Ganked offa facebook: The scariness continuum continues.

Since we're in the midst of a recession right now, I think it's as good a time as any to discuss the following scary issue: what's scarier: Silent Hill or Resident Evil? I mean conceptually.

I really, really hope people respond to this query, because I want to know what youse guys think. Partially because I don't even know what I think.

My first inclination would be to say, well, obviously, Silent Hill, because you can't even name "it," you don't know what "it" is. You just know that it can get you, and there don't seem to be a lot of rules that apply to it. It bends time-space to its will. Even if the "it" or Resident Evil is complex and scientifically advanced at least you can name it. It's the T-virus. You can study it. It has rules. It can mutate, but it can't punch holes in walls and make something from nothing and invent space that wasn't there before. It is concrete and solid. Moreover, it *does not quite possible exist entirely inside one's own mind, only to destroy one from the inside out.*

But then again, because the T-virus IS concrete and DOES have rules, such as zombies with superhuman strength and stamina, and can be proven to actually exist and not be merely a manifestation of someone's guilt or rage or whatever, it *can actually kill you* and not potentially merely drive you to the brink of insanity, or past the brink of insanity.

Further, after a long time of playing Silent Hill, I have been thankful that I was not armed, because every noise behind me made me want to pull a weapon and unload. This does not happen when I play RE.

However, I am afraid of zombies, but not the descending darkness of an ancient evil. Not so much, anyway.

Please cast your vote.

I HATE YOU! I LOVE YOU! I HATE YOU! I LOVE YOU! (and so forth)

My folks are in Remsen doing a craft show (my dad does stained glass and is brilliant at it) and so they called early this afternoon to let me know how it was going with them. Small problem: sometime between yesterday and today at noon, my cell phone ceased to work at its full capacity. For instance, suppose you were to call me and try to have a conversation with me. I can hear you, but you cannot hear me. Unless I shout, which is how I talked to my dad.

And then later, Libby, when she called to see if we were still going out later. And to give her my land line number.

Then I ran an experiment, where I put my started up "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature" on iTunes, dialed my house, put my phone down on my laptop. Then I shut the door to my room and went to go answer the house phone downstairs. It was highly scientific, featured classic rock, and proved that my cell phone has been rendered crap in just over a month.

I am irritated. Now I have to go to the cell phone joint and find out what gives. I love my cell phone company, too! God, I am so pissed at them. Always something, innit?



She's gettin' us all. She's gettin us all...

...Gently down the stream...

Today I felt like shite and left work halfway through the day. While I find spending the day abed usually makes me feel a little better, it doesn't exactly do wonders towards helping my brain which I cannot turn off. Some of the stuff I think of is too bleak to repeat in any kind of company that doesn't cost me $90 per hour (rim shot) (maybe) but some of it is actually sort of interesting.

There is one entertaining thing about having a brain that won't shut off, which is that you can usually trace any one random thought's origin back to something completely unrelated. Once when I was about a junior in college, I found myself laying awake at night thinking about matadors. I wondered how I had gotten there, so (partially in an effort to bore myself to sleep) I traced the thought backward through to where the process had begun. And somehow it went back to "The Simpsons." I don't know why.

It occurs to me that even if I solved all the problems I have at this moment, like most people, I would probably just manufacture more. Like I would decide that I was too fat or too thin or that my boobs weren't big enough or something like that. See? I still have actual problems, and I'm already trying to fabricate new ones.

It occurs to me--as I've been taking in and deeply absorbing "Spaced" like grape juice or a summer breeze--that if the United States had never declared its independence from Great Britain, we would not be so entertained by British comedy. And Lara Croft wouldn't be nearly so cool.

It occurs to me that, as a woman, to play Resident Evil 3 BEFORE you play the original is to eventually be horrified by what Jill Valentine once was. (A flake.)

I really enjoy eyeliner.

Most continuums of humor or scariness are relative.

Summer ends when school starts. Whether you go back or not.

I can't believe those Kashi crackers aren't higher in fiber.

Empire apples are almost back in season.

Time whips by when you're thinking...

Oh thank god, part I. (Or, 7 things about me.)

1. I always kind of wanted to be a cheerleader. That's why it's my #1 Halloween costume!

2. I enjoy doing voices and am considered by many to be fairly good at it.

3. It's quite possible that I am incapable of turning my brain off.

4. I have attention deficit disorder. (Seriously.)

5. In college, I changed my major from psychology to English Writing, despite the fact that such a degree has no practical application, as far as I can tell.

6. I once had a job as a bartender for two weeks. I saved my tips and bought a turntable.

7. The best job I ever had was also the lowest paying, relatively speaking. (Minimum wage at the bookstore in college.)

If you read it, you're tagged, mate.

Oh dear lord, part II.

...Though I guess they'll need to be longer than one line to make any difference at all. All right. Maybe something interesting will happen to me when I go downstairs to do THIS particular load of laundry. Results to follow. Stay tuned.

Oh dear lord.

I am going to write eight blogs a day if I have to in order to shove that catastrophic picture offa page one. Yeek.

Picture meme from Emily H. M.

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don't change your clothes, don’t fix your hair...just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.


Post-gym, late-night yikesness.

People LIKE my cookies. And my knitting.

I was having lunch today with Libby, and it came up that I knit. (Actually, it came up that I fell asleep Thursday night whilst knitting and watching Futurama. And that I said something about it at work Friday and got funny looks from a couple of my pharmacists. And then I said, "I'm never getting married, am I?")

"So what's up with the knitting?" Libby said.

"Well, I knit, you know," I told her. "Because I like to."

My mother taught me to knit a looong time ago, then re-taught me when I was about 19 or 20, and there's pretty much been no stopping me since. It makes me feel zenny. Creating fabric from string. I also like it because I don't think a lot of women my age do it, though a lady who runs a yarn shop near me told me not too long ago "it's making a comeback!" and I have no reason to doubt her. She's the expert! I imagine she can conjure up items with ease out of her brain that I would struggle to run up from a pattern.

I get such interesting reactions when I knit (or even mention knitting) in public, and even in private. The neutral "what's up the knitting?" of Libby, the "awwwww, you're knitting!" of my bestie and former roommate, Amanda, and the uninterpretable "I can't believe you made that" of some guy I used to work with.

So yeah. I knit. It rules. You can do it while you watch Futurama, or the news, or "Hot Fuzz," or while you listen to music, or books on tape, or while engaging in a stimulating conversation.

My work-cookies went over well at work. I made a lot of them, but of course, not enough. It doesn't matter how polite and dainty and restrained people are in their day to day...free food makes everyone hungrier. Next time, I make double. No question. Good to know those oatmeal craisin jobbers are still popular.

And ALWAYS, ALWAYS let the butter warm up to room temperature. If you don't, you only do a disservice to yourself.

Christine's secret naked journal--an addendum. And cookies.

I've decided this blog need nudity, so here comes some: I just got home from the gym, so I am about to go take a shower, for which I plan to not wear clothes. It's a brand new concept. WOO! NUDITY!

Also, on the topic of sorting my life out (like Shaun): if Peter Serafinowicz was in my non-blog journal, there would probably be more sex, or at the very least nudity, since Pete, even though he is a zombie, is naked for the better part of the movie. But I still don't think I want to have anything to do with zombies. In fact, a long time ago, I wrote a blog about how uncool zombies are, particularly the naked ones! In fact, let's just forget I brought up the zed-word at all. In fact, let's move on to a new topic.

I'm going back to work tomorrow, and I am PREPARED, with my lunch ready to go, and TWO KINDS OF COOKIES for my new/old coworkers. They never even knew I was a hella baker. Well, soon they will. They get chocolate chip and oatmeal craisin cookies. I get yogurt, an apple, Kashi TLC crackers and Shredded Wheat with strawberries. Who's clearly getting the better deal here? That's right: the people getting the free cookies. They're good. I checked.

In closing, fall has begun to fall, but I am not closing my bedroom window. It is just not that cold, and the equinox has not yet arrived. Even that might not be enough to convince me. Do your worst, nature! I have copious blankies!

Christine's secret public journal.

Aside from my blog, I've been writing in a journal again. When I do that, I'm not trying to be clever or anything, because I don't feel like I have to impress anyone. Because really, who's going to see it? Me. And, like, I guess if someone stole it from me, they would see it, at which point they would quickly be sorry, because it would be DULL. There wouldn't be a lot of naked parts or anything (probably) and there wouldn't be any opium dens or famous people or meetings of fight club or even bar brawls. There would be stuff like: knitting, and me going to the gym and talking to my mom, or Al, or Amanda. Or me going and having lunch with W.L., or talking on Twitter with Emily, or going to Barnes and Noble, or analyzing humor with Bruce or eating hummus sandwiches with sprouts on whole wheat pita bread, and talking about how Al Gore is so smart and trying to sort my life out like Shaun, only without zombies or Peter Serafinowicz. (Too bad. Although he was eventually a zombie as well. Also too bad.)

I really like my new journal, which I write in with pencil, an old habit of mine that I've resurrected. I think it'll be pretty much perfect once I put one of my Apple logo stickers in it somewhere. A couple of my entries have been the lyrics of songs, which got me to thinking. I wish there was a way to have a journal--the same compact, portable form--where you could not only write stuff, but add tunes and pics as you saw fit, and have it all wrapped up in a neat little package.

You know what? They have that. It's called a laptop, smart kid. You're sitting in it. Duh.

Sometimes I feel good and am relatively sure I'm with it and will be okay. Other times, however...life grabs me by the hair, kicks me and makes me feel like Kelso from "That 70s Show."

I think it's perfectly clear we've got the wrong Palin...

I was reading Avi's brilliant "Pirates of Penzance" blog the other day, enjoying the "modern major general" parody in the extreme, laughing like a psychotic robot, etc. So I went back to reread it today--just now in fact--and as I was skimming the intro, I got to the word "Palin" and I immediately thought "Michael."

And THEN I thought, "WOW! This song WOULD be great if Michael Palin sang it! With a chorus of...well, anyone, really! I LOVE Michael Palin! I LOVE Monty Python! I really need to watch "Life of Brian" again! I should buy that "Holy Grail" DVD with the two extra minutes of material or whatever! I wonder if I can get the "Holy Grail" video game for Mac! I...oh wait a minute."

And then it dawned on me.

Wrong Palin.

There's another Palin.

Ooooog.

Oh, Michael Palin.

Save me.

And my banjo.

And Fry.

And yourself, I guess.

Just so we are all up to speed here

I moved again. This time, back to Syracuse, which means I will be going back to work for Kinney. And yes, it also means that school has been put on hold. For those interested, I am still enrolled at RW, I just got a deferment until January. And as far as school goes right now, that's about all I know.

Other things I know include the following:

I am not entirely happy, but I am not abysmally unhappy either.

I love my friends, as Jodi would say, like WOAH.

I love my family and I am incredibly grateful for them.

I am also grateful for the people in my life who can make me smile regardless of time and place. I think you guys know who you are. I've probably cried in front of you.

I know that there's a mess of stuff I don't know.

I know that there are a lot of things that strike me as REALLY REALLY REALLY important, and I know that I'm not sure which of them is for me to chase as a career or a calling.

I know that burning bridges is dumb, and I will avoid doing it. Ever. EV. AR.

Really.