In Case You Were Wondering...

I could survive for 1 minute, 32 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

Miscellany

Quote of the day (and it's only 9:24 am!):
"That's right. You know your daddy brought you tacos."

Dancing last night was super fun - lots of good leads on the floor. Learned some new moves, too!

Confession Time.

I am in love with Bon Jovi, and I must accept it.

Ike + Hair Dye

Turns out Ike completely missed us! Completely. We had slightly more of a breeze than normal - but otherwise it was sunny, dry, and a boiling 100 degrees. Galveston and Houston were, unfortunately, not so lucky...but things weren't as bad as they could have been.

Jess spent a good chunk of the weekend at my place working on the Salt page that will go live tomorrow. We also went to see her mom and a couple of her aunts who were having a pool party - complete with margaritas! We only stayed briefly, though. Then it was off to Hyde Park Grill...and I had polenta for the first time. Oh my goodness yum.

And I found out that I can make crepes using just-add-water pancake mix! They were quite good. Quote of the morning by Jess: "I wonder how much better you'd be at cooking if you had a skillet without lumps." Yeah - my skillet has been warped since 2004. I did snag a smaller, 8-inch skillet at HEB specifically for future crepe-making, though.

I also (finally) got to meet Andrew's little puppy Creasy (I don't know if that's the right spelling or even the correct name, but I'm 90% sure that's what he said). She's completely adorable, and if I could have melted, I would have.

And finally, I dyed my hair again - if you'll recall, I recently bleached it... so it went from it's dark reddish brown stage to orange. I snagged a box of red hair dye on sale and used that. Well...I think I found out why it was on sale. Instead of turning red...or even orangey red, it turned magenta and purple. I look more punk rock than normal, but otherwise, it's not bad! People at work seem like it a lot, which means that I can keep it this way for a while without appalling anyone. Woot.

More Shlock About Hurricanes

The buzzwords being thrown around with impending Hurricane Ike are "certain death." No, really. Also alarming - it's been suggested to those who chose NOT to evacuate Galveston that they write their names on one arm with permanent marker and their social security number on their other arm. (Note: I found that "tip" earlier today, and now, as I'm searching for the link, I can only find a comment reference to it - seems the article has been taken down.)

Morbid.

Now. When I was growing up, my brother and I were allowed to stay up until 10:30pm or so on weeknights as long as we watched the 10 o'clock news. I don't remember hearing ANYTHING about hurricanes and mandatory evacuations and all that with the exception of things regarding Hurricane Andrew in 1992. What about Hurricane Mitch in 1998? This was a far FAR deadlier hurricane than Andrew, and yet we didn't hear much about it at all.

But Hurricane Katrina hits in 2005, and suddenly, it's PANIC and OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE every time a tropical storm hits the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not saying that requiring mandatory evacuations and taking extra precautions is stupid, but I DO think that all this hype is getting out of hand.

Besides, if we keep screaming and hollering about monster storms and telling people be scared and causing panic, etc etc...and then it sprinkles a little bit and blows some lawn chairs around... well, people are going to stop listening. I remember Hurricane Rita heading up from Corpus about a month after Katrina blasted through Mississippi and Louisiana, and Austin was told to prepare for massive storm damage and flooding and OH MY GOD MAYBE EVERYONE WILL DIE! And it was especially disconcerting because this was the same time that thousands of people were in Austin for a huge music festival. Well...the day came around and...nothing. Seriously, nothing. It was sunny and 108 degrees outside. No clouds, no rain. Just lots and lots of dust.

Now, the weather stations are all uppity about Hurricane Ike and telling us to expect a huge storm with WIND and RAIN and OTHER HURRICANE-Y THINGS, but no one is listening. Do I personally believe that Ike is going to be a huge deal? Nah, not particularly. Not for *us* anyway. I hope I'm right ^.~

I got caught up in the panic around Hurricane Gustav just a couple weeks ago, mostly because it seriously affected my company, but now...maybe I'm just over it? Is that a horrible thing to say? Probably.

Overheard

Quote of the day: "Don't forget to mention his pants! It's all about the pants."

I have absolutely no idea what the context was ^.^

Condiments!

Around here, we refer to the DHL delivery guys as "The Hot Dog Men." Why, you ask? Remember that Hot Dog theme in Windows 3.1? I do. When I was little, I used to set our home computer to that all time because it was so obnoxious. (That picture still burns my eyes.) And now, for comparison, the DHL logo.

Anyway. That was the set-up for this little exchange.

We got a delivery from DHL this morning that I took to our IT guy and stated, "The Hot Dog Men have bestowed gifts upon you."
The IT Guy: How lovely. May the Mustard Go With Them.
Me: Hmm. I wonder if it would be possible to create some thematic jargon based on condiments?
The IT Guy: Why, I'd relish it.