When in doubt, put up a picture of an ugly dog.

I can't believe two days have passed without me having one interesting thing to say. Well, I can believe it, I just don't like it. Vexing.

So, just so you know I haven't abandoned my blog, I offer to you this picture of a really, really ugly dog:

Crap.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We did, until we found ourselves pulling over in central Philadelphia while my car began to overheat AGAIN, as it was losing coolant AGAIN, despite having just been repaired. In my mind, I replayed the dulcet tones of Repair Man, assuring me, "We found a leak in your coolant system so small and crusted over, there was no need to repair it at all."

Small and crusted over like your heart, perhaps.

But we managed to get home, while cranking the heat on high with the windows rolled down to prevent further overheating; the car is now currently back on display in the service department as "The Car That Magically Craps Out Its Coolant When No One Is Looking, Since There Is No Coolant Leak."

Also, eBay is being a butt about letting me cancel my accounts. They actually simply denied my request to close one account, and seem to be ignoring the other. I won't say much about it here, since eBay is a giant corporation that could squash me if I say libelous things. But the many strongly worded e-mails I have sent them over the last few days should do the trick.

But there is goodness on the horizon, such as:

• I bought my first round of Christmas presents today!
• Ben and I had a marvelous time over the holidays with my family and then with his, and got to eat two Thanksgiving dinners!

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm absolutely positive that there is more. There has to be more. It's almost Christmas, dang it!

Neville = Hero?

Ever since the newest HP movie came out, Ben has been devouring the books-- possibly just so he would know what I was rambling about whenever I started spouting off about horcruxes and disappearing wandmakers. He is very intrigued by Neville, and thinks there's a lot more to him than meets the eye. I agree, but before tonight, I always simply speculated that he was special for what he will do, not for what his past has been.

But all the sudden it struck me: what if whoever labelled the prophecy after Voldemort attacked Harry was still wrong? What if, even though Voldemort thought it was Harry, and everyone, including Dumbledore, believes the prophecy meant Harry, it really always meant Neville?

In short, what if Neville is going to kill Voldemort?

I know Voldemort has already "marked Harry as his equal," by giving him the scar, but we know virtually nothing about Neville's past, other than that his parents were tortured by Death Eaters and he lives with his grandmother. He could have marked Neville, too, in some way that we don't yet know.

Is this just insane? Or could I possibly be on to something, in the smallest, most lame way? I know 95% of people who read this blog could give two craps about Harry Potter, but I urge those of you who are Potterphiles to give me some feedback on this. Am I retarded? (Don't answer, non-Potter fans.) I think I might be retarded. But still, wouldn't that be the single most wild thing in the history of things?

Also, on a side note, this kid really needs some braces. Don't they have some sort of magic for that?

My chopper

So my dad calls me today, and he says, "Kimberly, it's your father." Which is never good, because this phrase is usually followed closely by something that often sounds to me like "why have you done this retarded thing that I am now going to have to deal with?"

This time, that phrase translated as, "Did you buy a motorcycle off of eBay?"

Which, of course, I did not. Because I have a very poor sense of balance, and have always believed that within five seconds of setting off on a motorcycle, I would tip over and the whole thing would burst into flames, and I would need to be encased in shiny black plastic, Vader-style.

"Of course I didn't, Dad. Why would you even ask me such a thing?"

Because, apparently, I did buy a motorcycle off of eBay-- or, rather, someone pretending to be me, and yet having absolutely no idea what I am like in real life, bought a motorcycle off of eBay. In fact, they bought the exact motorcycle pictured above, for around $4,700. And now the man who owned the motorcycle was calling my parents' house to collect his payment.

So of course, being the strong winner that I am, I began to cry, imagining a scenario in which I would be forced to actually pay for and pick up the motorcycle, which was in Alabama, and ride it back to Ohio. Oh, I may have met some colorful scamps along the way during this adventure, but it didn't really matter, since it could only end with me catching fire.

Fortunately, the man from whom I had apparently bought the motorcycle was very nice and let me off the hook; I cancelled both my eBay accounts, to prevent further fraudulent purchases of a ridiculous nature (note to whoever pretended to be me-- next time, to add a touch of reality to your cyber-crime, bid on Nixon memoribilia or Harry Potter posters). I'm also going to file a police report, at my parents' request; thankfully, you can do this via mail, so I don't have to call the actual police station and say "Excuse me, but I need to report that someone pretending to be me tried to buy a Kawasaki Viper."

When I told Ben about all this, he commented sadly, "Dang. I actually really would like a motorcycle."

Aurora: Hotbed of Evil

I know many of you have never had the good fortune of visiting my hometown-- Go Greenmen!-- but have read about it in the oft-perused but never imitated pages of my thesis. Sadly, the idyllic splendor of Aurora, OH, has been shattered by a Murder / Attempted Suicide .

The weird thing about this is that it happened just a few houses down from my parents, who, sadly (from a rubbernecker's point of view) were both out of town at the time, and so could not provide me with any details; nor did they get to be quoted by the news crews who came out to investigate.

This, I am sure, will go down in history-- specifically, Mr. Luckay's Aurora history mini-lesson, delivered to all Auroran children in the seventh grade-- along side such greats as "The guy who went nuts and killed his wife with an axe" and "Aurora used to be the cheese capital of the world, but now it's not, but we have a theme park, so that's cool."

Harry Potter and the Enormous Chunk of My Life

Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

Not that I'm ever really out of Harry Potter-- at any given time, I'm usually doing something somewhat Potter-related, such as listening to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince on CD (though NEWSFLASH-- I'm 99% positive that someone has stolen them out of my car, which seems really bizarre, but I honestly couldn't think of one other thing that could happen to a sandwich baggie full of 17 CDs), attempting to dig up bits of minute trivia from the Internet, and endlessly discussing Potter Theory with Ashley.

But I was almost done with my exhaustive analysis of HP: HBP when the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out on Friday evening. This, of course, has me going back and rereading that book so that I can keep up with Ashley on the fast-and-furious exchange of Things That Had Gone Wrong With the Movie.

Although actually, we both pretty much agree that the movie was good-- they left out a lot (Where is Winky? Where is SPEW? Where is Barty Crouch's mom? Et cetera), but if they hadn't, the movie would have been seventeen hours long, which would have severely tested tbe already stringent "no drinking six hours before the movie to avoid ill-timed bathroom breaks" plan for the 2 1/2 hour version.

So mostly, we just ended up discussing our favorite Potter theories again, such as:

1. Harry is a horcrux (This one's Ashley's, and it's the newest theory we've got, so we've still got a lot of insane planning ahead)
2. Grindewald (sp?) killed Dumbledore's parents, just like Voldemort killed Harry's (what else was he crying about when he had to drink the potion in the cave?)
3. Harry might be the heir of Gryffindor (why not? There's an heir of Slytherin. And he was born in Godric's Hollow. This would work well for the "Harry is a horcrux" theory, too-- "something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's...")

I could go on, but I imagine I am already going to be mocked hardcore for this one. But if anyone cares to discuss Potterisms with me, I'm down. So's Ashley.

Further proof of addiction

I just got an e-mail from my friend Kelly, who says she found this list we wrote back in college:

Everything I learned I learned from Pro Wrestling!

1. Metal folding chairs really don't hurt
2. Every time you walk into a room, your theme music starts playing
3. It's okay to walk around in your underwear
4. The ref never looks when it counts
5. It's okay to bury your face into another guy's crotch
6. Spandex, spandex, SPANDEX!
7. The bad guy's hair is always greasy
8. If you're going to spear someone-- always wait for them to face you
9. If your ratings are down, you can always change your name
10. Wrestling is the only time a good kick in the junk doesn't hurt

She follows this up with the statement "All of this is still SO TRUE!"

And it is, Kelly. Oh, it is.

Operation Don't Blow Up: Day Two

Just a quick update on the car situation-- apparently, it has a coolant leak AND something is wrong with a mysterious component known as the thermostat, which sounds vaguely threatening and at the same time sort of comforting. I've been assured that replacing the thermostat is no big deal, and needs to be done from time to time. In the meantime, I have to have my car towed to the dealership (my father called me from India, which he is visiting for work, to forbid me to drive it anywhere, and also to insinuate that, despite all warnings, I do not take proper care of my car and am probably going to hell, although he didn't say it in quite that way), where they will ostensibly fix it tomorrow.

Derek at work has also put the Fear in me regarding my heating core, or some such thing, which may also be broken and apparently costs twelve bazillion dollars to fix. So if that's the case, I may be done blogging, as I will have to sell all worldly possessions, including my laptop, to pay for it so they don't make me sign over my very soul.

Also, it is now full-on snowing here. Luckily, I am forbidden to drive my car, so this impacts me not at all. Hooray, broken thermostat/coolant hose/heating core!

Two bad things to do with my car

Now, everyone knows I never say anything bad about my car, because it used to be my grandma's and I'm afraid if I badmouth it, she'll rise from the dead and take it back and give it to my cousin Katie, and I'll have to ride the bus to work, which is scary.

But this morning, I was driving to work, minding my own business, listening to Howard Stern as I am apt to do, when I noticed that steam-- or something much more ominous than steam-- was rising from my hood. I looked around at the hoods of the other cars, thinking maybe it was just a coldness condensation thing, but no one else seemed to be steaming. Then I look at my heat gauge-- past H, which I can only assume stands for Hot, or Holy Crap, Get Out of the Car Now, Or Die!

On the way home: no steam, but still past H. Ben assumes this means nothing, and is checking my coolant levels later this evening. I, on the other hand, am already planning an Imagination Christmas, in which I just tell people what I would have gotten them, if I hadn't had to spend all my money on a new radiator or whatever it is that keeps a car from blowing up when steam starts coming out of it.

The other bad thing: When I came out from work today, there was a thin crust of snow on it.

I effing hate thin crusts of snow.

Everybody now!

I don't know if it's just because I heard the song "Ticket To Ride" on my way to work this morning or what, but I'm really in the mood for a good old-fashioned sing-along. Since Ben's not much of one for singing in the car (and try as I might to convert him, as I have with so many others, he remains resistant, and will only mouth the words to certain Guns N' Roses songs), and I have no karaoke outlet here, I have mostly been listening to books on tape (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, most notably-- twice!). But I think I might have to break down and make myself a sing-along CD.

Here's a few tracks, just off the top of my head. Please feel free to add more:

1. Levon, Elton John (Don't know why, but all good sing-along CDs must have this. Or Honky Cat)
2. Sweet Home Alabama, Lynrd Skynrd
3. Moonshadow, Cat Stevens
4. If I Had a Million Dollars, BNL
5. Golddigger, Kanye West (to keep up my mad rap skillz)
6. Ticket To Ride, The Beatles
7. Better Man, Pearl Jam
8. I Go Blind, Hootie and the Blowfish (shut your holes, it's an old stand-by)
9. I Wanna Rock and Roll All Nite, KISS
10. Thank God I'm a Country Boy, John Denver
11. The Gambler, Kenny Rogers
12. Ashland University Fight Song (many of you don't know this, but it has awesome sing-along potential) (but unfortunately does not exist in CD form, as far as I know)

Okay, now I'm stumped, as you can tell by the addition of my college fight song to the list. Help!

Bag Man

While out walking the dog this evening, I encountered an old man, loading a bunch of bags into his car. This, for some reason, drove my dog insane; she generally barks only at people on bikes, people with other dogs, squirrels, fast-moving leaves, and thugs. But tonight, she was out to kill this old man.

As I approached, I turned off my MP3 player (which, for the record, was on the song "Golddigger"), because I could hear the old man saying something. As my dog pinned him up against the side of his car, barking and snarling, I caught it clearly, in thickly accented Slovenian: "I have many bags of meat!"

So apparently, if you're stupid enough to carry around a bag of meat, even in your own driveway, my dog will now attempt to kill you.

R.I.P., Eddie

Though I made no secret of my deep-seeded love of wrestling with my friends from graduate school, I did not parade it around as insanely or devotedly as I did in college, when WCW ruled the world and Ric Flair, Sting, and Eddie Guerrero were on top. Mainly, this is because I thought most of my graduate school friends would think I was mildly retarded.

But tonight I must throw caution to the wind and announce that I am deeply saddened by the death of one of my old favorites, Eddie Guerrero. My college friends and I spent many a Monday night with Eddie, along with fellow cruiserweights Billy Kidman, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Juventud Guerrero; our love for Eddie was so strong that an Eddie Guerrero poster hung proudly in my friends' Amy, Denise and Jeni's room (mine had Ric Flair).

Now, with Eddie gone, we will never again have the chance to say to one another, "Hey, I'm Eddie Guerrero, want to take a ride in my camaro?" Nor will we attempt to leap off the turnbuckles at each other and whomp each other down with carefully orchestrated flying leg moves. But that's probably for the best.

Goodbye, Eddie. Thanks for all the frog splashes.

New Movie Boring, Firthless, say critics

Now, I admit that I don't know much about the new version of Pride and Prejudice that's coming out this weekend; I also shamefacedly admit that I have never watched the original BBC mini-series, or, sadly, even read the book. But my friend Ashley, pictured here dancing with Prejudice's original Mr. Darcy, Colin Firth, has asked me to begin an official boycott of the movie.

As she points out, the new Mr. Darcy is non-handsome, and not nearly as dashing as Colin Firth, who, although Ashley and I both love our boyfriends very much, we would definitely fistfight over if he came to town looking for a place to stay. This, she and I both believe, is a travesty. How is this new guy going to look emerging from a lake with his Victorian shirt all besotted? Not that great, we say.

And let me go two steps further with this boycott:

1. The preview for the movie has Howie Day's "Collide" in it, which is neither Victorian nor Firthy, and also reminds me too much of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill," which seems to be in every preview ever, especially ones featuring John Cusack. But I digress.

2. I have seen first-hand an issue of Esquire in which Keira Knightley shows off her boobies. This is bad and wrong. I know this may be hypocritical, since I've heard rumors that Colin Firth himself shows off his wang in the new movie Where The Truth Lies, but that's okay, because he did it for his art, while she did it for the sheer jollies of showing off her boobies. This may be untrue, but I don't care, because there's something about her that just makes me want to punch.

V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!

I seem to have mysteriously vanquished the Death Flu! I may be being slightly optimistic, since I am currently doped up on twice the recommended dose of Generic HappyTime Cold and Sinus medicine, but I can breathe again! And taste again! And I don't seem to weight seven hundred pounds anymore! In fact, except for a slight nasally note in my voice and a less-gross-than-it-sounds wet cough, I feel almost human again.

This is good, because it allows me to spend more time listening to the song "Golddigger," which I have done thirteen times already this morning. I don't seem to be able to stop myself-- every time it ends, I think to myself, "Oh, just one more time won't hurt anyone."

"Golddigger" is like aural crack.

I feel I have to do this at work, so that I don't have to subject Ben to it. He has already survived similar infatuations with the songs "Africa" by Toto and "My Band" by D-12, not to mention my still secretly ongoing obsession with the song "Doorbell" by the White Stripes. There was a brief flirtation with the song "I didn't steal your boyfriend" by Ashlee Simpson, but luckily for everyone involved, "Golddigger" stepped in to save the day.

Return of the Death Flu

I thought I had this death flu thing all under control. I went to work yesterday for a full day, and while my boss did comment on the fact that I still sounded a bit ill ("Why are you breathing like Darth Vader?"), I was able to accomplish quite a bit of work.

Ahh, for the untroubled, Vader-esque breathing of yesterday!

After waking up feeling as if I had spent the night gargling Mini-Wheats (unfrosted!), I decided to give it the old college (read: only have one sick day left) try and head in to work. It became very apparent after about an hour, though, that my illness had, in doctor speak, moved into my chest, and that my cough was scaring the girl who sits next to me. So I headed home to watch what is now going on my fifth hour of quality programming on VH1 (Reality shows that ROCK!) and lay on the couch and try not to cough up any of my vital organs.

This day did have two highlights, however:

1. I saw Ric Flair on "Hogan Knows Best." Whooooooo!

2. An episode of the original "Surreal Life," in which MC Hammer prays for Vince Neil, made me cry. Just a little. And I think just because of the Death Flu. Because I would never normally cry at something so dumb. I did, however, take a picture of my misery, for your enjoyment. I think you can see Gabrielle Carteris hugging Vince Neil in the television set that's reflected in my glasses.

My boyfriend: Super Genius

My friend Alan has a job in which his company hires highly skilled scientists and the like to take temporary positions at companies in their field. He sent me this line of one of the applicant's resumes today:

"Dissertation Title: Olefin Metathesis Approaches to Sulfur-Containing Heterocycles and Oligomers and Soluble Oligomeric Reagents "

This, of course, made me feel painfully stupid, since my thesis was called "Famous Men I Almost Met," and included such intellectual whoppers as "The Nature Boy" and "I'm With the Band."

So then, on a lark, I sent the dissertation title to Ben to see if he knew what it meant, and he came up with this:

"It's essentially the decomposition (metathesis describes a "double decomposition" reaction) of olefins (mono-unsaturated hydrocarbons - think ethylene) resulting in the production of sulfur ring compounds (heterocycles) and small polymers made up of one, two, three ish monomer units (oligomers) and the monomer units that make the oligomers."

Even though I still have no idea what he's really talking about, I find it painfully sexy that he knows this.

Day of Day of the Tentacle

Lately, Ben has become obsessed (again) with some sort of computer game called "Civilization," which, from what I can tell, requires you to move poorly animated little men around and make them do things like buy fish and fight hoardes, and appears to take one bazillion years to complete.

So, to combat this and prevent a repeat of the last time he fell under this game's evil power (in which I read and reread old copies of Writer's Digest and became convinced that he did not love me anymore), I decided to go back and play one of my own classic computer favs-- LucasArts' Day of the Tentacle.

Surprisingly, though, I finished the entire game in less than a day, which made me sort of sad and nostalgic. I remembered this game being one of the hardest-won triumphs of my adolescence, mainly because, as a giant nerd, I did not have to grapple with larger issues like going to first base or alcohol abuse.

It also made me remember, with a grim sort of horror, that I got in massive amounts of trouble over this game, because in those pre-Internet days, I wasn't able to just look up a walkthrough, and was forced to call the LucasArts tip hotline. Many, many, many times.

The scene with my parents was like something out of Blossom, only without the funky hats, which I could not wear because of my unbearably puffy hair.

Battling the Death Flu and Jamie Foxx

I am taking a sick day from work right now; and what's worse, is that I'm taking a sick day because I'm actually sick, not just mildly unhappy or allergic to fluorescent lighting. It's a beautiful, sunny day outside (probably the last we will see until next July or so), and I have approximately five hundred thousand things to do, including

1. Get driver's license so I can finally stop being in direct violation of the law
2. Register to vote
3. Buy medicine
4. Not only do I have the flu, I think I might have a bad case of BO-GO!

And instead of stopping my criminal ways or buying cute new shoes so I can finally fit in at the office, I am resigned to watching reruns of Grease on VH1 (Movies that ROCK!) and sniffling miserably on the couch while the dog pouts.

But this is good, because it allows me to get some feelings off my chest. Some feelings about Jamie Foxx. Conflicted feelings, since I have had a great, irrational hatred of Jamie Foxx ever since Ray came out (I didn't even see Ray, so I don't know what my problem was). I just really, really, really, really hated Jamie Foxx. I hate Tom Cruise, too, but I think the reasoning behind that is a lot more obvious.

So this past weekend, before the death flu, I saw Jarhead, which I greatly enjoyed. And it made me not hate Jamie Foxx quite so much. And then, with the help of my mad downloading skillz, I jumped on the Kanye West train about six weeks too late and picked up "Golddigger," which, no lie, features Jamie Foxx.

And I love that song.
And I loved Jarhead.

Does this mean that I love Jamie Foxx, too?

Things you thought I'd never do

1. Play trombone at work (for skit day!) Note: I know you would not only conceive of me doing this, you would actually expect me to. But I just really needed an excuse to post the picture

2. Rake the front yard without being asked

3. Rake the front yard even if you asked me
4. Eat-- nay, savor!-- Chinese food

5. Slightly enjoy a hamburger with cheese, marinara sauce and pepperoni on it

6. Pick up dog poopy with a scented bathroom garbage bag (now done thrice daily! Call for showtimes!)

Actually, now that I look back on that list, all of those things (with the exception of the trombone playing at work, which was a big hit, by the way) are things that I do now because of Ben. Isn't it amazing how love changes us? And don't you all wish I'd met him before I dragged you to every plain restaurant under the sun?

Dramarama

After yet another uneventful day at the insurance depot, I'm finding myself wishing more and more that something really dramatic would happen. If you were to go back through my old journals, you would find that my life, up until late 2004, was one big dramatic event, and if it wasn't, it could certainly be portrayed as such ("Dan brought ketchup into the house again, in a flagrant stab at my No Condiments Ever rule. How could he betray my trust like this? How?" The rest of the page obscured by ketchup-fueled tears).

But Ben and I don't really fight that often, and the drama of any fights we do have is exhausted within a day of constant rehashing ("Hey orders mayonnaise with his burgers. Maaayonaaaise!"). And the most dramatic thing that has happened at work in a long time is The Mysterious Lunch Snatcher, who is being portrayed in various intraoffice memos as the worst thing to happen to humanity since the invention of the hydrogen bomb. And although I am, in general, opposed to theiving, I cannot allow myself to get too worked about this, since

1. If someone stole my lunch, I would have no choice but to go to the mall and have Chick-Fil-A.
2. Today a woman found an object in the fridge that could not be identified by sight, touch or smell. So if he wants to go for that, be my guest.
3. Does the fact that the Snatcher steals food from others perhaps indicate that he is not being paid enough?

So, in order to weave some drama into this otherwise lackluster day, I am forced to pick a fight with you. Here goes:

Y'alls are sons of bitches and your butts smell like gasoline!

Let the dramarama commence.

On aging

Generally, when I start a new journal, I feel the need to introduce myself to the journal. Like, "Hi, Kim Shable here, age 26, currently employed at an up-and-coming (or so my boss and the good people at A.M. Best say) monoline worker's compensation insurance company." But then the introduction kind of devolves, and sounds sort of Love Connection-y ("Well, Chuck, I like long walks and a good strip steak") and keeps me from doing what I really want to do, which is generally

a) Try desperately to figure out why people are suddenly calling me ma'am
b) Make fun of strangers
c) Wonder why no one has yet come to my house with a big box of money, demanding to publish my thesis.

So, let's just assume that you already know and like me, and move on from there.

I reach out to you now, weird online journal to whom I haven't introduced myself properly, because I don't know if you noticed, but I used the word monoline a couple paragraphs ago, and that scares me. And it scares me that I know who A.M. Best is (not a cheap motel with a so-so buffet, it turns out!), and that, if you got hurt at work right now, I could totally hook you up.

I'm supposed to have the kind of job where I can hook you up with backstage passes, or a flat screen TV, or massive amounts of booty. Not the kind of job where I routinely field the question "So if they own their own materials, does that mean the subcontractor is excluded?"

(Answer: not necessarily.)

I realize that I'm only 26, and that I haven't been out of school that long, and that I have a great deal of time in which to better myself and build up a new arsenal of stories to exploit for giggles, having used up most of the good ones for my thesis. But I also realize that some of the people who report to me at work (because people report to me, isn't that fucked up) think I am their mom, and I just want to grab them and go I'm fun! Fun! I drink alcoholic beverages like the young people and I do enjoy shaking my moneymaker! But I doubt they would believe me.

Because I really am aging at an astonishing rate. Some proof:

1. I squint all the time. I'm a squinty old hag.
2. I can drink exactly one short beer and two tall beers. Anything more than that: barf fest.
3. Today's music makes me agitated and sort of itchy.
4. I have crow's feet. Why? Why?
5. I wake up early on Saturdays, not because I want to, but because I can't help it.

God, I am a curmudgeon! Crap! Craaaaap!