I'm Just Saying

Personal Responsibility

Today I am annoyed at people who can't take responsibility for themselves.

The news is that one of the 32 AI contestants was arrested for drunk driving. After being at a party to celebrate his AI success, he was caught driving 100MPH - he went right by the highway patrol car - while intoxicated. When the officers took him in he reportedly said "You're ruining my life." I suppose he was referring to the fact that he'll probably be kicked off AI. So instead of blaming himself for his actions, he blames the police who are really just trying to save you and me from being killed by him. I wonder if he had killed someone while driving drunk he'd blame the victim for being in the way. Geesh!

And speaking of AI, last night Ryan Seahorse said that in Hawaii more people voted on the AI contest than participated in the caucus. Now I know it is harder to participate in a state caucus than to vote in a primary but still it is discouraging that more people want to vote for the Idol than want to participate in their own government.

Also speaking of AI, those people really are not very idle. When I heard that a contestant had been arrested, I searched the AI website for his name to try and jog my memory about him. I had no real cluewho he was because we never got a chance to identify with any of the people during the auditions - but that's a different post. Unless they publish this guy's pic in the papers I'll probably never have a chance to see him because AI pulled him from the competition. You're fired!

And one more thing on personal responsibility. Alan Greenspan wants to cut social security benefits and also increase the age at which the next generation will be able to retire. My words to the next generation are 'save for your own retirement because social security won't be there to help you.' Of course it's easy for me to talk, I live in a capitalistic society where my grandmother was allowed to pass down her money to me which I promptly put in the bank to save for my retirement. And I live in one of the last states to opt into the social security system (I should say forced into the social security system) and so I have a great 401K plan and don't have to contribute to the failing social security system.

Blogging is hard

Either blogging is hard or I am just boring.

I hate to have empty blog days but can't always think of something to write about. Plus everyone else's blogs are so funny and interesting I spend my time reading those instead of composing my own blog. And even though I am a state worker, sometimes I actually have to work. Today for instance I have to go visit my boss in the hospital and take her a care package. I hate hospitals so I hope Sally appreciates that I am going into one.

The last time I was in a hospital as a patient I gave birth to Debra and I hope that is the last time I'm there as a guest. I avoid being a visitor in the hospital because they creep me out. However, my mom spent a good deal of time in hospitals before she died and then for the past two years on my birthday my dad has been in the hospital with COPD* related symptoms. I getting a little nervous about my upcoming birthday. I think I'll go to L.A. in July just to entertain my dad and keep him out of the hospital. He's been looking pretty healthy lately so I'm hopeful.

*Chronic Obstructive Pulminary Disease

Oh The Places I've Been

Here's a map showing all the states I've been to.

You can make one for yourself here.

Friday Fun

Here's a couple Friday activities.

This was sent to me by my boss Sally. It really is a test of following directions. I failed the first time I tried it.

This is from Dave Barry's blog by way of Jen Mc. I have not solved it yet though I've found lots of little items. It takes a while to load I guess because it is coming all that way from Japan.

Weekend Fun and Adventure

This weekend was a great one filled with fun, food, wine and movies.

I arrived at the Oakland airport at 5 o'clock and shuttled over to the rental car warehouse. I was just signing for our car when my friend Debbie called to say her plane had been delayed. I called our dinner pals and informed them we'd be late. At approximately 8 o'clock I picked Debbie up in front of the Oakland airport and zipped over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco to meet our friends and family at Yoshida Ya. Several dragon rolls had already been consumed but there were a few bites left to hold us over until our own orders arrived. We had plenty of good sushi and beer and then headed off to spend the night at Debra's apartment.

We got up early in the morning to pick up Aunt Mary and head to the Farmer's Market and to Whole Foods to lay in supplies for the weekend. Then it was off to Bodega. We stopped at the Oakville Grocery to get some cheese and salad for our picnic lunch then went off to Diamond Oaks winery where we purchased a nice pinot noir to drink with our lunch. Then it was off to Bodega Bay for the rest of our day.

We put away the groceries and put out our cheese and crackers and anchovies for snacking while we watched What's Cooking. Fun movie about several families (all different ethnicities) getting ready for Thanksgiving. It was a fun movie up until the very end when the attempt to pull it all together was just too contrived. When that movie was over we cooked up a nice dinner of roast chicken, potatoes, brussel sprouts and beans. We didn't eat until late but boy was it good! After dinner we watched Woman on Top which was a dumb movie but had a great sound track.

The next day we had a wonderful breakfast of tortillas soaked in an eggs (like french toast). After cooking on one side and turning you add cheese, cook a little longer and fold over like an omelet. Then we served it with avocados, tomatoes and cilantro. Very Yum. After breakfast we headed off to Healdsberg and visited a cheese shop, a couple little knickknack stores and two wine tasting rooms - Toad Hollow and Rosemblum.

We returned to Bedega and made a refreshing salad of greens with oranges and blue cheese crumbles tossed in an orange vinegrette that Debbie created. The leftover shredded chicken along with tortillas, avacado, tomatoes and cheeses made up tacos and we were full again. After lunch we watched Vatel, a not that great a movie but interesting because of all the catering problems poor Vatel faced in the 17th century. Debbie could empathize! Then we watched Chocolat, one of my favorite movies, before fixing a dinner of home made sushi of spicy salmon, eel and california rolls. Late that evening we had molten chocolate cakes! We started watching My Big Fat Greek Wedding but got tired and turned it off to go to sleep.

Monday morning Debbie made us a great feast all from leftovers. Then we watched the rest of My Big Fat Greek Wedding and packed up to leave for home. It had been raining all night so we wanted to get out of Bodega early. We waited a little too long though because both of the main roads out were flooded. We got turned back on the route we'd chosen and had to ask one of the highway maintenance guys for directions but then we got lost. So we stopped at a nice looking house where the lights were on and the nice people living there told us how to get back to Sebasterpol so we could get on highway 101 to get home. An adventure. Leaving early got us to the airport extra early and Debbie got an early flight out. I read until my normal flight and came back to rest for the next trip.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm off for a weekend in the bay area.

I get to see my Debra!! Yahoo!. And then I'm going to Bodega Bay for a weekend of fun with my best friend and my aunt. We're watching foodie movies and cooking all weekend. Well we may go down to the beach and have a picnic or two.

Tonight we're eating sushi (not chocolate sushi) at Yoshida Ya in San Francisco. Dragon roll!

Have a good weekend - I hope you have all the love you need.

Get Off Of My Blog

Hey! You! Get off of my blog...

I work in an office on the campus of UNLV
And I sit at my computer looking at my Windows
Imagining the spam has stopped
Then in comes a guy who acts up like a Stupid Hack
His comments fill my inbox and my blog is all out of whack

I said, Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Don't comment here cause you’re not welcome
On my blog, baby

The inbox starts to fill
I click on it to find who is sending me a line
A note says, "Hi, hello, here’s my URL
Well, I guess I got you fine"
I says, "Hey I’m getting real annoyed
Don't you people have better things to do?
Just 'cause you feel so cool, do you have
Be so cruel and spam me too?"

I said, Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Don't comment here cause you’re not welcome
On my blog baby

I was sick and tired, fed up with all of this
So I got my good friend Kat to try and take them down
Now it is so very quiet and peaceful
There finally are no new hits, not a spam around
Kat laid in some new code and now I started to clean
In the morning the blogs will be just how I like
No spam mail stuck on my window screen

I said, Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Don't comment here cause you’re not welcome
On my blog

Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Hey! You! Get off of my blog
Don't comment here cause you’re not welcome
On my blog

WE LIKE THE MOON

Last week I was watching American Idol

when a Quizno's commercial came on. I looked up because the tune if not the words sounded familiar. There I saw funny, ugly things singing "WE LIKE THE SUB". I knew this was something I'd seen on the internet but couldn't quite place it. So I IM'd Kat who was apparently also watching AI. She sent back the clue I needed. It was the We Like the Moon song that absolutely cracked me up when Kat first sent it to me last year.

The next day we were laughing about how funny it was that Quizno's had chosen off the wall internet characters for this commercial. It seemed a commentary about the pervasive influence of the internet. But then I questioned Quizno's wisdom in using this particular ad. The next time I watched the commercial I thought people who had no clue where the ad came from might just find the little spongemonkeys (what is a spongemonkey) kind of disgusting.

Sure enough Jen Pascoe came in the next morning and said she and her husband were grossed out by the commercial. I was dancing around the office saying "told ya so, told ya so" while Kat explained the phenomenon to Jen. Jen still didn't think the ad campaign was wise - she still thinks the little monkeys are gross.

We are firm believers in our office of writing to companies to voice our complaints. We've gotten lots of coupons for free food this way. So Jen decided to write to Quizno's telling them how she felt about the ad. We expected that coupons would arrive shortly. Even if Jen was reluctant to eat there the rest of us volunteered to use her reward. Of course Jen said she was willing to sacrifice and eat there if she had coupons.

Well yesterday Jen got her response from Quizno's. Maybe she'll put it on her blog. It pretty much said, "We're advertising experts, we've researched our customers and they are young, hip, internet savey and have an unusual sense of humor. You apparently are not in our demographic group and we don't care if you ever eat here again." There were no coupons with the letter.

Now that is chutzpah!.

Monkey Business

I can see Kat's monkey.

And it's all because I decided to try trillian. Trillain is an alternate package for messaging friends. I forget who got me to try it but they said that way I could interact with buddies from other messaging programs without having to have several messaging programs.

So far the only thing I miss from my AIM messaging is the ability to tell when the other person is typing. It is so nice to see that the other person is still working on a message to you because the conversation seems to flow better. I can buy the professional version of trillan and get that feature but I'm too cheap.

What I really like in trillian are the tons of little icons. So I can receive a little monkey face from Kat or send a meowing kitten. Unfortunately most people I message with still have AIM so they can't see my cute little kitten. But I can see Kat's monkey.

Bon

Here is a fun link a co-worker sent me.

This performance reminds me of something that would have been on The Ed Sullivan Show. My brother and I used to watch the Ed Sullivan show at our Grandpa Weigand's when he babysat us. So of course I loved my Christmas present this year - a dvd of four Ed Sullivan shows with appearances by The Beatles. This was a great dvd and not just because it has the first visit by the Beatles but also because of all the other acts (Frank Gorshin, Mitzi Gaynor, Cab Calloway) and the commercials too. I love the commercials. They are only about 30 seconds long and all have voice overs. I remember clearly the "don't take it out on her" commercial for Anacin. The husband has a hard day at the office and comes home and yells at his poor wife. Great stuff. The only thing missing was a performance with Topo Gigio.

More Awful Stuff

We probably should have known better ...

but Cheryl and I went to see Along Came Polly yesterday. We went because we both liked Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl and we've liked Ben Stiller in a couple of movies. But this movie was probably the worst movie I've seen in a long time. The only saving grace was that Hank Azaria is a hunk in this movie (though he could do somthing about that hair).

Aniston did do a decent job in spite of a script only an 8 year old could find funny. Yeah ha, ha, people fart. And ha, ha, people get intestinal problems from spicy food. Funny, very funny. One funny thing to me was that in spite of how purposefully gross some scenes were, when Ruben (Stiller) has his intestinal problems and clogs up the toilet, the water running over the bowl is as clear as tap water. Yeah, right. Cheryl and I laughed at ourselves in the middle of the movie for being stupid enough to see it and not smart enough to leave. As I said, waiting for scenes with hunky Hank made it almost worth the 5.75. Almost but not quite.

And speaking of stupid stuff, apparently CBS or the NFL didn't want to have ads from Las Vegas during the Super Bowl because they didn't want the game to be associated with ACK gambling! Wow, who knew. People bet on the Super Bowl? I thought we only had the Super Bowl so we could have funny commercials. Oh maybe CBS/NFL didn't think our commercials were funny enough.

So anyway, what was your favorite SB commercial? I can't vote because I only watched a couple. Unlike some of my colleagues I didn't think the one with the ref being harangued by his wife was funny. You?