Because Emily Says So

I Love Renting

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:19:00 +0000

Over the past few months, Art and I have been toying with the idea of buying a house when our lease is up this summer. For a variety of reasons, not the least of them being my extreme caution when it comes to major life decisions, we decided that 2012 just isn't our year for home ownership.

Therefore, I'm embracing the things that are great about being a renter and thought I might write some of them down. Now, this isn't an attack on home ownership or home owners; it's something I look forward to. When I'm ready. But renting is pretty awesome too. Here are some of the things that I love about it:

The ability to pick up our lives and move. Not that we would or anything. Minneapolis is pretty great. But we could if we wanted to without taking a huge financial hit.
Never having to mow a lawn, shovel a sidewalk, remove leaves from a gutter or deal with a basement flood. There's a lot to be said for those sorts of things not being your problem. Hell, I felt like a burden was lifted when we no longer had to deal with maintenance on a second car, and houses are a lot more work than that.
Having cash on hand. Not that we'd spend it or anything (remember that overly cautious nature?), but, like picking up and moving, we could spend our money on something else. Or, if there were some sort of emergency, all of our cash wouldn't be tied up in a house that may or may not be able to be sold.
Not having to deal with interior decorating. Now, I know this is a big reason that people love owning, the ability to make the place you live your own, but doing that is also very stressful. And expensive. Not being expected to have a wall color that matches my personality, to me, is a little less (self-imposed) pressure in life.
Predictable living expenses. Rent is hands down our biggest monthly expense, and it gives me peace of mind that the amount it's going to cost to keep a roof over our heads is going to be the exact same amount every month, regardless of whether or not the hot water heater explodes.
Living in a great old building. Our apartment is 100 years old. I love it. It's full of charm and built-in storage. The walls also may or may not be full of bats. The building is wonderful, but if I was in the market to buy, we wouldn't be buying a house this old. The challenge of the upkeep (especially since neither of us is particularly handy) just seems a little too daunting.
Staying out of the suburbs. We have every intention of, when we buy, staying in the city, but I get nervous that the "so much more for your money" lure might call us away. That terrifies me. Probably irrationally. But buying a house just feels so long term that choosing a physical location we don't like could turn into a big, hairy mess.

Awesome Stuff about Sharing a Car

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 04:05:00 +0000

Ever since Art and I decided to become a one-car family last month, we've been riding to work together in the morning. Art works in downtown St. Paul, where parking anywhere nearby is prohibitively expensive (one of the many reasons selling a car started to make sense to us in the first place), so he rides with me to my office in downtown Minneapolis (which, for some odd reason, does have ample parking) and catches the express bus between the two downtowns.

I love this arrangement, but I don't think I realized just how much until Art worked from home this morning and I drove into the office without him.

Here are the reasons having Art in the car with me in the morning is wonderful:

Peer pressure not to be lazy. When someone else depends on you to get where he needs to be in the morning, you add a little hustle into your routine and often actually get to work at the time you intended.
Windshield ice scraping tag team! Who wouldn't love this unpleasant task to be over in half the time?
Someone to double check my blind spot in rush hour. Did you guys know people drive like jerks in the morning?
Carpool lane. Can't beat driving faster than everyone else while feeling vaguely superior to them.
Extra hangout time. Having fifteen minutes to chat about whatever you like (instead of the last time we see each other in the morning being a mad dash out the door because we're both late) is really pleasant.

The Worst Thing About My New Job

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 04:03:00 +0000

So I love my new job, but the bathroom situation is a bit, well, regrettable. I mean, it's nothing like what Jess is dealing with, but I've got some issues going on:

It's always 15 degrees colder in there than anywhere else in the office. Not somewhere you really want to pull down your pants.
The walls are all covered in metal. Which is kind of the same thing as A WALL OF MIRRORS at a time when you're, you know, not interested in looking at yourself in the mirror.
The stall installation is full of large multi-inch gaps, forcing that situation where you're totally catching glimpses of people as you walk down the row of stalls even though you're trying your best not to, then later pretending it didn't happen when you're at the sink washing your hands.

It's making me nostalgic for the days when I worked with Stephanie. We may not have liked our jobs, but there were private bathrooms. With doors that went all the way down to the floor.

What I've Been Up to While Not Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:56:00 +0000

Ladycamping with schnapps.
Becoming a one car family.
Being a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding.
Finishing (and setting a personal record in) that half marathon.
Quitting my job.
Starting a new job one week after Art started a new job of his own.
Hosting Thanksgiving dinner.
Wrapping up the planning of a wedding that's less than 7 weeks away.

So, you know, a lot of change happening over here. How have you all been?

Half Marathon . . . This Time Featuring Art!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:26:00 +0000

Well, I've signed up for another half marathon, the Monster Dash, and Art's going to be doing it with me. Hooray for having someone to peer pressure you to stick to your training plan!

I wasn't sure how much running we'd actually being doing together... if we'd actually like running together or how our paces would match up, but so far I've really been enjoying it. A few times I've left him behind for the last quarter mile or so, aching to just get those last few blocks done so I can stop. Last night for the first time, he wanted to leave me in the dust. He's getting faster. Generally, though, we're good running buddies, even though I fear he will soon outpace me. He's far more built for speed than I am. I am built for plodding along for a very, very long time.

I'm also back on dailymile (and got Art to join!), which is great for keeping me honest about my training. Plus it never hurts to have some nice people remind you that you can do it when you decide you can't.

Speaking of thinking I can't do things, back in October, I announced I was going to run the Twin Cities Marathon, which is clearly not happening, at least not this year. I can't decide if I chickened out because I was afraid of the time commitment or not being able to it. Probably both.

Sigh, maybe next year.

How I Know I'm Getting Older

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 03:13:00 +0000

Saturday night around midnight, Art and I were driving past Lyndale Park* when we saw a group of teenagers trying their very best to look like hipsters but instead looking like they were up to something shady. Also, they were standing in the middle of the road. In the dark. We both said something to the effect of, "What are those no good teens doing out this late?"

Early the next morning, I drove past the park again to see that the fountain near the Lake Harriet Rose Garden had been soaped.

I shook my fist at it.

Damn no good teens.

*Why yes, he did pick me up from Stephanie's because we were supposed to have a slumber party that was ruined when I realized I had to work at 7:00 the next morning but I still wanted to drink a bottle of wine.

Instant Messages from Another Room

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 01:18:00 +0000

This past week was a pretty busy one at work, and I spent most of my evenings glued to my work laptop. When this happens, Art and I usually hang out in separate rooms, but he will occasionally send me a Gmail non sequitur. My favorite was this, mostly because it's a very good idea:

Let's eat more ham and brie on baguette sandwiches.
They can be hot or cold.
We can also have strawberries with them, or grapes.

Twin Cities Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Bob Collins makes us all depressed about the end of summer.
This is a seriously interesting story of a baker. Stick with it. It's great.
Heidi and her boyfriend have a Ramen fight.
I caught some flack for hating on the Mall of America last month, but they can't even spell!
It looks like Wendy had a lot of fun at the 3 Day.
Everyone's loving Mykl's food photography this week.
Meghan makes a housedress adorable. Not easy.
Andy Sturdevant had a brief towel mystery on his hands until it was solved.
Anna, who was my Ragnar teammate last year, did it again this year.
Minneapolis being awesome is SCIENCE.

Everything Isn't about the State Fair!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:30:00 +0000

I would like to put the disclaimer on this post that although the email they sent me got me all perturbed, I love Punch Pizza, their food is awesome and I will probably take advantage of this deal despite my orneriness.

Today I got an email from Punch Pizza. This was not surprising since they do all their marketing online. Most of their emails are about deals on delicious pizza, so I'm usually quite pleased to see them in my inbox.

However, the email I got tonight was a bit baffling. The subject line was "State Fair Deal!" Okay, I thought, they were going to have a booth or something at the State Fair and were giving a discount to their loyal customers. I was a little confused about how they would bring in the giant wood-burning ovens that make their pizzas so delicious, but hey, people love both the State Fair and pizza. It seemed like a great opportunity for them, even if I'm not the State Fair's biggest fan.

Then I opened the email, and it said, "To Help with the Pre State Fair Training, a special deal for anyone that works out."

That was where they lost me.

State Fair Training? Is that gorging yourself on fatty foods constantly to get your digestive system ready to eat a bucket of cookies? Seemed like a weird strategy for Punch, which, while not exactly a health food restaurant, does seem to pride itself on using fresh, high quality ingredients. Why would they promote themselves as a way to prepare your stomach to cram in more Pronto Pups?

But no, that's not it. And it gets even more confusing.

The coupon is for buy one get one free pizza for people with gym memberships. Which is... sort of the opposite of the State Fair? Or does this mean that we're all supposed to preemptively go to the gym to offset some of the butter on the stick* we'll eat at the State Fair... but also eat two pizzas in the days leading up to it?

I know Minnesotans get all whipped up into a frenzy as the State Fair nears, so maybe they thought more people would click through and read the email because of a (nonexistent) connection to the fair. To me, the more effective headline would have been, "Two for One Pizzas," but maybe that's just me. (Or maybe they just wanted me to read it, ponder it, get whipped up into my own frenzy over it and link to it on my blog? In that case, you win, Punch Pizza. Well played.)

*Whoops, sorry, that's another area where Iowa seems to have us beat.

One More Thing Checked Off the Wedding List, But Seriously, Jewelry Store?

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:50:00 +0000

At the risk of sounding like a Bridezilla, I'm going to complain about some really crappy wedding-related customer service. However, it will be sandwiched between two examples of good customer service, so this post is really just a Crap Sandwich.

Today, Art and I bought our wedding bands. We went to the same store where Art got my engagement ring (a place around town that might do a radio ad or two). It was our second attempt to pick them out, and we both walked in ready to be disappointed.

Now, Art did have a great experience getting my engagement ring there; I had made some unusual requests/comments* when we had gone ring shopping a few months before, but they worked with Art to make a ring that I really love.

However, when we went back to shop for wedding bands about a month ago, the woman who helped us was... not really helping us. We started by going over to the men's section, where Art, who had no idea what he wanted, asked what styles were most popular.

"It depends what you like," she replied. That was about all the information we managed to get out of her despite quite a few follow-up questions. I mean, I know everyone has their own preferences, but surely Art isn't the first man to walk into that store without a good idea of what kind of jewelry he likes.

From there, we moved on to the women's section, where she informed me that my ring was weird, and there weren't really any options for me without having a huge gap between the wedding band and engagement ring, which I wasn't really digging. I'd been under the impression that you can mold gold into whatever shape you like (that's how we ended up with my apparently horrible, weird ring in the first place), but when we asked about this, the lady just shrugged her shoulders. My ring, which the store she worked at sold us, apparently just wasn't going to work.

We left empty-handed and frustrated.

Today, based on Art's good experience the first time and the convenience of getting all the rings at the same place, we decided to go back, and a different person helped us. Within minutes, he came up with three different options for us, then went back to talk the the jewelers and came back with even more options as well as information on labor required for custom work and pricing and all sorts of other useful information.

We walked out having chosen our rings and spent much less than we were anticipating (and talked about how great the man who helped us out was most of the way home).

*Things jewelers might not hear a lot, such as, "Do you have anything less... sparkly?" and "These prongs make me feel like the diamond is going to fall out."

Twin Cities Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 03:04:00 +0000

Guffaw is having a photo contest.
Andy Sturdevant writes a phenomenally silly movie review for Bright Wall Dark Room (a site that is awesome, by the way).
Also, for some bonus Andy Sturdevant, when I scrolled past this in my Google Reader, I laughed out loud for quite a long time.
Stuff about Minneapolis bothers to find out what the tallest suburban buildings in the area are.
Shefzilla has some great thoughts on beer and beer snobs.
Anna from True Thai is all pissed off at Trader Joe's.
I'm not sure if this Bus Tales post is supposed to be funny or really, really sad.
SIGH, the buildup to the stupid State Fair has started. Butter sculptures are cool though.
Even though they called my awesome-sounding condiment "crazy-sounding," Heavy Table did also review a place where I think I might want to spend a lot of time eating broth and noodles this winter.
Conner's blog, which I feared had died (much like mine), is back in full force.

Make this Condiment Now

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 02:58:00 +0000

Here's a way to make yourself happy:

Blend together the juice and zest of one lime, one jalapeño (or two, if you feel like getting crazy) and a huge bunch of cilantro in your food processor.
Mix with two cups of sour cream. Or, if you like, mix half of the paste with a cup of sour cream and freeze the other half to use another time.
Put a giant dollop of it on something. Fish tacos, for example.

You're welcome.

Cake Tasting

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 00:35:00 +0000

One of the fun things about planning a wedding is that if you call up a bakery and tell them you're getting married, they'll fix you up a big plate of free* cake to try. Yesterday, excited at this prospect, Art, Stephanie and I headed over to a bakery to have a "cake lunch."

Now, Cake Lunch seemed like a really good idea at the time, but we all ended up feeling like we were going to die afterward since we're not twelve years old anymore and our bodies want to digest actual food. Art tried to strike up a conversation about what kind of cake we should get afterward, to which I responded, "We need to talk about this when I am LESS FULL OF CAKE!"

Lesson learned. You don't have to eat ALL OF THE CAKE just because it's there. It's a "cake tasting" not a "cake gorging." Not that I'll actually apply that lesson any time soon because hey, free cake!

Anyway, I was really into this bakery, not so much because of the cake itself (I generally don't find one yellow cake to be THAT much better than another one) but because of the way they treated us. I find there are two kind of people who try to sell you things related to your wedding, the "you must spend as much as possible because it's worth it on your BIG! DAY!" type (this would be the Uppity Macy's Lady I wrote about here). The other group is, well, reasonable human beings. The woman who helped us said all sorts of reasonable human being things like, "Fondant costs more, and everyone peels it off" and "It would save you money to put the chocolate ganache inside the cake instead of on top of it."

Because hey, we are just planning a party (an awesome party, mind you), and parties have budgets.

*Oh, they plan on charging you all sorts of money later on, but for today, your cake is free. Revel in it, my friends.

Poor Random Kid in My Neighborhood

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 14:52:00 +0000

Walking home from the store last night, Art and I came upon this situation, and we were sad:

But then we remembered everything was okay because we still had caramel, sea salt and praline ice cream of our own:

All the Things You Could Possibly Talk About on the Internet in Minneapolis

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 01:12:00 +0000

The other night Art said he would fold the laundry if I wrote something funny for Guffaw, but I couldn’t think of anything funny to write about. Desperate to not have to find my socks’ mates, I texted Art, who was riding the bus home from a bar, for some ideas.

He presented to me, in three text messages:

Bus people.
Bikers who suck versus bikers who are good.
Happy hour at Lyle’s.
Communting to work.
People who complain about summer heat.
State Fair fever three weeks in advance.
Having two different kinds of cats.
Clove cigarettes.
Segway tours of Minneapolis.
Minneapolis versus Saint Paul.
Walking versus biking.
Hipsters!

Though I didn't end up writing anything for him, this should provide enough topics to keep the Internet People of the Twin Cities going for years.

Twin Cities Thursday

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

I went to the Twins game on Thursday and laughed and laughed about a really depressing "fun fact" they kept putting up about Joe Mauer while he was at bat. I was going to blog about it, but Andy beat me to it.
Art's series on the place he lived when we first started dating makes me a little concerned about the fact that I wasn't more phased by it. Particularly when the first words I heard uttered in that house were "You don't know shit about Burning Man!" and the door was never closed, much less locked. I mean, we learned over the weekend that he may not be much of a protector.
Golden Valley has a new gang. Be afraid of it.
I really need to clean out my closet. Erica tells me how. I still don't want to.
We are 1-4% Neanderthal. That is awesome.
Minnesota police officers had much sweeter rides in the '70s.
Ellen hung out in Minneapolis this week.
Ren should stop knitting so much. It reminds me that summer will end...
...and when summer ends, this happens.
News Cut makes the stock market roller coaster fun.

Absolutely. Not. Happening.

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 11:51:00 +0000

Yesterday Art picked me up from work to take me to the Honda dealership, where my car was getting new brake pads. (Did you know that cars make a truly horrifying sound when they need new brake pads?)

We had this conversation:

Art: So, you trust doctors, right?

Emily: Yeah, most of the time.

Art: But you listen to their advice, right?

Emily: I guess so.

Art: The vet* says Bernard needs a cat friend. Specifically, a male kitten.

A trap!

But yeah, that's not happening, even if the vet claims he needs more "play aggression," something Triskit cannot provide because she is so dainty. Seems pretty aggressive to me that she likes to sit on/guard what we later found out (thanks Ang) was combat vehicle armament technology!

*The cats needed to go in for a rabies booster because of Rabies Bat.

Wildlife Attack!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:05:00 +0000

Last night Art woke me up at 1:45 a.m. “Emily,” he said. “There’s something in the bedroom.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

Obviously, I began to panic because that's what I do, but I didn't move. At least not until we heard a horrifying “Eeee! Eeee!” noise and something (which we would later realize was our cat Bernard) leapt onto Art's chest. We jumped out of bed, ran out of the bedroom, and slammed the door behind us.

A few moments later, breathing heavily and pacing around the hallway, we realized that Bernard was still in there and that we should probably rescue him from whatever animal (Possum? Raccoon? Mini Horse? What the hell was in there?) that had somehow gotten into our bedroom. Art (the braver one of the two of us, but not by much), ran back in for just a moment, then joined me in the second bedroom (catless), where I was cowering in fear.

“Well,” he said dramatically. “I know what it is.”

I hate dramatic pauses.

“WHAT?”

“A bat.”

“OH GOD!” Now, I'm not sure why exactly a bat is worse than a possum or raccoon or the other animals I'd imagined were in there, but it was. It just was.

“But don’t worry, Bernard is trying to kill it.”

At this point, I panicked a little (on top of my established baseline level of panic). While I had no doubt in my cat’s ability to murder the crap out of that bat, bats are also known to carry rabies. Because Bernard had a very bad reaction to a rabies shot when I first got him, my vet recommended not vaccinating him anymore since he was an indoor cat, so the chances of him having another bad reaction were much higher than those of him encountering a potentially rabid animal any time soon.

I guess she didn't take into account how much potentially rabid animals like to hang out in my bedroom, and now we had an unvaccinated animal smacking a potentially rabid animal in the face. I made Art go back into the bedroom to rescue the cat.

Now that everyone in the house was safe, we started frantically Googling what the hell we were supposed to do with the bat. In between reading horror stories about people who woke up with bats in their bedrooms and later died without ever finding a bite mark (yes, that happens), we realized that we lacked much of the equipment recommended for bat capture, like gloves. Also, we are giant, fearful babies.

So we were going to need to call someone for help.

Unfortunately, we had managed to bring most of the important things in the apartment--phones, computers, phone chargers, car keys--into the bedroom, which was now the Bat Room, that night. And we needed a phone. Art didn’t want to go back in, but because he is the slightly more brave one, he had to.

I restrained Bernard, who had been desperately trying to get back into the Bat Room to finish beating the bat to death, and Art went to open the door. Before doing so, he stepped back and said, “I need to put on shoes. I don’t want to step on the bat.”

So he put on shoes, and I continued to hold the wriggling cat. Again, he moved toward the door, then retreated.

Walking up to me wearing nothing but a pair of bright green Converse high tops a pair of boxers and a look of defeat, he said, “I thought that shoes would make me braver.” I wish I could describe how pitiful the combination of this outfit and sentence was, but try to use your imagination.

Finally, he ran into the Bat Room, got the phone, and joined me back in the other bedroom. Shuddering, he said, “The bat isn’t where I saw it last.”

Gross.

We were able to find a 24-hour pest removal service (Animal Control wasn’t taking calls until 7:30 a.m.), but the guy we talked to seemed to be either drunk or high and couldn’t seem to take down my name no matter how many times we tried. “E... M... L... Y?” he repeated over and over as Art and I huddled in the extremely hot second bedroom (the only air conditioner was in the Bat Room, and we’d closed all the windows because we’d decided that since one bat had gotten in, they were all going to try to get in.)

The drunk or high pest control man said he was going to have someone call me, but after an hour, we’d heard nothing. When we called back, he said, “Yeah, I thought I’d give him some time,” which was kind of cryptic. We never heard from him again.

We tried to get some sleep, though it turns out that after that jarring of a wake-up, you don’t exactly just drift back off to sleep, particularly when you’re in a hot room with a tiny bed.

A few hours later, I was back up, counting down the minutes until 7:30, when I could talk to a real person at Animal Control. I started tidying up a little bit since I realized that calling Animal Control meant a stranger was coming over, which makes me nervous because Art and I are pretty pathetic housekeepers. The worst part was that the messiest room of all was the Bat Room, and going in there to tidy up seemed like a terrible idea since the whole point of having a Bat Room is to not let the bat get out.

I finally talked to Animal Control, and they confirmed that yes, it is bad to wake up with a bat in your room, and they sent someone over to catch it and test it for rabies. If they couldn't find it (oh God!), we were going to need to get rabies shots, and if they did, we could wait for the test results.

This freaked me out a bit since I've heard some pretty horrible things about rabies shots, but I guess they aren't quite as horrible as they once were (stories of foot-long needles into the abdomen are apparently not accurate). Still, I was hopeful that we weren't going to have to get them. Particularly because until the wedding, Art has Sad Freelancer Insurance, and I'm sure rabies shots don't come cheap. However, given that the rabies vaccine is 100% effective and the rabies virus 100% kills you, that's pretty much the way it was going to have to go if they didn't find the bat.

Unlike the drunk or high small business owner I'd talked to earlier in the night, the Animal Control guy came at exactly the time they said he would, and he looked exactly like someone you would cast in a movie to be an Animal Control guy. He was able to find the bat and pop it into a Tupperware container with air holes (seems strange to be so humane when the rabies test he's about to get involves decapitation), and in one week we'll find out if we've all (humans and cats alike) been exposed to rabies!

So... how was your weekend?

What has this cat been guarding so fiercely?

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 11:36:00 +0000

Art brought this box home from his mom's house the other day, and his cat Triskit has been pretty intent on not letting anyone look inside since then.

So many causes for concern . . . 45 mm gun? And what does "comuat" mean? I assumed it was a type of gun, but Google doesn't seem to agree with me. And most importantly, who is Warren?

What I do know is that' it's not Art's Star Trek cards. Those have definitely been unpacked.

Art's Scrabble Weaknesses

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 03:57:00 +0000

Though I've whined about the dumb things Art does that make me lose at Scrabble, he does have some crucial weaknesses that sometimes allow me to come out ahead:

He really likes to look at all the tiles in his tray, in that order, and pronounce that series of letters as a word. Thus telling me (approximately) what his letters are. PSHWEEA!
He will also sometimes make up a funny word with his letters and giggle to himself about what the definition of that word would be. Since he finds it so funny, he will then tell me about the word he made up. Again, telling me what his letters are.
If he is able to play a word like "fart" or "butt," he has no choice but to to do it, regardless of point value or other opportunities on the board.

Camel Pool Party!

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 01:55:00 +0000

So I know yesterday I was all down on the Minnesota Zoo, but I did want to share my favorite part of my visit there on Sunday, the Camel Pool Party.

The camels have this enormous enclosure, and as Art and I walked by, we couldn't see a single one. This is pretty normal for exhibits like this where the animals have a lots of room to roam around; you have to look carefully for a few minutes to find the moose or the tiger.

But then we found them:

Now, I'm not sure this picture captures just how many camels were there (so many camels!) and how close together they were (so close together!), but it was super endearing in person, if a bit gross because of all that algae.

Made in America

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 01:20:00 +0000

Let me say a few things about Toby Keith's new video for "Made in America."

The B-roll is my home town's 4th of July parade, which I'm pretty sure means I am from the most American town in America. They also had a sign up about the fact that attending the parade was giving your consent to be filmed for the video that appeared to be scrawled on a flattened cardboard box by a six-year-old. They must not have had much of a budget for this one.
I am 1000% sure this song will somehow rear its ugly head during the course of Michele Bachmann's campaign. I suppose it's more appropriate than "American Girl" though.
Oh shut up Toby Keith, with your yelling at me for driving a Honda while playing your Takamine guitar and lyrically mashing King James and Uncle Sam up against each other to try to make me think it's all cool and nostalgic for a better time in America to mix up our religion and politics.

Where Have All the Mold-A-Ramas Gone?

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 02:27:00 +0000

I'm pretty sure that before this weekend, I'd only been to two American zoos, the Milwaukee Country Zoo and the Como Zoo. Since both of them are home to one of the best things about going to the zoo as a kid (but not so much the best thing for parents who don't like to be begged for unnecessary crap), the Mold-A-Rama, I had assumed that they were a feature of all zoos.

Sadly, I was wrong.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Mold-A-Rama, it's a vending machine that will mold, before your very eyes, a plastic replica of a zoo animal. Also, it smells really bad, and the animals come out piping hot, which is not so great for when you're at the zoo since it's generally 120 degrees there no matter when you go.

So basically, Mold-A-Ramas are awesome.

Yesterday Art finally wore me down after asking many weekends in a row if we could go to the Minnesota Zoo. I'm not sure why I agreed; I was probably made sluggish by all the biscuits and gravy I ate and didn't have my wits about me. On the way there, I mentioned Mold-A-Ramas to Art and I was shocked to learn that he had never heard of them.

After some frantic phone Googling, I discovered that while some people are very into the Mold-A-Rama and the Minnesota Zoo did apparently have the machines at some point in time, they're actually kind of rare and probably dying out.

Going to the zoo is now RUINED. Also, the Minnesota Zoo doesn't have any elephants or giraffes. What. The crap.

Why the Way Art Plays Scrabble is Dumb and Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 02:50:00 +0000

It wasn't long after we started dating that Art and I started playing Scrabble. I'd been playing with my family since I was a kid, and Art, after all, is a writer. We like words. And winning.

When we first started playing, I would regularly trounce him; then, as time went on, we because extremely evenly matched, with him beating me just a bit more often than I beat him (yes, if you're wondering, we keep a house tally).

However, there is one thing about Art's playing style that absolutely infuriates me; he makes up words. See, there are a lot of strange words that get played in Scrabble like "qi." People who play Scrabble know that they're words and that they're awesome but don't actually know what they mean. They're just Scrabble Words.

And that's okay. To be a good Scrabble player, you have to know the words you're playing are words, but you don't actually have to know what they mean. If you do play a word that's not actually a word, according to the VERY OFFICIAL RULES, you get punished by other rule-abiding players like me:

Any play may be challenged before the next player starts a turn. If the play challenged is unacceptable, the challenged player takes back his or her tiles and loses that turn. If the play challenged is acceptable, the challenger loses his or her next turn. Consult the dictionary for challenges only. All words made in one play are challenged simultaneously. If any word is unacceptable, then the entire play is unacceptable. Only one turn is lost on any challenge.

Since Art will just play any two-letter combination hoping it's a word (or that I'll be too worried that it's actually a word to challenge him), we have a lot of challenges in our games. Sometimes I succeed and wipe out his turn. Other times, his made up words are words. This is infuriating, but I cope.

Then we got smart phones, Word With Friends came along, and everything got much, much worse.

You see, in this Scrabble knock-off (I'm emilysaysso if you want to play!), you're allowed to just place, willy-nilly, as many words as you want on the board and submit them, and the game will tell you whether they're words or not! Without penalty! This is word game anarchy, and it's also causing Art to absolutely destroy me in most of the games we play because I refuse to use this tactic out of principle.

Art is a jerk. Mostly because I'm losing.

(Sort of) Freeing Ourselves from Comcast

noreply@blogger.com (Emily) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:41:00 +0000

Last week, just as people were losing their minds all over social media over a $5 Netflix price hike, our Comcast bill showed up. Our introductory rate was over; the bill was for $166. So that was enough of that.

And yes, I know you can call them up and be all angry and pretend you're going to cancel when you really aren't and get the introductory rate back and all of that, but really, there were about three channels I watched, and even then, half the time the TV was on just to have it on. Even at the introductory rate, we weren't getting nearly our money's worth for cable.

So we're down to Netflix (streaming and DVDs) and Hulu Plus, both of which I'm pretty happy with so far, at least for what we're paying for them. If only there were a better-than-Comcast alternative for Internet that was fast enough to deal with all the video streaming. Alas, USI Wireless just can't handle it. (If you do know of a better alternative, you should totally tell me about it.)