when the bee stings.

sometimes we all just need a good pick me up. .we need something that will make us feel better. sometimes we need a few of our favorite things. like raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, and julie andrews.

forgive the youtube slide show format, but it's the best i could do. take a listen. you'll feel better even if you already feel great.



and for you more ambitious types--no need to be satisfied with watching.

and taking a lead from julie, i'll now be listing some of my favorite things. and remember, these are a few of my favorite things, not all of them. in no particular order:

*jonathan coulton*

a wonderfully lighthearted musician i recently discovered and have been enjoying ever since. this link will give you a good list of his stuff on youtube. give it a listen.

*grilled cheese*

need i say more? i think not. it's the best of a bowling alley and a sandwich thrown in the frying pan til golden brown and ready to make me jolly. double cool points when using the sandwich cutting device i received from my sister esa. it turns a one grilled cheese into two dinosaurs made of grilled cheese (as seen above).

*mark williams*

suffice it to say that if you don't know him, you wish you did. if you do know him, you know what i mean. and yes, the photo is of the aforementioned paper-mermaid burning.

*surf ninjas*

how can you not have this movie on your list? it's one of virtually everyone's favorite things. kwansu!

*human anatomy*

yes, it's going to devour me this fall, but as a subject it can't be beaten. it's always crazy when you look at your text book and then look at your forearm and see the same thing. just dissected. way too cool. chemistry would probably be the same if we could readily see on the molecular level. it's also cool that my body works. that's included in this one.

*robots*

and anything that has to do with them. androids are not included in this. nor are cyborgs. and on a side note, i realize that this is sloppier than most of my posts. cry about it. i did.

*mario... and luigi.*

most anything involving these two is bound to be good. and really, the film is what sort of spoils things here, so most any game is a safe bet. the funny part is that we all look back and slam on super mario bros the movie, yet at the time, we all loved it. and some of us saw it more than once. more than three times, actually. and really, it should be noted that the film is included in this favorite thing just because of the nostalgia attached to it. and because it has john leguizamo.

*acoustic guitar*

fun to play, fun to hear, and bob dylan utilized it well enough to make the list of a few of my favorite things. something very soft and soothing about an acoustic that you can't get elsewhere. also wonderful to watch splinter in wrestling matches.

*h.g. wells*

i've recently gotten into audio books and wells has been a staple in the lineup. personal favorites include sleeper awakes and island of dr. moreau. definitely worth investigating.

*england*

you friends across the pond know that i can't leave england out. i love the place. i'm happy to be american, but i'm happy to have english friends. you know i love you, you crazy english folk.

*wales*

and wales, i love you too. i put wales after england because i hoped that at least a few of you would be angry and assume i just lumped wales with england. you know i don't play favorites. just favorite things. and countries. oh how i miss doing sixty in a vauxhaul down your winding roads. i also miss some of the nicest, and at times, bewildering, people in the world. but mostly the nicest. and the people that were bewildering were still friendly... just more confusing than anything else.

and now, to end my list of favorite things, i give you one that's very dear to me.

*chairs*

though we really don't make a fuss about it, chairs really are just too good. really, chairs are wonderful. i love them to death, and hope to have many wonderful chairs before my days are done. and name them all.


now don't you feel better? i do. and it's a good thing to, because i was quite peeved. take care everybody, maybe next time i'll write something worth reading.

revelations from the noggin (fairly boring).

thanks is owed to my friend lee-ann for her post on her blog (found here, if you're curious) that featured some tests she took from the noggin website. now, not only do i love taking pointless quizzes, and love noggin from my teenage days, but i'm also eager to find distractions from lots of things. you may have noticed that from the slur of posts over the last little bit in comparison to my usual consistency in posting. you could say i'm blog vomiting, or blomiting, these days. or maybe blogiting... i can't decide.


anyway, some results for you. and some commentary.

this one may or may not be accurate according to which element of my life you want to take in for examination. on the whole, i'll say that's fairly accurate.



this one isn't very accurate at all. i watch gossip girl when i'm the mood for just about anything, because i'm always in the mood for gossip girl.







key word: jolly. when you're jolly, you can get away with any flavor. you can also melt in pockets--don't read into that.





i didn't realize this test was just for girls until half way through, and it was only about six eight questions long, so i finished it anyway. besides, the semester is starting soon so i need all the tips i can get. sadly, this one didn't prove all that helpful as i already planned on wearing plenty of plaid.

and to end on a strong note, one more bit of evidence that i should have been born with a horn growing out of my forehead, just like i've been saying all along. we all knew that i had to end this slur of quizzes with one that was accurate.


well, that was a waste of time for both you and me. hopefully you didn't bother reading unless you were as bored or desperate for distraction as i was when i wrote it/was doing my research for it.

and by way of announcement, mark williams is very cool. we once lit a small, paper mermaid on fire. i'll have to tell that story another day. it was fun. i have pictures too.


so long, everybody.

lessons learned in the nations captiol.

hello everybody. you may have noticed that the blog's been a bit barren as of late.

mark williams certainly did (and my thanks for his devoted reading--what a wonderful cheerleader he is).

anyway, this is because for the last bit of time i've been visiting my father who's working in washington dc for a few months. the trip was very enjoyable, and i decided to share some of the adventures i had and the lessons i learned. but not in that order.

i'll first give lessons learned since they all have associated experiences, and then the experiences that didn't really have a morals to their stories, just novelty. and since there's a lot, they'll be split into two parts. this is part one.

welcome to washington dc!
(part one)
political hotspot and tourist attraction to boot!

to preface, i spent about a week here altogether. i went to most of the standard tourist sites including the government buildings, smithsonians, and other hotspots. the humidity was higher than i prefer, but bearable, and the only camera i bothered with was my cell phone. with these things in mind, i now present my lessons learned in washington dc (and the travels surrounding it).

lesson one.
even if you are on a special tour, you still might not be as clever as you think.
the national archives contains several documents of immense importance. these include the magna carta, declaration of Independence, bill of rights, and of course the constitution of the usa. the line demands you wait for at least an hour, and when you get in there you still probably have to wait to see the actual documents.
well, we were in front of a large student group. each document is in a protective case in a big rotunda with gold emblazoned titles above each item etched into the stone walls. as one of the school girls approached the constitution and practically licked the glass in front of it, she looked to the security guard and asked, "hey. what is that?"

classic.

lesson two.
short shorts are like scissors.
when scissors are used safely and wisely cutting thread or curling ribbons, they are useful indeed. however, attempting to juggle or run with scissors carries serious potential injuries. a similar phenomenon is seen with short shorts. while some people can use them wisely and enjoy good ventilation and please many of those around them, not all use them wisely.
here in utah, short shorts are not so common for both environmental and cultural reasons. with both of the reasons absent, dc has a much larger amount. both wisely and unwisely used.
i won't get into detail here, but suffice it to say that short shorts abused will result in gauged eyes, just like scissors. the difference is usually just whether or not it's intentional.

lesson three.
if you match, you're happier.
and i don't mean with yourself. i mean with others. somewhere between protesters, school groups, families and couples all matching their peers, i started to feel a little left out.

i think this couple is one of the most charming examples. look closely, though the picture, granted, is grainy.
whether this couple was going for practicality, high fashion, comfort or raw sex appeal, it worked on all accounts. these z-coil shoes make their mark.
several schools also were excellent examples though i'm lacking a photo. my personal favorite uniform pieces were shoulder strap refelective belts, bright red womens visors (note: worn by elementary school children, not women), and id necklaces introducing each member of the tour and the company sponsoring it. and of course, there is always having every student wear a certain kind of shirt. however, this was to a degree unnessecary because if able to choose their own shirts, they typically wore the same rhine stone encrusted t-shirts of president obama with "hope", "change", or "gobama!" written in bold lettering.


lesson four
celebrities look like secret agent.
for those who don't believe me, i don't care.
at the smithsonian museum of air and space, they have a planetarium. i attended one show there. as i waited in line, right before the doors opened, a man with a beard, big sunglasses, and a black fadora hopped in at the end of the line. the ticket man laughed, shook his hand, and let him pass after he gave him his ticket. the suspicous man looked familiar.
after the show, i saw him again in the gift store downstairs. further feeling as if i'd seen him before, i looked at him from the side while he waited in line to purchase his 'jr. spaceman' outfit. it was none other than october sky heartthrob, jake gyllenhaal. he purchased his outfit and left the store. i was going to attempt to get a photo, but decided that i wouldn't as i couldn't do so without looking like a complete jerk. however, upon contacting an expert on all things gyllenhaal (lindsay harding), i confirmed that he indeed had a beard and was working in the dc area.

boom. celebrities look suspicous. at least when they're at museums. they don't want anyone to know they're being so nerdy, i guess.


lesson five.
neither i, nor jimmy seely, are as fat as a whale.


lesson six
everyone wants to sing
somewhere between a street vendor, guards, school kids, people on the metro, people behind food counters, me, and some of the exhibits of washington singing a tune, it was proven to me that everyone wants to sing. if you don't sing, you're just holding yourself back. if you think you don't want to sing, you think wrong.


lesson seven
you're probably the weirdo
no matter where you go or what you're doing, if there's a lot of people, you're going to think that some of them are weirdos, and some people are going to think that you're a weirdo. it's just the nature of things.

for every person i saw that i was inclined to stare at for any reason, i almost always saw them staring at someone, or someone else staring at them, or someone else staring at me, or the weird person staring at me. what does this all show? yes, they're a weirdo, and you're probably somebody else's weirdo. it's a big cycle (see diagram).
this can be applied on many levels, but i'm sticking to the simplest and just keeping it there. so next time you're inclined to stare at the gentlemen in the combat boots and khaki shorts (a personal favorite), just remember that someone else probably thinks your plaid shorts and high tops are just as bizarre.




there are more, and maybe one day i'll record them. for now, i think i've written enough though. thanks for reading. hopefully more soon. more soon at least about other adventures (without lessons) from dc. hope you learned something.

and i hope williams is satisfied.