4.23.2006
old
On Friday after work my friend Stephen and I couldn't come up with anything to do. I wanted to go bowling. He wanted to see a movie. I wanted to play pool. No concensus. So instead, I spent the evening at home drinking a bottle of wine and trying to assemble a puzzle. I'm the oldest thing ever. I'm older than Yoda. So here is the puzzle - It's a photomosaic and therefore way impossible and I think I am doing irreparable damage to my spine by constantly bending down to look at the tiny pictures emblazoned on every piece. But I may as well have old man posture to go along with my old man lifestyle.4.20.2006
alligators
I am terrified of alligators. Most of the country probably thinks I'm irrational, because who has to worry about an alligator biting off their face in the good old U.S.A.? Floridians, that's who! Growing up in Illinois I was free to run through the creeks and swim in lakes near my home. Here in Florida, however, the minute you decide to step off the pavement and into nature you are fair game for hungry alligators.
My fear manifests itself in creepy alligator dreams. Sometimes they are harmless. For instance, in one dream a couple former co-workers and I were picking up the beasts and throwing them down a waterslide from the third story of my elementary school.
Other times the dreams are not so pleasant. Monday night while I slept, I was taken to some sort of high school competition hosting hundreds of students from around the nation. Because they were on vacation in Florida, they were ready to go swimming. They ran around the hotel in their bathing suits looking for the pool, but when they couldn't find it the eager teens turned to the lake behind the building. I ran after them screaming "NOOOOOO! There are alligators in the water!" But they didn't listen. One girl jumped in the murky lake just a couple inches from a particularly large monster, and when she realized what she'd done she ran out on the bank. She was too slow, though, and the gator bit her leg off at the knee.
Leg pieces were strewn everywhere. It was gruesome and horrible. And this happens at least once a week. What is wrong with me?
4.17.2006
tasteful
A small plane ran off course while taking off from the Gainesville airport on Saturday and crashed into the terminal, killing three people. Our local news interviewed one of the girls at the airport and she had some selfless and heartfelt input on the airport cancelling its Easter flights (paraphrased because I didn't have time to write it down on my way out the door this morning):
It's so scary to think that a couple more hundred feet and I could be dead. Yeah it's a minor inconvenience, but my life is more important than being on time.Umm... how about those other three lives? That stupid girl with ugly hair totally tried to make a thrice fatal plane crash about her missing her flight! I wonder what is so important about her life, anyway. It didn't look very important to me.
4.13.2006
power struggle
For the third year in a row I have witnessed loss of power during the three days leading up to April 15th. In 2004, we sat in the dark for nearly two hours on April 13th while our tax returns rested on our desks waiting to be prepared. Last year the power went down for just a couple minutes on April 14th. Just now the power flickered and shorted out my co-worker's surge protector (go figure).
Mother Nature hates taxes.
4.12.2006
toby!
In an effort to balance the views of last week's guest speaker, Ann Coulter, UF brought Margaret Cho for a free-to-the-public performance last night. I have now seen her live three times, and while this was largely "Margaret's Greatest Hits," she still cracked my shit up. She set the tone of the evening with this gem:
She [Ann Coulter] is such a slave to the conservative mindset. She's like... Cunt-a Kinte.A few people stood up to leave in light of the Bush-bashing; some others left during her ten minute retelling of the day she shit her pants in her car (to the tune of Madonna's "Holiday"). But the vast majority of the crowd loved her, because how do you not love ole Peggy Cho?
