I've decided I'm going to attempt to see every film that was nominated for an Oscar in 2005. This excludes shorts, documentaries, and the foreign films as well as any scientfic or technical award nominees. The list I've come up with is below. The ones I've already seen are italicized. The reviews will be on my Rotten Tomatoes site of course. Link is to the right. :)
A History of Violence
Batman Begins
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Cinderella Man
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Howl’s Moving Castle
Hustle & Flow
Junebug
King Kong
Match Point
Memoirs of a Geisha
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Munich
North Country
Pride & Prejudice
Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
Syriana
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Constant Gardener
The New World
The Squid and the Whale
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
Transamerica
Walk the Line
Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
War of the Worlds
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Book Update
Current Progress: as of 4/26/2006
Days Gone: 116 (31.78%)
Books Read: 14(ish) (26.00%)
Pages Read: 4,353 (29.02%)
I had to return the Concise History of the Catholic Church today because I renewed it too many times. Heh. I'll check it out again in a month or so and try to plug through the second half.
I finished Invisible Man today and the review is posted. Next book is The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte. Seems like I've got a pattern going on here. Interestingly enough, the reason I'm reading this book is because I met the author in France back in 2003 while I was there with UNO doing my (really, really, super fun) study abroad deal. She's a very interesting lady so I decided I might as well go ahead and read her book.
Days Gone: 116 (31.78%)
Books Read: 14(ish) (26.00%)
Pages Read: 4,353 (29.02%)
I had to return the Concise History of the Catholic Church today because I renewed it too many times. Heh. I'll check it out again in a month or so and try to plug through the second half.
I finished Invisible Man today and the review is posted. Next book is The Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte. Seems like I've got a pattern going on here. Interestingly enough, the reason I'm reading this book is because I met the author in France back in 2003 while I was there with UNO doing my (really, really, super fun) study abroad deal. She's a very interesting lady so I decided I might as well go ahead and read her book.
Wierd Wisconsin Words
I found this article while browsing the news this morning. I thought it was interesting, considering how I had complained a while ago about commercials that annoyed me, mentioning one for a check-cashing company that was obviously not a local company because of their hideous mispronunciation of city names. I admit we have some pretty strange pronunciations going on around here. We even make up new words for some things (bubbler, anyone?) Dialects are wonderful. Especially when they don’t make any sense.
“MILWAUKEE (AP) — There are just some Wisconsin-related words that people butcher: Chequamegon forest, Lake Butte des Morts, Lac Courte Oreilles tribe and even Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
So radio reporter Jackie Johnson decided she was tired of it and wanted to give newcomers, tourists and even natives a resource to find the correct pronunciation. She recently started the Web site http://misspronouncer.com.
"They can't be expected to know. It's not their fault," said Johnson, a capitol reporter for Wisconsin Radio Network. "But there is no where to go."
By the way, it's shee-WAM'-eh-gehn forest, Lake BEWD'-eh-moore, lak-COOT-o-ray tribe and Madison Mayor Dave ches-LEV'-ich.
Johnson, who has lived in Wisconsin most of her life, said she has worked in radio for years and was embarrassed when she mispronounced words and didn't know where to go to get it right.
The site has recordings of her pronouncing Wisconsin's 190 cities, 400 villages, and 1,260 towns. She also pronounces names of judges, famous Wisconsin people, like Brett Favre, state officials and legislators. She even recorded some of them pronouncing their own names.
"If they tell me the wrong pronunciation, it's not my fault," she said.”
“MILWAUKEE (AP) — There are just some Wisconsin-related words that people butcher: Chequamegon forest, Lake Butte des Morts, Lac Courte Oreilles tribe and even Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz.
So radio reporter Jackie Johnson decided she was tired of it and wanted to give newcomers, tourists and even natives a resource to find the correct pronunciation. She recently started the Web site http://misspronouncer.com.
"They can't be expected to know. It's not their fault," said Johnson, a capitol reporter for Wisconsin Radio Network. "But there is no where to go."
By the way, it's shee-WAM'-eh-gehn forest, Lake BEWD'-eh-moore, lak-COOT-o-ray tribe and Madison Mayor Dave ches-LEV'-ich.
Johnson, who has lived in Wisconsin most of her life, said she has worked in radio for years and was embarrassed when she mispronounced words and didn't know where to go to get it right.
The site has recordings of her pronouncing Wisconsin's 190 cities, 400 villages, and 1,260 towns. She also pronounces names of judges, famous Wisconsin people, like Brett Favre, state officials and legislators. She even recorded some of them pronouncing their own names.
"If they tell me the wrong pronunciation, it's not my fault," she said.”
Thursday, April 20, 2006
Odd Billboard Part 2
I forgot about this. Remember the Odd Billboard I mentioned a while back. Well, now the ad has changed. M Schettl is still on one side and the other side has changed to a Children’s Hospital ad. Now two cute little boys just happen to be sitting in the right spot to have the deer antlers. *sigh*
Stop the world - I want to get off
*sigh* I don’t know how it happens, but time just seems to get away from me sometimes. The week flies by and before you know it it’s been a long time since my last blog posting.
Ok, time to catch up on things. Let’s start with last week. On Sunday (the 9th) Adam fainted at work, drove himself home (grr) and proceeded to fall into bed. He stayed there for pretty much the whole week. I took him to the doctor on Monday where they told him nothing. Just to sleep, drink fluids, and take Tylenol because he had a fever of 106 or something. Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same. Thursday was our anniversary and we had planned to go to dinner and then to The Mikado down at the PAC. Thursday morning he got up and planned to go to work. He took a shower, ate some pudding, threw the pudding back up in about 2 minutes, and crawled back into bed. At this point we gave our tickets to the show to his parents and canceled the dinner reservation.
He called me at work around 3:30 and told me he felt lots better and wanted to go to dinner and the show. Ok… So we went. He did look a lot better and aside from the horrible coughing seemed to be healed. The show was great, just as funny as I remembered it to be. Unfortunately the seats at the PAC are designed for anorexic teenagers. I suffered from “indented thigh-itis” as well as “crazy (possibly drunk) woman next to me laughing hysterically and jabbing me in the side-itis” for most of the show. It was also pretty warm. Next time we get box seats in the wings, Adam says. Anywho, we went back home and went to sleep. Friday morning (we both had vacation – we had been planning a crazy night…) I got up and putzed around until Adam emerged from the bedroom around noon. It was the incessant blaring of a car alarm (I’m talking about 10 minutes straight) that convinced him he was meant to be awake. We did some shopping and I think we rented movies. He went back to work on Saturday and seems to be fine now.
This week has been relatively boring in comparison. I had my monthly IMA meeting on Tuesday and was bored out of my mind with the IT guy’s presentation. Next month is the last meeting of the year and is CEO (ie. invite your boss) night. I’m as yet undecided about whether I want to invite my boss(es). I’d feel bad because I really wouldn’t be able to spend a lot of time with them. I’m the busiest person there most of the time. This is a working meeting for me. I have to think about it still. Tomorrow I have a lunch meeting over at Banner – the company that joined up with Milprint and the location to which we’ll all be moving in June. Should be interesting to see the new place and meet my new co-workers.
There’s really not much else planned until the trip to New York. Adam’s parents are going on a cruise the beginning of May but it looks like his sister will be driving them to the airport instead of him (as was originally planned.) Next week looks to be possibly even more boring than this one. I’ll be out in New London next Friday, but that’s about the most exciting thing. I’m finishing up some tax stuff this week for corporate. Meh. May is a nice month with the 1st falling on a Monday making our working days really simple to count. I was able to get my plant closed in about 3 days last month so we’ll see if I can do the same thing this next month.
I was thinking about the summer this morning and wondering if we shouldn’t get some days reserved up in Door County for our camping trip(s). I suppose I should talk to Adam (and Catherine and Tony) to see what they think.
Plans for Memorial Day are getting firmed up. I suppose I should get in touch with Cheryl and Catherine again since I kind of dragged them into this. Heh. I’ve been so bad about answering e-mails lately. I read them, I just don’t reply to anyone.
Ok I think you’re pretty much caught up. I should have a book update to post today or tomorrow. I’m still way behind but I’m trying to catch up.
Ok, time to catch up on things. Let’s start with last week. On Sunday (the 9th) Adam fainted at work, drove himself home (grr) and proceeded to fall into bed. He stayed there for pretty much the whole week. I took him to the doctor on Monday where they told him nothing. Just to sleep, drink fluids, and take Tylenol because he had a fever of 106 or something. Tuesday and Wednesday were more of the same. Thursday was our anniversary and we had planned to go to dinner and then to The Mikado down at the PAC. Thursday morning he got up and planned to go to work. He took a shower, ate some pudding, threw the pudding back up in about 2 minutes, and crawled back into bed. At this point we gave our tickets to the show to his parents and canceled the dinner reservation.
He called me at work around 3:30 and told me he felt lots better and wanted to go to dinner and the show. Ok… So we went. He did look a lot better and aside from the horrible coughing seemed to be healed. The show was great, just as funny as I remembered it to be. Unfortunately the seats at the PAC are designed for anorexic teenagers. I suffered from “indented thigh-itis” as well as “crazy (possibly drunk) woman next to me laughing hysterically and jabbing me in the side-itis” for most of the show. It was also pretty warm. Next time we get box seats in the wings, Adam says. Anywho, we went back home and went to sleep. Friday morning (we both had vacation – we had been planning a crazy night…) I got up and putzed around until Adam emerged from the bedroom around noon. It was the incessant blaring of a car alarm (I’m talking about 10 minutes straight) that convinced him he was meant to be awake. We did some shopping and I think we rented movies. He went back to work on Saturday and seems to be fine now.
This week has been relatively boring in comparison. I had my monthly IMA meeting on Tuesday and was bored out of my mind with the IT guy’s presentation. Next month is the last meeting of the year and is CEO (ie. invite your boss) night. I’m as yet undecided about whether I want to invite my boss(es). I’d feel bad because I really wouldn’t be able to spend a lot of time with them. I’m the busiest person there most of the time. This is a working meeting for me. I have to think about it still. Tomorrow I have a lunch meeting over at Banner – the company that joined up with Milprint and the location to which we’ll all be moving in June. Should be interesting to see the new place and meet my new co-workers.
There’s really not much else planned until the trip to New York. Adam’s parents are going on a cruise the beginning of May but it looks like his sister will be driving them to the airport instead of him (as was originally planned.) Next week looks to be possibly even more boring than this one. I’ll be out in New London next Friday, but that’s about the most exciting thing. I’m finishing up some tax stuff this week for corporate. Meh. May is a nice month with the 1st falling on a Monday making our working days really simple to count. I was able to get my plant closed in about 3 days last month so we’ll see if I can do the same thing this next month.
I was thinking about the summer this morning and wondering if we shouldn’t get some days reserved up in Door County for our camping trip(s). I suppose I should talk to Adam (and Catherine and Tony) to see what they think.
Plans for Memorial Day are getting firmed up. I suppose I should get in touch with Cheryl and Catherine again since I kind of dragged them into this. Heh. I’ve been so bad about answering e-mails lately. I read them, I just don’t reply to anyone.
Ok I think you’re pretty much caught up. I should have a book update to post today or tomorrow. I’m still way behind but I’m trying to catch up.
Saturday, April 15, 2006
We have an addiction...
... to hamsters. We went to buy Pigster a bigger cage yesterday. We had the original 10 gallon aquarium that he learned to climb out of and the wire top part to keep him contained. The problem is he was sticking his head through the wires to chew on them and it gave him ugly sores on his face. To remedy the situation, we bought him a bigger aquarium - 29 gallons. He's got a lot more room and he'll have to pull some amazing gymnastic type feats to climb out of this one.
This left us with an empty 10 gallon aquarium. What to do? Buy another hamster of course. *sigh* Meet Barry:
He's a black bear hamster (hence the name "Barry" ha ha), about 3 weeks old. He seems sweet so far, but we've only had him for a day so he needs time to become psychotic.
And to recap our hamster situation:
There is Howie, the sweet and calm Russian hamster:
There is Pigster, the gigantic teddy bear (it's mostly fur):
There is Duey, the psychotic Russian hamster:
And now there is Barry, the black bear hamster:
It's getting to be a zoo around here. :)
This left us with an empty 10 gallon aquarium. What to do? Buy another hamster of course. *sigh* Meet Barry:
He's a black bear hamster (hence the name "Barry" ha ha), about 3 weeks old. He seems sweet so far, but we've only had him for a day so he needs time to become psychotic.
And to recap our hamster situation:
There is Howie, the sweet and calm Russian hamster:
There is Pigster, the gigantic teddy bear (it's mostly fur):
There is Duey, the psychotic Russian hamster:
And now there is Barry, the black bear hamster:
It's getting to be a zoo around here. :)
Rotten Tomatoes Journal
I just added a link to my Rotten Tomatoes movie review journal over to the right. I had been slacking on reviewing the movies I'd been seeing but I hope to get better about that. I just added a bunch this morning so go ahead and check it out. :)
Sunday, April 09, 2006
Book Update
Current Progress:
Days Gone: 99 (27.12%)
Books Read: 11(ish) (22.00%)
Pages Read: 3,518 (23.45%)
Argh! So far behind!
Just finished Anywhere But Here and have started on The World Set Free.
Must read like the wind and catch up!
Days Gone: 99 (27.12%)
Books Read: 11(ish) (22.00%)
Pages Read: 3,518 (23.45%)
Argh! So far behind!
Just finished Anywhere But Here and have started on The World Set Free.
Must read like the wind and catch up!
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Stuff
It’s been a little while so I figured I’d post a little something to let everyone know I’m still alive. Ha. I’ve kind of been making some plans over the past week or so. My mom informed me that Catherine would be returning with my dad and Cheryl after her graduation in May so I starting thinking about what to do when she’s here. Right now the plans are in action for a Memorial Day cook-out at Adam’s parents’ house with his family and part of mine. If things work out as planned it should be an interesting day. Adam's parents are on board and Cheryl seemed to be ok with it too. I also plan to take Catherine to the airport when she leaves since she’s flying out of Appleton. Not sure if Dad and Cheryl knew that yet, but now they do. :) I don’t know if anything else will go on since Catherine says she wants to pretty much do nothing. Post-college, pre-med school relaxation break.
Ok, so that’s really all I’ve accomplished in the last week. Well, I did finish Twenty Years After so perhaps I’ll post a book update later. I’m kind of afraid to see my stats right now though. Total slackage! I’ve got a cold again as does apparently everyone else in the office. *sigh* Taking DayQuil doesn’t seem to help. It’s all in my nose again. We’ll be trying out another recipe tonight for dinner and Adam called me a little while ago to tell me my new cookbook has arrived so I’m sure there will be lots more new recipes coming. I have two more planned for this week and we’ll see what happens thereafter. I suppose we really should eat up all the food we have packed into the fridge and freezers. We could probably quit going grocery shopping for a month (aside from stuff like milk.) It’s nice to be able to buy food that’s not ramen noodles. Ah, the sweet taste of success. Too bad it’s all going to my stomach and hips.
Ok, so that’s really all I’ve accomplished in the last week. Well, I did finish Twenty Years After so perhaps I’ll post a book update later. I’m kind of afraid to see my stats right now though. Total slackage! I’ve got a cold again as does apparently everyone else in the office. *sigh* Taking DayQuil doesn’t seem to help. It’s all in my nose again. We’ll be trying out another recipe tonight for dinner and Adam called me a little while ago to tell me my new cookbook has arrived so I’m sure there will be lots more new recipes coming. I have two more planned for this week and we’ll see what happens thereafter. I suppose we really should eat up all the food we have packed into the fridge and freezers. We could probably quit going grocery shopping for a month (aside from stuff like milk.) It’s nice to be able to buy food that’s not ramen noodles. Ah, the sweet taste of success. Too bad it’s all going to my stomach and hips.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Livin' in da Wal-Mart eh?
Ok, so this kid lived in a Wal-Mart store for 41 hours during his spring break. I read the article and aside from finding this kid to be a few crayons short of a full box, I thought he didn’t really try to hard to accomplish his goal. What, does his city have a ghetto Wal-Mart? I think it’s totally possible to live inside Wal-Mart and get pretty much everything you need while there. There’s an entire grocery store and a Subway inside the store. You can get hot food from the deli for most of the day. When they’re closed there’s a myriad of snack foods available. You can buy clothing and personal hygiene products. You can sleep on the futon in the furniture section. There is almost always some movie playing in the electronics section for entertainment. There are also video games and books to occupy your time. The one thing that might be tricky is the bathing issue, but I suppose the sinks in the bathroom might work a little for that. This would be much easier for a guy (since girls generally like to be cleaner than guys do… just an observation.) I don’t know that the Wal-Mart employees would be so observant to notice you never leave. They’d probably just think you really like to shop there… The fact that this guy freaked out and had some paranoia attack after less than 2 days concerns me. Perhaps he should consider spending his spring break with a shrink…
And why is this making national news anyway? *sigh*
And why is this making national news anyway? *sigh*
Ooh, Creepy!
Adam doesn’t even know this yet but I thought it was… interesting. Either we’re freakishly in sync with each other or he has spies following me. :)
We bought each other the same card.
The other day after I went to the library I stopped by Wal-mart to say hi to him and do some shopping. I picked up a card which I planned to give him in a couple weeks for our anniversary. Yes, I shop early. In any case, when he got home from work later that evening he had gotten a card for me. I opened it and there was the exact same card I had just bought for him a few hours earlier. So weird. Luckily for me I hadn’t written anything in the card I bought so I can return it and hopefully find a different card. I’m not totally sure what to make of this, but I found it to be quite interesting.
We bought each other the same card.
The other day after I went to the library I stopped by Wal-mart to say hi to him and do some shopping. I picked up a card which I planned to give him in a couple weeks for our anniversary. Yes, I shop early. In any case, when he got home from work later that evening he had gotten a card for me. I opened it and there was the exact same card I had just bought for him a few hours earlier. So weird. Luckily for me I hadn’t written anything in the card I bought so I can return it and hopefully find a different card. I’m not totally sure what to make of this, but I found it to be quite interesting.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
A Lot O' Nothing
I really don’t have anything to say but I figured I’d post something anyway. The week appears to be going by quickly except for when I’m sitting here at work trying to find something to do. *sigh* Nothing much is going on. The month is almost over and so I’ll be up in New London on Friday. Woo. Sales this month are totally awesome but I’m sure something happened so that the profit will be horrible. I’m saying this with absolutely no knowledge of what the results actually are. I haven’t even looked at recovery reports at all. This is just based on past experience. Whenever I see that sales are much higher than expected something always happens to offset that increase. Then my plant manager asks me why this happens. *sigh* Hopefully things work out differently this month. *crosses fingers* Would be a nice way to end the quarter.
The hamsters are still doing well. Pigster is odd and we’re trying to find a way to position his wheel so it doesn’t bang against the cage. He’s so huge the wheel tips backward as he runs in it and hits the glass. So annoying… but if I move it away from the cage it hits the metal ramp. I turned it on an angle last night and I don’t think it made noise, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I’d like to get a bigger cage for him but I don’t know if it’s worth dropping $60ish for a bigger aquarium. I had no idea he’d get so huge. And it’s not all fluffy hair either. He’s a long(ie tall, in hamsterland) thing (which is how he managed to escape before I put the metal top on the aquarium.) Duey has gone from being sweet and cuddly to being the devil’s sidekick. Ok, maybe that’s being slightly melodramatic, but he’s just evil! He’s all bitey now. Adam originally tried to convince me that it was just me until Duey gave him a nice big bite on the finger the other day. He’s still crazy and obsessively runs his circuit around the cage. I just pick him up less. Howie appears to have remained his sweet self. He’s so much calmer than either of the other two. He just kind of goes along with whatever you do. If you pick him up, cool. If not, that’s ok too. Each of these critters definitely has their own personality. Perhaps I’ll get some more pictures of them soon. I have Pigster and Howie as my wallpaper at work and every time the tech guys remote my computer they ask me, “Are those gerbils?” No! They don’t have ugly gerbil tails! *sigh*
There are really no plans to do anything in the near future. Life is kind of boring until mid-April. I went to the library last night to return some books and pick up a new batch. Perhaps I’ll comment on my book challenge progress later. I’ve been slacking off terribly lately. TV has become so tempting. They are showing two episodes of 7th Heaven now on ABC Family each evening so there’s another hour gone. LoL.
The hamsters are still doing well. Pigster is odd and we’re trying to find a way to position his wheel so it doesn’t bang against the cage. He’s so huge the wheel tips backward as he runs in it and hits the glass. So annoying… but if I move it away from the cage it hits the metal ramp. I turned it on an angle last night and I don’t think it made noise, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I’d like to get a bigger cage for him but I don’t know if it’s worth dropping $60ish for a bigger aquarium. I had no idea he’d get so huge. And it’s not all fluffy hair either. He’s a long(ie tall, in hamsterland) thing (which is how he managed to escape before I put the metal top on the aquarium.) Duey has gone from being sweet and cuddly to being the devil’s sidekick. Ok, maybe that’s being slightly melodramatic, but he’s just evil! He’s all bitey now. Adam originally tried to convince me that it was just me until Duey gave him a nice big bite on the finger the other day. He’s still crazy and obsessively runs his circuit around the cage. I just pick him up less. Howie appears to have remained his sweet self. He’s so much calmer than either of the other two. He just kind of goes along with whatever you do. If you pick him up, cool. If not, that’s ok too. Each of these critters definitely has their own personality. Perhaps I’ll get some more pictures of them soon. I have Pigster and Howie as my wallpaper at work and every time the tech guys remote my computer they ask me, “Are those gerbils?” No! They don’t have ugly gerbil tails! *sigh*
There are really no plans to do anything in the near future. Life is kind of boring until mid-April. I went to the library last night to return some books and pick up a new batch. Perhaps I’ll comment on my book challenge progress later. I’ve been slacking off terribly lately. TV has become so tempting. They are showing two episodes of 7th Heaven now on ABC Family each evening so there’s another hour gone. LoL.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Odd Billboard pairings
First off, Happy Birthday to my sister Catherine in New York. It's her 21st today. Have at least one drink (even though I didn't on my 21st...)
Anyway, the original point of this post was to comment on this billboard I see every day while driving home from work. On one side is a Cost Cutters ad - a pouty blonde woman posing with her great new haircut. Unfortunately, on the other side is an ad for M. Schettl sales - a huge outlet type store in Oshkosh that sells all kinds of weird stuff like lawn ornaments and the such. Their recognizable logo is this big moose head. As fate would have it, the antlers stick up over the top of the billboard and they just happen to be right where the woman's head is on the other side of the billboard. So it looks like the lady in the Cost Cutter ad has antlers. It makes me snicker every time I see it...
There's another odd pairing that Adam is always pointing out but I can't remember what it is... something with an adult bookstore...with McDonald's or something
You'd think they'd think about these placements before plastering up this huge picture.
Anyway, the original point of this post was to comment on this billboard I see every day while driving home from work. On one side is a Cost Cutters ad - a pouty blonde woman posing with her great new haircut. Unfortunately, on the other side is an ad for M. Schettl sales - a huge outlet type store in Oshkosh that sells all kinds of weird stuff like lawn ornaments and the such. Their recognizable logo is this big moose head. As fate would have it, the antlers stick up over the top of the billboard and they just happen to be right where the woman's head is on the other side of the billboard. So it looks like the lady in the Cost Cutter ad has antlers. It makes me snicker every time I see it...
There's another odd pairing that Adam is always pointing out but I can't remember what it is... something with an adult bookstore...with McDonald's or something
You'd think they'd think about these placements before plastering up this huge picture.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Time is Flying
Wow. This week has just flown by. It’s kind of sad, considering I really didn’t do all that much. Monday was an average day, minus a 7th Heaven episode. Adam worked again so I taped The Apprentice for him. It was an interesting episode. Brent is a psycho and I’m sure he believes all the stupid stuff that was coming out of his mouth. I’m glad he’s gone. Perhaps things will be normal now. The previews for this coming week suggest otherwise, but we’ll see.
Tuesday was my IMA meeting. It was student night so the meeting was held down in Oshkosh. The speakers were two republicans running for governor – Scott Walker and Mark Green. Well, Mr. Green wasn’t there, but Rep. Underheim came and filled in for him. There were about 30 students and maybe 20 IMA members in attendance. All in all, a fairly big crowd. The politicians had been instructed to shy away from campaign-like speeches and instead focus on items of interest for people in the accounting/finance field – budgeting, tax issues, etc. Needless to say, this didn’t happen and it turned into a kind of mudslinging forum for the candidates to promote themselves (or in Green’s case, for Underheim to promote him.) This ticked a few members off and emails were flying on Wednesday morning. It’s been interesting, being on the “inside” of a group like this. I generally had a good time and had my first successful mystery guest contest. Sweet!
Wednesday I headed up to Denmark with Angie and Tina and Mike (that is, my boss, her boss, and her boss’ boss. Whew!) We went up there to help the ladies in their accounting department clean out all their files. They had stuff from the ‘80s hanging around in their file cabinets. We all got dirty and dusty and got plenty of exercise hauling boxes around all day. The afternoon was actually spent mostly helping out the HR department. Mike and I boxed up hundreds of terminated employee files that dated back to the ‘50s! I got plenty of paper cuts and thoroughly despise hanging folders after that experience. We finished faster than expected and only spent that one day there. I came home from the plant and pretty much crashed. I was so sore on Thursday.
Thursday was pretty boring. I was back at corporate and not much happened. I went grocery shopping after work and once again found myself lying in bed at an early hour. *sigh*
And today is Friday. My day at work has been pretty laid back. I’m still working on a special request from Jerry (my plant manager) but I’m kind of at a standstill waiting to hear back from the invoicing department out at Curwood. Other than that I’m just trying to prep as much as I can for month-end and quarter-end. My financial reporting system was down from Tuesday morning until yesterday so I had some catching up to do. Yeah, they migrated me to the new server and erased all my profiles in the process so they had to redo everything before it would let me into any of the systems. *sigh* again. Also mysteriously gone is my personal folder on my U: drive. I’m kind of ticked about that since all my IMA stuff was on it but I haven’t called up to the help desk yet. Meh.
Tonight we hang. Adam plans to stop at the video store on the way home and rent The Squid and the Whale which is a movie I’ve wanted to see for a while now. We’ll be having fish (it’s Friday after all) and he wants me to make some more of the dill fries I made last week. (See the cooking blog if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) I also hope to give our new bar and martini glass sets a spin. I bought Godiva liquor last weekend and am planning to make a chocolate martini. :) Maybe I’ll take a picture of that too. Other than that, I’m not sure what’s on the docket. We’ll be going to the casino tomorrow and one of Adam’s co-workers is coming over to clean the carpets (it’s his second job or something.) Adam works on Sunday so I don’t know what I’ll be up to then. It’s just a go with the flow kind of weekend I guess.
Tuesday was my IMA meeting. It was student night so the meeting was held down in Oshkosh. The speakers were two republicans running for governor – Scott Walker and Mark Green. Well, Mr. Green wasn’t there, but Rep. Underheim came and filled in for him. There were about 30 students and maybe 20 IMA members in attendance. All in all, a fairly big crowd. The politicians had been instructed to shy away from campaign-like speeches and instead focus on items of interest for people in the accounting/finance field – budgeting, tax issues, etc. Needless to say, this didn’t happen and it turned into a kind of mudslinging forum for the candidates to promote themselves (or in Green’s case, for Underheim to promote him.) This ticked a few members off and emails were flying on Wednesday morning. It’s been interesting, being on the “inside” of a group like this. I generally had a good time and had my first successful mystery guest contest. Sweet!
Wednesday I headed up to Denmark with Angie and Tina and Mike (that is, my boss, her boss, and her boss’ boss. Whew!) We went up there to help the ladies in their accounting department clean out all their files. They had stuff from the ‘80s hanging around in their file cabinets. We all got dirty and dusty and got plenty of exercise hauling boxes around all day. The afternoon was actually spent mostly helping out the HR department. Mike and I boxed up hundreds of terminated employee files that dated back to the ‘50s! I got plenty of paper cuts and thoroughly despise hanging folders after that experience. We finished faster than expected and only spent that one day there. I came home from the plant and pretty much crashed. I was so sore on Thursday.
Thursday was pretty boring. I was back at corporate and not much happened. I went grocery shopping after work and once again found myself lying in bed at an early hour. *sigh*
And today is Friday. My day at work has been pretty laid back. I’m still working on a special request from Jerry (my plant manager) but I’m kind of at a standstill waiting to hear back from the invoicing department out at Curwood. Other than that I’m just trying to prep as much as I can for month-end and quarter-end. My financial reporting system was down from Tuesday morning until yesterday so I had some catching up to do. Yeah, they migrated me to the new server and erased all my profiles in the process so they had to redo everything before it would let me into any of the systems. *sigh* again. Also mysteriously gone is my personal folder on my U: drive. I’m kind of ticked about that since all my IMA stuff was on it but I haven’t called up to the help desk yet. Meh.
Tonight we hang. Adam plans to stop at the video store on the way home and rent The Squid and the Whale which is a movie I’ve wanted to see for a while now. We’ll be having fish (it’s Friday after all) and he wants me to make some more of the dill fries I made last week. (See the cooking blog if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) I also hope to give our new bar and martini glass sets a spin. I bought Godiva liquor last weekend and am planning to make a chocolate martini. :) Maybe I’ll take a picture of that too. Other than that, I’m not sure what’s on the docket. We’ll be going to the casino tomorrow and one of Adam’s co-workers is coming over to clean the carpets (it’s his second job or something.) Adam works on Sunday so I don’t know what I’ll be up to then. It’s just a go with the flow kind of weekend I guess.
Friday, March 17, 2006
The Mikado
I forgot to mention this before: We got tickets to go see The Mikado in April at the PAC. It’s been quite some time since I’ve been to a performance of any kind and it’s been years since I’ve seen this one live. Was probably at South High the last time… Anyway, Adam knows nothing about it but I’ve assured him it’s funny. I’ve never been to the PAC so it should be a good time. Coincidentally (?) enough we’ll be going the day after our 1 year anniversary (just under a month away!) It just kind of worked out that way. We originally thought about going to Annie which is playing around the same time. Then I noticed that it was part of their “Kids on Broadway” series and decided it probably wasn’t the best idea. Plus it was more expensive. :) So we opted for some Gilbert and Sullivan. Let’s hear it for Yum-Yum and the other two little maids from school. Heh. I’m not sure what else will be going on for that occasion. We both have off the day AFTER our anniversary but not the day OF. Adam has an eye doctor appointment in the morning (he wanted me to be able to come with him so this was kind of the only option.) Meh. I don’t know. Guess I’ll see how things go when the time comes.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Mind boggling politics
This is absolutely ridiculous.
Senate votes debt limit hike to $8.965 trillion
Notable quotes:
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a $781 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority aimed at averting a possible government default on debt this month.
Treasury Secretary John Snow applauded passage of the legislation saying it "ensures that the U.S. can deliver on promises already made, such as Social Security and Medicare payments and aid for the victims of the 2005 hurricanes."
Must be nice to have that kind of power…
(**Martha at bank counter**)
"Uhm, yeah, I’d like to take out a $781 billion loan please. I’m afraid I might not be able to pay the bills I already have (including my other loan payments) so I need to borrow some more to pay back what I’ve already borrowed."
Completely defies all logic! This doesn’t “avert a possible government default on debt.” This just raises the credit limit on the national credit card! If you can’t even pay your minimum amounts now how is giving you a higher limit going to help? I just don’t get it! And they wonder why so many Americans are drowning in debt...
Senate votes debt limit hike to $8.965 trillion
Notable quotes:
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a $781 billion increase in U.S. borrowing authority aimed at averting a possible government default on debt this month.
Treasury Secretary John Snow applauded passage of the legislation saying it "ensures that the U.S. can deliver on promises already made, such as Social Security and Medicare payments and aid for the victims of the 2005 hurricanes."
Must be nice to have that kind of power…
(**Martha at bank counter**)
"Uhm, yeah, I’d like to take out a $781 billion loan please. I’m afraid I might not be able to pay the bills I already have (including my other loan payments) so I need to borrow some more to pay back what I’ve already borrowed."
Completely defies all logic! This doesn’t “avert a possible government default on debt.” This just raises the credit limit on the national credit card! If you can’t even pay your minimum amounts now how is giving you a higher limit going to help? I just don’t get it! And they wonder why so many Americans are drowning in debt...
Adventures in Banking
And now, for your reading pleasure, we present "The Adventures of Martha's Lunch Hour."
Went to the post office to pick up mail / send Catherine's gift. (Shhhh, don’t tell her.) Figured I'd just buy a mailing envelope at the post office and kind of kill two birds with one stone. As I was filling out the envelope with the address and all, this lady comes in and slips into the line before me. She had 5 medium-sized boxes. Each one was being sent internationally. Each one was being sent to a different country. *sigh* It figures that one of the only times I actually have to go up to the window I'd get stuck behind someone like that. The other window was occupied by another lady sending multiple packages. Her problem was the fact that she barely spoke English. *sigh* again. Oh well, I eventually got the thing sent.
I had planned to go to the bank branch on campus to avoid Mean Lady. So I headed down Algoma and was tailed by a cop most of the way. He turned at Wisconsin though (whew) and I continued to the campus. When I got there, there was absolutely no parking. So much for my spring break theory. I don't know where all the cars were from, but there was not one space open. Not even a handicapped one. So I headed back to the main branch. I entered and of course the only window open was manned by Mean Lady. I tell her I want to close my account and she tells me that they need to have my debit card for at least a week before they can close it. I tell her to look at my account and take note that there has been no activity of any kind in over 2 weeks. The last activity was my directly deposited paycheck. The last of MY activity was over a month ago. She decides to be nice since "I look honest" and tells me to just cut the card up and she'll close the accounts and give me all the money today. She did say that if I ever came back and wanted to open an account again I should be sure to mention I had one there before. *sigh*
So that's all done and taken care of. I’m rather happy to be out of there. In addition to all the other reasons I’ve cited previously for leaving, another one came to me today: They weren’t too good with making me feel that my money was secure. I didn’t have any kind of account card. When you go into the bank you just tell them your account number. The last two times I went there was to withdraw sizable sums of money and they just handed it over without asking for any identification. Of course you have to sign the slip, but I could be someone else pretending to be me… At least at Capital they have member cards and you have to have it to do anything. I get so pissed when places are so lax about this kind of thing. Especially places like banks. I mean we used a debit card at KFC the other day and they asked for identification. If KFC can do it, why can’t everyone else? Geesh! I mean, sure, they torture and kill chickens in horrific ways, but at least they ensure their customers are who they say they are.
Still feeling like crap and wish the cold would just come full force already so it can proceed to go away.
Not sure what’s going on tomorrow yet since Adam keeps changing his mind. He’s going to attempt to make the fish dish that I was going to make tomorrow tonight since apparently the Pope granted dispensation of the required abstinence for Lent tomorrow so that all those Irish Catholic folk can eat their corned beef.
Went to the post office to pick up mail / send Catherine's gift. (Shhhh, don’t tell her.) Figured I'd just buy a mailing envelope at the post office and kind of kill two birds with one stone. As I was filling out the envelope with the address and all, this lady comes in and slips into the line before me. She had 5 medium-sized boxes. Each one was being sent internationally. Each one was being sent to a different country. *sigh* It figures that one of the only times I actually have to go up to the window I'd get stuck behind someone like that. The other window was occupied by another lady sending multiple packages. Her problem was the fact that she barely spoke English. *sigh* again. Oh well, I eventually got the thing sent.
I had planned to go to the bank branch on campus to avoid Mean Lady. So I headed down Algoma and was tailed by a cop most of the way. He turned at Wisconsin though (whew) and I continued to the campus. When I got there, there was absolutely no parking. So much for my spring break theory. I don't know where all the cars were from, but there was not one space open. Not even a handicapped one. So I headed back to the main branch. I entered and of course the only window open was manned by Mean Lady. I tell her I want to close my account and she tells me that they need to have my debit card for at least a week before they can close it. I tell her to look at my account and take note that there has been no activity of any kind in over 2 weeks. The last activity was my directly deposited paycheck. The last of MY activity was over a month ago. She decides to be nice since "I look honest" and tells me to just cut the card up and she'll close the accounts and give me all the money today. She did say that if I ever came back and wanted to open an account again I should be sure to mention I had one there before. *sigh*
So that's all done and taken care of. I’m rather happy to be out of there. In addition to all the other reasons I’ve cited previously for leaving, another one came to me today: They weren’t too good with making me feel that my money was secure. I didn’t have any kind of account card. When you go into the bank you just tell them your account number. The last two times I went there was to withdraw sizable sums of money and they just handed it over without asking for any identification. Of course you have to sign the slip, but I could be someone else pretending to be me… At least at Capital they have member cards and you have to have it to do anything. I get so pissed when places are so lax about this kind of thing. Especially places like banks. I mean we used a debit card at KFC the other day and they asked for identification. If KFC can do it, why can’t everyone else? Geesh! I mean, sure, they torture and kill chickens in horrific ways, but at least they ensure their customers are who they say they are.
Still feeling like crap and wish the cold would just come full force already so it can proceed to go away.
Not sure what’s going on tomorrow yet since Adam keeps changing his mind. He’s going to attempt to make the fish dish that I was going to make tomorrow tonight since apparently the Pope granted dispensation of the required abstinence for Lent tomorrow so that all those Irish Catholic folk can eat their corned beef.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Banking and other stuff
Adam has an interview at Dick’s tonight so wish him luck. I must say that was an awfully quick couple weeks. :) Hopefully things go well. Other than that, there’s not much planned for this evening. I’ll be making a chicken dish for dinner so look for that on the cooking blog later.
Everything seems to have fallen into place with the new bank accounts. My paycheck was deposited into the Capital account this morning and I ended up calling Toyota last night to see about my car payment. As I was lying in bed reading last night I realized that my car payment hadn’t come out of either of the checking accounts. I logged onto the online account information website and discovered that the payment hadn’t been made and was listed as past due. I called customer service and after a really horrible automated menu and some bad elevator music I spoke with a couple ladies to get things straightened out. Turns out they received my new account information into their system on March 1st but set it up to start deducting in April, thereby missing the March payment. I made the payment by phone and they were “nice enough” to waive the $5 convenience fee. (pfft. It was their fault…) Anyway, with the new account info verified with them and my paycheck going to the right place, I can close the UWO accounts this afternoon. Yay! I’m hoping that mean teller isn’t there. She hates me. (Ok, so I yelled at her a couple times, but she deserved it… I mean randomly changing my address three times? Sending my credit card to New York? Ridiculous!) She always seems to be the one there at noontime though. *sigh* I’m seriously considering just going to the branch in the student union on the UW campus. It’s spring break so there shouldn’t be too many people there.
The Gambler’s game this weekend kind of fell through. There was very little interest and it ended up being just me and Adam and two other people. We decided it wasn’t worth it so we’re going to shuffle plans a bit for the weekend. On Friday I’m going to try out an Alton Brown (of Good Eats fame) fish recipe and then Adam plans to go hang out with his cousin and friends to watch the Final Four or whatever it’s called. Not really my thing so I guess I’ll hang at home and read or something. Since we no longer have the game on Saturday night we plan to go to the casino then and use Adam’s birthday coupon. Original plans were to go Friday. We’ll still be heading down to Sheboygan on Sunday.
I think I’m getting a cold. Combination of crappy weather and not enough sleep probably. Adam tells me I snored like a lumberjack last night… Oh well. I feel pretty icky (and I’m also kinda sore from the treadmill last night) but I’ll survive. Hopefully it will warm up again soon. Last weekend was awesome. I even got out my spring jacket. This was perhaps jumping the gun a bit though seeing as how it’s back to 20 degree weather again.
Everything seems to have fallen into place with the new bank accounts. My paycheck was deposited into the Capital account this morning and I ended up calling Toyota last night to see about my car payment. As I was lying in bed reading last night I realized that my car payment hadn’t come out of either of the checking accounts. I logged onto the online account information website and discovered that the payment hadn’t been made and was listed as past due. I called customer service and after a really horrible automated menu and some bad elevator music I spoke with a couple ladies to get things straightened out. Turns out they received my new account information into their system on March 1st but set it up to start deducting in April, thereby missing the March payment. I made the payment by phone and they were “nice enough” to waive the $5 convenience fee. (pfft. It was their fault…) Anyway, with the new account info verified with them and my paycheck going to the right place, I can close the UWO accounts this afternoon. Yay! I’m hoping that mean teller isn’t there. She hates me. (Ok, so I yelled at her a couple times, but she deserved it… I mean randomly changing my address three times? Sending my credit card to New York? Ridiculous!) She always seems to be the one there at noontime though. *sigh* I’m seriously considering just going to the branch in the student union on the UW campus. It’s spring break so there shouldn’t be too many people there.
The Gambler’s game this weekend kind of fell through. There was very little interest and it ended up being just me and Adam and two other people. We decided it wasn’t worth it so we’re going to shuffle plans a bit for the weekend. On Friday I’m going to try out an Alton Brown (of Good Eats fame) fish recipe and then Adam plans to go hang out with his cousin and friends to watch the Final Four or whatever it’s called. Not really my thing so I guess I’ll hang at home and read or something. Since we no longer have the game on Saturday night we plan to go to the casino then and use Adam’s birthday coupon. Original plans were to go Friday. We’ll still be heading down to Sheboygan on Sunday.
I think I’m getting a cold. Combination of crappy weather and not enough sleep probably. Adam tells me I snored like a lumberjack last night… Oh well. I feel pretty icky (and I’m also kinda sore from the treadmill last night) but I’ll survive. Hopefully it will warm up again soon. Last weekend was awesome. I even got out my spring jacket. This was perhaps jumping the gun a bit though seeing as how it’s back to 20 degree weather again.
Monday, March 13, 2006
The couch
As promised, here are pictures of our new couch. Don't ask me what that dark spot on the center cushion is... it's just the way the material was brushed. I'm guessing maybe that's where Adam was sitting earlier. Dunno. It's not a stain though :)
Here's a picture of the treadmill too. Figured I'd snap one of it while it was out this evening.
Here's a picture of the treadmill too. Figured I'd snap one of it while it was out this evening.
Martha Cooks!
So I went ahead and created a second blog area devoted to my adventures in cooking. The link will always be to the right or you can click here as well.
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