best of...

[2008]
best planet: Saturn. It has rings and I like jewelry.
best way to travel: Ferry boat
best birthday: Crazy Birthday Skit 23
best new title: College Grad
best book not read for class: Home [marilynne robinson]
best assigned book: Brideshead Revisited [evelyn waugh]
best month: Mystery Month
best grad: My Grad!
best new city: Boston
best concert: Over the Rhine
best website: Typeracer.com
best house: The Little Yellow House
best summer flick: Indiana Jones
best show: 30 Rock
best americanos: Albina Press
best apologetic: The Reason for God [Timothy Keller]
best shoes: Grey pumps
best waste of time: Twitter.com
best suite: Suite 344
best workout: Hiking Scar
best tour: East Coast Adventure Tour
best singing: Worship team with Paul and Kaysha
best hat: The Yellow Slouchy hat
best bedroom: The one on the beach at Little G's
best eats: Spring Break
best singing: Belting it out with the piano
best purchase: Brown boots
best haircut: Sarah at Blue Chair Salon
best afternoon: Saturday Afternoon
best surprise: Visit from Kates
best cd: The Submarines [You, Me & the Bourgeoisie]
best wedding: Josh and Mili!
best foreign food: Tiffin in Philadelphia
best new career given up: Temping
best trail: Freedom Trail in Boston
best jeans: Skinny Levis
best roadtrip: The Coast Weekend with Cassandra
best night: Ann Arbor with Becky
best ring: My Boccioni Pearl Ring
best cards: Letter Press Cards
best museum: The Philadelphia Museum of Art
best class: The Statesmanship of Winston Churchill
best card game: Cribbage
best relaxation: Coronado Beach
best tv: The Summer Olympics
best vegetable: Root vegetables
best thursday: Thursday Next
best starbucks: Cherrie's Starbucks
best break: Spring Break
best webzine: patrolmag.com
best party: Senior Dinner Dance
best loss: The Superbowl
best skirt: Yellow jcrew pencil
best girl with an instrument: Ingrid Michaelson
best soup: Snowed in Split Pea
best children: CBS Children
best bond: Still Casino Royale
best poet: Czeslaw Milosz
best insane 23 hour trip: JohnDavid & Elyse's wedding

how to make a snow cone...

1. Apply generous amounts of snow to the whole world. About a foot should do it.

2. Select flavor of syrup. Lime, for example.
3. Upon selecting the perfect snow [located at easy mouth level, but out of the reach of contaminants], pour flavored syrup.
4. Gather members of the family and enjoy!

newlygrads...

What with all this snow [a foot!] and lack of work [snow days and christmas vacation days - i still have a job], it feels a lot like I'm still in Hillsdale. As the memories of long tormented nights and petty social frustrations fade, the Ghost of College Past is flourishing. As I read this bit from A Severe Mercy, I couldn't help but think of the best of conversations and company.

...We had decided from the first to reach out to or draw in all we could of the extraordinary richness of the great university round us. In a way all of us at [college] knew, knew as an undercurrent in our minds, that it wouldn't last for ever. Lew and Mary Ann expressed it one night by saying: "This, you know, is a time of taking in - taking in friendship, conversation, gaiety, wisdom, knowledge, beauty, holiness - and later, well, there'll be a time of giving out." Later, when we were scattered about the world. Now we must store up the strength, the riches, all that [college] had given us, to sustain us after...

I hope the giving out is going well for everyone. Sometimes I miss that place and you people more than anything. I'm told that as I get more established into "the life after," that it will fade, but I hope that the memories only get better.

[/end sappiness]

waiting ten...

In every place I have ever lived/visited [specifically: southern california, portland, the northwest in general, georgia, the south in general, virginia, michigan, and new england], I have heard people say: "Well, that's the weather in __________ for you! If you don't like it, wait ten minutes!"

Do you think that is true of everywhere? Why do we all still say it? Am I the only one who has noticed this?

parse this...

As part of my highly nebulous Administrative Assistant career, I open and sort the mail. While you are unlikely to believe that this is the most exciting part of my day [it's not. and it usually takes up a large amount of time which i would prefer to devote to more impressive tasks], occasionally I do pull something interesting out of an envelope. Today I found something so fantastically bad that it was spared the all-powerful-shredder.

With the economic downturn, many businesses are having to work a little harder than usual to get clients. As a result, small businesses are apparently turning to the "old fashioned write 'em a letter" trick. Some people even employ Graphic Artists to mail out their resume to every address that shows up in a generic google like "property management." Unfortunately, the following company did not employ a starving Graphic Artist or starving English Major, as evidenced by sentences like this: With well over twenty years of experience in flat and low pitch roof application and repair you can be assured of an educated evaluation and the most logical recommendation for repairs and mainenance that can assist in an extended roof life.

I am currently having flashbacks of editing due-in-one-hour-and-i-still-need-300-words freshman papers. [man, i was a great ra]

Of course, I can see the good intentions behind statements like: When we see a roof in older condition we are excited to see how long we can keep this roof going. He probably knows his roofs and works hard.

But parsing this stuff is not for the faint of heart/mind. I give you the penultimate masterpiece: Most commercial roof systems appear to look the same all over and it is sometimes hard for the untrained eye to pick up on even a simple problem, that is why you need me to personally walk the roof deck and view the condition and the problems that are apparent and to discover the hidden problems not so easily seen.

From the top of the page, with the unnecessarily quoted motto "Our Company is Insured" to the final sentence - If your contract says ________________ then that's whose doing your job - this ad is a mess. If I needed a commercial roof, it might be worth a pity hire.

So thanks, College, for forgiving our pitiful freshman [and let's be honest, senior] attempts with the Thesauraus and Word Count. Thanks for instilling in us the ways of proper word usage and The Elements of Style. We can't roof buildings, but we could sure write about them with flair.

useful...

My coworkers frequently ask me to settle grammar disputes.

Maybe my useless major is being appreciated by the work world after all!

[and a most happiest of superlative birthdays to my dear schmol]