zing!

oh, so much to say, but no desire to sit in front of this computer any longer.

so, some links:

i read this article in the paper this weekend (yes, i know, i am the only person under 30 who reads a physical paper). Dionne describes moderates' "wins" rather morbidly and also brings up an argument that annoys me to no end:

"If a bill eventually becomes law -- as it must if the Democrats are not to look like a feckless, useless lot -- "

Annoying because now it's as if the democrats want (need) to pass health care reform just to do it - just to accomplish something. Yes, they're going to look like a bunch of idiotic pushover losers (kind of like the SEC... $150M is enough to get them wet, huh?) if they don't. But come on. Let's not let that become the impetus behind changing a nation's health care system.

Eh, who am i kidding? who am i to be so naive as to think that similar reasons haven't been the impetus behind hundreds of bills, tons of pork?

Anyway, I'd like to hope that, if we get health care reform, it's simply because we need (want) health care reform. A futile hope, perhaps.

In any case, i thought this musing in the article was pretty true, if not, amusing:

"...the conservatives relentlessly made a straightforward public case based on a syllogism: The economy is a mess. Obama and the Democrats are for big government. Big government is responsible for the mess. Therefore the mess is the fault of Obama and the Big Government Democrats.

Simplistic and misleading? Absolutely. But if liberals and Obama are so smart, how did they -- or, if you prefer, "we" -- allow conservatives to make this argument so effectively? Why do the mainstream media give it so much credence?"

Also, Newt and Jon, if you haven't seen it:

Wrong

Wrong Again

Favorite part:

when Gingrich acknowledged that part of his job is to reach out to the emotions of the American people, Stewart shot back, "I think that's wise. And don't let reality get in the way."

inside this life

was taking a tag off a piece of jewelry i bought at forever 21 today, and i thought back to the cashier girl (young, overdone, to no avail) saying by rote, "..but all jewelry sales are final." and it actually made me smile. oh, the freedom of knowing that i don't have the freedom to return something. i'm stuck with it! forever!! this $4.50 necklace - i made a decision, and now i have to live with it! for eternity!

oh, humanity, and your everlasting quest for freedom. don't you know that you are always undermined by a perpetual state of no freedom at all.

wait, did i just attempt to relate a XXI purchase with metaphysics?

hm, kind of, huh? interesting.

by the way, i am intrigued by jersey shore as much as the next slug, but why on earth did they get to go to the grammy's?? not fair. would have enjoyed hearing drake, eminem & lil wayne without the censor ax. ..not sure what the big deal about that is anyway. "i stuck my d-ck inside this life until that b-tch came." what's wrong with that? kind of clever. "you're such a f-cking loser." that's just an honest expression of emotion. (and, yes, i did look up the lyrics, and yes, Eminem can rap faster than i can read. i appreciate that.)

finally, in other random things I can come

up with to say, Roger Federer

continues to machete through Americans, Serbs, Argentines, Swedes, Spaniards, French, and - even - Englishmen without any hint of discrimination whatsoever in his conquest to take over the world with a tennis racquet and floppy hair. Off with your heads, measly plebes!

Ha. Ha.

all right, this is where my silly 26-year-old mind has wandered since the last post...

maybe all this is a good thing. i think the last thing we need in a national healthcare system is one in which (healthy) Republicans get to hold every single story of system missteps and shortcomings over (nauseous) Democrats' heads. I can already see Glenn and Rush and Sarah P. digging into it, and it makes me a little sick. So, you know, that would be a shortcoming in the healthcare system right there.

And, being a true Unaffiliated, i really think that something as broad as healthcare needs to be legislated on common ground. (I realize that there is none of that right now.)

But, being a true Unaffiliated introduces problems of its own. because i like this take on things - I like to think that everything can be debated and reduced (yes, like a balsamic reduction) to a common ground - that a common ground must always exist, and it's just a matter of finding it. However, i have come to realize that i occasionally agree with one side and truly do not agree with the other. For instance, i really, really believe that gay marriage should be legal. If you think i'm going to go into all the reasons why right here, then you're wrong. but let's just say that there's no reason it shouldn't be legal

. Period. Bam!

So... i don't know where that leaves me in my quest for diplomacy and bipartisanship, including when it relates to healthcare. I guess it comes back to: Argh. Because if you agree that insurance cos. shouldn't turn ppl away because of pre-existing conditions, and you wrote legislation to prevent it, then you'd have to account for all the schemers who wouldn't get insurance until they were sick. So you'd have to make having insurance mandatory. So then you'd have to subsidize those who couldn't afford it. Then you'd have to define who couldn't afford it. Then you'd have people right above that definition line who also probably couldn't really afford it. Then... you'd have government healthcare.

I mean, governing is like trying to raise teenagers. effing impossible. no wonder it doesn't work very well.

I will say that this graph from National Geographic was a bit... disconcerting (Click on graph to enlarge, i.e., to see U.S. costs).

finally, i hope there are people in Washington paying attn to this (does anyone else think the hyperlink icon in Blogger looks like a bull? ...??).

Excerpt:

"The conventional wisdom is you can't have back-to-back major financial crises. I think we're going to push that, we're going to have a look and see whether that's true. And the next 12 months could really be exciting. People could be very positive, but we are setting ourselves up for an enormous catastrophe."

ha ha! isn't that funny?? An enormous catastrophe. That's funny. Funny enough for me to stop thinking about healthcare while I laugh.

the aughts

so, my last blog post of the decade was about a 13-year-old girl who writes about fashion. hm, i definitely did not mean for that to happen. if i could think of a less appropriate way to round out my decade, ... well, i can't. don't get me wrong; i still think she's cool. and i do like fashion, but i certainly don't know fashion. i don't discriminate between YSL and XXI. heck, i know more about football than i do about fashion. maybe even basketball. definitely not hockey.

annywho, the decade of the aughts, huh? funny that i never really heard it being referred to as the aughts until the last month of the decade. but i like it. so i will most likely, from now on, refer to it as the 'aughts' even though that's not the way it happened. but it happened. and as i have marveled about it with friends, this is the first decade i truly remember. When the 90s started, i was 6. Don't remember much from 6. When the aughts (heh - by the way, what do you call this decade? the 10-to-12s-and-teens?) started, i was rounding out my senior year of high school. I don't remember a heck of a lot, but I certainly remember more than i did at 6.

i guess it's interesting to look back on a decade, but i'm not going to write about it. it deserves a quick trip down the proverbial memory lane for me, and that's about it. because really that's all it takes for me to realize how much i've changed in 10 years. the difference between 6 and 16 is infinity, and the difference between 16 and 26 is infinity. plus, if i tried to recap the decade it would go something like:

The Past Decade:
Spring 2000 - graduated high school
Sept. 11, 2001 - woke up to raj telling me and beth that the twin towers were falling
Spring 2004 - graduated college
Spring 2005 - graduated grad school
Fall 2009 - sometime between me leaving work and me arriving at AA5, MJ died

you know, pretty standard timeline-y things, plus stuff i remember from the past year, or two, tops. it's hard to fit a decade into, well, anything but a decade, I guess.

there are probably a few things about the past decade that i think are worth mentioning. How about .. ok, my personal opinion on worst new word of the decade: 'staycation.' w(ho)tf goes on a staycation? if you're seriously that overworked that you need to take time off to stay at home and clean your baseboards and watch DVRed episodes of How I Met Your Mother, then you need a new job. And if you seriously want to take a 'staycation', then that's just lame.

on a related note, a close second is 'mancation.' i think Brokeback Mountain might have ruined that one.

eh, that's all i can come up with about the decade for now (earlier, i tried to make a list of people i admire from the past decade, and i ended up with my father and tina fey and anthony bourdain all on the same list, and, well, that was embarrassing and is the last list i'll attempt for a while).

The new year has started out pretty well, i think. I didn't get in any car wrecks on new year's day, or wake up somewhere unfamiliar (in fact, i woke up at the same friend's house that i've woken up at for the last 3 new years' now (umm... where the fook do you put the apostrophe in a plural new year's?)), and i've already been to two pretty good concerts (RJD2's Ghostwriter is v. good live).


and, you know, Blagojevich still thinks he's black, and health care is still a headline rather than an actual working noun, and apparently not only is John Edwards crazy but so is Elizabeth, and Haiti's a sad horrible bloody mess, and Kiffin's in California, and Art Clokey died (who was, by the way, put in an orphanage when he was 10 because his mom's new boyfriend made her choose between him or the kid), and Conan is in network limbo, and the Neighborhood Theatre may close .... which is all good, right? because apparently being sad is good sometimes.

Well, also, the star Betelgeuse (shoulder star in Orion) is so big that if it were at the center of our solar system, it would extend out past Mars. So, you know, it's all relative.

And also, there's this. Again, relative. auld lang syne, y'all.

tavi

dude, this has got to be one of the coolest pubescent girls i have seen in a while (i also like dakota fanning).

here's the transcript of an interview with her from back in march and recent news that she just landed a column in Harper's Bazaar. Something tells me that this first job (i guess besides being a spokesperson for Rodarte) will prove to be much more auspicious than mine as a Siamese girl in the Syracuse showing of The King and I. And here's an article from the Daily Mail that includes the picture of her on the cover of Love magazine that got me looking around the internets for her in the first place.

how nice to see a 13-year-old who has actual unabashed opinions... and a kick-ass sense of style. ahh, refreshing!

probably could if i tried

i can't help that i like whiskey and diet coke with lots of ice. but that i hate that it makes my hand cold, and i'm usually already cold. and that coke v. pepsi doesn't matter to me. but that the kind of whiskey does, but only sometimes. and that i think god is kind of bullshit even though he does exist, whether i believe in it or not, for the same reason that santa claus exists (in black and white, though maybe not in yellow), and for the same reason that hope and all that other stuff exists that keeps animals that have too much time to think from wanting to stop thinking. and that i wish i could be a tall, almost-naked blue cat-person and reach whatever god - or santa - i wanted to with my hair tentacles. and that i like lady gaga because she says things in interviews that are just ass-shit crazy but genius

like: "When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time."

i also can't help that i'm quite opinionated but mostly about the wrong things (... 80s hair, toothpaste labels). actually, that's not true. i have opinions about a lot of things like politics and wars and peace and hunger and the correlation between happiness and pet ownership, but mainly i find it too tiring to care in writing. there are a lot of people writing about the wrongs. i am too unimpressed to do it anymore, i think: to care. people say things like, "take your government hands off my medicare" and it's so ridiculous that i get tired just thinking about caring. i am even too tired to fix my own hunger sometimes... but i admit that is rare.

what IS this new free bob dylan christmas song on itunes? holy cow. good proof that everyone makes truly horrible mistakes sometimes. or maybe that drugs are bad.

i can't help that sometimes i count a really good day as one where i make banana nut pancakes and meatball stew and do 4 loads of laundry and read the paper and a book and then fall asleep next to someone who cares. and that's it. but it feels nice.

i can't help that sometimes i count a really good day as one where i sleep in till noon and don't shower till 4 and then go to 2 christmas parties and barely get my shoes off before falling asleep next to someone who doesn't care. and that's it. and it doesn't feel nice, but you can look back and have a good laugh at it.

i can't help that this is all over the place. i think i used to write better. or at least type better. i need to quit this write-every-3-months thing. i can't help that i like this quip by gaga too

"I love the gays so much it's scary. I'm pretty serious about everyone being on time to rehearsal, and the other day my gay dancers ... were late because they were getting their hair cut. It looked great, though, so I didn't care."

that's pretty great. forget health care and global warming; go get a haircut and have irresponsible sex. not necessarily in that order.

ad nauseam

i started writing this a while ago and, after reading this article today, decided that i'd go ahead and post it.

kate moss's admission re: her 'favorite quote' might not be a surprise, and the quote itself ("nothing tastes as good as skinny feels") might not be new. But seriously... that doesn't negate the fact that Barbie standards are freakin ridiculous, and i think i like france's idea (is that legal here?) of putting warnings - ok, at least disclaimers - on pictures that have been retouched. We have to put warnings and disclaimers on all else -- ratings for everything media, skulls & crossbones on cigs and alcohol, calories, trans fats, side effects... I think there's a solid argument that extreme photo touch-ups affect not only the crazies self-disciplined enough to be anorexic (kidding!), but, more pervasively, the mental health (albeit to a degree) of every other girl who follows eons of evolutionary instinct and eats.

The article linked above is littered with links to pictures of crazy re-touchings, one of which is this Brian Dilg guy's imaging site. It is amazing to see some of the photoshopping that is done in general; no wonder models end up looking like ... avatars. Heidi Klum's boob lift and tuck is funny to watch go up and in and down and out, up, down, ad nauseam.

if it is true that we ("we") want to see heidi klum retouched to look even more gorgeous, that's fine. i'm all for art ... let's just give the photoshoppers their dues. :)

what i think about during a CPA ethics class

I feel bad for the women who had to live their 20s during the '80s. Now they're in their 40s and still have their 80s hair. I'm sure most people live in their pasts to some extent or another. But 80s-hair women give their harbored pasts away too easily. There's no hiding behind a hairsprayed swoop. It's like a shark fin. Dead giveaway. You had really cool sky-high hair and then you got knocked up and had some kids and drove them to soccer practice, and by the time you got back, you hadn't left Gastonia or opened a magazine in 20 years, and now you have no reason or need to change. Just know this: I am judging your hair. I'm sorry. It's pretty shallow, yes. But I'm not judging you, just your hair. And no one might have told you yet, but it just might not hurt to finally put the aerosol away. You'll thank me later (I have a yoga video instructor who tells me this...).


And yes, if flat irons go out of style a la the way of hair crimpers, and I end up having 2000s hair in the '20s (ha!), then please, by all means, feel free to judge my hair.

FOR BEST RESULTS, READ AS YOU GO DOWN

oh my god. my last post is such rubbish!

there. i've been meaning to post that for the last ... wow - 3 months. jesus christ. wtf have i been doing?

anyway, don't read my last post. for those of you who don't speak british, it's garbage, and no one should read it. i know this might make some of you try, but i dare you to do it. you won't make it very far.

i only have one comment for tonight... why do toothpaste tubes say,

FOR BEST RESULTS, SQUEEZE TUBE FROM THE BOTTOM AND FLATTEN AS YOU GO UP.

?

and yes, it's in red font AND in caps AND in sans serif (maybe it's just Crest).


Aside from the obvious (what best results are we talking about here?), why is there an article of speech to clarify "bottom" but not "tube"? And why bring ME into it by using the phrase "as you go up"? I feel like i'm being ordered around. Why not "to the top"?

Hey. Don't act like your mind doesn't wander when you're brushing your teeth, too.

as the world turns

as promised, some worldly comments. and by worldly, i mean, 'not about me'. and don't worry; they are v. idiotic and v. inconsequential:

- This headline: "The Pantry ekes out a profit" was actually slightly comforting to me. Not because it's the company that owns my Most-visited Convenience Store (sucks that that title now goes to a public co. and not the cute little korean-owned store that i used to go to in the Hearst tower. The little woman owner used to try to teach me how to say "hello" in korean and, on alternate days, asked me if i was, "married to boyfriend yet?" Heck, maybe that's corp-owned, too? It had the familiar feel, anyway.), but because it actually made $43,000 in q2. How's that for piddly stix? I was relieved to see that it is possible to not swing from multiM/BILLION dollar quarterly profits to multiM/BILLION dollar quarterly losses. I was beginning to believe that all public companies were skipping the thousands altogether and denominating everything in m/billions. To be fair, the companies I'm referring to are mainly banks, and when you're earning $XX Billion each quarter, and then the economy goes on a bad acid trip, I guess that kind of thing happens. But still. It seemed weird to me that you could be making several billion dollars in the span of three months and then be losing your dignity in the next. it's not a problem that skimping on clickable permanent markers will help fix. (Enter: Paulson.)

- why is it the beginning of august, and one of the headlines on espn.com is about the friggin NBA? And it's not even anything juicy, like a Kobe affair. It's just speculation on the upcoming season. guh. AND i have to dig through a drop-down menu to get to tennis. guh!

- #15 on the College Football mock draft?? really? No checkerboard end zones or even standing-room-only crowds are going to get us through the season if crompton doesn't have any reliable wide receivers to throw his crappy passes to, esp. against SEC D. Don't doubt my love, though. I'm a skeptic, but I'll be at the opener. And I do like that we're ahead of Florida in a numbers-based ranking. (the non-ultra-obvious 'numbers-based'...)

- I guess this deserves its separate bullet point. Some dude from Liverpool, New York, where I grew up for the first 10 years of my life, has a comment in the mock draft ranking: "Where's the Syracuse Orange?" I want to ask him if he has mental disabilities. The dude from Troy, Michigan, where Joe grew up, is only slightly better in his praise for Maisel's choice of ND at #9. ND at 9 is like UT at 15: Maisel must have a small penchant for tradition before talent.

- what's with the praise for women who have been 'Wall Street investment bankers'? e.g., Jenny Sanford is SO cool because she used to be an investment banker on the Wall Street. Or, the billion dollar divorcee is super cool too because SHE used to be an investment banker on Wall Street. OK, i get it. They're probably v. smart women (except for when making lifelong decisions such as, 'Who should I marry?'), and they can stand on their own. But, from all I can tell, being an investment banker on Wall Street (or elsewhere) merely entails doing some research on Yahoo Finance! and then... buying what everyone else is buying and selling what everyone else is selling. Ok, maybe I over-simplified that a bit. I'm just saying .. I'm not convinced yet that anyone with a Finance degree really knows what the hell they're doing (when they're not picking out wines at client lunches). Like John Oliver pointed out, Geithner can't even sell his house.

- it is amazing what you can learn on facebook...

- what did we do before the internet, again?

been busy swiffing

so, it's been a while. i think it's been a combination of being busy and the fact that all of my thoughts have seemed pretty stupid lately. I go on a lot about how I can't stand other people's stupid opinions, so it's a little egg-on-face-ish to get caught having a stupid opinion myself. Though..., I can't think of any examples right now...

in any case, there hasn't been too much to write about... OK, there has. there are ten million other blogs to prove it, and the NY times just turned a profit, so apparently people somewhere still care. As far as my life goes, not much to report. I'm not getting married, divorced, pregnant, or accused of any major felonies. Heck, I haven't even gotten a traffic ticket or a cold. I've done a lot of the typical things that middle-class yuppie white people do (yes, white, not asian - though the bewildered looks that I got from two asians I work with over not knowing where the asian market is in Charlotte galvanized me to make a mid-year resolution to learn more about my korean heritage (is that a bad reason?)... no action to report on that quite yet): go to weddings, go to baby showers, go to dinners, go to shows, go to concerts (lots of concerts this year - everything from keith urban & no doubt to DMB & KOL to gomez & death cab & grizzly bear to... pops in the park? to dredge tomorrow & tool on thursday).

Essentially, a lot of organized events. which reminds me that one thing happened - i turned 26. I've noticed a funny change from my early-twenties self to my now latter-twenties self.
Early-twenties: Monday-Friday/Sat/Sun -- work until hourly salary equals minimum wage; Friday/Sat/Sun night -- drink until i pass out, take advil with greasy food, repeat.
Latter-twenties: work requisite hours; attend various events organized with the end purpose of having fun (alcohol is almost always a facilitator), do laundry, swiff the floors, repeat. The organization is mind boggling! Invitations come from every direction - wedding invitations with pockets and ribbons and golden tickets in the mail, evites, facebook events, mass emails and massive email trains. Unorganized social interaction does happen, like when I run into friends at Trader Joe's. I can't even count tennis, really, since playing times are organized. And I've found that even things like dinners have become more organized -- making reservations weeks ahead for steak houses during Restaurant Week, planning dinners with every different constituency of friend groups.

i was going through my phone while waiting (3 1/2 hours) for my car to be serviced this morning and realized a drastic difference in my text messages "Sent" box from a couple years ago to now. Some examples:

Sent 9/22/05 11:36pm: "Wtf darling"
Sent 9/30/05 11:41pm: "Blank" (to which i received "Blank texts. I give you at least a 5")
Sent 10/7/05 11:17pm: "Wayawaybyzwwwy"
10/7/05 11:18pm: "Y'y'wy..y'y"
10/7/05 11:18pm: "Y'w00.wya yay"
(i know that these were all sent re: a UT football game.. i think spurred by a last-minute win? meant to communicate feelings of happiness, maybe even elation.)
10/21/06 12:24am: "Them come to fixidr" (translation: 'dixies')
12/3/06 3:21am: "Home unmo lested"
2/4/07 12:33am: "Listen here d bag. Cans is a homo sexual breeding ground" (i don't know what made me send this or whom it was to!)
2/27/07 6:19pm: "WHORE"
3/17/07 11:54pm: "That's what she said??"
4/1/07 12:16am: "U r a liar and a thief"
4/21/07 11:30pm: "Use john"
4/21/07 11:42pm: "She said up"
7/22/07 1:15am: "U r bangalicious"
9/3/07 12:14pm "Stop word vomiting! Down play the chest hair. It is not THat bad." (a personal favorite..)

Compared to recent texts (I stopped using my Razr while i was freeriding the bberry at pwc... so my next text messages pick up this year):

Sent 4/9/09 9:33pm: "When are u getting in? Cant wait to see you and your belly!" (referring to pregnant friend's belly)
Sent 4/9/09 11:05pm: "Haha its so late! B r us is not good for the baby" (referring to Babies R Us and sent to a different pregnant friend)
4/10/09 7:25pm: "Sounds good do we have a reservation"
4/19/09 1:51pm: "U want me to go ahead and draft an evite? Call if you get a chance"

To be fair, the old ones are ones i made a point to save, and the new ones have some interesting ones too, like "Butt non buddy" (no clue) and "You smell like stinky turtle poop" and texts from Hawaii, but there are also two "Congratulations" text messages to friends who got engaged and at least 30 text messages involving tennis and/or yoga.

It's just funny. I'm happy now; I was happy then. Fortunately, my early-twenties self was just a phase, just as my mom predicted with hints of hope in her voice every time i talked to her hungover on sunday morning (and not at church).

So, that's all for now. I turned 26. Maybe in the next post i'll ramble on about more worldly things, like the idiocy of our reaction to obama's reaction to iran, or the idiocy of obama's reaction to the police's reaction to an angry black man, or the idiocy of facebook quizzes, or the awesomeness of the idiocy of the bachelorette, or all other things idiotic and inconsequential. till next time.

yes, i am now a state employee

so ... i did it. i got a new job. today was my first day, and it was pretty fantastic. obviously, that doesn't really say much -- all first days are usually fantastic since they consist mainly of:

1. Doing the office tour and whirlwind meet-and-greet. You smile a lot and shake a lot of hands and say, "it's so nice to meet you!" a gazillion times. This initial interaction with your future coworkers will be funny in hindsight, once you get to know these nameless (you never remember anyone's name, no matter how emphatically you say it's nice to meet them) people better and segregate them into either:
the lunch-buddy worthy category,
the dumbshit category,
the Crazies, or
the Nondescripts.

2. Getting your computer turned on.

3. Getting your email to work.

4. Eating.

For me, this was mainly my whole day. My new job being at UNCC, I also got an added bonus:

5. Walking around campus looking for HR, the ID office, and the parking dept. Getting that nostalgic feeling -- the distinct (collegiate??) smell in the air (you would know it if you smelt it), the concrete beneath your feet, the bookbags, the stately brick buildings, the Crazies handing out You're Going to Hell pamphlets. Ahh, memories.

So I guess the details for those I haven't told yet - I got offered a job at UNCC at the end of March. I put in my 2-weeks the following Monday. I quit being a tax accountant on April 15th. Fitting, I think. Quitting was weird. Awkward at first. Definitely like breaking up with a boyfriend. Some of my bosses could not understand why I would ever want to leave.... and I think, ultimately, that's kind of the reason I left. They're all great people in their own right, with great goals and great careers ... But I'm not cut out to be a public tax accountant forever, and i'm definitely not cut out to pretend.

And don't get me wrong -- it was a good run. In fact, it was a great run. There are many things I loved about PwC -- the people, mainly - my friends! Sad or otherwise, my social life - heck, my life, period - in charlotte has revolved around people i have met through pwc. I think I could make a solid argument for 'otherwise', but it might be a long argument.

Other things i loved at PwC -- the benefits, the free blackberry, the ability to walk to work, a couple great clients (though i'll stay in touch with the great ones, and they'll be better as friends than as clients anyway). That's mainly it. In any case, i'll miss parts of it. occassionally. but i won't miss-miss it, just like Winnie didn't like-like Kevin.

Back to the quitting process... I guess it's worth mentioning that i took a job that has nothing to do with the intricacies of tax accounting that i have been immersed in for the past almost-4 years. This was completely intentional. I was extremely lucky to get an opportunity to move out of tax and into financial reporting for a state institution. I have a big learning curve, but it's honestly exactly what i want to be doing, for reasons that are dry and that i don't feel are fun things to write about in a blog.

finally, i know it's kind of crazy to quit in "An Economy Like This". But i wanted it, i did it, and i'm much happier now. Win-win, honestly. And i still get to go to hawaii -- winwinwin

And, as someone who found a job in An Economy Like This, here is my winwinwin Tip For Success for job seekers out there: ... eh, i don't really have one. UNCC just went on a hiring freeze.

Ok, here are some: 1. Don't be a leech on society and collect unemployment while you sit on your ass all day. 2. Dress for success. 3. Don't do drugs. 4. Move somewhere fun. eh, now i'm just rambling.

indentured servants: a neverending story

this is an unfinished blog post from early March -- when I was in Boston, I think:

This is kind of silly.

And leave it to us smart, capitalistic Americans to always be thinking of ways to reinvent the uninventable into marketable items (blankets = snuggies, for low low price of ). Anyway, it will be interesting to see what they do with this. Judging from past failures, relatively speaking (e.g., Star Wars, Indiana Jones (i never saw the latter, but all i had to watch was the South Park episode to understand the magnitude of terribleness)), it probably won't meet expectations, but ... I'm willing to hold out and give it the benefit of the doubt.

--------

I started out really wanting to rave about how much i had forgotten how incredibly, undeniably AWESOME the movie the Neverending Story is.  It was on in my hotel room (ok, yes, i did manually have to change the channel from that awful Here's-What's-Playing!-Straight-To-Your-Room!-Press-*-to-Select-This-Movie!!!), and, like all things that watched in a hotel room, it was a lot more entertaining that it should have been.  

But I feel like I did have somewhat of a valid point.. the knock-out combination of the Deadly Twin Laser Beam Statues, the Big Sad Rock Monster, and the Crazy Tree Wolf (names are interpretive..) is simply entertainment at its best to the now twentysomething viewer whose last impressions have faded and suddenly come to light again. I love 80s anything redux, because it's a god-that-sucks-so-bad-i-love-it love.

And Atreyu and Bastian -- so cute.  It's a shame, though, that cute little kids end up looking like this:

Anyway, I mainly pulled up the blog to report this article likening today's public accountants to indentured servants, which I love because

1. of its utter accuracy

2. the percentages he uses for his first 2 observations are especially spot on, and increasingly so, it seems, at least at PwC.  Brains are secondary to hotness with a dash of ambition and women's lib ("Well, you know, I just, like, love the job security of accounting.  This way, I, you know, like, know I will be able to take care of myself for, like, life. You know, like, kind of like the bond I have with my sorority sisters."  The v. sad thing is that I think I've said this.. at least 5 times before.)

3. It is really amusing to me that KPMG is the LOSER of urban dictionary Big 4 definitions. They really do suck at most everything (and you really do get this twisted sense of pride for your company, no matter how much you have exponentially trended toward slavery... explains a lot of things in life, yeah?)

the best we've got to offer

witness: the best education UT is able to give:

who says psychology is not a good major? 

and no, i do not go to espn.com at work.

ok, so when i was attempting to look for what haynesworth actually did major in, i started my google search with, 'what did.." and got this:

hilarious. apparently, sean avery said this: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081202161734AAZllCf

freakin hilarious.

and apparently, jesus looked like a monkey.

and apparently, no one cares what albert majored in, only that he stomped that Cowboy in the head. (heck, that's all i know about him.)

and yes, football players are the best UT's got to offer. other alumni include Deana Carter and Cormac McCarthy, who only 'attended' but knew better than to think that a sheet of paper with The University of Tennessee written on it would be of any real worth.

finally, yes, it is a big blow to l's wv that there will not, in fact, be a car czar. the public at least knows where i stand on the issue.

posting to my blog just because i can

my stunningly handsome boyfriend manages to find some neat things on these world wide interwebs sometimes. This Dark Was The Night cd sounds like it will be a good one.. and for a good cause..



I also like this play safe graphic on their site:

random

love SU's new simple-design home jerseys. (the aways are a bit too.. well, orange. i saw a man at the airport wearing a UT-orange color shirt, and I kept looking for the T emblem but did not find it. V.silly -- there is no reason anyone should ever wear UT-orange unless it has some reference to Tennessee.)

love federer's haircut.  hopefully this will stop him from doing that gay behind-ear hair tuck.

was watching the aussie open MCHALE-MOORE match tonight. i thought, hm, must be some russian/eastern european girl with such a weird 3-consonants-in-a-row name. 15 minutes later, i learn she is american. oh. McHale.. i see ..... damn it. alcohol blamed once again.

i want jill biden's red dress.  

i forgot how ginormous faith hill's mouth is.

lucy lui - go token hot asian!

jesus christ, when did Sting grow a beard?

(mind you, it could have been 8 years ago, and I wouldn't know. I didn't know Lindsday Lohan was gay until ... well, i think i might have been the last person in america to know.)

written in the USA today.. uh, today: "Fish is the most frequently faked food Americans buy. In the business, it's called 'species adulteration' . . . In 2004, University of North Carolina scientists found 77% of fish labeled red snapper was actually something else. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times tested fish at 17 sushi restaurants and found that fish being sold as red snapper actually was mostly tilapia . . ."

ummm WT fuck?? other products susceptible to fakery: olive oil, honey, vanilla, and maple syrup. 77% of snapper actually something else. adulterating a whole species. jesus christ. maybe, while we're in this economic downturn, there will be less money to be audited, and auditors can shift their focus to food. oh, damn. that's not how it works, is it.

i keep trying to brag to everyone in tampa that we stole their defensive coach. they don't seem to care.

Rocky Top in the inaugurational parade. funny. as in, peyton-manning-commercial funny.

got a new book

on flight to houston, monday 1.12 :

what is it with these planes? even if i were going somewhere exotic - to costa rica, to fiji, to turks and caicos, to indonesia - i would still feel like i'm in some bad 1970s horror flick. 

that's just what i see, when i look up.

well, that and the word 'fuck', which is actually just the word 'flick'. 

what is it about the word 'fuck'? it's very emphatic. it's easy to draw out. you can't draw out 'shit'. shit is very succint. 'Shit' is for transitory things - shit is exactly that - shit. You shit a shit, then you flush, and then the problem is magically removed... at least nowadays it is. Modern plumbing - one of my all-time favorite inventions. That and recorded music. And beds. I still can't figure out who the hell would've started the 'sliced bread' thing. Really? if sliced bread were invented today, you'd probably have to use an infomercial to sell it: "Look how easy this is! You don't even have to use a knife, you lazy fuck!" which brings me back to fuck. I would assume that, before modern plumbing became a hit, and especially during that crazy period when we actually hunted and gathered things, everything was a fuck. Even a shit was a fuck because you didn't have modern plumbing to take away the shit. And in Hunt & Gather days, it was more like the drawn out fuuuucck since you had to find a non-poisonous plant to wipe your ass with, and even then, it was probably a big fucking mess. 

Now that I've properly analyzed the etymology of fuck, I bet shit wasn't even a real word until plumbing was invented. And electronics. Technology has this awesome way of fucking up randomly and always inopportunely that almost always makes you want to say 'shit' instead of 'fuck'. I have no good explanation for this (i.e., maybe it's just me).

So I bought a little notepad over the weekend, as I realized that my desire to write was being inhibited by the nasty taste I get in my mouth lately every time I think of having to sit in front of a computer screen for more than 5 minutes outside of work. 

I hope it doesn't take me more than 5 minutes to type this.

written approx 5 minutes later:

How insignificant is this moment - right now? May I never know? There is no secret to life? Life is just one big secret. Damn the gods for not telling us jack shit.

tues 1.13 :

BRILLIANCY only comes with unhappiness, dissatisfaction. What's there to write about when you're happy? flowers? Are generally boring in black and white. Where's the panache when you haven't been wronged? What great literature have you read that has not been tragic? What article, even? birth is beautiful... death to create birth is majestic. perhaps brilliant? but sad. twisted? there is happiness in tragedies, to be sure.

'i have no idea what i am talking abooout' - radiohead

wed 1.14:

I don't want fake plants. I especially don't want expensive fake plants.

thurs jan 15th:

Never forgo a chance to be with good friends. Had dinner with Mary and Brian tonight - how refreshing after a week of meetings and dinners with ppl i generally don't relate to. Yeah, ok - sure we relate on the most basic of humanities - let's talk death, love, kitchen stoves - ok, we might agree that death is sad and love is an unknown and gas stoves are better than electric. But that's really just enough in common to be annoying.

Fri, Jan 16th:

It must suck to be Dallas, always stuck with a slash and a Fort Worth ... at least lately so it seems.

SUnday 1.18. 2009 :

I had no idea this pen was going to be ... not black.

I get off the plane. I'm in Tampa. For a second, I think, interesting new surroundings. Then I remember that I have been to Tampa before, once before (for silly one-day, first-day new hire orientation), so that maybe I have actually been here before, and maybe this isn't new, new surroundings.

In that same second, I am interposing 2 worlds. 1 being from the book i have been reading about a fictional time traveler and his wife. and 1 being life. Did I just time travel? Where am I? Most importantly, why am I here and ... what now?

I see a happy reunion. The man has happy balloons. One says 'Welcome Home!' The woman, I had been eyeing earlier, questioning her judgment in choosing to wear a small, unnecessarily tight tshirt. She has skinny arms but the stomach not so. But it's cute. They're crying, they're so happy. I hope they can remember that moment for a long time. For them, it is most things. For me, it is almost nothing. And that seems right.

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.