dangit, you better love the new format

...because i spent all night long on it. But it made me feel super smart. I started out thinking that I would go online and choose from some generic choices, sort of like how you would for myspace. You know, a lovely array of hearts, cars, playboy bunnies and other classy way to stake your claim on the internet. While I was looking through the code on the template, I thought I would just see if I could figure out what controls what. You know what? I figured it out and got to being all my digi scrap stuff for the ride. The background is actually an American Craft's wallpaper on it's side. On the header, the flowers are Jomi, background is a free Tia Bennett paper from the free digi kits on 2Peas, fonts are downloaded from net, and the green paper behind all the copy is actually a paper from the Lucky kit at heatheranndesign.com

Anyways, exhausting but exhilarating. Tomorrow I get to see my girl Heather (without any of our kids!) and I think I may even be up for helping her with her blog. Maybe.

Also, I decided to resurrect my scrap blog so I can post the things I make on there after spreading them all over different sites and clubs, so check under "find my handiwork" on the left for the link to "my scrap blog." Sometimes I don't feel stuff is worth a MB, so it is worth checking once a week or so. I will be dumping my RSC stuff there as soon as the issue is out, and I will not be bombarding any other galleries with that, so look me up there!

Real geniuses avoid Apple...

Cate's already gotten the sneak preview of this, and Andrea I am sorry for insulting the company you so proudly work for but... I loathe Apple.

I haven't ever really cared much about the Mac v PC debate. I am not an architect or musician or moviemaker that needs what the Mac offers, but in college I had to use PC's while I was there and the only sense I had was that it sucked to use Macs because when you went home to your PC you couldn't do much with those files. I do think Justin Long is cuter and funnier in the commercials than John Hodgeman, but that is as far as my preference runs. Even with oodles of robbery money, we bought Dell PC's this fall to replace our laptops. But like anyone else, we have the iPods and shuffles. And when they aren't stolen first, they inherently break.

Off to the Apple store I had to go. I tried to figure out where to ship it, but the instructions were all about how I probably screwed up and try this and try that and never anything like a clear address. So I dragged Little D and to the Galleria we went.

We'll start with the employees. They are referred to as geniuses, and I am pretty sure it has less to do with IQ or college degrees but more to do with barista experience and tattoos. (No offense Andrea, you're like corporate or something. You speak 95 languages, this isn't you). I walk into the overly flourescent lit store and there are too many apple groupies to count. They are using the technology mostly to make funny pics of themselves and looking around I see some mother-teen couples where mom is obviously buying the computer for college use. There are immediately two Geniuses flanking the door to welcome me into the world of pretensiousness and lameness. There are more, here and there, vultures walking around in hopes of a sale and eager twenty somethings dying to have the next combination of metal and micro technology that will hopefully make up for their social inadequacies.

I'm there too. I can't figure out where the register is, but I see a Genius bar with a black rope, so I leave Dylan at the children's commercialism corner and get in line. There are several geniuses bopping their heads to some ridiculous beat that has to be their posterchild/bald odd guy Moby and sort of not doing much. One genius finally asks what I need and I said I had a broken iPod. She tells me I must go over to the wall and make an appt. Really?! I point out that there are like eight Geniuses back there, but my sunny disposition has caught no takers. I walk over to the computers and really they might as well have been electron microscopes for all I knew about them. Adding to my charm, I announced to the genius that someone would have to come help me because I had no idea how to work the things. It was true, but I used the most obnoxious tone I could. By my estimation, she could have dealt with my iPod in the time it took her to set up my appointment for twenty minutes later. So now that I've made the effort to come in, I get to wander around with a toddler to kill time. Great. I've never wanted Dylan to face his demons and destroy a store like I did, but he must be saving that energy for a future trip to Bath and Body Works.

We came back and basically the genius realized it was broken and gave me a new one. Yay on that. The whole time I am standing there, groupies are sitting there on the stools (you could have offered me one, loser) playing on their macs and interupting our work to ask nerd questions like "Will Program X run on my Mac" to which the Genius must report that no, it cannot, but maybe someone has a fix out there on google. Wow, that is a superior product. Why don't the groupies get an appointment and leave me alone? Why do I buy iPods? Why?

In conclusion, my slight distate for Apple has flourished into an all out loathing that really made me want to never buy anything else from them again. I already hate the interface for loading music, I've never gotten the hang of it and refuse to update my playlist but every couple months because I think it is such a pain. Come to think of it, John Hodgeman is funny and cute in his own way...

There seems to be a theme...

I keep hitting the Simpsons stuff, but there is so much out there and it just too cute. I found this link on the ever awesome www.pinkisthenewblog.com and couldn't wait to try it out. Basically you upload a pic of yourself and they will create a Simpsons character based on that. Now I will know what I will look like when I finally land my guest star role on the show after I get super duper famous. I will warn you, it was a super pain and I went through a lotta pics before BK go it working, but it was worth it...

http://www.simpsonizeme.com/index.php

and here are two of my attempts...

I like this one!!

If you're reading this and haven't answered these questions yet, consider yourself tagged.

I got this from Angelina and I think these are actually more interesting than most of these. Probably nothing new, but still.

What were you doing ten years ago?
I had just finished my last year of high school. It was an awkward transition because my family had gotten in this thing I now joke of as a cult. It was a 12-step deal for troubled kids (aka drug addicts), for which it had been determined that I was. Let's just say they would tell parents a kid was an addict even if they had never had a drink because it was only a "symptom" of the disease. It was basically a sham operation run by money grubbing twenty somethings who used the fear of parents to milk their insurance or suck away all their money through outpatient care, group meetings and private counseling sessions. The kids I hung out with that in the program were awesome and I loved hanging out with them, but I was about to transition into their older group program for anyone over 18 and I wanted out. The awkwardness was graduating with kids I had known for years that I wasn't allowed to hang out with because they weren't "winners" and it severed a lot of friendships that were never a danger to begin with. I was a normal teen, not troubled, just trying to exert some independence. I knew I didn't belong there, but my mom was scared because they told her if I left I would die of drug addictions or something, so she said she wouldn't pay for my college if I left. I ended up spending maybe three more years there in that program among shiftless, lazy people who thought that if they didn't drink that day they had done enough. I wanted to get a degree and find an awesome job and just went through the motions so my mom would pay up. All those people who were labeled as not "winners" went off to college and all have great jobs and all the people who were "winners" are still lame as ever. Irony. The further irony is that my brother got roped into it and was actually transformed into a full fledged crackhead via the people he met there, but that's for another post and another time...


Five snacks you enjoy:

1. Rice Krispie Treats
   
2. Girl Scout Cookies
   
3. Chocolate
   
4. Carbs, carbs, carbs
   
5. Post Trail Mix Crunch Cereal
   

Five songs you know all the lyrics to: (warning - I love singing to rap. I am that hardcore...these are off the top of my head and don't necessarily represent all the music I listen to)

Salt N Pepa "Shoop" - "Here I go, here I go again, girls what's my weakness MEN okay then chillin chillin mindin my business..."

Snoop Dogg "Nuthin but a G thing" - "One, two, three and to the four, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Dr Dre is at the door/Ready to make an entrance so back on up/ Cuz you know we gonna rip shizz up..."

Westside Connection "Westward Ho" - "Check it/ Ho shut your mouth and get naked/ I'm connected and I'm making hit records..."

Bon Jovi "Always" - "The picture that you left behind/Are just memories of a different life/ some that made us laugh/some that made us cry/one that made you have to say goodbye..."

Vanilla Ice "Ice, Ice Baby" - "Alright stop, collaborate and listen/Ice is back with a brand new invention/ Something grabs a hold of me tightly/Flow like a harpoon daily and nightly/Will it ever stop, yo I don't know/ Turn off the lights and I glow/ To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal/ Light up the stage and wax a chump like a vandal..."



Things you would do if you were a millionaire:
I'd buy a house on a bigger piece of land in Memorial near the park and we'd entertain all the time. I'd have a full staff of a housecleaner and cook so people could be over all the time. We could have a mini theatre too and a pool and basically we would be the place to be. Not because I like to entertain necessarilly, but I get lazy about leaving the house and now everyone could come to me with no real effort on my part. We would travel more and see places. I think I would spend as much time in school as possible because I love taking english classes and stuff. I don't know what else we'd do as far as buying stuff. I know I'd want a second Prius!

I would dedicate a lot of time and money to something like Planned Parenthood or create a foundation that works with it. Nothing frustrates me more than idiots in our government making it their business to decide that the world needs absitinence programs as opposed to safe sex education, especially when they do not make it their business to find safe homes and resources for the babies that magically sprout out of these programs that don't work. Kids and young women in particular need to understand their options, have open access to it and I would like to create places in those neighborhoods where kids are born and no one is watching them where they can come and be safe and learn and know that they can do something productive with their lives and not repeat the cycle. I had students in my classes who were thinking of trying sex and had no idea about anything other than condoms, and really didn't know even about condoms like pregnancy with misuse, disease prevention, etc. I think education and resources need to be freely available and I wouldn't mind doing so. I even read about a program once that would pay drug addicts to be treated for long term birth control and while I know a lot of people disagree with paying an addict $500 to get an IUD fitted since they will just spend it on drugs, I like that idea more than a child being born addicted to heroin or crack.


Five bad habits:

1. I am a picker - bumps and zits! I am messing with a pimple on my chin right now.
   
2. I eat too late at night
   
3. I eat crap
   
4. Our laundry gets started but is forgotten sometime in the middle and always has to be rewashed again before drying
   
5. I troll the internet and spend way too much time ready celeb crap instead of reading and actual book or being a productive member of society
   

Five things you like to do:

1. Watch TV
   
2. Scrapbooking
3. Read
4. Hangout with Friends
   
5. The family
   

Things you will never wear again:
Leg Warmers
Slutty police woman costume
Itsy bitsy teenie weenie poolka dot bikini
Diapers


Things I love to wear:
gym shorts
pj's
lots of eye makeup on rare occassions
The smell of yummy baby
flip flops

sorta got it!!

well, we didn't get to visit one of the quik-e-mart's, but austin at least has 7-11's, so i ran in and bought two six packs of buzz cola. really would have liked some krusty-o's instead, but i take what i can get. those two together are going for $20 plus shipping on ebay, ha!



they don't look exactly like that, but i am lazy and don't want to take pics. so as soon as i walked to the car, the bottom of the crappy bag magically disappated and the can hit the ground. suddenly as i was about to start a three hour drive home, my side of the prius and my leg were covered in a substance that advertises itself on the show as "twice the sugar, twice the caffeine." yeah, that it sticky and gross. it is still all over the car door, i haven't had the desire to clean it.

then when we arrived in houston, we drove by jason's dad's to pick up his little brother for a sleepover. wouldn't you know another exploded in the trunk? that would explain why the prius hatch is, you guessed it, sticky and gross. i had bought one of the six packs for heather's hubby because he seems to be a fan, but i made his a four pack. maybe he won't know the difference.

what will i do with mine? well, when my dad married my mom back in 87 and we moved in with him, he had a jolt cola in his fridge that he was proud to say that he had owned for 11 years. several moves and a lot of years later, that beyotch is still taking up refrigerator real estate. my guess is that the buzz cola will do the same.

i want! i want!

I want to visit one of the 7-11 renovations into Kwik-E-Marts for the Simpsons movie sooooo bad, but the closest is Dallas and it is just good practice to stay the heck away from there. I was really hoping they'd have one in Austin, but no luck. How cool would it be to take our Christmas card family photo in front of that?!

Plus, I was having a *serious* craving for a doughtnut with pink sprinkles and a Squishy...