Sweet Catastrophe

Hmm…had no idea I was gonna be featured today, but there’s been a bit of tragedy in my world today so I won’t be around for the next few days to say anything interesting, so please, have a look around, I swear there are more interesting posts down there ;)

Be sure to at least check out the humping robot and Chuck Norris jokes!

“Head of a Man,” Van Gogh? For seventy years, the answer would be an undoubted yes, but today, art experts are saying it was more likely a painting by one of Van Gogh’s peers.

I’ve been looking at quite a few articles on the matter, and it seems that a lot of writers are taking the dramatic approach of calling it a forgery, but the experts feel it’s important to stress that there’s no reason to believe this to be a forgery (a work created with the intent of passing it off as a Van Gogh) but simply misattributed to Van Gogh.

As a Van Gogh work, the painting was valued at $21 million. There doesn’t seem to be a consistent answer on its value now.

As disappointing as it must be for the art world, I live for stuff like this! Over 70 years, the creator of this work has been unquestioned, and now, we find it’s been wrong all along.

The only two history based classes I’ve ever enjoyed in my entire academic career were taught by teachers who reveled in teaching us all the things we thought we knew, but had always been mislead on.

After tonight, I’m off work until next Tuesday. I think I’ll spend a good bit of time researching mis-truths. It’s been a while since I’ve done that.

Do any of you have any interesting tidbits of things the general public thinks they know, but really have no idea?

Yeah, you read that right. Jeeze…I have the craziest dreams, no doubt. My dreams are always totally vivid, and at times, could easily be transformed into a movie.

Take tonight for instance, I just awoke from a crazy nightmare, that literally started out as me and someone else watching it as a movie! It was straight out of a twisted horror movie. I’m not talking about the dinky, jump out at you stuff that makes it to theaters, this was hardcore. The basics were Jessica Biel (see, it totally started off as a movie!) picking up this guy for sex, or so he thinks. She tries to drug him, but he catches on and there’s fighting, she overcomes him and still drugs him, only something happens with the potency so when he later comes to, he’s still somewhat aware of the situation. Jessica Biel needs a liver (yeah I dunno? My imagination….) for her father and she’s gonna get it from this guy.

Anyhow, that’s when my dream turned into a psychological thriller, and of course, that’s also when I went from dreaming out watching this as a movie to dreaming about it actually happening to me!

No doubt, it’s probably also around the time I rolled over to sleep on my back. Sleeping on my back is an almost guarantee to have a rough nightmare. Only since I’ve started living with Ryan have I started to outgrow it. These days, it’s about a 98% chance for a nightmare, and a 50% chance for one I can shake off. I’ve also noticed the really rough dreams usually come when I fall asleep completely detached  from him. Generally I fall asleep touching him in some way; it’s comforting to always know he’s there. <  /gush > lol

Anyhow, it’s just as well. I think I was getting ready for a fairly strong asthma attack anyhow. The nightly throat soreness and headache are starting to set in as well, so I can go ahead and take something for that and maybe it won’t be as bad when I wake up later. Darn sinuses/ceiling fans. They just don’t work well together.

Anyhow, I feel a little better now–a little less like I’m about to be brutally murdered, so I think I’m gonna try to go back to sleep now.

The big Harry Potter weekend has come and gone, and I survived! We picked up our books at midnight when it was released and headed home to read. Well, we’d all had pretty long days, so I don’t think we made it quite to 4am before we decided to call it a night.

Saturday, I got up around 11 and read almost non-stop until 4:15. Off to work for a few hours and back home by 10:45. At that point, I sat and read. I think I moved from my spot on the couch twice before finishing the book around 6am. My neck was cramped! Luckily, I had just been given some samples of Freeze It, a gel for muscle, joint and arthritis relief. Now was the perfect time to test it out!

I was thoroughly satisfied! Within ten minutes I could feel the tension leaking out of my aching neck. It could’ve been a sleepless night, but luckily, Freeze It eased me into a blissful nap–and yes, I mean nap because I had to be at work at 10am that morning! Oops!A few days later, I decided to have another go at the Freeze It on my feet. See, I work on concrete floors, and no matter what anyone tells you, you never get used to that. You grow more accustomed to it, and you have less aches, but try taking a few days off and coming back–it’s as though you’ve never had to endure that before! Occasionally, I’ll end up at work in a pair of Chucks, without checking to see if my inserts are worn out. Well, this was one of those days, and after a longer shift than normal, my feet were crying!

I decided to really test out the Freeze It. How much was it really helping? So I pulled out another sample and applied it to just one foot, taking care not to really massage my foot or anything, as that would obviously help and not necessarily be attributed to the product. I was actually a little shocked at what a difference there was between the two. I even walked up the stairs once to note the difference; the same cringe-worthy feeling was left in the uncoated foot, while the Freeze It foot was doing just fine! Needless to say I hustled to coat my other foot and enjoy the relief!

I’ve got a lot of unusual knee pain as well. It’s been getting much worse lately; it’s to the point that I’d like to go consult a physician about it as I know it’s being caused by the concrete floors, but for this level of pain, I think there’s something not quite right somewhere that’s just being agitated by the concrete floors. I’ve decided that I want to really put Freeze It to the test and try it on my knees tomorrow night. If it helps that, that’s it, I’m off to the store to stock up!I’m totally sold on this stuff! I think my favorite part, aside from the pain relief, obviously, is that even though initially you get that strong menthol smell you’d expect from a gel like this, it clears out almost immediately. I was concerned about being able to sleep with the smell the first night I used it, but my fears were quieted when I noticed the smell was gone by the time I’d finished applying and dressed for bed. You just can’t beat that.

I totally called it. I said that having my schedule set up easily and satisfactorily meant a disaster ahead.

I hate when things like this coincide with the monthly emotional week.

So, I get a letter from Financial Aid that some additional paperwork is needed to verify and process everything. I went in today and all was well, but due to my stepfather’s back social security that he was paid this year, my application for financial aid has to be sent off for correction. I’m eligible for PELL (thank God) but the fee payment deadline is tomorrow, and the earliest my correction will be made is Friday. *sigh*

That’s where it all gets sticky. If I don’t have my fees covered by tomorrow, my classes will be dropped. I can go through registration again, but there’s pretty much a negative chance of me getting these classes back.

I can apply for a short-term loan through the Bursary to cover my tuition, and pay that back either when my Financial Aid comes in, or through 3 payments this semester. I’ll find out for certain tomorrow morning whether or not I qualify to do that, but I’m pretty positive that I don’t.

Even if I do, that still leaves the question of how much financial aid I’ll actually get, and whether or not it’ll cover my tuition. I have an idea of the most I can get this semester, and it could possibly cover my tuition, but it leaves me with nothing for books.

So what it boils down to, most likely, is yet another semester of me getting screwed over and not being able to have a full time schedule, putting me even further behind on graduation. I’ve got a lot to think about in what I’m gonna do about it all, and if need be, what classes in my current schedule can I settle without this semester and I need to look at my course list as well and come up with some backups in case everything gets filled up again in late registration.

I really hate that I’ve yet to have an overall smooth registration. Not once has it all worked out properly.

And I was so excited about my schedule this semester too. =(

Anyone got $1900 you can spare for 2-6 months? Lol…Publishers Clearing House, I’m waiting on you, dammit!

I need to go think. Maybe pout a little, and have some chocolate and caffeine….and Pamprin.

Wow, well, I’m gonna show my age here, but I totally never realized the song “Got My Mind Set on You,” one of my favorite childhood songs, was from George Harrison. Oops! Just one of those things where you just never even think about it, so when the thought finally does occur to you, it’s like, “Duh!” Yeah, anyway…

I’m on VH1.com watching 2007 World Series of Pop Culture on VSPOT and it’s pretty much amazing! It’s basically a few lines of lyrics from a song and they have to get the name of the song, or maybe the artist. They’ve got different categories as well, and one of them was Rump Shakers and wow…you’ve basically got this host that they’ve made up to look like, straight out of Leave it to Beaver or something, and he’s reading out lines from things like Baby Got Back like he’s reading an owners manual or something. It’s hilarious!

They had a really great category of Weird Al songs and the contestants had to guess the name of the song it was a parody of! So far, I’d be dominating this mess. For real. Why can’t I get on an awesome game show? Haha, and as I’m typing this, I’m watching a clip of someone trying to guess “You Get What You Give,” from New Radicals, who I just posted about! Oh! And for most of these, they play the music video after the game show clip.

Which brings me to my final thought on this show. I still love The Police. Sting still makes me squee with delight when he sings and looks at the camera with that piercing gaze.

Ahaha! Oh man, apparently even robots need some lovin’! And this little guy’s got some stamina! He eats his Wheaties, I bet!

This video is seriously cracking me up…

This has totally been my summer for movies! Every time I turn around, there’s another one coming out that I have to see! Up next on my list is Superbad! Seth and Evan are two co-dependent High School buds who’ve just found out they’ve been accepted to different colleges. Now’s the time, they’ve decided, to go all out and change their social status with one huge party that goes…not totally according to plan–of course!

The trailers and clips are cracking me up, and I know there’s so much more to come. They’ve taken over the Youtube homepage for the day (August 1st) so now’s the best time to see exactly what I’m talking about! (You can find 3 unedited clips on their site.) My personal favorite is Seth’s intro–the scene from Home Economics. I had FIVE Home Ec classes in High School that I never asked for! I feel his pain! I have no desire to ever again make another Crème Brûlée!

It probably doesn’t help that I’m a little partial to Jonah Hill. I’ve really enjoyed watching his career take off. He’s been in a lot of my most recent favorite comedies–namely the ones we watch constantly here in the apartment. I’m excited to see him in a larger role!

I keep cracking up over Evan’s video as well. He reminds me so much of someone I’ve known since High School. They favor each other as well! It’s weirding me out a little.

I also find it incredible that the writers, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, starting writing this script when they were only 14. “We just wanted to see if we could write a movie.” Man…apparently I was a waste of space when I was 14. I never wrote any movies, or won any prestigious medals, or cured any diseases…I should probably get on that now.

Anyway, stop reading my ramblings and go watch some clips for yourself. You know it’s about time you got ready to get out of the computer chair and out to see a movie anyway! This is the first ever Youtube homepage takeover, so let’s make it huge!

Want more? You can go to the Superbad official site for downloadable ringtones and wallpapers, maybe even some buddy icons if you’re Superbad enough.