1/30/2007

Toilet = fixed. Yay!!!

(P.S. Dad, you can visit without fear. I am now the proud owner of a heavy duty plunger.)

1/29/2007

Ahhhhh! Illusiveness is NOT the same as elusiveness, even if your spell checker and editor don't catch it. I was reading Clouds by Robin Jones Gunn and spent a good portion of time trying to make sense of this sentence (search for "illusiveness"). Now, while you do find out through the rest of the book that the lady in question was being illusive, the wonderment should be at the lady's elusiveness, as the wonderer had no idea she was being illusive. I hate it when books use the wrong words!

But you know what I hate even more? That I got so worked up about a cheesy Christian romance novel. I guess I can't really expect much better . . .

1/23/2007

First, for all the concerned folks out there (I know there had to be few, right . . . I hope) I am feeling mas bien. The kinks have all worked themselves out and I think I'm returning to normal. Just in time for the rematch this weekend . . . I have a feeling I may be a little more cautious this time around!!

Anyway, for the funny occurrence of the day . . . I was mistaken for a Japanese girl. Now, hopefully, this should be creating lots of questions in your head. Who in his right mind would think pale little ol' me looked Japanese? No one, actually, this person just thought my name sounded Japanese. Of course, this may not be any less puzzling, so let me explain (and if my parents read this before I get a chance to talk to them, I'm going to be in serious trouble! :).

The story goes like this . . . a good friend of mind at work decided that he wanted to hook me up with his friend in Houston. Anyway, he gave my work email address to this guy who I'll call, oh, I don't know, Josh. This was several weeks ago, and I hadn't hear anything, so I figured it was a no go. But, wonder of wonders, on Monday I received a nice long introductory email. To which I replied with an equally long introductory email. To which he replied, then I replied . . . long story short, we seem to have similar interests (He danced in college! and other fun stuff). We exchanged phone numbers and pictures and had a long conversation this evening. Anyway, to get back to the funny story, I guess all the Otts he has known have been of the Asian persuasion and since Naomi is a fairly popular Japanese name, he thought I was Japanese. Crazy, huh? And weird (considering that he is from MI, admittedly the UP, but still) that he hasn't met any good German Otts. Well, until Friday that is . . . when I drive out to Houston . . . to meet him . . . Woohoo, the dating saga of Naomi continues!!!! :-P

1/20/2007

A bunch of us gathered at a friend's house to hang out tonight and he put on a CD he had mixed himself. Most of the songs were pretty good and I was singing along until the first few beats of one particular song came on. I turned to friend and said "Is this . . . ?" and he nodded his head. "I had to study this school!" I exclaimed. "So did we," he replied. That song? "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel, which is basically a run-down of historical/cultural happenings of the second half of the 1900s. My friend and I discussed how we both had to track down what all the events mentioned in the song were and how difficult it was to do so. Now? A quick search on Google easily brings up the lyrics and their meaning. Man, kids today must have it so easy researching for school projects!

In other news, I am in excruciating pain after a fun afternoon of ultimate frisbee ended with me being plowed down by a guy twice my size. Poor guy, he felt so bad. I tried to let him know it's just the hazard of the game and that I'd be ok, but he was still beating himself up. Oh well, at least my team won, and I even scored a goal! :-)

1/19/2007

I was watching Sabrina tonight (old version, with Audrey and Bogie, you all should watch if you haven't . . . ) and there was one scene that involved a light turning on and off several times. Each time it changed, the light 'dinged,' a rising ding if it was turning on and a falling one if it was turning off. I thought to myself, if I can't have a soundtrack accompanying my life (and apparently, I can't, as I have yet to hear music serenading my every move), can I least have musical lights? I mean, is that too much to ask? . . .

(And yes, I know I'm weird . . . )

1/9/2007

I thought the pills were supposed to take care of my once-a-month pity party . . . and yet, here I am, feeling blue. Can I demand a refund? I mean, I'm still in pain too! I think I must have gotten a defective batch. Ah well, at least I know that once I go to bed, I'll wake up my normal cheery self. I just hate feeling so out of whack . . .

In other, less morose news . . . I made myself some curtains. Yes indeedy, I may be Martha Stewart yet! I had my sewing machine out because I made some stuff for Lit, and then I just decided that my bathroom needed some sprucing up. Well, to be truthful, all my windows need coverings now that I got them enlarged, but I had only enough fabric for the bathroom. Plus, I figured I'd better start with a smaller project. Despite being freehanded, and made without the benefit of a tape measure, I think they look quite good. Not professional, by any means, but you can only tell that if you get up close and stare. Perhaps I'll post a picture, once I redo the curtain rod (the previous owners didn't center it over the window, and yes, that bothers me to no end!).

1/8/2007b

This one's for you, Mom. Enjoy! :-D

1/8/2007

I better have kids, that's all I can say . . . I have a highly developed mothering instinct, and unless I have kids, other poor souls are going to have to bear the brunt of my hyperactive motherness. I am even, I have discovered, very protective of my units. Don't you dare touch them without talking to me first! Ouch! I definitely think certain colleagues of mine are a little scared of me. . . . Actually, that kind of makes me proud that I can instill fear (or, as I like to call it respect) when I'm only a young female engineer. Hopefully it bodes well for my career.

For the anonymous commenter (I'm popular enough to have an anonymous poster! This is either exciting or scary, I can't decide which!) two posts down, yes, Molly Ringwald is an actress. In fact, for all the wondering types, I did go ahead and look up all the celebrities I was compared to. They are:

Michelle Rodriguez: actress, most famous for role in TV series Lost
Harvey Keitel: actor, often portrays a thug
Shirley Temple: child star, famous for being cute (incidentally, I was often told I looked like Shirley Temple as a child, particularly when Mom put my hair up in the dreaded overnight curlers. The though of them STILL makes my head hurt!)
Josie Maran: Supermodel, famous for appearing in the SI swimsuit issue
Heath Ledger: Actor, known to me for the movie 10 Things I Hate About You, known to the general public as "that guy in Brokeback Mountain"
Jordana Brewster: Actress, often named in "100 Hottest Women" lists
Bill Gates: Microsoft founder, famous for being rich
Molly Ringwald: Actress, famous for starring in 1980s-era John Hughes' movies

Go Buckeyes!!!

1/6/2007b

I ROCK at Taboo.

1/6/2007

Do you like the new layout of my blog? What, you say, you can't tell a difference besides the added picture? True, it doesn't look much different, but now when I want to change something, I don't have to write HTML code. Yay! I try to avoid learning code . . . I'm already enough of a dork! Anyway, as I was playing with the blog and contemplating what to add, I realized I could add AdSense, which would display those little Google ads that relate to my blog and for every click on the ads I would get money. Tempting as the offer was, you'll be happy to note that common decency won over my mercenary little heart (that, and I know I don't have enough readers to make it worthwhile ;) I did have fun, though, thinking of the ads that might have come up with my last blog:

"HillCo: We'll build a hill in your back yard"
"NightVision: Goggles guaranteed to work in fog"
"Apollo: Where your body is our business"

Ok, anyway . . . . on an unrelated note (I seem to be more random all the time) I've been noticing on MySpace that a lot of my friends have posted their "celebrity look-alikes." There is this website where you can upload a picture of yourself and it'll run a facial recognition program and tell you what celebrities you look like. I went ahead and did it with my profile pic and got results like Kate Winslet, Anne Hathaway and other random (female) celebrities I don't know. Then I uploaded a picture from Peter's wedding, and, well, I think these results are better! ;)



For those who have no idea who most of these people are (like me), they are (l-to-r, top-to-bottom): Michelle Rodriguez, Harvey Keitel, Shirley Temple, Josie Maran, Heath Ledger, Jordanna Brewster, Bill Gates, and Molly Ringwald. Yes, I know that probably still doesn't help you place them, but the fact that I look like Heath Ledger AND Bill Gates is something I'm proud of! ;) (Oh wait, I was trying to get away from dorkiness . . . !)

1/5/2007

Random thoughts from Naomi:

Not only does Beaumont/Mid-County (as Nederland, Groves, Port Neches, etc. are lovingly called) lack mountains, they also lack any hills at all. And when I say no hills, I mean none! No hills to take a tumble down, no hills to sit on and enjoy a cool breeze (not that there are any), no hills to spend a fun afternoon ice blocking. It is this last point that brought this subject to mind. My friend was commenting on the fact that she has no idea what sledding is like. Trying to sympathize, I suggested ice blocking as a poor (snowless) man's substitute and then realized there is no place to do so. We sat for a while and tried to think of a hill in the area, but the only thing we came up with was the highway overpasses . . . somehow, we didn't think those were appropriate!

What Beaumont lacks in hills and snow, though, it makes up for in fog. It is incredibly foggy here. The weird thing is, when I look outside, to me it looks like it should be really cold and about to snow, and then I go outside and it's warm. I think my body's all confused . . . plus it makes driving home at night an adventure!

During my latest such fun drive, I was getting my 80s music fix via the radio when a commercial for an auto body shop came on. The closing line was "at Apollo, your body is their business." I can only imagine if I turned on the radio and just heard the end of the ad. I'd probably be envisioning a gym or a tattoo parlor or an organ harvesting company. I'm sure the double entendre is intended, but still . . . I'm glad I heard the full ad first.