Your Mileage May Vary

Alex Trebek really wants to be Sir Ian Mckellen

Background Noise: Rebellion
Last Visited: the interwebs
Random Thought: No, apparently we aren't over it; Suck it, Trebek!
Mood: goooood morning :)

I actually heard this on the radio when i was driving into the office this morning; freaking awesome:

Many an evening my dinner is a salad from the salad bar at my local Whole Foods; i like the arrangement: they clean and prepare a myriad of fruits, veggies, and other randomness, i choose what i want that evening, season as i like (salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and way too much balsamic), and pay by weight. Every time i finish making my salad (after tossing frequently to mix the ingredients) i pick a fork from the friendly little fork jar; now, i know that Susie's little girl or Jenny or Jeff who's hands have been lord knows where have possibly touched my fork before I actually chose it, but i try not to think about that.

Instead, i concentrate on making sure from the time I choose my oddly ivory plastic fork it doesn't get dirty - it doesn't touch the cardboard container hosting my salad, it doesn't touch whatever drink i've selected, it doesn't go on the check-out belt and i don't let the checker-outer person handle it. As the smiling person rings up my salad, I keep a hold of my fork, only throwing it in the little paper bag now holding my dinner after said person has finished loading it up.

Usually this bout of childishness gets a smile, a smirk, or a laugh.

But i don't care: it's my fork, dammit, and my dinner, and i'd like to believe that it will be clean when i get it home. So there.

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Sneaky Red

Background Noise: Love Song
Last Visited: reddit, etc
Random Thought: hail to the victors!
Mood: goooood morning

Holy Cow, Batman, Anne didn't post again last week! No way!

... You're all shocked, i can tell.

Well, um, not to over use my "holy crap last week became insanely busy" but, well, it's true. It became busy in the best of possible ways, and i'm thrilled, but that doesn't exactly mitigate the fact i now really don't actually have time to write this post here. But i had to say something; after all, i promised.

Also, i need to say: Happy Birthday (last week) to Heather and Mike, and Congrats to my totally awesome Brother for graduating from U of M! Here's to the parents being done paying U of M after a full decade! (lord, i should send the parents flowers or something.)

Oh, and, of course: Red Wings for the win! Go continue to destroy the Avalanche, boys, they deserve a beating.

... and one last thing: congrats to the big man Jake Long for going #1 in the draft this weekend. Go Blue!

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Color and Light

Background Noise: Moving On, Sunday in the Park with George
Last Visited: iphoto, sigh
Random Thought: back with a greater understanding of the term "benediction"
Mood: so. tired. need. sleep.

There's a greater post that needs to be written here about my weekend in New York... but honestly, i'm exhausted and this gallery (in it's mostly incorrect form) has taken forever to get up at least this much, so, well, i'm going to give up for now.

Enjoy this little glimpse of people in and around the park and i'll get back to you with the rest in the morning. [Cali translation: some time before friday; hopefully].

Please leave your message after the beep.

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Some Enchanted Evening, aka, Friday

Background Noise: Midnight Coward, Stars
Last Visited: StubHub!
Random Thought: where did this headache come from?
Mood: i don't really care that Survivor will now be in HD

All hail the powers of the interwebs! They have delivered (relatively) cheap(ish) decent tickets to South Pacific at Lincoln Center friday night at 8!

So, B, you have to forgive me for up and committing us to that show, but see, they were available (a start), we can pick them up in NYC (better than sweating over them being delivered here), they were available, I'm actually getting a refund from the government which i must spend on something fabulous, and, well, i figure that the extra cost is the price i pay for not having to wait on line on friday for tickets after a redeye the night before; and believe me, that is something I'm very very willing to pay for - especially with my current headache (yowza, it's a doozy.)

Plus, you know how much i love getting the ungettable ticket. Besides, if some how we've been screwed, StubHub has us covered, so it's mostly a no-harm-no-foul situation.

Besides, it looks like saturday is the day to spend outside - so that'll be perfect for being on line forSunday in the Park with George tickets, which there seem to be plenty of; those tickets also start at $36, so, i'm sure they somehow slightly balance out the others. Or something like that.

Yeay NYC!

... Now i just have to work, shop, play poker, run, pick up Dave from the airport, work, pack, clean my apartment, and hitch a ride to the airport. No sweat. Er, um... something like that.

But we have tickets! All will be well.

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Honest to Blog?

Background Noise: red socks v. yankees
Last Visited: Windy Hill Open Space Preserve
Random Thought: note to self: wear higher socks when hiking
Mood: resting between outings

There's an odd sense of foreboding when at the head of a hiking trail there are clear, detailed instructions about what you do if attacked by a mountain lion.

Now, on the one hand, i'm grateful for the step by step procedures because really the only thing that comes to mind about scaring off mountain lions comes from the first The Parent Trap movie, i have that a feeling that particular advice wouldn't really cut it.

... On the other hand, i have to admit i thought twice before stepping out alone onto that trail knowing that if I really did come across one of those majestic (and probably hungry) creatures, I'd be pretty screwed. And here i thought i liked hiking / taking pictures by myself. Oh well, while my heart might have skipped a few beats more than once at some odd sounds I still went and Im pretty happy with the pictures that came out of the hike, so yeay.

In other news, I'm thrilled to say that Christian has weighed in on this pseudo-debate going around about how best to improve my running speed / distance; so that makes 3.5 former / current runners giving me completely conflicting advice. Excellent. I suppose i'll just have to continue to follow what i hear, fail miserably, laugh it off, and keep working... which is pretty much my current plan.

Christian's best advice was to remind me that at the end of the day, regardless of the training program i'm on, the point of my running is me; not John, or Nic, or Christian, or Will or any of those boys who can run faster / longer than i can; the point is how much i've improved, where i'm headed, and not killing myself in the process; nothing more, nothing less.

Obviously I need to hang out with Christian more; good thing he's discovered the train.

And now, my Sunday continues. Later.

(Good thing I'm a screamer - step 2b in How to Protect Yourself From A Mountain Lion is "Be Loud.")

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Where did we fail? Oh, way back there. Right.

Background Noise: I Want to Hold Your Hand, Across the Universe
Last Visited: A*: Reweighing a graph for faster shortest paths
Random Thought: to deprecate or not to deprecate...
Mood: crawling out of a hole

So the Chicks with Worm and Paradox Dragon are cracking me up; the Paradox Dragon especially - talk about the Labyrinth Left Knocker / Right Knocker riddle on steroids; so awesome. Speaking of steroids, did you read about those people who bought a house from a former WWE(F?) wrestler and found a major stash of 'roids in the wall? No?

(... a bit too random for wednesday morning, perhaps?).

Well, to be a bit more work topical, and since i don't have a fun link farm like some people i know, i'm going to cache off a few gems (ok, mostly from from reddit.com/r/programming) here:

• The story of Alice and Her Boss; aka, MD5 weakness, demonstrated


• The Eternally Confuzzled Red Black Tree Tutorial


• CocoaTron: bringing the joys of NSOpenGLView to a non-OSX based operating system near you


• My Wishlist: because i need new perfume on this side of soon

To conclude this morning's randomness, i cannot seriously believe that the cheapest available ticket for South Pacific online is $281, with any seat worth a damn starting in the high $300s. Seriously, this just a new level of insanity for broadway ticket prices; the Golden Age of Broadway folks must be having a conniption fit somewhere in Indiana... geez louise.

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Some Enchanted Evening

Background Noise: restarting imacs, iphones; waiting for the icalbridge to sync for the first time
Last Visited: Dave & Liz's Engagement Pictures + Party Gallery
Random Thought: hello South Pacific - um, Emile is... unreal - gorgeous, with a voice to bring women to their knees... is it warm in here or is that just me?
Mood: happy half birthday to me...

So saturday was the big Dave and Liz's Engagement extravaganza - a photo shoot in the morning, and the party in the evening. I think everything turned out well; the party was fun, everyone got along, and i think we ended up with some nice pictures:

with one or two pictures from the party:

from left to right, this is Helena, JR, Me, Debbi, Louis, and Steve C. Just in case. (Don't Debbi and I look related in this picture?).

In other news, largely due to a piece on npr this weekend about Herbert von Karajan, I'm now the pleased owner of the complete Beethoven Symphonies and selections of Turandot by the Berlin Philharmonic. Excellent.

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Many happy returns

Background Noise: Hallucinations, Bud Powell
Last Visited: my facebook inbox
Random Thought: why is it that online stores selling women's watches always have an additional tab of information about the watch - so that along with "overview" and "details" you get "outfit ideas"?
Mood: oh what a beautiful morning

Larry Lessig gave a talk at TED a few months ago on how creativity is being strangled by the law; not only is it insightful, around the 10 minute mark there is a hilariously awesome video clip from "Jesus Christ, the Musical." Check it out.

In other news, i managed to do and file my taxes yesterday - and besides the minor momentary heart attack when i thought that i might owe $8K (don't worry, i don't), it turns out that this year, finally, once more, i'll be getting money back. Thank Goodness.

Interestingly enough, those lovely refunds of mine should be deposited in my checking account right about the time i'm landing in NYC... looks like i might have to do a bit more shopping than i had planned. Darn.

Also, I look on track to give myself one hell of an awesome half-birthday present; all of a sudden i'm looking very forward to monday.

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Apparently i (still) have a super-sonic sneeze

Background Noise: Waltz for Debby, Bill Evans
Last Visited: Speak like a Michigander
Random Thought: so, um, if you link to your myspace page from your facebook page, i'm going to see it. just for the record.
Mood: procrastinating.

Have i mentioned Behr.com lately? Great place to play with paint colors. And we all know how much i love painting (apartments).

In other news... there's no poker tonight. Again. Which is totally lame because i can't go next week. Which will mean nearly a month with no poker. Now, the thing is, while i love playing poker, the poker isn't what i miss: it's the guys i get to hang out with. So if everyone is bored with poker, might i suggest sushi night? Or movie night? Or heaven forbid, (yet another) video games night? Whatever you prefer, i'm there. Even if i (gulp) have to organize it myself. And here i thought i had gotten out of being the cruise director. Guess not.

Speaking of directing, apparently i have a photoshoot to direct saturday morning; my first. Heaven help me, this might be a bumpy ride. I'll have pictures on the flip side though - stay tuned.

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