Dreams

I had a dream about make-up shopping on Tuesday and another one last night, so today I went make-up shopping.

Somewhere out there, William Lauder and Bobbi Brown are laughing maniacally and congratulating each other on the success of their neurotransmitter.

Drinking the Lake We're Drowning In

One thing that has always been hard for me to handle is knowing that I will never be able to do or learn all the things I want to do in life. I will never be fluent in every language; it's unlikely I'll ever be fluent in more than English. My house will never be 100% clean and organized; I can't even stay on top of the dishes most days. I will never understand entirely the politics and economies and cultures of the various nations of the world regardless of the effort I put into learning as much as I can about that sort of thing. I will never read every book that would be interesting and/or useful to have read. And thinking about what I don't know about the sciences is too frustrating to bother with. I just want to meet every person who has ever lived on earth, have a good long discussion with them about their life and all the wisdom and knowledge they have acquired over it's course and experience everything they've experienced (skipping over parts that involve physical pain, of course; there are some things I don't care if I ever experience, and what it feels like to have your fingernails pulled off in a Vietnamese prison camp is one of them, thank you). After that, can someone please explain to me how everything that humans don't understand yet works? (Side note: Notice how people always throw a "yet" into a statement about the limits of human knowledge? I love that.)

I have to believe in life and learning after death. I'd go completely mad without it.

I'm still alive.

Work keeps me really busy, but I love my job. Minus overbearing perfume lady.

Life is good. Just living it...I don't really have much to say, but feel guilty when I don't update. Not that I should.

So...uhh...CUTE KITTEN:
Time for Papa John's.

Update #280

It has been a few weeks, so here are the exciting things that have happened since last post:

1. We spent Valentine's weekend in Vegas with some friends. 88% of the trip was spent with Chad (who goes by Kain, but I think that's stupid, so I'm calling him Chad) driving around saying "I know where it is; we just need to turn around here...oh no, that's not it, let's go back...no, hold on, I know where it is..." Nonetheless, it was a good time. We ate some delicious food, stayed in a trippy hotel that I'm pretty sure is haunted (The Artisan), and did some fabulous shopping with money we didn't have.

2. I bought a truck a couple weeks ago. It's an ugly baby blue '86 (same age as me!) (also the song, "Walk Like an Egyptian"!) Nissan pickup and I love it. Having your own means of transportation that is not walking is the greatest thing of all time. Those of you that live in the area and have need for a truck to help move things sometime, give me a call. The years of bumming rides need to be paid back.

3. A week ago, I busted my manager at work for embezzlement. This is by far the most exciting thing that has ever happened in my work experience. He, who I will hereafter refer to as "Justin Berry" because that's his name, was funding loans to his own accounts. Under my name. Yes, friends, Justin would log into our software as me whenever he was doing something illegal. Luckily, I was the one that first brought this to the owner's attention and luckily he did some of his "work" from his home IP address, so I wasn't a suspect for longer than maybe 10 minutes, but still...it makes me furious. I've worked side by side with this man for a month and I thought we were friends. I still feel a little sick when I think about it. He has been incarcerated and will hopefully be sitting in jail for a chunk of his life for this and I am now the senior employee (it's a very new company, Justin was the first person they ever hired and I was the second) (also, I got a payraise shortly after this was all cleared up), so I suppose it's all good now. But yeah, it's crazy. We're still working to straighten up the mess he has created. In all, it was around $7500 that he stole over the period of a month. Fun stuff.

You Think You're Doing Something Special...

Some of you on facebook may have already witnessed this glory of a roommate routine (ah, the roommate routine...) filmed shortly before I got married, but it has recently been uploaded on youtube, so the whole world can see:



However, while searching youtube for the clip, I discovered we're not the only people in the world who have done this. Not that I honestly think it's particularly special or extraordinarily creative, but are you kidding me?:



Our choreography is better. If only Savannah wasn't off on every single one of the bicycling parts...

My Research Skills Haven't Quite Reached Perfection...

Apparently February 3rd is the day the music died. I suck.

Trivia for All!

Yesterday (Super Bowl Sunday):

• If the Super Bowl were a nation, it's gross national product would be roughly equal to that of North Korea.
• Antacid sales increase 20% on the day after the Super Bowl.
• The use of Roman numerals to denote which Super Bowl it is started with Super Bowl V and was used solely because the guy in charge of it (I can't remember what the position is called; NFL management is not an area where I have a lot of broad knowledge) at the time hated the name "Super Bowl" and wanted to make it a little more classy. (Also, I'm convinced the sole reason today's children are taught Roman numerals past Rocky V, is so they can know what Super Bowl we're on.)
  
• More guacamole is consumed in America on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day of the year except Cinqo de Mayo.
  

Today (Groundhog Day):

• Punxsutawney (known for their Groundhog Day celebrations simply because they put the most effort into it) has predicted six more weeks of winter over 90% of the time (since 1887), but this has been correct only 39% of the time.
• Groundhog Day started as some combination of the Christian holiday of Candlemas, (celebrating the presentation of Jesus at the Temple) and the pagan holiday Imbolc (which marks the day exactly between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox). I'm not exactly sure how this progressed into a groundhog predicting the weather. But Germans were involved. And possibly Native Americans.
  
• Punxsutawney Phil lives off of dog food and ice cream and lives in a local library.
  
• There is a plaque in Woodstock, IL (where most of the Groundhog Day film was shot) on the curb where Bill Murray's character continuously steps into a puddle that reads "Bill Murray stepped here". I really hope that someday human life is destroyed but this plaque survives and space explorers centuries later assume that Bill Murray had religious significance in our lives.
  

Tomorrow:

• Alberto Gonzales was confirmed as Attorney General on Feb 3, 2005.
  
• February 3rd is completely useless.

I <3 Nurds.

Last night I was reading an article about Dr. Seuss and apparently the first record of the word "nerd" comes from If I Ran the Zoo. This obviously spurred a research venture into the etymology of the word. And the reason I love nerds so much: they write incredibly well-researched articles (like this) about things like the etymology of "nerd", apparently simply for fun, and share them with the world via the internet. Thank you, nerds of the world.

Inauguration Day

I would say that one of the greatest tributes to our president's greatness* is the fact that at work this morning, while making calls to people who are getting $300 loans from a web-based payday loan company (aka people who are not the most well-off, educated, or politically aware), I could hear Barack Obama's voice going in the background of the vast majority of households. I asked a few about it and could hear the optimism in their voices as they discussed how proud of their country they are. "I voted for him myself," "He is the man to help us out of the mess the country is in," etc. And I know it's getting to the point of cliche these days, but I still love it: "Yes We Can." It is a bright day.

*I do realize, Mr. Cynical, that this greatness has not been tested with time and obviously there will be disappointments as Obama and his team are not going to be able to solve every problem, but please allow me this day, at least, to believe in hope and change and goodness in my country. And, even you can admit, it is refreshing to be free of that little bit of embarrassment that would come over you and the rest of us whenever someone mentioned the President of the United States over the last few years.

Also, you should all know that I got 100% right on the Inaugural ball gowns quiz on CNN (with no cheating whatsoever). Booyah!

They call me quiet; but I'm a riot.

Quick update since it's been a couple weeks:

1. Jan 12th was mine and Trevor's one year anniversary. It's really odd that it has already been a year, except for the fact that it's hard to remember life before I was married. We were both horribly ill on anniversary day, so we missed work and scrapped any plans to go out for a romantic evening. We were just sick together and played WoW (I have my own computer and WoW account now, so we can play at the same time, hooray!) and watched stuff on Hulu and we ordered a pizza and it was kind of great in it's own way.

2. I've had the song below stuck in my head for approximately one week now. I wasn't super impressed when I first heard it, but somehow during this time I have unwillingly spent with the thing, it has really grown on me.