For those of us who are lucky enough to be home...
Happy long weekend. For those of you who had to work today... my condolences.

Hope everyone had a Happy turkey day! Mine was spent at the inlaw's, which was fun. I am lucky in that I really enjoy my inlaws, and get along with them really well. There was a bit of tension because my sister-in-law brought her boyfriend, who, as she proceeded to pull aside and inform me, is her soon-to-be-ex. At least that was the plan yesterday. They have broken up and gotten back together more times than I can count. So who knows.

Wow-- my cat just came out of the closet, literally. Scared the shitcakes out of me.

Anyhoo. I actually have the day off today, and so I have spent it by being utterly and completely lazy. My poor Fed Ex husband is working. I watched some soaps that I haven't seen in a while, and -- shockingly, I know -- I was able to figure out what had happened in the months of plot that I missed.

I took a trip to CVS to refill a prescription and since it took so long, I ended up with a lot of stuff in my little shopping basket that I really didn't need. Like a lip gloss that I just had to buy.

I don't know what's on tap tonight, but tomorrow, no more fooling around: the wallpaper is going up.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

Johnny Foulplay
What a rat bastard. Lying about his grandmother dying is about the shadiest, most disrespectful thing I've ever seen. And what did he gain from it besides a visit from his dork friend? He is the tooliest tool from Toolville, that ever tooled.

Fun with banner ads, part 291
The banner ad over my blog this evening was for a Candy store... but the related search words were "fools" and "awesome." I'm not sure whether to be offended, or thank the Googling gods that it's finally off the dreaded Halloween banner.

Survivor Speculation
I'll bet on Jon's dead grandma that the Big Lie is about Jon's dead grandma. That's the word around town, at least.

Who will get booted off tonight? Some say Christa. Some say Tijuana. Some say Burton. Some say Jon. Seems like everyone but Lillian and Darrah are at risk this evening.

I can't wait to see Rupert scowling at everyone. This is gonna be grrr-eat!

First date
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving marks a special time between my husband and I: the anniversary of our first date. Four years ago, we went on a date to the Olive Garden, and we saw the movie "The Insider" which starred a then-no name actor, Russell Crowe.

So tonight, to celebrate, we are going out to eat at the Olive Garden, as we have done every year since that first time in 1999.

After Survivor, of course. Priorities here, people!

At the Cheesecake Factory...
We had an awesome waiter. His name was Ryan R. He was hilarious, and I have decided that I want him to be my gay sidekick. I think every gal should have a gay pal. I don't have one. And I want one.

Oreo cheesecake rules. And I have resigned myself to the fact that my husband will eat the rest of it today, particularly because it's his day off, and I told him that he could. But, if it was still there when I got home, I wouldn't be upset. Just sayin'.

Two weeks from now...
the company holiday party. I must prepare myself for drunken coworkers.

I just spent the greater part
of a minute looking around on the floor for the fragment of a Sun Chip (mmm) that eluded my chomp. Not that I was going to eat it off the floor (ten second rule) or anything. But it has disappeared and I'd like to know where it went.

Tonight: Cheesecake Factory part 2. And, going shopping at Legacy Village, ah-gain. Destinations include Ann Taylor Loft, Crate & Barrel and maybe their swank bookstore, Joseph Beth. I need new reading material (see below). What kind of cheesecake should I get? I'm already contemplating. The rasberry chocolate truffle was stellar last time. Maybe I'll try the key lime. Or the Oreo. Maybe I'll skip the meal and just eat the dessert.

Two Advil have not helped the muscle pain from turkey lifting. Both of my forearms are killing. Who woulda thought that 10 pound turkeys could kick my ass so bad?

Mid-morning report
I can't get into work today. Not feelin' it. I'm such a wuss; I'm sore from hauling turkeys yesterday. Which, by the way, was fun, but as I expected, a lot of bah humbug moments as well. Plus it was hella cold. We're talking, bloodshot eyes, chapped face, numb butt cheeks cold. Despite being wrapped up like an eskimo. It took me hours to defrost.

The amount of people at the office is dwindling; tomorrow it will get worse. I tend to need a bit of background noise to be productive. Silence makes me crazy. It's pretty damn quiet here -- the phones aren't ringing, there's no chatter, everyone is keeping to themselves.

In other news, I just added another Friendster friend! That brings my grand total to a whopping three. I am probably really not the target user of Friendster, since it seems like most of the people on there are looking for luuvvve, and by luuvvve I mean casual sex, but I still like to look at who I'm connected to via the six degrees of separation principle. Whether it's someone named Sven who lives in Iowa or Katie from down the street, it's fascinating.

Book report
The book I'm currently reading is Spy Girl by Amy Grey. It's one of those books that I knew nothing about prior to picking it up while browsing at Borders. But I'm totally the "judge a book by its cover" kind of person. If the cover is striking, I pick it up. Spy Girl is bright, hot pink with big black letters. The title kind of struck my fancy, too, as it's always been a secret dream of mine to be a private investigator.

Anyhow, the book is kind of a disappointment. It's your typical, mid-20's woman living in New York City, experiencing the bar scene, dating disasters... peppered with some interesting anecdotes about her job as an investigator. The book doesn't so much have a plot, as much as it just rambles from one anecdote to the next.

I'm about halfway through and I can't say I'd recommend it.

Read any good books lately?

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
Snow blowing sideways can't be a good thing, can it? This is what I'm looking at right now. And lucky me, I get to be outside in it all afternoon. One of the nice things my company does each year is get involved in a local campaign that provides coats to needy children in the area. Today, a few of us from my department will be outside Browns stadium giving away turkeys to those who come down to donate a coat.

You'd think this would be a nice, heart-warming event, right? Well, for the most part it is, but there's also a darker underbelly, which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The rule is "one turkey per car." We get the greediest, pissiest people down there, who want two turkeys because they gave two coats. Or 5 turkeys for 5 coats. You get the picture. They don't seem to understand that this is a charity event, that the whole point is donating the coats to help the children. So then they get all torked off and will actually take the coats back, drive around the block, and try and get another turkey. It's despicable.

There are also the good stories though; last year we had a little girl come up with her mom and she had her entire piggy bank full of pennies and nickels that she wanted to donate to the Salvation Army (who is one of the sponsors of this event). Or the people who don't take turkeys at all. Or the people who anonymously drive up and hand us a check for $200 and drive off before we can thank them.

So while I'll be freezing my ass off, it's definitely for a good cause. And I'll feel good that I was a part of it again this year.

More stories from the night the band played
As if the hamster story weren't enough, and the crazy dancing guy in the bar, here's another tidbit from Saturday night. We're sitting at the bar before the show, and this guy comes up to my husband and says, "You look familiar to me, did you go to [name omitted] High School?" My husband says that he did, but doesn't recognize the guy. So the guy introduces himself as "Chad, the guy who broke into the school and fucked shit up."

That indeed rings a bell with my husband, and he laughs. So they talk about high school for a little bit. When Chad excuses himself, my husband tells me the story. Apparently, in his younger days, Chad stole some different acids from the science lab at school and then attempted to blow up the school safe by mixing the acids together. Chad was not a chemistry whiz, however, which I would assume would be of utmost importance for such an operation. So he mixed the wrong kinds of acid together and it started smoking so much that it was choking him and he had to abort the mission.

Smart guy. So that's his claim to fame. I can't believe he actually introduced himself to my husband that way. You'd think he would want to forget that particular episode in his life. What do I know, though?

Son, be a dentist
Nothing more uncomfortable than sitting in a dentist's chair with your mouth pried open, having two people jabbing at your with metal prods and water squirters and suction thingies. That was me, bright and early this morning. And I didn't get off scot-free, either: I have a cavity, and so must return right before Christmas to get it filled. I didn't even think I had any real tooth-type material left that I could get more cavities; my mouth is comprised mostly of metal and porcelain now anyway. Yeesh.

My mom, the Wolverines fan
Always true to form, my mom had several altercations over the weekend with unwitting Buckeyes. First, the fifteen year old bagger at the grocery store got an earful when he started giving her shit for her maize and blue sweatshirt. She told the checkout girl she was going to rip up her $100 check she was writing unless the kid shut the hell up.

When she got to her office this morning, someone had plastered pictures of a kid decked out in OSU regalia flipping the finger to a U of M person. I'm sure she is being ultra obnoxious this morning.

You know it's bad
When the Steelers suck, but we suck worse. Not a fun game. I excused myself from my husband and his friends during the third quarter and fell asleep on the upstairs couch with Domino, watching the Real World marathon.

Cultural phenomenon
Here's a piece we all can enjoy: the cultural phenomenon wherein, whenever you're at a bar listening to a band, there's always that one weird guy who dances when no one else is. And he's usually an older gentleman who's had a few too many to drink.

That guy was at my husband's show last night.

Tuna noted this phenomenon when she spotted Gene Gene the Dancing Machine while she was out and about the other night.

The guy who I saw was doing a dance move that I'd like to call "The Crane." It involved the flapping of arms to simulate wings, and moving up and down, not necessarily in tune with the music. Mixed in with a little Russian leg kicking. It was quite a sight.

After the show I was introduced to said gentlemen, and it turns out that he is in the band that is going to be headlining the New Year's Eve show that my husband's band is playing at. So I have not seen the last of Crazy Dancing Guy.

Nor have you. Because he's everywhere.

Off with their heads
(Not for the faint of heart -- don't say I didn't warn you)

...

So, I'm at this party last night. And all these scientific types are there. They're saying words like "neurotransmitter" and I'm feeling incredibly out of place and stupid. While we're all sitting around eating pasta salad, one girl nonchalantly tells us all, "I decapitated like, 5 hamsters yesterday."

Um. Excuse me?

Yep. She wasn't bluffin'. She does some kind of research on Hamster brains. And they have to use live hamsters for the experiments because apparently they need to study a certain part of the brain that shuts down after death. Gross huh?

Meanwhile, I'm grossed out, but at the same time, I'm sitting there thinking, heh, hamster brains. I'm picturing Jee with his head in a guillotine. Maybe that's wrong of me. But oh well.

It was a disturbing conversation nonetheless. I'd like to believe that that stuff doesn't actually happen. But yeah, it does.

Ok, here's a joke...
Since so many Buckeyes fans have stumbled upon this site looking for anti-Michigan jokes, I'll tell you one that my husband told me last night:

Him: Did you hear Lloyd Carr is only dressing 22 players for the game?
Me: Why? (I actually thought it was real for a second; shame on me)
Him: Because the rest of the players know how to dress themselves.

HAW HAW!

There. Hope you're happy, Bucks fans.

Go Blue.

Keep it in the closet



Thanks Jonesarelli, for the laugh.

Sorry, Buckeyes fans
No anti-Michigan pictures or jokes here. But I got three hits on this site yesterday from individuals looking for such things. As if. But I hope you enjoyed the blog nonetheless.

Hot in Herre
(not a typo; spelled correctly according to rapper Nelly)
It is honestly hotter than Hades in here. And me with my warm sweater. You'd think in November, wearing a sweater to work would be safe. But noooooo.

But the kid is not my son
Michael Jackson's mug shot. Dude, that shit is scary. You could sell that pic instead of those green alien head posters that are popular with the college crowd these days. I had to cover my eyes when, during each commercial break, they would show that horrifying image. Not sure what's worse. The snake eating the iguana or that mug shot. I know that when I have the nightmare, it's going to be the snake but with Michael Jackson's eyes.

So this whole MJ thing. It sounds like he schnookers the entire family into thinking he's wonderful. They were interviewing parents on the news and they were all saying that even after all this, they would still send their children to Neverland Ranch. Say what now?

I'll never understand.

The tribe has spoken, or, Ain't No Sunshine When He's Gone
Rupert got voted off, and with him went his hopes and dreams for a better life. My husband said he wanted to slit his wrists after Rupert's farewell speech. I was disappointed in him, to be honest. At some point it seems like Rupert lost sight of the fact that this was a game that he was participating in, with no guarantee that he'd be the million dollar winner. But have no fear, Bearded One, I see good things coming to you beyond Survivor. Hey now, you're an All-Star, get your game on, go play. We'll see how you hold up against Hatch & Co.

So the power has shifted. It appears that Burton, Jon, Lill, Darrah and Tijuana can now easily pick off Sandra and Christa. Then D&T will likely fall victim to the Outkasts and J-Play. Ugh.

And, can I just ask Mark Burnett, was it really necessary to keep showing the snake eating the iguana? I got the metaphor. The first time you showed it. I didn't need to see it two subsequent times. I know it's nature and all, but I prefer not to have that image burned into my memory, providing nightmare fodder for my brain.

With that, I conclude my Survivor thoughts for the week.

Hey, that's my pen!
Have you ever found a pen, maybe in the copy room, maybe someone left it on your desk, maybe on the ground, and it's a really cool pen? That pen becomes yours by the unwritten rule of finders keepers, losers weepers.

Why is it that, that pen, always ends up getting lost or someone else takes it? What's the saying, it was never yours to begin with? I think it's that whole "love something set it free" thing. Anyway, it's just a pen. I should get over it.

But I think Incompetent but Likeable ganked it.

Dunt dunt DAHHHHHH!
SWF's manager is having a talk with her right now about her lack of professionalism... Doh. The little "avoidant" alarm in my head is going "warning, warning, we have a potential backlash situation here, evacuate, evacuate" but the "evil, vindictive" portion of my brain is saying, "hee hee, this will be an interesting afternoon"

So I'll just sit and eat my apple and hopefully will get the scoop but will not directly be involved in it. I like it better that way.

Jacko Watch
He still hasn't surrendered to authorities. But he left Vegas on his private jet. Hah, did anyone hear the interview with the investigators, answering to Jacko's claims that they purposely filed charges the same day his album of Number Ones came out? The investigator was all scarcastic and was like, "Yeah, because we listen to that kind of music." I thought to myself, this man is a kindred spirit in the realm of snark.

News briefs

~ In the Most! Dramatic! Rose! Ceremony! Ever! Bob chose Estella.
And there's two more hours of my life I'll never get back.

~ For all of you who suffered power outages during the blackout in August, it looks like you can now safely blame First Energy, which is headquartered about 15 minutes from where I live.

~ I just dumped Rupert off my CBS Fantasy team and sold my Rupert stock in the Survivor stock market game I play. *sniff* (voice cracks) I'm going to miss you, you loveable, huggable man-beast.

~ Someone looked at this blog last night after a Google search of "free Serpentine font." Please oh please, let it not have been Bad Lady.

And finally, this story ...
(Thanks for my friend Ann, who e-mailed this to me)

Inmate Makes Deal to Watch Football Game
Ohio Inmate Makes Plea Deal to Stay in Jail to Watch the Ohio State-Michigan Game on
Television

The Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio Nov. 19 ? Jeff Renne's plea deal on a forgery charge came with one
demand: He had to stay in the local jail through the weekend so he could watch the Ohio
State-Michigan game on television on Saturday.

Renne, a Buckeyes fan, knows from his criminal past that there is no television at the
reception center where inmates go before they are moved to one of the state's prisons.
But inmates at the Franklin County jail get to watch TV.

"I told my attorney if they would table my transfer for a week, I would take the deal,"
said Renne, who was charged with forgery.

"If they win, I will be on cloud nine for a few months that I'm incarcerated."

Judge Richard Sheward of Franklin County Common Pleas Court agreed to the deal and
accepted Renne's plea on Monday.

"What possessed me to say yes? It's Michigan week and it's Columbus, Ohio, and I thought
I should do my part for the Ohio State Buckeyes," Sheward said.

Renne will serve two years in prison.

Back at the homestead...
Wallpaper is being torn down. At least, this is the status report I have received from my husband, who is (maybe not so much) enjoying his day off today. And at last, the sun has broken through the pallor of clouds that made my morning commute to work a half hour longer than usual. Thanks, weather gods.

Actually I blame our local weatherman from our NBC-affiliate, Mark Nolan. He seems to take a certain perverse pleasure in setting record low temperatures, mind-blowing amounts of snowfall and/or precipitation, and general inclement circumstances. Damn him.

That's all for now.

Check out my
new graphic that I created to go along with the blog! I did most of it last night at home (wink wink) but then Queer Eye came on and so I applied the finishing touches this morning. You can feast your eyes upon it underneath all my sidebar crap.

Foosball
I just realized what a catyclysmic football weekend it is going to be. Browns vs. Steelers. Ohio State vs. Michigan. Yikes! Might there be a cave that I can hide in? I'm not sure I want to be home when these games are going on. My husband has a Browns flag that he flies every Sunday, and then all week if they win. So it's flying right now. Will it be flying come Monday? Hope so.

Then there's the Ohio State/Michigan thing. Both my parents are U of M grads. So, even though I grew up in Ohio, I was reared to loathe the Buckeyes. It's in my genes! Even though I could actually give two shits about the whole thing, there's some deeply-ingrained urge within my body to scream obscenities at the TV when Michigan screws up (which, my mom will tell you, is a lot, due to that good-for-nothing Navarre).

Complicating matters is the fact that the man I married also happens to think Ohio State is da bomb. But shh, that's on the downlow. We were talking last night about how it would not ever be cool for him to admit openly to my mother that he roots for the Buckeyes. She is beyond fanatical about the Wolverines. You DO NOT call her during a game. Or on Saturdays if the Wolverines lose. You just don't. If you do, prepare yourself for the biggest cuss storm of insults ever unleashed on you. Or to not even get an answer, just the blaring of "Hail to the Victors" into the earpiece.

And if you mention that you like Ohio State, prepare for your house to be TPed, courtesy of my mom. I went on many a TP'ing mission when I was a wee one. And the best ever was a stealth mission to her Buckeye-loving friend's house while they were out of town to place a bumper sticker that read "O how I hate Ohio State" on the backboard of their basketball hoop. And conversely, we had our house decked out in scarlet and grey crepe paper, obscene anti-Michigan signs... good times.

It will be an interesting weekend at my household, that's for sure.

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.

My old school
I'm all geared up for a little trip this weekend. The first stop is Columbus, where I will meet up with one of my best friends and former college roommate. We will continue along to our ultimate destination, which is the little college campus in southern Ohio which we call our alma mater.

We do this about once a year, just to feel like we're that age again, to see how much the city has changed, to visit our old dorms and dining hall, to drive past the house where we used to live and to chicken out before we get up the courage to knock on the door.

We also go to eat at our favorite restaurant. That's what I'm looking forward to most.

Wait for my go (aka Survivor Thoughts)
Ryno. I shall miss thy sagging waistband. I hope that your first move as a voted-off tribesperson was to put on some pants. And shave. I don't know if I will recognize you when you come next week as a sullen-faced jury member.

Rupert. Your days are numbered. But here's a piece of advice. If you can help it, don't win reward. Win immunity, because you'll need it, but this whole "invincible" thing is pissing people off.

Jon. Looks like you are going to be around for a while yet. I couldn't be more agitated. Although your annoyingness was toned down a bit on last night's episode. It was still there, lurking behind the scenes though.

Burton. I hope you and Lill can make something of the second chance you've been given. More so you than Lill.

Sandra. You're still poised to make it to at least the final four. Unless a coup is planned, which seems unlikely at this point.

Christa. Your nostril flared uncontrollably when you used the slingshot. Just thought you should know.

Darrah. You'd best be pickin' your lazy ass up and doin' some work if you want a chance to stay longer.

Tijuana. I kind of like you, and I'm not sure why, but you, too, could stand to prove your worth to the tribe if you have a prayer of making it farther.

Lill. You are not a good liar. Don't even try. It's best left to Burton to do the lying. This will also make you look better in the end.

That is all.

Grr
SWF has been missing from her desk since at least 1, which was when I got back from lunch. Time now? 3:01. Her purse is here so I know she's not gone for the day. And she's not in a meeting. The situation has annoyed me so much that I bitched about it to Bad Lady. Who wholeheartedly agreed with me. Then added, "must be nice to be paid to socialize for half the day."

Not wanting to point out the irony in that it was she, the queen socializer (but on the phone so it's different somehow) who uttered that sentence, I merely agreed. "Yeah. Must be."

Avoidant.

Random thoughts I had while eating Wendy's chicken strips in my car
-- Honey mustard never tasted so good.
-- It really does hurt when you get salt in a wound.
-- Beyonce: nice voice, crap music.
-- Lip gloss works well on a windy day when you want to go for the "hair plastered to your face" look.

I have a death wish
To add to my massive caloric intake this afternoon, I stopped in our office kitchen, (where the Diet Club was, as usual, looking everyone up and down and assessing how many carbs that person had consumed and passing moral judgement upon them based on their assessment) and saw that someone was selling Malley's candy bars (I think only found in Cleveland area) for a kid's school fundraiser. So I picked one up -- a chocolate pretzel crunch bar. And it was awesome.

Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets
In this corner, weighing in at approximately 120 pounds and standing 5 feet 4 inches, she's the coworker everyone loves to hate... Bad Lady!
And in this corner, wearing the red trunks, tipping the scales at around 125 pounds, with a stature of 5 feet and three inches, it's Evil Realtor!

Who will win in this unprecedented battle of evil vs. evil? It's anyone's guess at this point.

Right now, Bad Lady has entered a meeting with perhaps the nastiest, most difficult, crotchetiest (sp?) realtor I have ever known. I pride myself on making sure that I give the people that I work with, what they're looking for. I might not get it right on the first try, but I always make it right.

A few years ago, I encountered Evil Realtor. I was still relatively new at my position at that point, but I still felt that I had a good grasp on the whole design concept and was relatively confident in my people-pleasing abilities. Well, Evil Realtor was not about to be pleased by anything I did. She, in fact, hated, despised, spat upon my work. Was insulted that I would present her with such crap. So I redid her entire campaign from scratch, using the colors and fonts she liked, the picture of herself that she liked, etc. That, too, was a no-go. In fact, she cried to my boss about it because she hated it so much. Allright, we'll give it one more try. But alas, Evil Realtor had already decided she hated me, and hated my boss, and hated our department, so she took herself to an ad agency and paid out the nose to probably have the same work done that I'm on salary to do for her for free.

So she's back. And knowing Bad Lady like I do, I know that Evil Realtor will probably eat her alive. Maybe they'll get along famously, since they're both distant relatives of Satan and probably share some of the same DNA. Maybe Evil Realtor will love the three-font extravaganza of crap that Bad Lady calls design.

I will be quite excited to see how this one turns out.

Idol Sighting
By chance, I happened to look on Dave Barry's web site only to find out that he is coming to Cleveland next month to lecture! Do I dish out $35 per ticket and go? Yeah, probably.

Earth, wind and fire
Yikes! Them are sure some powerful gusts. Damage at the house was limited to the garbage can being tipped over and displaying a long parade of its contents all the way down the driveway, ending at the bottom, where the lid was ready to make a run for the road. And my hair was the second disaster of the day. I tried to do damage control before I got into my building, but as I walked past the mirror behind the reception desk, I noticed that a big piece of my pseudo-bangs was sticking straight up, a la Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary.

My Love Affair
My treadmill and I were broken up, kaput, history. It had been living a lonely life, standing upright in its folded state, for several months. But over the weekend, with the prospects of the Cheesecake Factory looming, as well as several months of not venturing outdoors, I decided that our on-again, off-again relationship had to become on-again, pronto. And so right now, it's like the beginning of a relationship where you just can't get enough of that special someone. Me and Treadmill are inseparable. I daydream about Treadmill and how wonderful he is going to make me feel.

I'll probably dump him in a week though.

Exhibit K
I work in the corporate headquarters of a real estate company, and in this building, we conduct training for the newbie real estate agents. Today they instituted a tour for the newbies and they brought 25 bright-eyed and bushy-tailed people into our little bat cave. All of us in the department exchanged a flurry of e-mails, warning each other to maintain a low profile. So we're all staying below the horizon line of our cubes, until the boisterous training manager yells out my name. "Are you here? Come on out!!!!" So I have to pop my head up and say hello to everyone as she tells them all about my job, which, she got totally wrong, but I didn't feel like correcting her in front of her pupils (avoidant!!! The test was right!). So, not about to go down in flames by myself, I call out Bad Lady's name and have her come out and also introduce herself.

I'm so e-vil.
(Raises pinky finger to lip)

A big LOL for us all
I found this on dooce.com, and must properly give credit where credit is due.
This is some laugh out loud stuff for all of us who are Blog-Obsessed.

Read it, you know you want to.

A la AOL Journal style...
Feeling: calm, for the moment
Hearing: what else ... the 55th playing in a row of the Ryan Adams CD, with a soft background of B.L. shifting voraciously through papers on her desk
Eating: a mighty tasty apple

Anyhoo, today is coming along quite nicely. We had a nice group bonding experience as we all had to stuff cover sheets into a pocket of a folder (see "Major fuckup", 11-7-03) because the original cover sheet had a typo on it. So, totally my fault. We managed, with 8 people, to stuff 2000 folders in under an hour. And much to my surprise, everyone, including Bad Lady, participated. I was sure she wouldn't stoop to doing manual labor and being away from her desk, and hence her phone, and hence hence her myriad of personal calls. But she was a trooper.

During said group bonding, I was forced to work closely with SWF, who I am convinced should probably be on Ritalin or some kind of sedative. She must have constant conversation or she starts bouncing up and down in her chair. The tell-tale sign was when, after about 30 seconds of no one saying anything, she told me to "tell her a story." I wanted to tell her the story of "Bite Me, Bitch", but I decided not to.

After returning from my desk I did a quick blog-sweep to see if anyone had updated, and found a link on one of them to this "Personality Disorder Test." I can't remember where this was, so I'm sorry if you're reading this and I stole it from you. Don't take this test unless you are ready for it to tell you you're messed up. My highest score was in "avoidant." I also had some high scores in "paranoid" and "obsessive-compulsive."

That was the cherry on top of my day.

I would ordinarily sulk about this but I'm pretty sure it's a correct assessment. Maybe not the paranoid. But I'm definitely a conflict-avoider, if that's what the whole "avoidant" thing is about.


But on a more positive note, I'm getting a lot done, including an ad for Incompetent But Likeable, Computer-Illiterate Guy that's not due until the end of next week, buying myself a few days' worth of time that he won't be bugging me about the Next Upcoming Project.

And we received a message from Sprocket that our new computers will be installed this weekend. Ok, but I'm not holding my breath ...

Crisis
Warning: this entry includes some font geek ranting by yours truly.
This morning's huge crisis is that Bad Lady, who got her new computer because she killed hers last week, lost one of her fonts and no one else has it. The reason this is a crisis is because she only uses three fonts and this is one of the trifecta. The display fonts that she uses, no matter if it's a postcard, a flyer, a notecard, a poster, the side of a bus, or a yard sign, are Bank Gothic and Serpentine. Then for any copy, she uses Gill Sans in all its varieties. That's it. That's the formula. Well, Serpentine is the one that is no longer residing in her arsenal.

Here's the thing.

Sprocket the Techie installed over 3000 new fonts on her system when he replaced it.

You'd think that with that much variety, she could go a little nuts and *maybe* try a different font. But no, instead of accepting her loss and moving on, she is bitching about it for like, the third day in a row.

Starting the day off with a little Arnold and Michael Knight



My friend sent me an e-mail this morning with this photo attached and said somehow, she knew I'd appreciate it.

And, I do.

Side note: look how skinny Hasselhoff's legs are!

Tidbit #1
Still no plan of action re: Bad Lady's birthday. Bagels was a brief blip on the radar screen but talk has died down. My boss suggested an idea he had seen at a leadership conference of where a sheet of paper is passed around and everyone writes down something that they like about the birthday person. Until my friend said to him, "Are you sure you want to start that with [Bad Lady]?"

Because, we're a creative group, but we're not that creative.

Tidbit #2
The shit that went down. Basically, we've all known for a long time, that one of my friends in the department is finishing up law school and is going to be leaving us. Well, the timetable had been May, her graduation date. However, she may be offered a clerking position and may take that opportunity and leave us earlier than planned. As she is essentially the glue that holds this department together, this caused the sirens to go off inside my boss' head and he called an emergency meeting to tell us all we needed to "roll up our sleeves" to get "up to speed" on the things that she does, and we would all need to "work together," blah blah "in the loop" blah "transition."

Not a big deal I guess. Except the world will come crashing down around me and one other person when she leaves because we will have to become the venting wall, the security blanket, the one who gets called at home on Saturday morning, the one who gets shit on. All rolled up into a neat little package.

Well I'll be!
Someone who I previously thought was smart, just proved to be the contrary. I was in the mailroom, using the postage machine, when Smartie came walking through, casually tossed a letter into the basket of outgoing mail, and then stopped and said, "Do you think I need to put postage on that?" I look at it. It is definitely a postage-requiring situation, as is the case with ALL MAIL. I try to mask my incredulousness and say, "Yeah, probably." He looks at me like I've just announced that his first born child is going to be publicly flogged. I take pity on him. "Want me to do it for you?" He brightens. "Yeah! I don't know how to work that thing." I swish it through the postage machine and we both go on our merry little way.

In other news, some major shit just went down. I'll have the story as it unfolds.

Class Notes
My high school alumnae newsletter came in the mail yesterday. I went to an all-girls, Catholic high school, from which I am still recovering. As well as from the 8 years of Catholic schooling I received prior to high school. But that's beside the point.

One of the main things that my all-female high school really tried to drill into our impressionable, blossoming minds was that women can do anything men can do, and we should aim for the sky to try and reach our goals.

So in my class notes, I want to see that Suzy Soandso has been promoted to Chief Rocket Scientist, Bonnie Whatshername got her Masters degree, Katie Whosiwhatsit traveled to Cambodia and is teaching.

But instead, I got, Suzy Soandso is engaged! Bonnie Whatshername got married last month to Scott Whatshisface. And Katie Whosiwhatsit and her husband Bobby welcomed little Connor Whosiwhatsit into the world.

Which is all fine and good. I'm glad my high school friends are getting married and having children. But I want to hear about their accomplishments! What have they done with their lives besides meet a man?

Legacy Village
I finally was inside the new shopping phenomenon known collectively as Legacy Village. I voyaged there with my friend to have dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. While we sweated out the over-an-hour wait, we decided to walk over to some of the shops. Without exchanging a word between us, we both made a beeline toward Crate & Barrel. I wanted to buy this pillow, but a) there's nothing in my house that matches it and b) I couldn't just buy one, I'd have to buy two, and I couldn't justify spending $60 on two pillows. Besides, my husband would kick my ass. So instead I bought two of these mugs (the candy cane striped ones)and one of these candles. Not too bad. I think it was only about $20 that I spent. It could have been a lot worse.

Cheesecake Factory was worth the wait, for the cheesecake alone. The food was good, not great. I ate some kind of chicken club sandwich with avocado. It was on greasy toast so I had to wipe my hands every time I took a bite. My friend had a cheese steak which she reported was good. And the cheesecake? The most important part? Me: chocolate rasberry truffle. Her: pumpkin pecan. Both? Excellent.

One thing I'll say about it, though: we had the slowest service I've had since Alice Cooperstown on Saturday. It took her 15 minutes to get our drink order, another 15 to bring it to us, and another 15 after that to take our order. By the time we got out most of the stores were closed, and we had planned on another shopping extravaganza. I wanted to go to Ann Taylor Loft, she wanted to go to Talbots.

We did, however, go into Coldwater Creek, and I found this jacket that I wanted to get but decided against spending the money.

We had a good time, though. And we'll be back, credit cards in hand.

Stole this from Teem Spirit. I would kick ass at Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy.

Hey, wait a minute...
Yeah, those new computers? Look a whole hell of a lot like our old computers. You know, the ones they installed over the weekend. Oh wait, they are our old computers!

Gonna git me a bucket o'dat
Hey, according to a new KFC commercial, eating a bucket of chicken is good for you. It's low carb and high protein! Screw Jared, my new hero is Jason Alexander.

This was part of an e-mail I got today that depicted all kinds of funny signs and occurrances. If anyone wants me to forward it to them let me know.

Looks like crap, smells like crap... must be crap
I am working on a punk-ass, bitch-ass, crap-ass brochure for a client. Have I mentioned before that my clients are all realtors? Well, I think I should at this point because this particular realtor went to some seminar given by the Dr. Phil of real estate, and now thinks that a personal brochure is going to be the panacea for bad business. To add insult to injury, Dr. Phil gave her a formulaic sample brochure and she wants the exact same thing. Well for starters, the cover of Dr. Phil's brochure features a gigundo Phil, smiling like a psycho killer, wearing the loudest, ugliest tie known to man. My realtor, hmm, how to put this delicately... looks like a horse. And blowing up the photo to XXXXL won't do the woman justice, and it certainly won't get her business. Ok. So I successfully talked her out of the large photo, even though Dr. Phil swears this is the most effective layout for a brochure.

The other problem is that Dr. Phil's brochure is entirely devoid of graphics, save for his gargantuan mugshot and two other bite-sized mugs on the interior flaps. Now. I am of the opinion that no one needs three photos of themself on a brochure. Enter problem #2. My realtor has gotten a photo shoot done but they are all variations of the same pose. Dr. Phil is on the phone, Dr. Phil is in front of his computer, Dr. Phil is standing behind his "SOLD!" sign. My realtor pretty much just has headshots. Ok. So I negotiate a photo substitution.

The third problem is that Dr. Phil wants you to cram every single accomplishment you've ever had in your life, significant to real estate or not, into the already-crammed brochure. Maybe if we lose some of the photos. Ok, my realtor says, you're the designer.

So what I'm left with is a mess. I think Dr. Phil is full of shit, but I don't want to tell her that she just spent $800 on a complete waste of time. That is my conundrum du jour.

I'm sure by noon it will be something else.

The deception begins
We successfully pulled a fast one on the cats last night. A food substitution was made without notice. Due to Molly's ever-increasing fat roll that jiggles from side to side when she walks, and is near the point of dragging on the floor, we decided to switch their dry food to "weight management" food. I was sure that they'd know right away and refuse to eat. But no, they dove right in, as usual. Domino in particular chowed down. He isn't really overweight, but he's got a little pudge. There's no way for us to separate them to feed them different food so we have no choice but to put them both on the diet.

So far, they don't seem to mind. We'll see if the results are visible in the next few weeks.

Below: Molly is in for a big surprise.

It's that time of the week
There's something about Sunday nights that just depresses the living bejeebers out of me. I have to get back in gear for the work week, and that means all kinds of unpleasantries, unforseen stresses, phone calls from clients whom I haven't heard from in months who suddenly have 500 changes to make, and they need their stuff printed right now. I hope it's not one of those kinds of weeks.

A couple of bright spots: tomorrow night I'm meeting a friend for dinner after work. I think we are going to attempt to get in to the Cheesecake Factory, which makes me glad I put in the extra time on the treadmill. I don't know if we'll be successful, though. The wait time may still be outrageous. If not we'll end up at Cooker or someplace like that. Which is fine too. My friend has some serious bad shit going on in her life right now, such as, she didn't pass the bar exam, just found out her boyfriend of nearly a year is cheating on her... with a stripper. You know. Just your usual, every day problems. I feel horribly for her, I mean, either one of those things by themselves would be a lot on ones plate. But for both to hit at once, man. That's cruel. But so anyway, we're going to go out tomorrow and hopefully have a good time and not worry about boyfriends and bar exams.

Then Tuesday, I think my husband and I are going to see a musician who goes by the stage name of Badly Drawn Boy. He's another one of those singer-songwriter types, so I'm sure it will be good music but an eccentric show nonetheless.

The rest of the week, depending on what's going down at work, could prove to be pure crap. Plus it's Bad Lady's birthday on Friday, and I know we're going to have to figure out something to do. Which is stressful in itself because she doesn't eat cake, so that's out of the question, she doesn't eat pizza, so we can't do that. She doesn't really enjoy donuts or any sort of breakfast food, so that's out. She doesn't like balloons, or candy, or any other normal birthday fare. Pretty much the only thing the woman eats is lettuce or the occasional Nutri-Grain bar. That's a party waiting to happen right there.

*sigh*

At least I'll have some entertaining fodder to blog about all week.

Sunday (which is today, but I need to sleep before it's official)
1. Walk on treadmill. (check)
2. Finish Running with Scissors. (check)
3. Do and fold laundry. (check)
4. Figure out how to make a kajillion dollars so I don't have to go back to work Monday. (bzzt)

Lebron-a-thon
The Cavs won their first game. Whoop! Once again we were in the nosebleeds but it was fun nonetheless. We ate dinner beforehand at Alice Cooperstown, which was meh. There were no celebrity sightings at the game this time around, so it did not have as much excitement as it did Wednesday.

I must say that new mascot, Moondog, was slightly improved in his antics during tonight's game, but still not overly impressive. What was impressive, however, was the halftime act -- a trio of frisbee-catching dogs, including a Jack Russell terrier with performance anxiety. But the other two canines more than made up for their miniature companion in style and poise.

Thus concludes the Lebron-a-thon. We're not going to another game at the Gund until sometime in January, so the Cavs will have to do without us for a while. I hoep they can manage.

Monday should be interesting
As we were winding down at work this afternoon, the techie guy known to us as "Sprocket" came over and told us that our new computers were being installed over the weekend. This gives me great joy, and great apprehension. I just know something is going to go horribly wrong. Whenever the techies fix something, three other things get screwed up. Such is the way.

Evenin'
A non-eventful one, at that. Change of plans re: dinner. I decided, while on the drive home, that what I really wanted to eat tonight, was Chinese. And so I partook in some Orange Chicken and a vegetable egg roll. It was quite good, I must say.

I watched a little Trading Spaces and Queer Eye and then did a bit of fiddling around here on the computer.

Tomorrow, the Lebron-a-thon continues, as we are going to another Cavs game. We're going with our friends Frankenscott. It should be fun. Except, you know, we'll have to sit through the excruciatingly bad antics of Moondog yet again, and, basketball bores the shit out of me, truth be told. Other than that though. Good times.

Oh dear lord, ITunes. Danger, Will Robinson.

Lay off me, I'm starving
I was just thinking to myself that my husband had better not eat that last stuffed pepper that is in the fridge before he goes to his band practice. No sooner had the thought floated around my cranium then he called and asked me what I was going to eat for dinner. I said, "Whatever you leave for me." I then directed him to the frozen pizza in the freezer, and so the pepper is mine, baby! Mine!

What to do tonight... hubby at band practice... chick flick perhaps?

You can be sure that this blog will be updated later this evening. Because I'll have nothing else to do.

And so concludes another harrowing work week. *boogie down*

Bad Lady-in-Waiting
MY WORKPLACE (AP): Early this afternoon, a strange wave of silence permated the office where Kat is employed. Sources report that this was due to the departure of Bad Lady, which, as usual, was unannounced and abrupt. Also contributing to said silence was one Single White Female (SWF), who is, in her own right, a Bad Lady. Currently out of the office, SWF has been causing problems as of late.

SWF is a 20something who is a recent addition to this particular area of my office. Rambunctious and cute, she tends to be the cause of many disruptions throughout the day. These include but are not limited to: throwing balled up pieces of paper over the cubicle walls and hitting people in the head, throwing a plastic stress ball in in the air and catching it for hours at a time, and making a running jump into someone's cubicle to give them a fax. SWF can be categorized as Extremely Annoying, and a recent pattern of NotDoingJackShit has been noted.

Today, it has been reported, SWF arrived at 8:50, immediately started receiving social visits in her cubicle, and then left to go to McDonald's at 9:30. At approximately 10:30 she returned to the office, only to disappear from her desk for 45 minutes. After doing 10 minutes of work, she then went to lunch. At 1 she returned and has been giggling loudly ever since.

Due to extremely high workloads and looming deadlines, SWF's behavior is starting to raise the ire of certain employees, including Kat herself. ~TSF News~

History of SWF
Was hired several months ago as a designer for a different department. Used to work on the third floor, which is like a different world. My department is on the fourth floor, and we are just on the other side of a door from all the Head Honchos. Therefore, we must alter our behavior accordingly. We do not play with toys. We do not blatantly have people hanging out in our cube for more than a few minutes at a time on a continuing basis. We do not piss off our most important clients just because they spelled our name wrong. We do not tell our boss to "shut up" for any reason.

SWF and another coworker initially hit it off and hung out after work a few times. Apparently there was a bit of a scuffle over a guy, and thus SWF got her name because she began acting weird about it.

This carried over into our workplace because the coworker in question needed help and SWF volunteered to assist. But as soon as my coworker gave her the work to do, she went apeshit and complained to her boss and our boss that she was "overloaded" and "too stressed to handle the deadline." Hello, what do we do every day? Handle deadlines. If you can't take the heat... you know the rest. However, in this case, she couldn't take the heat, and so burned my coworker.

So this has caused many of us to rethink ever having her "help" us again. She seems like the kind of person who could so easily take something you said in confidence and throw it right back in your face. So I am on my guard with her.

Major fuckup
Whoops. Boss just discovered a typo in something I did, which has already come back from the printer. So we have to do a reprint, ASAP. I hate when that shit happens. I mean, it happens to everyone, but I feel like, I should have seen that. When he showed it to me, I saw it right away. Yet, he and I both looked at it before it went to press, I looked at two proofs, and it was never caught.

And it didn't help that when he came over to show me, I was engrossed in reading a fellow Hamster Timer's blog.

*dances for joy*
Guess what, fellow Queer Eye fans? New episodes start Tuesday, Nov. 18.
I hope that Cars and the gang are just as witty and truthful as ever.

By the way I added a lengthier rant about Lillian. I forgot that I was mad at her for the whole "bitter and voting with Drake" debacle of last night.

Thoughts on Survivor
Burton's back, and there's gonna be trouble,
Hey-la, hey-la, Burton's back.

Johnny Fairplay? Still there. And probably will be through the Pagonging of the Morgans.

Rupert? Leaders are becoming expendable. I think our boy's days are numbered.

Lill? Whatever. You're not going to go anywhere. Drake is just going to use you for votes. And damn you for being bitter. We had a legitimate chance to get rid of Jon and you blew it. Thanks for nothing.

Morgan Tribe? Buh-bye.

Christa and Sandra? Stay under the radar and you will make it far. Just please, don't bring Jon to the finals with you. I beg you, of all that is good in the world. Duke it out amongst yourselves.

And that concludes my thoughts on Survivor.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on the person who just called me to put together an ad that is due Monday.

&##*@&!^!*@(#(@*@*@

Thank you.

One more b-ball tidbit
I would like to give a middle finger to the inventor of Thunder Sticks (or, ThunderStixx as they may be called). When your overly-enthusiastic husband is banging them together every two minutes it tends to wear on ones nerves. And eardrums.

Food is good
Tonight I'm attempting to make my once-a-year Stuffed Peppers. I'd make it more often, but we always forget about them and then there's 50 million other things we want to make first. I'm looking forward to it though. I make mine with ground beef, rice, tomato sauce, and worchestershire. I think tonight we're going to chop up some mushrooms and put those in as well. Awww yeah.

Ring, ring
A call comes through from the receptionist for me. OK. I pick it up. Person on the other end of the line says, "Can I speak to [name omitted] who handles the [random administrative task I know nothing about?]"

OK, sure. But, um, didn't you JUST talk to the receptionist, who could have connected you DIRECTLY with the person you needed to speak to, instead of going through her and THEN through me?

Thank god for whoever invented the "do-not-disturb" key that I just pressed on my phone.

I've just finished eating lunch and I'm on a little bit of sugar high/rush of creativity so we'll see if I can knock out those postcards that I've been dreading and avoiding doing the design work on all week.

Here is why I enjoy Ryan Adams:
For lyrics like this:
Cotton candy and a rotten mouth
You know you're so fucked up
You know I couldn't help but have it for you

And everybody knows the way I walk
And knows the way I talk
And knows the way I feel about you
It's all a bunch of shit
And there's nothing to do around here
It's totally fucked up
I'm totally fucked up
Wish you were here

- from his new CD, Rock 'n' Roll, "Wish You Were Here"

I learned something new today already
From my e-subscription to "Queer Eye" updates...

Q: HOW DO YOU SPELL THAT WORD, YOU KNOW, THE ONE THAT KYAN AND CARSON USE A LOT?

Tjuzs. That's how Carson told us to spell it, we swear. Tjuzs, Tjuzing, Tjuzed.

That would be pronounced "shoozh", but now I know its true spelling. I think. How the hell did they get "shoozh" from that?!?!?

Da Game
Highlights of the Cavs game:
1. Rapper Jay-Z was in da house.
2. So were local sports stars (Ellis Burks of the Indians; Maurice Clarett, suspended Ohio State running back)
3. So were some other Very Important People, of whom I was not one.
4. I had binoculars, so I could scan the crowd for famous people.

Lowlights of the Cavs game:
1. The Cavs. They suck, although they didn't get totally blown out.
2. Lebron. Did not live up to the hype.
3. Moondog, the Cavs' new mascot, was really bad. He's a golden retriever on steroids. And that's not a good thing.

Strange, but true
Double Bubble bubble gum. Tastes really good for about 45 seconds. Then, turns into the consistency and taste of molten lead.

Gripe o' the day
To the client who called me, like, one hour after they called and left me a message: there's a reason I didn't call you back. I'M BUSY. I will call you when I'm not busy. What she called to tell me, she could have left the info on my voice mail. And would have saved us both five minutes of our lives that we'll never get back.

Hee
Bad Lady's computer just shut off and she lost something she was working on. It's only funny when it happens to someone like her.

Tip-off
The tickets have arrived via Fed Ex Man. Hubby says they look legit. All set for Lebron Mania.

A good read
Dooce is particularly amusing today. I can relate... in my household, I am the one who is always cold and needing 800 blankets on the bed, while my husband could sleep on a glacier and probably be comfortable temperature-wise.

Wow
I just ate the most delicious thing ever: a Milky Way with dark chocolate.
Yummy yummy goodness.

What's on tap
Today... I have two newly-purchased Ryan Adams CDs (two were released yesterday -- he's a bit too prolific for his own good) to get me through the Wednesday of Rapid Temperature Drop. I have a change of clothes with me, because after work, it is 99% certain, I am going to the Cavs home opener tonight, so I will see the living legend that is Lebron, up (not too) close and (totally not) personal. My husband scored the tix off EBay, they were only $16 apiece, which worries me because I think the going rate for a ticket for tonight's game is $183,392,400 kajillion. I'm not sure our seats actually are in Gund Arena. We'll see. Also, the tickets haven't arrived yet. They tried to deliver them on Monday, but no one was home and they needed a frickin' signature. Husband's day off is today so they will hopefully deliver them on time. I won't believe the tickets are real until we are through the turnstile.

Changing topics...

We went on a little shopping excursion last night, first to Best Buy, where I picked up Ryan CD #1. Ryan CD #2 was already sold out, which I found a bit odd. Who knew he had so many fans that he could sell out a Best Buy in an obscure area of northeastern Ohio? So then, after putzing around Best Buy for a while and having to drag the drooling husband away from the $8000 flat screen tvs, we went to Borders in search of Ryan CD #2.

But going to Borders for me is a dangerous thing. I feel like the commercial where the woman tells the man he has to control himself as they are walking into the store, and as soon as they are through the doors, he takes off running like a madman. I am the mad(woman) in Borders. Want to buy everything! Shiny, pretty books. Fiction. Non fiction. Two autobiographies of Lebron James (already!!! he's 18 and hasn't even played a week in the NBA!!!). Pretty boxes of stationery. Pretty calendars. Pretty Beanie Babies. Pretty magazines.

Fortunately, Ryan CD #2 was my only purchase. I briefly entertained the notion of buying The DaVinci Code but I think my mom has it and will give it to me if I ask. Also briefly entertained the notion of buying Dude, Where's My Country but maybe will try to find it used on Amazon. After all, we be poor right now.

Then I waited in the car listening to Ryan CD #1 while the husband ran in to Wal-Mart to look for a cheap Cavs shirt to wear to tonight's game.

We got home in time to see 24, which kind of bored me up until the end. I hate Spawn. Even now that she has a more useful purpose in the overall plot. Two seasons of Kim-hate are not easily forgiven or forgotten.

Kitty went spastic last night during 24 and tried to jump into the bookshelf and broke a really nice beveled glass picture frame that we got for a wedding gift. I was peeved at kitty. Sometimes he just flips his lid and does things he wouldn't ordinarily do.

I ended the night with a Real World/Rich Girls Meh Fest. Nothing to blog about.

And that brings me... here. It's about 70 outside, with an expected drop of about 30 degrees today. Fan-freakin-tastic!

Go Cavs.

Time to go
I was going to stay until 5:30 but I really don't feel like it. I have errands to run this evening and then massive amounts of TV to watch. So I can't be bothered with this whole "working past 5" thing.

Having the big fun
Let me tell you what fun it is to lay out a desk calendar. You know, one of those big-ass calendar things that you get from your vendors or business contacts.

It did give me an excuse not to respond to Bad Lady, who wanted my opinion on some postcards she is working on. She asked me if they looked "different," and I said, "as opposed to...? What you usually do?" Because I swear to God, every single thing she does looks exactly the same. She uses two fonts, interchangably, and her graphics usually consist of three or four stock photos arranged in a collage on the page. So this was no different. Right now I just honestly don't have the energy to come up with something constructive, so I told her I didn't have time to critique it because I'm working on a deadline project. Which is true. But a copout at the same time.

Subtle Innuendoes Follow
Song I'm guilty of toe-tapping to at my desk this morning: Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant. Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?

Axed
NBC's Coupling has been cancelled.
Oh darn it.

Election Day
Guess what dumbass never changed her address when she moved?
That would be me.
Sorry, I won't be doing my civic duty today.

Weather
I've heard that it's gorgeous outside. I wouldn't know, I don't see daylight until April.
That's OK, I'd rather be inside laying out a newsletter about home improvement tips than outside soaking up the last few nice days before the snow comes and buries me in a sealed chamber of depression. Thanks for your concern, though. Really.

I've switched to listening to Josh Rouse. I have a thing for male singer-songwriters. Apparently.

More bitching about this newsletter, then: I do the layout for this newsletter every other month. Incompetent But Likeable, Computer-Illiterate Guy writes the stories. I can be certain that in one of the stories, he will use the word "debris." Sometimes on more than one occasion. I think there was a story once about organization, and it had no less than seven useages of the word debris.

It's kind of a funny word. I don't mind the word itself, but it's just one of those things that annoys me because I look for it and then when I find it, I feel somewhat justified in my annoyance. Whatever.

My peanut butter and jelly sandwich is not satisfying. That settles it, I could never be on Big Brother.

Spam
I just received an e-mail from Josepha Turco. Can't wait to see what it is. Porn? Life insurance? Ways to enhance my manhood? The possibilities are endless.

Oh, it was porn. *yawn*

Reading material
I just started reading an interesting book this weekend, Running With Scissors. It is the supposedly true story about the author (whose name escapes me right now) and his fucked up childhood.

I'm also trying to read a book called Making Money Freelance Writing. We'll see if I'm motivated enough to follow its advice.

Damn you, Blogger
Now my banner ad is for sexy halloween costumes. Thank you very much.

Four Advil later, I'm back at work. A day like this calls for Pete Yorn, all day long.

For those keeping score at home:
The leaves kicked our asses again. We had to go out and rake the entire yard, back to front, and it was as if we hadn't been out there last week whatsoever.

Heard it through the grapevine
Along with the daunting task of raking the leaves, my husband tackled the difficult chore of trimming back our grapevines. We just bought the house in June, and the grapevines were overgrown when we moved in. The grapes got some sort of vine rot or something from all the rain, so they were completely worthless except as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

While my husband was trimming the vines back, one of our neighbors came out and told us the story behind the vines. They were over 20 years old. When the grape arbor was built, the man who lived in our neighbors house built them, but unbeknownst to him, he built them just past his property line, into what is now our yard. So the person who lived in our house back then came out and thanked the man for building the grape arbor on his property.

We met our other neighbors for the first time today. Peg, and I forget the husband's name. Whoops. No one is called Peg anymore. I realize it's a nickname for Margaret; but still, who goes by that name these days that's under the age of 60? I'm sure there are a few, I just don't know any. It's one of those old person names like Agnes that maybe after the Brittany, Morgan, Madison trend dies down, will come back into style.

Anyhoo.

They live next door and this has been the first sighting of them since we've lived in the house. They are retirees who spent the summer away from home. As is the case with most of the people who live around us. It's a bunch of older, retired folks who can afford to have summer homes, or winter homes. Whereas we? Can't.

Lessons learned today
Under any circumstances, even if it looks like the most delicious thing in the world, DO NOT eat onion loaf.

If cat bites your arm, pull it away. You will not win in a battle of the wills. Cat is like pirhana and will not let go no matter what, and in fact, will bite harder the longer you don't move your arm.

"You know it's bad when you weird out the guy in the chicken suit."
-my quote of the night

The gig went well. They were asked back, they sold some cd's, got some names to add to the mailing list, and sounded great.

As for the costumes, I went as Girl Without a Costume, as the witch hat didn't quite fit on my head without making me look like I'd been let out of the mental institution for the evening. Which was fine. There were plenty of costumeless people there. And there were plenty of costumed folks, as well, including the aforementioned Guy in Chicken Suit.

My husband, to my surprise, got an Elvis wig and sunglasses and so had that on the entire night.

The gig was in the Middle of Freakin' Nowhere. Now I know that may seem like a redundant statement to some, who would count Ohio as a whole as the Middle of Freakin' Nowhere. However, this place was even more so. Let's call it the Asshole of the Middle of Freakin' Nowhere. That would be a more accurate depiction of its relation to the sticks.

I am not a fan of country roads. I prefer main roads or freeway, hands down, as a method of getting where you need to go. If it's on a country road, I dont really need to go there. And on Halloween, I'm really not a fan of country roads. Especially when, after I've remarked that there are probably serial killers lurking in the huge cornfields to our left and right, a sketchy looking guy on a four wheeler emerges and stares at us as we pass him in the dark. That's the kind of stuff I don't want to see on Halloween, thank you very much.

Or ever.