youtubin'

Ok, this is a little explicit for me but I love the Muppets and it has good energy:




Next...who knows.

Happiness

That's right! I'm back with another blog post in less than a week! I may have had a bit too much caffeine today but it may also be that my ears didn't hurt or itch and my head didn't feel like it was going to explode today. I do have this weird rash on my feet though...

Anyway, there's something I've been meaning to ask you: are you happy? if so, how do you know?

When I do a google image search for "happy" I get a lot of happy birthday or happy new year, this makes me think humans are only truly happy on holidays or special occasions. For the record there were a good number of photos of naked or scantily clad women also. I did find this tidbit though:


When I google image "happiness" it's just random stuff but dominated by happy face pictures and children smiling with sun on their faces. This piece of art, entitled "My happiness is riding on your misery" did come up:

I was dismayed there weren't more kittens or puppy pictures in the happy/happiness search. I guess google's idea of happy may be different than mine.

There are other happiness phenomena out there at the moment. For example there is the Happiness Project, which people like myself (who need happiness tips from time to time) do peruse. Though, truth be told, I didn't buy the "how to be happier in four easy lessons bit," which I liken to ads that claim you can lose 20 pounds in a month by exercising only 10 minutes per day.

Oh, there is also an extremely disturbing movie entitled "Happiness" by director Todd Solondz. Not really sure I would recommend it to anyone but I have seen it.

That's the end of my thought trail for this topic for now. Remember "happinesss is a choice and suffering is optional" and "choose to have a great day...because you deserve nothing less!" [note: I would never say either of these thing and I lifted them from the San Diego Happiness Club teaser - the club is now closed - and thought it would round out the post nicely.]

Mindless hotel tv watching

Over the 4th of July weekend we stayed at a the Winter Park Lodge (or something of that sort). It was nice. We took the "cabriolet" to the little village across the way. the cabriolet is a small kind of aerial transportation thing. It was quite fun to ride for the 2 minute trip.


Anyway, once we arrived in the village we had dinner at Lime. Along with dinner we opted for the 21 ounce margarita - it was more cost effective than the 12 ounce. The waitress brought us some complimentary shots too. It was a good time.

When we got back to the hotel we were really only good for one thing - watching tv! This is something we rarely do since we don't have cable. We came across an episode of the Family Guy where in the dad character drinks a lot of beer and his wife accuses him of killing all his brain cells. The clip below is what the show depicted as the final brain cell in the dad's head:

[ok, it's 2010 and the video was "removed by user"!  Essentially we're given a window into Peter Griffin's head and it shows just one remaining brain cell with glasses on.  It is looking around and noticing that it is all alone, "I'm the only one left."  Then it says, "well, at least I have my books."  It promptly trips and breaks the eye glasses and laments, "but, but...there was time now...that's not fair!"]


That was all I wanted share, I just had to set up the context to be able to show the brain cell bit.

Someone save me

The internet is dissolving my brain. My blog suffers because of Facebook - all my pictures and comments of note now go on Facebook. I get sucked into watching full episodes of Jon Stewart. I check Icanhascheezburger twice a day. The iphone doesn't really help with this problem...with my Facebook and NYTimes "apps" my browsing is more efficient.

The most interesting thing that has happened to me lately is that I saw a Boston terrier puppy at the gym yesterday. You know how most women want babies? That's how I feel about puppies. I can't even find a picture of a Boston terrier online that is as cute as that little guy.

Otherwise, I had this strange dream that was animated (like a cartoon) about traveling in a canoe in the swamp but there were lots of alligators. Maybe this has something to do with my internet consumption.

2009 - funeral #3

I work on RTD's FasTracks program. Last Friday a man on the project, who I knew, Dennis Cole, died of a stroke. He was only 60. He was the Engineering Project Manager for one of the FasTracks rail corridors. Two bus loads of us RTD people attended that funeral today. It was much more difficult than I had imagined it would be. Strangely, I only cried out of my right eye. An odd detail but worth mentioning.

This is my third funeral for 2009 - my most funeral-heavy year on record.

Carefree...

I'm not sure what marketing genius came up with "Carefree" as the name for a line of feminine products but I'm guessing that person was male. If you are reading this and a male you may not be aware of these "carefree" products. If not, you may want to get a primer at the Carefree website. But be warned, you will find more than information on the various panty liners they peddle. There is also information about pregnancy, a woman's "special time", and other "life changes." Oh! The best part is that you can send an egreeting from Carefree!! Another warning - you are required to answer questions like "which of the following describes my use of pantyliner?" Unfortunately the selections were limited, they didn't have the option to indicate that I use them to give my hamster to make a nest (I don't really have a hamster).

I guess this is what a "woman on the go" looks like when she's carefree.

The Annoying Thing

This is horrible - I'm warning you, do not watch it. I've got the ring-ding-ding-a-ding-ding-a-ding bit stuck in my head.

XX

I'm a fan of Slate.com both the web site and blogs as well as the podcasts. In addition to the existing podcasts (culture gabfest and political gabfest), Slate has recently started a new gabfest: the Double X Gabfest. There is also a Double X web site, which I haven't spent a whole lot of time on. So, what is it? It's a site devoted to women - not feminist issues per se but women in the news, what these really interesting women (who created and contribute to the site) are reading and thinking and analyzing.

For instance they've got a "Sotomayor Buzzword Watch" which is "keeping track of the arsenal of assaults from her attackers." The most recent podcast (linked above) discussed Sotomayor, of course, a recent study on womens' happiness in America and women action heros (i.e. why aren't there any good ones?).

I'd recommend giving the podcast a listen. Like the other Gabfests, this one makes you feel like you're taking part (kind of) in a conversation and it's real people just talking. These particular real people happen to be women who are lawyers, journalists, movie critics, news analysts and much more.

TV

The yuppie that I am, I have spent this weekend listening to podcasts, watching movies ("films"), knitting, reading books and magazine articles, and making bread (but *not* in a bread machine). I made blueberry bread but the loaves came out sort of less plump than in the past but still tasty:

Anyway, I noted a theme in a few of my mental consumables this weekend: TV.

The Slate Cultural Gabfest podcast, an old episode of This American Life, and my choice in viewing all involved this. I am not really a TV watcher but this topic comes up occasionally in conversation. It always sounds so uppity when I mention that I don't watch TV. What people usually don't hear is why I don't watch - because I'm a freaking addict. If I had cable I'd be about 300 lbs and have jelly for brains because I'd just sit there and channel surf endlessly.

This past week's Slate Culture Gabfest (The Mature Adaptation Edition) - two of the three Gabfest participants do not watch TV and one does. They had an interesting conversation about network TV versus...what, HBO TV? Where is TV going with things like the internet, Tivo, and Hulu around. They also talked about why two of them don't watch TV. Sadly there was no real answer other than time constraints. The show often discusses TV shows but doesn't usually ponder TV in general. Interesting.

An episode of This American Life (What I Learned From Television) from 2008 had TV as its theme. The most interesting act (the show is almost always performed 3 acts) was David Rakoff's bit. He hadn't watched TV for 20 (?) years and the show's producers wondered what someone who has been away for so long would think of TV today. At first he couldn't watch it, then he got into it too much, but in the end he rejected it. He admitted feeling a bit stupid about the things he found funny (e.g. America's funniest home videos) and not really getting other things (e.g. MTV's My Super Sweet 16).

Finally, we started watching a now ended show from HBO - The Wire. We watched the first three episodes of the first season. I was sort of luke warm on it but Sandy really liked it. It takes a while for me to get into things. It seems we're tentatively moving forward with our viewing of the show and trying not to get totally addicted. We've established a "No Blockbuster" rule, which means that we have to wait for the episodes to come in on Netflix and not cheat by running to Blockbuster (we spent a lot of money doing this watching Six Feet Under on DVD).

Ok, well I've gone on loooong enough. Stay tuned for more in the near future.

Really, nada

Outside of the garden variety yuppie problems, life has been pretty ho-hum lately. Nothing of note about which to blog. I mean I did get out on Friday night for a happy hour which lasted a few hours. This was my view from the floor when I got home that night:That's right, Yota and her scratch pad (aka Sandy's old yoga mat). Unsurprisingly, Saturday was pretty uneventful. Um, Sunday too.

If only I still had photoshop, then I could spend productive hours manipulating and recoloring our photos like these:


But, alas, there is only the news sites, the blogs of others, reddit, and Icanhazcheezburger to keep me distracted.