And it shall pass

Last week I was in a foul mood, and it lasted the wole week. I know why, and it will pass (and hopefully, has passed). But that didn't change the fact that I was grumpy.

I made cinnamon swirl cake to satisfy my sweet, spongy cake craving. I also succeeded in crossing another thing off my life goals list. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to crack an egg with one hand.

I have not yet perfected this skill, but I have cracked five in a row with relative ease. Now I need to work on keeping my hand cleaner and being faster about it.

My workload is piling up or myabe I'm just looking too far ahead. But it's making me start to panic. My vacation is growing closer and even though I need it desparately, I still am nervous about leaving and the work I'll be coming back to.

I ascended again Thursday, a 17 day run. It's getting very frustrating that I can't get to two weeks or less. I just don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I ascended as a Seal Clubber again, thinking that maybe the same type of run will help me do a two-weeker. I'm not quite sure what skill I'll keep. I'm debating one of the passive melee or protection skills or the meatsmithing one. I'd need to read up on it, because I'm not sure if I ever meatsmithed anything ... and maybe that's why I'm not breaking the two weeks.

So far I'm Level 7 in four days ... which I believe is a record for me ... now I just need to sustain it. I've done an all-volleyball run before, but it didn't seem to help me go any faster. Especially in the higher areas. Maybe I'll wait until I'm in the Goatlet to go pure-sombrero. Right now, I'll start doing 10-turn runs with the sombrero in the Friars to level him up.

I created my first multi Wednesday--which means I got another KoL character. I chose an Accordian Thief. I figured I should go with the one class I've had the most trouble with. It'll be a softcore run, no time worries, no restrictions and maybe I'll learn something that'll help my hardcore runs.

Off to Emerald city

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

and

Happy St. Sneaky Pete's Day!

Since everyone is Irish on 17 O'March and I'm not entirely sure that my roots aren't at least part Irish, I'm wearing a green shamrock shirt and there's Guinness chillin' for some Sneaky Pete's day ... or St. Patrick's Day fun.

First in the Kingdom, I must ready myself by increasing my intoxicitity (yes, that's a word on Sneaky Pete's Day) to 26 so I am falling down drunk. About six advanced cocktailcrafting drinks, a bubbly potion and three green beers later (my first green beer I've ever made!!)....

You drink the green beer. It makes you feel lucky. Or maybe it just makes you feel drunk, and feeling drunk makes you feel lucky. Either way, hooray!

The spirit of St. Sneaky Pete's Day makes you feel like you could drink a whole bathtub full of this stuff!

You gain 2 Adventures.
You gain 1 Drunkenness.

Tally forth~ On to DruNken deBatcHery =x=x=

http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/St._Sneaky_Pete%27s_Day_Stupor

Click on the various titles to see all the witty adventures.

"Watch where you're going" and "What, is this some kind of a joke?" are particulary funny.

lOOT tALLY:

• Flashing Novelty button
• Pink Glowstick
• 4 strings of blue beads
• 3 strings of red beads
• 6 string of green beads

And I think you should know this ...

What should I write about tonight? Today was incredibly blah. I woke up to snow. Whoo. My new e-newsletter software made me think too hard. I wasn't inspired to write. And the day ended before I could type minutes from a meeting.

I broke three nails today. THREE. 3!!! If i break one more i can say screw it for two weeks and start practicing the guitar again.

March Madness isn't making me as mad as it usually does. That's because I bought the Extended Edition DVDs of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Yay~ I'll either stay up tonight to watch Grey's or I'll watch it on Sunday. And they had Family Guy on last night. A whole hour. How great is that? Well I'll tell you, it's pretty darn great. They better not move to Thursday though. It'll be a sad world if I have to choose between Grey's Anatomy and Family Guy. I'll have to do some soul searching ... or maybe buy a DVR ... hmmm.

KoL Note: Still Level 8. Just defeated the Bonerdragon and now I'm hitting the Goatlet. I received a Candy Gram from someone from the clan of Noblesse Oblige for their Week of Drunken Loving II. I won't bore the non-adventurers with details, but those interested can GoodSerach "KoL Wiki" and then look it up there. But anyway... that's so cool. It's the first time I've gotten anything from a player who I don't know. It's not a rare item, which is a little sad, but I'm excited nonetheless! But right now I need to blog/read less so I can actually adventure since I have 122 left and it's 7:51.

8:38--I finished the Trapper's quest, got my Swashbuckling Getup and finally hit Level 9.

What else? Oh yeah, Daylight Savings is still kicking my butt. I went to bed at 9 last night and still had to drag my butt out of bed to go to work. And then I had to drive in snow. Nine O’clock people! I didn't even make it through the Top 9 at 9 (I was hoping to hear Better than Me from Hinder.... AWESOME song! I'm completely obsessing about it).

On a totally unrelated note, if you're a fan of Blink182, have heard of +44 or generally enjoy reading amusing blogs, visit himynameismark.com. It's Mark Hoppus' blog. He created it in the time after Blink-182 took their break, and has continued it through his new band, +44. +44 was on tour, and Mark blogged quite frequently ... more than I do, which puts me to shame. But it's freakin' hilarious. I love it. Seriously folks, laugh out loud funny. And if that wasn't enough, they have a lot of artsy photos that Mark and the crew have taken trying to out do each other.

P.S. I think Mark is obsessed with this Pantone Mangenta...it was on Blink-182's last album and +44's unedited album.

Go ahead, be gone wit it.

Today was my coworker Sarah's birthday. We bought her Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/Love Sounds.

Now, Sarah is the Eric Clapton, classic rock kind of girl, but for some reason she rocks out to SexyBack. And I really don't blame her.

Something happened to Justin Timberlake that made him suave, likable and just plain cool. In N'Sync's hey day, I really didn't like J-Timberlake that much. He was the "pretty boy" and the falsettos can get annoying. My style was a little more so JC.

After the group disbanded, I wasn't too impressed by the songs he released from "Justified." It got a little edgier and I think he gained some credit with the different collaborations he made. And NO I'm not talking about his little ditty with Miss Jackson.

But he's just GOLD on this CD. The video for "My Love" he's so charismatic, that it's really hard to tear your eyes away. He found the perfect mix of classic and modern for a style. He's gotten to the point that he's a trendsetter. A superstar beyond the means of N'Sync.

Of course he still has the following of his teeny-bopper fans who lived and breathed bubblegum pop. But he's transcended that to a whole new level.

I mentioned in the previous blog that the only thing that struck me was the Dixie Chicks and Justin Timberlake. I don't think he's hot or cute. But he sure as hell is charismatic. Though I respect his good range, when he goes too much into falsettos I don't like it.

I don't blame Sarah one bit for this new cd. In fact, I'm proud of J-Timberlake for reinventing himself and having a career instead of being a disaster.

Daylight Savings zzzZZzzZzzz

Each year we get a week of complete relief and then another of utter annoyance. When it comes, the clocks that used to be your guidance beome the key to confusion.

Ah Daylight Savings Time.

And for whatever reason, they made it earlier this year. While I have yet to run into someone who doesn't mind "falling back" I really don't know too many fans of "spring forward."

Yeah, sure, I enjoy the sunlight and just the different feel the air has this time of year. The more I think about the transition, the more I try to convince myself that it's no problem. "You still get up at the same time on Sunday, and you go to bed earlier, no biggie."

Monday I thought I had this evil mind game licked.

Tuesday I realized my efforts to thwoart Mother Nature had been foiled right under my nose.

Today ......... I was dead. Then I got coffee in me at lunch. By 2 I had a blazing headache.

Ooof.

But I guess if Daylight Savings Time is my biggest problem, I'm doing all right.

On a KoL note...it's my 9th day, and I have 10 Muscle points to gain before getting to Level 9. Things just aren't dropping on this run. It took forever to get a disembodied brain to drop and I had to spend 15+ adventures in the Limerck Dungeon to get dungeoneer dungerees. But I still have my fingers crossed. I'm hoping I got over the hump and I can still make the 16-day-or-less-accension.

Tipping the scales without a tractor

Weeks ago I watch the Grammy’s. Or at least, I tried to watch most of the Grammy’s as I was flipping between the awards ceremony and FOX’s animations. Ah…Family Guy.

So I didn’t get to see everything. And frankly, a lot didn’t strike me. It was so run of the mill, that I really only remember two things.

The Dixie Chicks and Justin Timberlake.

If that doesn’t bring me back to my teenage years, I’m not sure what would.

I heard the opening bars of “Not Ready to Make Nice” so many times throughout the show, between the quick clips as they announce the nominees and then again when they announced the Chicks as winners.

They swept the Grammy’s. And each award, the three women became more speechless, and tearier eyed. And the audience reveled in it.

The next day, I went to Yahoo! Music Videos and searched for this song. I heard the beginning so many times and I wanted to hear the rest of it. I enjoyed it. I’ve always enjoyed most of the Dixie Chick songs. The only one that was too backward-Country was “Goodbye Earl.” *Ahemwhitetrash.*

Of course now I hear they were shutout of the Country Music Awards. How does a band that sweeps every category they were nominated for in the Grammy’s—the most prestigious musical award—get snubbed at the CMA’s?

The radio dj’s said “Oh yeah, so the Grammy’s were completely political.”

I don’t think that’s the whole story though. I’m sure that a majority of the Grammy voters are more of the liberal persuasion than the Country ones. Not to mention that the majority of the country audience were the ones who revolted so strongly against the Dixie Chicks when they made the anti-Bush statements.

Because these were the people who elected him. They’ll follow him blindly because they “stick to their guns” and their idea of liberty is either “you’re with us or you’re against us.”

I know. I’m generalizing.

But if they can call me a hippy because I vote democrat and have generally liberal views, I can call them white trash and country hicks.

But more than that, I’m calling them wrong. That’s how I understand liberty. I can say that without fear of execution. We can disagree and if we’re big enough to put aside our differences, we can still be friends.

That’s all the Chicks were doing. They said Bush was wrong. And since “all Texans stick together” they were ashamed to be associated with the man. There’s nothing wrong with that.

But the country hicks freaked out and started the downward spiral of the Chicks’ career. Death threats? Come on.

If Johnny made a political statement that I absolutely disagreed with I’d like to think I would weigh how much I liked his music against how I felt about following and giving money to someone who’s ideals I can’t morally stand with.

I’d suck it up and say I connect to the music for a different reason. Or I throw away or sell all my cd’s and change the station when they came on.

I wouldn’t make death threats.

If someone I disliked, like Britany did it, it would fuel my fire a little. I would say, “See I always knew they were wrong.” I would throw words around like Satan and evil, but only in jest with friends. Much like I would say, this –20 weather is evil. But I don’t think I would leap to the extreme as the country audience leapt.

So in that respect, it’s political because the culture of country music is on the other end of the political spectrum that Chicks represent.

Don’t forget that how the Recording Academy votes is probably subjective. What qualifies it (artist, song, album) as best? The song? The lyrics? How it makes you feel? Most record sales? Most requests? Downloads? Impact in society? Impact of the career?

I thought “Iris” was the better song over your “My Heart Will Go On.” And it got more play after the first wave of Titanic’s momentum. It didn’t impact society as much as Heart and it probably wasn’t requested as much or sold as many copies. But it certainly propelled the Goo Goo Dolls forward more than Celine Dion and John Howard. They were already superstars. Now they had their name connected to the epic Titanic. Another notch on the belt.

So what does that mean? Notes and lyrics: the better song lost. But all the tangibles added up, Titanic’s song tipped the scales.

Now, I don’t listen to country music. So I don’t know if “Not Ready to Make Nice” tips the scales against its competitors. But when it was against the music I did know, I think it deserved to win.

The Country Music Academy and whoever weighs in on these awards made a bad decision if they shunned the Chicks because of the political biases. The Chicks transcend country music, like Tim McGraw and Faith Hill. They have the ability to reach a public larger than the country spectrum. And crossover artists are only good for business.

They should be embraced, not because of their political ideologies. But because they dared to create an album beyond the Country Music Trinity: Cheatin’, Tractors and the love of God.

Like I said, I don’t listen to country music. So if they didn’t get nominations because the music, songs and lyrics simply weren’t as good as the others: You did your job.

But with the Grammy sweep, I’m so sure that’s the case.