It’s been a while. I know. Shut up.

Today I learned that the King of Pop has died.

Michael Jackson passed away earlier today at the age of 50. Although results from the coroner are not yet completed, it seems that he died from a heart attack. CBS aired an hour-long special that I watched where they recapped his life, both the good (usually had to do with music) and the bad (his personal life).

I wouldn’t say I’m a Michael fanatic. I’m too young to remember his glory days, all I got was the sick times of court cases and a creepy pseudo-caucasian Michael (I wondered for the entire special if CBS would mention his curious ethnicity transformation… guess what, they didn’t).

Still, I’m sad. That man could sure dance.

Although at the same time, he was millions of dollars in debt. Coincidence? Let the conspiracy theories begin. Boyfriend thinks he faked his death. I think it’s suicide. Thoughts?

ps: Australian sex god actor Alex O’Loughlin is returning to television this fall! In an original concept never produced before, he’ll be starring in a medical hospital-set drama about relationships and life called “Three Rivers”. Maybe I’ll call him McDrea– oh, wait.

Today I learned how to make brownies in the microwave.

Frickin’ sweeeeeeeet. And yes, the Laura this show is dedicated to is me. This was my request. And now I can have DELICIOUS CAKE all the time.

Win.

[ps] This show is produced by a friend of mine who is attending the Culinary Institute of America. She’s on a sort of extended leave for the moment, and has been producing this little treat in her spare time. I think it’s awesome. Plus, her cakes are delish.

Today I learned that I’m easily amused.

I laughed. For hours. And hours. I laughed until I cried. And I still do every time I look at it. Beware of new catch phrases along the lines of “I’m an anteater”. You’ll hear ‘em.

Apparently I’m also easily bored and/or distracted. It’s hard to find the time to update this thing. Whoops!

So work is cool and all, but I have lots of down time when I’m not babbling incoherent (but nonetheless entertaining!) nonsense on the air. So I pretend to work by typing madly on the computer, when I’m really just browsing Wikipedia, Facebook, and other mindless websites.

Shameless plug!

Jack’s Pretty Sweet Blog. It’s actually called the Obnoxious Sidekick, if we want to get technical here.

Today I learned you can, in fact, have a blog about nothing
AND STILL BE ENTERTAINING!

Kudos to Jack, the blogger. I randomly found his witty material and was thoroughly enjoying myself for a good few hours. Anything to waste time like that here at work is given hearty thumbs up. Maybe I just like it because he’s an aspiring journalist, like myself. He blogs on various nerd things such as videogame reviews, some “robot” they have running around, his college experiences, and frequently posts videos of himself and friends playing Sony’s “Singstar” — basically nerd karaoke (that’s my favorite). Altogether wonderful stuff. Check it out.

Tagged: blogging, humor, IGN, IGN.com, Jack DeVries, The Obnoxious Sidekick, video games ]]> http://vytamin.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/the-obnoxious-sidekick-strikes-again/feed/ 1 Laura http://vytamin.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/gimme-a-call-on-the-q-line/ http://vytamin.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/gimme-a-call-on-the-q-line/#comments Mon, 22 Dec 2008 13:23:32 +0000 Laura http://vytamin.wordpress.com/?p=125 ]]>

I work at a radio station in Marquette whenever I’m home and I absolutely love it. I know how to do just about everything around the station, so I fill in for random people many times — right now, our morning girl Jill is on holiday vacation, so I’m taking her shift. It’s a lot of fun, but I have to be up at 4:00 in the morning, which is not so fun.

Co-worker Casey and I go on to do the morning show, which is usually just music and occasional news, and sometimes we chit-chat after that news. This morning, we were talking about holiday movies (we take votes all day as to what Upper Michigan’s favorite holiday movie is), and he mentioned this one movie he had seen and really liked, but couldn’t remember the name of it.

Today I learned that people are really willing to help.

Immediately the phone was ringing with people ready to volunteer that information. After we went off the air, I answered the phone calls, and it was all people eager to inform us that Casey’s movie was The Family Man starring Nicholas Cage. This isn’t the first time we’ve babbled about something on-air and people called in to comment.

I love it when people call in. Not only does it show me they’re actually listening to my mindless chatter (“You like me! You really, really like me!”), but it’s nice that they care enough to want to help. Even if it’s only to take a couple seconds out of their day to call the radio station and inform the DJ what that movie he’s talking about is. Yay

I swear to God Casey looks just like this.

Today I learned that being polite on the phone will get you far.

I’m on a daily prescription for something, but just today I’d run out of my pills. So I called up my pharmacy to get a re-fill. Living in two places through the year (Marquette and East Lansing) makes the prescription thing kind of difficult — because people have been abusing drugs and what with insurance and all, a prescription can only be “active” in one place, otherwise someone else could be getting my extra re-fills.

Now, I know that I could get my pills over the summer here at Snyder’s, in Marquette. So I thought maybe I could still get them. So I called up Snyder’s pharmacy.

Pharmacist #1: Hello, Snyder pharmacy?
Me: Yes, I’d like to get a re-fill on a prescription… if I still can. I’ve been getting it from another pharmacy for the past couple months and don’t know if you still have it…?
Pharmacist #1: What’s your name?
Me: *gives*
Pharmacist #1: Okay, it looks like you’ll need to get it transferred. Um… do you have the information… you know, it’ll be easier if you call them and ask them to transfer your prescription over here.
Me: Okay, I’ll do that. Thank you so much.
Pharmacist #1: *sounding very cheerful* Have a nice day.

So I call up the other pharmacy down at school, which would be Meijer…

Pharmacist #2: Meijer Pharmacy, this is ______
Me: Yes, I’d like to transfer a prescription, please.
Pharmacist #2: All right, if you could have the other pharmacy call us and we’ll send over your information…
Me: They said it would be easier if I called you.
Pharmacist #2: Um, no. *pause* It has to be pharmacy to pharmacy, otherwise we’re unauthorized to send the information.
Me: *kind of laughing* Okay, fine. I’ll have them do that.
Pharmacist #2: *clipped* Okay. Have a nice day.

So I call back to Snyder’s…

Pharmacist #1: Hello, Snyder Pharmacy?
Me: Hi, me again. I called like two seconds ago. They said you had to call.
Pharmacist #1: Very well, we’ll do that. If I could just get some information…

Afterwards, when my prescription had been successfully transferred, Mom — who had been listening to the entire exchange — noticed how very polite and nice I was on the phone. I guess it’s something I learned both in radio and from hearing my sister’s (who works in a pharmacy) stories about dealing with rude customers. As a policy, it’s generally a good idea to be nice to people on the phone for as long as possible. They tend to cooperate better.

Boyfriend and I went to the NMU vs. Michigan Tech hockey game tonight. It was something to do, and although neither of us are huge hockey fans, we like watching it. I was having a ton of fun learning the NMU cheers (“And Northern’s at full strength!” THEY ALWAYS WERE! “Tech is at full strength!” AND THEY STILL SUCK!), when he randomly decided to give me my little tidbit of knowledge for the day.

Boyfriend: So did you know there’s a huge sheet of paper under the ice?
Me: … Huh?
Boyfriend: Yeah. It makes sense — ice is clear, isn’t it?
Me: Well, yeah.
Boyfriend: It’s just a huge sheet of white paper. That’s how they get all the images and pictures and lines on there.
Me: I always thought it was painted on.
Boyfriend: If it was painted on, it’d get scratched away with all the skates.
Me: So you just see right through to the paper?
Boyfriend: Yep.
Me: Wow. I never knew that!

Today I learned how hockey rinks get lines and images on them.

photo courtesy of aragirn of Flickr

Fascinating.

I’m not exactly proud of this little story, but it’s important for me to be honest in this blog, I think — whether I’m proud of lessons or not, sometimes making a complete ass of yourself is the best way to learn to not do it again. Or something.

Today I learned that cars will be forever unpredictable.

I generally consider myself a good driver. I know which way to turn the wheel when I slide, I know how fast is too fast, and I’m good at gently breaking — and pumping the breaks — on ice. And with a good set of four-wheel drive tires, I can generally get myself out of any sticky situation.

That all changed today. Our house is a little ways out of actual Marquette, and it’s about a fifteen minute drive “into town”. This route goes directly past gorgeous Lake Superior, which is both a blessing and a curse: I get to see the lake, but on wintery days it makes the roads windy, icy and generally dangerous. I was driving out of Marquette and on my way back home, music up, singing along to holiday tunes, four-wheel drive in part-time. And suddenly, I hit some slush.

I started fishtailing, a little at first, and then the momentum of it just made each swing bigger and bigger. I was turning into it as best as I could, but finally I swung around — going backwards — and spun right out the side of the road and pulled two complete 360’s into a snowbank before skidding to a stop.

I was hyperventilating. The whole time, I was freaking out — certain I would either flip the car (it’s a jeep and those cars are notorious for high flip-over risks) or smash right into the light pole that I got dangerously close to.  A brief thought of Thank God I have my seatbelt on flashed through my mind.

I sat for a few minutes, hyperventilating a little more, car still running. And finally I established I wasn’t dead, the car was fine, and if I didn’t move soon somebody would think I was dead or I’d get hit by another spinning car. So I pulled roughly out of the snowbank and edged back out onto the highway (no small task, considering I didn’t have any room to manuever without going right into the 55-mile-an-hour lane of traffic). And back down the road I went.

I probably went another 60 feet. Not even. There was a horrible awful grinding noise coming from the driver’s side back tire and I knew immediately something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. But I could at least go enough to hit a parking lot or something instead of becoming a sitting duck on the highway. So I pulled over in front of the prison gift shop (I really don’t think it’s actually a gift shop but that’s what we always think it is… Marquette locals might know what I’m talking about).

I had completely destroyed the back tire. Not only was it flat, but it was completely off the rim — the grinding, scraping noise had been the bare rim of the tire going down the road. And that’s when I kind of started to freak out and panic. I called mom, and she and my sister came a half hour later to pick me up. We had the car towed and the tire replaced. Ten whopping dollars. The price of my near-death experience was a whole ten dollars. How fantastic it made me feel.

We didn’t know if the slush had caused me to lose control, or if the tire had blown and that had caused me to spin out. Mom conclues it was the former, since the repair-guy informed us the tire was just fine — nothing had gotten into it and made a hole, and nothing was ripped. I’m embarrassed. I feel as if the entire thing was somehow my fault, and if I were a better driver it wouldn’t have happened at all. Who knows.

So, despite having four-wheel drive on and active, the tiniest bit of slush could have landed me in a pretty bad accident. I have to get back on the road by Monday (since I work) at the latest, and I’d be lying if I said I’ll be just fine. I’ll be scared out of my mind. And probably going at an impressive 20 miles an hour. And I’m also not looking forward to hearing the lecturing by my friends whom I’ve previously scolded for not driving carefully — I’m eating my words, now. Sigh.

But hey. At least I’m alive and the car’s fine. Right?

Today I learned that being in a small town creeps me out.

Which is kind of hilarious, since I was here for 18 years and not creeped out. “Here”, of course, being my hometown of Marquette. In hindsight, it really isn’t that small of a town (it’s the biggest in the U.P), but small enough. All of the college kids are slowly trekking home, and apparently, we all like to hang out at the same places.

This is Kaufman Auditorium. It’s a historic centerpiece of Marquette, and is technically a part of the public school system, so it’s a favorite for all of the school concerts. Boyfriend and I decided to hit up the high school’s Holiday Band Concert (we’re both band geek alums).

Almost immediately, though, we were pointing out people we knew in the crowd. “Oh, look, there’s Anne! Hey, Ellen! I see the Luoma family–” Which was fine and cute and all. It was a band concert for our old high school, so obviously, we would see a lot of fellow college-age alum. But at Econo Foods afterwards, and the gym earlier in the day, and at Culver’s afterwards… I wasn’t expecting to continue to run into a million friends, acquaintances, what have you.

Awkward.

Generally, it’s fun. My parents were excited when I told them about it. “Isn’t that fun, to see all your old friends?!” In a way, sure. But I was also kind of creeped out. There was something reassuring in the anonymity of East Lansing that isn’t here in Marquette — a pressure to always look good, always have pleasant conversation and small talk at the ready, and be extremely aware and conscious of what you’re doing at all times. You never know who’s watching.

Friends have always told me I seem like a “big city kind of girl”. I have to agree. And I guess this just proves it, hm?

I am a girl, and we girls sometimes have a nasty little thing called low self-esteem and a lot of pressure to stay thin and in shape (I blame the media! I blame the media!). I am not one of the lucky few who naturally has a metabolism that goes 3614363 miles an hour. So in order to stay relatively happy with how I look, I have to exercise.

During school, I got really good at it. I was running every day, and then swimming regularly when the snow hit. But then Thanksgiving struck, and finals followed, and I found myself with absolutely no time to exercise. And shortly after returning home to Marquette, I began to feel fat and lazy and a whole lot worse. Lack of exercise (especially after getting used to it) will do that to you.

Today I learned that the body has incredible memory.

We usually refer that memory as “habit”. But when we talk about habits, it’s usually something we do regularly. In this case, I’m talking more of not doing something for a long time — but still being able to do it just as easily whenever you start again.

In order to get back into my exercise routine (so I would quit feeling fat and feeling sick, since I was starting to catch a cold), I went to the Dome today to run laps. I’m pretty laid-back when it comes to running — I don’t need a treadmill, I don’t need a fancy lane-divided track, I don’t need $5,000 shoes. Just gimme loose pants, my music and a warm long place.

And I was thrilled to find that my body hadn’t quit on me. When I first started running over the summer, I was atrocious — I’d go five minutes and collapse. But my endurance has improved shockingly over a very short span of just a few months (this coming from someone who once HATED running!). I got back into stride almost instantly and pulled an easy two miles before I had to stop for water and breath.

Of course, I’ll be sore tomorrow. After all, I haven’t run in over a month. But it was reassuring to know my body hadn’t quit on me, and still remembered how to get into stride, take it easy, and keep a measured breath. Yay!