the way he's been bullying Kurt. He's seeing something in Kurt that he's too afraid of confronting in himself, so he lashes out at Kurt in an attempt to hide that part of himself. Not that I'm feeling at all sympathetic towards the bully, but it's nice to see the writers add depth to a character who before today mostly remained in the background.

Also, Schuester showed a little of his old self as well rather than that pathetic jerk he turned into some where between the end of last season and the beginning of this one.

All around, it was a very good episode with some real writing for a change. Hopefully, it'll stay like that, but I'll have to see it to believe.

Dashed Hopes

2010-11-10T12:14:00.003-05:00

Originally, I wanted to have a new blog post up today, but after a crazy day at work yesterday and having to work all day again today, that just ain't gonna happen pally. Luckily, after today, I have the next 4 days off so look forward to some posty goodness, I'll definitely make up for this dry streak, I promise.

Call of Duty Black Ops + Midnight Release = Me, Tired and Cranky

2010-11-09T09:15:00.003-05:00

Last night I had to work a midnight release. I've never worked one before but they're not so bad. Mostly just a bunch of geeks lining up outside to play a video game all night. And you know me, I heart geeks so it wasn't a bad night. I got home about 1:30am fall asleep about 2:30am and get a call at 8:30am from work, asking me if I can come in.

As you can guess I was asleep when they called and I looked at my phone to see who it was and literally went "NOOOOOO, I don't wanna go to work!" and dove back under the blankets because I knew what was coming. I let it go to voice mail and laid there debating about saying I couldn't work so that I could get some sleep and more writing done on NaNo today.

Eventually, reason won out, that's a good chunk of change I'd be passing up on my pay check so I called back and said I would come in. But I didn't say I would happy about it, haha suckers. No really though, I'm so freaking tired and cranky it's not even funny. I'm also frustrated because I really wanted to get more writing done on my NaNo novel that I had planned today and I can't.

So this is me updating my blog before I head in. I haven't had time to write an actual post because of work so if I don't get one up tonight, I'll have one for tomorrow.

Sunday Nights

2010-11-07T17:14:00.002-05:00

"The Walking Dead" is on again tonight at 10 and if you're not watching it then you are ca-razy. This show is so freaking good I can't get enough of it. Tonight is going to be fun, I'm going over to a friends house to watch it. I'm glad I'm at least getting out of the house tonight, last night I was invited to a party but because I was just so tired from getting up ridiculously early for that meeting and then working that night I decided to go home and chillax instead.

There's going to be a few of us hanging out and it'll probably be incredibly geeky because I think every one of us has read the entire comic series. I was talking to the guy whose house I'm going over to and I mentioned I haven't read issue 78 yet (the latest one).

Him: Dude, don't read it. Wait until 79 comes out.
Me: Why, does something bad happen?
Him: No, it's just so damn good you're going to be pissed you don't have 79 to read after you're done.
Me: GAH! That doesn't help, now I really want to read it!

So I've been debating about reading 78 or holding off. Knowing me, I'm not going to be able to wait.

Lip Service

2010-11-07T09:25:00.001-05:00

I wanted to write a blog post about the new BBC show called "Lip Service" but then I read this awesome post by Dorothy Snarker over at Dorothy Surrenders and decided to just link to her post because she's such a great writer. So go HERE for her awesome blog.

I do want to talk about one thing and that is Frankie, otherwise known as OHMYGODSHEISSOHOT, because that's all I seem to be able to say/think every time she's on screen.

If you haven't been watching the show at home (or on YouTube) then here's a picture to give you an idea of what she looks like.

When I saw Frankie, played by Ruta Gedmintas, on "Lip Service" for the first time my immediate reaction was, "Holy shit she looks like a mix between Lena Headey and Keira Knightley!" My second reaction was to die and go to heaven.

If you haven't been watching the show then you probably won't be surprised to hear that she is definitely the "Shane" character of "Lip Service" and with looks like that can you really blame her? She's definitely the type that you want just one entire night to have you way with her before floating off on cloud 9 and dating someone you can bring home to your parents.

But ultimately, if I had to choose between Frankie and another character on the show, Sam, I would pick Sam in an instant.

She's exactly the type you can take home to mom and dad and she's so freaking sexy. Plus, have I mentioned Sam is my favorite name for a girl? Well it is, so it was meant to be right? Right? Sigh, I wish.

So if you're not watching "Lip Service" already, then if for the eye candy alone, you very well should be. And take it from me, there is some wonderful eye candy.

The Call of the Void

2010-11-06T10:23:00.004-04:00

I'm writing this post on 3 hours of sleep and zero coffee because of a ridiculously early meeting at work so I apologize in advance if the writing is crappy.

So last night, while I should have been sleeping, I was cruising tumblr once again when I came across this great article on one of my favortie tumblr feeds, Castle of Lions. If you don't want to click through no worries, I'll give a synopsis. Basically, the article goes over 20 words that are untranslatable to English. Some were funny, others made me wish they existed in the English language because they make perfect sense. But one in particular made me stop:

"L’appel du vide - French – “The call of the void” is this French expression’s literal translation, but more significantly it’s used to describe the instinctive urge to jump from high places."

I loved this expression so much because I didn't realize it was a feeling shared by others. I've never mentioned it on my blog but I love heights, and any time I'm somewhere there's an edge or cliff or wall separating me from nothingness I always feel this ridiculous urge to go right up to the very edge. Part of me wants to experience the rush of what it would feel like to jump and completely let go, but at the same time it's not a suicidal thought. It's more, as if I want to experience something I know no one is going to catch me, it's just me and that falling sensation.

I don't know if I explained it very well but I felt the need to share it because I loved learning it was defined by something tangible like words, even if it's not in the English language.

Well Hell

2010-11-06T01:29:00.003-04:00

If you're reading this on google reader, I apologize for the last post. When I have an idea for a post I jot down a few things and where I got it from, then save it. This time though I accidentally pressed publish, and now I can't get google reader to take it down. I was planning on writing the post tomorrow so you're just going to have to wait until then for the actual post. So for now, enjoy the preview and check that article out, it's really neat.

Funny Truths

2010-11-05T19:44:00.003-04:00

I was reading my daily list of blogs this morning when I came across this hilarious gem. The blogger didn't know who the original author was so I can't credit them either. If anyone knows, give me a shout so I can attribute it. The purple writing are my comments to myself as I was reading them.

TRUTHS FOR MATURE ADULTS

1) I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. They should also go through your room too before your parents that way no one ends up traumatized. Not that I have anything to hide.

2) Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong. This is so fucking true it's scary.

3) I totally take back all the times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4) There is a great need for a sarcasm font.

5) How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet? I sincerely tried to fold one once and got so frustrated with it that I just crumpled it up and stuffed it in the linen closet and shut the door. I hate that a cotton sheet bested me.

6) Was learning cursive really necessary? Seriously, was it? I've never once used it since elementary school.

7) Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my own neighborhood. This is awesome, because I automatically skip the first half of map quest directions for this very reason.

8) Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died. She shouldn't have eaten that last Big Mac.

9) I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10) Bad decisions make good stories.

11) You never know when it will strike but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12) I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my 10 page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

13) I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

14) I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.

15) I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

16) I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

17) How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said? God, I do this so much to people at work it's ridiculous. Customers insist on talking to me while I'm trying to fix whatever problem they come in with so I just end up nodding and smiling while I tune them out so I can finish my work and get them out of there.

18) I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters! Fuck yea! Asshole needs to either read the damn sign 5 miles back that says lane closure or get the fuck off the highway. I despise those people.

19) Even under ideal conditions people have trouble finding their car keys in a pocket or a cell phone. I bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

20) The first testicular guard, the "Cup" was used in hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is important too. There's a reason it's one of the few sports where fighting is allowed.

Steampunk

2010-11-05T09:00:00.001-04:00

The other day at work it go really busy all of a sudden so I bopped over to the front lanes to help the cashiers out. As I was logging into the register and called the next person up I glanced at the guy who walked up. He was unusually dressed, almost as if he was picked out of the late 1800's and dropped into present day.

He had on a long brown trench coat, a brown bowler hat and a very simple brown suit. As he was standing there while I rang him out his coat shifted and I could see was wearing an old brass skeleton key on a brass chain around his neck.

At first I thought it was for Halloween but then remembered Halloween had already passed. Then it dawned on me. He reminded me of the steampunk movement that has grown more popular lately. As I realized this I smiled at him and he kind of gave me a bewildered smile back.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to stare. It's just, the way you're dressed reminds me of steampunk. Have you heard of it?"

He paused for a moment as if surprised by my comment and smiled for real this time as he said, "That's exactly what it is. I do steampunk."

"Oh how cool, I think steampunk is so interesting."

I handed him his receipt and told him to have a great day and started to call up the next customer when he goes "I'm sorry, I need a high-five for that." So I laughed as I high-fived before sending him on his way, still smiling over our momentary bonding experience.

And that, is one of the many reasons why I love my job. All of the different people I meet every day keep things interesting.

In case you don't know what "steampunk" is sub-genre of science-fiction. Think H.G. Wells and Jules Vern. Check out the wiki page for a more technical definition and history, but basically my favorite way I've heard it defined is "what the past would like if the future had happened sooner."

So many cool projects have come out of the steampunk but my favorite so far has been the steampunk Iron Man that won the New York Comic Con.

I mean look at it! How cool is that? I love the idea of industrial age steam technology being combined with modern day objects and ideas.

Even though it probably makes me a huge nerd I think it's all really cool. I even started reading a comic called "Lady Mechanika" because of the steampunk theme it's centered around.

The comic book series takes place during the Victorian-era in Britain where the main character is in search of her "creator" because she has no memory of who she is or how she came to be part human, and part steampunk technology. It's a really interesting read if you're looking for something new and non superhero related to pick up. I give it two thumbs up and can't way for the second issue of the series to come out.

Also, if you're still interested in reading more about steampunk, check out this article that the New York Times did on it.

Lost PostSecrets

2010-11-05T02:02:00.003-04:00

I was reading the PostSecret twitter feed when I decided to go through the postsecrets I had saved. When I find a postsecret that I really like I usually save it to my computer. But as I was searching for it I remembered I those files were erased from my laptop when it was wiped. This makes me incredibly sad now that I realized it.