I'll get to posting about Canada later. For now, just an entry about a random memory.
My parents were going out somewhere, such that they were semi-dressed up. My dad told my mom, "You smell." She looked at him; he seemed confused, then had a visible light bulb moment and added, "...nice."
Forrest and I are off to Canada. We don't know exactly what we're going to do once we get there... although, with the drinking age being less than Forrest's age, you might make a guess. ;)
My mom likes biscotti. I thought I didn't, but after trying Upper Crust Biscotti in SLO, I changed my mind. However, I still don't like to each a bunch at once; I prefer uniscotti
At work, there is an "Internz" internal mailing list — obstensibly for planning social events among the interns, but in reality much more like Usenet or some web forum, complete with massive off-topicness, flame wars, and invocations of Godwin's Law. One thread on the list, active just before Microsoft announced the official name of codename Longhorn (now Vista), was what interns thought marketing should name the new version of Windows. One intern suggested, very logically, that:
If we’re keeping in the tradition of windows XP, why not name it something like “Windows AC”, “Windows HP”, or “Windows THAC0”?
Well, I thought it was a good suggestion, anyway. Too bad Microsoft doesn't let the gamer community decide such things.
Coming to a History Channel TiVo broadcast near you in another 9 years: history of media, 2014.
Forrest and I were eating lunch off-campus today. Good teriyaki place. Anyway, I happened to look out the window, and staring at me from across the parking lot was the MSN Butterfly. Forrest hurriedly took a picture with his cameraphone before he flew biked away. I'll Photoshop the image later, but quality-wise, it's up there with Sasquatch footage. :(
Then, as we were getting in the car to leave, we saw the Butterfly again across the street, near a back entrance to a Microsoft building. We ran over there, but he had disappeared. We didn't know whether he had gone into the building or down the stairs into the parking lot. We gambled on the building and went in after him.
Alas, we didn't see him anywhere. We wandered around the outside of the building, thinking that since he was bike-bound, he might be cirling the building. No luck. We cut back through the building to get back to where we were parked, where we passed a couple local employees. One asked us what we were looking for (we must have looked pretty obvious *grin*). I told him we wanted to find the Butterfly. He kept walking down the hall, saying something about how he couldn't say anything. Very strange.
We eventually admitted defeat, thus ending our almost-brush with Butterfly.
I've been trying to get back to sleep since 7-something this morning. Damn lawn mower has been mowing all the grass in the complex, but I think he's been spending extra time and care on the lawn directly beneath my window. I finally got out of bed to shut the window, but it didn't really help with the noise much.
So I waited until 8, when the housing office opens. Our tenant handbook says quiet hours are supposed to last until 9 o'clock, so I asked them why, then, they hired their lawn mowers to do their thing consistently before that time. (They've annoyed me before, but I've generally tried my best to go back to sleep.) They told me, quite politely at least, that they would call the complex's office and ask them not to do that before 9 anymore.
I don't really know how business-run housing works, bureaucratically-speaking. Are they likely to ignore me? Will it increase my chances of them actually not doing this for a while if I call back today to "check on the status of my request"? *grumble*
Categories: apartment
Feeling sick again today, I got a taxi home after lunch. Since I had carpooled in with Forrest and Shane today, I stopped at Forrest's building to drop off my car keys, so they could drive themselves home at the end of the day. Of course, I forgot to remove my apartment keys from my keyring before handing the keys over. I only realized that I didn't have them when I got out of the taxi in front of my apartment. Bah!
I'm currently blogging from the office at my aparment complex's clubhouse, waiting for the office staff to return from their lunch. They're supposedly going to be back at 1:10, but I don't believe them, seeing how it's 1:20 now. I'll camp out on their couch until someone returns. Hopefully, they deal with lock-outs all the time and this won't be a big deal.
Update, 1:33 PM: All is well. The office gave me an extra key, so I blog to you from my apartment. Whew. Lying around sick on their couch didn't sound like a whole lot of fun; I'd much rather lie around sick on my bed here.
Categories: apartment
Growing up, I heard all sorts of amusing quips from my parents, and my dad especially. My dad's a funny guy in general, so I had always assumed these were originals of his. But throughout high school and college, where I met new people with more diverse knowledge of randomness, I discovered — to my shock and devastating disenchantment, let me tell you — that my dad stole his one-liners from all sorts of movies and songs and such.
Take, for example, the "group W bench." This, I always thought, was where a group ended up when you were resting mid- or end-adventure, and you were all sitting together at the same place. But no. No, no. It's much worse that than. The group W bench comes from Alice's Restaurant, where "mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys" sit on the bench. Devastating, I tell you!
The phrase "with feeling!" may also be stolen from the same song, as they do use the phrase there, but I think that's a more common phrase and could be from anywhere, really. I am, however, deeply suspicious.
Steve Martin's stand-up is a favorite source of quotes for my dad: "wild and crazy guy," "well, excuuuuuse me," among others I can't recall at the moment. Squirts, care to help out via blog comments with what other phrases of Dad's you've stumbled across elsewhere? We must document such things for posterity, methinks.
And speaking of parental lies, don't even get me started on tree skirts.
Update, November 23, 2006: This Thanksgiving, Thing 1 and I lamented our disenchantment to my parents, aunts, and uncle. She said our parents should have a bibliography at the end of their lives, so we can know their sources. They said we should start taking notes ourselves. So! Squirts, parental units (another Phrase!), please comment on this post with phrases and their sources. :)
As Tim will tell you, I like personalizing things. So when I saw that the post office was restarting their customized stamps program again, I looked into it. It would be cool to have some novelty stamps — maybe my Arth logo or somesuch — but with a $10 pricetag above and beyond the cost of the stamps themselves, I won't be buying them. Anyone else interested?
Categories: DIY
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