Why Minnesota Is Better Than Any Other State Or Country

If you have this on your pickup in MN, that means you are a good person.

Minnesota is a great place to live. Parts of it are habitable, anyway. Some parts you should stay away from; like the Iron Range, where the dirt is red and golf clubs fall out of the sky all the time and hit people; Boundary Waters, where scary Canadians might attack you, and the West, where people love George W. Bush and put up pro-life signs in their yards. Generally these parts of Minnesota are safe: 41.881096,-87.624335 and 51.50714,-0.126171.

The River

This exists because of Minnesota.

The word "Mississippi" is not only the subject of a cruel, humiliating children's joke ("Can you spell Mississippi?" "YEAH." "Spell it." "M-I-S-S..." "I said spell IT!" [raucous laughter; Liz...er...child goes crying off into the distance]) - it is also the largest river in the entire universe, and the giver of life, love, and happiness to all but two species of life on the planet (Smilodon fatalis and Homo sapiens subsist on cries of abandoned children). The Mississippi begins in northern Minnesota, where it obtains all the water for the entire world. We all know the world is 70% water; ergo, Minnesota constantly maintains 326 million trillion gallons of water. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it. Also, my family's cabin is on the Mississippi...not to mention, hello, Mark Twain.

MPR

Useless info: I have this logo on my car.

One of the best things we have here in the land of 10,000 lakes is really good public radio (of which I am a member, biatches!). We have a public radio music station, where I fell in love with (among others) Ryan Adams (who wrote a song about me and then broke my heart into a million pieces that were then converted into new Ryan Adams albums), Jens Lekman, Mates of State, Annuals, Cinematic Orchestra, Air, and Bon Iver. You will never hear any Britney Spears on that channel. They have a special every few months called "Fakebook" where they interview a famous author or whatever and a band or musician. One good one recently was Nabin's BFF Chuck Klosterman and Tapes 'n' Tapes. Also, because it's public radio, it has no commercials (until the member drive, when there are "commercials" every 5 minutes). Also, they're obsessed with the local music scene, which honestly I could give or take. I'm not that impressed at the moment. I like my music super-processed and polished. Wall of sound. Autotune. That reminds me, Mariah Carey uses autotune on her newest song. This, to me, represents a new low. She is supposedly one of the best singers to ever exist in the history of the world, yet she uses a machine to help her pitch.

Banjonathan Gould

Anyway, the MPR news/talk channel is also really good. Uhhhhh....Prairie Home Companion is on it. There ya go, Goo. Despite the fact that 80% of the programming deals with stuff I couldn't care less about, and it's a prerequisite for broadcasters to have the weirdest voices humanly possible, I listen to it every day and I never seem to mind that they've been talking about the economy in North Dakota for 3 straight hours. Somehow they make it interesting. I have appointment radio on Saturdays for Car Talk and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, though those aren't MN shows.

$$$

Wedding band: instrument of deformity

The biggest claim to corporate fame that I have is the fact that I visit Target #1 approximately 4 times a week. In fact, I bet every single thing in this box I'm sending is from Target #1. I'm sure I'll buy my firstborn child there. Target was founded in Minnesota. It is a rite of passage here to work there for a summer. I did that in the summer of 2001. In my hometown, one store was closing and another better one was opening. I was tasked with packing up everything in the old store to send to the new one. This still confuses me – what made anyone thing that a female 19-year-old would be better suited at lifting boxes and shit as opposed to ringing up people's shit? Whatever. I can't complain, because I did actually like it better. We had to watch this safety video where some guy's finger gets cut off when his ring gets caught on something. (That will haunt me forever). My best friend
Emily worked with me, but we weren't allowed to directly work together. What's with the man keeping us down? We were 19 years old and just wanted to have a little fun at work. Full-time Target employees are pretty creepy. The SNL sketch is not far off. They do stretching every morning, and customers are referred to as "guests". Oh well, I have no real complaints about my time there. Anyway, I love store #1 and have been there so often I bet I could tell you where ANYTHING is. Test me.

"The main problem is texture. Pork shouldn't be fluffy."

I was just searching for Hormel, since it is a Minnesota company, and I really thought they made Spam. They totally do! Look at this pic from AVC. It totally has a Hormel logo on it. However, it isn't on their website. I don't have anything more to say on this subject.

CD-RW drives are pure sugar and empty calories.

Now on to my favorite producer of blank media and media storage: Imation. Imation is part of 3M. The reason I like this company is because they made colorful CD-Rs before anyone else did. Also, look at this ad. ADORABLE. They had one with CDs that looked like Lifesavers, too. For a while I only bought Imation CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, but now Sony makes colorful ones and their logo is less prominent, so I get those instead. Maybe I should go back to Imation. I kinda feel bad now.

Best Buy campus: approximately the size of Tokyo

On the technology subject, guess what big box retailer with an untruthful name started here and has its colossal corporate headquarters near the Mall of America? That's right, Worst Buy. Tired of paying a reasonable price for music? Want a terrible movie selection? Try Worst Buy. NEW! Some stores even have a musical instrument section, where you can try out and buy guitars, keyboards, and drums for no more or less than the suggested retail value! No gimmicks here. Worst Buy will force you to go to eBay to pay the price you want for a piano that will get cracked during shipping. Even better: Worst Buy just updated the Rewards program! Now, you have to spend all your points by the end of the year or you'll lose them, and if you don't make at least one purchase in a year, you won't be part of the program anymore. Way to turn away customers and remove any remaining incentive at all to shop at your store, you great company you! THIS is the reason all the little local record stores in America, the only places you could find your beloved Coldplay import singles, who had midnight release sales every Tuesday and a whiteboard full of handwritten upcoming albums, went out of business. Capitalism!

I wore a hole in my first pair of these.

Continuing with the massive multi-quadrillionaire companies, here's one that seems to have outgrown its original mission: 3M (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing). Somehow I don't think tape and Post-it notes fall under the "mining" category, unless they mean "mining phone messages" or "mining Christmas presents". It should stand for Minnesota Moffice Msupplies. Anyway, what would we do without Post-its and tape? Just look at this package. How would I have done it without them? Additionally, I used a Scotch-Brite NailSaver sponge to clean the pans and utensils for the food, and I hung the drying cloth on a Command Adhesive hook. I wouldn't even be writing this if it weren't for my Thinsulate mittens, because my hands would have frozen off. Those mittens are among my favorite possessions. (None of those statements are lies).

Health Care

This might be the building where I had my eyes checked.

The Mayo Clinic was founded in my hometown of Rochester. It was great growing up there, because you (theoretically) got great health care and our town had a good reputation because of it. Rochester was named best place to live in America in like 1997. Funnily, in the same year (whichever it was) my best childhood friend's hometown of Ajijic, Mexico was named the best place to retire in North America (or maybe the world, but probably not). Rochester's reputation slid when it started sleeping around with Owatonna, its younger, less mature neighbor. Rochester no longer holds its once-proudly-borne title, and now apparently has a gang problem, which is laughable in a town of barely 100,000, but the Clinic (as we locals call it - we also call the Miss-sip “The River” and the Twin Cities “The Cities”) barrels onward like a freight train of medical know-how. The problem with the Clinic is that it's massive. It takes up our entire "downtown" area (which is admittedly about 5 city blocks). It might be more than that, but who the hell knows? All the buildings are tall, anyway, and connected by both skyway AND subway. I don't think even 30-year employees can find their way around there. As a child, it's like a trip to Disney World when you get to go to the Clinic.

Photograph of me during my operation

I've had eye problems since I was 4, and so every so often I'd get to miss school, get dressed up, and take a trip downtown. Then we'd walk for miles on the skyway and the subway, and go up and down 27 elevators until we got to the first waiting room. We'd wait there for my name to be called, and then we'd go to a second waiting room. Most of the time there was also a third one, which was kid-friendly and had toys and books. Then we'd go into the doctor's office finally and wait some more before my eye exam, which also frequently included another room with a different, larger vision test machine. Those were special times that I shall cherish forever. My parents are probably still scarred from those experiences, because I'm sure a Clinic ophthalmologist was REAL affordable. His name was Dr. Hohberger, which always reminds me of hamburgers. He was pretty nice, though, which is more than I can say for some eye doctors. The guy who did my eye muscle surgery a couple of years ago was kind of aloof. Is it so much to ask for a little small talk when you're going to be cutting my eyes out of my head and reattaching them?

$$$$

Mill Ruins Park, the coolest park around

I forgot to enter this before, and it is unbelievably hard to lay this thing out, so I'm just putting it here. Minneapolis was founded and grew to the size it is now because it was a mill town. Tons of mill-related industries started here (such as General Mills - original name, huh?) However, the mills here are prone to explosions and fires (much like anything I come into contact with). Consequently, a lot of downtown is full of broken down buildings. It's like Ancient Greece in the middle of Hong Kong. Malt-O-Meal, if you've heard of that (They make cereal mostly), has a big plant in this little town called Northfield, which is about 45 minutes south of the metro area. I wanted to go there for college really bad (St. Olaf College) but my mom put the kibosh on it. It's a private school, and we didn't have the money. Anyway, because of the plant it always smells really good in that town, like baking bread or something. Or making cereal, I guess.

First Avenue

First Avenue is probably my favorite place to be on earth. I have had many, many incredible experiences there, including the time when Coldplay dedicated a song to me. It's a wonderful place. All the stars on the outside have names of bands that have played there. I've seen Coldplay, Death Cab, Jimmy Eat World, Andrew Bird, Fiery Furnaces, etc etc etc there. The best part is that you can reserve little tables, of which they only have 4 or 5, in the balcony and while you're sitting down enjoying the show from a perfect viewpoint, you can gloat at everyone else who has to stand. (It's always General Admission except for those few tables).

Honestly right now I'm a little tired of writing this. I could go on forever, but I have exhausted myself from all the excitement and overabundance of ideas. So, in conclusion, CHIL-DREN, CHIL-DREN, FU-TURE, FU-TURE.

MN

I am writing this "essay" on Minnesota which I personally find hysterical. This is probably one of the best things I have ever written. I'll post it in a couple of weeks, but I just wanted to let y'all know it was coming. Prepare for some Laffs.

 

[sticks pin in skull to deflate head]

Something that bothers me

I just saw someone on TV say "I can't be happy without you." Generally, this is deemed romantic, right? The girl on TV seemed happy. What pisses me off is that when someone is actually without someone, and isn't happy because of it, it's suddenly psychologically unhealthy.

Jesus Christ, I just heard someone else say it on a different show. Fuck you, people.

Houses

I am going to look for houses this week and weekend. Gotta get my butt in gear. So, everyone, this is your notification that I am going to look for houses.

I just got my car fixed - new brakes and spark plugs and wheel alignment. It's so nice now!

Today

Today was a shitty day, no surprise. I have never felt so worthless and pointless in my life. What's the point of even writing this? Nobody cares, not even me. This blog is ridiculous and so is my existence.

Outing

I went on a short outing today that involved about 45 minutes at the very most outside in cloudy weather and maybe an hour in the car, and I just noticed that my sunburn has deepened. I wish I remembered more often that a) I sunburn when it's cloudy and b) It only takes like 10 minutes to burn in sunny weather and probably 20 in cloudy. I stupidly didn't think I needed sunscreen. I didn't think I'd be outside long enough. Thank God I at least put some moisturizer on my face that had SPF 15. That probably saved me a lot of pain.

::Roasts, takes bite out of arm:: MMM!

Holy shit, how can you text 100 words per minute? That's way faster than most typists. That must use T9 or something. However, I call bullshit.

Beds

I have never enjoyed my bed as much as I did last night. Nothing like days of sleeping on the ground to get your sleeping priorities straight. SO COMFY. I'm going to eat pancakes now!

Kitty

I miss my kitty already.

Drunk

I have no tolerance left for alc. I am going to try to write a blog entry.

Today was a shitty day. I have a lot of those. It was a little different than usual. It wasn't depressed, just angry. 

I have this issue where if someone says something negative towards me about my mood, it really really upsets me. 

I don't really hold back with what I say, so that means people hear the good along with the bad, and a lot of times I have a lot of bad moods in a row. I think that most people are like that. Maybe I talk too much or something.

I can only really think of three times where someone directly said something to me about my mood, and one of them was today. It was then hinted at that I was overreacting. I guess to that person's perspective maybe I was. They don't know that it really bothers me.

The reason I had to go to the hospital for so long was because I am really ashamed of having a mood disorder and I have an irrational worry that everyone hates me because of what it makes me do. When someone "Confirms" that in my mind it just isn't good, to say the least.

I know I am a good person, but there are things that people say to me that make it seem like having depression outweighs any kind of good person I am. For me it raises a combination of anger and sadness. What percentage of happy do I have to be for someone not to hate me, not say mean things to me, or start talking to me?

I need to stop twitter because I am not going to stick around a place that hurts me like that. I don't deserve to feel bad about myself, and I do feel bad about myself 90% of the time on there. And it shows in what I talk about. I am not happy with how things go there. I don't fit in and it doesn't fit with me. Today was the last straw. It's not worth it anymore.

The last two times someone said something like that to me, it took me a long time to realize that I don't actually deserve to feel bad about having mood problems. It's something that I have, and I'm dealing with it, sometimes badly, sometimes really well. Those people that said things to me don't have to deal with it, they don't know what it's like, and they don't have any basis for making comments. Whoever tries to use that against me is just mean. I don't have to punish myself by sticking around, and I won't.

All right

My back is killing me because the sink is too fucking low and I just gave all my money to the hospital (ahem, in bills, not charity), but all is well because I cleaned my car, made myself a really good smoothie, and I only have 4 days left of work.

UGH.

I just started feeling like I was going to go into a depressive episode and I was going to go on Twitter to talk to my friends and it went down. F U STUPID WEBSITE THIS IS THE REASON I DON'T LIKE YOU

My eyes just popped out of my head

I was just reading up on the guy I mentioned earlier who's an etymologist. I was mainly looking to see if he was married. :D He is 45 years older than me, so never mind, but just look at what I found:

 

"His main graduate works, written under the auspices of the renowned philologist M.I. Steblin-Kamensky, focused on Middle English and Icelandic phonetics." DOES THAT SOUND LIKE SOMEONE YOU KNOW???

 

I am just getting a huge kick out of this. I read a little bit of the blog and am extremely impressed and entertained. I'm going to read some more and then I am going to email him. I just can't believe someone's brain can contain that much information.

 

What really got me, though, is that in the entry I was reading, he mentioned in passing "descriptive grammar", which is a topic I've tried and failed to explain to all of you guys (especially Sarah) many times. I feel a lot more validated now. It wasn't something I made up in my mind! God, I love finding stuff like this.

 

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

New favorite blog

http://blog.oup.com/category/reference/oxford_etymologist/

 

I heard this guy on the radio this morning and fell in love.

I am an idiot

Sometimes I cannot even begin to fathom the great degree to which I am a total moron. Just now, I experienced such a time.

 

Seriously though, I don't know how I manage to make the mistakes I do. It almost seems impossible. It's like if I were to be walking along a sidewalk for 20 miles and there was one foot-sized hole somewhere along there, way on the side, and I managed to step in it and it would trip me and propel me into the nearby traffic where I would get hit by a semi, and become paralyzed.

Dream

I had a crazy dream last night. I was supposedly reading this sci-fi book by Philippa Gregory. I think that's funny because she wrote "The Other Boleyn Girl" and I saw that on Netflix yesterday for 1 second. I must have registered it then. Weird! Anyway, the book was about people living on this planet that was habitable in the daytime but at night it got to 70 below. (Which really is fine but there was also some kind of gas or something at night). There was a complex of inflatable/Metrodome type buildings. One night the living building caught on fire, and since the people couldn't go outside they were trapped. One of the people revealed a secret underground residence. It turned out that it was huge. Tons of people lived there, including two of the kids from Real Housewives: New Jersey. They never went outside but they looked healthy.

I think it has potential...what do you guys think? ;)

Danielmocracy

Vote or die!

Don't forget to vote in the election today over on the right side of my page. This is the most important election of Daniel's week. Without your vote, he will not be able to tell me what he saw out the window today.

Look at this poor, confused kitten's face. Could you deny him the ability to communicate about his daily wildlife sightings? I don't think so.

Help save him more confusion and disgust by letting me know what thing was in the courtyard outside my living room.

Thank you.

Guess what?

The tyranny of the 3-month period IS OVER!!! The uterine citizens can breathe freely once again!

::SCREAM::

GOD DAMMIT!!!!!!!!

THESE HORMONE PILLS ARE PUTTING ME THROUGH HELL!!!!!!!

Jesus Fucking Christ! In the past hour alone, I've been laughing, normal, bawling, pissed off, confused, and 14 other things. I have no idea what's going on. I just want it to be tomorrow morning, so I can go to therapy.

I AM SO ANGRY. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON. I NEED TO GO TO SLEEP. 

Scary book

I just started reading Prozac Nation tonight. It's not unusual to try to compare yourself to someone you're reading about, so I did that immediately, mostly because it started off talking about depression (obviously) and what it feels like to be in it. But then she was mentioning a couple of times she felt happy, and one was a relationship she had. It's difficult to read it because she has the same name as me and her relationship person has the same name as my whatever the hell it was that destroyed my life. I skipped forward and read about that part of her life and it made me cry, a lot. It wasn't like it was exactly the same situation as a whole or anything, but I recognized her thoughts on it as being similar to mine, and ultimately the situation did end up the same, with her/my depression causing the demise of the relationship.

It scares me because in the book, she clearly admits it was completely her fault. The only way I can get through the day is if I pretend it wasn't my fault. I almost convinced myself, too, by sheer repetition. She is far stronger than I am. 

I don't know if I want to keep reading. Yes, I can relate to it a lot, but what good will that do me? He's still gone and I'm still sitting here like I do every single night, crying my head off, a year and a half after all that shit happened. It WAS my fault, because I'm like this. Nobody can and nobody should have to deal with me on a regular basis. It's not a self-esteem problem...I know I'm smart and funny and a great person, but I know I am impossible to be around when I have a depressive episode. 

I can't help it, even though I try really, really fucking hard. When you're depressed, your brain stops. I don't think a lot of people understand that. It's not like I choose or don't choose to do something. It takes 200% of my energy to sit up and open my eyes in the morning, for god's sake. I don't think there's any way for me to describe it. I try so hard to do the right thing and say the right thing. It's just not fair that despite all my gargantuan effort, some people who are close to me end up hating me or pitying me or quitting talking to me.

So anyway, I don't know if I want to read any more because I don't want to see how much crap happened to her and how many people didn't understand her. 

WHAT IS UP PEOPLE

I went to my appointment yesterday at the ol' hospital and it was lame. First of all, the geniuses mailed me instructions that didn't get here until yesterday afternoon. I was really pissed off about that. I had to call and do all that shit and didn't get all the instructions. So I went there and the instructions were completely off. 

Here are the instructions they gave me.

Go in the main entrance. Go to the second floor. Turn left and go to the end of the hallway.

Here's what I had to do.

Go in the main entrance. Go to the second floor. Notice it isn't right because there's a wall on the left. Go to the basement. Walk through a tunnel. Go up to the MAIN floor. Go down a couple hallways. Finally I found the place, but it was not at the end of a hallway. It was in the middle of the hallway and was just two rooms. How are you supposed to check in? Jesus christ. I just kind of stood there for a minute until someone saw me. I felt very happy that I've been to that hospital a million times, because I could glean where to go from the room number.

So then I sat down with this nurse and "got educated" about diabetes. She made me test my blood in front of her and I was so nervous I gave myself a bruise on my finger. The whole time I felt a little talked down to, and I really did not get a great vibe from her. She was nice enough, but I left feeling almost worse than when I came in. Part of it is that she wants me to go in for 9 MORE HOURS. UGH! I felt like fucking shooting myself. Are you serious? And she wouldn't let me say no. She's like "I think your workplace should be fine with it because they want you to be healthy." Did you ever think that I personally don't want to do it? Besides that, I have zero vacation/sick/boss patience hours left because of day treatment.

The whole thing is stupid to me.

The worst part is this. I've been trying not to think about it, but whatever. With PCOS it's difficult to get pregnant, and the nurse yesterday said it would be really dangerous for me to be pregnant. So basically the universe doesn't want me to have kids and it does want me to go blind, lose all my limbs, and die of heart disease at a young age. I'm sort of pushing it to the back of my mind though because if I really thought about it I'd flip out. I hate Pam and Jim now though and I never want to talk about babies ever again. People suck who have no problems getting married and starting a family. I feel like it's really not fair for me. The world revolves around me and my problems. Whine.

I don't even know what I'm writing anymore, I'm so pissed off. GO AWAY PLANET AND YOUR STUPID BABIES.

Tired of it

I am tired of having my period. Sorry, those of you who are squeamish about me talking about menstrual cycles. I've been bleeding continuously and steadily for three months now. I honestly don't understand why I haven't died. I guess human bodies make a lot of blood in a day. This makes me wonder something. Where does the old blood go? Or do you just make blood when you've lost some? These are the questions that fill my mind.

 

I have to take 5 pills a day now. The birth control was supposed to make the bleeding stop, but it hasn't. It's only made me nauseated for the first week and a half and then extremely and violently emotional since then. I can't believe it can do that. The pill is about half a centimeter in diameter. What the hell is in that thing? And why am I taking it if it's only doing something bad? The diabetes pills just make my stomach hurt, and I don't really know what they are supposed to do (benefit-wise). When I take those pills I feel like I am performing the most useless task ever conceived of. I already skipped like 5 out of 10 or something.

 

I have to go to the hospital tomorrow again for a meeting with some diabetes person. I hate the idea of it. Honestly I would rather ignore this whole thing. Besides the fact that I'm averaging an appointment every 2 weeks or so, I just don't care about it. In fact, I want it to make me sicker. I sort of feel like I deserve it. Yeah, I know I have to take care of it, blah blah blah, and I don't deserve it, etc.

 

Sorry if I haven't been that talkative to anybody outside of the internet recently. I just don't really feel like talking to anyone.

H1N1 quotes reposted for phel's benefit

Yesterday the AVCats all started saying swine flu jokes for some reason, and I felt they were too good not to share (but only in alphabetical order). These are the product of just an hour...a brief hour, gone in the blink of an eye, of the converging of the minds of people who know everything about pop culture (aka the Hive Brain).

"Because it is my swine flu! Because I cannot have another in this life!"
"I have become swine flu, destroyer of worlds"
"The Policy of Flu"
"We have Swine Flu working on it now" "Who?" "Swine...Flu"
"Where's swine flu? Where's swine flu?"
....I see swine flu!...
>>puffs<< you've come a long way, swineflu
1.21 jigowatts of swine flu!
12 Angry Swine
5...5 dollar...5 DOLLAR SWINE FLU
A Good Swine is Hard to Flu (by Flannery O'Connor)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Swine
A Rush of Flu to the Head
A Swine Flu-preme
A Tale of Flu Cities
Achilles Last Flu
Ad astra per alia porci
All of this has swine flu before and all of this will swine flu again.
all work and no play makes jack a dull swine flu. all work and no play makes jack a dull swine flu.all work and no play makes jack a dul ...
And she's buying a swine flu to heaven.
and swineflu, though popular in Cantonese cuisine, is not often to be found in Washington D.C.
And that's why you always leave a swine flu.
Aporkalypse Now
Ask not what your swine flu can do for you, ask what you can do for your swine flu.
Babe I'm Gonna Swine Flu
Ball Park Swine Flu: they plump when you cook 'em.
Bite my shiny metal swine flu!
Blame Mexico! Blame Mexico!
Bob had Swine Flu.
Brandenflu Concerto
Brave New Flu
Bring Me The Head of the Next Swine Flu Victim
Call me Swine Flu.
choosy moms choose swine flu
Communication Swine Flu
damn the man, save the swine flu!
Dazed and Swine Flu
Der Zamberflu
Did you fuck my swine? Look at me. Did you fuck my swine?
divertimento for swine flu in d major
Don't tell me not to get swine flu! Live together, die of swine flu alone.
E pluribus swine flu
Eine Kleine Nacht-Swine Flu
Et tu, Swine Flu?
fat, drunk, and infected with swine flu, is no way to go through life, son
First Swine Flu came for the Polish, and I did not speak.
Follow the yellow swine flu!
Fool in the Swine Flu
For as long as I can remember, I wanted to have the swine flu.
For Whom The Swine Flu Tolls
Forget about it Jake, it's Swine Flu
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a swine flu.
Frankly, swine flu, I don't give a damn.
Fuck the swine flu, Jim said it with authority
Generation Of Swine (Flu)
Get away from her, you swine flu!
Get busy livin', or get busy dyin'. Of swine flu.
GET YOUR HOOFS OFF ME YOU DAMN DIRTY SWINE FLU.
Give a man a pig, and feed him for a day. Give a man swine flu, and feed him for life.
GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME SWINE FLU!
GOD BLESS YOU, AND GOD BLESS AMERI--SWINE FLU
Gravity's Swineflu
great minds have swine flu.
Heaven...I'm in heaven...Because I caught the the swine flu and it killed me!
Heeeeeeeeere's swine flu!
Hello......is it swine flu you're looking for?
Hemingway: Swine Flus of Africa; Metallica: Swine Flu (The Black Album)
Hey Dirtay/Baby I got your swine flu/ don't you worry/dirtay
Houses of the Swine Flu
Houston, we have a swine flu.
Hwæt! We Swine flu in geardagum
I am Arthur Frayne, and I am swine flu.
I ate his liver with some swine flu and a nice Chianti
I can't believe it's not swine flu!
I could dance with you until the pigs come home. Actually, I'd rather dance with the pigs till you come home.
I coulda been somebody! I coulda been a swine flu!
I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been swine flu, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
I don't have swine flu, I'm just drawn that way
I drink your swine flu! I drink it up!
I feel the need - the need for swine flu!
I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened and read it, it said they were swine flu.
I have always depended on the kindness of swine flu
I just wanted to tell you both swine flu, we're all counting on you.
I know it was you, Fredo! YOU GAVE ME SWINE FLU.
I like big swine flus and I cannot lie...
I love the smell of swine flu in the morning
I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the Swine Flu States of America!
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by swine flu, starving hysterical naked
I swear tell the swine flu, the whole swine flu, and nothing but the swine flu.
I Wanna Hold Your Swine Flu
Ich bin ein Swine Flu
If it has swine flu, we can kill it.
if you build it, swine flu will come
I'm gettin' too old for this swine flu!
I'm gonna make him a swine flu he can't refuse
I'm here to chew swine flu and kick ass, and I'm all outta swine flu!
I'm mad as swine flu, and I won't take any more!
In a New Pork State of Swine
In My Time of Swine Flu
In Swine Flu, nobody can hear you scream.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And God said, "Let there be swineflu," and there was swineflu.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of swine flu
It was Swine Flu at first sight
It was the best of Flus, it was the worst of Swines.
It's all right cause I'm saved by the...It's all right cause I'm saved by the...It's all right cause I'm saved by the swine flu!
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...attack ships on fire off the shores of swine flu.
La Dolce Porco
La swine flu e bella
Let's put a pignose on that face!
let's put a swineflu on that face
Life is like a box of swine flu.
Live together, die of swine flu
Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the swine flu!
Love in the Time of Swine Flu
love means never having to say swineflu
LUKE, I AM YOUR SWINE FLU!
Madness? THIS. IS. SWINE FLU!
Mama always said life is like a box of swine flu.
MANOS: The Hooves of Fate
March of the Pigs (who have the flu)
Meet the flu boss…same as the cold boss
Miles Davis' "Swine of Flu"
Misty Mountain Swine Flu
My kingdom for a swine flu!
Nineteen Eighty-Swine Flu
No interest is good unless it must vest if at all not later than 21 years after some life in being at the creation of the swine flu.
NO...WIRE...SWINE FLUS!!!!
Nobody's Fault But Swine
Nosferswineflu
Not with a bang, but with... swine flu.
Now is the swine flu of our discontent
Of my friend I can say only this: of all the souls I've encountered in my travels, his was the most......SWINE FLU
Oh Swine Flu, you came and gave without taking
One Hundred Years of Swine Flu
OPEN THE SWINE FLU DOORS HAL!
Pig A
Pride and Prejudice and Swine Flu
Quoth the swine flu: "Nevermore!"
Read my lips: no more swine flu.
ROBOT ROLL CALL: CAMBOT! GYPSY! TOM SERVO! SWINE FLUUUUUUUUUU!
S.W.I.N.E. by the Flu-Tang Clan
Sartre's "Etre et Grippe Porcine"
save the cheerleader, save the swine flu
Secret's in the swine flu!
Semper swine flu
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Swine Flu Band
Sic Transit Swine Flu...Swine Flu Fades. I'm Max Fischer.
Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the swine flu, harried for years on end...
Slaughterhouse swine
SOYLENT GREEN IS SWINE FLU!
Stairway to Swine Flu
Swine and Punishment
Swine Flu 2: Electric Boogaloo
Swine Flu from the Underground
SWINE FLU IN THE MORNING, SWINE FLU IN THE EVENING, SWINE FLUE AT SUPPER TIME...WITH SWINE FLU ON A BAGEL, YOU CAN HAVE SWINE FLU ANYTIME.
Swine flu is it!
SWINE FLU IS PEOPLE! IT'S PEOPLE!
Swine Flu Karenina
swine flu knows what you did last summer.
Swine Flu Phone Home
Swine flu saved my life tonight.
Swine flu smelled like trees.
swine flu, for lack of a better word, is good.
Swine flu, steaming mad at dirt!
Swine Flu, Swine Flu, wherefore art thou Swine Flu?
Swine Flu, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Swine flu...completes...me.
Swine flu: takes a licking and keeps on ticking!
Swine flu's on first, SARS is on second, and cancerAIDS is on third.
Swineberry Flu Forever
swineflu is 10% inspiration 90% perspiration
Swineflu, light of my life, fire of my loins
Swine-ing in the Flu
Swinesiac
Swine-Y-Aur Flu
Take the swine flu. Leave the cannolis.
That'll do, Swine Flu. That'll do.
That's why there ain't a repo man I know who don't have swine flu.
The Airborne Swine Flu Event
The Days of Swine and Roses
The first rule of swine flu is: do not talk about swine flu.
The greatest trick swine flu ever pulled was convincing the world it didn't exist.
The next person still in the running for America's Next Top Swine Flu is...
The swine flu ate your baby!
THE SWINE FLU IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE BUILDING.
The Swine Flu is out there.
The Swine Flu of Lot 49
The Swine/11 Report.
The Unbearable Swineness of Flu
THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE SWINE FLU.
They may take our freedom, but they may never take... OUR SWINE FLU!
this could be the start of a beautiful epidemic.
This speech is my recital, Swine flu is very vital/ To rock a rhyme, that's right on swine/ It's Tricky is the title, here we go...
This swine flu is TOAST!
This..............is American Swine Flu!
Though this be madness, yet there is swine flu in't
Thus Spake Swineathustra
Tis nobler to cough upon thee, or shall I be discreet?
To be or not to be, that is the question, because I have swine flu
To go where no swine flu has gone before!
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this swine flu from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time...
Toto, I have a feeling were not in Mexico anymore.
Transformers: more than meets the swine flu!
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference, because I caught swineflu.
Vicky Cristina Swine Flu
Waiter, there's a swine in my flu!
Wake up, time to die...of swine flu!
WELCOME TO EARF...swine flu!
Welcome to swine flu country.
We're gonna need a bigger swine flu.
Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote / The droghte of swine flu hath perced to the roote
What light thru yonder window breaks? It is the East, and swine flu is the sun.
What? No fuckin swineflu now?
What's your name? Kunta Kinte! What's your name? .........Swine flu.
When the Swine Flu Breaks
Where we're going we don't need swine flu vaccinations!
Where's swine flu, Stringer? Where's swine flu?!!
Who Watches The CDC??...when they administer swine flu vaccinations? (ok that one is a stretch.)
Why so swine flu?
with a name like swine flu, it has to be good
Won't Get Flu-d Again
Would swine flu by any other name smell so... ewww...
YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE SWINE FLU!
You chose swine flu, you live with swine flu
You down with P.I.G.? Yeah you know me!
You ever dance with the swine flu in the pale moonlight?
You're going to need a bigger needle.
You got your swine in my flu! You got your flu in my swine!
You had me at swine flu.
YOU'VE BEEN DATING THE REAL SWINE FLU THE WHOLE TIME!

My kingdom for a blog post!

For some reason I was writing this on FB, and then I was like, "Why the fuck am I doing this? I have a blog." 

Last week sucked. Here's what happened.

1. On Saturday I had the most painful ultrasound possible. It was "internal". I put that in quotes for extra emphasis. The ultrasound technician (that doesn't look like the right spelling) didn't seem to understand that internal things hurt too when pressed upon/poked.

2. Later that day they called and said I have Polycycstic Ovary Syndrome. Fine. I was upset and cried, but it didn't seem that bad.

3. On Sunday, I went to Target and when I came back 1 hour later there was 2 inches of water in my apartment.

4. I had a comedy fall in the kitchen while inspecting water damage. Later, a giant bruise and swell appeared on my knee.

5. On Wednesday I had to get up really early and go to the doctor. There they prescribed hormone pills which I have to take forever.

6. On Thursday I had to pay an $800 bill to Fairview.

7. On Friday I got a letter that says I have diabetes.

8. Also all week I was worthless at work because I am so worried. My boss is starting to get annoyed.

I am freaking out about this diabetes thing. The PCOS is basically ok, because for now it's just a pill, but diabetes scares me. I always assumed I would get it, since it runs in both sides of my family, but I didn't think it would be when I was 27. The doctor said that PCOS people are at very high risk for diabetes, so that's why I had a test. That combined with family history = blood sugar disorder!

It's really strange what things like this do to your mind. I am in shock. I don't really know what to think or do or talk about at the moment which is why I am just not really talking about it to people. I am just really mixed up. I miss the roommates because they are my best friends. I miss Nate because he makes me feel safe. I miss my parents because they always know what to do. I miss my sisters because they understand me.

It's just really weird and in a matter of days I have a completely different view of the world. Well, I guess it happens. At least I still have a job, even if I am crap at it at the moment and can't stand half the people, and I have a comfortable home with a good kitty.

If you seek (Elizabeth) Amy

I'm around. Just haven't blogged lately. One reason: the word blog will forever be stupid. Another reason: I just haven't been in the mood to write a blog entry.

Sincerely,

Person who is otherwise just watching TV

Papa

Papa is doing ok. They said he has anywhere from 3-15 years to live. Everyone was happy, but my mom was like "Um, he still has metastatic stage 4 prostate cancer". So, he has that cancer and it also spread to his bones and spine. He has lesions on his bones. He is lucky to live in Rochester, and as Laura thought might happen, he gets to be in some prostate cancer drug studies from Mayo Clinic that not everyone has access to. They are going to give him some bone strengthening drugs as well. He went home tonight. It is good news, but still serious. It was a huge wake-up call for everyone. 

I called about my lab tests and they said I had to wait longer. Whatever. I worked from home today and slept 14 hours total in the last day.

I guess that's it - just thought I'd update.

I'm really scared

For one thing my grandpa, for another thing something is seriously wrong with me. Maybe I should call the clinic to ask about my blood work. I should probably work from home today but I don't even know iff I can do that.

I feel horrible

I feel horrible about what I wrote yesterday. It was really selfish of me to say anything like that. I kind of was just saying random thoughts in my mind and I wanted to make it clear that I didn't mean to make light of anything or be so brazenly selfish and unsympathetic and horrible.

Anyway, my mom called today and said that my grandpa has late stage prostate and bone cancer, so our whole family is a little destroyed at the moment.

Anyway...not like it seems important at all now, but my appointment went fine. They didn't really say anything to me except they'll look at the blood work.

I feel like the most insensitive and stupid person in the world. I guess it's different when you're talking about yourself, but that's the thing about thinking about your own mortality. My grandpa is also not bothered at all. I think most people can think about their own deaths much more easily than the deaths of loved ones.

P.S.

Our proxy is about as fast as I am today. ba dum dummm

Deoxygenated blood

I've been really tired/lethargic lately as I think I wrote before, and some people have been asking me to go to the doctor for a couple weeks. I'm going tomorrow morning. I thought that it may be an iron deficiency so I've been taking some iron pills, but I kind of morbidly want to see how bad it will get. I have this fascination with stuff like this. I wonder what it says about me. Should I be mentioning this? I think that in a lot of ways I'd really like to have a terminal illness. Imagine what you could do. You could just do whatever the hell you want for x amount of time, you wouldn't have to work or worry about bills, you wouldn't have to exercise or eat right, or worry about anything with regards to your future, and everyone would pay attention to you. I thought about this a lot the other day while watching CSI Miami where some lady was dying of radiation poisoning. Another thing is that I could be very open with people, and they would understand. I would do that now, but most people don't really have an everyday mindset where they can hear things like that.

 

For similar reasons I would love to have an apocalypse. Imagine - you wouldn't have to worry about anything if the world ended, because let's face it, nothing is as bad as the world having just ended. Then afterwards you could do whatever you want. Sure, it would take some work, but to me it seems a lot, lot more carefree. I just don't understand today's world. (I would have a great problem living without the internet though).

 

Back to the problem at hand. This week I haven't really been able to move that much. Saturday and Sunday I slept pretty much all day. Monday was ok but I didn't do a whole lot. Yesterday I could hardly get home before I collapsed and then I felt really ill. This morning I still felt ill and I'm really weak now. Somehow I went to Cub at lunch, but I don't know how. I was thinking I'd go back after work because I forgot something, but there's no way in hell.

 

I am still pretty sure it's a blood thing, but it's funny what happens. I just sit there and cannot move any part of my body, even my neurons to think. I'm glad lungs and blood circulation go involuntarily. Frequently I'm sitting here at my computer and can't move the mouse, much less go to the keyboard. It's a little much typing this. It would be interesting to know why that happens. I read something about oxygen depletion in blood. Another funny one was last night I fell on the futon facing away from the tv but I wanted to see what was on, and it took me at least 20 minutes to turn myself over. The most noticeable problem though is the fact that I have been getting to work later and later. My start time should be 9, but today I got here around 10:45. Etc.

 

Anyway, going to the doctor tomorrow, even though I would enjoy seeing how bad it gets since it's not painful at all, just weird. Will apprise then about what happens.

Facebook

In the overreacting to social situations category...

I had the weirdest conversation ever today at work. It was about Facebook. For those who didn't see it, I posted this note which was an annoying rant about how I don't like Facebook quizzes. I usually put a photo with my notes. So, for that one I just found this random screen shot I made of a warning pop-up that was funny to me (It was a pop-up that didn't say anything but wanted you to choose Yes or No). Then I wrote "Sorry if you have to see this error message 37 times" as a joke about the news feed and how it haphazardly shows things multiple times. I'm FB friends with a lot of people from work, so one of them came up to me and here is the conversation that ensued.

Person: I received your error message twice this weekend.

Elizabeth: What error message? [At this point I'm thinking I did something that sent off error emails, which I do sometimes]

P: Your facebook error message. But I only got it twice, not 37 times. [Totally serious]

E: What? [Right now I'm still totally confused and turning bright red]

P: You know how you wrote that note and then added an apology for the error message? I just wanted to mention that I saw the error twice.

E: Oh, it was a joke.......

P: Oh, well...I agree with you.

It was the most awkward and confusing conversation I think I've ever had. That's a lie, but it was pretty bad. For one thing, I felt horrible about writing that note then. I didn't think anyone actually looked at them. And the way the person was talking was like I had done something wrong. It was awful. Plus, I still have no idea why this person made the effort to walk over to my cube and vocalize this to me. To me that sort of meant that I was in trouble for it, because usually when people walk over to talk to me, it's not really great news. At least, when it comes to that person it never is.

Anyway, next time I write one of those notes, I'm not going to put in a picture that actually looks like something that could be in a window, and I am going to write about something that likely won't come back and bite me in the ass. 

In other news, I'm getting pretty far on my website. I've been trying to program every night and it is going super, super well. I'm really proud and excited. I only have maybe 2 more pages to code, and then I have to clean a little bit of data, but if everything goes well it should be done this weekend. Yay!

Guess what!

Claire Zulkey, who sometimes writes things for AVC, is friends with me on Twitter.  She even mentioned me in her American Idol writeup on Tuesday (though she didn't say my name). I like her a lot and I am shocked about how successful a writer she is and she's only 29. Anyway, she does freelance for a bunch of different places, so today she sent a survey that's for Glamour, and I did it and apparently my name might get put in too if they choose my answers! w00t. It was about cheating. I'll let peeps know when it comes out.

M.I.A. post

I hid the post for now, I just don't want it there at the moment. Good night

Check-in

Hello. Today I went to lunch with my 2 coworkers to an Indian restaurant. It was pretty good food and it was fun. It lifted my spirits a lot because I had such a weird week and was in a bad mood this morning. They are so funny. I really could just listen to the two of them talk and would be entertained.

I don't know if I got screwed up by DST or what. On Monday I was 2 hours late and the rest of the days I was 1 hour late. Then on Wednesday night I went to bed early. Thursday I fell asleep all day at work, and when I got home I fell on the futon and couldn't move. I fell asleep for 2 hours and then woke up and was still really tired. It was then that I realized I might have an issue. Something isn't really right. So I'm going to try to improve a few things myself (like taking iron) and see how that goes. Sometimes when I can't move it's because I'm low on iron. It's really weird and would be cool if it wasn't kind of scary. It was happening at work too. I'd be like, "Ok, just move your mouse to that link" and I couldn't even do that one time. Pathetic.

Tomorrow I am going to Rochester to Roch the Watchmen with Emily. I'm pretty proud of that saying; hence my saying it all over the place. "Who will Roch the Watchmen?" Emily and I.

GOOD EVENING

The day has come

Hell has frozen over.

 

I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard a song I really liked. This, in itself, is not a problem.

 

What will come next is sure to frighten and appall you for weeks and months to come.

 

The aforementioned song completed and Greg James said the following words that will haunt me until my dying day..........................."KATY PERRY."

This is incredible!

I'm in the process of redoing my website, and I wanted to find a captcha to put on it so that I can safely forward my email to a gmail account. So I found this website: http://recaptcha.net/

Insanely, this particular one uses captchas to help digitize books. Since I used to work at a place that did that, I was intrigued. And Emily, you might be as well. Somebody did a calculatioin and noticed that a huge number of hours was spent every day typing in words on websites. So they thought about how they could put that to use, and decided that they could use words that OCR can't recognize. Great, huh? However, if you're like me, then you might wonder how the website can verify that you put in the right words, if the computer doesn't know them. Answer: they use one control word and one unknown word! Genius!!! I am so impressed. I am for sure using this one. Even better, they have a PHP library that I can install for easy integration to my website. Perfect. This makes me so happy.

If any of y'all want to see the new website, I have it on staging but it doesn't work that well at the mo. This page works the best: http://staging.easytoplease.net/tour2.php?page=all I took off a lot of stuff because I'm just tired of maintaining a lot of stuff that is outdated and not really that useful anymore and way more trouble to have than not.

Hehe

It just struck me as really funny that my cat is probably only like 6 inches tall.

Not sure what to do

There are a couple of people at work who are really bothering me lately. By this I mean talking quite a bit about non-work issues, loudly enough where I can hear it. I get extremely irritated by it to the point where I can't work because I'm so pissed off. I don't know whether or not I'm being irrational though. Should this bother me? It's not like I need total silence when I work, but the fact that it's not about work and it's sooooo often is really getting to me. I feel like they are not actually doing any real work. Hey, I'm all for having a fun and comfortable workplace, but do they realize they actually have to do work when they're here?

 

There are also a few other people who take way too many personal calls for way too long where I can hear everything. That bothers me too.

 

I've been trying to figure out for a few weeks what to do about it. I don't really want to go to my manager, because I am worried I'll look like a high-maintenance person. After all, I had to take 3 half days a week for 3 months. Nowadays I don't even like to take a sick day. I don't really want to be like "Hey, it bothers me that people are loud." She has already had to deal enough with my crap. And it seems like something is always bothering me here.

 

I thought maybe I could ask to move to a different area, but I don't know how well that would go over either, or if I would feel comfortable doing that. It all goes back to whether or not I am justified in being really annoyed. Sheena thinks it's reasonable but also agrees that it's a tough call on what to do.

 

While I've been writing this, one guy has taken 2 loud cell phone calls.

 

I mean, I wear my headphones a lot, but I get even more annoyed that I have to wear headphones to work comfortably. Why should I have to adjust? One could argue that I should adjust because I'm the uncomfortable one, I guess. Still though, if people were having a marching band concert every day I don't think it would be a question of which party should adjust their behavior.

 

Oh, I almost forgot the worst part. Joel told me this morning about an incident with the same group of people. This morning he was nearby talking to someone else and they started to say bad stuff about him and he heard it all (because they don't have indoor voices). Then he showed me this email about the same issue that was extremely rude. The email itself was really unprofessional, but the saying bad stuff about Joel was over the line. I think he needs to talk to his boss about it, but for some reason, for the first time in history he's letting it go. That sucks. A similar incident caused a girl to quit about 4 months ago (conflict with the same people also involving an inappropriate email) and I don't want that to happen again. I kind of wish we had one of those anonymous comment card boxes like on The Office. These people act like they're in middle school.

 

Ugh. I really like my actual job but I hate the environment. Weird how 6 months can change something...after all, 6 months ago I hated both of them with a passion. :) I guess I should look on the bright side.

 

Is it hypocritical that I'm writing this while I'm at work? Whatever...I was too POed to do anything.

 

I got to come in late today because I worked last night on my first code push. It was exciting and boring at the same time. The best part was sleeping in.

By crikey

On my radio show, they do the news every half hour, and today they had this clip of some guy talking. He had a really thick accent and nobody could understand it because he was going too fast. So they slowed down the clip until you could understand it, and at the beginning the guy says "By crikey!" So throughout the whole show they have been inserting in super slowed down "By crikey!" It is hilarious.

 

They were also talking about some kids' show that's about a pig, and in one episode the pigs were driving in a car and hip-hop music was on. The radio people were like "I don't understand why hip-hop was on." And one guy goes "It was Notorious P.I.G.!" Hahaha

On our intranet

On our intranet I just saw this: "On May 11 the price for a 1-ounce First-Class Mail stamp will increase from 42¢ to 44¢." Is our country going to explode and have the dollar devalue to like 0.0001 what it was last year? Remember when stamps were 29 cents for like 10 years? Sigh. I'm glad they thought of the Forever stamp, but why do they need to keep increasing it? I guess because nobody has any money. I feel like it will almost even out because less people will buy a book of stamps. Maybe not though...$10.50 vs. $11 - not that huge a difference. Whatever.

In spite of who I am

I was watching the news tonight and there was a story about some kind of kids' program. The gist is that they have mirrors on a wall and saying about how the person in the mirror could be anything, even the President. Anyway they had some lady talking about it and she goes "The idea is that the kids will see that they can be anything, in spite of who they are." I thought it was funny. I can be anything, even though I'm my lowly self. Semantics, but still funny.

Scary internet

Sarah's recent comment reminded me that I wanted to talk about something else scary about the internet. I already told L&M this. It is about my RSS feed. So, as you know, the other day I made an RSS feed. I originally put in 3 test entries but then I noticed that the time was all weird (and still is sort of, but only because it's in PST because that's where the server is - before it was saying May 15, 2009). So after I fixed the time I deleted 2 or 3 entries from my database. Completely deleted them - no record of them exists anymore. Or so I thought...I entered the feed into a few different readers over the past few days and the deleted entries are still there!!! How is this possible?! I'm mystified...Part of me wonders if somehow my computer cached it, but my computer at work didn't cache anything, and it showed all of them. All I can think of is that maybe there is some omnipotent RSS spider that immediately obtains all updates from all feeds everywhere. But that's impossible...even Google takes 6 months to crawl everything. So anyway, the internet is scary.

P.S. S, did that sound as technical as my other entry about viruses? :)

AVC Comment

There is an AVC comment that has been bothering me all day about how my skin in my picture looks like a Simpson. This is because I mentioned that I had a Simpson and said I couldn't get the skin light enough (aka paper white) and right now it just matches my hair. I do admit that my skin looks yellow in the picture, but is it not obvious it's the lighting? Or does it really look like my skin color? It seems to me that it would be ridiculous to think my skin was that yellow. Below is a link to the picture in question.

 

http://www.avclub.com/accounts/easytoplease,3140/

 

Sincerely,

A person who has thought way too much about this today.

 

P.S. I just realized that I should simply Photoshop the skin on the Simpson. It's not as if it would be in any way difficult. Paint bucket, done. Meanwhile, I should really Photoshop the other picture too. Because on AVC it looks pretty weird all tiny. I should just put another one on there because apparently it's weird to have your actual photo. I think I will use the newly paint-bucketed Simpson.

Starting off well!

Greg James (maker of the Coldplay video I posted the other day) replied to me on Twitter, after I wrote a nauseatingly brown-nosy note. He tries to reply to everyone though, which is probably mostly manageable at this point. He wrote this birthday song for another DJ and played it on the radio and it was great. Anyway, made my day! http://twitter.com/gregjames

 

Seriously though, he does some great stuff. What an untapped and unknown resource.

Why can't everything just work?

My garbage disposal just broke. I have no idea what to do with it now. It turned on earlier today but didn't do anything, and now it just doesn't turn on. And I didn't take in my car because I'm too nervous. I have to do it tomorrow. I think I'm just nervous because of this one guy that's always there who intimidates me. And last time he gave me half off and I don't think I thanked him at all because I was really really flustered, so I worry he has a grudge against me, if he even remembers me for some odd reason. Ugh. I was going to get groceries today and work on some computer stuff and instead I took a nap and watched AVC liveblog the oscars. It was funny. But now I don't have food. Also I had a bad dream during my nap. Really I could still work on computer stuff. I think I will. Later.

The end of Feline Favorites

As some of you know, I got Feline Favorites (cat food) for Daniel recently. I like to call it cat crack. I noticed it made his breath smell bad. Well, this morning he threw up from it. I managed to catch it in time, thank god, because he was about to throw up on my bed. I ran him into the kitchen so it all went in there. So no more Feline Favorites for Daniel. I was just trying to comfort him because he threw up, but he went insane. Usually when he gets too much attention he gets overstimulated, which is what happened this time. He started biting me and purring like he is a semi (which he is still doing). What a weirdo. Well, I am going to take my car in now I guess. I really don't want to. I'm nervous and don't want to pay any more.

Ridiculous

http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2009/01/27/sprite_optim/

I need to start reading web design blogs again. I find them fascinating.

Coldplay "Parody"

This is a British DJ called Greg that I like doing a Coldplay video. I laughed until I cried at it.

RSS

Hey everyone, update your RSS readers to include my RSS feed for my Coldplay website! It's so awesome and includes so much information, your mind will explode.

 

http://www.easytoplease.net/rss.php

 

I'm actually pretty happy I did it so quickly. It only took about half an hour to set up for some reason.

UGH!

>:-(

My car

I took my car in this weekend and it had quite a few problems. I was concerned because the brakes were acting up last week, and I wanted to find out about the headlights once and for all.

Right axle seal was broken

Antifreeze was low

transmission pan cracked

The muffler strap was off

Both strut mounts loose

2 engine mounts loose

Fuel injectors not clean

I decided to do the antifreeze, transmission pan, and axle seal. It was about $500. Ouch. Well, the headlight problem turned out to be fog within the lens, where I can't get to it (like Brighton's window at Mifflin). I have to get new headlight assemblies, which are like $65 I think. Or, my dad said there should be a vent, and that it could be clogged, so I'll probably look at that myself. Funnily enough, the brakes were perfectly fine.

My best friend in Mexico, Lucelia, just told me she's getting married this summer. That was a shock. Also I found out my aunt is getting remarried this summer. Anyway, my friend wants me to go there for the wedding. I'm conflicted about what to do because a) going by myself would be nerve-wracking, b) it's at the exact same time as Brighton's Guatemala trip and there's no way I can do both, and c) I can't do either because I have no money. I'm surprised I'm not freaking more about the car payment. I think I was prepared enough for it that I am just ignoring it.

Today on the radio I heard a story about the merger between LiveNation and Ticketmaster. It was horrible. The people said that it's the biggest music news story in the past ten years. The stuff they're thinking about doing is horrible. For instance, they want to change the buying process into an auction type thing. That means that people who bid the most will get the best tickets up front. To me that's just going to invite ridiculous bidding like on ebay, where certain people can pay an exorbitant amount. I can see this turning into a terrible situation for smaller shows as well, where people who can pay more will get the limited amount of tickets, while us poories can't. Basically, they're turning the system into Stubhub, where no ticket is under $500. The government is investigating it though, so I don't know what will ultimately happen.

I was in Rochester fixing my mom's computer which was taken down by a virus. She thought it was the one that prompted those Windows security updates a few weeks ago, but it wasn't. It was actually 2 viruses, 7 trojans, 2 malware things, 4 "Suspicious objects", a few bad registry entries that apparently were just that, hundreds of tracking cookies, and some more things I can't remember. The two viruses attacked internet explorer. I tried going into IE once and it freaked out. It popped up about 600 windows trying to get to different websites. Now I'm wondering if that's where all those cookies came from. I'm not sure about all the trojans yet. I plan to look them up later. The malware was something that added weird files and tried to access them at startup. I don't know what they did though. One of the things compromised the antivirus that was there. It looked like it was completing a scan but it wasn't doing anything. I just reinstalled the same one and it worked. Anyway I had to do some things in the admin account, like edit some things in the registry and parts of the computer setup, but the admin account was corrupt. Great. So I created a new one in DOS and went into it in safe mode. Before something could happen to the account I ran a virus scan and an adware scan. I ran both scans twice and the second time it was still finding stuff so my dad suggested turning off auto restore. Did that and removed a ton of programs. Then I tried to defrag but that didn't work anymore. I thought I would try to find the files for that somewhere but I didn't have time. I hope it works ok now. I didn't have time to check all the accounts but I bet some of them are unusable. I just told my mom to use my new account and create new ones if she can't get in. So that was that. It was kind of interesting.

Issues

I talked to Joel today and he told me The Rest Of The Story - I guess it did start with him but he said it got out of hand really fast. He feels terrible too. He was like "I think I'm going to have an aneurysm." Anyway, I'm watching a movie now, if the DVD works. I've had to get 2 netflix replacements. This DVD looks really scratchy, but we'll see.

Amer. Idol

I cannot contain my excitement over how utterly gorgeous I find Adam Lambert. Why is that, I wonder? I know many of you out there will strongly disagree with me. I think partially it's that he reminds me of Ryan Adams, my boyfriend. Really though, it's just that I love that kind of guy, especially when they are singers. ADORABLE. Hopefully he doesn't get really annoying.

Really tired of this

Here's some boring work stories.

 

Last Friday and Monday I helped my coworkers Joel and Steve with some stuff. I helped Steve write a script to copy files, which I was really proud of, and helped Joel to set up some stuff. I spent too much time helping them, which is my own fault. I kind of knew it would be an issue, but I can't say no to people who ask me for help Case in point: something I will point out later.

 

So yesterday my boss talked to me a little bit and said I helped them too much on Friday and Monday. I completely agree and I felt really bad. She said it wasn't my fault, because they shouldn't have asked in the first place, but I still feel terrible. She said she talked to Joel and asked him not to ask me for help. Sound familiar? This has happened to me approximately 67 times before. I need to learn to say no. This exact thing is what caused the whole disaster last summer. Most of that was my old boss, but still - the root issue is the same.

 

All that happened in the morning and we were all fine. Then suddenly in the afternoon my boss asked me and the other girl that works with us to have a meeting. What she said was this. Joel must have gotten mad and gone to his boss. His boss sent an email to a whole bunch of managers that are way higher up than all of us on the ol' corporate ladder, saying my boss said irresponsible things and action needed to be taken against her. There are definitely two sides of this story, but that's exactly what happened as it appears to us. Joel's manager didn't even talk to mine at all, yet she sent this threatening email. My manager was upset. I felt HORRIBLE!!!

 

Along with all of that, she was saying in the meeting that my old boss "complained" about me working with Joel and Steve too much. What the HELL does she care????? Honestly? There is no reason she should have any comment about my job. She is not my manager!!! Sorry that you can't write scripts to copy files. Christ. I'll do it on my own time then.

 

You know, what really bothers me is that what I did was a nice thing. I completed something for Steve and I helped Joel. I was still up to date on my own work as well. (My manager was worried about that though). Every time I try to do something like that it backfires. Like my manager says (I really need to give her a name but I don't want to use her real name because it's uncommon) "What happened to being nice? I don't think so it helps out at all." (I love how she talks :) ) I just feel terrible because somehow my perceived generosity turned completely around and got her in trouble. What a mess.

 

I am not happy with Joel at the mo. I guess it's possible it had nothing to do with him, but based on what she said, it did. It's one thing to do that to people who fight right back, like my old boss, but my new one didn't do anything and she was kind of hurt by it, though took it a lot better than I would have.

 

Anyway immediately after that, somebody asked me for help and I said no! Then I blocked them on IM. ;) Good for me!!! Every day I increase my assertiveness. Well, off to the grocery store for more Feline Favorites (aka Cat Crack) and good old Lost tonight. Don't forget, Emily.

Married to Iceland

I was going to make some joke about the documentary "Married to the Eiffel Tower" but I just don't have it in me. Oh well. That documentary gave me something to think about for the next year. I just watched the whole thing tonight. 

The guy that I got set up with the other day is 35 (I found him on facebook). I guess that's older than I expected, not that I care that much. There is absolutely no way that I could date anyone at the moment anyway. So I don't really know...I guess I'll try it and just hope that it doesn't result in any awkward situations.

Speaking of facebook, my teacher wrote me a message saying happy birthday. :) Her birthday is in a few days as well. Now I have to sit down for an hour to figure out a message back. Kidding, it won't take that long. Only 55 minutes.

I really need to get myself back on track this week. The past couple weeks have been ridiculous as far as my schedule goes. I almost feel like I was on a continuous cycle the whole time and just slept for a couple hours here and there. I came home tonight and immediately dropped on the bed for a few hours. Tomorrow is my last day of treatment so hopefully I will get back on a regular work schedule.

I don't have anything else to say. I hope you enjoyed my blog entry.

Coldplay

One of the things I like most about Coldplay is the fact that their lyrics make no sense. I think that that allows people to internalize the songs at a level that other bands can't really achieve. Take my most recent favorite song, for example. It's called "Now My Feet Won't Touch The Ground". For one thing, it reminds me of their oldest songs. (A lot of the songs on their new EP remind me of really old songs of theirs). Here are the lyrics of the song, which is really short.

Let me go, boys, let me go
Push my boat from the highest cliff to the sea below
Rocks are waiting, boys, rocks await
Swoop down from the sky and catch me like a bird of prey

Now my feet won't touch the ground

Now my head won't stop
You wait a lifetime to be found
Now my feet won't touch the ground

That doesn't really make sense, but I already personalized it completely and I feel really attached to it. That's really interesting. That happens a lot with their songs. I also really like this one because it's not a love song, which would really bother me. I really love this EP, partially for that reason and partially because I just really like all the songs. There's an instrumental song on it that sounds just like Chopin. Chopin onions. (Ha)

I am so exhausted. I have been working a ton this week and I feel like I have gotten nowhere. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's just that what I'm working on is time-consuming. I had great intentions of doing laundry tonight, but instead I came home and fell asleep. Great job, self. Now everything is left for tomorrow, when I HAVE to do it. I hope they don't ask me to do the code push, because that would probably take me all night since I haven't done one to production before.

You all will be happy to know I've been practicing assertiveness and I did a couple things today to further that goal. And it went fine. Well, off to sort laundry for tomorrow.

P.S. I just realized I forgot to talk about Katy Perry and Chelsea Handler. It was fine.

Interesting site

I was just looking around facebook, and on my teacher's page I saw this site: http://www.karlmennogkrabbamein.is/ - which means "Men and cancer". I was like, "Ok, this looks like it could be informational, even though I don't really think I could use it." 

Well, thank god I didn't look at it at work. You guys should go look at it, but not at work or school, and you'll see why. Haha!

Anyway if you click on the button under the guy, it just shows how to examine yourself for possible cancerous symptoms, if you're a guy. The one that was a little much was Blöðruháls. I don't even know what that means. The dictionary doesn't make sense. Anyway you can probably see what it's trying to explain. Then the guy says if you have any of the symptoms on the right, go to the doctor. The other ones are lungs, digestion, testicles, and skin, and then general symptoms.

One of the more interesting sites I've seen in my time, I guess.

Bills

I was studying my bills today and went into monetary (I didn't misspell momentary) shock because of all the bills for my recent trips to the hospital. Christ Almighty. There's one that could pay for a pretty nice computer - that I assume is for the emergency visit. There are a few others that are slightly lower. I don't think I'll be able to pay those off soon. Plus I have bills for visits to the actual doctor and my actual therapist. Thank fucking god I have insurance. The bill for what I assume was the emergency visit was over $2,000. Insurance cut it down considerably, but it's obviously not something I'm really enjoying having to pay. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't have insurance. For one thing, I don't think they would have "intaked" (intook? intaken?) me if I didn't have insurance. They went over that part pretty carefully. Anyway I plan to discharge tomorrow.

I read one of Chelsea Handler's books yesterday and today (My Horizontal Life). It took maybe 3 or 4 hours - it's pretty short. I liked it a lot. I'll probably go through and try to find funny parts at some point. I'm on to her newer one now. The best part about her books is that they're written exactly how she talks. I love it. I wish I was exactly like her. I'm becoming a little obsessed. 

My worlds are colliding

Tonight, my favorite person, Chelsea Handler, is interviewing my least favorite person, Katy Perry. I'll let you know how it goes and how much my head explodes.

Problems

Today I was thinking about eating habits and I realized that I go into hypoglycemia almost every day, sometimes twice a day. I am a little concerned about it because diabetes runs in both sides of my family. Tons of people have it in my family, including both of my parents to an extent (neither have full-blown diabetes)

For one thing, it's really annoying to be having this constantly because it basically makes me not function. I went to the grocery store today and it took ALL of my energy. Obviously if I eat something it goes away, but I've been noticing increasingly that the things that help it the most are extreme sugary things, which isn't good.

Obviously, again, my eating habits haven't been great lately because my mood has been so extremely bad. One of the first things to go for me is healthy eating because I don't feel like worrying about that.

Also, another thing that goes right away for me is eating at all. A lot of times I just don't want to. So basically I'm eating crappy food and only when I have to. I think that part of my problem is I need to eat more regularly, but it's still a little scary since it happens to me all the time.

I was thinking about it today because I was like "Well, I better go home because I'm about to go into hypoglycemia soon." That suddenly struck me as really not right.

Programming

An annoyed rant about Microsoft, which I don't usually do

Please pay no attention if you don't care

A guy at work asked me if I could figure out something in Excel which involves writing a macro. The macros are written in Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), which I think is different than regular Visual Basic and is for sure different from VBScript, which I'm most familiar with. I have been doing a lot of stuff at work with VBScript because one of our programs uses it to do things. I don't really like it but I don't have a choice. My main problem with it is just its structure, which seems stupid to my brain.

This is oversimplifying it, but to me there are two types of language: the Microsoft type and the C/Java type. I learned Java first, so it makes a lot of sense to me. It has a lot of punctuation in it. Microsoft types don't have any punctuation so it just seems stupid to me. Here's something in VBScript.

If x > 0 then

do something

end if

Here's something in PHP, which is the language I know best.

if (x > 0) {

do something;

}

Anyway VBA is a piece of crap. First of all, I cannot figure out the editor that's built into Excel. There are helpful hints which may or may not show up depending on where you click and what you have selected and what you had for lunch. You can record a macro, which is similar to Photoshop actions, where you hit record and then it records the actions you do and then you can modify them or use them to do tasks quickly. But the recording a macro thing seemed like it was making it way too difficult. So I set out to try to figure out how to write what I need to do, because it's not that hard.

First of all, I should be able to find a complete manual online. No such thing for VBA. I managed to get a downloadable version which doesn't really work correctly.

Secondly, wtf??? The manual has nothing in it! It has the same stuff that's in the "helpful hints", but how am I supposed to know where anything is? Most manuals are set up logically. For instance, they have functions grouped by what they're for - numbers, text, whatever. Then you click on that and you can see a list of functions, which usually have a short description by them, and at least you can probably tell what they do by their names. The VBA one has it alphabetically. What the hell? I have no idea what my thing is called that I need. Further, I do not know what they are called because I'm dealing with cells and crap, and I don't have any idea how to refer to them. Another thing that I have a major problem with: most manuals have a basic syntax thing as well as basic things you need to know, like how to say something is not equal to something! I CANNOT find how to say not equal. And it apparently isn't !=, which is how you do it in VBScript. That gave me an error.

I feel really lost right now. And annoyed, because of the fact that they don't include how to say not equal in their stupid language. Why isn't everything immediately accessible to me whenever I want it?

I realize it's probably because no Microsoft thing is open source, but you'd think that the manual would at least be available and halfway decent. Seriously, I don't think I can use it at all.

Pop

I was just thinking about how funny pop is, especially in restaurants. In basically every restaurant ever, you can have cola, diet cola, some sort of citrus, some sort of clear lemon-lime, and maybe a Dr. Pepper and/or root beer type.

 

Emily, in Korea did you ever see carbonated milk? That sounds like quite possibly the most disgusting beverage on earth.

 

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

Internet problems

My radio show starts at 12:30, and the taping is scheduled to start at 12:28. Well, last night at 12:26 the internet went out. I reset the modem - nothing. Then I restarted my computer and it totally freaked out. It looked like it was in safe mode, but it wasn't. Long story short - I didn't get to tape the radio show. But, the internet was back working this morning (guessing it was some kind of Comcast outage). So I'll have 2 to listen to tomorrow. It's funny because my mom called last night upset about her computer. It's hard enough to tell people what to do over the phone, but it's even harder when they don't know what they're talking about. My mom thinks a virus caused her computer to shut off an not turn on again. I was trying to tell her that viruses don't do that and it sounds like a power surge or a problem with electricity, but she doesn't believe me. I tried to find a polite way to ask if everything was plugged in, but whatever. Anyway my computer did an empathy freak out. It's still kind of messed up now, but not too bad. It just needs rest and some cleanup.

Decision

I don't like the My Morning Jacket album. It's like a not good combination of The Darkness and Ryan Adams, but in 1981. There is one song that is ok, but that's it.

The kitten is funny today.

Jan. 20

I feel like there's a lot that I want to write, but I don't feel like writing it. Well, I'll give it a go and we'll see where I end up.

Through Candy's Twitter page I happened upon Paula Poundstone's Twitter page. Here's something she wrote during the inauguration today that made me laugh a lot. "This poet is making me nervous. I wish they'd gotten a limerick guy. 'There was a black guy from Hawaii... To the oil man good-bye-ee'"

Aretha Franklin's hat was ridiculous today.

I'm watching First 48 and they're saying that Black is a common code name in the black community. I wonder what my nickname would be if I had one. Pasty comes to mind if we're going by appearances. This also reminds me of something I want to talk about when I get done with Eat Pray Love. I hope I don't forget. Here's another guy named Zo (short for Lorenzo). Original - I like it. But it's more like a nickname instead of a code name.

My teacher is on facebook and I became friends with her today. What do I do? I feel sort of obligated to say something to her, but I don't know what to say. What a weird situation. Plus, it's not really like I can just jot something down, because it takes me a minute to write in Icelandic. I guess maybe I'll say it's good to see you and nice picture, or something.

Today I decided on a topic for my memoirs that I always write in my head. Relief out of pop culture. I was thinking at some point today how I am just obsessed with pop culture and I really base my whole life around it. It was never more apparent than in my group today.

Today it was just me and the two much older people (who both said today they are in their 60s). I am slightly warming up to the guy, but the woman is so drastically different. For one thing, she is not depressed at all. She suffers from anxiety, so she says, but really I am not sure it's anything. The guy is depressed, which is why I feel like I have more in common with him. The woman reminds me of my grandma, especially because some of her views on religion and politics seeped out today. She is very church-going and very Republican. I couldn't believe that she actually started talking about politics during two of our groups. She went the whole route of "There are terrorist cells in America. We're actually renting houses to them!" She expected us to go "Yeah, I know!" I won't get into that now.

Side note. My mom sent me an email earlier today and I didn't reply because I was running around. She just sent one again just now that was all frantic. She thought something was wrong. She is so weird sometimes. She could have just called. I think her mind runs away from her sometimes.

Anyway the groups were really awkward today. I am so ready to be done, I think. But one positive is the ridiculous nurse is done. I had forgotten she was just filling in for someone.

Oh! At therapy on Sat. I was talking about this issue about how I'm so much younger than anyone. Sheena said "Why do you think that is?" I said kind of jokingly "Because I'm so incredibly mature!" She said seriously "Yes." And then she said she knew as a fact that that was the reason I wasn't put into the younger groups, because there are some. That made me feel pretty good. I mean, considering I was able to still keep my job as well as actually work there was a big thing in and of itself. I still have yet to meet anyone who has a job or isn't on leave. I didn't really see it as a choice, though.

Anyway I have been feeling really good in the past couple of weeks. I think it's a good time for me to stop the program and get back into full time work. Full time work will be far more of a challenge.

I think that's all I wanted to say. Goodbye.