2008: The Year In Elizabeth

2008 was a year in which I existed. I was there the entire time (not even exaggerating). Here are some noteworthy things I observed while being alive the entirety of the year of Our Lord and Savior 2008. P.S. Were you aware? Jesus was not born in the year 0 because whoever figured out the calendar calculated wrong. He was born 4 years earlier or later.

That’s Entertainment!

I discovered some new music, including Mark Ronson, Cass McCombs, Jens Lekman, Band of Horses, Iron and Wine, Mates of State, Jeremy Messersmith, MGMT, David Cook, and last but not least, MIA. I further enjoyed already known artists such as The Streets and Sigur Rós.

I attended some shows. These included Sigur Rós in September, Coldplay in November, Jimmy Eat World at a time I don’t remember, and probably Death Cab at some point, but I’m not sure. Hey Laura, you should look at the Ben article currently on AVC. Ben doesn’t look like himself!!

2008 was a year that included a lot of radio listening. I listened to much more of The Current and 700% more of MPR talk radio than I ever had before. However, that would technically be zero because I listened to zero before and 0 x infinity = 0. So I listened to quite a bit more of MPR and NPR, which are similar. This all started right after Laura and Michael’s wedding because I was so bored driving in the car for 27,000 hours that I turned it on and noticed that I liked it. I also reacquainted myself with a BBC show I listened to when I worked at the library a few years ago. I can’t listen to it at work so I record it every night and then listen at work.

I can’t really remember any movies I particularly liked or didn’t like, except I guess Slumdog Millionaire, because I just saw it. I guess I liked the X-Files movie. That’s funny that I hardly remember going to that.

For television, I’ve just really enjoyed Gossip Girl and Chelsea Lately. I watch Chelsea Lately religiously, as well as The Soup. I’m also enjoying Lost and Battlestar Galactica. I watch a lot of television, but I only really look forward to those I mentioned.

Also, I watched every submarine movie I could find.

In May I bought a piano. It connects to my computer. Not much else I can say about that. I love it.

Everybody’s Working For The Weekend

Work was very difficult for me all year until about October. At the beginning of the year we still had DeAndre. A lot of problems arose just from his presence. Then he got laid off in February, along with a lot of other people. Things were a tiny bit better for a while. Then my boss started to gradually overtake my life. It got to the point where I couldn’t even stand being around her for one minute. I became extremely bitter. I started to look for a job in July or so and had a few interviews, but then my bosses found out I was looking and asked if I wanted to move to a different area. I said yes, though I was hesitant at first. I just wanted to completely leave. In retrospect, moving was the best thing I could have done. My job is about 15 million times better than it was. I actually enjoy it. It’s much more challenging, and my boss now actually values me, and I feel like I’m doing something that’s more “necessary”, for lack of a better word. It’s absolutely amazing how much better my job is for the simple fact that I don’t have to ever talk to my old boss anymore. I am also doing more coding now (and looking at code). (Reading it, not just looking).

Something that happened around the same time I was having the most trouble was a bizarre argument with Nancy and Joel, which ended up with me sorting it out with Joel not long afterwards and Nancy not talking to me since that time. I’m still not quite sure why she got that upset, but I’ll talk more about that later.

I think I’d categorize my Icelandic class as work. I was pretty well into it for the first 7 months or so and then my teacher disappeared. I attempted to contact her for a while, but I never heard anything and my course wasn’t getting updated. So, I just received my diploma for level 2 the other day. I’m not sure if I’ll sign back up or not. I was a little perturbed by the whole disappearance. Especially because I paid for the class and she wasn’t upholding her end of the “bargain”.

Going To The Chapel/Lakeshore

August 1 was the wedding of Laura and Michael. It was really pretty and fun, and it was great to get away from the cities. The wedding preparations were a little bit stressful for me (though nothing like it was for them, I’m sure). It all turned out great, though. That’s going to be a really fun memory for me. My favorite part of the wedding was the reception, except for the speech I gave. I was really honored to be the “best woman” and I hope I lived up to the task.

After that I visited Emily’s cabin along with Sarah and Brighton. That was a good vacation that I really needed. My favorite part of that vacation was the pizza place that we went to where a Playboy Bunny worked. ;) I also liked that I got tan and I wore sunblock.

Suicide is Painless

The reason I was taking a while to write this is because of  my whole ordeal of the last two months. I wasn’t really sure I wanted to write about it in my blog. However, nobody reads this, and I figure it might be good to write it all out once.

I have been seeing a therapist for probably almost a year now, and so she (Sheena) knows me pretty well. In October I sort of took a downturn depression-wise. Sarah and I went to Nate’s Halloween party and I drank too much there, and as a result of that I had a total breakdown while I was there. Looking back I think that was the “beginning of the end”. Progressively over the next week I got really bad and the next time I went to see Sheena (Nov. 1) I couldn’t even talk and she made me go to the ER.

That experience was weird. I asked my dad to come up here and take me, so he did. I had to sit in a room by myself for a long time. I felt bad for making my dad come up here. I don’t know. They asked me a lot of questions and mostly they were about suicidal thoughts, which I was sort of having, but didn’t feel like I was going to act on them. I guess they deemed me fine but they said I should go to a treatment program. They also gave me another medication.

I didn’t really want to go to treatment because it meant I had to miss a ton of work. But after talking it over with 279 people I decided to go. My boss has been really nice about it.

The treatment is good. Pretty much what it is is a group of people that go to visit various therapists together 3 times a week for 3 hours each time. There is a psychotherapist, an occupational therapist, and a nurse. We see the psychotherapist most often and she’s the one I like best. The nurse is really annoying. My group is good for the most part, but they’ve been a little frustrating lately. Mainly it’s because they just decide not to show up whenever they feel like it. It’s ok sometimes, but in certain situations like what I will describe below, it is really difficult.

Two or three weeks ago I found myself in a situation that turned me actually suicidal. I don’t want to discuss what it was but I’ll discuss the circumstances around what happened afterwards. I have never been in that kind of situation before, where I really felt like I was going to do something to myself. It was weird. I didn’t feel like I had control of myself. In my mind I had a plan and was going to get up and do it, but I was really sleepy for some reason so I just sat there for a few minutes instead. Then there was a thought in my head that said I had to call someone. I didn’t actually understand why or have any comprehension about anything except that I was “supposed to” call a suicide hotline. So I got a number up on my computer and I sat there looking at it for like 2 hours. Then I thought I should just wait and I fell asleep. The next day I worked from home and luckily it was Monday so I had treatment. My dad came up again and drove me there. I went in and sobbed the whole 3 hours and after that I went into shock (at least that’s what I call it – therapist said it was denial). I was like, “this is way too much to comprehend”, so I completely quit thinking about it and then I appeared very normal the next day. So what I was talking about earlier, with the people not showing up, a girl that I’m pretty close to wasn’t there on my bad day and the next day she was and I appeared fine. She asked me something about the situation, because it had existed before, and I got internally upset because I didn’t want to go all over it again. I haven’t talked about it since then and I don’t really intend to anytime soon. So it’s stuff like that – it screws up the continuity. There’s another girl that missed like 3 weeks and I couldn’t even talk to her because I was so pissed. She lost the right to give me advice when she didn’t ever show up. (She’s gone for good now). An instance that’s similar to mine happened today with another person. Actually it was VERY similar. And some people were gone, and I know it’s going to be weird tomorrow because he’s going to have to explain it all over (unless he goes into shock or denial).

Anyway, I can easily say that that’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. Last week Sheena said that usually when that happens, and when people look over the edge and “decide to stay” things start getting better. I’ve been noticing a lot of improvement since I forced myself into shock. At the very least, I feel fine.

As far as what we focus on in treatment, I have a lot of guilt and a lot of anger towards myself. Part of my treatment was learning how to focus my anger/guilt/blame towards the people who really deserve it. An example of that is the Nancy thing. I normally feel like the worst person on the planet and blame myself 100% because I did something that caused her to quit talking to me. However, Sheena points out all the time that I acted the exact same way with Joel and our friendship is fine. And I always try to remember as often as possible that I do have friends and family that really care about me.

My most oft-repeated quote to myself is from Sarah: “I couldn’t care less what you say. I’m your friend already.” And I know I’ve talked to some people about what we could do to make each other not want to continue the relationship, and for most people it’s “you couldn’t do anything”. I think that if a friendship isn’t like that, it’s not really worth the effort on my part. And if they don’t respect me enough to give me another chance to fix whatever I did wrong, then it’s not worth it either, which is hard for me to accept. I was telling my mom recently that I don’t know why a person would want to hold some phantom grudge, or to not want to have a friend. It takes a lot of effort to maintain a non-friendship. I don’t understand that kind of thing at all. So in therapy there has been a lot of talking about “I can only do what I can do” and I can’t make other people do things, etc. I have a lot of love to give, and I don’t get it when people don’t want it from me.

I’ve worked a little bit with various of the therapists on my childhood and what in it could be causing problems with me now. This took a LONG time to do. But finally we decided that:

1)      I never learned by example how to deal with emotions. Now, that manifests in me as not understanding what to do when I have intense emotions.
2)      My family didn’t respond to intense emotions. Now that makes me feel like I am not being heard/validated.
3)      I have had kind of a lot of experiences of people “leaving” me (Nancy for example), including my mom to a certain extent. That causes me to have a GIANT complex about people leaving me. Bad all around and it’s the most difficult for me.
4)      One of the more recent ones we talked about was the amount of drama in my family. I hate it, but I am subconsciously drawn to it because it’s what I know. It’s exciting at first, but at some point it comes back around to me and that’s when I get in trouble.

Another huge part for me has been learning about the grieving process, which goes with #3 above. Did You Know? It’s not just for death. It’s for when you lose anything – a job, success, relationship, house, etc. That knowledge has helped me so much that I ALMOST look forward to losing something so I can go through it again. That’s a terrible thing to say, but it makes sense from the standpoint of  really liking to fix things in a process that’s super-defined. This is so researched and studied that it appears kind of scientific in my mind, and I can go through it like a computer. Believe me, I’d rather have the thing in question than lose it – just to get that straight.

Family Gal

Ahh…well, my dad lost his job, my mom is insane, my stepmother never stops asking me about grandkids. I don’t feel like writing much more than that. Suzanne is fine! Meredith is also ok but she had a rough time there for a while.

Flashing Lights

I didn’t know what to put as a title for this part, so I put a song by Kanye West that I like. This is just a potpourri category.

The book club that Laura and I were in disintegrated this year. Rest In Peace, book club with a hard-to-read girl, really quiet girl, and other Liz! It was fun while it lasted.

Here is a funny blog entry I found: Apparently Coldplay signed a contract with Comedy Central. (I'm making this up by the way). This is what the contract said. "We, Comedy Central, agree to play your ad at least twice every commercial break."

Obama song: please see http://elizabethinstpaul.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-song.html

This ended up to be The Soup’s Clip Of The Year!!! http://elizabethinstpaul.blogspot.com/2008/11/review-this-record-officer.html

Party Like It’s 2009

I hate that I wrote that, but I couldn’t not write it.

I don’t really have that many plans for this year. I guess I just want to get through the next couple of months. I still need to kind of recover from my breakdown or whatever it was. They are helping me with that part at the hospital. I would also like to stop drinking leaden Mountain Dew if possible. Not going to go too wild, though.

Headlights

I really need new headlights but I am unsure how to buy them and which ones to buy. I drove home from Rochester today and I started a little later than I wanted so it was a partially dark drive.  Also, it was icy.

My car was covered in at least a quarter inch of ice. I used about half my bottle of Rain-X De-Icer, which comes in a neon orange bottle. It didn't help at all, so I turned on the car and let it defrost for about 45 minutes. Then the windshield and a third of the driver's side window was clear. Then I drove a little bit, stopped, and chopped the rest of the ice off using brute force.

As I was driving I encountered 2 or 3 plows/salt spreaders. This is fine until a truck passes me on newly salted road. It happened twice and it is SO freaky. An inordinate amount of dirt and salt completely covered my car and I couldn't see. I remember now that this was a real problem on my trip home from Madison last year. Some semis are really inconsiderate with that. Sometimes there isn't much they can do, but they should try not to change lanes right in front of a car.

Of course, I ran out of wiper fluid. In my car I had a small amount of Rain-X De-Icer and some Windex. The Windex was frozen. So I had to pull over and toss the rest of the De-Icer on the windshield and hope that it was enough to get me to a gas station. The next gas station I found was in this weird-ass tiny town that I always get a weird feeling from when I go by it. I also don't like that area because it seems especially dark. The gas station was very strange to get to and at one point I was sure I was just driving into the ditch. Anyway I reached it and sat in the car for a while. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go in, mostly because I only had a credit card and I only needed wiper fluid. However, I was also weirded out and didn't want to get weird looks or something. It was not a comfortable situation. I was sure it was going to be a creepy guy and didn't even know if they would have wiper fluid. But finally I went in and they had some, and it was a girl who was really nice, so it was fine.

Then I made 7 wrong turns and finally got back on the highway and was really glad I had stopped because I immediately got salted again. By then it was dark so I would have had to stop again. My headlights are really bad.

I did find a silver lining though: with all the salt, the roads are white, so I could see them a lot better. :)

So that was my adventure. My poor car was beat up today. I think that I further injured the waterproof seals on the doors (they were already kind of bad). I am working on 2008: The Year In Elizabeth, and it will be ready in the next few days.

Katy Perry

Here's a link to a blog post that I think is good. Katy Perry is just terrible. I have never heard of anyone except Sarah who mildly likes anything about her. And I read and listen to quite a bit of pop culture stuff.

 

http://www.spin.com/blog/why-i-hate-katy-perry

Blah blah blah, Happy New Year, etc.

I had an ok night and day. Last night Emily came up here and we went to L&M's. It was fun, but I got really tired. Then I didn't sleep enough. Emily and I went to lunch today and then to "Doubt". It was ok. I almost fell asleep a few times. Then Emily left and I got really pissed off for some reason at humanity. I tried distracting myself and it worked ok I guess. I worked on an oil pastel thing I'm doing and watched First 48 and Sophie's Choice. Sophie's Choice was a lot less sad than I expected, but I think it's because I've heard about it for forever so I cushioned myself.

I'm still a little pissed off. Actually, truth be told, I'm a lot pissed off.

I called my mom because it's her birthday today. She's still in Las Vegas. She's having a terrible time and she cried on the phone.

Well, I guess I just have to get through tomorrow. I'm going to Rochester on Saturday. I have to go to work tomorrow but probably nobody will be there, which is fine with me. I had a great time on Wednesday.

Word Clouds II

I have a serious headache. Anyway here are some of the word thingys. You can click on them to make them bigger. This is Beowulf.













Some of the bigger words (really exciting ones, too, even after I took out really boring ones like "the"):
ofer - over
æfter - after
æt - at
ær - before
syððan - then, as in "then this happened"
hæfde - had
wolde - would
nu - now
fela - many
bearn - child (like in Scottish!)
Oh and Geata is "of the Geats". Like they would say "King of the Geats" or "Beowulf of the Geats" or whatever. Then it would be "Cyning Geata" or "Beowulf Geata".

Words I like in it are ymb (around), geong (young), dryhten (lord - I've always liked that one), maþelode (spoke), rice (kingdom), ænig (any), hwile (while). I only had to look up 2 words! Lots of them are exactly like Icelandic. By the way, I got my second level disploma yesterday, even though I didn't really finish because the teacher dropped off the face of the planet. They sent a letter and a sticker thing "to remember us by". :D


Here is Cask of Amontillado. Notice how I made it foreboding and wine-colored.














P.S. IT IS 63 IN MY CUBICLE!!! >:-(

Word Clouds

I was just surfing around and saw this:

 

http://www.wordle.net/

 

You just put in a bunch of words and it creates a thing. It's cool, I'll put one of mine up later. I tried my blog but it came out weird with some weird words and URLs. I love the internet. I have become pretty good at surfing around, too. Well, I'm off to TG for lunch because I want to get a few things there.

Question

Tom Cruise: Why is he still famous?

2008: The Year In Ornaments

Since I didn't do an advent like Emily, I'll just do a faux countdown of ornaments. I realized these pictures are giant. Whoops. I'm going to take the lazy route and HTML-reduce the size. It doesn't look right in Chrome, but the other two look ok on my computer so I hope it looks fine on a Mac. Also, these are randomly assigned to months, so don't make anything out of that part. Unless you really want to.

January: Here is my tree topper.

February: In honor of my birthday, here is my mom's favorite ornament, from when I was in kindergarten or so.

March: A clip-on rose.

April: A snowman-enframed picture of Daniel.

May: Fuzzy penguin.

June: Leaf.

July: Snowflake.

August: Pink thing.

September: Cardinal Snow globe. I tried to get a picture of it with the snow flying, but it settled way too quickly because it's so small.

October: This is a pinecone. It's really pretty, but the picture is way too up close and I am too lazy to take another one. This might actually be my favorite.

November: An "inside painted" dove.

December: Dress.

Bonus decorations: Daniel's stocking with a mouse toy.

Some pinecone confetti that I had to buy for some reason.

I forgot the Maggie one, which I will do in a later entry.

This Onion bite expresses my feelings exactly

America fell in love with celebrity impersonator Frank Caliendo or whatever his name is and the show they saw advertised about 150,000 fucking times, but never actually saw, if it ever even came out. Did it?

Crime in the family!

I was talking to my mom tonight and she goes "Did I tell you about Joel's theft?" I laughed and laughed because Joel is a golden child in my family. He is my second cousin - aka my grandma's brother's grandson. He was in Up With People for a while, which I thought was hilarious. Anyway he was caught stealing from Best Buy, where he worked.

http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=529036&catid=2

My favorite line: Authorities say a Bloomington man scored no points when he allegedly took other people's points.

I think that it's a fairly tame crime...but hey. I wouldn't do it. I can't wait to tell my friend Joel (not the same person) about it tomorrow because he worked at Best Buy and talks about it all the time.

It was hilarious hearing about it from my mom. She said that my grandma is "obsessed" with it and talks about it all the time.

Another funny thing about my grandma is that she is also obsessed with red beads. My mom and sisters were telling me about it on Saturday and I thought I was going to die laughing.

Lamb Bhuna

Last night I had my radio show on before I went to sleep and was listening to it in and out when I heard their new parody, which is on "Hallelujah" by Jeff Buckley/Leonard Cohen. I thought it was excellent. Here is a video I was able to download from an online spot. I was really, really excited because the official BBC video isn't available for US. Dave, my favorite guy on the show, is the one singing and Mark Ronson (my new music obsession and Samantha Ronson's brother) is standing in the middle and plays the tambourine/jingle bell stick at the end.

Anyway I have no idea what lamb bhuna is. They eat a ton of Indian food all the time and they say so many words for it. Chicken korma and salmon tikka are two others they mention a lot. I am realizing slowly that living in Minnesota equals not very much food diversity.

New blog, new robot

As you can see, I got a new design. This is because I signed up for Twitter and in order to put it on my blog I had to get a new design. I like this one. HOLY SHIT Twitter is addictive. I've only had it for like 20 minutes. It's the crack of wireless apps. You guys should all get it. It's free and for mobile updates it's just sending a regular text. I love it already. I don't know what made me think of it - I must have seen it on some website or something and I thought I'd check it out.

However, I feel like now I'm completely connected to some unseen internet force, like those people in that one Stargate episode. I feel a little scared. I am really addicted to Facebook, for instance. Isn't the internet weird? The social networking part of the internet is something that I think nobody really predicted. I think it's great though.

Later...it's actually 2 here (here? Where the hell do I think everyone else is? Mongolia?)  and I need to get up kind of early.

Highway 52: The Worst Road In America™

The only big accident last night was on 52. That's because it's a horrible road!!! I really wish I could get to Rochester some other way (in a decent amount of time). Here is what's wrong with it.

 

1. No reflective paint for the lines on the road (This is my biggest problem with it).

2. No reflectors on the side.

3. No street lights. There is one spot where I swear I drive into a black hole. One time I had to stop because I couldn't see 2 inches in front of me because it was too dark. Even with my headlights. Part of the problem was oncoming traffic was really bright.

4. No guard rails except on the most precarious of bridges.

5. It's surrounded by miles of flat land. You can't see where the road ends and the land starts. It's better when there is snow there, but not when there is also snow on the road.

6. Nobody ever plows or salts it in the rural areas.

 

End.

Ornament Advent

I'm going to steal Emily's ornament advent idea, but I don't have enough to fill the rest of the days (I only have 12). So it'll have to wait.

Well, on Sunday I went downtown to the other Macy's. They had even less than they did in Roseville. I was really pissed off. I really like Christmas decorations. Then I went to TG and got even more pissed off there. I was in a pretty bad mood by the time I left. Then I drove home and I was really hungry. Plus, the roads were snowy. So not the greatest day, but whatever.

Today the roads were bad again. Someone suggested I go to Pier 1 for Christmas stuff so I did. I found the one thing I had my heart set on (which I can't describe because it is a present for a person that reads this). It's funny though. I'll talk about it after I give it to the person.

I had a mild nervous breakdown about something at work today. I sent something that I said was broken, and then I left at like 12:15.  Then as I was driving away I thought that I tested it wrong and it maybe wasn't broken. So I called Joel twice and left messages about it. Then I just said to forget it and I'd check it later because I realized it was dumb to worry about. I did check it later, and I hadn't done anything wrong. So it was all for naught. I worry a lot about that stuff though, for no reason really.

Sometimes I wonder why I have a blog. My life is so boring. Anyway I really want to finish up cleaning and decorating tonight. I wonder if I can do it. I don't have that much stuff left. Maybe I can make it a goal to post pictures of my holiday apartment. It looks a lot different than when some of you have seen it last, mainly because of a) the bookshelf, b) I rearranged my bedroom, and c) the decorations. It doesn't really take much. Since my apartment is like 2 feet by 3 feet, a bookshelf seems like a life-altering piece of furniture.

Later.

Help!

I'm listening to my radio show and can't stop laughing. You know that Toni Braxton song, "Unbreak my heart"? Someone on The X Factor (like American Idol in England) sang that and they played it on the show. They were like "This is so low!" Then one of the guys put on a super low voice filter and sang along. It was like Barry White x 3. It is soooooo funny. I should record it and put it on my blog later. I can't stop laughing.

Another "rage" incident

I went to Macy's today (rhymes with "tacky") and people are idiots there. I almost smacked someone. I was also extremely disappointed in their Christmas selection. I don't know if it's located somewhere else or what, but they had almost nothing. I think it has to be somewhere else. I was too tired so I left. I should try the one downtown Minneapolis if I ever feel like going there. My sister said it's closing. :(. Maybe I'll try tomorrow.

 

Anyway I got a wool coat there for about 50% off. I love it. It made up for the morons who walked 0.0000001 mph. I also walked around Mall Of America a little bit and got some presents. I had to get my ring cleaned. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as Macy's.

P.S. The cashier at Macy's called me "kiddo".

3rd post! I'm on a roll!

I just read an entire book in about 2 hours. It was a book by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross about grief. In the book there were some parts about God and the afterlife, since basically the book was about people dying. I realized while reading those parts that I don't believe in God at all. It kind of surprised me. It worries me a little bit as well. Believing in God seems really wrong to me. I guess that's the only way I can explain it. I don't see how it's possible at all.

I haven't thought about this for a long time because it just isn't important enough for me to think about. But it's come up a lot recently. All the other people I interact with at the hospital and in my family are really religious and I feel awkward about it. Honestly, I think it's stupid. I don't see why I should have to talk about religion when I don't have any kind of belief except that I don't have a belief. They don't really care, I don't think, but I feel weird about it.

It kind of worries me just because of the massive amounts of people that do believe in God. I don't really know how I can be "right". But reading the stuff in the book was just ridiculous to me. To me it seems like people are expecting their refrigerator to cure cancer. It's that ridiculous. I don't get it. Or that they're counting on the ladybug on my ceiling to give me a million dollars. I don't know. I just think it's dumb and I don't get it, and it worries me.

At the same time, I don't really want to get it. I don't want to be one of those God-y people. They annoy me.

Otherwise, I think the book was good. A bunch of people at the hospital recommended books lately so I got about 4 and this was one. I think it was good. Another one I have is also a little religious so I'm kind of iffy on that. But, at least the recommender did say that as a disclaimer and understood my misgivings.

A dumb thing

I saw this on facebook, it's just itunes on shuffle and the first line from the song that comes up and then people have to guess the song. Whatever. I just like crap like this for my own amusement, because I doubt even I could get more than like 1 of these and they're my own songs.

1. Waiting, waiting by the phone, tonight waiting for an answer

2. where were you in 92, where were you in 92, where were you in 92, where were you in 92

3. Everything is lost, oh oh

4. Blond girl I missed you

5. Poor little rose, beaten by the rain 

6. The first flush of youth was upon you when our eyes first met

7. I am my mother's only one, it's enough

8. Welcome to suburbia, welcome to the rest of your life

9. And I will flail under these lights

10.I cannot remember my own sanity

11. I lost myself on a cool damp night

12. Last week i had the strangest dream where everything was exactly how it seemed

13. On the field I remember you were incredible

14. On, it's on I declare my room a scene

15. Gray light, new day leaks through the window

16. Bakvið skýjabol vaknar sól ur dvala

17. Oh brother I can't, I can't get through

18. I came back on the trail of a man

19. You were a child crawling on your knees toward it

20. If I could open my arms and span the length of the isle of Manhattan

Here are the answers

1. Ladyhawke - My Delirium (Emily, you should try this song because it is by a Kiwi named Pip. And it's a great song that I'm obsessed with)

2. MIA - XR2

3. Sufjan Stevens - Perpetual Self

4. Jens Lekman - Rocky Dennis' Farewell Song

5. Ryan Adams - I Taught Myself How To Grow Old

6. The Darkness (Laura's Favorite Band) - Love Is Only A Feeling

7. Bon Iver - Flume

8. Jeremy Messersmith - Welcome to Suburbia

9. Saves The Day - Nightingale

10. The Vines - Amnesia

11. Jeff Buckley - Lilac Wine

12. Postal Service - Sleeping In

13. The Killers - Andy, You're a Star

14. Jimmy Eat World - Here it Goes

15. Bright Eyes - Old Soul Song (For The New World Order)

16. Sigur Rós - Hafssól

17. Coldplay - Talk

18. Long Winters - Bride and Bridle

19. MGMT - Kids

20. Death Cab For Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan (aka Pinhole Camera)

Christmas comes this time each year

Every time I hear that Beach Boys song I laugh. It's like saying "My birthday is always on the same day."

Lately I've been experiencing a lot of 'roid rage. Kidding....I actually mean road rage. I get so angry at people. Today I got really angry at 4 people just on the way home from the grocery store. One was a biker who went through a red light. WHY do people do that?? I screamed at the top of my lungs at that guy. One was a guy who was going 45 in the parking lot. One was a guy who cut me off. One was a woman who drifted across 4 lanes of traffic with no signal, and no attempt to go slightly faster to get over. I just can't deal with idiot drivers. I'm sure I do some things that P people off, but I just can't deal. I get SO mad. I need to go to road anger management or something.

I saw Ryan Adams today at the hospital. :D Really though it was some doctor. Wouldn't that be awesome, though? He is going to be in town next week I think. Maybe he was checking it out.

Well I don't really have anything else to say. Later.

College Years

I was just rearranging my room, which is a big task for me, and I located those notes that Emily, Sarah, and I wrote to each other to be opened in a year (on 2/9/02). Here is what my best qualities are/were, according to S.

a "wiz" at computers

amazing at memorizing lyrics to songs

a good e-mailer

good @ filling out surveys

good @ playing the ukulele

good at making your voice sound like annoying instruments

always on time

soft hands

a very witty writer

soft hair

the perfect height

has a good sense of smell.

My favorite part of Emily's letter (despite the fact that she wrote Happy Halloween and it was February)  is when she mentioned the "You Better!" that was on their computer as the warning noise. I'm laughing a lot remembering that. "You better!...click on this." God, that's funny. And when the computer started up, it said "Name this continent! ASIA."

Do you guys remember when I volunteered at the Daily Cardinal for a semester? How interesting to think about. I hardly remember it, except that it was when I first started dating Kyle and when I first got into Bright Eyes. There was one day when we must have just started dating because I was really happy about that, and I was walking to Vilas and listening to this one song and it was snowing. Every time I hear that song I think of that moment. That was kind of a cool job, if not really mundane. I guess it's not the worst job ever, though. I think what I did was upload that day's stories and photos to the website. I had to do something in Quark, but I think it was just getting the text from the pages. I didn't actually edit anything.

I also saved two of the lecture hall bingo(e)s from the Daily Cardinal. I always thought they were hilarious and they still are, to me. Here are some of them. Feel free to add some if you think of any. :D

Student falling asleep

TA doesn't show up

Obvious member of a frat

Obvious member of a sorority

Football player attends class

Cell phone rings

Prof. can't work mic

Clock moves backward

Girl leaves way too early

Prof can't work power point

Bored looking hipster

Student writing on desk

Guy attending for first time

Girls won't stop talking

Prof gets chalk on him/herself

Girl picks hair off sweater

Entire issue of Onion read

Guy listening to headphones

Prof runs out of handout

4 UW shirts in a row

Weekend plans overheard

I want to try to think of some myself.

Girl who can't breathe through her nose

Awkwardly long, horrible silence (after a teacher asks a question)

Students pack up backpacks 10 minutes early

All the aisle seats are taken first

Someone kicks your chair repeatedly

Girl flips her hair onto your desk

Someone smells really bad

You have to cough really badly during a test

You have to pass a paper to someone sitting 100 feet away

Someone has a really bad muffin top

Guy wearing shorts in January

You have to walk from Memorial Library to Engineering and you only have 10 minutes! Go!!!

Idiots!

I was driving up Cleveland today and experience the worst run of traffic in a while. Actually it wasn't just that road. Several times today people just walked across the road wherever they were, not even looking. Ok, that's fine in a crosswalk. But these weren't. I think that pedestrians generally forget what it's like to be a driver. It happens to me occasionally too, I'll admit.

 

I submit that people forget what it's like being a driver the second they turn off their car. This follows from the 2 near-doorings that I was a part of on Cleveland. Not one but two people drove to the side and just got out of the car (door open wide). Without looking. One was right after a busy and chaotic intersection so that was really close. It's like, I think most people just notice themselves, when they don't realize that it might be hard to see them. I'm aware when I'm trying to cross a street, but the cars aren't necessarily, especially if it's dark.

 

Another issue. Changing lanes in an intersection. Don't do it. Weaving in and out of lanes to avoid people turning left. Turning in front of me really quickly, causing me to brake suddenly, when there is nobody behind me. Not using turn signals. Tailgating. All these things cause ire.

 

Turn signal omission is something that drives me up the wall. I HATE it. Rage from incidents of turn signal non-usage stay with me for a while afterwards. It's one thing in a parking lot or something, but in regular driving it's just idiotic. It causes me to sit there like a moron waiting when I don't need to, or it just makes the other person look like a lazy jerk. Ahhh, nonchalantly wandering over to this lane now. Now I'm just gonna go over here. Ugh.

 

The KARE 11 newscasters were just having a really dumb conversation. It sounded like they were trying to stall. Anyway...I think I'm getting a cold. :( My sinuses have the pre-sickness ache.

 

No way. I just saw a guy talking about the economy and his nametag said "Mr. Crapo". No way!! Is it just me or does Henry Paulson look and act like a wrestler?

Oh yeah

My dad told us today that he got laid off. Luckily (or not) he got 30 days notice. It really sucks for a bunch of reasons. Anyway my family is in crisis mode. Within the span of a week or two around Halloween, almost everyone in my immediate family had a giant catastrophe. I won't go into it now, but man. I keep thinking "When it rains, it pours". I actually kind of wonder how we're all basically functioning normally. That's all for now. The kitten just made a funny face at me.

Review this record, warden

Every time I see this clip, I laugh hysterically. Check out around 35 seconds in. You won't be sorry.

Coldplay

I get to see Coldplay tomorrow! (With Laura). It's been a while I think. I don't remember what the last show was. It can't have been the one in Milwaukee? 3 years ago or something? No way. Now I'm curious. I just looked at my website and it was - 03/19/06. It's been a while...........since I could hold my head up high. NO! Get out of my head, Staind. And while you're at it, spell your name correctly.

We have good seats, so I will take my camera and attempt to get good pictures.

Today I met a girl named Jamie who used to work at my work. That was weird. She worked in a different area, though. She said she wants to be a web developer so she's going to start taking classes. I was so excited for her! She has Meniere's (sp?) so she can't hear very well, but she is really nice. And really pretty too.

Bye! Good (Bonus points if you know to what that is a reference)

Obama song

Hi. I spent some time tonight putting these clips together so everyone could hear this. I listen to this BBC show called The Chris Moyles Show and the other day he came up with this Barack Obama song. It will really get into your head. I have been singing it for a week.

I guess there really isn't much behind the clips. These are the people on the show: Chris, Dave, Dominic, Carrie, Rachel, and Aled. Mostly Chris and Dave talk and the rest pipe in. Dave is my favorite.

The funniest clip is the first one from 11-10 because they started coming up with other names to put with the song. I was listening to that Mon. morning and laughing my ass off. A funny part, to me, is the fact that I never know the celebrities they talk about. Every day I learn about a new person.

Anyway I highly recommend these clips, and if you only feel like listening to one or two, do the first one from 11.6 and the first one from 11/10.

11/6 - 1 (4:25)

11/6 - 2 (1:18)

11/6 - 3 (2:18)

11/6 - 4 (3:20)

11/7 - 1 (5:11)

11/10 - 1 (7:06)

11/10 - 2 (3:10)

11/11 - 1 (1:45)

11/11 - 2 (3:37)

All of them in a zip file

And that is my campaign to get everyone to know the song. :)

P.S. Emily, in one of those clips is Zane Lowe, who is a Kiwi!

Another bout of uncontrollable laughter

http://emilynotinkorea.blogspot.com/2008/11/vote-difference-between-franken-and.html

 

Here's a post on Emily's blog that is funny. I was making some laugh-choking sounds a minute ago at work and of course it's silent in here right now. The things that get me are the 0 in 08, Franken's face, and those two guys that are small and in the middle (Who are those guys? Should I know?). Also I really love the name Claymation "Big Teeth" Horseface. Personally, I call him Glued-on Teeth "Construction Paper Blush" Annoying Accent, but either are fine. Good job, Emily. I shared it with a coworker, who enjoyed it.

 

 

Odd

Get this widget!

Fire alarm

The fire alarm in the hallway is going off. I wonder if it's a bad thing that I don't really heed the warning. I am hearing running footsteps upstairs. I peeked around and didn't see anything so I guess I'll just stay in here. I don't know. Augh! The emergency doors just shut. I'm going to look around again. Ah it just went off, and there are some sirens. That freaked Daniel out. And me...I was calmly watching MST3K.

The Franken thing is now a margin of 238 votes because they found some kind of typo. What kind of typo would result in Franken getting 300 votes? They specifically said they were all Franken votes. 

Christ those sirens are loud, and someone is constantly reopening the emergency doors. Are 28 fire trucks here or something? I guess it was fast enough.

I heard some funny stuff on the radio today that I want to share when I get a chance. Back to the movie. But seriously...it sounds like every emergency vehicle in the state is driving into the apartment complex right now.

Senate

In case some of you guys didn't hear, our Senate race (the Al Franken one) was insane. Right now I guess it's finished, but the final vote is a separation of about 500 votes (1,211,643 to 1,211,167). Isn't that ridiculous? I kind of have a difficult time believing that that actually happened. That really sucks for the person that lost (Al Franken). Especially since Norm Coleman has glue-on teeth and construction paper blush. Sorry, I don't like him. On NPR this morning they were talking about the independent party candidate and how he affected this race. He got about 15% of the vote. I sometimes wonder how those votes would go, because I don't think they'd necessarily go to the DFL person. But, I think that in this case they would have (I don't remember though, it might have been equal). I sort of thought about voting for Barkley, the independent candidate, but since I have been educated in the democratic process, and how it's two parties and will be for a long time, I decided that it would do more harm than good, especially in a Senate race which doesn't have the electoral thing (and especially because polls had them so close). It seems like this happens again and again and again in elections. "Hey, let's check out what a third party can do!" It would be fine if it didn't totally skew everything. I am not against the idea of a third party, but people need to put things in perspective and notice situations where it's just not going to happen, which is almost every time (I don't know what happened with Ventura). I realize I might sound like a complete idiot right now, especially to people with a political science degree such as Emily. However, this third party thing really bothers me. It's like, ok, you're trying to make a point and change the country or whatever. Can't you focus your efforts on something else, such as the gay marriage ban or feeding small children or something? The amount of money that's going into these campaigns could do a lot of good somewhere else. Whatever...I guess I'm anti-change when it comes to this.

 

Anyway, does it not just feel so much happier today? In 2000 and 2004 it was like the black death had descended on us all. I get that it's just the things I choose to read and watch, but still. I think in general people are pretty pleased. The fact that he's the first black president really makes people feel good. On AVC people from other countries were going "good job" all day and everything. :)

 

Did anyone watch the Stewart/Colbert thing? My favorite part was when they announced South Carolina and Colbert was on there with 0% of the votes. :)

Voting

I went into work this morning and the power was out, so I decided to leave to vote. I walked in and saw a KARE 11 camera there. I forgot about it until I finished my ballot and turned around whilst wiping my brow because it was hot in there. Directly behind me was the camera, filming. I almost ran into it. I was like, wonderful, now my ugly mug is going to be stock voting footage on KARE 11. I had to walk in front of it AGAIN to leave. Anyway, now I'm at home because the power is still out at work. I should have told someone to call me when it goes back on. Oh well.

Spider Pig

Do you guys remember the Spider Pig song from the Simpsons movie? Well I was just watching a MST3K episode where they sang the same thing, except it was Spider Skank. Same tune and everything. I was confused because MST3K has been off the air for over 10 years. So I thought that probably they were both referencing a third party. Does anyone know what it is? I can't find it online anywhere. I guess it's possible that the Simpsons could have been referencing the MST3K thing, but I doubt it. It would be difficult to reference that show, I think.

My mom just announced that some guy is moving in with her. He's from New York and they met online. I guess he's moving in on Wednesday. My sisters and I are in denial and semi-rage right now. I cannot believe she is doing this. Apparently he quit his job and is just dropping everything. First of all, my mom doesn't have a good track record with relationships since she got divorced. All of the guys she met are creepy. And she never seems to like them. She's always saying how creepy they are, except for this one guy who ended up stalking her. Secondly, this is dangerous on many levels - financial, physical, mental, etc. My primary fear is that my sister is going to have to live in the same house as this random guy now. Who knows what he'll do? I can't believe my mom is putting my sister in this position. My other sister and I told her not to go over there anymore, and maybe Mom would get the point then. I doubt it'll be that easy, but whatever. All of my mom's boyfriends live in really far away locales. I wonder if she does this on purpose so she can go there. She "dated" this one guy from Australia and went there. She "dated" this guy from Florida and basically adopted his foster kids or something. That was weird. She brought them to my uncle's wedding and they were in the family photos with my sisters and I. I had never met them before. Most people were P-ed off at that. P.S. Both of those guys and all the others were deemed "creepy" by my mom. The more I am thinking about this, the more worried I am. That isn't a sentence, but hopefully you know what I mean. My sister is upset. She stayed home from school today because of it. I don't blame her. Anyway that's the story for today - my mom has crossed a line.

Happy Halloween

I started off this day by waking up at 2:45 for work (after going to bed at 12). We had a big code release that I helped test. I stayed until 7 yesterday too, but that's nothing compared to the select few that had to stay here all night (such as poor Nate who was later discovered asleep in the conference room). So I woke up and my boss called me at some point and said "Log on and start testing". I did that and then I realized that something was running on my computer and I probably killed it. That was a great way to start out. (I did kill it).

I then tested until about 8:30 and then came in to work. Later, I experienced narcolepsy. I'm definitely not as young as I used to be.

Then my boss and the other woman on my team and I all sat around and talked for a while and it was hilarious. They are actually really funny. They're pretty quiet in usual life, like me, but we had a hilarious conversation about work. I enjoyed it. (Right now they're over there giggling about something - they sit next to each other and I'm a little offset). Then they both said "We're so happy you're on our team!" and asked how I liked it, to which I responded, "Soooooo much better". I really do. I've been here for officially a month and I love it. The best part is I am totally free from my old boss, and thus, I am free from office politics. :D It's so nice not to have that stress. And, I actually have work to do now. I have actually found myself unable to keep up with AV Club lately and so I have to read it at home, which doesn't usually happen. Joel is in a terrible mood this week though, which is too bad.

Well, I gotta go back to struggling to stay awake. Later. I can't believe tomorrow is November. Relatedly, Fall Back is this weekend and I was actually annoyed to hear about it. One thing I really don't need, in general, is more sleep. (Today is the exception of course).

Sudden Cardiac Awareness

Recently on the radio there have been a lot of ads for what is called "Sudden Cardiac Awareness Month". This confuses me. Are people all over the world suddenly becoming aware that they have a heart? And is this bad? I have thought a lot about this campaign and listened to the ads for it, and I have not yet been able to make sense of what they say in the ads. They say things like "Every year, x amount of people are stricken by SCA". To me, that stands for Sudden Cardiac Awareness, because a) They didn't say what it actually stood for, and b) they also call October SCA Month. So in my mind, x people are stricken by Sudden Cardiac Awareness, which goes back to the idea of "Holy shit, I have a heart!" Obviously that isn't it, but I didn't know what it actually was.

Finally I looked it up and it's Sudden Cardiac Arrest. So it's just really unclear and not a well thought out campaign.

These are my thoughts from today. Happy Sudden Cardiac Awareness Month!

Farm Insurance

I am listening to this BBC show that I like to listen to, and they were talking about this American football game that's going on. One of them got a hold of a calendar of some of the dancers of one of the teams, I think it was the Saints. They noticed that each month was sponsored by some American company, and so they were reading off the company names and laughing at them. So one of them was State Farm Insurance. And the people were like "Farm insurance?? There's such a thing as farm insurance?" Hahahaha...I laughed a lot at that.

 

I like that show. Recently they've been doing a "Miley Cyrus" impression which is just one of the guys with a filter on his voice to make it sound high. She doesn't even have an American accent. It's funny, they are really, really good at different UK accents but they absolutely cannot do an American accent.

Gas Station Trip

I just went to the gas station and got hit on. I thought I would mention it on my blog because it hardly ever happens to me. The guy was also staring at my chest. Great place and method to pick up girls, the gas station and by staring at their chests! Classy! Also, the guy was like 10 years younger than me. Again, really classy.

I also performed my good deed of the day while there. A woman left her kid in the car and went inside, and I kept an eye on the kid while some dubious looking people wandered over and were loitering near her car. I gave them The Eye. I've been told my The Eye is really scary, so I thought that probably foiled any plan they had of stealing the car with the kid in it. Call me Crime Stopper Elizabeth.

Autism

I was just reading on Friday Buzzkills that Jenny McCarthy thinks she cured her son's autism with a gluten-free diet. Am I stupid, or is that impossible? How can diet affect autism at all? Sorry, I forgot that she included lots of prayer.

I watched the movie Jesus Camp yesterday and it kind of disturbed me. Most of the reason was that the kids were 6 years old and violently pro-life. Come on...they don't even know what abortion is. If you're going to be pro-life as an adult, fine, but this was just weird. Emily, you should watch that if you haven't. It would be fun to talk about with you.

I saw Melissa this evening (I'm in Rochester) and it was fun. Now I am blogging about it. Do you guys ever wonder how people lived without the internet (15 years ago)? I don't think I could do it. Seriously. Sometimes I think that I am made of the internet. Kind of like those people in that one Stargate episode.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the other day there was an AVC Q&A about best concerts ever and I wrote my story about the Coldplay show where they dedicated a song to me. Mostly everyone said "Great story!" Even Josh Modell who is an AVC writer in Chicago. I got a comment from Josh Modell! :)

P.P.S. To everyone who lives in Madison: go to Decider: Madison. It's a site by AVC and The Onion and it has Madison events, restaurants, etc. I said that I would tell everyone about it and I have been trying to think of the best way to do that and I guess it's here. There is a Twin Cities one coming out early next year. They already have a Chicago one where I wrote a little bit on a Sigur Ros article. The Madison one looks good so far. It was launched last week. I think you guys will love it!

Unwanted Laughter

I'm sitting at work right now and it's silent in the office. I decided to read something on AV Club and I read something funny and can't stop laughing. I'm trying really hard not to burst into audible laughter. I thought maybe writing on here would help. Oh god...here it is again. Stop! Stop!!! I feel like I'm back in college trying not to laugh during a lecture. Though really I could just go to into the bathroom or something. Ok, I think it's gone for good now. Nope, I had to go into the bathroom. Man that was funny.

 

Speaking of where I sit now, it has the weirdest acoustics. I kind of hate it. Sometimes, like now, it's deadly silent. The rest of the times it's not loud, but there are lots of individual voices. It's like, either it's silent or I can hear 20 people's conversations. It's not combined together enough to create just one noise that I can tune out. Plus, I can hear everything everyone in the area says even if they aren't near me. So I got some noise cancelling headphones and so far they are working well. A few times I heard my old boss say something and she's way the hell over on another side. So I emailed her with a response once and I could hear her laugh. You guys know how weird I am about noises. So add this one to the bunch I guess. All right, I gotta finish up and leave. Later.

Order #7

I finally ordered this Icelandic game that I want (from Iceland). I found a site to order it on a few months ago but I can't get it on there because they don't ship overseas, so I found a different one today. I went to pay for it, first of all, and it said that the only payment type accepted was cash on delivery. Huh? How will they enforce that halfway around the world? And how will I actually do that? Go to FedEx and pay the FedEx guy? Mail the person a check later on? Go to a currency place and convert $43.00 to Icelandic Krona and mail it? Do they even have Icelandic Krona anywhere? Then, I noticed on my order confirmation that was emailed to me: Order number 7. Huh? I can't be only the 7th order. Even if this was a brand new site, you'd think they would have done more than 6 test orders, or started their numbering system with 1000 instead of 1, or something. Order number 7. I feel great about this order and I am sure it will go through without any problems. [rolls eyes]

 

I'm kind of thinking that the overseas delivery option was a mistake, but I'm hoping they'll do it anyway. I guess it's possible it wasn't a mistake. For one thing, they got the address formatted correctly for the US even though I had to enter it in 27 different boxes. Usually they don't quite get it right. When my teacher mailed me my diploma I'm surprised it even got to me. It was like a Yoda address. (Which is funny since I sent it to her in an email formatted correctly). Secondly, a lot of the site was in English, which makes me feel better.

 

Iceland is terrible with online stuff, I've noticed, when it comes to someone who doesn't live there using the services. First you have the address thing and how it's impossible to format yours correctly. I would like to mention that at my job when we have an international address, we allow you to format it how you want. Then you have their ID numbers. They have this ID number system there, apparently, and they want you to enter the ID number everywhere. Obviously I don't have one of those. At one place I've looked at (this dictionary site), they wouldn't let me do anything without one. I typed in "none" and that worked. At that same site, I had to pay for something and the only way you could pay was with a bank transfer. WTF? I had NO idea how to do that. I looked around for a while at Wells Fargo but saw nothing. I thought maybe PayPal would work, but that didn't either. So I can't get a subscription there, which sucks. So now we got COD and bank transfers as the primary means of payment to Icelandic merchants. The school that I am enrolled in actually allows credit cards, surprisingly. But they have the worst problem with addresses.

Unbelievable

I just went to the gas station and managed to injure myself on my car door. The car door has a dangerous point on it. I jammed my arm into it kind of hard and it hurt really bad. I'll have a big bruise. Then, I looked at it and it scraped skin off too! I was wearing a sweater!! Lame. So that was my exciting lunch trip.

Crazy evening

I went for a walk around the ol' haunt and saw a rainbow and an insane sunset. There were only 2 other people walking and they both stopped me and wanted to talk about the rainbow and the sunset. I had my phone with me so I took some crappy phone pictures.

Boo

I got an email this morning that Ryan Adams, one of my most beloved music people of all time, is coming here. (I marked the email with a red label that says "PAY ATTENTION") However, it said Target Center. I was a little wary of that so I looked it up and he's opening for Oasis, one of my most disliked music people of all time. Why, God? Why, Ryan?

 

Is this tour going to be called the "We Think We Are Deities" tour? They also should have Creed opening for them. That would make it truly complete. Kidding. We all know that Ryan Adams is my boyfriend and I love him. He is kind of full of himself though.

 

Anyway, I probably won't be going to see "We Think We Are Deities" since gods usually charge a large amount for tickets to see them. Too bad.

Radio

I was just thinking about the radio and remembered the time like 6 years ago that an email of mine was read on BBC Radio. Coldplay was on a program of some sort and I wrote an email and it got read to them. Funny, huh? I wonder if that's online to listen to anywhere. I don't have a recollection of what program it was at all, but I think it was in the summer in 2002 right around when their album came out.

Gmail

One of my favorite things about Gmail is how, when you have ordered a package, and you get a tracking number in an email, Gmail puts a link up on the side with your tracking number so all you have to do is click. Love it.

Well, I'm getting myself drunk tonight. I think I might be voluntarily turning into an alcoholic. Not really, because I can count the number of times I've had alcohol this year on my hands, but whatever.

Hehe

Last night talking to Casey, we were discussing Sigur Rós and he said that the concert inspired him to write more music. He said he has most of a couple songs done but needs a pianist. Hehe (THAT'S ME, GET IT?)

Economy stuff

I listen to MPR all the time, and recently it's been 95% talk about the economy. I don't understand any of it, but for some reason I still listen. I think I like to hear voices. Just now I was listening to it and they were talking about the economy, as usual. They were discussing how the Dow dropped an unusual amount today. A guy was on, I don't even know who it was. But the news person said "Did you know the Dow dropped x amount today?" And he said "Oh my god." and was silent for about 5 or 10 seconds. He hadn't known, and the dread in his voice made me scared about it for the first time. That was a weird moment. I just even had to google what I was writing about because I wasn't sure I worded it right. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that that was the point at which I personally became a little worried. Previously, even though I "listen to" and "watch" news about it a lot, I didn't understand anything about it, but I guess audible dread did it for me.

 

In other news, I think my sinuses have reshaped themselves. Is that possible?

Blog entry

Hi, I don't know what to write. I did want to discuss an "argument" I had with someone about long hair, but I'm too lazy now. I went to see Sigur Rós last night with Laura, Michael, and Danielle (whose birthday it was). Also there were Brian from my work and Casey from my life. It was great as expected and I put some pictures on facebook. That's all for now.

Writing

I don't know what to write, but felt an obligation to write something. Not much is going on here, I guess. Working a lot. It's been pretty busy there (like I mentioned last time). I hereby retroactively take back what I said about almost not minding the stuff I'm doing filling in for the guy who had the baby. I have returned to hating it.

On my new team, we were already low on people and then one person got appendicitis and is out for a week! I hope she is ok.

Also, this other woman has been needing help writing a script. I spent probably 4 hours on Monday and Tuesday helping with that. That was kind of fun though.

It's funny though. Now suddenly everyone needs me to work on their stuff all the time. I kinda wish this could have happened earlier, but better late than never. Nowadays I don't have to read avclub for 4 hours a day anymore!

Well, off to eat and work on a project. 

WTF

I just got a call from the other place I applied at at U of M. They left a message to call back and I'm assuming it's for an interview. I wonder why it is that I suddenly get all this occupational interest.

 

Anyway, the interview went ok, not great. It was the version I don't like, which is "let's ask all these technical questions" instead of a getting to know you type thing. There were 4 people surrounding me asking me what version of PHP I usually use. I felt so dumb half the time. For the PHP question, I had a number in my mind, but I didn't really know if it was right. My website has this hosting package in which everything is installed for me and I don't have to do the maintenance on it. I think most small non-company websites are like that. I doubt there are many independent websites that have a person who actually does the server maintenance. I'd only know the version if I specifically went and looked for some odd reason, which I haven't done recently. So anyway a lot of the server stuff I didn't know about and I felt stupid. I also am not a great articulator when speaking, so that was fun as well. I can't get over some of the questions. They were so, so specific. Now that I'm thinking about it it really didn't go wonderfully because they seem to be really interested in a person who doesn't exist. Oh well. In the future, I'll look ahead of time at the PHP version that is installed on my server. At least I could answer most of the questions. I gave good answers to the database questions and most of the coding questions. I gave great answers to the design questions. They asked me why CSS was better than plain HTML. I'm an expert on that! They also asked me about testing for different browsers and for accessibility.

 

Anyway...I am covering for this guy who had a baby on Monday. I have been really busy all week with it and actually, I hate to admit it but I am almost enjoying it. I normally hate this job and avoid it as much as possible, but because I am being forced to do it for 2 weeks I am learning a TON. And I think it'll help me down the line. I seriously can't believe the amount I'm learning. It's been a long time since I tried to do something new. It's really nice though (as long as people aren't yelling at me, which they do sometimes because it is taking me a while to figure out certain things and they expect it fixed immediately) and like I said, it will really help me in the future to be one of the few people that understands this crap.

 

I'm kind of excited about this weekend because I have a bunch of projects I thought of to work on. Everybody wish L&M luck on their trip!!! Bon voyage!

Jeremy Messersmith

I learned about Jeremy Messersmith about 2 days ago. I love him. He's local and he just had an album out today. I went to get it at Electric Fetus and he's going to be there next Tuesday. I might go. I think he's great and his whole album is about the twin cities and what it's like to live here. It makes me very happy.

Look at his website.

www.jeremymessersmith.com

Very cute. The album art is adorable as well.

As if anyone cares

The leak was the air conditioner unit that is in my wall. I guess a pan overflowed. They tore up a part of the carpet and put a fan there. Then when it is dry they will clean the carpet.

I applied for 2 or 3 jobs at U of M. I think maybe just 2. I heard back this week from them both and actually I have an interview on 9/11 at The Supercomputing Institute! We'll see. If they offer a job, I think I'll only take it if they offer me an insanely great salary. 6 figures at least! Kidding. The day a webmaster makes 6 figures is the day that they webmast amazon.com or something.

Floor!

They didn't call back so I just called. I guess they power washed the patio area because they are going to paint, so she said maybe that's what it was. So they are going to look. I really hope that's the case. Anyway I'm going to lunch now.

More on the door

I am so nervous that they're going to want to replace the carpet. I would probably cry. If that happened, I would almost consider moving to a new place because I'd have to pack everything anyway. And the place I live in is really expensive. I saw this morning that the water went into the wood on the door frame. Wonderful. It is making me really uneasy. Good thing I didn't sign a lease for next year yet. I'm also kind of uneasy that they didn't call me back yet. If it gets to noon and they haven't called, I'm calling again.

Leak

So there has been a weird moldy smell in my apartment for a couple of days. I thought it was the trash at first but then I took out the trash and the scent is still there. Just now I went over to my patio door to check something. There is a chair there so I don't normally stand there. Suddenly my socks were wet. Awesome...they just replaced the patio doors a few weeks ago and mine must have leaked during the rainstorms. I feel bad I didn't notice it before, but I never go over there. What a hassle. So I called the office and was like "Uh...what should I do?" I guess now I'll have to clear the area so they can come in and clean it or something. This is so annoying. All I can say is they better not come in tomorrow at 7 am or something.

Yeah!!!!!

I just found out I got a very good raise with my new job! I'm so excited!!! I did not expect that they would be able to do that, considering the budget crisis we are in. Hopefully I won't cause the downfall of the business. :D

Idiot

I just found out that one of my forms has been broken for I don't even know how long. On my website. I wrote a new form a long time ago and originally I thought I had a backup system for it, but I am not sure now (well obviously it's not there now, if it ever was). This is a bummer.. Also at one point my password mysteriously expired and made my site not work (I have to put the password in one of the scripts). I noticed not long after that, but I wonder if that's what the problem is here. Probably there is some other script I forgot to update. I try to keep that all in one so things like this don't happen, but there is one directory I had to password protect and I think that this email thing uses a file in there. It's really interesting how quickly I forget this stuff. I coded all of it but I have no recollection about how it works. Every time I have to update something it's like I'm relearning my screwed up and backward coding techniques.

Anyway, I was looking at it because a job I applied for asked for some web development examples. I was going to give the URL to my content management system and that's when I realized it doesn't work suddenly. Now I don't know whether I should a) give the URL and say it's kind of not working, b) Fake a record and just hope it kind of works and not say anything, c) not give the URL. I think I'll probably choose b. Especially if the problem really is just adding the password somewhere - in that case I can fix that quick. Crod! That wasn't it. WTF? I guess I'll look at it tomorrow. What a bummer.

Chrome

Have you guys tried out the Google Chrome browser? I'm using it right now. Love it. My favorite thing so far is that you can search from the address bar. And you can make it be something else than a google search. I wonder if it would wiki something. I know that on Firefox you can set up prefixes, like "wiki something" would search wikipedia for that. Can't wait to try it out. This browser seems fast too, and I like how the tabs are....but, I'm not a tab user because I like seeing the titles all in the task bar. I'm a super window user, for sure. At work sometimes I have 20 open. And I have to open them in a specific order, and, I hate when they collapse. Anyway, try this out or at least read about it - seems cool so far.

Cinematic experience

It's about 12:30 on Sunday night and here I am! I'm in Rochester in my dad's extremely hot house. I swear they keep it at 80 at night. Anyway I just watched this movie called Werckmeister Harmonies. I learned about it from AV Club. It was totally up my alley; in fact, I loved it so much I felt I had to write a blog entry about it. I feel like my life just changed somehow. It was almost past good. It's funny, too. I stopped a bunch of times during the movie and I was googling during it to make sure it was in Hungarian because the dubbing and subtitles were weird and wasn't even THAT invested in it. Still though I feel strangely moved by it. I don't really suggest it for anyone else because it's Hungarian and 2.5 hours long. It's remarkably like Tarkovsky, another director I like, of whom I know most people I know have voiced dislike. But following this, I am planning on watching another movie by this director (Bela Tarr) which is 8 hours long. I anticipate really enjoying it. Everything I've heard about this 8-hour movie (called Satantango) is really good, even regarding the length. I've heard it's kind of like the Rocky Horror of Hungary. They have days where they just go watch that movie. So I'm getting it next on Netflix and I'm pretty excited about it. Another note: the music was gorgeous. I think it was composed specifically for this movie, which isn't weird, but I am rarely struck by a movie's score quite so much. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Later.