Queer Eye update
The new episode was, well, fab. I was worried that since the first season had been such a smash hit, that all the boys would have huge egos and parade around like queens, but they were their same hilarious selves. It was another great straight guy transformation, as they took a completely scary looking mountain man and made him a hip dad. Although he looked like a baby bird without his facial hair, I thought. Just me though.

And how cute was the daughter? The C.I.T. (Carson in Training) line was hilarious. She should keep her dad in line from now on.

Next week, they take on toupee guy! That should be interesting. So Kyan will get to work his magic. Yeah, baby, yeah!!!

I'm making it official
My love affair with teriyaki-flavor wings ends tonight. I had one too many at the Winking Lizard.

Michael Jackson jokes I heard on the ride home this evening
Q: What is Michael Jackson's favorite university?
A: Brigham Young (pronounced "Bring 'em young")

Q: How do you know when it's bedtime at Michael Jackson's house?
A: When the big hand is on the little hand.

And I didn't hear this one today, but this is the old standby:

Q: Why did Michael Jackson go to K-Mart?
A: He heard they had little boys pants half off.

I'm sure more will be coming now that he's back under scrutiny for inappropriately touching small boys. Shouldn't he have been institutionalized years ago?

Personally, I think Michael Jackson jumped the shark when his hair caught on fire during that Pepsi commercial.

Toast-Chee
I was about to forge into my wallet to see if I had correct change for the vending machine. Then I remembered that I had Toast-Chee in my desk. I don't know if this is a local delicacy, or if it's a nationwide phenomenon. Toast-Chee, manufactured by Lance, Inc., is a peanut butter and traffic cone orange cracker sandwich. It comes in convenient six packs for snacking. So that is what I'm dining on right now. Toast-Chee. It's fun to write, too. And I believe there's another kind of cracker sandwich called "Nip Chee" that is cheese and crackers. Maybe there's a couple more, but I am not familiar with them.

This changes everything
So I'm down in the kitchen. I make a mental note of the quantity of Pretzel Crunch bars left (two!!! this is a state of emergency!), and then a flyer posted over the candy bar box catches my eye. Usually these candy bar fundraisers are for Jimmy's school trip to D.C. or Suzie's school band so they can buy instruments. Well, get this. I have paid $2 into the hopes and dreams of a future child star. It's not even for the daughter of a coworker, it's for her friend. There's a picture of a (albeit adorable) girl that goes along with the flyer, and it says something like, "Help Allie get to Hollywood." Allie has secured herself an audition with Nickelodeon, it seems, and by my eating 620 calories worth of chocolate, I'm chipping in for plane fare or something.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand, it's just candy, but geez. I'd like to feel that my chocolate consumption was buying a tuba, or at least a part of a tuba.

Oh no, I hear Incompetent But Likeable wandering around. He jingles his change when he walks, and I keep hearing the jingle approach and then subside. Approach and subside. I will lose it if he asks me one more time about the attachment. And he's written the instructions down. He just really is that bad at using the computer. Grr.

Guess what I just did?
Showed Incompent but Likeable how to e-mail an attachment.
A-GAIN.

... And then ten minutes later he came back because he didn't remember what I told him so then I had to go BACK there and show it to him, once more.

I may as well take this opportunity
to plug the Saturday evening gig of the spouse's band, Phizzy Lager, at the Zephyr in good old Kent, Ohio. Home of, I'm going to say it again, "Kent Read, Kent Write, Kent State."
Thank you, I'll be here all week.

Banner mayhem
I was just over looking at my husband's blog and it's all about toilets. Which should please him to no end.

And I just want you all to note the "related search" area, which puzzles me the most (read comments area -- I tried to post a JPG of the actual banner and it looked huge on my screen here at work but miniscule everywhere else).

This is like Green Tuna's hamster dolls and bendable figures. And mine? Still stuck on the Star Wars mask.

Feel the excitement
New!
Queer Eye!
Starts!
Tonight!
*does that version of the running man where you grab your back leg and writhe around for a while*

And the finalists are...
We went on a wallpaper hunt last night and we have about 5 finalists. I think my #1 and my husband's #1 are different, but like I said, I may cave to the pressure if I have to look at bare, nubbly walls another night. Did I make up the word "nubbly"?

Another show I'm ashamed to say I watch
is "Average Joe." So they brought in the hot guys last night. The first one made my jaw drop. Yow-zah. The other two were definitely meh.

Hee hee
Bad Lady's missing another font. This time it's a big one: Gill Sans. The one she uses for all her body copy no matter what the project. Sound the alarms. If I know her, she's about to slam her keyboard tray into her desk, fling a magazine to make a "sploppp" noise on the formica, and punctuate it with a staccato "shittttt."

Denzel's next role
There's a large photo of convicted DC sniper, John Allen Muhammad, on the front page of MSN today. And each time I boot up the Internet, I keep thinking to myself, "What's Denzel doing up there?"

Maybe it's just me.

Fonts at war
Today has been a complete disaster as far as all things computer-related. The main problem was caused by fighting fonts. Without geeking out too much about it, there are different kinds of fonts, and they're meant for different purposes. But if you have, for instance, multiple types of fonts called "Arial," in certain programs, they are going to duke it out to see which version is used. So in a file that uses the font Arial, there might be a "True Type" Arial font throwing a hard left hook at a "Type 1" Arial to see who's the more dominant font.

This is causing mass chaos as the dueling fonts are effectively shutting down my programs and otherwise creating gridlock. The techies seem to have taken a Darwinian approach and have tried to eliminate the weaker fonts on my system. I've tried to remain cool about it but I think I pissed off a techie when I was overheard saying "these new computers are bullshit. Everything is whacked."

I'm in computing hell.

Someone trade spaces with me
Tonight's excitement will be: shopping for wallpaper! Hooray! My husband took the initiative over the weekend to rip down the wallpaper in the bathroom. We both hated the wallpaper with a passion. But now, the walls are all ratty, there are pieces of paper sticking up, it's just a mess. So it will make me mental until we get new wallpaper up there. This will also be our first attempt at wallpapering. We have painted, we've applied spackle, we've done planting and unplanting. But this is one project I'm intimidated by.

The hardest part, however, may in fact be choosing the wallpaper. We'll see how that goes. I may be willing to compromise and put something up that I'm not 100% in love with, just for the sake of getting something on the walls.

Wish me luck.

Danger ... danger ...
The new computers have been installed. It's a total freakin' disaster. Programs are missing, fonts aren't showing up, I can only print on tabloid paper for reasons unbeknownst... and we've discovered that the techies can see our desktops from a remote location and they can infiltrate our files if they want or need to.

So it's an atmosphere of paranoia. I am thinking twice about blogging while at work, let alone exchanging catty e-mails with my work buddies. We're being watched.

And also...
There's a Queer Eye marathon on Bravo tonight. Guess I know what I'll be doing the rest of the evening.

And, at long last, my husband updated his blog. He made me LOL with a reference to Russell Crowe.

Famewhore sighting
First things first: the trip was tons o' fun. My friend and I drove down to Athens, Ohio, site of our alma mater, Ohio University. We decided that finally this year, there's no way we could pass for students. They're way too young looking now and it shows. Or, we're way too old looking now, and it shows. Depending on how you want to look at it.

As luck would have it, Saturday happened to be the day that the Reality Bar Crawl came through Athens. They were hosting open casting calls for Real World, Road Rules, and something called "American Bar Girls" which I think is something along the lines of "Girls Gone Wild."

While my friend and I were sitting in our favorite restaurant in town, I spotted a couple of Road Rulers. Dave and Cara from South Pacific for sure, and they were with one other person who had long, curly hair, may have been Rachel from Road Rules Campus Crawl, since she's listed on the web site as being on the tour.

But since it was a split second spotting, and I had no camera with me, all I can do is report the sighting. Sorry, folks.

And no, I didn't try out for any shows. Not even "American Bar Girls."

That didn't take long
Molly (aka Peepers) absolutely lurrrrrrrves the new rug (see illustration below). It's been on the floor, maybe an hour. I got it with her in mind. She loves the upstairs room; she usually sleeps in the computer chair in which I now sit. And we have hardwood floors up here and it's sparsely furnished, so I always feel bad when I come up to use the computer because she has nowhere to chill out.

Well she is happy as a clam now, she's all stretched out on the rug, fat belly swooshed out, and rolling 180 degrees with her legs in the air. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it. This is a cat whose idea of letting loose is sitting on top of a catnip-filled mouse as if to smush it. She doesn't play with toys, doesn't get into treats. About the only thing she is known to lurrrve is my husband. She's afraid of her own shadow, keeps a low profile, and would never, ever in a million years, allow herself to be picked up, held or cuddled. We're almost positive that Molly was abused by her prior owner, or at the very least was deprived of human contact.

We've had her for about a year and a half now, and the first six-to-nine months were rough going. She spent the first few months living under the frame of our futon, and then migrated to living underneath our bed. Very rarely would she come out, and would cower if we tried to reach under the furniture to pet her. So the first few months with us, she was lacking in further positive human contact.

Once she felt a little more comfortable, she was able to spend minimal amounts of time out from underneath the futon or bed, letting us pet her. But she had a threshold, and once it was crossed, back she would go.

Baby steps, though.

Along the way, we decided that maybe a second cat would help her come out of her shell, and that's where Dom came along. Of course Dom ended up being completely awesome, but not much of a help with Molly. He quickly assumed the role of alpha male and would chase her back into hiding whenever she came out. Even when he was only 1/3 of her size.

Finally, when she was slightly more sociable, I was able to take her to the vet, where it was discovered that she had some teeth that needed to come out. Once those teeth came out, I swear, that was what finally broke the spell. She would come out of hiding for long periods of time, didn't seem to be too afraid of us, and woud crave our affection. I guess after not being petted for so long, she has an insatiable need for it.

But she is still skittish, and probably always will be. So when I see her enjoying herself like she is now, it really brings a smile to my face.

Molly, you go, girl.

Charge it!

Someone was supposed to stop me.

That was what I thought, anyway. I had thought I had made myself clear on that.

I was not supposed to be within a 50 foot radius of a Bath and Body Works until at least March 2004, upon penalty of dry skin. I thought that was universally understood by all vigilant citizens. Should they see me attempt to even walk past Bath and Body Works, I was to be tackled into submission, no matter what.

Well, the good shoppers this evening dropped the ball. Not only did they let me near Bath and Body Works, I got all the way through the door, and proceeded to spend money on Things I Really Didn't Need but Damn, They Smell So Good! I will not go into full details on what was purchased, because my husband reads this blog. I will say, however, that they have a new hand cream, that I purchased in the "Cucumber and Green Tea" scent, and it may be my new favorite thing. Let's just say that I had to use one of those wicker baskets they give you, and justified one purchase because if I spent a certain amount of money I would get a free gift. And you know how I feel about that.

But the carnage didn't stop there, my friends. Oh no. In this same shopping center is the one and only Target, also known as Tar-jay, also known to my husband and I as simply, "Targs." (We like to shorten words sometimes because we're too lazy to say the entire word. More examples: "dinns" for dinner, "launds" for laundry, etc.)

I actually needed to go to Target to get a few simple things, but of course, there were a few things that ended up in my cart that weren't on my list. Here's a brief rundown of what was purchased:

Cd tower (needed that for a long time and finally bought it -- only $17.99!)
Accent rug for upstairs, that looks something like this (artist's rendering):



2-pack of Lever 2000 soap
4-pack of O-Cello sponges
Ziploc storage bags
Opti-One contact solution
Glade candles in "Spa fresh" and "Waterfall" scents

And maybe one or two other things that shall remain secret.

So, the damage has been done. Someone should have stopped me.

Here's a job some of us would enjoy.

Paid a visit to engrish.com and found this gem, as well as others, that has been posted since my last visit.

Blahs
Seriously? So. Bored.
Nothing or nobody even to rip on here at work.
Except status quo with Bad Lady and SWF. Although I'm getting along a lot better with Bad Lady now that we are united in our opposition to SWF.
Which in itself is scary.
Checked all the blogs I read. Checked Hamster Time. Fooled around on Amazon. (Sorry lifeonhold)
I ate another chocolate pretzel crunch bar. That was exciting I guess. Me and treadmill have a hot date tonight.
Still bored.
Two more hours to go. Somebody shoot me!

On a lighter note... boss has been gone since noon. *does cabbage patch*

No comment
I changed my comment system because, well, the other one sucked.
I'm tinkering with the idea of going with a different color/format, just because I have time on my hands, and also because I'm trying to create some kind of funky banner.
Stay tuned.

Gah. I'm not smart enough in HTML to do what I want without scrapping this whole thing and starting over. And I'll be damned if I'm going to do that.

The split pea stays! For now.