It’s just been one of those days. Where to even begin? I walked outside this morning with the dogs for their morning walk only to find the mailbox on the ground and the wooden post it once sat on smashed to pieces and scattered about. The neighbors big honkin plastic monstrosity of a mailbox was also pulled out of the ground. It looked like someone ran up on the curb and took them both out . . . but they are right next to a utility pole that looked untouched.

Well I later found out there was a car accident (which I somehow slept through) and that is what happened. The neighbors already have their giant box up and in the ground, but we are SOL until I go buy a new one. However this is an opportunity to fix our mailboxes, which are reversed. I’ve blogged about this before, but basically they bought this gigantic one piece plastic mailbox and the only way it would fit in the space by the road is to switch ours around. Well first the post office didn’t like this and told us so. Hey we didn’t do it, they did it without consulting us! Second, which is the most annoying aspect for me, is that anytime I order food to be delivered or someone has to deliver anything and doesn’t know us; well they go down the wrong driveway and usually end up at a 3rd neighbor’s house, who are unfortunately caught in the middle of the mailbox issue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the pizza man drive over there and then call me to ask where the hell I live. I think I’m just getting a big ass mailbox just like theirs and putting them in the right positions again. Honestly I really want to put ours in the ground and make theirs mysteriously vanish.

The most frustrating part is because we officially don’t have a proper mailbox, the mail man can choose not to deliver our mail till we fix it. I guess it’s official policy the mail has to go in a mailbox or something. I was going to put the mailbox, the metal part which did survive, up on my porch for the time being. However that apparently won’t fly either. Honestly, I think the mail man just doesn’t want to have to get out of his truck to walk up our steps and leave our mail in our door till the problem gets fixed.

In other unfortunate news, I lost a day of work basically because of PC issues. This morning one of my blogs was messed up, it turned out it was a database issue that I finally got fixed. Then I spent the rest of the day running virus scans, spyware scans and check disks on my laptop. For some reason my laptop all of the sudden decided it didn’t want to connect to any other PC or my videogame systems, which are all set up to share media. I don’t know why this happened, I didn’t change anything that I know of. So it was either a spyware or some other issue like a fricken Microsoft Update (which has already broken other things on the PC earlier this month). I still have not resolved the issue and gave up. I suspect it’s actually the crummy router, which I know I need to replace. I switched it out for another (malfunctioning) router and that effectively killed the desktop from sharing media as well. It was at least working, now it’s not.

So this weekend I am not only getting a new router, but a new mailbox. Hey at least the stores are in the same shopping center! Anyway, I just ended up with one big migraine over everything as I just became frustrated. I’m one of those people if something isn’t working the way it should, especially with my PCs, I have to make it work or it eats at me.

On a more positive and fun note, tomorrow night I’m going to hang out with my friend Jen. I’m taking the PS3 over to her house so we can get our drink on and our “Singstar” on! We’ll also probably watch some movies as well. We’ll have to watch something first while our buzz kicks in, as neither one of us will want to sing in front of the other sober!

I’m also giving serious thought to another tattoo. I’ve wanted one for years, but at the same time would like to have the two I have recolored. Your supposed to have them refreshed every 5 years. I’m usually good about plastering on sunscreen, so they haven’t faded per say. But they have lost a bit of the brightness in their color. Anyway, the tattoo I’ve wanted for years is, of course, Wonder Woman. I would get it on my back shoulder. I even know what I want, I just have to select “which” comic representation of Wonder Woman I’d want it to be of. I’m narrowing it down!

I finally went to get myself a haircut last night. I’ll post a photo later at the bottom of this post once I get a good photo. I’ll probably use my webcam to do it in a bit; but right now I’m catching up on shows and about to record one on the laptop. The webcam makes my laptops sound “tinny” so I’m waiting till everything is done.

I was asked how I got the blond. I said I did it myself. I didn’t get a lecture, just asked if I used bleach or a box, and if it burned my skin. I lied and said it didn’t burn. I didn’t lie persay I just said no, but then remembered it actually did, but only on the places I splattered the dye to. I am terrible, I always get the dye all over my ears and forehead.

Now however I really have some multi-tonal hair going on. The top is blond with my roots showing and the back and sides are my 50/50 brown and grey. Rather than having the highlighted look I hoped for, it’s more like the frosted look of the 80s. The nice woman who cut my hair said she really loved how it looked, she likes the whole growing out look with blond jobs. However she also had hair close to heaven (ie the Jersey look from the 80s). The BF said it looked fine too, but I don’t know. I’m giving it a week to decide what to do with it. You can judge for yourselves later today when the pic goes live.

In some exciting news, I’m inquiring about an adjunct job at a local university. All I have to go on is a posting on my school listserv that they need someone to teach one class that’s taught annually. It’s not a full time position and probably has no hope of one, but it’s a start. I unfortunately don’t know what qualifications they are looking for or when the class is to be taught. But it can’t help to throw my name in, maybe they’ll think of me for something else in the future. The class, by the way, is in the anthropology of religion and magic.

*Photo Update*

Look I tried to smile hehe!

Last night I downloaded “Dr Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog” from iTunes since I totally missed it while it was free on the web for one week only. I can’t get this one song out of my head, so I thought I’d post it. Don’t forget, “Harold and Kumar 2” also comes out today!

Recently when I went to see a movie (I think “Prince Caspian”) a trailer for the following movie showed. I have since found out it’s based on a children’s book (which obviously I haven’t read), but until they got towards the end of the trailer . . . I had gasped . . . I was dumbfounded . . . did someone actually make a movie of one of my all time favorite games? The story wasn’t quiet the same as I remembered, but it was underground, and the scenery was picture perfect . . .

Watch the trailer, see if you see it too. Only those old enough to have played the game will probably see what I wishfully saw . . .

Read on to see what I saw (so I don’t spoil your perception of what I was hoping for) . . . .

(more…)

So I finally saw “The Dark Knight” and if I had to pick one word to describe it, it would ironically be “dark.” The second word would be “violent.”

This is not a Batman movie for the kids. It’s very dark, actually pretty depressing and very violent. Most of the blood and guts aren’t actually shown, rather more or less implied, but it’s still very cringe worthy and my friend and I were turning away more than once in anticipation of what was about to come.

I definitely enjoyed it more that “Batman Begins,” but for some reason it didn’t seem like a Batman movie to me. Well let me say it didn’t seem like a superhero movie to me. That has its pluses and minuses. The pluses are of course in the wake of some of the crappy superhero movies to come out as of late *cough* “Spiderman 3,” which just go too far and over the top. The minuses are that it loses some of the feel of a superhero movie. The difference with Batman of course is Batman doesn’t have any actual superpowers, so in this case it can work. The movie however felt more like a crime/mob drama with a lot of action thrown in.

Heath Ledger was amazing as the Joker in the film. However I also have to be honest, and my friend agreed, we saw a lot of Jack Nicholson in his portrayal. The way he moved and spoke for instance. In a few scenes I almost thought Jack Nicholson WAS doing the voice.

I also think in light of Heath’s death, his portrayal of the Joker has taken some of the spotlight off the other villain in the movie, even though he was minor. Oh yes, unless you know the comic characters, you wouldn’t even know from the trailer and commercials that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face in the film. I thought Aaron Eckhart was phenomenal as well.

I do have to say that Christian Bale’s horsey Batman voice still makes me cringe, I hate it!

There is definitely an opening for a third, and given how much money this one raked in, you know it’s coming. Of course who knows where they will go. Eventually they will start having to use more of the super-powered villains, but they can spin them and do it right too. If you think back to the original slew of Batman movies, that’s where they stated going down hill. The first two by Tim Burton I thought were amazing, but the villains really didn’t have superpowers (except maybe for Catwoman). They were simply crooks. Then Michael Keaton left. Then Tim Burton didn’t direct anymore. Then the films went to crap. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.

. . . . Though I will admit I love Uma Therman’s portrayal of Poison Ivy!

Today I completed, or should have completed, week 4 of the C25K program. The problem is I pooped out on the run. I normally do my runs in the evening when the sun has gone down and when I’ve been up all day and eaten food. Because of plans to see “The Dark Knight” and then have movie night with Emily, I decided to run this morning. Mistake! I’m not a morning person, the sun was shining and all I had was some yogurt. I pooped out at the very end, and feel like I have to get three complete runs in for week 4 to “graduate.” I guess I’ll be doing another!

I’m still avoiding the Wii Fit, mainly cause I keep hitting plateaus. It tells me I am not moving at a fast enough pace to reach my goal in time, blah blah blah. So then when I do finally use it, it tells me I haven’t shown up in umpteen some days, blah blah blah. I keep saying I will show it some love, since I don’t seem to be getting my butt to the gym lately, but I don’t. I just usually don’t want to do anything on the days I don’t run, cause I’m sore.

The abstract for my conference paper is almost complete. I need to fiddle around with wording a bit more, but the meat is there. I probably should have asked how long it should be, as I could probably include a bit more detail. Oh well. It’s going to my advisor and if he thinks I should add more I will. I’ll share it when it’s done for the curious. I also have to remember to register and book a room for myself. I’m somewhat dreading this conference, as in the past I always knew fellow students would be going to hang out with. I don’t think they’ll be there this time around honestly.

I was going to include a bit about the delightful pet surprise I woke up to this morning, but won’t. I’m eating lunch right now and don’t want to think about it more than I have to.

I had bizarre dreams last night that I dyed my hair a brilliant glittery red color. Yes somehow I dyed my hair and it came out glittery. My hair also was longer, down to my chin and styled like that of a woman’s cut. What the hell? Come to think of it, it looked an awful lot like Renny on “Big Brother 10.” I have to stop watching that before I go to bed!

It is time for a haircut. I’m dreading going in as I know I’ll get a lecture on the bleach job and how bad it is to do that and how if I want that done I should come to them so they can charge me 100 dollars to do it. Yeah, I think the 100 dollars is the key, it’s probably just as bad for my hair if they do it! I have contemplated just dying it back to brown first, but I really want to see what it looks like after it’s cut. It should have that cool “highlight” look to it.

Anyway, I’m off to “The Dark Knight.” My thoughts on it in the next post. I’m sure I’ll love it, I am constantly hearing how amazing it is.

Okay so I watched about 2 songs of the Alanis concert, currently streaming on MSN and decided I had to go. The last concert I saw her in was the acoustic tour. While great, she sat and sang through most of it. If you’ve never seen Alanis perform live, well it’s an experience. I think even people who don’t like her can become fans. She has a stage presence which is mesmerizing, even more so than Queen Madonna. Yes I said it! It was seeing that she performed “All I Really Want” that made me buy a ticket for the DC concert. Next to “You Oughta Know,” that is my favorite song to see her do live. If the Philly concert ever goes on sale, well I’ll be going twice and dragging the BF. I took him once, but the venue sucked as did our seats. He has yet to experience how much fun she can be, especially with her rewrite of “Ironic.” (watch the concert link!)

So in the previous post I mentioned I would make a post about what’s going on with school. This week I went in and signed the papers to make it official, I teach in the fall. At this point the income will be welcomed, as I do not like living off savings and having nothing come in, especially in this economy. I opted for a TA position rather than my own class. I’ve TA’d once, and taught my own class many times. The pay is the same, the difference is between working under someone who plans that class and planning it all on your own. Of course the other difference is when it’s your own class it’s about 30 students max, with a TA class it’s 3x as big student wise which means more grading. It’s been a few years since I taught, so I knew the class I would want would require me probably getting a new book for the course and rewriting most of my lectures over based on the new book. I just don’t have that time with defending in the fall. I chose the TA job over it. It will be another notch on the CV and it’s a class I’ve never taught, which will round out things as well for me. I will say this, I will not be blogging about the class much. I will tell you what it’s about subject wise (when I find out myself) for the interested, but I’m no fool. My name is too easily found on Google and the last thing I need is a student googling me and ending up here to see me talking about something I shouldn’t be!

The other bit of news is that I’m going to present a paper at a conference. I said I wouldn’t ever do this again until I was done with school, but obviously I lied! Again it’s a notch on the CV, presenting papers looks good on your resume. Also this is a conference organized by my advisor, so I kinda felt obligated to go. Plus I feel I can easily churn out this paper with no fuss and muss at this point. I’ve already got it planned in my head, it’s going to be the big picture and how all my data adds up to one important finding. The one thing that scares me . . . . the conference is in West Virginia. Oh yes, I said West Virginia. I will remind you all as it gets closer and I leave for it, because I will need your prayers. I’m pretty sure they don’t really like my kind there. Hey, I saw “Deliverance!”

Author’s Post-Note: The WV comments were supposed to be silly not serious, which I thought was fairly obvious from my comments, but I guess other’s didn’t get that. They were not intended to be insulting in any way. I’m in fact not afraid to go there, I was making a funny . . . or so I thought.

In the post after this I mentioned my “Wonder Woman” room. I wanted to get photos of it for a long time now, but the room always seems to be a mess. The minute I clean it up, I end up piling crap back up on the bed. The cats sleep on the bed and that just makes it a collection of car hair. I just said to hell with it and carefully pointed the camera to try and avoid as much of the mess as possible. You’ll notice cracks in the wall plaster, tacky border strips from 10 million years ago and places where the borders have been pulled down. Repainting this room has always been one of those things on my list of “things to get this house clean and into shape.” Yeah so far it hasn’t happened. It will one day, and it will be a brilliant shade of blue.

Top left: Wonder Woman clock and figures
Top right: Wonder Woman/Lynda Carter signed/framed photos and figures
Bottom left: Wonder Woman painting by the BF, more figures
Bottom right: Wonder Woman bookshelf with books, DVDs figures and dolls.

Of course there are probably 10 more figures around the perimeter of the room I didn’t get captured. I also have a couple more out of the box dolls I don’t have on the shelf yet either.

Oh and since I’ll be asked, the one photo with the painting on the wall, yes that is a Breyer’s logo opposite it. Long story short, it came off the side of an old ice cream truck. It’s probably getting moved OUT of the room though . . .

Recently I thought I would bring up my Xena toys (oh and yes a Ouija Board) from my mom’s house to compliment Wonder Woman. I have a few out of the box Xena figures on the shelf right now (along with She-Ra, who is not in any photos). However I didn’t realize how many fricken Xena figures I had! I basically bought the entire collection of toys when they came out years ago, so I have a bunch. I am probably sticking them on the wall where the Breyer’s logo currently is, as I’m running short on room around the top of the ceiling.

This reminds me, I need to venture to the comic book store to see if any new Wonder Woman goodness has been released.

What I really need to do is move a lot of stuff around in this room honestly. If I could get our other guest room downstairs cleaned up and not so much of a storage room, well we could ditch the dinky twin bed in this current room and put guests in that one if need be. That would open up a lot more space in this room for more shelves and stuff, which I could not only put my toys on, but all my DVDs and videogames (notice in the one photo how they are stacked and overflowing on top!).

PS You SO don’t want to see the Star Wars collection! I have all the original figures and playsets PLUS 3 Tupperware tubs full of the newer figures. I eventually gave up on collecting them, as it became too expensive and Kenner completely started marketing at the collectors market. Plus the newer figures are ugly as sin in my opinion. I did however just find in the basement my collectors edition 12 inch Slave Leigh doll. Rawr! She needs to go somewhere in the room.

This morning the wordpress app for the iPhone came out. Now I think I can do everything I wanted to be able to do on this phone. This is my first test using it, I am at the pool as I write this. So far the app seems easy to use. Much easier than setting up the blog to turn emails into posts and much easier than using the browser to log in and post. Next I need to learn how to post photos from the phone. The one thing it is missing is spell check and I am a horrid speller.

Anyway, I think after my last post going nuts over Barbie I should post photos of my toy room. I collect toys, which is one of the reasons I got so hot over that story. Also my current collecting passion happens to be the comic character Wonder Woman.

The other reason I got a little hot is cause I was a little buzzed. For the past month I kept feeling and getting little signs that I might have a kidney stone coming. However nothing ever came. This weekend I got hit. It’s not the worst I’ve had, but it is more than a minor annoyance. I had been drinking water like there was no tomorrow, and well, it was starting to burn when it came back out. Yeah that probably was TMI. Last night I just decided I would partake in something that would make me “go” just as much but I wouldn’t be feeling the pain, if you catch my drift. And yes I know, it was the last thing I should have been drinking.