How I Know Leap Year Loves Me

Two things happened today that prove Leap Year is a glorious day.

First, I totally dominated Excel. As in straight up wrote some crazy ass formulas and killed like twenty four birds with one stone (read: macro).

Second, Pandora decided to play some Third Eye Blind for me and as we all know, their self titled album is possibly the greatest CD ever released simply based on the fact that EVERY SINGLE SONG ON IT IS MUSICAL NECTAR FROM JESUS!!!!!!

Anyone who says differently is clearly a raging cocaine addict and should be flogged.

I Tried So Hard Not To Let This Happen....

....but I've officially fallen for Barack Obama. I tried to ignore the campaign popularity, the 10 consecutive primary wins, the stirring speeches. But then this article totally tricked me...

I REFUSE TO BUY INTO THE OBAMA HYPE

...and before I knew it I had downloaded his Blueprint For Change and was actually giving a shit about what he was saying. For someone whose only ever known the asstardery of Bush's Administration his entire adult life, believing that a presidential candidate might actually give a fuck about schools, social security, healthcare...ya...it's a big goddamn deal for me. I've protested a president more than I've voted for one. In my dictionary the phrase "White House Victory" is synonymous with "Fuck your Constitution and the civil liberties it rode in on." The funniest punch line I know is "checks and balances."

So for there to be a shred of actual trust emanating from my politically shriveled and jaded soul...

Mr. Obama, please don't be another douche bag in a suit.

No, I Will Not Poke You

Recently I decided to actually go through and update my Facebook and MySpace profiles which for someone as addicted to the internet as I am, is actually kind of a chore, but for two very different reasons.

For MySpace it's more having to sort through half a dozen friend requests from girls with names like "Tina" and "Jasmine" whose profiles don't even exist anymore because, oh yeah, they're digital skanks. That, and the fact that the whole MySpace layout is atrocious combined with the fact that peoples attempts to "customize" their profiles results in the most god awful dolphin shit 100% of the time...ya, it's really just a chore all around.

Facebook, however, presents it's own unique challenges. While I never get spammed by net hookers and actually enjoy the site's layout/color scheme (compared to the technological urine stain that is MySpace), the whole third party application thing has gotten a little out of hand. For those that are familiar with Facebook, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. For those that aren't, think of it this way: Facebook built a house. Facebook rented out rooms in this house to pretty much everyone and their dog. Then they took away the doors. Result: unsolicited chaos in the form of "the kid who sat next to you in fourth grade is using xyz application on Facebook and has sent you an invitation. Would you like to download xyz application and play along?"

I'll admit, some of these applications are handy, like the one that allows me to show some of my Flickr images in my profile. But the majority are stupid to an order of magnitude approaching ridonkulousness. So I ignore them. And ignore them. And then ignore them some more.

The result...



Goddamit people, do you know how guilty this makes me feel? And we all know there is no guilt greater than that of the web. Every time I login there are 50 some odd reminders of what a deadbeat Facebook user I am. But I can't very well accept a "fluff friends" invitation and expect to retain my badass net persona. Yet, to delete such an invitation would surely piss off who ever sent it, and isn't the whole idea of Facebook to make friends, not return their social gestures with a big digital middle finger?

So alas, I leave them there to grow exponentially. I don't condone or condemn, more of a social networking limbo. My only hope is that one day the digital messiah will release me from Facebook purgatory.

Possible Outcomes

*This goes out to Hilly since I've been taunting her all week with this supposedly great picture I've got.



I totally saw this van on Saturday and of course, being that I have a thing about Churros, I was so moved that I had to share it with the interwebs.

It's funny though, because sometimes when I see crazy stuff like this I have these sudden visions of alternate realities where I'm somehow worked into whatever I'm viewing. In this case it was like a choose your own adventure in ChurroLand.

In one of these flashes I was a ten year old kid running up to the side of the van and pounding on it's window screaming "CHURRO!!!! I WANT A CHURRO!!! CHUUUUUUURRROOOOOO!!!"

In a separate vision I was the owner/operator of such a mobile establishment and was hanging out of the window bellowing "Chooros, come geet yoor chooros. Eh, yoor chooros is reedy." I think in this version of my future I might have been wearing a Menudo t-shirt...I can't be sure.

I'm generally unclear if these flashes are merely an extension of my subconscious projected into random daily scenes or if I actually have the gift to see variations of my own existence. Of course it could also be a rapidly developing brain disease, but option 2 just sounds cooler and won't jack up my co-pay.

Anyway, the next time I see this thing cruising around my neighborhood I'm definitely going to have to hit it up. Who knows, maybe I'll meet my evil twin or perhaps just my own sense of gluttony.

Uncle-hood

If I didn't feel old before, I do now.




Welcome to the world, niece.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Obviously this wasn't exactly a surprise and I honestly meant to blog about it earlier (like sometime in the past nine months), but I was waiting for an ultrasound picture or some other equivalently cool visual. Obviously I waited a little too long. :)

*UPDATE*
It's official, my niece is a total bad ass. See newly released irrefutable evidence below...

Buyer's Market

Continuing on my descent into adulthood, the time has come for KJ and I to play home buyers. Initially I was all giggles and goosebumps at the prospect of getting out of the rent game and finally being able to put a nail into a wall without thinking about how much the landlord was gonna ding my security deposit with every swing of the hammer. The minute I mentioned I was in the market though people began coming out of the woodwork to start cramming references down my throat. This really wouldn't be so bad, except that they keep asking if I've called said reference. And then when I say I haven't they adopt a face similar to the one a four year old gets when you tell them it's bed time or that Santa Claus is a Republican.

Anyway, apparently buying a house is both complicated AND time intensive (which is like saying something is both poisonous AND it tastes like shit...seems like it should be one or the other since being both is just cruel). Luckily, their are books for people like me (the lazy and those generally adverse all things resembling work).

Word of advice: When you first start to shop for a home, do the math first. Figuring out how much you can actually afford prior to attending open houses for beautifully crafted (and satanically overpriced) homes will save you from a week's worth of the "omg, we're so poor it's not even funny" depression.

KJ and I have generally managed to get over what has to be the worst case of sticker shock in all of Christendom and are actively taking comfort in joining the growing throngs of those calling themselves the financially-disenfranchised-young-professionals-who-think-that-the-Seattle
-housing-market-can-take-their prices-and-shove-it-up-their-escrow.

In the meantime we will patiently save our pennies in hopes of one day being able to afford the white picket fence middle class dream.

Mazel Tov

The post you have been long awaiting...





P.S. Forgive the shaggy appearance, but I've been battling the plague that my co-workers so kindly passed along to me. Don't worry though, I introduced it to the business end of my immunoglobulins.