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January 16, 2006
meme of fours
From X-pollen:
Four Jobs You’ve Had
- Paralegal
- Stock order filler at Brooks Brothers
- Administrative Assistant
- Research Assistant
Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over
- Hannah and Her Sisters
- Young Frankenstein
- Singles
- When Harry met Sally
Four Places You’ve Lived
- New York City
- Canterbury, England
- Wallingford, CT
- San Francisco
Four TV Shows You Love to Watch
- Sopranos
- House
- ER
- Law and Order
Four Places You’ve Been on Vacation
- London, England
- Sifnos, Greece
- Stowe, VT
- Nags Head, NC
Four Blogs You Visit Daily
- X-pollen
- BabyWeinstein Blog
Four of Your Favorite Foods
- Tomatoes
- Cheese
- Sushi
- French Fries
Four Places You’d Rather Be
- London
- San Francisco
- Vermont
- Dublin
Four Albums You Cannot Live Without
- Achtung Baby
- Speaking In Tongues
- I Just Can’t Stop It
- X
Four Vehicles You’ve Owned
- 1989 Volkswagen Jetta
- 1987 Saab
- 1997 Honda Civic
- 2000 Honda CR-V
Tag-back to x-pollen
Posted by maeve921 at 11:20 AM | TrackBack
Sopranos and the Twin Towers
I’m watching Season 1 of the Sopranos because I didn’t get HBO until right before Season 3 and HBO kindly re-broadcast all of Season 2 before 3 so Season 1 is the only one I haven’t seen all of. After September 11th, they (whomever they may be) removed the clip of the Twin Towers from the opening montage when Tony exits the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey.
However, I was curious to see if they went back and removed the image from the opening montage broadcast pre-9/11 and sure enough, they did not. So in some ways it’s authentic to the actual broadcast and in other ways a bit of a shock to see the World Trade Center when it was just one piece in the expansive New York City skyline.
In one of Harlan Coben’s novels, his protagonist comments while driving along the NJ Turnpike that when he looks over at the New York skyline, he can’t exactly remember where the World Trade Center was and that bothers him.
I have the same experience.
Years and years of traveling up to NY from DC on the train and then on the Turnpike were always punctuated by that moment when I could look out the window and over the oil tanks in Secaucus see the edge of my home town. And the World Trade Center, which is how I always referred to it, was one of the first things I would see, then my eye wandering over to the Empire State Building, and then the Chrysler Building. After a bit I would also try and pick out the Citibank building. Though those latter three are still standing, it is strange and something to get used to to have that major change in the landscape.
Posted by maeve921 at 10:57 AM | TrackBack
January 12, 2006
New Year's resolution update
I am happy to report that I am making good progress on my previously reported on new year’s resolution. I have found that not focusing on the other driver makes it easier. So far I have not rear-ended anyone with this approach either. Serenity Now!
Posted by maeve921 at 7:22 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Retire that word
Today I heard Bush speaking in New Orleans. He said that New Orleans was a “heck” of a city. You would think after the debacle with “Brownie” that he would have retired that world let alone not used it again in reference to New Orleans. Of course, that would assume that he is a self-aware person who takes time to reflect on ways in which he can improve. Hah.
Posted by maeve921 at 7:19 PM | TrackBack
January 5, 2006
Closing the barn door
Today on NPR they reported that Bush has invited all former Secretaries of State and Defense for a meeting to talk about Iraq. They also noted that in a survey of descriptive terms of Bush the most common one chosen was “stubborn.” (Surveys are not the best measure at times because it is easy to steer people towards specific responses so without knowing what the other choices were it’s hard to know if “stubborn” was the lesser of two evils or was really as bad as it sounds.) The PR machine rolls on to try and convince the American people that Bush feels our pain about the war in Iraq. Which also reminds me why do we keep referring to it as war when Bush stood on that aircraft carrier and announced that the war was won? Isn’t it just a mission now? So now he’s inviting all these former Secretaries in a bid to show that he is open to other points of view. But frankly, in my opinion, it’s just closing the barn door after the horse is already out of the barn.
Posted by maeve921 at 10:24 AM | TrackBack
January 4, 2006
Graduated college?
Xian (x-pollen) noted a language pet peeve about the new phrase touching bases as opposed to touching base. To jump on that bandwagon, my all time language pet peeve is the change of graduated from (high school, college, reform school, whatever) to graduated (college, high school, kindergarten). To me the change suggests that the person graduated their institution and sent it on to another place as opposed to having the institution graduate them and send them along their merry way. Besides, what’s the big deal about adding that one extra word from into a sentence anyway. Is it just a reflection of our need to have shorthand for everything? or rather a reflection of the text messaging world where all language is being compressed into phonetically written phrases?
As a kid riding the NYC subway system, there used to be an add for a secretarial school (ok now I’m really dating myself-secretarial school! what’s that?) written in shorthand. It said something along the lines of (I didn’t go to secretarial school, I graduate college so I don’t know secretarial shorthand) “if u cn rd ths” then something about how you could make good money being a secretary. Ok, ok the official term now is Administrative Assistant. But back in the day it was secretary. Or was that secretery? Hmm….
Posted by maeve921 at 12:56 PM | TrackBack
January 1, 2006
So much for one of my New Year's resolution
One of my New Year’s resolutions was to try to be patient when I’m driving behind someone whose driving I don’t enjoy. I’d like to note that I do not get into it with other drivers, occasionally they probably notice the faces that I make, but other than that I don’t have any interest in dueling it out with other drivers. Basically my pet peeve is when someone is meandering all over the place and either has forgotten, not noticed, or could care less that there is another car behind them. The usual scenario is that I am driving behind someone on one of the side roads in the city and perhaps the other driver is looking for parking, or is lost, or is enjoying the architecture of the local neighborhood, or likes to slow down about a half a block from the stop sign on the corner just to be safe, or is just having an existential moment. Normally I find my blood pressure rising as I am stuck behind this type of driver whom is best described by the title of the poem by Wordsworth, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. My state, however, at the same time is best described by the title of the poem by Longfellow, The Charge of the Light Brigade. Because believe me baby, I’m most likely three minutes away from being late and have lost all appreciation for the beauty of a wandering cloud, or rather wandering Honda or whatever it may be.
Recognizing that it is quite rude and overly dominant of me to get impatient with careful or nonobservant drivers, I made a resolution last night that I would no longer lose my temper and invoke the name of the son of the Christian god in these circumstances. Today on my way to church, I found myself behind a driver of a Honda who was someone who seemed to think it necessary to slow down and hit the breaks even though the light was green. As I followed this person we soon came behind a white mini-van with out of state license tags who was performing the wandering-on-the-road maneuver. Of course, I was cutting it close timewise and as we came to the intersection where the light was still green, the mini-van came to a stop in the middle of the road blocking any chance of passing in time to make the light. And out came the lord’s name in a less than flattering manner, and was used to decry the competence of the other driver. On my way to church no less. Then suddenly I remembered my New Year’s resolution and thought, well, that didn’t take very long to completely blow. So it’s a good thing I made one or two other ones that have nothing to do with driving or patience. And in the meantime I’m going to try and figure out how to get less aggravated in general.