Tuesday, June 24, 2008

It Don't Mean a Thing
If it ain't got that swing

As I walked into the grocery store last night, my cellphone rang. It was Sarah, who must have just finished bowling (she's in a new bowling league).

"Hey, Sarah."

"Hi. I was wondering if you wanted ot meet up for frozen custard, or something." (Michael's Frozen Custard is next door to my apt)

"Sure. Guess where I am right now?"

"Where?"

"Copp's. I'm buying orange juice."

"Hey, I'll meet you there. I need to get stuff for dinner tomorrow."

So, I hung out in the produce section a while until Sarah arrived. then I walked around with her as she gathered random food items. Aka fruit and salmon. And milk. Then we left and went to get "frozen custard."

The flavor of the day was listed as "Chocolate PB Drizzle." Sarah needed further clarification:

Sarah (to worker): "What is Chocolate PB Drizzle?"

Worker: "Chocolate ice cream with peanut butter swirled in."

I order the Chocolate PB Drizzle. Yum.

Sarah (to me): "I don't really like peanut butter."

Sarah (to worker): "I'll have a cup of chocolate ice cream with peanut butter cup topping."

Sarah, Sarah, Sarah...

So, it was really nice today, so I went out for a walk. As I walked past Sherwood Park (on Friar Lane), I was tempted by the swing set. So then I went and swung for about 20 minutes. Swinging is awesome. As I swung, I reminisced about swings.

There's the ol' "being married to the person who's swinging with you," and "getting divorced when you swing apart."

We used to have contests to see who could jump off their swing the furthest. I think I'd be scared nowadays to jump off a swing at the height I used to do it. I once jumped off my swing, got my finger caught on the chain, and had a chunk of skin ripped off my finger. That was gross. And painful.

I used to try and see if you could swing so high you'd flip over the bar. Never happened. But you do get so high as to get that jarring feeling when the swing gets a bit slack at the apex, but then quickly gets taut again as you go back down. That kinda sucked.

The BEST playground equipment in the world was this weird-ass double swing thing. I have no idea what to call it, or how to explain it. But it was seriously awesome. I tried to find a picture of it, but I don't know what search parameters to use. I don't think it was supposed to be used how we used it, because it just seems to be asking for trouble, but any other way would be lame-ass. They ended up taking it down (it was in a park near my grandma and grandpa's house)...probably because it caused too many injuries. Joleen, how would you describe it??

Monday, June 23, 2008

OJ Me
ASAP

I have an overwhelming urge to drink OJ. Unfortunately, I don't have any. I'm seriously considering driving to the grocery store to get some.

*considering*

*still considering*

All things considered (ie the fact that I'm actually blogging about this), I've decided to make an OJ run.

Must...Get...Vitamin...C...

I think it's my body attempting to prevent scurvy. Too bad I didn't buy it when I was at the grocery store earlier today buying fruit. Get this--I bought a thing of strawberries, a pound of grapes, a cantaloupe, and 5 pluots for a total of approx. $7.50. The "get this" part comes in at the part where I saved $6.50 because they were all on sale. No, I did not get everything for $1.00. I got everything for $7.50 when it should have cost $14.00. That's like...45% savings. Or something.

Ok, going to get my orange juice now...

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Tinfoil Postulations
The dangers of apartment living

There are new tenants in the apartment across from me--in the other apartment building, but we're facing each other and both have a second floor apt. Anyway, i have yet to actually see these people, but they are perplexing me because they have their windows covered with tinfoil. Why? I've come up with a few possible explanations:

1. They work at night and sleep during the day. The tinfoil on the windows keeps the sunlight out of their apt so they can sleep. Apparently, my parents did this when they lived in Alaska. Not because they worked at night, but because it was Alaska and it has weird-ass daylight/darkness hours in summer/winter.

2. They're drug dealers. Tinfoil on the windows completely blocks people from seeing what's going on inside, such as brewing meth or growing pot.

3. They're vampires and need to keep the sunlight out. Mildly related to #1. Kind of.

4. I was watching TV (watching is too strong a word...it was on and I happened to pay attention to the beginning of Criminal Minds). Anyway, my attention was drawn to the TV when it showed a creepy guy in a hooded sweatshirt inside his home, frantically taping tinfoil over his windows. Now, I'm not really watching the show and it's not over anyway, so I don't know what this guys deal is, but I DO know that directly after taping said tinfoil over his windows he went out, got a cab, shot the cabbie in the head, then stabbed him in the head via the ear and then broke the knife handle off. Eww.

So, they're either nightshift workers, drug dealers, vampires, or sadistic serial killers. For my sake, I hope it's #1. Anyone else have any theories?

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Btw, the big-ass moon thing kinda blew. But tbh*, I didn't get to actually see it until about half an hour after moonrise, so it wasn't right on the horizon (which is apparently what makes it look huge). Ahh, the woes of living in a city where you can't see the horizon... And thanks to Sarah for putting up with me interrupting our (taped) viewing of So You Think You Can Dance so I could run out and look for the moon a few times. It didn't help that we weren't exactly sure in which direction the moon was rising (I did find out that it generally rises in the same place as the sun). But is was orangy and kinda pretty. Just not especially huge.


*to be honest

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Pet Peeve
archaeology vs. paleontology

I just watched an ABC news clip entitled "Archaeologists uncover 148-million-year-old dinosaur bones."

This annoyed me. Because archaeologists don't dig up/study dinosaurs. Paleontologists do. I mean, if the "layperson" gets it wrong, fine. But to have news people screw it up when it's their JOB to get facts right, that's just lazy and annoying. And it's ABC news, for Christ's sake, not some little crappy news station. And it wasn't just the video headline--the dude on the video called them archaeologists, as well.

But then I thought, "Hey, maybe I should look into this more--maybe it was archaeologists who uncovered them while they were doing some other archaeological task." But no. Every other article I read refers to them as paleontologists (of which I'm grateful most got it right). So they clearly seem to have been paleontologists, not archaeologists (whose job is to dig up/study human remains and artifacts).

On a different news related note, if I see one more article about that stupid-ass Miley Cyrus photo shoot, I may be forced to kill myself. Seriously. Was it really that scandalous?? No. It wasn't.

Holy Gigantic Moon, Batman!!!
All the crazies must be out tonight!

Just a heads up to let people know that the (full) moon is supposed to look gigantically huge on the horizon when it rises today. Which is 9:12pm Madison-time. Just after 9:30 St. Paul-time. About 10 after 9 DC-time.

I remember this happening in high school one year. I was staying late at school working on yearbook stuff. When I left the school, the moon had started to rise and it was seriously freaky-huge. I made a joke about it being the end of the world, but inside I secretly wondered if maybe it was the end of the world and the moon was hurtling towards a collision with Earth.

So check it out. If you're into that kind of thing. Like me. 'Cause I'm a dork.

Does our moon have a name? I feel kinda bad just calling it "the moon." I mean, I know moons on other planets have names...like Io and Titan. Why do I know their names but not the name of MY moon?? Huh. According to Wikipedia, "Unlike the moons of other planets, the moon of the Earth has no proper English name other than "the Moon" (capitalized)." So it doesn't have a name, but you're supposed to capitalize it. Interesting. Now I feel better about not knowing its name. Because it doesn't have one.

I ran out of Tim Tams. My morning coffee is just not the same.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Whips and Crunchies and Tim Tams...Oh My!
Aussie Lollies

What crazy weather we've been having! The last couple of weekends have produced big storms and torrential rains, bringing tornadoes and floods upon us. The Wrath of God. He must be punishing us Wisconsinites for California allowing gay marriage. That's the only logical explanation I can think of.

My mom visited me last week. She had to find an alternate route home, as I-90 was shut down from Madison to Mauston due to flooding. But she got home ok and sent some pictures of flooded fields she passed on her way home. Way to take pictures while driving on the highway, Mom! :)
While Madison did get a lot of rain (we already broke the all-time June rainfall record before half the month was over), we were spared the worst of the storms. No tornadoes in Madison, but lots of small touchdowns in nearby towns (although none were too bad). No flooding to my knowledge in Madison, but lots of bad floods in the area. It looks beautiful here today! Although I guess the sewage treatment plant had too high water levels, and some sewage was beginning to seep into Cherokee marsh, Lake Monona, and Lake Mendota. Ewww.

Here's a picture of my balcony during one of the rain storms (and no, Sarah, I have not yet spoken to my landlord about this. I know, I know...):


My mom brought Wicket with her on her visit here. Wicket would stand immobile on my balcony for hours (literally) staring between the wood planks at a bird's nest, I think. It was very humorous.

Joleen sent me some lollies from Australia. They're yummy. I really enjoyed the Crunchie bar (Sarah hated it). The Whip bar was good, too--It was like a higher quality Milky Way bar. The best have to be the Tim Tams. They're these chocolate wafery things, with various fillings. She sent me double chocolate ones and caramel ones. The most awesome way to eat them is by biting the ends off of them and using them like a straw to suck up your coffee. That's called a Tim Tam Slam. A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Sometimes you get a Tim Tam that doesn't do a very good job of sucking up the coffee...like a straw with a hole punched in it. Sometimes I get greedy and try to suck up too much coffee, saturating the Tim Tam past the point of cohesiveness and have half of it fall into my mug. :( Like when you dip your Chips Ahoy or Oreo in milk too long.


I went to the Sex and the City movie on Friday with Sarah and Stacy. It was a'ight. On Saturday I went to the farmer's market with Sarah, then we went to Wingra Park for Jazz in the Park. It was beautiful from 1 'til 3, or so. We listened to the Edgewood jazz band. Then a big ol' thunderstorm rolled in and we left.

Riley turned 3 last week. I did not go to he party. It was Strawberry Shortcake themed (her new favorite cartoon thing). Joleen had a Strawberry Shortcake themed party when she was 4. I guess Riley has imaginary friends. They have bizarre names-- Toodoo, Ja, and Cunny. And another that mom couldn't remember. Toodoo and Ja are boys who live in Florida. She had to go to "the land" to rescue Cunny from...something. Joleen had imaginary friends. Genuine, who I guess she called Genue. And a grandma named Silver Hattie...which is hilarious to me. Silver Hattie. Hahahahaha!!! I don't recall ever having an imaginary friend. Did any of yous guys?

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Thunder! Lightning!
The way you love me is frightening!

I just saw The Craziest lightning strike ever. It had a surprisingly quiet clap of thunder after it.

Isn't it weird when you sit down to watch a show that you rarely watch and it happens to be one of the few you've already seen? That happens a surprisingly high number of times. Anyone else experience this? Tonight it happened with Cold Case, Brighton's favorite show (haha). But I have to say, I liked the music in this episode, including--"Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy Division and "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran.

I have these whole grain organic spaghetti noodles. They're disgusting. No matter how you boil them, they taste like mush. And I thought you couldn't ruin spaghetti... On the plus side, my garlic bread was rockin'. And the tepid water I found on the table next to me from this morning was acceptable.

My houseplants like this humid weather. They're growing like mofos.

Holy another awesome lightning strike! This one was completely horizontal...with a nice, loud clap of thunder following soon after. I love thunderstorms. It's actually not raining at this moment, which is nice. I've already soaked through two towels I've placed on my floor to soak up the rain that splatters in my apartment with my door open. It's too hot to not have it open.

God, the fuckin' moth is back. Huh, he already left. That was a quick knock.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Fighting For Your Rights
In the ol' red, white, and blue!

Mr. Moth is back. He's late tonight--11:45.

I read a news article today about Lynda Carter finding a body in the Potomac river. Which brought back memories of watching Wonder Woman after school back in the day. [In case you don't know, Lynda Carter was Wonder Woman]


Then I was laughing thinking about her various weapons. She has indestructible bracelets that she uses to deflect bullets. Her tiara doubles as a sort of boomerang weapon. And my personal favorite is her Lasso of Truth. Yep. She has a lasso, that when wrapped around someone, it forces them to tell the truth. How odd. I also love that she has an invisible jet--but it's only the jet itself that's invisible, it doesn't turn HER invisible when she's inside it. So you'd see a chick in a weird get-up in a sitting position flying through the air. She's apparently an Amazon woman...you'd then think she'd have a bow and arrow as a weapon. But she doesn't. She also has both breasts.


It's really hot and humid right now. And I can't keep my sliding door open when it rains because something's wrong with the downspouts and rain ends up splashing inside my apartment. I really need to talk to my building manager about that. And the door is the only "window" I have in my apartment.

There was a tornado today in NW MN kinda nearish my cabin. Near a town called Emmaville.

Sarah got me watching Entourage. It's enjoyable. Especially when I get it free from the library. Libraries are totally awesome.

Fucking moth is really pissing me off.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

No One's Home
Go away, please.

There's this moth that really wants to get inside my apartment. For the past three nights, at approximately the same time (10:45), I hear a very loud buzzing noise outside my screen door. Hey! It's Mr. Moth, back to doing his version of knocking on my door to gain entrance. Sorry. Not interested, fella. He usually goes at it for 5-10 minutes or so before realizing his efforts are futile.

I woke up the other morning to what sounded like machine gun fire. It turned out to only be a jackhammer, thank God. But still annoying. And loud.

Here's a slideshow I made to music. I was trying out a new program I downloaded (Sony Vegas). It's swell. The slideshow is composed of pictures of my parents when they lived in Alaska. Specifically for the year 1972. The music is Chris and Johnny (aka Storyhill)...called Paradise Lost. It's from their newish album, Joleen. Sarah and I went to see them when they were in Madison this past April. I enjoyed it. It was weird though. It was in a bar (High Noon Saloon) and there weren't many people there. A lot of them were old-ish. Anyway, without further ado, here is the video slideshow thing (which maybe only Joleen cares to watch):



Moth is back. He's really dive-bombing the door right now. I hope his skull caves in and he dies. Is that mean? :D

Sunday, June 01, 2008

The Fight of the Century!!
Sugar v. Splenda

And completing the classic epic movie, here is Part 4. This was conceived at a time when Atkins was all the rage. If you cared to know the motivation.



And that's all, folks! (Aw, shucks)