Monday meme: More Random Joy

Random Joy

1.Which category of Trivial Pursuit would you say you're most knowledgeable in? Kind of a tricky question considering each version of Trivial Pursuit has different categories but for traditional Trivial Pursuit, I would say I'm best at Sports & Leisure. Or maybe Arts & Entertainment. Yeah, probably Arts & Entertainment.

2.Did you go to your High School Prom? What was it like? Yes, I went. I don't remember too much what it was like... lots of high school kids I didn't especially like. There was a dinner. Some dancing, with lots of "friends" making fun of my date's dancing. It was pouring rain the whole day and we got drenched running to the car. I think I got my picture taken. Professionally, I mean. I remember I wasn't feeling too well, like I had a cold or something. After-Prom was more fun, at an athletic club.

3.If you were one of the five senses which would you be? Sight.

4.Have you ever gone downhill skiing? Nope.

5.What's your favourite kind of nut? I really don't like nuts but I'll occasionally eat peanuts or pistachios.

(via)

Standoff with a raccoon

I went running last night, as I do sometimes (although not often enough) and decided to go down this park path that I never have gone down before. Well, I was about 15 ft. along the path when I saw that there was a small animal in front of me wandering down the path too. I thought it was a raccoon and as I got closer and it turned around, I saw that it indeed was a raccoon! I continued to get closer and it just stayed put and stared at me. I got closer and it stood its ground, continuing to stare at me. I looked at its claws and knew that it was probably full of disease and disgustingness.... and I promptly turned around and decided that I would go a different route.

Am I wimp or what? I'm about 20 times bigger than it (well, at least 10 times) but I just didn't like that it wasn't moving, wasn't afraid of me and I didn't want it scratching me and giving me rabies!

Indians clinch!

Another Cleveland team in the playoffs this year, as the Indians officially win their division with today's win! Yay!

Short Grammar Quiz

Had I gotten any wrong, I would not have been happy!!

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

"Do Not Call listings aren't forever"

Hmm, I had no idea that if you put yourself on the 'Do Not Call' registry, that it was only for five years and then you have to re-register. Interesting read. The point of the article is that if you signed up when it launched, which was 2003, your five years are up next year. I can't believe it's been five years almost since that started and also, I don't remember at all when I registered my number... if I registered it at all, that is.

Update: So I read a second article on the topic and it turns out there is a place on the official Do Not Call Web site to verify that you are in fact on the registry and to tell you when you registered. Sweet!

Family Guy does Star Wars

I'm really psyched to watch this Sunday's Family Guy episode, which has dad Peter telling the family the story of Star Wars during a power failure. This review says it's not that good but I'm sure it will still be pretty enjoyable! At the very least, it's a whole hour of new Family Guy!

"HBO Producing Michigan-Ohio State Football Documentary"

Excellent! I'll enjoy watching that. I found an Ohio State bar near me the other day, too. So maybe I'll watch this year's big rivalry game from there this November! (via)

Monday meme for while I was gone

Random Joy

1. Do you bruise easily? Oh yeah. REALLY easily.
2. What does your name rhyme with? An endless number of words: berry, fairy, dairy, hairy, to name a few.
3. If you could have any famous piece of art to display in your home, which would you choose? When I used to go to the art museum, one of my favorite paintings was always Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, so let's go with that.
4. What's the most inconvenient thing about the place you're currently living? What a great question... I could go on forever on this topic. But the most inconvenient thing is its poor location in relation to public transportation. Or the fact that the washer & dryer are in my roommate's master bathroom. That drives me crazy.
5. What book are you reading right now? Look to the right....

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West Coast time

I got back from my business trip in San Diego today. It was such a fun time, although I did work some pretty long hours! On Saturday morning, I missed my flight (ugh) but still arrived by 1:30pm and spent the whole day with my former roommate. That was awesome! We went to a great Mexican restaurant in Old Town San Diego and also walked around Seaport Village and the Gaslamp Quarter, the two areas closest to my hotel. We also did a lot of catching up!

Sunday morning I had off but then I worked our seminar from noon-8 on Sunday, 7am-8pm on Monday (plus then we had a work dinner here), and 7am-5pm on Tuesday. When I wasn't working, I hung out with my co-workers, mostly in the Gaslamp Quarter.

Here was the view outside of my hotel room window:


Yeah, Pretty cool.

On the way home, I was so exhausted just from working a lot, the time change, traveling, drinking too much and all that other fun stuff. I couldn't wait to get home and go to bed. Of course, now I realize I'm on West Coast time and can't to go to bed because it's like 7:30pm. Thank god I only have two days in the office this week.

"Early rising no good for the heart: study"

According to this article, those who are early risers might be more prone to heart problems like hypertension and strokes. So there's a good reason for me to sleep in!

Charitable search engine

I guess if you are going to use a search engine (and really, who doesn't use one?), you might as well use GoodSearch, which donates a penny to the charity of your choice for every search conducted. Pretty cool. It's powered by Yahoo! and is downloadable to your browser, if you use Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer 7. Plus, there are over 42,000 charities/nonprofits to choose from so I think everyone can find a cause they believe in... (via)

Monday meme: Laboring Day

Laboring Away

1. What is an appropriate amount of labor for you? How many days a week would you work if it were your choice? Hmm, maybe three.

2. If you could be paid an annual salary so that money wasn't a factor in choosing a career, what job would you want to have? A writer, I guess.

3. Describe your most memorable Labor Day (or May Day) weekend. In 2001, I went to Las Vegas with a couple friends and saw Madonna in concert! That's pretty much the only Labor Day weekend I remember... most of them are very low-key and just like any other weekend.

4. What's the minimum wage where you live? Do you think it's appropriate? Well, I had to look it up and it's apparently $5.85 in Virginia, the national minimum. However, in DC it's $7.00 and in Maryland it's $6.15 (see here) . Do I think that's appropriate? Uh no way. That equates to $12,168 in Virginia and let's see rent alone can cost nearly that for an average place to live so I'm not sure how people are expected to live on that. It's highly inappropriate, is what it is.

5. Have you ever been in labor or helping someone else while she was in labor? Nope.

Bonus question (we're making you work this Labour Day) - Do you spell it Labour Day or Labor Day? Obviously the latter...

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Trivia night

So I finally went to a trivia night at a bar last night! Those seem to be really common around here but I hadn't made it to one yet. We (you have to be a team) did okay but definitely didn't win. It was fun, though, and I'd like to go again!

Not my scene

So I met this girl who is also new to DC and about my age and she is very club-happy so I tried going to some DC clubs with her on Friday night. She's desperate to meet men, which I find kind of annoying. I mean, sure, having a boyfriend would be great, but I'm not interested at all in going out solely to scope out men. It seems desperate and crazy; plus, does it even work? Lisa seems to think so. She watches every guy in the room and then when she's seen them all and decided none are her type or none have sufficiently made enough eye contact with her in her predetermined amount of time, she wants to leave and go elsewhere. On the one hand, I don't mind moving on to someplace new because then I get to investigate new places. On the other hand, since these places charge covers of $5-$20, I don't enjoy going broke this way either.

Overall, it was kind of fun, as a social experiment. Also, it was kind of funny because Lisa didn't meet anyone but I did! Not that it's going to progress into any great love connection or anything but I did enjoy the irony of the situation.

Neat Cake Pan

How cool is this? A great idea for a Super Bowl party or any football party. Although I have to wonder just how easy it is, nonstick or not, to get that cake out of that pan in as good of shape as it is in that picture. (via)

Friday Night Lights

The first season of Friday Night Lights comes out on DVD today and I'm really tempted to buy it because it's only $19.99 (well, at Amazon, Best Buy, and Circuit City anyway). I've been watching it online and am loving it. It's so good! But, why spend $20 for a DVD set that I might never watch again when I can watch all the episodes for free online. Right?

Meetings, schmeetings

Don't you love when your boss invites you at the last minute to a meeting because he thinks you might have something to offer and then that meeting ends up taking 1 1/2 hours and it turns out you were not needed at all? That's what happened to me today! I guess it's better (in the eyes of my boss) than spending that time in front of my computer slacking off and searching the Internet, which I've basically done since I got back to my desk. Oy.

Disgusting film

I just watched this documentary, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, and it was simply disgusting. It's basically about all the money that Halliburton KBR has made off of the war in Iraq - and how they make that money. Really really disgusting.

Cool site? PolitiFact

This site, from the St. Petersburg Times and CQ.com, seeks the truth for the upcoming 2008 Presidential campaign. It has a "Truth-o-Meter" which investigates candidates' claims to determine whether they are truthful or not. Looks kinda cool!! It's interesting AND it has a sense of humor, like this page on Joe Biden's claim that President Bush is "brain-dead." On the truth-o-meter, Biden ranks as "Pants on Fire." Heh.

Book Review: The New OPL Sourcebook

I checked out The New OPL Sourcebook from the library, hoping it would be helpful to my job. OPL stands for one-person library and well, that's exactly what I am at work! Plus, the author is from Cleveland (yay!) and has a blog that I read semi-regularly so I had high hopes that it would be useful. The first half of the book consisted of an overview of a lot of the basic principles of libraranship and honestly seemed like a retread of grad school for me so I was pretty disappointed. I can see how it would be helpful to someone who hasn't been to library school recently but that's not me. The second half of the book provides all kinds of useful links and reading suggestions on pretty much every topic under the sun. I love to read recommended links because you never know what you'll find and there definitely were some promising links that I still need to check out (and will probably post here) but most of them were for librarians in general and were not specific to one-person libraries. Plus, anytime someone publishes a book with Web links usually means that a number of them are outdated and extinct by the time the book comes out so I am expecting that to be the case once I start checking them out.

Overall, it was an okay read, but I'm glad I didn't purchase it. I'd give it a B-.