Hippo ATE MY SOUL!
10.31.06
Song of the Day: Suzanne Palmer - Home
Today I received an email forward of scans of newspaper article that featured crazy stories. One of these stories was about a circus dwarf who bounced off a trampoline and into a hippo's open mouth, only to be swallowed and killed by the poor hippo. The audience reportedly applauded until they realized it was a tragic mistake.
My first reaction? I burst out laughing. Loudly. And then I realized I was gleefully laughing at someone's death. Dammit, those scary far-far-right-wingers are RIGHT, reading Harry Potter is making me evil.
I hung my head in shame, and then headed over to Snopes to try to absolve myself. Sure enough, it's just a little too strange to be true.
So now, I've only laughed at a hypothetical dwarf being eaten by an imaginary hippo. Surely being eaten by an imaginary hippo can't hurt that badly. The only way to explain my good fortune is to figure it's because the final Harry Potter book isn't out yet. Once I read that one, I'll be fully evil, and everyone I laugh at will immediately suffer some freakish accident.
Bwahahahahaha. Happy Halloween, ya'll.
EAT YOUR SOUL!
10.30.06
Song of the Day: Saint Etienne - He's on the Phone
Yesterday, Trent said what has become my new favorite saying:
I don't know what it is ... but Dakota Fanning kinda creeps me out. It's like she's too wizened to be a little girl. I'm utterly convinced that she's really an adult woman trapped in the body of a child ... WHO WANTS TO EAT MY SOUL!
Ready for a break
10.29.06
Song of the Day: Colette - What's Wrong With Being Lonely
It's not yet Halloween, but I'm sooo ready for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving means a break from school and having someone else feed me for a week. As much as I like to cook, I like having other people feed me even more.
Thanksgiving also means nearing the end of the semester. I'm quite ready to be done with this batch of classes. Not that there are any that make me want to jump out the window, like Personal Income Taxation (just saying the name sends chills down my spine), and all my profs have been more than capable and excited about teaching us, but my brain is just worn out.
All I really want to do is grab a (pitcher of) Sam Adams and lay on a magic beach somewhere where the sun never sets nor burns my skin, and oiled cabana boys are wiping drool from my chin while I catatonically stare at the ocean for a few months. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Jewish Truths
10.28.06
Song of the Day: Delerium - Underwater (feat. Rani Kamal)
I don't usually venture into the Totally Serious And Thought Provoking realm here, but while reading for my Intro to Judaism class tonight, I came across a passage that reminded me why I chose Judaism over the This Is The One True Way And Everyone Who Believes Otherwise Is Seriously Screwed mentality of so many Christians I've come across in my life (please note: "so many" =/= "all", but ~ "a scarily large number, including the closed-minded young man who I dated and then dumped").
(For those not in the matzoh ball way of life, "Torah" is the name of the first book of the Jewish Bible (aka "Tanak"), and is made up of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy)
"Rabbi Akiva, the great second century interpreter of Torah, taught that 'there are seventy faces to the Torah.' He meant that every verse of the Torah could be interpreted seventy different ways, and each one of these ways would reveal a truth that is an aspect of God's message. Akiva compared the words of Torah to cut gemstones. A gem reveals a different light through every different facet, and yet is a single stone with a single light from within. There is a unity to God's message, even when many different and even conflicting interpretations may reveal an aspect of God's truth.
Consider that when a mediocre novelist writes a novel, there is no meaning beyond that of the story itself. When a great writer creates a piece of literature, there are many levels of meaning. Consider how many messages have been discovered in Shakespeare's Hamlet or in Melville's Moby Dick. When God, the greatest of all authors beyond all comparison, writes a book, one would expect it to have a multitude of meanings and levels of meaning beyond our capacity to ever unfold them all."
-- Settings of Silver by Stephen M. Wylen
I love Trent
10.27.06
Song of the Day: Ultra Naté - Love's the Only Drug
I love Trent. Today he linked to this article, which fills me with all kinds of glee.
Today, I was thisclose to asking the Adorable Gap Guy when his break was, and would he like to have lunch with me? However, since the majority of my wardrobe comes from the Gap, I decided I couldn't risk being turned down and then not being able to show my face when all the new stuff goes on sale.
Ghost Hunters
10.25.06
Song of the Day: Kristine Blond - A Day Without You
I cannot believe that people get paid to hunt for ghosts.
Why am I looking for a real job?
This would have been perfect for my elementary school self, when I was obsessed with the idea of ghosts and read every nonfiction book I could get my hands on about how one goes about finding ghosts and real life ghost sightings. This resulted in me spending a lot of time not sleeping.
Also, I just saw a preview for Saw 3. There was already a Saw 2? Shows how much I pay attention.
Bright engagements
10.21.06
Song of the Day: Robbie Williams - We're the Pet Shop Boys
I haven't seen the sun in over a week. It's been perpetually gloomy, and to make matters worse, it's only rained once. If the sky is going to be depressingly overcast, it could at least do what it normally does on overcast days.
There has been one bright point; Shannon's boyfriend proposed to her Thursday night. She asked me to be her maid of honor, and since I only cry at Very Important things, I promptly burst into tears. I'm looking forward to helping her plan and seeing if it makes her want to go through with her dream of being a wedding planner, or if it makes her want to get as far away from that career as possible.
Speaking of dream careers, I have discovered that the DEA has an Office of Diversion Control, where, even with my hearing aides (the DEA disqualifies anyone with hearing aides from being a Special Agent) I could be a Diversion Investigator who deals with the diversion of legal drugs into illegal channels. I've been interested in this sort of task since I worked a criminal defense firm that was defending a client in such matters. I never, ever let on that the entire time, I was daydreaming about how cool it would be to be working on the other side. I'm hoping that, if the FBI and ATF also close their Special Agent doors to me because of their hearing policies (I'm currently working on finding out just what their requirements mean), a position will open up here for me.
04:38 PM [link] [9 Comments]
Real Genius
10.17.06
Song of the Day: Poe - Haunted
My Tivo just proved to me that we're on the same wavelength.
One of the Tivo Suggestions that it recorded for me today is the movie Real Genius.
Dude. Best Movie Ever. I only watched it about 20 times in a row at the height of my Val Kilmer obsession when I was a teenager.
The Tivo is totally forgiven for the times it's suggested things like Passions and Star Trek.
02:26 AM [link]
Bad luck
10.16.06
Song of the Day: Harland - Skin
What is bad luck?
Bad luck is when an online seller's feedback score drops dramatically between the time you purchase something and when you think, "Hey, three weeks have gone by and I don't have my DVDs yet."
I purchased the first season of Supernatural from a seller on Amazon's Marketplace who had 98% positive feedback with over 30,000 people rating him (her? them? who knows). The price was about $15 lower than Amazon's price, so I went for it. There were a few people complaining of long shipping times, but the overwhelming theme seemed to be that this was a good person to buy from.
Fast forward to today. Amazon sent me an email asking me to rate the seller. I thought, "Huh? Rate them? Where's my stuff?" I sent the seller an email asking for an update, and then I followed the links to their feedback page. Much to my dismay, their feedback percentage had dropped several points, and virtually every remark made in the last two or three weeks echoed my, "Where's my stuff?" sentiment.
In two days, I can file a claim with Amazon to get my money back, but all I really want is to be able to stare at Jensen Ackles' face on the screen all day long. Why doesn't this shady seller realize that??
In a totally unrelated thought, completely sparked by How I Met Your Mother starting, does anyone else think Alyson Hannigan's new sleeker, darker hair is just fantastic? I was all, "No, no, do not get rid of your red hair, you traitor!" back when Trent posted pictures of her with jet back hair, but now it's lightened up a bit to a really pretty deep, dark red. I approve.
07:06 PM [link]
"Is she also a cartoon?"
10.13.06
Song of the Day: Offer Nissim feat. Maya - Alone
After over a year of Kylie, my Veronica Mars obsession has inspired a new layout. It's overly simple, since I just wanted to get something new out. It's still wonky. I'll be beating it into submission over the weekend.
Can anyone explain why IE6 is reading the beige color on the far-left .jpg differently than it should be, resulting in the non-seamless transition between the .jpg and the background behind this text? It does it when I change it to a .png version of the graphic, too. How do I kill it? Suggesting that all my viewers switch to Firefox does not help, since I am not the boss of them (although I would like to be).
Also, can anyone explain why that bottom portion of the table on the right side insists on having such huge spacing issues? If I remove that table row completely, everything spaces itself evenly. I will give a gumdrop to anyone who figures it out.
Notice the Vox link on the sidebar, for quick access to my newish reviews blog. Also notice that my "email" button now actually points to an email address that I use. How novel.
01:10 AM [link]
Scary little boys
10.09.06
Song of the Day: David Bowie - Changes
I really, really want to see The Grudge 2. I loved the first one, which was beyond super creepy.
Herein lies the problem.
If I value my sanity and my sleep, I should not go within 100 yards of any theater playing the sequel. After seeing the first one, I could not sleep without the lights and television on for two weeks. To this day, when I wake up at night and need to go to the bathroom, I dash past my open closet door as fast as I can, convinced that a thin arm is going to reach out and yank off my lower jaw if I'm not fast enough. My biggest fear is rolling over and finding a little Japanese boy standing next to my bed. It has to have been two years since I saw it, and these are very real thoughts that I have nightly.
So maybe my sanity is far too gone to value it much, but my sleep is not. I be conflicted.
01:18 AM [link]
How women dumb themselves down
10.04.06
Song of the Day: Depeche Mode - Precious
The women who post on a makeup/M.A.C. Cosmetics forum that J and I both visit have quite a habit of dumbing themselves down. How do they do this? Observe:
"Lipstick" becomes "lippies"
"Pigment" becomes "piggies"
"Nordstroms" becomes "Nordies"
How cuties.
*gaggies*
03:48 PM [link]
Not so stretchy
10.03.06
Song of the Day: Nicola Hitchcock - Feel
Once upon a time, I used to be able to lift my leg over my head.
Since I took dance classes for ten years, I was a rather bendy person. By the end of my decade as a dancer, I had stretched my muscles out so much that the only way to challenge them was to go over 180 degrees, often by putting one foot up on a few inches of blue gym mats and then doing a split (which was called, appopriately, an oversplit). This gave me a rather nice set of muscular, curvy legs, much to my chagrin at times (such as when shopping for knee-high boots, which all appear to be made for pencil-thin legs).
Dance classes ended when college started, and I stopped stretching everyday. Or, really, I stopped stretching at all. Fast forward to today, when I've been plagued with an annoying tingly feeling in my legs that perturbs me all day and keeps me awake at night. Some searching on WebMD suggests that this is that "restless leg syndrome" you hear about in that television commercial, and that if it's merely annoying (as opposed to downright painful), you can fix it by stretching a few times a day. Okay, that's easy, right?
I am so embarassed and frustrated with myself that I can no longer even touch my toes. Me, the chick who used to be able to sit on the floor with her legs spread open, lean forward to rest her chest flat on the floor, and then pull through to be laying completely facedown without lifting her pelvis off the floor, cannot touch her toes. It's mortifying, and almost enough to make me stop doing it at all.
For the last week, I've been grunting my way through 10 minutes of stretching in the morning and at night, trying to remind myself that I used to live for that burn in my muscles. I know I'll never get back to where I once was, but it'd be nice to be able to touch my toes again. And it does banish that tingly restless feeling, for the most part.
Not all has been lost, however; I still have (most of) the posture I gained from my dance classes. 10 years of being told to hold yourself as if you have a string coming out the top of your head that's being pulled up towards the ceiling really does get built into your muscles. To this day, if I see someone slumped over or with their shoulders rolled foward, I want to run up to them and smack them with my purse while screaming, "HOLD YOURSELF BETTER THAN THAT!!"
And that axel thing that ice skaters do? I used to be able to do that, without the ice skates. I always used to think that was so cool.
02:09 AM [link]