Saturday, February 23, 2002
Separated at Birth!
Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum.
Wisconsin Cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer.
(Visit the links above and don't tell me that you can't see a resemblence!)
One liked cannibalilzing flesh, the other likes cannibalizing jobs.
Never thought I'd say I miss Tommy Thompson, but I do.
I heard there's some campaign with buttons that say "Anyone but McCallum." Perhaps I'll call the local Democratic party headquarters and see if they know anything about it.
Posted by Ann @ 02:34 PM CST ..::Link::..
Refinanced.
New SQUARE jPEG! Fenia from LogBook.
Well, we closed. Looks like they don't pay off Great Lakes Higher Education directly...they issue us a check later next week and we have to pay them. Hmmm...that does leave us the opportunity to write a nasty note on the check to them...Take your overpriced education with no future and shove it! or something.
Now it's all in our house. So we can look at it this way: all that work and effort and money got us a humble abode...as well as worthless terminal Master's degrees.
Posted by Ann @ 09:29 AM CST ..::Link::..
Friday, February 22, 2002
DREAMS
I was at a restaurant that served pancakes and other sweet breakfast-type food. One could choose the kinds of toppings one wanted for the pancakes from hundreds of possibilities. I remember one of the toppings was Oreo Double Stuff cookies. The portions were huge. I wasn't that hungry, and was wondering if I could get my choice of toppings on an English muffin instead. The menus were sort of tacky, vinyl-coated, with all the toppings listed inside graphic elipses. I remember the color yellow.
I was also looking up at the outside of our house from out back. It appeared that the "door that leads to nowhere" where my computer room is wasn't a door anymore, but instead was a window, and it was right next to another window, which would logistically mean that the closet would have a window in it. Weird.
Posted by Ann @ 10:45 AM CST ..::Link::..
Thursday, February 21, 2002
DREAM
I can't remember anything too distinct, but I do recall being by a lake or pond and seeing a bunch of toads and frogs. Also something about getting the Kink's album "Soap Opera" on CD, as well as something about The Beatles, but it's all very foggy.
Posted by Ann @ 12:55 PM CST ..::Link::..
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
DREAM
Bizarro dream. I dreamt that Stan and I were at his (bio) dad's and his wife's house. They said they had to make a trip to a store/pharmacy to buy some molecules. I asked them what they meant by molecules, and they showed me these egg-shaped things that IRL I remember they sold at the chemistry stockroom where I worked in my early 20s (and where my dad managed). I forgot the real name for them, but they were some sort of thing that when heated, spun around hence causing the chemical solution they were in to be constantly stirred (??? don't know the technical explanation for it...I'm not a chemist). Stan and I said to them that people must be just as puzzled by when we say that we need to buy some gel medium (acrylic painting medium). Then I was in a grade school and I had to use the bathroom, but all the bathrooms were built for children, so I was quite uncomfortable and embarrassed. As I sat down on the john, I could see all these very young kids (pre-school/toddler age) sitting at desks and eating, but they reminded me of baby chicks...they all were sort of fuzzy and yellow and they were eating earthworms. I thought it was probably just a gummy worm, but it looked too real, and too large in proportion. I was thinking that they were remarkedly well-behaved.
Posted by Ann @ 09:05 AM CST ..::Link::..
Tuesday, February 19, 2002
Oh, the Irony
Tim didn't even know about our dirty little secret as we're about to become couch killers. I talked to him on the phone today, and you'll never guess the movie he was just watching. Yup..."Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer."
I'm also planning on salvaging the upholstery (most of it is in excellent condition), and make something else out of it, in the grand old Wisconsin Ed Gein tradition.
Posted by Ann @ 05:13 PM CST ..::Link::..
Now Hiring! Prestige Jobs Available at Ann-S-Thesia! (NOT!!!)
Now, I'm the last person in the world to deny the existence of "The Ugly American." But Americans are by no means the sole offenders in the RUDE category. I have lost track of the unsolicited resumes I have received in my inbox that have come from people in former eastern-bloc or middle eastern countries. Come on, why not send out an email first *asking* if I am *interested* in receiving a resume? (Because as you'll see, there's absolutely NOTHING on my main site that says "Now Hiring!" or "Jobs Available at Ann-S-Thesia!") But no, they send the resume with large graphic attachment, unsolicited. Now some people think this is a compliment toward my ability to look like a professional web development company. Well, it's only a compliment if it feels like a compliment, and it doesn't. I can't even afford to pay someone to cut my hair or repair my car or house (we do ALL those things ourselves) let alone hire someone to work for me as an assistant designer or something. I mean, they'd have no work to do! I'd have to put them to work doing dishes or mopping the floors, that is, if I even had money to pay them. Aaargh. It's just rude.
When my mom visted Czechoslovakia back in '85, she encountered some relatives that wanted her to send them blank VHS tapes so that they could record movies on their VCR. She and I really had a laugh over that one...neither one of us owned a VCR! They also wanted her to send them other stuff that they had a hard time getting over there, stuff that my mom wouldn't even treat herself to! What some people in other countries just don't get is that not all Americans live like the way they're portrayed on TV shows, in fact MOST don't! When my grandmother immigrated to this country in 1920 in hopes of being able to send back money to her family, she worked as a maid. What was someone who spoke no English supposed to do? Maybe she wasn't better off coming here, I don't know. My grandfather immigrated from England because he thought America was the land of opportunity and he was tired of working as a "Clark" (clerk) in England's class system. Instead, he worked odd jobs, like laundry delivery driver. Yeah, real land of opportunity.
This land is not made of milk and honey...it's made of non-dairy creamer and high fructose corn syrup. I wish people would understand that (and stop sending me their resumes).
-----
Speaking of high fructose corn syrup, what the heck is Campbell's soup doing with their product? We ate a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup last night and it was practically inedible. I had to over-salt it. High fructose corn syrup was one of the new main ingredients. Gaaack. Do people actually like this sweet food? I can't stand it. No more Campbells. I hate this trend toward adding sweetness to food that doesn't need it, like soups and salad dressings. It makes one have to over-salt to compensate, and that's not good either. It's getting really hard to find edible food. Stan and I have started making our own bleu cheese salad dressing (bleu cheese, half-and-half, mayonaisse, garlic...no sweeteners) because it's impossible to find a ready-made product that isn't sweet-tasting.
Posted by Ann @ 11:10 AM CST ..::Link::..
DREAM
Pretty long, involved dream. I was with my parents, and in typical parent fashion, they were trying to make a simple solution to a problem even more complicated. For some reason, their car or my van or something needed a new battery, and I can't remember what was happening, but it was going to take them forever to get it replaced. I offered a simple solution, and they decided to go with my idea. My dad dropped my mom and I off at the UW Memorial Union while he went to the car repair place. For some reason, my mom and I were trying to find a certain room in the Union, I can't remember what for. The interior was very complicated and we were getting lost. It sort of looked like the interior of a very confusing church or cathedral. There looked like there was some church service going on, and my mom tapped the shoulder of an usher to give us directions. I was really embarrassed, wishing that she would've just let us find it on our own. The man was black, but as he led us to the room we were looking for, he turned white. The room was small, only about eight chairs. Then he sat down with us in these chairs that looked like classroom desks, and started to show us a slideshow on his digital camera of his photography. For some reason we got in a conversation with him and it came out that I had been born in a coffeehouse, in an alcove. (IRL, I was born like the majority of other American babies that year, in a sterile hospital) I got a big smile on my face and exclaimed that my parents were beatniks. There was another guy on my mom's left side listening to the story, and he asked me what was wrong with that? I tried to explain to him that I was GLAD my parents were beatniks because that changes my perception of them as being arch conservatives. (Which IRL my mom isn't as much, but my dad is with flying colors). Then the room started to fill up with people I recognized from a certain Madison artist meeting I attended a couple months back, and then I realized I was part of that meeting, even though I didn't want to be. There was a woman who was taking charge, short blonde hair, and she looked familiar, but I think she looked like someone I knew in Colorado. She was saying that artists should ask really high prices for their art and sell them to mortuaries. There was a window in the small room that was covered by a venetian blind, but my mom could see that my dad was outside looking in. She said we needed to go, but as she left, I lost track of her. I went outside and it was snowing and there was about two feet of snow on the ground and I had no coat and was wearing small shoes, and had no money with which to catch a bus. I started calling "Mom, Dad!" like a lost kid, but I couldn't find them. I started walking around the building, but couldn't see any trace of them. I looked back at the building and there was a strange banner where a movie was being projected against. I saw a Doctor Seuss-looking character on the banner, which was outside of a theatre that was part of the Memorial Union, and wondered if my parents were in there. (?!?)
Posted by Ann @ 09:00 AM CST ..::Link::..
Monday, February 18, 2002
Couch Killers
Ten years ago we bought a couch and matching loveseat. They had very nice fabric and were quite a good deal for the price. They had a sort of old fashioned look (1930s?), yet were new. A couple years ago, they started getting uncomfortable. They're assembled as one piece, i.e., they don't have removable cushions. Stan remedied the problem by overstuffing them to alleviate the sagging. But having seen ten years of cats, dogs and humans, we have decided it's best to put them out of their misery, as the overstuffing is sinking too, and wires are starting to poke me in the side. Unfortunately, since they have very minor tears in the fabric (thanks, Hieronymus), we can't give them to Goodwill or St. Vincent's. Can you believe a charity is that picky? Essentially, the couch and loveseat that have had the tears for several years have been good enough for me, but not good enough for people shopping at second hand stores. (Someone explain that one to me?) We can't leave the furniture outside for the trash service to haul away because they charge a ridiculous amount, like $50 for a large couch.
So we are forced to become...
Furniture killers! We will cut them up into little pieces and put them in the trash one chunk at a time. No one will be the wiser. Isn't that sick? I feel like a criminal. It's sad, really, they were such nice couches.
We will substitute our existing futon for the main couch and we also bought a new futon today in place of the loveseat. One nice thing about them is that you can always change the futon cover if it gets frayed, and that's relatively inexpensive. And I've always thought futons are even more comfortable as couches than couches are.
Just between you and me, Stan killed a recliner once before, so he has a record. It really freaked Vladimir out, as that was "Vladimir's chair," or at least it was when we lived in Colorado. He staked a claim to that chair. Poor Vladimir when he saw his beloved recliner in little bits...never was the same since.
Posted by Ann @ 06:13 PM CST ..::Link::..
Night of the Living Parental Phone Calls
Wow, this is a weird search request: "online diary of a male with no valentine's cards in 2002. I'm no. 2.
Tina has become the newest SQUARE jPEG!
A gripe about the broadcast of the Olympic pairs figure skating and ice dancing: Why do they always focus on the woman's face at the beginning and end of the performance? Isn't that rather sexist? Why only show her emotions? Do they think the viewing audience doesn't want to see the men? Well I, for one, do! This year's ice dancers (the guys) are especially attractive IMHO. If they do show them, it's only for a fraction of a second. Someone fire the camera people.
Oh, and here's something weird too. Stan talked to his dad last night (This is Stan's biological dad that he met just last year...Stan's adopted dad is deceased), and well, let's just say he has some looney ideas to put it nicely. He thinks that the country's going to go through the biggest depression ever, (he's into weird biblical prophecy stuff) and that our house assessment is wildly overrated and we should sell our house now and stash the money (um...where do we live?!?). He thinks that our refinancing will make us go bankrupt. Um....okay...did you know, though, that if you do go bankrupt, student loans do not get counted? So if we didn't refinance the student loans into the mortgage and went bankrupt, not only would we have no place to live, we'd still have $500 of student loans to pay back every month. At least with them in the mortgage, we'd only be out a place to live (plus have a larger tax write-off). A while back he sent us some literature (by some latter day biblical prophet, no doubt) suggesting that people should sell their homes and move in with their parents (whose mortgages are paid for?). Riiighhhtt. And I'm sure they'd like that too (NOT). Where do these people come up with these ideas? What's sad is that Stan's dad is very intelligent, easier to talk to than most dads (until he gets on a weird tangent) and certainly not the stereotypical kind of person you think of when you think of whacky bible prophecies...he's not living in a compound in the hills with a bunch of AK47s and attack dogs. His house has a rather modern pop decor sensibility, and he listens to classical music. He's an eccentric (so are we). He taught physics for a while, but I guess the weird bible thing (not to mention his tangent of holocaust revisionism...aaack) got the best of him. It's too bad, really.
Oh, and Stan also talked to his biological mom last night too, and she'd like to have us come visit her in New England soon (long story as to why we didn't earlier). I hope we can do it this year...I hope Stan can meet his grandmother (his grandfather just died the other week). I really want to go back and see New England and see the place I lived when I was six and seven.
Posted by Ann @ 10:12 AM CST ..::Link::..
DREAMS
At the risk of becoming an even BIGGER Google target, I shall tell you my dream. Only REALLY nasty dreams get censored here (thank goodness I don't have too many of them because they are often disturbing as well), but this wasn't nasty, it was more odd than anything. I dreamt my right breast was enormous. I was worried I had a tumour or something was wrong. It was almost helium-filled cause it seemed to sort of float.
I also dreamt that I was with Johanna and we were at my former high school in Ft. Collins (but we were in Madison) and we both had bikes there. It was at night and I didn't want to ride my bike home at night. I also had a stationwagon-type car there, I think it was our Eagle, so I put my bike in the Eagle to go home. Pretty mundane dream, huh? I know that there were also a lot more dream snippets, but I can't remember them.
Posted by Ann @ 09:16 AM CST ..::Link::..
Sunday, February 17, 2002
DREAM
I was travelling on a bus, like a Greyhound, heading toward an airport. The bus was travelling on a highway that was full of potholes and there were people along the highway that were trying to flag it down, but the bus kept going. I felt bad for them that they were missing their ride. The bus driver was reckless and going too fast for the road condition. Then it was like he stopped and let on two male passengers who both looked emaciated, but it was also like I was at home with them, too. For some reason, their emaciation had something to do with the bad roads. Then it got really confusing. There were these chocolates that Stan had gotten for me, and there was a dog who was trying to eat them, and I didn't want the dog to eat them because it would not only get sick, but the candies were one of a kind and I wanted to enjoy them myself. But it was either the bus driver or one of the guys was saying it was ok, that one candy wasn't going to hurt the dog, so the dog ate one, and it was like one of the skinny guys was eating the candy, not the dog, because I felt sorry for him that he needed more food. But then it happened again, and I didn't want to be out yet another candy, so I started to yell at them to stop it, but my yelling woke me up.