New Look, Again

Ok. I think I'll stick with this layout for a while. I'm digging the green and purple combo. It reminds me, strangely, of seventh grade, when this was my favorite color combo on the planet. Except it was more crayola-shades.

I just couldn't stand the other layout. It was too all-over-the-place. I need my posts centered and contained. I don't know why.

And, for your viewing pleasure, more pictures of Hank. Because I'm sick and he amuses me.
*****
This is Hank in our old condo. I was sitting on the couch next to him, undoubtedly delaying writing a paper for school. I think this is how he spends most of the day when we're not home.
The only think I really miss about that condo is the kitchen. Everything was brand-new, so the stove and oven were awesome, the microwave above the stove has a fan for sucking up smoke and whatnot and the fridge never froze the food on the refrigerator side and kept all the food frozen on the freezer side. Our new refrigerator is not so reliable, and the oven likes to burn stuff and makes the house smell like gas. I had my current appliances but, as they work (sort of), they are on the bottom of the "things to buy for the house" list.

This is Hank in my new office. I promise I will post before and after shots soon. I'm still waiting on Mr to hang the curtain rod on that back window.

Mr hates that old green velvet (!) couch in the background. I got it from my grandparents when they moved. I love the size and shape of it. It's very small - more of a loveseat, really - it's low to the ground and it is sort of oval shaped. It also has some weird bleach-like stains on the front. I'm sure one of my grandmother's eight children spilled something on it and someone tried to clean it. I promised Mr that I would recover it or at least slipcover it. That I didn't love the color, just the shape. But. It matches my office so well. It picks up lots of lovely shades in my fancy Home Depot area rug. Besides, it's my office.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I'm now in the worst stage of being sick: almost better. Almost better blows. You're no longer completely sick, so the awfulness of daytime tv is readily apparent and sitting on the couch is just boring. But, if you get up and try to be productive, you get dizzy and a little nauseous and have to go back to the couch.

I've found a couple of daytime tv shows that are ok. I'm really getting into "How Clean is Your House" on BBC America. These two British ladies go around to astoundingly dirty houses, tell people they're living in filth and then force them to clean. After everything is spotless, the people are happy, and the ladies leave. They come back two weeks later to check up on people, but come on. Are you going to let your house get messy in the two weeks? I don't think so. Go back in three months and then see where they're at!

This has, of course, made me wonder about the cleanliness of our home. We're pretty clean, compared to the people on the show. Mr is very clean, which means I have to be clean, which is good. However, we've never cleaned our couch. They cleaned a couch on the show today and it was sort of gross. But their couch was some sort of pleather so it was easy to clean. Ours is ... um ... fabric. I don't know how to clean it. I want to take the cases off the pillows and toss them in the washing machine, but what if they fade and then don't match the rest of the couch? How do I clean the rest of it? I vacuum it sometimes, because it is Hank's favorite hangout. See?He's got white hair which, though it is short, still gets EVERYWHERE. So, I vacuum the couch every once in a while - though not as often as I should - in the hopes that the couch will remain blue and not turn white. The vacuum does not work very well. We have a hose, but none of the attachments have a spinning brush thingy, so it only sucks up so much. Lots of hair stays on the couch. Sometimes I use a lint brush, but the couch is big and even that doesn't help all that much. Anyway. Hank is clean, we bath him fairly regularly. However, he is a dog and doesn't shower everyday like Mr & I do. I don't think our house stinks but I remember going to friends' houses when I was younger who had dogs and their whole house smelled like dog. I don't want that to happen. I worry that maybe I just don't notice because I live there and am used to it. I don't think that's the case... but it could be.

So. Any tips on couch-cleaning?

And, by the way, please don't be afraid to come and visit. I promise, we'll vacuum the couch before you get here. Maybe I should get a special lint brush, just for the guest room....

Not Much Happening

Still home sick, but feeling better. I think I'll be much better by tomorrow, which is good because some of Mr's friends are having a little party tomorrow and people will be in from out of town, so it will be nice to be able to attend, even if I probably won't be able to drink.

Today I felt mostly good, except when I ate. Eating makes me nauseous. Hopefully that will be gone soon.

At the moment, we're watching Benny Hill, which I find endlessly entertaining. Apparently, Mr used to pat his grandpa on the head when he was little. He saw it on Benny Hill and thought it was hilarious. If you knew Mr or his grandpa, this would make you laugh.

Any thoughts on the new blog layout? I think I might hate it, but I wanted something springy. I wish I knew HTML and could customize it better than just using Blogger's premade junk.

(isn't it odd that Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognize the word "blogger?")

Home Sick

Mr was sick all weekend and I think he gave it to me. I'm usually pretty hearty. If I get sick, he gets sick, but I rarely catch anything from him. This morning I had a hard time getting up (not to surprising considering that I was out really late on Monday and didn't get much sleep the night before). I showered, and got dressed and felt sort of ok. Not great, but whatever. By the time I got my shit together to leave, I was feeling a little queasy. By the time I was almost to the highway, I was near tears thinking about how I didn't want to go to work. This was my clue. When I'm sick, tears are always near the surface.

So, I called home and told Mr I was on my way back and called work and said I was sick. I've been in my pj's and on the couch since. It's a very weird thing going around. My stomach feels like iron and my guts keep clenching up. I had a small bowl of cereal, but it didn't sit well and I can't quite bring myself to eat anything else. Is it wrong that I'm hoping this will result in weight loss?

I get a little dizzy if I stand up or walk around, so I've been sitting on the couch. It took me about half an hour to work up the nerve to go upstairs and get my computer. I was thinking it would be fun to lay on the couch and play The Sims all day. I love The Sims. When I got my mac I was so sad that I would have to give up Sims - I'd bought all the expansion packs. What? You knew I was a nerd.

But Mac had a complete set - all the expansion pack and everything - for really cheap, so I bought it. It's sweet. Sadly, many of my things are still in boxes and, being that I don't have time to sit around staring at my computer all that often, I haven't played it since we moved. I dug through some boxes and almost passed out trying to find it. Somehow all of my PC Sims games are in the box with everything else that was in my desk, but no Mac Sims. I found the instructional booklet, but no disc. How can that be? I swear I've seen the case, but I can't find it now. Sad.

Today's supposed to be the first day of classes, too. There's no way I can drive, so I have to skip the first class and, if I have what Mr had, I'll be worse tomorrow. So, I need to look up my professor's email addresses and see if I can get electronic versions of the syllabi so I don't get behind. It makes me sad that I have to start worrying about homework again. But, I'm so close to finishing my master's I can practically taste it. I love school but I'm ready to be done. This week off has been awesome. Coming home from work and having time to talk to Mr and watch tv or whatever is so nice.

My spring break consisted of Romance novels. I was so happy with The Duke and I that I bought two more of the Bridgerton series: An Offer from a Gentleman, featuring Benedict Bridgerton and Sophie (the bastard daughter of an earl), and Romancing Mr. Bridgerton, about Colin and Penelope Featherington. Offer was excellent. Unlike Duke, where I was smiling and feeling giddy the whole time I read, I cried through a good part of it. It was excellent. Sadly, Romancing was not as enjoyable. Through all the books, the Featherington girls are plain and poorly dressed and totally uninteresting. I just couldn't really care about Penelope. She supposedly bloomed or whatever, and Colin's all pissed that he didn't notice her sooner, but I just didn't buy it. Overall though it was a great spring break treat. I love Julia Quinn, and I think I'll buy a couple more of her books the next time I go on vacation.

I know I'm sick when blogging wears me out. I think I'll watch a little Charmed on TNT (four hours of it! Another guilty pleasure of mine, though I can't f'ing stand Billie and lately they've been running the last season [was she on the last two seasons?]) and take a nap.

100 Posts, and I Still Have No Direction

Ok. So. 100 posts. Wow

This particular post has no aim. Or, rather, I could separate this out into four or so posts, but we both know I won't get around to it. So, feel free to wander and ignore what you choose.

Last Weekend's Unfortunate Events
Nothing horribly bad happened last weekend, but I referred to it as bad in the last post, so I was going for consistency. I was playing with Hank, kicking a soccer ball around the house. Hank loves this. It is a rather old ball and he can sort of pick it up, but mostly Hank is the most awesome goalie ever and has mad stopping skills with his paws. It cracks me up. So, I was kicking a ball around the house, and ... well. We all know I'm not coordinated. I sort of kicked the corner of the wall. I caught the wall with my little toe. It hurt.

For a while I thought the toe was broken. Then, it turned purple and I thought for sure it was broken. Two days later, it was feeling so much better, I though it was a-ok. Friday I took Hank for a walk, was startled by a big big dog, jumped, and it hurt again. Sunday I was feeling pretty dandy, accidentally kicked Mr's boots (which were NOT where they belong) and now it hurts worse than ever.

The upside is that I bowled really well last week with an injured toe. I hoping to repeat the process this week.

March Madness is Dead
Though I may have made some good points in my bracket article, my bracket fell apart this week. Who would have thought that there could possibly be a repeat of last year's championship? I had Ohio State going all the way. But, since Ohio is the only one of my final four teams to actually make it, I'm mathematically eliminated from the pool. I guess Mavis' plan wasn't such a bad one after all.

Jayson Stark Rocks
If you enjoy sports writing at all, I highly recommend checking out Jayson Stark at espn.com. He's their senior baseball writer, and I love him. The only thing I don't love is that a lot of his columns are "insider" so, you have to pay to read them. However, I recently tried to find his articles (I wrote about it here). I wanted his articles for an assignment I was working on. I didn't take Mano's advice and look at my library, I just used a different article from Women's Health Magazine.

But I emailed Stark. I loved those articles on the White Sox. He sometimes writes about baseball in a way that brings forth all the feeling of all the reasons why I love it, if that makes any sense. Anyway. This weekend, he wrote me back! And sent me the articles! Who cares if he called me "Lisa."

The Blog
I'm trying to update the color scheme to something more springy and less cookie-cutter. I have no knowledge of anything in this area, so it might look really bad. Bear with me.

Does anyone know how to list previous posts by title in the sidebar? I can't figure it out.

I Hate Kobe Bryant
This was totally unplanned but, while looking up the Stark links, I came across this. You can read it, if you like, but basically it says that Kobe Bryant is a better basketball player than Micheal Jordan. Um. No. Whatever. He's an asshole, and he should be shunned from the media. I don't know why the media - sportsmedia specifically, but all media really - has to pick some guys who's - pardon the phrase - dick they suck, regardless of what he's done. There are great players in sports who get no attention at all. Does Kobe have some great talent on the court? Yes. That's undeniable. The article I linked to there highlights some of the things he's done that couldn't be done by anyone else. However. The author plays off Kobe's unpopularity by saying that Kobe gets unfair treatment. He compares him to A-Rod. To Jordan (who wasn't the world's best teammate). He says:
"Of course, the idea that Kobe is better than Jordan -- or even the best player in this league -- is as repugnant to some folks as a rectal exam. Even though Kobe has proven himself under pressure countless times, he gets the A-Rod treatment."


Ok. Yes. That is repugnant to me.
He continues:

"Kobe can't please anyone. And it doesn't help that most people suffer from revisionist history when it comes to Jordan, forgetting that he was just as poor a teammate and a ball hog and that he ran off coach Doug Collins like Kobe ran off Phil Jackson the first time.

In fact, you could argue that Jordan was even worse. Far as we know, Kobe hasn't jacked up any of his teammates the way Jordan punched out Steve Kerr and Will Perdue at practice.

Kobe will never be forgiven for Shaq's departure, but you're delusional if you think Jordan wouldn't have had any ego issues playing alongside a player with Shaq's star power.

The best-player argument shouldn't be determined by personal dislike. But if you want to take it there, fine. Jordan was hardly the ideal husband, but only the tabloids were brave enough to venture into his personal life. And what about those gambling issues? If Jordan's life had been covered like Kobe's, we would have an entirely different opinion of His Airness."


Ok. There are some lapses in logic here.
Jordan did benefit from some fantastic PR. And yes, Jordan got lucky "retiring" when he did so that his gambling issues were barely made public. And I'm sure that Jordan was "hardly the ideal husband." So, poor Kobe's picked on. Kobe hasn't done anything anybody else didn't do. Jordan was never (as far as I know - I could be wrong) accused of rape.

Kobe Bryant slept with a woman who was not his wife who, at best, was too scared of him to say no in a way that he would understand. He raped her. And then his lawyers let her identity leak out into the media and she was unable to get a fair trial. He raped a girl. He is a rapist. This is no hero. You want to talk about his skills? I guess that's your prerogative. I would much rather hear about all those other guys you say are almost as good as Kobe, but whatever, that's your choice to write about it.

But don't pretend like he didn't earn his bad reputation, or that Micheal Jordan is only liked because he's good at putting forth a false face. The only reason Kobe Bryant was not convicted of rape was because of the way that case was mishandled. Even when it was going on, the announcers couldn't stop talking about "how brave" Kobe was for playing his best "considering all he's been through." He raped a woman. You think he's disliked because he's a bad teammate? Because Shaq left? Players leave teams all the time. He's disliked because he's an asshole. Move on to some other guy already.