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[15 Jul 2009|11:19am] |
On a day when I'm completely freaking out over a project that SHOULD have been done Monday, this horoscope is JUST NOT FUNNY:
People find you irresistible when you're feeling unsure of yourself. Today, someone interesting is watching you with delight as you bumble through a project. Don't be self-conscious -- this could be profitable in the romance department.
Seriously,
1. These horoscopes that talk about "someone" at work drive me crazy because THERE ARE ONLY THREE OF US on a normal day (and only me today, hahaha).
2. Why do I want someone who watches my frustration with "delight"?
That's lame, horoscope.
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[14 Jul 2009|10:38pm] |
Oh, I almost forgot... I mentioned the other day that "Knights of Bostonia" has become one of my favorite State Radio songs, and today we put the studio version up on Myspace for a first listen. Check it out, and then try to tell me you don't want to be a Knight of Bostonia, too.
<3
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| Songs of the day. |
[13 Jul 2009|05:07pm] |
For some reason, I'm really liking these lyrics today, even though they're pretty gloomy, and I'm not feeling that way at all:
Show me how close you can get
Show me how close you can get
Show me how fast I'm gonna lose it
How bad I am out-numbered
Song: Cross the Road by Magnolia Electric Co.
On the other end of the spectrum, I also just had an at-my-desk dance party to Pittsburgh fight songs. My secret cheerleader days are coming out.
This year's Penguins fight song.
Steelers fight song from Super Bowl XL.
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[11 Jul 2009|11:58pm] |
I just rediscovered this post, and it is probably the single best thing (or at least most satisfying) I've ever written.
Funny how some specifics have changed over the years, like we changed credit card processors, so some of those CC-specific things just work differently, etc. But people's general idiocy remains the same.
WAIT, I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE THAT WAS EXACTLY FOUR YEARS AGO TODAY! I wasn't looking for "this day in history," as I sometimes do, I was just looking at old work-related posts! Crazy.
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[11 Jul 2009|05:54pm] |
I read Bonk by Mary Roach last weekend. I'd put it in third place of her books, after Stiff and Spook, but I did have a favorite part. The passage and its footnote both delighted me equally, so I'm re-creating them here, before I send the book back out into the world.
Dr. Ahmed Shafik wears three-piece suits with gold watch fobs and a diamond stick pin in the lapel. His glasses are the thick, black rectangular style of the Nasser era. He owns a Cairo hospital and lives in a mansion with marble walls. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize.* I don't care about any of this. Shafik won my heart by publishing a paper in European Urology in which he investigated the effects of polyester on sexual activity. Ahmed Shafik dressed lab rats in polyester pants.
There were seventy-five rats. They wore their pants for one year. Shafik found that over time the ones dressed in polyester or poly-cotton blend had sex significantly less often than the rats whose slacks were cotton or wool. (Shafik thinks the reason is that polyester sets up troublesome electrostatic fields in and around the genitals. Having seen an illustration of a rat wearing the pants, I would say there's an equal possibility that it's simply harder to get a date when you dress funny.)
*Nominations for a Nobel prize, I found out when I contacted the Nobel Foundation to try to verify Shafik's, remain secret for fifty years. You make the claim, and nobody can prove otherwise until after you're dead. Add one to your resume today!
And look what I found!
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| "Today's obviously a Tuesday." |
[07 Jul 2009|09:02pm] |
I already posted one funny video today, and here is a second.
Also, I just made too much spaghetti. I hate that in-between point when there's too much for one serving, but not enough to leave for a second. I will be stuffed.
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[02 Jul 2009|03:55pm] |
Okay, while I am in friggin' mourning over this (though it's not the guys I was talking about yesterday, I do/did love ol'Rob), here is a story for you.
There's a little street (really, like a driveway with a name) called Adelaide Road in my neighborhood. Tuesday night, when I was walking by it with my iPod on shuffle, the Old 97s song "Adelaide" came on, and I had a little laugh to myself.
Just now, I was out running some Fedex/bank/etc work-errands, and as I walked by, "Adelaide" by Ben Folds came on.
Once is funny, but twice in three days is CRAZY. Once again, the iPod KNOWS.
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| Notes from recent DVDs. |
[01 Jul 2009|11:45pm] |
1. I was wondering why I'd never watched Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story, when I'm such an Anne Fan. Well, I finally got it from Netflix and... WHAT!? It is not AT ALL based on any of the books. Gilbert and Anne move to New York as newlyweds? And then Gilbert enlists during WWI, and Anne goes to Europe to find him?! This is insane. In one of the books, Anne and Gilbert have been married for long enough, by the time of WWI, that they have sons fighting in the war. It made my head spin.
I guess that's why I never watched it. Lame.
2. I forgot that within the first five minutes of Sullivan's Travels, they insult Pittsburgh. Ouch. Hahaha.
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| Belated. |
[28 Jun 2009|06:46pm] |
Just got around to uploading my (very few) photos from my cousin Emily's graduation party last weekend. The button on my camera's broken, which makes me even worse than usual at documenting family events.
Anyway, ( a couple under here. )
Martin, in the gray shirt, is Andy's best friend of 15 years and my original unofficially-adopted brother. He skipped his own cousin's graduation party to come to this one, and on our way home, said that he'd rather have all of us come celebrate his 21st birthday than his real family. Cam, in the yellow, is Andy's college roommate, and the most recent unofficially-adopted brother. This was his initiation into the WHOLE family, and he said it was the best family party he'd ever been to.
Things like that make me realize no, it's not just that I'm biased. Our family really is the best.
It also reminds me of a part I read in Frankenstein recently. (Somehow, I escaped all my years of schooling without ever being assigned to read it!) Anyway, if you have read the book, please ignore the context of this/what happens later, and just take the excerpts at face value. Thank you.
Frankenstein is talking about the girl who his family raised as his cousin/sister: Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and most reverential attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my pride and my delight.
And then: When I mingled with other families, I distinctly discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted the development of filial love.
This is so true; the more other people love my family, the prouder I am of them, and the more I love them too. Awwww. Sorry for getting all sappy again.
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[27 Jun 2009|04:15pm] |
Some things.
1. Yesterday at work I was listening to an old Fresh Air interview with Rivers Cuomo. A they cut to a clip of "Hash Pipe," a new Alexi order came in from someone whose email was wheresmypipe@....
Of course it was.
2. I like this Jens Lekman review (scroll down):
But you have no idea how fucking endearing the guy actually is until you see him perform live, where he pairs his honey-dripping baritone with cutesy dance moves and utterly charming between-song banter. If you don't fall head over heels for Lekman upon seeing him play live, you have a heart of stone or, to quote the RZA, ears of corn.
3. I thought I had something else, but now I can't remember. What else is new? This is how I end like 95% of my emails.
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[25 Jun 2009|12:06am] |
Bored, I just decided to search for "Crafton" (the neighborhood I grew up in) on Flickr tags. A few I want to post (save):
( Read more... )
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| Spam is so weird. |
[24 Jun 2009|11:56am] |
One of the many glamorous parts of my job is approving/deleting comments on all our bands' websites and Myspaces, etc. In the past few days, I have seen so many variations of, "I'm from another country and learning English. Is this translation correct?" Like so:
Hi. It’s very hard to take yourself too seriously when you look at the world from outer space.
I am from Uruguay and also now’m speaking English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Lamisil is available at our licensed canadian pharmacy.”
I'm deleting dozens upon dozens. The spam always seems to come in trends, but this one is my favorite so far.
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[22 Jun 2009|10:43pm] |
I still have an Instapaper full of Penguins links AND a bunch of non-hockey stuff I want to post, but this has to be shared immediately. The "I'm on a Boat" parody called "I Won the Cup."
I died at "I got my Ruslan... And my Maxie Talbie. I'm learnin' English on the side as a fuckin' hobby." hahahahaha.
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| ahhhhhhhhhh. |
[15 Jun 2009|03:16pm] |
I'm grumpy today. Work is annoying me, I only got three hours of sleep, I'm hungry but at the same time my stomach feels funny and nothing sounds appetizing... And then I found these pictures from today's Stanley Cup parade, and I am cheered right up. God, I love Pittsburgh. Is this news?
( Just LOOK at these! So awesome. )
I'm excited to be back there next weekend. But why couldn't they hold the parade for me?
(I wonder how long the Cup High will last?)
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[14 Jun 2009|11:04pm] |
Geno Malkin.
Current job: best hockey player in the world.
Future job: supermodel.
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| Ready to cry? Or is it just me? |
[13 Jun 2009|11:21am] |
I'm probably going to have a whole post at some point to clear out all the various links I've saved up over the course of the playoffs. But this one, I had to post right away. I read it yesterday afternoon and it made me cry, but I didn't want to send it around because I felt like it would be a jinx or something.
( Malkin's dream: Photo with Sidney Crosby and the Stanley Cup )
Oh my GOD, Geno. Way to KILL ME.
But you know what? He did it. And even though I don't see it on the Pens site yet, I bet he and Sid did take that picture. (And I will cry again when I see it, I bet.)
And speaking of our other star, this picture also kills me, for different reasons. Look at this dude, he just won the Stanley Cup, and instead of spraying champagne or hooting and hollering through a 20-second "WE WON!" interview, he's giving reporters his real, serious attention. Taking time out of the best day of his life. People constantly complain that he's a whiner or a diva or whatever, and here I am thinking (again) that he's probably the best, most patient and generous person in the world.
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| !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
[12 Jun 2009|11:35pm] |
I would like to run out into the street and bang pots and pans (alone, because I'm in Boston), but I have to be up early-ish tomorrow, so instead I'm looking at some pictures on the internets and then I'm going to bed.
But WOOOOOOOOOOO!
I'm going to post the pictures I stole from the Pens site and not even cut them because I DON'T CARE!
Our Mad Max scores (our only) two goals.
My favorite guy. His "Superstar" nickname was halfway-joking before. Not anymore.
Our adorable MVP gets his trophy.
My other favorite guy. Conn Smythe Trophy = MVP of the playoffs. He was also team MVP, league high-scorer in the regular season and the playoffs, and I hope will be named league MVP next week. I've never seen anyone else in the world who could be so beastly and so adorable at the same time.
Our Captain gets his Cup. Goosebumps.
And finally, PONY SIGHTING ON THE JUMBOTRON:
My all-time favorite hockey-related quote, and this time almost EVERYONE sees the ponies. I'm too lazy to recreate the 13 notes I put up on Flickr, so if you're a friend, go over there and read them.
2009 has been quite a year for Pittsburgh sports. Let's go Pirates! (ha. Sorry.)
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| I'm losing my mind today. |
[12 Jun 2009|02:19pm] |
I don't think we even need to talk about why. But that could be why I just DIED when I got a spam email with the subject "Puppy Monorail." OMG, PUPPY MONORAIL.
It was a Viagra ad, of course.
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