Results for «July 2006» | Return to main
The Chinese rock. They built this train that can make every single person on board sick. If I rode it, I wouldn't be so alone with my severe motion sickness. That's awesome. And it goes to Tibet. Subliminal message about Tibetans? Maybe. Here's an article about the sicko train:
It's an interesting article with little jabs at China here and there, including this:
One Tibetan passenger asked a Western reporter what the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, thought of the train. The man, who asked not to be identified by name, said that with China's Internet monitoring, it was too dangerous for him to search news Web sites for the information himself. (AP, 7/3/2006)
I would've included a photo of this awesome train, but do you really want to see:
Older passengers, looking uncomfortable, were lying down, children were crying and some were being sick in the bathrooms. (The Times of India, 7/3/2006)
I didn't think so. Although, this would've been cool to see amongst all the vomiting:
...ballpoint pens and bags of processed food burst due to the low air pressure. Laptop computers and digital music recorders failed, because moving parts in their disc drives are cushioned by tiny air bags that break at high altitude. (AP, 7/3/2006)
If train travel was this exciting and violent (and fun!) in America, Amtrak would be raking it in instead of bleeding it. Stupid, boring Amtrak.
These DVDs were on the front page of Amazon for me:
How inappropriate!
I swear I didn't put these two side by side in a graphics program. I mean, I could have easily and you wouldn't know and with my propensity for lying, maybe I did. But I didn't! Amazon wanted me to buy them at the same time tonight, but I didn't give in.
Well, I almost did, but just to give someone somewhere in an Amazon packing facility a moment to ponder: Was Margaret Cho really in the SLA? I thought she was Korean, not Symbionese...
I hate riding elevators for many reasons:
- I have a fear of the cable snapping and me free-falling to my death. (Although, I really enjoy free-fall rides at amusement parks. They're great.)
- If the cable doesn't snap, I have a feeling the car will get stuck between floors and it'll be dark and I won't be able to see what button to push to call for help. So I memorize the location of the alarm button and try to stand near it always because...
- Other people will not have the level-head that I possess on my shoulders (the preceding was an outright lie) and will start jamming all the buttons since they haven't taken the time to memorize the layout of the buttons. People also make for...
- Awkward moments. They make me uncomfortable and nothing's more awkward than standing with strangers in a small space and trying not to acknowledge each other.
- Also, I get motion sickness when the car starts and stops. I'm not kidding.
Soooo...here's my story. Yes, I have one. I work on the 32nd floor of a 41-story building. There are 4 elevator bays that go to different sets of floors, although all go to the first and second floor. Mine goes from 29-41.
When I leave for the day, I wish very much to board an empty car and ride it all the way down to the first floor without anyone else (see #4). Most days my wish is granted. So when I got on an empty car yesterday afternoon and the elevator sped down past 31, 30, and 29, I thought, "Success! Again!" Not really. No one talks like that.
BUT, the damn car stopped at the second floor. I panicked a little when I heard a lot of voices on the other side of the doors before they opened. And I was right to be afraid. There were a dozens of men all in white jumpsuits with badges. They started piling in and I moved quickly to the corner, close to my alarm button (see #2).
Then I noticed there was a blue suited officer type guy who was ordering the guys into the elevator. But he wasn't getting on! There was no room for the officer! I was alone with the prisoners. For real, I scooted over even more and tried to catch his eye to try to tell him that there's always room for an officer. But the doors closed and the guys all turned and looked at me.
All of them were the same height and build except one very tall man in the middle of the pack. He was the only one who spoke, too. "Howsa goin', ma'am?"
It was the longest elevator ride in my life, from the second floor to the first.
I usually leave work highly annoyed. Yesterday, I left in fear.
I was surfing around and found a meme thingie that had...what's that? You don't know what a meme is? It's like one of those 20 question emails, but done on a blog. I don't know how to pronounce it, but that's not important, right?
Maybe it is. It could sound like mee-mee, as in, "ME! Look at ME!" Or it could be mehm, which sounds like the word for "self" in French when used along with a possessive hooseewhasit. Sorry to get all technical. For example, moi-même (myself) or toi-même (yourself). Actually, maybe it's both, a masterful play on...
Yes, that was fascinating. Anyways, I noticed this question:
What musician would you like to be in love with for a day?
And I immediately thought, I'm in love with Isabelle Boulay EVERY damn day. What I WOULD like is for her to... ah, nevermind. My point is, shouldn't the question be:
What musician would you want to be in love with you?
And Yen starts (read: continues) daydreaming, but will keep it herself for once. You're very welcome. But can you see how, with the question stated properly, that the whole scenario NOW becomes much more realistic?
Okay, I'm off to Canada. I don't want to miss the day that Isabelle finds me irrestible. Woo.
In Brazil, I mean, Brasil, caipirinhas are drunk by every patriotic citizen. In fact, each person has a glass of it in one hand and a soccer ball at his feet at all times. You think it'd be funny to watch a child master these mandatory activities, but it really isn't. Now, the elderly...HA!
So anyways, a caipirinha is made with cachaca, which is a sugarcane liquor, mashed-up limes, and sugar (simple syrup). It's good stuff. Last night, I ran out of cachaca, but had lots of limes and syrup left. So I made a virgin caipirinha and got a good buzz on. I think the limes were really old.
This morning when I woke up amongst the smashed limes, I only had the simple syrup left. I mixed it with ice and made a pre-teen caipirinha. It was eye-opening sweet, but I enjoyed it all the same.
Now, this is all that's left:
The only other thing I need is a spoon.
Smiling is a nice thing to do...when it's appropriate. There are several situations (excluding the obvious) where it's highly inappropriate. I'm not talking about being creepy and looking at kids, but the kind where you get caught smiling at nothing. How do you explain a smile when you're by yourself? The person who catches you and sees your "special" face probably doesn't want to know the reason.
So it's best for all to ignore it. Unfortunately, I'm in a sharing mood right now because today, I've been looking extra special. I place the blame entirely on my CRUSH.
I saw her last night and lost all ability to speak. I just smiled and waved manically to her. I'm comforted by the fact that she did the exact same thing back to me. Of course, she was much more dignified with her hand-waving. And she's probably stopped smiling by now, but I haven't. Chairs, lights, carpetting...they're all at the other end of my specialness today.
I'm even smiling at myself in the mirror and that's especially embarassing when using the office bathroom. In fact, I've learned a lesson today: Women in high heels CAN be sneaky.
Please join me in congratulating me.
Congratulations! You're awesome! Wow, you're truly an inspiration to small children! But not large ones!
Thankyouthankyou. Yes, it was quite difficult, but I persevered and with a little help from my Ruskie friends, I was able to acquire all the cds that Isabelle has ever released.
Good god that there's some red hair.
It took 10 long months and...
It took you 10 months to buy NINE cds?
Yes...BUT the numbers don't tell the whole story. They were all imports. Not one single cd is available in any store in the U.S. So you can see how diffi...
Have you ever heard of Amazon.com or eBay, genius?
Yes...BUT they didn't even have some of them in stock. I had to go to a foreign country to buy two of them. And that foreign country didn't even have two others that are out of print. So I do deserve some sort of...
So how'd you get the out of print ones?
Ummmm? What's that?
Is this where the Russians come in?
May...be.
I don't believe you're quite the inspiration you think you are.
I hope to inspire myself one day...BUT, like Napoleon, je ne regrette rien! And to stop talking to myself for a moment, I'd like to recommend any of her live cds as a good introduction to the prettiness, I mean, the range of styles that Isabelle sings. In particular, Scenes D'amour has Mlle Shorty going from blues to pop to country to reggae to French traditional. For an album that's close to perfection from beginning to end, listen to Au moment d'etre a vous. C'est sublime.
Since going bonkers and falling in love with Celine nearly two years ago, a whole host of events have occurred in my life that I can directly and indirectly attribute to the frenchy drama queen. One of the more pleasant surprises is a friendship I've developed with a woman who lives in France. She's my pen pal (shut up I'm not too old to have a pen pal).
I used to have a pen pal back in high school because of an unmentionable connection from my dark past. We wrote actual letters for two years and then just faded away. But one day in college, I got a wedding invitation from him and that broke my heart. Not that I wanted to marry him, but he symbolized a time that was gone for good and...
Yeah ok anyways, I write my Frenchy pal in French and she writes me in English and we laugh at each other's ability to mangle two similar languages. When we started, she said she was using a dictionary, but I think she's since lost it. For real, though, her mad English skillz endear her to me so much more. She is the cutest person I've ever communicated with.
It's not fair, really. I wish I could speak French badly (I do) and be thought of as endearing (I'm not)... But noooo, the French think we're idiots if we don't speak their language perfectly. Damn French and damn their cuteness.
P.S. She's not a Celine fan. I think I may have implied that above, but I'm un-plying it now. I normally don't mind misleading omissions and/or lies, but I don't think I ever want the wrath of a French woman on me.
HOLY MOLEY I thought I was overreacting when I thought prisoners in white jumpsuits crowded onto an elevator with me a few weeks ago at my office. But now I know. In Georgia, prisoners wear beige jumpsuits and have the words DEPT OF CORRECTIONS stitched on their backs. How do I know this? I've never been caught, petty criminal that I am.
I know because they've surrounded my cubicle right now. I mean, RIGHT NOW. One peered around the corner at me a little while ago. Twice. Another just strolled through looking out my windows at the fantastic view. (It's really fantastic.) And the lone security officer who's supposed to be keeping watch made some small talk with me. But now he's nowhere to be found.
This may be my last post for a while. I'm not sure if they have the internet in jails. I'm quite nervous they're going to round me up with the other guilty guilty convicts because my eyes, they will not stop shifting.
Goodbye, free world.
Leaving work today, I passed by a pair of men having a lively exchange near the Marta station. It was a private conversation, but they were quite vocal so I couldn't help but overhear the following:
Man #1: Righhh?
Man #2: Aigghhhh.
Man #1: Righhh?
Man #2: Aigghhhh.
Man #1: Righhh?
Man #2: Aigghhhh.
Man #1: Righhh?
Man #2: Aigghhhh.
I might have gotten some of that punctuation wrong. Sorry. That wasn't the end of the conversation, but you can clearly see where it was going. You can, can't you? Good. Yes, I do hope his dog's ok.
So I continued walking through the station and came upon a mass of people. But there was something oddly missing. Let's do some math:
mass of people + train station = noise!
Ah yes, there was absolutely no noise! How disconcerting! What the hell was wrong? Was there an invisible mute bubble that had surrounded these people? These people who were gesturing in a controlled fashion with their hands and arms...and not speaking... at all... OHHHH.
Uh, nevermind.