Thing of the Day: Road Trips

First things first--I was so right about balloon boy! Duh, world. Publicity stunt central. Children are amongst my least favorite things in the world but even I can admit that they are not that foolish. Shame on the blog-reader who BBMed me "you are a heartlesss biatch" in reference to my correct thoery. I am not heartless--I'm logical.

Second things--they're releasing a Barnes & Noble version of the Kindle called the Nook. For those of you who are not aware, I find Kindles despicable and utterly useless tools and judge all those who use them. Which is why I clearly have several thoughts about this manner, namely:

1)Why oh why are people releasing Kindle competitors? Are Kindles so popular that B&N feels the need to further infiltrate the market with a Kindle alternative? I would like to conduct a survey that will help me determine what percentage of Vanderbilt students own Kindles, so please, if you are a Kindler, let me know via comment, gchat, or smoke signal.

2)Despite my disdain of e-books in general, the Nook is definitely a much better name than the Kindle. At least Nook makes one think of curling up in a corner with a dog-eared paperback and a cup of tea. So while I'm sure Nooks aren't cozy at all and rather hard pieces of metal, the terminology at least makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. What does kindle even mean?

3)My dislike for the Kindle/Nook can only be rivaled by my admiration and dare I say love for the new MacBooks, also released today. Could these be any crisper? Absolutely not. Unfortunately, I am still twiddling away on my Dell Inspiron with webcam physically attached to the outside and lack of crisp resolution, iChat, and fun photo programs. In addition to my PC weighing somewhere between 8 and 10 pounds (who am I kidding? I don't know what 8 to 10 pounds weighs like...but I know the damn thing leaves aggressive red welts when I carry it on my shoulder) I'm becoming resentful that I can't use widgets, take photobooth pics, and drag and drop documents directly on the screen. Momma Bogo. Chrismakkuh. ASAP. Perhaps a Thanksgiving gift? It needs to happen.

And now onto the real reason for this post--fall break! In T minus 2 hours I am free free free from the land of internships and analysis papers and off to Charleston, SC, for a four day beach adventure. I am driving with 3 friends and couldn't be more excited because I love road trips. Other than the undeniable things that funny things always happen on road trips (the time we were driving to Nashville and went an hour and a half out of our way to check out a venue on the Diners Drive-ins and Dives list, the time we were driving to New Orleans a creepy man followed us for no less than 5 miles pretending to pleasure himself at our vehicle--although I might have been the only one that found that funny) they are an excuse to do two of my favorite things: 1)eat fattening foods with great frequency and 2)behave like a small child (liscence plate games, stories, singalongs, etc) and we will be doing much of both on the nine hour journey. We're making a quick overnight stop in Asheville, NC, which in addition to being the cutest town ever (their tourism site offers activities such as fall crafts, fall harvest adventures, and scenic fall foliage motorcycle rides) apparently has the most head shops per square foot in the South (goodies) and a large variety of outdoor eateries. Fellow food enthusiast road trips have already selected the venue at which we will be eating our North Carolinian breakfast before we head down to Folly Beach for a weekend of debaucherous beachy entertainment.

....T minus 1.5.

Thing of the Day: Mistakes

Things that bother me: when you order something to go, bring it home, and find that you have been given the wrong order. For instance, when you have been craving a cup of delicious soup in cold and altogether icky weather and get up from your desk at work to go down 11 floors to Panera, make the effort to pick the perfect soup by sampling both the black bean and the summer corn chowder, finally decide on the classic and hearty french onion accompanied by a whole grain roll, go up 11 floors, sit down and find that not only has the fool who has prepared your french onion soup given you the tiniest morsel of cheese (think finger-nail sized rather than delectably spread across the entire surface) but he has given you an apple instead of a whole grain roll. Who would ever want to dip apple into their soup? Altogether infuriating to the point where I actually considered re-making the trek for the sake of perfecting my soup, alas, I have found some questionably expired wonder bread in the break room and am trying to make do. Also, my first lunch today (3.5 slices of Pizza Perfect, Nashville's only pizza place that even slightly challenges New York thin crust, consumed on my couch while watching the last episode ever of the O.C (on that note--why hasn't any television network managed to make a teen drama as wonderful as the O.C in the past four years? Gossip Girl doesn't even begin to compare. And 90210? Melrose Place? Spare me. Give me a relationship as wonderful as Seth and Summer's or as screwed as Marissa and Ryan's and then we'll talk. And Julie Cooper as the evil villianess that you love/hate? Georgina Sparx has nothing on Julie. And Blair Waldorf would be beat down by Marissa Cooper in a second. Josh Shwartz--I really did expect better things of you after this soap opera of staggering genius) and reading gossip magazines was absolutely wonderful so I decided to allow this imperfect soup experience.

But not before broadcasting my deep disdain to the internet. Duh.

Other questionable/mistaken occurencesthat have happened today--the little boy and hot air balloon incident. WTF. I spent an hour literally clutching at my chest almost in tears thinking about this six year old and how cold and scared and lonely he must feel and burst out into actual hysterics of joy when the balloon gently landed only to find A LACK OF CHILD IN IT. I'm thinking one of three things has happened here:

1)The little boy and the sibling who reported he climbed into the balloon decided to play a really funny joke on America. Thousands of dollars and 10 texts from Momma Bogo later, oops, no one ever climbed into the balloon in the first place!

2)The family of the boy, who are storm chasers who like to "conduct experiments" and "search for extraterrestrials" in their spare time and have been on Wife Swap, wanted some free publicity for their really cool UFO/balloon structure and decided to say that there was a child in it.

3)I am a huge bitch and this boy is actually missing. I reaaaaaaaally don't know though.

I am hoping that there will be a lack of mistakes in the latter half of my day--off to see O.A.R , Asher Roth, and Pitbull in concert and enjoy a typically wonderful and wonderfully typical Nashville Thursday. Also--I have been spending the majority of today reading current students abroad in Copenhagen blogs, and I have found one that I really like (no creepy when you Google yourself, stranger--Hi! (also, upon Googling myself the other day I have found that my Google hits have expanded from 347 to 502 since this summer...I'm goiiiiiiingg places, world. Hire me.): Travel Unraveled, by a girl who goes to Tufts and is studying with DIS. After hours of looking at pictures of Nyhavn, Radhusspladsen and Tasingegade (yes, these are real places in Copenhagen) , I have come to two conclusions: one, that I am really really really excited to host my three Copenhagen friends this weekend, and two, that I really want to go back to Europe as soon as possible. Extensive g-chat with a best friend who is studying in Paris next semester (hi, little one!) and active search for a graduation gift has led to the conclusion that I definitely want to travel for a month or so right after graduation. I got to see most of Europe's major cities, but would love to spend several weeks traveling throughout all of France, Spain, and Italy by train, drinking wine, taking photos, and gaining somewhere between 5 and 15 pounds. My Eurotrip experience was very AMAZING to say the least, but it was rushed and I never really got to spend more than a few days in most cities. It would be phenomenal to get the chance to just relax, record, and take it all in.

Researching flights and ways of hinting to the parentals. If you do read my blog, Margarita, please keep this in mind.

Happy weekend!