The Science of Hobos

I took a shamefully low number of photos on my recent trip to Boston, and the odd ones I did take are in no way indicative of how much fun I had (which was a bunch).

I was surprised to see an entire exhibit on hobos at the Science Museum. The thing I like about hobos is that they are by their very nature a disorganized group (well, besides the annual National Hobo Convention). So there hasn't yet been any large movement to discourage people from making fun of bindles and boxcar jumping. I'm sure that it'll soon be un-PC, but until then I plan to keep using the word "hobo" as an insult.



Marking this outside a person's home indicates that they have a gun. Kind of like, "Stick 'em up, triangle!"



Took this one on a recent (just as fun) road trip down South. I really admire this vendor's confidence.

Chirp chirp

Two out of the three people who read this have commented that I've been a bit MIA these days, which is the kick in the pants I need to get back to posting meaningless jibber-jabber. The explanation for my absence? I've been busy/life is crazy/out of town/other cliched platitudes.

Speaking of cliches, I'm totally into twitter these days. I just can't help it--it allows me to express myself in non-sequiturs to my little heart's content.

If you are a skeptic, read this article about how twitter will change the way we live.

I decided to change my profile from restricted to public (I got nothin' to hide), so was proofing my entire feed to make sure there wasn't anything particularly objectionable or embarrassing (okay, so I DO have something to hide). My first three posts really illustrate how slowly the love affair with twitter develops:

still doesn't "get" twitter. 9:21 AM Jan 29th from web

forgot about twitter. 8:22 PM Feb 13th from web

is not an active twitter participant.
9:38 PM Mar 11th from web

Now, I post at least once a day, and sometimes upwards of four or five times. The best part for me is that there are endless opportunities for snark and meta-tweeting.

Give twitter a chance, and you'll fall in love with it just like I did.

I am the office Farrah

If you're a friend of mine on Twitter, you know that I am very predictable. At least 40% of my updates are hummus-related (the other 60% involve Flight of the Conchords). I eat my morning snack at roughly 10:30, as mentioned, and have done so for the past three years. Usually, it involves the best hummus ever (well, at least from the selection at the Kroger down the street).

A few years ago, I noticed that my hummus stockpile was depleting at a more rapid pace than usual, but I attributed it to my own absent-mindedness and lack of awareness about my own hummus intake. One day, though, it was clear when I looked at the scraped-clean container that something was amiss. Someone had been helping him or her self to the manna from heaven! Despite weeks of complaining and passive-aggressive notes, I never did discover who the culprit was. I suspect this person is no longer with our company, because my hummus has remained unburgled ever since.

My boss found this gem in our new building before it was gutted and renovated, and gave it to me in honor of my extreme crustiness about the Hummus Debacle. I still have it hanging in my cubicle as a reminder to be vigilant with passive-aggressive notes whenever such situations arise.

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Part 2:

Shy & Afraid of Everything

I thought I'd take this opportunity to share a story about my childhood (but really to brag about how I'm a fast reader).

For reasons not interesting enough to mention, I was wracking my brain today to recall some memories from preschool. My memory is sketchy at best, so I could only come up with three or four. Each one only served to further reinforce the fact that I was easily the shyest kid alive. There was the time I was afraid to give my teacher a note about missing a day; the time I dropped one of my favorite rainbow barrettes in the toilet but was afraid to tell my mom what happened to it: you get the picture.

The one that takes the cake is when I was afraid to tell my teacher that I was finished with an assignment because I figured she'd think I was lying about my own mad skills. Everyone in the class had to read this workbook about brown bears, and we were supposed to tell the teacher when we'd completed it so that we could move on to the workbook about polar bears or some such. I finished, but was too shy to say anything so I just waited until the next person was done (it happened to be my preschool crush) and piggybacked on that. So dreamy mcpreschoolerton got all the accolades for finishing first, and I came in a false second.

Lesson: I rock hard at some things, but my overactive imagination keeps me from getting the credit I so clearly deserve.

Lame relationship analogy

I think it's time to break up with my hairdresser. We've been together for over a year, and he introduced me to sideswept bangs, so I'll never forget him. But the spark just isn't there anymore. Oh how I remember when we first started seeing one another, and how I'd feel when I left his chair -- energetic, fresh, elegant. The euphoria would last for weeks, until our next visit. But the butterflies just don't endure like they used to. I mean, this last time, I felt the urge to see a stylist the very next day -- and, even worse, a different stylist. That's how I know that it's over, and it's time for me to move on.

If you live in the greater Cincinnati area and know someone you'd like to set me up with, please leave a comment with his (or her) digits.

BSG Sugar Cookies

This post requires a huge nerd alert. The Battlestar Galactica series finale was this Friday, and a friend and I trekked up north to watch it with my brother and his equally obsessed friends. I made cookies shaped like cylon raiders (the enemy ship pictured here) to further mark the occasion.



I had a ton of green food coloring leftover from other baking endeavors, but upon reflection I should've colored these black or gray, and maybe used red sprinkles for the cylon eyes. Next time.





I used this recipe for the cutout cookies and Martha Stewart's recipe for the icing.

Unrequited love

Recent events have turned me into quite the unromantic, unsympathetic curmudgeon. I can no longer set aside my prejudices and appreciate art for art's sake (and I use the word "art" loosely, as you'll soon discover). Tales of unrequited love induce only eyerolling rather than the intended emotions.

E.g., the Katy Perry song "Thinking of You," which is always on the radio. The chorus features lyrics such as "When I'm with him I am thinking of you." I usually turn the channel right afterwards, because boo fraking hoo. Just quit wasting the guy's time and you can moon over your ex boyfriend to your heart's content. Or, go back to writing songs about pseudo lesbianism.

A (slightly) more respectable example is the movie Like Water for Chocolate. A young man named Pedro falls in love with a girl named Tita. Tita's mother denies his request for her hand in marriage -- but says he can marry Tita's older sister instead. Pedro accepts the replacement sister in order to be closer to his dear Tita. At this point, I turned it off, so I don't know if maybe Pedro eventually learns his lesson or whatever. Probably not to my satisfaction, because if I had my druthers he'd end up miserable and alone to mull over his bad choices, and the main character would find herself happier without him.

Clearly, I'm projecting, but I'm okay with that. So into the mail goes Like Water for Chocolate, and I anxiously await the next movie in my queue.

Resolution updates

Usually my sporadic blog posts are mostly irreverent-- irreverence is way more amusing than sharing one's feelings earnestly. But today I'm breaking from convention to make a sincere recommendation (and oh, who am I kidding -- to brag a little).

I'm 2 for 3 on my New Year's resolutions -- as it turns out, I'm a creature of habit and really thrive on routine. The year ain't over yet, though, and I'm still going to strive to get out of my comfort zone whenever possible.

On the brighter side, I can (tentatively, while knocking wood) say that 2009 has been way more awesome than 2008.

Specifically, my resolution to run a half marathon has been going swimmingly. I can't run the 13 miles yet, but I can run 3. It might not sound like a lot, but I could only run 0 miles when I first started, and I'm confident that I can keep building and add 10 more by September.

Now that I'm done with the bragging part of this post I shall move on to the sincere recommendation part... if you, one of my seven readers, are interested in running, I'd strongly suggest you try the Couch to 5 K program. Not to belabor the obvious, but it took me from sitting on the couch to running 5 k in only 9 weeks. I've tried running as exercise a few times before but have always given up, probably because I had unrealistic expectations -- or maybe because I had no idea what I was doing. Sticking to a training schedule has been invaluable, and I'd give this program five stars/two thumbs up/an enthusiastic rating.

The warmest feet in town

Thanks to my sweet friend Suzanne and my fabulous mother, my feet will be nice and toasty for the remainder of this chilly winter. Mom sent me some Valentine's Day socks, and Suz must've been tired of hearing (reading) my complaints because she mailed me some cushy warm slippers. Since I wasn't expecting any packages, at first I thought it was the 'thrax or maybe a bomb, but then I remembered that I'm just a humble copywriter who has relatively few enemies.



I should complain about cold feet on my blog more often.

Breaking up is easy when you have a relevant playlist

Cheesy pop and country have the franchise on good break-up songs. Here's my recently compiled playlist that's totally been helping me get through those tough last few minutes on the treadmill.

"Fighter" - Christina Aguilera
"Forgive" - Rebecca Lynn Howard
"Song For The Dumped" - Ben Folds Five
"Mowing Down the Roses" - Jamey Johnson
"So What" - Pink
"Don't Lie" - Trace Adkins
"What Goes Around" - Justin Timberlake
"Should've Said No" - Taylor Swift
"Taking Off This Pain" - Ashton Shepherd
"Before He Cheats" - Carrie Underwood
"Kerosene" - Miranda Lambert
"Gunpowder & Lead" - Miranda Lambert
"Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" - Miranda Lambert
"Cry" - Angie Aparo
"Goodbye to You" - Scandal
"Amsterdam" - Guster
"When You're Alone" - Bruce Springsteen
"Here's a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares" - Travis Tritt
"Gives You Hell" - All-American Rejects

Winter is over!

Or at least according to Target. What's a girl gotta do to get a pair of nice warm house slippers? Only last month the shoe section had an entire row of fuzzy slippers, and now, nothing.

It's only February, Target. People might still have chilly feet at night.

Fake swearing

Battlestar Galactica is easily the best show ever. I'm not usually a huge scifi fan, but if the storylines and characters are good, I can overlook the space fighting and space hookers.

I'm partway through season two, and the only fly in the ointment so far is the incessant fake swearing. Instead of saying "fuck", the characters say "frak", but they use it in the exact same way. Examples: "frak you", "did you frak her?", and "don't frak with me!".

I appreciate what they're trying to accomplish, I really do. But the word "frak" so closely resembles the queen of all swear words that it only brings attention to itself. They should've picked a completely dissimilar word, like "snarg" or "joink", so the viewers would forget that writers wish they could pen the F word, but can't.

Click here to read an interesting article about swearing.

Open letter to an anonymous work vendor

Dear [Manufacturer Name],

I hate you. So much. Not only is your catalog woefully inadequate, but you are forcing me to research sports and sporting equipment in order to figure out what exactly one would want to know before purchasing said equipment. I don't care if most tennis balls are pressurized or unpressurized, and I don't want to learn the standard size of footballs. I want you to tell me what size your footballs are so I can put that information in the specs and forget that football even exists. Do a better job, [Manufacturer Name]. People want to know what stuff is made of and what size it is before they buy it sight-unseen via the internet.

On a personal note, the day I buy one of your products is the day I visit a Dunkin' Donuts.*

Suck it,

A Harried Copywriter at [Company Name]

*Confession: I got a Dunkin' Donuts coffee coolatta in a pinch at the Manchester airport a few weeks ago and am sorry I know how delicious they are.

Haiku to my new office chair

Cushy seat, firm back.

Much anticipated; I

appreciate you.