21, Huh? Weird.

I am 21 years old. I am a real-life adult these days, which is giving my mom a wiggins lately. She posted to her blog this über-cute picture of me on my first birthday. Come on, look at that face! I was too cute for school, that's for sure.

My splendiferous friends Megan, Krista, and Gloria threw me a birthday party on Saturday which was, in two word, teh cool. We spent an hour goofing about IKEA and eating delicious Swedish meatballs in the upstairs restaurant.

They had interesting pet beds... looked more like road kill, to be honest.

This one of Gloria in front of a print turned out really cool.

Flowerdy fez ftw!

After IKEA we headed back to my house for pumpkin pie and presents. I got quite a haul, including a t-shirt, painting, and my very own custom-made plushie doll. Well, everything was custom-made, so the doll was on theme.

Karate Kid much? It's tradition for one of our presents to include fancy ribbons which may double as hair ornamentation, and since my 'do isn't exactly conducive to hair ribbons, I went with the kamikaze headband look.

Boy, don't I have the best friends ever? THANK YOU, GUYS! I had a great time. Excellent pie, Megs. ^_^

And a couple more old pictures before I sign off, because in addition to the best friends ever, I also have the best parents ever.

Old Pictures From Vacation

This post is an assortment of pictures taken over the past couple of months. I don't exactly have much to blog about these days, so this is what you get.

This is Brinley and some of our cousins eating delicious jiao ze (potstickers or dumplings) in Chinatown. Being in Chinatown really made me nostalgic. I kept accidentally saying things in Chinese to the shopkeepers.

This was part of an exhibit at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. The exhibit was all about going to the moon and being an astronaut, but this was my favorite - teeny tiny robots!!!! Aren't they CUTE?!?

That day in Philadelphia our family split up: Dad and Mom took Morgan and Thomas to Betsy Ross's house and a couple of historic sites while Nathaniel, Brinley, and I went to the Franklin Institute. The reason we went there? This.

Actually, I didn't know that I would have the chance to sit in Captain Kirk's chair until we got there. But isn't that COOl? The day we arrived in Philadelphia we were driving around in our rental car and out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of the Enterprise, which turned out to be an advertisement for this exhibition. Immediately I announced that I would be going there no matter what it took, so thankfully the parents relented and the three of us got to go see it. Needless to say, I had an absolute fantastic time there.

We actually weren't supposed to take pictures, and the museum workers kept pretty close watch on us patrons, but I did manage to sneak the one above and this one here. I took this picture mostly to show Morgan and Nicole because this knife looks exactly like the one Mayor Wilkins gives to Faith in the third season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In Honor of .!'?,:;"

Yes, folks, today is National Punctuation Day. Who knew there was a holiday dedicated to one of the topics nearest and dearest to my heart? *smirks* I did.

Today's post consists mostly of links to related websites:

The Apostrophe Protection Society, mentioned in the delightful book "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss.

Apostraphe Abuse and The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, blogs with real photographical evidence of punctuational travesties.

And finally, here is a funny video dealing with punctuation:

Random Thoughts From 25-35 Year Olds

A link on a friend's Facebook brought me to this blog, from which I have copied my favorite random thoughts:

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

Nothing bites more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like
check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the "people you may know" feature on Facebook people that I do know, but I deliberately choose not to be friends with?

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars teams up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in... (10 second lapse)... ummm... Goonies"

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it... thanks to Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
(That one was for you, Mom!)

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

My 4-year-old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad, what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How in the world do I respond to that?

As a student driver, I was more worried about someone running into me. As an adult driver, my stomach churns at the sight of the "student driver" sign on the back of a Chevy sedan.

Before I go clothes shopping, I have to make sure that nothing in the outfit I am wearing was purchased at any of the stores I plan to visit, because I am worried one worker might recognize the t-shirt I bought three years ago.