"Back to December"

 I'm back!

Also, do not let the title fool you.  This post has absolutely nothing to do with the Taylor Swift song.

Now that that has been established...

I have discovered --- and am currently cultivating --- a new obsession.

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It is called Pinterest and it is the BEST THING EVER.

Maybe even better than Facebook...

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(scandalous statement to make, I know)

... especially in the killing-time-for-God-knows-how-many-hours department.

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What follows are some more random, funny pictures about Pinterest without extra commentary...

... because I don't have time to actually blog anything more on this post.

 Reason?

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No August Words This Month

Once again it's almost the end of the month, and I need to type a few scattered thoughts out on my keyboard and click post so that I fulfill my oh-so-difficult, self-imposed quota of one blog a month. 

In my defense, this has been pretty much the craziest month ever. 

I have attended my fifth wedding of the year and have discovered there is now a sixth one before 2011 ends.  I'm thinking about adding "attends weddings" as one of my activities on Facebook at this point.

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Does divorce work this way as well?

I have packed the contents of my entire life into cardboard boxes and loaded them into numerous U-Hauls and vehicles and then made countless trips with them from old home to temporary home to storage units to new home.

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U-Haul: Because who doesn't want to pay X dollars 

a day/mile to learn a few obscure facts about a random state?

And although I am quite a sentimental person, I must say that nothing kills sentimentality faster than lugging one million pound boxes back and forth, from location to location.  There were many irreplaceable treasures that I painstakingly packed that when I unpacked them later had transformed into disgusting refuse.

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Look at him... isn't he just disgusting?

I have started grad school.  And after the first day I now completely understood why there is a higher rate of suicide amongst grad students than undergrad students.  My life now consists of random spurts of euphoria and depression.  I think I may be academically bipolar. Or scholastically pregnant.  After all, in two years I will have to give birth to a thesis that will fundamentally shake the intellectual world to its core. Or, you know, one that will allow me to graduate. 

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The cure is death.

Well, that's all folks. If you don't see me until December, don't file a missing person's report.  I've merely made yet another change of address. Permanent residency:  the University library.  So please remember to forward my invitation to your wedding there.

July is Almost Over So I Better Hurry Up and Write This Month's Blog: Hence No Time for a Creative or Corny Title

Update:  I did, in fact, cross over to the Mac side, my friends. 

And per my usual MO, it was over a week before I even opened the box after I made my newfangled purchase.

I have a strict grieving process that must be adhered to when making the switch from one form of technology to another.

DENIAL:
I know I just spent X ridiculous amount of $ on this new computer, but I don't *actually* need to start using it yet. It's not like the old computer has died or something.

ANGER:
STUPID OLD COMPUTER DIED!

BARTERING:
Come on, old computer. Pleeeeease just connect to the internet. Please? I won't try to overtax your system by opening up 12 tabs at once again, I promise. I'm not ready to open the scary looking box on the floor in the corner of the room and figure out a new one!

DEPRESSION:
I don't wanna open the box……………. why is my life so hard??

ACCEPTANCE:
Wow. This isn't so difficult. I can handle this. This new computer is actually kind of awesome. I love life!

Indeed, my experience with my Mac has sent me through a roller coaster of emotions.

There are the highs when I think: "Oh my God, this is the best thing ever…how did I not switch over to this years ago? What can be better than this setup?" which are quickly followed by the lows: "My God! All I want to do is copy-paste! What in the world is the difference between the control and command keys? What happened to right click?!?! AHHHHHHH!"

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Like this… only in my mind.

And despite the fact that I admit to knowing next to nothing about the technological world, I keep buying every new shiny object it dangles out in front of me... just as I keep joining every new social networking site the cyber world has to offer.

I have discussed my fear of the internet ninjas that lie in wait to steal my identity before… they kept me from ever joining such fads as Xanga and Friendster and MySpace back in the day, and they kept me from joining Facebook for a good several years. 

But I can now not only boast (though I probably shouldn't…since really it's rather pathetic) having a blogspot and a Facebook but I can also proudly (again, replace "proudly" with "ashamedly" or some other appropriate adjective) proclaim that I have joined both the Twitter and the Google+ phenomenons. 

Granted, I've done almost nothing on either one, but I have one gosh darn it. And in the social networking world, just signing up for the account is 90% of selling your soul to it.

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Seriously… I don't have a problem.

And what have I learned through all of this social networking besides the fact that Facebook can function as both a noun and a verb?

Answer:  I now have so many usernames and passwords that the idea of keeping all of them straight in my mind alone is laughable.

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Me… in 30 years… minus 29.

On a completely different topic, movie-wise this month I've watched two raunchy comedies and two comic book super hero flicks:

Horrible Bosses
Bad Teacher
The Green Lantern
Captain America: The First Avenger

The two comedies included the best words to describe them within their own titles.  They were awful… seriously. But they were also "horribly funny" and "bad in a good way." 

So depending on your personality, they were hit-or-miss kind of films. For some (like me) it was a fifty-fifty kind of scenario… half of the jokes were complete misses but overall it was made worthwhile by the other half full of absolute, dead-on, laugh-out-loud hits.

The super hero movies were both good in different ways.  Green Lantern was better than I thought it would be because I had convinced myself it would be absolutely awful, and Captain America was slightly disappointing only because I imagined it would be amazing on an epic scale.  

I feel that my high and low expectations are rather to be blamed than the actual films. The first was funnier than I expected, the second one more serious than I anticipated.  I am, however, looking quite forward to The Avengers movie.   

The real moral of the story?

Iron Man is still better.

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He's like... The Brave Little Toaster on steroids!

June Bugs… Stay Out Of My Computer.

Technological tidbit: 

I’m finally being proactive and searching for that new computer I’ve needed since last year. And of course, this means I must ask one of life’s biggest and scariest questions…

Mac or PC?

Now… lately I’ve heard a lot from the Mac advocates about how amazing Apple products are and how if “I go Mac, I’ll never go back.”

And if I was to base my opinion on how much I love my other Apple products (such as my iPod and my iPhone) and compare it to how much I have hated my Windows XP and Vista laptops (due to virus scares, overheating, and general other annoyances), I would have to say I am quite intrigued by this other mysterious computer world and am seriously considering taking a bite out of the Big Apple to see what all the fuss is about (yes, that was a lame pun. Get over it).

After all, I can no longer put off the inevitable. I need a new computer for grad school, so before August rolls around – come hell or high water – I will have a new laptop or Macbook or whatever it is they’re calling them these days.

And that brings up another point.  Mac will certainly require learning all new lingo, not just a new format, which for me is quite daunting.

Don’t you just love how brands have to separate themselves from the competition and create a new name for something that is essentially the same thing? 

Take ordering pizza at a restaurant chain for example.  Every gosh darn one of them has a different way of saying the exact same thing: “I want everything on my pizza.”

Pizza Hut’s Supreme vs. Domino’s Extravaganza vs. Papa John’s The Works

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That’s right. You heard me. I said EVERYTHING.  More pizza on my pizza, fool!

Anyway, rabbit path.

If the Apple website is indeed user friendly and willing to hold my hand and help me on my journey as I make this transition, that’s a giant plus in its pro column on my handy dandy why-I-should-buy-a-Mac list.

However, knowing my desire to cling to all that is familiar (regardless of whether or not the familiar sucks), PC may still keep its hooks in me a little longer.

And if neither PC nor Mac works out…well, there’s always Linux. ;)

“Mother, May I… Have a Nervous Breakdown?”

So, I suddenly realized May was almost over, and I need to post something.

Originally the plan was to write a book review for my May post so that I would have critiqued movies, music, and books and shown that this blog has some kind of coherent theme.

However, I have been quite busy this month, and although I am partly through at least four different books at the moment, I have yet to touch a single one of them recently, let alone actually finish one. And thus, I have no opinions at present regarding books to relate.

I have, however, watched several more movies in theaters: 

• Thor

• Something Borrowed

• Jane Eyre

• Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides  

However, I do not intend for this to be another movie critique, so I will be brief.

Thor was neither as bad, nor as good, as it could have been. Over all, I enjoyed it… but it was no Iron Man. And although Chris Hemsworth is an attractive enough man in his own right, he is no Robert Downey Jr. 

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Something Borrowed was awful. It was both disappointing and frustrating. The main three characters grew irritating early on (either due to their personalities or personal choices they made), and the more the story progressed, the lower my opinion of them sunk.  The ultimate coupling at the end felt forced (despite the fact that the audience was supposedly being groomed to accept it), and the one person who was sweet and likable didn’t end up with someone at the end.  If not for John Krasinski in this movie, it would have been an even bigger waste of my time.

Jane Eyre was splendid. Worth waiting for… and I did wait FOREVER… because it was out in select theaters starting March 11, and it took until May 6 for it to finally arrive at my local theater.  I already own five film versions of this Charlotte Brontë tale… and when this comes out on DVD, I will have six.  I'm not obsessed....

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides was exactly what I hoped it would be:  redemption for the Pirates franchise. It was better than the second and third films, though not better than the first one.  And I simply adored it. I was hesitant at the beginning because it took me awhile to get into it, but I am such a Pirates fanatic (and a Johnny Depp fan in general) that it did not take me long. I did not even miss Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley.  I was much more intrigued by the missionary and mermaid anyway… not to mention the sparks between gorgeous Penelope Cruz and Depp. 

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On an entirely different note, I do have an update about the adventures of the technology challenged side of myself.

Yes… I finally did it. I got the iPhone. 

I know, right?

Until the last minute, I was standing in the AT&T store telling the sales representative that I didn’t want it. I was trying to be economical, and one of the less flashy smart phones was going to be cheaper payments a month.

Also, I was convinced it would be too difficult for me to figure out. But, the sales associate wooed me, telling me how user friendly it was, and I was hooked by all the features it promised. 

And I have been hooked ever since.  I am now convinced this thing has a life force all of its own. Within hours of purchasing it, I felt strange if it wasn’t near me. I stayed up until eight in the morning figuring it out, getting free apps, creating new ring tones, etc. Within forty-eight hours I couldn’t remember how to operate my old phone. 

Now, for the person who was very emotionally attached to her old phone…who had used the same mobile phone for around four years… this is an amazing step.  For the person who on average waits six months to open the box of a new technological device and even longer to figure out its features… this is an incredible improvement. For the person who was confused by iTunes and had to have help syncing her iPod the first several [hundred] times… this is unheard of progress.

Suddenly, I am even more organized than I thought humanly possible. I have every event in the near future programmed into my mobile calendar. I look at and respond to missed calls and emails in a timely manner. I create memos that range from my current grocery to my daily to-do list. I have been given the best tool mankind can currently provide for cultivating a Type A personality.

However, this divine device comes with a heavy price… powerful introspection.

I am OCD.

The reason why I respond faster to emails?

The notifications.

To missed calls?

The notifications.

To app updates?

The notifications.

That’s right. It’s like having Facebook on 24/7 and constantly getting a new stream of notifications. And the only way to get them to go away is to respond to them.  If you’re OCD like me, they will drive you crazy. 

Right now I have an app update staring at me, and I can’t make it go away because technically the app belongs to my friend. It was on her iPod and she downloaded it to my iTunes library, so when I hooked my new iPhone up to my iTunes Library, it synced her app to my phone.

And I can’t update it to make it go away because it requires her email address and password. However, it’s also a game app… a game app I want to play… so either I must delete the app or live forever with a notification staring at me on my iPhone… until the end of time.

Or, you know, until I get a new phone.

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So, like I was saying… until the end of time.