oh poo

So The Gee was here tonight, and he managed to find something completely horrific online Rate My Poo Dot Com. I don't know how he does it, but he done dood it.

Yuck.

But I had to share.

Apparently so did they....

one-armed paper hanger

In the past three days, I have coordinated a $500k field work proposal between 15 team members in Utah, Wisconsin, Switzerland, and Berkeley, and written and edited approximately 22 pages of a technical Significant Events Report, including a rather politically charged task force interview, and back-patting article about the robotics kids working at the lab this summer.

I'm tired! I know this may be incredibly boring to you, dear reader, but this is part of what I do to pay for the website you're looking at. And it's been a HUGE part of my week so far, so I had to write about it.

Now I think I'll make an attempt at sleep.

take a ride in my hooptie

Man! I keep forgetting to write this down! I bought a car! *happy dance* For those of you who know, this is a major deal. A vehicle without family ties, on my own credit again, and no one has to complain about riding in the noisy windy jeep.

It's a 2002 Mitsubishi Galant ES, has 17,000 miles on it, and is still under (say it with me now...) FACTORY WARRANTY!!!! WHOO HOO!! HEE HAW!!!

Ok. I'm over it. It is a nice car though.

Somewhere Chuck Berry is singing about having No Particular Place to go.....

Aah... a slight bend to the left

How much do I love Bill Maher? He has a regular article in Details magazine. Always a great read. I'm totally addicted to his show on HBO.

One of his frequent guests, Arianna Huffington, has a site too. I hope there's something to the rumors that she may run for Governor in California. I'd be all for that.

Not that I think the recall is such a great idea... I mean hell if it were that easy to 'take back' our votes, why the hell is the baboon still in office??

Shaking my head and looking up the cost of living in Canada...

something wicked this way comes

My grandmother would be so disappointed. Unclemonkeyboi brought home a couple of garter snakes from the pet store yesterday. He's spent the last 24 hours reading everything he could find on the internet about what they should eat and when. He's redesigned their vivarium at least three times. I have a great picture of him with Zipper on his lap, both staring intently at the cage. I found them sitting like that when I woke up and stumbled into the living room. Anyway, I found this website tonight I thought was pretty cool. Some guys that go out looking for all the different species of snakes they can find. Many they show on the website came from places I regularly haunt, like Lake Berryessa, and elsewhere in the Sacramento Valley. Cool. Check em out at:
Snake Guys.

Gnod

This is a pretty cool site I ran across today... input three of your favorite bands, and it will tell you a list of other bands that you'll probably like. Works with movies apparently, too. Check it out at:
Gnod - The global network of dreams.

good day!

Aah... it started out not so hot.. but ended so good... The parents agreed to loan me the down payment for a new car. That's a huge load off my mind. If all works ok, I'll be in new wheels this weekend. Providing, of course, that the dealership doesn't sell it out from under me. Oh well.. if it's meant to be it will.

Anyway... went with UncleMonkeyBoi and RobinEggBlue to see Fleetwood Mac tonight. They were simply awesome.

I've got this mental list of performances that I have to see before I, or the performer, die... I can cross off one of the few remaining ones tonight. I've seen Stevie Nicks perform Landslide.

REB and I saw her solo last year, but she failed me. She has been redeemed!

It's amazing that there are people who have been performing and have had hits for longer than I've been alive.. and they still sound great, they still have amazing energy and remind me what a good rock show is all about.


Off to dream sweet dreams of shawls, and spinning... Spin, Stevie, Spin...

car shopping

YAY! I'm so relieved. I get to get out from underneath this Jeep and get something on my own, that I will OWN, that will help me with my credit, that doesn't come with such a huge tie with family members. This is great news.

Except that I hate buying a car. Dealers make my less-than-perfect credit seem so like I have done some horrible thing that I should be punished for. Oh well.. I'm out from under this blanket of guilt!!!!

One thing I have definitely learned from this experience: Do NOT enter into any business deal with family members. It's nothing but trouble.

Off to do drive bys at car lots...

issues

Blogger seems to be having issues. Nothing's getting published. I have to figure out what's wrong now. :P The parents have been here the past two days, I've seen a lot of them lately. It's been both good and bad. More later.

good day

Spent today at the beach in Santa Cruz with the crew. Met up with Tiffany for her big show. It was really nice seeing her again. I don't see her as often as I'd like. That may be changing, as I may be taking over webmastering duties for her site. I'll of course keep things posted here as I learn more. I'll have some pictures from today to put up, too. But that will probably have to wait til Monday. Did something funky with my hair, I'll have a pic on here soon enough.

The full day of sun has beaten me down. I'm off to bed.

Robo Boy

Umm... wow. Check this out (especially the kid in orange):
Bizarre > Clips of the Week

RobinEggBlue will be so pleased...

Hairy palms, blindness, angering God for wasting sperm...::feel free to sing a chorus of 'Every Sperm is Sacred':: and now THIS: Masturbating Lowers Prostate Cancer Risk...

Mom bursts in the room, "Oh My God! What are you doing!?"

Son: "Preventing Cancer Mom, now close the door!"

Personality Change

I received an email from an old friend a couple of days ago, someone who I haven't talked to for probably seven years. I happened to run across his website and dropped him a note to say hello. He asked the perfunctory questions, like what are you up to now, what's your life like, etc. I haven't responded to him yet. I'm still trying to process how completely different my life is now from then.

Honestly, I think the person that I was back then wasn't even really me. Memories of that time are like recalling something from a movie that I watched once. A familiar sound to the plot, but it doesn't ring true to me. Last time that I talked to him, I was just moving away from Nashville after having to live in my car for a couple of weeks. My dreams of being a country music star had been chewed up and spit out after a horrible record deal fiasco. My confidence was at an all time low. I was broke, desperate, and miserable. I had to move back home to Kansas City. When I left, I left some of the greatest friendships I had known. Rique', Hoss, Mama Sharon, Shane, John, Scooter, Jay, Keith, Carolyn, Candace, Matt, and god knows who I've forgotten. The script has become so foreign.

Rique' is one of those larger than life people that has so much energy exuding from him that his body temperature actually soars. Everything in excess, biggerfasterbettermore, and oh, how he can laugh!! I'll spare him any potential embarrasment of telling particular stories, but I will say that as long as I live, I will *never* forget his famous 'character,' Cousin Dick Tucker. Even now as I write this, I'm supressing a bout of hysterical laughter, bordering on tears. Laughter through tears is my favorite emotion! -Steel Magnolias

How do I respond to this email and try to sum up all the changes that I've gone through in the past seven years? When his last memory of me is of this crushed kid going home with his tail between his legs...

I guess the only thing that I can really say is that I've grown up.

Pardon me while I mourn my youth.

To Be Groomed

I gave myself a haircut today. I'll probably give myself a manicure this evening. I may even treat myself to a bikini wax before bed. Seriously, I need something to do.

Never Be Unreachable Again...

I have ten email addresses. I'm not kidding. Only one of which is 'personal' that I use to correspond to people I actually want to talk to. Several of the addresses are set up for my work as a web designer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, different aliases and such. One address is to reach my cell phone, for things requiring my immediate attention. Yet another I use in my attempts to filter out spam.

Tip: Anytime you sign up or register your email address online, you can be fairly certain that you will end up on a spam list. Set up a free email address from Hotmail or Yahoo and always enter that address online. Let the spam go to that email address, and if there is correspondence you really want from the company you've registered with, send them a seperate email asking them to change your contact information. You'll eliminate 85% of spam this way.

In addition to ten email addresses, I have the aforementioned cell phone, a home phone, and a work phone. I'm also available on several instant messaging systems, including AIM, MSN, and Yahoo.

There's voice mail on all the phones, you can leave text messages on the various messenger programs or my cell phone. My cable company can even leave me notes on my television!!! I am so connected at this very minute, that I can almost feel all the different data streams and bits slamming into my body.

If you have trouble reaching me, it's because I'm on some remote tropical island where there are no cell phone towers, satellite internet links, or cable tv, and by god, don't come looking for me, because I needed to unplug.

Number One Thing To Remember When Bathing A Cat (originally written 6/27/03)

... cover the drain of the sink containing the garbage disposal. Apparently there is a little tiny hole on the face plate in which the cat can ensnare a toe and get trapped... causing you to have to sedate the cat with benadryl (which she will undoubtedly bite into and consequently begin foaming at the mouth) while you disassemble the garbage disposal, and finally resort to having to apply force to remove the cat.

A missing claw, two dislocated toe joints, five cat bites, one hysterical mother, nine hours and $400 later, Zipper has been poked, prodded, drugged, splinted and is finally resting comfortably in the bathroom that is her home for the next week.

Zipper's daddy is going to lie down for a little while.

Did I mention that the name brand of the disposal in question is the "Sinkmaster Bone Crusher?"

Some Previously Written Stuff...

Forgive me, but I'm going to add some previously written stuff to the Daily Blog, to make some links from my pretty new webpage. You'll most likely find it enjoyable. Or maybe not.

The case of Science v. Art

I have had many conversations with RobinEggBlue about this, but it comes up again today. It's a mystery to me how some people just can not accept things that are outside of explanation or worse, directly opposed to The Way Things Are(tm). Several crucial scenes of The Incredible Hulk were filmed where I work, and there is a whole contingent of people who are upset that the science in the movie was flawed. SO WHAT?! It's a movie... not only that, it's a movie based on a comic book, not exactly known for being an accurate representation of real life.

There's a website, Intuitor Insultingly Stupid Movie Physics, devoted to pointing out the flawed physics behind the special effects in movies.

Artistic license, fantasy, and dramatic elements seem to be foreign concepts. Seriously, if movies depicted real life, real physical laws, realistic situations, and conformed to the laws of science, would anyone want to watch them? Why would you? I can go outside and wait long enough, and I'll see some moron fall down and hurt himself. Hang out in some sections of town and you'll get to see exactly what a bullet will do a person, or a glass window. Movies are about escaping real life and real situations and yes, even real science.

Call me cynical, but if someone watching a movie believes that they can jump off a four story building, roll onto the ground without injury and still be able to fire unlimited bullets at the bad guy chasing them, then LET THEM! Natural Selection in action. Give them a Darwin Awardand be done with it.

Learn the phrase "Only in Movies."

Seriously... going to bed now... I think....

I have once again gotten sucked into the web. I've spent the last two hours looking at blog skins and thinking, ok... I can make one ten times better than any of these... but now it's too late to bother. It will have to wait until the urge strikes me again.
Goodnight.

Google Toolbar

The Google Toolbar

Ok... this is pretty cool. It has a button that will allow you to automatically link whatever site you're visiting to your blog. Way Cool. Now maybe I will update this thing on a regular basis, cause you know I'm online constantly. Get the Google Toolbar.

Well Hell!

I've completely fallen down on the job again. I notice that my last post was the 15th of December. What the hell is up with that? I keep meaning to sit down and type something out, but it just hasn't been so high on my priority list.

What's going on lately? So much. Work is a complete nightmare. I have to keep telling myself (and my boss) that it's not really paranoia if everyone *is* out to get you. I hate it when people have issues with you, but they refuse to bring them up to you directly. Instead you get to hear about them from everyone else. Stupid stupid stupid.

I was looking at an online cost of living analysis calculator just in case this job thing doesn't pan out and I decide it's time to leave. Well, this site has a "Find the place that's best for you" link that I followed... took a short survey asking questions about the climate and educational opportunities that I would like to be nearby, etc. It then proceeded to give me a list of the places that would be best for me. Number one on the list? San Francisco.

*sigh* What does it mean when you're in the number one place that you should be, and still not finding it to be exactly YOUR spot? I mean, I like it here... I really do... but it's so expensive, and the economy has just beat this area to death. At my present salary, I will NEVER be able to afford to buy a house.

Somewhat along those lines... I recently signed up to go back to school. That's right.. I'm off to be a student again. Some how I intend to balance 15 hours with a full time job, a boyfriend, and something resembling a life. This first semester shouldn't be too difficult for me, though. Human Anatomy; English; Guitar; Magic, Witchcraft and Religion; and a 7 week Saturday History class. Thankfully it's US History 1865-Present. I *hate* colonial history. How many times can you hear the story of Washington crossing the Delaware? And how many more times can you read the Constitution and once again marvel at the brilliance of it. Don't get me wrong... it's a brilliant document, but I'm willing to make a case that our current government has taken *severe* liberties with the interpretation of our Consitutional Rights. Patriot Act my ass. Does no one else remember McCarthy!?

I am happy to report that Robin Egg Blue has met someone. Actually, to be more correct, I set him up with someone online. There's this new website Friendster that is really quite cool. You sign up and attach yourself to one of your friends online, and then you can see a graphical representation of the people that you are connected with. It's like a six degrees of seperation game with your friends. Anyway, you see the profiles of friends of friends of friends... and you get a link to suggest a match between people. I did this for Robin, and the sparks have been flying! It's great. I'm so glad to see him happy. He really deserves someone good to him... and my assessment of this guy is so far, so good.

Ok... I'm gonna call this one done for time being. I'm going to play around with some of the settings.. I think I see a way to make this happen more often... you can send the blog via email... that would be much easier for me to remember to do!

Until later...