11.21.2008

Why I Hate My Car

Reasons why my car is stupid:
  1. The sunroof doesn't work. Actually, the sunroof has never really worked. It used to sometimes open and sometimes not open, and then sometimes close and sometimes not close. Which meant that sometimes when it started to rain, the sunroof wouldn't close, and everything in my car would get wet. Which is why the lining on the ceiling is now peeling away and falling down and obscuring my view out the back window.
  2. It has those weird automatic seat belts that are supposed to move whenever you get in or out of the car. I dislike automatic seat belts. I dislike them even more when they don't work, and they don't move completely to belt me in (which means that I don't feel safe when I drive), and they don't move completely to let me out (which means that I have to detach the seat belt whenever I want to get out, and also it means that half the time I bump my head on the little metal thing that sticks out into the doorway).
  3. The air conditioning doesn't work, which wouldn't be so bad, except that the radiator has problems also, so that in the summer I'm likely to be driving around with the heat on full blast so the car doesn't overheat. Also, the heat only works in the summer. Not in the winter, when I actually need it. I've driven for over half an hour in my car in the winter and been completely freezing the entire time.
  4. The doors leak. Last Friday, when it rained all day, I left my car (perfectly dry) at the Institute building and went to class at 8:00 am. When I came back to my car at 4:00 pm, everything near all four doors was soaked. My seat was soaked, so I had to sit in cold wetness while driving, and the ceiling lining was soaked, so it dripped on my head the whole way home. My car is now extremely stuffy and mildew-smelling inside. Yum.
My consolation is that Christian and I are getting a new car for me in January. Not a new-new car, but a new-for-us car from Carmax. I doubt we'll ever get a new-new car. We're getting a new car for me, and the car that I have now will go back to my parents, and then my dad, who has never been able to admit that it's the worst car of all time, can drive it to work. Also, Christian helped me demonstrate all the reasons why I hate my car.

True Love Game

This past weekend, as I was sitting in church with Plautzes and trying to pass the time until Eric gave his farewell talk, I started playing the true love game. The true love game is fun and informative and very scientific, and I thought everyone knew about it already, but the Plautzes didn't, so maybe I should explain it to the world at large. (Yes, the world at large reads my blog. Deal with it, those of you with smaller blog audiences.)

To start, write your full name and the full name of your significant other (or hopeful significant other, or possible significant other, or just someone you're curious about). If you're a married woman, use your maiden name. Also, write in all caps; it works better that way. Next, write the words "TRUE LOVE" beneath your names, but write vertically, like this:

MARY ELLEN CUNNINGHAM
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL PLAUTZ

T L
R O
U V
E E

Now comes the scientific part. For each letter in the words "TRUE LOVE," count how many times that letter appears in both of your names, and write the number next to the letter. When each letter has a number next to it, add the numbers the way you would a column of two-decimal numbers. For example,

MARY ELLEN CUNNINGHAM
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL PLAUTZ

T 2 L 4
R 2 O 0
U 2 V 0
E 3 E 3

97

The final sum indicates the percentage of true love the two of you can have together. Christian and I have 97% true love together. See? Percentages. That means science.


There's one final step. If you're a married couple, and you already have kids together, then you can add two extra percentage points to your final score for each child. (But just children, not pets.) This makes sense because having kids with someone increases your true love. That's science also.

11.13.2008

Important Thoughts 10.0

10.1: I realize that I forgot to tag people at the end of my seven quirks post, so I'll go ahead and tag people now. I tag Teri, Ashton, and Catherine.

10.2: I also realize that I have been posting like a crazy person. It's all part of my plan to beat Joel in our posting war. Remember? I said I was going to lure Joel into a false sense of security (check!) and then start posting like crazy (check!). After this post, if Joel doesn't posted today, then I will be only six posts behind, which I feel is a huge accomplishment after being behind by 22 posts earlier this year. My goal now is to catch up with him by the end of this month, and then I can use December to just completely blow him out of the water. And then I'll win and Joel will owe me one million dollars.

10.3: Two people are really frustrating me right now. I can't say who the two people are, because even though I don't think they read my blog, they might, or word might get out to them some other way that I'm frustrated with them, and that would not be good. I also can't say why I'm frustrated with them, because that would give away who they are, and like I said before, I can't say who they are. Mostly I just wanted to rant a little bit because I'm frustrated. Rant rant rant. Now I'm done.

10.4: I don't think facial masks really work the way they say they're going to work. I don't think they really moisturize your face or refine your pores or detoxify your skin or anything. Here's how I think facial masks really work: first, you spread a whole bunch of green goo on your face. It's green, which means that it's healthy, plus it stinks a lot and the bottle tells you it's healthy, so you believe that it's healthy. After you spread the green goo on your face, you look in the mirror and think, "wow, I look weird with this stuff on my face." Then you wait a while, and while you wait your skin starts to feel weird, which makes sense because you've got green goo all over your face, but in your head you think, "aha! It must be working!" Then you wash your face, and you look at yourself in the mirror again and think, "I look much better than I did before I used goo on my face. This stuff is awesome." But really in your head you're not comparing your face after the goo to your face before the goo; you're comparing your face after the goo to your face with the goo, and obviously your face is going to look better without goo. And that's what I think of facial masks: complete rip-off.

Marshall's Hair

Christian introduced me to many shows when we were dating that are hilarious. One of these shows was How I Met Your Mother, which is now in its fourth season. Since Christian owns the first and second seasons on DVD, he's been catching me up on the earlier HIMYM. Watching these earlier seasons with Christian has led me to two conclusions: first, the show has always been hilarious. Second, Marshall's hair sucks.

Seriously, Marshall's hair used to look so awesome, and now it's just awful. I'm not the only one who thinks so, either. The writers of Go Fug Yourself noticed, and so did kristapurpelle41 and freckles, who discussed their opinions in an E! Online Insider Community Forum:

kristapurpelle41: WHAT are they doing with Marshall's hair???? I HATE it!!
freckles: I don't like it either.

For those of you who have never watched HIMYM, or have forgotten how Marshall's hair used to rock it hard, take a look at cool Marshall:So cool. So awesome. And now, take a look at not-cool Marshall with his terrible, nastifying, pathetically lame hair:No, just kidding. That's not what Marshall's hair looks like. This is what Marshall's hair looks like:I think the real tragedy here is that Marshall's bad hair makes his character less interesting, less funny, less awesome, and makes it more pathetic, more lame, more depressing, more blerg. And that shouldn't happen. That should never happen.

Fix Marshall's hair, people who have control over Marshall's hair! Make Marshall cool again!

11.12.2008

Quirky Tagged Post

Alice tagged me. I've been challenged to name seven quirks that no one knows about me. I'm taking "no one" to mean "not most people," since otherwise this would be too hard.

1. I have a tendency to get really cold feet in the winter, and I hate going to bed with cold feet, because then they stay cold all night long, and it makes me not sleep very well. To warm up my cold feet, I often fill up the bathroom sink with hot water (as hot as I can stand) and stick my feet in until they're warm and red and pruny. Then I take them out, dry them really quick so they don't get cold again, put on socks, and hop into bed.

2. When I eat a Reese's peanut butter cup, which I do as often as possible, I eat all of the chocolate off the top and then stick the peanut butter part in my mouth whole. This is what it looks like right before I eat it:


3. I hate the smell of vanilla. It smells like barf to me. This means that I also hate the smell of candles with names like "cookie dough" and "cake frosting." They all smell like barf. I do, however, like the smell of lavender and vanilla together. I feel like the harsh smell of lavender and the icky-gooey-sweet smell of vanilla even each other out.

4. I constantly worry that I have stuff in my nose that people can see. I think this comes from my mother constantly reminding me in my youth that since I was taller than other people, and since my nose turns up on the end, I always needed to clean out my nose before I left the house. I also obsessively worry that I have food in the corners of my mouth after I've eaten.

5. I'm really good at wrapping presents. Like, really good. At Christmas, my presents (as in, presents from me, not presents for me, because that wouldn't make sense) always look better than everyone else's. The last few years I lived at home I bought my own wrapping paper instead of using the leftover-for-ten-years wrapping paper that my parents got out of the attic, and I refuse to use a dinky, pre-made, stick-on bow as a present's only decoration. I believe very strongly that the first step in getting someone to like your present on the inside is for it look good on the outside.

6. I love playing the N64 that I borrowed from my parents. I wouldn't say that I'm really good at a lot of video games, although I do enjoy the Wii Sports. However, a lot of N64 games seem to be right on my level. I've beaten Paper Mario three times, and I've beaten Zelda: Ocarina of Time four times. I'm also awesome at Diddy Kong Racing, Yoshi Story, Mario Party, Mario Party 2, and Mario Party 3, especially the Mario Party game Face Lift. I'll bet anyone $20 that I can beat them in Face Lift.

7. I like to sit with my feet on my chair. At dinner, in class, at the doctor's office. Everywhere. Always. (Well, always except for at church or any other time when I'm wearing a skirt, because wearing a skirt and sitting with your feet on your chair does not work.) Maybe it's that sitting with my feet on the floor is not comfortable, or maybe it's that I like being all close together in a ball, like I'm constantly in the fetal position.

11.02.2008

Important Thoughts 9.0

9.1: Christian and I were looking for Halloween costumes on Thursday night, but weren't having much luck. Christian thought of a costume shop on Western Blvd. that we could go to, only it turned out that the place wasn't open. In fact, it turned out that it wasn't a costume shop at all -- it was a store that sold Indian saris. Christian only assumed it was a costume shop because of all the "costumes" he had seen in the window.

9.2: I opened the trunk of my car a few days ago and found a bunch of clothes I had forgotten about. I found my red corduroy jacket, a woven belt, my fake Ugg boots, my favorite scarf, my black dress, a black t-shirt, a pair of athletic socks, and a sports bra. It was awesome, like going shopping without spending any money. I think that's exactly how the people on What Not to Wear feel.

9.3: Christian insists that we saw Steven Spielberg in a minivan on Western Blvd. yesterday. Christian said he was doing research for his next big movie, and that he was in disguise, which is why the minivan's bumper was falling off. Christian thinks that he must be making a Civil War epic. Christian hopes that he and I will be cast in this movie.

9.4: I found a new way to make gravy. It's called, put the stuff you want in the gravy in the blender and then turn the blender on. It works. Trust me.

9.5: I finished The Fountainhead yesterday. It took me forever. And by "forever," I mean about six weeks. Books hardly ever take me that long to finish. But it was good. It was very good. I'm on an Ayn Rand streak right now -- first I read Anthem, then We the Living, and then The Foutainhead without any real break in between. It doesn't stop here, though. It can't stop. To have any real chance at ever reading Atlas Shrugged all the way through, I feel like I have to just go ahead with it now. Wish me luck.

9.6: Saturday Night Live last night was awful. Just terrible. Ben Affleck was not funny, and also he couldn't keep in character, and also it was obvious that he didn't know the words to the song in Night School Musical: Senior Year Equivalent. David Cook, though, sounded okay.

11.01.2008

First Halloween

Christian and I had an awesome first Halloween. We got zero trick-or-treaters, as expected, but we bought over $40 worth of candy, which we haven't even eaten a tenth of yet, we obtained a massive pumpkin, which Christian cleaned and I carved (although I feel like I could have done a better job if I had had a smaller, bendier knife), and we rented The Skeleton Key, which was scary without being nightmare-inducing, and which I enjoyed. Also, we took pictures. I took pictures of Christian and he took pictures of me, and the pictures of Christian were good and the pictures of me were not good, so I only posted the pictures of Christian.

Here's our massive pumpkin, which we got for only $5:
Here's Christian next to the pumpkin to show how big it is (and, seriously, it is massive):
Here's the finished product:With the lights off:Christian with the pumpkin and all of our candy:Christian trying to eat as much candy as possible: