*squeel* Friday I will be announcing BIG NEWS and while I’d love to spill the beans RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND, I’m not going to. And you have no idea how much it’s killing me not to tell the internet my BIG NEWS because I suck at keeping secrets. Not, like, secrets my friends tell me, but surprises. Seriously, when I have a surprise for Ben I’m like, “I HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU! Do you want a hint?! Well, I’m going to give you one anyway, IT’S A NEW CAR!” Not that I’ve ever bought him a new car, but if I DID, that’s totally how it would go over.

Instead I’m going to tell you about our dinner at Outback the other night because every time I talk about it I have to stop half way through to keep from laughing and if I can’t tell the internet my BIG NEWS, the very least I can do is make you laugh.

So, the waiters at Outback have always done this thing where they sit in the booth while taking your order. I guess it’s supposed to make it feel like they’re a friend there to help you and make you feel comfortable and, whatever, just get my food and drinks to me. However you need to get that done, I’m cool.

Our waiter sits down and takes our order… and then moved in with us. Before we even had our DRINKS we knew that his girlfriend, Cassy, was a dance teacher and worked at two different dance studios, that he had recently applied to the Police Academy but then blew out his knee and tore his meniscus and some other important knee parts and was going to have surgery and he was really nervous and he loves kids and plans to have a huge family one day and…

Me: I’d like a Shark Bite with the 151 Rum floater. ASAP please.

Then he told us all about how he’d had a few too many Shark Bites in Cancun once and like, WHOAH, what a time he had.

I’m totally not joking. I’d had a REALLY rough day at work and GOOD LORD JUST BRING ME MY DRINK ALREADY! So our drinks come, my Shark Bite, a Long Island for Ben and milk for Cassidy. And shortly before our meal came he reached down to check on Cassidy’s milk and the next 10 seconds happened in slow motion:

He reaches for the drink, shakes it, goes to set it back down, misses the table, the milk hits the booth, he jumps to grab for it, pushes his thumb through the styrofoam cup and the milk proceeds to turn into a MILK EXPLOSION. At which point he starts to run around like he’s being attacked by a swarm of fire ants.

He apologized, PROFUSELY, and to make up for it brings Cassidy a big glass of chocolate milk. THANKS! Because what I totally wanted was to sugar her up at 8:00PM! Whatever. My Shark Bite is starting to kick in and I’m caring less and less. Did I mention where he sets the milk down? Directly in front of Cassidy’s left hand, two inches from the edge of the table.

I bet you can see where this is going can’t you?

Yep, that glass of milk lasted about 10 minutes before IT turned into a milk explosion. Only a CHOCOLATE milk explosion.

Me: Dude, we’re on some hidden camera show? I’m being punked, right? Where’s the camera?

The best part of the night though came straight from Cassidy herself. At one point I was telling Ben that the alcohol was making me feel warm and relaxed and…

Cassidy: If you get drunk, don’t poke holes in me.
Me: Um… Oooookay?

Back story, at one of the many parties we had at our house, Ben was “feelin’ good” and took the Henckel to the ice that I had in our favorite metal mixing bowl and now you can’t mix anything in the bowl. On the plus side, it can efficiently strain MASSIVE amounts of spaghetti.

The other gem came when I leaned over to smell Ben’s freshly clean sweatshirt for about the 30th time (I have a Downy obsession) and said again how OMG GOOD it smelled and…

Cassidy: Is it his BowChikaBowWow?
Me: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
*deep breath*
Me: What?!
Cassidy: You know the BowChikaWowWow I got him for Christmas?

*dies*

You had to HEAR her say it with that perfect nasal inflection. It was probably the funniest thing she’s EVER said. I start laughing, Ben starts laughing, she’s laughing at us laughing. I’m laughing now just reliving it! Hopefully you laughed too because that’s the end of the story.

It seems like this is how all our outings go. I have two of my own personal comedians to keep me constantly entertained and when that isn’t enough and I’ve had a particularly rough day, they enlist the help of outsiders to make it THAT MUCH BETTER.

Anyway, I need to get my 365 up and get myself into bed. I hope you all have a fantastic week! I’ll be busy, busy, busy and probably won’t be back to post till Friday when the BIG NEWS is announced.

EDIT - Is anybody else not seeing the comment links? I see them for the older, non intense debate posts, but not for the current two. Or they show up for the current two posts randomly. They are there on every refresh of Firefox and Safari so I’m wondering if it’s just the antiquated version of IE we are forced to use here at work.

If you can’t see them, you can click the title of the blog to get to them.

I have been ridiculously swamped at work because last week I basically got one day to do my actual work. I had to train an employee for another team because, well actually I’m still trying to find out why, Monday and Tuesday. Then Cassidy had PukeFestâ„¢ ‘08 and I had to leave after two hours on Wednesday. Thursday I was actually able to work(!!), then Friday I had a major meeting that I’ve been planning forEVer and had to attend a ‘team building’ type training after that.. all day.

So, one day. I’ve been playing catch up all week. And oh, we’ve been down one person for six months, finally got a temp in last week, and now another girl (my most favoritest ) is transferring to another department. So we’ll be down two girls. I don’t count the temp yet because she’s ssllllllooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww. You have to let that word linger for a good five seconds for full effect.

Try it again: ssllllllooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww

I’m really really really really happy for MJ because this is a step she’s been working towards for a long time. Better pay, closer to home, etc. But it’s really going to leave me in a tight spot and having to pick up a lot of the slack till the higher ups can pull together and realize that I’m DROWNING OVER HERE and hire somebody to replace her. I’m hardly covering my slack right now so the next few months are going to be really hectic.

And! Yesterday was SuperFat Tuesday. Hopefully all of you that were able to vote, did! With gaudy beads on! And if your state hasn’t had the chance yet that you do when you get the chance, only without the gaudy beads because that would just be wierd. *nods*

I was really excited yesterday because our new polling station was at Cassidy’s school. How convenient!

Only not.

Apparently when I went in to change my address when we moved, they ignored the fact that I checked the box to change my voter registration also so they didn’t have me there. Bother. I told them no biggie, I’ll just go to my prior station (all the way across San Jose in 5:00 traffic). On the way there I played phone tag and ended up picking up Ben and my little brother to tag along with me.

I’m going to make a long story short now. They didn’t have me at my old station either. @#&%#$@!! I was still able to vote though and that’s all that matters. Then I had to take my brother to HIS station which was different even though he lives closer to our old station.

Three places for three votes. That’s dedication, people! You officially have NO EXCUSE to not have voted!

Then we had dinner on my mom at Red Robin. Then I came home. Then I passed out.

The End!

Good lord the amount of money tax payers have had to dish out on Britney Spears in the last few months is a godamn joke. Court costs and armored caravans and paparazzi control. It’s just… blah. At first I thought the whole media circus was kind of LOLful but it’s gotten out of hand. Seriously, they are going back to court AGAIN to fight for “conservatorship” because she apparently hates her dad? Well she’s FUCKING BIPOLAR!! That means she probably loves her dad now and will hate him in 5 minutes. It’s her DAD and he pretty much can’t screw it up because if he so much as buys a pack of gum with her money, the media will alert us in real time. With video.

And it will be BIG NEWS! BREAKING STORY! Jamie Spears bought GUM with Brit Brit’s money! A court hearing is scheduled for 8:00AM tomorrow to BAN HIM FROM HER LIFE. FOREVER.

It’s kind of sad when there are primary elections going on all over the nation but the 5 o’clock news opens with a Britney Spears update.

Speaking of primaries! California’s is tomorrow which means I have about 24 hours to make a final decision between Obama and Clinton. They really are so close on so many topics and on MY “big ones” they’re practically twinsies. When I take those cute little online quizzes there’s a 5-10% split between them so it will basically come down to two things for me:

1) Who do I think is more likely to win against McCain who I think (and hope) will end up winning the Republican nomination.

2) Who do I think will actually keep their campaign promises.

I’m split at this point. I think that Clinton has a lot more experience with this, obviously, and will have the support of a man I already voted for once. And I know that people are saying to judge her separately from Bill’s presidency but realistically, you have to consider that he’ll play a large part in this one too. And also, HELLO! Bush’s DAD was president. Like he’s never turned to pops for advise?

And I think that Obama is a little too “green” to be President. I’m a more than a little wary of putting somebody in office that’s had so little experience, but I do think that he’s probably more likely to beat out a Republican in the general election.

I get all sick and nervous when I have to make a decision about a vote like this because I feel like, what if I choose the wrong person!? I’d feel like I was partly responsible for some kind of failure on a NATIONAL level! Oh, the pressure! And since CA is a blue state it’s even more important! *bites nails*

Okay, I’m going to stop being a melodramatic spaz case now and get back to work.

HAPPY MONDAY, EVERYBODY! I promise not to drink so much RedBull next Monday.
PS - If the comment links aren’t showing up for you a refresh seems to work. Also, you can click the title link to get to the comments. Not sure why they aren’t showing up on the initial page launch and will look into in this evening.

I really grew tired of the dark theme and the custom theme I’ve been working on is taking longer than I expected… because I am teh lazy.

So, Becca installed the Intense Debate comment plugin on her site and it’s awesomness made me giddy. It requires an account but you can sign up right here in the comments and then you get a cute little avatar, you can thumb up/down comments ala Digg, and the more you comment the higher your “reputation”. It’s full of fun bells and whistles. If you have a blog, check it out. You don’t have to do any special coding or CSS work, they do all that for you. Plus, reputation carries over to other blogs and you can keep track of the comments you’ve made on every blog that has it installed from one place.

Okay, enough of the sales pitch.

I also added google ads and I’ve had that other ad there for awhile. I’m part of a “test program” with that top ad and they are paying me pretty damn well to keep it there. I was going to sign up with blogherads too but they won’t let you advertise if you have another “above the fold” ad in place and since I have a six month contract to keep that ad there, I can’t do that. Frankly, I think it’s a little silly you can’t have both there as long as they are both above the fold. Lame.

Anyway, that’s what’s new. Enjoy! Non sales-pitchy post to follow!

Dear Wednesday,

Could we possible start all over again? Because so far, YOU SUCK!

Love always (except today),
Antigone

Lets recap:

5:15AM: SHIT! LATE! Check calendar on iPhone while rubbing sleep from my eyes… so much to do today. Bother. Grab jeans, shirt, brush teeth while brushing hair, grab apple and banana, run for the door.

5:30AM: Stop! Run back upstairs and kiss Ben over and over and over and over and over to make up for not being able to for the next four days. He’s heading to Park City Utah for a ski trip with some buddies.

5:40AM: Stop for RedBull. Sugar free, natch. It’s a weakness. And it keeps me alive till about 8:00AM.

5:45AM: WHAT. THE. FUCK is with all the traffic? This is why I leave the house at 5:30! Oh, hey! 101 North is still closed 12 hours after the gas spill so every idiot driver heading into San Francisco is doing so ON MY FREEWAY. Joy.

6:05AM: Only five minutes late. Tell The Boss right away that I CAN NOT train people today like I have for the last two days because remember that report you gave me on Friday to have done today? Yeah, remember how you pawned off this training crap on me Monday and Tuesday? Well I haven’t touched that report, or my mail, or my email and I have about 1000 voids to process and 10,000 requests sitting on my desk waiting for a signature so they can be processed.

6:06AM: The Boss starts to shiver a little and tells me he will find somebody else to pawn training off on.

7:05AM: Ben messages me to asks if I have the receipt number for his dry cleaning. I took his ski pants in to be cleaned and mended and was supposed to pick them up yesterday (he’s leaving today) and completely spaced it so he had to go this morning. And it’s like, 100 feet from our front door so not that big a deal… as long as you have the damn receipt!

7:10AM: Return 15th previously ignored voice mail, put out 7th fire.

7:20AM: Ben calls, Cassidy is sick, complaining of a belly ache, running to bathroom, no fever. Tell him to let her stay home but have secret plan to call at 8:15 and seeing how she feels. I assume she’ll be fine because she has my belly and after 30 or so minutes and a bathroom trip she usually starts to feel better. I plan on telling her to get dressed and head to school. If not I’ll call the neighbor and she can hang there for the day. Glad I’m one up on the favor tree!

7:35AM: Ben calls. The cleaners hadn’t mended his pants yet and the girl wasn’t in yet. FIGURES! The guy pays BEN $20 even though he was only going to charge me $4.00 and sends him to a nearby shop where they can do it quickly. I feel like an asshole for not getting there yesterday.

7:50AM: Cassidy calls me. WHILE she is throwing up. I tell her to put the phone down and finish… She does. I tell her to go get some water, lay down, I’ll be home as quick as I can.

8:00AM: Quickly finish up what I was working on, delegate the 1000 things I had to do today to my co-workers, head home.

8:15AM: SO GLAD I’m heading the OPPOSITE direction as the traffic now. 280 and 85 are more backed up then I’ve ever seen them. Even the carpool lane isn’t moving.

8:25AM: Call Ben, the girl at the other place was able to mend his pants but she wasn’t happy with the job she did so basically doesn’t want to make him pay. He insists she takes the full $20.00 for doing it so quickly. Ben has the best Karma Rating in the world. Tell him one last time that I love him, have fun, don’t break anything, GO FORTH AND SKI!

8:30AM: Get home. Check on Cassidy who is like, “HI! I’M FINE AND CAN I GO TO SCHOOL!? BY THE WAY, I’M STARVING!”

8:31AM: Press fingers into ears to prevent steam from releasing.

8:32AM: Walk into bathroom to clean up toilet. Oh look, she threw up IN THE SINK. And there is all is! STILL THERE. IN THE SINK.

*deep breath*

And now I’ve been watching Disney Channel and Nickelodeon for the last 4 hours cuddled up with Cassidy on the couch. She’s not 100% but whatever it was seems to be subsiding. I, however, feel a little piece of my soul dies as each 30 minute block of crap kid show ends.

How is your Wednesday going?