Very bad language ahead. Well mildly offensive. Broadway music for sure, so don’t play this at work!

I love Kristin. I dream of the day she and Edina do a revival of “Wicked” so I can go see them again.

I’ve been neglecting the blog and I do apologize. I had the whole “Monster Mania” convention on Friday and Saturday, and Saturday and Sunday I was cleaning house and doing school work. Today was more school work, as I’ve given myself a self imposed deadline for this weekend to get way too much done. I need to channel when I had real class imposed deadlines! My head will probably explode by this weekend.

I’ve been contemplating a huge decision, one that doesn’t have to be made for months . . . I think come January I’m actually leaving my laptop at home when the BF and I do our cruise. I’ve said I would do this for years, but this time I am in a position where I can do it. The iPhone and the PC’s on the cruise ship should do the trick for everything getting me my email in case crap happens. I just need a larger/second memory card for the camera. Let me tell you it will be nice not having to be a slave to a webpage on vacation for once, minus some blogging that is 🙂 The only negative side is that I won’t be able to upload photos until I return home. However on the cruise ship, it’s usually impossible to photo blog as is as the connection can be equivalent to dial-up.

A final thought, my birthday is a little over a week away. I’ve been thinking of going on an Amazon.com DVD shopping binge to buy some movies I’ve been meaning to get for awhile. I even made a list of what I want. They include “Penelope,” “Curiosity of Chance,” “Fried Green Tomatoes,” “Joy Luck Club,” “Teen Witch,” “Camp Sleepaway” and this little gem . . . .

Oh yes, I’m talking “Troop Beverly Hills!”

A woman at the Monster Mania convention was selling prints of her paintings. She paints these really spooky scenes, and even some that are some what grotesque. I remember her from the last one and wanting to buy one then, but I didn’t. I decided to buy one this time, because it spoke to me.

It’s called “The Whisperers” and I liked it cause of the colors and imagery, and of course cause of the two ghost children. I felt it should be in the house 🙂 Sorry about the photo, it was hard to get a good picture of it late at night. Had to hold the camera at weird angles so the flash didn’t reflect and wash sections of it out.

Oh yes, that is Robert Englund, aka Freddy! The horror movie convention is back in town and I waited in line for I think 3 hours to finally meet him. I fortunately made some fabulous new friends in line. Leave it to me to get in line with probably the only gay and his hag at the whole show. I will say I was pretty much speechless when I met him. I really didn’t say anything, I even forgot to shake his hand! I got the picture though.

A bunch of other people are also at the convention. I just wanted to get Robert first, I have the rest of the weekend to meet the others. Of course for the really scary guest, and moment of the night . . . read on. You’ve been warned!

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Grrr, yesterday was a day of contemplation on many fronts for me. Mixed with good news, surprises and news I wasn’t exactly overjoyed to get.

First the bad news. The class I was to TA for this fall got cancelled due to under-enrollment. I had a bad feeling something was up, I hadn’t heard a peep about the class and it was to begin in 2 weeks. I’m not sure exactly how I feel. Part of me is a bit relieved, I have more time to work on the dissertation and get it done this fall. The other part of me knows having that paycheck coming in would have been nice too, especially in this economy! I also turned down teaching my own class, mainly for the reason I didn’t go there in the first place, too much work when I’m trying to finish the dissertation. I know I’d get distracted preparing lectures, and that’s the last thing I need right now. The other two teaching opportunities are still out there, giving thought to them still.

Thank heavens for my obsession with “Singstar” on PS3, which is about to get renewed. After what seems like 4 weeks of no updates, a huge one comes this Friday. We are talking Britney, Jesus Jones, Twisted Sister, Men At Work and more. Oh yes, bring on the songs, I will need to cut loose like “Footloose.”

Speaking of singing, “Mamma Mia” is about to get re-released on Labor Day weekend with full lyrics in a “Sing-A-Long” version. Oh yes, you know you want to get out there and enjoy some Abba all over again. I so plan on going.

Finally, Marget Cho is bringing her “Beautiful” tour to Philly finally. I saw this earlier in the summer with my mom. The BF jumped for joy when the commercial came on and said I had to get tickets. Well I did, 5th row even, but because of the date he doesn’t know if he can go because of work. Grrrrr! I have a few back-ups in mind who would probably take the extra ticket.

So I just got a phone call, which I didn’t answer. I was trying to update the iPhone and was close to being done, so I figured I would ignore it. I didn’t even recognize the number, aside that it was local. Well they left a message, which ended up messing up the phone sync in the end anyway. Damnit!

The person calling left a message, mumbling something about their name and where they were from, and that I needed to give them a call back to discuss plans for my wedding reception on September 5th, 2009.

What? I’m getting married? I don’t remember this! I don’t even remember proposing, or being proposed to.

What was so odd was that clearly they had to have heard my name on the voicemail before leaving the message. Wouldn’t they realize that’s not the name of the groom?

Also the date is my birthday, double odd and bizarro! Oh and I so wouldn’t get married on my birthday. I mean that gives the excuse to combine anniversary and birthday gifts. Can’t have that, two separate occasions means two separate gifts!

I was tempted to call back, but didn’t. I still have the number in my phone and could if I get really curious. If I see the number pop up again, I’ll answer it for sure.

Well it’s that time of year, when kids go off to school and the parents see them off. The past few years, not having classes to take or teach, this hasn’t been a big part of my life. Now that I’m set to TA in the fall, I have to get back into that groove. I had a bit more to say about the class and all, but I will just not say anymore on it right now. Hopefully I’ll have an update soon.

A slight update on the teaching job I blogged about a week or two ago, the anthropology of religion course that a local university was looking to have taught. As it turns out it’s for next spring, which works out perfectly for me. I heard back from the university, basically asking for a copy of my CV and they’d be in contact to schedule an interview sometime this semester. I have sent of the CV and am waiting to see if I get an interview. Fingers crossed!

Another job offer arrived it my inbox today from my school listserv. This one at the Jewish Community Center that happens to be 30 seconds down the street from me. They were looking to hire someone last fall for an archaeology class. I think I blogged about that, but decided I had too much on my plate at the time to even inquire about it. Well they are still looking for someone to teach anthropology courses to senior citizens and other adults looking to just learn stuff. I fired off an email with an introduction and within an hour had a response asking me to come in and meet with them, see the currently classes, and so forth. I should be going down the street at some point this week. I was upfront and said I was pretty much busy through November, but that wasn’t a problem and they are willing to work with my schedule. This could be fun.

On to other school topics. The paper I have to give at the conference in West Virginia, well fortunately at least one fellow and one former student are also going. That makes the world of difference, I’ll at least have people to hang out with. So I’m more at ease now, knowing I won’t be shut up in my room watching TV or something.

Another conference opportunity arrived in my inbox today, this one again from my advisor. He was contacted by a woman looking to set up a panel at this years SAA (Society for American Archaeology) on prehistory in the Northeast. He was invited to participate, and he threw out a couple paper ideas to her. As it turns out, the one she was most excited over was one he suggested he’d co-author with me, blending my dissertation topic (burials) with his knowledge of other stuff in the region in general. So he contacted me to find out if this was okay and something I would be into doing. I of course said yes. For starters, I’ve never co-authored anything, it might be neat. To do it with my advisor is a pretty big honor, he is a big wig in this area. Oh did I mention I don’t even have to go to the meetings as he offered to go and present it? Yeah that’s a plus! However I will probably go. I will have the PhD by then (God willing!) and this is a national meeting. I’ve only presented one paper before at a national meeting, so this is somewhat big. Plus it’s an opportunity to look into jobs. The one thing that would keep me away, it’s in Atlanta. I went there once before about 10 years ago for a video game conference (the E3) when I was still doing video game web pages. Needless to say it was one of those places I can say I have visited once, but I’m not exactly racing to go back to (sorry Atlantans!).

Since yesterday I’ve officially had it with telemarketers and charities and what not calling my house. Rather than let the phone go to the answering machine, which they hang up on, I’m answering every call to inform them not to call me anymore. I’m over it.

This all began yesterday with one 866 number that calls us constantly. The calls begin at 8am in the morning and sometimes go through 8pm or later at night. They call at least 5 times a day, sometimes multiple times an hour.

Finally sick of them, I answered the phone with a very angry “Hello!” I got no response, I said “HELLO” again. Nothing, so I hung up. Withing two minutes they called back. My BF was sitting on the couch as I told him “It’s these damn 866 people that call us a million times a day, they aren’t saying anything, I know someone on the phone, no automated electronic message has started and would have bye now.” *CLICK* they hung up on me.

That was it, I hit redial and got a voicemail, saying I had reached some outreach or charity program or something, I can’t even remember I was so annoyed honestly. I finally left a message along the lines of “Hi yeah, you call us about a million times a day and I’m sick of it. Take our number off your list. If you are looking for money, you are not going to get any at this point. If you call again I will answer the phone with a barrage of obscenities instead of hello.”

They have not called back 🙂

I try really hard not to get to political on here, unless something really annoys me. It seemed today politics wouldn’t leave me alone, and now I have to vent.

First I read over at Raging Rainbows this morning about John McCain giving an interview about picking a potential VP. You can read it in The Weekly Standard.

What annoyed me were the following quotes about what would and wouldn’t be acceptable in a VP candidate . . .

“I think that the pro-life position is one of the important aspects or fundamentals of the Republican Party,” McCain said. “And I also feel that–and I’m not trying to equivocate here–that Americans want us to work together. You know, Tom Ridge is one of the great leaders and he happens to be pro-choice. And I don’t think that that would necessarily rule Tom Ridge out.”

“I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a–albeit strong–but just it’s a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far more-so than (Michael) Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”

“You know,” I really am just shocked and actually disgusted. First of all, on Bloomberg, no I don’t “you know” know what the other number of issues that might count him out are. I’d love for McCain to clarify, but I don’t think he knows either. Clearly all he could, you know, remember was the gay thing. Guess that’s what’s important?

Second, what am I to take from these statements? That potentially dead fetuses are less of a problem to him than living gay people? That while he doesn’t agree with abortion, he can tolerate someone who does. However he just can’t tolerate someone who likes the gays?

What really makes me sad is that I actually liked John McCain, once upon a time. I thought he was a Republican I could actually vote for. I believe so did the BF. However it seems everything I/we liked about McCain no longer exists. Everything he seemed to once stand for went out the door when the presidency came knocking and became a real possibility.

The other thing that found its way to me today was sent to me by my friend, God love her. This more than anything made me laugh. It was an email about Obama and how evil he and the liberal media are.

Basically the email asserts that the liberal media will not let anything negative be said about Obama, and to test this if you make a post on YouTube about Obama that is negative that not only will it disappear or never get posted; but you’ll be sent all sorts of nasty porn spam email. The email then links to some church website with a video of some guy calling for a boycott of Obama because of this, among other things. What’s amusing is that the video of this guy . . . you guessed it . . . is on YouTube.

Okay now that I have your attention, you filthy dirty minded people! I made a slight mistake today and caught a lot of people off guard.

Today I finally decided to get my butt to the gym to use some weight machines. For weeks I’ve done nothing but run, though it has served me well. I noticed at the gym I was able to do much more on the machines, all upper body stuff, than I had before . . . and it’s been weeks since I went!

Okay that isn’t the point of the post. As I was driving to the gym I realized I was hungry, I had only had breakfast. I decided to indulge in some junk. I mean if I’m going to eat bad, might as well do it and then go right to the gym. I went to Five Guys Burgers and Fries. This is a chain that actually started in Northern Virginia where I grew up and in the past year has expanded to the Philly metro area and beyond. It’s probably not widely known at this point. Well as I was eating I decided to post to Twitter, which of course is linked to my FaceBook account. I posted . . .

“having five guys before the gym. So good!”

Yeah, let the confusion and comments begin. After I left the gym I found out I had comments like “Ummmm, you did what?” “What did exactly did you do with five guys?” “You had five guys and time to Twitter?”

Nasty dirty people, get your mind out of the gutter! Please I’m as pure as freshly fallen white snow. I’m so virginal I glow on the off chance I enter a church.

But seriously, visit the Five Guys Burgers and Fries website and see if there is a chain near you or coming anytime soon. If you’ve never had them, run, don’t walk there. They have the best burgers you will ever eat, guaranteed. Just a fair warning, their burgers are double patties, so if you don’t want that much, get the “little burger” which is a single patty. Also if you are watching what you eat, um, avoid looking at their nutritional information at all costs!

Go on, indulge yourself, have some Five Guys and then go tell your friends things like . . .

“I had five guys the other day and it was amazing”
“I just can’t wait to have five guys again”
“I love the taste of five guys”
“My mouth is watering for five guys”