(via garfieldminusgarfield)
I don’t know how to relax. Correction, I do know how to relax and how I want to spend my relaxation time, but I can’t seem to give myself permission to do so. Confused? Let me explain.
This upcoming Monday is Labor Day (in America). That means I have a three-day weekend and plenty of time to do some things I can’t normally do. Sure, I’ve got a ton of stuff do to (clean the apartment, work on some freelancing, finish some side projects…), but at the same time, I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had the time to do the things that I like to do (practice guitar, watch a movie, etc…). Now a well-balanced person would say something like, “Ok. You’ve got an extra day. Finish your work and on the extra day you can take the day off and do whatever you want.” I agree with this person and I’m attempting to follow their advice. However, whenever I sit down to enjoy my well-deserved free time, I can’t get the other jobs out of my head. So instead of just relaxing for two hours with a movie, I’m preoccupied the whole time worrying about the other things on my list that I “should” be doing. And now I’m angry and frustrated because I didn’t get anything productive done and I didn’t get to relax. Bleah.
So somehow, somewhere, the ability to give myself permission to just relax was knocked out of me. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m determined to rememdy the situation. Relaxation is such a vital part of a balanced lifestyle. In fact, I contend that you are actually more productive if you take some time out for yourself than if you beat yourself up trying to get a million-and-one things done. So if you see my ability to relax somewhere out there wondering around, let me know so I can go get it back and finally enjoy some quality, undisturbed R & R.
Lately I’ve been suffering from, what I like to call, “Brain Block.” There’s so much going on right now and so much to think about that I walk around feeling like my heads in a cloud. I can see faint outlines of the things I’m supposed to be thinking about…but I just can’t quite reach the though. So I feel like I’m not really thinking about anything. Though I know that my sub-conscious is churning away at the block and one day, hopefully soon, the dam will burst and the cloud will lift and I’ll have figured some things out. That’s way this blog has been kind of dormant for the last week or so.
However, until then, I’d like to showcase some of my daily reads. For today, may I suggest, “My Life in a Cube.” A daily graphical blog about office life in a cube. Not only is it hilarious, but it hits close to home to anyone who’s had to experience office life of any kind. Check it out!
Yep, that’s right. Another edition of vanity plate goodness. Today’s sighting, as if you hadn’t guessed from the title, “WEEZL.”
Now I’m a bit confused by this…is this a nickname? Does the person fancy themselves a weasel? Is this a last name (I sure as heck hope not)? At least with this one I can pretty much guess as to the proper pronunciation. Though with my luck, it’s probably something like “Weez L.” …excuse me, I think I just threw up a bit in my mouth.
All in all, though, this one’s not too bad. It’s not pretentious, not over the top…it’s more like the car equivalent of “Hi my name is ‘Weezl’.” And that’s something I can get behind.
So yesterday I blogged a bit about my Windows Vista experience. And then lo’ and behold, this morning what’s sitting in my inbox? An email entitled, “Exploring Windows: What do people really think of Windows Vista?” Creepy. It’s like Microsoft has this giant machine that listens for any mention of the word “Windows” or “Vista” and then immediately contacts that person with PR materials. Insidious I tell you! Or, the slightly less paranoid version, someone from Microsoft read this and decided to send me some materials. If that’s the case, “Hiya Microsoft guy or gal!” Or the most logical reason, coincidence. Yeah, I know, not quite as fun as a giant microsoft machine.
There’s been a lot of talk about Windows Vista lately. With the realtive failure, PR wise, of Microsoft’s Mojave Experiment and the general level of supposed consumer dissatisfaction, Windows Vista isn’t having a very good run.
Until recently, I’ve been running Windows XP in Bootcamp/VMWare Fusion on my MacBook. I’ve had no issues and have been enjoying the freedom that running OS X/Windows has given me. My only real issue is that by utilizing my bootcamp partition in VMWare, I can’t use the instant on/suspend feature. Instead I have to wait for XP to do a full start up/shut down anytime I want to use the OS. Since I only really fire XP up to view a movie or some other file that I can’t read on my Mac, I decided it was time for a change.
I’ve been curious about Vista for a while, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I bopped down to the store, picked up a copy and decided to install it in it’s own virtual machine sans-Bootcamp. Installation went smoothly and within an hour I was up and running. I’ve only had Vista installed for a few days, but I have to say, I’m very pleased. I haven’t had any real issues and am loving the UI enhancements that Vista brings to the table. I don’t get any of the fancy Aero functionality, as it’s unavaible while using VMWare, which is a bummer. But it still looks much more polished than XP.
So at this point, I can say that I think Vista is a victim of it’s own hype machine. I do believe that it was plagued with problems at launch. However, it’s been over a year and with the introduction of SP1 I believe that Microsoft has squashed many of the useability bugs that were present. Maybe things will change, but as of right now, I’m liking it. Wow…can’t believe I just said I like a Microsoft product. Oh what’s that? Hell froze over yesterday. Oh ok. Then I guess I can say that.
So before I get into the latest vanity plate, I’d like to point out that I am an idiot. In a comment from yesterday’s post, it was pointed out to me that it probably reads ,”I pet sit”, and is probably an advertisement for an enterprising, pet-sitting individual. Thus goes the fickle nature of the vanity plate.
On to today’s plate. I was driving to work today and was presented with this gem of a plate, “B GRRRL.” So what’s up with this one? Am I supposed to infer that the driver is a girl? Thank you captain obvious. Is the plate owner a girly-girl and wants the world to know? Is she really fond of bees? Is she a girly-girl, bee lover? The world wants to know.
Let’s get something out in the open right away, “I hate vanity plates!” I do really hate them with a passion. Nothing says “egotistical narcissist” like a vanity plate. Yeah, yeah, some people will say that vanity plates are a method for self expression. However, I’m willing to bet those same people have their own vanity plates that say something like “iluvme.” Fine, fine, I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that’s always wanted a vanity plate…just like there’s a part of you that’s always wanted one. But that’s also the part of me that I regularly punch in the face for being an collosal prat.
With all that being said, I’m going to try and blog about the various vanity plates I see in my day to day travels. And now without further ado:
Yesterday, while driving down the highway I was cut off by this gem of a plate
“IPETSIT”
I pets it. Pets what? So is this person like Elmyra on Tiny Toons who “loves ‘em and squeezes ‘em” till death do they part? Or is this pets it, like, well…you know? Either way, this vanity plate gets a big steaming plate of fail from me.
DTE (the energy company) hung up on me today. Seriously!? After I spent 10 minutes in your annoying phone menus you’re just going to hang up on me? No wonder people are crabby when they finally get to talk to a CSR. Sigh. I hate the hassle of moving.
So my friend prompted me to sign-up for the Twenty Something Bloggers network on Ning. I checked out their home page and it definitely seemed like a cool place. I proceeded to click on the “sign up” link…
Like most social networks, I was presented with what appeared to be a general profile form. It asked questions like “Tell us about you” and “What is your name.” I was kind of tired at the time so I tried to answer as much as I could and as completely as I could, but I figured I’d revisit the info and beef it up in a day or two after some much needed rest. As you can imagine, towards the bottom of the form I really just wanted to move on and begin exploring the network. As a result, I was giving less and less thought to my answers. Then, I was presented with the last question. It was something like “People who love [blank] will love your blog.” I thought to myself…”Sheesh. I’m not sure. I’ve never really given any thought to what the underlying themes to this blog are.” So like any self-respecting person would do, I put in the most random thing I could think of…again thinking I’d come back in a day or two and change it. So now “People who love delicious vittles and squirrels will love my blog.” Great. Moving on. Submit.
What I didn’t realize, was that what I not just a profile…but an acutal sign up form/application that was going to be read by real people. Whoops. Wish I’d had known that before I spoke of vittles and squirrels. Ah well…maybe it’ll give the people that read that form a laugh. Today’s lesson: Reading the details of a form before you fill it out is a good thing.