Day 177: Okay, it's not cliff-diving, but there was a spot of adventure here today.  Snoop Lion, nee Dogg, had a concert at Ace of Spades here in Sacramento.  Ace of Spades is about 100 yards from my balcony.  I could see his tour bus.

It was, in fact, quite smoky.

In other news, you probably remember Stephen Tobolowski as Ned Ryerson from "Groundhog Day", or even as the dude from "Sneakers" ("My voice is my passport. Verify me."), but he shows up in the damnedest of places.  The commissioner in "Deadwood".  The former glee club coach in "Glee".  I was randomly watching movies this weekend, and he showed up as the big bad in THREE of them: "Bird on a Wire", "Mississippi Burning", and "Freaky Friday".  No, I didn't actually WATCH "Freaky Friday", I was just flipping channels and was trying to figure out what movie Jamie Lee Curtis was in with whatshername, and he was just suddenly THERE.

Also, and you probably didn't know this: he was in Buffy.  He played the High School Principal in the unaired pilot. 

That dude is everywhere.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 174: Nearly six months in California, am I.  It's pretty great.

I have made some wonderful new friends.  I miss lots of my friends from Vermont, and from South Carolina.

Can all of you just move to Sacramento?  It would make my life so much easier.

Wifi (who is a cat) decided that he needed to mark me this weekend. He wasn't, I'm certain, being mean.  He just wanted my hand to be where he wanted it to be, and so he utilized his only tool, which was his teeth.  When I let him move my hand where he wanted, he didn't bite through my skin at all.  But when I wanted my hand elsewhere... Ouch.

For the coming holidays, people are always asking me what I want.  And, honestly, I don't want much, and I recognize that that makes me incredibly lucky.  I don't need a new rice cooker, or a new electric kettle, or a nice spatula.  I'm good.

What I do WANT, however, is a headshot. I want a black and white headshot of all of my friends.

I have no idea how to actually ask this of you, but that's what I want.

Love you, peeps!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! 

Day 171 Revisited:

MH: I like Mongolia because it's so cute!  It's inside of China and Russia.  I like things inside of things.
EG (smirking): You like things inside of things, do ya?
MH: Yeah!  Like cats in onesies!

For those of you who are confused:

Basically the same thing.  In terms of pure cuteness, I'm saying.

Day 172: As a young Latina woman, of course I'm a huge supporter of circle-de-luz

This is an organization that encourages young Latinas to embrace their heritage, their talent, and their beauty.  It was started by a very clever, talented, beautiful young lady that I had the privilege of going to high school with named Rosie Molinary.

Rosie is one of Those People.  People who just set out to make the world a better place.  People who infect you with their enthusiasm.  People who just warm your heart when they walk into the room.

It's the season of giving, and a lot of my friends fret over which charity to contribute to.

This one is at the top of my list.  It's making the world we live in a better place. It directly helps young women in our society achieve their full potential.

It's what she does.  She's kind of amazing.

Please take a moment to look at the site, and give what you can. 

NINJA EDIT: http://rosiemolinary.chipin.com/circle-de-luz-run-big-dream-big-iv

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 171: You may recall, gentle reader, that my work sometimes involves pandas, or rhinoceri, or whatever animal pops into my head for that afternoon's analogy.  Since what I actually do is write tax software (hey, there, no dozing off, right?), I tend to come up with clever analogies, generally involving some cute animal.

So here's what happened today:

I was told to go take a look at the new animal, or possibly animals, and come up with a plan to systematically measure and prepare a new display environment for it, or possibly them.  I went over to the new animal area, and there are a lot of watermelons.  I think the new animals must eat them, or something.  One of the watermelons is as big as my car.  One of the watermelons is completely hollow, which is weird.  One of them is bouncing.

So I'm standing there, looking around, and there are no animals to be seen.  It slowly dawns on me that the zookeeper thinks that these loopy watermelons are animals.  These are not animals.  These are a colossal mistake.

But the zookeeper's gone off on vacation, and the assistant zookeeper is also on vacation (it's that time of year), and at some point one or more zookeepers are going to wonder why I haven't built the new animal enclosure, and I'm going to have to point out the gigantic one and the hollow one and the bouncy one and explain, patiently, that these are frickin' WATERMELONS!!

I have a weird job.  Is my point.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)

Day 170: So, inspired by some advice I gave to a friend, I decided I'd enjoy some roasted veggies for dinner.  I lightly salted them, coated them in olive oil, and mixed in some garlic.  I decided to taste the cauliflower before I baked it, just to check that the seasonings were right-ish.

I COMPLETELY forgot that it was frozen.

Ahem.

In other, less comical news, I'm taking a penguin time-out from silliness to remind all of you, my dear friends, that you never, ever, need to drive drunk.  I will come get you, or, if you're somewhere beyond Sacramento, I will arrange for a cab to pick you up, and I'll pay for it myself.

None of you is allowed to die.  This is one of our primary rules here at chainsawpenguin.  The young man in Dallas will have to live the rest of his life with the guilt of ending the life of his best friend.  Quite aside from the tragedy in Dallas, I almost lost a dear friend early this morning. 

Call.  Me.

Or, you know, text.  I'm not draconian about the method of communication.

Safety first!

In other, less grim news, my entire apartment is clean.  All of the laundry is done.  My fridge is cleaned out.  A trip to the grocery store stocked it with food for this week.  Salmon is on the stove.  I'm living healthy.

What's that?  I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how amazing i

I love all of you.

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!! :)

Day 166: After Carlito Brigante died on the railway platform at the hands of Benny Blanco, Gail was distraught.  She fled west, knowing that her intention to travel south had been compromised.  She fell in with another rough type, named Cullen Crisp, a small-time drug dealer who reminded Gail of Carlito in all the wrong ways.  They lived together in California, eventually marrying. Cullen Crisp married Gail when he realized that she was pregnant, and he assumed the child was his. Gail, who was by then going by Rachel, gave birth to a young boy, and named him Dominic Charles Crisp.  Although Cullen was really not a very nice man, Rachel loved him and tried to make it work.
    After Cullen was arrested on murder charges, Rachel realized that she was in great danger; millions in drug revenues were missing, and the police assumed that she knew where the money was and, in fact, that she was complicit in his drug-dealing activities (of course, she was not).  She took Dominic and fled to Astoria, Oregon.  She again changed her name, this time to Joyce Palmieri.  While she still dreamed of one day being a dancer, she realized that the most important thing in her life was Dominic.  She took a job teaching at a small elementary school, where she could keep a close eye on Dominic, who she had enrolled in the kindergarten.
    Then she met a new teacher, named John Kimble, and some part of her began to fall in love all over again.

There.

Now you can go watch Carlito's Way and Kindergarten Cop back-to-back, with Penelope Ann Miller starring as Gail/Rachel/Joyce.

You're welcome.

Day 165: I'm still recovering from whatever the heck is wrong with me, but at least today I was able to get some work done.

What's that?  Answers?? 

Oh, alright.  We missed the ones in red, but we are still in 7th place overall!

And if you have no idea what I'm on about, skip back to yesterday's post and take a swing at the trivia questions we faced last night, then come back here to see how you did!

Okay, are we all set then?  Do we have our tea, and are we sitting comfortably?  Good, yes?

Here we go, then:

1. Bert
2. Anthony Hopkins, Psycho
3. Sherwin Williams
4. Something that we were just positive on, but I can't remember what.
5. Vanadium
6. James Madison
7. Don Quixote
8. Peanuts; he also accepted Chocolate Covered Peanuts.
9. Jed Clampett
10. Ocean Spray
11. The eye
12. Nebraska
13. Ridley Scott
14. Kansas City Chiefs, Linebacker
15. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
16. Pop
17. Susan Sarandon, Goldie Hawn
18. Denver Broncos
19. Uranus
20. Dina or possibly Deena.  I could not care less.
21. Sanrio
22. Kofi Annan
23. Mario Lopez
24. UNLV
25. New York
26. 7
27. Atlantic Richfield Company
28. Buckminster Fuller
29. Finn McCool (actually, it's Fionn mac Cumhaill, but we didn't write that down either)
30. Israel, Syria
TB: 1974

Regarding the tie-breaker: if you graduated high school with me, then you're probably exactly as old as Hello Kitty.

Yes, we were all a bit embarrassed about missing the planet question, but we got quite a lot of them right.  Even Mario Lopez, which was a complete guess!

Tomorrow, ADVENTURE!!  :)

Day 164: Yes, you could use the internet.  You could answer all of these flawlessly.  But, do me a favor: before moving forward, gather at MOST a team of six.

Sit still. Drink tea.  Shun the internet.  Rely on your brain.

See if you do better than we did.

We got a total of... well, that's not important, now, is it?

Trivia:

1 - Which of Bert and Ernie, from Sesame Street, wears vertical stripes?
2 - TWO POINTS: Who plays Alfred Hitchcock in the new movie Hitchcock? And what movie are they making?
3 - What company has, as part of its slogan, "Cover the Earth"?
4 - NO NOTES -- Count one point for your team; we got this one right, but I can't remember what it is.
5 - What element on the periodic table is denoted by "V"?
6 - Who is the 4th president of the United States?
7 - Category, Literature: What novel begins: "In a village of La Mancha, the name of which I have no desire to call to mind, there lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing."?
8 - What snack food is referred to as "goobers"?
9 - What character was played by both Buddy Ebsen and Jim Varney?
10 - MULTIPLE CHOICE:
    Which company first introduced the juice box to America?

        Capri-Sun
        Mott's
        Ocean Spray
        SunKist
        Minute Maid

11 - The fovea, uvea, and macula are parts of which organ?
12 - Which US State is just over the vast majority of the northern border of Kansas?
13 - Who directed Alien?
14 - TWO POINTS: Sports - Javon Belcher tragically ended his own life this past weekend. What team did he play for, and what position did he play?
15  - ANAGRAM: What edible foodstuff is the following an anagram of? VOILA EXTERIOR LIVING \


(You have TEN MINUTES...)


16 - Of the Rice Crispies mascots, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, which is wearing the bandleader uniform?
17 -  TWO POINTS: Name the two lead actresses of "The Banger Sisters" (NOTE: The Olsen Twins is not correct)
18 - What NFL team plays at Sports Authority Field?
19 - What is the 7th planet from the Sun?
20 - Who does Snooki, on the TV show Jersey Shore, refer to as "Meatball"? (we got this wrong; with pride!!)
21 - What is the name of the company that created "Hello Kitty"?
22 - Who was the UN Secretary-General prior to the current office holder, Ban Ki-Moon?
23 - What TV personality got married on December 1, 2012, in Mexico, to his girlfriend of four years?
24 - What college basketball team has the mascot of the Running Rebels?
25 - In what US state would you find the Catskill Mountains?
26 - On a standard PC keyboard, which key is associated with the &? (I know; there's no way you didn't look)
27 - What do the letters in the gas station ARCO stand for?
28 - What innovative inventor created the Dymaxion? This was a car that seated 11, could reach speeds of 120 mph, and got 30 mpg. Only four were built.  ...In 1934.
29 - What Irish mythical figure is present in the story of the all-knowing salmon? The figure cooks and eats the salmon, pressing his thumb into its flesh. Whenever thereafter he desires to know something, he sucks his thumb.
30 - TWO POINTS: What are the only two countries that Lebanon borders?

Tie Breaker: (Note: I KNEW this, and knew it in my heart, but didn't speak up. It turned out not to matter, but I did note the correct answer before writing the incorrect answer due to mass appeal...): What, to the closest year, was the first year that marked the appearance of Hello Kitty?