we can walk to the curb from here

watchmen!

2009-02-16T23:15:00.001-05:00

nerd love.

2008-10-10T01:32:00.007-05:00

he treats me like a ragdoll.

2008-10-09T02:03:00.002-05:00

this song's been in my head for like two weeks. here you go.

my rapper name.

2008-08-25T22:39:00.000-05:00

time for random internet crap!

Your Rapper Name Is...

Busta Lover

What's Your Rapper Name?

so i just watched the dark knight.

2008-07-19T04:12:00.002-05:00

i don't even want to come close to spoiling this astonishing movie for any of you who may still actually read this blog even though i only update like once a month, but i will say that it is jaw-droppingly brilliant, and that everything you've read about how magnificent heath ledger's performance is will only prepare you for about 1% of his magnificence. that is all.

nerd girl porn.

2008-07-17T22:45:00.001-05:00

i'm serious.

Internet Culture IQ

2008-05-25T20:16:00.002-05:00

Updating, finally!

2008-05-25T18:57:00.003-05:00

So, okay, it's been 3 months since I posted anything. Probably time to update.

Life is good. The Phoenix summer is beginning, which is a little depressing. It was 110 last Wednesday. But now we're having a freaky cold snap and it's been in the 70s this weekend, which is sort of wonderful. But work is really fabulous and I'm starting a master's program (in healthcare innovation) in the fall, which will be fabulous, especially since work is going to pay for it. Woohoo! I miss school, and I'm super-psyched about being a student again.

Hmm. Probably the most interesting thing in my life right now is my new Wii Fit, which is the greatest invention of all time. So, the main controller is the balance board, which is the main controller. You need the controller to navigate around the screens, but mostly the game is controlled by the board. As far as gameplay, there are four basic components - yoga, aerobics, strength training, and balance games. The games are awesome - soccer ball heading, snowboarding, skiing, hula hooping.

The workout parts are really fun and innovative - the focus is on improving your balance and stability, so during the strength training and yoga poses, the goal is to maintain your center of balance within a certain area - here's a screengrab, since this is tough to explain. the red dot is your center of balance and you have to keep it inside the yellow oval, and then at the end, you get points based on how well you maintained your balance - so it incorporates elements of gaming and competition into working out, which is awesome. Plus it keeps track of how many minutes of activity you do per day, which is awesome since I'm in a fitness contest at work and have to log at least 30 minutes of activity per day.

I also made a trip back home to the Midwest last week to see my sick granddad, who is doing okay, or about as well as could be expected, and my darling niece Katie - she turned 2 in March! It's hard to believe. She's doing the typical 2-year-old autonomy thing, and she insists on picking out her own food and putting on her own clothes. ("No, me" is probably her most oft-spoken phrase - but for now, her tone is mostly sweet, not bossy. We all expect that to change over the next few months.) My mom recently bought her a little leotard, which she calls her "tutu," (her pronunciation kind of sounds like choo-choo) and wears it all the time. Cutest thing ever. I'd put up some pics but I can't find my camera wire thingy. Fail.

So, other than that, life is just kind of rolling along. Work is fantastic, I'm finally making some progress paying off my monstrous credit card debt, and I've made a few more Phoenix friends (at long last). And I'm going to work on updating more.

the gettysburg address, via the ny times

2008-02-29T20:57:00.007-05:00

i totally stole this from sp, on whose blog i found it, and thought it was just the damn coolest thing i'd seen in a while. thanks, sp.

my godson!

2008-02-26T15:27:00.002-05:00

it's avin!

damn, is this a pretty kid or what?

locking mommy out of the house.

rockin' a cowboy hat.

triumphant.

Locking up the "snotty bitch" vote.

2008-02-24T19:17:00.004-05:00

okay. because i know that language matters, and i'm careful to avoid buying into stereotypes whenever I can, i've been trying to avoid using the b-word in reference to hillary clinton. it's been really difficult for me, but i've worked hard and avoided it for the vast majority of this campaign. and i've tried to focus on what i love about obama instead of what i hate about hillary. i've really, really tried. but today, it's over. this woman is officially a nasty, hateful bitch.

see for yourself.

"Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

2008-02-24T14:44:00.002-05:00

Frank Rich has a fantastic editorial today in the Times. Here's an excerpt:

"...In the last battleground, Wisconsin, the Clinton campaign was six days behind Mr. Obama in putting up ads and had only four campaign offices to his 11. Even as Mrs. Clinton clings to her latest firewall — the March 4 contests — she is still being outhustled. Last week she told reporters that she “had no idea” that the Texas primary system was “so bizarre” (it’s a primary-caucus hybrid), adding that she had “people trying to understand it as we speak.” Perhaps her people can borrow the road map from Obama’s people. In Vermont, another March 4 contest, The Burlington Free Press reported that there were four Obama offices and no Clinton offices as of five days ago. For what will no doubt be the next firewall after March 4, Pennsylvania on April 22, the Clinton campaign is sufficiently disorganized that it couldn’t file a complete slate of delegates by even an extended ballot deadline.

This is the candidate who keeps telling us she’s so competent that she’ll be ready to govern from Day 1. Mrs. Clinton may be right that Mr. Obama has a thin résumé, but her disheveled campaign keeps reminding us that the biggest item on her thicker résumé is the health care task force that was as botched as her presidential bid.
...
As for countering what she sees as the empty Obama brand of hope, she offers only a chilly void: Abandon hope all ye who enter here. This must be the first presidential candidate in history to devote so much energy to preaching against optimism, against inspiring language and — talk about bizarre — against democracy itself. No sooner does Mrs. Clinton lose a state than her campaign belittles its voters as unrepresentative of the country.

Bill Clinton knocked states that hold caucuses instead of primaries because “they disproportionately favor upper-income voters” who “don’t really need a president but feel like they need a change.” After the Potomac primary wipeout, Mr. Penn declared that Mr. Obama hadn’t won in “any of the significant states” outside of his home state of Illinois. This might come as news to Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Iowa, among the other insignificant sites of Obama victories. The blogger Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has hilariously labeled this Penn spin the “insult 40 states” strategy.

The insults continued on Tuesday night when a surrogate preceding Mrs. Clinton onstage at an Ohio rally, Tom Buffenbarger of the machinists’ union, derided Obama supporters as “latte-drinking, Prius-driving, Birkenstock-wearing, trust-fund babies.” Even as he ranted, exit polls in Wisconsin were showing that Mr. Obama had in fact won that day among voters with the least education and the lowest incomes. Less than 24 hours later, Mr. Obama received the endorsement of the latte-drinking Teamsters."

the prodigal daughter

2008-02-23T21:44:00.004-05:00

hi guys. i'm in a blog-updating mood, probably because i'm procrastinating on a huge work project and i'm caught up on all my scrabulous games.

1) i'm beginning to think that hillary's taking a dive. like, really taking a dive. what could she be thinking? after wisconsin i thought that maybe she finally understood that the negative campaigning was a) not succeeding in making obama look bad and b) making her look even worse. but apparently, that lesson hasn't been learned.

then comes the debate. first she repeats these outrageous plagiarism accusations (and then closed just a few minutes later with an almost word-for-word quotation from one of bill's 1992 campaign speeches). then she continues this ridiculous "all talk, no action" meme. THEN, today, she actually compares obama to bush.

so, it seems to me that her strategy has to be 1 of 2 things. either 1) she has finally realized that obama's going to be the nominee, and she's decided to continue the negative campaigning and attack ads so that she can lose texas and/or ohio, bow out gracefully, making obama look tough as hell (or, to borrow her ridiculous phrase, "battle-tested") in the process. i hope, hope, hope this is the case, and if it's true, it will be the most noble thing she's done in her "35 years" of public service. but the other option, the one i think is sadly more likely: 2) she really, really doesn't get it. she is in total denial, thinks that she'll somehow recover from a dozen losses in a row despite a total inability to rally from any of her previous defeats. and she doesn't see that, by attacking the almost-certain democratic nominee with such vitriol, she's risking permanent damage to the democratic party.

2) i'm thinking that the guy who packed the amazon.com package i received earlier this week pretty much has me pegged. the package contained:

The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
Phantoms in the Brain by V.S. Ramachandran
Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Veronica Mars Season 2

um, right. that's all i got.

yes we can.

2008-02-03T19:01:00.000-05:00

YES WE CAN.

baby katie, not a baby for much longer.

2007-08-19T23:30:00.000-05:00

baby katie is almost 18 months old now, you know! i'm finally going to see her (um, and the rest of my family) again in september. YAY!

los angeles RULES.

2007-08-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

seriously, get thyself to los angeles as soon as physiologically possible. i didn't expect to love it, but i really really did. on my third day in LA, i felt more at ease walking around by myself than i do in phoenix after 4 months.

highlights:
Tokyo 7-7. picture a midwestern diner circa 1983. faux wood paneling, big brown ceramic coffee mugs. got a picture? now imagine that it's run by a japanese family, with quasi-traditional japanese food. and coffee. brilliant.

The Museum of Jurassic Technology. this is easily the most wonderfully insane place i've ever seen. it's a museum that's devoted to mad scientists, basically, with a russian tea room upstairs that never seems to actually serve tea. there were exhibits about the history of camper trailers, and the dogs of the soviet space program. sigh.

THE PACIFIC OCEAN. oh my god.

The Getty: ruth works here. the museum is pretty good, but the grounds are breathtaking. i took many, many pictures of the getty. go look!

marry me, keith olbermann

2007-07-09T20:11:00.000-05:00

letters from iwo jima

2007-06-23T00:24:00.000-05:00

i haven't updated in a while, you guys! mostly because nothing blog-worthy has really happened. life goes on. phoenix is BLOODY HOT (111 yesterday and today) and my job is still awesome. but here's something you should know: letters from iwo jima is a horrible movie. just horrible. i am baffled by the utter mediocrity of this movie. now, i'll admit it: my expectations were really high. it was nominated for an oscar. i loved flags of our fathers. but i was stunned. i literally thought that netflix had sent me the wrong movie. absolutely nothing happened. there was zero character development, which is a big problem for a war movie in which the first shot isn't fired until about 45 minutes in. i just don't get how it got such grand reviews. just horrible.

have any of you guys seen it? what do you think? what am i missing?

phoenix!

2007-05-15T23:47:00.000-05:00

finally!

my friend chris came to phoenix (from DC!) to help me buy and put together my furniture. he is the absolute best. here he is, looking sexy on my new chaise:

also, here is the unbelievable painting he gave me (he painted it!):

AND the plant he bought me. it's named rosen.

plus: i got a wii.

the new war czar

2007-05-15T21:42:00.000-05:00

today bush appointed lieutenant general douglas lute to be his new "war czar," whatever the fuck that means. i found this transcript of him on the charlie rose show last year. you'll notice that, over the course of the whole interview, he says absolutely nothing of any substance, except to cast doubt on an event that the whole rest of the world acknowledges. he's perfect for the bush administration. also, he uses "collaborate" when he means "corroborate" which is one of my biggest pet peeves. (by the way, he's talking about this attack.)

CHARLIE ROSE: Can you tell me anything about the predator attack in Pakistan?
DOUGLAS LUTE: Charlie, I don`t have anything to say about that alleged attack.
CHARLIE ROSE: That alleged attack? This baffles me, General. The alleged attack. The world knows the attack took place.
DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, Charlie the...
CHARLIE ROSE: I mean, am I wrong about that? I mean, how could I...
DOUGLAS LUTE: I`d like to caution you...
CHARLIE ROSE: What is going on here?
DOUGLAS LUTE: Charlie...
CHARLIE ROSE: It`s just crazy to say, when the reputable people around the world are saying there was an attack. You`ve got Pakistani sources saying -- Pakistani sources saying there were some al Qaeda there and they were killed. And the Pakistani government says, "We need to look at the information." The American government says, "The alleged attack. I have nothing to say."
DOUGLAS LUTE: Charlie, I think those of us, who are suspect, about commenting on this have learned over time, in this region perhaps more than other regions around the world, that there are multiple agendas taking place here. And that the early reports...
CHARLIE ROSE: Just explain that to me. What`s a multiple agenda?
DOUGLAS LUTE: Well, what I mean is that reports are not always as reports first seem. And that reports may be sponsored, reports may be generated to serve ulterior motives and so forth. And it always has taken us sometime in this region to try to sort out the wheat from the chaff. I think that`s probably the situation we find ourselves in now.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK.
DOUGLAS LUTE: And that`s why it`s not worth my time.
CHARLIE ROSE: OK, fair enough. And if I tortured you, you wouldn`t tell me. But having said that, what is -- how do you separate the wheat from the chaff. Is that simply getting your sources and hearing from them, getting evidence from the ground? What does it mean? What do you need?
DOUGLAS LUTE: Charlie, you need what we with call, in the business, all-source intelligence.
And what that comes down to is you can gain intelligence in any number of ways from different sources. So human intelligence, signals intelligence and so forth.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
DOUGLAS LUTE: We are masters at some forms of those intelligence. We`re the best in the world. We lack others like human intelligences, as I think we mentioned earlier. What it takes to can corroborate a report in our region, no matter where it happens, is typically several sources, which corroborate the same information and seem reasonable based on the events as we saw them unfold. So that`s not true in, not only this particular case, but generally across the region. So it`s not unusual at all for us to get a first report that is not right.
CHARLIE ROSE: Can I make a point with respect? It`s one thing to say we know there were these number of al Qaeda members there at that site. We know or don`t -- and say we don`t know how many people were there. We don`t know exactly who might have been killed. We don`t know if al Zawahiri was there. We don`t know if this man Kalibob (ph) -- I`ve forgotten the name specifically -- I`m sure you know -- the engineer, the bomb maker, was there because we needed to collaborate that.
We do know the attack took place. I don`t understand what is wrong with saying we know the attack took place rather than calling it an alleged attack.
DOUGLAS LUTE: Charlie, what I`m responding to is your initial question about the attack, as though we have knowledge of this, that we know what happened, and we were there. We weren`t. We don`t. And, therefore, I am reluctant to make any comments. Because, quite frankly, of past experience, that these things -- that often there are reports that simply don`t play out.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you for coming. It`s a pleasure to have you on the program.
DOUGLAS LUTE: Thank you, Charlie.

new coasters! they're giraffes!

2007-05-10T21:01:00.000-05:00

now, guys, tell me if these coasters aren't the most gorgeous thing you've ever seen. chris, you will especially understand how gorgeous they are with my living room.

when i FINALLY get my camera/usb cable replaced (which is taking like 20 times longer than is reasonable), i'll post pictures of my new place. promise!

s

product endorsement

2007-05-03T21:12:00.000-05:00

man, guys, secret clinical strength is the shit. i'm not kidding. i won't get into details but seriously, it's 90 degrees here every day and i don't sweat at all anymore. probably technically unhealthy, but tell that to my shirts, newly unmarred by sweat stains.

the new southwestern stef

2007-04-25T23:45:00.000-05:00

so! phoenix! update time!

it's beautiful here, guys. mountains and clear blue skies and palm trees everywhere. my job is fantastic beyond all measure - really interesting, cutting-edge work, really wonderful and supportive colleagues. my condo is pure glamour - granite countertops! a balcony!

of course, there have been major adjustments. it's hot all the time! it was in the mid-80s, at least, almost every day in april. i have to put a sunshade in my windshield, those things i used to think were so tacky and a total overreaction, every time i leave it for more than half an hour - it's a necessity here unless you want your hands to actually melt and fuse into the surface of your steering wheel. my former favorite perfume smells completely different on the southwestern version of me. sunglasses and sunscreen, every day, all the time. i have to wear so much moisturizer that i'm considering buying stock in kiss my face.

also, i CANNOT stop listening to The Meadowlands by The Wrens. i'm not sure if this is phoenix-related or not but goddamn, is that a good album.

as soon as i replace my camera usb cable, i'm going to post like 4 million pictures. i'm not kidding! 4 million!

second amendment, schmecond amendment.

2007-04-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

My philosophical question of the day: As a result of the Virginia Tech shooting last week, I read today that Congress is considering a bill that would keep people with "a history of mental illness" from getting a gun. Now, this is an interesting issue for me, because I think we need stricter gun control, and I don't think the framers of the constitution had semi-automatics in mind when they composed the 2nd amendment. But, if we insist on sticking to the letter of the 2nd amendment and letting anyone who wants an Uzi own one, is it really fair to prohibit someone with depression from exercising their 2nd amendment right? I mean, it will all depend on the language of the bill, but these people are legislators, not mental health professionals, and I'm thinking the wording will probably end up a little muddy. Anyway, my point is, I hope someone eventually realizes that the best way to keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of the unbalanced is to keep semi-automatic weapons out of the hands of everyone.

i hope no one falls on the speed switch.

2007-04-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

man, guys, i went to see the shins on wednesday! it was one of the best shows i've ever seen. it was at this place in phoenix called the celebrity theatre, and the venue totally ruled. it's in the round - the stage is a circle in the middle - and the stage revolves! it was wicked as hell. when the stage started revolving they were all kind of like, hey, whoa, this is bizarre, and james mercer (the lead singer) said, "i hope no one falls on the speed switch." adorable. the show was fantastic - they performed all three songs i really hoped they'd perform (australia, turn on me, and caring is creepy) and they also covered dark side of the moon - just the song, not the whole album. i think james mercer might be my favorite performer of all time. just glorious. moral of this story: go see the shins! it will change your life.

kurt is up in heaven now.

2007-04-12T23:45:00.000-05:00

before you think i've lost it...here's an excerpt from Kurt Vonnegut's "Man Without A Country" about Isaac Asimov's funeral:

"We had a memorial service for Isaac a few years back, and I spoke and said at one point, 'Isaac is up in heaven now.' It was the funniest thing I could have said to an audience of humanists. I rolled them in the aisles. It was several minutes before order could be restored. And if I should ever die, God forbid, I hope you will say, 'Kurt is up in heaven now.' That's my favorite joke."

tempe!

2007-04-08T02:55:00.000-05:00

hey guys, i live in arizona now! here's my new life
(google maps rules):

life is good.

movie goodness

2007-03-01T20:52:00.000-05:00

so, here is a list of really good movies i've seen lately, in descending order of goodness.

1) half nelson
2) dreamland
3) the illusionist
4) the departed
5) babel
6) imagine me & you
7) stranger than fiction
8) frida

yeah, so, watch them, if you know what's good for you!

kerry holds someone accountable.

2007-02-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

boy, kerry, i'm sure glad you didn't do something like this during the campaign. what a tool.

attempted murder, part 324

2007-02-27T08:42:00.000-05:00

the bush administration tries to murder you, AGAIN.

let's make a list of the way that the bush administration has tried to murder us in the past 6 years. a partial list, of course.

decreasing funding for meat inspection and, now, all food inspection. (if you eat meat, peanut butter or vegetables, you're on warning.)

refusing to accept the reality of global warming. (if you live within 20 miles of any coast in the world, or in an arid climate, or are a polar bear, consider yourself murdered.)

ignoring the memo that said bin laden was going to hit the world trade center.

failing to provide real protection against terrorism (e.g.container inspection).

inactivity and ineptitude after Katrina/Rita.

an unnecessary war.

horrifically inept handling of said unnecessary war.

allowing ex-cons to serve in the military, but not gays. (if you're gay, you're actually safer i guess, but if you're anyone else in the military, you'd better keep an eye out.)

pissing off absolutely everyone in the world, especially the ones with rocket launchers.

and that's just off the top of my head. everybody feel free to add to my list.

hmm, things.

2007-02-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

chris has demanded that i update, so update i shall.

not much has happened, which is why i haven't been updating. i'm still doing consulting for the phoenix company i'm hoping to get a job with, which is awesome and challenging and fun. i feel like i'm in school again, which is the best feeling on earth, and this time, i'm getting paid for it! i'm giving a huge presentation on wednesday via conference call, and if they like my work, they're flying me out for an interview sometime in the next few weeks. woohoo!

um, what else is going on in my life? a few weeks ago i went on a spectacular trip to minnesota to see chris, brian, and priya, aka three of my favorite people in the universe. here are some pictures! MINNESOTA. if you don't have a snapfish account, most of these are on my flickr too, along with pictures of my super-hot new haircut. observe!

hmm, that is all, i think. unless you wanted to get into a discussion about how mad i am at Lost right now, which used to be my favorite show. but you probably don't, so let's wrap this up. i'll update again on wednesday to let you know how my presentation went. out.

phoenix!

2007-01-30T18:33:00.000-05:00

well, it looks like i'm moving to phoenix - it's not certain just yet, but we're placing the probability at 85%. here's the scoop, just in case anyone is still reading my woefully under-updated blog: so, i'm applying for this amazing job in phoenix, thanks to the glorious nate ewigman, who currently works in that job and is leaving in a few months for grad school.

as of last friday, i've been hired as a "consultant" with a work-to-hire clause in my contract, which means that at any point during my consultancy, they can choose to hire me permanently. but they do have to post the job publicly and accept other resumes, so it's not a certainty that i'll get the job, but since by the time the interviews roll around i will have already been doing the job for a month or more, my odds are pretty spectacular. so, yay! look at this gorgeous place where i get to live! (photo credit goes to jim hankey, whose flickr account i spent hours in today.)

my other obsession.

2007-01-23T16:06:00.000-05:00

my life's attentions are divided evenly these days between baby katie and barack obama, and the wonder that lies within.

how CUTE is this?

2007-01-22T13:00:00.000-05:00

mohawk baby

2007-01-21T01:28:00.000-05:00

katie's 10 months old now, with a rather impressive babyhawk. eat this, kingsley stefani-rossdale!

the absolute funniest SNL skit, ever.

2006-12-18T22:15:00.000-05:00

i'm not kidding.

hint/answer

2006-12-10T17:48:00.000-05:00

here's a hint, except it's not really a hint, it's the actual answer. also, i might not be moving there after all. apparently they told us the project was funded, and then 2 days later they were like, not so much. so, maybe i'm not moving. sigh.

in other news, i recently started a job at the united way, which sounds great until i explain what my actual job is. so, okay. there's this technology called OCR, or optical character recognition, and it scans forms and converts the writing on them to actual text, not just an image like a normal scan would. but, OCR technology still kind of sucks, so after we scan the pledge cards into our system with the OCR, someone has to compare what the OCR thinks it says to what it actually says. and that's where i come in! it's mind-numbing, but at least i get to listen to my ipod all day, and check this: there are 3 of us checking the data, and on friday, my coworkers complained that i was working too fast, because since there's a limited amount of data, the faster we work, the sooner our assignment will be over. so on friday, my boss told me to "take the morning off" so there will be plenty of work for everyone. i love this job.

i'm moving again, probably.

2006-12-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

so, it looks like i'm probably going to be moving to a new city, and i'm really excited about it. i'm excited mostly because it's a spectacular new job, but a large part is that this is next week's weather:

thoughts? those who already know aren't allowed to guess!

just when i thought i couldn't love barack obama any more than i already do...

2006-12-01T01:42:00.000-05:00

speaking of ludacris, did any of you see him on SNL last week? god, he was hysterical. check out the blizzard man skit.

my life is still boring. i might be getting a new job in phoenix! holy crap. but no matter how great the job is, i will totally quit to work for obama if he runs in 08.

the break-up

2006-11-21T02:26:00.000-05:00

hmm. so, i apologize for the long lapses in posting, it's just that these days i rarely have anything interesting to say.

here's something interesting: today eric and i broke up, and it was perhaps the most amicable breakup in all of recorded history. i was like, i think we should break up, and he was like, hmm, i guess i think so too. and then we discussed how we would return our belongings to each other, agreed not to delete each other's cell phone numbers, and that was that. i guess the relationship was over in my head a long time ago, so all my grieving is in the past. anyway! live and learn.

ooh, one more interesting thing has happened to me. so, at knox, in the psychology wing, there is a row of maybe 10 photographs of people who won awards in psychology. well, apparently sometime last week, someone stole my photo off the wall! just mine! isn't that strange? strange, and sort of flattering. i guess someone wants to either build a shrine to me or smash me with a hammer. either way, i've obviously made an impression!

um, okay, that's all i've got.

this is freaking sweet

2006-11-10T23:15:00.000-05:00

http://www.jacksonpollock.org
click around, you'll see. it rules.

here's mine:

um, long time, blah

2006-11-06T14:41:00.000-05:00

you know, sometimes a little facebook popularity can brighten up what might otherwise be a pretty boring day. :)

wow, i haven't updated my blog in so long! so much has happened. hmmm. the awesomeness of life in the midwest has subsided a little. it's great to be close to my family, and the boyfriend is still adorable, but i had to quit my job at SEIU because they're shady as hell and treat their workers like shit. so, yeah, i've been jobless for about 4 weeks now, and i just can't seem to find anything i really want to do. so now i'm going to have to start doing work i don't want to do. i guess millions of people do work they don't really want to do every day, so i should just get over myself.

anyway! here are some pictures of katie! she's 7 months old now.

here she is with her favorite toy, an empty 2-liter bottle of diet mountain dew:

reading the paper with my/her uncle jeff:

i also spent a week in huntsville, AL, helping tedi with her new baby, avin, who is freaking awesome and tiny as hell. i'll have some pictures of him in the next few days.

tedi had a baby!

2006-10-17T22:49:00.000-05:00

i've known tedi longer than anybody. this is excellent.

Avin Coburn Handley
October 16, 2007, 3:30 pm
7 pounds, 7 ounces, 19.5 inches

do you read toothpaste for dinner? you should.

2006-09-20T17:29:00.000-05:00

toothpaste for dinner

new car new car new car

2006-09-13T20:57:00.000-05:00

so, i bought a new car! it's a brand new toyota corolla. well, actually, it's a 2006, but it only had 24 miles on it when i bought it, which was yesterday, and that makes it brand new. woot! here you go:

i'm not dead!

2006-09-11T11:13:00.000-05:00

finally, an update!

life is good. work is so, so, so unbelievably busy, but cool. last week, for example, i drove 1,700 miles between monday and friday. 1,700 miles. then, starting next week, i'll be in west virginia for training for almost two weeks. but it's cool, and i feel like i'm doing something important, and after my training, life should settle down quite a bit.

hmmm, what else? pretty much every spare minute that isn't spent at work is spent with eric, who is so freaking cute, and who just moved into a gorgeously palacial new apartment. it's like 4 billion square feet. i'm serious.

oh, and then there's katie, who is growing up way too fast. here are some new pics:

i moved!

2006-08-11T13:22:00.000-05:00

so, i finally made the big move from DC to Dayton and i gotta tell you, it might be the best thing i've ever done. yesterday i got my dream job as an administrative organizer for SEIU and i am all kinds of pumped about it. plus i'm living with my brother and sister-in-law and baby katie, and i have an insanely adorable boyfriend.

dream job! seriously, you guys. basically, i'll be providing support to union members, primarily nursing home workers and home health care workers, through contract negotiations, strikes, grievances, and lots of other labor-type issues. the people i will be working with are just super-chill, and here's how perfect the environment is for me: when the Super Big Boss interviewed me yesterday, it was so informal and we had such a good rapport that when he asked me, "what about you makes you perfect for this job?" i said, "i'm well-spoken, bossy, and easily outraged." and he said, "perfect!" man, this rules. i'm not sure when i'll start - probably next week sometime.

it's kind of crazy how most people stagnate in the midwest and move to a big city to make something of their lives...but i was stagnating in dc and now that i'm back, it's like i'm finally coming alive. rock on, midwest!

one bad guy, one good guy

2006-07-21T08:17:00.000-05:00

you know, i find it disturbing the degree to which i'm still, after all these years, capable of being surprised by our goddamn cockbag of a president. seriously, shouldn't i have expected him to veto the stem cell bill? shouldn't i have expected that he would actively decide to do nothing to prevent another hurricane katrina? this jackass gets two chances in the course of his presidency to actually actively save thousands and thousands of lives and he fucking squanders them both. but really, let's thank god that, while thousands of people who are actually people are getting killed in iraq for no reason, we're saving the lives of hundreds of masses of cells that never would have been people anyway.

and then. and THEN. he goes and speaks to the NAACP, after turning them down five years in a row. are you kidding me? and then this asshat gets up there and invokes LINCOLN. lincoln's gotta be spinning in his grave after this one. and then he lets loose with this gem: "I come from a family committed to civil rights. My faith tells me that we are all children of God — equally loved, equally cherished, equally entitled to the rights He grants us all."

in what way has anyone in the bush family ever demonstrated a commitment to civil rights? and while we're at it, equally entitled to rights? hmm. someone should ask him how this applies to, i don't know, gay marriage. or the right to expect that, if your city gets flooded, someone will come help you. or the right to vote without being misled, mistreated, or otherwise disenfranchised. idiot!

and now for a much more pleasant subject. for the boy who has been ever-so-patiently waiting for a blog mention: here it is! consider yourself mentioned! i know it's not much, but let's call it the first pancake of blog mentions. and, you're cute. the end!

little red mohawk

2006-07-13T00:12:00.000-05:00

okay, i'm trying to move away from the photoblog format, but this is for my mom. check out the mohawk! awwwwwww.

MBW and moving home

2006-07-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

so, i haven't blogged in a while (except for photos) because i'm currently using all my mental energy to keep from killing my new coworker denise, aka Ms. Bad Wig, or MBW. good lord, this woman is the world's hugest idiot. first of all, as her nickname implies, she wears an awful wig. like, horrible. the wig is styled such that it looks like she's wearing a low side ponytail on her left shoulder, with a curly tendril on the right side. it's always slightly askew, and you can usually see a bit of her natural hairline on one side. now, why on earth would you get such a specific wig? i mean, are we really expected to believe that she wears her hair like that every day?

also, she's a total idiot, and a huge bitch, which is a bad combination. like, she's always wrong, and always refuses to consider the fact that she might be wrong. like, one her first day, she asked me how to transfer a call, and i said, hit transfer, then the extension, then hit transfer again. and she said, "no, that's not right." what?? oh god. hmm, what else? she talks to herself, all the time, at normal conversational volume. "hmm, okay, so i'll go up here and hit close, then i'll open this...wait, no, maybe it's this other menu..." ALL DAY. argh.

anyway, she freaking sucks. hopefully she'll be getting fired soon. but i'm out of here in a couple of weeks, so i guess it doesn't really matter.

speaking of out of here - i'm leaving dc in less than three weeks! it's such a bizarre feeling. i don't want to get too sappy about it, but i'm lucky to have stumbled into a really amazing social network here, and there are lots of people i'm really going to miss. but i miss the midwest too, and i know i'll be happy there too. now it's time to get nervous about, you know, not having a job. or a car. or insurance. plus i let my driver's license expire. yikes.

this smile is ridiculous

2006-07-09T17:57:00.000-05:00

katie, and my new hair

2006-07-05T19:05:00.000-05:00

katie bobblehead

2006-07-05T19:01:00.000-05:00

Katie Bobblehead

okay, i know i shouldn't make fun of katie's wobbliness. and it's also damn impressive that she does such a good job holding her head up at only three months. but this is nonetheless hilarious.

still more katie...

2006-06-28T19:59:00.000-05:00

i'm going to see her this weekend. expect, like, 400 pictures. i'm serious.

good weekend!

2006-06-20T21:54:00.000-05:00

an afternoon of jazz at the national gallery of art sculpture garden

a pitcher of beer outside on the grass

taking photos like a tourist

beer bottles can be hazardous!

and we found indiana avenue, which is the shortest of all the state streets. seriously, it's one block. assholes.

what a week. all this, and i bought a new coffee mug!

and, i'll post more katie pictures soon if my lazy brother ever sends me more pictures. matt, this means you!

fear the random fate

2006-06-16T08:10:00.000-05:00

man, so long without an actual update. well, i'm back, and i want to talk about jesus.

i just started listening to a new album (well, new to me) by mike doughty, the guy who used to front soul coughing. so, mike doughty is cool. the album is fantastic. but there's this one song, his truth is marching on, that really troubles me.

so, apparently mike doughty is a christian, and some of you might know about me that christian indie rockers ick me out a little bit. i love sufjan stevens and neutral milk hotel but it takes a bit more effort than usual. is that closed-minded and judgmental of me? sure. but let me explain why, using the example of this mike doughty song. mike doughty typically writes really gorgeous, insightful lyrics. in his truth is marching on, though, he starts out with some of the most trite, awful lines i've ever heard, especially compared to his other stuff:

they say that god is great/
they say that god is love/
well, i believe them/
don't fear the random fate/
i trust the hand of the almighty and the infinite

okay, now this is total crap, and not just because of the christianity aspect, although that's a large part of it. it's not imaginative in the least. sufjan would never write obvious lyrics like this. also, this line exemplifies the major thing that i think is wrong with christianity. "don't fear the random fate/i trust the hand of the almighty." you don't fear the random fate? why the hell not? sometimes awful random shit happens. sometimes a drunk driver crosses the center line. sometimes there's a war. sometimes the levees break and your entire city is flooded. god will not protect you from "the random fate." and if he does, what does that say about those he fails to protect?

this is the fundamental problem, the reason i have no faith: how can you believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, benevolent god would allow, or even cause, horrible things to happen? i cannot accept that god is somehow "protecting" me, or mike doughty, or sufjan stevens, while allowing millions of people to suffer.

okay, since i've mentioned sufjan, let's talk about that guy for a minute. now, i absolutely love his music. let me just say that upfront. but i have some issues with the guy. in the song casimir pulaski day, which is about a friend dying of cancer, he says:

tuesday nights at the bible study/
we lift our hands and pray over your body/
but nothing ever happens/

then...

Oh the glory that the lord has made/
And the complications when I see his face/
In the morning in the window/

Oh the glory when he took our place/
But he took my shoulders and he shook my face/
And he takes and he takes and he takes/

now, a lot of you know that i was a christian for a long time, until i was 15 or so. basically, i was a christian until this benevolent god question occurred to me, then i thought, well, there's probably not really a literal god anyway, but even if there really is a god and this is how he operates, i want nothing to do with it. so i guess i assumed that people are only christians until this question occurs to them - then, finding it intractable, they become former christians, like i did. but, look at those sufjan lyrics! he has obviously had the thought, "god could have done something to save my friend's life, but he chose not to" and yet continued to have faith. how is that possible? can you really fully believe that god has some grand master plan that makes up for all the shit we have to go through? i have no idea.

so, coming back to my original point that christian indie rockers ick me out: i think it's because i expect these people to have some sort of insight that i don't have. i want them to explain something to me, or make me see something in a way i haven't thought of before. but, "everything will be okay if you just trust jesus" is such a cop-out.

or maybe music should just be music.

thoughts?

super-special honor doctor

2006-06-12T10:16:00.000-05:00

knox college on colbert report

good god, i love stephen colbert.

a few more

2006-06-06T10:44:00.000-05:00

graduation day with my boys.

aren't they cute?

me, on the night of my birthday. drunk. with an orange. it was a gift.

commencement

2006-06-05T08:19:00.000-05:00

i'm back from knox! highlights include:
1) the midwest! it's so flat and gorgeous.
2) knox people! kate, nate, brian, steve, heather, frank, scotty, mikey, matt.
3) um, stephen colbert. did i even need to say this? god, he was so fucking funny. sub-highlights from the speech (transcript):

"The Lincoln-Douglas debate drinking game. When someone mentions the Dred-Scott decision, chug a beer! Well, actually, 3/5 of a beer."
"Yeah, sure, immigrants helped build this country. But here's the thing: it's built now! I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it’s a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spanish, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools."
a cautionary note: "I don't know if they've told you what's been happening in the world while you've been matriculating. The world is waiting for you people with a club! They are playing for KEEPS out there, folks."
Colbert gets serious: "Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blinder, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. Yes is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes. And that’s The Word."

and, this letter to Colbert from Barack Obama:

"Stephen, Congratulations on being asked to speak at the 2006 Knox College Commencement. This is an enormous honor and on behalf of the people of Illinois, I'd like to welcome you to our state. As you know, I was invited to speak at Knox after my keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and subsequent election to the United States Senate. Your convention speech must also have gone really well to have been invited. It's weird that I didn't read about it somewhere.

"Before you deliver your remarks in front of literally millions fewer people than you would at say, a nationally televised political convention, I'd like to offer you a few words of advice. First, I know you're fond of your Peabody Awards, whatever those are, but I'd recommend not bringing them. The students at Knox are down to earth and not impressed by materials possessions like my Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album.

"Second, use hand sanitizer after the Pumphandle. Lots of germs there. I cannot stress this enough.

"And finally, don't forget to bring the Truth. I'd recommend putting it in your carry-on bag rather than in your checked luggage. O'Hare Airport is notoriously unreliable.

"To the Knox College class of 2006, I'm sorry I won't get to speak with you this year, but congratulations and best of luck. You make us all proud."

awww, Barack.

flatlands

kate

mattie

brian

nate

this never gets old (for me)

2006-05-30T16:03:00.000-05:00

hello, all! i'm leaving tomorrow morning (6:30 - YIKES) for galesburg - i will take a lot of pictures of stephen colbert, i promise. but i will leave you with the most recent katie pictures.

katie smiles, officially.

2006-05-27T17:25:00.000-05:00

and, good god does she look like my brother in this one:

stewart/colbert '08

2006-05-26T10:13:00.000-05:00

knox in the tribune

2006-05-22T16:08:00.000-05:00

today's must-read: this GORGEOUS article on Knox College in today's Chicago Tribune. i am so proud.

edit: stupid chicago tribune requires registration! here's the text of the article:

Little Knox College rates big names as commencement speakers

By Lucinda Hahn
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 22, 2006

The president of Knox College, Roger Taylor, wouldn't want you to think he's gloating.

But he is.

That's because Knox is proving to be The Little College That Could -- could land the nation's coolest commencement speakers, that is.

This year, Stephen Colbert, star of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," will address the Class of 2006 on June 3.

Which may or may not top last spring's coup, when Sen. Barack Obama flew in from the capital to speak to Knox's Class of 2005.

Obama's appearance prompted a flurry of calls and inquiries to Galesburg from other college administrators -- including one from the dean of students at Harvard Law, Obama's alma mater -- demanding to know how a quiet school of 1,245 students, set amid Illinois' western cornfields, had nabbed the It guy of the Democratic Party.

"I loved it," Taylor recalls, clearly relishing his role as a sort of Santa Claus to Knox's senior classes -- which present him with a wish list of speakers in the spring preceding their graduation.

Getting Obama was a feat. But getting Colbert? That even impressed Obama.

"He said, `What? Stephen Colbert? How did you get him?" said Taylor, recalling an exchange he had with Obama when he saw the senator in December.

Indeed, Colbert's buzz has been near-deafening ever since April 29, when his acidic roasting of President Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner -- with the president and first lady in the audience -- garnered mixed reviews but unequivocally positioned him as a speaker who will pull no punches.

So, how did Knox get him, and Obama before him?

Not with a hefty fee -- Knox doesn't pay its graduation speakers. But the college has a couple of well-placed moles -- influential alums -- at its disposal.

One is former Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta (Class of '71) -- who is as connected as anyone in Washington, D.C. Once Podesta learned that the senior class had requested Colbert, he e-mailed the comedian.

"I'd been on a panel with him at the HBO Comedy Festival, in 2004, so I shot him an e-mail and put in a plug," Podesta says. "I think I just told him it was a great place, with a great history and student body."

In Obama's case, Podesta saw the senator at a function in Washington. "I think I bent his ear a little bit," Podesta admits.

Two other Knox alums leaned on Obama too: Illinois state Sen. Don Harmon ('88) and Skadden Arps attorney Charles F. Smith ('84)

In both cases, Taylor had issued a formal invitation via letter, extolling Knox's abolitionist history. The college was founded in 1837 by social reformists opposed to slavery, and in October 1858, Abraham Lincoln made his strongest anti-slavery argument to date in Knox's Old Main hall during the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate.

Old Main still graces Knox's campus, and it's the only still-standing site of a Lincoln-Douglas debate. That's not a bad backdrop for any commencement speaker -- including the one Taylor hopes to, and probably will, land for next year.

"I've invited," Taylor reveals, "William Jefferson Clinton."

new roommate!

2006-05-22T13:31:00.000-05:00

so, we have a new roommate! hind is moving out to move in with her boyfriend, and priya and i have been new-roommate-shopping for the past week or so. the one we chose is named angelica - she is from spain and has pledged to cook us plenty of delicious food. mmmmmm, tapas. (that's tapas, chris. TAPAS.) so, i am excited. i'll be out of town though (at Knox's graduation!) the weekend she moves in but hopefully we can throw her a welcome party sometime soon.

ummm, what else? work is great. my co-workers are great. i'm going to Knox for graduation, where i plan to drink a lot, and schmooze with stephen colbert, preferably in that order. i'm going to be at Knox for 5 days, which rules, except that my flight to Moline on Wednesday morning leaves at 6:30 am! it's a crime. of course, this is the free flight that i got with wendy's cups, so i can't complain all that much..but! 6:30 am! i plan on consoling myself with alcohol.

also, i have a weird thumping sensation in my ear today. it's freaky as hell.

too goddamn cute for a post title

2006-05-21T21:44:00.000-05:00

oh god, katie is growing up.

2006-05-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

she's smiling now. gorgeous. i just started sobbing at my desk. sigh.

here it is

2006-05-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

baby and auntie

2006-05-08T19:35:00.000-05:00

okay, here's katie the first time they put her in her swing:

she's all, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS.

and, here you go, dan! i found a picture of me and katie together. not high quality, obviously, but okay for a camera phone. she is so small.

nancy pelosi is the devil.

2006-05-07T09:57:00.000-05:00

guys, seriously. of all of the incredibly talented, passionate democratic politicians we've got in this country, is nancy pelosi really the best we could do? her performance on meet the press this morning makes me embarrassed to be a democrat. if we fail to take over congress this fall, it will be her fault. she's a master of political stonewalling, equivocating, refusing to really answer questions, talking in circles, sticking to the talking points. this woman is absolutely incapable of inspiring anybody!

remember howard dean? when someone asked old howie a question, he made a point of saying either "yes" or "no" at the beginning of the answer. do you know how rare that is, and how said it is that it's so rare?

oh my god, she just said "maybe it will take a woman to clean up the House." i want to die.

hooray for mental health

2006-05-04T09:00:00.000-05:00

hmmm, well, temping still rules. yesterday my supervisor bought me breakfast, then called the temping agency to tell them that i'm the best temp she's ever had, which is actually quite sad since i spend literally 90% of my time checking my email and reading LOST bulletin boards. not an exaggeration, folks. i mean, i do what they ask me to do when they ask me to do it, it's just that they don't ask me to do all that much.

it's really impossible to overstate what an effect leaving my previous job has had on my mental state. i feel like a completely different person. it's completely hot. but, knowing that i'm the kind of person who has to have something to fixate on/obsess over/stress about, i'm sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop. what will i obsess over next? i have no boyfriend to fight with, and a no-stress job! suggestions?

also, my Honors project got published, and will probably come out later this month. did i mention that already? i'm pretty excited about that. i'll post a link when it comes out.

and, who saw LOST last night? dang!

temping is the best.

2006-05-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

greetings! time to move on from the katie pictures, sadly. so, here's the haps: since i got fired a few weeks ago, i've been temping, and holy crap, it's the best thing ever. i signed up on thursday and i've worked every day since then, and the pay is obscene! why didn't i quit my job and start temping ages ago? here's what i've done so far:

friday:
non-profit association - data entry

monday:
morning: hall monitor during AP exam at preparatory academy
afternoon: non-profit association - assembling binders

tuesday:
education non-profit - reception

okay, monday afternoon - when i say hall monitor, i literally mean hall monitor. i didn't proctor, i didn't even talk to any kids - i sat at a desk in a hallway and read a book (george stephanopolous's memoir!) for 4 hours. and the place i'm working today, they basically told me that they can't afford to actually staff the reception position full-time until the new fiscal year (july) but they have a "ton of money" in their temp fund, so they said i can keep temping here as long as i want. basically, my job description is answering the phones and sending out thank you notes when people send us donations. literally, i've been here for eight hours and the phone has rung 2 times. also, my immediate supervisor is looking for a new job, so she said "i'm going to be reeeeally laid-back with you. as long as the phones get answered, do whatever you want." i am lucky.

okay, i can't resist: one more picture of katie!

more katie

2006-04-26T09:17:00.000-05:00

how PRECIOUS is this child?

2006-04-25T00:49:00.000-05:00

i'm back from 10 days with baby katie. oh my. she's gorgeous. so many pictures! i'll post them a few at a time, i think.

happy birthday, samuel beckett

2006-04-13T10:57:00.000-05:00

today is samuel beckett's birthday. and so, in his honor:

(from The New Yorker)

baby katie gets the hiccups

2006-04-12T22:25:00.000-05:00

okay, the obligatory katie picture:

she is pissed because she has the hiccups.

also, i got fired this week, which on one level sucks because it's like, hmm, how do i pay my rent? but it's also fantastically liberating, because my boss was a holy nightmare. so, the tremendous relief at not having to work for her anymore is pretty much outweighing my money anxiety at this point. i'm going to start temping next week when i get back from my trip home to see katie (um, and the rest of my family too). the worst part is that my coworker chris, who's one of my best friends, is on vacation in australia this week, and when he gets back, i'll be gone already. i do feel bad about that, but there's not much i can do at this point.

but, at any rate, i watched waking life with brian tonight and even after having seen that movie a few times, i'm not quite sure what to make of it. i mean, sometimes the visuals are so earnest and literal that they border on painful - in one scene, a woman is talking about how words are dead and inert and ultimately unable to express elements of our internal lives, and she says, "so, i speak a word, and it reaches the other person's ear" and then as she said it, a visible puff of air comes out of her mouth, and then a little cartoon ear appears and the "word" disappears into the ear. i mean, really, guys. it's like in garden state when zach braff is all fucked up at that party and the song in the background is lebanese blonde - too low to find my way, too high to wonder why - and you just wince a little. so literal! but, beyond that, there are some very smart and very interesting ideas in that movie. the most interesting: to what extent is our behavior determined by the fact that our neurons, like any other bits of matter, are subject to the laws of physics? and, does that fact make our experience more predictable, or more random? anyway.

and, yesterday was flunk day. sigh!

01:02:03 04-05-06

2006-04-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

tonight at 1:02 am and 3 seconds, the time and date will be
01:02:03 04-05-06.
how bad-ass is that?

also, i am normally not one to get all up in arms about celebrities naming their kids stupid shit, but this one is enough to pull me off the fence - did you know that Jermaine Jackson named is son JERMAJESTY? i'm not making that up. other examples of idiotic celebrities: Bob Geldof named his kid Fifi Trixibelle. i don't know who Bob Geldof is but when i see him, i'm going to slap him, and i'm going to encourage little Fifi to do the same. also, Ving Rhames named his son Reignbeau. Get it? Reignbeau/Rainbow? Good god.

and, here is the new one of little katie:

the most delicious thing ever.

2006-04-01T23:51:00.000-05:00

so, tonight, brian and i ate the most delicious food combination EVER. i'm not kidding. so, you mix up peanut butter with nutella, then microwave it just until it melts a little. then you cut up some bananas, dip it in the peanut butter/nutella stuff, then dip it in some granola cereal - the kind we used had honey oat clusters and slivered almonds. then, if you are so inclined, after the bananas are gone, you pour the cereal into the rest of the nutella stuff and eat it with a spoon. holy shit, i almost died from goodness. if i ever open a restaurant, this will be the only thing i serve. mmm.

crybaby

2006-03-31T23:33:00.000-05:00

more katie...

awwwwwww

move over, match point.

2006-03-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

oh god, i just watched a history of violence and sweet jesus, it was beyond horrible. i was so, so excited about this movie, too! ugh. i know i have a tendency to exaggerate, but it's definitely the worst movie i've seen in months. when i saw grizzly man, i thought, this is the worst movie i've ever seen. then i saw crash and i was like, no THIS is the worst movie i've ever seen. then i saw match point and i said, no no, THIS is the worst movie i've ever seen. well, this movie has topped them all. god. boring doesn't come close to describing it. i feel actually exhausted by how bored i was. the plot makes no sense, the acting is horrible, the pace is incredibly slow, and the whole thing is just completely god-awful. seriously, how did the critics love this movie? have any of you seen it? comments, please!

katie on 3-29

2006-03-29T19:13:00.000-05:00

okay, soon this will stop being a baby blog. but for now, deal with it!
more katie!

those of you who know my mom will find it alarming how much katie looks like her in this photo. (and those of you who don't know my mom probably now think that she is sort of weird-looking.) well, my mom has more hair, obviously, but other than that, they might as well be twins.

katie on 3-28

2006-03-28T12:48:00.000-05:00

okay, so here's more katie:

the next three months

2006-03-27T21:21:00.000-05:00

it kills me to talk about something other than the new baby, but...look at the shows i'm going to see over the next couple of months!
4-10 Neko Case
4-14 Ladytron
4-25 Islands (ex-Unicorns)
5-15 Pretty Girls Make Graves
5-25 The Walkmen
6-1 Prefuse 73
6-11 Eels
6-14 Dungen

BABY!

2006-03-23T20:40:00.000-05:00

Katie Lynne Turner
3-23-06, 7:19 pm
8 lbs, 8 oz, 20.5 inches

yay, fulbright!

2006-03-13T19:16:00.000-05:00

key:
so, my friend brian got a fulbright(1) to norway(2)! he is obviously a genius(3) and, by way of celebration, chris and i took him out and got him right drunk(4). at one point brian taught me how to say "fucking norway!" in norwegian but i have absolutely no recollection. brian doesn't read this, but, congratulations!

speaking of absolutely no recollection - a lot of whiskey. yikes.

ALSO: extrovert, educate thyself!

$3.68

2006-03-11T15:03:00.000-05:00

here are the five books i bought at the secondhand book shop this week for a total of $3.68. it was one of my most triumphant moments in recent memory. i've never heard of Flatland, but chris says that it's about traveling between dimensions (or something) and that the main character is a square, and i'm down with that.

i always have very mixed feelings when i come upon salinger in a used bookstore. i mean, happy because i get this gorgeous, gorgeous copy of franny and zooey for 75 cents or something, but also perplexed - who gives away salinger? especially this edition? it's like finding a used radiohead cd. i really want to know what happened to precipitate giving it away.

also, dear reader, my life has become much more bloggable, to (i'm sure) your great relief. one of the unbloggable things isn't really happening anymore, and the other unbloggable thing - well, it was dumb of me to declare it as unbloggable.

so, here it is: i'm probably going to get a new job soon, as a post-baccalaurate researcher at the NIH. i've had a few interviews in a few different labs, and i have very high hopes. the money is total shit but hey, if i'm going to go into academia, i'd better get used to that, right? plus i'm really excited about the chance to, you know, use my brain again. i'll keep you posted.

also, have you guys seen the movie state and main? it's outstanding. netflix it immediately. philip seymour hoffman is my dream man. sigh.

that's it for now.

unbloggable

2006-02-28T18:45:00.000-05:00

okay guys, so i know i haven't updated in a while, but it's mostly because all the interesting stuff going on in my life is kind of unbloggable for one reason or another. so if you're really dying for the scoop, you're just going to have to call me. hopefully bloggable stuff will start happening to me soon.

what an unbelievable tool.

2006-02-23T16:48:00.000-05:00

i can't imagine the nerve it takes for this guy, after all the shit he's bumbled through in the past five years, to just say, "don't worry. i'm handling this just fine." to say that security is so important that domestic wiretapping is essential, but not important enough that we actually operate our own ports? are you kidding?

but, at the rate these guys are fucking things up, maybe we should just outsource "homeland security" to the highest bidder and cross our fingers.

f-f-f-f-freezing

2006-02-20T14:05:00.000-05:00

okay, so you guys know that i blog all the time about hating my boss. whatever. it's old news. but today - TODAY, i will describe the situation that has propelled me to dizzying new heights of boss-hating.

so, today is president's day. or is it presidents' day? either way. it is a holiday, and one that someone with an office-type job can reasonably expect to have off. well, i don't, but whatever, because i also don't have MLK day or veteran's day or labor day off. in our office building, on any federal holiday, since the building is officially closed, you have to pay a special "holiday rate" for the heat/air conditioning. my boss, who is one of those people who is extremely rich but a total scrooge, refuses to pay this holiday rate, and so when we work on holidays, we work without heat or air conditioning. now, when we worked on labor day, this was no big deal, because even though it was like 90 degrees out, it wasn't so bad inside.

but last night, the low was 12 degrees, and when we came in at 9 am it was around 20 degrees. no heat. there's no way it's more than 40 degrees in our office, and all of us are sitting at our desks in coats and scarves. i haven't been able to feel my toes for about the last 4 hours, and typing is tough with icicles for fingers. how fucked up is this? i mean, really? and here's the best part: my boss just called us "wimps." i couldn't make this shit up if i tried.

a guy gets shot and a guy gets fired

2006-02-15T21:48:00.000-05:00

oh man. two big stories:

1) the vice president shot somebody. i know i'm a few days behind on this but i just now stopped laughing.
Daily Show Day One
Daily Show Day Two

2) so, there's this republican political science professor at knox. i can't think of a funny pseudonym for him so we'll just say, you know, the professor. well, he left knox in the middle of the year this past year, and only today did i hear the whole story. background: this guy is youngish, married, with 2 or 3 little kids. so here's the scoop: apparently, this professor got caught having a threesome with two of his students, a first-year and a junior. and here's the ultra-super irony: this all happened on a class trip to Bill Clinton's Presidential Library. i'm not kidding.

ahhhhhhhhhh.

s

man, netflix was the ONE PURE THING

2006-02-12T01:26:00.000-05:00

fucking netflix! i bet this is because of their partnership with walmart. netflix, i wish i knew how to quit you! oh wait, i do. and i will. fuckers.

sometimes, dilbert says so much.

2006-02-10T09:31:00.000-05:00

it just keeps getting worse

2006-02-09T10:51:00.000-05:00

From today's Washington Post:

"It is a rare thing for the biography of a 24-year-old NASA spokesman to attract the attention of the national media. But that is what happened this week when George C. Deutsch tendered his resignation. Mr. Deutsch had, it emerged, lied about his (nonexistent) undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University. Far more important, several New York Times articles over the past week or so have exposed Mr. Deutsch as one of several White House-appointed public affairs officers at the agency who tried to prevent senior NASA career scientists from speaking and writing freely, especially when their views on the realities of climate change differed from those of the White House."

The Politics Of Science

umm, zombie roaches. i'm not kidding.

2006-02-05T01:42:00.000-05:00

holy jesus christ

i am SO good at french.

2006-01-30T23:06:00.000-05:00

man! so, to practice my french, i went onto the paris craigslist tonight, and i found out that i now know enough french to translate the following:

Salut à tous, je le sais que la question est un peu étrange mais...
pour ma thèse de l'université je devrais interviewer (5 questions très simples) quelque madame qui ait vécu à Paris (ou dans les proximités) entre 1920 et 1939, même si peut-être que à ces temps elle était une enfante! Les medames devraient avoir entre les 80 et les 90 ans (ou plus!) aujourd'hui... Elles seront remerciées dans ma thèse.
Merci beaucoup pour votre aide!
Arianna, Italie

french is the BEST. the post was in both french and english, so i was able to cover up the english part and figure out the french, then check my work. here's the link if you want to give it a shot: http://paris.craigslist.org/com/128318701.html

also, i went to see munich last night. it was...okay. not great, but not awful. but i saw it with david, and he rocks.

and, have you ever been around one of those couples that never stops bickering? maybe you ARE one of those couples? for the love of god, knock it off. really!

i heart molly ivins

2006-01-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

from "Molly Ivins: Not. Backing. Hillary."

"Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.

The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."

Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can."

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/01/20/ivins.hillary/index.html

it's spectacular. read the whole thing.

chibs, i expect to hear from you on this one.

2006-01-17T21:00:00.000-05:00

next goal in the "getting it together in 2006" theme:
don't be depressed anymore.

so, i got this light box.

i guess i'm going to be staring at this thing every day.
i'll keep you posted!

ceci n'est pas une pipe

2006-01-16T15:28:00.000-05:00

so, my roomie priya is going to mauritania and morocco for work in february, and now she's learning french via this awesome program she downloaded, and i'm going to learn along with her. it's conversation-based - so it's based entirely on speech rather than writing. i think this will be good for me, because in my four years of spanish in high school, we spent most of our time learning rules of spelling and where to put the accent marks - so now my reading comprehension is pretty good but i can't hold even the most basic of conversations.

so anyway, i know how to say a bunch of stuff in french but i don't know how to spell any of it. i just ordered a french primer from amazon though, so hopefully i'll know how to spell soon.

i feel like 2006 will be the year of self-improvement. i'm tired of hating my job, and of not using my brain. i'm tired of feeling like i'm stuck. this year, i'm learning french, and applying to grad schools. and after my niece is born, i'm moving midwest-ward to be closer to my family, because being away from them is harder than i ever thought it would be.

i feel good.

divine

2006-01-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

sometimes in life, you end up forgiving people, even though it's the last thing you (or anyone) thought you would do, because it's just the right thing.

i just hope he doesn't make me regret this.

update: i don't regret it, exactly. but one might say that it's not going as well as planned. sigh.

everything happens in threes

2006-01-09T23:04:00.000-05:00

okay, for my entire life, i've never known anyone who had to have their gall bladder removed. and now, literally in the last two weeks, i have found out that three people who are close to me have to have their gall bladders removed - one already did, in fact. how freaking weird is that? it totally fits into the whole "bad things happen in threes" - this isn't really a bad thing, since everyone's going to be okay, but it's just really weird. that is all.

2006-01-06T19:49:00.000-05:00

i saw george stephanopoulos in the gym again tonight. that guy can't resist me.

today on cnn.com they had this poll:
and when i first looked at it i thought it said
"do you agree that president bush has a head full of steam?"
yes, yes! a thousand times yes!

okay, so this story is hilarious, but i hope it's not too washington-insider. few weeks ago on washingtonpost.com, they had a contest to make up a piece of legislation that, when combined with the names of real-life congressmen that could have introduced the bill, is ironic or otherwise hilarious. the winner:
the Trafficant-Delay-Akaka Roadside Port-o-potty Act.
you might have to say that one out loud.

i am almost recovered of my strep throat/bronchitis/sinus infection. almost!