There's something about the library...

... that makes the plants here go nuts!
As part of my esteemed position as Access Services Supervisor (yes, I know the acronym is ASS, but thanks for mentioning it) I am the self-appointed horticulturalist for the Science Library (Read: I water the plants! Sometimes, I even re-pot them!!).

Over the past year I’ve noticed something very disturbing about the plants here in the library, they are growing totally and completely out of control ... they love it here ... but why!?!? Are they somehow encouraged by the nurturing learning environment?? Or perhaps it has something to do with the chemicaly-infused water from the Science Building???

For example: The following is a picture of a violet given to me by my very thoughtful friend Meels, in the spring of ’99 … it was so cute: a tiny little violet with a couple little blossoms, in its own little pot … and thus it remained, until last year, when I brought it to the library … behold what it has now become:

We’ve had to re-pot it twice, and I think it may be trying to eat the printer...

Don't hate me because I'm clearly better than you...

If you’re like me, and bitter that you’re alone, but also enjoy feeling superior to people stuck in dysfunctional relationships, salvation is at hand:

No longer are we stuck perusing the Craigslist W4W (or you know, whatever you peruse) to feel better about ourselves …

Now there’s something even better: Veiled Conceit, which describes itself as “an outlet for the petulant umbrage that most people feel when they read the NY Times Weddings and Celebration Announcements.” Or my personal favorite, “tak[ing] petty stabs where they seem appropriate”

It really made my day.

How could I have missed this?

No matter what your political affiliations, you have to appreciate a video of someone trying to sling pie at Ann Coulter* … This did happen last week, so I’m sorry if everyone has already seen this – although it raises the question: what could I have been doing that was more important than passing this along??

*note: you may have to pick the video from the list. It is called, and I have to say that I love this, “Ann Coulter Pelted with Pies”

Ann "I wish I was a porn star" Coulter ...

Is she wearing patent leather?

Update: Blogger was freaking out yesterday ... in case you were wondering why I had blogged a picture of Ann with a cryptic comment for no apperant reason

"Anna" will do your bidding...

… Cue the soft jazz and dim the lights ….

She is your interactive “assistant” … here to serve you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week … at least according to the IKEA call-line.

Due to some badness that occurred while moving, one of my precious Ikea “Arvinn” folding chairs was scuffed. Not panicking, I looked up my local Ikea, and gave them a call … and was greeted by a recording who told me in a vapidly perky female voice all about how I should visit “Anna” online, and how she can serve me … I was a little weirded out.

So, if you are curious, you can call Ikea at 301-345-6552 to hear all about my many “online interactive” talents …

I live!!!

I have survived my weekend of moving horror. Did I say “horror”?? I meant bliss …

I assume this slogan is an ironic statement:

If I look insane in this picture, it is because after 15 hours in the car alone, I am.

But I'm exaggerating, actually my trip went quite well:
1. My car did not explode from the strain of pulling all of my earthly possessions across the country.
2. Said possessions are now stacked precariously in my parent’s attic.
3. My fabulous friends from home actually seemed quite happy to see me, and had a little par-tay which was tons of fun.
4. The trailer-less trip back to DC went swimmingly*, and was filled with a lot less of the shear unadulterated terror that I experienced while towing.

*Thanks to the very thoughtful hospitality of my friend Gigi, I stopped in Pittsburgh (halfway through my drive) for the night. There I was also entertained by the ever-lovely Christina and all-suffering Ronson, who listened to my caffeine induced babble for longer than I would have thought humanly possible.

Read my lips: Are you riding with us?

Apperantly this "working on a senatorial campaign" business actually pays off ... Davin met George HW Bush!
Here is his self-narrated transcript of the events (10/27/04):

So, in other news I JUST MET THE 41st PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
(41 gets off plane)
Tim: Mr. President It's good to see you.
41: Good to see you Tim how's everything?
Tim: It's going well sir (hand shaking). This is my aide Davin. (hand shaking)
Davin: It's an honor to meet you sir.
41: You in school son?
Davin: I go to Georgetown but took a semester off to work for Tim.
41: Oh, Nancy and I have a gandson at Georgetown, he's a freshman. Are you riding with us?
Davin: No sir, I'm following behind the motorcade.
(they get in car and race off down the tarmac, I go nuts driving behind them)

So, that's about it. Not only did I rep G-tizzle but I somehow got promoted to "aide" somewhere in the mix. Truly a great day.

It has come to my attention...

I have recently been informed that some people may not know about the Best of Craigslist.

It is fabulous: Craigslist at its purist, without wading through the boring crazies.

I have too much stuff...

In my infinite wisdom, I have devised a way to rid my self of all of the extraneous stuff that I own ... drive it to Wisconsin and leave it there!!!!
Sometimes even I am astounded by my own genious ...

cheese anyone?

As my DMV saga continues...

I know that only I really care, but I was on hold for over an hour, and I want to feel as though I’ve accomplished something…

Good news: The tickets totaling over $300 attached to my account are not mine; they belong to someone named “Ferarra” with a totally different license plate. This fact has been acknowledged by an actual human being, the very apologetic Elaine, with some apparent authority at the DMV
Bad News: As This mix up was caused by a “dump”(her word) from another department, Elaine will have to “send a note” to this mystery department to get them to fix it. That’s right, I’ve actually been dumped upon by the District’s DMV. Thank GOD they have a “note” system in place to deal with these situations. I’m thinking of just skipping town to avoid the problem entirely … wait a minute …

Ack!! Danger!!

Emergency!!!!
There is no Diet Coke anywhere on campus …
nowhere … not in Vittles, not in the Bookstore, not even in the machine in my building (which is my last resort, as it costs an extra dime for no reason).

And I mean any type of diet coke … no cherry diet coke, no lime diet coke, not even any of that gross vanilla diet coke…they don’t even have a 2 liter … there’s just all kinds of Sprite sitting around, mocking me. Why god, why??

You know … this is not a even one time thing, this is a chronic problem … why can’t I “plan ahead” or “drink something healthy” you ask? Shut up*.
*sorry, I get a little mean without proper caffeine intake

Bach from Hiatus

UPDATE: Listen and learn!!

Hello everyone, I’m back in happy internet-accessible land. I’ve returned unscathed from a dangerous weekend of glacially paced dial-up connection – thus the lack of posts.

I had a fabulous weekend with my family in Gaithersburg, celebrating my Uncle’s birthday. A good time was had by all, despite the inevitable perusing of my Uncle’s LP’s and then the attempted forcing of my musical frontiers. I will say that I was introduced to “Switched-on Bach” … and my life will never be the same.

Truely awesome:

Save the trees!

Sunday, Inoui Dave and I went apple picking ... it was a beautiful day and much fun was had by all.
Highlights:
a. we couldn't seem to find apples that were not "bumpy"
b. Inoui lost all circulation in one hand
c. small children played with pumpkins as big as they were
d. and my cell phone freaked out (which maybe it just does all the time)

Apples - the menace of the fall season. Doesn't this poor little tree look like it is begging for help?

Know what I love? The DMV

I know, I know, everyone is probably tired of evil DMV sob stories … but I’m just so mystified...

This morning, as I attempted to renew my vehicle registration online (I should have realized at the beginning that it was far to “easy” and “convenient” to actually work) I found, to my great surprise, that I had 3 tickets on my record! Of course, I’d never seen or heard of any of these tickets, so I put in a call to my local friendly DMV associate.

After the 1/2 hour hold, the nice representative explained to me that the tickets were for another vehicle registered to another person. But … I still have to physically go in to the DMV to get them to erase the tickets!! Why?? I don’t know … she said she “couldn’t” tell me. I assume that this information is kept secret in the interests of national security. Should I be blaming the patriot act?

Shenandoah ... pretty, yet far away

This past Saturday I went to Shenandoah National Park with my Co-worker Kiri. They day was beautiful, and the leaves were just beginning to change. This is a view from where we stopped for lunch (pardon the hazy phone photo):

After lunching Kiri and I decided to go for a nice 3 mile round-trip hike to "Rose River Falls". The hike was lovely, although over rough terrain, and we clambered up and down steep hillsides as we followed the Rose River. We saw several waterfalls, but none of them were "impressive" as the guide book claimed that the Rose River falls would be. But we persevered, convinced that the impressive waterfall was up ahead. Sure enough, after about 1.5 hours, we came upon this:

Impressive

Only later, after turning around and walking most of the way back, did we realize that we'd passed "Rose River Falls" almost as soon as we'd started our hike, and that the waterfall that we eventually found was probably "Dark Hollow Falls" another 2.5 miles away, which when we stopped to think about it, explained why we'd been wandering for over 3 hours.

Bottom line: wandering delusionaly into the park is quite fun, but your legs will feel it the next day.

Weirdest Week Ever

New plan! I'm not doing anything ever again because it will just end up like this:

Today I had a dentist appointment … fine … okay … everything is normal. The appointment was fine. Everyone was perky and nice, there was no drilling, it was fast and easy. I left the office to return to the library, went to the underground parking garage, got into my car, pulled up towards the gate, and was surprised by a line of cars…

So … the gates are broken … well okay … we sit around for about 20 minutes waiting for the attendants to figure out what to do. Finally someone has the brilliant idea of raising the gate by hand. Dun dun dun!!!! Okay, so the small cars start flowing through. Then, they realize that big cars (like mine) are TOO BIG to fit through the gate. At this point, the guy in the White Hummer in front of me lights up a cigar … and I pretty much realized all was lost.

50 minutes … in that parking garage … no cell phone or radio reception … no visible natural light ... wheeee!!!

You can't fire me, because I quit!!

I quit my job yesterday ... and boy do I feel great about it. I suggest that anyone who feels even slightly dissatisfied with their jobs should just throw in the towel, it really does wonders for the psyche ... of course I also suggest finding a wealthy benefactor (read: I'm moving home) first.

The actual quitting proccess even went well, although my boss did cry (and I'm just going to assume that they weren't tears of joy). So now I'm free, FREE ... well, not really. For those of you that are in the habit of visiting me at the library* I'll be constantly available and your captive audience here until November 16th.

*Please visit me? Pretty please??

What’s up with girls anyway … the “small ugly” factor

Happy October!! (You'll see why in a minute)

In related news, I’ve decided that if an object is small enough, and ugly enough (in a sympathetic emotionally evocative way, of course), I just can’t help thinking it’s cute.

Case in point:

Um...why?*................... Cute!!!

Whats going on??** .............Cute!!!

Ugly ... but still cute

Which brings me to the point of this post - horray for October, Weird Gourd Month!!

Ugly and small ... a beautiful thing

* Okay okay, I want that car, but I was just using it to make gross generalizations based on gender, is that so wrong?? To see more like this car, go here
**Also, that yellow line has totally revolutionized the game for me ... yay yellow line!!

Old Lady Hit-and-Run

Anyone who has been hit by a car lately raise their hand … oh oh!! pick me!! pick me!!

As I was walking along 37th street, this woman, who was clearly over 70, wearing those gigantic wrap-around sunglasses (it was 7 pm), sped out of an alleyway, stopped abruptly at the street, and tapped me in the leg with her car.

It wasn’t so much painful as shocking, and I sort of staggered back and just looked at her, and she looked at me, and I had the astounding thought: “that woman just hit me with her car …”. And then she just peeled out into the street and drove away.

I mean, I live in DC … I guess I should have just been expecting it, right?

UPDATE: Thanks so much to everyone for their concern, but I'm really okay ... I only posted this because it was such a weird thing to have happen. I wish I could do something more about the driver (who is a menace), but at the time the shock eliminated any significant details from my mind.

Holy Bubba Batman!

Is it wrong that I love this?

I think they haven’t gone far enough … I want a plush St. Clinton that says “Ah feel your pain” when hugged.

*and for the love…please no dirty jokes…it’s just too easy, and you’re better than that.

Help! Somebody call Sartre!!

Steven E. Landsburg says we shouldn’t vote … you know, because one person alone doesn't really matter. I’m trying really hard to believe that his column is an exercise in dramatic irony, but I think I’m failing.

If I weren’t so lazy, I’d get some statistics on voter turnout and send them to him. Also, I’d do an exponential analysis of what would happen if I influenced two people to vote my way … and they in turn influenced two people … and so on …

I guess I shouldn't be too hard on him, though, since he appears to be having an existential crisis.

UPDATE:
Wait ... Maybe Steve's just trying to steal the stoned-slacker audience from Jon Stewart.