LolOffice?

I must have lied about bedtime. Before I crash... Two of my favorite things - one guilty pleasure, one totally justified and awesome one - have united.

LOLCATS + The Office.

OfficeTally, every Office nerd's favorite blog, is running a lolcat Office contest - you just make a lolcat with an Office quote. I'm too tired to look at all of them, but here's one that builds off of one of the best Office quotes everrrr!!! (Get my meta-reference there?)


Ok, it's not the most hilarious thing, but it's hilarious that these exist. And I will explain more about my inexplicable affection for lolcats later. That would take way too much time.

(Lolcat from OfficeTally commenter "Pamela Dean")

I love LA?

I flew from San Francisco to LA today, home for a whole week for Thanksgiving. Words cannot express how thrilled I am to be somewhere I have almost no friends, where I can just sit around. It's sort of sad that I have to leave town in order to really force myself to relax and get sleep and watch those Netflix that have been sitting around since September. But, here I am.

Leaving a week early for thanksgiving as an "adult" somehow reminded me of that first Thanksgiving weekend during college, when leaving those friends you'd known for two months felt absolutely traumatic and wrenching. Breaks always felt like that back then. Now, life is much faster paced... things move so much faster, it's almost like we don't have time to feel wrenched. Either that, or we're just more mature.

Sometimes when I'm talking to someone who is leaving town for a bit, or when I'm leaving, or what have you, I end up talking like we're not going to see or communicate with each other for a painful or at least inconvenient amount of time, but the reality is that we are all online again within minutes. Or sending text messages. Or something. I guess when I was a freshman in school, I didn't have a phone, and I didn't sit around on IM over break - at least not all the time. So communication was less frequent over breaks back then. Because I have this weird, visceral memory for temperatures and lighting, I am currently flashing back to winter break freshman year. I remember talking to Pablo online, and I remember an e-mail from Miguel who had just watched Bridget Jones and, and this should speak to the fact that it was freshman year and I know weird people, felt like the "Nice guys don't kiss like that -- oh yes they fucking do" was really validation of his entire "nice guy" shtick. I feel like it was cool that year here, and sort of blue and shadowy. I think I remember someone calling me on New Year's Eve... which baffles me a bit, partly because I can't remember who.

It's very upsetting to me that my entire, embarrassing, awesome Diaryland.com diary has disappeared. It documents not only those first breaks, but my entire last year of high school -- a formative moment for anyone I should think.

As usual, upon my arrival to LA I felt like I was coming into a bit of a foreign land, and I felt as though I hadn't been here in ages, although the reality was I was here in September, for a weekend. It is a strange place -- it looks different from everywhere else. The smog is sort of weirdly futuristic feeling, like: post-apocalyptic. And I'm saying that on a pretty clear day. I was thinking about this today -- I don't think I couldn't ever live here again, even though I love San Francisco and the Bay Area. It's more like -- if I lived here, I would become a worse, or at least lazier, less challenged, version of myself. It's kind of easy to live here, everything is at your fingertips, everything comes to you, everything in LA takes 20 minutes (to quote Cher Horowitz' dad), you drive everywhere. The sad thing is that I'm kind of prone towards taking the easier option, possibly in part because I grew up here, and also just cause I think I can be kind of lazy, or stressed enough not to consider the possibilities that may not be totally obvious, whatever it is. So I can see it being easy to settle into a routine here, but I wouldn't want to do that.

Still, it's nice for a holiday. All I've done thus far since arriving here is help (er, I trimmed green beans and drank some chardonnay in the kitchen) make dinner, eat dinner, watched on DVR the winning play Stanford made against USC earlier this fall (it was so awesome, really -- I mean, the sheer horror on the faces of the SC fans), watched three episodes of Jeopardy Tournament of Champions, and stand/sit around talking to my parents. This is exactly what I want my vacation to be.

And, since its now 10:58, I believe it's my bedtime. This is great.

Looking ahead

Off to go see Superbad in the Haight. I know I have been a bad blogger today. Mostly I've been paralyzed with happiness that it's Friday. I'll write more tomorrow.

Obama!

I've been in a real slump about the current Democratic candidates for President in 2008. I loved Obama early on and then I felt like he succumbed to the politicky infighting (with other Democrats!) that he claimed to be above and against. But yesterday he spoke at work, and I feel really good about him again. He is clearly very smart, really thinking about the issues, does not try to spin questions into something that he can answer with canned responses about something entirely off-topic, and I really just think he cares. I've seen plenty of other people speak (Hillary and Edwards both) and they are just so overly polished and mechanized-seeming. I like Obama's genuineness, and I like his idealism, and I want him to succeed at this campaign because I think he can do something to fix things. (Oh yeah, and I like his policies, too.)

Here's the video of his talk yesterday:



(P.S. My favorite part was when he talks about how he is impatient with the status quo.)

Buying Books, and reading them, eventually

Well, I totally blew the From the Stacks Reading Challenge already, kind of like I knew I would. Not that I am not reading books from the stacks, but that I bought a bunch of books yesterday. I'm quite excited about the new purchases though. I got:

-Second Sex, because Cristina and I were talking about how it's hard to be a woman, and I need to put my money or reading material where my mouth is and actually read some feminist stuff
-Essential Feminist Reader (ditto)
-Full-Frontal Feminism, by Jessica Valenti, the founder of Feministing, a blog which I love
-Friday Night Lights (the book), because I've had to say "No, I haven't read the original book" about 80 times when discussing my love of the TV show, and because it's supposed to be realy good
-The Human Stain, because it was $3 and Julia says it's one of her absolute favorites

I'm pretty thrilled. I also got "Love, Actually" on DVD because I always rent it once at Christmas time, and for $9 I can just own it and never rent it again.

Anyway, with that admission of total weakness in the face of Amazon, friends who have read more than I have, and Super Saver Shipping, here are my From the Stacks books, which I am going to read by January 31:

-The Satanic Verses (100 pages in already)
-Cloud Atlas (made it through part 1 once, and then put it down.)
-The God of Small Things (I've read the first half of this twice, and can't believe I haven't finished it)
-The Corrections (I feel like a bad reader of modern literature for not having read this)
-Jesus' Son (because I borrowed it from Renee about a year ago and still haven't read past the middle. Also, because it's shorter than all the rest of these and I think I'll need a break from the tomes for a while.)

Runners up, which I will read if I don't have other things that are more enticing:
-Book Thief (a Valentine's present from my mom, which I have not even opened, even though I want to read it and it's supposed to be really good)
-White Noise (I was supposed to read it for class and did not finish, plus again, I feel like a bad hipster/reader of modern lit for not having read it)

Oh, I'm sorry, does "Moment of Zen" not count as a post?

I think it does. But at any rate, I am posting again, briefly again. I had an actually lovely day, or, I should say, a lovely evening. My friends Matt and Julia took me out for a belated birthday dinner at Tamarine, in Palo Alto. I'd never been there, and always wanted to go. It was delicious and didn't feel too fancy, even though it was filled with Silicon Valley business people. Probably my favorite thing food wise was the scallop curry that Julia and I shared (we ordered strategically, as Matt doesn't eat seafood, and Julia rarely eats red meat, and I eat everything, and it worked perfectly). The curry had three squashes in it - the little yellow regular squashes, zucchini, and butternut (or maybe it was yam...?). Whatever it was, that butternut thing was cooked to perfection - I could have eaten a whole meal made up just of little perfectly-soft-firm-teeth-just-slide-through squash cubes. Ok, possibly not, but damn, that was good.

What was better was just having a quiet dinner with Matt and Julia. The past year of my life has brought a lot of new people and Matt and Julia are two of the best. I feel calmer when I am with them, more centered, more certain of myself and what I want. It's amazing when other people can do that for you. I miss Matt & Julia since I moved to the city, and when I say I miss them, I mean I miss hanging out with them, but I also mean that I feel a sort of lack where I think if I saw them more often I wouldn't feel it. (I guess it's a lack of that calm feeling.) So it's good to see them.

Christmas lights are starting to go up on my street. I'm excited. Even Dan, who last week claimed he hated Christmas, bought some lights and a timer and has all kinds of artistic plans, apparently, for their hanging. I am plotting Christmas cards already... and for some reason despite my epic to-do list of things this fall, I think I will be able to get going on my holiday gift-giving plans. Perhaps the grayer weather, with its non-dazzling sunlight, is calming my mind a bit and I am seeing clearer. Whatever it is, I feel pretty happy and centered tonight, and that's a wonderful thing.

Moment of Zen

Ace bought me and Dan matching glass "log" candle holders for our birthdays. Sunday night in my exhausted state all I could really do was gaze at them. Our house can be quite lovely when low-lit. (You can just spot the succulent garden behind the candles.)

Veronica Mars nostalgia

I only know two people who have been disappointed in Veronica Mars after they started watching it. Seriously, it's so good. I delayed watching it for ages and then finally after about four friends told me I just had to, I borrowed it and promptly became obsessed. It's just really good and clever and in one show there are about 8 different genres. Sadly, it got canceled, but the director/cast made a few "mini pilots" showing what the fourth season could have been like - where Veronica is now in the FBI. As Entertainment Weekly put it, it's kind of like Alias, without Rambaldi, and therefore it is pretty damn awesome. I miss this show. It was such a great viewing experience - the kind you turn down invitations for. (I mean that.)

Part One:


Part Two:


Believe it or not, I'm going to bed right now. I am very excited about sleep.

the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Every once in a while I'm totally tingly-in-awe of an actor or a writer or a singer or something. I have to admit I get that feeling watching just the preview of Sweeney Todd, starring Johnny Depp and, I did not know until now, Alan Rickman. Yippee. I don't know if the movie is going to be good, but Johnny Depp is just so good and creepy and weird. He manages to be good and creepy and weird in everything but always in a slightly different way, which is pretty impressive for someone so distinctive looking. Here's the preview:

Juno

WAY excited about this.

Owls again

This is why owls are so darn cute!!

Look at them! They are fuzzballs.

Crawling back into my hole of shame now.

(via CuteOverload)

Armistice Day

I know I quoted this last year, plus I'm a day late. But it's too good. I think we should read this quote ever year, kind of like Casey reads "The Grapes of Wrath" every year.

When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.

Armistice Day has become Veterans' Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans' Day is not.

So I will throw Veterans' Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.

What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.

And all music is.

--Kurt Vonnegut, Nov 11, 1922-April 11, 2007

I kind of consider him a sacred thing, to me.

Facebook News Network

This is old news but kind of also hilarious and worth posting. Parody can be so easy sometimes.

NaBloPoMo Weekend Roundup 2

*whew*

What a weekend. I'm exhausted. But it was good.

Started in a rush Friday night because it was my roommate Dan's birthday. He'd put off planning until the last, last minute (I admit, it was driving me crazy) and then pulled it together in style. We had a take-out potluck - we each brought food from a different restaurant and then just ate it at our place. It was a impressive spread. We had food from all corners of San Francisco and the globe: Chinese from the Tenderloin, French and Pizzeria Delfina and tacos from the Mission, sushi from the Inner Sunset, Indian from the Lower Haight. It was a great way to try a few new places and it was also nicely representative of our friends in the city -- sort of sums up where we all live. Then Dan has assigned us to all be on our A game as far as dressing up to go out. I wish I had some pictures since I sort of love my outfit. Basically, I wore this blue and red sort of silky 60s style dress that I got at H&M like 8 months ago and have never worn, plus red tights and a navy cloche hat that I bought literally years ago and have almost never worn for obvious reasons (hello? cloche?). I felt like I really took it to a weird, matchy level but I sort of loved it and luckily with these friends I feel like I can wear anything and feel confident on the street. Case in point: Justin's A game consisted of a brand new (to him) pair of red corduroy Osh Kosh overalls, a yellow World Beard and Moustache Championship t-shirt, and yellow shoes. You can see how I have no problem going out in public in any getup. (Also, while waiting for people to show up for the party, I used the gift certificate I got from work for my birthday to buy myself those Anthropologie boots I want. They won't come until January. I can't wait.)

Saturday was a rush: Woke up and dragged myself to the shower and then to a pseudo brunch with Dan and the crew, and then drove frantically, late, to Palo Alto for lunch with Casey who was visiting from LA. (Pseudo brunch meaning I didn't eat because I was saving room for lunch. This is sort of like executives at my work who go to 3 meetings in one hour.) We had a couple of pitchers of margaritas and reminisced about old times. Afterwards, totally unplanned, Laurel and I met up with Amelia and Renee, also visiting from LA. We hung out at Amelia's place and then took a nap (seriously, we needed it) before going out to the Nuthouse, where we witnessed some pretty fierce foosball games. Long story short, we ended up at some random guy's house in Mountain View until 4am, and the take-home point from that evening was 1) that a pub-slash-laundromat is a really good idea and 2) that the phrase "post-decisional regret" is sort of redundant, because you have to make a decision to have regret. We think.

Sunday we had brunch at Hobee's, where I swear the weirdest people are employed as servers, but their coffeecake still kicks ass, especially the cranberry one, and then Laurel and I high-tailed it back up to the city for shopping with Casey. We hit up all the crafty ridiculous handmade places: the Curiosity Shoppe, Little Otsu, Paxton Gate, Rare Device (love it, kind of want a purse they have there...), and Doe. I could spend a lot of money in those places but instead of really going hog wild, I just bought a bunch of random stationery, proving once and for all that I am my mother's daughter. The three of us had a snack at Cafe International in the Lower Haight until the ridiculously loud music drove us out. I had dinner with Dan and his parents at Suppenkuche, really the designy conclusion to my day because I just love their decor -- the butterflies on the ceiling are too wee and adorable and simple and I like the funny printing above the moulding on the walls and the wheat wreathes. Plus, who can argue with the food?

Dan's fam and I came back to our place and sat around talking house decorating (inspired by Suppenkuche and our antlers) and drinking tea, and I have to say all the Dan family time is making me excited for next weekend when I get to go home to my own. I don't really feel like a week is long enough. Justin came over too, and after Dan and his parents left we basically just sat here in a Sunday night haze. I spent about 20 minutes clicking through every item on Etsy that had an owl on it, because my defenses against being a total freak are low right now and I don't care if people see me coo-ing over owl stationery or earrings or what have you. I'm about to go to bed and am really very excited about it, especially after the ridiculously late night last night.

This has been a poor blogging weekend. I think a lot of funny bloggable things happened. But I'm too tired to remember them! So I think I'll go to bed now and start tomorrow in style. Happy Sunday.

BLOG!

I fully admit that this is cheating. I am just blogging because I don't know when my next chance will be before tomorrow and I don't want to cheat on NaBloPoMo. Today has been great, though. I will explain more manana.

Not Embarrassing!

Entertainment Weekly does this thing where they ask you to say the 5 songs most recently played on your iPod. Normally I cringe at this suggestion but today I think I was on a good run. A lot of recently added stuff that turns out to be awesome. So much so that I feel the need to share! Who knew?

5. MGMT - Time to Pretend

(We listened to this song in the cabin last week and I am pretty sure I was dancing by myself to it while 3 of the other 4 inhabitants of the place were passed out on the floor.)

4. Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Drew - Back out on the...


Saw them in concert in October and they kicked ass. Seriously, they rocked out more than I expected and this latest album is really good.

3. Augie March -One Crowded Hour

Can't figure out who this reminds me of. But I likes it.

2. Scotland Yard Gospel Choir - Aspidestra

Nice and jumpy.

1. Eef Barzelay - Lose Big



Yes.

Taking things literally

My mom sent me this.

Appalled by descriptions of adolescent pill-popping, suicide and lethal injections given to babies and the elderly, two parents are demanding that the Mt. Diablo school board eliminate a controversial but award-winning book from school reading lists and libraries.

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry depicts an efficient and war-free society that exists at the price of strict rules.

Doesn't it sound like an Onion article? It's like no one understands anything not-literally. It's called science fiction for a reason, fuckers.

Ironically, "The Giver" deals with freedom of choice. In it, citizens apply for spouses and children. And, in Orwellian fashion, "elders" assign each person a function to keep their utopia running smoothly.

The sensitive Jonas, 12, is being groomed as the next "receiver," one who alone holds all the memories of the past and understands what it is like to feel joy and pain. In the end, armed with the knowledge of what life can be like, he decides to flee to a place where he will be allowed to read, feel and love freely.

Oh wait, maybe it's not so fictional after all.

Damn.

My uber-roomie sent this to me and it's really quite hilarious. Charts made out of rap songs. Here's my favorite:


Because in case you didn't know I have this real, deep love for "Damn it feels good to be a gansta."

For sers.

This one is pretty awesome too.


Kind of like indexed meets music:

Because I can't help but make inappropriate Office references on holidays...

Tonight, one of our most ethnic co-workers, Kelly, has invited us all to a Diwali celebration put on by her community. What is Diwali, you may ask. Well, to have Kelly explain it, it’s … blah blah blah … it’s so super fun, and it’s gonna be great, lot of gods with unpronounceable names, twenty minutes you find out it is essentially a Hindu Halloween.

--Michael Scott

This is an upbeat post

Well, because my blogs have been getting a little introspective lately (hmm, I wonder if I should blame NaBloPoMo for that), I figure I might as well share with you a few fun lighthearted hilarious things just as a break.

Starting with...

-I think I am going to go ahead and half-participate in the legendary "From the Stacks" reading challenge. Basically what this is supposed to be is, from November to the end of January you don't buy any new books but you read 5 books that you have been delaying reading, ones that have been sitting on the bedside table or in the shelf that you've been meaning to get to. I sort of accidentally started this already, because this week I was struck by inspiration to finally read "The Satanic Verses," which I've been planning to read for, oh, 5 years now, and have never gotten through. I have tons of books like this in my shelves, and it's quite shameful because so many of my friends lately have been asking me for book recommendations or to borrow books and I haven't read half the stuff that I own -- in fact, I've probably read less than half. So I think I'm going to choose 5 of them to read by the end of January. Now, about that not buying books part... I don't think I will worry much about that. (And Dad shakes his head silently and reproachfully.)

-I totally caved and used a $25 gift certificate towards the new My So Called Life disk set. Yes, I definitely already have the set that was released a few years back, but this one is supposed to be better, and I got it for only 22 dollars after the gift certificate.

-I could not recommend someecards.com highly enough. Yeah, I know it's sort of old news since there was a New York Times article about it and stuff, but honestly, every time I go back there I find a new, hilarious card. A few great recent finds:

• This one really speaks to the mood of my blog posts of late
• This one too.
  
• Tivo addicts, unite.
• How I feel about my Thanksgiving vacation, except with less implied hatred of family (I am actually really excited about going home, for family and also naps.)
• Finally, this is in honor of tomorrow. And I am totally going to send it to some people and hope that they don't read this blog entry first.
  

-If you like the Office, which, um, clearly you do, you will love this deleted scene from last week's episode. And you should be very, very sad that last week is the last episode for a while because of that f&*)$#)ing writer's strike.

-How do you feel about these ankle boots? I want them *so* much. These are just part of my new dedication to my wardrobe. It sounds shallow, but I have decided I am not dressing up well enough for work (yeah, I realize I work at a very casual company, but I dress up for weekends and then I don't dress nicely for work, so I feel like it gives off the wrong impression), so I'm on a quest to 1) make the most out of what I have clothing wise and 2) buy a few key pieces to help take it to a new level. The boots, I admit, don't count as a "key piece" because they are, well, impractical and awesome and silly and expensive, but I can dream, can't I?

-I am really getting excited about Christmas. It is really silly but I love it, even though I am so unreligious. I just like the spirit of things and the food and the lights. I mostly love the way Christmas lights look against blue, wintry skies. There's such a great contrast between the warm colors of the lights and the coolness of everything else, the silhouettes and such. As usual I'm hoping to get Christmas cards out, or holiday cards I guess I should say... and I'm seriously shocked that it's already the second week of November. Where on earth did 2007 go?

-On a related note, and this will be my last random comment for now, I was listening to NPR last week and they were talking about how a year from this past Tuesday is the Presidential elections. Wow. These have been so long in coming that they all of a sudden seem like they are incredibly close at hand, like they crept up on us. And now in less than two months there will have been primaries already! I'm so undecided now. I was a big Barack Obama fan early on (you know, before he started running) but now I feel like he's been spoiled by the political-ness of politics. So now I feel like I'm back to square one, and it's just in time for the real gearing up of it all.

Anyway. Hope these stop this blog from being all-contemplation-all-the-time. And now to watch this week's Office.