NOT in Korea!!!

Emily in Wyoming

2010-11-28T13:52:00.008-06:00

Should I change the name of the blog to Emily in Wyoming? Nah.

So, I've found an apt in Laramie, moved in, finished my first (short) week of work, and finally got Internet in my apt. Yay! Here is some info and pics for those interested. Some of you may have heard most of this, but you can deal with it.

Hard to believe the entire contents of my apartment could fit into this tiny UHaul, this SUV, and a Honda Civic:
I moved in a few weeks ago, and got freaked out during the last 45 minutes of a 14 hour drive. The portion of I-80 between Cheyenne and Laramie apparently closes quite a few times during the winter due to (primarily) blowing snow causing white-out conditions. And probably slick roads, but the white-out conditions I think are more of a problem. Anyway, the road closed later that evening and until later the next morning, but not before I started driving on it. There were literally times when I was driving when I couldn't see a thing. Literally nothing. My mom was taking pictures, but when it got really bad I yelled at her to stop because I was so freaked out. But we didn't die, and we made it to Laramie okay. My dad (with the UHaul) was a day behind us, and he had to hunker down in Cheyenne for a few hours before the road opened. But he made it okay, too.

We drove through Cheyenne very quickly. Here's the capitol...hey look! They're Badger fans! :D

The drive between Cheyenne and Laramie: After it was really bad, and before it got really bad.

We took a drive on a National Scenic Byway that runs through the Snowy Mountain Range...but it had actually closed the week previous for the winter (not to reopen until June), so we drove on it as far as we could...here's where the road closed. I think it was at about 10,000 feet:

A view of Laramie:

More Laramie area photos:

I started work last Monday. It was a short week because of Thanksgiving. I only had to work Monday-Wednesday. Even though it was only 3 days, I really like it so far. Everyone who works there seems really nice. They hired another person at the same time as me (with the same job), and she's nice as well. I think she's having a harder time adjusting than I am. The altitude seems to be bothering her more than me (she gets dizzy, and had a lot of bloody noses on her first day of work...due to the dry weather and altitude). Also, she's from Texas, so she's not used to the cold and snow. She's never driven in snow before.

This is the building I work in. Interesting:

Our job is to process archival collections that are primarily from the depression era...but a lot of different people/topics. Currently, we are re-processing a 400 cubic foot collection (!) of Joseph O'Mahoney, a democratic senator from Wyoming during the 30s-50s.

I hooked up my TV and digital receiver and found that I only got 2 channels--both PBS. So I decided to get cable along with Internet. I haven't had cable in 3 years! I've been preoccupied watching TV the last week. I hope the novelty wears off.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my apartment. It's 2 bedrooms...but still cheaper than my Madison apt.

This is a 4-plex, and my apartment is the bottom one on the left. We have snow. And it just started snowing right now. They only plow a few main roads here. Luckily, I live on one of those roads, and my route to work is on all main roads. so that's nice. They don't salt or sand, either. It does seem to melt off the main roads in not too many days, however. It's pretty sunny here. Apparently, it's sunny over 300 days of the year. It's been really snowy and cloudy the few weeks I've been here, but I guess it's been pretty unusual. So I hear.

My kitchen: Who doesn't want to do laundry and cook dinner simultaneously?? The flooring is pretty ugly, and I hate the cabinets. I think I'll change the cabinet knobs, because these ones are just hideous.

My bathroom: Lots of storage/shelving, which is nice. I wish the sink counter top area was bigger, but no biggie.

The living room: Pretty good sized. Even though my apartment is on the bottom, there's lots of windows and sunlight that gets through.

My bedroom. Again, 2 big windows. A bit small, but I don't have a lot/big bedroom furniture, so it's not a problem. And between the 2 bedrooms and the 2 big hall closets, I have plenty of storage.

Bedroom number 2, that I'm using as a study/office/whatever. It's a bit smaller than the bedroom I'm using as a bedroom.

Bonus picture of what happens when you lay your forearm on a hot burner. Not fun. It blistered. Gross.
Speaking of burners, cooking here is weird. I definitely have to use the high elevation cooking instructions (Laramie is at 7200 feet). Things bake all weird, so I guess you have to add more flour AND more liquids to recipes. Which is weird to me that you have to add more flour AND liquid, but what do I know? Also, water boils faster but at a lower temperature. So pasta takes longer to cook. Apparently, beans take like 2x as long, but I don't make beans often. Also because of the high elevation, materials expand inside their containers. So items in the grocery store look funny--yogurt containers and stuff are all bulged out and scary to open. Chip bags are nicely full of air and protected from chip breakage.

That's all for now. Later.

Guatemala, pt. 2

2010-06-12T12:48:00.014-05:00

It's now almost a year since I went to Guatemala...at some point I will finish blogging about it! After this entry, I will only have the entry on Tikal to finish. I'm almost there!

Wednesday, July 29
Had the usual breakfast. Toured another lady's house. It was awesome, and she even had some great looking pre-Columbian artifacts that I could see up close and personal. We then went to La Merced ruins/church. According to a random website, "Destroyed twice by earthquakes, this 1548 church was rebuilt in the 1700s to withstand earthquakes and boasts a lovely yellow facade and a huge stone fountain, reputed to be the largest in Central America." I did not know this about the fountain when I was there. Perhaps I would have appreciated it more. As it was, it was just kind of grungy looking. Brighton and I both noticed that it looked quite a bit nicer in photos.

Also, I should have Brighton doublecheck that I'm not mixing up La Merced and San Francisco. They are both intricately detailed bright yellow buildings, and I constantly get them mixed up my head. For instance, I think the last couple of pictures I posted in my previous entry were actually La Merced, not San Francisco. But idk.

I also bought a beaded bracelet that day. We had lunch at a place called Epicure. It was good. We went and bought tickets to Pacaya for the next day, then had dinner at Nokiate again. There was a thunderstorm that night. I also have written in my notes that I got my "eye gouged out by Tribble." But don't worry, my eye has since regenerated. :D

Thursday, July 30
We caught the tour van to Pacaya (volcano we were going to climb) at 6am. By 7am we had started off on our volcano climbing adventure. I was dying to see some lava! On a side note, this past May 27th Pacaya erupted, and killed one reporter (and someone else, I think). Bummer. Anyway, we bought (or rented, I should say) a hiking stick from some little kids. The climb was very tiring. Brighton and I were switching off carrying the backpack. Jose, our guide, ended up carrying it for us. What a gentleman! Brighton and I took up the rear, with the 6 foot Eurpoean hikers taking the lead. In our defense, we didn't ride horses up the first 3/4 of the way like 2 other girls did.

We got the the top, and there was LAVA! Woo-hoo!!! The rocks we were walking on were so hot that the soles of my shoes melted a little. It was actually pretty scary; because we were in the back, there were times when we lost track of our group and didn't know which path they had taken to get where they were. I mean, at this point we were walking on solidified lava and it felt hollow, and you could feel waves of heat rising from the ground. I kept imaging us stepping onto the wrong rock and falling through into a pool of lava, or something. Fortunately, our group was one of the first groups to make it to the lava flow, so there wasn't a big crowd of people trying to get pictures in front of the flow. Our guide stuck a stick into the lava, and it burst into flames instantly.

After we all got our pictures we retreated a bit and had a snack, and watched as the crowd around the lava grew. It was so cool looking; it almost looked like some weird alien planet, and a bit LotR Mordor-ish. So thank you, Brighton, for coming with me even though you'd already done it and were a bit wary of its volcanic state (good thing we visited last summer and not this summer!). Then we went back down. It was much easier going down the volcano. We made it home by 12:30, where we had a lunch of lamb, potatoes and gravy, peas, and melon. Yum! I then napped, and read. Dinner? Nokiate again. Brighton's fam can eat them some sushi, I'll tell you that!

Friday, July 31
Same breakfast. It was a rainy-ish day. :( Ros and Alex (Brighton's brother) left to go back to the US. Brighton and I watched some TV, then went to Santa Domingo, a hotel with ruins and a museum. The museum was pretty lame, but the ruins were pretty cool, including old crypts. We had lamb curry for lunch, and grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner. Sarah was flying in tonight, so we went to the airport (driven by Jaime). ::sigh:: Jaime...

Yay for the arrival of Sarah!

Saturday, August 1
Same ol' breakfast, a little rainy. We took off to the Antigua cemetery. Just as we got to Brighton's relative's tomb and as she was describing who was entombed there, we were robbed at gunpoint by 2 youngish guys. Yeah. Awesome. They took all our cameras, Sarah's (empty) bag, and the little amount of money Brighton had on her. I somehow had the wits about me to take out my camera's memory card before handing over my camera. He must have been busy pointing his gun at Brighton at the time. You may take my camera, but YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY PHOTOS!!! So it was super shitty that none of us had cameras anymore. We were able to borrow Brighton's grandma's, but we had to share. Sharing sucks. ;) Also, because of this, we were all super paranoid the rest of the time about getting robbed or killed. Thanks, ahole robbers. I hate you. On the plus side, it will forever be an interesting story for me to tell. See below for a picture of the cemetery; the last photo I took with my camera before it was taken from me by from a man with a GUN.

But life must go on. Later that day, we visited a cow/coffee farm, owned by Mita's good friend. It was really pretty, but it wasn't coffee harvesting season, or whatever, so the focus was on the cows. For lunch that day, we had skewered meat and veggies with mashed potatoes, pea soup, and blackberries with cream. For dinner we went to JP's Rum Bar and had fries and a coke. That night, we made a fire in the fireplace inside our bedroom. It took a while to get it going. I think the wood was moist. I hate the word moist. The rest of the trip, our room smelled like campfire.
Sunday, August 2
This morning, I read while Sarah attended a mass at a local church. Weirdo. For lunch, we went to Epicure and I had a cheeseburger. We did some shopping. For dinner, we went to El Pescador Italiano. I ordered a pizza. We waited a long time for our food. They finally delivered Sarah and Brighton's food, but not mine. They then explained (in Spanish) that my first pizza was "destroyed." Haha! They literally used that word...well, it was Spanish, so they said "destruida." I wonder how it was destroyed?? We're guessing they burned it. So a million years later I finally got my pizza. I also referenced a painting in the restaurant that we apparently
found either really weird or hilarious. Probably both. But I don't really remember it. My notes say, "Cross on face--painting." Sarah? Brighton? Anyone remember this?

Monday, August 3
We left for Panajachel this morning, which is where Lake Atitlan is. According to Wikipedia (that statement always makes me laugh), "The lake is volcanic in origin, filling an enormous caldera formed in an eruption 84,000 years ago. It is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and Aldous Huxley famously wrote of it: 'Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlan is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing.'"

We had a horrible van ride there...it was super bumpy. The music the driver played was hilarious, and included "Sky rockets in flight...afternoon delight" and some horrible country song I can't recall right now...Sarah? What was it? We stayed at Hotel Dos Mundos, which was nice. We walked around the lake, which was beautiful and is surrounded by volcanoes. For lunch we ate at El Bistro. I wanted ravioli, but apparently they didn't have any. So I got spaghetti. It was pretty gross. We were harassed by a 3-legged dog that seriously freaked Sarah out. We then walked around another hotel that had all kinds of hammocks up, and relaxed in the hammocks and had a few drinks. We went shopping, and I finally bought stuff! I got 3 stuffed animal things for the nieces and future nephew (who was born the next day), a hammock, and a purse. The purse and hammock were both $11. The animals were a couple bucks each.

For dinner we went to Sunset Cafe, and it was beautiful. We saw the sunset with the lake and volcanoes in the background. Plus, we got to watch 3 young guys wearing panama hats sketch the view. Sarah was mildly obsessed. Or maybe not so mildly. We shared a burrito, fajitas, and chips and salsa. Later that night we got crepes. Yummers.

Tuesday, August 4
Today we took a taxi to a Reserve nearby, where they have a zip-line canopy tour that we went on. It was AWESOME. We ziplined over super high heights. And saw monkeys. For lunch we ate at some random place where I got a gross jamon y queso sandwich. We then shopped and sat by the hotel pool. We then took the van back to Antigua, and later had dinner at Cafe Flor. I got yellow curry and a brownie. Back in the USA, Sam the Nephew was born!

Wednesday, August 5
It was a crappy-ish day. We did some shopping, and watched So You Think You Can Dance. We had chiles rellenos for lunch, and pizza for dinner. We had to get up hella early the next day to leave for Tikal.

Guatemala, pt. 1

2010-03-28T00:13:00.012-05:00

So, I went to Guatemala like...8 months ago. None of this is news to anyone, but:

SARAH, THIS IZ 4 U. (Hopefully it won't be another 8 months until I post pt. II, which is probably what you want to see, since pt. II includes you...)

Friday, July 24
Had to catch a taxi at 4am to get from my apartment to the Union to catch the bus to the Chicago airport. Ugh. I got off to an inauspicious start, as I ended up losing one of my luggage locks (In the taxi? Didn't latch it right?) and forgetting my sunglasses (which I apparently lost, b/c I still have yet to find them). No sunglasses in Guatemala? Great...

Anyway, I got the airport fine, but my flight to Miami was delayed 2 hours. What sucked especially bad about this was that we boarded the flight on time...and then they discovered some sort of mechanical problem (with the fuel pump?) after we were all on the plane. So we all sat on the plane for an hour and a half. It was really hot. And stuffy. It took about 45 minutes for air to start circulating, and over an hour for any sort of air conditioning to be turned on. At one point, the captain told everyone on one side of the plane to shut their window shades so the sunlight wouldn't continue to bake the inside of the plane. Anyway, after sitting on the plane for an hour and a half, they finally announced that they had no idea how much longer we'd be delayed, so we all had to get off the plane (with all our luggage). We all get off. 15 minutes later, they make an announcement that the problem is fixed, and we all had to board again. Figures.

I wasn't concerned with my connecting flight to Guatemala, because I had a large layover. Turns out, my flight from Miami to Guatemala was delayed 2.5 hours, anyway. Ugh. But I finally made it to Guatemala late at night, and customs and immigration were a breeze. I walk out of the airport and there were tons of people standing out there waiting for people. I couldn't find Brighton in the crowd, so I just stood there feeling lost and idiotic for a few minutes. I was approached by some man with flowers asking me about Mexico. In Spanish. That was interesting. I finally saw Brighton (and Tribble), and was driven home my Jaime. ::sigh:: Jaime...

I met Mita (Ana Maria, Brighton's grandma). She is quite the energetic and outgoing grandma! Even in the dark, I could tell that her house was beautiful!

Saturday, July 25
So, meals at Casa de Mita are quite the event. Very delicious. For breakfast this morning, I had scrambled eggs, refried frijoles negros, bread and jam, cocoa, and coffee. Delicioso. We (me, Brighton, and Ros - B's mom) then left for Iximche and Chichicastenango. We were driven by Jaime. ::sigh:: Jaime...

Jaime had a little trouble navigating through the streets of this one town to get to Iximche. Turns out there was some sort of festival going on for some saint or other. There was even a parade that we were able to see from the car. :) Iximche are Mayan ruins, on a much smaller scale than Tikal. Originally, we were going to go to Copan (just over the border in Honduras), but Honduras was in the middle of their coup, so it wasn't the best time to be going there. Boo. But Iximche was interesting, although you couldn't climb on any of the ruins (which I appreciate from a preservation standpoint, but am sad about from a "I want to climb on them!" standpoint). Brighton, with her good grasp of Spanish, ended up translating the Spanish-only informational plaques for these other two women. She would make an excellent tour guide.

For those of you interested in history: Iximche was the capital of the late Postclassic Kaqchikel Maya kingdom from 1470 until its abandonment in 1524. The Spanish burned down the city in 1526. The site’s central core is bounded on three sides by ravine walls and separated from the main residential area by an artificial creek. The site center consists of four large and two small plazas, each of which contained at least two temples. Along with elite palaces, there are two ballcourts, the larger of which is 40 m long. President G.W. Bush visited the site on March 12, 2007. Local Maya priests said that they would be conducting purifying rites after his visit to cleanse the area of "bad spirits" brought by the president, who they say persecutes their "migrant brothers" in the United States (from Wikipedia).

For lunch, we went to a place called Katuk. It was pretty good. There was this excellent green dip stuff. We then headed for Chichicastenango. We stayed at a beautiful hotel in Chichi, full of all kinds of antique furniture. We all had a hankering for pizza, so we went to this restaurant we had seen earlier that boasted pizza (Kieq-ik Waim Ja). We sit down and order and find out that they're out of pizza. Bummer. So we got nachos with runny cheese and some fries. There was also some excellent green dip, like we had at Katuk. Then we went back to our hotel and slept.

Sunday, July 26
We went out and explored the giant market. It was a crappy day, and was raining. I didn't buy anything. The language barrier and haggling for prices intimidates me. We had breakfast at a place called Casa San Juan. I had pancakes (panqueques), fried plantains, refried black beans, scrambled eggs with salsa, and some hard cheese. And coffee. It was tasty.

We left fairly early (due to crappy weather) and headed back to Antigua. The roads are absolutely crazy! Very curvy, and they were doing construction which made them even crazier. We got back to Antigua and ate lunch at a place called Tartines, where I had an asparagus crepe. It rained pretty hard that day, so we watched some TV. Since we were denied pizza the night before, we decided to get pizza tonight...but after we got there, we discovered that the pizza place was closed. Bummer! The world did not want us to eat pizza! :D We ended up going to Nokiate, a sushi place. It was delicious. And I have in my notes that the waiters were anal retentive.

Monday, July 27
Woke up and had my usual breakfast (see Saturday above). We then went to the Antigua market. I didn't buy anything, yet again. We toured a big ol' house, which was very cool. Back at the house, we had a delicious lunch. It was chicken with green sauce. Pollo de jacon, or something, with rice with lorocos (?), carrot soup (yum), and tortillas. We later had some chips and salsa at a place called Cafe Sky, where we sat on a rooftop and had a great view. We went to some ruins within Antigua, toured the Spanish Embassy, and also toured some sort of mechanical school where they train Guatemalans to do...mechanical stuff. For dinner we went to El Pescador Italiano, and we shared pizza (finally), some sort of balsamic eggplant dish, and sweet potato gnocchi. Delicious.

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Tuesday, July 28
We toured a bunch of awesome houses in Antigua. For lunch we had pepian and fried plantains. We toured the San Francisco church ruins. For dinner we went to JP's Rum Bar where I got a mojito and shared fries, jumbalaya, and quesadillas. We also apparently went to Cafe Flor and had egg rolls. Hmm. We must have been hungry that night!

Wednesday, July 29
Had the usual breakfast. Toured another lady's house. It was awesome, and she even had some great looking pre-Columbian artifacts that I could see up close and personal. We then went to La Merced ruins/church. I bought a beaded bracelet that day. We had lunch at a place called Epicure. It was good. We went and bought tickets to Pacaya for the next day, then had dinner at Nokiate again. There was a thunderstorm that night.

2010-01-31T21:04:00.002-06:00

Wtf, Yahoo!?

Sometimes Yahoo! News does weird things with photos/news headlines. Here are two examples I captured relatively recently-ish:

2010-01-05T14:56:00.000-06:00

What do you think? Should I go blonde? :)

2009-11-30T18:47:00.001-06:00

Happy 60th Bday, Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. Because I think it's awesome, here's a picture of her 14th bday party in 1963. She's the one sitting on the couch.

2009-10-31T20:40:00.003-05:00

Happy Halloween!!!

Sarah and I carved pumpkins tonight. Fyi, it's not easy to buy pumpkins on Halloween day. We went to Copps. All out of pumpkins. We went to Woodman's. All out of pumpkins. We went to Walmart. All out of pumpkins. We finally achieved success at Cub's, where we had a sad selection of partially moldy pumpkins from which to choose. But we were both happy with our eventual purchases. Myself going for a smaller-than-usual pumpkin; Sarah going with a ginormous pumpkin. After carving them, we performed a Halloween ritual that replaced our heads with our Jack-o-Lanterns. Then we frolicked around in front of a Haunted House for a while. But anyway, Happy Halloween everyone!!!

2009-09-14T21:47:00.001-05:00

Happy Birthday, Me!

I'm 28 now! I'm old!

And in sadder news, Patrick Swayze died. ::insert tasteful tombstone here::

2009-09-13T21:58:00.009-05:00

Jay Cooke State Park
Happy Camping

Okay, at some point I intend to blog about Guatemala (even though I did already post pics on Facebook and possibly everyone who reads my blog is also friends with me on Facebook). BUT. That is too daunting a prospect right now, especially since I haven't been good at posting as of late. So I hope to ease my way back into posting with this post on my recent camping trip with Joleen. Maybe it will re-inspire me and take away some of the panic I feel when thinking about posting a new blog entry.

And have I mentioned that I'm super busy now? Yeah. 'Cause I am. School. Work. Etc.

The weekend prior to the start of this current semester, I went back to Rochester. I went to the Renaissance Festival with Joleen and the 'rents, saw Sam the Nephew (not to be confused with Sam the Butcher), and then went camping with Joleen. We left after dinner from the Cities and stopped at Banning State Park simply as a stopping point between MSP and our final destination (which had no campsites available that night). When we arrived, it was dark and started to rain. Fun times for setting up the tent. Although it actually wasn't too bad. There must have been a group campsite nearby with about a bazillion children in it. Again, could have been more annoying.

We left early-ish the next morning, and managed to not pay. We are bad people. (We did passively try to pay...we just weren't active enough to actually end up doing it...It's not our fault that the ranger didn't come back to our site and take the money from the picnic table like he said he would...or our fault that we couldn't be bothered to drop the envelope of money off in the drop box the next morning as we left...)

On the way to Jay Cooke State Park we were on a quest to find a place that sold 1) firestarters and b) a little propane thing for our little gas camping stove. Because seriously. Need coffee when we wake up in the mornings. Even if it is instant. Apparently, small town MN is closed on Sunday. We were forced to go to the Super Walmart in Cloquet. I hate Walmart, but there's something to be said for giant mega-retailers that are actually open 7 days a week and carry the shit you want.

We checked in and got a campsite. Joleen put up the hammock I got in Guatemala. It's comfy. We went hiking.

Hey, look at me!
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Look. the water's such a pretty orange color...
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A view. Of trees. And a river.
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Testing out the new Guatemalan hammock ($11)
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Hobo dinner and wine. Mmm. And flaming elbows.
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We went hiking the next day, too.

Ooh, look at the (St. Louis) river!
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I apparently have this new thing where I like to be
photographed while pretending to jump off a bridge.
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Simultaneously pretty and gross. Great accomplishment, Nature.
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The water is clear.
There are many rocks in it.
It is so soothing.
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Oh my God! The tree ate Joleen!!!
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Both Joleen and I wore New Zealand shirts while on this trip. Fyi.
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This is me not wearing my New Zealand shirt.
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Then we went home. And I started school again.

2009-08-15T23:40:00.004-05:00

I Have A Nephew!

While I was in Guatemala, Brian and Shannon gave birth to a baby boy. Samuel Brian Christopherson was born on August 4th (3 weeks early, or so). He weighed 7 lb 6 oz. He was jaundiced, but otherwise seemed fine. But yesterday, while at a check-up, it was discovered that he has coarctation of the aorta...or narrowing of the aorta. Which basically means that his heart is working too hard and blood isn't being properly circulated throughout his body. He's currently in the PICU at the Minneapolis Children's Hospital, and will be having surgery on Monday morning. :( Poor little guy. Here's hoping that everything turns out well.

2009-07-20T17:50:00.002-05:00

BUSY BUSY BUSY!!!

So, this past weekend my siblings and I threw our parents an Annibirthary Party. This year they both turn 60 (Dad on July 16, Mom on Nov. 30) and it's their 40th Wedding Anniversary (Sept. 6). About 60 family/friends were invited. We had a lot of food. We had a lot of decorations. It went well, thankfully. But I was so consumed with doing stuff for that that I still haven't gotten around to thinking about what I'll need for Guatemala. And I leave on Friday morning! Ahh!

I am oh so tired.

And seriously, Honduras--why do you have to be all, "Hey, let's have a coup!" right when I was planning on visiting Copan? If I have to miss going there b/c you're all riot-y and/or border-close-y, I'm not gonna be happy. :( Think about me once in a while, wouldja? ;)

Here is the video of my parents' life/lives that I made and showed at their party:

2009-07-11T19:12:00.002-05:00

Canned Heat
Dance!

Have you ever wanted to see Sarah do baton, jazz, ballet, and tap in really hideous outfits? If so, you're in luck! See below:

2009-07-07T09:42:00.003-05:00

It's official! Al Franken has won The Race to the Senate! He was sworn in today. Finally.

2009-06-21T00:39:00.004-05:00

I Am Diseased
Place me under quarantine

The day after I got back from my camping trip, I found a little tick parasiting itself upon me. It was much smaller than any other tick I've found on me (wood tick), and looked a little different. I diligently Googled on how to extract it from my skin. I learned that you are NOT to use rubbing alcohol or petroleum jelly, or burn it off with a match. Instead, you're supposed to use tweezers and grab it closest to it's head as possible and slowly pull until it releases itself from your skin. I'm not sure I was patient enough, but I don't think I left the head inside me (ewwww). Then I went about trying to figure out what kind of tick it was, hoping it wasn't a deer tick because I'd rather not get lyme disease, thank you very much. The problem was, I really needed a magnifying glass and I didn't have one. But I don't think it was a deer tick because it has reddish legs and a reddish head. Deer ticks have black legs, apparently. I think it may have been a dog tick?? Anyway, I'm now on the look-out for a bulls-eye shaped rash.

A few days ago a weird rash thing sprung up on one of my fingers. It's really small and doesn't bother me too much comfort-wise, but it bothers me because I'd like to know what it is. I think it might be a very mild case of poison ivy/sumac. I remember gathering kindling from the woods one day while camping and noticing that my hands were itching/bothering me. Brighton immediately had me wash my hands with soap and water. So maybe that was it. If so, I'm glad you had me wash my hands right away, Brighton, or else it might be much worse! Up until now, I've never had poison ivy. And maybe this isn't poison ivy. I don't know. I tried taking a picture of it, but it wasn't coming out well. There's also a few lone occasionally itchy rash-like dots on my other hand (around my knuckles) as well.

2009-06-20T13:10:00.002-05:00

Speidi. WTF.

Until today, I've successfully avoided anything about Speidi aside from the occasional photo where I always say, "Who are these people?" I'd never heard them speak a word. I wish I could still say that. I just watched an online video about Al Roker interviewing them, their time on that show I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, and then a video where they respond to Al's "treatment" of them on the Today Show. Words cannot express how much I can't stand them. OMG. I hope to go back to completely ignoring them from here on out. But it might be hard, because they're like a goddamn trainwreck.

2009-06-07T01:09:00.008-05:00

More Fun With Photoshop!

Warning: Image Heavy!

It was Riley's 4th birthday on June 4th (her golden birthday). I made her a book for her birthday. The story/writing is pretty lame, but I was quite proud of the "illustrations" I made. I use the term illustration loosely, since I didn't actually draw anything...I just Photoshopped pictures. But, in case you want to spend a few minutes reading a children's book, here it is--provided here, exclusively for you, dear readers (well, aside from the hard copy I sent to Riley). (Perhaps it should be explained that the pink giraffe is her favorite toy...and she named him Key)

2009-06-06T16:39:00.005-05:00

I Love the 80s
And pipe wrenches

Because I'm apparently obsessed and don't think people are capable of finding things on their own, I am embedding another Literal Music Video here. And for my own reference, since I honestly can watch these multiple times. If I was funny enough and had the means to do it, I'd totally want to do one of these myself.

Take on Me: Literal Video Version - watch more funny videos

2009-06-05T16:35:00.002-05:00

Literal Music Videos

Apparently these aren't very new, but I've never seen them. Very funny. Basically, changing the lyrics of songs to match what's (literally) happening in the music video. My favorites are:

Tears For Fears, "Head Over Heels" Literal Version
I had no idea that this was the video. Haha! Ridiculous.

Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Under the Bridge" Literal Version

Bonnie Tyler, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" Literal Version

2009-05-26T23:02:00.001-05:00

I forgot to say:

I loved the textual narration that ended The Day After:

"It is hoped that the images of this film will inspire the nations of this earth, their peoples and leaders, to find the means to avert the fateful day."

Wow. Pretty lofty goals for a made-for-TV movie. Then again, we never experienced a nuclear winter, so maybe it did its job.

2009-05-26T18:42:00.002-05:00

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon
Strikes again

I like reading/watching post-apocalyptic fiction (apocafic, if you will). Today I watched a movie I got from Netflix entitled The Day After. It was an ABC-produced made-for-TV movie from 1983. The cast included Steve(n) Guttenberg and John Lithgow. The first half hour was unbearable slow, but the remaining hour and a half wasn't too bad. So I sit down an hour later and read some (non-apocafic) Sarah Vowell--Pass the Cannoli. Which is like humorous reminiscences that try to make some sort of social/cultural point, I guess. Anyway, I'm reading along and suddenly I get to this passage:

"By 1983, he'd [Reagan] made the whole country so nervous that there was a prime-time TV movie about nuclear winter called The Day After." p. 43.

Sure, maybe this movie isn't as obscure as I think it is (After all, I was only 2 when it came out), but come on. What are the odds of reading that part of that book literally an hour after watching that movie? I think it means that we will experience apocalypse via nuclear war sometime this month. Probably initiated by the crazy North Koreans.

2009-04-29T09:21:00.003-05:00

Batshit Crazy Bachmann
Strikes again

Wow, I become increasingly more embarrassed that Michelle Bachmann is a representative from MN. She has to have an IQ of 70. Here's the latest gem of a quote from her:

"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under Democrat President Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it is an interesting coincidence. "

Ummm...really? REALLY? First of all, don't say you're not blaming them, because what's the point otherwise? That it's an interesting fact? No. No, it is not interesting. It's not even that coincidental.

Plus, the last swine flu outbreak started under Republican Ford, so any bit of "interesting" that was maybe hiding in there somewhere is now gone. And Bachmann's still a friggin' idiot.

2009-04-26T23:28:00.002-05:00

Vampires vs. Cults vs. Zombies

Three movies based on Richard Matheson's I Am Legend (1954):

The Last Man on Earth (1964): Vincent Price and vampires.

The Omega Man (1971): Charlton Heston and cult members.

I Am Legend (2007): Will Smith and zombies.

The Last Man on Earth is probably the most true to the novel. I enjoyed I Am Legend the most, even though certain aspects of it annoyed me. The Omega Man was probably the worst. Doesn't help that I'm not a big fan of Charlton Heston. Plus, the bad/infected people were really not scary and pretty stupid. Huh, I just read that a prequel to (the movie) I Am Legend is due in 2011.

Hey, Liz--you should get The Last Man on Earth from Netflix; it comes as a double feature along with Panic in Year Zero, which is another post-apocalyptic movie (nuclear-related). It's not bad, in an old movie sort of way.

2009-04-20T17:39:00.002-05:00

Mundane Photos From Inside My Apt

Hey, everyone! Let's take a look inside my fridge! Well, if you want condiments or almost-expired milk, you're in luck! And let it be known that the drawers are completely empty, as well. You may wonder why I have two opened containers of ketchup and miracle whip. Answer: I don't know. And you can't see them, but there are a few bottles of beer in the back right corner on the top shelf. They've been there since the last time my Dad visited last September. Does beer get better with age? :D

Time to wash the mugs! I like mugs. They make me happy.

So, Miss USA, the trashy beauty pageant (are any of them not trashy?) was on last night. Apparently, Miss California is a douche. She was the front-runner until the question round, when she was asked (by Perez Hilton) if she thought states should allow gay marriage. Somewhere in between non-sensicle talk, she basically said, "No, I was raised to believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman." She ended up losing to Miss North Carolina (who didn't think that taxpayers should be bailing everyone out). Miss California later said she lost for standing up for what she believed in and giving an honest answer. I completely agree. And she lost because her honest answer showed that she's a bigot. I hope the judges wouldn't honor bigotry. I really want to find the transcript of her answer now, because it really sounded idiotic...(as if that's surprising)

Ok, here's the video: Miss California

Opposite marriage?? Hahaha!

It's supposed to snow tonight/tomorrow morning. But then the high is 81 on Friday.

I need to go do homework now.

2009-04-18T16:45:00.005-05:00

We must destroy the Ring!!!
Oooops! We failed.

So, Joleen and Sunny are back, in case you didn't find out from me either telling you are by reading my Facebook status a bit ago. It was a surprising return, as they weren't expected until May.

Mom: Emily, you should really try to come home for Easter.
Me: I don't know. I'm really friggin' busy.
Mom: A package arrived from Joleen and she says you need to open it ASAP or it'll get ruined.
Me: Ok, whatever.
[Arrive at home]
Mom: Want to open your package? Here it is!
[I see a ginourmous box. WTF did they send me? I grab a pair of scissors]
Mom: You don't need scissors to open it!
Me: Umm, OK.
[Rip tape off box]
[Joleen pops out of box]
[I jump back 5 feet]
[Sunny appears from out of nowhere]

Yeah. I was a little annoyed that it was a decoy gift (I mean, I got my hopes up and all), but I guess this sufficed.

While in New Zealand, Joleen and Sunny climbed Mt. Doom. Which has a normal Enzed name, but I don't recall what it is. I guess it was pretty steep. Joleen kept telling Sunny that if they made it to the top, she was throwing his wedding ring into it. Hehe. Unfortunately, they're no Sam and Frodo and they failed in their quest. So look for Sauron and his minions to take over Earth soon. But anyway, they brought back a little piece of Mt. Doom for me. AWESOME! (Joleen, I left it at Mom and Dad's because Mom hid it under the family room table along with the chopsticks you gave me. Can you make sure they don't get lost?)

Mount Doom:

OK, so that's not exactly what it looked like when they climbed it. Here is the unaltered-by-me original photo:

And here's Joleen climbing up it:

Sauron's pull on the ring is strong. Watch out for Gollum!!

2009-04-13T20:54:00.002-05:00

Yay! Franken declared the winner! Again!

Boo! Coleman to appeal! Again!

Minn. court declares Franken leading vote-getter

2009-03-09T09:56:00.003-05:00

Randomocity

So, I find myself with a little unexpected time this morning. Therefore, I will write a completely random post (I don't really have anything to say).

I just saw this article today: More Americans say they have no religion
Apparently about 15% of Americans say they have no religion. But I think all but 3 of those percents believe in some sort of God, just not an organized religion God. Which would make 3% atheist? I don't know, it was a little confusing how they presented the numbers. And there are a lot more Evangelicals/born-again Christians out there than I thought (34% of adults).

This picture of Sunny in New Zealand makes me laugh every time I look at it:

And they went zorbing. Awesome!! They leave for Vietnam on the 13th, I believe.

I went to the Badger game v. Indiana with Sarah last night. It was the last regular season game and was senior night, so they had a nice senior tribute video. We handily won. Yay. Indiana is 1-17 this season (BT play). Ouch. The only BT team they beat was Iowa. Who also sucks this year.

And a little bit of chef heroism: "There's a 'roo in my room!"

...And that's all I can think of to write.

2009-02-27T18:28:00.003-06:00

Old Stuff
Doin' some archivin'

I thought I'd get a picture of my practicum archival collection before I refolder it, organize it, and make it all pretty. The oldest thing in my collection is an undated composition notebook probably from c. 1890. The bulk of the stuff is from the later 1920s and 1930s. But there's some cool UW-Madison stuff in a scrapbook he (James G. Zimmerman) made while he was a student there at the turn of the century (1899-1904).

Update from Joleen and Sunny: They climbed Mt. Doom the other day.

2009-02-26T14:19:00.004-06:00

Thunderstorm!
CRASH! BOOM! BANG!

It's thunderstorming outside right now! Lots of lightning and thunder! And crap-loads of rain. Since I can hole myself up in my apartment, this makes me very happy. Hey! It just started hailing! I'm glad my car is in an underground garage.

I finally sent in my passport renewal stuff. I got another set of passport pictures taken today because the first pair I got a few weeks ago were terrible. Convict-like. I got them taken at the Union, and the lady told me I couldn't smile and show teeth. But when I went to Walgreen's today, I asked and they said that as of now it's OK to smile showing teeth. So that picture was infinitely better (although still pretty bad, imo). I thought it was weird when I was told I couldn't smile, because nowhere on the official government passport site does it say anything about that. Whatever. I included my first horrible set of passport pictures for you all to laugh at. I liked my old picture from when was 17. Huh. The picture doesn't look nearly so bad in digital form as it does in physical form. It must have color auto-corrected a bit when I scanned it.

I don't have anything exciting to say, but I thought I'd do another post since it's been a while. It's not my fault my life isn't exciting. (Whose fault is it then, you may ask? I don't know. Blame God. He's a good scape goat.)

Oh, Happy Birthday, Sarah!! Welcome to the World of 27! That's almost 30! Which is getting near-ish to 40! Man, you're OLD!

2009-02-10T00:12:00.002-06:00

Oh, Blessed Rain!

It was raining today!!!! Which means it wasn't cold enough to snow!!!!

The high tomorrow is 59!!!! w00t!!!! (Too bad I will be cooped up inside ALL DAY)

The high on Wednesday is back down to 39. At least it's above freezing...

Joleen is having a blast in Enzed. Beotch. Bungy jumping and other cool stuff, like tenting where Sam and Frodo got captured by Faramir and where they saw the oliphants. Man.

BUT...

I bought plane tickets to Guatemala for this summer, where I will visit Brighton and go to Tikal and do other cool stuff. Yay!

2009-01-28T21:53:00.002-06:00

Get Off My Lawn
Damn Kids

Update on my A/V situation (I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for an update on this):

I purchased the 4-way AV selector switch from Radio Shack. It's working swell. So now I can have all my peripherals plugged in to my TV. Awesome. Just as I finally get a dtv converter box (omg! time's running out!), the government decides to roll back the switchover time from February to June. Jeesh. I guess this is good for me though, as I can use the converter box when I'm at home watching TV and get better reception, but as long as the "normal" antenna stuff is still working, I can record stuff on a timer by shutting off the converter box. Yeah. Anyway...

Joleen and Sunny have officially moved out of Australia and are now backpacking around New Zealand. For 6 weeks. Then on to southeast Asia.

My neighbors are being INCREDIBLY loud. As in, the movie they're watching is turned up to the max. Which is why I'm blogging, since I was having an impossible time concentrating on thinking about readings and other stuff I should be doing. Yes Sarah, I KNOW I need to talk to my landlord about it. Tonight was the clincher. Ugh.

I'm drinking hot chocolate.

I think the apartment building a block from me had a big fire tonight. Not sure, though.

Has anyone other than Sarah seen Milk? If so, what did you think of it? Should I make a point to go see it, even though I'd have to be pathetic and see it alone? How about The Mysterious Case of Benjamin Button? Why am I kind of annoyed with Brad Pitt these days? Mystery.

Okay, back to my readings...

2009-01-22T22:21:00.005-06:00

And So It Begins
...Again

This was my first week of classes for the Spring semester. I was originally signed up for four classes, but I just got another part-time job at the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), so I had to drop one of them. Of the three classes that I'm taking, two are online courses. So I have to physically attend only one class. And it's only once a week (but 2.5 hours long). That class also has a practicum requirement of 10 hours a week working on an archival collection at the WHS. Which means I'll be living at the WHS this year, what with my two separate jobs there and the practicum class.

It was interesting; there are 13 people in my archives class. All but two of us wear glasses. And the professor wears glasses. And the three people who work at the WHS who came and spoke with our class also wore glasses. And my two bosses there wear glasses. I feel like I need to go out and buy some fake glasses so I can fit in. Hey, Joleen--where are those fake glasses you had made? Then again, you have a tiny head so they probably wouldn't fit me.

The archival collection I have to organize and process for my class are the papers of Clarence Irving Zimmerman. Well, they told me that that's his name, but when I looked at the stuff in the boxes everything said James G. Zimmerman...so I don't know what's up with that. He graduated from the UW in 1903 with a degree in (electro)chemical engineering, and later became an inventor. Upon my cursory inspection of the materials, he seems to have focused on batteries, car stuff (possible car batteries, I haven't quite figured this out yet), and color photographs. And I saw a sketching for a mechanical pencil complete with mechanical eraser. And lots of notebooks full of equations that make no sense to me. Me stoopid.

Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon Alert: For my job at the WHS, recently I've been organizing/inventory-ing architectural drawings. Many of them are by Frank Riley. So the other day I was googling James G. Zimmerman (not much out there on him that I'm finding), and came upon an article that said that he lived in a house built/designed for his wife by Frank Riley. Weird!

2009-01-15T23:25:00.002-06:00

Battle of the Rodents
Gophers v. Badgers

I went to Babe's tonight to watch the Badger-Gopher basketball game with Sarah. It was an exciting game, but ultimately very disappointing as the Badgers threw the game away and ended up losing in OT. Oh well.

I survived the extreme cold today. I bundled up. By the time I got to the bus stop, I was doing pretty good, except for my legs from mid-thigh to mid-calf, as the only protection they had from the cold was a layer of denim. It got to the point where my thighs were stinging and painful. I was happy when I saw my bus round the curve. I was wearing a scarf that I pulled up past my nose. Which reminded me of another thing I hate about wearing scarves--all the moisture build-up from breathing into it. Ew. They must be laden with germs.

The moisture from my breath caused my hair that fell around my face to frost up, along with my eyelashes. When I got on the bus, the driver laughed at me, in a good-natured way. After sitting on the bus for a few minutes, it felt like I was crying as the frost melted off my eyelashes and ran down my face. It was kind of funny.

Madison schools were canceled. Lots of schools are already canceled for tomorrow as well. I'm betting Madison will cancel. That's makes quite the long weekend for school kids, as they have Monday off as well for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. A 5 day weekend! Awesome!

Nothing else to say. Over and out.

2009-01-14T17:13:00.002-06:00

It's Friggin' Freezing
That's winter in the upper midwest for ya...

Schools in the area have already closed for Thursday due to extreme windchill temps. Not Madison, because they're leaving the decision up until tomorrow morning. But the windchill in the next day or so is supposed to be around -40. Which, prior to around the year 2000, would have been about -80, as they changed the way they measure windchill.

Which explains some things for me, as I was remembering back in the day when I was in (k-12) school it seemed that windchills were not infrequently between -25 and -40. And when the state of Minnesota canceled all school in the state, it was due to -80 temps. I thought the world was turning pussyish (pardon the misogynistic term). But really, they just fixed windchill measuring methods. How?

Well, they used to measure wind speed at about the 30 ft level. Now they measure it at the 5 ft level, because that's the level that effects us humans, walking around the earth. Winds are less strong at the 5 ft level than at the 30 ft level; therefore, the temp is a bit higher. So. Now you know.

Anyway, I'm not looking forward to walking to and then waiting at the bus stop tomorrow morning. I think I'll succumb to wearing a scarf, even though I hate the feeling of stuff bunching around my neck. But I think I'd hate the feeling of frostbite even more.

I have nothing else to write about. I played SingStar with Sarah last night. I consistently beat her by 1000 points or so. I'm obviously destined to become an 80s Pop Superstar.

2009-01-10T18:54:00.006-06:00

Coincidences
Or are they?

Is there a word for when you learn a vocab word and suddenly see it everywhere? Or read about something relatively uncommon, then within a few days see another reference to that something completely unrelated to the first instance in which you read about it? A word other than "coincidence," that is.

Here are two that I will share with you, which I recently experienced.

1. I recently finished a book called Fevre Dream. It's a vampire novel that takes place in the 1800s primarily aboard a steamboat called the Fevre Dream...which is named after the Fevre River in Galena, Ill (which is nowadays called the Galena River). FWIW, it was a very good book. Anyway, the other day I was working at the Wisconsin Historical Society (WHS), and I was typing up/editing/reformatting a list of photos/daguerreotypes that the WHS has in their cased image collection. One of the images was of Galena, Ill. and the Fevre River. How often do you come across references to the Fevre River? Honestly. They even have this image digitized, so you can all see it! ::ooh, awww::

2. I've never seen the Godfather movies. However, tomorrow I am going to watch the first two with a few of my SLIS friends (apparently it's best to pretend that the third movie never happened?). Tonight I was watching Family Guy and they had an interlude thing where Peter declares to the horror of his family that he "never cared for" The Godfather. I just thought that was weird since I had plans to see it tomorrow.

That's it.

2009-01-10T14:16:00.003-06:00

Title
Subtitle

I mean, really...what a cruel name for a child to have to learn to write. I think I had just turned 7 in this picture, in case you were wondering.

I'm guessing Reese Witherspoon is going to be making a new romantic comedy soon. I just took an online survey asking about my preferences for which male lead I'd like to see in a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon. The options:

1. James Marsden
2. Paul Rudd
3. Seth Rogen
4. Jason Bateman
5. Jason Segal

My order: Paul Rudd (love him), Jason Bateman (also love him), Jason Segal (ambivalent), James Marsden (something about him bothers me), then Seth Rogen (in a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon? No thanks). What do you guys think? Liz, whenever I think of romantic comedies I think about how much you hate them. :D

Hey, you can get Tim Tams at Target now. And they're actually called Tim Tams, as opposed to the ones at World Market where it doesn't say Tim Tams anywhere on the package. Apparently, they're associated with Pepperidge Farms. And at Target I got them for 2/$5.00. They're $4/package at World Market. Is there a Super Target in Madison? Or just a normal Target?

You know what show pisses me off and I've never even seen it (I don't even think it's premiered yet, actually)? That show with Howie Mandel where he does pranks or something. What I hate the most about it is that it's called Howie Do It. Someone. Kill. Me. Now.

2009-01-09T10:44:00.005-06:00

Tidbits
(Not made of pineapple)

I just saw a commercial that was promoting both Sweet & Low and The Pink Panther 2. And had Regis Philbin in it. It was weird.

I get annoyed every time I see the preview for that movie starring Renee "Slits for Eyes, Stupid F*cking Lips" Zellweger. And it takes place in Minnesota. And the "Minnesotans" have hilarious "Minnesotan" accents. The exaggerated accents don't bother me (I have spoken with people who actually DO speak that way--"I'm Sue Johanson of Johanson's Greenhouse"), but the fact that Renee is in it DOES bother me. Because she's annoying. I just checked, and it's called New in Town. And Harry Connick Jr is in it, also. And it was filmed in Winnipeg. Enough of that. It sounds like I'm promoting the damn thing.

It's snowing. Check out this picture I took in December outside my apartment building--sucks to be this guy! The funny thing is, this was the second time this has happened to the same car. You'd think he'd learn not to park there the day of/after a giant snowfall. It doesn't take a genius to know that you'd probably get plowed in.

And here's how my Christmas lights looked covered in snow.

2009-01-06T19:29:00.017-06:00

Emily's Year in Review - 2008 Edition

So, here's the recap of my 2008. I think it will be pretty boring; such is my life. Plus, you guys pretty much know everything already. Anyhoo, here I go...

I welcomed in 2008 at Laura and Michael's apartment with Liz (and L and M...Liz and I didn't crash their apt while they were off somewhere else). We played Guitar Hero and SingStar. I can trace back my current OCD obsession with Guitar Hero and SingStar to them.

At this point, I was still subbing in Madison. I think substitute teaching is the worst possible job for me. Seriously. 1) I'm too friggin' nice and naively believe that children will give you respect if you respect them. Instead, I get treated like shit and get trod all over. And then I become really bitter and start hating kids. 2) I have serious anxiety issues. Which have drastically improved as I've gotten older, but come back a thousand-fold when it comes to subbing. I mean, you get called the morning of and have to rush in to some random school you've probably never been to and teach a bunch of kids you've never met a subject you know nothing about with lesson plans which may or may not be present. Hell. Hellhellhellhellhell. Never again.

So, upon deciding that I really didn't want to teach, I had to seriously consider what to do with my life. Joleen (who at this point was already in Australia) brought Libraries/Archives to my attention. I was intrigued. Books? Yay! Old stuff? Yay! Organization? Yay! Plus, it seemed like my eduation degree could actually be benefical in this line of work. So I hastily threw together an application for SLIS grad school here at the UW, and was accepted! Hallelujah!

I think that happened in February. Nothing else happened in February. Liz had Sarah had birthdays. The groundhog didn't see his shadow (or maybe he did...I don't recall).

I must have continued subbing until June, but I don't remember. I think I'm blocking it from my memory. Oh yeah--I got a job at Sylvan at the end of February. That was fine, but not a lot of hours.

Another Easter came and went, in which I got an Easter basket from the Easter Bunny and got to see the nieces.

I did various things with Sarah throughout the Spring/Summer months, including kayaking and Concert on the Squares. The rest of the time I sat in my apt doing God-knows-what. Probably really important things that I just don't remember.

My mom visited a few times and brought with her a package Joleen sent from Oz full of lollies. And Tim Tams. I had my first Tim Tam Slam. I blame Joleen for my addiction.

I guilted Sarah into going to Rhythm and Booms with me, during which we were pelted with firework debris.

Sarah and I visited Liz and went to Laura's Wedding Shower where I had my first mani and pedi. Sarah used my camera to take pictures of people's feet, but not much else.

Then all the roomies (sans Candy :( ) got together for Laura and Michael's wedding! Man, two old roomies are married. And I'm still in school. The wedding was beautiful, and I had a GREAT time. So did Sarah (hehe).

Me, Liz, Sarah, and Brighton then drove to my cabin for a week. Which, of course, I loved.

The Beijing Olympics happened at some point around this time. I watched them. Two of my cousins gave birth...Becky to a boy (Braden), and Katie to a girl (Ava).

I was visted by my parents and brother (Brian), as Brian volunteered at the Iron Man in Madison. I started grad school, and got a part time job at the Wisconsin Historical Society. I didn't mind any of my classes, and I really enjoy my job at the WHS.

I got to see Candy when we went to Lelani's Baby Shower. Lots of babies this year...

My parents left for 6 weeks to visit Joleen and Sunny in Australia/New Zealand. During this time, I babysat Wicket. I had to keep her secret since I'm not allowed to have pets in my apartment. Which meant I had to put her in her kennel, sneak her to my car (parked in the underground garage), and drive a block away everytime I gave her a walk. A hassle, but if I didn't give her a walk she'd bark and act all pissy. I miss having a dog around to wag her tail when I get home. :( I went to my first corn maze with Sarah. That was fun, although the kids who entered at the same time as us annoyed me.

My parents returned home, bearing gifts. I got a real authentic pair of jandals! Woo-hoo!

The candidate I voted for in the Presidential election FINALLY won! I was going to be really bummed if I ended up 0-3 in Presidental votes. Yay for our first black President! Yay for a Democratic win!

Then it was Thanksgiving. We ate food. We cut down a real Christmas tree for the first time since I can remember. It smelled good.

My semester came to a close. It was very successful. I got an A in all 4 of my classes. Yay! Next semester is looking to be even busier, so I'm a bit worried about how I'll do. I'm sure everything will be fine.

Liz, Candy and Jake came to Madison just before Christmas. We (and Sarah) met up and had brunch. It was fun. Then it was Christmas. See previous post for Christmas details.

To bring everything full circle, I celebrated New Year's at Laura and Michael's again (with Liz!). We didn't play Guitar Hero, though. We played Scattergories and some Scene It! music quiz game. It was fun. I think I'll try to come up with a few resolutions for 2009 at some point. I resolve to come up with some resolutions! We'll see if anything ever comes of them.

That's it! Boring, eh? Did I forget anything? If I didn't have a photo of it, it's very possible I did!

2009-01-04T20:34:00.002-06:00

Who's an A/V Expert?
Please help, and feel free to taunt

OK, so I've got some issues with my home entertainment system. (Now is where you laugh uncontrollably at me calling my crap an entertainment system)

I have what I believe they call a "tube" TV. An unfancy TV with no internal digital converter. I do not have cable; I use an antenna. I bought a digital converter so I can still watch TV in a month, or whenever that switch is occurring. I successfully hooked it up. So what's the problem, you ask?

1) My TV is a TV/VCR combo. As far as I can tell, I can't set a timer to record anything. The TV has to be on, and I have to manually push the record button. Which kind of blows, since the only time I generally record anything is when I won't be home. I tried looking up solutions online, but nothing seemed to help or relate directly to my situation (TV/VCR combo). Anyone know anything else about this?

And now for the bigger issue(s)...

2) Lack of sufficient AV inputs/plugs/things

My TV is apparently so crap that it only has three inputs: one for the coaxial cable, one audio (white) input, and one video (yellow) input. It doesn't even have a second audio (red) input. Previously, this wasn't a problem. I only needed to plug one thing into my TV--my DVD player. And not plugging the red audio cord in didn't seem to matter.

But now that I have the digital converter, I do have a problem, as I have two things I need to connect to my TV, but I only have one set of inputs. I thought to myself, "No problem, I'll just route the digital converter through the DVD player." No can do. My DVD player doesn't have any AV inputs, only the outputs to the TV. And the converter doesn't have any inputs, so I can't route the DVD player though the converter. Son of a beeotch. That's what I get for buying the cheapest crap out there. Stupid government making digital TV madatory.

Complicating matters more:

3) I got a PS2. Which connects to the TV via (you guess it) AV inputs. So now I have three things I need to plug into my TV that only has one set of inputs. And whereas not plugging in the red audio cord didn't seem to matter before, I have a feeling it does matter with the PS2. Because I was playing SingStar and could hardly hear my voice through the mic even with the mic volume turned way up. Is this due to me only having monosound, or whatever? Is there a setting I can choose on my PS2 to fix this (I haven't looked for this yet, because I'm lazy)?

Problems in a nutshell:
1) Can't record on a timer with my TV/VCR combo and a digital converter box.
2) Complete lack of AV inputs for all my peripherals (2 sets short).
3) PS2 sounding wonky...due to only plugging in one audio cord??

Does anyone have any ideas or solutions for me? Other than buying a new modern-era TV, that is. I'm cheap, and it would piss me off to buy a new TV with an internal digital converter when I just bought one (albeit with the $40 government coupon, but I still had to pay $20).

AV input-wise, I know I can just switch which plugs are plugged in depending upon which peripheral I'm using (watching TV vs. watching DVD vs. using PS2). But that's seriously annoying. I realize that my PS2 also functions as a DVD player, so I could just get rid of my DVD player...but I'd still not have enough AV inputs and I'd have to buy the stupid PS2 DVD remote which is way overpriced.

Is there some sort of cheap(ish) AV hub you can buy? Would buying Y adapters help, or would that just cause other problems (my TV only has one "line out" button, so I can't toggle between AV1 and AV2, etc).

Does anyone have a TV or DVD player with multiple AV input/outputs that they want to give me? ;)

Life is so hard.

2009-01-03T23:18:00.002-06:00

Timber!!!
Down she goes!

I went out to eat with my parents tonight. I was really excited to go to this Thai/Vietnamese restaurant that has awesome Tom Yum soup. But upon arrival at said establishment, we discovered it had closed down. Sadness abounded in my heart. So we went to this other Vietnamese restaurant that was so not as good. And didn't have Tom Yum soup. Oh well.

It was freezing rain at the time. When we got home, I played around on our driveway by running and sliding down it (standing up). As I was walking back up it, I fell down. My parents responded as if I was an eighty-year-old decrepit person prone to breaking hips. It didn't hurt at all. My neighbor was also privileged to witness it. It was kind of embarrassing, but also pretty funny. I wish I had it on video.

Franken now leads by 225 votes. Now the courts have to rule on whether some other ballots should be counted, and Coleman is supposedly going to file a suit about something.

2008-12-31T11:22:00.003-06:00

Franken is ahead by 49 votes. Now some 1,300 absentee ballots have to be opened and counted. But there's still fighting over which ones to count.

According to an article on WCCO.com: "Minnesota's race is on track to go down as the closest Senate election in U.S. history. Franken's current lead is two one-thousandths of a percent. Put another way, that's one vote for every 58,395 cast."

On a related note, Minnesota led the nation in voter turnout in the 2008 Presidential election, with 77.8%. Wisconsin came in second with almost 73%. National average was just under 62%. Pathetic.

2008-12-31T10:52:00.004-06:00

Hey, it's the last day of 2008!
I can't figure out what channel MSNBC is on. There are too many damn channels!!!

Remember back on December 31st, 1999 when The T.V. was playing New Year's celebrations all day long from the many time zones around the world? That was enjoyable. Remember the Y2K fear? That makes me laugh. Remember laying on the bathroom floor in Liz's house, puking in the toilet around the time the year 2000 rolled in? No? Oh, because that was me, not you. (apparently I'd had too much sparkling grape juice)

Hey, Joleen--how's 2009? Did you celebrate in style again this year, on a boat in Sydney harbour?

I just watched (15 minutes ago or so) Hong Kong ring in the New Year. I had to laugh, because they counted down in Chinese (obviously), but yelled "Happy New Year" in English. Hehe. Maybe they reserve saying it in Chinese for the Chinese New Year. When exactly is that, anyway? I don't care enough to look it up at the moment. But I'd wager it's around February 1st. Okay, now that I've wagered, I have to look it up. One moment, please...Okay, it's on January 26th. Not too far off. In case you are wondering, it will be the Year of the Ox. Both my parents are oxes.

Places I've celebrated New Year's: Rochester, Bigfork, Madison, South Korea, Puerto Rico, Minneapolis. Uhhh...I think that's it.

You Weigh In: Should I make some New Year's Resolutions, or is that lame/trite/stupid/pointless-because-I-have-no-gumption-and-can-never-get-myself-to-do-things-that-I-don't-really-want-to-do-anyway?

Decree: If you read this post, I command that you tell me one thing (or more, if you're an over-achiever) that you want me to do this next year. Bonus points if they're serious and doable.

2008-12-28T10:46:00.007-06:00

Christmas, Christmastime Is Here
Time for joy and time for cheer!

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas this year; providing you celebrate Christmas, that is. As far as I know, everyone who reads this blog does, but whatev.

Christmas greetings from Joleen and Sunny. Bastards. :)
_____________________________________________

Not everyone is happy to see Santa.
__________________________________

Christmas cookies I got to eat, but didn't have to help make.
____________________________________

This was the one day a year when I go to church. They changed it up this year--I think it's been the same since I can remember, but it was very much more geared to kids this year. Which did make it a bit more interesting, I have to say. No long-ass sermons or speeches or whatever. What exactly is a litany, anyway?

Looking out the window and seeing Rudolph in our backyard. Aka my dad with a flashlight with red tissue paper over it hiding behind our pine trees. This was quite the hit.
_____________________________________________

The impossible task of taking Christmas photos with little kids.
_____________________________________________

Me and all my nieces.
__________________________________________

Well, they are called stockings. I think she looks like a musketeer.
______________________________________________

All the family came over to our (aka my parents') house on Christmas Eve. Except for Joleen and Sunny and Beck and her husband Joe and their new(ish) baby. As per tradition, our family opens our presents on Christmas Eve. Except for the ones from Santa. They get opened on Christmas morning. Gifts were opened, cheer was had. Food was eaten, potables were consumed. Grandma got a ton of bird items, Grandpa got a ton of word searches. Riley was all keyed up and kept running up to Jenna (cousin of mine) and yelling directly into her face, "Muffin Apple!" We have no idea why she was yelling this. It may not have been "muffin apple," but that's what it sounded like.

All the cousins, sans a few who couldn't make it.
_____________________________________

The adult table.
___________________________________

The overflow adult table.
____________________________________

It's present opening time!
_____________________________________

After the extended family left, more presents were opened:

_____________________________________

Christmas morning. Santa came!

I got a PlayStation 2 and Rock Band. It's awesome. My obsessive compulsiveness kicked in and I HAD to keep playing it until I had unlocked all the songs. I think I dried out my eyeballs and they've been bloodshot for a few days now. My mom is really getting into both Rock Band and Sing Star. My dad, surprisingly, is having none of it. Apparently, the lure of watching feel-good movies on Lifetime is stronger than his urge to play fake instruments. Go figure. And look--it's fun for people of all ages!

Note to self/blog readers: After/sometime around New Year's I should do a blog entry that's "A Year in Review." You may have to keep prodding me to do this. If you want it, that is. I'm a very lazy blogger when I'm at my parents' house. And I'd have to set up my computer. Which reminds me that I need to call Dell to fix my near death computer.

2008-12-24T12:55:00.002-06:00

3, 2, 1 Days 'Til Christmas!

I know I've missed days, but I'm at my parents house and I don't have my ornament photos on their computer. So. Sorry for all of you who feel that you're missing out on my Christmas tree tour.

In lieu of an ornament picture, I will post a video I made composed of Christopherson Christmas home videos to some holiday classic songs. Feel free to watch it if you like. Or ignore. Your choice.

XmasVideo_agk.avi

2008-12-21T14:04:00.002-06:00

Happy Holidays!
(To include Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, etc)

So, when I was home for Thanksgiving my mom was trying to think of a cute Christmas set-up in which to take pictures of Riley and Nora. She needed me for a stand-in. I decided that adults should be able to create Christmas cards with photos of them doing stupid things, so I used the picture my mom had taken of me and created a card. And now I'm sharing it with you all at the behest of Sarah and Liz. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

2008-12-21T13:30:00.003-06:00

4 Days 'Til Christmas!

I've always found this ornament to be kind of ugly. I'm off soon for home. Home for the Holidays.

2008-12-20T12:28:00.002-06:00

5 Days 'Til Christmas!

Hey, it's the dude on top of the M&Ms tube that we get in our stockings every year!

I went to a Bon Iver concert last night with Sarah and Nikki. It was quite good. Then Liz arrived. Yay!

2008-12-19T14:53:00.001-06:00

And Franken takes the lead!!! Woo-hoo!!! Let's hope he can keep it! And to make matters better:

"The ballot that put Franken in the lead came from Rochester, where a voter's mark for Franken filled not just his oval but a good chunk of territory next to it. A challenge from the Coleman campaign was rejected."

Alright, person from Rochester who can't properly fill in a bubble!

2008-12-19T13:33:00.002-06:00

6 Days 'Til Christmas!

Hey, I'm an angel and I'm holding a tree potted in a thimble.

As of about 9:30 today, Madison had gotten 9 inches of snow. This is the second day this year that Madison public schools were canceled. Which is a rarity for Madison. Although I think they were canceled two or three times last year, what with the record 100 inches of snow.

I just saw a car get stuck on Schroeder Ct (the street my apt is on). He did manage to get his car unstuck. I hope they plow that street before Liz gets here, or before I have to leave.

2008-12-19T09:05:00.002-06:00

Claymation "Giant Teeth" Horeseface now leads Franken by only 2 votes. Yes, TWO votes. Bunch of disputed ballots still to be counted, apparently. Not sure who's supposedly favored in these ballots if they are to be counted.

2008-12-18T21:38:00.003-06:00

7 Days 'Til Christmas!

This was another one of my favorite ornaments. It's a little girl made out of an acorn, or some other nut. I always thought of her as an angel, but she doesn't have any wings, so I guess it's just a little girl.

I'm super perversely excited for the snowstorm coming tonight/tomorrow early morning. It helps that I don't have to go anywhere. The weathermen keep saying that there may be thundersnow...aka thunder when it snows. I keep thinking I hear thunder, but then realize that it's my neighbor and his movie/video game/other annoying loud noise. Anyway, I've heard possible totals anywhere from 5-14 inches. Quite the range. 7-11 seems to be the general consensus. 7-11. Hehe.

2008-12-17T15:25:00.003-06:00

8 Days 'Til Christmas!

Look, Ma! I made it myself!

I hate listening to Sally Fields say the word "Boniva."

The Capitol Fitness ditty makes me laugh. Because it's so cheesy and horrible.

2008-12-16T11:18:00.002-06:00

9 Days 'Til Christmas!

Hey, look--It's an angel made out of noodles!

2008-12-15T18:19:00.003-06:00

10 Days 'Til Christmas!

Everyone needs a "Baby's First Christmas" ornament. Sorry for the crappola picture quality.

2008-12-14T21:18:00.002-06:00

Ouch.

If you decide to take a hot cookie sheet out of the oven using a wet potholder, YOU WILL REGRET IT.

2008-12-14T12:35:00.003-06:00

11 Days 'Til Christmas!
Mmm...pickles...

So we've always had a pickle ornament on our tree, but we've never hidden it and given out prizes to the person who finds it. We just hang it up on our tree like any other ornament. So don't expect me to send you a gift for commenting, "I'm the first to find the pickle!" 'Cause, you know, I'm cheap. What a weird tradition, anyway. Where does it originate?

(goes off to check Wikipedia)

Huh. It's a supposedly German custom that's really an American custom. Wikipedia? Not so helpful on this topic.

2008-12-14T02:43:00.002-06:00

Wacky Weather
Tempestuous Temperatures

I just looked at weather.com for Madison, and check out the forecast:

High for Sunday: 50.

High for Monday: 10.

Geez. Quite the drop.

2008-12-13T23:31:00.003-06:00

Funny Stuff
To me, anyway

I just laughed a lot watching SNL's Weekend Update. The blind New York governor bit was funny, but I especially loved the "Really?" segment where Seth and Amy ripped on Blagojevich's hair. My favorite joke was when they said something akin to, "It looks like someone put the hair on backwards on one of those Fisher-Price people." Hahaha!!!

And then I went on Yahoo! and saw this headline. It seriously confused me for a long time. Does it seem especially funny to anyone else:

"No taint seen on Prez-elect, but Rahm Emanuel gave a wishlist for Senate"

Really? Really, newspaper headline writer???

2008-12-13T12:30:00.003-06:00

12 Days 'Til Christmas!

Here's an ornament given out at Brian and Shannon's wedding, which took place in December, in case you couldn't guess.

Did you know that the word "pixel" is derived from "picture element?" I didn't. But I do now. You do learn interesting things in class! If you're a geek, anyway.

I need to vacuum.

Question of the Day: What's your favorite Christmas song?

2008-12-12T19:07:00.002-06:00

March of the Librarians

While going through and clearing out my class notebooks (Huzzah! Semester is over!), I came across a note I made at the top of one of my pages: March of the Librarians. I couldn't remember what this referred to, but I had the feeling it might be a video. So I googled it, and it is! And it's pretty funny, too. So here it is for you to watch, if you like:

2008-12-12T12:17:00.003-06:00

13 Days 'Til Christmas!

As a counter to yesterday's decidedly un-Christmas-themed ornament(s), my choice today gets to the very heart of the meaning of Christmas. What could be more Christmas than the Virgin Mary holding Baby Jesus, our Lord and Savior?

My thoughts and prayers go out to Sarah, who threw up in her classroom today. Get better soon, and go with God.

2008-12-11T10:09:00.004-06:00

14 Days 'Til Christmas!

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Max Rebo Band!

Not an oldie, but a goodie nonetheless. If you don't know who these dudes are, think Star Wars. If you still can't place them, then you need to watch the movies again. Interesting side-note: Apparently, the style of music they play is called jizz. I don't make this stuff up.

2008-12-10T14:24:00.003-06:00

15 Days 'Til Christmas!

We used to have two nutcracker ornaments--the one pictured above, and another one dressed in blue. Joleen and I used to fight over who put which one up...we both liked the red guy best. 90%+ of the time, I'm sure Joleen won. But somehow I've ended up with the ornament, so while she may have won the individual battles, I won the war! Ha! Take that! We also used to fight over this awesome nativity scene ornament, which Joleen also always won. Bu tI think she ended up keeping that ornament. Drat.

I went to the mall today. I went in Steve and Barry's because they were going out of business and had big sales. I was really disturbed while in there, however, because I could never tell if I was in the girls' or women's area. And really, shouldn't this be obvious? Well, it wasn't. Sarah Jessica Parker's clothing line (which is in Steve and Barry's) got all kinds of raves for having clothing up to size twenty-something, but when your size twenty-something is akin to a normal size 12, then you kind of need sizes that big. Seriously, the small sized tee-shirts look like they're made for emaciated 4 year olds. Needless to say, I left without making a purchase.

2008-12-09T00:05:00.002-06:00

Adult Only Peanut Butter Lovers Fan Club Reunion
Ew.

I was looking at some archival files at the Wisconsin Historical Society today. They were Silver Anvil Award files. The Silver Anvil Award, symbolizing the forging of public opinion, is awarded annually by the Public Relations Society of America to organizations which have successfully addressed a contemporary issue with exemplary professional skill, creativity and resourcefulness. Basically, a PR award. Anyway, I was looking through the 1989 awards (may have been 1988) and came across the "Adult Only Peanut Butter Lovers Fan Club Reunion" file. Huh?? It sounds so dirty. Adult only? What exactly is being done with this peanut butter? Turns out nothing weird. They just had a convention (hosted by Soupy Sales) exalting the virtues and taste of peanut butter. And they won an award. There were photos of the event, and they were all wearing buttons that said, "Adult Peanut Butter Lover." But how they designed the button, from afar it looked like it just said, "Adult Lover." The whole thing was just weird and humorous.

2008-12-08T21:08:00.003-06:00

16 Days 'Til Christmas!

The snow outside is falling like rocks. It's actually very pretty. My bus was 15 minutes late (Monday nights is incompetent inclement weather bus driver), and coupled with the fact that my class got out 15 minutes early, I had to wait a half an hour for the bus. Ugh. At least my bus stop had a shelter.

Beary Christmas! This was another one of my favorite ornaments. At one point the bear fell off, but that was an easy fix. I loved the honey, aka glue.

2008-12-07T11:00:00.003-06:00

17 Days 'Til Christmas!

(I'm bad a stuff like counting, so pay no mind to the fact that as of yesterday there were 19 days until Christmas. Feel free to correct my count. Me stoopid.)

This was always one of my favorites--Mrs. Claus in a sleigh. My sister has one just like it, and my brother has one with Santa. I should probably know who gave them to us, but I don't...

2008-12-06T17:22:00.003-06:00

Ornament Advent

Until Christmas, I'll be giving you a virtual tour of my mini Christmas tree via the ornaments on it. Each day, you'll get a new ornament. Some of my faves aren't on my tree because they're on my parents', but what can you do?

19 Days Until Christmas!

2008-12-05T00:23:00.002-06:00

Name That Tune!

I snurched this from Liz. Shuffle your iTunes and and write the first line from the songs that come up. Then people guess the songs. Have at it!!!

1. When a man loves a woman, can't keep his mind on nothing else.
2. When I look into your eyes, I can see a love restrained.
3. Touch my skin and tell me what you're thinking.
4. I'm giving you everything, all that joy can bring.
5. No, no, no, no, don't phunk with my heart.
6. Look into my eyes, you will see what you mean to me.
7. All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.
8. Don't look now, things just got worse.
9. Easily, let's get carried away.
10. I've got a hunger twisting my stomach into knots.
11. Wait a minute man, you mispronounced my name.
12. I just left her standing there, tangled thoughts and tangled hair.
13. Welcome to the jungle; we've got fun and games.
14. All of my love, all of my kissing, you don't know what you've been missing.
15. Daniel is traveling tonight on a plane.
16. That's all I wanted; something special, something sacred in your eyes.
17. Drink up baby doll; are you in or are you out?
18. She walks in the room and checks out the faces.
19. There she stood in the street, smiling from her head to her feet.
20. And so she woke up, woke up from where she was lying still.

Answers:

1. When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge. (Wow, that was hard) :)
2. November Rain - Guns 'N' Roses. (It only took 1:15 and a piccolo to get to this line)
3. Take My Hand - Dido
4. Say You'll Be There - Spice Girls
5. Don't Phunk With My Heart - Black-Eyed Peas (Can this get any easier?)
6. (Everything I Do) I Do It For You - Bryan Adams
7. California Dreamin' - Mama's and the Papa's
8. Everything Falls Apart - Dog's Eye View
9. Easily - Red Hot Chili Peppers
10. The Sound of Settling - Death Cab For Cutie
11. Right Through You - Alanis Morissette
12. I-90 - Chris and Johnny (Storyhill)
13. Seriously. If you don't know this, then I don't know what to tell you.
14. Oh Boy - Buddy Holly
15. Daniel - Elton John
16. Father Figure - George Michael
17. Let Go - Frou Frou
18. Bell Jar - Bangles
19. All Right Now - Free
20. Running to Stand Still - U2

I did hit next on a few, since I had an inordinate number of songs that had the title as their first lyric. Which seemed lame-o to me. I always laugh at myself when I do things like this, because I get embarrassed about a good number of my songs. One song that didn't make the cut (due to the first lyric being the title) was Meatloaf's I Would Do Anything For Love. Hahahaha!!! The other day while walking to the bus stop, Vanilla Ice came on. Wtf?? I had no idea I even had that! That said, I embarassingly enjoyed it.

2008-12-04T10:13:00.002-06:00

Man. I just made the mistake of checking the weather before heading out to catch the bus. It's 12 degrees, feels like 4. 4!! Ugh. I suppose I should just be happy it's not below zero, eh?

And I couldn't sleep last night due to excessive coughing. So I'm really tired.

What else can I complain about? I'll get back to you on that one...

But to make this post less boring (to some of you), here's an interesting tidbit I recently learned about: During Stalin's reign, after he killed people who pissed him off, he'd try to erase them from history, including editing them out of photos. So here's an early example of Photoshopping:

2008-12-03T20:47:00.007-06:00

Thanksgiving
And Christmas trees

My great-great-great-etc grandfather, George Soule, came over on the Mayflower and was present for the first Thanksgiving. (OK, so technically there were Thanksgivings prior to this one, but this is the one with the "Indians" that everyone thinks of as the first Thanksgiving) I wonder which of these dudes is good ol' George? My bet is on the dude in the back left with the rifle slung over his shoulder:

Fast forward three hundred plus years, and here are a few of his descendants:

For the first time since I can remember, we got a real Christmas tree! We went to a Christmas tree farm (that sounds so depressing), walked amongst them all, picked one out, cut it down, then brought it home. Yay! Which tree did we get? Did it look like one of these:

I tried to convince my parents to get a pink aluminum tree, but it was a no-go. I contemplated getting a sad little Charlie Brown tree for my apartment, but ultimately didn't. I didn't have the right blue blanket for it. :)

Here is the tree we decided upon. It looks so much bigger in the house... (it was 7.5 ft, btw)

Here we are, dragging the carcass to the car:

Then I got to drive back to Madison. It was snowy. I got to call 911 when the car in front of me spun out on the interstate. It's always fun when the car in front of you starts spinning around on the road. Thankfully, it flew into the ditch before I got to it. More to be thankful for. Huzzah! It ended up taking an hour longer than usual to get home (more due to traffic than weather conditions).

Oh, and fwiw, I finally decided upon the Playstation 2. Because it was hella more cheaper than everything else. In a perfect world I would have gotten the Wii, but we do not live in a perfect world. I ended up getting the Playstation 2 with Sing Star for $129, so I was happy. And the Rock Band 1 bundle for $99. I'll only have one guitar, but I'm only one person, so I don't mind. Thanks to everyone who gave me advice!

2008-11-23T01:42:00.004-06:00

OMG! Moveable Printed Type!

Is it a sign that I'm a total dork that I found this funny enough to download and make into a clip? (Don't worry, it's only 12 seconds long)

2008-11-21T23:28:00.002-06:00

Wii Have a Question For Yuu
Apparently, I'm outgrowing my SNES.

Let's say one wanted to buy some sort of gaming system for the sole purpose of playing either Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Or possibly some sort of singing game like Sing Star or whatever. But one is not heavily invested (or at all invested) in any other games. This being the case:

a) Which gaming system should this person buy? Said person is thinking of Wii, because it's more affordable than the Playstation 3 (Hello!?! $400???). Said person is wondering if the Playstation 2 will soon be on the outs since, you know. It's an old version. Said person is wondering what's up with the XBox. Any good? Avoid?

b) Let's say said person boought a gaming system. Should said person buy Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Let the record show that it would be Guitar Hero World Tour since, hello. Drums and mic etc are a must. Which one of these is better? Does it really even matter?

c) If you bought the necessary plastic instruments for one game, can you use them with the software for the other game? Or must you buy 2 separate sets of plastic instruments? Which would be ridiculous.

d) Is there anything else said person should know?

Said person would like your (hopefully informed) comments. Please.

2008-11-21T18:29:00.002-06:00

Sources (Liz) say that Franken now only trails by 125 votes. And the pile of disputed ballots is growing steadily. Let's go Team Al!

2008-11-19T11:37:00.005-06:00

Fill 'er Up!
I've got gas

In the time it took me to use half a tank of gas, gas prices fell $1.00. Which is both a testament to how quickly the prices are falling, and how little I drive my car. The last time I filled up my car, it was because prices fell below $3. I couldn't resist, even though I didn't really need gas. I now have half a tank, and I feel I must fill up again, now that gas is $1.97. Plus, I'll actually be using a lot of gas over Thanksgiving weekend, having to drive to Rochester and back. I remember when gas was like $1.87, and that was back in high school. Weird. Not long ago, gas was over $4.

Apparently, consumer prices are falling and we're entering a period of deflation. How long do you think it'll take for the Wii to cost $100? That's what I'm waiting for.

2008-11-17T21:32:00.002-06:00

OMG. Look at what Newt Gingrich said on The O'Reilly Factor recently:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank -- for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.

Everything about this makes me want to die from Newt being such a friggin' idiot. Yes. Yes, it's definitely the gays and atheists that are shoving their beliefs down everyone else's throats.

2008-11-16T00:40:00.002-06:00

The stupid video game music finally stopped. I started working on the book review again. Just as I was catching my stride, even louder music started up. This time it sounds like cheesy porno music. With lots of bass. F off, you MuthaHumpa.

I guess I'll go to bed and TRY to wake up early-ish tomorrow to get stuff done. Provided I can get to sleep with the a-hole next door being jagoff.

(I'm going to a Badger bkb game with Sarah tomorrow. No matter how much work I have, I apparently can't say no to a free Badger bkb game)

2008-11-16T00:08:00.002-06:00

I Hate You
And I want you to die

I'm trying to write my book review (I hate this assignment more than life itself). It's a sucky task by itself and I'm already having a hard time concentrating enough to get things done, but now it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to do anything. My neighbor is playing something really really loudly. I have no idea what it is, but it's the most annoying thing on the planet. Seriously, I don't know what it is. If it's music. it's the most annoying music known to man. My best guess is that it's background music for a videogame. It's driving me completely mad, and is seriously preventing me from doing any work. The only things I can concentrate on are THOSE SOUNDS. WHY ARE PEOPLE SO NOISY SO LATE AT NIGHT??? I HATE YOU, NEIGHBOR.

OMFG, it just got louder. Pretty sure it's a video game, as I'm now hearing weird sound effects.

I guess I'm done working on this for the night. Maybe I can get myself to something else I don't hate so much...and doesn't require 340% of my concentration.

2008-11-15T14:08:00.001-06:00

I'm sorry, but I just had to post this. Because it's adorable and hilarious.

Cat Stuck in a Box @ Yahoo! Video

2008-11-15T14:01:00.002-06:00

Taking A Break From All Your Worries
Sure would help a lot

While eating lunch, I was watching some TV (it's kind of hard to read while eating soup). Legally Blonde was on CW. I thought it was interesting that they kept dubbing over the word "sperm" with "seed." Since when can't you say sperm on TV, especially when it's not being used in an overly sexual context? And personally, I find the word "seed" more eww-worthy in that context.

2008-11-14T01:15:00.002-06:00

Sometimes I Have No Faith in Humanity

I just read 4 extremely disturbing news stories centered in or near Rochester.

1) A guy stabbed and killed his wife and son, and tried to kill his 2 daughters. He was only prevented from killing the daughters because his son, whom he had stabbed in the neck, fought back and managed to stab him back.

2) Two white 25 year old guys were charged with killing a Somalian guy just because he was Somalian. They're calling it a bias crime, which I guess is the same thing as a hate crime?

3) In Rochester, someone shot and killed a dog when the family let it out to go to the bathroom.

4) The number of attacks against homeless/handicapped people is on the rise. People seriously beat the shit out of homeless people for fun.

WTF is wrong with people??? It makes me sick. Wtf would make a person do any of these things? People. Ugh.

2008-11-12T00:24:00.004-06:00

The Death Rattle
Prepare to join me in singing a lament

My computer is dying. I think. A while ago, my computer's SD card slot stopped working. Which was annoying, but not too bad. This past week, however, my computer began making noises that CLEARLY should not be coming out of any computer. I dubbed it the Death Rattle. It's the sound of hardware completely breaking down and rattling about. And it's LOUD. It does come and go. Right now, it sounds OK. When I first woke it up from its slumber, it sounded like it had about 5 more minutes of life.

When it first started making these scary noises about a week ago, I backed up all my data on an external hard drive, so I'm not too concerned with losing stuff. But this is quite possibly the worst month in the history of history AND pre-history AND the future for my computer to be out of commission.

I have 3 papers due this month that I have yet to start on. I have a big project due Monday that I have yet to start on. I have a book report I have to write, before which I need to read the actual book. Due Tuesday. Plus, other things crammed in there. Seriously.

So I don't know what to do. Logic and caution tells me that I should contact Dell tech support ASAP to try to fix things before they get completely out of hand and unfixable. But that will probably take a considerable amount of time, in which my computer will probably be shipped to some facility in Atlanta. Which means I'd have to write all my papers etc, at school in the computer labs. Which I KNOW I will have a very hard time doing. Plus, it just means I'll have to spend more time at school which sucks. I was at school for 11 hours today. God. I gave a presentation on Zotero at 9:30pm for Chrissakes.

WHAT DO I DO???

(I'm hoping the rattly noise is only my computer's fan dying, not the hard drive. Both of which apparently make scary rattly noises when they're near death)

PS- Happy Pepero Day a half an hour late!!!

2008-11-06T23:42:00.002-06:00

The vote difference between Franken and Claymation "Giant Teeth" Horeseface is now 236 votes. Come on, keep narrowing!!!

(I haven't had fun with Photoshop in a while, so I felt compelled to create this)

2008-11-06T17:05:00.003-06:00

Tight Race

According to WCCO:

As of 4:55 p.m. Thursday, Republican Sen. Norm Coleman's lead over Democrat Al Franken is 336.

With nearly 2.9 million ballots cast, that's a difference between the top two candidates of about one one-hundredth of a percentage point.

Wow.

2008-11-05T19:17:00.002-06:00

JavaScript?
Why yes, I do like coffee and writing.

I just went to a DoIT class on "Introduction to Scripting." Wow. Computer science majors are not teachers. :D

2008-11-05T10:18:00.003-06:00

Missouri
No longer the bellwether state

Brighton, what's up with Missouri?? For shame. You guys really mis-read this one! :)

I see that Coleman currently has been declared the victor in the MN Senate race, with a whopping lead of...725 votes, or something. Which, per MN law, requires a recount. Maybe they'll find 1000 Franken votes laying in a box in a corner somewhere. Hey, a girl can hope...

It appears that California's Proposition 8 was passed. Ugh ugh ugh. What's the deal with the country being so damn homophobic? I look forward to the day when a black lesbian is elected president. At least California, South Dakota, and Colorado didn't pass their abortion referendums.

I randomly stumbled upon this YouTube video of the plane/Obama banner I talked about in a previous post. Here it is. Feel free to "fast forward" to about 2 minutes in. Prior to that, it's pretty boring and consists of 2 people unrolling a banner onto a field. Not that the remaining time is unbridled excitement, but you can see what I saw. Since that's everyone's goal.

2008-11-04T23:56:00.004-06:00

The 44th President of the United States
Barack Obama

FINALLY! An election has gone my way! Until today, I was 0-2 in presidential elections. It's nice to finally win one.

Freshman year at UW-Madison was my first presidential election. I voted absentee for Minnesota. I liked the tiny pencil that came in the mail along with the ballot. :) Wow, was that a weird and stressful and crushingly disappointing and anger-inducing election. Elation turning to horror. Countless hours logged in front of the TV in the coming weeks. The infamous hanging chad. It's still bizarre to me to see a candidate get more popular votes but still lose. On a related note, I just learned tonight that Nebraska splits up their electoral votes based on percentages. I didn't know states could do that.

Then there was 2004. Honestly, I don't remember much about that one. Except Kerry lost. :( And it was really close in Wisconsin. This was the year that I was student teaching at Sherman Middle School in a 7th grade classroom. I taught about elections and the importance of reading about the issues. We had a class vote. Kerry won. The kids had to do a project that year about the future. Different groups had different themes. One group, comprised all of black students, had the topic of government, or something. I remember them saying that they couldn't imagine a black person ever being elected president. That was just so sad to me at that time. I'm now very happy that 4 years later they can say that their future predictions were incorrect. :)

As I was waiting for the bus this morning, I was hoping the buses would be scrolling "Vote!," since on Badger game days they scroll, "Go Badgers!" As the 3 bus came into view to pick me up, I saw that it was indeed scrolling the words, "Vote Today." Yay! That made me very happy. Today and yesterday I saw a plane flying around with a banner trailing behind proclaiming, "VOTE OBAMA." There was an obscene number of "Election Observers" at my polling location this morning. I don't really remember seeing many at all in previous elections. But there were probably 15 of them today.

Measuring elections in terms of concerts, in 2000 I saw Melissa Etheridge perform at a Gore rally. In 2004 I saw Bruce Springsteen perform at a Kerry rally, and this year I saw Wilco perform for Obama. Only not at his rally. I did go to both Hillary Clinton's and Obama's rallies in Madison when they were campaigning for the Democratic nomination.

Very discouraging news on the number states passing referendums denying rights to homosexuals (both marriage and adoption). I haven't heard anything about California's Proposition 8 yet. In Minnesota races, I'm saddened to see that it appears Michele Bachmann will win her race. Coleman and Franken are currently neck-in-neck, with Coleman having the slight lead (80% reporting). I wish I knew which 20% have yet to be reported. Traditionally Republican or Democrat? I hate Coleman. The only reason he got voted into office 6 years ago was because Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash a few weeks before the election. Good to see District 1 (including Rochester) overwhelmingly voted for incumbent Democrat Tim Walz.

2008-11-04T09:32:00.004-06:00

VOTE!!!

It makes you live longer.

I have a bone to pick with Madison. They never give out "I voted" stickers after you vote. I love those stickers! And how will people know I voted? Now I will undoubtedly keep being harassed by people with clipboards on the street.

I got in line to vote at the Madison Ice Arena at 7:55am. The line was pretty long. They did have a giant table full of goodies (coffee and bars and cookies, etc) that you could buy. I didn't. Being as it was an ice arena, there were also arcade games and vending machines. I contemplated getting a hot chocolate from the vending machine and playing that giant claw game (where you try to get stuffed animals), but I didn't. I was sad to see that the beverage vending machine didn't have chicken noodle soup. That was always my favorite. But weird. Chicken noodle soup from a vending machine? Huh.

But man, the organizers at my polling location had their shit together. People who needed to register were filling out forms while in line to speed things up. It ended up only taking me 25 minutes. Rock on. People who voted early to avoid long lines had to wait in line like an hour or more. Hehe. When I left the line had been almost cut in half. I was the 307th person to vote at my polling location (an hour into the voting day).

I had forgot that the coat I was wearing had an Obama sticker on it. As I was walking to the building, a lady leaving said to me, "You better take off that sticker! One girl got all the way to the front and they made her go to the back of the line because she had an Obama button." So I flipped my collar inside out. All was good. You'd think they'd have someone monitoring that as people get in line so that wouldn't happen. Oh well.

Apparently Starbucks is giving away free coffee to people who voted today. And Ben and Jerry's is giving away a free scoop of ice cream to people between the hours of 3-5 today. And Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts. I don't think we have a Krispy Kreme here.

Yeah. I still want an "I voted" sticker, dammit!

And I will leave you all with this presidential candidate dance-off:

2008-11-01T18:45:00.004-05:00

If you believe in death, disgrace, or immorality, vote for Barack Obama!

I just got a RoboCall from the McCain campaign telling me that Obama loves abortions. Ok, not those words exactly, but pretty close. It ended with, "If you believe life, dignity, and values are important, vote John McCain." I guess I don't think life, dignity, or values are important as I will NOT be voting for McCain.

I've also gotten an increase in political mailing recently. All of the ones from the McCain campaign/RNC are strictly bashing Obama and don't even mention McCain. All the ones from the Obama campaign/DNC are about information on voting, making no mention of McCain. And the conservatives are claiming that Obama is being just as negative as McCain...

I went to a free Wilco concert on campus today--Concert For Change, or something. Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold gave a short speech beforehand. The Russ Feingold of the McCain-Feingold bill (Campaign Finance Reform). He endorses Obama, not McCain. It ended with Representative Tammy Baldwin (lesbian representative of the district that includes Madison) giving a short speech and leading a march to the city/county building to vote early so people can help "get out the vote" on election day. I think the march was piteously attended.

I personally want to vote on November 4th, as it makes me feel like I'm "part of the day," if that makes sense. It's more exciting for me. But I'm going to have to go pretty early as I'm away from my house from 11:30 until after the polls close. And since the lines could be very long (they always say that, but I've rarely had to wait that long) I feel I should give myself plenty of time so I don't miss my bus or something.

Yay. Election day almost here!

2008-10-28T09:58:00.001-05:00

Because No One Can Get Enough Of Me

I made a new blog. I will still post here, but that one has a different theme.

Here is the linky:

My New Blog

2008-10-28T07:30:00.003-05:00

2 Snippets
Compliments of The Daily Show

Sarah, I already made you watch them both.

2008-10-26T23:56:00.004-05:00

SNOW???
You've GOT to be kidding me...

The first snow of the season may fall tonight. Arg.

I went to the grocery store the other day and bought 3 items. THREE. Check out the receipt I got:
Why in God's name would anyone need a receipt that's over a foot long when they buy a baguette, brie, and mascara?? Ri-dic-u-lous.

2008-10-25T21:47:00.002-05:00

And what's different about it?
Oh, you know. Mainly how gay it is.

In my continuing quest to avoid doing the work I need to be doing, here is a clip from a 2003 episode of The Daily Show in which Stephen Colbert (Senior Analyst) completely breaks character and can't stop laughing at the joke they're doing (about a charge that Prince Charles had a gay experience at one point, but due to strict libel and slander laws in the UK, the press can only mention things by innuendo, not outright allegations):

2008-10-25T15:27:00.002-05:00

Revving Up Your Engine...
Highway to the Danger Zone!

I forgot to mention in my last post that I was watching the news last night and they showed a clip of John Mccain at one of his recent rallies. I have no idea what they were specifically talking about, but I laughed to myself because the music that was playing in the background at his rally was "Highway to the Danger Zone." Hahahahahaha!!!! I don't know if we're supposed to believe that voting for Obama would lead us on a highway to the danger zone, or if a vote for McCain would do that. I'm sure they chose it simply going on the whole "McCain is a Maverick" theme, but even that's funny. I wonder if Kenny Loggins minds McCain using his music. I know McCain has been having some problems with artists telling him to stop playing their music at his rallies. Requests he's routinely ignored.

I took Wicket to PetSmart today. She does NOT enjoy that place. She's scared to death. She refused to walk in, so I had to carry her. It's like she thought it was the vet or something. I was going to see if any little Halloween costumes fit her, but they were all too big. There were a lot of dogs there walking around. I guess I don't blame her for being freaked out.

Hey, new old footage of Michele Bachmann turned up--now that she's made a national fool of herself, people are digging of all kinds of things. This is from a primary debate back in 2005, where she states that "not all cultures are equal." And I mean EXPLICITLY says that. She then tried to pussyfoot around saying "Not that muslims are bad," but she clearly views them as inferior to "western Europeans." Man. Where is the MN 6th district? Which cities does she represent? I need to check this out.

UGH! She represents Brian! I am going to assume Brian won't be voting for her. (Andover, Anoka, Woodbury, and Blaine are 4 of the cities she represents). Well, here she is in her own words:

2008-10-25T12:36:00.003-05:00

Video Round-up

Palin's close-up on the cover of Newsweek: In case you missed this "story," the issue is that Palin had a close-up on Newsweek and it was untouched. Therefore, it showed wrinkles and some facial hair. Here's a clip on Fox News where they discuss this. There are so many things that disgust me about the conversation they have. Anyway, if you want to watch it, here it is:

Then there's Michele Bachmann, a (batshit crazy) conservative representative from MN who's up for re-election. Then she went on Hardball and made a total ass of herself by promoting a resurgence of McCarthyism. Huge fallout from this...her opponent (Elwyn Tinklenberg...unfortunate name) received a million dollars in donations in like 3 days after this aired. Hahaha!!! I mean, can anyone claim in all seriousness that Obama is anti-America?? Really? I accept disagreeing with his policies and thinking that the policies will be bad for America, but to actually believe that Obama himself is anti-America?? Come on. Here Bachmann is, touting her crazy:

Palin was on SNL the other week. On Weekend Update they did a rap. It was supposed to be rapped by Palin, but she decided it'd be bad for her campaign (all part of the skit), so a very preggers Amy Poehler stepped up and rapped it for her. It is seriously hilarious. I luvs.

Ok, I that's it for now. I must get back to my school work that I'm procrastinating on.

2008-10-24T14:43:00.003-05:00

I hate doing laundry.

Obama was originally planning on coming to Madison this past Thursday for a rally or whatever. But he had to cancel to fly to Hawaii to be with his ailing grandma. :( Then again, although I never found out what time he was supposed to be here, I probably wouldn't have been able to go because of work and class. Yeah. That's it.

I clicked on this link on Yahoo! to see a slideshow of "Stars Supporting Their Candidates." 38 pictures. The first 30 were all Obama supporters. The next 6 were old Hillary + celebrity photos. The next one was John Edwards and Mellencamp. The last one was Chuck Norris and his wife supporting Huckabee. Chuck Norris was dressed exactly like Paul Bunyan, fyi. Chuck the Lumberjack. I give Palin and McCain permission to use that one. Anyway, I thought it was funny (but not at all surprising) that 99% of the pictures were celebrities supporting democrats. And not a single one for McCain. Although I did just finish reading a story about Elisabeth Hasselbeck wearing a "great AmeriCAIN" t-shirt on The View. Hasselbeck. Man, she's annoying.

Brokaw was on The Daily Show. I'm in love with Jon Stewart with a fiery passion. Brokaw was pretty funny, too.

I need to go get my laundry now.

2008-10-21T22:38:00.003-05:00

I don't feel like writing anything today, but I will leave you with this picture of cuteness:

2008-10-17T14:51:00.002-05:00

The Office
Is funny.

Apparently, when you watch The Office online, it's sponsored by a black hole. Or a room completely devoid of light. Every time it goes to a "commercial," it just shows blackness for 30 seconds. Which I think I actually prefer to commercials. Especially when you're watching shows online, since in that case they play the SAME commercial every time. If that doesn't make you hate the product, I don't know what would. Other getting cancer from it. Or spending a lot of money on it and then finding out it doesn't work.

2008-10-17T12:07:00.002-05:00

Joe the mutha-f*in Plumber
Who is actually Samuel the Plumber

First of all, "Joe" is not even a plumber. He's one of two guys in a plumbing business, neither of which have a plumbing license or "apprenticeship." Nice. Stay away from my pipes. Second, the company he works for would not be affected by Obama's tax plan because it only makes $100,000-$150,000 a year.

Here's a quote from him: "You know, a lot of the stuff that our government is doing right now is all about taxation without representation, and, you know, the last time that happened a couple guys got together and threw the Brits out."

Clearly, Joe is stupid. How is he not represented? Is he somehow unable to vote? Ex-felon, perhaps? Is he a very old looking 17-year old? I don't think he understands what he's talking about. And as far as representation goes, I think businesses get plenty of representation in our government. And is he threatening a coup or revolution? Treason! Arrest him!!!

He apparently owes a bunch in back taxes. Which means he's actually getting representation without taxation. Hehe.

I have to say, I do kind of feel bad for him what with all the media scrutiny. It's McCain's fault.

2008-10-15T21:41:00.004-05:00

My favorite election results map (1984). Hehe. Go Minnesota! Mondale being from MN has absolutely nothing to do with it. I'd like to see an all-blue map, though.

2008-10-15T20:31:00.002-05:00

PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
Round 3

1. I don't give a shit about Joe the Plumber. Quit bringing him up, or soon I'll actively hate him.

2. Seriously, how can McCain say with a straight face that Obama's campaign is more negative than his own?

3. McCain, you should THANK Obama for not agreeing to do a billion town hall debates. Because you SUCK at them.

4. Apparently, the McCain campaign is pulling out of Wisconsin. Which all but admits defeat here. ::cheers::

5. ACORN. As far as I've seen, it's not even that bad of a scandal. Ok, so they're paying people to go out and register voters, and because of this these people are filling in the forms themselves and making stuff up (to get more money). However, ACORN identifies which of these are probably false and tags them as "suspicious." They send all the registration forms in, even the obviously false ones that say Mickey Mouse, because it's the law. However, they probaly won't ever getting registered because the info wouldn't check out. But let's say some DO get through. Still not a big issue, because registering is not the same as voting. Even if some go through, an actual person would still have to show up at the polling place with ID saying that they are that fake person. Seriously. Not going to happen.

6. Yes, McCain. Tell me how Palin can POSSIBLY be a better choice for president than Biden... Role model for women??? Please. I'm ashamed she's a woman. Oh, sure. Bringing up special needs. By the way, before she had her own special needs child she was actually "against" special needs "issues." So she's been a champion of special needs for what? A year? Ha. McCain's argument against Biden is that he hasn't been PERFECT in his decisions regarding foreign policy issues (his specialty). Wow, how damning. He's not perfect.

7. Hey-Presidential debates don't have commercials. Awesome. That'd be funny if they did and they were all campaign ads. Except it'd actually suck.

8. He brought up Joe the fuckin' Plumber again. I liked Obama's response to McCain bringing him up-"Joe, if you're even out there..." Hehe.

9. McCain keeps bringing up "sharing the wealth" in a negative way. I like the concept of sharing the wealth. To an extent, of course. Like to Obama's extent, let's say.

10. McCain says he doesn't believe in litmus tests. You might say you don't believe in them, but give me a break. You wouldn't appoint someone to the Supreme Court if you didn't share their beliefs. Which is, for all intents and purposes, a litmus test. Just a less obvious one. Kind of. Although Obama also says he doesn't believe in litmus tests, at least he's man enough to say he'd take their various views into account (among other things).

11. McCain: "We have to change the culture of America, to one of compassion." Fuck you, McCain. To conservatives, the word compassion directly equals pro-life. And that's it. Where's their compassion when it comes to poor people? Or homosexuals? Or any number of people, for that matter.

12. Recruit new teachers = As I'm running away.

13. Civil Rights issue of the 21st century? Dude, we're only 8 years in. Something much more huge will probably occur sometime in the next 92 years than not having school choice programs. Teach For America = I pity ANYONE in Teach For America. OMG. McCain pretty much just said that teacher certification isn't needed or a good thing. He has no idea wtf he's talking about. I wish I was recordin, because I HAD to have misheard that. Or else McCain can suck it hardcore for implying (pretty much) that teaching is easy and doesn't need the same training as other jobs.

14. Vouchers. Ugh. I hate how that word sounds. And it's educational meaning.

15. McCain just snorted while laughing at his own "joke." What a tool.

2008-10-14T22:57:00.002-05:00

Are You Registered To Vote?
YES.

How Palin speaks really bothers me. I think it sounds like a really bad Minnesotan accent, and wondered if Alaskans just speak like Minnesotans. Well, my archives professor told me that she got her accent from growing up in an enclave of Minnesotans in Alaska. I thought that was interesting.

I don't think you can go 5 feet on campus without being stopped by a person with a clipboard and a yellow shirt asking if you're registered to vote at your current address. It's interesting how hard they're pushing this "you need to register if you've moved" thing since it doesn't really matter in Wisconsin. Wisconsin is one of the good states (along with Minnesota) that allows registration at the polls. Unless they feel that getting people to register early will make them more likely to actually vote when the day comes. "Well, I took the time to register, so I may as well vote." I guess it also would inform people of their new polling place. So they don't wake up on election day and think, "Crap. I don't know where I'm supposed to vote. I guess I just won't."

Some dude was walking down State St today holding Obama signs and yelling that Senator Kerry was going to be speaking on State St near the capitol in "half an hour...actually, right now!" I didn't go down and see what was up since I had school shit to do. It's weird I never heard about it except from random yelling man.