wicka wicka wicka WHAAAAAAAT

The other day, I finally got my free Obama button from Moveon.org. Not like . . ."Free Obama," like he's being held captive somewhere, but an Obama button that I got for FREE for doing . . . something, I'm not sure what.

I put it right next to the Dwight bobblehead, which started a conversation about whether or not Dwight was a Republican. At first I thought, oh, hell yes, he is, but now I'm not so sure. I think he would like the whole "get the evil-doers" angle, but I don't see Dwight supporting any traditional candidate. Even though John McCain tried to make Dwight his running mate at first. And, you know, even though he's fictional and all, I think he might have made a better possible Assistant (to the) President than someone else who shall remain nameless. I mean, McCain only picked Dwight to shamelessly pander to the youth vote, which . . . HEY, that's sort of why he picked what's-her-face! Only replace youth vote with vagina vote! OK, I'm done.

Ahem. SPEAKING of Dwight, did you guys know this little show called . . . um . . . THE OFFICE, starts tonight? BECAUSE IT DOES AND I AM EXCITED. Is it just me or is this the longest week ever? I think it's just me. Plus, I say it's the longest week ever every week, even weeks when I only have to work four days on account of something awesome like Columbus Day which IN FACT is coming up in a couple of weeks so yay and also look for me to start complaining about having to squeeze five days worth of work into four oh my god Jennie breathe.

I think the reason this week went so slowly is because I spent most of Tuesday wishing it was 5, so I could leave work and head down to Newport with Joe to see STARS. Yay, Stars! They played with Bell X1, who I had never heard of, which is crazy because A) they had a song on The O.C. and B) they have delicious, Irish accents. Anyway, the show was amazing, and Stars was really entertaining, mostly because the lady singer (I know I could look up her name on Wackopedia, but I don't feel like it, so I'll call her Lorraine) . . . anyway, Lorraine had to be on drugs of some kind, and I don't know what, but I want some. She spent most of the first song bent over her guitar and walking all slow motiony in a circle. And later, she was . . . dancing (?) and holding her hands up in front of her face like she was blocking evil mind rays. Or maybe she was just being blinded by all the flashing lights on stage because I KNOW I WAS. Whatever, being able to see doesn't stop me from running into things and falling down, so I don't think I needed my eyes anyway.

the devil went down to Georgia and then made me his bitch

I spent the majority of this weekend enjoying the electricity that I did without for half of last week and WAH WAH WAH don't you feel sorry for me? I hope not. Feel sorry for the people who still don't have power, even a week after the Windicane (trademark: Joe) that struck Ohio. It's true! My boss is one of those people. I think she's handling it really well, because if it were me? At this point I would have started at least 3.5 riots.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say I spent at least a third of my waking hours playing Guitar Hero. Friday night, Steve and Joe came over and helped Heidi and I beat the game on Easy for our band: DONKEY! So on Saturday, I started to play it on Medium, but I was all, "this is hard," that's what she said, so I finished my own band on Easy. Not the whole thing, just like half, cause I'd started my band last week. Then I tried my hand at Medium again and, after a few embarrassments (but no failures, THANK YOU VERY MUCH), I sort of got the hang of the blue button. But, ouch, my hand. Yesterday, Joe and I tried to beat the game on Medium, but Lou the Devil guy totally kicked both of our asses, so instead we went and got Chinese food, which turned out to be a much better decision because Chinese food doesn't make me want to throw fake guitars through the television.

We also watched Once last night, because I hadn't seen it in months and months. I'd been afraid to watch it again because of the crippling depression that came after my first viewing, but things were much better this time. I mean, it was still soul-crushing and everything, so much so that I threatened to write my own sequel called Twice, but I didn't go through a box of tissues like I did last time. I'm pretty sure the only reason I wanted to watch it is because we toyed with the idea of going to see The Swell Season in Columbus tonight, but as we are already going to a concert tomorrow night, I couldn't justify both. Actually, we were going to buy tickets on Saturday, but there weren't any good seats left. So I didn't even make a good decision, the seats made it for me. WHATEVER.

I did make at least one good decision this weekend, and that was to not go see My Best Friend's Girl's Wedding or whatever the hell it's called. I heard it actually wasn't that bad, even with the Dane Cook factor, because he played Jerkface McDouchebag, which is the perfect role for him. But, in the end, I decided I cannot willingly provide money to Dane Cook, unless I'm paying him for the honor of kicking him in the nutsack.

Anyway. Things are pretty damn good at the moment, especially because last night when we played Scrabble, I totally spelled "spermy." How are you, Internets?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day, dear Internets.

And now . . . pirate jokes:

Q: What does a pirate say when he has a heart attack?
A: Arrr! Me heartie!

Q: What's really a pirate's favorite letter?
A: P! Because it's an R, but it's missing a leg!

Also:

A pirate walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What happened, you look terrible!"

"What do you mean?" the pirate replies. "I'm fine."

The bartender says, "But what about that wooden leg? You didn't have that before."

"Well," says the pirate. "We were in a battle at sea and a cannon ball hit my leg but the surgeon fixed me up and I'm fine, really."

"Yeah," says the bartender. "But what about that hook? Last time I saw you, you had both hands."

"Well," says the pirate. "We were in another battle and we boarded the enemy ship. I was in a sword fight and my hand was cut off but the surgeon fixed me up with this hook. I feel great, really."

"Oh," says the bartender. "What about that eye patch? Last time you were in here you had both eyes."

"Well," says the pirate. "One day when we were at sea, some birds were flying over the ship. I looked up and one of them shat in my eye."

"So?" replied the bartender. "What happened? You couldn't have lost an eye just from some bird shit!"

"Well," says the pirate, "It was the first day with me hook."

Finale:

So a pirate walks into a bar, okay, and swaggers up to the barkeep and demands a glass of rum. I believe his exact words were "Your rum or your life, dog, what'll it be?"

And so the bartender, being a reasonable fellow, makes no complaint but simply grabs a large glass, a bottle of fine dark rum, and begins to pour. And while he's waiting for the glass to fill, he sizes up the pirate, having never seen a real honest-to-God pirate before.This pirate is in full pirate gear. Gold earrings, patch over the eye, a big filthy white blouse covering his swarthy chest, tattoos everywhere, all of it. But protruding from his pirate trousers is the unmistakable form of a steering wheel.

Well, the bartender sees that the glass of rum is just about topped off, so he passes the glass across the bar to the pirate, who nods curtly and takes a huge swig of the rum. Slapping a dubloon on the bartop, he turns to walk away, when our bartender's curiousity gets the best of him."

Wait, one second. What's up with the steering wheel?"And the pirate turns back and fixes him with a beady glare from his lone eye. "Arrr, I don't know, but it's drivin' me nuts!"

With win-win-win, we all win. Me too.

GUESS. WHAT.

Our power is back. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus. I went over to my aunt and uncle's last night, because there was a bunch of leftover food from my parents' cookout, and also THEY HAD POWER (and Rock Band). When I got home, I noticed that the parking lot was no longer a black hole of scary darkness and when I looked in other apartments . . . there was light. LIGHT LIGHT BEAUTIFUL LIGHT.

I got inside and started flipping lightswitches on and off, WHOOHOOing in the makeshift strobe lights, and then ran around the apartment turning on every electrical appliance I could get my hands on.

I'm not kidding, you guys, it's a damn good thing the power came back on because I desperately need to do laundry. Heidi and I had the following email conversation yesterday. At work, because that was the only place we could go that actually had, you know, power.

Me: I wish it would come back on so I could do laundry. I'm going to be the smelly kid soon.
Heidi: I did laundry right before that so I have clothes. You'll just have to start wearing party dresses to work! haha
Me: Ha! And I'm down one party dress because it has rum and coke all over it!

Because, oh yeah! Did I tell you guys I spilled an entire rum and coke all over myself at the wedding reception on Saturday? No. No, I did not. I didn't tell you anything about the wedding because when we got back to Dayton, the world was ending, so I completely forgot about it.

Um. Anyway. I spilled a rum and coke on myself at the wedding reception. Luckily, I was sitting down and no one noticed but Joe. I was able to casually sweep my lapful of ice and coke onto the floor with my arm while Joe ran and got me a napkin. I didn't mind being a somewhat sticky mess for the rest of the night. I mean, why would I? There was an open bar, so I could easily get another drink. Plus, there were cupcakes. CUPCAKES. So. Win win (win).

In Whoville they say that the Grinch's small heart grew three sizes that day

I still don't have power but it's OK [cue hysterical laughter] because who needs power? Not me. I don't need power at all. I'll just read by candlelight for the rest of my life UNTIL I GO BLIND IN FIVE DAYS BECAUSE DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO READ BY CANDLELIGHT? IT'S HARD THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID.

Ahem. At least people I know have power. If I couldn't get out of our dark apartment, I'd have jumped off the balcony by now, which wouldn't have even killed me. I'd have just broken my leg or something and sat there in the dark crying about my stupid, broken leg. Wah wah waaaaaaaaah.

Last night, we went over to my parents' powerless house because they had a lot of meat they wanted to get rid of on account of it would soon be rancid. My dad grilled steak, chicken, hot dogs, cheesy brauts, and hamburgers while my uncle made this potato-cheese-casserole stuff on a camping stove. At one point, I walked by my dad, who hadn't eaten yet because he'd been grilling 96 pounds of meat, and he was all, "I'm having fun!" and my uncle (who also hadn't eaten) added, "We'll all look back on this someday and laugh." But as I stood there, listening to all the conversation and giggling (mostly due to one cousin in particular, who shall remain nameless), it was nice to know we wouldn't have to wait until someday to start laughing.

UPDATE: wind still blows

Heidi and I are still without power, as is much of Dayton. I came to work this morning and the only department that had power was IT, so I worked down there today. Well. This morning. My boss asked some of us to come in and take care of anything pressing and then we could leave. But then! Wouldn't you know it! The power for the rest of the building came on. Dammit. Although, what am I going to do at home? Sit in the dark by myself and cry? Probably. Also, read. But mostly cry.

Things could be much, much worse. I know I'm being whiny. We have hot water, so at least we can shower. I can go to Joe's to steal his internet or in case there's something really important I need to watch on TV. And my parents, who do not have power either, invited us over tonight to grill steaks so they don't go bad. They also have many, many bottles of wine and, while they won't go bad because of the power outage, we should probably drink them anyway. You know. Just in cases.

This just in: wind blows

Hi, guys. Did you know the world is ending? Because it is. The good thing is, because of the whole world ending thing, I didn't have to work today.

I don't know if you know this, but Hurricane Ike hit Ohio. Or something. What happened was, there was wind. Windy wind. Windy wind full of wind. And the windy wind full of wind blew and blew and blew my house in. Not really, but almost. We drove back from Cleveland yesterday afternoon and around Columbus we noticed that Joe's car was almost being blown off of the road. Which isn't normal, you know. Once we got to Dayton, the majority of the traffic lights were all out and it turns out no one in Dayton knows what to do when the traffic lights are out.

So, we went to my apartment and Heidi told me that the panel in my bedroom that leads to an attic or crawlspace or whatever had blown out AND SHE SHUT MY DOOR IN CASE BATS FLEW IN. After I recovered from my mini-heart attack, Joe fixed the panel because he could reach it, as he is freakishly tall.

Since the power was out, we had nothing to do but talk to each other. Which we did. And then around 6:30 we realized that A) we were hungry and B) we had no way to cook food. We met Heidi's friend Alicia at El Toro and wouldn't you know it? CLOSED. I guess they can't cook food without power and so everyone went home. Booooo! We got in Heidi's car to see if we could find somewhere, anywhere, we could get some food BECAUSE WE WERE STARVING TO DEATH. True story.

After driving around for 18 hours, we finally found another Mexican restaurant that had power. It was right next to a Wendy's that was also open, and the drive thru line was wrapped twice around the restaurant. We decided we wanted some chips and salsa more than a single with cheese, so we ventured into El Rancho Grande (Spanish for . . . the Rancho Grande). We were seated right away but we were there for about two hours, eating our way through three baskets of chips and 98 chimichangas.

Then, when we got home, the power still wasn't on. And Heidi and I don't have any flashlights, really, so we were using our cell phones to light the way through the apartment. But, no worries, Heidi found her Dr. Seuss fish flashlight and that helped.

Our power is still out and so is the power at work. I even tried to go to work today. How's that for dedication? It really had nothing to do with dedication, I was just hoping they'd have power so I could make coffee and check my email. When they told us the power wouldn't be on for the rest of the day, I decided to run through McDonald's really quick (see: coffee) and I called my parents to see if they wanted anything. An hour later, I finally made it up to the window to get my food, which went something like this:

Frazzled McDonald's Employee: Here's your food, but we had to brew more coffee. I'm sorry. It'll be a couple more minutes. I'm sorry.
Me: It's OK, I understand.
FME: I'm sorry. Can you pull over there and we'll bring you your coffee when it's ready? I'm sorry.
Me: Yeah! No problem.
FME: I'm sorry.
Me: No, it's fine, you guys are slammed.

[three minutes later]

FME: I'm really sorry.
Me: Um . . .
FME: We're out of coffee packets so we can't make anymore.
Me: . . . it's OK.

And then, for realsies, you guys, I almost burst into tears. It was OK, though, because I found a UDF that was open and got a ginormous coffee for only 99 cents. Now I am at Joe's mooching off of his electricity and internet and crossing my fingers that when I do make it home, I can turn on the lights.

Here's a fun picture of what the fun wind did: