The Sun, I swear, is bleaching out my hair. . .

Guess what's really dumb?

Ok, since I can't hear you guess (and there's, like, a million right answers to that question), I'll tell you: Not wearing a coat to work on February 23rd, 2006.

So, now guess who is really dumb?

I bet you've all got this one figured out.

On the plus side of things, the Sun has finally gotten off of its lazy butt and started making things warm again (such as the inside of my car when I got into it). It's about time.

Needed: Kitty Rest Home

And now for a very sad story:

Once upon a time there was a cat named Lemmy. She was cute and furry, and her favorite things in the world were mint flavored gum, sleeping on freshly folded laundry, and making nests out of paper or plastic bags. Her nickname was Fuzzy. She also really loved drinking milk, and liked to paw people on the back when they were eating cereal, because she wanted them to share.

Lemmy found a home with the Pfeifer family about 11 years ago, when she was a young cat. She has had a happy life growing up with the three Pfeifer boys, being sassy, and getting chubby. Then, one summer the Pfeifer twins got asthma. For a while things were fine; the family got rid of the carpeting and switched to wood floors, and that helped for a while. But then the boys kept getting worse and worse, and the Dr. said that if they didn't get rid of the cat, the boys would have to have surgery and irreparable damage could be done.

And everyone was very sad. The Pfeifers loved Lemmy, and didn't want her to go, but had no choice. Lemmy was sad because she is an old cat now, and just wants to spend her days in quiet sunshine with some newspaper to nest in and someone to cuddle with at night.

The Pfeifers are now looking for someone to take Lemmy into a "Kitty Rest Home." They are happy to take care of her financially, if only she had somewhere nice to live out her days.

Is there anyone who could help?

Electronic Brains

Who knew that being in Grad school could be so much fun? The past two nights I've met up with my friend Amanda to "study." I'll spare you the sordid details, but I would venture to say that our productivity is rather low. Along with a million embarrassing stories and inside jokes we do, however, have photo-documentation of each study session on our phones. I guess they were more 'photo' sessions or 'eating' sessions, or even 'sending text message' sessions than study sessions.* Oh well, fifteen-thirty minutes of studying is better than no studying, right? At least we're trying.

Anyway, the point of my story is this: I was doing some homework for my cataloging class, and I was working on Subject Headings. A Subject Heading is a term that encompasses all variations of a term. For example, Cats is the authorized subject heading for felines, kittens, housecats, etc. When you look up an authorized Subject Heading, it tells you all of the terms that it replaces. My book used the example of Computers. So I'm looking at this, studying it, and I read that one of the unauthorized terms for Computers is "Electronic Brains." Yes, you read that correctly. "Electronic Brains," it's listed right after "Desktop Adding Machines."

Now, I don't know about you, but if someone asked me to help find them information about "Electronic Brains" I would immediately suspect them of being some sort of robotic zombie**, because what else would a Robot Zombie eat besides "Braaaaaiiinnnnnnnnnnnns. . . Electrooooonic Braaaaaiiinnss."

*session is a good "Un-word it" word

**I would also suspect this person of being born in 1914.

To quote one of my favorite authors:

"I'm so tired I can barely type these worfs."

Ha ha.

Actually, I'm not as tired as I ought to be, because Lord knows I'm not getting my 8-10 lately. Last Friday I was really tired, but I've already discussed why Fridays are like that here.

I am, however, really losing at the "get up and get ready for work on time" game. I mean, it's not my favorite game in the first place, but I would think I could make a better showing then I have been. If I were in the Olympics for 'getting ready for work in a timely manner' I would be booed out of the country. I mean I'm not horribly late; I'm on time enough to make the team, but I'm just not good enough to medal. I just hate hate hate being late or rushed for things, but I love love love sleeping. So that makes mornings somewhat problematic.

Also, I was having really weird dreams that involved shopping at a mob-run warehouse 'on the down low.' It was worth the chance of getting in trouble because everything was 15% off (?!) and you could spend up to $50! Wowee!

It was funny because I remember picking out a really atrocious wedding gift for Disco and Skye. It was this giant pig thing that was maybe filled with candy. I totally thought that they'd love it. There was a lot more, and some parts of it were really creepy. But, despite waking up and thinking, "Wow, I'm going to remember this dream," It's all gone from me now.

It's for the best, really.

How do I hate work today?

Let me count the ways.

I can't count that high...never mind.

I really wish I could have continued sleeping today, instead of getting up and coming here. Although I have to admit to it being a nicer Monday morning than I've had in a while, that doesn't change the fact that it is Monday morning and I had to go to work. It's sunny and actually above freezing, so it would be really fun to stay home and play today.

I'm sure that I express the sentiments of Monday morning workers across the globe as I write this. Makes me feel so connected, I mean, I'm sure over in California my brother is feeling the same Monday morning blah, and across the room my office manager is clearly not happy to be here. We're all so alike, really.

I had a fabulous weekend, the majority of which I spent in LaCrosse with my sister. We didn't do much, but had a great time doing that. I feel bad for her because she's in her fourth year at UWL (El-ed major=5 years), and this year is just a ton of work, so she always has a bunch of work to do and is really stressed. Poor little hermanita! We talked in a lot of Spanish, made a lot of plans that we didn't follow through on, and went shopping. We only got in one real fight, too! (well, unless you count the "disagreements" about music . . . then we got in several fights). We both bought summer clothes on our shopping trip, which was funny because it was the coldest weekend in, like, two years. I can buy a swimming suit if I want to!

My favorite things about the trip were 1.) coming upon Back to the Future on tv and being unable to tear ourselves away from watching it. Now I really really really want to watch Back to the Future II 2.) Playing 'Apples to Apples' with a bunch of people, and having Em pick my card every round. There's really nothing quite as refreshing as quicksand, is there? Especially if you love The Princess Bride.

Aside: She just called me at work, and when I answered the phone she said, "Hi." And then there was a big pause while my heart started pounding and I frantically tried to figure out which one of my customers it was before they realized I didn't recognize them and got upset with me.
And yes, several of my customers do that. Mike for example, but I can usually tell when it's him because it's always at about 8:01 am, and I haven't even taken off my jacket.

Don't mess with Allenville

Today I will share with you, my dear readers, one of my very bestest stories of youthful mischief and fun. This is one of the rare times in life when you feel like you're living out a scene in a movie--you couldn't have scripted it better. So sit back, dear readers, and enjoy.

As some of you may already know, I grew up in a tiny community in the country. Back in the railroad days my town was actually a town. Now it's just a grouping of houses in the middle of the country. My house is actually the old general store--but I digress.

There were about 12-15 kids in our neighborhood, and we did all the classic kid stuff like playing kickball and softball, riding bikes, and getting decked out in black for our nightly games of kick-the-can. Once I got into highschool, the group sort of changed and it became two semi-peaceful factions--"the guys" and "the girls." Of course, there were many pranks between these two groups, and I liked to consider myself an independent contractor in the prank business.

On this memorable occasion, my sister Emily and our friend Heidi came to me for help. The guys had pulled some lame trick on them, and they wanted to retaliate in a way that would prove without a doubt that they were the superior pranksters. So we came up with this plan:

I would send a message to the boys saying that I was mad at Em and Heidi, so I wanted to help them (the boys) to prank the girls. I told them that Em and Heidi would be sleeping out in Heidi's tree house on Saturday night, but that they were going to bed early because they were going shopping with Heidi's mom in the morning. So if they planned to prank them, sometime between midnight and one would be perfect.

Thus, the trap was laid.

By Saturday night, we were ready and waiting. Leah (another friend) and I were stationed in the treehouse. Em and Heidi were staked out in our van, which they had pushed out of the driveway to the front of the house. Aside: the boys hangout was about three blocks from Heidi's house, and our house was about halfway between them. We had walkie-talkies so that the other girls could warn us when the boys were coming (there was also camouflaged involved, FYI). We were well-equipped with weaponry. We had prepared, at my suggestion, two five-gallon buckets full of cold water-balloons. But here's where the genius comes in. We had also gotten a hold of some Butterscotch and Tapioca pudding, mixed that up, and planned to dip the balloons in pudding before launching them.

12:15: Right on schedule Em and Heidi signal to us that the boys are coming. We saw the guys riding their bikes around 'casually' for a few minutes before they left. We knew that they were just seeing if the coast was clear, so with rising anticipation, we continued to wait. About ten minutes later we received another signal from the van, and we knew it was time. Before long we could see figures stealthily approaching from the apple orchard behind Heidi's house. When they got to the tree-house, they started toilet-papering it. We let them get into it a little, and then we attacked. Words cannot express that scene. It was utter chaos as the guys tried to grasp what was happening (and what they were being slimed with). They ran around screaming like girls until a cease-fire was declared. Leah and I descended from our arboreal battle station, Em and Heidi showed up, and we all began reliving the successes(us) and failures (them) of the night.

But what were Emily and Heidi doing all that time? Did they really miss out on all the fun? Oh no, dear reader, they certainly did not. As soon as the guys passed the van the second time, those girls high-tailed it to the boys hang-out armed with toilet-paper, shaving cream, and "roadkill."* They did their work, left their calling card, and were back with us before the boys had a chance to suspect that there was something more in store for them besides pudding-covered water-balloons.

I'd say that we gave the guys a little something to think about before they pranked the girls again.

The End

*does not mean actual roadkill. This is something we made up. I should probably tell the roadkill story here sometime soon. So be patient, and all will be revealed.

Swearing Problems Solved--by me!

Do you swear too much? Drop the "f-bomb" a little too frequently? Well, I have a simple solution. Instead of dropping the 'f-bomb' say "f-bomb."

Here's an example:

Lets say that hypothetically you are still blow-drying your hair when you realize that you are supposed to be in your car already. Normally you would say, "f**k!!!"

Instead, when you look at the clock say, "f-bomb!!!"

Once you've taken that small step of replacing all of your 'f**ks' with 'f-bombs' it will be no problem to then stop swearing completely. Especially when all your friends hear you say, "F-bomb!" after tripping over nothing. Your friends will be soooo supportive of you not saying 'f-bomb' anymore that you won't be able to believe it!

Un-Word It!

Here's a game that my sister and I used to play (embarrassingly often actually, because while this game is really fun, it's one of those things that makes you look like an idiot).
The rules are very easy, you simply choose a word such as school and say it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until it stops sounding like the word you knew as school and starts sounding like a meaningless abstraction of sounds. It's more fun with two people doing it at the same time, becuase eventually one of you will mess up and start laughing. Hilarity ensues when you play 'Un-word it!.' However, it can easily be played alone as well. Follow the rules as above without alteration.

Other words that work well:
spoon
milk
class

Be creative, you are free to think of your own words.

I'm not kidding here, actually, it's a really fun thing to do.

Humor Lecture

There's only one other person in the world that I know for sure will find this as funny as I do. It's from the brain of my good friend whb. Hopefully I'll be seeing him get hitched this spring, but that's beside the point (I mean, he IS getting hitched, but I may not be there because it's in PA).

Anyway, everyone should find it at least clever. Clever doesn't really give it its due, because it's really quite funny. Especially if you grew up without cable, and spent many a night doing nothing but watching whatever stations were still broadcasting at 2am just because you were awake.

What do non-cable stations broadcast at 2am, you wonder? Well, mainly infomercials. We always watched the infomercials for music collections. Therefore, this post goes out to anyone who knows what comes next, because they find whb's post as funny as I do:

"We had joy we had fun, we had seasons in the sun..."

(hint: has nothing to do with hills, wine, or song).

Snakes on a Plane

No, this is not a bad joke. It's not even a good joke. It's not a joke at all.
It's. . . "Snakes on a Plane."

In case you have yet to hear of this forthcoming cinematic treat, I will take this opportunity to fill you in.

Just remember, this is not a joke.

Release Date: August 18, 2006
Studio: New Line Cinema
Director: David Ellis
Screenwriter: John Heffernan, David Loucka
Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Nathan Phillips, Benjamin McKenzie
Genre: Action, Thriller
Plot Summary: Samuel L. Jackson stars in the intense action feature "Snakes on a Plane" from director David Ellis ("Final Destination 2," "Cellular"). Jackson plays an FBI agent who is escorting a witness on a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles when an assassin releases hundreds of deadly snakes on a commercial airplane in order to eliminate the witness. The FBI agent, along with a rookie pilot, frightened crew and passengers must then band together in a desperate attempt to survive.
Trailer: Coming Soon!

(holy crap, are you excited or what?)

I don't even have the words to mock this premise. Honestly, what kind of lame assassin uses a massive amount of snakes 'in hopes' of killing someone? Obviously this person is an assassin-school drop out, and definitely doesn't deserve to have a movie made about his or her pathetic assassination skills.
People (like me) are so excited for this lame movie, that Wikipedia has an entry for it showing how this movie has been adopted into popular slang:

"Soon after Josh Friedman's blog entry, the title became a catch-phrase for common idioms such as 'whattya gonna do?' and 'shit happens', as well as for expressing mocking fear over a mild situation."

So far, "Snakes on a Plane" has already enriched my life by providing much hilarity in 2006. On New Year's Day, after a delicious brunch my friends and I somehow got on the topic of this film and spent a lazy afternoon coming up with similar plots.
"Eels on a Submarine"
"Jellyfish on a Helicopter"
"Earthworms on a Greyhound"

This movie is going to be a blockbuster because of people like us. Oh, we're so ironic.

Bestowing Wisdom

Since I have achieved such wisdom in life, I thought that I should start sharing it with the people I care most about: my blog readers.

Today's topic will be 'Note-taking Strategies for School and Beyond'

Tip #1.
If you won't be tested on it, don't bother!

Tip #2
Don't waste time writing down small details--focus on the big and important things.

Tip #3
If you find your attention wandering during the meeting or class, change your note-taking strategy.
ie: if you are trying to take notes on photosynthesis and you just can't pay attention, try writing a note to a colleague or classmate--it doesn't even have to be on photosynthesis since you will be giving it away and not using it to study/work from. Instantly you will become fully attentive--magic!

In case you doubt my strategies, I will recreate (without altering) some notes that I took during a recent business meeting.

1/11/06
400 = level 4
500 = level 2

Nasty perfume
nose twitch while talking
says 'matrixes' vs. 'matrices'
hair = fur
giant snap sweater in 80's day glo.

By studying these notes, I can see that our marketing sales rep clearly needs a millennium makeover and a grammar lesson.

Go forth and take good notes, dear readers.

Dear Bloggette

Hello my little bloggette,
I'm sure you are feeling a little neglected these days. I'm sorry. These crazy people I work for have actually been expecting me to work lately. It's very strange. However, I don't hate my job like I did in December--so that's good. It's good to not be mind-numbingly bored at work all the time. Things should settle down in the next couple of weeks. I should also admit that I've been spending some of my free-time at work doing grad school work. Who knew that grad school (of all things) could be so time consuming! Also, I must admit that I've been spending a lot of time playing on Facebook. I've also been buying a lot of shoes...but that's nothing new. I just ordered the cutest new ones! I'm so excited. I justified them by saying I will wear them to Skye and Eric's wedding--so thanks for the new shoes guys! Oh yeah-- and good luck with that, you know, marriage thing.

(not the pink).