Bad Milk and So Much More

I know I haven't really written for a while, but between my soccer team and two jazz bands I haven't had a chance. I want to know what is so geeky about playing the trombone? I know it's not as cool as say the bass, drums, or even saxophone. I don't know why everybody laughs when I tell them what instrument I play. It sounds all cool that I play in two jazz bands, but then when they ask what instrument, all my cool points get thrown out the window... I admit some pretty weird sounds can come out of a trombone, but a sax? It sounds like a goose for heck's sake!

So in between working, playing, and the bands I stay up a little too late and should probably getting more sleep. I didn't didn't realize this until last week when I got all showered, dressed and ready; then sat down for my usual bowl of honey nut cherrios. I made it through the first bowl and then a couple bites into the second bowl I noticed the milk tasted weird... So I try a couple more bites and yuck this tastes bad. I check the label and give the carton a smell and sure enough the freaking milk was bad. How the heck did I manage to get through a whole bowl of cereal and not even notice I was eating spoiled milk? Crap it's almost bed time gotta go!

Stats are BAD ASS

From our very own University of Oregon Psychology department filmed in Straub Hall, see this kick ass rap video about statistics. Featuring J Lou and Chuckie T

Seriously download it, it's worth the wait... (if you're a math geek like me)

Stats Video

Trombonists = Antisocial

A friend forwarded me this article about this guy's trombone being confiscated. I am completely shocked and horrified and just hope none of my neighbors read the BBC news... I can totally see trombonists being accused of being socially inept but never antisocial! Hah, misguided youths and their antisocial trombone playing, youngsters these days, my golly!

This is taken from the BBC

Last Updated: Thursday, 4 May 2006, 14:37 GMT 15:37 UK

Noisy neighbour's trombone taken

A trombone and other instruments were seized by police A trombone was seized by police in Dumfries after complaints about noise coming from a flat in the town. Other items taken included a drum kit, electric guitars, a television, radio, stereo systems and amplifiers. A 55-year-old man, of Barnraws, in Shakespeare Street, was fined £200 under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 at Dumfries Sheriff Court. The court ordered the forfeit of the sound-making items which police said could "inflict misery" on neighbours. The conviction related to a number of complaints of continuous noise and antisocial behaviour coming from the town centre flat. The complaints were jointly investigated by local police and noise reduction officers. 'Antisocial behaviour' Police said the action showed they would crack down on people causing a noise nuisance. "Dumfries and Galloway Constabulary is committed to addressing community concerns through working closely with partnership agencies," said Ch Insp Michael Collins. "In this case the man concerned has been creating a nuisance to his neighbours for some time. "We are delighted that the court has seen fit to forfeit the equipment this man used to indulge in antisocial behaviour and inflict misery on his neighbours."

Here the link to the full article

Arrested!

To the left is a picture of the president of my consulting firm (M+R) getting arrested today in D.C. It's all in a day's work. To bad all the action is in D.C. and not Seattle. No one can say we aren't hella dedicated!

Five members of Congress (and a few other activists), including Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo) were arrested today when they blocked the front entrance at the Embassy of Sudan in Washington, D.C. Their protest and civil disobedience was designed to embarrass the military dictatorship's ongoing genocide of its non-Arab citizens.

Click here for the full text article.

Click here to send an email to "he whose name will not be spoken" telling him to take action against the genocide in the Darfur region.

I've finally graduated 8th grade!

You know when everybody graduates 8th grade and then that summer the descent upon our nation's capitol... I didn't and finally at age 25 along with thousands of other teeny-boopers, Michael, and his ginormous new camera. The coolest part of the tour was this random metal statue found at Haines Point called The Awakening. It's a five part cast aluminum statue that depicts a 100-foot man half buried alive trying to free himself from he earth. It's creepy and cool at the same time, Michael's favorite is when people put their babies in the statue's mouth and take a picture. See more statue pics.

I thought the Vietnam war memorial was moving and strangely sterile considering how messy war is. The wall is so refective you can see me as I take the picture.

This is the Jefferson or Lincoln Memorial (I don't remember which).

On The Home Front

As usual when I get home from a rainy day, I set my umbrella up to dry in the kitchen. Now mind you, whenever I open my umbrella near the little crapper he flys out of the room like a rabid bat (this is no exaggeration, just look at those shiny eyes). The other day after dashing out of the room he decides to creep slowly back into the kitchen and upon further inspection he decides the umbrella is now his property.



New Friend
I finally got a PDA after a couple of years trying to use a paper planner and finding myself too lazy to write in it. It's so great, it syncs with Outlook and everything; now I never have to write again (except checks).

The amazing thing about this PDA, is that the darn thing didn't come with a case. How crazy is that? It's so fragile why wouldn't Palm at least include a cheapie case and charge and extra five dollars. I was too outraged to buy a case (or really just too lazy to go back to Circuit City to get one) so Emily volunteered to knit this adorable PDA case complete with stripes and button. I don't want to encourage her kniting addiction, but this was a damn useful project. Next she's making me a tie, so I can't complain too much about needles and stash lying around the house. I never thought about it, but after reading the Yarn Harlot's blot about yarn addiction and realizing that kniters talk about needles and stash as their tools.... It really is a drug.

Snow

I get up Friday morning and I see snow outside the window. There was barely an inch of snow on the ground, so I'm thinking no problem I'll take the bus to work as usual right. I mean an inch of snow, that's nothing. So I get all ready and head out the door. I get to the top of my block, which granted is a pretty steep hill and this is what I see. Seven buses all stuck at the top of the hill with the "to terminal" flashing on their signs. They were all stuck not moving, meaning they never got to their route. I felt a little rude taking a picture since the poor bus drivers were all stuck in their buses... but I mean how often do you see seven buses stuck on your street! I can't believe under an inch of snow shut down transit in my area during rush hour, craziness. Needless to say, I worked from home Friday.

Finally at Last!

This is what I've been doing the last few months in Seattle working at M+R

eNonprofits Benchmarks Study

It's about nonprofit performance in the online communications world.

The Poo Apocalypse

Check out this big Canadian news story about the poo apocalypse.

Eight Grade Math

More bus fun.... Still no cat girl on my bus, but the guy across the isle from me had on a sherlock holmes hat (seriously, it was awesome). He looked pretty normal except that the book he was reading was a centimeter away from his face. I kept trying to catch a look at the book he was reading to see if it was a mystery, but no such luck. I just looked weird staring at him. I bet I'm the crazy stare girl on other people's blogs.

Here I passed 8th grade. I can't believe I got a question wrong, what the heck!

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

our (pretend) house

emily drew our house! we are in the garden and i have a lovely black soccer ball. the kittens are there too, being kitteny, which is normative for them. check out the picture of our house!

our house!
our house!

Cat Girl Missing

So I haven't seen cat girl on my bus for like the last month! There are however, other characters on the bus in the morning, but it's just not the same without cat girl. There's a new woman who manages to juggle her 1-2 yr. old son one arm and her bag in the other all while walking to the back of the bus while it's moving. Everytime it's like, is she going to drop him? How is this possible to balance a little scrimmy kid and a bag whilst walking on a moving bus. Then there's this woman who had some really high bright brown boots (FMBS) she wore over leggings, I can't describe it but it was a very odd style.

Other than my exciting bus ride news, my all chick band has formed anew after a one week drama in which our leader kicked out our bassist and drummer for no good reason and then accused me of being a brain washed socialist or something like that when I suggested we have a meeting because stuff was getting out of hand. Anyway so we banded together and formed our own band after a meeting and a group hug. Now all we need is a name, right now in our poll Bitches Brew, the Pink Menace, Jazzberry Jam and Bootleg Betty seem to be ahead.

Hey check out this new search "patriot" search enigine google put together after Bushy and his pals wanted to spying rights http://blog.outer-court.com/patriot

Rainy Sunday

I'm actually trying to do some work on this rainy Sunday but can't help surfing the web a bit.
I regularly but an ad on Craigslist for musicians for my band so as I was doing this I came across a post about a violin trio of sisters. Check out their website gothardsisters, so at first I thought hmm kinda interesting. Then I found this in the text of one of the sister's bios

"In their free time, Greta, Willow and Solana have put together several feature-length stop-frame animated films with their dolls and stuffed animals with intricate props and costumes that have also been watched all over the nation. For more information on the dolls, please visit this website: www.ourdolls.net"

I never got to the watching the films; they didn't work on my computer, but man those dolls kinda creep me out. I mean how much time do you think they spend on these dolls and making greeting cards and videos out of them... I guess I can't really talk and all since we dress Yakko and Dane up and sometimes send people cards with them. Anyway check out the doll site, it's pretty kickin.

But Wait, There's More...

More sights of Seattle, here I am picking the troll's nose. For some reason there's an extremely large stone troll under the Fremont bridge. That's an actual VW Bug in the trolls hand. Kinda creepy and a little scary if you don't know it's there and suddenly you see this silver eye looking at you....

So Emily and I have been blog tagged by Bridget and supposedly I'm supposed to write about five things that people don't know about me and then tag five more friends.

1) Emily used to french braid my hair when I went on dates freshman year of college.

2) On Christmas break sophmore year, a fellow RA (Vicki) and a few of us drank jungle juice she swiped (or maybe it was a bribe/gift) from a resident and when we forgot matches at 7-11 I stumbled up to my bosses door to ask for matches so we could have a fire in the Hawthorne lounge.

3) Sometimes we call our cat Dane he's who name shall not be spoken (Voldemort)

4) Once Emily and Vicki (why does Vicki always end up in our weird stories?) scared a guy out of the Carson TV room by making their plastic dinosaurs have a domestic squabble.

5) I have over a hundred Archie comic books

Okay, now the tagging part... you guys are so tagged!

Jess and Jason
Karl
Chris Brunner
Lauren

Sights of Seattle

So here's a random pic we took on the way back from taking Meriel and Mark to the Space Needle a couple of weeks ago. It's a giant revolving pink elephant neon sign! It's so cool, much more interesting than the boring old space needle. The sun from last Saturday broke our 28 days in a row of rain here in Seattle. I didn't even realize how long I'd been seeing rain every day until it mentioned it on the news at day 23. I was really disappointed that Saturday broke our streak, I was hoping for a record. Oh well, there's always next month.

Here's some flash animation that my company helped produce, kinda funny (kinda scary)

http://www.walmartworkersrights.org/

C-mass fool!

C-mass, so this year everybody came to our place!
This was our first year hosting Christmas so Emily and I felt like real grown-ups (I know isn't that crazy!). So for the first time ever, the kids cooked and the adults had wine and played Scrabble. Speaking of Scrabble, don't EVER play with Emily. I played with her last week and we were barely half done with the game and she had 300 points compared to my 150 (GRE here I come). So the big advice from Kaplan for taking the GRE is to read the New York Times and Wall Street journal because theys have the big words. Good thing I spent 35 buckaros on that book. Ok so I digress....
No holiday is complete with out Emily tourturing the Yakko. So I thought I'd show y'all a picture of the horror this poor cat has to endure every holiday. Now I know you think this may be cruel, and I do feel a little guilty for participating and taking the pictures, but hey the little crapper has taken a liking to my hand made speakers and uses the carpeting as his personal scratching post. Which is really not ok because it took me about 2-3 hours per speaker to get the carpeting glued on with rubber cement which accidently got my 17 year old self high because I didn't open the windows. My bedroom reeked of rubber cement for like a week, I don't know why I never bothered to open the windows, funny that?
Back to Christmas, so Dane being the smart cat he is, hid under the tree so unfortunately, he was unavailble for the group picture in which he would wear reindeer ears. Oh well, there's always next year... Other than that it was a pretty normal Christmas: wine, food, family, presents

Big Fat Wood Cookie!

Now that finals are over, we're doing the obligatory holiday preparations... one of which involves dragging a tree full of pine needles and sap into our house. So I decided I wanted a big tree since Emily and I are hosting Christmas at our house for both of our families. Because we were in a big rush, I pretty much had to have the first big tree I saw (even though Emily tried to talk some reason into me). A guy came and loaded it in into the car (mistake number one because of all the pine needles) and we drove home. We got home and lifted out our extremely heavy 7 foot tree out of the car. Then we got the tree stand and realized we were going to have to saw through the damn thing to make it fit. So we dug out a rusty saw we found in our garage and took turns for around 20 minutes in the below 30 degree weather. We somehow managed to carry this mostrocity of a tree up the stairs into our house, taking several breaks along the way. Anyway the moral of this story is that one should look at the size of the trunk before one buys a Christmas tree. Big trunk means very heavy, probably won't fit in your stand. Here's the big fat wood cookie Emily and I sawed off the tree. Note the nice knot in the middle of the second picture!

It Snowed!!

Yay, it snowed in Seattle on Thursday! Emily took the pics since I was in New York for a work retreat. I've been waiting for snow since last year and I missed it!
I'm hoping is snows again, I really wanted to build a snowman and throw snowballs at things. Seattle is definately frickin' cold right now, last week I played soccer in near freezing weather and my little ears turned into ice cubes that gave me that headache you get with you drink slurpees too fast.

Yakko-Lantern

So this is my halloween post, I know it's like a month late. No tricker-treaters came to our house so we decided to torture the little Yak Yak. This little pumpkin outfit is a handmade Emily original. Yakko totally did not appreciate the effort that was gone to for him (just like the spoiled brat he is) and whined the whole time. Then he leaped out of her arms and wiggled out of the costume.

So if Yakko was a pumpkin for Halloween... what do you ask did cat girl from my bus dress up as? Not a cat! Can you believe it, the one day a year you're supposed to dress up and she took off her cat ears?!! Instead she had a bunch of white power on her face and a black hand drawn scar along one of her cheeks. To complete her costume she wore some sort of incredibly big tutu.

The Sorting

So I finally took the Harry Potter sorting test....

I got into Gryffendor because I'm so brave and all. Emily was sorted into Ravenclaw because she likes Ravens and clawing stuff.

Take the Sorting test!

P.S. No more exciting news about cat girl, she's still riding my bus and wearing cat ears.