Between being extremely lazy, preoccupied with all kinds of stuff, and most of my happenings being very personal, I haven’t “blogged” in a few weeks. It was starting to look a little sad, so I thought I’d pop in for a few random tidbits of goodness!

As of this afternoon, November 22nd, 2006 I am completely debt free! It took almost four years, but I’m back on my feet. It’s an incredible feeling to finally be done paying on my past, so I can now start saving for my future.

That couldn’t have come at a better time really, because today marks the first official day that my little dream started making a little money!

These two happy occasions come right before a four-day holiday vacation.

For the first time in many years, I feel calm and relaxed about my financial situation. It’s always been a stressor, and it will be really great to not have to live paycheck to paycheck anymore. Now that I’m grounded and planting roots here in Minneapolis, it could even mean the possiblity of buying a house in the next couple of years. You only get a handful of moments in your life when you feel like everything is coming together, for the first time or after a setback. Awesome.

This one was started during a meeting, but finished up later, at my desk. It’s not very creative, but that’s all you can really expect of me during at least 9 hours of the day. In case you can’t figure it out, it’s my badge for work. Now, don’t you go stealing it and trying to be me.

In not-too-exciting-for-you news, I was finally moved down to the 5th floor. Fewer Overheards, but more of my sanity.

With the elections over, the commercials have finally stopped. I can’t even tell you what a relief that is. Here’s a related Overheard that I didn’t use, because even though it was funny, the details of who said it, and where it was overheard were not. I prefer actual locations rather than commentary. Not that I don’t appreciate the cynicsm, but let’s keep to the point of “where.” But regardless, here it is:

dumb lazy mom: I’m so sick of all the political ads on tv. I hope they stop before Christmas.

black hole of ignorance
Overheard by wondering if they know what E85 is

This morning, I did a little spring cleaning in my apartment, and got rid of many things I no longer need. Some of it went into the dumpster out back, and some of it went into the storage unit to eventually give to someone else.

When I returned home from the trip to PublicStorage, there was a lady crossing my street with a giant green parrot on her shoulder. It’s cool, it’s not like I’ve never seen someone walking around downtown Minneapolis with a big bird perched on them before. Oh no, it happens all of the time.

Ten minutes later, I’m upstairs and starting to tidy up my apartment and clean out my fridge. There were a few items that needed to be run down to the dumpster. As I approached the corner, I noticed a few things sitting on top of the dumpster lid. Apparently, someone had gone through the trash and pulled out a few key items of interest. Of course, they must not have been too interesting, because they were left behind. Among them, a box of old glittery drawing pens that I used to own, but they never did work very well, and a box of all of my old computer’s drivers and manuals. There were a couple of pens missing, so I guess they wanted some of them, but not the whole box. I’d like to meet the kind of person that will go dumpster diving, and walk away with some pink glittery drawing pens.

After that, I came upstairs to check my email, as I noticed I had several Overheards waiting for me. One of the kind people of Minnesota sent me a naked picture of a middle aged, extremely hairy yet bald dude sprawled out with his junk to the wind on the edge of a couch, asking me if I thought the guy in the picture was Paul Koering. Look, I don’t know if this fellow with poor judgement is a Senator (though it probably is), and I really just don’t care. I’m a little surprised that someone thought I would be interested in this. However, I do appreciate the pixelation on the guy’s family jewels, that was polite. It’s just too bad the rest of it didn’t get the same treatment. For you, I shall make it MUCH smaller and crop it! Yes! I sort of feel like burning my eyes out with some candle wax.

Aren’t they pretty? I ordered some business cards for OIM, and just received them today. They’re great! My only complaint is that there is a small grey-ish spot on the the back of each one, but I guess there’s nothing that can be done about that right now.

Now I just need a nifty business card holder to carry around, so I look cool.

So the next time you see me, make sure to ask, “Hey, can I get your card?”

The interview on WCCO for Overheard happened last night, at the State Fair. It’ll be on the news tonight, August 31st at 10pm. I’m certain that I’m a total idiot on camera.

We walked around the fairgrounds, trying to eavesdrop on people, but it’s difficult in such a densely packed area, because all we could really hear was the murmur of the crowd, rather than distinct voices and words. However, there were several times we heard, “I want to be on the news!” as people drifted around us trying to get in front of the camera.

One girl passed by Jason and said, “Hey, I watch you every morning on the news!” Technically, that could be an overheard, because Jason isn’t on the news every morning, but perhaps only a select group would get the joke.

We stopped and talked to the Princesses (yeah, I don’t know either) in their colorful cowboy boots, and expanded the readership a little more. They let me know that I’ll see a lot of their submissions on the site, because they hear a lot of stupid shit. Awesome. That’s what I’m here for, ladies.

I was busted on camera with a post-it notepad that I took from work, because I was in a hurry and misplaced my normal notepad, but I brought it back this morning, I swear!

So tune in tonight, and see what kind of dumbass I can be when there’s a camera 5 inches from my face. Seriously, the camera is that close. It makes it hard to “act normal.” And see how I answer this question: “Will you ever run out of material?”

Update: Um, well, I guess I don’t know if or when it’ll run.
Update v2.: It ran Friday, the 1st at 5:00pm.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I had a brief phone conversation with a reporter at the Star Tribune, and I’ve been keeping an eye out for that to appear on their website since then. So far, no luck.

Last week, I was contacted by The Rake with a few questions about what I’ve learned, what’s been the most fun, etc, and was informed that a short piece would appear in their August issue, which came out today. Four thumbs up.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, which I am absolutely not, I am confused why the questions I answered and the comments I made during the Strib “interview” are actually what made it to the Rake piece… and what I answered for The Rake did not.

At any rate, it was a good piece, and I’m excited to see that stuff in print.

-Angie “for the time being.”

WCCO is interested in a quick story about Overheard in Minneapolis. How great is that?

Also, this afternoon, I had a phone conversation with Deb Rybak at The Star Tribune. Thumbs up. Way up.

In other news, there is an interesting discussion and debate going on over at the Something Awful.com forums. Unfortunatley, I can’t link directly to this thread, because it appears they have only one forum visible. However, the thread is accessible with the direct link. I just don’t have it.

Anyway, the debate is this:
Could 5 or 6 humans defeat a grizzly bear with their bare hands? No weapons of any form. Out in a field or in the woods, not in an arena. And they can be any humans you wish; the biggest, baddest, strongest athletes or martial artists, or …a combination of those.

I mostly read the thread because it was humorous, but by the end of the day, I started to wonder who would win. After weighing all of the points, I settled on the bear. Strangulation is out of the question, seriously. And I’ve seen the way a black bear can totally destroy a campsite in less than 4 seconds, I can’t even imagine what kind of damage a grizzly could do. There’s no way you could survive a punch to the face from a grizzly, and all he needs to do is take out 2 of you. Once your crew is down to 3 or 4, he has the upper hand.

There are definitely arguments to this, but I would actually have to see 5 people defeat a grizzly with their bare hands with my own eyes before I’d ever believe it could be possible.