My name is Liz and I am an addict.

Haiku of the Day:


Coffee in my cup
Awesome caffeine wakes me up
Me? An addict? Yup!


I know. I'm no poet. But sometimes you just have to haiku. Who's with me here? Most of my haiku focus on how stupid my job is. It's a way to express my rage in a concise, time efficient manner. When I'm at work I normally don't have time for more than 17 syllables of venting.

Well, anyways... This was meant to be a blog about coffee and the haiku was just a tangent. So yes. I am a caffeine addict. I can not live my life without my coffee. I am a blithering idiot in the morning when I wake up. You think I'm lazy normally, but you probably haven't seen me without my caffeine fix. The word catatonic is not entirely inaccurate.

So I am addicted to caffeine, and I will not really accept my drug in any form other than coffee. I love coffee. I love how it tastes, I love the aroma. I love the different forms of coffee. I like a nice basic cup of black coffee with sugar. I like espresso. I like mochas, cappuccinos, iced coffee, blended coffee drinks, cafe caramel, iced toddies, and so on. If it has coffee in it, I probably like it.

This all started years ago. When I was in college, I had a particularly bad week sophomore year. It involved me being sick with the flu, and having to write a lot of papers and take several final exams all in one week. The end of this hellish week was near, but I still had my greatest challenge of all ahead of me: a Calculus Final. On Saturday morning at 7am, after 5 grueling days of all that other shit I just mentioned. By Friday afternoon, I was TIRED. I had missed several nights of sleep that week. I was in rough shape. Any qualified health professional would have advised me to go directly home, take my codeine, and sleep a lot. Actually, a qualified medical professional HAD told me to do that. But what did she know? She wasn't flunking calculus. So thanks to this Calculus final, again there would be no sleep for Liz.

My friend Brian helped make this all possible by forcing me to drink lots of coffee, even though I didn't like coffee much. He made good coffee for me (as opposed to crappy brown water you get at Denny's), and made me drink it. A lot of it. And then he forced me to study calculus for 12 hours straight while continually drinking coffee. And I didn't fail my class! Thank you Brian, where ever you are. You saved me from having to repeat that torturous class from hell. And you got me liking coffee.

And also know that I hold you personally responsible for this raging drug addiction that afflicts me to this day. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Well, it might not be fair to blame Brian completely. It might not be his fault that I now need three shots of espresso a day in order to live my life. But maybe he is to blame. It's not clear to me either way, and the sad truth is we will probably never know. So let's just blame him anyway.

So now that I'm hooked on the stuff, I usually go to my friendly local family owned coffee shop. They have really good coffee, and they are always nice to me. They know what I want (because I go there every day), and they are all just cool in general. In the mornings I am too stupid to do anything before I have my coffee. This includes going to get my coffee. They understand when I am too retarded to coherently place my order and pay for it. They know I need a little extra assistance sometimes. And they are OK with it, and they don't make me feel like an ass. Sometimes by mistake I order too many or too few shots of espresso. They notice and they make sure I don't overdose. Good people. We are also open about the fact that they are my drug dealer. We joke about it, but it's totally true.

I like this coffee place because it is the opposite of Starbucks. Starbucks is the corporate coffee evil empire. I hate Starbucks. I avoid Starbucks whenever I can. Someday I will explain why I hate Starbucks, but not today. I've already been going on and on for too long, and even I am getting bored now.

But back to my haiku. I decided while I was writing this blog that my coffee haiku is a lot better than most of my previous ones, and it would appeal to a much broader audience than the ones I write about my stupid job. So I decided to submit it to thinkgeek.com. If you aren't aware of this, thinkgeek.com has a monthly haiku contest. The winner gets their haiku printed in the monthly thinkgeek newsletter, and also wins $50 off stuff on their website! I've never sent a haiku in to thinkgeek before, so I'm pretty excited. I know, it's a long shot. But I can always use $50 worth of free geeky toys and gadgets, caffeinated soap, and things like that. Also, if they choose my haiku, I will be able to say that "some of my writing has been published." And I won't technically be lying. Come on... if you are reading my blog, you know as well as I do that this is probably the only chance I have at being published. So this could be a breakthrough for me!

So everyone! Keep your fingers crossed and wish me luck, OK?

My Friend Michael is Awesome

Michael Glen is the first paraplegic hot air balloon pilot in the world.

He used to be my boss way back in the day. He is a smart guy, he's one of the nicest people I've ever known, he is SO funny, and to top it off he is a good role model and has an amazing outlook on life. He's an inspiration, and his goal is to inspire everyone else. Check this out:



You can also look at his website: www.rollingpilot.com

I don't know if anyone I know would ever have a need to hire a speaker for an event, but if you do, consider him. Or donate money to his cause, if that's your thing. Or if you ever find yourself at any major hot air ballooning event, look for him and say hello.

Only 45% of people hate me! YAY!

I just read an article about the Pope coming to visit the US, and the general perception/attitude towards Catholics in America. The article discusses various religious groups and our country's positive or negative views of these groups, and quantifies these positive and negative views. This is all based upon a Gallup Poll.

The point the article was making is that, overall, American's have a positive opinion of Catholics. Short version: 45% of people have a positive view of Catholics. Only 13% have a negative view of them (and 41% are neutral). The net score is +32%.

For a more eloquent and detailed explanation of this check out the original article:

Americans Have Net-Positive View of U.S. Catholics

I bet Catholics are pretty happy about that score, in light of the various scandals and negative attention they get so often.

I on the other hand, am excited for a totally different reason.

I am an Atheist. As a group, we are not held in very high esteem by the general public. This article scores us at a net -32%. In fact our scores were the complete opposite of the Catholics (45% negative, 13% positive, 41% neutral). Usually we occupy the bottom rung of the ladder. I don't really understand why no one likes us, but for some reason we are disliked and distrusted. More so than anyone else.

Until now!

Thank you Scientology! Finally someone else is hated more than us. Of all the groups mentioned in this study, Scientology came in at the bottom (by a landslide) with a net approval of -45%.

I don't know very much about Scientology. I do not pretend to be an authority on this subject. Not in the least bit. But I am pretty sure this is a "religion" based on a book that was written by a science-fiction author back in the 1950s. They believe that unhappiness, evil, and mental illness are the result of painful memories that have been planted in our brains by space aliens. In order to achieve success and joy in this life, they have to "audit" themselves to remove the alien traumas. Don't ask me what they do in these auditing sessions. I think there are electronic devices involved. They might be using electro-shock therapy to get the people to give all of their money to the church, but I'm not certain of that. They also believe in a space confederation that is ruled by an alien named Xenu. I'm not sure if Xenu is worshiped or if he(it?) is regarded as evil. He might be their version of Satan. This is where I start to really not know what i'm talking about.

I don't know any more than that because I am unable to read any more detailed information about this "religion." I can't because that is the place where my brain shuts down and refuses to let me keep reading. It is a self defense mechanism. Like when the Department of Defense detects that a hacker has breached their security and is threatening their computer systems and gaining access to top secret intelligence. There are those loud alarms and flashing red lights and everything shuts down to minimize the damage (at least, this is what movies and my imagination have led me to believe happens there). It's just like that when I try to learn about Scientology. As soon as I get to the part about Xenu, my mind shuts down.

It seems so obvious to me that this all a whole lot crazier than Atheism. But I guess the rest of America just noticed that. As far as victories go, this is not a big one. But we will take what we can get. Fellow Atheists, join me in a resounding "WOO-HOO!"

And in this time of celebration, I think we should take a moment to thank Tom Cruise. Over the past several years, he has been behaving like a retarded lunatic, and he has been very public about it. I think this is the reason America finally noticed that the Scientologists are Bat-Shit crazy and that they deserve slightly more contempt than Atheists.

Oops!

I just realized that my Christopher Walken video had stopped working. But I fixed it. If you tried to watch it before when it was broken, watch it now. If you notice it's broken again, please tell me! Everyone needs to see the Googly Eyes!

Thank you,
That is all.

I always knew it was going to be the ferns.

I've said it many times before, but it bears repeating. Christopher Walken is the shit. I'm fairly certain that if I ever see him in a public place, I will make such a Huge-Fan-Acting-Like-An-Ass type of scene, that security will probably be called. Mainly, I want to give the man a hug. I have a feeling he wouldn't be very receptive to that, which is understandable. But I'm going to try. Better yet, I would try to get him to dance. I also don't figure that will be very successful. But SO worth a try. Because the payout on that could be immeasurable. Well worth the risk of an incident with his security people. Don't you agree?

If you have somehow lived your life for the past 7 years never having seen this, stop what you are doing and watch immediately. Even if you have seen it, watch it again because it's still one of the greatest things ever:




Oh and in case you didn't catch this the other night on SNL, this was also hilarious:



I could keep on adding more amazing Walken clips here. It's taking a lot of restraint not to... But I think I've made my point. I love Christopher Walken.

I'm sooooooo smart.

I am embarrassed to admit it, but I ran out of gas yesterday. Genius.

I ran out of gas once a long time ago. My friend, Jen, and I were in the car on the way to Maine (from Massachusetts) and we ran out of gas on the Maine Turnpike in the middle of nowhere. I say "we" ran out of gas, but it was completely me. I was driving, and it was my mother's car. Jen was an innocent bystander. My mother had reminded me about 30 times to fill up the car... I had gone to fill up the car that morning. But the thing was when I went to the gas station, I was driving MY car. When I went to Maine later on, I was driving MY MOM'S car. Funny how that didn't quite work right. When it happened, I said, "HOW CAN I BE OUT OF GAS!?!? I FILLED UP THE CAR BEFORE WE LEFT!!! WHAT THE??"

Then came the "Oh wait.... Oh... umm... yeah......... I see......."

Dumb!

The thing was, we were really far away from anything. We didn't know what to do. We couldn't walk to get gas. We hadn't seen another car for a very long time. We had a cell phone, but we didn't know who to call, because we didn't really know quite where we were. Who do you call when you are somewhere in Maine and need gasoline? Oh yeah, we also didn't know how to use the phone. It was a long time ago and it was before everyone had a cell phone. This was one of those big black heavy things from sometime around the bronze age that we had borrowed from my mom.

We decided we would call Jen's mother. She couldn't really help, but she might know where we should call for help (nope, didn't have AAA). Also, we knew Jen's mom's phone number, so that was a big check in the plus column. And we certainly could not call my mother. Not after she reminded me 30 times to fill up the car. So we were on the side of the highway trying to figure out how to operate the phone when the Maine State Highway something-or-other guy came along in his truck with yellow lights and sold us 2 gallons of gas for about $30. Literally Highway Robbery. But whatever, what the fuck else were we going to do? And I was just glad my mom didn't have to find out i was such an idiot.

So you would think after this happened, I would have learned my lesson. Never. Run. Out. Of. Gas. Again. EVER.

Well, you would think. I thought so too. But I left work to drive home last night, and about 100 feet after I pulled out of the parking lot, my car suddenly lurched and made a weird noise, then slowed down a lot and things just locked up. I thought my car was dead. It was like she just took a shit in the middle of the road. But then i realized what was going on. No gas. Liz! You Idiot! But thank goodness there was a gas station right there. I lucked out big time. I coasted down the street and turned into the gas station (no power steering, scared a guy in a FedEx truck who thought i was going to hit him, couldn't really slow down because I didn't want to stop till I was at a pump, it was pretty bad). I managed to somehow steer the car to a gas pump and it came to a stop by itself. If it had coasted to a stop 2 feet earlier, the hose wouldn't have reached. Whew! Talk about luck!

I decided I love my car even more than I already did. There were so many ways that situation could have sucked SO MUCH more.

How could I possibly have let this happen? I mean, the car has a little meter to tell me how much gas I have. It also has a tiny little orange dot that lights up when i am low on gas. I also set my "tripometer" or whatever it's called back to 0 every time I fill up, so I can see how many miles i've gone and know when I need to fill up. So I really could not have been better warned that I was going to run out of gas. This information was right in front of my face. But I have a gigantic gas tank. I only have to fill up the car once every month or month and a half. So I tend to forget about it. But mainly, I am DUMB.

Currants are bad

I saw these red currants at Trader Joe's and they looked yummy. I had never seen currants before, except the dried ones. And I like dried currants a lot. Like zingy little raisins. These currants seemed like a delicious, juicy, little red jackpot.

They are not delicious. They don't taste at all like the dried currants. They don't taste like grapes. They don't taste the way they look. I'm a little confused by their taste actually. I don't really understand how something can simultaneously have almost no taste at all, and yet taste so terrible. It's a produce paradox.

I will stick to dried currants from now on. Occasionally I like to make Ants on a Log. That's a great snack. Yes I am 31 years old. You might think this is a kindergarten snack, but I assure you it still tastes delicious when you are grown up. The last time I made Ants on a Log, I had to make a huge batch for a pot luck event. You know how some of the celery sticks are real skinny? Like less than a centimeter wide? There was this dilemma about what to do with all of this celery. The skinny stalks were too narrow to make Ants on a Log. Raisins just won't fit! My ants would fall off! But I didn't want to waste this celery. So I used currants. They are so tiny, they fit perfectly on those skinny ass celery sticks.

We couldn't quite call them Ants on a Log. They technically weren't the same thing, and it wasn't accurate to call these things "logs." So we named them Ticks On a Stick. Sure, some people were put off by the unappetizing name. But damn they were good. They all got eaten up. Delicious. Trust me.

I recommend bringing a combination platter of Ants On a Log and Ticks On a Stick to your next potluck event. Sure, they will all mock you at first, but then they will realize they're being stupid and they'll eat that shit up.

And my friend Jess had a really good idea too. "Jazz Ants on a Log." This would involve replacing the "ants" with M&Ms. I didn't try this yet, but I can already tell you it would be a big hit. I also just found this recipe for Fire Ants on a Log. I might try this some day too. I find that cranberries make most things better. And to my Vegan fans, i found that last thing on this vegan blog. It has a lot of Vegan related links and information and it looked interesting. Even though I'm not Vegan.

I have questions.

1a. Why do people turn right from the left lane?
1b. Why do people (probably the same people, but I don't know for sure) turn left from the right lane?

Do people think it is OK to just throw on their blinker and lean on the horn and cross three lanes of traffic to turn? Or sometimes no blinker. Just swerving. It seems to always happen right in front of me. Asshats.

2. Is it actually legal to make a U-turn while you are waiting at a red light? Questions 1a and 1b were mainly rhetorical. But I am serious about this one. I would never have thought this was allowed. I mean, red light means DO NOT GO. At least I thought so. And I still think so. I would know so, if it weren't for the fact that I keep seeing people do this. I see people do retarded things all the time. But this is just weird, and it takes some serious balls to just go on red, in the middle of the afternoon, with tons of cars around. First I thought, "wow. That guy's crazy." But then I saw more people doing it. I have seen this happen 4 or 5 times in the past couple months. Did I miss something in drivers ed? Is there some loophole that you aren't crossing the intersection, so it's OK? Or is it because I took drivers ed about 70 years ago, in another state?

Maybe in AZ you can do this. In MA you are expected to run red lights a lot of the time, but you aren't technically allowed to. I'm pretty sure you would get in an accident if you pulled something like that.

At the very least, you'd have several people honking horns and yelling at you. They would probably say something like, "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU AH YOU FUCKIN' PRICK? ARE YOU A FUCKIN' RETAHD?" while making obscene gestures at you. Awww. Sometimes I do get homesick.

But here in this strange desert city, no one seems confused or upset by this weird behavior.

3. This question has nothing to do with the previous ones. But does anyone have any tips about growing peperomia plants or joshua trees without them turning brown and dying? I have failed miserably with the peperomias. Several times. I haven't killed any joshua trees yet. But that's because I haven't planted them yet. I am planning to this weekend probably. Yes, I realize that I will be 100 years old before they are big and amazing. But I'm still going to try.