soapbox

for my dear, once-again departed laptop. I think the hard drive is, in the least, mortally wounded, if not already dead. I was just sitting in bed, IMing chris about dinner, and i moved the laptop from my lap to the bedside table to get up and dressed. when it made contact with the table, it made this horrible, strange sound i’ve never heard before. for a few seconds afterward, i was still able to type in the IM window, but when i tried to open mail, it wouldn’t. i turned it off, turned it back on, and it started making a weird ticking sort of sound, and the screen comes up with the little folder with a little mac face blinking alternately with a question mark. i can only hope the computer store can at least recover the data. i have some music and pics that -NO! wait, i can recover the music on my own! it’s on my ipod! well, that makes me feel slightly better. unfortunately i don’t think i’ve backed up my photos nor my paper recently. i have to check partita for the paper. i have some of my photos on my camera yet, but not all. i hope i haven’t lost the pics from when i first got her. only a few made it onto the blog. all my notes are on the laptop for the paper though. i’ve been using “stickies”. *sigh* my mood currently is “dejected”, and i’m sure that’s not available.

anyway, i was hoping some of the more computer savvy could give me an idea of how much hope i should have that a) it will recover fully or b) i can at least recover the data.

In keeping with Nathaniel’s post, some of you may take joy in the fact that Brittany, Paris, and others made the list of Worst-dressed. let the catty comments follow.

So, I’m not sure I need much help with this one, but I figure it can’t hurt to solicit the opinions of y’all out there in blog-land. (I did file this one under “problems”, but mostly because it didn’t fit as well in any other category, not so much because it’s really a big problem yet.)

Anyways, here’s the deal: many of y’all know I’ve got to go be the best man in my good buddy John’s wedding (my roommate during my last year or so in Houston) at the beginning of March. As part of my duties, John has told me that I’ll be expected to make a toast at a certain point during the festivities. There’s nothing surprising about this task, but I figure I ought to put a little forethought into it, on account of it ain’t my big day to ruin, and I’d hate to do so by shooting from the hip.

That’s where y’all come in. See, I’m not really looking for help on what exactly I should say, but rather some general guidelines as to what y’all think is fitting, appropriate, and/or worthwhile to say. I’m still much better extemporaneously than I’ve ever been with complete preparation, so I won’t be commiting exact phrases to notecards or anything, and I can’t say anything utterly false without telegraphing that I’m lying (not that I need to make anything up), so what I wind up saying will inevitably be honest and natural. I just want to hear what y’all have to say as a way to get me started in the thinking process.

Once I’ve thought it over enough, what I’ll want to say will be about as perfect as I can manage it, but I’d appreciate y’all’s feedback to help jumpstart me. Okay, I’m done ramblin’ now. Honest.

Okay, now that the Manning boys are 0-2 and I’m convinced that the NFL playoff gods are truly spiteful, I offer up this nugget of Sportsguy comedy:

“Q: I have this theory I like to refer to as the “Brad Pitt Phenomenon.” In short, I believe the quality of a Brad Pitt film is inversely proportional to his cleanliness in said movie. When he looks like he needs to be scrubbed down by a hazmat team (”Fight Club,” “Snatch,” “True Romance,” etc.) the movie will be awesome, but when he’s all prettied up (”Meet Joe Black,” “Thelma and Louise,” other crap chick movies) it will obviously be something that will make me want to gouge my eyes out. I think it’s a pretty rock solid theory, and my question is this: Has this phenomenon been applied to Jake Plummer this season? If so, as a Pats fan, are you at all worried?
–Brian Pierce, Bowling Green, Ohio

SG: Actually, no. Your theory doesn’t account for “Seven,” which was probably the single-best Brad Pitt movie other than “Fight Club.” So it’s moot. But you had me scared there for a nanosecond. “

luckily not girls this time though.

There were two early teen boys sitting near us at Subway the other day telling jokes to each other.

“Did you know that you can squeeze gas and turn it into a liquid? That’s what they do to the gas to heat our house.”

“Yeah, I knew that. It’s why you shouldn’t hold in high pressure farts. It’ll give you diarrhea.”

The blog’s been a little bit too high class lately.