Random

Bitch, stay away from my man: John Cusack targets alleged stalker.

I decided against getting gas while I was running my morning errands yesterday. At that time, gas was $2.69. When I stopped to get it on the way home it was $2.85. *!&(^%

I was going to comment on the new Orbit gum commercial with Snoop, but Feather already did. So cute!

I'm hobbling around like an old lady. I guess it's from the walk I took on Wednesday, but I didn't think it was that strenuous at the time.

Exasperation

It has been one of those days! I was late leaving for work and got behind line painting on the highway, then I got behind a truck that was going 55 in a 65, and I couldn't get around him. I finally got going at a good clip when I came upon the dreaded, "stopped traffic at exit 39B" sign. Great. Traffic was backed up for miles so I thought I'd be slick and get off the highway, but unfortunately it was an exit I've never used before. I was semi-lost, but I figured out where I was. Traffic in the city was horrendous! Harrisburg is right on the banks of the Susquehanna River, and in the middle of the river is an island called City Island--original, I know--where the Harrisburg Senators play and there are always all kinds of activities going on. The river has been visibly higher since the rain started, but today I noticed that the whole end of the island is flooded, including the parking garage. At least the swans were enjoying it as they swam around in the flooded parking lot.

Miraculously I made it to our parking lot without killing anyone. The lot has a gate that requires a garage door opener-type device to open it. I park in the parking garage a block away every day except Thursday because I'm a peon, so I have to run inside and grab the extra opener. We share the lot with a law office, and it's not hard to tell which cars belong to the attorneys and which belong to the social workers. Anyway, some law office tool in his big black SUV pulls in behind me and lays on his horn as I'm running in the door. Instead of, you know, using his clicker to open the gate for me. He did apologize and since I had vowed to myself today on my car ride to work that I was going to work on being less angry--although that was before the backed up traffic, getting lost, and taking 10 hours to drive 2 blocks--it didn't piss me off too much. Serenity now.

Quickies

According to the latest Entertainment Weekly, Rainn Wilson was a finalist for the role of GOB in Arrested Development. I'm glad he didn't get it. He's not GOB material, and then we wouldn't have had him as Dwight.

I finished The Da Vinci Code last night. I couldn't put it down...because I couldn't wait to finish it!

The sun was out today!

Ummm, that's pretty much it! Not too much going on.

Weekend Update

My weekend wasn't too interesting. The weather was crappy the whole time, and it looks like it's going to be crappy all week. I was off on Friday to get my chipped hillbilly tooth fixed and went to dinner at the Olive Garden with some old co-workers.

On Saturday I went to Chris's cousin's wedding. I watched Stand By Me that evening, and it was excellent! I was amazed at the children's acting ability. It's worth renting, even if it's only for the great performance by a 20-year-old Kiefer Sutherland. A little bit of trivia from IMDB: Kiefer's full name is Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland. Talk about overkill!

On Sunday I pretty much did nothing.

On a side note, London is now only the fifth most expensive city in the world, so maybe I'll afford to go there sometime before I die!

I Have a Fever...

...and the only prescription is more books.

I hit the paperback exchange on Thursday and got the following books (for only $20, I might add):

• The Hotel New Hampshire - John Irving
• The Cider House Rules - John Irving
• The 158-Pound Marriage - John Irving
• The Fourth Hand - John Irving
• A Son of the Circus - John Irving
• Jackie Brown - Elmore Leonard
• Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
• High Fidelity - Nick Hornby
• Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

Interesting

I'm still reading Blogging the Bible by David Plotz (after I overcame my idiocy and realized that he hadn't stopped writing it, I just hadn't noticed the link to go on to Exodus at the bottom of the page). Someone submitted an e-mail to him bringing up the fact that the punishment for so many things is death, yet the punishment for a man hitting a pregnant woman and causing her to miscarry is a fine, paid to her husband.

This is interesting point in the abortion debate. If the punishment for taking life is death and the punishment for killing a fetus is a fine then doesn't that mean that, at least according to the Old Testament God, that a fetus isn't a life? Many pro-choicers, myself included, do not consider a fetus to be a life until it is separated from its mother. How can it be a life if it cannot live on its own? The other side of the spectrum believes that life begins at conception. Could the answer be right here in front of us? Granted, it's just the New International Version that includes the controversy-causing footnote, but who can say which version is "more correct?"

Here's the excerpt: Exodus 21: 22-25

22"If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [*] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.

*Or has a miscarriage

Beagles are Awesome

Reason #3,479 why I want a beagle: They can save your life. Belle, from Orlando, FL, saved her owner's life by calling 911 when he had a diabetic seizure. Beagles' sharp noses allow them to tell when a person's blood sugar is out of whack.

By the way, reason # 3,478 is so I can pull and Mr. Burns and say, "Release the hounds," when people walk through my yard.

Happy summer, everyone!

Books

I just finished Bastard Out of Carolina last night, after being so riveted that I read more than 150 pages at work (oops). I've never been more pissed at a fictional character in my life! I don't want to give too much away, but I found said character to be despicable.

I started the Da Vinci Code last night. I'm not far enough into it to comment on the plot, but the writing isn't that great. Maybe it's just me, but I'm not blown away.

Unintentional Humor

Was the person who designed this cover hopelessly dense or very clever when he decided to put "The World's Most Horrifying Pets" on Jessica's picture?

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to the dads who read my blog. I think it's just J. and March. I hope you all had an easier time thinking of something to get your dad than I did. Like I discussed in a comment on March's blog, my dad is the most impossible person to buy for. All he does is yardwork, play golf, and watch baseball on TV. He doesn't read, doesn't cook, doesn't really listen to music besides the oldies station on the radio, isn't metrosexual, has no hobbies besides the golfing and unfortunately I can't afford to buy him a set of graphite clubs, is retired, rarely watches movies and already belongs to Netflix. He has a weakness for candy but he had a triple bypass and a valve replacement a few years ago, so candy probably isn't the wisest choice. I ended up getting him a Lowe's gift card. I didn't think he needed to get his millionth box of golf balls from me this year.

I leave you with one of my dad's lame math teacher jokes:

What did the sapling say when he grew up?
Gee, I'm a tree!

In the words of Rusty's mom, if I have to suffer then so do you.

Sigh...

I told him not to talk about us to the press!

Source

Ok, I Lied

I do have some more to say. Angela Kinsey, who plays Angela Martin on The Office, updated her MySpace blog and had this to say about the Season 2 DVD:

"Now here's some scoop. . . I've been told the Season 2 DVD will have hours of deleted scenes that have never been shown anywhere and are really funny, the webisodes, the psas, the olympic promos, the commentaries, basically hours and hours of extras on a four disc set.
Also Jenna shot a lot of behind the scenes footage with her camcorder and some of that is supposed to be on there as well. It should hit the stores in September a few weeks before our Season 3 starts!"

Yay! I can't wait, and like a true loser I'll buy it no matter how much it costs.

B-E-A-R-S Bears Bears Bears!!

Congrats on winning the Calder Cup, guys!

Sorry for the brevity; don't have too much going on this week to write about.

LibraryThing Update

I'm still in love with LibraryThing. It's the coolest internet thing ever, besides Blogger and Netflix, of course. I think I might join because I can only enter 12 more books on my free membership, and I haven't entered any of my textbooks, cookbooks, or reference books. It's only $10 a year or $25 for a lifetime membership, and that's not bad at all. I've been working on updating my tags and added the following books:

• The Chimney Sweeper's Boy by Barbara Vine (How could I forget homosexual incest in a bathhouse?)
• Lake Wobegon Days by Garrison Keillor
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
• Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding
• The Ice Storm by Rick Moody (One of Rusty's favorite books)
• Garden State by Rick Moody
• Feeling Good by David Burns, M.D.
• Absolut Book: The Absolut Vodka Advertising Story by Richard W. Lewis
• A House on the Water : Inspiration for Living at the Water's Edge by Robert W. Knight
• The Darwin Awards III: Survival of the Fittest by Wendy Northcutt
• M C Escher the Graphic Work Reprint
• Bart Simpson's Guide to Life: A Wee Handbook for the Perplexed by Matt Groening
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart
• The Most Evil Men and Women in History by Miranda Twiss
• Salvador Dali (postcards) by Salvador Dali
• Famous Tales of Terror
• Above Washington by Robert W. Cameron

Hell's Kitchen

Did anyone watch this last night? I half watched it.

I loved: Gordon Ramsay (mmm, British accents), Jean Phillipe, Giacomo (this year's eye candy because I have a thing for pouffy hair), and Heather.

Hated: Virginia, the guy who sweated all over the food and the guy who was made to be a waiter who was sweating (gag).

I know it's just a TV show, but the long-haired people should really be wearing bandanas at the very least.

Shouldn't fishmongers be able to handle stress? Don't they go pick up their fish before the ass crack of dawn and then throw it around all day?

Weekend Update

In my quest to find a good version of the Bible to read, I came across one I think I'll pass on. This is from the teen bible Revolve (from my 365 stupid quotes calendar):

"The Fire of God's love burns out the sin the same way the hot steam routs the dirt our of your pores."

On Saturday Rusty and I went hiking and then to Subway for lunch. In the afternoon I went to Chris's grandfather's surprise 80th birthday party. The best part of the party? His cousin's 2 beagles, Buddy and Bang (I don't know either). I can just imagine the look I must have had on my face when I finally looked down towards the back yard and saw them. They were freaking adorable! I finally convinced Chris that we're getting beagles. One's going to be named Beau, but I don't know about the other one yet. After that I was pretty productive. I washed my car, put a second and third coat of water sealer on my table, sprayed bug spray around the perimeter of our house (we don't have a basement so we get tons of bugs in the summer), and potted my mint in a separate pot. My tipsters were right; when I pulled out the mint the roots had spread throughout the whole pot, and it was only about 2 weeks ago that I planted it.

On Sunday I went with Rusty to her family's weekly Aroma outing and took a 2-hour nap afterwards (Mmmm, MSG). Then I watched Hell House, a documentary about a haunted house-type thing a church puts on to teach people about the "evils" of society. I wasn't as offended as I thought I'd be except for the part where they portrayed a gay man dying of AIDS, implying that being gay is a choice and AIDS is god's way of ridding the world of gays. The funniest part was when one of the staff members was arguing with 2 teenagers and the teenagers' argument (which was surprisingly well-spoken and well-thought out) left him speechless.

BusTy

For Dim and Mess:


I can't disappoint my fans.

In other news, I love Netflix, but 9 days for a movie to arrive is entirely too long. Note that Futurama was shipped on May 31. It arrived yesterday. Before that, the longest it ever took a movie to arrive was 2 days. WTF, Netflix?

Busy

I've been crazy busy and tired as hell. I also don't really have anything to say, so I leave you with this: the story of the stolen Sidekick.

Pictures

Here are some pictures of the stuf I planted Memorial Day weekend:

My crock o' herbs: basil, mint, and dill. Nothing is better than iced tea with fresh mint.

Petunias and some filler. I don't know what it's called; I think it might have actually been called "filler" or something similar at the nursery. Rusty gave me the frogs for my birthday.

My cilantro is growing!

Quitters Never Win

I'm quitting smoking again, this time for good. I stole 2 of Chris's when I got home, but now I'm done. Cold turkey, baby. Right now I. WANT. TO. KILL. SOMEONE!!!

My Library

A few weeks ago I started a project where I made a list of all the books I have read. It's something I wanted to do for a long time, but I got a bug up my butt (and probably had something important I needed to do and wanted to procrastinate), so I decided to do it, and made a list in Word. My obsession with lists is quite scary.

Today, much to my delight, I saw that my new blog friend, Gina Marie, had a link to LibraryThing. It's actually pretty awesome, and I spent my evening transferring my list. Here it is. It's mostly for me, but since it was so much work, I decided to share it. On it I include books I read on my own, books I had to read for school (that I remember), books I own but have not read, and children's books that I have re-read as an adult.

I'd recommend it for anyone who is as methodical (read: anal) as I am.

By the way, no comments from the peanut gallery about the massive amount of Oprah books I have read. I wasn't a voracious reader until college and I didn't no where to start so I needed some suggestions. Some of her books were great, some were complete and total crap.

Random

Last night Rusty, L, and I went to see The Break-Up. Roger Ebert gave it two stars, and while I agree with pretty much everything he said is his review, I don't think it was that bad. I loved the first fight between Brooke, played by Jennifer Aniston, who is on track but has a little further to go to lose her Rachel Green tendencies, and Gary, played by Vince Vaughn, because it mirrored fights Chris and I have had. I had very low expectations going into this movie, but I agreed to see it because I like Jennifer Aniston, and I LOVE Jason Bateman. I could have done without the first scene; I thought it took place after Gary and Brooke broke up, but I didn't find out till I read Ebert's review that that scene was the first time they ever met. It was incongruous, but it didn't ruin the movie.

Would I have had more fun getting my Jason Bateman fix by staying home and watching our Arrested Development DVDs? Yes. Does this movie have a snowball's chance in hell of winning an Oscar? Of course not. That said, it was entertaining enough and didn't offend my brain cells like some other movies have. I'm looking at you, Failure to Launch.

On to other topics, do you know what I really hate? Having to literally climb around in the freezer case at the grocery store to get what I want. I'm 5'1, so this is pretty much a weekly occurrence for me. Would it be that hard to move the stuff on the top shelf towards the front? This world was not made for short people.

I went to McDonald's for lunch today so I could get a free sample of their iced coffee. Meh.

Our newspaper is running a comics poll to help them to decide what goes and what stays. I'll take any chance I get to share my ire at Family Circus, and I'll also be extremely pissed off if they get rid of Zits, so I will be participating.

Thanks for the big response to the recipe blog! Rusty is working on finding a template for it since I just picked the basic white one, but I'm hoping to have Fattening Lard Bake up and running sometime this week. E-mail either of us with recipes or e-mail me if you want to be added as part of the group. By the way, Katiedid, vegetarian recipes are most welcome! In our home whenever I make a meatless meal I get, "Where's the meat?!" but someone will just have to deal!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

New Blog

Ok, I made the new blog which is tentatively and jokingly called Fattening Lard Bake (Rusty knows why). I'm assuming Rusty wants to be a contributor and as soon as I figure out how to do that I will. If anyone else wants to be added, let me know; or, if you just want to submit every now and then, e-mail me; the address is in my profile.

Once it is ready, I will provide the link so you all can bask in its glory.

Ambitions?

I'm thinking of starting a recipe blog, but I'm not as ambitious as my blogger buddies with 2 blogs. There's no reason why I can't put stuff like that on this blog, but I want the other one to serve as a recipe book for me. I'm one of those people who saves every recipe that looks interesting and never makes them because they're stuffed in a drawer somewhere. Not like I ever follow recipes; I'm not a measurer, but I like to use them for ideas.

Speaking of recipes, I have to tout the cast iron skillet that I got at Linens N Things the other week. I made pork chops on it the other night. I'm usually not a fan of pork chops because they're so dry, but all I put on these was some salt, pepper, and Adobo, and they were so moist (I hate that word). Usually when I make them I end up dumping a lot of some sort of sauce in the pan, but these needed to liquid at all. I'm a new cast iron skillet devotee!

Three Things That Are Wrong With Society

This could actually be titled "One Thing That Is Wrong With Society," since they all tie together.

Entitlement

I see this a lot, and it's only going to get worse. Today's children are being coddled. When kids receive failing grades or getting detention, their parents call in and yell at the teacher. Believe you me, if I had failed a class, I would have been the one being yelled at, not the teacher. Yes, my parents were teachers so they were more sensitive to the plight of the educator than other parents, but it's still a child's responsibility to do the work and get help if he doesn't understand the material. Parents can't even discipline their children anymore because if you even look at your child wrong Children and Youth will be called and you will have to jump through hoops. Not that Children and Youth is all bad; they do save some children from horrible situations, but now they're used as a threat by children to their parents. When I was in school no one was involved in Children and Youth, no one was medicated or going to therapy. We just dealt.

Another thing that isn't helping is the "we're all special" mentality. No, we're not. Sure, we're special to our friends and families, and blah blah, but in the scheme of the world, we're not special. Everyone fails at things, everyone makes mistakes. Some people will go on to do great things, some won't. That's the way life goes. When you coddle children, they collapse under the weight of the real world when they leave the nest. Not that we shouldn't praise children and encourage them to do the great things. We should, but sometimes life sucks and they need to learn to deal with it.

These children grow up to be the adults who yell at me because they couldn't find a parking spot or because we don't have an appointment available RIGHT THAT SECOND.

No personal responsibility

We recently had 2 incidents involving drunk people dying because they fell from high places. In one of the cases, a girl got drunk at a bar and was trying to jump from one building to another when she fell. A guy on the news said it was the LCB's fault. Excuse me? Did the LCB force this girl to drink as much as she did? Did they tell her that it was a good idea to jump from one building to another? Everyone in our society is looking to play the blame game. If you make a mistake or do something stupid, you can just sue and everything will be ok.

These are the people who yell at me because their case was closed because they never showed up to any of their appointments or they are out of medication because they didn't show up to their med check and didn't keep track of how many pills they have left.

Lack of respect/consideration

I see this every day on my way to and from work when I get behind a douchebag who is driving 50 in the passing lane of a 65 zone with 2 miles of cars backed up behind him. We're now living in a "me" society. That's fine in some respects, but common courtesies have gone by the wayside. I know chivalry is dead by the number of men who have allowed doors to close on me instead of standing there for 2 extra seconds to hold them.

It's come to the point where I'm pleasantly surprised when someone is nice to me or goes out of his or her way to do something. I'm not a demanding person, but I expect the same consideration that I give to others. When I see how much things have changed in my lifetime I can't imagine with people who were alive in the '50s must think about what has become of our society.

I shudder to think what things will be like in 2041 when I'm 60 and the children of today are running the world.