Saturday Play-by-Play

Went snowboarding on Saturday. Thought I'd write out a detailed account of the day, for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!

Saturday, March 18

4:50am Miss my alarm, which I don't realize until...

5:09am ...at which point I jump out of bed in a panic because I am the one who made such a big deal about everyone being READY TO GO at 5:30am. Naturally, that means I am the last one ready. Sigh...

6:00am Stop in Azusa to leave my car at a house where I will theoretically be attending a friend's birthday party that evening, after we get off the mountain. As we all pile into M's truck, I notice that my brother's girlfriend, J, still has store tags on her pants and I tease her about it.

6:10am-6:30am My brothers regale everyone with a story about how I wore a tag on my jacket in Christmas pictures taken TWO YEARS AGO, and how they didn't understand why I didn't take the tag off when they TOLD me to, but no, I had to be STUBBORN and RUIN the Christmas pictures, which is pretty much the same as ruining Christmas, to hear them tell it. I realize that I will never, ever hear the end of this story. I make a mental note to take tags off of my clothing from now on.

7:30am We're heading up the mountain and notice a cell phone tower disguised as a tree. Which, of course, means that the disguise isn't really working out so well. My brother makes fun of it. We all laugh, because he's witty.

7:45am We stop to let my brother and his girlfriend pay a visit to the restroom, otherwise known as The Great Outdoors. I try to take a picture of J but she has hidden herself behind a bank on the opposite side of the road. Oh well.

8:30am We stop to rent equipment for T, KD, and J at a shop about 20 miles from Big Bear. There is one kid running the place and he's obviously hung over. He asks us what day it is. We tell him. I'm glad I have my own equipment.

9:30am We get to Summit and the parking lot is full; parking lot attendants are directing everyone to the lower lots from where we will have to take a shuttle. We find out that M is good at lying, when he rolls down his window and, without batting an eye, tells an attendant, "We're meeting a buddy up there"--meaning in the main lot close to the mountain, the lot they had blocked off to everyone else because it was full. As we drive up, the rest of us pray that we find a space, but then feel conflicted, because we are basically asking the Lord to reward us for telling lies. While we are considering that maybe we should instead pray for M's soul, we find a spot. We aren't sure what this means theologically, but we don't care anymore. We're happy.

See?



10:00am-1:30pm Mountain time! Yeeha!

1:30pm-2:30pm We spend KD's life savings on three cheeseburgers and a couple of hot dogs. Oh, and a bag of chips.

2:30pm-4:30pm More riding. I also use my little digital camera to take some video clips which would rival The Blair Witch Project in terms of motion sickness potential. Cool.

5:09pm We had all agreed during lunch that, should any separation occur within our group, which it did, we would all meet at the car at 4:30pm. T and I end up together and neither of us has a watch or cell phone with us. As we head off the mountain, I ask a guy what time it is, then feel bad because he has to go to all this effort to get at his cell phone; i.e., digging into a pocket, taking off his gloves, etc. He eventually tells us it is 5:09, which is EXACTLY the time when I got out of bed that morning! Weird. But more importantly, it means T and I are over half an hour late for meeting the others. T says he figures the rest of the gang will probably be waiting in the car with the heat on, nice and warm, so no big deal.

5:12pm The gang is waiting outside the car, where it is not warm at all. T had the keys the whole time. Oops.

9:30pm Traffic is bad, so we don't get back to Azusa until after 9pm. The others drop me off, but before going in to my friend's birthday party, I change clothes in the backseat of my car, proving yet again that I missed my calling as a Cirque de Soleil contortionist. Once inside the house, I start chatting it up with a couple of guys, and am feeling pretty good, until I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror. My hair looks... well, like it's been under a beanie all day, while the part of it that remained exposed to the elements got wet and then dried in very interesting sculptured shapes. And it looks like I got sunburned in just one spot, next to my left eye. I laugh at myself and leave the party about 10 minutes later, confident that I've made a very lasting impression.

10:30pm-11:00pm I drive home listening to some station's "Totally 80s!" Saturday night music show, because I can't find anything I like on the radio but desperately need something upbeat (and annoying, apparently) to keep me awake. I wonder, not for the first time, why 80s music is so enduring. Coincidentally, that's the exact same kind of music they were playing at the party I just left. Weird.

Fun with Dave!

Well, I don't know what I would do without humor columnist Dave Barry's blog. I do know I would probably never have found this article, which would have been a shame because it's about flying cows in Texas somehow leading to police cars catching on fire. Now those are the sort of events you just don't see every day. Unless you do, in which case I really want to know where you live, because I am coming to visit. Or perhaps take up permanent residence.

My fav quote is, well, hmm, the whole article pretty much. It's fantastic.

Another reason I am grateful for Dave Barry is this page, which wins the Frogg's "This Person Has WAY Too Much Time On Their Hands" Award.

Faith an' Begorrah, But 'Tis Me Hair They've Super-Sized!

First of all, HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! I hope you are all wearing green; if you aren't, consider yourself pinched.

Of course, being a frogg, it goes without saying that I am decked out in the mascot color of the Emerald Isle. (Also, in addition to being half-Egyptian, I am part Irish, so it's kind of a requirement and one with which I don't mind complying. I love green!)

Second of all, I want you all to know that I am having a bad hair day. The reason is this. A couple weeks ago, I bought shampoo and conditioner, from the product line called "Super Skinny" by Paul Mitchell, in case you ever want to avoid it, which, if you have my hair, you will.

What it's supposed to do is make your hair sleek and shiny and smooth. I thought that sounded like a good idea, because I think my hair looks great when I straighten it, but my hair stylist lectured me about overusing the flatiron and destroying my locks, the last time I got a haircut. So I thought, hey, maybe this shampoo/conditioner will help keep my wavy-wild hair under control; after all, it's expensive! So it must do what it's packaging implies, right?

Well. What it does in actual fact is make my hair pouf out to 80s diva proportions. And I don't even need any AquaNet! Lucky me.

In other words, "Super Skinny" made my hair fat.

I guess we can all learn a little lesson from my experience. Namely, to be profoundly grateful that Paul Mitchell doesn't make diet pills. Yikes.

Why, Jessica? Or Should I Say: Why Jessica?

Yes, the simple placement of a comma can be a beautiful thing.

Apparently Jessica Simpson opted not to appear at a Republican fund-raiser. I am at an uncharacteristic loss for words. Mostly what I keep thinking is, "They asked JESSICA SIMPSON??" I am not a Republican, but neither am I a Jessica Simpson fan, so I just don't know who to make fun of more, today. But I do have to point out my favorite part of the whole article:

"People close to Simpson said she declined a request to appear that same evening at the gala fund-raiser of the National Republican Congressional Committee -- even after she was offered some private face time with Bush -- because Operation Smile is a non-partisan group."

Private face time with Bush! Oh, it's too, too much...

Someone Tell Her To Take A Deep Breath. Please.

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain. But after reading 70-year-old author Annie Proulx's rant against the Academy Awards for not giving the movie the Best Picture Oscar, I don't think I ever will. No, not because it's about gay cowboys, but because her attitude is so incredibly rude and ungracious.

To be honest, I couldn't even read her entire article, because it was so gaggingly bitter. Her sense of contemptuous superiority is truly nauseating, and I can tell that she and I would probably never hit it off over tea. We might end up hitting each other, though.

Now THAT might make for some interesting cinematic fare, wouldn't you say? "Fractious Frogg Faces Off with Growling Grandma." WWE, here we come!

But anyway, Proulx actually made me want to see Crash because she trashed it so badly. To borrow a line from the also-non-Academy-Award-winning film Happy Gilmore: "Talk about your all-time backfires."

And I take extreme exception to her phrase, "dim L.A. crowd." I am a part of that L.A. crowd, gosh darn it, and I'd say I am an 80-watt bulb at the very LEAST.

Finally, I have to say that for someone who doesn't think much of the Academy Awards, she sure is angry about not getting one. Geez.

Yes, Ms. Proulx. Sour grapes is EXACTLY what it is, and you left a bad taste in MY mouth. Bleah.

Lost in the Myst

The lovely Candace has been writing interesting posts lately about how programming languages kind of tell cool little stories to her when she sleeps. She doesn't quite say they whisper sweet nothings in her ear, but I still have to ask, "Does your husband know about this? Does he?!"

(Mind you, as an English major, I am pretty skeptical about storytelling program languages anyway, because even though letters of the English alphabet float around in the impenetrable cloud of code, they don't get all comradely with each other and make real WORDS. Also they look about as at ease amongst all the numbers and symbols as baby sea lions surrounded by a school of sharks. But I digress.)

Today, Candace writes:

Okay, so I've thought of a better analogy to describe programming (or at least how my subconscious deals with it when I'm asleep). It's an obvious one, really. It's Myst!

In the world of Myst, you're playing a game where doing certain concrete things (turning a dial, pushing a button, etc.) will yield certain results which will lead to your evetually winning the game. But to get to the point where you can do the concrete thing, you have to use a lot of imagination, inference, logic, and investigation (i.e., wandering around). (emphasis mine.)

In other words, then, another name for Myst could apparently be "My Life: The Video Game." Catchy title, isn't it? But I bet Myst would still sell better--after all, 30 years into "My Life" and I have yet to get to the concrete thing. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure I know what, exactly, the concrete thing is.

But I've sure done the wandering around thing...A LOT. And quite frankly, it's getting, well, just a little old. (Entirely unlike yours truly, by the way, who only gets younger and more beguiling with every passing year.)

So, my question is, does anyone know a magic shortcut to the next level? You know, one of those "press B and A at the same time and hit the directional buttons in the following order: right, right, left, down, down, up while you are standing on the bag of gold" kind of shortcuts that you only find out about by putting on 3-D glasses and reading certain pages of gaming magazines backwards. Or something.

No? Darn. Oh well, just thought I'd ask.

Things That Make You Go "Hmmm"

On the front page of cnn.com early this morning, I found these two headlines, coexisting peacefully despite fundamental semanticarian differences:

Bloody Baghdad: 86 bodies found in 30 hours

Bush: Iraq turning away from 'the abyss'

If you think these two headlines contradict each other, you only showcase your novitiate status in the realm of world politics. I feel sorry for you.