Like many of the Mikel clan, I often think too hard. Lately - actually that is a lie, I think about this all the time - I've been thinking about where I was a year ago, and how different I am now. A good friend (who's name may or may not start with an O in the friend world, but an A in the real world) tells me I have grown incredibly bitter. I don't want to admit it, but it's a little true. I think it's really just being more aware. I'm sad that O/A friend thinks I have progressed for the worse. But not so sad, but today I realized that I have also moved in a positive direction too.
Today I had a "hm" moment when I realized that something about me has really changed. Last year I had a bit of a freak out over something that happened in the newsroom, because people weren't taking something seriously as I was. A strikingly similar something happened today in The Paper's newsroom, and people reacted the same way. I, on the other hand, didn't. Details, details, not important here, but I may have learned something. It's okay to laugh in the face of something really serious, because oftentimes, that's the only way to stay sane.
Oh man, I am so deep. I can't very over it. I wish I could find some Junior Boys lyrics in less than 20 seconds so that I could post them here. But I've got other deep things to think about.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Friday, October 27, 2006
Go here and tell all your friends!
Okay so maybe more than one person reads my blog? Maybe? There's no way to tell, what is most important that you go to this website:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yMZYY2V6zeg
This is the Missouri School of Journalism for you. This is a commercial my good friend Joe made for Chipotle. If he wins, he gets $10,000! And the J-school gets $10,000! We need to get a ton of people to watch the commercial, so get all your friends to watch it too. And then get your friends' friends. Chain reaction Oh My God.
if you can't remember the link to tell you friends, just tell them to go to youtube and search chipotle and foil.
ps this public computer lab is creeping me out, the girl next to me is making farting/squirting noises with her mouth and talking to herself. Mmm ... gotta go.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=yMZYY2V6zeg
This is the Missouri School of Journalism for you. This is a commercial my good friend Joe made for Chipotle. If he wins, he gets $10,000! And the J-school gets $10,000! We need to get a ton of people to watch the commercial, so get all your friends to watch it too. And then get your friends' friends. Chain reaction Oh My God.
if you can't remember the link to tell you friends, just tell them to go to youtube and search chipotle and foil.
ps this public computer lab is creeping me out, the girl next to me is making farting/squirting noises with her mouth and talking to herself. Mmm ... gotta go.
Monday, October 23, 2006
On the other side
Working a Gatorade stop @ the Chicago marathon was third behind the following things:
1. running the chicago marathon (done)
2. running the chicago marathon with Amy (will do?)
Anyways,
I will admit, it gets boring once the runners turn to walkers and handing out gatorade to the walkers is just as thrilling as… well, no analogy needed – as thrilling as it sounds to hand a cup to someone who is walking.
The real excitement is with the fast ones. There is strategy:
- You need to hold the cup from the top, between thumb and pointer finger. This way the runner can grab the cup in natural cup grabbing motion. This also means if it is very cold, your fingers will turn numb, and if you are wearing gloves, your fingers will get soaked — and ultimately turn numb. Might as well forget about the gloves.
- You must concentrate on each handoff. If you're not on your game, gatorade will end up everywhere, ground, hair, clothes and that is not the point of the task. The point is as little spillage as possible.
- The way to make this happen is to follow your hand with the pace of the runner, until you are quite positive that he or she is really holding it. Then you need to release in a perfect upward motion, not left or right because that will lead to spilling. This is very complicated when you are moving your hand leftwards, then must simultaneously release upwards. And you absolutely must release. It is very easy to hold on for too long — you're not sure if they're ready to hold the cup themselves. But you have no time to ask them if they're ready to hold alone. They are running a marathon for christ's sake! That is why you must have talent, you must have skill, you must have a sixth sense. You absolutely must know the proper time to release. And that is if you even get that far.
Now tips for marathoners:
- a thank you is always appreciated, and will get you personal encouragement
- if you are running on the left side, don't grab with your right hand, and vice versa. Seriously people, WTF? That just complicates the whole process way more than is necessarry.
- If you are aiming for a particular cup, signal to the cup holder that you are coming for her cup. This is a good idea for several reasons. 1. she knows not to give it away to anyone else 2. she can physically and mentally prepare herself for the extremly faced paced and extremely complex process of handing off a cup of gatorade that is about to happen.
Enough digressing on passing out Gatorade. You're reading this and are embarassed to know me. Oh yeah?!?! Well I'm embarassed that you know me too.
1. running the chicago marathon (done)
2. running the chicago marathon with Amy (will do?)
Anyways,
I will admit, it gets boring once the runners turn to walkers and handing out gatorade to the walkers is just as thrilling as… well, no analogy needed – as thrilling as it sounds to hand a cup to someone who is walking.
The real excitement is with the fast ones. There is strategy:
- You need to hold the cup from the top, between thumb and pointer finger. This way the runner can grab the cup in natural cup grabbing motion. This also means if it is very cold, your fingers will turn numb, and if you are wearing gloves, your fingers will get soaked — and ultimately turn numb. Might as well forget about the gloves.
- You must concentrate on each handoff. If you're not on your game, gatorade will end up everywhere, ground, hair, clothes and that is not the point of the task. The point is as little spillage as possible.
- The way to make this happen is to follow your hand with the pace of the runner, until you are quite positive that he or she is really holding it. Then you need to release in a perfect upward motion, not left or right because that will lead to spilling. This is very complicated when you are moving your hand leftwards, then must simultaneously release upwards. And you absolutely must release. It is very easy to hold on for too long — you're not sure if they're ready to hold the cup themselves. But you have no time to ask them if they're ready to hold alone. They are running a marathon for christ's sake! That is why you must have talent, you must have skill, you must have a sixth sense. You absolutely must know the proper time to release. And that is if you even get that far.
Now tips for marathoners:
- a thank you is always appreciated, and will get you personal encouragement
- if you are running on the left side, don't grab with your right hand, and vice versa. Seriously people, WTF? That just complicates the whole process way more than is necessarry.
- If you are aiming for a particular cup, signal to the cup holder that you are coming for her cup. This is a good idea for several reasons. 1. she knows not to give it away to anyone else 2. she can physically and mentally prepare herself for the extremly faced paced and extremely complex process of handing off a cup of gatorade that is about to happen.
Enough digressing on passing out Gatorade. You're reading this and are embarassed to know me. Oh yeah?!?! Well I'm embarassed that you know me too.
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Monday, October 16, 2006
Hey now, here it is!
Some people know the Halloween season has arrived because of aisles and aisles full of bags of trick-or-treat candy and skimpy costumes. Others know because they also know it is almost Oct. 31. I can now breathe a sigh of relief because now I know it is almost Halloween, I have finally received my Halloween care package from my aunt. I will let the contents speak for themselves:
1. Wooden witch decorative-like thing that your grandmother may find interest in
2. Four-piece spooky shapes cookie cutter set
3. Two-pack Halloween potholders
4. Tellcherry Black Peppercorns Grinder
5. Jack-o-latern ornament/candle holder (?)
6. Two plastic smiley faced serving spoons
7. Halloween themed Runts®: ghosts, pumpkins, bats and… bananas?
8. Homemade spider ornament, made of bells and beads
9. Gardenia body lotion
10. Sudoku 50 Puzzles, Volume 1
11. "Halloween Night" bucket
12. I Can Bake Vanilla-Sugar PUMPKINS!, pumpkin shaped ornament included
13. 3-Flexible Cutting Mats (FDA approved)
14. Two dish towels with witch, cat and spider stitching
15. Reese's miniatures
16. Pumpkin nonstick flexible spatula
1. Wooden witch decorative-like thing that your grandmother may find interest in
2. Four-piece spooky shapes cookie cutter set
3. Two-pack Halloween potholders
4. Tellcherry Black Peppercorns Grinder
5. Jack-o-latern ornament/candle holder (?)
6. Two plastic smiley faced serving spoons
7. Halloween themed Runts®: ghosts, pumpkins, bats and… bananas?
8. Homemade spider ornament, made of bells and beads
9. Gardenia body lotion
10. Sudoku 50 Puzzles, Volume 1
11. "Halloween Night" bucket
12. I Can Bake Vanilla-Sugar PUMPKINS!, pumpkin shaped ornament included
13. 3-Flexible Cutting Mats (FDA approved)
14. Two dish towels with witch, cat and spider stitching
15. Reese's miniatures
16. Pumpkin nonstick flexible spatula
Friday, October 13, 2006
Lame, lame and LAME
"Ridiculously" is a horrible adjective. Everyone uses it and it doesn't even make sense. What the F does that even mean? Do you mean extremely? Do you mean unusually? Do you mean remarkably?
Things do not always have to be sensical, but I ask this question: whatever happened to originality? Riduclously is number one on my least original list. If I hear one more clone girl tell her bf about someone she knows who is "ridiculously skinny" or see another "ridiculously happy" facebook status update I might papercut my ears. It's not clever. It's not creative. It's not descriptive. It was in Zoolander. Now, it's just overused.
Please people of my generation, expand your vocabulary. Instead of ridiculously skinny, with unecessary emphasis on the ridiculously, can you just say what you mean? She's scrawny. Emanciated even. So skinny that you wonder if her soul has deteriorated along with her body. I don't know. Just not ridiculously.
I am so fed up with this word that I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Things do not always have to be sensical, but I ask this question: whatever happened to originality? Riduclously is number one on my least original list. If I hear one more clone girl tell her bf about someone she knows who is "ridiculously skinny" or see another "ridiculously happy" facebook status update I might papercut my ears. It's not clever. It's not creative. It's not descriptive. It was in Zoolander. Now, it's just overused.
Please people of my generation, expand your vocabulary. Instead of ridiculously skinny, with unecessary emphasis on the ridiculously, can you just say what you mean? She's scrawny. Emanciated even. So skinny that you wonder if her soul has deteriorated along with her body. I don't know. Just not ridiculously.
I am so fed up with this word that I don't want to talk about it anymore.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Welcome Fall! Time for apple cider, carving pumpkins, blustery weather, red and orange and yellow leaves!
how to recognize a witch:
1. a REAL WITCH is certain to be wearing gloves when you first meet her. even in the summer. because she doesnt have finger nails. instead of finger nails, she has thin curvey claws, like a cat.
2. the second thing to remember is that a REAL WITCH is always bald. bald as a boiled egg. a REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness. she wears a first class wig. and it is almost impossible to to tell a really first class wig from ordinary hair unless you give it a pull to see if it comes off.
3. look for the nose holes. witches have slightly larger nose holes than ordinary people. the rim of each nose hole is pink and curvey, like the rim of a seashell. a REAL WITCH has the most amazing sense of smell. she can actually smell out a child who is standing on the other side of the street on a pitch black night. and the cleaner you are, the more smelly you are to a witch, an absolutely clean child gives off the most ghastly scent to a witch. the point is this. when you havent washed for a week and your skin is all covered over with dirt, the quite obviously the stink waves cannot come oozing out nearly as strongly.
4. look carefully at the eyes. because the eyes of a REAL WITCH are different than yours and mine. look in the middle of each eye where there is normally a little black dot. if she is a witch, the black dot will keep changing color, and you will see fire and you will see ice dancing right in the very center of the colored dot. it will send shivers running all over your skin.
5. witches never have toes. the feet have square ends with no toes on them at all. it gives them a problem with their shoes. all ladies like to wear small rather pointed shoes, but a witch, whose feet are very wide and square at the ends, has the most awful job squeezing her feet into those horrible pointed shoes.
6. their spit is blue as a bilberry. they even use it to write with. they use those old fasioned pens that have nibs and they simply lick the nibs.
so there you are. thats about all i can tell you. none of it is very helpful. you can still never be absolutely sure whether a woman is a witch just by looking at her. but if she is wearing the gloves, if she has the large nose holes, the queer eyes and the hair that looks like it might be a wig, and if she has a blueish tinge on her teeth and walks with a slight limp - if she has all those things, then you run like mad.
- Roald Dahl
1. a REAL WITCH is certain to be wearing gloves when you first meet her. even in the summer. because she doesnt have finger nails. instead of finger nails, she has thin curvey claws, like a cat.
2. the second thing to remember is that a REAL WITCH is always bald. bald as a boiled egg. a REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness. she wears a first class wig. and it is almost impossible to to tell a really first class wig from ordinary hair unless you give it a pull to see if it comes off.
3. look for the nose holes. witches have slightly larger nose holes than ordinary people. the rim of each nose hole is pink and curvey, like the rim of a seashell. a REAL WITCH has the most amazing sense of smell. she can actually smell out a child who is standing on the other side of the street on a pitch black night. and the cleaner you are, the more smelly you are to a witch, an absolutely clean child gives off the most ghastly scent to a witch. the point is this. when you havent washed for a week and your skin is all covered over with dirt, the quite obviously the stink waves cannot come oozing out nearly as strongly.
4. look carefully at the eyes. because the eyes of a REAL WITCH are different than yours and mine. look in the middle of each eye where there is normally a little black dot. if she is a witch, the black dot will keep changing color, and you will see fire and you will see ice dancing right in the very center of the colored dot. it will send shivers running all over your skin.
5. witches never have toes. the feet have square ends with no toes on them at all. it gives them a problem with their shoes. all ladies like to wear small rather pointed shoes, but a witch, whose feet are very wide and square at the ends, has the most awful job squeezing her feet into those horrible pointed shoes.
6. their spit is blue as a bilberry. they even use it to write with. they use those old fasioned pens that have nibs and they simply lick the nibs.
so there you are. thats about all i can tell you. none of it is very helpful. you can still never be absolutely sure whether a woman is a witch just by looking at her. but if she is wearing the gloves, if she has the large nose holes, the queer eyes and the hair that looks like it might be a wig, and if she has a blueish tinge on her teeth and walks with a slight limp - if she has all those things, then you run like mad.
- Roald Dahl
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