Halloween Part II

Before an actual Halloween party with costumes.

The French maid discovering the drunk Harvard student.


The French maid, and the lady bug, ready to paint the town red.


The party was lots of fun. But then I woke up the next morning to discover it was snowing. And today it is in the 60's. I don't get New England weather at all.

Halloween Part I: TSP Style

Every Friday after work there is a party, which usually has a theme, and which different departments are in charge of each week. The Customer Service Department was in charge of the Halloween party this week, and fun was obviously had by all.

Scott, the scary Tech Support Rep


Bobbing for apples


I obviously cheated by picking the apple with the stem sticking out at the top


As did Heather


The poor pumpkin never had a chance before James stabbed it in the head.

Heathers

Disclaimer: This may be offensive to people from the South.

I am a customer service rep at an educational software company. Most of the people who call the company are teachers. Do not get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for teachers (especially Meowilyn and Listmaker.) But the minute that a Southern teacher calls in, I cringe a bit. I do not know why this is. I do not want to have a prejudice aganist Southern people. I just wish that everyone had a pleasant accent, perhaps British or Scottish.

It has become a running joke between me, and my coworker Heather. There have been two customers, one from Kentucky (who calls for Heather), the other from Tennessee (who asks for me) that have called on repeated occasions. On these occasions, they ask for "Haythur" or "AaaMeh" Now that is how Heather and I refer to each other in order to make talking to these deep South customers much more amusing. It is also helpful if when you are talking to them, the "Deliverance" theme song, or some variety of banjo music is playing in the background in your head.

I'm going to hell, or catching the bird flu, one of the two.

Two different examples of stupidity

This article is about people freaking out about various ailments instead of worrying about the ones that are actually killing them. http://http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/health/psychology/25essa.html?ex=1130385600&en=babeb2c64336c469&ei=5070


This one is just another example about the complete morons that are in charge of this country.
http://http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/business/24onion.html?incamp=article_popular

This country is going down the shitter.

Another day at work

Yesterday at work, someone got the best package ever: a Clifford suit. I'm not really sure why, something to do with marketing I guess. Andrew, being the goofball that he is, stepped up to the plate, put the outfit on, and walked around the office in it.



Making copies


Making a very important sale


The man behind the dog

What the Puck?

Tonight I'm going to a Boston Bruins game with some coworkers. I have never been to a hockey game, nor do I really know anything about the sport. Having lived with an avid hockey fan in London for four months, I am hoping that her enthusiasm will spread to me tonight. We shall see.

What would Jesus really do?

This opinion article from Salon (the link is in the headline) summarizes perfectly the hypocrisy of the Bush administration in their use of religion. While the article does not argue anything particularly groundbreaking, I definetly could not have said it better myself. I'm not going to write anymore about it....read the article for yourself, trust me.

The Winter of my Discontent

It's official: winter is coming, and I'm scared. While it is still in the mid-50's here, this morning was the first one where I could see my breath in the air outside. I'm scared about ridiculously cold temperatures, of driving to work in the snow, and of high heating bills. For someone who hates the winter, it might not have been the brightest idea for me to move to Massachusetts.

To add insult to injury: Howard Stern's final radio days (before he moves to Sirius) are dwindling to an end. For years and years, I was subjected to Stone Groove coming home from work and telling us "hilarious" stories from that morning's Howard Stern show. Usually we would stare blankly at him, not understanding what he found so funny. But since I have started working, Howard has become part of my morning routine. He was there for me during my first month in Massachusetts when I had to commute over 45 miles each way from Worcester. He still is there for me now on my much shorter commutes from Medford. What will I do without him? I guess I'm just going to have to find some good podcasts, but no podcast can take the place of Howard.

My sentiments exactly.

You've Got to Fight For Your Right to Party!

Sorry, had to use the obligatory Beastie Boys reference. Anyways....
This article from the New York Times is about how drinking games are becoming more popular among college students, and how bars are capitalizing on this trend. I found this article amusing on many levels.
1.) Are college administrators so out of touch that they actually think that college students would play the game with WATER instead of beer? Right.
2.) I love how they refer to one of the drinking games as "flippy cup." It is flip cup! Idiots..
3.) College administrators are saying that drinking games lead to binge drinking among college students. It is true that is very easy to lose track of how much you drink with these games. But at the same time, playing these drinking games is not going to make one drink any more than just sitting around drinking. It is all a matter of knowing what your limit is, and obviously a number of students don't. But don't blame the fun drinking games!

I'm not by any means a huge drinker. But drinking games are fun, and the more that colleges try to suspend them, the more prevalent they will become.

And by the way: Youthlarge and Listmaker: Drinking games are indeed a good "pre-gaming" activity.

Stand Up For Your Rights

Vivian Jones, one of the many student activists of the Civil Rights Movement died yesterday at age 63.
During the second semester of my freshman year in college, one of the classes I took was the "Civil Rights Movement." It very quickly became my favorite class of the semester, and is one of my favorite classes from college in general. The class inspired me to change my major to History (although I graduated with a major in English, I still minored in History, and am still fascinated by.)

Another reason that I loved the class was because it focused on such recent history. This struck me because the people that dominated, and enacted the most change in the Civil Rights Movement were people my own age. These people, with everything against them were able to bravely stand up to discrimination. A young man (Emmett Till) was able to kick off the Civil Rights Movement pothumously, and organizations like SNCC, and individuals such as Vivian Jones, are at the core of the campaign for equal rights, which lasted for over a decade. In that time, these young leaders had to face threats of death, fire hoses being used on them, and the possibility of losing everything.

In my opinion, much was gained from the 1960's Civil Rights Movement. The 1964 Equal Rights Bill was signed (which is now up for renewal), and slowly but surely, things changed for the better. But in 2005, while things are much better now than in 1965, a new kind of discrimination has surfaced. This is most evident in New Orleans, and what Hurricane Katrina showed: the poverty gap.

Another issue that I feel needs a Civil Rights Movement II is for gay/lesbian rights. I think it is utterly ridiculous that the government wants to legally ban gay marriage. How is that not discrimination? How is that not a clear violation of one's civil rights? This country still has a very long way to go in the fight for equal rights for all (what our country is supposedly founded on.)

I hope Vivian Jones died knowing that she was part of a movement that changed our country for the better. It also makes me feel somewhat ashamed of my generation for not being able to do what hers did: to fight hard enough for what they knew was right, enabling the government, and the country to change for the better.

Johnny B Good

Alas, the 2005 baseball season is officially over for the Red Sox, my adopted team (Sorry Orioles.) With that in mind, I'd like to pose a question. According to that joker named Stone Groove, when I straighten my hair, I look like Johnny Damon. I now make sure never to do this around Mr Groove, because when I do he repeatedly calls me Johnny. So let's compare:

Me in a bad picture with straight hair:



Johnny Damon:


So how do we compare? Notice also that Johnny is also left handed like me. Maybe me and him really have more in common than I thought....

Good Grief

I know I am about two months late, but I wanted to weigh in on the series finale of "Six Feet Under." No other series finale, or any television episode has affected me quite that much. During the last ten minutes, I was crying like a baby. (And I know that the old people wigs were ridiculous looking, but I was able to look beyond that.) And believe me, I am not one to cry during televisions shows, movies, commericals, etc. It gets even more pathetic, because the ending was not unexpected. I knew what was going to happen! So why did it affect me so much? The answer is three-fold.
1.) Claire is supposed to be my age. At the end of the episode, she is going off on her own, really for the first time. Watching this episode two months after I did the exact same thing really got to me. When I was driving off from home, having had a tearful goodbye with my parents, I was sobbing in my car just like Claire. (Although Claire's fender did not fall off in the process.)It was incredibly scary to take such a big step in my life, and driving into the unknown. Seeing Claire do the exact same started the waterworks.

2.) The fact that the audience is able to see what happens in the main characters lives also got the tears flowing. I like that they did not just show the deaths, but also all the good things that happened as well. Such is life...

3.) What affected me most was the simple concept of the series finale, and the show as a whole: that life is about death. Ever since the end of January, when my grandfather died on the 24th, and I found out the next day that my friend Linda from high school was murdered in her apartment at Johns Hopkins (www.lindatrinh.com) death has been on my mind much more than it ever had. The two deaths happening so close together was also such a daunting contrast. I miss my grandfather so much, but I have accepted that he was 83, and that is what happens. But for Linda to be killed at 21, I do not think I will ever be able to accept. I do not think there will ever be a time in my life, where she is not constantly on my mind. She was such an incredibly amazing person, and there is no way in my mind that I can make sense of her death. It might make it easier for me if I was religious, or if I believed in heaven. But I am not, and I believe that when you die, you die, that's it. Although "Six Feet Under" as a whole, did not necassarily take that approach (with the reoccurence of dead characters such as Nathaniel, and Nate), it still shows how fragile life is, and how quickly it can be taken away (ex. Nate, and Keith being gunned down.)

By the time the credits rolled around, I was a blubbering mess. After I got off the couch, I saw that I had missed a phone call from home. Stone Groove had left a typical stupid message (something about pretending to be Howard Stern), which made me start crying even more because it made me think that one day he was not going to be there.

I'm sorry that this was such a depressing entry. I really wanted to share how much the show affected me. It has been a couple weeks since I have watched it, and in non-crying, undramatic hindsight, I give the series finale an A- (The minus is for the awful old people hair.)

RIP: Six Feet Under: 2001-2005

Crank Yankers

Ah, the classic prank phone call. I do not know what I will be like when I'm older, but now, I still find prank phone calls extremely funny. Yesterday was a very slow day at work. As it was Columbus Day, most schools were off for the day, so very few phone calls came in. Late in the afternoon, these kids kept calling in. From what I gather, their mother must have owned one of our programs, and got our number off of one of the CD's. These kids were oh so clever and sneaky. They could not get through one sentence without cracking up.

I suppose the point of crank calls is to make the receiver mad. I was far from mad because they were entertaining me in their amateur crank calling ways. At 5:30, it was time for me to leave for the day, leaving a male coworker by himself until 7 to answer calls. He was not putting up with their bullshit. It was all fun and games for him when they called, and asked for me by name. But once I was leaving, they called again. He answers "Boston Police Department.", and they hang up.
1 minute later.
Coworker: "...Productions", this call is being recorded by the Boston Police Department.
Kid: Uhhh....
Coworker: Hey kid, the police are going to be at your house in 10 minutes.
Kid: What?! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Do you want to talk to my mom?
Coworker: It's too late for sorry's, you should of thought of that before. The police will be at your house in ten minutes, and will be taking you to jail.
Kid: Makes various freaking out sounds.

Alas, in this day and age, prank phone calls are just too hard to make with so many people having caller ID. But with shows like "Crank Yankers", which is admittedly hit or miss, the magic of crank phone calls can live on. Those kids should watch that show for some pointers.

Turtle in a half shell: Turtle power!

I have been debating it for months: do I really want to start a blog? If anyone knows me at all, they will know that I am ridiculous when it comes to making decisions. But, as you can see, I have finally made a decision to start one.

Part of the reason that I did not want to start a blog was wondering what the hell my name would be. I decided on Turtle Power because of the classic show "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." If you are unfamiliar with the show, movies, or comic books, the story centers around a gang of mutant ninja turtles, each named after a various Renaissance artist, Leonardo, Michaelangeo, etc. I had the good fortune of having a last name that coincided with one of these turtles. In elementary school, I got teased on many occasions for my last name, and constantly was called a Ninja Turtle. I would come home and cry after school to my day care mother about the kids teasing me, and her advice was to tell them it was cool to have that name. At the time, I thought she was crazy. Now looking back on it, I realize that I really do have a cool last name. In college, some friends would call me Turtle. On my first day at work, they had made a "Welcome Amy" sign for me, with Raphael, the Ninja turtle on it. At 22, I have embraced the silly connotations that my last name brings, and in doing so have named my blog after the famed Ninjas. Turtle Power!