pwning adulthood

The Movie Collection

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:18:00 +0000

When I inarticulately blather about movie collection... nothing.

When Wal does, ooh, ahhhhh.

But my pictures of our DVD collection are better. : D

It is SO over, Forbes.

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 04:56:00 +0000

See my last post, and admit to yourself that you are tired of some of yours, too.

Magazines I have subscribed to, but eventually tired of:

As a kid:
American Girl, Girl, Jump

As a teen:
Seventeen, Spin, YM

As an angsty teen/college student:
Bust, Bitch, Found, Ready Made
(Sometimes you can agree with the sentiment and still get totally sick of the same old crap. I hate you a little now, Bust.)

As a nerd:
Discover, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, Science, SWE & ASME (technically, these have always been procrastinated and guilt-inducing)

More recently:
Cosmopolitan, Forbes (kill me!), Glamour, Self, Shape, Wired
I hated Wired with a passion by the second issue. I cancelled even though they wouldn't give me my credit back. Totally worth it to not have to look at it, though.

It goes without saying that I did at one point but never SHOULD have accepted the free Entertainment Weekly offer from Best Buy. Gag.

And, the magazine I swapped out for in the last batch of free crap:
Smart Money.

About three issues in, I'm still into it.

TWO FREE MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR ONE YEAR!

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:23:00 +0000

TWO FREE MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR ONE YEAR!

I will hook you up with the above -- your selection from the choices available to me, until I run out of points.

All you have to do is:
Stop or stop renewing your other magazine subscriptions.
Stop your catalog mailings.

It seems a little hardcore, but hear me out:

1) The magazines are boring you. Maybe you put off reading them, maybe you don't ever get to them. They are probably sitting in a pile (because the shelf is already filled up, right?), guilting you whenever you look at them.

After you have had a magazine for a year, the thrill is gone. Even if the content is exciting, the formula is dull. But usually... the content to be predictable and repetitious after a year, too.

2) "But it is important to my industry/ hobby/ fasion sense!"
Make one of your new selections similar, but not exactly the same. Everything old is new again!

Hi, have you met The Internet? Why are you not reading the best of blogs about your interest, where you get more content, less ads, and you can skim the best stuff more efficiently?

3) Catalogs are totally evil. Deep down you know it. Out of nowhere, they remind you that to buy things...and usually unnecessary ones.
Stupid Sephora catalog -- I am extremely satisfied without luxury personal care/makeup products, until you come. It's so sneaky how suddenly I need a lot more yummy smells and glitter.

When you want to shop or browse, again: the internet. If you actually are lacking on certain items, surely you will seek out the appropriate stores/websites. Why tempt yourself regularly?
Also, it is suspicious to me how the places most likely to bombard me with catalogs after a purchase are the ones where the purchase was a one-time or very rare event. No, I wouldn't buy more of your crap, unless you put it in my face...

4) It's even better than recycling-- you're not even using the resources to begin with. (Plus, if you're like us, you hate actually having to bring your recycling in all the freakin' time.)

5) "But this one is new to me, and I excitedly await its arrival each month, when I immediately read and enjoy it."Okay then. But keep an eye out for when the time come to call it quits, and don't keep renewing just out of habit

HOW TO PLAY*:
(*Doing this has lots of benefits, aside from my lame offer. I highly recommend it.)

To get off of catalog lists
Go to Dmachoice.org
It's legit. Tell it which ones you want to stop, and fill out the general form to stop direct mailings while you're at it.

You can ease out of the magazines - you'll keep as much as you have already paid for. The ones that you are not reading, though... why let 6 more issues sit unread on your desk?

Call their customer service line.
Have the address label handy, and ask for the following:
--Turn off renewal notices
--Turn off "promotions" or other mailings
--Do not sell or share my information--Find out when your subscription is up, while you are at it. (It should also say on your address label.)

Leave a comment here or email me with the list of catalogs and magazines you are shedding.

Deadline is Friday 11/14.

Comment and tell me you're planning on it, if you haven't gotten your act together by then. (And then I will nag you, awesome.)

Currently Reading

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:02:00 +0000

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Patrick Suskind)

When I was in 5th grade, I won my school's spelling bee and got to go on the next level. My parents were supportive - maybe TOO supportive - because we got the official tapes of the vocabulary words, sorted by ... topic.

There is a whole tape JUST on "Smelly" words.
And Suskind has already used all that I could think of, and I'm on page 11.
I don't know how he can go forward from there, but I'm rooting him on.

(No. I haven't seen the movie. SHHHH.)

A POSITIVE historic moment ... for once in my life

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:29:00 +0000

I won't blather on, but do want to say that I am very excited that Obama has been elected president. That, and I was really rooting for Palin to cry. (And that probably makes me a little sexist, but I don't care)

Despite our difficulties early on, we both managed to successfully vote without issue.

Meet me in... a legitimately sized city

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 04:33:00 +0000

Sometimes St. Louis can really frustrate me.

I get fed up of there not being exciting new places to go and things to do, and tired of running into people I know so frequently. It's a little ... claustrophobic.

Lots of people don't feel that way about it, but this is the only place I have ever lived, AND I stayed here for college, and now we've had almost two years of settled in adult time.

Today I was telling a friend how I had done everything, and perhaps a bad decision, decided to try to elaborate on what "everything" was.

And so, roughly categorized:

The Touristy
THE ARCH (and its museum, complete with scary mannequins and buffalo poop)
Six Flags Over Mid-America* (including Fright Fest, of course)
Meramec Caverns
Lemp Mansion (Dinner and tour), Bissell Mansion (Murder mystery dinner)
Forest Park* (including ice skating at Steinberg)
The St. Louis Zoo *(including Snooze at the Zoo, Boo at the Zoo, and working with the Primate keepers for my senior design project)
The Art Museum
City Museum (so! many! times!, but MonstroCity and going at night is still cool)
Science Center*
Botanical Gardens* (incl. Chinese new year, which is awesome, and the Whitaker Music Festival of jazz crap, which is not)
The Muny
Cardinals Baseball Games (at both stadiums)
Blues Hockey Games*
The ("Fabulous") Fox* (Including seeing The Princess Bride and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid free there)
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra

The "Local"
Farmers Markets (Soulard, Schlafly's)
Queeny Park, Shaw Park, Wilmore Park!
Dog Museum at Queeny Park
Laumeier Park* (incl. working at their art camps)
Kemper Art Museum (at WashU)
Turtle Park
The Magic House
Grant's Farm
Transportation Museum
Museum of Natural History (Jefferson Memorial)
Art Loft Theatre
The Rep
Sky-View Drive-In* (in IL)
Old Courthouse, old cathedral, other old buildings and crap...
Mini-Medical School
Junior Academy of Science events (dissections and tours galore)
Branson/ Silver Dollar City (note that these are neither cool nor actually in St. Louis)
Kimswick (same note as above)
Opera (I admit it, I can't tell you where)

The Festivals
Taste of St. Louis
Shakespeare in the Park
Pointfest
VP Fair/ Fair St. Louis (incl. Live on the Landing concerts)
Watching fireworks over the river from a high-rise downtown
Other concerts at Mississippi Nights, the Pageant, Kiel/Savvis Center, Riverport/UMB Bank Pavillion, Pop's, the Creepy Crawl
The Great Forest Park Balloon Race/ Balloon Glow
Festival of Nations (in Tower Grove)
St. Louis Art Fair in Clayton

The Filler When You've Done the Crap Above
Sky Zone
"Big Future" (sadly out of business, but not before I had a birthday party there!)
Lock-ins/ events at the YMCA and Rec-Plex

The Outdoors
Disc Golf*: White Birch, Schroeder Park, Sioux Passage, Creve Coeur, Jefferson Barracks, Endicott, Quail Ridge
Katy Trail
Camping
Float Trips (Black River, Meramec River)
Picnics with friends and water balloons at the pavillions in the parks
Picking (of the apple/pumpkin/peach variety) at Eckert's
Elephant Rock State Park
Johnson Shut-Ins
Fishing with my dad, and with my 4th grade class (couldn't tell you where)
TROUT LODGE, a.k.a Camp Lakewood (I got to experience it as both, lucky me)

The Film Crap*
St. Louis Internation Film Festival (yay! yay!)
St. Louis Filmmaker's Showcase
Italian Film Festival
African Film Festival
Strange Brew at Schlafly's
Hi-Pointe Theatre
Moolah (...but not on the leather couches, because I am never early anywhere)
Tivoli *(including RHPS and other awesome (and...less awesome) midnight movies)
Participated in a student film (extra points for being obscure and arty, obviously)

The Hip (?) Neighborhoods
The U-City Loop* (gag, gag.)
"Downtown" Clayton
Washington/ Wash Ave
The (Laclede's) Landing
Central West End
South Grand
Kirkwood
Webster
Maplewood (now that it is cool again...)
Chesterfield Valley (really more bougeoise than hip)

The Edible
Imo's (and Cecil Whitaker's - especially after soccer games)
The Hill
"Chinatown" (a.k.a. Olive Blvd) and asian markets
Diners (Tiffany's, Eat-Rite, Courtesy (both of them), Chris's, Uncle Bill's)
Frozen Custard/Concretes: Ted Drewe's, Fritz's, Mr. Wizards
Lubeley's, Gooey Louie, or other places for Gooey Butter Cake
(These are the more iconic that came to mind. We have the complete list in a spreadsheet, to be described and provided in a future post, for dissection.)

The Categorically Uncool
Garage Sale-ing
Assorted harmless troublemaking in my youth (chalking)
Watching fireworks from the Target parking lot
Hanging out at DEAL$, Dollar Tree, and toy stores with clearance sales, for the ridiculous
Disney Princesses on Ice (technically an event at Savvis, but I think everyone will agree it belongs here)
Riding the Metrolink the whole way
The Inappropriate, including Dr. John's, and Jay's, way the hell out on 44.
Christmas lights at Tillis Park
Scavenger Hunts
Math Contests (of various sorts) at community colleges
Cooking classes at Dierbergs
Bob Kramer's Marionette's (yeah, it's on this list)

KEEP OUT! (Movie spending habits)

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:53:00 +0000

Unclutterer and Clean House keep telling me, to keep everything neat...

You have to not bring more crap home in the first place.

I get it, but it is still really hard. I deliberately keep away from garage sales, because it's especially tempting to bring home cool crap that is also very cheap. But we are working at it.

One of the big areas where we are working on this...

Movies

We have a big movie collection, but we don't have space (or money) to grow it infinitely. Wal does get to buy movies on a regular basis. He's given himself a weekly allowance and gets very excited about his purchases.

The trick is that he considers beforehand - along with the price - if it is a movie he will want as a part of his collection, to lend to others and rewatch, or if it is unavailable by any other means. Items that don't fit that criteria go on the Netflix queue, rather than the To Buy/Wishlist.

The choosiness upfront leaves us with an elitist and totally awesome collection.
...with the exception of my movies. : D

Best seat in the house

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 03:05:00 +0000

Last week I visited my sister and had a blast. ...and despite my promises to everyone (her included), we were a little productive.

Apparently my dad egged her on to get a new toilet seat. The paint was chipped on the other one, and that's groddy and all, but it's not like they have exactly matching ones easily available. At any rate, it was ordered and ready to go, and I totally expected this to be a 5 second switch, except for:

1)The plastic bolts and nuts kind of melded together

2) I forgot how the little tabs open to let you screw/unscrew the bolt (so...we had to hold the bolt from the bottom. With vise grips.)

3) I managed to confuse myself and screw my side on tighter, because I was using my left hand instead of right, as usual. (...oops)

4) The new nuts totally have one tab that is longer than the others - so long that it bangs into the toilet when you try to screw it on.

We prevailed despite all that, although it took a little longer than one would hope, and the color match is actually quite good. My sister notified several of her friends of the new addition and managed to use it as a selling point for them coming by.

WIN

Corporate Stalking and Changes in Poundage

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:55:00 +0000

To catch you all up:

I am looking forward to blogging regularly again. There are two major factors that were deterring me the last three months.

1) The scary response when I used the name of a company. Okay, sure, you have your bots to check me out... but how ridiculously long was it going to go on until someone looked at the site, went "Oh, okay, she said something positive" and then turned the stalking back down from 10?
Too long. I removed and retitled the post to break their link, and that sort of made them leave me alone. (....ugh)

2) The losing weight thing. Making it a priority sucks, because then you have to DEVOTE TIME TO IT. Progress is good - we are about halfway through, except for when you consider that only a few pounds have been lost since the beginning of August. I hate spending so much time driving to the gym, wearing smelly gym clothes, taking way too many showers, thinking about food, grocery shopping instead of picking up food when we don't have anything... it's just all so tediously time-sucking.

However, I don't really want to quit now in the process. I keep thinking I am recommitting HARDCORE, only to be back off the wagon in a week. I'd like to be able to blog about it, though, and so I will return soon with content.

Hooray!

In Which Angie Saves My Car

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 13:56:00 +0000

I was pretty devastated when the radio in my car died. The radio breaking seems like the harbringer of doom -- coming right before the AC goes, and you're in a proper jalopy.

I was feeling pretty glum about it. After all, this is a car which decided in its second year with me that it no longer would... provide the option of driving in reverse.

Luckily I happened to be complaining about the ghett-i-tude of the radio whilst hanging out with one of my friends. She explained that the same thing had happened to her car, and that it was a quick fix to change the fuse.

Sure, my dad had told me to check the fuse, but it had been six weeks, and I still hadn't done so. (Despite being a productivity hobbyist, I still have a knack for putting off things that are non-urgent, unpleasant, and sometimes vague. That penny is STILL stuck in my cigarette lighter from five years ago. No, really.)

Although she quickly located the fuses and the map, it was indecipherable -- more than half of fuses were labeled merely with a symbol meaning "non-standard."

Google to the rescue. We found our fuse, despite their silly symbols.

Once I knew what I needed, a quick run to AutoZone brought the music back.

Which is good. Because in the mean time? I decided that I should entertain myself by singing, which interestingly is less fun when you discover that you do not, in fact, know all the words to your favorite songs, and keep getting lost forever in the first verse.

It's over now, at least. Although I do have all of "Loose lips" finally down pat. As if that's something to be proud of.

Gen Y

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:46:00 +0000

It's kind of sad, really:
I'd rather pick up a magazine claiming to uncover my generations financial choices than telling what everyone is doing in bed.

And so, as I try desperately to make sure that I'm not the kid picked last in the gym class of Gen Y, here are some bits I've seen lately:

"When Should Financial Independence Begin?" (Talk of the Nation, 7/21/08) Melody Serafino is right, many people just seem to be missing her point. In this piece she talks about the importance of not depending on your parents -- that is, not because it's convenient and nice to have extra money. No, not you, guy in extreme circumstances who needed to move back home while unemployed, or you, guy out on his own just getting help with student loan payments. As she's talking, I'm thinking of a good friend of ours who spent college doing things like buying a $300 architecture books and $200 pairs of jeans, and is now living out in NY, no doubt doing similar things-- if they weren't directly on his parents' credit cards, I'm sure he could afford them only because all of the absolute necessities were. (If you're reading this, I still love you, though!) So yes, in conclusion, don't be on an allowance after college; it's tacky.

(If you aren't managing your financial situation, then how will you know whether you need family help, or not?)

QueerCents - Banking, Budgets, and Investing 101 for Gen Y
Interestingly I find that QueerCents speaks to me more often than most personal finance sites. It's a lot of enlightened liberal advice on a wide variety of topics. Very handy. This particular post is a nice overview.

PayScale
One of the PM's I look up to advised me to keep up with this sort of thing, to make sure I get what I deserve, but also to be able to make sure my requests are reasonable. I did shell out the $15 for a report, and it was worth it to find out that I am not being totally shafted.

Feed The Pig -- Episode 6, Emergency Funds
I know I'm a little bit of a pf nerd, but this didn't tell me anything I didn't know. Feed the Pig is a pretty cool initiative, though, shooting at the 25-34 age range, and trying to provide meaningful advice for the situations as our generation sees them. Listening to this one, I couldn't help but think of so many people I know as the guest on the show lists excuse after excuse of why he wants to not have or postpone having an emergency fund. Ultimately it boils down to "It's unpleasant" (to do, to think about, etc), and it really seems to me that this is somehow viewed as an a legitimate excuse.
I'd like to talk more in depth about this in the future, but articulation is not coming easily right now.

**Edited to remove (positive!) reference to an insurance company, because they creeped me out with waaaaay too many page loads.**

Personal Finance Book Picks

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:14:00 +0000

Last spring I went through 10 or so personal finance books, mostly beginnging stuff, and here are the two I purchased, given to friends, and have re-read.

"Smart and Simple Financial Strategies For Busy People" - Jane Bryant Quinn

I find Jane Bryant Quinn to have all of the saavy but less of the abraisiveness (and catch-phrasy-ness) of other popular financial advisors. Her book is a really great book to get started, but much more intelligent than the comparable books out there. I found its advise to be very reasonable and what I was looking for, and as the title suggests, it did not instruct me to put cash into envelopes as a method of budgeting.

"The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" - Andrew Tobias

I really do not want to pick up day-trading, and I don't want to spend all my times reading Forbes (yuck) trying to pick up last years trendy mutual funds. He speaks to those goals quite nicely, and after going through this in detail, I'm going with several index funds. I found it to be nice that he goes into detail about the main choices, which let me translate the information into action quite easily. That always seems to be the hard part ... taking the investment advise and then actually DOING it.

As a disclaimer, these were both first published quite a while ago, but the practices are fairly general and I didn't find them outdated. I suspect the first book to be very helpful to any location, although the investment book may be more geared toward US investors.

Auto Insurance

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:50:00 +0000

My friend mirthbottle who writes over at Oof Boof, had this handy summary of car insurance terms. (When I was shopping for it, I ended up just sitting down with my agent for an hour and asking every imaginable question, but I suspect most of them are not that helpful.)

"Glossary of Car Insurance Jargon"

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:04:00 +0000

To the girl at the gym who weighed in at 104 last Thursday:

Please consider resetting the scale when you are finished.

Thanks.

As if we needed to make our DVD collection cooler. --scoff--

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:18:00 +0000

Two weeks ago I finally did it-- talked Wal into letting me sort our DVD collection by spine color, a.k.a:

Color-batized!

He basically allowed me to do it on the promise that it would look awesome, but also because realistically, it's more common for friends to browse the collection, rather than us trying to locate specific DVDs. (Certain boyfriends have rather strict policies regarding rewatching. He's no Kael, though : D)

At any rate, here are the results. I'm pretty satisfied with the results. The black background ones are sorted by font color, but I tried to go for other similarities, too. It could probably stand some swapping by someone with superior color sense, so feel free to come over and play with it.

Also relating to our DVD collection: Libra has served us pretty well so far for tracking. (Thanks to Unclutterer, FAVORITE BLOG EVER OMG for the rec.) I like the interface and sorts/filters, and also the convenience of not having to enter everything into Excel.

Best of all? Let's us easily track lending. This is key, since obviously I must know the location of my copy of Robot Monster at all times. (Trailer)

In case you want to skip ahead to the wooden computer spewing bubbles and the prehistoric lizard/ alligator? / claymation dinosaur battle:

On Growing Up

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:39:00 +0000

Trying to figure out adult life - for us, life after school - is an ongoing process around here. Some days I'm convinced I'm on the right track, feeling good about where we are.

Other days - and there have been a lot of those in the last two weeks - I suddenly see how clumsy I have been with work interactions, how I'm letting slide quality time with Wal, how behind I am on everything that usually makes me feel on top of things.

It's hard to even really say what I expect from myself at 23. My expectations a year ago at graduation were ... vague, at best. In the months before graduation I had been focused soley on getting us both jobs and landing a place to live -- those I knew we needed.

We had some ideas of what we wanted. Wal wanted a cat.

Pictured: Cat, check. Almost enough fluffy blankets to suit her majesty.

I wanted us to do joint checking and a joint credit card. We wanted to settle into these jobs and stay a year at the absolute minimum (complete and ongoing). I wanted to repay my student loans.

In college, it seemed like you could only plan for "after graduation." Now I feel more able to plan for 1 year, 5 years, and more down the road. I'm also adjusting to new messes being thrust in my path that I have to work to get a grasp on -- doctors and insurance, taxes, car stuff.

As usual for me, I still have a lot to learn on organization and productivity.

There is a lot left for me to learn in the subtleties about work. I have some excellent co-workers to learn from, and I appreciate so many of them offering me advice and help along the way. It's hard to even comprehend how much I have learned about my company's specialty in just one year - but at the same time, humbling how much I don't know about it, or project management and contracting as a whole. (Lately, I have been re-learning that lesson every week.)

More ruminations another day.

----------------------

I love Sarah's "25 and Over," a list of items you should have gotten down in order to act like a grown up. Keep an eye out for one of my favorite Tomato Nation quotes: "If you are fed up with how you look, buy a new shirt or stop eating cheese."

And what got me in the mood to finally write this post, which I had been composing since I started the blog: Corynne's intro post on her piece of Simply Stated.

One half of one drawer down: The sock purge

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:13:00 +0000

Sometimes getting little things under control is all I can manage, but then the small victory makes me feel better about beginning the bigger tasks.

We rearrange the furniture and I've been trying to get rid of the clothes and stuff around the house we're not using. We've got our FreeCycle standby guy -- he lives close by and is happy to sift through boxes of random stuff, passing on what he can't use. While cleaning out drawers, I was sad to see how pathetic Wal's sock drawer was.

And I undertook:

The Sock Purge and Restocking

He's got a bunch of dressy socks that don't match any pants, any shoes, or even each other. His athletic socks are stretched and worn in the heels. Worst of all, the drawer was overflowing, but he still never seemed to have enough of the ones he wanted to wear.

I cleared out all the trouble-makers. Using my sneaky girlfriend method, I merely moved them rather than pitching them right away* -- just in case he happened to notice something special missing. With those moved out of the drawer, I STOCKED up. For work socks, he got 9 new pairs, to add to the ones that were passable. Athletic socks, he now has ankle socks (No more scrunched down big white socks!) with padding and elasticity - a novel idea.

I left his favorites of the very soft socks in silly colors. If I hadn't, there would have been an uproar.

See the results of my hard work below.

There's still a lot to do around the apartment, but this half of this drawer is lookin' fine.

See also this Unclutterer article on Sock Purges.

* He did actually become a little irritated at me for getting rid of "perfectly good" socks. I tried my best to explain that 1) these aren't good, functionally, and that 2) they were ones that he didn't like either.

Without him, life would be much grimmer.

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:41:00 +0000

There are many reasons to adore DietGirl, but above all of the normal ones, for me, is her use of especially great expressions.

I was especially pleased by her use of "smug git" in this post, which was the first time I've experienced anyone other than the cast of Red Dwarf.

And this reminded me that I have not yet told The Internet:

I have a hug crush on Ace Rimmer, medium for regular old Arnold. (Pictured: Crazy Rimmer. Not shown: Laser eyes "hex vision")

Go watch my favorite ep on Netflix Instant Watching. Many of the jokes are several layers of self-referential... but hopefully you'll like it, too.

For the unintiated:
Red Dwarf main site
Wikipedia
You Tube - RIMMER SONG

Women and their shoes...

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 02:36:00 +0000

Today I spent more than I ever have before (by quite a good margin) on a pair of shoes.

And... they weren't Manolos.

They were these beauties.

The Walrus and the ...

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 15:20:00 +0000

Now that we have our own place, our spirit creatures finally get a position of honor. They are rearranged every few months, or whenever our cat finds her way up, but they are always locked in eternal battle:

ROBOT vs. WALRUS

He's been collecting walruses since the very beginning - his childhood stuffed animal is a pink walrus. It was so well-loved that he chewed off the tusks. Aww.

He's still excited about them, probably because it's hard to be truly inundated with walrus shill. For examples of favorite-animal burn-out, see: anyone who ever liked ponies.

...and maybe also because my grandmother did not give him walrus-themed gifts. She very eloquently vanquished my sister's love of cows with, among other things, an obscenely tacky cookie jar of fancy cows waltzing.

I avoided the gifts from our grandma, so I don't have robot needlepoint pillows. (Emily did knit me a robot, but I assure you that it is fully awesome.) Last year my friends particularly fell into the theme gift trap. Let us just say that I received no less than THREE of these aprons.

It worked out okay, though - I gave two away to my tiny (since they are kid-size) and most-likely-to-wear-aprons friends, and the other one is hanging as shown. Most of my robo-duplicates, though, just end up on my desk at work.

Mostly, though, we are pretty sedate about our obsessions. He did name his blog Film Walrus (I offered to one-up him and write about movies as Film LOLrus. ...No?), and one friend came up with robot-related names for our prospective children - the kind that go unnoticed until you see their official records. I believe the contenders were Cy, Andy, and Rob.

Good thing we're not having kids.

I'll leave you all with some close-ups to enjoy.

Thanks to Nicole at The Days of My Life for bringing up her hippo obsession. ROCK!

See her post of 3/24/08 for the awesome.

PRODUCTIVITY NOW!

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:51:00 +0000

Productivity is very important to us around here.

It's more of a complex concept than I had initially taken it for. Not only are there the subtleties of which activities count as productive or not -- Wal considers movies productive, and not TV, but there's a loophole for watching a TV series on DVD -- but also the priority of and motivation behind the "productive" tasks.

Procrastinator's Productivity:
These sorts of things are both productive and detrimental to your highest priority tasks (when they are difficult or odious).

Take today, for example. I promised that I would do a certain messy multi-part grading task, to return today. I made the promise yesterday, around noontime. Last night I could only make it through the first step. Once again I found myself in the procrastinator's productivity -- yes, I did need to file emails a bit to find the homeworks and download them all, but cleaning out my inbox was definitely not a higher priority than this grading.

Chores vs. Tasks:
I usually separate the two on my to do lists (unless it's one sorted mainly by timing), because, by god, I'm not going to write "do the dishes," every day, cross it out, and then immediately re-write it. I want to get the chores done, because, honestly, our guinea pigs are smelly. I only have a certain amount of time and energy to devote at any time (efficiency and work/life demands notwithstanding), so if I always use it to stay caught up on recurring household tasks (which, spoiler: I don't) that would leave little time for things like my binder system or dentist appointments or preventative maintenance on my car or any of my fun projects, for that matter.

Dear Diary: Today I scoured
At work I log everything I do in detail, so I can easily look back at how much I have accomplished - I'm missing that at home. I've been trying to give myself credit for a) choosing to be productive at all, rather than watching GIRLICIOUS (...reruns) and b) selecting items to work on with some care.

Especially with the electronic to do lists, there's just no long term way of reminding yourself how great you are for vacuuming.

The PRODUCTIVITY SCORING SYSTEM
The points should be somewhat logical, but I'm being pretty subjective with what we call in estimating correction factors-- a task that is normally worth a certain amount may be worth more or less based on the conditions. Also, I've thrown in bonuses and penalties, because that's how I roll.

4/10/08: 82 Points

Guinea Pigs - change out chips: 2 points (15 minutes)
(smelly)

Sweep floor: 1 point (2 min)
(gross guinea pig detritus)

Dishes: 2 points (6 min)
(double quantity)

Cat - litter box, scoop & full scrub: 5 points (10 min)
(smelly, gross)

Dentist Appointment: 25 points (2 hrs)
(Normal 40 pts, -15 pt penalty for missing work; hurty, involves leaving the house)

Set Up Appt - dentist for Wal: 2 points (2 minutes)
(1 normal + 1 bonus for efficiency: Once I was satisfied that I liked the new dentist and that he had a good chance of liking them too, I checked if they took his insurance and scheduled him in while still standing at the desk. No calling or searching listings needed.)

Grocery Store Run: 10 points (15 -5 penalty for putting off grading; involves leaving the house)
Errands: 2 points (Got indicated dental supplies at grocery store, thus saving another trip out)
Workout - missed scheduled: -5 (Poor neighbor. Sorry!)

Blog Post: 5 points (30 min)
(Avoided penalty by waiting until grading deadline was met)

Grading - Doing the stupid assignment again so I can grade from it: 7 points (1.5 hrs)
How did I manage to change just enough that my previous work wasn't enough? Argh.

Grading - Commenting on and scoring homeworks: 20 points (1.5 hours)
(50 points if done before asked. 30 if hadn't been squeezing the deadline)

Emailing out grades: 1 points (10 min)
(Tedious)

Movies - The Misfits: 1 point
(+5 awesome movie, -4 missing most of it and doing other things)

Dental Care Routine: 1 point (5 min)
(I better get some damn credit for this, because, bah.)

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:43:00 +0000

"In a recent survey, 20% of people earning six-figures reported living 'paycheck-to-paycheck.' "

From fivecentnickel's Q&A with the author of Middle Class Millionaires.

...It's shocking, but not surprising. I get that there are situations that would be overwhelming, but I'm glad I'm learning my financial lessons (...I hope?) now, instead of turning around decades from now and finding no savings to show for my work.

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 05:22:00 +0000

WIN:

Quarterlife Go watch it all now, for reals, and then watch on sundays.

Pink Lady apples.

Getting the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki sub as a salad at Subway.

Netflix WatchNow being free and unlimited with your subscription, and pretty awesome quality.

Certain officials resigning. Took less than three weeks after the big guns were pulled out.

Fido. So much yay. Why, theater system, did this not even come out around here?

Work friends!

It was not him. (It was some other pathetic, sketchy, emo-rific, 1998-hairstyle-wearing, orange-hoodied, bracelet-sporting, lame DJ-tastic guy, who just has the unfortunate qualification of looking exactly LIKE a middle school boyfriend.)

The Chubby Girl vs. The Treadmill

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:43:00 +0000

Although most of the people reading this blog know me in real life, or have already seen a picture of me, let me fill the rest of you in:

I am overweight. Like, more than a little. Dare I say it on teh internetz? Fat!

At any rate, a multi-front assault has begun to remedy the situation. It is going to be a long time to get where I'm going, and it's going to be a freakin' pain, but that's the situation I'm in now because I put it off for so long and let it get out of hand.

Not unlike, oh, say, the renovation of highway 40.

Because I'm sure my attention span won't let me blog about it all in one day, let's break this mofo up.

Part I: THE GYM
In high school my family belonged to the YMCA, as did several of my friends. It made for good company, although I don't remember ever going consistently for more than two weeks. I wasn't really feeling the working out in college...there were boyfriends and engineering.

Lucky for me, my totally awesome neighbor invited me to come along to her gym. It's not too far from where we are here, and I was pretty psyched to have someone to be responsible to. Our schedules haven't really synched up for going, but she's still very good support, which I haven't really had like this before.

I met one of the personal trainers there, who is just a very normal and laid back guy my age, and decided to do some sessions with him. I'm not working out with him every time I go...because... WHO HAS THAT KIND OF MONEY, HOLY SHIT. But first I did 1 week between sessions, and then two weeks, and now 1 month between. This gives me official accountability (and a chance to have losses "on the books"), plus a good (and updated) plan to follow in the down time.

What's working now is shooting to go 4 days a week directly after work, and then I get to skip whichever one of those I need to (so actually, 3 days a week) - one of the days has upper body weights, one has lower body weights.

Let me just share with you all right now the best thing the trainer has taught me so far. It probably should have been obvious. Maybe you already know, but...
Intervals for the elliptical machine. 1 minute normal speed, 20 seconds faster. Oh my GOD, it makes it SO much less boring, but also forces you to keep up the intensity. I wonder if I had known this in highschool if I would have stuck with cardio more, hm.

It's going pretty well. I can't even tell you how fast I have built up from "really pathetic" cardio endurance to "could run away from serial killers in horror movies until the shot cuts." It's pretty great. So great, in fact, that I have *gasp* wanted to run. I have had a common but frustrating knee issue since high school (more about that another day), but have been able to manage it well so far by buildling up very, very gradually on running.

IF YOU WERE SKIMMING, PAY ATTENTION NOW.

It's going really well. As I said, I have decided to brave running, boucing and jiggling fervently, everyone else at the gym be damned. And I felt good about it! Until while staring ahead in the mirror, I saw an unpleasantly familiar face get on to the elliptical behind me.

... It was a boy I briefly (and in poor judgement) dated in middle school.

I can think of a few people I would have been less happy to see, but... it's a short list. It did not end well. I actively avoided him in high school, and made fun of his lame DJing in college (and was friends with him on Facebook to watch the train wreck. TKE! hehehehe)

I like to think that I can deflate awkward situations, if nothing else by pointing out the awkwardness and having a good nervous laugh over it. But...no dice. I just could not possibly imagine a good outcome of it. What would he say?

"Oh, I didn't recognize your chubby ass, although now I see that you're wearing one of the Third Eye Blind shirts you've HAD since middle school..."

"...who?"

"In addition to having lost of all this weight [he has, that jerk], I'm also now independently wealthy and sleeping with Carmen Electra."

God. When I told Wal, he said, "Well, you didn't like that gym anyway, right?"

Lol. I'm not going to quit because of that. If I'm there 3-4 times a week and I've never seen him? I don't think I probably have to worry about seeing him again. Oh well.

P.S! Love to Meg @ Just Purge and her series, Gym Shorts. There are a bunch of innnnteresting people there I think she'd enjoy.

Deluxe Elite Ace NUMBER ONE

noreply@blogger.com (sort-of grown-up) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 20:52:00 +0000

I spoke briefly about my new vacuum back in this post about my favorite cleaning products.

And now, the attention it deserves:

It's the Hoover DELUXE ELITE Rewind. Funny to me that they pitch the retractable cord in the name, because... that's actually turned out to be the worst feature.

I thought it would be totally awesome to have the retractable cord. No more tedious winding for me! It's not so much the feature's fault as it is the poor integration: the cord is pulled (very quickly) through an opening with sharp edges, which eats chunks out of the plastic insulation. I've only had the thing since May, and it's already got electrical tape covering a good portion of the cord.

Features which do not suck, and in fact, MAKE IT AWESOME:
1) The color. Duh. It's the sexy mid-life crisis car of vacuums.

2) Long enough cord to let me vacuum the entire apartment from one plug (!)

3) Canister/bagless. Oh, how I hate vacuum cleaner bags. I know I would be cutting them open all the time, thinking I sucked up an earring certain cats had batted under the furniture. I would also be going through those bad boys at a ridiculous rate, thanks to all the shavings from the guinea pigs' cage.

4)Decent upholstry brush. Very necessary now that cat hair is my major cleaning obstacle. It also has some crazy hand-powered roller brush tool, but I always forget to use it.

5) Good power/suction. I didn't really look at statistics or reviews to tell, but I suspected that if I got a decent model of a name brand, I would be okay - and that worked fine.

In conclusion: Yay. And you can get it cheaper than I got it if you get it from Amazon rather than Target.