Dear Obama

Dear Obama,

Please do NOT make Hilary Clinton your VP.

Thank You,
Melissa

Mizzou vs Towson

This just happened. Or something like this.

[insert image of Mizzou t-shirt] John: That's the same tiger as Towson's. Thieves!

Me: Well, Mizzou had it first.

John: Are you sure?

Me: Uh, yeah...

John: Missouri wasn't even a state until what, yesterday?

Me: Don't insult my state!

And yes, now I am sure.

Mizzou became a school in 1839. Towson in 1866. So first off, Mizzou was a school first and therefore gets to claim all greatness. Second of all. Mizzou became the tigers in 1890. Towson's tiger didn't show up until 1963.

Third of all, the tigers don't even look the same! See:





I don't know why I even care. I didn't go to Mizzou and John didn't go to Towson. But he was making fun of my state, so I had to prove him wrong. Go Missouri!

Oh Bears

For an outdoorsy girl like myself, it is important to find a mate that will remain uninhibited when it comes to the wilderness. (hey, they could be a good opening line for a book...anyway!) John will do just about anything I want in that regard. And we seem to not want to do a lot of the same things. Or, he doesn't regret the fact that we can't do some hard core rock climbing because of my knee. But, we've entered into a problem because of our upcoming trip to Colorado.

John's afraid of bears.

Now, I am also not a fan of running into a bear in the woods or having one around my camp. It's just not good. But I think I'm a pretty safe camper and I don't really hike many places with bears. Sure, we could run into them in CO, but we'll be in mostly populated areas so the risks are minimal. Though around the cabin we could have some issues.

So I'm been trying to come up with ways to reassure my dear boyfriend. He is very happy to have bear pepper spray! And I've been told to carry around dryer sheets as bears don't like the smell. But is there really anything else you can do? Aside from the cautions with foods, trash, smells, etc. I don't think so.

So pepper spray it is. And hopefully we don't run into any bears.

America, I am Disappointed

It seems like today is just the day of disappointment.

So the Democratic committee has decided that delegates from Florida and Michigan will each get half a vote at the convention. This greatly upsets me.

As I have stated before on this blog, they openly decided to break the rules. Florida and Michigan were told "if you do this, you won't get to vote at the convention" they basically said "fuck you rules" and did what they wanted. So now they get a minor slap in the face by only getting half a vote, but still, they get their vote counted.

How is this ok?! How can we have any faith in this electoral system when you can blatantly break the rules and then fight the punishment you knew was coming. And get away with it!

Now, I'm a lot less upset than I could have been. They could have given them their full votes. But it's really hard to accept half a punishment. It's like giving a murderer half a life sentence because it's fair to the people? I just don't get it.

Shame on you America.

Indiana Jones... why?!

John and I finally broke down and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. We had decided to wait until it came out on DVD because we knew it would be disappointing. But we figured, why not just get it over with.

I don't know why there aren't more bad reviews of this movie. Here's a bit of one.

All I have to say is WHY?! It was totally unnecessary to destroy something like this. And so avoidable.

Cate Blanchett as a Russian= funny good
Peru as a setting= awesome good (I want to go to Peru!!)
Harrison Ford, even if he's old now=still good with a whip

And then there were aliens and flying refrigerators, neither of which equals good of any kind. Oh yeah, and we're going to fire Dr. Jones because he's a communist? Whatever.

I have no problem believing that water from the Holy Grail has healing powers or a man can live through something as crazy as having his heart ribbed out of his chest. But this movie didn't have this same believability factor. And it wasn't just the aliens. But honestly, I can rewrite this script 10 different ways, still maintaining most of what happened, and have a good movie. Why can people who do this every day not have that same ability.

I mean, Peru offers an insane amount of legend. There could have been any number of things that could have brought Indiana there. There could even have been a crystal skull with crazy magical powers. There could have been insane jungle adventures and insane Peruvian natives. It could have been amazing!

As I've pointed out, we were all able to believe in the Holy Grail. That was God's power. So why not just have a "god" in Peru with the same kind of thing. Why did those "gods" have to be aliens? They didn't. The Temple of Doom was all insane people, and it was great. Why even take it there? Oh yeah, it's the 50s and that's the only thing we can think about when we think of the 50s-Aliens! We Americans are just that stupid.

We're not even going to go into the fact that there are countless things that are left unresolved at the end of the movie.

And we're just going to pretend that the last 30 minutes of the movie just never happened.

George Lucas, I officially have zero respect for you.

Silly Airlines, I'll just Road Trip!

So, I've been known to go on rants lately about the changes airlines are making. I completely understand the need for changes because of the rise in gas prices. But what those changes are kind of gets to me. American decides they should charge for checking bags. US Airways won't give us pretzels anymore. Seriously, what is the world coming to?!

Now, honestly, I don't want to pay more for a plane ticket. But that is just the reality of the world right now. So if I'm told it'll cost me an extra $300 to fly home from Christmas, I'm not going to be surprised. I'm just going to suck it up and pay it. But charging me for things that have always been free really just irritates me. I can't exactly say why I would be more willing to pay $100 more for a ticket rather than $30 to check to bags. I think it's just the principle of the matter. And taking away my pretzels is just annoying. Less annoying since I discovered that I can still get sodas, but still. More annoying since they are raising their prices as well.

I am flying American in a month for vacation. We will have to check bags as it's just not practical for me to back a weeks worth of clothes and various other things in a carry-on. And we're going to have fishing poles, which just can't be taken on the plane. So, as soon as the news story came out about paying to check bags, I called American Airlines to see what the deal was. I booked our tickets months ago, and my itinerary says I get to check bags for free. So I was not going to be a happy person if I had to pay. Of course, the person I talked to said yes, I was going to have to pay $15 for every bag I have to check. I insisted this was wrong but she insisted it was right. I have since been going around in circles with these people. I've been told I don't understand how rising gas prices are effecting the world, and many other thing. Um, I pay for gas every week too, I understand it sucks. Well, I was not getting anywhere with real people, so I emailed AA customer service. They say that I won't have to pay to check bags. It's only for flights booked after June 15, not flights that take place after June 15. So, not really sure which information to trust. But at this point I can't cancel and fly with another airline as the tickets would be twice as much.

So yeah, what really sucks is AA used to be my favorite airline. It seems like they are always the best to fly to STL, so I've been loyal to them in that regard. But I really don't want to fly with them anymore. And US Air was my 2nd favorite and they pissed me off too. I simply don't agree with taking away food because the garbage is too heavy. It's just silly. I would have never said anything if people just raised their prices. I just find all their reasonings to be not well thought out. And I'm certainly not going to be treated any better for continuing to fly with an airline.

At this point, I would like to see half the airlines go out of business. Maybe if we all stop flying someone will step up and start doing business right.

Note: It is 858 miles from my house here to my house in St. Louis. If my car gets only 20 mpg, that'll be 42.9 gallons. At $4.00 a gallon, it would cost $171.60 one way or $343.20 round trip. And my car usually gets better than that (when I don't sit in city traffic all the time) and gas isn't up to $4 everywhere. Now given that prices right now are anywhere from $800 to $1,000 for John and I both to fly to STL, we're looking at quite a bit of savings. I am seriously considering just driving home for Christmas this year. It's been a long time since I had a good road trip. Why not?!

Yay dinner!

So as I was driving home today, I was thinking how much I did not want to go home and fix dinner. I was insanely hungry but the thought of having to cook made me sad. Sometimes this feeling results in pizza nights, but I really didn't want pizza. So, I tried to convince myself that my planned meal wouldn't take long to cook and all would be well.

Then, I walked in the door to find John already home and a meal 10 minutes away from being ready. It was fantastic!

Fishing

So, in all the times I have been fishing, I've always let the little fish go. That is no longer the case! John and I went fishing a the pond behind his grandparents' house yesterday. We dug up worms from under the tree and I finally figured out how to get them on the hook. We saw a giant snapping turtle that did not eat our toes. Though, I think it would have if it had the chance. We had some trouble at first with the massive amount of baby fish who would just nibble on the worms but couldn't get their mouths around the hook. Which is actually good, cause who wants to catch the babies? We ended up getting quite a few blue gill. So we took them back to the house and cleaned them up. We had them for lunch today. Blue gill are yummy! So now, if I'm ever stranded on a tropical island, I know I can survive on fish. Yay!

Today's Annoyances

1) People who don't know when they should shut up and not ask questions; also, those people trying to tell me they know how to do something better than I do.

2) Being "taught" how to edit. Seriously, if anyone at that training doesn't already know everything we covered, then they need to be fired.

3) People who hit bears with their trucks and/or leave food outside for bears; in addition, people who leave food outside, on purpose, because they want to watch bears from their window, and then complain when there are bears in their yard.

4) Airlines who have decided to charge money to check bags. And who claim I don't understand that there's a gas crisis.

5) Clients who don't know how to read emails and/or forget the information they've already read.

6) Being forced to write math items. I don't do math!

7) People who say they won't refill the soap bottle (but he did, so he's forgiven)

8) People who cannot seem to get in the lane they are supposed to be in and so they wait until the very last moment, then hold up traffic in other lanes trying to squeeze into a lane that is not moving one bit.

9) People who cross lanes when they shouldn't and almost crash into people.

10) Not liking anything about Maryland because of my already bad mood and thus not being able to think of anything to do on the long weekend.

11) The fact that everyone and their dog goes camping on holiday weekends and so it is most often not an enjoyable experience, therefore eliminating it as a possible weekend activity.

12) People outside with jackhammers early in the morning while I am still asleep.

13) Car dealerships that give new car buyers the option of $250 worth of gas or a gun; and the people that choose a gun (yeah, Missouri!)

14) Presidential candidates who originally wanted to punish certain states for not following the rules, but now has changed her mind because that means more votes for her.

15) People who still smoke and complain about the rise in cigarette prices.

16) The fact that the government has not given every child in America a Wii and a WiiFit... it's a great way to fight obesity. The government should subsidize it. Seriously.

Koko

So, Koko the gorilla and I have the same birthday. (July 4th, if you didn't know) Though, she was born in '71, so she's a few years older. Pretty cool though. And Koko's real name is Hanabi-Ko, which means "fireworks child" in Japanese. I don't know why the gorilla has a Japanese name, but whatever. I like it.

I think, if I were to get a tattoo ever, I would get the Japanese symbol for "firework"." That'd be neat. But I don't really want a tattoo.

It was a boring day at work, these are the things I thought about! Forgive the insanity.