Euro 2008: Germany

As is often the case when I decided to do something like this I'm both getting bored and feeling pressured to finish before it becomes irrelevant. As a result I'm becoming more strict about what I'm going to post in terms of hotness. If it's even semi-questionable it's not going in.

Piotr Trochowski

Arne Friedrich

The more things change the more they stay the same

As some of you know I made my way back home this past weekend for the local fair, in conjunction with Father's Day. I remember fairs of my youth being exciting and entertaining (and a lot of work), this one was none of that.

It's not that I expected my town to have changed much but I expected some changes. Sure the largest employer has moved from farming and agriculture to construction. Yes, they did build a daycare on to the high school (don't act so surprised!). But other than that not much has changed.

I thought going back I might catch up with the few high school friends I hadn't already found on Facebook. As it turns out anyone worth talking to from my high school days has moved on to bigger and better things. The people who are still around from my high school days are still exactly the same, a little bit older and with a few more kids but otherwise exactly the same. There is even that one guy who refuses to believe that he's too old to be hitting on high school girls, like Wooderson in Dazed and Confused.

Yup, small town living. Hard to believe I long for that lifestyle again. But despite all the bad stuff there is something to be said about being able to go and visit your neighbours for coffee at random and not having to be suspicious of every stranger you meet on the street.

Euro 2008: Italy

Alessandro Del Piero

Andrea Barzagli

Simone Perrotta

Euro 2008: Switzerland

Tranquillo Barnetta

Eldin Jakupovic

Philipp Degen

Ricardo Cabanas

Euro 2008: Netherlands

Now that the round robin is almost over I guess I'd better get a move on and finish this. So to that end here we go.

Maarten Stekelenburg

Nigel de Jong

Robin van Persie

Euro 2008: Czech Republic

Okay so here's another totally unbiased post from me. And by that I of course mean not unbiased at all. I love Czechs, to the point where I even attempted to learn Czech once. It did not go well, I can't roll my r's. But I can say "I don't speak Czech", in Czech.

Petr Čech

Zdeněk Grygera

Zdeněk Pospěch

Michal Kadlec

Jan Polák

Rudolf Skácel

Martin Fenin

Václav Svěrkoš

Euro 2008: France

After yesterday's review of Spain and Portugal I get the feeling at all of the other teams are going to be a bit of a letdown from here on in. For that I apologize, even though I don't really feel like it's my fault. Anyway on with the show.

Karim Benzema

Patrice Evra

François Clerc

Thierry Henry

I've created a monster

Okay it's more of an I've become a monster situation. I've really turned into the one thing I would never be. The girl that knows nothing about sports but watches for the men. To this point I've been the girl who watches sports and maybe notices the men as a nice little bonus on the side but since I've been watching this soccer thing it's 100% about the guys, although I appreciate great footwork.

Euro 2008: Spain

So I'm beginning to think that no matter who wins this thing we all win from a hotness perspective. I hope that a certain water cooler buddy of mine who is off sick for the next couple of weeks spends some time watching Euro while she recovers from surgery. Maybe this will convince her.

Fernando Torres

Rubén de la Red

(as if that's his real name)

Iker Casillas

Raúl Albiol

Andrés Palop

Cesc Fàbregas

Fernando Navarro

Xabi Alonso

So I may have added like half the Spainish squad here but DAY-UM. I also feel that the "that's it I'm moving to Spain" tag will get alot of mileage in the future.

Euro 2008: Portugal

I'm not actually into soccer. I just like to gawk. But I think I make up for it in other areas, football and hockey for example, so I don't really feel bad about it. Join me in the gawking or not it's your call. But I think it's worth it.

Nuno Espirito Santo

João Moutinho

Miguel Veloso

Cristiano Ronaldo

Ricardo Quaresma

Euro 2008: Sweden

Alright I don't generally do the soccer thing but I got suckered into an office pool for Euro 2008. Now that we've picked our teams it's time to find the hotness. I'm going to start with MY randomly selected team, Sweden.

Before we start I have to admit that my Icelandic heritage leads me to a preference for the blonde haired, blue eyed crowd. Possibly so that we can have blonde haired, blue eyed babies. So Sweden isn't actually all the bad a pick for me. Well except that apparently they suck.

Alright here they are. I'm going to apologize in advance for the graphic suckiness. I need to work out a good way of getting pictures on here I just haven't mastered it yet. Will continue working on it.

The New Crush

I would like to believe that at some point in the five years it took me to escape from university with my degree I had grown up just a little. Perhaps in some ways I have. I’ve learned a lot more about who I am and what I feel passionately about. However I do have this one terrible pattern that keeps repeating.

My first year of university I went through five crushes, not to mention my numerous crushes on celebrities. Second year I did a little better, there were only three. I would like to tell you that I had outgrown this pattern but sadly not. I just hope that now I’m a little better at hiding it. But maybe not that either.

Until last week I probably would have said that I’m too old to be having crushes but I think that as we get older we just expand our vocabulary and call it something else, or maybe we want to believe that our feelings are either something more or something less.

Okay wow talk about be a little wordy this is really getting away from me. Here’s the deal, you already know about my first two office crushes, which really could be expanded to four if you count office hotness (which I don’t) and my fleeting interest in someone who now makes me cringe every time I think about it. Anyway I’ve moved on to a third. Details are still not quite clear to me, and it’s probably yet another case of me over analyzing a situation. But I’ll keeping you posted as things continue to develop.

If you want something done right

After I watched that Chelsea-Man U. match with the boys at work a couple of weeks ago it was determined that we should do a soccer pool for the upcoming European Championships. As you know I know nothing about soccer but I agreed to participate on the condition that teams were chosen randomly from a hat or some other random choosing device (perhaps bingo balls like the drafts). Anyway so far there's been a lot of talk and no action. Damn it, I want a team so I can do some hotness research. Oh right and it starts in 3 days.

In the meantime here are some Youtube videos promoting the event which are totally awesome. Have I mentioned soccer guys are HOT?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_7fKzasYjA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAh5xFomauE&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axqZ7HoOLtQ&NR=1

Money Saving tips from Janalee

So now that I have a little bit of money I've been reading a lot of personal finance articles on the web, trying to figure out the best way to turn a little bit of money into a lot bit of money. It seems that the "in vogue" topic these days is how to save money on groceries. See here or here or here .

Normally I drop $125 easily on groceries every two weeks, which is funny because I don't eat breakfast and I buy lunch. So maybe I eat too much (which I probably do), or maybe it's just that meat is freaking expensive. I do manage to save on the beef but 4 chicken breasts will run you about $15. Anyway, today I went to the store and cut my bill down to $75. So how did I do it? The secret is to go when you are so sick that you don't feel like moving at all. Trust me when you're on the verge of losing your lunch not a single thing in the store looks appealing. Thus you don't want to buy junk food which costs an arm and a leg (and a healthy heart).

Okay that's horrible advice but hey it works. The other option is to determine exactly what you intend to cook each night and buy only the ingredients you need for those meals. Again this cuts down on the unnecessary junk food. It's also a fantastic way to clean out your cupboards. I've probably got enough canned/dry food in my apartment to eat for 2 months.

Sucks in the City

I’m conflicted. I don’t think this should be a surprise to anyone. Hell I’m probably conflicted 80 percent of the time. This particular instance of conflict however is about a certain television show that is opening as a movie soon. I had never seen Sex and the City until I moved into residence. One of the girls who I had considered at the time had purchased or rented or borrowed a copy of the complete first season and I watched a few episodes of the show with her.

I didn’t really think about it much until my last year of university (outside of watching a few more episodes on TBS), when I downloaded the complete series one day when I was bored. I guess I finally caved into peer pressure on that one because when it really comes down to it I don’t really like the show all that much.

First of all, who the hell talks like that? Call me a prude if you want but those are not the kind of conversations I have with my girlfriends. As far as I’m concerned its none of anyone’s business what goes on in the privacy of my bedroom or wherever such relations may occur. Secondly I never found the show funny it was pointed out to me the other day in another blog that I read that the writing in the show revolves around puns and cliché, neither of which are high on my comedy list.

The thing is I find that I end up watching it anyway. Mostly because there just isn’t anything on TV. But that’s probably a topic for a different blog entry. So therein lies my conflict, as much as I outwardly say that I dislike the show and yet I watch it at least once a week so I can’t possibly hate it THAT much.

Do I love my new computer? Why, yes I do thanks for asking.

I’ve started this particular entry about 3 times now. Once on my computer at work, once on my desktop computer and now finally on my notebook. Which brings me to what was generally the start of this entry. As most of you know by now I just purchased a new notebook computer. I’ve wanted a laptop since the day I graduated from University. I am aware that normal people purchase laptops when they start University to facilitate in class note taking. However I had a computer when I started University and then after going the three used computers I finally bought a desktop, or rather mommy bought me a desktop. The reason that I went with the desktop was because at the time I didn’t see the need for a laptop.

Once I graduated and started working in an office I realized that the last thing I want to do when I come home is to sit at a desk and use a computer. I also realized that I DO spend a good portion of my time at the computer, either chatting online, doing coursework, playing games and yes occasionally, blogging. As a result I decided to buy myself a new computer that I could use while I do all sorts of ridiculous stuff like watching sports. It will also come in handy when it comes to going out to the farm for the weekend as I will be able to bring whatever I happen to be working on with me. God I love this thing.

Dream Diary: Episode 2

I don't have dreams very often and I remember them even less frequently However last night I had 2 really messed up dreams. The first one was really weird and makes no sense. The second one makes even less sense from a logical standpoint.

The first one started off kind of strange I was standing outside of a church but like on a balcony/fire escape sort of thing and there was some sort of soccer match sort of thing between Poland and Ireland. Because of course these are two countries that are known for their soccer prowess. Actually maybe they are I don't know. I don't actually do soccer. Though I suppose that is comes from having watched the Man U - Chelsea match last week. Yes, I'm aware I'm insane and that I don't actually like soccer. And a semi-riot broke out. Anyway so I dropped a hymn book from the top of this fire escape and some of the pages broke out. You know like when you open a book with really old glue binding and that pages fall out? Did this have any significance to the rest of the dream? not that I can tell but it's something I remember. Anyway so then suddenly I'm doing something slightly illegal, I couldn't tell you what exactly. It was some sort of theft or espionage or something. Now let me start by saying that I would never do anything illegal or sneaky as I would most definitely be afraid of getting caught and for some people that's a rush, for me it's so much anxiety that I couldn't go through with it. Anyway I know I was being helped in my illegal pursuit by some sort of really hot maintenance workers, a construction worker or something like that I don't believe that those details were particularly clear in the dream just that he was all muscle-y and sweaty and hot. Anyway at one point he was helping me with my illicit activity and then we were having a serious sit down conversation about how he couldn't help me anymore but had justified helping be because he saw me outside of that church (the one from the beginning) and thought I was all innocent.

The second one was kind of Chronicles of Narnia in that it involved another world on the other side of a closet. I guess it's not all that far fetched but it on the other side of the closet there were 2 bulls that I wasn't supposed to let get onto the other side of the closet (into the real world). One of them did get into a sub-closet type thing where there was the actual closet, but covering the opening to the actual closet was tarped off. Then my alarm went off so I have no idea what would have happened.

As you can see there is no natural order to these dreams at all and in fact they are ridiculous. I remember details that seem to have absolutely nothing to do with anything. Someday I'd like to submit these things to someone who actually knows something about dreams. Until then I'll continue to keep you updated on the random crap that comes out of my sub-conscious.

On my irrational hatred of people

I've always had a dream of living alone in a small cabin out in the middle of a field somewhere. I have had this dream since I was a little girl and despite my loneliness after my roommate/brother moved out of my apartment I still believe that this is a good idea.

Perhaps it is my eternal pessimism that creates my irrational hatred of people. The belief that people are unable to change or adapt. Sure science and evolution will tell me the opposite and in fact my anthropologist friend will likely tell me that evidence of such exists but this is one of those times that empirical fact simply won't sway me.

I suspect that one of my issues is close proximity to people at all times with the exception of being at home. At work we work in tiny cubicles, have conversations during accidental meetings in the washroom and eat lunch with co-workers to avoid being labelled as anti-social (okay perhaps that last one is just me). Going to and from work I usually take the bus which of course is crowded with people. Occasionally I choose to walk home which you would think would be generally a pretty solitary event. However you are faced with other people who you met or pass and still have to be somewhat social.

I suppose living along has become much easier in our age of technology. In fact there are people that I consider "friends" on the other side of the world, even though I've never technically met them. One can still interact with other people without ever leaving the comfort of their own home or having someone else invade your private space.

Yes there are alot of problems with my single-living anti-social plan. For example, where would I get my food? I'm not about to turn vegan and yet I couldn't bring myself to actually slaughter and animal. So I would obviously have to buy groceries which would of course lead to human interaction. But if I could reduce actual face to face interaction to one day a week, I think that would be alright.

Awkward Lunches and Other Breaktime Conversation

On Friday I had the strangest conversation with one of my co-workers at lunch. Everyone else that we normally sit with went out for lunch or took the day off (why didn't I think of that). Anyway, have you ever seen that episode of Clone High where Abe runs against JFK for class president? No okay well here's the clip. It's around the 5:21 mark right at the end of the clip, where JFK is going over his workout routine.




That's what eating lunch with this particular co-worker is like. I find it both amusing and annoying. We also discussed how he probably had to switch gyms because they didn't have heavy enough weights.


Okay now on to the next story. Have you ever known someone who brings out the absolute worst in you? No, okay then maybe it's just me. There is a co-worker of mine who just makes me want to say the meanest things everytime she opens her mouth. To this point I have been able to exercises some sort of tact, I think. But the more I'm around her the more difficult it gets. Like today she was describing what she did on the long weekend and how she tried to do all of the things that she did when she was a teenager (which wasn't all that long ago). I was really tempted to blurt out "like your first pregnancy scare". Like I said not a nice thing to say I know, that's why I didn't say it.
Should I be writing this in a blog? Maybe not but somehow I think the journal just won't cut it for this kind of anger. She's never actually done anything to make me feel this way it's just a general attitude that she has. Am I a horrible person?

Freedom

I wrote the last of my accounting tests today. I am now done my accounting course. I'm so happy. Of course I'm still going to have to wait for a mark on this test and I'm pretty sure it's going to be ugly but thems the brakes I guess. I know I really ought to have studied more for this test but I just got to the point where I didn't care.

The next order of business it determining which course to take next. I've done a lot of focus lately on HR stuff and management which I thought would be a good career move but is really useless considering that that is what my degree was all about so I'm thinking something more practical. Either Swine Disease prevention, Swine nutrition or Cattle Nutrition. I could always take a second spreadsheets course. The first one only took a month to do.

For right now I'm taking a little break. I'll start the next course in July or maybe August. I hope to be done my certificate in September and then I'll try to take a course at the University by distance ed, or maybe evening depending on what I can get into.

Goal of the Week

Looking back at last week's goal here's what I can say. I'm about as ready for my exam as I intend to be. Accounting is ridiculously boring. I know I probably could study more but I also know that I'm probably not going to.

This week's goal is to get my glasses fixed. It tells you something about how often I wear my glasses that it's been nearly a month since I lost the screw and I still haven't bothered to get them fixed. I am convinced however that my eyesight is getting worse by the day and as such I really need to start wearing my glasses. Thus, I need to take them in to get screwed.

Dreams are like men you can always have another one tommorow night

I need to start off by saying that I heard that line in a T.V. show the other day and I've been waiting to use it ever since. Now on to the meat of my post.

As you all know by now I'm not particularly happy with my career situation. It's not so much that my job sucks, because it really doesn't. It's more that I don't have a firm grasp on what is that I would like to be doing for the rest of my life. I was asked once when discussing my current job unhappiness what my dream job would look like. To be honest I have no clue.

Obviously I'm not a huge fan of manual labour so that's out. Which leaves me with office jobs. I liked working in the doctor's office as a receptionist... most of the time. But I don't think that I can justify taking that much of a pay cut. For the most part I like my current job, except when certain nosey co-workers seem to think that I don't have enough to do so everyone else should give me just a little bit of their work to do. And yeah, when it's slow I have no problem helping out, the problem comes when I do something once to help someone out and it becomes part of my regular job. Sorry I'm back to complaining again.

Okay so really what this was supposed to be about what career change. But without a clear vision of what I'm after is there really any point? I'm just afraid to end up like OB1, who has been at the same job for 12 years and hates it but can't or won't go anywhere else because then he'd have to start at the bottom.

At this point I've kind of ditched the grad school plans. But I just don't know what I'm going to do.

Stupid Smarch Weather

I probably should have posted this yesterday but whatever. It's freaking May there is no reason it should be snowing in freaking MAY!

I was all prepared to go jacket-less until the fall and then it starts freaking snowing. You know how nice it was on Friday? It was so nice I walked home from work and then wore flip-flops on my way out for the weekend. And by Sunday it was snowing.

Goal of the Week

As always let's first look at last week's goal of the week. I most certainly did not stay up to watch a late game. I should have watched the one on Monday since I was up late enough anyway but I didn't really mean to stay up that late.

This week's goal is the result of necessity I have to finish my accounting course by the end of the month so I need to write my exam in the next couple of weeks. This means that I have to study. Therefore my goal of the week is to be prepared to write my exam by next Friday even though I won't write it until early the next week.

Series Hotties: Pittsburgh vs New York.

I've purposely been avoiding this post because I really don't want to post another picture of Sydney Crosby. The problem is New York has exactly zero attractive players. Long story short consider this the series hotties post for this series, which technically should have ended last night.

I think I need a t-shirt

Today is my one year anniversary at my job. I expect it to come and go without much fanfare. The truth of the matter is that this is a major accomplishment for me. Back in September I didn't think I'd be able to make it until Christmas. Of course this was before the department switch and all that. Now with my term ending it looks like I'll be back to my old job. Either that or I venture off to some other company. Or potentially to grad school. Or some other sort of education.

Yeah there are a lot of options but I'm just not a decision maker. The best recent example of this was last week when I was in Safeway. I walked past the bacon, turned around look at the bacon, picked up the package of bacon and then discovered that turkey bacon was on sale. In the end I bought both.

The other thing that stopping me from packing up is that I want to go traveling next summer which will require large sums of money which will likely prevent me from going back to school but a different job is not out of the question if the current one becomes unbearable.

Series Hotties: San Jose vs Dallas

I'm calling this the "people who look like other people edition" of my series hotties because every single one of these guys looks like someone I know. Additionally I would normally add Patrick Marleau but his official mugshot was pretty bad this year.


3. Brad Winchester- Dallas


2. Chris Conner- Dallas


1. Brian Boucher- San Jose

Reminding myself why I go to work everyday.

As some of you are aware last week I had a bit of a meltdown with regards to my working situation. Well I've had the whole weekend to reflect and quite frankly I don't feel much better about it. However my mother reminded me why I have to continue working for at least another year.

Goal of the Week

Reviewing last week's goal Well I finished my Accounting assignment but obviously I don't understand any of it. So I most definatly need to review this before I write my final.

This week's goal is to watch a least one late playoff game. I've watched bits and pieces of some of them but haven't been able to make it through a whole one yet.

Series Hotties: Montreal - Philadelphia

As with most of these I have to first post a disclaimer. I share a special bond with Braydon Coburn of the Flyers. You see he is exactly 6 months younger than me (no to the hour or anything). In order to properly celebrate my un-birthday in rez I went out and got an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and had them do lettering that said "Happy un/birthday Janalee and Braydon. I think I took pictures but I'm pretty sure I didn't have them developed. Anyway I just wanted to get that out before I start.

Oh wait I have slightly more disclosure to add. I once voted for a guy for president of university's student union because he looked like Scottie Upshall. Everytime I think about that I'm reminded of an episode of Clone High where JFK is running for student body president against Abe, and during one of his speeches he say "ask not what your student body president can do for you, but what you can do to you student body president's body".

3) Braydon Coburn - Philly


2) Mike Richards - Philly



1) Scottie Upshall - Philly

Series Hotties: Colorado - Detroit

First of all I'd like to say that I'm going to try to finish these all before the end of the series. We'll see how it goes. The first round sucked. I think it's just because I fell behind and then I was a little depressed when Ottawa lost. All better now, as I've chosed Montreal as my backup team.

Here's the think about Colorado. I used to be an Avs fan. I blame my brother who was a huge Nordiques fan and also recently acquired an Avalanche jersey from my closet, because let's face it no one wears jerseys anymore except in the comfort of thier own home while watching the game. Anyway as I'm going through the roster I'm thinking "oh I love (insert name of Avs player), but he's not hot."

So I'm going with a top 3 here:

3) Marek Svatos - Colorado



2) Jonathan Ericsson - Detroit



1) Andreas Lilja - Detroit

Holy Crap, What Did I Do To My Back?

All afternoon I have had a terrible pain the right side of my lower back. I just haven't figured out what I did to it. I would have said it was from the heavy lifting I did on the weekend but I was perfectly fine yesterday. Anyway as you know I'm all about the complaining so here's some more.

Really it hurts to do anything. It hurts to walk and it hurts to sit. If I can make it through another half hour I'll check lying down. I'd try it now but I'm at work and I'm afraid that I won't be able to get up off the floor, in which case I'd have to spend the night here. Ain't gonna happen.

Goal of the week

Once again we'll start by reviewing last week's goal. You know if I hadn't gone away on Friday I probably would have finished but it's still not quite finished.

Also because I did go away I didn't post a goal of the week for this week. I'm going back about 2 weeks to when I was supposed to finish my accounting assignment for this weeks goal. There are 2 reasons for this:

1. By my calculations, in order for me to finish the course on time I have to send this assignment away this week.
2. It's already Sunday so I only have 5 days to complete goals that I normally give myself 7 days for.

Sometimes I wonder if I've got brain damage

As I'm working on my playoff hotties series I'm finding that I have to go through every teams roster to figure out who's hot and who's not. There was a time when I would have been able to go team by team and name these players from memory. What happened? But that is not the point of this particular post.

The point here is actually that as I go through them I certainly recognize names. It's hard not to when you've been doing this for eight years. As I recognize names I recall things like "oh he's hot" or "no definatly not hot" before I actually pull up the pictures. Then when the page acutally loads I find myself thinking that most of the guys that I remember as being hot actually aren't.

Is it just that they're getting old and I'm getting older and my tastes have changed? Probably not. When I reflect on all of the people that I've ever had crushes on I almost always think "what was I thinking?" Maybe it's just me trying to make myself feel better when things don't work out with a particular crush but the way I go through them I don't think I've really got time to have become attached in the first place.