checking in.

so, i've been busy lately.. with work, and also on a big household project. So that's why i went awol.

and i'm gonna go awol again for a little while. not feeling very inspired lately, and need to recharge.

I'll be back soon though. ;-) if you need to get in touch with me, just leave a comment.

hope you are all well!

SHARK!

THAT is a great white shark. I took that photo. That is a photo i took of a LIVE GREAT WHITE SHARK.

seriously, if you live in northern california, it's worth the trip. besides the obvious fact that the aquarium is a cool place, but looking the only great white shark on exhibit in the WORLD is pretty fucking awesome.

ok, maybe i shouldn't call it a great white shark, because it really isn't that big (4 ft long), but dude, it looked just like jaws. freaky black eyes, and mean looking.

the funny thing was, there were these big signs in the room that said "NO FLASH PHOTOS" becasue the flashes bother the fish. on top of that, there was a guy in the room answering questions in a mic, and he kept saying, "no flash photos, please." and these dumb motherfuckers who don't know how to work their cameras kept taking FLASH PHOTOS and every time that happened, the whole room would collectively berate them.

so that photo is grainy and blurry becasue i took it in a dark room with NO FLASH. thank goodness for photoshop! (although it is time for a new camera, because when i got right up to the tank, the shark swam right in front of me and when i pushed the shutter, it took a good second and a half before the photo took, and by then all i had was blue. grr.)

just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

i am rocking out to Stevie Ray Vaughn and cleaning my office, although it is not so much cleaning, it's more like moving stuff back and forth from one side of the room to the other. every once in a while somethinmakes it on a shelf or in the trash, but for now it's mostly moving back and forth.

mmm, how did i not discover stevie ray vaughn until recently? mm, thank you, john mayer, o future husband of mine, for loving stevie ray vaughn and mentioning him all the time. i mean, my dad listened to SRV but i never really paid attention. damn, this guy was GREAT.

my goal for this weekend is to go to monterey to see the shark. White sharks have always fascinated me, ever since i read jaws when i was twelve. that book got passed all around the sixth grade. i'll admit that most people were interested in the tiny naked woman on the front (the cover was just a tiny version of the movie poster). i think i was the only one who actually read the bnook all the way through. after that, there was a time i wanted to be an icthyologist. but that was before i realized that i suck a science.

so anyway, totally looking forward to emptying out my memory cards and taking some more great aquarium shots. maybe if i'm lucky i'll be able to add some shark photos.

come on, RAIN ALREADY!

if i EVER learned my lesson i'd be going to bed right now instead of posting.

wednesday i woke up at 7:54 am, 6 minutes before i was supposed to leave for work. YEAH, that was good. luckily i never actualy leave at 8, so i knew that as long as i was pulling out of my driveway by 8:13 i would be ok. i was only 3 minutes late , which was some sort of miracle. of course, i never quite woke up, and then i got a migraine. it was sooo annoying. it's been a bad month for migraines. oh well, i hadn't really had any for a while, maybe i'm just getting them out of my system.

today i overslept again, but not as late. i still had plenty of time to wash my hair and make a bagel. however, i did leave the cream cheese on the counter, which pisses me off. not olny becasuue it was a wast of a brand new cream cheese, but when i was at TJ's, they were out of light cream cheese, so i 'HAD' to buy the regular kind. i was really enjoying that real cream cheese!!!

it's getting darker earlier, and i'm really not looking forward to driving home from work in the dark next month. grr. and it was all gloomy this week... when it gets all overcast and misty like it was today, i wish it would just rain. i love the way things smell after it rains, i love coming home and putting on fleece and turning my heater on, i love listening to the rain outside my house, but i HATE the weird anticipation when you think it's going to rain but it doesn't.

so come on! RAIN ALREADY! plus i'm a little dissappointed... all these earthquakes and i haven't felt ONE. boo.

oh, the pain

i woke up this morning at 7:54 am with a migraine. this is the WORST THING EVER. back in the days before Excedrin migraine (a miracle drug) migraine would basically put me out of commission for the rest of the day. suffice to say i missed a lot of school. but now, if i start getting the little floating blind spots that precede the BLINDING PAIN and NAUSEA i can pop some pills and then just feel slightly icky. but if the migraine starts in my sleep, the preventative drugs don't happen and i wake up feeling like i'm going to DIE. the only thing to do then is take pills and sleep it off, but have you tried to go to sleep during the day with crazy light sensitivity and the worst pain in you head you ever felt? it's not easy. note easy at all. somehow i managed to fall asleep, but i don't know how, my cell rand a few times and there were people splashing around in the pool next door, which was annoying. i wanted to open my window and scream at them, but that would have been bad. bright daylight and screaming = not good for migraines.

but now i am feeling marginally better. At least, i feel ok enough to sit at my computer writing and listening to Paula Abdul without feeling like i'm going to vomit (from the migraine, not the paula abdul, silly!)

actually, the paula abdul is pretty cool... it's taking me back to 1991 when we used to stay in at lunchtime and put on paula abdul and janet jackson and the party and make up really bad dance routines. it was like a little sixth grade dance club, with 5 girls dancing to bad pop music with the lights on. it was good times for sure.

i found this cassette (CASSETTE!!!) during the massive housecleaning over labor day. my mom came over and we moved some stuff around in the master bedroom, cleaned up the clothes bomb that exploded in my room, and i got a bunch of stuff in bags to sell at the flea market. i actually THREW OUT CLOTHES. my friends will know what a big deal this is. i still have tons of clothes from HIGH SCHOOL, people. clothes that don't even fit anymore. i still kept a few old things that don't fit (but you can bet if they did, i'd be wearing them) but i got rid of about 6 bags of stuff. today i'm going to make another pass through the closet, and take down some boxes from my closet and hopefully get rid of some of that stuff. I have my little mermaid collection up there. that's going to be hard, trying to decide what is really worth keeping, and what is just just mass produced trash that wouldn't even sell on ebay. should be fun to go through everything, though.

so, i had a totally groupie moment at work yesterday. my favorite photographer came in to my work, and right before he left i did a little gushing about how much i love his photos. he was so nice, and told me that he had just hung a bunch of stuff at a local coffee shop, and that he was going to have a booth at the local art and wine festival next week. it was way cool, and i felt like a dork. then a few minutes later he came back, handed me a calendar, and left!!! i geeked out for the rest of the day. it was the coolest. i hope someday i can take photos that are ever 10% as amazing as his are. beautiful.

well, while i've been sitting here i've gone from feeling queasy to being STARVING. grilled cheese, here i come.

must be a full moon.

there is something about the end of the month... at my work, all the fucking CRAZIES come out of the woodwork.

to set this up, i am a front desk girl. i'm not a receptionist, i hang out the front desk and send everyone who comes in to where they need to be. part of the time, i just point to the part of the office they need to be in, but other times i have to spend a few minutes with someone to give them paperwork, or help them with random stuff. so, i'm a pointer and a random stuff-helper.

so today i'm helping this really nice lady. we're just about done, i'm getting some brochures and papers for her, when this lady walks in the door and immediately starts yelling.

"I NEED TO SIT DOWN. I JUST HAD SURGERY. CAN YOU PAGE MR. X FOR ME."

no regard for the other people in the office. no regard for the fact that i was currently helping someone. me and the nice lady give each other a look, and i say, very politely to the woman, "i'll be with you as soon as i'm done helping this lady."

"I NEED YOU TO PAGE MR.X, I'VE BEED CALLING AND CALLING AND CALLING AND CALLING AND CALLING ALL MORNING AND NO ONE ANSWERED."

i'm trying to ignore this obnoxious woman, but it's not working very well. i say, "I'll be with you in just a second. Go ahead and have a seat."

"WELL, I NEED HELP NOW, I HAVE A ONE-YEAR-OLD WAITING IN THE CAR."

i shit you not.

nice lady looks at me and says, "you know, I can wait a second..."

yeah, that's just what this obnoxious bitch wants. she wants everyone in the office to drop EVERYTHING to help her. i told the nice lady not to worry about it, she was here first, obnoxious lady has to wait her turn.

in the meantime, the crazy bitch has wandered into an adjacent part of the office and is screaming at the girl in that area stuff like, "WHAT DOES THIS ONE MEAN?" "HOW MUCH DOES THIS COST?"

has anyone seen that SNL skit where will ferrel is playing a character that can't control the volume of his voice? that's what this lady was like. i'm not even exaggerating.

so, finish up with the nice lady, who gives me a sympathetic look, then i try to determine what the crazy lady really needs. no matter how specific my questions were, she jsut kept repeating the same thing, along with the I'VE BEEN CALLING ALL MORNING comment. i think i've figured out what she needs, and at this point, i'm like, FUCK THIS, and i send her over to one of my co-workers (who we'll call S.) and then i leave for lunch. as i'm leaving, i walk past poor S., who gives me that wide-eyed "oh my god i can't beleive this person they are really scaring me why did you send them to me?!?!" look. you know that look.

an hour later, i return from lunch, and as i walk past S., i whisper jokingly to her, "is she gone?"

S., who looks shell shocked, shakes her head NO.

turns out, while i was gone, this woman proceeded to abuse EVERYONE she came into contact with. she asked S. to make a copy for her. then she goes, ok, well, i need three of this one, two of this one, and four of this one.
S. told her nicely, well i can do this one, but we're not kinko's. she made one person go outside to get her backpack out of her car. she was carrying a lot of cash and thought she lost it no less than THREE TIMES, and had mini almost-crying freak out moments. as S. is telling me all this, i'm really glad that i missed it. and on top of it all, she was still in the office, taking loudly to one of my other co-workers.

now, a lot of people come in asking to see Mr. X, or Mr. Z, or any of the other reps in my office. but a lot of time, they don't need to talk to a rep, they need to talk to S., so when crazy lady came in asking for Mr. X, i attempted to figure out what she needed, and it sounded like a simple thing that S. could take care of.

turns out, i was wrong, and she actually needed to talk to Mr. X. before i sent her back to S., she went to talk to MR. X. she told him that this crazy lady was yelling his name, and did he know who she was or what she needed?

he took one look and said, "hell no, and i'm going to lunch." (to be fair, Mr. X is a really good guy, and he wasn't pawning this crayz off on S. to be mean or anything.)

well, when poor S. gets this woman at her desk, and discovers that she needs to talk to Mr. X, she goes next door to the place he's having lunch and makes him come back to help her. (you go S.!)

so she is in the office making a scene for over an hour. boy, we got some good break room fodder from this one.

and to top it all off: i was really freaking out that a one year old baby had been alone in a car for over an hour on a warm day. so i went to the co-worker who had gone out to her car, and asked if there had been a baby in the car.

she said, "No, just a very bored 18 year old boy."

so this woman was not only obnoxious, but she LIED to us so we would help her before the other people. who were waiting their turn like civilized people.

sometimes i just don't get people at all, you know?

NUMBER ONE.

i'm really excited that Garden State is the number one selling CD on amazon right now. It took me a week to get it (after harassing the employees at wherehouse to order more, FUN TIMES) and it was worth the effort. this CD rocks, you should all buy it, and go see the movie. it doesn't matter which order you do those things in, either, as long as you do both. ;-)

neslee tollouse

every time i make cookies i think of that friends episode where they're trying to figure out phoebe's grandma's secret cookie recipie and it ends up being the nestle tollhouse cookies.

i'm actually not baking right at this very moment, but i need to hurry up and start soon... one of my co-workers has a birthday tomorrow. plus i've been talking about baking for about three days and if i don't hurry up and bring in some cookies, i think i'll get mobbed by an angry hoarde.

i can't wait for the weekend. i want to stay home and sleep in and stay in my pj's all day. i'll only get dressed to go see garden state again, or to go out and get the mail. i'll take a nap in the middle of that day, on saturday AND sunday. i'll work on the baby blankets for C. i'll listen to a lot of good music. i'll catch up on my olympics and clean out my tivo. and on my way home from work tomorrow i'll go to trader joes and pick up some lemon sorbet and i'll be the happiest girl ever. ;-)

i loves me some lemon sorbet.

awol no more

so, i've been slacking lately, but i've been busy! but i'm going to listen to my friend Liz, who said, 'update your blog!!' heehee.

last weekend started with a visit from donna and a whirlwind trip to LA. we left friday at 2:40 pm, drove, partied, slept, ate and drove. we arrived back at donnas house at 6:00 on saturday. total - ~27 hrs. RIDICS. but it was worth it to see the look on jason's face (we drove down to surprise him at his going away party). it was great to see the gang in LA, too. i only wish we had been able to stay one more day, but we were on a tight schedule.

sunday me, donna, cynthia and jason (who followed us up to SJ the night before) got lunch, and then i FINALLY got to see garden state, which was just as good as i had hoped, if not better. it's a GREAT flick. go see it.

last week was boring. i worked and slept mostly. but friday i got a call from debbie, who had a ticket to see the lion king in SF. her boyfriend was sick, could i make it? HELL YEAH. it was fantastic. definitelty as good as everyone says. very sensory overload, though. if it comes to a town near you (heh) you should all go see it.

yesterday me and debbie went to the mall, where i finally caved in to my intense, burning desire for cool electronic toys. yup, I BOUGHT AN iPOD. it is the COOLEST. for real. while at the mall, we also had ghiradelli sundays, which just topped off a great day. then dinner, and home to play with the new toy. whee!

today was boring. i stayed in my PJ's all day, which was nice. but now i'm frantically doing a load of laundry so i have clean clothes to wear to work tomorrow. ha. so like me. ;-)

breaking, broken

today was a huge day at work, we were having these big meetings all day, and how do i kick it off? i go out to leave for work and my car WON'T START. thank goodness my boss was totally cool and understanding, and didn't freak out at all!

this was a nice change from crappy retail job... when my battery went dead one morning my boss FREAKED out and gave me a bunch of crap. i should have expected as much, because crappy retail boss was a loser, but it still made me feel bad.

i'm still a little freaked out about the battery, because it wasn't like any dead battery i'd ever had before! the radio still worked, the lights still worked, the keyless entry still worked! i was freaked out that it was my starter or something. but it was just a dead battery, and i only ended up being 20 minutes late for work, so no big. plus, my boss said not to freak out if it happend again tomorrow, which was nice. another co-worker even gave me her number in case it happened again, so she could pick me up on her way in. how nice! my new job is so nice!

IM is still not working. this is driving me NUTS. internet still works, obviously, but some web pages won't load. it's not a random thing, either... it's the same few sites constantly (and i KNOW they're still online). any thoughts/suggestions? because not having IM is KILLING ME. it's saving me time, but it's KILLING ME. ;-)

wtf?

for some strange reason, some websites that i read won't load. they load on my parent's computer, but not mine. i've tried a couple different browsers, too, with no luck. that, and today IM won't load. what the hell is going on?? this is disturbing. i am LOST without IM.

saw The Whothis weekend. it was good times. Pete Townshend did that arm-swinging thing all night, which was amazing to me! yeah, he's been doign to for a few years (heh) but to always hit the strings, to not bash your hand into the side of your guitar once or twice? amazing if you ask me. Roger Daltrey looks awwwfully good for his age.

fianlly bought a new printer. it's about damn time, i say. it's an HP photosmart 7260. so far, works like a dream. but then again, so did my last printer until it BROKE, with no hope of repair. grr. but the new one is good times. i can finally print 8*10's and 5*7's of my photos! whee!

stream of conciousness.

i am so totally obsessed with a favor house atlantic by coheed and cambria. i hear it, and realize that the singers voice should annoy the hell out of me, but it doesn't. great song. great song.

i spent a few days in SF earlier this week for training for my new job. it was goooood tiiimes. i wouldn have preferred it if i'd had someone to hang out with, but whatevs. SF is the bomb. my company put me up in a nice hotel, i got to take a nice walk to the class (15 blocks! and i walked!!!!) and they are gonna pay me back for my food. wheeee. after i walked back to my hotel the first day, i bummed around for about an hour, and then pulled out the phone book to look for some edible food for dinner. it was then that i realized that i was close to the cable car line that would take me to the financial district and THE FOUR STORY OLD NAVY. and VIRGIN MEGASTORE. and SEPHORA. by then it was getting dark, and there was no way in hell i was riding the cable car into downtown ALONE and in the DARK. so my bank account was safe, but damn. i wanted to go to old navy!! heh.

found out last weekend that one of my closest friends is a FANTASTIC photographer. he was never big on photography, so this was a bit of a shocker. it inspired me to pull out my camera, which i had been ignoring since i got back from my trip in June. I didn't take many photos while i was in SF, because i was alone and a little paraniod that someone on a bike would ride by and snatch my camera, but i got a few decent photos while walking around. i'm going to upload them tonight to three by fives, along with a bunch of photos from last time i was at disneyland, and maybe even some from when i was in AZ. we'll see. everytime i think i'm going to post photos, i end up slacking. bah.

this weekend is going to be totally nuts. i'm spending the evening with my mom and grama tomorrow, then seeing the who on saturday night, then shopping with my friend H. on sunday, and then going to a play sunday night. dishes? laundry? BAH! heh. i'm just resigning myself to the fact that my house will never be clean.

last but not least, i'd like to announce the opening of WWW.ABREEVS.COM. I'm sure some of you have noticed me talking about abreevs and wondered what it was... well, now you can find out! learn the history, see a list of common words, media sightings, get your most pressing questions answered, and best of all, learn how you can speak abreevs and incorporate it into your life! you can also submit new words, sightings, or jsut leave a comment. Abreevs Dot Com was whipped up in a few days as a birthday gift for Danny, the king of Abreevs. it was fun (and a challenge!), so i hope you enjoy it.

desperation, part II

ok, trying again!

help me get my iPod and i will send you some goodies for your trouble.

i need three. and i just found a way to do this with NO CREDIT CARD REQUIRED.

leave a comment and i will e-mail you the details. ;-D

i love my job

i love my new job. i really really do.

firstly, it is less work for more money. that is always a good thing.
secondly, everyone there is SO nice. not a mean one in the bunch. really.
thirdly, the days FLY by. unlike retail where time inches on S.L..O...W....L.....Y.
fourthly, i found a pair of shoes that are halfway decent (meaning i don't want to cut my feet off by the end of the day).
fifthly, did i mention that it pays more than all my previous jobs?
sixthly, i dont' even think these are real words.

ugh, it's time for bed. i'm still not used to this going to bed early thing. whatevs, it must be done! eventually i want to be up early enough to make my lunch in the morning. right now i barely have time for breakfast. hee.

desperation

i want an ipod SO BAD i can taste it.

SO BAD, PEOPLE.

so this is where i beg with no shame.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me get my ipod.... go here and sign up. use a yahoo e-mail or something, and sign up for AOL or Ebay or anything you want, then cancel it. but remember! you have to complete one of the offers or it won't work!

i only need 4 people to do this. only 4!

it's not a scam. it worked for this guy. and if you want more info you can go here (he has a way to sign up for ebay with no creditcard needed, too! cool!).

once you sign up, run with it! send the link to your friends, and get an ipod of your own! plus they just added the brand new 20 gig ipod!

if you help me get my ipod, i'll help you get one too... i'll post your link on my IM and on my site!

PLEASE??

< /grovel >