lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Thursday, June 27, 2002
We are completely insane...

You know what Josh and I did last night? We rearranged our living room. And I mean COMPLETELY rearranged, as in, NOTHING is in the same place it was before. Sometimes I just get an itch to change things around like that. The worst part of this was moving our computers. That would be THREE computers, to be exact: our "real" computer, our computer that is our web server (that would be why it was down for a little while last night if anyone noticed), and a computer that was backing up everything on our hard drive and web server, which incidentally decided to quit working after about 2 minutes of running it again, so now until we buy another hard drive, we have nothing backed up anymore -- that's a little nerveracking...

The nice thing about how things are now is that everything but our main computer is now on the floor in our coat closet (boy, that sounds really weird -- but it's a double-wide closet with sliding doors and our coats and everything aren't in the way...just trust me, it's working very well thus far). And our main computer is right next to the closet, tucked away in a corner much more than it was before. The end result of all this is: 1) I don't have to look at a bunch of ugly computers all the time, and 2) it's freed up a lot more space in the rest of the room, so that it just feels much more roomy and nice. It was all a major pain in the you-know-what, but change is nice sometimes...

I know Kaly's the only person who will really be able to appreciate this change, since she's the only one who reads this on a regular basis who had seen our apartment the way it was before and is also the only one coming to visit us anytime soon (as far as I know, anyway). So be warned, dearheart. :)
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Wednesday, June 26, 2002
And now, the latest installment of:

Josh's Church League Softball Update.
Mt. Pleasant Lutheran wins, 16-8; now 4-1 for the season.
Josh goes 0-1; now 2-5 for the season.
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Tuesday, June 25, 2002
I was just listening to the song "Polyester Bride" by Liz Phair (one of the many songs I have on our computer), and I have decided that once and for all I would like to know just what the heck the lyrics mean. Anyone who would care to try to decipher them, feel free to express your opinion and then I will decide how correct it is.

I was talking, not two days ago
To a certain bartender I'm lucky to know
And I asked Henry, my bartending friend
If I should bother dating unfamous men
And Henry said, "You're lucky to even know me.
You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky to be drinking here for free 'cause I'm a
Sucker for your lucky, pretty eyes."

And then he said, "Do you want to be a Polyester Bride?
Do you want to hang your head and die?
Do you want to find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?
Do you want to flap your wings and fly away from here?"

I was sitting, not two days ago
Feeling lonely, 'cause I'm just feeling low
And I asked Henry, my bartending friend
Why it is that there are those kind of men
And Henry said, "You're lucky to even know me.
You're lucky to be alive. You're lucky to be drinking here for free 'cause I'm a
Sucker for your lucky, pretty eyes."

"Princess, do you
Really want to flap your wings and fly. . .
Because you, you've got time."
And he keeps telling me, "You, you've got time."
But I don't believe him
"You, you've got time."
I keep on pushing harder. . .
I keep on pushing farther away

And he keeps telling me, "Baby," he says, "Baby, do you want to be a polyester bride?
Do you want to hang your head and die?
Do you want to find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?
Do you want to flap your wings and fly away from here?
Do you want to be a polyester bride?
Princess do you really want to flap your wings and fly away from here?"
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Now that I have comments from a whole THREE different people (none of whom are my husband, even--okay, so one is my sister and one is my brother-in-law, but one I'm not even related to!), I am curious just how many people actually read this thing. Ever. So if you do, ever, kindly post a comment simply saying so. This way, I will know who my friends are. And who I can say mean things about without them knowing. ;)
4:22 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Question(s) du jour of the day:

Could a certain someone possibly reach the TWO MONTH mark in not updating said person's film page? Does said person not consider himself a "movie critic"? Is the world as we know it coming to an end, or is this just the ultimate example of laziness?

Of course, what was I thinking in asking such a ridiculous question? Have I forgotten how rusty my haiku-judging skills are?
11:34 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Monday, June 24, 2002
Celebrity Sightings de nos vacances of our vacation:

1. Raymond, infamous Wheel of Fortune contestant with an eternally weird demeanor, and most likely unheard of by everyone but Kaly.
SIGHTED: Right in front of us in the audience line-up for the Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn.
[~3:30pm PDT, Fri. May 24, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA]

2. Patrick Stewart, Shakespearean actor and, as everyone knows, *WAY* better than Captain Kirk.
SIGHTED: Walking past us in the hallway right outside Craig's studio (this came as a complete shock to us, as we were unaware that he was a guest on the show); then, well, on the show.
[~5:30pm PDT, Fri. May 24, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA]

3. Meredith Brooks, musician with a hit song of an unfortunate title featured in the movie What Women Want when Mel Gibson is shaving his legs.
SIGHTED: Also on the show.
[~5:50pm PDT, Fri. May 24, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA]

4. Craig Kilborn, obnoxious-but-lovable late night talk show host and one of those inherently funny people--I can't help it, he just makes me laugh.
SIGHTED: Um, he IS the show.
[~6:00pm PDT, Fri. May 24, CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA]

And now, for unarguably the most impressive (and most truly random):
5.  Paul Dooley, actor seen in such TV shows as "Mad About You," "Grace Under Fire," and "ALF," and in such films as Sixteen Candles, Runaway Bride, and as the curmudgeony UFO abductee in the funniest movie ever made, Waiting for Guffman.
SIGHTED:  At a mostly-empty Taco Bell near Warner Bros. Studios.  Imagine, you're unsuspectingly eating your Grilled Stuft Burrito when you realize that the man who just walked in the door is Mister Probed-by-Aliens himself.  We were so dumbstruck we forgot to ask him if he had any feelings in his buttocks.  (If you don't get that last statement, I guess you need to watch the movie, don't you?)
[~9:00pm PDT, Fri. May 24, Taco Bell, Burbank, CA]
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Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

No, I did not run into Kofi Annan at the grocery store (chances are very slim that that could ever happen AGAIN...)
No, no, he was the key-note speaker at Northwestern University's graduation ceremony. And Tony Randall received an honorary doctorate. So there you go.

While I'm on this kick, perhaps I shall convey our other recent celebrity sightings...

Perhaps...
1:38 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Friday, June 21, 2002
Today's Celebrity Sightings du jour of the day:

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the U.N.
Tony Randall, actor

Yes, really.
11:49 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

It's truly amazing the things you discover when you go online on a different computer than you're used to.

I am at a library computer in Libertyville, IL (as we are going to a friend's college graduation later today down in Evanston), and it has come to my attention that web pages that I have invested a lot of time and energy (and frustration) into--you know, to make them look all spiffy with somewhat non-boring fonts, the correct spacing and lining-up of things, keeping them within the computer screen so people don't have to do that annoying scrolling over thing to read everything--has all been for naught. Or at least mostly. So many things on pages I have made are not the way I made them (aka the way they show up on our computer), and unfortunately I have no way of knowing how many of the computers out there are viewing my work in this messed up form (although, who am I kidding, really, that anyone's actually looking at this stuff?).

Regardless, I am rather unsettled by this and wish to know if there is some way to make sure people see an accurate representation of my efforts. I know that the only way to fix the font problem is to make the text into an image. Okay, I can do that. But what about the other stuff? Is there any way to fix it so that it is universally pretty? Anyone?

[Oh yeah, I have also learned that without my handy-dandy bookmarks, I have much trouble finding many sites I go to on a regular basis...]
11:33 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Thursday, June 20, 2002
So when we chose this apartment a year and three months ago, it didn't seem like too big a deal that it was an upper-floor apartment instead of a ground floor one. Afterall, the floorplan we wanted was only available on the second floor, and it was March (read: not hot outside). But it's days like today that make me wish we had chosen differently...

It is currently 90 degrees with a dewpoint of 70 (for anyone who doesn't know anything about dewpoint, that means it's WAY humid, muggy, sticky--pick your adjective--and just feels a lot hotter than it is). So I hadn't turned the AC on before I left to run some errands this afternoon, because the temperature in our place was...tolerable. Then I came home a couple hours later with a car full of groceries. Now, the way our apartment complex is set up, if you have a second-floor apartment, the stairs up to that second floor are in your apartment (there are no inner corridors--everyone has their own private door on the ground floor). So basically right inside our door is a tiny landing and then stairs up to, well, everything. Because of this, if the AC is not on in your apartment, once you get about halfway up the stairs you start to enter a sauna (made even more pronounced by your leaving the small puddle of cool air at the bottom of the stairs--a sign that the apartment below is probably not as sauna-like as yours). This is particularly unpleasant on a day like today, when I have to make about six trips up those steps with my arms full of grocery bags and jugs of milk and orange juice that are sweating so much they are in danger of slipping out of my hands, bouncing down the flight of stairs, and finally going *splat* at the bottom.

So as a service to the public, I shall provide a list of reasons not to live in an upper-floor apartment:

1. Moving in and out--much easier when there are no stairs involved.

2. HOT in the summer. Thus leading to higher electricity bills than your smarter, ground-dwelling friends. But wait, shouldn't you then have lower heat bills in the winter? Theoretically, yes--assuming the winter is actually cold (which this past winter was not), and gas prices are like they were two winters ago (also not typical). The short answer: your lower heat bills are not likely to make up for your higher AC bills.

3. Can't drop heavy things (i.e. dead bodies) on the floor without neighbors below you complaining.

4. Did I mention the stairs? Everything's easier without stairs. And that exercise stuff is highly overrated.

5. Gallon jugs of sticky liquid bouncing down your stairs and going *splat*. Get rid of those stairs! Get rid of them, I tell you!

Wow, am I ever boring...
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Wednesday, June 19, 2002
My husband is a constant source of amusement.

2 Quotes:

To me on my birthday:
"Wow, you're the same age Matt was when he was 23."

Just before I got on the computer tonight, when he was looking at something online:
Me:  "Whatcha doin'?"
Josh:  "I'm reading about robot soccer players--why, do you want the computer?"
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I have two current annoyances with Blogger:

1. The sign-in on the main page refuses to remember my username and password no matter how many times I check the little box.

2. My session times out after a ridiculously short amount of time. It seems that if I take longer than about 20 minutes on an entry or messing with my template or whatever, it won't publish and I have to re-sign in (thus having lost my entire post unless I was smart and copied it into Word or something). I may have to start writing my posts in Word in the first place and just pasting them in here when I'm done. What stupidity...
11:53 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Tuesday, June 18, 2002
And now for another installment of:

Josh's Church League Softball Update.
Mt. Pleasant Lutheran loses, 9-14, falling to 3-1 for the season.
Josh goes 2-2, scoring 1 run; now 2-4 for the season.
11:53 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Matt has informed me that today is my birthday. So happy birthday to me.
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Monday, June 17, 2002
Okay, the songs.

I don't know what it is about music, but it just gets me. When I become obsessed with a song, I will scan radio stations in the car until I come across it, watch VH1 and MTV in the hopes that they will play the video (except in the cases when the song is either too old or not mainstream or popular enough to be on the radio/TV), download the mp3 so I can listen to it on the computer whenever the mood strikes me (usually about 5 to 7 times a day at its peak), and eventually either stick the song on a mix CD or buy the album--the latter if there are additional songs on that album I happen to enjoy (I won't typically buy an entire album for just one song).

With each of these songs, the obsessive part of the obsession eventually passes, and the song is then relegated to the ranks of "songs I am highly fond of but won't go out of my way to listen to constantly." The best ones will receive the high honor of being named among "my favorite songs" (not necessarily a well-defined list, but something I have to come up with on occasion for bios, etc.).

So now, what I know you've all been waiting for: just what type of songs does our Beth-Annie become obsessed with?

Some past examples (in something resembling chronological order):
"Welcome Me" -- Indigo Girls
"Lightning Crashes" -- Live
"Kiss from a Rose" -- Seal
"Deeper" -- Delirious
"Missing Person" -- Michael W. Smith
"Daylight Fading" -- Counting Crows
"Walking After You" -- Foo Fighters
"Standing Still" -- Jewel
"1000 Oceans" -- Tori Amos
"Save Me" -- Remy Zero
"Somethin' Stupid" -- Robbie Williams w/ Nicole Kidman
"Hunter" -- Dido
"Breathing" -- Lifehouse
"Open Up" -- Dispatch

And my current, up-to-the-minute song obsessions:
"Safe and Sound" -- Sheryl Crow
"Fly" -- LaRue
"Flake" -- Jack Johnson
"California" -- Phantom Planet
"American Girls" -- Counting Crows
"Overprotected" -- Britney Spears (don't ask, I don't know why)

So this thing can now become a forum for me to communicate to the world my obsessions--musical and otherwise. Because I know the world cares.
12:05 AM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Sunday, June 16, 2002
Obsession is a part of my personality. I get obsessed with things REAL easy. Some people know this about me; others I'm sure have no clue--and they don't know that about me, either. So I will enlighten you.

Things I have a tendency to become obsessed with:
Places --i.e. California.  I suspect the same thing will happen once I visit Florida.  Must be the palm trees and the abundance of ocean.  Please, please, please, don't ever let me go to Hawaii.
Smells--you know, lotion from Bath and Body Works, shampoo or body wash, perfume samples from magazines...that's not really weird...is it?
TV Shows--only one of these obsessions has really lasted (if you call 8 years lasting, anyway), and I probably don't have to tell you what that one is.  But it starts with an "S," ends with a "DSV" (or a "2032," depending on which season), and has a "Q" somewhere in between.
People--well, maybe "obsessed" is too strong of a word for this one.  It makes me sound like a psychotic stalker or something, which, I assure you, I am not.  So we'll just call me a "big fan" of certain people, such as: Ted Raimi (or anyone else from that show I did not mention above), Erica Haugen and Megan Taylor (ISU WBB team), Annika Sorenstam (LPGA player and namesake of my first female child--or second if Josh gets Megan Taylor for the first), Tom Cavanagh, anyone I've had a big crush on (my husband included, hi honey!), and a certain person who shall not be named here but falls under two of the above categories, and is probably the most worthy of the term "obsession" (in my past, that is.  Said person was years ago demoted to the "big fan" category).
Songs--this is the one we shall discuss today.  Nah, later today.  Or maybe tomorrow.
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Saturday, June 15, 2002
Since it appears someone has actually noticed that I haven't posted in a couple of days, I guess that means I actually have to write on this thing.

The only two things I can think of to say right now:

1. Josh and I have spent much of this evening designing a brand-spanking-new website that I think will be very pretty when it's all said and done. We'll let you all know when it's finally up (hopefully by tomorrow night or Monday). Did I mention that html and all programs that use it can take a flying leap into a very hard brick wall?

2. Those new Snapple commercials really creep me out. I appreciate them trying to do something a little different and weird (I'm always a fan of weird), but I just don't like heads of hair on my beverages.
11:39 PM || I want to be a comment. Post me!

Thursday, June 13, 2002
hello everyone this is my journal now in the james joyce style inspired to me by no email in particular matt but don't worry not every post just this post is going to be this annoying and also the address of this will hopefully be changing soon to our server but we're having ftp problems because blogspot is stupid and won't let us ftp to a local machine which our machine is and hopefully we will get it fixed if we can get it fixed if not you'll have to look at ads i'm sorry
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