Internet Radio
I found an AMAZING internet radio station!
AccuradioThey have categories you can choose from including:
Classic Rocktober
A Flock of Eighties
Listening Post (discover new rock)
Celtic
Brit Rock
Twang
Broadway
Piano Jazz
High Fidelity (Indie Rock)
And on top of having such awesome options, they also give you info about the song that is playing: Song name, band name, album title, year, and a picture of the cover. AND you can skip songs, and you can click off on artists you DON'T want to hear songs from. AWESOME.
I am listening to Classic Rocktober, and learning more about bands that I have been trying to familiarize myself with for a while. Seriously, if you enjoy the luxury of listening to web radio then you should click on the link (I have already added it to my favorites!)
It's just head...
So Jerry just cited a study done by the CDC surveying 13,000 teenagers across the US, and they reported that 50% of teenagers have had oral sex by age 17.
He pointed out what my generation grew up believing: "that oral sex isn't a big deal, it's not like it's sex... you don't even need to be in a relationship...no body's going to get pregnant."
He then went on to say that when he was young oral sex was considered a bigger deal than sex..."You could have sex, but if you got to oral sex, then you were really intimate, then you were really serious."
But I have to admit, when thinking about other people, I still think of oral sex as not as important as sex... that is just the idea that has been socialized into me, and it is hard to overcome that.
What needs to be done to reinstate this idea of oral sex actually being a big deal?
The Fighting Irish
This is my flag football team, The Fighting Irish. We won our first game this past weekend! WOOHOO!
I lost my position as running back and am now officially an outside linebacker. (Yes, that is a big kid position, and yes, as Cam pointed out, I am the smallest person on the team). The top picture is of the Defense...my new team. See the woman in the white in the back center? She is who I was up against most of the time (thats my head poking out in the back). That woman is twice my size and I did such a good job shutting her out on one play that she gave me a disgruntled shove after the play was over. GRRR...I am tough!
I love my team, we all hug every time we leave each other.
Our intelligent president
I just heard this clip on Springer on the radio (yes im listening to Air America while I work):
"We have a saying in Texas, they may have it other places...It goes: 'Fool me once, shame on...on you. Fool me twice...uh...you can't fool me again." ~George W
....WOW!...I agree with Harriet Miers, "The president is the smartest man I've ever met!"
....um....if I were her ex husband, or a man who had ever met her, I would be really insulted!
Some good quotes
Here are some good quotes that I have heard in the last week:
"Democrats need to quit complaining that Hillary Clinton can't win the presidency and just get behind her! I am tired of it! If the democrats would just get behind her she could win, of course she could!" (paraphrased)
Ed Schultz"When we make mistakes we say, 'How fascinating. How fascinating'." Benjamin Zander (founder and conductor-
Boston Philharmonic) after realizing the mic he was speaking into was turned off.
"I am a non-practicing, non-believing Catholic" Peter Mansaeu, author of "Vows : The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son"
"Looks like Miers is gonna get the boot...I am just scared to see who they're gonna dig up in her place!"(paraphrased) Mark Reily of
Morning Sedition (which is the best name ever for a progressive radio show!)... finally someone else is voicing my big fear! I mean, it is the conservatives that are raising the biggest stink about Miers because they don't think she is conservative enough! So you know they are going to dig up a very obviously conservative slanted judge in her place!
That last post was like a spelling bee, because I began it and ended it with the same word.
Antsy
Something is making me very antsy.
Here are the possible causes of my antsyness:
1. It is Friday.
2. I have really fun and exciting plans for tonight
3. I have already had two cups of coffee today (I rarely drink coffee).
e. All of the Above
...I do realize that I switched from numbers to letters, it just felt like a multiple choice scantron test, didn't you hate it when "all of the above" or "none of the above" were ALWAYS an option?
another tangent: I had an assistant coach my senior year in college, Roni, and she used to always say, "1st of all....b of all....c of all"...it always made me chuckle.
go clock go... go go go....GOOOOOOOOOOO!
antsy
Idle no more...
I think someone at the office must have found my blog. Ever since I posted that I had time to update in the office they have been giving me non-stop projects. But it is good, I am a true American- I live to work. Even though the tasks are mundane, having a reason to get up in the morning and a way to be productive is really good for my mental health. I actually enjoy coming here everyday.
Last night at
India Quality my friend Bekka said that people really just need structure to their day, and I totally agree. It made me think about unemployment, I guess I have always focused on the psychological stress of not having money, not being able to provide for yourself and/or your family. But there is also the psychological pain of not having structure to your day, not having some place you are expected to be, some way that you are expected to be productive. It makes you think with the unusually high unemployment rates in our country, how come more psychologically tormented people aren't using their pain as a catalyst to rise up against our incompetent leader who not only hasn't been helping find solutions to the problem but is clearly a huge part of the problem! (wow that sentence was a terrible run-on wasn't it?)
I should stop now...
I need my moment of Zen
The daily show has been showing reruns all week, and it is making me really sad. I do get my news in other ways- the paper, democracy now,
wonkette (thanks claire), other peoples blogs, but I must say Jon Stewart is my favorite place to be the news. Although I could watch Jon's impersination of George W everyday, it is sooo awsome! "eh heh heh heh...."
Alia my fashion consultant
As promised, this is Alia (the one of the left, the one on the right is Suad). I don't have a picture of Lori which is sad because she has really awsome style.
Chaz Tenenbaum took his lunch at his desk...
Is it weird to sit in your sparsely decorated gray cubicle eating lunch and updating your blog?
It is only my second day here at Insulet and I don't really have any friends or anything- not that it's a big deal since I will only be here 3 or 4 weeks. I think most of the people working here are considerably older than me, the receptionist is around my age and very nice, but I don't want to go up to her desk and ask what she is doing for lunch.
I brought a bag of lunch supplies with me because I didn't have time to make my lunch this morning. Is it weird that I have a shopping bag with a loaf of bread, a safflower mayonnaise jar, mustard jar, package of turkey slices and a package of provolone slices in the office fridge? I have never worked in an office before so I don't know, do people do that? It makes sense to me, but so did putting my produce in the freezer in order to preserve it (just in case you are dense like me, here is a warning: NEVER PUT YOUR FRESH PRODUCE IN THE FREEZER, it doesn't preserve it, it kills it!). Maybe I should change the name of this blog to: "The True Adventures of a SoCalGal Living on Her Own for the First Time". What do you think? Too long? Trying to be funny but not succeeding? Anyway, I digress, what do you think about my office lunch supply? Is it weird? I need help with these things. Either way I am leaving my stash here for the week.
Speaking of things I need to know: I am not blessed with the ability to color coordinate. Is this yet another deficiency that I can blame on my mother, or was I born lacking this ability? Right now I am wearing a light tan/khaki colored shirt, forest green cords, and talc blue shoes with tan/khaki colored stripes. What do you think? Do I match? Maybe I will start planning my outfits the night before, then if color coordination is in question I will snap a digital pic, upload it onto my blog, and ask you, my readers, to tell me if it works.
Last year I lived with the people I worked with (very long story, maybe I will share it here some day). Anyway, whenever I had a color coordination issue I would step outside my room and find one of my fashion consultants: Alia and Lori (I will try to find a picture of them to upload after work- such stylish ladies!). I would ask them if I matched or I would run through my shoe options and ask what would work best. The shoes are usually where things go south for me, I can figure out how to match the top and the bottom, but the shoes, ugh! In the past my solution was to have such a plethora ("would you say I have a plethora of pinatas"...there's a prize for the first person who can name that quote!) of shoes to choose from that it was not a problem, but unfortunately during my move from MHC I lost a box with all of my favorite shoes! Thinking about it still makes me cry in the night.
Anyway, it seems I have updated my half hour lunch away. More updates later when the inevitable happens and they run out of things for me to do.
Check out my new counter at the bottom...it gives me all sorts of nifty stats- more on that later!
Headlines
These are the top three headlines from Democracy Now:
- Pakistan Death Toll Tops 42,000
- Over 2,000 Feared Dead In Guatemala from Mudslides
- Car Bombings Kill Dozens in Iraq .
..so much death and distruction. I am having a hard time processing all of this...
Live From the Cubicle
I am now getting the first taste of what my good buddy
Claire does all the time. I am updating my blog during work. As I type I am sitting in my own little gray cubicle in the Insulet building in the middle of suburban Massachusetts. My job so far is to enter data, scan sheets and upload, name and save said sheets. Images of Dilbert comics keep running through my mind...
Things I have decided/ observed:
1. I need to decorate my cubicle (I will be here 3-4 weeks...that's long enough right?)
2. 7 or 8 men in the office have a "weight loss pool" going on (I will describe this more below)
3. While in the bathroom the idea of doing coke while in the office flashed through my mind.
a. no, I have never snorted coke, but I could understand how someonedoing a mundane data
data entry job like mine would want to.
4. I like the power that my access card (which is clipped to me and has a zippy string) gives me.
5. Fall in New England is cold but gorgeous
a. since this is my 6th year out here I already new that, but I was just reminded
6. I have noticed some people wearing jeans...nice jeans + nice shirt= dressy cas.?
The weight loss pool
Dear readers, it has happened again, I have written a detailed account of something, and then pressed spell check only to have my changes disappear due to a pop-up blocker. This is at least the third time this has happened to me, you'd think I'd have learned by now! Anyway here is the gist:
men, no women, just men in a weight loss pool
participants are weighed weekly
for each pound lost you are paid one dollar by each of the other participants
if you gain weight you pay each participant $2
you must pay $50 for early evacuation from the pool
there is no consideration for percentage of body weight lost (big guys and small guys get paid the same for each pound lost)
some guy was upset and having a fit about his less than pound weight loss not counting since he was small to begin with....if he was small to begin with why did he enter the pool? (my guess is it was peer pressure, like when the "cool kids" tried to get you to smoke cigarettes in Jr. High!)
I appreciate men complaining to each other about their weight loss problems
of course men found a way to make weight loss a competitive sport!
In Celebration of Mass Genocide?
I know that this is no longer a radical or unusual thing to say but: Why do I not have work today? Why does my daily organizer say Columbus Day? Why are we still celebrating today as a holiday?I suppose an argument could be made as to why today can be celebrated, we are here and Columbus is the person who sparked European interest to go West. Regardless of whether it should be celebrated or not, the devastating affect that Columbus, the conquistadors, and the multitude of early settlers had on the natives and the land should not go unmentioned and should receive at least equal reflection.A few things: It is queer to name Columbus the discoverer of the New World when he himself died thinking he had reached Asia, and had no idea that he in fact had reached a land mass relatively unknown in Europe. Columbus has even less to do with the discovery of what today is the USA, since he only ever set foot on the islands of the Caribbean. I believe Ponce de Leon was the first of the conquistadors to "discoverer" North America- he landed on Florida in 1513.The following are excerpts from the first chapter of Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", it's a great book and it reads like a novel. Columbus' contribution to the world:"...They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495 (this was during Columbus' second voyage), they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route...""But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had invested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.""...Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead."And that was just the beginning...in total Columbus and his men are believed to have been responsible for the death of up to 3 million (some say 8) Natives and the complete genocide of the Arawaks. The Arawaks were a people who swam out to meet the Santa Maria, showering its captain and crew with gifts, but to their great demise one of those gifts was made of gold.Howard Zinn concludes his chapter:"Was all this bloodshed and deceit...a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?...Perhaps an argument can be made- as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgment be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mention quickly?That quick disposal might be acceptable ("Unfortunate, yes, but it had to be done") to the middle and upper classes of the conquering and "advanced" countries. But is it acceptable to the poor of Asia, Africa, Latin America, or to the prisoners in Soviet labor camps, or the blacks in urban ghettos, or the Indians on reservations- to the victims of that progress which benefits a privileged minority in the world?...And even the privileged minority- must it not reconsider, with that practicality which even privilege cannot abolish, the value of its privileges, when they become threatened by the anger of the sacrificed, whether in organized rebellion, unorganized riot, or simply those brutal individual acts of desperation labeled crimes by law and the state?If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, is it not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves?...""Beyond all that, how certain are we that what was destroyed was inferior? Who were these people who came out on the beach and swam to bring presents to Columbus and his crew...""...Before the arrival of the European explorers, they were using irrigation canals, dams, were doing ceramics, weaving baskets, making cloth out of cotton.""...The concept of private ownership of land and homes was foreign to the Iroquois (a nation of five separate tribes who lived in present day New York)...'No poorhouses are needed among them, because they are neither mendicants nor paupers....Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not only makes them liberal with what they have, but causes them to posses hardly anything except in common.Women were important and respected in Iroquois society. Families were matrilinear...When a woman wanted a divorce, she set her husband's things outside the door.""...The senior women in the village named the men who represented the clans at village and tribal councils. They also named the forty-nine chiefs who were the ruling council for the Five Nation confederacy of the Iroquois. The women attended the clan meetings, stood behind the circle of men who spoke and voted, and removed the men from office if they strayed too far from the wishes of the women.""Children in Iroquois society, while taught the cultural heritage of their people and solidarity with the tribe, were also taught to be independent, not to submit to overbearing authority. They were taught equality in status and the sharing of possessions. ""So Columbus and his successors were not coming into an empty wilderness, but into a world which in some places was as densely populated as Europe itself, where the culture was complex, where human relations were more egalitarian than in Europe, and where the relations among men, women, children and nature were more beautifully worked out than perhaps any place in the world.""...They paid careful attention to the development of personality, intensity of will, independence and flexibility, passion and potency, to their partnership with one another and with nature." ************************************************************************************
That was a little longer than I intended, but I really love this book, and it sums up a lot of the most interesting works I read in college. I really believe in everything that I copied down here and the telling of these stories is why I think I want to teach history.
So, as you "celebrate" (read: sit on your couch watching TV instead of at your desk in front of a computer screen) today keep in mind what the real celebration is about. Never forget to question all that you have been taught. Just because this type of history isn't as buried as it used to be, doesn't mean that we should stop talking about it. I know it sounds risky or corney, but try mentioning the truth about today to someone else...word of mouth can be very powerful.
My beautiful and strong mother
I love my mother, she is a wonderful woman. Her loving care and support and attention has made me the woman I am today. I am proud of her. Thank you mom.
That's not my bag baby!
This is an awsome saying and more people need to use it.
Today at Costco one of the old women, we're talking like 70s, said, "Oh nah, I don't want the chili dogs, that's not my bag."
...let's all make a concerted effort to use this phrase more!
Spring Bloom
I know this isn't the right season, but this is how I've been feeling all day:
These are the days that you'll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise, will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days you’ll remember.
When may is rushing over you with desire to be part of the miracles you see in every hour.
You’ll know it’s true that you are blessed and lucky.
It’s true that you are touched by something that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days.
These are the days you might fill with laughter until you break.
These days you might feel a shaft of light make it’s way across your face.
And when you do you’ll know how it was meant to be.
See the signs and know their meaning.
It’s true, you’ll know how it was meant to be.
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking to you, to you.
************************************************************************************
Things are all coming together for me, and the world feels so full of possibility!
Sit Down Captain Crunch!
WOOT WOOT Way to be Angels!!! I stayed up way past my bed time to watch this game, and I'll pay for it tomorrow.
I'll be wearing my 2002 Championship shirt out to the clubs tomorrow.
Pictured above is the man of the game: Chone Figgins. Did everyone see his diving catch in the 4th (?). Now that's what I call not having a defeatist attitude. Oh man oh man, a center fielder after my own heart!
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday... FOOTBALL
The Fighting Irish (us) vs. Jeanie Johnston. That's me in the bright blue shorts with the 9 on my shirt. If you have never played on a team sport you should try it. It keeps me sane to know that I have practice coming up and a reason to exercise and get in good shape. Plus I have met a group of amazing women that I love to hang out and talk with. No wonder all those studies show that being involved in sports keeps kids away from drugs and such. Team sports have always been a part of my life and I guess now I realize that they always will.
Three posts in one day! Can you tell how much I missed my blog?
The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
If, like me, you are from a baseball loving Orange County family you are excited about the Angeles being in the American League playoffs. What I am not excited about is the perpetuation of the myth that Orange County is in fact just an extension of Los Angeles. Three years ago the Angeles won the world series as the Anaheim Angeles- ANAHEIM, it's in Orange County, it's where Disneyland is, it is NOT a part of Los Angeles County. Now, due to the marketability of "Los Angeles" their name has been changed to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Every time I see the score of and Angeles game go by under the title LAA I wonder, "What baseball team is in Louisiana?" Now if I saw LAD I would know it was referring to the LA Dodgers. To tell the truth I am more of a Dodgers fan than an Angeles fan, but it is not because they are from exotic LA, it's because I grew up in an Los Angeles County family with a grandmother who loved Tommy Lasorda- I too love Tommy and miss him.
Point being: LA is a city in Los Angeles County which is the county directly North of Orange County where Anaheim is. They are in fact two separate counties. I am tired of saying I am from Orange County and having people respond, "Oh, so LA"...I would rather they say, "Like the O.C.", because that (albeit sad) is a lot more accurate!
A week with no internet!
A while ago I started thinking about how attached I was to the internet and other new fandangled comforts like my cell phone. For a while I lamented this attachment and wished that I was not so dependent on all this technology. After spending a week "without" internet I have changed my mind!
Without is in quotes because its not like I went to a remote village in Mali like my amazing friend Neda who has been working with the Peace Corps for over a year. No, by without I mean that due to billing problems I was unable to access the internet in the comfort of my own home. This fact stressed me out beyond all belief. Everyday I woke up wishing that I could check my e-mail to see if some far off loved one had e-mailed about their life, or more important if DPH had e-mail me about the "informal" job offer they made. I went to work and struggled through my day barely able to contain the feeling that I was missing out on some amazing opportunity due to my inability to jump on-line at a moments notice. A couple of times I called my mother and had her go into my various inboxes. Of course every time I finally was able to access my e-mail there were very few important messages.
I eventually found myself in the Boston Public Library, waiting again and again to use the 15 minuet express computer (by this time I had initiated a new e-mail relationship with the person I am interested). Finally I made my way to my own public library in Somerville- right down the street. I am now the proud holder of a library card- my first since moving to Massachusetts over 5 years ago. While in the library I found a book by Joe Namath on Football for Young Players- oh yes I am very serious about my new sport!
Moral of the story- do not underestimate the importance of home internet access, you never realize how much you rely on it until it is gone (e-mail, yellow pages, mapquest, news, blogs, etc). But don't let home internet access and its ability to connect you to people and ideas all over the world keep you from becoming invested in your local community- go get a library card!
