hello darkness, my old friend

This day is always a hard day for me, and I will never let that not be the case.

fresh as a poppy

I used to write about a lot of things here that I look back at and could perhaps care about less than I do, but it would be difficult.

Note that the last time I did write here I was five years younger and a Vermonter.

Now I'm 21 again for the millionth time and live in NYC so am a New Yorker.

I now have 4 cats instead of 3.

I now live with some guy who's Internet famous.

I now work at an institution that is world famous.

I now have a very complicated existence but wouldn't actually trade it back for what I was trying to enjoy five years ago.

I now have an accent, because if I don't talk like you then I must have one, right?

Let's pretend we just met.

Hi, I'm Poppy. Some people call me Stef but the guy who sleeps in my bed doesn't, so why should you?

George's head

It's pretty over here. Maybe I will just hang out here again. Does anyone still have a snobmeter that makes you think it's gauche to be on Blogspot? Eh, who cares. You love me anyway. Hi! Also, I think I can put pictures directly into my posts again if I blog here, unlike at my .com blog where pictures have been broken for about a year and a half. *sad panda*

Awwwwwww, yah, look at that!

I love it when I can hear the kitties snoring but I can't see where they are because they're hidden someplace fun. I love being a kitty mommy. :) :)

Poppy is amused

Dawg snacked me into a full-on meal this week:



I really don't think I'm quite that entertaining, but apparently I'm wrong.

This video is very relevant to me.

Not all is lost when I can't attend the Avitable party of the year.

I may be missing the party itself but I will be living vicariously through Fab's drunk texts this evening. Yay. :) :)

(Actually, I'm a little scared.)

WWTDD

Am I the only one who wonders aloud in my head, "what would Tyler Durden do?"

Yes? Hmm. Ok.


If you have no idea what I'm talking about:
1. You are no longer cool.
2. You haven't seen Fight Club enough or perhaps read a Chuck Palahniuk novel lately.
3. You don't read celebrity blogs.
4. You've repressed. Unrepress, silly.

Natalie Portman is a goddess

She's beautiful.



(No disagreeing allowed. This means you.)

Confercation days 7-9 highlights

I'm sorry to anyone who was really looking forward to the specific babbling, but I can't do the long posts so I'll do bullets:

• It's hard for me to not want to move to Texas after visiting B.
  
• I like Cheesecake Factory fried mac and cheese.
  
• I like the Dallas Arboretum.
  
• B and I made a vlog for Sourpuss while at the arboretum, and I hope someday B will post it or at least give it to Sour because it's HILARIOUS.
  
• I like helping B shop for new skinny girl clothes (girl, you skinny).
  
• I won't drink lemon drops ever again. :)
  
• I will smoke cigars again, but I'll make B pick them.
  
  
• I will try to never fly while hung over again.
  
• I enjoyed being Dawg's first blogger he ever met and being the first blogger to do Cereal Wednesday with him. He even gave me a(nother!) present of one of the PostSecret books signed by Frank Warren. And a sloop (spoon straw) from Cereality, which is in my silverware drawer waiting for me to eat cereal that is Cap'n Crunch ... but bluer!
  
• It's good to be home, but now my mind is contemplating life choices more than ever.

And so concludes the confercation highlights.

Oh good, now everyone can stop complaining.

I mentioned coComment in the comments of one of my posts for those who were bitching that I am still on Blogger, but apparently the Blogger people read my comments and decided to just implement their own solution:



(Click the photo to learn more.) About fucking time.

I am internet famous

Miss Britt would like me to share with you all that I am internet famous. (A link to the featured video is here.)

Just for the record, I wasn't trying to be. I'd rather be a rich recluse. :D

reminiscing

Dwight: Are you near sighted or far sighted?
Ben Franklin: Both. That is why I invented the bifocal.
Dwight: GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Love that show...

Repeat

It's possible I could listen to "Lack of Color" by Death Cab for Cutie all. day. today without getting sick of it ever.



I'm not really talking about the video, I'm talking about just listening to it in iTunes over and over again. I don't need the imagery, I have my own images to put to it, but I offer the video version so you can listen along. :)

My mom just sent me a text message. :) Yay, Mom.

Confercation day 6

J, K, and I wake up, roll outta bed, and head directly to Epcot. Let me just say, I have no idea why we revisited Epcot while I was there. I was at Epcot on day 2. J and K have both been to Epcot. I didn't plan stuff. I guess I could ask why we revisited Epcot instead of hitting another park, but ... yah, we'll just leave it at that.

So, more of the same stuff, mostly. Redid Test Track, Mission Space, and Soarin'. Then we also did the Finding Nemo talk which was super dull, but I got to see a bunch of stingrays and jellyfish so I can't complain.



I only had a little bit of time left so we ate lunch. I had Chinese food then we drove back to the hotel in a mad dash to get me showered, dressed, packed, and downstairs for 1:15pm so that Douglas the town car driver (SHUT. IT.) could drive me back to the airport to fly out to see B.

On the way to the airport I was so tired that I didn't talk to Douglas at all. I'm normally not quite so... rude... in one-on-one situations, but I was just too tired to do anything more than rest my eyes. When I got to the airport I checked my bags curbside, but ... no boarding pass. I didn't know better so I went inside and waited in the (wrong line) for over an hour. I was yelled at by the woman behind the ticket counter about this. I don't take kindly to waiting in a line for an hour then being yelled at for doing that WITHOUT COMPLAINT TO YOU so I said something slightly snippy to her and we got on with the process of getting me that boarding pass.

The flight itself was uneventful. I arrived to Dallas, went down the escalator to baggage claim, and THERE WAS B LOOKING UP AT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I waved my cute girl wave and she waved back! And then I shoved the guy in front of me out of the way (not really, but I was fake shoving him from behind) then I ran over to B and we gave each other a huge hug. My bags popped right out and we were on our way to dinner! (Note: I am kinda certain this photo embarrasses B, but it is my second favorite photo from the whole trip. My favorite photo will be listed on day 7.)

I met B's DH (whose name I know) in the parking lot of the restaurant (the name of which I forget), then we all wandered in for fanfuckingtastic Tex-Mex food. After dinner we went to their house where I met the kittos. I have photos of BlackJack, Kino, and Menchi but I have ZERO photos of Joey because he was zonked out in B and DH's room. I really thought I took photos of him, but I can't find them anywhere. How can that be? I know we spent a bit of antisocial time at the dining table, but I don't really remember much else about that night. I was exhausted. :)

Confercation day 5, part 2

This time the line at Earl of Sandwich was slightly shorter and moving quickly so we stayed. I ordered the original sandwich (roast beef and cheese with mayo), a chocolate milk, a fountain soda (have I ever mentioned I'm a 2-fisted drinker?), and a bag of BBQ chips. J and I went to a table outside where J proceeded to apologize for about the 15 millionth time for G's behavior. Lemme let you in on a little secret: I get over stuff VERY quickly. You piss me off and I've bounced back five minutes later, if it takes even that long. So, continuing to remind me about a situation is like it being brand new. I don't care anymore, and now you're annoying me by rehashing it! And, speak of the effing devil, somehow G figures out where we are and comes to join us. He eats my chips, drinks my chocolate milk, and belches. A charming man.

We all walk over to the Cirque tent so that J can get a La Nouba souvenir now that there's no crowd because the first show of the day isn't for several hours. While on the way there G just wanders into House of Blues without saying anything. J and I start blathering about Raglan Road again (hey, what can I say, it's a favorite topic) then G wanders out with hot sauce. We continue to Cirque and J buys souvenirs while I pretend to be interested in buying anything there. We then head to the cigar shop version of the cigar bar so that I can buy cigars for my TX leg of the trip to smoke with B and her DH. I attempt to text B for consultation on what cigars to get, but she's at work so she doesn't respond fast enough. I buy cigars with a lion on them (1. I am a leo; 2. I love cats; 3. rawr) and we move along back to the hotel because it's time for J's girlfriend (my friend) K and G's wife S to arrive from the airport to our old hotel with a rental car!!!

When we arrive I am all nasty sweaty and hot from the Orlando sun but I give K a big hug anyway. I then meet G's wife S who I had been told I am a lot alike... Yah, not so much. It's not that we don't have similar physical features, it's that she's a fucking bitch and won't even acknowledge my existence. I take higher road and put my hand out to shake hers; she coldly offers her own in return. I'm sure she and G will be very happy together forever. Gahhhh.... J, G, and I grab all our stuff from the bell service and shove it into the rental car. Because of space J decides to walk across the street rather than be sandwiched next to G and S who are full-on making out in the back seat.

We arrive to the Regal Sun across the street, check into our rooms (I'm staying with J and K because I'm only there for a night), then G and S wander off to go do it while the rest of us go to our room to prepare for Magic Kingdom. J, K, and I leave to go to the kingdom because we are informed that G and S will be running late. J, K, and I arrive then do a lot of fun stuff, such as Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, Mickey's PhilharMagic, the Pooh ride, and Tomorrowland. Pictureses...






We then walked over to the castle and watched the fireworks. No photos of that. I know they're supposed to be impressive, but... I've been to La Ronde. A lot. It's hard to impress me with simple fireworks set to music. (shrug, I'm a fireworks snob)

A break in the post to compare....

La Ronde (YAR):


Magic Kingdom (yawn):


...resuming confercation.

After fireworks we spent exactly one hour trying to get back to the car with G and S who we finally located via S's cell phone. We then drove 10 minutes back to the hotel so that J, K, and I could get ungrubby then head back to Downtown Disney for ... RAGLAN ROAD!!!!!!!! We got a seat right next to the band (squeeeeeeeeee!!!!) then K ordered a margarita, J ordered a whiskey, and I ordered (grin) a whiskey AND a Smithwick's. (Double. fisted. drinker.) I am the only one who got to have a buzz going because the waiter was super awesome at serving us when he was around, but he didn't visit much. I had fish and chips. I don't eat fish, but JFC that fish was TASTY. The waiter finally came back around and K ordered another margarita while J and I ordered Harps. J and I stared intently at Danielle every time she danced.

(I just found this video. I am resmittened.)



(siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh)

After this we stumbled back to the hotel where we all did a shot of Maelstrom (btw, a mistake, I had to grab onto J's shoulder because it burned so bad going down I thought I would die) then went to bed to wake up bright and early for my last day in FL.

Confercation day 5, part 1

I woke up, rolled outta bed, showered and got dressed, then went downstairs to meet J at which time he reminded me that we needed to check out by 11am to go across the street to the Regal Sun (BWAHAHAHAHA, oh, the irony) because the conference ends today and we're paying for the hotel so we're staying someplace cheaper. F.U.C.K. I definitely forgot ALLLLLLLLL about that. G makes an appearance and tells us, "oh, just tell the front desk you need a late checkout time." So, J and I tell the front desk we need a late checkout time, and now we can stay in our rooms until 12:30pm. Yaaaaaaaaay.

We all three head to breakfast and eat stuff. (Again, you wanna know what I eat for breakfast you follow me around. It's not my fault you're not properly stalking me.) After breakfast J and I went to the final session, which happened to be the best session of all. It had to do with whole-disk encryption and centrally managing policies and passwords for those machines. In a mixed environment the presenter found that PGP was the best option. At $150-$250 a seat I have no idea how they were able to work out this model, because that's fucking expensive. For my company the price per seat would be way less because we have thousands of employees, but still. I wanted to ask why they weren't just trying out BitLocker for Vista and built-in encryption for Win 2k/XP, then File Vault and disk image 128-bit encryption for Mac, but I only got to ask one question and the one question I did ask was the best question of the day. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say I ask a mean question. ;) After whole-disk encryption was a presentation about educating employees about security. This particular company somehow has a big budget for creating all kinds of material to educate their users. I asked the killer question in that presentation, which I'll share with you: How'd they get the buy-in from the suits? They didn't have an awesome answer for that. They are from West Virginia. Somehow I'm just thinking that West Virginia is more hospitable to security, whereas France could give a flying fuck. I think I should move to West Virginia and join this team. :) The final presentation was about herding cats aka employees to be on board with desktop security. It was an interesting presentation with no great answers, just questions. :)

After this last presentation I skipped the closing remarks to go pack up my room. J, G, and I met in the lobby and checked all our bags with the bell service then we headed out to Downtown Disney where I got lost in the magic of World of Disney. I almost bought stuff and then decided not to bother because I was crashing and needed food. J informed me that G had actually left about 10 minutes earlier to go find food, with no plan of how to find us since he doesn't carry around his cell phone, so J and I went to Earl of Sandwich. ...

(This post is going to be fucking long. And I'm only up to 1pm. I'm publishing part 1 in the hopes that I'll be way less verbose in part 2. That'd be nice.)

LISS PASSED HER LSATs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

YAYAYAYAYYAYYYAYYYYYYYYAYAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!@!!!~!!~~!~~!!!!


Thatisall.

I just saw Uma Thurman's boob. My day is now complete.

This is not a library.

Is it just me, or is all of blogland kinda... quiet? Is blogging dying or is this a slow time? I just don't remember it being so quiet here, and it's really quiet in my feed reader too. I'm slightly disturbed at everyone's quietness.

Conway Spitty City

Pat sent me a link to this video because it made him think of me when he watched it:



I instantly started laughing so hard I spit all over my computer and then looked over at each of the kitties to find they were looking at each other to figure out who the hell was mewing. (*giggle*)

Yes, I am 4.

Confercation day 4

The day you've all been waiting for. ;)

Draaaaaaagged my ass outta bed, texted J that I would most definitely be late to breakfast and perhaps he should just plan on seeing me after the first session. He called me back because he hadn't figured out how to text yet. I told him he needs to learn how to text. (If I don't mention this again, he later that same day came to the dark side and learned how to text. He texted me for the rest of the trip. Yay, J. :)

I got ready for the day then headed down to the first session. Something about something to do with technology. Very dry. At break time I met up with J to make plans for lunch. We decided to go to Earl of Sandwich with G and J's boss D, as well as my coworker P who was also at the conference. Back to the next session which was disaster recovery planning and how Katrina affected a particular company. The most interesting piece of information I took from this: The phones didn't work for weeks, but texting did. So anyone who had a cell phone was still able to communicate with others through text. My choice to be a texter is now vindicated. :D

Plans are always made with the expectation that they will change. Otherwise you're sad. Plans changed. G was an asshat as usual and when he found out we weren't just dragging sandwiches back to the hotel he ditched us to go (do whatever G does with his free time). Also, P said that he and his wife had reservations somewhere else that he didn't know about before so he wouldn't be joining us. So, off we went, just me and J and D. We headed across the street to Downtown Disney. When we showed up at Earl of Sandwich the line was waaaaaaaaaaay too long for us to handle so we decided not to stay. We walked over to Legoland during the light of day. I asked J to recreate his hilarious pose from the night before to which he confessed he didn't remember doing it so he most likely wouldn't be recreating it; he didn't. Party pooper.


We wandered around and went to the Raglan Road gift shop where I bought three shirts for myself (two Raglan shirts, one Guiness shirt) and a magnet for B that was a family crest of the name "McGee". Totally hilarious since that's not her REAL family name, but that's part of the charm of it all. :D Then we went to eat at Cookes instead, which is the daytime version of Raglan Road. Nothing the same. No dancers, no alcohol, no band, just delicious fish and chips (or, in my case, halfway decent chicken and chips... did I mention I don't actually like chicken?). :)

After lunch we wandered back to the conference and attended afternoon sessions. Or, rather, we were supposed to attend afternoon sessions. The next session was a poster session where we were supposed to meet vendors. I buy one product for my company and that's antivirus/antimalware. Anything else, I don't wanna hear about it. So, skipped the session and goofed off alone in my room. That sounds nefarious, but it wasn't. I think I probably just jumped on the bed and drank some coffee and checked some blogs. I dunno, time evades me in FL. I then headed to the last afternoon session and learned a tiny bit about imaging ("cloning" the software onto) computers that I didn't already know. I then met up with J to make plans for Cirque later since we were not having dinner together and then I headed off to my room to get ready for...

Dinner with Avi and Britt! So, yah, despite the fact that all I had to do was get my ass across the street and go to the hotel behind the hotel across the street, I got terribly lost. The directions my hotel gave me: Cross the street. Turn LEFT. Go right at the first hotel, behind the Regal Sun. Problem? The Regal Sun is DIRECTLY across the street, but only if you're crossing where there isn't a crosswalk. The correct instructions: Cross the street. Turn RIGHT. Turn left. You're there. I was (20?) minutes late to dinner and very sweaty when I finally did arrive to the restaurant. Avi gave me a one armed hug (fucker) but I got up on my tippy toes and gave him a hug with both my arms because that's polite. Britt didn't get up so I leaned over and hugged her. I know you're all dying to know: Britt is really soft and she smells really good. Yup. It's true. Avi is a sweet teddy bear, unless you don't bring him his salad and then he hates you. It was not my job to bring him salad so I was in the clear. Addendum: Please see the comments section for why Britt didn't stand up. It's not because she hates me or is rude or her legs don't work, which is never what I thought or meant to imply. :)

Interjection: There is no photographic evidence of this meeting. I wanted to bring my camera, but I couldn't because I was going DIRECTLY to Cirque after and they would have confiscated my brand new camera. So, I didn't bring it. (I'm sorry.) I also didn't use my camera phone because that thing takes the shittiest photos. Seriously. Not good. When I return to FL and Avi has me over to his house to see Jigsaw I will definitely take tons of photos. I promise.

We had alligator bites. I don't like alligator so I spit it out after chewing it for 10 minutes. Avi and I ordered the same cut of steak, Britt ordered the special which was steak and seafood. No, Dawg, I did not ask nor order Avi to eat with his hands. He uses utensils. He has manners, despite him ever agreeing to publicize that. During dinner his phone rang and ...zomg, it was adorable. Amy had called him from the road (her month-long business trip, ew) to say she was tired and that she might go to sleep soon. He used his little baby voice (as much as he has a baby voice) to talk to her, telling her to shut off her phone if she does go to sleep so that he doesn't wake her when he calls to tuck her in. Cannot make that shit up, it's an entire Hallmark store of cuteness. I have no recollection of what we talked about specifically at dinner, I just remember smiling a lot and laughing a little to myself when Avi called himself a coder for knowing HTML. We also had dessert. I had coffee and some sort of Snickers cheesecake, which was fan-fucking-delicious-tastic. After dessert Avi and Britt dropped me off at Downtown Disney, even though I really could have just walked. I was disappointed that we didn't get to go faster than 30 mph, because I really would like to experience Avi's insanity driving on the interstate. Another time...

It was getting close to show time for Cirque so I wandered through Downtown Disney, calling J as I went. We kept having to leave voicemails for each other, and then suddenly I caught him on the phone and we stayed on the phone until we were in sight of each other then hung up. (That's a fun game. I'd not ever done that with anyone before. It's particularly satisfying to just hang up on someone when you're staring at them. :D ) J and I walked back toward the Cirque tent.

When we got there we went in and I waited in line to purchase waters while J called K to say sweet things to her (awwwwww!) and while I was in line I was totally felt up by some punk 12 year old kid from Miami. Felt up in the sense that he was standing waaaay too close and then when I turned to get out of the line he had his hand propped on the counter to block my exit. I am a woman of impatience and uncaring about 12-year-old-boy fantasies so I just said "scuse me" and shoved his arm out of the way with my boobs. I'm sure that was his wet dream for the night. It was a bit of time before the show started so J and I found our seats but then I left to go to the bathroom. What I was really doing was calling my mommy. :) I had been trying to call her while I was walking through DT Disney but J's calls kept alerting my phone as missed calls and I was having weird reception in the sea of waterbags (aka humans). From outside the bathroom I was able to get ahold of her to say, "guess where I am? In your old town!" Mom and my stepdad used to live in Punta Gorda. And then Charley hit, and then 5 billion more hurricanes threatened to hit. So they finally moved away. Mom was so excited to hear from me because I never call (hello, hi, I hate talking on the phone) so I told her all about my trip and then said I had to go watch Cirque, and she told me she was happy for me and that she loves me, and (yah, yay :).

I returned to my seat and the show started about three seconds later. La Nouba is the show everyone kept telling me I had to see while at Disney. I've seen a lot of Cirque shows, so I know what I'm talking about when doing a comparison. The show was really good. I have only one criticism: Family friendly show, so no dangerous acts. If you're looking for the big thrills they're in other towns at other shows that aren't purely family friendly. Might I suggest Montreal? :) What I did like: I very much enjoyed the industriousness of it. The tight movements of the industrial works coupled with the industrial music was superb, and I loved how they were weaved throughout the show. I particularly enjoyed them in the very end sequence when the performers were doing tricks bouncing off the trampolines onto and into and on top of the building. My other favorite act was the kid act. I shouldn't like the kid acts, because... it's kids in a circus... but, I always do. Diabolos was adorable. The description of the act:

Each of these four magical figures holds two sticks linked by a string on which a musical wooden spool, the diabolo, comes to life. In their tiny hands, the diabolo twirls, jumps and flies through the air while the acrobats themselves perform flips and build human pyramids.

They are just so freaking adorable, and truly amazing. There was only one drop, and the kiddo who dropped her spool had just done an amazing acrobatic trick so we just didn't care, we clapped loudly for her anyway. These girls got the most ovation at the very end.

After the show was over J and I were exhausted so we went back to the hotel, made plans to meet up for breakfast, and went to our respective rooms to sleep.

Monsters

Boo Berry Cereal Wednesday with special guest ME and Sweetheart Bear:



I look lovely. :D

a sticky (ew) reminder

Dawg and I are doing this week's Cereal Wednesday together. Please visit my site or Dawg's site to watch us make fools of ourselves. (Well, ok, Dawg is never a fool, but I'm always a fool. :D )

I assure you, the confercations will continue as writing time permits.