7.31.2008

Gimmie gimmie gimme a man after midnight?

I'm not going to say I actually enjoyed Mamma Mia, because between the woman on my right hacking up something and asking loud questions ("IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE MOVIE?" "IS THIS A MUSICAL OR SOMETHING?" "IS SHE SLUTTY?" "ARE THEY FRIENDS?" "DID YOU SEE THAT?" "WHY IS SHE DRESSED THAT WAY?" "THIS SEEMS LIKE THE END!") and the little girl to the left screaming (literally) through the entire movie ("OMG MAMMA MIA!! MAMMA MIA!!!"), I had trouble paying much attention to the quality of the acting and the dialogue. However, I will say that I wouldn't mind that much if my life turned into an ABBA musical.

I'm just sayin.' That might actually rock.

Though I'd probably have significantly fewer friends.

7.30.2008

8 ways in which I win.

Lately, though I have been quite overwhelmingly busy and have found some things incredibly frustrating, the overall picture has been quite nice. My conclusion? I win.

1) I have my very first in-person, second interview for a job in a nice place soon. Since this is my very first in-person second interview, I don't have a clue how to prepare. The general consensus amongst friends and colleagues I have asked seems to be a nice mixture of "Don't Panic (in large friendly letters)" and "Be Yourself." Being myself I can handle. Unfortunately, being myself seems to involve panicking when faced with my very first in-person second interview for a job. Conundrum. But win!

2) The Boyfriend and I are chronologically working our way through the Akira Kurosawa films which have been released on Region 1 DVD as of the last time he checked. The last one we watched was Stray Dog, which was delightful. I think Rashomon is coming up soon, which is one of my favorites. Win!

3) The secondhand CD/DVD store down the street from me just moved. This would be sad, but they moved to the other side of the street, which makes it even closer to my apartment. Tonight a friend and I decided to check out the new store, and found all sorts of categories we had no idea had even been in the other store. I left with a copy of Good Bye Lenin! (which I have never seen for sale in the US, ever), The Last Emperor, and the third set of Batman: The Animated Series. All this awesome for under $30. That is win.

4) Unless I am mistaken, the third set of Batman: The Animated Series is the one in which Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl (I think you all know I like Barbara Gordon Batgirl. She was a librarian, after all). Also, I am currently watching an episode of said Batman series, and LeVar Burton just started talking as some sort of henchmen guy. But you don't have to take my word for it.



5) Though I may be the last person to discover this, KeepVid is a delightful website that converts YouTube videos into downloadable Quicktime files. I probably don't need to tell you that I now have several "episodes" of Monsterpiece Theatre on my iPod. (And Ernie and Bert Go Fishing? This may be an appropriate time to confess my love for all things Old Skool Sesame Street. I still think it's funny.)

6) Periodically I go shopping in the bags my sister is donating to Goodwill. It's hard to beat red pyjama pants with kangaroos rocking out to iPods on them.

7) There are fruit flies all over my kitchen. "But!" you might say, "That sounds more like failure!" And you would be right, if I hadn't managed to contain said fruit flies to a bowl in my sink using my magical powers and some balsamic vinegar. Please don't ask what I'm going to do with this bowl. Again, it will probably involve magic. The point is they're not all over the apartment, and thus, I win.

8) Just think how impressive it's going to be when the Brewers recover from their horrible, horrible performance against the Cubs to rocket themselves to the top of the division! It's going to be very impressive. And awesome. But will necessarily involve some winning.

9) I'm going to one of my top two favorite places in the world in a couple weeks.



WIN.

7.29.2008

It's HOT.



It seems to have taken a long time to get here, but summer has finally arrived in the great State of Dairy. Thus, it is hot. It is hot, and it is humid. Let us pretend that everything is snowy and slightly purple outside. That will help.

I don't know about you and if you live in a place that is hot and humid in the summer, but I do. Because of this, I am far less attractive in the summer months and this displeases me greatly. Luckily, at this time I do not need to attract a mate.

While we're waiting for the humid to stop, have a look at this kid who is so excited about that MacBook! I can't blame him, my MacBook is pretty sweet, too.



Thus concludes another post of totally random pictures.

Clearly, I felt obligated to update today despite a lack of actual Stuff to Say. I am truly sorry.

7.22.2008

To Camp.

Kohler-Andrae State Park! If it wasn't so popular in the summer, I'd like it the best of all the Wisconsin State Parks. Alas, it is always packed. We went there for a picnic a couple weekends ago. There were sandwiches, fruit, and I had The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb. All in all, a lovely day at the beach.

These are from that park. They are not from that day.



These are from last fall, but you can pretend the colors on the beach are that pretty right now. Nice, isn't it?

7.16.2008

Da Bears!



"She said what?"



"Ugh. No."

I recently watched Grizzly Man. I enjoyed it, though I thought, "Wow, he's sort of a nut." The other night I watched an episode of Primetime (I very rarely watch it, but you know it sucks you in if you catch two minutes. This particular subset of Primetime is called "The Outsiders" which ABC.com tells me is a 5-part series about, basically, weird people. Like people who buy monkeys and raise them as their children... I didn't watch that one) about a man in Alaska who built a cabin in the woods for the sole purpose of getting a whole crapload of bears to come on by and make friends with him.

Now, I really admire people who are naturalists and ecologists and know things about nature and the animal kingdom and wilderness survival and building log cabins and all those wonderful things, but BEARS KILL PEOPLE. Apparently all the time. Do not go do that site, and do not read the descriptions of what happened (such delights as bears dragging people from their tents and eating them. Don't you dare drag me from my tent, bear! This is my tent!), because it will make you never want to go camping, or anywhere near Canada or the western United States ever again. (Seriously, if I lived in Montana I'd be in parks hiking around all the time. An apparently incredibly stupid thing to do by yourself. Or with your family. Or at all, as bears eat people).

Okay, I knew bears ate people before. I consider myself to be a fairly wilderness-savvy young woman. When hiking in bear territory, you bang pots and sing loudly. You hang your food high up in a tree and don't keep your deodorant or your toothpaste in your tent. If attacked by a bear, you have to figure out what kind of bear it is and then either hit it in the face or curl into a ball (a nice ball of food, like a dumpling. Bears love dumplings, why encourage them?). These are things that are supposed to keep bears from eating you.

I thought it was only mountain lions that randomly attacked people for fun (much to my surprise, Wikipedia's "List of Fatal Cougar Attacks in North America" is considerably shorter than the bear list). I thought bears only ate people who were dragging around delicious elk carcasses. Or tried to make them wear clown outfits in the circus. Or kidnapped their cubs. Or looked at their cubs wrong (my philosophy has been, in the past, to avoid bear cubs at all costs). Or said mean things about their mommas. Or followed them around with video cameras in the middle of their feeding territory. I had no idea bears would drag a person from her tent while she was sleeping. Not looking at any bears, not eating, not making them wear funny clothes. Just sleeping! AGH! My whole view of mountain camping is shattered.

I'm going up to the Boundary Waters later in the summer. There are bears in the Boundary Waters, though I've never heard of a person being eaten by one up there. However, Boundary Waters is dangerously close to Canada (hence the "Boundary"). My impression of Canada has, in one evening, gone from "completely awesome and gigantic place with really great people, sweet cities, beautiful wilderness, and signs in French" to "place where people get eaten by bears and 'Fatally mauled while picking plums.'"

And on a lighter note, that Discovery Channel commercial and the Derek Redmond Visa ad for the Olympics make me love basically everything. Even bears.

Fact: Bears eat beets. And people.

7.12.2008

7.08.2008

One minute update.

It occurs to me, that while I'm fairly certain I know all the people reading this, there might be one or two slightly creepy stalker people who don't know exactly what I've been up to.

Here are the three most exciting things that have happened in my life in the last while:

1) I graduated. I am now a Master of Library Science. Doesn't that sound impressive?



It's less impressive that I never could figure out how to wear the master's hood properly.

2) I went to Ireland (this gets an exclamation point because it's much more exciting)!



Cliffs!



Sheep!



Fantastic, beautiful scenery!



More fantastic, beautiful scenery!



Can there possibly be more fantastic, beautiful scenery?



Oh, but there can!



It's a very nice place, Ireland.

3) I had a perfectly ripe peach and some fancy cheese for dinner this evening while I watched Pride and Prejudice. Simple tastes, you know. I am easily satisfied by the very best.

My, what an exciting life I do lead.

7.07.2008

Wait, Brett said what?! O no he di'int!

What's going on in Wisconsin today, you might ask?

I'll tell you what's going on in Wisconsin today - Sports. Sports. Sports. And sports. Sports. More sports. Oh, and someone (who played sports) was struck by lightning and Milwaukee has a gang problem, but who can concentrate on those things when Brett Favre is sending text messages?!

Evidently not the state of Wisconsin.

I enjoy sports, and the Brewers are my baseball team of choice and the Packers are the Packers, so I don't mind sports being in the news, but this is all I've heard about all day. For two days. They've even stopped talking about the weather, there's so much to say about the sports. Sports and weather, that's what we know about in Wisconsin.

It might be just a little silly, is all I'm saying.



I mean, this is the state that invented the racing sausage. We must already know sports are at least a little silly.

Though now I've got a hankerin' for a brat with some Secret Stadium Sauce...

(My favorite article about the Sabathia trade is this one, which declares, "Sabathia turns 28 on July 21 and will become a free agent after this season. The Indians selected him the first round of the 1988 draft and he has been with the franchise ever since." So... he's been playing professional baseball since he was 8? The kid's got talent!)

7.04.2008

Happy Birthday, Country!

In Milwaukee, as I'm sure they do around the United States, the big ol' fat daddy of fireworks displays is on July 3rd so as not to take away from the smaller surrounding towns and their much smaller, slightly pathetic fireworks displays on the actual holiday of Independence Day.

That said, I think I prefer the smaller fireworks extravaganzas and it is thoughtful of Milwaukee (well done, city) to do this. They remind me more of when I was a wee child and we watched fireworks sitting on the hood of our Firebird (not at all unlike this beauty - there's a car that is not messing around. It's definitely making some sort of statement. That statement might be "Driver is slightly redneck!" or "Hey, I've got a bird on my hood! I can't wait to tell my friends, none of them have a bird this big!" but at least it's going for something). Now fireworks have become this hour-long bombardment that probably sounds more like the London blitz than happy celebration time. See, it's a happy bombardment so it's okay.

Also, everything I saw said that the fireworks started at 10:30. Evidently this was Special Eastern Time, which is an hour and ten minutes ahead of Central Standard Time, because the fireworks actually started at about 9:20 while I was still walking to the lake and I was all, "Dadburnit, they done started without me!" But you know, it's thoughtful of them, for those citizens watching Milwaukee's fireworks from the Hamptons.



WOO PATRIOTISM!!

Happy Birthday, America. You're a good country, even though you get picked on a lot and sometimes you deserve it. I still like you and I hope your 233rd year (golly, you're older than dirt, lil' buddy) is the best ever.

7.02.2008

Oh dear, but it has been a long time, hasn't it?

It seems I've neglected my poor Blogger blog for more than a year. I thought the trial separation was going rather well but apparently the universe had other ideas. Now, since other people I know and like have started using Blogger, I will make an effort to do the same. Who doesn't like pictures? You like pictures!

Yesterday, I went camping! Showing here:



In this place where there was camping, there was also a tree chock full o' kayaks!



In addition to camping and kayak trees, there was nighttime. Fancy that!



It was a very nice camping excursion. I have a bit of kayak I'm planning to plant in my parents' yard to grow my own kayak tree. That would make up for the fact that my kayak, currently in Maine, would cost $575 to ship here.

A little steep for a kayak worth $300. Luckily, when my own kayak tree grows, I'll be able to pluck them from the branches whenever I wish and pay no shipping whatsoever. Delight!