Obviously, we're all a little busy with grad school and grade school, but I wanted to try to resurrect this thing by making it easier for me to post stuff of interest (see the shared stuff from Google Reader above). Maybe I can lure Inessa and Agent99 back to Alacrity.

I'm taking comps in less than two months, so I definitely need a source of procrastination. Let's have some fun again!

Have you tried the new bars from Caribou Coffee and General Mills? Vanilla Latte is yummers. Next best thing to actually going into a bricks and mortar CC (which we don't have here).

Ugg season has descended upon us, and ugh.

That's all I got right now!

Have you seen that Citi credit card commercial with the Eastern European(?) man in the airplane talking about earning points while sitting next to a guy who flips numbers? I don't watch much television, but it's always on, and I find it totally unfunny and am glad I don't have a Citi credit card. Am I just not getting it? At any rate, I bitched about those horrid Dr. Z commercials and don't see them now, so maybe this outlet is working.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sour grapes and mud

I was reading a classic Dave Barry article this morning that reminded me of the good times Agent 99, Inessa and I had in Virginia wine country. I definitely felt I was missing out on the nuances of plum and toast in those wines, but I was consistently able to pick up on the hints of credit cards and the aroma of buying too much wine while drunk.

I think it's strangely appropriate that my memories of that day has a background song: Kanye West's "We don't care". Good times!

We have a class clown in Cognitive Development this semester. He's included two very funny "psychological tests" with his reaction papers for the class.

Draw-a-pig personality test: Your personality revealed by a piggie.
Sleepy sheep reaction time test: How quickly can you stop the sheep?

I don't think real reaction-time tests have anything on the sheep test.

Checking out the view from the Empire State Building is something everyone in New York has to do, some unwritten law. Me and a small gang went at night but a word to the wise: if it's so cold and gusty on street level that you think NYC needs to steal the Windy City moniker from Chicago, it's gonna be a zillion times worse 86 floors above. At least the lines are practically zero at night. After a maze of ropes, people trying to sell you things, and two elevators, you get up there and do battle with tourists and couples making out (gross). So I was glad to say I've been to the Empire State Building, but I'd done Top of the Rock before at night, and they were pretty similar.

This frickin' idiot guy DROPPED MY PRECIOUSSSS DIGITAL CAMERA ONTO CONCRETE; I cringed, I nearly cried, I almost killed him. But the camera seems to be fine, to my amazement. Go Canon!

Thank goodness!

I did the "how many of me" search (thanks to web-goddess's link) to see how many Americans have my name, and I'm one of a kind. I've always felt really protective of my first name and I hated the idea of someone having my first-last combination out there. I don't know why, but my name is my turf. Also interesting-- there's only about 3,900 people with my last name. There will be even fewer over time, since my dad's line (at least four generations back) ends with my sisters and me.

For the record, there are 28 Parker Jacksons out there. Apparently my mom is better at picking unusual names than I am.

We talked a while ago about posting our favorite Pandora radio stations here. I finally created one that I'm just nuts about, and I want to share it. It's based on the performer Jem with a strong FrouFrou component and just a hint of Shakira. Inessa, being a Thievery Corporation fan, I think you'll like it. Anyone who likes slightly electronic, melodic, female songstress-type music should get a kick out of it. Here's my Jem station (let me know if that doesn't work).

I used to be nuts about The Baby-Sitters Club series, so it was a major youth flashback when I stumbled up the BSC books at my local public library. But they weren't the books I was used to; they were graphic novels. Many moons ago, I caught a blurb in Newsweek (where else?) about these graphic novels, thought about it for a nanosecond, and continued on with life. Now that I've seen them, I'm not impressed. What's so wrong with the regular old books? Am I becoming a cranky purist? Maybe it wouldn't have seemed so unnecessary if the art was fabuloso; however, I wasn't impressed. Maybe if Frank Miller of Sin City had been involved, the art would have been more stylish, but then again, the babysitters might be murdering each other. The artwork reminded me of the Timbertoes cartoon from Highlights. Oh, so I took the Which Babysitter Are You? quiz and was Kristy, um no.

Speaking of juvenile literature, I read The Giver, Agent 99, and it was good. I love books that are 1984-ish. But then I got Weezer's "My Name is Jonas" stuck in my head.

Oh great! Yet another way to procrastinate. Does anyone else find these amusing and at the same time relevant?

I'm surprised you haven't encouraged me to check out Gawker Stalker, Parker, since I know you are a Gawker girl. I think when it debuted, there was a big deal about whether or not a lot of the sightings were bogus, but it's still amusing.

Oh, I did I confuse Defamer with Gawker? Silly me.

Have you read Newsweek's cover story "The New First Grade"? Quite frankly, it frightens me to think about how competitive and stress-laden elementary school can be. Ugh. I don't believe I had homework in kindergarten, and I'd like to think I turned out okay.

Thoughts on Suri "Pickpocket" Cruise anyone?

Yeah, I'm alive! Thought I'd ease into blogging by dropping some linkage.

• New York options are simply overwhelming. To assist with that issue are sites like the handy dandy Yelp, which is much like Citysearch but not as jam-packed with ads. It's not just for big big big mondo cities; there are reviews for establishments where you guys live too.
• Almost to the point of being wack is the mass transit system here. Helping out is HopStop which I first heard about on CNN or somesuch. Just type in where you are and where you want to go, and the site will churn out the best way to get there, using what bus, what subway line, and when to just walk.

If you're a fan of Dave Sedaris, you're going to love this radio program: Americans in Paris. From last week's This American Life program. La Coquette gave her favorite moments from the program:

"1. David shops at the hardware store. “Hello, I am looking for a stick, that make the water hooot hot, today.” [Note from Parker: In France, my friend Dave had to ask the building manager of our dorm for "the thing for the electric thing in which you put your hats" meaning tokens for the laundry room.]

2. David and Ira see Judge Judy at the Puces de Clingnancourt. David loves Judge Judy, thinks she should run for mayor of New York, so when he sees her he goes “Oh. my. God.” in the most genuine, 15-year-old girl way possible. Making me feel that of all the soul bearing he has done up to this moment, this is possibly the most raw connection with him I have ever felt."

I have to add my own:

3. David's story about the German hotel and having a little misunderstanding about breakfast. I had a lovely German family take pity on me in Berlin and trade me cash for coin money so I could buy a ticket from the train system machine that only took coins (bless them for knowing what I needed just from my holding up the paper money and looking sad).

4. The surprisingly low-low cost of paper-mache body parts if you know where to look in Paris. And the surprisingly high cost of a taxidermied ostrich.

Need an official seal? (And really, who doesn't?) Look no further.



Link via 43 Folders

Inessa is making her big move to NYC today, and I hope she has an easy trip. In honor of her adventure, I'd like to share this throw-back to 1983: Sundae in New York. I don't know why I remember this clay-mation video so well, but I loved it back in the day.

My good friend and fellow (somewhat) unwilling Iowa resident, Heather, sent me this Dave Barry article entitled "When in Iowa, don't forget to duck"

Apparently, I've been letting my guard down. I knew the farm fields stink like manure in the spring, but I didn't realize they were trying to get me in on the act as well. Laura, Lisa, aren't you sad you didn't visit me this summer?

I like to pretend to be a food snob, so I try to shun chain restaurants, but I found myself having lunch at the Olive Garden a few days ago. The meal reminded me of a discussion Agent 99 and I had once about the quintessential chain restaurant. She said Olive Garden, while I might have offered up Applebee's or Chili's. Well, thanks to Wikipedia, Applebee's is the winner, with over 1800 locations in the US, while the Garden has under 600 locations. Chili's checks in with a respectable 1000 places to get baby back ribs.

I wanted to blog about the Georgia Aquarium, a place I visited earlier this month. First of all, it's in downtown Atlanta, a place I do not care for much. Be prepared to pay pay pay, $10 for parking (they must make a killing off that alone) and then tickets to enter and tickets for the 4-D show which is quite cheesy but wholesome family fun. You might feel like taking a trip to The Home Depot afterwards, seeing as the aquarium's mascot is an orange fish named Deepo, and Deepo starts in the 4-D show. Since the Georgia Aquarium is pretty new, everything is shiny and modern, but again because it's new and massive, it's CROWDED. People everywhere. It's kind of annoying because I felt like I couldn't stare at fish that long because people were antsy waiting for me to get out of the way. My advice is to wait a few years to go.

People had told me to read Life of Pi, so I did. It was engaging enough, but it didn't consume me when I wasn't reading, nor was I staying up past midnight to find out what happens next. Eh.

Now I need to plug Camper shoes. I bought a pair recently and am in love. They'll make a dent in your piggy bank, but they're just so cute and comfortable. Los zapatos son muy bueno! I hope that Spanish made sense.

Speaking as someone who watched Dawson's Creek religiously when it was airing, I was super stoked to be able to take a trip to Wilmington, North Carolina where the show was filmed. First stop was Screen Gems Studios, where they have somewhat preserved two Dawson's Creek sets (Joey's dorm room, Dawson's bedroom) for adoring fans to check out. You can even climb through Dawson's window, just like Joey did. The main attraction of the studio tour is sets from the WB's One Tree Hill. I had never seen that show before. It stars manwhore Chad Michael Murray and features attractive twentysomethings playing angst-ridden teens in a sleepy NC town. I watched one episode and was eyerolling my eyeballs into oblivion. After the Screen Gems tour, a stroll of the picturesque Riverwalk was in order. I think plenty of scenes were filmed here too. Not a very complete Dawson's Creek Wilmington tour, but a fair amount smashed into one day. I wonder whatever happened to James Van Der Beek and Josh Jackson?