happy facking new year

So New Year's Eve is upon us and I am ashamed to say that not only do I have zero plans but I probably won't even be up to watch the end of an era and the beginnings of an even more annoying one, Regis Philbin hosting the big ball drop with Colin Powell pulling the lever and dropping the bomb...oops I mean ball on a year so shitty that it isn't really worth reminiscing. So what did I learn this year...not much but I'll summarize anyway.
1. For every three friends you make, only one is worth keeping. The other two, barely even worth the metaphorical toilet paper it took to wipe the memories of them away.
2. It is impossible to start anew. I carry too much baggage to ever start with a clean slate.
3. Dogs are still way better than kids. Not only do they annoy me less, but I can leave them alone in the house and in the car and nobody calls the police.
4. Achieving a goal is bittersweet. It feels good to do it but then I'm left wondering...Now what?
5. Magic 8 balls' predictions...don't trust 'em...those little fuckers have been lying to me for years.
6. Trying to save money is pointless...mostly because of iTunes. They sucker you in with their deceptively cheap 99 cent songs and before you know it...BAM thirty dollar charge on your credit card.
7. Single and child-free people of my general age range are impossible to meet. They must all live in another town, far far from the town posing as a thriving metropolis known as Louisville. Of course, that really isn't THAT surprising if you think about it.
8. There are a lot of really decent and interesting people on the internet, blogging away. Corny as it sounds, thanks for filling my otherwise mundane life and slightly obsessive internet viewing habits with good stuff. Happy Near Year and all that jazz...I'm off to get drunk by myself in the middle of the afternoon with the sole intention of getting bombed, clear indications of my alcoholism.

mementos

Lately I've been starting to feel like I am a slave to my stuff. I am consumed with the thought of moving all my crap by myself. My brain hurts from deciding what I should keep and what I should sell, what I should give away and what I should throw out altogether. And I'm not moving for another six months so I can't imagine what I'll be like by May. Today I started to throw out some Christmas things and I went through this box of old Christmas cards I've saved because I am one of those sentimental pack-rats. If you ever want to partake in an excercise of sheer torture then I would suggest trying to throw out old Christmas cards. It's pretty easy to throw out the average "Merry Christmas, Your Friend X________" but it is damn impossible to throw out a card from your aunt who died less than a year ago, knowing that you will never ever get another card from her. Or even cards from grandparents, who are getting so old that you know it won't be long before you won't be getting cards from them either. It is also hard to throw out cards where people send pictures instead of the usual trite Hallmark Christmas tree, it just feels like some bad mojo to toss out pictures of people. I ended up saving cards from a friend long lost to the black hole of memories. These cards were particularly painful because this person had been a friend for ages, we went through young adulthood and some really bad shit together. But as she so brutally put it in one of the letters, "I miss hanging out, but I guess we had to grow up sometime." If letting go of really good friends is a measure of growing-up then I plan to remain ungrown forever. But all in all I did okay I guess, I weeded down an entire box to about ten cards. I don't really feel that great about it though.

perspective

I complain a lot, it is part of my complete lack of charm. But lately I'm starting to feel incredibly shallow whenever I complain about somebody at work or having to shovel snow because frankly I don't know what real tragedy is. Once the dust settles, the thousands upon thousands suffering through this will rebuild the homes that could probably fit inside my kitchen, they'll go back to slaving away for less scraps than I throw in my garbage, they'll go about their lives and complain less about a life that I'm far too spoiled and complacent to manage to survive a month of, much less a lifetime. But even knowing this, I'll still complain about old people on the road and complain when gas gets up to $2.00/gallon, I'll waste precious resources and only feel the tiniest smidge of guilt, I'll wish I earned more money or were impossibly thin with a huge but still perky rack. And I know I'm not the only one. I wonder, when did we let ourselves get like this...so full of our own sense of entitlement that we've lost our perspective?

some good news, some bad news

The good, my messed up tooth isn't abscessed. The bad, it is inflamed which means they won't do anything and I just have to live with it until it gets better or worse, whichever comes first.
The good, I went to this dentist for the first time and he was super nice. The bad, my waiting room magazine snatching has turned into full blown kleptomania. I snagged a Vanity Fair this time, with Johnny Depp on the cover of course.
The good, I got my remote start & keyless entry installed. The bad, it took nine hours.
The good (well good news if you are a glass half-full kind of person, which I'm definitely not), I got to wait around in Circuit City for about 1/3 of that time and managed to watch almost two complete movies. The bad, it was Zoolander and Spiderman 2 and I had to stand and watch them at the display of dvd players for your car.
The good, I got to hang out with my friend B. for the whole afternoon and we had a great time even though we were running errands. The bad, I'm still incredibly immature and laugh at completely inappropriate butt and anus jokes...A LOT.

my body is staging a coup

And it is against me. I don't know when my minor organs decided to get together and use their powers for evil rather than good, but it was sometime Christmas day, I guess they wanted to give the gift that keeps on giving. Something is happening to my nose, I'm not sure what but it is painful. I'm thinking maybe it's a sinus infection but if that's the case, then my nose is playing it really subtely...not trying to give away too much too soon I suppose. That and my face has broken out, I haven't had acne like this since junior high. Plus add on the "women's" pains (which might have something to do with the acne, but I doubt it) and not only am I a physical mess but I'm even bitchier than usual. And to top it all off I have to go to the dentist today. The crack-head dentist that did my crown and root canal totally fucked it up and now I think I have an abscess. So that'll be good news if that's the case, "Well your tooth is bad, we'll have to remove it and then bend over cause the cost of the bridge/dental implant will only be affordable if you decide to sell your eggs on the internet." YAY!

second guessing

Sometimes, do you ever think that a decision you made that you thought was for the best is in fact not? I wonder that a lot, I guess I spend too much time living in the past.
On a side note, I received some awesome Christmas presents. The best one by far was the cool new digital camera. You know what that means? I'll be posting all sorts of crap-ass pictures while I play with my new toy, expect to see tons of new puppy-pics.

winter wonderland

Remember when I complained about the snow the other day. Well compare that picture to this one. The first snowfall was just a tease. Now we have about six-seven inches half of which is actually frozen rain

The view from one of my windows

Another winter shot. Notice the big truck in the background? The people in the truck got stuck in the snow. They were out there for about thirty minutes before they could move again.

Four hours of work and I managed to move my car about fifteen or so feet, talk about waste of productivity. Actually I wouldn't have gotten that far if two of the people that live on my street hadn't come over and helped push my car. You can see by where I shoveled out a walking path how much snow fell. You can also see my family wagon, it took me about half an hour to scrape off all of the ice and snow. FUN!!! I love winter!!!

pick-up artist

I got my car back from the body shop today. I had a vaguely paranoid fantasy that I would get rear-ended on my way home because that is the sick twisted irony that I call my life. Luckily I didn't, although I did have to pay ten bucks for my rental since it was apparently not considered an economy car. I've decided that another one of my world domination rules will be this: anybody who wants to own and drive an SUV must take an IQ test before purchasing it because from what I can tell from driving the twenty miles to the car place and back, intelligence is inversely proportional to the size of your automobile. It boggles my mind that the people who own the vehicles best suited for driving in inclement weather are the worst at it.

willard

I was planning on sleeping in until noon but I just woke up from the worst frikkin dream. In it I was walking through my house and walking into the kitchen and there was shredded paper and rice EVERYWHERE. Then I walk over to the bag that held the rice and there were like twelve rats in it, writhing around in rice eating exctasy. Just writing that is shooting a chill straight up my spine. So once they were caught they ran off into the walls and they had chewed holes everywhere, huge gaping holes where there was barely any wall left and wires were exposed. In the dream I remember thinking "Well that's what Mary gets for not bringing me those mousetraps, thank god its not my house, I hope she doesn't try to keep my deposit." Well no more sleep for me, creepy dreams are not my idea of a good time. And the weather is crap, they say freezing rain all day, which turns the people on the road into complete drooling imbeciles so I don't think I'll head out unless I absolutely have to.

strangers with candy

I keep getting the weirdest people IM-ing me and writing to me via Friendster. The other day some girl wrote to me and invited me to partake in a threesome with her boyfriend (for his birthday apparently), which is by far and away stranger than the guy who wrote to me and asked me to be his dominatrix. Then I get a message on Frienster from a guy and though I would never write back, I did check out his profile. He's some random guy in Florida who had a bunch of pictures with attractive girls who look a lot like strippers. I decided that he is probably one of those people who asks cute girls to take pictures with him. One picture even had a girl showing her boobs with him cradling them. I think I vomited in my mouth a little when I saw that one. I only wish I could see the profile of the person (probably another guy) taking the pictures. He probably has the same pictures with the same girls, maybe even cupping the same boobs. I think I should change my profile, it attracts far too many uncomfortably strange people, although frankly I get to laugh at other people a lot so that's a plus. Also, I think I've figured out what is so attractive about blogging. It's like online voyeurism. I have about twenty blogs that I visit regularly, probably too regularly as I have nothing better to do with my time, and there is something incredibly appealing about reading other people's thoughts, especially when in "real life" they probably wouldn't be as forthcoming.

my solution for world peace

Okay stick with me here. When I rule the world, which is coming soon right after my nap, I am going to implement a policy that will bring peace. Basically my plan is to give every living person two knock-down, bare-knuckle, fisticuff credits per calendar year without fear of punishment other than a 50-50 chance at a beating. Now you might be thinking, "How would violence beget peace?" To which I would say, how dare you question me, week long toilet cleaning duty following our mandatory day long chili-eating marathon as your punishment! Unless I'm feeling generous and then I would explain, in an extremely condescending tone, the plan is simple really. First, if a person knew they had only two legally sanctioned fights per year, they would seriously consider which actions are fight-worthy. The old person cutting you off in their huge monte-carlo...probably not fight worthy, the evil secretary at the doctor's office who makes personal calls while you wait forty minutes past your appointment time...probably not fight worthy. When you realize how most everyday situations are not fight-worthy, you would be more apt to just let the stupid stuff go. Second, you might reconsider pissing other people off with your snarky comments and rude stares. Sure, you wouldn't think twice about leaving the 300 pound linebacker alone but you just never know about the quiet, skinny ones so you would go about your day being a kinder, gentler person. Its a plan of subtle genius, although I don't have all the kinks worked out yet.

ugh

I took my car in to be fixed from the rear-ending it sustained a month ago. I thought for sure I would get a pimp rental car because I could have sworn that somebody once told me that your rental car should be about the same level as your regular car (not that my car is pimp, it is a total family wagon). However, it turns out that person that told me that totally lied. My rental is so ghetto, and NOT as in ghetto fabulous. I'm driving a Pontiac Sunfire and it is a piece-o-crap. It has no amenities, no power anything. I actually had to roll down my window, something I haven't had to do since my dad made the tortuous decision of getting a Yugo as my first car. But the lack of power-anything isn't even the worst part. The radio doesn't cut off when you turn off the engine, you actually have to turn it off yourself. For god's sake, is this 1965? I know at some point I'll forget to turn off the radio and the battery will be dead and then I'll be late for work, which is a BAD BAD thing because I only have a few more tardies before I get canned.

snow days

This is what I woke up to this morning. What is amazing about all this is how nice it was yesterday. You can almost make out the snow flurries if you look hard enough. You can also see Iniki (sans sweater) peeing by the shed

oh yes i did

insert catchy title here

I'm not a big follower of local news, that is until I leave one particular place for another. So I don't really follow what is going on in Louisville, but I do read the headlines for the Honolulu Advertiser and the Seattle Times. The whole governor race in Washington State has really held my attention, mostly because I would like at least ONE person I voted for to frikkin win. There was as article in the Times today that discussed the vote recount. Mostly a blah article, but THIS was my favorite part:
Republicans are now "absolutely convinced that King County is trying to steal this election," said Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance.
"There are Republicans urging us to organize mass protests, to take to the streets," Vance said. "At some point people's patience just runs out."
Am I the only one that finds it just a little ironic that we're now having to take our cues for democracy from the Ukraine? Check your soup Christine, check your soup.

cheese with that whine?

I had a not so good day at work today. I think (in fact I'm 97.4% sure) this one person I work with complained to our supervisor about getting bogged down while doing maintenance and such on one of our analyzers. So then we all got this crotchety message about all the things the rest of us, which basically means me, need to do to make his life easier. For instance, the person on workbench X, which basically means me, now has to answer all of the stupid phone calls, do all of the mundane chores that nobody else wants to do, and at some point start wiping workbench Y- worker's ass. Seriously, when did I become the designated lab asshole? Maybe answering the work-related calls wouldn't be so strenuous if people weren't spending the entire morning on personal calls discussing the relative importance of whether or not they should have mashed potatoes or macaroni and cheese with their chicken fried steak. Maybe if they took the stick shoved way up their ass out, they could work a little faster than a three-toed sloth in a footrace. That's the thing about this whole concept of teamwork...when they say teamwork what they really mean is I'll do this important stuff and you can do whatever it is I don't want to do. I definitely need to repeat my new mantra to myself more often, "Six more months, six more months."

brainwashed

Walking through campus today and watching other people go about their business, I realized something. Almost everything I learned during my brief stint as a GI Jane (and trust me it wasn't much, I'm pretty sure I spent most of that time in a drunken haze), I summarily forgot the day I took my uniform off permanently. But one thing I can't let go of, no matter how hard I try, is NOT walking on grass. I just can't do it, no matter how brown or how weed-infested I cannot walk across a field of grass. Even if traipsing across a lawn would shorten my walk by half, some random siren in my head goes off and I end up staying on the sidewalk. It's not that I haven't ever walked on grass since Uncle Sam and I decided it was best that we went our separate ways, I have. But I feel a little guilty about it, an emotion I don't often pay much attention to, and the guilt makes the walk completely unenjoyable. I think I need some hypnotherapy. Not walking on grass makes going to the park pretty pointless, and picnics...fuggetaboutit.

satisfied in the end?

I got my copy of Return of the King Extended DVD yesterday in the mail and watched it last night. It had a lot of extra scenes, although none of them so important to the storyline that you felt like you were watching something new (not like The Two Towers where storylines were way better explained by the extra scenes). Is it just me or was anybody else extremely disappointed that Aragorn ended up with Arwen? I remember being not to happy with that turn of events the first time I saw the movie and last night was no different. I don't mind the predictable "the good guys always win" storyline but I cannot stand the predictable "meant to be together" love-story bullshit. I guess I'm too jaded. I prefer my love-stories to be like Romeo & Juliet, somebody had better die. If you ask me, love stories where one of the protaganists die are better because you (the viewer) knows that the living person will always remember the other person as beautiful and lovely, perfect even. But when they get together in the end I always think, "Yeah that lovey-dovey stuff isn't going to last. She'll get tired of his farting in bed and start spending money to fill the emotional void. He'll get mad when her ass gets bigger and her sex drive slows down and go find a twenty-four year old stripper." Yeah, cynical, definitely the word-du-jour.

ecstatic

I just got my Chinese grade and I am very very pleased. Clearly Zu Laoshi is more than a little generous because somehow I managed to pull an A out of my ass (and yes Katie I can already hear the "I told you so"). I can only imagine the curve required to give me that A because I know without a doubt that I blew the final.
I also got my evaluation at work. My supervisor must be feeling the holiday love because I got the highest rating I've ever gotten and that means I get the highest raise that my company will allow. Although it'll only amount to a couple-o-few cents an hour, it is still more money in my ever-emptying pocket.
The one thing I am not so ecstatic about is my new roommate. Don't know when he decided to move in, but this morning he let his presence be known. I opened my pantry door to find a mouse. And embarassingly enough, I screamed like a five year old girl. He's a tiny thing, maybe three inches at the most, but still big enough to turn me into a charicature of the pearl and high heel wearing housewive that jumps onto the counter and screeches in mortal fear.
Seeing Monk (the name I've given the little guy) made me think of a short story I read a while back about a woman, recently separated, who finds a tick on her back. The tick is in a spot she can't reach on her own and though she tries and tries, she can't find a way to remove the tick by herself. During the whole process of the attempted delousing, she realizes how truly alone she is. I feel a little bit this way because of the mouse. I would totally have left the finding and exterminating of Stuart Little up to W., but now I have to do it myself. All I have to say about that is EEEEK!

the death of imagination

Okay, admittedly I am waiting for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to come out with baited breath. But come on, it has Johnny Depp starring and Tim Burton directing, it just screams cult-following (not that the first one doesn't have and deserve its own LSD dropping, joint toking, lost in the bluest of blue eyes, Gene Wilder loving cult of disciples). Aside from this super-special remake, I am sick and tired of remakes. Its bad enough that they are making a Dukes of Hazzard movie (although they do have Jay Chandrasekhar directing), but when I was watching the preview for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I noticed that they are remaking Assault on Precinct 13. What the hell? How can you possibly remake what is one of the coolest movies ever (a movie I have been watching since I was like seven and NEVER tire of) and have Ja Rule a part of it? ARGH!!! Damn you Hollywood, isn't it enough that you twist the world's perceptions of beauty and make completely undeserving people wealthy? Now you have to fucking RUIN movies with your remakes? Are there no imaginative and creative people left in Hollywood? Is everybody's head so far up corporate ass that they can't come up with new shit??? Seriously, HOW DARE YOU HOLLYWOOD, HOW DARE YOU!!! It better at least have the same soundtrack!!!

torn

There are definitely two sides of me. The first side loves nothing more than coming home from work, putting on my pjs and taking a long long nap. The other side of me, the responsible side that I try and try to squash, insists that I do the last bit of yard work to get rid of the great number of leaves on my lawn. Well today the responsible side won out and I just spent the better part of this cold afternoon doing yard work. It was a race between me and Mother Nature as there is definitely a storm a-brewin'. Well take that you vindictive beatch, I won cause I finished the yard work before a single drop of rain/sleet fell. I hope this is the last of the tedium of suburbian existence because I dread the thought of going out there again. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the rest of the evening. Unfortunately there are no good shows on HBO or Showtime playing right now and Desperate Housewives seems to be in hiatus already. Already truth be told, if I had the choice I'd watch Footballers' Wives over Desperate Housewives any day.

Update: I guess there WILL be a new episode of Desp.Housewives tonight. Yippee, another reason to put off revising my paper!!!

my poor little guy

I don't know what's more pathetic, watching my poor dog run around with a funnel on his head, bumping into walls and barely able to walk OR the phenomenal amount of money I just had to shell out for the vet visit tonight. Dear lord, how do they justify charging so much when I spent 90% of the time waiting to see the vet, 8% of the time sitting there while they told me how cute Iniki was, and only about 2% of the time getting actual medical care. Oh well, I stole a magazine with Johnny Depp on the cover from the waiting room just to make it a little more worthwhile.

skunked

Man am I feeling LOW right now. I just totally and utterly bombed my Chinese final. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one because as soon as people started to look at the exam you could see the panicked look on their faces morph into a visage of miserable resignation. I can't remember the last time I did so poorly on an exam. I guess I should have sprechened sie Deutsch because Chinese is one hundred percent kicking my ass. Of course it doesn't help that I have a minute level of four different languages swimming around in my brain so when I try to say something in Zhong-wen, I end up throwing in some Deutsche, Hangul, and Espanol. Oh well, at least I've gotten good grades in two other classes. Now I just have one paper revision left and I dread revising that paper more than I dreaded writing the damn thing. One more week...one more week until I can read for the sheer pleasure of it, until I can have a drunken 21 Jumpstreet marathon in my pajamas, until I can stop staying up late at night considering the ramifications of deconstructionism and globalism on gender dynamics. UGH!
Well, I have to take Iniki to the vet. He'll probably think I'm taking him for a walk and get all excited.

they're after me lucky charms

For some reason I had a lot of luck today. I got a bunch of free crap. It all started with a phone call this morning. It was about the scholarship I thought I would have to give up because I opted to go less than full time. Well my department decided that they would give me the scholarship anyway, they're going to pay for my tuition. I won't get the leftover money but I don't care about that because now I won't have to shell out the money myself. Then on to Starbucks where we were supposed to meet some people from Chinese class for a study group. Two of the four people were not in attendance (I guess it was a great idea when I was driving to where they were, but not such a great idea when I decided they should meet us closer to where I was). But Katie and I stayed anyway and did some studying. While we were sitting there, a new person was training and learning to make drinks and she came by and said we could have the drinks for free. We got a mocha and a hot caramel cider. By the way, the cider drink...total shite! It made me gag, it tasted like heated apple juice. BLECH!!! Thank god it was a freebie because I would have been pissed if I paid for it. So after studying we decided to go shopping at this place called The Summit. We walked into a make-up place called Ulta (which by the way I mentioned previously because they had an online code for free make-up). When I was paying, I mentioned the online giveaway and the girl at the counter said they didn't' have that but since I mentioned it she up and decided that I deserved something free. So I got a free bag, it's a cool Swiss Army bag that looks like an Army map bag that I coveted while in the service. The total for my freebies today...about $1800.00. How's that for a good haul???

today's million dollar questio

TODAY'S MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION.

I only need two more classes to graduate. I had originally planned on taking four classes next semester because (a.) I'm on scholarship and have to be full time to get the money and (b.) I get quite a bit of money from the government when I go full time (because of the GI Bill). But now I've pretty much decided to take just the two classes because (a.) I've hit a financial snag since the marital dissolution and need to work a LOT more than the two measly days I've been working and (b.) I can't stand the thought of taking four classes when I only need two. So I am going to take Chinese because I need 3 more hours of a language and a political science class that I have wanted to take since I transferred to UofL. I had signed up to do an internship but now with the work situation, that is not looking like a possibility. I'm pretty bummed about that because I was looking forward to it, but I know I won't have the time to devote to it. In the end it probably would have been better to tough it out and have my tuition paid for and my tax-free GI Bill payments coming in, but I can't even think in the long-term right now. I actually thought I would finish my stupid degree without any snafus, but life obviously had different ideas about that. Oh to be right out of high school again, full of youthful vigor and naivete. Would I have done it any differently? Eh, probably not.

gender genie

Perusing blogexplosion (instead of studying, shame on me) I found a link to the Gender Genie. Basically you paste some text into the square and based on some mysterious algorithms it will predict whether the writer is of the female or male persuasion. And when you see which words they use to calculate the gender, well its not as obvious as you would think...they aren't looking for stuff like "oh my god...so totally cute" or "dude, what the hell, she was smoking hot" or whatever.
Speaking of blogexplosion, I got my first rating. It was a 2 (out of ten). Now I am the "ugly girl at the junior high dance, standing in the corner with my cup of punch" of blogs. I actually don't mind the low rating, but it does kind of bother me that I don't know WHY I got the low rating. Is it because my layout sucks? Is it because somebody thought the content sucked? Is it because I don't write about kids or politics or debate religious philosophies? Or maybe because I'm not a paid-escort with a drug problem? Who knows? Ratings are useless without feedback. If I went into work for my evaluation and they said "You suck, you need to improve" but didn't tell me what I needed to improve on...well that would be pointless. So to sum up...if somebody actually takes the time to rate this waste of cyberspace (assuming you aren't just waiting your 30 seconds to go on to the next page), let me know why I suck, not just that I suck. Thanks. And if you are a regular non-blogexplosion reader, well then you probably already know I suck but keep coming back anyway...so CHEERS!!!

decisions decisions

I need to buy a semi-nice outfit for the holidays since my wardrobe generally consists of jeans and an occasional pair of khakis. Being a big woman who still wants to have a wee-bit of a sense of style, there are some fashion decisions that must be made on every shopping trip. One of them involves pants. Since most large gals are not in perfect proportion, we usually end up getting pants that fit one area of the body only to find that they don't fit another area. For instance, a woman with a big butt often finds pants to fit her ample derriere but the pants end up gapping at the waist. My problem is that I'm thick-waisted and a weird in between size so my problems are double that of most robust gals. I can get pants that fit the waist, but somehow end up looking like I suffer from THE major fashion faux-paux, the camel toe. Or I can get pants a little baggier in the waist and end up with pants that are saggy in the rear, making me look like I have no ass. I generally opt for the saggy-butt but am always saddened to notice the heightened perception of ass-flatness. The disease noassatall is rampant in my family, we have no extra junk in the trunk, in fact I think we are mostly a family of hatch-backs. Maybe I should just get a skirt.

jung-myeres-briggs

I found this free Jung-Myers-Briggs test via Adventures of Pierce Ranger.
Turns out I am a INTJ (Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging)
Here is one explanantion.
Here is another.
Personally I have to go with the second definition because there is no way that I want to be in the same category as Donald Rumsfeld and Maria Shriver, Rummy because let's face it ideologoically he is my antithesis and Maria Shriver because that means my love-match is somebody like Ahnuld. Although on the plus side Susan B. Anthony and JFK were INTJs, and Chevy Chase...can't forget Chevy Chase.
But the second definition makes me a Mastermind. How great does that sound? I might have to break out my world domination plans again. I am Ayn Rand with elements of Clint Eastwood, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Elizabeth I.

daddy dearest

My dad left this morning. It was a great visit because he didn't stay for long so I only had to come up with a day's worth of diversions and restaraunt choices (which is nearly impossible since my dad only eats like three things and two of them are not in season) and the first thing he said to me was "You look like you're losing weight" which just makes me love that man. We ended up going to this family farm called Huber's. Since the weather was so nice a lot of people had the same idea cause it was crowded and full of people that had to scrape the bottom of the genetic barrel. Huber's is pretty neat because during the summer they have strawberry picking, during the fall they have pumpkin picking, and during the winter you get to go out and cut down your own Christmas tree. They also have a winery, which is where we spent most of our time, and a restaraunt where they make the best fried chicken EVER and these things called fried biscuits which just turn out to be donuts that feel like they are made out of lead pellets (but so good with apple butter...YUM). After that we went to the casino and my dad blew a big wad of cash, which I feel bad about and wish I had taken him putt-putt instead. Oh well, live and learn. I posted some pics from Huber's below.

indiana

daddy's girl

I'm off to pick up my dad up from the airport. I'm pretty stoked because I didn't actually think he was going to make it out here. He won't get to stay for long but thanks to my sister's buddy-passes it was a free trip anyway. I feel like I haven't seen my family in ages so I'm excited and full of warm fuzzies thanks to my dad's visit. Now I just have to figure out what to do tonight for entertainment and grub. Certainly there will no cooking in my kitchen, I love my daddy too much to do that to him. Although my sad attempts at cooking would definitely provide the entertainment factor.

torture

Is there such a thing as auto/self-masochism? If so, I think I may have just committed it. Yesterday was my puppy's birthday, the big 4 (which mathematically makes me and Iniki about the same age). So since I didn't do anything special for him yesterday, today I made sure he had a good day. I took him for a long walk and then came home and made him a doggie cheeseburger Happy Meal. He loved it, ate every bite. But now the torture is commencing. Who knew that such a foul smell could emanate from such a little dog??? And I know this is going to continue for the rest of the night. I have only myself to blame.

quiz whore

Here is the latest quiz that has caught my fancy (courtesy of [subject to change without notice]). This kind of stuff always reminds me of a time long ago when a bunch of us would get our tarot read or our numbers done. They always would tell us really vague stuff like "You're going to move and it'll be near water." Well yeah, we're in the freakin' military and even if you're landlocked, chances are you will live by a lake or river or something. But when you hear it, you just convince yourself that it was completely legit (especially since you just shelled out fifty bucks) and if you wait long enough you REALLY will find love and live through a lot of hardships along the way and move near water.

who do i have to kill for an ambien?

My sleep schedule is totally screwed up. I can't sleep when I need to sleep, when I know that in less than four hours my alarm clock will be screeching at me like some high-pitched harpy on meth. I don't know why its so hard for me to fall asleep because I truly love sleep. I love sleep like rock stars love heroine, like chickified porn-stars love saline, like Mormons love the short-sleeved dress-shirt sale at Sears. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that my mom would force us to stay in bed when we were little. Most parents let their kids get up to watch cartoons in the morning, not my mom, she made me and Sofie stay in bed until the Today show was over. I'm feeling pretty desperate right now, where can I get some sheep (to count man, to count)?

things to ponder

**First, if Halloween is only once a year, and judging by my calendar OVER, why do people feel the need to continually wear a costume? Why must people about as deep as a well masquerade themselves as somebody knowledgeable? Seriously, just because somebody can say words like "ephemeral" and almost vaguely put it into context doesn't mean they will be any perceived as any smarter.
**Second, how is it that you can give two people the exact same gift and they will interpret that gift and the act of giving that gift completely differently? One person will think it is something nefarious and completely full of bad intentions, and another person will take the gift for what it was meant to be and just be cool with it, maybe even be glad to get it.
**Third, why do people take what little power they have in any situation and make it out to be more than what it is? Does it give them a boner to have some mediocre display of power?
**Fourth, why oh why do people think that getting in the last word or putting in their completely useless two cents somehow makes them right? No amount of revisionist rethinking and retelling of a story will change the fact that everybody but those particular people think they are oh so wrong.
**Fifth, why do I keep continuing this charade of getting a complete worthless degree and acting like it has some value?
Contrary to the tone of this post, I'm not in a bad mood. I'm actually in a pretty good mood. I just watched Chocolat and ate pizza with a true-blue friend. The pizza was surprisingly tasty, Johnny Depp was totally yummy (as only he can be) and frankly today turned out to be a much better day than I ever would have thought when I walked out the door this morning. Now if I could only get my car and cell-phone situation worked out, it might all be a-okay.

frustration

Okay, so it has been about 72 hours since my last cigarette. This was probably not the time to quit either, end of school stuff, work stuff, drama because of certain people...I really should have put off quitting until after the 15th

wedding bells

I went to a wedding last night and it was beautiful. Everything about it was perfect: short ceremony, open bar, great grub. And the couple were so thoughtful about everything, they even had a kid's menu choice of chicken fingers and mac&cheese. So I realized that I have no fancy-pants etiquette. I mean I know more than some, I know the hoity-toity wine ordering and tasting song and dance at restaraunts and I generally choose the right fork (mostly because of a scene in Pretty Woman) for my meal, although I have gotten in actual arguments about which fork is the salad fork. But wedding etiquette, I have absolutely no clue about. I can actually count on one hand the number of weddings I have been to. Most people I know just opt for the court-house with a fancy wedding to following later (which invariably I have moved by the time that one happens). So last night I had to keep asking my friend Katie what to do, did I have to show my invitation to get in the door, do I actually have to wait for the usher to show me my seat, do I have to tip the bartender at the open bar? And the picture taking thing is weird too. In Korea, they do the picture taking days, even weeks, before the wedding and go to some amazing lush location like a park or national monument. It was all very confusing, I must have missed the day in class they taught all this to everybody else...it was probably the day I skipped to go buy comic books instead.

sleep is for sissies

I don't think I have gotten more than eight hours of sleep this holiday weekend in total. Between working and yardwork and hanging out with friends I haven't gotten a good night of shut-eye, either that or I am getting old and requiring less sleep than usual. Maybe I need to get black-out curtains or something, but the lack of sleep has been worth it because I've learned a lot.
1. Pre-teen chick-flicks are still satisfying even today, especially when they are ripped right out of the pages of a John Hughes movie. We watched Sleepover and it was super corny. It had elements of Sixteen Candles and Pretty in Pink. But we still liked it...probably a lot more than I should admit to! And being a fourteen year old girl in the movies is WAY better than it even was in reality.
2. 3D Pixar movies are AWESOME!!! We watched Polar Express in 3D last night and it was AMAZING. Every time I watch one of those movies I am really impressed at how lifelike they make things and then the 3D just made it incredible. Although I wouldn't suggest sitting too close to the screen, it gave me a headache and a neckache. Also bring some anti-bacterial wipes with you if you are a germ-phobe like myself. They have actual glasses (not the paper one with one blue eye and one red eye from yesteryear) that they give to you when you get there and you return when you leave, somehow I doubt they get cleaned between every use. When we were walking out we did hear somebody say "I thought that movie would have something to do with polar bears," sometimes people are kinda dumb and that is always good for a laugh.
3. My dog is a good litmus test for friendship. People who like him end up becoming good friends; people who don't, eventually those friendships go sour (and not BECAUSE of the dog, it is just a trend I'm noticing). This has been the case for the duration of my puppy's existence. I wonder what that's all about? Are we a world divided into two camps, cat-people and dog-people? What about the people who don't like either, what happens to them? Is there a whole camp of people who hate everything four-legged and furry and is it full of people who suck? Maybe it just boils down to this, Iniki is like my kid, maybe even a reflection of the kind of person I am, so if you don't like him then you can't really like me 'cause we're a package deal.

aftermath

I had a nice Thanksgiving. My friend's family was lovely and I got to see some high school pictures of my friend, which is always fun. No matter how cool you were in high school, looking at pictures ten years later involves just a smidge of shame, after all no amount of protesting "But it WAS IN STYLE" can explain your penchant for Cross Colors or your addiction to rugby shirts (although B. didn't show any signs of these fashion faux paux, he just looked really young). Back to Thanksgiving. I managed to not indulge in most of the seven deadlies, no gluttony for me thanks. Since I was at somebody else's house I had to control my desire to start my own pie-eating contest with me as the only contestant. It was hard though, B.'s mom made home-made pecan pie and it was just too good!!! And Grandma Cathy was a hoot! I can't wait to be back in Washington next year so we can have the first honest to goodness family Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner for the first time in twelve years. How was yours?

lost & found

Today on the way back from the car repair place I decided to drive around get lost for a little bit. I like getting lost, and since I have no sense of direction it is REALLY easy for me to do. You would think it would be harder for me to get lost since I had oodles of map training in the military, but no...everything just ends up looking the same to me and I'm usually contemplating life and why I'm so fascinated with crazy people that I end up inviting them into my life way too often then is necessary for one person, so I don't notice landmarks or anything. But one thing about the suburbs that I hate when getting lost is that you ALWAYS wind up at a dead end. And if not a dead end, then definitely I'll run into a McDonalds. Those are two omnipresent facts of the burbs, going nowhere fast and being subjected to corporate gluttony.

ode to my sister

I got a birthday card (belated) and a Christmas card (super duper early) from my sister today. Being two girls really close in age, we had our moments of wishing we were the only daughter whilst growing up. But now that I've been gone for about ten years now we have a great relationship, I consider her one of my closest friends even though we don't really have a lot in common. So she is getting married, she is finally settling down after years of debauchery and mayhem. I like her fiance, he seems really nice. They are planning on having two weddings, one stateside (a white wedding) and one in Norway (a traditional Indian wedding in Norway, how cool does that sound?). I'm saving up some cash so I can go to Norway because I've never been to a Scandinavian country and I've never been to an Indian wedding. It'll be excitement and new experiences all around. I have to admit though, when I met Sofie's fiance I was a little disappointed. I thought for sure he would be this Indian dude with an accent like the Swedish chef from the muppets. Just the thought of it made me laugh, but he didn't have an accent at all. Maybe some of his relatives will though. Sofie and I decided that it was going to be hard to be serious with all that going on.
PS-the birthday card from Sofie said: Only the good die young, we bitches live forever. Oddly enough this is the second time today I've been called a bitch, but this time it was said by somebody that mattered. Besides, I've never denied being one, in fact I embrace it...I even subscribe to a magazine with that name. As a matter of fact I subscribe to one named BUST too.

reasons to become a hermit

This is going to be a long post so be forewarned.
I was really bored at school today and had a couple of hours to waste so I thought I would drive to Walgreens to get a couple of things. So I'm driving down Eastern Parkway and I see a woman (who is holding her baby daughter) get hit by a car. At first I thought maybe she fell in the street, but no a car actually hit her. I guess she crossed the street on a green light and walked in front of a bus so the driver didn't see her and hit her. So I ended up using my car to block the road so people wouldn't try and drive by while this woman was laying in the road in the middle of a crosswalk. There were a bunch of bystanders and several people called 911 but it took FOREVER for EMS and the cops to show up. When they finally show up the woman who was hit was freaking out (as well she should) and the emergency services are doing their thing. So the family of the hit-lady show up and naturally they are freaking out. One cop, who was in the ambulance (probably getting a statement) starts SCREAMING at the family. And then the cop and the woman's uncle start REALLY getting into it, the cop is SCREAMING and SHOUTING at the guy and threatening to arrest him and it was getting REALLY REALLY UGLY. I mean I know he was "doing his job" but I thought he was being totally inappropriate and it is no wonder that the police have such a bad reputation with the black community. This cop treated the family like shit. The ambulance finally moved and I drove up and since I was a witness I went to pull into a parking lot to walk over there and give the cops my contact information. There I am in the left lane waiting to turn and all of the sudden I hear the screeching of tires. I look into my rear-view mirror just in time to see a truck barrelling down at me and BAM I get rear-ended. It wasn't too bad, but it was hard enough that it popped open my trunk. We're like 1/2 block away from the original accident so I call 911 and the lady on the phone is acting retarded because I told her we were just past Shelby Road instead of Shelby Street. So one of the cops from the first accident pulls up and he files his report. But I didn't even get a copy of that report, I have to go to the police station to pick mine up. All of this was in the space of an hour. So what lessons did I learn today?
1. Don't leave campus, just be bored. Leaving campus and driving around in bad weather is NOT a good thing. I've been in three accidents in the space of two years and they all involved rear-ending (of course one time it was me doing the rear-ending but I must have been on crack that day because I still can't figure out why I hit that guy).
2. Civic responsibility DOES NOT PAY. I was just trying to be a good citizen and give my information to the cops because a. it seemed important and b. it is against the law NOT to do so in Kentucky. In the end the cop didn't even need my number because they had enough witnesses.
3. The cosmic forces of the world don't WANT me to quit smoking. Every time I think I am ready some crap happens.
4. No matter how minor the accident, you end up really shaken up. I bummed a smoke from the guy that rear-ended me and my hands were shaking so badly that I could barely pull out a smoke. That and I smoked a menthol which I hate because it tastes like you are smoking a cigarette and chewing gum at the same time.
BLECH, what a day.

wasted hours

I just watched one horrifyingly terrible movie. I mean, it had so much promise... one of the stars was somebody I was familiar with and have enjoyed his previous films, it was directed by Bertolucci, it was set in France in the late 60s so it had a kick ass soundtrack full of Hendrix and such, there was gobs of male full frontal (no pun intended har-dee-har) but it left me wondering how I was ever going to replace the hour and a half I just wasted (well maybe an hour and a quarter, I fast-forwarded through the last half-hour). That's the thing with independent flicks, you just never know whether it'll be genius or just crap. Not that that isn't the case with block-buster films, but generally you have a modicum of mind-numbing entertainment. Oh well, guess I'll have to go watch White Chicks for my primary amusement instead.

attack of the underwire

I'm trying to finish my laundry tonight as I have to work this weekend and can't be bothered to do anything worthwhile when I have to wake up before the sun even considers rising. Apparently my bras, whilst laying in my hamper, had decided to stage a ruthless and bloody coup against my panties and lingerie bag. When I opened the washing machine, it was a nightmare of gargantuan proportions. Somehow the mercenary attack prongs of my bra clasps had escaped the confines of the lingerie bag netting and there was pure mayhem. Spandex and rayon guts were spilled, elastic bands were ripped from their mothers arms and stretched into oblivion, it was sheer madness I tell you. Now I have the arduous and unfulfilling and prohibitive cost of replacing my underthings. But I might have to consider all-out segregation...no longer will brassieres be allowed to associate with panties willy-nilly...for those brassieres are pure evil. Obviously they think they're better than everybody because of their extra underwire, obviously the extra support they provide has given them some sort of god-complex and now they want to take over the panty drawer. I wonder which one was the ring-leader...was it the flowery blue number? or maybe the sports bra...I always thought that one was too serious and restrictive. All I know is they tried to annihilate my hellokitty target underoos and I tell you what, I won't stand for it, DOWN WITH BRAS! VIVE LE THONG!

the gift that keeps on giving

Overall, being a divorcee sucks. But the sympathy factor and my whoring of my situation have been phenomenally beneficial. I've gotten three, count 'em, three extensions for important class projects. I have missed a LOT of classes and some work because of my "situation." And somehow people get to feeling bad about what I'm going through and invitations for get-togethers flow like liquor at a Catholic wedding. I'm not sure how long I can use my get-out-of-school/work/jail divorce card, but it'll be good while it lasts. Also, divorce somehow magically improves your health. I've lost ten pounds without trying and my cholesterol has improved dramatically, it has dropped like 50 points in the last year which is pretty amazing, a woman I work with has tried every trick in the book to lower her cholesterol (eating cinnamon, almonds, fiber, etc) and hers has only dropped by ten. I guess that is the silver lining in my otherwise cloudy sky.

tkus (total knock ups)

I'm starting to suspect that they are putting fertility drugs in the drinking fountain water at work. No sooner than people start working in our lab, surprise, they're pregnant. This year alone I think five women have given birth, and right now at least three are pregnant. I don't know if I'm missing some gene or my parents didn't socialize me properly, but the thought of babies fills me with the same feeling I get when its time to clean up my dog's poop in the back yard. There's this one lady who hasn't been working in the lab that long, and frankly she just rubs me the wrong way. I'm not really sure what it is about her, but I find her unbearably pretentious and with nothing to show for it. Especially when she starts bragging about her kid, "my daughter is so smart, she can walk AND talk AND eat cereal with a spoon." Well yeah, she's almost three, I would hope so. But now she's knocked up again and my first thought was "Great, now she'll be twice as boring and three times as annoying." I say three times as annoying because inevitably I'll have to listen to endless hours of pregnancy stories and then all the hens will start clucking away, wanting to chime in and start a whole pissing contest about whose gestastional hemorrhoids were the biggest. It makes me want to take my plastic dining room knife and jab it in my ear repeatedly.

dream a little dream

I've always had really weird dreams, I don't know if that's because I'm in touch with my insanity or what, but when I tell people what I've dreamt about they look at me like I'm a hydra. So last night was no different, except I guess I got enough REM sleep to have and remember like three or four crazy dreams. The last one, however, was a doozie. Even I woke up like "HUH?!?! What was that about?" In my dream, I was with my family on vacation somewhere, and they decided that we HAD to go to a No Doubt concert. So being the lovely daughter/sister/aunt that I am, I agreed. So we go to this concert and it wasn't a No Doubt concert at all. It was a concert for a Christian cover band, they did really bad romantic ballads. That's not even the weirdest part, KIRK CAMERON was in the band (he played the harmonica), and he was totally dressed like a mormon missionary, khaki pants, short-sleeve white dress shirt, & skinny black tie except he was wearing those 80s sunglasses, you know the really dark black ones with the thick black plastic rims. Anyway, this concert was a Lollapalooza type of all day affair so there are intermissions and during one intermission the place totally clears out and these dogs come out of nowhere and start chasing this large herd of goats that were apparently kept in the back of the arena. It went on and on like this until I woke up, and somehow I'm pretty sure there was a whole flying sequence (with me flying like superman) and the fate of the earth in our hands kind of scenario but it would take too long to write that out. I also had a dream about Ewan McGregor but that's a whole different story altogether.

too weird to not be true

TOO WEIRD TO BE TRUE.
The strangest thing just happened to me. I signed on the AIM and Yahoo Messenger hoping that somebody would be there to IM and break the monotony of working on this damn paper (almost done, thank god) and I immediately get this message from some random Yahoo stranger saying something along the lines of "Hello maam, I am looking for a dominant woman that I can serve, I'm not just looking to cyber, this is not a joke." So I write back and ask if he's for real and how in the hell did he message me so fast because I just signed on. So he says that he wrote the message when he was offline and I probably got it as soon as I signed on. So I ask him who the hell he was and why the hell was he writing to me, but he didn't answer and that was the end of that. So I checked his profile and he is just some dumb schmuck in Louisville who I guess thought that I would be suitable for his S&M/BDSM inquiries. Here is his profile, what a psycho!!! I mean who does that, just randomly writes to somebody in the hopes that they will dress up in stilettos and leather and be his mistress. Man there are some CRAZIES out there and even online they seem to find me.

oh this pain

What does a kidney stone feel like at first? I mean I know eventually it becomes an excrutiating pain, but how does it start? I have this nagging sort of not-quite-pain in my side and I'm wondering if it is the beginnings of a kidney stone. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised since I drink WAY TOO MUCH coffee and not enough water and I know that is a definite precursor to stone formation. I hope not because the last thing I need is YET another thing keeping me from doing my crap-ass paper. Which by the by is going swimmingly since I decided to just write absolute malarkey since its just a draft anyway. I guess I can try to improve on it later, although truth be told if I just get a passing grade I'll be more than satisfied.
Another class of mine is actually pretty fun. We are doing this whole classroom simulation/mock city council. The role I chose and was assigned is that of the Owner/Operator of an adult book store and massage facility. The massage at this facility is apparently performed by "scantilly clad women" with no licenses or certification, and my joint is called Body Kneads. So there you go, I'm officially a simulated pimp, I don't need the Sims any longer. I bought a t-shirt with this logo to wear on the day we do my issue although I'm afraid I won't get it in time, so as a backup I made this flier. I know, I'm a dork!

swimming in a pool of tadpoles and bullfrogs

I'm back and still procrastinating, although I have managed to read the majority of my references so that's a plus.
I was just emailing a friend and talking about Thanksgiving plans, of which I have none. My dad was talking about coming out but couldn't find a flight and a friend invited me to his family's shindig, but I think I would feel a little out of place. So this somehow got me thinking about the dearth of people my age, particularly single people, in this area. Mostly I meet people younger than myself and people a lot older than myself. This is because I go to college and meet college aged folk and work in a field that has the highest median age of all medical occupations. Don't get me wrong I like all my friends be they younger or older than myself. But even so, you would think I could meet somebody in the Gen-X age range who doesn't have children or other obsessive familial obligations. Where are all the single 27-35 year olds in Louisville and why haven't I met them? Maybe I've just watched too many episodes of Sex and the City and somehow convinced myself that there are groups of single people hanging out, having brunch, and not talking about how their child is the SMARTEST KID EVER because they stopped wiping their poopies on the walls. And not that I'm saying that having a family is a bad thing, hey if you can get that family life to work for you then kudos. I guess I just can't shake this feeling of having this singular solitary existence. Current soundtrack of my life...the Sesame Street theme song:
Somebody come and play
Somebody come and play today
Somebody come and smile the smiles
And sing the songs
It won't take long
Somebody come and play today
Somebody come and play
Somebody come and play my way
Somebody come and rhyme the rhymes
And laugh the laughs
It won't take time
Somebody come and play today
Somebody come with me and see the pleasure in the wind
Somebody see the time is getting late to begin
Somebody come and play
Somebody come and play today
Somebody come and be my friend
And watch the sun 'til it rains again
Somebody come and play today

motormouth

Last night I was watching Vh1, since I am an old lady now and missing the requiste hip-factor to watch shows like "Please god make me look like Brad Pitt," "Turn my piece of crap auto into a car-jacking just waiting to happen," "Soft-core porn designed to look like reality tv," etc etc etc. Vh1 has this new show called Motormouth and the premise is that they get people to drive an SUV with hidden cameras (ala Taxicab Confessions) and film them singing in the car to the radio. The episode I watched was Long Island vs. Louisville. Well wouldn't you know, the girl who wins Long Island is a soul sistah shakin' her groove thang and the winner from Louisville is a big old REDNECK, complete with vaguely inbred physical features, a hick accent, and missing teeth. Way to showcase those stereotypes Vh1, maybe your next episode you can do a Compton vs. Salem show with a gangbanger stopping the singing long enough for a drive-by and a band of witches sacrificing young children in the back seat.
Hmmm, I feel a little weird being in the position of defending this place since I kind of hate it. Maturity blows.

death to star-bux

***Note, this is the second time I am writing this entry because stupid Internet Explorer shut down before I could publish the first one.
The fascist corporate coffee pimp has done it again. Today was such a beautiful day outside that I decided to take Iniki to the park. On the way I decided to go and get a coffee since I have somehow devolved into a surburbanite butthead. So I'm walking out of the store and fumbling for my keys when the lid pops off and SPLASH coffee everywhere. There was coffee running down the side of my car like a waterfall of polluted water, there was coffee on my pants (although not near the crotch so it didn't look like I had an accident), and coffee all over my hands (which are covered in sores thanks to the last time I was motivated enough to do yard work, and needless to say the coffee hit those sores and BURNED like a mother). So I clean up the mess with the environmentally friendly napkins (probably made by third world children for ten cents a week) and wash my hands and head to the park before Iniki has a puppy-sized aneurysm at the exciting prospect of actually leaving the house. Whilst driving I try to pick up the cup for a sip and off pops the top AGAIN, spilling all over my handbrake and drink holders. So in two-three days I expect some major mechanical malfunction because whatever bits and pieces make up my parking break are now covered in coffee/syrup goo. But despite Starbucks' and my bad charma with one another, I will probably be standing in line tomorrow morning ordering one of the few legal addictions I have. Maybe I should start drinking tea?

the edge of reason

I saw Bridget Jones Part II today. And as we walked out we had to check and make sure it was a different movie, it was EXACTLY like part one. But it was still cute and funny and generally worth the matinee movie price we paid. I wondered how they would approach the movie script since they obviously couldn't have Bridget interviewing Colin Firth when he was playing Mark Darcy. But she did end up going to Thailand and getting arrested for drug smuggling (ooops, I guess that could be a spoiler if you haven't read the book). Her prison experience was a lot different than the movie "Broken Down House." Teaching Thai girls to sing Madonna is way different than having roaches crawl into your ear and making you sick. Anyway, cute movie, you'll probably like it if you like the first one since it is an EXACT replica.
Also, today I managed to get over a little bit and that always makes me happy. The other week I ran my tire along a curb trying to get out of this super small parking space. Today I had a flat that a fellow driver pointed out because I'm an idiot and didn't notice. So I went back to Sam's Club (where the hot guy was NOT present) and told them that I didn't know what happened. They chalked it up to a manufacturers defect and gave me a free replacement. WOOOHOOO.

breathe, count to ten

Whew, was I pissed last night. Just rereading that entry makes my blood start to curdle like the two month past the expiration date milk I probably have in my refrigerator. But you know even after sleeping on it and venting and ranting about it a few times, I still don't get it. I'm a pessimist without a doubt, and I've had days of feeling like the whole world was trying to keep me down but when it becomes your whole life's mission to prove that people hate you...well frankly you might as well don the flight suit and hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner because life is full of adversity and there will always be times when it seems like you can't win for losing. Damn man, maybe there will never be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but at least there's a freakin' rainbow. So now I think I need to do a more careful screening of people I consider my friends because I've been bitch slapped with the cold hard truth about the chasm between my values about friendship and other people's far too many times these last few months. Stick a fork in me cause I'm DONE.

twisted perceptions

Okay, you know I can deal with a lot of things. I can deal with people who don't like me, no problem. I can deal with people who get hurt feelings, no problem. I can deal with miscommunication, no problem. But one thing I CANNOT AND WILL NOT DEAL WITH is blatantly false accusations. You know you try not to listen to the hype, try not to let other people's perceptions of a person skew your own opinion, but sometimes I think some people go out of their way to prove that they are in fact the person everybody else told you they were. Okay, I've said before that I am definitely a judgemental person. But even when I try not to let that get the best of me, inevitably it wins out because some people just cannot get over themselves and their small little frame of reference that all people must fit into or perish into the oblivion of people who have upset them. Generally I think I am a pretty good friend, but there is only SO MUCH I will put up with and then I have to cut a person loose because I'm not going to be dragged into the abyss of somebody else's misery, I have my own shit to worry about. Man, I am so ticked off right now and usually I would be all about confrontation about it, but I'm going to give exactly what I got cause the milk is spilled and I'm not crying over it one damn bit.

the final countdown

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! I'm 29, the final years before I enter the tail spin known as middle-age. My life is nothing like I thought it would be when I was younger, I don't know if that's good, bad, or generally just the way it is supposed to be.

Iniki wished me a happy birthday AND got me a present too. A big DEAD RAT!!! I cleaned it up and now have to wait a few days to see if I develop the Bubonic Plague.
Katie trying on random old lady hats. We've decided that 80s pillbox hats with feathers and netting you pull over your face really NEED to come back in style.

Me at the start of my glorious day. From here we went shoe-shopping at the Zappos.com's factory outlet store (where all the shoes are 29.95). I got three pair, thanks mom!
"You can't have none of this ass!!"
We had Korean for my special dinner. As you can tell by the hot-plate, we grinded. The only thing left was the squid, we overcooked it and I'm not a big fan unless I'm really in the mood for it. It was Bobby's first time eating Korean, he was a trooper. He ate the kimchee like a champ.

addendums to the shitlist

1. Guys who agree with something completely against their ideology.
Because they would like to bang the girl who said it. Just because she's cute doesn't mean you have to pretend she's smart. If you want to lay her that badly, just spike her drink like other guys.
2. Lucky People.
Whoever found the twenty-bucks I lost last night, I hope you choke on the dinner it bought.
3. People who never speak up in class.
But after class they have a mess of opinions, if you're too cowardly to speak up when it matters, then shut your pie hole and keep it shut, it is more cowardly to only have a voice around people who agree with you then to not have a voice at all.
4. Lack of comments.
I like to get comments, it makes me feel like people are actually reading this thing.
5. Foul-ass moods for no reason.
I'm thinking I need to get over myself...I need some meditation and a valium (not necessarily in that order).

this weekend's shitlist

1. Addictions:
LisaM 0 - Cigarettes 1
2. People with pop-ups on their blogs:
If you need a song on your blog, why must you have pop-ups
3. Food Poisoning:
I just don't need that close of a relationship with my bathroom
4. Moral America:
Be concerned about how god is going to judge your own life and stop judging others' lives as well as overlooking real problems we face in this world
5. Yard Work:
Thanks to all the raking, I now have more callouses and popped open blisters than a 13 year old boy who just discovered his dad's stash of Playboys
6. Mandatory Class Attendance:
If you want people to come, then make it more interesting
7. Getting older:
One more day until I hit 29, I feel old and so far fairly unaccomplished
8. Landlords-Landladies:
Always available to pick up the rent check, never around when you need something from them
9. Loneliness:
Self-pity, the worst and most useless feeling EVER
10. Possums:
Stupid huge rat creatures creating unnecessary unease

dinner and a movie

Went to the movies last night and saw "The Motorcycle Diaries." It was a good movie. Its about Che Guevera, revolutionary. The movie is about a cross country trek, the country being South America, that he and his friend make in their younger years (about my age and the general age of the readers here I suspect). I walked out with several thoughts. First, it is one thing to notice injustice in the world but a whole different thing to actually act on it, be productive about it. Is it something within a person that makes them want to do something about rather than just see the problem? Does this something no longer exist, at least in the western world, because we once had a country full of leaders and activists that people would follow to their deaths and now we just have people willing to pursue activist causes as long as they can squeeze the time into their palm pilot schedules. My second thought was that a pair of women could probably not safely motorcycle and hitchhike their way through foreign countries, living off the kindness of strangers, and sleeping in railways and empty tool sheds. Maybe it is the paranoia, ingrained from birth about the dangers of walking around with a vagina. Maybe it really is possible for women to travel by motorcycle across a continent. Third, people just suck way more than they did in the 1950s when apparently they were friendly and helpful and decent. Now you can barely get people to look you in the eye as they pass. Anyway, I know it was a just a movie. If you get the chance, its a worthy watch but don't go sleepy because it is in subtitles.

i'm a quitter

I decided to quit smoking. Yep, after smoking for about a year (after having quit about four years before that) I've had enough retching nasty coughing fits. It has been less than twenty-four hours and I am already salivating at the thought of running off to the quickie-mart and grabbing one last pack. I may have to resort to licking my ashtray if this keeps up. I should have planned this out a little better and quit during the week so I would be busy at work or at school and not thinking about the glorious nicoctine that my body is craving right now. I hate the idea that a 2 1/2 inch cylinder of big, stinky leaves is having this much control over me. I'm glad nobody I know is a "real" smoker, mostly I know part-time smokers who only use the cigarette to balance the beer in the other hand. I probably wouldn't be able to do it if there were cigarettes all over the place.

i forgot to mention

I was checking my blog-stats, because as you are well aware I am a narcissistic megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Just like I predicted, somebody was conducting a random search via a search engine and they typed up "chubby dicks." And up popped my poor porno-less blog. I'm starting to feel a little skeevy about what weirdos are looking up dirty words and then checking out this site. One can only imagine what they're doing before, during, and after their search engine cruising.

mood music

I'm really feeling this music and animation right about now.

like my day needed to be worse

Okay, the shock of the day still hasn't worn off and when I left the house this morning, I thought it couldn't get any worse than it already was. OH BUT NO, I WAS DEAD WRONG. I was running a little late and walked into my first class after it had started. So I'm putting my still full venti-coffee on the desk and go to sit down, but I jostled the desk a little too much and the coffee falls over. So I tried to pick it up, catch it before it hit the ground, but somehow only managed to pop off the lid and the caffeine-crack spilled everywhere. Then I tried to stand up and get away from the coffee so it wouldn't get all over my clothes, but my foot managed to find a wet spot and TIMBER, down I go. I feel myself falling so I grab onto the desk, but the leg of the desk gets into the puddle of java and I end up taking it down too. CRASH, BANG, BOOM. The whole class stops and is staring at me, knees to the ground like I'm praying, still clutching a tipped over desk, kneeling in a huge puddle of coffee. FUCK!!! So some people ask if I'm okay but with that "I'm trying so hard not to laugh" look on their faces. I go to wash off and come back with paper-towels and the Professor stops class again to ask me what happened. So all eyes are on me again. The only way it could have been more embarrassing is if I was splayed on my back and pissed my pants at the same time. Oddly enough, this whole thing transpired at the exact moment that Kerry called Bush to concede. A sign of things to come??? (Okay, so I had to throw in some last minute election talk but it was relevant). Henceforth, to about fifteen-twenty people I will always be known as that geek who fell over in class. Fucking great.

oh canada!

So I was right, we still don't know who the president will be. I woke up this morning to find that the fate of the next four years lies in the hands of Ohio. And Ohio is slowly starting to look like the victim of a drive-by shooting...seeping into a pool of red. With a Republican President and a strongly Republican House and Senate, the next four years will be the pivotal swinging of the pendulum back into a REALLY conservative state, or maybe that already happened four years ago. You know, a rise of conservatism after a long period of liberalism is an indicator of the decline of the nation if you believe in Oswald Spengler's whole life-cycle of nations. Anyway, here's hoping that the shit-storm brewing is just my sour grapes filling me with dread. As with my former marriage, I give an oath to not talk about politics anymore, there are better sites by more informed people out there.

democracy inaction

My friend told me a disturbing story. She was working the polls and they shut down at six. They closed the doors and turned people away. Then a doctor shows up and they let him in to vote. What the hell is that about? You can turn away regular folk but not a doctor. If he was so damn busy he should have filed an absentee ballot. So are we only allowing tardiness if your job is respectable enough? I mean this was going to be a red state whether or not this guy cast his vote (assuming he was going to vote Bush, which knowing as many doctors as I have known...I would guess YES). Total vile bullshit.
So did you vote? If the answer is no, then go the hell away and never return (unless you are under 18, not a US citizen, or a felon, then you can stay). If the answer is yes but I voted for Bush, then go to hell (kidding, I swear). I'm so full of anticipation and a little bit of dread, but I doubt the election will be decided tonight.

random self-esteem boosters

Today was an interesting day. I ended up blowing off classes and running some much needed errands. First I went and sold back a bunch of my old CDs. The girl that bought them back kept going on about what a great collection I had and how she couldn't believe I was getting rid of them, cool points abounded. So I had to give them my phone number for whatever reasons companies feel the need to get your number. Before I left she said that she wanted to keep my number for her personal use as well cause she thought I was cool and "culturally aware." Plus since she liked me she gave me more bucks that she was supposed to. Now I know I shouldn't derive self-esteem from others, but damn I felt pretty good when I walked out of that store.
Then I went to Sam's Club to buy tires for my car. The guy that sold me my tires was so damn hot, he made me feel funny in my tummy. Of course he was probably only twelve or so. Well maybe twenty-one, only a few years younger than me but I still felt vaguely Mrs. Robinson about it all. He was luscious, all lips and sinewy muscles. Reooorrr. I'm going to have my tires rotated every week just because it'll give me an excuse to stalk...errrr...see him.
I didn't do anything for Halloween. I bought assloads of candy and only a few kids showed up. Now I'm stuck with a year's supply of Reese's Cups and Kit-Kats. Great, just what I need, another chin. I'm going to take it all into work, too much food temptation and mild depression is not a good combination.
Don't forget to get out and vote. I already cast my absentee ballot.

all signs post to yes

Packers Beat Redskins for 3rd Win in Row
If you don't remember, I posted a while back about the importance of a Redskins loss/Greenbay win. Combined with the Indian mystics, I am developing something that feels a bit like hope.

11/3/04-DAMN YOU PACKERS!!! I CURSE YOU AS BABE RUTH CURSED THE RED SOX, I HOPE YOU NEVER SEE ANOTHER PLAYOFF, NEVER SEE YOUR LOGO ON THE SUPERBOWL MARQUEE. DAMN YOU FOR YOUR FALSE HOPE AND RUINING A PERFECTLY GOOD STREAK OF FOOTBALL PRESIDENTIAL PREDICTIONS!!!

cheba hut: where the only thing fried is an occasional customer

As is our usual Friday custom, my friend Katie and I skipped class and went to get lunch. We happened upon a sandwich joint (no pun intended) that had just opened called the Cheba Hut. Our first question was "Do they mean what we think they mean?" So we went inside and yes indeed, it meant EXACTLY what we thought it meant. It was a sandwich shop devoted to Mary Jane, my main thang. Here is a sampling of their menu items:
Hydro-fresh eggplant, parmesan, home-grown marinara, black pepper, provolone cheese
Endo-pastrami, sauerkraut, 1000 island, swiss cheese, and yellow mustard
Pakalolo-smoked ham, hawaiian pineapple, swiss cheese
Afghani (this is what I had)-turkey, jalapenos, and "zippy" pepper jack cheese
Jamaican Red-spicy grilled chicken breast, green bell peppers, jalapenos, black oliver, cheddar cheese

On the bottom of the menu it says "Please, feel free to cross-breed (make up your own). Now the sandwich was okay. It was just your average sandwich place, but what a cool idea. They also had crazy stoner desserts like rice krispie treats and hemp brownies and they weren't cheap with the portions either, the rice krispie treats were the size of a premie baby. They even made a PB&J sandwich. AWESOME!

the great outdoors

Mother Nature is a big ole C-U-Next-Tuesday. Her weather plans are clearly designed to torment me. It rains and rains and the wind blows and blows and leaves fall all over my lawn. Then miraculously, the sun comes out and I think "Now would be a good time to clean up the yard and wash my car." NO SOONER than I get the dog poop off the lawn and the leaves raked and the dust-bunnies growing teeth and spine out of my car, it starts to rain and rain and the wind blows and blows. So my yard and my car look like total crap again. That is it, I'm not doing anymore yard work until all the leaves fall.
I just took Iniki for a walk. I wish I could get as excited about excercise as Iniki. As soon as I pull out his leash he goes ADHD on me. He makes his little monkey noises and runs back and forth between me and the door. Then he jumps at my hand in a vain attempt at lessening the space between the leash and his collar. What is amazing is the fact that he jumps about as high as my belly button and he doesn't stand more than 2 feet off the ground.
While we were walking there were people out doing the suburban yard thing and at one house there was a crew of workers, basically a gringo foreman and his Chicano laborers. Now I don't know much Spanish, but I managed to learn all the important stuff during my brief stint of SoCal residence. The foreman was telling the workers what to do and the workers were talking amongst themselves in Spanish. While I was walking by one called the foreman "Big Mouthed Asshole." The workers all started laughing and the foreman had this confused look on his face and kept asking "What did he say? What did he say?" I laughed the rest of the way home.
Just a quick update: the carnivorous arachnid that attacked my poor defenseless appendage did more damage than I thought. I woke up this morning and my arm was red and hot like two inches away from the bites in all directions. So I popped by the ER and the doctor told me it was infected and gave me antibiotics. He said it probably wasn't a brown recluse bite because it would be a lot worse. Damn spiders...I'm going to burn my copy of "Charlotte's Web."

insert dirty comment here _________

I am not really enjoying my selection of courses this semester. There is one in particular that I really really despise and it met tonight. It is only once a week so we sit there for almost three hours and it is so bad that the undergrads (it is a graduate level course but undergrads can enroll as well) have talked about staging a revolt. Well, I decided that the only way I could keep myself awake and vaguely interested was to devise a devious little plan that I could implement every week. My plan is basically this, every week I will interject some filthy inappropriate language into discussion that could be said in a more academic way. This week was definitely a winner. We were talking about the MTV show "Jackass" and something to do with half-naked go-go dancers. So I said "blah blah blah (academic rhetoric) blah blah blah (homophobia in society) and they probably would think differently about half-naked gay go-go dancers rubbing their balls all over their business suits." That's right...I said BALLS, dirty hairy BALLS instead of a more academic word like testicles. And then the professor reiterated my point later and said balls too. Week one: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!

retro crush

I must have a major assignment due because I am watching television and surfing the internet like crazy and that usually signifies some manner of procrastination. I did however see some interesting stuff on the telly.
1. There was an infomercial for something called the ab-board. Basically it is a contraption wherein you fold your body in two to strengthen your abs. While I was watching the informercial it totally reminded me of this thing my grandmother had in her gym (aka the excercise machine graveyard in her garage) when I was little. My sister and I LOVED this contraption. It looked a lot like an old military cot and the function was the same as the ab-board, you lay down with your feet in these holders and arms over your head while you hold onto this bar on top of the cot (very much in an s&m style I might add) and fold yourself up, then release back into a supine position and repeat. Sofie and I would play with this thing for hours. That and Grandma's electronic belt flab-melter that you see in old television shows and her amazing cellulite reducer which was just a cylindrical thing with beaded rolling pins that you rolled your butt back and forth on. Maybe I can make a revamped version of the rolling pin thing and have Body by Jake market it. I tell ya I'll be rich, rich enough to afford the lipo to make it look like that piece of crap actually works.
2. QVC now sells Dooney & Burke bags. I remember when back in the day all they sold were creepy porcelein dolls (now marketed by Marie Osmond) and bad jewelry. We were forced to watch endless hours of QVC (again at Grandma's house) because my aunt was OBSESSED with QVC. I'm amazed at how high end QVC has gotten, they sell expensive make-up and name-brand clothes and even hawk a line by Joan Rivers (well that could be HSN, I get those confused sometimes). Now don't ask me why I know so much about QVC, I swear I only watch it while flipping through the channels. I would NEVER sit down with a bowl of popcorn and watch the Nascar products midnight marathon...NEVER!
3. Seriously, I don't care what all the Asian-American Awareness Groups tell me about negative media representation...I LOVE THE KARATE KID!!! I always cry at the end when Daniel-son raises up in his crane move (if you are older than 23 you know this move...we've all tried it on our siblings and friends but somehow never accomplished the same ass-kicking) and kicks what's his name in the face. We've all thrown "wax-on wax-off" with full-on bad Asian accents randomly into a conversation and laughed heartily when somebody else did too. I can't lie, I loved part II and part III as well, although nothing holds a candle to part I. I used to have posters from BOP magazine of Ralph Macchio on my wall (which I traded my sister for, I think I gave her Kirk Cameron or somebody equally lame in return...oh the power of being an older sister, it can never be replicated).
4. There is absolutely NOTHING on television. I thought I would stay awake to catch Bill Maher on HBO, but it doesn't come on until midnight and I didn't get my nap so I don't think I can make it.
On a side note, I think I got bit by an evil venomous spider. That man-eating arachnid bit me not once but thrice, all along my forearm. I look like I have infected track-marks.
Also, it has become clear to me (yet again) that when I write, the way I hear it in my head is not the same as how people will later interpret it while reading. I think my regular readers (all three of you) know that most of what I write is in an irreverent, tongue-in-cheek, facetious kind of way. But for those of you who don't know me personally and wouldn't know this, I generally don't say anything just for the sake of being a dick. Unless it is something really personal to me (oh just to throw out an example...something like relationships) I'm not being all that serious. So keep that in mind while you are reading (although I doubt the particular readers I am referring to will be back). Seriously, I'm not going to preface or postface (probably not a real word, but work with me) everything with a notation about what is supposed to be funny and what is not...you can figure it out people, that's why god/allah/yaweh/mystical earth mother gave us the brains and monkeys the tails (just for kicks though, that last part is facetious AND irreverent and I'm pretty sure I'm using both words correctly because I looked them up).

drop it like it's hot

In the past few months I have ended two friendships. Not because of anything heinous on either person's part either, just because it seemed like the thing to do. As I think analogies make the best reference points, I think I can utilize finance/investments in these cases. I really felt that I wasn't getting enough return on my investment in these particular friendships. Not that I was invested a whole lot, but somehow it ended up being too much anyway. For a while I thought I should treat these investments/friendships like I would a mutual fund, even though I had the feeling it was tanking I wanted to stick with it and eventually see an overall growth. But after a while, I decided that the risk wasn't worth it, how many times do you let a person hurt your feelings before it is enough...once, twice, ten times, when you finally can't keep track anymore? After the uncomfortable feelings of wondering if I pulled out too soon subside, it becomes clear that there are other investments out there that might be better, maybe even a personal/solitary savings account.
Part of me wonders if maybe my problem with relationships is that I think about them too rationally. Maybe I should stop comparing them to financial portfolios. Clearly my checks & balances version of relationships isn't working out as well as it should. Are there other ways? Should I stop expecting the whole push & pull, give & take version and just settle for the pull & give? I'm stumped.

blog stats

I put a new blogger stat counter on my page a while ago and the cool thing is that it gives stats on what the referral was that led to my blog. I have learned some INTERESTING things.

1. (EDITED because of minor pangs of guilt and a brief brush with sensitivity) Just brief online stalker drive-bys. <--left that because dammit it was a GOOD LINE, witticisms are hard to come by.
2. Moe's Tex-Mex grill must be becoming REALLY popular. A lot of my web-engine searches are things like John Coctosan and Billy Barou, two of their menu items that I mentioned in a previous post. Well haha suckers, I didn't know who they were either so you search my page in VAIN.
3. I had a search from Frank Langella and the movie "Sweet William." But little did they know that when they showed up to my page I was going to call him a dick and say that he kind of sucks now. How's that for a review???
4. Now THIS is the most disturbing search. Somebody went to Yahoo and typed in "intersexed pics." AND MY SITE SHOWED UP!!! I remember talking about intersexed people once but I didn't remember posting any pictures for God's sake. And seriously what was the motivation for the person looking up intersexed+pics? Was it research for a class presentation? Did somebody find out they were having an intersexed child and want to inform themselves? Or did typing "chicks with dicks" seem a little too obvious? Now mark my word, I'll go to my stats one day and see that somebody ACTUALLY looked up "chicks with dicks" and got directed to my site. TSK TSK.

comfortable in my own skin

I desperately want a new tattoo. My general trend is to get one after a major life change and I don't think life changes more than it has lately (yes I know, I swore an oath to not mention the THING). I don't know what I want however, I just know I want it to be a massive undertaking worthy of what I'm feeling inside. I found this website of a tattoo artist in NYC. I have heard of him and seen him on various television shows and in skin-art magazines. Ahhhh, if only I could afford to jet away to NYC and have a custom made tattoo from somebody this amazing. I find myself in the unique position of feeling pangs of jealousy regarding Christian Slater who got a tattoo (not one I would get but every tattoo is personal) from Anil. I should have my friend Sarah design one, she's does great dark art.

c'mon barbie let's go party

I was sent this link by my super-DJ friend Jen(ny). Barbie just gets cooler and cooler as the years go by. She does it all...Doctor, Businesswoman, Model, Mother, President, Astronaut, Military Servicewoman... and NOW Barbie also does other women. The add-ons are great and I have to say that my personal favorite is Diesel Dyke.

somebody explain this to me

Okay, so last night I contacted Paypal to have my name changed (cause I love me some eBay and want to be able to pay in a timely manner to ensure my positive ratings). I have changed it with my banks and my credit card companies with a simple phone call. But NOOOOOO not Paypal, I have to PROVE my name change to them. I need to send them like three different kinds of information. I could see the necessity of this if I ran an online business and got a lot of Paypal payments, but I just buy crap (and I really do mean crap, nothing of value at all) and pay through Paypal. So why all the hubbub bub? I mean if a phone call can change the name on my financial information like the name I'll sign on checks and credit card purchases, then why make a big deal out of stupid crap like Paypal and T-Mobile (I have to visit an authorized dealer to change my name with them). It just boggles the mind, at least MY mind at any rate.
So, it must be a downer to read about this divorce thing all the time on here. Henceforth, I will no longer talk about it unless it is an amusing antecdote or something. Of course I'm not that great about keeping promises or oaths or anything so we'll see how it goes.

i'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair

So the W left about an hour and a half ago with Ee'Poh (one of the dogs in case you didn't know). It was a sad goodbye, if it were a scene from a movie I could guarantee that 83% of the women and 7% of the men would need a hankie. So after he left I became a cleaning tour-de-force, a Pledge, Clorox, and Dirt Devil whirling dervish. I have cleaned things in the house that haven't been cleaned in months. Now everything is sparkling and shiny on the outside. You gotta love avoidance sometimes, you get a LOT done. Except for schoolwork, for some reason I never find myself compelled to do that. If I had a gym membership, I would go punish my body. Last weekend I watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which was a great flick and very timely. I wonder if I would be inclined to do such a thing if it were actually available?

strange days

So I woke up this morning and I was one person and then I got home from school and BAM I am another person. Not a total stranger however, just a person I haven't heard from for six years...LisaM. instead of LisaM.L. Crazy how quickly it all happened. Let's see went to a lawyer last Thursday (OCT 7th), went to the Courthouse Tuesday (OCT 12th), showed up today (OCT 15th) and the divorce decree was in the mail. HOLY SHIT! How insane is that??? Give a mofo some time for closure for god's sake. Anyway, the W leaves tomorrow with Ee'Poh. Sad sad.