The absolute worst (supposedly)

Apparently, today we can all celebrate the 14th anniversary of The Worst Day of My Life!

I don't remember what happened on that day, but I can tell you that last week when I found this and realized that I got the WORST DAY out of the way only 9 years into my life, it certainly put everything after into perspective.

Not an exaggeration

"This website is seriously hurting me."

A list of things that have made me smile today

One of my supervisors complimented me after she overheard me helping a coworker learn how to do something.

I found a Mackintosh Apple Car Jar I'd been meaning to open, so the whole way home from work my car smelled like an orchard.

Legends of the Hidden Temple was on when I got home.

CB2 is sending me a replacement ornament for the one I ordered that showed up broken. And, they were extremely nice on the phone.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas is on in about 10 minutes.

I gave the dog a bath, and she was soft and cuddly afterwards.

There was a Netflix waiting for me in the mailbox.

Things I recommend, part III

About a month ago I bought iQuiz for my iPod. I think I partly bought it because it only cost 99 cents, and partly because I have never bothered to learn how to play the version of Solitaire that comes with an iPod--that three-card-draw thing makes very little sense to me. Just let me use the cards! Come on!

Anyway, it has become one of my favorite things to do while I eat my lunch every day, and I have learned a lot of useless information, such as: Flea's daughter is named Clara. Don't argue; you needed to know that.

Because I faithfully watch How I Met Your Mother every Monday, I usually end up watching The Big Bang Theory afterwards, and it has grown on me. Of course, in real life the "nerdy guys" wouldn't look so incredibly hip in their comic book hero tees and plaid pants, but it's still sort of endearing in its own little way. And if you'd like to catch up, it's in reruns because of the writer's strike. (CBS, Mondays at 8:30; but you can watch online here.)

I have never read Carrie, Cujo or The Shining, but I just finished Stephen King's On Writing* and I have to say that it made me a fan. (A fan of Stephen King himself, and not his work, if that makes any sense.) If you like to write, you should read this book.

*A disclaimer: for some reason, I find the the cover on the edition Amazon is selling a little disturbing. I borrowed a copy from a friend of mine which features a yellow house, complete with a picture window and a bed of impatiens. It looks like a warm, inviting memoir, unlike its Amazon counterpart which to me looks like it probably came out of a--wait for it--Stephen King novel. (Marketing is a fascinating thing.)

It's finally acceptable to talk Christmas, right?

Having a job has been mostly fun because this year I've been able to afford to actually buy gifts for people. In fact, I'm having a really hard time not sharing all of the fun things I've found. I just don't want to ruin the surprise.

However, here are a few things I think would make great gifts which didn't make it onto my "give this" list. Maybe they will work out better for you:

I really wanted to get one of these adorable robot keychains for my sister (who is about to start driving and will *gasp* be toting a set of keys which is a little scary), but they are sold out right now. Of course, if you know anyone with a birthday in two or three months, you're in luck.

I think these credit/business card cases would have been perfect for someone who has business cards or just doesn't like carrying around a purse. They're simple and pretty, and come in a couple of different designs.


I am a big fan of maps, and I am tempted to buy this tablecloth for myself rather than as a gift. Although, I don't really have anywhere to put it. But like the description says, wouldn't you love to sit down every morning and have a good look at the United States?


I like a clever t-shirt, especially on someone else--that way I can admire it. And besides, who doesn't need a little extra luck, especially if it is from the luckiest t-shirt ever?


I wish I knew someone who loves Legos and Batman, and is also old enough to drive, because this would be the best gift ever.


(Also? Lego website? If I liked Legos, you would rock my world.)

With all the people I know named Jim (okay, the two people I know), I thought the James Bookends might be fun. But then I realized that just because something has your name doesn't mean you'll like it.

Highly unlikely

"I like the saying, 'What hath Hell wrought?'"

"Why?"

"I just think it's fun to say."

"What's it from?"

"I don't really know."

"Maybe Hocus Pocus?"

Wondering

why cell phone rings are always weird, obnoxious, or both?

In honor of Black Friday

Did you wonder what I am wishing for this Christmas? Or maybe you just needed (more) proof of my impeccable taste. Either way, look no further: my list at Wists.com

Happy Thanksgiving

For the last few weeks I have been disproportionately excited about Thanksgiving; specifically, I was jonesing for some cranberries. But we don't do a lot of cranberry in my family, so I decided I would make some cranberry sauce this year.

Here it is,in all its beautiful red cranberry glory:



It looked better than it tasted, but I blame that on the recipe (it needed more sugar). In the end I was mostly glad I didn't mess it up.

I think only about three people had any, but it satisfied my craving. And that is something to be thankful for.

At least there's no snow (thanks, global warming!)

Look, I'm about to get in a car with three other people and two dogs and drive to Thanksgiving, so I'm not feeling two enthusiastic about writing right now. And I know it won't be worse than that one year, but whatever, I need an excuse to get this posted and be on my merry way.

So: let's all take a moment to enjoy the fact that cranberry-themed soda is back in the store!

What happened to Thanksgiving, now that is another story

I drive through this little town to get to work, and about three weeks ago Christmas exploded on one of the houses. Seriously. Garland, huge ornaments on the porch, Griswald-worthy strands of lights, the whole works.

And right next door?

Some jack o'lanterns, which appeared to be freshly carved.

They're still there, but they don't look very, uh, healthy anymore. But I admire the people who are willing to celebrate their Autumn holidays as long as possible. So you, with that pile of orange moldy mush on your steps? Good for you.

Things I thought about today

I always forget how unpleasant it is to get gas when it's cold out.

It is much more cost-effective to buy a gallon of milk than a half gallon. I mean I knew that, but I was really thinking about it.

These hilighters are stupidly expensive but when I use them or just look at them all lined up in ROYGBIV order, it makes me feel like my life is worth living.

Monday nights during this stunted tv season have surprisingly been my favorite. (Slap Bet = The Best Infliction of Pain Ever)

"Keep Honking I'M RELOADING" is probably the creepiest bumper sticker I've ever seen. It doesn't seem creepy at first, but when you see it on a busted-down truck, and you wonder what kind of person would display it? Of course, it could have just been the cold air and gas fumes getting to me. What do I know.

Sort of like getting an extra day of weekend

Today I woke up at 8:17 and thought for about 40 horrifying seconds that it was Monday instead of Sunday, which meant that I had about 13 minutes to get to work. That happens to be impossible.

Luckily, it is only Sunday, and because I didn't actually have to be at work, I was able to go outside and take this picture. I think this is probably the last of the fall color left this year.


Red-Orange
Originally uploaded by LorenAnn03.

Wondering

if it's really worth going in to work some overtime today, because every single time I work on a Saturday I end up treating myself to a shopping trip afterwards. THIS IS NOT GOOD.

Some music I want to share

Pavement - Grounded on Aquarium Drunkard

The Phonemes - Pain Perdu on Said the Gramophone

And how great is gypsy rock?
Gogol Bordello on Both Sides of the Mouth

NaBloPoMo is only halfway over? Give me a break.

It's been one of those weeks where by the end of Thursday night you're exhausted. I also hurt my hand somehow, so it is hard to type.

So I offer you instead this sickeningly adorable photo of my dog:

Look at all this interesting stuff

Lots of things you never knew you could do with vinegar.

A cute in-the-works documentary called My Heart is an Idiot.

Ask 500 people a question, get a general consensus answer.

I used to write my future self letters all the time, but sometimes seeing it pinned to my bulletin board was too much to bear. Now you can just send your future self an email.

Did you know there's a National Toy Hall of Fame? I think it sounds like a lot of fun.

You probably didn't want to know, either

In honor of November 13th, here are 13 things about me, interesting and otherwise:

1. I don't really like bananas, except after I swim laps in an indoor pool. It never fails, I'm always like OMG I NEED a banana.

2. I inherited my dad's pointy elbows. Seriously, I could probably hurt you with them.

3. Short stories are my favorite things. I think I could read them all day and never get tired of it.

4. I have no good reason to honor today, I just felt like it.

5. I love Hot Tamales and those cinnamon bears, but I don't really like cinnamon in cookies or anything like that.

6. I really need to do laundry.

7. Everyday I wake up and say to myself, "tonight I am going to go to bed SO early." And I never ever do.

8. I am pretty good at Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, except I like to play with different actors.

9. I think there is an animal living inside my bedroom wall, because its scratching woke me up the other night. I also think that is sort of creepy.

10. I have a bad habit of relating everything to the cartoon Futurama, which no one seems to find funny. My brother and I, however, think it is hilarious.

11. "Them's the breaks," "hold the phone" and "I dig it" are three of my favorite phrases. It would make me happy if you would try to use one or all of them.

12. I bought these pretty postcards at etsy.com last week, and they came in the mail today:



13. Right now, I am going to go watch the episode of Weeds I missed last night.

It would be called a zombocalypse

I think I must have watched Dawn of the Dead at an impressionable age, because apocalypse and zombie attacks have become absolutely inseparable in my mind. Mass chaos and destruction? Zombies are obviously on a rampage in every city, town and village. The end of established government? Zombies, clearly, have attacked the Capitol building. All means of communication cut off? Somehow, zombies have something to do with this.

You get the idea.

This was always a very subconscious thing that I did, assuming zombies to be lurking around every apocalypsed corner, and I never realized it until I was having a conversation about what I would do if their were an actual apocalypse. I mentioned the zombie problem and everyone was like, what? What zombie problem? Why will there be zombies? And I was like, APOCALYPSE, DUH and they were like WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? And I realized what a huge mistake I'd been making.

And suddenly? The end of times didn't seem so bad.

By the way, if you are wondering how you'd fare if my zombie apocalypse came to fruition, this quiz will tell you.

Luckily she's probably 10 years away from motherhood.

"Which charm is on your glass?"

"Mine has a stork. What about yours?"

"A foot."

"A foot? Do you mean, a bootie?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"There's a difference between a baby foot and a bootie, especially at a baby shower."

Currently enjoying:

10 mph: Driving from Ohio to Colorado with three guys I barely knew ended up being one of the most fun things I've ever done. This movie is the ultimate road trip. Two guys decided to ride a Segway across the country, from Seattle to Boston. It took them something like 100 days, the depletion of their retirement investments, and 478 battery changes, but it was such a great story. It's definitely one of my favorite documentaries (nothing is better than Spellbound).

Atlas Shrugged: I'm about halfway through this book, and I love it so far. A friend of mine is reading it right now, too, and we call each other a couple of times a week with something to say about the plot or Ayn Rand's philosophy.

Covet by Sarah Jessica Parker: I am not a perfume person, but a month or so ago I thought I would like to be. I bought Covet on a whim (I thought the bottle was pretty) and I love it. It has stuck really well to the sweater I wear when I'm cold at work (which is pretty much ALWAYS), so even when I forget to put it on, it's still there. I may become a perfume person, afterall.

From the days when I thought nessecarry was a word

I've always wanted to post something in the spirit of Cringe, but a problem for me is that I was boring, and also a little cryptic:

"What a great weekend! I love hanging out with all those guys. I hope I get to stay at Lindsey's again next weekend, it sounds like we are going to have a lot of fun. I just hope everything goes as planned."

How can I expect you to understand what is going on when I can't, and I'm the one who lived it?

I did, however, manage to find some other good stuff from my very first diary, which I got for Easter in 1993, when I was 9 years old. I don't think you need any backstory for these. Here goes:

Jan. 8, 1994
Dear Diary,
I wish someone would punch Billy.
Loren

June 8, 1993
Dear Diary,
Why can't dad understand I have feelings*? I'm on strike with him. I'm only talking to him if it's nessecarry.
Loren

And here is my absolute, hands-down favorite entry from that first year of writing:
April 26, 1993
Dear Diary,
Denise thinks she's so hot. Because she jump ropes really well.
Loren



*Okay, okay, I added the italics, but you know that's how I meant it.

Writing ideas I had at work today

So, like, how excited are you for those?

It's a comforting idea

I just finished The Awakening, and it was alright, but mostly I just thought this was a beautiful little phrase:

"But the beginning of things, a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing. How few of us ever emerge from such beginning! How many of us perish in its tumult!"

Something in common

I was talking to the guy who sits across from me at work, and I mentioned my disdain for all things Dan Brown. He agreed, and as my heart filled with joy--a kindred spirit!--three of the other people sitting near us turned around and said that they, too, had hated The DaVinci Code.

Sometimes, I really love the place I work.

Sometimes I know I am the kind of consumer marketing executives love, and this is no exception

I know I said I love the internet for holiday shopping, but I forgot to mention the one little thing that makes internet shopping even better, the peanut butter to the internet's jelly, if you will, and that is catalogs.

My parents get a lot of catalogs, and this is the prime catalog season. Every December the last few years I'd start flipping through the Winter edition of Oriental Trading and suddenly I would have been looking at kitchy Christmas gifts for an hour. I never realized that those catalogs I was reading? They were just the tail end of the mailbox bombardment my family had been experiencing since October.

I don't know why I love them so much. Maybe it's the glossy pages, maybe it's the ridiculous things I'd never let anyone see me looking at in an actual store. Remote control racing grannies? Dog-shaped bars of soap? A miniature model of the General Lee? T-shirts with a singing cat and the words"Oh Sole Meow"? There's something for every mood. If I want more t-shirts with bad puns, I've got The Music Stand. Science gadgets? The Discovery Store. Greeting cards that cost $17.00 apiece? The Museum of Modern Art. An I Love Lucy lunchbox? Betty's Attic.

And if I actually found a gift I thought someone would like, I could go order it online. It's amazing. That doesn't happen very often, but that isn't going to stop me from being excited to check the mail everyday.

And now I'm going to go sleep it off

I went back to school this weekend to visit, and I decided that my favorite thing in the world is showing up unannounced and having people act pleasantly surprised to see you. Can you think of anything better?

Makes me want to quit my job and become a tortured artist

If you have 20 minutes to kill and you feel like listening to a beautiful little short story, I recommend this.

If you'd rather read for 20 minutes, I can offer you the entire New Yorker fiction page.

Either way, you win.

Picture (im)perfect

It amazes me how fast I am sometimes able to adapt to a new routine that completely changes the way I do something. Take keyboarding, for example. The last time I poked out a sentence with one hand it was because my finger was broken. Or switching from driving a standard to an automatic: I don't really know what to do with my left foot and my right hand now that they are not responsible for driving my car.

Along the same lines, I hadn't realized what it was like to take photos without the crutch of a digital camera's review screen until I forgot my camera when I went to D.C. this summer and ended up using a disposable one the entire weekend. But even with a disposable camera, it didn't seem like there were any consequences. Disposable cameras were made for sloppy picture-taking, like 2nd grade zoo trips or a homecoming dance. You kind of just accept that there will be a blurry picture of a lion or the inside of your purse.

So I bought this camera a couple of weeks ago, and not only does it take film, it takes film that is sort of hard to find. I also saw that people take a lot of really beautiful photos with this camera, and so this all added up to me being a little anxious when it came to using it.

But, because I was so excited to find out what I could do with this little camera, I shot a roll of film last week and when I got it back yesterday my suspicions were confirmed:



This is one of the 5 photos that "turned out," if you can call it that. I think I can get better, now that I know what I'm doing, since most of my problems were due to my inability to advance the film the right way. Still, let's be honest: I really need that little review screen.

Seriously, is this place not awesome?

The internet has been a pretty considerable blessing to me, mostly because I wonder things like, what was that show I watched in the 80's that featured a half bumblebee, half lion character? and what's the real deal with the Amityville Horror house? and what is a Hokie? There are things that need to be documented, people, and the internet is good for documenting.

But the internet is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me because with the internet came INTERNET SHOPPING and I know I've said it before but wow. Thank you, whoever invented the internet.

I am especially thankful today because I went to buy some film and while I waited for the cashier to ring it up I realized that I was singing along with the radio (in my head! I am not publicly crazy) and that the song I was singing was Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

Okay first of all, it is NOVEMBER FREAKING FIRST.

Second of all, I am a terrible holiday shopper. I love to give gifts, but I hate to be in a store with the fifty other people who have also waited until the last moment to go to the mall and do their Christmas shopping. This all stems from an unfortunate incident in which I knocked over a display at Bath & Body Works because I had a lot of bags and so did the woman in front of me, and probably mostly because I am hopelessly clumsy. After that, I decided it would be best if I did all of my shopping in July. Then I got a credit card and the internet got shopping and lo, there truly was Peace on Earth in the days leading up to the celebration of Christ's birth.

So, why was the holiday music already playing? I suppose they're trying to sneak into my subconscious and get me into the holiday shopping frenzy. Unfortunately for whoever thought playing Christmas music would get me out there to SPEND, SPEND, SPEND, I was suddenly overtaken with an intense urge to go home and but a bunch of stuff from Etsy. Which totally beats the mall, and may very well be one of the best things about the internet, anyway.