merry christmas

there, i said it.

was that so bad?

this christmas, i wanted to share with you just 3 of the mindless things swimming around on the internet (anything that can be 2d?) that make me happy.

1. this picture - from the threadless.com website, apparently designed by a Loy Valera, to whom i give credit for making one tuesday afternoon at work a little happier

the best way to enjoy it is to see how much of the song you can recall on your own and then, once you've gotten as far as you can, to listen to it and follow along.

2. the sonseed video. i realize most people have seen this already. but the first time i watched it, i was willing to take it as an internet sensation -- a group of salvation army-raiding hippies with too much time on their hands making a jesus video.

but to learn that it's an authentic band (the drummer guy died choking on a sandwich! egad - i hope that's not how i die.. i hope it was at least a roast beef sandwich).. and an authentic video! ah, a gem.  everything about this video is superb: the pink walls, the round poop-brown carpet, the extensive variety of shades of blue, layering techniques that rival Project Runway (and my own, less fashionable techniques, for that matter), the hip swaying of the guitar player, the amish backup singers, the glimpses you get of the drummer rocking it out in the background, and of course, this guy (enough can't be said about this guy):

so here it is. in honor of the reason for the season. enjoy it whether you love jesus or not:

3. joe commented that i portray myself in my blog more cynically than i am in 'real', non-blog life. i could probably argue either way, but ... lately i've found myself too lazy to argue. especially with myself, where pride is not an issue.

in any case, i was reading the Johnson City Press a few days ago, which republished the editorial, "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus." I hadn't actually ever read it in its entirety (vote for 'cynical'). When i did read it this week, i found myself tearing up a bit ('not cynical'). long story short, cynicism removed apropos, ignoring that virginia ever grew up and got a divorce, i enjoyed it, and here it is for you.  Merry Christmas.

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. 
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. 
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' 
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. 

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

question of the day

what does a "Car Czar" look like?

this?

this?

(i did that in Paint! yeah, the one in your Windows Accessories. the one that's been there (for what seems like) ever since Windows existed. not bad, huh?)

or.. this?

aw, seriously? america has no imagination.

well, actually...

volcker apparently was a badass back when he was chairman of the reserve ... or just smoked with photographably badass smoke trails. 

i guess i get that it's commonly accepted to use "czar ___" to define someone as an authoritative figure in ___ nowadays, but the word czar to me still conjures up images of Russian .. well, Russian badasses.

alfa romeos are pretty badass. i vote for #2.

question of the day

what's your funniest t-day moment?

mine -- black friday, we went to a trifecta of shopping black holes, black all for different reasons: best buy, bed bath and beyond, and finally... kmart (yes, they still exist).

at kmart, we immediately let grandma loose, equipped with shopping cart, which doubles as useless shit basket and old lady crutch.  she praises us for letting her go it alone: "you guys go along now. you always rush, rush, rush!" so we go along now, for a whole 40 minutes or so. wandering up and down aisles. ugh. 

while in the mens' clothing section, my mom perfunctorily picks up some pajama pants, presumably for my little brother -- red with candy canes. "these are cute!" she exudes. "yes, cuuuute!" i perfunctorily exude.  

plop, into the shopping cart.

maybe ... 8ish? hours later, we are sitting down to watch Fred Clause.  Mom is talking to Josh (my little brother). she looks at him strangely.  no, she's looking at his new pajama pants strangely. she squints and puts her face closer to them. finally she says, "damnit. that's what i get for never reading the fine print." confused, i get closer to read the fine print. It says, as innumerably as the candy cane prints all over the pants: "Wanna Lick?"

hahaha. i don't think he's going to be allowed to wear them again.

question of the day

how many electronic devices need to be left on during takeoff to matter? does it matter? if it does, why haven't terrorists pounced on the weakness?

apparently, i'm not the first to ask the question. (i know, crazy.) Mythbusters asked a related question in episode 49 of the 2006 season. Another article addresses why we have to turn off iPods during takeoff.  These people also had some insight, however poorly structured.

I guess it's not seen as a threat that a bunch of terrorists could bring all of their new Blackberry Storms on an old, unshielded plane, and leave them on during takeoff.  Maybe it's not reliable enough. er, hopefully it's not.

I was at a comedy club in New York last week, and one of the stand ups said that if he ever caught bin laden, he wouldn't kill him; he'd force him to go through airport security every day for the rest of his life. ha ha.

love it or leave it

wow, i write a lot of bull crap. that last blog is kind of ridiculous. i should really think about a day delay on posting these things.

so anyway. i'm sitting in the Library Hotel in New York. It's freaking freezing outside. Freaking ridiculous. New York is ridiculous. It's one big freaking garbage truck. You walk around hills of trash bags on every street. You stay at any hotel in New York on a low enough floor, and you hear garbage trucks all evening, night, and morning long. It's not a real knock against New York. New York is great. it brings out humanity's true characteristics. for instance, wasteful. rotten.

it's ridiculous! i honestly love and hate new york. i walked to the gym tonight and loved it. i walked back from the gym tonight and hated it. (this hotel is a 'concept' hotel. the concept apparently lacks a gym. though i do like the hotel.)

i've traveled a lot this year. i can't complain.. it's been fun.

detroit for new year's
.... expanse of time when i didn't go anywhere because of busy season...
Savannah, Knoxville, JC (doesn't really count as travels, but i'll keep it in), Nashville, and again JC in May
Folly Beach in June
Gauley River (WVa), Chicago, Houston in July
Rochester, NYC, Boston in August
San Jose, JC, Knoxville in Sept
Valle Crucis, Atlanta, Raleigh in Oct
Simms (eastern NC - hard to find) at beginning of Nov, Dallas last week, and here i am again in beautiful, frigid New York.

Will round out Nov in the homestead again.
Dec will be Atlanta, JC, and bookending with Detroit.

traveling truly is addictive. something overseas needs to be had next year.

it's funny the stuff you learn when traveling. like: the plane does always take off even though all the overhead compartments are full and there is a 200+ lb. man sitting on either side of you. they DID in fact make runways long enough. hourly parking in Charlotte is cheaper than daily parking in most major cities.

i have also learned some about a little-known mystery - USA Today journalism. it's a little like New York - love and hate it both. 4 easy-to-navigate sections. good. big weather map on back. good. color! pictures! good. Decent pro/con editorials. good. crossword. good.

stupid front-page headlines. bad. for instance, one of today's was:

Economy sets travel back a bit for holiday
'Grandma matters,' but fewer trips likely

A full article followed. Really? You took up a fifth of the front page of one of the most widely distributed newspapers in America to expound on that? What the hell?

meanwhile, on the next page, this got one little line in the Nationline section:
"The State of the Black World conference opens in New Orleans."

That's it. Not a word more... Am i the only one who wants to know more about this? First of all, what is this "Black World" and where is it? And you can define the state of this world? And people (... black people?!) are convening to discuss it? ..?

Well, i googled it, and it is true. it's happening. And on the site (that won 1st place on google search), there was an ad begging me to "Join thousands of members looking for their interracial partner!" The picture is really funny. I would feel a little weird putting it in my blog, to be honest. Just envision white bare-chested male staring at cropped-out tits of Beyonce look-a-like.

anyway. i'm off on a tangent again. cutting it off before it gets silly.

don't vote

5 More Friends

and ... i hate pumpkins

I was informed of Fulmer's news at 11:06 am and received three more emails in the next 20 minutes. I sent the link immediately to my Michigan-bred, non-SEC-school-attending boyfriend, who almost immediately sent me this completely unrelated link. And leave it to me to find some compelling, if vague, parallel between the residents of Charlotte/Detroit and … UT fans. Yeah, bear with me here.

Coming into the 2008 season, everything was a toss-up. We were coming off a decent season, so hopes were high. Pre-season rankings were no more portentous than the broken 8-ball at Caribou Coffee. But, in a kick, we had our first clue: the overtime loss to UCLA was a telling blow; a weak team in a strong SEC East that couldn't even win against a Pac-10 team? I think every other SEC team won that week except one of the Mississippi's. But! fans retained hope; a win against UAB made us 1 and 1, after all. Better than the other Big Orange of the Big East, right?

But after the loss to Florida… oh, the stupid mistakes, the humanity. After the second turnover in the red-zone, knowing fans' eyes collectively glazed over; we knew we were destined to spend the rest of the season like AA-listers trying to get into an A-list club. How fitting, Crompton fumbling near the end zone like Foster did against JoePa and his Lions to round out the 2006 season -- a smacking kiss of death. Only this time, the kiss symbolically ends our season only 3 games in.

Here, at this point, perhaps the Vol fan base could look across at the residents of mid-Wachovia mess Charlotte, seeing their wide-eyed and somewhat dazed, glossy look, and say that emphatic, gooey smattering of words…

"I know how you feel."

And to be sure, it felt horrible. We knew that a remaining schedule with Auburn, Georgia, and Alabama to tick off the list wasn't promising. We were starting to despair a little. Only on the inside, though. Our inside monologues were yelling, "Our football tradition! Our great football team! The foundation of our school and our pride! What to …do??" while our outside voices would only admit in murmurs, "…yeah man, we blew like a windsock. We should have… And he… Oh well. Meet you at the bar tomorrow for the Titans game?" The foundation was weak. We weren't sure what we were standing on. Tradition? Habit? Refusal to acknowledge the hole we'd dug ourselves? Refusal to climb in? There was still hope, though. The season wasn't OVER over. We could still come back.

I daresay Charlotte feels the same way now. Standing on habit and a strong will to ignore the real effects of Wachovia's "demise" and the economy's uncertain future. Charlotte's uncertain future. We still have the rest of the season to play out; we just need to take it one game, one play at a time.

To the north, Detroit stands today where UT fans are now. They both know they suck. And at the one thing they were supposed to be good at -- car-making and play-making. They failed to recruit the right resources and now they're stuck up shit creek, and they know it.

So what -- they do something about it! Fire Fulmer! Down with Kilpatrick. They will not run down the middle anymore on 3rd and long…! And, most importantly, they still have their pride. Yes, pride! It overcomes so many things. It ignores so many faults. And, my god, it is so exonerating. Orgasmically exonerating. It vindicates why you are what you are. Yeah, I know [chosen association with football team or city] seems dumb right now. But I'm so damn proud I need a big, ugly, generic, white sticker to put on my minivan. And I'll probably keep it there till my kid turns 30. America! fuck yeah.

Which brings me to an actual point, which is not that Charlotte is really like post-Florida-loss UT fans, or that Detroit is really like post-Fulmer UT fans (it is just football, anyway, as opposed to actual money and jobs and steel). But that pride can be blinding. You know the ones -- those people who start being proud just to be defiant -- they're the ones who get to be real pains in the ass. The line can be thin. Watch yo self!

Oh yeah, also, my other point is that the guy who wrote the article seems silly. Because it's not like people who live in Detroit have a better attitude than Charlotteans out of choice. Michiganders have been through years of sludging through the dredge, while North Carolinians have not. If Charlotte (yes, yes, god forbid) did get to the stage that Detroit is in, then I am sure that the people who haven't already flown the coop would have the same resolve as those in Detroit now. What other choice is there, really? Charlotteans right now know the weight of… well, everything. I think it's fine to be concerned. We can ignore it on the outside and give our perfunctory sheen of everything-will-be-all-right-ness, but our insides know that anything can happen. Why deny it? Pride (of any kind) and concern are not mutually exclusive.

The kind of camaraderie that Maddrey sees in Detroit is the kind of camaraderie that you see in people who have collectively been stomped on, over and over and over again. It's the way we poor, poor UT fans feel now. Collective pariahs of the SEC. Collective resolve. And yeah, we didn't personally get fucked or anything… but we cheered… a LOT. And developed ulcers. and stuff.

We finally got to that point… the point we've watched so many other "lesser" football programs succumb to: the point when we suck so bad that the coach must die.

And listen, I know he's a great guy. But it's kind of like how I feel about Bush. I'd love to go get a beer with him, but I don't want him leading things I care about anymore… such as the country whose rules I am subject to and the football team I am mentally brainwashed to love like … this video.



I hope you made it to the end, because that's the best part. Yeah, not the actual article i found it in itself (though it is good - thanks gach), but the video a few comments down.

And of course I guess I should say something like, Go vote tomorrow! Yay, America! But listen. It's my duty to vote, which I already did. It's not my duty to tell you what to do. Really what it comes down to is that I have spent many many hours learning about these candidates … I'm not spending more time writing about it (I will instead spend time writing about unlikely comparisons between the football world and the real world.. yeah, whatever. don't judge). I will only say that I agree with the CLT observer's opinion on candidate for President and NC governor. And vote for the Parks & Rec bond. Yay Rec.

.. and beyond

ladies and gentlemen, i present to you, the breaking news of today:

The ever-puzzled look of our reigning president meets headlines of our possible next president. The result is haunting. I love the "Palin challenges voters to 'stump the candidate'" headline. Oohh ohh, me! pick me! ahem, ok, here it is:

"What do you think about the Bush doctrine?"

Oh crap, I bet you've read up on that on wikipedia since that interview.

Excerpt from the article:

Asked for "specific skills" she could cite to rebut critics who question her grasp of international affairs, she replied, "I am prepared."

"I have that confidence. I have that readiness," Palin said. "And if you want specifics with specific policies or countries, you can go ahead and ask me. You can play 'stump the candidate' if you want to. But we are ready to serve."

GOP presidential nominee John McCain stepped in, ...


oh ohh so funny. i can see mccain's eyes getting wider and wider by the minute. i bet palin's strategy is to be so freaking insane that 1) people vote for her and 2) by the time she gets into office, she's startled mccain so much that he has a heart attack on Day 1.

and to my point on Daily Show, these videos from Tuesday's show are hilarious:

Generic-off

Ricky Gervais

the Bed, Bank of America, and Beyond one is funny, too, but the link is broken.

Actually, you should watch all of them

the horse on the farm goes

3 things that would immediately, instantly make America a better, more prosperous nation:

1. everybody watches the daily show.
2. everybody gets to wear track pants all the time. Every day, all day. Comfy.
3. everybody stops being stupid and lame

OK, maybe if #3 happened, #1 would no longer be necessary.

I just don't get it. Someone needs to help me understand. Listen. (like you did to Vonnegut?!) I just had one of the worst travel experiences everrrr. But really what I am most upset about is that when I was driving home from the airport tonight (without my luggage), some guy on NPR says something to the effect of: Well, yes, [Palin] was a great political choice for McCain. Whether she's fit for governance is perhaps still questionable.

So we're admitting it, then? Politics has nothing to do with actually governing the nation. OK, cool. Just as long as we're admitting it. Follow-up question: are we aware of it?

What does ignorance mean to you? AGNE? My god, that's my new all-time favorite acronym. And no, I'm not telling you what it means. I can think of exactly … 5 people I might tell if they ask. Hope you make the cut.

oh, and I'M SO SICK OF HEARING ABOUT SARAH PALIN. Good, bad, I don't really care. she is getting more attention than a parisbritneymileysurrey cesspool would. She's kind of like my smoke detector. I walk into the room, unassuming, after a long, bad day of flying, and I can't make the noise go away. And I think she whinnies. Like a horse.

ulcerating

i've finally broke. these conventions are driving me insane. i hate that i am watching them. i hate it because something that used to be important has been turned into a WWF wrestling match. I say WWF because i have not watched wrestling since it changed from WWF to WWE. And! there used to be two. WCW? yes, WCW. Before Vince ate them for breakfast.

I digress. They're WWF wrestling matches. I have been using "circus" as my word of choice for the past week, but they don't deserve that much credit. At least at circuses people don't chant, "EL EH PHANT! EL EH PHANT!" Joe has likened the conventions to the Jerry Springer show. I concede to that. But at least when Springers' guests get angry, they have the balls to throw some punches instead of bullshitting behind a dais. And! they don't need a week to slowly extricate all of the bullshit from their mouths. So the conventions are a Springer WWF match. Fabricated and ugly, and the attending audience plays to it beautifully.

This is what it sounds like to me:
Speaker: rhetoric rhetoric rhetoric rheterrheterrheter
Crowd: Yes we can! Yes we can!
(...can WHAT??)
Speaker: rheterrhetererer
Crowd: U S A! U S A!
Speaker: rheterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrerrr
Crowd: Yeauhhh! Drill some fucking holes in the ground! Drill baby drill!!

And then you get into the personal attacks, which seem like they should be part of an 8 mile-esque rap-off. Biden's like, "McCain smokes crack through his pacemaker!"
And you expect a rebuttal. You expect McCain to somehow fly up to the stage and say, "Yeah, but Obama thinks down babies are the devil!"
And then more exchanges
Palin: Obama will tax your ass all the way to Kenya!
Obama: McCain is fucking OLD!
Country singer: I love god and beer! and republicans!
Melissa Etheridge: I'm gay!
Carly Fiorina: I'm rich!
Palin: I'm a MILF! People Google-search me! I'm so happy.
Bill: I don't know WTF is going on!
Hillary: No one thinks I'm a MILF.
Chelsea: No one Google-searches me.

ugh, it's so painful. americans are hopeless. the russians and the chinese are going to take over the world. If Putin doesn't bomb us all the way to Mars first, then the Chinese will take all those communist-trained boat paddlers from the Opening Ceremonies and paddle us into the globally-warmed Atlantic Ocean. Or... they will just turn our trillions of debt on our heads.

the media coverage/pundits have not been any better. Chris Matthews thinks that Palin will have better foreign policy because she lives in Alaska and is closer to Russia. CNN thinks that Obama has a better chance of winning because he can use the Internet. Everyone thinks all the speeches were just fabulous. Ace & TJ canNOT stop talking about how hot Sarah Palin is.

Well, at least you were spared from another blog about college football. We're not going to talk about college football. I love it so so much, but i definitely developed ulcers on Monday night. i was so depressed that i had to read my book about the Vieteffingnam war until 1am to get my mind off of the loss.

all right, i'm done. that helped. thanks for listening.

missing one

i knew we would make this list the minute i saw the link for "Most Hated".

my commentary on why i hate (not too strong of a word for college football) them:

1. not much to say except, agree.

2. their fight song makes me actually empathize with the people who hate rocky top. i.e., their fight song makes me want to vomit everywhere.

3. they did something to Syracuse circa the 1800s that made my parents hate them, so i was never a big fan except for maybe the quinn/samardzija tag-team.

4. i could count the ways. how about the current espn headline: "Have you heard?" with the subtitle "Many predict a championship season for Percy Harvin and the Gators". so so easy to hate. And the fact that they will forever brag about their sandwich championships will forever ever kill me.

5. eh, they're ok.

6. who still lives in michigan, anyway?

7. you know, the UT thing. at least vince is playing for the right state now.

8. they're stupid AND they suck.

9. eh, we beat them the time i went to miami, so nothing to hate there except the Orange Bowl is a sucky venue.

10. well hell, i like that version of sweet child o mine.

11. WHERE is LSU???

a few

i have a few random comments (imagine that):

1. Has anyone else noticed that Sportscenter's bottom-screen scroll now has FAVRE as one of the main categories? earlier, i could have said, "as one of the main sports". But now... good old smokin hot Brett is apparently his own sport. Perhaps rightfully so.so yes, now along with AL, NL, NFL, NBA, NCAAF, TENNIS, & GOLF, there is also FAVRE. Awesome.


2. I wonder how hard it was for Mr. Movie Trailer Narrator to say, "Coming soon to a theater near you: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants . . . Part Two" with a straight face. Part 2? what the hell? who watches this? oh, america. sweet land of liberty.


3. The two most frightening moments of my summer thus far have nothing to do with skydiving. The first was walking to the bathroom while we were camping in West Vahginia, headlamp on, and involuntarily letting my mind wander to Blair Witch Project scenes. The second was walking to the PwC office here in Houston from my hotel . . . at 8 o'clock in the morning. My god, this city is a bit sordid. To minimize getting stared down by fetid homeless men and talked at randomly by crazy homeless women, do not ever stay in the Courtyard Marriott in downtown Houston if you are planning on walking outside farther than the valet stand.


4. Back to espn: I had a nice little respite from reading any college football news (except when Colquitt got arrested), but I finally got the unshakable urge to read some of the speculation. Here's my favorite by Mr. Forde. He's indisputably the best NCAAF writer espn's got. though hopefully we do not start 3 and 3. God help us if we don't beat auburn, florida, OR georgia.


5. Joe sent me this article a couple weeks ago. Love the cheap wine - my parents taught me well. Charles Shaw and Target boxed wine are all I need. (and uptown TJ's is coming soon)


6. Two fiscal policy films are being released this fall: I.O.U.S.A. was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in January and is being widely released in 400 theaters on August 21st (DNC is 8/25) (how can DNC stand for Democratic National Committee and Democratic National Convention at the same time? One should be DNCC. Stupid.). An Inconvenient Tax (no, i'm not kidding...) will be released in November . . . conveniently. (sorry.)

i can only speculate on what specific policies and ideas each movie will try to pummel into our thick, unenlightened heads. however, as someone who has been forced to pay attention to accounting-related news for years now, i can only imagine that these films will be extremely scintillating. So to spare you from feeling obligated to go see them (what? oh.. not even guilt gets people to care anymore?), let me just sum up for you what our fiscal policy should be: less tax, less government. No taxation with representation.? i just made that up.

frankly, i'm sick of having to pay people to tell me to vote once i turn 18 for people who will uphold laws that won't let me drink until i'm 21. If i was still 18 i'd be pissed. Do people even talk about politics sober?


7. Will you sign this please?
pw= MCPR


retired quarterbacks who come back, pants, survival, college football, cheap wine, taxes, and tennis. My favorite things.

none for none

this makes me want to seriously vomit...

hezbollah hands over 2 dead people, probably in pieces, and it gets this guy in return, alive:

from cnn:

"For its part, Hezbollah is most interested in the release of the convicted Kuntar, the longest-serving Lebanese prisoner in Israel.

The Shiite Muslim militia group hails him as a hero.

Kuntar, who had been a member of the Palestine Liberation Front, led a group of four men who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat in 1979. They killed a police officer who came across them. Then they took a 28-year-old man and his 4-year-old daughter hostage.

Kuntar shot the father dead at close range in front of his daughter and tossed his body in the sea. Then he smashed the girl's head, killing her.

A 2-year-old girl suffocated as her mother tried to stop her from crying as they hid from Kuntar.

He was sentenced to life and spent the last three decades in an Israeli jail -- until Wednesday, when he is expected to return home to a hero's welcome."

what??? sounds like they are just eager to take out enemy trash.

i hope this is not going on a cnn tshirt.

offering

went to glen phillips concert the other night at evening muse. was v.hot and had to stand the whole time and couldn't see v. well, but it was still all right.

in any case, my favorite part was that, before the concert, i glanced at his website and happened upon this hedgehog video in his blog.. he offered the hedgehog. now i offer it to you.

flip flop lip lock

people are v. concerned about flip-floppiness of politicians. i've never understood why. why, in the face of changing facts and circumstances, ideas and preferences, should one not be able to change their mind.

things i have changed my mind about:
tomatoes
escargot
ideal places to live
ideal dog size
barbie's ideal hair length
purple
religion
abortion
what i 'want to be'
laptop backpacks
my parents
acid-wash jeans
country music
feminism
taxes
who i love
friends
fish tacos
coffee
favorite Blizzard
whiskey
eggs
wristbands
my middle name
things worth doing
how much i am willing to pay for sunglasses
panic at the disco

things that, if asked about, i will still answer, "it depends":
affirmative action
death penalty
standardized tests
north or south
moe's or qdoba?
family guy or southpark?
are you asian?
are you a nice person?
can you do me a favor?

and i changed my mind about most of the things on the first list due to capricious preferences, not any kind of logic.

things i may believe:
- people only really respond to personal incentives
- everyone is insecure
- when the motor of your car window breaks, it really does sound like the whole window is being ground into millions of glass shards in the confines of your car door. it is not.
- chicago is a 'real' city. charlotte is a pinocchio city. i loved pinocchio as much as anyone else. i just hate that he had to find out the hard way that being human kind of sucks compared to doll life. well, maybe except for the sex.. and candy
- i have no original ideas. every time i think i think of something novel, i find MY thought written down somewhere else... published at least 100 years ago. i'm led to believe that there is just something wrong with the dissemination of ideas. again, an old thought. i am destined to continue thinking that i am the only one whose car window shatters.

raiuowre

i'm currently watching a commercial for Cialis. i have one of those green, environment-friendly reusable Teeter bags sitting by the door to my condo, full of newspapers, that has been waiting to go out for 3 days. i'm listening to ingrid betancourt speak about how she never thought happiness was possible again.

i was telling joe earlier -- i mean, this is news, kids. after months of "did obama win or did hillary lose?"-esque idiotic headlines (that one really annoyed me), this news story enthralls me! hostages for 5 years - a bona fide kick-ass undercover rescue mission. reunited families. hope floats. so cool.

and those first 2 sentences i wrote have nothing to do with anything, really. just looking around the room, getting fingers on keys.

why does green have to represent environmental goodness? going green. ocean is bigger. how long have we been going green now? what if terrorists decide to adopt green as their official color? will that derail our environmental efforts? will broccoli become the new threatened crop?

god i'm word vomiting like a pro tonight.

does anyone get the cnn t-shirt thing? why would you want a shirt that says, "Cuba sets example for urban farming"? well, i thought about getting (i'd approximate for about -.8 seconds) the t-shirt that said, "asian women seek white, groveling men". back to my previous point - that 'news story' was not a new story.

also, after seeing pictures of the american hostages, i am convinced that the one is the leader of the G.I. Joes. you thought so too.

i am v. happy with life right now. i only mention it because it's been a long time since i think i could have said that. there are many things i have been v. happy with lately, just not life itself. though it still eludes me.

have a safe 4th.
(why spell fourth with a 'u' but forty without? great mystery)

(raiuowre = variation of mine and stephanie's sametime code for vomit)

socrates would not be happy

I don't think Google is making me stupid. But I do think this article is v.good. Because I, too, am a victim of a truncated attention span and this really annoying nagging feeling that I should be taking in information ALL the time, EVERY second. (Refer to my January entry, "you need to know this".) If one page takes more than 3 seconds max to load, I start a new Firefox tab. If that one takes more than 3 seconds to load, I start a new one. And so on and so forth until I have about 10 tabs open, and I can finally go back to the first tab, which, by this time, has been loaded for about 30 seconds now (an eternity!).

I mean, I am a prototype victim. I sometimes open a tab with a long article I want to read on Monday, put my computer on stand by every night for the whole week without closing my Internet browser, and by Friday, still have that tab open, with the article unread, save the headline and maybe the first sentence.

But it's an interesting article and makes a case for the pros and cons fairly well. And if you really are a victim and can't even bring yourself to read a long article for the sake of being aware of your inability to read a long article, then at least read this lady's view on the article. The part about Socrates fearing that, through the development of writing, we (ultimately, we):

would be able to “receive a quantity of information without proper instruction,” and would thus “be thought very knowledgeable when [we] are for the most part quite ignorant.” And be “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.”

is a v. interesting concept to me. Of course, the shortsightedness argument is just as intriguing.

In any case, have a look-see. and a good day. and go read a book, for god's sake. and go to a philosophy lecture, for socrates' sake.

dotted line

dude, i WANT this. sign, please!

and i also want this -- so you don't think i only sign selfish petitions. so you don't think i am merely a non-smoker and not a non-wanter of the end of starvation! (the petition i signed at the time was for the end of extreme poverty/starvation, not AIDS.) i know how miserable life can be when no one feeds me. (i have to admit i am totally lacking in any direct experience with AIDS.)

of course, if you added up all the amounts from all of the credit card receipts i have ever signed, together with my signed mortgage documents, my signed car title, and my one signed painting (ok, that one's worth nothing), it would probably be enough to ... i don't know, do something interesting, anyway.

for those who smoke, here's something for you:
http://www.wikihow.com/Save-a-Wet-Cell-Phone

a bag of rice. genius! didn't save poor Chris McCandless, but it can at least save your priceless cell phone contacts. and that one pic from that one night... yeah, you know which one i'm talking about.

tough call

i realize that i distorted the quote from Webb in my last post into a weird non sequitur, kind of going along with the whole blog post in general. one random thought after another. come on, people stay with me.

anyway, i thought i'd keep it pictorial for Friday evening.
Credit to last night's Daily Show for bringing this picture's existence to my attention:


oh wait -- slow motion replay!


omg i love our president. heralded. esteemed. people do not realize his fun-loving, frat-star, god-fearing worth! but they will! the history books will prove it! i'm just kidding. he's all right. i'd have a beer with him any day.

what's harder to believe, chest-bumping president? or 2-headed turtle?

OR global warming?


OR how hot Prince Harry looks with a gun??

happy friday.

chicken wing grease

i am off to my tennessee wedding/engagement party/"last day" party extravaganza (today is my little brother's Last Day of high school. he is not graduating; he graduated 4 years ago. but, because of his disability, he went to high school for 4 years post-graduation to.. you know, get the most out of the educational system (read: because the system sucks, and the dolts running it didn't know what else to tell him to do). J (my little brother) is v.v.excited about his "last day". last night he and my dad had a preemptive celebration at Hooters and called me from the "restaurant" to exult over the gigantic amount of chicken wing grease they were able to accumulate on their hands.)

anyway, so i leave you with a small excerpt i read last night in Parade (yes, it takes me until Thursday to read all of the Sunday paper. what about it?) from Sen. Jim Webb's article, for no other reason than i thought it was an interesting viewpoint:

"When you have watched an enemy fight with ferocity and often with honor, you tend to conclude that on some level you have more in common with those you were trying to kill than you do with people who view wars only as an intellectual debate. . .

What has this got to do with the politics of today?

Everything. . .

Elections shouldn't be. . . auctions where a candidate sells himself [sic!] to the highest bidder. They should be moral contracts between those who wish to lead and those who are consenting to be led. . ."

Also, a quote from Ann Curry about her father passing away that i love:

"it is the lesson that is passed from generation to generation: how to live and how to die
with honor
and love."

happy memorial day weekend! go dale! beer! fast cars! yeaauuhhh

25.0

i guess it's about that time of year... when i should write about how i feel turning 25 and all... but really i've got nothing to write. i had some v. nice birthday cake and well wishes and gifts from joe, but besides that, it was a v. average day. i even went to the gym on my bday.. and changed the sheets on my bed! my lord, i guess i am getting old. to my defense, it did fall on a monday this year. i also hadn't been to the gym in ages and was starting to feel a little soggy.

it may be a little premature, but i've actually shifted back to viewing each year as a major accomplishment (after only 3 years of the post-21-oh-my-god-i'm-SO-OLD-that-my-hangovers-last-ALL-day-now syndrome). I'm sure this will shift back yet again as i approach 30.

(my mother actually has a "solution" to that OMG-i'm-so-old syndrome. she turned 59.0 this year. next year she will turn 59.1. She's not kidding. Old age has given my mom new life in a cool way. She cares nothing for what people think or how to please them; she cares more about her core loves and her own happiness. She neglected that for a while... it's impressive to see how much her self-possessed happiness has been a boon to... well, everything else.)

in any case, i really do feel accomplished for reaching 25. i think this is due to 2 things, mainly:
1. the more i live, the more i think that life is just kind of weird and random. and it's a struggle, really, to keep afloat most of the time. And i see my parents (both at 59.0) and my grandparents, among others, and i think, for chrissake, that's a long time to have survived this weird, random, unforgiving world. it's an accomplishment to which i pay high regards.
2. as my close friends know, i am in the middle of this lack-of-life-goals problem thing. so, you know, "Attain 1 more year of age" is as good and as reachable of a goal i've got.

yeah, I still don't understand what i am really doing with my life. the world in general is a backwards place to figure it out. Apparently at Tehran University in Iran, they chant "Marg-bar Amrika" (Death to America) every Friday. And then my nation is more concerned with political campaigns than political action. And then approximately 25,000 people die from starvation every day. It totally sickens me to think of all the food I've watched go to waste, just in my lifetime. my short 25 years. To quote CO governor Roy Romer (awesome name) in an article about the lack of quality education and the high drop-out rates in America: "We're not where a great nation ought to be."

I actually haven't changed at all since last year. I still conjur up v.big doses of concern for myself alone, and i still don't do anything to ameliorate the situations i grieve over. I'm pretty sure i've got to take the time to figure out my own shite before i can do anything worthwhile.

i can talk about something peppier. How about American Idol. How about David Archuletta looking like he was going to vomit-cry every time Randy or Simon complimented him on his faux boxing wins? How about that even David Archuletta gets sick of Paula's inane ramblings? I mean, they really are amazing. She can talk for a full minute, and at the end, you've actually detracted from your overall knowledge of everything from the contestants to embryotic stem cell research.

my end note -- go to www.catalogchoice.org and unsubscribe to catalogs. i am so excited i will maybe save 1 tree and not get 10 V.Secret catalogs per week, though i think Joe is a little sad.

like a record, baby

i have spent probably a little more than an hour staring at this at work between yesterday and today:

spinning girl

It mainly goes counterclockwise for me, but occasionally goes clockwise, and one time, i even got it to switch mid-spin. it was my proudest moment perhaps of the last few months.

it's no hoax -- mary alice and i watched it on her screen together and saw it going opposite ways. the weird thing is that, if you see her going counterclockwise, you see her left leg up, but if you see her going clockwise, you see her right leg up. i still haven't really figured that one out.

joe's first response was, "the spinning girl is pretty hot," and one of my manager's first comments was, "i can see her nipples." fair enough.

and then, this story is just unreal. made me tear up a little. what a little bitch cancer is.

4 minutes too many

i need some direction.
i haven't written anything in a while.
i think i forgot how to.
in fact, right now, i'm even kind of writing this like a Sametime (instant message, for those who are cool enough not to know)

i think i take on too much sometimes. in real terms, yes, but exacerbated by my stupid head.

for instance, extrapolate this situation: i am in the middle of printing out a baker's dozen worth of recipes. "Quick and Easy Summer Recipes!", Start to Finish: 20 minutes (right, IF i had Emeril-like resources with his little glass measuring bowls that have conveniently been filled pre-show with spices and chopped onions and organic extra virgin olive oil, by some miserable bloke who probably recently got cut from Hell's Kitchen).

i may, realistically, end up using approximately one of the recipes ... on or around August 31st, out of guilt because of all the time i took to print them out and, come august 30th, none of them being made. they will have been sitting pretty in a binder in a cabinet next to the microwave. neatly tucked away.

i may even then make another one in September, realizing that the recipes aren't half bad, and again regretting not making more. that's one of my fortes -- doing/wearing things out of season. the closet is the worst. the whole winter, i will lament every morning about how i have nothing, oh absolutely NOthing to wear. the first time i hear a bird chirp, i will look into my closet and lament over ALL the clothes i never got to wear when it was cold. idiot.

in any case, yeah, extrapolate that situation. i guilt myself into everything and stress about it in the meantime. it's not something to psycho-analyze in a blog, but it's pretty ridiculous.

the only solution i can come up with is to quit my job and become a bum. katie and claire have already agreed to join me once i can figure out a way to not have to sleep outside.

i promised mary alice i would not write about work, because it would probably get me fired. just one off comment, though -- today, i almost quit before figuring out the sleep-outside quandary when, in the breakroom, this woman kept squealing, in front of the microwave, "8 mEEnuts?! 8 mEEnuts?!! ah can't believe ah have to mahhcrowave thees lean kahzeen fahr 8 MEENUTS!"

i just decided to eat my leftover pizza cold.

and to be fair, it was more like, "uh-ate", not "eight".


"...fitty pahcent power?!"

final easter notes

... you know, for those who may just be getting back to school from easter vacay...

I was telling my mom the other day how i was eating too much candy and will probably have a shite-ton of cavities by the time busy season is over. She responded by saying that I should be thankful for my beautiful teeth… thankful to my parents for dishing out the cash to get good dental care (which I am), and thankful to the government. For putting fluoride in the water.

which i am… so, here is my token of gratitude to the government, for giving me good teeth, even during Easter -- a pictorial homage.

Fitting, no? Mary Alice and I decided more people should be aware of this picture. I agreed. So, here I am, spreading awareness and showing my gratefulness at the same time. Call me The Great Multi-tasker. For instance, right now I am listening to an altogether pointless TFS (Tax Filing Standard…) call and writing a blog at the same time. TGMT.

t minus 4 1/2 hours till madness in char-town..

why american kids suck at academics

Straight from charlotte.com.. find the one that doesn't belong.

Easter Monday | What's open, closed?

Here's how the following institutions will observe the 2008 Easter holiday today:

• Mecklenburg ABC stores: Regular hours.

• S.C. package stores: Regular hours.

• Banks: Regular hours.

• CPCC: Regular schedule.

• Charlotte buses: Regular schedule.

• Charlotte city offices: Regular hours.

• Mecklenburg County offices: Regular hours.

• FedEx: Regular hours.

• Federal offices: Regular hours.

• Charlotte garbage: Regular schedule.

• Post offices: Regular hours.

• Charlotte schools: Closed Monday-Tuesday.

• N.C. state offices: Regular hours.

• S.C. state offices: Regular hours.

• Stock market: Regular hours.

• UNCC: Regular schedule.

• United Parcel Service: Regular hours.

-- COMPILED BY GERRY HOSTETLER

a few Easter church notes

i learned that i have no obligation to believe in god unless i have:
1) physically put my arm through jesus's post-resurrected side, or
2) seen an abnormal amount of lightning bugs in my backyard (preferably after struggling with faith and doubt).

we got there late and had to sit in the very back, but it was a queen's seat, really, because i had a sniper's view of the sign language lady, who keeps me slightly entertained and in awe of how she can sign and listen, sign and listen, sign and listen in this continuous loop so that she is always doing both at the same time. ASL superpowers, must be.

anyway, when we got to the closing, even-if-what-i-said-didn't-mean-anything-to-you-maybe-listening-to-this-pretty-choir-led-music-will-help song, she was still signing to her viewer, in time with the music. and i thought, that's kind of strange.. the words are right up there.. he can read them if he wants to.. (quick mental check of reasoning - yes, deaf.. not blind.. ok). and then i saw him kind of signing along with it too, and she was still guiding him along, and it clicked (finally) that, of course he can read it, but he has no idea at what tempo. and then i went through this quick sad/happy emotion, thinking about how much it would suck to never hear music, how unfair that was to him, how much i have taken and mostly always will take that privilege for granted. then, how cool it was that he could have this, that he could at least kind of hear the song through this nice lady at church, that he could come here every week and be provided these ears to a side of the world to which this god he believes in decided he was not privy.

i'm still not sure what i feel about churches as institutions, but at least there's that.. in the meantime, while i make up my mind.

also, my sister got me a stuffed animal duck that has a towel wrapped around its neck. one side says "SPLISH" and the other side says "SPLASH". and when you press its hand (er.. wing?), it butt-dances across the table/floor, and its cheeks light up all while singing the song. we made it fall off the stairs and laughed hysterically an embarrassing number of times.

also, I AM LOOKING FOR TICKETS TO THE SWEET 16 GAME THIS THURSDAY. TICKETS!! LOOKING! CHARLOTTE! EAST REGION! Thursday! Please!

a few busy season comments..

- tonight I ate a whole pineapple chicken fried rice from Soho. The whole damn thing. I don't know what got into me. I got halfway through and decided I could power through. PUSH, if you will. I know only those who have ever had a PCFR will be able to appreciate it, but that's enough appreciation to make it worth mentioning. I'm sure I will have a monstrous bout of heartburn in about 15 minutes, but it was worth it.. worth mentioning. I should do more things that are worth mentioning. Though this was arguably not worth mentioning. OK, this was not worth mentioning. Maybe I should be depressed that the battle i won over my dinner was the big news of my day. (that and the french woman who died who had esthesioneuroblastoma.. i mean, can you imagine some doctor coming to tell you you had esthesioneuroblastoma??? i most certainly would choose pronto death.)

- so, you remember that show, fraggle rock? well, our building is set up like a lot of other tall buildings, with elevator banks split up by several consecutive floors. Our bank goes from floor 26 to 37. pwc is on floors 35-37. floors 26-34 are owned by the Hearst Corporation (yes, the Hearst that publishes e.g., "CosmoGIRL!" and that owns 20% of ESPN). So... long story short.. don't let Hearst's repertoire of fashion magazines dupe you -- sometimes i feel like i live above my own little 9-story fraggle rock... where hairy, disfigured creatures roam about and snarf on showmars below..

eh, that's bad, but i can't help it.. i saw a parallel.

also, in the time between when i started to write this and now, i also ate a whole bag of skittles. i am afraid i'm slowly fraggle-izing.

also, happy birthday to the coolest person ever born on this day, corny stuff, etc.

jump into the CESSPOOL

This is your official invite to the Cesspool bracket.. I tried inviting everyone the official way, but apparently it's not working.. and then I tried sending out mass messages, but that was way too time-consuming. Join through the CBS tournament link. Then click on Groups and join mine. Brackets need to be in by 11am tomorrow.

gah, look what living in North Carolina has done to me.. I'm not sure what I should be doing right now, but I don't think it's: writing a blog inviting everyone to a facebook tournament pool.

rightio, then.

U Rock!

i don't have much time to write blogs these days (during THE season, as ashley so aptly referred to it), but an advert for this book was in my inbox from amazon.com:note that the subtitle is: How Smart People Brand Themselves for Business Success
wow, seriously?
and yes, it is in hardcover.

the 'artist' column of my 'going out' playlist

all these people are in town this weekend for the ciaa tournament:

fabolous
fat joe
gucci mane
jermaine dupri
bow wow (my class may remember him as lil bow wow)
omarion
keith sweat (oh, so twisted!)
r kelly
doug e fresh
yung joc
lil kim
biz markie

i mean, that is just kind of crazy to me.. i don't know what else to say about it. except that when the acc tournament comes, we'll probably be lucky to attract ashley judd. for the ncaa east, perhaps peyton??!!! oh my god, i'm just realizing i would KILL for some TN tickets..

i don't know?

wrote this about a year ago, 3/6/07.. found it scribbled in a notepad. i haven't progressed much since. unabridged version:

why do we give apples to teachers? why are there 4 seasons, not 5 or 7? why do decisions always seem important to have but undesirable to make? why is a question mark shaped so? who discovered ink?

why do things fall apart? do the people who built them know? why did the beatles cross abbey road? and why does it matter? if you erase something, did it ever really exist?

how far have we come? why is it easier for men to come? why are we so selfish? why do we invent so many jobs and governments and religions and relationships to persuade ourselves that we are not?

why did we run up the middle on 3^rd and long? why would I stay up to write this nonsense? why do we do what we do? what were anna nicole smith’s intentions? jesus’s? muhammad’s? saddam’s? britney’s? congress’s? what is style? beauty?

when flowers die, do they go to heaven? if they don’t, but we tell our kids otherwise to make them feel better, is that ok? if so, what % of the lies that have been told throughout the existence of mankind has been ok?

who framed roger rabbit? why, at 23, did in initially misspell rabbit just then? what do people really think of you? what do people really think about? why must embarrassment exist as an emotion?

do things come full circle? is there fate? does adding ‘such a thing as’ to that question add any value to it? if there is no fate, does belief in it rebound it into existence?

how much is too much? how much should you really tip the pizza boy? why is pizza so good – cold, hot, morning, night? night, yes, these – all good questions – that aren’t worth answering.

night.

you're really annoying

from an article entitled "Get Rid of Bad Work Habits" by Anthony Balderrama, this is the penultimate (a fated place for me) habit:

Bad Habit: Always being the funny one.
What you think: “People love me.”
What it really says: You’re really annoying.
What to do: There’s nothing wrong with being funny – most people do like a good sense of humor. Just remember that not everybody wants to hear your sarcastic quips and “Godfather” impersonations every five minutes.

copyright 2008 CareerBuilder.com

couldn't've said it better mahself.

ok, and yes, i do realize that we lost last night. just as well as i realize that we beat memphis on saturday night. and we're still awesome, and i still love b.pearl, and the vols will still be #1 in mah heart. :)

crazy silly beautiful cover girl

a v.silly things humans say:

deb: working out is just so hard!
trudy: i know, right?! but i mean, the hardest part of going to the gym is getting there. once i'm there, it's so easy!

hmm.. so you're saying.. so you're telling me that it's hard to get up from your down-filled, seude-covered couch, off your ass, in the middle of a particularly amusing rerun of 'friends' to go exert lots of physical energy? that with your left hand preoccupied with a beer and your right with a pizza, you have no leverage to push up?! that's the hardest part?

but that once you're in the middle of a public sweat fest, surrounded by treadmills and devil-red-LED-number-display scales and many attractive members of the opposite sex and, the worst one, mirrors, that it's easy? it's easy once you're there?

That's just crazy talk.

of course, i have said/agreed to this silly declaration numerous times previous. all americans have. i'm just making sure you again, this fine mid-february day, realize its silliness (wow, that's a weird-looking word. a v. silly-looking word).

caveat emptor

i found this e-mail train to be slightly amusing....

sent on 2/7/08, 8:40 AM:

Dear sir or madam:

Please see attached pdf file. As the 2 receipts show, I ordered shoes on 1/8/08 but had them exchanged for the rain boots, which were invoiced on 1/29/08. As the first receipt shows, I used $30 of Banana rewards certificates (received through use of my Banana Visa card), which were redeemed at the time. When my order was exchanged, however, the total charges of $64.35 were only credited by the net $23.58 (my credit card was charged for $40.77), instead of $53.58, which would have included credit for my initial rewards certificates. In effect, I lost the benefit of my rewards certificates in the exchange. Can you please remedy this?

Hopefully the attachment has all of the customer information that you need, but if not, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

----------------------

sent on 2/7/08, 12:47 PM:

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your e-mail. Unfortunately, we are unable to open attachments that we receive, for security purposes. However, we were able to locate the orders in question using your name. Our records indicate that order #129QTX1 was placed on January 8, 2008. We see that $30.00 in rewards were redeemed on this order.

On January 29, 2008, we received the order for exchange. Your new order #12VR1PN was then fulfilled. Please note, if you use a promotion code to make your purchase, we'll gladly exchange your shoes for the same style in a different size or color. If you'd like to exchange your shoes for something else, we'll apply your credit towards the new shoes at their current price. A previously used promotion code cannot be applied to the sale of a different shoe, as stated on our web site. We apologize for any disappointment this may cause.

Unfortunately, we cannot allow an exception to this policy. To remain fair and consistent in all transactions, we cannot allow an exception to one customer that we do not allow to all customers.

Additional questions? Contact us at customercare@piperlime.com or 1-877-PIPERLIME (1-877-747-3754). We are happy to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Have a great day,

Glen
Customer Loyalty Representative

------------------

sent on 2/7/08, 1:17 PM:

Wow, that blows.

-----------------

sent on 2/7/08, 7:20 PM (after appropriate forwarding to the Customer Loyalty management and subsequent piecing together of various, tactful canned e-mails):

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your message to Piperlime regarding the exchange you made from order #129QTX1. We would like to apologize for the disappointment you have experienced with our exchange policy in regards to Rewards. Please know that our goal at Piperlime is to exceed our customer's expectations. We're sorry that, in this instance, we clearly did not meet yours.

We rely on customer feedback to monitor and improve our service. At this time, we have forwarded your remarks to the appropriate team for further consideration.

We hope that you will give us another opportunity in the future to dazzle you with our shoes and service.

Additional questions? Contact us at customercare@piperlime.com or 1-877-PIPERLIME (1-877-747-3754). We are happy to help 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Sincerely,

Katherine
Customer Loyalty Representative

--------------

Not sent:

Razzle dazzle? like in Chicago??! I can't wait. For the low lo price of ..?!

P.S. I sent the rain boots back.

you don't need to know this.

Speaking of too much information, while i was driving to Tennessee last week for work (i know - bizarre; even more bizarre to be staying at a hotel in j-rock city (thanks claire); most bizarre to be staying in a nice hotel in j-rock city; would not have been bizarre if one of the receptionists had graduated high school with me), i was listening to NPR (i do sometimes try to interject my music listening (which, for me, consists of Jack White telling me that i can't be a pimp and a prostitute too and Alicia Keys singing a song in which 42.3% of the lyrics are "oh oh oh oh ohohoh") with phone calls and news).

(If you missed the point of all that because of my annoying overuse of paranthetical sidenotes, I really only said: I drove to TN and was listening to NPR.)

So, NPR informs me that, basically, we owe China $1.53 TRILLION. Yeah, not in Remnimbi or yuan or adopted kids or rice grains, but 1.5 trillion American, U.S. dollars. ($1 trillion, written out in what the ancients called "zeroes" is: $1,000,000,000,000. ) This trade deficit increases by $1 billion every day, apparently. That is $11,574 per second. The other details are relatively boring: U.S. Treasuries, their currency pegged to ours, etc., blah, blah. You can read about it (also see previous blog post).

So, whatever. That's fine, whatever. But then, NPR also tells me (in what could have been the same half hour) that China was having something akin to their version of Katrina because of the winter storms impeding the Chinese from traveling home to their families for the Chinese New Year (a MUST there - kind of interesting). NPR then says, "Important Chinese Guy made this important announcement today at one of the airports where families have been waiting:

'Chowda, chowda chowdaer! Yinga yanga banga!'"

in a voice that i can only describe as a cross between the teacher from Peanuts and Alvin the Chipmunk. NPR didn't bother to translate the chowda banga until the speech was over, leaving me for 20 full seconds laughing hysterically (in my car, by myself), thinking that NPR had temporarily been taken over by Seth MacFarlane.

In any case, it was at that moment, when i realized that it was not a joke, that i determined i am very concerned that we owe China $1.53 trillion.

Yeah, we're definitely in trouble.

and of course..
Go Giants! and VOLS!
NY doing well in football, TN doing well in basketball.. who knew?

you need to know this.

Speaking of newspapers, I am slowly realizing that I am invariably overwhelmed by something that I really shouldn’t be overwhelmed by – information. There’s just so much of it. There are too many different sections of the newspaper… one telling me the current events and why somebody thinks they are important for me to know, a second about business and how it will affect me, a third about every sport with a spectator somewhere, the athletes I should note, their stats, a fourth telling me where i should travel and why, another telling me what I should eat and why, articles upon articles about how I should exercise and when and where and in what outfit and on which mountaintop while reading this newspaper while drinking non-bottled water and listening to XY artist (the first album, not the second), and don’t forget the cool down, oh and the warm up, and make sure your heart rate is within this range, stretch after, not before, lift weights rapido!, run slooow, walk if you want to, jump rope 42 times, and afterwards eat salmon (no) (yes) (good for brain) (too much mercury) (swims too close to the surface) (is a good color if you have to eat fish) (don’t eat the eyes) (eat it raw!) (nix that, now cows are in the IN again).

And there are websites for everything you never needed to know. Exact times of nude scenes in movies. Articles about nothing. Articles about other articles. Paris Hilton’s exact whereabouts at this very second (I don’t know if that really exists). Shopping via auction. Shopping via click and mortar. Shopping via social networks (no shit). Social networks. Shopping. Sales you need to know about RIGHT NOW because they only last THREE days and you have to enter this EXACT code which is case sensitive, time sensitive! Google, Froogle, Heroiusdfmoogle. BLOGS that ramble. my lord, the inundation!

I realize that I should just ignore the information that I don’t need. I do realize this. But sometimes, trying to get to the information that I do (think I) need, I get attacked by all this other information, sometimes in the form of pop-up or roll-down or unfurling, marching, machine-gun wielding ads. And it annoys me, because somehow, somewhere along the lines, information stops being privileged and starts being overwhelmingly burdensome. We’ve always known we’ll never know everything. Now the Internet keeps punching us in the face with it.

So, I’m just sayin. I don’t like being punched in the face.

oh ... i think i started off talking about newspapers. too many words. right.

hit me with your best

so, last night, after i was somewhat violently thrown back to the 80s (is there any other way to be thrown back to the 80s?), I fell asleep on my futon fully clothed (boots, too) and woke up in a 330am daze still drunk. And unfortunately, after a quick perusal of the night’s picture gallery, the conclusion (foregone) is that no pictures are post-worthy (I’m either shooting off into some random corner of the cab/bar, or it’s just plainly non-post-able, as my judgment has ruled after recalling the censorship pleas from my past photo-post combo victims). so, for this blog post’s Moral Ineptitude Lesson, you’ll have to just believe me when I confirm that the last shot, indeed, is always the worst decision. Whether it is the climax of a night full of previous bad decisions, or the denouement, or, at worst, the start of more bad decisions, it is always that shot that lets you climb over the flimsy line from the fun side to the oh-no side.

speaking of shots and bad decisions, I read a little blurb in the paper today (yes, that was basically my 1 new year’s resolution – to get the weekend paper… and yes, I realize I am the world’s (1) biggest dork, and (2) laziest resolution-er (maybe next year’s resolution will be to do more crossword puzzles)) about how this church in Ballantyne is going to put come-to-church messages in the bottoms of shot glasses. I think they’re going to say something like, “give us a shot”, along with the church’s name… [insert Jim Halpert face here]. The church minister (or leader – I think it is one of those churches that deems itself progressive by way of simplified monikers (‘message’, not ‘sermon’) and the proliferation of contemporary christian music) said something like, he is 100% positive it will be controversial. Well, I don’t know about the controversy (this is America - we can find a way to make anything controversial), but, considering that there’s only really one demographic I know of that would even stop to look at their glasses after taking a shot, I’m just concerned that that church is going to have to start dealing with a lot of homeless old drunks. yeah, good luck with that.

Also, go GIANTS.

housekeeping

in an failed attempt to do some housekeeping on my computer files, i found some pretty funny stuff i had written in the past:

in a file titled 'thought of the day' (an idea which i think i've tried to resurrect at least 4 times):
Life doesn’t remind me of anything. 10/10/05

in a file titled 'analogies':
But analogies are like pop songs: the bad ones are overplayed and the good ones are overlooked.
Life is like a UT football game.
(and after this groundbreaking statement, i somehow failed to expound.)

in a file titled '24':
and this writing is so ineloquent, so imperfect, so non-poetic; it’s just how I feel. are feelings always so raw and juvenile-sounding? I wish someone like Maya Angelou or Edith Wharton could tell you how I feel. it would sound so much better.

in a file titled 'june':
Modern day martyrs have to be the biggest cowards alive. er, dead.

in a file titled 'the strange thing':

Don’t give them a way to live, just a reason to.
Right?
Self-interest.
It’s a shit world.
But it can be so beautiful.

and , something i wrote that i don't look back on and cringe at its absolute triteness--
in a file titled 'thanksgiving 2003':
For my little brother who teaches me to step back from my little bubble and remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect to be right. For reminding me not to take anything for granted. For teaching me to be tolerant of differences because they are what makes life interesting and beautiful and worth it.