Out with the Old!

I wished someone Happy Birthday through a blog. 

Let me tell you a little about my sister and frequent commenter, Loyster.

She has very curly hair.  She used to ingest a Hershey bar and can of Coke for breakfast almost everyday in High School.  She has worked at McDonald’s.  She loves to sing and has actually tried out for American Idol.  Simon thought she was a bit cabaret, so she didn’t make it onto the TV segments.  She has three children that I want to eat for breakfast because they’re so cute.  She worries a lot.  She is athletic.  She likes MTV reality shows.  She LOVES Christmas in an unhealthy way.  Most of all, she’s a great sister, mother, friend, daughter and human being!  Happy Birthday, Kelly!

Fun factor: 10

100th new thing!  Woo-hoo!  Never mind I should have hit this milestone 34 days ago.  To celebrate:

I ate a flower.

I’ve wanted to eat something non-traditional for this blog since I started.  My friend Emily and I made dinner for our friend Katie as a birthday present.  We also got her some flowers, and towards the end of the night we were discussing what a girl was to do for a blog entry these days.  

Insert flowers.  We tore off some daisy petals and I had myself a floral snack.  After the fact we researched it to ensure that it was a safe flower to ingest.  Then we spent a few minutes feeling nervous and weird that I had in fact eaten a poisonous flower, and I thought about how lame that eulogy would sound.

Fun factor: 5 

On Friday, we had a staff appreciation day at Navy Pier. It was fun to get out of the office despite the fact that it was 40 degrees. I spent my $5 allowance and:

I rode the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier.

Actual live action shots coming soon-they are on a co-worker’s camera. Trust me, you’ll want to check back for those. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually ridden a Ferris Wheel at all, but certainly have not ridden this one. It’s got a spectacular view of the city from great angles and it was pretty fun. It’s $6 and the ride takes 7 minutes to complete. While you ride, the speaker system gives trivia about its infrastructure and other nuggets of information about the Pier.

It also got me thinking how much trust one places in Carnies when one does shit like this.

Fun factor: 7

A year or two ago I found out about the best thing online ever. Yes, I’m sure I was late on the trend, but nonetheless I embraced the hell out of it and still do. It’s a website that allows you to type in an artist or band and it will automatically generate similar music from its huge database; essentially you are creating radio stations for yourself that will play songs based on different artists. The best part is that it’s FREE. And the sign-up process is EASY.  It’s a fun thing to have in the background when you’re entertaining in lieu of developing a clever ipod playlist or *gasp* mixed CD.

In any event, I’m always listening to it and mean to buy one of the songs on itunes that I like and have never heard before. I never remember to do so. Until now:

I downloaded a song I heard from Pandora.

I am the proud owner of Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over by the Charlatans.

Fun factor: 7

One of my life ambitions is to see/visit all 50 United States.  I sometimes like to make a list of how many I’ve been to and stare at it.  Co-worker Patrick had some free time and came up with a very fun game. So:

I compared my list of states visited to some of my co-workers.

Pat won with 26, but I feel like his standards for time spent in a state were a little lower than some of the other contestants.  I tried to convince him that buying a porno mag at a rest stop in Snellville, GA does not a visit make, but he wasn’t buying it.  I had 21, for the record.

Fun factor: 8

A friend, fellow board member, beautiful lady and co-worker of mine, Esther, works each day perched atop one of those large exercise balls. Coincidentally she is the same broad who taught me to knit. Man is she versatile. Anyways, I’ve heard this is very good for you and Esther has mentioned it has improved her posture.

So today:

I attempted to sit on an exercise ball at work.

The plan was to sit on it for the last hour or so of work to gather a feel for it. I lasted an unprecedented 4 minutes. I found it noisy and uncomfortable. Perhaps too low to the ground? It was a strange, scary feeling I had while sitting on that ball.

Fun factor: 3

Sometimes the lack of postings on this blog is due to me tending to my various jobs and social life, but lately I’ve simply not been doing new stuff. I realized I need to step things up a bit around here, if for no other reason than I’m obsessed with looking at the stats page after every post.

It’s finally starting to get nice here in Chicago, which serves as a reminder that Mother Nature is a dirty tease. Most of the year she is bundled up in her wool trousers and frumpy turtlenecks, but once or twice during the months of March-June, she shows up wearing red nail polish, a low-cut tank and a mini skirt. During these times all we can do is ogle. And drink lots of margaritas. So:

I’ve started a margarita ranking system for Chicago establishments.

My first stop was El Barco Mariscos. Beware, their website may induce seizures. It’s a very fun place that is always crowded. In the summer they have a great side patio with outdoor seating. If you’re local, you should check it out.

The ranking system is based on a five point scale, with a “5″ representing the good end of the scale.

-Taste: 3.5/ Size: 5 (the drink was as large as my abdomen)/ Strength: 3.5/ Atmosphere: 5/ Price: 3 (could be cheaper, but they are HUGE)/ Overall Score: 4

And, if it’s your birthday, you can get a FREE MARGI from using their website coupon. Come on now.

Fun factor: 10+

I work in fundraising as my day job, so it’s interesting to me to learn about all of the different forms it can take. Recently, I’ve been reading a lot about microfinance. It’s certainly not a new concept, but I do feel as though it’s becoming increasingly popular as of late. As Wikipedia defines it, “Microfinance refers to the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including the self-employed. Often, the term also refers to the practice of sustainably delivering those services.” Basically it’s a bank of sorts, where individuals contribute money as a loan to another individual, who use the windfall in order to improve upon or start a sustainable business. Just like a regular loan, they sign a contract with terms that involve the repayment schedule. Am I blabbering? In any event:

I loaned money to a business owner through Kiva.

After doing some research, I found Kiva, an organization that streamlines the process. You can search from thousands of people and families to find the perfect fit for what type of person/business you prefer to support. I chose to loan to a woman in Nigeria who plans to use the loan to buy a freezer for her local shop so that she can stock more products and improve upon food safety.

Fun factor: 10

I worked at the restaurant tonight. At one point there was a lull in traffic, so in order to entertain my mature self:

I drank a suicide from the drink gun.

For those of you unfamiliar with this notion- a suicide is a concoction of several different flavors, usually in beverage form, most often performed on the playground as a result of a dare. I have had a suicide before- at Dairy Queen with the Mister Misty flavors- but never with pop.

The gun at the restaurant contains: RC, Diet Rite, 7-Up, Grape Soda, Green River, club soda, lemonade, iced tea, water, and Dr. Pepper. It was pretty nasty. The overpowering flavor for me was Grape, which made it slightly more bearable.

Fun factor: 7

There’s a newspaper in Chicago, The RedEye, that contains a daily Sodoku puzzle. Apparently the publication has been lucrative for the outfit, because they seem to have some extra cash laying around to pay a staff member whose title is “Resident Sodoku Ninja.” I imagine his cubicle is probably right next to the Resident Butthole Sniffer. This man does the Soduku puzzle every day and times himself. The challenge each day to the readers is to beat his time. I’ve never actually timed myself, so today:

I challenged the Sodoku Ninja’s time.

I’ve seen his times range from 3 to 18 minutes whenever I happen to check out this paper, but today it was an astonishing 59 minutes. The puzzle was rated with difficulty of 6 stars- another staggering number I’d never seen. I thought I would kick the SN’s ass, but instead I finished in 69 minutes. And then I spent the next 69 minutes being depressed that I had spent 69 minutes of my Sunday doing a Sodoku puzzle.

Fun factor: 6