Phantom Menace

My cell phone is definitely my adult Linus' blanket. Aside from being, you know, a necessary and quite useful tool, my scraped lil' Chocolate is like a companion. It charges under my pillow (fueling my future brain tumor), rests on my lap at work and during car rides and is always, at most, a few feet away. When I first got my cell phone (I was 16 and dating someone the parents did not like), I instantly bemoaned the technology. I thought it was just a tether. Now I can't leave home without it, have left work to retrieve it. No lie.

The concept of "phantom vibration syndrome" isn't new nor terribly scientific. I had a crazy case of it yesterday while riding to a crime scene.

I was in the passenger seat of a photographers car, feverishly mapping the location in his GPS. As I cursed the touch screen, I felt the purse at my feet vibrate. Panic began to brew and frustration festered as reached into my purse and found I was wrong. I dropped my phone back into my purse and not even 10 seconds later, I heard the chirp of a new text. Reach in, dooped again. It wasn't the photog's phone, I knew that for sure. This was my mind playing tricks on me.

On the return trip, I thought I felt my phone vibrating on my thigh. I did a little silent scream to myself and reached into my phone. No effing activity.

I think I need to take a phone hiatus. A whole day away from my little buddy that has so much influence on my life, it is messing with my head. How liberating this will be! Sweet freedom. A brief respite for me to live life again.

Yeah, it won't happen.

LOL, HAHA, HEHE, ETC

I can just hear Oprah saying "I cried my eyelashes off." I laughed my ass off.





She's probably going to have me killed for this.

I believe in this

I'm going to start watching this on Sundays instead of going to church. God put this in my life for a reason.

There are no words

New pet peeve

I take issue with the over-used phrase, "I can't wait."

Thing is, world, you have to wait. Did the Back to the Future movies teach you nothing? You can't speed up time. Please find another phrase.

On a related note, I will be doing my celebratory spins of victory and joy in my living room in ONE WEEK.

Exclamation points for everyone.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And you know what? I can wait to visit home. Because I have to.

Dancing water is magic

I still have a deep love affair with the Bellagio fountains. I know it's just water spraying into the air but, good golly, I love it.

But their song selection is getting a little outdated. They play mostly classical and Vegas-specific tunes but I feel like my wide-ranging music tastes could help them here.

What people may like to hear synchronized with magic dancing water:

1)" Salisbury Hill" by Peter Gabriel
2) "Shining Star" by Earth, Wind and Fire
3) "It's a beautiful life" by Ace of Base
4) "Your love is lifting me higher" by Jackie Wilson
5) "In the air tonight" by Phil Collins
6) "What a wonderful world" by Louis Armstrong
7) "Good day, sunshine" by The Beatles
8) "Vertigo" by U2
9) "Free fallin'" by Tom Petty

What I think would be kind of entertaining to hear synchronized with magic dancing water:

"Give up the funk" by Parliment Funkadelic
"Cars that go boom" by L'Trimm
"Puttin' on the Ritz" by Taco
The MSU Fight Song (for obvious reasons)
"Party Hard" by Andrew WK(with lyrics!!! this will spook every fanny-packin' NaNa on vacation)
"Ghost ride the Whip" by Mistah Fab (this would make Las Vegas Boulevard more of a nightmare and I would love it)

(Side note: I have seen three couples get engaged in front of the fountains. My song selections would make that special moment even better, right?! I'm thinking it would get its own page in the family scrapbook)

The mind of a SPAM writer

Isn't the trickery of SPAM mail kind of brilliant?

I mean, the authors, much like that hard-working scribe above, of the hundreds of SPAM e-mails that land in my work inbox everyday really get me thinking.

It makes me second guess everything. They have gotten really clever about sending them from senders with common names and even go so far as using Gmail accounts. Maybe I DO need to help them. Maybe I DO need a better sex life. Maybe I DO need a better SPAM filter.

Imagine the brainstorming sessions they have. A couple of guys sitting around a computer, none of them speak Engrish very well but all think they are very savvy. They are all smoking and tossing out subjects that will get people's attention.

"Sex!"
"Free money!"
"Breakthrough diabetic formulas!"
"Web sites!"
"Pensises!"
"Pleas from Nigerian presidents in money trouble!"

I received one this morning from "Natasha." Her subject line was "I fell bored" and she claimed to be a lonely woman who "live in Russia and search for love." That's convincing.

I would really love to meet these SPAM generator and immediately delete them.