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Saturday, July 31, 2004

Going overboard 

I'm making up for lost blogging time. So I'm going a little overboard here with the multiple blog posts in one day, but I had to take a break from my psycho book and I already cleaned the kitchen... kinda. And the crosswords aren't working well for me today. I feel totally helpful in the "I'm sitting on my fat ass and not doing anything" kind of way.

Not that anyone wants to know this, but I'll put it in a post anyways. To prove that I'm back to committing heinous electronic gadget karma crimes. I fixed my wireless woes. And by fixed I mean I turned off the authentication so that it stops dropping me. Not my ideal fix, but it is less frustrating. And still encrypted. I still haven't found the neighbor with the connection, but I swear, there will be hanging by toes when or if I ever do find him.

It's story time. Picture a chubby little platinum blonde girl, somewhere around the age of 5 or so. Imagine she's running around in her backyard with her two brothers and collecting rocks for them. The brothers - the rather round-ish one about the age of 8 with copper red hair and the other, skinny as a bean pole, about the age of 11 with platinum blonde hair. They're throwing rocks over the fence at passing cars. To pass the time, right? It's summer, or at least pretty warm, sunny, not very many clouds in the sky.

Now collecting rocks was a pretty good chore for the girl. Not too hard, considering there was a playground at the back corner of the yard with zillions of little pebbles and a few good throwing rocks as "cushion" should a child fall from the playground swings. And collecting rocks kept her out of trouble, as she wasn't the one throwing rocks at the cars driving by the other side of the fence. It was a fun enough game for the three of them. Until, *CLANK*. Bullseye. That was a windshield. The three kids pause what they're doing, like statues. Tires screech, the car halts. The whine from the engine of a car going in reverse at high speeds. "Uh oh. Get inside!"

Blonde, copper red, and blonde all run giggling and snorting into the house and calmly and quietly separate. Each to their rooms.

Not more than 5 minutes later after the doorbell rings and there's a loud man screaming at my mother, there's the mother's scream for the kids to come to the front door. Uh oh. We're made to apologize to the man individually and then go look at his windshield. It looked like a spider web. Ooops. Did we do that?

To quell the rock throwing desires, we learned how to skip rocks on the pool's surface for the rest of the summer. Which was far less exciting than throwing them over the fence at passing cars.

My record was 6 skips that year. I wonder if I can still do that...

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It gets worse 

I just took a very small nap.

In my nap time dream I had a kid. He was about a year old.

What the?

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Creepy dreams 

I didn't sleep very well last night. I woke up a lot. And when I woke up at about 11 this morning, I promised myself I wouldn't forget the dream I had just woken up from. So I didn't. But before that, I had already woken up about 6 times and each time had thought to myself that I shouldn't forget that dream. I only remember one of them, and it freaked me out.

I got a phone call from one of my brother's friends. Let's call him Jay, because that's nearly his real name and I'm to lazy to be creative. So he calls and says, "Where are you?" I tell him I'm somewhere in Vienna and ask him what's up. Considering he called my cell phone and no one that lives outside of this country has my cell phone number, I asked him how he got my number. He didn't answer. He didn't say anything for a while until I said, "Hey! Jay, what the hell's going on?" And apparently in my dream world, my brother got a job, was working on a construction site and got squished by something big and heavy and probably wouldn't make it through the night.

Thanks for the call Jay. Now I'm paranoid.

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Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Diets and gadgets aren't for me 

So let's just cut right to the chase here, folks. Here's my menu for the day from the beginning.

Olive bread - snacks in the morning are good.
Iced coffee - stellar since I had ice cubes to add to it this morning because I'm a genius!
Ramen noodles at only nuclear spiciness - yummy and filling.
Red Bull - room temperature is not the best temperature for Red Bull, by the way.
Mineral Water - also room temperature, but somehow not bad.
A bag of Tortilla chips and half a jar of Salsa - can you tell it took me a while to prepare my dinner?
Mineral Water - again, room temperature.

We have no bananas today!


Plans for the evening rested squarely on being lazy. However, in light of the new problems with my fantastic wireless router, I think that beer is in order. Just one. Or two. But definitely not a fun filled night of surfing and writing catchup emails. And, as a side note, the "Windows XP Wireless Auto Configuration" feature is more like a bug than a feature. It's a wart on the nose of the wireless connection witch's face. A bane on society. A plague that ravages .... Okay I'll stop.

Someone please explain to me how the thing can find a wireless connection that isn't even in the same district of this city as my laptop at the moment. I fail to see how this is even possible. I'm not at the level of nerdy-ness or geeky-ness to comprehend this. I just don't get it. And I think after two nights of this junk I could be diagnosed as clinically insane. It might even be an accurate diagnosis.

And now, my mobile isn't working. What is it with me and electronic gadgets this week? Have I committed some heinous karma crime involving any of my electronic devices? Must I sacrifice something at the electronic-gadgets-working-properly altar? I wouldn't even know what to offer! Woe is me.

Please, please let my water heater not break. Please let my washing machine remain in functioning order. Please, dear refrigerator, don't die on me. Please, don't have a seizure and burn out all the heating filaments, my dear and sweet stove/oven. And for the love of god, if my blender breaks and there's no opportunity for smoothies in the near future, please keep me from jumping out my (1st story so not really a threat here) window.

If I find the guy who lives in my house that bought a wireless router and then installed it in his flat ... if I find him, I'll string him up by his toes! And then lash him with not-fully-cooked-noodles. And, and, and then I'll, well, I'll leave him hanging. By his toes. And take his router. And unplug it. Because that would make my problems go away. Right? Right.

I'm a cruel hearted bitch. And I'm going to hell for all this. I'll reserve the party room if anyone wants to join me later. I'm sure the cocktails and beverages will be room temperature, but I'm used to that.

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Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Surely... 

You must be joking.

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Quiz collector 

For lack of anything that I wanna write about that has any usefulness to it, here. Have some quizzes:

http://mindbluff.com/askread.htm There's two excerpts. Apparently you can change the time limit. I didn't. I have either a highly efficient or an extremely efficient reading level.

http://www.coolquiz.com/quizzes/arcade/ That quiz is just cool.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/quiz/ The guardian threw a bunch of quizzes online. They're amusing.

I looked for online versions of the MMPI - 1 or MMPI -2 and also the MBTI (another MBTI link)but couldn't find anything that would be free. Shame. They're interesting tests.

Why would someone take a Big 5 Test? This is why.

http://www.queendom.com/ There's a bunch of cheesy quizzes there.

All of this was brought to you by the lengthy spy sweep session that I had on my machine. Thank spybot. Or blame. Whichever you feel more comfy with.

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Sunday, July 25, 2004

Say What? 

For a rather uneventful day after not much sleep, I had a good night. I went for some drinks after a couple hours of playing Tales of Symphonia. It's not as bad as some say, and probably not as good as some others say, but it still is entertaining enough.

Although yesterday I went home with the intention of not boiling, ie taking a shower and relaxing, I ended up not staying home long and to my delight not boiling at the very same time. I somehow ended up shopping - don't ask me how this happened as I think it was a matter of some planetary alignment that I'm not aware of - and then meeting a friend and then two for coffee. But. Before there was coffee there was a trip to the local "don't go there they have games for consoles" store. So I bought a Pokemon game. That's right, a pokemon game. I still haven't played it yet because I'm a lazy bastard, and I was distracted today as already mentioned. I'll check it out sometime soon. I think. Or rather, I hope.

All of that was to say that I spent money on a game that I don't make the time to play. Story of my life, right? Right.

So this morning I got my sorry ass out of bed before noon, I can't believe it either, really. And I spent an hour or so wandering around the city before hiding in my flat for the rest of the day. Now that I think about it, I could have, or rather should have taken some photos of a Sunday morning in Vienna. I don't see them myself that often, as I'm usually still in bed until noon, but this morning I am not sure that my mind was present. In fact, I'm pretty sure it was somewhere else entirely. Shame really, since there were probably some good shots that could have come out of my morning walk. Ahh well, some other time then.

So I spent a couple hours with a friend having a couple ciders and talking about things that matter only to the two of us. And this proved to be a frustrating conversation. Have you ever sat and talked with a friend while they point out the most obvious things about something you say without realizing the things they point out yourself first? Yeah that was me tonight. I'm definitely not Captain Obvious at the moment.

All of this can be summed up as nothing really concrete to write about but wanting to allude to a couple of things without being terribly obvious.

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Friday, July 23, 2004

Childhood memories 

Someone just reminded me that I only ever liked one Care Bear when I was little. Can you see why?

He rocked. And check out that motto!

I was in the middle of a harmless discussion about star wars, which came from talking about KotoR because I got Tales of Symphonia today. Long story short - Star Wars talk boils down to one of my buddies telling me that the new ones are for kids, just like the old ones. And then he made a comment about Ewoks not being appealing to adults. When I disagreed, stating that ewoks are perhaps the best little creature in a movie - right up there with gremlins - he sarcastically said that he would place bets I liked the care bears too. And that's when I had to let fly that, no, I didn't like any of them. Well, except that one. But he's cute.

Right?

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Late 

I wanted to post last night about something smart, intriguing, theoretically sound, and super intelligent in my own philosophical way. I slept instead and all of the smarts drained out of me in my slumber.

I'm seriously considering getting a cat.

I'm late for work, but I'm sure no one will notice.

I'm not sure I understand the concept of long hair in the nearly unbearable summer heat. That means I think I should cut mine, but I'll chicken out and leave it long so I die of heat exhaustion.

I'm a little overly dramatic today. And the day's only just begun.

I have one freak fingernail that doesn't like to be as long at the other ones. That short one's the rebel kid. There's one in every bunch, right?

Did I mention I didn't sleep much? That might provide enough information to assure you that I'm not entirely crazy, just tired and stupid this morning. Although, on second thought, there's nothing reassuring me that I'm not crazy this morning, so why should I fake it?

Anyways, to the important stuff. I woke up this morning craving cold juice. This is important! I think that's some kind of sign. I think it means I'm thirsty. I have yet to drink any ice cold juice, just water and that wasn't fulfilling.

Oh! My friend sent me some of her black and white photos from when she was visiting. Let's just summarize here and say that they are... well... scary. One of them is actually named "me with troll". I'm not making this up folks. I just tell it how I see it. And that was kind of scary. The others, however, may give me nightmares. Like the ones that damn killer book is giving me!

Okay, it wasn't a nightmare...per se... but there was a serial killer terrorizing the city where I was in my dream last night. Of course, the cool bit is that I was sitting there with a few other people, at a cafe, as the Viennese are wont to do, and talking nonchalantly about this killer person that's been going around finding themselves some victims, taking them to the danube, and then...I've got to stop with that one, it's making me queasy. Anyways, we - couple friends some whom I actually know and some that obviously had to have been dream extras - were talking about this killer's MO and theorizing about it, and apparently while we were at the cafe, there was some news announcement that the killer had been caught. And the picture from the TV of the killer - Scary, but he looked alot like someone I know. And because it was dream world, I was moved to some other place with other people to carry out some other dream sequence. I don't get it either...

Oh the weirdest part about the dream? It was in German.

And now I will go to work. Late. Because I can.

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Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Which Secrets? 

I'm a bit of a whirlwind of thoughts tonight. Forgiveness required in order to continue reading.

First and foremost, I have this question. And this question begs a serious answer. I am befuddled. Bewildered. Addled, perhaps. A smidge discombobulated. Flustered. A bit thrown off.

Can someone please explain to me why it is that Victoria's Secret Lingerie - night sleeping or not sleeping get ups - are so mismatched? By mismatched, here's exactly what I mean. You can buy a set - two piece with top and bottom - which is great. However, why on god's green earth do you get tank tops with long pants and long sleeve button-down shirts with boxers? WHY? Who authorized this? Someone should fire them.

The reason I so non-chalantly bring this up, if I haven't already mentioned it, is that it's actually summer in Vienna. So that means it's not so cold. I'd like to wear some pjs that are short, so not pants, but not long sleeved, so that leaves tank tops. Except I don't have any of those. Because when it all comes down to it, I'm a pj snob. I only have pj's from Victoria's Secret. I used to only have bras and under-things from VS. But I branched out after a while of being in Vienna and wanting to go bra shopping. I guess I'll have to sacrifice the pj collection as well. But only if I can find some sensible pjs! Boxers go with tank tops, folks. There are no if's, and's or but's about it.

I mentioned the serial killer book. Well, all I can say today is, good g'damn! And another thing, I can't read that book after about 19.00h. I'm a complete wuss, scaredy-cat... whatever. I like not having dreams about serial killers and I want to keep it that way. Even though I really want to read the book, I must refrain. Or die of terror or disgust. And today doesn't look like a good day to die. thankyouverymuch

I have some nagging skills. Obviously, I'm not putting them to good use, or enough use, however, since I still have no pictures of my 2 week old niece. Must remember to nag more - and better. Practice makes perfect!

Ever talk to somebody about something that's not normally a "friend" conversation, but usually reserved for those "really super duper good friends"? Yeah, me neither. But I did talk to this one person recently. I got a whole new perspective on just how weird everyone else is. I'm perfectly normal.

Really.

Stop laughing.

Okay, yes, I'm kidding, but can't be bothered to explain anything, so I'll just remain cryptic. As usual.

I was thinking of movies while I was hanging up my laundry tonight. Thankfully there was a picture of a woman doing laundry on the news - 4 hours after I started the washing machine - or I would have left my clothes in the machine til god knows when. And that would have been a shame.

Right, movies. So I was replaying this scene from Grosse Pointe Blank in my head. Over and over and over. It was nearly like instant replay, but not from different angles. And the dialog was, of course, the same. I kept playing and rewinding and playing the scene where Martin is in his therapist's office talking about their relationship and the energizer bunny. "Martin, I'm emotionally involved with you." "How are you emotionally involved with me?" "I'm afraid of you." Ha! And the bunny stuff. Funny. Right. I should watch that again soon.

I was cheesy tonight and did nothing super exciting. I watched the fifth element. In German. I didn't remember the whole movie so it was like watching it for the... second time, only with a little bit of short term memory problems here and there. Still a good movie. I should watch it again, from the beginning even, since tonight I caught it about 20 minutes in.

I watched a chick flick too. It was so cheesy I can't even remember what it was called. But I assure you that the German title would probably be pretty funny or just straight up odd. The only reason I mention this is that I was looking for a movie last weekend. Wait, no. Last week. And I couldn't find it by the English title with English language - odd. But I did find the English title, German language and German title, German language. And the German title was totally off the wall. I so wish I could remember it right now because I don't think you believe me.

So since I can't read my serial killer book at night, I have a backup. I'm kinda sad about the backup though. It's called The Cryptographer. I'm so too lazy to link. Google it yourself, please. When I bought it, there wasn't mention - on amazon - about a romance part to the book. It was supposed to be a detective story, full of intrigue. I haven't gotten that far into the book, but the back cover actually mentions a romance between the main character and some schmoe. This made me sad. I wanted a good who-dun-it thriller/detective story. And now I'll read through some girlie romance stuff. Ick! It's like catching cooties.

I should take my laptop to work soon so I can get a virus scanner set up. I also need to copy a lot of pictures from my work computer to my laptop. And then maybe copy some music over as well, and re-sync the iPod. I'm a little worn out from all this activity planning. I think I need a breather. Actually, I guess it was more like a small activity brainstorming session.

If enquiring minds want to know, I have my theory as to the answer to the following question. What is Victoria's Secret anyway?

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Non sequitur 

Dante's Inferno Test

Damn. I've only been banished to the second circle, but apparently I'm an extreme heretic. Must be the catholic school thing cropping up again.

Now for something serious:

http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleid=711

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Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Useless Information 

Blogger and Safari aren't good friends.

Long nails and I aren't getting along.

German keyboards might be responsible for the long nail thing.

I've spent the day being goofy, reading stuff, listening to audio recordings of talks that no one else would find even remotely interesting, and retyping every damn word I've typed out on this keyboard. At least three times. Each. That's how much I rock.

Apparently, although I've yet to actually read the articl, there was a guy that jumped out of a helium balloon in the 60's. The creepy part is that he did it from 31,000 meters above the Earth. Yes, that's about 4 times the height of Mt. Everest. The tallest mountain on earth. Talk about your thrill seeker! Sheesh. You could likely never catch me jumping out of a perfectly good airplane. Or hot air balloon. I'm not really picky, to be honest.

Summer time in Vienna is a tad warm. And by that I mean it's just after 11 at night and I have this feeling that I'm sitting bare-assed on the sun. As if the clothes would be of any use there, right? I think the heat from the laptop might not be helping. Hmm.

I can't stop staring at the game being played. It's like...I can't even describe it. Well, lemme give it a shot. Seems kinda like getting addicted to crack. Of course, what use is my analogy with all of my (nonexistant) drug experience to rely on.

Oh hey, it's happy day. I got an email today that Tales of Symphonia was shipped. I hope it arrives tomorrow. Because that makes perfect sense.

So I started reading this book about Serial Killers. I know, right? I'm a little odd. Won't watch a dumb or cheesy horror flick, but passes the time by reading non-fiction books about super scary serial murderers. It's completely logical in some sense. Anyways, I've only read through two of the chapters, so I only know two of the killers in a detailed kind of way. So there was this guy, right. He killed at least 50 people. The descriptions of him include things like "quiet", "gentle giant", "domed head". Okay, are ya still with me, because I have this feeling that one of those things is not like the other. I never considered that "domed" would be an applicable adjective for a head. Now I know. Thanks serial killer guy.

The scariest bits about that book aren't necessarily that they killed people, or in which ways they killed people - I know how weird this sounds, but don't stray, just stick with me here... - but in the fact that they develop pen pals while in prison and then some of them, usually the ones that kill a bunch of women (of course), marry their pen pals. Does anyone raise an eyebrow at that? I'm surely not the only one. It's just not possible.

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Monday, July 19, 2004

PS 

I lied about that whole gritty details to follow bit at the end of one of those recent posts. There's never any gritty details.

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Friday I'm in Love 

On Saturday I went with a couple folks to Haagen Dazs - yes, they put a store in the middle of the tourist district in Vienna. How cruel, right? So we were eating our various ice creams, sorbets and drinking coffee discussing the finer points of the distinctions between irony, cynicism and sarcasm. I have this kind of mental block. I know it goes against all understanding that other people hold. I know this. I can't make it stop. I just don't associate irony with any form of humor, sense of humor or joke. Not in the way I can associate cynicism and sarcasm. I tried. I failed.

I think I could blame my catholic school education, and although it's likely responsible for a lot of my mental blocks, I don't think that's really a sufficient excuse that I cannot understand why some people would say that they make ironic jokes or that old, "I was being ironic." comment that I just can't grasp.

Isn't irony all about situations and scenarios, not jokes?
Main Entry: iro·ny
Pronunciation: 'I-r&-nE also 'I(-&)r-nE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -nies
Etymology: Latin ironia, from Greek eirOnia, from eirOn dissembler
1 : a pretense of ignorance and of willingness to learn from another assumed in order to make the other's false conceptions conspicuous by adroit questioning -- called also Socratic irony
2 a : the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning b : a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony c : an ironic expression or utterance
3 a (1) : incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (2) : an event or result marked by such incongruity b : incongruity between a situation developed in a drama and the accompanying words or actions that is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play -- called also dramatic irony, tragic irony


Blame www.m-w.com for that. See, I always thought of irony as the "a" of the third entry in that definition. Maybe I'm just mad.

This is a likely explanation.

Not that anyone needs to know this about me, but I find days of the week underwear endlessly amusing. Especially the kind that quote Cure lyrics.

Another topic of discussion at the ice cream shop was about a girl that someone we all knew took home the previous night. He likened the gaggle of girls that started following this guy around at the beginning of the night to the 3 horsemen of the apocalypse. I recognize that the story involves four of them, however, there were only 3 girls, and apparently no need to represent death. Because I thought it was amusing, I'll share a summary of the story as it was told to me.

"So *this guy* met the three horsemen of the apocalypse. Famine fucked off early, at about 4 in the morning, which left War and Pestilence battling it out for his attention. After a while, Pestilence got tired of it and fucked off to find a guy closer to her own age - about a decade younger. So *this guy* ended up with War."

Make love not war, I say.

2 notes

Saturday, July 17, 2004

Shhh 

I have loads I want to write, but I am so tired and ready for sleep that I can't stand to be awake any longer.

A proper post with gritty details to follow. In about 12-14 hours. I so need some sleep.

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Friday, July 16, 2004

Short days, long hours 

So the 5 am wake up call is special, but moreso after 2 or so hours of sleep. I came back to my empty flat and made a plan for my day. I had such good intentions. I made it to the office by 9.30h this morning. This is amazing. On so many levels. I was even showered and presentable in mostly human form. Well done me.

I get to sleep in tomorrow.

My well laid plans were laid to rest when I entered the office. Sweat, blood and tears were spilled in order to make it possible to work next Monday morning. I have a sneaking suspicion that it will be possible to work on Monday, but I will have forgotten my plan by then. Damn that short term memory loss! Damn it straight to hell!

So all of my planning for my super productive work day went into the trash can, and secretly, I wasn't happy about that part, but that's just between you, me and that bottle of beer on the table - let's call him number 5. I even had started planning my weekend. It was a doozy of a plan as well. I hope you're sitting down because I'm going to tell you what the plan was. I was going to sit on my ass. All weekend. And revel in the silence and all the alone-ness I could muster. Even that plan went to shreds.

So I've given up the plan. I might go out again this weekend, I might even enjoy myself. I might just throw caution to the wind and just go hang out with people that I haven't seen in a very long time. Yanno.... get back into my life. I thought it might be good to stay hidden, tucked away in my fantastic flat with a book, some games and some movies. But .... nah. That sounds kind of boring and I think I need some outings. Some visiting. Some really goofy and screwy stories or interestingly off topic discussions. The kind that lead to a dead end. Or nowhere in particular. The road less traveled. At least it's less traveled as of late.

This day has been so long, and so short. All at once. I'm more tired than I think I can explain, but it feels like I've been awake just a short time. My evening was good. There was some beer, a new location - some more beer and some food, a movie in the cinema (Stepford Wives - creepy!), some more beer and all the while some cracking jokes. I'm yawning though. I think I might be worn out.

I thought of so many more things I could have put into that list of 100 things. So I figured, what the hell. I'll throw them into this entry. I find it endlessly amusing to write out all of these things. It's like being in a confessional with a priest. I'm just waiting for my penance.

I like cooking. I like a good red wine. Smooth, fruity, dry and easy. I like a nice chilled white wine - crisp, fruity, sharp. I name my plants. I even talk to them. I sing to myself in my flat, but not ever in the shower because I always thought it sounded creepy with the echo from the tiles. I like the sound of German and of Spanish, and I like speaking a particular phrase in Spanish.

I like the German word ananas and also unartig. They roll off the tongue so well. I like the words oblique and obey. Not for the meaning, and not for the connotation the words can conjure - merely for the sound. I have long legs. And long fingers. And since I moved to Vienna, long fingernails. I can't explain that. I've never broken a bone in my body.

I find it difficult to watch Life as a House without crying. I eat lemons - straight out of the peel and adore most everything made of or with them. I can bake a lemon meringue pie without looking at a recipe. Apple pie, as well.

I never take my own advice. I freely give advice to people even when they don't ask for it. I love movie quotes and use them often in everyday life. Fundamentally, there are two things that piss me off. Being ignored and being lied to.

I like tiny strapped tank tops and long skirts and matching underwear and bra sets. I love to learn new things. I strive to ignore stereotypes, I try to look at things from numerous angles. I recognize that I am not always capable of doing that. I disappoint myself, I disappoint other people. I think a good cry is therapeutic.

I must sleep.

2 notes

Thursday, July 15, 2004

I take it back 

I won't change any typos in the post below. Not until Firefox and blogger start getting along better.

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Lacking Substance...Insert Filler 

For lack of anything of valuable substance to supply, I thought I'd be cheesy and corny and do something lame for a change. Without further ado, a list of 100 things you never wanted to know about me.

Ready...
Set...
Go!
1. I feel kinda goofy writing this list.
2. I used to write a lot of poetry.
3. I can recite the first 14 lines of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - in ye olde englishe.
4. I've seen the massive statue of Paul Bunyan and "Babe" - his big blue ox.
5. I played goalkeeper - soccer (football for the europeans) - for 13 years.
6. I have a fascination with my toenails, in that I have to paint them or they don't look like my own feet to me.
7. I know how to technically draw with charcoal, but can only get stick figures and weird geometric shapes to come out on paper when I pick some up.
8. I can recite the Gettysburg Address - thanks to having to write it everytime I didn't do a homework assignment in the 5th grade.
9. I wore a Catholic School uniform for 6 of my earlier formative years. That means plaid, and that means jumper.
10. I firmly believe that is the basis for my aversion to dresses.
11. I think daisies and daffodils are awesome flowers because they look so happy to me.
12. I anthropomorphize with not only animals, but plants as well.
13. I spent 4 years in a choir. As a first soprano.
14. I smoke, so I have none of that first soprano range anymore.
15. I think flannel sheets are heavenly to sleep on.
16. I have a stuffed animal in my bedroom.
17. His name is Flopsy, he's a teddy bear, and he has no stuffing except in his head.
18. He never had stuffing except in his head.
19. I got him as a gift at 16.
20. I had strep throat at the time.
21. I can't swim the butterfly stroke.
22. I used to want to be a vet. And a professional swimmer. And a professional horse jockey. And a professional soccer player. And a professional singer.
23. I'm none of those things.
24. I'm really okay with that.
25. I don't plan my life decades in advance.
26. I want to go to Australia before I die.
27. And Russia.
28. And Fiji.
29. That's in order of preference.
30. I think unicorns are awesome.
31. I always wanted a pet koala bear.
32. Or a black bear.
33. I could never bait a fishing hook right.
34. I always thought it would be fun to jump off a 10m high diving board, landing a perfect flip.
35. I'm not especially fond of heights. - This complicated the high dive.
36. I like lizards. The yellow bellied ones we caught when I was little were cute.
37. I have always driven a manual transmission car.
38. I don't like driving automatics.
39. I like fluffy snowflakes that land on my shoulder or in my hair and don't melt immediately.
40. I like summer thunderstorms.
41. I think lightning looks awesome.
42. I'd like to have a really good eye for photography.
43. I think Trivial Pursuit is entertaining.
44. I like vacations that take me to lakeside accomodations.
45. Or coastline accomodations.
46. I love sterling silver roses. They're decadently delicate looking.
47. I love to garden. And design gardens.
48. I use lavender oils and have bubble baths when I'm having trouble relaxing.
49. I always shave my left leg first.
50. I count steps in my head when I walk up a flight of stairs.
51. I remember phone numbers by creating an algebraic equation with them.
52. I spell a lot of words in my head.
53. I sound a lot like a freak right about now.
54. I think - as long as they aren't incredibly dangerous (making buildings crumble, etc) - earthquakes are fun.
55. I've never taken an eye exam.
56. Or even seen an eye doctor.
57. Most doctors scare me. Dentists are no exception.
58. I had braces for a long time when I was younger.
59. I still need them.
60. When I was little, I was scared of the boogie man, but not the dark.
61. I once had concussion from hitting my head on the windshield of the family car when I was about 5.
62. I've shot coke cans with a bb gun in my mother's backyard.
63. Guns scare me.
64. I was stung by a scorpion when I was really young. It wasn't the poisonous kind.
65. It hurt. A lot.
66. My favorite number is 2.
67. I took college calculus when I was still in high school.
68. I can't start reading a book and not finish it.
69. I read a particular book, once a year, every year.
70. I like rollercoaster rides.
71. I don't like cotton candy.
72. I've seen Jefferson Starship in concert - at Disneyland. I was about 8 or 10. They may have been just Starship by this time. (I forgot about this when I was last talking about my first concert. JS would be the first one.)
73. I used to ice skate.
74. When I quit skating, I could do a single axel jump. And land it.
75. I used to run track and field.
76. I was pretty good at the high jump and the long jump, but preferred the shot put.
77. I never liked the running part.
78. I have a Bangles song stuck in my head right now - Eternal Flame.
79. I blame Singstar for that.
80. I have never karaoke'd.
81. This fact doesn't bother me.
82. Very few people that I know have seen me dance.
83. There's a reason for this.
84. No, I won't explain.
85. I was in my school spelling bee every year that they had one until I got to high school.
86. I lost in the 7th grade when I spelled asparagus "a-s-p-a-r-g-u-s". I was devestated.
87. I can't tell Roman and Greek mythology apart by gods' or godesses' names. Even though I've studied a lot of mythololgy.
88. I am very shy.
89. I tell really bad jokes.
90. I laugh at myself when there's reason to.
91. I'm clumsy. And have the bruises to prove it!
92. I have a fear of broken glass. For good reason.
93. I have a stitch in my wrist that was put there 15 years ago when I put my hand through a window. It won't come out unless a doctor cuts my wrist to fetch it. No thanks.
94. I used to play Boggle with my dad when I stayed home sick from school.
95. I like puzzles. I have two in my possession that are waiting to be put together.
96. I always look forward to having time to myself.
97. I always pull my socks up - part of that catholic school uniform thing again.
98. I think sometimes that I'm more often taking/getting than giving.
99. I like to practice yoga when I make the time for it.
100. I have 3 hours in which to get all of my beauty sleep.

I'm thinking that wasn't so hard. But I do look and sound kinda weird after looking through that list.

I think I can live with that.

I just discovered the spell checker on blogger isn't working with firefox. Please forgive the typos until tomorrow when I won't be nearly awake enough to check for tyops then.

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Monday, July 12, 2004

Weekly Update - Har har 

I'm ashamed that I've become one of those bloggers... I will get back to normal and writing everyday, but my excuse is that I wasn't here for most of the last 5 days. It sounds like a good reason to me. Nevermind the fact that I totally could have put up at least one or two entries over the weekend, but never-you-mind that.

The last week has been pretty interesting. My brother got email and sent me an email. There being such a long story behind this interesting news, I'll spare all of the details, but merely say that he didn't have a computer until christmas-time this past year, so the email was a big step in the whole scheme of things. I'm super proud of him!

Chocolate interruption
I'm eating a Mr. Goodbar. Who was the brilliant person who thought peanuts and chocolate was a good combination? Find them for me. I wanna kiss 'em.
End Chocolate interruption

My other brother was busy last week as well. I'm proud to say that he has a daughter. She was born on July 8th at 3.37h (yes, in the morning...oy) and she's 7 lbs. 5 ozs. No idea in kilos. And too lazy to convert. I've yet to see pictures, but have spoken with the proud papa and he assured me that she doesn't look much like him. Conclusion: She must be cute.

Me, on the other hand, well I was not doing much. Went to Innsbruck this past weekend and saw the sights, or should I say sight. It's not the mecca of museums that it could be, I suppose. It's a cool place, lots of peaks, and interesting architecture on the buildings. Most of them are still pretty old considering the town wasn't a big target during the last world war. I had one of the best mojitos I've ever tasted, and some interesting and fun discussions about random stuff. All in all, I had a good weekend.

I have most of the rest of the week off so I have this feeling that there will be some coffee-drinking and cafe-sitting in my future. I'm really not complaining about this at all. I think it's brilliant. Now I just need to get off my ass and buy myself a bike like I've wanted to for the past nearly two years. Don't hold your breath, it's so not going to happen for a while.

I've made plans to go to Quermesse with a friend this week. Should be interesting.

Til next week. Har.

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Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Slow, Slower, Slowest 

Not so smart today. I woke up and everything was fine. It all went downhill from there.

I have this problem. I think that if I leave for work 15 minutes earlier than I know I have to to get to the office on time that I will actually get there 15 minutes before I have to get there. This is not the case. Never. I really don't understand why the public transportation gods like to do this, but they do. When I miss a tram in the morning and one doesn't show up for at least 6 minutes, I know what the rest of my morning commute to work will be like.

Slow.

It's a curse. A voodoo curse. Some pins and needles somewhere doing something mean. Slowly.

Just in case it's of any importance to me, should my audience (read I) re-read this at a later point... Windows XP has some problems recovering deleted files. It's a long process. Kind of slow. Also, as an added note for myself, don't be a dumbass and delete files. There we go, that should solve future problems. I'd dwell, but it's really too stupid.

For future fun, please remember to open mouth before inserting foot. It's easier and leaves less marks. And might I dare say that it's faster as well.

Somewhere around 20.00h my day was seemingly improving. I was a little less slow. This is not to say that there were leaps and bounds of improvement, merely not quite as not-so-smart.

If I had the brain power to get into a story that I'm dying to write about, and if I didn't have nearly 8 hours of sleep to immediately look forward to, I would carry on about some rather uninteresting or likely-not-very-lively event in my past. However, tiredness and stupidity are the culprits of the day. Not shocking since I only slept 3.5 hours last night.

Time for a little shuteye.

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Tuesday, July 06, 2004

Nothing is certain but... 

Death and Taxes. Benjamin Franklin

I was supposed to call the finance office to figure out what's up with my tax stuff today. Since it's already 18.30, there's no question that those people have been at home cooking or eating dinner for at least an hour and a half. Of course, it's probably more likely that they've been out of the office since 15.00h seeing as it is a government office.

I'm certainly forgetful today. I forgot to bring about 4 things to the office this morning, but in my defense, I was really kind of out of it. I nearly forgot to put on my shirt, and I'm sure the rest of the city is extremely pleased that I caught that problem before it became evident to others. See, I was trying to be sneaky and quiet, so as not to disturb the sleep of someone. It totally didn't work as I had planned, but I tried. And that's the point.

So we've started German lessons at the office again. I think the sheer amount of British folks scared the teacher a bit. She seems nice enough, but was a tad nervous today. I would be too if I were her. Completely understandable. But nonetheless, we got to request things that we want from the class, and one of the prominent requests was to not have to read about pensionists or garbage. Long story short - Last German class I took (outside the office) we spent a total of 5 weeks discussing these fascinating topics before we moved on to listening to really, incredibly bad Austrian folk music. (Disclaimer: I'm sure all Austrian music is neither always bad nor folk. It was just an unfortunate freak accident that both of those things came together during the lesson.) We shall see how it goes. I might just have to continue with classes outside the office, but I'll give the girl a chance.

I've not been at work for over a week. Surprisingly, people missed me. And told me so. I'm still in shock and cannot possibly talk about this, yet.

In other news, the Austrian President had two heart attacks yesterday.

That is all.

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Sunday, July 04, 2004

Belated 

Munich. Exciting place. I can't wait to fall asleep tonight. The piano player at the restaurant downstairs is much better than the siren they hired to sing last night. But really, the accordion player that we saw while wandering around town today was much better than the guy downstairs at the ivory. Because I'm as smart as I am, I just found out this afternoon that the hotel we're staying at, it has wireless.

So at the city museum, they have this whole section of puppets and carnival gadgets and widgets. I almost had a heart attack when some skeleton puppets - set up to move with motion detectors - started dancing. And I recovered just enough to not drop dead when a super mini King Kong started moving in the corner. It's a good thing my heart isn't in bad condition, or at least it's a good thing that it wasn't in bad condition this afternoon in the museum. Wow.

Most of the puppets and carnival things were scary as hell. Why do adults think that kids would like most of those things? I don't think there was more than a small handful that I actually liked and about the same number of them that didn't scare me. They even had the mirrors that make you short and fat/tall and skinny. Thankfully, those didn't scare the begeesus outta me.

Tirol has a lot of benches on small backroads. There's also a lot of side-of-the-street-memorial-things with pictures of Jesus in them. The "Oh Jesus!" joke didn't get old all day, and we passed by at least 3 dozen of those things. Twice.

I think we're going to go find a place to watch the football finals and get some dinner. Hope the game isn't boring!

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Thursday, July 01, 2004

Yeah. That's it. 

I'm wholly unorganized. I have about 12 things to do, and no time to do it. Add to that a little exhaustion and we have no motivation. I suppose it might be a smart thing to locate some maps, but I can't really be all that bothered at the moment. I already know that I will get less sleep than last night, so driving for a couple hours should prove fun. I can't wait for sun up.

I could sit and blather on about how displaced I feel in my flat, or my life, but instead I'd rather dwell on something else entirely. Ever feel like you've totally lost touch with someone? But they're right there. You can see them, small talk with them. You just can't talk to them about anything for any number of reasons, most of which when viewed reasonably or logically are practically insane. And the worst part, you really want to talk to them, you want to lean on them when you feel a little less than useful, or hmm useful is the wrong word here. You want to lean on them because a little comfort seems like the world to you, and just maybe you can gather a little strength for yourself without any important exchange of words. But it's just not a possibility, it doesn't even feel like that would be okay. Like you aren't welcome. Anywhere.

Yeah. That's how I feel.

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