The Language Barrier

your friday why nots

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:49:05 -0400

i guess so?

Why not ageist graffiti near the uptown F train?

king princess

Why not a card on my first birthday present that reads, "Happy Birthday King Princess, King of the Princesses"?

lord.

Why not a giant Eddie Murphy head in Times Square at 8AM?

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"it's wendddddsssdayyyy"

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:18:21 -0400

On Wednesday I went out and ended up accidentally drinking way more than I should've and then walked home with a dead mp3 player but a fully charged phone.

This was the end result.

Pray for humanity.

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things are shaping up to be pretty odd

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:56:57 -0400

Turns out there is a pretty affordable and reliable NJ Transit bus out of Port Authority in Manhattan to Six Flags Great Adventure, a theme park that I'd seen advertised endlessly in both the Philadelphia and New York markets but in my time living in both places never got a chance to visit. Most of the rides are movie or theme based, but unlike Paramount King's Dominion, it appeared that someone actually had the budget to put a decent theme park together and wasn't full of rednecks, a win on both fronts. A few friends and I, all made up of hearty roller coaster stock, decided to make the trek yesterday-- a day that some might call the most relentlessly unpleasant day to be in the sun all year (I would) and a day filled rain that really didn't need to happen when I was wearing jeans that were about eight inches too long and hadn't even dried when I poked at them this morning (I was).

The total for the day was pretty impressive. In roughly 8 hours we did 6 coasters, the gondola ride across the park, lunch where no one was particularly assraped by the prices and ate some awesome ice cream. I also did not get into any fights with line budgers, a feat which I always consider a success. Like all ridiculous adventures I go on, there was of course a horrible twist.

ElToro

El Toro was the most ridiculous nightmare of a wooden coaster, primarily since the entire time we spent waiting in line we were also unable to see that it had about nine more giant hills than it actually did (this was good and bad--no anticipatory fear, but then again, no anticipatory fear). Compound this with the rickety feeling that wooden coasters tend to have and this set the standard for the most pants wetting ride of the day.

Superman-ultimate-flight20

Superman was great in that it was remarkably chill-- a floorless roller coaster that tips you so that your stomach is parallel to the ground, giving you the feeling of actually "flying" which was both terrifying (omg how could the physics of this possibly work how how how) and outstanding. It also spurred a conversation about why Superman would possibly travel like this, and how he definitely needs to invest in a reliable and fuel efficient car.

Nitro-rollercoaster

Nitro is on my short awesome list for two reasons: look at that shit, the ride was amazing. But it was also the one that wrenched my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and deposited the little device with roughly three years of unsaved phone numbers, emails and text messages somewhere in the wasteland of gravel and river under the tracks, never to be seen again.

Seriously, fuck dude.

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Things to Do

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:37:48 -0400

clean up the kitchen
mop the floor
do the laundry
get lettuce
figure out what you're doing with your life.

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Additional Workplace Insanity

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:53:37 -0400

There are no two ways about it, I love working for my DudeBoss. He's a mostly humourless, straightlaced, serious, shoot-first-ask-questions-later-three-piece-suit-every-day kind of guy. I believe he was a mechanical engineer by trade, and if you've met engineers, you know what this implies--very rigid standards for quality and poor capacity for change or adaptability and rarely shows his cards. But, I like him. He makes me want to work very hard and learn a lot and very few people inspire that feeling in my lazy, lazy soul.

Every Wednesday DudeBoss brings LadyBoss and I muffins. DudeBoss is very into health (I think); he orders the same thing for lunch every day from a health food restaurant (the 'Lean and Mean': steamed chicken and broccoli, dry, no sauces flavors tastes salts, etc, served with a whole wheat pita. Every day. It looks like sadness in a little black bucket).

But anyway, I'm not sure where he finds these muffins, but I'm sure they are healthy, and I'm positive they are terrible. They are 98% grain/flax/seeds/nuts/twigs and 2% other assorted flavours that I hate. But, as he is a very serious guy, out of a feeling of obligation and token appreciation, every Wednesday we pick a muffin and choke it down or at least make a good attempt to pick at it. One week when I ended up with a cranberry-orange (the perfect storm of horrible) I ended up gagging and secretly disposing of it in the bathroom garbage. While I have had no proof that he investigates whether or not we eat the muffins, I am pretty sure he at least does a rudimentary survey.

This morning LadyBoss deposited the muffin tray on my desk to choose one promptly as I got buried in an avalanche of work for the next few hours and they remained there neglected. DudeBoss rarely ventures into Cubes, but he was pacing anxiously on a cell phone call and happened to notice the muffins chillin out.

"LadyBoss, didn't you want a muffin?" We both then make noises about how we had forgotten them and oh yeah, and oh I'm sorry for keeping them and we divvy them up quickly.

DudeBoss proceeded to retreat to his office, kind of joking but mostly kind of not shouting, "GIRLS, EAT YOUR MUFFINS OR ELSE!"

I have no idea what to make of this, but I am quietly adding "Diligently ate terrible muffins" to my resume as soon as possible.

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Tweets for Today

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 01:04:11 -0400

09:11 I had a dream about you last night. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter

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Happy One Year Anniversary!

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:56:13 -0400

Shit boy.

I just realized exactly one year ago today I moved from my lovely 4th floor garden apartment in Fairfax, VA to my Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan. It was hot that day, the movers were incredibly quick, and opening the door to the apartment I'd rented sight-unseen was the most amazing feeling I'd had that day.

I can't believe I've been here a whole year--even more so, I can't believe I've been out of college a full year either. I feel really, really old. I wish I had something incredibly funny and insightful to say but there isn't much that goes along with these weird sort of imaginary milestones. The adjustment has been easier and more expensive than I could ever imagined.

Thanks for not mugging me, New York (not in the illegal sense, anyway), thanks for not making me feel like I was too ugly to live here, thanks for making me walk miles and miles every day, thanks for all the amazing food; and thanks New Jersey for taking me in when I just couldn't fucking afford to keep living on the UWS anymore. I look forward to as many years here as I can tolerate before I see something shiny and pick up and move again in its pursuit.

Anteater-1

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Gabe Visits; Has a Better Camera Than I Do

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Sat, 24 May 2008 21:07:09 -0400

Gabe has the distinction of being one of my best friends, um, mostly due to the fact that we operate on the same level of limited sanity, his uncanny ability to verbalize and characterize all of my neurosis and a shared love/hate of Kanye West. He is up visiting this weekend, and at the end of day one we have been MAD PRODUCTIVE and enjoyed some GREAT WEATHER (please let summer never come. I am not ready to sweat yet, and these clear skies are perfect for just simple existence). It's nice to wake up to this out your kitchen window:

(Gorgeous view of Jersey City Heights and ah, the projects. Yep). After I had class we went to get our brunch on (straight men seriously enjoy some brunching). OUR FOOD WAS MAD GOOD, Y'ALL (see my fruit salad in the upper portion of the heart attack steak panini? zomg, awesome fruit salad and an omelette that was highly tolerable!). Gabe's new camera has a 'Food' setting which makes me laugh and think about how much idiots like me who like to blather on endlessly in public blobs have affected the way manufactures create. Anyway

We also had to head down to the waterfront to look at Manhattan, because this is the requisite thing that you do with anyone who comes to visit. You have to remind them that sometimes you're allowed to not feel bad about living in New Jersey because you can do awesome things like take in views like this all of three times in the six months that you've lived here.

The only thing Gabe had on his list of things to do while he was here was to walk through Central Park. Because I'm too cheap to pay $2 to take the 1 line 4 stops when I could walk 30 blocks instead, we braved the nightmare of Times Square on a weekend.

Although it always makes me think about how much cheaper living in NYC would be if they totally just put Central Park up for development, walking around in such nice weather was pretty nice (how did I manage to never ever do this when I lived 6 blocks away? This was only my third time in CP in the year I've been here). We put in about 20 blocks of wandering and mad random mugging so we can remember what our youthful faces looked like besieged by allergies, pollen, sun and children.

The following set includes: a statue of eagles eating a ram (?????? why are the eagles looking so fucking self satisfied, too), the Ghostbusters I building (that's totally it, right?), and a scaaaaaaary bridge castle

And finally back down through the Upper West where some restaurants were having some love for Fleet Week. And also way more sarcasm than necessary. And also this women wouldn't get out of our damn way.

Now it's time to order Chinese food, get a second wind, and then try to paint my apartment again sometime around 11:30PM after we exhaust our store of MST3K DVDs. Memorial Day is awesome.

PS--it's also nice to have a friend that understands that while this might be the face of mania, it's also the face of Gettin Shit Done At Way Too Late (like paintin' walls!--purple to melon, ftw!) and who fucking LOVES IT. Love me, love my crazy.

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holiday weekend, suckers

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Fri, 23 May 2008 10:59:33 -0400

I somehow managed to fix the document feeder on our new printer by removing a piece of hardware that was CLEARLY supposed to be there. I expect this to bite me in the ass sometime in the next 6 months when the thing catches on fire and I have voided the warranty.

So, um, how's your day going?

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this is a song about mellons (obscure?)

nobody@vox.com(Charlie 5-0) — Sat, 10 May 2008 09:13:17 -0400

12 - Panic At The Disco - Folkin' Around

You've never been so divine
In accepting your defeat
And I've never been more scared to be alone
If love is not enough to put my enemies to sleep
Then I'm putting out the lantern
Find your own way back home

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