Quiz time!

I had some time on my hands today while the guys at the garage down the street change the oil in my car, so I thought I'd blog something useless and amusing: an Internet Quiz! I did this one in honor of the Hundley sisters, who loved Napoleon Dynamite, although I'm luke-warm about it. However, I was so amused by this quiz because one fo the multiple choice questions asked what you did in your free time and "watching The O.C. on tape" was an option. I'm all about quizes like that:)

You are Summer Wheatley and you hate cake.

Which Napoleon Dynamite character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Oh, and one cool thing happened today. I was reading my blog and for the first time, some random person happened upon it during a Google search and was nice enough to comment. That made me feel warm and fuzzy! Thanks Holly:) Okay, well most of the fam is coming in tonight for tomorrow's wedding and graduation so I won't be blogging for a few days, but hopefully I'll have some pictures to post when I do, maybe even of my Uncle Allen doing a strip tease on a table at the wedding reception just like last time (no joke)! See ya!

Getting back to my roots

Good morning friends! It's a beautiful morning in East Ohio and I am enjoying a cup of joe and the first morning in 3 days without rain. Now that I've moved to Central PA, I'm a lot closer to Bridgeport and Wheeling, so I try to come more often than when I lived in NY or Boston. While I can only take the Ohio Valley in small doses anymore, being able to relax this week at home without the worry of school has allowed me to notice some of the peculiarities of my hometown and some of the things that just make me giggle when I think of where I come from.

One of the things that is endearing and yet drives me nuts when I'm home is the lacking of spell checking anywhere-- I'm talking about newspapers, businesses, school, etc. One of my favorites is the rather large, laminated sign at one of the local gas station that reads "We accept your personelle check." I can understand that you don't always catch small spelling mistakes, but if you plan to laminate something (and hence make it permanent), wouldn't you consult a dictionary before trying to spell such a quagmire of a word as personal? I'm just saying. So the helpful former grade school spelling bee champ that I am was in the gas station one day and decided to inform them of their mistake. The reply I received was, "huh". Yeahhhhh. The most recent spelling sin I encountered, however, was is an article published in a local newspaper this week. Apparently the Bridgeport Board of Ed. has purchased a large piece of land on which they will build a new high school. Well, the BOE must be very crafty because they ended up getting the land for a fraction of the price than the original asking price. If I were on the BOE, and actually my uncle Allen is, I would celebrate this victory with smiles and beer all around. The newspaper seemed to agree with me (at least with the smiling part) because the Sunday newspaper included a large photo of all the board members and the mayor holding a gigantic check for a million dollars made out (in clear block letters) to the "good payors of Bridgeport". Say what? Oh the shame spiral!!

One of my other favorite things about the Valley is the number of people in influential positions with nicknames such as "Bud", "Shooter," and my favorite "Doobie". Where can I line up to get a nickname like that and how do people with these nicknames always find their way onto local ballots? I think that there should be a new Internet Quiz that asks you questions and then tells you what your hick name would be. I don't know about you but I'm aiming for Skeeter:)

Before I go make myself another cup of coffee, I thought I'd give a salute to the St. Joseph's School Skating Rink. I read in the paper this morning that after 43 years, the roller skating landmark is closing for good. Apparently the liability insurance has gotten to high to keep it open. I guess so, considering that the price of admission now is $8 compared to the $1 when I used to go. I'm so sad that this place is closing. Every weekend between the ages of 7-12, all of my friends and I would strap on our roller skates and head to the rink to skate around and around for hours to the tunes of "Working in a Coal Mine", "Locomotion," and other random hits of the time. We would pray that someone would ask us to hold hands for a moonlight skate or that we would win the nightly Limbo contest. It was cheesy, it was fun, it was my youth:) Farewell, skating rink!!

Okay, well it's a beautiful day and I think I'll go out and enjoy it for once! Ciao!

10 things...

So my friend Lisa "Fret Me" Hundley passed this thing onto me that's apparently going around other Blogs asking people to name 10 things they've never done. Some people write about what they've never done but would secretly like to, but not all mine I'd like to. You can try to figure out which are which. Oh, and to take a page from said friend, WRITE COMMENTS DAMNIT!!!!! There's that little button at the bottom of each post where you can leave comments. Am I just writing this for myself because I know some of you read it and I may stop giving updates at all if you don't start commenting!! There. Now that I've sufficiently been a hard ass for the day, here are my 10 things...

10 Things I've Never Done: I've never...

1. gotten a perm
2. been to a pro football game
3. seen the movie Citizen Kane
4. tried to steal someone's boyfriend
5. been to California
6. cried during Titantic
7. gone skydiving
8. seen U2 in concert...although I did play the tambourine at a Sting concert once;)
9. read Mein Kampf in either German or English
10. been on a reality TV show

The Return of Jar-Jar Binks

Evenin friends! After much scrounging, I finally scored tickets to Revenge of the Sith today and I can finally confirm that this film is truly BAD-ASS!!! The fight scenes rock, all the gaps in the story get filled, and we see Yoda kick some ass once again. I'm going again in the next few days. Of course, the best light saber fights I've seen recently weren't in the movie at all. They took place between two grown men dressed as Jedi in the parking lot of the movie theater yesterday. I kid you not! While I did not have my camera on me at the time, luckily the good people at the Centre Daily Times had someone nearby to take some shots of it and I found the pic online this morning. Check it out!




In other Star Wars related news, did anyone else check out recent pictures from Cannes showing Natalie Portman (aka Padme Amidala) bald as an eagle for an upcoming flick. I don't think bald would look as good on me.



Bald Portman

Okay, well I need to rock n' roll. I'm leavin town to Ohio tomorrow morning and I still haven't packed....

P.S. Yes, there was a brief cameo by Jar-Jar Binks at the end

Salute to the Sith

Good morning friends! This morning I am inhabiting Panera's, having an apple croissant and a decaf coffee, all in the vain hope of finishing my part of an article a few colleagues and I are writing. Instead of concentrating on the article, however, I have been spending the morning looking up interesting news and facts to celebrate the upcoming Star Wars flick: Revenge of the Sith. I did a little Google search this morning and do you know how many Star Wars fan sites there are out there? Just guess....over 3 million freaky fan sites!!! I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but WOW! Anyhow, i thought that today's blog could be a salute to all things Star Wars.

1. The number one fan site that comes up on both Google and About.com is TheForce.net. This handy, dandy site has anything a true fan could want and it'll take too long to name it all.

2. My new favorite site is called How Stuff Works. It's a site that explains, you guessed it, how stuff actually works. I mean random, every day stuff. And since I love filling my brain with useless information, this site is perfect for me. Well How Stuff Works is hosting a Star Wars week this week and has some really cool articles. Ever want to know how a light saber actually works? Was anyone besides me afraid to admit that they didn't know what a Sith actually was? Find out now!!!

3. Dave Letterman's Top Ten Lists about Star Wars: What's a good salute to Star Wars without some of Dave's Top Ten Lists? Some of the lists that await you are... Top Ten Thoughts on the Minds of People Waiting in Line for Star Wars, Top Ten Rejected Star Wars Characters (including Oprah the Winfrey), and my favorite Top Ten Star Wars Fan Euphemisms for Not Having a Girlfriend

4. Geek yourself out before the movie comes out and buy some memorabilia on Ebay: Need a lightsaber? Check! Need a new Darth Vader mask? Check! Need a life? Che- oh wait, you came to the wrong place (oopsy:)

5. My favorite: The Star Wars Kid videos. Poor kid should be either pumping himself full of more Prozac about now or is embracing his icon status for the movie premiere. Either way, he's just damn funny!

6. If for some reason you do not own the original Trilogy already (who are you?), please go out and buy them so you can respect yourself in the morning. Or, if you like, I'm partial to the Mel Brooks spoof Spaceballs as well.

7. Okay, last but not least, many a theater is having a midnight showing tonight of Revenge of the Sith, but you'll most definitely need tickets in advance. So save yourself the embarassment of showing up empty-handed and go buy your tickets at Fandango online now:)

Well I hope this helps get you psyched for the movie and obscene amount of merchandising that goes along with it. Later gators and may the Schwartz be with you...

Recovering from cheesecake

Good morning friends! It's sad when I couldn't post yesterday because I was recovering, although there was no major drinking involved. I was recovering from a weekend with my parents and sleeping on the sofabed for 3 nights took it's toll on my sleep patterns, so I slept something like 16 hours yesterday. I know, I'm pathetic! But we did have a great time, and I got my laundry done:) Friday we went out to eat to celebrate for Mother's Day (belated) and then came home and watched a movie (National Treasure, aka the Nicholas Cage DaVinci Code knock-off). It was better than I thought it would be, but still am glad I waited to rent it rather than see it at the theater. Saturday was a fabulous day too! Mom wanted to scrub my apartment so she kicked dad and I out for 2 hours, so we went for a drive all around beautiful, rural, Central PA. Man, they have some serious backroads here! Then we headed to Wegmann's and Target for a little grocery shopping and I picked up some wine for dinner. After the family afternoon nap time (notice a pattern in my family of the day revolving around food, naps and movies;), we got up and I introduced my parents to the wonderful world of The Settlers of Catan. What I notice about this game is that the reason it takes so damn long to play is that it takes about an hour to explain all of the rules. The game itself isn't the longest process but the details of the game takes forever (so very German!!!) Anyhow, after 2 hours, I finally won (Yay me!!) but a rematch is awaiting me next week when I bring the game home to Ohio with me.

After my domination of Settlers, we settled in for more movie time and indulged in a little diabetic coma action through the ingestion of a sinful mocha-fudge-chocolate-cheesecake. My mom gets this cake from a bakery in Pittsburgh and I'm telling you it's the best damn cake in the world. Of course, my dad is a diabetic and we could've been a little more sensitive to that, but a sugar-free version would have robbed us all of the sinful enjoyment, so he can suck it up ( I know, I'm evil!) Now that I think about it, maybe I wasn't recovering form the lack of sleep but from the lack of cheesecake now in my apartment. That would make more sense given my sweet tooth:)

Sunday, the 'rents and I headed to the tiny town of Bellefonte, which kinda reminded me of Blankenhain, for their annual Big Spring Festival. Note that it's not just the Spring Festival, but the "BIG" Spring Festival, and it appears as such in all the papers. Well I wanted to see this BIG Spring Festival, so we all piled into my Hyundai and headed out to bumblefuck for some fun. I have to say that I'm not quite sure where the "Big" came from because the three of use practically double the population of the people attending the festival. Other than funnel cakes (always the mark of a good fair) and some face painting for the kids (although I was tempted myself), there was really nothing going on there, unless you count the free tours going through the stamp collector factory. Oh well, it's a cute Victorian town and we managed to find this cool antique store on the way out with 6 floors of stuff that looked (and smelled) like it came from my great-grandma's house.

The rest of Sunday was devoted to nap time until we watched Hotel Rwanda that evening with dinner. Man, that film was phenomenal! Don Cheadle is now my hero! The film is heart-breaking and uplifting and inspiring and I must now buy it on DVD!!! It's kind of a Schindler's List type of story, but took place during the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda in 1994 when the UN refused to intervene and almost 1 million Tutsis were murdered. If you have not yet seen this film, go get it now (here's the Amazon link to buy it on DVD)!

HOTEL RWANDA


After that, watching Grey's Anatomy on TV was a little anti-climactic (although it's still my fave new show on TV). At the end of this week, I'll have to do a run-down of all the May Sweeps shows I've seen.

Okay, well I actually have lots of shit to do today, but I'll try to remember to post tomorrow, that is if I'm not too traumatized by the season finale of Gilmore Girls tonight.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Well good afternoon friends! Is everyone enjoying the Friday the 13th? I swear, I am drawn to Friday the 13th, and if past experience has anything to say about it, I'll likely meet my next boyfriend today. You see, of the two serious relationships I've ever had, both first dates were on Friday the 13ths. I have no idea how that one happened but it did. Hey, maybe that's why I'm no longer with either of them. Hmmmmmm (I'll have to ponder that one for a while!).

So my parents are coming in this weekend, which I'm very excited about, not only because my laundry will be done and I'll get to take lots of naps and watch movies:) I'm excited because I'll have people to play The Settlers of Catan with (oder Die Siedler von Catan for you Germanophiles).


The Settlers of Catan (aka Most Bitchin Game O' the Year)


I played Settlers for the first time with Reed over Spring Break of '04 while in Maryland with his parents. It's the like 3rd bestselling boardgame ever, but it hasn't really infiltrated the US market until now, which is why most of you probably haven't heard of it. Anyhow, it's the most bitchin game invented since Trivial Pursuit, sorta like Risk but not really. I almost forgot about it until I went to the Baptist BBQ Bonanza last Friday and played it there for over 2 hours before I had to leave. This game is a marathon, not a sprint, so only die hard gamers need apply;) Anyhow, I finally bought the game a few days ago in downtown S.C. at the game and hobby store (the guy who works there is a freeeeeeaaaakkkk!!!) and have been dying to have people over to play it. My parents may think it'll be a relaxing time this weekend, but surprise, it's game time (Whoohoo!). Okay, well I might actually try to get some real work done today (aka The Corpus), so I should go. Enjoy the weekend and anybody give me a call if they want to play Settlers sometime. See ya!!!

Life after finals:)

I know it's been a few days since I've posted but I've been enjoying life after finals, which includes a whole lot of iced tea sipping and sleeping in:) I love that I still have 2 papers to write this summer, but I'm all like 'yeah, finals are over.' I don't know what kind of weed I've been smokin, but I'll try to enjoy the illusion of being done with work for a few more days before I actually admit I have stuff to do.

So I read my friend Lisa's blog every day, which is hilarious btw, and occasionally she posts these links to Internet quizzes that are pretty funny. Today there was one called, "You know You're from Central PA when..." I loved it because after almost a year of being in State College, I finally understand all of those inside jokes they talk about. Oh, but what cracked me up the most was that one of the things in the quiz said:

"You know what to do when your Mother tells you to 'Red up your room.'"

It's sooooo funny because anybody from Wheeling totally knows what that means and uses it frequently. That's pretty much what I say when I'm going to clean any room! It comes form the Appalachian dialect stemming from the word "ready" and has been made into a verb "to ready something" and then shortened to "to red up" (a little mini linguistics lesson for you all;) Anyway, I got a big kick out of it because the quiz uses it as a little anecdote to make people in Central PA sound like hicks and apparently I'm one of them (hehe).

Oh, last thing. I was craving movies after finals and so I went to go see House of Wax the other night. It was actually not too bad and as much as Paris Hilton irritates me, she was not bad at all in this film. Plus, Chad Michael Murray and Jared Paledecki are pretty to look at. While it's not a 4-star flick, the end of the movie has a big fire and the whole house of wax melts. It is really, really cool how they film it, I have to admit. So if you have time to kill, I'd recommend it for a fun summer way to kill time if it's too hot outside.

HOUSE OF WAX


Okay, the O.C. is about to start and it's the prom episode, so I'm not about to miss it;) See ya later gators!!!

The Rituals of Finals, etc.

Good afternoon friends. I am hard at work procrastinating writing my final discourse analysis paper that is due tomorrow afternoon and thought blogging would be an apt way to kill time. Yesterday I partook in one of my favorite annual finals time rituals-- the journey to find Dunkin Donuts:) Many of you know that I have a mild obsession with Dunkin Donuts coffee, a love that has only grown now that the nearest Dunkin Donuts is 40 minutes away and I can't get my French vanilla iced coffee with cream and extra sugar every day. However, during finals time, no matter where the nearest dunkin donuts is, whether it be every five feet (Boston), a few blocks away (New York) or a road trip away(State College), I indulge this treat of treats and savor the mellow smoothness of the iced-coffee with a Boston Cream donut. It's one of life's great pleasures that I allow myself during the periods of my highest stress levels. My point is that yesterday morning, I got in my car and made the 40 minute drive to Lewistown (where they have a cafe that serves up a mean hot dog for $1) and for the first time in my existence, I was disappointed by the quality of the coffee. Now, I know that DD is trying to keep up with fancier companies like Starbucks by introducing mocha frappes and such, but this move to out-snob other companies is starting to affect the quality of it's staples, good old-fashioned, damn good coffee (I'm misting up just thinking of this java travesty!) When I reached my destination, I ordered my usual beverage and donut of choice and when the lady asked me if I would like cream or sugar, I naturally answered "Yes, and lots of it!" However, instead of lovingly pouring the cream and sugar into the iced coffee herself, they now have a fancy machine, sort of like the coffee vending machines they have in waiting rooms and such, that you tell how sweet you want your coffee and it spits out a sugary liquid to your desired sweetness. I was appalled!!! When I get my iced coffee, not only could I tell that it was artificial sweetener (Blast you causes-cancer-in-lab-rats-Nutrisweet!) but the coffee itself did not taste fresh-brewed. I hate to admit this, but for the first time in my life I could only drink half of the iced coffee because it was too sweet and fake-tasting. Luckily the Boston Cream donut was as tasty and fattening as ever, or else I might have been on my way to a full-fledged meltdown:) Anyhow, I just wanted to share my experience with all of you in case you have had similar DD experiences lately and were afraid to speak up. Maybe we can start a support group or a petition for DD to go back to old-school roots with no fancy machines to fuck it all up!!

Okay, I think I've sufficiently vented and procrastinated for now. Back to work. Oh, later I've got to tell you all about my experience at the Baptist BBQ for 20-somethings last night. It was a bitchin!! Till then...