Just so all of you know, I am not under water, though I can’t say the same for much of the surrounding region. A good chunk of Eastern Pennsylvania (as well as parts of New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland) is has been inundated with flood waters.
How are the rest of you faring?
Further Reading:
-Evacuations begin as rivers rise [Philly.com]
-Officials order massive evacuations [Philly.com]
-Flood [Philly Future]
I got a pager when I started my job four years ago. And since then it has taken a lot of abuse. I’ve dropped more times than I could ever count, often busting it open and sending the battery skittering across the floor. It’s fallen down stairs, landed in puddles… once it came off my bag in the middle of oncoming traffic. And yet, it kept working. I was beginning to think I had an immortal pager—until last week, that is, when it finally gave up the ghost.
I always imagined it would suffer a tragic death: crushed under a subway car, drowned in a toilet, stolen and buried by wild animals; there would be lots of smoke, possibly even flames. After all, it was a tough old bastard! But it actually passed quite peacefully in its sleep. The battery died, and it just never woke up after I inserted a new one. And even though it was a crappy hand-me-down, I still felt a little sad. I’m weird, I know.
Anyway, I got my replacement on Friday. A nice shiny brand new pager (though still crappy). But by the time Monday morning rolled around, it was missing. I tried beeping it, but with no luck—I didn’t even know if the sound was turned on, as I hadn’t yet taken the time to set it up. I tore things apart in my frantic search, but I finally had to give up and go to work without it.
I paged it several times throughout the day, hoping that someone might find it and call me back. That night, I retraced every step I’d taken on Friday–even stopped in the restaurant where we’d eaten dinner. Nothing. I couldn’t believe it. I had my first pager for more than four years, and my second for less than 24 hours.
Then last night, it hit me that I’d spent time at my parents’ house over the weekend. I didn’t remember taking it with me, but I was out of ideas, so I called and asked them to look. And after I paged it a few more times, wouldn’t you know it? My mom found the little bugger in their car!
Needless to say, I was beyond relieved. And as it turns out, so were my parents: they were going nuts for the past two days trying to figure out why their car was making such a strange noise!
Whooooooshhhhh….
That’s the sound of me completely missing being named a finalist in the nominees for Featured Blog on Philly Future.
Oops!
I try to pay attention to these things, and usually vote in the polls, but I barely touched a computer over the weekend. UFIL, family stuff, et cetera… you get the picture.
Well anyway, as you will see if you click the above link, I lost. Still, it’s nice to know that 3 whole people out there deemed me worthy of their votes!
So I want to thank those three people, especially the person who nominated me in the first place, and then, I encourage all of you to check out the winner, Asymptomatic, and my fellow loser, Amen (The Gospel According to Wook).
1) Love Song - The Cure
2) Teeth in the Grass - Iron & Wine
3) The Unforgettable Fire - U2
4) All You Zombies - The Hooters
5) Turkish Song of the Damned - The Pogues
6) Watching the Wheels - John Lennon
7) End of a Century - Blur
8) Boogie With Stu - Led Zeppelin
9) The Stranger - Billy Joel
10) Not Up to You - The Stereophonics
Bonus: Sorrow - David Bowie
Link Love for Other Random Ten Players:
-A Modest Construct
-Apartment 2024
-The BM Rant
-Defense Against the Ninjas
-Freakapotimus
-Mixtape
-Popscholar
-The Sam and BeckyBoo Show
-The Smedley Log
-Strolling Luna
or
I’ve been sitting on this rant for months now, so I figured I should post it while we’re on the subject.
Okay, here goes: I really fucking hate MySpace. No offense to those of you who love it, but looking at some of those profiles makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon.
It’s FULL of bugs. Pages don’t load properly, and browsing gets interrupted by making you log into your account, then taking you to your home page and away from what you were trying to see in the first place.
The pages take forever to load, and when they finally do, you are often presented with a garbled mélange of bad graphics, flashy, messy text and horrific backgrounds. Some of the backgrounds are actually overlaid on the text—what the hell?!
It conjures up the really crappy personal websites people had ten years ago (myself included). You know, the ones hosted by Tripod or Angelfire or whatever. It’s like somebody took the internet, shoved it into a blender, and fed it to a dog who then vomited on my computer screen.
I’m often reminded of all the silly, juvenile things I did on my website when I was 18: one of my favorites was a little guy who would walk across the screen and then piss on an image of Leonardo DiCaprio (or DiCraprio, as I called him back then). Not that I don’t do silly, juvenile things now, of course—I just don’t do them with lots of flashing colors and animated gifs. And even when I did, you could always read my text.
And don’t get me going about the goddamn music that starts playing when a page eventually loads (though it’s nice to see some people have started turning that feature off).
Now I will admit that browsing through the profiles on MySpace can be somewhat addictive, often in the trainwreck sort of sense—SO many people making utter fools of themselves. But I really had no interest in joining the mess until last year when a friend started keeping a blog there, and I couldn’t even leave a comment without creating my own account. So reluctantly, I did. And I uploaded a picture so I wouldn’t be the only loser without one. I now have a whopping 10 friends.
Does that make me a hypocrite? Maybe. Probably. But don’t get me wrong, I think the concept of MySpace (and sites like it) is brilliant. A great way for people with common interests to find each other, for current friends to stay in touch, and for old friends to reconnect. It’s an address that never changes, and easier than email. It’s also a great place for small bands to publicize themselves.
So like I said, great concept. But oh what horrible execution!
So… the UFIL arrived safe sound this evening. We had a light dinner, got him unpacked, and sent him off to bed. Things mostly went well. Except for the part where I made a total ass of myself.
Not five minutes after he arrived, I tripped over the power cable to Edo’s laptop and went flying across the room. I landed face down on top of the papers and books I was carrying, and skinned my knees on the carpet.
Guess I won’t be wearing short skirts for a while. GODDAMMIT!!
My knees, in all their skinned up glory, after the jump. (more…)
Many of you may recall my adventures with the UMIL last year. Well, now it’s time for the UFIL. That’s right, my un-father-in-law is coming to visit for two weeks.
Now he’s rather harmless when compared to the UMIL, but he does present his own set of challenges.
For starters, he’s a bit older, so it’s harder to find ways of occupying him. He doesn’t do tons of walking, and as far as he’s concerned, he’s seen everything there is to see.
He goes to bed early (like 8 or 9 PM), which isn’t a big deal until you consider that we only have one bedroom. Try working that one out. Last time he was here, I was a prisoner in my bedroom for most of the evenings. The good thing is that he’ll probably only be sleeping at our place for 4 or 5 nights, because he’ll be staying at a place down the street or travelling the rest of the time.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block, though, is the language barrier. His English has gotten worse, and my Italian has stayed, well, non-existent. All I can say is “I love you,” “I’m sorry,” and an assortment of dirty words and blasphemes. (And yes, I know that’s pathetic given that I’ve lived with a native Italian speaker for the last 5 years, but that’s not really the point right now, is it?)
He arrives late this afternoon, so I’m home from work today getting ready for him. Wish me luck!
Edo got sucked into browsing the MySpace vortex for a little while last night, and I had the pleasure of overhearing some of his bewildered thoughts…
“GOD! There are SO many people who do not deserve the internet!”
“Yes, you ARE a teenage whore.”
“Well, apparently I ran into the fat ho section…”
“Trizzie! You are SO always high, aren’t you? You also have big fake boobs. Good job!!”
“And there’s a guy dancing with a blowup doll…”
With pained disbelief: “I mean, honestly, why do they bother?”
“Ooh, Leah Marie has a goth nympho friend called raven nympho!”
“And this is why digital cameras should never have been invented.”
Ehrrrm… I know the month is more than half over, but I just thought I’d mention that the June open thread is up. Oops.
One of the people in this photo…
…graduated from high school this week.
Can you guess which one? The answer after the jump. (more…)
1) Chinese Rock - The Ramones
2) China Girl - David Bowie*
3) Summertime Dream - Gordon Lightfoot
4) New Amsterdam - Elvis Costello
5) Tears and Rain - James Blunt (Chasing Time - The Bedlam Sessions)
6) Mind’s Eye - Wolf Mother
7) He Lied About Death - Stars
8) Hands - The Raconteurs
9) Man On The Moon - REM
10) The Enchanter - Robert Plant And The Strange Sensation
Bonus: Snow (Hey Oh) - Red Hot Chili Peppers
*Notice how this comes directly after Chinese Rock? This is the second time I’ve gotten an eerie song connection involving David Bowie. First Superman, and now China? What the hell? Are we in the best selling show?
Link Love:
-A Modest Construct
-Apartment 2024
-Area 151
-The BM Rant
-Freakapotimus
-Mixtape
-Popscholar
-The Sam and BeckyBoo Show
-The Smedley Log
-Strolling Luna
Philadelphia’s City Council has passed the smoking ban!! Woohoo! It’s not official until Mayor Street signs it, but we’re closer than ever before. I can feel my head clearing already.
Further Reading:
-City Council Passes Compromise Citywide Smoking Ban [KYW3]
-City Council bans smoking in city’s bars and restaurants [Inky]
-BREAKING: Smoke ‘Em While You Got ‘Em! [Philebrity]
-Councilman Nutter Gets it Done: Smoking Ban Passes! [America’s Hometown, via Philly Future]
-Breaking: Smoking Ban Actually Freaking Passes [Philadelphia Will Do]
Previously at the Landslide in My Ego:
-No More Bringing the Bar Smell Home With Me
I just saw the most ridiculous commercial—This drawing of Ben Franklin, animated only by a moving mouth (à la Monty Python), comes on and says something like “Hi, I’m Benjamin Franklin, inventor of many things including the lightening rod, bifocals, and the stove.”
Whatever, with all of the Benergy going around these days, I’ve begun ignoring things like this.
Except then he says, “But I’m not here to talk about myself, I’m here to talk about teenage pregnancy.”
What?!
He goes on with something like “Think it won’t happen to you?” and then gives some statistics.
I found the whole thing pretty amusing, if not a bit bizarre, but it was the last line of the commercial that had me laughing out loud: “So before you have sex, think of me, Benjamin Franklin.”
Dude, that was not cool!
And isn’t it kind of funny that they used Ben Franklin for this at all, given the rumors of his own sexual escapades?
Update: You can view the commerical here: A Message from Benjamin Franklin [teenpregnancy.org]
I was browsing through some of our old pictures, and I came across a series of flower photos that Edo took at his parents’ home in Italy a couple years ago. There are some really gorgeous shots, many with cool close-ups of insects in the flowers, like the one above.
But look more carefully at this photo, and you will see that it is special. Apparently, he caught this particular bug in the act of making a little bug poo. Seriously. Here’s an closer close-up, if you want an even better view.
Now I’m perfectly willing to consider alternate theories, like maybe it’s a very conveniently placed speck of pollen. Or an egg sack. But until it’s proven otherwise, I’ll go on telling people that it’s poo.
Lately, my computer has been emitting a rather shrill noise. It bugs me once in a while, but it’s really been bothering Edo, so he took the whole thing apart this past weekend and determined that it’s coming from the power supply. He couldn’t fix it, so that will have to be replaced. Oh well.
Fast forward to last night: I was minding my own business, not hurting anyone, when my ears were suddenly attacked by one of the most obnoxious noises I’ve ever heard.
“What the hell was that?!” I yelled.
“Oh, so you could hear that?” Edo replied.
“Yes, I could hear it! Now what the hell was it?!”
“It’s a high pitched tone ringtone that kids have been using since most adults can’t hear it.”
*Noise starts again*
“WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!!”
“Wow, so that really bugs you. Kate, I can barely hear it, especially now that I’ve lowered the volume. I must have lost a little of my hearing range.”
“Edo, that noise is intolerable. I think I would kill anyone who put that on their cell phone.”
Seriously, the noise was like torture, and it even gave me a bit of headache. I can’t believe anyone would willingly listen to that.
The weird thing is that now my computer is bugging me more than ever! It’s actually becoming intolerable. So I wonder, did my computer get worse, or have my ears become temporarily hypersensitive to high frequencies? Or (more likely) is this all just in my head?
Further Reading:
-A Ring Tone Meant to Fall on Deaf Ears [NYT]
-I am officially old [The Trouble With Spikol, via Philadelphia Will Do]
Um, this is a little late, but here goes…
1) Take It Or Leave It - The Strokes
2) Shut Your Eyes - Snow Patrol
3) It’s Now Or Never - Elvis Presley
4) Old Dan Tucker - Bruce Springsteen (Seeger Sessions)
5) Let It Die - Feist
6) Shock And Awe - Neil Young
7) Never Tear Us Apart - INXS
8) Who Wants To Live Forever - Queen
9) Heart Shaped Box - Nirvana
10) Rocky Raccoon - The Beatles
Bonus: Lemon - U2
I’ve been getting some link love for the Friday Random Ten these past few weeks, so here’s some love from me:
-A Modest Construct
-Apartment 2024
-Area 151
-The BM Rant
-Freakapotimus
-Just a Girl
-Popscholar
-The Sam and BeckyBoo Show
-The Smedley Log
-Slacktivist
-Strolling Luna
This was absolutely the coolest thing I saw all day:
A Sixth Sense for a Wired World [Wired]
via Boing Boing
My parents spent last weekend in Washington, DC, so I called them on Saturday to see how they were doing…
*phone ringing*
Dad: Hello!
Me: Hi Dad, just calling to see how your trip is going.
Dad: Great! We spent the day at the National Gallery of Art, and we just walked over to the the Capitol building.
Me: Cool!
Dad: Yeah. And right now, your mother is talking to the police.
Me: What?!
Dad: She’s asking them if we can go inside the Rotunda.
Me: Oh. So you’ve had a good day thus far?
Dad: Yep. Hey, I saw a duck earlier.
Me: You saw a duck.
Dad: Yep.
Me: Gee, Dad, that’s exciting.
Dad: No, no, I mean one of those amphibious vehicles from WWII. The ones that do the tours.
Me: Ohhhh… You know, I’ve given serious thought to blowing some of those things up. The ones in Philly, at least.
Dad: Really? Well I’ve given serious thought to blowing up some new housing developments.
Me: Ooh, that sounds like fun!
Dad: Yep, I’m going to become an urban terrorist.
Me: Um, Dad? Don’t you think maybe you shouldn’t be saying that while you’re standing on the steps of the US Capitol Building?
Mom (in the background): Shhhhhhh!! Stop that!
Dad: Oooh, now I’m being scolded… Wanna talk to Mom?
Me: Sure.
Mom: Hi Kate!
Me: Hi Mom, how’s it going?
Mom: Oh, fine… you know… just trying to keep your father out of jail…
Sorry I’ve been AWOL these past few days…
Here’s this week’s random ten:
1) Plainsong - The Cure
2) Hey - Red Hot Chili Peppers
3) Step On My Old Size Nines - The Stereophonics
4) We Will Become Silhouettes - The Postal Service
5) Tired of Hanging Around - The Zutons
6) Hanging on a Star - Nick Drake
7) So Cruel - U2
8) Hole In My Life - The Police
9) Games Without Frontiers - Peter Gabriel
10) Quinn the Eskimo - Bob Dylan
Bonus: Chelsea Hotel #2 - Leonard Cohen
Have a good weekend, everyone!
