Update

My last gulp (I would say sip if it was true) of beer was at 11:55 p.m. I realize many of you who know me are a little surprised that I have decided to give up the nectar of the gods for Lent. I had a call from the Anheuser-Busch people (makers of Bud Light) expressing their concern for their second and third quarter profits (I plan to be back in full swing for the 4th quarter reports). Yes, the American economy may take a hit due to this decision, but I believe that my ability to fulfill this Lenten promise will make me a better person. I hope because if I don't get any kind of good results from this (aside from the money and calories saved) I'll be a bit peeved.

First time in print...

I have decided what I am giving up for Lent. I wanted to pick something that was going to be a big sacrifice for me and I think I have picked a doozy. I am giving up beer. There, it is now on the record and I can't go back on it without incurring the wrath of the Lord. Usually (or this was the way we did it when I was a kid) you get to have your Lenten sacrifice on Sunday's, but I am picking Saturday as my day to indulge. If you are giving something up, let me know what it is and we can commiserate together. Goodbye, sweet ale, goodbye.

Meet the Future Mr. G.

I want Alison's husband from Medium. He is kind, sensitive, hot, understanding, funny, smart and basically everything I want in a man. I figure if he can put up with some crazy psychic lady he can put up with my run-of-the-mill craziness anyday. Get jealous, people. I have called dibs on him and Dale Jr.

No Dr. Phil today

One thing that sucks about my tivo/cable box combination is that occasionally the cable box turns itself off for no reason. No big deal, right? Well it is. It's a big deal. The tivo is not aware of this cable box failure and continues to record the shows I have programmed. Unfortunately, I have to be home to turn the damn cable box on and get it on the right channel for tivo to work. Long story short, I came home and discovered said cable box off and no Dr. Phil for Monday. It just feels wrong. I shall comfort myself with an episode of Golden Girls. Hopefully this tragedy will not repeat itself for tomorrow. I need my daily t.v. therapy.

Organized Chaos

I watch Oprah religiously through the grace of my tivo. This past week she had two shows about debt and challenged her viewers to go on a debt diet. Right now, I am quite impoverished and my ability to go on a diet from debt is a bit unrealistic, but it did inspire me. I pulled out every old bill, insurance form, credit statements, and on, and on, and on. I have an accordian file that I started last year and I got partially organized, but over the past two days I have organized and purged my records and I am pleased to say that I have everything in its appropriate place and everything I don't need has hit the trash. I feel like I have really accomplished something. Over the past few months I have been absolutely INUNDATED by bills from the accident in September. I was reluctant to even check my mail because of these bills. Don't worry, my insurance is slowly but surely taking care of everything, but hospitals don't seem to grasp the point that they are going to have to be patient. Anyhoo, now I am not afraid to check my mail and I feel like I have everything at hand and organized. Are your things in order?

The Soul Patch: Discuss amongst yourselves

<-- One Question: Why?

The little bit of fuzz that some men, and a few unfortunate women have growing directly beneath their chins is absolutely beyond comprehension to me. It is attached to nothing and it certainly provides no aesthetic qualities or warmth (which is an acceptable reason for people growing beards that should not be doing so). Maybe I have missed some sort of important message that a soul patch provides aside from the obvious - "boy, that guy is a really bad shaver, look at that big patch of hair he missed"- As of right now I shall mock all the insist on sporting this look and encourage them to remove it from their face immediately.

Teddy is anorexic

I am convinced of this because he is a bitch to feed. He will pick at his food and then run to the door to go out in some sort of attempt to fool me. You know how some people who are around a bunch of overweight people become obsessed with calories? I think that this has happened to Teddy. Both my brother and father have dogs that are a bit thick around the middle and I think Teddy is just trying to watch his girlish figure. Most days I have to sit on the kitchen floor with him and tell him to "eat your dinner." Also, he is pretty picky and prefers to eat his food directly off of the floor. I think he finds the bowl superfluous and the floor provides a delicious aftertaste to his dry food. Generally, you are not supposed to change up dog food because it makes it even harder to get them to eat so that's why I haven't tried anything new. One positive side effect to all of his shenanigans is that he is really good at catching his food midair. Sometime when I really want to him to eat I will toss little bites to him and he has about an 85% accuracy rate. We may take the show on the road.

Tomorrow has got to be better. ha

No depressing post here. Sometimes I think that I have some sort of target on my back that says "please, give me crap about something." I think this sign flashes while at work. Sometimes I just make it through the work day thinking about my bed and my room with black out curtains. Do you think it is a bad thing to love my bed so much? I know Peyton loves her bed a lot. I think of all those people who live in the middle of the desert or jungle and don't have a bed and I just think they are missing out on one of the great pleasures of life. I really was made for this period in time. Generally, people enjoy a greater amount of leisure time than people from most generations before. Good for us. Laziness rules!

Monday Night Adventures

(Names have been changed to protect the identity of the animal in question)
I have mentioned Jenny numerous times in this blog and this is a post about her. Friday night Jenny had had a few adult beverages and while she was on the phone with her mom, she noticed that her cat - let's call her Wrinka - was upset by another cat on the outside of one of her windows. Jenny attempted to pull Wrinka away from the window and during the ensuing scuffle, Jenny came away with a bite on her hand, claw marks on her arm, and several deep claw gouges in her foot. Apparently these wounds were quite painful and bothered Jenny for the next couple of days. Jenny awoke Sunday morning with a foot the approximate size of her face (according to her little sister) and decided medical attention may be in order. After an extremely short visit to the E.R. (haha), some pain meds, and i.v. antibiotics, she was on her way. Unfortunately, the infection seemed to worsen during the later hours today and we took a trip back to the E.R. It turns out that her foot would require more medical treatment and Jenny is spending the night in a five star hospital as we speak. She is expected to make a full recovery, but she will be missing a few days of work. The funniest part of the evening? Apparently people who are prone to falling are forced to wear a red bracelet and red socks to further ostracize them from the other patients and identify them as someone in need of mocking. Luckily, Jenny has avoided the red socks, but she has only been in the hospital for a few hours. Keep your fingers crossed.

Lesson to learn: never pull an angry cat away from a window without shoes on

Spell Check

To echo some of Sarah's gripes about punctuation and the general demise of the written word, I would like to present one of the most annoying misuses of signage. Businesses that spell things wrong to be "catchy." For example, I went to a "concept lounge" (whatever this means) called Konfusion. This spelling was a mystery to me as I don't live in a city that starts with a K and there were no other obvious reasons for the misspelling. I also hate it when people write "thanx" - really? the extra letter was just too taxing and required the use of one letter? At work we had something called Kid's Kamp. You know, start the kids young and they'll never know how to spell. I think this just encourages people to forget how to spell. Don't shorten words, people. Avoid being cute, catchy, or any other thing that would require this kind of behavior.

Calling all techies...

My Linksys router is giving me fits, particularly when trying to connect to the Tivo. Now I have a new problem and the "wireless-B" will no longer light up. From what I have determined this means that I am not getting a wireless signal...thus no connection to upload data for Tivo. I am quickly losing my mind and I hope someone has a suggestion.

What do you deserve?

I believe that you can learn all of life's lessons by watching Dr. Phil or Friends. Today, I watched an episode of my favorite shrink and he had moochers on the show. These were men that were mooching off of the women in their lives. There was this one woman who had a great job and she was engaged to this guy that had no job, was an alcoholic and had no intention of changing. After Dr. Phil practically beat her over the head with logic she was still on the fence about marrying him. The conclusion that I (and Dr. Phil) made was that this is what she thinks she deserves. My question is why?
I think this is true for most people. I know that I think that I am a bad person sometimes and that I don't always deserve good things. When you don't think you deserve good things then you don't get good things, see? I need to change how I feel about things and start believing that I deserve better. Where these thoughts come from, I'm not sure, but I can at least recognize the problem. Dr. Phil would tell me that I need to have "right thinking" because what I have going on right now "ain't working for me."
I don't want ya'll to think that I sit around thinking these things all the time, but it is something I'm aware of and I am determined to think I deserve better. You do, too.

Mariah Carey Looks Weird

Honestly, I don't feel like I have to elaborate on this but I shall provide visual evidence to support my case. I remember when she really young and new to the music business and now she just looks odd. I know that when I watch entertainment programs or read magazines they talk about how hot she is but the only thing I see when I look at her now is that she looks like a tranny. Okay, a tranny with fantastic tits.

Black Tuesday

There are few days in history that have been dubbed "black" but there is only one of these days that is so awful and contrived that it divides the world into two sets of people. The haves and the have nots. Yes, I am referring to the "holiday" known to many as Valentine's Day. Perhaps, if I was one of the 'haves' I would not be so down on this day, but I'm not so you aren't going to get some sort of lovey dovey bullsh*t tribute to that special guy in my life. The following is my assessment of this pointless day.

Honoring St. Valentine? What exactly did he do? Nothing, I tell you. According to the Catholic encyclopedia it is more the fault of Chaucer and something he wrote, not anything that Valentine did. Plus, he was a priest - you know the profession known for romance. Ha.

An actual massacre occurred on this day. If this doesn't prove the bad aura surrounding this day, nothing will.

St. Patrick's Day? Now, that's a holiday. Valentine's Day? Not so much. Trust me, I worked in a card store for four years and the rumor that it is just a made up holiday is true. St. Patty's Day is a holiday meant to be enjoyed by everyone and it puts beer on the pedestal it deserves.

It's bad for you. All that candy just rots your teeth. Just think about the people alone on this holiday (ahem, for example, me), I will probably be buried under a moutain of tiny foil wrappers by midnight and not even know what happened.

My First Great Disappointment

(Today's post was inspired by an episode of Larry King Live featuring a reunion of the Growing Pains cast)

...was Kirk Cameron. I had such a crush on him as a kid because he was cute, funny, and a little bit naughty. I have already remarked that I am attracted to bad boys and he was the epitome of a "safe" bad boy. Then he got Jesus. He decided that he was too pious for the show and some of the "risky" plotlines. Remember that Playmate Julie? He was a prude and didn't want her on the show anymore. Oh well. I know this isn't a tragedy, but I was quite smitten with him at the time. I remember that I asked my mom for some Kirk Cameron pictures and she went to the book sale at school and came home with a Michael J. Fox magazine. Not the same, people. Not the same at all. I guess this post really shows my age, huh? Let's face it, my love of bad television is well known and I embrace it.

It started off as a normal day, then...

My transmission decided to conk out. I drove to Nashville Thursday night and got home around 11:30. I got up at the crack a** of dawn b/c my dad never sleeps late and Teddy wanted outside. We went to get coffee at a local bagel place and then we were off to get my car's emissions checked (you have to do this in order to get your tags renewed in TN - don't ask why I haven't switched over to AL tags). I kept thinking the car was having trouble shifting gears, but nothing major. About a mile from the testing center, my "check engine soon" light came on and when I got the emissions checked the car failed. Great. I then drove the car to a local repair shop and they said they figured that the problem was the transmission and they didn't "do" transmissions. I got back in the car and discovered that my car was not interested in going in reverse anymore. We drove back to the house to get dad's car and then drove to the dealership and had the tech look at it. Long story a bit shorter - my car was pronounced terminally ill and too expensive to resucitate. Let the car shopping begin...We tried several dealerships, but I let my dad and brother do most of the browsing while I weighed in with intelligent comments such as "ick. Looks like a grandma's car." or "I make fun of people driving PT Cruisers" also "ummm, red is just asking the police to pull you over" a couple of "what would I do with a convertible, it would probably just leak and my hair would get all tangled." and finally "eh. I just want something that will get me from here to there." So I finally settled on this:

Click to see my new 2006 car. It's the royal blue. Don't worry, I'm not going to go all "2 Fast 2 Furious" and get nitrous and a black light. Very sedate gray interior, a few bells, a couple of whistles. I am aiming to drive this for many, many, many years. Get used to the look.

Sucked in...

I joined myspace today so if your on it, we should link up and if your not go ahead and give into peer pressure. Join. I want friends on my profile. Right now all I have is some guy who I don't even know. I'm under Katie G. ~Big surprise~

Just passing on a little stupidity...

Party plans go awry...

Enjoy

The Perfect Analogy for My Life

I got my two diplomas in the mail over the weekend. Very exciting! I opened the first one and it had my full name and my degree on it - Masters of Library and Information Sciences - and it was very nice to look at. I opened the second envelope and it had my full name and my degree on it -Masters of Library and Information Sciences - and it was...wait a sec. Two diplomas saying the exact same thing? Crap. It seems that this always happens in my life. Things go pretty well except for one thing. It can never perfectly work out. I was glad to get my hands on the diploma, but it was a bit disappointing. Partially, because I only got one and also because, as Jenny so eloquently pointed out, they looked like they just printed them out on their home printer. It was not all that nice. I wanted some sort of embossed printing or an official seal. Nope, just regular script writing and photocopied signatures. Whoop-dee-doo. I might as well have gone to the online University of Phoenix and gotten my degree in gunsmithing.

One time...

I killed Jenny. She doesn't like it when I tell this story, but it's pretty funny (well, when it's not you, I guess). As I have mentioned previously, I like playing The Sims game and I have named characters after myself and other people I know. One of these characters was named after Jenny and she was married to Kasey Kahne (her NASCAR love) and they were living a life of luxury and had a beautiful home. Then tragedy struck. Jenny was swimming one afternoon and someone took away the pool ladder and she swam and swam and swam...you see where this is going, don't you? She drowned. The "someone" that removed the ladder was me. I'm not really sure why I did it. Curious I guess. I created a new character named Jenny, but it's just not the same. Jenny keeps reminding me of that...

Well, that's it, ya'll...

I received some very exciting news from my friend Sean O'. Apparently there will be NASCAR themed Harlequin Romance novels published. Nope, I was not part of the focus group these people consulted, but there must be an entire contingent of women out there that have the same interests that I do. This is fantastic! Finally, I can read a mindless novel about the things I love most. I have already tried to incorporate a fictional NASCAR scenario into my life through The Sims game. I love this game and happened to name two of the characters Katie and Dale Jr. and they happen to be married and live in a fabulous mansion. No reason for this, really, just a coincidence. Some people will call this a break with reality, but I call it being psychic and having the ability to predict the future. Who's coming to visit me at my palatial estate?

This Morning

I had to open this morning. To give you an idea of what this means, I need to shower the night before and be out of bed around 3:45 a.m. I leave my apartment around 4:10 and get to work around 4:20 - ten minutes early. This is typically what happens. Today I rolled over and looked at my clock (which is set 14 minutes fast) and saw that it said 4:36. S-H-*-T! This is an account of what happened:

I jumped out of bed muttering "sh*t, sh*t, sh*t, sh*t." I was so confused and Tedddy was laying in bed, bleary eyed, and watching my stumbling around. I got him out of bed and took him outside for his extremely early constitutional and then rushed back inside to put a work shirt on and my contacts in (yes, I was still wearing my p.j. bottoms - I look so hot right now...). I got in my car and the clock read 4:26 - yes, people, a miracle on earth. I was up, out of bed, somewhat dressed, and in my car in 4 minutes. I drove only fractionally above the speed limit and got to work at 4:33.

11 Minutes. That's how it's done.