I absolutely hate the word “blog”

Holy crap, has HOBO International failed us this time. I literally did a triple take a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon this display at Nordstrom — trust me, the photo doesn’t do it justice, because these bags will SCAR YOUR RETINAE.

The colors are the same fluorescent neons of my 80s childhood, and are NOT WELCOME BACK IN MY LIFE. I don’t know what dried-up marketing exec came up with this ploy, but curse them!  This brand is known for being sleek, clean and above all else, BASIC and NEUTRAL.  I will cry if neon really is the new black.

To be fair, Jen bought a bright but pale blue wallet from this collection that looks lovely — so not all is lost.  But the pinks, oranges, chartreuse yellows and chartreuse greens can go back in the vault, please.  It’s not retro until it no longer hurts to look at it.

We just spotted this little vehicle when we were at brunch this weekend. I normally don’t love cars that are totally 100% decked out in marketing hype — too flashy for my taste.

However, Grant spotted this nifty little detail on the side: a built-in card holder! Kinda cool, different, and WAY more welcome than finding unsolicited fliers stuck to my windshield.

I actually grabbed a card to see how well it worked.  (Mildly damp, but still totally functional and no leaky/streaky ink problems.)  And I called the business to see if they would give me the name of the vendor who set up this little card thingy — I just might try and fanagle one for my biz, too!

ETA: They cost $10 if you hunt for a deal, and I just affixed a red one to my car this afternoon. :)

I recently got a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking, so I could type by dictation. (This decision arose partly from recurring tennis elbow that makes typing painful, and partly from my frustratingly long commutes from Redmond.) I thought I could dictate the text of the book I’m working on for my online dating consultation company while I was stuck in traffic, ya know? So I busted out the old Logitech headset-with-mic that I haven’t used since WoW raiding days of yore, and I gave it a whirl for the first time this morning.

OH MY GOD. This isn’t even close to language. It honestly reminds me of the linguistic disorder I learned about during college called Wernicke’s Aphasia, in which a certain area of the speech center of the brain is damaged in such a way that patients retain animated, fluid speech that is completely content-less and incoherent. A nickname of this syndrome is “word salad“.

Ladies and gentlemen, it seems that my voice dictation software needs a wee bit of training before it accurately captures my speech. You can’t make this shit up, people. Enjoy.

Good morning I’m currently working on Asian spies is a little bit reengineering however,.

I have no idea Latin American 1110. I know that I know he is. I know there’s a lot of know if you

everyone is getting done in.

In an online dating? Congratulations and that no one can and that if you give.

And I would leave you. If there is? Difficult mountain.

One.

Waiting for a late-night everything? No I’m not minimum. You and your women noted by you. The diagram that you doesn’t mean you’re writing your danger personality enlightened on a brand-new look at all of your photograph exhibit name marble on the lottery. There is no need to go back to year of of the mainstream not been any young you begin here know. Usually Baden-Württemberg you know, the one in which you genuinely enjoying yourself, that was your you and your winning I’m you ever do you mean, you are using your picture and the a lot of John you are right the beauty of digital cameras being a mean we you know when you zoom into the living room you.

We know he means it when you knew you were the one I didn’t know I you never really know that you do you mine. You need me to write it down when I heard 1. However, the remaining years of online meeting you in your you are you reasonable me know if you, or newly named online. You never really know if you get a airport, the little white lie already you may how do you know you are you. However he is the you, you you you you you you you you, you invited me. I leaned that you didn’t find the other person wonderful, were a worry anyway not right for you. You are the you are reading now start, to know if you are you are oh you are you. I normally, though, if you’re going to be easy,

And… scene.

I swore I wouldn’t wear heels at my wedding. I SWORE. I didn’t want to be any taller, I didn’t want to be uncomfortable, and I didn’t want to trip when I walked down the aisle or danced with my dad. But guess what?

JIMMY CHOOS AT THE RACK FOR $100. Beautiful, delicate off-white silk strappy delicious sandals with tiny brilliant rhinestone buckles. Somehow miraculously available in an elusive size 42, and marked down from $499. And in pristine condition. WHO CAN BLAME ME?

Now I’m going to be a walking/stumbling cliché of all the stupid mistakes brides make.  I’m going to trip and fall and twist my ankle; my heels will sink into the soft ground/carpet and get stuck or dirty; and when I inevitably get too uncomfortable and change into shorter comfier shoes at the reception, my dress is going to be too long.  Alas… the things I do for, um, Choo.

So there’s this stupid little head shop in Fremont and Lake City called Piece of Mind.  Now you MIGHT think that’s a cute little pun, but let’s examine things closer.  Take a look at their logo to the left.

So that’s a PEACE symbol, right? Like, world peace, peace on earth, peace and goodwill. Or PEACE of MIND. So you see, the name PIECE OF MIND would only be a good pun if the interpretation of the homonym /pIs/ that they were going for was, in fact, the PIECE meaning. I.e. a piece of pie, let me give you a piece of my mind, etc. FOR EXAMPLE.

So unless they’re trying to indicate that their shop, instead of giving one ‘piece of mind’, actually somehow robs them of a small piece of their mind, then they’re clearly not quite grasping the concept here.  And if, in fact, the whole piece thing IS in fact their desired marketing angle, then God help us all.

As another case study, let’s take a looksie at an example of a GOOD pun using the term /pIs/: Peace a Pizza, whose logo and name ACTUALLY MAKE SENSE.  Because, you see, traditionally you eat a PIECE of pizza, so changing their name to reflect the PEACE meaning instead is actually a valid pun here, that’s witty and consistent with their logo and branding.  Please take note, stoners of Seattle. Put down the pipe and pick up a thesaurus.

GOD THIS INFURIATES ME SO MUCH EVERY TIME I DRIVE BY THE PLACE.  Thank you for letting me get it off my chest, Imaginary Readers.  All better now.

1) The Date: 07-17-10. Its official!

2) The Update: Looks like the U-Village glassybaby got downgraded.

Found out a great way to permanently recognize your union the other day.

1) Put on your engagement/wedding ring after washing hair.
2) Hold the dryer in the ring-free hair, and use your ringed hand to finger-comb hair while it’s drying, taking care to expose the ring itself to the stream of very hot air.
3) Eventually, the metal will heat up so hot that it will burn the skin underneath it in a perfect circle.

Cheaper than a ring tattoo, and quicker too! Possibly not less painful, but hey — 2/3 ain’t bad.

Ow.

This note was found underneath our dining room table after our (semi-raucous) engagement party.  Anyone wanna fess up?

Personally, we think the weird Engrish stationery narrows it down quite a bit…

And anyway, thanks for the engagement wishes, Note Fairy!

Below is my version of the proposal story, and if you’re dying for another perspective, check out Grant’s version.

—
So we’d been out singing karaoke for a friend’s birthday party on Saturday night, and we were up really late and had kind of a lot to drink.  But the next morning, curse my stupid Nintendo-run internal clock, I woke up at like 9 and got up and went out to screw around online and feed the cat and whatnot.  But Grant got up right after me, and I was like “what the heck are YOU doing up this early?”  And he was all “I dunno, but let’s go get food and beat the brunch rush.”  So we both start getting ready, but pretty soon I’m totally dressed and he’s still in his boxers and whatnot, and I’m all, “whaaaa?” since he usually is the one who has to wait for me, but I figured he was just sleepy/hung over and moving slowly.  So he’s all “since you’re ready and I’m not, could you go check the mail for this Gamefly game I’m waiting for, so I can download the update while we’re out to eat?”

So of course I do, but when I get to the mailbox, there’s just an envelope addressed to me in his handwriting.  So I open it up, and it says:

1. Mailbox
(Complete)

2. Kitty

At this point I’m pretty sure I’m in the process of getting proposed to, but I decided to toy with him a bit.  So I go back upstairs and say “baby, there wasn’t anything in the mailbox, it was empty!” just to see how he’ll react.  But he’s nowhere to be found, so I poke into the bedroom and I see just a sliver of what appears to be a suit-clad Grant dashing into the bathroom to hide from me.  Whoops!  I decide to continue on my mission, so I go find Trumpet sitting on our dining room table, looking pissed off as all hell, with a ribbon tying a note around him.  So I slip it off and read the note, and it says:

3. Scion

I go back downstairs to my car parked on the street outside our place, and I get in and look on the dash and in the glove compartment and under the seats and I CANNOT find any note, and I get out and circle it a couple times and check under the blades and I keep glancing up at our balcony to see if he’s gonna show up and help me figure out where to look, but no such luck, and finally I think maybe he left a song or audio clip in my stereo or something, so I turn on the car.  And he’s changed the text greeting/display on my stereo to say:

4. Projector

So I go back upstairs to the living room, and the projector is on and it’s just projecting a big screen that says:<

5. Virginiaptop (our name for my new laptop, haha)

And my laptop is nowhere to be found in the living room, so I head over to the bedroom and it’s on the bed with a calla lilly (my favorite kind of flower) on it, and I open it up, and I see that he’s registered virginiaroberts.com and it’s pointing to THIS.

And I click yes, which you’re welcome to test out for yourself, and it links to this page, with an embedded YouTube video of every single Final Fantasy victory fanfare clip from 1 through 12 (that’s his favorite game).  And I turn and he’s there in a suit with a ring. :)

(And of course when I’m done being weepy and happy and lovey-dovey I have to go click the “no” option and see what it does… too funny!)

The ring was his grandmother’s and it’s truly gorgeous, and it fits perfectly (he had it resized).  I’m so honored to be wearing a family piece with such sentimental value — his grandmother was constantly asking when we would be getting engaged from the first time she met me, so it’s nice to know I have her blessing.  We don’t have a date set just yet but we’re thinking early next year, like around March.  We’ll see!  We’re both still super-giddy and excited, and I had NO idea it was coming (I mean, when I first got that envelope I figured it out, but it was still a fun path to follow!  But I thought he was going to take forever to get it resized!  Turns out he stayed home the prior Wednesday to pick it up, and he kept trying to do it all week but I kept taking my car to work and ruining his plan, hahaha.)

What a creative guy. He gets major points for actually pulling a surprise over on me, that’s hard to do!

Due to recent news, my name will be changing a year or so from now.  And even though I’m very excited for the reason behind the name change, as well as the hope that I will no longer have to spell out my last name over the phone, I worry that no one will know who Virginia Roberts is.

I mean, it sounds to me like the name of one of those bestseller mystery novels you used to be able to buy at the checkout stand of the grocery store. “Virginia Roberts” — sort of a more polished-sounding female version of “John Smith”.  Maybe I’ll become a secret agent!

Either way, when I eventually get around to writing that book, at least people will know how to pronounce it when they ask for it at Barnes and Noble.