I didn't, however, sit in the corner rocking while clutching my external hard drive

This weekend I was pretty hot-and-cold. I had some fabulous times wringing one last good weekend out of the semester with my friends, but I also spent a lot of time pouting about my computer.

This is what would happen: I would sulk quietly about the fact that I could not look up the weather or check my email because my computer is broken. Then one of my kind friends would offer theirs up and I would use it, bemoaning the fact that this screen resolution is too low, or MY computer has the weather bookmarked or my favorite this computer doesn't have FIREFOX and boo-hoo, I don't have these luxuries because my computer is broken. At which point I would close the computer and go back to pouting about not having mine. It was a lovely time for all individuals involved.

So then I got my computer back and folks, I had a LOT of software on this machine, all of which has and/or had to be reinstalled. They were kind enough to install Office, but I had to install everything from Firefox to my camera software and GOOD GRIEF! I didn't realize how much downloading I've done. I think I've got everything except my Adobe programs, which I don't have the installation software for anyway, so now I've got to go find someone who does. And if you think I am going back to Loudonville this summer without Photoshop to while away the time well then YOU ARE WRONG, MY FRIEND.

I'm also having a hard time locating my Dreamweaver software cd, and that one I PAID for, so ironically it's the one I should have and won't be able to get back. It's also the only one I need to complete my work for this week! So thank you, hard drive! Thanks for NOTHING!

I had a hard time getting over the poutiness when I turned on my computer because it still wasn't MY computer. All of my desktop images are gone so I have to use the generic ones, and that makes things feel a little unfamiliar. In addition to that desktop fiasco, I was also shocked to discover that those damn post-its are no longer free. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to break down and spend the money ($20!!!), because I sort of need them now to keep track of my life. At least now I will be able to pick the color instead of using the icky bland yellow ones.

But seriously THANK GOD this computer is home.

I'll be locking up my iPod and carrying my phone in a protective case from now on because I'm not dealing with any more broken things right now

I am sort of a superstitious person. I believe that May 21st and March 27 are unlucky days for me, but I don't really buy the Friday the 13th stuff. I'll let black cats cross my path but I won't walk under a ladder or pick up a heads-down penny (which makes me feel OCD when I'm picking up spilled change). And for a long time, I have lived by the rule of never saying anything negative about an inanimate object that I consistently rely on. I learned it from my very first vehicle, a 1987 Ford Ranger, and it has served me well until just recently.

I love my car, for example. I tell it that, too. And what does it do but go and break down requiring $1600 in repairs? I loved my first cell phone, and it stopped working. I don't like my printer, but you can be sure that it will last until I'm 35. And while we sold that Ranger 4 years ago, my family often sees the new owner driving it through town. Spiteful things DON'T DIE.

But the love I have for my car or that phone (or my new one for that matter) fade in comparison to the love I have for my computer. My computer is my baby, and I love it and I take it everywhere with me. And sure it's looking a little rough on the outside, but it's a trooper! It handles all the heavy-duty software I make it run for me and picks up those wireless signals and just yesterday I said to my dad, "I love my computer and I will be sad when I have to replace it."

It must've taken offense, or felt like making me sad, because not six hours later the hard drive went bad and failed to recognize my personal settings. Personal settings are important because they do things like control what's on your desktop and locate the files in My Documents. Personal settings are handy little things. And did I mention that I can no longer save anything?

So tomorrow I have to go get a new hard drive, and I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not going to lose any documents or photos or anything like that, but I am going to lose some software and that is frustrating. And it just goes to show that you certainly don't win by being negative, but evidently you don't win by being positive, either. Or maybe you do and resistentialism is real. (I prefer the latter.)

Lists: Quirky or crazy, you decide

Things I have not yet taken care of in regards to moving into this apartment
"This apartment," of course, being the place I've lived in for nine months.

1. Put up the curtain in the window over my desk. It's there, the thing to hang it on is there, I would just have to take the time to actually put these things together and hang them up.

2. Change the lightbulb in my closet, which burned out while I was hanging my clothes up for the very first time.

3. Learn how to use the timer on the oven.

Things I wrote down to share with you today
1. I do not understand why scooters are called scooters. Think about it: scoot-ers. They do not scoot. It makes no sense.

2. Did you notice that when you misspell something in a Google search that it gives you that little suggestion at the top of your results page? So if you Googled spagheti sauce, the top of the page would say: Did you mean: spaghetti sauce? And then you feel a little bit bad about yourself, because, you know, THANK YOU Google for using the most condescending text styles to tell me how wrong I was about a subject I obviously needed information about in the first place.

3. I really enjoy days that start out cloudy and eventually clear up. It's sort of like the world is feeling just as bad about it being 8am as I am, and sort of begrudgingly agrees to the arrival of daylight by delaying it as much as possible.

Commercials I will change the channel just to avoid
1. The one for something microwaveable where a candelabra and a violinist come out of the microwave. No one talks. NO ONE. It's so creepy and not funny.

2. The claymation dog treats commercial. I will NOT buy "Smackos" ever. EVER. That's a serious anti-advertising campaign.

3. The Jon Lovitz Subway commercial.

You know the commercials I DO miss? The Sally Struthers "earn your GED etc." ones. But I think that's just because it was on so often when I was little, and then I'd get a rush of nostalgia.

Speaking of nostalgia, smells that make me remember being small
1. Palmolive dish soap. Only the green kind, though. I think my grandma must've used it or something, because it smells like being shorter than the kitchen counter.

2. Cut grass. I think about playing in the backyard every single time I smell it.

3. Goober Grape. We used to eat these snack-size cups of it, and they came with a little wooden paddle tongue-depressor-like thing that you were supposed to use to spread it on bread. But we'd just eat it using the paddle as a spoon, and so sometimes when I'm even just eating a normal peanut butter & jelly sandwich, I wish I had a tongue depressor to suck on afterwards. Weird, I know.

Okay, if that's not proof this post is over I don't know what is.

How to have a nice day (in comparison to some pretty rough ones)

1. Turn in a paper you're glad you didn't have to stay up ALL night to write.

2. Turn in another paper you didn't have to finish yet.

3. Parallel park. Perfectly.

4. Get the cd you bought for $5 on Amazon in the mail (nothing is as good as getting a package)

5. Start your homework before 10pm

A present for me is like a present for you

I borrowed my dad's camera again when I went home last week because I knew I'd want to take some pictures of Miami's campus. I am a sucker for tulips and I wanted to get over myself and take pictures of them this year. I generally feel stupid stopping in front of Bachelor Hall to squat down in front of the flower beds. This year was no different, except for the fact that my pictures didn't turn out totally bad (it's all in the megapixels, evidently).

Then my dad called to tell me about a birthday present. What could it be? A camera! The very one I have in my possession right now! I was so happy I went out and took more pictures.

So here you are: Spring at Miami. Alternately titled, Loren uses the macro function.

I'll take "Great American Authors I Haven't Read" for 200, please

Today in Journalism we played Journalism Jeopardy. I was running late, so I walked in while they were asking one of the first questions.

Then one of the guys on my team and I swept the American Authors section*, and my professor told us to be sure to thank our high school English teachers.

Thanks Mom!


*I got Margaret Mitchell, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and someone else. If there was a career in the memorization of famous authors, I would not need a college education. Unfortunately, the only good thing about knowing who wrote what is the satisfaction of knowing it. And honestly it's been a long time since I finished a book that was considered a "classic." I think I just memorize the authors so people assume I've read the books. SUCKERS!**

**No, seriously, I do feel bad about this.

Happy Easter

It was a nice Easter weekend. This was my Easter basket, which I spent the day fantasizing about being filled with all the good things Brendan and I are going to make in our kitchen next year:



We were also impressed to see that my mom had put eggs out in the front yard for us. However, they were empty, so we left them there until she convinced us that neither she nor my dad had put them there. So our yard was full of eggs! And we don't know where they came from! How exciting! At this point we went to pick up the eggs, but still couldn't figure out where they came from. It was so fun, especially since all I did was take pictures while everyone else walked around in the wet grass:

My brother, on the diversity of college students

"I've met so many different kinds of people that I don't have a way to describe why I dislike them all."*

*It seems recently that I ought to just rename my blog "Overheard in My Life" or something. Sorry about that.

Four things to tell you

1. In Italian, after my professor reads from a passage we were supposed to read for our homework:
"But I don't understand this."

"That's too bad. It's the part you're supposed to laugh at."

2. I'm sorry for the disjointed, list-style posts recently. I recently started reading Mimi Smartypants (too lazy to link!) and her style is creeping into mine. I think it will wear off soon, but you can never be too sure about that kind of thing.

3. My car! She's supposedly "running like new" but we'll see when I pick her up after work. She better be running like new for the money it cost. She ought to be running with a diamond-encrusted gear shift or something. Honestly.

AND THE BEST FOR LAST
4. I recently discovered 3hive.com, and since then have spent waaaaaay too much time listening to mp3's, looking them up on Amazon.com, and adding cd's to my (already extensive) wishlist. I'm looking for a good summer anthem* cd. Last summer, it was Beck's Guero, and the summer before that it was The White Stripes' Elephant. I've been playing Interpol's Antics ad nauseum lately, so with all that in mind, let me know if you have any suggestions. If no one comments on this post, I will be SUPREMELY disappointed.


*what I mean is, a good cd to leave in my car for nearly three months that I enjoy listening to everytime I drive and subsequently reminds me of Summer 2006 for the rest of my life.

Priceless

My Political Science professor wanders over to the window during his lecture. He stops talking, sticks his head out the window, and yells, "Don't come here!"

The girl in the desk next to the window says, "That's the biggest campus tour I've ever seen."

I'm too lazy to find a good one, so pretend this title is a Ben Folds song lyric

I'm thinking of retracting that last post, because my car is a big fat BITCH and I hate her right now.

Anyway, new design, blah blah blah, this one took a little more work because I redesigned the code as well, and all of you are going, we don't really care AT ALL, but you know what? I am proud of myself so I don't really mind that you all don't really care. AND if you aren't using Firefox, you're wrong. Very, very wrong [Steps down from soapbox].

Ben Folds came to Miami tonight, marking the second time I've ever seen someone perform live. You know, it isn't that great. (He did sing an improvised song about Miami and Oxford ["You know/They don't write 'Octopussy'/On the houses in England/No they don't"] and I suppose that was worth going. And so was spoiling the song "Brick" for Christina, because she didn't know it was about abortion. Neither did I until about two months ago, but that's neither here nor there.) I guess next time I want to spend $20 on a concert ticket, I will just buy the cd and save myself the trouble. I love music, but concerts evidently just aren't my thing. Of course, given the option between a concert or a 3D movie, I will pick the concert every single time, even if it's Michael Jackson anyway.

Obviously unrequited love

Dear Car of Mine Which is Currently Sitting in the Spring Street Auto Garage,
Hi. We need to have a little chat.

What's the deal? I know you're getting old and I know you've got 115 thousand miles behind you. And I know you've got that annoying tire that won't stay full of air, and I know there's still that big rhubarb pie stain on the passenger seat (you've got to forgive me for that, I was like, too tired to breathe that weekend). But this is ridiculous. This is the fourth time I've had to have you checked out since September. FOURTH. And on only one of these occasions did you not require me to wait for a tow truck.

I feel like we need to have this talk for a couple of reasons. First, I need to drive you. Second, I don't enjoy being on a first-name basis with the tow truck guys. Third, if you were my boyfriend you'd be breaking my heart right now because I love you.

I love you because you get me places; mostly, you get me back home. And during those three hour drives I really feel like we bond. You're the only thing that fits into both my life at home and my life at school. And I've never said anything negative about you, even when everyone else is making fun of that weird sound in the back seat. You know the one, it sounds like something is about to fall off the car. I know it's alright. I always tell people that it's just part of who you are, and that we've had it checked out.

Now I realize I'm not the most thoughtful car owner. I'm not a terribly skilled driver and let's be honest, I have no idea how you work. But I try to treat you right. I check your oil and I always squeegee the windows when I get gas. I even spend 50 cents every week to keep that one tire full of air. That's dedication. Those are precious parking meter quarters I'm giving you.

So let's step it up, okay? Keep yourself together. I'm trying my hardest; now it's time for you to hold up your end of the deal. I'd rather not be left without you.

lots of love,
Loren

Not apologizing for the utter disregard of reader approval you're about to experience

I haven't really slept much recently. I've been too busy, which coincidentally is also why I haven't posted. Seriously, I haven't slept in my bed since Thursday, and I've had three 2-hour naps since then. How am I still functioning? I am not sure. I sort of feel sickly, which isn't so much fun. I'm used to that general feeling of not getting quite enough sleep but this complete absence of it is rough stuff. We had a lot of fraternity fun stuff (NOT a euphemism for alcohol. Seriously!) that required a lot of being awake, and last week I had a lot of work to do which unfortunately also required a lot of being awake.

So I'm looking at that paragraph and I'm thinking, there are no coherent sentences coming from my brain right now. But because I'm not going to edit it or save you from reading it at all by just deleting it, I will leave you with this, a mish-mash of the three entries I started this week:

• I'm writing a story for Journalism about this moving company, and instead of writing my paper just now I spent a couple of minutes reading these moving tips. Why? I don't really know. But I'm glad to know not to pack fine china in newsprint. I didn't know that before.
• I always used to think that I didn't need to worry about picking a political party, because eventually I would find all of the facts and voila! The right answer would be clear. Then at some point in high school I had a moment of epiphany: there is no "right" answer. It's all about opinion. It was sort of traumatizing for me, especially since I'm generally easy to persuade.
• I was about 3 feet away from a Pileated Woodpecker the other day. It was on a tree in our driveway and then flew right by me when it realized I was about to get in my car. It was pretty much the best ornithological experience I've had since I took the class in high school, and I was excited. But then I realized that people here in Oxford already think I'm crazy, what with all the grammar knowledge I carry around, so I decided to call Scott from home and he was sufficiently excited. Except for I still felt the urge to tell the internet.*
  
• This is my very first Flash animation. It sort of channels Clarissa Explains it All.

Now I am going to go get in my bed! Yay!

*Why, yes, I did write this paragraph before deciding that in all actuality, this post should be about how crazy I sound when I (attempt to) write today.

Emma

Yesterday, we decided to go to the pet adoption place and have a "Doggie Date," which is a program they run that lets you come in, pick out a dog, and take it home for a day.

We picked a 10-month-old german shepherd mix named Emma. She was a sweet dog, and we were sad to take her back today. It was pretty anti-climactic (she didn't run away or chew anything up or anything) but it was fun to have a pet for a while.

Mostly, I just wanted to post this cute picture.