If any of you are wondering why I’ve been so silent, it’s because I’ve been on a mini vacation. I went to Las Vegas with my family from Sunday until today. I actually went home on Friday night, and then went to the LA County Fair on Saturday.

As for Vegas, we stayed at Harrah’s. We walked around the strip some, and I watched my mom lose and my sister win playing Blackjack. I didn’t play; I contemplated doing it a little this time, but with the two classes I’m signed up for, I decided I really can’t afford to potentially lose $100 or so (The amount I probably would’ve played with).

An interesting occurance is that my sister and I were getting carded at the tables left and right—something that doesn’t happen quite so often on our own. We suspect it was just because we were with our mom, although no one thinks I look my age. On an amusing sidenote, my mom was walking behind me and my sister and said that tons of guys were checking us out—and some of them had girls on their arms! Awww yeeeah, who’s hot?? :)

It was still fun though, and my family even attended the performance of Skintight, which features topless dancers, woohoo. ;)

I don’t have much else to say at the moment, so in closing, I will leave you with the picture of my family, taken while we were waiting for Skintight to begin. I’m the one on the far left (smiling entirely too much), for those who don’t know!

I had my first class last night, and I just thought I’d share some classroom tips, which are apparently not obvious to the older folks in continuing education:

1. If you weigh 400 lbs, don’t wear a giant neon green dress.



2. If you want to seem involved in the lecture by asking questions, make sure you don’t ask something that the teacher JUST answered or can be found on the handouts.



3. Don’t find ways to announce your medical problems to the entire class on the first day. Ex. “Is that the way the picture is supposed to look, or just the projection? I can’t tell because of the mini stroke I had, that affected one of my eyes.” No one gives a damn about you, and if I find out later you’re using this to justify crappy work, I’m gonna be pissed.



4. If the computer experiences technical difficulties, don’t start drooling and shouting out solutions in an attempt to assert your geekiness. Hovering over the teacher’s shoulder as they are trying to conduct their presentation isn’t endearing. No one likes an ass kisser.



5. Pay attention. If you are quiet and attentive and listen for more than 5 seconds, you might learn a bunch of new things. You might also find that all of your questions have already been answered. Unless of course, you just like to hear yourself talk…

You’d think that these people would be better than your run-of-the-mill college students, because they are older working professionals. Apparently they could learn a thing or two from us young’ns. I should probably point out though, that all but tip #4 were violated by the same obnoxious woman—most of the students were attentive and tried to ask intelligent questions.

Today marks the end of summer, and the beginning of Autumn. This makes me sad. I LOVE summer—the sun, the long daylight hours, the warmth, the tans, the beach, vacations, coconut oil. Granted, I don’t see or do some of these things while I work all day, but just knowing that it’s the season for such things makes me happy!

Autumn marks the beginning of me freezing my ass off. Already we’ve seen the fog roll in in the mornings, which doesn’t burn off until late. Last night there were some ominous looking clouds, but nothing came of them.

The best parts of Autumn come in November—my birthday and Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, those are still 2 months away!

Anyway, go visit Colleen if you’d like some Fall Happiness! :)

1. Savings::Loan
2. On::Off
3. Wire::Bra
4. Word::Game
5. Bladder::Infection
6. Missing::Person
7. Side::Airbag
8. Window::Pane
9. Digit::Finger
10. Swirl::Ice Cream

Goddamn. I just finished reading Why Girls are Weird. I spent the entire weekend laughing and crying; mostly crying though.

Some parts were so funny that I actually laughed out loud when I read them. Other parts were sad or touching and made me cry. The rest of the parts made me reflect on things in my own life that were either similar or reminded me of different things that could be compared, and for those I think I cried even harder.

When did I turn into my mom, crying for the sad moments, as well as the happy?

Anyway, I haven’t cried this much in a long time. Maybe I needed to anyway, for reasons non-book-related. Hell, I even beat the crap out of my stuffed Tigger last night, in my need to fully emote—something I rarely let myself do (emote, not beat the crap out of Tigger). I did it mostly out of anger—I’m angry with myself, and angry that I might have reasons to be so upset.

Even though it was fiction, the book chronicles nicely the cyclical nature of events that happen to those who bare themselves in cyberspace. How easy it is to want to please the people that can’t get enough of you, and worship you, to the point where you don’t even realize how naked you’ve become. I experienced more of the worshipping thing back when I was webcamming, so I know how powerful that feeling can be when you’re lonely.

It also made me reflect on how I’m not the person I want to be. Call it an early mid-20s crisis. Few things in my life are as I want them to be, and some of them I worry that I’ve f#^@d up too much for me to fix—although I really hope that’s not the case. I am trying to work on the things I can change, and I am hoping that the rest will fall into place. I wish I had all the answers. I wish having the answers was enough. In the morning I might wish I didn’t post this.

Anyway, this might not sound like a great review, but I really did love this book, and couldn’t stop reading. I still recommend you buy it.

Well, this has just been a chick-filled weekend for me so far. A highly unusual occurance, to be sure!

Last night I met up with 5 other girls at E-bar. An ex-coworker is getting married next month, and she decided to get all of us SB people together, since it wasn’t really feasible to attend her bridal shower down in the OC (no, not The OC. Notice the lack of a capital “T”). We spent about 2 hours there, drinking and eating and talking—I knew all but 2 of the girls there. Anyway, it was a nice change of pace to actually be around a group of girls (although girls may be a bit of a misnomer, as I was the youngest of the group).

This morning I awoke to find an email from a girl named Marie, whose website I enjoy reading for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it’s entirely in German. It seems she found my website somehow, and while reading, discovered that I link to her in my Blogroll. It truly is a small world sometimes.

Picture this: A 24 year old college graduate, working full-time in the library. In her boredom, she decides to beef up her HTML skills by creating a blog, and soon finds that she likes receiving random fan mail from those who enjoy visiting her site.

If you said that I was describing myself, you are incorrect! I don’t turn 24 until November. On the contrary, this is the summary of the current book I’m reading, entitled Why Girls Are Weird. It is a chick lit novel I discovered thanks to Christine’s post at Bigpinkcookie, and so far I’ve been able to relate to some of the stuff, and found most of it funny and/or sad.

The book makes me wish I were a funnier writer. Essentially I only write gushing raves and analytical rants on here. I wind up coming across alternately as an excited teenager or a college student writing a thesis. It’s been so long since I’ve written anything creatively though. Would anyone want to read my stories, if told in an amusing fashion, sprinkled with sarcasm and poignant self-realization?

Anyway, I digress. If you like blogging chicks, go get a copy of the book, and enjoy the rest of your Saturday.

Ahoy me hearties! I just be wantin’ t’remin’ ye dat t’day be Talk Like a Pirate Day, shiver me timbers! So, avast ye scurvy scum, an’ join in smartly, lest we be makin’ ye walk t’plank an’ go to Davey Jones’ Locker. This applies t’all ye wenches as well as t’land lubbin’ bilge rats! Arrrrrr!

If ye be wantin’ some pirate haikus, then ye best be lookin’ at The Oregonian. Now, where be me rum?? Yo ho, yo ho, a Pirate’s life for me….

This week’s theme is all about music.

Ugh! So for the last two days, the traffic light at the freeway onramp has been out, so naturally everyone resorts to letting each side send a driver through in alternating fashion. The way it worked out is that first the people directly across from me went, then the people to my right, then the people in my lane, and then repeat the process.

Well, this all works just fine….until it gets to be my turn. So I wait for the people directly across, and then right after the people to my right go, I start to take my turn. BOTH days, some asshole directly across from me decides it’s HIS turn to go. Are these people not paying attention, or do they just not care, figuring that their time is more valuable than mine?! I know I was taking my turn correctly, because both times only one driver went out of turn, and there are two lanes that should go when it’s their turn.

And lastly….why did it keep happening to ME?! I didn’t hesitate, and everyone prior was politely taking their turn at the designated time. ARG!

Oh no, our bosses might finally be on to us! According to this story appearing in Reuters, employees primarily use IMing clients to gossip and scheme against bosses—not for communicating project info quickly among co-workers in large corporations. What’s sad is I bet that corporate bosses will probably be shocked by this article, whereas most employees are thinking “Duh!” Hopefully businesses don’t start cracking down, as it really is a useful tool—both to reduce stress during the day and for the legit purposes we try to convince our bosses of. :)

In other work related fun, I’ve decided to customize a Launchcast station. It’s actually pretty neat—they have A LOT of songs and artists on here, and it’s FREE. In addition, you get to rate the songs, albums, and artists, and they then use the rankings to give you a station of songs you want to listen to. You also have the option of listening to the stations of other users. It makes for some pretty good listening if you can take the time to customize it the way you want. Check it out!

Ok, so I know most people posted about this stuff last week, but hey, I had to be sure.

I didn’t really care about the J.Lo-Ben Affleck wedding, but damn, how cool would it have been if I could crash it?? The wedding was supposed to take place in the Santa Barbara area yesterday—none of the news media seemed able to settle on exactly which location—the Bacara, the Biltmore, Montecito, etc. Then, the couple decided to postpone their nuptials, citing too much publicity. I still had my hopes that this was just a ruse to throw people off, and that I’d still get to see some famous people.

But that was not to be. Yesterday various media outlets announced that not only has the wedding been postponed, but the couple have broken up! When Football announcers decide to take time away from players’ stats and mention gossip, and CNN.com lists it on its front page, you know it’s big news!

So alas, no wedding. All of us SB people didn’t get the opportunity to walk down State Street and run into some of Hollywood’s A-List. How tragic! ;)

Those of you who know me well will be amazed to learn that I spent most of the night talking with my housemates. Yes I, the girl who will avoid using the kitchen if there is someone merely sitting in the living room, talked for hours with these people. I talked some more with the German Girl, although still only in English. I better try to practice my German with her soon, lest she think I was only pretending to know the language. There just hasn’t been a good time to do it though, since most of the conversations have involved other people, and they of course don’t know German.

Anyway, part of my chatting was with my landlady, and in the course of it, she decided to give me a copy of the book she published a few years ago. It’s about her marriage to her first husband—a French national living in Morocco. She always alludes to this time, so I guess I will read it just to see what the heck she’s talking about—it sounds like this book is essentially a true story. Amazingly enough, this book can be purchased on Amazon! So it seems I live with a published author…

I noticed not too long ago that I almost never seem to post on Saturdays. Check out the calendar on the right of the Index page. While my posting is always irregular, every day of the week has gotten some love eventually—except Saturday! Keeping with this theme, I am posting this on Sunday, and not Saturday! Anyway, enough with this random observation. I HAVE posted on Saturdays, it just doesn’t seem as frequently as other days of the week.

In other amazing news, I totally cleaned my room today. That means I actually cleared everything off of desks and dressers, dusted, threw away stuff I didn’t need, and put it all back in an at least semi-organized fashion. I think I felt compelled to do this because every other person in this house has an immaculate room but me—even the 2 new people who JUST moved in. They managed to get their spaces all put away and spotless in under a week. Sickening! I think mine is still the worst, but it’s pretty darn impressive for ME. We’ll just see how long it lasts. :)

Hmm, as if our college town didn’t have a bad enough reputation, it seems that now some of the student body (primarily the genitals) will appear on a reality porn series. The article about this appears in a Rolling Stone Feature in their August 27th issue.

It mentions students at schools such as ASU, who have now suffered severe backlash—both from the University and their parents. The UCSB students, true to form, just have the reaction “DUDE it was SOOOO awesome!” I guess we’ll have to see how they feel once the tape is released and their grandparents, employers, or future children see it.

It’s no wonder I didn’t go partying in IV much as a student; I just can’t get into that mentality.

This week’s topic deals with people’s names.

The name Jennifer creates a dual nature in that you can be very generous and understanding, but you can also be so candid in your expression that you create misunderstanding. You struggle with the requirement to soften your expression with tact and diplomacy and to consider the feelings of others. Difficulty in accepting advice or admitting that you may have made a mistake causes you to appear to be stubborn and set in your ways. Thus, you have too often created the wrong impression, and friendships have suffered. This name does offer creative talent where there is the opportunity for ingenuity and originality. You have a tendency, at times, to have too many ideas on the go, and thus your efforts are scattered and many things do not reach completion. You are inclined to do to excess the things you like to do. You have very intense feelings and find it difficult to maintain stability and happiness. If you allowed it, temper and self-pity could be problems.

Hooray, the German girl just moved in right now. My landlady always has an interesting mix of people staying here, and for at least the next year, one of those people will be a German girl doing graduate study in Comparative Lit.

I didn’t talk to her in German yet, but we just talked about Germany and languages and stuff like that. I’m sure she’ll talk to me later though. She seems very nice, so that’s pretty cool.

I’m soooooo excited! Hooray for German! :)

Well, I registered for those Extension classes today. I decided to do 2 at once, since they are at night and only meet once a week. The other reason for doing more than one is so I can complete the program faster, as well as get to the more useful classes. Unfortunately, the classes I am taking this quarter are REALLY basic and I fear I will be bored. The only prereq is that you know how to use a computer; they will be teaching things such as terminology and basic design—things I’m obviously at least passingly familiar with, as I’ve used computers all my life and have a website! Oh well.

The thing that sucks about the program is that I’m not eligible for the Staff Discount. The discount does not apply to courses that use the Computer Labs, which of course all of mine will. How lame is that?! I think they should ESPECIALLY give discounts for computer courses, since they are so useful in the job market. Honestly, which is more likely to make you money, a class on programming or one on how to make wine?? I guess they are implying that fun classes are more worthy of discounts than technical ones. Oh well…let’s hope the hundreds of dollars I just put down will be worth it!

Just a reminder for anyone who is interested that the themes for Connect 8 are posted. This project seems like it might take a bit more thought than the previous one. I hope it’s not TOO hard. Anyway, start taking pictures!!

Today there was a fatal accident on Thunder Mountain at Disneyland. One person is dead and 10 others are injured.

I had an annual pass for a few years, and living within 20 minutes of the theme park, I have been to Disneyland more times than I can count. I have all the rides memorized, can tell you where any restroom, attraction, or restaurant is located, etc.

Disneyland is generally pretty strict with their health and safety regulations, but obviously things can still go wrong. I always assumed rides like Thunder Mountain were safer because they didn’t go as high or upside down or anything. I won’t even ride the “dangerous” ones. I guess in this case it wouldn’t have mattered.

Damn.

I’ve been watching a lot more TV at home lately. I don’t get the movie channels like HBO or Showtime in my room, so I have to rely on basic cable. Basically, the only movies I get to watch on cable are those that are edited for time, content, and to allow for commercials.

Anyway, I’ve discovered that there are some unique shows that I find fascinating. HGTV, for example, has some cool shows. So far, I’ve watched Design on a Dime and Weekend Warriors. On TLC I’ve watched Trading Spaces. These shows basically show people redecorating their homes on a budget, and in the case of Trading Spaces, the neighbors do each others homes.

Who knew I’d like such domesticated fare??

Last night I also caught an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, which was pretty amusing. The transformation was pretty remarkable—the dude’s apartment looked MUCH better, as did his wardrobe. They also tried to teach the guy how to dance, since he had no clue. The dancing didn’t turn out that great, but he gave a valiant effort, so it was cool. The gay guys are pretty funny, and I guess they all kinda have their own little bit that they do. As I’ve only seen one episode, I really can’t comment more about it other than I was amused by what I did see.

Hehe can you tell I’m bored with the lack of IMing at work??

Argh, it seems that today is going to suck too. We still can’t connect to any sort of external media outlet, save for websites. Maybe later in the day we’ll be able to connect again for like 2 hours, but who knows.

Hmm, well at least I just realized that today is Wednesday and not Tuesday, so I guess at least my week will go by faster. But damn, how bored will I get if I can’t spend some time being unproductive and chatting with friends? Do they really expect me to WORK all day?!

*Sigh*

Another Update: Hmm well we just got an email saying why we are having all these network problems. Apparently, in an attempt to make our network less vulnerable to attacks like those plaguing the masses these past few weeks, our systems guys applied a ton of filters to block undesired traffic. The result is that they are also blocking a bunch of legit functions that we NEED. They are working to fix it, but who knows when that will be. Plus, I wonder if they will decide that the protocols necessary to use AIM are necessary. If it isn’t fixed as a result of something else, I wonder if they will fix it just for those of us who need it to talk to other people while at work. It’s so handy, darnit!

1. Kiss:: Tell
2. Nothing:: Everything
3. Reach:: Grab
4. Late:: 1am
5. Stump:: Tree
6. Dreams:: Hopes
7. LOL:: Girl (me)
8. Ornament:: Christmas Tree
9. Neck:: Tie
10. Guitar:: String

OH NO! It seems that the port used to connect AIM has been blocked at my work!! The weirdness actually started about 20 minutes before I got off work on Friday—my list all of a sudden had all its contacts go offline, and then the connection status would alternate between connected and disconnected, but without ever REALLY connecting again.

The problem persists and has affected everyone here that uses AIM or Trillian. I am already going through withdrawal!! If anyone knows how to get around this problem, please please help!!

UPDATE: OOPS, nevermind. I guess we all should’ve tried rebooting first, before we totally freaked out. For some reason that fixed everything. I guess that’s what I get for just logging off at night instead of shutting down the system. Hee hee. Anyway I am MUCH happier now! :)