yeah we did

so, roughly around 7:40 wednesday night, merritt and i sat around my apartment with our eyes going back and forth between the ugly reading vs. chelsea game and the even uglier alex trebek staring at us next to a countdown clock. we were pumped and ready to go for our online jeopardy contestant test. to bad we didn't actually do anything to prepare. sure, we did better than some (my weird fascination with the tudors came in handy as did my office's subscription to time magazine) but alas, we were thwarted by crap like ungulates and vicunas. you get 15 seconds per questions, which really isn't very much time to think and type. sadly, looking at the transcript, i only got 27 right. i suck. brain farts and stopwatch paranoia kept me from getting a couple more that i actually knew.

at least i know merritt got 2 that i didn't. maybe she'll make it to the next round of auditions and represent suck it accordingly.

she should be posting her update shortly....

UPDATE:
Hi, it's me nerver, reporting in...
Yeah, we sat in the same room shouting out answers and feverishly typing. I, for one, let forgetting to look at the category screw up at least two of my questions. One was concerning steroids. Hello, Mitchell report. Duh. Hopefully, they'll accept "Heisma" for Heisman Trophy since they claim partial and misspellings do often count. I should never have second guessed myself on where the Danube dumps out--my first instinct of Black Sea was right. Oh well.
Thanks to Jen for providing me with Bleak House. I returned the fave with sheer and Indonesia. I believe my total was 29 or 30 but I honestly can't remember what I put for the capital of Canada. Which also happens to be indicative of my freshman year of college.

In the Air Tonight

I don't know how long it's been around or how many people saw this before me, but I am currently obsessed with what I consider one of the best in random commercials.

If you can top that please advise.

International Male Is So Fabio-lous

So my work spouse was telling us how in college his household was somehow signed up to receive the International Male catalog. They'd peruse it's fine fashions meant for romance novel models and footballers on the night prowl and laugh and laugh and laugh. The Buzzer and I had no knowledge of this gem, so NWB promptly pulled up some choice selections. Some of them are horrendous, others are fantastically awful and others are totally Dallas:
The Ultimate Poet's Shirt (the ULTIMATE!! or the Puffy Shirt, according to Seinfeld)
The Big Rib Body Suit (ew)
The Classic Nightshirt (which Buzzer points out, would make pissing a two-handed job and therefore, it becomes an even bigger mystery why anyone would want this)
Commander Leather Waistcoat (fabulous name, but unfortunately must be worn with cross medallion)
Coyote Hooded Jacket (the ultimate in masculinity)
Adrian Sweater (should be called Huxtable Sweater)
I can't even link to the shorts.

not your mamma's canned meat

over at gizmodo i usually just scroll through entries. sure, working with game developers all day has taught me to hone my computer skills a bit, but too many acronyms can make a person's head go dizzy. so imagine my surprise when i happened across this: cheeseburger in a can. yeah, that's what i said.

i don't like that woman.

so this morning i see my slate news feed whatchamacalit tell me hillary clinton is tracy flick. and they'd be right.

time to feed the frogs -- who wants to see pictures?!?!

today's puzzle

is a game my company made for the saw 4 dvd release. you have to save these two guys using 5 "tools" without killing them.
good luck and have fun.

Danzig? Is That You?

The Legion of Rock Stars has outdone themselves. I thought nothing could be "Anyway You Want It" or "Jump" but I was real wrong. Behold: "Mother"

OK, fine. Maybe it doesn't top "Jump." You decide.

Thanks to Matty for the linkage.

hells yeah i got it.

ok, sure, it wasn't the most necessary purchase of the year, but, i gotta say, it was the best (remember, i got my wii last year). schmulen got one last week and, after playing with it for a bit, i went and got myself an eee pc friday night (mine's black). i loooooove it, as would any sane person. sure, it's not super-powerful/big/fit inside an inter-office envelope, bud damn if it isn't the bestest mini-computer ever. at less than 2 pounds, it can fit in my purse (literally) and does just about everything my home pc does with little effort. and don't let linux scare you -- it's super simple to use, but it is xp compatible if you insist on giving microsoft more of your money. love it. you know you want one.

as a side note, i have joined nerver in her love of top gear. yes, we are girls who watch shows about cars. go figure.

Best Video I've Ever Seen

today anyway.


"suspenso!" "goblin!"

snopes is a know it all bitch

or so we learn when google's parents leave town for the weekend and all the internet kids come out to play....

they're famous

australian "news" a coworker just pointed out:




she sounds like a teacher talking to a 3rd grader...

a brain teaser of sorts

k, i'll send a pretty present to the first person with the correct answer to this question (my co-workers and brother aren't allowed to play):

there's a bus with seven girls. each girl has seven backpacks, and in each back pack there are seven cats, and each cat has seven kittens. how many legs are on the bus?



also, jeopardy! is having online testing at the end of the month, so everyone get to registering here. how awesome would it be for me to make it on to the show and then tell alex all about suck it? perhaps we should have some practice testing....

gimme gimme

we all know how much i love polar bears. damn cuties. i would blame my obsession with klondike and snow, but it turns out i've been in love with 'em since i was a wee little girl. so now i'm crazy happy about the new days-old polar bear cub in germany. first they got knut, and know this one. sheesh. where's mine? there's all sorts of controversy about the whole should they or shouldn't they have taken the cub away from the momma bear, but we're not going to get into that right now. for now, we're just going to stare at cute pictures of fuzzy white animals. until the video hits youtube....

and i totally need to learn german so i can know what this page says....

politics schmolitics

yeah, ok, i know i'm the last person who should talk politics around here, but who knows. i've flipped though my copy of the undecided voter's guide to the next president while soaking in the tub a few times, and eventually i plan on having good reasons for choosing who i vote for in a few months, reasons that involve something more than "she just seems like a bitch" or "he has a funny laugh,"or "my newphew would look cute in that bib."

my newest source of info (via co-worker james) is the baby primary. they say that kids and animals have a sixth sense when it comes to sizing people up, and they may be right....

please welcome

sweet little man sid.

jennifer (and no, i'm not speaking in the third person) went and got herself a new puppy to grace our pet-happpy apartment complex, and i must say he's damn cute. everyone congratulate her and visit the sweetie before i kidnap him and give him to lucy.

also, i'm getting my flickr page updated, and picks will be a plenty in the coming days. once i kick this damn flu-like plague that has attacked my system.

My New Blog Service...

So I get this from my Dad:

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the prof noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?" The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd. Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that the y have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America. The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax
credit for unearned income, tax cuts, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths: There is no such thing as a free lunch and you can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

If you see that all of this wonderful government'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you might want to send this on to your friends. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably delete this email. But God help you when the gate slams shut!

I responded with this:

I have to point out one thing that always bugs me when I read this. First of all, the exchange student compares what he's seen in his country to what the government here is doing? Then why would he move here to study after he fought it off?

One reason (which is conveniently lacking from the list of supposedly heinous handouts from the gov.): educational assistance. I have to applaud the government for what educational assistance they do provide. If anyone ever got a school grant, a gov. loan or even a scholarship, I can't really criticize the promotion of education.

On a side note: Drug assistance keeps both my mother and my grandmother in abusurdly expensive diabetes medication. It actually provides a little freedom where a disease has truly fenced them in.

So...I've decided to offer a new service, dear readers. After prodding from my sister and many of these forwards and responses with my Pops, I encourage anyone who has a hard time responding to their ultra-conservative (or, so we don't pigeon-hole here, generally unfounded and uneducated, which end up often being ultra-conservative in topic) parental forwards to submit the forward to me. I will be happy to supply family-appropriate responses on a first-come, first-served basis. This includes the Obama/Clinton assassination theory, the Obama pledge back-turning, really old anti-Sheehan propaganda that is somehow still floating around and lots of other things. I often include links to a variety of news media and not to toot my own horn, but after much hard work, my mom watches The Daily Show. Send 'em in, peeps. Send 'em in.
LYLAS,
nerver.
ps. Though I am a bit of a lefty, let me say I don't hold it against people for their conservative beliefs. I know many conservatives with valid reasons for their standing. It just seems that fewer liberals send forwards not having to do with charity organizations. The right-wingers are more forward-friendly. No offense, peeps. This is a service to educate not judge. Word.