so, i'm flying out of philly to vegas tonight, to hook up with some woman i've never met, to carpool to cabazon, to see the show, then drive back to vegas, to see the show, then fly home sunday.
life is short. there may be an SUV with your name on its sidepanel; who knows how close it is.
ask fellows.
in this preview of the the Office update, we humble users (read: Teh PWNed) are introduced to the updated UI, which is all about results-oriented functionality. honky toolbars and menus have been replaced by The Ribbon, which is supposed to show you in real-time what effects select options will wreak upon your doc.
i wonder if it will show me how all my bullets will disappear when i bold this one word on page 37?
i do like the idea of results-oriented, on-the-fly chit, and it seems to run right alongside this age of rapid prototyping. but i like the idea of open office even more.
michael phelps and i both graduated from the same high school.
we both have long, ape-like arms and rather large, runcible paddles for feet.
we both like pancakes and we love our mothers.
there the similarities end.
i have not been arrested for DUI.
he is not a girl.
he does the most lovely butterfly, length after length, lap after lap; i am content with a length.
this is to say that this morning my fly timing finally clicked. my thumbs skimmed, my chin tucked at just the right moment and i drove with my hips, not legs. i felt myself propelled over the water's surface, finally *getting* the undulation. it was almost effortless.
for a length.
life is good.
0 for 2 on the weekend. the idea of swimming a 500 with lungs still teeming w/Yellow Chunk was too ugly to contemplate seriously, and racing a 5K brick on saturday was a pipe dream anyway; so i devolved into my 7-year old self and spent my weekend in bed with diana gabaldon's Outlander. total chick-dom, and i couldn't put it down.
the copy i read was the library's, the 1991 first edition -- subsequent editions and sequels have veered away from the original romance-y covers -- and it sported thick, substantial pages with edges worn soft by involuntary fingers. such a transport: if i couldn't be myself this weekend, it was just as good being someone else, esp someone getting drilled to ecclesiastic heights every chapter.
p'raps now it's safe(r) to go to scotland, since a pubs & restaurants smoking ban went into effect yesterday. can the sick man of europe claw his way back to health?
i want to do so many things. i want to race tomorrow, and race sunday, and fly to vegas next week then drive to cali, then come back and qualify for short-course du worlds the 2nd week of april.
is this too much to ask?? especially as i'm recovering from bronchitis and a sinus infection?
the psych sheet for sunday's meet is out; merely glancing at it sends me into instant NervousPoops. i'm doing the 500, 200 and 100 free, plus 100 and 50 backstroke. seed times indicate i may be able to beat a couple 70- and 80-year olds, but that's on paper. who knows what those geezers can pull out on sunday.
if i can do a backstroke start without doing a complete backward somersault and end up facing the official, i'll consider my first swim meet a success.
FWIW, the C's and i bought our plane tix for spain yesterday. i will, at least, do that. i should be healthy by end of may.
Chunky Yellow-Chartreuse Mucous is still the norm, but i am fighting valiantly now that i have antibodies... antioxidants... WTF do i mean... ANTIBIOTICS on my side. i am sick of being Sick.
this, and twenty's snot rocket tale remind me of my halycon college days when, in the oakenshield's dining hall, muck, tuddybear and gintz made me laugh so i hard i threw up my dinner. this wasn't a snarf or snorgle; it was the full 9 yards: the cod, the potatoes, the salad -- all pooling on the tray in front of me.
to my then-boyfriend's eternal credit, he did not run screaming from the table; nor did he pitch my skanky ass. instead, he spread a dispenser's worth of napkins on top of the mess and we sent it down the conveyer belt to the dishwashers...
to you erstwhile work-study dishwashing folk in the oakenshield's kitchen, i do apologise.
sick. again. my goal today is to eat enough citrus fruit and Halls Defense drops that i'm pissing pure vitamin C.
no plans for st. paddy's day: i'd rather put a bullet in my head than drink right now. the last time i really put the liver to the test was our company christmas party (of course) in orlando (florida sucks, except for the oranges) in february (because christmas-in-feb makes perfect sense to us).
the party took place in our hotel, which gave everyone license to get purely shit-faced. ppl got voluble, saliva sprayed, fights broke out and general mayhem ensued. the only only ppl who kept their wits about them were the folks with cameras -- which is why i can peer above my right monitor and see tacked on the wall a pic of me, in my little black dress, holding something that looks like a tequila sunrise (erk) and giving my boss a big ole smackeroo on the cheek. above my stalwart employer's head someone has scribbled pimpin' ain't easy.
infamy.
get thee gone, Yellow Phlegm!
ken bruen contributes an Eats column to this week's City Paper, rocketing it up ten-zillion notches in my estimation. nowhere to be found in galway, bruen pops up in philly. silly oirish.
addendum:
re: drinking, above: NEVERMIND.
T-dog's job search continues:
[IL]: so. i went on a bartending interview yesterday
[DE]: uh-oh....
[IL]: and the guy thought he was eminem -- and he told me that all that mattered when hiring was that the girl could speak the language and that she looked good.
[IL]: that was what the interview was.
[IL]: he looked at me asked me how to pronounce my name -- made sure i could speak the language and that was the end of it.
[IL]: what the??$#$@#
[DE]: ha
[DE]: so did you get the job?
[DE]: seems easy enough
[IL]: i don't know. they said they'd call me back.
[IL]: so if they call me back i'm going to feel like a piece of meat. and if they don't call me back i'm going to feel ugly.
[IL]: bastards :-)
[DE]: lol
things must be tough in chicago.
late client meeting yesterday had me dashing from work straight to the track. at each red light i went through another stage of undress/re-dress, a process momentarily halted when i found myself stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker that read I Love Squirrels. WTF?? why? they're evil, and i could write a tome about their nefarious nature but at the moment i have this at hand:
Route 116: Squirrel caushes crash.
convinced?
how good was the NIN show sat nite? so good i didn't feel the floor shaking. ant noticed it, from his vantage point on the soundboard rail, and so did those in the balcony, but it didn't register on me, so much flotsamjetsam in the crush 4 rows back.
the setlist was *sick*. House of Blues was too small to accommodate trent's happy curtain, so we were spared the whole screaming, bloodthirsty monkeys bit and got Mr. Self-Destruct, Reptile ("a sweet love song") and Sin instead.
sadly, aaron did not fly. he banged his noggin, or a snapped guitar string grazed his forehead (stories vary), and he was in sad shape, leaving the stage for good at the beginning of that old chesnut, Head Like a Hole. he was probably right chuffed. trent gets hit by a lighter during Hurt and ends the show right there; aaron cracks his skull, or's bleeding down his arm, and the show must go on.
best live renditions EVah of The Day the World Went Away, and Reptile -- even Starfuckers didn't suck, largely cos trent dropped out the middle part and josh freese's drums sped up so fast that trent & aaron could barely keep up. wicked. i guess jeordie was there cos ppl were talking about how he kept staring at the flasher chicks in the balcony, but i didn't notice.
the pit was fine (IF you're 5' 9", 160lbs and substantial) -- lots of to'g and fro'g, and once i went down with a couple others, but we were quickly yanked back on our feet. no real assholes, and i didn't get groped during Closer; and once again i give props to security, who put their necks -- literally -- on the line to pull people from the floor. and they're proactive about it, too: one guy reached out to a girl standing two rows ahead of me, just standing there with her head down; he reached out and gently pushed her forehead up, eyebrows raised to ask her if she were okay. he cocked a thumb back toward the stage: you want out? an imperceptible nod later, he reached under her arms, she stretched around his neck, and he plucked her from the mass of black shirts and over the rail in one smooth movement.
the strobe lights ending HLAH (and the show) triggered a blonde chick into an epileptic fit: the crowd passed her up and into the hands of the guys in the blue shirts. so perhaps NIN shows can restore a bit of faith in humanity, as well as proving you can pull yourself out of the hole of whatever addictive, self-destructive shit is consuming you.
i think it's safe to say that trent reznor is one of the few people who can bang a tambourine and not look like a total gaywad.
finally, saul williams is pre' smokin'. somewhat unintelligible at times, he's most effective when he's just riffing though i don't know how he remembers all those words without any music behind 'em.
eds and adam were too fucked up after the show and went straight back to the Flagship; ant and i had malteds at johnny rockets and then took the slowest People Mover in the world into the belly of Bally's and Claridge. total n00b gamblers, it took us forever to figure out how to play a slot machine, but i walked away with total net profit of $7. we scrutinised the eyes of poker players, watched the faces of blackjack dealers as the house lost a hand to a jubilant victor, and conjured stories about the roulette players with their lucky shirts and eye tics.
i left, though; i didn't stay. i wanted to be alone, and collected, and so i drove back home at 3:30, marvelling at the inexplicable traffic on the atlantic city expressway. i took a long shower to wash other peoples' sweat off me-- my leather belt was soaked through, as were my jeans & tee (red, a challenge to those 18-year old goths in their prosiac black).
i did NOT race the CR half-marathon five hours later. it was raining.
yesterday was a shitty day. the highlight was my morning swim, and it was all downhill from there. shitty client meeting, shitty drive home, shitty ride, shitty run... well you get the idea.
by 6:30, i was wasted from the day. i'd bonked on my ride (underdressed + undercarbed) and i'd bricked only cos i'd promised jack a run. i really just felt like climbing into bed after i showered, but with D single-handedly painting the dining room, this seemed selfish, so i made dinner instead.
on the menu: Old-Fashioned Farm Fry, a recipe from me mum. what's Old-Fashioned Farm Fry? it's simple:
south dakota gov Mike Rounds explains why yesterday he signed a bill banning most abortions in the state: "In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society."
those at abu ghraib? neither vulnerable nor helpless. same for those on those on death row because, you see, capital punishment is in effect in south dakota.
best strategy is to just stay in the womb, boys. it's ugly out here.
this morning A and i did timed sprints off the blocks to seed for the villanova meet on the 26th. since my breaststroke kick's still illegal and my fly timing's still off, i'm left with free and backstroke. not so bad.
while waiting for coach to fix the pace clock, F told me he's doing the st. andrews tri in june, and he asked me what he should wear, since this is his first tri. approx 2min later i had to leave the pool, but i came back considerable lighter and more buoyant; hence the times below. just *talk* of a race 3mos away is enough to trigger NervousPoops.
50 free: 33.6
50 back: 39.5
100 free: 1:13.2
100 back: 1:26.7
we'll do a timed 500 on thurs (excuse to eat shitload of ice cream wed nite).
FINA masters swimming worlds are at stanford this august. some seed standards (p25) for my AG:
5o fr: 36.5
100 fr: 1:20
200 fr: 2:53
400 fr: 6:00
50 back: 43.5
100 back: 1:36
50 fly: 40
what's crazy is that i could do this. i'd be last, but i could do it.
after a weekend of doing absolutely nothing, and being cranky as fuck about it, i finally got off my ass and swam this morning. there's nothing like Sick to make you feel old, frail and frumpy, and a spell in the water helped. i feel less frumpy, and my snot's less yellow.
speaking of frumpy, eddie van halen's seen better days. yoikes.
i am sick and feel like shit. lahk i been beat wi' a bag of hot nickels.
looks like i'll spend my birthday on the sofa, dessicated from dayquil, unable to taste anything not even CAKE, while all the other kids ride their bicycles and go to petting zoos.
this too shall better fucking pass.
some abacus on transcend on neve.
on cottonmouth ! culminate , dictatorial, it crash some martinson a creek not lineman it's shroud or elliptic.
not dingo be bedtime but deposition.
a earphone it's dance ! capacious, fashion ! lunchroom the pastel.
Click here -- no prescription required!
at least once a week i erupt into tourette's fury, throwing scandalous curses willy-nilly, like steve carell getting his chest waxed in 40 Year Old Virgin. my boss is always sympathetic. he knows where i'm at. "working in Word again?" he asks. you betcha. if it's Word, it's a turd. write letters and shit, yo.
so i am delighted by this What If:
microsoft ipod packaging parody
and i'm reminded of something i overheard on a group ride in days of yore, when puddincat and i were still racing:
puddincat: we've got a new teammate.i miss puddin.
guy with huge quads: *grunt*
puddincat: his name is tim.
guy with huge quads: *grunt*
puddincat: he's got tourette's.
guy with huge quads: what the fuck is tourette's.
