America Foils Again

My aunt Jules sent this to me and I realized that everyone that I would want to send this to that would understand why I think it's so funny, reads my blog. Instead of just clicking 'forward,' I clicked copy, paste and here's the joke:

New terrorist organisation

A public school teacher was arrested today at John F.Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashcroft said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of maths instruction. "Al-gebra is a problem for us," Ashcroft said. "They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'."

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of Maths instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

Some visits from the homeland

Wow, the eighth visit to my blog today was from Israel. I would check and see how they found my blog, but my compy is on the fritz. It probably has to do with looking for a shmear distributor, or looking for relatives. Who knows? It could get a little scary though. Scary in a cool "hey I have had 5 site visits from Israel" kinda way. Will blog about pianos later. You see some cool ones in serivce. You can also find out that a good friend of yours has a Yamaha grand and has invited you to come play it. Sweet.

8. 12 September 14:24 Bezeq International, Israel

Naming Names + Housing update

I totally stole this from P. June's yahoo blog, but I haven't done this sort of thing in SO long and this one was one that I liked way back when.

My 10 Names

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet and current street name): Jock Hill Creek (uh, if we had stopped at "hill" it might have had some potential)

2. YOUR MOVIE STAR NAME: (grandfather/grandmother on your mom's side, your favorite candy): Thyra Truffles (I had to leave this one because not only do we have the same grandmother, evidently, we have the same favorite candy.)

3. YOUR "FLY GIRL/GUY" NAME: (first initial of first name, first two or three letters of your middle name): Mcar (that's not fly at all)

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal): Purple Panda (Oh, that one cracks me up)

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born): Caroline Decatur (Gosh, we were born in he same city too! We could appear in a sitcom later like Hope and Faith.)

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name, first 2 letters of mom's maiden name and first 3 letters of the town you grew up in.): Gremehysne (OK, is that even pronounceable?)

7. SUPERHERO NAME: ("The", your favorite color, favorite drink): The Purple Mojito (This one cracks me up too.)

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first name of both your grandfathers): Charles Leroy (Really, this doesn't work if you're stealing it from someone you're related to...)

9. FUTURISTIC NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne and the name of your favorite shoes): Ralph Nine West (Again, really can't take this from someone you're a lot alike either...and that doesn't even sound futuristic!)

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother/father's middle name and the next name you hear on the tv/radio/talk): Laurie Mehsha (I actually heard her real name, but we can't put that here can we? It does sound like a pretty cool name though.)

Housing Update! Let's all gather round. We close on the new house on September 22nd. Yeah, 2 weeks away. That just means that by October, we can be getting settled in and having people out and over. I'm getting excited! We did calls back in that neighborhood this afternoon and Eliza was in our car group and asked which house it was. So we drove back there and back the totally cool drive way to the awesome house. So there are about six people that know where we will be living already. Don't tell mom and dad. Where we will be living is supposed to be on the down low. It's a very nice neighborhood (good grief, it has a golf course) and dad doesn't want people to start thinking things. Anyway, so mom went out there to set up closet options and then to pick out door knobs and door handles for drawers and such. There is a wood swatch on the floor in the kitchen here, and I suppose that's for me. My room is the only part of the house that needs to be hard wood before we move it, but it will probably end up being done shortly after we move in, but mom says it needs to be done ASAP. The carpet is a shag type stuff and would give me bad allergy problems. But otherwise, the rest of the house, besides the four bedrooms upstairs, is already hard woods and mom was really sold on that. We have to get a frige, but everything else is already there, and is stainless steel. The old washer and dryer are coming and will be what I will still be using for the time being. All I told mom was that they still (kinda) work, and there's no sense in getting new ones yet. I'll keep you all updated, but that's about all I can think of right now.

Country Club Chic

Well, hasn't it just been the busy past four days? Maybe not for y'all, but for me it has been. So lets do a brief recap:

Friday: Service. After all, it was my first day of CONTINUOUS AUXILIARY PIONEERING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!! Can you tell? I'm already behind though, but not by but an hour or so. I couldn't have stood any more of Friday morning service though. There was a odd number out, but a lot of people showed up at O.C. field service, so I'm not going to complain about the odd number. What I am going to gripe about here for a minute is being sandwiched in the third row of the van. The worst part was I was back there with the love birds. Feather was up from West Palm for the weekend. Don't get me wrong. I love love love Feather. What I don't like is being in the back seat with Feather and Jammies. From Deborah Clasky's I was supposed to jet off to the library to take the rest of my French exam. At 12:30, mom called and said that my proctor said that the tape still hasn't come. My French teacher needs to get her act together. The exam and final grade for the course was supposed to be turned in by this Thursday. So much for that. It's not my fault either. I was ready to take the exam a whole month before this date and things could have been turned in on time if I had not been sent the tape for year 2 of French. I took the new found hour to nap before chasing Contessa around the neighborhood. I talked to her dad about it this time because she left the garage without asking and then I gained another girl from across the street. She was not part of the deal, but their neighborhood is SO the epitome of suburban. All the kids get home from school by 3:30 and they all play at each other's houses until about 6:00. Then it's time for dinner. It's weird. The moms don't give a flying flip where their kids are because they know that they will end up at home sometime before dinner.

Saturday: UGA GAME!!!! More excitement, but once again, in the car with Jammies and Feather. I'm skipping the majority of the details here because they all concern Andy Clasky and I talking about...stuff. We won. Of course. Screamed my lungs out. I had to pick them up off the peanut and whiskey covered stands. Almost had an allergic reaction. I did pretty good. It was against Western Kentucky University. They have the funniest looking mascot. Then we had Ricky Bobby and his son calling them the warts. Caleb Bobby was cute though. His dad kept saying that he was going to play for UGA one day. You keep thinking that Ricky. The only way Caleb is going to play is if he's really smart and can get in or he's super good at football and gets in. It's getting harder to get into my farming college out here. We ate dinner with Jammies and Feather. It made me a little heart sick. That night, I half way rooted for Tech. It looked like they might beat Notre Dame there for a minute. Oh well.

Sunday: GREAT talk that morning. Too tired to get my required weekend 2 hrs. That's why I'm behind. Chilled at home. Pay-per-viewed She's the Man. I laughed SO hard. Cat napped all day.

Monday: So I had plans with Biscuit, Andy, and Sweet as Sugar. There's no other way to describe Andy's girlfriend. She's been through so much and still manages to see nothing but the absolute best in the crummiest person. Andy and Biscuit didn't get back from dove hunting until noon and by that time, mom had already said that I was coming with she and Mehsha to the mall. I didn't want to shop for what I was being made to shop for. I'd rather just not wear one at all. So then I missed Sugar's visit. She called me today and said she was disappointed. We were all supposed to go to the Elder covered bridge and swim in the swimming hole. They got to. I was at the mall and for once, I didn't want to be there. SHOCKER! No really. It is. Mehsha wants to start running, so I took her to the park and while she jogged, I walked behind exploring the contents of my MP3 player, looking for something upbeat. She jogged around for 45 minutes. It was about 2 miles. I don't mind taking her. Dad wants me to start walking again anyway, especially since I didn't get to swim this summer and already have quite the sinus infection. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it's my responsibility to get Mehsha to the park. Crashed Lappy. I did it, well, actually, my creative zen did it. I got the scariest blue screen yet. It was one that I had never seen before on any computer. It told me that it was dumping the memory. I just about screamed. Mom did. So Lappy is going for a check up tomorrow. We booted it back up and NOTHING was there. It wanted us to load on all the software, which belongs to my mom's work, so we don't have it. Mom and I are pretty sure that it was the Creative Zen software that messed up the laptop's system. This old Dell gives us the blue screen all the time. It's it's "I give up" screen. Honestly, this poor Dell doesn't have the components that it takes to run some of the stuff that we make it run. It was formatted to be part of a network and it isn't any more. Me crashing the laptop for the second time in a year sent mom the message that Mehsha and I probably need our own computer to run all of our stuff on instead of the one that her work provides. I may help pay for it, since I would like for it to be mine. With all my online classes, it only seems logical for me to have my own compy, as well as the music that I started keeping on the lappy now that I have my MP3 player. Dang...I didn't get to put my videos on it...and those are gone. Oh well.

Today was my first FULL day of service. Squished in the third row again, but we did a lot of musical chairs and then Andy let me get in the front seat for the afternoon since the group of 15 suddenly shrunk to 4 including one that had to go to a study and I always take the House to House records. So it was three of us out for most of the time. It was almost just Andy and me, but that's not right. Came home, napped, played piano and got some good news as far as problem #2- or the housing one, which ever number it got. So half of the problem is solved, we're putting a contract on a house bigger than our last one in THE AWESOMEST neighborhood I've ever lived in. Y'all are the first to know, so keep it on the down low for a bit. A week or so ago, we decided that no matter what, we were going to be in Lane Creek Plantation. Holy cow y'all. We put an offer on this house on a beautiful lot. The house is "eh," but it's FAR bigger and better than the one we are in. Mehsha and I have already decided where we are setting up the air hockey table so that I can kick her butt at it all over again. It hasn't been played since January. Andy and Biscuit have already asked when they can come over and play it. That's probably the thing that has me the most excited, besides that I get my own bathroom. FINALLY! I had one at the Tucker house, but it didn't matter then. I didn't have to share anything then. The best thing about this neighborhood is that although we are probably going into debt to get this house, it will go up in value. Most likely significantly too. IT'S GOT A GOLF COURSE!!!! If you click on the link, it tells you when it reopens. Dad knows the pro that has redone the course, and dad says that there is no way that this course isn't going to be great to play. Best of all, it's in our neighborhood. How much more convenient can you get?! When we first started looking out there, the course looked awful. It looks better every time we drive by now. Mom says it's going to be the country club of the O.C. People at school already think that Mehsha is "rich." When she tells them that she lives in Lane Creek, she'll never hear the end of it. A lot of really nice $550,000 and up homes are being built back there and there are others like the one that we have a contract on that fit our budget better. Although the parents have said it's not our problem to worry about, us kids are well aware of the changes that will have to be made for us to comfortably afford this house. Dad doesn't seem worried, but mom is a little anxious, as always though. So, who's coming to visit? Now, we have five bedrooms and a basement so we could stuff people everywhere! I can finally have that big group out for service that I have been wanting to have for eight months now. We'll have a designated office separate from the guest room and all that jazz. Tentative closing date I think is September 29th and we have to be out of the rental by the 30th. Believe me. We will.

Johnna Doe

I've only got a few to do this, but I would like to say that I've found my true love, at least for now. It's small, black, fits in my pocket, and has all my music on it. Well, almost all of it. I spent probably 8 or 9 hours ripping music on Tuesday, so I'm burned out on putting the remaining 20 or so on the computer to sync it. Those are the ones that I have to t-y-p-e in all the info for so they don't come up "unknown" on the player. This is not only the most expensive item I own (the Jeep is not in my possession today), but it's the coolest item I own. I decided to go ahead and spend every last penny I had on it (and it's warranty plan) on Monday because Best Buy has it on sale. Really, I would have rather had the white. It looks cleaner and you wouldn't be able to see my greasy thumb prints all over the key pad, but I couldn't find it for the same price anywhere out here in the boonies. Nobody had the white one out here, so I tried online and I couldn't find the white one for the same price online anywhere either. Price was what mattered since I already knew this one was what I wanted. Don't speak to me about iPods. For the past few days, "Johnna Doe" has been taking up my time. That's Mehsha's temporary name for it. Personally, I'm not one for naming objects, unless you call adding -ie to the end of anything naming it (i.e.- cellie, jeepie, etc.), but Mehsha wants to name it. Right now, it's genderless so she's just calling it "Johnna Doe"- a cross between John and Jane...to her anyway. If she doesn't come up with something better soon, it won't get named at all. There is this weird thought in my mind to call it yrollam, just because it looks the same and that became synonymous with MP3 players of this type a few months ago. That would be wrong, creepy, gross, etc., but it was just a weird feeling. It won't look like that one for long. I still have these cool fuzzy stickers and I'm debating on if I want to cover it with the cool stickers. That'll probably be a NO in the end since mom wants to make covers for it, and I know how bad stickers stick when they get hot. We're going to the fabric store to pick out what I want sometime next week. Maybe Monday. I'd rather make my own than pay for the ONLY one that they carry for it at Best Buy that's all black anyway and it's $30 or $40 bucks. It came with a little sack to keep it in, and that's doing the protecting job for now. I'm thinking light pink leather for the case...or RED leather. That decision will be made when I get there. Leopard print fabric would look totally awesome if mom did the whole front in plastic/vellum type stuff like she wants to. It's definitely worth the money. I don't care about all the specs or the rest of it, but I would like to say thank you to two readers who know who they are that helped me figure out MP3 players, and why this one fits what I wanted better than others.

So far, I'm still figuring out what all is on there, but one song did come up that I've been listening to only once a day that I had thrown in the trash. I can't find quite the suitable audio, so here come the lyrics:

"Unsent"

By Alanis Morissette

Dear Matthew: I like you a lot I realize you're in a relationship with someone right now and I respect that I would like you to know that if you're ever single in the future and you want to come visit me in California I would be open to spending time with you and finding out how old you were when you wrote your first song

Dear Jonathan: I liked you too much I used to be attracted to boys who would lie to me and think solely about themselves and you were plenty self-destructive for my taste at the time I used to say the more tragic the better the truth is whenever I think of the early 90's your face comes up with a vengeance like it was yesterday

Dear Terrance: I love you muchly you've been nothing but open hearted and emotionally available and supportive and nurturing and consummately there for me I kept drawing you in and pushing you away I remember how beautiful it was to fall asleep on your couch and cry in front of you for the first time you were the best platform from which to jump beyond myself what was wrong with me

Dear Marcus: You rocked my world you had a charismatic way about you with the women and you got me seriously thinking about spirituality and you wouldn't let me get away with kicking my own ass but I could never really feel relaxed and looked out for around you though and that stopped us from going any furter than we did and it's kinda too bad because we could've had much more fun

Dear Lou: We learned so much I realise we won't be able to talk for sometime and I understand that as I do you the long distance thing was the hardest and we did as well as we could we were together during a very tumultuous time in our lives I will always have your back and be curious about you about your career your whereabouts

I LOVE THAT SONG!

Internet revives the radio star

About two years ago, I discovered that Yahoo! had started something called LAUNCHcast. It was their online radio. You have to have an account with them for it to work, but on my old account, I had build up quite a collection of rated songs. Thursday, I got a link for Pandora, as most of you guys probably did too. I started playing with this yesterday and started finding some similarities and differences, lending me to prefer Pandora over LAUNCHcast.

The LAUNCHcast concept is similar to that of Pandora: creating specially formatted radio stations for you to listen to. With Yahoo's thing though, you create only one radio station especially formatted for you. First, you have to go though each main category of music like jazz, hip hop, rock, alternative, etc. If you click on a certain category, then it drops down and you get to chose from about 12 mainstream artists most closely associated with that genera. You can click them all or just one. It then creates your own station, so you have, like with mine, (Disclaimer: right now it doesn't really reflect my music tastes, but what I recently rated last time I listened) the genres listed are reggae, electronic/dance, and country. Not sure where those three came from. Usually it says something more like "adult alternative," rock, and jazz/ R & B. It plays songs from the major musicians that I picked and then it recommends songs from all the decades. Some obscure and others mainstream. Now let's break it down that you have the basics for Yahoo's radio.

First, lets go for the most annoying aspect of both of these online radio stations: advertisements. With Yahoo, it's overbearing. On your own personal radio station, you have unlimited skips until you get to 500 songs in a month, but about every 5 songs, you get a commercial, mostly advertising for you to upgrade and get a subscription. Sometimes it's for concerts in your area, or who ever is currently sponsoring the commercial free radio stations because there are two or three of those daily that have limited skips but no commercials. Right now it's Pepsi and Crest toothpaste. On the other radio stations, you get commercials about every 3 songs. (There are about 30 different stations that are open for listening to if you don't subscribe, but then it jumps up to about 70, or something close to that, if you subscribe.) So far, I've been listening to Pandora for about 3 or 4 hours and all I've gotten was one visual advertisement for Rock Star: Supernova. That sight was a little disturbing (Hello?! Who isn't creeped out by Tommy Lee?), but I have it minimized most of the time, so I don't see the visual ones. No audio advertisements at all. That was the biggest thing that won me over.

The rating system. Here, I have to say I favor Yahoo's way of doing things. They let you rate the artist, album, and song all differently. I find that very useful because for instance, with the White Stripes album White Blood Cells, that album isn't my ABSOLUTE favorite of theirs (Elephant!! Woot Woot!!), so I have 4 different levels of how I can rate all three different aspects of the song. I would give the band the fourth/highest level, the album the third/next highest level, and if the radio station was playing Aluminum, I would give it the lowest/first level because that song STILL gives me the jibblies after 7 years. Since I've rated all these things separately, I know that I'll still hear tons of the White Stripes, more of White Blood Cells, but I'll never have to fear hearing Aluminum and getting the jibblies again! Yay! The perfect situation. With Pandora, I've already had them play a song that I love love love by an artist that I'm not crazy about, so I had no choice but to click the thumbs up button for the song, but I have to wait for them to individually play each song from that artists and rate it when it comes along on the station that I created. That's one thing that I can do with Yahoo also. I can search for songs, albums, artists and rate them without ever having to hear them play. So I can completely avoid ever having Enrique Iglesias even though I rated Ricky Martin highly. Just kidding...maybe... If Pandora has that option, I just haven't found it yet in my site exploration. I know I can add artists to a station that I have already created, which I did. When I created my White Stripes station, I immediately added the Raconteurs and Led Zeppelin, just because they go together like peanut butter and jelly (just not around me).

As far as the music goes, on my personalized station, I was introduced to the New P's, The Jam, Blue Merle (one of my favorite "sounds like Coldplay" bands), etc., but it's not much of a let's look for underground artists kinda thing. So far, with Pandora, I've found at least 3 artists (one from each of the stations that I've created) that I've never heard of but have the major possibility of falling in love with. There are far more obscure artists on Pandora versus Yahoo, though Yahoo has a larger music database. This was the winning feature of Pandora. We all know I favor anything no one else has heard of. After all, doesn't it sound insanely cool when you get to say that the latest band you're into is either a local or a total unknown? Then you give the person a copy and spread the word and hope that they keep that indie spirit in their music. So far, the station that I favor is my White Stripes station, though I've heard of most of the artists that they are playing, maybe not the songs though. I also created one for Tori Amos, which we might as well rename "Women that play piano, kinda sing (but Tori can sing), and write angsty music" station, which is going to be nice when I'm in that kind of a mood. Yahoo offers a feature like this where you create different stations for different moods, but you have to pay $3 a month for that.

Over all, Pandora fits me better. More unknowns and less commercials. Their rating system could be better, but I'm not complaining for fear they might up the commercial playing. With my stations, I'm being very selective with what I add because I don't want to just throw all my stuff into one bin, and that's my solution for keeping things that I don't want played, not played. I'm trying to stay within the genera. I want my ducks scattered in this game.

Someone did something wrong and it wasn't ME!

French Exam right? I took care of problem #6 so that I could focus on this thing today. I was geared up for ace-ing this test, and I could have...had I had the right listening tape. There are five sections to a French exam. I decided I would get the culture, reading, writing, and grammar done before I did the listening part since it is usually the easiest for me. I finished all but the writing and went to do the ecoute (to listen) part and it was the wrong tape. The exam I was taking was French 11F. My teacher sent me the tape for French 12F exam, the second semester of my class. My proctor and I decided that she should call and we would reschedule. Now, I am brimming with self confidence. Not only do I now have more time to study, I know exactly what to study. There was one cultural question about Quebec and it was asking what would you want to visit if you went. Well, there was one place that I wasn't sure of the spelling of so now I can REALLY kick this exam's butt. Can anyone say "I'm getting an A on this test?" I can. I mentioned this to my proctor and she was like, "This is their problem and it's not like they are going to make up a different test for you just because you've seen this one, not unless that's what they usually do. It's their fault. I think they should wave your grade." AMEN!!! Then I'd have an A on the course anyway. Another burden lifted and some time for more studying. Oh yeah...

After being thoroughly happified first by seeing how easy the test was and then realizing that I now have more time to study, I decided to take a little joy ride down the county line. It only took about 30 minutes to get home instead of 5, but it was one of the most beautiful rides I've taken down some of those roads. While I was taking my exam, or the part that I could finish, it rained a medium summer rain. I decided to put in The New P's Electric Version, one of the few that I kept out when I put away my CDs. Instead of just taking 53 on back home, I went 441 to 186 to Cole Springs. Something dawned on me too driving down 186, it was: "Hey, I have a call there I need to make, and they're home NOW!!" I was completely out in the boonies and that was the first thought that came to mind. It tickled me, but then I thought, "YES!!! Pioneer spirit!!!" If I had not been in my very relaxed clothes (ie- Weezer shirt and oversized gauchos), I so would have stopped. I had the magazines ready and everything. The countryside had a slight misty feel about it. Things had cooled off, so I turned the air conditioning down low and put down the windows. The outside smelled good, and that's a rarity considering how many cows and horses are out here when it's hot. Going down Cole Springs, there is a stretch of land that has a few barns and a large pond. It almost had close to a fog over it and it looked so peaceful with the cows laying out there. Wish I had a camera then. I've never seen that road look more serene. I slowed way down since no one was behind me and I turned the music down for the effect. It was one of the most satisfying joy rides I've had since I got my license. As I flew (literally- the tires weren't on the ground) down my favorite curvy road with the windows down and the music up as far as it goes, I got a few honks and smiles and it rocked just as much as The New P's do. The only thing that kinda disappointed me was that last Friday I blew the dash speaker in Jeepie so the windshield didn't vibrate like it usually does. All in all, I was very satisfied.

Then something wrong again, but this time, it's not really wrong, but it is me. I went to pick up Mehsha because I needed to talk to her and help her to understand what's going on. She's still mad at me as high heaven and started crying when she got in the car with me. No talking happened. I hope she will eventually understand, but I can't worry about her because what she's worried about doesn't matter since she has the wrong idea. That's Mehsha for you though. In picking her up from school, I found out why she wants an L.L. Bean backpack and started wearing ribbons in her hair. There's no variety in the girls at that school. Even less with the guys. The monotony was depressing. Please keep Mehsha in mind. I never thought it would be this hard on her.