Golden Birthday

This year is the year I have my golden birthday, when I turn 28 on February 28th. It would also mark Tracey's golden birthday, turning 29 on the 29th of January, if she were still alive. I just came to this realization tonight and it made me sad. Think of the fantastical party we would have! I'm not sure why, but I imagine her in Kansas City with me, even though she, like everyone else in my family, probably would have struck out on her own.

For those who have asked what I want for my birthday, I think that I've decided. The problem with that is, you can't get it for me because I don't even want to spend that much money on myself. You see, I'd like to get a new computer monitor since I watch so much television from my computer. Therefore, although it seems rather lame and unimaginative, I'd appreciate the pooling of money into my pocket. That way I can save a few bucks when it comes to buying the thing. If you give me five bucks, that's five dollars less I have to spend.

I think that's an appropriate golden birthday gift. If you feel like you can't just give me money, take a look at my Amazon wishlist. There's a link to it on the right. And, as always, you do not have to get me anything, but I have had inquiries as to what I would like. That would be the only thing I can think of other than finally putting curtains up in my house. And that's nowhere near as cool as a computer monitor, and probably just as expensive. (Being why I've lived here so long without them.)

So, that's the plan.

I am going to have some sort of shindig at my house on my birthday since it falls on a Saturday. I suppose that I will send out some sort of invitation when it gets closer to the date. Until then, I'll be shopping around for the best deal on a new monitor.


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Banner

I've been toying around with a new banner. I like the one I put up, even if it's simplistic for how long it took me to make. We'll see how long it lasts since I don't often like change. I may make some others before I finally settle on one, but this one makes me relatively happy... and I don't know when I'll sit down with photoshop again. It's amazing how much you forget when you don't use it.

Remy yawning makes me happy for some reason. Plus, now it's okay if I bore you because you were basically warned.


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Blogger Videos

The videos in the previous post work. I've seen them play, but I can't get them to work on my Firefox browser on my computer. I am told they worked on Carolyn's Firefox browser on her laptop and I got them to work on my computer using Internet Explorer. So, if you're having lots of trouble and you use Firefox, I blame that... although I love Firefox and don't really want to.

I refuse to spend more time messing with it than I already have because it just makes me frustrated. So I am not. Deal with it yourself, yo.


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Retro Flashback: Thanksgiving 2008

I once said that I was working on getting up some videos of the Economic Stimulus Package Thanksgiving Road Trip Spectacular. Well, truth is, I forgot about it for quite a while until Brenda asked me why they haven't been put up yet. I was planning on putting together all the videos into one like I did with my Texas Road Trip, but it appears that this is not going to happen since I haven't done it yet. So, I've decided on giving you the highlights in chronological order, as uploaded to Blogger. This took forever, the autosave kept failing, and my 'connection to blogger' kept getting 'lost'. So, you better like it for all the frustration it caused. No wonder I hadn't done this before now...

The first thing I learned was that all you have to do is point a camera at Brenda and she will perform like a monkey without any prompting. Here we are stopped at a gas station to fill up and have dinner. It is very cold. Very. Very very. And as you will see, we're not wearing coats because we are geniuses.

I just got back in the car after running Remy around outside so that she would do her thing, which is why I am breathing so heavily, and why I am so cold and glad to be in the car.

We spent the night at a La Quinta in Indianapolis and got on the road again after a few hours of sleep. Brenda drove from Indianapolis until right before the Pennsylvania boarder, where I took over. Right after that happened, there was a wreck on I-70 and we got stuck in traffic... forever. Here I am, thrilled about the situation. As soon as we made it to the next exit, like an hour later, I took it and trusted Garmin to find our way back to civilization. I believe that we detoured through Washington, PA, home of Washington and Jefferson College, which I think we may have drove by. There were very dark and twisty roads. I do not recommend going to this town when it's this icy out.

After the detour, the driver's side windshield washer fluid sprayer froze up and stopped working. Why is it that you can always see better out of the passenger side of the windshield than the driver's side? After a few terrifying minutes of driving while unable to see because there was salt all over my window, I finally found a place to pull over and try to remedy the problem. You'll see here that I do not manage to get the driver's windshield washer fluid sprayer to work, but it started to dry up outside and the window wasn't nearly as bad after that. Although, for a while I did think that I may have to time travel back to high school and spray a Windex bottle out of my window like I used to in the Mustang. (I had one on hand, just in case.) Days later it finally warmed up and I haven't had this problem since.

Also, we've reached Pennsylvania, home of Tasteykakes.

The reason for this trip was ultimately to go to the Madonna concert in Atlantic City. I drove to Atlantic City and saw her limousine on the way there. Here is the video proof.

I like musicals and when the drive was getting long, we usually opted to put something in that we could all sing along to. Wicked was one of my favorites, and a fun song to sing was What is This Feeling? Funny thing, I accidentally replaced Galinda's name with Belinda's name once and thereafter, anytime that song came on, it was about Belinda. This camera angle is from the dash just so you could enjoy the dash dirt and dash dog hair and the Garmin being all awesomely in the way.

I had a really hard time switching my camera between video and pictures. A really hard time. In fact, I have several videos just like this one (or shorter). But you're only getting to see this one. I can hear your "thank yous" already.

It was always fun to piss off Garmin or sit idly by as he went completely insane. This joy may only be appreciated by those in the car with him for four days... recalculating!

Brenda apparently loves Diet Coke. I don't even know why she was doing this. There was no reason. This is Brenda. If you have ever wondered exactly what her personality is, or what she is thinking, or how she behaves... This is the epitome of Brenda. Now you understand why we are such good friends.

This is also very Brenda-esque. Do not judge her. Spice up your life.

I was pretty excited about the time changes. Phones are super smart. Do not judge me.

I talked repeatedly about doing a Chinese Fire Drill (I know, but there is no politically correct term for this, and if the Chinese are going to get mad at me, they already did for my Summer Olympics blogs) the entire time we were on the trip. So, when we were nearly home, we decided that we better do it or be forever regretful. I thought it best to have the jumpy video of me running around the car instead of a stationary camera on the interior. Just so you know, the reason I am screaming as soon as I get out of the car and the reason I cannot stop laughing is because when I got out, I jumped in a giant puddle that made water cover my entire shoe. And it was very cold.

Surprise, it snowed again... and though I didn't have problems with my windshield washer fluid sprayer this time, my driver's side windshield wiper just about fell off my car. Man, those things are awfully tricky to get back on. Okay, they're impossible. The only reason I have a windshield wiper on my car is because Brenda played the hero.

So, those were the main highlights of the trip. I hope you can see why I agreed to drive instead of fly for this. It was really a pretty fun vacation all around. I thank my traveling companions for so much fun.


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0 Days 0 Hours 0 Seconds

President Obama was sworn in yesterday and thus my backwards countdown to President Bush leaving office has run down completely. I have to say, that little fixture on my blog will be missed. I suppose I shall have to find something else as enjoyable someday.

Also, President Obama just sounds plain weird, does it not?

A Horse With No Name

As I mentioned recently, I am trying to teach myself how to play the guitar. I have a feeling that it will be slow going for a while. I am trying to learn some chords and learn how to transition smoothly between them, but I can tell it's going to take a long time with some of them, mostly because my hands are small.

(Fun side note: Someone keeps ordering extra small gloves at work every time they are supposed to be ordering small and medium gloves, which always seem to be in short supply. This apparently happens when I go on vacation and when I come back, I have a million gloves that no one else can use. Today I found out that I had even more gloves. All for me. Right now I have 3/4 of one of my bench cabinets filled with extra small gloves from top to bottom. So while other people don't have gloves, I could probably wipe my ass with them and make balloon puppets and wear them on my head and still have enough to do casework.)

Anyway, just learning chords is really boring. So, I thought that maybe I could find some simple songs and learn chords for the song and transition between them and actually make some sort of music as opposed to the randomness I was doing. That way, I'd feel like I accomplished something.

This is probably how you actually learn how to play the guitar. I'm a pretty fantastic teacher because I keep my student involved and motivated.

SO, the point of this post:

A Horse With No Name by America is the easiest song on the face of the planet. I can basically play it. Me. Play a song. On the guitar.

I rock.

Even though it only has two chords, I cannot seem to play the guitar and sing at the same time.

I've never been a very good multitasker.


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The Blockbuster Miracle

I recently watched two of my DVDs from Blockbuster and returned them in the mail expecting to get the next 2 DVDs in my queue, as per usual. Instead, when I returned Wanted and Get Smart, they sent me Friday Night Lights, The 40 Year Old Virgin, AND Bullitt. Including the other DVD I haven't watched yet and still have in my home (Cannibal! The Musical), I now have FOUR DVDs from Blockbuster. (Don't you love my range of movies?)

Interestingly, according to them, my plan is as follows:

• BLOCKBUSTER Total Access Premium
• $17.99 / month (plus taxes)
  3 at-a-time, Unlimited mailings
  Unlimited in-store movie exchanges
  +2 FREE bonus Movie or Game Rental E-Coupon per Month

Haha! I have four DVDs at a time! I win!

It's a Blockbuster Miracle! I wonder how long it'll take them to correct this. I hope forever.

Movie Marathon at my house!


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2009

Internets, you ask what I have been doing? You say that you miss me? You wonder how Remy's eaten face is doing? I have all these answers and more.

What have I been doing? I've decided that I'm going to not eat out as much as I have in the past in efforts to (1) save money, (2) eat better, (3) hope that a side effect will be that I might lose some pounds. Or ounces. Or grams. And not gain any more. Therefore, I've been doing a lot of cooking.

I also decided to buy myself an early birthday present, which is a Jasmine Takamine dreadnaught guitar. So, I've been "learning" how to play it... very slowly. Because I'm not that agile with the finger movements, have itty bitty tiny hands, and bought a somewhat inexpensive guitar, so that it's probably a wee bit harder to play since you have to push the strings down so hard. I'm trying to stick with it though, even though I've lost sensitivity on the tips of my fingers on my left hand. It feels like pins and needles all the time now! I'm kind of getting used to it and hopefully soon it won't bother me anymore or I'll build up good enough calluses that it won't matter. And will be easier to play.

I've also already taken down my Christmas lights and tree, unlike last year where it took until March to do so.

I also repotted Mr. Spidey. He's gotten a lot greener and looks pretty happy compared to his sicklyness as of late. So, that makes me happy.

I also recently saw An Inconvienient Truth and now believe in global warming... I just still haven't gotten around to getting that recycling bin...

I watched the Giants lose to the Eagles and screamed at the television a lot.

All the scabs seem to have come off of Remy's face so I no longer have a reason to use her new nickname (Scarface), but I still do anyway. She answers to anything, really. Her fur is all back in order and doesn't stick out in weird places anymore. All remnants of Quila's attack are gone. She's a pretty little girl once again and all her rough and tumble tomboy is gone.

Um... I think that I've probably done other stuff, too, but it was probably equally as boring as the things I actually deemed worthy of writing about, so I should probably stop now so that you don't fall asleep.

I'll try to be better about the blogging and not let it go two weeks between posts for the rest of 2009, but you can be assured that at some point I will break that promise.


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Really?

I really can't believe that you can find stuff like this on the internets. Not only that, but, how do I come across this stuff? It's not like I go out searching things like "guy with slingshot". Seriously. I can't even backtrack to figure out how I ended up watching this. But isn't it kind of amazing?



I promise to blog better than this in 2009. Really. I've just been really busy not blogging, as you can witness from the content shown here.


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