the other thing cracking me up at the moment is listening to the radio ads for this upcoming chest-bumper.

seriously.

who wants to go?

and, if you did, what would be your favorite event?

texas hold’em tourney

mechanical bull

or the hairy back contest?

no more secret messages from horror flick villains this week (i’ll be honest, i’m a little disappointed), but a good story for freaky friday the 13th nonetheless.

what are the odds?

a girl i work with has two sisters. they do not live in the same house, or even the same area. but last week, one of them happened to be driving on university parkway at the very same time the other sister was pulling into the university mall parking lot in order to go to work.

sister 1 (the just-happened-to-be-there sister) ran a red light she swears looked like it was green and t-boned sister 2 (the i work here thank-you-very-much sister).

thankfully no one was hurt, but the both cars were totalled.

now if that’s not odd enough, about two months ago sister 1 had a dream. in that dream she saw herself driving on university parkway and crashing into sister 2′s car.

premonition?

did she create her own reality?

you tell me.

and while you’re at it, why don’t you lay some of your own freaky friday the 13th stories on me in the comments section.

i had a war games moment at work today that’s still got me–along with our best in-house IT people–a little puzzled.

because i knew i couldn’t live with myself on monday if i didn’t clean my desk before i left today, i was moving keyboards and mousepads and mice around (i work off of two thin clients so i can access more than one database at the same time and because i like to multi-task like nobody’s business) to wipe down the surface of my desk.

i must have set something down on one of my keyboards because all of sudden the screen on the database i was working on started throwing errors at me and beeping like crazy. i tried to clear the keyboard and replace the mouse and i looked up at the error message. it read something to the effect of:

enter the…
…and press return: Dalene

that might not seem so strange to you, but this particular database is accessible to numerous people in the company and we all use the same log-in. and, i can use it whether or not i am logged into my personal profile. there is no way the database or anyone working on it could have even known who was using it.

unlike governor schwarzenegger, i am smart enough at math to be quite sure it’s a statistical impossibility that i could have typed my own name (particularly with a capital D–you know by know how i feel about caps) accidentally while wiping down my keyboard.

i asked both our IT guy and the brain behind our local operation and both were sure it was impossible. i’m not quite sure they even believe me that it happened. fortunately i did show one other employee before i cleared the screen and exited the database, but i’m still a bit curious as to how this could have happened.

of course my co-workers have a completely logical and reasonable explanation. the name of the particular database that called me out is the same name as a famous horror movie villian.

–next friday is friday the 13th.

–the completely fictional serial killer is stalking me.

–this was his first contact.

–more will follow.

–and when i’m least expecting them.

of course i reassured everyone i could totally kick (insert name of favorite horror movie villain here)’s trash.

stay tuned same time next week for more of what i like to call freaky friday!

You know who really took it on the chin this election?

(At least in my state.)

The moderates.

Why is that?

At least I took the news a little bit better than Barney. (Although sometimes I feel like biting the press, too.)

Had I had it in me to take on another cause, take part in another revolution, it would be to accomplish these:

Overthrow the straight-party vote.

Eliminate the closed primary.

One of the things I hate the most about radical extremists and ignorant people (I could give you examples of both, but haven’t you been watching the news?) is that they make everyone else around them look bad. I get annoyed when people assume we are all like that or that they think they know what I think or what I believe or that I’m completely stupid. I’m going to say this one more time: I have a heart and a brain. I am not a sheep. And at least most of the people I know and associate with are not sheep either.

I guess my biggest disappointment is I find myself completely without a voice. As someone who has never been afraid to use her voice–I have been lobbying elected officials for decades now–that feels personal to me. The majority party here in my state does not represent its constituents. Motivated by a quest for power, (most) politicians in my county have relied heavily on “the block vote,” which in effect allows them to represent only themselves.

I admit I am completely baffled as to why said constituents keep asking for more of that.

This is my last and final word on Election 2008, on which, with the exception of a couple of mentions regarding the candidate I was campaigning for, I have been largely silent (I kind of took it on the chin for that, too). Politics are for the passionate and, I’m sad to say, disillusionment and cynicism have completely stomped out my passion.

I’m a little too young for that to have happened already, don’t you think?

OOPS! Is there a graceful way to admit kitchen failure? I just spent hours (not to mention a whole pomegranate, a bunch of crabapples and 6 cups of sugar–I was trying to make a big batch) washing, cutting and stirring over a hot stove only to end up with four tiny jars of delicious crabapple pomegranate hard candy. I just now realized if I let it set any more overnight I would probably have to break my new jelly jars to get it out. I wasn’t about to throw it all away, so I lined a glass baking pan with wax paper (which I hope will just peel off–I probably should have buttered it first). When it sets I’m going to dump it upside down and smack it with a hammer and put it in my food storage for desperate times.

I guess it’s a good thing I have LOTS of crabapples on my tree!

ADDENDUM: At least I can be taught. I knew my mistake was two-fold. I’d boiled the jelly at too low a temperature (too slowly) and by the time–hours later–I got it hot enough, I’d obviously gotten it too hot. On the web I’d seen some sites that said I needed to bring it to 220 degrees–TOO HOT–and somewhere else that said I needed to adjust it for altitude. I increased it for altitude, when I should have decreased it. Can you say soft-ball stage? What I should have down was boiled it at a higher heat to about 211 degrees, according to the USU Extension. I’d recommend if you’re a beginner with jellies downloading their guide to jams and jellies (Guide 7).

I’ll be getting back on the crabpple jelly horse later today. I’ll let you know how it goes.

So for those of you who don’t want to be defined only by your appliances and gadgets, what about your music?

According to this study by Professor North of Herio-Watt University, a look at your playlist could also serve as a revelation into your soul.

The general public has held a stereotype of heavy metal fans being suicidally depressed and of being a danger to themselves and society in general. But they are quite delicate things.”

Who knew?

Here’s a summation of the *current results:

BLUES: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle and at ease

JAZZ: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing and at ease

CLASSICAL MUSIC: High self-esteem, creative, introvert and at ease

RAP: High self-esteem, outgoing

OPERA: High self-esteem, creative, gentle

COUNTRY AND WESTERN: Hardworking, outgoing

REGGAE: High self-esteem, creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle and at ease

DANCE: Creative, outgoing, not gentle

INDIE: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard working, not gentle

BOLLYWOOD: Creative, outgoing

ROCK/HEAVY METAL: Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease

CHART POP: High self-esteem, not creative, hardworking, outgoing, gentle, not at ease

SOUL: High self-esteem, creative, outgoing, gentle, at ease

Source: Heriot-Watt University

*The study is ongoing. You can participate here.

If you’re like me, you kind of have to psych yourself up to go to the pumps these days. I have to make myself completely numb and then go to my happy place, and whatever I do, I absolutely cannot look at the pump. Or the receipt. Or the balance on my credit card bill.

Today, however, I realized those days of mindless filling the pockets of oil executives will have to cease. I actually drove out of my way on an empty tank to put in a few quarts of blood gallons of gas because someone told me it was only $3.91 at Gas-n-Go.

I pulled up to the tank and read the price as $4.03. Although I never do this (get out of the car and speak with surly gas station attendants), I marched right into the store and asked what was the correct price. The clerk explained to me the advertised price is the cash price. The price at the pump is the credit card price. Looking back at the BIG sign I could now see “cash” written in small print beside the price.

Brilliant move. Because you know, I regularly run around town with enough cash in my pocket to purchase a small country fill up my mini-van.

So I was trying to catch up a bit on Google Reader this morning and I stumbled upon (just so you know, I said the words “stumbled upon” long before these guys picked up on it. I read a ton of Oprah books before Oprah told me to, too) this cool blog. I love it because it’s great. And because it’s from Manchester. Which is my new favorite place. Even though I have never (yet) been there.

Luke graduated from high school last night. I don’t, by nature, like to attend these types of events. I didn’t even want to attend my own (the college version, the high school version was OK). But here is what I loved about it:

1. The talks were short and actually good. Or is that good and actually short?

2. I absolutely love that my kids’ high school here in the heart of Happy Valley was represented by both an African-American female student body president and a female African-American female senior class president. I am thrilled that my kids experience more diversity than I did growing up and that the state in which I live, which, incidentally, at one time had a shamefully low rate of female student body presidents per capita (or per something anyway) has evolved.

3. Even though I often joke that we are the white trash of the neighborhood, I discovered last night that we are not white trash. And that’s all I’m going to say publicly about that.

4. I am very proud of Luke. He is a great kid and he worked very hard in high school. My piano is covered with awards at the moment, but the best part is he made a lot of wonderful friends and he has a reputation among adults and students alike for being thoughtful and nice. I can’t think of anything that makes me prouder as a parent.

5. It’s a great feeling as you watch your kid graduate from high school and you can say to yourself “I did it.” I am not a perfect parent, but I helped give my kid a good opportunity to get a good education. And he made the most of it. It feels so good!

Lois’s post really cracked me up this morning. I especially loved the comment from Azúcar. It reminded me of how my friends, who are putting in a pool with an alarm system (because they have a pushy neighbor), have told all the other neighborhood kids that if they come over without permission and trigger the alarm it will literally shock their swimsuit right off of them (they get electrocuted and denuded) and they will have to run all the way home naked. I’m so not swimming there this summer.

In other news, I had most of my body x-rayed yesterday. I have to have an MRI on my right hip on Monday. Best case scenario? Glucosamine for the rest of my life and arthritic hips and knees. Worst case scenario? Hip surgery and scopes on both knees. Glucosamine for the rest of my life. And I will still have arthritic hips and knees. Just not as bad. The well-compensated orthopedist told me, “Both of your knee caps are ‘crunchy.’” I beg his pardon. I am not a breakfast cereal or a granola bar. He gets paid the big bucks for a diagnosis like that? Gimme a break!

The good news? He forbade me to ever become a marathon runner. I might have to be kicked out of Segullah now, but really, “Whew!”

Finally, I’m kind of bugged to realize how much the media controls what we know–or don’t know–about our world. I read an article–on the back page of some paper–that explained how this is one of the worst tornado seasons on record. But I haven’t hardly seen any reports about tornadoes, and rarely have they made the front page. This is opposed to other years in which every tornado seems to hit the front page. So that this is one of the worst years is completely news to me. And I would have completely missed it if I hadn’t turned to the back page. Did you know it was one of the worst years? Maybe I’m just out of the loop. But in any case, it is kind of unusual for debris from a tornado to land in a completely different state.

Remember this?

The results are in. You can read about it here and here.

I am bugged.

It didn’t pass by the required 80% (I really have a hard time believing proponents garnered 78%) so they worked out a “compromise” behind closed doors and decided to allow denim and thought that would make everyone happy. Essentially they changed the rules. We didn’t even get to vote on that one.

What am I going to do now? Home school?

My daughter is simply not comfortable in collared shirts (none of my children is, they won’t wear long-sleeved either–except to church) and she will not wear them. So now the school has taken students (I know mine isn’t the only one) who’ve been following the current dress standard and dressing modestly and have waged a battle with them over their clothes in order to crack down on kids who dress like hookers or gang bangers.

I resent being dragged into a battle with my daughter I am reluctant to fight. I’m very much a “choose your battle” type mom and this one is not on my list of choices.

Modesty is something I believe in. I will fight over that. But in my opinion this is just extreme and I’m not in the mood to fight with my child over something I don’t believe in myself.

What would you do?

p.s. You know what else has me steamed this morning? The Myanmar military regime that first wouldn’t let aid in to their desperate people and then when they finally did decided to confiscate the aid. Who are these people?

Only maybe stinking it up at Karaoke.

So I finally tried my hand at Rock Band Guitar Hero. (Thanks Azúcar. Please don’t hate me b.. It’s not about you, it’s all about the bridge.)

I failed.

–48% accuracy, longest string of correct notes: 8–

El Guille strummed my socks off.

The bad thing about failing anything “musical” is that you always fall the hardest when you think you were doing pretty well.

*sigh*

But there was a little redemption. Teenagers often get a bad rap, but sometimes they can be downright merciful. When I confessed my shame to my naturally musically talented 16-year-old son he really could have shunned me (hey–if I could have, I would have shunned myself), but he was kind:

The guitar is kind of funky. You really should try the drums.”

Got that bridge fixed yet b.?