New Site

We have a domain name! If they can do it so can we is now at iftheycandoitsocanwe.com

Imaginary Crime

Due to my overexposure of television crime (thanks L&O!) I have been known to suffer from the odd bit of irrational paranoia. I was walking home from work tonight, in the darkness of an early winter evening, in the rain, listening to listening to some Robyn, and I saw the shadow of a person walking swiftly behind me. My initial reaction? To be terrified. I glanced back at the shadow and saw that they were using an umbrella and I relaxed immediately.

I don't know why the knowledge that the person behind me was using an umbrella was such an immediate comfort to me until I reached the following hypothesis: Muggers don't use umbrellas. I don't know any muggers so unfortunately I can't ask them about it. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. If you were to mug someone, wouldn't you need both hands at your disposal? I imagine it would be hard to be very frightening if one hand was trying to control an umbrella on a windy day. Wouldn't it also be an easy way to identify someone to a near by patrolman? "What did she look like ma'am?" "She was about 5'5" brown hair, average weight, oh yeah, and she had a giant Hello Kitty umbrella."

Re: Dumb ideas for blog posts

I want to start out by saying that had your Candyman soundtrack post actually made it onto the interweb, I would've enjoyed it IMMENSELY and I'm a little sad that your vision was never fully realized.

To be honest, I wouldn't say I have "stupid" ideas for posts. Not to imply that my posts are of the highest intellectual level,  I just think it's more accurate to say I have incomplete ideas for blog posts. And by incomplete, I mean I have only thought of what to title the post. For example, I've had one floating around in my head since May called, "When Your Bus Driver Thinks You're Lazy." Some day that post will be written, and it will be awesome.

On second thought, is it too late to retract my claim that my ideas for blog posts aren't stupid? I forgot that I intended to write a post comparing my cat to Pocahontas. 

What I Think When I Plan a Post

I think that one of the reasons I do not post often is because most of my spur of the moment blog post ideas are really, really stupid. For example, I was thinking about writing a whole post about the "Candyman" soundtrack. That would probably be doable, since the soundtrack was composed by Phillip Glass and is totally awesome, but my post idea was mostly going to be about how I know all the words. There are no words. My post was going to mostly consist of "dododododododododo" and "hohohohohohohoho."

I wanted to post this so that you would all know that I do think about this blog, even though I don't write in it much. I want this blog to reflect how clever and funny I am, so I have to edit my thoughts heavily. Don't worry, I have an outlet for my bad ideas. Basically when I think up a blog post like the one about the "Candyman" soundtrack and then realize how stupid it is, I tweet it instead. Man, I hope the cool celebrities I follow don't read my twitter.

What was your stupidest idea for a post, buddy? The time it takes you to answer my question will say something about your dedication to iftheycandoitsocanwe.blogspot.com.

Noooo! Dobby!!!!!!

Happy Harry Potter Day, everyone! What better a day to start blogging again than the day of the most anticipated movie event of the season (at least among 16-year-old white kids who like to underage drink, if last night's crowd was anything to judge it by)?! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One is a Harry Potter movie that will get you excited about the franchise again. By far the darkest of the series, this movie is legitimately scary in parts. The very first scene, a meeting of death eaters planing a feasible time frame in which to kill Harry, involves the movie's first, but not final, explicit scene of torture. This scene also made me want to give Snape a big ole' hug, but maybe that was just me.

The series has never really had action-packed action sequences before. The movies, at least as far as I remember them, have always focused more on Harry's metaphorical journey than his literal journey. That's cool I guess. But a chase sequence involving Hagrid's magical motorcycle is also cool. Don't worry, this movie didn't skimp on long, drawn out scenes in which our three heroes talk aaaa loooooot. It just added some more exciting chase scenes and some pretty awesome jump scares for viewers who already know where the Sword of Gryffindor is and don't want to spend 2 hours hearing the characters talk ad-nauseam about where they might find it ("No, it's not in Godric's Hollow, but go there anyway because something awesome and scary will happen!").

The movie also had some pretty touching moments. Don't worry, I definitely didn't cry during the scene with Dobby. Definitely not. No sir... But it was pretty touching. And the kids are finally good actors, so the emotional moments were pretty easy to get in to, rather than painful to watch.... DOBBY, WHY?!?!?

In case you can't tell, I have never been wildly impressed with one of the movies before. I love the books, but the films have always been just boring enough to underwhelm me. Not this one. It was exciting, it took me on a roller coaster of emotion, and it set up the final installment perfectly. It also featured a kick ass animation sequence about the origin of the deathly hollows. If you are not excited about Harry Potter anymore, go see this movie so you can recapture the magic! Was that a good pun? If it was, then it was intended. If not, then what pun? What are you talking about?

Also, Daniel Radcliffe takes his shirt off a lot, which is neat if that's the kind of thing you're into.

a birthday blog!

First I should begin by wishing my co-blogger and BFF a very happy birthday! My goal was to wish her happy birthday through every technology I could think of and so far I've covered the mail, the telephone, text message, twitter, facebook, and now the blog! If there is one I missed please let me know, I still have about two hours to finish up my mission.

However this is not just one more way to wish you a happy birthday my friend. I have substantive content to provide too. Well...maybe not substantive, but content nonetheless.

Whenever I take the bus, or whenever I leave the house by myself, I always have my iPod with me. It helps insulate me from the awkward situations that I often find myself if I'm ever without my modern defense mechanism. When I get on the bus, I always stare at the slot for my crisp dollar bills, say hello to the driver and hurry to my seat, eyes glued to the floor. I always assumed that the driver reciprocated my cheerful greeting with an equally cheerful salutation of their own. Well I learned today, the first day I've ever actually paused my iPod when getting on the bus, that they don't. I suppose I can't really blame them. It's not as if I went out of my way to make eye contact and really engage them in a human way. And I would get pretty tired of having to greet every passenger that got on my bus.

I always thought that I had this instant connection with bus drivers. Tthere are some people who take the bus only occasionally and that is fine. But not me. I have been a fan of public transportation since middle school. And I thought evidence of my years riding with the CDTA would be clear on my war torn face and would signal to the drivers "Hey, this girl knows what's going on here." It does not.

A long response to a short question

Have I ever had a negative dentist experience? Actually, buddy, no. I have not been to the dentist since 2008, when I decided that at 20 years of age, it was finally time to move on from my pediatric dentist. Unfortunately for my receding gum line, I did not move on to anywhere.

I did, however, once have a negative oral surgery experience. A couple of years ago I had to have my wisdom teeth out. Most people have stories to tell about their recovery from this much dreaded surgery. Aside from a little nausea from the codeine that I was prescribed and a lasting aversion to any type of custard, my recovery was smooth and easy. The process was the problem for me.

I had a limited number of oral surgeons to choose from, since not many places accepted the kind of insurance that I had at the time. I ended up going to a doctor who smelled very strongly of cigar smoke and who wore the worst toupee that I have ever seen to this day. For some reason, though, these characteristics put my mind at ease and made me feel relaxed. The day I was supposed to go in for my surgery, I felt confident that everything was going to be OK. And in the long run, it was. But an old woman had a stroke in the waiting room while I was waiting to be called back. The office was in a frenzy until the ambulance came to take her to the hospital. I think that this unusual occurrence put the nurse assisting my doctor off her game.

The first thing that I'm pretty sure she did wrong was give me waaaaay too much nitrous oxide. I'm not complaining, I was feeling good. But I'm pretty sure she's supposed to monitor that more closely or something. I guess it wasn't entirely her fault. When she asked if the gas had taken its effect, I may have asked for just a little more...

Anyway, aside from getting me hiiiiiiiiigh, she also couldn't find a vain. She decided to put the IV into my left hand, but it fell out. Evidently, I was bleeding all over the place. I was on so much nitrous oxide, though, that I really didn't care. I apologized and offered to help clean it up. Eventually the doctor came in, put the IV in himself, and then I woke up several hours later with 4 gaping holes in my mouth!!

Anyway, that was longer (and grosser) than your story. I win!