Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Earthquake Preparedness

On the radio this morning there was a quote from some Cal Tech dude who was basically whining about wanting to implement an earthquake alert system like they have in Japan, but he can’t get funding because Washington DC doesn’t think earthquakes are top priority.  The brief news report went on to say that in Japan the systems they have in place can alert them of impending earthquakes up to 60 seconds in advance.

Wow! 60 seconds! Imagine what you could do if you had that kind of warning! I can totally picture it… Cal Tech dude sitting at his desk… suddenly *BWEEP! BWEEP! ALERT!*

“Oh my!” says Cal Tech dude. “An earthquake, how exciting! I’d better call the earthquake preparedness committee...”
*ring… ring...*
“Thank you for calling the disaster preparedness hotline, if this is an emergency, please press 1”
“One, right.” *beep*
“If you’re calling to report a fire, please press 1. For riots, press 2. For flooding, press 3. For earthquakes press 4.”
“It said 4, right? Okay.” *beep*
“Hello, I’m Jim with the earthquake preparedness committee, how can I help?”
“Jim! Yes, there’s going to be an-”
*RUMBLE RUBMLE RUMBLE*
“...earthquake… Shit. Hello? Jim? JIM??”
“Sorry, I was under my desk. Thanks for the warning.”

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Inconceivable

I found out yesterday that the wedding I attended, which was at an uber-fancy country club by the ocean, cost $40,000 just to rent the location. This is did not include the food, the waiters, the flowers, or anything else. For the price of a luxury car you too can occupy this space for a day.

What totally blew my mind was when I found out that they took out three loans to pay for this wedding. WTF? Three loans to say “I do” while overlooking the ocean? Yes she was ecstatically happy that day and will have lots of good memories of it, but is one day of happiness really worth a decade of worry and debt? You like the ocean? Do it at the beach! You might even be able to do that for free! Then you could actually afford to send your future kids to college.

I wonder if they thought about that? I think few parents do. I was very lucky. As much as I might complain about my mom, she had the foresight to save up college funds for both me and my sister. As much as she annoys me, she will forever rock in that respect.

Monday, May 29, 2006

A surprisingly pleasant wedding

You might recall that I was dreading going to a wedding this weekend. Well it was yesterday, and it really wasn’t so bad. I was quite surprised. First of all the location was someplace by the ocean owned by Donald Trump. Goodness gracious how much did this couple blow on their wedding? You could see the ocean for miles where the ceremony was held. The menu was another fine example of extravagance (but don’t get me wrong, I’ll happily partake in extravagance when it only cost me a wedding gift.) Here’s what they served:

Lobster AND filet mignon? At one of Donald’s joints? Seriously, you could put a downpayment on a house for what they spent. I heard just the dress alone was $10,000. Holy f-ing crap! That’s almost a small car! Yet these are not rich people. They are part of my sweety’s family and have average jobs like the rest of us. I guess they’ve just been saving a long, long time. But to blow it all on a one-day event? I’d rather keep the cash, have a civil union in front of a judge with the closest family members, and then blow it all on a month-long honeymoon. Heck yeah! Hawaii and Venice baby!

But anyway, the food made the confusing drive over there worth it. It made waiting an hour for the ceremony to start while sitting in uncomfortable chairs worth it. The appetizers that the waiters circulated around while the guests waited for seating were mouth-watering. The waiters started encouraging me to take two because they recognized me as that girl who never refused an appetizer tray passing by. Mushroom caps stuffed with crab salad, smoked salmon with a tiny bit of caviar on squares of hash browns, mmmmm it was all good.

When it came time to dancing, lucky for me I managed to wear a reasonably comfortable pair of shoes. I say reasonably because to me sneakers are comfortable. Anything else is merely tolerable. They passed around these glow-in-the-dark things, it was so cool. I put one on my head, around my neck, and around each arm. I think all that glowing sufficiently distracted people from the fact that I dance like a 12-year-old, so I didn’t mind being on the dance floor.

When it was finally time to head home, everyone decided they wanted to follow me to the freeway, because apparently I knew where to go. As if I lived there. In one of those multi-million-dollar homes overlooking the ocean. I wish. I managed to make only one wrong turn, and was actually surprised when I saw the sign for the freeway. I was fully expecting to have to make two more u-turns. After the freeway though, they were on their own. I stepped on the gas and watched their headlights turn into tiny pinpoints in the distance. It was finally safe to hold my sweety’s hand. A fitting end to a surprisingly pleasant day.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

When nothing works right

My site has gone down more often than a crack-whore trying to make the rent. I was hoping that getting set up on a new server would solve those issues. Apparently it hasn’t, so I’m finally going to move to a different host. It’s going to be a pain in the ass, but in the end it’ll be better than having to constantly bitch at someone to reboot the server.

You know what else is fucked up? My Blog Explosion rental thing. Sure you can see the thumbnail there, but according to BE I never accepted the bid. There’s no running total of how many have clicked there, no exchange of credits, no record that the transaction ever too place. Except that the thumbnail is there and working. I sent a message about the bug, but have not heard anything yet.  I guess they’re all on holiday. Oh well, at least it’s a pretty blog that’s stuck in my rental space.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Ranchy goodness

I adore ranch dressing. I think it’s yummy on salads, wraps, burgers and fries. Anything that is lacking in flavor can generally be helped by a little ranch dressing. However I have not found a single store-bought bottle of ranch that tastes like the kind they serve in restaurants. Why is that?? Hidden Valley, Wishbone, and Kraft all taste like vinegar with a little oil and cream added in. It’s gross wannabe ranch dressing. I loooove the ranch they serve at Denny’s, the deli in my office building and numerous other restaurants. It’s creamy, garlicky and flavorful. Why don’t they bottle that stuff and sell it? I would so buy it! The closest I’ve been able to come to it is Ken’s Buttermilk Ranch. But it’s just not the same.

Has anyone ever made their own ranch dressing? If I could make my own that would be cool too… so long as it tasted like I was sitting at Denny’s!

Something nautical

Ever wonder wonder what a raster chart was? Yeah me neither. How about how mariners navigate the waters? They use radar, right? Well, that’s just to see what’s around you so you don’t hit anyone. How do you know where you’re going when there are no roadsigns? You use charts. They’re like roadmaps of the ocean based on latitude and longitude instead of landmarks. The electronic version of this is a raster chart. Relying on Marine VHF is much better than getting lost at sea, that’s for sure!

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Waffling from home

You know what passes as excitement for me? Getting a new waffle iron.  I’ve never had one and have been wanting one for a few months now. I don’t like to get a hankering for a nice thick Belgian waffle and have to go searching for a restaurant that actually serves them. Disappointment is, well, disappointing. And no fun. So yesterday we went to a department store and used a gift card we had. They had the regular wimpy waffle irons, but after a bit of searching we found one that did the deep-pocketed Belgian waffles we like. And it was on sale! I heart sales. 40% off is a beautiful thing. Here’s what we brought home:

Look how beautful and shiny it is! You can even see how clean the underside of our kitchen cabinet is! Never having used this type of waffle iron before, I read the instructions. I’m a geek, I do that. Instructions are my friends. Now, it says not to overfill the thing when pouring in the batter, and there’s even a diagram showing how it should be done.

See? Little puddles in the center. So that’s what I did. I ladled my waffle batter carefully into the middle of each section without filling it completely. I figure it’ll spread out and become a nice full waffle. Well, it didn’t. The puddle of batter pretty much stayed where it was and became beautiful partial waffles. When I opened the iron my first reaction was, “They look like bugs!”

See? They have legs, a head and even a stinger. Viscious waffle bugs! I was immediately enamored by them and started playing with them. La dee dah waffle bugs crawling off the plate and across the table. Weee aren’t they cute?? Of course my sweety takes one look and asks, “What did you do?”

“I followed the instructions!” I whined and pointed helplessly at the diagram. “See? They don’t fill ‘em!”

My next batch I made sure to carefully fill the sections with batter so they would look more like normal waffle squares. They turned out much better.

Unfortunately the batter I used wasn’t that great. It was a whole wheat pancake mix that was great for pancakes. I added the oil it asked for in order to turn it into waffle mix, but bleah it came out really dry. I ended up slathering tons of butter and syrup onto mine in order to make it palatable. We’re trying to eat healthy, yet how ironic what we had to do to it in order to make it taste good. The whole wheat pancakes were tasty, but we need to experiment a little more to find a good waffle recipe because this one did NOT work well. But I’m still happy for my new waffle iron!

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Mmmm days off

My postings here are going to be fairly sporadic for the rest of this week on through Monday. No working, woohoo! My department is in between huge jobs, so now is a good time to take some days off and recover from the hectic crap they’ve been throwing at us. Today totally felt like a Saturday, so tomorrow will be like Sunday, then it’ll be Friday! Followed by another Saturday and another Sunday. I’m lovin’ it.

Sunday we have to go to a wedding (gag) but hopefully there’ll be good food there. You know I’m all about the food! I hear there’s going to be dancing too. Yay. Imagine me self-conscious in a dress, wearing uncomfortable shoes, attempting to pass off my shuffling about to music as dancing. Yeah it’ll be comedy.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Slug Dog

Sometimes when I’m at home and my sweety is not, Big Pest will get bored of me and go wait for her on the couch by the front door. The other day he was laying there, and from the angle I was in, he looked like he had no legs. He looked like a slug. It’s… SLUG DOG!

Monday, May 22, 2006

More thoughts about strippers

There’s a huge difference between men and women when it comes to strippers. You see these differences in the patrons and in the strippers themselves. If the TV portrayal of strips clubs is accurate, here’s what I see…

Female viewers hoot and holler a lot. They’ll scream and wave dollars around just to get into the moment just to have wild fun with their friends. A few might run their hands over the male stripper’s pecs, but that’s usually the extent of the contact.

Male viewers just like to watch. They’ll offer money, but it’s more of a quiet “come closer to me” approach. Like bait. I find it quite creepy. There’s more unwanted grabbing going on. Not touching, grabbing. Why aren’t they hooting and screaming like the female audiences? I think it’s because they’re sitting there imagining sex with the stripper. Eww. No wonder they’re quiet.

Female strippers are talented. I don’t care how fake their boobs might be, you need to have some skills to hang upside-down from that pole. They can dance, they can tease, and they can usually hold their own in a conversation. They’ve perfected the art of verbal defense, needed to rebuff rowdy patrons while at the same time keeping them coming back to the club.

Male strippers are not talented. They gyrate around and expect women to swoon over them simply because they’ve got hard bodies. They’ll grab your hand and make you touch their nasty parts because they think it’s hot. They probably wish female strippers would do this. They have no need for verbal defense because few people want to touch their gross sweat. And they seem to welcome the ones that do.

It’s an interesting dichotomy, don’t you think?

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Strippers!

Yesterday was my first time at a bachelorette party.  Interesting experience.  There were penises everywhere! Uh, let me rephrase that. There were penis-themed items everywhere… Penis balloons, penis-shaped candy, penis-printed napkins, even a penis-shaped cake. The things I put up with to support my heterosexual friends.

The highlight of the evening were the three male strippers they hired. I was unimpressed. Oh sure they were pretty to look at, no doubt about it, but they weren’t all that.  First of all they were supposed to arrive at 9, 10 and 11pm respectively. The first one didn’t show up until 10, the second one at 11:30 and the last one sometime after midnight. It’s okay to be late to a party, but not if you’re working!

Anyway, my only experience with strippers of any gender has only been on TV. I had some expectations and was curious if these guys would live up to them. So here’s how they were…

Stripper #1: He gets there wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and runs into the bathroom to “get ready”. 15 minutes of “getting ready” he comes out wearing a wife-beater, jeans and suspenders. WTF? Where’s the sexy policeman or fireman costume? His stripping consisted of removing the tank top and pants. Two items of clothing. Where’s the tease in that? There’s no teasing involved here. As soon as he’s gyrating around in his g-string he immediately starts dry-humping the bride-to-be. And that’s his whole routine. Different positions, dry-humping to music. He does this with everyone who has a dollar hanging out of their bra. One of the ladies asks him to dance. He wouldn’t, and just continues to do the same thing over and over, occasionally wiping off sweat with a towel. After he left, we all agreed we didn’t like him.

Stripper #2: This guy arrives in army fatigues and already looks better. Unfortunately the stripping part of his routine was equally brief, and he too starts dry-humping all the ladies. To his credit, however he was more creative than the first one and at one point even grabbed some overhead doorway trim, heaved himself up into the air, wrapped his legs around one girl’s head and started pumping. Very energetic, and much more entertaining. Again the same lady asked him to dance for us. His response was something along the lines of, “Why you gotta be in control? I’m the man here, I’ll tell you how it’s gonna be.” What? Did he actually just say that? Okay so you can’t dance, do you have to be a chauvinist about it?

Stripper #3: This guy was a big improvement. He also shows up in military fatigues of some kind, but of a different color. So far it’s the best outfit of the bunch. This guy knew how to perform. Again it was mostly dry-humping the women, but he was very creative and showy about it. He even had knee pads so he could do some interesting moves on the floor. He didn’t do all that much dancing, but he did do a little. Definitely the best of the three.

For the most part I stayed way out of the way so I wouldn’t get humped-upon by these sweaty guys. Gross. I was sitting on an office chair, so every time a stripper came near me I would roll back into the corner, behind my sweetheart for protection. Come to think of it, I think the highlight of the evening was actually my baby’s fresh-made guacamole… YUMMM!

Saturday, May 20, 2006

No wonder car insurance keeps going up

I read today that California has six of the top 10 cities with the highest rates of auto theft. I’m sure I live in one of them. Yippee. This same article goes on with a list of things you can do to prevent your car from being stolen. Like locking your car. No, really? I was wondering what those weird little buttons in each door were for. Don’t leave your keys in your car. WTF? Are that many people so stupid that they need to produce an article like this?

It’s not until halfway down the list that we get to something interesting, called the “bump-n-rob”. Some car thieves will rear-end you lightly, then carjack you when you pull over to check for damage. Sneaky assholes. It also recommends not leaving your car registration or title in the car. Okay, title I understand. But hello, cops always ask for license and registration! Why would I not leave the damn thing in the car? The thief is gonna take the car regardless of whether or not it has registration with it. Like they’re gonna care.

No wonder insurance in California is so expensive. I’m always looking for a cheap car insurance quote to top the one I have. It’s annoying. *sigh*

Friday, May 19, 2006

Celebratin' Time!

This morning I wrote a check and mailed off my last car payment. The very last one!  I’m so excited! Can you see my happy dance? 

On the check I wrote the usual account number and stuff, and in the little memo section (you know, the bottom left where they have a line for you to write whatever notes you want) I wrote, “LAST car payment, WOOHOO!!” I thought I’d share my excitement with the bank’s check processing people.

This is awesome. One less major thing to pay for every month! This calls for another happy dance!

Party at my place! I’m crankin’ up the stereo (Interpretation: crank up your stereo because I don’t have any auto-playing crap on my blog) and ordering a mess of pizzas. Ooh and ice cream!  Ooh and clowns! No wait, no clowns. I am a clown. But there will be one of those blow-up jumpers we can all climb inside and go nuts pushing each other around. Bouncy bouncy!   

Thursday, May 18, 2006

A Tribute

Some of you may be familiar with a thing called “Half Naked Thursday” (HNT) where the idea is to post a tasteful picture of one of your body parts, like an eye or a finger. Thing is, most participants have completely dropped the “tasteful” portion of it and converted it into soft porn. In protest, various bloggers have instituted replacements for this Thursday phenomenon, such as “Fuck Off and Die”.

I am seeing fewer and fewer HNT postings these days, so I think this backlash has been quite successful.  As a tribute to their success, and a reminder of how tacky HNT can be and how better off we are without it, here is my first and last HNT contribution…

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Houses and stuff

Last year my sweety and I made the monumental decision to buy a house. We had put it off for a while because I had been told that the housing market goes up and down. So we kept waiting for home prices to drop, even a little. They never did, I was misinformed. Seems like prices for houses never drop unless the area turns into a run-down ghetto. So we decided to just jump in. It’s like waiting for an even better price for a computer. You’ll never get one if you just keep waiting.

I recently read that prices for single-family homes in metropolitan areas have slowed down. Great, now that we’re trying to refinance out of our crazy-expensive monthly payments. We’ve made various improvements on the house, which really helped bring up its value. Curb appeal matters when there’s a flood of new houses on the market. Plus it looks nice when relatives come over. We’re proud to say, “We live here!” Still, the banks weren’t all that impressed.

Okay, this might seem a bit bizarre (and please forgive me, I get a little cash for putting the link here, and I need all the help I can get), but I’m going to drop the name Barrington Real Estate. It goes to New Castle Realty, which has extensive listings for the Barrington, Illinois area, in case you’re interested.

This is a totally boring post, ugh. I suggest going to visit my newest renter, Tales of the Opiated Sherpa. How can you resist with a blog name like that? I’m going to have him do my heavy lifting for the week. Sherpas are good for that. I think.

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