Meg Cabot is no longer in Indiana… :(

So for those of you who keep up on where Meg Cabot is like I do, you will know that she is no longer in Indiana.  According to her blog she flew home like yesterday.  Apparently she was up here in the Midwest for some reasons political.  Now why do I care that she was in Indiana?  Because she was in Bloomington, Indiana, which is where Amber’s friend Stephanie lives.  I thought Amber and I had an agreement on Saturday night that she would get Stephanie to kidnap Meg and hold her there until I got there and could hang out with Meg.  But alas, the agreement on Saturday night turned out to be null because there was alcohol involved (and ribs and Hannah Montana jammies).  So Stephanie, if you’re reading this, you no longer have to be on Meg Cabot Watch…but I’ll make sure to update you next time she makes her way back there.  Speaking of Meg Cabot, she just released her new book, Airhead, the other day and I have been dying to go buy a copy and read it!  But I’m trying to exercise some self discipline and instead do homework, study, write lab reports, etc.  So far I’ve been pretty successful.  I have a lab report due tomorrow and I’ve already written everything except for the conclusion, so I’m sitting pretty right now.  Hahahaha.  Well, I’ve got to go see a computer about a presentation, so I’ll catch you guys later on the fly.  Coolio.

<3, lindsayd.

Nerdgirls listen up! Baby Got Book

“Oh, my, god. Becky, look at her book. It is so big. *scoff* She looks like, one of those, librarians’ girlfriends. But, you know, who understands those librarians? *scoff* They only talk to her, because, she looks like a total bibliovore, ‘kay? I mean, her book, is just so big. *scoff* I can’t believe it’s just so thick. It’s like, out there. I mean – gross. Look! She’s just so … smart!” —Brooklyn Arden

AHHHHHHH! so awesome–Click here to check out a tweaked version of the classy classic “Baby Got Back.” Some of you nerdpeople may recognize the authoress, Cheryl Klein, as she is one of the Harry Potter editors, a favorite guest on Pottercast, and an experienced blogger. Oh, and not to brag (but really to totally brag) I am not only her friend on facebook (yes, I am friends with lots and lots of people on facebook that I don’t really know ::looking defensive:: What?! I’m a nerdgirl!) , but Jen and I will also be seeing Ms. Klein in person at Terminus where she will be giving a keynote presentation.

ok, short post for now–I think I’m going to go do my bellydancing exercise tape so I can be one of these women in a few short years. If you are lucky, I will put up photos of Lindsay’s Dolly Parton Tea Party Bachelorette Extravaganza later tonight. Best pictures ever. Ooooh, that was cruel of me to lay that out there when I probably won’t deliver on it. No, I will I will. maybe. Haha, love and cheerios!

amberj.

Did you ever wonder?

If there were more people or pigs in the state of Iowa?  Well… don’t wonder anymore!  There are about 16.9 million pigs located in Iowa, while there are only about 3 million people living here.

Anybody remember Animal Farm?

<3, lindsayd.

6 MORE random things!

From Amber’s post below:

“Ahhhh, we were tagged by Rooney! This is like a game, wheeeeeee! I’m first, but Jen’s and Lindsay’s coming soon.”

My turn!

Six Random Things about Lindsay

1. I constantly wish that I had the ability to make people think they were dreaming – that way I could do really strange things, but no one would think I was too weird because they would think that THEY made it up in their sub conscience.
2. My ears and face get tingly and red when I do math because I get super focused and excitable.
3. I like to picture myself doing this: with my calculator like Paul and TJ.
4. I frequently imagine what my life would be like if it were a) a musical and/or b) a Disney channel show.
5. I like to pretend that I can do magic and say Accio a lot at things….unfortunately I never have my wand on me when I do this, otherwise it’d probably work.

6. I really want the I can has cheezburger cat because he/she is just so darned cute!

<3, lindsayd.

Six Random Things About Jen

1.  I have a birthmark on my left knee that looks like a tree.

2.  When I was in preschool I broke my right wrist because I jumped off the coffee table pretending to be Tarzan.  I walked around for three days and did everything with my left hand until my Grandma finally took me to the doctor and we found out it was broken (my mom still feels guilty about this, but what can I say?  I was one tough cookie).

3.  I love, love, loooove strawberry milk and drink at least four giant glasses a week.

4.  I have a growing collection of pitchers that I am very proud of.  There are some really old cool ones and one of them that I painstakingly pieced back together after it shattered in the parking lot (that is my favorite).  Maybe I will post pictures some time to bore all of your socks off.

5.  I was on the golf team in high school for one year.  It was pretty much an excuse for me and my friends to go to the golf course after school and giggle over all of the hotties.  I only played in one match (are they called matches???) and it took me and my friends so long to finish that everyone else was waiting on the bus by the time we got done.

6.  In my tiny one bedroom apartment I have 23 movie posters on the walls.  We are talking full size official movie posters.  For those of you who are curious here is a list of all 23:  Moulin Rouge, Notting Hill, Becoming Jane, Hot Fuzz, Holes, Shaun of the Dead, Chronicles of Narnia, 10 Things I Hate About You, Fever Pitch, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Wimbledon, 40-Year-Old Virgin, ET, Ever After, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (3), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2).

6 Random Things ;-)

Ahhhh, we were tagged by Rooney! This is like a game, wheeeeeee! I’m first, but Jen’s and Lindsay’s coming soon.

Six Random Things about Amber

1. Magazines I subscribe to: Elle, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Blueprint (which died and is now just Martha Stewart Living–still awesome), Craft, Paste, Readymade, Nylon, and I have yet to renew my subscription to Mental Floss (which is THE BEST magazine in the world)
2. My two favorite Audrey Hepburn movies are Funny Face and Roman Holiday.
3. I used to :::cough:::still do::: want to be a Disney Imagineer. I’m banking on the fact that the Imagineering Department has to have a corporate library, right? And once I’m in department, then I can totally call myself an Imagineer no matter what the position.
4. Most of the accessories that I get compliments on belonged to one of my grandparents (for example, my grandpa’s hat, my grandma’s necklace, my other grandma’s fancy lipstick holder). My grandparents had style and I’m going to flaunt it!
5. I still sleep with stuffed animals: a kanga, a roo, a hippo, a yorkie, a brown dog, and Doggie (my BIFF–best imaginary friend forever). Sometimes the zebra pillow and the big ol’ sheepdog from the reading chair in the living room end up on my bed, too. But never my monster with bells; he bites.
6. All of these random things came from me looking around the living room–Right now I’m looking at the masks from the Masked Ball we three Nerdgirls went to when we were at a HP conference last May. Dancing when one is all glammed up always feels a bit magical.

Six Step Instructions
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each of the six know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment (on their blogs).
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Six Tagged Blogs

1. Jobonga
2. What’s on your Bookshelf
3. Tom Can’t Count
4. The Fiona and Liam Chronicles
5. Miss Affected
6. Libba Bray

amberj.

Lovely & Trippy

So after spending 8 hours entering data into a spreadsheet (to then be put into a database, awesome I know) and watching the first half of Season 2 of Veronica Mars (Ms. Badass Supreme), I decided to delay going to bed to read by just a half second more because I HAD to change my facebook status. And then fate stepped in. Although I used to check Mental Floss daily (I used to have a job with random spurts of downtime), I hadn’t been there in probably a month. But today, as I changed my facebook status for the third or fourth time, I was all “ooh, lets do some flossing!” THANK YOU, RELIGIOUS FIGURE! For there on the top of the blog was an entry that contained this video. So cool.

Chyeah, you see what I mean. I’d be starry-eyed all over it even if I wasn’t a Beatles Fangirl. One sec though–I thought the Walrus was Paul. haha, anyway. Gosh, I wish I could create art like that. or that I could have interviewed John Lennon when I was 14. No way I could have kept my composure like that kid; I would have been all “wow, um, dude, hold on…….do you like Harry Potter?” I bet John Lennon is a huge HP fanboy up in Heaven.

while I’m sticking videos on here, here is one of my favorites–the video made for Free as a Bird during all the Anthology Hub-bub. So beautiful. Makes me very nostalgic for a time that I was born 20 years after.

I suggest you google Free as a Bird the video to find a site that breaks the video down frame by frame so you can actually see all that is in it. I love Paul’s dog Martha running through the park–what a cool guy to write such a sweet song for his dog (“Martha, my dear” from the white album). While you are googling stuff you should look for a site that has all the Paul is Dead clues–completely fascinating. Wow. I have totally flash-backed to my seventh grade self; it has been awhile since I have revisited all these things.

And while I am cooing over the Brits–check out our friend Rooney’s blog @ www.atypicalgeek.wordpress.com ! Hurrah for blog friends!

amberj.

Fictional Characters I Would Date: Part Five

Now I have been holding back on this one for a while in an attempt to conceal my nerdiness and hopelessly weird taste in guys, if I had the chance I would definitely date……………….drum roll…………..

Riley Poole from “National Treasure”

I must admit that I truly love “National Treasure.”  It is one of my favorite movies of all time………I don’t know if it is the big history nerd in me or what, but it probably has a lot to do with the fabulously dreamy character of Riley Poole.

He completely and totally embodies my “type” of guy.  If I had to describe him in one word, I would say that he is adorkable.  He is supposed to be a big dork, but he comes off as cute, charming, brave, and hilarious.  Although it is difficult to tear your eyes away from Nicolas Cage’s creepily crafted hairline, just take a moment to get lost in Riley’s baby blues.

He also has slightly wavy hair, which given the right opportunity could probably make the leap up to curly.  He can also pull off sexy librarian glasses and a baby goatee without breaking a sweat.  And the fact that he knows his way around computers is also helpful since mine is constantly hovering on life support.  He would also come in handy if I locked myself out of my car/apartment because he could break in in no time at all.  Not only is he all of these things, but he also jumps in front of a semi-truck to save the life of the girl who ends up with his best friend.  Now that’s brave (and sad at the same time).  And of course, he thinks the Preservation Room at the National Archives is a place for “delicious jams and jellies.”  Awwwww.

I tried to find a good video clip to include, but so many of the ones on YouTube were BAAAAD.  I finally settled on this one, which is weird but it does have the scene where he saves Abigail from the semi, in which he looks SUPER hotttt.

Jen

It’s Raining….Lindsay looks back.

Well, it’s actually not raining outside – it’s gorgeous outside.  But it’s raining in this video…

For some reason I think that this guy, Rain – a Korean super star – is like the most influential person in the world or something…  I could actually research this, but I prefer not to.  I think it was the Colbert Report a couple of months ago, I believe Stephen even made a video of himself doing the Rain thing…but…I could be wrong.  I remember when I was first introduced to Rain 2 years ago in California.  I personally thought that Rain was a little lame since part of the song’s lyrics is “Go Rain, it’s your birthday.”  So when I first saw the video for this song, I was kind of like…didn’t we do that like 10 years ago here in America?  And the only reason I was introduced to it was because my friend Mei Chi was obsessed with Korean boys (seriously, we spent like an hour stalking one Korean boy in particular at the Spring Festival ’06 at the I House…I have the pictures to prove it).  But I guess now he’s an international super star, and I’ve just been a bit slow on recognizing it.

Now that I’ve been writing about Korean boys, I remember one of the grad students who worked in my lab at LBNL who was from Korea.  His name was Yong Bong (no joke) and I think he was doing something with batteries…I’m not sure.  He was really nice to me – I helped him with his english by letting him know when I couldn’t understand him and he gave me these green tea wafer cookies from Korea…they were pretty good cookies.  He was an interesting guy.  There was another grad student in that lab too, but he wasn’t from Korea.  I believe he was from a suburb of Chicago, but he was super jaded and had lots of piercings.  But he was nice too – he talked to me a lot about the ups and downs of grad school, and he introduced me to Sudoku.

Looking back on my time in California, I think I can now fully appreciate it for what it was.  At the time I pretty much hated it – it’s really hard to live in a building with a bunch of students who have to do homework when you don’t.  It was hard to make friends, and it was lonely to sit in a lab all day knowing that pretty much anyone could have done what you were doing and that you weren’t really accomplishing anything on your own agenda.  But now I realize that I did get a lot out of it.  First off, I realized I didn’t want to go into graduate school – working in a lab by yourself sucks.  Now I also realize that I was put way out of my comfort zone – and I coped with it.  I was for the first time cut off from friends and family – I couldn’t go home whenever I wanted, I couldn’t call home whenever I wanted, I didn’t have a car so I had to rely on public transit, everyone was a stranger so I had to make judgement calls on who to trust, etc.  I love it when I realize things that can be answers to interview questions.

Eek, it’s almost time for my lab – I gots to go.

<3, lindsayd.

Happy Earth Day!!

Earth….it just sounds funny, doesn’t it?  Say it a couple of times out loud and you’ll know what I’m writing about.  So today is Earth Day!  Hooray!  Well…some of you might say that we should count every day as Earth Day, and I quite agree with you, but that’s no reason to allow extra special celebration on one specific day of the year.  So what am I going to do for Earth Day?  Well…my homework – I have an assignment due in my Sustainable Systems class tomorrow, and I have to read a huge (100+ pages, blurg) report on climate changes in Iowa, and then I have to report back on why I think Iowa’s green house gas emissions have increased from 1990 to 2005 and then I have to argue for 10 ideas on how we could cut back on those emissions.  I figured that I’d leave off doing this assignment until today – that way I’d get inspired by it being Earth Day and all and I’d pump out something super awesome for my professor to read.  I’ll also be working on math homework and probably a lab report.  Besides homework though, I might go do an Earth Day dance out in the empty fountain between the IATL and IMU.

What are you going to do for Earth Day??

<3, lindsayd.