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Friday, 31 March 2006

Rambles

Right, so I had a training session last night and my trainer diagnosed me as being "weak" and decided to prescribe weight lifting.  I literally cannot move my left arm up or down at this point, even after having taken some pain killers.  I have no upper body strength whatsoever.  Pathetic. 

Also, I watched "War of the Worlds: Tom Cruise Edition" last night when I got home and I was so locked into it that I barely ate my dinner.  I hate movies like that, suspence coupled with the feeling like there is no hope.  Those movie get to me worse than ghost movies, and I hate ghost movies. Alien and zombie movies generally have that "it's the end of the world and there's nothing you can do about it" feel, and those movies terrify me.  Or more so, they are unsettling and although I'm not a creature of habit and comfort, I can't bear the thought that no matter what I do, the aliens will eventually vaporize me.  (PS, didn't "War of the Worlds" have sort of an anti-climactic finish?) 

Speaking of suspense, tomorrow is GMU's Final Four game and as much as I hate to admit it, I'm nervous! Before I just sort of went in thinking "hey, they've done so well, I'm so proud no matter what the outcome."  I'm still proud but now with all the hype and over-exposure, I'm starting to feel like if they don't deliver, it will be a huge letdown. Naturally this means lots of beer.  So whatever you're doing tomorrow at 6pm, just stop and think "I hope the underdog gets it." 

 

by: DJGroovySlug at March 31, 2006 12:56 | link | comments (3) random thoughts

Thursday, 30 March 2006

I just found out: I'm a jerk.   Two incidents:

1.  Last night I was getting dinner at a restaurant known for its extensive collection of beers.  My dining partner was reading the beer menu, then set it down on the table.  He hadn't stopped reading mind you, but I reached over and said "Are you done with this?" as I was picking it up, forget waiting for an answer.  I felt bad, but in a weird way.  I couldn't believe what I had done and  I immediately apologized and gave it back.  He hadn't minded (he still paid, whew) but man, did I ever feel like a selfish twat. 

2.  Today I was going into the kitchen to put away my lunch in the fridge and a staff member was in there organizing the coffee flavors for the machine.  I must've made some sort of irritated noise because she asked what's wrong.  I should preface that I probably sighed, and sighing is the most obnoxious over-dramatic thing in the world.  I hate it and I hate it when I do it. Anyway, she asked what was wrong:

"Oh, it's not Friday yet." (That's always a safe answer in the workplace.)

"Well, it's one day closer than yesterday."

"I guess.  I'm just so tired." 

She didn't say anything and I immediately felt like a giant tool. I was talking to the mother of a two year-old.  While I spent last night drinking microbrews, eating mushroom pizza, playing uno, coddling my no-fuss hamster and watching South Park, I can guess her night was slightly more stressful.  Probably included going home to a screaming hyper toddler who she prepared a meal that he refused to eat, then she wrestled him into the bathtub and promptly passed out before Letterman came on.  What's wrong with me?  I'm the tired one? Not to say she never complains, but honestly I have no right to complain about being tired.

When did I get this way?  Have I always been inately selfish and thoughtless?  It's scary and I'm worried that since I seem to do this subconsciously, that I'm just some spoiled brat.  How does one get over this? Besides self-awareness? I can't go around thinking "Don't be such a jerk."  When things come naturally to you, how do you alter your nature? Should I just get a therapist and blame my parents?
by: DJGroovySlug at March 30, 2006 14:50 | link | comments (4) random thoughts

Wednesday, 29 March 2006

Bah

So I left my wallet at home this morning...or at least, as far as I know, I left my my wallet at home.  I realized this when I got into the building and needed my security card to get in and I didn't have my wallet.  Now my mind is racing to make sure I didn't somehow lose it between leaving home and arriving at work.  I'm pretty sure that unless there are some really amazing pickpockets on the metro, it's at home on the kitchen table since I was cleaning out my purse last night.  Still, now it's on my mind for the rest of the day.

Anyway, last night I was rolling on the floor with this fine journalistic piece. Please turn up your volume so you can hear this:


All I want to know is: where can I get a leprechaun flute?

by: DJGroovySlug at March 29, 2006 10:23 | link | comments random thoughts

Tuesday, 28 March 2006

In which I try to remember if there is any way to access this blog without my having specifically given out the URL

I like to think of my life as pretty simple.  Just regular circle of movies, occasional nights out and sometimes I go crazy and attempt to make lasagna - from scratch. I know.  So when something out of the ordinary happens, say I go to Ecuador twice in one year or my alma mater goes to the Final Four in their first appearence in the tourney, my whole balance is out of whack. 


So last week I was standing in the Metro station, minding my own business.  If you're going to push for details, fine, I'll admit I was in the middle of a very detailed and elaborate daydream that involved a dramatic confrontation in a coffee shop, with me spilling my coffee and my hair flipping all over the place (in slow motion, of course). 

And then out of nowhere my high school freshman year crush walks right up to me and asks how I've been.  Odd. It wasn't a mind-blowing, call-his-house-and-hang-up sort of crush, but he was definitely the only boy I had any interest in that year, which is highly unusual for boy crazy Arlene.  I could go on about blue-eyed patrick - 4th grade - or Jonathan - 5th grade - who still borders on PERFECTION in my mind. But still, it was a crush, unrequited and something I never acted on.  I never regretted it and I sort of forgot all about him by sophomore year.

So when you're daydreaming in slow motion, to have someone you haven't seen in close to eight years walk right up to you, it's mildly disconcerting,  crush or not.  Of course he was riding the same line as me! Of course I had absolutely nothing to say! What does one do in these situations? One mumbles of course.  Especially when said person is currently earning a PhD and rambling on about heart disease while I try to come up with something clever to explain exactly how I've been since high school ("Uh...good.") Really, it's impossible to explain that in close to a decade I graduated from high school AND college, came close to marrying someone I now no longer speak to, visited 7 other countries, and started a blog.  I guess that was really all I had to say.  Instead we agreed to do lunch sometime.  How will I come up with conversation for 90 minutes?  I don't even know what heart disease is.

Alas, Dr. Crush was married (wha-? He's like, my age.  Jeez.) There will be no romantic plotline from this experience.  Unless it's in my head.  In slow motion.

by: DJGroovySlug at March 28, 2006 14:04 | link | comments random thoughts

Monday, 27 March 2006

I Believe



YES!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm in utter shock, it's so surreal.  They're talking about us! My school! We always had a decent basketball team but never did I expect our team to be gracing the covers of the New York Times, Washington Post, nor the homepages of ESPN and CNN/SI.  I've never been so happy to be part of something that has singlehandedly ruined millionos of brackets nationwide.

I have so much work to do but I'm completely distracted by press coverage of their win.

"This was the greatest run ever to the Final Four. " -Andy Katz, ESPN

"This was no fluke. It wasn't decided by the echoes of a referee's whistle, a freak injury, a twist of fate. The Patriots were the better team Sunday." -Gene Wojciechowski, ESPN

"Jim Larranaga's squad is the biggest Cinderella story ever. " Dick Vitale, ESPN

"Today, now that George Mason has beaten UConn to get into the Final Four, people are going to write about David and Goliath.

What if George Mason is Goliath?" -Gregg Doyel, CBS Sportsline.com

"George Mason is a Giant-Killer" Washington Post Headline

I can't believe this is happening.  George Mason University is in the Final Four! We're a Final Four Team!  Holy crap!

by: DJGroovySlug at March 27, 2006 10:53 | link | comments (4) things that make me happy

Friday, 24 March 2006

Today is one of those days, the kind where I ask my roommate if it's that obvious I'm wearing sneakers with my work outfit, because damnit I am not wearing high heels today.  I woke up early enough to actually eat breakfast at home and now I'm reminded why I wait until I get to work: I'm sooooo hungry right now, it feels like my stomach is eating away at itself.  Time to dip into the granola bar stash. 

Revamping the intranet at work has been a bit of a challenge, particularly in the differences of opinion regarding aesthetics between my boss and myself. He suggested scrolling text, something I abhor about as much as those animated flashing clip mailboxes that people add so that you know how to contact them.  Ugh.  My web design reputation is on the line here.  Well, Mr. Boss, I'll put up the scrolling text but I will not give it a different background color to make it stand out.  IT'S SCROLLING TEXT, IT ALREADY STANDS OUT. 

Anyway, tonight, this is it.  The big dance.  During the first two games Mason had everything on their side.  They were the underdog and no one knew what to expect when it came to playing Mason.  The expectation for Michigan State, and later Carolina, was that it was just an opportunity to squash another mid-major bug.  I wonder if Mason even registered on their radar, or were they already strategizing for the Elite Eight, the Final Four?  Mason was essentially under no pressure to play up to their standard: they didn't have one.   Now there's a bit of pressure there: we've beaten Wichita State, can we do it again?

Needless to say, I'm stressed.  I started stressing last night when LSU beat Duke and I started rambling on and on about underdog karma and there's only so many  upsets in a single tournament, etc. Basically, I'm going crazy and have actually debated not watching the game, maybe hitting up a movie instead, but I can totally see my friends sending me text messages like "Wichita up 54-50" and I start screaming and throw my phone at the screen in the middle of the film.   Best to be out where that behavior is acceptable. I'll leave me chakra crystals at home though.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I start burning incense to cleanse my soul of bad energies that could possibly affect the outcome of the game.
by: DJGroovySlug at March 24, 2006 11:25 | link | comments random thoughts

Thursday, 23 March 2006

I'm always utterly enamored by my friends.  They're good people, and they're mine!
by: DJGroovySlug at March 23, 2006 11:42 | link | comments (1) things that make me happy

Wednesday, 22 March 2006

Bracket Monkey No Pick

So the attorney organizing our office March Madness pool scored the first two rounds and I've pretty much accepted that I shouldn't even bother with things like these.  The Boy agreed to participate and made so many anal retentive changes to his bracket I was about to just ignore him and fill it out myself.  What  a bad idea that would have been, since he's sitting a comfortable 2 points away from tying for first while I'm....well let's just say there are 89 participants in the pool and that's pretty close to the number of my ranking. 

Mason is in the media, particularly the radio, a lot these days and I'm worried that we're starting to hit the overexposure mark, which can only lead to one thing: a disappointing loss to Wichita State.  I'll change the station.  The less I hear about it, the better.  I'm a huge believer in jinxing things, which is why I never talk about things I want to happen or rarely sit through sporting events that matter to me.  I will, however, be watching the game at a bar this weekend, because alcohol is the answer for both huge celebrations and crushing losses.

On a TOTALLY UNRELATED NOTE, I was reading this other blog about working moms, and jeez, nothing gets female hormones fired up like the argument between being a stay at home mother or a working mom.  We're talking no-holds-bar, claws out, hissing and name calling. I'm not worried, since I plan on cloning myself before I get pregnant so I can work AND stay at home.  Why didn't anyone think of this sooner? Where's my Nobel prize?
by: DJGroovySlug at March 22, 2006 10:53 | link | comments random thoughts

Tuesday, 21 March 2006

I've spent a good part of the morning researching press coverage of Mason's newly minted Sweet Sixteen members, the men's Patriots basketball team.  It's exciting finally breaking into something this big.  GMU is typically known as a "commuter school" and doesn't get the hype and the press as  the other big schools in the area, not to say that we're on the same level as Maryland, George Washington or Georgetown.  But under Coach Laranage Mason has had a consistently strong team, generally ranking high in their conference, the generally unimpressive CAA.  We've even made 3 previous trips to the tourney, although this was the first direct invitation to the Big Dance.

Of course, if you happened to scroll through the ESPN front page today, you saw Pat Forde's article ranking the level of pressure each Sweet Sixteen team was currently facing. 

"George Mason
Pressure gauge: 1
What could go wrong now? A flat tire on the bus ride from Fairfax, Va., to the MCI Center in D.C.? Beating defending champion North Carolina to reach this point was the greatest moment in program history. The Patriots can relax and enjoy their sudden celebrity this week, as the world discovers the joy of Jai Lewis. But the ride might not be over yet, with Wichita State up next. George Mason beat the Shockers on the road in BracketBusters just a few weeks ago. A regional final would be pure fantasy."

While I see his point (we should be ecstatic just to be nominated, etc.) come on! We've beaten Wichita State before and they want it just as badly as we do! This game is huge for both teams!! I think the pressure that a team puts on itself is not dependent on what is at stake.  Mason could choke it. Or they could play cool, calculated offensive and defense, just like in the last two games, and our seniors (Butler, Lewis and Skinn) might get to play another game after this one. 
by: DJGroovySlug at March 21, 2006 10:58 | link | comments (1) random thoughts

Monday, 20 March 2006

Observations whilst Ill

Wow okay so I wasn't expecting much from Elizabethtown, just your typical brain candy movie. But I am so pained by Orlando Bloom's American accent.  I mean, it's more of a very tame British accent.  Horrible.  It would've been more believable if Orlando played the adopted British son than playing a homegrown American.

So I got into the Next Food Network Star last night, a subpar reality show competition that was clearly filmed over the period of a week and will be drawn out over 13 episodes.  Gag me.  I'm sick.  Anywho,  they were showing scenes from next week's episode, which features criticism from Sandra Lee who I despise.  And the teaser clip featured good ole Sandra Lee making some sort of comment about how one of the contestants didn't know anything about cooking.  Umm, excuse me Sandra?  Two days ago you featured an episode that showed us how to make pizza with store bought dough and sauce and guess what? WE COULD ADD WHATEVER TOPPINGS WE WANTED! "Get creative" you said!!! Wooo! You called it "Takeout...In!"  Oh my god, you are a culinary genius!

Minnie Driver is the weakest point in Good Will Hunting. 

In the best turn of events, we've got free HBO for a week, perfect timing. Right now I'm watching Titanic. I'm sorry, it was a good movie.  It's not like City of God" good, but on the movie scale it's better than Independence Day, not as a good as Braveheart.  I'm watching the part where the band plays and all these people are being dragged into the water.  In retrospect, it looks like it's happening in a studio.  But at the time, it was technologically savvy. This movie is going on 10 years old!

When my roommate netflixed "The Red Violin" I thought "Hey! A movie with Samuel L. Jackson with a very low chance of him yelling."  Boy was I wrong.  Now we can add another classic Samuel L. Jackson phrase to the list: "I will be acknowledged."

I could go on and on and on but lord knows nobody wants to hear me talk more about TV and movies so I'll let it go.  I feel a lot better. Back to the grindstone tomorrow. 
by: DJGroovySlug at March 20, 2006 16:12 | link | comments