I'm Just Saying


Blog For Free!

Archives
Home
2005 February
2004 November
2004 October
2004 August
2004 May
2004 April
2004 March

My Links
Diznang
A Foolish Consistency
Jeananigans
Hypolimnetic Thoughts
Starry Bloggy

tBlog
My Profile
Send tMail
My tFriends
My Images


Sponsored
Blog
Oscar party all the time, party all the time, party all the time!!!
02.25.05 (11:49 am)   [edit]

I am looking forward to the Oscars on Sunday evening. Norm and I are hosting an Oscar party since the Akers’ new arrival is keeping them busy. This has given us a swift kick in the pants to clean-up the condo and find a place for things that have been gathering dust since we moved in (back in October of 2004). We are now down to the last few days. I am sick of Target, Wal-Mart, and Bed, Bath, & Beyond. I hope the Oscars are worth it. I hope Chris Rock does a bang-up job! I hope I can see the Aviator before Sunday…
 
Gobble Gobble Turkey Food
11.22.04 (12:38 pm)   [edit]

Countdown...Thanksgiving is just a few days away. I am looking forward to turkey and dressing galore! I've already had 2 Thanksgiving dinners and have a few more to look forward to. Woo-hoo! Why does dressing taste so mother-effing good? Of course, my grandmother's is the best. My mom tries to make it, but it just isn't the same. I'm not complaining though. Dressing is dressing is dressing...that's what I always say.
 
Advil Commercial
10.27.04 (12:19 pm)   [edit]
Has anyone seen the Advil commercial with Joyce Summers? It makes me want to run out and buy some!
 
Chinese Food so Good
10.20.04 (9:05 am)   [edit]

I thought of that this morning when I pulled into work and saw Chinese carry-out containers on the base of a light pole. I considered the possibilities:


1.  Someone was cleaning out their car and didn't want to walk to the trash can. They were somewhat concerned with the whole "thou shalt not litter" thing, though, and placed it on the light pole base instead. This seems odd though, since it was the only trash in the area. So, either their car was trash-free except for takeout or,


2.  Someone had Chinese food for lunch and could not wipe their Chinese-food-so-good plate clean. Hence the leftovers. Waste not, want not...we gotta take this home and have it for dindin.  They had other things to carry to the car and had to set the food down to open the car door. Not used to having leftovers, they drove off and left them.  Maybe they realized it down the road and had to decide if it was worth the U-turn and drive back. Chinese-food-so-so.


Any other suggestions?
 
Obviously Too Long Between Posts
10.11.04 (10:10 am)   [edit]
Tony has taken me off his "Friends" list. It could be because I haven't posted anything since August. It could be because I am no longer is "Friend". Or, maybe the answer is behind Door #3...
 
Cheese Moving
08.12.04 (5:10 am)   [edit]

Who Moved My Cheese? is a book we were given at work when we moved offices. I did not read this book because I already knew the answer. I moved the majority of my cheese. The IT people moved my computer, and the “office movers” set-up my new desk. Mystery solved. That was about three years ago. Since then I have had 2 moves within the office.


 


In my personal life, I have resided at Fairfax Manor for the past four years. Tony and Pam have been the most awesomest roomies anyone could ask for. Sure, there were times we got on each other’s nerves. We got over it. Pam jumped ship this year and purchased a condo. Something about equity, blah, blah, blah. Tony is now following suit and becoming a home owner. At the end of September, Fairfax will be no more. What am I to do? I have started to look for a house. They all run together. Do I want that much responsibility?  Do I want to do yardwork????


 


I suggest we send Fairfax out with a bang! Who is up for one more Fairfax party? Jeanine can fall asleep on the recliner, and the rest of us can do shots and play boardgames. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but to me that’s a little slice o’ heaven. After that, we can have house-warming parties at Pam’s, Tony’s, and possibly mines. Who’s with me???
 
Never Spit into the Wind
05.26.04 (10:24 am)   [edit]
Good advice! Another piece of good advicedo not attempt to eat when your mouth is numb. I learned that today. I went to the dentist so he could fix a filling (a filling, mind you, that he effed). My dentist turned into Speedy Gonzalez. Perhaps his mindset was Hey, Im not making any money off this one, so I best hustle. FM 100 was playing over the intercom, and he began singing Shaka Kahn, Shaka Kahn while drilling in my mouth. He couldnt get the clamp off fast enough and decided to give it a good tug. The clamp then slammed into the roof of my mouth. Not fun. Since I wasted my lunch break at the dentist, I decided to stop and get lunch on the way back to the office. Taco Bell beckoned. I answered with an order of their new Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco Combo. From the side of my mouth with feeling, its pretty tasty. The other side of my mouth, however, has a mind of its own. I bit the side of my mouth too many times to count. I think my tongue suffered a bite, as well. I am sure once the feeling comes back, it will be a bad, bad, feeling.
 
Say What?
05.20.04 (4:39 am)   [edit]
I know several of my postings have been work related, but here's another one! Below is an email we received from IT yesterday:

"Good Afternoon,

Evidently our Antigen antivirus software was stripping the Adobe pdf attachments on the SMTP gateway. This filter pattern has been removed and our issue resolved. For those of you that sent documents via digital sender over the past 2 days, I suggest you contact the recipients and verify receipt. No notices were sent that the document was not forwarded by Antigen.

Any questions? Keep them to yourself. :-) Just kidding..."

Yes, of course that was it. Everyone knows how that Antigen is a big perv! Why do people feel the need to throw terms around?
 
System of the Poo
05.05.04 (12:54 pm)   [edit]
Why have a system/process if you are not going to use it? It seems like my office is overflowing with these. Some good, some bad, some that are never utilized. One that I find helpful is the way the mail clerk is supposed to sort bank statements. We receive hundreds of these each month, and it is very time consuming to continually check the mail room for your statement (having to look through everyone elses in the process). So, they have these nifty little bins organized by the name of the bank and the day of the week the statement was received. The clerk handles the name of the bank organization just fine, but when it comes to the day of weekHouston, we have a problem! I just dont get it. No matter what day of the week the statement arrives, to the mail clerk its Monday. What does this mean to me? Each day that I have to go in search of a bank statement, I have to look through the same freakin ones over and over and over again (well, at least until Friday, then it goes to a leftover bin). No fun! I know you guys love to hear about my work woes! It reminds me of an intern we had that could not prioritize. So, we made him in-box trays labeled as follows: Urgent/Today/Tomorrow/Whe never. It didnt help. Needless to say, the Whenever meant Never and everything else just happened when it happened. Oh well, back to work.
 
Customer Service (or lack thereof)
04.28.04 (1:11 pm)   [edit]
I thought I would share my recent dining experience at Chilis (your neighborhood bar & grille). I go out to lunch with coworkers almost every day of the work week. We have a limited restaurant selection, so we usually end up at the same places about once a week (enter Chilis). At Chilis the only smoking section is the bar area, so thats where this story takes place. It goes something like this:

Sit down. Wait 5 minutes. Order our drinks. Wait 5 minutes. Receive our drinks (but the guys not ready to take our order). Wait 5 minutes. Give our order. The guy does not write it downhe commits it to memory. I can tell you what it was a week later: Mandy chicken sandwich w/o lettuce or tomato but w/ onion straws on top and the honey mustard on the side and fries Melissa Fajita Pita Emily Quesadilla Explosion salad w/o tomatoes. Wait an ungodly amountI am not sure how long, but long enough for 2 tables that ordered after us to get their food. Tell the waitress that comes over (not our guy) what we ordered (again). She writes it down and informs us that there was a mix-up in the kitchen and the only order they could find was Melissas. Wait some more. During this time we did receive chips and salsa. Big freakin whoop! Finally get our food. Mandy realizes that the only thing on her sandwich is meat and onion straws. Send the guy back for cheese, bacon, and honey mustard. While he is getting this I realize my salad has tomatoes. Not a good thing. Send my salad back. Finally begin to eat. Waiter asks us how the checks should be divided. Melissa says separate and we wait to see what these checks will say. Waiter brings the checks(charged us for everything) and lets us know that we have a free dessert coming. We inform him that we are on our lunch hour (now about 2 hours) and we do not have time for his silly dessert. We also ask to see the manager. Manager comes over and lets us know that he knows there was a problem with our order. Thanks, glad you know. Mandy gives the run down on all the goings-on. The manager says: How about I take 50% off, how would that be? To which I reply, I think it would be a lot better if they were all free. Go me! Of course, I was completely red-faced at this point. Perhaps it scared him, cause we got our lunch free. As it should be.
 
Sundays To Do (or Not To Do)
04.26.04 (3:51 pm)   [edit]
Do:
1. Sleep late.
check
2. Discuss lunch plans with Tony.
check
3. Go pick up lunch (El Porton).
check
4. Watch a Net Flix (Notorious C.H.O.).
check
5. Take a nap.
check
6. Discuss dinner plans with Tony.
check
7. Go pick up dinner in time for #8.
check
8. Watch Sopranos.
check
9. Watch Alias.
check

Not To Do:
1. Be productive in any way (unless you count watching Net Flix).
check
2. Study for the CPA.
check
3. Clean.
check
4. Go to soccer.
check

Good times, good times.
 
Elvis and Me
04.21.04 (3:42 pm)   [edit]
I just thought I would put my $0.02 worth in on the Elvis Costello postings. I thoroughly enjoyed the show! He is a very cool performer. I am glad I know me so I could go to the show. A big shout out to me! Can I get a What What?! I was a bit of a beer trendsetter at the show. I tried a beer called Chimay at Caf Samovar and they serve it at the Hi-Tone, as well. A lady next to me asked me about it, and I highly recommended the beer. Her husband goes to the bar and comes back with Chimay for his chickie. Check me out being all cool. This didnt last long, however, because the next foreign beer that walked by was her next choice. Beer Slut. If you ever get the chance to check out Costello, do it! I dont have any albums, except what I have managed to copy from Jeanine. I will probably purchase his new album since I feel I played a small role in the recording (Chimay I be so bold).
 
Wash This!
04.07.04 (1:45 pm)   [edit]
For the first time in probably 2 years, I have an empty laundry basket. I usually do selective laundry, which means I only wash what I know Ill be wearing again soon. Items such as my Bob Barker outfit, the robe I borrowed from Star to be Uncle Fester, a dress (I only wear those if absolutely necessary), etc tend to stay at the bottom of the basket. In the past few months the basket became filled with laundry that I did not require on a daily basis. I was forced to start a pile on the floor. This past weekend I could not take it anymore and did about 8 loads of laundry. I felt like the kid on Sister Act 2 singing O Happy Day. What sucks, though, is that I carried my last load upstairs (realizing of course that the clothes I had on would have to go into the empty basket) and noticed there were 2 towels on my bed that I had missed. For the Love of Pete! I miss the days of living at home when my mom washed my clothes everyday. O Happy Day!
 
Nectar to My Ears
04.05.04 (12:41 pm)   [edit]
In the immortal words of Madonna,Music makes the people come together. I want to take this blogging opportunity to list musicians to whom I heart to listen.

Lyle Lovett Theres just something about him. Normally when my friends hear this utterance it is in reference to a guy I find attractive. For the most part, it is a bad, bad thing. The guys that there is something about are usually the poor-choices-o-Emily. This is definitely the exception to the rule. I have been a fan of Lyle Lovett since 1987. I checked with James (a.k.a. Dad) and he believes he purchased the 1986 self-titled release just before the 1987 release of Pontiac. I am sure he could check his filing cabinet of credit card statements and verify this. I wish I could eloquently describe his voice. It has a scratchy sound that just hits home. It sounds real and sounds the same in concert as it does on the album. I can enjoy Lyle no matter what my mood. If you are not familiar with Lyle, I would recommend [i]Anthology 1: Cowboy Man[/i] which is a compilation of his first three releases.

Sam Cooke My favorite oldies voice. Sam could sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat and it would sound great. If I could slip into Paula Abuls American Idol comments I would say, He has such control and fantastic tone. He is beautiful!. Everyone should own [i]Sam Cookes Greatest Hits[/i].

Gordon Lightfoot I was literally raised on this voice. Even in Paulettes (a.k.a. Moms) womb I listened to Gordon. I do admit that some of the songs are jam-packed with cheese, but I love his voice. His most popular song is probably The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which was mentioned in High Fidelity as one of the top 5 songs to play at a funeral. What a claim to fame!

The list goes on, but I am growing tired of typing. Other voices I enjoy include Iris DeMent, Robert Earl Keen, Guy Clark, John Prine, Nanci Griffith, Dwight Yoakam, and Steve Earle. I realize with the exception of Sam Cooke and possibly Gordon Lightfoot all of these artists fall into the same category. I did not mean for the list to turn out that way! Since I was raised on the majority of these artists, I suppose I want my fellow bloggers to be aware of them, too. You dont have to love them as much as I do, but at least take a gander. You might be pleasantly surprised.
 
Blah Blah Work Blah
03.31.04 (1:15 pm)   [edit]
Ok, so my blog is called Im Just Saying, but so far I only have one entry. Do I not have anything to Just Say? Not so! I have not had the time. So, now I am taking time out of my day to write a blog about how I havent had the time to blog. It reminds me of a meeting I had yesterday. For the past nine months 2 coworkers and I have struggled with an unresolved issue. I know none of you have any interest in what I do, so let me be vague. Another department in our office campaigned to take on a role that was previously handled by other departments in several cities. Our client agreed, and said department received the work and was instructed to perform an audit to verify that everything in the system was set-up correctly. The audit was preformed and many errors were discovered. Some errors were fixed, but many were left unanswered. New issues have also arisen. Enter me and my 2 coworkers. We have to take it upon ourselves to go behind previously stated department and make the adjustments. We have tried to be patient, but it seems like our voiced frustrations have gone unanswered. We have informed boss and bosses boss numerous times. So, yesterday we had a meeting: 2 coworkers, boss, and bosses boss to discuss the issues. Issues, mind you, that we have stated for the past 9 months. Why, for the love of Pete, do we do this? Lets have a meeting to talk about what weve been talking about for the past 9 months. Blah!
 
No More Swingin'
03.22.04 (7:10 am)   [edit]
First of all, welcome to my blog! I had to jump on the blog bandwagon at some point, and this seemed like the perfect time. I was driving through Collierville yesterday past my k-5 stomping grounds, when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something (or should I say the lack of something). I had to drive around the school to be sure and I am sad to report that the Collierville Elementary School playground is no more. It has been completely leveled. The only playground remaining is one of those new-fangled plastic contraptions. For those of you not familiar with the playground, let me enlighten you:

It was the fairest playground in all the land! Monkey bars, a tall slide, a crazy climbing thing with poles (not sure what it was, but it was cool), and best of all...the swings. Every kid wanted to be on those swings during recess. There were only six of them, though, so you had to act fast! I remember that if there was a boy next to you and you were swinging in unison, you were "married". I also remember attempting to rap "You talk to much, and you never shut-up". Was Collierville cool, or what?

I will mainly miss the swings for their therapeutic value. Two things that help me unwind are listening to music while rocking in a rocker-recliner and swings. Now I am down to one. If I was having a bad time of it, or just wanted to escape, I would walk or ride my bike (or in my later years drive) to the swings. I would try to arrive at a time when I would have the place all to myself. With each swing I would feel better. I would regain my eternal optimism on those swings.

They will be sorely missed!