R.I.P. Toothbrush holder

I'm minus a good thing in my life. The toothbrush holder I mentioned in that blog entry doesn't suction cup to the mirror anymore. I have one less thing to be grateful for. This will probably be replaced, but in the meantime, it makes me sad. And if IKEA doesn't have anymore, then I'll be mad.

BTW, my next entry should be a happy one if all goes as planned....

My dad has a blog

So my dad has a blog now. www.blogbydick.blogspot.com. He'll probably get a lot of hits from people looking for porn. He's using the same template as me and has therefore gained points towards being a girly-man. (Though I doubt Arnold would ever accuse him of being an economic girly-man.)

I finally had to do laundry this weekend. I dread laundry because the machines here are sketchy and I'm not sure if I can trust the people. I drove around town looking for laundromats, but they were just as sketchy so I came back. Luckily I picked the right washer because the other one turned out to leak everywhere and flood the place. But I ended up with the crappy dryer and had to run my clothes through it twice. One load cost me $4.50 for all that. And I still have another load waiting.

Allison and Charles were here this weekend! Allison got her first fan mail for her radio show. The first funny part is that it was from an inmate at the penitentiary...Some right-wing convicted felon doing time for armed robbery praising her show. The second funny part is that he isn't bad looking.

Denise dog sat again while Allison was here. This dog, Raleigh, is so fun to watch because he's a puppy and dumb. I made it dance by circling an oreo around its head. It's so much cuter than Cocoa and doesn't bite my friends.

It's the little things

When life is going rough, I think it's important to think about the little good things to keep yourself sane. So that's what I'm going to do with this entry.

Good things in Jane's Life:

• My zip code, 22204, because it has three 2's in a row and I don't have to jump around on the keyboard as much as I did when I was living in good old 94306 (man that was annoying).
• My 4 lb computer which is sitting on my lap as I type on my wonderful IKEA queen size bed.
• I have a roll of film to look forward to developing.
• The toothbrush holder Denise got for the bathroom. It suction cups to the mirror so the brushes don't clutter up the sink and we don't have to go into a cabinet.
• I have at least two weekend trips planned for the month of October. Btw, for those in NYC, I think (but I'm not sure) that I'll be there the weekend of October 15. So if you want to see me, let me know!
• Thursday night TV with Joey and The Apprentice!!

(I admit there was a lot of thinking time between coming up with each one of these.)

Ok, all fixed

**I didn't realize the first entry about the Surreal Life got posted because when I tried to post it, it gave me an error message, but apparently it did get posted. Then when I posted the rewrite, I saw the first one, but the internet was so slow I didn't have the patience to fix it. So now I have gotten rid of the first one and added the Bad Advertising Strategy to the second one.**

I actually did something at work today and it wasn't data entry, it was color entry. I used Excel and color coordinated cells according to whether someone had a time sheet signed or not. I think I'm going to fool around with it some tomorrow, because I don't like the colors being used. There are four and they clash. Magenta, light pink, olive green and lime green. Even I have better taste than that. (They were chosen before I started working on it.)

I think the coffee at work was stronger than normal this morning. I had the normal one cup but was extra jittery. This was not good for the phone interview I had during my lunch. My voice was all choppy. I lacked suaveness. Sigh. Better luck next time.

Since I got a rave review from my sister about the chin hair piece, so I figure I should continue with bodily news. Apparently I have hives. At least that's what Denise thinks it is. It's either that or a lot of bug bites in which case I should be worried about blood loss. In any case, I have taken some Benadryl for the itchiness. Also, I'm realizing that I'm going to have to wear my bottom retainer for my whole life. If I go even one night without wearing it, I can start to see my one very crowded tooth get pushed back. Back to the hives...I hope I'm not allergic to my sheets. But they're jersey sheets so then I'd have to be allergic to t-shirts. (Wow that would suck.) Hmm...I've never really been allergic to anything...what a mystery.

I just did spell checker and I accidently spelled anything "anythiny" but it didn't even suggest "anything" as a correction. It did have "anytime", "Anthony", "antenna", and "Antaean" which has the never before seen "aea" combination, just to name a few. So when I typed in anything as the correction, it gave me a warning box saying my replacement "HAS NOT been validated". (Caps are theirs.) But it validates "Antaean"??? Since words don't have feelings, I'm going to feel insulted for "anything".

Reality TV makes me think

I never thought I'd have a revelation while watching The Surreal Life, but alas, I did. For those of you who don't know, it's a show that takes I think 6 C-list Hollywood "stars" and has them live in a house together. This season has Joey from Full House and Ryan Starr from the first season of American Idol. There's also this short, ugly, obnoxious guy named Flavor Flav (I don't know what he's known for) who gets it on with this chick Brigitte. Flavor is one of those people who has no redeeming qualities and is hopeless in becoming what I consider to be a good person. Needless to say, I don't understand what Brigitte sees in him.

Which brings me to my revelation: It bothers me when people don't know when to be sketched out. This also occurred on Real World San Francisco with the horrendous Puck. I've talked to a bunch of people who really liked Rachel on that season, but if you ask me, the fact that she was attracted to Puck, instead of completely repulsed like one should have been, told me she had issues. Perhaps I'm being harsh and missing something big here, but I don't think so. (I just have to say that so people know it has occurred to me.)

Ok, enough ranting.


Denise and I are watching a show on the Discovery Health Channel about a 7 yr old boy who was pregnant with his own twin. He has this big bulge in his stomach but his parents didn't think he needed to see a doctor until years later when he complained of stomach pains. So basically there was a baby growing inside of a baby as a parasite. There was a South Park episode about this. Way too cool.

In other news:

I have a hair growing out of my chin. It is about an inch long and I haven't decided what to do about it. Tugging on it hurts so I don't want to do that. I could cut it, but it might just keep growing. Hmmph.

I continue to do nothing at work. I have finished my project of putting together nearly 100 orientation binders. I worked very slowly today so it would take up the whole time. This means one page at a time and only when someone is walking by. Otherwise I would chat online and do other fun things on the internet such as learning that Bush is ahead in the land of New Jersey. ::Insert McGreevy girly-man joke here::

For those of you who are interested, I signed up for Friendster. If you are also a member, you can find me by typing in "Bucknell, Gunn" under schools and invite me to be your friend! It's really cool...I've spent hours at work looking at the profiles of people I went to highschool with. It's like a reunion preview.


Bad Advertising Strategy: Airing a commercial for the Weeble Wobble city set-up during the movie Seven.

Experiementing with substances at "work"

I continue to sit in my cubicle and do nothing. I was actually given a task this week: To put together about a hundred orientation binders. I sit with them at my desk and go back and forth between that and playing on the computer. That way it looks like I'm actually doing something when people walk by, but right now everyone's in a meeting so I'm saving the "work" for when they get out. I am so not worth $15/hr.

I have officially deemed Thursday night as TV Night. I'm very impressed with Joey, especially for a spin-off. And of course, The Apprentice is awesome. I will have to make sure I never have conflicts on Thursday nights.

Currently, I'm trying to see how much of a caffeine kick I can get. I'm not a huge fan of coffee, but it's something to do so I'm drinking pretty slowly and only on cup two. I drown it in cream and sugar.

I heard on the radio this morning that newly pregnant women are more likely to be murdered than die any other way. Wonderful. I'm assuming these women are murdered by the fathers and as bad as I feel for them, (I know I say this type of stuff a lot) shouldn't they at least see it coming in these men??

Crap. I just spilled coffee on me as I was finishing my second cup. It came out the little straw. It's all good though cuz it's almost lunch time. I'm on to cup number three, but first I gotta pee.

I don't have a job, but I do have an income

I just got back from lunch. I am at "work". In case you haven't heard about my so-called "job", basically I do the same things I did before I had a "job" except I sit in a cubicle and I get paid. There is seriously nothing for me to do here. I don't feel like they need me at all and I'm embarrassingly overqualified. This morning all I did was put a few files in numerical order. Now I'm waiting for the checklist so I can check them off.

Things I have been pondering include whether I should worry about my cuticles or lack thereof. Eczema has eaten them away and I don't know if they are important. I feel like they had to be there for a reason. Also, my nails are wrinkly. I think I have a vitamin deficiency. Does anyone know what might cause this?

I finally found a gym I like. I will be joining the Alexandria YMCA. No down payment, and no contract. I went to a cardio class yesterday and went swimming after. I really like that it has a pool. The chlorine really made me tired, but I still didn't get to bed until after 1am. I DREAD mornings!

Belated Birthday fun!

I got TWO belated birthday gifts today! It was such a great way to end the week. The first was a fudge brownie mix and frosting from Peetie and Phil. You fellow mathy people will appreciate this: They got me two candles...a 7 candle and a Pi candle. AHHHHAHAHAHA, I love dorks!

The other gift was a red Northface jacket form my parents. Now I have a reason to look forward to winter!

I was bored at work again today and so I decided to learn about how they name hurricanes. I learned a lot I didn't know. There are six sets of names A through W, skipping Q and U. So every six years they repeat. If a hurricane causes enough damage, then the name is retired. This is only for the Atlantic storms. You can find a list for all the names in all the areas of the world here: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/B2.html. I found it interesting that they used to only be women's names, but men's names got added in 1979 after women's rights groups protested.

Hopefully my weekend will be a little more fun than my week.

TGIF

Things I did at work today:

• Move files from one cabinet to another.
• Organize an office supply cabinet that didn't need organizing.
• Make a list of all my cousins (I have 95 if you include only first cousins and their offspring plus 3 unborn babies.)
• Made tons of copies and got lots of paper cuts so that the new employees have huge packets of handouts they will never read.

I think I'm going to join the Y in Alexandria. There's no contract, no down payment and it's only $41/month. They have an indoor pool and a reasonably sized weight room. I don't even know if I'll bother visiting Gold's Gym now. I really don't feel like dealing with the membership sales guy who keeps calling me. His name is Mack. Gag me.

For some reason I'm having blogger's block. Usually I'm able to ramble on about anything, but I'm having a brain freeze on what's been happening in my life.

I need to pick a weekend go to to New York and visit everyone I know there. I also need to pick a weekend to fly up to Maine and see my sister and make sure she's doing ok. It turns out Denise and I are going to get some money back for the days we didn't have AC. I think I'll put it towards my plane ticket. Woohoo to the new and cheap Independence Air!

I am very very underslept and must get some sleep.

Life Inside the Beltway

Sorry for the lack of blogging. The real world has thrown some punches and I didn't want to just whine on my blog.

I'll get the crappy stuff out of the way: The first night I had my car it got towed because I parked it in Denise's reserved spot thinking no one would care unless the owner of the spot called in, but no...they do care. And the Tard of the Week award goes to the cab driver who took me to the wrong towing place even though I gave him the business card WITH THE ADDRESS ON IT. Luckily the two young kids working at the wrong towing place were really nice and drove me over to the other one. Then two days later I got a traffic ticket. This whole having a car thing was not working out.

But now things are better and I drove to Bucknell and back on less than a tank of gas this weekend. It was nice to get away and see people. Jackie got me a Garfield birthday cake. I ate it straight off the tray which was really fun. It's over half gone now. I ate in the caf once and it really seems like the food has gone downhill. The M&M cookies were thin and weak and not very chewy. It's sad because M&M cookies are what made the caf worthwhile.

Saturday I went shopping with Mandy and Jackie. I start working tomorrow and needed some more work clothes. So we went to Gap and I tried on some pants that sit up around your belly button. For these pants, I was a size 8. Then I tried a different style that sat lower and the 8 was clearly too big, so I tried a 6 which was still too big so I tried a 4. Perfect. WTF.

I have no idea what I'm in for with this job tomorrow. It's with Coca Cola and I'm reporting to high level administrative people which intimidates me. I got it through a temp agency so I didn't interview and have never been to the place. I hope they don't care I don't drink Coke.

My sister is off at college now at Bates. I think about her a lot and really hope she has a good year. Freshman year is a lot of fun. I want to go visit her at some point. Woohoo to $108 round trips from Independence Air!

Denise and I are considering moving since we've been having a lot of problems with the apartment like roaches and the hot water goes off periodically and we've heard a story about someone getting stuff stolen from the laundry machines. The laundry machines really sketch me out here so I brought all my dirty clothes and sheets to Bucknell this weekend. It was nostalgic getting to use the the gateway washers.

If you read my AIM profile then you've already seen this, but I'll put it here anyway:

**NEVER, EVER, EVER JOIN A BALLY TOTAL FITNESS GYM**

(And pass the message along.)