Becoming cultured, part 1.

I'm reading a couple books right now. One is about renovating my apartment, and the other is called Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist (by Tyler Cowen).

The apartment book is interesting, and I'm getting a lot of ideas, which I hope to do something with when I someday have money. I'll someday post pictures, and I'm sure I'll tell about the book then also.

The Inner Economist book is clever, and I like it a lot. I already have a few parts that I want to share. Since I should probably go to work soon, I'll post one, and then I'll share more later.

This is from Chapter 4, which has kind of a "becoming cultured" theme, since that's something people want. (Or think they want.) I'll share part of the museums and art stuff later, but after he writes about that, he continues...

"Art museums are just one part of our culture and just one medium for becoming a cultural billionaire. Reading is no less a source of depth and inspiration; indeed it seems that more modern lives have been transformed by novels than by paintings or sculptures.

But how should we "attack" classic novels that seem boring on first inspection? One Amazon.com reviewer noted that William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury "...is like an ungrateful girlfriend. You do your best to understand her and get nothing back in return." Many other readers, perhaps less figuratively, feel the same way.

Keeping in mind our fundamental principles--the scarcity of time, attention, and giving a damn about art--here are a few tips for reading. The key is to keep ourselves involved, rather than to mimic the behavior of a literature professor at Yale. If people stay interested in a product--like their favorite computer game--they will put in the extra time to understand it better.

That said, try some combination of the following:

1. Read some middle or end chapters first. They may pique your interest. Don't obsess over sequence.

2. Read through the novel the first time, following each voice or character, skipping passages as you need to. Get interested in at least one character, even if the rest is a cipher. Then reread the book as a whole in order. This works especially well for multi-voice works such as Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.

3. Read the first fifty pages three times in a row before proceeding. Make sure you understand at least one part of the book.

4. Don't be afraid to skip over material and return to it later. This is necessary for the first fifty pages of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. Material that destroys our interest in a book is negative, no matter how important its contribution to plot or character development. Since you're not oging to remember all of a book anyway, don't feel so guilty about skipping over some key parts. Laugh and cackle while you skip, if you wish.

5. Read through the book for the first time without stopping, but do not try to understand what is going on. Treat it as investment in the book, akin to driving to the bookstore, rather than as a forum for judgment. Then try the book again, but with some idea where matters are headed.

6. Start by reading some of the secondary literature on the tough book. Again the goal is to get ourselves interested. I don't like CliffsNotes, if only because they are boring and they deaden the works they summarize. But don't be afraid to "go low" when looking for help. Do not start with exalted literary critics unless you are persuaded they will be either involving or entertaining.

7. Take notes on the names and most important features of the major characters. Write these notes on the front leaf of the book or somewhere else accessible.

8. Give up. Recall the words of Samuel Johnson: "A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."

Some combination of these tricks almost always works. Most generally, we enjoy reading most when we feel we are in control (there's that word again). Harold Bloom tells us, correctly, that we should read: "to strengthen the self, and to learn its authentic interests." It is hard to meet those ends if we go through the book feeling like hopeless idiots."

(That's from pages 62-63.) It's a good book. Tyler Cowen's blog looks good, too.

A couple days ago he posted this sentence about time management:

All people are equally good at time management, but some people are more willing than others to admit that they are doing what they want to do, while others maintain the illusion they wish they were doing something else.

And that's something to think about. Also, Tyler Cowen has an Ethnic Dining Guide blog, but it looks like it's all stuff in the DC area. Interesting guy.

Chocolate Mice!

Yesterday I made chocolate mice to take to my ward Christmas party. My coworker told me about them a few days ago, and I'd never heard of them. The people at the Christmas party knew what they were, though.

They were quick and easy to make, they looked cute, and they were delicious.

Here's how you make them.

Ingredients:

-Maraschino cherries (with stems!)

-Hershey's kisses

-candy chocolate (brown)

-candy chocolate (white)

- probably sliced almonds

How you make them:


Dry the cherries. (Otherwise they leak cherry juice.)


Dip a cherry in melted chocolate. Attach the bottom of the cherry to the bottom of a Hershey's kiss.


Set on wax paper. Or, I just used paper plates, and they came right off.



Now, I knew that they probably needed ears, but my coworker didn't mention them, so I didn't do them. What you're actually supposed to do is pop a couple almond slices between the kiss and the cherry so that they look like ears. (I'm okay with my mice having been deaf, though, because I don't like almonds that much, and maybe they actually had ears that were brown and they just blended in.) [PS, if you want to see a picture of how to do the almonds, click here.]



Then you use white melted candy to give the mice eyes and noses.


Ta da! Chocolate mice.

Correlation v. Causation

Remember how a few days ago I posted about interesting articles in the NYT?

One of the articles that I noticed was "Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says,"which was a new study which had results showing that like, friends of friends could cause you to be happy. I mentioned a bit about it, and said that it was interesting.

On the Freakonomics blog (which, incidentally, is a NYT blog...), today there's an article saying the study is bunk. The Freakonomics article is more interesting than the first article that I mentioned, actually.

It says that the study was performed sloppily. The study proves correlation but not causation. This article says that there are actually three reasons that you may be happy when strangers near you are happy-- the first is that happiness actually is contagious. The second is that "people with similar dispositions are more likely to be friends," and the third (and Justin Wolfers says this is most likely) is that people who are friends are more likely to be under similar influences. The example he gives is, if our mutual friend dies, we'll both be sad about it.

Wolfers also mentions another article in the same issue of BMJ which proved that people can too easily draw conclusions about contagion.

"They use Fowler and Christakis’s approach on another dataset, and show that it leads to the unlikely conclusion that height, headaches, and acne are also contagious. The more likely explanation, of course, is that all are subject to similar environmental influences. For instance, the same jackhammer causing your headache is likely causing mine."

I remember when we talked about correlations in my psychology class. Our teacher said, "Ice cream sales are strongly correlated with crime rates. Therefore, ice cream causes crime." And then we talked about it, and of course that isn't actually true; when it's hot, people buy ice cream. And there is also more crime when it is hot, probably because people are more irritable.

Finished Project!

This weekend I finished a project I've been working on for awhile. See, when I started attending the University of Utah I also started attending football games. Which are often in the evenings, which are often cold.

Every time I'd go to a game, I would have the great idea that I should make a blanket to bring to football games.

The only game of the season is our BCS game, which I won't be attending, so the blanket doesn't really do me any good now. But it will be great for next year. Or other sports games. Or, you know, whenever I'm feeling especially proud of my school, and cold.

The top is flannel, the bottom is fake fur. I bound the edges with flannel. I tied the blanket at the corners of the squares, but I didn't do tassels; instead I just did surgeon knots. I cut close to the knots (on the fur side) so that the fur covers the knots. That was the idea, anyway. It actually came out looking like the belly of a female cat. Hopefully as I use the blanket more, the fur will do a better job of covering the knots.

Go Utes!

Free Gmail Stickers!

In case you haven't seen this yet...

The other day, Gmail announced free stickers on their blog. Gmail stickers are the kind of thing that I never knew I wanted, but now that I know they exist, I can see they've been missing from my life and I must have them.

If you want some, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Send me some Gmail stickers already

P.O. Box 391420

Mountain View, CA 94039-1420

The official post about it is here. And I recommend checking it out, because I'm at the gym and can't post pictures from here.

Interesting NYT today...

I had some time in between class and work today, and I decided I would read the New York Times, which I sometimes do.

The New York Times is my favorite newspaper, because I think it covers a great range of news; there are always stories about what's going on, but there are also often stories about just random, interesting things. One time I read this story about these immigrants who would call this phone number and listen to a preacher in their like, obscure language, and it made it so that they could hang in there for the rest of the week. It kept them going. It was a pretty amazing story. Or another time, there was that story about the berries that made everything taste sweet. NYT, baby.

Anyway, today's paper was a real winner, I thought. Not that there was anything amazing amazing, but there was a lot of great stuff. I read a bunch of it, and skimmed some of it, and I clipped 3 little stories to share on here.

1. From the front page of the NYT, "H.M., Whose Loss of Memory Made Him Unforgettable, Dies". Anyone who has ever taken a psychology class has heard of this guy. He was always called H.M. for privacy, but his name was Henry Gustav Molaison. Basically, he was hit by a bicycle and had been having awful seizures. So he had this experimental surgery which would hopefully fix that, and like, it did. Exceeeppppt, he totally ended up losing the ability to make new memories. So for the next 55 years, everything he did it was like he was doing for the first time. The NYT says, "And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science." The article says he was patient and always willing to try stuff they had him do, "And yet every time [Dr. Milner] walked in the room, it was like [they had] never met." It was a neat article. They arranged to do final MRI scans hours after he died, and they're having his brain preserved, like Einstein's. Neat article.

2. The next article that I really liked was, "Strangers May Cheer You Up, Study Says," by Pam Belluck. This article was about a study that will be published in BMJ, which is a British journal. (Aha! I found it.) The article included a quote from Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis from Harvard Medical School, who was one of the authors of the study. He said, "Your happiness depends not just on your choices and actions, but also on the choices and actions of people you don't even know who are one, two and three degrees removed from you." The study shows that people who live close to you have a huge influence on your happiness, even without you being aware of it. Like through body language and stuff. "A next-door neighbor's joy increased one's chance of being happy by 34 percent, but a neighbor down the block had no effect. A friend living half a mile away was good for a 42 percent bounce, but the effect was almost half that for a friend two miles away. A friend in a different community altogether can win an Oscar without making you feel better."

The article also mentioned another study, "In a separate study of 1,700 Facebook profiles, they found that people smiling in their photographs had more Facebook friends and that more of those friends were smiling." Interesting.

3. The last article isn't really an article. It's just one of those little blips where they briefly mention what is happening in places around the world. The title was "Zimbabwe: Cholera Emergency" and I thought it was interesting too, mostly because I had no idea about it. The only thing I know about Cholera is that there is a book called Love in the Time of Cholera. Which I haven't even read. I sort of didn't realize it was still a big deal. It is to Zimbabwe, though. They've had 560 people die since August. They desperately need food, drugs, and equipment, and Dr. David Parirenyatwa (whoever that is) said, "Our central hospitals are literally not functioning." Sad! The International Red Cross sent 13 tons of medical supplies, like rehydration fluids, antibiotics, and clothes to protect the medical workers.

I looked up Cholera to see what it actually even is, and basically it's where you consume food or water that is infected with cholera vibrios bacteria, and it messes up your small intestine and you start having exhaustive diarrhea. It's one of the most "rapidly fatal illnesses known" according to Wikipedia. Without medical treatment people can die within 3 hours but typically they make it 18 hours to several days. The only way to survive is to have oral rehydration therapy.

I'm Glad I'm a Boy! I'm Glad I'm a Girl!

I have something so amazing to share, you're not even going to believe it.

Like a week ago some other library returned this book that they'd borrowed. We have a copy of it, and not too many libraries do, so apparently people request it pretty regularly. One of my coworkers took a look at it and all of us read it, shocked. It's a kids book that would never, never, never get published these days. I love gender roles. I really do. But I just know that this would be like, a lawsuit on every page.

It is very much out of print, but if you want your own copy, you can purchase a used copy on Amazon for $300. It's kind of funny because half of the reviews there like "THIS DESERVES ZERO STARS!!!! WORST BOOK EVER!!!!" and half are like "5 stars. We've come so far..."

Anyhow, I'm posting the whole thing. Fair use? And maybe it's like money where you can reproduce it as long as it isn't the right size? Otherwise, you would just be in suspense forever, because you'd never know how it ended.

UPDATE 5/12/09:
- Apparently this book was actually published as satire. A few people have mentioned this in the comments. It was published in 1970, which is late for this stuff, so that makes sense. I guess what happened is, Darrow published this as a joke and reviewers took it seriously. His obituary is here. It sounds like he was a pretty funny guy.
- A couple people leaving comments have been rude to me for not knowing that it was satire when I posted this. This is my personal blog, guys. I thought it was neat, so I posted it for my friends. I didn't expect hundreds of thousands of people to be reading my blog. Similarly: when I said it would be a lawsuit on every page, I was exaggerating. I do that sometimes. No more comments about that, please.
- If you wish to comment, please note: my mom reads my blog. I welcome your comments and discussion about this post and book (whether or not I agree with you!) but I like to keep my blog family-friendly. Please be respectful towards each other. I will delete even clever comments if they contain profanity or are vulgar. This was not initially a problem, but over the past few days it has become an issue. Thanks.

Auto Bailouts

This week in my accounting class we've just been researching and discussing the auto bailouts. We broke into groups and looked at the financial statements for Ford and GM (Chrysler is a privately owned company, so their statements are not public), and we did a bunch of calculations for their numbers from the past five years, and looked at trends. We also researched what Ford and GM have told the government they're going to do. Today we just had a big discussion about it.

Here are some of the more interesting things:

1. The only reason Ford even exists anymore is because of debt. They have negative owners equity. Which pretty much means, they don't have any of their own money that they've put into the company.

2. Ford has like $165 BILLION in debt. They're asking for like $9 billion total from us taxpayers. Which is nothing compared to what they owe. Sooooo, what are they going to do with the money that is going to make the difference? They're not saying.

3. This is my favorite fact, which I didn't know, and I think most people don't know. The CEOs of all three companies have said that they would take $1 salary. Now, when people hear that, they think that these guys are going to take only $1 for the whole year. I thought that too. That's not what it is at all though. These guys take a salary and compensation. So for example, for Ford, the CEO is Alan Mulally. His salary is normally $2 million dollars, and then he gets $18.5 million in other compensation. So him taking $1 salary means that next year he would be willing, out of the goodness of his heart, when his company is failing, to only make $18.5 million instead of $20.5 million. They're not offering to work basically for free. At all. It's a drop in the bucket, and it should be insulting to us that they would offer that. I totally thought it meant he would take $1 for the year. Not so.

4. The companies offer a lot of fluff, and some things that are real. Saying they'll make smaller cars, which are supposed to be more profitable (how profitable? says who? why are we only realizing this now?) is fluff. Saying they're selling their private jets (for how much? compared to how much debt?) is fluff. Selling Volvo (for how much? this year it wasn't profitable...) is fluff. GM selling Saturn and cutting Pontiac is fluff. Merging with Chrysler is fluff. None of those things have any numbers along with them, none of them indicate any real change to the business model, and none of the plan indicates how using our tax money will make any difference.

The things that are real are the innocent people. Ford and GM will be shutting down dealerships and plants. Most of the plants are in the Midwest. The plants are in cities where everyone works at the plant. And people don't really have bachelors degrees, because they work at the plant and their parents, and maybe their grandparents did. So when these places close, it's going to completely change life for the people in those cities. And that sucks for them. Because it isn't their fault the CEOs have been managing the companies very irresponsibly for the past 10 or 20 years. [But it doesn't cost money to shut down dealerships and plants and to lay people off, so where is our tax money going?]

Anyhow. They'll get their money, but I guarantee they'll be back in 3 months asking for more.

Really, though, I just wanted to share the part about the $1 salaries. Because I thought that was super shady.

Breakfast Adventure!

I have all kinds of weird stuff in my kitchen.

I used to live with Jess, and she had kitchen stuff. And then I had roommates, and they had kitchen stuff. So now that I have my own apartment, my kitchen is a little interesting.

Instead of having really basic kitchen stuff, I only have unusual [for student housing] stuff. For example, a couple days ago I bought a 9 x 13 pan because I didn't have one. But I did have a bundt pan and a spring form pan. Or, I don't have any pans for on the stove at all. But I do have a dutch oven. I don't have any wooden spoons, but I do have a candy thermometer and a rolling pin.

The thing I definitely miss/need the most is a frying pan. I have one pot that I inherited when Jess got married, and I use it for everything I make on the stove. Last week I made scrambled eggs with green pepper and cheese--in the pot. It was kind of awkward, but it tasted fine.

This morning I wanted to make french toast. And I thought about making french toast in my pot, but then I thought of something way more awesome.

I decided to try cooking french toast in my George Foreman grill. Why not?

I bought a small George Foreman grill when I moved into my apartment, because the fridge was way too dirty to use, and so were the stove and oven. I didn't have a microwave, and I didn't have time to deep clean everything, so I was having to eat out all the time. George changed my life. I started eating a lot of grilled chicken and veggies. It was good. My favorite thing to grill is fresh pineapple, with a little bit of marinade drizzled overtop. SO GOOD.

Anyway, I bought a microwave, cleaned my fridge, stove, and oven, and now I don't really use the grill as much.

It worked perfect for the french toast, though. I think I'll always use it. It's great because:

1. It cooks both sides at once.

2. It cooks it perfectly so that it isn't eggy or dry.

3. It leaves sweet grill marks on it, which makes breakfast seem like an adventure.

[NB: In the picture it looks like it's kind of discolored, but really it's just the lighting and the syrup.]

Other Strategies for Adding Humor to Your Life

I was looking at the same article I just posted the quiz from, and the page before the quiz is a list of ways to add humor to your life. This may also be of interest to someone.

Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 5)
Waleed Salameh "The effective use of humor in psychotherapy." (p. 169)

Other Strategies for Adding Humor to Your Life. Draw cartoons (without worrying about their artistic value) about situations, persons, or events which you find to be particularly humorous. Create humorous collages. Take an art or photography catalog (or even your own family album) and make up humorous captions for each picture. When you come home every evening, try to remember at least one funny event that happened during the day. Write it down and share it with friends and family. Practice "International Dyslexia" by creating new words or onomatopoeias that cannot be found in dictionaries. Ask your friends to tell you their favorite jokes and tell them yours.

Find some time to be alone, sitting in your most comfortable position, relaxed, and breathing soundly. Close your eyes and bring up a humorous experience. Visualize the event as concretely as possible, and allow yourself to fully relive and enjoy it in all its details and with all the feelings you experienced at that moment. Make a date with yourself to repeat this experience on a regular basis by bringing up the same event, constructing a cassette tape of the experience, or picturing other humorous events you have been involved in. Keep in mind that all of us have had happy, humorous experiences, even if we are sometimes more prone to remember negative happenings.

List five facts or life situations you frequently experience and which you find to be absurdly humorous. For example, why can't public telephones return change, or why do some envelopes have a caption on the top right corner saying, "Place stamp here"?

Make written notes of humorous car stickers you notice as you drive. Some examples are "Plumbers do it with a flush," "Teachers do it with class," "Fishermen have all the angles," "Quilters do it warmly," "Chemists get better reactions," "Chess players are better at mating." Start your own "...do it with..." sequence.

Think of a problem that has been bothering you. Think of one sentence which you could use to define your problem in a humorous vein and write it down.

Don't be afraid to share with others the spontaneous humorous associations or scenarios that cross the freeways of your mind. Of course, some of what you find humorous may not be humorous to others because different individuals have predilections for different humorous genres. It is okay for some people to feel that some other people's humor is not okay.

With your co-workers, friends, or colleagues, start a humor support group. Your group can share jokes and success stories on the constructive applications of nondestructive humor used with oneself or others. Each group member can also share with the group an embarrassing episode that he or she has lived, simply relating what happened with out censuring the event in any way. The sharing of embarrassing episodes promotes group cohesiveness, encourages members to be less self-conscious, and brings home the message that we are all imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. Additionally, the group may enjoy experimenting with improvisational comedy sketches, miming, or other humorous performances.

Start the day with a zing. As soon as you get up in the morning, make a habit of calling up a good friend and exchanging humorous repartee with him or her. This will get you perked up and humorously ready for the day. You can also call any of your friends during the day (especially those who are unhappy and need to laugh) and leave humorous messages on their answering machines. Examples include imitating various dialects or funny advertisements, remembering private jokes, sharing new jokes, and so on.

Make funny lists to exaggerate, stretch, and spoof some of your own problems, fears, and behaviors. You may find that writing such comical lists is not only a lot of fun but can also help you deflate and gain perspective on hitherto insurmountable or disquieting concerns. And, who knows, you may find out about things you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask. Examples include "ten things I must remember to do to fail my exams," "twelve recommendations that would virtually squelch my chances of ever getting a promotion," "five things I must remember to do to spoil my relationships with others," "ten favorite anxieties I can't live without," "twelve worries I want to indulge in from now until death do us part," "five myths I want to keep believing about myself so I can enjoy depression," "seven myths and seven realities about my fear of success," and "three reasons why undue guilt is good for me."

You can also take the Humorous Sentence Completion Blank test which I have included on the next two pages. [NOTE: the Humorous Sentence Completion Blank test was my last blog post, found here]

Although I abhor swimming in wet cement...

Today I scanned an article that I thought was kind of interesting, called "The Effective Use of Humor in Psychotherapy". I didn't read the whole thing because obviously I was working, but there was a funny part that caught my attention.

Here is the quiz for your enjoyment. (PS, it's from 1986, so this is sort of like an old school meme!)

Innovations in Clinical Practice: A Source Book (Vol. 5, p. 170-171)

TABLE 4: HUMOROUS SENTENCE COMPLETION BLANK

INSTRUCTIONS: Please complete the sentences below with the first spontaneous response that occurs to you. Since this is not a scholastic performance test, there are no right or wrong responses. The only requirement is that you make complete sentences and that your responses reflect your spontaneous reaction to each item below. Please wait for the signal to begin. [Actually, don't, because my blog will not emit any signal.]

1. Although I realize roosters cannot lay eggs, I _________________________
2. While I know I cannot count all the raindrops, I _________________________
3. Although it is vain to build castles in Spain, I _________________________
4. Given that winter follows fall and summer follows spring, I still _________________________
5. Squirrels store their nuts, and I _________________________
6. When the lights are on but nobody is home, I _________________________
7. While it is apparent that chickens do not have lips, I _________________________
8. It is widely known that tickling provokes pleasant vibrations, yet I _________________________
9. Bankers do it with interest, and I do it _________________________
10. Martial artists do it for kicks, and I _________________________
11. Although others make hay while the sun shines, I still _________________________
12. Ever dog has his or her day, and every frog _________________________
13. When I am happy as a lark, I _________________________
14. While research has proven that real men or women don't eat quiche, I _________________________
15. Athletes go for the gold, and I _________________________
16. Due to the fact that I remember some people's names, I _________________________
17. The early bird gets the worm, and I _________________________
18. When I wake up in the morning, I insist _________________________
19. Although I acknowledge that a stitch in time saves nine, I _________________________
20. Some dress for success, yet I _________________________
21. When all else fails, my saving grace _________________________
22. If misery is optional, then joy _________________________
23. Since I stopped going to the circus as often as I used to, I _________________________
24. If Virginia is for lovers, New York for muggers, and Los Angeles for uncertains, then _________________________
25. If I could be either John Wayne, Mae West, Elvis Presley, Tarzan, or Lily Tomlin, I _________________________
26. When I'm singing in the rain, I _________________________
27. The most important difference between pirates and buccaneers is _________________________
28. When m y mother calls to inquire about my last visit to the zoo, I _________________________
29. When I think about counting all the hairs in some people's beards, I _________________________
30. Although I abhor swimming in wet cement, I _________________________
31. All good things must come to an end, yet at this moment my heart _________________________

Just something kinda funny from work.

I don't remember if I blogged about this or not, but basically, at work my boss had me switch and do something else every day. I process rush loan requests from other libraries. There's a specific website that tells us what we have to supply, and we keep track of it all on the site.

Yesterday, right before I left work I had like 10 more articles that I needed to update on the website, to say that the requests had been filled. My computer didn't still have me signed into the website, though, and I had to re-enter our library's username and password.

Just to kind of illustrate, our username is something like JOE, and the password is something like JO22library. Except that our username isn't JOE, and the password isn't that one.

Anyway, I was kind of thinking about the 22 in the middle of the password, and I realized I probably knew where they got it from. And it seemed like a standard way to assign passwords. So I tried signing in with another library which had a username similar to ours and it worked. Ha. And then I tried signing in with one that had a totally different username, and it worked too.


I thought it was kind of funny. I showed Tasha, since she was the only one still working.

"TASHA! Look! I figured out how they do the passwords, and I can sign in as other schools!"

Tasha was unimpressed.

"Isn't that cool?!" I asked her.

"Well. I don't know what good it would do us."

"Oh! None!" I told her. I don't plan on secretly signing in as BYU or some other school and printing their requests they've received and filling them instead of doing ours, and then secretly marking them as done. It is absolutely not useful to us at all.

But it is kind of awesome. That's all.

Donate to the Food Drive!

This weekend I attended the Utah BYU football game, and it was great. Instead of giving a play by play for that though, I want to mention something else. During Rivalry Week, we had a bunch of contests on campus, and one of them was a food drive. We're supposed to try and collect more food and more money for the Food Bank than BYU people do. (Historically BYU always collects more food and the University of Utah always collects more money.)

Outside the stadium, a group of people were collecting money for the food drive, and I just thought they were fantastic. As tons of people walked to the game, they called for donations from the crowds.

I had about an hour and a half of extra time between the tailgate party and the game, so I spent most of an hour sitting on a hill right by them, listening and laughing, and typing stuff they were saying (on my phone). I wish you could hear the main guy's voice.


Donate to the food drive! All donations might be tax deductible. And we don't feed Cougar fans either. Yes, be like this guy! Donate to the food drive. All donations might be tax deductible. Everybody! We need your money. For the food drive. Any spare change. Nobody likes it. Donate to the food drive, it's all against BYU. Some of you have spare change, I know it. Fore go that hot dog and or soda and donate to the food drive instead. All donations might be tax deductible. He's going for it, he's goin' for it. yes! Everybody donate, everyone is doing it. Donate to the food drive. We know you have money! You all can hear me! She just donated twice. If you donate the Utes will win! Donate to the food drive! All donations might be tax deductible. Yes! Thank you sir. Yes! Be like this kid. He probably doesn't even have a job and he's donating! Couch cushions! Donate to the food drive! Yes! She donated lots of money! Thank you ma'am! All donations very well could be tax deductible. Awesome! Awesome! Go Utes! Buy this ticket and donate to the food drive with the proceeds to the food drive. Donate to the food drive! Everybody! Go Utes! Food drive! Nobody likes spare change and nobody likes the Cougars. Don't avoid eye contact donate to the food drive. I'm pretty sure some of you have cash and or coins! Thank you for your generosity sir! All donations might be tax deductible! It's going to the food drive! We need to beat BYU; nobody likes them anyway! We're going to beat BYU /but we need YOU! I'm pretty sure most of you have cash and or coins! Starving families! Starving families need your money! They just donated and they're in their car! Your quarters, your dimes we don't care! We just want to beat BYU! I'm confident most of you have spare change. Utah fans, this is not enough money! It's all going to the food bank! Ladies with purses I know you have change! Donate money! Even if it's just a couple quarters. All right! Wooo! Go Utes! All donations might be tax deductible! Feel really good about yourself today! Donate to the food drive! Yeah! Whatever ya got! Be like this guy, he just donated!

(I gave them all of my change, which was about 17 cents. But I don't feel too bad; I already donated to the food drive this week.)

Another FAKE website

I'm catching up on episodes of TV shows that I watch but don't watch (since my TV isn't plugged in).

In the most recent episode of How I Met Your Mother, Barney starts Not A Father's Day.

And he shows products that people can buy on the website, which actually exists.

It's http://www.notafathersday.com

I don't know if it's quite as good as the Ted Mosby is a Jerk site that I mentioned in my other post about this, but fake websites are pretty much always awesome.

That is all.

ASK HER [WHAT?!]

Like a month ago, ALL over campus, someone wrote ASK HER in big, like painted chalk letters.

As I walked under the tunnel from the stadium to campus ASK HER, ASK HER facing both directions, and HUGE. And I walked up past the gym towards my classes. In big letters and in a couple different places in front of the gym, ASK HER ASK HER. And then when I got up to the building where my classes were ASK HER was in huge letters there too. And by the student center. ASK HER was written all over the place.

I was so so curious. ASK HER what? Did he? Was someone proposing? What did she say? Or if it wasn't that, what did he ask? WHO thought someone should ASK HER? A few days went by, and there was nothing about it. So I was just curious. I took a picture with my phone so that I could blog about it. I talked to a couple people about it.


And after Fall Break, the letters were gone and I was still curious. I thought about obtaining chalk and writing a follow up question. WHAT DID SHE SAY? seemed long though.

And I don't know why I didn't blog about it before.


BUT THEN! This last weekend, I asked my coworker what he was doing for the weekend, and he said he was joining a fraternity, and I asked which one, and he told me and he said "the one who did the ask her thing." WHAT. I stopped everything. "OH!! You know about it! It was a fraternity thing? What was it? Who is she? Did someone ask? What did they ask?"

And he explained, that basically, they need some certain number of people to restart the fraternity on campus. People from the fraternity wrote ASK HER all over campus, and then some day afterward, a whole bunch of girls wore shirts that said ASK ME. And then you were supposed to ask them, and they passed out info about the fraternity.

AWESOME.


He told me there had also been an article about it in our school paper. I found it. It's here. And here. I guess fraternities at a couple other schools have done it before too. And they were fined for violating campus posting rules. BEST $25 EVER. Except that I guess there are going to be vandalism charges of like $3000, too, which I don't understand why because it all seemed to wash off. It seemed like it was that street spray paint like they use for surveyors and big races, etc. Whatever.

And then there's another article about a guy who was inspired by the ASK HERs and actually did propose. Supposedly. And my coworker said that when he first saw them all, he was thinking about asking some girl out, and he thought maybe his roommate had done it because he had been talking about it and then his roommate was gone the night before. And he asked the girl out.

I'm just happy to know what it was all about.

Brown Bag Lunches

I've decided (for like the 7th time) that I want to be one of those people who actually uses their inbox for incoming email. Right now I have like 4000 messages in my inbox, some from July 2004. Most people haven't even had gmail since then. Anyway, I started by deleting Facebook alerts, and Geocaching.com alerts, and Williams-Sonoma emails, and that kind of stuff. I'm finding lots of treasures, and I'll probably post a few things on here.

Right now I'm going through newsletters that I got from eHealthCompete, which used to be our fitness website for the first year that I worked at Ancestry.


I thought this was kind of a fun email. I'm cutting out the good part to post here. It's a list of tips for brown-bagging awesomely.





Here are some tips for better brown bag:


Splurge: If you are brown-bagging to work, you are automatically saving money by not eating out. So by all means, make your food more enticing than the local fast-food chain's. Make prosciutto, tomato and basil sandwiches, or pick up a roasted chicken in the deli and pack a portion for lunch.


Grilled Thrills: Nothing adds more flavor than grilled foods. Add grilled veggies (onions, zucchini, and eggplant) to your lunch kits. You can bag them separately then add them to a normal sandwich to make it extraordinary. Especially good with goat cheese.


Lunch-Pooling: Form a lunch-pool at work with 4 other persons. On one day of the week, one person makes lunch for all. It's easier to make 5 of the same lunches at once than to make 5 different ones every morning. Plus, it adds variety (just make sure you all share the same tastes in food).


Zip Those Chips: Instead of costly pre-made single serving packs, use sealable plastic bags and even mix up your favorites. Some of them, like those tasty bean chips, vegetable chips and garlic bagel chips, don't come in single server packs.


Stop the Sog: If you are using moist vegetables or condiments, bag them separately then add them to a sandwich at lunch. No more yucky bread.


Fast Food Packets: Next time you eat fast-food (and we know you do), pick up extra packets of ketchup, mustard, salt, pepper, salsa, etc. They are handy for adding flavor to your meal. Condiments can make a sandwich soggy, so adding them fresh from the packet will make your meal tastier.


Condiment Heaven: Explore new condiments on your sandwich. Sun-dried tomato spread, horseradish, Chinese mustard, spreadable goat cheese and Caesar salad dressing are unique alternatives.


If your only problem with taking a brown bag with you is that you forget your lunch then drop your car keys in the bag. You'll never get to work without them

An awesome work story.

I heard the most excellent story at work yesterday.

Okay, so basically, I have one lady who is in charge of my department (who has an office), and then there are two full-timers who kind of supervise the main parts of our work, and they each have their own desks right next to each other, and the rest of us move around. One of the full-timers is training me (I'll call her H).

SO! I was sitting at the one girl's desk with her, and she was showing me how to do something when one of our department's phone lines rang. "It's her again," H said. The phone rang again, and H looked at the other full time lady (that I'll call Tasha), she was like "Tasha, don't answer it, it's her again." H stood up and loudly announced to everyone in our department, "NOBODY ANSWER THAT. IT'S HER AGAIN."

Not knowing anything about it, I was of course curious. "Who?" I asked H. "It's a crazy lady," she said. "She's called three times already today." H pointed at a little paper pinned up to her bulletin board that said:

do not answer calls from

LADY'S NAME

lady's phone number

"Does she call every day?" I asked. "No. Just sometimes." I guess sometimes she'll go months without calling, and other times she calls a bunch. One time Tasha threatened to call the police if the lady called again, and she didn't call for months after that. Until yesterday.

And H told me a little bit about it, and then she had to go do something and while I was waiting for her, Tasha told me more about it.

I guess they had answered her calls before, and the reason she was calling was to tell us that Tasha is crazy and we should do something about it. (She's not; she's not new here, and she's great.) And when she asks for Tasha and someone tells her that Tasha doesn't want to take her call (Tasha has told her not to call that number many times before), the lady gets all mad. The lady called H crazy and a drunk. And she said similar things to one of my other coworkers when they answered.

SO what happened was, before Tasha started working with us, she worked at another library. And this lady was a patron there. And that was how they knew each other. Tasha says she doesn't know, she thinks she may have given the lady her home number back a long time ago, but definitely not her work one--the lady figured it out on her own.

Tasha said that the lady is an artist. And her stuff was on exhibition at Trolley Square. So Tasha went, to be nice and show support, because the lady had invited her. And while she was there, she saw some other artist's prints that she was already familiar with, and she really liked the guy's stuff, and you could get a little framed one for like $5, so she bought one as a little gift for some relative who was coming to visit soon. AND THEN! This lady was all offended that Tasha didn't buy one of her paintings. But hers are like those massive canvases, and they're all very expensive. And Tasha can't afford a huge huge canvas painting for hundreds of dollars or whatever.

And so this lady got mad and started sending her all these letters. And one time she sent a stack of like, printouts? with pictures of her work, or something like that. And Tasha was like "..." [what am I supposed to do with these?]. And Tasha asked her when the crazy lady called her again, and after half an hour of prying it out of her, the lady was like, "Well, you're still in touch with your in-laws, right?" and Tasha's like [surprised] "No..." Because her husband died years ago. And I think the lady knew that. But she wanted Tasha to like, get in touch with her relatives, so that she could give them advertisements for the lady's paintings. ... Ummmm no.

And another time, the lady was dating some guy and wanted Tasha to meet him. So she was like "You should have us over to dinner sometime!" EXCEPT! She had told Tasha before that the guy was a criminal! And Tasha didn't want him, like, in her house, knowing where she lived. And Tasha was like "You can come for dinner if you want, but I don't want you to bring him"...

And now I'll finish with the best part of the story.

About the criminal knowing where she lived, or whatever, Tasha told me it's a locked apartment building, where you need to have a key to get in at all. She said though, even though she can't get in, sometimes this lady will come to her house. She said one time the lady came, and it was like midnight, and the lady stood outside and was like "TASHA!!! TASHA!!!!" from down at the street. And she opened her window and was like "What?" And I don't remember why, but she invited the lady in. And the lady came in, etc, but she stopped and knocked on the door of one of Tasha's neighbors. And Tasha said she knew a single guy lived there. And Tasha was like "What are you doing?!"

So she knocked, and remember it's midnight. And the guy comes to the door and from inside says, "Who is it?" And the lady says, "Me," in a singsongy voice. And the guy is like "What do you want?" to which she responds, "Just one passionate kiss." [!!!] And Tasha is embarrassed, obviously, and she doesn't want the neighbor to associate this lady with her, so she goes inside her apartment and leaves the lady. The lady said she was just doing it as a joke. But how crazy is that?!

True story.

Cool quote

I heard a neat quote last night at my Pistol Marksmanship class, which I thought was worth writing down (and apparently also worth sharing).

We were talking about how, I guess it used to be that you were supposed to aim at the center of the target when you shoot. Which makes sense, because that's what you want to hit. Except, when people (especially beginners) aim at something so tiny, it's hard to actually hit it. Because peoples' bodies naturally move a tiny bit, etc. So instead, they teach people to aim below the target. And then it's easier to focus on the front sight (instead of the target), because you can see it better, and you're not so distracted with trying to hit a tiny specific spot. And then you adjust the sight so that by aiming a little below the target, and then you're more likely to hit the center than if you're actually aiming at the center.

And the instructor mentioned a quote that he'd heard recently, which I thought was good. He didn't cite it though, and Google attributes it to "unknown" sooo, here you go:

"Don't let perfection get in the way of excellence."

Good stuff, huh?

Just staying busy.

Well, I haven't really blogged all that much lately.

I've been busy.

Here are the main things that have been happening in my life:

I attended concerts! I saw Weezer live, which was excellent, and then the next week I went to the Rock Band Live! concert, which was also very good. It converted me to liking Dashboard Confessional, which I never really cared for before the concert. I also really enjoyed seeing Panic! at the Disco, and thought they did a great job. (I went because they were playing.) Plain White T's was less impressive. For both concerts I had tickets that were down on the floor, and I invited a guy from my Institute up here in Salt Lake. We were super close--so close that we didn't watch the big screens because we could actually see the people singing and the expressions on their faces, etc, without needing to look at the big screen. (PS, the concert pictures are from my camera phone.)

I visited New England with my friends. We went to a Shaker village in New Hampshire, visited Dartmouth, and then we went to Sharon, Vermont, to see Joseph Smith's birthplace. We also went to Lexington and Concord (and saw the spot where "the shot heard 'round the world" was fired, and also saw a live reenactment of redcoat stuff), and we had a tour of Harvard Law school. And went to church in Boston, which was basically the same as church in Utah or church in California. The trip was my favorite thing I've done in a long time. I've decided that traveling with my friends is my favorite thing to do. Of everything.

I ran a 5K last Saturday, which was part of Wellness week on campus. The actual title of the race is "Run Like Health", but nobody actually pronounced the "th" on "Health" and I'm pretty sure that was intentional. I got a cool shirt from it, which I plan to really wear, unlike my other race shirts. Also, on the same topic, I've started running most days. And I like it. (I always wanted to like running!)

I had the kitties, which obviously I already blogged about. It's kind of weird now that they're gone, because I come home and I don't have to make sure the kitties don't run out as I'm coming in the door. And then I go take my shoes off, and I don't have to put them up high, because the kitties aren't going to snag them or chew on them. And I take my earrings out, and I don't have to put them up high either, because the kitties won't play with them or eat them. And my house doesn't smell like kitties or waste, even though I empty the litter box zero times per day. And I sleep well basically every night now. So. Sort of I miss them, and really I'm secretly relieved to have my house smell normal and all that. Even though they were cute.

I watched season one of Heroes, and I liked it. And now I'm watching season two. Claire is my favorite of all the characters. I also like Hiro. I've been kind of slow about watching my other shows. I'm just busy enough with everything else that like, The Office and HIMYM are not as important as they were. I also watched season one of Pushing Daisies and I love it. Actually, though, I still haven't bothered to plug in my TV yet, sooo, my TV viewing is basically all online or while I'm running.

I don't have any fancy hobbies right now, really. I had this great idea that I wanted to knit washcloths for all of my married friends (because I think they make a house a home), but Jess thought it was a stupid idea, because everyone uses sponges nowadays. And I guess she's right, so now I'm not excited about spending lots of time making something that nobody wants. Jess said I should knit hot pads instead. Meh. We'll see. So I knitted one washcloth to try out one of the patterns, but that's all of the knitting I've done lately. (Although now that it's cold, maybe I'll want to knit more scarves and hats and socks.) I haven't been spinning either.

Hobby updates: remember how I was all into gardening this summer? And I turned out to have not a green thumb at all, but like a thumb of death instead? I was at my old apartment a couple weeks ago and turns out, my tomato plants grew a tomato! One. That was green in the middle of October, so probably would never be red. Too bad, but still kind of neat, since I started the tomatoes as tiny seeds. My other hobby update is about CERT-- this week I finally got my card that shows that I did it.

OH! AND I have been shooting! I signed up for a Pistol Marksmanship class, and I've had three classes of it so far. LOVE IT! I've always wanted to try, and frankly, I'm not very good (yet!), but it sounded like a fun idea, and I'm enjoying it tremendously. I like just doing things instead of thinking and thinking about them forever. So this was one of those things.

I've also kind of become a football fan, which is way new for me. I'm in the student section at school, and I've been to a few of the games. This week we're playing against TCU, and we're having a blackout game, which is, get this, where everyone wears black. Even the players. It's supposed to look intimidating. I think it will. Except if tomorrow is anything like today, we'll be snowy black, which I think it more picturesque and not so intimidating, but whatever. Yesterday I picked up my MUSS BLACKOUT sweatshirt. I think the game will be fun. And more fun if we win. [Not my car; just one I saw.]

In other sports news, I'm ref'ing (sp?) volleyball games for the next couple weekends. RANDOM! I don't know anything about volleyball. But it's cool. I'll figure it out.

My classes are going pretty well. EXCEPT, turns out I love love Accounting, and really hate English [literature], which is unfortunate becuase the English major here isn't English. It's English [literature]. And if I switch to Accounting, I'm basically starting from square one (3 1/2 years of classes, for just my bachelors, because I have to go through the whole business school thing). But if I keep going with English, I have 1 1/2 years left instead. SO, not sure what I'm going to do about that.

And then I guess my last item of news is just about my new job. I started working there this Monday, and so far things are fine. I don't love it. It's okay, though. And there are some things that I do like about it. Like, yesterday, I got to check in a bunch of books we had lent out to other libraries, and a bunch of places put these little thank you notes in the books, and that made me happy. I also do a bunch of scanning, and that is less interesting. I'm happy to be working somewhere, though.

So that's good.

No more cats.

Well, I just took the cats back.

This time, I tried calling ahead (nobody answered), I found a way to put a luggage strap on the Pet Taxi, and I got off at the correct train stop, so that made things a little easier. Okay, a lot.

But when I told them the kitties hadn't had their second shots or been spayed/neutered yet, they got mad at me. "We never take foster kittens back before they've been spayed." WELL. And I kind of mumbled something about the Humane Society being far, and I have to carry the cats, and they're destroying my house, and it sounded like a lame excuse.

And I don't think the lady understood that when I bought a pumpkin yesterday, I couldn't carry it because my forearms are still bruised, and so are my hips. And she obviously didn't understand that last night I had to put sweats on top of my pajamas and then sleep with a heating pad, because I was out of clean blankets and even my comforter needs to be washed, and so does my couch. And she couldn't have understood that I can't put my bathmat in the bathroom, my shoes on the floor, or my books on the couch. And she definitely didn't understand that my new-to-me couch which had zero snag marks when I got it is now covered in snag marks. Even though I say "no" whenever kitties start to bother it.

Obviously she didn't understand that kitties bite me awake, or just mew and mew, or run around and I haven't slept well since I got back from Boston. And I don't think she understood that I've tried and tried to make my house smell livable, but that I can't open my windows really, because they have no screens and I can't let the cats out. She didn't understand that I gave each of the kitties individual attention at least a couple times every day so that they would feel loved, and grow up to be nice cats, for other people. She didn't understand that I was trying to help and did my best.

She didn't thank me for keeping six cats in my apartment for six weeks.

She was annoyed. She said, "They're not spayed. What am I supposed to do with them?" and I thought maybe it was a rhetorical question, because she's in charge of foster animals with the Humane Society. And like, all week long doesn't she get not-spayed cats that she's not expecting? (That's the whole idea of having a Humane Society, right?) And these ones weren't even mine. But she just looked at me, because it wasn't a rhetorical question, so I said, "Spay them?" And she said they'd have to find someone else to foster them. It was an extremely awkward conversation.

And I know I read on the fostering agreement that if I didn't take them for their shots, or if I refused to give them back, I wouldn't be allowed to foster animals and maybe not even adopt from the Humane Society ever again. So I think I may be blacklisted from the Humane Society.

Which is awful. That's like being blacklisted from volunteering at the library or at an elementary school.

So now I'm home in my catless house. And feeling awful about my best not being enough.

OOh, glimmer of hope! Just now, as I was typing this, another lady from the fostering at the Humane Society called to find out what happened. And I explained that I couldn't take them back for shots, etc, during the week because I have a new job, and the Humane Society is way far without a car, etc, and she was like, "Ohh." And she told me the kitties were "nice and fat"! And we talked about some of the mom's issues (like wishing she were an outside cat and not using the litter box), and some of the personality traits of the kitties (one of them was hissy when they tried to give it shots), etc, and it was the conversation that I had expected to have when I dropped them off.

Sigh.