another snow day!

this is the best pre-vacation vacation i've ever had. it's official i didn't work one whole week the month of novemeber. very nice.

it's a snow day!

oh the weather outside is frightful.

you would think that oklahoma has never had freezing rain and frigid temperatures. the whole state has gone into disaster, stock your pantry mode.

and in typical oklahoma fashion this morning it was 60 degrees and now it is a crisp 30 degrees. last night e wanted to turn on the ac.

anyway, meetings are being cancelled and people are running to the store for the just in case items. one local station has dubed it "the big chill" in there promos.

just a few months ago i was whine posting about the heat. gee. i'm never happy.

the vampires are coming.

so i got word today that starting this week i will be giving blood weekly. after a lengthy phone call i've learned that the blood bank is unable to use my blood because i am on such a heavy donation schedule. once i start giving quarterly it will usable. hmmm. so blood will be drawn and a test performed. for the time being the weekly testing will cost $15 and i'm not sure if my insurance will cover it. that will require another lengthy phone call to determine and i'm going to wait a day or two to tackle that.

for now i am happy knowing that i'm finally able to get this treatment ball rolling.

windows, windows everywhere

last night i was watching tv and there was a story about the infamous department store christmas windows in nyc. and since i'm a christmas nerd and will be able to see the windows soon - i watched the story. having so much to do with christmas - barney's has an andy warhol window. odd to me really. and along with the window the store has a plethora of warhol reproduction items. anyway, i came across this story about the window and warhol and i found his quotes quite humorous. i'm pretty ignorant about art history and the role of warhol but i find him to be a very interesting character. he seems very much like a character to me.

Was a Male Warhol Bride! Pop Go Barneys’ Windows
By: Simon DoonanDate: 11/27/2006 Page: 10
New York Observer

I feel that Andy Warhol spoke for all of us when he said: “You can’t take a princess to dinner and order a cookie for starters no matter how much you crave one. People expect you to eat protein and you do, so they won’t talk. If you decided to be stubborn and ordered the cookie, you’d wind up having to talk about why you want it and your philosophy of eating a cookie for dinner. And that would be too much trouble, so you order lamb and forget about what you really want.”

Quel truth! Quel profundity!

You must excuse my exclamation marks and my demented enthusiasm. I have been living with the ghost of Andy Warhol for a while now, and it’s starting to get to me.



Here’s the story: Along with my esteemed colleagues, I have spent the last year concocting the ultimate art/commerce/Warhol marketing assault. The goal? Enticing holiday shoppers to drop their shekels into Barneys’ coffers. This season, thanks to my ghost, every aspect of the Barneys holiday promotion—windows, shopping bags, gift cards, etc.—bears the Warhol imprimatur. We’re even selling Andy’s Art. Our limited edition Warhol Campbell’s Soup Cans ($12 a pop) have been flying off the shelves. Barneys has turned into a veritable D’Agostino (price check on aisle three!)—proving, if nothing else, that people really do love art, especially if it’s bargain-priced and has a wholesome edible component.

Re wholesomeness: As tempting as it was to pack the Yuletide window displays with raunchy images of drug-addled transvestites, Brigid Berlin’s boob paintings, seedy hustlers, Taylor Meade’s nude buttocks, car-crash victims, syringes and electric chairs, I somehow managed to restrain myself. I bowed to the spirit of the season and privileged more savory fare. The bulk of the appropriated Warholabilia consists of non-contentious illustrations from the early part of the artist’s oeuvre. And then there are the Warhol quotations.

As I researched the world of Warhol, I was struck anew by the charm and pithiness of Andy’s homespun philosophizing. Part Erma Bombeck and part Dan Quayle, the goofy Warhol aphorisms are hilarious and totally lacking in pomposity. And I found so many gems that I had never heard before.

Andy on Christmas in New York: “Christmas is when you have to go to the bank and get crisp money to put in envelopes from the stationery store for tips. After you tip the doorman, he goes on sick leave or quits and the new one isn’t impressed.”

Andy on dour, pretentious Debbie-downer artsy-fartsy people: “In some circles where very heavy people think they have very heavy brains, words like ‘charming’ and ‘clever’ and ‘pretty’ are all put-downs; all the lighter things in life, which are the most important things, are a putdown.”

Andy on the subjective nature of beauty: “If everyone’s not a beauty, then nobody is.”

Andy on (bad) movie acting: “When I played an airport person in a movie with Elizabeth Taylor the lines they gave me were something like, ‘Let’s go. I have an important date,’ but it kept coming out of my mouth, ‘Come on girls.’”

Andy on hiding from the cleaning woman: “When I go to a hotel, I find myself trying to stay there all day so the maid can’t come in …. I just don’t know where to put my eyes, where to look, what to do while they’re cleaning. It’s actually a lot of work, avoiding the maid, when I think about it.”

Andy on the perils of borrowing: “After you PAY SOMEBODY BACK you never run into them any more. But before that, they’re EVERYWHERE.” (Andy’s caps.)

Andy on Central Park: “I’m a city boy. In the city they’ve set it up so you can go to a park and be in a miniature countryside, but in the countryside they don’t have any patches of big city, so I get very homesick.”

Andy on the delights of hokey-ness: “I can only understand really amateur performers or really bad performers, because whatever they do never really comes off, so therefore it can’t be phony.”

Andy on saving energy: “If you can convince yourself that you look fabulous, you can save yourself the trouble of primping.”

What, I wondered as I put the finishing touches to the Barneys displays last Friday, at the same time marveling at the hordes of Louboutin-shod groovy chicks streaming down Madison Avenue, would Andy have made of the primp-fest that is New York today? What would he have made of the narcissistic shenanigans of Art Basel? What would he have made of the fact that businessmen now dress like members of the Velvet Underground? What would he have made of the fact that everybody is “groovy” and nobody is “square” anymore?

Lots of really heavy people—the irate, elitist counterculturalists with the heavy brains referred to above—are down on 21st-century Manhattan. They hate the lack of esoteric nightclubs and the democratization of that downtown grooviness that was once the prerogative of the select few.

These heavy people are convinced that New York, having reached a hipster apotheosis during the swinging Factory years, is now in decline.

Would Andy have become one of these things-ain’t-what-they-used-to-be kvetchers? I think not.

I am convinced that, were he alive today, Andy’s populist sensibility would have prevailed, and he would be in a permanent state of amused delirium. His relentless, indiscriminate socializing would have continued and, with a “Gee!” or a “Wow!”, he would have embraced any and all changes, no matter how cheesy or craven. He would be hanging out with everyone from Donald Trump to Paper magazine’s Mr. Mickey. Rich as Croesus, he would be living in a glass Richard Meier penthouse down by the river, alongside a reality-TV film crew and a couple of good-looking male minions whose sole job it was to YouTube Andy’s every activity.

Every grotesque hilarity of our culture—especially the obsession with celebrity and glamour that he jump-started—would be embraced and enjoyed by Andy. There’s no question in my mind that he would own an apartment in Dubai, wedged between Sir Elton and the Beckhams.

In the course of prepping the window displays, I solicited quotes from former members of the Warhol crowd. The most hauntingly apposite came from the pen of former Interview columnist Glenn O’Brien: “In the future everyone will be Andy Warhol for fifteen minutes.”

Glenn is right: Despite what the heavy people say, everyone can now be as cool and groovy as Andy. Hipness, that mysterious downtown sensibility which once eluded the bulk of the population, can now be bought just like a Coke or a can of Campbell’s Soup.

The spirit of Andy lives!

Death to elitism! Long live populism!

Since we are in a celebratory mood, let’s end with a festive money-saving tip from Andy: “Employees make the best dates. You don’t have to pick them up and they are always tax-deductible.”

PS: I think it is also safe to assume that, when dining with an employee, one could order a cookie for one’s main course without fear of censure.

now i'm not so sure.

50,000 is a lot of people. but then again dancing, toilet cleaners is a must see. nothing like a strange toilet experience.


New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
It's potty time for 50,000 on B'way
BY BRENDAN BROSHDAILY NEWS WRITER
Sunday, November 26th, 2006

One of the biggest new tourist attractions in Times Square isn't a Broadway show or a theme restaurant.

It's a toilet.

More than 50,000 people have visited a 20-stall potty palace that toilet paper giant Charmin opened at 1540 Broadway last Monday - and it's not just for the novelty.

The rest rooms, which will be open daily from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. through the end of December, are a much-needed amenity in a city famously lacking in public rest rooms, said people waiting to use the loos.

"If this wasn't here, I would have gone in the street," said Jason Dunne, 32, of Ireland.
About 50 people stood between Dunne and the bathrooms yesterday - but many more people were behind him in line.

"I just gotta go," said Michael Brown, 19, of Baltimore.

The Charmin toilets are disappearing by 2007, but New Yorkers shouldn't have to wait too much longer for public rest rooms.

Self-cleaning, 25-cent kiosks are scheduled to be on the streets in the spring, thanks to a deal the city signed in September 2005 after years of delays, screwups and redesigns.

"It took Charmin three weeks to build this space, and it's taken the city 15 years to create public rest rooms," said Tim Collins, a manager at the site.

The city's public johns likely won't offer as surreal an experience as Charmin does.

Visitors must take an escalator to the second floor of the building, where the entire space is decorated in blue and white. Toilets No. 1 and No. 2 are designated "Gotta Go Stalls - For Little Squirt Emergencies."

Dancing bathroom attendants clean each gleaming stall after every use.

"It was the strangest toilet experience of my life," said Alex Lofthouse, who was visiting from England. "It makes you smile."

early christmas cheer.

a little something to pass the time. if you click on the "office max" in the lower right hand corner there are lots of other fun things.

i really shake the globe.

too much downtime...

makes me a slightly larger girl. i've had 7 days off over the last three weeks and it has led to me eat a lot, i mean a lot of crap. and sadly, normalcy will not return for a good month.

we are leaving for our trip in less than a week and my mind is trapped somewhere between stress and giddy. just 4.5 days of blah work. by the way, today is my 1 year anniversary at work. i survived a year which was my main goal from the 2nd day here when i realized it was a black hole of bureaucracy, inefficiency and blah. and luckily i've become numb to the black hole - at least for now. at least there's good pay and lots of leave. plus, i got the following email today.

On November 15, 2006 Governor Brad Henry issued an executive order directing that a one-time state holiday to be known as Statehood Day be observed on November 16, 2007, in conjunction with the Oklahoma Centennial.

i must go back to the blah. happy monday/blahday to you.

the countdown has begun...

here's to some quality family time. happy thanksgiving.















and thank you for being a part of my friend family.

you know i'll need to go...

Times Square debuts holiday toilets
By Ibby Caputo
Special to amNewYork
November 21, 2006

New Yorkers on the go finally have a place to, well, go – at least in the vicinity of Times Square.The city famous for its lack of public restrooms got an early – albeit temporary – holiday present Monday, in the form of 20 toilets that are being billed as "the plushest flush" in town.

Located at 1540 Broadway, next to the Virgin Megastore, they feature baby changing stations and stroller parking, as well as less-conventional restroom amenities such as disco balls and a chance to take a photo with an oversized teddy bear.Attendants have been hired to clean the stalls after every use.

Actress Doris Roberts, who played the mom on the television sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond," opened the facility by cutting a toilet-paper ribbon in front of stall No. 17. As cameras rolled, she described taking her son to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade when he was 8.After hours of watching the balloons, he did "a little tinkle dance," she said, but the only "public restroom" she could find for him was a tree in Central Park – something that, she admitted, is now illegal. "It's a necessity that we don't think about regularly," Roberts said, before adding a plea to city officials for year-round public restrooms.

The Times Square restrooms are sponsored by the toilet tissue Charmin. Dewayne Guy, spokesman for the manufacturer, Procter & Gamble, declined to say how much it's costing the company to operate them. But, he admitted, "after advertising spending, it's the largest expenditure of the year.

"The facility will be open 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week except for Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, when it will close at 6 p.m. It will be closed entirely on Christmas, and permanently as of the new year.

america at its finest

next it will be the coca cola statue of liberty, the sprint empire state building or maybe even the microsoft grand canyon.


Golden Gate Bridge Seeks Corporate Sponsors
But Won't Sell Naming Rights
By Alice Z. Cuneo

Published: November 20, 2006 SAN FRANCISCO (AdAge.com) -- It won't be renamed the Golden Arches Bridge, but the directors of San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge are looking for corporate sponsors to help subsidize the landmark's $87 million deficit.

The Golden Gate Bridge, one of America's most famous and photographed landmarks, is seeking corporate sponsors for brand integration deals.

'Appropriate' sponsors
The district has hired Kevin Bartram, president, Sponsorship Strategies in Novato, Calif., for a six-month study of how to place corporate sponsorships for the world-renowned tourist attraction. The directors have made it clear they won't change the name of the bridge. Mr. Bartram said he is looking for "appropriate" sponsorships that allow association with the bridge "without having a huge presence on the bridge." Some of the corporate-sponsorship projects he will review include the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument restorations. He noted the bridge district has buses, ferries and a gift shop that could accommodate sponsorships.

Local opposition
Still, some of San Francisco's leading ad folks had mixed feelings about the bridge-sponsorship project. Venables, Bell & Partners founder Paul Venables said having the name of an out-of-town company on the bridge "would be horrible" and "make a mockery of our city." One example: Rice-A-Roni, which is known as the San Francisco treat and still uses a cable car as its marketing icon, but is now owned by a Chicago company. But a San Francisco company might do. Local favorites include Gap, Levi Strauss and George Lucas, whose headquarters in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's Presidio is close to the bridge. Silicon Valley tech companies such as Google and Hewlett-Packard also might be candidates. But Mr. Bartram said he also will consider companies that compete with the locals, such as Microsoft.

Suicide issue
Some wonder whether the bridge, which has been the site of more than 1,200 suicides, might deter would-be sponsors. Hal Riney, founder of the agency now known as Publicis & Hal Riney, called the sponsorship concept "appalling" but added sardonically: "It's possible some clever minds might find some way to merchandise [potential suicides] as well. Maybe they could charge 10 thousand bucks each and we could welcome these people." Rich Silverstein, co-chairman and co-creative director, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco, bicycles over the bridge on his way to work at least three times a week. He called the proposal "offensive" and said he would boycott any marketer that participated in the venture. "The Golden Gate Bridge should never be used for marketing," he said.

blah.

it's back to work tomorrow. and oddly enough i'm still sore. laughing is hell. i think my body is mad at me for a few reasons. lack of movement. over abundance of bad food. taking a sliver from my liver. tonight i think i need to do some yoga - i'm feeling very tight and stiff.

anyway, i'm good and e has survived his first stint of being the caretaker. he did a good job. thanks everyone for your well wishes!

happy short week. three casual days for me. woo.

my happy but painful liver

this morning i went to the doctor to have him check me out and make sure the pain i was having was ok/normal pain. and it is. but as an added bonus he already had my biopsy results. word is that i have a happy liver. there are high levels of iron but no damage has been done. the levels indicate early stages of hereditary hemochromatosis and from here i will start giving blood.

this happy news makes my inability to laugh, sneeze, cough, sit-up straight or breathe deeply seem not so bad.

i took this picture last night - not that this captures the sunset but it was beautiful. imagine me on loratab, waddling out in my mismatched pjs with really bad hair snapping this picture. now that would have been a good pic.

i'm alive.

well i survived the poking of my liver. the procedure was a piece of cake but the recovery is kicking my rear. my right shoulder and something inside hurt like crazy when i move the wrong way. but thanks to modern meds i think i'm going to survive.

i'm sure you will hear more from me tomorrow but now my loratab is kicking in so i'm going back to the couch.

my latest masterpiece

good times are a comin'

and i'm freaking out a bit.

hungry like a desperate 80's band...

dear duran duran:

have you no pride?

love,
your fan since the 4th grade


Timberlake works on Duran-Duran album
Sun Nov 12, 2:45 PM ET

Justin Timberlake is working on Duran Duran's new album, along with superproducer Timbaland, who created recent smash hits for both Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, the British band said.

"We've got some good stuff happening," said lead singer Simon LeBon. "We've done three tracks with Timbaland; we've collaborated in a writing and production manner on one of those tracks with Justin Timberlake. We've got a lot really hot producers who are hotly interested in working with us at the moment. We are in a very good space."

Duran Duran, who had its biggest hits in the '80s with such songs as "Rio" and "The Reflex," was in New York last Tuesday to perform at Cipriani's at a benefit for the AIDS research organization AmFar. The night also featured an auction, led by Sharon Stone, of luxury items.
The performance was without one of its founding members: Guitarist Andy Taylor left the group late last month.

Bassist Josh Taylor likened the split to a divorce. He said, "There were many strong differences of feeling within the band for some time now."

However, he said, Taylor's departure has been "empowering, quite freeing" for Duran Duran.
"We've been playing over the last few weeks around Europe and in the States, and we're just putting it into the music," he said

seriously george.

maybe there's something i'm not getting here but when referring to the president of the u.s. and the administration aren't we talking about the united states - you know land of democracy, freedom, justice, blah, blah, blah, i'm proud to be an american.

seriously, detainees have no rights. i know this terrorism thing is a bit hairy and there are probably no right or wrong answers but if it's foreign terrorists now - who is it going to be next. or are we just alright with that as long as we feel safe. sorry...just some rambling to wrap up the work day.

Administration: Detainees have no rights
By MATT APUZZO, Associated Press Writer 31 minutes ago

The Bush administration said Monday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts and that lawsuits by hundreds of detainees should be dismissed.

In court documents filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department defended the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without access to courts.

It's the first time that argument has been spelled out since President Bush signed a law last month setting up military commissions for the thousands of foreigners being held in U.S. prisons abroad.

Bush hailed the law as a crucial tool in the war on terrorism and said it would allow prosecution of several high-level terror suspects.

Human rights groups and attorneys for the detainees say the law is unconstitutional. Prisoners normally have the right to challenge their imprisonment.

The Justice Department said Monday that the detainees have no constitutional rights. Giving military detainees access to civilian courts "would severely impair the military's ability to defend this country," government attorneys wrote.

"Congress could have simply withdrawn jurisdiction over these matters and left the decision of whether to detain enemy aliens held abroad to the military," the Justice Department wrote.
Instead, the new military commission structure established "unprecedented" levels of review for detainees, the attorneys wrote.

On the Net:
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov

i'm just waiting...

for them to insert a chip in my head that will work as a music device. no worries about disturbing your neighbors, wearing headphones - just a nice chip that communicates directly with the computer and only plays music in your head.

just think - the mark of the beast might just be a portable music device.


Got a song stuck in your head? Maybe it's your toothbrushUpdated
10/12/2006 10:17 AM ET
By Theresa Howard, USA TODAY

NEW YORK — Hasbro is rolling out a toothbrush that plays pop music through kids' pearly whites while it polishes them.

The company's Tiger Electronics division is getting into the $3 billion oral hygiene business with a $10 "Tooth Tunes" toothbrush that goes on sale Thursday in New York City retailers and at toothtunes.com. It will roll out nationally in the first quarter.

The brush, in development for two years, will come in 18 varieties, each with a different two-minute song clip — the amount of time dentists recommend for a good brushing — from a popular artist.

When the user pushes a button on the manual toothbrush, it "plays" a song. As the bristles are brushed across the teeth, they send sound waves through them so that the user hears the song in his or her head.

It may not be a toy, but Hasbro (HAS) says the "fun factor" makes it a good business opportunity. "This is really incremental business for us," says Duncan Billing, Hasbro's chief marketing officer. "It's a big opportunity."

Children represent one of the fastest-growing segments in oral hygiene, according to the Children's Personal Care 2006 market study by Mintel. Sales of $161 million are expected by 2009, up from $135 million today.

Dentist Matthew Messina, a consumer spokesman for the American Dental Association, says that kids need new toothbrushes every four to six months. While Tooth Tunes cost more than the $3 average, he says they can succeed if they get kids to brush better.

"It's a gimmick, but anything that increases the amount of time that someone might spend with a toothbrush in their mouth might be a plus," says Messina of Fairview Park, Ohio. "But if you look in there and there's still broccoli between the teeth, it's probably not where we need to be."
Hasbro says the toothbrush also encourages kids to brush properly. Sound quality tapers off when the bristles move across teeth rather than up and down. "The better you brush, the better the sounds," Billing says.

Tiger chose upbeat songs that could be easily replicated with decent quality. New hits and old favorites include Let's Get It Started by the Black Eyed Peas; Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson; Shake a Tail Feather by The Cheetah Girls; the Rocky Theme Song; and We Will Rock You by Queen.

"We wanted the right songs, technically and lyrically," says Dave Capper, who co-invented the brush for Tiger.

The Hasbro division also produces the popular HitClips line of small devices that clip to backpacks and play song sound bites. Tiger had ties with record labels thanks to earlier deals for HitClips. For Tooth Tunes, it has deals with Interscope Records, Hollywood Records, Walt Disney Records, EMI-Capital Records, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group.

"It's really, really cool," says Adrienne Bailon, 17, of The Cheetah Girls. "We're also having dolls made, but toothbrushes are awesome. It's a whole new technology and other level of technology for our generation."

The toothbrushes will get a push from a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that begins Oct. 23. The TV ad was inspired by an award-winning 1984 TV ad for Apple, that showed a revolutionary change with its then-new Macintosh personal computers.

not another sunday night...

but i guess i shouldn't complain after a lovely 4 day weekend. but still. non-working days rock.

e and i had a great anniversary celebratory weekend. good times. and he will be home for quite awhile. honestly, i don't even know when he's supposed to go out next - i should probably find this out.

anyway, today we had a pre-thanksgiving, thanksgiving dinner with the turkey, dressing, etc. (it's a long weird family story) and i was sent home with peanut brittle and fudge. seriously, the holidays aren't even officially here and i'm already having to deal with sugary goodness. it's going to be a long holiday season. long. but i am getting excited about the holidays and was happy to see that my friend the coit's christmas tree lot santa has been erected. for some reason i love this guy.

an update

Prayer letters go to pastor's daughter
By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press WriterTue Nov 7, 3:09 AM ET

A fisherman who found a bag of 300 letters to God — many addressed to a New Jersey minister — floating in the ocean off Atlantic City will give most of them to the late clergyman's daughter.
Bill Lacovara, an insurance adjuster, found the letters in a shopping bag in the surf under a pier last month. They included everything from a man asking God to let him win the lottery to a teen asking for forgiveness for an abortion.

About 150 of the letters were too damaged by the water to be legible. He placed the remaining ones up for auction on eBay but canceled the auction after more than 25 people pushed the price past $550.

Lacovara said Monday he plans to give the letters to Vanessa Cooper, daughter of the Rev. Grady Cooper, a former associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City who died nearly two years ago.

Many of the letters were addressed to the Rev. Cooper, but others simply said "Altar." According to the text in several letters, they were intended to be placed on a church's altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

"I apologize to anyone who was insulted," Lacovara said. "It was never my intention to offend anyone. I was looking at these more like antiques."

He said he and his family have received many hostile letters and phone calls from people upset that the letters were put up for auction, and said it never was his intention to profit from them.
Lacovara said he heard from individuals and churches across the country who were interested in obtaining the letters so their own congregations could pray over them.

It's still not clear how the letters, some dating to 1973 and most unopened, ended up in the ocean. Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper's former home found the letters and, instead of tossing them in the garbage, set them out to sea as a sort of final tribute to the authors.

Vanessa Cooper could not be located for comment Monday. Lacovara said he will probably ask her to meet him next week on the beach by the Steel Pier — the same spot where he found the letters.

hot diggity doo

i voted. and i would like to apologize for my brief but passion filled political post yesterday. i tend to not be seriously political but yesterday i was really annoyed for some reason. i'm blaming it on the iron.

i'm full of randomness today so please deal with me.

e will be home tomorrow and i am really excited - he's been gone almost 2 weeks. it's funny because in the past i never really felt comfortable showing excitment (to the outside world) when he came home, also i never felt like i could show sadness or anger when he was gone. and thanks to my brief stint with the counselor i realized that somehow i thought that showing those emotions meant that i wasn't supporting him. but i'm feeling much more comfortable with the role of being honest. hmmm...isn't it funny how we get things so jacked up in our head.

last friday i got a phone call from a nurse at st. anthony's about the biopsy. apparently, when i re-scheduled the appointment the appointment setter (the same as before) managed to schedule for the 16th when i know i scheduled for the 15th. i have it on my calendar, she gave me a list of potential dates and time, i distinctively thought a wednesday is better than a tuesday. errrr. i was so annoyed. i just keep thinking you people can't schedule a good appointment for me but yet i'm going to let you stab me with a huge needle. i'm not comforted by this news. anyway, after a couple of phone calls the biopsy will take place on the 15th and my mom and e's mom want to be there. i don't care but you might worry about e. my mom alone could do him in.

i'm off work on thursday for our anniversary and friday is one of those "it rocks being a state employee" holidays. so i'm looking forward to a four day weekend.

happy tuesday. and you okies please go vote so in the future i can buy liquor on election day.

oh no...it just keeps getting worse.

Fired Evangelist Slams Gays in New Movie
Monday November 6 1:55 PM ET

The Rev. Ted Haggard has been fired amid allegations of gay sex and drug use, but the evangelical leader can still be seen at the height of his powers preaching to thousands and condemning homosexuality in the documentary "Jesus Camp." more

my new favorite political ad

one more day and the lame commercials and random recorded phone messages will be over. woo.

there is a commericial airing for todd hiett, candidate for lieutenant governor that uses ET (you know that movie character from our childhood) to blame his opponent (jari askins ) for helping illegal aliens establish residency, acquire drivers licenses and get an education. seriously it is the funniest commercial because it is completely absurd. making a comparison between humans who are living in our country illegally to an extra terrestrial movie character. for some reason it just bugs the crap out of me. you can see segments of the commercial here.

go vote. go jari.

this message brought to you by the "todd hiett is too stupid for oklahoma" campaign.

e and his stupid republican ways...

this morning laura bush called me. actually i was woke up by a recorded message of laura bush telling me to vote republican in next weeks election. errrr... and she wasn't calling to talk to me.
what really made me laugh was that my caller id said "Sth Prk Htl" and the number was 213.627.2800. i was tempted to call back - all i know is it's an LA number. wouldn't it be funny if they could have the caller id say "the white house."

ramble, ramble, sorry.

it's sunny and not so cold outside today - i'm about to go for a walk but i'm not very excited about it.

friday friday friday...oh how i love friday

so i dragged myself out of bed at 6am and headed to the gym this morning. i'm still shocked by my actually following through. i feel pretty good. i feel like i've gained a bit of control in my life. hopefully, the funk will start to lift.

i have plans tonight and tomorrow night. so hopefully i won't have too much downtime this weekend. e will be home in 5 days and our trip is less than 30 days away. woo.

i read this story this morning and i've hightlighted my favorite part.

Letters to God end up in ocean, unread
By WAYNE PARRY, Associated Press WriterThu Nov 2, 10:53 PM ET

Some of the letters are comical (a man asking God to let him win the lottery, twice), others are heartbreaking (a distraught teen asking forgiveness for an abortion, an unwed mother pleading with God to make the baby's father marry her). The letters — about 300 in all, sent to a New Jersey minister — ended up dumped in the ocean, most of them unopened.

The minister died two years ago at 79. How the letters, some dating to 1973, wound up bobbing in the surf is a mystery.

"There are hundreds of lives here, a lot of struggle, washed up on the beach," said Bill Lacovara, a Ventnor insurance adjuster who was fishing last month with his son when he spotted a flowered plastic shopping bag and waded out to retrieve it. "This is just a hint of what really happens. How many letters like this all over the world aren't being opened or answered?"
Many of the letters were addressed to the Rev. Grady Cooper, though many more simply said "Altar." According to the text of several of them, they were intended to be placed on a church's altar and prayed over by the minister, the congregation or both.

Some were neatly written in script on white-lined paper, others in a feverish scrawl on tattered scraps of parchment or note cards. Many were crinkled from being in the water and then dried out after Lacovara fished them out of the sea.

A dog-eared business card inside one of the letters identified Cooper as associate pastor of the Mount Calvary Baptist Church in Jersey City. A woman who answered the phone at the church office confirmed Cooper once was a minister there, and had died nearly two years ago. The current pastor did not return several calls from The Associated Press over the past few days.
Other documents in the bag, including bank statements and canceled checks, also listed Cooper's name and an address for him in Jersey City. A death certificate issued in 2004 for a Grady Cooper lists the same address as those on the bank documents and some of the letters.
His wife, Frances, whose name also showed up on some of the letters at the same address, died in 2000, according to Hudson County records.

No one answered the door last week at the address where Cooper once lived, and a neighbor said he did not recall anyone by that name. Attempts to locate Cooper's relatives were unsuccessful.

Lacovara speculated that someone cleaning out Cooper's home found the letters and threw them on the beach in Atlantic City, about 100 miles from Jersey City.

"I guess rather than just throw them in the garbage, maybe they thought they'd set them out to sea to bless these people," he said. "So they made a trip to Atlantic City, maybe went to a casino, and put the letters in the water."

The letters, wrapped in several smaller brown paper bags inside the larger plastic bag, did not appear to have been in the water too long, Lacovara said, though about half were too badly damaged to be legible.

He opened a few with his son, Rocky, on the beach. The first few were humorous.

"I'm still praying to hit the lottery twice: first the $50,000," one man wrote. "Than after some changes have taken place let me hit the millionaire."

Another asked God to make a certain someone "leave me alone and stay off my back," while still another asks God to calm a woman who "call the Internal Revenue on me."

One woman complained that her husband always talks about sex, and another writer anonymously dropped a dime to God on someone cheating on his wife, complete with dates, times and locations.

But those, Lacovara soon found, were the exception.

Many more were written by anguished spouses, children or widows, pouring out their hearts to God, asking for help with relatives who were using drugs, gambling or cheating on them. One man wrote from prison, saying he was innocent and wanted to be back home with his family. A woman wrote that her boyfriend was now closing the door to her daughter's bedroom each night when it used to stay open, and wondered why.

A teenager poured out her heart on yellow-lined paper in the curlicue pencil handwriting of a schoolgirl, begging God to forgive her and asking for a second chance.

"Lord, I know that I have had an abortion and I killed one of your angels," she wrote. "There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about the mistake I made."

One unwed mother wrote that her baby was due in four weeks, and asked God to make the father fall in love with her and marry her so the child would have a father.

Lacovara said he is sad that most of the writers never had their letters read. But he hopes to change that soon: He is putting the collection up for sale on eBay.

the predictable funk

so i think i'm in a double funk. the first funk is a result of missing e, dreading and worrying about this stupid iron thing, lack of sunshine and boredom with the job. all of which leads me to wanting to come home, change into loose cotton clothing and curling up to hide from all of the above. and i realized today that i have a secondary funk which comes from me feeling lazy and stressed from the first funk. tonight i had plans to go to the gym and i didn't because i wanted to come home and do nothing which in turn made me mad at myself and want to eat taco bueno. geez...this stuff gets out of control in my wee little brain.

tomorrow due to lunch and evening conflicts i'm going to attempt to go to the gym pre-work. i'm not going to even express my doubts of accomplishing this task.

on another depressing topic - tonight i listened to a podcast of npr's studio 360. there was story about hell houses and how a church in colorado sells hell house outreach kits. how to do a hell house effectively. after looking over the web site and the press, i see that this isn't a new thing but i was still shocked by it. and honestly i'm not sure why it surprised me.

happy friday.

iBaby

With iCrib speakers, the cradle will rock

WHAT'S HAPPENING

For parents who want to expand their baby's musical selection beyond the plinky-dink electronic renditions played by most lullaby toys, there's the iCrib speaker system from Munchkin.

With iCrib mounted to the side of Baby's bed, parents can pop in their iPod (or any MP3 player) and play digital DJ every night-night.

More than a song machine, iCrib also puts on a soothing display of rhythmic color with its built-in night light. Parents can pick from three modes: light, music or light-and-music.
An automatic volume limiter keeps decibel levels safe for tiny ears. Smart? iCrib won the 2006 Innovation Award from the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association.

WHAT THIS MEANS TO BUSINESS

Parents say "bye-bye!" to toys that beep-beep Bach. Baby deserves to hear music as it was intended – with actual notes, tones and texture.

Using personal music lists, Mom and Dad can expose little ones to a variety of music beyond classic kiddie tunes (which get old, fast). Plus, they can start shaping Baby's taste in music before Barney does.

RESOURCES iCrib sells for about $33 at Babies R Us, Target, Wal-Mart and other retailers. Munchkin is offering free downloads of Mozart compositions that have been arranged specifically for infants and toddlers.