New Year's Fun

I had made plans with Travis to go downtown to the Warhol Museum on Friday since he was leaving for his enviable Virgin Islands vacation the next day. We took the T to the Wood Street stop and checked out the art galleries that are completely free that I completely missed for years.

This was interesting. And strange. You got to sit down at this little photo station in the middle of the gallery and have your picture taken. Then you clicked where your eyes were and the program mutated your face a bit. After, it printed out two copies and let you keep one while you taped the other to the wall that was quickly becoming covered. Travis and I are very dark people.


The rest of the wall.








So looking at all of them got repetitive very fast and we took the rickety elevator upstairs to the next gallery.

Ooh, a movie! Of sheep. Just hanging around. Kind of dull. But artsy!






In another wing was, on one side, a woman holding a camera. On the opposing wall was what she was filming. It was cool.





Unfortunately, in the middle of our gallery visit Travis got a call from someone he was contacting about an apartment in DC so we had to cut our trip short and go home. Boo. But we went to Houlihan's in the Galleria and it was both lovely and tasty.

Speaking of restaurants in the Galleria that are both lovely and tasty, the fam and I went to Mark Pi's on New Year's Eve. It took forever to get seated, but once we were down we had this incredibly bizarre, efficient waitress that stole from the other servers to get us our food faster. She seemed very stressed about getting things done and kept muttering instructions to herself as she passed our table. She also needed a bra, badly.

Ooh, we had a pretty flower centerpiece. The stem made an unintentional heart.






She was too busy to actually unfold our straw ornament, so I figured out how to do it all by myself because I am a grown up.









Fun with the ornament.








Everyone can have a good time with them!







So, there was this animatronic Santa in the waiting vestibule that the kids were getting a kick out of, and it came as quite a shock as we exited the fine eatery to find poor Santa like this:

Egads! Oh, St. Nick. What cold-hearted field of a child could do such a thing?









Arienne was not so overcome with grief that she could resist playing with the decapitated head.









Now he is staring at his own body.








My New Year's Eve night was fun, too - I went over to Alex's house and played Mario Party 7 with some of his friends. Fun times! It got to be about 11:50 and we broke out the champagne, waited for the ball to drop, drank the champagne, received a few text messages, and quickly returned to our game.

That's really it for now. I have been making poor sleep decisions lately, like waking up at 1:30 in the afternoon or taking naps at 7:00 at night. But ooh, it feels good.

Up Late

In a fit of post-holiday sloth I find myself sleeping about ten hours a night, or rather a day since I don't go to bed until the wee insomniatic hours of the morning. I'm trying to break that cycle but it's already 12:51 (hee, Strokes) and I'm not really flagging yet. I brought some boxes up from the car, which was heavy and straining work, and I'm somewhat beginning to sort through them. I did manage to find my container of Sharpies, since it was necessary to label my new recordable CDs that are the grooviest things ever, pardon the pun. They have a vinyl cover on top of them to make them look like olde timey records, complete with texture.

The record look inspired me to start using Audacity to transfer files from my Ruckus account into iTunes, so I attempted to begin that but was quickly halted by the fact that I didn't have the appropriate driver for stereo recording. Lame, lame. Hee. I didn't need LAME, I already had that. I needed a driver for my SigmaTel sound card, and it was a really frustrating journey to Dell's tech pages and back and forth between various folders. But I finally prevailed and now I am listening to "(Theme from) Carjack Fever" with my brand-new wonderful ear buds that squish down and fit so well into my tiny inherited ears.

I really should try to settle down and get to bed, since Travis and I are going downtown tomorrow to the Warhol museum and the Wood Street Galleries at 11:00. However, these tracks won't record themselves.

Christmas

I can't believe that it's Christmas already, probably because I only got home on Saturday and usually I'm waiting a week or more before anything happens. We had a fun time last night, with very tasty macaroni and cheese. I think that is my favorite dish in the world.

Afterwards, I tried to find the game Apples to Apples for Arienne, and it turns out that all the Wal-Marts close at 6:00 PM on Christmas Eve. What?!? We finally found a Super K-Mart out by Robinson but as luck would have it, they were completely sold out. Lame. I will have to pick one up later this week.

Today will be similarly exciting, I expect. I've already eaten what feels like a pound of jelly beans, and there's meatballs waiting.

Tuesday, Finals Week

It was my very last last (for real this time, guys) shift at Carmike last year. I thought about all the stuff that I should do at work that I managed to evade for four and a half years, like how I've never asked for ID for R-rated movies. I'm quite proud of that. I keep calling things left and right. I'm like "ooh - that clock is mine" or "ooh - if no one takes that string of fun neon red lights around the box, I'm keeping them". I kind of want to keep the Colonel Season's stand because it would make a really kitchy end table or something.

Tim really wanted the Rambo display but since Andrew had already called it, he had to settle for Walk Hard. I think he should just cut out the head and tape it on the wall across from his toilet or something.


Fun desk graffiti from my speech class.







Fun yet disturbing graffiti from my speech class.







Speaking of that class, I have to say that it was the most excruciating 100-level Gen Ed that I've ever taken in my entire life. Good god, the group work! I think the professor had to have gotten burned in the past for issuing too many A's and now this semester she's trying to maintain a bell curve. Luckily, we got a 39/40 on our scrapbook and I squeaked by with a 90.85. Yaaay.

I only have one thing left and it's a three to five page essay on Le Corbeau due tomorrow, but I really just can't find the motivation to get started. Blah, I'll probably just stay at the library all night and then sleep all day tomorrow. That actually sounds appealing.

Riley in Antlers

It's been ridiculously cold and windy here in the past few days which makes me glad that my classes were done on Friday so I only need to leave my apartment when necessary. I wouldn't really mind being snowed in from 10:00 on today because then I would be able to just lounge around in pajama pants for a few days and get some packing done.

The squirrels that haven't hibernated yet probably all froze to death.






Can you spot both squirrels?











Erin and I finished our hellish French syntax take-home exam. I know it was supposed to be easier because you could use your book and work with friend, but no. I almost would have preferred to take it in class last week even if I didn't know all of the answers because then at least I would have only stressed about it for an hour. We've had this test for over a week now and I'm still obsessing over whether or not I have enough proofs in Part II.

Anyway, rather than do more syntax trees as was the extra credit assignment, we got a little more creative and made a 'tree' (get it) for a Christmasy sentence - "Le Pere Noel nous a donne les bonnes notes", or "Father Christmas gave us good grades". For that, I believe that we get an additional three percent bonus to our final score, which is nothing but good news.



While constructing the somewhat unstable tree, Riley the dog entertained us with her costume fun. Oh, what a good dog! But she got a little uncomfortable after awhile...



Blargh!








Oh, it begins.








Almost off....








She don't want to wear them no mo.








Tasty news: Mrs. Haworth was making meringues and she let us have some for dessert. Surprise - there was a Hershey kiss inside. Sneaky!




A whole sheet of meringues.









At work yesterday I was so bored that I started playing with the lame toy vending machines that we have that cost a dollar to get a miniature Winnie-the-Pooh ornament. The theme was 'Pooh in Zodiac Costumes" and had him in a lion's outfit, a bull, et cetera according to the sign.

But who wants to get this one?

Final Collegian Column

I'm glad that Travis made use of his senior column not only to make deep observations on life, the universe, and everything but also to rehash Per's Facebook rejection of him from freshman year. That's right - he totally called out Per (full name and all) in the paper. Awesome. Per's going to get hate mail.

Cats with Hats

Paxton loves hats!

I Want One

Oh! Kitties in wigs! Note to self: train first cat to wear wig. My question is how many drug cocktails did they have to force into this cat so that she wouldn't a: bat at the dangly side bits, b: yank it off of her head completely, and c: wrestle it to the ground like a rodent and proceed to pull the hair off in big clumps until it had officially died.

Fun with Words

Oh, it's been a fun day in the newsy world! First and foremost, I got a rather laudatory mention in Travis' Travels this week. For those too lazy to click on the link, I will provide the text itself:

Alaina
Jarcy's Motel, Dean's Diner, Penn's Cave, Nittany Mall, Insect Fair, Bellefonte, Ebensburg, Late Night, New York

Alaina and I met in 11th grade over a plate of General Tso's chicken at LuLu's Noodles in Oakland. We were just friends until the first week of Travis' Travels, when I somehow wooed her by taking her to a creepy motel and a duck pond.

Without Alaina, Travis' Travels wouldn't have happened. She came up with the idea or dragged me along with her to go to a bunch of these places.

No offense to these other chumps, but Alaina really is the best traveling companion there is. She's smart. She's funny. She takes damn good photos. She's a snappy dresser, and she's cute.

Plus she's a pretty decent bassist at Rock Band.

Nothing but truth there, I can tell you. I am rather cute.

Nextly, I read Venues which was rather Travis-centric. Kevin Doran wrote his column as one big Travis compliment and Travis himself had a column about the sublime joys of Sonic and the cruel tragedy of not having one within a bajillion miles of here. I assume some people are still too lazy to click on the link, so here's how his column began:

October 2001: America starts bombing Afghanistan; Apple launches the iPod; and Sonic, a chain of drive-in restaurants, launches its first national ad campaign.

Since then, we've won the war on terror and the iPod has proven itself a passing fad -- but Sonic's commercial onslaught continues.

Hee. Not the most cloaked sarcasm in the world. However, there are some poor souls who didn't really understand this. Case in point: an email that he just received from a dedicated reader.

You're an IDIOT!

Referring to your juvenile article on Sonic restaurants:

1. Not only is the iPod an ongoing sales phenomenon for Apple. with
over 100 million sold as of April this year but...

2. We have not won the war on terror.

I see you are a "senior" majoring in Journalism. Were you ASLEEP for
the 1st three years of study!

You don't spend 20 seconds checking your "Facts" and you type any old
crap to make a story. Yep, you'll make an excellent American
journalist. Take a number you moron.

The following gchat between us:

me: oh

that's harsh

Travis: I'm writing him back and thanking him for pointing out the sarcastic parts of my column

me: he's not really clever, is he?

Travis' response to the email:

Hello! It is always a pleasure to hear from readers.

Thank you for pointing out two of the sarcastic parts of my column. I'm glad that you noticed them and understood the sarcasm like every single other person in the world who read my column did.

I'm also flattered that you think I'll make an excellent journalist. Thank you for wishing me all the best in my future endeavors.

Have a great holiday season!

Burrrrrrrrn. Fighting literalism with sarcasm. Not sure it's going to work.

Last Days for Carmike Cinemas

Since the Carmike simply cannot function without me, they're closing their doors to the public forever next Thursday. Wow! So we've had to clean out decades and decades of gunky, nasty stuff from under the stairwells, in the janitor's closet, in the break room, and pretty much everywhere. That's not to say that there aren't benefits - I swiped a huge industrial roll of toilet paper, an entire 1000-count box of straws, some plastic kiddie cups, and several posters that warn moviegoers that if they bring in recording devices They Will Be Prosecuted and It Is A Felony. I can see this place getting pretty bare with all of the employees suddenly noticing how often they would use a giant bottle of disinfectant or six packages of cheap napkins. I work a ton this weekend coming up so I'll try and get as much as I can manage. Any requests?

I was all set for a hearing next Monday and I just got an email that it was cancelled. Nooooo! Now I have to wonder - whose case was it? The mad chalker? One of the football players? A drunken urinator? Will I ever find out?

I'm back to the Centre County PAWS site because I am addicted to cats. I want to adopt Debussy just so I can say that I have a cat with a crazy eye, even if it doesn't look like that all the time. Sugar is a pretty cat. Oh, Ashes. How appropriate. Cranberry! Little B is one shiny cat. Mister Bojangles is still appealing. I'm becoming an Internet Crazy Cat Lady.

Riley and Cold

I just found out by accident that the last post was #100 of Nacho Day. Had I known, I imagine that I would have put in some effort to make it more impressive. Oh well. Celebrate!

Erin's house is all decorated for Christmas, including Riley the dog. She had this cute pink and orange sweater that was a bit challenging and awkward to get on but looked adorable. She liked it too ... at first.






She even did that funny thing where she lies down and splays her legs in an unladylike manner.








But then ... she started to nibble on it.










That eventually turned into full-out biting.







Whish! This is about the time she started to freak out a little so we took it off. It was fun while it lasted.






We spent a good long while at her house doing everything except studying for our stressful syntax midterm. Then we went to campus and walked around the building for awhile looking for a suitable computer lab. Ooh lookee, the State Theatre.

Remember when I said that I was able to use a half-page of notes on the exam? Check out this bad boy. I eventually filled in the blank space on the side and bottom with tiny, tiny helpful hints.



Those trees were lifesavers. I wrote down examples of every possible type of sentence that she could ask and lo and behold, on the test I just copied down what I had verbatim and changed the words. Ah, learning.


Six-point font, oh yeah. .15 inch margins. Notice the abbreviations scattered throughout - Cond. is condition, Prin. is principle, and the "~" replaced "ation" (which was more helpful than you would imagine). Luckily, her tests are mainly fill in the blank and they are word for word from the book, so I just wrote down exactly what the definition was and I did all right.

For the last week and a half in my speech class I've just sat there bored while other groups present their "training forum", in which they pretend like they've been called in by Corporate to teach us how to better interact in small groups and we pretend like we aren't texting other people in the class to make fun of their hokey gimmick. One of the groups was making believe like they were advertising the 'Glii', a holiday equivalent of the Wii. At one point some guy was describing the controller as a glove that you can put on and control the movements on the screen with a gyro. I had no idea what he was talking about until I figured out that he was probably referring to 'gyroscope'. I would rather have a gyro. Anyways, they gave the class candy like we were in seventh grade. I took two!

It has been so cold of late that I have resorted to wearing Travis' XXL furry jacket that has a hood because I quickly realized that all of my coats seem to be more stylish than impervious to wind and snow. Man, it's gloomy out.


Because of this, I have avoided any outdoor movements that aren't strictly necessary. I stay in the library as much as possible and take many, many naps. Here's the view from my comfortable armchair/ottoman unit.

Something New

I don't really have anything funny or interesting to post but I know that it's been awhile. The LSAT was okay; a lot of people were freaking out almost to the point of hyperventilation and I went to the bathroom halfway through and some girl was crying and blocking the sink. The one complaint I have is that the desks we were assigned to were in a Willard classroom and thus meant for midgets with tiny books. I couldn't fit one sheet of paper on these desks (attached to the tiny chair, attached to the floor) let alone a test booklet and an answer sheet. Luckily the desk next to mine was unoccupied and I just kind of piled stuff on that.