the everyday adventures of sabrina

i’ve been thinking a lot about what to write in my obligatory year’s-end round-up post, folks, i really have. considering for weeks which topics i thought were noteworthy, pondering how to phrase things. i wrote a lengthy draft post that i was polishing up, and then it came to me, literally while fetching a glass of water from the kitchen: really, what all do i actually need to say about the year 2006? who the hell cares about things that sucked? pissing and moaning is stupid and boring, and i’m not gonna do it.

so here’s the encapsulated 2006: this was the year i melted down and then started to get my shit together again. that’s all.

and here’s the plan for 2007: (a) drink more water, because it’s good for me, and (b) be more happy. that’s all, too.

happy new year’s!

yesterday:

having decided that it was time for a break from “serious” films, yesterday evening i went for something a little more comedic. more of a cult favorite. less with the thinky, more with the one-liners that i can totally relate to. more… you know, destructiony.

“And I said, I don’t care if they lay me off either, because I told, I told Bill that if they move my desk one more time, then, then I’m, I’m quitting, I’m going to quit. And, and I told Don too, because they’ve moved my desk four times already this year, and I used to be over by the window, and I could see the squirrels, and they were merry, but then, they switched from the Swingline to the Boston stapler, but I kept my Swingline stapler because it didn’t bind up as much, and I kept the staples for the Swingline stapler and it’s not okay because if they take my stapler then I’ll set the building on fire… .”

today:

i was looking at books on amazon the other day about the AAGPBL, so this was a natural choice when i gravitated towards a baseball movie (of which i have only two on DVD; you’d really think that Bull Durham would be one of them, but apparently not. it must not have shown up in a $5 discount bin when i was around, yet. alas.). even if the baseball is pretty bad in the movie, it’s still a baseball movie. and it’s also about the right amount of intellectualism for when you get out of bed at 7AM and sleepwalk your way to the DVD player while waiting for the coffee to hurry up and finish brewing already.

i hadn’t watched True Romance for ages and ages. which is a shame, you know, because on the kaboom scale it’s really right up there, and everyone knows (or should know) how i feel about the kaboom. or, i should say: KABOOM! i think this is probably the weakest of the three kinda-trilogy blow-shit-up films (along with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction), but it’s still a good movie. ’sides, i was in the mood for a heist flick.

plus, seriously, if you haven’t seen the movie before, brad pitt’s character alone is worth the price of admission.

and finally, making his second appearance in today’s lineup, crazy gary oldman starring in Harry Potter and The Only Director Who Knew His Craft!

as someone who freely admits to being a harry potter fan (despite being old enough to vote), this is the only one of the (four thus far) films i can take seriously. actually, not only can i take this one seriously, but i really like it. i think the castle and settings are beautiful, and the details bring a lot of the book’s ideas (if not specifics) to life (like the floating candles, and the floating-solar-system-mockup-thingy in Lupin’s rooms). plus the kids have learned a little more about how to act, and alan rickman gets to be snarky and marvellous, which is always good. ooh, alan rickman snark, that gives me an idea for my next movie of this long, slacker vacation might be. (actually, alan rickman snark could be considered to have kicked off moviefest ‘06, considering i often like to celebrate christmas eve as i did this year: with a viewing of Die Hard. speaking of KABOOM!).

p.s. no, i have no idea why i decided to title this post badger badger badger. i’m pretty sure there’s some long convoluted stream of consciousness-explicable analysis i could come up with if i really try, but mostly i’m just all about the badger badger badger. OOOOOH! A SNAKE!

my trend of movie-watching on my days off continues apace, with today’s offering. you know when you see jake gyllenhaal on the screen that you are in for good fun and wacky hijinks, and of course donnie darko is no exception.

i am honestly a little surprised at myself that i did not get more moviewatching done today. i thought i might sneak in time for two. alas; alack. i wonder what i shall watch tomorrow? maybe i should find something with somewhat more of a a (happy) ending before i go mad and start seeing giant rabbits myself.

From: postcards1001
To: me
Date: Dec 29, 2006 10:20 AM

Subject: You’ve received a greeting from a family member!

You have just received a virtual postcard from a family member!

You can pick up your postcard at the following web address:

http://www2.postcards.org/?string-of-strange-words

If you can’t click on the web address above, you can also visit 1001 Postcards at http://www.postcards.org/postcards/ and enter your pickup code, which is: string-of-different-words

(Your postcard will be available for 60 days.)

unfortunately, clicking the direct link attempts to download a file called postcards.exe (?!), and attempting to manually retrieve the postcard with both ’string-of-strange-words’ and ’string-of-different-words’ results in a postcard-doesn’t-exist error.

the deliberate vagarity of the sender’s identity combined with the non-functionality of it all makes me curious if i have just confirmed my email address to a spammer whose address-harvesting scheme is more clever than “EMAIL TO UNSUBSCRIBE.” alas. it’s sad that i’m so gullible.

oh well. back to my previously scheduled vacation from work, which involves watching movies and playing warcraft. (III, if you’re interested. i never got into WoW.)

yesterday’s movie: boogie nights, a movie i quite enjoy, and one that showcases well why i love william h. macy so much. of course i also like don cheadle and, contrary to all my expectations when he first began acting, mark wahlberg. even heather graham (who normally does things i find more than slightly tedious; e.g., Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) is strangely relatable. this film is far and away better than its east coast-set late-nineties-disco-revival cousin, 54, which, despite being one of the few times i’ve actually admired mike myers’ work (actually, i thought he was brilliant in 54), is mostly a crap film in sequined platform shoes. boogie nights is not really a great movie but it’s a brilliant film. and, of course, i love the soundtrack.

i am grateful now that it is far enough past christmas that people will stop asking me if i had a good one, and what good presents i got (and talking about their own good presents). chiefly this is because i did not, particularly, have a good christmas, and i in fact got no presents (unless you count the traders who were handing out cash last week, which was both totally unexpected and very sweet.).

i find it somewhat ironic that people at work (specifically, people who work in a career that typecasts them as obnoxious, self-absorbed jackasses) like me enough to give me money, whereas my parents could not be bothered to pick up a telephone. i mean, i know it’s a long distance call and all, but seriously, y’all. one of you is even having your mortgage paid for, so how’s about ponying up five bucks for a token gesture to the only child, hmm?

i’m currently being passive aggressive and bitter enough to not call either of them, either. my birthday’s in a week and a half: let’s see who breaks first.

as commented elsewhere, about the only thing that would make me feel better about this trade would be if i read a bunch of enraged texas fans spewing vitriol about how terrible the trade was and how their management is big incompetent all-around jerkfaces. mostly it seems to be white sox fans doing that, however, while the rangers fans are like “dammit, i liked denks! but at least we got mccarthy, so i guess i’m good with it.” this does not make me feel grateful that kenny williams could not spend his christmas weekend drinking eggnog and watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer like the rest of us. mostly it makes me want to hit him over the head with a really thick slab of english toffee.

and also, you know. i really feel that if they were going to trade one of the most eagerly anticipated players on the 2007 team away, they should have, oh i don’t know, gotten someone we could definitely use immediately (as opposed to someone they’re going to make try out at spring training for a starting spot, so it’s not even guaranteed he’ll be any use to us), like, saaaaay… a left-fielder? you know, something we were missing more than we were missing more prospects? crazy talk, i know. sheer madness. maybe kenny should enter into talks with the chicago fire because i honestly think we need a talented goalkeeper more than we need another minor league pitcher. you could put him down right in front of the bullpen fence; not like anyone else is working out there. [0]

and, if javy sucks again next year, there will be no end to my ire. just so you know.

also, as a side note, this is the sort of thing that makes me consider my approach (purely emotional) far more wise than the stats hounds:

Stuff = EqK9 * 6 - 1.333 * (EqERA + PERA) - 3 * EqBB9 - 5 * EqHR9 -3 * MAX{6-IP/G),0}

i mean, dude. you can come up with a complex formula that involves two different sorts of statistically-normalized ERA in the calculations, but you cannot come up with a better name than “stuff”? you funny, silly little people!

–

0 – okay, i admit that i may be being a little hard on scotty. it’s true that my love is a fickle thing. but, see, he went from brilliant to average, and it made me cranky and bitter. (actually there were a lot of things that made me cranky and bitter last year. about the only people who escaped my wrath last season were jermaine and joe. well, and jim, too. yes, much crankiness abounded. crankiness was simply everywhere.) he’s not all bad. he just, you know, he got kidnapped by the same aliens who came down and replaced buehrle with a clone. actually, you know. alien kidnappings explains a lot about the 2006 white sox. perhaps that is why the pale hose seven are in outer space: they have gone to retrieve their people from the farthest reaches of space.

From: (admissions)@trumancollege.cc
To: me
Subject: Welcome to Truman College

Congratulations, you have been accepted to Truman College!

All new students are required to take our placement exam. However, you indicated on your application that you have previous college experience. If you have successfully completed a college level Math and a college level English course, you can have the placement exam waived. In order for us to make this determination, you need to bring an official or un-official transcript to the Admissions and Advising Center (room 1112) where a College Advisor will determine if they can issue you a Test Waiver. College Advisors are available on a walk-in basis.

Office hours for the Admissions and Advising Center are:

Monday through Wednesday 8:30 am – 7:00 pm
Thursday 8:30 am to 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Friday 8:30 am – 4:00 pm
Saturday 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

Student success is our top priority! A number of services from tutoring to academic advising are available for students to access year-round. Cultural events and activities sponsored by our student led clubs and organizations enhance our already diverse campus community. Above all, you will find that Truman offers classes at convenient times, is close to public transportation, and has the lowest tuition rates in the area.

Again, we would like to welcome you to Truman College. Should you have any questions regarding the admissions process, please feel free to give us a call at 773.907.4000. We look forward to meeting you!

Admissions and Advising Center
Room 1112, 773.907.4000

truman offers an automotive technology program. i am totally taking auto shop 101, baby!

(i just hope that i don’t place into remedial fractions like the last time i had to take a placement exam. that was embarassing!)

i am certain other people will write fine eulogies. for me, i’ll just say, i liked his records a lot. my friend rory gave me a copy of Get On the Good Foot for christmas 1995, after i listened the hell out of his copy. i’m listening to it right now. it’s still awesome. i expect it to stay that way.

brandon mccarthy traded to the texas rangers for three prospects.

oh, you’d better believe there’s more behind the jump.

continue reading…

No CNBC today!

Originally uploaded by sldownard.

There are certainly worse things in the world than getting to watch David Tennant be all dorky all day at work as SciFi runs a Doctor Who marathon.

working lots lately, survived madness at marshall field’smacy’s tuesday, out with fellow university ex-pats last night, hawks vs. leafs tomorrow, dr. who marathon saturday, collapse into heap sunday, sleep late monday.

sorry for my lameness in not writing anything interesting lately. here, watch some unicorns! (courtesy of Bingo Pajama.)

i have one sock of the socks i started two weeks ago (almost) done. it seems like the end of socks takes me forever — mostly because i get mostly done with the instep and then i knit two rows and try it on to see if i’m done yet, knit two more rows, try it on again, … so this sort of defeats the subway knitting purpose. (maybe the solution there is to have multiple socks going at once?) and then there’s the toes — i want to do them in a single sitting so i don’t have to worry about forgetting where i was on the decreases, etc., but that means i have to find a solid chunk of time at home to do that. so, i started this toe yesterday evening but i was so tired i only got a few rows into it before i sleepwalked to bed. fortunately (?!), LIFFE blew up at 2AM so i got paged, and then i had time to kill before i had to go get ready for work, so i got it finished up to the point where i went “screw it, i haven’t had nearly enough coffee to deal with kitchener stitch yet,” put it on stitch holders, and cast on for the second sock. THAT i can do on early-morning autopilot, at least.

of course, it was so early in the morning that my models are all too tired to work.

“Huh? What? What’re you — Hey, I’m sleeping here!”

“What the …?”

“Your fixation with taking pictures of things on your cats is disturb– oooh, string!”

and i noticed, amusingly, that while carrying it around to work and back every day for two weeks, my ball of yarn had somehow gotten squeezed into a non-standard ball shape:

of course now all that spare time has flown and it’s time to get ready for work, so you know what i’m going to be singing in the shower? “Dreidl, dreidl, dreidl, I made you out of yarn…”

i cannot help but think that a large number of people who stumble upon ziggurat.org from search engine referrals must be, ultimately, disappointed in what they find.

excerpted from my webalizer stats for the past few days, since i remembered to fix my access logs the other day to actually report on referrers:

Top 20 of 74 Total Search Strings

1. (56 hits, 20.66%) sex
2. (50 hits, 18.45%) doll
3. (19 hits, 7.01%) ziggurat
4. (16 hits, 5.90%) ex girlfriend
5. (15 hits, 5.54%) scared
6. (7 hits, 2.58%) girlfriend
7. (6 hits, 2.21%) psycho
8. (6 hits, 2.21%) sex doll
9. (4 hits, 1.48%) 1973 mach 1 mustang
10. (3 hits, 1.11%) Ziggurat
11. (2 hits, 0.74%) 1973 mach 1
12. (2 hits, 0.74%) EX%20SEX%20SEX%20SEX
13. (2 hits, 0.74%) EX-GIRLFRIEND
14. (2 hits, 0.74%) Matthew%2BShepard
15. (2 hits, 0.74%) SEX
16. (2 hits, 0.74%) car emblem
17. (2 hits, 0.74%) crock pot soap
18. (2 hits, 0.74%) doll pictures
19. (2 hits, 0.74%) doll sex
20. (2 hits, 0.74%) free ex girlfriend pics

all of this really makes me want to ask: is there seriously that much of an audience for free ex girlfriend pics? i mean. it isn’t very descriptive, is it? it seems to me that more specificity is recommended in googling for free porn. at least, if more specific terms were being provided, they wouldn’t end up at what is clearly the most popular thing i have ever posted.

or, hey, maybe they would’ve. this is a universe of infinite possibilities, after all.

i’ve always loved watching the sparks off the third rail, especially when they light up the sides of buildings alongside the tracks.

apparently i’m not the only one.

i know that i am, like, the exact opposite of ideal demographic for television marketers: i have a relatively high income, am single, and in the desirable age range, but (a) i don’t have cable so they don’t get any money from me that way, and (b) i use tivo, so the advertisers aren’t going to get my eyes anyway…

…except for the times when i see something go by, stop, rewind, and watch multiple times, like i did for this mesmerizing, super-creepy PS3 ad:

i don’t honestly know which part i find creepier: the demonic speaking-in-tongues laughter, or the disjointed “ma-ma” at the end. it’s all a little bit like some sort of messed-up the shining vs. 2001 bootleg.

and this just illustrates more of why i so adore the scissor sisters:

Out: The Orange County crowd is obviously a different kind of crowd than the hipper-than-thou crowd.

[Jake] Shears: We don’t like playing for hipper-than-thou. It’s not enjoyable. It’s not a great audience to play for. Who wants to play for a bunch of hipsters? Gross! If I walk out onstage and I see more than 15 bad haircuts, I know it’s going to be a crap show.

[Ana] Matronic: Not bad haircuts–ironic, asymmetrical, retard mullets.

…

Shears: Our shows are very participatory, so we don’t play well for people that have come to scope us out. Arms folded is bad.

seriously, if there is anything i hate more than going to see a dancetastic band with a bunch of fucking hipsters who sit there and just tap their toes and nod, … i just want to throw them out of the club! i hate it when people suck the soul out of shows with that shit. why do you even go? stay home and leave more room to dance for the people who aren’t afraid to admit they enjoy something.