Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Ruined Music

Check out Ruinedmusic.com, where readers submit songs that are ruined for them for one reason or another (but usually by a bad break-up).

For me it's "What it Takes" by Aerosmith. I listened to that song after "breaking up" with my middle school "boyfriend." Picture me, feeling all maudlin, thinking, "Oh Jason, tell me how it is that you can sleep in the night without thinking you've lost everything that was good in your life to the toss of the dice?" Gag.

Another is "Vivrant Thing" by Q-Tip because that was on the radio one time while my last ex was getting gas and he was dancing around to it at the pump. If I knew then what I know now I would have shoved him to the ground, run over him a couple times, and driven away. Hindsight is 20/20.

Do any of you have ruined songs?

Monday, August 28, 2006

Yay! *Updated*

Congratulations to The Office for winning the best comedy Emmy!

Now for some Emmy thoughts:

Burn! Jeremy Piven to the Access Hollywood guy when asked if he has seen baby Suri: "I don't go hunting for celebrity babies. I have 116 other things to do, thank you Billy. You need another job. I mean, you have potential as a human being. This may not be right for you. Seriously, can you focus on other things?"

WTF? These Access Hollywood people are buffoons! How did they get jobs as interviewers? Nancy O'Dell tells Annette Benning she needs the Emmy to match her OSCAR. Annette says that Warren Beatty won the OSCAR, not her. Nancy says Warren needs a pair; he asks, "a pair of what?"

Shut up, Randy Jackson

Conan's opening skit? Hilarious. Of course I loved the Office part, but I also loved the Dateline scene. Conan plays a potential child molester so well.

Dammit! GOB didn't win best supporting actor!

Dick Clark is making me sad.

The presenter banter sucks! Who writes this shit?! And half the celebrities can't even read.

Tony Shalub!?! Where's the Carell love?

Barry Manilow won best variety, etc. show, beating Colbert and Stewart. What's going on here?!

Ahhh, a monster! Oh, sorry, that was just Farrah Fawcett.

LOVED Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert introducing the reality show nominees.

The Office! John Krasinski! Rainn Wilson! Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant! Woot!

Sunday, August 27, 2006

&*!&%! Netflix

I rarely have trouble with Netflix, but last night I was watching Kinsey and was enjoying it immensely when the DVD stopped working. It was scratched beyond belief. I don't mind skipping a few minutes of a movie due to scratching, but this was like, 4 whole scenes worth. I reported it last night, so I'm hoping the new one will come Tuesday since I'm off for a doctor's appointment. At least I got to see the John Krasinski part to tide me over till September 21st.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Bad Blogger!

I've been slacking, mostly due to the fact that I'm busier at work now, which is where I used to do most of my blogging. I mean, I never blogged on company time! I've even been slacking with the commenting, although part of that has to do with the fact that when I was trying to comment on several blogs the other day, Blogger was being wonky and I never came back to try again. I'm still reading, although it seems like a bunch of the blogs I frequent are also going through dry spells. Is it summer? A slow news week? Nothing exciting or even interesting has happened in my life lately and there haven't been too many items in the news that I felt compelled to blog about (or if there were, I was too lazy to blog about it until it was old news, hence the last post). I'll try to be better!

Hooray for Small Victories

*If it seems like I'm a little late to the party, it's because I wrote this a few days ago and am just now getting around to posting it. Oops!

The morning-after pill is now available over-the-counter to women 18 and older. Now let's get it available to everyone to avoid all these teenage pregnancies. I hate the fact that a bunch of middle-aged, white, conservative men have control over what women do to and with their bodies.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

I need a break from the mind-numbing work I've been doing for the past few hours. It is not fun entering 50+ pages of payments into the system, but I was the fool who took over the billing position.

The NHTSA wants all cars to have black box-like devices by 2008. This will allow the police to issue speeding tickets without even leaving the police station, among other things.
Story

Conservatives are pushing the FBI to investigate and possibly shut down pay-per-view pornography in hotel rooms.
Story

On a not-pissing-me-off note, happy 86th birthday to Ray Bradbury! Supposedly a new version of Fahrenheit 451 will start shooting in about 18 months (yay!), but it was optioned by Mel Gibson (boo!). Story

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Microsoft UK

Check out these Microsoft training videos starring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. The second one's funnier.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Half Baked

I decided that I am going to learn how to bake this fall/winter. I love cooking, but baking? Not so much. I hate measuring and when I cook the only thing I measure is rice. To me, making a pie is buying a store bought crust and putting some instant pudding and cool whip in it. I made blondies one time and my friend's brother described them as "hard tack with taste." I bought a jelly roll pan, so the first thing I'm going to do is a pumpkin roll. Mmmmm...pumpkin roll... I also want to make a cake from scratch, so I think I'll start with my grandma's recipe for red velvet cake. After that, who knows? Maybe you'll see me on Food Network challenge with the Scott guy who's also on Hell's Kitchen. Mmmmm...Scott...

Have my Office fan readers been watching the webisodes this summer? If you haven't seen them already you can find them
here. I'm not totally crazy about them. I think it's because I don't feel that Angela, Oscar, and Kevin can hold an episode by themselves, not even a 4-minute one. They're probably some of my least-favorite secondary characters. If they had Creed, Stanley, and Toby I'd be all about that.

Speaking of the Office, I preordered my season 2 DVD from Amazon the other day! I also ordered Wayne's World and some Cure CDs. I don't usually spend money on myself but I figured I deserved it.

I was watching The Price is Right yesterday and Bob Barker is really getting mean and passive aggressive in his old age! Maybe he always has been and I never noticed. Yesterday there was a college freshman on and when Bob asked him what he wanted to be he said president. Yes, this guy was a complete tool, as are most college freshmen (or college students in general), but Bob was merciless to this guy the whole time, making little jabs about how the president should know things that this guy didn't (I had to give Bob a pass when he made fun of him for saying a Ford costs $78,000. Seriously, dude? If I were going to be on TPIR I would study the prices of everything from Preparation H to RVs). Then, bless his heart, the guy didn't get the wheel the whole way around. A middle-aged woman tripped and Bob kept making snide comments about it. When she went up to spin the wheel he said, "Make sure you don't trip!" Geez, Bob!


Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Did you see the promos for Celebrity Duets? The end is nigh. I might tune in momentarily to see if Alfonso Ribero or whatever the hell his name is does the Carlton Banks dance.

Now, thanks to that video, I have "It's Not Unusual" in my head and the only words I know are, "It's not unusual to be loved by anyone." Have a great weekend!

Friday I'm in Love

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

George W. + Camus

Slate did a hilarious parody of W's book report on The Stranger by Camus.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Weekend Update

How things have changed since last week at this time. I found out on Friday evening that my best friend of about 18 years, known as Rusty to all of you, is moving 7.5 hours away. Our whole lives we've been no more than 15 minutes away from each other. It just goes to show you that you shouldn't take anything for granted because you never know how quickly life can change. It's going to be weird, but the non-selfish part of me wishes her a hearty congratulations and the best of luck!

On Saturday I cleaned in the morning and then went out to dinner and a movie with Rusty and L. for one last hurrah.

Yesterday I didn't do anything of consequence. The weather was so gorgeous over the weekend! I wish the weather could be like that all the time, except maybe it can get cold for one week around Christmas and New Year's Day.

I'm so bummed today. The combination of Rusty moving, this whole insurance rigmarole, raging PMS (I'm convinced I have PMDD, not PMS), and the (at least what I perceive as) harsher-than-necessary comments on my insurance post are bumming me out. It's not unusual for me to feel as depressed and hopeless as a 13-year-old boy at this time of my cycle, but when I add situational stressors onto that, it's not pretty.

Here's to hoping that tomorrow is better than today.

Our Tax Dollars Hard at Work

I was searching for insurance stuff and I found PA Senate Bill 320, calling for the chocolate chip cookie to be named the official cookie of Pennsylvania. Seriously, Senators?

Healthcare

The state of healthcare in this country is a big pile of shit. The place where Chris works is pulling the usual "We'll have you work 39 hours so we don't have to pay for you to have insurance" bullshit. I asked my HR person if I could get him covered under mine, and I can't because we're not married. What. The. Fuck? So, because I don't have a fucking piece of paper, our relationship isn't as legitimate as someone who does. Two people who don't have a piece of paper but who have been together for 3.5 years's relationship doesn't matter as much as 2 people who get drunk in Vegas and get married on a whim's relationship? Let's not let the irony of the fact that only about .0000001% of the clients we have here are married be lost on us. It's discrimination, but it's legal.

I don't even want to get married! As of right now, I feel that the only reason for me to get married would be if I wanted to have children and the thought of having children right now makes me want to commit harri karri. I don't think it's necessary, I don't want yet another way for the government to keep tabs on me, I think marriage is a bullshit institution, 50% of marriages end in divorce, and even though I'm in a monogamous, committed relationship, I don't feel that I'm ready to settle, as it were. But you know what? Even if we were married, it would cost $262.15 PER PAY to insure him. WTF?! The Powers That Be at the insurance companies are sitting pretty while we peons fatten their wallets.

Medical Assistance is out of the question because we make "too much money." But if he were a drug addict or an alcoholic or sat on his ass doing nothing all day, then he could get insurance. I consider myself to be pretty liberal, but I'm not happy with the Medical Assistance program. I work full-time (I will be the first to admit, however, that I do have a pretty cheap insurance premium) yet I have to pay co-pays, pay for my scripts, pay a deductible for labwork, pay a penalty fee if I cancel at the last minute. If I didn't work, everything would be free. Yeah, it's harder to find a place that takes Medical Assistance that it is to find a place that takes private insurance, but still. I should move to Canada *waits for Homeland Security to swarm office*.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Fattening Lard Bake

Tonight's steak fajitas night en la casa de Jenny G, so I posted a recipe for Guacamole on Fattening Lard Bake. Rusty did a great job at re-doing the layout, so check it out.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

You're on Notice


Make your own.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Random

Today is such a gorgeous day! I should go home early, but I know that as soon as I do I'll get swamped and I'll just be screwing myself tomorrow.
Rusty is finally back on home soil and she's coming over tonight to catch up on Hell's Kitchen. That means Smoke just has to stay alive for about 11 more hours and then I'm in the clear.

I have pink eye. I noticed yesterday that my eye was all red but I didn't think anything of it. This morning someone told me I have pink eye so of course now I can't think about anything but eyes. While this might not sound like a big deal to you, I HAAAAAAAAAATE eyes and everything related to them. I don't know what I'm going to do if I ever get a cataract. My eye doctor has to literally hold me down to put eye drops in so they'll have to do a Clockwork Orange-type set-up if I ever have to have eye surgery. I looked up pink eye to see if I should go to the doctor and now I have an image of a pink eye-infected eye burned into my brain.

I have a massive craving for fried food. I've been doing a fairly decent job of eating better and I can't eat fried food like I used to. I made fried zucchini, which used to be one of my favorite things, the other night and could only eat a few pieces. I guess that's progress. I will be getting some awesome wings from the nasty Chinese place for lunch today though. I deserve it; I have an illness.

The Jerk Store Called...

...they're out of you.

The Cincinnati Bengals have set up a hotline for people to report rowdy fans at games. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I generally support live and let live, but I suppose it's a good idea if some drunk people are trying to start a fight. It's an NFL game though, not the country club.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

No Child Left Behind

Our paper recently ran a graph showing the average number of students who scored proficient of above on the standardized tests in all of the 16 York County school districts. The scores ranged from the high 70s, low 80s (among them was my high school--represent!) to the 40s and 50s (the city school district which is a complete mess and should be closed down). According to the blurb, under the No Child Left Behind act, the government wants all of these numbers to be 100% in a few short years.

I've always disliked No Child Left Behind because I think it hurts two groups of students: the highest achievers and the lowest achievers. The highest achievers suffer because teachers are teaching to the test which doesn't allow time for students to ask questions and explore subject matter that may not be on the curriculum and because they have to wait for the lower-level students to catch up. It hurts the lowest achievers because they just can't handle the material, which leads to frustration, which leads to giving up. Not everyone was meant to excel academically. We can't have a world full of surgeons; we need janitors to clean up after surgery.

Why would the government start a program that is destined to fail? Do The Powers That Be really believe that every student will be scoring proficient or higher on these tests? And to whom are we trying to prove ourselves? Aren't there better and more important statistics to review? Drop-out rates, percentage of students who go on to post-secondary education, and grade retention rates are all more important than how a student scores on a standardized test.

This all reminds me of the
Simpsons episode (don't you love how there's a Simpsons episode for every situation?) where Skinner has an "Independent Thought Alarm" button under his desk. Teachers aren't free to encourage questions and supplement their lessons anymore. This has to be an extremely frustrating time to be a teacher. The job is no longer to teach but to shape students into carbon copies of one other. 1984 is getting closer.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Short and Sweet

The Office Season 2 DVD comes out September 14th.

Season 3 begins Thursday, September 21 at 8:30 P.M. I really hope my VCR won't screw up since I don't get home till 9 on Thursdays.

I have to go wash my car before it gets to be a million degrees out. Have a good weekend!

Friday, August 04, 2006

Technical Difficulties

Our router isn't working so I can't get online on my computer and for various reasons, I don't like using Chris's. We're supposed to go get a new router tonight but I don't know if that'll actually happen or when Chris will hook it up. There's nothing going on in my life now anyway except for some dumbass who was walking down the middle of the alley where I was trying to drive. He didn't hear me because he was using his iPod. Note to iPod users: Don't walk down the middle of the fucking street whilst using said device.

I hope everyone has a good weekend!

Thursday, August 03, 2006

I Love The Weather Channel