Where Have I Been?

March was wondering this the other day; I can only assume it's because he's secretly hankering for more Idol Thoughts. May is usually my busiest month because that's when I come out of hibernation and there are always a lot of birthday dinners for myself and a couple of my friends who share May birthdays. This May has been no exception. As you all know, I've been having nervous breakdowns over cataloging since January. I handed in my final paper in the end of April, then headed off to Mooresville to see Rusty. Two weeks after that, Chris and I went for a long weekend in Washington, D.C. and then right after that, my first summer class started. My second summer class starts June 3; yes, they overlap. And the birthday dinners haven't even started yet! The first one is today, I'm still waiting to hear back from L. (If you're reading this, thanks for ignoring me!! :)) and another friend, there is a breakfast pending with some old co-workers, and an outing to see Sex in the City with a current co-worker coming up. That's a lot for someone who is as adept at sitting on her ass as I am.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. D.C. pics are forthcoming; I don't have too many because the weather was horrible. Steady rains and temperatures 25 degrees below normal sort of marred my big plans, but I had a good time nonetheless. I ended up getting an 88% in Cataloging. I'm usually not happy with a B in a class for which I did so much work, but that was hell and I had D at one point, so I can't complain about a B. Especially since he ripped my paper apart... It's also a little annoying that he considers an 89% an A, so I just missed it. But, as one of my co-workers told me (remember what I said about working with therapists?), I need to let go of the negativity and move on.

I had my first session of my first summer class this past weekend and it was the best class I've had so far. I adore the professor (and I think she really likes me) and only looked at my watch about 3 times, compared to 3,000 times in my other weekend classes. I'm actually considering switching the class I chose in the fall to have her again. On a side note, I just found out that someone else will be teaching cataloging next time it's offered. Arghh!!!!!!! If I had waited, perhaps I could have had a professor who doesn't have such an arbitrary grading system. Sorry; letting go of the negativity... I'm dreading having these two summer classes overlapping (the first one is three weekends and the second is online) because we have to do as much in 5 weeks as we would normally do in 4 months, but by July 3 I'll be 6 credits closer to graduating. By Christmas I'll have 7 out of 12 classes and all I'll have left to take is electives, so I can take things that actually interest me.

There aren't any Idol Thoughts for last week because I worked Tuesday night and my Ti-faux is still out of commission, so I taped it and only watched David Cook's performances. No surprises Wednesday night; Syesha should have gone weeks ago. The Office season finale was Thursday and it was great. Pathetically, I'm glad that I'll have my life back after Wednesday. I rarely watch TV in the summer, and I won't have time to until July anyway. I even bumped my Netflix subscription down to 2 at a time.

Work is still insanely busy, compounded by the fact that I've been off so many days in the past month. I'm off again on Monday, so next week will be crazy again, but I'm hoping that things will calm down after that. Obviously we're closed on Memorial Day, but there's a huge difference in the amount of work required when I'm off on a vacation day compared to a day we're closed. It hasn't helped that they were switching the servers, so our MIS has been down a lot and 95% of what I do requires the ability to use it. The only other thing on the work front is that we got new computers (our old ones were castoffs from the state, so they were probably about 10 years old).
Now it takes less than 2 minutes to open a new window and I have a flat-screen monitor so I have free space on my desk! Woot!

So, with everything that's going on, I'll be posting D. C. pics and Idol Thoughts next week and then probably won't be around too much till July unless something awesome or stupid happens. I expect it'll be the latter. I hope everyone has a good beginning of the summer!

The Internet Party: What Happens When Google's Parents Leave Town for the Weekend?

Este y Eso

Noooooooo!!! Noah Wyle is coming back to ER for 4 episodes. I hate Dr. Carter!

I wish I had something interesting to talk about. I'm a little tipsy because I was cooking with wine, and when you cook with wine you have to drink some. It's the law. So I drank half the bottle, and I'm a lightweight. Rusty, I'm totally sober! Ask me anything! I had all sorts of things I wanted to write about, but now I forget them. I even perused CNN.com to find something to write about and couldn't find anything to rant about. I do know I wanted to mention how much the Doobie Brothers started to suck when Michael McDonald joined the band. I was listening to their greatest hits CD while I was making dinner and I was rocking out to "China Grove" and "Long Train Running" and then "Takin' it to the Streets" came on. Shut up, Michael McDonald.

I've been in a really good mood lately and I'm not as stressed out. I'm not sure why, but all I know is that my skin has cleared up since I stopped being stressed. I'm also using tea tree oil, which is the best stuff in the world, and clears breakouts up in about a day. I love the fact that I have zits and I'm getting gray hair. My body can't make up its mind.

I hate that that we missed out on good fall weather. It went from 90 degrees to 50 in one day.

I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this, but it's something Oprah wrote about how she took the month of July off when she found out she had hypothyroidism. It must be difficult for you to take a month off from working, fly to Hawaii, eat only fresh foods, and sleep when you want to. My heart is breaking for you. Shut up, Oprah. Guess what? A lot of people have diseases and have to continue going to work, cooking, taking care of their children... I don't know how people can read this shit and not feel condescended towards.

I was cleaning out my filing cabinet today and I came across a "newspaper" we made in Spanish class our senior year called El Gran Flan. Here's a picture of our class. I'm sitting at the table in the middle and Rusty is on my right. We were so young! I would make a pact with Satan to look like that again. The guy on the far right holding the Spanish dictionary died about two years ago of a brain tumor. He was in the popular clique, but he was the sweetest guy you could ever hope to meet, and I know Rusty agrees with me. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if there is one, he's being rewarded.


I leave you with one of my favorite Stephen Crane poems, since my Stephen Crane sampler was in the same folder as El Gran Flan:

In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good, friend?"
"It is bitter--bitter," he answered,
"But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart."

RIP VMAs

I didn't watch the VMAs last night, but I did see Britney Spears's performance. Yikes. Although I don't really understand saying she's fat. Sure, she could have been a little more toned, especially since she was on TV in a bikini, but come on! I'd kill to look like that! If she looks like a sumo wrestler, as she was described by one news outlet, what the hell do I look like?

Yes, I know the VMAs have sucked for the past couple years, but I haven't watched them since oh, 1996 or so. Now, I totally understand that I'm pretty well out of MTV's target demographic, but I remember when I used to love the VMAs and they had cool artists back in the day (early to mid 90s). I first heard Depeche Mode on the VMAs and I remember Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, Bjork, and other artists that don't massively suck ass. What a mess the popular music industry has become. Everything is so insipid. There was a little flicker of hope with the New-New Wave thing that was going on a few years back, but that fizzled out. I'm sure Dim and March know a million new cool bands that are out now whom I've never heard of, but I'm talking more popular stuff. Not all popular music sucks, although a large portion of it does.

Staying on the topic of the VMAs, I can't stand Sarah Silverman!!! Ohhh, I'm so edgy; I said "vagina" on TV. HAAAAATE.

Also, am I the only one who noticed that the beginning of Rihanna's Shut Up and Drive is exactly the same as Blue Monday by New Order. Actually, it's closer to Orgy's cover with the guitars, but still. Why does Rihanna exist? Why do people like her??

That's all for now; not too much going on here.

HAHAHA

I've seen Lego Thriller and Indian Thriller, but I think Filipino inmate Thriller takes the cake.

Just Popping In...

Is it wrong, sick, and disturbing that I read about how Michael Jackson is looking for a house on the Chesapeake Bay and got momentarily excited? Yes? Ok, then...

I'm so bummed that we don't have one of the Kwik-E-Mart 7-Elevens, but that's understandable seeing as how we don't even have a 7-Eleven period. I'll either have to make a road trip to NYC or DC or make do with this review and pictures from X-Entertainment.

I leave you with a Simpsons quote:

Homer: Really, the only word to describe it is (drools)
Lisa: Hmm. What's the English equivalent for (drools) I'd say ... transcendent.
Homer: How about groin-grabbingly transcendent?
Lisa: Uh ... I don't think so.

This and That

I'm getting increasingly excited for The Simpsons movie to come out on July 27. Their website has launched. Here's the trailer:

The Simpsons Movie - final trailer (fdb.blox.pl)
Uploaded by pietruch

As if I didn't want to go to London badly enough, Ricky Gervais and Mackenzie Crook are going to be preforming Free Love Freeway at a concert for Princess Diana on July 1. Here's the clip from the show:



I had a pretty good weekend. I took Friday off and Rusty and I were supposed to go hiking, but I got hives from my meds again (including on the bottom of my feet), so that pretty much ruled out hiking and I had to make a doctor's appointment at 8 AM anyway. I'm all roided up and doing well; this round of hives wasn't one millionth as bad as the last time. I went to the Amish farmer's market with Rusty and her parents in the afternoon and then L., Rusty, and I saw Knocked Up and went out to dinner.

On Saturday we went to a baseball game. York decided it was a good idea to kick people out of their homes and waste taxpayer money to build a stadium; thus the York Revolution was born. We left around 11 PM at the end of the 10th inning and my dad turned on the radio in the car while they were in the bottom of the 12th. Apparently we scored one run to win it at the bottom of the 13th inning. It was a long game.

Sunday was a leisurely day spent reading and relaxing. I finished Keeping the House, the book I was sent for the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program. It comes out July 10, and while I wouldn't necessarily pay the $25 list price for it, I would check it out at the library or a used book store. Here's my review:

Keeping the House, Ellen Baker's first novel, intricately weaves the stories of two families, the Mickelsons and the Magnusons, before allowing them to collide. The story takes place over a period of time from the late 19th century until 1950, spanning several generations. Baker has a knack for story-telling and her background in American Studies and as the curator of a World War II museum helps to add authenticity to the story.

When Byron and Dolly Magnuson move to a small town in the mid-west, Dolly has trouble adapting. She admires a grand but dilapidated house on a hill and hears stories from the town gossips about the Michelson family who once inhabited it. She secretly enters the house to fix it up, hoping that her husband will buy it for her, thus solving all of their problems, only to be discovered by one of the family members who gives her a more accurate, if not entirely truthful version of his family's story. It is said that the house puts a curse on one's love life, and Dolly finds her marriage unraveling in a self-fulfilling prophecy as other relationships did before hers.

Some of the characters in this novel are a little wooden, but this could be due in part to the expected submission of women of the time. The story becomes a little soap opera-esque at the end with everything wrapping up in a somewhat unrealistic manner; that said, this novel is a solid first effort by Ms. Baker.

That's pretty much it. I hope everyone had a good weekend. A photo journal of Rusty's and my trip to Centralia will hopefully be up soon!

One Year Closer to Death

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way"

Well, today is the big 2-6. I'm officially in my late 20s. How depressing is that?! I'm going over to my parents' house for dinner and an Oreo cake from Maggie Moo's tonight. I took Monday off to go to IKEA. Birthdays just aren't the same once you're over 21. Remember that, kiddos.

"Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun"

*Office spoiler* The Office season finale was pretty good Thursday night. I loved the ending. It would have been cheesy if they had done another kiss, but Jim's silent realization and drive home to ask Pam out were nice. I wonder what Karen is going to think when she realizes Jim left her in New York? I thought she'd get the job since Rashida Jones is going to be in a sitcom next season. I guess we'll find out in four months. In other Office news, Jenna Fischer broke her back while she was walking down a marble staircase in high heels. The article I read said she's expected to make a full recovery and it won't affect next season's Office. Here's hoping that she has a speedy recovery!

"And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but its sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death"

Congratulations to my Bears for winning the East Division Final. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final against the Manchester Monarchs is tonight. Good luck, guys!

"Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over, thought Id something more to say"

I heard on the radio station that the receptionist at work listens to that R. Kelly compared himself to Bob Marley, Marvin Gaye, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that MLKJ never pissed on a 14-year-old. What a tool.

I just finished reading Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres. It was an amazing book! Actually, and I probably shouldn't be saying this, I read about 200+ pages at work on Wednesday because it was an extremely slow day. It's a memoir about Julia's life growing in a white family living in the Midwest with two adopted black children and her close friendship with one of her adopted brothers. Her parents, devout Christians, send them to a reform school in the Dominican Republic, which isn't any better than their life of emotional and verbal abuse at home. I highly recommend the book.

80s Flashback

These videos were on Entertainment Weekly's Pop Watch blog. A multimedia artist uses people to make the classic aracde games Space Invaders and Pole Position. I can't explain it well, so just watch.

Raves

I do enough ranting on this blog, so here are some raves.

I watched Taxi Driver this weekend and was left wondering why the hell I waited so long to see it. The movie was gritty and raw, and I can't think of any movie that I've seen that is a better character study that this one. Released in 1976, it was nominated for and/or won several awards, most notably the Golden Palm at Cannes and Oscar nominations for Best Picture, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Score. Travis Bickle, played without flaw by Robert DeNiro, is a cab driver disgusted by his surroundings. Throughout the whole movie, Travis moves closer and closer to the edge of sanity. We get glimpses into his past; all the straws that are piling up on the camel's back, but we are never told the whole story. He tells Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) that she's just like all the others when she refuses to see him again after an ill-advised second date at a porn house, but we don't know what what "the others" did to hurt Travis. He writes to his parents that he still can't give them his address, but we don't know how long Travis has been living in his filthy closed-sized apartment, hiding from the world with only his delusions that he works for the government and that he alone has the power to clean up the streets and right all of society's wrongs to keep him company.

"Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me."

The viewer can feel Travis's discomfort and angst, which is a direct result of Scorsese's masterful directing and DeNiro's brilliant performance. The tension builds and builds until one hot summer night when Travis can't take it any longer. The ending is ambiguous enough that a first-time viewer like myself can't be sure if it's real or a fantasy, although I'm sure there are many who are more well-versed who have their theories and opinions. Also worth mentioning are excellent performances by Harvey Keitel, Peter Boyle, and surprisingly, Jodie Foster, whom I have always considered to be wooden.


Another good movie I saw recently was Sherrybaby. This movie is the story of Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a young woman who is trying to get her life back on track upon being released from prison after serving three years. I admire Gyllenhaal because she's willing to take on roles that aren't going to launch her into "superstardom," i.e. playing the lead in a formulaic romantic comedy like Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan. Sherry teeters between going back to her former life and trying to live as a decent member of society. Her journey finds her reuniting with her daughter; relapsing; mouthing off to her parole officer; using sex to overcome low self-esteem; and dealing with a cast of characters including her sexually abusive father, an aggressive tenant at her halfway house, and the manipulative director of her program. We watch her try to move from a life of instant gratification, whether it be shooting up or offering sexual favors in exchange for a job, to a more adult life where it takes time for things to fall into place. This movie can at times be uncomfortable, but so is life.


Finally, I leave you with a video that Chris sent me of Ricky Gervais interviewing Larry David. I'm surprised the universe didn't implode with two comedic geniuses in one room.

Ricky Gervais meets Larry David
Uploaded by deep

Eeek!

Check out these "remixed movie trailers." I love these things!



I always knew Mary Poppins was evil.



Sort of makes you see Forrest in a different light.



I think this is the most professional-looking one.

Good God

I hope this is a hoax, but I don't think it is:

JUDITH REGAN’S EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH O.J. SIMPSON

“O.J. SIMPSON: IF I DID IT, HERE’S HOW IT HAPPENED”

TO AIR AS A TWO-PART SPECIAL ON FOX

Special to Air Over Two Nights:

Monday, November 27, and Wednesday, November 29

Source

Happy Halloween

Check out this Bollywood version of "Thriller." There are no words.

Check it Out

Dammit, March! You beat me to it. Oh well, I don't have anything else about which to post :).

Battle of the album covers. Some of my favorites are in there! It's not letting me imbed, so I'll just link.

I Love Weird Al

Back in the day I was a huge fan of Weird Al. My interest waned for the past decade or so, but I love his new song "White and Nerdy." I was looking on YouTube for some of his classic videos and found this hilarious "interview" with Eminem. Enjoy!



And another funny one with Michael Stipe:



And while I'm posting every video that exists on YouTube, I might as well post the aforementioned "White and Nerdy."