Excuse me.

Sometimes I drift from my original intentions of this blog. The title (in your natural habitat), as some may remember, referred to stupid people in their natural habitat. You may recall this from my story of a crazy patchwork-patterned-pantsed man who frolicked across Michigan avenue. If not, look it up.

Now I'd like to share with you a story.

The funniest thing I heard yesterday was this phrase: "excuse me."

On its own, it isn't a particularly funny phrase, but in the context, it was.

I was standing in a very crowded Urban Outfitters in the front of the store near a display of wacky gifts and books. After looking at some books at one table (One was the Snuggie Sutra about getting intimate under your favorite sleeved blanket) I moved on to the table of assorted novelties, which included test tube shot glasses, color-your-own piggy banks and a Fischer Price plastic record player. As I flipped through a Star Wars flipbook, a 20-something man behind me said "excuse me."

He was reaching for a hamburger phone next to me, mounted atop a pyramid of boxes of the Juno prop.

What really got me was that this man could not wait. He could not bear one more second of me standing between him and his beloved hamburger phone. It was all too urgent that I step aside as he reached for this communication device to show his mom/his friend/his brother. He needed it right then and there. No, he did not say "excuse me, I REALLY need to look at this hamburger phone while you browse through that sci-fi flip book. I cannot feign interest in this "12 days of Christmas drinking games" kit as you inadvertently block me from this desired hunk of junk-food shaped plastic speaker."

But he did. It was all implied in the tone of "excuse me."


http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=15259492&itemdescription=true&navAction=jump

Airline Ticket Prices and how they are different

I found this article online and laughed out loud for a solid 3 minutes. And I am just talking about the first picture of the airplane.

http://www.cracked.com/funny-4900-air-travel/

A wondrous discovery

Recently I bought a new computer for work use, since my old one sounds like a car engine when it is on, and suffice it to say may not work in a month.

Unfortunately, unless I wanna buy one of those 7 inch baby screen laptops, all new Windows computers have Windows 7.

To that, I say, "Change is bad."

Today, though, while doing some work on my new laptop, I made this exciting discovery. So exciting that I dedicate a blog post solely to the "show desktop" button.



You have no idea how much easier this makes life for me.

However, it took me about 10 minutes in this new version of PAINT to be able to make that image.

I crack myself up.

My friend started a Facebook group about the mall near us called "Randhurst"
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randhurst_Mall). It was called "admit it, you still think randhurst is the shit." However, it was pretty much a joke because randhurst sucks big time. Or at least, it did. They recently knocked it down.

But when it still was around, it was a huuuuge hangout for middle-schoolers (when I was a kid), and I remember my mom dropping me off there with friends to kill a few hours, then she'd pick us up. Looking back, though, it was super lame. I mean, Carson Pirie Scott was the main anchor department store. Yikes, talk about a recipe for disaster. The stores in there never seemed to survive very long, and half of the storefronts were empty because they just weren't in business.

The place was so old it had A BOMB SHELTER. My dad said he remembered it as like, the only mall around when he was a kid. Think about how disappointing that would have been. Actually, it probably had its glory days in the 60s and 70s.

But in the 90s, half of the mall was composed of abandoned store fronts. It even had a food court...then it completely closed and it was as pathetic looking as those used-to-be-pay-phone-areas at hotels and public buildings. You know, where it's all not lit up and there are exposed wires poking out of the wall, longing to be needed for something.

Just read this excerpt from the aforementioned wikipedia article about the decade of the 90's at randhurst:

In 1990, Bergner's - which had acquired Carson Pirie Scott in 1989 - closed their Randhurst store, allowing the Carson Pirie Scott anchor to move into the grander ex-Wieboldt's building while JCPenney took over the former Carson Pirie Scott anchor. Wickes Furniture briefly occupied the Spiess anchor, until Circuit City and Old Navy took over the space in 1995; meanwhile, a new Filene's Basement minor anchor occupied the majority of the "bazaar" level. This brought Randhurst to its greatest level of occupancy ever - three major anchors and four minor anchors - and an all-time peak of 1,400,000 square feet (130,000 m2) of retail space.
The next ten years, however, would be much more difficult for Randhurst. The construction and expansion of multiple shopping malls in the area, especially the improvements to Woodfield Mall in nearby Schaumburg, devastated Randhurst's shopping base, as did the local population's general change in shopping tastes. The mall's management tried to compensate by updating the mall's decor and adding new Jewel-Osco and Home Depot stores at the perimeter of the mall (the Home Depot replacing the old Randhurst Ice Arena, Wards Auto Center and a Child World Store); despite this, foot traffic fell, and stores began disappearing from the mall at a rapid rate. This included the Filene's Basement minor anchor, which closed in 1999 (along with three other Chicago-area Filene's Basement stores).

Yes, that's right, there was actually a basement floor COMPELTELY UNUSED. And for those of you who don't know, Woodfield Mall is like, HUGE. I thought it was weird how there seemed to be so many out-of-towners at that mall all the time, even from other countries. Then I realized that they were visiting Chicago, then came all the way out to Schaumburg to go to Woodfield. People from OTHER COUNTRIES were coming to Woodfield during their vacation to Chicago: it was that special.

I was looking at the group the other day, and I saw a wall post I put on there that made me laugh out loud. God, I'm so clever.

"I like how after Katie just made this a few weeks ago that we have two FEWER members today. People joined it for like twelve days and quit. Those quitters will prolly end up being franchise owners at Randhurst someday."

Those friendly Americans!

I always wondered about a Brit's perspective of America. And after some searching, here it is...

An article about a man's opinion of the American way of life, the attitude and the culture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/books/review/Dyer-t.html


A list of the top 50 things this writer found excellent about America...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jun/11/usa.comment

Craigslist: A place for the everyman who just wants ice cream cargo drops.

Craigslist has gotten a bad reputation. All it wants to do is be a meeting place, a communal online bulletin board for those seeking needs, or those offering them.

Sometimes these offers are for jobs, furniture, actors, models, assistance, etc.

We have needs, people! Needs that need to be fulfilled! Needs like brownies and ice cream!

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/bal/1589192642.html

He just wants some ice cream and brownies! Is that so much to ask? When you get snowed in and have a dire craving for some snacks and have an excess amount of money to offer for it, WHY THE HELL NOT? People get hungry. Can you just, like, drop off some food for the guy? I mean, however you wanna get it there. Like cargo drops are good. Oh wait, he specifically asked for no cargo drops. So, could you just hand-deliver them?




Or this man, who just wants someone to bedazzle jackets and dance and do non-homoerotic things to the song "Beat It" by Michael Jackson.

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/phi/1755781713.html

He is NOT GAY. Not gay. I mean, he's gotten with hot chicks as recently as just now. He said so.



So anytime anyone has a very strange need or want, they go to this site. And you can see their awesomeness right here:

http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/all/

No, that's not poorly translated: you just don't know your native language

So I have been applying for some jobs online. Some in Spain, some in the USA.

Of course, when going on a Spanish job site, one expects that the "click here for English" button will inevitably mis-translate a lot of things on the page, or at least make them awkwardly written.

After completing a Spanish online application, (which, by the way, has been the easiest of all applications I have done online, INCLUDING THOSE OF MY HOME COUNTRY), the page read

Please remember that if you are interested in applying for a job, it will not be necessary that you fill in all the fields because once you enter your email address and your password our system will accede to the information.

And I was all "ha! Accede! They translated that from 'access' which is 'acceder' in Spanish...and it resulted in this non-word!"

Then I looked it up on an English dictionary site. And it really IS a word. That means access. So I guess I just don't know my own language very well.

Wanna have sex? But not babies? Try birth control!

Current TV, a news channel for the younger generation, has this great show called Infomania. It critiques the online and television media in a hilarious way.

One segment is called Target Women, which is hosted by the very funny Sarah Haskins. In it, she studies commercials and ads made for women, and breaks them apart until the viewer is left to realize that they really are a bunch of rubbish.

Each Target Women has a theme, and this one is on birth control pills (obviously only for women). It really makes you think twice during the commercials, and how much the media dumbs down women.


Check it out...

Something new in teen drama...for once

As I have written before, teen drama shows are all the same. They will all say that they are groundbreaking, new, and fresh. They will always say that they "tackle tough issues." But those issues are always the same: divorce, rape, drinking, sex, drugs, being gay, eating disorders, etc.

Degrassi: The Next Generation debuted its 10th season a couple weeks ago, premiering a new episode each night, making it the show to look forward to every single night.

Being a fan from season one of the Next Generation, I have noticed a lot of repeats in this season. They seemed to be running out of story lines. A girl has weight issues, a girl goes from dork to cool, a perfectionist tries for her dream job, etc.

But tonight they showed something I have never seen before in teen shows, and I have seen a lot. A character on the show, Adam, revealed to be a transgender.

Now, it was pretty obvious it was a female actress from the beginning. Especially since it is one I recognized from another Canadian show, "Life with Derek" (Canadians recycle their actors a lot). But the actress played "Adam" who all the other characters seemed to be convinced was a male.

Then in this episode, Adam revealed that he was born in a female's body, but has related to more of a male identity since he was four or five.

I happened to see a documentary on transgenders in one of my communication courses this past year, so I already knew a bit about it, and came to understand this lifestyle a bit more than before.

This is a two-part episode that concludes tomorrow night, and I am excited to see what happens. In part one, the school finds out Adam was born female, and tomorrow night the previews show that Adam dresses and goes as his former self, Gracie, to try to put a stop to the teasing and torture at school. But it looks like Adam is super uncomfortable as a female, and it will be hard on him.

At the end of tonight's episode, the actress who plays Adam does a PSA directing viewers to the PFLAG.org site for more information.

Here is a trailer for all the episodes this week, so it only shows a smidge of the Adam storyline...

Taming the PG-13

I am a huge fan of SKINS (a risque British teen drama). When I saw this ad for EckoRed shoes with Vanessa Hudgens, it was verrrry very familiar to a SKINS ad for the first season.


Although, EckoRed is advertising to tweens in the Disney-watching market. And Skins is for high schoolers who watch "real teen shows" with druggies, uncensored swearing, sex, and otherwise scandalous material.

So clearly, if they got their inspiration from SKINS, then they toned down this commercial a bit.

What do you think?



and the SKINS promo I am talking about...





But see what I mean? photos, fun times, DJs, people dressed in animal costumes, dancing, writing on mirrors with lipstick, and outright craziness! So similar!!!

Career vs. Job

I was reading an article on the Matadornetwork.com website about racism in Moscow, (http://matadorabroad.com/should-people-of-color-go-to-russia/) and the author's bio intrigued me.


It says:

In 1992, the guidance counselor at Buster's high school distributed forms to students so they could indicate preferences for Career Day. Buster refused to take part, declaring to the principal, "I don't want a career. The point of education shouldn't be job placement." He has spent the past 17 years avoiding anything resembling a career. He's collected money from the federal government to learn obscure languages of the Caspian littoral. He's taken money to do drugs before being loaded into an MRI machine. He has read over 1,000 surveys filled out by women with breast implants. He's now in 23rd grade and spends most of his time reading library books and begging for money from various institutes, foundations and societies. He still hasn't given in.


This really made me think. That is a very good point the author makes, about education perceived as a means to an end, the end being a career. And I think other generations before us have always seen it as that way: you go to school to go to college to get a job to support your family.

Times have changed.

In one of my communications classes a few years ago, the professor was describing characteristics of our generation. Due to our exposure to technology and the internet, we (our generation) multi-task a ton, and almost can't get by without doing so.

Another characteristic that is new and different from our generation compared to others is that we now look for jobs for pleasure rather than paycheck. Our parents or even their parents used to look for a career to be able to pay for having a family and luxuries or day-to-day needs. They maybe even hated their jobs, but it didn't matter because they had a family to feed. Now, we care about ourselves even more and cannot dedicate our time and efforts into something that doesn't provide us with happiness. We want to do something we like.

Evidence of this is our generation's more "job" oriented idea of work as opposed to "career." Someone working with my dad (a man in his late 20s) had once said that this was definitely not his career. It was his job.

My aunt tells us, frustratingly, that she has to job-train so often with this new crop of people entering the workforce because they come and go once they find something better. No longer are they settling for their first job--they are constantly on a quest to do something better.

Perhaps that is why careerbuilder.com is so successful. If you are unfamiliar, this job-finding website sets itself apart in its advertising campaign by clarifying that they are not for those searching for a new job, but for those wanting to build their resume, and potentially might quit from their new jobs once they find something more fulfilling.


Obviously I am interested in this job vs. career discussion because I do fall into that generation that seeks more. But also, as a recent college graduate, I am looking for a job. Not a career, but a job. I need money and experience at this stage in my life, but I am definitely not looking to do some of these jobs for my entire life. At my grad party, every guest asked me "what do you plan to do eventually" or "what is your ultimate dream career?" There were those who responded to my answer with "that's okay that you don't know, you have time to think" but there were also those who responded with "you better go to grad school to figure that out."

I don't have to figure anything out. I don't care if I don't know what I want yet. I can get a job to collect some money first, and find interests later. I will always love math and writing. I will always love acting goofy while working with kids but also being taken seriously. I want to own a little shop of something, I don't know, maybe antiques, but I hate customer service. I like cooking but don't like dealing with picky customers.

I will do what I want. Right now, that is applying for every job I am qualified for, even if it may not be my future career.

Diablo Cody interviews Adam Brody

Diablo Cody (writer and director of Juno, Jennifer's Body) sits down with actor Adam Brody (The OC), and it is a gem.

Some people find Diablo Cody's dialogue (in her movies, that is...I don't think people really talk to her in person) annoying, but I find this interview pretty hilarious. Especially the "Tiki Ten" rapidfire questioning at the end. But the whole interview is great.


Have a look...

Not birthday wishes.

Facebook notified me of this on my feed today...




Except, neither are birthday wishes. Can people post on my wall without the yearly obligation of a birthday notification being their motivation? CAN I NOT HAVE FRIENDS, FACEBOOK!?

Creepy Video Games

Remember that post I put on here about things that scared me as a child?

Certain mystery video games were definitely on there.

I recently saw this and had to laugh:

See more funny videos and Technology Videos at Today's Big Thing.

I have played the Sherlock Holmes game series before. Not this exact one, but the one before it.

Now you know what I mean by the creep factor.

People with Headphones

Two music videos I love, featuring people wearing headphones.

Very touching and sweet, "The First Day of my Life" by Bright Eyes.




Very funny and simple, "Short Skirt, Long Jacket" by Cake.
(I can't embed it...so you have to go to the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF43shMjs0o

Airlines lose luggage AND android heads.

I was meandering through the internet and came across the name "Philip K. Dick," who is a novelist and short story writer whose works have been adapted to many films.
Examples include Next, Paycheck, Total Recall, Blade Runner, and A Scanner Darkly. If you don't know/haven't heard of any of these films, then it's because I am a huge nerd and you are not.

So I wanted to read more about him and went to the Wikipedia page of Philip K. Dick:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick

There, I found he had a creepy-as-hell android made in his likeness. Not so strange for a guy who wrote about alternate universes and crazy governmental control of society.

There was even a super creepy picture of this android:


In the description, it says an American West Airlines employee misplaced the head of the android in 2006, and it hasn't been found since. First luggage, then android heads? Those bastards.

The Package...Jin's Package

I haven't posted a lot on here lately, so I hope this makes up for it.

I was watching LOST, the episode "The Package" and I laughed out loud at this one scene....

Sun is in her hotel room, after a night with Jin. She hides him in the bathroom when two thugs knock at the door. After the guests see two champagne glasses, they suspect someone is there. They open the bathroom door and there is Jin, shirtless and not afraid to show it.




Hellllllooooooo Jin.

The more mysterious Europe

I was on stumbleupon.com, which takes you to random websites on the internet, and the first site it brought me to was for pictures of Europe. How timely!
(the site is http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2NUFRp/www.golberz.com/2010/03/breathtaking-photos-of-europe.html)

But of all the pictures they show, which are labeled as "breathtaking," I must say none of them look that special except this one, taken at night in the Czech Republic.



Doesn't this one just look more interesting and attractive than, say, this one:




I think the beauty is in the lights, the mystery, the intrigue that the first photo has over the second. I don't want to see a city for its buildings or monuments. I want to see it for its history, its people, its personality. And that, I believe, is what this first photograph eerily displays.

Chicago Trivia time

I learned some stuff while visiting the etymology page of Chicago stuff at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymologies_of_place_names_in_Chicago,_Illinois

I am a huge fan of trivia, and try to incorporate it into my daily conversations. I cannot wait to toss some of these in...

Chicago is from the Miami-Illinois word "Shikaakwa," which means "wild onion." So to all you haters who say I am super Chicago-y when I say chi-CAAA-go instead of Chi-CAW-go, you are the one pronouncing it wrong.

George Street--Settler Sam George sighted the last bear in Chicago at the corner of Adams and LaSalle Streets in 1834. The bear was promptly killed by another settler, John Sweeney.

Going canadian, eh?

On a video I was watching on youtube making fun of canadians, someone posted this comment...

"Oh, you were making fun of Canadians? I couldn't hear you over my heath-care benefits."

The secret guide to men

I found it, yes IT. THE way to strike up conversations with cute boys. IT is mentioning your enjoyment of the band "TV on the Radio." Guaranteed success. I also scored 4 free MP3 albums in the process.

Ok Go, how I love thee

OK Go has always had good concepts for videos, in my opinion. Sure, they became popular with their dancing on treadmills video, but before that they had "OK Go in the backyard dancing" for the song "A Million Ways." Then they had the motion camera for "Do What you want" which was cool looking but I can see how it might get sickening after a while. Then they had WTF, with the trail affect, which they utilized very well.

Now, the Notre Dame marching band. When I first heard the idea for the video, "we're making a vid with the marching band" I thought "well, sounds pretty boring" but then I thought they would use the band for formations and such, and it would be kind of cool, but still nothing I hadn't seen before. But they finally put up the video, and I have to say it surpassed my expectations. Pretty cool.

And the song is awesome, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJKythlXAIY


Man, I want to go to their concert(s) in France and England. Why must they be on a Tuesday, huh? Can't you be on a friday? a saturday, perhaps? Anything but a tuesday.

Flour is a bit old-fashioned

I was watching Jimmy Fallon last night (a rerun), and besides the amazing reveal from Ian Somerhalder (BOONE IS BACK), I thought this particular joke about flour was funny.

He apparently does a segment where he writes thank you notes to either people or inanimate objects to make a joke. My favorite was this:

"Thank you, flour, for keeping the paper sack container business alive. Don't wanna change your packaging, huh? Gonna keep it in a sack? Whenever I buy you, I feel like I'm Charles Ingalls buying something from Olson's Store on credit."

Next time, Jimmy, it's Olson's Mercantile.