I’ve finally moved my blog, and it’s now on baddminton.com! That’s it! Nothing else to remember! All my old blentries and photos are still there. I’m still working out a few kinks, and one thing that’s a bummer is I was unable to import any of my comments from this blog to the new one, so it looks like nobody commented on any of my posts. But it’s still super cool, and the web address is easy to remember, so I think it’s a very good thing. Plus, I feel accomplished because I figured out how to install it all by myself. Yay!

So: To recap, please visit my blog now at baddminton.com, and please bookmark the new site and/or change the link on your blogroll if you have it there (which you should, if you have a blog).

They switched our phone system at work. The new phone system requires us to dial “8″ to get an outside line. Eight. Not nine, Eight. Every other phone system in the entire universe requires you to dial 9. Why did this phone company choose eight? Did someone get a patent or a copyright on 9? Or was this company just trying to be different? Are they trying to be hip and cool? Avant-garde? Ooooooh, y’all are soooooooo cooool, because you picked 8 instead of 9 . You guys are soooooooooo, like, un-mainstream. You’re really sticking it to the man, dudes.

Every time I pick up my phone I dial 9. This has been going on for about a week. Every time. I think once maybe I remembered to hit 8 first, but every single other time I have first hit 9. Do I think I will ever learn to use 8? Probably not. And even if I do, the next time I’m using a normal phone where you have to dial nine, I will inevitably first hit 8. Jerks.

I’ve just posted some new photos in my Flickr account from the 4th. Check ‘em out. I went up to the roof of the Bel Age Hotel with some friends to eat, drink, and watch fireworks. Although there wasn’t a huge fireworks display nearby, we were able to see them exploding all across the horizon, which was a cool new way to enjoy them. Jeff’s roommate Mike was our bartender, and we ended up getting away with lots of free drinks, as if it weren’t payment enough that we got to laugh at his funny little shorts and polo shirt uniform. Dang, why didn’t I take a picture of that?!

My British friend Virginia came to celebrate our country’s victory over hers, and pointed out how amazing it is that we’ve built all this in 230 years. (”We” including me, of course, because I have built a great deal of this country with my bare hands)!

In other news, Missy has moved to New York, which is sad for us, but happy because she booked a 3-year contract role on All My Children. She’s been in town this week packing up. On Sunday we all drank mimosas and talked while she packed. Here’s Jeremy and Missy doing a coreographed scene from a musical about packing. Good times.

In one last piece of news, This Just In: Working in an office sucks.

Whoa, you guys have got to hear Lily Allen. Her sound is so fresh and such a brilliant combination of sounds. It feels young and free, yet badass. Go to her website right this minute and listen to “LDN.” I heard it on KCRW and recorded part of it with my phone so I could figure out who it was, but luckily KCRW is awesome and told me anyway. Then I found her MySpace Music page, and she has songs you can listen to and put on your own MySpace page. My favorite of these is “Little Things,” although I don’t know why there’s a picture of Courtney Love next to it. Anyway, if I had a bunch of extra cash lying around I would use it to fly to the U.K. and see her live. But as my dad says, I’ve “barely got a pot to pee in,” so I’ll have to wait until she comes to L.A. And wait I will, on the edge of my seat.

Nathan has alerted me to the coolest thing ever to hit the internet: The “Stumble-Upon” feature in Firefox. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, Do This Now: Go to mozilla.com and Download Firefox. (This is the browser you should be using anyway because it is a billion times cooler and better than Internet Explorer). Once you have it up and running, go here and download “Stumble-Upon.” Check the boxes for things that interest you, then start hitting the “Stumble” button in the top left. It will take you to websites you never knew existed, all based around the topics you selected!

In other nerd news, I got a webhost and have been trying to manually upload WordPress so that someday I’ll be able to use my own lovely domain name. The “famous five-minute install” is taking me f-ing forever. Is it possible to be a dumb nerd? Methinks so.

Pointy shoes cause ugly feet! And how do you walk in those things?

The other day I saw someone in my office literally hobbling across the floor. She could barely lift her feet and was kind of sliding them across the carpet, pumping her arms violently to propel her forward. Observation: When you can’t walk in your shoes, your shoes are not serving their purpose. Something is wrong here! Everywhere you look, a woman is wearing pointy shoes. Don’t y’all know!? You’re giving yourselves bunions! Gross! And if you really, really look at the shoes, they’re ugly — ranging from kind of ugly to really really ugly. How did they ever become trendy?!

Pointy shoes are so weird looking. They look like something evil dragon creatures would wear, and they make your foot look twice as long as it is. What annoys me is that at work, in order to adhere to the dress code you pretty much have to wear uncomfortable shoes — which is why I rarely adhere to it completely. It’s funny because most people in my department pretty much always wear just what we can squeak by with. We’re all way on the casual side of business casual. But over in the sales department, you’d be hard-pressed to find a round-toed shoe. Even last week on “Casual Friday” (that phrase will always make me shudder), I saw someone in sales wearing jeans and pointy black shoes! She can’t even give her feet a rest for one day, when we’re actually allowed to wear sneakers! I shiver to think of all those women’s feet over in that department. I’ll probably start having nightmares of them all removing their shoes and taking off in flight after me with their dragon feet, bony talons ready to scrape off my face.

Don’t get me wrong — I know they, like most people in sales-type and many other type jobs, have gotten pressure from “above” to dress all business like. What sucks is that somehow for women, smart, professional outfits include high heels only, usually pointy. If you see a woman in a great suit and flats, she automatically seems less professional than one in heels. What the f?

I love cute shoes as much as the next girl, and in many cases, more. But I have one policy I try to stick to: If I have to choose between cute shoes and cute feet, I choose cute feet. I actually bought the cutest pair of shoes ever — these:

Aren’t they cute? And although they adhered to my no-pointy rule, they still squished my toes all up. So I took them back. I didn’t even get my money back; I got a store credit, which will be very hard to use because it was a tiny store, and that was the only pair in there that I really liked. But those are the breaks, Man. When I’m 65 years old I won’t miss those cute shoes or that seventy bucks, but I will be glad my feet aren’t all deformed like nasty monkey claws.

I think I have my mom to thank for my foot-care consciousness. When I was little I always wanted to wear slip-on flats instead of mary janes, and my mom would not let me, because she said they would slip up and down on my ankle and cause callouses on the back of my heels like hers. For some reason I thought straps across shoes were sooooo four years old, and I was five now, and if I could only wear shoes without straps I would be cool. But now I’m glad I didn’t, because my heels are callous free!

It all goes to show that we have to think about our futures, Ladies! Finding cute shoes that won’t ruin our feet is hard, but it can be done. And just think: We’ll be able to walk, both now and when we’re old! Yay!

Some of you may remember when I gave up wheat for Lent and lost my butt. Well, it found its way home, and for a week or two we had a happy reunion, until it invited in the old friend it had met up with on its adventures — a set of twins, actually: The Love Handles.

Today I am wearing a pair of adorable stretchy pinstriped jeans that are suddenly so tight in the buttal region they're actually squeezing my cheeks together. And the worst part is, the love handles, or "upper butt fat" as Rachel would say, is seeping over the top. Yum. You see, this is the look I want, versus the look I am trying to avoid:

However: It seems that for me, the first look is an impossible dream.  Instead I must choose between: Option 1: A good amount middle butt fat with a disproportionately huge amount of upper butt fat, or Option 2: Not enough middle butt fat, but still plenty of upper butt fat. Which is better? I'm not sure, but I do know that today I look like ten pounds of shit in a nine-pound bag. I can barely even sit down, these jeans are so tight. Operation "Not eating wheat: No, really, I'm not — well, OK, just a bite… dang, that's a good burger, hand it over," has ceased, and once again, Operation "Not eating wheat for Jesus, because that's the only thing that works" begins.

Dear Lovely Readers,

If you usually access my blog through www.baddminton.com, it won't work for the next few days.  I'm in the process of moving my blog there permanently, but in the meantime, it won't be forwarded from there to here.  SO: until I tell you otherwise, please use www.baddminton.wordpress.com.  Or if you'd rather, use www.baddminton.net or www.baddminton.org.  Thanks!

2 phones ago I had a cute little baby blue / Carolina blue Motorola shaped like a styrofoam peanut, and when I got a text message or voicemail, the sound that played was called "Bits & Bytes." It went, "Boo-duh-ly Doo-duh-ly Doop! Boo-duh-ly Doo-duh-ly Doop!" So I am calling my blentry for today "Bits & Bytes," because it's just a little collection of things.

Funny Search Engine Terms of the Day: People found my blog by searching for these things:

palm tree over the toilet stand

+handicap +wiping +butt

retarded clown, photos

pictures of cheesy guys

I am reading: Live the Life You Love by Barbara Sher. I recently finished her book, I Could Do Anything, If I Only Knew What It Was, and it was amazing. If you're having any kind of confusion or frustration about your goals and/or future, I recommend these wholeheartedly.

Link of the Day: Art Pad. An excellent, blue-ribbon, state fair-winning type of time waster.

Happy Almost Thursday!

My co-worker Scott showed me this link today and I have to show y'all.  It makes me want to run and jump and do cartwheels and kiss the first dog I see on the soft, furry head (unless it's a mangy stray dog with fleas and possibly rabies. In that case I will give it an appreciative nod from a safe distance).