WorldWideWaterCooler

I’ve been trying to get past a plateau in my current physical state, so I figured I’d shake up my diet a bit. I currently follow the Weight Watchers Flex Points plan, which means I eat whatever I want (trying to follow a balanced diet) as long as I stay within a certain range of points (all foods are assigned points according to their calorie/fat/fibre content).

There’s also another plan on Weight Watchers, that doesn’t involve counting points - the Core Plan. It focuses on a low glycemic index diet, and is a bit South Beach-y: unlimited amounts of fruits, veggies & lean protein, with one serving per day of whole grain bread or cereal, brown rice, or potatoes.

So, I went for about 6 days with basically no white flour or refined sugar. It’s not that difficult - but holy cow. For the first day I had a withdrawl headache (scary) and after that, immediately felt amazing. My usual lower somach bloat was completely gone, and I had a lot more energy from a lot less food. I also didn’t experience the crazy sugar highs and lows that I usually got - and my midafternoon slump wasn’t quite so slumpish.

Then today I had a bagel. And a gross tuna melt for lunch. And chocolate. And I feel DISGUSTING.

Not that I’ll be some crazy convert to the whole “No White Food” program a la Susanne Sommers, but I can say making better choices most of the time definitely made a difference for me.

I must have the Creative MuVo Micro N200 512MB in Pink.

It has everything I want in an mp3 player (player + FM tuner) with a few other features I’m sure I’d decide I couldn’t live without (record directly from any line-in device, from the FM tuner, or from the built in microphone) if I only had one to play with.

I came thisclose to buying one, until I discovered that on top of the $129USD price tag (which I can live with), shipping is an additional $29.95USD, or $34.00USD for priority shipping (which I can not live with). Add to that the fact that I’d also have to pay tax & duty on the full price (including shipping) plus a $25 Broker’s fee, and getting it here is coming up on 50% of the product value.

So I’m asking, pretty please, does anyone have a shipping address or PO Box in Washington state that I could have this sent to? Even better, does anyone know if/where I can buy this locally?

I can feel the aching need for this in my very bones….

(UPDATE: I just found it at Future Shop, but they only have the 256MB model, only in white, and it’s $169.99 - A far cry from Creative’s price of $99.99USD. Please pass the Kleenex. Oh, and there’s the 1GB model for $279.99)

I decided not to go with bitter this year. I even dug out a red sweater so I’d be festive for the day.

And really, how can I be bitter and jaded, when I get flowers like these! Obviously someone thinks I’m special. No, I didn’t send them to myself.

The day was double plus good, because I didn’t have a vase big enough to put the flowers in, so I dashed over to Winners to get one, and came out with it and new shoes! Flowers and Heels - what more could a girl want?

Wanna know what pisses me off, more then anything else in the world, ever?

When someone says they’re going to do something, then DOESN’T DO IT.

Commitments have been made (or strongly implied) in both my personal and professional lives. And have yet to be fulfilled. It’s driving me INSANE.

If I can paypal you within 24 hours, and you have replied to my email on a weekend, then I expect that the item you sold me on ebay will be in the mail on Monday. So why haven’t I gotten a shipping confirmation yet?

If you said on Tuesday you were lining up our interviews for the end of the week, why is it halfway through next Monday and you still haven’t said “boo” about it? If you’re not going to bother, at least say so. Time set for Wednesday AM. Insert panic [here].

Why do you say you’ll call and never do?

My entire Sometimes life feels like waiting.

EDIT (4:34 PM): Note to Self - Patience is a Virtue. Though it still totally peeves me when someone doesn’t deliver on time.

Not that this has any bearing on my life whatsoever at the moment, but I have a question for all y’all:

Is it still expected that a guy will ask a girl’s father’s permission before asking her to marry him?

I know there are plenty of women who don’t have that kind of relationship with their families, that a dad’s opinion would be warranted or even wanted - but if a girl has a good relationship with her family, is it still something to be considered, or *gasp* expected?

(Blame this entry on Valentine’s day, the plethora of recently engaged bloggers I read, and a visit with my grandparents yesterday, who reminded me (again) that my parents met right around this time of year when my mom was exactly my age, and my dad asked for my mom’s hand in marriage 6 weeks later.)

Speaking of computers, yay for new ones! I won a 3rd PC from work today, and this one came with a couple nice things I’m keeping for myself before passing the system on to my brother.

1. New Monitor - 19″ instead of 17″. Happiness is viewing things at 1280×1024.

2. New Mouse. Happiness is also surfing with back/forward buttons, instead of actually moving my wrist up to the top left of the browser.

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I’d also like to share just how geeky I can be, by relaying the following IM conversation after sharing the joke in the prior post:

Todd: What the hell? How did the women win?
peechie: because we’re better. duh.
Todd: Whatever. I call bias.
peechie: bias, or bios?

badum tssss. Thank you folks. I’ll be here all week. Don’t forget to tip your waitress.

Received this in my email today and just had to share:

A Spanish teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

”House” for instance, is feminine: ”la casa.”

”Pencil,” however, is masculine: “el lapiz.”

A student asked, ”What gender is ‘computer’?” Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men’s group decided that ”computer” should definitely be of the feminine gender (”la computadora”), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;
2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is impossible to understand for everyone else;
3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and,
4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine (”el computador”), because:

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on;
2. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves;
3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and,
4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a
little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

Flowers. Dangerous ground.

Flowers on a blind date = bad idea. First of all, if I’m going on a blind date, 99% of the time I’ll insist on meeting the guy somewhere - who knows what kind of crazy person they could end up being, and I don’t want the crazies knowing exactly where I live. I also do not want to drag flowers around town all evening. And who knows, we may not get along at all, in which case the flowers will just make things more awkward. Flowers delivered with a kind note a day or two after a blind date that went well however, will garner a man many, many bonus points.

If I already know a guy, many of the same rules apply. Only bring flowers if you’re picking me up at my place so I can put them in water and then not worry about them during the date. If we are meeting somewhere, I do not want to carry them around all evening, or watch them wither in the back seat of your car.

The type of flower is also important. If there is no established exclusive relationship, DO NOT BRING ROSES. I can’t stress this enough. Unless it’s Valentine’s Day, in which case PINK roses are acceptible. Roses are a very serious flower. Some women think a single rose is appropriate for a first or second date - personally I think it’s very juvenile and cliche’d.

From what I’ve gathered - the above criteria are sortof standard among any women I’ve talked to. The next part is where I get a bit ridiculous.

If I’m getting flowers, I want something fun and pretty or exotic. It’s great when someone can pick up on my favourite flower (If you know me, and have been in my bathroom, it’s pretty apparent) - however, do not come right out and ask “What’s your favourite flower?” If you ask, then I know what you’re up to, and it takes all the fun out of things. Yes, I expect mind readers. Is that a problem?

A man’s taste in flowers reveals a lot about him. If you show up with a boquet from the corner or grocery store (and yes, I can tell where they’re from) I will think you don’t have the good sense to plan flowers well enough in advance to swing by the florist. If I think flowers are an afterthought on your way to see me, that will not bode well for your future.

Further hints: if you show up with Roses, no matter what colour, but especially red (as I mentioned) you are either pretentious, or have no imagination, or (likely) both. Roses will also die within 5 days - about how long it will take for me to erase your contact details from my PDA. If you show up with Carnations, you are immediately labeled as boring and cheap, and someone who has only ever purchased flowers for his grandmother. A potted arrangement of some sort, as opposed to cut flowers, says you want me to remember you longer than a week. If the potted thing doesn’t live very long, I will very likely take it as a sign that things are not destined to go well. Think carefully before you make that kind of floral commitment.

One surefire way to eliminate any sort of floral judgement - send flowers to me at work. There are few things women like more than overt displays of affection that say “Look how much someone loves me” in front of other people. Any girl who says she doesn’t like stuff like that is a DIRTY LIAR. She is just playing the reverse psychology game; or nobody loves her that much and she’s trying to talk herself into the fact that maybe it’s ok to live alone with 30 cats.

Of course, as is the case with any of my ridiculously high standards, Prince Charming could show up with a fistfull of dandilions, and I’ll think they’re gorgeous. The problem is, too many guys start off assuming they’re Prince Charming, and that is usually not the case. However, if a guy can play it right, the right flowers can make or break his Princely status.

Ok, pity party over. It’s time to reclaim the mojo.

I’ve never read Steven Covey’s 7 Habits books, but when I had the mojo, there were some hard and fast rules and habits that I lived by. I was more than just an effective person, I was a machine.

When the mojo was flowing I was living pro-actively, instead of reactively. For example: there are a few things that, if I do them in the evening, will reduce the time it takes me to get my ass out the door by 20 minutes. Being pro-active because I know what I need to do, instead of reacting to the alarm clock in the morning with a stream of expletives. I need to start doing those things again instead of collapsing as soon as I get in the door in the evenings and putting it all off until “tomorrow.”

I’m also deeply affected by my surroundings. There are mountains of clutter all up in my space that I need to deal with. Papers to be filed, recycling to be taken out, things I don’t need any more to be donated to charity. It all just needs to go.

I also have a “lucky bamboo” that might not be so lucky any more. It’s a gorgeous arrangement, but one stalk (out of 24) died. I’m thinking this is bad for the fung shui. Then again, when the rest of my surroundings are more zen-like, the bamboo doesn’t actually seem to affect much either way.

The other important thing I need to focus on is quality sleep and exercise. They seem to go hand in hand. When I exercise and sleep better I have way more energy. While I know this in my head, it’s hard to get back into it.

Lots of people say they hate January with the lack of sunlight etc. January’s not so bad. When it’s dark almost all the time, I don’t feel bad about letting things slide. It’s cozy and comforting to snuggle up with myself in the dark infront of the TV. February though, with the winter bulbs starting to bloom and the slowly increasing hours of sunlight, just serves to remind me exactly how lethargic I’ve become and how much I need to work on to get back into the groove.

And it’s starting today.

The cockblocking continues.

Sometime between going to bed last night, and getting up this morning, I lost my house keys. Thankfully my brother has an extra set, and dropped them off for me this afternoon, but in the interim I have no mail key. This is completely traumatising, because I don’t lose things. Ever. I’m so anal about worrying about the location and condition of every single possession I own that it’s been brought up in therapy.

Eventually I had to give up on finding my keys and just leave for work, which was a complete gong show. I slept in as late as possible (because I was up late for school) and called a cab to get to work, only to have three of four intersections we needed to drive through end up completely fubar’d by construction. I had a 15 minute grace period in which to get to work (usually takes 5) and was 15 minutes late.

75 minutes and I can leave, and go home, and make some comfort food, and watch TV, and hopefully find my keys, and get a decent night’s sleep. Please.

UPDATE: My keys got tangled in with the roommate’s and he accidentally took them on his way out this morning. Must make him purchase ice cream as apology.

Dear GlaxoSmithKline,

I’d like to thank you for the service your TUMS Extra Strength antacid/calcium supplements provide me. I can safely go to sleep with minty fresh breath, chalky residue on my tongue, and positively fortified with calcium - all in an effort to treat my “sour stomach caused by excess stomach acidity.” Please make no mention that the acidity is caused by the litre of coffee I drink each day.

I have a couple small complaints though. First off, why is there a maximum of 5 tablets a day? Really? Because we both know that I devour these things like candy, and other than the aforementioned minty breath and chalky residue, is it actually all that bad for me?

And going back to the mint thing… Why is it that I can get “Freshmint” TUMS that contain all white tablets, or “Assorted Mint” TUMS that contain a mixture of white and green tablets - but not all green tablets? We know that those are the tastiest ones. Are you hording them? Is there a shortage of spearmint that I’m not aware of? If not, then please be giving up the all green bottle of TUMS shortly. Because we both know that I’m financing Glaxo, Smith, and Kline’s childrens’ college educations considering the amount of TUMS I ingest yearly.

Thank you for your consideration, and my filmy tongue.

Much Love,
-peechie

I was up freakishly early today. At least it means I get to leave work freakishly early as well. It doesn’t mean the day is going by any faster though. T-minus 2.5 hours until gym time.

I seem to be entirely out of mojo. I can’t get no satisfaction. You know I’m feeling really down, because I’m quoting the Stones. My life right now feels like I’m caught on the wrong end of a gigantic cockblock. Last week was a bit of a stinker, and I just can’t seem to shake it.

But maybe, just maybe all y’all could send some good vibes my way. And maybe if enough vibes are sent, they’ll add up to me feeling a bit better.

You know what else would help? If everyone could give me just TWO WEEKS OFF from me hearing about who else is getting married and having babies, and hooking up and getting new jobs. I’m happy for everyone and stuff, but if your goal was to make me feel inadequate and alone - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! ENOUGH ALREADY!

Yes I’m bitter. Deal with it.

It started out as just a few drinks with the girls! I promise!

But you know it’s been a good night when you have the drinks with the girls, then go out dancing.

And end up with a VIP pass to the club from the DJ….

And get hit on by a hot girl..

And only have to stumble across the street to get home…

And get undressed to crawl into bed….

And find a boy’s phone number on a slip of paper in your bra.

DOV2005 photos are up on flickr.

You can also check out Heather and Ritchie’s pages for more.

Tasty food, fabulous company, and fully-functioning brakes. What else can a girl ask for out of a Wednesday evening?

Valentine’s Day is coming up. I’ve never been single going into it before (I was dumped V-Day afternoon once, but we don’t talk about that). Unless I run into the love of my life within the next 11 days, I’m pretty sure I’ll still be single when it rolls around.

I’m not quite sure what to do about it all. I clearly have two choices:

A) Act like I usually do, eating cinnamon hearts and wishing all and sundry a happy Valentine’s Day, with the exception of buying/receiving a card/gift for/from a significant other, or

B) Take this opportunity to wear all black, put a vase of dead roses on my desk, recite the Vagina Monologues to anyone foolish enough to listen, play “Love Hurts” and other such depressing music on the CD player at my desk, declare loudly that love is overrated and piss & moan about the idiots falling for a Hallmark Holiday (though I’ll still consume sickening quanitites of cinnamon hearts).

Cast your vote now!