here's what I think

I think that Travelzoo sending me links to $45/night rooms at nice hotels on the Vegas Strip qualifies and cruel and unusual punishment.

I think that chocolate shouldn’t make anybody fat.

I think that the Republicans in Congress need to live out in the real world for a while before they start bitching about COBRA premium subsidies being unnecessary spending. I’d also like to remind them that they had their chance fix the economy and gave a gazillion dollars to banks with no requirements that the banks actually lend the money.

I think that the Republicans in the Washington state Senate need to live out in the real world for a while before they start bitching about how expanding unemployment assistance is unnecessary spending.

I think that companies who knowingly sell salmonella peanut butter to school children should be tried as criminals.

I think that raging-indies who cheer about the Starbucks stores near them closing up should be laid off, too, so they know what those Starbucks employees are going through.

I think that Lucius Malfoy is smokin’ hawt, and Ginny probably didn’t mind being Tom Riddle’s minion for a little while since he was totally cute then, so no harm, no foul with that minor diary incident. Lucius was probably doing her a favor, really.

I think that I really, really need to see the Fanboys movie that opens next Friday.

I think that my sister and I need to live in the same state.

I think that my friends and I need to live in the same state.

I think that Oprah is incredibly annoying, and I have no interest in hearing about how she forgot to find joy in her daily life since she’s a gazillionaire who will never have to worry about losing her health insurance or paying her bills if she becomes unemployed.

I think that it’s okay to watch Oprah when Bono, Stacy London, or Nate Berkus are on her show.

I think that I really like to be home in my jammies right now.

I think that Tim Gunn should show up at my tacky old house and offer to buy me a new wardrobe.

I think that HGTV or Nate should show up at my tacky old house and remodel it for me. Preferably before Tim shows up.

I think that it was really dumb of me to schedule a dentist appointment for 4:00 tomorrow (Friday) afternoon.

I think that my husband is really awesome.

I think that I will be really glad once this week (and my dentist appointment) are over.

will work for chocolate

I just looked at my 401(k) balance.

OH MY GAWD

I've been purposely avoiding it. It does me no good. But we switched vendors, so I had to log on to make sure our online accounts were working. Et, voila, my balance immediately popped up on the screen.

I suppose the good news is that since it is a new vendor, I won't see any history on my quarterly statements, so I can forget all about the money I've lost.

And I'm sure I'm poised for vast riches once it does come back. We really have no choice right now but to buy low, right?

Steven Colbert is right. Bears are the greatest threat to America. COME ON, BULL MARKET!

Wah.

drive-by update

Still have not recovered from the regime change. Watching NBC News tonight and seeing Obama standing at the Presidential podium with Hillary standing to next to him made me "OH MY GOD, THIS IS REAL!" My heart swelled with glee and relief.

We've been completely fogged in since Monday night. Am waiting for the ghost ship or gigantic experimental bugs to show up any minute.

I have too much stuff to do.

Microsoft is laying off 5,000 people. Oy. Am worried about the HR girls I know over there, as their department no doubt will get slashed.

Had a very strange dream where I was visiting my sister, and Jason Isaacs was staying at her house, too. He was having a conversation with me about how he wondered when Google nerds would invent a locating program for women since nerds clearly needed women. I told him that functional nerds like us would indeed need real relationships, but that I thought that uber nerds would likely rather build fembots.

I have named my treadmill Lucius (well, Looshus, actually). It wears only black and silver, it mocks me daily, it is clearly trying to kill me, and it has a strange scuff on it that looks suspiciously like a Dark Mark.

Want to eat cookies, but should get on Looshus instead.

Okay, that sounded bad.

Or maybe not bad.

Gonna go now.

oh happy day

I do not have adequate words to describe how awesome this is, so I will simply post the photo.

I take issue

I just joined www.sparkpeople.com, which is a fabulous fitness/wellness site. BUT their first e-newsletter is annoying me. The article starts:

Wake Up Naturally to a More Energized Day
Small Changes, Real BIG Energy
7:00 a.m.: An infuriating alarm jolts you awake.
7:30 a.m.: After three snooze delays you finally turn it off and force yourself to jump out of bed.
8:15 a.m.: Two cups of coffee later, you're stuck in maddening morning traffic.
2:30 p.m.: You practically fall asleep at your desk

Um, WHO gets to sleep in til 7:00 am on a workday and then not get out of bed til 7:30? And WHO can be sitting in traffic at 8:15 am and not be late for work.

If you’re going to give me advice, then you’d better be realistic. Something like:

5:00 am: Your husband’s infuriating alarm jolts you awake.
5:09 am: Your husband’s infuriating alarm jolts you awake again.
5:18 am: And again
5:27 am: You finally groan at your husband to turn off the damn alarm and get his butt up, cursing the man who invented the snooze button in the first place because you were having a promising dream about Jason Isaacs.
6:00 am: Your own infuriating alarm jolts you awake, interrupting a new dream about someone having rearranged your desk at work because your subconscious is just that cruel and couldn’t possibly let you hang out with Jason again.
6:15 am: Your husband leaves for work, so you finally drag your sorry ass out of bed.
6:20 am: You realize you’re still sitting on the edge of the bed.
6:27 am: You finally get in the shower.
7:15 am: You’re finally ready to leave the house.
7:16 am: You run back into the house because you left your tea sitting on the kitchen counter.
7:30 am: You get to work totally grumpy and will never admit that you’re lucky to have a short commute.
7:45 am: You’re still checking email and trying to figure out what you did with your iPod.
10:00 am: You wonder why it isn’t time for lunch yet.
2:30 pm: You practically fall asleep at your desk.

Now that is a morning in a real life. Not this laze about til 7:30 crap.

TGIF!!

devilry

So I did my weigh-in this morning since Ms. Alden has challenged me to a muffin top throwdown.

The results of the weigh-in weren't pretty. But worse, we then went to Costco, and the entire store smelled like chocolate chip cookies.

Sure, Costco usually smells like bread or muffins the size of asteroids.

But today, the day I committed to a life of carrots and gruel, Costco had to smell like chocolate chip cookies.

However, the trauma only gets better from here.

I went to Starbucks and was just gazing at their menu board while I waited for my chai. And there were all these numbers on the menu board! I was trying to figure out what all these numbers meant. It appeared as though Starbucks had added three new sizes to their drink options. So I'm thinking...WHY do we need a 10 oz drink? 14 oz? 18 oz?

It was making no sense.

So I squinted my eyes to try to actually read the numbers (I am old, after all), and then it hit me.

CALORIES

Yes, it is now 2009, and our silly do-gooder county decided that all establishments must start posting caloric contents for all products. So now you see price and then calories across the menu board.

Yeah, like I'd always thought that venti mocha was health food.

In fact, I don't believe I've ever ordered a venti mocha. Anyone who would order a venti mocha deserves cellulite as far as I'm concerned, so WHY must I be shamed by our do-gooder county into feeling bad about my chai or latte?

Do they really think that anyone ordering a cheeseburger with bacon will be dissuaded by a calorie count?

In other news, we finally assembled our treadmill this afternoon. Talk about your basic marriage-challenging ordeal.

"I need you to hold this steady."

"Dear, it's like five hundred pounds."

"Just hold it steady, I need to get a hammer."

"Dear, it's like five hundred pounds."

"Don't move, I'll be right back."

"Um, hello?"

"Okay, I'm back. Now I'm going to rest this bar against your shoulder while I pound the other end of it into the--"

"Um, dear."

BANG BANG BANG BANG

"Dear, you know that when you hit the bar on that end, the other end hits my neck, right?"

"Almost done here. Just hold it still."

Yeah. But he did buy me dinner and a margarita afterwards, so I guess I forgive him for the neck thing.

if life were fair

If life were fair, I wouldn't have been burning up vacation time for a whole week while sick with a cold (while I have nearly 3 weeks of accrued sick time I could have used had I been sick at ANY other time of the year than during the holiday closure).

If life were fair, Paris Hilton would go away. Completely. Not like dead or anything, just away into obscurity.

If life were fair, my house would magically be all cleaned up when I got home from work.

If life were fair, George W. Bush never would have won any presidential election.

If life were fair, all the food that tastes really good would be healthy for me. And all the foods like broccoli and lima beans would come with warnings about heart disease and cancer.

If life were fair, my sister would be a world-famous novelist right now. Because she's that good. And I'm not saying that just because she's my sister. She did steal clothes from me when we were kids and returned them with salsa stains.

And, clearly, if life were fair, greedy people who broke the economy would have been held accountable and had their golden parachutes taken away and given to homeless people so they wouldn't have to be homeless anymore.

But since that's far too heady for me to address, I'll go back to my sister. We like to say things like, "If life were fair, Clive Owen would be cooking bacon for me right now." Or, "If life were fair, Jason Isaacs would have just brought me a cappuccino with perfect foam."

Alas, as much as we focus on those notions, they don't come to pass.

So I'll just offer this to my sissy:

Look, sissy, even he wears a hoodie.


(Just pretend it's a cappuccino instead of the prophecy.)