creepy!

flying animals creep me out. they're unpredictable and shifty. stupid airborne creatures.

botox creeps me out, too. but for other reasons.
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reading material at the moment

my current reading material includes my netflix queue, the recipe for chex mix and an old issue of mental_floss. because, you know, it's nice to have something to read in the bathroom. ;)
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most recent/worst memories

my most recent memory is of beginning to write this post. is that too recent to be a memory? okay. i remember giving marlana my email & password to order us pizza for dinner. that was a full two minutes ago, and therefore it must qualify.

my worst memory was when my pony died. i mean, you can imagine that it would be bad enough to walk outside and see a dead pony, right? but that wasn't dramatic enough for sly. no, sly died trying to swim in the lake while we were gone for a weekend skiing. so we came home to his bloated corpse floating in the water, hooves in the air, flies swarming.
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if i could visit anywhere in the world

i would rarely say no. seriously. pretty much anywhere that was offered to me to visit, i would go. i'd say no to a few hot spots of violence and general america-hating, but for the most part i'd go anywhere with my trusty camera around my neck.

top picks in foreign travel: greece, italy, france and patagonia.

i have friends who think i think too small when i say this: but i really want to finish my local touring, too. part of that is because i like jumping in my car and going, and that's tricky when where i'm going is overseas. but here in the states, i still need to spend some time in north dakota, idaho, nevada, utah, arizona, louisiana, mississsippi, alabama, the carolinas, connecticut, rhode island, massachusetts, vermont, new hampshire and maine. and hawaii & alaska. that's a lot of domestic travel i still need to accomplish!
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harry potter excitement

You just discovered the world of Harry Potter is real. You've received your letter and you are going to Hogwarts (it got lost for awhile ... ignore the age difference). what are you most excited about?

the train ride. i know, i know ... the train ride? really, 'becca? yup. really. because every thing past the train ride is too much to think about. and have you seen the view from the train? it's gorgeous.
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the greatness that is my parents

today my parents are celebrating their 38th anniversary. 38 years. now i know i've only been around for 31 of those years, and i'm looking at it from the outside ... but i'm gonna say it's been a good ride so far. :)

my parents are amazing. absolutely amazing.
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seven things for which i'm thankful

1. a family that i love to love.

2. friends that are pretty fabulous.

3. a roommate who's not too shabs. (understatement for purposes of inside joke)

4. a job that i enjoy.

5. an upcoming trip with the extended family.

6. dry roads for last night's ride home.

7. this nice fall weather we've been having. ;)

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why turkeys deserve to be eaten

A. because they're more attractive cooked than uncooked.

2. because they're yummy.

and as shown the other day: A+2=Awesomeness Achieved.
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childhood songs that get stuck in my head

that christmas song "sleigh ride" gets stuck in my head throughout the year. for no good reason at all it pops in, and it takes me days to get rid of it.


and "hermie the worm" gets stuck in my head, but that's great fun. it makes me think of working at the library with brenda, and those were good times.


and then there's "mahna mahna" from sesame street. i love that song
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the process of feeding an addiction

wake up.

watch an episode of FRIENDS while reading e-mails and learning the funniness of the autocorrect page julie found.

start a second episode of FRIENDS while posting to blog.

have third episode of FRIENDS playing in background while packing to go home for thanksgiving.

play fourth episode of FRIENDS while fixing broken necklace and reviewing current sale paper for work.

replay funniest scenes from episodes 1-4 in head while taking a shower.

enjoy episodes five and six of FRIENDS while eating lunch.

count the first three hours of the day as a success.
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animal reincarnation, revisted

i realize i made an oversight in my previous post. i'd like to be one of the wild parrots that lives on telegraph hill in san francisco. why? A. i'd be in san francisco. and 2. i'd be a wild parrot.

A+2=Awesomeness Achieved.
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if i could come back as an animal ...

i would want to come back as one of kathy's cats. okay, she might tend to have cats who develop some medical concerns ... but i can't imagine there's a better owner to have. plus, cats get to sleep all day, are expected to be aloof, and have someone to clean up their feces.

second choice - a ring-tailed lemur. have you ever noticed how they always look like they're plotting the world's demise and sneering at their human onlookers?
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they should make a law against ...

not releasing the television shows i like for instant streaming on netflix. that's right. it should be against the law for shows like Law & Order (the original series), Two and a Half Men, Dharma & Greg and Will & Grace to not be available for me to watch at my whim and fancy. it sounds like a lot of work to figure out who's in violation of this law ... but i can take time out of my schedule to do it. not a problem. it's the least i can do for the sake of netflix sanity.
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superheroes: is the cape necessary to fly?

i'm so glad you asked, as i am quite qualified to answer this question. yes, the cape is absolutely necessary to fly. that's why i always wear mine when i'm getting on a plane.
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possible ways to destroy the sun

so i did some research last night to see what other people are saying about the destruction of the day star. they were talking about black holes and antimatter, changing the gaseous mix and colliding it with another large object. yeah, none of it made much sense to me. it was way over my head. what i did understand, though, was that it would be impossible to douse the sun in water to put out the fire. apparently the water would boil and evaporate before it got inside the sun to do any good. stupid sun.

i also found a facebook group dedicated to the destruction of the sun. they pointed out that the sun is the number one cause of sunburn. and that the sun rising after sunday night is the primary cause of monday. excellent points.

and then there was the page destroythesun.com, where he outlines the reasons we need to band together to figure out how to destroy the sun. the reasons include the fact that the sun is basically a beacon for invading aliens to find us and that without the sun's gravitational pull we'd be free to use the earth to explore the solar system. well, right after we devised a steering mechanism for the planet, of course.

so where does that leave us? i'm thinking we sew it a death shroud. we use blackout drapery lining, and we line it (yeah, we're lining a lining ... but it's the sun, people. it's hot. and the blackout lining is going to melt without some support) with the insulated goodness we recommend for inside ironing board pads and oven mitts. because the sun is hot ... but i'm pretty sure it's a heat comparable to that of an iron. then we send up the indestructible flying sewing machines, and we're done!

or maybe i've been spending too much time around fabric. but think of all the uses of an indestructible flying sewing machine. that would be awesome.
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the worst book i've ever read

i'm usually bad with books. i go through phases where i read a lot, but unless i write down what i've read i'm not going to remember in a month or two. or i might remember i read the book, but not what it was about. i'll remember whether i liked it or not, but not what the plot was.

i had an experience this summer (no, this doesn't relate to the topic ... feel free to skip down a couple of paragraphs if you'd like) where i was talking with greg about the koreas. (i think it was greg ... we'll say it was greg.) and i got this feeling like i'd read a book about someone from south korea. or north korea. or ... both? it was a memoir, that much i knew. and the young man who wrote it moved away from korea and then back? something about government jobs? and fish? or ... something? and the family ended up in prison? sure enough, after enough mental fishing (and some googling help), i found the book Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korea Gulag. it's a good book. if you're a fan of the memoir, like i am, you should definitely read it. but i wonder how i could enjoy (can you really enjoy this kind of book?) it as much as i did and then completely forget about it?

that doesn't always happen if i really, really like the book, of course. sometimes i can at least remember the name. ;) and while this isn't a post about books i've enjoyed, i will say that one of my favorite books is Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. i first read it in high school, and i've read it multiple times since. my most recent reading of it was this past july. i took it with me on a road trip, and i was actually surprised how much i didn't remember. it had been a long time since i'd read it, but for as much as i knew i liked it you'd think i'd remember more about the plot!

anyway, because i enjoy that book so much, i decided i wanted to try another of Huxley's writings. (this is where it starts to come together with the topic, hang in there for another sentence or two.) so i borrowed Point Counter Point from the library. and, you guessed it, i hated it. i pushed myself through the first three chapters, and when i realized i had no idea what had happened in the previous paragraph - i knew i had to stop reading. the characters from chapter one hadn't even been mentioned again, yet! and apparently my patience for long, uninteresting rambling was thin.

so i returned it and checked out something else. i don't remember what that something else was. i'd have to check my list. ;)
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i'm addicted to ...

random interesting information. this morning, for example, i learned that there was a speech written just in case the men we sent to the moon got stranded there. seriously. in the summer of '69, william safire had to write a speech for president nixon in case armstrong and aldrin weren't coming home. it went like this:

"Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding ... Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts."

now, i'm also slightly addicted to thinking we faked the mission to the moon, so this speech would have never been needed (unless armstrong or aldrin failed to sign the gag order & accept their hush money and needed to be offed by the government), but that's for another day. ;)

(thanks to mental_floss for the speech. mental_floss is one of my more awesome addictions.)
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one million, frivolously

how would i spend a million dollars frivolously? no bills, no loans, no trips to the grocery store. frivolously.

my first thought would be to do nothing. to toss the money into a savings account to be pulled from when i can't get the hours i need at work to cover my rent. but rent isn't frivolous. so that also rules out quitting my job to become a sofa slug, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. :) so ...

i'd buy a dining room set. a good-sized table, chairs, maybe a china cabinet to match. i don't need or really even have room for these items ... so that definitely qualifies the purchase as frivolous.

i'd pimp out my computer set-up. a flat bed scanner, a negative scanner, a wide-format printer, more memory, a larger monitor. a laptop with a battery that works and lets me play facebook games. :)

i'd finish off my collection of fiesta ware.

i'd purchase copious amounts of dvds: all things alan alda and johnny depp. perhaps the entire collection of law & order (original, criminal intent and svu).

i'd travel. while i can't use the money to pay my rent on a regular basis, i can use it to afford to take time off work to travel, right? sure, i can. it's my blog post. :) so i'd travel. greece, patagonia, the east coast during autumn. and i'd pay to take people with me. most of the time, at least. ;) the drive up the west coast would still be a solo trip. but with a million dollars, i'd start at the north end in a fabulous convertible and drive the entire length (even the part i've already driven) with an extended stop in san francisco.

i'd buy a nice stand mixer. and a stick mixer, too.

i'd attempt to put laminate flooring down because if i screwed it up, i could afford to hire someone to re-do it. :)

i'd buy some jewelry tools: a saw, a grinder, a ring mandrel. and then i'd buy a bunch of coins to turn into rings, necklaces and earrings. turning the money into unspendable jewelry definitely counts as frivolous.

i'd buy my dad an old chevy.

i'd throw fabulous parties. and when almost none of my friends from the region show up for the first one, i'd pay for babysitters and chauffeurs for the next one.

i'd buy wiis and mario kart to give to my family and friends for online racing fun.

maybe i'm not thinking big enough. i mean, i'm no where near a million dollars. but maybe that's a good thing. this way i can buy frivolous stuff for a long period of time. and while i'm waiting for the next frivolous opportunity to arise, the money can sit in a savings account and make more money for frivolity. yes, i think that would be better than seeking out a couple of high-priced items to buy, spending all the money at once.
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hidden cameras

one place i'd like to put one: i used to want to put one inside my boss's head, just to get some idea what she was thinking. now i'm not so sure. perhaps behind the scenes of the next tim burton/johnny depp collaboration? i'd like to put one inside my dreams, so i could re-watch them in the morning. for example, i know that last night bobby & i had a couple of heart-to-heart conversations ... but i don't remember what they were about. and i was in my aunt's car with someone when it spun out on the ice and i fractured my leg ... who was i with?

one place i'd never want to find one: in my car. i use my driving as my time to sort things out. i yell at people who aren't in the car. i think out loud about issues that are on my mind. and i sing like a fool to practically every song my ipod plays. :)
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claymation v. animation

as a computer art nerd, i have to give a highly respectful nod to computer animation. the abilities of computer animators is amazing, and i'm a sucker for pixar movies for that reason alone. however ... i have even more respect for those who make magic with claymation. tweak the models to show a fraction of a movement; shoot the frame. repeat 47.8 billion times. the dedication is amazing. regardless of whether the models are made out of clay or not - the stop-motion process is ridiculously awesome. (says the girl who recently started playing with the process herself.)

did you know i'm a tim burton fan? i love his work. his movies The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride are both stop-motion films. so is Vincent, which i just recently stumbled upon and present to you here.

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