Stupid Sign

I drove past a car dealership yesterday with one of those digital signs that tell the time, the temp, and that they have such insane deals for their cars they're practically giving them away. At one point the sign showed "your approved" when it should have shown "you're approved." Apparently they've got 2nd-graders working the sign nowadays. Idiots.

VHS to DVD

So I've spent the last couple hours listening to podcasts on my computer while I have camcorder tapes from our wedding transferring to DVD. Oh the pain...the agony...

Wonderful Hubby and I both fondly think back to our wedding dance as a great night, loads of fun. Oh my god. That fun feeling cannot be captured on a mere recording. Instead that recording shows that night as a... a... what's the right word to use to describe it? Painful? Hideous?

At one point when I checked the transfer, we were all in a conga line for "The Locomation," at another point we're all doing the electric slide, and the best of all, the macarena. What a time capsule.

And as soon as someone invents a reliable time machine, I'm going back in time to give my bridesmaids pretty dresses and I'm putting on a different veil. How did no one stop me? It looks like a marshmallow exploded on the back of my head.

I just checked on the tranfer again. Now we're doing the Chicken Dance. Swear to God. Could the night be any more typical Minnesotan?

Juno Soundtrack

I've recently discovered podcasts and have been a bit podcast-crazed. I plug my Zune into my car and listen when I'm driving. I listen to podcasts while I workout. I've got a podcast going as I type this.

I am listening to the podcast for Sound Opinions. This radio show has grown on me since I first heard it and now I really enjoy it. The most recent show is discussing the Best Soundtracks and in it they discussed the recent success of the Juno soundtrack.

I loved the movie Juno and I love the soundtrack. How fitting that as I've learned to appreciate the Sound Opinion show and the guys' discussions, they should absolutely hate this soundtrack. They described the music as what a child would sing to themself as the play in the sandbox, the artists call it anti-folk. I call it smelly-cat music. On a rating system of buy it, burn it, or trash it, they both gave it a trash it.

I guess my taste is not yet refined enough to be similar to the Sound Opinion guys. Oh well. But in other news, they talked about Amelie when a listener called in to say what a great soundtrack that movie has. the guys said they really liked that movie, as do I, so perhaps our tastes are not all complete opposites today.

Movie Night

Wonderful Hubby and I love to watch movies. (On a quick side note, make a point to watch God Grew Tired of Us. It's fantastic.) We have a lot of favorite movies and love to share them with our son.

After laughing over and over at Borat Best Kid Ever wondered if he could watch the movie and see what all the ha-ha-ing was about. A long discussion of age-appropriateness began. Our major point was that besides things that may be inappropriate, certain things are funniest/most impactful at certain ages.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure is awesome if you're 10, but loses some of its magic if you're 35. The Goonies is awesome if you're 12, but, again, loses some of its magic if you're 35. Not to say that these movies don't have staying power. They're fun to revisit at 35, but they're not going to be added to your favorite films list if you watch them for the first time at 35.

So Best Kid Ever has seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure and The Goonies, as well as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Oh Brother, Where Art Thou and Gremlins. More recently we watched Tommy Boy and Wayne's World. The latest movie we watched was Backdraft and next up in Terminator.

Best Kid Ever likes movies, so it shouldn't be so hard to find time to watch all these movies, but we were having a hard time having him choose to watch the movies on his own. Instead, he and his buddies would just play 3rd and 4th hours of Halo. Movie Night falls under the umbrella of "sometimes we have to make you have fun." We've also called this night Movies You Weren't Alive to Enjoy The First Time.

We have so many movies we love, it seems like he'll have to pull a few all-nighters to make sure he sees all the movies before he leaves for college in just 4 - 1/2 short, little years.

New Sunglasses

My sunglasses broke a few days ago. They snapped in half at the nose piece. I went to Target that same night to get a new pair. I hate shopping for clothes and shopping for sunglasses is close enough. No fun.

I found one pair that like okay, but they were tight on my head and I knew they'd give me a headache after wearing them for a while. The pair I decided on is comfortable (I even wore them around the store for the resting of our shopping to make sure - what a dork!) but I feel kinda goofy wearing them. I feel like Bono, circa the Zooropa tour.

Wearing the sunglasses will help keep the sun from being to bright for my eyes, but so will ducking my head in embarassment.

I Quit

As a housewife I volunteer to get myself out and feel like I'm contributing something to society (...and to keep me out of the kitchen eating cookies all day). One of the volunteering positions I've done for the last couple years is helping at the library each week but also as the library's volunteer coordinator.

As the library volunteer coordinator, I call around and try to drum up volunteers when the occasion arises. Usually I call around for a couple hours and get 10 responses of willingness to help and then spend the next week leaving message after message trying to find another 15 volunteers that are not only willing to help, but either answer their phone or return my message. It's no fun and I've decided I'd rather spend that time helping as one of the volunteers than talking to voice mail accounts.

I just watched the movie Bobby. I was feeling all inspired by Robert Kennedy to be a good citizen and do what I can to make the world a better place and was feeling glad to volunteer.

That didn't last long. I still have eight spots to fill on my current library project. I started calling around, but as soon as I left my first message, I returned to my plan to quit.

What a wimp...I don't have the mental stamina to call people and leave messages. Well, I suppose I'll just go eat some cookies.

Humiliating

When I was 13 or 14 I was with my family at a shopping mall. I was sitting on a bench under a stained glass rotunda with my mom, little sister (age or 9) and best friend. I reached into a front pocket of my jeans for something and when I pulled my hand back out a tampon from inside my pocket came flying out.

We all laughed, my mom and friend because they found it to be funny, me because I was SO embarrassed and my little sister because everyone else was. Sitting under the domed ceiling of the rotunda, the laughing was amplified and echoing and shouting to the whole mall - look over here!

I was mortified! I felt like every person in the area must have seen the tampon, which would of course lead them to knowing that it was mine. I wanted to crawl under a rock. Then, just to make sure I was really embarrassed, my little sister asked, "What is that?" Couldn't she just ignore it and pretend nothing had happened, not draw more attention to it?

The same thing wouldn't bother me today, but at 13 or 14, I was convinced it was the worst thing ever.

(This post is in response to a Daily Spark prompt to tell about the most humiliating experience of junior high)

Two Things Worth Noting

I had yet another enjoyable walk with my dog this morning, and two things are worth noting.

The first is the gang of hoodlums I narrowly escaped. It was a gang of girls, about high school age, easily noted because they were seen leaving the parking lot of the high school. They weren't wearing matching jacket that said "Pink Ladies" or anything. Their uniform was running shorts of varying colors and hair pulled up into pony tails. I'd guess if they had jackets made up for their gang, they'd say "Cross Country Team" or something.

Anyway, I was a good 20 yds up the path from them. Any closer and it probably would've been trouble, a mugging at the very least. This gang was serious about their hoodlum antics. They were even practicing their escape mode - running. Their hard-trained eyes noticed I had no wallet and nothing of value, so they simply continued on their way. Lucky for me...it could've been a tough morning had they chosen otherwise.

The other thing worth noting happened when I stopped to inspect my shoe. I had taken the dog on the little natural trail that goes around a pond and through a grove of trees when I felt something poking my foot. I stopped to see what was in my shoe. Not the second thing worth noting, but a definate runner up worth noting, was a teeny, tiny, greenish worm on my sock - smaller in girth than the width of a pencil lead and probably only half an inch long. It was probably some parasite looking to enter my body and strip me of nutrients. Luckily I flicked it off me.

Anyway, what I intended to note about my stopping to inspect my shoe for what was poking my foot, was that as I stopped to inspect my shoe for what was poking my foot, the dog PEED on my other foot. I hadn't realized that my leg looked so much like the bark of a tree trunk, but apparently it does.

So on my walk this morning I narrowly escaped being mugged by a gang and narrowly escaped a parasite taking over my body, but wasn't lucky enough to escape the dog mistaking me for a tree and peeing on my foot. I can only imagine what tomorrow's walk will bring.

Idiot in Running Gear

I've been dragging Best Kid Ever on runs the last couple weeks. His natural state is stuck behind a screen of some kind, be it computer or television, so I thought it'd be good to get him ready for another year of gym classes.

We started out at just 7 minutes twice a day and now he's graduated up to 20 minutes once a day. The poor dear, in case it isn't hard enough to get off the couch and have to huff and puff for 20 minutes, today he had to put up with me being an idiot.

When we run I take the dog along on his leash, always keeping him on my left. Best Kid Ever kept weaving from the right of me, over to the left side of the dog. That confused the dog a little and he started running two steps ahead of me to run with Best Kid Ever, pulling a little on his leash in order to do so.

I told Best Kid Ever to move to the left over and over and over, but he just wouldn't. I was yelling to make sure he could hear me over his headphones and he still didn't move back to the right side. Oh! That's the problem!

After a couple apologies I asked him to move to the Right Side, not the Left I'd been asking for. No wonder he never moved over. And surprise, surprise, I'm an idiot.