This is the second day in a row I've stayed awake long enough to see the sun rise.

Under different circumstances, I'd probably actually enjoy this. As it is, it's actually not terribly unpleasant. Today especially. It's mostly just a consequence of sleeping from 4-11 pm. I think I'm gonna try to throw in a nap after this to try to get things back on a decent schedule, but it's not like I'm actually overwhelmed by work or anything.

It's still weird though.

I have yet to find a single person who knows who Michael Phillips is.

I went to Best Buy earlier today. I was browsing through a few things when I came across this:




It was surreal, perhaps even more so than the aforementioned Chuck Klosterman quote, if only because this time I was pretty sure it wasn't just a misspelling of "Michael Phelps".

My world has been shaken to the core.

Anybody else just sleep through an earthquake?

What, just me?

That really ups the resale value

This is a view from my porch as of about 5 minutes ago:



This may not seem unusual, and it's not, in and of itself. However, it is unusual in that it's been there for at least 3 hours. And I'm pretty sure it's empty. It usually comes early in the morning, well before I'm awake. Today it was there when I got up at 9:30 and has been there since.

As I was leaving (around 10:30) there was another truck from the same company out there, as well as a couple other pickup trucks nearby. I can only assume it somehow broke down and they left it until they can either get it started or get it towed. I have to imagine neither is particularly easy when dealing with a garbage truck.

I'm just glad they're not blocking our driveway.

If I had known then what I know now...

Remember when we went to the Festival of Nations and then went outside and ran into people filming Jingle All the Way?

In general, I would assume the answer is no. Because most people who might read this weren't there. But it any case, it's something that happened.

Anyway, I was just thinking about that for one reason or another. I remember it being really exciting that Arnold Schwarzenegger was there. But then, today, I looked at the cast. And while I don't know how many of them were actually in town filming that day, in retrospect, I think I totally missed the point.

At best, he was like the 5th most interesting person in that movie. Still ahead of Jim Belushi and Sinbad, but there were a lot of awesome people in that movie. I can't help but wonder if knowing that would've changed anything.

Man, the news used to be a lot more awesome than it is now

This is a really fascinating article, as far as I'm concerned.

This internet thing is amazing. Sometimes you just stumble upon the coolest things for odd reasons.

Ah, office humor

I got a "memo" today. An "Effort Reporting Violations Survey", they call it, about spending grant money mostly. It turned out to be such a bad April Fools joke that it took me a couple times reading it to be sure it wasn't serious. Some example questions:

Could you be more careful at work?

Are you married? If so, explain how you maintain relationships while fulfilling grant requirements.

What is the total value of objects you have broken in the past month?

What are you doing in Europe that you can't do by computer here?

Estimate what percentage of your internet usage you would qualify as "not safe for work". Please list the sites most commonly used for these purposes.

For the record: boxers or briefs?

Estimate the number of coworkers you have had inappropriate relationships with.

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

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This is like the worst kind of April Fools joke. It's more confusing than it is funny. And apparently someone thought it was worth sending out copies to everyone in the department.

Fantastic.