Emily's olde tyme complainatorium's Journal

6:20pm: Writer's Block: Back in the day
Oh geez... I guess my obsession with Voltron makes me laugh a bit. Back in the day, I used to draw pictures of Voltron all over my (covered) textbooks for school. I even named a pile of dirt in my backyard "voltron hill" (and my parents still call it that to tease me). More recently, I watched some of the old episodes, and was surprised at how repetitive it was and... how it wasn't what I remembered it to be.

10:37am: Writer's Block: Take me back

Ben Folds- The Luckiest. A woman I loved so very deeply, put this on a mix cd she made me. I hadn't listened to it since we broke up. I just did, and it still does make me cry a little.

3:36pm: Dramatic McCain


If you haven't already seen 'dramatic look squirrel' on youtube, check that out too.

3:34pm: John Cleese speaks about Palin, American politics


Just because ER had not seen this yet...

5:16pm: awesome spam
I just received this spam: "Britney sues vagina for divorce"

Ha. Reminds me of south park... except substitute Oprah for Britney.

9:59am: LA-LA(NO), tuesday to saturday (9/25-9/29)
Late saturday I got back from a fantastic trip to the southwest/western south. In order to keep memories of this trip alive, I'll be putting up a summary of each day and keeping these entries public. Why did I fly out west? To keep my college pal, Kate, company as she drove from LA to N'awlins. I love random adventures like this and jump at the chance to participate in 'em.

Tuesday 9/25, Boston-Long Beach (flight), Long Beach to Williams, AZ

Got to Logan late, well, on time (an hour before the flight) but later than I had wanted. Checking in at JetBlue's ticketless machine thing was fast and easy and I had no troubles going through security with my big duffel bag. Oooh! Near the gate was a Dunks! Plane trip was uneventful, although there were some screaming children. Why do people bring their young ones on planes? Why??! (hypothetical question)

Landed in Long Beach on time. Man, what a tinyass airport. It was like an extended trailer in a trailer park. Kate met me maybe 5-10 mins after I exited the airport. She informed me that an acquaintance of mine called the Long Beach airport "Havana" because it resembled 50s/60s Cuban style architecture. Hmm, it does have a vintage look to it.

Our quest now was to find me an In and Out burger. Took a little while, but we found one in Azusa, CA, just off I-210. Yum! I ordered a double-double, no onions, fries animal style and a neapolitan style shake. Good times! (double double = two patties of meat, two pieces of cheese for your burger; the rest of the terminology can be found if you google "in and out burger" secret menu). Onward.... we found some palm trees and took a picture of her statue, squirrelly, near them.

Driving driving... Took I-15 next. Man, LA really is smoggy. Landing I noticed a giant brown layer over the area but wow. It obscures the nearby mountains, and makes the highway signs have a nasty blackish film.

Rising higher, into the hills. Desert landscape. Wonder if this was where Jim Morrison hung out and did peyote, or something like that. Next road: I-40. Next stop: Ludlow, CA, a 'ghost town'. Took a bunch of pictures there. Part of Ludlow is still inhabited but there are a number of abandoned buildings. Route 66 goes through here, as well as tons of freight trains. Yes, I took numbers of shots of the trains too... BNSF (burlington northern santa fe) hauls craploads of freight through here. We saw several trains during our stop in Ludlow.

Among the non-train pics I took in Ludlow were ones of abandoned old cars (30s/40s era Plymouth rusting out in a field, 50s/60s era Chrysler with its light aqua paint still on-- I thought of you Lisa!), faded writing on buildings and of course, the falling-apart buildings. On the road again.

As we drove along, we could see the moon rising.. it looked so big at first. Combined with the setting sun and beautiful desert and hills... it was quite a site. Crossed into AZ with little fanfare; passed over the Colorado river. Hmm... CA and AZ both are really concerned about their produce. They have border crossings to stop trucks from bringing it in. Next pit stop: Seligman, AZ. Got gas and some magnets. (I never have enough) One was a map of AZ with a little thermometer on it, the other was of a skeleton in a chair with the following caption: "It's a dry heat, Seligman, AZ". I particularly enjoyed that one because... if I ever had a nickel for every west coaster who bitched about the humidity out east...

Ended our day in Williams, AZ, which was 30-60 mins south of Grand Canyon. Oh, and this was after hitting up a Carl's Jr along the way. Gotta have local fast food while out there! So ends Day one.

12:06pm: Another day, another Fung wah mishap
Fung wah bus gets stuck on curb at weston tolls.

God I love the Fung wah bus. By the way, did you know that Fung wah means "magnificent wind" in cantonese?

Fung wah... providing Emily with amusement since 1997.

4:11pm: Fun spam
There is a piece of spam in my, well, spam folder that amuses me so. I don't want to delete it, 'tho I am sure as hell not opening anything with an attachment from anyone I don't know.

The email is from "squirrels", and according to the gmail preview thingy, the first line is "Continue ass cool". Man.... that is whack. At first I thought Bob from MHC was emailing me.

1:43pm: wow.
Wow. I knew Cambridge hated cars, but this is ridiculous.

At least the driver 'fessed up.

8:48am: cold morning
There really is nothing like the feeling of your snot freezing up as soon as you step outside.

9:33pm: Me and my photos
Am in the process of uploading photos to my new flickr site. I'm still learning the ropes of it, but I just threw up all the pictures from my camera and a few random others.

Flickr!

3:11pm: heyyyy Donna...
... or anyone else who knows the answer.

When was the Mount Holyoke alma mater published? I'm referring to the one we know as the alma mater.. oh mount holyoke, we pay thee devotion, etc. I know that two members of the class of '14 (or was it '17?) wrote it, but when did it hit the presses? A friend of mine was insisting that anything published before the 20s is not subject to copyright law or something like that.

9:07am: from the "don't try this at home, kids" department...
Man pulls truck with penis.

What on god's green earth would possess someone to do this??!! Why risk the family jewels on this??!

6:06pm: whaaaa????
Red Sox GM Theo Epstein Resigns

Say it ain't so Theo...

1:58pm: make your computer talk
Go here.

hee hee...

12:08am: Sorry Beth.
THHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YAAAAAAANNNKEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS LOOOOOOSEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

THEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE YAAAAANKKEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSS LOOOOOOOOSSSSEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HAHA. $200 million dollar payroll still can't buy ya a championship.

ha ha haha.

And even better than the yanks spitting the bit again? a-fraud AGAIN proved how un-clutch he is by grounding into a double play in the 9th. HA HA HA. Slappy McBluelips in action!

ok. bedtime now. Go White Sox!

1:45pm: hee hee
and now, for something completely different...



Crony Jobs.

I love the folks at chickenhead.com

1:19pm: wha???????????/
What in the holy hell is this????

And why is the MOUNT Holyoke one so heinous???

10:59pm: end of baseball (for me at least...)
It breaks your heart. It was designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops.

-A. Bartlett Giamatti

10:51pm: ho hum.
Got back from the Red Sox game over an hour ago. Still mulling it over. I honestly believed they'd pull it off, that they'd win. Then I saw that the only people on the team who were playing to win were Ortiz, Ramirez and Papelpon. Everyone else was just sleepwalking. Only home runs for offense does not a game win.

Ah well. The white sox deserved to win; quite simply they were the better team. In a weird karmic way, it was like a passing of the torch... red sox as 2004 ws winners, white sox beating us on our hallowed ground. I hope they go onto the world series and win it.

On the way home, i was approached by a 'classy' yankees fan who asked if i wanted a yankees shirt instead. If only I were better with quick comebacks I would have made some comment asking where his dallas cowboys and l.a. lakers shirts were. Or I would have mentioned that he was a long way from home. Whatever.

I am wicked tired, and should really go to bed, but i wanted to post something written by the late baseball commissioner, Bart Giamatti. I think that i will do a separate posting for that though.

too bad that it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow. i had so wanted to go out to georges island.

2:11pm: a royal ass-whuppin'
That's what yesterday's game was, except the red sox were the ones who received it. Meh. 14-2 bitch. Yowza. What I don't get is why the manager didn't pull clement when it was blindingly obvious that he had nothing. Mmmm, maybe when it was 5-0? Maybe 6-0? Oh no, he had to wait 'til it was 8-2. Bastard.

Ah well. Red Sox have historically responded well the day after being beaten badly. Remember 19-8 last year?

Whatever the eventual outcome of this series, I've decided that the winner should go to the world series and win.

K. gotta get back to work.

1:52pm: all hell's about to break loose...
..or something like that. Today the baseball playoffs start. At 4pm, the Red Sox are set to square off against the White Sox in Chicago... and I am at work during that time. Bah. I'm feeling kinda topsy-turvy about the whole thing.

Last year and the year before, my sleep suffered because of the length of the games. Luckily the same thing happened to everyone else around here. I'm curious how the Sox will do this time around. The team just isn't as strong as it was last year, but sometimes, things come together anyway.

For those of you without cable in the Boston area, today's game will be carried by channel 5 since ABC and ESPN are owned by the same company and we're in the 'local' market (i believe).

1:19am: Mommy, i learned something.
Upper decker.

Oh the things you learn on the internet. I'm so edumucated.

11:23pm: advice anyone?
Ok so I got a speeding ticket back in august and tomorrow morning (thursday) i have an appeal of the ticket scheduled. I got the ticket in Boston on hyde park ave between patten street and cummins highway. Since this time, I've gone back over the stretch of road and noticed that there is no speed limit sign until many miles down the road. However... having done some reading, there doesn't have to be a speed limit sign. Thickly settled = 30mph.

Had I been more on the ball i would have requested radar gun calibrations and traffic/speed limit studies for the area.

can anyone offer advice in getting my ticket dismissed? i really don't want to pay the insurance surcharges that are sure to follow because of this. i'm a step 9 driver with nothing on my record. If i'm understanding things right, i'll be dropping down to step 11 for this.

help?

4:45pm: dolphins with fricking lasers...
Flipper's loose, and coming for YOU!!!

Ah yes... that's my tax dollars at work. So tell me, mutster101 is the observer a reputable paper?