Some people are just stupid

Really.

So, in a previous post I discussed my love for Mommy Blogs.

On the list of ones I love dearly is that belonging to cjane.

You should read her stuff sometime. She's really quite talented.

So talented, in fact, that someone (or several someones?) have been stealing her work.

You can read the details here, here, here and here.

I'm kind of amazed (but not really because of who she is and how many people clearly adore her) that so many of us have rallied to stop this crazy from infecting the blogosphere.

Sidenote: bloggers can be MEAN when one of their own has been wronged. I love it.

The offensive blogs in question have since been removed.

I'm sure I've been inspired in reading Courtney's posts to write some of my own.

I'm sure that others have inspired me to do the same, as well.

But the result has been my own.

Something I created.

My ideas have always been my own, even if someone else helped me get there.

Because isn't that kind of the point of all of this?

Never, never have I stolen a whole entire post.

And never would I be moronic enough to do it from one of the most well-known writers on the internet.

I'm also probably guilty of maybe posting a photo and not giving proper credit to my source.

Lesson learned.

I mean, duh people.

Come one.

How dumb does one (or a couple, for that matter) person get?

Also: not that this would ever happen because I have about 3.68 readers.

But.

If someone ever did that to me?

It would be Hammer Time.

Fo' shiz.

I'm going to drink the rest of my blueberry jasmine green tea now.

Thank you, and good day.

Edit: In second guessing myself, as I am wont to do, I've combed over my previous posts to make sure that I'm not a jerkface like *some* people.

I don't think I am, let me just say right now.

As an English major and seasoned writer myself, I'm pretty good about that sort of thing.

Do unto others, and whatnot.

But just to be safe.

Because no one like a hypocrite.

Least of all, a sarcastic one.

Oh, and as long as we're talking about music

I have some confessions to make.

1. I hate The Doors. Hate 'em. I don't understand their talent, nor do I comprehend their eternal "genius" label from rock aficionados. It just sounds like throaty carnival music to me.

2. I cannot abide Christmas music on any day other than the day from which the genre derives it's title. It's unnecessary and cruel. Maybe this makes me a party-pooper or buzzkill or Scrooge, but whatever. I blame the retail industry.

3. I kind of love Taylor Swift's song "Love Story" (and by 'kind of', I of course mean a whole lot). I know it's pop. I know Taylor Swift it 18. I know the video sucks and the lyrics are contrived in such a way that appeals to pre-teen girls. I don't care. Every time I hear it on the radio, my heart skips a beat. And, I died a little inside when the CD met it's melt-y doom in the firey depths of my car last Friday.


There.
I said it.

Just Don't Ask Me To DJ Your Next Party

Apparently, I have really bad taste in music.

I know, it came as a shock to me too.
In fact, it occurred to me (as most things do) while I was in the shower.
There's just something about the hot water and my peppermint soap and my cat whining because I've been out of his line of sight for more than twelve seconds that makes the environment prefect for epiphanies.
The harsh reality of my less-than-perfect musical tendencies was what I happened upon today.

Stay tuned: tomorrow I'm going to figure out how to solve the budget crisis.

Now, let's be clear: bad taste is not to be confused with lack of respect.
I have plenty of respect for decent music. Which is probably why my penchant for musical bastardizations is such a mystery to me.

I grew up in a household where we listened to The Beatles and The Allman Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd. That's how cool my parent's were. (do YOUR kids listen to Skynyrd? Didn't think so.)
This part makes sense, because my parents are products of the era that pretty much shaped the world, pop-culturally speaking. In other words, they knew what good music was.
In fact, they still do. My Dad is often the proud owner of the best tickets his credit card can find whenever people like Paul Simon (the singer, not the dead senator...obviously) or Crosby, Stills, and Nash come to town. They're in they're fifties, by the way (do YOUR parent's jam out at super-awesome concerts with America's rock legends? Didn't think so).
As such, we were only exposed to what can only be described as "non-crappy music."
They also did a pretty good job of sheltering us from...you guessed it: crappy music.
In fact, I wasn't even aware that the 80's and early 90's had musical movements (which is pretty amazing considering I was actually born smack-dab in the middle of one of those decades and was most certainly lucid for much of the other one, but whatever), until high school rolled around and we got VH1 and I started watching a whole lot of "Pop-Up Video".
But that's another story.

I also didn't know who people like Nelson and Poison actually were until I became friends with Marie, and she proceeded to warp my fragile little Sgt. Pepper's-shaped mind with cassette mix-tapes and foolishness like tight-rolling and day-glo.
She's so 80's sometimes.

My siblings even managed to inherit out parent's cool music genes.

Do those actually come in genetic form? Can we maybe use my obvious lack-there-of as final proof that I am really adopted?
I'll look in to it.

But, back to the music.

Joey loves his classic rock.
Truly, madly, deeply.
He's even got more than his fair share of Led Zeppelin posters in his old room at my parent's house. One of them might even be a cloth tapestry.
Such a good little flower child, he is.

Janie loves it, too.
But she's more into the singer-songwriters.
For example, Jack Johnson and John Mayer. While their respective musical talent might be debatable, no one can deny the mass-appeal of their respective abilities to write amazing lyrics.
Also, I'm pretty sure that both are on my sister's freebie list.

In addition to their individual tastes, they share a mutual adoration for Dave Matthews and his band of merry-makers.
Or just simply DMB, if you wanna hang with the cool kids.
They don't just love him.
They worship the very ground he plays his guitar on.
Every single summer, you can count on them camping out and spending insane amounts of money on a whole week's worth of Dave tickets when he makes his yearly pilgrimage to Alpine (may it rest in peace).

Now, I've enjoyed a Dave Matthew's concert or two in my time (no not like THAT, Mom).
I can get down with some Zeppelin.
I own Jack Johnson AND John Mayer albums.
I have almost every single classic-rock "pioneer" band on my iTunes.
John, Paul, George and Ringo are good buddies of mine.
Johnny Cash is listed as one of my favorite artist on both my MySpace and Facebook.
I even enjoy a little Dylan from time to time, although I try to keep it to a minimum because my mother hates him (which is strange to me, because wasn't he like the voice of her generation, or something?).

Not to mention that I'm consistently surrounding myself with people that hold vast wealth's of knowledge concerning modern music, as well.
Chelsea brought me The Kaiser Chiefs and The Shins.
Molly gave me David Gray and all the music from the "Alias" soundtrack.
Blake had introduced me to...everything else there is to know about music as it exists in the present day. Seriously. Good thing he makes really great mix CD's.

If all of the above is true, then why in the blue hell am I drawn to such awful melodies to complete the soundtrack of my everyday life?
I mean, if it's somewhere on the top 40 and is written by someone who had also starred in 3 movies/TV shows this year and has the words "baby girl" in it, count on me to crank up the volume when Ryan Seacrest introduces it.
No, I don't actually listen to Ryan Seacrest, but you get the picture.

I don't know what to do, or how to stop it.
I am at a loss.
Songs like "If I were a Boy" (Beyonce), "Leavin'" (Jesse McCartney) and "So What?" (Pink) cannot be good for my health and well-being.
Yet I still love them so (are YOUR musical tastes this lame? Didn't think so).

Send help people.
Send help and Rolling Stone now.

San Dimas High School Football RULES

Also, I'm a little pissed off.

Why? You ask.

Well, let me tell you.

1. The Powers that Be have blocked ALL my streaming media sites from the network. Every last stinking one of them. I would understand if I sat around and watched them when I was supposed to be doing work. But I don't. I watch them at 4 a.m. and I'm in grave danger of smashing my head on the keyboard as I slip into a boredom-induced coma. Fascism, I tell you.

2. I got to see my gorgeous sister last night for the Girl Talk concert. Why is this a bad thing? It wasn't. 'Cept for the fact that I got a little weepy on the way home because I had to leave her. Good thing my loyal compatriot was passed out in his passenger seat.

3. I have a million things to do today and won't be able to because I have to sleep all day because I'm at work right now and because I have to come back here tonight. New job: STAT.

4. The reason my loyal compatriot was passed out in his passenger seat on the way home from Chambana Wednesday night (I almost wrote last night, but then I realized that it's officially been Friday for about four hours now, and not everyone views time in the same fashion that I do...but that's another tale for another campfire, dudes) is due to the fact that he's been laid-up, or "down with the sickness" as he would say, with some sort of weird allergy/cold/reaction to our moldy Halloween pumpkins for the last several days. It was exacerbated by the festivities on Halloween at Bradley and Christopher's, as well as the concert. So yeah, that sucks. But, more importantly, I have the weekend off. Had, rather. Because I volunteered to work tonight, and probably will again Saturday morning because my plans for a grand autumnal weekend have been thwarted by someone's crappy immune system. Which REALLY irks me because I wanted to very badly to go here. It's magical.

5. My hair currently looks alarmingly similar to the crazy bag-lady that lives out of a shopping cart near 6th and Capital. Remind me never, EVER to fall asleep with wet hair again.

6. Did I mention they blocked my streaming media sites?! Because they did.

Which brings me to my next point and, as my high school English teacher Mr. Ruter would say, the very "kernel" of my post:

In an effort to prevent the ineveitable and impending death-by-boredom situation that would indeed ensue due to lack of "Scrubs" re-runs, I got re-aquianted with the blogs of some truly awesome peeps, including one that belongs to my friend Libby, an old old friend from my summer camp counseling days (another tale for another campfire...) that I still speak to on occaision. It's less plausible to speak regularly now, what with me trying to change the world without actually knowing what I'm doing, and with her having graduated from culinary school and being married and living in Utah and stuff. But really, she's super-cool--- she's incredibly passionate about everything in her life, really creative, beautiful, and just generally great to be around. She radiates happiness and positive energy. She also happens to be LDS (Latter-Day Saint, or Mormon for all yous who are not as wordly as I...did I tell you that I was Mormon once? Another campfire.) Which I think is super. It really has nothing to do with anything, except for the fact that Mormons have something of an "old-fashioned" way of doing things, which Libby will openly admit. Not as in an Amish old-fashioned way, no funny hats or refusal to own mirrors or live without electricity here. Just, different. Namely, in the way they view women.
In my liberal-raised agnostic mind, I'd always found this to be a little sexist: why should women be treated any differently than men? We're the same! We can do the same things! Well, the truth is: we can't. And I've never understood it better than after reading and old post from Libby's old blog (she's had, like, three...what can I say the girl is a machine) that started about how much she adored her family and turned into something quite different.

You see, Libs is one of 11 children. E-L-E-V-E-N. Those Mormons, I tell you what... She's got something, like, six brothers? Maybe? And they're all freakin' fabulous, according to her. Basically, they raised her standards for potential boyfriends/husbands/lovers/male-whatevers in her life that she feared as though she'd never find someone that was a good as her brothers of her father. At least, in her eyes. She highlighted this is by illustrating an experience in which she'd been lifting something heavy at work and the guy she was working with saw her struggling but didn't offer to help her, due to some sort of morality/fear of women being offended by being seen as "the weaker sex." Basically, he didn't want to insult her. Well, Earth to guy! That wouldn't have been an insult! DUH. Libby's point was that her brother's would've offered to help her. Her father would've offered to help her. All the LDS guys she knows would've offered to help her. Why? Because part of their belief system holds women as sacred. Not weak, people. Not less-significant. Sacred. Precious. Important.

*And try as I might, I simply cannot find the original post, or I'd link it back. That, and I'm pretty sure Libby's blog might be set on private. I'll ask.

A while ago, I wrote a MySpace blog about how John Cusak has totally messed up my love-life by giving me unrealistic examples of romance (think: "Say Anything"). I think Libby's family has done the same for her. Or maybe it's her faith. I'm not sure. Either way, the girl is damn lucky because she's married to a man who fufills all her expectations. That's pretty cool.

I guess I'm not saying that I want to be a holy idol, because I don't. But to fell important to someone once in a while? Cherished, even? That would be pretty cool. Who doesn't want that? It's not just a woman thing, please don't misunderstand. It's a person thing. I think we all need to take a little more time and realize that we don't show the people in our lives who matter the most just how much they mean to us. We live in a world where people, where life is taken for granted . I'm going to try not to do that anymore and see just how much happiness and positive energy it brings me. I'm banking on bunches of it.

Funnily enough, though, I'm reminded of the following Oscar Wilde quote I came across while I was living here. Those Brits, I tell you what...

Men always want to be a Woman's first love.
Women have a more subtle instinct:
To be a man's last romance.

Which is totally ironic because Oscar Wilde was...well, gay?

And now I have to finish making my shopping list before Denise gets here.
So I can go home as pass out with my big gray cat.
Just so I can wake up and come right back here.
And not run any of my errands.
Joy.

Peace and Love.

PS- Was I in love with parentheticals this morning or what? Yeessh. Those English majors, I tell you what...

To Whom it May Concern:

So there was a post here.

But I removed it.

It's too bad because it was really hilarious.
And I mean really.

But in said post, I discussed some things about my job. Not names or places or dates or top secret military nuclear missile launch codes, but I did mention circumstances. That being said, I read a post by another blogger that links here, to this blog written by a hi-LAR-ious woman who used to work as a graphic designer and was fired for writing about her job on the aforementioned blog.

And not that I'm working for NASA or the Jeffersonian or Disney, and not that anyone besides Molly and Marie and maybe my Mom and Grandma read about my awesomely interesting life, but I'm not taking any chances because if I got fired for "improper use of the computer and internet" it would be a total drag.

Again.


PS- If you want to marvel at my brilliance, I've saved the post for my own personal enjoyment. It can be part of your enjoyment, too if you just ask. As long as you promise not to get me fired.