Brianne Blogs?

One of my favorite architectural feature of old buildings is when there are faces on them.

I think it’s awesome and spectacularly cool.

I wish our building had a face on it. Or a cool dragon like the building across the street that I am in love with. 

I think part of the reason I like the faces so much is that it gives me the feeling that if someone came along with say, a magic rose or some ferry dust or a wand, that the people and dragons built into the buildings of this great city would come alive and move about among the rest of us; these great stone people and animals that would, of course, be friendly. Unless, they are super-mean and they will only come alive when New York is inevitably invaded by aliens (as happens in all movies) and they will defend us all and save the world and then happily retake their places in our homes. Yes, I think that is probably the more likely scenario.

I got a new camera a couple of weeks ago. It’s a fancy digital SLR and takes great photos. I’ve been playing with it a little bit but just yesterday took it out to the park to really play around with all the features and try to learn how to work it and do cool things.

First, let me say that I love her. She is awesome. I’ve been trying to think up a good name for her and I wanted it to be fancy, cuz she is. So I think I’ve decided to make her royalty. I think I’m going to call her Princess Alexandra of Canon and call her Lexi for short.

So, Princess Alexandra of Canon and I met Zak to get our international drivers licenses. We needed them to be allowed to rent our car in Europe. We were thinking it was going to be a laminated drivers license-type thing but it’s a little booklet with our information hand-written into it. Zak is looking confused because we’re pretty sure we could have made these ourselves.

Some of you may notice that there is a picture of Zak on my license/booklet, but rest assured that I have my own photo, we just used his for the pictures.

After that, Zak went to work and the Princess and I headed to Central Park to see what we could see.

Half of New York was in the park because it was absolutely beautiful outside.

I was trying to learn how to make one object in focus while blurring the background.

It took me a few tries, but I think I finally got it.

The Princess and I had a great time getting to know one another. Stay tuned for more of her work.

Yesterday, someone gave me a travel book to help me prepare for my trip. It’s called The Worst Case Scenario: Travel. I have been enjoying all the many catastrophies it is preparing me for and I plan to survive every last one of them. In preparation for my trip, I will occassionally post some of my favorites for your enjoyment and also in case they might save your life.

How to Foil a UFO abduction:

1. Do not panic. The extraterrestrial biological entity (EBE) may sense your fear and act rashly.

2. Control your thoughts. Do not think of anything violent or upsetting-the EBE may have the ability to read your mind. Try to avoid mental images of abduction (boarding the saucer, anal probes); such images may encourage them to take you.

3. Resist verbally. Firmly tell the EBE to leave you alone.

4. Resist mentally. Picture yourself enveloped in a protective shield of white light, or in a safe place. Telepathic EBE’s may get the message.

5. Resist physically. Physical resistence should be used only as a last resort. Go for the EBE’s eyes (if they have any)-you will not know what its other, more sensitive areas are.

Sadly what I can’t show you is the  diagram to go with this of an alien with large eyes and an arrow to the eyes reminding you where to hit if you need to resist physically.

While there are some actually useful tips in here for surviving trip-related scenarios, I think this less likely one is much more interesting. And also makes me want to watch the movies “Signs” and “Independence Day” again.

Best of luck to you all in any future EBE encounter. And you’re most welcome for passing along this life-saving information.

Last night I finished the book that the upstate bookstore owner recommended to me. She said people either love it or hate it and I can sort of see why. It’s really funny. But about 200 pages in, you start to wonder if there is a story or if it’s just funny one-liners. Luckily, there is a story and I thought the book was great, great great. It’s about a corporate office and the relationships with your co-workers and the drama/fun/etc that goes on.

There were so many funny things to quote that I stopped writing them down about 200 pages in and it’s still a lot. There are whole paragraphs quoted, so get ready. So, put on the spectacles and take a minute to enjoy what Joshua Ferris had to say in Then We Came to the End.

1. “Our boredom was ongoing, a collective boredom, and it would never end because we would never die”.

2. “We thanked eachother. It was customary after every exchange. Our thanks were never disingenuous or ironic. We said thanks for getting this done so quickly, thanks for putting in so much effort. We had a meeting, and when a meeting was over, we said thank you to the meeting makers for having made the meeting. Very rarely did we say anything negative or derogatory about meetings. We all knew there was a good deal of pointlessness to nearly all the meetings and in fact one meeting out of every three or four was nearly perfectly without gain or purpose but many meetings revealed the one thing that was necessary and so we attended them and afterward we thanked eachother”.

3. “But at the present moment I’m afraid all I have is apartment 4H at Bell Harbor Manor, which is neither a harbor, nor a manor and contains NOT ONE SINGLE BELL!!”

4. “She dusted the way she did everything else, with great gusto and command. It was the first time I had ever been intimidated by someone else’s dusting”.

5. “The last thing you wanted to do at night was go home and do the dishes. And just the idea of that part of the weekend that had to be dedicated to getting the oil changed and doing the laundry was enough to make those of us still full from lunch want to lie down in the hallway and force anyone dumb enough to remain commited to walk around us. It might not be too bad. They could drop food down to us, or if that was not possible, crumbs from their powerbars and bags of microwave popcorn would surely end up within an arm’s length sooner or later. The cleaning crews, needing to vacuum, would inevitably turn us on our sides, preventing bedsores, and we could make little toys out of runs in the carpet, which, in moments of extreme regression, we might suck on for comfort”.

6. Perhaps the worlds best insult that one man said to his co-workers in this book: “May your clever tongues be ripped from their cushy red linings and left to dry on pikes under the native sun of a cannibal land”. Pretty harsh.

Erica, I have categorized this for your pleasure and I think you would like this book. It really was very funny.

Okay, Amber and I have been watching General Hospital for a very very long time. We watched it together everyday from the time we were 18-23 and watch it separately since then and discuss all the time.

Sometimes watching GH gets us a little down. The story lines slow down. Or they do things we don’t like. Or they replace great characters (second Carly) with terrible people (Carl). But, we keep going. And why do we keep going? Because we love these people. We have known some of these characters longer than we have known a lot of people that read this blog. And so, we persevere. Even when they kill off our favorites. Or do things we don’t like.

But sometimes or dedication is rewarded. And that day is today. We have favorite characters. And then we have characters that go beyond favorites. They are so fantastic and over the top that we love them more than we love some of you. That’s just how great they are. Sadly, we so rarely get to see these people. They come and go and sometimes long long years pass between the sightings.

And this is why, when they show up out of nowhere and we get to see them again, it causes some of us to yell in the middle of the living room and immediately pick up the phone and tell Amber to watch the show RIGHTNOW and not do anything else she needed to do.

And why?

Because our favorite character of all time-Helena-is back. After at least five years of absence, she’s back! We got to see her for a full 5 seconds yesterday and it was the best 5 seconds of GH in years! Oh, Helena, how I have missed your evil ways. Welcome back, old friend.

P.S. Amber-is this not the greatest thing ever?

P.P.S. Sorry to the rest of you about the long GH-related blog.

How great was the Masters yesterday? Phil and Tiger made a massive push with my boy going 5 under on the day and nearly getting close to the leaders but then hitting it into the water on 12. What can you do? A for effort, Phil. Thanks for making it entertaining and for giving it the old college try.

And then, after that drama was over, the leaders opted for a playoff. How great was that? And how awesome that the winner is the guy who hit it into the trees on the first playoff hole? Pretty cool! And while I was hoping for Kenny Perry to win as he would then be the oldest player ever to win a major, I was pretty happy for Angel.

Thanks for a great weekend, Augusta National.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you a story about actual groundhog day. Rather, today’s blog is about how eerily similar the last three days have been for me. I planned my work schedule around the Masters so I could see every last second of it. I also had to do 3 weeks worth of school work in these 4 days due to my complete absence from my home in the month of May.

So, every day, I have woken up, turned on the Masters and started reading my psych books, typing up papers and researching studies done on my topics. I usually spend the entire Masters coverage doing my schoolwork (3:30-7:30). Then, when my brain stops caring about addiction, postpartum depression, and body image, I stop and eat some dinner and then watch the Yankee game of that particular day. Then, after my mental break I do different activities including learning how to use my new camera, cleaing out my closet, planning some more of our trip, etc. So, while the ends of my days have been different, the beginnings have been shockingly identical. I bring this up today because yesterday, I had no concept of what day it was. I thought about it and decided it must be Sunday and that I must work tomorrow. But, it was not Sunday and I did not work tomorrow (today). My advice to you, when needing to watch golf and be extremely academically productive, don’t schedule all of these same days in a row. It’s confusing and makes you feel like you are living in a golf/psychology bubble that no one can penetrate and that you can’t leave. It’s a little weird. With that said, I have been extremely productive this odd weekend and am very pleased with my progress. Thanks to my awesome work, not only did I do the work for the weeks Zak and I are in Europe, but I also did the work for the week I am in Oklahoma for Kyle’s graduation. So, the month of May which I thought was going to be all travelling and all school work is now looking to be all travelling and just a little school work-a huge improvement.

So, since it’s not actually Groundhog Day, I wish you all a happy Easter. I hope someone at ham and cheese potatoes and a cadbury egg in my honor since I did not.

I seem to take a lot of mocking for watching General Hospital. Well, I guess if I just sort of watched it casually, then I wouldn’t get so much mocking, so I guess I should say that I take a lot of mocking for my all-consuming obsession with General Hospital. But, I take the mocking and stand by my position that one day my watching will in some way save a life or something big and awesome like that. I promise, it’ll happen. Just you wait…

In the meantime, I think it’s nice to get little signs from the universe that I should be watching GH. The most recent sign came yesterday when I was doing my homework for class for the week Zak and I are gone and what was the topic of that week? Postpartum depression. Now, while the rest of you may not understand, Amber knows that it’s awesome because Robyn on GH is suffering from PPD right this very moment. And how very handy that I had to do a lot of research on that same topic today for class. You see, I’m supposed to be watching this show. Isn’t it clear?

So, Berta, I say we keep going strong. If loving General Hospital is wrong, do we really want to be right?

In equally great but unrelated news: a hearty way to go to Phil Mickelson for his great round of Friday and his big move from +1 to -3. That’s my boy!

Today is the start of the best golf weekend of the year! That’s right, it’s the Masters! And there’s that great simple tune that they play all throughout. And there’ s amen corner. I just can’t wait. I worked my work schedule around this and Meghan will be out of town. It’s a perfect arrangement. I’ve decided that Phil doesn’t do as well when I don’t focus on his tournaments. When I just pop in for the occassional hole or check updates on the internet, he doesn’t do well. But, when I focus entirely he does well and wins.

So, the focus of this blog is to put some positive Phil vibes out into the world. Everybody take a minute to wish really hard that Phil wins. It’s been since 2004 that he last won the Masters and it was such a great day and I’m ready to cry for golf again, aren’t you?

Go Philly!!

I meant to tell you all this a few weeks ago. When I was reading the latest issue of ESPN the Magazine, they did this article about the new system that many stadiums have put in. It’s sometimes called “Tattle-texting”. You can text a general stadium number about such things as:

1. Rude fans that are cursing

2. People who are throwing food and drink

3. Medical emergencies

4. Problems you may be having

The stadiums that have implemented it so far are liking the results. They say most people take it seriously and have used it for the right reasons. They also say it has improved response time in the case of medical issues in the crowd as someone can text the exact location and situation to the security people and they can respond quickly.

Some places will recieve the text and then point one of the million stadium cameras in the direction of the section/person that is creating the problem so they can see the wrong-doer while they don’t even know they are being watched. They say this has helped a lot with reducing fights between fans as well.

I think it’s pretty interesting. Although I hope they don’t use it to try to kick out all fans who curse or yell at the players/coaches/refs as that will leave exactly none of us in the stands.

Sorry for the late blog, Meghan, I was working on school work and forgot. I hope you catch this before you go home so that your at work routine isn’t upset.