I hate paper

Brought to you by Ali

A few days ago, I spent 2 hours at Kinkos making copies and assembling packages for overnight delivery. Watching me operate a copy machine must like watching a three-year-old figure out how to land an airplane.

First I printed 50 blank pages. Then I printed 50 pages going the wrong direction. Then I about killed myself (and the machine) trying to grab the original document out before it started printing more flawed copies.

The Kinkos employee who helped me was nice enough and even offered to refund me for the bad ones. But when I told her that I hated paper, and that I hadn't used a copy machine since 1996, she just laughed.

I said, "You must be an old pro with these beastly machines," and she said, "I've only worked here two hours. It's not that hard."

I gave her a look that said, Um, yes it is and then thought about acting like I was foreign or blind or had some valid reason for not comprehending the art of copying a piece of paper. But it was too late.

My only saving grace was that a woman standing near me asked someone at the front desk where she could get an envelope...in order to send a fax.

What's Next...Paparazzi?

Brought to you by Ashley

Tonight I was walking my dog, Tucker, on the Monon Trail by my house. A cyclist came up behind me and said "Hey, Ashley."

Me: "Hey......" I didn't recognize the face hidden under the bike helmet and sunglasses. "Who are you?"

Cyclist: "It's DJ."

Me: "Oh...DJ! Hey - wow it's been like a year and a half since we saw each other."

DJ: "Yeah, it has been a long time."

Me: I'm actually really surprised you recognized me."

DJ: "Uh, actually I recognized your dog."

Overheard Last Night at Target

Brought to you by Ashley

"Wow, you're buying a lot of clothes," the cashier says to the twenty-something girl in front of me.

"Oh my gosh, I know...you guys have such a good selection."

"Well, your total is $92.98."

"Is that it? That's so cheap. My baby just loves to wear shirts. But she doesn't really seem like dresses or skirts too much."

$92 is not cheap to me, especially for baby clothes. I pull my nose out of Us Weekly to glance at the pile of clothes waiting to be bagged. And by clothes, I mean dog clothes. Clothing for a dog. $100 worth of it.

That's a whole lot of glitter.

This is Not an Email

Brought to you by Ashley

I work for an on-demand email marketing software company that has periodic product releases, and I work pretty closely on them. So I like to say that I necessarily become a workaholic the 30-days or so leading up to our product launches.

Our spring release is next week, and I'm in one of my "work zones" right now. There are three stages of workaholic zones, and today when talking with my friend Stephanie, I unfortunately slid down the slippery slope into stage three.

Stage One - Getting stressed out, carrying tension and apprehension in my shoulder / neck area, getting constant headaches, and generally hunching over my desk like Gollum because my posture sucks so badly.

Stage Two - Dreaming about work. Actually, it would be more correct to state "dreaming about working," as in my dreams consist of full meetings and very productive brainstorm sessions with whiteboards and dry erase markers and everything.

Stage Three - Substituting the word "email" in place of other words in everyday conversation having nothing to do with work. For example, "We should go return the email to Blockbuster." Or today, "I was alone at the table because my friend ran to the email."

I love my job, and I love the company I work for. I do think email marketing is important, and I personally work with our own email program. But it's a little sad that I talk about email to the point that I start saying it without meaning it. Because in the grand scheme of things, email probably wouldn't even rank as a top-ten thing that I truly care about. I wonder if I'll ever be to the point that I start slipping in words I'm truly passionate about work conversations.

Like "I wonder what our sunshine rate was in the last campaign?" and "I'll schedule a meeting to discuss our cheese strategy" or "This dog will truly enable the marketer to deliver one-to-one-messaging."

Maybe that's actually the indication of a well-balanced life.

What the Peep?

Brought to you by Ali

As I stood in my kitchen eating a Peep that my mother sent me for Easter (thanks, Mom), I just couldn't help but marvel over its squishy goodness and delicious sugar coating.

There are two types of people in the world:

1) Those who hate Peeps
2) Those who love them

There really isn't anything in between, right? And I happen to be a person who loves them. But the thing about Peeps is that you can't eat them at any old time of the year (imagine celebrating Christmas with a plate of them. That would just be wrong) and perhaps that is what makes them so special.

And let me be perfectly clear that when I talk about loving Peeps, I am only talking about the yellow ones, not the pink ones or the blue ones or purple or whatever new color it is that they're pushing this year. ONLY YELLOW. ONLY THE LITTLE CHICKS.

Unlike M & M's, where you really can't tell the difference between a brown one and a green one (seriously, um, you can't. I've done the taste test several times), you can practically smell the difference between a pink and yellow Peep.

But what I love most about Peeps is their nutritional value. Eating an entire box of them is no different than eating a box of air, but with 1% of your daily sodium intake, 13% of your daily carbohydrate intake, and enough sugar to make you go cross-eyed. It just does not get any better than that.

What would you do for a dollop?

Brought to you by Ashley

So I'm getting ready to eat dinner, and I just opened a container of Daisy Brand light sour cream. On the protective foil lid covering thing (do you leave it on? do you take it off?) I noticed the following quote next to the picture of a tulip:

"If life gives you limes, just rearrange the letters and return a smile."

Are people really feeling so low these days that they need a pick-me-up from their sour cream container? And if so, are they disappointed when they open their cereal boxes and are met with plain, uninspiring plastic?

Note to Daisy Brands: You don't need a feel-good quote on your light sour cream. People already feel good because they bought the light kind instead of the regular.

SWF Seeks Lifelong Companion. Must Be Adventurous, Willing to Travel, and Able to Perform Under Strenuous Circumstances.

Brought to you by Ashley

I've finally posted, printed, and filed my pictures from Costa Rica. You can check them all out here.

It's kind of ironic, but my favorite picture of the bunch is actually this one from Playa del Rey outside Quepos. The irony stems from the fact that though the beach and sufboards might look pretty, they were in fact my own personal hell. Let's just say my secret dream of becoming a surfer girl like Kate Bosworth in Blue Crush faded very quickly that day.

I must admit that on the whole, I am a little disappointed with the photos. Being the technologically-stunted person that I am, I struggled with using the digital camera that I borrowed from my parents. The delayed display and hundreds of superflous setting choices were annoying and overwhelming. I don't care about the type of flash! I don't care about anti-shaking controls! Just take my damn picture when I ask you to. It seems to me that the photos from Ecuador turned out much better on an old camera I borrowed that took (gasp!) real film. It's too bad I ran it through the washing machine by accident.

I've decided the problem is that I just need to buy my own camera. Trying to use someone else's is like trying to wear someone else's old, worn running shoes -- they may be your size, but those things ain't never gonna feel right. So I've budgeted $700 (thanks for the rebate, IRS) and have the following criteria:

1. Must take picture when I ask it to, no matter how unreasonable I am being. Point, snap, and let's be done with it.

2. Must take multiple frames in succession without me having to push the button every time. My finger is small and gets tired easily.

3. Must be 8.0 Megapixel or higher because someday I WILL get around to framing my photos.

If you have a suggestion, please pass it along. Or else I might end up buying one directly from Home Shopping Network, which I'm pretty sure is not OK. But man, are those four easy flex payments ever enticing...