Conan O’Brien recently had a ‘Make Your Own Commercial’ Contest, and our friends Mike & Matt won it all!
People are sort of ticking me off today. Let me explain:
I work with a person that treats people like they have the IQ of an ant, even though this person’s grammar is like that of a hippopotamus.
Big dudes in trucks think they can just pull out in front of you, or not stop at a stop sign, and it’s no big deal. They’re more important and have higher priority. Screw the lady in the little car. Screw her.
Worker at anonymous large-chain copy place that I used to work at to sweet old lady customer and her daughter or granddaughter who clearly is a student: “I actually have no respect for academics. All they do is sit on a rock and think”.
sweet old lady: “Oh……okay.”
That’s probably a real good thing to say given that your copy store is literally next door to a major university, and about 95% of the customers in the store are probably involved in academics in some form or another. I have a few friends he could’ve said that too - and he’d have heard a mouth full. Probably a few F-words too (you know those academics).
It felt really good to write this blog entry. I know it’s short and full of complaints, but nonetheless, it felt good. I think I need a drink.
If you like internet videos, I think you will like Weezer’s new music video for ‘Pork and Beans’ that was put on the youtube today.
At least four girls in my knitting group have a bun in the oven. My sister in law had a little baby just over a week ago. Maybe you are pregnant, if so, congratulations! It must be baby season, eh?
And though this joyous season is upon us, my only role this year is to throw a baby shower, and buy/knit things for the little creatures. I’ve never thrown any type of shower for anyone, ever, ever - so I’m sure this will be an adventure. But guess what? This is going to be the BEST baby shower ever, and all the babies are going to wish it were their baby shower. I can’t say too much more, because mother-to-be might be reading!
Other than babies for other people, lots of exciting things are happening around here. One of them calls for me to purchase a new outfit, and of all the things that I can do in this world, shopping for new clothes is by far and absolutely THE WORST. I visited the mall 4 outta 5 days in a row last week - only to come away with something that kind of maybe looks just okay, and it’s uncomfortable, especially when sitting. And I swear to you that I have tried on almost every single outfit in this particular category of attire at the mall. TWICE. So, you might call me picky. I don’t think I’m picky, as long as it fits, you know? What is a girl to do? I did however score a sa-weet pair of Børns for half the retail price at TJMax, so at least something good came of all this.
Wii Fit was released today - and I waited for about an hour at Walmart last night to snatch one. I’ve got to stay (well, “get” might be a more accurate term) fit, and what better way to do it than with a video game! Screw that gym membership crap. Anyway, I waited there with a few soccer moms that had arrived before I did. I listened to them talk and talk and talk and talk…..and when it came time to line up at the register to actually get the thing (around 10 to 15 people showed up altogether), I had to wait about an extra five minutes while they contemplated adding multiple copies of different DS games to their purchase. “But wait, Circuit City has it for less $, so, can you match it? yes? Okay, give me two more of the same. I also want….” They then argued with the checkout lady about the policy that allowed them to purchase only ONE Wii Fit. Seriously. Normally I’m a VERY patient person, and five minutes wouldn’t be that big of a deal to me, but it was 12:15am, I hadn’t been home ALL day, and I had to work at 8am the next morning. All I wanted was to go home and go to bed, so Just buy the dang thing, and go home already, people. But then I went home and stayed up until almost 2am setting up my profile and trying out the yoga feature….so, I guess what I’m saying is, I’m a bit of a hypocrite?
Oh, and some doofus hacked my facebook account and sent a dating website spiel to everyone of my facebook friends. Please ignore and delete if you received it, and surely you did. When I found out, I frantically started going to all of my friends’ pages and deleting the wall posts, but that proved to be a much larger task than I could handle - so….yeah…. Sorry about that.
Those are magic words in our apartment when it comes to our dog. Say those words without following through, and this is what will happen:
Spotted dog walks to door with ears perked up. Hits door with paw. Stands there for a moment.
Spotted dog walks to other end of room, very seriously, and then walks back to door. Hits door with paw.
Spotted dog walks over to you, sits, places her right paw on you, and stares at you.
Repeat.
That’s the process, and it will continue until there’s a leash connected to her, and a plastic baggy in your hand. Well, I followed through with those words tonight, and thus avoided all of that cute stuff. (I make it sound like this is a rare occasion that I actually walk my dog, but I promise it’s not. I’ve been very good about it lately - documenting it even - thanks sparkpeople). Anyway, the real reason I’m writing tonight is because I wanted to profess that I am very pleased with my iPod, specifically, the shuffle function. You know, that thing that randomly picks a song and plays it? Big flippin’ deal, right? WRONG (but right). It IS a big flippin’ deal. The first iPod I had (still have and love, mostly for it’s capacity) had a craptastic shuffle function, or, it was just a real big fan of Johnny Cash, because that’s pretty much all it played. I like the man in black a whole lot, but I was never really impressed with the feature on that ‘pod. It seemed to repeat songs A LOT. And there were TONS and TONS of them to choose from (a full 30 gig’s worth!), so why did Shockadelica always choose Johny Cash?! I didn’t, and don’t, get it. Come February - I received a cute little green ipod as a birthday gift. Mountain Dew is it’s name, even though I really don’t care for Mountain Dew, the pop. It’s much smaller in size and capacity, easier to take on walks, and…the shuffle thingy is AMAZING. I walked for almost an hour, and I only had to skip 2 songs - not because they were bad - they were just a little slow and lacking that motivation factor that you need for good physical activity, if you know what I mean. Now, it wasn’t perfect, and it did repeat artists, not songs (only twice) - and that’s expected, especially with a smaller pool of tracks to choose from - but they were really good picks. It’s like the little dude knew that I was walking, and he knew that it was a brisk walk, and he knew just what songs would go to the beat of my walking steps. Do I have “bad” music on there? Absolutely I do. But NONE OF IT WAS PLAYED (in my opinion). I even have non-musical tracks on there - but he knew that I didn’t want to work on my Danish vocabulary while walking the dog on a lovely day such as this one. Mountain Dew totally gets me - we’ve got this connection - and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
The songs today:
“The Name of the Game” - ABBA
“Hurricane” - Bob Dylan
“Accidents Will Happen” - Elvis Costello
“No Cars Go” - Arcade Fire
“New Soul” - Yael Naim
“Middle Distance Runner” - Sea Wolf
“Fashion” - David Bowie
“I Me Mine” - the Beatles
“Read My Mind” - The Killers
“Suffer for Fashion” - Of Montreal
“Absolutely Sweet Marie” - Bob Dylan
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” - The Beatles
Yes, more Subaru talk. Sorry.
Yesterday, I was standing at a gas station, waiting for the handle on the gas pump to click and tell me it was done filling up, when this short man, probably in his 50’s with a full head of white hair, started walking toward me. “Please, don’t try to sell me something”, I thought. But then I realized he only wanted to talk about our cars - being the rarities that they are in this small Texas town (though, I’m seeing a lot more of them these days - people must be catching on to their greatness).
“I was wondering where the other Subaru in this town came from!”, he said with a big smile on his face. I didn’t really know where he was going with this until he proudly glanced over at his own Forester, silver, and much cleaner than mine, a few pumps away.
“Oooh! Yeah!” I said, smiling back. Kind of a weird response I guess, but the little bugger snuck up on me so fast, and I panicked.
Guy: “How do you like it?”
Me: “I LOVE it”
Guy: “It’s a shame they closed down the Subaru dealer here”
Me: “Oh, yeah, I’m actually not from here, but…” I wanted to continue with, “I heard about how there used to be one here, and it closed down.”
But before I could speak the latter, he asked where I was from, and I told him. Immediately, he threw his hands in the air, rolled his eyes, and walked away! I guess the conversation just wasn’t worth it to him anymore. It’s a shame, I had so many questions to ask of him! Where do you go to get it worked on? Where did you get it? Had anything major gone wrong with it? They have such good track records, don’t they? OMG, I’d totally get another one, wouldn’t you? But no, I guess that will have to wait until another completely random stranger with a Subaru approaches me.
I try not to blog at work - but sometimes I’ll open up my “Google Notesbog” (That’s, “Google Notebook” in Danish, folks) and jot - er - type - a few things down. This particular “piece” was from a while ago - I just never got around to posting it. Thought it’d be a fun little story, and a good way to let my gaggle of blog readers know that I haven’t forgotten about them. Also, it will give you an idea of the type of people I work with! So here you go:
In trying to quit, okay, cut back on caffeine, I decided to opt out on the coffee today - and substituted tea instead (which, actually, probably had caffeine in it - so maybe I’m not really trying that hard to cut back.) While waiting for my water to heat up (the worst tap water I’ve ever had, anywhere, ever, by the way) to warm up in the dirty work microwave, somebody else’s conversation was forced into my ears. A (very) nearby office door was open, and a loud man’s voice talking on the phone echoed throughout the whole area. I had no choice but to take it in. And I wasn’t even paying that much attention to him…until I heard him say these words:
“Yeah, I used to sleep with her.”
… … … Did he seriously…what the? My ears perked up, but after that there was nothing. Silence. I tried hard to think of other things that he might of said - something that sounds similar to “I used to sleep with her”.
“I used to sweep with her”?
“I lose my wheat with her?”
“My tooth’s too steep for her”?
“I nuked my sheep, Beth….er….”?Okay, so those are terrible guesses at what he might have said. Let’s see you come up with something better. Also, with the long silence after those words, what the crap was the person on the other line saying in response to that?
I guess that’s all I have for that story. How’d you like it?
In other going ons, the weather here has been spectacular. Like, for reals. Sunny and in the 70’s for the last few consecutive days. I took puppy to a sort of nearby park with a bunch of trails on Saturday and just took all the warm sunny goodness in during a nice 3.28 mile walk/run. Kieran saw a huge dog (a horse) on the trail (with a cowboy on it and all!) - I think it freaked her out a little bit. That’s what I gathered from her single worried bark anyway. I also talked to a couple of fellow trail go-ers who said I had the perfect lack of an accent - which differs greatly from what my coworkers tell me (they always make me say words like “out”, “about”, or “crap” - so they can laugh at me. It’s a fun game we play.)
Time for my monthly blog post. Let’s see….it’s South by Southwest (SXSW) time, and though I would absolutely love, love, love to be there - I’m not there - I’m here, 2 hours away, working like some sort of adult that doesn’t go to super awesome concerts. But that’s okay. My favorite radio station is there - and I can listen at work (!) - so it sort of feels like I’m there. They’re broadcasting a few live concerts while they’re there - I heard Devotchka today, and tomorrow I am really looking forward to hearing the She and Him broadcast at 2pm. If you haven’t heard of the band, maybe you’re familiar with the band members - M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel? Zooey is of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Elf fame. Go to their myspace and listen to the song “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”, I quite like it. And the rest aren’t so bad either.
Sarahthe already blogged about this today, but you should go to the blog Stuff White People Like. I emailed the link to a few people earlier - to their place of employment email addresses - I wonder if that was a bad idea?
Oh! Here’s another blog I’ve been enjoying lately: Zen Habits. Thank you, Real Simple magazine!
St. Patrick’s day is coming up - do you know what this means? Irish Soda Bread! I’m totally going to bake some.
I thought I had more to blog about, but I cannot remember, and I’m really into my Swedish Language podcast right now, so I’m probably just going to stop the blogging now. I wonder if Podcasts are something that white people like? Hej då!
I think I may have beat a maguidhir blog world record: three posts in two days (okay, three days. It’s only minutes after midnight on the third day). Anyway, I’m way excited because I just found out that Cat Power added more dates to her tour - and will be playing 4 Texas shows, 2 of which I could easily make it to, with proper funding. So though I missed seeing her on my birthday, I still have a chance to see a show! Plus, it’s been forever and 5 months since I’ve been to a concert.
04-17 Tempe, TX - Marquee Theatre
04-19 Dallas, TX - Palladium Ballroom
04-20 Austin, TX - Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
04-22 Houston, TX - Warehouse
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