Beth's Contradictory Brain

Celebrities

We've had a celebrity filled couple of days this week. Well, celebrities to us.

Thursday we turned on our urban hipster mode and went over to a cool little neighborhood in DC to an even cooler little bar, Bourbon, that served the best burgers we've ever had in a restaurant, to hear Whitney of Pop Candy do an interview and Q&A. She also did some dj spinning, but we were too old to stay out that late on a school night. We spoke with Whitney for a few minutes. In spite of having one of the coolest jobs out there, she is really, really nice.

Then yesterday afternoon we were out and about with a friend of Nerdstar's (and now mine) at the local upscale mall and I recognized Newt Gingrich hanging out talking on his phone. Now, I realize 90% of my readers probably don't like the man, but I've been a huge fan of his ideas for a long, long time. Yes, he's a Republican, but his main goal is problem solving. Anyway. We kept hanging around waiting for him to get off the phone, but that wasn't happening. I sent Nerdstar and her friend off to shop and I hung out a bit longer. Then his wife met up with him, but he was still on the phone. Anyway. I did finally get to shake his hand, tell him I appreciate all his work, and that although I didn't buy his book, I did check it out of the library the other day :-)

But when it comes to hanging with celebrities, Nerdstar's friend lives on Hawaii's North Shore - so they're a dime a dozen to her.

Hurray For Palin

Wow. I have not been enthusiastic about McCain being the Republican nominee. Guliani was my first choice long ago, even though he probably wouldn't have made a great president.

Anyway, the more I've seen of Obama, the more the idea of him actually being president scares me.

So I was a little worried this morning waiting to hear who McCain had picked for VP.

Then once I knew it was Gov. Palin, I spent the rest of the day kinda excited. I've known for a while now there was a remote chance she'd be the pick.

For the first time in my life I'll actually be happy to vote for who I'm voting for.

That Event This Week

Anybody else watching the convention? I've mostly just watched Hillary and Bill's speeches - I wanted to watch it for myself before reading all the commentaries on different websites. I've had it on in the background a little, until I can't stand it anymore.

Yes, I'll be watching parts of the convention next week, too.

One thing I haven't mentioned yet, because it's still a ways off - I have volunteered to work at my local polling place on election day. It's a very, very small way to participate and contribute. I have to be there at 5 a.m. and stay until it's all done that night. Should be interesting.

Anyway - thoughts on any/all of it?? I'm not going to throw out my two cents just yet. I know I'm outnumbered around here politically :-)

Fun Fights

While Nerdstar was off playing Army girl, I finally got us a Wii. We've played a few little games on Wii Sports. So yesterday I finally got us the second nunchuck required to box against each other. Now my arms are sore in weird muscles!

It's certainly a fun way to knock each other out!!

Interesting Book

I thought this one might be something y'all would be interested in.

Every teenage girl has “that time of month,” as it is so euphemistically referred to, but in Cycler, the totally inventive and fun debut novel from Lauren McLaughlin, Jill McTeague discovers that during her time, her body goes through entirely different changes than most girls — specifically, four days a month, she becomes Jack, right down to all the appropriate plumbing.

More On My Suckage

Rossi - I like your idea a lot too! Smash Parties - beats the hell out of tupperware... literally :-)

I still wish I knew how to get this up and running. But I just don't. Hell, I can't even find anywhere I wrote about the idea to even prove I had the idea. I know I emailed someone about it, but I don't have that email account anymore. Hell, I don't even know if it's possible to patent an idea, or where to start, assuming the chick in San Diego hasn't already done so.

Sigh.

Food

I had Nerdstar do this one on 100 Foods, she's eaten so many more different things than I ever will.

Nada

Nothing new around here. That's not a bad thing. Just watching people run very fast in the Olympics. Kinda cool.

Looks like I'm waiting to see what my boss decides about who's going to be afternoon supervisor. Still not really leaning either way.

Nerdstar's going to take two weeks leave of absence from one job to go give another job a trial run. It's certainly nice to be able to try out a job before totally committing to it.

I Suck

I was flipping thru the news channels when I saw a brief segment on this place. What sucks so hard is that I've had that exact same idea for a few years now and have never found a way to make it happen. I suck. I've been talking to this guy at work about it, and he was trying to find some warehouse space or something, but no luck with his connections. Wait till I show him the link on Monday...

Courthouse Confessions

No, not mine...

Steven Hirsch, a working photojournalist, made all the photographs outside Manhattan Criminal Court, 100 Centre Street in New York City.

Week Update

Can't say this was my favorite week. Nerdstar and I keep getting into tiffs over my culture vs yours. But we keep getting into even bigger tiffs over just how much time the army takes up when it's only supposed to take one weekend a month and two weeks a year. Ugh. I am so sick of the army. I understand there are things she gets out of it, but I'm hoping she finds those things in other ways soon.

That's on top of staying up too late too many nights watching the Olympics. I'm getting a little bored now, at least they switch to track and field soon - so we can watch people fast on land as opposed to in the water.

As for Phelps, I think Lance Armstrong's 7 Tour victories are much more amazing. Plus Tiger's record. And I'm not sure I'll ever think an athlete is better than Jordan. Even in this Olympics, there are people like May and Walsh who'd have more medals than Phelps if they got one for every win instead of just one for the whole tournament. Yes, theirs is a team sport, but still... I'm not saying I'm not impressed with Phelps, just that I don't think he's the greatest.

All of this had made me grumpy at work. Not good. Today was better though.

A while back I was supposed to have an interview with this other company to work at a lab closer to home. While I was in Cali a different guy from that agency called about the same position. Ugh. So I decided to check it out. I had the interview yesterday. It was ok, but I'm still not 100% yippee about working for the other company.

To make it more fun, my current boss sent out an email saying he wants to hire a "assistant supervisor" for the 9:30 to 6 shift. Heh. That wouldn't be so funny if there wasn't already a supervisor on that shift screwing everything up. So, I told him I was interested. Problem is, he's out of town soon and won't be making any decisions until after the 2nd. I gotta put the other job stuff on hold.

I could also end up leaving thing just like they are - which is also fine. As of today I'm not thrilled about any particular option.

China and Olympics

I've been trying to compose this entry in my head for a while, so we'll see how it comes out.

I guess read this first.
THE Beijing Games are a party held in a prison. Never have the Olympics been held under such oppressive military control. Note that it's from an Australian newspaper, not American - if that makes any difference.

I know that the Olympics are all about the athletes, and striving to do your best, and all that. And I love that part of it! Although, applying the phrase "all of their life" to someone under 20 annoys me.

But the contrast between the Olympic ideal and the reality of life in China is just too big. And you'll never know that by watching the coverage of the Olympics. Do I think it's NBC's job to enlighten us. No. But the nightly news could, the NY Times could, CNN could.

I think part of the problem is that there's a wall bigger than the Great Wall of China that prevents understanding between Americans and the Chinese. I don't think either side can really understand what every day life is like in the other country. No matter how much I read, or study, or watch movies set in oppressive times and places, I'll never really get my brain around it.

You really don't have to look any further than China's hard line on internet censorship during the games to get a great example of how it works over there.

Here's a great article about the whole thing. "I'm not going to make an apology for something that the IOC is not responsible for," Rogge said. "We are not running the Internet in China. The Chinese authorities are running the Internet."

And

Beijing promised to suspend its usual programme of monitoring, which slows down the internet, and call off the tens of thousands of spooks blocking emails, monitoring websites and reporting back to superiors.

But the government line appears to have shifted. A leading official said that foreign journalists can enjoy "regular" access to the internet, but that did not mean total freedom.

Plus, you'd really have to have a background in the alternate meaning of works and phrases in China. Here's an article: Blinded By the Firewall Why the Chinese Think The World Loves China

I know most Americans don't want to "ruin" the Olympic experience by dragging "politics and oppression" into it. But there are 1.3 billion people who might benefit if we did.

Bad Parents

We've had Ramen dog for over six years, and he's been bored for 90% of it. This weekend we finally got him one of those toys you put treats in. He actually seems to like it, and has played with it. He doesn't usually like to play with toys, he certainly doesn't play fetch.

At least we're getting better.

Opening Ceremonies

It's kinda more fun watching with my Chinese Nerdstar. We're having friendly arguments about which country/culture kicks the other's ass. I simply say it's a shame we've done so much more in 200 years than they've done in 2000. And that having a billion people should have been much more to their advantage.

She says China's making progress. I say they still have a long way to go.

And I'm slightly annoyed at the shiny, happy portrayal of China by the NBC commentators, not that they could do anything else. (OK, they have made a few remarks of how things really are.)

That said, it is a very, very cool presentation being put on. (We started watching about an hour into it.)

MORE:

Nerdstar is trying to explain to me that the Chinese language does not have an alphabet. (The countries are coming in not alphabetically, but according to number of strokes in their character.) The characters represent words, there are no individual "letters". That's hard for my brain to really get around. Plus, how to they file anything?? Also are there other languages (Japanese??) that doesn't have an alphabet?

I'm driving Nerdstar very crazy asking all kinds of unanswerable questions.

I was wondering out loud about all the Chinese airport workers over there confiscating who knows what from all the visitors' luggage - and just how big of a black market there will be as a result.

Will the athletes all be eating Chinese foods, or will China try to accommodate all 200+ countries various cuisines?

And of course, who doesn't have "It's A Small World After All" running through their brain?

Strange

But fun for a Friday.

Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 23%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 77%

Site Male-Female Ratio
imdb.com 1.06
netflix.com 0.79
people.com 0.82
drudgereport.com 2.08
consumerist.com 1.7
icanhascheezburger.com 1.04
fark.com 1.82
gmail.com 0.9
toyotafinancial.com 0.8

You can try here. I'll try again after I've surfed around some more, but I don't think it takes into account links from my blogroll... AND people.com is ALL Nerdstar, not me. So I think taking that out would make me even more male... like I said, strange.

I tried it again after reading through my blogroll - but no change, so for me it's not really accurate at all.

Best Ever

While I'm sure you're going to be very tempted to just ignore the Paris Hilton political ad - DON'T. I'd say it's the best political ad ever.

Fount of Snot

That's me - a regular fountain of snot today. Now, it's really my own fault for being overly optimistic. See, after getting sick the last time I flew I swore I'd wear face masks next time. I did bring said face masks, but I failed to put them on, I thought I wouldn't get sick. Ugh. Of course, now I've got serious sinus problems. I'm hoping it's not a full blown infection and I can self medicate.

This is when it's good to only work every other day. I'd have had to call in sick today anyway.

Nerdstar's Take

Here's her entry about her trips.

Monterey Pics

I didn't post too many, but here's a good sample of our views last week.

Safe and Sound

We both made it home today!! My second flight of the day was delayed about 40 minutes, but hey, that's pretty good these days. But please, remind me to never fly on the weekend during the summer when every kid in the country is also flying. Not that the kids I saw were misbehaving, I'd just rather they weren't all over the place.

It's still weird to me to be on one side of the country this morning, and be on the other tonight.

I'd much rather still be on the other side. Yes, the west coast is entirely too liberal, but damn it's pretty and has perfect weather.