VOTE!

I finally managed to fill in the oval on my presidential ballot today. It was tough for me. I think I'm always waiting for that great candidate, but let's face it, this is politics and great isn't really something that comes with the territory. Now I just get to hear all of the commercials and wish they would go away. Only 6 more days...

summer lovin'

It's so odd how you notice, seemingly overnight, that the days are getting shorter and shorter...One thing that kept me laughing all summer was this video:



It pretty much reeked of boy band flava. It took me back to middle school and reminds me the most of LFO's little diddy:



Believe it or not, I have actually seen LFO in concert (I swear, the dark haired one totally made eye contact with me). I admit to this embarrassing truth, because, let's be honest, it has to factor into my current life about as much as those pogs do that I used to play with at recess (I hope).

If you can manage to make it all the way to the end of the New Kids video - the funniest, boy band signature moves start around the 2:30 mark.

dnc

It's about that time...



but beware: you can't believe everything you see online.

some things never change

I recently made a drunken mistake which landed me with a black eye (you should see the other guy...). All seriousness, I fell getting out of the backseat of a car. Here I am, thinking this is a random event, when I soon found out from my mother that this type of thing is in my fate. Per my source, I learned that as a small child, I never got the hang of putting my hands out to catch myself when I would fall. For most of my young life I walked around with a permanent bruise on my forehead because of this. According to my mom, she was weary of taking me out in public because she was afraid that people would think she was abusing me. This little piece of information puts a lot of my adult life in perspective. I guess now I have an excuse for returning to work every Monday with a new bruise.

i'm this many

Age ain't nothin but a number, but it sure can make you feel old.

whadyaknowjoe

A little over a month ago my grandpa passed away. After weeding through the security line at the airport, I ended up at the check point. On previous trips I had always been able to sneak larger-than-3-oz. sized fluids/liquids. Go figure that on this trip, when I was already incredibly bummed out and silent I would get caught smuggling. My defense? The bottle, which was marked at 4 oz. was practically empty, and therefore well below the 3 oz. limit. The guard wasn't going to let it fly. He gives me a smile, and then asks if I was headed home from school (turns out that to many strangers I look like I'm a teenager, even though I'm going on 25). I thought about lieing so I could get through the line without having to talk about anything too personal, but in the end the idea took too much energy to carry out. I tell him where I'm headed and he tells me to stay put. He walks back with this:


Turns out that he used to give out hugs but was told that that wasn't "professional." It just goes to show you that the unexpected really does catch you by surprise. Standing in the middle of that crowded airport, I felt a little less alone and a lot more optimistic. His gesture helped me to focus on how wonderful a person my grandpa was. Now I'm just trying to live by example.

my apologies

I just realized that I have been very very bad at posting in 2008. Three posts in four months? Unacceptable. I promise though, that I've been busy! If I'm not working, I've been boarding. Most likely running into things and hurting myself in the process. I keep going regardless of the sprained ankle, near arm breakage, and knee-on collision with a boulder. It came out of no where, I swear. As today is the first of April my time left on the mountain is short and will soon enough be over. What will I do with my "spare" time??

you don't know me!

I stumbled onto this website last night and I have to admit, I fall into a lot of these...Give me my North Face and my ipod and I am a happy girl.

Stuff White People Like

present for you

I recently moved in with a friend. She had cleaned out a lot of her stuff and things that she didn't want anymore, she gave to me. These kinds of spring cleanings can feel like you are going to a garage sale in your own house. All kinds of new and fun goodies at your disposal. My behavior, though, made me laugh. She gave me a couple of bottles of hair stuff from the bathroom. I thankfully and graciously accepted them...and then went on to put them in my room. Why? They belong in the bathroom - where they came from. I thought about this and thought it was really funny. It was almost like they went in my room to signify that I accepted them and they now belonged to me. Is this human nature of accepting a gift, or am I just really bizarre???

itunes blunders

I may be sleep deprived but I am awake enough to know I've been had. I was so excited to log onto itunes tonight to find that the new Jack Johnson cd that is coming out tomorrow was already available to download...so I jumped on it. I got out my gift card (a lovely Christmas gift) and got ready. First, itunes seemed to be having error issues. I got through it. Then I had to update my account info. It wasn't until after my card got charged that I saw you had to go to a completely different section to begin with to enter your gift card info. Why can't itunes be more like amazon and just do it all at the end of your purchase? I'm a huge fan of apple products. But I thought their big thing was simplicity and ease of use? If they won't put the gift card entry at the end of a purchase, atleast make the link at the begining REALLY big. :(

the sound of music

I was surprised to find out that Harry Potter has a little ghetto fab in him.

snowball

The '07-'08 snowboarding season has been anything other then ordinary. My first day up a couple of weeks ago I managed to be the proud owner of a runaway board that decided to launch down a small hill and head directly toward a group of people waiting in line to get on the lift. Not wanting to look like I didn't care if it hit anyone, I actually tried to run after it. In my snowboarding boots. It didn't work well. I did not catch up to it.

Later that same day, I managed to sprain my ankle.

My next time up I was staying overnight at a hotel during a weekend event which included 36 hours of events and skiing/boarding time. My floor had a lot of big groups of high school/college kids. One room managed to set the fire alarm off for the entire hotel by the massive amounts of pot they decided to smoke. Walking out my door, the smell hit you in the face. It was obvious what the culprit was. This occurred around 8 am. I was THIS close to getting in the shower. Sometimes I am glad that I'm lazy in the morning.

My most recent attempt was cut short due to my inability to wake up to my alarm. I overslept and by the time we got on the mountain it was already 12:30 in the afternoon. We did a few runs and then I was lost. After my 30 minute wait I had a 1 hour lunch with my friends. We did a run and couldn't stand how cold it was. I did a total of three runs that day. Maybe not worth the drive and gas, but the view was nice.

they're baaaack

Back in the late 80's early 90's I was a huge fan of American Gladiators. I don't really know why. I guess I am easy to entertain. You can only imagine how excited I was to find out that NBC is bringing the show back in January of '08. A lot of the old events seems to be making a comeback, but from the commercials, the show seems to have more of a sexy edge. If you go to the Gladiator Zone website you can read up on the new Gladiators. The guys seem to have a little bit of a crazy look to them. I don't think I would do well if I crossed them on the street. All of this change made me nostalgic. You really can't beat the spandex that was my childhood.

mr. predictable

No such thing in sports! It was a sad weekend for the Rockies, but this win looks like something straight out of the movie "Little Giants."

ello govna'

There isn't much to this commercial, but it is pretty much the one thing on tv that makes me laugh every time I see it.



I'm a big fan of the new one, too...



Love it. Can't wait to see what they come up with next...

cuz it's one...two...

My best friend called me the other night and when I told her I was watching the Rockies game her response was "Why?" (keep in mind my friend lives in California, so may not be aware of how well the Rockies have been playing). Turns out, our talk made me realize why I actually like watching sports. It's because of this:



I love the energy of sports. I love being surrounded by people and the anxious moments that come along with being a fan. When you step back, you realize just how absorbed you are in the moment.

Happy Rocktober!

how to find mr. or mrs. right

Several years ago in a faraway land, I took a memorable psychology class from a professor whose interest in the field seemed to be motivated, at least in part, by a desire to unearth new tricks for beguiling the opposite sex. Ethical implications aside, his lectures were generously garnished with anecdotes that held his wide-eyed freshmen audience in rapt attention.

Among the tips he shared was a psychologically based method for casually gauging just who might be checking you out in a crowded place: yaawning. The theory goes that if you yawn, anyone who’s surreptitiously watching you won’t be able to resist yawning too, giving themselves away (and marking them as a susceptible target for wooing).

The trick is based on a real phenomenon called “contagious yawning,” in which seeing, hearing, or even thinking about someone else yawning causes you to follow suit. The biological function of yawning is debatable and there are several kinds of yawns that may signal everything from fatigue to aggression. But contagiously opening your yapper in a yawn seems to be distinct from doing so spontaneously, based on the fact that the former does not occur in all animals. In other words, plenty of animals yawn, but not all animals mimic one another’s yawns.

Whether or not seeing someone else’s jaws gaping wide gives you the uncontrollable urge to join in may say more about your personality than you realize. Roughly half of people yawn when watching videos of others yawning. Some researchers hypothesize that contagious yawning is more common in people with greater empathy — the ability to recognize and share other people’s emotions — an idea that has gotten quite a bit of press lately.

Developmental clues support the empathy theory for contagious yawns. Children younger than about 4 years old, it seems, yawn spontaneously but don’t catch contagious yawns from adults or from one another. Neither do many older children with autism spectrum disorder, who have an impaired ability to communicate, socialize, and empathize, according to a paper published this summer in Biology Letters. The authors found that children with autism yawned spontaneously about as often as children without autism. But when watching videos of yawning adults, children with autism yawned fewer times than other children. They believe this supports the claim that contagious yawning is based on the capacity for empathy.

Indeed, studies of what’s actually happening in the brain when we see others yawn also seem to support the empathy explanation. For example, in 2005, researchers used an imaging technique called fMRI to see what happens in the brain when people see others yawn. The images showed that in the person seeing the yawn, there was increased activity in the part of the brain involved in self-processing, a region believed to be related to empathy.

Contagious yawning is not a strictly human habit, though. Research shows that a couple animals related to our species, like chimps, do it too. In one study, British and Japanese researchers showed six female chimps videos of other female chimps that were either yawning or just opening their mouths. A third of the chimps yawned significantly more when watching other chimps yawn, while none of them yawned when watching the non-yawns.

So, yes, it seems that my professor was on to something with his yawning scheme. Not only does research show that yawning is contagious, it suggests yawning weeds out the starers who are a bit less empathetic (too bad the yawning trick won’t weed out the chimps, too).

This was written by Andrea Anderson. I think it might be worth a try...

frenchies

When I was in France I asked my friend why all of the stores were playing American music. She told me it was because French music consisted of bad techno. I guess this is what she had in mind, but I have to say, I kinda dig it!

it's all so obvious

I am a big nerd and have a thing for desk calendars. This year's has quotes from "wild women." A couple of months ago I got this one, "Meeting guys in bars is like going grocery shopping when you're hungry. You come home with things you don't need." Not that I tend to go home with the guys I meet in bars, but last weekend was a pretty good example of why this quote is true...

A friend and I decided to go out even though we had just exausted ourselves doing a 50 mile bike ride earlier in the day. It was definatly not an all out night, but we kind of felt like people watching, and there is nothing more entertaining then watching drunk people when you are sober (although, we have realized that when you are sober and actually enjoying kicking back, drunk people think that you look unhappy and will make sure to tell you this multiple times).

While this first encounter has nothing to do with guys in bars, it was the begining to what would be a bizarre night. Standing on the corner about the cross the street, out of nowhere there is a loud scream in my friends ear. We turn around to find an older man with no teeth grinning. He then turns around and walks away.

At our first bar I headed off to get drinks and my friend stayed back to avoid the crowd at the bar and to save our seats. Not even 30 seconds after I left her, Mr. Parts His Hair (seriously, it was tamed in such a way that you could tell a healthy amount of gel was used in preparing for this look) was on the prowl. He had been standing near us earlier in the night and at his first opportunity decides to start talking up my friend. I come back to find her awkwardly giving him her number. I think I must look scary because as soon as I got back he bolted. Maybe he doesn't have a lot of game when someone else is watching? Not really sure. But my friend later told me that a lot of the conversation had to do with her looking at the floor or around because she was having a hard time looking directly at him due to his choice of hairstyle. This comment makes us sound mean, but I promise, we really are nice girls.

Shortly after this encounter came the boys who ended up running us out of the bar. Showing his new roommate what Denver has to offer, drunkie proceeds to ask me the same question about 5 times (which I calmly answer hoping that he will eventually move on, but no). As the conversation dies down and we don't instigate anything else we think they will take the hint but don't so we decide to head out and go somewhere else. I guess we aren't the kind of people who can flat out tell someone to move on down the line. Maybe we just really wanted a change of scenary.

On the way to the next bar we are stopped by a guy standing on the street. He has wild curly hair, an odd look on his face, is holding his phone, and looks a little lost so we think he is just going to ask for directions. He then launches into a little speech, "Have you ever felt like you have to say hi to someone because they could change your life forever? That you just have to say hi to them?" It went on like this for awhile and my friend just can't handle it so she walks away laughing. I am stuck there trying to be polite as I back away when he asks me the kicker question, "So, would you...make me coffee, or buy me coffee..." Can't say that I have heard this one before but decided this was my exit so I said goodbye and ran to catch up with my friend who buy this time was halfway down the block.

By the time we got to the last bar it was a little late and not too crowded. Honest to God we were really actually having a good time talking and watching people but according to the general drunk public, since we were not falling over ourselves or making out with a random guy in a corner, we looked like we were miserable. In order to cure our saddness, Mr. iphone says he will buy us a drink. My friend tells him she is driving and declines but he decides to ignore this statement and orders her one anyway. The drinks come and she tells me that I have to drink hers for her and fast because she wants to go and get away from this kid. I look at the two long islands and get a little nervous because all I can imagine is how this may cause me to feel later in the night. I suck it up and down two long islands (which, thank God this bar does not put much alchohol in their drinks or I would have been in a lot of trouble) and we head out the door. This does not come fast enough to avoid the "Can I have your number" moment, which in this instance also came with, "What do you think of my roommate over there?" Yeah, the guy who has been sitting with a girl who we can only imagine is his finacee due to the insane rock on her finger, that guy.

We think there must have been a full moon.

this is why i'm hot

You too can sport some awkwardly large glasses. Just roll like the cool kids and see Harry Potter in 3D Imax...yes, I actually did this, and it was pretty rad...