Arrrrrrrr!

I have a bone to pick.

I don’t understand what is up with all the bad reviews of the latest Pirates movie. I went and saw it on Friday, and I thought it was bloody brilliant. Perhaps not as good as the first, but better than the second.

I’ve heard from several people I know that they didn’t like the movie. It was just about a bunch of pirates fighting, yada yada yada.

What were you expecting? Rocket science?

The formal “critics” are cracking me up most of all, of course. First, there’s the argument that it didn’t make enough money. $401 million worldwide over four days seems like a lot ‘o money to me! But what do I know, I’m one of those silly people that actually liked the movie. ;)

The weirdest argument of all, though, is that several critics have been saying the movie was hard to follow. What brainiacs do they have critiquing these films? Everyone has different taste, so if you don’t like it, you don’t like it, but what was there to follow? Pirates fight, pirates win, pirates lose, pirates fight some more, boy gets girl, etc. Once again, not rocket science. Perhaps they didn’t see the first two so they didn’t know what was going on? It’s not like the eleventy million Halloween movies where it doesn’t matter if you see them in order. It’s a trilogy, man. It would be like watching Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers without bothering to watch the other two.

Who knows. That’s my pointless doesn’t-really-matter opinion for the day.

Needless to say, I will be seeing the next installment (which they are saying may be a prequel).

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My brain is fried. I’ve got three weeks left until I’m done with school for the summer, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got gray matter leaking outta my ears. I hope that’s not the part I need.

I am So. Done. writing about administrative theories and ethics and planning and blah de blah blah blah. I can honestly say this is the worse term I have had. I mean, the other two terms I had only one class I didn’t like, but this time, all three are just crap. I think it’s probably a good thing that I’ve decided not to take summer courses.

I need a vacation! And I get one in three weeks! Hallelujah!

Happy Dance!

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In other news, this disturbs me slightly because that’s the contact lense solution I use! And I’m 99% sure my bottles aren’t among the recalled ones (I’ll make sure when I get home), but it still makes me want to switch brands, that’s for sure! Unfortunately, I just bought this two-pack of big bottles, and I don’t want to just toss them because that stuff’s not cheap!

Sigh.

It’s hard to be me! ;)

Speedy Gonzales

BORE-DUMB has taken over me.

Thank Buddha I have a 3-day weekend. Unfortunately, much of that time will be spent writing papers, but at least I’ll be at home instead of at work twiddling my thumbs. Seriously…at some point you run out of internet to surf and then what do you do?

::::::

In other news, I inherited a laptop last week. My best friend graduated a couple of weeks ago, and her parents bought her an iMac notebook thingy. I’m sure it has a fancier name, I just don’t know it. Anyway, she has a Sony Viao that she bought last year and has since screwed up. She has worse computer karma than I do. That woman has been through…hold on…OK, she’s on her sixth laptop in as many years. No, I’m not kidding. I wish I were. Actually two of those were desktops.

Anyway, this Viao was causing her trouble so she got a Mac and gave me the Viao. I’ve been wanting a laptop—mostly so I can take my work with me if I need to. So I got the Viao, started her up, and quickly figured out why it wasn’t working very well. That woman had so much crap on there, I can’t even explain it. Random ass programs that took up too much room that she never even used, all those “trial” programs that came on the computer that she never removed, and too much music for the size of her memory. So I cleaned all that off, defragged her, and now she seems to be working MUCH better. Still a little slow on startup, but I haven’t had any problems so far.

::::::

Tristan wrote about a debacle he had on Friday, which reminded me of a debacle I had last Wednesday.

I got a speeding ticket.

Whazzat?? Well, first of all, let me say I was on a highway and evidently this particular area had a speed limit of 40MPH. I thought it was 45 so I was going 52. So I get pulled over, and the police officer was really nice about it, and actually laughed with me about being such an airhead. He asked for my license and then asked me if the car was registered to me and if I had insurance. It was kind of weird—he didn’t ask to see them, just if I had them. I asked him if he wanted to see them and he smiled and said, “no, I trust you.”

So he gives me a $145 ticket and says to call this number because it will probably be reduced because I have a good driving record. Then the usual have a great day, drive safely speech.

And he marked my hair as “red” on the ticket. I don’t have red hair. Weird.

Now, let me ask you this: whatever happened to warnings? I have been pulled over twice in my life. Once when I was 18 and now when I’m 25. Both times, I was not speeding excessively, I was basically going with the flow of traffic, and I was not creating an unsafe situation. But BOTH TIMES I get a ticket. What up with that? My best friend has been pulled over 7 times. Yes, I said SEVEN and she has never once gotten a ticket. What’s the deal? Is it because I don’t cry and try to show my boobs? I prefer to act like an adult in these situations, but I guess I need to rethink my strategy here.

I just can't hide it...

I'm so excited I'm going to give myself an aneurysm.

T minus 29 days until I'm in Alaska with one of my best friends partying it up Anchorage-Style!

And we're going to go on a glacier cruise, people! Cruising! Through glaciers! While the world still has glaciers! We're going on the National Park Tour -- see the tour info here.

LOOK, people...just LOOK at it!






Ack! Aneurysm, it's coming!

I think we're dead

please send rescue

Blubber

Just another manic Monday…

Actually, that’s not true. I’m so bored I could watch paint peel. The students are back for summer session, but almost no one takes summer classes, so it’s dull.

But outside is absolutely incredibly fantastically sunny!!

And it’s going to be 80 degrees! Tomorrow too!

I just don’t know what to do with myself! Of course I can’t really enjoy it because I have to work all day and I have class tomorrow, but I’ll be breakin open the sunroof this week for sure!

So how was your weekend?

Mine was OK. I had my weekend class again and it wasn’t as good as the class we had last month. We did a lot of the same thing over and over and it just really wasn’t catching my attention.

BUT, in a strange twist of fate, I ran into an old classmate of mine at my Starbucks on Saturday morning. I’ve known the guy since kindergarten, and I see him every once in a while (may 3 times in the last seven years). So I asked him what he was doing at my Starbucks, and it turns out he lives two blocks away from me! He’s been there for 8 months, and somehow we hadn’t run into each other yet! It was crazy. He also drives this fantastic yellow and black Mini Cooper. Lucky bastard. His girlfriend seemed nice, but not very friendly.

Anyway, that was my trip down memory lane for the day. He and I were in the same class for kindergarten and first grade, and we were the “smart kids,” put in AGP or TAG or whatever they call it these days. We did this advanced reading program in first grade because the other kids were still doing the See Spot run hoopla.

On Sunday I started teaching my sister how to drive! She’s almost 27 but just never got on the driving bandwagon. She needs to be able to drive for her new job, so she bought a car and got her permit the other day. So we had a driving session for a few hours, and she did really well. Still takes corners a little hard, but she’s getting better! And now I won’t have to drag her butt around because she’ll have her own car!

In other news, I ran into this video on YouTube and about died. This happened about 50 miles south of where I grew up, but eleven years before I was born. I couldn’t stop laughing because really…what the hell did they think was going to happen??

Goodbye my lover

Well, I’m afraid one of my husbands and I had to part ways.

This sort of thing just isn’t acceptable.

Bye Ty, you were a hot one!


……

In other news, I went and saw Spiderman 3 on Sunday – and only paid $3.75 bitches. I love cheap first-run theaters. It’s the best kept secret in North Portland, I’ll tell you that. The theater wasn’t even all the way full!

Has anyone seen this? I’d be curious to know your opinions of it. I was entertained of course, but there were parts where I just couldn’t help but think “are you kidding me?”





……

Now I’d like to tell you a little story about my friend Marie*. Marie dated Jason in college for a few years. They were pretty serious…talking marriage, the whole shebang. At one point, Jason had one of those early-20’s crises that seem to afflict men of this age—where they start dressing like slobs, don’t give a crap about anything, but still think they’re the shit. Now, thankfully, not all guys go through this, but Jason did.

Their relationship suffered, he started cheating on her, and they broke up.

Before they broke up, Jason actually failed out of college. His grades were so poor that he was kicked out. So he decided to go to culinary school. He didn’t tell anyone (except Marie) that he failed out of school—he said he dropped out to become a chef. Unfortunately, his credit was so awful that he couldn’t get a student loan for culinary school. So Marie, in the dumbest move of her life, co-signed a loan so he could go to school.

Most people would say that was very generous of her. Jason, after they broke up, didn’t give a rat’s ass, and wouldn’t pay his loans (any of them), so Marie has been stuck paying off the loan she cosigned for the last three years. She’s called him, emailed him, written him, hell even had me try calling him, but he’s ignored her all this time. So she steadily pays off the $5000 loan because she has no choice (he actually has a total of over $40,000 in loans that he isn’t paying).

Last week, Marie and I were having a MySpace marathon because we were both bored at work (Marie lives in another state now). At one point, she was on my page, then clicked over to a mutual friend, and then clicked over to another friend, who’s page had a comment from someone named “Jason.” She couldn’t tell who he was from the picture so she clicked over. Sho ‘nough, it was him.

Marie called me and we started looking over his page, discovering that not only was he getting married but having a child!! How he expects to afford raising a child I do not know. Marie was understandably pissed.

And then curiosity got the better of her. When they were still together, she used to check his email for him. So she tried logging in to his myspace to see if he would be dumb enough to still use the same password.

Yes, he’s dumb enough.

I made the suggestion, half-joking, that she should change something that he wouldn’t notice. Then she laughed and half-jokingly said that it was a good idea. Then we decided, not joking anymore, that she should do it.

His “about me” section said I went to college, dropped out, and became a chef. Well Marie decided to change that “dropped” to “failed.”

I thought it was beautiful. He still hasn't noticed, and it still says "failed out" on his page.

She’s now second-guessing herself and wondering if it was bad. Personally, I think the punk ass deserves it. But, my dear readers, what do you think?

Was Marie out of line?
	No, that punk ass totally deserves it.
	No, she should have done something worse to him, though.
	It's funny, but immature.
	Yes, she was way out of line.
	I don't know.
	Who cares?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

I hope you enjoy this beautiful Thursday.

*Names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

Where are the May flowers?

Oh, they're hiding from the rain.

The days are filled with boredom here at work…the students have finished the semester and there is only so much internet you can surf, you know?

If you were a real friend, you’d go post something entertaining on your blog.

In the interest of time-wasting, I came upon a South Park Character Creator and envisioned myself as follows:



Had a hard time choosing the right hair…none of them really encompassed my style.

My best friend is graduating tomorrow, so it’s party time. She has struggled her way through school, and she’s finally earned her teaching degree. She had a rough start back in 2000 and got a little too much into the social scene at college. She took a year off, and then went to community college. She finally transferred to Portland State and completed her bachelor’s degree in December ‘05. Her transcripts weren’t great considering her rough start, so she had to fight to get into an MAT program…but it paid off, and she was accepted. She’s a good illustration of what happens when you’re finally doing something you love: she went from a 2.5 in undergrad to a 4.0 as a graduate student. Even though she doesn’t read this blog (or even know that it exists), I’m proud of her.

…

It’s 3:00 and I have nothing to do. This is baaaaad. It’s only going to get worse next week. Too bad I can’t bring in my homework!

So in the interest of keeping busy, I have been having waaaaay too much fun with Google Satellite Maps.

Here, you can see my hood. I live somewhere within this grid, but it's a secret:



Here, you can see one of my favorite downtown buildings...the Urban Center at Portland State. Also where I spend much of my graduate school time--



Then I found the 'hood where I grew up--



And hey! There's the house I lived in during college! I used to mow that lawn, y'all:



Then I got to thinking...I wonder if they have satellite images of Quito (where I spent five glorious months back in '03)



That was my house!!! (Bottom arrow). The top arrow is where I sat drinking coffee at my favorite internet cafe. Also where I got a bus to go to school...Hey! Can I find my school?!



Entirely too much fun, people. Satellite images are just the right mix of cool and creepy.

And I know this is mean, but laughed when I read this. Do you think she'll actually go?