Kids these days...

I have a love/hate relationship with my sattelite radio. Just as I think "meh, I'm just not in the car as much any more, and they really overplay some songs... it's not worth it," they go and introduce some really great new song or have a really funny morning broadcast, or some other thing that makes me feel like I'll be missing out if I cancel my subscription.

The most irritating phenomenon, though, is when a song is playing on more than one station at the same time. I'll maybe not think too much of it if it's "Hits 1" (the Top 40 type station) and The Pulse (the 90s-today type station), but when it is simultaneously on AltNation (my #1 preset, alternitve rock and snarky DJs) and RadioDisney? There's just something wrong with that.


(For the record, I've heard the song, "Fireflies" by Owl City, on all four channels. And first heard it on a friend's Pandora station. It's excellent.)

A few things...

- The other day at lunch, the gentlemen at my table were discussing laundry (and how they don't really know how to do it). This seuged into the mystery of "where do socks go, anyway?" (Fascinating, aren't we? Give me a break, it's a table of economists.) Then the difficulties of matching socks. D then confessed that his socks we're even matched that day, they were the same color, but "one's Polo... one's Costco."

- I am completely in love with VRE and I am never never going back to Metro if I can help it.

- I think Pandora just cried a little when I made a "Jonas Brothers" station. But hey, it's Friday.

- I also just hit the pause button on my iPod, and wondered why Pandora didn't pause.

Can't put longer sentences together until I go get coffee.

I hate discovering paper cuts by putting Purell on my hands.
I hope it isn't that kind of week.

Our state and region people are coming in for training this week. It's weird because everyone is A) at work on time and B) looking respectable.

Surprise!

So, I went to mail back some shoes (OK, Crocs. not quite "shoes," per se...) that I bought a while ago and had been fiercely procrastinating mailing back, because it meant I would have to find packing tape. (Finding anything is hard in the tiny new condo, let alone packing tape, our supply of which I think we exhausted completely in the move.)
Anyway, the address it said to mail them to was in Ontario, CA. It went a little something like this:

ME: "Annnnd this one is going to Canada!"
Post Office Lady: "Canada? or California?"
Me: "Ohhhhhhhhh."

WHO DOES THAT? Names a place outside of Canada "ONTARIO"??

Made postage a lot cheaper though.

Rah Rah

I'll preface this by saying that I really like looking at statistics (nerd alert!). One of the "Tables of Interest" on the homepage for the Census' Statistical Abstract is 1209- Participation in Selected Sports Activities: 2006. You can see it for yourself here: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s1209.pdf

While there are many amusing things about table 1209 (muzzleloading is a sport?), my favorite line has data for cheerleading. I graphed it for you (which sort of makes it less dramatic):

Let’s here it for the 45,000 grannies out there shaking their pom-poms!

You've lost that lovin' feelin'...

I've been here just under three months, and I think it is already official:



I hate my job.



Most of the people I work with are great. The commute isn't all-consuming. The pay is OK. The problem is that I have nothing to do all day. The first few weeks there were reading and exercises and training things to keep me busy. Now I just feel like I'm being ignored by my boss. Every once and a while I'll be assigned some menial task (these have ranged from making graphs of another program's data to re-wording a sentence three different ways) but none last very long and it's back to inventing my own ways to pass the 8.5 hours.



I think I am particularly bitter right now, because I'm on phone duty and can't leave to get a Pumpkin Spice Latte (which I hear are finally back in season at my old employer's). On the plus side, it is serving as a wonderful motivator to not wuss out on grad school. Classes start tonight!