Onward!

Here goes...

It's been a while, but, hey, I'm bored!

I had a dream/epiphany last night. This is the first time that I have thought anything worthwhile in a dream, and this epiphany is only arguably worthwhile. I understand that I must have missed/misunderstood many a joke in the past because I hadn't yet realized that MAGIC JOHNSON'S NAME IS MAGIC JOHNSON!!!!!
I mean, whoa! What a name! Apparently, the origin of the nickname is sincere and not, um, perverse? But perhaps sacrilegious:

Johnson was first nicknamed "Magic" as a 15-year-old sophomore playing for Lansing's Everett High School, when he recorded a triple-double of 36 points, 18 rebounds and 16 assists.[8] After the game, Fred Stabley Jr., a sports writer for the Lansing State Journal, nicknamed him "Magic",[9] despite Johnson's Christian mother thinking that the name was sacriligeous.

(from Wikipedia)

So that's all. The whole epiphany.

But while I'm writing about things that aren't really worth talking about, I will mention that I have become notably frustrated by weather reports. Old news, sure. Everyone hates the inaccuracy of weather reports. I have always been a fan of weather.com, regardless of it's inaccuracy. I actually switched to weather.com because Yahoo Weather pissed me off (always predicting rain and snow, but never giving an estimated amount). Recently, though, I've been looking at both weather.com and AccuWeather.com, because Jared assures me that AccuWeather is more AccuRate.
On Sunday I was planning on attending a Phillies game with my uncle, who suffers from numerous, serious health problems, therefore requiring at least tolerable weather. I checked both weather sites that morning. Weather.com said it would rain all day. AccuWeather said it wouldn't rain at all. (It didn't rain.. 1 point goes to AccuWeather).
Currently, I'm looking at similar predictions for today. And, believe it or not, the rain/no rain conflicitons aren't even what's really bothering me. It's the variations in temperature. I type my zip code (19147) into both sites, and it's almost always a different temperature. This morning before I left the house, AccuWeather told me it was 64° and Weather.com said 72°. That's kind of a big difference.
Maybe I just need to shut up and buy a thermometer. And a barometer, and a rain gauge. And maybe a kite with a key attached.

Good Choice, Jillian

My little sister, Jillian, is going off to college in the fall, so she's been in the midst of that awful/exciting college finding process for a while. After her visit to George Mason this week, she has decided that it's the school for her. George Mason is in Fairfax, VA, so I decided to look up how close that is to D.C. It's pretty close. That's good, considering that I told her that if she went to West Virginia University (a runner up), I would never visit her because it would be boring.
At any rate, I went to the George Mason website, and was greeted by the same photo with which I am greeting you.
It reads: "With the help of Mason's Career Switchers Program, Kevin Laub discovered his true calling:" Hanging plastic lobsters on classroom walls. Or maybe he calls them "Laubsters"?
SIDE NOTE: Jill is the one who inspired the name for this blog, The Toothpick's Worm. She came up with it as a team name for some event at school when she was ten. This is, apparently, not unlike the inspiration for the band name Jimmy Eat World

Revalations 1:25-08

It is a bad idea to live paycheck to paycheck because you might get fired.

A Review of Wendy's Frosty Float or How I wasted $2.13 on Wednesday

On Wednesday, January 9, 2008, I went to Wendy's. I pass the Wendy's at 15th and Chestnut at least once a day, and they have had this big advertisement for the Frosty Float for several weeks. It includes the photo shown to the right. Now, everyone likes Frosties. They're good. We all know it's just a milkshake, but the experience is somehow different. So. A Frosty Float. Sounds Good. It couldn't be very much money; half off the Wendy's menu is only $.99.
Because the weather has been so unnaturally nice this week, I thought, "This is the week I buy a Frosty Float." And it was. I bought one yesterday in between picking up my paycheck and going to the bank. The service at Wendy's was about par, not good, not too bad. I ordered the float and was given the total of $2.13. I looked up at the menu to realize that the Floats are $1.99, but, of course, Frosty Floats are NOT considered necessity by the State of Pennsylvania, and so they are taxed 7%.
After waiting for a minute, I was asked what kind of soda I wanted in my float. I said, "Root Beer." They said, "We don't have Root Beer." I, reluctantly, said, "Coke." I was then handed my sticky, overflowing Float. I had to go over and get a dozen napkins and clean everything up before I could leave. Then, I left.
So, the Float was okay. I ate/drank only half of it before throwing it out. Why didn't they have Root Beer?! Isn't "Float" Root Beer's last name? I don't know what I expected, but it simply didn't do anything for me. I was disappointed, to say the least. (To say the most would be: I was moved to blog about it after over a month of not blogging on anything.)

Later that day, Jared asked me to do one push up for him. I did, but he said my nose had to touch the ground. So I tried again, and I think that my pelvis/diaphragm might be broken.

Good day.

KOZMAPOLITZ

So it's finally happening: KOZMAPOLITZ. (this is kelly's last name and my last name put together).
The earring business is official. We have a domain and everything.
www.kozampolitz.com
Please check it out and tell your friends!

Jared and I finally applied for our passports yesterday. We had our ugly ass photos taken and everything. In January, we will be booking our flights to Athens (via London) and beginning to thoroughly plan our trip to Greece and Turkey, which will occur in April/May. Very exciting. So in 6-8 weeks the passports will arrive and excitement will ensue.

I still haven't even started my Christmas shopping, but I get paid on Wednesday and the shopping will begin. I can't wait. I haven't bought anything but pasta for what seems like weeks. Not only will I be able to Christmas shop, I'll be able to eat something extravagant... like pizza! And frozen pizza! And maybe even pizza bagels!!!

The Old Soup Can

Lately, (like, say, during the last month or two) my olfactory senses have been in overdrive. More specifically, my olfactory nostalgia trigger? I've been having so many moments where I catch a scent and get SENT (!) back to second grade gym class or something. Recently, I was sent back to the arts and crafts cabinet we had when I was a kid. It smelled of a combination of crayons, play-doh, construction paper, and laundry (it was in our laundry room). What a wonderful smell! On more than one occasion I had the unfortunate experience of reliving the time I made hot chocolate with soy milk. Not a good smell, not a good taste, not a good memory.
Today I found this website, Swap-Bot, a venue for Mail Swaps. I signed up for two. One involves handmade items and the other ATC's of your favorite comics. Mine will be Charlie Brown or something from his Peanuts gang. I think.
Yesterday I invented the word Goatmeal. The definition goes something like this:

Goatmeal (n) Anything relating to anything that a goat would eat, which is anything.

It came up when Jared referred to something (farts) smelling like old soup cans. I initially said that it would be like a goat's dinner, then evolved it into Goatmeal. So. Spread the word. Put it on UrbanDictionary.com and teach it to toddlers. I doubt it will make Word of the Year for '07, but there are more years ahead of us.
The two images I included today were things that I found when looking up "Open/Closed" in google image search. I was trying to find something to illustrate Business Hours in a flyer I was making. I didn't find anything. Just these.

Moving on after T-Giving D-ay

So I've never cared much about Thanksgiving. I still don't. But I had a pretty nice one this year. I guess it was the overall Thanksgiving break that did it for me. This is the first year in a long time that the break has actually been a break from something. In the past, I've always had to work that weekend. This year I didn't even know what to do with myself. So much free time. It was nice. And because I had two days off from work (and I took a few hours off last Wednesday due to a hangover extraordinaire), I'm broke.

For photos of Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving, The Sequel, check out my flickr page.

Because I don't have any money --but I WILL have money in the near future-- I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet. This is, by far, the latest I've waited to start shopping. Last year I believe I started in September so that I could budget a little better.

Jared and I are getting our passports this week. That'll be something to check off the list. We are planning our trip to Greece/Turkey for April/May, so we really need to take care of the passport thing.

I'm eating tuna for lunch and it's making me ill, so finishing this blog entry is no longer a priority.

Until next time..

Tuesday is the new Thursday. This week, anyway.

I have decided to watch all of the movies that have won an Academy Award for Best Picture. I wanted to do it in complete chronology, but the first two (Wings and Sunrise) are not available on DVD and maybe not even VHS. So I will begin with The Broadway Melody. Out of 79 films, I have already seen 17 of them. I don't know that I'll re-watch certain ones, since I just watched On the Waterfront like three weeks ago and I don't feel like I need to see Titanic again. Maybe I will have this project done by next year's academy awards. Maybe not. Who knows.. maybe I'll step up my Netflix account to 3 DVDs at a time for the winter (whoa!).


Part of my daily walk to and from work revolves around walking through Love Park, which was so nice in the summer. The fountain is so tall that the wind blows mist all over the park. So when it was so hot out, I started walking through the park to sort of cool off for a minute. It was also so aesthetically pleasing early in the morning. Well, they've finally turned the the fountain off this week in preparation for the Christmas tree they'll put there. I'm sure that the tree will be lovely, but it's so awful right now. Also, as a side note, in the last four months that I've walked through the park about ten times a week, the water has been red, green, blue, and pink. (It was red as a promotion for Dexter..!)

Cruel, cruel spine!

So the inspiration for this blog entry is all of the posters and ads all over Philadelphia that advertise New York. "Come to New York." "This is New York." They're all over. I really don't think that's fair. It seems like kind of a slap in the face, especially considering that New York really doesn't need any help luring tourists. It's really Philadelphia that should be advertising in New York, even though New Yorkers usually think of Philadelphia as a sort of bastard step brother who occasionally has worthwhile art exhibits and Live 8 concerts. I can't find any images of these ads on the internet, but if I come across one, I'll throw it up here. Or I'll throw up on it.
I am writing an article for The Bulletin, which involves me going to see Temple Theater's production of The Time of Your Life tonight. I was excited about it, and I still kind of am, but I have so much to do tonight. Part of what I have to do is write the article after the play so that the article can make it into Friday's paper. I am also assisting my mother in purchasing a bulk amount of these pint glasses she is ordering for her bike shop. I won't bore you with the details of my labor, but it's something that I need to do on my home computer. I'll post the image from the glasses after I place the order.
My ever-problematic back has been especially problematic this week, which may or may not be connected with the other pains I experience once a month. But I am making an effort to sit up straight and not cross my legs. Usually I have my legs crossed in a very extreme matter that makes me lean to one side or the other, which only makes things worse. So. No leg crossing today.
Right after I wrote that, I drank some water and crossed my legs.
Ugh.
Well, I'm very busy, eating my Junior Mints for breakfast and paying my personal bills. So I'd better tend to those things.
Happy Hump Day.

Week In Review:

Let's recount this lost of goals for the week:

1. Become addicted to Super Mario on Super NES. DONE. I played the shit out of that game right after I blogged. I got really far and then I had to turn it off and I lost everything. So I'm taking a break now. I think I more than completed this goal.
2. Make a more than substantial dent in the baby blanket that I am knitting for Jared's niece or nephew to be (arriving in approximately two weeks). (This goal will be difficult considering goal #1) This goal is being altered, since the baby was born on TUESDAY! Jared now has a niece, Ella. A niece without a blanket from me. Yet. I did figure out the rest of the framework for the blanket and worked on it, but the dent isn't as substantial as I was thinking it would be when I wrote the goal. I also haven't watched any movies this week, which is always my prime knitting time. So now I intend to give the blanket as a Christmas gift.
3. Complete the Student Worker Handbook for work that I have been working on for about a month. Um, not done. It's close, but I have been depending on the contributions of one person, and she was out of the office all week. Ugh.
4. Buy a domain for the jewelry business.
5. Take enough pictures of earrings to be able to create a pack of 100 (individual) business cards with. Then create and purchase the business cards. (For more detail on this venture, visit moo.com)
RE: Goals 4 and 5: I didn't have enough money to do these things this week. And now that it is dark out by the time I get home from work, there hasn't been enough natural light to take photos. That's a project for tomorrow, which is still part of this week, so I'm not a complete failure. Yet.

Six O'clock, and all's well!

This is my first "off-site" entry in quite some time. I'm at home. I just got home, actually. It's six o'clock p.m. and it's pitch black outside, which I kind of like, but I don't think I'll like it for long.
My goals for the week:
1. Become addicted to Super Mario on Super NES
2. Make a more than substantial dent in the baby blanket that I am knitting for Jared's niece or nephew to be (arriving in approximately two weeks). (This goal will be difficult considering goal #1)
3. Complete the Student Worker Handbook for work that I have been working on for about a month.
4. Buy a domain for the jewelry business.
5. Take enough pictures of earrings to be able to create a pack of 100 (individual) business cards with. Then create and purchase the business cards. (For more detail on this venture, visit moo.com)
That's enough goals for one week, I think. They're good, productive goals.

I guess you could say I'm excited..!

Today I am leaving work early to go with Jared and his family to upstate New York (Hammondsport, to be exact. The photo on the right is of somewhere in Hammondsport. I googled it.). His Aunt (and Uncle and cousins) live on a farm there, and they have a tradition of going up each year to help chop and collect firewood for the winter. This year, I have been invited. I'm excited. Excited to leave work early, excited to be somewhere different and new, excited to be in the middle of nowhere/nature, and excited to do this thing that I have never done.

At work, they are switching around offices, and I am getting a cubicle neighbor. Her name is Bernice (often called Miss Bernice). She is the funniest, most light-hearted woman who works here. She is round and jovial with short curly hair and a sharp wit. She has already brought over picture frames, toys, plants, and complaints about pack rats (!). I am excited about a new neighbor (whom I like a lot), a change of environment, a change of attitude, and more student workers :)

I am bidding on a camera on ebay, which I am destined to win because I placed an overly high bid. If I don't win it, then, oh well. Someone else will be paying way too much. I haven't had a digital camera in months and it's killing me. I really need to be taking photos for the earring business, Rittenhouse Magazine, Bikesport events, and so much more. I wish I had a camera for this weekend. I have been researching cameras for months and THIS IS IT! I am excited about learning to use cameras manually again, taking photos for my and kelly's etsy site (yet to be made), and being able to actually implement all of the photo ideas that I have.

I'm getting my creative groove back, so to speak, and it feels good. After I stopped taking art courses in college, I kind of put my artistic abilities in the attic, and now, all of a sudden, I'm making jewelry, knitting, buying expensive cameras, and BLOGGING!

I IZ BLOGZ 2 U NOW!!!!!

Another week down the drain..
These weeks fly by. I was a little busier this week and the height of my business (busy-ness) will be next week, I think. I have a registration event every day.
Today I spent a lot of time collecting clip art and, more recently this afternoon, I looked at hundreds of lolcats. The one I've posted is really freaking me out.
Last night at Quizzo at Fergie's we came in 2nd place! We've never really come close, and it was really a tie for first, but we lost the tie breaker. So that was a thrill.
Today for lunch I went to the Jamaican food truck, which I've heard so many people rave about. I got macaroni and cheese and plantains... It was like 10 lbs of food! It was a lot and it was only $4, and it was really good. I almost swallowed the mac and cheese in one bite, I got so full. I can't finish the plantains.. they're so greezy. Good, though.
I think that this weekend entails Pizza Hut!!!! I can't wait. Also in store for the weekend: Thrift stores, bicycle flea markets, The Darjeeling Limited, and stopping at my mom's house for photographs for my dad's birthday present. Maybe

Ahoy, Tuesday!

Yesterday was Professional Development Day, so I was not at the computer all day, which was nice. I had meetings and workshops and things of that nature. It felt very... professional. And this week is the week that registration begins, so things are busier in general. It's nice having tasks at hand.
The weekend was a success! Kelly and I did really well at the craft fair with our earrings. We definitely sold more than anyone else, although I'm not sure what our total sales came out to. And then the Mew Gallery took twenty pairs on consignment. SO. Now you can find our earrings at the Mew Gallery! That felt good.
It was hotter than hell out, so, again, no scarf sales. That's okay, but it would have been nice to NOT get a sun burn. It also would have been nice if the Phillies didn't lose on Saturday night. That was a bunk series, man.
Now that we have a better idea of what earrings sell and what people are into I'm back on the internet looking for ideas. Seafaring clip art seems to rock. So do sock monkeys.
On Sunday I ran errands, cleaned my apartment, made salsa, and had an overall pleasing day.
Today I spent like $8 on lunch at Whole Foods, which is kind of getting me down, since I don't really like to buy my lunch at all. And since I've gotten hooked on Dunkin Donuts coffee. Ugh. Will there ever be a time when I'm not tight on money?

Inability to comply may result in disciplinary action.

This has been kind of a bum week. I have been so sleepy and I am SO tired of the heat. Will it never end?
Yesterday I got an assignment! One that takes a lot of time! Woo! I am to rewrite the Student Worker Handbook. I am really excited because having nothing to do has also really been bumming me out.
Tomorrow is the Art Extravaganza hosted by the Mew Gallery . That's very exciting. I would like to make at least a dozen pairs of earrings tonight.
We'll see.

Holy S

I am in awe:

Octoberfest(s) '08

Good old Tuesday. Yesterday I left work early on a count of feeling queasy --physically and mentally. Maybe I hadn't eaten in a while or something, I don't know. I was shakey and nauseated. And I was getting really upset that there's nothing for me to do at work and yet I can't really work on things that I wish I were at home working on. Then I thought I could improve my grasp of HTML (which is minimal, at best) but I couldn't find a good resource and I was just getting more and more fed up. So I left around 2. The fresh air helped.

I went home and watched an old video tape that I found when I was at home last weekend. It was the first tape I had in my video camera, which I bought when I was 18. It was very funny. My sister is so strange, and she always has been. She has always enjoyed performing impromptu songs in front of people/cameras. So some of that was documented. The other thing that was particularly amusing was the segment where I walked around high school. It made high school look like so much fun, which is not a memory that I have.
I guess that even though I always talk about how much I hated high school and hated college, I don't realize how novel it is for your life to revolve around people who are all the same age as you and who are all in the same boat as you. Come to think of it, that is what I hated about it all. Maybe it wasn't so bad. Either way, I still hope that I never say that those were the best times of my life.

I don't know how October wound up becoming so busy for me. On Saturday the 13th, Jared and I will be working at the Swap Meet at the Lehigh Valley Velodrome (which is all of a sudden called the Valley Preferred Cycling Center..?!). They have it every fall (and maybe even every Spring). Commercial and private vendors buy tables and sell their unwanted wares for shockingly low/negotiable prices. I have never been able to go because I have always been a retail peon who had to work Saturdays because she went to school during the week. So I am excited that I not only get to go this year, but I get to make money while I'm there. This should be fun.
This means that all of my October weekends are officially booked. Maybe I can even sell some earrings at the swap meet..!

T.G.I.F.F.

You can probably figure out what the extra F stands for.

I have had nothing to do all day today and yesterday, so I feel crumby and can't wait to leave. Today has been going by considerably quickly, though. Just an hour and a half left. Then I get to work at Bikesport for the weekend.

Kelly and I did get into the craft festival at the Mew Gallery. For an overview:
The craft fair is on Saturday, Oct 5 and Sunday, Oct 6 in the Italian Market. It is also sponsored by Di Bruno Brothers and The Gleaners. It should be a lot of fun. Margaux will also be representing herself there. Excitement has ensued.
Also, for more of an overview, Kelly and I are in the business of jewelry, which we make out of Shrink Paper, which is what Shrinky Dinks are made of. They are tres cool (pardon the Green Day reference). I'll be taking photos of them soon (hopefully tonight) and creating some sort of website. We've had a lot of fun making them, but we will need to make a bunch more. We just keep having so many ideas! We will also be selling our knitted goods (hopefully it's chilly out on the 5th so that we sell some g.d. scarves!) and I will undoubtedly be trying to unload some of my 1" buttons. So come out for a nice time. I will plug the event again next week!

Yesterday I received my mail from the Mail Swap. It's a fun thing to do, I recommend it to anyone who loves snail mail (and who doesn't?!). You get a name and address and you have to send that person a letter/package/whatever you want by a certain date. What I didn't realize was that that person has your name. I thought it was all scrambled. So that was kind of cool. When I realized that, I got a little nervous like maybe mine wasn't cool enough, but I think it was pretty even. I sent some office supplies, basing my letter on working in an office. I sent post-its and pens and paper clips. I received my letter yesterday and it was an assortment of postcards from different U.S. "attractions" (some of them were not so attractive, but the postcards were nice anyway). It was pretty cool and very exciting to get something in the mail that wasn't a bill or a red Netflix envelope.

I honestly couldn't say what I have spent the last 7 hours doing here at work. But before I started blogging, I was (though I have no idea why) reading the Timothy McVeigh Article on Wikpedia, which led me to articles about capital punishment in the U.S. And then I looked into the cases of capital punishment in different states, which was just horrifying. I know that Texas has it's reputation, but please take a moment to examine the following two links anyway:
List of Individuals Executed in Pennsylvania
List of Individuals Executed in Texas

--I also found it interesting that the Pennsylvania executions all took place under the governing of Tom Ridge. (THAT is why George W. chose him to be in charge of Homeland Security, isn't it?!)

OH! I forgot... the first thing that I did this morning was make a paper wallet! I found a link to these simple paper wallet-making instructions on Billy's del.icio.us Page (which is otherwise pretty boring, sorry Bill). It's from a site called Instructables.com, which turned out to be awesome). The wallet I made is pretty neat, maybe I'll try to make some of those and pawn them off on people at the craft fair, too.

No more IMDB pls!!!!!!

I keep getting stuck on IMDB and it makes me feel like such a waste-oid.
In addition to reading about countless, nameless celebrities, I also perused the New York Times, the New Yorker, and a handful of Wikipedia articles today (I don't need to hyperlink those references, do I? Just enter .com at the end of each one if you're so driven to visit the sites).
Some of the more casual writing on the New York Times site was a little too casual, I think. I mean, I'm not one for stodgy writing, but if I'm going somewhere for information (somewhere as allegedly dependable as the New York Times website), I hope for it to be professional and objective. This article, which I found out after the fact is actually a live blog from the other night's presidential candidate live debate, is a little too blog. Several of the articles on presidential candidates were like that... starting off paragraphs with "Wow!" and "Tim Russert did a great job..."

Another site I've been visiting lately (this week) is VegWeb.com. I've been cooking a lot, but I have recently been attracted to casseroles. Casseroles are great for when you want Sunday night's dinner to last as leftovers (lunch and dinner) through Friday. So VegWeb has served me well. Last night was something called "Rick[']s Casserole," which could have easily been called "Make Pasta and then Bake it" but it was really good regardless of the name.
ALSO
I made tofu for the first time. I found a simple Baked Tofu recipe and researched how to Press it. I rolled it around in bread crumbs and spices and it came out looking like mozzarella sticks, but without the cheese. and the moisture. They were a little dry. Most of them went into the freezer. I plan on frying them tonight. Hopefully that will help.

If you're interested in humor writing, here are the two funniest things I've read (so far) this week:
From McSweeney's - TROUBLE REPORT FROM THE GUSSSSB(GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES SECRET SMITHSONIAN STORAGE BUILDING)
From The New Yorker's Shouts and Murmer's Section - Greenspan and Simpson: On Writing