Don't Call It A Countdown - Day 4 - Hockey Edition

Steve and I just watched the first episode of this season's 24/7.  The Flyers/Rangers road to the Winter Classic.  (Aside:  I find the commercial for the winter classic with the little song and the cameos and whatnot insanely entertaining.  And catchy.)  Since Steve and I have been together I've become a hockey fan so these things interest me now.  And frankly I'm sorely disappointed in the Twins right now.  I mean seriously.  You couldn't do better than 30 million.  Really?  I mean honestly you could have done a telethon and probably gotten half of that.  Fail, Twins.  Fail.  But honestly, I'm kind of so upset about that I don't even want to talk about it.

What I learned about this episode of 24/7 is:  I probably shouldn't watch it.  For the same reason it's bad for me to watch Planet Earth.  Yes it's awesome.  Yes I really enjoy it.  But every time I start to think "awww, that animal is so cute" it gets eaten by a wolf or something.  And then I'm sad.  I root for the wrong animals.  It's very disappointing.  

Tonight 24/7 started, some hockey player started talking and I said "he's kind of cute."  Then Steve said "yeah, he's out with a concussion now."  

Oh.

Then later on they were talking about some dude on the Flyers who's apparently, like, really good at hockey.  Sweet.  Then he talked for a while and he was pretty modest and fairly well spoken and I thought to myself "he's got a nice smile and a cool accent.  I like him."  Then they showed the footage of him getting hit in the head and getting a concussion.  

It's like the animals in Planet Earth.  When I start liking somebody in 24/7, they get a concussion.  This is not cool.

I know what you're thinking - the likelihood of hockey players getting concussions is pretty high.  I say this: The likelihood of animals getting eaten is pretty high too, it still sucks.

Extreme close up of the vase filled with ornaments that won't fit on our tree!  (In my head that was in the Wayne's World voice.)  I like the colors.  Plus! Glitter.  So, you know, that makes a mess out of everything.  Anyhow, I like it.

Call It A Countdown You Mustn't - Day 3 - Geek Girl Edition

One of the things I like best about myself (stick with me here, I'm pretty sure this turns out way better than it sounds) is that I'm just a gigantic nerd.  Seriously.  Big.  Fat.  Nerd.

I am a geek girl.  (I watched a video a few weeks ago about calling yourself a geek woman rather than girl and, wow, it made totally awesome, valid points that I totally agreed with.  Geek girl just rolls off the tongue so much better though.)

And that kicks ass.  Like I said, probably the coolest thing about me.  Super big nerd.  It's where a lot of my humor comes from and I'm also kinda smart so that's cool too.  Pretty sweet package overall, the nerdiness.

Settle in for a long-ass story - because there's bonus Christmas nonsense today!  (Man I hope that's incentive.)

Awhile back Steve and I were in the car on the way home from somewhere and - searching for something we hadn't talked about already that day - I said:

"I was reading Wil Wheaton's Blog the other day and -"

"Whoa, wait," he interrupted, "you were reading Wil Wheaton's blog?"

"Yeah."

"You were?"

"Yeeeees." (This seemed pretty obvious to me, as I had just said so.)

"Why?"

"Because it's funny?"  (Again, these are the things that seem obvious to me.)

"But you don't like Wil Wheaton."

"Why wouldn't I like Whil Wheaton?!" (Seriously, we kept saying his full name.  What's up with that?)

"You've never watched Star Trek.  You're not into that.  What reason would you have to be a fan of Wil Wheaton?"

"Stand by Me."

"Are you kidding?"

"And Toy Soldiers."  (Seriously - Toy Soldiers was, and remains, part of my reasoning.)

"... I... what... that doesn't even make sense, Hun."

"Sure it does.  He's the kid from Stand by Me.  Which I love.  So I love him.  Then he was in Toy Soldiers.  Which I also love.  For some reason.  So I keep loving him.  Now he has a really funny blog which I read and love.  And he guest stars on stuff I usually watch and enjoy.  So I love him."

"But he's best known for a role on Star Trek, which you don't and never have watched."

"So?"

"So that's why people know him."

"But that's not why I know him."

"But that's not why everyone else knows him."

"I don't see how that's a reason why I shouldn't read his blog."

"... I guess.  Go on."

I proceeded to tell him whatever I'd read on Wil Wheaton's blog that had made me giggle and, as we were getting out of the car a few minutes later Steve said to me:

"Seriously, Hun, you should just watch Star Trek already.  You're so close to you're black belt in nerd, Hun, just go for it already."

...And that was hilarious.

A few days later I sent him an email that said:
"So I've been meaning to ask:  If I do watch Star Trek, do I get an actual black belt?  And if so, what does a black belt in nerd look like exactly?  Does it have decals?  (I personally think it should have decals.)  Does it come with a holster for a light saber?  It seems like any sort of belt for a nerd should come with holsters for various weapons - swords, stakes, phasers, light sabers, etc.  Is there a ceremony of some kind involved?  Like a crowning, but with a belt instead of a crown?  A belting, if you will?

Also, inquiring minds want to know (okay, well one inquiring mind wants to know): does nerdery follow the standard levels of belting:  i.e. white, yellow, orange, green, purple, red, brown, black?  What does one have to do to attain the various lever?  Am I really a brown belt nerd?  I know I'm nerdy, I like my nerdiness, still."

His response was:  "ummm... sure?  I don't know, Hun, it was just a joke.  But I this this conversation proves your a nerd already."

And because I'm unwilling to let things go:
"Well I'm not denying that I'm a nerd, sweetie.  I think that's been pretty blatantly obvious for quite some time now.  But... it was a good joke, and now I want a black belt in nerd.  I could do it, if I train hard enough... I can do the crane like Daniel-Son!  Sweep the leg!  Wait, no.  That was Johnny, dammit.  Wouldn't it be cool?  My black belt in nerd with like a little Nintendo controller on it, and - I don't know, like a Lego brick or something, and... a little TARDIS! and it could have a little holster for my blaster (cause hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side and all.)  It would be my nerdy badge of honor."

... And then Steve stopped talking to me about this topic.  That was probably the right plan of action for his sanity.  But we don't value sanity that much in our house.

I'm sharing all of this because tonight the super huge geek girl inside me had a very exciting night.  Why?

See that?

And that?

I made those.

HEEHEE!

I made paper snowflakes that look like Yoda and Boba Fett!  Hee!

I have more that look like Darth Vader, C3PO, a Storm Trooper and a Clone Trooper.  (When I showed them to Steve he said to me "You know it's seriously hot that you know the difference, on sight, between a storm trooper and a clone trooper, right?"  Which made me laugh.  Because, yeah, I kinda do know that.)

Now before we get too crazy I didn't just make these up.  I made them from templates.  Which I originally read about on EPBOT (which I love to pieces) but the TARDIS one looked way too complicated for me to attempt.  Then I saw them again, specifically the Star Wars ones, on Geeks are Sexy, which I check several times a day and may be the site I look at more than any other actually.  It's awesome sauce.  Plus - completely accurate title.  The Star Wars designs got me much more interested and once Boba Fett got into the mix (via Anthony Herrera Designs, which is also included in the GaS article) I was hooked.  It was tricky, especially Yoda.  There are some really teeny cuts in there.  But so, so cool.

When I finished Yoda, I said to Steve "Hunny, you have to come and look at this.  It's so cool!"  I'm not kidding, I was literally bouncing.

Steve loves the Fett.  So I knew I could get him on board with this.

I had decided earlier today to post a picture of our Yoda tree ornament tonight:

Because of course we have a Yoda Christmas tree ornament.  It may not be the first thing that occurs to you, but once you start thinking about it - you don't want to live in a world where we don't.  I don't want to live in a world where we don't anyway.  I mean seriously.  Yoda ornaments should be the new pickles (you know? the Christmas pickle tradition?) - and that's as someone who totally loves pickles too.

That reminds me - I have a pretty great story about standing up for the awesomeness of Yoda as a, like, 8-year-old that I'm not sure I've ever actually told anyone.  Once upon a time I joined some friends who were playing in the school yard by our house.  They were talking about Star Wars, which I had recently seen for the first time, and which characters were their favorites.  They asked me who I liked best and I told them - Yoda.  Because Yoda was, and is, the shit.  What I didn't know or particularly understand at the time was that they weren't necessarily talking about who was the best character (Yoda) they were talking about who was the cutest.  This was the Han Vs. Luke conversation.  (The answer is Han, by the way.)  So their response to me was a fairly incredulous "Yoda?  Ew.  He has ear hair."  No joke, this was like 20 years ago and I remember specifically that they pointed out ear hair.  I gotta tell you they teased me pretty hard for probably 10, 15 minutes or so and the whole time I was like "Whatever, Yoda is way better than Luke." (Which is totally true, by the way.)  And they kind of made me feel like crap.  It's not really their fault either, I didn't get what that conversation was really about until I reflected on it many years later.  And not even that I wasn't aware of boys being cute at that point or anything - I just wasn't there for the beginning.  Anyway - the point of the story:  Even at 8 years old, Yoda was freaking awesome.  And even now, faced with the question "Who's better: Han or Luke?"  I'm probably just as likely to say Yoda as I was then.  Because Yoda's still the best character.

Don't Call It A Countdown - Day Two - First World Problems

This post will henceforth be known as "the one where she complained about sunshine" or "Stupid Sun" or, more probably "Seriously, What is She On"?

The good news is my mom thinks I'm funny.  So there.  

A little bit of back story here – We have had, like, four days of rain here in Minnesota.  Just your typical December weather.  You know, plus roughly 30 degrees.  But whatever.  Nothing is wrong with the environment!  Mind your business.  (That was my impression of... dumb, I guess.)  My point being, it’s been pretty dark and gloomy for about a week.  I’m not kidding.  It got cloudy on Sunday afternoon and that was that.

Earlier today I wasn’t thinking I was going to have anything to ramble on about.  Because I was neck deep into a spreadsheet that is generally the bane of my existence and just, oh my god, the stupidity.  The complete, abject and total stupidity of this spreadsheet.  And how incredibly manual everything is and seriously, what the hell just, why?  (To put this into perspective I normally have a fair amount of patience with the spreadsheets that are my working life.  No seriously, I do.  However - I've spent the last three full days at work fighting with Microsoft Access and so now, basically, everything is just incredibly dumb.  So the things that were just kind of dumb before are horrifying stupid.  And the things that were face-palm worthy before induce the above rant.)

So yeah, I was thinking about that most of the day.

This afternoon, still working on the same spreadsheet, the sun just came from nowhere and blinded the shit out of me.  But then it went away.  So I was still sitting there in my chair being all like "what is that bright ball of gas in the sky?" when it got cloudy and normal again, so I went back to work.  This proceeded to happen over and over again for the next two hours.  Basically I kept thinking about closing the blinds but every time it was like "well, now it's cloudy again, oh well.  Problem solved."  Then ten minutes later "holy crap, what the?  Why can't I see anything?"

Anyway - my overall points are these:

1) Man, the sun is annoying.

2) This is not rambling, this is free association run amok.  My mom said so.  So there.  Neener neener.

Since I started out yesterday with a penguin, I thought it was only fair to have a monkey today - for steve.  This one is make of blown glass, so it's an annual Christmas miracle that we don't break it.  I also really dig his little Santa hat and the fact that he hangs from his legs.  It's a pretty cool ornaments and easily one of my favorites.  ... It actually just occurred to me that I don't if Steve really likes this ornament or not.  I hope he does, cuz I think it's super cool.  Plus it's a monkey.  So come on, it's a monkey.  What else do you need?  A penguin with it maybe?  That would make it better, come to think of it.

Don’t Call it a Countdown – Day 1

I don’t really like all the countdown type of things various… well mostly television channels do at Christmas time.  In my opinion, no matter what particular carols or ABC Family will tell you there aren’t “days” of Christmas.  There’s Christmas.  There’s Christmas Eve.  If you want to get super technical (and/or you live in Britain and/or Canada) there’s Boxing Day.  That’s about it.  This whole 12, 15, 25 Days of Christmas thing bugs me.

Don’t get me wrong I like to put up our tree as soon as possible.  If Steve would let me it would go up the day after Thanksgiving.  He doesn’t though so I usually have to wait until the first weekend in December.  If I further had my way it would stay up until February.  I don’t get my way then either, though, and so it gets taken down shortly after New Years.  Apparently it’s “more special” this way.  I don’t think he understands – the Christmas tree is awesome and length of display does not dispel from said awesomeness.  Duh.

Anyway… I like our decorations and I have a tendency to take pictures of them.

It has also come to my attention recently that I don’t really have much to “say” exactly, but I do seem to ramble a lot.  And some people find that entertaining.  And by “some people” I mean “mostly me.”
And finally, I recently came upon the need to – metaphorically – say “suck it – I like my pictures” to particular people.  Which… I can’t really talk more about to the whole internet, because I’m not a moron.  
But it made me think of something that, historically, Kris Kristofferson is known for saying; more personally, my dad is known to quote; and more recently, The Bloggess made into a card in her shop (Don't let the bastards get you down) – which is making me giggle.  A lot.  I especially like the Winnie the Pooh-esque balloons.  Very festive.

Anyhoodle – I’m thinking that for every day between now and Christmas (which, incidentally, is 12 days so I guess that makes this a partridge in a pear tree) I’m going to post a picture of one of our decorations and something – possibly about that decoration or possibly just me rambling about how I don’t like ABC Family very much.  

Just don’t call it a countdown.  I don’t like that.

I can't see any better way to start something off than with a penguin.  Obviously.

Tiny Little Lights

Psst... you wanna know a secret?

I really like Christmas lights.

They may be one of my most favorite things actually.

I mean... I know they're basically pointless and a drain of energy and may possibly make people who don't celebrate Christmas feel uncomfortable or lonely or sad or something.

I'm mostly guessing at that last bit because I do celebrate Christmas so I really have no idea how the lights make people who don't celebrate Christmas feel.  I'm basing this guess primarily on a song a fictional 8-year-old made of construction paper sang once.  I'm realizing this might not be the best basis for a guess ever.  Unless I'm playing some kind of game about beliefs held by the characters on South Park.  That would be a really hard game - those kids change their damn minds a lot.

That was what we in the biz refer to as a "tangent."  By "biz" I mean... uhhh rambling professionally.  Only not professionally.  Because I don't make money doing this.  Amateur rambling.  Olympic qualifiable rambling.  Yeah.  That "biz."

So, anyway.  Back to Christmas lights.  Despite their possibly less desirable qualities, I really like them.  They're just neat.  In my humble opinion.

They just make me feel... good inside.  I'm not so sure I'd go so far as to say they specifically make me happy.  But damn I love Christmas lights.  They're just great.

...And now that I've written all of that and spent a lot of time looking at these pictures I realize they kind of look like little penises.


UPDATED:  Oh man... I just realized that I only took pictures of our outdoor lights which are all white, because I like white lights outside and the multi-colored ones on the tree.  But the ones inside weren't focusing correctly and eventually I gave up and didn't save any pictures of them.  So now my Christmas lights might be racist as well as insensitive to other religions.  Before I was just suddenly worried my lights were those jerks who insist on saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays because they know it makes some people uncomfortable and/or sad.  Now I'm worried my lights might be part of the Klan or something.  Which, you know, way worse.  I mean, those people suck but they're not the klan.... oh jeeze.

FURTHER UPDATED: Just to be clear: I'm joking.  And trying to be funny.

Sir Moves A Lot (I Like Big Boxes, And I Can Not Lie...)

So hey, you know what sucks?

Moving.  Moving sucks a lot.  Like, a lot.  More than a lot.  Movie bites the big one.  Moving is the suck that created sucking.  You know what sucks worse than moving?  Moving and trying to work a full time job at the same time.  Yeah.  That's really dumb.  People shouldn't do that.  There should be some kind of special leave you get where you just get a couple weeks off when you move.  Like maternity leave only with a domicile instead of a child.

To my friends who just had children: I apologize for that and take it back.  Sorry.

Anyway, yeah.  The last... long time life has pretty much just been get up, go to work, go home *either pack or unpack, depending on how far back you go* then go to sleep and start all over again.

Aside from the night Steve took me out to get shoved into a coffin and licked by a stranger (not kidding) we haven't really had too much opportunity for fun.  And, come to think of it, the Haunted Basement at the Soap Factory - though highly effective at being quite scary - wasn't really, uh, "fun" in my book.  Yeah, in case you missed it there - I was licked by a stranger and then put in a coffin.  Woo freakin hoo.

So, uh, yeah... life's been a little busy lately.  There's a room in my house right now that's pretty much just dedicated to clothes and... piles of things.  They don't even have to be things that are eventually going to go in that room.  No, no.  Those are things that are totally going to go on a completely different floor than where they are now.  But are currently in a pile in that room.  Because that's what that room is for right now.  Not stressful at all.

On the other hand - I live somewhere new now.  Which means there's some new... stuff around for me to take pictures of when I stop and take pictures of... stuff.  And thus! I give you:

A pretty wicked picture of a raindrop on a branch of the tree that's by my deck:

What I like most about it?  That you can see part of the tree reflected in the raindrop.  I don't like to get braggy.  But in my opinion, that's pretty badass.  Thinking about putting that one on a wall someplace.  Except at the end of the day it's a picture of a stick.  So I'm having a hard time getting around that.

Other upside to the move?  Wrote this on my lunch break.  That's pretty awesome.

Back to work now, though.

Maybe This is Heaven

It's been suggested that Heaven may be located in Iowa.  It's been suggested that Heaven may be, based on picture books, a partly cloudy place.  Some people may try to tell you that there's no such thing as Heaven. I may be one of those people.  It kind of depends on my mood, honestly.

Well I've been to Iowa.  And I know some damn fine Iowans.  But I'm fairly certain it's no paradise.

I'm not one for too much certainty in life so maybe I'm down with the partly cloudy description.  The picture books do seem to suggest it.

And again, I'm not one who's too big on certainty.  I don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow much less in the hereafter.  I very nearly minored in theology in college and really all that taught me was that religion is messed up.  If there is a god - that's one seriously confused supreme being we've got ourselves.  That or one incredibly certain supreme being who's just being dick for fun.  Or something else entirely.  I really don't know.  I prefer the confused route.  Anyway...

There's this other thing

I don't often "name" my pictures.  Because that seems too much like thinking they're actual like "art" or something.  It's taking myself entirely too seriously.  I'm not really down with that.  I start... I don't know, it gets weird, I don't like it.

However... If I did name my pictures, I would probably call these "Heaven One through Five"

Because seriously - if I got to pick.  If I were the supreme being (confused, certain and just being a dick for fun, or whatever) and I got to make the call.  This is exactly what it would look like.  Baseball fields with corn in the outfield are nice.  You know I like a catch with my dad.  Gates made of pearl sound really nice too.  Hell, I even like harp music most of the time.  Give me the lake any day of the week.  I'll take it.  That's fuckin Heaven.