LaughAtlantis

I know. That wasn't so much a real blog as it was just a random collection of links. Again, sue me.

So, I have friends who have blogs and some of their blogs have this thingy where you can put in your mood and the music you are listening to... I don't have that function in my blog - maybe I can set it up or something, who knows? - but in the meantime, I'm just going to start adding it in to random posts. Why?

Because I CAN.

So...
Mood: Antsy
Music: (in my head) I Keep On Searching For The Way to Your Heart

That song is fifteen years old and I don't know who sings it and I have no idea why it's going through my head. Kind of annoying.

I figured out how to change the look of my website. I just can't figure out how to change it to something that is actually interesting.

My last three entries all had titles that ended in exclamation points. Makes me look like a hyper-enthusiastic dork.

Not that that's new.

Oh well. Happy Halloween!

I have been abusing a friend of mine for not writing in his blog (because he abused me first), so now I feel required to write in mine daily. Well, I've been busy today. So this is probably the only chance I have to write. And (*sob*) I have nothing to say.

The moral of thi story is, NEVER TEASE.

The likelihood of my learning from that moral is pretty much nil.

I changed colors again. Not sure if I like this any better, but I'm learning code! It's exciting! It's new! I'm thrilled! I'm hopeful!! I'm....

a geek.

rOD, I'm blaming this on you.

Apparently, if you enter the following searches into google or some similar search engine, you can find me.

Wil Wheaton has moles - why? why would someone search for this?
how to do heroin - again, why??
winona ryder mug shots - I never even wrote about this!
lack of computer skills market research - my computers skills are just fine, thank you very much
my boyfriend has poor grammar - actually, no, he doesn't - and I don't think I ever said he did!
john irving my grandmother on my shoulder - I don't even know what this means
and my personal favorite - epileptic fit animations website - who looks for these things????

Can't I be linked to cool things? or at least NORMAL things? Geez...

I realize now that the problem with posting my weird search strings is that when people go to google and enter in those same bizarro searches, it has an inccreased tendency to send people to me. Thus, I will get more of the Wil Wheaton mole watchers and folks who want to see Winona's mug shot. Or today's winner, "Jennifer or Aniston the ice woman."

People are weird.

Okay, I've been checking my usage statistics and it seems like, historically, more people check my blog on Wednesdays than any other day of the week.

And yet, today, my usage statistics are in the toilet. Where have you all gone?

Also, apparently you can now find my blog at google by typing in "questions and answers to pageant questions," "pictures presidential election 2000," and "health insurance sucks." I don't even know how to post pictures - and I damn sure haven't been in any pageants - but yes, health insurance does indeed suck.

Oh, and people in the Netherlands, Japan, Canada, Switzerland, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, the UK, New Zealand, Germany, Poland, Israel, and Seychelles have visited my blog. That's just cool.

Add Hungary to the list of countries from which people have visited my site.

I'm all international and shit, yo.

I know that, in essence, I'm doing this blog for myself - so I can capture my rantings ravings, my frustrations and my glories and my thoughts. So why do I feel, on some weird level, like when I don't blog I am somehow letting down my public?

Granted, it's more amusing when I'm pissed off or have some great wrong to right or just want to share some random amusing anecdote. But sometimes there's things that I either A) don't want to record or B) don't feel comfortable recording in a public forum. I mean, realistically, if I bitch about someone in my comedy troupe or vent about my family, there's a halfway decent chance that some of that may come back to haunt me.

So while I have vents to rant on, I sometimes can't. But sometimes I have nothing to say at all. Like now. And so I make up some philosophical shit that is pretty random and doesn't really say much of anything except that I'm tired and bored and thinking too much.

Oh, I did have a good birthday. And if yesterday and today are any indication, at 30, I need to take more naps.

Random thoughts relating to old entries...

How did the novel writing go? Not as well as I'd hoped, but not terribly. I wound up with just under 19,000 words, which is very much just a beginning. I'm not terribly motivated to finish it, in all honesty. Maybe that's pathetic on my part or maybe it's just indicative of an inherent laziness in me. Eh, whatever. Maybe I'll try again next year, but this year the logistical obstacle to the project fitting into my life were insurmountable.

In my usage statistics, I continually find that the most common search strings that lead to me have to do with doing heroin or how much health insurance sucks. To update on those posts - my veins haven't gotten any bigger and they still haven't resolved the stupid health insurance issue. And now the old medical insurance folks who still cover my dental are looking for an addtional $57 for my fillings. Apparently my dentist charges more money than the stardad filling cost, so Medical Claims Services has decided that that makes it okay to screw me. Argh. Gonna go breathe for a minute now.

I am still eating tuna fish with chow mein noodles. It's good!

I sent stuff off to my internet secret santa and it was received, yay! It appears, however, that I will not be getting anything from my secret santa. Why? Well, I got an e-mail saying she didn't use credit cards and was out of the country and wanted my address to send me something. Um, yeah... no. Oh well. Tis the season of giving, not receiving, right?

Speaking of out of the country, add Ireland and Denmark to my list of countries visiting my site. My Canadian contingent is getting higher too... maybe if I mention mounties, the secession of Quebec, the establishment of Nunavut, saying eh and aboot, and my favorite band The Tragically Hip - maybe then I can boost it further... or maybe they'll think I'm mocking them and hate me forever.

I went into the bathroom at WORK yesterday and found that somebody had peed on the seat. For want of a better term, that make me really pissy.

Work is going a bit better. Rather than killing the president of the company, I just made a case for me being right and him being wrong. That seemed to work. We found a middle ground. I'm happier now... but I'm not naive enough to think that this'll last.

Today the cafeteria had Cajun Risotto for lunch. I'm not sure how they make Italian food Cajun - they used to add okra but they've gotten away from that - but it's tasty nonetheless. Risotto makes me happy.

Happy is good.

The latest search string referral for me is "epileptic christmas dorm."

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT???

Ooh, and South Korea and Belgium can be added to my international appeal. My friend Jeff needs to get his butt over to Senegal just to look at my website and thus make me happy.

Add Taiwan and Zimbabwe to my ever-growing list of countries (or at least people from countries) that have surfed my site.

Frankly, I am convinced that someone out there has figured out how to make it seem like different countries visit my site. Now if only someone from Vanuatu would visit...

It occurs to me that my categories suck.

I've got categories like Random, Fun, and Life. What do these even mean? I need to get better ones, like Stupid Stuff I Found on the Web, Search String Ponderings, Things I Am Excited About... I don't know.

Ooh, there's a task for me for the afternoon. Yippee!

This is my one hundredth post.

I feel like I ought to write something momentous or remarkable, but I got nothin'.

I've been meaning to do this for ages, but I finally got around to creating new categories for my blog entries.

Gah, I am just so proud.

In this month's (week's?) edition of "Insane ways people find my website" I give you my latest search strings. People have managed to find me on Google by entering "fucker," "ass shots," and "woohoo" - all of which make a certain amount of sense to me.

But new on my list of annoying things that lead you here are "bridesmaids from hell" (I love my bridesmaids, but I'm not actually calling them bridesmaids because the term seems somehow antiquated - neither here nor there, but they aren't from hell) and "the ozzbornes" (um, yeah, I would never spell it like that).

And in the realm of truly horrifying, you can now reach LaughAtlantis by looking up "cinderalla porn" or "brother fuck sister."

Please, people. If you're out there looking up either of those things, don't click over to my site. Believe it or not, for the most part, this site isn't a freak show...

For the most part.

My international visitors list continues to grow. Here are the countries from which folks have visited my site, in alphabetical order (well, roughly).

Australia - Belgium - Brazil - Canada - China - Czech Republic - Denmark - Estonia - Finland - France - Germany - Hong Kong - Hungary - Iceland - Indonesia - Ireland - Israel - Italy - Japan - Mexico - Netherlands - New Zealand - Poland - Saudi Arabia - Seychelles - Singapore - South Africa - South Korea - Spain - Sweden - Switzerland - Taiwan - United Kingdom - Zimbabwe

I know that it's monumentally stupid that I am so very interested in these things, but I just am. I'm sorta pathetic like that. Sigh.

So, I've been really bad about the blog lately.

I've gotten caught up in wedding stuff and I've been looking for inspiration, and I think I've found it.

(I've also finally learned how to add images to my posts. Yay me.)

In any case, AlphaBytes is sort of an offshoot of the Random Acts of Journaling project. They are looking to do an entry for each letter of the alphabet during the month of March. They got lists of words from various readers/journalers and culled the long lists down to a list of 7-10 words. I volunteered to cull the lists and got to pick the words for C, G, and L. So if they're particularly inspiring, you can thank me. If not, you sorta have to blame the folks who sent in the words in the first place. :)

So yeah, now I am just chomping at the bit to start this thing. Yeah for more blogging!

Whoever leaves the next comment will be my 100th commenter.

Act now!

It could be YOU!!

I know, I know, I'm a horrible person, right.

I haven't been here in a solid month and I've let down my public (yeah, like I have a PUBLIC, whatever) and I've let myself down and I should just be ashamed for letting a perfectly good domain name go to waste.

Whatever.

Actually, it's been an obscenely busy month, what with wedding planning and improv and more improv and some sketch stuff too... well, I've been a little bogged down.

But, the other day my friend TC asked me, "So, are you ever going to blog again?" And thus, my guilt set in. So, what's new with me?

Let's see... I've seen a BUNCH of new movies this month - X-Men 2, Mighty Wind, The Italian Job, and Finding Nemo. Reviews are forthcoming, but in a nutshell, you should see them all.

I also saw a handful of old movies thiw month. I saw Tootsie, which I hadn't seen in AGES. That's a great movie, but incredibly dated, primarily because its characters are constantly smoking - at home, in restaurants, at WORK. It's a little insane actually. Oh, and Bill Murray's in it, which I had completely forgotten. Rod enjoyed it too, but I think that was primarily because Geena Davis has several scenes where she's only wearing a bra and underwear.

I also saw The Matrix and Adaptation in the same 24-hour period, which was just like, 'Hi, we're Hollywood, and we're MESSING WITH YOUR MIND!!" It was fun, but then my head was reeling all weekend.

Work's been insane busy this month, and there was a big performance evaluation-raise debacle that would have made excellent fodder fro blogging, but now, alas, my rage has ended and I have reached a tired state of acceptance of the whole lousy situation. Angry? No. Bitter and disappointed? Why, yes. Yes indeed.

In any case, it's been a hectic time, but I'll be back, honest Injun.

Wow, remember when that phrase was allowed and not considered to be un-PC? Yeah, me neither.

Since I didn't make any resolutions for New Year (or none that I can remember in any case), I decided to make a July resolution.

I've been SO lax in my blogging lately, so I'm resolving to blog at least three times a week this month. Hopefully that will get me firmly back into the swing of things.

And hopefully there are people out there who still care.

So, Rod decided to blog about our electric bill. It's exorbitant.

Boston Common Online decided that more people should know about it.

So I just wanted to share with the rest of the world that yes, indeed, we used more electricity last month than most third-world nations do in, um, ever. I am sore ashamed and I hope not to have a repeat performance in the near future.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm just going to wander through the kitchen to do a load of laundry, pop the other one in the dryer, microwave some popcorn, then come back, sit at my computer, use a mirror to look at the TV playing Friends behind me and hope all of that doesn't drown out my stereo.

I just looked closely at my last entry. It contains within it a grievous grammatical error. If I had just made the entry hours ago I would edit it, but now it's been days; anyone could have read it and thought me grammatically inept. Typos I can stand, but this... this is unacceptable.

To every English teacher I ever had, I apologize wholeheartedly.

So, I took two months off from blogging.

You may or may not have noticed this. I don't think many people actually read my blog that don't know me - though I keep finding out that random people read my blog that I didn't REALIZE read my blog. Like family members. (Hi Jenny! Hi Ann!)

But anyway, if you don't know me, and you've bothered to come back, you may or may not realize that I just got married. Here's proof:

That's right, it's me, all veiled up and dressed up and pretty. Woohoo! I'm a BRIDE!!

More to the point, I'm now a wife. And that's a little odd. I've spent nine months now planning this wedding and all of a sudden it's like, "Hmm, what do I do with my time now?"

I guess the answer is, I just come back to blogging.

Okay, spammers, I'm sick and tired of you. I know you're not reading this, that your stupid automated systems are just sending out oodles of crap throughout blogs of the world, but that doesn't mean I can't complain about it. I've had to ban eight IP addresses in the past two weeks and I am sick and bloody tired of taking that time out of my busy day, darn it all. Spammers are poopyheads.

... I'm re-designing the blog. Cross your fingers.

How do you like my new look?

So, I keep meaning to blog about this and then I don't get around to it - which, in this case, may be a harbinger of doom as far as my ability to complete the task at hand.

The task? you ask. What is this task of which you speak, Joy?

Blogathon 2006. Blogging for 24 hours for charity.

This year's blogathon is happening from July 229-30. It starts at eight in the morning. The idea is that I need to post something every half hour for 24 hours. And it will be rough, but I am psyched for the challenge, primarily because it is for a great charity. I'm playing (er, blogging) for Reach Out and Read. It's a charity that not only gives books to young children, but also provides information to parents about the importance of reading. It stresses the importance of reading moth to and with children. And since I am a constant avid reader - largely due to my parents giving me dozens upon dozens of books as a child and truly instilling in me a love of words - this seemed like a great cause.

But I need some help. I need sponsors to help me raise money. You can donate by the hour or as a lump sum - and it doesn't matter whether it's $2 or $20, whatever. I don't have a set dollar amount goal in mind; I just want to make some money for this charity. I appreciate it immensely. You can sponsor me by clicking the handy little button on the right side of this screen. (See it? Up at the top under the words "Sponsor Me"? It's red!)

If you are so inclined, you can also check out the full list of bloggers and their causes at www.blogathon.org. Plus there's a plethora of information about just how this crazy thing works.

And hey, even if you can't sponsor me, wish me luck. I'm going to need it!

Blogathon 2006 starts in a mere 10 hours. Why the heck am I even awake right now?? I should be trying to get some sleep while I can!!

So, see you in the morning ... and later in the morning... and in the early afternoon... and... and in the late aftern - you catch my drift here.

Good night!!

Well,this is post number four. I really want some breakfast and I think that walking around the house might inspire me for post number 5. In the meantime, let me update you on my last several posts.

1.) I am still blaming TC & Jenney for being behind. Bastards.

2,) Superballs are apparently made of synthetic rubber polymer polybutadiene vulcanized with sulfur. This is a substance that is used not only in the making of Superballs, but also in the illegal baseball practice of corking bats.

3.) Suddenly Susan is not out on DVD. My heart weeps.

4.) Night Court, however, IS out on DVD. I am now having flashbacks to the judge's love of Mel Torme and Brent Spiner's recurring character of the redneck family father with his oodles of children. Not that I'm buying the darn series - I'm just giving it a big thumbs-up on the TiVo and hoping it shows up as a suggestion sometime.

5.) If I ever feel the need to watch Mork & Mindy, ALF, Green Acres, or Welcome Back, Kotter, I can do it on DVD. Um... yippee?