Ber's World

Holy What?!

2011-04-20T01:10:00.003-06:00

So I just checked google analytics for a completely unrelated reason and found out that people are reading my blog?! Who ARE you people? And what do you want with my outdated (yet still highly entertaining) content!?!

Don't think that just because you people are reading I'm going to start writing again. But maybe if you start commenting. It's highly likely I would start writing if you did that...

BizzaroAmber

2010-06-07T13:16:00.000-06:00

Occasionally (read that as VERY OFTEN) I have the strangest dreams. Here is one of my stranger ones from a few nights ago:

I was on gossip girl (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0397442/) and I was dating Nate Archibald and Jenny kept trying to sabotage our relationship. Finally she came up with a plan with Bree Buckley to plant these illegal bird plants in the garden of my mansion.

The plants grew out of the roots of any tree and into living birds that looked slightly like flamingos, and which were rooted to the trees. The "plants" were pink and grew one on top of another so that one flamingo bird was growing out of the back of the one below it. The more I looked at them the more they looked like muppets really, and they could talk. They said stuff like squikity squak!? Because they were attached to the tree, they couldn't walk around and their wings kind of looked like branches. While I examined the plants with fear in my heart, Bree Buckley was narrating and telling me about how the plants were on my property and if anyone found out I'd be in trouble and told me all about the actual plants.

While she talked, there was another squikity squak bird sorta walking around agreeing with her because he was blue and he could talk actual squeaky words and he wasn't attached to the tree.

I am telling you, it was like muppets meet real life upper east side new york.

My List

2010-06-04T13:25:00.007-06:00

So, Husband and I made a pact before we got married that we could have 5 celebrities on a "List" that we were allowed to sleep with should the need ever arise. There are no set rules to our List so theoretically, it could change at any moment should the need arise. However, after much thought, I've narrowed down my 5 and shall post them here. Just as a disclaimer, I'd like to say that I realize that celebrities are people too and should never been seen as objects to acquire. On that same note, if any of the listed celebrities ever read this they should know that I am incredibly hot and, for them, easy.

In no particular order:

#1: Adrien Grenier
Born: July 10, 1976
Height: 6' (1.83 m)
Reasoning: He is badass in Entourage, sweet in the Devil Wears Prada, amazing in Drive Me Crazy and is GORGEOUS! How could I even leave him OFF my list?!

#2: Jim Sturgess
Born: May 16, 1978
Height: 6' 0½" (1.84 m)
Reasoning: He sings. That should be enough, but he's the perfect height and perfectly great looking. Top all that off with his dreamy British accent and my pants practically fall off...
Downside: He's got my Dad's name.

#3: James McAvoy
Born: April 21, 1979
Height: 5' 7" (1.70 m)
Reasoning: Sigh, the accent. Plus I fell in love with him on Shameless, and then again every time I saw him in a movie. He's an amazing actor and is amazingly adorable. Yes.

#4: Hayden Christenson
Born: April 19, 1981
Height: 6' 1½" (1.87 m)
Reasoning: He has Jedi powers AND can jump from place to place by simply looking at a photo. Fine, I know they are just movies. But he has nice lips too. And I do so like kissing.

#5: Matt Czuchry
Born: May 20, 1977
Height: 5' 9½" (1.77 m)
Reasoning: This was a tough one. He almost got thrown off the list based on the part he was playing in "I hope they serve beer in hell" (I don't want a one night stand with someone who could potentially be a walking std) but you can't judge someone because of one role. And I like his nice hair. I'm sure he's a very nice guy as well. In bed.

Squash, the Helpful Veggie: A Two Page Report by Amber Blais Wilson

2010-06-03T13:05:00.002-06:00

I told Joe that he shouldn't just encourage my rambling because one day he'd come back to a 10 page paper on the merits of squash. He said I should do it because it'd be more painful for me than for him. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. Fine, so it ended up being closer to 2 pages. But let's not focus on the quantity and more on the QUALITY. And let's be honest here, basically anything I write will be QUALITY. So, let's begin:

Well squash is a veggie, a sport, AND a drink. Plus, I plan to examine the result of the veggie Squash growing arms and legs like Mr. Potato Head, becoming a pirate roaming the seas in search of treasure.

Squash, the drink, is made from concentrate of squash the plant and not of squash the pirate or the game. It contains coloring that causes hyperactivity in kids. Or it could be the caffeine. But Wikipedia has never lied to me before so I'll take everything it says at face value. The squash is considered delicious by some, tasting close to the pumpkin, but not by me. So I shall never partake in the eating of said veg. Making a drink from Squash the pirate could result in death or worse. The worse being something akin to eating my mom's meatloaf. You don't want to go there.

Squash, the plant, is from Mexico and Central America. There are four different species, all of which are all members of different drug cartels and have been arrested numerous times for shipping weapons over the border. You can eat all parts of a squash, including the leaves, stem, seeds, and gourd. But you have to beware of the ones with mustaches. They're poisonous. (A mustachioed squash killed Abraham Lincoln's mother and relations between Mexico and America have never been the same since.) Squash plants reproduce by creating flowers that are both male and female and rely on bees to pollinate. Doesn't sound as fun as normal fun sex but still. It's cool.

Squash, the sport, is played with rackets in a four walled court with little rubber blue balls. After you're done playing with them the balls aren't as blue anymore. ;) They believe squash was a game stolen from the poor children of France who, in the 1500s, used to bounce balls off walls in alleys. Scoring is as confusing as it is in tennis so we won't even examine that. Let's just say it's fun to hit balls at walls and call this game a success.

Captain Pirateman Squash came into being when there was a tragic accident when three trucks simultaneously ran their respective three way stop signs.

Truck 1: Carrying imported veggies from Old Mexico.

Truck 2: Hazardous waste

12:37 PM Truck 3: Full of the new pirate Mr potato head dolls

(I feel the pictures help. )
The resulting disaster changed the lives of the residents of the Caribbean FOREVER. More to come? Maybe.

Scientific Proof that Taking Responsibilty for Our Actions is Pointless

2010-03-10T10:39:00.004-07:00

A new "scientific" study has come out stating that free will is a myth akin to religion, or belief in magic. Basically, we're just a 'bag of chemicals' that obey chemical and physical laws. Thus our actions are determined by our biology.

That's right, why take responsibility for your actions? For centuries, people have tried to attribute their actions to a higher (God) or Lower (demons) power. But, there is now, no need to go with the mystical explanations! For it has been proven with science!

Having trouble swallowing this load of crap? Well, they explain that in the article as well:

"To summarize, Cashmore’s argument is that free will is an illusion derived from consciousness, but consciousness has an evolutionary advantage of conferring the illusion of responsibility. Cashmore says that, as researchers deepen their understanding of the molecular basis of human behavior, it will become increasingly difficult to entertain the fallacy of free will."

So go! Be free! Do what you wish! Your actions are not your own, so anything you do is not YOUR fault!! Just like it won't be my fault when I create my snowman army, which will then assist in taking over the world. And don't think I'll be taking responsibility for the fact that all the lame people have to go work in the mines, possibly resulting in their deaths. Hey, it's in my genes. Just saying.

SleepyTime

2010-02-26T08:34:00.003-07:00

I always knew that we should be taking siestas in the middle of the day, and now I have proof to present to my boss. A new study from the University of California, Berkley has proven that just an hour's nap in the middle of the day can boost your brain power and increase your ability to learn.

That's right! NAPS MAKE YOU SMARTER! The researchers found that the longer you stay awake, the harder it is for you to retain new information. Taking just an hour nap can help your brain to file away the info that you've learned, thus helping you retain it AND making room for you to learn more! They tried to dumb it down by comparing your brain to a full e-mail box. Sleeping was like clearing it out.. or something.

Either way, I feel like this is a huge breakthrough. Don't think I'm not e-mailing the link to my boss right now. I was also thinking of starting a facebook group to get a government mandated nap hour! If it can get as many fans as the pickle vs nickelback group, I think we may have a serious chance of getting this thing pushed through to congress. And I'm not saying this just because we have the world's best couch for napping in the office, but because this could help our country as a whole! I'm doing this for you, really.

Well.. time for my nap.

Telekinesis Here I Come!

2010-02-18T10:36:00.003-07:00

For centuries people have been trying to control items not attached to them (aka limbs) with their minds. I mean, after reading Matilda, who hasn't stared intently at an object trying to get it to move an inch just to prove that their brain was all powerful? ... ok that might just be me then ...

ANYWAY, in looking into the whole telekinesis (also known as psychokinesis, TK, or PK) thing I learned that in the 1980s "PK Parties" were a cultural fad!

"groups of people were guided through rituals and chants to awaken metal-bending powers. They were encouraged to shout at the items of cutlery they had brought and to jump and scream to create an atmosphere of pandemonium (or what scientific investigators called heightened suggestibility). Critics were excluded and participants were told to avoid looking at their hands. Thousands of people attended these emotionally charged parties, and many became convinced that they had bent silverware by paranormal means." (Wikipedia only the most reliable source EVER)

Well, now technology may be able to help those wackos (this wacko included) achieve their dreams, as scientists are doing research into making computers controllable by thoughts alone! In a recent article published by PhysOrg.com, I learned that scientists are working to get the thoughts of moving a cursor on a screen to actually cause that cursor to move! Furthermore, they found that the more people worked to do it, the more that area of the brain worked out and the stronger the signals it was sending got! Does this mean that we have the potential to actually be able to move stuff with our brains?

Supposedly TK (as all the cool kids are calling it) has been observed, and the military has been looking into it for years so who knows, it may be a valid thing. In fact! THOUGHT:

Is the fact that we are not getting immediate results and thus become discouraged and give up when trying to move physical objects all that is holding us back? If we keep trying, will the signals from our brains eventually become strong enough to slam doors in the faces of people we don't like?! Not that I've considered doing that to anyone...

Anyway, chew on that for a while. And that's right, Scotty. I'm writing again. WHERE IS YOUR POST!?

Big Brother Amazon

2009-07-27T12:34:00.002-06:00

My good work buddy J and I have an ongoing feud with the administrative assistant in our office over the longevity of paper books. We maintain that digital ebook readers are the future and she holds on tightly to the past and all the glories of tree chopping, paper wasting books. And let me tell you, I thought it was the greatest when I got the Sony Ebook reader as a gift last year (mostly because I was running out of room on my book shelves)! But after the latest news from Amazon, I'm about ready to jump over to Admin's side of the disagreement!

Did you know that not only can you buy books with convenience on Amazon's Kindle, but Amazon can just take them right back whenever it wants?! According to a recent article on slate.com, Amazon reached into people's kindles and pulled out copies of (ironically) George Orwell's nineteen eighty-four and Animal Farm.

And that's not the only time that this has happened. There have been instances of Ayn Rand books and even some Harry Potter books disappearing after people have purchased them. They have offered excuses for why they had to remove them, citing copyright infringements etc, but what is to stop them from deciding in the future that some books just shouldn't be read?

Can we stand idly by to let this happen? No! Letting companies get away with small things like this while the rules for sharing and purchasing digital items are still being formed can lead to larger problems and loss of more freedoms in the future! But what can we do? I'm still working on figuring that out and I'm sure I'll get back to you when I do. One of the solutions is to not purchase items like the Kindle where companies like Amazon have shown that they don't really care about what their customers want.

As an owner of a Sony e-book reader I have not experienced problems like this but I have my own problems with their system. If you purchase a paper book, you are allowed to do whatever you want with it. You can loan it to your friends, you can sell it back to a used book store, heck you could set it on fire and burn it for heat if you want. Unfortunately, they make it very difficult to do any of that with the ebook reader (especially setting it on fire!). Sharing with your friends is one of the best parts about purchasing books and it's something I miss constantly with my ebook reader. But not being able to share is not the worst part! You'd think publishing digital books would ultimately be cheaper but I've found that a lot of the trashy mystery novels that I love to read are TWICE the price for the digital copies than they are in paperback! That seems just a little ridiculous to me, and more than once I've found myself at local bookshops purchasing books that I would have bought for my ebook reader.

The conclusion? Don't tell J or the Admin girl but I think I may be swaying back over to the paper side of things... I'm just going to have to invest in a bigger bookshelf I guess!

Why Are Girls Better Listeners? 1) Because They Rule and 2) Because They Have More Estrogen

2009-05-06T08:20:00.002-06:00

That's right, a recent study has proven that estrogen plays a key role in the ability to hear and process sounds. According to the article:

a postdoctoral fellow in Pinaud's laboratory, demonstrated that increasing estrogen levels in brain regions that process auditory information caused heightened sensitivity of sound-processing neurons, which encoded more complex and subtle features of the sound stimulus. Perhaps more surprising, says Pinaud, is that by blocking either the actions of estrogen directly, or preventing brain cells from producing estrogen within auditory centers, the signaling that is necessary for the brain to process sounds essentially shuts down. Pinaud's team also shows that estrogen is required to activate genes that instruct the brain to lay down memories of those sounds.

And that's not all they think it can do. They are conducting further research to see if it controls even more of the body's functions. Thus proving that the more estrogen you have, the awesomer (it's a real word) you are and it's yet another reason why girls rule more than guys.. at everything.

Flirty Friday - Personal Ads!

2009-04-10T11:00:00.000-06:00

Yeah yeah, I didn't write last week, I know you were going insane trying to figure out what happened. In case you forgot what I'm talking about, THR and I posted personal ads out of boredom and a strong curiosity to see what would happen. There, you're all caught up now. So what happened??

First, I'd like to say I learned a few things about posting on craigslist:
1) There are way more guys on there than there are girls. Either that or a lot more guys are willing to respond to ads. I got about 3x as many as THR and his ads were just as good/bad(?)
2) The personal ads we posted had a shelf life of about 3 days before people just stopped responding to them. With the exception of one random one which THR got last night, they pretty much dried up (at least for me) after the third/fourth day.
3) People will always surprise me!

The Results:
THR got about equal responses for each of his ads. I'd ask him what some of his favorite messages were but it's 2am and he's probably passed out by now.

I got MORE responses to my 'mean' ad than to my nice one. In the end, the score was 20-16. Does this mean that guys secretly want to be told what to do? Or does it mean that more guys are willing to go for a girl they know is going to treat them like crap? Who knows! All I know is that I'm going to post some of my favorite emails for your viewing pleasure.

Think You Can Handle Me?

"Are you hot enough to ask for all that??"
"SUBJECT: Maybe?! MESSAGE: I like how your straight to the point. Big turn-on" (as a side note, it drives me crazy when people use the wrong 'your' it's not hard, son. You ARE .. "you're").
"you little ho - xoxo Scotty" (ok that one doesn't really count. I knew I shouldn't have sent him the link...)
".. by the way I am holding a coversation with my dog......does that count me out??" - I like dogs but the fact that you can hold a conversation with yours might be a 'mention on the second date' kind of thing.
Fun facts abot him include: "-was growing a mustache for mustache march. It's pretty trashy but it's a tradition that me and some of my friends do every year and I shaved it off already cause food was getting caught in it." - mustaches are sketchy. Yes I'm talking about you, you know who you are.
"SUBJECT: Six or higher?? You really need to up your standards" - a picture was enclosed. If he was implying that he was a hotness level higher than a six then I have a sad sad bit of news for him..
"You know being in a band and having money usually doesn't go together. Other than that, I think I can handle you." - whatever, it's hot if a guy can do something musical.

Looking for a Fun Guy (the responses weren't as awesome):

"Im a 23 year old male 5'10". Don't be intimidated by my age, i'm very mature"
"Hello... thought I would try and get your attention before all the old pervs scare you off"
"Wow u sound really nice u describe me perfectly! Lol u maybe be my hiden stalker!" - yeahhh I don't think so buddy...
"now i feel like i need to even things out so you dont screw up your stats... fatty. love Scotty" - He is constantly reminding me of why he's my best friend..

So there you have it. In the end, I feel that we learned the valuable lesson that if you want a guy all you have to do is be super demanding and you will find exactly what you are looking for!

Anyway, I should have posted this sooner so you could actually read it on Friday but I'm going to cheat and say it was posted on Friday anyway. Hope you have a great weekend and stay tuned because posts from the UK are coming soon!!!

9news really does listen!

2009-04-10T09:55:00.002-06:00

SKO to weather - Apr 1

Your forecast earlier made reference to "thundersnow", which I think would be a good addition to your weather glossary.
-------

I didn’t realize that wasn’t in the glossy. I’ll work on adding that. Thank you!

Ashton Altieri

Meteorologist

KUSA/KTVD | Denver, CO

--------
checked the site today (guess i have too much time on my hands..
--------

Thundersnow - A rare type of thunderstorm which produces snow instead of rain. Intense snowfall often occurs with a thundersnow event. When such storms happen at the ski areas, the mountain is usually evacuated for safety.

I also got response before from the weather department... i think the current condition was currently listed as ashy or something... cant find that one, but whatev.

Thanks to the blog owner and her man for the lovely concert tickets lastnight.

What day is today?

2009-04-09T10:20:00.001-06:00

Have you ever had one of those months where everything just seems to be flashing by? I mean it's the 9th already and I have no idea where the time has gone. Now this could be due to my general lack of sleep lately but I'd like to think that maybe it's because it was so full of awesome things.

Thursday I worked a good 12.5 hours due to an event that night and then got to go hang out with some friends and relax afterward. Don't ask me what happened, I'm not quite sure, but it was fun and I have a few interesting texts on my phone and a few sketchy photos on fb to back up that statement.

Friday and Saturday were spent in a haze of staying up until 2am working on the website for the movie and I'm not really sure what else happened.

Sunday can only be described as epic as roughly 96 people showed up to attend the premier of Lightning Cube which will soon be available for all of you who were unable to attend at www.worldofpong.com. The crowd went wild for the amazing acting skills of Kevin McGreevey and Brent Kohler as well as all of the other awesome people in the movie and we all got to sign autographs afterward! I have to say that the people who put the event together must have been some kind of geniuses.

The after party was also pretty amazing. I ended up being dd (the second d stands for driver and not drinker.. sadly) but that meant I remembered all of the hilarity of the night, and there was a lot. I don't think I've ever been to a party that was that much fun sober. I give it 5 stars.

Add on top of that the Easter egg dying that took place yesterday, the Lily Allen concert tonight, the amazing date I have planned for Friday, cupcakes on Saturday, and England and Scotland next week and you have the most amazing month in history. And stay tuned because I plan on trying to update the blog from the UK so you'll get to hear a bit more!

P.S. I'd like to congratulate Scotty on making it another year without dying. :) Happy birthday, Son.

Do automated answering systems propigate gender roles?

2009-03-31T09:40:00.001-06:00

Yesterday I dialed into my voicemail as "usual"... tho it is unusual since i rarely if ever check my vociemail on my work phone since most people just email anyway.
Anyway... for whatever reason I noticed that the voice speaking to me was "female" maybe had a voice with female qualitites is more accurate. I started to think about other answering services I have dialed into and I think that these may continue traditional gender roles.

A few examples -
My work Voicemail (or my cell phone voicemail for that matter) are both female - Perhaps this links back to a secretary giving you your missed calls.

My credit card payment reminder is also female... perhaps linking back to secretary again, or personal assistant, or wifey.

You call a hospital - female picks up, perhaps representing the receptionist or nurse.

Is there some dark motive behind all this? or do people just like hearing womens voices on the phone? Im i just insane to even think such a thing? The world may never know...

Flirty Friday - Personal Ads

2009-03-27T12:51:00.001-06:00

Last week, my friend THR and I were bored and started cruising the online personals ads for entertainment. There were some pretty interesting ones and some people were wayyyy out there. But that got us wondering, would people respond to an ad even if it was as realistically asshatty as we could make it?

Of course we tried it. Wouldn't you? When you come up with an idea this brilliant, the only thing to do after that is to make it happen. Luckily, THR happens to be a guy, and I happen to be a girl so we could go at this from both points of view. As we were doing this, Scotty pointed out that in order for us to do this we'd also have to write serious ones. First of course, we wrote the fun ones:

Mine:
Lets face it, it's hard to find quality guys out there and that's why I've decided to try my luck on craigslist. But that doesn't mean I'm reducing my standards. I'm a hot girl and I feel that the right guy is out there for me. Are you him? Here are some of the ways you can be sure that you're the right man for me:

You need to be hot. I can't date anyone that is a 6 or below. You know who you are.
You can't be dumb or boring. If you were holding a conversation with yourself right now, would you be bored? If so, don't contact me.
Being in a band totally helps. You must love going out and having a good time, and it's important that you have enough money to be able to do that. No money? Don't bother.
I like to be treated like a princess, and I want to be clear, no present is too big but many are too small. The only exceptions come in tiffany-blue jewelry boxes.

Think you can handle me?

and THR's:
I'm a 22 year old student currently living in Denver. I've always felt that the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach. The woman of my dreams will be able to sweep me off my feet through her prowess in the kitchen. Don't worry though I don't expect you to spend all your time in the kitchen. I'm fun and always looking for adventure. We won't have to spend much time at home, other than for the delicious meals you will cook. Some day I'll make a lot of money too and will be able to afford you the finer things in life. So, you will definitely be getting something in return. Of course money isn't everything and I certainly want to find someone that I can talk to and have a good relationship with as well. I have decent looks and a good sense of humor. Please contact me if you are interested in going out sometime.

P.S. - Must like beer.

The genuine ones were a little more difficult to write. I can't imagine how difficult it would be if you were actually looking for someone online, but in the end we prevailed:

Mine:
Dear Men on Craigslist,

Writing these things sucks, how do you phrase everything you are and everything you're looking for in something a few sentences long?

I'm a fun, easygoing, and fairly attractive girl looking for a guy who can make me laugh. I want someone who loves being outdoors, and who can keep up his side of the conversation, and most of all doesn't take himself too seriously

If I sound like your kind of girl let me know

and of course, THR's:
Hey everyone. I'm currently a student studying to get my master's degree. I love music, hanging out with my friends, the occasional meander and just having lots and lots of fun. I'd like to think I'm pretty laid back and easy going. I am looking for someone that can have a good time going out in Lodo or just staying in drinking a beer and talking all night. I'd like to take things slow at first and then get more serious if we have a connection. If this sounds like you let's get together and hang out sometime.

Our hypothesis was that the nice ones were bound to get more replies, after all why would ANYONE want to get back to the asshats (new fav word) we were pretending to be?? The results, were not only awesome but also hilarious! But you won't get to find out what they are till next week... :) So Stay Tuned!!!!!

Awesome

2009-03-25T08:13:00.001-06:00

I know it's a commercial but I love it anyway. I mean, who doesn't love leds and sheep? You have to watch this video.

And who doesn't love the Japanese and rampaging escaping rhinos?!

That's all I have to say for today. But I'm working on a great project for flirty Friday. Hopefully it will pan out ok! Stay tuned!

p.s. Thanks Tim for sending me all these links!

Strangeness in the air

2009-03-15T21:23:00.007-06:00

Strange people are everywhere. I feel it is my duty to document these cases of strangeness and report them to you.

Case in point - the strange lady sat on the floor in the sex section of my friendly neighborhood chain book store. I don't know if the fact that she had books spread all around her and she was taking notes was the strangest part, or if it was the hat with the ears. Of course I took a picture of her. It's above.

And as you are probably commenting on the fact that I myself had to be in the sex section of the book store in order to find the strange half bear half lady, I have to say you are correct sir. And I, along with my favorite husband, found the most amazing book ever. The pop-up book of sex. The first pop up page is of Jesus! He is doing the dirty with some lady. It's AWESOME! You pull a tab and his legs move in and out. I censored the picture because even Jeebus's lady deserves a bit of privacy.
Speaking of strange things in books, I would like you to tell me what the following picture looks like. This was in a children's magazine targeted to children 2-4 years old. They're talking about putting trains into tunnels...
Actually, I shouldn't be surprised by this picture as I have a friend (yes I have friends) that works in a children's clothing store where they play children's tv over and over and over again, and she insists that she has never thought "That's what she said" more than when listening to children's television shows. Do you think they throw that stuff in there just so that the adults that are forced to view these things have something to think about as well? Ooo could it be subliminal messaging by the children's industry to get people to have more kids?! Have I just uncovered a huge conspiracy!? If I don't report back, AVENGE ME!

One year of awesome.

2009-03-10T16:25:00.003-06:00

So, this blog has been going for over a year now! Woo! Happy birthday Ber's world! I actually missed writing on the exact day this blog turned the big 366(days) but I'm writing now, and that's all that matters! And so, like a bad sitcom, I'm going to do a flashback episode and recount my favorite post from each month.

Yay!!
February: If you have a cold, please stay out
In this snappy post, I showed the world what a big nerd that all my friends are by getting my friend Eric to come read my blog simply through the number of people that clicked on his. I also told about this little shop that had opened up near my house with a sign in the window stating: If you have a cold, please stay out. Surprisingly, that little shop is still in business...

March: Themed Hotels
This post rocked because I got to research all kinds of AWESOME theme hotels. And there were some pretty wacky ones out there. How fun would it be to stay in one of them??

April: April Fools Day!
Man I love the websites people come up with on April Fools Day. Some of the stuff is pretty out there! It's fast approaching again and don't you worry, I'll be here to report on all the wacky nerd stuff going on in the interwebs!

May: Yellow Breasted Splat
Ah yes, I still think about the day when I hit that little birdie with my car. I feel a bit bad but the guilt has faded a bit since then. Still, it was fun photoshopping my car as it snuck up on the unsuspecting bird.

June: Me Wanty
You all know how nerdy I am by now, and this post was one of the funnest and nerdiest to that date. It was all about inflatable electric cars. And who WOULDN'T want one?!!?!?! I mean they're so gosh darn awesome!!
On a related note, June 17, 2008 was the day Scotty joined our team and the blog has been better ever since. What a great month!! Oh, and just so you know, I'm only writing about blog posts I've written. Scotty may tell you some of his favorites, if you ask real nice.

July: Hypothetically Speaking
In celebration of the fourth of July every year we may or may not get large quantities of illegal fireworks from Wyoming. This post talks about that. Happy birthday country!!!

And I'm sorry to have two from a month but this posting on my bar ratings is one of my favorites too. After all, I took all that time to make a map! And I learned so much! And I lost all the data on bars after I dropped.. er my phone broke by itself and I had to get a new one to replace it!

August: Flirty Friday from both POVs
Flirty fridays are always fun to write (and, I hope, to read) but this one was especially fun because Scotty helped to give the other point of view. This particular post talks about what not to do when approaching a member of the opposite sex. The conclusion? Basically hot girls can do whatever they want and ugly people never get their way.

September: Marseille and Cassis
Our FANTASMIC trip to Europe had just been completed and I was recounting our awesome adventures. Cassis was my favorite place of all to visit so the post about it will obviously be my favorite. There are actually two posts about it but I'm just linking to this one and you can read more if you want. As a traveling side note, I'm heading off to England/Scotland in 5 weeks so I should have more exciting European stuff to write about soon!

October: I'm back!
So we all know by now that I'm not the most consistent writer around but I do try. It got pretty bad last time when my blog started sending me emails pleading with me to write. And it worked! Yay!

November: The Thanksgiving Song!
Dismayed by the fact that thanksgiving has no songs of its own, PShaw and I attempted to write one ourselves. It didn't really turn out that well but we had high hopes for it! And high hopes are all that matter! Right?

December: Things NOT to do at your Annual Holiday Party
I just like this post because drawing the picture for it was so fun! Plus, I've always wanted to photocopy my ass. Who knows, it may happen someday! My dad You just have to be careful not to break the glass.

And uh that's it.. a year of postings (I might have been a huge slacker for the months of Jan and Feb but we'll just pretend that I'm as awesome as Scotty at posting every time I'm supposed to). This year promises to be as awesome as last and I'm really looking forward to all the amazing things I will be telling you! Yay!!!!!!!!!! We rule!

Fate and not drinking (totally unrelated)

2009-03-09T22:52:00.002-06:00

I'm back i guess! Since the owner of the blog has reclaimed it I feel good about writing once again. Onto the show!

I've got a "tradition" of not drinking around my big meet of the season. People have wondered why and I usually answer the short answer "Tradition", but there is some logic... even if it makes no sense. The bigger reason has to do with rest and doing whats good for my body and the reward after the training cycle. The popular idea is that you want to be in peak form at your biggest competition of the year so not drinking generally lets my body heal itself and not spend energy on processing the toxins. Next idea is you want to be well rested for optimal recovery generally drinking involves me staying out late and acting like jack ass so sans liquor i generally go out, but dont stay out as late or stay up as long. Finally... reward... The first ice cold beer after about 2 months of drought is a nice reward. I think it keeps the swimming and the drinking a bit special and rewards good training.

Anyway... my mind bending question of the day...
Do you like the idea of "fate"?

I think you can view it as making you feel small and insignificant - Fate means that you are basically a little cog in a wheel destined to spin in a circle... your path of life has been pre defined and some of the choices you make are not really your free will. Perhaps you feel like your life path is predefined and its not really worth living.

You can also view it as a a big thing - You might be a one person, but you fit into a puzzle and many other peoples fates depend on your actions. You could be destined for big things or for smaller things, but you know that if you dont play out your part then the whole dynamic falls apart (kind of a butterfly effect thing).

Anyway glad to be back... i've had some time to think of some interesting things to write about.. hopefully we'll both back into the swing of things and keep some consistency in the posts.

Flirty Friday: Do you say "I love you" in a fight?

2009-03-06T11:37:00.002-07:00

When you get in a fight with the one you love, do you feel as if you need them to affirm that they still love you? Do you worry that things will end based on every tiny fight you have? Do you feel that a fight is not the time to start throwing love around? Would you rather just be left alone? These questions have come up around the office water cooler and I was hoping to get more than just the few opinions I have gathered so far.

In my 100% female sample size, I have found that we all do not want to express any kind of love when we're in a fight with the men in our lives. We don't even want them to touch us or be around us until we have had a chance to cool down a bit. Is it a girl thing?

It also seems that the men in our lives seem to feel more relationshipally insecure during these moments. They tend to get a tiny bit clingy and seem to doubt that we care about them. Is it a guy thing?

In the end maybe it just has to do with maturity? On NPR today, they played an interview between a mom and a son and she told him

"Marriage isn't always pretty. I think sometimes we act like little children, and we need to be more mature about it, because it's a privilege to be married to somebody, and you need not to disrespect it like that,"

I figure that works for dating-type relationships too. Do us girls need to grow up a bit and swallow our rage to make sure that the men in our lives understand that the anger will pass and that we love them no matter what? Or maybe the guys should just recognize that just because we're fighting with them doesn't mean we don't love them anymore. In most instances it just means we dislike them for the moment, and in a short while we will get over that.

I don't know, fights are hard on everyone, I guess in the end it just comes down to communication between both parties.

Random news.

2009-03-04T11:18:00.002-07:00

So, I just found out that the average blog gets about 1 reader a day. Before we went on the extended winter vacation, we were averaging about 14 readers a day, which I think is pretty darn good! Uh, but, it's been a little erratic though since we stopped posting stuff every day. Hopefully this whole us posting almost every day thing will start to fix it.

Things have been happening in my world. Crazy things. So I figure, since there are still a few of you reading this, you might want to know what they are. Firstly, I never apologized for not writing for so long. I know, I know, you've heard it before and I know it's not an excuse but I was sick for literally the whole month of January, but it was a big part of me not writing. When you feel like crap all you want to do is whine and I think I might do enough of that when I'm healthy.

Anyway, I do cool stuff too. For example, I participated in the creation of an awesome new movie, called LIGHTNING CUBE which premiers on April 5, 2009 and will be in theater .. for that day. What is it about you ask? Well, I'm glad you did because the synopsis is below:

An evil genius threatens to take over the world and only one man stands in his way. That man is Pong, Ping Pong, and he is our only hope. Will Pong succeed? Will he win the heart of his one true love? Will he ever get a roommate who doesn't steal his DVDs? Find out on April 5, 2009...

You can also visit the AMAZINGLY AWESOME site which I created, at www.worldofpong.com It's still in its prototype stages but, like anything I do, it's wonderful. My co-webmaker was Jen who I would like to put out some mad props for. She's #1 on my webmakers list! And at least in my top 10 in the people I like list!

Tonight is the long awaited fajita potluck party. By long awaited, I mean that I found out about it on Monday. We're bringing chips and salsa. It's kind of a lame thing to bring to a potluck but I am going right after work so it makes actually making anything kind of difficult. I never know what to bring to a potluck anyway, and this one is particularly hard because fajitas and I aren't really friends. I mean, we used to be, but then I saw them every night for a month straight and we just started getting on each other's nerves. It's a long story though so I won't bore you with the details.

In terms of potlucks though, I think everyone has the standard thing that they bring. Usually I bring deviled eggs. Mine are really good. Or at least I really love them. The secret is to use miracle whip instead of mayo. It really gives them a nice kick. I haven't had them in a while though, oh great, now I REALLY want some! What do you bring to potlucks?

Lets see, what else? I met some cool new people and I've been getting to know them which is always fun. Well sorta. I always feel shy when I first meet people and have a hard time talking to them. But things seem to be going ok now. I even started remembering this one guy's name that I was CONSTANTLY forgetting. I mean it was totally a case of not being able to remember it if my life depended on it. I felt a little bad but I'm over it now.

Well ok that's all I can think of to write for now. But come back, I'm sure Sko has some interesting stuff in store for you tomorrow! And mom, you aren't required to comment on EVERY post.. I'm just saying..

Why Jury Duty for Civil Cases is dumb.

2009-03-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

So right, haven't written in a while but that doesn't mean I don't have a lot to say! I'm just a little... inconsistent! But boy, once you get out of the habit of doing something it is sure hard to start doing it again. However, I just had a lunch with Western author Tom McGuane, and he said that anyone can be a writer, you just have to do it every day to get in practice. Fine, consider this my practice, and consider yourself my guinea pig. I'll mention you in the acknowledgments of my first book which will sell millions.

So a few weeks ago I got stuck with Jury duty. It was kind of like winning the lottery, in reverse. We started out in this huge room filled with about 75 people and then we all filtered into a courtroom. 17 of us were chosen to sit in the actual jury seats and they asked us a bunch of stupid questions like "where do you see the world heading?" I must have done something wrong because by the time it was done, I was one of the 7 remaining jurors. It's a weird feeling being asked those questions.. on one hand you do NOT want to be picked, and on the other you are afraid of not being picked because that might say something about who you are. Well either way, I got Jury Duty. Don't get too excited, this was a civil trial, which I thought was a waste of taxpayer money, and it lasted 7 days, which I thought was a waste of my time.

My fellow jurors were pretty cool, there was the professor who kept bees by the side of his house, the hot young land auditor who was obsessed with finding a man in uniform to marry her, the psychologist who worked with troubled kids and who had recently gotten off some scary medicine that had almost made her go insane, the rancher who broke her arm and was going crazy being stuck in the house, the white student who was rake thin and was dating a Mexican immigrant but he couldn't really understand her or her family as he spoke not a lick of Spanish, and the pregnant manager of a grocery store (she was my favorite). Every day we'd go out to lunch and discuss everything but the case (we weren't allowed), but boy did we want to.

The case was this: A man was speeding and crossed over the double yellow lines to hit a postal worker. We had to sit through 7 days listening to this side or that deciding who was at fault and what should happen. Every day, we would come in at 8am go through security, march up to our jury room, eat our donuts, and then go into the courtroom for 7 hours broken only by a lunch break and two pee breaks. Every day, I'd get home completely exhausted and so did the other jurors, turns out that sitting and listening all day actually wears you out!! In the end we made our decision and went home. The postal worker got a lot of money, and I got a certificate that said "Thanks for being a juror, sucker"

I didn't keep in touch with any of the jurors, I didn't learn anything new, and I missed 7 days of work, but I guess I got this story out of it and that's something. Over all I would never do it again, and I totally recommend being the biggest jerk on the planet to get out of the JDut.

I can be you hero baby...

2009-02-09T21:36:00.002-07:00

Hmm... prob the least manly song i could quote, but its all good.

Anyway based on some things that have been going on in the world of sports I have decided I need to speak out.

People are harping on some of these sports stars because its their responsibility to be a role model for other peoples children and by doing drugs, or smoking an unidentified substance from a bong, etc they have let the collective population down.

I think this is the dumbest thing ever... yes these people have an incredible talent and its pretty cool, but that should be all. To look up to these people is fine, but to expect that these people are in some way perfect or they dont do things wrong is just ridic. Ok so phelps likes to party (he still hasnt said he smoked POT and the substance has yet to be proven to be drugs) A-ROD and many other stars are insecure about themselves and feel the need to cheat... big deal.

Parents are in a rage because these stars have let their children down, but it should be the adults job to teach children about right and wrong... not some celebrity that the kids will never even meet. The kids may wish to emulate a players style or technique, but really its the parents/coaches jobs to keep children motivated and moving in the right direction. To pin everything on professionals of sport is pretty weak.

I am heaven sent... dont you dare forget...

2009-01-29T20:00:00.002-07:00

Lyrics to a great song, but thought it might kinda fit my topic for today.

So the mind bending question of the day is one that people have pondered for ages.

If you (and only you) could live forever would you want to?

In true journalistic fashion i'll just give a Pro/Con/Con/Pro to each side of the coin.

IMMORTAL
- You could honestly do everything or learn everything you wanted
- This doesn't mean you couldnt get horribly disfigured or disabled for the rest of eternity
- You would hafto see everyone you ever cared about die
- I think it would be kind of cool to see change in motion.. can you believe living through all the ages... from kings to slavery to having the first black president?

MORTAL
- You can lead a normal life
- One mistake really can ruin most of your life
- Your body simply breaks down over time no matter what you do
- Carpe diem.. each day can truly be treated as a gift since it could be your last

I'll think about this as well and report back 7 days from now.

Right Man For The Job...

2009-01-27T21:23:00.002-07:00

Ok... so good for us... many states are contemplating getting rid of affirmative action laws and we have just elected a person of color to the highest position in government! Yay! So it seems like the racial barrier is getting sorted out...

Women have the right to vote, many have careers and are only stay at home if they want to be, and we ALMOST got a women to the same highest position in government... good work there as well...

My question is even with all this progress are there jobs that are decidedly WHITE/BLACK or MALE/FEMALE?

Sure something like bring a server at Hooters or a presenter on BET might always carry some sort of implicit unwritten, but understood, qualification, but what about more regular things?

I'm not sure when the day will come that we see a professional major mens sports team with a female coach (even tho gender in theory plays absolutely no role here that i can see).
Will there come a day where there is a 50/50 split in IT departments between men and women?
What about a female 5 star general (tho we got our first 4 star general last summer)
... Mentioned in the article about her "By law women are excluded from combat jobs, the typical path to four-star rank in the military." which is a bit ridic in the context of things.

Anyway we have made lots of progress, but it appears there is still a long way to go. Can anyone think of a position that would in theory require a specific discrimination based on race or gender? (that isnt because of some weird reason like the hooters and BET.. since technically a man COULD serve and a white person COULD do just as good a job)

A new year a new you...

2009-01-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

Ok so right before xmas... or now its like the 10 months leading to xmas... stores start having big sales and consumers buy basically everything under the sun to gift to people in the odd annual tradition that has little or nothing to do with the birth of baby jesus.

I think that a small subset of products experiences their boom... The self help kind of products. Self help books, exercise equipment, protein shakes, weight loss pills, gym memberships. Stuff that is kind of taboo to buy some people since it could translate to telling someone that they are fat or ugly or too depressing.. etc.

And I would assume that like most people who embark on these life changes end in failure since people resist change. My gym has already started to lose some of these "fair weather" people and is getting back to just the regulars.

In the spirit of the season i'll throw out some things i would like to work on.
1. Swimming - I've recommitted and have some big goals.
2. Booze - In the spirit of my athletic goals I have a related goal to reduce the quantity consumed in one night.
3. Engagements - I've got a really nasty habit of committing (or seeming to commit) to things and then not following through. Usually in social situations ditching out on people. It's lame and its no more.
4. Baditude - In many phases of my life I need to relax and loosen up.

If I accomplish the things above I'll be more then happy... almost a month in and its relatively so far so good. Success TBD...

Maybe we have this bass ackwards?

2009-01-19T21:17:00.002-07:00

Pretty crazy thought, but i think there is some potential validity.

Ok so the way things currently work... You're born, you work for the man, you die... Alright so its not quite that dramatic, but thats the basic cycle that the average person is born into. You spend the first 22 or so years of your life in school/learning the ways of the world (1/4 of a lifetime!). Next you generally work for 40 years or so and discover how wrong everything you learned was (1/2 a lifetime!). Finally if you're lucky when you're 60 you have enough in your mattress (seriously what the F are the banks doing with all our money!?!) to ride off into the sunset.. hopefully collect some pension or unemployment and do whatever the F you want for 10-20 more years till your body gives out (The last 4th of your life).... man im feeling like im coming off wayy too morbid.

Ok so this is a fine cycle and it seems to somewhat work.. ish... for most.. we humans are very adaptive creatures and we find a way through it, but i'm going to put a new spin on things...

So not to say old people are UN healthy, but really we as a race generally reach out physical/mental peak in our late teens - late 20s (every beautiful flower blooms at a different time). I think most of us would agree with this.. unless you're in your 30's and in denial :). Basically every point before this you're still developing so arent at full capacity and every point after this you're slowly getting worse then you were the day before.

Why must we spend the prime of our lives in a 5x5 cubicle for 40+ hours a week? I dont think at 22 most of us are really ready to work and honestly we dont really know what we want to do with the rest of our lives.

My proposed social change...

Educate yourself.. same process as now.. basically the first 20 some years of your life. From here is where the deviation happens.
The next 5-10 years should be spent doing what people do in the last 10-20 years of their lives... traveling, seeing the world, and in general learning new things.
After this time you should then be in a much better position to objectively look at your life and pick a path that makes the most logical sense for you.. and not the path that someone might influence you into. So from here you pick back up and work the next 40 years.
And finally the cycle ends the same, but with a 5-10 year lag.. since you took the time off earlier in life.

This seems like a radical change, but i think it makes some sense...
1. You spend the prime of your life enjoying life.
2. I think the extra time after school can help lots of people really find themselves a bit better and they can make better decisions.
3. You're really just taking some of the time you would have had later and inserting it in the middle of your life.
4. We would all potentially be more worldly and educated in the ways of life and not just the ways of books.
5. It would definitely be good times.

There are a few logistical issues...
1. People getting too crazy
- ok i admit this is bound to happen to some, but I feel like this would be some sort of privilege thing where if you screw up too much you go back to work for the man or something.
2. Money.
- I figure people can and should work some temporary jobs for some income... and we could do some sort of fixed income thing (kind of like what happens when you retire) where you would be responsible for paying back into the program when you go back to the workforce... and technically the amount of money would even out... since what time you spend earlier you would make up for working a few more years.

Yeah i know its not perfect, but I think it's an interesting thing to consider.

Something i have been wondering for a while...

2009-01-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

Obviously the policy after using the bathroom should be to wash with warm water and soap for like 15-20 seconds. Makes sense and when confronted everyone says they do it, but the reality we all know is that its really like 50/50 at best for any sort of washing at all... maybe like 20% actually wash with soap and water for the recommended length of time and the rest just throw a little soap on and wash up quickly.

The rest of the 50% who dont lather up at all are either in the category that they A) Dont wash at all or B) Just run their hands under the water, which really isn't disinfecting anything at all.

My question is if its actually worse to only wash with a splash of water then it is to not wash at all. If you think about it... If you do your business and just walk out your exposure to germs is limited to just whats on you and the flushing handle (hopefully people actually flush, which is still not 100% sadly). When you take the smoke and mirrors approach without soap you have exposed yourself to germs from yourself, the flusher, the sink handle (which people with dirty hands presumably touch all day long), then the dryer or towel dispenser (alleviated recently with everyone going to hands free). To make things worse dont germs like to grow in kind of damp places and are a bit hydrophilic? Meaning you're just feeding the germs when you wash w/o soap?

If anyone can shed some light it would be appreciated. And by a while i mean the last few days... not years or months.

Interesting experiment i would like to undertake...

2009-01-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

I was at a friends party last year and I later found out that they had poured some regular vodka (prob like a Smirnoff) into a bottle of Belvedere just to keep things seemingly classy. They mentioned that people kept saying how good the vodka was and the bottle was finished easily by the middle of the night...

I think this would generally hold true... Maybe try out putting a horrible vodka in the Belvedere and the Belvedere into a horrible container to see the reactions at that point.

Mythbusters did do a blind test to see if experts could tell the diff between a cheap vodka that had been home filtered a few more times vs a top shelf one and he was able ot pick the difference, but could an average consumer tell the difference or is branding and perception really THAT important in liquor sales/taste/quality perception.

One example i point to is Corona... Coronoa is in theory the "skunkiest" beer since its a light beer kept in a clear container. The story goes that the added lime is a marketing ploy that covers up the bad taste, but many people do like corona either way... tho in theory its not a great tasting beer. In this case coronas marketing has worked and consumers buy into the image and taste.

Just as video killed the radio star...

2009-01-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

I think the internet is in the process of killing the office phone.
Specifically email (IM to a smaller degree).

What got me on this was today I strolled in (a bit late since i woke up late...) to find that my voicemail light was on. I've been here a solid 3 months and have never had a voicemail! I actually dont rememeber even setting up my voicemail (if i even set it up at all), but figure i must have gone through the process if i have a voicemail.

If i dont get an answer i'll generally just hang up and send an email/IM. Everyone is on email/im all work day and many people are on email 24x7 with the advent of the life ending blackberry. So you're more bound to get a response. Another reason i think people like email is the "paper trail" (obviously theres no physical paper). But when you send an email you've got record of sending.. they have record of receiving it.

IM is also good since you can hash some simple things out.. tell a few jokes.. whatever.. and it stays on the computer screen and someone will see it when they next hop on. Where as voicemail you hafto look at the phone that you never use.

The above hasnt completely phased out the phone yet.. i still prefer phone for more complex issues, but the internet is quickly catching up.. with the potential for audio and video calls the phone may no longer be a part of the 21st century (physical) desktop, but may well be represented in digital form on the (virtual) desktop.

An Abuse of TV Powers

2009-01-07T09:52:00.003-07:00

Si got us a new tv for our room a couple weeks ago. It's pretty neat because it can pick up our cable without having the box hooked up to it. I didn't want the box in our room because we don't have a lot of room for it to sit near the tv and it's always got some sort of light blinking on it which could be distracting when you're trying to sleep. The only problem with it is that it doesn't pick up the premium channels (we have HBO - yay Entourage and Flight of the Conchords!) or let you access the ondemand channel so we can't watch movies on it either.

However! I did discover, while idly flipping through channels one day, that it does pick up random movies from time to time on its higher channels. It's so random that I couldn't really figure out where they were coming from, but I was happy with it because sometimes there would be good movies playing that were just coming out! Finally Si figured it out, they were movies that other people were watching in our neighborhood that were unscrambled so our TV was picking them up. Does that mean it's unethical for us to be watching them too? Who knows. We pay for the channels so it's not like we're stealing anything.. but anyway that's not the point I'm getting to.

The other night we were flipping through the channels again hoping to catch a movie when we saw the strangest thing. Someone was fast forwarding through a movie on one of the premium channels. Every once in a while it would stop and then start up again. Simon was the first to twig on what was happening. Someone in our neighborhood was watching a movie and fast forwarding to all the parts that showed a little more skin than usual. The second they thought the girl in the movie was going to remove some clothing, the fast forwarding would stop and the movie would resume playing at normal speed. Too bad we have no way of figuring out who it was - not that I really want to know. Still, it'd be funny to be able to point and laugh. Si thought it was probably some 12 year old kid getting his jollies by seeing some melons. Either way it was pretty funny.

And let this be a lesson to all you fast forwarding people out there. Your secret is NOT safe!!

My chicken eatin.. back of the bus sittin....

2009-01-06T08:54:00.002-07:00

haha.. sorry a dumb joke you prob dont know unless you've seen the militant black guy.

Anyway i guess some researchers discovered that where you sit on the bus says something about your personality. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1105433/Upstairs-downstairs--Where-sit-bus-reveals-personality.html).

This doesnt 100% transfer here since we dont double the deck, but still im sure its similar. "The middle-seated independent thinkers were usually younger to middle-aged passengers who were more likely to read a newspaper or listen to a personal music player." When i bussed i used to only occasionally listen to my mp3 player, but never read.. i'd rather stare out the window then read, but often i used to blog... maybe the blogging indicates independent thinking?

This thing work for you?

All Doritos Should Be 3-D Doritos

2009-01-05T16:41:00.006-07:00

I had doritos for the first time in a long time today. The regular cheesy nacho kind. And I decided that what I really want is for them to bring back the 3-D doritos.

Yes, I know, all doritos are already in 3-D but the Doritos3-D tagline was some kind of sneaky marketing ploy (they are the best kind!!) to make you think you were getting something awesome when really you were getting less product per bag. I know this is true because not only were they bigger and thus took up more room, but they were thinner too, thus using less dorito making materials. These babies were 50% air, 25% dorito material, and 25% tasty nacho flavoring; and more times than not, when you opened the bag, all but two of them would be crushed into smithereens.

I loved them!

They had a cool ridgey texture and the feeling of crushing them in your mouth was really spectacular. You could just imagine what Godzilla felt as he chomped down on all the buildings in tokyo. Only nacho flavored.

Plus, the best part was that they actually charged more for a smaller bag of these babies than they did for the regular doritos. I honestly don't know why they got rid of them!

In other news, I had a great break, an awesome Christmas, and an amazing New Year! The Free's really know how to throw an awesome dinner party! Thanks guys!!!

My new years resolutions? To be a better friend to the ones I've got and to avoid new toxic friendships especially with idiots who don't recognize the fact that I'm married. Plus I want to get in shape to run the Bolder Boulder with my best friend. He's all motivatey and stuff.. we'll see if that happens. HA!

The Best Gift EVER!

2008-12-22T16:12:00.004-07:00

hahaha I stole this from my freind's site. Lets see if he notices...

Hello loyal readers!!

Apparently the other two writers of Ber's World have decided to go on vacation from writing. And I don't blame them at all! It's been a long year and now it's almost over. Time to celebrate!!

So this year as your personal holiday gift, I've decided that I'm going to give you... NOTHING.. to read!

YAY!!!

We're busy seeing our families and finishing up our end of year work, so Ber's world is officially going on Holiday break. Don't worry, you won't have to suffer from awesome withdrawl for long. Check back next week for more of the amazing stuff you're used to!! Maybe.

Happy Holidays!!!!!

<3 Ber

iThespian

2008-12-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Image stolen from this site

In a time of economic strife, it is important to think of ways to help cut costs while still providing the biggest benefit to society. I say, why not start with one of the highest paid industries in the US? The entertainment industry. Did you know that some actors are making as high as $80 million a year (Will Smith)??

Why shell out that unseemly amount of money when with a small initial investment and simple upkeep costs you can hire.. robot actors! That's right! They don't require sprawling mansions, or food, or well, any of the annoying perks that humans do. In fact, all they need is a little oil and maybe a shine every once in a while. In fact Japan has already jumped on the robot actor boat with a half robot, half human play about two depressed servants who yearn to escape the rigors of their daily existence and to explore the world around them.

Ok, admittedly robots aren't really at a place yet where they can replace stars like Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Johnny Depp but the idea is pretty awesome. The robots in the play can't really express emotion on their faces so they show it through a series of head tilts and sad little noises. Still anyone with even a hint of imagination can see what they are trying to say, and people come out of the play feeling that whatever the robots were trying to express really came across.

Still, I see a real market for them as talk and game show hosts. I mean those people are the ones who can't act and most of them are so botoxed up that all their emotions come out pretty much the same anyway. Yep, I see a real future here.. it's only a matter of time!

Stepford, Here We Come

2008-12-15T10:12:00.003-07:00

Image stolen from this site

Dear Lonely hearts,

No need to worry about never finding a wife, NOW you can have one built just for you! Created by Canadian inventor Le Trung, her name is Aiko and she is the perfect wife. She can cook, clean 24 hours a day, never has to eat, and has the perfect body. Plus, unlike us real girls, she has the exact personality that you want her to have!

Although she is still a work in progress - Le is still trying to overcome the greatest hurdle facing robotics engineers today, getting her to walk like a human - she can react to being touched, read in both Japanese and English, speak 13,000 sentences, and is great at giving directions. But don't think you can just get away with anything, she'll even slap a man who touches her the wrong way.

Once the few kinks are worked out though, Le says he will start cloning Aiko and selling her to anyone who wishes to have their own robotic wife. No release dates have been put out there yet though so I guess you'll just have to settle for real girls until then!

This is NOT a laughing matter!

2008-12-11T06:00:00.002-07:00

I have been noticing... not lately... but over the course of my social interactions via the internet that the value of LOL has been eroded a bit. LOL... or laughing out loud, if you have been in a maximum security prison for about 18 years... To me started as a step higher then "haha" in the humor hierarchy.

Initially I thought the hierarchy to look something like...
ha
heh
ha!
haha
lol
lmao
roflol or roflmao

but lately i feel like there has been lots of consolidation of the hierarchy... im guessing mostly since we're lazy... and even more mostly because i'm prob the only idiot who actually put organization around such things. In 'modern' iSpeak i feel like the representation is more like...
ha/heh/:) (not used much, but represents just a small chuckle)
ha!/haha/lol
lmao (only slightly above... cuz the extra effort to type)
and finally
roflol/roflmao/"im literally lol-ing!"

Its strange that laughing out loud is used so frequently in situations where there is no audible laugh, which is fine i guess, but im guessing this really is just a me thing.

Enjoy your thursday... get a chipotle burrito since thursday is chipotle day!

Sorry my stheory (shitty theory?) wasn't completely thought out... its getting a bit late and i've really been meaning to write about something BIG, but havent yet been able to put it down... i'll pencil my great energy conspiracy theory for next week~

Value for you dollar/One dolla make you holla?

2008-12-09T06:00:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the horrid title.. really couldn't think of anything good.

Anyway... The co-worker i share a cube wall with (we'll call him BR not to be confused with BER tho)... is really a fan of the dollar menu at McDonalds. Specifically the double cheeseburger, which was the self proclaimed best bang for your buck. At 440 calories and 25 grams of protein this little burger really does maximize the food you get for 100 cents.

The new fun activity (new being relative.. since im writing this like 3 weeks before it's going to be posted haha). Is to try and identify something that gives a better bang for a buck. Usually the game goes.. i think of something that is on some other chains dollar menu and i suggest that to him.. and he looks up the nutrition info and we find that its no dice.

I suggested many items along the way, but finally i think we've found our champ!

Fro Taco Bell's "Why pay more" menu... The cheesy double beef burrito. At 460 calories and 18 grams of protein.. Yes i know that there is less protein, but it does only cost $.89! (and like 7 extra calories per sauce packet)

If you can find something that else that offers better value please let us know. The only requirement is that it can be had for under a buck... and technically you need to pay for it... i.e. eating 50 sugar packets would prob have plenty of calories and be free, but thats also pretty nasty.

An update from when i wrote this... McDonalds has taken the double cheese burger off the dollar menu! We are still seeking the best overall value tho.

A whole buncha nothing AKA My crazy - unveiled

2008-12-08T16:03:00.005-07:00

I have to say, I've had the best weekend EVER! What did I do? A whole buncha NOTHING, that's what. And that's why, today, I have nothing to write about. Sorry.

Or that's what I would be saying, IF I WAS LAME!!

Instead I'm going to write about adopting pets. Whenever I go to the pet store and see those poor kittens and puppies in their Plexiglas cages I feel so bad for them. I just want to take them home and love them and play with them. It's even harder seeing stray cats and dogs in my neighborhood. They run around, cold and hungry just waiting for someone to take them in. We did try to take in a stray cat once, but she puked all over our house from top to bottom and didn't really like us, so we had to give her to a new home. At least she is happy there.. I hope. After that fiasco, I wasn't allowed to adopt any more strays, but I did get to have my two adorable tonkinese (cat) babies from a breeder (they're pretty hypoallergenic - if we weren't allergic, we'd get some from the pound)!

Sometimes, I like to imagine that I'm going to adopt another pet. I don't really think it's healthy to do it since I can't have any more pets due to allergy issues, but I like to think about it anyway. Mostly I think about getting a dog. I love going onto my local humane society websites and picking out the dog I would have if I could. Sometimes I think of a good name for it like "Slobber" or "Sir Chomps a lot." I'd really like a little Jack Russell terrier because I just think they're awesome. But then I go over to my mom's house and see how much work HER dogs are, and I feel grateful that all I have are two (very high maintenance) cats.

But even when I'm not thinking about pretend-adopting dogs, I think about maybe a turtle, or a guinea pig, or rat. I've had all of them as pets before but I don't think I'm going to go out and actually purchase any of them again. I mean not only would I have to deal with the allergy issues, but I'd have to clean up after them as well (and they are all very stinky animals).

In reality, my cats are a lot of work in themselves so having another pet just wouldn't work out. It's work that I don't mind doing, of course. Plus they do the most adorable things, they follow me around and want me to pick them up, they always want to know what I'm doing, they have to be on a chair in the kitchen when I'm cooking, and they sleep all over me at night.

Oh, and I have a pet rabbit too. It lives in my backyard sometimes. Sometimes it lives in my front yard. I can't actually touch it or go anywhere near it but I named it so I figure that makes it pretty close to a pet. I call it.... Peepers. I figure that's a pretty gender neutral name, since I don't know if it's a boy or a girl. Sometimes I see Peepers sitting next to the stone bunny that I have in my front yard. They're pretty good friends, or married. I can't decide which. I'll keep watching and let you know.

Frantic Crazy Days of Finals

2008-12-07T19:59:00.003-07:00

Due to the fact that I, P. Shaw, am still in school and am suffering under the horrific weight of finals, I must leave you with a mere haiku to ponder throughout your workweek.

Drain the sad weak souls

Oh higher education

Pierce, cry, die.... silence

Until next Sunday.

Flirty Friday - Things you should and should NOT do at your annual work holiday party

2008-12-05T07:00:00.002-07:00

It's time again for another Flirty Friday. TGIF is all I have to say! This post should help you through one of the most crazy and dangerous times of the holiday season, the annual work holiday party! Just follow these simple dos and don'ts and you should end up keeping your job, and as an added bonus, still be able to show your face in your workplace the next day.

First, workplace holiday party DON'Ts (in no specific order):

DON'T get really drunk and tell your boss that one day HE will be working for YOU. Or at least if you do, offer him a raise.

DON'T try to break up the marriages of all the hot ladies in your office. Get a bit more drunk and hit on the single ladies that are probably more in your league. (AKA not the hot ones, aim more for losers like you)

DON'T have drunken sex in the elevator with the guy from the fifth floor mailroom (they have cameras in those things and you are already going to regret it in the morning - no need to tape it for all posterity)

DON'T be that guy. You know what I'm talking about. Go put your clothes back on right now.

DON'T go into the details of that one night in vegas with that lady who turned out to be a man.. Actually you should probably never bring that up. Ever.

And now, the party DOs:

DO make a photocopy of your butt

DO make a photocopy of the butt of the hot guy in the cubicle next to you

DO take drunken pictures of your boss dressed up like a pirate

DO somehow pilfer something either a) unfeasibly colossal or b) thought to be un-steal-able but DON'T remember how the hell you got hold of it when you wake up with it in bed next to you
i.e. "How the hell did I get the IT guy's car into my house??" (this assumes there isn't a huge car-shaped hole in the wall of the house, and that the car is still in undamaged condition)

DO talk to that girl you've been crushing on for the past three months. I mean if you can't say it at Christmas, when can you say it, right?

The cost of .009 cents

2008-12-04T06:00:00.000-07:00

So as you may (or may not ) have noticed virtually every price ends with a.99. CD's cost 9.99 or books cost like 12.99.. whatever. It seems like very few products consistently have a standard price (price before any sort of sale) that dont round to the nearest 99th of a dollar. One such product that really tends to be impervious to rounding to the 9 is gas. Its like $4.01 or $3.56.. recently more like $1.73 (locally, which is a whole separate enchilada).

Gasoline seems to take the psychological theory of making something cheaper to another level. So as far as i know.. many times products are charged as $1.99 instead of $2.00 so it seems cheaper.. you usually just focus on the 1 and you dont mentally round it up. Gas companies have now taken this practice to the individual cent. When you see the price of gas $1.73 on the board.. its really always a $1.73 with a tiny little 9 on the side.. meaning $1.739/gallon.

As americans we use about 320,500,000 gallons of gas per day(http://www.gravmag.com/oil.html, 2005 figure), which means that fraction of a cent amounts to 2,884,500 per day! (At my current salary i wont make that much between now and the time im 60). So basically this psychological trick is costing us about 1,038,420,000 per year! which is roughly the GDP of Guyana (rank #167 in the world) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal))

On the flip side i guess not rounding up to the nearest cent saves 320500 per day and about 116,982,500 per year.

I guess it is tough to nail down the true cost because of rounding, but I would be interested to know how the rounding happens.. meaning when do they round up. My last fill was 15.530 gal at $1.739 which i paid $27.01 for, but the true cost was 27.00667... meaning i got shafted by 0.0033 cents.

I think there probably is a logical reason for pricing this way tho.. If you think about it.. We dont really pump to the nearest gallon or .5 gallon.. so the pump keeps track of smaller fractions then .5 of a gallon. Also a barrel oil (42 gallons) = about 19.4 gallons of gas, which also compounds the fraction a bit. And as a side note that same barrel of oil also nets some other lesser fuels and lubricants so dont get all up in arms about the little net production we get from 42 gallons of oil.

But the big question i have is assuming there is a good reason for the .009 cent and its not some conspiracy to rip us off or for us to psychologically see lower prices ... Why do they make the 9 so bleeping small???

8feet of Christmas in my Prius

2008-12-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm no Scroodge. I think Christmas is a wonderful time of year. I love seeing all the lights and the awesome commercials for kid's toys (I love all the crap they try to foist off onto unsuspecting parents). But I feel that Christmas should stay in the space alloted to it and not try to bleed over on top of other awesome holidays.

What I'm getting at is the fact that the commercial Christmas holiday actually started before Halloween this year. I don't know about you, but it starts to take away a bit of my Christmas spirit when you can buy candy canes and LED lights along with your Friday the 13th masks, and scythes. I won't go into the commercialization of our society rant because honestly I love buying stuff and that won't change anytime soon, but it is sad that we now have three months of the biggest commercial holiday in the US.

I personally like to keep my holidays separate in order to fully celebrate each one. Mid September I take down my summer decorations and fill my house with the oranges, reds, and yellows of fall, I put up the Halloween decorations in the two weeks preceding the day and take them down the day or so after. Thanksgiving really marks the end of fall for me but I love putting my turkey on a fall colored table cloth and having the orange candles on my table perfectly frame the green bean casserole. Therefore, it just seems wrong to put up any kind of decorations for the big Xmas or to even listen to the holiday music until the day after Thanksgiving. I mean, Christmas is really a winter holiday and why rush into the coldest most miserable months of the year? Whatever happened to the cornucopia of plenty and the pretty fall leaves?! This year my (annoying-always-leave-the-dog-out-so-it-barks) across the street neighbors put their cheerfully bright decorations (complete with a blowup Santa) up the week before thanksgiving which meant it was glaring with the Christmas spirit as my Thanksgiving guests pulled up to my house.

But enough of that. Si and I started putting up our holiday decorations this week and let me tell you, the funnest part so far was getting the tree. For all you people who thought that the Prius is just a tiny good-for-nothing car, prepare to be amazed as I tell you that we managed to fit an 8 foot christmas tree in there AND shut the trunk! Ok just kidding, we didn't shut the trunk but we did manage to fit it with only half a foot hanging out and a bunjee cord holding the trunk shut. You're amazed, aren't you? I love my little car! And the best part? Simon surprised me with the most beautiful sets of ornaments for our tree, it made decorating EVEN more fun!!

Anyway, what do YOU think about the early celebration of holidays? Do you think it's as wrong as I do, or do you love Christmas so much that you wish it was a year long holiday?

Running up the stairs

2008-12-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

This may be just a me thing, but i’ve recently noticed that i really like running up or down stairs. I dont necessarily like to run stairs.. like an athlete would (tho it was a pretty good form of workout that i got into a few months back). But i have noticed that if i get to stairs... at home... at work... somewhere else you would encounter stairs? i tend to run or jog up them. The only time i walk up or down is if i’m with someone else.

I’m wondering... is this just a habit that i kept up from when i was a kid? Do i do it since i find it easier? (honestly it feels easier then walking) Is it a guy thing? Is it just a general athlete thing? Do most people do this???

Anyway it doesnt really matter since i dont really see the pattern stopping any time soon as long as i am in good health. I have a feeling it might be related to the effort I make to always take stairs unless i dont know my way to the stairs or if the trip is over 5 stories.

Visitors

2008-12-01T11:22:00.003-07:00

Oops, well I skipped Flirty Friday but I'm sure you all survived one week without having my outstanding advice on love, flirting, relationships, sex and more. After all, this past week wasn't about those things unless they were family love, relationships with family, and hopefully NOT sex with family... ANYWAY...

Things I'm thankful for:
Simon
The Fam
My outstanding friends
Xara and Oscar
The life that I am living right now. I know how lucky I am and I thank my stars every day.

So, the inlaws were in town this week and it is always great to see them. Since they're from another country, we don't really get to spend a lot of time together, and I know Si really cherishes these moments.

We did lots of fun things like celebrating thanksgiving (which they don't do where they are from!), saw a couple movies, and celebrated our own little Christmas since we wouldn't get to see them on the actual day. They leave today and I'm sad to see them go but it's always hard having someone staying with you. In fact I ended up blowing up at poor Simon last night when he probably didn't deserve it..

I don't feel like I'm someone who is inflexible or really set in my ways but, no matter how much I love having people stay in my house, the tension in me seems to rise the longer they stay. I don't know if that says that I'm not really as flexible as I thought or if that just happens when someone comes into your life and disrupts your normal routine. Are we all really just creatures of habit? I do like to know where things are in my house, and to have the freedom to be able to relax and do anything I want at any moment.

Maybe that's it? Maybe, it's just the fact that I've always got to be "on" for guests, I probably don't HAVE to, but I WANT to entertain them, make sure they're comfortable, and make sure they're not bored for the amount of time that they're staying with us. I guess everyone needs some downtime and not having it can kind of build up.

What do you think? Is it just me or does everyone have this kind of tension buildup when someone is staying in your house? I definitely don't want any of my guests to think that I don't love having them and I always feel bad when I have this kind of reaction. I really hope that Si's parents didn't think I had the mental breakdown because of them (because it was for something completely different) but I kind of think they did. It wasn't in front of them or anything but the walls in the house are thin so any kinds of emotions expressed behind closed doors get to be enjoyed by all. Oh well, at least there's some food for thought.

Are you irritated? Am I irritated?

2008-11-30T01:11:00.001-07:00

Dearest readers of all shapes and sizes: my greatest apologies for missing Lazy Sunday last week. I'm sure you were all chomping at the bit then breaking your teeth with disappointment that I was unable to blog, but never fear, P. Shaw is here!!

This very good friend of mine, who will remain unnamed. Well, that's a lie. I will give him (or her) a new name. How about "Good-Friend-With-A-Question-Restating-Problem." Hmm... that's a bit long. Presented with this problem, I will do what Ber has previously complained about and call him (or her) Gfwaqrp.

Gfwaqrp, bless his (or her) heart, is unable to answer a question without first repeating it back to me in a question form. For example, I will be working alongside Gfwaqrp, look over and venture a simple question like: "Gfwaqrp, what did you have for lunch today?"

I am most certain that I have spoken loud enough and clear enough, but Gfwaqrp will turn to me and say, "What did I have for lunch today?" "Yes," I will answer, "What did you have for lunch today." "Pea soup and a corn muffin." He (or she) says back to me as if it were the first time I had asked the question.

I'm not sure if it's a filler, you know, some sort of stall to allow for ample thought time, but my evidence against that is that no matter what the question, I always get the question back! I may, or may not, be able to understand such a reaction to the question, "Is there any way that you could slip some arsenic into my neighbor's dog's water bowl while you're watching my house this weekend?" I would need some think time. But he (or she) never fails!

The other day I called him (or her) out on this, and ironically enough, Gfwaqrp replied: "Do I realize I ask the same question after you..." We ended with one of those "stare moments," and I was the bad guy! Can you believe this?! (And if you say "Can I believe this" I oughta...)

It's not like I was trying to change the man (or woman). I was just utterly surprised that Gfwaqrp really had no idea that he (or she) had such a silly little habit. I thought back to childhood where one could have acquired such a disease, and I pictured my 5th Grade writing class. "Always restate your question in the answer," the teacher drilled into our heads. "The square root of 9 is 3, and keep practicing your cursive because it's all they use in the real world."

My question to you, oh reader of mine, is how does one go about responding to such conversations? After the question is asked back, the only thing I can figure out to say is, "Yes" then repeat my question. Is there some sort of grrrreat comeback that I could use to end this cyclical annoyance?

XOXO,

P. Shaw

Texting on the throne.. and thanksgiving

2008-11-27T06:00:00.001-07:00

There are many communication faux pas. Talking on the phone while you’re mid checkout at the grocery store, texting while you’re weaving in and out of rush hour traffic, taking a phone call in the middle of a wedding... you know the usual assortment of things. One in particular case is talking on the phone while on the throne (aka the toilet). It is pretty weird for the person on the other end and it kinda can freak out the person in the other stall too.

One new wrinkle I have recently considered is a related issue... Texting on the throne. It seems pretty innocent. The other person would never know that you’re doing it. Its un invasive to those around you. And its arguably a good way to “multi task”.

To be somewhat impartial…

“Shit typing” could still be kinda disgusting. Think about the germs that end up on your phone… ew. Are there honestly no places where we cant be away from our phones? Come on now. Finally.. would you really answer truthfully when someone asks "whats up" or "what are u doing right now"
--- --- --- --- --- ---
Happy thanksgiving btw.

Things I am thankful for this year
1. My friends and family (sounds corny, but i really have been appreciating them more and more lately)
2. That i have the means and ability to pursue my goals and dreams in the pool
3. That even in these tough economic times i am employed and able to live comfortably

An Automated World

2008-11-26T08:30:00.003-07:00

Toilet sign in Korea - Is it a warning or a promise?

So, PShaw's post the other week reminded me of something that I've been thinking about lately. Our world is getting more and more automated and I really do think that's a good thing. I mean we have lights that turn off when you're not in the room, garbage cans that open for you without you having to touch them, doors that swing out of your way with a whoosh and so so much more. But one automated item just bugs the heck out of me.

Public Restroom Automated Toilets

It's not that I don't think they're beneficial to society. I mean, in theory, you don't have a million people wiping and flushing so you significantly reduce the number of germs floating around in the world. But here's the thing, using one of those toilets is like sitting on a timebomb. You never know when they're going to flush. Lean a little too far to the left and all of a sudden you feel the misty coldness of a flushing toilet. And that's not the only problem, if you don't get the tp fast enough and manage to get clean before the flush, you have to find press the manual flush button or risk leaving debris floating in the bowl. You have to find it, because believe me, no amount of maniacally waving in front of the sensor will make the toilet do what it's supposed to do. Not only does this defeat the whole purpose of the auto flush but it is annoying too! Plus there is always the "I'm just slipping in one of the stalls to change" flush. Super annoying and also a little frightening because you don't expect it to happen!And don't even get me started on the hazards of trying to do the public bathroom hover over one of these babies.

But I guess it could be worse, the toilets could automatically clean themselves like they do in Europe... could you imagine that automatic function happening when you're just sitting there minding your own business?

Although, I don't think I'd mind having one of these toilets! They automatically open when they see you coming, close when you are finished, and flush all on their own.. Fancy! (Although this may have the same timing problem that annoys me with the public auto flushers..)

Ok, rant over. I hope you all have a happy thanksgiving (If you're in the US) or just a happy Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (If you don't celebrate the US's crazy worship of turkey and football day)!!

Registered Sex Offender

2008-11-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

So every year (for the last 10 years or so) there is a Halloween "tradition" of having a pumpkin run. Where you carve out a pumpkin, plop it on your head, gather at the advertised starting location, strip, and run naked. The run starts 11PM around an outdoor mall (Pearl Street) where many of the students and locals go out and enjoy the bars.
In the past not much has been done to stop the event, but this year the police decided to take a stand. They ended up catching and ticketing 12 people out of over a hundred participants. Saying that they wanted to "do something before (the event) got out of hand".
This is all fine and well within the rights of the police... tho I would imagine there would be more pressing issues in a college town on Halloween night i.e. a sexual assault or the hundreds of underage high school and college students drinking alcohol.
What I cant bring myself to agree with is the penalty that these people face. They have all been charged with “Indecent Exposure” and in the state of colorado that carries the possibility of needing to be filed as registered sex offenders.
With the peaceful and lighthearted context of the event, which has been ignored and really does not invade the space where famlies and young children would be its a hard sell to me to say that this outcome fits the crime.
Also having “minor” things like this end up with people being added to the sex offender list really dilutes the meaning of the list. If we start casually adding people to this list wouldn’t we also diminish the value it provides to the community? (tho i dont wholeheartedly agree with such a list).

The Final Day of the Euro-Trip!

2008-11-24T10:33:00.002-07:00

Rome
Day 3 (The final day of vacation)

And so, our last day in Rome finally came and it was a bit of a stressful day. No one drives in the lines there, bikes and scooters zip between cars, buses, and taxis which drive on the rail tracks and try to avoid the pedestrians which dart randomly across the streets. Plus the streets themselves are all higgely piggely so finding anything is difficult at best. So, what did we do? We rented scooters of course!!!. The wind in our hair, the bugs hitting our faces, it was awesome. We drove past most of the major tourist attractions (sometimes more than once due to my awesome navigational skillz) and only had one tiny little accident.

Finally, we ended up at the Vatican where we decided to enter the museum. But first we had to purchase a scarf because in the 90 degree weather I was wearing a tank top and my shoulders were bare. That's not allowed. Just in case you are planning on visiting the Vatican museum, make sure you remember that ladies! No bare shoulders.

Anyway, we got to see the Sistine Chapel and it was amazing! There were whole hallways painted with murals. Even the windows had curtains painted on, and the chapel itself was awe inspiring. It was much better than I thought it would be and it was like seeing the David all over again. Michaelangelo really was a great artist!

I also mailed off a bunch of postcards from the Vatican post office that I had been collecting from all over Europe. If you didn't get one, sorry! You should have sent me your address!

After the museum it was time to return the scooters so we negotiated the streets back to the scooter place (no easy feat) and then went to the hotel for a much needed nap.

Dinner that night had to be special as it was our last night in Europe, so we found this little place that was packed and, well, it was amazing! We drank wine, ate bread, had our delicious food, and ended it all with Lemon Cellos.

The next day, we were up at 5am, taking trains, scary Taxis, and planes. We abandoned Simon in Heathrow Airport so he could carry on to Finland for Work and finally, after a full day of travel, we made it home.

So, I know you enjoyed following along with me as I relived my trip here on this blog. But don't worry, my life is full of adventure so the good posts don't stop here! Keep on reading!!!

Flirty Friday - The Sock Drawer Theory

2008-11-21T14:31:00.006-07:00

The post that is about flirting, love, dating, sex, and everything in-between!

Welcome to this Friday's Flirty Friday Post!! It's a little later than usual but it's here!!! Today we're going to talk about the Sock Drawer Theory! This blog post is a little more "mature" in content than previous ones so.. children, avert your eyes.

The Sock Drawer Theory states that the mess of a sock drawer is directly in proportion to how much sex a person has. The messier the drawer, the more sex the person supposedly has. In true mythbusters fashion (well ok not really, I didn't blow anything up), I took a poll of all the people I know (and it's a lot) to see if this theory held true.

The results? The theory held true for 66% of the men polled (one guy even had two drawers full of messy socks - think on that for a while), while it didn't hold water at all for all of the women polled. In fact, the opposite seemed to be true. The cleaner their sock drawer, the more they were getting. This held for 82% of the women so perhaps we should edit the thoery to say that it is true for men and the opposite is true for women. Why? Maybe because the more controlling women are really animals in bed?? Who knows.

A strange thing seemed to happen when couples were polled. Although the theory seemed to hold for both (men - messier, women - cleaner = more sex) when put together, it seemed to average out. Does this mean single people are getting more sex than couples? Or does it mean that it's harder to measure the amount when it's with the same person? It's hard to say.

In conclusion, I have to say that the sock drawer theory holds true in its modified version. But, I'd like to hear what you have to say. How messy is your sock drawer? Does the theory hold true for you?

Disclaimer: Flirty Fridays are just meant for fun. Any advice and information issued here may or may not be made up and untrue. If you take this advice and it doesn't work out for you, don't blame me, but read next week and it may work then!

Unofficial guide to mens dress shirts

2008-11-19T22:24:00.003-07:00

Well Ber seems to think that for men buying shirts is easy. (that sexist! jj). Anyway I'm sure the process is relatively more arduous for you ladies, but there are prob subtle considerations that you don't know about.... i dunno why I'm writing this assuming a female is reading... since many men prob don't know/care about some of this stuff as well. But anyway onward we go. I guess I'll try and break things up by Appearance and Structure.

Appearance is prob what you generally think of.. and what most people think is the complete consideration when looking at a shirt. Ok... it is a BIG part.. and for some its 100% of the choice. Anyway...

Appearance can be broken down (by my standards) as...
Pattern (or lack there of i guess) - But is it striped, red, does it have flowers... whatever.

Pocket - Some have a pocket some don't (the pocket size can differ too i guess)

Fit
Sizing and General fit -
You have the numbers 16/40 (neck diameter/arm length) Or the Size S/M/L etc (which is a derivative of the above)
You also have the cut of the shirt. Regular, Full (a big looser), Athletic/Modern (a bit tighter)

Location of top button - I hate to bring up a Seinfeld, but there is some truth to the statement that the top button location can make or break a shirt.

Length of shirt - I dunno if you're a tucker or a let it hang type, but the shirts generally have a length and it matters... too short for a tucker and it pops out... too long for a un-tuck and it just looks bad/weird.

Button Material - Mother of pearl or plastic. Most are just plastic tho.

The Placket - The middle of the shirt where the buttons are... there are a few different ways they can make this as well.

Pleating in the back -There are a few options for pleats
Box pleat (two pleats in the center)
Shoulder pleat (wider on shoulder)
No pleat

Now that we got all the easy aesthetics stuff out of the way... onto Structure
Fabric - Material
Cotton, Blend, Linen? each has its advantages and disadvantages. Then you need to consider if you want two ply. (yes like the TP, but obviously talking about shirts) Cotton is soft and comfortable, Blends can be more wrinkle free or stretch a bit, Linen is nice for warmer weather because of comfort and breathability, but the wrinkle the easiest.

Collar -
Style - button down/normal/stays
different color collar
width
wide or narrow

Button down collars are least formal then the ones with stays are more formal. The width and height of the collar can compliment your face/neck structure... or accentuate bad features (http://www.tomjamesco.com/AU/news/collars.asp)

Cuff - There are a few different kinds here... Pretty standard "barrel", or double/French, or single. Listed in order of formalness. You can also add monograms on these parts.

And then when you thought it couldn't get more complicated you have prob the biggest choice.
Fabric Construction - I'll give you a rundown of the kinds and a link for +/-'s of each. Poplin, Oxford, Broadcloth, Pinpoint, End on End, Twill Sea Island (never head of till this website), King Twill (also never heard of). (http://www.tomjamesco.com/AU/news/shirt_fabric.asp)

Anyway that's the overall rundown on considerations when buying a dress shirt.

The final days of vacation... continued.

2008-11-19T08:00:00.001-07:00

Day 2 in Rome

The next day would have been better, I think , if at least one of two things hadn't happened. 1) if we hadn't had pretty hardy hangovers and 2) We hadn't been awakened at 8am by loud poundings and crashings from the construction that the hotel next door was performing.

Simon, the hero of the day, managed to drag himself out of bed to politely inquire if we would be hearing this for the next three days. And the hotel, thanks to Simon's sexy accent, and awesome skills of persuasion, moved us to another - much nicer - room.

We couldn't actually access the room until later in the afternoon, so, we wandered out to see more of Rome. We went to the Trevi Fountain and looked at some other ruins and monuments and eventually wandered back to the hotel for a nap.

I know, I know, it's lame that we napped but seriously when you drink as hard as we did, you need time to recharge. After the naps, refreshed, we headed out for a nice dinner and then to Campo Dei Foiri for a couple drinks.

While seated in the tiny bar we had chosen as this night's haunt, we experienced what I would call, one of the best moments of the trip. Along with the annoying people trying to sell us stuff, there were the odd traveling performers who would do their thing and then come around and ask people who were trying their best to ignore them, for money. One of these people was this creepy mime that sucked so bad I was tempted to throw my drink at him. He basically turned on some corny music and did some yoga. And he had this weird eye blinky thing going on. He was trying to be artsy I think but it was just creepy. Anyway, as we were suffering through his act for the second night in a row, we started hearing this catchy drum beat getting louder and louder and echoing off the walls of the squre. Suddenly a full drum-line burst into the square headed by a man with a baton and white top hat and followed by at least 100 dancing people. Of course they headed straight for the mime, sweeping up people as they moved along through the square. It took a few seconds but the mime finally realized that they were heading for him and jumped up and started waving his arms and jumping up and down and finally *gasp* he started shouting!

That's right, the mime made noise!

But, the drum-line kept coming and sort of swept around and past him and then out of the square. When the drum line had passed all that was leftwas the mime's little stereo playing his creepy music. It was awesome! It was just like the robot war in EuroTrip. Sigh, good times.

Boldly going where my wardrobe has never gone before...

2008-11-18T14:42:00.002-07:00

Recently i finally did it. I shopped for clothing onilne. I dunno if you have done it before or not, but personally i have been avoiding it for a while. I guess i did buy some ties online, but thats relatively simple and i visited the site a million times before i pulled the trigger.

Basically i just dont think clothing lends itself well to the internet platform. There is just too many questions and variables. Even at stores I regularly shop at. Ok i know my size and i know how everything fits on me, but what will that pattern look like on me? What does that color look like? does this make me look fat/skinny/psycho whatever.

The biggest issue i have is the concept of color. If you tell me a primary color i have a general idea of what it might look ilke, but add in small variations... and the variations in how colors show up on different screens... and then trying to match that color with something you have or are ordering... just too difficult for me. Maybe thats just me..

Anyway.. i'll let you know how that all works out for me... I'm hopeful on many fronts. I bought pretty basic colors and styles as a starter.. mostly just intersted to see if the fit of everything is better... I'll rant more about my clothing fitting issue on chipotle thursday.

Toodles!

The Final Days of Vacation

2008-11-17T08:00:00.002-07:00

I realized that I never said anything about the final days of my trip. They were action packed and exciting. If you'd like to catch up you can go here, otherwise, enjoy!

Written: Sunday, September 7, 2008
Rome

So, it was my fault... sorta, but I'll take the blame. Through some sort of miscommunication, we ended up missing the train to the airport for our flight from Rome back to London and had to take a taxi. Remember in a previous post how I said that the taxi ride that night was one of the scariest moments of my life? It was a cake-walk compared to this...

If you've seen the movie Taxi - the French one - you'd know exactly what our ride to the airport was like.

The only time he stopped for a red light was when there was a cop on the corner, he used the lightrail tracks as his own personal express lane, took random - but effective shortcuts through shantytowns, texted and actually made a phone call on the way and, once on the highway, didn't go any slower than 160km/hr with an average speed of 180km/hr. When he finally stopped at the airport, I half expected puke bags to pop out of the seats in front of me (like in Taxi 2). Simon gave him a big tip, after all, we did beat the express train that we had missed... by 20 minutes... But anyway I'm jumping ahead of myself!

So, Rome. I think it was one of the hardest cities to say goodbye to. Maybe it was because we spent the longest amount of time there. It was just an amazing city, I loved turning a corner and coming upon a beautiful fountain, or a random piazza, or an amazing sculpture, or just a random hole in the ground with ruins from an ancient temple! It was easy to imagine the city as it once was, and the feeling of history was thick in the air.
The first day we arrived, we just wandered the streets looking for the coloseum (of course that was the first thing everyone wanted to see). Rome is beautiful, but boy was it hard to navigate! It's labyrinth of streets made it almost impossible to find anything, and although it wasn't the first time that Simon and his gps helped us find something, it was certainly the most useful in Rome.

We found the Coloseum and lined up to get tickets but we had run out of euros and in the end we found out that they didn't accept credit cards. That had actually become the question everywhere in Italy "Posso pago con carta di credito?" A surprising number of places didn't. Just FYI for fellow travelers out there - ALWAYS CARRY CASH. So, we wandered around outside the Coloseum and looked at Constantine's arch and the ruins nearby and just in general had a great time wandering around.
Eventually we were hungry and went in search of food. We found a little place near the Trevi fountain in this tiny back alley and had a bottle of wine and some really tasty food. At the end of the meal, our waitress, Barbara, who reminded me of Amelie said we had to try a traditional Italian drink called Lemon Cello.

It was probably one of the strongest drinks I've ever tasted, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason why the rest of the night went like it did.

Lemon Cellos taasste like lemon Pine-solsmells,and when asked how to make them, Barbara pulled out a piece of paper to give us the recipe and, after some thought wrote "Lemon"... and "alcohol."

Apparently you just buy them pre-made in the stores in Italy.

Simon loved them, SKo tolerated them, and I couldn't stand them. But, we all finished our drinks like champs, paid our bills, and stumbled off to find other entertainment at the highly recommended Camp Dei Fiori.

As a side note, we didn't meet a single person from Italy in this square. We did meet some people from Iowa, England, and Brazil though!

Anyway, we were not disappointed. SKo picked a place called Soppy Sams, where all the waitresses were American and we sat, ordered a pitcher of beer and people-watched. Pretty soon, we had met the people at the next table. The Joshes (there were 2) and Kristin. They were from Iowa. And we had also chatted with the Brazillians who had bought two megaphones from the street peddlers.

Let me take this moment to tell you how much I hate street peddlers. A lot. Toward the end of the night they were desperate to unload their wares and we would have them coming at us in a pretty steady stream. And it was all useless crap like the megaPhones, flowers, glowing necklaces, singing toys, and on guy even offered to take a polorid of us. As if everyone doesn't have a camera phone these days. But the thing is, the drunker people got, the more crap they would buy so in the end, I'm sure the bastards made a killing.

Anyway, after the Brazillians, we met the Brits who had moved to Rome. One was named India (we checked her ID) and the other we just called Scotland, because that's where she was from (Ahhh drunken logic).
I'm pretty sure the night ended well.. I KNOW it ended well for SKo, but I'll let him tell you about that... All in all though, it was a good first day in Rome.

Public Not-So-Restfulrooms

2008-11-16T01:11:00.002-07:00

So I'm sitting in class with my eyes bugged out watching the dainty secondhand tick around my wrist-sized time keeping device. I'm feeling the pressure of the orange Gatorade I finished off in my last class. It was a gift - the Gatorade, not the watch. Until my first sip, I didn't realize how darn thirsty I was. Besides, orange Gatorades are quite tasty, let alone full of plant-growing electrolytes... not that I grow plants or anything. Anywits, I drank the whole thing in one sitting and didn't have time to visit the Urination Station before my second class of the day. So there I sat, regret running down my face alongside the beads of sweat. (okay, I wasn't sweating, but I probably should have been).

Through the fog of my center focus, the words, "have a wonderful weekend" echoed through the thick air of the classroom, and I booked it for the door. Down the hall, down the stairs and through the door of the Ladies' room. I was early enough that I avoided a line (as there always is one in women's restrooms) and shut myself into a big plastic Hiney-hider. Yeah, that's the brand... It's okay, I laughed too. Well, not aloud since that would be weird to hear giggling coming from the stall next to you in a bathroom. The first thought wouldn't be that the person was laughing at the brand of restroom stall.

Relief poured out like - well, like... hmm...

Relief poured out. After relieving myself at this public place of potty, I looked up only to notice that I had picked the one restroom Hiney-hider that wasn't built to privacy code, and that a female line-stander was making use of the inch-wide gap between the stall door hinges and the stall wall. We made eye contact. Really awkward eye contact. I looked away hoping that I could pull the old "I don't see you, you don't see me" trick, but upon glancing back realized that she hadn't averted her eyes as she should have. BUH!! WHO DOES THAT?

We had a stare down. I raised my eyebrows and jutted my head: my warning threat. She looked down and I hurriedly completed my duties and gathered my things for exit, knowing full well that she was looking again. I paused for a second at the Hiney-hider door and pondered my plan of attack. I decided it would be best to pretend it never happened.

And so I did. I went to the sinks and pretended not to notice that she was next up in line for my Tinkler. Out of my perif, I saw her on the approach. She came up and stood right next to me, breaking the "restroom space" rule. I turned, preparing my evilest evil eye, and there in her outstretched hand was my wallet. "You ran out of class with your backpack unzipped," she said with the utmost innocence. I took it back, and said a thanks soaked in sarcastic "why-didn't-you-just-slip-it-through-the-crack-you-were-peering-into?" and exited the Toilet Temple checking my wallet to make sure my cash and credit cards were still intact unlike my dignity.

Rejection

2008-11-14T08:00:00.003-07:00

We've all experienced it and it's just not awesome in any way. But the fact is that sometimes people are just not compatible for each other.

I know that you're probably swamped with people trying to get your hand in marriage or you know.. to go on a date with you or something. So, I'm sure you're looking for ideas on how to fend off those many suitors. And, my friend, there are definitely right ways and wrong ways to go about rejecting someone.

So, here are some simple rules to abide by when giving someone the ol' heave ho:

They Are People Too

That's right, the person that you are turning down actually has feelings just like you do, and they're doing a pretty brave thing by putting themselves out there. So be compassionate when you tell them you're not interested and don't do anything to them that (were the situations reversed) you wouldn't want done to yourself. It's a pretty good rule to go by in life too. (Some exceptions to this rule are the idiots who don't seem to realize that you're in a relationship, or people who you have told you weren't interested but still can't seem to get the message.)

Don't Be A Giant Chicken (aka Don't Make Me Throw You The Diamond)

You may think you're sparing their feelings by not telling them how you really feel, but doing something else to push them away like being a jerk to them will actually hurt them worse. Especially if you're a jerk to them in a public place, or in front of a lot of people. If you're afraid to say anything to them because you think they might be interested but aren't sure, the best course of action is just to ask them. It may be hard, but we're all adults and it's time to act like it.

State The Point CLEARLY

Some people, mostly guy people, don't get what you are saying unless you are very clear about it. Beating around the bush and giving hints often just passes right over their tiny brains. So say what you are feeling in as direct a manner as possible. The rejected will respect you more for it and although it may be hard for them at first, the fact that you were able to clearly state your feelings may mean that you have gained a friend.

And remember, everyone gets rejected at some point in their lives but there's someone out there for everyone. So don't let one or two people telling you "no" get you down. I know if you're reading this blog then you're pretty awesome (unless you're one of those jerks mentioned above.. then you're not so awesome), so you should have no trouble finding the right person for you.

WMEBA?

2008-11-13T09:42:00.001-07:00

Our society has a real problem... we cant seem to resist the urge to make an acronym for anything and everything. Like my title for today which is short for "Why must everything be an acronym?" (duh). ok obviously i completely made that up on the spot, but i feel like most of these shortcuts are just made on the spot like that.

I work in tech... the land of acronyms where DDR could mean the video game that 12 year olds play, a type of computer memory, a type of routing.. there are actaully more then that. I actaully think that its possible to put an acronym in 95% of every business conversation in this industry. Which might be part of the problem... since most BU's (business users... hmm or business units) dont understand what we're saying so they cast us off like a group of refugees or something. Hell my whole industry is an acronym.. BI (business intelligence)

http://www.acronymfinder.com/ catalogues over 4 MILLION of such shortcuts... i wonder how many are the exact same letters?. I bring this word up because i couldnt even spell the word acronym.. shouldnt a word that basically means making things simpler be spelt easily?

The epidemic is getting even worse... now we have full phrases being chopped down to a few letters... WWJD? or my recent favorite (which is a newer hipper version) WTFWJD? LOL/LMAO/ROFLOL/ROFLMAOWPMP (rolling on the floor laughing my a$$ off while peeing my pants?) The worst is while searching for DDR I found that there is yet another version, which includes an acronym! DDR = DoD Data Repository = Department of defense data repository! WITF? (what is the f***... shot out so si)

To end things on a lighter note i'm going to link to the onion, which 6 years ago pointed fun at internet shorthand (which is basically a collection of acronyms), which is still find funny to this day. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27021.

Anyway... just use your words! (oh yeah this is the posti i referenced on tuesday that something would go well with)

T to the H to the A to the N to the K to the S to the GIVING!

2008-11-12T08:00:00.001-07:00

Good Mornernoonevning Readers!

I can say readerS now because we officially have at least 2 people reading our site every day. Sometimes it's more. Like 3!!! Or 7!!! Woo! You are so welcome for our part in relieving the boredom that is your life.

Today, PShaw and I were discussing the unfairness of there being a TON of Christmas songs and not a single thanksgiving song that we could think of. So we started coming up with one of our own. It is a blend of punk, heavy metal, mongolian throat singing, classical, 80's hair band rock, and the good oldies of the 60's and 70's.

So far, we only have the first few bars down, but it's going well. It starts a little like this:

(A little bit of folksy music here)
Grab your turkey
Grab your stuffing
Get the cranberry Sauce

(A bit of the heavy metal yelling)
AND STUFF YOUR FACE
THANKSGIVING!!!! THANKSGIVING!!!

(A bit of rap)
T to the H to the A to the N to the K to the GIVING!!!!!

(mongolian throat singing)

What do you think!? I think we're off to an awesome start. Record label here we come! Holiday #1 IN THE BAG!!!!

Speaking of Mongolian throat singing. Have you ever heard it? It's really interesting. I first heard it on TrueBlood, this awesome new show that I've been watching on HBO. Then, this morning they had a great segment on it on NPR about this guy who used to be a Punk artist but decided to go back to his musical and cultural roots. You should check it out!

No causation from statistification!

2008-11-11T09:33:00.001-07:00

Yeah i know i just pulled a word from nowhere, but it wouldnt rhyme otherwise...

Anyway i dunno if you have heard the news, but EVERYTHING causes cancer and EVERY technological advancement is leading to the demise of our society (usually by causing increased violence)

I dont know why we have become such an alarmist society, but we seem to jump on the smallest results from any study (regadless of how applicable it is). Mostly spurred on through media outlets im going to diagnose that 75% of americans have or will suffer from IBERS Syndrome (eye bers)... short for I Believe Every Random Statistic (which will also tie in nicely with my thursday post).

A quick google search finds
"Study Links Cell Phones To Brain Cancer Risk", which will translate to the 10PM news headline of... "Why your cell phone may be causing cancer"

O.M.G.! throw away your cell phone... call the feds... get this horrible killer out of our society.... but what lots of people miss when they dont read the full story is that the sample size was tiny... 209 people will brain tumors and 425 control subjects.

Assuming the sample size was much bigger.. can we rule out the possibility that the other 10,000 other radio waves in the air from TV, radio, internet, other peoples phones arent the true cause? What if some of those people were just genetically prone to brain cancer.

Bottom line... stats do not ever prove causality. They just show the likelyhood and strength of the association... they also can rule out the causality.

The Par Tay!

2008-11-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Hi,

So I meant to post this last Monday but whatever. My Birthoween party was a raging success with the exception of one moment of immaturity (not mine) that left one of my best friends a little upset. Other than that, I think everyone had a really great time! We drank, we beer ponged, and we played a lot of Drenga. Plus everyone's costumes were absolutely awesome in every way. As a reminder the theme was Good vs. Evil. Some of my favorite costumes included:

Mac and PC (the PC was evil. Duh)
Dr Horrible (my hottie husband Si)
Gary and Ace the ambiguously Gay Duo
and Captain Planet! (He's a hero, gonna take.. ok that's enough of that)

Out of all of them, I have to say the most creative costume went to the guy who was the tornado from the wizard of oz. He even had a little cow caught up in it.
In second place was the Mac vs PC. You guys rule!
And the winner, of my all time favorite costume was...(drumroll please) Si's Dr Horrible costume because 1) I love Dr Horrible 2) I love Si 3) I made the costume. Yay!

SKo never told you what his costume was, but there's no need now becuase it's posted below:
Yes, those are his real muscles. Go ahead ladies, you can have a feel.

Monday (the actual day of my birth) I was woken at 4:51am my my mom texting to say Happy Birthday.

Mom, that so not cool.

That's all I have to say about that. I won't even go into the details of why she does it. I don't think her psycho behavior deserves any kind of excuse. And the day just went uphill from there. I got awesome pressies from Si <3 and had a really fun party at work where everyone sang and gave me cake, nerds, and mango sorbet. Then I got home and Si made me the bestest dinner on the face of the planet.

Overall, this birthday was a great success! Thanks to everyone who came to the party and especially thanks to all you peeps who gave me stuff! Keep it up! Er I mean, I really appreciate all or most of you!

Hello World!

2008-11-09T01:11:00.003-07:00

Good day! Or night...or whatever point in our Earth's rotation you are reading this. I'm the new Sunday super-star, invited by Ber herself! I suppose the best way to start out my blogging career is with a bang. So...

BANG!

I live in a crazy, sweet-ish apartment on the fifth floor and in the evening when I rock the bus home, I usually get off at my stop with 3 to 12 other people and follow them into my building. I must admit, I'm a competitive person. Well, I'm one of those competitive people that doesn't show that I'm competitive, but secretly keeps tabs of things in which I beat people at. Eating: depending on how I'm feeling, I keep tabs to see whether or not I've eaten the least amount (making me feel skinny) or when I'm enjoying sushi with friends how many more rolls I can eat without them realizing that I'm winning. Then, after I've eaten three rolls more than my eating comrades, I do the nice thing and say that I will offer the last little roll to someone else. As if to say, "It's actually my roll, but you need this sustenance more than me, and I'm the nicest person you know." Lest they know, I've secretly won inside...

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. My fellow bus-rockers and I get off the bus, walk into the building and split our separate ways, and, depending again on my general mood, I take the stairs. Ten flights of stairs is tough, but I refuse to show it. There are times when others decide to take the stairs with me, and so begins my competitive habit. I walk in front or behind them, keeping their pace so that we both know when the other reaches their floor - or, in my way of looking at it, surrender to the wrath of the stairwell. I enjoy acting all cool when they turn off at the fourth floor and I continue up the stairs as if to say: "That's right, wonder at my strength and endurance. I am superior. You are my subordinate."

Sometimes the person I'm walking with will be extra courageous and attempt my wondrous five floor climb. This throws me off and forces me to jog up the extra flight of stairs to the sixth floor - glancing back at them to make sure they've seen me - where I lay down in exhaustion and consume the sweet taste of victory.

Suckers.

Welcoming the newest member of our gang!

2008-11-07T15:47:00.003-07:00

Hello Loyal Readers!!

I just wanted to let you know about an exciting new segment that we are adding for your reading pleasure. It's just a little ditty that we are calling "Lazy Sundays." That's right, now, not only can you read our blog 6 days a week (we're adding a post on Sundays, in case you didn't pick that up), but all that stuff you've always wondered about on the weekends will now have a voice.

And what a voice it will have! I'm almost too excited to say this but.. We are also proud to welcome a new member to our team!!! Oh, but you're going to have to wait until Sunday to find out more about her!

Well maybe a tiny bit about her: She's got credentials up the wazoo, she's hilarious and funny at the same time, and most importantly, she's awesome in every way! You'll love her, so come back on YOUR Lazy Sunday and check out what she has to offer. You won't regret it (not that you ever regret coming here)!

(un)Flirty Friday! - Miscommunication

2008-11-07T07:30:00.006-07:00

A strange problem has come to my attention lately due to some gossip around my pretty much all female dominated office and I've decided to go to you, my loyal readers for advice.

Two of the girls in my office both have brothers and have grown up with mostly guys as friends so they always feel more comfortable around guys than they do around girls. The problem that seems to occur now that guys have passed the stage where they think all girls have cooties, is that they seem to mistake the girls being nice to them as flirting with them.

One of my best friends has always told me that guys and girls can't be friends because in reality one always has a crush on the other one even if the other one doesn't know it. It's a sad fact but although I've always disagreed with this friend, I'm starting to think that Friend may be right.

One coworker, who I will just call S the Amazing has had a long term boyfriend for a really long time and she recently met a new guy in one of her classes who she though would be a really good friend. She was her normal cheerful self around him but he started openly flirting with her even in front of her other guy friends and (shockingly) her boyfreind. How is it possible that he got the wrong message when (and I've seen them together) her and her boyfriend are CLEARLY all the other sees. Last week she confronted him and he said some stuff about how he didn't even realize he was doing it "blah blah blah" but in the end things just got awkward between them.

Even the ultimate obstacle of being married doesn't seem to stop some guys or to make them stop to think that maybe the girl is just being nice. Coworker #2, the happily married R Squared, is actually at a loss of how to act around any guy now because she doesn't want to send the wrong message.

It's certainly got me thinking, I mean I personally hope that any message I'm sending out is that I like hanging out with my guy friends or talking to them but I'm completely 100% devoted to my Simon in every way. Plus, no offense friends - but NONE of you could even compare to how perfect Si is in every way for me.

I don't even know where to begin so I'll have to think this one through. So come on you people who read my blog but never post. Let me know what you think my coworkers should do! I mean, what would you do?

P.S. Happy Birthday SnowKohn!

TOO much????

2008-11-05T22:50:00.002-07:00

You know you're pretty lazy to write a blog post when you're talking about headphones you just bought, but this might be interesting to someone other then me. I just got my ultimate ears "super.fi 5 pro" headphones... yeah so what.. i know. These headphones cost... over a hundred bucks... actually MSRP is $249.99 (i didnt pay that much tho).

Anyway this brings up the question... how the F are headphones worth paying that much for? I started to think that, but decided i would wait till i heard them before i made judgement... and i swear this is how music was meant to be heard! They were quite expensive, but so far I've had only one complaint about them... i need to loop them over the top of my ear, but sound wise they are amazing... so this is a case of you get what you pay for.

In related news... birthoween was great fun! I was captain planet... pic to come.. someday... The next night i decided to be a rockstar and was lookin sexy in my cheap walmart juniors jeans... i spent a bit to much time in the womens section, but whatever.

Oh by the way WOO HOO!!

2008-11-05T11:35:00.000-07:00

Yay Obama!!!!

That's all I have to say.

Failure

2008-11-05T07:30:00.001-07:00

So, potty training the cats was a huge giant failure.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure it would have worked if one of my cats (Oscar) wasn't mentally challenged. He did not seem to get the concept of going IN the new smaller litter box. His reasoning, I'm sure, was that if he was straddling the litter then where the actual excrement landed wasn't important. I don't really know why I was surprised about this though, because the cat is literally afraid of his own poo. I'm serious, he'll do his business and then bolt out of the litter box so fast you'd think it was chasing him. He doesn't even bother to bury it. In fact, if anyone out there knows how to cure THAT little problem please let me know.

Xara on the other hand, was progressing nicely. She wasn't even using the training seat and had gone from standing in the litter to using the actual toilet seat. She's so smart! I love her so much. I love Oscar in his own way too of course, but boy do I wish I could have some words with him. I dunno, maybe it's just a flaw with the design of the actual toilet?

Sigh. There's a dream down the toilet..

On the plus side, we're going to start testing out self cleaning litter boxes!! This should be exciting. I love robotic things!! After a bit of a search and a lot of reading reviews, I think our first (and hopefully only) experimental box will be the Litter Robot. Fingers Crossed that Oscar isn't afraid of it!

Unfinished business

2008-10-31T07:41:00.006-06:00

MuahahahaHa aaaapy Halloween everybody!

This year's party is going to be even more awesome than the ones in the past. The decorations are spookalicious, the food is going to be tasty, and Si has chosen alcohol that should keep people happy the whole night long!

Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of things done that I felt pressure to get done by today. I will list them off for you so you can judge me:

1) I did not finish making a halloween costume for my co-worker's (cute tiny) dog. I actually started it. She was going to be BAT DOG!! But between my work retreat, trying to fight off whatever illness my coworkers are peddling this week, and getting my house ready for the party, I just didn't have time. I think she's ok with it though.

2) I didn't dress up for work. I think my boss might be a little disappointed. I'm pretty sure she was picturing some kind of super office spooktacular but 1) I'm almost 100% sure that my costume is NOT work appropriate, even on halloween and 2) I am fighting off the aforementioned germs and do not feel like getting all dressed up. However, in the spirit of things, I did wear a shirt that says Happy Halloween 2008 that my mummy (har har) gave me. She gave one to Si too that says "Trick or Treat." I hope he wears it because the shirt manufacturers put dates on them which officially makes them worthless any other year. No one else is in the office yet but I'm very curious to see what they decide to come as. Oh and as a peace offering, I did bring cupcakes to make up for my lack of costume.

and finally, 3) I didn't put the finishing touches on Si's costume. It will really take me five seconds and I can probably do it tonight before the party. Sadly, this is the one I regret the most. As you may or may not know, I am forcing him to go as my favorite super villan and current crush: Dr. Horrible (as a side note, if you can't watch this on hulu it is totally worth the $4 just to buy it on itunes. It's awesome in EVERY way) and I want his costume to be perfect. Si does look super duper hot in the lab coat as it is though!

Anyway, in happier and more exciting news, Si and I carved pumpkins on Wednesday and they turned out awesome. I'll post the pictures here when I remember. And, because I know you're curious, my costume this year is as Alice in wonderland, Special K (who is also celebrating her birthday) is going as the Queen of hearts. I won't tell you what SKo is going to be, but maybe he will tell you himself.

What are YOU going to be? Best costume idea wins a prize..

Effeminate office decorations?

2008-10-30T10:41:00.002-06:00

So i was at hobby lobby last night buying some more fabric dye for my captain planet costume (which is going to look like shit btw). And they were having a sale on picture frames.. 50% off!, which made me at least consider buying a few... mostly for the office so i could bring in some pictures and personalize my cube a bit.

I was looking at the frames and started thinking that its almost a bit weak for a guy to have some of these frames...maybe it was the pictures in the frame, but there really wasn't a "manly" frame. There were a few neutral ones which i considered buying...

Then it struck me... it seems like having more then one picture frame on your desk is pretty effeminate for a dude in his office. If you think about it the standard number of pictures for a man to have is... ONE. A picture of his family... wife... gf... life partner... pet.. whatever. There were atleast two or three pictures that I thought would be nice to have in my cube, but this dilema has struck me.

Then i thought it might seem a bit more manly to just pin some pictures up on the walls instead of framing them, but i thought that might still be a bit weak. I dont think pictures in general are something in the realm of women... why is it that i keep thinking that having pictures displayed in quantity > 0 is so effeminate???

Any ideas... is having multiple pictures in my office pretty womanish? or am i being an idiot...
well i KNOW im being an idiot... but still the question remains.

Ok, I'm back!

2008-10-29T13:19:00.004-06:00

From: Amber Rules [mailto:AmbersBlog@blogspot.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2008 9:12 AM
To: Amber
Subject: I Miss You!

Dear Amber,

Hopefully I did not do anything to upset you... I just cant explain
your long absence.

I miss you... please write soon :(

Yours Forever,
Ambersblog

You know you haven't written in your blog for a while, when your blog starts sending you emails pleading with you to start writing again.

So loyal readers.. and blog, I apologize for my prolonged absence. Things in my life have been super crazy and I haven't had time to sit down for even the five seconds it would take to write a short blog entry. Don't worry though, as of today things should start slowing down again.

Why the huge lack of writing from me? Well, I've been preparing for the biggest fundraising event of the year for my work (we're a non-profit you see): The Annual Retreat. And now it's over, and yes, we raised some money. Hooray!

The highlight of the trip? The night before all the big donors arrived, we closed out a bar in a small town while the owner insisted on taking off his shirt to show us his tattoos. The whole night, my boss and I got free drinks, while my coworker (who will forever be known as the lightweight) chatted up any guy over 45 who walked into the bar. Girl, you're 30, and you look 25, Let's slow it down with the old guys! I haven't really had that much to drink in a while, and I was glad that I could take the opportunity in the morning to sleep it off.

So, now that it's over I'm dedicated to once again bringing you the finest that my squishy spicy brian has to offer. I still have a bit more of my trip to report on, and my birthoween party is coming up. It should be fairly interesting as the theme this year is good vs. evil. Plus, there are my ever astute friday observations on the opposite sex, and boy do I have some good ones for you! So, I'm back! Hooray!

Love,
Ber

Random picture

2008-10-28T13:46:00.001-06:00

I took this picture last week. The colors are nice and it converys the season well, but what i really like for whatever reason is the fact that someones car just got completely covered by leaves in less then a day... i took this at lunch!

Thats it... nothing witty... no deep thoughts... just leaves on a car.

What happens if...

2008-10-23T10:30:00.000-06:00

Ok so right now everyone is in the process of automating basically everything. We have machines that perform calculations for us (computers), build labor intensive products (like cars), even ones that allow us to move (like segways).

For now we've accepted all this as helping us be more efficient or to save lives, in the case of dangerous things like robots that can perform surveillance or that help in construction. And that is fine, I def see the point of doing this. My question is if a point exists that doing all of this actually makes processes so efficient that they are self sufficient.

To put an example out there... ok for example lets say...

We've perfected the process of building a car. Where machines used to weld the chassis then people would pop in seats and other interior accessories now we have a machine to do the tasks and our production is now 5x as efficient. As an added bonus we've perfected the process of making the machines that make the cars and the result of this is that each machine can last 25 years without any needed maintenance!

WOW a company's balance sheet is probably stellar right now!

BUT... now since the auto maker is so efficient and the machines work flawlessly... what happens to the employees. Sure right now they go find another job somewhere else. But extend the thought that all other processes have become similar. Computers run their own financial models and buy and sell at optimal times, big macs are cooked and assembled by machines, and every bathroom is an auto clean bathroom.

What are we as humans... who think slower, arent as strong, and arent as consistent as our inanimate counterparts... to do? I guess we would all or lets say 80% of us would not be employed, since someone hasto watch the machines right?

We could all just be on like a permanent vacation... but if we have no jobs we have no money. Tho.. if no one is working companies would pay wages to whom? ok.. maybe money is not even more important... but then how do we exchange goods and services? Well no one really made them so maybe things are free...ish? If things are freeish and everyone is basically equal does that put us into some sort of worldwide communist or socialist state? Who makes the rules? Who enforces the rules? Does it all just end in chaos? From this chaos does the world kind of reset from stage one... break down the machines and manual labor everything again?

wow.. that was prety random and weird.. im sure there are a bunch of logic holes etc, but i think the basic premise is solid.

I voted!

2008-10-21T13:44:00.000-06:00

Since I live in a state where they allow early voting I walked into the library today and cast my vote!

I dont want to go into a big political discussion so we'll keep it pretty light hearted. I feel that i am a pretty representative of lots of voters. I knew who i wanted for President, Senate, and for many of the ammendments, but what about the other 50 things on there. I guess CO has one of the longest ballots in the US 4 pages long!

Things I had no clue about. There were local reps up... none of whom i had even heard of. All these judges... again no clue. Some local tax increase proposals, again no clue!

I was thinking that this seems like a great marketing oportunity to basically steal an election. I know only certian things get TV ads... every 5 seconds i see one, but a majority of issues are not covered. This brings up an interesting strategy for me.

If i was going to try and pass a measure or get elected for an office that receives basically no media attention. Just do the normal stuff and do nothing else until the closing weeks. Then like a day or two before early voting begins or right before the polls open start a massive push. Hang signs, get someone to write something in the local paper that people just browse. "Vote yes on 62 and help the kids too!" or soemthing. Put it on signs by the roads, by a super market.. whatever. Just keep a short simple POSITIVE message out there.

I figure if i saw or heard almost anything positive about some of this stuff I would vote based on that... I'm guessing many casual people like me would do the same. Plan it, do it, steal it. Election won... welcome to local office, new taxes, whatever it may be.

They didnt cover THAT in science class.

2008-10-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Space...the final frontier... the great abyss. Its something that most of us were at some point in our lives interested in... well at least you were intrigued... well i guess at minimum you've heard of space.

Anyway many a great (and horrible) plot has included intergalactic travel as a central setting, but they seem to not mention one universal concept that governs... well basically everything. TIME.

I'm not talking about Time in the really scientific sense with theory of relativity when in "hyperdrive". And i'm definitely not talking about the highly successful publication which named Vladimir Putin the person of the year in 2007. I'm talking about time in the way it would affect you and me.

Think of traveling today... international travel is incredible these days. Hell theres even a plane that can circle the world w/o stopping for fuel! (not commercial btw). The one issue that still has not been resolved, other then the crappy food, screaming babies, Deep Vein Thrombosis, and a general lack of hot flight attendants (still have yet to have any)... anyway... Jet Lag!

Sure Jet Lag is mostly a minor inconvenience that you get over within a few days it happens. Not a big deal. Now think about what happens... There are 24 time zones so that means the biggest theoretical switch is 12 hours (I know there are more factoring in daylight savings and greenlands 1/2 hour zone or whatever). When day and night are inverted your body gets a bit confused and it takes a while to adjust.

Now think about expanding this premise of time to mars. Ok the hours might work similarly... They face the same sun, but its only about half (0.533) the Equatorial radius. so the day/night synch would be a little different. Would there be some sort of jet lag?

Now to really blow your mind... Think of traveling light years away to different galaxies! What happens to time then? Some of these universes have like 2 suns and 15 moons... wtf would happen with time zones then? Would you feel jetlag traveling light years away... even if the travel time was but a few seconds?

The final kicker is about business and communications. Right now if you do business with Asia or Europe you know about late nights/early mornings to accommodate. WTF happens intergalatically? On these shows they have communications with some base located on earth. How do you Synch hours? Esp if maybe there are more then one suns (which i would assume would mean there are two light/dark periods per day?). Logistically that is rough. Maybe have some sort of Intergalactic time standard? Or would you just have like thousands of time zones?

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it?

2008-10-09T06:00:00.000-06:00

Dont Stop Remix
Dunno what up with this song, but i do like it. just bought the album as well... interesting band.

Anyway that song has nothing at all to do with this post.

I'm writing about learning from our own history and changing our own habits. Once we get a bit set in our ways are we doomed to repetition?

What i know about people is they love routines and habits... i think i've posted before with things like weird athlete rituals.. maybe not. Anyway most of us who are out of college generally are set into a pattern... wake at 7am work 9-5, dinner at 7 sleep at 10.. whatever you know the drill. Some other people with some weird compulsive disorders have more interesting habits.

Recently since i've started a new phase in my life and have set a few new goals for myself I have tried to change some of my habits. Not that i havent tried to change before... Some of the changes include.

Cleaning up after myself on a regular basis. Pushing in maximum effort in all phases of my life. Working on my self confidence.

Is reform truly possible w/o some catalyst?

I guess the further implications of this question... will criminals always be criminals? will the unhealthy always be unhealthy? will the uneducated stay uneducated?

I hope not.

Florence 2

2008-10-08T08:00:00.000-06:00

Thursday, September 4, 3008
The train to Rome

The next morning we managed to get up relatively early (for us) to go to breakfast. Simon had a fever again so just Sko and I ended up going. Then the two of us wandered around Florence while Si slept. The first building that Scott said I HAD to see was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (or, as it was labeled on our map the Duomo). Sko insisted that it was awe inspiring, and boy was he right. It was HUGE and pretty amazing.

After staring at the giant dome for a while, we went tot his little art gallery with all these paintings by impressionist artists like Monet, Manet, Renoir, etc. It was awesome because impressionism is one of my favorite painting styles. I learned a lot too, like that even though impressionism is supposed to be sporadic and spur of the moment, a lot of the artists sketched their paintings out with lead or charcoal before painting and some even painted off of *gasp* photographs instead of the actual scenery. It was also funny to be there because if you leaned too close to a painting it set off a little alarm and everyone would look around trying to figure out who did it.

After that museum, we headed back to the hotel (the boys had found a statue - which we affectionately called the "dude" that faced our hotel and all the roads seemed to lead to this statue so we were always able to find it via him) to see if Si wanted some lunch. We walked in the room to find him showered, dressed, and sitting on the bed waiting for us - completely bored. Of course, he didn't get any rest.

After lunch, we walked around Florence some more and saw the fake David outside the Uffuzi gallery in the Palazzo Vecchio. There were also a lot of creepy people pretending to be statues. There was one dressed like Cupid that kept making kissing noises and blinking his eyes who was particularly creepy. There were also people painting in the square. I sat and watched this one guy paint an arch. It was pretty interesting.

There was also a statue there that I really liked. It was a bronze statue that really grabbed my attention because the longer I sat there staring at it, the more of it I noticed. My first view of it was from the back where I saw it was a man with winged sandals holding something in the air. As I walked around I saw that he was standing on someone and as I approached the front I saw it was a woman, and that she was headless and that her head was actually in his hand. After some reasearch back home, I found that it is the "triumphant Perseus" after he had slain Medusa.

After chilling in the sqare for a while and looking at the replica of Michaelangelo's David, I wasn't too impressed. So, I was surprised when Scott and Si wanted to go pay 10 euros to go see the actual David in it's specially made enclosure. But, we went and let me tell you something, nothing can compare to the original. It is truely an awe inspiring work of art and I will forever be grateful to Si for wanting to go there. Even though the rest of the place was totally crap, that made it all worth it.

Dinner that nightwas at a place that Si said reminded him of Cinzettis, and then we went to a stand on the street where Sko and Si got cheap beers to sip as we wandered the streets of Florence. Eventually, the beers ran out so we wandered back to our hotel and sat in the roof garden drinking the bottle of wine that we had bought in Bordeaux for Simon.

This trip has been amazing and romantic and relaxing and oh so fun so far.

We're almost to Rome now for our final adventure. It felt like this trip would never end but now it's almost over and it's a little sad but also a little nice. I miss home a bit.. and my cats.

Random Fact

2008-10-07T06:43:00.000-06:00

I've always wondered what an EP or LP is. From buying music i have figured that an EP is a pretty short album usually like 4-6 songs, but didnt really know the formal definition.

An extended play (EP) is a vinyl record, CD, or music download which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as an LP. Usually, an EP has around 10–28 minutes of music, a single has up to 10 minutes, and an album has 30–80 minutes. Mini-LPs generally contain 20–30 minutes of music.[1] In the United Kingdom, the Official Chart Company defines a cut off between EP and album classification at 25 minutes length or four tracks (plus alternative versions of featured songs).[2][3]
(From wiki )

Florence

2008-10-06T08:00:00.000-06:00

Also written at the Florence Train Station McDonalds on Thursday, September 4, 2008

Florence is my second favorite city so far. It's really pretty, kind of dirty, and lots of fun. We got there at around noonish and I was so exhausted that I took a nap while Si and Sko walked around. Our hotel was very nice (it was the first hotel to offer free breakfast) and it has a rooftop garden. The garden (which was my favorite part) took up 3 different levels of rooftop and was very beautiful with views of the whole city.

The boys came back around 1:30pm after discovering that the Spanish are not the only ones to take a Siesta. They had explored some church and discovered many of the Piazzas of Florence. When they came back, Si was burning up from a fever (he's had them off and on the whole trip, he was even delirious on the EuorStar) so we all chilled out and napped until dinner time.

For dinner, we found a little place that had really good (but kinda expensive) food. I had this steak in red pepper sauce and it was amazing!

After dinner, we wandered around for a bit and then ended up going to bed early. Lame, I know, but I think we needed an early night especially with Simon being sick.

Music

2008-10-02T10:56:00.002-06:00

Basically my stance on online mp3 downloading has been pretty sour over the past few years. I HATED the fact that everyone was using DRM protection and hated itunes even more because their DRM locked you to a single playback device (the ipod if you've been isolated from all media the past decade).

(at this point you can read my story or just skip to the end for recommended places to DL)

I started out downloading mp3's in HS/College as many started... as an illegal downloader. Oddly enough this was the period which i also purchased the most cd's. I would just download anything and see if i liked it and often times if i did i would purchase a CD or two by the artist.

Then the big crackdown happened and I bought into the hype that you could be caught and they would cut off your penis or whatever. So I stopped dling and didnt really buy music. Then i felt like i was getting way out of date with my music and sought new sources. I first went with emusic.com, which was a great site... all DRM free mp3's and it was like 5 bucks for 25 songs per month. The problem was that there was not much main stream music on there and after a while i couldnt find music to DL anymore.

(end of story)

More recently i've been downloading from a site called purevolume. Highly recommended if you dont mind some work. They have charts of the top artists and top downloads, but you need to kind of listen around and find what you like. Lots of it is stuff not yet on the radio, but i've recently started hearing artists I've downloaded from there getting in the radio rotation so its pretty cool.

Anther purevolume like site is http://rcrdlbl.com/. This site has much different music. I mostly find rock/alt songs on purevolume. On Rcrd Lbl i seem to find more rap/club/electro music, which is nice to give my sub some work. Again a bit of work, but they do have a weekly podcast that you can download which is sweet for your commute... they also feature links to each individual song as well.

For my radio mp3's currently i'm rockin with amazon.com and lovin it. Cheaper then itunes, they have GREAT deals. They have good albums on sale for 5 bucks. Sometimes they have some good free downloads. And its simple to have it import your songs to itunes.

Hopefully now you all can find some great free music. Note if you want to have the hot radio tunes you wont find them at the sites i listed, but if you want great music for free and to find new artists do it. I've once again found a bunch of new artists i want to support.

Pisa

2008-10-01T08:28:00.003-06:00

Continued from September 24, 2008

Pisa was our first stop and I really liked it. We walked to the leaning tower (which was a lot smaller than I thought it would be). There was a scaffolding all around it so it was a bit difficult to see, but it was very beautiful. Si and Sko made a good point though, when they said that if it wasn't for the lean, the tower wouldn't be anything special - just another tower.

As we walked up, we saw another awesome thing, the leaning tree of Pisa. Being so near to the tower must have confused the tree and made it lean at the exact angle of the tower. It was the only one though, all the other ones were perfectly straight up and down. I think that leaning tree must have gotten made fun of a lot. (If I remember, tonight I'll put the picture of it up here. I probably won't remember).

That's about all that was interesting in Pisa, except for the fact that it was a walled city ("Good for repelling zombies - unless they're inside with you, then you're in trouble"). So, after about an hour, we moved on to Florence

An amazing story.

2008-09-30T08:44:00.003-06:00

Good Guy of the Week (Taken from SI.com)

Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner.

Karen Crouse of the New York Times wrote a good feature on Warner in last Friday's paper, with a prescient story as the lead. Seems that Warner, wife, Brenda, and one or more of the Warner children have a practice the night before football games. They sit at their table in a restaurant, look over the dining room, and pick out one family. Warner then informs the wait staff that, anonymously, he'd like the dinner tab of that family of strangers added to his.

Crouse wrote the Warners have been doing this for several years "as a way of instilling in their children the joy of giving,'' and quoted Warner thusly: "We want our kids to grow up knowing that because of football we are so blessed.''
Just another reason why you can never say enough good things about Kurt Warner.

I think that is pretty awesome of him. You always only seem to hear about NFL stars getting DUI's, or getting arrested for assault charges, or complaining about not getting paid enough, or in general wanting attention and to be put in the spotlight. I know that isn't the norm and there are probably plenty of players who are really good people, but after a while of hearing all the negative you start to forget all that and just label all of them as cocks. Hopefully one day i'll be ballin enough to do some random acts of kindness like that.

Things that will get you a date

2008-09-26T08:15:00.000-06:00

I interrupt my oh-so-awesome trip posts for this special Flirty Friday episode

Well it's another Friday, and I know I've been sketchy on my Flirty Friday posts but I promise, more will be coming. The whole Flirty Friday thing originally started to help my single friends find dates (and to have just a bit of fun of course). My favoritest single friend (who graciously allows me to live vicariously through her as she tries all my crazy experimental ideas) is Single K. Lately, sheand I have been noticing a lot of things that promise to get you a boyfriend/girlfriend so we thought we'd compile a list and maybe try a few of them out.

1) Single K is an amazing cook (and baker!) and really likes to try out different recipes. One of her favorites is "You won't be single for long vodka pasta." The name of the recipe itself is pretty self explanatory. We are pretty sure it could work, if, as K puts it "I didn't only cook it for my girl friends." Any of you guys out there pasta fans?

2) Ahoy Matey! Last Friday was talk like a Pirate day, so of course we spent valuable time searching for all things piratey. And in that search we learned that being a pirate can help you lose weight, check your mental state, be a candidate, and find a date! We're working on securing a ship and crew right now, and as soon as we get her afloat on the great Colorado sea, we'll let you know how it goes.

3) While searching the net for awesome costumes for this Halloween, we came across the once innocent character of Strawberry Shortcake, turned sexy. The tagline promises that "you'll soon become his favorite treat" will it work? We'll find out, but not until next year when the theme of our annual Birthoween party will be 80's characters (this year it's super heroes and villains)!

4) Awright mate?! Having an accent is a sure fire way to get a date, according to the Mountain Dew comercial. It makes you appear smarter in situations where you would normally be an idiot and even if you don't have one, apparently you can put on a very bad one and still find a date. I'd post the ad on here but apparently it's so bad that no one has even bothered to put it online. If you find it let me know! (And FYI Single K has a very fetching Colorado accent..)

5) Finally, the cute an fluffy approach. Get or borrow a puppy. Puppies are cute and fluffy and no one can resist them. Wander around a park or sit in a cafe with your puppy and the members of the opposite sex will just flock to you. This seems to work better on girls but I've had quite a few guys come up to me when I was walking my co-worker's tiny dog too.

Funny thing about unemployment

2008-09-25T09:53:00.002-06:00

So I dont know if its just me, but ever since i finished school and came back home from europe I have no motivation to do anything. Being in-between careers at the moment I really have all the time in the world to do whatever, but I mainly choose to sit around the house, stream tv shows (some really horrible), and movies... I'm too lazy to hook up my nice TV and my playstation even tho i think video games would pass the time nicely. I dont paint, I havent been great at thinking of interesting material for the bloggy blog (sorry), hell i dont even go enjoy the sunlight outside!

I'm not really depressed at all or anything so dont put me on suicide watch or anything. I think im actaully kind of enjoying the complete nothingness that is my life... even tho i am bored outta my mind basically 12 hours of the day (24 - 8 for sleep - 1.5 for workouts - 2.5 for meals).

My big excitement was getting my wig yesterday!.... I guess that is a lie.. i had an interview with a company and think I may be close to ending this sadness that is my life.

In other unexciting personal news. Inspired partially by my trip to europe and partially out of the fact i'm realizing i cant really communicate with 1/2 my family I think I am going to make a serious push to learn korean. (I know europe and korean seem 100% unrelated except for the hundreds of korean tourists we saw there, but trying to pick up bits of each language was actually pretty fun)

I havent come up with a plan on how exactly i am going to master the language, but that is soon to follow!

A shout out to big Si who turns older today, but I am not yet able to classify him an "old man"... soon my friend... and watch yourself on the kart track big boy.

Genova - The Armpit of Italy?

2008-09-24T08:04:00.000-06:00

Getting bored of my travels? Too bad. Here is some more!

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Florence Train Station - McDonalds

So, I only saw it at night but Genova is a scary place. Our hotel concierge actually told us that one of the streets was "off limits, you no go there." We saw one "lady of the night" peddling her wares on a corner, and as Sko said, "when you see 4 sex shops in one quarter mile of street, you know you're deep in the ghetto."

We ate dinner at a little Italian pasta shop (probably owned by the mafia - although they were very nice) that said "Open all the time" in the window and then slept in our little hotel. Get this, the hotel elevator was in a cage. It was scary! Si and I rod up in it (it couldn't really fit Scott). Simon thought he was going to die. I thought it was awesome.

Genova was always just a stopover for us so early the next morning we headed out on the train to Florence, via Pisa. It was a pretty scary place for me overall but I didn't see much of it and what I did see was at night when I was tired and paranoid so if one of you has been there and has another opinion, I'd love to hear it. Incidentally, that same magazine that recommended Marseille as a place to visit recommended Genova as well..

Another reason I might have been so freaked out was because, ever since I finished the only book I brought, I've been sharing the one that SKo brought with him. It was one that Kaitie recommended to both of us and then told me not to read. It's called World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks and if you know anything about me, you'd already know that a zombie apocolypse is one of my biggest fears.

The book takes place after the horror of the zombie wars and tells the stories of those who survived. The post apocolyptic world is a bleak place my friends. Now the only question that remains is would YOU survive a zombie attack? Scott and I keep discussing this as we travel through Europe.

"This candlestick would make a good zombie fighting weapon." "These stairs might be hard to destroy but at least there are heavy duty fire doors at the top." "Do you think this rooftop would be a good place to hide from zombies?" "Not if that got onto that roof there, they could just jump right down!"

My nightmares about zombies attacking have taken on whole new dimensions and I wake up more and more tired and paranoid every day but I can't stop reading the book. It's that good.

Although, to be fair, the tiredness could also be due to excitement about what we're going to see next, late nights, and/or lots of wine...

Cold? Its not just you!

2008-09-23T13:04:00.003-06:00

Hey sorry i've just been plain lazy. This should have been posted like a week ago, but whatever.

"Social isolation makes people feel physically cold, find University of Toronto psychologists Chen-Bo Zhong, PhD, and Geoffrey J. Leonardelli, PhD."

Science is incredible these days!

Basically the article suggests that people who feel lonely/left out can often feel cold... or want hot beverages (i feel is related to feeling cold) I guess this brings new meaning to giving someone the "cold shoulder".

The article is short.. brings up some interesting implications.

Day 2 in Cassis, France

2008-09-22T08:41:00.005-06:00

Why does this place merit 2 blog posts? I have to say, it was my favorite place on the whole trip. So really it deserves a million posts!

Anyway.. continued from last Friday..

The next day we woke up and walked around the shops in the little town. We stopped and got these long paninis for breakfast/lunch. Mine had ham and cheese and it was sooo tasty. Our eating schedules were slightly off from when everyone else was eating. From my observations, they seemed to eat breakfast early - about 7-10am, and then have snacks and hot chocolate or coffee until 12. Lunch was from then until about 2, then they had wine and other driniks and small snacks until they open up for dinner from about 7-11pm and most people seemed to eat around 9 or 10.

After paninis and a bit of shopping, we went on a boat tour to the calanques, these beautiful white cliffs that are shaped like the fingers on your hand jutting out into the ocean, with the webbing between your fingers being the beaches. The beaches that we saw are beautiful and pure white and it looked like the only way to get to them was either a very long hike down or a boat trip. We didn't stop on any of the beaches there however but we did throw bread into the water and we got to see all the pretty fishies come up to eat it.

When we returned to the shore, the heat was so unbearable that we had to go to the little rock beach by our hotel. It seemed like all of Cassis felt the same way because it was packed! But we found a decent spot on some rocks and Scott and I dived in while Si watched. The water was really cool and refreshing and as usual the feeling of weightlessness in the salt water was awesome. I swam for a bit and layed in the sun a bit and jumped off a little cliff into the water and it was all really really fun. Scott and Si kept a running total of the topless girls on the beach. It was pretty interesting. After a while, Si and I went to take a nap while Sko chilled at the beach for a while longer.

Dinner that night was at a small side street restaraunt, we found that all the best places we ate were off of random little streets. We stayed there from opening until last call (which wasn't too late because it was a Sunday). It was a pretty good meal and we managed to order it all in French so that was good too. We finished two bottles of wine there at the hotel and then drank the bottle of white Bordeaux that Sko and I had bought for Simon and hauled all the way to Cassis (not easy when you're backpacking it). That night, we played UNO (which we got in a McDonald's happy meal) until we were too tired (or drunk) to stay awake any longer, and went to bed.

In the morning, we woke up, packed and checked out of the hotel. Since the train station was a pretty good walk, we opte for a taxi and while we waited for it to come we went for another French pizza. It really seems like we ate more Italian food in France than actual French food...

Eventually the taxi came and SKo was really excited about the car.. it was a nice car.. I think... anyway, that was the end of Cassis and the beginning of a full day of travel. We caught the first train to Touloun and then another to Nice and finally one to Genova where we were to spend a quick night and then catch the early morning train to Pisa.. but that's another blog post.

Marseille and Cassis

2008-09-19T08:53:00.004-06:00

Monday, September 1, 2008
Train to Genoa, Italy

So, we saw Marseille for about an hour and my first impression was that it was dirty and slightly ghetto but one of the travel magazines I read said that it was a "must see" place. Although, they might have been getting a cut of tourism there or something.

Anyway, we were going to meet up with Simon in Marseille but his train was getting in three hours later than ours so we decided instead to meet him in Cassis (still in France). The dirtiness of the train station and surrounding area helped with that decision as well as the huge flight of stairs that we would have had to walk down to get to the rest of the city (keep in mind that Scott and I had just spent two days straight walking literally non-stop, that we were carrying everything on our backs, and that we were hung over from a night of heavy drinking). So, on to Cassis we went. I had booked our hotel there on the recommendation of one of my co-workers and although I had done some research on the place, I wasn't quite sure what to expect but it was amazingly beautiful from the moment we stepped off the train.

We walked to the hotel from the train station past beautiful vineyards framed by the setting sun and through amazing lanes of trees and green hills. We got a bit lost trying to find the actual hotel but finally found it at the same time as we got our first glimpse of the sea. It was amazing.

This hotel, the Jardin d'Emile was by far my favorite. It was a collection of amazingly cute little rooms above a restaurant. Most of the staff spoke at least a bit of English and everyone was very very nice which was a refreshing change from Paris where everyone just seemed to tolerate us. For this hotel we had decided to splurge and get two rooms instead of sharing one and they were both adorable and different. Each had it's own little funky charm and they both had balconies. Even though ti was more expensive, it was totally worth it.

After we had checked in, Scott and I ordered dinner at the restaraunt and while we were eating, Simon showed up. It was so good to see him! After dinner we walked around the little town and although we got there just as everything was closing up, it was still very beautiful with its little bay and all the ships and tiny shops. That night we went to bed with our windows open and the sea breeze blowing in.

(this is a long entry so I'm going to save the rest for later).

P.S. Yesterday was my Granny's birthday, so I just wanted to say a special Happy Birthday to her!!! (Don't worry, I actually called her on the day, and sent her flowers!!)

Bordeaux, France

2008-09-17T08:15:00.006-06:00

4 euro Cokes. Actually probably the best deal on cokes for the whole trip.

Saturday, August 30, 2008
Train to Marseille

We keep going past these "forests" of huge trees only the trees are all planted in perfectly straight rows. It's really weird. Does anyone have any idea why these exist? Are the French so orderly that even their forests have to be in pristine lines? It's weird.

ANYWAY!

Bordeqaux was awesome. We arrived just as it was getting dark and we wandered around pretty much aimlessly until we found our hotel, which was in an AMAZING area. It was right near the huge shopping center in Bordeaux, a few steps from a really pretty fountain, and about two minutes from the beautiful river! All of that kind of made up for the fact that it was kind of a crap hotel. Well, I liked it. I thought it was very .. homey.. but Sko thought it was crap.

My camera gasped it's last dying breath as I tried to take photos of all the beautiful things around Bordeaux. It's cell phone pictures from here on out..

The area we were in is called the Triangle and it is full of cute little shops. We went shopping there and I got this super awesome shirt for 3 euros and some clothes for Simon. We basically spent the whole day walking around. We never really stopped except to eat and even then it wasn't for more than 15 minutes. 15 hours of walking! When I get home, I'm going to be in awesome shape.. well if I can stop eating all the amazing food!

We went on a wine tour, saw archaeological digs, an old lady accosted me and tried speaking some kind of French to me, walked through the ghetto, and every meal was a picnic. We did stop around midday to drink $8 cokes which, I feel, were worth it.

Our view as we sat by the river and drank wine

That night we sat by the river and drank wine and ate cheese, olives, and bread. There was this cool fountain by the river that was a basin about 1/2 an inch deep. It would slowly fill up with water until it was like a mirror. It would stay like that for a while and then slowly drain out and suddenly shoot mist into the air. Little kids and adults and anyone who was watching would get up and run through it when the mist started shooting up. It was amazing. There were two guys with two dogs, one was little and one was huge. The little dog tried to attack the mist while the big dog cowered in fear.

The fountainy mist

When the wine ran out we ambushed the guy at the hotel and got us some more. Our wine count ended up being 2 1/2 bottles of red Bordeaux by the time the night was over.

This morning, we were hung over and forgot what time our train left so we had to rush out of the hotel and to the train station. We made it to our train in time though! Mostly my panic was that I wouldn't get to see Simon if we missed our train. I hate being away from him! But it's ok, we're on the train to Marseille and then to Cassis where we will stay for 2 nights. I'm really looking forward to Cassis, they have a beach and I think it will be my favorite place. Plus I'll get to see Simon! Hooray!

In a funk... and sports = culture?

2008-09-16T00:17:00.002-06:00

I've been in a bit of a funk for the last week... just overall very unproductive... feel like theres nothing worth doing. I'm ready to get a job and get all that crap started, but little motivation to look for a job. Nothing but sitting around in front of the computer or working out seems very appealing... strange... if anyone has any funk breaking advice i'm all ears.

I was watching some good ole NFL Football this weekend and got to thinking about how it really is almost a metaphor for our culture. Football really encapsulates where we are as a society... good and bad.

1. Show me the money! - Face it, we love money... its doesnt hafto be a bad thing its just a thing about us. We buy brands so we can show off our status... we watch tv shows that idolize the life of rich people, no matter how much someone makes they generally think they should/could make more. The sport reflects that ideal. the players, the teams... its all a big business now. Some of the pioneers of the sport may have played for the love of the game, but in the modern day of long term holdouts and record breaking contracts its hard to deny that many players care more for the $ then for the game.

2. Media rocks our socks! - I see TV and Sports really as two separate entities that could exist separately, but that have a synergy when combined. I think sports has fueled the rise of TV (shown still by the ratings sports pull, and how many new TV's are bought before the superbowl). I think tv has also fueled sports... example see the rise of the xgames. But along with this wonderful relationship we also get commercialism... NFL is all commercials... from the minute pregame starts to the final gun you are bombarded with messages.

3. I want it NOW! - Football is also all about the now. We find offense more exciting... ok we'll make a bunch of rules to make it easier to score. You want big hits? we'll develop new drugs to beef em up. Baseball might have started as americas sport, but as tastes changed more people turned to football for the bang for the buck.

4. Root root root for the runt! - We all love to root for the underdog or watch the little guy overthrow the giant... football basically gives you that every week. Someone gets injured and the undrafted pick comes in and has the game of his life. Teams that are given no chance to win a game come through and score in the closing seconds. People eat that shit up.

I think if you really take a look at dominant sports in other cultures you might find similar parallels. Soccer is not as fast paced.. a little more easy going... its not our culture, but it does hold true in other places.

Paris! (photos coming soon)

2008-09-15T09:05:00.003-06:00

Thursday, August 28, 2008
Train to Bordeaux

Where does the time go? Paris is behind us and it feels like we have spent a month there rather than just two nights. The Europe Hotel, where we stayed, was quaint but I liked it. IT was close to a metro stop and had a window that faced the street. In the morning when we woke up, a market had appeared as if by magic right outside our hotel. We browsed that for a while and then went to a little cafe for breakfast.

French is not easy, let me tell you, and it is scary and difficult to be in a country where you do not speak the language, but everyone has been relatively nice, and I wouldn't trade this trip for anything.

For breakfast, we had croissants and other breads and the best hot chocolate I've ever had in my life. It was truly amazing. Yum!

After breakfast, we walked to the Eiffel Tower, and then up 700 stairs to the 2nd floor. The view was amazing and we could have gone higher up but we decided not to. After that we went to see the Arc de Triomphe and the street attached to it with all the shops. I didn't buy anything because it was all super expensive but we did see some awesome stuff like designer cars (photos coming soon)

We had lunch at a place called "Pizzaria" which was pretty good. It was neat how it was set up too, it was situated on a corner and when we first walked in it looked pretty small but had about 4 levels so it was actually a lot bigger than it looked. After a hearty lunch of pizza and salad, we went back to the hotel to get ready for our big night out at the Moulin Rouge!

We took the metro to the Moulin Rouge and as we walked up, we saw the recognizable windmill which really helped build the excitement. The show was pretty much awesome in every way. It had pirates, girls swimming with snakes, and feathery costumes. My favorite part was with the pirate men and the tall boots but it made me sad that they weren't nearly as naked as the girls. I'm not sure if it was worth the amount of money we threw down for it, (I've never paid that much for entertainment in my life!) but it was really good! Finally, after 4 hours of awesomeness, we went home.

That night, we went back to the eiffel tower and just sat in the park staring at the light show. It was pretty neat and very relaxing. There were a lot of people there just drinking and playing guitar and having fun and I really enjoyed it. We even saw a rat! Which I thought was awesome, loving ratatouille as much as I do.

The next day we saw the Louvre and some other random things along the way. Apparently we had been right near it when we went to the Arc de Triomphe and we didn't even know it! We didn't go in because the line was too long but we peeked into the windows.

When we got tired of taking photos and saying random things when people were video recording stuff , we went for a nice walk along the river with the end goal of seeing the Notre Dame Cathedral. Along the way I bought some art from a guy selling it off the street. When we finally got to the Cathedral, Simon said he was disappointed because he was expecting something more. But then again, he thought the phantom of the opera and the hunchback of Notre Dame were the same things so he must have been expecting something pretty fantastic. I love him so much!

And so, after a few minutes of staring at the building, we wandered the streets of Paris for a little while until we had to head to the train station. It was at this point that Simon left us to go to a wedding and Scott and I headed on to Bordeaux alone...

Carpe Diem

2008-09-12T08:47:00.001-06:00

There is no post today in order to allow me to honor a part of my IB family that is gone forever.

Eternity Ahead... plan accordingly

2008-09-11T06:00:00.000-06:00

I saw some preview for "Ghost Town" (The Trailer)... actually i saw it like 15 times since it was on like every commercial break during the news... anyway what got me thinking was one particular line where the dude says "you wear what you died in" and i thought that was an interesting concept. Sure most people hear the line and think oh.. that makes sense... and i think its portrayed like that lots of places, but me being me i thought of the implications of this idea.

1. Knowing that what you died in would be what you wear forever... would this effect your daily clothing choices?
Obviously i know little to nothing about the afterlife... since im living... but lets say people "there" (wherever that is) do care about what you're wearing... wouldnt you want to impress? You only get one chance to make a first impression right?

What if you were wearing an outfit that you just didnt particularly like.. not that it looks bad.. just not good... would that be annoying? Like halloween.. what if you were stuck as a slutty nurse?

How tired would you get of seeing yourself wearing the same thing daily?

2. Would your clothes get dirty?
Since you're wearing the same thing every day would the clothes wear, get dirty, get wrinkled? or imagine if you had a big stain on the shirt you were wearing when you died... would that stick around?

3. Would you prefer to go out in something that looks nice or something that is incredibly comfortable?
This is an important question... I know i often look pretty fly out on the town, but thats not always the most conformable thing
to wear... i generally lounge in the basketball shorts and t-shirt. What if you had to wear a shirt that had an itchy tag FOREVER... how much would that suck?

4. What happens if you died naked in the shower or something?
Not much to say here, but i think its a valid question.

August 26, 2008 - London

2008-09-10T08:00:00.001-06:00

Tower of London. Not actually a tower, actually more like a castle.

More from the trip!! More pictures will come soon, my camera died right after Paris and Si and Sko have most of the photos so I just have to wait for them to give me some and I'll post them.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
EuroStar train to Paris

So yesterday was an awesome day full of fun. We arrived in london by noon and dropped our bags off at the hotel. Then, with our new friend, Tannis the Canadian in tow, we went to the Tower of London where we saw the crown jewels, some Ravens, various weapons, and a plethora of torture devices.

After a fun filled few hours there, Tannis had to leave for an appointment and we went shopping!! I got this awesome sweater and two shirts and SKo got pants and a shirt. Tannis met up with us again while we were shopping and we all went out for dinner at the most expensive Indian restaurant ever. I didn't really like it but Simon seemed to. Tannis left us for good after dinner because she had to work (which was a shame because she seemed to really like SKo) and we headed out to look for a club. We actually didn't have to work very hard though because one actually found us. Some guy who worked for the club wouldn't leave us alone until we agreed to go to his. Simon did a quick google search on his phone and found out that it was one of the best clubs in London or something so we ended up going. It was pretty cool. It had two dance floors, a bunch of trendy places to sit, and really expensive drinks.

Here's some news for you ladies back home, British guys seem to think that all American girls are HOT! Just so you know.

Further along in the night, we concocted a bet as to whether a certain guy was gay. Turns out Simon lost the bet. His name was Nick and he was from Liverpool and thought I was super hot. He was cute as well and reminded me a bit of someone I know but he really couldn't hold a candle to Simon.

Losing the bet was not the only action Simon got that night. I had gone to the bathroom and returned just in time to see one of the low-cut shirted, short skirted bar girls pouring the boys a drink so, not wanting to be involved in that (as I was already feeling quite tipsy myself), I stood back to observe. She gave Scott a shot then moved on to Simon. I watched trying not to laugh as she poured it directly into Simon's mouth and then kissed him on the cheek. That's when Simon's eyes looked over to me and he said "Yeah, that's my wife right over there." That's when she sort of blanched and said "OH SHIT, really?" and turned around with a horror struck look on her face. For the next five minutes she proceeded to tell me that she was married too but that her boss wouldn't let her wear the ring and the kiss meant nothing and that she was really sorry. I think Simon was hoping to get some free shots because he knows I am not a jealous person. In the end though, she charged us for the shots anyway so she must not have been too sorry.

Still, it was hilarious!

Late that night, we got back drunk and hungry so Sko and Si went looking for a McD's that was open while I passed out on the bed. Apparently, they never found one (which isn't surprising since those boys have no sense of direction) either that or it was closed and Sko ended up urinating on public property.

The next day, we DID find an open McD's and a cheeseburger cured me of any hangoverness so we went on to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliment, Westminster Abby, Tower Bridge, and a whole bunch of other touristy things in London. My favorite parts were the statue guys and the guy who juggled. Scott even got to be part of one guy's show.

Apparently for the rest of today, Si and Sko aren't swearing or saying anything they wouldn't say in front of their grandmothers. It's so cute how they try to substitute words in for the ones they don't want to say. Don't tell them, but I think it's hilarious!

And now, off to Paris!

Un-plugging

2008-09-09T07:42:00.003-06:00

Communication has totally changed. I'm sure this is not news to anyone who has been living in the last 20+ years to see the rise of email, internet, and cell phones, but many times the change is so gradual that you dont really think about it. As we paraded around europe my goal was to basically completely unplug no cell phone, no email, no facebook.. very old school.

I was 98% successful. I sent my mom an email (since she didnt answer when i called home) and checked my email once otherwise only reading something i thought was important... which consisted of like 3 emails from family.

I sent a postcard, but i guess that is a pretty horrible method of communication since i beat my postcard home. (The card took a week to get home).

So I've come to the conclusion that even tho so much of the new technology is really over used and we're far too dependent on it in the end it really really does help us communicate. (putting all the issues of too much spam and miscommunications over email aside)

To contrast my journey.. my travel mates bought a data plan for their phones, which they used to email and post on facebook (as i noticed when i got back). It worked out well i guess there were more then a few times we needed it, but mostly only to use the google maps when we were lost, but overall i was happy not to have it all.

Unfortunately this exercise didnt really change any of my habits since I've been on the internet as much as normal in my one day back.

We're back!!

2008-09-08T18:02:00.011-06:00

This blog post is dedicated to Sam who has been waiting patiently for me to get back so she can hear all about the awesome trip. In order to fully regale you with the tales of my travel, I faithfully recorded everything the old fashioned way. Sko, I'm sure, will add his comments as well. So here goes! I'll stick to one post a day but the first few I wrote were really short, so as a special treat, you get two!

August 22, 2008

Sitting in the cowboy bar of Terminal A in DIA and it's pretty darn exciting. I think the excitement leading up to the trip is the most potent because you're amped up and fresh from a good night's sleep.
Plus you have all these expectations of what is going to happen. I think this trip is going to be full of that kind of excitement though because we are going to so many places.

We'll constantly be expecting the next location. I have to just keep reminding myself to appreciate where we are and to live in the moment or I may spend the whole time anticipating and miss all the good stuff!

Monday, August 25, 2008
Train Station in Peterborough, England

The boot club

We're waiting for the train for London right now. This nice Canadian girl sat near us asked us where we are from and told us that she was happy to hear us because she's sick of British accents. I don't blame her too much, she's been here for 6 months and that would make anyone homesick.

Pubbing it up

Simon's parents live in a village in the country called Little Bytham. It has a bunch of cottages, a little shop, and the postoffice recently closed because it was too tiny. Staying with Simon's parents is always awesome and this time was no exception.

Ground Zero for Zombies

Went to the pub a lot, got to bond with Charlotte, and got to see hot air balloons lift off only 100 feet away from me. I got wasted at the pub trying to keep up with Charlotte and ended up hurting my toe on the walk back. I'm pretty sure I sent some drunk text messages to people so I'm interested in seeing my phone bill this month, also I'm sorry if you are one of the ones that recieved them. I'm also sorry if you didn't, it doesn't mean I don't love you.

The redbull mini

The next day we went to Stamford where we saw a car show and did a bit of shopping. After that it was off to London.

This is it...

2008-08-21T09:47:00.002-06:00

Leaving the country tomorrow, but to get you through the hard times i found this interesting site

http://www.disposableflasks.com/

Seems like an interesting business model.

Anyway the random thought i will leave you with....

People seem pretty high on this plug in hybrid idea, but i see a few potential flaws with this craze.
a) Is the power that comes from the grid that much cleaner then gasoline/hybrids? (US still runs on COAL in many parts)
b) With rolling blackouts still in the news do we think millions of plug in vehicles will help that situation?
c) What about all these batteries? Can we safely dispose of the newer even bigger batteries?
d) With the rising price of energy in the home will it really be that much cheaper? (plays off of B a bit)
e) With the premium they will come with is it really economically viable to people other then the super rich? (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0925/csmimg/p3a_popup.gif) *note image is from 2006 so the figure may be different now
f) Will people revert back to old wasteful driving habits? (-> more people on the road -> more traffic -> diminishing returns cuz of time spent in traffic and more people charging their cars every night)

Maybe im just a bit of a pessimist, but i've never really been fully convinced on this so called "Zero emissions" car... there definitely is some emissions somewhere. Who knows im not really still convinced by hybrids... i still stand by my "laserdisk" analogy. (*for those not familiar it was a technology that came between VHS and DVD... it opened the gateway, but was quickly surpassed by superior DVD and CD technology).

It's all in your head

2008-08-13T14:31:00.000-06:00

stolen from http://www.weirdasianews.com/2006/11/08/japanese-banquet-of-cannibalism/

So, my posts haven't been as frequent as they should have been, sorry! Allergies have been kicking my butt this week and it is an effort to even be able to walk right now.

Luckily I'm getting out of the country in 9 that's right NINE days. That's right, I'll be gone and you'll be here, reading my blog.. oh wait, did I mention my Ko writer will be coming with me as well? And unfortunately for me, I'm not rich enough to be able to afford internet service on my phone over there so posts will be infrequent at best. However! I am keeping a paper journal which I'll type out for all you loverly people when I return! Oh, and don't worry about my house being empty because it won't be. Dr. Rufous, my giant attack Great Dane will be there making sure things are kept safe.

But, I have some cool stuff for you today!

Now there is something new for all those people who think that video games promote laziness and sloth to complain about and the lazy to take joy in. Why exercise your thumbs when you can just sit in front of a tv and move things with.. YOUR MIND!?! This new headset picks up electric signals from your head and translates them into something that the game can understand! Wow! If only that could happen in real life!

Or, for all you budding cannibals out there, this restaurant is sure to make your mouth water. Based on the tradition of eating food OFF ladies, now you can eat food from INSIDE a lady. Granted, she's made of bread, but disgustingly enough, when you cut her open red "blood" flows out whild you choose the juciest morsels and chow down! Yum yum!

That's all the interesting things I feel like sharing with you today, but come back tomorrow for more from Scotty AND of course another awesome flirty friday in two days!

Olympic sized problem

2008-08-12T08:50:00.001-06:00

I am having some serious issues lately... Meaning the last 3 days. The olympics are on 14 hours ahead of the usa which means almost everything i see is tape delayed. Even the 'live' events are an hour delayed in my time zone!

I mentioned my love of the games before, but in case you underestimated me i have watched basically every minute of olympic coverage on nbc plus some stuff online when they were off air. My problem is that i fear anything that may give results away. I am so crazy that i avoid the internet all day and only try to check at 11 pm after coverage ends.

Btw the picture is the chipotle ball. Made entirely of burrito wrappers. Something that started as a bit of a joke at work, but turned into a weekly ritual. One day the hope is it will get huge and we will bring it in and get free burritos.

Flirty Friday - Special Guest Writer

2008-08-08T08:00:00.001-06:00

This Flirty Friday we have a special guest author, Detective Lassie of the SBPD!!! He will be writing from his unique perspective on first dates and how to protect your heart. (ok so he wrote it in his own blog at http://www.usanetwork.com/series/psych/blogs/lassiter20.html but it was so awesome that I just had to post it here as well)

JULY 25, 2008
A FEW NOTES ON FIRST DATES

First dates are a lot like traffic stops. You are walking into the potentially lethal unknown and you never get a second chance at a first impression. You must always approach with extreme caution. The subject may appear to be a single soccer mom on the way to the Coffee Bean for muffin tops and non-fat lattes, but looks can lie.

Have your weapon at the ready and easily accessible but not out in plain sight. You don't want to scare the subject into making a stupid move that ends up hurting the both of you in the end. Approach from the rear of the vehicle with your body at an angle, preferably 45 degrees to the driver.

As you get nearer, and the subject comes into view, begin an immediate visual assessment:

Do the luxurious blonde locks begin with grey roots? She's not really 28.
Are there slight hairline scars behind the ears? Already had a facelift.
Is there a partially exposed breast tattoo of an angel sitting on a crescent moon or a butterfly? Hippie or a folk singer...
A few illegible letters in faded blue ink on the left hand where the thumb and forefinger meet? She's spent time in Juvi.
A tattoo of a single teardrop under one eye, barely visible under too much Avon concealer? She's done hard time.

Once you have made your cursory visual assessment and gotten a rough idea of who she is vs. who she wants you to think she is, engage her verbally. A simple, polite, yet firm greeting will suffice: 'Good evening'. A curt response is a pretty good indicator that your encounter may not go as smoothly as you had hoped. Press on.

Ask a question: 'Do you know why I stopped you?' People love to talk about themselves and this will take the focus off you and allow you time to think of your next verbal attack.

'Where are you headed in such a hurry tonight? This simple question and subsequent follow-ups will reveal volumes.

Here are some examples:

Subject states she is en route to a nearby TGI McThirstys:

'Yes, I'm fond of their ribblets. Meeting the girls for a few wine spritzers or perhaps your husband/boyfriend?'

Subject states she is en route to pick up her children at the sitters:

'How many kids do you have? Dad's not in the picture, huh? That must be very difficult being a single mother. How old did you say they were?'

Subject states she is en route to the grocery store:

'Such a large SUV must hold enough groceries to feed a family of 10. How many kids do you have?' Or, 'Such a large SUV to hold one little bag? That's gotta hurt at the pump. Does your husband pump the gas?' Or, 'What's on the menu tonight? Do you like Indian food?' You're not a vegetarian, are you?'

Subject states she is en route to the local hospital to read and sing to the sick children:

'That's a bad part of town, would you like a police escort? Come to think of it, I play a little harmonica myself and the Departments always looking for new PR opportunities, maybe we could get together for coffee and work on a few number together? You know, for the Kids?'

While engaged in the interrogation/conversation, it is imperative to stay just behind the driver at the afore mentioned 45 degree angle. This will allow you to stay in a protected, offensive, power position. Never expose your chest parallel to the subject. Kevlar can only protect your heart and other internal organs from so much.

simple question....

2008-08-07T10:30:00.002-06:00

If you need to travel say... 2 blocks on foot... and its raining outside... not that hard.. just a normal rain.... do you get less wet if you run or the same wetness?

The theories...

A) If you run you're outside less time -> Less wet
B) If you run you're just running faster into the water -> hitting more water -> More wet

Im sure someone will find the science or some logic that will solve it.. have at it!

New fitness regime

2008-08-06T09:51:00.003-06:00

As our Euro-trip gets closer I am stepping up my fitness regime. Now, not only am I trying to get some kind of cardio exercise in the evening, but I'm starting to jog in the morning.

Jogging in the morning really opens your eyes to a whole other kind of people in the world, people I had heard about but that I thought didn't really exist. Morning people. Morning people are cheery and happy in the mornings, they greet the day with a smile and tell their good friend sunshine a cheery "hello!" They make me sick. And that's not even the worst part about them, they talk to you more when you're jogging by than people do in the afternoon. "Off for a jog eh?" "It's going to be a beautiful day isn't it?" "Nothing like some exercise to start your day, wish I had that kind of energy!"

It's just unnatural! You should not be happy in the morning. Nothing about interrupting your blissful sleep cycle early and getting ready for another day of drudgery should in any way make you feel good. The worst part? After jogging through the brainwashingly sunny energy of these people, I actually started to feel a little happy myself! I even found myself starting to respond to those disgustingly friendly waves with little waves of my own! EUGH!

As you might be able to tell, I'm a night person. I go through the day in a misty haze of half-wakefulness, hating all those who are cheery and happy - especially early in the morning. Then, as the day turns into evening I finally start to emerge from that haze reaching full wakefulness around 6 or 7 or so. It's a little inconvenient since I have to get up at 6am in order to fit the jog in and to get to work on time but it's just the way I am. I don't think I could change it.. or that I want to. On weekends I like to go out or stay up until about 2 or 3am and then subsequently to sleep in until noon or 1. My favorite part? Missing the entire morning, oh and having cereal at lunchtime.