5.30.2008

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.

5.23.2008

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

5.20.2008

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.

5.02.2008

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.