Straight On Till Morning: Now with fresh Apple scent!

Monday March 14, 2005

I'm writing this at 6am, trying to kill time until the grocery store opens so that I can go buy groceries and then go to sleep. So, I apologize if I'm psycho!

I'm waiting for BBC World News to come on- I usually watch it at 5, but I missed it, and luckily today is one of the days when it comes on more than once in the morning. I still haven't figured out the pattern behind why it's on at 5,6,7, etc some days, and only at 5 on others. It's probably something stupidly simple like it's on several times on weekdays, but I'm yet to figure it out.

I am having soup, potato chips, and frappuccino for breakfast while I type. Yum! I also just typed that as "brefast". Oh, look, there are camels on BBC! Oh, damn! There's a story about oil prices today! Why couldn't that have been on yesterday, BEFORE I turned in the paper about oil wealth? Humph.

Soup is yummy. Also, my cats now know how to tell time.

Do you ever totally make up a website to illustrate a point in a conversation, only to find out that it exists? The other day, I joked about "Llamas R Us", only to find out that there really is a llamasrus.com! The world is a beautiful place.

You know how cars with leather interior are really hot when you get in them in the summer? Well, I've recently learned that in the winter, that same leather is REALLY COLD. A little bit of a shock when your butt hits that freezing leather first thing in the morning! Just a public service announcement.

I would also like to take a moment to randomly rant about when Wal-Mart stupidly sets up those stupid displays of stuff, usually lawn and garden stuff, in the middle of the parking lot, taking up all of the best parking spaces. It is evil. They must be stopped. I have been having to park over on the food side, instead of where I usually park. This results in me walking out of the door I usually go out when I'm done shopping, realizing that I'm parked all the way on the other side, and being grumpy. Stupid Wal-Mart.

Since I still don't have my bathroom remodeled, most of the stuff that would be kept in there is still in boxes in my closet. I decided to go through one and toss some stuff out a few days ago, and came across the following gems:

*Almost full bottle of Tylenol Sore Throat- Expiration Date July 2003

*Half full bottle of sun block- Expiration Date January 2003

*Albuterol inhalation solution (from when I had bronchitis)- freakishly expensive and 3/4 full- Expiration Date January 2002

*Half full bottle of generic brand tylenol- Expiration date September 2001

*Generic Sore Throat Spray-90% full- Expiration Date August 2004

*A bunch of leftover perscription pills from July 1999

This in no way rivals the time I did this a couple of years ago and got to throw away stuff that expired in the early 90's, but I'm still amazed at how long I keep this stuff around!

Some days, the BBC just isn't as excited as others. It does seem to keep mirroring whatever I'm reading for school, though. Like the other day, I had been up all night reading about ancient Egyptians, and I turn on my morning news to see that they've been doing CAT-scans of King Tut's mummy. I found this particularly interesting, because I had just figured out that Tut was only Pharoah for 9 years, and then I heard on the news like an hour later that he was 19 when he died, which I was then able to put together to figure out that if both of those are right, he was only 10 when he became pharoah. Something about someone so famous having only ruled for 9 years seemed weird to me, but then our Presidents only get 8 years max, and some of them are pretty darn famous.

Oh, AWESOME, my favorite BBC chick is doing a story. She is my favorite because she has the weirdest accent ever. The only way I can describe it is a Minnesota-British accent. Yeah, awesome.

Another reason why I love the BBC news is that I get really into the sports. I generally don't give a damn about US sports (I have no idea who played the last superbowl.), but I get all caught up in British football (soccer) and rugby and cricket and stuff. Not that I actually understand cricket, but I like to keep up. I like to root for both Manchester United and Arsenal, because they are the only football teams I had heard of before I started watching. Go team both! Unless they have to play each other. Then I guess I'd have to choose.

I also love the little headlines that run along the bottom of the screen during the news stories. I always seem to just catch the tail end of them. Like just now, I saw "... the heart of a baby selling scam". I never catch the whole thing, and so the headlines become this big mystery to me. Is it "Donald Trump caught as the heart of a baby selling scam?" or "Paris Hilton plans to direct her first film about the heart of a baby selling scam?" I must know!

Mmm, soup. I cooked it on the stovetop and everything! You have no idea how long it's been since I've cooked with something other than the microwave! I used to cook stuff ALL the time! I mean, no Wolfgang Puck or anything, but I would make grilled cheese and pasta and stuff. Lately the most cooking I do is a hot pocket! Must start cooking again.

Man do I love BBC News. Have I convinced you to start staying up till 5am to watch with me yet?

I love how foreign news gives an outsider perspective of the US. Next to a story about how scientists in Kenya are using cool new collars that use cell phone technology to text-message the location of elephants to the researchers, we see a story about how Bush is wanting to drill for oil in the nature reserves. Dumbass. Why don't we just open zoos up for hunting season while we're at it? Oh, and we can clean up landfills by just dumping all the stuff in the water systems, okay? Rawr.

So, want to hear about the stupid thing I did? After taking my North America exam for geography, I decided to go ahead and start taking notes on the next chapter, to get a little bit of a head start. So, I got through a good little chunk of the South America chapter before it hits me. My next post is about oil. Oil? South America? So I check the calendar- yeah, the S.A. chapter isn't till April. Oops. So now I'm behind on the Middle East chapter, and have a bunch of pages of notes about South America. Doh!

I swear, I am the biggest sucker for travel advertising in the whole world. I want to go to every. single. place. that they advertise. A commercial just made me really want to go to Nebraska.

Funny enough, I wrote a post just about two years ago about my love of BBC America. Speaking of the past, I planned to write a big important post for the 6th, which is the day my Dad died last year, but when the day came, I just couldn't do it. Some things about that are still just too hard. For example, my sister wanted to come down that day and watch old home movies of dad, but Mom and I just aren't ready yet. It would be too weird to see him. We have lots of pictures up in the house, but that's a different thing.

So, now it's 7am, and I am going to go shower so that I can go buy groceries before the coffee wears off.

(Added on at 4pm, as if this post wasn't already long enough):

I can not believe this- I failed a test! I took my test on making airline reservations last week, where I had to call up the instructor, and you do a roleplay of making a reservation for a family with the info you're given. Well, I did it in the time allowed (You have just 3 minutes to get all the info out), did everything in the right order, etc, but.. *cough* I booked the people on a flight leaving and returning to the wrong airport. They were both in NYC! I just um... Oh, now I'm going to be haunted by mental images of the nonexistant Benitez family, showing up at LaGuardia airport for their flight that leaves from JFK. I have to retake the test now, but the highest you can get for a retest is 70%. A seventy! That is going to so screw up all of my perfect 100's! This is me, who is carefully strategizing how to write an awesome bonus essay for my next geography test to make up for the 97% I got on the last one, and bring my grade back up to perfect! A 70! Yeesh! In happier travel agent school related news, my next box of stuff came today, and there was a book about New Zealand in there, which.. hello, handy! since I'm doing Australia & New Zealand for my geography travel project! It's funny how synchonized all of my classes seem to be. I read about ancient Egyptians for history (which starts Wednesday- eep!), and then start a chapter on the Middle East for geography, and read about them again! And my current Travel Agent lesson is on World Geography! I am going to end up knowing a heck of a lot of geography. Just don't think that means that I'll actually get you to the right airport.

Comments and llamas make me happy.

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