whisky tango foxtrot

Today is supposedly the first day of Spring. At the moment I see a smidgeon of blue sky, but it’s not promising, I can’t lie.

I NEED SOME SUNSHINE. Get me that beautiful Vitamin D. Oregonians, because of the lack of sunshine, only get something like 20% of their daily need of D. LAME.

I’m thrilled it’s finally Friday. Thing have been weird lately, and I can’t completely put my finger on why. Work is an adventure politically, I have friends with some issues going on in their lives, and I can’t decide what my next “goal” is. I mean, I’m done with school, I like my job, things are going well. I’d like to be able to take advantage of this great first-time homebuyer market that’s going on, but I need to pay down some student loans first. Sigh.

Maybe I’ll buy a lottery ticket.

I AM, however, going to Washington DC in May and I am P-U-M-P-E-D PUMPED. Yes, like cheerleader level pumped.

On a completely random off-note, I was googling something today, and typed in “where is” and got distracted for a sec. When I looked back to the screen, I noticed the drop-down of popular searches that start with “where is” and started cracking up to see:

I mean, I can’t decide which is funnier, “where is Chuck Norris” or “where is the G spot.”
So naturally I started doing other ones, including “who is”:

This one is a bit weirder, because whoever this “big poppa” is, he’s quite a popular fellow. I mean he’s got 4 searches. I’m also a bit concerned that people have to google “who is my congressman.”

Yikes.
Have a good weekend, all!

HORRIFIED

OK, so I'm going to delve into a little pop culture here, though I'm sure everyone has heard about the incident between Rihanna and Chris Brown. He "allegedly" beat her up one evening before the grammys.

I haven't followed it that closely, but since it was all over the news, I was aware of it. Well, I was listening to the radio the other day, and the dj dude said the two of them were back together and "working it out."

At this point, I'm pretty sure we are now all aware that Rihanna is a complete and total MORON. But then I just read this story on CNN and I am now totally beyond horrified.

Just a small sample:

"Robyn F. turned to face Brown and he punched her in the left eye with his right hand. He then drove away in the vehicle and continued to punch her in the face with his right hand while steering the vehicle with his left hand. The assault caused Robyn F.'s mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter all over her clothing and the interior of the vehicle.
"Brown looked at Robyn F. and stated, 'I'm going to beat the s--t out of you when we get home! You wait and see!' "

I'm just so saddened that there are women out there who for one reason or another, just cannot or will not escape their abusers. And apparently her family is making public comment that they're "going to stand by her decisions and support her." That's all fine and dandy, but supporting your daughter does not mean throwing your hands in the air and saying "hey, if you want to stay with that abusing asshole, go for it."

No no no.

I really hope she wakes up and leaves his ass before something worse happens.

OK, done now.

Would Suck

So the great shut down of Analog TV signals for the switch to digital has been postponed to June. The argument at hand is that not everyone is ready for the digital switch. Others argue that no one really uses "rabbit ears" anymore, anyway, so why hold off?

Well, I have mixed feelings about it. I don't have cable--for many reasons, one of which is that I'm cheap, and the other is that I really don't see the need to have so many damn channels. I get about 12 over the airways, and that's plenty. I go over to friends' houses and they have like 100 channels, about 60 of which are crap. So what's the point?

A little over a year ago, my bad-ass console TV died. I had to give in and buy a new TV, so I figured I'd go digital, so I bought this even more bad-ass 32" LCD HDTV, and started getting the digital channels along with analog. The picture for the digital channels is definitely more crystal clear, but I lose the signal much more often than I did with regular 'ol analog. I live next to a bridge, and whenever a big truck goes over it, the signal goes out (no, I'm not kidding).

So the claims that the pictures are clearer with digital is true, but the signal sucks. I think it's just the man trying to get us down and give in and buy cable. I will not give in! I will not go quietly into the night!

Damn the man, save the empire!

On a side note, I am really loving this song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bap-oZI-Grc

(I'd embed it, but it's disabled.)

A few things not worth mentioning...

Thing the First: My oven caught on fire last night. It was kind of a dramatic moment as I had just turned the oven on, and suddenly it made this horrible buzzing sound and then a loud POP, which produced some good size flames. I was able to turn it immediately off, which stopped the flames, but then produced some impressive billows of smoke. So then of course I opened every window in my apartment to air it out, which promptly made my apartment FREEZING (but not smelling like smoke). So now I have no oven, and while it's perhaps safe to use the stove burners, I'm disinclined to do so. Now I'm waiting for my apartment manager to see if it's reparable. But for now I have to eat things cold or things that are microwavable. Bummer, dude.

Thing the Second: I have been having some trippy-ass dreams lately. First, I had a dream that I was a reporter covering the Blagojevich impeachment, and Mr. Pipo was called as a character witness, which horrified me. He came over to talk to me, bringing Mr. Blagojevich, who promptly decided to hit on me, so I ran away. As I was running, it turned in to me doing a marathon, and my iPod wouldn't work. I also have dreams fairly frequently where my teeth are falling out. Then last night I had a dream where I was invisible to everyone but children. Googling the themes of my dreams would lead one to believe I must have serious issues I'm unaware of, including worrying too much about how I look, thinking I'm not important, trying to remove myself from society, and putting my faith in man over God. Whatever that means. Really I think it just provides me entertainment the next morning when I remember them. Except the teeth falling out one. YUCK!

Thing the Third: Why does our mayor have to be scandalous? I mean, I'm feeling good politically, my President was elected, he's officially in office and Bush is puttin' his boots up on a coffee table in Podunk, Texas, and he can't send us to war again. But then the day before Inauguration, Portland's mayor has to go scandalize himself with an inappropriate relationship. I mean come ON. So I have decided to pay as little attention as possible to the whole shebang, even if I am technically a city employee. Whatev! Evidently in Portland, 18-year-olds can enjoy Sam Adams. Ba-dum kshhhh!