Saturday, July 12, 2008

Le Sigh

I watch TV. Not a lot of TV, but the tube is on every once in a while. Right now I am watching the Seasonique birth control commercial where the "logical side" of the brain wears a sweater vest and the "emotional side" of the brain (because as we know, women can't possibly use emotion and logic at the same time. We just aren't smart enough, and it will make our uterus explode...) wears long dangly necklaces. The "logical side" of the brain nods pensively as she researches the benefits of Seasonique on her computer while the "emotional side" slumps in a chair waiting for the logical one to finish the research so she can hurry up and take the damn pill and then go sleep with the quarterback of the football team. Once the "logical side" gives her approval, the "emotional side" of the brain commences dancing spastically to the music in her head. Thanks, Seasonique, for understanding me.

There is a gum commercial out now that I can not hardly even bring myself to access the memory of in order to write about, but I will do my best. A presumably thirsty lady walks up to a male coworker who is chewing the advertised gum. The man is sitting by a water cooler, and instead of consuming some of the refreshingly clean bottled water to quench her thirst, she instead somehow breaks the guys nose and thus activates a saliva-drinking system inside his mouth. So the lady leans over and appears to start to kiss the guy, but due to the repulsively accurate gurgling sounds, you learn that the lady is actually DRINKING the contents of the mans mouth.
I can not even properly express my revulsion at the thought of drinking hot bubbly gum spit. Especially if you are not even the sole proprietor of such bile. Yar.

AT&T needs to get their marketing act together and stop acting like their own patented "Rollover Minutes" are the equivalent of sporting a mullet. The commercials show a family sitting around the breakfast table, and the bitchy wife finds that the punky son "threw away" his rollover minutes, and then a later commercial shows the husband throwing the minutes away too (because he sloppily spills milk on them). In both commercials the bitchy wife has to nag the men to use the rollover minutes because they are exactly the same as the current months minutes, while the men argue that the rollover minutes are not cool and they shouldn't have to use them. Were none of the marketing execs at AT&T ever teenagers? Do they not realize that having your mom yell at you to use something outdated might not really put you first in line to follow those orders? Why are they trying to inspire animosity toward their product?

There are others, many others. Like the Bounty commercials that shows a grown man "cleaning" the spaghetti sauce pot with a single sheet of paper towel while his wife smiles and playfully rolls her eyes in the background and the commentator says that she should have known she would have to go back and clean up after him. People, seriously. Why should society (or Bounty, I guess) perpetuate the myth that a man becomes a really tall monkey when presented with house work? THERE IS NO REASON WHY A MAN CAN'T PROPERLY CLEAN A DISH ON HIS OWN! Why does the wife have to go back and clean up after the man?!? Where was the man educated and why does he think that a single paper towel can clean a whole pot?!? Why can't she send the man back to clean the dish!?! Pant, pant, pant...

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Where dat skill?

Oh good, it is less than a month in between posts. Phew. I was afraid I was getting lazy here. Obviously that is not the case. Obviously.

Tomorrow is my last day at my job. I will have officially worked there exactly 3 years- I didn't plan it that way, it just happened. That, along with the fact that my boss couldn't have been more ambivalent about my leaving, just drove home the idea that I am likely making the right decision by taking my new job. My new rock-star job. My new rock-star job that pays for all my gas. Ah, now you see! You are jealous, aren't you? Go ahead and admit it, I won't gloat.

I really want to get into more reality TV, because there really isn't enough TV in my life right now, and so I watched the mess that is called America's Got Talent a few nights ago. As it turns out, this statement is false. My favorite "act" was the 15 year old boy who twirled batons. After his twirling and twisting and delicate toe-pointing (all of which I will readily admit, I would not be able to do even if I were hooked to strings and pulleys) the judges talk to the boy about how he is teased at school and his peers accuse him of alternative sexual orientation and lack confidence in his general manhood. As if an endorsement by David Hasslehoff isn't enough, to stick it to the bullies, the hosts then bring up the boys MOTHER to defend her son's honor, and then play Mariah Carey's "Hero" as he walks off the stage in his 100% slim-fit sequenced shirt. Thank YOU America's Got Talent for securing a firm beating when the twirler gets back to school.

Ah, America.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Nothing special

I haven't really had that much to blog about lately. Everything is proceeding nicely, work is happening at the same rate it usually does, life is a well oiled machine. I hope I don't believe in jinxes.

I'm just at the apartment right now, counting down the minutes until I need to leave for work. There are clothes all over the floor and dishes in the sink, which I am ignoring quite successfully in order to blog. Priorities.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

It's Champion Time

Whip out the old "things to do before I die" list and hand me a red pen...time to cross one off. On Sunday, I "ran" 13.1 miles to complete my first half-marathon. Ok, so I didn't run the whole thing, but I started off running and finished up running, and there was some running in between too. I'm really proud of myself, and am so glad I stuck with the training and dreading and cursing myself for agreeing to do such an unnatural thing even despite the searing pain I still have in my left foot. Cheetahs run 13.1 miles at a time, cars run 13.1 miles at a time, and now I run 13.1 miles at a time. Oh yeah, and boyfriend runs 13.1 miles at a time too, and he runs it much faster than I do.

The family came and went a few weeks ago and it was really fun. Most of the fun centered around the fact that I suspended my half-marathon training while they were here (and, ahem, the week or so before), and the fun was not at all squelched by the meager amount of sleep we all managed to get. Or the alleged shooting my mom SWEARS happened right outside my window. My mom and sister, who were blessed with the foreign concepts of style and taste helped me decorate and arrange my apartment to their liking, which tends to also be my liking in retrospect. They talked me down off the ledge of bright, bold colors in favor of decor that does not mirror a college dorm room, and for that I will be forever grateful. They also managed to convince me that my most wonderful and blessed oversized couch is not green, as I have (apparently incorrectly) believed it to be for the last year or so. Apparently, it is taupe, which is not green. Even though it looks green to the naked eye. But it is not. Green.

I've been having a blast playing kickball with my friend Maggie on the National Mall lately. We signed up for a kickball league called Nakid (No Adult Kickball Isn't Dumb) and are proud members of team "We'll Kick Yo Balls." The Nakid league, unlike the two other kickball leagues in this area, is really about 30 percent kickball and 175 percent Coors Light. While our kickball skills have remained fairly underdeveloped, we are noticeably much improved at flip cup and dancing on the bar.

And work. I still go there pretty much every day. That's about it with work.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

All Mine and Bigger than a Breadbox

Sound the alarm, alert the troops, fire the missiles...I have officially moved all the way into my new apartment! All the boxes have been unpacked, the clothes are in the closet (er...or on my floor, which makes it really seem like home), the kitchen is organized, and amazingly enough, it all fits just right into 460 square feet of living space.

No, that was not a mistake- my apartment is only slightly larger than the cubic feet on the smallest Uhaul truck.

I love my new place. It is so cozy but still has enough room to stretch out the teeny tiniest bit. Like one leg at a time. My family (sans little sister) is coming to visit tomorrow and I have finally put down all the finishing touches I could muster, though my decorating skills can best be summed up at "remedial." That reminds me- I forgot to get a scented candle at the store to cover up the smell of claustrophobia.

I'm really excited for my family to visit, though I'm not sure where we are all going to sleep. I have enough sleeping surface for everyone, just not enough room to lay those surfaces down at the same time. Maybe we will sleep in shifts? Perhaps someone gets to sleep on the balcony? I could invest in a hammock.

Well, we'll see how it goes. It's time to stop ignoring the $125 worth of groceries (read: junk food) I just bought for the fam that are splayed about my kitchen.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Happy Birthday to Me!

We did it! And it only took two more days. We hit our "modified goal" at work today, which in my mind means "we hit our goal" but in the company's mind means "yeah, but you took the short bus to get there." Fine, whatever. I'm ok with that. The short bus is my preferred mode of transportation nowadays anyway. All my friends are there.

I've got American Idol "Idol Gives Back" on, and boyfriend was right- it an hour Idol trying to make you feel bad. But its so INTRIGUING. Yes, Idol, tell me what a lazy scumbag I am that I'm not reaching for my phone now to donate DOUBLE my original amount if only Ryan Secrest would blow a kiss to me in the camera. Although, if I did call and Ryan Secrest blew a kiss to me into the camera, I would likely get nervous and hang up.

I should be packing right now. Obviously I am not. I move in two days, and can't wait to have my own apartment, but there is just something so surreal (read: labor intensive) about packing everything up that I am so mentally hesitant (read: lazy and unmotivated) to start. Most of the packing is done, and now I'm left with the stuff that I should throw away, but can't bring myself to do. Or the odd bits of stuff that have no obvious place. Or big things that don't fit in a box. And EVERYTHING. MUST. BE. IN. A. BOX.

My birthday was yesterday and went really well. Boyfriend has been great and once again went above and beyond. He got me a new (used) tv that will work with a remote (how novel!) and accessories for my mp3 player, treated me to a fantastic weekend watching fireworks and going to Cherry Blossom events, we had some great sushi and watched I Am Legend, and I got sick. Boo. I'm still not feeling great, but I'll survive.

I've saved the best gift for a paragraph all it's own because it was just that awesome. Rock-star BF made a bouquet of origami roses complete with pipe cleaner stems- thorns and all!- and little pictures of us in the center of each rose. He even topped it off with a very liberal dousing of his cologne, so they smelled fantastic. Really amazing. He had them sitting on my desk when I got in to work and I was FLOORED. Absolutely in love with this man!

Oh yeah, and I got my license renewed. I could have done that online, but I wanted a new picture that didn't look like I was the star football player on the high school team. My new pic is cute, but my face is bright red. Almost glowing. Literally as though I had dipped my face in a vat of blush and motorboated it around a bit. But at least I don't look like I might eat you.

Monday, April 7, 2008

She's Alive!

There is so much going on right now that I don't even know where to start. I've been contemplating starting a new blog called "Don't be Jealous" or "Glad I don't work there" or "My job is the kind that gets written about in fun op-ed pieces that are designed to make you feel better about your job," but I decided that since I've been lagging 4 months in between posts, I better not bite off more than I can mindlessly chew while watching Biggest Looser.

Anyway, if I were to write this new blog, it would be full of stories about how I work for a pack of retarded feral vermin and how most of my "customers" look to Flava Flav as a personal and professional role model. But thats another blog. I'll get to it eventually.

I move out of my apartment in a mere 5 days to become a single apartment renter for the first time. That, friends, is one step closer to home ownership! So close I can almost taste it.

We are closing in on another quarter at work, and are about 50 students away from goal- with 5 days to go. We can do it, I think. Hopefully. Maybe. We'll see.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Long Overdue Update

The short story is as follows: Boyfriend came home mid-November, spent almost every waking hour with him since. Couldn't be happier. Home for the holidays and helped my parents move. Lovely time. Had some major dental work done. Wasn't so great. Planning a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula in 4 days. Yay!

And now I am watching the clock tick down the hours untl the end of our goal cycle at close-of-business today. Barring any unforseen changes (which could very well sneak up on me in the next 7 hours, given that they are unforseen), my office has reached our goal and there will soon be merriment of all kinds. I will continue, as is custom, to twist open oreos, scrape the icing out, and eat the delicious chocolatey cookies until that time comes. For those keeping score, this would be classified under "nervous eating."