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February 2006 Archives

February 1, 2006

I Stole this Post..

from Surviving Grady. It's a partial transcript of Johnny Damon with David Lee Roth. Bahahahah..


DLR: Upon signing with the Yankees, you shaved your trademark beard and cut your long hair in compliance with George Shtreinbrenner's [yes, DLR mispronounces "Steinbrenner" as "Shtreinbrenner," which is utterly glorious] rules on players' appearance. Was that a big issue for you?

JD: No, it wasn't. I mean, just being a part of the Yankee tradition you knew what you had to do going in. So, I don't have to buzz it off or whatnot. I'm still gonna try to look good for the women.

DLR: That's a classic look for the Yankees, right? You gotta have that spit-shine with the big smile and everything. That's right out of one of those old paintings. Is that how you envisioned baseball when you were growing up?

JD: Well, I kinda envisioned players having personalities.

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Posted by amy on February 1, 2006 9:02 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

Is There Something in the Water Today?

Can you guess which of the following things did not happen in the last 24 hours?

- I received an email inviting me to a superbowl party from someone I don't know

- I'm getting yelled at in IM by someone who insists my screen name belongs to someone named Matt. Um, no, this has been my AOL name since about 1993.

- I've been cc:ed in an email war between my brother and sister. My sister claims she received a package from my mother that reeks so badly of cigarette smoke (my mother is a chain smoker) that the post office rejected it and somehow this is related to the length of time it is taking my mother to sell her house. My brother says my sister is just a hormonal mess (she is 7 months pregnant) and is nuts in general. And the hijinks ensue. Why are these emails even happening? Why am I cc:ed?

- Some guy I work with who I never talk to doesn't feel like working today so he came into my office and spent 45 minutes describing in excrutiating detail everything he's been working on lately. Even when someone else came looking for him to fix an emergency, he told them to ask someone else.

- I discovered that Wally Szczerbiak is hotter than hell. Where have I been? I guess with a name like Wally Szczerbiak you have to look good.

- George W. Bush delivered a rational, well enunciated, thoughtful and realistic state of the union speech that made no mention of human-animal hybrids.

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Posted by amy on February 1, 2006 4:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

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February 2, 2006

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Posted by amy on February 2, 2006 5:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

16 Days...

Not a bad sports day..

I heard Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down on the radio and the image of Jason Varitek coming up to bat filled my mind and I was happy.

I discovered a tolerable Yankee blog (go figure!) I really enjoyed his 2006 season simulation.

I read about Terrance Roberts hitting a 3 pointer at the buzzer to win in OT over Rutgers. What could be less likely than that? Of course, my negative side says: they had to go to OT to beat Rutgers, in the Dome? Are they even making the tournament at this rate? Waaaa... Would have been nice if I could have seen that game on ESPN, but no...

Because FUCKING BC is an ACC team now, so I get ACC games when there is an option rather than Big East. I want all Big East, all the time. I hate BC! I did a little happy dance when I found out they lost to Duke.

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Posted by amy on February 2, 2006 8:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

February 3, 2006

A Perusal through the Web Stats...

has shown me someting about you readers...

  1. Lot of people are looking for pictures of the Varitek/A-Rod fight.

  2. You want "I've been Pittsnoggled" t-shirts. Me too.

  3. Somebody things Matt Biondi is beautiful. I agree. He is one of my favorite Olympians.

  4. Doritos.. ages ago I wrote something about Cool Ranch Doritos. This search term is almost always in my top 10 and I've never understood why.

  5. There is a Unofficial Ikea Web Journal, which quoted my Ikea post (thank you). I'll be obsessively stalking this site from now on because my relationship with Ikea is way more love than hate.

  6. People love the image of the hair cut I was trying to acheive.. and bangs must be back in style because people love to search for pictures of those as well.

As Bill Simmons would say, these are my readers.

Posted by amy on February 3, 2006 11:02 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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February 4, 2006

If You Can Beat Em..

become Republican. (we've really got to find a way to beat them!)


My stomach hurts from laughing.. I think my favorite parts were:

"The more you talk about Jesus, the less you have to act like him"

"Stop thinking so much. You've got talk radio to think for you"

"If you're stuck, change the topic. Twist facts and quote out of context. Never ever, ever admit you're wrong"

"Always take the Bible literally except for the parts about charity, kindness, humility, honesty, staying Kosher, greed, gluttony, etc."

"We don't tax and spend like liberals, our system is spend & spend, let someone else figure out how to pay for it".

"We like small government in ways that help people. But we demand huge government in ways that control peoples lives"

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Posted by amy on February 4, 2006 12:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

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February 6, 2006

A Pre-9/11 World

I have about had it with the use of this phrase. First of all, it's being used to critisize those who feel civil liberties and checks and balances matter - as if these people don't want to prevent further attacks, a totally ridiculous premise.

But more importantly, there is no pre-9/11 world and post 9/11 world. There is just world. Terrorism has been happening since dawn of human time (way more than 6,000 years ago), attacks have happened, invastion, take overs, plundering. The only thing that changed is it happened in the United States and we were too arrogant to think it ever could. In other words, the Monty Python defense (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! Nobody could predict they'd fly planes into buildings! Nobody could predict the levees would break!). Well, wake up. We should be prepared to deal with issues that happen in the world we live in and but that doesn't mean we have to change the fundamental principals on which the country was founded.

Posted by amy on February 6, 2006 12:02 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

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Posted by amy on February 6, 2006 5:02 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

One Good Thing About IE

I know.. you can't believe it. But I've really, really, really been wanting to export my Amazon wishlist (that the list contains an insane 286 books is a post for another day). I randomly stumbled across this guy who mentions that you can right click in IE on an html table and select "Export to Excel". OMG. My Amazon Wishlist is an html table (well, multiple html tables on more than one page). If you change the view of your wishlist to compact, you get rid of a bunch of crap and can just get the Title and Author. Ok, the title and author end up in the same cell in Excel, but baby steps. Amazon no longer has a monopoly on my wishlist. yeah!

Posted by amy on February 6, 2006 7:02 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 7, 2006

I Want to Play!

Someone invite me to CoComment... please!!!

** update ** I put my email address in and got invited right away. Who would have thought that would work.

With coComment, bloggers, blog readers - basically anyone interested in the conversation being created by blog-based comments - will be able to keep track of these comments and conversations in a simple, efficient way. ....

the comment stream generated by your conversations will be available to you not only in your blog box, but also as an RSS feed, so you can track your conversations on your favorite RSS reader, along with all your other regularly updated information.


spotted over at Gaping Void


*** Update 2 *** I set it up and now I have a separate page (My Back Pages) that will display my comments elsewhere. Took me about 10 minutes from conception to reality. This is really cool, and yet a little scary.

Posted by amy on February 7, 2006 11:02 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Office Etiquette Tip #7865


If you're going to sit on hold with a company that uses wacky new age flutaphone and harp musak that makes you want to stick a pencil in your eye:

take it off speaker

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Posted by amy on February 7, 2006 3:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

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February 8, 2006

Technically, a Luddite

a techical luddite, luddite for geeks? I work in a technical group, but I have to confess, lately I've had some dark, secret thoughts, such as:

- is a camera/phone/pda/mp3 player really necessary? I need a new cell phone. Just a phone - make calls, receive calls. Is that really too much to ask?

and

- do we need to be connected via email/IM/Text Messaging/Phone 24 hours a day? Do you know what it's like to try to run a meeting and look up to see everyone at the table madly tapping with their thumbs. Focus on what you're doing people! Warning - I'm about to say something shocking: multi-tasking is not always efficient (the exception being really boring conference calls where people drone on and on about nothing just to hear their own voices. Work can be accomplished while you're "on the call". Just be sure to pay enough attention so that you don't miss your name being mentioned. Even then, you can say you were on mute to explain why you didn't start talking right away).


I got to thinking about my love of notebooks. Blank books, books with lines.. I even have one with graph paper. There are notebooks all over my house with random crap in them with absolutely no organization at all. No database, no "tagging", no nothing... just stuff. You may think my chaotic, but I know what is in each notebook and each one has their own little personality. Here is my reality: when I want to note something down, 90% of the time I am too lazy to fire up an electronic device. I love pen and paper. And I'm not alone...

Moleskinerie: a whole blog about how people use Moleskinerie notebooks. Moleskinerie notebooks make me excited in ways that may be a bit off.

paper notes in a digital world: digital notes about use of pens and paper in a digital world. A man after my own heart..

I made a hipster pda (though I call mine the hipster dufus pda). I've got the whole multi-colored card thing going. Others are even more innovative... DYI Planner can help you set yours up with printable templates for your index cards. Seriously.


Then again, if you took my RSS Aggregator, iPod or Tivo away, I would be morbidly depressed. I'm just a big contradiction.

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Posted by amy on February 8, 2006 2:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

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February 9, 2006

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February 10, 2006

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February 11, 2006

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February 12, 2006

Breaking News: It Snows in New England

Why is this so earth shattering? When I was a kid (did I just write that? First sign of age.. ), it snowed, people knew they didn't need to stock up with a 3 month food supply and it was one story on the news. Now, snow is the only news - all day, on every local channel. Is this necessary? I don't need to see reporting from every corner of the state. And it's totally ridiculous to pre-empt important things like the Sunday morning talk shows. Don't they realize I'm hooked on those shows... I NEED my fix! Couldn't they pick one station to be the "snow" station if they want to have 12 continuous hours of weather coverage. They could alternate stations with each storms. What is wrong with that. I mean, if we're all trapped inside, we don't want to watch what it's like outside all day.

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Posted by amy on February 12, 2006 5:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

February 13, 2006

It's Baaaccckk...

tia2


US plans massive data sweep: Little-known data-collection system could troll news, blogs, even e-mails.


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Posted by amy on February 13, 2006 11:02 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

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The Rights of the Born


On Friday, Anne Lamott wrote about her reaction to being on a social justice panel in front of an audience of Catholics where the topic of how to "reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the 'murder of a million babies every year in America.'" was raised. In her excellent response, she brings up the second largest issue I have with folks who disagree with a woman's right to chose (after the people who kill women's clinic employees - in the name of life), and that they assign more rights to a little group of cells that isn't a human being and isn't a baby, than the fully grown, socialized female it is totally dependent upon.

Lamott's response:


I said that this is the most intimate decision a woman makes, and she makes it all alone, in her deepest heart of hearts, sometimes with the man by whom she is pregnant, with her dearest friends or with her doctor — but without the personal opinion of say, Tom DeLay or Karl Rove.

I said I could not believe that men committed to equality and civil rights were still challenging the basic rights of women. I thought about all the photo-ops at which President Bush had signed legislation limiting abortion rights, surrounded by 10 or so white, self-righteous married men, who have forced God knows how many girlfriends into doing God knows what. I thought of the time Bush appeared on stage with children born from frozen embryos, children he calls "snowflake babies," and of the embryos themselves, which he calls the youngest and most vulnerable Americans.

And somehow, as I was answering, I got louder and maybe even more emphatic than I actually felt, and said it was not a morally ambiguous issue for me at all. I said that fetuses are not babies yet; that there was actually a real difference between pro-abortion people, like me, and Klaus Barbie.

Then I said that a woman's right to choose was nobody else's goddamn business.


AMEN!


But there is more:

Plus I am so confused about why we are still having to argue with patriarchal sentimentality about teeny weenie so-called babies — some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to send away for — when real, live, already born women, many of them desperately poor, get such short shrift from the current administration.

Most women like me would much rather use our time and energy fighting to make the world safe and just and fair for the children we do have, and do love — and for the children of New Orleans and the children of Darfur. I am old and tired and menopausal and would mostly like to be left alone: I have had my abortions, and I have had a child.

But as a Christian and a feminist, the most important message I can carry and fight for is the sacredness of each human life, and reproductive rights for all women is a crucial part of that: It is a moral necessity that we not be forced to bring children into the world for whom we cannot be responsible and adoring and present. We must not inflict life on children who will be resented; we must not inflict unwanted children on society.

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Posted by amy on February 13, 2006 8:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

February 14, 2006

Joey Cheek: Good as Gold


Last night Joey Cheek won the Gold Medal in the 500M speed skake... he also has plans for his winnings.

``I've learned how news cycles work,'' he said in a news conference. ``I won the gold medal tonight, and tomorrow there will be another gold-medal winner. So I can take the time and just gush out how wonderful I feel, or I can take the time to do something productive.''

Cheeks, who plans to retire after these Games and pursue a degree in economics, said he would donate the $25,000 gold-medal bonus he'll get from the U.S. Olympic Committee to a humanitarian organization aiding refugees fleeing Sudan's horrific violence.

He also urged Olympic sponsors to match or surpass his gift.

The money will go to Right to Play, founded a decade ago by legendary Norwegian speed skater Johann Koss as a way to direct high-profile athletes to the world's needs.

Nike has already agreed to give 30k.

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Posted by amy on February 14, 2006 6:02 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

from me and the

heart_happy.jpgheart_vd.jpg


from me and the Acme Heart Maker

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Posted by amy on February 14, 2006 9:02 AM | | TrackBacks (0)

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February 15, 2006

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Posted by amy on February 15, 2006 5:02 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I Did Something I NEVER Do

I watched Fox "News" to see the Cheney interview puff piece. First I had to look up what channel Fox News is on and then I was off. It's really worse than I imagined. When I first arrived, they were showing riveting footage of Neil Entwhistle being driven from the airport, then the guy with the big white hair read emails from viewers who were all complaining that the "liberal elitist media" was making too much of Cheney's hunting mishap, using the circular logic that: liberals hate Bush, thus they are always looking for things not to like about the Bush administration, so they can hate Bush even more. Wow. No one needs to make up reasons not to like the Bush Administration, they're doing fine in that department themselves.

First of all, I doubt many people really care that Cheney had a hunting accident. His flagrant attempt to cover it up is what is interesting. Seriously, he had the range owner call the local paper the next morning, after the Sunday edition is printed. He was hoping they would put in some small local section of the Monday paper and the AP wouldn't notice it. Good for the reporter who called the White House to confirm. When Ari Fleischer is critisizing you, you know you you haven't done the right thing (and you know Ari wouldn't have done that if the White House didn't approve of it just to get Dick in front of the cameras because they didn't agree with how it was handled).

And AS IF liberals would want Cheney's lunacy to be the news on a day when the Republicans are trying to kill the NSA investigation, the Administration get (rightfully) smacked around for it's appalling Katrina response by the House, Chertoff testified at a Senate hearing about Katrina, even other Republicans are criticizing the Administration on it's Middle East policy AND what are called (I can't look at look at them, so I'm going off what I've read) horrifying new photos Abu Ghraib. How long til the criticisms of whoever released the photos begins, rather than those who committed the acts portrayed in the photos.

This isn't looking for things to criticize, there just ARE things to criticize, no matter what party or view of the world you subscribe to.

Posted by amy on February 15, 2006 9:02 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

February 16, 2006

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February 17, 2006

It's Finally 5pm on Friday!!!

This week has been about 6 months long... even with "Cheney's Got a Gun" to chuckle over.


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February 20, 2006

Electronicly Survey This!

Just seeing Dick Cheney痴 photo is enough to bring forth a burst of giggles from me now. Is his face stuck permanently in a scowl?

Now, the "Cheney's Got a Gun" story is ludicrous, clearly completely botched, no matter what Mary Matalin says and most importantly, this episode is the least of the horrifying things Cheney has done.

But I think my favorite part of the whole story is that Katherine Armstrong was quoted in a piece on msnbc.com earlier in the week as saying they had beer at lunch. Subsequently, that part of the story was removed, but bloggers and other got the cached version from Google. The electronic surveyor becomes the electronic surveyee. HA!


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Posted by amy on February 20, 2006 5:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

Trickery


Last year I did the taxes with H&R Block Tax Cut software. This year, I received in the mail a CD from them with the 2005 software. The cover of the package said:


Here's your 2005 edition of H&R Block Tax Cut Deluxe + State software


Doens't that imply that they are sending you the software? Am I crazy? I thought it was a little weird that they would just send it for free, but I figured it was because there would 2 billion ads inside for all their other products. Today, I installed the software and it said: click here to pay. I was more than a little annoyed. Why do companies attempt to trick you into buying their products? My annoyance factor at this is way higher than the $30 the software costs (because I will not be buying their product), and now you're reading about this, as well.

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Posted by amy on February 20, 2006 5:02 PM | | TrackBacks (0)

February 21, 2006

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