kapachino

Category: personal

  • The Weekend’s Hap-PUN-ings

    Yesterday, for the second year, my roommate Carmen participated in the World Championship Pun Competition in Austin, TX. There were two events. The first was called “Punniest of Show” in which the contestants (32 in all) performed a 90-120 second monologue and were rated on a scale of 1-10 by four judges for a maximum of 40 points. I am proud to say that with a score of 39, I now live under the same roof as the second-place winner!

    Here’s a clip of her presentation:

    You can read the entire transcript here.

    The second event was a tournament in which two punsters went head-to-head. They would receive a topic and go back and forth punning off that topic with only 5 seconds to come up with one. If they took longer than 5 seconds they were out. No word could be punned off of twice, and if they reused a word they got a strike against them and they were out on the third strike.

    Carmen faced last year’s second-place winner in the first round. The topic was “Dancing.” A few excerpts:

    “My paper isn’t good I got a B, but can I plié?”
    “At the big dance your senior year of high school you have to have the right drink. You need promenade.”

    In the second round her topic was “The American Presidency.” This one lasted 17 minutes!

    “I’ll have to put a Nixon that one.”
    “I was editing my web page and I wanted to make sure everything was easily accessible, so I put a Lincoln everything.”
    “Have you ever found one of those pits? They come impeaches.”

    Moving onto the third round, the topic was “Mystery and Crime Fiction.” More snippets of punny goodness:

    “For Halloween I dyed my hair and put it up in a ponytail with a red herring.”
    “There was a costume that was used in the play, but I don’t know who donned it.”

    Finally, she moved onto the final round, facing off against last year’s first and third-place winners. The category was “Fictional Creatures”:

    “I gave her some money because I ogre.”
    “If you’re hurting, I don’t care. Bear it.”
    “I’m so mad, I’m going to lop off your head! Psych! Lops aren’t very nice.”

    Last year’s champion got out on strikes, and Carmen took it to the other guy. But it was soon obvious that he knew many more creatures than she did, as he revealed himself to be a Dungeons & Dragons fan, whereas Carmen is NOT into fantasy or any similar genre. So after a long and hard battle, she conceded and again took second!

    Congratulations Carmen!

    Her fans:

  • Things I Like

    For your reading pleasure, here is a list of 50 things that I like. This list is completely random and by no means exhaustive. Let me know which of these things you like or dislike!

    1) Mary Kay Satin Lips – this stuff is so good they sent it to the soldiers in the gulf war. I think I am addicted to it.
    2) The number 3 – just ask my soccer teams. They all know which jersey NOT to take.
    3) Automatic sliding doors
    4) Bike lanes
    5) Mounds candy bars – Mmmmm. Dark chocolate + coconut=the perfect combination.
    6) Chicken fried rice – I could eat it every day, probably. Until I had a heart attack.
    7) The Pill – caveat: not for its birth control effects. (Edit: this is very outdated.)
    8 ) Fat animals, especially when they are also furry
    9) Pedicures – or almost any service you can get done at a spa. What can I say, I like being pampered.
    10) Cruise control
    11) Babies
    12) Dolce & Gabbana’s Light Blue perfume – and the fact that my brother recommended it to me and my boyfriend bought it for me. (Edit: that boyfriend is now my husband!)
    13) Yoga
    14) Pandora.com – a great free internet radio.
    15) The semi-colon
    16) Caribbean Way smoothies from Smoothie King
    17) My Franklin Covey day planner – I am obsessive about this thing and have no idea what I would do without it. (Edit: I now use the planner on my iPhone. It was a sad day when I switched, but I have to keep up with the times, man.)
    18) Dogs – especially Molly, Eddie, Sydney, Teak, Riley, Susie and Kenzie. There are too many dogs in my life, I couldn’t narrow it down! (Edit: We’ve said goodbye to Molly, Susie, and Kenzie and hello to Cleo, Bentley, and Niko!)
    19) Hot Pockets – ham and cheese are the best.
    20) NPR
    21) Songs that tell a story – Ex: “The Lighthouse’s Tale” by Nickel Creek
    22) The Winged Victory of Samothrace sculpture in the Louvre
    23) Foaming hand soap
    24) Toyota Priuses
    25) Gmail – as far as I can tell, everyone should use it. My favorite thing about it is that you can keep your inbox clean while still saving as many messages as you like with the “Archive” feature.
    26) Tulips
    27) Fortune cookies
    28) Bingo – but only in the bingo hall with the serious players.
    29) The smell of air conditioner in the car
    30) Maps
    31) The dead man’s float
    32) Penguins – especially fat ones (see #8)
    33) Macs
    34) Reading on the bus
    35) My eyebrows
    36) Dark chocolate
    37) Sneezing
    38) Crossword puzzles
    39) Gel pens
    40) Tragic characters – Ex: Achilles in the movie Troy; Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities; Sirius Black in Harry Potter
    41) Singing in my car
    42) Fabric Band-aids
    43) Traveling to visit historical places
    44) Dr. Mario – only the best video game ever invented. EVER.
    45) Real Simple magazine
    46) Lucida Sans font
    47) Blue Bell dutch chocolate ice cream with Hershey’s chocolate syrup
    48) Bananas – the perfect fruit: they curve toward your mouth, they are yellow which is enticing, they are color coded (green too early; brown too late), they are easy to peel, and they taste so good!
    49) Going to the bathroom – ahh, such a simple pleasure.
    50) My wash cloth, which I dedicated an entire blog entry to at one point.

  • In Which I Place Myself In A Silly Situation

    So, on Saturday I took my car in to get the oil changed, and also to have them check out a certain noise that I have noticed for awhile–“noticed” being an understatement due to the fact that the “noise” is a horrid squeal that occurs every time I turn on the engine, akin to the sound of a cat being tortured. Isn’t it so true that whenever you take your car in to the shop for something small, there seems to be something big that needs to be fixed? Like the times I went to get my oil changed and it turned out that I was basically going to get in a horrible wreck and die if I didn’t replace all of the brake pads and rotors/get all new tires/etc. ASAP.

    Boyfriend David took his car in to get the oil changed on Saturday also, and was informed that due to a design flaw in his cute little VW Jetta, the oil cap would not be able to be removed without “stripping the thread” (whenever I hear car-talk like this I just nod and pretend to understand) and that therefore the whole oil pan would have to be replaced to the tune of $1300. But the thing is that he’s already been through this once and shelled out the money, and who’s to say it won’t happen again? So now he’s faced with the dilemma of whether to fix it or get a new car, and if he decides to get a new one, what to get.

    Thankfully, I did not receive such devastating news about my car. However, it does need a whole new set of belts. I’m not exactly sure what belts do on a car or why they need them, but if it will abolish the screeching noise, I am all for a new set of them. I am tired of the shocked/worried/annoyed/evil looks I get from passers-by whenever I start up my car in the parking lot.

    So this morning I dropped my car off at the little auto shop that I have been going to ever since I could drive which is right outside my parents’ neighborhood. It’s not exactly convenient anymore, but they know me there by face, name, and car, and that is a beautiful thing. After leaving my car there, I walked to my parents’ house to hang out until it was ready. After awhile I realized that it was actually quite hot. But instead of turning the A/C down like any normal person would have done, I decided that it would be a better idea to just take off my pants. I think the decision was made because there was an itch on the back of my leg, and taking off my pants would not only enable me to scratch it more effectively, it would cool me down as well.

    So there I am, sitting on the recliner browsing the internet and watching The Ellen Show in a state less-than-presentable, when I hear the door open and in pops my dad. Since my car wasn’t out front he was confused when he saw the TV on in the first place, and was very surprised to see me. I’m sure especially when the first thing he got to hear from me was a very upbeat, “Hi Dad! I don’t have on any pants!” After he recovered from his heart attack and I clothed myself, we had a nice little chat after which he returned to work. But now my leg is starting to itch again.

  • Ahhhh…

    I finished my last final this morning. I celebrated this evening by eating almost a whole tub of chicken fried rice and a pint of ice cream while I watched the DVRed episodes of Gilmore Girls and House. It was glorious.

    I have two weeks with no school, but I already have 11 things on my “To Do Over The Break” list, not to mention the fact that I agreed to work almost every day I can. Ah, well.

  • Weekend Trip to Lubbock

    Well, it was a quick trip but I’d say it was definitely worth it.

    We left at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning. I was sitting in the back seat. I pretty much slept for the first few hours. I meant to only sleep until it got light enough outside to study, but it’s just very hard for me to stay awake in the car. Eventually I got my textbook out and started to read. Then after a short while of that, I began to have a strange sensation that can only be described as car-sickness. I was in denial at first, but when my mom finally insisted that I take the front seat I did not say no. Shotgun was mine for the rest of the weekend! At one point we were listening to some talk radio. Here is a snippet of a conversation that ensued between us:

    Dad: I know how to take care of those suicide bombers. It’s an excellent idea, but I don’t think they’ll listen to me. Just have everyone walk around in bathing suits. Then if you see someone with a raincoat on, you pretty much know there’s a bomb in there.

    Me: Well not everyone wants to walk around in bathing suits.

    Dad: Not everyone wants to be DEAD, either. I’m telling you, it would work.

    Mom (piping up from the back seat): In a few years you’d see a dramatic rise in the instances of skin cancer.

    Dad: Well you’d just have to teach everyone to use sunscreen. Listen, I KNOW it’s a good idea.

    My parents are pretty great.

    Right outside of Lubbock there is the Llano Estacado Winery, which is the second-oldest in Texas and supposedly one of the best. We stopped there in order for my mom to pick up some of her favorite wine, and we went ahead and took the tour, along with its complementary taste-testing. I tried a bunch of different kinds, and I can still say with certainty that I CANNOT STAND WINE. I’m not even going to pretend. Anyway, Barry and a few of his friends met us there:

    Then we headed to Lin’s Asian Buffet, which also happened to serve Mexican food and steaks. The place was kind of ridiculously over-the-top with its decorations, but in a funny way.

    Mom and Barry at the buffet:

    Dad and me:

    Next stop was to check in at the good ole Rodeway Inn that we always stay at, and then head to Barry’s house. I took some pictures there, but you really don’t want to see them. Most of them I took just to show Boyfriend that his place really isn’t that messy after all.

    Me on the couch:

    Ewok, Barry’s stuffed animal from when he was a kid. I walked into his room, saw him on the bed, and squealed with delight. There are many fond memories of Ewok. I asked Barry if he sleeps with him, and he said, “He’s around.”

    We hung out there until it was time to go to the play. Unfortunately, no pictures of the performance because it would have been illegal to take any, and I am a law-abiding citizen. We went straight back to the motel afterwards, and sleep soon overtook us all.

    The next morning we met Barry at 9 a.m. for our regular meal at Denny’s. I stuffed my little belly because I had an inkling that we wouldn’t be stopping for food on the way home. Here we are:

    The drive home consisted of me, once again, sleeping a lot more than I had planned. It also did involve me studying quite a bit. And I viewed some scenery:

    Yeah it’s not really interesting except those windmills in the background are kind of cool in real life. Anyway, the only thing out of the ordinary that happened on the way home was that we stopped to pick up a couple a little older than my parents who were stranded on the side of the road. We ended up taking them home, about a half hour out of our way, but it was really no big deal. They were nice, and they gave us some frozen meat to thank us.

    So that was my weekend. How was yours?