Octopuses attempting to evolve fingers, must be stopped!

Silly octopuses, fingers are for people and monkeys or some shit. Quit it you weirdos.

Via Pink Tentacle. (I know what it sounds like, but it is not like that. Perverts.)

I'm going on vacation...

and I may, or may not, take you guys. I mean you're cool and what not, but you know, I may need my space.

For the next ten(ish) days I am going to be on an epic road trip/treasure hunt with:
3 cousins: 16 year old boy, 13 year old boy, 8 year old girl
The Grandma
The Grandpa
The Auntie
The Uncle
6 SCHNAUZERS (I will make this my official prayer/finger crossing request of the week.)

So I depart for the frosty north again tomorrow morning with the goal of finding gem stones in the dirt and also acquiring glass bottle Coke. Delicious (The coke, not dirt. Dirt often contains poo and should be avoided. Unless it also contains sapphires.)

We'll go through Montana, then Idaho, then back. It should be fun and I intend to blog, but this may not happen. It is hard to say.

So, now I've updated you and uhm... I think that is all I've got for today. Look forward to maybe some sporadic updates (maybe) and uhm... I think I'll go make some cookies for tomorrow.
Enjoy your not vacation, suckers.

For your viewing enjoyment

Sometimes I am filled with great love and wonder at the awesomeness of other people.

Meet Anderson Pooper, The World’s Sexiest Anderson Cooper Lookalike and Cat
via BWE's Michelle Collins (who in my zesty alternate Quiana universe could be my hip NYC best friend).

----
And sometimes I am not.


















Sharpened spikes at Green Lake
The discovery of more than three dozen machine-sharpened spikes at the Green Lake boating center has prompted the city of Seattle to post warnings to would-be swimmers.
@ Seattle Times.

There is only one "n-word"; this word is not 'nuts'.

Dear American news media,

'Nuts' is not a bad word. You could also say 'balls' or 'testes', neither of which are bad words. If you can call a woman a bitch on TV, CNN can use the word 'nuts' if it is legitimately news worthy. I don't want to shock anyone, but I hear from various sources that the majority of men have testicles, so I think that it is probably fine to say.

Please quit calling it 'the n-word', it's juvenile and honestly quite silly.

Thanks!

q.

And while I'm on the topic...

This whole Jackson-Obama "feud" is ridiculous and the situation reminds me of the plot of an old episode of Scrubs, in which JD doesn't realize his mic is still on. (Coincidentally, this episode was about race.) Unprofessional.

Furthermore, I don't ask my pastor who to vote for (Obama), but if he started trying to tell me who to vote for, that would be the end of his religious guidance.

Jackson is a sham and in my opinion has not helped anyone, black or white, in America since the mid-sixties, unless you think so-called "interracial" political coalitions are super.

Additionally, Jackson has been a divisive force within every group he has belonged to, from the SCLC, to the Democratic Party, to America.

Oh and by the way, he's an anti-Semite.

Oh and he's a baptist minister who cheated on his wife (hypocrite) and was too stupid to use protection (so stupid) .

And lest we forget, he is a grown man who uses the word 'nuts' and an idiot who doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut in a TV studio.


If you are the only person in the universe who isn't sick of this topic, you can catch up at the NYT.

Apple and Tree: Measuring the Distance of the Fall, Hoping it is Really Far

Monday, between 9:30 and 11:30 pm.
Mother leaves a vm asking for my new address, the same new address I have emailed to all 3 of her accounts twice. Didn’t call her on account of how it was nearly midnight.

Tuesday, 6 pm.
Receive vm from Grandma asking me to call her back immediately. Did so and was admonished for not calling my mother back for days. Notified her that mother called less than 24 hours ago for information she already has.

Tuesday, 8 pm.
Receive second vm from mother again asking for my address and chastising me for:

1. Leaving her hanging for days and now my b-day card will be late.
2. Not having given her my new address sooner.

Also notes that she left a vm on the home phone (Apparently we have a vm on that line. Would have been nice to know that one existed.) Note that my mother knows I am not home and have not been home for 20 some odd days and will not be home until August, but can’t remember what she has dialed so leaves to voicemails with identical lengthy chastisements.

Tuesday 10:30 pm.
Called my mom back on my home phone, which has free calling to Canada. Notified her of my new address and reminded her of how it has been emailed. Twice. Then in engaged in circular argument:

Q: You called yesterday.

Mom: No, I called Monday and you never called back.

Q: YES. You called at 10 pm YESTERDAY.

M: No, I didn’t, I called Monday.

Q: No, I mean yes. Today is… oh forget it.

[Gastrointestinal] Distress Signal

Yes, I am aware of TMI, I just don’t care. If I have to suffer, you have to suffer.

I spent the majority of Monday morning disrespecting or attempting to disrespect the bathroom. 4 (FOUR!) pepto caplets were taken and I still barely survived.

I took yesterday off, and felt more or less ok, but today I am yet again displeased with the universe. (Though on a much lesser scale.)

Two possibilities:

1. I am allergic to work.
2. Someone at work sneaks over and throws laxatives in my coffee mug while I am not paying attention. I’m looking at you Bark Bark Bark Lady.

T4 Teaser Trailer is up at io9

The new Terminator 2: Salvation teaser is up and is very teas-y at io9.

Thriller Birthday

Attempting to Attract Fraggles

I am disproportionately excited about the state of my container garden. I am daydreaming of lovely vege and sit smugly as though other than watering and planting the seeds I am some how responsible for their magical growth. Tuesday: no pumpkin sprouts. Wednesday: pumpkin sprouts. It is like a vege fairy came in the middle of the night. Almost all my seeds have sprouted!

It is very hard to feel glum when magical vegies are appearing.

Add to that joy the glee of surviving another year of life.

Yes, on Thursday I will officially survived 28 years on this planet. Really pretty good I think. And while I know that many people use birthdays as measuring sticks for goals they did not achieve, I choose to pat myself on the back for neither tipping a soda machine onto myself, nor failing to look both ways.

I have dodged innumerable bullets and feel the very strong urge to enjoy a nice margarita in celebration come Thursday.

But today the sun is out and I am just over a week out of a two week vacation and soon I will be chomping away at all sorts of fun vege. If this is not sunshine under my feet, then do not disabuse me.

WHAT?!

Joys of Summer

Glass bottled Mexican Coke beading up in the heat

Cherry Slurpees.

Loud country music, windows down. Eat it, country-haters.

Showing off the shoulders and feeling the warmth of the sun on my sun blocked pale skin.

Going to the farmers market and buying deep red and purple berries (and eating a few in the car).

Buying frozen yogurt with Addy and devouring it before it melts and makes the sprinkles run.

Going to the beach after work to look for beach glass and sitting in the warm sand, enjoying the salty stink.

Eating on the deck at Matador.

Eating cookies at a view point on a morning hike.

BBQ every week.

Quiet offices half emptied of vacationing coworkers.

Never getting caught behind a school bus.

Looking forward to the cool fall with Halloween, Thanksgiving(s), and the gift buying prior to Christmas.

Iced tea. (Especially with chunky raw sugar.)

Dairy Queen. Especially ice cream cakes and cherry dipped cones.

Baseball games at Safeco with the roof wide open.

Margaritas.

Reading paperbacks in the park.

Rude Awakenings

This morning my phone, rather than playing my calypso styled morning wakeup tone, began vibrating frantically with a completely gray screen. I pushed every button, it would not stop.

There I am in my monkey pj’s fighting a continuously vibrating phone and trying to remember how you get the back off of the damn thing. Meanwhile pets are all thinking "yay it is food time!" and beginning to caterwaul.

Apparently removing the back of this phone is a very difficult task as numerous people have Googled that very topic which has spawned numerous how-to messages on every venue you could imagine including a Youtube video.

After my valiant struggle my phone seemed fine, but I was all stressed out, so I decided to lay there for a minute and promptly fell asleep for an hour.

I think that my phone is demonically* possessed**.

And that was my awesome story about that.



*Blogger says this is not a word, I think that it is. Word backs me up, so I'm going to roll with it.
** Though as far as demonic hijinx (also not accepted blogger word) go, making me an hour late to work when my boss is on vacation and I am still the first one in is not very extreme.

Environmental concern not as strong as survival instinct.

So I’ve been very interested in this whole riding my bike to work thing and inquiring to other cyclists as to what that is like.

In short, it is like being hit by a car.

Every person I’ve asked about commuting by bike, no matter how long or short their commute is, has been hit by a car.

So in as much as I care about polar bears and hate to think of them treading water, I hate to think about getting run over ever so much more.

I think that my bicycle daydream is over.

Links are the new content.

Bacon, The Obsession, is being examined over at Salon.

Economists' predictions of $4 a gallon tipping point for Americans to drastically change their behavior, have apparently borne out. (Via Freakonomics.) Today I was reading that gas is actually down $4 a barrel. Who wants to bet we see $5 before the end of the year anyway?

Anyone else deeply concerned about the likely military cover up of the probable murder (and possible rape) of Pfc. LaVena Johnson? A soldier who, according to the US military, committed suicide by shooting herself with a rifle, pouring acid on her own crotch and self-immolating. Perhaps this would have worked if Pfc. Johnson's father wasn't a doctor.... Find out more here.

Spoilers SUC: Why I Loved WALL-E

New spoiler filled post up at Spoilers SUC: Why I Loved WALL-E.

Things I am learning about Vicodin OR Why there was no blog entry yesterday…

So I went in to the dentist yesterday about a tooth that had been hurting and the short version of the story is that I got a partial root canal. Suffice it to say, it was AWESOME! I will share one highlight though, actual quote from dentist:

“It’s really good that you chose to get this taken care of right away, because blood should not be just spurting out like that.”

Cue Quiana fainting. Kidding. (Sorta.)

So I dropped by the office and told my boss I was going home as the dentist had proscribed vicodin for the pain.

Got my prescription from Walgreen’s in record time. Here is a transcript of the convo with the pharmacist:
Adorable Asian Pharmacist: Are you sure you want to wait here, it might be an hour….
Q: I just had an impromptu root canal, so I probably should wait.
AAP: Oh dear. Well I will bump you to the front then.
Q: [eyes tear up with love of humanity] Thank you!

Had two (2!) bowls of soup and one vicodin and pretty much immediately passed out for over 6 hours. Woke up, ate dinner, had another vicodin and immediately felt AWFUL. I hung in there for a while, but I just couldn’t go to bed without at least sort of brushing my teeth and washing my face, so I half heartedly attempted to do so, then whammo I hurled.

So the lesson that I am learning is either:

2 vicodin = chunks blown.

OR

Vicodin + mediocre eggplant parmesan = chunks blown.

Either way, yesterday was not a good day. At all. With the spurting and the hurling and the spending ¾’s of the day passed out/ rolling about murring and wishing for death and the other ¼ having “tissue” removed from my tooth interior/ loitering at Walgreen’s with numb face.