...Well, for me, anyway...

...For today, I passed the last of my speed tests at the 180 word-per-minute level. *cue Kermit the Frog squeeing* Once again, I passed it by the skin of my teeth. I was allowed 27 errors, and I got 27 errors. I've done that every time on the last test for all the speeds so far.

So! Onward and upward! And sleep is mine again! The class I'll be moving into next week meets at 12:00 NOON instead of the Butt Crack of Dawn. *loves* However, now I'll be "writing with the big boys," so to speak. People in Realtime VI intimidate me. 200-225 WPM intimidates me, leik whoa.

But who cares!!!!???? I may never have to wake up at 5:30 a.m. again. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!

Sorry, but I am probably the only person in the United States right now that is ECSTATIC ABOUT THE HEAT. PLEASE KEEP IT COMING. This is the FIRST TIME IN MONTHS that I've had feeling in my fingers and toes. All the tension from being cold has melted away. SUMMER IS THE MOST RELAXING TIME OF THE YEAR FOR ME, AND I NEVER WANT IT TO END. If you want to complain about the heat, that's fine. That's your prerogative. BUT THEN DON'T COME WHINING TO ME WHEN IT'S MINUS 5,000 DEGREES OUTSIDE IN DECEMBER, JANUARY, FEBRUARY, and MARCH.

Ya know, I love my apartment...most of the time. Then there's days like today when THEY RANDOMLY SHUT THE WATER OFF FOR HOURS ON END AND WON'T RETURN MY MULTIPLE PHONE CALLS INQUIRING AS TO WHEN IT WILL BE TURNED BACK ON REQUIRING ME TO TAKE A WASHCLOTH SHOWER AND BRUSH MY TEETH WITH ICE-COLD REFRIGERATOR WATER. GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVE!

This is the segment from CBS sunday morning:


Good, good stuff. I am so, so, so, so excited about the upcoming show in St. Louis!!!

They are certainly making the rounds:
- They were on Fallon last night.
- They'll be on the Today show tomorrow morning.
- they're featured on fuse tv.
- Here they are live at the Beacon theater performing the song #41 which has to be THE SEXIEST, SULTRIEST, HAWTEST SONG EVER WRITTEN:


- And I received the new album in the mail today, Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King, along with my Live from Alpine Valley disc. Groo Grux was Leroi's nickname, and it opens and closes with solos by him. It's been hard to watch the new clips without him playing the horns. Rest in peace, my man.

It's gonna be all Dave all the time around here for a while!!!!

Court: Observed
Lunch: Eaten
Nap: Taken
Bike: Ridden (about 5 miles)
Ugly Naked Guy: Seen (In the alleyway wearing blue denim short-shorts and an off-white satin tank top and mullet in full effect.)

I think another nap is in order.

A better Soundset website with videos.

I'm telling you, even if you don't like the hippity-hop musik, you will like almost everything you see there. Yeah, Slug (of Atmosphere) is a bit full of himself and usually yells at the crowd if they sing along, but whatever. P.O.S., Brother Ali, Sage Francis, and Heiruspecs all make up for him.

Also, thanks to SPF 70 sunscreen, I did NOT get burned. There were so many people there yesterday who looked worse than I did in Hawaii. Yikes. It was beautiful outside yesterday. Let us never take for granted days of weather like that in Minne-snow-ta.

Now today? A whole lotta nothing. Well, I'll go pay my respects to my grandfather, who was a veteran of World War II, at Fort Snelling. Also, music bingo tonight. So I guess not NOTHING. But you know what I mean.

Peace.

...Because I iz ded utterly and totally from getting my face rocked off by...

Soundset was the bomb, and I'm so glad I went. Met Sage Francis. But I am officially TOO OLD for outdoor festivals AND afterparties. *diesfromexhaustion*

I LOVE MINNESOTA MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. You'll probably be getting more and more of these Ugly Naked Guy updates as the weather warms up and he makes more and more appearances outside. Mostly, I just need to document it for myself so I have something to tell my sister's and brother's grandchildren someday.

So just now, he arrived home, in his red Chrysler LeBaron convertible, wearing a frilly pink strappy dress (looking something like this) and carrying a grocery bag from Rainbow.

I swear to you, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

So it just rained outside for, like, an hour, and NOW UNG has decided it would be a good time to POWER-WASH his driveway. WHAT IN HOLY HELL, DUDE? I wish my camera was working so I could take a picture for you. He's wearing khakis, a green raincoat, and a shower cap. He has power-washed his driveway every day this week since Sunday.

That is all.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and mothers-to-be that I know out there in blogland! There's a lot of you! Let us also take a moment to honor and remember fondly all the mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers who are no longer with us here in life. Let us never take our mothers for granted, but rather celebrate and appreciate them all year long.

Let us also remember all the kitty and puppy moms out there! I think that's almost everyone on my f-list. Heh. Give us a squeeze!

He's definitely saying, "Take your shirt off."

After a lovely day yesterday (details forthcoming), today I had to get up early to go volunteer at school to help out during the semi-annual RPR testing. This is the basic national certification test you need to pass in order to become a working court reporter. It's nearly the equivalent of the board certifications for medical licensure or the bar exam for lawyering, except on our test, in order to pass, you must score 97% or better. Needless to say, everyone there is a little stressed out, except for the dude who runs it. He is so awesome! He is a working reporter and is the cutest, meekest, little old man you will ever lay your eyes on. He also routinely places in the top 20 of the contests the national association holds for speed and accuracy. He's a good person to know, so I made my appearance. Otherwise, that volunteer duty is totally boring. But I also get brownie points from my teacher, I think. Networking, baby.

Then I came home to let the kitties out on the balcony, and I met my new upstairs neighbor! THE NOISY MCGEES HAVE MOVED OUT!!!! I have no idea WHEN they moved out because, frankly, I haven't been home much lately in want of peace and quiet and a hot shower. But whatever! They are gone! This new lady seems reasonable, and so far, in all their moving in, they've made a few loud bumps, but otherwise, all is quiet on the upstairs front. Yay! Anyway, she was asking me about the neighborhood and what the house next-door is (it's a house for mentally challenged adults), and after I got done explaining all that, I motioned over to Ugly Naked Guy's house, and she stopped me and said, "Oh, I KNOW." Bwahahahahahahahahaha! She said she saw him the first day she came to the apartment, and her experience so far has been identical to mine when I moved in here. I said, "When he has his next garage sale, I'll take you over there and introduce you." She laughed and laughed and then said, "No." Ha-ha. I think I may like her. She's NOT a college student, and she's getting a kitty. So yay! That was fun.

Want some more fun? Feast your eyes on this video of Seth Rogen doing stand-up when he was THIRTEEN!!!!!!!!!!! It is so adorkable! His voice is so high! He is so kewt!!! Thanks to i_hollywould for posting the link over in my much-neglected Seth Rogen comm.

Who has two thumbs and is getting paid to watch Futurama right now?

THIS GIRL.

Okay, it's not too terribly important, but I need a decision!

The lovelylafemmezilla is knitting me a pair of fingerless gloves (a.k.a. hobo gloves) from this pattern so that I can keep my widdle piddies warm during class at school, which is held in a building that constantly runs its air-conditioning at about 57 degrees, even in the winter. I AM NOT KIDDING. It is seriously impairing my ability to take speed tests because I am unable to feel the keys of my steno machine under my fingers.

As you can see, the pattern includes space for an eight-character knuckle tattoo. I have been thinking and thinking about this for over a week now. I want it to be a stenographic phrase so that it's unintelligible to the general public but readable to me and my classmates, and I'd like it to refer to captioning somehow, but I am not opposed to a general steno entry. Anyway, I can't decide, but I have narrowed down my options. Please pick your favorite from the choices below (the steno phrase is first, followed by the English translation):

Poll #1377784 Knuck Knucks!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Which phrase should I put on my gloves? CHOOSE!

EFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

VCR FAILBOAT: I'M ON IT.

Finally managed to put the tape in the VCR, set the timer, record the correct time slots, and the EFFING digital receiver chooses to receive NO SIGNAL or GARBLED SIGNAL, but ONLY FOR THE OFFICE AND 30 ROCK. The rest of the crappy NBC lineup? PERFECTLY FINE. *grumblegrumblegrumble*

*iz grateful that this is her biggest problem right now*

I really need to get one of those fancy-schmancy antennae.

So a great spring break so far, I must say. There's that (*points up*) and I almost got hit by a car on the way home from work tonight by a dude running a red light. It wasn't even yellow or anything. It was red, red, red. Like, "other cars were stopped at the intersection" red.

I'm hungry, but I'm too tired to eat.

Kitties are both in catnip comas on the living room rug. *sigh*

Seriously, you guys. GOOGLE READER. JUST DO IT.

I sincerely hope that I practiced masterful VCR programming skillz today to record Lost. My recent efforts to record things have been thwarted by things like the daylight savings switch and me forgetting to push the tape into the recorder. *facepalm* I'll probably get home tonight and discover it wasn't even on this week. Why can't networks air all the new episodes in a row? So frustrating.

In other news, I just have to get through tomorrow, and then I will be on SPRING BREAK WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! It's not gonna be spent in HAWAII like it was last year. *sigh* But still, it'll be nice to have TEN DAYS OFF FROM BOTH WORK AND SCHOOL. After that, I have absolutely no break until the end of the semester (May 15th), so I'm gonna make this one count.

Is it possible to wake up with stomach flu? Cuz that's what I did today. Felt weird and dizzy and lightheaded and sweaty and cold, but ate a piece of dry toast, went to work for an hour and got home just in time to yack three times in the toilet. Except for that one time I got food poisoning from Pizza Luce, I have not thrown up in 20 years. DO NOT LIKE. Except I feel a little better now. But I want my mommy to bring me 7-Up and saltines. And a cold washcloth. And put the towels and the bucket by my bed. And rub my back. :-/

A Snowmobile for George. Go rent it and watch it. Now.

Today at work, my friend and coworker Shawn said I looked beautiful today. *swoon* Man, I wish he liked girls.

Despite the chill that is STILL in the air, on my way to work today, they played a bunch of good songs in a row on 89.3, so I rolled down my windows about halfway and leaned over so my face was in the sun and belted out the lyrics. Probably not the safest driving habit, but the sun felt so good on my face.
( An excerpt from one of the songs I heard, 'Stay Positive' by The Hold Steady )

That's all I got for today, but it's something.