Did I Say That?

One of my co-workers posted this link to an Onion article dated January 17, 2001, shortly after the inaugeration of George W. Bush. It is eerily prophetic.

I wonder if it was backdated and the joke is on us?

LOLZ.  So, I just watched the Weekend Update with Sarah Palin, and it was HILARIOUS.  Not really because of Sarah Palin, but because of Amy Pohler.  Well, I guess Gov. Palin *did* give her a lot to work with.  But if you haven't seen it, make sure to check it out:

Weekend Update with Sarah Palin

I can't decide if Palin was a really good sport about it or not.  I don't know if her mouth thing is a part of the "white-girl-dance," or if she's trying not to spit with rage.  Could go either way.  What truly impresses me is Amy's ability to get down when she obviously getting ready to pop any minute now!  Go Amy! Go Amy! Shoot a mother-humpin moose!

I appreciate the encouragement, and I realize that I should clarify and say that I'll get to this on Saturday.  I have enough to do at work right now, so please harrass me on Saturday.  :) 

I need opinions on auto insurance.

Geico

vs.

Progressive

vs.

Liberty Mutual

The premiums are pretty much the same, so if anyone has an experience with any of these, I would appreciate your feedback!  Thanks!

http://icanhascheezburger.com/stor…

Free shipping until June 30th! :)

I am an awful, awful debater.  It's the same reason I wasn't a good history teacher.  Things really interest me, but the facts fly out of my head almost as fast as I can think about them.  I'll read an article and think, "That's a good point!" or "I really agree with that and am going to adopt that point of view!" but if someone actually questions me about why I'm doing something or challenges me to defend my beliefs, I'm like, "Duh.....I read an article about it and....uh...it just sounded like a good idea...."  I usually just say something like, "It's good for the environment," and hope that no one presses me for details.  I thought about starting to keep a small notebook of facts that support my arguments and keeping it in my purse, so I could whip it out anytime I get into one of these discussions.  

So, one thing I really appreciate is bloggers that condense articles down to the important bullet points, because then I have less to crowd my head when I'm trying to remember facts and form arguments.  One aspect of being more environmentally ethical I've been thinking about for awhile is reducing my meat consumption.  I haven't set a goal for this or anything, but it's something I've been trying to keep in mind when I'm selecting menus to prepare.  I don't see myself becoming a full-fledged vegetarian, mostly because I like a lot of different meats, and I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with eating it.  I do believe that Americans probably eat far more meat than we need to, and that much meat production is highly unethical, but this is only enough to make me consider the quantity of meat I eat, and where I get it from.  Then, today, one of the blogs I subscribe to, No Impact Man (my hero), condensed down a New York Times article into bullets, and provided more compelling and fact-based reasons to cut back on meat consumption:


I'm going to jot these down in my notebook (maybe) and memorize them.  And try to come up with tasty meals that don't use meat, or at least use less meat.  I can see the look of terror in Kevin's eyes already, as he reads this.  Liz, I'm sure you have some good ideas.  I'm going to have to get over TVP grossing me out.

Ok, this is not a real complaint, just a little bit of annoyance.

So, last year one of my New Year's resolutions (back to those) was to "live more ethically" which is a horribly broad goal, but it kind of worked out because I ended up just kind of going a direction that resonated with me, which happened to be environmental.  I really feel we have an obligation to take care of the Earth, and that it's important to be conscious of the impact our actions have, and take steps to decrease our impact when we can.  I know I'm just taking baby steps, but some things I started doing last year were using reusable bags at the grocery store, buying more locally grown and/or organic food, planting more in my garden and composting.  My greatest assault on the environment is my 50-mile round-trip commute to work, but I haven't found a solution for that quite yet (public transportation to Columbia? Doesn't really happen.  Don't get me started on this.).

My primary focus for this year is being a more responsible consumer.  And by "consumer," I mean both "one who consumes" and "one who buys things."  The things I am trying to do to this end are:
BUT ANYWAY.  I wanted to express a craigslist annoyance, which is:

To the people on craigslist who want to sell there items "TODAY" - Give me a break.  Your stuff is not that special.  I've had items up on craigslist for months and haven't sold a damn thing yet.  I'm ready to give like, $200 in stuff away just to get it out of my apartment.  So, plan ahead.  Don't just decide your thing must "PICKED UP TODAY."  Especially if you want people to give you money for it.  Get over it.

So, I was reading jms3382001's post about living consciously, and was inspired.  I've been feeling in a rut for years, and part of my rut is believing that I don't know WHAT I want to do.  After reading the article Jeff posted, I do question whether I *really* don't know, or if I *do* know, but I'm afraid to to *do* it, so I subconciously convince my self that I "don't know."  I'm planning on thinking about this some more, but in the past few days, when I have moments of quiet in the car or walking to a meeting across campus, I ask myself, "No, really, what would you do if you weren't afraid?" 

As at least a few of you know, I have a not-quite-real/not-quite-pseudo dream of opening up a coffee shop one day.  There are a lot of fears around this, but I think the one that freezes me the most (maybe) is, "What if I find out I really *don't* want to do it?"  

One of my New Year's resolutions this year is to work to figure out what I want the next step in my life to be.  Do I want to continue down the path that I'm on, or switch to something else?  If switch, to what?  I realize that we're only two weeks into the year, but I know myself, and I know we'll soon be two months, seven months (and my 30th birthday), then two weeks from the end of the year, and I'll be like, "Darn!  I didn't get to that figuring-my-life-out business."  And I understand that it's not realistic or even desired to plan my whole life out.  I'm a big proponent of riding the waves of life where they take you, rolling with the punches, whatever - I just feel like I've been bobbing along for awhile and trying to convince myself that I was "going with the flow," but I'm really just staying in one place, and I'd like to at least take control of my boat.  Was that an overused metaphor, or what?

But anyway, I know I have an issue with putting things off, and I was thinking about how I was ever able to be successful thus far in life.  I was thinking about school, and what a good little student I was, and I had a brainstorm - what if I created a syllabus for myself for the year?  It would be like, "Tracie's Self-Discovery 101" with assignments and deadlines and everything - and I could tie rewards or consequences to completing/not completing.  I might take some time to work on that over the weekend.

Anyway, when I started this post, I meant it to be a little funny and ironic, but then all that other stuff kind of just came out - so, what I was starting to say was that, after reading the Steve Palina article Jeff posted, I started thinking about the possiblity of this coffee shop, and was curious about Mr. Palina, so I visited his website, which seems to have good exercises and resources, and I plan to look into it more closely later.  However, before I browsed away from the page, this article caught my eye:

HOW TO GIVE UP COFFEE

Well, shoot.  Maybe Mr. Palina won't be able to help me so much, after all.  ;-)

I was just thinking it was funny that the eigth pain of Christmas in the "Twelve Pains of Christmas" song has a kid screaming about wanting Transformers, since, from what I can tell, the song came out the first time around Transformers were popular.  Everything old is new again! 

I'm sure you've heard of this group - the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, whose religion revolves around "God hates fags and caused the war in Iraq because there are so many fags and if you're son/daughter is a soldier who dies in Iraq (regardless of his/her sexual orientation), it is God's punishment for all the fags."  Brilliant! So sensible and logical!  And what wonderful poster children for Christianity, you know, the religion that worships the man who preached things like, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself."  When I think about them, I am at first enraged, but then the absurdity of their message just makes them irrelevant.  Except when I think about the funerals that they protest at, and then I get enraged again, because isn't the family going through enough, burying their loved one?

Anyway, one of my favorite blogs puts the clan in its place:

http://fourfour.typepad.com/fourfo…

Enjoy!

And if you have some extra time on your hands, you can see that God not only hates fags, he also hates figs:

http://www.godhatesfigs.com/ (make sure you click on the yellow sign to enter the site - it's not entirely intuitive)

Put down that Newton, sinner!