Workin' 9 2 5

Good news!
I have a job interview on Wednesday.



Wait... don't I already have a job?



Yes. But it is not a fun job. I have sometimes come home completely exhausted because I was so bored at work. Plus... well, the other day (at work) I made a list of 26 reasons why my job sucks.



Is it really that bad?



I guess not. That is, all 26 reasons were valid, but I was sort of nit picking. The interview I'm going to is for a bookstore though. Yes, it would be retail again (I dislike my current job so much I miss retail), but a part of it would be doing Storytime which would be super cool. Plus (you may have noticed) I'm a bit of a bibliophile so working with books is going to be awesome for me.



Good for you. Wait, Wednesday is Halloween.



I know. The only sad thing about this interview is it gets in the way of dressing up too much for my favorite holiday. This:








is not exactly going to make a good, proffessional impression. Although the sword might help things a little. Hmmmm.

Oh well, I will still dress up a little because we have a costume contest at work and I cant not dress up at all. Nothing too elaborate though. And I'll change for the interview.

Anyway, wish me luck on Wednesday.

Sympathy fo rthe Devil

Here's a thought:

We could rid the world of evil if only we could cure boredom.

I'm sick enough of twiddling my thumbs at work that I have started plotting. Nothing serious yet, but give me time.

P.S. Hooray for two posts in one afternoon.

Feild Mice, Head Lice, Spiders in the Kitchen

Don't think twice 'bout whatever keeps you itchin'

This weekend is the unofficial Halloween, the bestest best holiday ever! I'm super excited to dress up and hit the parties. On Wednesday (the real Halloween) there's a petit fete at work - a pot-luck costume contest thing.

All Hallows Eve has been my favorite holiday for, like, ever. It surpassed Christmas by the time I was 7. I just love dressing up, and the free candy was always grand too. Why don't I get free candy anymore?

Anyway, in the spirit of all things spooky, I treat you all with this:




Bonus points for anyone who can name the song that the headline is from.

Existential Stripping

It is possible I've spent too much time on xkcd.com

Moving Foward Using All my Breath

I'm rocking out to the hits of the eighties today at work. Why? Because they rock. And because on my way back from lunch I pulled up next to a car that was playing Just Can't Get Enough by Depeche Mode and it got stuck in my head.

This week random songs have very easily lodged themselves in my brain in such a way that they stay there for hours. Earlier I read something stupid on some webpage or another about the Backstreet Boys that casually (in a sarcastic sort of way) mentioned their song "I Want it That Way." I am loathe to admit it, but I didn't totally hate the Backstreet Boys back in Jr High. Apparently somewhere deep in my subconcious the thirteen-year-old me lurks still listening to the music of decades past. I was appalled to find out that, not only did I remember the tune of that horrible ditty, but I actually know most of the words.

I'm afraid I have now lost all musical credibility. I hang my head in shame, and protest: I have good stuff on my i-pod, really! I swear I have good taste! The music I listen to is edgy, eclectic, unique and... not by pop tarts.

Isn't it sad though that so much of my memory is taken up by lyrics to horrible pop songs? That may be one of the worst side-effects of high school. It was impossible to avoid hearing a number of songs that are just dreadful. Not only was I not old enough to have more discerning taste, but I still listened to the radio and went places (like school dances) where the featured entertainment was top 40 tripe. I also have a tendency to remember lyrics really easily. Especially with pop songs with their simple verses. There is probably a dusty part of my brain that still knows every word to "Ooops I did it Again" and every single song by the Spice Girls that got radio play. It's not my fault. I blame the goat!

At least now I know better. And I only dance around and sing along to the Spice Girls when I'm sure no one is looking.

SLC Ink

My little bro is brilliant.
Let me tell you why.
He gots himself some ink last week yo.
It's the illest tat eva:





Yes, it is real. When he first announced it, none of us believed him. But when I looked closely it had all the signs of a real life tattoo. You can't really tell from this picture (which I took with my phone so it's not great quality), but it's on his fore-arm, just below the elbow.

Lost Language

Some of the things that Manic wrote about on his little website yesterday (oh, he posted it on Tuesday, but I read it yesterday) really made me think about my own Writing and how little I've been doing lately. He doesn't really talk about writing much, but he mentions his process (third paragraph) and the way he describes it made me hunger for metaphor. I suddenly realised that I've been forgoing Writing much longer than I should.

I should explain what I mean by Writing. I don't mean the silly little anecdotes and quips that I write either here or in e-mails or for school or even in my journal. I do that kind of writing everyday and while there is something to be said for getting something down on paper (so to speak), it just doesn't count. There's too much casualness and informality to this kind of writing. What I've been neglecting is really constructed, careful, meaningful, perfectly formed Writing. The sort of composition that makes the best poetry and stories.

I used to Write every day- on top of e-mails and journals and letters and such- but due to a serious case of writer's block, I got out of the habit. Now I've recovered from the block, but I'm out of the habit of getting things out of my head, so I now have a massive population of poems and words and phrases floating around inside of me. I feel like I've lost some of my talent at translating them. Whenever I pick up a pen, everything tries to come out at once and nothing is quite as good as it was in my mind. I lose my courage and walk away.

Part of the problem is that I hold myself to a very high standard. Anyone who has ever heard me rant about "poets" knows part of the reason. Poetry, especially, is so deeply personal and there are so many "poets" out there who are so posturing and pretentious that their poetry (which is usually terrible) gets lost behind their image. I'm loathe to bring an imperfect poem into the world because I want to just be someone who writes poetry. I want my image to get lost behind my poems; that can't happen if they're just a bunch of empty bullshit. So I hide from Writing even though I know all it would take is consistency and some steady work at editing to produce some satisfactory pieces. Now there's so much backlog in my head that the idea of wading through it all is absolutely daunting.

It's high time I got over this! No excuses anymore! I'm going to Write something everyday. I'll force myself if I have to (and I'm sure I will) until I get back in the habit. I'm in dire need of a language laxative (gross). They say that real Writers simply need to write- it's part of who they are. How true it is! I feel like I've lost part of myself since I haven't been Writing. It's time to find Me again.

Book Meme

I don't often do "memes". Or, rather, I don't often call them memes. Anyway, I like this one.

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of 30 September 2007). As usual, bold what you have read, italicise what you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice*
Jane Eyre
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novelA Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's PendulumMiddlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit*
In Cold Blood : A True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its Consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
Bastard out of Carolina

For those who like to keep track, that's 30 that I've read and 20 that are on the list. My to-read list is quite long (the one's mentioned above are just a fraction thereof). I'm a bit overwhelmed actually.

Pause!

I am in desperate need of some sentience.

I feel like I've been rushing around lately. There's been so much to do and I've been trying to do it all. I've managed pretty well, I guess. I admit that there are a few things I haven't gotten to and a few friends I haven't seen enough of. I feel almost like I have to schedule simple get togethers weeks in advance because I'm just so busy.

It doesn't help that my job is so exhaustingy boring. Most evenings I leave the office completely drained and all I want to do is stretch out on the living room rug and stare at the ceiling. Plus I'm so isolated at work, it's hard to suddenly switch over to social mode. Maybe I should start talking to myself, just so I don't completely lose the art of conversation. What I really need is a new job- one where I can actually get to know interesting people. And I am looking. I've even applied a couple places. But I digress.

Lately I've been caught up in the rush and I just need a break. So I'm going to be completely anti-social this weekend. I just want to stay still and not go anywhere. I'm going to lounge around the house and read, maybe write a little, just stay still.

Besides, I have have some homework to catch up on and I think I may be coming down with a bit of a cold. A little stillness will be good for me. Next weekend I'll get back to having a life, but this weekend I'm introverting.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye!

I hereby declare today a good day!

I have a slice of pie. I am happy. Yay pie.

It is pumpkin, by the way.




































P.S. Halloween is coming up. Yay halloween!

Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite

Last night I saw Across the Universe with my family. This movie hasn't gotten very good reviews, but I thought it was mostly good. It may have been better if 5 or 6 songs had been cut. But I'm a fan of The Beatles and, for the most part, the movie treated their music quite well. It was on par with just about any other movie centered on music and a worthwhile geek-fest for any fan of the Fab Four.

On a completely different note:
I don't pay much attention to politics. I do listen to NPR in the morning and sometimes on my way home from work, so I have a general idea of what it going on, but I rarely form an opinion. Concerning a certain Senator from Idaho, this made me chuckle:

ZOMFGLOLKTHXBI!1!1!

So... Cute FedEx Guy has a name. And a myspace page.

Down With Censorship

It is Banned Book Week!

Go out and read yourself a banned book.

"What book should that be?" you ask.

"I don't know any banned books. Why would I want to read that filth anyway?" you continue.

That's it, we're not friends anymore. I personally think that banning books should be a crime. Books are a wonderful way to safely experience extraordinary things. They provoke the imagination and stretch the mind. A book that contains controversial material is one of the best kinds of books because it does evertything I just mentioned but it also can open up dialogue about something that needs to be talked about. It is not filth! I slap you upside the head for saying so.

"Oh. I'm an idiot. I will read TEN banned books to make it up to you. But I still don't know which books have been banned." You say, with your head hung in shame.

You might want to start with the most challenged book of 2006: And Tango Makes Three a true story about gay penguins at Central Park Zoo.

Since you're going to read TEN banned books, you should check out this list of the 100 most challenged books from 1990-2000. I have personally read exactly half of the list. Seriously, I just counted. Check out #88 though. What is controversial about that book?

Happy Reading!




Amendum: I totally lied. Due to a very silly mistake on my part I miscounted the number of books I've read on that list. It's actually only 25. I am a shmuck.

The Saga Continues

When we left our heroine, she was in the hospital starting treatment for WG. And now, boys and girls, the story continues.

I was in the hospital for a total of ten days. Friends visited bearing gifts (the best thing I got was a bunch of oranges. They were do delicious, especially when all I had to eat was hospital food), I was asigned a social worker who I was snotty and mean towards, I watched a lot of movies, and I slept a lot. On the ninth day, I was well enough to go home but I was anemic and needed a blood transfusion. Of course, as soon as they told me this, someone came in to take more blood- I thought it was funny.

A blood transfusion is one of the most uncomfortable experiences I've ever had. It looked like black-cherry soda going into my arm and it was painful. The blood was cold so I could actually feel it inside my arm until it warmed up to body tempurature. Internal cold feels like a sharp ache. It's not fun.

Finally I was released. I wasn't allowed to go back to school for another week because my immune system was not up to snuff. I did go in to talk to my teachers one day around the time classes let out. I'll never forget the look on my friends' face when they saw me walking down the hall. It was possibly one of the best moments of my life.

The first week out of the hospital I was still sleeping most of the time. Some days I would only be able to stay awake for about two hours. The second week it was back to school. I had to drop most of my classes (thankfully I was a senior and had finished the classes I needed for graduation) because I couldn't handle being at school all day. Things settled into a routine of classes, pills, doctor apointments, IV treatments and sleep. At least my nose stopped bleeding. I suffered huge weight gain and "moon face" at the hands of prednisone (I hate hate hate that drug!).

Life went on. Eventually the doctor appointments were farther apart and the doses of medication got smaller. The physical affects of the disease dissipated, but the mental and emotional trauma continued. I was 17 fror fuckssake, and this completely disrupted my life. Not only did I nearly die at the age when we're supposed to feel like we're infalible and going to live forever, but my entire life plan was thrown off. I had never considered not going away to college right after high school, but it was suddenly not an option. I watched my life as it should be go on without me while I was stuck at home being sick.

I had to completely re-define myself. I could no longer be the energetic, outgoing, do-everything girl I always was; I would literally crash for days if I tried to do half of what I normally would. I had to learn to pay close attention to how tired I was and what was going on with my body. At 17, I had to suddenly think like a 50 year old (I think that's more or less exactly how my doctor put it).

It has been 5 years since I was diagnosed. It took two years to reach remission physically. Mentally, I only recently really came to terms with everything. I finally feel like I can handle what this means for my life. I have found the balance between hyper-vigilance and negligence. As traumatic and difficult as everything has been, in some ways I'm glad it all happened. The whole ordeal has really shaped who I am today. Of course I wouldn't be unhappy if I never had to worry about it ever again, but my life would be much less rich without it. And it's a comfort to know that I've been through all this shit, and I survived. That kind of strength is bound to come in handy sometime in life, right?

My Story

As promised, here is my personal tale of the Wegener's Granulomatosis beast! Some of it may be stuff I've already talked about in previous posts, but you'll get over it.

Once upon a time, or more precisely, sometime probably in November of 2001, I had a cold. It was a typical coughy sneezey uckiness that colds usually are, but it lingered a bit longer than it should have. After a while, I went to my doctor and he gave me anti-biotics. Funny thing was, the cold didn't improve. In fact, in got worse. I was tired and woozy all the time with a persistent cough. And I was having nosebleeds just about every day.

Nosebleeds are not a new thing for me- I've gotten them my whole life, especially in winter when the air starts to get a little bit drier and colder- so these didn't cause much concern at first. They started lasting longer and longer though and occurring two or three times a day. I was a little worried (and frustrated, 'cause you really can't do anything while your nose is bleeding), but when I mentioned it to my parents, they dismissed it. I had seen doctors about nosebleeds before, and they have never been very concerned or helpful.

Since my cold wasn't getting any better, I went back to my doctor who gave me another antibiotic. When he looked up my nose, like they do, he started a bleeder. After I bled in his office for about 15 minutes with no sign of it letting up, he sent me across the hall to the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) guys. They managed to get the bleeding to mostly stop and then cauterized some bits of my nose. On my way out the door, it started bleeding again. So I went back in the chair and the ENTs cauterized some more. Again, as we were leaving, it started bleeding again, but there wasn't much tissue left to cauterize so we just left.

The end of December and the beginning of January are kind of a blur for me. I was still coughing all the time. I couldn't get a full nights sleep because I would wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning with a bloody nose that would last an hour or more. On New Year's Eve, I had plans to go to a party, but around 9 I fell asleep on the couch and slept there until 1:30. I slept through the big moment! I hadn't done that since I was 6.

When school started after winter break, I had a hard time getting through the days. One day, my nose started bleeding in the middle of my first period math class. I spent the next hour and a half bleeding in the bathroom. I just barely made it to my next class before it ended and I went home after that. I was light-headed from loosing all that blood, and I was tired (the normal state for me those days).

The nosebleeds started coming with pain. My nose hurt all the time, so I took ibuprofen for that. Not such a good idea in retrospect, as ibuprofen is a blood thinner and I was, you know, bleeding a a lot. It was a good day if I only bled for half and hour.

The week I went to the hospital, I went to school on Monday and came home before first period. I slept all day and went back for play practice. I had a fairly decent role in Macbeth and I didn't want to lose it. The next day I slept all day and just made it to rehearsal; the director ran through my scene really quickly and then sent me home. I didn't make it at all on Wednesday.

Wednesday night I had another nose bleed that lasted 2 hours. I was in tears from the pain and the frustration and the lack of sleep. My parents called my doctor (at 1 am) and he told us to go to the emergency room at Primary Children's Hospital in the morning. So on the morning of January 10, we did. At the ER, they ran some tests and took a chest x-ray. There were spots on my lungs so they said it might be pneumonia, but my other symptoms didn't make sense with that diagnosis. They decided to check me in and run some more tests. Once in my room, I called the drama teacher and told him I was in the hospital and wouldn't be at rehearsal. I also called my friend Cory, who I was supposed to go to Jr Prom with that Saturday and told him I couldn't go.

The next few days I barely remember anything. I slept most of the time. I was on morphine for the pain in my nose. Twice a day someone would come it and take blood for more tests. I must have seen every doctor in the area, but I was so out of it, I had no idea who they were or what they were doing. Finally Dr. Bohnsack figured it out. All the signs pointed to Wegener's, but he recommended doing a biopsy of some of the tissue in my nose just to be sure. So into surgery went I.

After the biopsy, my nose was packed with gauze all the way up to my brain (or so it seemed). I looked like Marcia Brady after she got hit with the football. The results came back positive. I remember not really understanding what it meant, but both my parents broke down when the doctor told them, so I knew it was really bad. The only thing I could relate Wegener's to at the time was AIDS, the only other auto-immune disease I had ever heard of. Naturally I freaked out.

I started treatment right away. I wont go into what it was, because I did that in my post yesterday. Actually, I think I may stop here for now. This post has been awfully long. I'll continue the story tomorrow.

That's SICK

Hey everybody! It's Vasculitis Awareness Week!

Anyone who has been reading this blog for a while, or actually knows me, or both, knows that I have vasculitis in the form of Wegener's Granulomatosis. I've blogged about my experiences with it before (click here to read my previous posts) and right now I don't really have anything new to say. I've been in remission for a little over three years (go me!) (knock on wood) and doing great. I have every intention of making it to five and throwing the biggest party ever to celebrate.

Even though I have blogged about some aspects of my Wegener's, I haven't really gone into what it is in general, or even how it specifically manifested for me. So that is what this post is going to be about.

Wegener's is a form of vasculitis that affects... well, it can affect just about everything. Mostly it goes after the sinuses and lungs and often will involve kidneys, ears, eyes, throat, skin and what the text books like to call "other body organs." Like I said, it can affect just about everything. I was lucky enough to only have it affect my lungs and nose, and only in a minor way. The last chest x-ray I had showed a little scar tissue, and my nose has gone a bit funny, but no other perminant damage.

So what happens in the affected areas is this: the blood vessels get inflamed and little clusters of granulomas may occur. What the hell is a granuloma? Good question. A granuloma is *ahem* an inflammatory tumor or growth composed of granulation tissue. I like to think of them as little clumps of yuck.

The symptoms of Wegener's are really fun because they are normal everyday kinds of things (at least at first). Some symptoms include: runny nose, nose bleeds, cough, fever, fatigue, joint pain, ear aches. So really, things that could easily be just a cold or flu. The trick is that they don't go away or respond to normal treatment (like antibiotics). There are also a slew of blood tests that can sometimes indicate that the disease is present. Often a biopsy is needed to make a diagnosis, but even that is only about 50% indicative.

Treatment is where is really gets fun though. Generally it involves chemo-therapy and steriods. There are many variations and combinations of different drugs that patients get, so I'm just going to tell you about me. My treatment lasted about two years. I started out with intravenus cytoxan and a corticosteriod (I don't remember what it was exactly. It made everything I ate taste really bitter though) while I was in the hospital. After I was released, I had to take massive doses of Prednisone and anti-biotics. I also had to go back to the hospital overnight every so many days for more chemo.

Eventually I moved on to taking cytoxan orally. As I got better my doctor slowly tapered my meds. About six months after the initial diagnosis, I had a little flare up and had to do a few outpatient IV steriods. Finally, I was able to move on to methotrexate- basically a matenence drug.

Well, this post is probably long enough. I'll post again tomorrow and tell you all more about my particular case. Anyone who read this is encouraged to share with everyone they know. Vasculitis is rare, and rarely diagnosed. A little awareness wont hurt anyone.

For further reading, check these out:
V.F. very dry explaination
Wiki entry

FAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLING

Well, it's no use denying fall anymore. Never mind that the autumnal equinox was yesterday, we're having fall weather even... sort of. Gone are the insanely hot days of summer. I say good riddance.

Today in SLC we're having someone else's winter weather. It was cold and raining this morning. It hailed where I work and my brother claims snow. Actually, when I left the house this morning I did notice a fine white dusting atop the mountains.

The trees are turning (brown mostly, but some lovely reds and yellows), the heat is dissipating. Welcome fall!

Gawd, who blogs about the wheather? Apparently, I do.

Avast Ye Scurvey Dogs!

Ahoy maties, today it be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. It be a sad tale, lads, but if I were to partake in this here joyous occasion, I would be forced to walk the plank (so to speak, that is, I'd be fired). So I'll make up for it by typin' like a pirate and sailin' the high seas o' the internets.

Here be some stuff for ye:

You scored as Mary Read, You are very unconventional, you defy the rules as often as you can and like to take as many risks as possible. You will probably end up living happily under a bridge somewhere laughing at all the unsavory deeds you once instigated. Mary Read 92% Captain Jack Sparrow 75% Captain Barbosa 75% Black Beard 75% Dread Pirate Roberts 42% Morgan Adams 33% Long John Silvers 33% Captain James T. Hook 33% Sinbad 33% Will Turner 25% What kind of Pirate are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You are The Quartermaster

You, me hearty, are a man or woman of action! And what action it is! Gruesome,
awful, delightful action. You mete out punishment to friend and foe alike
– well, mostly to foe, because your burning inner rage isn’t
likely to draw you a whole lot of the former. Still, though you may be
what today is called “high maintenance” and in the past was
called “bat-shit crazy,” the crew likes to have you around
because in a pinch your maniacal combat prowess may be the only thing
that saves them from Jack Ketch. When not in a pinch, the rest of the
crew will goad you into berserker mode because it’s just kind of
fun to watch. So you provide a double service – doling out discipline
AND entertainment.

What's Yer Inner Pirate?
brought to you by The Official Talk Like A Pirate Web Site. Arrrrr!

My pirate name is:

Iron Bess Flint

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person.
That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person.
Like the rock flint, you're hard and sharp.
But, also like flint, you're easily chipped, and sparky.
Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network

Pretty and Witty and Bright

I while ago I sort of mentioned flirting with the FedEx guy. It's totally cliche, I know, but he's kind of cute, and I have to amuse myself somehow when I'm at work, right?

Today when Cute-FedEx-Guy came in to pick up a package he actually hung around and talked to me for about twenty minutes. We talked about school and movies. Not a deep conversation by any means, but enough to move him from random-delivery-boy status to someone-I-actually-know-something-about. I can't decide if this makes him more or less fun to flirt with.

I'm curious though about what made him decide to stop and talk today. We've had short chats before, but nothing really more than small talk. What made him decide to stay and have an actual conversation today? I haven't seen him in a few weeks (he only picks up packages later in the day) and the last time he came in, I think I was kind of busy and didn't talk to him much.

Maybe next time I see him I'll ask his name.

All Right, Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready For My Close Up

Have you ever asked yourself, "If someone were to make a movie of my life, what would it be like?"

If you are one of my friends, there is a possibility that I have asked you, "If someone were to make a movie of your life, who would play you?"

One of my favorite sites for wasting time (Pajiba) posed more of less the same question to its readers which made me think about the subject. I have most of the people in my life cast already, but I never really thought about what movie it would be. There haven't been too many movies that really make me think of my life. And a lot would depend on what part of my life they made the movie about- the saga of my getting sick? My life as it is now (what a boring movie that would be)? My life in high-school? The summer of "The Book" (best summer EVER)?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that it will be all of the above. An epic movie about the last decade or so of my life. It would start out like Mean Girls, then throw everyone for a loop by suddenly turning into something like an episode of House, but with a nicer doctor. Add a dash of angry teenage rebellion (White Oliander style?), but without drugs or alcohol, and a little bit more medical drama. Fold in a John Hughs type summer, the beginning of Two Weeks Notice and end with The Spanish Apartment (well, I'm not quite there yet, but a little flexibility with the plot is allowed). Spice the whole thing with as much High Fidelity as you can stand. Blend. Serve over ice in a chilled glass.

Was that complicated enough for you? Good.

I would be played by Maggy Gyllenhaal
Supporting roles would go to: (as some of my friends) Sara Silverman, Josh Hartnett, Michelle Rodriguez, Diedrich Bader (as arch enemies) Julia Stiles, Rachel McAdams, Heath Ledger (as family) Ashton Kutcher, Glen Close, Robert Redford, Angela Landsbury, Albert Finney, Maggie Smith. And I'll throw in a completely fictional romantic lead played by either Ryan Gosling or Bret McKenzie.

I hope they don't make this movie. It can't possibly be very good. And I imagine it would be slightly less than flattering to me. Great cast though, eh?

Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God

On my way home from work today I saw a bumper sticker that read like this:

GOD BELIEVES IN YOU - Count of Monte Cristo
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

I'm not mentioning it to get into some religious battle. I just want to point out that the Count of Monte Cristo is not exactly the best literary spokesperson for any religion. Do you really want to promote your faith with an egomaniac who became completely consumed by his desire for revenge? I certainly wouldn't.

As a side note, I saw this bumper sticker just before I heard the Manamana song on the radio ("mashed" with Jet's Are You Gonna Be My Girl). How's that for synchronicity?

Word, Everybody, Word.

I love Fridays. Yes I do. Especially beautiful fall Fridays like today (although it's not technically fall yet, but we're having nice fallish temperatures today in SLC, so I'm calling it fall, so there). Especially especially beautiful fall Fridays when I get paid. Nothing is better than a weekend when I have money.

(Now I want to parenthetically argue with myself about when fall starts. I guess you could say that fall starts after Labor day, in which case it is indeed fall already. Or, as I am wont to do, you can say fall doesn't start until the Autumnal Equinox, which isn't for another week or two. Or you can say that it isn't fall until the leaves start to turn, and who knows when that will be. I'm going to stick with the astronomical version, so my previous parenthetical statement stands)

I only wish I could get out and enjoy the day sometime before 5. Ah the burden of a regular, full time job. I might not mind so much (and actually, I don't really mind all that much anyway) if I had a little more to do. Or if I had a job that I really loved. Maybe I should start looking for another employment. I could just casually apply at the places where I think I would really enjoy working. Like indie bookstores and maybe the library. Getting a job at a library is complicated for me, but that's a whole other blog!

Well, I've gotten so off topic that I don't even remember what I set out to write in the first place. Oh well.

To celebrate the especially wonderfullness of today (being a lovely fall, Friday and pay day), I'm going to post an amusing video.




I couldn't find it without the subtitles. >shrug<

Farewell to Summer

Labor day is the unofficial end of summer, right? Even though school started (for me and many others) two weeks ago, thus ending Summer Vacation, and the weather continues to be impossibly hot, it's time to start thinking autumnal thoughts. So now is the start of swimming pools closing, summer concert series' ending and sweaters showing up in department stores. Labor day isn't really much more than a long weekend. A very good long weekend.

I took advantage of the free day away from work by trekking down to Durango, CO with my dad. It was our convertible/beer trip that we've been meaning to take since I turned 21. We just haven't managed to find the time.

Durango has a couple breweries that make very delicious beer. You have to understand that the beer part of the trip was all about quality, not quantity. We only had three pints each the whole trip. I brought quite a lot of beer home with me though. You can't really get good (not 3.2) beer in Utah. Just don't tell anyone in charge here, it's only slightly illegal to bring foreign beer into the state.

Besides studying the brewing arts of Colorado, Dad and I narrowly missed a meteor shower near Moab, wandered around Mesa Verde for most of Sunday, nearly froze to death (we had the top down and it was about 48°) going from Durango to Silverton and Uray, ate a lot of food and got a little sun. It was a long weekend well spent.

Sometimes a Hippo is Just a Hippo

I had a strange dream last night. I don't remember most of it. It was sort of like one of movies where there are several story lines that you follow. They sort of parallel each other, but are actually related (like Love Actually). Anyway, I just remember bits and pieces of most of the stories, but one scene really stuck in my head.

A small child was eaten by a large hippopotamus.

It was a lot like Jaws but without the shark.

So tell me, Dr Freud, what does it all mean?

Wonderful World of Webnets

I'm not totally sure I'm all that fond of this game. It seemed like a good idea when I started, but I'm kind of not so into it anymore. Mostly because I realized that the stuff I find online is all really dumb. And half the stuff is on the pages over on the left side of this page anyway. I'm not totally sure, but this may be the last installment. Enjoy.

Why go to college when you can just watch the movies?

I seem to have a fondness for stupid people doing really stupid things. In fact, I'm pretty sure this baby would have given a better answer.

I hate it when my shrink forgets to check with the "Sun God "

G&R's editor goes picks apart Sweet Child O' Mine . It's a little grammar joke. I'm a geek. Sue me.

Finally, Pajiba is setting aside their usual snarkiness and raving about classic movies this week. They start with Double Indemnity which is one of my favorite old flicks.

Heartbreaking Tale of Unspeakable Woe

I was sort of half listening to Talk of the Nation on my way back to work from lunch this afternoon when I heard this:

A new poll shows that book sales are flat and that one quarter of Americans don't read books at all.

This makes me so very sad, but it doesn't really surprise me. I read an exorbitant amount, I know. It's possible that I read more than all my friends, but I've never really paid much attention. Reading is not a competetive sort of sport. Several of my friends are certainly avid readers; a book geek like me can't survive without a few other book geeks in their life. I also have many friends who never read, or who have been reading the same book for years (meaning they pick it up every few months and read a chapter or two). Other friends never read fiction at all, and while I am glad they are getting their noses into books, I feel like they are really missing out by sticking to biographies, essays and text books.

There is something truly amazing about reading a good novel. There is nothing quite like picking up a book, cracking open the cover, and then losing yourself in a world completely unlike your own. I sometimes get a little too into the book I'm reading, actually. I'll take on certain characteristics of the protagonist, or pick up mannerisms from the characters. I also find myself relating things in life to "a book I read once" several times a day. I tend not to mention it to the people I'm with though because it makes me sound even geekier than I already do.

Not only are the people who don't read missing out on a truly wonderful experience, but they are contributing to the general downfall of out nation's intelligence. Reading does wonders for a persons ability to express ideas, thoughts and feelings. It opens your mind to situations you might have never thought of and experiences you otherwise would never have. I know that Americans have tragically short attention spans these days too and I wouldn't be shocked if reading helped lengthen those as well. It makes sense- it takes much longer to read a story than it does to watch the same story on TV. Especially if said story is well written and detail-rich.

In the words of Jane Austen: The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid

Now, excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall for the illiteracy of my nation.

It's About Time

Finally, the blog you all have been waiting ages all week for! Let me tell you about riding 111 miles last weekend:

The ULCER route starts at Thanksgiving Point, goes south through Lehi and Provo then veers west around the south-most point of Utah Lake. The last leg of it is north, more or less right along the lake, and then back to the Thanksgiving Point.

There were about 2,000 doing the ride so, as I'm sure you can imagine, the start is a little crowded. Everybody bottle-necks though the starting gates; since we were somewhere near the back of the pack, the start of the ride was very "ready, set, stand around for a while until you can actually move." The first thirty miles or so we bikers completely engulfed the road. I feel sorry for anyone trying to drive anywhere along the route at that point. It was actually a little frustrating riding in such a crowd, it makes it hard to get a good stride. At some point Aaron and I managed to get ahead of Dad and then Aaron got sick of the crowd, took off and left me behind.

Dad caught up to me after a while and then we met up with Aaron at the next rest stop. The three of us stayed together pretty well from then on. Occasionally I would fall behind a little, but the boys were super nice and would wait for me when I did.

One thing that can really throw off your groove when doing a ride like this is wind. More specifically, a head wind. That's exactly what we turned south into about 50 miles out. Around Utah Lake the wind can get pretty strong (10 or 15 mph) and it really sucks all the energy out of a person. To make things even more fun, around mile 56 the biggest hill (around 3 miles uphill. yuck) of the ride popped up. We were still riding into the wind. That may have been the only part of the ride that I absolutely did not enjoy.

60 miles is the distance that I tend to run out of energy. Without fail, even on the training rides, around 55 or 60 miles I just crash. The ULCER was no exception. Fortunately it was right about that time that we turned west, so the wind was coming from the side. That didn't really make the it any easier to ride, but the turn meant that the lunch stop (read: really long nice rest) was just 8 mile away. 8 miles is nothing, right.

Aaron said he was about to pass out by the time we got to lunch. The food was good- they had stuff to build your own sandwich: a couple cold cuts, cheese, rolls, sandwich veggies. And lots of chips, cookies, crackers, granola bars, candies, and fruit. Anything a hungry and tired biker could want was there. They even had a Coke truck with soft drinks. I think drinking soda at that point would have killed me. There was also a shuttle at that point for people who decided that they couldn't make it the final 40 miles. Lunch was a very happy occasion.

After lunch Dad got slimed. We rode a block or two and his tire exploded for no obvious reason. He had slime in his tire (green goop stuff that will plug up small punctures so you don't get so many flats) that got all over everything. When he took the tire off to there was a good three inch gash in the tube - not exactly something you can patch. So he put a new tube on, pumped it up, and then we were off again. We had about 5 miles with the yucky wind still to go.

A strong tail wind is as good as a head wind is bad. Once we finally turned north we had the wind at our backs for the last 40 miles. That combined with the fresh energy from lunch made the last leg of the ride extremely possible. The west side of Utah Lake is very sparse vegetation wise and has a lot of little rolling hills. After already riding 70 miles, hills are not fun at all so having the wind pushing us along a little bit was really helpful.

All in all it took 9 1/2 hours to do the whole thing. By the end of the ride there were very few body parts that didn't hurt. My feet felt like I had been standing on them all day. I butt was numb from being on a bike seat all day. My arms and my hands and my shoulders and my back just ached. My right leg and both arms were sunburned. I was totally wiped out. Despite being exhausted for a good portion, I really enjoyed myself though the entire ride (with the small exception of the hill, perhaps). Besides that I was (and still am) really proud of myself for finishing. 111 miles is no small feat. Go me! Kudos to Aaron as well. It was also his first century, so he and I both kick major ass for finishing. Oh, and Dad. It was his second century of the summer, that's hardcore.

Wild World of Wombats

I really will blog about the ULCER. I promise. Probably this weekend. I simply haven't had much time this week. I was in New York without internet for a while and since then... I just haven't managed to sit and write anything. In the mean time (mostly last week), I have collected a few links for the "Tales from the Wonderful World of Web" thing I started two weeks ago. By the way, it's not going to be weekly. It's going to be however often I feel like doing it. So there.

I bang my head against the desk for the stupidity of people . Seriously, if you're going to go out of your way to be an assbutt, at least check for cameras first.

Hear that? That the sound of me making $$monies$$. I already did step one, check it out: Liquid That Will Make You Think You Have Energy For a Little While .... It may need some work.

Coffee Jello Eew.

This site amuses me endlessly. Well, not just by itself. If you follow these simple instructions though, it suddenly is super-fun:
1. Pick a phrase to translate. ("I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts")
2. Translate it into Japanese. (私はココナッツの美しい束を持っている)
3. Take that (私はココナッツの美しい束を持っている) and translate it back to English. ("I have the bundle where the coconut is beautiful")
You try now!

Bikes

I just finished (an hour ago. Started at 7, finished at 5. I have since come home and showered).

All 111 miles.

I'm exhausted, but really proud of myself.

Sing my praises, minions!

Go me!

Details later.

Utah Lake Century Epic Ride

Tomorrow is the big day! The big ride! I'm a little bit nervous. Mostly I'm kind of excited. Last Sunday I rode 85 miles and that went pretty well. It was a really good ride and, even though I was pretty tired by the end of it, I think another 30 miles will be very doable. Especially since we'll actually get to stop and eat lunch somewhere in the middle of it.

We finished on Sunday around 1 so we were pretty hungry by the time we got home. We had, of course, stopped a few times to munch of power bars and the like so we didn't completely run out of energy, but lunch was a very happy event. The nice thing about the ULCER is that it is a supported ride so there will be rest-stops and lunch provided for us.

Well, everybody, wish me luck! I don't know if I'll have time to post about the ride before we head off to New York tomorrow. If not, you'll just have to wait until wednesday because there is no internet where I'm going. I will try to do at least a quick post though, just so my phantom readers will know I didn't die.

A Truth Universally Acknowledged

I went to a sneak preview of Becoming Jane last night. As a story by itself, I rather enjoyed it. It was maybe a little sappy and some things were a little incongruous with the time period, but it was a great little romantic story. And James McAvoy has amazing eyes.

As a representation of Ms Austen though, the movie was quite disappointing. There is not, I believe, a huge amount of information about the famous authoress' life and the film is an exaggerated account of a flirtation she had with Mr. Lefroy over one summer. The character of Jane herself is not at all what I would have liked. In the movie she came off as a little insipid and romantic. I personally think of Jane Austen as more of a mix between Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice) and Elinor Dashwood (Sense and Sensibility). Instead she's portrayed as more like Emma, one of the silliest of Asten's protagonists.

I could be wrong about the writer, of course. It just seems a shame to make a woman who was so astute with her social commentaries and who was one of the least romantic writers of the romantic era (this could open a whole new can of worms, but her books are really more about social commentary than they are about romance. In fact, the classical sense of romance, as it applies to the movement, involving rash, emotional, behavior is often disastrous in her novels) should be presented as such a romantic sap.

Wonderful World of Web

I'm going to try a new game! Once a week (or so) I'm going to gift you all with a list of links to super cool things I've stumbled across on the interwebs. This is a game (so it's not actually a game, but I'm going to call it that anyway) that a lot of other bloggers play. Am I conforming? Selling out? Eh, maybe. That's ok though, dear reader, because it means I get to bring some extra joy to your life in the form of internet silliness. So, for the first time ever I bring you:

Tales from the Wonderful World of Web:

A question that has plagued us all at some point is finally answered: Which is better: Pirates or Ninjas?

An extremely excellent list of the books my generation is reading. I've read some of them, and the most of the one's I haven't are now on my "to read" list.

Manic makes me happy that I'm not the only one who is a little uptight about grammar.

Sex anyone? 237 reasons to do the deed!

For any who are not already familiar with it, and thus totally missed the allusion in the Pirates/Ninjas thing: Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

This is an older post on Impulsive Buy, but it's one of my favorites. It's a sad tale of processed meat. Ladies and gentlemen... Jalapeno Spam

Ridin' My Bicycle

I'm starting to get a little anxious about the ULCER. It's coming up in less than two weeks! I fully intend to do the 111 mile leg, but I'm less sure about it as it gets closer. True, I've been training all summer (maybe not quite as hard as I should have) for it, but I'm not sure 111 miles is something I can really do. That's a long time on a bike.



The longest training ride I've done was 55 miles (it was going to be 60, but I crashed 5 miles from the end and cut it short) which was no small feat. It may have been easier if I had gotten more than 3 hours of sleep the night before. Hmmmm. Anyway, this weekend we (my Dad and my friend Aaron, who are both doing the big ride with me) are going to ride 80 miles. It's the final big training jaunt. It's crunch time people.



I think my ass has been sore all summer.


To make everything more fun, on the 11th, after the ride, my dad, brother and I are catching the red-eye to New York. We're going out there for my grandmother's birthday party and to help her pack - she's moving out to SLC to be closer to us.

H to the Pizzle

Until today, I was very purposly making a point of not blogging about Harry Potter. I pre-ordered the last book weeks before it came out, recieved it in the mail Saturday afternoon and spent 14 hours straight on Sunday reading the whole damn thing.

I didn't blog about it because everyone was blogging about it. I didn't (and don't) have much to say that hasn't been said a billion times all over the internets. I'm still not going to put my two cents in about the book.

I'm breaking my silence on the subject now because of an interview Rowling did that explains a little more about what happens to the kids after the end of the book. The epilogue was vague and left much to be desired. I certainly don't want to know every single detail about what happens to every single character, but I was upset that the epilogue didn't cover what the kids (exept for Neville) were actually doing. So here's a link to the interview for any of my devoted readers who are interested. There are not any surprises, really, but it's interesting anyway.

Update: The Leaky Cauldren has even more answers here

I Wonder

Is it wrong to write when one has absolutely nothing worthy to write about?

Of course, that prompts the question: What qualifies something as worthy to be written?

I would say that this quandary does not qualify. But my fingers are desperate to type something and I have no amusing anecdotes to record, or any particularly deep thoughts to throw out into the universe.

A fly just landed briefly on my ring. That was odd.

I think, in lieu of anything personal to blog about, I'm going to talk about . . . SPACE!

How 'bout those dust storms on Mars, eh? As bad as it is for the rovers, I think it's kind of exciting. I mean, it's not unusual for Mars to have big wind storms, but we haven't had two rovers up there for any other ones (have we? If we have I give you permission to call me a schmuck). Not that the little guys can do much, what with low sunlight and everything, but it's sort of almost like being there. Only much more comfortable. No one likes getting sand in their panties, and I'm sure sand would be EVERYWHERE if a person was actually up there.

The Phoenix looks pretty flippin' sweet too.

Finally, (this is old news, but I haven't mentioned it before) New Horizons got some really wicked pictures when it flew by Jupiter. Please, don't judge me too harshly when I say that I'm totally turned on by the volcano pics on Io. And the pics of the Little Red Spot are just freaking hot.

This concludes my geek-out of the day. Thank you for your patience

Pull Yourself Together Man!

Sometimes I think that I should ascribe some sort of theme to this blog. Some possibilities that have crossed my mind are:

> Literary discussions of the books I have read, am reading or want to read

> Some sort of chronicle of the stuff I'm doing to get ready for the 111 mile bike ride I'm doing in a few weeks (eeek it's coming up quickly)

>Snarky movie reviews or celebrity commentary ('cause there aren't enough blogs out there already doing that)

>Snarky reviews of random stuff (food, bands, venues, festivals, restaraunts) that I try/go to.

I think having some sort of structure to my blog might make me more popular. People I don't directly know will find my blog interesting and worth checking several times a day. Then I can become QUEEN OF THE INTERNETS and rule the world. (insert maniacly evil laughter here)

But then I think "no, that's boring." Not ruling the world. Having structure. Is boring. As are complete sentences. If I had structure to my blog, I wouldn't be able to post a lot of stupid shit that is generally apropos of absolutely nothing.

That reminds me, I want to re-read a book I read a long time ago called Sir Apropos of Nothing. It was hilarious.

See, non-sequiters like that would... no they would still be there if I had structure. They would either make more sense or less sense though, depending on what the theme of my blog ended up being.

I'm thinking of putting a poll on my blog. It sounds like fun. It would be more fun if there were more people to take the poll. Maybe if I leave it up long enough....

Re-Vamp

You may have noticed (those two of you out there that read this ever) that things look a little different around here.

I decided that, after two and some years, it was time to give my blog a little makeover.

Don't it look spiffy? It's a little busier than it was before, and I'm not sure my super colorful posts are going to work well anymore, but I kinda like it.

If you don't, well that's your problem, isn't it?

I'm A Terrible Person! Here's Why:

Right now I am looking out the window in front of my desk at two fire trucks and an ambulance. Some random drunk guy just passed out on the grass around our parking lot. I don't know if it was heatstroke (it's 103 degrees today), dehydration or just normal drunkeness. It's aweful, but it you're going to be drunk and out in the sun when it's 103, that's what you get.

I'm a horrible person because, before I found out it was a random drunk, I was rooting for it to be Hector.

Hector is a creepy old (mid-late 30s. Not that old, but old enough) hispanic (great, now I'm going to sound racist too) guy who's been doing landscaping for us all summer. He's creepy because he hits on me all the time. And he has gold teeth. And smokes. And hits on me all the time. A month or so ago he gave me a dozen roses totally out of the blue. A few weeks ago he tried to give me a bottle of perfume. He's asked me out to lunch, to go dancing, to dinner, to get coffee on several occasions. He has also asked for my number. He really bothers me. I guess I should say something to one of the higher-ups about it.

Anyway, I was really hoping it would be him because if he got carted away, I wouldn't have to deal with him at least for the rest of the day. I'm terrible. It's not good to wish bad things on people, no matter how creepy and yucky they are.

The random drunk just walked off. They had him sitting in the back of the ambulance for a while. I guess they revitalized him.

Ah Sweet Redemption

Some of you may recall, (and for those who don't, here is a link (just read the penultimate paragraph as it is the only one that is relevant)) back in January, I sold my soul to American Express. I am happy to report that today, just a few moments ago in fact, that soul has been emancipated! That's right, I just paid off the last of my credit card debt! YAY!

I am now one step closer to getting the hell out of my parents house. It's really about time, don't you think? I do.

Since we're on the topic of goals I had/have for this year (also mentioned at above link), I've done quite a lot along the lines of growing up. I'm not totally sure I like it. Because I have to wake up so darn early every day for my "real job," I've become kind of a party pooper on the weekends. Most Friday nights I can barely keep my eyes open after 11 pm. That's really early for fun lovin' twenty-somethings.

Most of my friends hang out late at night during the week too. I simply can't because I have to get up early and I'm cranky if I don't get at least 6 hours of sleep.

Oh, and because I'm training to do the ULCER, I've been getting up ungodly early on Sunday mornings to ride my bike. This ruins my Saturday nights. No hardcore partying for me because riding 50 miles hungover after only getting 3 hours of sleep is not a happy thing.

I'm not totally sure I hate this grown-up stuff though. It's nice to actually be doing something with my life (even if it's not really much). I've kind of been passively floating along for a while, so it's refreshing to assert myself a little.

Now I have to actually get back to doing work.

Cheddah

Warning: You May Find This Post to be Cheesy as Hell (they have cheese in hell?)

This morning at work somebody thanked me for smiling at him. It the kid who delivers paper for our massive-big-pieces-of-paper printer and today he had several roles of paper that he was dropping off. This meant he had to take several trips back and forth. When he first came in, I did the "hello, how are you" basic greeting, and every time he went past my desk, I looked up and smiled. Not really a big deal, one would think.

On his way out the door after he had dropped off the final roll of paper, he said to me, "thanks for the smiles. I've been having a kinda bad morning and that was really nice."

I told him he was welcome and that I hoped his day would get better. I was a little surprised that such a small gesture on my part could have much impact on his mood.

Now that I think about it though, there have been days when I haven't necessarily been in the best mood and I've passed a stranger in the street (or somewhere) who smiled at me and made me feel much better. Corney as it sounds, that kind of random happiness is quite contagious. I kind of wish more people would bother to look around them and grin occasionally instead of brooding in their on little universe. I don't know that it would really make some huge difference in the world, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

Gadgets

As I'm sure everyone knows already, the new iPhones come out on Friday. Today in the SL Trib there is an article about what they will and will not be able to do. I have to be honest, I haven't really been very excited about this new gadget and now, after reading the article, I am even less so. It seems to me to be a really expensive phone that doesn't do half the things that my phone does now (or at least is capable of doing. I don't take advantage of the internet stuff because I don't want to pay extra for the plan).

I'm certainly not going to rush out and buy one. Though I probably know people who will.

This is hillarious:




Update 6/27: There is an article in the New York Times today that makes the iphone sound a little better. I still have no real interest in getting one though.

Silly Rabbit

On my way to work this morning I heard a story on NPR about Kellog's and thier sugary cereal. Because kids today are fat and sugar crazy (this is bad) the big K is going to stop marketing ultra-sugary products to kids under 12. Anything with over 12g of sugar (still seems like an aweful lot) is either going to be re-formulated or they're going to stop marketing them to kids.

Ok, so when they figure out that Fruit Loops and Apple Jacks just aren't the same without sugar crammed into every bite (they can't change the formula if it messes up the "great tast people expect from [their] products"*), just who are they going to market these cereals to? Even without the cartoon characters et al, how many adults want to eat sugar for breakfast. I know there are some, but most grown ups want to go for something with a little nutrition to start out their day. However they change the marketing, this kind of breakfast food is still going to appeal to kids more than anyone else.

I think the target group will be teenage/twenty-something boys. This guess is based solely on the fact that my brother eats a full box of choco-sugar-bits for breakfast everyday (ok, he doesn't eat the whole box, and I made up the cereal, but you get the point).

As for me, I'll stick with boring standards. Raisin Bran anyone? All those sugar saturated cereals just don't taste that good to me anymore.

*I'm quoting from memory. I'm not sure that's exactly what the guy said, but it was something along those lines. To hear the story, go Here

Happy Solstice!

Huzzah for the longest day of the year and the official start of summer!

Huzzah is a grand term, isn't it?

It certainly feels like summer. I'm begining to think it might be worth it to fix the AC in my car ($500 (!!!!!) to fix it, yuck). Probably not. It's more likely to be worth it to ride my bike to work and take the nicely air conditioned bus back home. Or take the bus both ways. Hmmm, lose half and hour of sleep or suffer in a sweltering hot car? That is the question du jour.

Actually the question du jour is "How terribly cliche am I if I flirt with the FedEx guy?"

And that's not so much the question du jour as it is the question of the minute. I don't have the attention span today to have a question du jour.

"What's the soup du jour?"
"The soup of the day."
"Great, I'll have that."

I leave you with this to ponder:

Follow the Fold...

...And stray no more. One of our clients at work just a moment ago asked me where I went on my mission. Apparently I have the niceness you get when you go spread the "word of our lord" for two years. When I told him I hadn't gone on a mission because I am not LDS, he was very disappointed. He said he was going to pray for me.

After his meeting, on his way out the door, he said he's going to "find a nice young man and send him my way." Not really knowing what to say to that, I just smiled and nodded. Now I'm afraid I may get accosted by missionaries while at work. Won't that be... interesting.

Ah the joys of living in Utah. At least we don't have any Jehova's Witnesses. I hear they're nearly as bad (if not worse) than the mormons. I could go on some rant about organized religion and how much it bothers me when one group of people tries to impose its beliefs on others. I'm not in the mood to rant today though.

I am in the mood to tell all my loyal readers (2 of you?) about the movie I saw last night. Day Watch is the sequel to Night Watch, a bloody fantastic Russian Horror movie. Night Watch was really amazing and Day Watch is perhaps not quite as good but still well worth seeing. Here are the trailers for both (Night Watch frist cuz it's the first in the series)







There's a third installment too which is in production (I think) called Dusk Watch.

Dear Old Dad

As most everybody already knows (thanks to the million "Dads and Grads" ads out there now) Father's day is right around the corner. Father's day is a really hard holiday because my dad is not an easy person to shop for.

He has hobbies, true, but they all either require expensive gadgets (he does photography) or he has pretty much everything he needs. Maybe if I were rich (which I'm not. But speaking of money, I owe American Express less than $1,000 now! Yay! I should have my soul back in just a couple months! Back to dad) I could get him some super cool camera thingy or something fancy for his bike.

I almost always end up resorting to a DVD or CD. Usually it's something that I give him because I really want it, and it's easy to borrow Dad's stuff. This year he gave me a specific title. I'll most likely give him the DVD. It's easy. It doesn't feel very meaningful though. What a cop-out gift. Can't our parents be appreciated without us buying some silly little bauble?

Along those same lines, Amazon has Coolest Father's Day Present Ever! Seriously, it rocks. To really appreciate the awesomeness of it, you have to read the customer reviews.

Eharmony and Strippers

First read this.

Personally, I don't really care about the lawsuit and all that. It's just another sue happy american trying to get all they can. I roll my eyes and get on with my life. I am really tickled about the analogy that eHarmony is like a strip club. That made me grin.

My Mashed Potato Lied!

It's my Birthday! Yay Me! I'm going to take this moment to sing my praises, because it is, after all, national ME day. Youtube failed to provide me with the scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they praise God and it goes into one of Terry Gilliam's animations. You know the one where there are clouds and lots of hooplah and trumpets that are being played by bums (not the homeless kind). I really wanted to post that here to illustrate the praise of me. Since I couldn't find it, I leave it to you, dear reader, to close your eyes and picture the scene in your head. If you haven't seen MP and the HG (what's wrong with you!!) or can't quite recall what the hell I am talking about, you must (no excuses) drop everything, find a copy of said film, and watch it!

I'm determinded that this is going to be a wonderful day. It's amazing how well it works just having the right outlook. I could easily be very disappointed about today - I have had a cold all week and it's still lingering, I'm at work, blah blah blah, the cough drop I just ate tastes really terrible! Eeew. Despite all that I'm quite happy. (double eeew, the cough drop is chewy too. Gross. I can taste the zinc.) I refuse to be in a bad mood, and therefore I'm positively chipper. Life is grand.

I think I need to share some exciting pictures now. Last year on my birthday I had dancing Storm Troopers. It's going to be hard to beat that, let's see how I do. I present:

Stewie! Beavis and Butthead! Random Dancing Bear!

And finally, just to make the day complete, here is a kinda really crappy super special Birthday Flash just for me (it will also make sense of my headline). YAY! GO TEAM VENTURE!