Still in my new home on Wordpress. Just stumbling over for a quick visit. Hullo.

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A forgotten favorite that just popped into my head...

Vertical Horizon
Best I ever had (Grey Sky Morning)

So you sailed away
Into a grey sky morning
Now I'm here to stay
Love can be so boring

Nothing's quite the same now
I just say your name now

[Chorus]
But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
You don't want me back
You're just the best I ever had

So you stole my world
Now I'm just a phony
Remembering the girl
Leaves me down and lonely

Send it in a letter
Make yourself feel better

[Chorus]
But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
You don't need me back
You're just the best I ever had

And it may take some time to
Patch me up inside
But I can't take it so I
Run away and hide
And I may find in time that
You were always right
You're always right

So you sailed away
Into a grey sky morning
Now I'm here to stay
Love can be so boring

What was it you wanted
Could it be I'm haunted

[Chorus]
But it's not so bad
You're only the best I ever had
I don't want you back
You're just the best I ever had
The best I ever had

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"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
- John Stuart Mill

As many times as I've heard this song, as many videos as I've seen of it being performed, it's never made me cry until now.



So beautiful. I love it.

I'm trying to get myself to write a blog tonight at WordPress but I'm just so... not in the mood. Ugh. I need to learn to *get* in the mood, because ooh have I been slacking...

Back to the attempt, I guess.

A video of my favorite atheist libertarian ever talking political parties:

Wait... Jake: Are you a libertarian? Maybe it can be a tie...

I love engineers.

There. I said it.

Super smart guys who understand the ins and outs of words I've never heard of and can barely spell, all to keep machines running and bridges from collapsing? Dreamy!

These guys are my current favorite engineers. I first saw this top video a while ago and was just telling a friend of mine (an engineer!) to check it out, when I saw their new one (below) listed in my Subscription updates. Wahoo!

And now for your viewing pleasure...

Video #1: An Engineer's Guide To Cats


Video #2: An Engineer's Guide to Voting (Ginger for President)


*swoons*

God bless Amurica!

rustyangel : Any insight into why I think of you every time I hear, read, see, or think of a palindrome?

Saw this and especially thought of you:

My sister's freshman orientation was Tuesday. Bekah is officially on board the "I am never attending another freshman orientation, even if it's for my own kids" train. Yay Bek!

(And don't be swayed by that stupid camera icon in the video window if it's still there!! The video's up, it's just... pretending to be down...)


So while Bekah was off touring the campus and doing all that... stuff... my mom and I had some *grand adventures* (read: played Sudoku and napped on a bench in the Union) of our own. Actually- we were able to go out and enjoy a nice, longish walk through the neighborhood, which was fun. Hot, though. Man...

So good for you for attending all of the sessions, my Rose. Sorry your mom and sister had to counter you with a li'l hooky. For whatever it's worth, I have no doubt we were just as bored, if not more so, than you were.

See? Doesn't that just make it all better?!

"You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty."
Cecil Baxter

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke

"Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything."
Blaise pascal

Went to the Bristol Renaissance Faire on Saturday and, as usual, had a way excellent time, thanks in large part to the fact that the day was "hosted" by pureinpink  's family full of awesome people. I've got video clips of some of the acts, and a few pictures, but I haven't had time to pool all that into a video yet, so below is one I made out of a video I took on Friday evening when I was, uh... s'pposed to be working on my lines...

In conclusion: I *did* work on my lines that night, thankyouverymuch. Fat lot of good it seemed to do, though. Really biffed it tonight at dress. Ick. I am such an unprofessional boob.

Wishing I was a professional boob,

Ruth

.

Viiiiiiernes

Mimi and my brother are flying to Niger this Monday afternoon. There's a huge part of me that wishes I could join them, but I just don't feel drawn to go for the same reasons they're going. That, and it's HOT in Niger. Did you know this? HOT. One of those "120 degrees in the shade" type countries.

Giraffes = Abundant? Yes.

Giraffes > Extreme Heat? No.

They have a stop in Casablanca. Cool, eh?

I found their flights and booked 'em a couple months back. In and out on Air Morocco. I'd like to visit Morocco one of these days. I priced it out on Sidestep and it's around $1,600 if you fly out of O'Hare and have a stop at some Mohammad Something Or Other airport in Amsterdam.

Man... I can't even imagine how much Dramamine I'd have to take to be able to handle a flight like that. Yowch.

Went out with Jen and her boyfriend Richard tonight. Had a drink and some mozz sticks, went for an hour long walk along the river in downtown Waukesha, went someplace else for another drink and a lot of sitting and gabbing. Such nice people. And luckily Jen's a talker like me. ;) Poor Richard. ;)

And now, exhaustion sets in and I bid you all good night. Sweet dreams to you all of rivers, midnight walks with friends, and trips to Morocco...



Ahhh- lovely. "Amazigh," even...

Also: I think it's time we all started wearing more lightweight white tunics during the warm summer months. Heavy denim jeans and tight fitting t-shirts? *pfft* Pure silliness!!

"There is no greater impotence in all the world like knowing you are right and that the wave of the world is wrong, yet the wave crashes upon you."
Norman Mailer

"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."
Robert Frost

As soon as this video finished uploading to YouTube-- it is taking so stinkin' long!!-- I will have finished with making Dallas Blogs. Woo hoo, man. Seriously.

I think it's worth attempting to post, though. I mean- I cut stuff and did stuff and whatever. It's like 3% more advanced than the first 18. Still nowhere near as advanced as the vids being posted by foul-mouthed 9 year olds who only seem to know how to post videos whose titles and tags lead you to believe you're going to watch a clip from a show when actually it's JUST A JOKE!! HAHAHA!!!1!111!!!! LOL ITS THI SDUDE AN HE SCREEMIN AND U HAD YER SPEEKERS UP !!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!

*sigh*

And now: I continue my wait. And when it's uploaded, it will go right below here.



Yup. Right up there.

Ah-ha! There it is!! :D

Yup.

Dallas Blog. Number 20. We out.

(Dallas Blog: #19)

P.S. swadhyaya aka OhJennyKo: There's a special clip in it just for you. ;)

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I'm working on my resume and so far it's slow (boring) going.

I copied and pasted EVERYTHING from past versions and updates and notes and things into a new version. It's a total mess. And so much of it is just--- ugh. So poorly written. Some of it's from right after high school. I had no idea what I was doing or saying and boy does it show.

So here I sit with stuff I've got to completely rewrite, mixed in with template suggestions from various web sites, and more superfluous data than I know what to do with as I've been copying and pasting from resumes used for everything from office jobs to teaching jobs to campus jobs... and it comes to two pages.

I don't know how I want to format it yet. So many that I've looked at don't read well visually, but at the same time I know that the viewing/reading methods that work best for me may not be how others will want to see what I'm including so I'm freakin' out that I'm going to find an awesome, clean, easy to read format and will find out that no one uses it because HR types can't stand it.

Phooey.

Regardless: Once I format it it'll shorten up a little, but mostly I've now got to start cutting things. This shouldn't be too hard since I literally have EVERY job I've ever had on there. Lookin' at 14 total. Gonna shorten up real quick-like.

It's describing the more recent/relevant positions using those God awful "action verbs" that's really getting me antsy. I feel like using them is finding a way to maintain honesty while lying about what you've done. "Implemented redesign of human resources support program" should not be used as code for "When I was sent to buy a can of Folgers for the break room I decided to pick up Maxwell House instead because there was a stick on tattoo inside that I wanted for my kid."

Ick.

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."
Sir Winston Churchill

"The avoidance of taxes is the only intellectual pursuit that carries any reward."
John Maynard Keynes

I'm flying back to Dallas this Monday morning at 6 am.

Yeah. 6 comes in the morning, too.

I'm flying there with one of the techs to pack up some things into the Sprinter we have down there, and then he's driving that back and I'm driving back an F-150 that another guy is meeting us with when we arrive.

I'm bringing Alfred with me, naturally. Though after the last trip he doesn't seem terribly keen on making a repeat performance of the whole "driving back to Wisconsin" adventure...



*shrugs*

Whatever.

(Dallas Blog: #18)

Quotes from H. L. Mencken:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.

From Wikipedia: "He died in 1956 at the age of seventy-five, and was interred in the Loudon Park Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. His epitaph reads:

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl."

Hugh Laurie on Ellen Degeneres, not because the clip is so great, but because *HE* is so great. So so so great.

Went to the 20-Something something at church tonight.

I would not call it a "colossal" waste- they had Coffeemate Hazelnut creamer.

First off, the place was furnished with things I wouldn't mind having in my apartment- throw pillows on the floor, tall paper lanterns, tealights in the window sills, huge paintings hung on the walls, etc. But when those types of things are strategically arranged in a place like that... Am I the only one who feels like that's their way of "proving" that they "know me" and are going to try as hard as necessary to make me think they're "hip"? That we're the same? I don't know what to make of it. I don't know why seeing things I would generally enjoy made me feel so awkward. But it did. I've got to stop being so paranoid.

The people seemed nice enough. Everyone was laughing, smiling or just not-frowning. I just-- it's-- it's Borg-y. Everyone dressed so much the same, spoke in the same voice, had the same hair, bags, facial expressions... I mean, I don't know what I'd expect them to wear. I go to theatre things and have the same response to the clutches of people decked out in thrift store rejects to prove their individuality. It's the same thing just from a different store. Everybody wears a social uniform to some degree. I shouldn't be so bothered to see a huge room full of people in clothes that fit, are clean, totally un-trampy, and don't smell weird. It was just-- it was like walking into a bookstore full of off-the-clock-baristas. There's nothing wrong with the people or the place but if that's not your own social uniform it's awfully off-putting.

Then they talked about hymns like we're retarded 14 year old girls snapping our gum in remedial English. I won't say who it was who did the talking. I will say that for some stupid reason I've always felt threatened by her skills and successes because they were so prominent in every circle I ran (read: hobbled) in, and always in areas where I felt like a failure. Why do I let these things get to me? I feel 16...

The stuff the guy said- how have I suddenly become so universally vague?- was interesting. 'Bout identifying ourselves by our jobs (which I imagine is an appropriate thing to talk about at a church where most of those attending come from nicer areas where kids are raised with "strong work ethics"), about obsession with work, and about how phrases like "strong work ethic" are a crock if the only thing you focus on is your work/sense of duty to something other than God/Family/Etc. He moved around a comfortable amount and didn't have any annoying speech patterns. He can stay.

When it was over I was getting my coat on to leave when Kristi Hellmer (yeah, Kristi Hellmer from Carroll!) turned around and climbed up the step/seat thing to hug me hello. D'y'ever feel dangerously disconnected from reality when you discover you've just spent a healthy amount of time within three feet of someone you know and you didn't even realize they were there? *sigh* Anyway, she's going to grad school at UW-Milwaukee for counseling and works at the Y. I *think* she might be married. She's lost weight, is cuter than ever, and wears a green peacoat. And did a scene in acting class four years ago involving a shaving razor and The Joy of Sex.

And now (for Jason, as promised) me reading Private Eyes in the dressing room: ( Read more... )

The Shins - New Slang

0 degrees on the drive to work this morning.

0.

As in: no degrees. Colder than freezing. By a LOT.

Civic previews Arsenic and Old Lace tomorrow night, no? With Jim Bloomingdale? Who's with me? If you want to go, Jenny, let me know and I'll swing by and pick you up.

Trying to work up the nerve to go back out into the cold in 8 minutes. Shoot! I forgot my gloves at home again! Why do I keep doing that? Have I forgotten where I live?!

Also: I *heart* paycheck Wednesday. And I get 6.0% on all money I put into my HSBC account between now and some time in April! Sweet! Lasik here I come...

So... the Generals went well. Thanks to C for the parking advice and M for the soup.

I'm watching House with my parents and my dad is making us do sit-ups during commercial breaks.

What does it feel like in your final moments to die of cancer? There's this guy on the show with no friends and no family and he's dying of cancer and doesn't want to be treated so that at least in his death he'll be remembered.

My grandpa has leukemia, but he doesn't talk about it. He had a small heart attack last week. We found out today.

Time to end this very long day...

Damien Rice - 9 Crimes ( Read more... )

Started the morning off by driving around the neighborhood picking up literature/sample packets we dropped off on Friday. One of those errands where you're out of the car just long enough for your thighs to feel rock hard and frozen, but in the car just long enough for your legs to become so much warmer than your pants that you feel like your clothes are on fire.

How refreshing!

Got my nails done on Saturday afternoon at the nail place in the Brookfield Commons. The color's been flaking off since last night. Lousy, good for nothin'... *grumble grumble grumble...*

Just wanted to throw that out there.

Monologue time.



( Read more... )

Poe - Hello - Trigger Happy Jack

aka

Poe - Hello - My How Music Videos Have Changed



Show last night was alright. Alexis might be coming on Sunday afternoon, which is cool.

Mm... I think that's it.

Regina Spektor: Samson

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
He told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
and kissed me till the morning light
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one