Left Brain, Right Brain

OMG, has anyone else noticed that ALL the userinfo pages have replaced "Name" with "Pirate Name"??? Also, look at the cute little teensy eyepatch on the icon when I do this: amberica

And don't forget to look at the main page (http://www.livejournal.com/) where Frank the Goat says "Baaaaahoy!"

AND OMFG!!!! When you make a blog post, the "Save Entry" button says "Update the Captain's Log"!!! I wonder what else I might have missed?!!

PS - This stuff only applies today, September 19th, since it's Talk Like A Pirate Day. I'm sure all that stuff will be back to normal tomorrow. But still - HOW COOL ARE THE LJ PEEPS?!!!

My dad asked why I called the website "Jon and Amber" Dot Com as opposed to "Amber and Jon". I explained that it was because the rhythm was better that way. I said it was iambic. D'oh!! I realized, JUST NOW, that "Jon and Amber" is not iambic, but trochaic (the EXACT OPPOSITE), and now I am deeply, poetically, embarassed. Not only for myself, but for my DAD who was an ENGLISH teacher back in the days before I was born. SHAME on us, SHAME.

You may remember this post from two weeks ago, in which I griped about how the wastebasket in my office almost NEVER gets emptied.

Well last Friday I decided to do something about it. I called the Helpdesk for the Facilities department and filed a complaint. They opened a "work request" to have someone make sure that the night cleaners were not skipping my office. Good. So I came in this morning, and yes, my overflowing garbage had FINALLY been emptied, and NO, they did NOT LOCK MY DOOR again! ACK!!!

Remember, this is a problem because my office is a domain of highly sensitive materials that must be secure at all times, and MUST be locked up when I am not in the office with them. So what good does it do to have my door locked if the cleaners are going to UNLOCK it and just leave it wide open like that all weekend? None! I could just about shriek. I think I kind of made a grumbling sigh noise when I entered my UNLOCKED office this morning.

At least I don't have week-old Taco Bell bags stinking under my desk anymore... for now...

What is up with the translucent green visor that old-timey accountants wore, and poker dealers (who were once accountant/money-handlers) still sometimes wear?

WHY can't I find the answer to this?

I am trying to figure out what the 23 flavors in Dr. Pepper are. Prune juice is NOT one of them. I've been sipping and sniffing a can of it for a while now, thinking about this, and here is what I think so far:

1. Caramel
   
2. Grape
   
3. Clove
   
4. Vanilla
   
5. Cinnamon (?)
   
6. Cherry
   Tamarind (?) I've changed my mind about this one.
   
7. Orange
   
8. Tangerine
   
9. Coffee
   
10. Plum (OMG why didn't I think of this before?? There's no PRUNE flavor, but what's a prune besides a dried-out plum!)
    
11. Toasted Marshmallow (added by simtras)
    
12. Apple Cider (also suggested by simtras)
    After checking the history of root beer, I have decided to add the following flavors to my guess list:
    
13. Cherry tree bark
    
14. Licorice Root
    
15. Sarsaparilla Root
    
16. Sassafras Root Bark
    
17. Nutmeg
    
18. Anise
    
19. Molasses
    And I also just took a sip from a new can and realized:
    
20. Almond
    
21. Spearmint (very, very mild and mellow, though)
    
22. Birch Bark (thanks for the great suggestion, Seth!)
    
23. Allspice (thanks for this one too, Seth!)
    

Anyone have any other ideas? I'm going to keep this at the top of my journal for a while because it is so important. It's still an important thing to think about, but I'm going to let this entry slip down with it's actual date now.

Edit: I'm at 23 now, but some of those could be incorrect, so I'm going to keep the list going anyway!

The other evening I was out on the porch in the swing with Bonzo at my feet, just looking out over the meadow and relaxing, when suddenly Bonzo sat up and went, "Woof!" - which is pretty rare if you know this dog! I looked towards the woods where he was looking, and there was a deer just coming out of the trees and looking around! Bonzo gave another little woof and the deer slowly turned around and took her time going back into the woods. Jon told me that our neighbor Henry had told him that the deer were going to start coming out more and more and eating the flowers and acorns on the hill below our house.

I have seen a few cranes since we moved out here. One of them scared me half to death. I was down on the far side of the meadow looking through the grass and trees at the pond - I wanted to see if I could find the turtle I always see there - and a gigantic crane flew right up out of there where it was hidden and right over my head! They seem a lot bigger than you'd expect them to be when they are in flight - especially just a few feet away from you. I saw another one flying across the highway when I came home from work yesterday. They always seem to look like they are flying in slow motion, through molasses. It seems crazy that they can stay aloft at that speed.

I know they aren't herons because they fly with their necks way out in front of them. It looks bizarre. Makes me think about pterodacyls.

I had a crush on George Stephanopoulos for a while, early on during the Clinton administration.
I will ALWAYS have a crush on former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. I just have a "thing" for bald, geeky, Jewish guys. Seriously. Ask my mom. I'm in love with Ari Fleischer.
I also have a smallish crush on UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Or should I say: Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and MP for Sedgefield. YEAH!!! He's actually cute. In an older-guy way. But yeah. Cute-ish.

OH!! And I need to add this after talking to Simone about it - NONE of these have anything to do with Politics. I actually find these men attractive. So don't anyone come in here and try to make this into a political thingy. Seriously!

Inga called at about 7am on Wednesday morning and said she'd be in the cities by late afternoon, and would I be able to hang out? I was TOTALLY surprised (pleasantly!) and said sure! However, there was a lot going on that she had to attend to and things got a little beyond us, so we didn't end up getting together until Friday night. But that was really nice - she got to come up to the new house, see me and Jon, meet Bonzo, and just hang out and have a good old time. I let her crash in our guest room since it was pretty late by the time we finally met up, and it would be a long drive back to the friends' house in St. Paul where she had been staying on a loveseat. So I was really happy to offer up our spare bedroom. ^_^

We finished cleaning the old house today. Scrubbing, mopping, all that grand stuff. Bleh. But at least it is DONE now. The landlords there are SO hard to get a hold of, so I emailed them and said we are finishing the cleaning today, we are leaving the keys and garage door opener there, and I gave them our forwarding address and new home phone #. If I don't hear from them by the last day of this month, I'm going to call and call until I actually reach someone. No matter how eager I am to be DONE with dealing with those deadbeats, I'm not sacrificing the deposit!

Before going back to clean the old house, we dropped Bonzo off at the GROOMERS! Wheee!!! I'm so excited to see what he looks like under all that stinky moppy hair of his! I told them that they could trim him short everywhere, no feathering necessary, but that I just wanted to keep a little bit of the silky spaniel ears there. I'm going to pick him up in about an hour and I just can't WAIT to see how he looks!

Will post before-and-after pictures for SURE. This will be awesome. Too bad I can't post before-and-after SMELLS, cuz he was a stinky boy, and now he's going to smell just lovely and perfumed for at least a day or two, or until he rolls in something foul out in the meadow! LOL