Month: February 2002

New Poll: How good are you behind the wheel? Are you Luke Duke or Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane?

(Funny sidenote: One of my roommates in college thought for her entire childhood that his name was “Rosco Pico Train”. I swear. I’ve never laughed harder in my life.)

Queen Elizabeth was late for the first engagement of her Golden Jubilee (that’s fifty years on the throne, Yanks) because her car got stuck behind a student driver. Hee!

I don’t think Americans realize how lucky they have it with the driving situation. When I turned fifteen, I got my learner’s permit and signed up to take Driver’s Ed at my school during the summer. I got an A on the exams (a monkey could) and survived several hours of driving and observation. As a result, when I turned sixteen and headed to the BMV I was able to completely skip the driving portion of the test. What’s the point of this? Other than the fact that I still can’t parallel park in a space smaller than thirty feet, in order to get an Australian driver’s license I have to taken both the written and driving exam. How in the world am I going to be able to pass that? I’m a country girl. Any stoplight with more than three cars constitutes major traffic for me. There’s no way I’m gonna pass the test if I have to do it in Sydney…

As you can see from my Links list, I’m still resisting MBTV’s name change. I hereby propose we now refer to it by the acronym TSFKAMBTV, which stands for “The Site Formerly Known As MightyBig TV”. Keep the dream alive.

Apple finally throws down the gauntlet and explodes some common myths about their products. I could’ve used this information last week when I got into an argument with a die-hard Windoze fan. Her main point was Myth #3 (“The software I need isn’t available for Macs.”) After the Snook and I spent ten minutes explaining that it was, we got her to admit that what she really meant was “The pirate software I need isn’t as easily available on Macs.” Well, no duh. If you’re looking for a platform for warez, Windoze is your bitch. If you’re looking for a well-designed, easy-to-use, powerful-as-all-hell computer (with tons of legitimately free software to boot, thanks to OSX’s Unix roots), then a Mac is for you.

On a related note, did I mention that I finally got my iPod? I love love love it. I’ve just about filled it up (over 1200 songs!), which – granted – isn’t my entire music library, but it’s more than enough to keep me happy at the gym (or in my eventual work commute). And it looks so cool. All the gay guys at the gym envy me.

Australian Survivor News: Apparently my complaints yesterday reached the right ears. The official Australian Survivor website has launched! The tribes will be called “Kadina” and “Tipara”, which are apparently names of ships that have been wrecked off the coast. Check out the shipwreck in the picture… Supposedly that’s where Tribal Council is going to be held!

Check out this description of one of the contestants:

Twenty-seven-year-old Craig is an electrician from Victoria who sent himself in a box to Channel Nine and personally handed his audition tape to executive producer Stephen Peters.

Psycho! Awesome.

Oh. My. God. Sophie Lee is starring in a play in Sydney. She is my favorite Australian actress. I’m so there. Remember her? She was bitchy Tania in Muriel’s Wedding. (“I’m a bride! I’m supposed to be euphoric!”) She was also in The Castle (which Ebert and I highly recommend) and Holy Smoke (which, incidentally, was the occasion of the Snook’s and my first date). Anyway, nobody plays bitchy blonde ditzes like Sophie. LOVE her.

It’s answer time!
The first correct guess was submitted by Beau (though not for the reason he thought). A couple others guessed that one as well. Congratulations! Here we go…

1. I got a tattoo for my twentieth birthday.
   True. It’s the Korean word for “rite of passage”. It’s nowhere you’d ever see unless I showed you. 🙂
    
2. I have had blue hair.
   True. That was for my twenty-first birthday. (I have birthday issues, obviously.) I had a friend put a blue streak in my hair, which was blonde at the time.
    
3. I can do a cartwheel.
   False! I wish it were a matter of choice, Beau, but in reality I can’t do a cartwheel to save my life. It was my greatest shame in elementary school.
    
4. I have never broken a bone in my body.
   True. Sorry, anon and Khay. I’m clumsy and I fall down a lot, but I’ve never broken anything.
    
5. Despite being my high school valedictorian, I actually failed a class my senior year.
   True. This fooled Brigita and Kel. Valedictorian was actually determined after seven semesters, so your grades from the last semester really didn’t count. I had been on a study trip to Germany the previous summer, and I had committed to a year of German 4. I was the only one taking it though, I wasn’t learning anything, and my teacher was a complete beeatch. So I got permission from the study program to switch to Drama second semester. My German teacher got pissed that I went over her head and insisted that I was still in her class. I told her I didn’t care. (I’d already been accepted to ND, who didn’t care.) The guidance counselor sided with her, so I ended up failing that last semester. I’m actually pretty proud of it.
    
6. I am one quarter Korean.
   True. Everybody knows this, right? Mom’s mom is Korean.
    
7. I can juggle.
   True. I had to learn it for a play freshman year of college. I can do two balls with one hand, or three balls with both hands.
    
8. I have been skydiving.
   True. I caught Jeremy, Moire, and Claire on this one. I went with the Parachutin’ Weasels, a group of girls from my dorm. It was the day after classes ended senior year, and I was (understandably) hung over like a dog. It was tandem jumping, and the only thing going through my head on the way down was “Don’t puke on your jumpmaster. Don’t puke on your jumpmaster.”
    
9. I saw “Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace” eight times in the theater.
   Embarrassingly true. In my defense, Ron, I’d sorta zone out for most of it and then perk up when the final light saber battle started.
    
10. I have made a quilt from scratch.
    True. I’m crafty, I am.

I’m surprised I stumped so many of you. I even got Snookums, who reasoned that “all girls know how to cartwheel”. If only that were so. *sigh* If only that were so…