What?

So earlier I mentioned that I had been getting an inordinate number of junk emails offering me the opportunity to participate in internet gambling as well as to purchase Viagra and knock-off Rolexes at fabulous discounts. For a while after that, it seemed I had graduated to offers for celebrity sex tapes. Now, I’m just getting these emails that have no text, just a link that goes to who knows where. The thing is, they have these truly bizarre subject lines that totally make me want to click on the link. I mean, I refrain…because did I mention this is my work email and my work computer? But it’s so tempting…

Here are 2 I received just today:

• God Destroys Boise For Not Being Gay Enough

• Angelina Jolie Set To Destroy Own Vagina

What? I mean, really, what?

The entire email consists of just one of those subject lines and then a link that says “click to watch video.”

I really want to click it.

Crafty marketing there, internet spammers…kudos to you.

Nature can mess you up good

So, I’ve been off the blog for a while and here is the reason why. Let’s begin with this post, composed over a week ago (way back on July 12, in fact):

Well, it’s 9:50 pm on a Saturday night and I’m sitting here in the dark as I have no power in my house. Earlier this evening, there was a hellacious storm with the thunder and the lightning and the blowing out of transformers and such. I’m just home, minding my own, watching a little television and bam! Huge flash of lightening, simultaneous crack of thunder, and then no electricity whatsoever. That was at about 6-ish this evening, so the lack of power is getting a little old at this point. And it is extra annoying, because from where I sit, I can see that the neighbors on one side have electricity. Apparently, I am right on the edge of whatever grid the power outage is affecting.

So, several things
1. I cannot tell you how many times I have flipped on the light switches out of habit. Even though I am walking through the house holding a flashlight, I still automatically reach for the switch upon entering a room.
2. At this point, it is clear that the power is most likely going to come back on after I’m asleep, at which point everything that was turned on when the power went out will come back on and wake me up and that will annoy me.
3. Last time I checked, I was in FL and it was summer. And, no electricity means no AC. Not even a fan. Although, surprisingly, it’s not actually broiling hot in here yet. The AC was on right up until the power went off (which was fortuitous as I don’t always run the air that much) so the house was pretty cool. Also, I think the rain cooled things off, which was helpful.
4. Thank god for Apple and their fabulous personal electronic devices. My iPhone and iPod are serving me well. I watched Blades of Glory (hadn’t ever seen it, it was as expected) and now I’m into my stash of Sports Night Episodes (God I love that show. What is wrong with people that no one watched it?) Also, my laptop battery is hanging in, allowing me to type this. Although, there is no power to the router so no wireless, which means I can’t post this until I am once again with power.

And now I return to you, many days later, to relate the fall-out of said storm and tell of the personal tragedy that has befallen my home. The victims: 2 television sets (one fairly nice, one a hand-me-down from the parents), one cable modem (that’s Comcast’s problem fortunately), and one wireless router (I think). Also, my computer died the next day. That would seem to be not directly related to the storm, but who knows. On the plus side, the A/C was unharmed, and my work laptop still functions, so I haven’t been completely without computing ability. But, I’ve been too busy buying TV’s and dealing with overpriced computer repair dudes to properly blog. Which, since no one reads this, hasn’t really been a problem. But, things are on the mend. We are back up to a full contingent of TV’s at the house (the new one in the living room is so pretty) and the overpriced computer dudes claim a new hard drive will fix me up, although I think I will seize this as an excuse for a shiny new computer. Thus ends my tale of woe.

ouch

So, I’ve never claimed not to be a clumsy girl (meaning a girl who is clumsy, not someone who is clumsy at being a girl…I think I actually have that one mastered. The moving through space without injuring myself thing though, that’s still a work in progress.) Witness the evidence from my fabulous 4^th of July Weekend>>>

This was on day one, when I stepped on a loose board on the deck and scrapped my shin on the way down into the hole:

Then on day 2, I managed to scrape the top of my foot on a hermit crab shell (which also had some of those tiny little barnacles on it, which made it extra scrape-y):

It's not so visible in the photo, but trust me, it both hurt and bled. Here is the leg/foot scrape combo, for your enjoyment:

I also managed to get a collection of some sort of itchy ant-bite-like bumps on the other ankle…alas, no photographic evidence.

Fortunately, I was liberal with the sunscreen, so no burn, and there were no fireworks related injuries. And some neosporin and the healing waters of St. Andrew's Bay fixed the scrapes right up. So all-in-all, I call it a successful holiday.

What can I say, I notice the random...

Ok, here is how much of an NPR geek I am. I’ve noticed recently that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (who underwrite a number of NPR shows) has recently changed their tagline from “committed to building a just, equitable, and sustainable society” to “committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.” Interesting…

I was then poking around their website where--in addition to the descriptions of grants for a ridiculously diverse group of worthy causes including: affordable housing; digital media, learning & education; population & reproductive health; human rights and international justice; and many, many others--I also found this. That is some responsive customer service, right there...

They seem nice.

Hey there, America...

Happy Birthday!

7 unrelated things

1. So there’s this commercial that keeps coming on that feature the song Breed, by Nirvana. I knew it was for a video game, but I thought it was Guitar Hero or Rock Band (which would make sense because it has that cool riff) but it turns out its for a baseball game. Anyway, the point is, I had totally forgotten about the existence of that song until I heard it on the commercial. That song kind of rocks. Nevermind is an album that I had on cassette when it came out (yes, I am old, let’s move on). Since I didn’t have it on CD, it never made it into my iPod, and therefore I have not actually heard that record in a while. It's another one of those holes in the collection necessitating a trip to iTunes. (an aside, this site is cool, it lets you track down songs used in commercials, which is quite a handy resource Actually, I believe my friend Disco Dan had a similar idea at some point…)
   
   (An addendum, I saw that commercial again last night and actually paid attention to it. I'm usually out of the room or doing something else during the ads and I mostly hear rather than see them. Anyway the commercial is for Guitar Hero for Nintendo DS, at least the one I saw. I knew it had guitars and not baseballs in it. The internet misled me again...)
   
   
2. Did you know the Washington DC Chief of Police is a woman? (Well, I'm sure you did, Rakes...)
   
   
3. I learned all this random stuff about Uma Thurman yesterday including that she was married to Gary Oldman, her father was the first westerner to become a Tibetan Buddhist monk, and her mother is a Swedish model-turned-psychotherapist who was once briefly married to Timothy Leary. And her mother was introduced to Leary by Salvador Dalí. That’s kind of a lot of interesting stuff to stumble upon…
   
   
4. You know, some kind of crazy shit is always going down here in Florida…
   
   
5. I’m totally waiting for invisibility to happen. I guess it’s the voyeur in me (and if you followed that link, I was referring more to the second definition…a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous…and less to the more creepy peeping tom primary one) Of course, invisibility is only cool if you are the only one who has it…
   
   
6. After a lengthy string of second place finishes, we finally won at trivia last night. Whoo hoo!
   
   
7. So this happened a little while ago, but I forgot to mention it. There is a pitcher who plays for the Yankees named Chien-Ming Wang, who hurt his foot recently and had to go on the disabled list. It was like a perfect storm for headline writers: Yankees always gets abbreviated to Yanks and when someone is on the DL, they are described as being “out” (as in out of the line-up), and the dude’s name is Wang. So every single headline included the phrase “Yanks Wang out”. (This is my favorite, because it makes it sound like the yanking resulted in crutches. Also, it’s on a site called ballhype…Yes, I am 12 years old…)

Things that bug the crap out of me (2)

I like this venting/bitching thing. Which only adds credence to my “I’m a malcontent” theory, alas…but I shall soldier on. Next up…rhythmic clapping.

You know how when you are at a concert (maybe not at the indie rock/bang-your-head/musical-accompaniment-for-drinking-beer type of concert, but more along the lines of the recital-y, “hey, let's all enjoy the music” type) and a semi-catchy or well known song starts and the rhythm is kind of bouncy and infectious so the audience starts clapping along? Yeah...I hate that. (And, it’s always on the down beat. People only clap rhythmically on the down beat, what’s up with that?)

There is very little need in life for rhythmic clapping. I mean, I guess the idea is to convey to the performer that you like the song and you want to show that you are with them, that you are enjoying what they are doing, so much so that you just had to find a way to participate with them, but then what? I’ll tell you what happens…people realize that songs are long. They think, “well, now that I’m clapping along, I guess I have to keep this up.” And they realize that they have like another 3 or 4 minutes or handclapping in front of them, which doesn’t seem that long until they realize that the clapping along got old after like 15 seconds. And, they can’t really enjoy the song, what with having to think about counting the beat and coordinating their motor skills and trying to figure out if they can stop clapping now that they started and whatnot. And, they can’t really even hear the music or lyrics over all the damn clapping, it’s all just a vague impression of the beat.

So people gradually get fed up and stop clapping along, only some of the die-hards keep it up for a while, so the clapping just peters out and makes it seem like everyone really liked the song at first, but now not so much. And god help everyone if the song has a tempo change, because most of the clappers don’t have musical skill or natural rhythm, so the clapping just goes all crazy and out of synch and it’s a train wreck.

Rhythmic clapping is something children do. It’s useful when you are just learning about music and coordination and such, and it goes along nicely with short, simple little ditties like This Land is Your Land or whatever (we sang that a lot in my pre-school for some reason.) But grown-ups, I implore you…save your clapping until the end of the song. Toss in a few “whoos”, throw up some devil horns, and let the band move along to the next number.

Easily annoyed

So, recently I've realized that I have a lot of complaints about stuff. All kinds if things, really....I think I'm just a malcontent. Regardless, I thought I would make use of this forum to vent my frustrations in a recurring feature I like to call "things that bug the crap out of me".

Our inaugural entry is inspired by watching today's Euro 2008 match. And the offending activity is...ridiculous "trademark" post score celebrations. Uch...

So the dude that scored the goal for Spain is a guy named Fernando Torres. His nickname is "El Niño" (The Kid), and his post goal celebration seems to consist of pretending to suck his thumb. I'm sorry, but that is just the stupidest thing ever. And apparently others do it too...

American football players are the worst, in particular Terrell Owens (that guy is just a nightmare in general) and Chad Johnson (who had even gone so far as to secure corporate sponsorship)

I'm all for celebrating your accomplishments. I love a good spontaneous celebration. I love when players run around the pitch doing that airplane thing, or when they form a big dog-pile after a goal. Ditto the Lambeau Leap. But pre-choreographed celebrations are not that. They are not a spontaneous outpouring of joy and jubilation. Choreographed celebrations are by definition calculated and they suck. They say, "the acclaim for scoring a goal or a touchdown or whatever isn't enough for me, I require the additional attention of having people see and talk about my shenanigans or dicky doo dance. Look at me, look at me, buy my endorsed products..."

Oh, and on a tangentially related matter, yea Spain! I'm happy they won. For some reason, I've never cared much for Germany, though Michael Ballack is quite hot...

An open letter to Rufus Sewell

So, I don't claim to have seen your entire body of work. Actually, I've probably only viewed a very small portion of it. But, based on my limited research, I offer this advice...try playing a nice guy once in a while.

By my count, your were a/the bad guy in the following movies: The Illusionist, The Holiday, A Knight's Tale, and Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel and Laurence. Those are just the ones I've seen. A cursory glance at a few plot summaries reveals that you were probably also not so nice in The Legend of Zorro and Bless the Child. I'm sure you have played a hero in some of your work, (seems like you might have been ok in Tristan + Isolde) and I have great hope for you upcoming foray into American television. It's just that lately it seems like every time I come across you, you are either playing a cad or a sociopathic nobleman.

The thing is, you are smoking hot, and god knows the ladies love a bad boy, just maybe not one that may kill her in her sleep. Just a heads up...

Twitter, ya'll.

It's like the insta-blog. When you have to know what people are up to right this very second! Look over there>>>>>>

To your right. It's addictive...

Sent from my iPhone

So long George

Aww…George Carlin.

I just saw him.

Such a funny dude.

Go Rocco

My dislike of Tiger Woods is pretty well documented amongst those who know me. Mostly, it’s because people act like no one ever played the game of golf before he did. Yes, he is a great player, and yes he may turn out to be the greatest player, but whatever. That doesn’t mean I want to buy a pair of Nikes from him, or a Buick, or his own freaking brand of Gatorade for christsake. (Really? "Gatorade Tiger"? Is that necessary in life? And it apparently has more electrolytes, which god knows golfers need more than say, basketball players or soccer players who run around for the entire length of their matches. And I know Tiger is supposed to be a work-out machine, so he needs all those electrolytes, but that just makes him seem even more like he’s no fun. Like he's one of those old Soviet-era Olympic athletes who were picked as a child to be the next great swimmer or gymnast or Greco-Roman wrestler or whatever based on some glimmer of natural ability, so they were taken from their parents and put into some sort of sports training program/camp where all they did was work on their performance levels and achieving perfection for their entire childhood and grew to see the game as their job at which failure was not an option...and that really doesn’t seem in line with sports as a “game” for which people are supposed to have a love. But, I digress. Sorry, the Tiger worship gets me all riled up, ya’ll)

Actually, my dislike of Tiger truly originated with him dissing the 60^th anniversary celebration of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball the day after he became the first African-American to win a golf Major, to go open a sports bar, and because he didn't want to delay the start of his vacation by a day and a half, even though he was invited to attend personally by the President of the United States. Sigh, again, don’t get me started. That still pisses me off.

The point, of all this is, my Tiger issues aside, I’m rooting for Rocco Mediate to win the U.S. Open in today’s playoff. It’s a no-brainer; classic David vs. Golith. What would you rather see, the #1 ranked marketing machine win his 14^th major, or the 158^th ranked journeyman player win his first, while also becoming the oldest player to ever win the Open? Also, he seems like the anti-Tiger: amiable, funny, unassuming. Happy to be there and enjoying himself immensely.

And, he's planning to wear another crazy belt buckle (he wore the pictured peace sign on Sunday). I am alway pro crazy belt buckle.

Did you know...

That the US has more tornados than anywhere else in the world? Neither did I. Although, now that I think about it, it does sound right. You hear about tornados here everytime there's even a moderately severe thunderstorm. And they hit everywhere, midwest, south, cities, trailer parks...

Sent from my iPhone

He's got the right idea...

You know, Dennis Kucinich is a little nutty, but I really enjoy the fact that he keeps trying to impeach members of the Bush administration. First it was Chaney, now it's George himself. He's a fairly interesting dude. Even his trophy wife seems ok...

pointless opinions

You know, I always list stuff I'm perusing over in the reading, watching, listening section (again, part of my little fantasy that someone reads this) but it occured to me that I never say anything about it. So I will now start.

Recent reads:
An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England Overall it was OK. Hated the ending. Narrator was a bit of a sad sack, which got a little old.

Escape I'm all for religious tolerance, but these Fundamental Latter Day Saints people just ain't right. This is the story of a woman who managed to get out with her 8 children. (Incidentally, this is the same sect from Texas that has been in the news lately, although she got out before they moved to Texas.) Anyway, as expected the woman are treated horribly and everyone seems brainwashed to believe that no matter how miserable you are, you shouldn't complain or question because it's God's plan and if you disagree you will go to hell. Sorry, but my God don't play that way...

Promise not to Tell Good fast read, kind of a combo family drama and ghost story.

I Love You, Beth Cooper I really liked this one. I do love a good all night long teenage misadventure.

Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions I didn't really feel like seeing the recent movie, but the book was interesting. reinforced my previously held beliefs that 1. there is really no danger of me getting addicted to gambling (it's briefly entertaining, but I just don't get it) and 2. math is so not my thing.
I'll do movies and music later.

Ummm...I'm pretty sure it's the other way around...

Here I am

So, I've been off the blog lately. Mostly because I've been feeling a little blah lately, mentally speaking. Blah, blah, blah. Mentally blah. You know how it goes...

Actually, In addition to the mentally blah part, I was also sick for the last 3 days with some sort of annoying stomach bug featuring a fever and what we will euphemistically refer to as "gastrointestinal distress", so that sucked. I started writing something last week, but it was this long thing which I started writing but didn't finish and then I got sick and so it sort of languished there. I'll get back to it eventually.

In the meantime, I thought I would chime back in because I didn't want it to get to a month without putting something up here. Also, one of the 4 people who actually read this thing, the lovely Lady Byron, asked why I was so lame (I'm paraphrasing, she was of course much more diplomatic, as is her way.)

Anyway, I will update the reading, watching, listening items for now, and then spout off about other things in the next few days. And there you have it.

Library entertainment

I went to return my library books the other day and I was struck by the odd signage they seem to have. Like this one:

Which always make me think of Lee Harvey Oswald and the Texas Book Depository.

And also this one:

Which makes me think that it is only for dirty books. The torn label even gives it more of a sketchy "adult bookstore" vibe.

general pointlessness

So here's a really stupid new project of mine...

it takes a whole team?

Just sorting through some photos on my computer and discovered this gem I snapped awhile back:

I totally should have used this as the graphic for this post.