Holy Moly! There was a bomb found under a bridge in Cincinnati this morning. The bomb squad was called in and they detinated it...but it was a real bomb...in CINCINNATI.

As you may know, I am a member of www.last.fm, my latest addiction. You can participate in the many message boards there. On one particularly mature thread you are supposed to rate the musical tastes of the person who posts before you on a scale from 1-10. I usually don't take it very seriously because I know that my musical taste rocks and anybody who disagrees obviously has sucky taste in music. However, I was rated 2/10 by one user which is actually kinder than most people are. I looked at this guys musical charts to see what he listens to and I was surprised at the hilarity of the names of the bands he listens to. I mean, he is like a goth caricature of himself. Here are some of the band names:
Morbid Angel
Black Witchery
My Dying Bride
Draconian
Shape of Despair
Death
Decapitated
Destroyer 666 (with an umlaut over the "o" in Destroyer)
Anorexia Nervosa
Gorguts
In Flames
Bloodbath
Suffocation
Hate Eternal

I mean, really! How can you be THAT much of a caricature of an angry goth kid. I actually find it funny that there are that many bands with such a wide range of gory names. Do you suppose that the lead singer of Bloodbath is going home for Thanksgiving this year to a proud grandma?

While I was looking at these bands I found another band of note called "Anal Cunt." Their industrial music is way too heavy for my taste but I am particularly fond of their song titles like:
I Lit Your Baby On Fire
I noticed that you're gay
You look divorced
Recycling is Gay
Jack Kevorkian is Cool
311 Sucks
I ate your horse
Big pants, bigger loser

Classy, Anal Cunt, classy. I bet your dad is so proud of you.

Todd and Stella: Best Friends Forever!

This is my www.stuffonmycat.com submission. I hope it makes it!

An action shot of Stella in the middle of her favorite game.

Oh Hello! What's this?

Why yes, this plastic bag is very comfortable.

Yesterday I went to the gym and I noticed a guy on a treadmill in front of me. He was wearing a long shirt and pants that were glistening and shiny. At first I thought that he was wearing a sweatsuit that was drenched in sweat, but upon closer inspection I realized that it couldn't be a simple cotton sweatsuit because that wouldn't be shiny. Perhaps it was a track-suit made out of that vinyl material that was so popular circa 1992. Later, when I walked past him and got a better look I realized that he was wearing a plastic outfit. It was made out of plastic, I am not kidding. He was sweating profusely and the sweat was sprinkling all over his treadmill as well as the two (unoccupied) treadmills next to him. Yeesh! It was pretty gross and I don't know why he thought a plastic outfit would be a good idea.

Tanya has proposed a question, what would be my top 5 proposals for postage stamp themes. I accept her challenge and while I think that I will have to think about it a while I can tell you that my top idea is "faces of ventriloquism." Can you imagine? It would be glorious.

Being the giant dork that I am, each year I eagerly await the unveiling of the new stamps for the following year. Well USPS you really disappointed me this year. 2007's stamps look like they were designed using only a focus group of people age 70+. And I tend to like things geared toward the elderly!

Let's go through next years stamps, shall we?
1. Hershey's Kiss stamps - Okay, these are mildly fun. I will most likely buy these, but only one design? Come on, would it kill you to maybe do a Hershey's Hug stamp also?
2. Oklahoma Statehood - Great. A boring stamp to commemorate a boring state.
3. Ella Fitzgerald - In theory, this could be a great stamp but come on, who designed it? Really, it looks like they used crayons. My 13 year old sister could design a better stamp then this one...it's kind of insulting.
4. Longfellow - Continuing the Literary Arts Series. Is there possibly a more boring poet than Longfellow?
5. Settlement of Jamestown - This stamp is interesting looking, it's triangular! However, I am hesitant to buy a stamp commemorating a settlement that had such poor relations with the indigenous people.
6. Wedding Hearts - Okay, just GAG me. These are just BARF-TASTIC. Are there really people who are getting married and use these horrid hideous hear stamps? Don't think you will see them on our wedding invitations. BARF!
7. Pollination - Usually the post office will do a spring flower stamp but I don't really like these. I suppose they are mildly interesting.
8. Pacific Lighthouses - Is there possibly a more boring and stereotypically old person subject than a lighthouse? Gag.
9. Actor James Stewart - Boring.
10. Marvel Super Heroes - This would be interesting except they did DC Comics this year. NEXT!
11. Tiffany Stained Glass - this has the potential to be cool but they picked a horribly boring image. Way to fuck it up USPS.
12. Vintage Mahogany Speedboats - It seems like they always do some kind of vintage transportation (cars, motorcycles, now boats) but I find those painfully dull.
13. Disney magic - They do a Disney stamp collection every year, I'm sick of it.
14. Okay now, prepare yourself for the motherload of all boring stamps.....a stamp commemorating....JURY DUTY. Yeah, jury duty. Wow, USPS, it takes mad skillz to be that boring.
15. Polar Lights - Pretty, but only two images? Why?
16. Holiday Knits - This is pretty cool, but very Senior Citizen. Each year they do a Holiday themed stamp, it was cookies, this year it is snow flakes and in 2007 it will be knitted things.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my 2007 stamp recap. I'm really mad because I was hoping for a cool stamp to put on the wedding invitations but I don't think there is one. I promise it won't be those barfy hearts though.

See the stamps here.

Today I got a phone call from a woman trying to sell me a subscription to a club that sells DVDs for like 1 penny...then you have to buy 4 at regular club prices (which is like $45 plus shipping). She was so nice and I couldn't find it in myself to be mean...but I'm on the do not call list for a reason damnit! I told her that I didn't have a TV. I don't know why, it just slipped out. The best part about it was that she paused and said "You don't have a TV?" And then SHE KEPT GOING ANYWAY. It made me laugh, so I apologized kindly and told her that I was not interested.

Gah! Her job must suck. I hope my little lie made her day as one of the strangest comments ever.

If you are a perceptive blog reader then you will notice the new addition to my page. Look to the right and check out my last fm chart, it's hard to miss, he is large and hot pink. It makes me smile and I hope you like it too. That will be a somewhat accurate listing of the musicians that I listened to the most in the last week. It should be automatically updated weekly.

I need to think of something to put on my cat so I can get on www.stuffonmycat.com. Any ideas? I was thinking international postcards, but Todd thinks that isn't funny enough.

So this was the best election day I've ever had. I went to bed safe in the knowledge that the Democrats would be taking control of the House.

Even better than election day was the day after election day. When I learned that RUMSFELD RESIGNED. Of course the greatest thing about that was that I was the person who broke the news to 4 people. I should have gone into journalism because it was so much fun to watch their faces shift from shock to pure happiness.

Today is a pretty great day too what with the close Senate races in Montana and Virginia coming out on the side of the Democrats. (Did you know that there were only 400,000 votes cast in the state of Montana? That's like the size of the city of Cincinnati!)

Ahhhh! Election day! My favorite day of the year! Really, you think I am kidding, but I am so not kidding.

I'm already reading about many problems with electronic voting machines, mainly that the old fogies who run the elections can't figure out how to get the dang contraptions to work! I'll tell you what, I'm more concerned about the people who KNOW how they work than the people who can't get them to work.

Last week I got a letter from the City of Lansing. I eagerly ripped open the letter, expecting my refund check...instead I got a very official looking letter insisting that I call them to confim my address from 2005. Grrr. I had to sit down and attempt to remember my address from 2005. I called this morning to confirm my address only to learn that I had not lived in Lansing, I lived in Delhi Township. News to me! I should be expecting a $42 refund check next week from Lansing. So thank you City of Lansing for that plesant surprise. You RAWK! Now, what do I spend my $42 on?

This weekend Todd and I went to see the Borat movie. We've been frothing at the mouth in anticipation for this movie, which is always a set up for dissapointment. The reviews were glowing, but entirely undeserved. The charm of the Borat character is watching the well meaning, polite Americans stifle their discomfort. You can't do that in a movie. I spent much of the movie trying to figure out if the people we "in" in the joke or not. But I still love Borat!

Also this weekend, the female members of our wedding party have purchased their dresses, so there is no turning back now! We've got other people who are spending money now, I guess we have to really get married. My mom tried to convince me that I have to select matching shoes for all the bridesmaids. Errr, no. Or at least a matching color... Please tell my mother that this is entirely not necessary. Now my aunt is in on it, too. MATCHING SHOES ARE NOT A REQUIREMENT (especially when the dresses don't even match).

Wow, day three into NaBloPoMo and I've already failed.

Today was an unexpectedly great day, and it's not even over yet! I presented to a group of 13-16 year olds today and it was so much fun! They were doing a great job of expressing their opinions and it was fun to watch the process of their ideas evolving. I am always so energized after a presentation like that. We had a staff meeting today which outlined the new performance reviews. You know that you are old when performance reviews get you all excited. The exciting thing is that everybody is allowed to review everybody else. So watch out evil co-worker! Muwahahaha!

I am planning on participating in NaBloPoMo this month. For those of you who are not internet savvy, that means National Blog Posting Month. That means that you can bookmark my blog and expect a juicy tidbit from my life each and every day.

I have become increasingly annoyed with my co-workers lately. But really, what else is new? It's been easier to let things roll off my back because I have realized that there are no consequences for any actions and therefore nothing I do, good or bad, is really going to have any impact on my job. I've begun the process of applying for Teach for America and I hope to be living in Philadelphia next year at this time teaching Middle School History and stuffing my face on cheesesteaks. Mmmm, cheesesteaks....

My "employee," the woman who I supposedly supervise, is driving me nutso. She conveniently has doctors appointments every single time I ever need her to do an evening presentation. Apparently now she needs knee surgery. Do I not sound sympathetic? Yeah, well, I'm not feeling so sympathetic. So even though she booked a presentation 6 weeks ago for this evening, she told me on Monday that she had scheduled a doctors appointment this afternoon...which meant that I would have to work late...as usual. I was completely dreading this and since karma owes me one, I got a phone call 30 minutes before I was going to leave telling me that the teacher was going home ill and I didn't have to go. Hurray!

Todd also introduced me to a band this week called Nouvelle Vague which is quickly becoming a favorite. They do this great Bossa Nova cover of Dancing With Myself. It's addictive; I can't get enough of it.

Well, I'm off like a dirty shirt. Catch me tomorrow!