Observations

1. Yesterday, I saw jonquils coming up in one of the flowerbeds down by the Square! I was so excited...I mean a visceral, spring-feverish, type excited...even before my brain had fully processed what it was I was seeing. I'm just gonna hold on to the thought that spring is right around the corner.

2. Why do people get louder when they are leave-taking? Notice it? Folks coming out of doctor's exam rooms or ending a cell phone call, their volume goes way up. Why is that?

3. I still REALLY like Vampire Weekend. This is a little strange, because I am fully aware of the potential to be annoying. So far, I'm still OK with it.

4. The incongruity of these preppy white boys singing African music reminded me of MY album cover. "You're album cover?" you are probably asking yourself. Why, yes! It's this little bit of interweb fun that I meant to share a couple of months ago, but was too busy making up album covers to ever get around to it. Here's what you need to do to create your own.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
   (The first article title on the page is the name of your band.)


2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
   (The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.)


3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
   The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Use the graphics program of your choice to throw them together and then share the results here! It'll be fun!

So, yeah, if ever this white girl wants to start singing ethnically incongruous music...I'm all set! Hey, it's working for Jamie T and Vampire Weekend!

C'mon! Now show me yours!

*Note: that is not me nor my engagement ring pictured above. I couldn't get my camera to work properly. Maybe one day I will manage to take pictures of my own damn hand and post them. Altho, I would much rather show y'all in person!

EDIT: See...fun and addictive! I got this one just checking to make sure my links worked!

The Fleet, Vampire Weekend, and a Proposal

OK, so, just because I don't blog doesn't mean that there is nothing going on...there it too damn much going on. Man, y'all sure are missing out on a lot of bitching about my chemistry class and a lot of cussing about my hard-headed nine year old that's giving me absolute fits. (Except for Possum, he gets daily doses.) To top it all off, in a stunning display of complete self-unawareness, I decided to give up dranking for Lent. If ever I ever needed to be besotted...it's now.

Here's the interesting parts:

Today is THE DAY! MyFootballClub + Ebbsfleet United = Done Deal! I am now officially a joint owner of Ebbsfleet United football club; me and over 28,250 MyFootballClub members own a 75% stake in the football club. Now the fun really begins! (It's not too late to join, if'n you're interested!)

Possum's New Year Resolution this year is to watch 200 movies that he has never seen before. So, I have/will see(n) a few, I won't see all 200, I just don't have as much time to waste as he does. Anyway, I had hoped to kinda keep up with them too, kinda like a Siskel and Ebert thang. I haven't managed that so far, but maybe one day I'll be able to catch up. So far, I think my favorites have been This Is England and Juno.

***New Favorite Band ALERT***

Vampire Weekend....these guys are awesome. Their songs are just so doggone happy. It just tickles me to no end to hear these preppy Cape Cod-type boys referencing Lil Jon's Get Low in one of my favorite songs, Oxford Comma. That's worth the price of admission right there...but I've yet to dislike any of their other songs either.

Also, the Juno soundtrack is packed with a lot of sweet little songs (sweet in the traditional sense, not "sweet soundtrack, dude"...ya know what I mean?) I like it, even if it did make me feel old. I realized all those kids I used to babysit that drove me crazy with Wee Sing Silly Songs are now old enough to be writing songs of there own. And I mean that in the best possible way; I love the soundtrack, it's just that the similarities in style are uncanny. Best part ever? There are two...count 'em TWO!...Belle and Sebastian songs on there!

Speaking of feeling old, I had a birthday back at the end of January. It was really fun and low key, not my usual birthday shenanigans. Possum and I spent the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend at the lake. It was cold and dreary and lovely, because we had a fireplace to sit by and plenty of wine and vodka drinks. I'm pleased with the fact that I didn't wear shoes for the entire 3 days. On my actual birthday, we went to Taste of Thai and I had some yummy Duck Curry and then we went to see Atonement at the new theater. It was good, it "looked" just like the novel, but I enjoyed the book better. Probably because I don't like Keira Knightley much.

Valentine's Day was fun, for a Thursday. I met some of the old Charismatic Rats pack at U.S. Pizza. We were a relatively subdued group, no beer. I gave it up for Lent, remember? See? I AM being good! And Zenedrine is doing the whole "bun in the oven" thing. Dr. Performance (who needs a new name) just drank Diet Coke and chastised us for being no fun.

But wait, that's not all! As if pizza, water, and an upbraiding from Dr. Performance wasn't enough V-Day fun...Possum asked me to marry him! Yay!!! And I even got a real purty ring for saying yes. :-) I promised Marisa pictures, I'll try to do that while it is all shiny and new looking. David Adams designed it, based on our vague suggestions, and he did a fabulous job. Don't rush out to Dillard's to buy a blender quite yet, though. It's going to be a very looong engagement; we're planning a honeymoon in England...just as soon as The Fleet are playing in the Premier League! ;-)

Jon & Stephen!

They're back! They're back! I've missed them sooo. The "Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report" return tonight! It's about time. I've been adrift without them. How is a busy, young, liberal-leaning, quasi-aware chick supposed to know what to think, what to believe??? It's high time I started forming some opinions and regurgitating some pithy remarks about this here...whatchamacallit...Presidential Election.

Either that, or maybe everyone else should just say screw it and do what I have been doing for the last couple of months...memorizing all the words to "The Soup Song".

Soup Soup, a tasty Soup Soup
A spicy Carrot and Coriander
CHILI CHOWDER
Crouton Crouton
Crunchy friends in a liquid broth
I am Gazpacho...ooh
I am a summer soup...mmm
Miso Miso
Fighting in the dojo
Miso Miso
Oriental Prince in the Land of Soup!

Now, if Jon and Stephen suck...sans-writers...there is always "The Bouncy Castle Crimp".

Please help me, Jon and Stephen.

Sounds of 2007

This is just the same list that used to be over there in the sidebar. It's a new year now. Time to start over. And what better way, really?

*Songs of MySpace (2007)***

The View-Same Jeans

The Kooks-She Moves In Her Own Way

Bananarama & Fun Boy Three-It Ain't What You Do

Lariken Love-Happy As Annie

Jamie T-If You've Got the Money

Pigeon Detectives-Romantic Type

The Toy Guns-Shoot the Boy

The Bees-Who Cares What the Question Is?

Los Campesinos-We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives

The Maccabees-About Your Dress

The Format-Dead End(Live)

Razorlight-Before I Fall to Pieces

Calvin Harris-Acceptable in the 80s

Regina Spektor-Fedelity

The Format-She Doesn't Get It

Bloc Party-I Still Remember

Amy Winehouse-Rehab

Jaimie T-Sheila

The Fratellis-Chelsea Dagger

Thou Shalt Always Kill-Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Midnight Star-No Parking on the Dance Floor

The Toy Guns-Seaside Treats

The Fratellis-Whistle For the Choir

Pink Martini-Hey Eugene

Fountains of Wayne-Someone to Love

The White Stripes-Icky Thump

The Maccabees-Toothpaste Kisses live @ Glastonbury 2007

The Format-Inches and Falling(live in Chicago-until there is a real vid)

Travis-Selfish Jean

Arctic Monkeys-Fluorescent Adolescent

The Killers-For Reasons Unknown

Wilco-The Thanks I Get

Jeff Tweedy-Nothing Up My Sleeve

Travis-My Eyes

The Kinks-Strangers

Ben Sollee-Prettiest Tree on the Mountain

Happy 2008

Hey diddly ho, neglectorinos!

I fully intended to do a comprehensive review of 2007 but indicative of the entire year I failed to find the time or the inclination. So here is just a breakdown of the things that I liked and the things that sucked about the previous year.

2007 Good Things

Music: Jamie T's "Panic Prevention" was my fav. I also enjoyed The View, The Kooks, Arctic Monkeys, Travis, The Bees, Amy Winehouse, The Fratellis...oh, just check out the sidebar for a more comprehensive list. Or, lookie here...last.fm.

Movies: Pan's Labyrinth and The Darjeeling Limited

Books: Check out Goodreads; and for God's sake, if you are a reader and so inclined, add me as a friend. I ain't got none. Disturbingly, I have discovered that all of Possum's friends hate me.

TeeVee: The writer's strike sucks for the writer's and all, but man, oh man, there is no end of the goodness of to be found in the UK... particularly, The Mighty Boosh! I lurv Vince Noir! I wanna be a crimpologist! "Where can't you go with crimping?"

Ed-juh-muh-cation: I took two classes this past semester! I made "A"s!!! My Lit II teacher said that nobody has ever scored as high as I did in his 20+ years of teaching! Just in case any of you needed any confirmation of my brilliance. Lord have mercy, I sure needed the reassurance. I hadn't taken a class in over a decade and I was afraid my brain was fulled-up on random sh*t like The Mighty Boosh. In all honesty, my academic success probably had more to do with my paranoid overkill than anything else. That's my advice for the year...write lots, kids. You get "A"s when your teacher gets tired of reading.

Sports: Arkansas beating LSU, the FA Cup Final, discovering MyFootballClub.co.uk. Seriously, MyFC has been a blast; I've "met" lots of cool folks and we almost have a really cool team. Up the Fleet! I can't wait to go to a game!

Boyfriend: I have the best. Most all the good stuff wouldn't be possible without him and the bad stuff would suck much worse.

The Bestest: One of my bestest friends Marisa had a baby! Congratulations, girlie! You are going to be a great mama and I can't wait to see the little darling! He's the closest thing to a nephew I may ever have!

2007 Things that Sucked

Employment: All the drama at my old job...I'm glad that's all behind me now. Sooo, I guess this should really be in the above category. Although, I do dearly miss my regular visits with all the Charismatic Rats.

Sports: By far the worst was when Jose Mourinho left Chelsea. I still can't talk about it.

The Worstest: Saying goodbye to my grandmother, E.


So there ya go, folks. 2007. I'm sure I left out lots, but that's all the looking back I'm prepared to do. It's 2008! Hope that it's the best ever for all of you.

Happy Repeal Day!

Now, excuse me while I go get drunk.

You should too! If you don't...then that means you hate America.

Drumroll, Please...

Ebbsfleet United!!!

If I wasn't so sleepy, I would write more. I'm tickled pink!

www.myfootballclub.co.uk

Food, Critters, and More!

Or, A Few Reasons This Weekend Rocked

• Possum
• Lake House
• Deck Overlooking Lake at Said Lake House
• An Extra Hour
  
• Fried Catfish and BBQ Chicken
• Gas Fireplace
• Arsenal V Manchester United and Egg Sandwiches
• Dogs That Lay In the Middle of the Road
• Deer That Stand In the Middle of the Road
• Mr. Smith
• Ladybug Swarms
• Drunken Conversation In Which I Try To Convince Possum He Has To Die Before I Do, Because "Women Just Deal With Those Things Better" and I Don't Want Him To Endure the Agony of Having To Live Without Me.
• Vodka and Lemonaid
• The Razorbacks Win
• King-Size Bed
• Fat Friendly Roadrunner
• Remembering Life Is Good

Uhhh, Let's See...

Betcha thought I forgot about ya, didn't ya Internetty!?!?

I have been busy with real-life stuff that's frankly just too uninteresting to share. Maybe by now I have saved up enough semi-interesting stuff that when presented together may seem as though I have a life.

I quit my job because it sucked. I have been unemployed for four days, but I'm supposed to start a new adventure next Tuesday. Oh boy!

To celebrate my unemployment I got my hair cut and colored, a manicure, and a pedicure. It took over four hours at the spa to complete the overhaul.

Possum and I went to Fayetteville's swanky new movie theater last weekend. Malco's Razorback Cinema just opened and it's really nice. It's about damn time Fayetteville had a decent place to go see a movie!

We saw the much anticipated (by us , anyway) new Wes Anderson movie, The Darjeeling Limited. I just loved it. Everything about it was just so...pretty. I can say that in spite of the fact that Owen Wilson spent 99.9% of the time with his whole head swaddled in gauze and bandages, and what we did see was horribly disfigured...but hey, still pretty. If you don't already have India on your "must visit before I'm senile" list, you will.

And...if that wasn't keeping me busy enough, I am getting preciously close to being the owner of a British Football (uh, soccer) team!!! You know, me and about 50,000 other folks. I'm so excited I can barely stand it! www.myfootballclub.co.uk!!!

Internets, probably the next time you check-in I'll be able to tell you the story of my sucky job, the story of my new (hopefully less-sucky) job, and maybe even what team I own! Stay tuned!

"History is the set of questions we in the present ask the past."

I haven't yet, but I'm really excited to watch Ken Burns' new documentary "The War". Yes, I know. I never claimed I WASN'T a nerd.

There was a good interview on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Distraught

Where did you go, Jose?

He's still "The Special One". Just ask his wife.

Me...in 50 Years

The Catherine Tate Show - Nan

Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Demetri Martin is Cute

Demetri Martin + Travis=Goodness

OK, everybody...I'll see ya when I see ya. School has started and I am taking classes for the first time in over a decade! Lord have mercy! It's soccer time again, too. I'm a busy gal.

Venting My Spleen

I prefer not to dwell on the all-consuming horrendousness* that has consumed every waking moment of the week thus far. Instead, I choose to relish the one little ray of sunshine in my otherwise bleak existence. I'm number 1 out of 6 in my Fantasy Football(soccer) group!!! I'm number 29 out of all the folks in the Yahoo "Fans of Sunderland" group. I'm listed right up there with the Top 50, baby! Now, I'm not sure if this is indicative of any FF brilliance on my part, maybe it just says something about your average Sunderland fan. Either way, at this point I'm pretty pleased with the results of hitching my wagon to the Keane-O star.**

“If a player doesn’t want to come to Sunderland then all well and good,” The Guardian quoted Keane. “But if he decides he doesn’t want to come because his wife wants to go shopping in London, then it’s a sad state of affairs. It’s not a football move, it’s a lifestyle move. It tells me the player is weak and his wife runs his life.”

The Telegraph reported, “Keane’s recruitment campaign has been hit by a series of snubs and the former Manchester United midfield hard man last night vented his spleen.”

Keane said: “If there is nothing to do [in the northeast of England] then find something, because people who are bored are boring. Someone once told me that. People who get bored coming up to the North-east, they are bored because they are boring. It is nothing to do with the shops. Football has got to be the priority.”

http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/keane-o-vs-wags/

* Just stupid work sh!t. Nevermind the melodrama.
** Jose, no one can take your place in my heart. No matter how much spleen venting he does.

Forget Fantasy Football...This Is The Real Deal

This is my chance to prove to the world that I'm the next Jose Mourinho! For 35 quid I am now the proud owner of (to be determined) Football Club! I'll be sure to keep you abreast of the ins and outs of big time British football management.

The Dog Days of Summer Pop-Culture Extravaganza!!!

Okay internets, maybe I did forget about you. Sorry. In addition to taking life by the neck and attempting to give it a good shake like a terrier with a fat rat...here's the nonsense I have been attending to.

Knocked Up---Cute, but if you missed it in theaters...don't sweat it. It's more of a Netflixer anyway.

The Simpsons Movie---If you like the TV show, you'll like the movie. I went with two nine year old boys who thought it was the best, most hilarious movie they had ever seen. This resulted in a rousing rendition of "Spider Pig"...not once, not twice, repeatedly. On a more personal note, in the theater the nine year olds had to sit a couple of seats down the aisle from me. I am officially uncool.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix---I sure don't have anything bad to say about it. It's grimmer and more "real" than the previous films. I tend to prefer the flight-of-fancy quality of the third one though. No matter, you should be reading the books. Which leads me to where the bulk of my Potter attention has been focused...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows---Ooo Wee...as disappointed as I am that it's over, I'm OK with how it all wraps up (epilogue aside). No spoilers here though.

Octopus by The Bees (known in US as A Band of Bees)---Perfect 60/70ish summertime music, but with just enough '07. Makes me think of The Rascals or Three Dog Night or something, but I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Check it out for yourself; it'll make you feel good.

Calling the World by Rooney---Here's some more goodtimesummertime music that Possum and I have been listening to continuously. Sounds like snowcones! (We are such 13 year old girls)

That's all folks.

Triple Seven

"Luck is probability taken personally"
Chip Denman

7
VII
Septuplets
Seven Seas
Seven Jeans
Seven-Card Stud
Seven Deadly Sins

Hope everyone is having the luckiest of triple 7 days. Here's my seven things.

1) I usually don't mention My Boy on this here blog, because I usually try to limit my post topics to the inane. But, I'm gonna use him to excuse my infrequent posts this summer. We have been busy with summer camp, soccer camp, day camp, etc. Augh, kids are SO time consuming! Bummer that ensuring his proper mental, physical, emotional and moral development detracts from my ability to compose long posts on such summer cultural phenomenons as the Drama Chipmunk and thoroughly debate exactly what sort of critter that is anyway??? Some things the world may never know, but one thing is certain...it's damn, damn funny.

We did finally make it to the Fayetteville Farmer's Market this morning. There's always so much good stuff to see and buy. It's worth getting my ass up on a Saturday morning. The quality is noticeably better than anything you can buy at the grocery store and it's comparatively cheap, cheap, cheap. Plus, you are doing your part about the whole food miles thing!

2) Sorta on the subject of luck/chance (and to continue talking about my offspring), My Boy has discovered statistics and the art of BSing(I can't imagine where he gets that from!). I'm never sure if he is telling me a fact he has learned or if he is making it up as he goes along. It's been an education for me, though. For instance, did you know that "if you took all of Homer Simpson's burps and put them together you could make a song nearly three hours long and never have to reuse a single belch"! And, "if Star Wars Clones were real, they would have multiple phalanges due to the growth accelerator"!

3) Congratulations to my friend Christy, who like half of the world's single population is getting married today! Surely, they are lucky in love. It's gonna take more than three sevens on a calendar for me, though. Like...finding at the end of the rainbow a four-leaf clover, a penny and a leprechaun shitting rabbits feet and hollering “They’re always after ‘me Lucky Charms!”. Then...maybe.

But, I wish HER the best of luck!

4) And, still more congratulations to Marisa and Wil who are expecting! A January baby...that's surely lucky!

5) Speaking of all these college friends...I was lucky last week to have dinner with Mandy. She's in Fayetteville for a couple of weeks and it's so good to catch-up and talk of things that should be long forgotten.

6) Let's all spread the good-luck vibe to my friend/neighbor, her family and especially her middle boy. He is a Marine and he is headed to Iraq next week.

7) OK, back to the inane...and, I'm stretching here to come up with a 7th thing. All I can think of is a couple of songs that have been stuck in my head this summer.

For Reasons Unknown by The Killers-For some reason, Brandon Flowers' straining voice puts me in mind of Jeff Buckley or Jim Morrison...which can't be anything but a good thing.

Fluorescent Adolescent by Arctic Monkeys-These lyrics are great, there isn't a bad line. Bonus, the video has clowns! Clowns whooping ass!

Florescent Adolescent
You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your night dress
Discarded all the naughty nights for niceness
Landed in a very common crisis
Everything's in order in a black hole
Nothing seems as pretty as the past though
That Bloody Mary's lacking a Tabasco
Remember when he used to be a rascal?

Oh that boy's a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Not as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up...

Flicking through a little book of sex tips
Remember when the boys were all electric?
Now when she tells she's gonna get it
I'm guessing that she'd rather just forget i
Clinging to not getting sentimental
Said she wasn't going but she went still
Likes her gentlemen to not be gentle
Was it a megadobber or a betting pencil?

Oh that boy's a slag
The best you ever had
The best you ever had
Is just a memory and those dreams
Weren't as daft as they seem
Not as daft as they seem
My love when you dream them up
Oh, where did you go?
Where did you go?
Where did you go? Woah.

Falling about
You took a left off Last Laugh Lane
You just sounded it out
You're not coming back again.

Falling about
You took a left off Last Laugh Lane
You just sounded it out
You're not coming back again.

You used to get it in your fishnets
Now you only get it in your night dress
Started all the naughty nights with niceness
Landed in a very common crisis
Everything's in order in a black hole
Everything was pretty in the past though
That Bloody Mary's lacking in tabasco
Remember when he used to be a rascal?

Let's Come Together

What is the EU's sex film really selling?

Film Lovers Will Love This features sex, sex and more sex. Erm, what is it selling exactly?

Free Music!

Y'all will remember that I was obsessed with Dog Problems by The Format all last summer. This summer it's your chance...for FREE!

Happy Fourth of July!

Love

your

country.