If you don't like the words "pickled," "corpse," and "special taste" in close proximity, you really shouldn't click on this link. But if you do, please don't eat first.
Or drink, either. Especially rum.
You might also want to not be Hungarian.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Oh, the Pain
Today I downed four Ibuprofen pills, a mocha, a can of diet Dr Pepper and a cup of Earl Grey tea in my efforts to get rid of a headache I've had since this morning--a headache I thought was due to a lack of sleep. My medicinal, highly caffeinated attempts kind of worked. The headache has faded, though it isn't completely gone.
But now my stomach hurts. Wah.
To take my mind off my current ills, I will think of something positive. Like, what a beautiful day it is outside, here in Southern California. I'll just look out the window and...oh. Wait. It's not very beautiful. All I see are gray clouds, for like the millionth day in a row.
Double wah.
Thankfully for my state of melancholy gloom, I have friends who send me links to wacky stories, because they know how much I adore bizaare news. Today, courtesy of Benjamin, I learned that Disneyland may be the happiest place on earth, but apparently Stalin's World is a close second.
I never even knew there was a "Stalin's World." I mean, other than the rather horrific one he established during his tenure as a Soviet Union dictator. But now it's an exciting theme park too!
Fav quote from the article (on CNN.com):
Statues of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and other Soviet leaders glower at visitors, and the barbed wire fences and guard towers surrounding the park help give it the feel of a Soviet gulag.
Wow. How joyous!
My life is so much richer now. So very, very much.
But my stomach still hurts. :(
But now my stomach hurts. Wah.
To take my mind off my current ills, I will think of something positive. Like, what a beautiful day it is outside, here in Southern California. I'll just look out the window and...oh. Wait. It's not very beautiful. All I see are gray clouds, for like the millionth day in a row.
Double wah.
Thankfully for my state of melancholy gloom, I have friends who send me links to wacky stories, because they know how much I adore bizaare news. Today, courtesy of Benjamin, I learned that Disneyland may be the happiest place on earth, but apparently Stalin's World is a close second.
I never even knew there was a "Stalin's World." I mean, other than the rather horrific one he established during his tenure as a Soviet Union dictator. But now it's an exciting theme park too!
Fav quote from the article (on CNN.com):
Statues of Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin and other Soviet leaders glower at visitors, and the barbed wire fences and guard towers surrounding the park help give it the feel of a Soviet gulag.
Wow. How joyous!
My life is so much richer now. So very, very much.
But my stomach still hurts. :(
Back To School Dreams
Well, I recently had my first bad dream about school. Which is a little weird, seeing as how I don't even start school until November. Maybe I'm more nervous than I thought!
To understand the dream, I need to explain the nature of the program a little. The deal is, you go to the campus for 10 days at the start of every semester. During that time, you participate in workshops, attend lectures, do assignments, and have meetings with a mentor, with whom you'll work throughout the rest of the semester. Once the 10 days are up, everyone goes back home, and gets on with their lives, with the added responsibility of studying and writing their butts off in a sort of independent study format, sending off packets of writing to their mentor every three weeks for feedback, etc.
Ok. So in my dream, it was the start of the semester. I had just flown out to the campus and somehow met up with one of my brothers there (which was odd, because none of them live in Kentucky). We hung out the night before my first day of classes/lectures. Apparently we had too good of a time (I don't remember what we did), because the following day, I show up for class--hours late. As in, I slept in til about noon, and then scrambled like an insane person to get to the lecture room by 1pm. When I got there everyone was like, "Oh, THERE you are!" Then I get all these packets of papers (assignments, I guess), and for the rest of the dream, I was in a panic because I realized something.
I couldn't think of a SINGLE THING to write.
All I had in my head were titles of stories, and none of those were particularly compelling either. (One of them, I recall, was the single word "Inventions." Ugh, what kind of title is that?!) And I thought, "This is going to be... interesting."
I woke up just a little bit depressed.
It would be nice to think that the older we get, the less likely we are to have these kind of anxiety dreams, but maybe I'm just not that old yet. (Whew, silver lining!)
Oh well, at least I didn't miss school entirely in my dream. I remember when I was in high school studying for AP exams, I dreamed that I actually showed up for the test the day AFTER it was given. Talk about about panic! I was so freaked out in my dream, I think I woke myself up!
Anyone else care to share a "favorite" anxiety dream?
To understand the dream, I need to explain the nature of the program a little. The deal is, you go to the campus for 10 days at the start of every semester. During that time, you participate in workshops, attend lectures, do assignments, and have meetings with a mentor, with whom you'll work throughout the rest of the semester. Once the 10 days are up, everyone goes back home, and gets on with their lives, with the added responsibility of studying and writing their butts off in a sort of independent study format, sending off packets of writing to their mentor every three weeks for feedback, etc.
Ok. So in my dream, it was the start of the semester. I had just flown out to the campus and somehow met up with one of my brothers there (which was odd, because none of them live in Kentucky). We hung out the night before my first day of classes/lectures. Apparently we had too good of a time (I don't remember what we did), because the following day, I show up for class--hours late. As in, I slept in til about noon, and then scrambled like an insane person to get to the lecture room by 1pm. When I got there everyone was like, "Oh, THERE you are!" Then I get all these packets of papers (assignments, I guess), and for the rest of the dream, I was in a panic because I realized something.
I couldn't think of a SINGLE THING to write.
All I had in my head were titles of stories, and none of those were particularly compelling either. (One of them, I recall, was the single word "Inventions." Ugh, what kind of title is that?!) And I thought, "This is going to be... interesting."
I woke up just a little bit depressed.
It would be nice to think that the older we get, the less likely we are to have these kind of anxiety dreams, but maybe I'm just not that old yet. (Whew, silver lining!)
Oh well, at least I didn't miss school entirely in my dream. I remember when I was in high school studying for AP exams, I dreamed that I actually showed up for the test the day AFTER it was given. Talk about about panic! I was so freaked out in my dream, I think I woke myself up!
Anyone else care to share a "favorite" anxiety dream?
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Tonight's Guest on the "I Love Stephen Colbert" Show: King Tut!
I'm a little behind with the current events, but I finally saw the video of Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. And I just want to say one word:
AWE. SOME.
Ok, I made that into two words. But Colbert deserved it. Trust me.
The best part was the video of himself as White House Press Secretary. I watched that on The Colbert Report last night. Great stuff.
Bottom line: You can love him (like me), or you can hate him. You can think he is the funniest thing since sliced bread (hey, that might have been hilarious back in the day, you know), or you can think he's as humorous as a loaf of whole grain goodness that's not sliced at all, not even a little bit. (What on earth am I saying?) Whatever the case, you can't say that Stephen Colbert doesn't have balls.
Which, by the way, you could have said about King Tut, up until today. Not to change the subject or anything, but apparently the big news that made the archaeological world nearly wet its pants had this wonderful, younger-readers-close-your-eyes headline: King Tut's Penis Rediscovered.
Oh, if you don't like the word "penis," you shouldn't read this post.
Wait. Oops. I probably should have said that at the beginning. D'oh!
Well, it's on the DISCOVERY CHANNEL, people. Don't get all mad at me. I report the news, I don't write it. I'm too lazy.
Moving on....
Something tells me I drank too much soda today.
AWE. SOME.
Ok, I made that into two words. But Colbert deserved it. Trust me.
The best part was the video of himself as White House Press Secretary. I watched that on The Colbert Report last night. Great stuff.
Bottom line: You can love him (like me), or you can hate him. You can think he is the funniest thing since sliced bread (hey, that might have been hilarious back in the day, you know), or you can think he's as humorous as a loaf of whole grain goodness that's not sliced at all, not even a little bit. (What on earth am I saying?) Whatever the case, you can't say that Stephen Colbert doesn't have balls.
Which, by the way, you could have said about King Tut, up until today. Not to change the subject or anything, but apparently the big news that made the archaeological world nearly wet its pants had this wonderful, younger-readers-close-your-eyes headline: King Tut's Penis Rediscovered.
Oh, if you don't like the word "penis," you shouldn't read this post.
Wait. Oops. I probably should have said that at the beginning. D'oh!
Well, it's on the DISCOVERY CHANNEL, people. Don't get all mad at me. I report the news, I don't write it. I'm too lazy.
Moving on....
Something tells me I drank too much soda today.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Confessions of a Tailgater
Hello, my name is grackyfrogg, and I... am a tailgater.
Wait, that word looks funny. Is that spelled right? Hmm. Tailgator? Oh whatever.
The POINT is, I drive too close to other cars. I admit it. I'm okay with it. I have really good reflexes. Honest! My passengers, however, are a little less okay with it, from what I've noticed. (Maybe that's why I rarely have passengers whenever I go anywhere. Hmmm.)
But I blame my problem on bumper stickers. Other people's, of course, not mine. Because when I see a bumper sticker, I very badly want to know what it says. I'm nosy. I admit that too (but that's for another "Confession" post).
Bumper stickers intrigue me. Especially when someone has lots of them on their car. It seems to me that the people who have the most bumper stickers are people who are trying to disguise the fact that they have a car at all, because they are probably against them on environmental principles. You can tell because of their bumper stickers, which say things like, "Save the Whales," "My other car is a bicycle," "Love gardens, hate Bushes" or "Green and mean." (Just kidding about those last two. I made them up. But they COULD be bumper stickers, couldn't they?)
The other day, though, I saw a bumper sticker that really made me think. It said, "Jesus is the answer." And what I thought was, doesn't that really depend on the question you're asking? I mean, surely there are some questions to which Jesus is definitely NOT the answer. Like, what if there was a guy driving to work one day, and he was racking his brains trying to figure out who his wife was cheating on him with (because he knew she was cheating on him), and then he sees in big block letters on the back of a speeding SUV, "Jesus is the answer." I bet that would shake him up a bit. Ha!
But another thing I like to look at on cars are license plates. Because there are lots of out-of-state plates in Los Angeles. So far I've seen most of the 48 continental states, including Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachussetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
I get really bored on the way to and from work. Can you tell?
Wait, that word looks funny. Is that spelled right? Hmm. Tailgator? Oh whatever.
The POINT is, I drive too close to other cars. I admit it. I'm okay with it. I have really good reflexes. Honest! My passengers, however, are a little less okay with it, from what I've noticed. (Maybe that's why I rarely have passengers whenever I go anywhere. Hmmm.)
But I blame my problem on bumper stickers. Other people's, of course, not mine. Because when I see a bumper sticker, I very badly want to know what it says. I'm nosy. I admit that too (but that's for another "Confession" post).
Bumper stickers intrigue me. Especially when someone has lots of them on their car. It seems to me that the people who have the most bumper stickers are people who are trying to disguise the fact that they have a car at all, because they are probably against them on environmental principles. You can tell because of their bumper stickers, which say things like, "Save the Whales," "My other car is a bicycle," "Love gardens, hate Bushes" or "Green and mean." (Just kidding about those last two. I made them up. But they COULD be bumper stickers, couldn't they?)
The other day, though, I saw a bumper sticker that really made me think. It said, "Jesus is the answer." And what I thought was, doesn't that really depend on the question you're asking? I mean, surely there are some questions to which Jesus is definitely NOT the answer. Like, what if there was a guy driving to work one day, and he was racking his brains trying to figure out who his wife was cheating on him with (because he knew she was cheating on him), and then he sees in big block letters on the back of a speeding SUV, "Jesus is the answer." I bet that would shake him up a bit. Ha!
But another thing I like to look at on cars are license plates. Because there are lots of out-of-state plates in Los Angeles. So far I've seen most of the 48 continental states, including Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachussetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.
I get really bored on the way to and from work. Can you tell?
Monday, May 01, 2006
Conversations With Steve, Vol. 2
I should probably be more socially-conscious and write something about all the "Day Without an (Illegal) Immigrant" protests. But I'm not going to. You can read all about it on... well, pretty much everywhere. Have fun.
I will, however, share an IM conversation I had with my friend Steve today. Why? Because I can. And because it saves me having to be creative and come up with an interesting or socially-conscious post.
(Oddly enough, puke features as a topic of conversation once again, just as it did the last time I posted a Steve conversation--a conversation which, I might add, tells one of the funniest stories I've ever heard.)
If you don't like the word "vomit," you shouldn't read this post.
steve: so whats new with you?
grackyfrogg: just working a lot
grackyfrogg: today is slow though, which is a nice change from last week
grackyfrogg: my eyes felt like they wanted to fall out of my head! [NB: I'm a full-time proofreader. Fun Fun.]
grackyfrogg: i am still taking piano, which is great
grackyfrogg: i am going to be in a recital on sunday
steve: coolio
grackyfrogg: with other students... probably mostly littluns
steve: is it in front of a lot of people?
grackyfrogg: nah... i dont think so
steve: i hated those, i pretty much always screwed up
grackyfrogg: oh i know i will too
grackyfrog: but it's pretty low-pressure... i mean it's not like a competition or anything!
steve: oh, well the pressure for me was mr. "smell like vomit" piano teacher coming down hard on me at my next lesson for making him look like a loser teacher by screwing up my left hand arpeggio at his recital
grackyfrogg: really???
grackyfrogg: he smelled like vomit?????
steve: oh totally
grackyfrogg: eew
grackyfrogg: weird
steve: i know
steve: i never figured out why
grackyfrogg: maybe he vomited a lot
grackyfrogg: maybe he was bulimic
steve: maybe he was a 60 year old male bulemic
grackyfrogg: maybe he had a pet chihuaha that threw up alot
grackyfrogg: on his lap
grackyfrogg: i am glad my teacher does not smell like vomit
steve: im glad that NO ONE i know smells like vomit actually
grackyfrogg: LOL
steve: my first piano teacher was a charismatic black activist, luckily she didnt smell like vomit though
grackyfrogg: i didnt even know you TOOK piano lessons
steve: oh yeah for like 10 years
grackyfrogg: what!!
steve: maybe 8
grackyfrogg: you should be pretty good then!
grackyfrogg: i've never heard you play!!!
grackyfrogg: wait, is this really steve balsiger? who am i talking to???
steve: no this is timothy Fruegenhaus
grackyfrogg: LOL
grackyfrogg: excellent
steve: well i stopped lessons in like 10th grade so i never really got all that advanced
steve: but at the end i was doing some fairly hard stuff, but its been so long
grackyfrogg: wow. well it's nice to know there is always something new to learn about your friends! [NB: Even after 15+ years!]
steve: wow, i thought that after i shared with you about the time i spent in prison that that pretty much covered everything about me
grackyfrogg: LOL
steve: i guess i left the piano part out
grackyfrogg: i so want to just post this conversation to my blog
steve: see, look how much time ive saved you, may 1 blog creation: Done!
I will, however, share an IM conversation I had with my friend Steve today. Why? Because I can. And because it saves me having to be creative and come up with an interesting or socially-conscious post.
(Oddly enough, puke features as a topic of conversation once again, just as it did the last time I posted a Steve conversation--a conversation which, I might add, tells one of the funniest stories I've ever heard.)
If you don't like the word "vomit," you shouldn't read this post.
steve: so whats new with you?
grackyfrogg: just working a lot
grackyfrogg: today is slow though, which is a nice change from last week
grackyfrogg: my eyes felt like they wanted to fall out of my head! [NB: I'm a full-time proofreader. Fun Fun.]
grackyfrogg: i am still taking piano, which is great
grackyfrogg: i am going to be in a recital on sunday
steve: coolio
grackyfrogg: with other students... probably mostly littluns
steve: is it in front of a lot of people?
grackyfrogg: nah... i dont think so
steve: i hated those, i pretty much always screwed up
grackyfrogg: oh i know i will too
grackyfrog: but it's pretty low-pressure... i mean it's not like a competition or anything!
steve: oh, well the pressure for me was mr. "smell like vomit" piano teacher coming down hard on me at my next lesson for making him look like a loser teacher by screwing up my left hand arpeggio at his recital
grackyfrogg: really???
grackyfrogg: he smelled like vomit?????
steve: oh totally
grackyfrogg: eew
grackyfrogg: weird
steve: i know
steve: i never figured out why
grackyfrogg: maybe he vomited a lot
grackyfrogg: maybe he was bulimic
steve: maybe he was a 60 year old male bulemic
grackyfrogg: maybe he had a pet chihuaha that threw up alot
grackyfrogg: on his lap
grackyfrogg: i am glad my teacher does not smell like vomit
steve: im glad that NO ONE i know smells like vomit actually
grackyfrogg: LOL
steve: my first piano teacher was a charismatic black activist, luckily she didnt smell like vomit though
grackyfrogg: i didnt even know you TOOK piano lessons
steve: oh yeah for like 10 years
grackyfrogg: what!!
steve: maybe 8
grackyfrogg: you should be pretty good then!
grackyfrogg: i've never heard you play!!!
grackyfrogg: wait, is this really steve balsiger? who am i talking to???
steve: no this is timothy Fruegenhaus
grackyfrogg: LOL
grackyfrogg: excellent
steve: well i stopped lessons in like 10th grade so i never really got all that advanced
steve: but at the end i was doing some fairly hard stuff, but its been so long
grackyfrogg: wow. well it's nice to know there is always something new to learn about your friends! [NB: Even after 15+ years!]
steve: wow, i thought that after i shared with you about the time i spent in prison that that pretty much covered everything about me
grackyfrogg: LOL
steve: i guess i left the piano part out
grackyfrogg: i so want to just post this conversation to my blog
steve: see, look how much time ive saved you, may 1 blog creation: Done!
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