Jon Stewart strikes again!

In case you missed it:

Good news and bad news

I am just a bundle of conflicting emotions today, for a number of reasons. For starters, I found out that they are going to hire me full-time at my current job, starting January 1. That's good news, really, because it means I will actually have job security, a salary, and cheap health insurance. Plus, it's a very low stress job, I basically set my own schedule and do my own thing, and I can always count on leaving on time. The work is finally getting more interesting, too, and I am being pulled in on projects in almost all the departments. I am particularly excited about doing illustration and upcoming web design work, since I didn't have that many opportunities for that at my old job. In those respects, it's pretty ideal.

At the same time, I'm kind of sad. It means I will have to go back to working on Wednesdays and Fridays, which I haven't done since...wow, May of 2008, when I worked enough hours for a consistent 6 day work week. (I was laid off in mid-June, but it was the day I got back from two weeks in Australia.) I'm definitely going to miss those days off, but I guess I'm finally to the point where I am missing the extra money a little bit more. The job is still not as challenging as I would like it to be, but in this economy, I'll take what I can get. This means I'm locked in for a little while. I'm not planning on being there forever, though, maybe just another year or so.

I have other things on my mind, too. For example, I had a pretty scary dream last night about a grizzly bear that terrorized a boy scout event at some fancy hotel. No one actually got hurt, but weird things happened and I woke up wondering how that could be interpreted. Here's what I found: "A bear in a dream is a very rich and complicated dream symbol. In order to understand it, objective association need to be made. Bears are solitary animals and the females are solitary mothers. They hibernate in a cave and they are generally not predatory animals. A bear is only aggressive when provoked, and as such times he is dangerous and deadly. Bears in dreams may represent a period of introspection and depression. However, this may be a part of a healing cycle, where the dreamer has retreated into himself in order to regenerate and in order to create something new and valuable in his life. Do you feel that something needs protecting or is there something you are protecting? Do you feel you are in any sort of danger from some powerful force?" Hmm, very interesting. Interpret away.

What else? Oh, I have been taking advantage of this gorgeous weather. On Friday, I went to a bar with bocce ball outside, and it was fun. Saturday I spent all day (1:30pm-2am) traveling to and from Osage Beach (3+ hours) and playing taiko--it was kind of an off day for me all around and it put me in a bad mood, but I guess that's okay sometimes. Sunday I had lunch outside at a packed Fast Eddie's and saw the Michael Jackson movie later--both were pretty entertaining. Right now I'm just hanging out, still feeling a little torn and uneasy about pretty much everything. I know what will help, but I can't do anything about it for at least another day or two. Until then, I'm going to find some more distractions.

Accents

The UK Daily Mail asked 5,000 women to rank the sexiest accents, and the Irish won! I definitely agree, but I didn't know so many other women agreed with me. Here are the top 10, as reported:
1. Irish
2. Italian
3. Scottish
4. French
5. Australian
6. English
7. Swedish
8. Spanish
9. Welsh
10. American

I would put them in this order, though:
1. Irish
2. English
3. Spanish
4. Australian
5. French
6. Italian
(I can't think of 4 more to put on the list.)

The study also found that 60% of women had allowed themselves to be seduced by a man just because of his accent! Interesting. Where are these women meeting these guys with accents, anyway? Actually, come to think of it, I find foreign guys right here at home, or rather, they find me. I seem to appeal to a disproportionate percentage of Central/Eastern European and African guys, but I can't say that they have ever seduced me. I guess their accents aren't sexy enough.

Speaking of accents, I just read that newborn babies cry in their native tongues! Their melodies reflect the patterns in that language, and they think it's because babies are trying to imitate the mother in order to foster bonding. The researchers conjecture that the development of spoken language is rooted in melody, too, and that music and language might have co-evolved and share a primal form of communication system. That's pretty cool. I wonder if that explains the inherent appeal of musicians, too...

Paint A Rainbow In Your Heart

ook at this cool drop cap! Okay, you might not be as impressed as I am, but if you are, go here. Pretty fancy, huh? It's a little wonky in the actual post, though, and I don't know why. (Note to self: Find more reasons to say "wonky"...also, "scandalous.") Well, I guess this means I should fill the rest of this blog with something.

Halloween was nice. I gave out soda at my parents house (70ish kids!) and then went to the Central West End. The CWE was ridiculously crowded, but it was fun to dress up and people-watch. I stood next to the crazy dancing lady during the costume contest AND got a picture with her. She is a local celebrity as far as I'm concerned, but I'm surprised at the amount of people that don't know about her (him?). I see her at festivals and free concerts ALL over St. Louis, and I even saw her at the art fair in Belleville! My friend asked what that said about the places I visit. Ha, good point, but I don't think music and art festivals are that unusual. I just like to go to outdoor events, like a crazy lady in training. Maybe those friends just need to get out more.

My favorite group costume was Rainbow Brite and friends (purple girl, blue guy, Gloomy)! I would be Rainbow Brite if I could figure out the costume. I used to watch the show and I had a book on tape that I read/listened to all the time, especially on road trips (that and Ghostbusters). I was obsessed with the "Paint A Rainbow In Your Heart" song that played at the end. The version I listened to was sung by a woman (not these kids) and it was better than this youtube one--believe it or not--but you get the idea. Try to make it through the whole thing just once, I dare ya...and I'm pretty sure the adult version was longer than this:


They just came out with Rainbow Brite "fashion dolls" and updated her appearance. Why can't they leave her as a cute, slightly chubby little girl, though? It's like kids are encouraged to look like mini adults or at least teenagers these days, and it's kind of sad.

I digress. Where was I? Oh, Halloween. Um...that's about it.

I'm watching the news because they're talking about those pesky asian beetles, and there is one in my house! It's in my room, to be exact, but I only know it's there when it's up by the light. Apparently they bite, but I'm okay so far. :-/ They say you're not supposed to kill them, either, because that attracts another kind of beetle that eats fabric. Their advice? "If they're not in your house, leave them alone." Great, except they never say what to do if they are in your house. At least he's kind of cute, much cuter than spiders....Ooh awesome, now there's a little girl holding a "God Hates Fags" sign. *Click* Ah, The Daily Show.

Is it a full moon? (YES! I just checked.) I ask because I really noticed that most people were driving like total crap today. In one instance, I was driving 50 in the slow lane on the highway behind 5 cars, and there was a guy to my right whose lane was ending. Now, normally I would slow down and let the person in, but I was already going so slow already that I figured that was his move. Aren't the people merging supposed to be the ones adjusting their speed, anyway? Plus, he didn't bother to put on his blinker, which I assume means he didn't want to get over. (Lack of a blinker is my biggest pet peeve when driving, yet I'm the one with the ticket for not using my blinker that ONE TIME! I swear.) Well, I just kept my pace,so he had to slow down and pull in behind me. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him give me the finger, slowly, like it was rising from the top of the steering wheel. I laughed, but felt more compelled to blow him a kiss than to return the finger as he sped past me. I didn't do either, but I wonder how he would have reacted. Maybe I'll let you know what happens the...uh, next time someone seriously gives me the finger? Scandalous!

p.s. If you live in St. Louis County, don't forget to vote on the smoking ban tomorrow!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! I still have to carve a pumpkin, oops! I wanted to carve something cool this year, not just a face, but I don't know if that's going to happen. Tonight I'm going to hand out soda at my parents' house because for some reason, they don't like doing it. I think the little kids in their costumes are so cute, though! Hopefully, there's something good on tv, too. I'll probably also add some more patches to my sash, since my mom just found some of my sister's.

Other than those potential extra patches, my costume is complete! I got a beanie yesterday and Joel's costume, too. He's going as a cub scout leader! Haha, scandalous. We didn't plan it like that originally, but he couldn't think of a costume and he was running out of time. I have had mine planned out for a couple weeks. I was joking that he could be a pedophile without even dressing up because he has a new beard that I think is kind of sleazy, and the idea spread from there. He's still technically a pedophile as a boy scout leader, but it's more subtle. There happened to be a boy scout store just seconds away from the girl scout store. I found a big "Cub Scout Den Leader" patch at the boy scout store, so that sealed the deal. He just needed a tan shirt and a bandana for his neck after that (and a cub scout bandana clasp). Those boy scouts were very helpful--it was like they had never seen a girl before, even though the place was fairly crowded with both men and women. Kind of funny. We're going to the Central West End tonight with a few other people, I think. Hopefully someone will have a camera because mine is broken!

I was hoping to watch a scary movie or do something scary last night, but that didn't work out at all. Maybe there's still time, though!

Time change

I hope you didn't forget to turn back your clock! Don't worry, this guy will remind you:

Scatter-brained

Why am I so tired? Maybe it's just one of those days. I blame it on the rain. Again. Anyway, it's too early for bed and I can't focus on much of anything, so I'm just going to dump some random thoughts here:

• Paranormal Activity was a pretty good movie. I basically gave up on scary movies for years because I was more grossed out than scared by any of them, but this one genuinely creeped me out and even made me jump several times. Maybe my love and knowledge of ghost stories made it more real to me, although of course the movie embellished the reports. (General reports of ghost and demon experiences, I mean.) It's refreshing to see a scary movie that successfully exploits my imagination (with suggestions) and not my gag reflex (with gore), though. I thought the days of Alfred Hitchcock-style horror were gone, but this proves that it can still exist and become popular. That reminds me, I wish there was a Hitchcock marathon on tv this year! Some network used to do that on Halloween, I think.

• I'm not exactly a grammar nazi (although I'm a stickler for spelling), but there is a Harrah's billboard on 2-70 that drives me crazy! I pass it on the way home from work. It says "1 in 5 win!" Win refers to 1, though, which means it should be plural--1 wins, 5 (don't) win. It took me just a couple seconds to notice, yet no one caught that during editing, revisions, or printing? I understand that a fresh pair of eyes on a project can help, but seriously, there are only about 8 words on the whole sign. Sometimes as a designer, "creative license" allows you to give up punctuation and things like that (using numerals instead of spelling a small number), but not that kind of grammar. For the record, though, deleting punctuation at the end of a sentence because it's a headline makes me cringe a little, but even the writer at my old job suggested it sometimes.

• I am spending too much money on health insurance and barely using any of it. I'm thankful that I haven't had to use it, but I'm also frustrated that I've been paying for it, anyway. I can't get it through my work yet, since I'm not full time, so the outside insurance takes a significant chunk of a paycheck once a month. It's starting to show. Hopefully, my company will hire me full time next month and it will take care of itself. They've been telling me October/November should be the hiring time (because of next year's budget) since April.

• I love cake, especially icing, and I have a friend that decorates cakes for fun. She has all the equipment and invited me over to see how it was done last weekend; however, she does not like cake. It's pretty cool, but it could be a potentially dangerous hobby for me. On the one hand, I would probably be forced to eat all of my mistakes so that they wouldn't go to waste. On the other hand, I would be putting so much time into them that I might not want to even eat the finished product...okay, that last part is probably crazy talk. I'm still considering taking a class at Michael's or something.

• No sign of that tiny brown beret at any regular store, which means I'll just get the authentic brownie beanie and "make it work." In my quest, though, I did find When Harry Met Sally for just $5 at Target! It's such a cute movie, one of my favorite chick flicks, and I can't believe I didn't own it before now. Joel will be thrilled, too, I'm sure. ;)
  

• I found this list of things you should do in Japan, and the only things I had no real interest in doing and did not attempt to do were sumo (eh) and the love hotel (obviously). I went into a pachinko place (SO LOUD) but couldn't figure it out, and I was going to climb Mt. Fuji until it was supposed to rain and we decided not to do that much additional walking. I can check everything else off the list, though! Awesome.

Okay, time for bed. Good night!