nothing edifying

But my hungry stomach’s not allowing my powerless brain to concentrate on anything for very long, so that’s that.

I’m eating Pepperidge Farm French Vanilla Milano Cookies to tide me over. I think they must be somewhat new because I love Milanos and I don’t think I would’ve missed the introduction of a new Milano for very long. Maybe some months, but definitely not some years. These French Vanilla ones are pretty good, but not as good as my faves, the Orange Milano. Good thing when I bought these, I decided to pick up 2 bags of Orange Milanos, too:D

I think I’ll save this as a draft and finish up later.
Okay, I ate. I feel better now:)

By the way, we bought the Milanos on sale at Safeway on early Sunday morning (like 1am early:p). We also got Dreyer’s (or Edy’s for the folks on the east coast) Whole Fruit bars on sale. They are the best fruit popsicles:) It got cold again today (crazy weather), so now we have the heater on, but we’re eating Whole Fruit bars:p But they are oh-so-delicious and irresistable! Stomach trumps all!

You might wonder why I bother posting little mini-review-like things of movies when this is clearly not a movie review blog, nor is this a review or movie site in any way or form. Well the thing is, sometimes, in conversation, it comes up that I say, “…the last movie that I saw was…” except then the ellipses go on and on as I struggle to come up with that bit of info. And then I start wondering if this is a sign of impending senility (I don’t think I drink enough to stave it off:p). Then I start wondering if I’m a hypochondriac. Erm anyways, that’s why this started. Also, now you know what I did Sunday night, if you care:p

Yeah, so we watched Garden State. I was a little afraid that all of the pre-seeing it hype would turn out to be horribly off base (like Memento, didn’t like it at all — and no, it’s not cos I didn’t get it, I just didn’t like it:p) But I liked Garden State. Basically, it’s a coming-of-age/finding-yourself sort of movie with some romantic and comedic stuff thrown in. I thought it was sweet without being overly cloying. And we laughed. So yes, this was good:) Also, I thought the soundtrack was really good; I might have to go buy it. Honestly, I wish cd’s would all cost about 10 or 11 bucks.

I’m too hungry to post more — gonna go check on dinner. Stomach trumps all!

CT woke us up today, saying, “I know I’m not supposed to call until 12, but I waited as long as I could!” It was already 11am:D Guess we grumped at her a lot in the past, but the thing is, she used to forget a lot that Eastern time is 3 hours ahead of Pacific, and she’d call me about some inanity (like “I went shopping today, and I found some cute shirts!” Hello, CT, you saying “I went shopping today” is not worth getting me up for, even if you’re being nice and offering me one of the shirts:p That’s like me saying, “I turned on my computer today!”). Anyhows, it was fine, I’m just sayin’:p

Actually, speaking of, we turned on our computers the first thing after we got out of bed:D Then we decided to play Civ, cos we’d just finished crushing the Romans last week (honestly, I would sign a peace treaty with Caesar after beating him down a bit, then 2 turns later, he’d declare war on me — grrrr!), but during the week, I don’t like to play Civ cos it makes for a bad day at work the next day. Not that that means we don’t play during the week, just not too often:p So it’d been a few days since we last played.

We ate lunch at our desks, so it’s been about 8 hours and counting now, of Civ:D That’s a whole work day! I never saw the sun! We were gonna go to the grocery store today! This game is crazy! Erm… ok, I’m crazy, too:)
—
Update at about 11:30pm:
We finished up Cleopatra! The game tells us that we took 40 hours and 33 minutes to take care of everyone…that’s a whole work week!

me, transformed
Uploaded through Hello.

Read filegirl’s post about the Perception Laboratory’s Face Transformer, and I had to try it! I’m not as brave as her, so I am only posting my fave of the lot, although all of the artist ones were pretty cool, and the anime and old lady ones were pretty funny. This is supposed to be me as painted by Botticelli.

Went to a swim meet today for a few minutes. Doooooood, I love how the guys are all buff with broad shoulders! Not too buff though, like wrestlers or body builders:p

But the best part about the swim meet isn’t the hot young bodies, it’s the announcer. The few times I’ve been, it’s an older guy with graying hair, looks quite serious, but he says things like, “…he is a fine breaststroker!” or “…he’s v. good at the breaststroke, but even better at backstroking!” or “…his strokes are so long and smooth, he looks like he could go forever! He’d probably like to!”

I am not kidding!
I’m also not mature enough for this:D

I find it really disturbing that in the White House transcript of the State of the Union speech, “(Applause)” is clearly stated. Just in case you didn’t know how impressed and happy people were with the speech, the transcript clearly marks out every instance when the President was oh-so-rudely interrupted. Every other paragraph! No, better than that, every paragraph! Wait! There are even instances of (Applause) in the middle of a paragraph. In fact, sometimes, the start of his sentence is so brilliant, his sentences are interjected with — (applause) –! Is this the same version the President had on his teleprompter? So he’d know to give a little pause while someone starts a round of applause? Gah!

Other fun quotes:

” In the past four years, we provided tax relief to every person who pays income taxes, overcome a recession…” Um… I think I got $50 of tax relief. And I don’t feel a lack of recession:p

“I welcome the bipartisan enthusiasm for spending discipline.” This from the guy who just asked for another $80 billion to support our troops (not that they don’t need to be supported), and created a horrible ginormous deficit. It’s really interesting to me how he thinks that somehow, in a time of war, we’re going to manage less spending and yet with less tax revenue (both from recession and tax “relief”) still “cut the deficit in half by 2009.” I would really like to learn this trick! Not ’til after he’s outta office, though, you’ll notice.

“To make our economy stronger and more competitive, America must reward, not punish, the efforts and dreams of entrepreneurs.” It’s funny how he says he’s so pro-entrepreneur, yet he supports things like cutting the estate tax. Lowering the estate tax benefits not the people who make the money, but their heirs, who don’t have to lift a finger for this largesse.

“…we also need reliable supplies of affordable, environmentally responsible energy.” Hahahaha — environmentally responsible! As if he cares! He’s got the lowest score ever from the League of Conservation Voters!

“work together to give this nation a tax code that is pro-growth, easy to understand, and fair to all.” Yay! A positive thing! It’s true, taxes confuse me, I wouldn’t mind some clarity:p

“It is time for an immigration policy that permits temporary guest workers to fill jobs Americans will not take…” Wow, is he admitting that immigrants don’t “steal our jobs”?!

“[Social Security] is in need of wise and effective reform.” I agree with this. I mean, I’m not sure about his plan, so I won’t comment on the whole private/personal account thing, but it’s true that social security needs reform. Even if we were to have another baby boom right now, saving it for another generation, in the long run it doesn’t make sense; the underlying mechanism for social security needs to change.

“For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage.” Gah! I’m sorry, but marriage is too much a civil matter now, and it’s not fair to deny some people civil rights. But Bush himself says it best, later in this speech: “Because one of the main sources of our national unity is our belief in equal justice, we need to make sure Americans of all races and backgrounds have confidence in the system that provides justice.” What a guy, not afraid to contradict himself!

“In the next four years, my administration will continue to build the coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time.” I had no idea President Bush gave a rat’s ass about coalitions:p

” The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else. That is one of the main differences between us and our enemies. They seek to impose and expand an empire of oppression, in which a tiny group of brutal, self-appointed rulers control every aspect of every life. Our aim is to build and preserve a community of free and independent nations, with governments that answer to their citizens, and reflect their own cultures. And because democracies respect their own people and their neighbors, the advance of freedom will lead to peace.” Huh? This whole paragraph is a contradiction! We have no right, desire, or intention of imposing our form of government on anyone else, yet we’re pushing our form of government cos it makes those nations more free and respectful. Riiiiight.

And yadayadayada. (Applause.)

I messed up my <div> tags! That’s why it wasn’t showing up properly in Safari. Gah! Thanks Lisa for helping me figure this out:) So yeah, I guess I didn’t leave it for long, but if you noticed weird things going on with the template, it’s cos I was trying to fix it. Let me know please if anything else looks weird or bad in anything else.

This morning, I woke up feeling so defeated. It was like a weight on me, making it hard for me to get out of bed. I should say harder, because I’m not a morning person; it’s always hard to get out of bed:p

I guess some people PMS, but I don’t much anymore. What happens nowadays happens in the beginning, instead of before. I am so tired and blah and sore and crampy and whiny. Whiii-iiii-iii-neeee-eeee-y. Did I mention whiny?

I got out of bed late, and was thisclose to calling in sick today, but I had appointments and I didn’t want to miss them because sometimes skipping work just makes more work for later, so I went to work. Blah.

After lunch Yut and I went to Starbucks to get a Pumpkin Spice latte to cheer me up and cos he hadn’t had coffee all day. It was delish, but I spilled coffee on myself, just like an idiot. Blah. Y’know, this is going to sound weird, but I think the Starbucks coffees in the East Bay (CA) have been better than the ones in Montgomery County (MD). But the pastries tend to be a little better maybe in MontCo. Not scientific! And specific to our last trip to Maryland in December.

Then, at 7pm, I thought, oh yes! I’ll watch Jeopardy Teen Tournament and feel smart and good! Not as good as if it were the kid tournament, but I’ll take what I can get:D But today of all days this week, it was the State of the Union speech. GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! I mean, I’d been curious what Bush was going to say this year, but gaaaaaaaaaaah!!

I can’t wait for today to be over.

It’s the first of February, this’ll be my 2nd month of blogging (I know, I started on 11 January, but whatever). At first, I wasn’t sure if I was going to continue this after a month, but now I think the harder trick will be to shut me up!

Usually I hate signing up for accounts or registering. But ever since I started blogging, the number of times I’ve given out my information is staggering!!! (Well to me, at least:p) Nevertheless, I’ve really enjoyed writing about whatevers, and trying out all this stuff.

This stuff being all the web applications/services I used and liked:

• for no particular reason except it’s free and looked pretty:) I think it’s been reasonably easy to learn and customize. I also like that it allows anonymous commenting, has a search/nav bar on top instead of a big advert, and it has pretty good help and support. If someone thinks something else is easier or better, I’d love to know:)
• cos I love Y!Mail and myY! and Y!Messenger:) I wish Yahoo! USA had a blogging service; Yahoo! has the best emoticons:p
• for photoblogging and picture sharing. I really like flickr!
• for the RSS feed. For some reason, Blogger does this atom stuff, instead of RSS. I usually use myYahoo! for keeping track of blogs though so I wanted RSS.
• counts my visitors. In January I had 268 visitors:) As soon as I figure out how to make the counter show and fit in with the style of the blog, I’ll think about making it visible.
• for trackbacks, although I have none, except for my test:) I don’t know if I need it, or what’s the point right now, but we’ll see. Someone please feel free to explain:p Haloscan can do commenting, too, but I haven’t decided if I’m going to use it. This way seems more integrated to me. What do y’all think? Comments like on Seth’s blog or just leave it as is?

Considering my lack of design, html, writing, blogging, &c&c skills, this turned out more fun than work:) And that’s a good thing.

For years, even after I turned 21, my mom insisted that drinking was terrible and I wasn’t to overdo it. Except her idea of overdoing it is like a glass of wine or something:p Half a glass every now and then is quite acceptable, but two half glasses, goodness gracious! She was the best anti-drinking propagandist ever. Then a couple of weeks ago, I read that a daily drink helps keep the brain sharp! I forwarded this to my sister, who told my mom. When I called that weekend, my sister and mother were both pretty giggly. Turns out they’d taken the information to heart and had a bit of sake after dinner. I could hear my mom saying to my sister (who was extremely jolly) that she was overdoing it (old habits are hard to break, I guess) and my sister telling my mum, “it’s good for you!” Glad to be of service, as ever:)

Also, it turns out that fidgeting is good for you, too. I have sort of a hard time sitting still — I have to concentrate:p If I’m just sitting, I’ll end up shaking my legs, or swiveling around in my chair, or playing with my fingers or something. Anyhows, my mom hates that! She says it’s not ladylike, and why can’t I just sit still, and stop that! &c&c. But all that fidgeting burns “about 350 extra calories a day!” Oooooh yes!

All I’m waiting for now is to hear that a bowl of chili supplemented with Flamin’ Hot Limon Cheetos (0 grams Trans Fat!) is a good-for-you dinner.

Addendum: As ever, BugMeNot.com for registration information, if you don’t want to register. I don’t work for or on BugMeNot.com, btw. Actually, I try to not talk about work — not interested in getting dooced:p