SHUT UPPP

Sooo I finally became an expert at something other than TV and "yes that hat makes your head look dumb". It's official: I know way more than any one person ever needed to know about the Civil War. It's a little bit ridiculous, actually - there are all these random nuggets of information that seem to have dislodged from the whole and they keep popping into my head at any given moment. Anyway, yes, I took my final for the mini session today, after three VERY solid days of studying. Not sure how I did because he kind of caught everyone off guard with some of the questions but pretty much right now I am The Complete Civil War Encyclopedia: Callison Edition. And oh, is it the most random information. Percentage of Civil War deaths bayonet-related? 2. Name of Ulysses S. Grant's horse? Cincinnati. Name of the guy who invented the "land torpedo" that would evolve into the modern land mine? Peter Gabriel. Yep. I'm pretty sure that in my notes I even wrote "I (heart) Lloyd Dobler".

Ugh. I wrote for three solid hours on that stuff, and I know it must be getting to me because I actually got ANGRY when I was writing about Jefferson Davis replacing Joseph E. Johnston with John Bell Hood to face WT Sherman before the battle of Atlanta. What? Exactly. Don't worry about it. But for the next 72 hours or so, if you need to know anything about the Civil War...I'm your girl.

Here's my laundry list of crap I'm complaining about today. Sorry if you think you're not my therapist and don't have to listen to me whine. Here we go!

1) It's 7:53 and I'm already on campus for my 9:00 am. What's wrong with this picture? Well the bus from Austin to San Marcos leaves Waterloo Park at 6:49, which means I have to leave the house by 6:00, and I have to wake up at 5:00. FOR A 9:00 AM CLASS. What's dumber is that starting next week when "real" summer school starts my first class starts at 10:00, but the bus schedule is the same. As in, I will leave the house at 6:00 am for a 10:00 class. What the crap am I going to do on campus for two and a half hours before class? I'm more than open to your suggestions.

2) I'm SUNBURNED. Yep, apparently Eastern European cancels out Hawaiian and Welsh/Irish holds the trump card because regardless of the several days I have now spent lounging by the pool pretending to ignore global warming I spent most of yesterday either on a boat or getting dragged behind one and now? SUNBURN. And ouch. Living my whole life in Texas, I've obviously gotten too much sun before, but I've never been uncomfortably burned for more than a few hours. My legs got the worst of it, I think, I had to wear shorts today because there's no way I'd be able to stand jeans and yeah it's painful and also colorful! Whatever.

3) I'm also apparently old. I'm sitting here in the Student Center and they've got MTV-U (a special MTV channel accessable to universities, apparently) on all the TVs and BLECH, wtf is this "music"? I don't mind hip hop or whatev but there's, like, some REAL bad rap going on right about now. It's kind of making me want to punch the TV.

4) Where I am in the Student Center there are sets of kind of loungey chairs that face each other and there's all these open ones (like, literally every one except the one I'm sitting in) and Some Guy came and plopped down directly in front of me. He doesn't even have a newspaper or book or anything, he's just there...looking around. I feel obligated to say hi but I'm not gonna. And I could move somewhere else but I like stealing the school's free wireless. So I'm gonna ride this standoff out. Very busy on my computer, can't look up and start a conversation...yes.

5) Three days of class left (that's NINE HOURS) and then the final and we've still got a big ol' chunk of the war to cover. Not sure if you knew but the Civil War? Huge! Also I have to read another, IDK, 300 pages before Friday. I know it's my choice but I have little control of exactly how much material (or lack thereof) is covered on any given class day. I'm just saying...TOPIC.

6) While yesterday Central Texas was apparently a high powered tanning bed, today is overcast and will probably rain, and I forgot my phone. Meaning I can't call Dale to come pick me up from the bus stop, meaning I'll probably end up walking 15 blocks getting soaked with my laptop in my flimsy Nike backpack. Awesome.

Ok I think that's all for now. On the bright side tomorrow night is Katie's Big Giant 25th Birthday And Trivia Extravaganza at Pluckers!! I'm too broke to buy her a present so I'll go out of my way to win the trivia trophy and then I'll just tie a bow on it. Skizzy!

Umm well Iron Man automatically gets points for not making me type out a 6000 word title.

I'm not gonna lie, I was not excited about watching Iron Man. Dale and I decided to spend, like, an entire day at the Drafthouse yesterday, though, and I figured as long as I was getting to see the much-anticipated Indiana Jones(!!!) then I could suffer through 2 hours of Ozzy Robert Downey, Jr. And actually, it was a little bit awesome. Ok, maybe a lot awesome. Freakin fine, the only things horribly wrong with it were the ending ("You caught me monologuing!") and that we got there late and had to sit in the very front row. And also, when did Jeff Bridges get old?

Anyway - to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. Dale was so damn smug

And thennnn...Indiana Jones. Here's the thing: I was in kindergarten when "The Last Crusade" came out. I grew up on Indy. Those movies have hovered near the top of my favorites list my entire life. And while I get that it's 20 years later and that Harrison Ford is old (though apparently not Jeff Bridges old) and that these movies have always been "for fun" first, I gotta say...for 20 years they put off making a new film because the story had to be BETTER than the last three, and this is what they came up with? Ok, I'm good, I got it out. I feel much better now. Shake it off.

Other than the WTF story line, Indy rocked it old school. It was the most fun movie I've seen in a while, and it was nice to watch an action movie that did indeed have plenty of action, but didn't blatantly rely on blowing lots and lots of things up to get attention and to make teenage guys think it's "rad". (I'm looking at you, Ratner!) And it was awesome to see Karen Allen again, looking gorgeous as ever!

So, the verdict? Iron Man is awesome x3, but let's face it: Indiana Jones is freakin INDIANA JONES and just flat-out rules. Even though, IDK, Iron Man may have been a executed a wee bit better. It's still freakin Indiana Jones, and that flavor of awesome has a little bit of a cracklike quality to it, after your first hit it doesn't matter how many cool special effects or how much snappy dialogue some other movie throws at you, you just want your Indy. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Smackdown winner? Indy.

I sort of have personal relationships with several television shows at any given time, and as some of you might know, the love/hate-iest is with Grey's Anatomy. I hated the Meredith (Quit stealin' my name, every show on TV!), then it got really good: I learned the awesomeness that is Miranda Bailey, Addison showed up, and "Quit looking at my Va-jay-jay!", and then the downturn. FREAKING DENNY OMG, and Christina and Burke, AND Meredith "drowned" and after George and Meredith/Izzie/Callie I put Grey's on official probation. All season people have been like "So have you seen Grey's?" and I have to explain that I can't judge 'til the end of the season because of the whole probation thing.

The verdict? Come smother me in your twisted adorableness, Grey's! I've missed you! Best season finale maybe ever, considering how ready I was to pull the plug back in September. So yes, I will be present on the couch for season 5. Grey's has officially been reinstated to "Good" standing in my TV book. Good show, show!!

Also, Out Cold was on this morning. Carpe the diem. Seize the carp!

I am officially endorsing the use of fuzzy boots as footwear. I know! I hated them too! But then I conformed gave in and bought a pair and OMG. Fuzzy boots? Officially the most comfortable shoes I own. In the summer, in the rain, officially "acceptable." With shorts, though, maybe not so much. I don't even care how ridiculous they look (with the exception of "with anything other than pants" implied, of course) they. Are. AWESOME.

That is all.

You wish you were me when you make a mistake. Last time (name withheld to protect the defendant) screwed up and got a ride in a cop car it did not turn out so well. Me, however? Dale and I run out of gas on 183 at 11:50 on a Saturday night, somehow manage to get the car off the highway (awesome) and then down onto the access road without impeding traffic at all. And then Luis (Louis?) the Awesome Cop shows up. He gives us a ride to not one but TWO gas stations and was pretty much a fantastic guy. This totally makes up for the two tickets that APD has given me in the past two years. The story ends with me and Dale making it home safely and really only about 20 min later than we would have if we had, I don't know, had enough gas to get home in the first place. Bottom line? Ride in a cop car without being handcuffed or otherwise in trouble? AWESOME.

Also, Smallville is officially on my Sucky TV List (stay tuned - I'll post it one of these days!). Really, CW? Really?

Note to marketing people: having an employee stand in front of your store holding a sign and waving at me is not going to make me buy from you. It's creepy, and it isn't attractive to me as a consumer to see that your position on the comfort and safety of your employees is "indifferent" and your take on advertising is "I'm paying this guy $5.25 an hour - let's print one sign and just have him hold it up." Not that I'm advocating junk mail. I'm just advocating junk mail over sending some kid outside (especially if there's a costume involved) to stand miserably by the side of the road in the hot Texas heat, listening to his iPod and trying to hide under his sign for shade. It's wrong, it's mean, and it's weird. And it's cheap, which maybe annoys me the most. AND it doesn't work - I've seen that one guy at the apartment locating place in San Marcos dancing his ass off for hours (a rare exception, this guy actually seems to enjoy himself, dancing to his iPod and waving hysterically) and for weeks I thought he worked for a tanning salon. But then one day as I was driving down the busy street trying not to hit people that DANCE IN PLACE TOO CLOSE TO THE ROAD, I noticed, "Oh, Weird Dancing Guy's sign says something about apartment locating, not tanning." Point is, it's been months and I still don't know what apartment locator he works for, nor do I care.

And while I'm at it, if you're thinking about running for student government next year please maintain your dignity and contain yourself from begging for votes when I walk past you in the Quad. I don't care how many breakfast tacos you prostitute yourself with, I am not voting for you because you are an effing sell-out. If an actual politician (like, a real one, not some guy who wants to replace "got fraternity banned from campus" with something along the lines of "student representative" or whatever) set up in the Quad and used breakfast food to beg for votes I hope that they would lose all credibility in your eyes.

Also, to my friends in graduate school, if you've ever thought of joining student government before the representative for the College of Applied Arts got 100% of the vote...with only one ballot cast. So, yeah, just a thought, but it might be worth it to grab a ballot and write your name down next time.

Anyway.

I was almost all over the news. And I probably could have won a Darwin Award for that crap. For those who don't know, I work a part-time customer service job (that I have unsuccessfully quit three times) in a bridal shop. So today I wandered on in and needed to go to the back to steam a dress. No problem! In the back room there's this makeshift rack of dresses that are damaged beyond repair and it's kind of the death row of bridal and special occasion dresses - it's where they go to die. Lately, apparently, nobody has done anything with any of it because there's like DOZENS of dresses hanging there, on this rickety freakin pretend rack made out of two stands with a pole wedged in between them just waiting on the unsuspecting Wile E. Coyote to walk below at just the wrong moment. My brilliant brain decided I was going to hang the dress I was steaming (...and cleaning, because nobody opened the bag until the DAY SHE WAS PICKING IT UP and the dress had makeup and dirty smudges on it) on a nearby rolling rack and plug the steamer in to the wall behind the shower curtain rod that we pretend is an actual rack of dresses.

So I hang the wedding gown I'm about to steam up on the rolling rack and go to plug the steamer in BUT the plug is hidden behind the sixty or so special occasion dresses and ten wedding gowns and whatever else hanging on the rack there. Cord in hand, I move a few of the dresses aside, trying to feel for the wall outlet and - OH MY GOD - the entire freaking rack topples over my head (thank goodness it went over and not on top of) and comes crashing to the floor. Freaking giant mess - dresses, hangers, and one of the stands just like, splattered all over the floor, the other stand landed on top of a bunch of boxes and part of another wall, and the pole that was between them got wedged in a really awkward way. Also, the hundreds of pounds of metal and dresses knocked the steamer over, spilling about a half gallon of water all over the floor underneath the dresses, so a bunch of them got sopping wet while they were laying there waiting to be picked up. Since I was in the back room, I had to page the front and ask them to send Jocelyn to the back to help me clean that crap up. It could have been really bad if I had gotten stuck under there - nobody would have found me for, like, hours. Which, some days, would have been a better way to spend my time at work.

Anyway, part of me is still really annoyed that people just piled up all that crap on something that wasn't really designed for it but then at the same time, I'm the coyote. And whoever hung all that crap is the roadrunner. Have I mentioned lately that I freaking hate my job? Because I freaking hate my job.

I wasn't going to blog about this but a) I'm really bored and kind of out of inspiration this week, seeing as how I've had to deal very little with the ridiculous because I've been off work and school, and b) the more that I think about it the weirder it gets. So here we go.

Last night was trivia (and where the hell were you?) and this gigantic table near us had these two little girls with them, definitely no older than 10. Now, if you've never been to trivia night before (loser...) then you might not know that it runs pretty late, usually until well after 10:30, and what's more it tends to get pretty loud, rowdy, and...well, kind of R-rated. Totally fine if you're a table of 20-somethings achieving various levels of intoxication and who tend to contribute quite a lot to the adult content. But if you're in elementary school...not so much. On a school night. Not a problem for these parents, however. They put their little girls at the end of their table with a babysitter DVD player and, not kidding, EARMUFFS. Earmuffs, pink fuzzy ones, with animal faces on them. All the rage among the third graders.

Anyway. Freakin...you know that the whole "earmuff" thing in Old School was a joke, right? Like, it's not actually a parenting technique. So, what the hell? I mean, sure, they could have been headphones for the DVD player but it's the same thing. I get that it they were enjoying the movie and not being neglected and they were fine but still, it's just a weird thing. I am officially passing judgement: having a DVD player babysit entertain your kids in a restaurant so that you can get drunk and play a game with 12 of your closest friends is weird. Not bad, not wrong, but weird. That is all.

...pretty sweet trivia team name, even if it's a million words long. I am super pleased to announce that said trivia team put forth a SPECTACULAR and VALIANT effort against the evil foes at the finals of Pluckers trivia on Wednesday night. Although we did not win the gigantic beer mug trophy we put up a pretty epic fight, and if not for some unfortunate faltering (Part of which was totally me. Well, me and frickin Michael Collins. Be more famous, Mikey!) the coveted trophy would be resting safely in Katie's living room.

Good thing about trivia is there's always next week. Well, until we're permanently disbanded by either law or the painful separation of grad school. Uhm, anyway.

Team Picture!


Clockwise from bottom left: Claire, Mary, Dale "Ooh La La" Callison, Me, Andrew "Shotgun Willie" Jennings, James, Amanda, Katie, and Word Problem Mark.

Clutch Performer awards for the night go to James for correctly identifying "The Last Starfighter" and Amanda for not having TV but knowing the theme song from "Pee Wee's Playhouse" based on the first, like, 10 seconds.

Open invite for cool people to join us next week, or any week. And next week I have no 8:00 class to screw me up on Thursday morning so I will be downing the Mother Pluckers of Shiner just like everybody else.

If I didn't learn a single thing this semester (which, my classes were pretty hardcore, so I definitely did, this is just a hypothetical "if") I most certainly picked something up today that I am sure to use again.

If you want a new pen or just don't like the one that you have, a surefire way to get a free one is to loudly yell out "CRAP! Are you kidding me?" and violently shake your old one like it's broken, three minutes before your final starts. BAM! Free pen for you, good karma for the donor, everybody's happy. I was just amazed at how easy it was - I mean, I didn't even ask. I just looked confused and shook my pen a whole lot and a girl turned around and handed me a new one. Magic! And the really oddball thing is that I don't even think she was in my class, I'm pretty sure she was in the prof's other class and had a conflict with her final. But I like to think of her as the test fairy. Fluttering around, landing in random classrooms and handing out supplies to students who didn't think to test theirs before they came to their final. Test fairy = awesome.

I'm going to have to remember that and try it in a bar sometime. If I stand in the middle of a room and yell out "Oh crap!" and shake a beer bottle around wildly three minutes before last call, will the beer fairy appear and beer me? Maybe. It's worth a shot, my friends. Maybe a shot and a beer.

On a barely related at all matter, I'm done with school for the semester. I now have exactly ten days until the mini sesh starts and my summer is extra over. Shenanigans!

Oh well. Happy summer!