Friday Fun: Stop Signs

Stop signs from two of my favorite places...

Georgetown, Washington D.C.

Annapolis, Maryland

Bonus fun picture:

So don't even think about it.

Sweet dreams are made of this

Perhaps because I've been thinking about the Holy Ghost recently, I had a really weird dream last night. I usually don't remember my dreams at all, so I wrote it down as soon as I woke up so I wouldn't forget. I've decided to immortalize it in my blog.

I'm on Jeopardy...

“I’ll take ‘Holy Figures’ for 800, Alex”

“This member of the Holy Triumvirate is the only one who hasn’t had a testament devoted entirely to its practices.”

buzz!

“Sarah.”

“What is the Holy Ghost, Alex.”

“Correct.”

“’Holy Figures’ for 1000.”

*neer, neer, neer*

“Daily Double!”

“I’d like to make it a true Daily Double, Alex…”

“This Biblical figure presided over Jesus’ trial, has a thoroughly modern name which surprisingly hasn’t yet become popular among yuppies in their child-naming practices, and would probably make a pretty decent rapper name.”

“Hmmm…”

“I need an answer, Sarah.”

“Who is… Pontius Pilate?”

“Correct!”

And then I woke up. Weird.

Home Goods Stores & fUGG

If your job is to advise retail stores on creative names, being asked to name a home goods store likely signifies the end of your career. Coming up with a name like The Room Store (nevermind the awful tagline that goes with it), Linens 'n Things, or Bed Bath and Beyond is surely indicative of an inevitable and irreversible slide down a steep hill towards the death of your career. Your well of creativity has run dry. Time to go back to night school.

Also, I was on the UGG Australia website today because I saw a girl wearing some Uggs the other day that were knit and folded down with a button. Though I relegate any Ugg-wearing to ultra-cold days on which it is actually warranted and always keep the uggly suckers safely hidden under my pants (none of that Uggs with mini-skirts heinery.), I thought they were actually kind of cute for fall perhaps and wanted to look into them. I couldn't find them on the site. I only found knit Uggs sans-button, which weren't as cute. Then, I found this, which nearly made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. Sick. What the hell is that. Like, a hat-scarf monstrosity with pockets?! Gross. You wouldn't even look cute wearing that camping in Vermont.

LSATS: A lesson and a laugh

Sooo, I've been quasi studying for the LSATs. I'm not sure if it's because I still kind of want to go to law school or because I just don't have anything else lined up or on the radar for my life after Denmark. (I'm totally open to suggestion though... Please, send them my way!).

Anyway, as much as studying for a standardized test sucks, sometimes there are little gems of passages or questions that make me smile or laugh. Today, I got:

In his History of Oracles, de Fontanelle maintained that it was not the obvious and true facts, for which we lack a cause or explanation, that had convinced him of our ignorance, but rather the obvious falsities we take for facts, and for which we have elaborate causes and explanations. He felt the greatest indication of our foolishness was not that we lack principles and methods to arrive at what is true, but that we possess others that co-exist so peacefully with what is false.

... which I thought was interesting and thought provoking. I wasted a lot of time on this question being distracted and thinking about it. :/ Got it right, though.

This question, extracted entirely with the exception of the actual question part, just made me laugh:

Advertisement: All boys who read one year or more below grade level are invited to spend the summer at Remedial Reading Summer Camp. Let us get your son up to grade level. Have him spend his summer in the classroom, delving into the classics of children’s literature and winning spelling bees. Allow him to improve his morale by being surrounded by other underachievers. Make him into the successful, goal-oriented boy he was before he fell behind in his reading – and finally, the “A” student of your dreams.

Haha, can you imagine your parents sending you to Remedial Reading Summer Camp?! Sucksville. While the other, more academically gifted kids are spending their time camping and swinging on rope swings at sleep away camp, you're spending the glorious days of summer "enjoying" spelling bees. Not that there can't be something enjoyable about spelling, of course... but, really, when given the alternative, wouldn't you just wish you were smart enough to not have to go to RRSC? The saddest part about this ad, which I really hope is completely fabricated, btw, is the part about improving morale by being surrounded by other underachievers (yes! I'm the smartest dummy in the class!) and the part about being the "A" student of (presumably) the parent's dreams. Like, they won't love you unless you make As. Also, does falling behind in one's reading really make you completely goal-less?

Questions such as these really are the silver lining of studying for the LSATs.

Until next time...

Superlatives

The Ten Most Unreasonable Parking Fines of All Time

Hypocrites of the Week

Worst Airport in the First World

Cutest Cupcakes

Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time

Bonus: Tanning is Good For You! Suck on that, skin cancer.

Sleepless Long Nights

There’s a Bertrand Russell quote that says “Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.” I couldn’t agree more. I love tumbling ideas around in my mind, working them like rocks in a rock tumbler… polishing and modifying them, improving their clarity and my ability to share them with others over time. Hell, I have a bachelor’s degree in, essentially, thinking. The only time I really DON’T appreciate my rock tumbler brain is when I’m trying to sleep. :/

I think yesterday’s overactive brain activity started at the gym. I was forcing myself to run 10k of ladders (building up and down with and for speed) on the treadmill. I think that with running, once you’re in decent shape you can likely run for quite awhile, as long as you can keep your mind engaged. Beginning runners don’t realize how much of a mind game running is. They jog for ten minutes, “get tired,” and assume it’s just because they are out of shape. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t really out of shape people who really do tucker out after ten minutes, but I’d venture the argument that most people can probably maintain a really slow pace and run a 5k even if they are out of shape as long as they stay mentally engaged.

I have a variety of things I usually do while I’m running to stay mentally engaged on something other than the relatively monotonous physical task at hand. First, I always listen to music. I believe I read somewhere a few months ago that the best music to run to has a tempo of at least 120bpm. I have a playlist full of such upbeat songs which really help when I start to feel bored. The only thing I have to be conscious of as far as listening to music goes is accidentally lip-synching. Many-a-time I’ve found myself lip-synching obscenities on the treadmill followed by looking around guiltily to make sure no one was watching! Second, I try to consciously focus on my surroundings. If I’m running outside, I obviously check out the scenery, look in shop windows, etc. If I’m running on the treadmill, I try to position myself on one of the machines that has a good view of the door of the gym. I people watch people coming in and out. Doing this, I’ve decided that I really want a pair of red Hummel track pants to wear to the gym. Third (and clearly most dorkily), I’ve found myself doing mental academic exercises while I run. I’ll do long division or multiply large sums. I’ll create and work out logical proofs or set up a pseudo-LSAT game. Dorky, but it works and keeps my aging mind sharp. ;)

So anyway, after my 10k workout of ladders and long division, I headed home. Libby came over and we finished off last night’s Paradis ice cream and watched ‘Small Miracles’ because it is one of the only movies (ahem, VHS!) that my landpeople own that we hadn’t watched yet. If you haven’t yet seen Small Miracles, don’t bother. It’s a pretty lame movie starring John Travolta. He seems to acquire super intelligence as well as telekinesis, impressing everyone in town and striking fear into government officials. We later learn that his super-intelligence is just coming from a malignant, octopus-like tumor wrapped around his brain. Oh, and even though the movie takes place in the nineties, some people drive trucks that look like they are from the 1950s. Weird.

After that brain drain of a movie, Libby and I somehow got onto one of my favorite conversation topics: religion. I think I like talking about religion for two reasons. First, I think it is an intrinsically fascinating topic to study and discuss. Second, I don’t think I know or am passionate enough about politics to discuss them ad infinitum the way I can religion. Our conversation went as many conversations about religion between non-believers usually go, until we got onto a subtopic I had surprisingly not put a lot of thought into: The Holy Ghost. Now, the Holy Trinity concept in and of itself is pretty strange, but aside from that, what exactly is the Holy Ghost/Spirit’s duty as a member of the Holy Trifecta? “The Father” presides over heaven and stars in the Old Testament. “The Son” stars in the New Testament and seemed to pay his Trinity dues during his time here on Earth… But what about that mystical ghostly spirit? Will it be starring in The Modern Testament? The Newer Testament? The New, Improved, High-Tech, and Self-Cleaning Testament? And what’s it doing now? Just being an essence that inhabits all of us? Are we infused with Holy Spirit the way we’re infused with scents in upscale retail establishments? Can you be allergic to Holy Ghost? “Stop infusing me with Holy Ghost!” was Libby’s most quotable saying of the evening.

Then we got to talking about omnipotence and Hell. To us, Hell seems similar to Freetown Christiania, which is a squatter colony in Copenhagen. The government has been threatening to kick Christianians out for years, but have yet to follow through. I bet they could though… How come Hell isn’t like that? Yeah, I know Satan is a fallen angel, yadda yadda yadda, but God is supposed to be omnipotent, which is more than Satan can say… Couldn’t God kick Satan and all the squatters out of Hell? (Yes, I understand squatters is a tricky term to use, because I think squatting usually implies desire to be in the place and most people (supposedly) probably don’t want to be in Hell…) Is Hell the original squatter colony? Bevar Hell! Lots to think about…

By this time it was getting late, so Libby headed home and I decided to head to bed because I had an early meeting today at work. Unfortunately, after lying in bed for an hour, I realized that the ‘sleeping’ part of 'going to bed' (the other part is the lying in bed part, obvi) just wasn’t happening. To my tired dismay, my mind churned with thoughts. I thought about how people have particular habits when doing particular things. I thought about how interesting it is that you can have completely, utterly mixed and confused feelings about other individuals, ideas, and future plans. I thought about other things that I don’t really feel comfortable blogging about… Suffice to say it was a long, sleepless night.

This morning I woke up tired and bedraggled. I knew it was going to be a long day when I was in the shower and I quickly glanced at my roommate’s shower gel sitting on the shower ledge. At first glance, I thought the bottle of teal gel read “Occam’s Razor.” ‘Hmmm,’ I thought, ‘Occam’s Razor scented shower gel… that’s interesting. I wonder what CVS thinks unassuming simplicity smells like…?’ I looked at it again, intending to pick it up and smell the simplicity, only to realize that it was actually called “Ocean Breeze.” Ugh, today is going to be a loooong day...

Awesomeness.

Is what the last two days have been filled with. :) A quick recap of things that have kept my mood in the stratosphere for the past two days (apologies in advance for the likely excessive use of the smiley emoticon):

01. The weather in Denmark has been GREAT! It's warmed up and been really sunny. I wore flip flops to work today. First time in 2008, hurra!

02. I bought a plane ticket home to America! I'll be sad to leave Denmark, but excited to go back to America when the time finally comes! :)

03. I got a four-page handwritten letter from a dear friend in the States.

04. Last night when I was biking home I saw the cutest sight... an elderly couple riding next to each other on their bikes holding hands while they biked. :) So cute. I hope to do things like that when I'm old with my husband someday. Step one: Find a husband. (orrr, wait. Maybe step one should be fall in love with someone?) Step two: Do cute things together. Step three: Grow old. Step four: Combine steps two and three to make passerby think 'Aw, that's cute!' to themselves.

05. Later last night Libby, Rachel, and I went on an evening field trip to Paradis, which has some of the best ice cream ever. We got a half gallon tub with three flavors and ate nearly half. Delicious. Oh, did I mention I also bunked off going to the gym yesterday? Oops. I'm going today, I promise... :)

06. I had a embarrassingly long conversation with Lib, Rachel, and Sam about the merits of Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons last night. It's really funny to get on a completely dorky topic and realize, thirty minutes later, what you've actually been intensely talking about. By the way, we're not ashamed.

07. Great gossip at work today.

Sigh... :)