With A Twist

Video Essay

2009-06-07T21:59:00.002-05:00

Okay so this is the essay that Christina and I worked on for this class. I hope you guys like it. It took us approximately twelve hours to complete nine minutes of video. Yippee!

Reflejando

2009-05-25T20:24:00.001-05:00

I'm relatively certain that means reflecting in Espanol, which is precisely what I am supposed to be doing in this post, as commanded by the High King Teacher Person Dude. That is his full name. Personally, I find it ironic that I am supposed to be blogging a reflection. Why is this ironic? Because my second post, which I think may have actually been my first at one point, was titled "Fall Reflections." This post gags me a little bit. That sad part is, I thought it was like the longest post ever. "Whew, glad to have that monster out of the way," was basically how I felt. Bah! What a wimp! Good God child. I think my longest post ever was the one where I was showing that crazy milk man who is boss. It was like 5 posts and ridiculously long. That was fun too.

Let's see here. What else is there to say? Well, I'm definitely bipolar (or manic-depressive, as we have previously discussed). Somewhere during second term I went through this crazy blogging phase and ended up having like 3000 words more than were required for my class. It was, simply put, insane. This past term I've definitely been in the "depressive" phase. I've barely even made the minimum requirement. That is why I have to write approximately a thousand words on my fancy little blog today. I was, oh, 2400 words behind at the start of the weekend. That is a bit of a problem, isn't it?

Let's get back to the reflecting though, shall we? Seeing as I'm not really good at this type of stuff I'm going to look at a few suggestions. I could talk about if I've ever done anything like this before… Sounds good. Nope. I haven't ever done anything like this. I think it is pretty cool though. Even though in two weeks only 215 people have looked at my blog, it is still pretty cool to think that people I've never known, nor will ever know, have read my writing. It is akin to being a famous author! Except for the famous part, of course. You know what I mean.

Another little prompt: do I think I'll continue writing on this wonderful piece of literature? Let's be perfectly honest with each other, shall we? I always feel honesty is the best policy. I would like to continue blogging, and my state of mind right now is that I will. But the problem with me is that I'm a procrastinator of the worst type, and kind of lazy. If blogging isn't required, it probably won't happen very much. Maybe every once in a while I'll pop in and see how things are going in Bloggerland. That's just what I envision happening. It is always possible that I'll go into my manic phase once summer starts and blog up a storm all summer long. That would be nice, wouldn't it? I'm glad you agree. I suppose we can always hope. Just warning you though, it is possible that I will never blog again in my life. Don't think I died or anything, I just stopped blogging. If that turns out to be the case, I guess this is goodbye isn't it? Goodbye faithful readers. It has been nice.

Jimmy Johns!

2009-05-25T10:24:00.003-05:00

I did a bit of research and found the commercial that I was talking aboot. Turns out the stupid little sun/face thing is embedded in a sandwich. But that really isn't the important part. What matters is how annoying it is. The end. Hope you hate it as much as I do! (I bet you don't hear that very often.)

Advertissements

2009-05-25T10:19:00.001-05:00

I'm pretty sure this actually isn't the way you spell advertisements in any language, but it definitely looks like it could be French or something doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so too. I'm glad you agree. Why did I title my blog this way? Just because it would look way more cool than it would were it in English (was that good grammar? Doubtful. Whatever). But the reason I'm writing this post is mainly to complain. You see, I HATE advertisements.

Commercials are some of the most obvious and stupid. Every tv show is either around 22 minutes or 45, depending on whether it is supposed to be 30 or 60 minutes. This means that only two thirds of your show is actually… your show. How stupid is this? Real stupid. Why waste so much time on dumb little commercials. One of my least favorite commercials is the one for Jimmy Johns. You may or may not have seen it. It is horrible. It is a little face thing flying through the air screaming. It continues to scream. It really doesn't stop. Just keeps going and going. On and on. Forever and ever. Kind of like this ramble I'm doing for you. It is that annoying and more, my friends. Then it stops! It is blessed peace for about 3 seconds. Then the stupid face/sun thing starts screaming and crying all over again. And then it implants itself in, well, something. I can't tell. But it really isn't important what it is implanted in. Then it goes Jimmy Johns! Or something. I dunno. I hate it. It is the stupidest thing ever. The end.

Another bothersome thing is ads in publications. Especially magazines. Goodness Gracious. They make me angry. I get excited when my magazine is like 200 pages long. Then I start going through and it is practically none of what I think it should be about and mostly about all these random products and stupid prescription medicines. Those are the worst because they have to include a whole page, or two, of all of their stupid warnings and things that go wrong when you take them. If they are so bad are they really worth fixing whatever they're fixing? And a lot of times they don't even work anyway. I think prescription medicines that aren't morphine are overrated. Personally. Anyway back to my magazine complaint.

One time I decided to count how many pages were actual magazine and how many were ads. Over half of the magazine was ads. How completely and totally annoying. What they should do is stick all the ads in the back so that if you want you can peruse them at your leisure. Not just sneakily slip the slimy stupid things everywhere. It is such a pain. I feel really whiny right now, but oh well. It feels good to get this off my chest. Plus, I need to write about a thousand more words today for my blog so I'm feeling kind of pressured, and most of the posts that will be posted today are going to suck, just a warning. But you'll still love me, right?

My Lovely Job

2009-05-24T15:06:00.000-05:00

I work at the Hy-Vee Salad Bar. It is by far the most interesting job I have ever had, though I bet some people would tell me my job history sucks after saying that. Despite the possibly chagrined comments, I like it.

Back at the salad bar, which unfortunately is maintained between 40 and 50 degrees all day long, we make all of the Di Lusso salads, bagel pizzas, fruit pizzas, and other things generally involving cold food preparation. We also, rather obviously, take care of the stuff inside the... salad bar.

The Di Lusso salads are those slightly over priced pre made salads that look oh-so-delicious. Unbelievably, we sell around 25 different types of salad. I've worked there for three weeks and I've only made around 10 kinds, but I'll try to give you a rundown of our most popular (as if you care). Okay here goes. We have: Garden, Fiesta Chicken, Fiesta Beef, Cobb, Frutto Formaggio, Chicken Club, Chicken Caesar, Homestyle Chef's, Spinach, Greek, Black and Bleu, 7-Layer. Those are all of the types I can think of off the of my head. I'll try to keep you updated on this headline making news. But for now its back to Cabrito (that would be me again) for the weather.

Note: I actually did spell bleu right up above, so if you thought you were some super smart editor of the New York Times, think again. Bleu as in bleu cheese. And you know what? If Bleu cheese is really spelled blue cheese I don't care. Bleu is what the label says and I think the label should be trusted. It is in print and its being circulated around the country, and everybody knows that if its in writing its completely true. Except for if some loser politician writes it, then you know its probably false.

The weather today looks absolutely fantastic but I don't think that that is important or on topic good sir. Back to you for the headline making news.

But by the way, I really don't like my job. It is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo boring. The end!

Okay People, This is sad

2009-05-23T07:33:00.003-05:00

By the way I'm actually writing this post on the 27th, not the 23, but I figure my reflection post should be last. I was thinking today about how I was proud I had made it up to 2400 words, which is 8 posts with 300 words each, and was our generic requirement. I always do less posts because then I can ramble more about one topic rather than write about a bunch of different topics. As I was sitting thinking about how good I am to have caught up in a one day blogfest I realized something. It should be 400 words, not 300. Oh no. This puts me 800 words behind, which is the equivalent of two posts. Which means two points down the tubes. Which means that now I am here blogging away trying to catch up so that I can get a good grade in this class for once. So here I am. Typing away listlessly. Tired out of my mind. Yay for blogging! Ooh! Guys! I'm at 180 words already, this is good. This is very good. I'm one fourth of the way done!

Just in case anyone was wondering, Embroz is over there frightening a poor young lassie to death. He's telling her this might all be a flash or something. It is a bit distracting. I'm not sure I understand either, but hey. By writing this in here I've probably gotten about 50 more words. Only 550 to go!

So me and my neighborfriend Hanna started watching Lost season one on abc.com last year. Want to know how to get there, just in case you want to watch it sometime? Yeah, I figured you would. First you go to http://www.abc.com. Then you click on the Free Episodes link, which I think is in red. It will open a little box type thing with all of the abc.com shows that you can watch for free. There are quite a few but Lost is the one we are looking for. Click on that, you might have to download the movie player thing but it doesn't take long at all so it shouldn't be a big deal. Once that happens it will take you to the Lost homepage thing and from there you can select the season and episode. The earlier episodes are on the bottom, though, so don't let that trip you up like it almost did to me. Once you click on your episode you will have to choose whether you want standard streaming or High Def. I always do Hi Def but I'm guessing it doesn't really matter. By the way, Emma thinks it is creepy to watch shows online, but really it isn't. Feel free to do it.

Zoom Zoom

2009-05-22T15:14:00.004-05:00

NOTE: Blogger is being an immature two year old right now, and will not function properly. The pictures are in the order in which they are mentioned, except reversed. So switch the top and bottom images and you will have it right. Just refer to the top when it seems like I might have been hinting at a picture. Kthxbai.

See this lovely little piece of technology? What is it, you ask? It is a Nike+ sensor, of course. I'm going to tell you all about it.

So you buy the sensor, and if you have a second generation iPod touch then the sensor is $20 and that's that. You're ready to go. If you have an iPod nano it is $15 more expensive because you have to buy a wireless hooky uppy thinger. And that is technical talk, I'm sorry if you didn't understand all of it.

Once you have the sensor you turn on your iPod touch and go to settings. Click on the Nike+ button and you will be able to slide a little switch to the "on" position, which will place a Nike+ icon on your home screen. The next step is putting in your gender and weight, followed by syncing your sensor with your iPod so they can talk to eachother. It's really easy, all you have to do is walk around while the iPod just chills there searching for it. Then once it has found it, they are linked. Easy peazy.

The coolest part about it is the website that you are allowed to sign up for upon purchasing a sensor. Actually, you might not even have to purchase one, I'm not sure. Maybe you should go check and then comment back here so I know? I think that sounds just marvelous (this word, marvelous, must be said in a British accent. Don't Forget). But you will. Nobody ever listens to me. It's okay though. I often ignore myself too.

The website though. That is what I was trying to discuss. Once you've signed up and everything it has a bunch of handy little tools to make sure that you stay healthy and running and walking and all those other wonderful little things. My favorite part is when it graphs your most recent run. It is very cool. You don't believe me? Well I'll show you.

Anyway. Isn't this neat? It shows your average speed over time! Now this one looks a lot worse than is normal for me, just so you know. I took a quick stand break in the middle before I ran again because I had just walked up this big steep hill and I wanted a break, okay? I forgot to pause my workout so... it graphed me standing still for like 30 seconds. But I know what it means, and so do you, so I'll try not to worry about it too much.

It also does something like this except it shows all of your runs. Here, another picture. I'm just going picture crazy today. I can't help it.

See? This shows how many runs I've done and on which date, and how long they were. So far my longest is only 2.2 miles but... By the end of my training thing (a picture of which will no doubt end up on here before this post is over) I'll be scheduled to run three miles. The thing is, the people who plan out the training obviously don't expect people to actually run as long as they are supposed to. My very last day of training say "walk 5, run 30, walk 5." Now, I don't know about you but 40 minutes and three miles? You have to be running like 1 inch per minute to take that long. So it'll probably end up being like 5 miles. When they say one it ends up being two so I figure a scheduled three will be five or six. That's cool. I need the exercise. I haven't legitimately exercised, other than on vacations, since eighth grade. So I suppose I'll be making up for it.

Also, when you are looking at this graph you can highlight one of your runs to see average time and calories burned and everything. Here, why don't I show you.

Neat, huh? I'm glad you agree. So the run pictures you've been seeing are all from yesterday. It was pretty tiring because it was 86 degrees and 40% humidity. Which made it feel really hot. And sucky. But I'll complain about it more to you later. I have places to go and people to see.

Another neat little feature is the training. That is the fourth picture, by the way. You can choose from different programs, or decide to make your own. Mine is called "Walk to Run". Which basically means that you start out walking (duh) and by the end are running more. It not only has you start running but it increases over time from one to three miles. As I've mentioned already towards the end you have a run thirty minutes. This seems like a lot to me. I've probably only run 20 minutes without stopping before and I was going really slow so. I don't know if it qualifies exactly. But this training program sort of eases you into it by gradually having you run more often, and making every other day really easy (only one minute of running). I think it is kind of fun, personally. And when it tells you all the calories you've burned that's always nice too when you're as fat as I am. Did you know that 3000 calories is equivalent to one pound of fat? That means I'm one pound lighter than I would have been if I wasn't running with my sensor dealio. Good stuff.

Personally I think everyone should have one of these sensors, even if you don't have the special shoe that Nike wants you to buy. You can just stick the little sensor under your shoelaces or anywhere really. Be creative. It's totally worth the $20 or $35 dollars. Completely. K that's the end.

Oh!

2009-05-05T07:41:00.002-05:00

So I came to my website today and realized that people don't hate me quite as much as originally thought.

In... lets see... hmmm.. four days I had 44 views! Now, we must keep in mind that two of them were me. But that is still 42 (different) people that looked at my blog! Could this possibly mean that somebody I don't even know looked at my blog? That prospect is a bit too exciting for me. That averages out to over ten people per day. I'm oh so proud. Probably it was just a fluke and the counter will stop going up, but... I can understand. I have the counter set so that it only counts unique computers so maybe everyone that ever planned on reading my blog already has and the counter won't go up. But if I change the counter so that it shows page views then it is guaranteed to always go up because of those dedicated readers that just can't stop coming back. Its irresistable. Plus, it will count me every time I look at it so that'll be a morale booster. But it won't be very accurate so I may just leave it like this. If I have to change it, though, I will. You have been warned.

I Passed The Test

2009-05-05T07:10:00.002-05:00

What test, you ask? Maybe the most important test ever in my life. My friend Oliver came up with these tests. I used to hate them because she was always dumb about them. And made things up that weren't even true. And then told me I failed. It made me grumpy.

These tests were collectively known as the gentleman tests. They were always annoying and not fair, and stupid.

The good news is that I have been passing more than failing recently. In fact, I haven't failed in a while. I passed one this morning too. I held the door open for her. So there. I passed.

That is pretty much all for this post. There really isn't much you can come up with to say about opening a door for someone.

MMMMMMMMMM

2009-05-01T07:50:00.002-05:00

So I got bored and google-searched food in the blogs section. And guess what. I found this person that wanted the grossest foods every and I was reading the comments when I found a link to this place. I was like. Oh dear. That. That is. Strange...? Baconnaise? Weirdest thing ever! I'm a little bit disturbed. The weird thing is it might not actually be that bad. I love bacon. It is an unhealthy love, but no matter. Bacon is delicious. But I really can't see myself wanting bacon on everything ever. That would be excessive, to say the least. That said, I probably would try it if someone gave me a jar. Maybe you should give me a jar... Give me one!

This is what my blogging has come to... I'm ashamed. Whatever!

Is Anyone Home?

2009-04-30T07:16:00.005-05:00

See. I get this feeling that nobody actually reads my blog except for The Salad Bar Queen. Nobody actually cares. To prove this to the world and myself, I have put a hit counter on the side. To get this hit counter for free I had to leave the link about loans.com or something stupid. Everyone knows that people that get payday loans have to pay really high interest and it isn't a good thing. If you want you can click on it, but feel free to ignore it. It is most likely a crappy website anyway. Might even give you a virus.

Guess what! I'm totally and completely and wholly blogged out. Quick sidenote, I used to think wholly was pronounced wally and I never knew what it meant until I asked my dad one time. Turns out parents actually are good for something more than birthday presents. Even if it isn't very often. Oh and I'm getting new Xbox Live for my birthday which means I can get a new account. And Oliver is reaaaaallly jealous.

But about the blogged out part. Remember how I said one time that I was manic-depressive? No, you don't, because you don't exist, remember? Which means you never read my post, duh. But I'm definitely going through the depressive, creativity-free time period. So all of my posts are worthless garbage. It is like having writers block but not being able to take a break, because then I would fail my classes. So I have to fight through the pain or something. So really, I can understand why nobody in the entire world wants to read my blog. But PLEASE, if you actually do exist, follow my blog. This is important people. To my life. What if I end up getting so depressed that I jump off of a bridge. That would be YOUR fault. So. Follow me. Please. You don't even have to read it, none of my other followers do, but just follow me!

Happy Birthday To Me!

2009-04-29T09:59:00.003-05:00

This is not relevant to my supposed topic but who cares? I don't care. It is my birthday and I'm excited. It isn't even that great of a birthday, 17, but it is good in one way. I get my big-kid license (what is it called? Permanent? Intermediate? I don't even know). This means that I can speed as much as I want with the only punishment being a ticket and a fine. No loss of license or probation or whatever it is they do to people that are 16 for speeding these days. Which is totally fitting because Embroz was definitely almost tailgating me today as I drove to school because he thought I was going too slow. Well too bad because it would be completely ironic and totally depressing to lose my not-so-big-kid license today, the day I can get a big kid license. So I made sure I didn't go more than 3 over the limit, just to be safe. And it was totally justified in my mind, not only because it is the law, but because I was warned recently that cops have been very active around my school because whiney babies that live around there have been complaining about speeders. My friends friend got pulled over and got a ticket for going 2 over. That is ridiculous.

This all reminds me of this one time, about a month and a half or two months after I got my first license. I was driving myself back to my house from a camping trip at Strawberry Point when I got a phone call. I had just learned how to use my cruise control (I had always thought it was broken or nonexistent so I'd never used it). I was cruising along at pretty much exactly the speed limit just to be safe. While I was on the phone I was inadvertently resting my foot on the gas pedal. I wasn't overly worried because I figured cruise control stopped you from speeding up no matter what you did. Wrong. You can speed it up with the gas pedal. Since I thought I knew that the speed wouldn't change I wasn't bothering to look at my speedometer, especially since I was on the phone. I happened to look down after a while and noticed that I was going about 90 miles an hour. The speed limit was 55. I didn't even know my car could go that fast! It is a piece of crap that can barely make it up steep hills and accellerates very slowly. Apparently my car is the little engine that could or whatever. It may huff and puff to make it up a big hill but when its straight and flat, it can really go.

And guess what! I have swine flu! No just kidding I don't. But i definitely have all of the symptoms except for the fever. So maybe I have the regular flu. But I JUST freaking had the flu like a month ago and my cough never fully went away and now here I am coughing and dying all over again. And I hate it. A lot. And I'm not even blabbering about anything important anymore so I guess it is time to put this little post out into the real world and let it fight for its life.

Funny Update

2009-04-23T07:52:00.003-05:00

These Irish people, I tell ya. They are some funny kids. Two of them were talking about how Americans say stupid things. I'm sure Irish people say stupid things too. Goodness gracious. But it isn't funny if americans whine about irish people, its only funny if it is the other way around. One of them just kept saying pooooteeetos kind of like that except you would have to hear them to get the full effect. The other one was like lucky chams (UK people don't know how to say their r's). that wasn't as funny as the one who said potatoes over and over. I couldn't stop laughing. And I just thought you should know this, maybe you could search irish person saying potatoes on youtube.com or something. do it. kthxbai.

Hanna Floofenplogger

2009-04-16T07:07:00.006-05:00

I have this neighbor. Me and my neighbor are friends. But on one thing we do not get along. She likes Bush. I sit here and think to myself, Bush was so dumb, he did practically nothing good. People in other countries think we're stupid, all of us, because of Bush. But Hanna likes him. Want to know why she likes him? Because her parents did. Her parents are generally smart people, so it comes as a surprise that they would think that he is smart. Nobody thinks he's smart unless they are in denial. He was alright through 9/11 but after that he just had fail after epic fail. He also cannot properly speak the english language. It is pathetic. One would expect the president of an english speaking country would be able to speak english, but apparently that was too much. And then he got reelected. But anyway, I try to avoid politics because there will always be stupid people thinking stupid things and believing in other people and their stupid things. So whatever.

But while I play xbox I tend to look for anyone, and befriend anyone, with a cool accent. Half of them are probably creepers, but it is okay, because they talk real sexy like. I have briefly mentioned the Irish people I've been playing with recently, and I played with them again some yesterday. There's this one named KGHAV and he's pretty cool. He has an Irish accent too, and he lives in Ireland. In case you couldn't figure that one out. I was discussing a few things with him. One of them was accents. I have asked people this before, but one of them was British and therefore stuck up (that actually is a pretty decent stereotype from what I've seen online anyway). He told me that people were just like "Oh, another stupid American, cool." I assumed this was because of Bush, but he might have just been acting stuck up. He is only like 14 or something. I call him Charlie because of this video.

His real name is like Marcus or something, but Charlie is wayyyy cooler. But that is again off topic. I asked gav ( I think that is his name, thats what his thing said anyway) what he thought. He was just like "ohh, I dunno" in fancy cool Irish accent. I then told him what Charlie had said and he was like "ohhh noo" laddy. I added the laddy because that is what Irish people are supposed to say. But it made me sad because I wish that people thought American accents were cool. Everyone thinks Irish, Scottish, and Britainish accents are cool, why not ours? Maybe because people over there watch the same shows as us like South Park and whatnot so they have become desensitized. I think that is the only possible explanation. It must be. But I'm sick of typing now so I'm going to leave, and you can just sit here and browse my other posts that I'm sure you haven't read, because you don't exist. Once again I tell you, you don't exist. Okay bye. Have fun, my imaginary friends.

Okay People. Really.

2009-04-14T19:25:00.002-05:00

How hard would it be to follow my blog? Probably not very. So if you read this post and you aren't a follower. Click the follow button. It's over there <-------- somewhere on the side. Find it. Find it. There you go. Now click on it. It's that easy, like Staples, but easier. Okay. That was the whole point of this post. I want more followers. Join the swelling ranks and hop and the bandwagon. All the cool people follow my blog. Really. Look around you. ee all those people that already got on the wagon? You're all alone. Click the button. Thank you.

I'm Goin' Pro!

2009-04-13T19:26:00.000-05:00

I have a dream to tell you about. It is like one of those dreams where you wake up crying, except I didn't wake up crying. Other than that it's just the same. Here the narrative will begin, and we will pretend everything I say is real.

I was in Tucson, Arizona, which if you will remember was where I just spent a week on vacation. Of course you remember, you remember every word I've ever written. Silly me. Anyway, I was in some theater somewhere. Then all of a sudden I was in some woman's office, I guess you could say she looked something like this

but not much. Just a general idea. Anyway she was telling me how I was going to get to play baseball for the Arizona Wildcats. I can't play baseball, I'm pretty sure the last time I tried I got hit right in the forehead with the ball in my neighbor's yard. It was painful. Scarred me mentally. Moving on. So I got to play for this professional baseball team and it was practically the most exciting thing ever and apparently I was good enough. The blonde woman told me that I would have to live in the team's secret hideout, which conveniently enough was in the top of the theater we were in. Imagine that. The theater was something like this in layout.

The wall and two doors and staircase (the dotted line) was drawn by me. Good handwriting, huh? I thought so too. I went to go up into the secret hideout's entrance, which was somewhere in the big arched staircase between the two doors. By the way, the door by my handwritten "wall" had a second door behind it, which had a creek running through it. Don't ask me why, it was a dream. So I went to go to the secret hideout and all of a sudden this guard, who looked just like this except in a cop outfit, came over. He wanted to know what I was doing, but I obviously couldn't tell him I was moving in with my new team because then the secret hideout wouldn't be a secret anymore, and that would be bad. So I just left. I reappeared in my own house, back in lovely cold Iowa, just as the phone started ringing. The house phone, mind you, not the cell phone. This is an important fact. So I answered the phone. It was some crazy person with a really weird voice, I don't remember exactly what the voice was like, but it was weird. Crazay weird. This person wanted to know if I was at home, and since I was apparently alone at the time I obviously wasn't going to tell the truth. I told them I was at work. I immediately knew they wouldn't fall for such a silly ploy because my car was in the driveway (My dream-self didn't at the time realize I was on the home phone, so I obviously was home). The person then started doing the crazy insane person laughter and hung up on me. Weird. But it was all okay because just then my dad appeared in the house. As he appeared two people, who happened to be from my baseball team, walked in from the garage carrying some random chair. My dad tried to speak to them but they were from spain and only spoke spanish, so it was up to me to converse with them. I of course did in my flawless dream spanish but right then I was up in the fancy penthouse thing that we all lived in. There was a party going on and I had invited some of my friends, Kro, Embroz, and Oliver Jorge. We were mingling with my rich friends and all of a sudden the cops broke in and deported all of my teammates. They were spanish from spain not mexico so they shouldn't have been deported at all. But I guess my friends (who spilled the beans about the secret hideout and where it was) and got themselves confused and said they were mexicans. The cops didn't care who they were as long as they were deporting someone, so they all got taken away.

Right then my alarm went off and I woke up. Remember how I said it was like those dreams where you are crying when you wake up (which I've never actually had, but my female family members have, must be a girl thing). Well when I was awake I was super sad. As if some of my best friends in the entire world had been rudely stolen from me, never to be seen again. It was also this really wistful, longing feeling. It makes no sense. I have never wanted to be a baseball player. Never. So why does this one illogical dream suddenly make me all sad when it ends? Who knows! But I do feel like maybe, just maybe, if my clock hadn't chosen right then to go off maybe I would have rescued them and we would have lived happily ever after. But no, they got deported and that was that. Gone forever.

If you (here I refer to "you" as if "you" actually exist, but nobody reads this so "you" don't exist) are a dream analyst, and you would like to comment and leave your phone number, that would be great. I will pay you. Tell me what it means.

Ohh The Bloody Wanker.

2009-04-13T07:15:00.004-05:00

Pronounced Irish style, with no r sound on the end. This is one of my new favorite sayings. I don't even know what it means except bloody means bad. And wanker sounds bad. But who cares when it is an Irish person talking to you? Do I care? No. Do you? No. Okay. We're good. I like Irish people. I play xbox with them. And they are my friends. But this in fact has no point at all, and I will stop talking about it. It is not important.

I don't actually know if I had a point in this blog post, except that I like Irish people. I played some more Xbox with them today, and it was fun. They talk real nice like, and I played with three Irish people and a guy from the Netherlands. Sometimes, when I'm reading a book, the author will describe someone speaking as if they think about every word before saying it. I always thought that was a really dumb way of describing something. Way too much of an exaggeration. But this Netherlandian fellow actually talked like that. Really, really, slowly with a big space between each word. And he also had a voice that was incredibly deep. So it just made him sound like a giant from Harry Potter or something. I thought it was funny. I also that it was funny that I was the only American in the games we were playing. But I liked that, Americans tend to be stupid. Except you. If you are reading this you obviously display incredible levels of intelligence and sense of humor. Andd I just lost my train of thought. Thanks for reading. Bye.

She Caw Go.

2009-04-11T21:04:00.001-05:00

Oh brief side note. The people that I work with, well at least two of them, talk like hicks. Andd it makes me laugh. Definitely heard one of them say "Done got me." What the heck. Nobody but hicks say that. Except for I guess my coworkers. But that isn't even all of the time. What do you think, was it just for me? Who knows. Doesn't matter. I'm off topic.

So today I went to Chicago. I've been to Chicago before but I was like six and all I remember is going to the -gag- American Girl Doll factory thing or whatever the heck it is. Badd memories. Oh and we tried to go to the Rainforest Cafe but it was like a 4 day wait if you wanted to eat, and we only had one day so we left. And probably got McDonalds or something super lame like that. But I'm in fact not writing about when I went there as un enano. So let's get on topic, shall we?

We went on a school trip and it cost like 80 dollars or something, which was a bit pricey, but when you have parents to pay for such things. It was worth it too. Well, worth my parents' money. But I bet if I had paid for it I would think it was worth it. It was a good time. If you're friends with me on facebook then you should look at the album. It isn't my album but I'm in it. So have a looksie.

The bus ride up there was the typical charter bus ride. We left at 5:45, which is really not a beautiful time to be awake. I prefer being asleep at that time personally. I rode with Embroz, who now follows my blog, so you can go read his and then he will love you. My friend, Kro, brought Ben And Jerry's Cinnamon Bun ice cream. We all figured, if it is cinnamon roll flavored then it surely must be breakfast food. So she brought it, and spoons, and shared. It was quite possibly the best ice cream I've ever had, and now Ben and Jerry are both my best friends. Forever. Biffles. That's us.

See this girl here? She isn't eating just Ben And Jerry's, but she has the right idea. Look at how happy she is. Isn't it cute? Sure it is. And that's basically how all of us looked while we ate it. Not the messy part though, just the way too happy. Sugar filled amazing ice cream at six in the morning. It was delicious. And fabulous. And exciting. And any other adjective that is good and such. For the rest of the ride me and Embroz pretty much just watched a movie. I think. I don't really remember all of the bus ride up there.

Then we arrived at our destination, the Art Institute of Chicago. It was alright, and pretty much not the reason I wanted to go. It was halfway the point of the whole trip because we had been studying spanish art. But all the good stuff is in The Prado in Madrid, Espana. So it was kind of a lot of not-so-famous works of art from Spanish people. It was okay. ( I saw this painting though)

Then at around noon the real fun stuff happened. We got to go to Cafe Iberico. It was amazing. The weird part is that like 4 out of 12 tapas that we got weren't even very good. A few were downright icky. Yeah, that's right, icky. One was this brushetta stuff and it would have been good except for the pancetta. Pancetta is like bacon without the smoky flavor. The piece of pancetta that I got was actually more like a chewy piece of fat. So it was really gross and I didn't eat it. There was also this bread stuff with some kind of vegetables on it, and that was probably my least favorite. The had some really good stuff, too. Like las croquetas, those were amazing. It was fried something or other kind of like a mozzarella stick except without the mozzarella, it was chicken and ham and some other type of cheese and some doughy stuff. And it was fried. And delicious. I also tried some octopus. It was prepared in this weirdest manner ever. It was like skillet fried with potatoes. So it was french fries and octopus. And you could see all the little suckers and it was gross and depressing. Gross because I'm not used to eating octopus suckers, and depressing because octopi are like the coolest animals ever. I wish I could change color like that. That would be amazing. But right now I'm just really bored of typing so I'll continue this post sometime later.

Back! So I think the octopus may have been the last thing that we ate as part of the included meal, which cost 30 freaking bucks. Ridiculous. But I think it was worth it. Except, their chocolate milk was not up to par. It was watery and weird tasting but whatever. I just drank Oliver Jorge's coke or whatever it was she had.

Then for dessert me and Oliver split a strawberry crepe. I've had crepes before but this wasn't like them at all. The ones I've had were all relatively little and filled with cream or something fluffy like that. This crepe was basically the size of a house and filled with really good vanilla ice cream. I bet the ice cream was made right there in the Cafe. And it was delicious. It was also covered in some strawberries.

I Called My Doctor

2009-04-10T16:13:00.000-05:00

He confirmed my diagnosis of Blog Bipolar. (see previous post)

Don’t You Hate That Feeling?

2009-04-10T16:05:00.000-05:00

What feeling, you ask? That one where you have this assignment or something hanging over your head. You know you should do it, but anything, anything, is more interesting. Staring at a wall watching paint dry, watching water boil (which, as everyone knows, is impossible. If you watch it it never boils, duh), watching your fingernails grow, all are more interesting. It makes life a bit stressful, which also apparently makes life shorter. So basically, school makes life shorter. One could argue that the quality of life is increased because now people can afford fancy gadgets and whatnot with their degree. But I don't care. I'm off on a tangent anyway. The point, as stupid and boring and nonimportant as it is may be, is that this blog has been giving me that feeling lately.

Before I went on my one week sick-fest I was blogging up a storm, and then all of a sudden, I didn't feel like it anymore. Let's blame it on the sickness shall we? I think the reason I was doing so well is because it wasn't really an assignment for me anymore. I had a few blogs more than required each week and so I didn't worry about it too much. If I didn't have anything to say, I wouldn't bother. But now that I was sick for a week and then swamped by make-up work for a week I am no longer ahead. In fact, I'm barely keeping up. I might even be behind. And that makes it hang over my head and takes all the fun out of blogging. It isn't quite as boring as watching paint dry, because I can pretend that someone actually cares about what I have to say when I talk to myself on here, but it's getting close. The most logical explanation is that I hate homework, and since I already have homework in plenty this assignment is no longer fun. I can't really think of anything else that would explain it. Or actually I can. It could be that I am bipolar (also known as manic-depressive) because they go through two phases. In the manic phase they have a whole bunch of creativity and all this energy and it's just wonderful. Apparently a lot of famous artists had this disorder and that is why they were so good but ended up going crazy in the end, like Goya, but he was also deaf and they blame his craziness on being deaf (I know the truth though, he was just bipolar). The second phase is the depressive phase and bipolar people get super depressed and have suicidal feelings and all that crappy stuff. Maybe I am Blog Bipolar. I think I must be because at the beginning of the year I could never think of anything to blog about, then I went through a blog-manic phase where I was like 8 blogs over the requirement, and now I'm in the blog-depressive phase because I can't think of anything to write about. I think I'll call my doctor up on this one and see what he thinks. Anyway. It's been fun. Lets hang out again some time.

Spencer, Shut Up.

2009-04-09T07:08:00.003-05:00

Wondering why I put this title? Because Poopypance or whatever her blogger name is just loudly exxlaimed that to some person. The name may have been changed to protect his (or her) identity. I don't feel like having his (or her) identity stolen on my behalf. That would be rather sad. And a little bit unlikely. Basically the only reason that is my title is because I couldn't think of what to name this post about dead people, so I just chose Spencer, Shut Up. It is a good title. Adds a sense of mystery. Or something.

So the dead people, you ask? Well today I'm going to THE BEST college ever to see some dead people. Want to know the college? Now here I'm going to assume everyone as heard of it, because only people that live in the ol' CR would ever consider reading my blog. Because only people that I force to follow my blog would actually ever look at it. Pretty much. If you don't live in Cedar Rapids and you are reading this. FOLLOW MY BLOG. Unless you live in Decorah and you are my sister. Because that would be anticlimactic. But otherwise, follow it. Then I can brag to everyone that I have cool followers, and they, poor silly people that they are, do not! Anyway. Back to the college I'm going to, both to see dead people and for real college. Kirkwood! Best school EVER. I love it. It's so amazing. All the smart people from the world go there. All of them. Actually I'm not going there. For college. But I am going to go there today (if I can find it). I've never driven there except for one time, and I got lost, so I'm screwed basically. And I'm driving some kid I don't even know as well. So we're both going to get lost and then get kidnapped, and then die. That's how it always happens in the movie, and movies don't lie.

Assuming we will eventually get there, we then have to find the right building and the right room then we get to see some dead body. Sounds exciting no? And basically thats all I have to say about the dead body viewing. What a long and exciting way to get there, huh? I thought so. And you do too. No you don't, but "you" don't exist because nobody reads this. So the moral of the story is I won, and you lost, and there is nothing you can do to change that. HA!

I Have Been Silenced Long Enough

2009-04-05T15:46:00.002-05:00

Okay. So a long time ago I decided that I would try to complain on my blog as little as possible. I mean really, nobody wants to hear some random person they don't even know complain. It's ridiculous. And stupid. But I have decided to complain in this post for two reasons. Number one, nobody I don't know reads my blog anyway (because they obviously would have followed it, since it is so amazing), so it isn't like I am complaining to random people who don't care. The people aren't random, even if they still don't care. And reason number two, everyone that reads my blog most likely lives in Iowa and share my grief towards the previously mentioned state.

Iowa is lame. The weather here from October to April tends to suck. Majorly. Some people get all fuzzy and happy inside when the trees start changing colors, but not me. First of all, green is my favorite color so why would I want it to change to red, orange, yellow, purple, or any other stupid color? That's my opinion on the dumb trees anyway. Also, everyone knows that Fall is a season of way too many clouds and the end of summer. Which means the end of warm weather. Which means the beginning of freaking cold. And after Fall comes Winter, in case you didn't know, and Winter is completely lame. It is sunny like one day out of every ten and everything is either gray, brown, or some disgusting mix of the two. Except for snow of course, which is white. Either way, there is a dismal lack of interesting colors, and even the sky is useless. Floating around up there acting completely worthless and gray. Sheesh. Not helpful. Anyway. Winter is just plain lame. There aren't enough school breaks, which doesn't help either.

The real point of this blog post is that it is now April Fifth, of the calendar year two thousand and nine (I just felt like writing it that way because it takes up more space and makes me feel like I have accomplished something, which I haven't). It is also snowing, sleeting, hailing, raining, windy, and generally looking crappy out the window. I hate it. It is April. Whatever happened to April showers bringing May flowers? I'm pretty sure snow doesn't count. Not at all. I want it to be warm and sunny and hot and delicious so I can exercise in the great outdoors. Not that I probably would be outside anyway. In general all of my time at is either spent at school, at work, doing homework, or playing video games. It is not an exciting life. I blame it all on school. School ruins everything. If only I could drop out, but I don't think med school accepts high school dropouts. Maybe I'll look into it. Or maybe I'll just be homeless and bum around in some rich city where people throw money at the homeless all the time, almost like it is a never ending parade. How does that sound? Yeah, I thought it sounded a bit implausible too, but whatever. I'll think of something sometime.

Your Wait Is Up

2009-03-30T20:00:00.001-05:00

So. You've been dying to know what he was proud to have recieved. Well your wait is over. He was proud to have received an 'F' on his most recent assignment. As I was sitting there studying every whorl and miniscule intricacy of my fingernail I almost laughed. I was like. Mmmm hem hem huh... wha? But of course this exciting and highly eloquent dialogue was only carried out in my head because I wasn't going to talk to members of the Tucson Chapter of the American Dirty Club. I am obviously above such trivial blabbering. Obviously people. Anyway. I was sitting there quite surprised. To me, an F is not a good thing. In fact, this fellow must have been incredibly stupid because it is not possible to get worse than an F. You can do no work and still manage to scrape by with a F. Its really not hard. So I was a bit intrigued. More interesting than my fingernail, quite possibly. I have a little bit to tell you about Mr. Dirty.

You know the movie Grease? Annoying movie. It is alright, but it's annoying. You know that one weird guy in the movie (as if that isn't half of the people). He is the guy that in the one car race drives the bad guy car. The gray car with the flames on the side and the neat little things that you can make pop out of the wheels to attack other cars. That guy. I don't know his name and it surely isn't important, but Mr. Dirty from the hot tub sure looked a lot like him. They might be twins. Creepy.

Anyway, me and Muj ended up leaving after just a short warm-up time because, no matter what I have said, I was not very interested in my thumb nail. It really got old pretty fast. So we left but instead of trying off and putting some clothes back on, as is usual, we just picked them up and left. The sooner we were gone the better. So then we walked a short distance and then set all our stuff down and started getting fully clothed. I thought that Muj had chosen a stupid spot that was much too close to the pool, but the clothing was already on the ground so it was too late. As I was standing there drying off and whatnot I glanced over at where the pool is and, to my great consternation, discovered that they could actually see us still. How awkward. There we were thinking we were all smart but instead we looked like fools. Hmph. Cabrito doesn't enjoy looking like a fool.
The end.

This Post Bears No Name.

2009-03-30T18:09:00.003-05:00

I spent the last week, my spring break, in Arizona. It was hot. Not only was it hot because Arizona is a desert and recieves (I heard, anyway) twelve inches of rain a year. Honestly. Thats not much water people. That like. Doesn't even count. My own tears (not from crying you moron, from keeping my eyes wet) add up to more than that. Ridiculous. Anyway. Arizona is hot. Even though it was the Arizona winter the coldest day we ever had was like 75 degrees. It does get cold at night, mind you, because deserts tend to do that. Maybe down into the 40s or so? Who knows, and better yet, who cares? I care.

My grandma gets cold a lot. I know, I mean, 70 degrees is downright freaking cold. We think she has a thyroid problem maybe but that really isn't the point. The point is that, while in Arizona mind you, we had the furnace running. Back at home we keep the house at 59 degrees to save money, in Arizona we kept the house at 83. Let me repeat. Eight. Three. Degrees. That is wayyyy to hot to have a house, especially when you can't even stick your head out of the window to cool off because its nearly as hot out there. What are you supposed to do? Like anyone would I made the logical decision to go swimming. That was my most common activity and all the elderly old people most likely thought I was crazy swimming for like 5 hours a day, but what is a lad supposed to do? Burn to death? I prefer swimming, personally.

While at the pool with my dear sister, whom we all lovingly refer to as Muj Puj (pronounced Mudge Pudge), I began to get cold. I had been floating around on a noodle (<-- and yes, that is me in the picture. Cute aren't I?) trying to stay warm by sitting in the jet of water that shoots out of the heater. It didn't work. I was cold anyway. So I decided to go to the hot tub and right as I was lethargically paddling over three lovely people walked into the pool area. Someone whom I took to be thirty and her to teenage ish children. They got in my hottub. I was incensed. I don't enjoy awkwardly sitting in a hottub with some random people because right when you get in there is this silence and you are forced to stare at something stupid like a floor tile or a fingernail to avoid speaking with them. Me and Muj decided that we would brave the newcomers and get in the hottub because this was (we thought) our last night, and we really didn't want to leave the pool and walk all the way home freezing just because of these three people. So we got in.

There was, surprisingly enough, this awkward silence. I never even saw it coming. To avoid looking at these people, whom I could now see were actually of similar ages and all in high school/ middle school, I stared at my thumb's intriguing nail. I busied myself in all of the lines of my nail while the people slowly resumed talking. There discussion was actually more interesting than my finger. I was shocked. One of the boys was talking about how he was proud to have received...

CLIFFHANGER ENDING

What could come next? Who knows? I suppose that you will just have to read the next post!

Well. This is fun.

2009-03-15T03:00:00.002-05:00

If you don't care about my life or me being sick don't read this. But I feel like complaining.

So on Thursday night I got a sore throat and thought nothing of it. It was still there Friday morning, but again I thought little of it because I tend to sleep on my back and breath through my mouth so with the furnace running my throat sometimes gets dried out. Unfortunately it stayed bad all day long. Got worse, even. Then I woke up today at like 6:30. On my own. I was planning on sleeping in until nine. Why was I up and such a terrible time on a Saturday? My neck hurt. Not only did my neck hurt, but my back, head, arms, legs, and everything else as well. I stood up to get a drink and almost fell right back down. My head did not appreciate the massive altitude change brought about so suddenly (you see, I am really tall. Really. Tall. Sometimes I get altitude sickness because of it). It was lame. I also felt like I was on fire. That may have been in part because I left my electric blanket on all night long, but that is a pretty common occurence and I don't usually burn to death because of it. Sad part is, I almost did burn to death last night.

I wandered downstairs and the lovely time of 6:50 and told my mom that what she had thought (that I would wake up with a bad cold) was completely wrong. I had the flu. Last year I missed four days of school because of it. I have three tests on Monday and really cannot afford to miss school. Or miss studying tomorrow. I took my temperature and discovered that I had a fever. Greaaaaat. I just got done learning how fevers are actually good things because they increase the effectiveness of the phagocytic cells in your body as well as the speed of the metabolic processes. That makes me wonder why Tylenol is a good thing when it reduces your fever as advertised. I know it reduced mine. Isn't that kind of making me sicker? Seems like it.

So yeah then I called into work and was like hey. I'm sick, not coming in. Kthxbai. And my manager was like ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm wha??? Oh I was looking at the wrong week. Nevermind! I was like okay miss manager way to be confused. I probably sounded like a drug addict though. My voice was real hoarse like. And this post is disturbingly boring. What is wrong with me? I am going to blame it on the influenza virus that is taking over some of the cells in my body and turning them into virus factories. I don't really like that thought. Viral DNA is being created and packaged and everything so it can go ruin somebody else's week. Sad. Hope they wash their hands!

I can has cheezburger?

2009-03-14T20:40:00.005-05:00

I discovered this website from some British guy I play xbox with. Or used to. He doesn't really like Gears of War 2 because he thinks the matchmaking sucks. And it is true, the matchmaking does suck. But the game is really fun so you just kind of have to wait for a good game and then enjoy it. Anyway. He told me about this site and its really quite humorous. I laughed. Many times. This picture is from that website. And I like it. SO there.

P.S. the cat in this picture is totally one of my cats. I don't know which. Probably Henry. Henry is really cool. And fat. And he really doesn't care what he's told to do because he does what he wants. Then again it could totally be Nikita because she sits like that a lot. The end.

Poker Face

2009-03-14T20:37:00.002-05:00

This song got stuck in my friends head. And they told me to put it on this blog. So here. Hope you enjoy it.

Stranger Than Fiction

2009-03-12T07:06:00.003-05:00

So there is this movie called Stranger Than Fiction, and it is real good like. I watched it on Sunday because I didn't have to work until three. Not working until three was maybe the best thing that has ever happened to me. It was amazing. But, alas, this is not the point. The point is that one of the main characters in the movie had writers block. It was so bad that she didn't kill off her main character in ten years. She sat there smoking and trying to figure out how to murder him in her book. It was kind of pathetic and then she sat in the rain and smoked and she looked like a hobo and it was lame. But this is also not the point. The point is her writers block. It was sad. And her publishers thought that she was a failure and they sent her some assistant who in eleven years had helped 20 different writers finish 35 different books. Or something like that. Basically, she was a book finishing ninja and should be worshipped. And it was Queen Latifah and she is really funny and I like her. She was in Bringing Down The House which was another real good movie. That I also loved. She helped whatsername finish her book and it was all wonderful and writers block was over hooray yippee! Unfortunately for me, Queen Latifah is not here to help me write blog posts. I bet she would be good at it. Do you think I should call her up and ask her to? I'd probably be shot or something. Sad story. Oh weird little thing that I noticed. When I was looking around for a picture to put for Bringing Down The House I noticed this website that was like : If there were anyone in the world I could kill it would be Queen Latifah. I was like, excuse me? She happens to be a really funny actress. And she's cool. So no. You're a freak. I even left them an anonymous comment that told them they needed psychiatric help. I may have called them a freak but I really can't remember. Probably did, it's something I would do. K.

This marks the end of the first blog post in way too long. Thank you for pretending to yourself that it would be good, I appreciate the thought.

What, me? Why?

2009-02-10T18:46:00.016-06:00

Please ignore the flashy sparkly rainbow. It is not a sign of anyone coming out of the proverbial closet. The picture fit my post. Get over it.

I've been asked by one of my avid readers to write a post about blogging itself. Okay that is fudging the truth, I doubt they are an avid reader. Unfortunately, they have the power to tell me what to do and I, humble as I am, must obey. If you don't care, move on. Consider this your warning, I'm protecting you from the boredom that may ensue if you read this. Also, I'm not sure which angle I'm supposed to take, whether it is a "Why I Blog" sort of thing or a "What is the purpose of a blog" type deal. I'm going to mix them up. So there.

Blogging is indeed an interesting concept. I'm not fully sure why anyone thought of it. I suppose it does save paper, but since when do important people that make important decisions really care about that. Plus it uses electricity, whereas writing on paper does not. This, though, is neither here nor there, and is not important.

I guess blogging was a revolutionary idea. People could spend some time writing whatever they want and publish it before anybody could criticize them on their use of words or lack of commas. In effect, it was instantaneous writing. Quite unheard of. Anybody could publish whatever they wanted, true or not, important or not-so-important, interesting or kill-me-please boring. It didn't matter, and it didn't matter who wrote it. Anyone could be heard, or rather read, and anyone could speak up. A very interesting idea...

But why do I blog? That is a more complicated question than one might think. I started off hating blogs and everything they stood for. They seemed like such a waste of time. But I did my best. Take a look at the first post, and try not to laugh. I was so proud of that painfully long post. Surely, I could handle this. Turns out the average post was supposed to be about 400 words, with a total of 1200 or so a week. Both of my first posts (which I had great affection for, bless them) added up to 400. This was going to be a problem.

Then one day I decided to write exclusively about songs I heard and liked. I would embed the youtube video, write some lyrics, and interpret the song. That turned out to be a disaster. Why on earth did I have to blog? I deplored my situation.

Then I decided I would just write about whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. This turned out to be a much better idea. I came to the conclusion that blogging for a newspaper or something would be really quite hard. To think of something to write about every day, that actually had a purpose, would be difficult. I can manage my blog only because I write about the most random things possible, and I spend most of my time muttering to myself. Muttering takes up a lot of words, you know. I suppose the only reason I actually have people that read my blog is because it is a little bit entertaining or something. I'm kind of losing my train of thought, but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to say. So that about sums up blogging in Cabrito's world anyway.

Hey wasn't that post amazingly fun? It is like adding imagery to your writing, without having to actually write it! Perfect! Unless people start complaining I'm going to do that from now on. It will be fun, and you will love it.

Oh and that last one, the Cabrito one, was me.

P.S. The reason my picture is important is because writers think everything they write is perfect and blah blah blah that's why people should read it. So, as a writer, I feel the same way. Duh.

I Hate Homework

2009-02-09T20:19:00.009-06:00

Don't we all? I think we do. Except for of course Roxanne Betta. Because she is crazy insane and loves it deep down. Everyone else though is tortured by homework. Haunted, even. It was while distracting myself from the doldrums of homework that I came across a wonderful picture. This picture is quite hard to read, and so I will describe it to you and then give you the words. Okay? We appreciate your cooperation. We really do. You are great, you are awesome.

It is a sheet of notebook paper. Or rather, a picture of one. It has had some stuff typed on it. It looks like it should be a t-shirt. In fact, it probably is. If it isn't I know some of the points on it are because I have seen shirts like it before. Okay here goes.

I Didn't Do My Homework Because:

I didn't do my history homework because I don't believe in dwelling on the past.

I didn't want the other kids to look bad.

A sudden gust of wind blew it out of my hand and I never saw it again.

Another pupil fell in a lake and I jumped in to save them. Unfortunately, my homework drowned.

Our furnace broke and we had to burn it to keep ourselves from freezing to death.

I'm not at liberty to say why.

I wanted to frame the detention letter you're about to give me.

It was involved in a freak accident involving a hippo, a toaster, and a bag of frozen peas. You don't want to know the details.

I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.

My mom used it as a dryer sheet.

My agent won't allow me to publish my homework until the movie deal is finished.

I was abducted by green-skinned, three-eyed, pig-snouted space aliens and they incinerated my homework with their death rays.

I felt it wasn't challenging enough.

My parents were sick and unable to do my homework last night. Don't worry, they were sutiably punished.

I lost it fighting this kid who said you weren't the best teacher in the school.

I didn't want to add to your already heavy workload

I spent the night at a rally supporting higher pay for our hard working teachers.

How funny are these? The correct answer here is really funny. Really, really funny would get you some extra credit. I'm considering using these on my history teacher sometime. I think he would enjoy them. Unless of course he doesn't find them funny, and consequently fails me. That would be a shame.

Kbye!

Oh and P.S. I actually didn't even include all of them. There are actually a few more, but they were stupid and/or lame. So I decided that you would be better off without reading them. I'm trying to improve the world intelligence level. Work with me.

El Cabrito

2009-02-05T07:50:00.005-06:00

I have just discovered something very sad. I am not the first person to make up the name El Cabrito. This is tragic. I have lost my uniqueness. Whatever happened to every person being special? It was all a lie!

Maybe not. But I googled el cabrito, and I, being the most important mini goat in the world, was the first one to show up, followed by another post using the name El Cabrito. I was initially shocked, this emotion was quickly followed by outrage. I was incensed, to say the least. Or I felt violated. Pick your favorite emotion.

Turns out there is a place called El Cabrito Taqueria, which is a taco selling place. Not only do they sell tacos, but any number of tacoey things. Who do these people think they are? Important? Because they are not. They sell tacos. I write world famous blog posts. I think famous authors trump community loved taco makers. Diss! No that is really just a joke. I like tacos.

I will of course have to look more into this business, to make sure that they are not misrepresenting the goat. That would be quite the shameful ordeal to say the least. You may take a look here, but be warned. The first time I took a peek I couldn't help but notice a certain advertisement in the margin. Something about some 'sex survey.' I, being the honest citizen that I am, did not waste my time with such things. In other words, the survey was already closed. I will be honest with you, I was a bit curious as to what the heck type of questions this survey would be asking. Just in case you would like to know the results of the survey, they come out two days from now, 2/12/09. Try not to get too excited please.

I appear to have rambled off my topic and am now looking around at the swamp I got stuck in. Whatever. I probably won't ever get back on to my paved topic.

Until next time.

P.S. For you excited readers who can't wait to attempt to take the sex survey, despite my warning that it is no longer open for input, the ad has been removed. Hate to burst your bubble and all.

Danielle Part 3

2009-02-04T18:48:00.004-06:00

To add insult to injury, she went to talk to the managers. One would expect her to say something to the effect of "Oh I overflowed the sink and I'm really sorry, don't blame it on my coworkers." Is this what she said? Of course not. She said something more like "The High Schoolers have been dicking around." What kind of phrase is that anyway? The nerve! She could have kept quiet and none of the managers ever would have known anything, but instead she blames it on me! Me, who had made 56 salads, 4 pans of Taco Haystack dip, 18 vegetable pizza bagels, and 15 fruit and cheese trays. My list went on and on, while hers barely even existed. Can you imagine what my co workers and I felt? Pissed off would be a good term. Furious would be another. Not only did we work our asses off all day, we got blamed for somebody else's mess and had a new list of work to boot!

So, my friends, the lesson of the day is that people can not be trusted. Have you read that little note on the side? About small children? Well that should be changed to everyone, but I can't remember how to edit it, so it will continue to say small children.

I wanted to put a post of a lesbian up here, but after Google searching the word lesbian, I thought better of it. The pictures would have burned your eyes and made them bleed. So I guess the moral of the story is, don't trust any lesbians named Danielle. I think there should be a deeper moral but I'm too tired to think of one.

P.S. Sorry if this seemed whiny, but I thought everyone should be on guard for lesbians named Danielle. They are evil.

P.P.S. Sorry that this post was so long, it just happened to turn out that way. I did some word counting and it adds up to about 1140 words. Quite the lengthy little beasty!

P.P.P.S If the post doesn't seem very long anymore I probably broke it up into several smaller ones for neatness' sake. K thanks. Bye.

Allergen Notes: Sarcasm is included.

Disclaimer: Names may have been changed to protect the identity of those discussed in these and other blog posts.

Danielle, part 2

2009-02-04T18:47:00.003-06:00

To further complicate Danielle and her problems, she has a major crush on Joy. I wouldn't be surprised if she broke up with her girlfriend today and proposed to Joy. Joy is 38 or so, Danielle is 21. To most people this would be a large obstacle, but Danielle is used to such relationships. Her girlfriend is 31, and 38 isn't that big of a step up is it? Only 7 years. May I barf please?

These reasons alone would not be enough to explain why I dislike Danielle. Danielle has overstepped her boundaries, and will pay for her transgressions soon enough. Hopefully.

Last time I worked with her, last Sunday to be exact, was when she really over taxed herself with the cantaloupe and Taco dip. I didn't say anything because I am used to it. I just try to ignore her. Anyway, at one point Danielle turned on both sinks and went to text in the cupboard before leaving the room. I am used to her wandering out randomly, so I thought nothing of it. Neither did Gabby or Kayla, two of the other people I was working with. We left the room as well to do some actual work, consisting of checking up on the salad bar and whatnot. Jared, a produce guy, came out to tell us that Danielle had walked in the room, and discovered something absolutely flabbergasting. Her running water had overflowed! How tragic!

Danielle of course did the only wise thing, and said "F***ing High Schoolers!" This statement would come to my mind had I made a mess too, anything to blame it on somebody else. She proceded to have a minor mental breakdown and go into psycho mode. After cleaning up her mess she went out and made a massive list of things to make that, in all honesty, did not need to be made at all. It included, but was not limited to, 28 more salads, 2 fruit pizzas, 6 fruit pizza slices, and over 10 fruit and vegetable trays. This list of course took her a half hour to compile. With list in hand, she charged back into the prep room to show us high schoolers who was boss. As if we had overflowed the sink in the first place. The sad part is, Danielle does not even have the right to tell anyone what to do. She came crawling back to Hy-Vee after quitting a few years past. She plans on becoming a Hy-Vee lifer. She's really, really cool.

TO BE CONTINUED

You, My Friend, Are a Potato

2009-02-03T07:18:00.013-06:00

Yes, you are. You are an amazing potato, and of you I am proud. Yeah. Potatoes are good, and you are a good potatoe. This means that you are double good. Really amazing in fact.

Why am I talking about potatoes, you ask? Because someone told me to. Because I couldn't think of anything else to write about. So potatoes it is.

Potatoes are really good, as well as a versatile food. You can make them into all sorts of things like matchstick fries, curly fries, normal french fries, thick cut fries, tater tots, steak fries, potato patties, latkes, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, hash browns. I mean really, what kind of food has that many applications? Not many.

Last night I had Salisbury steak with mashed potatoes. Have you ever heard of Salisbury steak? Probably not. It is like Mum's Chopped Steak from the Outback but I doubt you've had that either. Well I guess I'll just have to describe it for you, shall I? You take some ground beef and mix in spices like thyme and other spicey spices. Once it is all good and mixed in you make it into patties and chuck them in a skillet with some chopped onions. You're supposed to put in mushrooms as well but we didn't have any. So we didn't put any in. So there. Once they are all cooked up and yummy you pour in a jar of beef gravy and kapow. You have an excellent dinner almost ready. The final step is putting on of the steaks on some mashed potatoes and pouring gravy on top. It is really really good. And I love it, just as I love people who read my blog. So there you have it, the lowdown on potatoes. I'm thinking you should make this some time and then comment on my blog about how good it was. I need some encouragement.

You know what, I forgot one of the best parts of potatoes! Potato chips! I like dipping them in ketchup because then they are like fries except not, because they are better for you. Did you know that you can get blue potatoe chips? Because you can. I bet they have them at Target. Target is the best store ever. As opposed to Walmart, which is the absolute worst store ever. In the history of bad stores, Walmart takes the cake. But anyway, I have to go blog about something else now. I hope you were eating potato chips while you read this, that would be cool.

And this post officially sucked. Too bad!

IDK my BFF Danielle

2009-02-03T07:18:00.011-06:00

Lucky for me, I was involved in these escapades. In fact, I was the one suffering under them. I have a story about this person named Danielle, whom I work with. I don't like Danielle. In fact, only one person I work with does. That person is Joy. See, I used to like Joy, but then Danielle came along. They became friends seeing as they were the only two people working full time in the salad bar, and that was totally cool. They could be friends if they wanted to be, I don't care.

One thing about Joy is her peculiar way of talking when she is making a random comment and/or telling a story. If she is mad, she has a very vicious way of saying something. Lots and lots of emotion are included. Even if she isn't mad, but doesn't feel like making salads, the way she says "salads" has a lot of emotion. Maybe even a bit of grunty-ness. I'm not sure how to describe it, but I know other people that do the same thing. Anyway, the thing is, that Danielle has begun to talk like Joy. Its creepy. She also follows Joy around to do everything. She goes on break with her, takes stuff that they made (together) out with her, even goes to smoke with her. Oddly enough Danielle doesn't smoke. But hey, whatever. I must admit, though, that when she repeats everything she says in exactly the same way, its weird. Really, really weird. And annoying as well.

The most bothersome thing about Danielle is the fact that she doesn't do anything. Ever. In an eight hour shift she managed to package up some cantaloupe. Pre-cut cantaloupe. Hard work for sure. She also contrived to mix up a batch of Taco Haystack dip. This takes a normal person about, oh, half an hour max, generally about ten minutes. These two activities took up Danielle's whole shift. Boy, she must have been tired after that, because she took an hour break (she should have only taken a 30 minute break), went "smoking" with Joy, and then came back and talked to her girlfriend on the work phone for 10 or 20 minutes. Oh yeah, she has a girlfriend. Cute. It's not that I'm anti-lesbian, just anti-Danielle.

TO BE CONTINUED

Dearie Me

2009-01-29T19:10:00.004-06:00

So I don't really have anything to blog about. It's getting to be a problem. So I'm just going to put up a youtube video for anyone that was hopeful for a post. At least I'll do this much for you.

This guy is such a ninja! And I use this term frequently, but rarely is it even bordering on the truth! I liked the way how he demonstrated his flying kick by attacking the door a little bit. It was cool. So yeah. Here is my post for the day.

I, Robot, Do Solemnly Swear...

2009-01-27T15:37:00.005-06:00

Back from my adventure into the bowels of a hospital. Let me tell you, it was rather exciting. To begin with, they told us that they didn't want us contaminating their O.R. (that's short for Operating Room, in case you're stupid). We each got a big white extra large thing. Uniforms, I guess you could call them. I deemed them hospital-style onesies. Pants and shirt were masterfully combined in a clothing item that would make you effortlessly fashionable looking. Or, rather, moronic. It was really okay though, we had to avoid getting our icky germs we picked up from school in the O.R. We really don't want someone dying or anything just so we could see the robot dealio. As if our onesies weren't enough, we were also given shoe covers. Unfortunately for me, I have rather large feet. I'm short, but I have big feet. It's really quite fun sometimes. Like when you are trying to put a shoe cover on that doesn't want to fit. I alone couldn't do it, so I appealed to Imma Lemmon for help. We, or rather she, got the first one on with limited difficulty. Cover numero dos did not wish to cooperate though. Very stubborn things, shoe covers. Our teacher came to help. Thus, we had a three person team to help one person put a shoe cover on. Slightly embarassing. But hey, give me a break, I take steroids for my feet. Really. I do.

Once we were all fashioned up we were allowed to enter the operating room. The inside was kind of like how I imagined, and yet kind of not. It was shiny and clean looking, as well as nicely chilled. Oddly enough, there was no blood splattered everywhere, no random body parts hanging like grotesque jewelry around piping, and no viewing windows. I managed to keep my cool despite these surprising discoveries. We all filed in and were greeted by a short surgical tech (I think that was the term anyway). She showed us the robot, the da Vinci S. The call it "she" or "her" for a few reasons. One of which is that it has an S in the name. Another is that they had a different da Vinci, and "he" was fat (as in 1200 pounds or so) and could be difficult to work with. Basically the typical man. She, on the other hand, was light (i.e. only half a ton) and had an HD probe complete with dual cameras in it, for a full 3D effect. Very nice. I must admit, she was quite beautiful. For a machine anyway. She was nice and shiny. Unfortunately for any excited men out there, she had four arms, no brain, and a bunch of very sharp, very dangerous attachments. Good luck with that.

After being shown some neat things that she could do, our time was tragically up and it was time to go. I gave her a big hug, for which I was sliced open in the gut, and left. This is of course not true. The real story is I walked out without a backward glance. So there. P.S. this was a very nice post wasn't it? Yes. It was. If you argue with me I will sic da Vinci S on you. We're dating.

P.P.S. The above picture looked like something they might do, its got the funny little arm extension that "she" had and and it looks like a picture the probe might have taken. The end.

Robots Do Surgery

2009-01-27T15:36:00.004-06:00

Well... not really. But it sounds like something that would be exciting doesn't it? I think so, it would be all futuristic and they wouldn't even have to say things like "Nurse, suction" for one of two reasons. Either they communicate wirelessly and without sound, very ninja style. Or there is only one doctor with a whole bunch of arms that does everything it needs on its own. That would be neat, but I worry that if we had these octo-robots walking around in hospitals doing surgeries and whatnot they might suddenly decide they don't even need us, and kill us in surgery. How creepy would that be? You go in to get some wisdom teeth removed and something goes wrong and the robot is just like, "You know what, I think that one less human would be nice, this one may as well go." Not cool! What is the point of this rambling talk that vaguely discusses something real? I'm going to look at the surgery suite in a nearby hospital in, well, one minute ago.

I'm definitely imagining some fancy room, probably with blood splatters everywhere. Lots of glaring white lights. This room will also have little viewing windows like in "Grey's Anatomy,"
maybe some bored interns sitting in a window. Unfortunately for this thought St. Luke's isn't a teaching hospital, so the interns and viewing windows most likely will not be there. Darn. So my ride is here now, and I'll be back to fill you in on the "Robot Assisted Surgical Suite."

You Are A Goat

2009-01-22T07:52:00.011-06:00

Yes. You. Are. I could have said something nice like "You are awesome, you are great." But I didn't, because that might be a lie. For all I know you may be an idiot. But in my opinion, being called a goat should be a compliment. For one reason, and I didn't even think of this when I started the post, my name is Cabrito. The minigoat. So that should really be all the reason you need, but that really isn't the point here.

I'm not quite sure if minigoats actually exist. I might go google search them. I think I'll do that now. Be right back!

Turns out they do exist! Of course, this could be a baby goat. But the caption said mini goat and its from a website called mini livestock. So it is a mini goat, not a baby goat. So there

There is another kind of goat that is much more interesting. The fainting goat. They are quite possibly the funniest animals ever. In the history of the world. And that, my goat friend, is a fact.
They don't actually faint, though. That would be sad. That would be cruel. They have this funny something or other mechanism inside them that when they get scared, something happens. all of their muscles stiffen up for a few seconds, generally causing them to fall over. If they are start running for a second before the mechanism goes off, they continue their forward motion with no way to stop themselves, and tumble around. The adults are used to things, like umbrellas, that have a tendency to pop up in a scary manner, and don't charge around like fools. They just stand there and wait for the stiffening up to occur, so that they don't even fall over. I don't like them for this reason. Why on earth would they decrease the enjoyment of their viewers? Don't they realize how funny they look when they fall over? I guess they don't. But one would think that they would understand the enjoyment gleaned by their antics, seeing as they watch other goats fall over on a daily basis. Maybe they don't take pleasure in the embarrassing acts of others. Well I do. And I like it when goats charge around and suddenly fall over. Its funny.

Please enjoy this video. It was very, very hard to find. Not.

Birthdays

2009-01-22T07:17:00.002-06:00

Everyone loves birthdays, except for people that are turning fifty because then they get cards about how they are over-the-hill and pretty much almost dead. It isn't a cheerful time. Plus forty should really be the over-the-hill year, or maybe forty five. Most people don't make it to 100, and if they do they don't know who they are. All they know is they have a kind nurse lady that makes them eat and it makes them grumpy, but she's a nice nurse lady so its all forgiven. Eighty or ninety would really be a much more appropriate age.

Last summer I read a book called "Mutant Down Under," and it was about some indigenous tribe from Australia that gets by just fine by living in the desert. You know, its really hot there. And really try. I would be proud of them if I were you. P.S. its called "Mutant Down Under" because they call the "normal" people mutants. People that live in the city are mutants. Understand? Good.

So I read thsi book. Thats cool. What does it have to do with birthdays? Well these people, who I will start referring to as the Jorge (hor-hay) tribe, have an interesting philosophy about birthdays. They think, and I agree partially, that mutant-style birthdays are stupid. Why celebrate something that happens every single year and only means that you are 365 days older? What's so important about that? Nothing. It isn't important, unless you turned 16 or 21, no birthdays are important other than your first. So why celebrate them? Who knows. The Jorge tribe believes that birthdays are when you change as a person in a positive way, when your mind has been reborn. They have a major celebration that includes the eating of uncooked grubs. Yummmmmmmmy. I think that this is the way we should all celebrate life. Of course, then all the kids in the world who remember having mutant birthdays would get whiney and it would be a problem. Especially since 84.259% of parents have very minimal control of their beastly little children. So yeah, it would create problems, but it would also make life a lot more meaningful. So lets do it.

Idiots

2009-01-22T07:16:00.005-06:00

Wow. There are a lot of incredibly unintelligent people in this world. Way, way too many. I think that people with such horribly defective brains should go to a defective brain school and never be seen again. It would be borderline perfect. All the idiots locked up together, they might even beat some brains each other! Doubt it. Maybe they will just beat the brains out of each other, and then we wouldn't have to worry about them anymore. People like… Here I'll give an example name: Tucky McRatherjens.

One day recently, Tucky passed me while I was driving on a nearby road. The speed limit is 45 when you go over a certain bridge, and everyone speeds. To be safe I speed along with them, but usually no more than 50 miles per hour. I was going 50, and little stupid Tucky passed me. I hate being passed, I really do. In fact, there are few things I hate more than being passed. One of them is being pulled out in front of, but that is a story for another time. The point is, Tucky McRatherjens past me, and I was angry.

See, when you are already speeding, and someone passes you, it is bordering on ridiculous. Especially when the person that passed you just got his license. It makes you want to watch him get pulled over just so you can laugh at him. I might even pull over too just so I can point and cackle. Unfortunately, this time he was not pulled over. I bet he was going at least 65. And he’s obviously an idiot because he was laughing and talking to his girlfriend. His girlfriend is not a looker, by the way. Surprise, surprise. I was beginning to think there was no hope in the world.

Then one day this week, Mr. Idiot Tucky was doing donuts in the school parking lot. There’s a red flag shooting up somewhere that has “Idiot!” written all over it. Around and around he went, thinking he was really, really cool. I didn’t think he was cool, but he did. Then he must have lost control or gotten dizzy or something, and he hit a car. The car he hit was shoved into another car. Oops. Realizing the gravity of this mistake, Tucky drove off to avoid being caught. Too bad there were a bunch of people watching. Cops were called and people were notified, and now Tucky McRatherjens is in big trouble. Darn! Hope his parents send him to boarding school in Switzerland and he dies a lonely death. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

K, this post was very random, but I thought that people should be aware of the idiots that live around them, and keep an eye out.

*The facts in this story are true, but names and some other details have been changed to protect the identity of an idiot.

You know what? I could be making money off of you right now.

2009-01-20T21:11:00.003-06:00

Okay, I'm sure that title really got your interest raised. So I'll give you the information you need to know to realize that I am quite the fantastic person, and you should maybe start worshipping goats. Just kidding. Don't do that, it would be weird.

This will be a short post, I just wanted to let you know that I could make money for writing my blog or something. I was really tired last night when I saw the little google thing so I'm sorry if I'm just making this up, but I think that its true. Some little google advertising thing told me that if I allow them to put advertisements on my blog, I can get paid. No doubt its like 3 cents per click from my page. So I bet I could make about a dollar a year, seeing as nobody even reads my blog practically. Whatever, its no big deal. I just though you should know that I am not going to exploit my meager readers and force them to view nasty ads just so I could make a few cents every week or so. I respect you more than that, goodness gracious!

Cabrito, signing off.

C++!!

2009-01-20T21:10:00.006-06:00

Guess what! I'm writing a post with almost the same title as one of the blogs I'm following! Yay!

WOW. I'm bored and I have a stomach ache, so there.

Okay so C++ is this nifty little program that smart people can use to do nifty little things and make other nifty little programs. Sounds simple when put in such childish terms, no? Well guess what. IT ISN'T!

I got this free version because I want to get the real version for free and its a really long story that absolutely nobody on this planet cares to hear. The important part is I have a free version of an uber complicated program that is supposed to be good at interfacing with your CPU or something. Wonderful. Now what does that mean?

Apparently you can make all sorts of little applications and games and whatnot and create lifelong memories with your loved ones. That is what Something-or-other Russel said. She works at Microsoft and she basically is quite attractive. But I think her hair might be dyed. Black too. Either that or she has some really black natural hair. Whatever, it isn't important. So this Russel gal, lets name her Jimmy for the sake of simplicity, talks about how wonderful and simple C++ is, and how her introductory video is "going to be a real treat." She also mentioned that to anybody knowing anything at all about programming, this video would likely teach them nothing. I took this to mean that it would teach me something. I was wrong.

Jimmy goes on to say some more random non important words and then we begin. She shows us how to find the free downloader online and install it. I was thinking "Wonderful, I'll be a masterful programmer after this little venture is done." Wrong! Fifteen minutes into the video, once it is installed and she starts telling you about some of the new features and whatnot, she drops the bomb. "This video is not to teach you about the language of C++ or it's syntax, it is expected that you are competent in that area before watching." What?!? Then what exactly is the point of this video? Who knows! I did learn how to make the cmd box pop up saying Hello World! and that it is common for programmers to do that when using a new language. It was a little bit helpful in teaching, but really I just copied down everything Jimmy wrote and pretended it was my very own. Sad, really.

Sorry if this post seemed a bit on the whiney side, I was really quite thrilled to find a video designed to teach me, with a good looking teacher and all, only to discover that it would only teach me how to pirate somebody elses code for their program. How neat!

Old People Hate Everything and Everyone Younger Than Them

2009-01-19T19:30:00.007-06:00

How true is this? Everyone has a crazy old neighbor lady with a cane that takes great joy in running over their childhood toys. Everyone. Even if you don't have any neighbors because you live in an isolated region of the Tibetan Plateau, you will be haunted by a widowed old woman. I think it is the curse of children. Why does this matter? Because old ladies, being older than the average Giant Redwood, are older than everyone around them. Thus, they have had years to build up disgust towards the younger generations. Hey now, that's not fair. Isn't it though? How many times have you heard something to the effect of "Kids aren't what they used to be," "When I was a kid, I walked forty two thousand miles to school uphill both ways in eighteen feet of snow," or "Those obnoxious children, what are they thinking? I most certainly would never have done that as a child." Everyone hears it, and as you will find, everyone says it as well. I say it, so I guess I must be getting old. These sentiments are refracted throughout all parts of society.

Lets take music for an example. People always look back towards old classics and take refuge in their wholesomeness. Who looks to Britney Spears as a classic? Or Miley Cyrus? You don't see fifty year old women rocking out to "7 Things (I hate about you)" as they drive around do you? Of course you don't, that would be silly. If something becomes popular after your time, you think it is preposterous and should not be allowed.

Same goes with behavior. As an eighth grader, it was perfectly okay to see other eighth graders kissing in the hallway. As a much older and more educated person, I can now see that really, anything below my grade, 11th, is much too young to be engaging in such inappropriate activities. Only somebody with my intelligence and maturity could cope with such things. As we grow up we all modify our views of the world to encompass our age. Things below us are bad, scandalous, and should be treated as such. It's no wonder old ladies seem to hate everything around them and take such pleasure it yelling at small boys and girls as they turn one blade of grass in their perfectly angular yards.

Laundry

2009-01-19T14:45:00.003-06:00

I have done some thinking recently. I am now of the opinion that you can gain some deep insights into a persons soul by the way they fold laundry. Well, maybe not deep soulful ones, but I think you can glean something from looking at their freshly pressed clothes. I was looking at the difference between the way I fold my clothes as compared to my mother. My mom grew up on a farm, so she's used to work and has a good work ethic. And so on. She also tends not to be in a huge hurry unless she is about to be late for something. I, on the other hand, am always in a hurry to get everywhere except for the place that I work. I try to go slowly there. Unless I'm running late, then I zoom along as fast as humanly possible while still abiding by all of the traffic laws.

Our two different ways of living are self evident in our clothes-folding. Maybe thats the wrong time to use the phrase "self evident," but if you think I care you are sorely mistaken. My clothes, as if in tribute to my way of living, tend to look as if they were folded in two seconds flat. In fact, they probably were. They get wrinkles in them that I don't care about or notice until I put it on, and by then all that is left to do is some quick hand pressing and miracle hoping. Or I just throw on a sweatshirt and call it good.

My mom, on the other hand, folds clothes as if she plans to wear them. Silly mom, everyone knows you only wear clothes once. Or maybe not. Her clothes could be on display in a store window as a classic example of how to keep clothes looking nice. Well too bad, I'm always in a hurry. I couldn't possibly take the extra few seconds to make it look nice, now could I? Well I could but I doubt I could make mine look very nice. Maybe it is a talent you are born with. I think I'll tell her that next time she tries to get me to fold clothes. "Hey mom, why don't you do it, you're a natural clothes folder." I'm sure she would be extremely flattered.

What is my purpose in life?

2009-01-17T22:35:00.004-06:00

I was recently asked by one of my avid readers to write a post about why I, one of the most important people on the planet, writes this blog. Well, dear reader, I began this as an assignment. Simple as that. "Hey," I hear you saying," Thats not a very good purpose, thats just why you started not why you write those amazing posts." Well I just thought I'd tell you, no reason to get so snippy with me.

The reason I write about some of the most random topics is pretty simple. Writing about something like music, or television would be very easy. I could listen to the music I always listen to and pick out three songs a week to write about. But how boring would that be? Nobody would want to read it, and it would be a waste of my time. Time is money, money is time, wasting either is bad. So what I do is write about anything I can think of. I think this shows itself to be pretty apparent. Wait, I hear someone piping up in the back. You think thats an even bigger waste of time, do you, you little short fat person? Well here's what I think. I think that my blog is funny. I mean, I'm practically talking to myself. If I someone talking to themselves on the street I might stop and listen, it would be funny, wouldn't it? So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I write about any old topic just to entertain. I know of at least one person that reads my blog regularly and for fun, and that is enough for me. If my writing can entertain, if me mumbling through life about any old thing can be funny, I might as well keep it up. And so I will, at least until the end of the year. After that, no guarantees can be made. After all, I am one of the most important people in the world and my time is like gold. Thanks for reading, you know who I'm talking to when I mention the one reader. You're a trooper!

Hey guess what, I've done some more milk research.

2009-01-09T19:09:00.004-06:00

Okay so this was just funny and my last post was getting a bit long, so I decided to just creat a whole new one and continue on.

"There is a milk tax, do you know what they do with it?" I was expecting something horrible or tragic. Like murdering small children in africa or something. Well... it is much less dramatic than our milk-hating friend would let us think. They pay important people to advertise milk! OH MY GOD! I know, my heart almost exploded with the absolute unfairness of it. How dare a business (I use the term loosely) use their tax revenue on advertising. Its despicable. Its horrible. I can hardly hold my disgust inside. NOT. This guy is seriously screwed up. What does he care if people use their 5 million or so a year to pay for advertising and to paint the upper lip of important people white. It gets worse. He goes on to whine that they used a black person in their advertising. Racist much? He tries to cover up is blunder by saying that ninety percent of african americans are lactose intolerant. I've never met one. I do realise that the problem is abnormally high in pretty much all peoples that aren't of European decent, but seriously, why mention the black guy on the poster. And its 80% anyway, not 95. That 15% percent of people can make quite a large difference. Idiot.

Okay next I will display a short list. This list comes from the notmilk.com homepage. It is a list of things that so-called scientists have shown to be caused by milk. Lets take a look and see if we really believe him.

Arthritis
Acid Blood (Wouldn't we be dying??!?!? The human body needs a very specific blood acidity to keep working, and despite my large dairy product intake I seem to still be breathing)
Acne
Addiction (What??? Addiction? This guy is insane.)
Alzheimers
Anemia
Attention Deficit
Bedwetting
Bone Disease
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Breast cancer
Colic
Common Cold (I know and you know that this is caused by a virus. Robert Cohen thinks that milk proteins cause it. Go figure.)
Congestion
Crohn's Disease
Diabetes
Death
Depression
Ear Infections
Early Maturity

The list goes on and on. And on. And on. Feel free to take a look at notmilk.com, its their entire homepage. They even have links with fun suggestions like "give your carolers soymilk" or (and this one pertains to a researcher) "the dairy man is a whore/liar." The creators of notmilk seem a little miffed that somebody would go so far as to present real research to the public and let it get written in the paper. Robert Cohen really needs a life.

And so do I, which is why that is where I'm leaving the milk topic. Hopefully for a long time, but maybe if I get really really bored I'll bring it back up again. It seems to get my blood and anger flowing as if my mom had died from a (milk related, I'm sure) car accident. Maybe drinking milk makes you driving incapable.

Robert Cohen is a Hoax, continued.

2009-01-09T18:24:00.003-06:00

Okay I'm back, stop worrying. Do you think we should just start up where we left off at the end of the last post? May as well. Lets get down to business.

"They can smell it on our skin." Smell what, I hear you asking? Rotten milk. Apparently the Japanese call us the butter people because they can smell "rotten, putrefying" milk. Seems a bit unlikely but hey, maybe the people that visit Japan like bathing in milk. Who am I to refute this claim, I've never been there? Its the next part that gets my hackles a-goin'. He states that there are two amino acids responsible for this. Just a little background for those who have forgoteen (I'm sure none of you would have, but its just a kindness sort of thing). There are 20 amino acids that exist, and their purpose in life is to be bonded together to make polypeptides, generally in the form of proteins or hormones. With just that limited knowledge you may actually believe what Mr. Cohen says. Well don't, theres more info to come. Every single protein starts out with methionine. I repeat EVERY protein starts out with a methionine. It is the start codon. The beginning point. Without it, there would be no proteins (by the way he spells it wrong if you ever look around. He's dumb, I know). Turns out cysteine actually exists, though I hadn't heard of it (hold in the shock people, I'm not all knowing). Robert says that we smell like rotten eggs because of the sulfur in these. First of all, the rotten egg smell is not pure sulfur atoms floating around, its sulfuric compounds; second of all, both molecules have just one atom of sulfur in them, and they don't just let them go. They stay in your cells doing helpful things like keeping us alive. They don't have time to be floating around making sulfurous compounds and being sniffed by the Japanese. These molecules are busy little buggers I tell you. No time to bandy with foreigners.

The Crazy Milkman Continued

2009-01-08T19:33:00.002-06:00

Okay so pretty much the entire previous post was a quote from this guy, named Robert Cohen. It quite obviously demonstrates his hatred for milk and butter et cetera. Anyone with even a bit of biology smarts can see through some of the things he is saying. In my opinion, one of the greatest loves he ever had was stolen by a cowboy, and now he's trying to get revenge. I mean seriously, he's saying all this stuff that just makes no sense at all and is backed up by one person only. Himself.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/lactoseintolerance/#risk

Shall I list some of these things for you? I think I shall!

"Milk causes cancer, and milk is the only food proven to help breast cancer grow." Really now? Do we believe this? I don't, I suppose it could have been "proven" by his research. He is probably the only person whose research proves thus, I think that the FDA or the ADA or CFY or some other administration would have noticed something as major as this and said something by now? What's his claim for the reason we haven't heard anything? Lobbyists. Yeah. Apparently there are milk lobbyists that are messing with the FDA. Sounds real plausible. Real. Real. Plausible.
"Milk is chock full of horrible viruses and bacteria" Okay, he's saying there are some super bad types of tuberculosis bacteria in milk. And "leukemia causing" bacteria. I think that more people would actually have leukemia if this were true. And people would be getting tuberculosis from milk would they not? I tell you, this is just the beginning.
"Milk is liquid meat" My first red flag is that meat is, well, red. Milk is white. Doesn't look like blended meat to me. I know, I know, I'm being too literal. Get over it. Milk is a body fluid designed to provide fat, protein, and nutrients to young cows. Muscle (meat) is found in most multi cellular organisms and is for moving. They don't have the same purpose, and obviously will not have the same ingredients. Though milk does have a decent amount of protein, it only has one eighth of the protein that is in meat. I'm sensing the fishiness levels rising. Its definitely starting to smell vaguely like the ocean around here.
"Milk causes puberty to begin earlier" Let me get my immaturity out real quick. If puberty is beginning oh so early here ( he states it starts earliest in the united states) why do we still have high school seniors sounding like fifth graders? You tell me, must be some rare form of maturity caused by a gene mutation stemming from drinking milk. Sounds like something this Cohen guy would say.

Okay so this post is getting a bit lengthy and I still have a lot to say, so I'm going to sign off and I'll talk to you again sometime in the near future, if you're really lucky maybe even tonight! (As if anybody is actually waiting at the edge of their seats to read this).

The Crazy Milkman

2009-01-08T19:24:00.003-06:00

"Three to four quarts. Can you imagine? It's evenly dispersed throughout all of your internal organs so that your kidneys are a sponge for mucus. I have an autopsy of a very famous American athlete. Go back to Flo-Jo when she won her gold medal in the Olympics, and she died after she did a milk mustache ad, after she ate pizza -- fifteen hours after she had her last meal, she died and in her stomach were 250 cubic centimeters of undigested mozzarella cheese, 15 hours after she ate it, and the body was in such distress because it couldn't break that down that her body produced a tremendous amount of histamines, which made a tremendous amount of mucus. She had one drug in her body, Benadryl, which is an antihistamine -- she knew she was congested.
And the coroner slicing through her kidney described the thick, viscous phlegm that came out of the kidney, the entire lungs, the trachea and the tracheal-bronchial tree were acutely, in the coroner's words, were acutely congested from mucus. She even had finger marks on her throat, and that pizza she ate, she ate her last meal at 3 o'clock in the afternoon and died at 6 a.m. the next day -- 15 hours later, that mozzarella was still not digested, and the congestion from that… that's why I say seven days no dairy, have pizza for dinner, ice cream for dessert, the next morning, you're going to wake up so congested, so mucusy, it's depressing what it does to you. You diminish your lung capacity, sexual drive, it messes you up in the toilet -- it's nice to be dairy-free for that week, because once you see both extremes, I can't imagine how anybody would go back to using dairy products.
You can smell it coming out of them. And it really is something….you are what you eat. I find, if you were to ask me the key to health, the key to health versus disease, is animal protein is very different from plant protein. And for years, vegetarians would argue that it's the same protein -- you get everything the same! It's not the same protein. Animal protein has a lot more of two amino acids - one is methianine, and the other is cysteine, and those two amino acids have as their central atom sulfur. Now, imagine the smell of rotten eggs infusing into every cell of your body. The sulfur rotten egg smell is what we smell. It's what vegans or vegetarians smell on meat-eaters. And the more chicken you eat, the more you're going to stink. And the more you're going to stink and your own body fluids are going to stink. That TV show Sex and the City had a very special episode regarding that, but we may not go into that in this interview.
But vegans, people who are eating a plant-based diet, are eating very clean fuel for their bodies. And of course, milk is liquid meat. Milk and dairy products are the worst form of these polluting substances. Not only with the tremendous dioxin level, but with the tremendous amount of sulfur. You don't want that rotten egg smell -- that's what accelerates heart disease, and that's what accelerates bone loss. So that's why we find the people living in nations where they eat the most dairy products are the ones with the highest rates of osteoporosis and heart disease. That's the reason."

This above quote was provided so that you would have some idea of what I was talking about without leaving the site. Please do not hurt me. I am not passing this off as my own. Plus, I'm obviously way way smarter than this, so thinking this is mine is really an insult anyway.

http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/lactoseintolerance/#risk

Workful Escapades

2009-01-08T07:30:00.004-06:00

Now, boys and girls, behaving like 6 year old children while at work is strictly unadvised, but due to a lack of postular excitement, I'm going to write about experiences I have had on the job. More accurately, things that I have heard about while on the job. From my very, very mature and esteemed colleagues. I have great respect for them, and I'm completely sure that you will, too.

Story Number One: Lids are Really Quite Fun

So you get bored on the job. You've done all of the production necessary, the juice bar is full, the salad bar is full, and you sure as heck don't want to sack. What's a person to do? Go skating. Duh. How on earth do you go skating when its almost 60 degrees inside your room? Well many people may be shot down by this problem and find something to work on. Not "K" and "S". Being the resourceful people they are, and not wanting to give up, they think of a very good plan. They take the largest party tray lids they can find, I believe that they are 26" but really I don't know and it doesn't matter. They had big lids, thats all you need to know. They then took the sprayer that we use to wash dishes and liberally doused the floor with hot water. We've got a rubberish floor so no worries, plus it probably needed a good cleaning anyway. Once the slipperification was complete the skating rink was ready for action. The skating could commence! I'm sure it was a grand old time, but I was unfortunately not there so I will never know for sure. Even if I was I probably would have hidden in the cooler and watched them, I definitely wouldn't want to get caught doing that. They have been caught doing many such mature things, which I will continue to write about in future posts.

Don't we all wish that we could work at such a fun and exciting place? Well we can't. So get over it and stop whining to me. I don't care about your problems! Or maybe I do. You should give me comments about your problems and I can respond! It'll be like Dear Abby, but instead it could be Dearest Cabrito! Doesn't that sound like fun? I sure think so. Yes it does.

Aquasaurs!!!!!

2008-12-17T07:46:00.003-06:00

My sister got these for me last christmas, and I'm sorry to say that I have yet to grow them. Despite the fact that I have nothing to say about them I'm going to squeeze out a few words.

I think that these little fellas are quite precious. They may leave a little to be desired. One problem begins in the instructions. It says that there are around 100 eggs in the little packet. Pour all of them in at once, it says, to insure that some live. It continues on to say that usually only two will end up living no matter how many eggs you put in, doesn't this seem a little unhelpful? If the little buggers always whittle eachother down to a male and female, why put in all 100 eggs? Sounds like some poor planning if you ask me. When I hatch mine I'm definitely going to only put in about a quarter of the egg packet. An added benefit is that if I do screw something up, I'll still have about 75 eggs to kill. Yippee!

Ugly Stinkin Furniture

2008-12-17T07:17:00.002-06:00

Dear. Lord.

I think my eyes are crying blood.

Why did people invent furniture? I mean, I realize we are lazy and couldn't possibly stand or sit on the ground, but really. Why was it designed the way it was? And when did it start getting ugly? Take a look.

I think that it is quite obvious when furniture began to get ugly, its when it went from solid to veneer. Yes, my friends, that was the downfall of furniture. Looks like the British Kings and Queens always had ugly chairs. Sucks!

Seating used to be attractive, what is more sexy than a solid wood chair that weighs 600 pounds? Nothing! I'm glad you agree.

My basement is home to three very ugly items. One is a mustard yellow chair. We named it Colonel Mustard. Yeah that's right. Well it used to be mustardy, it is kind of losing some of its color and getting dirty, but one can still tell just how ugly it looked at birth. The second is a toffee colored chair. It is "fur" covered or something like that with .25 cm hairs that do little but make things stick to it. Like weird little sticky things that nobody knows what they are. Quite the turn on let me tell you. The third piece is a couch that is large and also a medium brown color. The unfortunate thing is the stripes running vertically along its length. They are different shades of brown, and each color has its own length of hair fibers, so that the overall effect of the couch is an ugly brown rug that got attacked by a lion.

I think that in recent history there must have been an Ugly Furniture Co-Op that decided that for the next 6 years all furniture manufactured should be hideous. I think it is safe to say they succeeded, looking at the picture of the couch above, and when one imagines my furniture. Blurg.

Mutant Carrot Strikes Back

2008-12-15T21:37:00.002-06:00

Goodness me, I should really find something to blog about other than purple carrots, but they are just so interesting that I can't help myself. Not really, but they are quite easy to blog about. I recently told you about how I found a bottle of purple carrot juice in my store, well just in case you didn't believe me, here it is.

Yes, this is the exact same bottle as the one we sell in our store, full of vitamins minerals and other such fantastically healthy things. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this was some other Hy-Vee, see that vegetable tray in the background? Looks suspiciously like the "Very-Veggie Tray" that we just started selling. They have snow peas, carrots, peppers, and tomatoes in them. And more but I can't and don't want to remember. I hate vegetables. They make your hands cold when you put them in little containers. I think that it is their way of striking back at humanity, killing one hand cell at a time. Vicious little things. This is why drinking this purple carrot fruit drink thing is good. Get back at the evil mutant vegetables! By the way, all Bolthouse Farms bottles of juice like the one shown cost $2.99. What a low, low price.

Oh man that reminds me. We have people talk over in store intercom about random things. They are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo annoying. I personally laugh every time the speaker messes up and has to start a word over. Muahahaha, shows them who's boss for ruining my quiet time. There I am sitting in my refridgerator of a back room, peacefully chopping up vegetables and whatnot, and bam. The intercom starts blaring about the low, low prices and wonderful fantastic beautiful deals. Too bad everything at Hy-Vee is overpriced. The salad bar isn't, though. Feel free to come and just eat salad. It's really quite delicious. My favorite thing in there, other than the Oreo Fluff, is the chicken. Its amazing. Uh. Mayzing. Can't get enough. Sometimes there are annoying little icky bits in them but hey, you can't have everything you whiner. Get over it.

K thanks for reading :)

Shoes Should Be Worshipped

2008-12-15T21:09:00.004-06:00

Disclaimer: If you have sensitive ears and are mildly afraid of cross dressers... Do not watch this video. It is really quite funny, but can hurt the hearing organs of those that are unprepared and/or afraid of cussing. The ESRB (or is that just for video games... who cares) would give this a rating of PG-13 due to mild sexual content and mild swearing. Just watch the stupid thing and stop reading my blog. The video is way better.

Shoes...

Yum Yum. Gotta love those cross dressers and their fathers with very weird voices and facial expressions. The reason (some of) you were forced to endure that fantastic demonstration of all the amazing shoe varieties is simple; somebody threw a shoe at our not-so-amazing president.

I wish I were Borat, I would go high five the thrower.

Muntazer al-Zaidi is his name. Great guy, if only I could meet him. Boy oh boy does this sound anti-American. I'm all for America and everything it stands for.... except for that Bush guy. I can't believe that he got reelected, or even elected the first time. Something must be said for uninformed people in large masses. I'm actually generally a politically uninformed person, but even I, the Cabrito, would not have voted for Bush had I been old enough. He was destined to be a flop.

P.S. I suck at writing about politics, go read somebody else's blog. Humph.

P.S.S. While contemplating what to blog about next I remembered a video I had seen long ago. It is entitled muffins. It is a little bit less painful than the shoes one, and is oddly enough by the same YouTube person. Strange, indeed! I think that next time I have a muffin it will be the asbestos one just because it sounds oh so delicious. I'm really squeezing my brain hard and not much is coming out. Maybe I'll stop for the night. Sheesh. Talk about low quality blogs...

Contacts

2008-12-14T21:44:00.003-06:00

Everyone with vision that is more poor than is lovable knows how wonderful glasses are. Some people have really crappy vision i.e. my neighbour, whereas some people just leave a little to be desired i.e. me.

The most amazing things ever must be contacts. They are quite the intriguing little things. When they are floating around in a bunch of solution (the solution itself is really quite miraculous) you can hardly see them. You scoop them out of their holding tank and its very weird because you usually can barely feel them. Its like they aren't even there. You go through them at a fairly nice clip, one set every two weeks. I just got rid of mine last night and I was wondering what would happen if i just let them sit out for a while and let the furnace suck the life out of them. Turns out these things should be used in the army. Let them dry out for a bit (in the Iraqi desert, for example) and they harden quite nicely. They turn into little curled up (yes, they curl up, as if they really did have the life sucked out of them) pieces of plastic. Like shrapnel. Shove one of those little suckers into a gun and bam! You could definitely teach somebody a lesson.

So that solution stuff I mentioned. Its fantastic. You can fill up a contact with it and shove it on your eye to prevent any sort of *mild* discomfort that might occur with a dry (potentially plasticky) contact. If you've got it filled a little bit too much then the contact makes a little bubble that you just blink away in the form of a tear. It would be pretty funny sometime to pretend a contact hurt you so bad that you cried and then show someone. It sometimes looks very dramatic and real because your eye is red anyway.

This post sucked, I am sorry if you read it.

(The following written 12/15/2008) So, I was by the sink cleaning out my war wounds from the last time I tried to shoot a contact at the enemy (in other words I was cleaning out my sockets from my wisdom teeth removal), and I decided to try to resurrect the contact. I filled up a little tablespoon measuring device with some water and set the contact off on its maiden sailing expedition. Enthralled onlookers shouted Bon Voyage from the harbor railings as they watched the brave little ship battle waves twice the size of mount everest. Shhh its a story you fool, stop arguing with me. Hem Hem. So what really happened was I set it in there and waited for the magic to happen. Nothing happened, what a drag. I promptly left the kitchen and did something worthwhile I'm sure. I returned one hour later to find my contact happily floating around, as pliable as the day it was born. What a heart-warming story of true love and everlasting peace, huh. Just thought you should know in case of contact emergency, though I'm not sure if you would want to soak it in water (apparently its bad) or put it in your eye, even if you had soaked it in saline.

Shedding

2008-12-10T07:27:00.004-06:00

Random post, I know. Get over it.

Cats can be oh so cute and cuddly. That soft fur that covers them and makes them so exciting and lovable to little children the world over is actually the devil's spirit in inanimate-object form. Yes, this is true. Cats long ago were possessed by the devil, and to get him out they grew fur. The sunlight on their fur killed his little soul chunk that was possessing them, leaving only one small side effect. Shedding. Right before the piece of soul was destroyed it enacted one final piece of revenge and damaged the cells making the hair. Now today we are left with cats that drop their fur like there's no tomorrow. Many people don't care, because they don't have cats or want them. But to those people that own them, it is quite a pain in the you-know-where.

So why am I writing about such a topic? No reason. But I'm pretty sure nobody cares to read this anyway, so what does it matter? I'm practically talking to myself. Like an old woman chunnering to herself about this or that. I'm turning into an old lady! Oh no! Here's the funny thing though, when you imagine an old lady muttering to herself about kids these days or whatever else it is that old ladies mutter about these days, you imagine her talking to her cat, do you not? Yeah I thought so, thats what I think of too.

Oh, there I go getting all off topic again. So basically I'm turning a simple whiney blog that is worth about two sentences into a long post that will look like some Grade A Extra Fancy Heinz Ketchup. Or something like that. So whats the complaint, you ask? Hair.. Hair should be outlawed and everyone should have to shave all of their hair off. What a perfect world, no nasty pieces of hair getting stuck to your sexy black dress pants, your wonderful new coat, nowhere. No hair.

The perfect world.

Up Datation

2008-12-03T07:23:00.003-06:00

I have found an amazing piece of information that really needs to be shared with anyone and everyone that cares to read this blog. So, for those lucky three of you, here we go.

I was at work checking out my region of the store. As anyone that has read any of my previous posts would know, I work in a grocery store's salad bar. The work doesn't only consist of making salads though, we also make little containers of disturbingly overpriced foods. We make containers of watermelon, strawberries, 6-Mix (pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon, strawberries, and grapes), pineapple, honeydew, cantaloupe, and watermelon. Then there are the less unhealthy things. Such as, taco haystack dip (amazing), vegetable pizzas (not amazing), fruit pizzas (fantastic), ranch wheels (who knows), and fruit and vegetable trays. These all cost about five times what it costs us to make them. The strawberries are priced at $4.49 / lb. Seriously. You can get a container of strawberries for like three bucks and it'll weigh two pounds. To make matters even more ridiculous, we sell brownies with whipped cream and sprinkles on top. One dollar. For a tiny little brownie with whipped cream smashed to the top from the plastic wrap. Disturbing!

I checked to make sure our juice bar (as the place where we put all the aforementioned goods is called) was well stocked and while facing it (making everything look good and full) I noticed some super juice drinks that were, of course, overpriced. Three dollars a bottle can get you a bottle filled with acai, vanilla bean, pineapple, coconut, and all sorts of other apparently really good-for-you things. The best one by far was... drum roll please... purple carrot! Purple carrot! I repeat. Purple carrot! Remember that post I just wrote about purple carrots? Well one week after that I found this amazing bottle! Pretty soon I'll buy it and then I'll write up a post exclusively about the amazing tasting purple carrot juice drink. Try not to die from over excitement.

P.S. That plastic wrap machine I mentioned is pretty fantastic though. Its like a massive double wide roll of it hanging on this little bar. It has a little table that you put the to-be-wrapped goods on in preparation for their big moment. The wrap slides out from underneath the table ready to go. Once you have liberally smothered whatever is being wrapped you need to detach your wrap from the roll, right? Well how do you do that if there is no sharp little blade thing to cut it for you? You melt it! Yep. That's how we do it. There is a 200 degree metal bar and you just stick the wrap and there and kapow! It melts cleanly off and you are left with a neat little package that has more wrap on it now than it did when it was sold to you. Wonderful!

Carrots

2008-11-10T20:35:00.003-06:00

Carrots are orange. I just thought I would let you all know that, and to let you all know that I know that, before I continue. The unintelligence of some people really should not be underestimated, so I wanted to have us all start out on the same page before continuing.

So, what have we established so far? That carrots are orange? Yes, thank you Cabrito for this wonderful insight. That is the kind of telepathy I’m getting back. Calm down, calm down, I’m not insulting your intelligence, merely stating the obvious so that I can continue and confuse you. Yeah, prepare for confusion over carrots. Actually, it isn’t that confusing so I’ll just stop rambling and get on with today’s lesson.

At my aunt’s house this past weekend we had a family get together. And, as all of you with families that you would want to get together with, families have food when they meet up. I love food, it will probably end up being the topic of several posts up-and-coming. I seriously love it. With a fiery passion. The point is that I’m off topic again. So my aunt decided to have a soup fest. She made three kinds of soup: spicy taco, chicken noodle (completely homemade by the way, broth, noodles, and everything. I feel the jealousy), and beer cheese. They were all good, even though by the time I was on my third bowl, and ready to try the taco soup, it was almost gone. The one minor hitch was that the beer cheese soup was not its normal color. I’m assuming the normal color is yellow, but it was more of a purple-brown sort of thing. Not the most appetizing of colors when you think of cheddar cheese. Personally, and you can call me crazy, when I think of cheese I think of yellow or orange.

This is where my delightfully rambling introduction comes in. The carrots my aunt had used were organic and… purple. Yeah. I said it. The carrots were purple. Oh man, just stopped you from feeling like you ruled the world didn’t I? Burst your bubble a bit huh? I’m sure you will get over it. You were sitting in your comfy little chair feeling all smart and well educated about common garden vegetables, and then I drop the purple carrot bomb. Now that I think of it a purple carrot bomb would create quite the mess wherever it was dropped…. I’ll have to ponder that one for another time. But for now, I will leave you with that sad, brought down feeling of knowing that you were wrong. And that once again you were bested by the unnamed mini goat (that’s what cabrito means smart one)that’s still in senior high.

Note: if you cannot seem to remember the last time I told you that you had been bested, refer to the post about marching band. It will probably bring back suppressed memories of sandy beaches.

Homelessness

2008-11-10T19:48:00.003-06:00

Okay so being homeless pretty much sucks, we can all agree right? So why don’t people do anything about it? Your guess is as good as mine.

Thank goodness my school is out there to help. Last Thursday night we had 83 people come back to the school, willingly, mind you, and spend the night. Outside. In the darn cold weather. Sounds pretty BA doesn’t it? We slept in some pretty amazing card board boxes too, on the freezing cold cement. My box had some length disabilities. It was nice and big around so that even if I gained a few hundred pounds I would fit comfortably. The problem arose in the horizontal distance department. It barely went up higher than my waist. That’s a slight problem when you’re trying to keep warm; I believe that this sentiment is shared by most people. So I came up with a delightfully intelligent solution. I took a blanket and put about one half on top of the box and then stretched the other half around and under my pillow, creating a sort of lean-to.

I woke up around two in the morning to find, to my great consternation, that the lid covering up the end of my box had blown over and the wind was creating havoc with my body temperature. I could barely tell this by peeking through the crack of the blanket smothering my head. And when I say smothering, I mean it. I tried to remove its silky softness but my hands were covered with gloves and mittens and weren’t functioning their best. I seriously thought, in my just-awoken stupor, that I was going to be trapped in my blanket until I could get someone to rescue me.

I eventually managed to excavate my face and look around me to see what was going on and discovered that my friend, who’s name shall go undisclosed for fear of violating personal rights, was no longer there. Her box was there alright, but her sleeping bag and other personal accessories were MIA. I promptly stole her box and had a major house moving/renovating project. It lasted a total of, oh, about two minutes. I then covered the front end of my much larger box with my blanket and fell asleep until almost six.

At that point I was rudely awakened by another, also unnamed, friend who notified me that it was unfortunately time to get up and leave. The even more rude part of this awakening is that it was indeed snowing/ raining. Not so much fun. The temperature had probably dropped to at least -50 by this point and I was definitely ready for some heat.

At this point you may be wondering if i am making all of this up, which is entirely possible after the brain/apple story. So here is another account of this exciting adventure.

This makes me wonder how homeless people manage to live like that. How can they get food and still stay warm? I know that if I was wandering around in some city scrounging for food or money that I would freeze to death. The good thing is that my school’s event raised over 1400 dollars in donations. This money will go to homeless people in our area, of which there are relatively few, and provide food and other items for them. It definitely makes me feel like a much better person for suffering through that. And now I’m raising awareness just by complaining! What a bargain!

Spongy Brain Matter

2008-11-02T15:39:00.005-06:00

Delicious sounding right? No, probably not. I didn't think it sounded so scrumptious myself. So the question is, why do people eat something like that? Don't even think about asking me because I will be forced to make up some obnoxious lie. So just don't do it.

I bet that you are jusy dying to find out what spongy brain matter people would be eating and why I'm writing about it, right? Well when I was at the Drake Biology lab there was a dissection lab going on. In the room on the table sat a brain in a jar. It looked really disgusting but this student really wanted to eat it. When the teacher was talking to us he took it out and got a spoon and set to work. No, I am not even kidding.

I have decided to let you in on another little secret. I have lied to you, and when I say lie I'm talking about a big whopper of a lie. An earth-shattering lie, so I must apologize. Are you ready to learn what of my wonderful blog has been deceptive? It was the story I just told you. I know! You actually believed that somebody wanted to eat some strange preserved brain. Well, they didn't. I just thought that it would make a fantastic introduction to a much less disturbing topic.

I realize that by now you are probably just dying to know what on earth purpose I had for spending the time to write the phenomenal piece of prose. Well my purpose was simple, I really just wanted to complain about Red Delicious ™ Apples. (Ooh did you like that little tm raised up there, pretty fancy was it not?)

These above said apples are one of the worst name abominations. Worse even than the… something that doesn’t come right to my head at the moment. I’ll come back and have this replaced with some scintillating comparisons in no time, but my written abuse is not the real point here people. Red Delicious™ Apples basically fail the delicious test. In case you were still stuck at the end of your seat I’ll bring up the brain matter thing again here, no worries. But back to the apples. So first of all, they have nice looking skins, all red and shiny and beautiful, but that is where the good things end. They have peels thick enough to withstand an atomic bomb dropping directly on them. Their flavor is akin to that of diluted thrice frozen and thawed apple juice (I’m just postulating that juice after that would not taste so hot). The worst part, though, is their flesh. Wow that sounded a little bit cannibalistic. No worries though, its apple flesh we’re talking about here, not human. So the white goodness that we expect to find when we have an apple is not to be described as goodness. It is so strange and unnatural that I have decided to name it spongy brain flesh. Because the texture makes me think of the descriptions I have heard in books about brains.

So the moral of the story is, stop eating Red Delicious™ Apples and start eating the good stuff, Honeycrisp™.

Note: I am very proud of my ™ signs placed sporadically in this and you should probably be feeling overwhelming jealousy right now.

Marching Band

2008-10-23T17:35:00.005-05:00

This year for marching band our music was from the new star wars movies. You know, the three new ones with nice special effects. Yeah. Those ones. We had a fun little medley that including the most popular music, and also music that probably had absolutely nothing to do with star wars but sounded nice on the field. Thats just my speculation, it could be totally wrong, but I'm pretty sure that there is more than one grain of truth in that statement. Probably at least three grains, but my bet is about 2 million grains. That brings up the all important question; how many grains of sand are in the ocean? Actually it doesn't bring up that question, I just thought it would be fun to put in my blog. If anybody actually can answer that question that would be totally cool though, we should set the worlds greatest minds on figuring out the answer to that question. I'm sure it would solve a whole bunch of our most pressing problems. I mean seriously, would there really be war if we knew exactly how many grains of sand there were floating or sitting in the ocean? I bet there wouldn't be! And you can't even prove me wrong because i doubt that you know the answer to that question. Thus, I have bested you, and you have lost.

I appear to be digressing from the title of this blog don't I... Back to band. Our show was pretty fun, and actually less tiring then shows in the past as far as i can remember. In the past I've practically had a hard attack because I had to play as loud as I could at the end and I had basically no air so i was squishing the life out of myself. Nearly. Back to band. We got a major confidence boost at the beginning of the year at the marshalltown competion. We took grand champion, first in our class (funny thing is we were the only band in class 4A), and all the caption awards. I'm pretty sure these included best winds, best colorguard, and something else. Maybe best drumline/percussion? Then at all our other competitions we didn't do so well. I'm speaking of the important ones: Valley and Ankeny. I mean, we did all right and we looked and sounded good, but the judges were always placing us worse than we thought we should be placed. That seems to happen a lot in life doesnt it? At Valleyfest we got sixth or seventh, and we tied with Washington. Then at Ankeny we got fourth for the fourth or fifth year in a row so it was kind of lame. Washington did not look very good and their show was super boring, the crowd almost never clapped. During our show, on the other hand, the crowd went crazy like fifteen times. Then the general affect judge kept whining about how our color guard wasn't in a good position blah blah blah. It was stupid.

This is our video from Valley. Valley has the most amazing high school stadium currently in existence. This of course is 100% true, not influenced by my opinion in any way shape or form. Its got a really good view and you can see the forms nicely (not like anyone but a marching band person would even know or care what forms in band are)

Here is a random video of Texas Tech performing Star Wars/ Trek music in the dark with light up suits or something. Pretty much way better than any high school band.

Auditions

2008-10-23T07:32:00.007-05:00

Last Saturday I had the wonderfully exciting privilege of auditioning for all-state. I actually do not believe that it is a good thing to be allowed to try out, because auditions are quite possibly the most frightening thing on this planet. I hate them with a very large passion.

About five weeks before the real thing, Ms. Fleer made anyone that wanted to try out do a pre-audition try out, in order to wean out the runts of the school and to give those that pass a better chance of making the final audition. That was scary enough as it is, because at that time I had barely begun to practice and was still pretty horrible at the music. Thankfully, due to last year where I made recalls, Ms. Fleer told me that it was fine if I didn't do the thing with her. Saved! It was quite the wonderful feeling.

My all-state time was 3:20, so I got to Oelwine around 2:00 and started to warm up and prepare. I was really nervous because I felt a lot less prepared than the year before. When I practiced my solo part I actually had to stop once, and go back because I got so screwed up that I just couldn't go on anymore. It was very disheartening. I went to my room a few minutes early just in case they were running on time, and turns out they weren't. After all of my warming up and preparing I had to sit and wait for 20 minutes. Absolutely perfect for de-warming and not concentrating. Oliver Jorge and I sat and played games on my iPod for awhile and then finally, and unexpectedly, it was my turn to go. I walked into the room and said hello to the judge, who said hello back pleasantly enough. This would turn out to be the only pleasant thing she would say or do throughout the entire experience.

I screwed up my solo a little bit and it made me sad especially since the judge said she had heard of the song. Its called Divertissement by Pierre Max Dubois. Who's heard of that song anyway? She must have very little in her life to keep her interesting. That's all I have to say on that matter.

Then came the etudes that we had to have prepared. I played both of them without any major mistake and was feelin' pretty good. The slow one was super good sounding in my opinion, I didn't have that nervous spazzy vibrato problem like I have had in the past.

I picked F# as one of the scales on my little card, and F# is definitely my worst scale. Thankfully I contrived (isn't that a neat little word) to play it note perfect at the properly fast tempo so I felt pretty good.

I went back to the gym after playing my scales to wait for the sign. When it got posted I had oliver jorge look for me and I didn't get a recall this year. Darn! I actually wasn't sad because I just really wanted to leave that gym full of obnoxious band lovers.

All Around Me Song Review

2008-10-19T16:36:00.014-05:00

All Around Me by Flyleaf Review

"All Around Me"

My hands are searching for you
My arms are outstretched towards you
I feel you on my fingertips
My tongue dances behind my lips for you

This fire rising through my being
Burning I'm not used to seeing you
I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

My hands float up above me
And you whisper you love me
And I begin to fade
Into our secret place

The music makes me sway
The angels singing say we are alone with you
I am alone and they are too with you
I'm alive, I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

As I cry
The light is white
And I see you
I'm alive,
I'm alive,
I'm alive

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healing

Take my hand
I give it to you
Now you own me
All I am
You said you would never leave me
I believe you
I believe

I can feel you all around me
Thickening the air I'm breathing
Holding on to what I'm feeling
Savoring this heart that's healed

This song is pretty addictive as well, but it definitely isn't one that you go around humming. Its fun to listen to while doing something like homework, but it doesn't really get stuck in your head. The main thing going for it is the combination of the singer's voice and the instrumental stuff, it repeats frequently throughout the song (as you can tell from the lyrics) and it makes it good background music. It is also easy to hum along to after just a listen or two, unlike some songs (ex: Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap) which take several listens and maybe a quick search for the lyrics on the web.

This song is most likely talking about a girl and her boyfriend. It seems to me like it might be a love song with a little bit of exaggeration, talking about a secret place and whatnot. It reminds me of Pocketful of Sunshine when Natasha Bedingfield is talking about her secret place with rivers that nobody knows about etc etc. It is one of the few songs by a band that seems to get close to the edge of hardcore rock that I actually like. It is one of the few songs that Flyleaf has that I like listening to, some of them get a little to "rocky" and a little too screamy. Like a death metal band that took some chill pills. Yeah. I said chill pills. So there.

I hope to listen to and review more songs from flyleaf in the future, the only obstacle is actually buying the cd or songs. I've only heard All Around Me on the radio, none of their other songs, so I can only say what I said in the paragraph above (you know, the part involving some of those mythical chill pills).

Okay so here is the music video for it, and I'll have you know you almost didn't get to watch this from the blog. For some reason embedding this official music video was disabled, but lucky for you, I am dedicated and I found one that could be embedded.

Okay I realize that this music video is a little odd, the lead singer (Lacey Mosley) has her eyes closed a little too much and looks a bit emo in my opinion. And what's up with how she looks like she has some super bad migraine or something? Maybe she is allergic to light! That would explain the pale skin too!
She seems much different in real videos, not like this fake overdone music video. The whole paint splattering or running down the walls seems a little bit crazy too. That red paint looks way too much like blood for my liking. Very disturbing.

Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap Review

2008-10-16T07:19:00.011-05:00

Imogen Heap
Hide and Seek Lyrics

a combination of my lyrics and stlyrics.com's

Where are we? What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to fall,
Crop circles in the carpet, sinking, feeling.

Spin me round again and rub my eyes.
This can't be happening.
When busy streets a mess with people
would stop to hold their heads heavy.

Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines.
All those years they were here first.

Oily marks appear on walls
Where pleasure moments hung before
The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this
still life.
Hide and seek.
Trains and sewing machines. (Oh, you won't catch me around here)
Blood and tears,(hearts)
They were here first.

Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that you only meant well?
Well, of course you did.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it's all for the best?
Ah of course it is.
Mmm, what you say?
Mm, that it's just what we need?
And you decided this.
Mmm what you say?
What did you say?

(hide and seek)
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling,
no I dont believe you.Y
ou don't care a bit. You don't care a bit.

(hide and seek)
Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you.

You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.
You don't care a bit.

This song is rather amazing. The vocals are incredibly orchestrated so that there is almost always some totally fantastic chords and dissonance. Whenever the lyrics have a lot of emotion, the dissonance levels increase. http://lostthingsfound.blogspot.com/2006/12/totally-blown-away.html%20(A(A really good review of this song, but when i later returned to view it it no longer was there, so be warned, it might not work)

It takes some time to get used to actually hearing and understanding the words, its best if you look at the lyrics the first time so you don't hear something wrong and then get really confused once you know what it actually is saying. Once you can understand the powerful lyrics, and get the harmonies in your head, the song is stuck. It is nearly impossible to get this song unstuck from your head once its in there. Imagine somebody threw a little urchin covered with barbed spines right at your brain. Once its in there, it won't leave. It's like that...minus the blood, guts, and pain. I believe a porcupine would be an appropriate analogy as well, depends on your preference.

Video Time! Now for the warning... This is some random frightening video made by a creeper somewhere that thinks that people care about how and where they drive. Well, we could not care less. The reason that this was the video chosen is simple; the real music videos have their embed functions disabled by request, so this is what we get. You are lucky I even went to the work of finding this one, I had to make my search parameters tighter and actually burn an extra one billionth of a calorie for you, my mysterious reader.

Now for the actual lyrics part. Some other review for this song I read talked about how they believed the lyrics were talking about some girl, possibly imogen heap (what kind of name is that anyway), visited her childhood home to find that it was very changed. The author of this review was saying how the part, "Oily marks appear on walls, Where pleasure moments hung before, The takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life," was quite obviously talking about a family portrait that was no longer there. I think that this is utterly ridiculous. First of all, why would a family move but leave their portrait on the wall? That would be just stupid, wouldn't it? Yes. The correct answer to that question is yes. The thing is, if you cared little enough about it to just leave it hanging on the wall, why would you be sad if when you visit years later its no longer there. Makes lots and lots of sense. Not. Secondly, the portion of the song that goes like this, "Spin me round again and rub my eyes. This can't be happening. When busy streets a mess with people would stop to hold their heads heavy." Why on earth would people on a busy street decide that it was a really wonderful time to get all depressed and down just because someone found their house with a family portrait gone. A family portrait that in my opinion doesnt exist. Thirdly, what would ransom notes have anything to do with somebody visiting their house and being sad? I'm going to throw out a random guess. Lets go with... hmmm. Nothing! Unless of course their house was stolen from them by the Mafia and they thought it would be best to wait a while, like a few years, before coming to visit. Gotta be safe and all, don't want to get shot or anything looking at your house.

another song review- http://christianpruitt.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/album-of-the-day-music-from-the-oc-mix-5/

Fall Reflections

2008-10-09T16:31:00.004-05:00

Reading the title of this blog I bet at least one reader thought it was about water. Well guess what, its not! The reflections for this blog are introspective reflections.

As the leaves change colors and animals prepare for winter, I think about what I did the previous summer, and if it is what I wanted to do. In other words, I give myself a rating on how well I accomplished my goals. Usually the goals are small ones, nothing major. It seems as if most of the time my goals go un accomplished. I tend to distract myself from my goals and forget about them. I think that this happens to most people with goals that are repeated year after year. Such as losing weight after Thanksgiving, or Christmas. After both of the aforementioned holidays, an influx of new people appear in every gym. People want to work out, to be fit, yet somehow by that time next year, people have forgotten their goals, become too busy. That is how my goal setting works, but I try to set my goals before summer. Every summer I get busy, and before I know it, the summer is over and its back to the drudgery of school.

Fruit

2008-10-09T07:36:00.005-05:00

Did you know that a cucumber is a fruit? How about a habanero pepper? Well they both are, weird, isn't it? The strangest plant by-product must be that a banana plant is actually a massive herb. Yeah. Thats the truth. No matter how many types of fruits or false fruits there are, the best one is the apple. It is incredibly delicious on its own, and there are so many different things to be done with fresh apples.
There is applesauce, which when you are making it looks disgusting to the extreme. It is just pulverized apples that you squish the pulp out of... mmmm. There is apple crisp, apple pie, apple bread, apple tart, apple pastry. The list goes on and on. Each type of food when made fresh tastes just like a delicious apple, not like the store-bought applesauce which just tastes like... Nobody really knows what it tastes like, but it doesn't taste like a nice crisp apple.

2008-10-01T07:28:00.001-05:00