Creative Little Vandals

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I walk by this sign on my way to stats class.

If you can see, it says "No Pie." And then they drew a little line to make the cigarette into a slice of pie. How clever!

How Academia Ruined Dole Whip

I was reading an article about how mood can affect your perception of products. So if you're happy, you think the product is making you happy and so you like it more. It made me start wondering if maybe I really like Dole Whip because I'm happy when I eat it (at the state fair, at Disneyland/World). Next time I have it, I know I will over analyze whether I really like it or I just like where I am. ::sigh::

E-mails with My Dad

My Dad: Do you know what a punch buggy is?
Me: A VW Bug
My Dad: Thanks...didn't know why people were saying it and punching people.

HAHAHAHAHA

My Park

I love the park near my apartment. I love to walk around the lake. There's also a miniature golf course, regular golf course, paddle boats, arboretum, cafe, zoo, and amusement park. None of which I have visited yet, but they're there if I wanted to visit them. I told Kathleen "it's kinda like Central Park, but without the rats and homeless people." There's also a lot of people that walk there dogs there and so there are these signs.

For some reason whenever I read the second part of that, I always picture a cartoon dog drinking a soda and then tossing the empty bottle on the ground. There is, of course, separate paths for bikes and pedestrians (I told you TC-ers are serious about their bike paths). The walking path has stick figures painted on it so you know that it's for walking people. This one, and only this one

Decided to wear a hat. HA!

Two Random Stories from Academia

1) I'm reading an academic article about personality in animals. Like not just dogs and cats, but apparently fruit flies have personalities? At one point, they're talking about doing research on "Great Tits." Not only is that hysterical in a 16 year old boy sense of humor, but I have no idea what type of animal a Great Tit is, and there is absolutely no way in hell that I'm going to type "Great Tit" into any sort of search engine. I'm thinking it's a primate of some sorts. Later on in the article they give the scientific name of the Great Tit which I can google to discover that it's a bird.

2) Last night I went to bed with my clothes on. Not I fell asleep with my clothes on, but I actually forgot to put my pajamas on and climbed in bed in my normal clothes. Apparently (I still cannot wrap my head around how I did this), I was thinking about school stuff so much that I brushed my teeth, took out my contacts, and then climbed in bed, skipping the very important step of changing into pj's. I woke up in the morning and was like "why the hell do I still have my clothes on?" That is some serious brain drain!

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 3

Ok, first some explanation. I was actually in the process of writing this blog last Sunday when I decided to get a drink. I sat the laptop on my floor, went to the kitchen, poured myself some Crystal Light, came back to the couch, picked up my laptop and cracked the LCD. My laptop was being fixed for the whole week which is the reason for the delay in the finishing the rest of this story.

Also to note, I got my parka (not in black nor gun metal gray) and boots today as well, so bring it Minnesota winter!

Back to Amanda 1's final day of her visit. It was state fair day. We ate a lot of junk again. We split a fried onion. I had a couple of bites of her fried Snickesr. I conclude that the fried Milky Way is my favorite fried candy bar. The peanuts in the snickers seemed to interrupt the melted gooey deliciousness...haven't had the Three Musketeer yet though. I had a Reuben sandwich, another Dole Whip Float (because I LOVE them) and this:

Bacon on a stick. This was actually recommended by one of my PhD colleagues, but he did add "but I'm Canadian, and we really like bacon." It wasn't that good. It was more like ham on a stick and was really fatty which made it difficult to eat.

Much to Amanda's dismay, there were no animals giving birth in the Miracle of Life center, but we did see a dog being operated on which may have been worse. They had this little room set up with an operating table and the vets and the whole thing. Then they had video screens set up so you could see what the vets were actually doing to the dog, and there was a person with a microphone narrating. Horrifying!!

After eating and walking around all day, we decided it was the time to head to the Train/Maroon 5 concert which was the whole point of Amanda's visit..well, I guess part of the point was to see me, but most of the point. My dad had gotten us tickets and theoretically backstage passes of some sort. I never really know what to expect until I pick up my tickets at Will Call. In the envelope with the tickets were our VIP stickers, and a note that said "Please meet right after Train's set at West Plaza Backstage Enterance. Some from Train will meet you and bring you to the backstage area." Yes, "enterance."

Concert starts. Matt Nathanson opened and was great. He was funny, and the music was really good. I was impressed. If you haven't heard of him (I bet you'll recognize one, maybe two, of his songs), definitely check him out. He was followed by Maroon 5 and then Train. We were seated on the whole other side of the stage from the West Plaza Backstage "Enterance" so we left our seats and headed over there before the encore just so we could beat the crowd. Luckily we got to see a whole security incident because of being on that side of the stage early. This was my first backstage experience that wasn't held in some little random room, but actually outside back by all the trailers and stuff. It was weird. Going back with us was a family who seemed to know the one guitar player, a girl who knew like all the roadies and everyone and her friends, and two somewhat skanky looking girls. We get back there and are just hanging out by trunks full of clothes and stuff. The guitar player comes and escorts the two skanky girls into his trailer. He reappears about five minutes later and asks if anyone knows where his corkscrew is...CREEPY. Finally the lead singer of Train emerges from a trailer. The roadie who escorted us back there says something about not having much time and needing to get him out of there, so we snap a quick picture, and he leaves. Now Amanda and I are just standing there. Everyone else seems to leave or go into a trailer. The drummer is the one we got tickets through, so we're kinda waiting for him, but no one else seems to be coming. I finally ask if he'll be around, the roadie guy says probably not and we leave. IT WAS WEIRD!!!

What the....????

Has anyone else seen the Denny's commercial featuring this...The Mac N Cheese Big Daddy Patty Melt? They put macaroni and cheese on a burger! I'm like half delighted and half horrified. Minor detail: it's 1690 calories and 99 grams of fat. 9 people want to split one with me?

Too Funny Not to Blog

So I just finished posting the last blog and went to check facebook before turning off my computer. My friend Ben had just posted what he found on his mailbox. THIS:

If you can't tell, this is an advertisement of sorts for a person that is selling full fur suits that you can have comissioned to have made for you. Apparently they offer saber tooth costumes and you can also order pieces of the fur suit, in case you left the hands to your current fur suit at a party or something. I don't really understand his pricing model though. How are tails more expensive then hands?

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 2

Well, it's half time of the Penn State game, so I figured I should blog the second day of Amanda's visit. I had been invited to a picnic by some of my fellow Ph.D.-ers. It had originally been scheduled for the previous weekend, but then the family came down with chicken pox. Amanda was a little nervous about being surrounded by future academics, but it was all good because seriously, my co-horts are like the least academic snobbish people EVER. We drank some wine and ate some hamburgers and other picnicky foods. I won over the crowd with my amazing chocolate cookies. (I'm thinking of entering them in the State Fair next year...Blue Ribbon and $8 first place prize here I come!)

After the picnic we did the whole Mall of America thing. Didn't buy anything though. Didn't ride anything in the Theme Park either...I'm going to have to do that some day. We weren't really hungry yet, so we decided not to partake in any of the amazing restaurants at the Mall. By time we got back to my apartment, we were though. We decided to order takeout sushi because that's been one thing that I still haven't found here. Good sushi. We ordered from Mt. Fuji in Uptown Minneapolis because while it was a little far away, the menu looked the best. The GPS decided to hose us though, and it took us a little while to get on the way. I knew where it was taking us wasn't Uptown...in fact, it wasn't even Minneapolis. Finally we got our food home and enjoyed our Gyoza, Edamame, American Dream Roll, Crazy Tuna Roll and Salmon Tempura Roll with the Peach Lindemans we had bought at the liquor store yesterday.

Amanda 1's Visit, Part 1

I realize this happened like a week ago, but it was also my first week of school. YEAH SCHOOL!! So last Friday, Amanda 1 was arriving for a visit. Her plane was supposed to land at like 10:20 pm CST, which is already well past my bedtime. BUT....her plane was delayed and so she actually landed at 12:05 am Saturday morning which is SOOPER DOOPER past my bedtime. Not to mention there was a crazy traffic jam at the airport baggage claim. Where were cops enforcing the "pick up only. Do not stop and park" thing?

The next morning we got up and like any normal person would do on a Saturday morning, we went to the liquor store. I didn't have ANY wine on my wine rack which is absolutely unheard of. We arrived at Big Top liquors and discovered that it was a discount liquor store. Have you ever been to a liquor store that has a 50% off clearance bin? Bargain shopping and wine?!?! How did you know it's what I've always wanted? Obviously we had to buy like kinda a lot of stuff.
See the yellow stickers on some of the bottles? Those were 50% off!

Then we went to the cupcake shop, Cupcake. We had lunch there too. I had a fantastic black bean burger. We bought cupcakes, of course. You can't go to a cupcake store and NOT buy cupcakes unless you're a communist.

Starting in the upper left corner and going clockwise, those are Amaretto (with actual Amaretto in it), Razz-ma-tazz, Treehugger, and Lemon Raspberry. All pretty delicious. SN: If you come visit me, you will get to go to the cupcake store too because I want to try all of their cupcakes! That's not a bribe. It's just a fact. We returned back to my apartment and watched the neverending Notre Dame football game from hell. The bandaid method apparently applies for football games too. Rather than just drag out the pain, just do it all at once and get it over with. My parents actually left the game early. UNHEARD OF. I told them if Notre Dame had comeback and pulled out a win that they wouldn't be able to go to any games the entire season. We made a pizza and wings in the oven, set off the smoke detector, broke the smoke detector, watched more football, and went to bed.

I'll probably blog Day 2 (and possibly Day 3) tomorrow because I actually don't have that much homework this weekend.

Fantastic Savings

Today on campus they were giving out free student planners that had lots of coupons in the back. Here's my favorite ones.

"$50 Brazilian Waxing: Quick, Professional, and Pain Free" -- Now, I've never had Brazilian Waxing, but I can't imagine that it's truly pain free.
"Free Pint of Glueck's Beer. Come Party where your parents met." --Not really a selling point for me.
"All Glass Pipes Buy One, Get One Free at Piecemakers. Also selling hookahs, grinders, and scales." AND...
"20%off Glass Pipes at Happy Buddha. Also selling, Vaporizers, detoxifiers and blunt wraps." --Come on. Like any of us don't know what these stores REALLY are.
"Free Bag of Clay at Continental Clay Company." --I don't even know what to say about a free bag of clay.
"Free Pregnancy Test at First Care Pregnancy Center." -- Now that's a deal.
"Free shot of Tequila with Valid ID." -- Possibly the cause of the need for the free pregnancy test.
"$25 off Carry Permit Classes and $3 Off Mace at Koscielski's Guns & Ammo." --what a wide variety of coupon offerings!

So many good deals! Where do I even begin!

My New Winter Coat

I'm in the market for a new winter coat because if you didn't know it gets hella cold in Minnesota. I like to look at the negative reviews for products because I want to see what the potential issues could be to determine whether they might be a big deal or if the people are just idiots. I came across this one and thought it was worthy for blogging. My snarky remarks are in parens.

"Just to help you make a good purchasing decision: I'm 5'7" and 140 lbs. I'm proportionally sized. (a. I'm not sure what proportionally sized is. Are you pear shaped? apple? box? what? and b. No woman EVER thinks they are proportionally sized.)

I was soooo looking forward to getting the black jacket. (It's a coat. how much anticipation could there really be?) It's not black. Repeat: It's not black. (I think I comprehended what you were getting at the first time). It's gun metal gray.

I have a black jacket and held this one up to it and asked my husband 'does this look black?' And he answered 'no, it's gray.' (Lemme picture this. You are freaking out because your black jacket is not black and shockingly, your husband agrees with you? Smart man.)

I see why people are saying the arms are too short. They are on the short side, but if the jacket had been black I would've tolerated it. (A quarter of my arms freezing? ok. GUN METAL GRAY???? UNACCEPTABLE!)

Overall the medium was a bit too snug. (Maybe your not as proportionally sized as you thought.) Just slightly on the tight side. And when I zipped it all the way to my mouth area and put on the hood it really was too tight. I looked sausagy and silly. (It's a parka! If I zip it the whole way up and put the hood on, I expect to look sausagy and silly.) Not attractive at all. (Note to self: Don't go picking up guys in my new parka.)

I'm actually feeling so annoyed that I'm calling LLBean next and asking them to send me a free return label. (Take that, LLBean!)

It just wastes everybody's time to call a gray jacket, black. (This is a little dramatic. I mean, you just spent time writing this ridiculous complaint. How valuable is time to you?)

On the plus side: it does seem like a warm (gun metal gray) jacket with plenty of (gun metal gray) pockets which is why I wanted it in the first place (in black not GUN METAL GRAY)."