Burn!

I know that everyone has been clamoring for more Spanish Partner - he's been just as goofy lately. Today we were talking about where there were significant amounts of Hispanic populations in the US. We were naming states, and one guy said "New Mexico, Arizona, California, Utah - oh wait, they're Mormon, not Spanish". Spanish Partner must have thought this was the biggest diss ever since he gasped and cried out "ooooooh . . . . burn!"

Not really, sorry.

The mice are becoming increasingly bold, since I started the trend of only feeding them after they came up and sat in my hand for longer than a millisecond. I gave them a fun time yesterday by putting in the chest of drawers that I painted at Creative Crafts. They didn't really know what to do with it at first besides gnaw off the paint, but after awhile they were climbing in and on top of it. Surprise, surprise, here's a picture.



The little one shyly hiding in a cute manner.





Then deciding to go bold.

Numa Numa

Now, despite the fact that this kid is only about thirteen years old and ends his credits with "LOL", I think that I could sit and swoon watching Paul's Numa Numa for days. The cute hair! His expressive gestures!


Oh, lord. I bet his parents are going to find that video by accident some day and say to themselves "he's undulating ... and fluttering his eyelashes. Should we be worried?"

You know, I don't even mind the LOL so much. Oh Paul, we could hang together and use acronyms all day long! I would GCYSHARYDT. But that's between us.

I'm so pleased I found him. I was afraid that Paul was a casualty of some Google black hole.

Carmike

So at work today a guy and his girlfriend (they comprised about a third of our total attendance tonight) approached the concession counter discussing something, and they continued the conversation even as the guy ordered. "God, you can just be stupid" the girl says. "Uh. . . a large water and a box of Milk Duds. Why are you saying I'm stupid? What am I doing that is stupid?" At this point, I wanted to grab him by the lapels and shout at him "You just paid $3.60 for a freaking bottle of water and $2.50 for about ten Milk Duds! How aren't you stupid?"

But I didn't. My employment wouldn't last too long.

My mother claimed today that by the end of the week it would be up to sixty degrees. If that turns out to be untrue, then it would be the cruelest lie in the world.

Cat and Dog

Now, I know this has to be Photoshopped (the world would be too perfect if it wasn't), but that doesn't stop it a bit from being absolutely hilarious. You must click and enlarge. It's imperative. Look at the dog's face! Look at the cat's face! The big, glowing eyes! The sideways kick! The Matrix leap! The perfect harmony! The spittle!



Picture courtesy of You Can't Make it Up

Life Sciences

So when Tal and I got to the Nittany Knitters meeting on Saturday, we saw something that made us stop really quickly and giggle. Here:


I know it's a little hard to see in the picture, so click to enlarge. And yes, that is two boys. Hee hee. They left soon after we got there, so that was sad.








Slept for 75% of the day, which is quite an accomplishment.

LSAT

I had the horrendous task this morning of not only waking myself up at 6:30 (on a Saturday!) but also to motivate myself into actually getting out of bed. I almost lost the fight. The LSAT practice test was this morning and it was almost as I had expected, with the Logic Games being harder and the Critical Reasoning being easier. I know everyone complains that they run out of time, and that was true on the Games but I breezed through the reading and was actually bored since I had over ten minutes left. Want some sample questions? Of course.

A short Reasoning:

No one can deny that "This story is true" is a very different utterance from "This story is long." A potential Bachelor of Philosophy does not, at the moment in which his degree is conferred, lose one attribute (potentiality) and gain a new one (actuality). Words like 'true' and 'potential' do not denote tangible, concrete qualities. Our minds cannot then learn them in the same way they learn words like 'rectangular' or 'blue'.

The author of the above passage is making which one of the following assumptions?

(a) Our minds can only learn tangible, concrete qualities.
(b) Attributes cannot be lost and gained.
(c) Abstract qualities are more difficult for our minds to grasp than are tangible qualities.
(d) Our minds are structured according to the types of words we learn.
(e) The process of learning words varies with the types of words learned.


Now a Logical Game. I wish these were as fun as real games.

A laboratory is testing six chimps for acquisition of communication skills. The six chimps are Alonzo, Bobo, Carlo, Dingo, Elmo, and Frank. A technician will work with one chimp at a time for a single time slot - defined as an entire morning or an entire afternoon. Each chimp will be tested exactly once. Time slots not filled by chimp testing are considered free. The tests will be conducted during a single week from Monday to Friday. Alonzo is tested on Thursday morning.

Bobo, Elmo, and Frank sleep late, and can be tested only in the afternoon.

No tested is conducted on Monday morning.

Elmo is not tested on Monday or Tuesday.

The time slot immediately preceding that in which Alonzo is tested is free.

Alonzo is tested after Dingo but before Frank.

Carlo is tested on Tuesday.


If at least one chimp is tested per day, and if Elmo is tested on the same day as another chimp, which one of the following must be true?

(a) Bobo is tested in the time slot immediately preceding the time slot in which Carlo is tested.
(b) Elmo is tested on the day after Dingo is tested.
(c) Carlo is tested in the time slot immediately preceding the time slot in which Dingo is tested.
(d) No other chimp is tested between Bobo and Dingo.
(e) Exactly one other chimp is tested between Carlo and Elmo.




God, I just bored myself silly writing all that. But that's what I had five 35-minute sections of this morning. The time did not go quickly. Here's a light silly picture.

Pictures

It's been a little text-heavy lately, so here's some stuff I've taken lately to lighten it up. Of course, always click on them to enlarge.



This was taken yesterday, when the afternoon was unseasonably sunny.






Hee, I love taking pictures of fish. These ones were particularly skittish.





Mice! Nothing else to say about them, really.

Marathon Post

Every so often on the bus there's this older (about 45 years old) guy who always sits in the rows in the front that are sideways so that handicapped people have an easier time sitting down. I thought this was because he had some kind of disability, but I was wrong. Well, not really. He certainly has a social disability. He sits in those sideways seats so he is in better position to stare at people. After he establishes eye contact for greater than a second and a half he will immediately start talking to whoever was so unfortunate as to be staring off into space at the wrong angle.

I have to write the obligatory socially awkward pity sentence, about how it's sad that he rides this bus all day and people basically do everything they can to avoid looking at that half of the bus. But, damn! People aren't riding the bus to find their long-lost conversational partner. The only appropriate bus talk consists of a lot of 'excuse me's' and perhaps an offhand comment about the weather and only if the weather is extremely bad. I have seen so many people who didn't realize that he was sitting in front of them and then they looked like a deer in the headlights when he began to chatter. Cause, you know, you can't just get up and move. You're stuck.

Cornily enough, I am listening to David Hasselhoff's cover of "Hooked on a Feeling", and I must say, the catchiest part in the entire part is when he croons "Iiiii, hi yi, hi yi,'m (bomp! bomp!) hooked on a feeling!' God, I could play that one part all day. I really can't do it full justice in text.

I have been having the absolute wackiest dreams lately. I've mentioned my Mafia Family dream to a few people, and last night was no better. I was at Cornell University answering questions from a black professor and my responses included the term "collective unconscious". WTF, mate.

Hee. I was starting to stress since I didn't read the act that I was supposed to for my French Theatre class, and then breathed a sigh of relief since we had no assignment due to the midterm tomorrow. Careful what you wish for.

I started creating flash cards for los partes del cuerpo in Spanish, and damn! Those Spaniards are detailed. I even have one for 'inner ear'. My card stack is more than half an inch tall.

Now that I've begun the longest post in the world I can't very well stop now. On another language-related note, I've been considering seeing my French professor about a grammatical point, but I'm too embarrassed. Here's the quandry: in French, to say that it is necessary to do something you would say il faut que ... and then whatever was necessary to be done. However, after the que you have to use the subjunctive. I, sadly enough, don't know the first thing about how to make the subjunctive. I remember trying to learn it repeatedly and just getting bored. Whenever I have to say that something is necessary I just wheedle my way around it so the que never appears. That won't be able to go on forever, I fear.

I have a huuuuge stack of books and movies just itching to be picked up:

The Gospel according to the Simpsons : the spiritual life of the world's most animated family

Will in the world : how Shakespeare became Shakespeare Ghost

	Stay tuned : television's unforgettable moments

One foot on the floor : the curious evolution of sex on television from "I Love Lucy" to "South Park"

Lucy & Ricky & Fred & Ethel : the story of "I love Lucy"



So yeah, these aren't the most challenging of reads but at least they'll prove to be interesting.

Mouse

This page has been considerably deprived of good, quality mouse pictures lately. Here's your fix. They're both still alive, which I'm sure is good news, and they are friskier lately. They certainly love that wheel, yes. Especially in the middle of the night. Especially when it's up against the side of the bin and goes "bonk, bonk, bonk" rhythmically for an hour. Yes, they like that a lot...

Clicky

It has arrived! My new clicky keyboard! Oh, joy! I know, how much older and more mid 90's can you be? But I fell in love with the 'clicky' sound that one of the keyboards in the labs made, and after that my soft keyboard seemed woefully inadequate. So this one is clicking away, so far, and let's hope that it can hold up for another six months or so.

I'll post a picture later, but it's not going to look much different than the picture on eBay.

Oh, purchases purchases.

Project Runway

Tomorrow I was expecting an easy breezy Thursday, but sadly this is proving not to be the case. I have to sit in on a class presentation on academic integrity (which I was supposed to do but totally pawned off on another girl). Then Estefania from my French Theatre class emails me and wants to meet at 2:30 to review for the midterm. Fair enough. Then, I have my study abroad information session (mandatory) at 5:00. So I'll be getting home around eight-ish, yet again.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is playing free at the HUB on Friday, oh goody!

Arg, according to tvguide.com Project Runway this week is just a reunion where everyone comes back and rehashes the good and the bad. There is never-before-seen footage, however.

This entire season was worth watching just for Santino's impressions of Tim Gunn.
"Where's Andrae? You guys, I know this is a competition but you have to watch out for him. He's our little lamb."
"Andrae, stop misbehaving. We're at Red Lobster - you can't throw food. Andrae, stop having a tantrum and come out of the bathroom. Andrae!"

Just Don't Eat It

Oh, look. Somebody was very clever. Rather than have the sign say, "Thank you for not eating in the Libraries", it has been altered to read "Thank you for not eating the Library!". I don't know, maybe that is kind of funny.









How dirty must Carmike be to require us to buy hand sanitizer in liters?






God, check this out. It's the I.Q. Zero cash register that I am chained to at work. Look how ghetto. We have pieces of paper taped over the normal buttons since the tags on the originals are so outdated. They have a button for Snickers. Dr. Pepper. We haven't had those for years! Two of my favorite original buttons are "Choc Rain" and "Hot Tom". First of all, "raisins" cannot be abbreviated to "rain". Perhaps something terrible like "Rasn", but that's it. And Hot Tom, as funny as that is, is also sad because it refers to Hot Tamales, which is spelled with an A rather than an O.

I.Q. Zero indeed.

Foodpic: This is of a cheesecake purchased in conjunction with Ryan in South Dining Commons. The taste was decent if a bit flat, but what I really appreciated was the attempt at a fleur-de-lis with blueberries at the bottom. Nice touch, South staff.

Taco Bell, Part II

Spanish Partner was kind of embarrassing yesterday. We had the chance to read aloud (which he relishes with a passion) and his manner of speaking was so embellished and over-the-top that I was blushing. He rolled r's that didn't even need rolling. Every time he overaccents I want to shoot myself in the foot since that would be less painful.

Eww, asshat alert. This was another Taco Bell customer on Saturday night, who was about 40ish with a daughter about 5 or 6. For starters, he started shouting at the staff that they were cheating him out of more than half of his order, when it was apparent that they were only half done and were not craftily trying to steal food that they get for free anyway. He ordered practically the entire menu, so it's not surprising that it would be given in halves. Secondly, he grabbed handfuls of those mini hot sauces with the sayings on them. Handfuls! Then, he barked to the staff about how Baja Blast was out. God, who actually wants Baja Blast anyway? He made all the college kids appear proper and decorous.

Taco Bell

I couldn't stop giggling Saturday night at Taco Bell. I had just gotten off of work, and Thomas was hungry. We were standing in line and this semi-drunk guy behind me said "hey . . . I gotta go to the bathroom. Save my spot, okay? Like, make sure no one takes it. I will . . . I will be right back." He leaves. Eventually some tall guy comes up to the line, and even though I didn't care about that stupid boy, I said to him, "oh, there's some guy in the bathroom who says that he'll be right back so you shouldn't take his spot."

He turns to me with a bored look and says, "That's a great story." Completely deadpan. All sarcasm. Then he turns away.

Ha! What? He was serious. I couldn't believe he just said that. I started to laugh at myself because, damn, what did I care if some drunk guy lost his spot in line? I did sound idiotic. That guy was ballsy, although in a rude kind of way.







Ooh, and check out this hot car from New York. Wow.

Quickie

I have been perusing that Lessons of Life and Love book and marked down the silliest comments they make. They'll be posted here soon, but I must wake up at 6:45 tomorrow morning and shan't spend any more time than necessary conscious.

Here you go.

This is Horny Rob last Halloween. He's a cigarette. Clever, no? And he's smoking a pen.

Candy

I received a brochure last year in the dorms promoting alcohol awareness and how to make Mock-Cocktails with mainly juice and seltzer. Did no one think that naming them "Mocktails" would be less cumbersome? Even "Mock-Cocks" would be better, but I think that may refer to something else.

Carl at work discovered that we have a Wet-Dry vac in the storage room, and he correctly assumed that it would be much more effective at removing the tiny bits on the floor than sweeping alone. Oh, how he was right! And it is also a thousand times more fun! There is so much popcorn everywhere and the vacuum just goes 'thwip!' and sucks it right up. I was slightly concerned because it is rather loud for a vacuum and there are movies playing ten feet away, but no one has complained yet. It's now my favorite part of cleaning. I can't believe no one ever used it before.

I am actually embarrassed when people buy the candy at work. Some kids get all excited since they see "Wonka Bar" and clamor to their parents nonstop until they sigh and say "and one Wonka Bar please". This bar is the size, literally, of a fun-size Hershey bar you get at Halloween. And we charge $2.50 for it. Good lord. I had a craving for Twizzlers so bad on Monday I was actually tempted to pay $2.80. However, I had Nathan grab me some at McLanahans, whose prices are inflated as it is but nothing compared to the movies. He brought back a one-pound bag for $1.50. 16 ounces - $1.50. 6 ounces - $2.80. Wow. Do the math. Or just imagine it in your head. The profit margin is staggering.

As an employee (albeit a bad one), I advise all patrons to sneak in anything they can. Tickets are pricey. Candy is insanity. However, I am pissed when people leave their contraband wrappers on the floor for me. Make an effort to hide it, yo.

Urchin

Hee hee. I love the aquarium.

Ice Age

So at work we have these huge promotional stands of various characters from Ice Age 2. I immediately bid for the creepy one of the rodent(correction:sloth) voiced by John Leguizamo since it's just freakish. Now I'm second-thinking because a: it'll give me nightmares and b: how the hell can I carry a gigantic 7-foot display home on the bus? This is how his face looks:




I'm unsure.

Knitting

Tal and I met up in the long, beautiful glass archway of the Life Science Building just to knit yesterday. Admittedly, the view could have been better since we saw either a bleak campus with cold-looking people, or a snowy campus with cold-looking people. I started to use this gray yarn that I innocently found at work in the lost and found box. The really old lost and found box. So I took it, but being a conscientious employee asked a coworker how long it had been hanging out upstairs. He looked at it, confused, and said that it had been there before he had started working eight months ago. Good enough for me.

I know that I'm just beginning, but the ends of my knitting are starting to be of some concern. The middle seems great; soft, bulky, the occasional dropped stitch but no worries. Now the ends, ha. They seem to practically ebb and flow. Tal says that on some I drop and some I add stitches, but honestly I don't remember doing that. I always try to end the right way. After awhile the ends start to look a little better, but they are, I don't know, wavy for lack of a better term.

Along with my PNC bank statement yesterday I received a shady check-looking thing for $15.00 "in Gas Vouchers" they are quick to point out. You have to call a 1-800 number to redeem it, but as I would be charged cell phone minutes and don't have a car anyway, am tempted to not do that.


Here's a new mouse pic; sorry.
They're adorable when running the wheel together. It's also funny when one loses momentum and gets flipped upside-down.



This is one of my all-time favorites that Thomas took while we were in Niagara. I think it's beautiful.


(click to enlarge)

Micro-managing

There is an older woman at work, mid 40s perhaps, who I like to call Eeyore since she is the gloomiest person that I have ever met. Not that I can really blame her, since she's still working at a Carmike for $5.50 an hour, but still. The first time I ever met her was my second day of work, and literally she moped in whining about how tired she was and how much she didn't want to be there. It didn't get much better.

Quite literally, the only times she has ever spoken to me directly have been criticisms and commands. That gets extremely irritating extremely quickly, considering that she was technically at the same employment level as I (subterranean) but never did work. Seriously. She would waddle into the 'box' area, set herself creakily down on the lame stool, and sporadically during the night, waddle back over to the manager's office and probably bug the heck out of Nathan the manager. She would spend hours in the office. That usually happened at the end of the night when every other employee was actually working at cleaning concession. It got so bad that I asked a coworker, and he said that the reason that she cleans nothing is because she once broke both her thumbs and can't lift anything. Ah, she's relying on the old 'broken thumbs' excuse. I see.

So lately Nathan the manager got a memo that he had to advance someone to the title of 'Shift Leader'. Due to Eeyore's lack of inclination to do anything else, she got the position. And she is lording it. Last night, she came over to the concession at about 8:00 and told us to start restocking the candy. We did. Then, of course, we had a huge rush at the 9's that left huge gaping holes in our newly stocked candy cupboards. Thanks, Eeyore.

Last week, my manager gently chastised us for starting the cleaning process a mite early, so this week we were good and waited until the right time. Out of the corner of my eye I see Eeyore hurrying over, which was a surprise in its own right. She started having a hissy fit in the middle of the lobby about how we should have started cleaning ten minutes ago! And we are just sitting there talking! And we're not doing anything! I internally freaked.

"Eeyore," I say. "Both Bill and I had to go upstairs and get boxes of inventory. And we have been restocking the candy."
"That takes two minutes! You guys have just been sitting there!" She gestures wildly and then can't take it anymore and scurries back to her office refuge. I scurry to the back room to bitch to Nathan. He seems concerned about her unpleasant ways. Things will be done, he assures.

God, then I volunteered to stay late, forgetting that instead of waiting until 12:00 with Nathan (cool) I now had to wait in an empty, awkward lobby with only Eeyore (uncool).

This should be wonderful every Saturday.

Ethical Dilemma

So my Spanish professor told me that he'd have my letter of recommendation done by today, and he handed it to me in an unsealed envelope with the brochure for the program. I got to my French class and looked at it. The envelope was open, so that meant that I could read the letter, right? Or did he just leave it open so I could take out the brochure? The letter was folded inside the envelope, so did the folding mean that it was confidential? I couldn't take it. I opened the letter.

"To the Director of the Summer Law Scholars:
I would like to wholeheartedly recommend Alicia to your program."

Alicia? That . . . . is not my name. Oh no! So now I am faced with the arduous task of having to confront him about this, while admitting that I read the letter right away. Luckily he was embarrassed about it so he said he'd redo it and give it to me on Monday.

Thank god for my questionable ethics, huh? How terrible it would have been to have them receive a letter of recommendation for an Alicia.

Now all that is left is my resume. Oh lord, the resume. It's going to be terrible.

Socially Awkward

I'm fretting a little. Today walking to Spanish I saw this really cute guy in a suit. He had great emo hair and a really nice build. So I'm pretty much blatently staring at him. He's smiling, everything, and when he passes he says "hello!". Like, "hello! I know you and we have met before! Why don't you recognize me." So of course I have to hurry up a 'hello' really quickly but he was already past and now I'm in a quandry. Did I know this cute guy? How did I manage to forget him so quickly? Maybe he just looked different in a suit.

Ha. We're doing subjunctive in Spanish and I confused the teacher by asking if the Spanish would ever say something like "I am certain that she might get hit by a car". If so, what tense?

I had a library fiasco, and I don't want to get into it since it's terribly boring regardless of fiasco status. I ended up in the BA stacks, which are like, eight floors underground. It was so mazey in there that I definitely used this pitiful map that the librarian made me.

Aha, aha

Yes, yes. I think I'll . . . distract you with photos! (Come on, people, I worked the late shift and I need a shower)

Game Night

I played two dumb games tonight. It's possible that I just found them dumb because I was looking for quick, easy entertainment, but nevertheless, it was not very fun. The Settlers of Catan was way too complicated (it came with an almanac, alphabetically organized!) and missing pieces, and Nuclear Something had too many rules and contingincies. "Flip over your first card in the face-down pile. If it is a missile or similar weapon of mass destruction, the play continues. If it is a bomb or a nuclear device and a similar weapon has not been played yet, the card is burned and the play continues. If war is declared and the target can counterattack . . ." Blah blah blah. It went on like that forever. I was aching for something simple like Life.

In three out of four classes today we watched videos of some kind. Is it a Friday thing?

I snagged the last Bacon Turkey sandwich today. Those things are coveted. There was only one left by the time I got to the cooler and someone else had their eye on it, but luckily I'm quicker. It was pretty tasty.

Wow, I played a lot of games today that I didn't even realize. Travis dug out this game called Deflection I think that involved both sides having a laser, mirror pieces, and a pharoah. It was a lot more fun than it sounds. The second one we played at Sbarro's, called Cosmic Vomit or something. It was all about rolling dice, which normally is boring after the second turn, but this incorporated a gambling edge to it that kept the interest. I won, too.

Oh, fine. Since there is such obvious demand I'll post a picture.


Click the pic, but if you can't bring yourself to it says "Don't THONk about it, just come", which would be a good life lesson if it didn't rape my ears when I said it out loud. Not only that, but the O in THON looks like a D. And they forgot that 'thonk' isn't a word. Apparently, it's close enough.

Shredded Wheat

Hee. On that L'Avare quiz that I had to take even though I hadn't read the play, I got an A-. How does that even happen. Do you know which was the only question I missed? A fill in the blank. I kid you not. Other people in the class who I knew for a fact actually read got B's and C's.

So I went to get my box of generic Shredded Wheat yesterday at Giant (I knew the roommates couldn't hold out forever) and I couldn't believe that I had forgotten how hilarious the box was. At first it doesn't seem so bad, since a polar bear is the poster animal for a 'frosted' cereal. Like, brr! The Arctic is cold, you know? And frosty. Makes sense. He's even wearing a little hat and gloves.







But then, if you look closer. . .


Ah! Oh my! One look at the motion lines and his sick little tongue poking out as he ogles the cereal makes it pretty clear what kind of frosting is on this Shredded Wheat.
He looks so . . . determined.





Good lord.