Me winks

It's official: I function better on less sleep. For the past few years, I've been getting 8+ hours a night, and I'm groggy most mornings and my brain doesn't really start to work until after lunch.

But in the past few weeks, for a few nights here and there, I've only gotten 6 hours of sleep. And in the morning, it's so much easier to wake up and I have a ton of energy when I get to work.

So there. Less sleep is good. Also, I think this means I'm officially old.

More Elvis

A Big Hunk o' Love

Gotta get me a peanut-butter 'nana sandwich.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Sweaty Elvis

Right before I passed out on a toilet.

Must love dogs

I pretty much wrote this post in my head on Saturday afternoon. It was going to be a post about how crazy spontaneous and easily persuaded we are, and how just like that, we adopted a new dog.

Except just like that, we didn't.

Chris and I were in St. Louis for his cousin's wedding this weekend. On Saturday afternoon, on our way from breakfast to a post-wedding picnic (the wedding was on Friday night), Chris' dad had to stop to pick up some new reading glasses, so the rest of us went into the Petco next door rather than bake in the 100-degree heat. We thought we'd get Rosie a souvenir from St. Louis. That souvenir turned out to be a 3-year-old Great Pyrenees. He had been abandoned in a campground, and he was adorable and docile and affectionate and slobbery and ENORMOUS. We fell in love immediately. We talked to his foster mom and got some information on the adoption process and said we'd think about it for a few hours.

Then, we went to the picnic for about two hours and talked about it and decided that yes, we MUST adopt this dog. It was fate. So, we went back to Petco approximately 3 hours after our first visit, and he was gone. Already adopted out to another family that so, totally will not love him as much as we would of. Jerks.

So now, we're seriously thinking about getting a second dog. Rosie could use a playmate. In fact, every time we dogsit, Rosie gets extremely depressed after the other dog goes home. She needs a friend. A really big, slobbery, fluffy friend. The hunt is on.

Her real name is Bridgette

Well, it looks like my home computer has crossed from "being on the fritz" to "blue screen of death." So, until I get things back up and running, enjoy this little ditty.

Word.

gemini's twin - chanterelle | Viral | SPIKE.com

I invented Post-Its.

my 10-year high school reunion is in two weeks. insane.

UPDATE: You know what's even more insane? I can't remember the names of half the people in that photo.

Two Timing

Dear Blog,

There's really no easy way to do this, so I'm just going to come out and say it:

I've been seeing someone else.

We met at work. So far, I've only strayed once, but I can't promise it won't happen again. Wouldn't you rather I was honest?

You can check out the competition here. But don't worry. You'll always be my first. And I have no plans to end our relationship. Besides, I have to share the other blog with all my co-workers.

If you want to start seeing other bloggers, I understand.

Love,
ReporterStone

Homeless

Yeah, so the deal that I totally got my hopes up for has fallen through. I really don't understand the whole situation, but I guess the bank was cool with our offer, but now the seller isn't cooperating because she's bat-shit crazy, and the bank doesn't fully own the property until the entire foreclosure process is complete, which could take months, and ... blah, blah, blah ... auction ... blah, blah. blah ... deficiency judgment .. blah, blah, blah .. some other big words I don't understand.

Translation: It ain't happening.

I'm pretty much done with this whole thing. Right now, I just want to keep renting and forget about buying a house for a year or two or forever. I can't handle getting my hopes up again, only to have everything fall through because the seller is super shady. And judging by the few other people I know in this situation right now, things aren't going to get any better. One of my co-workers successfully sold her condo, which she thought would be the hard part. Except now, she and her hubby are sleeping on their friend's couch because they can't find a place to buy. They've been under contract three times, only to have the deal fall through due to stuff the inspection or attorney review turned up.

Basically, I've come to this conclusion. If you're selling your home right now and I can afford it, you are either a) in foreclosure, b) live in crappy/CTA-less neighborhood, c) haven't fix a thing since the Eisenhower administration, so as a result your property is advertised as "perfect for a tear-down or total gut rehab," or d) all of the above.

And in the end, I want nothing to do with any of you. You can keep your crappy home or the bank can take it or you can slap on some granite countertops and attempt to sell it for a gazillion dollars. I really don't care, 'cause I'm not buying it.

The Housing Situation

Remember how I said that we were buying our house and not moving? Right after I posted that, Chris was all, “it’s too early to post that,” and “stuff could still fall through,” and “you spilled diet 7-Up on your face.”

I hate when he’s right.

So, we got through the whole offer-counter-offer-counter-counter-offer thing, mortgage pre-approval thing, and then we came to the inspection thing. Turns out, the house is in great shape, expect that everything needs to be replaced. The roof, all the plumbing, all the electrical. So, although we already live a pit of debt, thanks to five college degrees between the two of us, from which we shall never surface, the idea of adding not just a mortgage, but also an additional 50 grand or so repairing the entire mortgaged house sounded like a great idea, we walked away.

Now we’re hunting again. We were, and possibly still are, close to going under contract on another place. I purposely haven’t mentioned it here for fear of jinxing our housing plans again. But despite my lack of posting, shit’s still messed up. The current place we’re interested in is in foreclosure, which means the bank, its advisors, the CEO, the board, the president, your mom and Condoleezza Rice all have to approve the offer before we can move forward. Basically, they told us that we might know if they accept our offer sometime this month. Maybe.

Normally, I am a very patient person, but when it comes to the place I will live in and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for over the next 30 years, I get a little antsy for a response. Plus, we don’t know if we should keep looking or wait for this place. This is all very frustrating.

On the plus side, on Sunday Chris and I watched the Euro 2008 finals at an awesome German bar where the yummy food and weiss beer was plentiful. Germany lost (bummer), but at least the grub was good.

There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this

So, I've been away for a while. Partially, it was because, as stated in my previous post, my home computer was on the fritz. I finally fixed that last week. However, another reason I've been away is because I've been spending every free moment working on a little project for work. I don't know if I can even begin to explain it, but I'll try.

So, the company I work for is a custom publishing company, which primarily extends into the marketing side of the companies we deal with. So, say the marketing department of Big Giant Bank decides it wants to better connect with its customers in order to increase loyalty, open new accounts, set up more mortgages, etc. We work with Big Giant Bank to develop publications, Web sites, newsletters, microsites, webcasts, etc. to help the bank engage and connect with its customers.


Anyway, because so much of what we do is helping companies CONNECT with their customers, clients, franchisees, partners, etc., we've changed our slogan to "How Do You Connect?" Timed with this new slogan, my company launched a competition for our employees to attempt to answer this question through a video.

My friend/co-worker and I decided that the best way to answer this question involved putting on wigs and running around the city shooting each other, our friends, tourists, and other complete strangers with Nerf guns. THEN, because we are so crafty, we developed a Web site and gave people the option to choose alternate endings for the video, come up with some of their own, play silly games online, etc. You see, we're CONNECTING.

Anyway, if you want to see all this madness, go here. The site isn't totally complete, but it has the video, an alternate ending, and some other random stuff on there. I'll be updating it all week, and then beyond, assuming people leave some comments and suggestions. People like you. And my co-workers. And my boss, who will get to witness his employees running around Chicago in crazy costumes in the name of his company.

Seriously, do I have a great job, or what?