Adrienne's Villa

Oh, so close

Jeff was nice enough to get dragged to see 'Twilight' with me on Saturday and only grumbled a couple of times - mostly because these vampires could walk around in daylight.  I came out of the theater disappointed, and I'll explain why.  Let me premise this to say that I lovelovelove the books.  They are fantastic and might even be better than Harry Potter.  I liked the Harry Potter movies, because even though they didn't follow the book exactly you still got the point across. <sigh>

• Things happened in the wrong order and by the wrong person. Gym class was supposed to be at the end of the day, for example.  Bella didn't find out what the Cullens were from a book, she found out from Jacob - which is important.  Jeff couldn't figure out why they didn't like each other.  And the kiss?  It by itself was done very well, but it was in the wrong spot.
• Some of it was just wrong.  The high school wasn't supposed to be one big building, the Cullen house wasn't some modern looking thing (it was an old farmhouse) and nowhere in the book did anyone climb a tree. Not ever.  And where was the airport and the crappy motel?  Where did the baseball uniforms come from? Why aren't these people wearing heavy clothes? It's in Washington and it was winter! Wear a sweater!
• Everything just seemed so rushed.  There wasn't enough time to flesh out the whole Bella-Edward thing.  They were just kind of thrown at each other. Except for the encounter with James, which was about 15% of the book and 30% of the movie. 
• Okay, to end this on a good note, the casting was fantastic.  The high school boys seemed to really need some Ritalin, but the Cullens were great. Edward needed a haircut and a little less product, but it was a good fit. 

I hope that with the second film they get a new director and screenwriter, so it will be better.  If not, I'm writing off the rest of this film series and shoving my nose back into the books.

Hope that everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

How nerdy/geeky are you?

Take the Nerd Test and the Geek Test to find out! I am 29.98% geek (Total Geek, thank you) and I blame most of this on Jeff, hehe.  Let me know what your scores are!

. . . the bombs bursting in air . . .

 . . . are apparently not stopped by rain.  You heard it here folks: the military tests ordnance in the rain.

Also on the home front is gasoline for $1.94/gal.  That's down almost a dollar in one month.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, OPEC!  Cheap gas is one of the biggest upsides to working in Aberdeen.

For the yarnies out there, the National WWII Museum is sponsoring "Knit Your Bit", which has you make the scarf (crochet or knit), send it to them, and they distribute it to VA hospitals.  Send in your scarves, or give them to me in person since I'm collecting for my weekly meetup.  Let's make sure our vets stay toasty!

Results?

Why is it so hard to find out who won local elections? Sheesh.  If anyone can tell me who won the race in Maryland's 7th District, please let me know.

For reference, I'm holding Obama to his belief that the college football championship system needs to be revamped.  That's change we can all agree on. 

If anyone is wondering, last night was as described below except minus the cider and plus one little beagle dog.  And, the Bertolli chicken parm that you can find in the grocery freezer section is really good.

Alright, I did it

Although I know that no one in Maryland gives a rip about my opinion, or actually that I'm so outnumbered that it doesn't matter, I stood in line for 30 mins this morning and cast my little vote.  I was going to bring some crochet to do in line, but I'm working in thread crochet at the moment and some people might take my frustrated outbursts as some form of psychosis, see the small metallic thing in my hand and then I get tackled/Tased/shot.  "She's Republican and she's got a weapon! Get her!" So I brought my copy of "Twillight" along instead and was whisked away to the dreary land of Forks, ironically not much different than the weather here today.  

On one hard, I do get to stop hearing about the 'problem-solving Centrist', the chick who is 'too liberal, even for a Democrat,' and people crossing party lines to vote for whomever, but starting tomorrow we're stuck with a) the world hating us for electing George Bush II/racist Americans or b) someone who scares the crap out of me and almost half the country.  It's a no win.  Can we do a time warp, stopping briefly at T-giving and Xmas for potty breaks and leap forward to mid-January, please?  I would rather just start dealing with what we are going to get. 

Hopefully this apathy is nothing a good movie, a bottle of cider and a night with Jeffro can't cure.  I'll just say I stayed up late to watch the election results.

Things of Note

Life Lesson #421585:  If you are going to be performing on stage where it might get warm, do not wear velvet on purpose.  In particular, if you are playing in a concert where you are sitting for a period of time, your butt will sweat.  Velvet neither breathes, nor wicks.  Trust me on this one.

Overheard at the office: "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, work for the Army Corps of Engineers."

And, something for the Republicans.

I'm going to get back to BIM-ing now.  

Butter my butt and call me a biscuit!

The JHU Newsletter (student-run weekly paper) actually had an opinion piece AGAINST Obama.  I nearly shat myself.  The most interesting part is the debate over whether Obama is a US Citizen.  There are now law suits in 8 states that call for him to submit his birth certificate.  Why doesn't he clear this up?  Now don't get me wrong, if this issue was about McCain I would have the same issue.  Was he born in Kenya, or Hawaii?  Someone force him to tell the country, please.  The Constitution is important after all.

Is this what a hangover feels like? No, I'm not drunk on a Friday early afternoon, but my brain is working really slowly - like all the neurons are encased in cement or there is a traffic jam in my head or something.  Speaking of which, if anyone can tell me why there were 15 cop cars around 10 pm on the N Howard St bridge near MICA (the one that looks like it was colored with the Crayola 8-color box), can you let me know?  That was weird.

AND! The gas near work is only $2.54/gal, down from $2.67 yesterday and $2.89 last week. Take that, OPEC!

$2.89 . . . ahhhhhhhhhh!

This is the one good thing about working in a podunk town - cheap gas!  Nah, Aberdeen isn't that bad.  At least I don't go to McDonald's and have to give my order to someone who doesn't speak English clearly (Montgomery County, anyone?)

Okay, so if I haven't told you, I have a new position in my company.  What I do now is take all of the 3D AutoCAD files from the mechanical/electrical/sprinkler people, plunk them into a program originally written for video game programmers and see what runs into what.  I just finished my first go at a 'clash report' and out of 4974 hits, 127 areas have head-on collisions.  When you have a piece of pipe that is drawn as 3 objects, running into a duct that is drawn as 5 objects, the program sees that as 15 hits but it's really just one.  You also run into problems like this:  

The building is off to the left, and the green blob with the circle around it is the ductwork that is supposed to be inside but was saved in metric scale instead of standard.  For some reason this makes it teeny tiny.  Who knows.  Long story short, I now work at a happy place with people who get along despite being in a joint venture.  Hooray! And, because the project is at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, I am now trained in what to do if I come upon a UXO (UneXploded Ordnance).  You call 911 like you would anywhere else, just so you know.   

Hey Jeff, thanks for a great 10 years :-*

Befuddled

I'm just old, I guess.  Okay, as some of you know, I'm the rep for my company at a college job fair and I do the first interviews.  I emailed the prospective students first thing on Friday, telling them the possible times for an interview and to email me with their top three choices.  By 10 am Saturday, everyone had responded but one person so I told her the remaining spots and asked him which one he wanted.  He has a lot of classes on Tuesday so couldn't make either.  After responding to him that no, there weren't any other times and no, it couldn't be another day, he said thanks but no thanks. 

My question is this: Why isn't he willing to miss class (didn't mention tests or good reason that he had to be there) and why did he even ask me if we could do it another day?  He seemed like a really good candidate and I was excited about interviewing him, but jeez I'm not going to bend over backwards.  Is a class really that unmissable?  Let me know, because I'm feeling very fogey-ish about this.

Stupid Women Drivers

So continues my anti-feminist rants, hehe. Jeff and I went to the Demolition Derby last night at The Great Frederick Fair (I know you're jealous, Annie!) and it was lots of fun as always. Smashing, fires, cutting dudes out of cars, dirt flying, redneck good time had by all.  Two things that need to change, though: 1) If you're a chick driving in the derby, please drive like a man: stop the wussy bumps and go for the smashes! Are you paying attention, Brenda? You might have gotten 3rd place in the heat, but you drove like a little girl.  2) They need to bring back the forklifts to haul the wreckage away. I'm sure Grimm's is doing it for the free publicity, but gee golly whiz beav,  they take forEVER to clear the field.  Yeah, the trucks that can tow 20 tons are manly but get off the pot already!  Get a forklift and stick a Grimm's sign on it or something.  I can't wait to go back and see all the animals and things. And Jeff promised that he'd win me something.  I think the inflatable squeaky hammers are at the bell ring again this year . . .