For Your Eddie-fication

A couple of links to explain the etymology and current usage of "Done and done."

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-don2.htm
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=done+and+done

My Booty

Sorry, this is not going to be another post about an underwear buying spree. I'm going to talk about my party booty, my spoils, da goods, all dat stuff da people's gavin' to me.

Yes, we had my housewarming party today/night. It began at 2:00 pm...and Julie just left (at almost midnight). The funny thing? My house ain't so warm. It's rather cold. Oh, I put the air on 70 / 68 thinking it would get too hot from the droves of people. Droves? No. People? Only da cool ones.

Let me hit the highlights of this lovely day:

1. Kimi got to see my bedroom! YaY! She was so excited to be let into the sanctum sanctorium.

2. Roomie up and went to California. He came home at 1:00, handed me a card and said, "I'm going to San Francisco for a few days." ...Okay.

3. A friend agreed (after I admittedly put him on the spot) to fix the sofa Kimi and IDunKnow broke two weekends ago. He can't get to it immediately, but he will be able to fix it. A thousand times YaY! (And yes, I too was sitting on it when it broke. It's just funnier to blame petite Kimi.)

4. We had an Irish good time. That means we sat around and told stories for quite a while. The Polyglot sure knows how to string all his language skills together to tell a good yarn. I'm much better at writing my stories and don't mind reading them aloud if I have access to them. (I would love to have told my "Do you know the way to San Jose?" story. But it is MUCH funnier to read than to tell.)

5. I got lots of great things. As I sit here, surrounded by my booty, I'm thinking housewarming parties are one of the best inventions ever. (No, I didn't really bring all my booty into the bed with me, it just sounds better in a literary sense.) We need to just periodically have parties for people. We need to give presents more often. We should always have a wish list at common stores. If I feel like getting Kimi or Julie a gift, I'll just check out her wish list and buy something off it. (You can do this on amazon.com. Go forth and build your wishlists!)

6. NO PLANTS! Woo to the hoo. No one gave me a plant. I was very worried that someone would. While I love the idea of having a house full of plants, I cannot live with the reality of it. I have killed every plant I've ever owned. I hate dusting them, too.

Best gift? That would be tacky to answer.
Most unexpected gift? Black socks. Perfect, absolutely perfect.
Worst gift? Something I ate or drank gave me an upset tummy after the party. Maybe it was the Muscadine Champagne. (Yeah, you read that right...MUSCADINE Champagne. It's a Southern thing.)

Thanks for the Information

I'm on the phone with a Microsoft representative. He's so ... polite. He has to get basic information from me like name, phone number, address, support account number, etc. Obviously, I can't give him all this info at the same time, so he asks for my name (and how it's spelled). After I answer him, he says, "Thanks for the information." Then he moves on to address. Again he says, "Thanks for the information." I think he's said that phrase 15 times already.

Does Microsoft really have people calling them for help who won't surrender this info?

Microsoft Tech: "Can I have your name?"
Caller: "No, you've got to guess my name."
Microsoft: "Bill?"
Caller: "Uhn uh, try again."
Microsoft: "Steve?"
Caller: "Fooled you again! It's not Steve, either. C'mon, third time's the charm."
Microsoft: "Ahmed?"
Caller: "Dang, you're good."
Microsoft: "That's my brother's name. Now Ahmed, please give me your last name."
Ahmed: "Nope. You're so good at the guessing, you're gonna have to guess that, too."
Microsoft: "Patel?"
Ahmed: "Nope."
Microsoft: "Jones?"
Ahmed: "Wrong again."
Microsoft: "O'Shanassey"
Ahmed: "Wow! That's it!"
Microsoft: "Of course. Mr. O'Shanassey, please give me your street address."
Ahmed: "Hmm... uh, no. You've gotta guess."
Microsoft: "10345 Neederlend Avenue, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia"
Ahmed: "How did you know that?"
Microsoft: "We are Microsoft. We can find out anything."
Ahmed: "Yeah? Well then what's wrong with my server?"
Microsoft: "Nothing. While we've been talking I pushed out the latest service packs and hot fixes. Your server is rebooting now. Thank you for calling Microsoft. But if it would make you feel better, I can let you listen to 'The Sounds of the Seventies' On-Hold music while I run down to Starbucks for the 15th time today."

The Longest Day Ever

I still feel like poo so I didn't come in to work until noon, more like 11:30. I can't believe it's only 4:00. This has been the longest day ever. WHY WON'T IT END?!?!?!

iPods Suck

I finally got my iPod. I tried to set it up this morning. After 57 reboots to update the iTunes software and the actual software on the iPod, I still can't use the thing. It's now telling me that I have to plug it in to the wall to flash the firmware. Uh...how is the wall going to flash the firmware? Did I bring the wall plug in to the office? No, why would I need it at work?

I am underwhelmed.

I hate Georgia in the Spring Time

Everybody sing it with me. I haaaattte Jor-ja inthe (beat) Spriiiiiiiiinnnnng Time!

My nose is running, my throat is sore, I'm choking on my own muscus, I have a tickle in my throat, I'm sneezing... and I didn't sleep well last night. Last time this happened to me, I went to a 24 hour pharmacy. The lady pharmacist on duty gave me a great cocktail of drugs that dried me up and opened me up. (I didn't understand the difference, but it worked.) I went back this morning. A different pharmacist talked me into buying the "Quil" cocktail. "Day Quil" during the day and "Ni Quil" for the...night (surprise, surprise).

Let me tell you. They should rename this "Day Quil" to "Don't Bother Quil." I'm still sneezing and blowing my nose as if I haven't taken anything. I just took my second dose. Maybe the first one had already worn off and this one will really kick in. I doubt it. Worst of all, I forgot to buy lotiony tissue this morning. So I'm stuck using a roll of toilet paper from the office bathroom. My nose is already raw.

This is not my best day ever.

Partying with The World

Guess who's coming to Variety Playhouse on Saturday, May 20th? World Party! I'm so excited. I bought the first four tickets. I think T wants one of them. That means there are 2 more up for grabs. Who wants 'em?

Hopefully, all 3 of my readers want to go. If so, here's the link to buy more tickets (they're all general admission).

The news is that Karl has re-released three albums: "Private Revolution", "Goodbye Jumbo" (his best album) and his latest "Dumbing Up." Technically, he didn't re-release "Dumbing Up" since he never actually released it in the States. He released it in the UK back in 2000 and is just now getting around to releasing it here.

The first song, "Here Comes the Future," is classic Karl Wallinger with a nice twist. While the majority of the song sounds very similar to "Ship of Fools" or "Is It Like Today," this song features a female guest singer. I don't know who she is, but she adds a layer of funk that blends very well with Karl's signature style. "Here Comes the Future" seems to be the song he's hoping to turn into a hit. I don't see why it wouldn't be a hit even 6 years after it was created. But then again, I don't see why most songs of today ARE hits, so I'm probably wrong.

I'm losing my cred.

I have a confession to make. I bought ... an ... (I can barely say it) ... iPod.

What is this world coming to? Does "Horse N. Buggy" become "Horse Les Carriage?"

To make matters even worse, Im getting annoyed at one of my VCRs. Them new tapes I just bought have a really bad squealing sound during playback. I'm not sure if the problem is in my machine or the tapes. I've caught myself ruminating on the DVR commercials lately - even working out in my head that I'd need a cable splitter to be able to watch TV and record at the same time, but then I'd probably need a signal booster before the splitter so the feed wouldn't degrade. D'oh! I'm moving up to "Stood E. Baker."

Back to the post at hand... Why did I buy an iPod? Here's the little twist that I always seem to throw at technology. I couldn't justify buying an iPod just for my music. I have never been one to listen to music anywhere except in my car. Based on my "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy, an iPod was completely unnecessary. I have a CD player in my car and tons of CDs.

What has changed? I've recently immersed myself into the world of podcasting. Not actually 'casting, but listening to podcasts. I subscribe to podcasts from NPR and a couple of other sources. The podcasts cover everything from pop culture to technology to etymology. I want to listen to these in my car on the way to and from work. In order to do that I have to convert the mp3 files over to wavs (often tripling their size) then burn them to CDs. I can then listen to the CDs in my car. After I've listened to the CD once, I'm done with it. There is no reason to hang on to it. That's a lot of work...and I've run out of blank CDs.

I finally recognized that it made sense for me to have an mp3 player. I started checking out all the cheapo units. Based on capacity vs price, the best deal turned out to be a reconditioned 4th generation HP branded 20 GB iPod. I don't think HP makes these anymore and iPod has moved on to 5th generation, so technically I'm still buying outdated technology. That should allow me to maintain my "Buggy" cred. But I am very excited that FedEx says it should arrive today. Of course, FedEx can't ever find my house on the first try so I'll probably get it next week.

Brain Blast!

Or not. So, last Friday we were supposed to watch the Jimmy Neutron movie after Good Soup. I bought the movie from amazon earlier in the week and thankfully it arrived in the mail on Friday. I had it in my car with me on the way to eat Good Soup. Since Roomie was out of town for the weekend, I locked up the house and left for the restaurant.

During dinner, I got a call from Roomie to say that he was locked out of the house. No, I hadn't given him a key yet. Yes, he's lived there since February. I did try to get a key made once, but Walmart was out of that key type. I had not made time to go back since. Back to the story, I told Roomie to come get my keys from the restaurant and then leave them in the garage. I have a garage door opener, so I'd be able to get into the house. Problem solved.

It wasn't until the end of dinner that I realized I'd given all of my keys to Roomie, including my car key. That garage door opener didn't do me any good inside a locked car...neither did the movie du jour (le film du soiree?). I remembered that my mother has a key to my house, so I swung by there to get it. We picked another movie out of my stack of 2 or 3 DVDs, though not the one I really wanted to see - Cinderella Man. We'll see that someday soon.

Confession time. Like a dork, I remembered too late that I have a remote to my car in my purse (are you getting the picture that I never use it?). While I could not have started the car, I could have gotten in to get the garage door opener and the movie. We could have watched the originally scheduled movie. Oh well. I watched a couple of episodes of Jimmy Neutron yesterday. That will hold me over until we can reschedule the movie.

And yes, I had a key made for Roomie on Saturday. No more locking him out of the house. I think there's an extra one for The Polyglot, too. Now he can lock up after himself when he leaves.

"It's a tap dancing show"

But much less gay than it sounds. In fact, the media calls Tap Dogs, "Hot, hunky and highly inventive," and "raw pulsating energy." I so agree. I saw Tap Dogs several years ago in Las Vegas. They were the highlight of my trip. When I found out that they were coming here, I flipped. I really wanted to take my mother to see them so I bought tickets. It turned out that she wasn't able to go, but The Polyglot said he would go instead.

Saturday morning came and The Polyglot backed out. I called everyone on planet earth who I knew wasn't already busy (going to an assembly, working for my brother, or in Africa) to see if they wanted to go. I didn't know I could be rejected that many times in one day. I was even trying to give the ticket away - no go. When The Doctor started harassing her husband about going with us, he finally came up with the name of a sister in our congregation who is a tap dancer. Well duh, why didn't he think of her earlier? She was ecstatic about the invitation. Cool.

So we all went to the show and had a lovely time - even The Doctor's son. He was slightly belligerent that afternoon because his mother and aunt were dragging him to a stupid tap dancing show. I didn't bother to try to convince him that he'd like it. I knew that he would love it once the show started. Who was right? I was, of course. He stood up and clapped with as much enthusiasm as his mother each time we called them back for an encore.

So what kind of show is Tap Dogs? That's where I have trouble - I can't really explain it. At the core it is a tap dancing show. But the guys are ultra-masculine, there's not a top hat in sight. The guy who created the show/company was (and technically still is) a welder or machinist or something really blue-collar like that. All the guys in the show wear jeans or just regular shorts. They wear anything from flanel shirts to t-shirts to wife beaters. Their taps are on work boots. They chew gum while they're dancing. This is not your average tap dancing show. The props and sets they use are all things from a normal guy's life - basketballs, steel saws, ladders, rock climbing harness gear...you name it. They combine it all in a fast paced, high energy show that boggles your mind. The show lasts for about 80 minutes. That's not nearly long enough.

I bought new underwear

I'm getting slack from certain readers that I haven't updated in a while. Well, you know what? I've been busy. Besides Good Soup Friday (and work), the most exciting thing I've done recently is buy new underwear.

And honestly, I'm amazed at how it makes me feel. I mean, they're not much more than glorified granny panties, but they feel nice. No holes. No ridin' up. I think I'm walking taller.


There. Is that what you wanted to read?