Worthy of a Second Post

Just read that Randy Pausch died today... if you haven't seen "The Last Lecture" (also known as "Really Achieving your childhood dreams") you should go find it on Youtube. Really an amazing talk and sounds like an amazing guy - one of the reasons I would consider CMU if I go back to grad school.

Drew Carey is no Bob Barker

Went to see a taping of "Chelsea Lately" today. It was pretty interesting - went with two of my cousins and my aunt. The chick who played Saffron in Firefly was the guest - kind of insane that I actually recognized the guest!

One of my cousins reminds me a lot of Casey Best... which is both weird and cool simultaneously. We had a lot of good laughs today.

I've had other things lately I wanted to post here, but I don't remember what those things were. C'est la vie.

The best Thank you note ever

"Dear Lauren,

Thank you for the iced tea maker. It was a great idea. Marcia claims she secretly registered for it, but I don't think she's that creative. You, however, are. This will come in handy in whatever Yankee, sugarless tea arctic hell-hole we find employment, so we can make tea the raht way."

Awww.

Dr. Horrible!

Everyone should go here and watch Dr. Horrible before the end of the day. It is free today. After that you can download it on Itunes for $4, which is totally worth it if you miss the free part. Or eventually it will be out on DVD.

Why should you watch it? Joss Whedon. Nathan Fillian. MUSICAL. 45 minutes of pure comedy. I'm not going to say please go watch it, because its something you need to do for your own good, not mine. :)

Customized Interfaces

I heard Wobbrock talk about this. It was awesome : http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=42817

Interesting Article on Women and Science

Boo Title IX.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15tier.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin

I remember in High School... the boy's basketball team worked their butts off to raise money to build a baseball stadium. Once built, the girls team, via Title IX, received a softball stadium for equality purposes that took up part of our school's parking lot.

Now, I understand that sometimes you have to put quotas in place in order to give certain groups of people a foot in the door. But at some point, it means you aren't hiring the most qualified people for the job. Grrr. Arg.

Why my job cracks me up

"Shouldn't you be dropping mad value in another city?" ~ Senior Manager to me about being in the office
"Did you just say "dropping mad value"?" ~ Senior Exec, running out of his office
"Yeah" ~ M
"You were born in the 70's, you can't say dropping mad value." - E
"Well what should a 30-something say?" - M
"When you have more baby strollers than you have smartphones, you can't say "dropping mad value." - E

Adorable

This is adorable. Please look at it. They made children's drawings into photographs. Compliments of Very Short List, which Emma shared with me. It is a small excitement when it arrives in my inbox every day - some days its not so exciting but the days that are exciting are AMAZING!

A song I really liked today while listening to pandora at work:

I've always had this fear of heights
I don't like looking down
I tend to get my bearings
From things that don't move around
I've always placed a lot in faith
In the ground beneath my feet
Oh and I have lived my life
Depending on gravity

Now I'm up here on this high wire
Feeling lighter than the air
It's a precarious position
But I don't even care
Better watch my step, I guess
It just takes one false move
And I could fall for you
Depending on gravity

Don't you over wish
That you could stray a bit off course
To where the laws of physics
Aren't so strictly enforced
Just let me hold you in suspense
And let the chips tall where they must
Depending on gravity
Depending on gravity


All things being equal
When you've fallen on your face
But in my flying dreams it seems
I'm somehow lifted up
And it seems there's just too much
Depending on gravity

Depending on gravity

Moo.

Conversation dealing with yoga and susceptibility to suggestion lead to Andrew (terribly) squawking like a chicken. "Worst chicken ever!" "MOO!" ~ Me and Max simultaneously.

This was a good weekend. Mojitos on Friday with an awesome and random assortment of people that I was the connecting link between (Nancy, Kohout, Phopkins, Haala, and my coworker Brandon and his girlfriend) plus Pick Me Up cafe and movie watching and Mag Blasting. Saturday was spent folk-festing with Emma and Kyle (YAY!) and then hanging out at Max and Andrews with cool people. Today was great - Brunch at Ann Sathers (Yay cinnamon rolls!) followed by grocery shopping (which is somehow really exciting because it means I'm in Chicago long enough to need groceries) followed by Weeds watching and whiffle ball and dinner with Andrew Keller and Jaema - pretty much an amazing weekend all around. And I acquired Lemon Bars. Mmmmm.

I finished reading the Medici Effect a while ago. It's pretty much an awesome book on innovation and creativity and if you're into "business" type books at all I totally would tell you to read it and can maybe even loan it to you. And then I read Fahrenheit 451 for the first time. I recommend it as well.. It's kind of amazing the power that science fiction has to predict the future. And to make people uncomfortable, and comment on society, without making people just go "no, you're wrong, my life isn't like that." 451 has made me kind of... afraid? of the way society is going and how accurate it was/is and... man I don't know. Eeep. Need to figure out which book to read next and need to acquire more ficition for alternating between the business books. Its unfortunate - I read the fiction ones so much faster sometimes I forget I read them at all. But, yay books!

Magnificent Mullets

There was a fantastic mullet in the airport yesterday. So fantastic I can't do it justice with words, and I've not yet learned that I do in fact have a camera phone which is a great tool for capturing mullets in their natural habitats. My apologies for not acquiring photographic evidence. Lets just say I was so entranced by it I was following it for a while.

Unfortunately, that mullet was pretty much the only highlight of travel yesterday. My 4:45 was delayed multiple times, 3 gate changes, and then it was cancelled. I was given a seat on a 7am flight Friday morning, but stood in line for customer service to be put on a 9:45pm flight. Good, great. One gate change and several delays later, the flight took off sometime after 11:45pm. We landed in Chicago around 1:05am. And then had a 40 minute + wait for a cab. So I finally got back to my apartment at 2:45am.

And then came in to the office at 10:30 this morning. Woot travel.

Clown is contagious

I have a 32 inch monitor at work in Atlanta. It is sweet. And reflective. And very large.
I have to sit on a book, because our chairs do not move up (they are only one height) and the table is kind of high.

It is weird looking back at facebook photos and being like... wow... that was 2006. That was TWO years ago. It seems like forever ago and yesterday at the same time. There is a sweet picture from December 2005 - junior year of college, at Legends, with some of my favorite people (Kyle, Celina, Lindsay, Emma, Marty, Ryan, Pocket, Shane, and Jaime). It is an adorable picture. Aaaah. Time is going by too quickly and it only goes faster from here on out. I clearly need to stop spending so much time on facebook when I travel for work.

What.

If I have nightmares tonight, I blame Phlp.

Holidays

I probably had one of the best holiday weekends I could have asked for, with some pretty amazing people. Evan and Becky came into town Monday - Thurs so Evans could interview for his Korea visa. Yay visiting, boo more leaving the country. We went to the Taste, had some delicious vegetarian food throughout the week, and things were generally awesome. Tack came in for the Taste and drinks afterwards. Cooked dinner on Thursday, followed by a trek to Risque Cafe and Coronas at Bar Louie with Ryan and a girl from his hometown.

Friday started off with a fantastic brunch at Orange (seriously, go to this place, it is delicious). Friday involved group reading, ridiculous quantities of veggie burgers, more Coronas, fruity drinks that involved strawberries, limeade, lemonade, orange juice, and rum, and watching fireworks from the roof in 360 degrees. Now, I don't really like fireworks - well, correction. I don't like all the hype, the travel involved to go sit in a crowd of people, be entertained for 5 minutes, and then have to travel home. But sitting on a roof with a drink and good company and fireworks just sort of happening around you - pretty awesome.

Yesterday we went to the drive in and saw Hancock and Get Smart. There were more fireworks and lots of planes landing and taking off, so I was a bit distracted. I love drive in movies - I miss the SkyVue in Winchester, but its always fun taking people who have never been to the drive in to go see movies. Everyone should go see Hancock.

Since I never actually posted the link when I raved about XKCD's love for the discovery channel, here is the link to "I Love the Whole World". Boomdeyada has now been integrated into my vocabulary and daily conversation. Woot.
I also love the BBC, for reasons like these penguins.

Books

I'm going to try to at least mention books here that I've been reading. So there's a log somewhere.
In general, I like to switch off between a non-fiction and a fiction book. I like having time to read.

Currently reading : The Medici Effect by Frans Johansson, (and Five Fists of Science borrowed from Max)
Previously read: Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Recently read: American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Some Financial book my dad gave me

I'm also going to try to write my name in my books. And when I return books I borrowed from people, to give them one of my books to read. I think that sounds like a good plan.