8.28.09

• A portion of U.S. tax dollars goes to repay citizens of Afghanistan and Iraq for damage U.S. soldiers have caused during wartime.

• Why do people think it's funny to pronounce words incorrectly?

• Football is a sport that I will never enjoy nor appreciate.

• Wearing a sign in traffic that tells everyone you've cheated on your spouse. Adequate punishment?

• "It's the life you chose. Don't act like it isn't yours."
("The Safety of Objects")

8.27.09

• You don't have to boil water first to make noodles. They'll cook just fine if you put them in at the same time as the water.

• Meijer sells Muffin Tops cereal. (Oh, college ...)

• Chevy Chase turned down the role of Forrest Gump.

• It's interesting to see what kinds of common interests and/or experiences bring people together. It's also interesting to see how the level of actual interest varies. People are less genuine about topics or experiences they don't choose for themselves.

• CNN.com recently published a story about the 12 most annoying types of Facebookers. Here's my contribution to that list: people who whine incessantly. (I guess it's a subcategory of The Sympathy-Baiter, if you want to get technical.) I understand that some days, it just seems like the world is out to get you. Everything that can go wrong does, and even some of the things that you think can't go wrong do, too. The world seems like it's crumbling around you. Even the cat is angry with you. You just want to curl up in a ball and wish it all away. I get it. It happens to us all. And I understand needing support during a genuine tragedy. But no one needs or cares to read about your woe-is-me, everything-is-awful, my-life-is-so-bad ramblings – especially when it's all you ever have to talk about. Are you still living? Are you well enough to be wasting time whining on a social networking site? Are you doing "all right" enough to afford to pay for or have public access to the computer or smart phone you're using to communicate said whining? Can you think of at least 15 ways you could be worse off? Then stop complaining.

8.26.09

• The first draft of this post apparently got sucked into the vast expanse of Internetland. Really? Does that still even happen? Only to me? I'm not surprised ...

• Even when I'm not in the newsroom, I feel for the people who have to tackle post-deadline breaking news. At least you enjoy the rush. RIP Ted Kennedy.

• This article on burlesque is really interesting.

• There's a restaurant on Beale Street in Memphis that has been deep-frying its food in the same grease since 1912. Not just the same kind. Same exact grease. They keep it locked in a safe each night and reuse it the next day.

• Both the sun and moon have an effect on Earth's tides. The sun is 400 times farther away, and it's effect is one-third that of the moon.

• You really never know who's paying attention or whether everything is coming across in context. Act accordingly.

• Being aware of your skeletons makes it that much easier to make them disappear should you ever, say, decide to run for office someday.

8.25.09

• Folding laundry with the windows open and letting old Dashboard Confessional mixes fill my apartment. I'm spending my day off being 15 again.

8.22.09

• Way to keep the standards high, CNN.com. J majors, let's see what happens when you try to use "snafu" in one of your newspaper headlines ...

• Today is my two-year anniversary. Work anniversary anyway. Yay?

• You know you're getting old(er) when:
(a) You start getting really nostalgic for the things you remember as a child and know likely will never happen to anyone again. (Your dad explaining the Internet for the first time. The VCR eating your favorite movie. Licking stamps.)
(b) You start wondering why your suburban-parent neighbors are playing dance music at 2 a.m. on a Sunday. ("I'm up at 2 a.m. EVERY DAY and manage to keep my early-morning goings on at a relatively low hum. ... grumble grumble grumble")
(c) You start to enjoy AM talk radio. ( ... )

• Check out what's coming up in TV land and what ever happened to your favorite show at www.televisionwithoutpity.com. (I hear "FlashForward" and "Cougar Town" will be worth checking out.)

8.20.09

• When a woman does something too well, it must mean she's a man, right? Come on, people.

• I've been wondering a lot lately, "Why can't anything just go right after the first try?" It's past annoying and not yet to comical.

8.19.08

• Hitler was a rejected artist. The first building he commissioned for the Nazi party was an art museum. He was an avid art collector – only of the pieces he deemed appropriate, of course – and bought hundreds of items each year to add to his personal collection. Check out "The Rape of Europa" (book or movie) for more about the millions of dollars in works of art that were stolen, evacuated, hidden, destroyed and lost during World War II under Nazi rule.

• It's important to have things to look forward to. But it's also – more? – important to be able to differentiate between working toward something and fixating on it so that you miss everything going on right now. Sometimes enjoying today takes a little work – like forcing yourself to slow down and realize you do have time to do things that "settled" people do ... without having to settle.

• You'll find that some people are trustworthy, and some are not. It's painful to find out that people belong in the second group, but trying to shield yourself from that pain by keeping everyone at arm's length isn't worth it. You won't make the second group any more trustworthy, and you'll miss out on the best parts of the first.

• In the same vein (Don't you hate stupid phrases?), certain people in certain situations will never grow up. And you can't change it. It will make you livid, but you can't let it make you unhappy. Love and allow yourself to be loved. Anyone who doesn't wish you the best in that isn't worth your wasted emotion.

• There are too many amazing people in the world not to surround yourself with friends who make you feel inspired.

• Talking with someone about to start college makes me miss all the things in college that I didn't realize were worth cherishing at the time. But does anyone really ever realize something is worth cherishing at the moment?

8.15.09

• Time is getting away from me again. Oh, bother.

• General Electric owns NBC.

8.14.09

• MTV plays old episodes of "Scrubs." Who knew?

• Sometimes people really don't want help. Whatever their reason, respect that.

8.11.09

• Audrey Hepburn studied ballet for years, only to be told that she'd never be good enough or have the proper body to reach her dream of becoming a prima ballerina. Coco Chanel was laughed at when she first started to design hats, and her career had its share of flops. The failures make their stories more interesting, more human. At least that's what I need to believe.

8.9.09

• Lollapalooza Day 2:

- Hotter. Bearable with water.

- I met this guy. He stopped for the festival during an 11-week drive across the U.S.

- A surprising number of people are willing to give media members their names, ages and hometowns ... until they also have to have their photo taken. All of those who refused were women.

- If you feel something splashed, splattered or spilled on you while you're attending a large event at which vendors are selling large amounts of alcohol and don't immediately hear, "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!" or similar, a fist fight is likely to come next.

- It's amazing who you'll end up talking to, running into, recognizing at any given place. Maybe you know them, maybe you don't, maybe you've seen them in a magazine. Regardless, watching people – observing – never gets old.

- Even important people make mistakes.

- Be courteous. Decline politely. Don't forget that everyone has feelings, insecurities, interests, successes regardless of how they might appear. People are still people, even when they're in huge groups. Remember that large groups are full of individuals who have something in common with you.

- Let me preface this by saying that I don't have kids. But I assume that making sure they can hear past age 25 would be up there on the list of parenting priorities. Buy them cool concert earmuffs. And please keep your anklebiters away from me with their rogue Frisbees.

- I don't know why both a hand-held microphone and a larger (boom?) microphone are used when filming interviews. Could one of you TV people help me out?

• Lollapalooza Day 3:

- Miserably hot. Water. Water. Water.

- Apparently someone does sell flip-flops at Lollapalooza. I'd like to think someone saw my earlier post and scurried to task, but someone is probably just smarter than I gave them credit for.

- I saw a motorcyclist who had a dog on his lap (strapped to him in something like those front-backpack baby carriers, I'm sure). The dog was wearing goggles. Goggles! The only thing cuter than that would be if he were wearing Mutt Muffs, too.

- If Chicago gets the Olympics in 2016, Lolla will skip a year. (Remember that 10-year contract I mentioned?)

- Even "important" people are just people. While it's probably flattering to be adored by strangers, I bet it's more flattering to be treated like a human being.

- ... But everyone has someone who makes them a little starry-eyed.

- There are certain things that no one will admit to. Like feeling completely miserable after paying $205 to stand in the sun and sweat profusely.

- It's easy to get lost in the shadows when you make excuses for yourself or where you are when you feel as though you don't belong. When you remember that you ARE someone (no matter who that might be), being confident comes more easily.

- There's so much more to tell, but this weekend has shown me how truly out of shape I am. My feet are bandaged. My muscles ache. My skin is slightly less than burned (thanks to UV bracelets and several tubes of sunscreen). My mind is reeling from everything I saw and heard and discussed. But for spending three days in a place where I'm convinced that no one is comfortable, I had a fantastic weekend with even better company. Now it's time to recover.

8.08.09

• Lollapalooza Day 2:

Exhausted. Check back later.

8.7.09

• Cocaine was ruled a factor in Billy Mays' death. ... It's too easy. I'll let it go.

• Lollapalooza Day 1:

- The festival has a contract with the city of Chicago for another 10 years.

- Three-day passes and single-day passes for Friday were sold out.

- Picture those plastic, snappy bracelets you get at events that have to be cut off after they're closed. When they're going to be too long, remember to fold the excess over a few times before snapping. I guess festivals don't like a lot of scissors sitting around.

- Rain. Umbrellas are really obnoxious in large groups. Apologies for my contribution to this ...

- Disappointed in Ben Folds' set. Too much mediocre new stuff. Not enough personality.

- Someone should open a stand to sell cheap, comfortable shoes. I saw a pair of flip-flops abandoned after getting stuck in the mud, a few way-cooler-than-you kids who were limping along in their sexy heels, and a several people who had given up on their shoes completely. I bet there would be a market for it even without the rain.

- I can't speak for the other flavors (yet), but Stretch Island Fruit Co.'s orchard cherry Original Fruit Leathers are great.

- (Something I can thank theater experience for:) If you're trying to direct someone to you in a crowd and you say you're "to the left of the stage," you're standing to the left of the stage as you're looking at it from the crowd. If you're "stage left," however, you're to the right of the stage as you're looking at it from the crowd (to the performers' left when they're onstage). Save everyone the confusion. How do you give directions?

8.6.09

• R.I.P. John Hughes. Which movie is your favorite?

8.5.09

• "Cash for Clunkers" is actually called the Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS), and I've just about heard (read, designed, edited, watched ... ) enough about it.

• Hooray and hugs and cheers for hard work paying off and people who don't give up on their goals, themselves, or each other. I'm so proud of you.

8.3.09

• The Warners refused to consider Julie Andrews for the role of Eliza Doolittle in the film version of "My Fair Lady," even though she created the role on stage. Instead, they would only cast Audrey Hepburn. The directors then had Hepburn's singing parts recorded again by a more polished singer and put those into the film, which took away the character Hepburn put into the singing parts and likely cost her an Oscar nomination for the role. Julie Andrews ended up winning the Oscar for best actress that year for "Mary Poppins." She thanked the Warners in her acceptance speech.

• Apparently symphony orchestras have jump on the "tweeting" bandwagon for their performances. (Read a story here.) Is there no place left to feel classy and sophisticated that doesn't involve a battery or wall outlet?

• Handwriting – especially really messy handwriting – does not fax well.

• Small nicities stick with people. Don't underestimate them.

• Isn't it strange how very good and very bad things bring people together in the same way?

This weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the wedding of two of my closest friends, which brought friends from many different places together to celebrate them. Seeing people you've met at various stops along the way not only makes you remember and appreciate the past, but also allows you to realize how great it is that the parts of people that make them friends very seldom change or go away. Even if you don't have the luxury of seeing them on a daily basis anymore, good friends always remain good friends. And it's terribly exciting to watch people you care about grow and make their lives uniquely their own – even if it has to be from a distance.

After the wedding, I found out that someone I'd known since grade school had died in his sleep. I no longer live in the town we went to school in. But I immediately remembered the first kind gesture he made when we first met – even as a third grader who probably didn't realize what a difference he made. He was very kind, very giving, and will be genuinely missed by many people. As the news has spread – mostly via Facebook – I've heard from several old classmates whom I haven't seen or spoken to in many years. The barriers that junior high and high school create are no longer there, and everyone is an individual now, which is encouraging even amid the shock and confusion. People are concerned, and they want to help one another. They want to express their appreciation and sympathy as the group they once were.

As I was thinking about it all – how strange it seems that two situations that foster opposite emotions can have similar results – one of those classmates said something that could not have been more true: "I believe in my heart Robert had a purpose even now ... bringing people together."

• Coincidentally, the newspaper ran a story about what happens to a person's online personality – their e-mail, Facebook and MySpace pages, etc. – when they die unexpectedly. (The full story can be found here.) In one of the instances featured, a friend of the deceased got her passwords from her family and kind of keeps up with her online pages, including replying to some messages that people send to her profile. I'm very interested to hear your thoughts on this. Is it ok for someone to read and/or reply to private messages or e-mails sent to the profile of someone who has died? Does it matter who that reader is (friend vs. family)? What do you think?

7.31.09-8.02.09

• Congratulations, Melissa and Eric! Off to celebrate the Schumachers ...