Spoiled for Choice: November 2003

GRE

So I'm taking the GRE's in a little more than two weeks. I've started studying...a bit...and I need any advice that you all can give. I'm okay with the verbal stuff, and with more practice I think I'll be able to do a reasonable amount of analytical and logic questions in the time allotted, but I despair of ever being okay at the math. The day I graduated high school, I forgot every shred of math I'd learned after second grade. The graduate programs that I am looking at don't have anything to do with math, but I would like to avoid looking like a complete idoit.

I Don't Know

I just took an 120-item survey at the web site of a company by whom I would like to be employed. Somewhere around question 25, I started to get confused. I am certain that I received the same question many times, I'm just not sure that I answered it the same way every time. Those kinds of surveys are boring. After a while, I decided that I'd already lost whatever opportunity I had to get the job, so I just started giving truthful, but not necessarily desirable, answers. Oh well.

By the way

A Bob the Builder video that features Elton John is five hundred kinds of wrong.

I tried

I'm obviously not talented enough to handle linking to an image, so here's where you can find a picture of the ruin that is Lil Kim: http://geocities.com/buffyskeeper/hol_tv_spla_stars.jpg. Also, if you head to the Old Navy web site, you can watch the ad that that image is from. Enjoy.

Heh.

Every year we have Thanksgiving at my Aunt Mary's house. I love my family, but I have a hard time being with a large group of them for any sustained period of time. I feel like my relatives are hopelessly weird, and they think pretty much the same thing about me. So my Aunt Mary is super religious, to the point of being a stereotype. She is so pious it makes me want to have a big sin party, just to put her mind at rest that I am indeed the heathen she thinks I am. This year, like every other year, we had to listen to a scripture and have prayer before we could eat. I'm not at all areligious; I just hate the fact that my aunt seems to think that only extreme solemnity is acceptable in Christians.

Anyway, after the scripture, I had to hurry to close my eyes, because I knew what would happen: the younger people were going to crack up and make me crack up along with them. For the first couple of syllables of Aunt Mary's prayer, I was fine. I even started to think that maybe I wouldn't snicker at all. Then I heard it. Will, my cousin, just snickered a bit. I looked at him and saw him biting his lip. I looked over at my brother and saw that he was doing the same thing. It would have taken a stronger person than I to resist the temptation to join in and laugh. I don't know how I made it through the prayer. Two minute prayers are just not cool. My cousins commented on my laughing, but they only knew that I was laughing because they were doing the same thing.

Prayer always one of the highlights of my Thanksgiving.

Wow

Lil Kim is all fucked up. If that's the best that a horde of makeup and wardobe people could do for her, then G-d help her.

Why?

It's disturbing that my former next door neighbor has started to give off a "Dirty Old Man" vibe in the three years since I last lived near him.

Especially since he's actually two years younger than I am.

Just Say No

I'm already sick of the Christmas music that every store and radio station feels the need to play. Can we at least wait until December? I know that's only days away, but I promise not to complain about how craptastic the usual seven songs are if we return to the normal format.

November 22

I never met my maternal grandfather. He passed away three years before I was born. I'm not sure what of, but I think he was sick for a while before he died.

This morning, on the way to work, the news announcer reminded us that today is the 40 anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination. My mom then told me that that day was the only time she ever saw her father cry.

So here's to you Grandpa and President Kennedy; rest in peace.

Whatever, dude

There's a woman at my job who refers to herself as "Pretty." I don't mean that she describes herself as pretty, because I wouldn't have a problem with that. There's nothing wrong with showing some healthy self-confidence. But when she's on the phone wit the vendors we do business with, she says, "Hello, Pretty speaking, may I talk to..." It's weird.

In honor of her birthday, she took off last week and headed out to Vegas with some friends. The first thing she said when she walked into the office today was "Pretty's back; did you miss me?" And just a second ago, explaining something that she won't do, she said "Pretty don't roll like that."

I find her habit revolting and stupid, and worse...she's just not pretty. She's not a hag or anything, but still... In terms of office annoyances, I guess this shouldn't rate too highly, but the woman just bothers me.

BBC-A rocks

I don't know why, but I'm watching My Hero. That show is so low budget, but I like it.

So sad

I'm a huge fan of the Fame movies and tv show, and I was saddened to hear that Gene Anthony Ray, better known as Leroy, died.

That man could dance his ass off.

Come on, people

There's wanting to believe the best of people, and then there's allowing your pre-pubescent son to spend time with Michael Jackson.

This should not be construed as an indictment of the parents involved, but still...that wasn't a great idea, now was it?

Help!

If you have a couple of extra seconds, go to http://www.kstatecollegian.com, click on the item in the righthand sidebar labled "Once in a Lifetime" and vote for David Richards and Kirby Burke under Weddings. For a variety of movie-of-the-week type reasons, these fine students paying for their wedding out of their own pockets, and it would really help if they could win this. I was told, although I can't confirm or deny, that one of the other couples has found a way to rig the vote, which isn't surprising but still sort of pisses me off. So please help out Kirby and David.

Opaque, please

I was at the salon, having my brains fried, when I vaguely heard someone entering through the front door. I looked over at the woman who was coming in the salon, not because I expected to know her, but because I'd finished my book and had gotten stuck with nothing to read but the salon's copies of Jane Magazine. Ugh. So I looked at the woman who had just walked in, and she was just the embodiment of the word awkward. She was tall and large - not fat - and looked ill at ease in her own body. She hunched over a bit, and wasn't quite steady in her slingbacks. Actually, she sort of reminded me of a linebacker in drag. The woman passed me to get to the shampoo station, and then I stopped paying attention to her.

On my way out, I passed her sitting under the dryer, where it was her turn to get her brains fried. As I put on my sweater and prepared to leave, I happened to look at the woman again. I got a better look at her, and sort of wished I hadn't. Her legs, where she was wearing white, transparent stockings, were in serious need of a shave. Now don't get me wrong; it wasn't because she was a woman. I'm just not a fan of hairy legs. To paraphrase one of the recappers at Television Without Pity, I believe that the fight against body hair should waged by men and women alike.

But really, if she didn't want to shave her legs, which is obviously her right, couldn't she have at least spared people like me, people who have nothing better to do with their mornings than to wish that other people had shaved their legs, simply by wearing opaque stockings? And anyway, it's November in New Jersey. Isn't it a bit cold for sheer hose?

I'm just saying.

Who knows?

Today, my supervisor asked me if I would come in an hour early tomorrow, so that I could do some photocopying for her. To be clear: there is no photocopying in my job description. When I agreed, she then asked me to come in two hours early. I find this interesting. Two weeks ago, she asked me if I was familiar with Excel. I replied that I was, and that was the last that I ever heard of it. My mother thinks that maybe I am being prepared for a different job; maybe this woman wants me to be her secretary or administrative assistant or something. I'm thinking that she's just going to keep asking me to do clerical-type things for her, with no change in my job title or my salary.

Oh well...at least it's overtime.

Dinner with the peeps

Last night, two of the higher ups in my company threw a dinner for us at The Outback. "Threw" might connote more effort than was actually involved, but still...Anyway, it was scheduled to begin at 6 pm, but it was more like 8 before most people had arrived. Those who did get there early marked the time with conversation and beer. I ended up sitting next to my brother, which was fine, since we have a good time laughing at other people. He got there earlier than I did, and he was a little bit drunk for some of the meal, which I found kind of funny. I poked him whenever I thought he was going to say anything particularly stupid. I limited myself to two drinks, because I didn't want to be seen by my coworkers as being irresponsible with alcohol (even though I sometimes am).
There were a few people who got kind of drunk, and one guy tried about three times to say, "Did you ask Chris about the key?" before he completely gave up, never getting farther than, "Did you ask Key --" Good times. Some of the people ended up talking smack about one guy who nobody likes, and even one of the partners joined in, much to the dismay of his manager.
Hand's down, funniest thing that happened all night came when some of the guys were discussing automobiles. Of course, being wildly into cars, they were talking about makes that I'd never even heard of (not terribly surprising, I suppose) and some of which cost over one million dollars. This led to a discussion about money, and what one would do if one were to suddenly come into a large sum of money. My brother said that he'd get a McLaren (is that right?) while the other guys discussed the relative merits of Porsches and Aston Martins. The partner, when asked what he'd get if he suddenly came into a lot of money: a divorce.

That's it. You could tell that he totally meant it, too. Best answer ever.

When I was leaving, I happened to look at our bill. I think I heard that our gratuity wasn't included in the bill, but I hope I'm wrong. I noticed that our total came to a little less than $400, but it looked like the guy who paid left a tip of $20. I'm hoping that he meant 20%, or else he just sucks. I wasn't sure, though, so I just left some money on the table on my way out the door.

Thank goodness

I saw that IHOP commercial again and the guy said "Stuffed crepes," with dumb American pronunciation, not stuffed grapes.

I can't decide

Whether I want to live in a world where IHOP serves stuffed grape leaves. It's a tough call.

But the cover was so pretty!

I have a habit of choosing things based solely on their outward appearance, without giving much consideration to other, more practical measures of their worth. Case in point: while at the supermarket the other day, I remembered that I was running low on toothpaste. I went to the toothpaste aisle and almost picked up the same kind of toothpaste that I already had, and then I saw it: a clear plastic box with a funky-topped, metallic-looking tube inside. I was in love. Clearly, this toothpaste had to be the best, because none of the other boxes or containers looked even half as cool. I picked up the box without giving the specs (can toothpaste have specs?) even a look, much less a thought. I never thought twice about the matter, except for picking up the larger of the two sizes offered, not wanting to cheat myself out of any extra coolness.

Man, was this a bad idea or what? I was so excited when it was time to brush my teeth that night. I opened the package and marveled at the sheer beauty of my new tube of toothpaste. I even squeezed it from the bottom, just to make sure that I didn't ruin the shape any more than absolutely necessary. I was prepared for a new experience, for cleaner, cooler teeth; really, I was prepared for everything except for the weird, slightly spicy taste of the toothpaste. I'd figured that something that looked so nice couldn't help but be at least a little better than the average toothpaste, but clearly I was wrong.

I've got to learn to stop judging things by how they look; this system hasn't really worked out for me.

Yeah, right

My mom thinks that I should write Oprah and ask for a job.

I will be very happy when my mother goes back to work. Today, she actually rushed home from the store so that she could watch Dr. Phil. There are no words to express this fresh horror.

Exercising my Right

I voted at around 2 pm on Tuesday afternoon. I went to the voting station with my mom, since we were together anyway, and the place was in the direction that we were headed. We got there at what I would consider to be an off-peak kind of time to vote, so I wasn't surprised that I didn't see any other people at the polls. When we signed in the register, we received numbers. I was 49, and my mother was 50.

It took a while for that to sink in, but I realized that after eight hours, only 50 people in our half of the alphabet had come to vote. The person running the other half said that hardly anybody from that section had shown up, either. It makes me sad that people don't exercise such a basic right as to vote. I find few people who are unwilling to exercise the right to bitch about the state of things, and I feel like they should be proactive and vote their opinions, wishes, and biases, if only so that when they complain about something they dislike, they can say that they took a stand on it in the most direct way possible.

PS - I swear that I could spell when I was in college. I was even a writing lab tutor. Damn...I've degenerated an inexplicable amount, and I just graduated in May. Shoot me now.

Hmm

Me again. So I went to a hayride/Haunted House on Saturday night. It was somewhere in New York (the state part, not the city), and althought it had been rather warm during the day, it was pretty cold that night. We waited for nearly an hour before the hayride started. The guy standing on line in front of me looked like Kevin Smith as Silent Bob. Seriously. At first, my friend and I thought that we were just imagining it, but then we heard other people whispering things about how much "some guy over there" looked like Silent Bob, so I was pretty sure that our eyes weren't deceiving us.

It was kind of creepy. He didn't look exactly like Silent Bob, but it was pretty close. The guy was sort of chubby with long brown hair and a good amount of facial hair. He had on a long black trench coat, a black baseball cap turned backwards, and baggy blue jeans. From what I heard him and his companion say, the Silent Bob remarks follow him wherever he goes, and he'd gotten a lot of it weekend, first with Friday being Halloween, and then on Saturday night with different people at the haunted house going around in costume.

I had a good time. I haven't done anything since then, hence the lack of blogage. Hey, that sounds a bit like blockage, huh?

Happy November!

I'm supposed to begin working on my novel today. I think that I may end up doing short stories; I feel I lack the attention span for any one piece of substantial length.

Whoops

When you're juggling guys, not that I'm actually doing that, but when you are, be sure 1) to know everybody's voice within two words of a phone conversation and 2) don't attribute Guy 1's info to Guy 2.

I'm just saying.

Spoiled for Choice

11.30.2003

GRE

11.29.2003

I Don't Know

11.28.2003

By the way

11.27.2003

I tried

Heh.

11.25.2003

Wow

Why?

11.24.2003

Just Say No

11.22.2003

November 22

11.21.2003

Whatever, dude

11.20.2003

BBC-A rocks

So sad

11.19.2003

Come on, people

Help!

11.18.2003

Opaque, please

11.17.2003

Who knows?

11.16.2003

Dinner with the peeps

11.13.2003

Thank goodness

11.12.2003

I can't decide

11.10.2003

But the cover was so pretty!

11.07.2003

Yeah, right

11.06.2003

Exercising my Right

11.04.2003

Hmm

11.01.2003

Happy November!

Whoops

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