Caesar's Invasion of Britain + Quote!

I have one of those page-a-day calendars on my desk for work. This is the third year I've had one ^.^ This year, instead of a daily comic, I picked up "The Dangerous Book for Boys." There was a similar one for girls, but that all had stuff about etiquette and what-not. The DBB had cool trivia and how to make paper airplanes XD

In any case, for the past couple days, the pages have been giving information on Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain in 55 and 54 BC. It's been really interesting, and I thought I'd share some of the tidbits.

In 55 BC, Caesar's Romans first landed on the beaches in Kent. The Britons (which means "painted ones") fought in the water with their dogs to prevent the ships with soldiers from reaching the shore. Caesar's personal account of this battle actually marks the first reference of a specific domesticated dog breed - the English mastiff. ^.^ The surviving Roman soldiers, including Caesar, ended up coming to a truce with the Britons, but they came back in 54 BC with a huge army: 800 ships, five legions of troops, and 2000 cavalrymen. Fortunately for the Britons, a huge storm hit at the same time and decimated Caesar's ships and troops. With his remaining armies, Caesar marched north and wiped out a bunch of tribes before finally agreeing to peace terms. Then he left and never returned (due to being distracted by Cleopatra and then being stabbity-stabbed).

Work Quote of the Day (I'm not certain of the context):
J: I hate deceased employees.
L: They're such a nuisance!

Quick-n-Dirty Update + Quote!

I'm not going to regale you with epic tales of being sick for a couple weeks. You're welcome.

Aside from that, life has settled into that kind of comfortable yet frantic pace that the holiday season seems to bring - and while most people I come across are pleasant and jovial, I definitely understand the "Seasonal Blues" phenomenom. Especially with the weather being consistantly overcast and drizzly. And the fog. The fog has been incredible.

My company Christmas party is tomorrow night - we'll be heading to Jack Allen's Kitchen and will be there opening night - it's kind of exciting, and I feel vaguely like a celebrity.

And here's the quote of the day (I don't know the context, but I heard it all the way across the office):
S: Look in my eye. There's glass in my eye. LOOK AT IT!

Winter Weather... in TEXAS?

Yup, it's actually snowing right now! I was surprised - the weather reports are calling for an inch and a half of accumulation, but I'm just laughing at that. For starters, the temperature hasn't reached freezing yet. And besides, the ground is too warm to allow for accumulation. Now, if the snow keeps falling at the rate it has been, we *might* get a white powdery dusting on the top of cars and shrubs - but only maybe.

I took a couple pictures - if any came out well, I'll post them here.

Also, I told Trevor, our Chicago friend, about the snow:
Trevor: it was snowing here yesterday...i bet our snow is colder than yours
Me: I'm sure it is =p Your snow would beat up our snow and take its lunch money
Trevor: and it's girlfriend. "you're dating me now, baby! now gimme some of your fries"

Oh uh... hey guys!

Jess and I have been pretty busy lately with our jobs and both comics, so there hasn't been much to report other than, "Uh... we've been drawing a lot." A couple weeks ago, we went to see "Up" which was extremely cool - I was skeptical because I'm not a fan of the "endearing child sidekick" schtick, but I didn't hate this one. ^.^

Quote of the day: "My geography's not too good - where's Kentucky?"

Enriching Your Mind

Regarding a bar in Austin called The Tiniest Bar in Texas:

With its extended patio (haphazardly tented in winter, so it feels like a claustrophobic carnival) and covered porch, I doubt that the Tiniest Bar is actually the tiniest bar after all, but I don't really mind. Places misrepresent themselves all the time—Whole Foods often serves things which are cut into pieces, there's a Central Market pretty far south, the Library isn't actually a library, and Casino el Camino has nothing to do with gambling or ugly cars. So if the Tiniest Bar in Texas wants to call itself the Land That Never Was or the Set of the "Tonight Show" or Canada, I don't really care. I'll happily go there and wile away the evening with a couple of Fireman's #4s or a cheap bloody Mary anyway.

Source

Regarding Escamoles, one of Uphaa.com's Bizarre/Disgusting Foods:

Escamoles are the eggs of the giant black Liometopum ant, which makes its home in the root systems of maguey and agave plants. Collecting the eggs is a uniquely unpleasant job, since the ants are highly venomous and have some kind of blood grudge against human orifices. The eggs have the consistency of cottage cheese. The most popular way to eat them is in a taco with guacamole, while being insane.

Source

Food + Dancing

We put in a big sandwich order today, and I accidentally wrote "No lettuce, no tomato" instead of "no mayo." Fortunately, I corrected it in time - I would have been very unhappy. As a follow up:

Me: I'm the dumbest person ever.
D: Yeah, that's what I've been telling people.

In other news, it's the one-year anniversary for Kick Butt Blues! We're celebrating with a semi-formal dance tonight. I have a pretty dress and everything! Now, if I can just shake this being-tired business...

Miss You Fever + Quotes!

Want to hear a great Texas blues song? It's "Miss You Fever" by Delbert McClinton - it'll play on imeem.com.
Listen!
Mmm, such a great song.

Also, two great work quotes today:

S: I think the internet comes in through the plumbing. I'm serious. Someone flushes, and everyone goes offline.
-----
S: Have you guys seen the videos yet?
M: Nope. We're like... we're the mushroom group - always in the dark.
S: Well, I guess that explains the moss.

ILVTOFU

So, when you first read the title of this post, what do you see?

The State of Colorado recently denied this requested vanity plate because they worried that drivers might read something inappropriate rather than "I Love Tofu."

Check out the article (which is pretty funny).

My favorite line? "It's not a dirty, evil food."

Christmas? Already?

The onslaught of Christmas music has begun! Well, it actually started promptly after Thanksgiving... and in some cases, I heard Christmas songs as early as October! Yuck. Now, I'm specifically talking about secular Christmas music - I actually don't mind the religious, sung-in-Latin ones. That's probably because my mom really likes this type of music (think Handel's "Messiah" or just about anything by Libera), and I grew up listening to it pretty much year-round ^.^

It's also the time for Christmas decorating. Case-in-point, I set up the office Christmas tree. I had forgotten that all the ornaments were doused in glitter (I didn't choose them - don't blame me!), so by the end of the decorating, I was pretty much covered with sparkly red bits. *sigh* I'm not girly enough for glitter! Rar! Also, we don't have a tree-topper like a star or angel... so I put my ugly plastic pineapple at the tope and am waiting for people to notice. Out of the 40+ people who work here... three have seen it ^.^

You know those tree skirts? They're usually circle-shaped with a slit on one side so you can wrap it smoothly around the base. Well, our particular tree skirt didn't have a slit, so I was sitting on the floor hacking at it with scissors, and one of my coworkers passed by and said, "Now you see, this is why we can't have nice things."

Holiday Mess

I'm a bit erratic about my posting, but I am choosing to blame the holidays! It's a crazy time for everyone, to be sure, as I'm sure you understand.

This Thanksgiving was probably the oddest one I have ever experienced due to the circumstances. Robert and I went to the Dallas area to visit our parents as usual (though last year, we stayed in town and had pot pie and beer). We drove up there on Wednesday, and the trip took about twice as long as it should have due to insane amounts of traffic. We got to the parents' house at around 8pm and had Thanksgiving dinner THEN. This was because both parents had to work on Thanksgiving proper. We got to see them for a bit in the evening, and then we saw them for a couple hours on Thanksgiving day after they got off work, and then we drove home Thursday night. It was a really short visit, but it was pleasant and fun. We watched "The Little Shop of Horrors." Feeeeeeeed me!

On Saturday, I got to hang out with Lindsay for a while - that was good times - saw her painting-in-progress and even knit a fun, floppy hat that afternoon! I think I made it a bit too large, though. Oh well. It is wonderfully soft, and really, that's all that matters. Saturday evening was a last-minute blues house party thrown by Zarina. Got to dance on the marble floor in my socks for hours - that was a really good time, and I keep feeling as though I'm improving each time I dance. There were a couple new people there as well, so yay! New faces!

Sunday, we saw "The City of Ember" at the dollar theater! It was actually a really cool movie ^.^ Now I want to read the book.

Quote of the day time!
The set-up: I was talking to a coworker about having a package for him, but he was hoping for a reimbursement check.

T: I want a package of money!
Me: Um, sorry?
T: It's okay. I'll slap a face.
Me: As long as it's not mine, I don't care.
T: Don't hate; participate!
Me: I don't want to participate in you slapping my face. For some reason, that doesn't sound fun to me. Dunno why.
T: Think of it as me high-fiving your face.

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!

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.

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.

Gustav Update

So the evacuation order for New Orleans went through this afternoon. It begins tomorrow.

You can check out the press conference here.

Quote from Mayor Ray Nagin:
"I normally am very calm about these press conferences, and I am normally trying to give assurances to our citizens. Take that hat off tonight. You need to be scared. You need to be concerned, and you need to get your butts moving out of New Orleans right now."

Also, "If you decide to stay, you are on your own."

Stuff-n-Things

This update brought to you by Bongotezz!

Haven't been updating much since I don't have a lot of import to say, but um. So I've been pretty busy with all this Drunk Duck Awards business - trying to get fifty different people to contribute to panels and presentations is like herding cats, only slightly less successful. It doesn't help that I keep making errors in my record-keeping (like assigning two different people to one presentation...yeah). All the same, despite the mini-fiascos, I think it's going to come together beautifully in September.

I've been thinking a lot lately about theme songs...mostly for the characters in Salt. I finally settled on one for Jane, but the others...not quite yet. Well, except maybe Brio. But to reveal THAT song would give far too much away, hehe. It's hard to think of the Brio he is today and the Brio that he becomes down the line as the same person.

Quote of the Day at Work: "No one in this office knows a damn thing about anything. I think you're out of luck." ^.^ I can never remember the contexts, but I work with some stellar and verra funny people.

I need to stop writing this and finish inking and coloring the update that's supposed to go live in two hours. Heh.

Work Fun and Medieval Times

Overheard at work: "If they come in here, guns blazing, I'd say that's negative behavior...not 'I want to change my fiscal calendar.'"

So this weekend, my dad turned 74 years old! Robert (my brother) and I drove up to see him and Mom. Our sister and her daughter went as well. We went to Medieval Times for lunch/dinner - if you're unfamiliar with the concept, it's a dinner theater of sorts - you're served food during the show which involves a jousting tournament and fights for honor and whatnot. Anyway, there were six knights in the tournament with different banner colors. Robert, Mom, and I snickered about them and made up new names for them.

The Yellow Knight was the Knight of Cowardice.
The Blue Knight was the Knight of Sadness.
The Red & Yellow Knight was the Knight of Condiments.
The Black & White Knight was The Nascar Knight.
The Red Knight was the Knight of Embarrassment.
The Green Knight was who we were supposed to cheer for (because of our seating arrangement), and he was the VILLAIN! It was awesome. So he was just "The Green Knight." Pretty much a badass.

It was really fun ^.^

Out of Context

Just a couple of things that were funny - both in and out of context:

"You just don't know what Rush Limbaugh does to me."

and...

"Before you start, ask yourself, 'Do I really need a yarn octopus?'"