A lot has changed at the work place. A couple of friends have quit, leaving smoke breaks a lot shorter and a lot less trippy. I have moved to the Products team handling a bigger portfolio. *Blah!*
Too many friends (8 confirmed at the time of writing) getting married in the near future (<1 year). *Happiness!* Too many friends getting married in the near future (<1 year). *Wtf!*
Slash, Smashing Pumpkins and Stone Temple Pilots came out with new albums. *Yay!* I haven’t gotten my hands on them yet. *Sulkl!*
Got my Play Station fixed and picked up a few new titles. Any recommendations? Remember, it is a PS2 not 3.
Recently had my first attack of old age. Have decided to go slower on intoxicants. *Sigh!*
I promised you this tonight, galleons, so here goes.
Yesterday was my cousin’s graduation. I was coerced into attending with the promise of alcohol.
I’m easy.
So, I got up early in the morning to make salads and stuff for the barbeque that was occurring after the ceremony. Pretty basic stuff. Then, I loaded everything into the car and drove over with my brother (my mother was coming along later).
And that’s how I ended up in Cody hours early for the ceremony, in a pair of four-inch heels, forced to help set up various gazebo-tent-things and speakers.
I regretted my footwear choice after an hour.
Didn’t they realize I was dressed to just stand around and look pretty? My sole duty was supposed to be getting drunk and not getting in a fight with my extended family. That may seem a simple goal to you, but it was an afternoon of difficult labor for me.
Not the getting drunk part, of course. That would be a piece of piss.
Anyway, we all eventually head over to the gymnasium. I have secreted a book into my purse, which I whip out the moment we sit down.
Maybe I haven’t made it clear here, galleons, but I have an absolute loathing of large ceremonies. I think they are utterly pointless and a waste of my time. I spent my own graduation bored out of my mind and trying not to fall asleep (including when I was at the podium, because I really didn’t want to give that speech). I think weddings are rubbish, and funerals are mind-numbing. I’d give my left testicle (metaphorically speaking) to never attend a ceremonial function again in my life.
Sadly, that won’t happen. Thus why I packed a book to this graduation- if I’m going to be forced to sit there for 2+ hours, I’m going to do something useful with myself.
Cody’s graduating class this year was 160 kids, 9 short of my entire school during my senior year of high school. I only knew my cousin, so it’s not like I really had a vested interest in the proceedings. Plus, the sound system was crap, so I couldn’t hear the speeches even if I tried.
Not that I wanted to, because I’ve never heard a high school valedictory (or whatever) that was worth listening to. I will include my own in there, mostly because it was such crap- something about standing on the edge of greatness or already being great. You know, typical graduation drivel.
They also had a video/slideshow of pictures of their class over the four years they’d spent at Cody High. Okay, to be fair, we did this as well. But that’s because we had 37 kids graduating and the administrators demanded it in order to lengthen the ceremony a little to make attending it seem less pointless. Cody had 160 goddamn graduates- they didn’t need to pad the time, so it just served to piss me off.
I’m pretty sure my ass went numb on those hard bleacher seats around the time the first of the four crappy songs in that video wound down.
Anyway, the ceremony ends. I start elbowing my way through the crowd to get to the exit before I start getting really uncomfortable (as crushing crowds tend to make me).
And that’s when the world’s most disgusting child walks past me.
He’s probably 5 (though, honestly, I cannot guess the ages of anyone under 14 with any real accuracy, so I could be wrong), and his head comes up to about mid-thigh on me. Here’s where I should tell you I’m wearing a skirt, because as this kid passes, I feel something wet and vaguely sticky on my leg. I look over at the child in horror, thinking he’d just licked me as he walked by.
If only.
Instead, I see that his ear is shiny and covered in some sort of translucent liquid. I have no goddamn idea what the fuck that was. Did somebody lick his ear? I mean, seriously, what the fuck could that be?
Now I’m in full-on freak out mode. All I want is to get to a bathroom so that I can wipe this mystery fluid off of me before I contract the plague or cancer or AIDS or irritable bowel syndrome. Or, you know, something logical, like the flu or meningitis or…
Christ on a whole wheat cracker, didn’t some kid from this graduating class die of meningitis? When was this? Why didn’t I pay more attention during the ceremony? , my short attention span and apathy are going to be the death of me! Everyone was right!
I need to scrub my thigh down with bleach or something at this point, but seeing as I never attended this particular high school, I have no clue where the bathrooms are. And, judging by this crowd, they’ll probably be crammed full of old women and children.
Fuck that.
I look to the door and see the most beautiful thing I could see at a moment like that.
It was raining. And not the regular, half-hearted Wyoming rain, but a thorough sluicing. I could have jumped for joy, had I the room and were I wearing appropriate shoes. Suffice to say, I just angled myself toward the doors as I battered my way through the crowd.
Outside, it was cold and pouring. There was a small crowd huddled under the overhang, but I ran right out into the rain. And I was laughing and spinning around in it and probably looked like a crazy person. But fuck it, rain makes me happy.
Doubly so this time, because I felt like the mysterious liquid had been washed off my leg, so I wasn’t going to die of some strange disease.
The rest of my family eventually caught up with me and said they were going over to the adjacent building for the school-sponsored reception for a few minutes and asked me to go get the car. I happily agreed, because it meant I got to avoid the crowd and walk the four blocks in the rain to our vehicle.
So, I slipped my heels off, swinging them in my right hand and walking through puddles toward the car.
And it was then, lost in my head and disjointedly humming , that he called my name.
I looked up to see a guy running up to me, grinning and waving. I smiled hesitantly, but I had no idea who he was. He said my name again, then laughed at me as I said hello awkwardly.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Much as I hated to say it, I didn’t remember him. At all. Not until he jogged my memory. His name is Danny, and he and I used to hang out at Speech tourneys on occasion. I had a bit of a reputation as a hard-ass in Congress, and Danny always used to goose step when he saw me and “heil” me as if I were Hitler.
Good times.
So we stood there in the rain for a few minutes, catching up. Frankly, I have no idea how he recognized me, seeing as I don’t really look the same as I did in high school. And he’s changed a lot, too.
I’ll admit this- it was kind of nice to see him again. Even though I’d totally forgotten about him.
Eventually, as the rain turned to sleet and the icy droplets started sliding down my shirt and into more intimate regions, making me thoroughly uncomfortable, I told him I had to go.
And then the oddest thing happened. He said he and some friends were going to the late showing of Prince of Persia later that night and asked if I wanted to come along. I thought about it for a second and said I would.
That’s right- I decided to socialize this weekend. What the fuck, right?
Anyway, I get the car and drive over to pick up the rest of the family. We head back to the house, where I start drinking. But because I had decided to be social later, I decided I better not get as blitzed as I had originally planned.
Balls.
My mother, on the other hand, got drunk off her ass. For the record, there is no more entertaining drunk that my mother. I bet she was a riot when she was younger (and still drank regularly).
Anyway, the “party” for my cousin was, itself, pretty boring. I spent most of it outside, avoiding talking with my family. They are the type of people who ask really personal, invasive questions and won’t settle for an evasive answer or an “I’d rather not talk about it.” And I have been sick of discussing my lack of a love life with them (Why am I not in a relationship? Everyone in our family has been married or engaged by the time they are my age, and most of them had kids. Am I gay? …The latter question always baffles me, because even if I was gay, couldn’t I still be in a relationship?) for the better part of forever now, so I opted for alcohol and the rain.
It was a good decision.
After that was all over, I dicked around in Wal-Mart for a little while (I’m not gonna lie, I was hoping to see Cute Wal-Mart Boy… I don’t think I’ve told you lot about him, but he has an adorable smile and is super friendly and I kind of go out-of-my-way to attempt to see him at work… there’s nothing wrong with a little man candy in your life, is there?), then headed to the theater.
There were 8 or 9 people in Danny’s posse, so I was thankful that, when we did the theater seat shuffle, he sat by me. Not that I was feeling particularly anti-social or anything (I did chat with a few of the others), it was just nice to sit by the person I was attempting to reconnect with.
More on the movie after I finish this story.
When it was all done and we were leaving the theater (at which point I heard the end credits music and grinned because I knew it was Alanis singing), Danny invited me out to the bar with him and the gang.
I declined. I still had to drive an hour home, but I told Danny we’d hang out again (though I doubt that’s a promise I’m going to keep- he’s fine for a short period of time, but there’s a reason we didn’t stay friends).
After a long drive through deer-infested, construction-laced territory, I wanted nothing more than to start downloading Doctor Who, crawl into bed, and pass the fuck out.
But Ghiert had other plans.
He wasn’t pleased that I had been out all night. And that I hadn’t been bothered to inform him I was going to be home so late. And when he heard I was with another man…
He threw an error message at me and shut off.
I panicked, apologizing as I rebooted him and telling him that it meant nothing. It wasn’t a date, it was just hanging out with an old acquaintance. He didn’t believe me. We quarreled for a bit. He threatened to delete all my files. I threatened to toss him to the curb and buy a MacBook Pro. He smugly showed me the insufficient funds in my bank account. I told him I’d set his background display to an ever-changing parade of cute kitten pictures and florid pastel prints. He shuddered and told me I wouldn’t. I told him not only would I do so, but I’d search for and download them all via Internet Explorer.
Eventually, we made up. I still don’t think he quite believes me, but I’m telling the truth:
At the end of the day, Ghiert is the man for me.
***
So anyway, here’s my review (of sorts) of Prince of Persia.
Okay, if you haven’t played the Xbox trilogy, this movie would probably still be entertaining, but nothing to write home about.
However, if you are a fan of the games… there were some definite nerdsquee moments in the film.
First of all, the cinematography was phenomenal. They managed to capture the look and feel of the games so well. They played with distinctive angles and sequences that screamed the PoP game series. There were also tons of homages to the games, from the way the Prince leapt around town to the description of how to breach Alamut’s gates.
The time travel sequences were also well-executed, pulling from The Two Thrones the appearance of the sand-possession. Having the Prince pull back and view the reversed events as a third-party observer worked much better than the simple rewind of the game. His viewpoint replaced that of the gamer, and I really appreciated that.
Another great bit was the end/beginning. If you play through all three games, you’ll find something rather bitchin’ when you get to the end of T2T. As the Prince is standing with Farah, she asks him how he knew her name. In the first game, Farah helps the Prince, but when he releases the Sands of Time, she forgets those events ever happened. She’s not in the second game, but when she comes back in game three, the Prince recognizes her, even though she doesn’t remember him. Well, when she asks him how he knew her name, the Prince starts telling his story. And the lines he uses and the scene evoked are , making the three loop together.
It’s a gorgeous way to end a trilogy about time travel, and the film does the exact same thing, looping the end back to the beginning. I couldn’t help but be pleased that they did that.
On a personal note, this was the first time since Donnie Darko that I actually found Jake Gyllenhaal attractive (and, on that note, he was super cute in this film). Which made it enjoyable. And the female lead was pretty enough, even if she was a so-so actress.
But the best part, for me, was seeing Richard Coyle in the film. For those of you who don’t know (…probably all of you), Coyle played Jeff on the British show Coupling:
I adore Coyle, and it was fantastic to see him in this movie.
With a beard. Mmm, beards.
But back to the movie. I’m going to say that this was the best film adaptation of a video game that I’ve seen. Then again, the structure of this game series really lent itself well to a film because there wasn’t much of an open-ended environment and no side-quests. As such, the storyline was linear (in so much as a time travel tale is linear), and that allows for an easier game-to-movie translation (even though they didn’t really keep much of the game’s actual plot).
I don’t know. Filmmakers are big on adapting existing source material into movies, and while I don’t necessarily agree with the practice (I’d rather see original material any day), it would be interesting to tap the video game market a little more heavily. The world is full of gamers, after all.
At least, having seen Prince of Persia, I know that it’s possible for a filmmaker to not completely disappoint me with a video game movie. So that’s something.
(NYT) — Christopher Nelson would hardly be considered the Hollywood type. He is a beer-drinking construction worker who lives in Seattle and speaks in a carefree tone. But Mr. Nelson, 35, could be just the adviser that Lindsay Lohan needs right about now.
I’ve been doing a new joke about drinking double vodka sodas. It’s one that is shorter than most, and probably one of the more relatable things I talk about (drinking), so I find that it usually gets a good response.
There’s a “rule” in comedy called the rule of “threes.” The third example of something should be a twist, or a turn, or something so out there that it takes the audience by surprise and produces a big laugh. If you don’t do three, you do one. Or so it goes.
This joke has two examples of what a “double vodka soda” says about a person. A fellow comic pulled me aside after I did it the other night, and said “Kate, you need to add another. Or take one away. You can’t have two.”
I see what he’s saying. Typically three is a more natural number for examples, and maybe there’s a way to get an even bigger laugh. But it seems to work. Consistently. And so long as it works, why mess with it just to comply with a rule?
PS – Yes, the host brought me up as Kate Henderson. A new stage name?
I was poking around in some of the statistics offered by the earlier today looking for global per capita wine consumption. I found the numbers for 2004-2008 and was quite surprised by some of them.
If I were I an investigative journalist with a lot of time on my hands, or a behavioral economist with a fast command of world trade facts, I might be able to answer the question "why?" for each of the following. But I've got other things to do, so I'll just ply you with trivia and hope you win $50 from a friend the next time you're all sitting around at a wine bar.
The country with the highest per-capita wine consumption in the world is.... wait for it.... the city/state/country of Vatican City. The Pope and his boys (all 931 of them) drink 66.67 liters of wine per capita per year. Of course, that's only about a bottle every four days, which among my friends isn't nearly enough. But way to go Catholic church. I'd pay good money for the chance to explore their wine cellar for an afternoon. The second highest country is little Norfolk Island out in the middle of nowhere South Pacific, whose 1,828 residents (understandably -- can you say depressingly isolated?) drink more than the average French citizen.
There are more than twenty countries in the world who register effectively zero wine consumption per-capita per year, including North Korea (I guess our dear leader 's personal stocks of Bordeaux don't count) and the Northern Mariana Islands.
The country with the greatest jump in wine consumption per capita between 2004 and 2008 was Nigeria, with a jump of 1236.2% to .33 liters consumed on average. Anyone care to explain that? It was followed closely by Macau, whose consumption per capita jumped almost 690%.
The country with the greatest drop in wine consumption was again a little island nation in the middle of the South Pacific, Nauru. Perhaps they lost their wine distributor? But the 13,287 residents saw an 88% drop in per capita consumption between 2004 and 2008. The 574 residents of the Cocos Islands likewise saw a 75.6% drop. And poor Burundi, sandwiched between The Congo and Tanzania drank 73% less wine per capita in 2008 than 2004, though it's not clear whether this figure was skewed by the huge influx of refugees fleeing the fighting in the Congo, and clearly had better things to worry about than drinking wine.
Other interesting trends: more mainstream tropical paradises saw huge gains in wine consumption per capita over the four years, with the Antilles, St. Kitts, Turks and Caicos, and St. Vincent all posting 100% or greater gains. The middle east, especially Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates also posted huge gains, as well as a number of poor or unstable African countries like Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Malawi, whose leaders are probably spending more on wine than on some basic social services.
At the highest level, there are far more countries where wine consumption is rising than the opposite, and global consumption between 2004 and 2008 rose 3.5%. And that is most certainly a good thing.
Everyone that knows me well probably knows that I don’t like the heat and summer is my least favorite season. That’s not to say that I don’t find enjoyment in summer. I certainly do. When it’s summer time, that’s when I switch to frozen drinks. Sure, they’re a little girly, but damnit–it’s a brilliant way to cool down. The margarita is my exception for tequila. I don’t drink it normally because I get crazier than a loon, but there’s plenty of water in frozen drinks to dilute the crazy juice. Margaritas are perfect, as long as you don’t make them with that horrible margarita mix. That liquid stuff is too unnaturally sour and something about it reminds me vaguely of a chemical. Stay away from that mix!
So, here’s my recipe for making a killer frozen margarita.
1 can of frozen limeade concentrate
Tequila
Grand Marnier, Curaçao, Triple Sec or your favorite citrus liqueur
Ice
Open the limeade concentrate and put it in the blender. Using the limeade container as a measuring cup, fill one full cup with tequila and add to blender. Again, using container, fill about one-third with the orange liqueur and add to blender. Fill with ice and blend til smooth. It doesn’t get any easier than that. It will taste a million times better than with margarita mix. Your taste buds will thank me for it.
Dennis spent most of his 74 years being a pain in the ass and pushing the limits of human endurance by consuming stockpiles of alcohol and narcotics like nobody’s business, and occasionally acting in movies to fund his hobbies.
He once said something along the lines of, “On any given day, I drink a half gallon of rum with a side of rum, and 28 beers, and snort 3 grams of cocaine…” Then went on to promptly pass out.
He was one of the lucky few actors who managed to make tons of money playing himself on the big screen.
Dennis Hopper was one of my personal favorite actors despite being in so many suck ass movies. I remember putting shit back on the rack in Blockbuster if his name was in the credits, but that doesn’t diminish his overall awesomeness.
To me, he earned due respect for playing some of Hollywood’s most memorable roles.
He played a slightly neurotic man in Easy Rider and got shot. Then he played a crazy man in Apocalypse Now and got his head chopped off. In Rumble Fish he was shot some more. I think he was shot in Speed as well. I’m pretty sure he was probably wishing he’d get shot in Hoosiers.
Not to make too fine a point of it, but I am a Golden God.
No, really. Allow me to explain.
I made a startling realization the other day: it’s almost June. That means it’s been eleven months, give or take a couple days, since I’ve been gainfully employed. Yeah, I’ve worked for LA Fitness-nazis and McFatties, but I hesitate to call either of those esteemed placeholders as ‘esteemed.’ They’re certainly not resumé-builders, and once I’m fully ensconced back within the halls of academia I’ll no doubt forget them like those many foggy vodka-induced regrettable nightmares.
Anyway, now that I’m back in the swing of job applications and am surely bound to land a job I won’t be embarrassed to own up to any day now, I’ve spent a lot of time considering my not-inconsiderable talents, merits, and accomplishments. And with each iteration of my resumé and each cover letter, I find myself getting a little bit more excited by my own awesomeness.
Two Masters degrees and a progression of university administrative positions distinguished by rapid promotion and a strong performance record? Yup, that’s me.
Responsible for sponsored project planning, logistics, and coordination; prospective, transfer, and current student advising; creation and distribution of promotional literature, and student progress and database management? Whoa, that’s me too.
Organized and hosted public relations and outreach projects, workshops, recruitment campaigns, orientation, commencement activities and departmental tours? Huh, I guess I did do all that. I pretty much rock!
Well, duh. Right?
The funny thing (or not) about extended under-employment is this: there’s always the possibility that eventually, you might start to forget about your own past glories and future potential. Take penguins, for instance: do they ever take a look up in the clear Antarctic skies at terns and boobies (heh) soaring and wheeling around and have even the remotest inkling that they’ve lost something? Do little tiny lizards ever think to themselves, if only I were a big ol’ fierce dinosaur, I’d show that stupid puny mammal something?
Okay, I know they don’t, but still…
The fact is, eleven months of no call-backs, rejection letters, and dead-end interviews do leave one’s ego a bit worse for wear (yes, even mine…though it’s still admittedly quite large and robust). Yeah, I know we’re in a big whopper of a recession. I know I’m one of three hundred-plus mostly-qualified applicants for every position I submit my name for, and that it’s a small miracle when I do make it to a first-round telephone interview. I know I’m good. The last time I found myself on a terminal contract (which was totally not my fault, by the way), I applied for three jobs, was one of the top two picks for two of them, and landed a good position not only before my contract expired, but with two months and a planned vacation to spare. And that was in an already-faltering economy and in a town with a preciously small and competitive job market. Boo-ya.
And finally, in my last position (shortly before the position disappeared, natch), I received a damned mother-effing university award complete with a shiny plaque with my name spelled right on it for my efforts…and I’d only been on the job for six months at the time. So not to boast too much, but yeah…I fucking rock. And this under-employed thing right now? So totally not indicative of my abilities, character, or anything else.
But still, it’s easy to forget I’m not reading a piece of fiction or somebody else’s job experiences every time I go through my resumé. To some extent, I’ve become that penguin.
Quack.
When I was a wee small high school kid, I had a triple-whammy going against me. I was skinny and ugly, I had poorly-honed social skills and no self esteem, and I had a big-ass brain. One fateful day, I realized it just wasn’t cool to be a smarty (especially one with glasses, a wardrobe, and a personality to match Steve Urkel’s), so the summer after graduation, I revamped myself. No glasses, a new wardrobe, a butt-load of false charm and bravado and shiny new grooming habits got me noticed, and a nerdotomy and new smartass personality got me noticed. So did a healthy addiction to the weight room at the gym. As long as I kept that brain carefully hidden, I was the hot popular kid. Somewhere down the line, that persona just…stuck…for a while.
Why the hell did I need to be smart when I had a rockin’ bod and this face??
Fortunately, grad school came along and kicked me in the seat of my complacency, humbled me a bit, and made me remember that this pretty head was meant for something more than a substrate for expensive hair product. Local hair show and freelance photographer model gigs were cool and all, but they didn’t really impress my medieval lit professor (the stupid douche). Brain, welcome back.
Fast forward to now, and…I guess it’s just sorta happened again. I’ve become the snarky smartass writer who blogs about vodka-induced shenanigans (but they’re so fun!), lawn maintenance mishaps (but leaf blowers are so fun!), and the ever-constant quest for better abs (but they’re soooo friggin’ hot!), and who pays the bills slinging fries and selling burgers.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course. It’s just that I’ve been out of the smartly-dressed professional role for so long now that it’s easy to forget that I’m pretty friggin’ good at that, too.
And now that I’m hitting the job market hardcore again, it’s time to remember how goddamned golden I am.
Here is a recent work by myself. The project was to create a large-scale publication, which was a magazine. We had to design the cover, TOC, feature spread, feature jump, department, and an ad. I went above and beyond and did three departments and two ads. Yeah, I’m a loser with nothing better to do. Some of the photography is my own and I plan on replaces others with my own photos.
My magazine was about beer…big surprise there. Cheers! is for people who are passionate about brews and brewing. This would not be for college partier, but for a more refined audience that appreciates beer on a more meaningful level instead of just drinking it to get smashed. I went for a very clean and airy feel to the magazine. I felt that most beer magazines are too cluttered and busy. I still have a few kinks to work out, but overall I was very happy with the end result. Here are the pages in order of how they would appear in the magazine. Enjoy or should I say cheers!…no? Alright.
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