"Are there any more like you at home?"

"No, not really."

What a frakkin' awesome movie. The 1978 one, of course. It was on Cinemax tonight. Classic. Just the right amount of grandeur and wit. He flies! He turns in criminals! He saves kittens! Truth, justice, and the American way! The special effects in this movie are great, considering it's almost 30 years old.

I've never been one for tall, dark, and dashing men, but there's something about Christopher Reeve in this movie... I mean, obviously the superhero thing... but also a twinkle in his eye, just a hint of mischievous that is very attractive. And that curl!

So, I read up (because I am a geek) and learned: Margot Kidder was originally supposed to sing "Can You Read my Mind?" (while they're flying) but her singing voice was so awful the producers decided against it. Um, I think I'm glad for that. The spoken lyrics are bad enough.

At the time, it was the highest grossing Warner Brothers movie to date.

Marlon Brando (who made $4 million for his 10 minutes onscreen) wanted Jor-El be played in voice over only, with the onscreen image being a glowing, levitating green bagel. The producers formally rejected this idea. Brando then refused to memorize his lines in advance. In the scene where he puts infant Kal-El into the escape pod, he was actually reading his lines from the diaper of the baby.

Oh! and my favorite piece of trivia is that Steven Spielberg was offered the chance to direct, but the producers balked at the salary he requested, so they decided to wait and see how his "fish movie" did at the box office before they signed the contract. It was obviously a smashing success, so he went on to other projects and left Superman with Richard Donner. And speaking of Spielberg's other projects, that kid that plays Jimmy Olsen? Totally Marty McFly's older brother.

Also? Gene Hackman's clothes are awesome. And John Williams is genius. There's no way the new one is this good. "We all have our little faults. Mine's in California."

uber-geek alert!

On the way home from my tutoring session with Angela tonight, I was listening to a playlist I keep on my iPod called "'Round Here." It usually contains between 200-300 songs and I change it out ever so often, and listen to it on shuffle. Right now it contains 265 songs. Well, I heard Five for Fighting's "Superman (It's not Easy)" and then immediately after it, I heard Five for Fighting's "100 Years." These are the only two Five for Fighting songs on my entire iPod. I muttered "what are the odds?" and then I realized... I knew. I actually know how to calculate those odds now. Soooo, thanks Angela. Now when someone says "the odds the only two Five for Fighting songs on my iPod played back-to-back," I will be the ubergeek who says "what is 1 in 69,960!" That's right. Suck it, Trebek!

Go productivity! Choose productivity!!

OK, so, I got home Monday at noon and went straight to Angela's for a statistics lesson. She was actually my calculus tutor in college, and once again helped me tremendously, which proves that in addition to having a friend with a truck, you should always keep a friend who majored in math. I made a 100 on my last practice assignment, which brought me back to a B. I'm going back tonight for another crash course before my midterm tomorrow.

I slept 10 hours (!) on Monday night and spent all day yesterday studying. I did my penultimate Stats lesson on my own (Angela still needs to proof before I send it in; I'm not that confident yet) and two chapters of Psychology. I still have an A in that class, so I'm feeling pretty good in general about school right now. Finals on Monday!!

This morning I finished up some work and cleaned my house. I mean cle-ee-ee-eaned it. "Of course I clean it [the cappuccino machine]! I mean I'll cle-ee-ee-an it." ~Rachel Green. Kitchen, bathroom, floors, laundry- I even dusted UNDER stuff. I did 4 loads of laundry and I actually even worked out!!

My wonderful July schedule got botched- we just got a new contract and I have to do it. It's in Sacramento... who goes to Sacramento? Apparently aeronautical engineers- it's called the Joint Propulsion Meeting or something. Maybe I'll meet a hot nerd and can actually say "this is my boyfriend; he's a rocket scientist." Ace-high!

free at last

21 days. 3 states. 210 work hours. 22 school assignments. 1 Styx concert.

Done aaaaaaaand DONE.

It's 4:30pm. I'm packed for my 7am flight, and I'm off to the pool. Back to the real world (ibym "real world"... "Texas") tomorrow!!

the light at the end of the tunnel

It's always nice when someone notices (and appreciates) your hard work... even if it doesn't diminish the work. June is a wretched month for our whole industry, and my three back-to-back-to-back shows (plus my illogical plan to take 2 summer courses) has left me somewhat ragged. I need a haircut, I need to buy Q-tips, I just need to sleep in my own bed.

My bosses sent us all care packages this week! Soooo sweet, and such a surprise. Mine was stuffed with Lush goodies... ahhh, the way to Jamie's heart: expensive bath products that she would never buy for herself. Pure indulgence. The best part is that I'm staying at the Mandalay Bay this week- and they have these awesome huge bathtubs where you can fill the water almost up to your chin. Last night I stayed in to do homework, and my study break was a trashy magazine and my Avobath -- heaven!!!

Juneteenth

Today is June 19, or Juneteenth, as we know it in the South. It's the birthday of an old friend of mine, it's officially African-American Emancipation Day, and it's also the wedding anniversary of my darling (late) grandparents.

My grandmother was engaged to her high school sweetheart when she went work in the mess hall at Ridgecrest one summer. She met a boy named B.J. and fell for him hard & fast, because, as she said, he was the first boy to ever make her laugh so hard her stomach hurt. They left North Carolina that summer very much in love, and proceeded to start their long-distance courtship from Texas to Tennessee. (Coincidentally, I worked at the very same camp in 1996 and 1997, and met no such wonderful boy.) Rumor has it that they actually tied the knot at the Justice of the Peace before their church wedding in June of... 1947? I'm not sure. Whatever the year, my grandparents were warm, smart, funny, faithful, amazing people with the kind of relationship that anyone would be lucky to have. Their 3 children and 7 grandchildren looked up to them always, and look up to their memory still. Happy Anniversary, Meem & Peep.

Sad Cowboy

OK, I really don't have time to blog today, but this story is filling me with such well, there's not other word for it but GLEE that I just have to share it. (I've already e-mailed it to some of you. Honestly, I haven't stopped giggling all morning.)

The set-up: my co-worker Keri is working at a show in San Francisco. Something to do with electronics and engineers. Anyway, during set-up, this cowboy walks up to her desk, wearing his sad face and lugging a big box. He wants to know if it is some kind of joke because he doesn't think it is funny. They take a look at the box, which is addressed to him at his booth, and labeled to contain 4 rolls of shrinkwrap. However, there is no shrinkwrap. Inside the box is about 100 dvds entitled "COLT: Taking it Like a Man." So, without further ado, here is a picture of the sad cowboy and his big box o' porn:

LOVE it.

online dating

I want my money back.

I know so many people who have had such wonderful luck with it! Me? Not so much. Probably because there's about 60 messages in my inbox and ohhhhh, one in my outbox. Am I being too picky? Let's have a new reality show right here at No Day but Today - you guys decide which of these men I should attempt to establish a meaningful relationship with:

• the guy from Minnesota with the bus pass?
• the guy who spells it "web sight"? (as if he can log onto the internet without seeing that word spelled correctly)
• the guy who thinks Jimmy Buffet wrote "Brown Eyed Girl"?
• the atheist?
• the guy who doesn't own a television?
• the guy who says "make due"?
• the guy whose handle is "Oliver Clozoff"?
• the guy who under "hobbies," wrote "no TV (except Lost)" and under "favorite things," wrote "Friends, That 70's Show, CSI: Las Vegas"?
  
• the guy who said "you love to travel but you have never been over seas so your [sic] a traveller wannabe"? (Yeah, just that, end of message. No puncuation, even.)
• the self-professed "mamma's boy"? (his words)
• Flat Stan?
• The guy who says "I browsed your profile and we have so much in common!" even though his hobby list is limited to football, basketball, volleyball, hockey, & baseball and he doesn't much like going to restaurants?

Seriously? Tell me I'm being too picky. I dare you.

wondertwins... activate!

In light of all the superhero movies this summer, and the fact that this week I had a red dial-down phone on my desk lovingly referred to as "the batphone," and the fact that my two new friends Alicia and Johnny (who decided to stalk me immediately upon meeting me in my Batman t-shirt) are programmed into my phone as Superman and Wonderwoman... well, it was time for a template update. You all know how I feel about Batgirl.

Alicia & Johnny, you guys should totally be the Wonder Twins, actually. One of you can be a saber-tooth tiger and the other can be a sinister fog.

"Too many jokes! Must mock [Jamie]!"

OK, it's just too good:

Last night, I dreamed that the carpet in my apartment was like grass, and since I didn't vaccuum before I left, when I got home in 3 weeks it was overgrown up past my ankles. Who here thinks Jamie needs therapy?

So, people often land on my page from google or blogsearch, right? Some normal (so to speak) searches:

• Quite often it's a search for a recipe
• for obvious reasons I get a lot of "No Day but Today"
• for not-so-obvious reasons I get a whole lot of people looking for a desktop picture of Naomi Watts that I linked once
• after The West Wing finale I got a fairly large surge of "typo + Constitution"
• at least once a week I get someone looking for "sugar + chanelle"
• I randomly get someone from Washington DC googling Danael
  

but today, the crown of all googles:

sayid+lost+fiction+spank OR whip OR paddle OR thrash

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I am so not kidding! I even went to that link to see which of my posts contained those words, skeptical, and it linked to my November archive page. I'm too lazy to read through and figure it out, but I'm pretty sure that I've ever used the term "thrash" in my life.

In other news, my freight foreman just walked by and asked me why I had a post-it with "sayid+lost+fiction+spank OR whip OR paddle OR thrash" on it. I'm not entirely sure he believed me when I told him. This is how rumors get started. In the immortal words of Phoebe Buffay: "oh no."

dreams

You guys know I have crazy dreams. In fact, some of you know that every once in a while, I'll have one that comes true. *shudders* Creepy. Today, I walk into the Broward County Convention Center, and go to my desk, and am setting up, and an older gentleman with the union walks up to me. The first thing he asks me is if I am the "Champion girl" and where did I want my printer set up? Then he says this: "Do you ever remember your dreams?" And I was like "ummm, yes?" He asked me if I remembered mine from last night. Which was a strange question, because when I woke up this morning, I actually wrote it down, because I wanted to remember it: I was at a party as a spy, like Sydney Bristow, in costume, so no one knew who I was, even though all my friends were there, and when "September" by Earth, Wind, & Fire came on, I was dancing with Tom, but I had cut my leg and it was bleeding, but he wouldn't let me go until we finished the song, even though he didn't even know he was dancing with Jamie. And he was holding me really tight, so I couldn't get away. It was weird. Maybe he was the villain of the week. And also, Bill was there, wearing dark Arvin Sloane glasses and a muu-muu. Yeah. Anyway, I didn't tell any of this to the man, obviously. (Earl, by the way. His name is Earl.) He asks me if he was in my dream last night. I cocked my brow at him, but then I realized he was in no way being pervy. He then goes on to tell me that as soon as I walked into the hall, he recognized me from his dream, and thought it was an odd coincidence, but couldn't believe it when I actually walked to the exact spot where, in his dream, he remembers meeting me (right there at the service desk,) and that in his dream, he recounted this very dream to The Dream Me, and The Dream Me told him that she had had the same one. Weird, right? Except, I didn't have the same one, or if I did, that part got squelched by the memory of Bill in a muu-muu.

Anyway, he told me he often dreams random little things like that, that happen the next day. My mom says she used to dream about the house I grew up in long before they bought it. I think that's creepy, but she insists they weren't bad dreams. All of my prophetic dreams have been bad, so I don't like them much, and probably wouldn't have bought that house.

In other news, 1/4 through my first two classes and I have an "A" in each. Go Jamie!!!!!!!!! I begged off the water taxi with my client tonight, to dive into my Psych book. Ugh. And double-ugh, everything on room service here is all Caribbean and stuff. My "caesar wrap" has jerk-spiced shrimp and mango in it, or some such nonsense. Color me skeptical.

My new computer is coming on Thursday. I'm pretty freaking excited about it, even though I can't afford it. (I think I can write it off on my taxes since it's for school though. *fingers crossed*) The first thing I have to do is view an online movie on gene therapy and post on the discussion board before 11pm CST. No pressure!!

Saturday

... has so far, been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

BAD, BAD, BAD.

It started with insomnia, 6am. My bloody week off and I haven't slept more than 6 hours a night. I did meet Erin for bloody marys at 11, which was awesome and by far the highlight of my day. Holla! But here's the kicker: my computer crashed. CRASHED. Less than a week after my 90-day warranty. The GeekSquad and I are fairly certain it's the motherboard (it's not doing that tell-tale crashed hard drive clicking) which roughly translates to "buy a new laptop." Of course I have that kind of cash lying around. Of course I can take my time on this particular purchase since it's not like I'm currently enrolled in 2 classes that only last for the next 4 weeks. Of course it's backed up. *shakes head* I am going back to that online store where I bought it and leaving them the nastiest bad rating I can possibly leave. I'm meeting a computer technician at 9am on Monday morning. I have to leave town at 1pm, with my fixed computer, or a new one.

Don't even get me started on my current feelings about variance and standard deviation. We'll just call them my own personal Hell. By the way, what the hell is an ogive?

By the way, who here watches Battlestar Galactica? (Scott, Tom.) I can't wait to discuss it with someone. I just got to the cliffhanger at the middle of Season 2, that scene was awful and you know which one I'm talking about, Tyrol and Helo are in the brig on Pegasus, awaiting execution, Justice Mendoza just sent Vipers over to pick them up, Starbuck is off somewhere in the Blackbird on an illegal stealth mission, and Apollo is in the Raptor with that new dick CAG. OH, and Baltar is crying over the abused, mutilated Model Six. OH MY GAH. WHEN IS THE SECOND HALF COMING OUT???? Oh, the second half that's on my crashed laptop?? Yeah, that one.

I hate today.

par-tay

Congrats, Genevieve, you were my statcounter's 10,000 hit!