Public Budgeting might be evil

So I got up this morning, made a pot of coffee and some banana nut muffins and sat down to what will be my final day of studying for comprehensive exams. I’ve been attacking the material with the fervor of a zealot for about five days and hopefully my ability to cognitively retain information will pay off tomorrow morning, 9 am. I hope, I hope, I hope…

In the meantime, I’ve managed to bathe every day and have left the house and/or called a friend/family member at least once a day so I don’t emerge Friday looking like this (click if you dare).

It looked for a minute there on Monday like I might have to go into work (um, yeah, really, don’t ask) but fortunately my boss rained down positional authority (thank you boss man) and the ridiculousness, um, I mean situation was averted. I had forgotten what it was like to have someone back you up. It’s been a long time…I’m gonna have to thank the boss man. I believe these are those moments that if you don’t stop and just remember to be grateful you lose out in life. Or you win but you’re an insufferable prick and have to live out your life knowing that it’s only you man, you have no back up and no one cares if you fail. Because they hate you because you’re an insufferable prick.

My brain’s fried…

Anyway, when I got up this morning I watched The Most on the History Channel which only comes on very early in the morning and is hosted by a very handsome man, Mike Rowe. He hosts Dirty Jobs, too. What a fox! (trying to bring that word back). It’s the smart/funny thing, I’m telling ya. I’m just a sucker for it. In any event, this was one of the segments. Pretty much goes to show you why Communism is stupid (read the entry and you’ll see what I mean, i.e. why it took so long to complete).

And here’s some Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs. mmmmmmm……

I digress. Wish me luck.

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Nobody likes a quitter

Studying….*sigh*

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In the hope that you will raise us up

I just realized what a bad Catholic I am! Posting pictures of cute, half-dressed men [ed note: yeah, I thought better of it.] on Good Friday. Sometimes it’s alarming how cavalier I can be. But Juje says the western church does Easter in a pretty wacky way because it’s nowhere near Passover which is what the last supper was pretty much all about. So, owing to my Slavic roots, I’m just going to obey the Eastern Orthodox church and celebrate good Friday on April 25th like the true Byzantine I am! (Of course, the Irish great-grandmother wouldn’t approve. Crazy Roman Catholics!)

In any event, here’s some of why I love being Catholic:

Holy Wisdom.

Be Not Afraid by The Hit Crew

(For you momma…)

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Breaks are sanity savers

So, quickly, I’m really starting to understand the whole Godzilla franchise. I mean, how do you survive two monsters? You figure out a way to turn them on each other. Basic human truth. It’s an interesting concept. Just sayin’.

I just made an awesome music compilation for my friend. It is as follows (don’t stare directly into the genius of it. You’ll burn your retinas):

Joey — Concrete Blonde
Love Today — Mika
Renegade — STYX
Voices Carry — ‘Til Tuesday
No Myth — Michael Penn
I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ — The Scissor Sisters
Hide & Seek — Imogen Heap
Safety Dance — Men Without Hats
Apres Moi — Regina Spektor
Dirty Diana — Michael Jackson
Space Age Love Song — A Flock of Seagulls
Tomorrow, Wendy — Concrete Blonde

Let me know if you want a copy. And, while there are some who will probably never speak to me again for this, I went to a baby shower Sunday and I just like these pictures from it. Don’t be too mad at me ladies…

Back to the grind…

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If you drink religiously can you get St. Patrick’s Day off?

Can’t take credit for the header. I found it here. But I’m down. I bet if you used just the right politically correct, alarmist rhetoric you could make a case that would at least let you out of work while deliberations were being made. You’d have to go the next year obviously but what a coup! It would make for one of those legendary work stories like the one I heard when I was a reporter about the two photographers and the after-hours meetings they would have on an editor’s desk. Who knows if it’s true and who cares? When I finally met the guy involved in the legend (he was no longer there by the time I started but the story still was) it was like meeting some kind of elusive, mythic creature and only those who had seen him first hand knew he was real. The rest of us were left to wonder if the hump (no pun intended) in the water was really just a log.

Truth or blarney? It’s really the question that keeps us going, no?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Games without frontiers

Going to see my first arena football game tomorrow and I have a feeling it’s going to be a great experience, not because I love the sport so much but because my brothers have gotten a catered suite and given me free tickets. And my family, while inhabiting that weird land between absolute insanity and extreme laid back-ness, are the people who understand you best. And that’s just cool to be around in a general sense.

Plus the Noj tends to do stuff that makes you laugh in your hand while looking around in horror at the thought that polite company may have just seen that.

It’s gonna be a good time I think and the perfect way to spend the last few days I have left before I bury myself in books in preparation for my end-of-degree comprehensive exams.

Thank you crazy family for doing things spontaneously and not allowing me to say no.

Tackle your Friday with a grunt.

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What the hell did she do that was worth that kind of money?

Ya know, the saddest thing about the Spitzer ordeal — sadder even than the fact that he had such a good woman (although my Dad thinks her “support” is really just a backing of her meal ticket) at home that she stood by him like a rock while he admitted how little respect he had for her, their family and himself — is that the man paid almost $5000 for sex.

That’s just a bad financial decision man.

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The Real Roaming Gnome?

I’m sorry, it’s just too awesome not to post.

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Conchords and Monkees

I had dinner with an old friend Saturday night in the ATL and, in giving me advice about where to live once I move, she told me a priceless story about living in Midtown Atlanta, the area she and her husband first moved to after she graduated from law school. “If you’re looking for guys it’s not the best place because most of the men are gay,” she said. In fact, she continued, a friend of hers, a gay man, lived down the block and she would walk to the apartment he shared with his boyfriend and have a few drinks. When it came time to leave she would insist that her friend walk her home because she was a woman and shouldn’t be wandering the streets of the city slightly to the wind and alone. With proper saucy outrage, her friend would look at her askance and say, “Please. What’s going to happen to you in Midtown? Is someone gonna jump out from behind a bush and give you a makeover?”

I love my friend.

She’s also convinced me to start watching this show. On Netflix it goes.

And also, just because it flat out cracked me up due to my whole early-life obsession with the Monkees, there’s the “Ask Peter Tork” advice column. My sister’s friend actually convinced the former Monkee (my favorite Monkee by the way, which, according to a theory developed by my sis’s friend, says something about the kind of man I like) to collaborate with her on her personal website. So, when you’re feeling blue, ask a Monkee for help. Brilliant! With total respect, here’s my favorite Monkee’s song…

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The truth hurts (like a bitch)

I was told last night that I was a very “passionate and intense person” which I think is supposed to translate as: “you are a pain in the ass” because the next thing I heard was how this one person who I was close to once doesn’t talk to me anymore because she “just couldn’t handle it.”

Tragic moment of self-awareness I could have lived without. Damn.

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