Oh yeah

I also found out that those phthalo-whatever CDs might not even be writable in some machines. They say that it's the worst-case scenarios that make a case for each dye--meaning that the supposed fading one might fade faster but also works better with more machines. The other one might freak out when writing at low or high speeds.

The longest damn day of the year

...might just be today.

 

More information on CDs. I found that that Wiki article may have overstated the issue a bit. I guess, in general, they say manufacturers (not brands) make the difference. In practice though, it's a lot easier to blame brands, since they're the thing you know. Brands sometimes change manufacturers, too, so how do we know?

 

There are some articles that I read, as well as a huge-ass thread on cdfreaks.com. It looks like actual CD performance varies a lot and almost everyone has a different favorite and least favorite (although Verbatim seems to be a popular least favorite--those are those ones that look like an olde tyme record). Memorex is also considered bad...and it's also one of the easiest-findable brands possible. Sorry I couldn't word that better.

 

As far as wear, it's hard to tell how many years things actually last, because CDs haven't been around that long. You're supposed to keep them away from light and other kinds of radiation. I think that for hard-core archiving, it's best to get really good quality ones, which you can generally tell by price. There is this holy grail of CD-Rs called Mitsui Gold, which are apparently really hard to get. Those have that phthalocyanine, or whatever it's called, coating on them. People don't seem to mind paying a bit more (around $1-2 per disc, I think) in order to know stuff will keep very well, won't have errors, etc.

 

I'm not sure how easy it is to tell what characteristics CD-Rs have before you buy them. However, there are several programs you can get which give you info (the info is called ATIP). The ATIP info includes dye type and manufacturer and stuff like that.

 

I have always really liked Imation. I also like Sony. The reason is that they both are really simple looking on the top. And also because Imation has clever ads. I think I'll try that ATIP info stuff and if it looks good I'll just stick with that. I might look into archival CDs for my website stuff and pictures and music I want to...archive...but for regular old CDs Sony and Imation will probably be ok, as long as I can find them.

 

Dammit, I had this whole Geek Code thing done and had a link and everything, but it kept cutting off the last 1/3 of it. Screw it.

Funny and Sad

From and Onion AV article on Least Essential Albums of 2005 I found this:

In his once-remarkable posthumous work ethic, Tupac Shakur somehow failed to put out a new album this year: It appears that dying in 1995 is finally starting to catch up with him.

Hehe.
 
LEAST ESSENTIAL RINGTONE-BASED CROSSOVER THAT BROUGHT COLDPLAY DOWN A NOTCH

Crazy Frog, Presents Crazy Hits
(Universal)

A massive hit in England—the country that brought the world Jive Bunny, remember—Crazy Frog's version of "Axel F" (better known as the Beverly Hills Cop theme, which every seventh-grader with a home synth was playing in 1984) stopped Coldplay's "Speed Of Sound" from hitting number one in the UK. The song was originally a cell-phone ringtone, but the annoying little amphibian took on a life of its own with Crazy Hits, managing to make the most easily digestible dance crap from years past even more radio-friendly. Original version of "Who Let The Dogs Out?" too street for you? Let Crazy Frog make everything all right.

 

Sad in so many ways.
 

Burn #4,509

Burned myself again today, this time on the right pointer finger. It is a steam burn. I was melting some wax and as I went to take the bowl off the pot of boiling water, the steam shot out and burned me through the oven mitt. Good thing I didn’t have a good grip on the wax because it could have been a lot worse. I just whipped my hand away really fast. It really kills and I’m not sure how I’m going to sleep tonight! I’ve had it in ice water for about 4 hours. I’m not sure how to deal with it because it’s sort of internal and ointment isn’t helping much. Owie.

Arrgh

Wow, I had semi-forgotten how frustrating programming can really be.

On the other hand, thank god for the internet. How did people know what to do without the internet?

Finally I got my first tiny Python page to work. You would not believe how long that thing took. Not to mention resources…1 book and at least 25 websites. I wish that everything would just work on every platform and every file type and encoding. I had to change how my file saved, how it uploaded, put it in a specific directory, put in a file handler on the server, change its permissions, and finally, after all that, something was wrong with the 5 lines of code I copied for a test. #$)*@*$!!!

http://www.easytoplease.net/cgi-bin/test.py

Damn! (Information on CD/DVD media)

So I was looking around to find out the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R and found out something even more exciting. Rewind back a few years to when I was still in H.S. I read a newspaper article that said that CDs might actually be very unstable and could fade within a few years. How alarming. Well, FF back to present time.

Apparently CDs actually use organic dye in the bottom part (where the data is). I guess that when you write data to them, depending on what kind of CD it is, it has to absorb a certain wavelength. DVD+Rs are purple (at least, mine are), and will absorb different wavelengths. I don't know which wavelengths. But I do know that short (red) wavelengths shoot out for DVD-Rs.
 

Anyway, here is some information I found interesting regarding CD-Rs.

There are three basic formulations of dye used in CD-Rs:
1. Cyanine dyes were the earliest ones developed, and their formulation is patented by Taiyo Yuden. Cyanine dyes are mostly green or light blue in color, and are chemically unstable. This makes cyanine discs unsuitable for archival use; they can fade and become unreadable in a few years. Many manufacturers use proprietary chemical additives to make more stable cyanine discs.
2. Azo dye CD-Rs are dark blue in color, and their formulation is patented by Mitsubishi Chemicals. Unlike cyanine, azo dyes are chemically stable, and typically rated with a lifetime of decades.
3. Phthalocyanine dye CD-Rs are usually silver, gold or light green. The patents on pthalocyanine CD-Rs are held by Mitsui and Ciba Specialty Chemicals. These are also chemically stable, and often given a rated lifetime of hundreds of years.

Although the CD-R was initially developed in Japan, most of the production of CD-Rs had moved to Taiwan by 1998. Taiwanese manufacturers supplied more than 70% of the worldwide production volume of 10.5 billion CD-Rs in 2003.

Unfortunately, many manufacturers add additional coloring to disguise their cyanine CD-Rs, so you cannot determine the formulation of a disc based purely on its color. Similarly, a gold reflective layer does not guarantee use of phthalocyanine dye.

 

Isn't that freaky? I was wondering whilst reading that why some CDs can make the bottom neon orange or something. Well, I'm going to try to do some additional research to see if I can figure out what manufacturers use what, because I don't want my shit to disappear.

oh my god

i had to email this guy when something was fixed, so i did. it was a promotion thing that wasn't working. we can't fix it right away so i said, "at least the promotion is only good for a few more days!" because it said dec. 31, 2005 was the ending date. then i sent it. then i realized it said dec. 31, 2006, so i sent another one saying "oops, i mean a year and a few days." then i sent that and noticed it said jan. 31, 2006. so i had to send another one.

 

i am such an idiot! well, at least i wasn't talking as i said that!

 

earlier i asked a lady if i could call her back and she said "sure, do you have my phone number?" i said, "no, do you know your extension?" what the hell? do you know your extension??? god.

Oh MAN!

Ok, so there is a good side and a bad side to being sick.

 

Bad side: It sucks.

Good side: when you get around to eating again, it tastes better than ever before. I had some pizza last night and it was the best thing I've ever tasted. YUMMY!

 

I'm in an uncharacteristically good mood today. It's funny because last night I was in an extra bad mood. I think my good mood has to do with the fact that I've been less of a moron today. The other day I was having to go around explaining stuff to people, and wasn't doing a very good job. I like to pull off the impression that I know what I'm talking about, but when I have to actually speak, I can't do it at all. Writing, on the other hand, makes me look so very good.

 

This morning I figured out this weird problem I got a call on the other day and was proud of myself. I put in a note on the work request and was very happy at how it sounded:

 

Upon further investigation, I found out that there was a manual data feed on Dec. 2 that contains all of those strange Agents/Offices. The feed is peculiar because the agents are almost all female and there are 9391 of them (I believe there are around 1700 in actuality). 

The feeds that have been going through otherwise look normal. I believe that all of the other offices are still there, hidden within the other mysterious ones. I checked for two of them and found them.

I will check with Anita on Tuesday to find out where these records came from, if we need to get rid of them, and how to get rid of them.

 

Sounds professional, huh? I've found that if I have some time to look up the issue, then I can pretty much figure out what's going on. However, I sometimes can't actually fix it...but that's besides the point.

 

All y'all who have asked me for computer help before: you prepared me for this job. Actually, in my interview they asked me if I would be ok with answering the hotline. I said that I get asked computer questions all the time and that I have gotten pretty good at problem solving. It seemed to work.

 

At first I was terrible on the phone and asking questions to people, but over the couple days I've gotten slightly better. It helps a lot that the people calling are generally really nice. It's only a groups of like 15 people that call. I think I am in love with one of them because the other day he started humming that "circus-y" tune that always plays when seals are balancing balls on their noses or elephants walking on tightropes, you know which one I mean? I still feel dumb running in and asking my manager every single time someone calls, especially because sometimes I forgot to check something beforehand. But hey, I'm in a time crunch. And he said to ask him. Whatever, hopefully I'll get better soon.

 

All in all, it's way, way better than I expected, which is a huge surprise. I've been dreading doing this since I heard about it in my interview back in August.

 

Another reason things are going well: a woman came in to give me some stuff today and said "Hello, Miss Elizabeth!" And later I had a small chat with another woman and that kind of thing makes my day.

 

Things that made yesterday a bad day: My mom did yet ANOTHER stupid-ass thing to my sisters. I'm seriously starting to have a conversation with myself on whether it would be good to actually cut ties with her. The problem is that you never hear anything good about that, and you always hear of people on their deathbed wishing they had worked things out. Well, you can't work things out with someone who's insane. But honestly, I don't know what else to do. She gets worse and worse and you cannot reason with her. I have seriously never met anyone like her. She is a piece of work.

 

Well, that's all for now. I'm going to take a picture of my new watch later, which I bought last night with a gift card. It is beautiful!

Christmas

I thought I'd write about my Christmas now.

 

On the 23rd we had a tiny "Dad's house" Christmas which involved a spaghetti-type dish and opening of one present. I gave my dad a cake plate, which he has been wanting, with "Dad"-shaped cookies inside. He gave us MP3 players, which are awesome. (They aren't Ipods). The size is insane to me...they're like 1 inch by 3 inches or something. My youngest sister got really frustrated because she thought that if you had an MP3 player you could get whatever song you want. What a surprise it was when she found out you had to either buy them or get them from a CD you already own. She succeeded in breaking a chair, throwing her MP3 player twice, and having 3 tantrums. Finally she was able to get some songs on it and she now listens to it constantly.

 

On the 24th we went to my mom's house and spent a pointless hour there waiting for her to get ready. I did my hair that morning in a "fancy" updo with a flower on the side and got many compliments. I think that's probably the best my hair has pretty much ever looked. I also had a new outfit and jewelry, which got compliments also. We had a huge lunch and then my grandma was like "lets have dessert now." That propmpted me to leave the room. How could you possibly eat more? That may have been the point when I started to get sick. Later we went to church at our new church, which was interesting. I liked it more than usual because I sat with just my sisters. We laughed at a lot of stuff. Then we came home and had supper (seriously, it was less than three hours after the huge lunch and dessert. What the hell?). Needless to say, I did not eat much. It was a really weird supper, too. Then we started opening presents. The kids went insane and started opening everyone's presents. You'd think that if a child is 7, they would start to be a little calmer. Nope. Sam, who is 4, was the worst, which is weird because he's always so calm. I think he overloaded on sugar. My uncle dressed up as Santa and ran around the house with jingle bells like he does every year. And, just like every year, it scared the kids senseless. For the rest of the night Paige kept saying "Santa scare me!" until it became the thing she said for anything. "Want some food?" "Santa scare me!" "Goodnight, Paige!" "Santa scare me!" "Bye, see you later!" "Santa scare me!" I got subscriptions to Spin and Rolling Stone (and 1 copy of Q--my aunt mentioned [an astute point, I might add] that Q costs an exorbitant amount to subscribe to stateside, so none for me! I've looked into it myself actually.) I also got a couple items of clothing, some bath and kitchen stuff, and candle making stuff. My sisters and I all had little packages from my mom's dumb boyfriend that we were afraid to open. So we all sort of saved them and then quickly opened them (it was a bracelet). I said something like "thanks, it's pretty and even goes with my outfit." Ew, I hate him so much. He has this mustache that is so ugly: he shaves the upper half of it. Why would you do that? Plus, it was crooked.

 

We had to sleep at my mom's house that night (which involved getting guilt-tripped twice and sleeping in a gross-smelling place because they both smoke). We woke up and had a huge breakfast (nice that we had to eat in 2 hours at my dad's, of course). We opened Santa presents and one was gloves, a scarf, and a hat. My mom said, "Dad's going to think that you got gloves, a scarf and a hat for Christmas" (in this tone that she always uses in order to get us to feel like we have to say she's superior to dad). Suzanne went, "Well, we did!" None of us understood what mom meant and we laughed so hard in the car about it. (The next day she called to ask what kind of meat we had and if it was good. What the hell? Mom, your meat is so much better. Happy now? By the way, it isn't.) Anyway we went back home, the whole way laughing our asses off about how weird mom is. We joked a lot about this thing our pastor said in church: "I see parents' faces glowing today because their kids are home." We were like, "no way, our mom would so rather not have us except that we wield her some power over dad." It is funny in a sad way.

 

Whoa, someone just freaked out and was screaming on the phone to someone. Is it just me or is this day going by so slowly it's practically going backwards? I swear I've been here for way more than 3 hours. Arrrrggggg.

 

People came over to our house around 12 and by that time I was feeling really horrible. I didn't really eat much. we joked that my mom's dumb boyfriend poisoned my breakfast. Although I don't know why mine, because I am probably more civil to him than most other family members, because I have a hard time being outwardly mean and I'm actually somewhat nice to him, as much as I can be while hating his guts. He is incredibly racist, among other things.

 

I got a flash drive like Brighton's, and instead of being happy all I felt was terrible because I broke hers. I will never, ever be able to forgive myself for that. Brighton, if yours is 256 MB, I will switch you. I used mine to transport some pictures I scanned and it worked well. I got "The Brothers Grimm" DVD, some books, some more kitchen stuff, and some art stuff. 'Twas cool. You know, it just occurred to me that if my biggest regrets in life are breaking Brighton's flash drive, getting chapstick on her clothes (that's right, I will never forget that either), and pretending to send secret admirer notes to this girl in 7th grade, then I guess my life is ok, because after all, I have never killed anyone or anything like that.

 

I had the 26th off and spent it lying around feeling bad and then had to drive back up here, and my sisters came with me. I feel bad because they haven't been able to go anywhere and have been cooped up for over a day. Well hey, they wanted to come. And there's no way I was going anywhere yesterday. I guess my dad is coming to get them tonight. I wish I could have watched Stargate SG-1 Monday and also the episode from yesterday, but I couldn't. :( :( :( You know, that show has almost become my life. How sad is that? I was thinking today, again, that my life is so pointless. I mean, seriously, thinking back on all the promise I had in school (before college) is sad. Then I went to a really good school and did as well as I could, and graduated, now I have this job...and...nothing. I don't really have anything to look forward to or aspire to like I did before in any way. I mean, I'm hoping to overhaul my website soon, and continue learning Icelandic, and see Coldplay, but so what?

 

Oh well.

Haha

I was just looking at Wikipedia in Icelandic and looked up Sigur Ros. I found this:

Jón Þór Birgisson (Jónsi) - söngur, gítar
Georg Hólm (Goggi) - bassi
Kjartan Sveinsson (Kjarri) - hljómborð (frá 1999)
Orri Páll Dýrason - trommur (frá 1999)

 

I just love how guitar is gítar and dummer is trommur.

 

(commencing dying now)

Tip

If you have stomach flu, or something resemling it, and you also seem to react to sugar, don't drink Sierra Mist.

 

That is all.

I Am Dying

So, for some reason I got violently ill this Christmas...although, now that I think of it this happens every year. Anyway, I am sitting at work right now and dying slowly. Is there anything worse than needing to throw up, I ask? I can't think of anything.

 

My stomach and intestines have been churning and bubbling for the past 3 days. Owwww. And let's say this. You know vomit, well, you know the version that comes out the other end...I've been doing that every hour for 3 days. I had no idea that much stuff was in me. I think my insides are nearly gone, except that I still feel ill and that means something has to be there to still hurt.

 

I would have called in sick today but I have to do the hotline for the first time. It has been pretty slow. In between my two calls I have been writhing in pain and agony. I hope someone is happy that I came in because I sure am not.

P.P.S.

My “Fix You” single has a “Made in England” sticker on the front. Is that not perfect for me?

P.S.

1) I am pretty sure the song is indeed “Poor Me.” I listened to it and there are no indications it should be “Pour Me.” I’ll have to investigate. I’ll probably have to go on the dreaded Coldplay Message Board.

2) I was looking for lyrics to the other “Fix You” B-side. I don’t usually do this, precisely because of the problem I am about to explain. I like to do the lyrics myself because I trust myself. However, at times I can’t figure them out so then I go try to find help online. However, the problem is that you can only find exactly one version of the lyrics, usually wrong in some way, copied over and over and over to every possible site. I like to be a little more accurate and that’s why I figure them out myself…hopefully if a person needs to find a different version, if they are having trouble as I am, then I have that one different version. I mean seriously. You can tell they’re the same because the punctuation, line breaks, capitalization, everything is the same. Really, people. The point of having a website (especially a fan site) is to put time and effort into it because you love the topic you’re giving information on. The point is not to get it up there as fast as humanly possible.

Sometimes I wonder why my site is so popular with the Spanish-speaking crowd. I should look it up in my cool new web stats. I did notice in a cursory glance that most hits are from Google or Yahoo.

The readers of Slashdot are really big fans of Google, in general. I read there recently that they’re going to add images to their ads. I was saddened, as were many others. I posted a comment there for the first time today. It was a reply to someone who railed on Americans for being hicks and idiots and loving Bush. You can imagine I was annoyed. I made a pretty good reply, if I do say so myself.

Man, I’ve been very talkative lately.

Next task: add Coldplay to the dictionary. No version of Microsoft Word should squiggly-underline that in red.

AUGGH!

WHY are there so many damn ads everywhere??? They scare the hell out of me! I was just listening to some music and then I went to a site which has an ad with gunshot noises in it. That’s just evil!!!

I was thinking to myself today, what self-respecting person would actually create some of these ads? Further, what kind of person would create spam? I have seen a person on Oprah or something, but sometimes I wonder if a lot of it is just robots getting out of hand. I don’t think there are enough actual humans to create the amount of spam that goes out.

Python

I'm considering doing my site in Python. The site needs serious revisions and I've been hearing good things about Python. Plus, my server supports it.

 

I would be sad to give up PHP, but from what I can glean right now, Python would be more powerful with the DB. It's more of a hard-core programming language. I have been frustrated for a while with my attempts to manipulate my data. It could be because I haven't tried hard enough. I'm not sure.

 

One thing's for sure. i'm not using blasted ASP. You can't declare a variable inside any function. That killed me when I was working in ASP...you have to do them globally, or you have to declare them all outside of the functions. What is that? The sad thing is that ASP is really wanted/needed in the working world, because people think that it's better because you have to pay for it.

 

The best reason: The programming language is named after Monty Python. Many of the examples in the documentation include Monty Python characters/sketches. That is enough to sell me.

A piece of me just died

My heart is sick, because, you see, the request to change the grammar was denied.

 

So, the ads will run, saying:

 

"The place where the first day of the best of your life, begins."

 

It occurred to me that maybe it should be "rest of your life." Who knows...nothing's happening now. :`(

 

That's supposed to be a crying face, but looks more like a snowman. I can't figure out what to do for crying.

 

:*(

 

:^) - now that's a snowman.

 

:1)

 

:'(

 

:>(

 

whatever.

 

 

Hmmmm

Just found out that a great deal of people are using my pictures on blogs and myspace profiles and such…’tis using up my bandwidth!!! I pay dearly for that! I may have to do something about this. Thankfully, my new web hosting company is about 80000000% more economical than my last one. I paid $95 per year and get 100GB per month. That’s about $7.90 per month, which includes unlimited DBs. And an upgraded version of phpMyAdmin. I don’t know how I could live without that. It also includes about 8 million tools, including the thing that showed me people are using my pictures. My last place only gave me 1 DB. At my last place I paid $30 for 5GB. I use 7-8 per month, so at that rate it was about $42 per month. I was also tricked into renewing my domain name, which was over $50. At the new place it’s free. Yikes. This new place is stellar. And the old place is ridiculous.

Emily, I want to publicly thank you for your great responses to my emails of late. You are such a good friend and all you said made me feel like someone cared. I, as I always say, will reply soon, but those things take a bunch of time to do and I have to plan my evenings around replying. We’ll see when I do it. Maybe tomorrow.

This Christmas I’d like to thank Lunarpages for their incredible hosting options. I believe they are consistently rated among the top great low-cost providers. I would also like to thank those programmers who came before me, who made phpMyAdmin possible. PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, my FTP client, they’re all free and so many people gave innumerable hours to create these technologies that are free for all.

Back in the day

Back in the day I remember reading about Windows Longhorn...I and others always assumed this turned into Windows XP, but in fact, it's a new one called Windows Vista. Supposedly it's the next version after XP and is expected to come out "soon"--when is that? I don't know. I shall try to investigate more.

I knew it!

Candy, thanks for the comment. I shall reply later. I'll say this though: I knew Dan and I were two peas in a pod. Birds of a feather. Alike.

 

I would now like to demonstrate some funny copywriting I came across today. This reminds me of the timeless error-ridden paper Emily and I read in H.S. I've been working on the Coldwell Banker store for a while now, so this is stuff from that. I could not believe it.

 

These are all newspaper ads. The first one is supposed to be a testimonial (from who, I don't know...I strongly suspect it's just made up). The second is targeting people who want to sell and the third is for people who want to buy.

 

---

 

As authorities in the resort property market and with their vast resources, COLDWELL BANKER Specialists were able to assist us in realizing that elusive vision.

 

--

 

It's your time now. A world of endless possibilities, and the time to explore them all, awaits. And the first step in exercising this exciting new freedom may start with the sale of your home.

 

With years of experience, only the Coldwell Banker network has the knowledge and insight to ensure your home sells quickly, and the best possible price. Plus a standard of service that guarantees a stress-free experience from open house to closing—and gets you where you really want to be, faster.

 

So the first day of the best of your life, can start even sooner.

 

---

 

Wherever you want to be, near whatever is important to you, the Coldwell Banker network is already there. Closer to family, culture or entertainment. From gated communities, to urban living, to vacation homes you never have to leave. In Sunbelt states, to mountain air, and everywhere in between. With our years of experience and reputation, we can best guide you to that perfect place.

 

The place where the first day of the best of your life, begins.

 

---

 

That last one...what the hell? The last sentence is my favorite. "The place where the first day of the best of your life, begins." Huuuhhhh? I also love how in the big paragraph it says "in Sunbelt states, to mountain air, and everywhere in between." An attempt to be poetic...gone very, very wrong.

 

So I brought this to the attention of a few people...damned if I'm going to be an English major and not fix these horrible things. I said that it's going to look unprofessional if the text stays like this. And it will. Even the headlines have grammar mistakes. It's horrible! Unfortunately, the client is the one who wrote it and everyone is hesitant about changing the text. Grr...well, don't blame me when people run the ads and get complaints. It sounds like a bad translation from another language. I'm hoping that we'll get the ok to fix it, because it's so bad that we can't really overlook it.

Sleeping disorder

Well, it occurred to me today that I honestly might have a sleeping disorder. This is because I fell asleep 4 times at work. It’s not like what I’m doing is particularly boring. And it’s not like I had no sleep last night (as I mentioned before). It’s a problem I’ve had for at least 5 years and I always thought it was totally normal, until I talked to Sarah several months ago and she said it doesn’t happen to her.

I really wish I could have gotten help for this earlier, because looking back, I think I could have done a bazillion times better in college if I didn’t fall asleep in every single class, every single day. How in the hell did I think that was normal? I also fell asleep at work sometimes, as well as while doing homework. Honestly, I am a moron sometimes. I missed so much material in lectures because no matter how hard I tried I’d fall asleep. No matter how interested I was, no matter what was going on, I’d fall asleep. Well, I guess the time has passed and I had other stuff to worry about. I did get through it, although not as easily as I would have wanted.

You know, I even tried really hurting myself once in a while. I would stab myself really hard with various objects when I would get drowsy and it still wouldn’t wake me back up.

What really scares me is that now that I’ve started driving a lot I’ve been getting drowsy while driving. I have never fallen asleep while driving, and I don’t plan to…I know enough to stop when I start feeling sleepy.

Anyway I asked my dad if he has the same thing or if he has ever heard of it. He said he doesn’t have it but he knows a couple of people at work who have a form of narcolepsy and they have to take breaks to sleep. So he said to go to this sleep clinic in Minneapolis.

Anyway, I’m nervous about that, but also hopeful that I can actually do something about it because I HATE IT.

In other news:

The woman at work who is crazy and said “sugar and spice” the other day said on the phone to someone, “what's his dilly-ob here?” Hehe.

On Google Zeitgeist (where they track the top searches people do) I discovered that in NZ “all blacks” is a top search and in brazil “ragnarok” is a top search. I was surprised at “ragnarok” because that is a term from Norse mythology, meaning “the end of the world.” How did it get to Brazil? I think it might be a Scandinavian band, but still, Brazil? In Korea, every single top search is a famous person. Which I thought was funny. No terms, places, things…just famous Korean actors or singers.

Apparently the top search in 2005 was…get this…Janet Jackson. What the hell?! Hurricane Katrina was a close second, I believe…but Janet Jackson…I don’t get it and I don’t think anyone else in the world does either.

Whilst looking around I found one search that I did do, and that was bird flu. I think that was basically the only one. I was like, “I contributed!” I searched on it to determine if cooking poultry kills it. It does indeed. And freezing also kills it.

On the same subject: I was very pleased with myself when I could actually make out a true Greek word. The word is this: ΠΑΙΔΕΙΑΣ. I determined that the letters in Latin are PAIDEIAS. That is a trick I used to do in Paul Stephenson’s class (he is a scholar in Greek and would discuss things about Greek a lot). I realized that I knew that word, it’s a word that they used in early Medieval times for education. And indeed, the word was “education.” Yay me! I know a true Greek word!

Death Cab has 12 videos coming out…that is so awesome. I read an article that says that “everyone who listens to Death Cab has a theatrical version of each song in their head, so we knew they’d enjoy it.” I thought that was so true. I sort of have theatrical versions of all songs in my head. Sometimes I play them out for fun. They’re going to be on SNL in a few weeks. I wonder if CP will do SNL next year.

Ciao.

i just have to say

This is not one of my better days!!!

 

I actually think I might have narcolepsy or something. Seriously.

Body not working correctly/Ode to a good Boss

Now seriously. I went to bed at around 12 and woke up at 7:30. You'd think that would be pretty normal. Not, as I mentioned before, ideal, but people get by on much less. However, I am unbelievably tired for the second day in a row. This is beginning to get frustrating.

 

Not to mention--I woke up with extreme abdominal pains, not unlike those I had during gall bladder attacks. I almost called in sick but they went away about a half hour later. Still not feeling the greatest but I can at least concentrate. Pain like that renders your brain unusable, which is mainly why I thought of calling in sick.

 

I have been thinking about Tom a lot lately and how I miss being around him, in boss format. I got so used to being at a job where I really felt comfortable and could be myself and people "got" me. And I felt useful, etc. Tom always had a pile of stuff for me to do every day, with detailed notes written on the papers, and he would sit down with me every day to discuss things. He always gave me positive reinforcement, too, all the time. He is the epitome of a good boss. Well, at my job here it's the total opposite. I mean, my manager is nice and everything, but he is no Tom. I have such little work to do and never feel like I'm useful. I feel within myself that I'm doing extremely well with what I have, but the effort is basically unnoticed. I mean, I have figured almost everything out without asking. And I work really quickly. But I just feel really out of everything. The biggest thing, though, is that I just don't mesh well. Tom and I used to always talk a lot about non-work stuff. But I don't really talk to anyone here, mostly because they don't ask. And even more, nobody gets my sense of humor. Actually, I think the first joke I made that was laughed at was the other day when someone was copying over some Coldwell Banker logos to a share drive and I said, "great, now I can use one for my desktop background!"

 

Case in point: yesterday I was in an hour-long very animated meeting and said about 5 words. I thought of a joke or two in my mind but just kept them to myself. It is sad, really.

 

So, a shout out to my good boss from "Bizarro DCG" who once gave me 85 cents for doing a good job, which we joked would buy half a bus ride...I know you said I'm not supposed to be nostalgic, and I'm trying, but you know how it goes. And while I'm talking to a person who's not going to read this, I may as well mention that you were annoyed about being stuck with an office full of people who were 10 years younger than you--well, I'm in an office full of people who are all at least 10 years older than me...funny how that works.

 

I'm enjoying this new peach flavored Fresca. But, I like it better when it's not freezing cold, which is interesting. I think you can taste it better when it's not subzero.

Excerpts from Tonight's CSI:Miami

With co-star Michael Shanks (Daniel Jackson on Stargate SG-1)


Okay, I want to know one thing and one thing only.


Mm-hmm, and what would that be?


I want to know, Mr. Blue-eyes, why is it that you are so sexy?


I'm sure I don't understand what you mean.


Take a look at this photo. One of my investigators took it earlier today.


[See? Look at that ass.]


Guilty as charged!

Struggling

I am unbelievably tired today. I haven't been this sleepy for a long time. It may be because I only got 7.5 hours of sleep instead of my usual 8.5 or 9. I am such a pansy. I really wish I could do something about this sleepiness I have all the time because it has, over the years, drastically reduced my quality of life.

 

Earlier, I was sitting here minding my 'bidness' and one of my co-workers (who is really a funny and spontaneous woman) blurted out "sugar and spice!" She does that kind of thing a lot. It made me laugh.

Huh

I just got the “Fix You” single in the mail, and much to my surprise, one of the B-sides is “Poor Me.” However, even more to my surprise, it’s actually “Pour Me.” Huh?! As far as I know, the lyrics go, “Poor me, floating out to see, an opportunity that went by.” Is it a very bad spelling error, or am I completely wrong? I guess I’m wrong because it’s printed on the CD case and wrapper and everything. I’ll have to take a listen and see what’s going on.

P.S. I was excited to find out that the B-side for “Talk” is “Gravity.” It’s a song they gave to a fellow band called Embrace before they actually recorded it. But I guess they did record it after all—either that or it’s a live version. It will be nice to hear it, because I always sort of disliked the Embrace version. Mostly because I consider that song to be sort of like a fraternal twin to “The Scientist” so no other band can really do it justice.

Pictures ahoy!

I had fun with this. I took some quick photos with my horrible quality phone-cam. I don't understand why people keep wanting to get these so much. Unless they've drastically increased the quality of the photos, my experience is that they aren't really ever that good. Oh well. It's better than nothing.











My Christmas earrings, just bought them yesterday at Penneys.





Poor photo of the clock I made (the plaster one I talked about this summer). I took a better one on regular film which should be available to see at some point.





The temperature in my apartment





This is a pitcher that I was obsessed with for a long time. I placed the camera so that you could see Chris Martin on tv through the handle, but unfortunately it's a little small. (Also have a better picture of this on real film). It's gorgeous.





Doggy.





I had this on my phone. Then I realized I took it because I made a perfect number 8 on it. It's a testing sheet from work. I am officially a total geek.





This is Michael Shanks, who plays Daniel on Stargate. I had to insert it because it's so hot. At the Stargate message board we had weeks where we would post pictures under a certain theme. I think this was arm porn week, or maybe "package" week.

Hysterical!!!

Ok, I just HAD to post this.

Perhaps soon I can get a screen shot of this guy.

Chris was just talking about ‘Til Kingdom Come and he said, as always, “We wrote this song for Johnny Cash,” and right after that they show this random smiling guy in the audience, like he was Johnny Cash. And then went back to the band. HAHAHA, that was hysterical!!!

I’ll get a screen shot later when it’s done recording.

What’s this, my 6^th post today?

WEIRD

I’m watching CP on Austin City Limits and I was just struck with how completely weird it is that I love them so much. I’m thinking back to the past 5 years of being in love with them and my mind is exploding. This is so odd.

Hmm, Chris is marching around like Mick Jagger.

They’re playing Yellow, which is always weird to hear because it’s like a different lifetime or something.

My mind is, literally, exploding right now. It’s like a weird form of déjà vu (Word accented that for me), but it’s not like I really feel like I lived this before, I just feel like suddenly I’m not me or something. Do you ever get that? I get it a lot when I’m looking in the mirror. I just get freaked out at myself being me, if that makes sense.

Well, I’m almost back to normal now.

I <3 CP

Excellent

I am updating this via email. This is great!

Christ

No, I'm not talking about our Lord and Saviour. I'm just using His name in vain because I am annoyed at how long this page took to load. Another thing I'm sort of annoyed at with this blog is that it's not easy to see a) if your friends have updated and b) if you have any comments. I wonder if there is a setting.

I was flabbergasted to find out today that I spent about 8 hours making cookies today. I could have sworn it was only maybe 2. But before I knew it, it was 8 pm. They are really great looking and tasting. I took some pictures, which I'll be able to share with everyone in oh, maybe a month or so. I made some for Laura and Michael the other day and they were strange tasting. I hope they enjoyed them ok. I also was able to further fine-tune my decorating skills and the reindeer no longer look like birds. They actually look quite charming now. It helps that I made some brown frosting.

Yesterday was apparently one of those days where a "thing" happened with my family. That basically means my mom did something shitty to one or more of my other family members, which caused a ripple effect to everyone else. This time it was forcing Meredith to paint some mural with her, which she didn't want to do. Meredith faked being sick because she was afraid that Mom would make her stay with her for an indeterminate amount of time (as has happened countless times before) and Meredith felt bad. Etc. So my dad went to get her and later he sent me an email saying he was mad at Mom and certain reasons why. It must have made him really mad because he's never done that before.

I'm sort of mad at her because she suddenly decided the other day that she wanted to sign the title of the car over to me this weekend. "Gary said this, Gary said that. Gary said I should sign over the title so you have to come on Friday or else." I don't give a shit about him. I wish she would have given me more choice, because we had a huge snowstorm this week (did I mention previously that I have had it up to my eyeballs with brushing off the car? It seriously snowed for at least 4 days straight, I swear). I was nervous about driving and on Friday, when I was supposed to go down there, it started sleeting at night and was 12 degrees and I was like, no way in hell I'm going down to Rochester, after I just almost died a couple of weeks ago on an icy road. So anyway. I stayed here and made cookies for 8 hours.

I was looking forward to this Sci-fi movie that's on right now, but it lost me in the first 5 minutes. It must be either extremely bad or extremely sci-fi-y. Actually, I know I don't like it because every 10 seconds a kid appears with blood gurgling out of his mouth. Wonderful.

no words

i ran across this myspace profile this morning that you have to look at, due to its sheer ridiculosity.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=5510837

the blog is funny too. it reminds me of "a room of jean's own" in the onion.

i hope this girl never accidentally runs across my blog. wouldn't that be embarrassing. me and my overwhelmingly pink blog.

Pot-pourri of fun

- Okay. See if you can understand any of this caption. Or if you do understand it, doesn't it seem a little hysterical? A photo released by the National Geographic Society shows a detail from a Maya mural found at San Bartolo in Guatemala. The mural depicts the birth of the cosmos and the divine right of a king and this portion shows the son of the maize god, patron of kings, with a pair of birds tied to his woven hunting basket, letting blood and offering a sacrificed turkey before one of five cosmic trees. Okay, I got the mural, I got the birth of the cosmos and divine right. Once it gets to letting blood and turkeys and cosmic trees, my brain shuts down.

- Another thing from the news. This headline was similarly unintelligible to me: Fatah Activists Sting Abbas, Leave Party. Not only did I think at first that it was about Sting, the singer, and/or the sword from LOTR, but I thought it was about Abba, or "fathers" (which is "abbas" in I think Hebrew—actually I was convinced it was about "fathers" in a church because that's a semi-common term) and also wondered about the party. It turns out that it was none of those things. Apparently there is a guy called Abbas, who was dissed by some guys in his political party, Fatah. ?!!??!?

- A funny sign appeared in the restroom at work the other day, which a co-worker and I have been laughing about since: Kindly use your hand towel to wipe the sink before you leave the restroom. -Your co-workers
We were discussing how you'd ever get enough water on the sink to necessitate wiping it off. I joked that maybe if you washed your hair in there you would. That joke didn't go over too well (many of my jokes do not go over too well here). Another funny thing regarding this is that I got a cold yesterday and I told Christi, and she said "Zinc," implying that I should take Zn to get over my cold. Well, I thought she had said "Sink," meaning that I cought a cold from the sink because someone didn't wipe it well enough. We had a moment of miscommunication and then a sort-of laugh about it.

- The other day I was walking into the apartment building and some guy was coming out of the side entrance. Suddenly I heard an icy sound, like ice or snow fell, and then the guy went "Holy crap!" I looked over and smiled, thinking that some snow had fallen near him. Well, a few minutes later I came out that same side door because I was going to a store. I went down the stairs and poof, fell flat on my ass. It was actually kind of funny and what you might call a "graceful fall," but it hurt a lot afterwards. Anyway I understand why the guy yelled out and hope he wasn't embarrassed or angry.

- Looking at Amazon the other day I was amused at my "Most recently viewed products" list…I think if you really want to know what's going on in a person's brain at the moment you need only look at their most recently viewed items list:
PHP Application Design Handbook by Kevin Tatroe, Tobias Ratschiller
Pyrex Candy Thermometer
Fix You ~ Coldplay
Shakespeare in Love (Miramax Collector's Series) DVD

- We have a hotline at work, and when you are assigned to answer you say "Merrill Shop, this is [insert name]." This week it is Brian so he has, of course, been saying "Merrill Shop, this is Brian." Someone else was in his cubicle today and answered the phone for him because he was busy, and said, "Merrill Shop, this isn't Brian." I laughed out loud. It was funny. By the way, why is it that every single time I try to type that I type "brain?"

- A comment from Slashdot about the dumb-ass war on terror thing: Drunk drivers kill about 20,000 Americans every year. Terrorists in the US killed about 3,000 people 4 years ago. Where is the $21B "War on Drunk Driving"?

- A sad quote, also found on Slashdot: "...this government, swollen and arrogant with pelf [money, I looked it up], goes butting into our business...It checks the amount of tropical oils in our snack foods, tells us what kind of gasoline we can buy for our cars and how fast we can drive them, bosses us around about retirement, education, and what's on TV; counts our noses and asks fresh questions about who's still living at home and how many bathrooms we have; decides whether the door to our office or shop should have steps or a wheelchair ramp; decrees the sex and complexion of the people we hire there; lectures us on safe sex; dictates what we can sniff, smoke, and swallow; and waylays young men, ships them to distant places, and tells them to shoot people they don't even know." -- P.J.O'Rourke

- In the comments of an article about typography, someone wrote: One other discovery was that printing (writing each letter separately) was practically as fast as writing joined-up, and again, much more readable, especially at speed. I think that "joined-up" actually means cursive! Ha!

- Headline: S. Korea Cloning Success Faked Comment: I don't believe anything anymore. I'm beginning to question whether Korea even really exists…

- I slipped and hit my head on the car today and it hurt a lot. I still feel as though my brain was literally scrambled. It sort of feels like there is more brain on the right side, like it all sloshed over. I am getting really annoyed at brushing snow off the car. I had no idea that 4-7 inches over 3 days meant "Every time you go outside you have to use your arm to brush off the snow because the brush isn't big enough and just spreads it around instead of getting it off. And then it's too cold for the windshield wipers to properly defrost, and of course, it's still snowing, so you have to drive with crap still getting on your windshield and no good way to get it off, and also, the windshield gets unbelievably dirty because the opening for the washer fluid is iced over." We got 6 inches in St. Paul, but I swear to god it seems like 60 inches. And honestly, is there a plow somewhere in the metro area? Rochester really is excellent with the plowing, I must say. After living in 2 other cities, I realized their snow plowing really can't compare.

- My grandma gave me a boatload of stuff when I moved into my apartment. Most of it was from garage sales, and I promptly put it away in the backs of my shelves. For instance, there was a clock with the second hand torn off, but it still turned around, so there's just a rotating knob on the clock. The most recent chapter in the saga of strange housewarming gifts is this: she gave me a packet of cleaning cloths, sort of like Pledge Grab-its. I took them to work because my workstation is really dusty. I noticed when I went to use them that part of the package was open. I sort of noticed before but didn't really think about it. Then I realized why: there was only 1 cloth in the pack (it was a 3-pack). I thought that was extremely hilarious. Enough said.

Bright Eyes

I have of late been listening to a lot of Bright Eyes. Specifically, I just got into one of his recent albums from earlier this year. He had a double release, with I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning/Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. I listened to Digital Ash for a long time but pretty much overlooked the other one.

Well the other day I decided to give it another try because I knew I couldn't hate anything he does. And I totally fell in love.

The CD received exceptional reviews that likened it to Johnny Cash and things like that, because it is very olde-tyme country-ish. Emmylou Harris sings on 3 of the songs (and it is gorgeous). But it's not crappy country whatsoever. I began to see why it got such good reviews...it's absolutely beautiful. There are a couple of times it's a little over the top, but the whole vastly overpowers those parts.

#6 First Day of my Life - This song has this soft guitar running throughout, and Conor singing, and a double bass, and that's it. I was driving home at night the other day listening to it and nobody else was on the road. It seemed surreal, like I was in a different world for a minute. It's actually one of the most beautiful songs I think I've ever heard.

# 8 Landlocked Blues - This is one of the ones with Emmylou Harris. The best part of this song is one of the instrumental breaks. It's at about 5:00--Reverie starts playing, the song they play at military funerals. The song is not sad at all, it's generally hopeful. The thing is that when Reverie plays, it's backed by some strong piano chord progressions and a guitar. Suddenly it sounds like...I don't even know, unbelievable. I wish that I could have that playing for me constantly all day long. I have played the Reverie part over a few times and feel like I can almost physically climb through the music. It's weird.

He has a new video out for one of my favorite songs. I watched it last night and was giddy.

Why did this turn out sounding so formal? Didn't mean it to be that way. I just felt the need to share my love of Conor.

Bloggity blog--what a weird and somewhat unpleasant word

One thing I wish this blog could do is separate out entries by day, instead of doing a huge headline for each one. I'm thinking maybe another design could do it. Or, if I were actually ambitious enough, I could probably figure it out myself. Edit: I just realized that it does, only the days are in tiny font in the corner. Tiny font. That's a funny thing. I just found a font that I really like today: Georgia (preferably bold).

I was reading a lot of Slashdot today and found a lot of amusing/interesting things.

1. Intel has a new "processor" coming out in 2006 (I say that in quotes because it might be classified as something a little more than a processor. It's called Intel Viiv (rhymes with five). Thinking about it now, I guess technically it is Intel Pentium 5 (?) . I don't really get the name. Apparently it will let your computer do these amazing never-before-seen things, such as starting up and shutting down instantly, as well as letting things run when the computer is shut down. Question: is that even possible or within the rules/definitions of computing?

2. Oh man...there's this monitor prototype that's super wide and curved around. When I say wide, I mean something like 6000 pixels. Four times wider than a standard monitor, same/similar height. It's Microsoft, probably $8 billion to buy.

3. I was looking at funny quotes and there are a couple from the CEO of Sony. Tacked on the end was this: 'He also talked about having tea with the queen and her complaint that Sony remote controls have 'too many arrows.'" Hahaha!!!

4. There was an article recently on how someone is thinking about closing down access to business intranets to avoid security problems. That seems a little overboard to me...someone mentioned in the comments that the next step would be just blocking access to the internet. That is amusing yet a little too close to the truth!

5. In the comments for an article about statistics for code, someone posted this which I thought was hilarious:

From google:

Search -- foo -> Results 1 - 10 of about 26,600,000 for foo. (0.06 seconds)
Search -- bar -> Results 1 - 10 of about 385,000,000 for bar [definition]. (0.16 seconds)
Search -- foo bar -> Results 1 - 10 of about 7,900,000 for foo bar. ( 0.12 seconds)

'bar' wins.

This intuitively makes sense, as who would want to go to the 'foo' for a drink, or eat an 'energy foo'? Could you imagine a lawyer being 'dis-fooed'?

For all you non-computer peeps, foo and bar are these fake words that are always used in coding examples. You also always make your program/function say "Hello World!" on its first rounds. Ask Michael...and also Brighton will know what I mean.

A funny Onion headline from a couple of weeks ago:
Fritolaysia Cuts off Chiplomatic Relations with Snakistan

Murder in the apartment building

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_347081742.html

I didn't even know about it until a co-worker came up to me and said, "What's all the drama in your apartment building?"

i need to calm down

i am totally obsessed with trying to tape the talk video.

i just realized it's not even technically released yet. i really need to chill out here a little bit.

A pretty hilarious finding

So, I can't get over how funny and weird this is. You may or may not know about the Green Day song "When September Ends." It has a "touching" video about soldiers in Iraq. That doesn't really have anything to do with the story. In fact, if you want to see an actual disturbing video about the Iraq war, look at My Chemical Romance's "The Ghost of You."

Anyway, the song is the typical annoying thing you wish you could just get rid of. My dad even said it's overplayed.

Recently I was looking at Slashdot (News for Geeks) and came across an article on IM viruses. One of the comments said "Does this mean September has finally ended?" At first, I thought it was a reference to the song, when in fact, it's a reference to a computer term!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endless_September

So, it's kind of complicated, but it anyway...somehow I doubt that Green Day wrote a song meaning "Wake me up when internet users use proper etiquette."

HA! Hahahahaha!!!

Long overdue post of stuff that doesn't matter

- Does anyone remember City High? They were big back in the day. Day being the key word there

- The other day I had a crippling bout of missing England

- There is a commercial with a Chipmunks song that reminded me of Emily and I also heard the same song at Target

- At work they consistently spell customer "customer"

- That plane crash in Chicago was sad

- "Dude" is a funny word

- I had a shitty day today

Things I detest

- That they play Fix You in the background of King King ads. I actually cried out of the last time I heard it.

- My DAMN CLOSET DOOR

- People who think they're funny and pause after everything they say for you to laugh

- A heater above my workspace that rattles constantly and slowly whittles my patience down to nothing

- My job, ok, I said it, I hate my job

I want to tear my brain out. Rant on advertisement.

I was just looking at mtv.com, which is an action I try to avoid at all costs. I was just trying to find out if there was ever going to be a situation in which I could tape the Talk video. Well each page took about a minute to load, and besides that, each page had at least 2 of those stupid-ass ads that take up the whole page and won't let you read anything. 2, you say? I thought only one was sufficient to impede your reading. Nope, there were two. And even better, they were the SAME AD.

Is there ANYTHING that pisses me off more than those ads? I think not. Agggghhhhh! Why do they do that?! You know, I was reading the Onion the other day and there was an ad that made the browser spontaneously shrink to 1/4 of its size. Seriously! And it did it by itself. It didn't say "roll over to shrink." It actually just did it and then you had to click something to restore the size. It was the most obnoxious thing I've ever encountered. It did it every time I went to a different page. It was even more annoying than Crumble-lievable, which holy shit, just came on television right now. That's kind of a weird coincidence.

Also, I watched a ton of television today and there is a commercial that got into my head, hence the title of this post. My only hope is Obi-wan. I mean, my only hope is that I can get a different song into my head. Currently the god-awful ad is still there. It was on every single break.

Honestly, as many times as I have ranted about ads in the past, I think that recently they've really gotten out of hand, especially online. I am not sure if they have regulations, but I think there actually aren't. I was reading some news on Slashdot the other day (News for Geeks) and it said something about not allowing Google and Yahoo to profit off of ads anymore. If I remember correctly, ads are almost all of their profit revenue. It's probably similar with most sites. I know that with mine, there is basically no way to generate profit without them, because the internet is free and most humans with compassion don't want to charge for just looking at a page. Therefore, it's a big abyss that sucks in your money if you want to be nice, or it will pay you if you want to be an obnoxious moron and annoy your users to no end. Sounds great!!!

totally worn out

i don't know what it is, but i can't do anything today. it took forever for me to even get on here and post something.

i just feel terrible.

Again, how is this allowed to happen?

So the other day I found out that there is a showing of the MTV Europe Music Video Awards, which Coldplay is performing at. It was showing at 5, so I had to miss some of Stargate.

I decided to post about this because it pissed me off.

Ali G was the host of the show, which makes me really annoyed in the first place, because I really detest that guy. A lot. So, I was just wandering around the apartment doing random stuff, keeping an ear out for Coldplay to be announced. So I'm sitting here and Ali G announced Green Day. But it was actually Coldplay and he was being "funny." Ass!!!! I hate him! So I missed part of the beginning.

I just realized the Stargate is one I've seen before, so it's ok.

Anyway, I am and always have been obsessed with getting all of Coldplay's stuff on video tape. Now that I have a video capture card, theoretically I'll be able to skip the tape part. But it's going to be difficult for me to do that because I have some sort of connection to the tapes. I am not sure I totally trust digital video yet.

It's going to take a long time to transfer that stuff. I have at least 6 or 7 tapes, I think. I just started a new one, too.

Another thing that annoys me is that MTV2 insists on putting shit over the top of the picture right in the middle of whatever's on.

Another thing is that they haven't been showing videos a lot. Usually I catch the Coldplay ones on the day they're released. However, I don't think that they had Coldplay "Unleashed" for their new one. So now I'm going to have to either sit up late tonight to try to catch it, or devote a whole tape and let it run during the night. Because, I am anal and need to get "Talk" on video tape.

Why must everything be so difficult?

P.S. Did I ever mention that I love Coldplay so much it's painful? That said, the Europe performance made me think in my mind again how very different they are.

I have 8 boatloads of crap to post in here and also I am going to write a long email to various friends of mine, who are also the people that read this here blog. But first, I must go to the bookstore and Target (for the 4th or 5th time this week).

Thursday fun

You know, I honestly wonder sometimes if there is anyone who lives a life more pathetic than mine. I doubt it.

Does anyone remember the show Daria? That was a good show.

I was annoyed at who won Top Model last night.

Today I realized how good a typist I am. I was typing up some stuff from a paper and I came across a strange phrase. I started thinking about transitive and intransitive verbs and got into a heated discussion with myself in my head. All the while, I kept typing.

At work there is this weird situation that keeps coming up. I have to add fields to a product (pretend you know what that means) and frequently one of the fields is called "Broker ID." Well, the fields are listed alphabetically and right before Broker is brochure. And I invariably think about what the word "brochure" would be like if it was pronounced "broker." And I laugh.

And that is yet another reason I am a pointless human being.

Now, why did I opt to get a regular keyboard with my new computer? I have the same one at work and I absolutely hate it. I could have spent like $20 more for another one.

How is this allowed to happen?

Somehow I completely and totally missed that Coldplay is on Conan tonight. I just happened to decide to watch Conan and was doing my typical "Let's see how many of the three guests I don't know." And Lo, Coldplay is on.

Imagine, if you will, that I hadn't decided to watch. I would probably have killed myself.

I then went online and found that they're going to be on Leno on Monday and Austin City Limits next Saturday.

Let's just hope they haven't been on Letterman. I'm just not going to look...hopefully they're not doing Letterman this time and I haven't missed anything. What I don't know can't hurt me.

Edit:

That was the single best Coldplay performance I have ever seen (on television).

I thank God, if indeed He exists, for allowing me to by chance see that performance, and also for not letting me die last Saturday.

Fun things that happened today

Today I went to get some Christmas presents. I found this fiber-optic lighthouse for my dad. I then took it home and extracted it from the packaging to see if it worked. Guess what--it didn't. So now I have to return it. I hate that. Good thing I tried it.

While I was shopping I felt like vomiting.

I really don't like gmail that much. It's just too weird. My biggest problem with it is that when I use it at work I have to use the web client, and when I come home I use Outlook. For some reason, Outlook downloads everything in the Inbox as well as everything I sent. Why does it do that? Moreover, it doesn't download certain things from the Inbox; I can't really figure out how it determines which ones to get. And what the hell? Recently, within the last day, they changed "Move to trash" to "Delete." It should have been like that all along.

For some reason I always get really nervous when I have to go to another person to ask them to do something. In my job that happens every day. most of the time I try to worm my way out of it. For instance, we always have to send stuff to testing and usually things have to go through three times. I don't mind doing that at all because it just involves handing a person named Jessica a stack of papers. She is really nice. So sometimes if I have to get someone to do something I just stick it in the testing pile, hoping that someone else will see it and bring it where it needs to go, or at least that I can do it another day. A lot of times I wait until the person in question is done for the day. Then I just set it on his or her chair. Or I email them if I can. I'm such a freakin' pansy. But it's really stressful for me. When I had to make my first work-related phone call, it was to a notoriously mean person. I was so scared. But it went ok. I had to call her like 5 times that day.

Once Tom made fun of me for maybe having a blog. I didn't even say I had one; he just said "Do you have a blog? I bet you do. You totally do. Ha ha ha."

Well, other things I did today: put some washer fluid in the car, wrapped presents. Wandered around a strange building with a co-worker because we thought there was free pizza today. There wasn't. But I must say I'm glad to work in my office because in the one we wandered around in they had half-height cubicle walls and also 4 people shared one space. I would hate that so much. We actually walked straight into a lunch-meeting for some other department. That was embarrassing but sort of funny.

OH. My co-worker Dave brought in his baby today, who is 4 months old. She is cute. I was totally enthralled with her, partly because I just love Dave...he is really cool. He and his new family are what I imagine to be a perfect family.

I saw this show on BBC America the other day called "Peep Show." It was the most hilarious thing ever. I laughed out loud practically the whole time.

My 9th blog (at least)

I just can't stop starting new blogs and writing in them and then later stopping them for one reason or another. I think it runs in my family, because my 12-year-old sister has had at least 5 already.

I thought I would start a new one in the ilk of Emily's. As you can see, it's basically a rip-off of hers. Mine will be about 10% as interesting as hers, seeing as I'm only in a different city in the same state and she's halfway around the world.

However, I do think of things to say a lot and now I will have a place to put them instead of writing an email every time something pops into my head.

I am writing this on my new computer, Daniel. Daniel is the fastest and most efficient computer I've ever worked on. It's funny, because it's definitely not the most state-of-the-art computer. However, it's new. And I plan to keep it nice.

L8R.