It’s 3am… or really 3:30.

I’m sleeping. I hear my cell phone ringing. In confusion, I ponder what day it is, who I am, if I overslept, etc. I see light coming through the cracks in my cave wall. I check the time, almost 3:30am. WTF? I assume wrong number, but still realize there is nowhere in the nation right now that is an acceptable time to call nearly anyone. A minute or so after it stops ringing, I hear the new voice mail tone. OMG! Someone must be in the hospital or something. OMG! Someone is probably dead! Crap! I hop out of bed, grab the phone, look at the missed call log. “Unknown”. They must be calling from the hospital or something, I assume. I call to check the voicemail, cursing myself for not charging the phone last night in favor of charging at work tomorrow, but I still have a charge. I’m worried about what I will hear and then…

“Hi Kim, it’s Claude from the casino.” What the heck is this? I say my freakin’ name in the voicemail message. He then proceeds to mention something about an upcoming tournament. He has an accent I don’t recognize, and consider giving the benefit of the doubt that he’s calling internationally and isn’t bright enough to do the math on the time change. Benefit of doubt not worthy. “I figure you probably keep the same hours I do. I usually go to bed around 6am (chuckle). It’s 3:30am now. (pause) You’re probably in the shower or something.” He then rambles some more. “I’ll try back later,” he repeats a couple times. What the hell?

So, after my panic, I didn’t calm down well. I replayed it in my head several times and mentally wrote this entry. My mind wouldn’t let me fall asleep even after the porch light went out causing my cave to go back to pitch black. So, now a couple hours after that annoying call, I’m still awake, and I give up. I only had about 3.5 hours sleep. Maybe a bit more. Yay!

Ummm, Amazon?

Borrowed this screencap from a friend. Because, I know when I may think I want a necklace, I really want a no-crank outdoor sink.

Time-travelling me, needs shampoo, lives in NY

I signed up for some subscribe and save products via Amazon last night. I felt it was a little silly when I got a tracking number for shampoo. It was even more interesting when I clicked on it and it said “Delivered”.

Further investigation reveals it was delivered about 1.5 years ago, to NY. The extent of tracking info:

HORSEHEADS, NY, US 11/16/2006 2:25 P.M. DELIVERY
US 06/03/2008 1:50 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED

Delivered On: 11/16/2006 2:25 P.M.
Location: PORCH
Delivered To: ELMIRA, NY, US
Shipped/Billed On: 06/03/2008
Service: GROUND
Weight: 5.00 Lbs

I’ve never seen that before, except for the shipping notification I received just before that. Apparently I also frequent Greenville, South Carolina an hour and a half later that day and really want some Annie’s pasta.

A little perspective

Every once in awhile I try to gain some perspective on the relative sizes of Europe and the US. Here are a few things that always surprise me.

Europe and the US are roughly the same size.
Oregon is slightly bigger than the United Kingdom.
Greece and Alabama are roughly the same size.
The part of Russia in Europe is the only country larger than either Alaska or Texas.
California and Montana are bigger than Germany, Finland, or Norway.
There are 14 countries in Europe smaller than Rhode Island. (It’s about the same size as Luxembourg.) Six of them are smaller than DC.

Video evidence

Ownder

Today I have discovered that I am incapable of typing the word ‘owner’ without substantial effort. For some reason it keeps repeatedly coming out as ‘ownder’. Over and over again, even when I have just commented on the fact that I did it. Then when I try to fix it it happens again. I’ve started into a laughing fit at this point because it seems that my hands are possessed.

I can’t figure out if there is some other word I’m channeling. Any thoughts?

Apparently I’m not alone as a google search on ‘ownder’ returned 23,900 results.

Google is too smart

Google knows I’m in Ireland. I typed google.com into the search box to check my connection. It automatically switched to the Ireland search page. (Which is handy because it helps page rank the results in favor of the ie pages.) Thankfully not the Gaelic version. Speaking of Gaelic, it was really hard to not pick up the Gaelic version of the first Harry Potter book that I saw yesterday on Grafton Street. I may still go back.

Wow, this is so screwy

I’m preparing to go to dinner and my computer clock is pointing out that it’s only 8:54 am in Seattle. Just so weird.

I’ll definitely have more to blog beyond the Autobahn comment and this after dinner.