I'm Cheating on my Blog With my Other Blog

Okay so in my last post I mentioned a super-cool new blog idea... here it is!  Ready?  A (hopefully) daily (ish) list of three good things that happen that day, in order to keep myself in a positive state of mind.  It sounds totally self-helpy, I know, but it's really fun and I want everyone to do it with me!  Don't worry about Nerd Thoughts, it's not going anywhere, but you should definitely check out my new blog at www.goodthingshappenhere.blogspot.com, and let me know your three good things by posting a comment.  I'm very faithful about replying.  Follow if it tickles your fancy, and pass it on to your family and friends.  It's a great exercise in positive thinking, and well worth the brief amount of time it takes to scan your day for good things.

Summer Update: Best-Laid Plans Go Awry as Super-Cool New Blog Idea Takes Over

Just thought I would drop in and let you know how it’s going.  So far, pretty much everything on my list from the previous post has been replaced with something else.  The best-laid plans… 

I had originally intended to sunbathe every day, watch the whole series of Battlestar Galactica, use my hula-hoop, and pay my library fine.  Instead, I’ve found myself learning to play the ukulele, watching Game of Thrones, rejoining my gym, and working on a completely new and separate blog, to be launched soon!  (Don’t worry, Nerd Thoughts isn’t going anywhere.  I love talking about myself too much to drop it.) 

My next post will introduce the new blog to everyone; I think it’s a pretty slammin’ idea, and I really hope you all will check it out.  In the meantime, here’s what happened to me last night:

So as lots of you know, I’ve been housesitting every weekend in NY state for some friends of mine who are spending the summer in Australia.  They live in this really cool old farmhouse, and they have two indoor/outdoor cats—Lamu and Zeya.  Last night, I was sitting on the couch when Zeya trotted up to me carrying one of her toy mice.  Thinking she wanted me to throw it for her (as she sometimes does) I reached down for it, but she kind of shied away from me and ran under the piano bench.

I heard her batting it around for a while, but it wasn’t until the batting noises were joined by some frantic squeaks that I realized it wasn’t a toy mouse.  IT WAS A REAL MOUSE.  And it was alive.  She walked right up to me with a live mouse in her mouth, and I almost reached out and took it because I thought it was her toy.  And the worst part was that she wouldn’t kill it; she just kept playing with it.  It finally ran under the couch, and I took both cats out of the room and shut the door, and went to bed.  I haven’t seen it yet today, so hopefully it escaped.  If it curled up somewhere and died from it’s injuries, then the atmosphere in the sitting room may become increasingly unpleasant over the next few days.  Especially in this heat. 

Molly's Big Summer of Super Amazing Fun!!

It’s summer, y’all.  And since I can't quit school and take two months off from work to follow the Heathers to Australia, I'm going to have to spend it entertaining myself.  I’ve got big plans. 

1. Spend some time in the sun, preferably daily

The reasoning behind this one is twofold: I have the complexion of an albino vampire, and I probably don’t get enough vitamin D. 

I’ve heard it all when it comes to my skin color; I’m clear, I’m blindingly white, if I ever get lost in the dark I won’t need a flashlight because I’ll have my legs, and so on.  There’s a heap of reasons for my pastiness, the two biggest being (a) the fact that if I spend even ten minutes in the sun, I fry like the Bloomin’ Onion at Outback Steakhouse, and (b) my strong aversion to shorts.  I really hate wearing shorts.  But, hopefully, if I coat myself in SPF 70 and get over the shorts thing, I will be able to build up my skin’s resistance to the sun and get a little color. 

The other reason for my newfound commitment to sunbathing is that it’s good for me.  It has been brought to my attention by my friends and my mom that vitamin D is important.  If I want to get through life without rickets, osteoporosis (I think I’m already genetically doomed there), depression, hyperparathyroidism (whatever that is) or fatigue (too late), I should probably get some ASAP.  Also, it just feels good to know that while I’m lounging in the sun, listening to This American Life and sipping lemonade, my body is absorbing nutrients all by itself.  It’s like eating healthy food or exercising without having to actually do anything. 

2. Watch the entire series of Battlestar Galactica

I know I’m kind of late to the party here, but just go with it.  We recently got Netflix at my house (Lappy just auto-capped Netflix for me, btw) and I intend to take advantage.  I do realize that this is in direct conflict with my previous goal of spending more time outside; I haven’t quite reconciled this yet.  I’m working on it.  I’ve been feeling bereft since Lost ended last year, and I think I’ve seen every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation enough times to know all the dialogue, so it’s no longer exciting.  I need something new; it's either Battlestar Galactica or Dr. Who, and I think BG is a more realistic goal for the summer.  There are like twelve different iterations of Dr. Who, and approximately 2174839 episodes.  I would never finish it.  

3. Actually use the hula-hoop that is taking up valuable real estate in my bedroom

I have a weighted hula-hoop.  I’m actually quite good.  It is currently gathering dust in my bedroom, but I think it’s time for it to make a reappearance.  Maybe I can hoop-dance while I watch Battlestar Galactica.  I have no idea if it’s actually exercise, but in my head, it is.  And it’s fun, so I can trick myself into doing it. 

4. Pay my library fine

I owe them $98.00, and I’m too ashamed to go pay it.  I haven’t been in the library for over a year now.  This needs to end. 

So that’s the plan.  I’ve already bought some shorts, which I think is a good start.  Grammar class in NYC tomorrow after work, and I plan to get there early enough to sit in Bryant Park and eat a sandwich while watching 100-plus people take the free yoga class that's offered on the lawn every Thursday evening.  Yoga is a great spectator sport.   

I Know My Calculus; It Says You + Me = Us.

Okay, so this isn’t about relationships.  That was just a catchy hook to draw you in.  (Molly has a boyfriend?  What??  Holy Christmas tree, IS THAT A PIG FLYING OVER MY HOUSE??)  It also isn’t about calculus.  But it is about school.  I’ve gone back!  This one is for realsies; it’s not like that time that I faked you out by saying that I was going to grad school to get a Library Science degree.  It is just as nerdy, though.  It may even be slightly nerdier (more nerdy?).  I’m getting an Editing Certificate from NYU.  This is so that I can become a copyeditor, and thereby combine the two things that I love most into one career: reading books, and pointing out people’s mistakes. 

The commute into the city twice a week is a drag, but the work involves all kinds of super fun things like dangling modifiers, the correct usage of personal pronouns, and classes like Grammar Intensive: Mastering Style and Sentence Structure (which makes the nerd receptors in my brain go all tingly in a pleasantly dorky fashion). 

Unfortunately, I’m still super lame when it comes to conclusions in my writing, so I’m going to leave you with the extra credit question from my grammar homework this week.  It is deceptively tricky.  I dare you to answer it- I did.  Here it is:

Think of a word that can be a noun, an adjective, AND the present progressive tense of a verb.  For each of the three parts of speech, write a sentence in which the word functions in that role.

Booyah.  

Push-up Challenge Video Blog!

Video blogging will be the decline of western civilization.  It's inevitable.  I'm just doing my part to help speed things along.  You're welcome, conquering alien race.

Google Won't Stop Creeping on my Browsing History

I’ve hit a new low.  I used to think that I couldn’t get any more pathetic than my current status.  I'm a 25 year-old college graduate living at home with my parents, still taking a cheese sandwich to work every day for lunch and spending every night reading and playing computer games in my bedroom.  I figured that was unquestionably as low as I could go, and that up was the only direction I could possibly go from there.    

But then Google started spying on me.

After taking an unsolicited and, frankly, creepy look through a history of my most frequent Googles, It started tailoring the advertisements It was showing me to include certain things that It thought I would enjoy.  

It took me a while to notice at first: a helpful banner advertising an antique book dealer, the occasional pop-up for clothing stores from which I‘ve ordered in the past, an artfully placed ad asking if I have any unwanted belly-fat that I need to get rid of (how does It know??  How???), that sort of thing.  

And then.  It came at night, while I was blithely perusing the Foxtrot cartoon website.  A large, lime-green banner with flashing blue lettering spelling out the URL for the website Geek2Geek.com.  

Oh yes.  An online dating site.  For geeks.   

Holy crap, you guys.  Seriously??  I mean, I have nothing against geeks.  Lots of my friends are geeks.  I'm rather geeky myself, although I think I would classify myself as more of a nerd, because while a geek is actually super smart in a concentrated area, I just spend a lot of time watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and reading fantasy novels.  And blogging.  And laughing at physics-related cartoons even though half the time I don't really know what I'm laughing at.  It just makes me feel smart to read them.  

So, nothing against geeks, but I'm slightly miffed that Google thinks I am so unsalvageable that I can't even procure a lousy first date with a mainstream person.  Granted, I like to listen to the Star Wars soundtrack on my ipod and re-enact the movie in my mind when I'm bored at work ("Get clear, Wedge, you can't do any more good back there!"), and I may or may not have dressed up as the Queen of the Renaissance Fair for the last two Halloweens in a row.  Okay I'm not making a very good case for myself, here.   

But apparently Google sniffed out my “single” status on Facebook, and that in combination with the amount of time I spend on websites like xkcd and the aforementioned Foxtrot was enough to set off some cyber alarm bell and alert the internet to the fact that I am a helpless, single geek who is unable to find romance with anyone other than my own kind.  

Which is kind of true.  

Not that I’m looking or anything.

The Noxious Green Color of my Shamrock Shake Should be a Clue That I'm Probably Ingesting Hazardous Waste, but it Tastes So Magical That I Don't Care

Oh my god, you guys.  Just… oh my god.  I’ve just returned from a trip to McDonald’s with my brother, where I was introduced to what must surely be the Nectar of the Gods.  Available only for a six-week span from February into March, the frighteningly green colored and deliciously vanilla-mint flavored Shamrock Shake has just edged Starbucks’ Caramel Apple Spice out of it’s number one spot on my Beverages That Are So Full Of Sugar And Calories That Drinking Them Even Once A Month Is Too Often But They Taste So Good That I Don’t Care list. 

It tastes so good that I don’t even care about the fact that the jaded teenager at the drive-through window probably thought that I was my brother’s girlfriend.  (I can’t go anywhere with either of my brothers without someone thinking that we are an item.  A few Christmases ago, an elderly couple at church thought that Kirby and I were married, and then asked if one of the girls in the kiddie choir was our daughter.)

I’m still drinking the shake!  Right now!  Seriously, you have to try this.  I am not over-selling it, I promise.  My family thought that I was doing that with the avocado club egg rolls at California Pizza Kitchen, but then we went there, they tried them, and now guess where Macky wants to go for his 18th birthday dinner tomorrow night?  BAM.  If I tell you something is good, it’s good.  So trust me.  You won’t be disappointed.

P.S.  MahJong Quest III has hit a bit of a snag; I’m almost to the end, but I can’t get past this one puzzle and I refuse to skip it in exchange for half of my total score.  So that’s where I’m at right now.  I could tell that you were wondering. 

Mahjong Quest III is my Lego Universe

I haven’t posted all month.  I know.  Let me take a moment to allay your fears, in the extremely unlikely happening that you have noticed my absence and have been worried about me.  

I Have Not:
~Been eaten by bears
~Received my Hogwarts letter (yet)
~Died from boredom, sleep deprivation, becoming-an-adult-related stress (although that is becoming more likely by the minute), too much driving, or a superfluity of hummus
~Figured out my visa thing and skipped off to London for a couple of months (believe me, if that actually happens I will be blogging my face off from jolly old England daily - perhaps hourly - with pictures and videos included
~Been buried under my laundry*

No, I have succumbed to none of those things.  Instead, I have discovered something that is so wonderful yet at the same time so destructive that I am in a constant state of conflict whenever I think about it.  

I Have:
  ~Discovered an incredible puzzle game on my lappy called MahJong Quest III that is so fun, so enticing, and so addictive that whenever I turn on my computer with an eye to writing a blog post, I get distracted and, well, there goes the next three hours of my life.  It has become my Lego Universe.  I say that because one of my dearest friends has two sweet, smart, funny little boys who are completely obsessed with the computer game Lego Universe, and it is currently their favorite thing to do ever.  This is like that.  

Oh my god, you guys.  You have to play this game.  First of all, there are like a million levels.  And every time you complete a portion of a level you get this shiny button to put in the medallion for that level, and every level has a different medallion.  That right there is enough to get me hooked.  Anything that requires me to collect small pieces of something in order to track my progress is about as good as it gets.  

So the story is about this guy named Kwazi, and you have to follow him throughout his entire life and solve these MahJong puzzles in order to determine the course of events and there are a billion different puzzles and it’s amazing.  It’s like a Choose Your Own Adventure puzzle game!!!  Right now he has just broken up with his girlfriend and it’s led him to this mystical gate that opens when you say the magic words, so I have to go now and  figure out what’s up and let him inside.  I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m still alive- just in a very deep computer game phase.  Lame, I know, but I’m loving it so don’t judge me.  I do what I want.  

*The most likely probability