Ugh

I was sucked into looking at facebook just now. And you know what? It's become really depressing. This is why: EVERYONE IS MARRIED.

This girl who was in orchestra with me is married to a guy I used to have a crush on. Uhhhh. (That's the noise of all breath being removed from my body).

Why can't I be married?

I'm dying!

For some reason I just took a trek to Har-Mar (which is the ridiculous name of a mall nearby). I happened to stop by Barnes & Noble (the best B&N I've been to, in my opinion) and walked out with $96 worth of crap. Why do I do this? And get what I bought: a cookbook, a non-fiction history of London, and two fictional histories of England. WTF? Oh well. I finally got a membership card thing this time, which makes me feel slightly better about going there a lot.

I then went to get some groceries and when I got home I decided to Rain-x my car. Well, lo, the Rain-x "wipes" I had were completely dry. Nice one, Rain-x manufacturer. I got it like 6 months ago...it's not like they've been in there for 12 years. Anyway, the reason I'm dying is that for some reason it was real labor to lug up the groceries.

I talked to Mr. "I'm Dreamy" Tom on the phone for a while last night and it was a good time. I enjoyed it, Tommy. I hope you don't care that I am discussing it. If you do, tell me. Weirdly, I walked away from that conversation (or, rather, slept away? It was late) realizing some new things about my personality that may not be that great. For instance, I say "nice" a lot. Ok, that's not really it. I don't know what it was. And I don't know why I only thought it while talking to him. I did realize some things that were good, though, as well. It was a very telling conversation for me (but only when thinking about it today).

You know what it is, I think it's that he is a totally different person than anyone I've ever known, so interacting with him is a new experience. He is really a beautiful person. And I guess seeing that prompts me to look at myself and notice different things I would normally not have thought about, either because I'm comparing myself to him, or because new areas of my personality get used when talking to him. Maybe both.

It's so weird getting to know people. I mean, as I get older I realize more and more that in certain wise people are extremely different from one another. However, in some wise people are extremely similar. And, since the people I'm closest with are very, very like me, probably because we've spent so much time together, it's so interesting to meet people like my coworker Dan, who's pretty much my complete opposite. Emily, this may sadden you, but I think you and I are most alike out of anyone I know...apart from certain food tastes, of course. Do you feel like dying now?

Anyway, I was just thinking, I can be really...fake sometimes. I don't know. I don't like the part of myself that is really superficial. Hopefully that part is not very large. But the part I do like is that I've become really independent in the last year. Things have been clicking for me in the past few weeks. I've been feeling really content and like things are just fine. For the most part, anyway.

Gah, I really need to eat.

My grandma wrote me an email today that said "I just talked to your sister and she sounded very down. Will you pick her up and do something with her today?" I really, really wanted to reply and say, "she only sounded like that because she really didn't want to talk to you." Because I'm 99% sure that was the case. Ugh, my family...

I have a story about our "Christmas vacation" that we're apparently going to be taking. But I do not have the time to write about it now.

Yeah, I know

So I'm procrastinating as much as possible on this whole Chicago thing because I sort of feel like if I don't write about it it won't really be over. So that's the deal with that.

Chicago Part III: Millennium Park; Part IV: Day 1 of the Convention

I forgot to mention that at the show there was a waitress who had an extremely strong Chicago accent. It was interesting. She said to someone behind us: "Do you want to pay cyee-ash or do you want to start a tyee-ab?"

Part III: Millennium Park

So, we drove back to the hotel and the next morning got up semi-early so we could go downtown. I decided I would go since convention stuff didn't start until 3. So, we took the train downtown and went to Millennium Park to see the giant sculpture of a jelly bean.



Here is a shot of some seagulls that perched on it:



Here is a Gehry-designed band shell in the park:



Here is a fountain that had some kind of projection thing on it. The face changed, and moved and stuff. Occasionally some water would come out of the mouth area.



Here is a sign on the train tracks that I thought was funny:



Then we went into the Art Institute (or is it Institute of Art? Or neither?) I went to the museum store and Laura went in the museum; that is where we parted ways. I really had to go to the bathroom so I darted right through that place and back to the train station.

I didn't get to spend that much time downtown because the trip took sooo long. They were doing construction on the train tracks, so it took 2+ hours to go one way. It sucked.

Part IV: Day 1 of the Convention

I got back to the hotel and went straight to the registration room and was immediately confused because there were 8 lines going different places and 3 rooms of stuff. So I just got my lanyard and wristband thing and stood in the first line, which incidentally was a line for pictures that you can get autographed. They have a rule that you can only get specific pictures autographed, and you buy them there, and they're $6 each. Nice, huh? Well, I got 2, one of Michael and one of Jason Momoa, who he was going to have an autograph session with. Here's the ugly wristband.



I was going to skip some of the afternoon stuff, but I decided just to go into the show and I'm glad I did. Basically what happens at these things is that they have a room where you can buy crap and a different room where there is a constant show pretty much all day. You can go in and out of the show if you want. Different actors and writers and people go on stage and tell stories and answer questions. They also show videos and have trivia challenges and auctions. Here are some things that went on the first day.

Dan Payne



I was trying to find some decent picture of him to show, but it was hard. He's actually very attractive, but his pictures are very awkward. Oh well.

Dan has played a bunch of different fighting-type people in both Stargate shows. Here are some pictures.

This is him as a Jaffa



And this is him as a super soldier (those things are CREEPY)



He was hysterical. He told good stories and was funny. He said "pasta" the Canadian way. Here are my crappy pictures (like that giant banner of Daniel Jackson in the background?):





I just noticed that the picture they have on the screen is the same one I just posted above. Weird.

The next day as I was getting off the train I saw him. That was funny. He looks very young but is in fact in his 40s, I believe.

Alex Zahara



He has played something insane like 9 different characters on SG-1. Here are some of them.



Here's him with Michael (look at Michael's hair, hahaha - old school!!!)



AZ is on the left here:



Here is my best pic:

.

Again, one of their pics is one I just posted...

Well, he was pretty funny too. He told some good stories about the show. I don't know what else to write.

Later both of them did this "Cabaret" thing, which was a made up show during which they used people from the audience. Here is a picture from that.



This is Cliff Simon, who hosted that show. He plays Ba'al in SG-1.



Cliff Simon's show was Saturday, but I did not go. Here is a picture of him from SG-1:



The Cabaret thing was hysterical. My favorite part I will describe now. The show was like a one-off SG-1. They gave all the characters different names. Daniel Jackson was Dr. Too Damn Attractive, etc. The one that made me laugh hysterically was Lord Anubis, who they called "Lord Toolbox, or 'Tool' for short." HAHAHA!!! So during the little sketch they kept referring to Lord Tool. HA!!!

The volunteers they called up were semi-annoying. Generally, the people that were there were annoying to me. They were VERY stereotypically nerdy. I keep telling people that there are not many times I feel like the most normal person in the room, but I did there.

We had assigned seating, and I was on the end. I was seated next to this Irish guy, who was about my age, maybe a little younger. His accent was extremely strong and there were a few times he was trying to tell me something during the show. I couldn't understand him at all, so I'd have to just nod and laugh. That was really awkward. He was part of the message board crowd, who by the way, I was able to discern people from. Was that an ok sentence? It was mostly because one of the "events" was "hosted" by that website. I should just use "quotes" around any random "word" - I think it lends an air of "mystery." The message board people were rowdy, to say the least. One of them got called on stage for that Cabaret thing and when they introduced themselves, she shouted, "I'm Erin and everyone knows me!" God, shut your pie hole. I ended up being glad I didn't associate with them.

The person next to him was a mentally challenged person called Liz. She really enjoyed talking to everyone and there were a couple of times she started talking to me, if Irish wasn't there. It was interesting. She would say things like, "Do you know how Michael is like William Shatner? They were both in sci-fi shows!" It was actually pretty sweet. She really loved the show.

So, sometime in there I bought my action figure that I've been wanting.



Horrible picture, as usual. He has glasses, a walkie talkie, a hat, a zat gun, a magnifying glass, and a document. It took me a long time to figure out that that tan thing was a document, but I loved it when I finally did. :) There is also a portion of the Stargate. Apparently if you get all of the figures, you can build a whole gate.

Anyway, that's that day. Stay tuned for Saturday: Virgin Megastore, Navy Pier, Jason Momoa, and..................Michael Shanks!

Chicago Part II: 826 Chicago; B. Ben Gibbard and John Roderick

So, Ben Gibbard played last and he did less than 10 songs. He did "Brand New Colony," "I Will Follow You Into The Dark," "Title and Registration," "Soul Meets Body," and some others I don't remember. Here is a picture of him, in case you don't remember.



Now, take a look at Tom's picture (you can find it on myspace or facebook). Does it not look very similar? I told you, Tom! You are so dreamy.

Anyway, here is a picture I took of Benny, who had extremely long hair and has gotten really thin from touring (almost weirdly thin).



As I suspected, it's kind of blurry. Oh, well. I still haven't looked at my convention pictures. I'm really nervous about them. I took quite a few, but it's so hard because I wasn't right next to them and they moved around a lot.

Laura and I were semi-disappointed in his set. He didn't seem that enthusiastic, and it could be because it was so short. And, of course, he didn't play very many songs at all. Well, it's ok, because we've seen him other times that were great. Laura has probably seen him like 6 times. I have seen him maybe 4 or 5.

So, on to J.R. who was one of the highlights of the weekend, for me. This guy is part of the band The Long Winters, who both Laura and I had heard on The Current in the preceding week. They have a new single out called "Fire Island, AK." I didn't really think much about the song, partially because I was really annoyed at The Current at the time and partially because it honestly doesn't sound that incredibly new. It reminded me of pretty much every other band. But, what did it for me was A) Seeing him live and B) learning that the band is on Barsuk (which makes all the difference for people like me and Laura :) ).

Here is a picture of John playing. I didn't take this picture (it's way too good).



Laura says that his mouth is a perfect triangle when he sings. I said, "like a Dorito!" So, here is what he REALLY looks like:



So, on to the performance. To sum it up, it was probably the best performance I have ever witnessed. I would like to qualify that statement, though, by saying that it was the best guitar/singing performance I have ever seen. I think that sounds right. He only did 6 or 7 songs, but every single one of them made me cry, and I had never heard any of them. He is a very talented guitarist and a very emotional singer, and is so emotional when he's playing.

So, here is a little info on him. He's originally from Alaska but the band is from Seattle, like Death Cab. He's really good. I don't even know what else to say, really. Here is some info on the music.

(HEY - TMBG is on Barsuk! HAHA)

The Ultimatum EP (2005)

The Commander Thinks Aloud - This is my favorite song. However, currently I can't listen to it, because it's about a spaceship, and it reminds me of Stargate, and makes me sad. How many people write songs about spaceships? And how many of those are so incredible they make you cry? Oh man. It's unearthly. This is a lot different than his live version, but I like them equally, I think.
Ultimatum - This is my 2nd favorite. This version is probably the best of the recorded ones. It has strings in the background.
Everything Is Talking
Delicate Hands
Bride And Bridle (live)
Ultimatum (live) - This one is, as it says, live, and it's just John. The version that we heard in Chicago was way different and better, though.

Putting The Days To Bed (2006)

Pushover - My 1.5th favorite song. I'm going to put a video of it on this blog entry.
Fire Island, AK - The single they have out now.
Teaspoon
Hindsight
Sky Is Open
Honest - We both enjoyed this song because it's about falling in love with a singer, and is just a very interesting concept for a song. I wonder how he came up with it.
Clouds
Rich Wife
Ultimatum - A VERY engineered version of the song. Laura made a good point by saying "It just doesn't sound joyful."
(It's A) Departure
Seven

Laura: if I ever saw a shirt that was meant for you, it's this one.




Another reason he was great is that he was incredibly entertaining and funny when not singing. For instance, he thought he heard someone hiss, and said, "Wow, I knew you guys were tough, but I didn't think you were Victorians!" I thought that was hysterical. He was just joking and joking. All in all it was an extremely enjoyable set and I vowed to become a loyal Long Winters fan and John Roderick fan.

Going back to addressing Tom, I wanted to compare you to him as well because as I was listening to certain songs I thought it sounded a lot like you, especially voice-wise. You both have very strong voices (as far as I can tell). And your harmony thing, he has a little of it too. I think the song "Hindsight" was the one I thought really sounded like you. I could be wrong on the song and I don't have it nearby to listen to. But I did consistently think of you when listening to him. And, of course, who knows...I only have one song of yours, after all!

Finally, here is a youtube thing I found that is of him playing at the 826 NYC show, which was the day before ours. P.S. He had just arrived to our show 30 seconds before going on stage...that was pretty good...



And VERY finally, The Long Winters are playing here in Mpls on Oct. 7. I am going. If anyone wants to go, tell me soon so I can get tickets. I hope Laura doesn't feel bad, because she said she can't go because of a wedding. So I will try not to mention it too much.

Chicago Pt. I: The Worst Storm in History; Pt. II: 826 Chicago; A. The first few performers, but not Benny and John

Part I: The Worst Storm In History

Good evening; here begins my long saga, which will hopefully be well illustrated.

On Thursday morning Laura and I left at around 9:30. Little did I/we know that it would be the most difficult stretch of driving that I have ever had to do. After about 2 hours or so, we suddenly drove into a patch of rain. The rain got harder and harder until many cars were stopped on the side of the road and the cars that were going were going about 15 mph. It took a long time to get to the next exit (which coincidentally was the same one where my car broke down last time I was driving by). We called various people and found that the storm was covering pretty much the entire state of Wisconsin. So we just decided to try to get to Madison and then eat and hope some of it has passed.

I honestly thought that one of these things would happen:

1) We would get swept up in a tornado
2) The car would be destroyed by hail
3) I would have a heart attack from anxiety (I was shaking extremely badly)
4) I'd rear end someone
5) Someone would rear end me
6) I'd drive off the road
7) Somethihng else I didn't think of

Here is what it looked like:
















Anyway, at some point near the border of Illinois (which I could not stop pronouncing "Ill-i-nwah") the rain stopped and it was normal. Man, that was stressful.

The roads in Ill-i-nwah are insane. They are insane because:

1) We had to pay incredible tolls going in: $1.00, $1.60, $0.80, and $0.60 I believe. The $1.60 one was killer.
2) They were doing road work pretty much the entire way into the city.
3) They are so confusing once you get into the city. Here is a map of the area we were in. See all the ramps and crap intersecting with weird highways? Argh. I still have no idea how I managed to exit that area. The hotel was in that top left gray triangle. But as you may notice, there are no ramps there, so we sometimes had to use that spiderweb to the SE. Actually, what am I complaining about? That's what the entire Twin Cities area looks like...














So, it took about 8 hours to get to the hotel what with the storm. After some confusion about how to get into the place, we checked in, and then parked, after some more confusion about a parking permit I was supposed to have, brought our stuff up, had some confusion about what the best way to get to the concert was, had more confusion about how to get OUT of the parking lot, and then attempted to find this restaurant which we could not find. So we returned to the hotel area and just went to a Chili's nearby.

Then we drove downtown (boy, that was awesome!!!) and parked for $20 in this incredibly bizarre parking ramp (or "parking structure," for those of you not from these parts). This ramp freaked the hell out of me because you know how in some ramps you have to go down a spirally road to exit? Well, for this one, there was a spirally road that you had to go UP. And it was the same road you had to go down. It was really freaky. But hey. It was downtown and near the place where the show was. Whatever.

Part II: 826 Chicago
A. The first few performers, but not Ben and John, because I'm way too exhausted

The show was a benefit for this literacy organization called 826 Chicago. There are various locations around the US and they are doing fundraisers for all or most of them. The show included (time to start using Photobucket...the upload thing isn't working. Surprise!):

Dave Eggers



I believe he is one of the creators of the organization. He is the author of a couple of books including A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and You Shall Know Our Velocity. His part in the show was talking about the organization and also interviewing a guy from Sudan. WTF was that guy's name? It was Valentino something, and he has a book coming out, but it may be D.E.'s book as well. Let me see here...here it is. What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. They were both on stage and talked about that book and read from it a little. It was good.

Ira Glass



Mr. Glass here is a radio personality on NPR, and does the show This American Life. He was the host of the evening. It was cool because he told some stories that kids wrote and was doing the whole radio thing, with sound effects, etc, like he'd do if he was on the radio. He was pretty funny. He got drunk at some point and was acting wacky on stage.

ZZ Packer



Ms. Packer is a short story writer. The book I was able to find is called Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. She read from one of her stories, which Laura had read before, I believe in one of the Best American Non-required Reading anthologies.

Scotland Yard Gospel Choir



These guys weren't all there because they were called at the last minute. Here is their website: http://www.sygc.com/. What a strange website. There is nothing on amazon about them. They have an album that is either not released or has just been released, called "I Bet You Say That To All The Boys." They were ok, pretty humorous, had a good trumpet player and a cellist.

I AM GETTING EXTREMELY TIRED OF WRITING THIS.

This guy was at the show but not in it:



His name is Joey Slotnick. We racked our brains for days trying to figure out where the hell we'd seen him. I remembered him from Boston Public and was able to find him that way.

Fred Armisen pretended to be Ben Gibbard



He came onstage pretending to be Ben. Actually, he sort of looked more like Ben than Ben did. Actual Ben's hair has gotten really long and he has become super skinny. He changes so much all the time.

I literally can't write any more. I'll write about Benny and John (the most talented performer in all the world) later. And, of course, the convention...at this rate I won't finish this update until 2011.

Hi, I'm back.

Wow, what a weekend, and it is not even over yet. I have the day off tomorrow as well!!!!! I am going to Rochester tomorrow for part of the day.

I am really dead right now. My feet are killing me, but I will give you a couple of highlights to look forward to.

1. I made Michael Shanks laugh twice, thereby strengthening my own self-confidence in regard to my sense of humour. I also got to sit next to him.
2. I bought two England shirts and 4 CDs at the most wonderful store in the world, Virgin Megastore. The one in Chicago is far better even than the ones in London.
3. Laura and I discovered what seems to be one of the most unbelievable musical talents in all the world (at least I think so).
4. We saw BENNY from about 2 feet away, for like 2 seconds.
5. I rode the train for a total of what seemed like 39 hours, and walked for about 194,665 miles.

I'm nervous to look at my pictures at full size. I will be upset if a lot of them are blurry, which I think they will be. Well, I tried, I guess.

I probably won't write too much about the convention right away because I'm in a major post-convention-depression and it's painful to even think anything about it or look at any of my paraphernalia (sp?). So, we'll see.

I really need a foot bath. Goodbye for now.

Mixed Feelings

I am having mixed feelings about the upcoming trip. Here is why.

1. I was trying to get to know people on a message board lately so that I would somewhat recognize people at the convention. However, apparently message boards and me just don't get along at all, and long story short, I'm sort of bitter at the people from that mb now. So, I'm hoping there will be some people there that aren't like them. Mainly they were older and had families, and I don't want to be the only person that represents the single 20-25 bracket. I'm sure I won't be.

2. I just found out today through various sources that the show has been cancelled. Well, 10 years was good. But it's still sad. I think the general aura is going to be kind of sad.

3. I'm just nervous about a lot of things. I'm not as excited as I thought I'd be. The main problem, I think, was the message board people. I really should learn to stay away from them. You'd think I would have by now. But I just wanted to know a couple of people or at least discuss things beforehand, like what ticket was good to buy. But they are just stuck up, and very uninclusive. So it just made me feel bad. And now I feel like everyone there is going to be like that. It would be a lot more worth it if I could go with someone, but oh well.

I think that it will be made almost all worthwhile by meeting MS. Because all hotness aside, he is a "role model" of sorts for me. I mean, he's just a normal person and blah blah blah, but seriously, he's not. A million people have watched him on television for the past ten years. That is not normal. And the show and his character and whatever have been very comforting to me. So I think meeting him will be really comforting, and will make me happy. And I guess if I have to pay $370 for that, then so be it. The price of happiness is apparently $370 plus travel and lodging costs.

Hopefully I do get to talk to some other fans like myself. I can't believe I could go the whole weekend without talking to anyone. That would really be a feat. But if anyone could do it, I probably could.

Also, please God, let there be people my age. I'm so, so tired of being around people who are 10 years older than me who are married and have small children. This is what I ask, and I ask it earnestly.

Well, this is me signing off and I'll be back at ya on Monday night with some stories and pictures.

whatever

work really sucks. i can't believe how much work i have. well, i guess it's better to have work than not have work.

i don't know what to write about. goodbye.

oh, can anyone think of a movie where there is a female character who is fun-loving and laughing and generally happy? i can't. i can't think of a movie where a lady character smiles a lot. mostly i can think of ones where they're brooding or mad or something. god, there are so many movies that really suck.

test

Is this actually working yet?

Fashion

Well, here is the outfit. The dress is thus:



It goes to a little below the knees. As you can probably tell, it's kind of straight down, so it's like "Hey! I have hips! I am a childbearing woman!" Plus, it's stretchy fabric. But, that is one thing that really doesn't bother me, in fact I like it. The dress is called "Buenos Aires" which I think gives you an idea of what it's supposed to be like, like Evita. I also got leggings to wear under it. It's by INC, the Project Runway people!!! And it was very expensive, more than I've ever paid for one garment. But I'm happy with it. I have been wanting a dress exactly like that for a long time.

And the shoes are thus (right now I'm not liking them with this dress, but oh well):



I tried taking a picture with them on but that didn't work, so I just held it up. The best part of these is that they stay on perfectly. I was astonished. I can walk normally with them on.

Here is my un-liz-like piece of jewelry.



The biggest issue with it is that it's long and doesn't sit quite right on the problem area. It's going to be interesting to find something I can wear that with. The problem area has lately been even more of a problem area than usual. I got a minimizing bra today. I hope you enjoyed that piece of information.

I got a longish gray sweater that wraps around the waist. I love it. Laura, FYI, there are longish sweaters all over the place, I noticed. They have a lot at Kohl's. I am intrigued that that's one of the trends. I really like long sweaters.

I don't think I got anything else of interest, unless you want to know that I purchased some ribs, ice cream, and half & half. I actually searched high and low for a decent bag, and for once I couldn't find one. Here begins my rant on riveted bags.

So apparently this season or whatever, riveted bags are "in." Therefore, every single store in the world is 95% composed of bags that look like this:



I hate them so much. That one pictured above isn't even that bad. But they look so ugly, and in a year they'll be dated. Next year it'll be like now when you see someone walking around with those sequined bags that have no structure. This is why I always get bags that aren't in any trend. However, when you're in the midst of a gigantor trend you can't even find anything else. It reminds me of the other year when shawls were really in. That's all you could find. Well, apparently now it's riveted piece of shit bags.

Wedge Heels: this is another one that gets my goat. Ok, maybe some people like them, but I personally don't. So anyway, earlier this summer the only thing you could find was wedge heels. Thank god those are finally dying out a little bit and you can find a normal heel now once in a blue moon.

So my gripe with the industry is this. You're always completely at the mercy of whatever someone decides to come up with. You have to get clothes that someone else thought of. It's just weird that so much of our lives are based on whatever becomes available. Most of us don't have the ability to make our own clothes.

And just the idea of trends...it's so interesting that millions of people will be running around in wedge heels carrying riveted bags. Maybe it's because they happen to like them and maybe it's because it's trendy. Either way, it's so anti-individual. Really, it seems like every day we are sucked more and more into one conglomeration of consumers. We can only consume what we're offered...whether we like it or not. And so we become all the same.

Maybe I should start making my own clothes.

Does that make sense? It starts to get frustrating to me in particular when I have to find shoes or something and I hate everything. Lately I have been very unimpressed with shoe selections. The one exception to that is the shoe company Kenzie, which I adore. It's the same with bags and Relic. Those two companies seem to market towards younger people and NOT to create based on trends (as far as I can tell). I have yet to see a Relic riveted bag. (But unfortunately I think Kenzie has a wedge...but it's very different, it has ribbons instead of straps and is extremely flowery).

Amazing Screw-On Head is on and I didn't realize it was a cartoon. Hmm.

Also, here's another thing I'm extremely tired of seeing: striped collared shirts of various colors. Ugh! They may be pretty, but I swear to god...just put something else in a store, please. There are only so many striped collared shirts I can take. And really...can you not do a polka dot? Or some kind of paisley? Solid color? I shouldn't be complaining, because I own at least 3, but I think I have formed an aversion because the thought of wearing them almost makes me vomit.

Oh, jewelry trends is another one. I cannot express how impressed I am when I see a piece that's truly unique. That's sort of what drew me to that necklace up there. Sarah, what was that line in Field's that was all different? Was it Marc Jacobs? The necklace is "axcess" from Kohl's - I have gotten stuff of that line before as well. Givenchy is another line I like, carried at Field's. That one is more classic, but they do very pretty things. Pretty much, if I see something that's not exactly like everything else that everyone in the world owns, I will take a second look. Then, it has to be pretty or interesting.

So that is my treatise. I hope it gave you some food for thought.

Shopping

I did some major shopping today. I purchased my dream outfit, which will be the "meetiing MS" outfit which I shall describe in more detail later, when I am rested up. I stole the outfit idea from a girl at the Fiery Furnaces show (and a lot of other people).

Also got an insane piece of jewelry, which, if anything was ever un-liz-like, this is it. Am excited to share what I found and to comment on the fashion industry in general and my gripes with it. Look forward to a rant on riveted bags and wedge heels. Am currently typing with one hand: not efficient. Cannot wait for "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" this evening.

Now I'm typing with two hands. I wonder if something is wrong when I am writing a blog entry as a preview for a later blog entry. It's times like these when I feel I may need to lay off a little on the dependence to the blog.

Back again

Check this out. I was looking at Reykjavik and was shocked at how tiny the city is. It's smaller than Rochester. Anyway, here is a picture I found on Wikipedia of a famous church there. Isn't it incredible? I have never seen anything like it.



http://www.visitreykjavik.is/displayer.asp?cat_id=410

HA!

More trip planning: I was looking up my hotel in reference to O'Hare and so I was just scrolling up and up. At some point appeared on the screen something funny:



Haha! Laura, we should beware: we are not a mile from a terrorism target!!!

O'Hare

I have been planning the Great Chicago Adventure this weekend, and just now I've been trying to figure out O'Hare and exactly where the el station is. Anyway, it's not easy to figure out. At some point I was using the Google Maps satellite image to see what the buildings looked like, so I could match them with the maps on O'Hare's site. And to my delight, this is what it looks like:




Tiny little planes everywhere!!!

I really hate computers. I'm so glad I work on computers for a living.

The computer is still being an asshole, so I’m just typing the rest of this in Word. Anyway, the other day I was sitting with Dan and for some reason we were looking at Catholic schools in NY. He was apparently looking for a good school for his future children. He is Irish Catholic, by the way. So I said to him, “Dan, I thought you didn’t like kids.” Because he is always going on about how he hates kids and will never have any. He said, “Well, I’m sure I’ll get trapped into it at some point in my life. You can only shoot so many times before you hit someone.” I then proceeded to scold him for being vulgar. He just laughed. Later he was referring to his future child as a boy and I questioned him, and he said, “You think I’m having a girl? Yeah right!”

OK. NOW WORD IS DOING IT. NO MORE COMPUTER. I AM DONE.

Why am I back here?

Just repeating the last thing I heard on tv.

Well, just saw the 200th episode of Stargate, which was really, really built up for the past 6 months or so. Ok, what the hell is up with my computer? It's delaying my typing, and it's becoming very aggravating. Anyway, the 200th episode wasn't that incredibly wonderful. It was ok. Just not quite worth the immense amount of hype that surrounded it. I was expecting it to be the most hilarious and interesting thing I've ever seen. In fact, the show that came right before it was almost more entertaining (it was a behind the scenes show). I was very happy that I "got" the Farscape reference. I felt proud of myself for that. There were a couple other references I didn't get.

A comment about the behind the scenes show - MS has a pretty thick Canadian accent that he apparently hides very well. I thought that was interesting. He says "aboot" and all that stuff. Amanda Tapping was really funny, actually, and totally different than I thought. She reminds me of the difference between Gillian Anderson and Scully.

On a totally different subject...ok, I just cannot stand this typing delay. I'm just going to go shoot myself because I am so annoyed.

Dammit

Parking at the hotel in Chicago is $14 + tax per night. There goes at least $32. I am not looking forward to that.

Hi

I'm actually feeling semi-content right now, which is funny. Earlier I was extremely pissed off at work. We had "mentor day" today. This involved a senior person being paired up with a new person. Get this, this is exactly how the list looked:

Dan - Lance
Joel - Brian
Christi - Peter
Seth - Nancy
Mary - Lam
Pat - Chris
Elizabeth

Notice anything funny? I was actually very happy with that because I hate training and I am bad at it. Our manager said it was so I could concentrate on my projects because apparently they are really important (not to mention that I have 30! Not even exagerrating! I officially got up to 30 this afternoon!).

So anyway, shit happened and I ended up having to train anyway. I was kind of mad because it just makes me get farther behind, and I get nervous, and I can't talk, and I just am bad at explaining things.

Then we had pizza for lunch and I can't have it so I just didn't go, and Ipod guy said that they were asking about me, but he was probably joking.

Anyway, I was just angry at my amount of work and how 99% of it is actually pure stupidity. The marketing person that gives me work is a total idiot. And nobody makes him change. But whatever.

This week has been so exhausting. I don't know how I'm going to get to Friday.

I am hungry.

Whatever.

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace

I just discovered this show last night. It is a comedy that was made in 2004 over in our mother country, England. It's hysterical. I really love British comedy sometimes. There's this other show called "Peep Show" that they sometimes show on BBCA and it's abs. hilarious (My fav. quote from that recently was "She said our relationship was nothing but a HUSK!" "A HUSK?" "A HUSK!") And of course, I love "Coupling."

Anyway, Darkplace is being shown on Sci-fi here because it's sort of sci-fi-ish. It's hard to explain because the entire concept of the show is fake. It's kind of like a Sacha Baron Cohen thing because the main guy pretends to be another guy for the show, who then plays another guy within the show. And it's supposedly filmed in the 80s, but it's really from 2004. The main guy is supposed to be an author who then acts in a show. The whole thing is fake. It is so funny, but they only have 6 episodes in total, for some reason.

I made the mistake of actually going to B&N to look for books by the fake author. When I came home I did some digging and realized he is not real. I felt dumb, but not really, because it's not something they readily say, which is also true with SBC - that guy does interviews and whole shows and everything as a different person. He hosted the MTV Europe something something awards as Borat.

Here are some quotes.

"Phantasms, spelled with a 'ph,' not an 'f,' abounded."

"She's presumed dead, with the presumption heavily on dead."

[this one is sort of paraphrased because I didn't write it all down] "There was a mist, and the mist was here, and the mist was all around, and then the mist left...leaving nothing but a mist of mist-understanding." HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Also somewhat paraphrased] "Sweating is a tricky thing. If you use anti-perspirant, you'll just block that area and sweat somewhere else, like on your forehead and earlobes. And if you block your forehead and earlobes, you'll sweat somewhere else, like on your tongue. And then you get bad breath. If you block up everything, you're gonna sweat inside, and get cancer." Hahahahah!

I also really enjoy the sound effects - for instance, they were riding regular bicycles at one point and there were motorcycle sound effects. Also, the woman in the show was typing and there was a sound of very fast typing while her hands just sat still on the keyboard. :D

It's a really good show. The main guy was in some episodes of the British "The Office" - and by the way I love the American one - haven't seen the other one, but I'm sure I'd love it.

Bottom line: you should watch it, it's on YouTube. Also, watch Peep Show - that show is great. And if you do decide to see Coupling, choose one that heavily features Jeff, because he's the funniest one in my opinion.