Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Babbling about Top Chef

One form of distraction I enjoy is watching Top Chef. It’s a lot like Top Model, only instead of aspiring models and photoshoots, you have aspiring chefs and cookoffs.  It’s also a little like Hell’s Kitchen, only there’s a lot less screaming and humiliation.

In the last episode I watched, they were split into two teams. There were no designated leaders assigned, but in one of the teams one clearly rose to the occasion and filled the role.  There was one scene where she was trying to calm a teammate who was freaking out over some little mishap with the food. It was the paunchy, curly-haired guy who looks like he’s had 10 too many beers. He was basically standing in the way and being useless.  Later in the show when they have some of the chefs give their commentary about the situation, Mr. Freakout obviously had his manhood challenged because he was saying, “I do not need to be talked to like a 10-year-old.”

What this macho men-are-better-than-women fool needs to hear is, “Dude, if you didn’t have the maturity level of a 10-year-old, perhaps you might have noticed that she was exhibiting fine leadership skills by trying to reason with your incompetent ass so the situation could get fixed.” I say he’s getting close to being axed, goody!

Some of you are probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about. Well if you like the show dynamics of America’s Next Top Model, I think you’ll enjoy this show too.  It’s on Bravo if you want to check it out. 

Monday, October 30, 2006

Tantrum Update

The temper tantrum and negative mood swing is over now.  I had some really yummy cake and all is right in the world again.  Well, sort of. My stomach is happy anyway.  I highly recommend dessert therapy as a cure for adult tantrums.

Unhappy

I don’t like blogging when I’m in a bad mood. This has just been a crappy year.  It started out good. I paid off my car. Then it just went downhill from there. How can one person cause so much annoyance and financial trouble for someone else? I’m beginning to really hate owning a house. I don’t even really own it, the bank does. I recently checked the statement and I own about $450 of it. WTF? $3200 a month and the vast majority of it goes to interest. I hate dealing with finances. I hate worrying about money. I hate being in a bad mood. I hate this. I just want to burn everything (preferably with that bitch still in it) and move to a different state. Fuck it all.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Not quite the Dog Whisperer

I was walking the dogs around the neighborhood tonight when we passed by this house with a large black dog in the front yard. It was fenced in, but that didn’t stop it from some very deep-bassed barking… the kind of sound that comes from a dog that could likely crush your skull with its weight. (My little pipsqueaks, of course, think they’re the top of the food chain and yap like they want to start a fight. Crazy delusional pint-sized terrors.)

I think it was normally an inside dog because I’d never seen this dog before on this route (I choose neighborhood routes with the fewest dogs because mine go nuts every time we pass one.) I’m guessing he snuck past the owner because as I passed the house I heard this…

Owner: Cesar come.
Cesar: WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!
Owner: Cesar, come!
Cesar: WOOF WOOF!
Owner: Cesar! Come!
Cesar: ...
Owner: GET YOUR BLACK ASS OVER HERE!

The dog didn’t listen to her at all, but mine promptly shut up!

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Aah-CHOO! Oowwwww.

Pop quiz! It hurts when I sneeze. What could be causing it?

a) I’ve been snorting way too much cocaine and my septum is about to collapse.

b) I smacked myself on a file cabinet and am bleeding profusely from the head injury.

c) I have really bad gas.

d) I started going to the gym for the first time over the weekend, tried out all the machines for the first time ever, and now have so many sore muscles I feel like a punching bag that just got back from climbing Mt. Everest.

e) All of the above.

If you picked A, gee thanks for your vote of confidence. I may act like a crackhead sometimes, but smelling the pot smoke from a neighboring dorm room is the closest I’ve ever come to illegal drug use.

If you picked B, good guess, but incorrect. While this is entirely plausible considering my clutziness, I have never actually had a serious head injury.

If you picked C, um no.

If you picked D, *dingdingdingding!* You are correct! I can testify that their crunch machine is quite effective.

If you picked E, ARE YOU NUTS??

Monday, October 23, 2006

Wow, honest people still exist

I have a category called “I am such a dolt.” What I did yesterday exemplifies exactly why I have a category just for all the stupid things I do. It’s not just the simple walking into walls or forgetting where I left my sunglasses. Oh no, it went way beyond that. It went past “dolt” and into the realm of “complete idiot”. Yes folks, I left my purse in the shopping cart. (To clarify, I don’t like calling it a purse. I hate purses. It’s actually a hiking waist-pack from REI that I use to keep all my crap in. But for simplicity’s sake, we’ll call it a purse.)

J knows exactly how this feels. You go home feeling like the biggest dumbshit in the world. I pushed that cart back to the store, how the hell did I miss my ugly blue bag sitting there in the seat?? Who knows, even my sweety thought the cart was empty when we left.

I didn’t notice it was missing until about 8:30pm that evening. I searched in all the usual places, and then in all the unusual places around the house and in my car. It was nowhere to be found. I even looked in the frickin’ fridge for crying out loud. Just in case. You never know. Damn thing wasn’t in there. I started thinking about everything that was in there. The worst part was both my phone and my sweety’s phone were in it. So we were at the house with no phone (because we have no land line). I drove back to the store on the off-chance that someone turned it in to the store. No such luck.

I figured all was lost. This morning when I got to the office I cancelled the credit cards and checked online to see if any calls had been made from my phone. There were two, both numbers from my speed dial list. Could it be that someone was trying to contact me about my bag?  I called the number. Imagine my surprise when this old man answered and said he was trying to get the bag back to me! We’re going to meet up later at the parking lot where I left bag in the first place.

This is wonderful because now I don’t have to replace everything (except the cards I cancelled.) The funny thing is my sweety was all happy that I was going to have to replace that ratty 5-year-old bag with a new one. Even funnier is she’s going to be peeved that I get my even rattier 7-year-old wallet back!  Thank you, Mr. Good Samaritan, for not being a selfish, incosiderate hooligan. It’s nice to know there are other honest people out there besides me. 

Sunday, October 22, 2006

A little extra change for your pocket

If you try to do a search for phrases such as “Make Money Online”, a ton of junk comes up, most of which are scams. The only people making money in those are the people posting those ads. But there are a few legitimate ones. Blogitive is one that I use from time to time. They have a few requirements your blog needs to follow before you can join, but they’re fairly straighforward.

According to them, there are some who make $1000 per week using Blogitive. I don’t know who they are, but I personally don’t have time to post 200 times a week. You get $5 per post, which is decent, but near-impossible to live on. What I like most about Blogitive is that their payments are fairly quick. Posts are usually approved within a couple days and the payments are weekly instead of monthly. If you’re curious about it, go read more about it on their site and see if it’s something you’d be interested in doing. If you sign up, tell ‘em I sent ya!

Friday, October 20, 2006

Ringtones for you and Chewbacca too!

Have I got a treat for you today. I skipped out of last Friday because of, you know, stuff going on (what do you call it? Ah yes, life got in the way.) So I’m making up for it today with something extra special. Well, it’s extra special if you have a cell phone that is capable of using MP3s as ringtones.

One of the things I love about my old Motorola V400 (well, it’s old by cell phone technology standards. Wireless companies expect you to switch phones every year, but I’ve kept mine for at least three, maybe even four years.) is that I can transfer files back and forth between it and my computer. Even better is that I can set specific MP3s to be used as ringtones.

It’s very limited on space. I can’t remember how much it’s got, but a few full-sized MP3 songs would just about fill it up. When a phone rings it doesn’t ring for 3-4 minutes either, so using a full MP3 as the ringtone is pretty much a waste of space. I’ve figured out that my phone rings for 19 seconds before going into voice mail, so I’ve cropped some good MP3s down to about that long to conserve space.  That way if the song has a very quiet or inappropriate beginning you’re not stuck with it.  I’ve cropped out what I thought was the best part of the song, most suitable as a ringtone.

The program I use to do this cropping is called Audacity.  It’s free to download and use. I love free. Free is good. Free and easy to use is even better! I love this simple little program. I may dedicate a post to it later. For now I’d like to share the ringtones I’ve created for my phone, aren’t I generous? And I’m going to be even more generous by leaving these on the server instead of deleting them after a week. I rock! Okay, enough patting myself on the back.  Here they are for your downloading pleasure…

• Armik - One Summer Night (I use this one for my “Soft” profile, for when I need a quieter ring, like in the office.)
• Cirrus - Back On a Mission
• Eve - Blow Your Mind (short version for notification sounds)
• Eve - Blow Your Mind (19-second version for ringtone. I used this one as my first MP3 ringtone ever. I was so proud of it! I used it for like 2 years.)
• New Order - Confusion
• Barry Harris featuring Pepper Mashay - Dive in the Pool
• Barcode Brothers - Flute (Kind of short, but you can use it as either a notification sound or a repeating tone.)
• Adam Ant - Goody Two Shoes
• Bubby Sparxxx - Heat It Up (I use this as my current ringtone, just made it last week.)
• Outkast - Hey Ya
• Joan Jett - I Love Rock ‘n Roll
• Pat Benetar - Love is a Battlefield
• The Cars - Magic
• Dire Straits - Money for Nothing
• Wiseguys - Start the Commotion
• Justin Timberlake - What You Got
• Men at Work - Who Can It Be Now (I used this one for about a year as a change of pace from the first one.)
• Touch and Go - Would You...

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Warning: Whiny bitchy self-pitying crap ahead

Your blog is a place where you can be yourself, right? (Well, except for those weirdos who use their blogs to be somebody else, but anyway...) So I’m normally a happy, go with the flow kinda gal with lots of silly thoughts to share. However lately circumstances keep crapping on my good mood and I just can’t help but lose sight of the optimism sometimes.

The vast majority of people know what it feels like to be monetarily stretched thin. Like really thin. To the point where I can see little holes forming and see through to the other side. Lots of people know this feeling. I know my circumstances are not unique by any means. But that doesn’t keep my whiny ass from bitching about it now and then.

That green-eyed monster likes to knock on my door sometimes, and sometimes I’m stupid enough to let it in. I envy people with vision, ambition and creative insight. People who have ideas that are actually unique and viable, and the drive to make it happen. These entrepreneuers make successes out of their own ideas and hard work. They love what they do, they get rich from it. I envy that.

I might have the drive if I actually came up with any breakthrough ideas, but the reality is I make an awesome grunt. I don’t mind the daily grind of a set schedule and the same duties every day. My creativity is limited to being silly. I’m a great supporter but a reluctant leader. I suppose we can’t all be visionary leaders. Who would do all the work needed for success? Nothing would ever get accomplished because everyone’s busy doing for themselves.

Okay I’m feeling better. I just woke up on the self-pitying side of the bed this morning. I have a role and I’m good at it. It’s totally unglamorous and I’ll never become wealthy, but society needs people like me. Badly. There are too many loser assholes (like my deadbeat tenant) who don’t want to be any kind of contributing member of society. They’re perfectly happy with handouts. Lazy fucks.

Whoops, almost went on another crazed rant about the leech-bitch still squatting in my rental. Anyone who causes me to act this way really needs to get fed to rabid wolves. Or pushed into a pool of starving pirrhanas. Or strampled by stampeding wildebeasts. Falling into a volcano would suit me just fine as well.

Okay this pity party is over. I have grunt work to do.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I work with freaks

What is it about corporate high-rises that insist on keeping the offices freezing cold? Even during summer I needed to keep a jacket at my desk because it’s always an icebox inside. I complained once and they turned the temperatures to normal for a little while, but apparently other people complained, so now it’s back to freezing cold. Who are these freaks that need constant cold air anyway? One of my coworkers is one of them. No matter how cold it is, she always has a fan blowing. What are you, from the earth’s core or something? Geez!

I have a pair of gloves that I wear when my hands start to ice over from the undesireable temperature. People see me wearing them and ask, “Are your hands cold?” Nawww, how’d you guess?? Ya think? I’m actually trying to bring gloves back into the fashionable mainstream. Especially the ugly, black fingerless kind. With unraveling ends. Thanks for asking.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Stuff

I’m busy doing stuff today. What kinda stuff you ask? You know, STUFF! Quit being so nosy!

Bonanza Jellybean is looking for her long lost It. What is It? You really are nosy aren’t you? Well go over there and read for yourself, maybe you can help out. I gotta get back to my stuff.

Monday, October 16, 2006

"Simpler place and time" my ass

On my way to work this morning a song came on the radio, called “Midnight Train to Georgia”, or something like that.  Maybe it’s just called “Midnight Train”. Anyway, are you familiar with it? It’s about this girl who meets this guy in Los Angeles. They fall in love (or at least she does anyway). Then the guy decides he can’t hack it in the city and decides to move back to Georgia. Without her. She decides she’d rather “live in his world than live without him” in hers.

It’s supposed to be a sweet song about love and devotion and whatever, but I just don’t see it that way. I want to march up to this lady and tell her, “Girlfriend, pull yo head outta yo ass. You wanna drop everything and chase this homeboy all the way to Georgia? Are you outta yo mind? This sucka came to LA with nuthin’, tryin’ to make somethin’ outta nuthin’, then decided to give up and now he’s leavin’ yo ass to hightail it back to Georgia. He tell you he wanna go back to a ‘simpler place and time’? Girl, he movin’ back with his parents! Make no mistake, this scrub losa is not worth your time!”

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Silver

According to something I read, the demand for silver has exceeded supply every year since 1990. I never thought about this before. I think of silver in terms of jewelery, but apparently some people buy it as coins or ingots for trading purposes. I just can’t wrap my head around why this is important to anyone. Precious metals are harder to find than rocks, therefore they have much more value. But what good are they… they just symbolize some kind of value like paper money. I guess I’ll just never understand. But it doesn’t matter, because the trade of silver and other precious metals will go on.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Add one more to the stack

I just got a shock in the mail yesterday. It was from the tax collector. Yeah. I’m sure you can guess what it was.  Property taxes are due. But can you guess how much? I was not even close. I had no idea, at all, of the sheer magnitude that would bowl me over like a frickin tsunami. I’m being serious, take a guess.

Did you guess more than $6000? Am I the only one who thinks home owners are being shafted here? Holy crap, I can’t even get my roof replaced yet, and now there’s this. It’s staggering. It’s… oh well. It’s the government. I’m sure they have lots of alternative plans for poor saps like me.

This is depressing. Don’t look at me. Go visit my renter instead. Funny stuff to be found over there.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Say what?

I was overhearing the project manager talking to a fellow web developer about some work that needed to be done on the company website.  All I heard was, “You navigate to Porn Central and then you click on...”

This is one of those moments where you know you heard wrong but it just sounded so clear. Porn Central. I heard it. Luckily he wasn’t talking to me at the time because it took me at least 10 seconds for my brain to figure out that he was referring to the Forms Central section of the website. Duh.

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