Top Movies Meme

Here's Entertainment Weekly's list of the top movies of the last 25 years. Go through their list and BOLD the ones you have seen, ITALICIZE those you love/would watch over and over again, STRIKE OUT those you dislike strongly or really would rather never see again.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler's List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998) (I can’t even believe this movie made the list!!!)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There's Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napolean Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

(Just a side note, Jenny....you can do this IN LiveJournal. The two tabs on the left end of the window where you write your post say RICH TEXT and HTML. Choose the one that says RICH TEXT and it gives you a toolbar at the top with which you can choose font size, bold, italics, underline, strikethrough and a handful of other options too, a la MS Word.)

A little self-important today...

am cursed to work with idiots.

If you are a computer support person, would you go to someone's computer and while you were there working on it, change all the visual views to be how you liked them? Would you change how the folders are displayed, how items are listed in the folders, how the menu looks?

Here's a better question. How would you feel if your computer support person did that to you on your PC when they came to work on it?????? Probably a little pissed off that everything looks different now, right? What if you didn't know how to change things back the way they were? What if you only knew how to find folders well if they were in a list, as opposed to a large, graphically intensive page of icons? What if the "My Computer" icon was no longer listed in your Start menu and you didn't know how to find it?

This is the kind of stupid shit I have to deal with every day. When you are getting a PC ready so that it can be copied and used for everyone else's PC in the building.....KEEP YOUR PERSONAL VIEWING PREFERENCES OFF THE DAMN PC!!!! I don't care if you live in the 1990's and want to see the Windows Classic Menus, colors and Folder Views. DON'T PUT THEM ON THE PROFILE WE WILL BE COPYING!!! Fuhchrissake!!!

Today's thoughts...

First thought happened while I was at lunch with my fellow computer geeks here at work. We have a monthly interdepartmental meeting for all the computer people in each department. This month was the annual barbecue, since school is out and things are slightly slower for IT folks here. So there I am, waiting in line to get ice cream after I ate my hot dog and hamburger. And I see one of the folks there, a young-ish girl, about my height, with a monstrous bowl of ice cream heaped with chocolate sprinkles and whipped cream! She is very thin, I would say somewhere around a size 4 or 6 (smaller than Lou is how I was comparing it.) And behind her was a larger girl, probably a size 16, with barely a scoop and some chocolate sauce on top. The first thing I thought was, "That girl HAS to be bulemic to have a bowl of ice cream like that! I bet she throws it all up later." My second thought was, "It's so unfair that she gets to eat that huge bowl while the girl behind her, clearly trying to watch what she eats, has the smaller bowl and is still overweight."

Both thoughts were serious, I wasn't being funny. Then I was kind of appalled at my own thoughts. Why should I think that way? Why should I care? Why was I so presumptive to think that the skinny girl must have an eating disorder to stay so thin, or that the larger girl was trying to lose weight? I was being kind of mean. And I didn't like it.

I can't stand the messages we get from the media every day to be so conscious of our appearance and weight and beauty and youth! They never used to get to me much when I was a teenager. But they get to me now. I think about my age. This weekend out in the sun, I was thinking that I looked older because of my makeup and that I better learn how not to make myself look older with makeup. I get happy every time someone gets surprised by my age. I used to look older when I was a teenager and now that I am older, I look younger than my age. I attribute it to good skin care, not smoking and purposely not tanning. I have been using Origins skin care products since I was 23, the year I got married, which is now 15 years ago. See what I mean?!?! This year is my 20th HS Reunion! I have gotten back in touch with people from HS or before through Facebook that I haven't spoken to in 20 years or more in some cases! This is insane! I am not this old! I feel like a kid inside. Not an immature, whiny kid; a fun-loving, playful kid. I think that's part of the reason that all this adult stuff gets me so down! I don't want to have to deal with all this serious stuff when I just want to have some fun. Of course, I do deal with it, but I have trouble balancing the two ends together, I think.

Whew! A lot going on in my head today.

Another thought is about my dumb boss. He is again doing stupid things today to make my life more complicated. Stuff which he should know better than to do. I work for him, he makes more than me, I should not have to clean up his messes. Fucking idiot.

Yet more thoughts are about what I have control of and what I do not. I can control my weight. I can control advancing my work skills and certifications. Therefore, I need to work on both of those things. I am not going to go into any elaborate plans here because I don't have any. The statement above is the plan. Simple as that.

So....what are your thoughts on any of the above, or anything else you are thinking today, internets?

Am I overreacting?

I think it's hard for non-techies to answer this question because I could ask it by including all the technical details. But I will ask it anyway, without all the techie info.

I tell our database administrator (new character here in my LJ) that I need some info from him because I have to do some server maintenance and then when he replies, he tells me the server needs some maintenance. Not in so many words, but that is the short, non-techie version.

Am I overreacting to get tired of these damn people treating me like I am an idiot? Am I reading too much into what he said to me? Without knowing the guy, you are going to answer that maybe he was being nice and just trying to make suggestions. But it's not like that in IT. IT people are competitive and conceited. They all think they know more than each other. This guy is not super pompous, but he does have a chip on his shoulder. He is somewhat of a know-it-all when it comes to the db he works on, because he worked on this same db at his last job. He talks about that incessantly, "at (other job) we did this, and we did that, and we did this other thing." It drives people here batty. So he does come off like a know-it-all. He came back to me the other day after I FORWARDED a warning email that I received from our IT Security group about a phishing e-mail. It had clickable links in it that were active (on the phishing e-mail itself). It came to me like that, and I sent it out like that. Well, you weren't supposed to click on the links, and the e-mail stated that...IN CAPITALS...TWICE!!! Five minutes after I send the e-mail, he comes over and tells me that the e-mail I just sent has clickable links and that maybe I should have made the links inactive before sending the e-mail. Heh heh. He was chuckling, like heh, heh, oh, duh, you probably should have thought about that first, heh heh. It was like a condescending, pat on the head kind of comment to me. This is the same thing.

I am so goddamn sick of that shit. I don't think I come off as stupid or not knowing what I am talking about. I don't engage in deep conversation about my job and what I do every day with him or my bosses. But I think merely in performing my work, they should be able to gather than I am competent and intelligent and that I understand what I am doing and maybe even more than just what I am doing. Why the hell would I apply to be the System Administrator if I didn't think I had the ability and knowledge to do the job?!

I *LOVE* the people here. LOVE them. CAPITAL L-O-V-E love. The people I work for here (not my bosses; my users, my "customers") are the best group of people I have ever worked for in my life. Real people with real lives, who are mature and understanding and personable and real and not fake and are friendly and talkative and understanding. REAL people. GOOD people. I get thanked for doing my job every day here by the people I work for. I am appreciated, liked, joked with, talked with, asked about, waved hi to. They are nice people. So some of the frustration that I have with my bosses gets mitigated by the great people here.

Maybe I am overreacting. Maybe I am hyper-sensitive to being told what to do when I already know what to do. It always makes me feel like the person telling me what to do believes I don't know already. I don't mind with tasks. Assign me a task, sure, I will do it, no problem. But start listing the steps I need to take to accomplish this task when I have not asked for such assistance and I begin to think you think I am an idiot! Similarly, I take action items away from a meeting. Don't begin following up with me on them immediately, because it makes me feel like you don't trust me to get my damn work done! I can LET YOU KNOW when I am done with the assigned tasks, really, I can. I know they are important and need to get done as soon as I can. I don't ask for help much, but when I do, you will know that I really need help!

So I am not sure if I just have to bite the bullet and deal with this stuff (well, yes, I DO have to just deal with it,) or whether I am JUSTIFIED in feeling this way about it all. Am I just being "sensitive Linda"? Or would you also get as frustrated? I just need to feel validated; That it's okay to get pissed off and frustrated; that they are being assholes. I would hate to hear (but will listen if it's the answer) that I am just being reactionary and that they just mean well and are doing their jobs. I should be thankful for the direction and instruction I am being given and thank them for the opportunity. Eeeuuuccchhhhhh! It makes me want to vomit just WRITING it!!

Comments anyone?

Tapping my friends.....

Posted to my LJ on April 09, 2008 at 10:01 AM

Okay, who knows how to find out in advance when a certain person (Christian Bale) might be scheduled to appear on any of the New York talk shows like Conan, Letterman or any other one that films in New York City? And on top of that, how does a person obtain tickets for the particular show when a certain person (Christian Bale) would be appearing on that show?

I'm just askin', cuz, y'know, I have some resourceful and connected friends and I am thinking that there must be some way (Christian Bale) that I can get tickets to one of these shows when they start doing the promo and publicity for The Dark Knight (Christian Bale) and I was thinking probably the only way I would ever be in any kind of vicinity with Christian Bale (Christian Bale) ever in my life is if I was able to maybe attend one of those talk shows.

So.....friends....anything?

Being happy it's Spring!

SPRING PEEPERS!!!!!

I heard them last night for the first time this year! Woo!!! That means it has been warm enough for enough days in a row to hatch those little eggs and let them little tree froggies out to climb up and do their little peepin' best.

I love the Spring Peepers. Really, anything that can make a "peep" sound natually has got the cute factor going for it. Plus, they're FROGS!! And frogs are cute. And they peep!

Yeap. I'm silly. I think I have probably posted about the damn spring peepers every year I have had this blog. I will have to check back to see, but my money's on yes.

I don't see many crocus around here, but the daffydils are up, though not blooming yet, in the patches outside work.

One of these years, I will actually plant some crocus bulbs outside my house. Of course, that would require me to get the leaves off the ground before it snows so that when spring comes, the bulbs aren't covered with a layer of leaves 3 inches thick. How is it that a baseball player can make 23 million dollars for standing there hitting a ball and running around for 8 months a year, and not even every day, and people like us have to work 40-plus hours a week to take home less than two-tenths of a percent of that amount while we try and keep our houses clean and repaired, our cars working, our yards mowed and raked, our families fed, our bills paid, our bosses happy while also not letting our appearance become TOO slapped together between hair, clothing and skin care?!

Come on already.

Wow, that was a high-to-low post. Heh. Sorry about that.....

Hope for this country...

This is exactly the type of thing that I would LIKE TO SEE AND READ ABOUT IN THE NEWS EVERY DAMN DAY!!! This is the type of thing that renews my faith that most people are good. And honestly, I think if we heard about and read more news like this, it would inspire more people to take that extra step for a stranger every day. Maybe not give a kidney, but smile and say thank you, or let the car in front of you go first, etc.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/03/27/heroes.andersen/index.html

I think there are more people out there that would do things like this than we all think. But tragedy, death, murder and bad news SELLS, so that is what the news outlets report larger and more prominently than stuff like this.

Think I'm going to write a letter. :-)

"white-knuckling" it through this week...

Posted to my LJ on Feb. 15th, 2008 at 11:45 PM


I have had my head down making my way through this week a step at a time. It really does feel like weeks since I wrote that post Tuesday. Saw my doc Tuesday and instead of trying a different med, we are upping the dose for a test period to see if anything changes. Saw my therapist that night. I need to start journaling (privately, sorry) about my sessions so I actually THINK about things during the week. I am realizing that I have this awful habit of talking about stuff that's important and then I don't think about it again until 5 minutes before my next appointment. I do it outside of therapy and have for years. My family did it all the time. Not insidiously, like the white elephant in the room kind of not dealing with it. Just going on and kind of rolling over it like roadkill. Yep, that's the metaphor.

SysAdmin guy at work has been less outright annoying this week. I am taking it at face value. Is he trying to get along better with me and my co-worker? Or is he actually being slightly more personable? Who can tell - the man has the personality of a bag of hair.

I got to configure new laptops for other people this week. I realized I am kind of annoyed that everyone else in IT is getting one except me and my co-worker.

Manager guy was pretty much not around all week because he was in a conference room with a guy from our software vendor all week. That was nice. I hate having two bosses. Fortunately, they don't really give me conflicting instruction, but sometimes the both tell me to do the same thing, which is very annoying. Yes, I know. My other boss already told me.

This week was filled with puppy poop and puppy vomit. My pooches were both not feeling well and took it out on the house. I shall be shampooing some carpet as soon as I am able (again, just did it last week before we got the house appraised.)

The appraiser came Wednesday morning. After it SNOWED THREE INCHES overnight. Which is good, because all the leaves on the lawn were covered. It's good she was not too late, because just an hour after she came, it began POURING RAIN for the rest of the day, melting all the snow. At work, we had that rain on the roof noise all afternoon.

Thursday began the poop explosion, with Storm starting off the poop-splosion. The next morning, she seemed better and ate normally. Then it was Rogue's turn. Coming home to it was not fun for my sweetie. Not at all. Then Thursday night (that would be last night) Storm began the vomiting. She did not eat dinner at all, and began vomiting at about 6:30 and proceeded to do so about 8 times througout the night. She got very listless and lethargic and couldn't get comfortable to sleep for hours at a time. So I was up with her on my chest for several hours last night, stroking her fur, trying to comfort her a little. Then this morning, more diarrhea and so it was time to go to the vet. I could not get her an appointment at my regular vet, so I went to the Emergency Animal Hospital (and I am very happy there IS one here...) and asked the attendant what she thought (after finding out that just being SEEN is over $100 dollars!) We talked about it and she thought she would be okay and was not in an emergency state. So I called my vet and got on the waiting list to go in later today. As it turned out, she slept a few hours and then my sweetie called me and told me she was almost good as new. Playing with Rogue, jumping around the room, very interested in her food again...YAY!!! So I cancelled the appointment, we don't need to go unless she has a relapse.

The kicker to all this poop and vomit is that our washing machine is busted and we are waiting for the tax return to get a new one. So we will have to haul almost all of the bedclothes in the house to the laundromat to get washed! \m/

Went to work and had a nutty crazy day. Then came home and had to yell at the mortgage company for poor record keeping.

And to top it all off, I am getting sick. I have a cough, my chest feels tight and I have been getting achier (more achy?) since I got home. My eyes feel hot and that probably means I have a fever.

This week has been long. Very long.

meds suck

So I take Lexapro. And a little over a year ago, it began to lose its effectiveness. Or something. I had depression feelings. Not just feeling "down", but deep dark depressive feelings. They would last a couple of weeks and then, as inexplicably as they started, go away.

So I told my doc about this and she added Wellbutrin to my regimen. I have been taking this since November. Well, it ain't working. I still feel depressed. No more than I did, but it's a little different. Over my holiday break (my job has the very large benefit of being an educational institution, ipso facto, there are no students at school during the christmas/new years week; hence, we had it off) I pretty much hung out in bed the whole time. I didn't do the project of clearing out and reorganizing my basement. I didn't do the project of cleaning off my desk of the mountain (literally) of papers on it. I didn't do much of anything. This also holds true for most of my weekends. I do the stuff I have to do and then I sit around in bed with my puppies, napping and watching TV.

One might say I am just living the lap of luxury life. But that's really not it. If I were in TOTAL denial, I would agree with that. But I am not that good at fooling even myself.

I discussed this at therapy and was told that I should have more energy, more motivation and be able to drag my ass out of bed to do SOMETHING. The wellbutrin is not doing the trick. Called my doc this week and I need to go back to discuss other meds. There are at least four other meds I know about that I am sure we could try. I am hoping not to have to try them all.

I have been having some annoying side effects since I have been on the Wellbutrin. My hands shake - not a huge visible trembling shake. It's more annoying to me than visible to anyone else, because...well, I feel shaky. Also, this hard to describe feeling in or around my head. Clench your jaw muscles and make a face like you are cringing and that is sort of how it feels. There's a little bit of ear ringing and this weird feeling of my scalp being tense or pulled back. And additionally, if I have more than one caffeine drink in a day, the bouncy feeling verges on anxiety. A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G!

So I guess I should feel lucky that I have no other side effects, other than it not really doing anything positive for me. But now that I have called my doc about it, I am itching to get off this med. I will have to wait until at least Monday so I can call her back and make an appointment. Blah!

It has been eating at me for over a week and I just had to write about it. Apologies to everyone that I didn't say anything, including my sweetie. I have been trying to just deal with it.

MY answers to 20 questions...

1. tell me something obvious about yourself.
I'm a 'big' girl.
2. tell me something about yourself that i don't know.
I'm finding this hard to answer, I will get back to it below...
3. what is your biggest fear?
Never being happy.
4. do you normally take the safe route or the shortcut?
I would have to say the safe route, sadly.
5. what is the one thing you want the most that you can't buy with money?
Confidence.
6. what is your most treasured possession?
My computer hard drive - because it contains volumes of memories and pictures from my life.
7. what is the one thing you hate most about yourself that you do the most often?
Scratching cuts.
8. tell me something about you that I don't know.
My father's great-grandfather was a prolific painter and two of his paintings hang in the New York Historical Society.
9. tell me something about you that everybody knows.
I LOVE dogs.
10. what is your favorite lie to tell?
I hate lying. But the lie I use the most is "It's alright."
11. name something you have done once that you can't wait to do again.
ALL DAY SPA DAY!!!
12. are you the jealous type?
Not jealous with my sweetie. But I get jealous of what other people have or what they look like.
13. what is the 1 person, place or thing that you can never say no to?
My puppies and a plate of pancakes!
14. what is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
Stick by me even when I am being a giant pain in the ass.
15. if you could do something crazy right now, what would it be?
Walk into boss guy's office and tell him exactly what I think of him, then do the same to SysAdmin guy, and then walk out the door of this place. That would be CRAZY!!! Because then I wouldn't have a JOB! And then I would have no MONEY!. And, a short time later, I would have no HOUSE! That would be Britney crazy! (Yeah, I said it!)
16. when was the last time you cried?
Less than 24 hours ago.
17. when was the last time you felt so good that nothing else mattered?
I can't remember - maybe at Atlas.
18. do you feel comfortable in public with no shirt on?
I don't feel comfortable in public with my shirt ON!
19. tell me something embarrassing you did while drunk.
It's between two things:
1 - Was so drunk that I did not know my (now-ex)husband.
2 - Threw up on a highly respected Sales Rep after a company Christmas party (more specifically, on his Armani suit.)
20. if you post this in your journal, do you want me to answer it?
Blah blah - feel free to steal and use.

20 questions - edited

1. tell me something obvious about yourself.
2. tell me something about yourself that i don't know.
3. what is your biggest fear?
4. do you normally take the safe route or the shortcut?
5. what is the one thing you want the most that you can't buy with money?
6. what is your most treasured possession?
7. what is the one thing you hate most about yourself that you do the most often?
8. tell me something about you that I don't know.
9. tell me something about you that everybody knows.
10. what is your favorite lie to tell?
11. name something you have done once that you can't wait to do again.
12. are you the jealous type?
13. what is the 1 person, place or thing that you can never say no to?
14. what is the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?
15. if you could do something crazy right now, what would it be?
16. when was the last time you cried?
17. when was the last time you felt so good that nothing else mattered?
18. do you feel comfortable in public with no shirt on?
19. tell me something embarrassing you did while drunk.
20. if you post this in your journal, do you want me to answer it?

(The edit was that questions 8 & 9 originally read, "tell me something about yourself sexually that I don't know/that everybody knows. Honestly, I don't WANT to know stuff sexually about you people. So, yeah, edited.)

Stolen from someone I don't know.

numbers

Miles on my car: 250,000
Year my car was made and purchased: 1999
Number of overtime hours I worked the first week of this month: 7.00
Percentage of time I have spent working today: 65%
Milligrams of ibuprofen I will be taking shortly: 1000
My average blood pressure reading: 100/80
Number of days in the canine heat cycle: 21-28
Time the EOS module was scheduled for: 2pm-4pm
Time the EOS module ACTUALLY happened: 3pm-7pm
EOS evening event schedule: 6pm-8pm
EOS ACTUAL evening event time: 7:30pm-11:30pm
Number of hours I slept on Sunday: 10
Pieces of entertainment equipment our new (free) remote controls: 9
Amount of time until I can leave today: 2:10

T-TPTB-IF

I am very happy it is the weekend finally. I get to sleep in with my puppies tomorrow - woot!

I have a ton of stuff on my mind. Everything is floating around, driving me a little nuts. I am feeling a little overwhelmed this week. More than a little. But I am working on it.

WELL! After thinking about what more to write for about 15 minutes, I got nothing.

So there it is.