Liloia.com

A Day at Dean HQ

I want hotel blackout curtains. There's something decadent about waking up at 9:00am with the sun streaming nowhere near your eyeballs. Unfortunately, I couldn't savor the darkness for very long. I had to get moving... and Trevor was grinding his teeth in his sleep with a maddening crunching noise that made me want to chew glass.

At the DFA office, I exchanged my photo ID for a Volunteer badge and waded through empty Diet Coke bottles to a seat in the programmer's work area. Clay swept a collection of nicotine gum wrappers into a makeshift garbage can (ie. the floor) and I was ready to go.

The headquarters of a presidential campaign is about as far removed from my typical work environment as Webster Hall is from a Catholic church. On a typical busy Wednesday afternoon at CXO, someone coughs too loud and frowning faces pop over cube walls to see what all of the commotion is about. Until now, I've never experienced a "let's get someone elected president" kind of cacophony.

Up in Burlington, I was bathed in a mix of sounds that incorporated the din of crises barely averted, the hammering out of complex logistics, cries of "Did someone order a pizza?", media miners watching news clips, and a group of staffers doing a surprisingly good rendition of one of my favorite Peter Cetera songs.

But in all of that bedlam, the most disturbing sound was the baritone guffaw from the seat next to me. When Clay is laughing, it's time to duck and cover — just ask my kid. Clay seized the gauntlet thrown down by Mathew Gross in the early morning hours of New Year's Eve and garnered some blog time for his herculean effort to top the bloggers in fundraising results. And so, we added plain 'ol trash talking to the aforementioned frenzy of activity.

If all Dean for America fundraisers are half as much fun as the North Side vs. South Side (of the office) challenge, it's no wonder the campaign is raising money at a staggering rate. While I was reading blogosphere celebrity endorsements and comments on Clay's "alternative" campaign and listening to him compose responses and releases, Dave, Sarah and Trevor were attending teddy bear and brewery tours (not to mention sampling the local Magic Hat).

We ushered in the new year at the home of a Dean staffer and gracious hostess — who, like us, seems to believe that Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is best watched from 11:58pm until 12:02am. You watch the ball drop, make sure nothing has blown up, then turn off the television. Hooray for that. (And for cats with no tails that have featured prominently in Trevor's drawings for the past few days.)

...And Gone Again

From the sunny Jersey shore, we headed due north into the tree-covered mountains of Vermont. We arrived later than anticipated (5:00pm instead of 11:00am) because it's exponentially harder to get a family of four out the door than a family of three, it doesn't matter that the fourth person is 26.

Vermont, in case you've never been, is phenomenally windy and the interstate highway winds around snow-capped mountains which grow steeper as you venture northward. If you find yourself in a tiny little Kia with a temperamental rebuilt transmission staring down into glassy iced lakes and slow-moving rivers, you'll wonder if your car is going to land upside-down or right side up and congratulate yourself on choosing manual windows instead of electric (which would short out when you hit the water).

After four hours of motion sickness (added to twelve from the previous week) I was feeling somewhat giddy as we pulled into Burlington. Dave was getting annoyed with my bleary-eyed questions, "Is it always this dark in Vermont?" "Is KM some kind of weird Vermonter abbreviation for miles-per-hour?" and "What's with all the trees?"

As it turns out, it is always that dark in Vermont. (On Wednesday, a ray of sunshine broke through the otherwise constant cloud cover and everyone gravitated toward a window with open-mouthed awe. "There's fire — in the sky!?") The hotel air conditioner, inexplicably left on full-blast in December, made the room crisp and full of freon, like the inside of a meat locker. I liked it, but the deep-freeze temperature setting was vetoed by the other members of my party.

Next we stopped by Dean for America headquarters for a quick tour. Even at dinnertime during a holiday week, the office was packed with people and roaring with activity. Clay was in the midst of an urgent project, so we left him behind for dinner and shopping. There are perfectly serviceable Best Buy stores in Vermont, so I bought a new digital camera to replace the one that Trevor broke last year.

Dave, Sarah and Trevor's list of vacation activities looks like this:
skiing & sledding
swimming
Ben & Jerry's factory tour
Magic Hat brewery tour
First Night Burlington
Vermont Teddy Bear factory

Mine looks like this:
Dean for America lackey

Back in Nah-wood

Finally back after a whirlwind tour of NJ for 4 days. Lots of fun hanging out with family. It was great to have some time to down a few pints with Adam and Stone at Yesterdays and see some of the Nutley trash hanging about.

Bad Santa is a great movie. Funniest damn thing I have seen in a long time.

Tomorrow morning we hit the road for Burlington. Clay, if you read this give me a call. We will be dumping Tara onto the Dean campaign to help out for a few days while we hit the Ben and Jerry's factory and the Vermont Teddy Bear place. Oh, and "we" now includes my sister Sarah who is joining us on this adventure. Should be a good time. Our hotel room includes free web access so expect a decent amount of posts.

Ice Cube, Right Ahead!

The hit gift this year was the Titanic Real Sinking Action Ship Model.

"With the touch of a button, a gash opens on her side and water begins to pour in. Just moments later the bow slowly disappears below the surface. At another crucial moment the bow section breaks away, leaving the stern to float on the water for several tense seconds. Then, as it is too late, the stern takes a final plunge!"

We dumped a tray of ice cubes into the sink full of water and the whole family gathered to sink the Titanic in realistic detail over and over again. Because if you can't have fun with senseless tragedy, what else is it good for?

..from NJ

Here we are spending some time with the fam in Joisey. Today I went with Tara's dad and brother to their new photography studio down in Colts Neck. We spent a good part of the day cleaning things up, touching up paint, adding some molding, etc, etc. It was a lot of fun helping them get the store ready.

The studio should be opening in a few weeks, so if there is anyone in the Freehold/Colt's Neck area that needs some pictures of kids, weddings, family, dogs cats, lawyers and such done, let me know and I will pass thier info along to you.

Tomorrow we head to North Jersey to hang out with the Liloia crowd. Should be fun. I am hoping to get some time to see Adam and my grandparents for a few minutes.

The end of this week we will be heading to Vermont to help out Mr. Dean, but I'll let Tara tell you more about that.

Trevor's Christmas Nanofiction

"Suddenly you realize that the partridge in a pear tree was just an old wooden doll. The end."

Meme in the Making

This song is amazing — destined to become the "All your base" of 2003! Get it now and be one of the first! Then you can say, "I heard that song waaay back. Like Tuesday, man." Brilliant, Speaker!

Gollum - In Da Caveses

via Pickle Juice

Assaulted by Martha

During college, I worked as a bookseller at a national bookstore chain. All of the associates were instructed to push the store's discount cards onto customers as much as possible. The card cost a small yearly fee, but with a $50.00 purchase, it ended up being free. I absolutely hated selling these cards. Don't you hate it when all you want to do is pay and someone is trying to upsell you? Well, we hate upselling you. So we'e even.

One day, a man came in buying the new Martha Stewart Cookbook. This thing must have been 700 pages, fifteen pounds and $60.00. I asked him as I rang him up if he would like to have the store discount card, since it would not only be free for him, but it would take a couple of dollars off the cookbook's price. Suddenly he started screaming at me. He threw all fifteen pounds of the cookbook at me and stormed out the door. I was stunned and I started crying, partly from pain (that cookbook whacked me pretty hard!) and partly from shock.

The next customer in line (who witnessed it all) put her books up on the counter and sighed impatiently — she could care less that I'd just been the victim of assault with a domestic diva. I rang her up and ran to the back to tell the store manager, hoping she would at the very least offer some sympathy, or possibly even alert security. Instead, she handed me a piece of brown industrial paper towel to wipe my face and said, "Hey, there's no one on register. Get back there."

Catch up

I was told by a friend on Saturday that I had been falling behind on adding new posts to Liloia.com. At first I felt bad about leaving the site barren of new and witty content, postulating why I hadn't had any time to post. I supposed that since this time of year there is so much going on, that I should have oodles of content to put up here.

Then I realized that his web site has a static front page that hasn't been updated in [clicking on thier link...] forever!!!!

This week is a short one for everyone, and therefore I anticipate limited posting involved. Just know that we still love all of you...well except for you over there in the corner, and we will be present as much as possible.

Happy Holidays!

This is...

the snowman I was talking about. The small blue smudge in it's arms is apparently a baby snowman being held by the daddy snowman...awwww. I gotta go give that kid a hug!

What are Borg?

Trevor and I were playing in the living room this morning and he was making a Play-Doh (strangely appropriate DOH!) snowman. He placed Lego pieces all over the face in leiu of coal and carrots. I said to him, "Wow, that looks like a Borg!"

Silence.

In our house full of Matrix, Spider-Man, Star Wars, etc etc, my son didn't know what a Borg was. Trevor and I used to stay up late (I think it started around 11:30 PM) when we lived in NJ and would watch Voyager on UPN in syndication which he loved. So, we looked up in Google Images for a picture of Borg. We found a ton of them, and then all of a sudden Trevor started cracking up. He saw the following picture halfway down the first page...

Play-Doh indeed.

LOTR: Return of the Spring

Last night a holiday shopper within earshot asked a clerk for "The Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers" on DVD. Tragic story, that one. Where Frodo and Sam have to save Middle Earth from the evil wizard, Saddam.

Holiday Shopping Redux

Suncoast - The checkout clerk came up with a harebrained scheme to get me signed up for their Replay discount card (and I'm sure earn herself some sort of commission/credit/points). She asked if I was a member and I showed her my card, which had conveniently expired. She said, "If you renew now, it'll be free because you'll get back a $15 credit to cover the renewal fee." Sounds reasonable, right?

Well, 20 minutes later, I was still standing at the conter as she returned the things I'd just bought at Sam Goody (who also uses the Replay card) and re-rung everything together. Then she realized something and stammered, "Oh, do you have enough money to pay for everything once, plus the Sam Goody stuff? Because I can't do the return until after I ring up everything." It's a good thing I did, otherwise I would have wasted that 20 minutes. But I was annoyed because was trying not to break a $100 bill (isn't it much easier to spend twenties than hundreds?).

At the end of the transaction, the bill was more than the cost of my four items — and considerably more than what it should have been with the $15 discount. I inquired and she blushingly informed me that the $15 credit comes in the mail. Such trickery! I'm out $15 worth of Christmas spending money just so Store Clerk Bippie can have one more little gold star next to her name on the "Customers Tricked into Buying Replay Cards" chart.

She must have seen my simmering rage, because she whispered, "But I signed you up for two years, so you won't have to worry about this for two more years!" That only fueled the fire. I wasn't given the choice of a one or two year signup. Maybe she gets two gold stars now? I left Suncoast with my four items shoved into the bursting Sam Goody bag (Is Suncoast trying to conserve plastic, or what?), $15 poorer with a disount card to a store that I never intend to enter again.

EBX - I love this store and the men who work there. They play the games, they know the answers. Sure, they're a little geeky, but geek is chic now, or didn't you hear? One of the clerks was so excited about helping me pick out a Game Boy Advance SP that he ran out of the back room with my free game, calling "Did you want Namco Museum or PacMan." I replied that I wanted PacMan and he held up the game and smirked with those little crinkly eyes that meant he was pleased to death with himself, "Yeah, I grabbed PacMan. I knew you'd want that one."

GameSpot - This store is way too small and since there are no employees on the floor, you're forced to wait in line before asking a question. The clerks always have an exasperated look on their faces — as if everyone's a clueless soccer mom wasting their time. They only have one thing that I want, and that's the aluminium GameCube carrying case. I swear you'd look like Vincent Vega making a drop with that thing in hand.

Radio Shack - I always get a bad feeling when I go into one of these stores. It's generally a crowded mess with lots of touchable buttonly expensive things at a five-year-old's height. This is the second year that I've shopped for Dave in this store and the second year that the item I want can only be accessed by cornering a clerk and getting him to take them down from behind the counter. Radio Shack clerks are like sharks. They swim around the store in constant motion, and as long as you don't make eye contact, you're fine. But if you actually speak to one, they go into "killer mode". As I was asking about the technical specs on the items I was examining, the clerk punctuated every answer with, "... and which one of these will you be taking today?"

This is when an antsy kindergartener comes in handy:
CLERK: (leaning toward me intensely) It uses 1.21 gigawatts of power and can be powered by a clock tower in a pinch. So which one of these will you be taking today?
ME: (looking horrified at kindergartener) Did you just touch that again? After I told you not to? Come on, we're leaving!

It's a good standby, because he's always got his fingers all over something he shouldn't be touching.

The Gap - No one speaks to me when I enter the Gap. The trendy people take one look, evaluate me as unworthy of their attention, and go back to refolding cashmere sweaters. That's fine with me, because the last thing I need is some perky post-tween named Kristii-With-Two-I's trying to help me pick out pants for my husband.

Harrry & David - There was a clerk in this store who was just mad over pears. His eyes went all rolly and his hands made motions like halos and asterisks when he spoke of these pears. We giggled at his enthusiasm, but to his credit, we bought the pears. Mmmm... good pears. Picked by miniature Oregonians wearing gloves of woven cherub hair, they are shipped across the country one by one in H2's painted in liquid gold. At least they had better be, for $25 a box.

Hallmark - The store manager is sweet, but chatty. For your own sanity, don't try to squeeze this store in right before your lunch break ends.

Crate & Barrel - It's so pretty and sparkly in there. I hear there are employees, but I've never been able to tear myself away from the martini glasses long enough to notice them.

Best Buy - This store makes me cry for the same reason that shopping at BJ's makes me teary-eyed. It's so noisy, crowded, hostile and intimidating that I get overwhelmed. When the Best Buy employees aren't trying to sell me a service plan for a pack of batteries, they're milling around in tight little groups that scatter like electrons when I try to talk to one of them. I need Captain Olimar's little Pikmin-calling whistle to gather them up.

And Best Buy came up with a bright plan to combine eight reasonably-sized checkout lines into one monstrously long checkout line. Every single person who saw the queue after happily choosing their flat-panel television or game console suddenly let out a deflated groan. Long line == unhappy customer. When I saw the line, I dropped my item on a nearby shelf and made an empty-handed beeline for the exit. It's not as if you can't find electronics, televisions and cell phones at a place with a shorter wait.

Barnes & Noble - After a quick consultation with Dave (you will never, ever convince me it's rude to talk on a cell phone in a noisy store), I got the name of my book club selection. (Remember Jhumpa with an "h"?) BN had eight copies for me to choose from and though the store was crowded, every register was manned and I had no wait at all for the checkout.

Target - They didn't have the toy I wanted, but everything else was there and on sale. My only complaint is that some of the aisles have columns planted right smack in the middle, so you can't get a cart past them. They make shopping annoying — especially on a crowded day when it's difficult to make a u-turn with a cart without hitting someone. I love the price checking scanners scattered throughout the store. They help when displays have been turned topsy-turvy by rampaging shoppers and nothing is near it's price label.

Amazon.com - After a failed attempt at Radio Shark, I went to Amazon. They had a better selection, more information and a wider range of choices. My purchase qualified for free shipping, but I wasn't willing to chance the item arriving late (like the year our Little People Discovery City came the day after Christmas) so I paid extra.

Did you know...

The body Inside the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was identified in 1998 as USAF First Lieutenant Michael J. Blassie, who was shot down in South Vietnam on May 11, 1972.

What the heck is a hover disk?

This year...




and last year.

For the masochist on your list...

Hot Tamales Lip Balm

Why soothe and moisturize your dry, cracked lips when you can send a searing, white-hot bolt of capsaicin-induced pain through them?

Look for Hot Tamales Tampax in stores by Christmas.

Instant Gratification?

My monthly book club email arrived today and I read the featured author's name with a sinking feeling -- Jhumpa Lahiri. I imagined spelling this name over and over for a blank-looking, holiday-help bookstore clerk. "No, there's an 'h'. It's a silent 'h'. And Lahiri, rhymes with... uh, I'm getting teary?" I found the book on Amazon and wondered if I should skip searching through the bookstore store and buy it online, but I recalled how long it has been taking me to finish books lately. There probably wasn't enough time to have it shipped at a reasonable cost AND have it read in time to not be the lone book club idiot who didn't read the book.

Then something on the page caught my eye; a curious little button that made my heart sing.

AVAILABLE NOW FOR IN-STORE PICKUP

Angels cried pearlescent tears of joy. In-store pickup combines the best parts of shopping on- and off-line. I can seach for the book without jostling through holiday shoppers, but I don't have to pay shipping fees or await delivery. My book was paid for and waiting at Borders down the street within two minutes of reading the book club email. This is the way the Web is supposed to work.

UPDATE: I hate the Web. Amazon & Borders, you suck.
"Thank you for placing your order with Borders, Inc. Unfortunately, the following item is unavailable at the Borders store you selected when you placed the order. Within one business day, Amazon.com Payments will initiate a refund to the credit card you used to make the purchase."

Great. Now we're back to, "Jhumpa with a silent 'h'."

Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile is the perfect movie to see with a girlfriend after an evening of shopping and dinner in Harvard Square. And it's exactly the sort of film you'll love if you attended an all-women's college for four years (yes, we had beanies -- no, we didn't wear them to class).

This is one of those movies (similar to another Julia Roberts project, Steel Magnolias) in which a cast of fine women performers act against a backdrop of nondescript men. Not that there's anything wrong with the male actors, but they just can't keep up with the intensity of the female contingent.

Julia Roberts pulls off a quiet grace in the first half of the film that was refreshing to see from someone who seems to shout and cry her way through an awful lot of movies. The second half... well, the story just didn't feel as fast or as tight, but emotional turmoil abounded. And at least the film was not as trite as to punish the "bad" girl and reward the "good" girl to tie up morality in a neat little bow. It actually suggests (gasp!) that divorce is sometimes a way to rectify a bad situation.

If I could change anything about the film, I would wish for a lot more of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Juliet Stevenson (whose fascinating character was disposed of far too early in the film) and that the timeline of adorable Ginnifer Goodwin's near-miss relationship was made a little clearer. Tori Amos fans will be pleased to find her crooning as a wedding singer. If this sniffling audience was any guage of the tear factor, bring your tissues.

Don't forget to dust

"IDG In the 1960s, IDG founder and chairman Pat McGovern began hand-delivering Christmas cards with bonus checks to each of his 14 employees. Today he takes off three weeks every holiday season so he can continue to do the same for the company's 5,000 U.S. employees." (Inc.)

---

Also, at the time of the Christmas-bonus distribution, I try to see every U.S. employee in the company who earned a bonus. I go around and personally give each one a card and a check.
—Publishing Magnate Pat McGovern

---

Today is Pat day. And today the Living Dead Dolls went back into the cupboard. Bye ladies, see you Friday.

CIO + RSS = The Future

After incorporating RSS feeds onto the CIO.com Research Centers, the work was 90% done for offering our feeds to the public.

Help yourself.

Kudos to Ellen, who did a lot of of the ground work for this project.

Average Joe Assault

I found out why my Average Joe post was getting assaulted. On Yahoo, if you search for Average Joe, Liloia.com comes up as the second result after the NBC site. On top of that, the Average Joe message boards were down for a few days.

As of this posting, I have received over 300 comments to the Average Joe posts in total.

Thighmaster, Master Blaster, Postmaster...

The head blogger for the Kerry campaign refers to himself as the "blogmaster". I thought we all agreed to give up that whole "master" appelation around 1998 when we realized that it recalled our early roots as Dungeon Masters and chipped away at our professionalism and authority.

Tara
Kidmaster

Average Joe - A go go

I was going to write a post about how annoyed I was at the finale of NBC's Average Joe but as I logged onto my email before writing this post I found that others had already taken up the cry! Apparently somehow, a whole host of people found my original entry on Average Joe from a few weeks ago and are treating it as a message board! As of this posting there are over 100 comments there from tonight alone. Too funny.

A Quintessentially Boston Conversation

Reporter: Were you going fast down the hill?
Sledding Six-year-old: Yes.
Reporter: How fast do you think you were going?
Sledding Six-year-old: Wicked.

Tip 'o the day

Hamsters are not fond of snow.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

Tonight is the latest in a series of cheesy scifi movies being shown by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. I received word from the organizer of our group that the event is still on. We want to go, but we're unsure of one thing.

I appeal to you, Boston snowbloggers...

Train or car?

UPDATE: No one's going anywhere by any means. Crazy Neighbor Guy just got his truck stuck in front of our house. Pooh.

Trapped in Margaritaville

Unlike the rest of eastern Massachusetts, the Liloias didn't rush out for non-perishable supplies last night. We were too busy doing the airport thing.

So, we're spending this snowy weekend at home eating pretzels and dip, margaritas, and martinis leftover from last week's party. Not so bad, eh?

The snow is too powdery for a decent snowman, but it's great for slushees, snow angels and climbing the huge pile the plow left behind.

Powdered sugar and bench presses

The gym I go to has two local locations; one is next door to a Honeydew Donuts and the other is next to an Entenmann's Bakery Outlet.

Indescribable cruelty or good business plan?

He gets back...

...and he doesn't even mention his fearless wife — who braved Boston drivers dumbfounded by falling snowflakes as well as her innate tendency to get lost on the way to every new place she goes — and picked him up at the gate.

Makes me wish I had made that chauffeur's sign saying LOSER like I had planned.

Back

I just got home about an hour ago after my two day trip to Toronto. Thankfully we arrived approximately one hour before the heavy snow started up near the airport otherwise I would be stuck in Canada.

Tired, really tired. Gonna go sleep now. Hello Snow.

Toronto

I am one day into my two day visit to Canada and all is going well. I am a little embarrassed to say so, but this is my first visit to our Northern brethren ever. There have been many times that I wanted to make the trip but never actually did it. I have to say that I didn't miss much. Ok, that isn't really fair. I have been stuck in an office all day long training some Customer Care reps on our radioactive products and haven't seen any natural light since 9 AM this morning.

We are going out for dinner tonight in Toronto, and I am told by many (Canadians and non-Canadians) that it is a beautiful city, so I hope that I get to see some interesting sights.

The most interesting part of the day for me so far was when immigration asked me to remove my shoes and belt in an effort to make sure that I wasn't carrying any bomb making equiptment or contraband over the border into Canada. It was either that or the guy at the inspection booth was trying to date me.

The one part that I was most concerned about (carrying my insulin syringes over the border) they didn't even check. I bet if I had a case of beer with me, they would have stopped me though!

Welcome to New England

When we first moved here someone said to me, "Welcome to New England, don't like the weather? Don't worry...it'll change". After three years I can't believe how accurate that statement is. This weekend it was warm enough to go out without a jacket to the movies and today I was wearing gloves and a hat. Welcome to the 6 month Winter. Today this minor snow caused hours and hours of traffic for people all over the area. Unbelievable

This is a shot of Back Bay this morning as I waited for the bus (it was 30 minutes late!)

Love/Hate

I bought the new Liz Phair CD with my birthday money -- thanks great-gram -- and found myself a little surprised. That little cutsey pop ditty on the radio, "Why Can't I" doesn't accurately represent Liz' true nature. She's raunchy. I could listen to Eminem with my son with less cringing than this album.

I was a little taken aback, but wholly pleased. It's a nice contrast to the melodrama of Sarah Mclaughlin's new album Afterglow.

Obligatory Introspective Birthday List

Ten personal flaws and vices that I have no intention of changing in my 29th year since they served me so well in my 28th:

- I read books halfway through and leave them all over the house in neat little stacks that can serve as stepstools or miniature tables.
- I use way too much toilet paper.
- I peek into wrapped presents.
- I volunteer for more activities than there are hours in the day.
- I don't answer my phone or return messages.
- I interrupt people carelessly.
- I throw out things that belong to other people.
- I believe that slapping a CD player will make it stop skipping.
- I sit way too close to the steering wheel.
- I arrive far later than is socially acceptable.

If you know me, you're snickering and saying "Darn right, you do."
If you don't know me, consider this a warning.