Just a heads up that I’m having major issues with spam comments, so I’m now moderating comments. So – it will take a little while before your comments show up, since I need to approve them. Thanks!
And FYI – I will vote for whatever presidential candidate promises to behead all convicted spammers. That’s the only platform I care about.

12 Comments; | Filed under: General

Best pickup line ever!
Cast:
Man – 20-ish Jamba Juice employee
Woman – 20-ish McDonald’s employee
Scene:
Man in line ahead of me at McDonald’s
Man: “How you doing today?”
Woman: “I have a headache.”
Man: “Really? Me too. How late you working?”
Woman [pauses]: “…’til five.”
Man: “Really? Me too. How ’bout I swing by after work and we go out and get some aspirin?”
Woman: ::blushes::
Me: [ear to ear grin]

14 Comments; | Filed under: General

What’s a clear sign that it’s really cold out? When you can watch seagulls walk across the Chicago River.
And hey! I thought rivers didn’t freeze. I also thought it never snowed when the temperature was below zero. Up is down, left is right, I think I’m starting to find runny noses attractive. What the hell is going on?

11 Comments; | Filed under: General

I have a secret, and a shameful one at that.
Admitting this is a little hard for me, but I’ve always heard that the truth will set you free. Unless, of course, you’re a cold-blooded murderer, in which case the truth will get you 15 to life. But this is my confession: I like listening to the hold music that plays on the teleconferencing system we use at work. It makes me really happy. I like it so much that sometimes I’ll dial in to a conference call a couple minutes early just so I can listen to it until the conference chairperson starts the call.
The music that plays is always the same – it’s a synthesized, bubbly tune that goes like Bum ba da bum, bum bum bah dah dee dah dum. Bum ba bum, bee ba dum, dum dum dum. And then there’s this part that’s higher pitched and comes in over the bum ba da bum part, and it goes like Bim bim bee bah bah bim bim bim. Bim bim bee bah da dee dee dee dim.
That’s the part I like the best.
Anyway, this got me thinking. For the most part I think of myself as a pretty normal person, but then there are some strange things I do like looking forward to hold music that make me think I’m not as normal as I might think.
I actually started to try to notice some of the other things I do that aren’t entirely normal to see if I noticed a pattern. So far, one other thing that sticks out in my mind is the fact that I really like to watch my cats drink water. Not enough that I’ve actually filmed them drinking water so I could watch it all the time on demand, but enough so that whenever I’m around them when they’re drinking water, I’ll make a point to stop and watch them.
Oh yeah, I also do put about four or five small glasses of water in various corners of my apartment for them, but honestly, that’s just because they prefer to drink out of glasses. They’re civilized that way.
So now I have to figure out if these things make me a) eccentric good, b) eccentric bad, c) insane, or d) boring.
The jury’s still out.

15 Comments; | Filed under: General

… always – always - bring camera with you.
I was thinking about how I should start bringing my camera with me everywhere I go, even though it’s pretty bulky and heavy.
Then last week, as I was walking to lunch, I saw that one of the bridges over the Chicago River was closed and a giant crane was lowering a man in a tiny rowboat onto the river.
WTF?
Why? Why was a man in a boat being lowered onto the river? I’ll never know. And you’ll never get to know how cool a sight that was, simply because I was too lazy to lug my camera with me. I hope you can someday forgive me.
And then today there was a man in a chicken suit and another man in a cow suit handing out some flyers by the train station. That might have been nice for you to experience.
And then tonight there was this magnificent dessert that I ate with Natasha and Dee-Dee, that was essentially a $15 ‘smore.
But you’ll never get to know what these things were like, except in your vast imaginations. It’s a good thing you’re so creative.
Anyway.
Here’s a picture of a part of a tree that kind of looks like a mouth**. I know it’s no boat being lowered by a giant crane onto the Chicago River, but it’s the best I’ve got. Mwah!

**A friend who will remain anonymous has just informed me that this does not look like a mouth, but in fact, looks like a dirty, dirty picture that I should be ashamed of posting. So I’ve now deemed it not-safe-for-work. Good god – I’m a tree pornographer! Click if you dare…

Read more »

24 Comments; | Filed under: General

Okay – gotta hurry off to get ready for another early morning meeting, but let me just say once more about my previous post: I’m so very very sorry. I HAD TO GET IT OUT OF MY BRAIN! And into yours. Believe me – seeing it was much worse than reading about it.
And in other news – I HEART PORTLAND! I know I’ve said that before about Seattle, and DC, and New York, and of course Chicago… but this time I think i mean it. Portland is like your old friend from small-town elementary school who’s still super sweet and smart, but has grown into a really cool adult who likes to go out to eat at great restaurants and always seems to know stuff about bands you’ve never heard of. Portland is awesome like that. And the downtown area feels a little like Main Street USA at Disneyworld. Cobblestone streets and white lights and all. Except instead of Disney characters walking around, there are a lot of homeless people. So that made me homesick for Chicago.
Oh, and I think people are really trusting and law-abiding here – what up with driving the speed limit, yo? And what up with the honor system on the MAX lines? Is anyone ever going to ask for my ticket? Suckers.

18 Comments; | Filed under: General

Forgive me for what I am about to tell you…
Today, as I was walking to work from the train station, I watched in horror as a man in front of me…
[This isn’t easy for me to talk about]
… blew his nose INTO HIS BARE HAND, looked at it, then wiped it on his pants and jacket. He was a trader working at the Mercantile Exchange. I’m dumping all my shares of pork bellies immediately.
And here I’ve always thought the farmer blow was the most repulsive act imaginable involving ones’ nose and the open air. How wrong I was.
So really, I’m so sorry I had to share that, but I needed someone to feel my pain.
********************************
And in other news, I’m off to Portland Tuesday and Wednesday to do some site inspections for TequilaCon. Well, actually I’m there for a business meeting, and won’t get to enjoy even one minute of the city, but still. A girl can pretend, can’t she? Be good.

19 Comments; | Filed under: General

[designed by dave2]

The time has come, my friends, to separate the true believers from the commitment-phobes.
I’m talking about TequilaCon ’07: Portland Edition. You’ve heard about it, thought about it, contemplated it, worried about it, decided against it, changed your mind about it, still undecided about it.

Enough with the wishy-washy, peeps! It’s less than two months away! Believe me – I know how hard it can be to make a decision like this, so I thought it would help if I gave you a Pros/Cons list, like I usually do for big decisions:

TequilaPros
1. Tequila
2. Hang out in Portland, home of Powell’s bookstore, and I’m sure a bunch of other cool stuff
3. Meet awesome bloggers and ex-bloggers
4. Time off from work
5. Enough blog fodder to give you at least 2-3 more entries
6. TequilaCon swag
7. Breakdance contests
8. Tattoos
9. Finally get to take pictures of something other than your cats

TequilaCons
1. Tequila hangover
2. Portland ice storms
3. Return to everyday life will be a total letdown
4. Ex-bloggers might try to convince you that blogging is out
5. Lindsay Lohan can’t make it

Clearly, you can see that the Pros far outweigh the Cons, so you really have no excuse. Once again, here are the specifics:

TequilaCon ’07
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Portland, Oregon
McMenamins Kennedy School
7:00pm – ?

Hopefully, you’ve already received these details from me in an email, but if you’re planning on going and haven’t received any of the update emails I’ve sent out, send an email to jenny@runjenrun.com and I’ll make sure I add you to the distribution list.

Hope to see you all there!

“Come to TequilaCon or I will steal your babies.”

13 Comments; | Filed under: TequilaCon

Q: If you hopped into a cab that smelled of human feces, would you:
a) Immediately tell the driver you forgot something and make him drop you off after only one block
b) Breathe in and out of your mitten the entire ride home
c) Hold your breath until you passed out and just hope that the cabbie would roll your lifeless body onto your front sidewalk after snatching the $20 bill out of your clenched fist
d) Say loudly to no one in particular, “Is it me, or this does this cab smell like human feces?”
e) Hang your head out of the window like a dog
f) Other
I did one of these.

25 Comments; | Filed under: Opinion Poll

Her bike is leaning against the chain link fence, unprotected. I pause a minute with my laundry, worried that someone might steal the bike, when I see her coming out of the garage. I feel relieved.
“Hello!”
“Hi. Cold out today.”
My next door neighbor is a small Asian woman – she can’t be 5 feet tall – with a broad face and a quick smile. In her puffy coat and comfortable black shoes, she looks much younger than the sixty-something I imagine her to be. Her English is broken, so our brief exchanges typically revolve around the weather and, in the summer, her garden. She takes great care growing an impressive assortment of vegetables in her tiny yard.
“Your garden looks beautiful this year,” I’ll say as I fumble for my keys.
She usually smiles, but then brushes this off with a comment about how it’s been too wet, or too dry this season.
At least once each summer, as I am coming in from work or exiting the laundry room, she will offer me something from her garden. Once, she handed me a fistful of tarragon, and told me to cook chicken with it. This past summer, she plucked a cucumber off the vine, quickly rubbed away all the prickly bumps with her rough hand, and gave it to me.
“There. Now no need to buy salad.”
I thanked her, and said I would eat it that night with my dinner, which I did.
But even more than her handsome garden with rainbow pinwheels to scare off the rabbits, what I most look forward to is seeing her on her bicycle. She rides a child’s bicycle – small pale pink frame, high handlebars with glittery tassels, and a long, pink rectangular seat. Whenever she leaves on this bike, she pushes herself down the alley with her feet, never pedaling until she turns the corner and reaches the sidewalk. Her feet dangle over the asphalt as she coasts effortlessly.
Sometimes I see her riding home from the grocery store, plastic bags of food swinging from the handlebars. Where does she put her bike when she shops? I never see a lock on it. Why doesn’t it get stolen? I spend a fair amount of time worrying about someone stealing her bike. I think to myself that if her bike ever got stolen, I would buy her a new one. But one that looked exactly the same.

17 Comments; | Filed under: General