October 29, 2003
Links
A day full of good, tasteless, and interesting links.
The fires in CA from a burninator perspective. Also, visual proof that aluminum melts at 1250 degrees.
Amazing photos of the solar flares and the auroras they created. The pics take my breath away when I think of seeing them in person. Missing my northern home...
Proof that no matter what challenges my work may or may not provide, I do have some pretty kickass coworkers. You my girls!
And Kimmy (vendor/photographer) and I got funky. Awww, yeah.
October 27, 2003
Awake again
At first I thought this was some sort of manipulated picture of the moon, until I was told that our consultant had taken it from his backyard in Simi Valley, CA. He said at one point he could see 30 ft. flames on three sides of his house. I was so out of it this weekend.
Instead I tromped about NYC and paid no attention to the world outside (fitting, somehow). I always seem to end up in Union Square; this time I watched two people, one in a bear suit and one in a Campbell's Tomato Soup can suit accost people. Sadly, though, it was not the Trigger Happy TV crew. I wouldn't have been satisfied without the Sad Penguin, anyway.
I had someone to eat Dim Sum with for the first time since 1999, and got right through the line at Grimaldi's. At a very wise suggestion I tried Leffe Blonde for the first time. Mmmmmmm. Beer.
October 21, 2003
whoa
Dag, yo. http://www.crunchweb.net/87billion/ I always have trouble putting large amounts of money into a realistic perspective, probably not helped by the fact that I don't have a large amount of money. Heh.
October 16, 2003
Yay for my family and friends!
Thanks for such a great birthday ( ; I got lots of nice cards and emails and lots of love. Thank you for such a yummy meal, Jon, and Pete and Heather and Beth for the lovely company. Thanks work girls for being sisters too. Thanks Bridget and Mom & Dad & Grandma & Grandpa & Grandma for making me smile when I got the mail. Thanks Uncle Dave & fam for making me smile when I got to work.
XOXOXO!!!
The O'Reilly Fax0r
This Fresh Air interview is about 40 min long, so you must have patience and/or be an NPR fan (which Andrea says is what unites all of her friends)...or you could be a Bill O'Reilly fan, I guess, and enjoy this interview from his point of view. My biggest beef with him is that he has this amazing art of saying 'this is fact this is fact' and then giving his opinion, and then reiterating that it's a fact. Whether or not I agree with his opinions is insignificant; sometimes I have heard him on the radio and liked his opinion. But I abhor his delivery tactis.
Anyway, that's my soapbox. But I do listen to Terry Gross interviews quite often, and I have heard her be much more of a hardball to other interviewees. Wuss.
October 15, 2003
Weird humor bits of the day
First, from the comment section of a recipe on epicurious.com:
--
A Cook from Arlington, VA on 10/14/03
I always like to use a recipe as inspiration and make it my own. Well,
when I saw this recipe, I didn't have any cheddar in the house, but I
did have some gorgonzola cheese that I had purchased for a party six
months before. I never knew gorgonzola cheese could go bad (because
it's already moldy, right?), but consider yourself warned. The recipe
came out so-so. We had some neighbors over for dinner who I really
don't like, so I served it to them. Now I'm known as the lady in the
neighborhood who serves terrible, rotten pie to her neighbors and
gives them a nasty case of the runs. Go figure. Anyway, here's lesson
# 2 learned. Stick to the recipe.
--
Wow, I should really consider moving back to Arlington! Later in the afternoon, I perused last week's Onion and enjoyed a stolen moment of forgetting I was at work, and instead transported back to one of the many late nights of Perkin's fun (beware the offensive content) - hehe.
And then this from my friend Shawn - hahahahahaha! Tiggah!
October 14, 2003
Slam
Just one of those days, weeks, when everything whams you over the head. When you feel as if you've become a human salt shaker, tossed and flung randomly around your surroundings.
When you forget you're not supposed to look down, otherwise you may get lost looking at the bottom. You can always close your eyes, though, and breathe deeply, and try to be the calm in the chaos.
October 12, 2003
Ahhhh
Had a lovely day at Tarara Vineyard, tasting wine and picking apples. Only $5 to taste 12 wines, and the whites were very good. I prefer reds in general but I've decided that I've yet to be won over by any reds from Virginia. They taste earthy and 'vinegary' and I have the sense that every VA wine I've tasted has that same underlying sapor to it, whatever flavors may overshadow it. How snotty, heh.
But I really liked the whites! We bought a couple, and then went into the orchard to pelt dead apples against the trunks of the trees. Then drove to Historic Leesburg and explored the Old Stone Church cemetery w/ tombstones circa 1777.
Finally, I came home and found a disturbing link from my friend Susan. How else would one end the weekend, really.
October 11, 2003
Everybody Knowses that Toeses are Roses
Sometimes I think that everything in my world has been strategically placed to experiment on how much torture one's toes and feet can take. Ponder this: the more your toes ram into solid objects or your feet trip over errant pizza boxes/cat scratching pads/uneven brick sidewalks, does this mean that you may actually remove the objects from your pathway in disgust or pay closer attention to where you walk?
Do not believe it so! Instead, it means that a lifetime of tripping will cause your body to slowly adapt, until your recovery time is mastered and you can almost always catch something about to shatter all over the floor, or catch your falling body in mid-fall, or avoid crashing your head as you slide down a staircase while wearing heels (and not drunk! I was NOT yet drunk!)
Things could be worse, I suppose. I could find 
floating in my hallway and run right smack into him, spilling soup everywhere.
October 9, 2003
C-A-P-S CAPS CAPS CAPS
The Caps kicked some major NY a** tonight! Go Caps!!! We got to sit nosebleed-style in front of loud obnoxious boys (who else?) and the older man next to me told me how impressed he was that I was being fed roasted peanuts out of the shell and I didn't even have to crack them open myself. Hehe. What can you do when your hands are full of beer?
The Kissing Cam was the best I've ever seen. Especially when the hulking teenage guy refused to kiss and mouthed 'My Mother' as he pointed at the woman next to him. Ewwww!!
Plus, the final two minutes were nothing but fistfights. Nothing better. POW!
Fun fact of the game: Peter Bondra has lost 4 teeth in his career - two top and two bottom.
Pavement
Ok, I promise to never have evil, wrong thoughts such as these thoughts again (if I can help it), but as I sat in stopped traffic at 12:47 in the morning in the Mixing Bowl, I suddenly yearned for the everlasting highway construction of the Midwest - like in Ohio, where the construction barrels are set up for miles and miles, no construction worker, zone, or heavy machinery in sight. Or like Minneapolis, where the construction zones are very narrow and dangerous to drive through, but people refuse to go less than 70 even when it's icy. Or even my lovely home state, where you must keep alert and drive near the lowered speed limit in the one lane allotted to you - in case the Five-O is watching, waiting to give you a double-fine ticket..
I kid you not, a little part of me coveted the abrupt monitions blasted from the orange signs, warning me of the consequences of speeding through the work zone. Just the thrilling thought of being ABLE to speed through a work zone again - guess it's time to visit home.
October 6, 2003
Mauled
So really, what is it with people and tigers this week? First, The Onion has a funny story about Roy and his tiger fetish (which is unbelievabley MISSING from their website - they have actually cowed to the pressure of reality! NOOO!!), then Roy actually gets maimed by a tiger, and then my friend Rob finds an article about a guy in NYC whose tiger cub actually grew into a tiger (if you can believe that) and had to be sedated by a sharpshooter.
I shall call this mysterious behavior Snow White Syndrome - the idea being that animals will naturally flock to you if you indulge them and live among them, and not try to eat you as if they were born with wild instincts and a desire for pounds of food every day. I heard this morning that the tiger species most likely to survive is the Siberian because of the lack of human population growth (although logging is becoming an issue) - since an adult needs 400 square miles of territory.
400 square miles, a Harlem housing project. Hmmmm....
October 4, 2003
Just to Ease the Mind...
I pulled out A Light in the Attic for a good poem.
Gumeye Ball
There's an eyeball in the gumball machine,
Right there between the red and the green,
Lookin' at me as if to say,
"You don't need any more gum today."
Ahhhh.
The State of Poetry Today
Interesting...I was perusing the poetry pages of The Atlantic Online last night, forcing myself to read some modern poetry and a 12 year-old article on the narrowing influence of poetry in American society. I say forcing because, although I have always enjoyed writing poetry, I have never been particularly enthralled with my own output, nor have I been inspired by most poetry I've encountered, and am therefore fairly picky about my encounters with poets.
Also, I have this secret (or maybe not-so-secret) trait that is a bit hard to explain - essentially, if I feel something is going to upstage my own abilities, I tend to ignore its existence altogether. Hard to put into words, but it explains the notion of 'forcing myself' to read new poetry. (Get out of your head already, I know).
Anyway, just as I was worrying myself about the decline of an ancient art form in this drugged-out, fast-food nation - I came upon a heartening article about Laura Bush opening the 3rd National Book Festival in DC this weekend. President Bush wrote her a poem when she away in Europe, and she shared it with the world!
Was I ever really worried?