Top O' The Morning To Ye

As promised, Here's some fine Irish humor for you. Feel free to share them with your fellow revelers at the local watering hole this evening while you indulge in some delicious Irish Whiskey or a hearty Guinness Stout.

Irish sayings:

Pity the sober. They wake up in the morning knowing that's the best they're going to feel all day.

Here's to a wet night and a dry morning.

And the jokes:

Paddy was driving down the street desperately looking for a parking space. Looking up to Heaven he said, "Lord, take pity on me. If you find me a parking space, I'll go to mass every Sunday and give up me whiskey". Miraculously, a space opened up. Paddy looked Heavenward again and said, "Nevermind, Lord. I found one".

An Irishman takes a seat at a bar in New York City and orders a shot of Jameson. A fellow patron a few stools down gives him a hard look and says, "You look familiar, sir. Tell me, are you from Donegal?" "Why, yessir. I AM from Donegal". The fellow moved a stool closer and said, "I swear I've seen ye before. What school did ye attend?" The first man said, "Why Saint Mary's, of course." The second man exclaims, "You don't say. I went to Saint Mary's. Tell me, did you ever date one of the McGinty sisters?" The first man, looking astonished, said, "I DID, friend. I dated Colleen McGinty". At this point, one of the bartenders remarks to the veteran barman, "that's pretty amazing. Two men from Ireland meeting up here in New York." The old barman looks up and says, "Not really. The Murphy twins are drunk again."

An Irish priest gets pulled over for speeding. The police man, as he nears the open window, smells alcohol and notices an empty wine bottle in the passenger seat. The officer asks, "Father, have you been drinking?" The priest replies, "Just water." The officer then says, "Then why do I smell wine, Father?" The priest looks at the bottle and exclaims, "Good Lord! He's done it again!"

And my favorite, although I'm the only one who likes it: What's Irish and stays out all night?

Paddy O'Furniture! (hahahahahaha)

Oh, I could go on all day, but I'll leave you with a photo instead.
Not everyone can pull off a hat like this.

Cordless mice suck--more consumer testing

Mr. Man finally killed his cordless keyboard with his Neanderthal banging on the keys, so I was quickly dispatched to Ye Ole Office Supply Store to purchase a new one. Since I was being inconvenienced, I decided to buy myself something pretty. This usually means a pen. I am pen obsessed, folks. But this time, I was distracted by the worst kind of product--shiny and cute. I had to have it. I never learn.
The last item I "had to have" was a rollerball pen that used fountain pen ink. It came with a supply of great colored inks. It sucked like a Dyson vacuum. I tried to like it, but it just wouldn't write and I had to admit defeat. Fortunately, I have enough fountain pens (Obsessed with a capital O) to use the great colored inks.
So, cute and shiny little cordless mouse, with a neato techno-something tab...It was just too cool to pass up. And little? My cell phone is just slightly larger than this baby. Perfect for my over-crowded desk.
For the boss, I bought a cordless keyboard and mouse package. It's really great and has all these shortcut buttons for opening internet, email, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, buttons for "undo" and "redo", buttons to close a page or go back to the previous page, buttons to print, save, cure the common cold, etc. It's way to advanced for that two-fingered typer, but it's all they had.

This morning, I came to work all excited about installing the cuteness. I hooked up the boss's set first, then moved on to mine. Here are the things that sucked about it:

1. The magic waves or whatever that make the cordless things work didn't reach far enough for me to use the mouse with my right hand. While I eventually figured out that the cord included was to extend the wave area, it didn't help.
2. The mouse wouldn't work on my white blotter.
3. It was incredibly slow.
4. It was clearly possessed by some evil lifeforce and needed to be destroyed.

Not to worry. I still had the boss's old cordless mouse, which he hasn't managed to destroy but did manage to get yellow highlighter marks all over. How does one do that? So I hooked that up, and it sucked just as much as the cute one. I finally threw up my hands in defeat and reinstalled my trusty corded mouse, and life is once again worth living.

Except I have to call Slutty McWhore IV and I'm not looking forward to that. Knots in tummy. Feelings of inadequacy. I think I'll text instead.

Bad Habits and such

If you read the post that I wrote earlier today and just deleted...yep, I'm a wuss and felt that on the outside chance that someone of the Germanic nature were to stumble upon it, it wouldn't go well.

So, I fell asleep on the couch again in the middle of Grey's Anatomy. Dang! Then, I was awoken by my cell phone, Kelly Clarkson no less, at 12:09am by a certain German fellow. After dispensing with him, I washed my face and prepared for bed, but suddenly, I wasn't tired. I tried everything I know to put me to sleep--yes, everything.

So, at

I was doing this

Instead of doing this

Hey, I want to see you look good at 3:37am...and it was taken with the phone camera, so consider the source. Normally, with good photography equipment, I look like Snow White, perfectly preserved in her little glass bed awaiting my prince.

I have new pets

I'm so busy and I have a headache, but I can't look at my boss's handwriting anymore. So here's some fun to look at instead. Because I can't figure out how to add buttons on the side and shit (anyone out there who can help?), you'll have to click on the links to see my new pets. Click on Ron a few times. He does cute stuff. And click on the more tab for Mindy to feed and water her. and if you click on Mindy's body, she squeaks. Serena has a fly to eat. I couldn't get her to write anything in her web, though.
ron
mindy
serena

What is happening here?

Hollywood Is Closed! Come Back Later.

It's Oscar night and I live blocks from the Kodak Theater. This is what my horoscope says for today.
Something big could be occurring close to home today, Laurie. It would be advisable for you to stay indoors, if possible, or certainly not stray too far. Traffic is likely to be gridlock, and the sidewalks crowded with pedestrians anxious for a closer look. Use this self-imposed "house arrest" to do some long-neglected chores around the house. Play some music and have fun while you organize your bookshelves and clear out the clutter from your closets.

While there will be no closet cleaning (or any other cleaning for that matter) I will be staying close to home. They've already closed off DeLongpre at Wilcox as of 10am. I'm at work right now, but I'll be home before it gets too ugly.

Friday, I was driving along on Santa Monica Blvd, when some idiot stopped short in front of me. No, I didn't rear end him and wreck my pretty new car, but I did forget to down shift. So when I went to move again, I was starting in second gear and the car stalled. No biggie, I started it again and was off to the races, but wait--what's that amber light on my dashboard? Check Engine? Crap!!!! I can't afford a Check Engine type of repair. I'm poor folk. It didn't help that I was on my way to Burbank, with Tami in the car, and it was raining. Whoa is me. I begged Jamie (the car, try to keep up) "Please honey, I'll get you a pretty new antenna ball. I'll give you a good hand wash. Heck, I'll throw in an Armor-All if you just turn off that light". Apparently, Jamie is not a woman who is easily bought. I worried and fretted all day. Then tossed and turned all night. I had $100 in my checking account. I can't afford a car repair, but I didn't want to ignore it. Then it hit me...SEARS. I have a Sears card, and they have auto repair shops.

Paul, the very nice mechanic, said that Sears doesn't have diagnostics, but he'd give her the old lube treatment and see if that does anything. An oil change, new filters (air and oil) and I was on the road for only $25.99. I drove Tami back to Pasadena with the check engine light still taunting me. Can I go two weeks until my next payday? Is it serious? Paul thought that maybe there was a "hiccup" in the computer due to my short stop/stall episode. I parked at Tami's and helped her carry in her stuff (because she still hurts too much to carry more than 15 pounds), then left. I turned on the car and YIPPEE! The light went off. I'm going to have her checked in two weeks after I get paid, though.

Well, I'm off. Happy Oscar Night. Hope your favorites win. My picks? Best Actor--Philip Seymour Hoffman, Best Actress-Felicity Huffman, Best Supporting Actor--George Clooney, Best Supporting Actress--Rachel Weisz, Best Picture--Brokeback Mountain (even though I didn't see it and it reminds me of the South Park episode where Sundance comes to South Park and Cartman says all independent films are about gay cowboys eating pudding). But what do I know?

Excuse me, Miss, you have a smudge on your forehead.

It's Ash Wednesday! Back in my days of knee socks and plaid jumpers, Ash Wednesday was the day everyone wanted bangs. If you didn't have bangs, you inevitably ended up with the priest with a heavy thumb, the guy who acted like he was stamping out a cigarette on your forehead. Since it was a sin to blatantly wipe off the ashes (or so we believed), we'd try many techniques to dust it off. There was the blowing-an-imaginary-hair-away (blow out of corner of your mouth), the phew-that-was-a-tough-test ("accidentally" wiping forehead with back of hand), and the less subtle, but effective brush-it-off-but-leave-enough-to-show-piety.

Oh, this reminds me of a certain Ash Wednesday I spent with my sister in D.C. Now, when Kate and I are together with no adult supervision, we tend to get a bit, well, I'll say high spirited, although the word "obnoxious" has been bandied about. The year was 1984. Kate was living in Alexandria, VA, and I was visiting her. We planned to spend the day doing touristy stuff in DC, then attend mass at St. Matthew's Cathedral (the site of Kennedy's funeral mass and also the name of our hometown church, without the cathedral part). Everywhere in the city we encountered people who had already done their churchly duty and received their ashes. So Kate and I, being the fun gals we are, started pretending it was an alien invasion and all the aliens could be discerned by the black smudges on their foreheads. "Look, there's another one." "Quick! Run!" Okay, maybe you had to be there, but it was fun. Late in the day, we were on the subway on our way to mass, still doing our alien invasion bit, you know, pointing and laughing, "They're everywhere! What are they?", when some sourpuss gave us the MOM LOOK and reprimanded us with "They're Catholic. It's Ash Wednesday". To which Kate replied (in a tone that can best be described as Mean Girls) "We know. We're Catholic too". Then we gave her our own look and giggled conspiratorially. Ah Katie...always a good time.