Megolomaniac

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

Posted on November 6, 2010 by mego

I know this video went viral a few months ago, but I was reminded of it when my mom sent it to me today. If you’re into cute, funny, random things, check it out.

Posted in MeTube | Leave a comment

Happy Fall!

Posted on November 5, 2010 by mego

Fall in Portland has been beautiful this year. We even had a few days this week with beautiful sunny and almost downright warm weather! This post is rather belated, but I wanted to post about the most perfect Fall day I had a few weeks ago with some friends.

First, we went to a pumpkin patch because, after all, it’s decorative gourd season, motherfuckers.

None of us were super into the whole picking-out-a-pumpkin thing, but my friend Kallyn is actually grown-up enough to decorate her apartment seasonally, so she picked up a few extra gourds:

The rest of us were really there for the apple cider donuts (AMAZING!) and the corn maze. Somehow, our group of five split once we entered the maze. Galen and I made it to the end and waited for Kallyn, Sarah and Ryan:

Sunglasses in October! Can you even believe it?

But apparently they were lost somewhere, taking photos:

Galen and I actually went back through the maze, from finish to start, and still couldn’t find them. Thank goodness for cell phones. I have no idea what people did in corn mazes in the 80′s!

Anyway, after our day at the farm, Galen and I headed back to town to catch the University of Montana v. Portland State football game. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as these games usually are, mostly because it was at a suburban high school football stadium instead of the usual field downtown (which is under construction for our MLS team in 2011). It was still a good time, though, and U of M won (in the last few seconds!), which made it even better.

In true small-town fashion, I ran into a few people I knew and lots of others I used to know.

The Grizzlies come to Portland every other year for football, and I think this was the fourth game I’ve attended here. The other three times, the Montana tailgate party (set up by Portland people) ran out of beer early. This time, there were only two lines for beer in the entire stadium, which were longer than the length of the field. Apparently, there were also only two bathrooms – one men’s, one women’s – in the place. If Portland wants to keep hosting the University of Montana, they’re going to need a cultural lesson or two about small town football games.

We had a great time, though, and an all-around fantastic fall day.

Posted in Sportsfan, Sweet Home Montana | 2 Comments

The Linguist Elite

Posted on November 4, 2010 by mego

I’ve always been a bit of a grammar and spelling nerd, but I’ve tried to keep it on a personal level without becoming a snob. I mean, writing and speaking well is important sometimes, but so much of what makes people and cultures interesting is the way they use language. Even if most Americans speak English, we don’t all use it in the same way. And there shouldn’t be any judgement involved in the way people talk.

However, sometimes I just can’t keep a lid on it. When politicians make up words or a coworker says “Me and Leah went to lunch,” I cringe.

The other thing is that certain parts of language tend to evolve “incorrectly.” For instance, I’ve always been kind of a nazi about the word “recur.” Whenever someone says “It’s a reoccurring theme…” it takes everything in me not to jump up and yell “RECURRING! It’s a recurring theme!” But recently, I’ve noticed that the word “reoccurring” is in the Microsoft Word dictionary. If you type it in a Word doc, that damn paperclip won’t say a single thing – it just sits there, blinking at you. I can only assume that the word has been used so many times in speech, it’s become acceptable. Similarly, I saw a credit card ad online a year or two ago that actually used the word “alot” and I almost fell off my chair. (On that note, everyone should go check out this rad cartoon about alots).

And in some cases, I’m totally on board with the evolutionary system. For instance, in What Color is Your Parachute, a book I’m embarrassed to say I read, the author has a section in the preface where he discusses the use of “apparently plural pronouns” such as “they,” “them” and “their” instead of the singular he/she. He gives the example of the sign at the beach that says, “Anyone using this beach after 5 p.m. does so at their own risk.” I think anyone would agree that replacing “their” with “his or her” is just awkward and clunky. He argues that in the history of the English language, there was a time when “they,” “them” and “their” could be used in both singular and plural situations, but that changed, “at a time in English history when agreement in number became more important than agreement as to sexual gender. Today however, our priorities have shifted once again. Now the distinguishing of sexual gender is considered by many to be more important than agreement in number.” I totally agree.

I also think words like “funner” and “fishes” should be allowed to pass. But then who’s to say “irregardless” shouldn’t? (Besides me?)

And I often end sentences with prepositions when it would only make me sound stuck up or ridiculous to change them. As Winston Churchill supposedly said, “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

The point of all of this is that I can be a snob sometimes, even though I try hard not to be. And this will be one of those times.

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

To Whom it May Concern;

1. Pulitzer was a man’s last name. That man pronounced it “PULL-it-sir.”
2. Nuclear refers to the nucleus of an atom. Say it with me, “NOO-klee-er” and “NOO-klee-us.”
3. The thing in your throat is called a larynx. “LAIR-inks.” It has a sibling, the pharynx (“FAIR-inks”) and a cousin named phalanx (“FAY-lanks”). Please note none of these rhyme with “Stevie Nicks.”

Also, Tupac is dead and Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

That is all.

Posted in About Me, Too Cool for School | 5 Comments

Holding out Hope

Posted on November 3, 2010 by mego

On this mildly depressing day, I’m trying to hold on to the hope I’ve had at various points over the past two years.

Two weeks ago, President Obama came to Portland to campaign for John Kitzhaber, the Democratic candidate for Governor of the state of Oregon. Kitzhaber already served as governor for two terms – 1994-2002 – but now he’s back, making him the first three-term governor of Oregon. Just about an hour ago, it was announced he won an EXTREMELY TIGHT race against Chris Dudley (Republican and former Portland TrailBlazer). So, I am happy to report, Oregon bucked the national trend, electing a Democratic governor and re-electing all congressional incumbents (we have 5 reps and only one is a Republican, plus our two senators are Dems).

Avid readers may remember when I saw the President speak in 2008 at what may have been the largest political rally in history. This couldn’t hold a candle to that incredible experience, but it was still amazing.

I had volunteered with the Kitzhaber campaign the previous week, so they offered me a special ticket to the rally that would allow me to get in earlier and sit on bleachers instead of standing. In true Democratic fashion, the person who told me (on the phone) that there was a ticket in my name and the person I from whom I requested said ticket (in person) apparently were operating under two different systems and nobody had any idea what I was talking about. Half the office said there were tickets, the other half said there weren’t tickets but volunteers could get in line earlier, and no one knew who I’d talked to on the phone. Either way, they told me, they didn’t have any tickets, so it didn’t matter. Ah, Democrats. We are nothing if not disorganized.

Of course there were tickets, but I actually think that I got the better end of the deal. My friends Julia and Megan came with me and we ended up getting seats right in the middle of the exhibit hall. Although we had to stand (and wait for a really long time), we got to look at the screen and the side of Obama, while all the Kitzhaber people were on risers behind him. We got the better view:

There was lots of talk (online, on the radio, etc.) about how people wouldn’t be allowed in with bags or food or water, so we tried to bring only what was necessary (i.e. not my nice camera)… and then it turned out you could pretty much bring anything as long as it didn’t require a weapons permit. See earlier statement about my political party. Anyway, all this is just to say I took pictures with my little digital camera, so they’re not as great as they could have been.

After waiting for over 3 hours, we got to see him:

Here he is, making a joke about Dudley:

(You can hear, after he mentions the Blazers, the woman next to me yells “He wasn’t even good!” Good thing Danny Ainge wasn’t running against Kitzhaber…)

Obama was fantastic. He said all the right things. He talked about the things he had done and the things he wished he could have done better. He said he was disappointed that more Republicans weren’t willing to even discuss issues, let alone actually compromise. He used the car-in-the-ditch analogy, which sounded so stupid when Tim Kaine said it on The Daily Show, but somehow Obama made it sound like a great analogy/battle cry. The Republicans spent years driving our car into the ditch, then they spent the last two years standing around, examining their fingernails while the Democrats slowly pushed the car out of the mud. Now that the car’s back up on the road and ready to get moving, they want the keys back. Then he said the best thing: “Have you ever noticed when you want a car to go forward, you put it in ‘D?’ And ‘R’ makes it go backwards?”

This reminded me of something Tom Brokaw said last night – he talked about how the current economic situation is what people were citing as the reason they voted Republican, when in reality, the economy took a dive during Bush’s administration. He said, “There’s a sort of ‘national amnesia’ every election year.”

As much as I loved seeing Obama speak again and as much as it gave me hope that good things can happen… I can’t help feeling defeated today as the emails from Planned Parenthood, The Human Rights Campaign and MoveOn.org come trickling in saying how dismal the situation is. I heard a Republican congressman on NPR today saying this means the Republicans have two years to prove themselves. I think the Democrats have two years to collect their statistics and work on their PR for the next campaign. It baffles me that they can’t find a way to get through to people and explain that paying a little more in taxes now will keep you from paying astronomical health care bills later, or that the economy is on a 1-2 year delay, so we’re currently reaping the benefits of a GWB presidency. How about all the examples of Democratic presidents creating surpluses so the Republican presidents can put us back in debt? You can’t say you want smaller government and less taxes and expect that small government to do anything for you (like create jobs or pay for libraries that educate Glenn Beck). So many candidates seemed to win on platforms of “I want the best of all worlds without paying for it!” Haven’t we learned that doesn’t work?

Apparently not, but I’m still sitting here in Oregon, holding out hope for the next two years.

Posted in Bleeding-Heart Liberal | 1 Comment

I Pledge Allegiance

Posted on November 2, 2010 by mego

Five methods of choosing your allegiance to professional* sports teams:

1. Grow up in the city of the team. This is a no-brainer, but doesn’t apply to those of us who grew up in states with no professional sports, so we had to…

2. Move to cities with professional teams. Not that this is a good way to choose a city to live in, although it is how my brother Peter wanted me to choose where I went to college. He told me I should go to Macalester in Minnesota because the Timberwolves were better than the Blazers. I’m continuing a long-standing tradition here and making fun of how amazingly wrong he was.

3. If the first two don’t work for you, you might have to randomly choose teams. For instance, I decided in middle school to be a 49ers fan because the fact that I was born in San Francisco made me feel special. I felt that Niners fans and I had a common bond. I’m sure some of them were born there, too! I’m pretty sure Pete randomly chose his teams as well, because he somehow ended up a fan of the Bulls, Steelers and Red Sox growing up. This option might also be called “bandwagoning.” Which leads me to the next option…

4. Absorb the preferences of the people around you. I didn’t know a whole lot about professional sports growing up (and I don’t know a whole lot more today), but I knew my brother and my dad were into them, so I rooted for the same teams they did. This is why, to this day, I still choose UNC to go WAY FURTHER in the NCAA tournament every year than any rational person should. And I’ve lost a fair amount of money on them over the years. Pete loved everything Michael Jordan ever touched, which included the Tar Heels. Plus, my grandma lived in North Carolina, so we had an in when it came to merchandise. #4 also explains why I own a Boston Red Sox hat (many extended family members are fans) and a University of Oregon sweatshirt (tons of my friends went there). It’s the reason I have an inexplicable soft-spot for the Celtics (my dad loved Larry Bird and the old Boston Garden) and a horrible distaste for anything related to the Pistons (my dad always thought they were jerks).

5. If that’s not your style, though, you can always root for the rivals of your family’s team(s). My friend Kara is a DIE-HARD Cowboys fan because she grew up with a dad and a brother who were all about the 49ers in the early nineties. Wanting to simultaneously make things interesting and piss them off, she rooted for their rivals. Unfortunately, once she was in, she couldn’t get out.

All of this leads me to the San Francisco Giants. When I started dating Galen, I told him, in all seriousness, that everything I learned about the rules of baseball I learned from playing competitive kickball. I mean, I understood the concept of swinging the bat and running around the bases… But if it weren’t for my kickball league, I never would have known what “tagging up” was or understood the relationship between fouls and strikes.

Galen grew up in the East Bay with a dad who taught all three of his children a lot about sports, particularly Giants baseball and Cal football. Galen used a mix of methods #1 and #5 to become an Oakland A’s fan with a Giants problem. I am told that Bay Area baseball is an anomaly in that it doesn’t polarize people the way you would think. In fact, a barista at Starbucks today explained to me that everyone in the Bay prefers either the Giants or the A’s, but they would totally still root for the other as a second favorite. ”It’s not like the Raiders-Niners thing,” he told me, “where you might get stabbed by the other team’s fans.”

So I’ve continued my habit of #4 bandwagoning and decided to get into the Giants and A’s, even though I own a Red Sox hat. I went to Spring Training in Arizona with Galen’s family in March and got to see a Giants game (with Tim Lincecum pitching). All season, Galen has patiently answered my elementary questions about perfect games and no hitters and closers and errors. We watched a few games on TV. Then the Giants made it to the semis and things got interesting.

One thing I haven’t explained yet is that my boyfriend is hilariously superstitions when it comes to sports. Up until about a month ago, I thought we were on the same page – you wear your team’s colors and hope you don’t say anything to jinx the team. Now I realize that it’s totally different with him. You are not supposed to discuss the possibility of winning or losing until it has already happened. Sometimes exceptions can be made, but ONLY if you’re pessimistic (i.e. you can talk about the possibility of losing but not winning). That way you can’t possibly jinx them; only get what you expected.

Before Game 5 of the Phillies-Giants series, when the Giants were leading 3 games to 1, I let it slip that the only Phillies win happened to coincide with the one day I wore my Giants shirt that Galen had bought me at Spring Training. He then politely suggested that I only wear it on non-game days.

Also, Galen and his dad went to Game 1 of the World Series in San Francisco last week, where Galen purchased a hat for himself and a (totally rad) sweatshirt for me. I later found out that the next day when he was watching Game 2 on TV, he “figured out a system” wherein wearing the hat forward during the bottom of the inning was good luck, but he had to turn it around and wear it backward for the top of the next inning so he didn’t give the good luck to Texas. This is why San Francisco won Game 2, in case anyone was wondering.

So, I’ve been wanting to post for a week about the World Series and how cool it is that I got to see the Giants at Spring Training in person and now they’re in the World Series, but I was terrified I might ruin it! What if I posted something about how I wanted Galen to be Brian Wilson for Halloween and I could be Tim Lincecum**, but then they lost the series? It would be my fault. I was even worried about wearing the sweatshirt he bought me, until he and his dad told me it would be okay if I did. It’s like someone giving you a voodoo doll to use as a pincushion without explaining to you what your needles could be doing.

So after the game last night, I texted Galen from class (where I was refreshing the score on my phone every 10 seconds while trying to focus on the lecture) to congratulate him on his 2nd favorite team winning the pennant. He responded, “Does not compute.” Apparently even when he wears his hat the right way and I wear my sweatshirt and we make the baseball gods happy and the Giants win, he’s still skeptical.

* Obviously, college sports are a totally different matter.

** This idea was shot down because he didn’t want to make anyone think he was bandwagoning. Apparently, he doesn’t wear his bandwagon proudly like I do.

Posted in Boys are Dumb, Girls are Crazy, Sportsfan | 2 Comments

To Terrorize Y’all’s Neighborhood

Posted on November 1, 2010 by mego

I was delighted when my friend Kallyn asked me if I wanted to take place in the 5th Annual Thrill the World event with her this year. The dance took place in Pioneer Square on October 23rd. We prepared by watching the step-by-step videos online and going to a practice or two… Then, of course, came the costumes:

Dressing like a zombie was highly encouraged. I actually tried to dress like MJ from the original Thriller video, but this black and red Stolichnaya bowling shirt was the closest thing I had to his sweet leather jacket. I told Kallyn she should dress like the girl in the video, but for some reason she wasn’t super excited about the jean-on-jean look. Her costume was awesome, though, complete with fake blood running down her face.

With our costumes and our dance moves, we headed down to the square to do the Thriller dance with hundreds of other fans and zombies:

Galen and our friend Sarah came to watch the spectacle and take paparazzi photos of us:

It was so much fun! Although now I have a hard time hearing the song without saying the dance moves in my head… I’m thinking about practicing every once in a while so I can bust this out as a party trick.

Thanks to Galen for the photos!

Posted in Keeping Portland Weird, MeTube, Musical Notes | 4 Comments

It Gets Better

Posted on October 28, 2010 by mego

I’m sure you’ve heard of this by now, but I just couldn’t resist posting it.

Dan Savage recently created the It Gets Better Project, an online, social media tool for reaching out to teenagers who are being bullied for being gay, to tell them that it gets better. In a recent interview with MTV, Savage said, “When a gay teenager commits suicide, it’s because he can’t picture a life for himself that’s filled with joy and family and pleasure…So I felt it was really important that, as gay adults, we show them that our lives are good and happy and healthy and that there’s a life worth sticking around for after high school.”

He and his husband Terry made this video in which they talked about how hard high school was for them, but how wonderful their lives are now:

Since this project started last month, thousands of people have uploaded their own videos to send the same message in their own words. There are even celebrities doing it – everyone from Kathy Griffin to Adam Lambert to President Obama. But one of the coolest ones is this video by the Gay Men’s Chorus of LA:

This is such an amazing project. I just keep thinking that this is why the internet was created – to allow people to connect across all social, economic and physical boundaries so that every single person knows that there’s someone else out there who cares about them. Even if they’ve never met.

Thanks to Alayna for sending me these videos.

Posted in Bleeding-Heart Liberal, MeTube | 5 Comments

Here comes November!

Posted on October 27, 2010 by mego

Have you missed me? I admit, my blogging presence has been borderline pathetic recently… Which is why I need NaBloPoMo more than ever this year!

The past few years, I’ve taken part in National Blog Posting Month in November. It’s basically just a challenge to post something every day for a month. I’ve always had fun doing it and usually haven’t had too much trouble finding the time, but this year it will be even more difficult between classes, midterms and homework. So get ready! November starts Monday and I’ve got LOTS of stories to tell.

I promise I won’t just post my homework assignments and count them as blog posts.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Immaturity gets me through the days

Posted on October 12, 2010 by mego

In my Anatomy & Physiology class the other day, the professor asked what the difference between “true” and “false” ribs was. The correct answer is that true ribs connect directly to the sternum (breast bone) and false ribs don’t. (They still connect, just not directly.) When he asked, the girl sitting next to me answered, loud enough for everyone to hear, “True ribs connect to the scrotum.”

Posted in I am not making this up., Too Cool for School | 3 Comments

The Swing of Things

Posted on October 6, 2010 by mego

Wow.

This moment, right now, is the first time I’ve calmed down and started to feel like myself in the last few weeks. I had a great vacation visiting Galen in Umatilla and then spending a week at home in Montana, but ever since I got home, it has been go, go, go, without one single second to spare. Hopefully I’ll be able to post about some of the fun adventures I had, but I’m too exhausted to do it right now.

I wouldn’t say school is hard, per se… just that it’s an adjustment. It’s hard to remember that my time outside of class isn’t free time, it’s study time. My television and blog have been neglected. I barely have time to answer my emails every day. This is a huge difference from my former life, in which I spent at least eight hours each day glued to a computer screen, keeping up-to-date on news and youtube videos, then went home to watch TV and read blogs. Happy hour, which used to be my preferred method of getting together with friends without spending much money, is no longer an option on Mondays or Wednesdays, when I have class from 5:15 – 8:30. Some days I’m away from my apartment for over 12 hours. Is it difficult? No. Just new.

There are lots of great things about my new life, too. I really enjoy most of my classes, and only one of them is currently kicking my ass (damn you, Anatomy & Physiology!). Audiology, it turns out, is a lot like Physics for Non-Majors, which is great for people like me who took Physics in college. One of my professors is so totally awesome – I want to be her when I grow up. Most of the assigned readings are interesting and thought-provoking, too. (Not the ones from the textbook. I have yet to meet an interesting or thought-provoking textbook.)

It’s also abundantly clear that the world of higher education is very, very different now than it was five years ago when I graduated. Everything is done online, whether it’s assignments, readings, communication, or presentations. All of my professors show us YouTube videos instead of regular videos, and in my Sign Language class, our tests are actually video presentations that we record ourselves, place on YouTube and allow our professor to view. Just us, signing at a camera. Handouts and notebooks are rare, since professors usually make their PowerPoint slides available online for students to print out and write on during lectures. I’m even taking one totally online class (Statistics) and one hybrid class where we meet once a week and are then expected to spend the equivalent of one more class period online learning or connecting with classmates. The last time I did this whole “college” thing, email was big and some professors had their own websites, but that was about it. Who knew so much could change in just five years?

Needless to say, there are also a few differences between a state university of 30,000 students (most of whom commute) and a liberal arts college of only 1800. I was reminded of this in my first class on the first day, when the entire class found out that the class time had been changed and the administration hadn’t actually told the professor. The professor who was the chair of his department until the end of August. Then, as he continued to lecture, he mentioned that there had been an orientation for everyone in my program last week. This was the first most of us had heard of it. Clearly, communication is an area that needs improvement.

But, I’ve somehow managed to find my way around and figure out how things work, for the most part. Now it’s just the reading and homework that I need to work on. Wish me luck!

Posted in Too Cool for School | 1 Comment