Mixed bag of a day

All day at work I felt out of it. I was cranky. Not snapping at people cranky. Just cranky, grumpy, mopey, not happy in my brain. I was just in a MOOD. People couldn't tell. When I made some comment about being Grumpy, G said that it seemed like I was in a cheerful mood. But my brain was feeling bleah!

But, after leaving work, I headed to Big Bowl for yummy food with lucky13charm & J. Mmmmm. Kung Pao Chicken with Noodles. And a cute waiter who totaled our bills individually without even being asked. He also, when walking up to our table, avoided by mere seconds walking into me saying the phrase "hot boy sex" Too bad. Would have been fun to see his reaction.

After dinner we headed to the theater. We parked waaaaaay out there. lucky13charm and J. had both brought Yulechristmakwanzakah gifts for me and hellbob. Which reminded me that I needed to remember to grab both their gifts when I leave the house this morning... oh, fuck. Yeah. Think that happened?

So their gifts are still sitting here wrapped up on the living room floor. The one for lucky13charm stopped moving a couple days ago. I wonder if hellbob remembered to put airholes & food in it. Oh well, nothing says Happy Holidays like a dead kitten!

It was a bunny Christmas this year! I had gotten the Stainless Steel expansion from the KalHouse, and tonight I got the Green expansion from L13C! Also, two bars of chocolate. Really really yummy chocolate with chunks of sea salt in it! We had both had this stuff for the fist time at Omegacon and it was soooooo good.

From J we got the Pop Culture edition of Trivial Pursuit! yay!

Anyhow, we headed to the theater. I had gotten cash on my way to dinner (BTW hellbob. How many times have we gotten to the Southdale theater and then decided we needed cash? It seems silly to pay an ATM fee when the only branch of our bank in the Cities is Across. The. Street. ). There was an insane line to buy tickets from a real person so I ended up using the bank card anyway on the auto ticket machine. I'm a senior citiizen, doncha know? LOL! They don't offer a student option on the ticket machine & senior tickets are the same price as student. I have yet to ever get asked for ID when I hand them my senior ticket.

We settled in. We watched commercials. I have to say, I'm not annoyed by commercials at the theater, as long as they are before the movie's start time. if it's a 7:30 movie and your watch has just hit 7:30, then from here on out all you should be seeing is previews.

The movie was SO FUCKING GOOD!! Jake Gyllenhal makes a darn purty cowboy. Heath Ledger, not so much. I don't want to put any movie spoilers in here so just know: Good movie!

Now, I should probably consider heading to bed...

TGIF!

Aaaahhh.
I'm done working for the day.
I'm wearing Eeyore pajamas.
I'm on the couch with a big fat purring cat on top of me.
I have KFC for lunch.
I have two Gilmore Girls DVDs from Netflix.
*happy sigh*

Monkey News!

link stolen from oed_1
Monkey News

The text:

2005 was a big year for primates and the primatologists who study them:

More Lemurs
Nicknamed the “eighth continent” for its vast biological diversity, Madagascar produced two new lemur species this year. Lemurs are the fuzzy ancestral (and endangered) cousins of monkeys and apes. All 49 species exist solely on the island.


Dinner Conversation
There’s now evidence that chimpanzees speak to each other directly about their environment. Using high-pitched noises or low-pitched grunts, chimps communicate in detail, particularly about their food. At the Edinburgh Zoo, for instance, it was learned that the chimps hate apples. Ranking much higher on their menu: bread.


Accent
In Japan, researchers discovered that monkey talk isn’t all the same. Like humans, they have regional dialects. What’s more, their voice tone often reflects the specific terrain. For instance, monkeys living on Yakushima Island have a high-toned accent because tall trees on the island tend to block their voices.


Contagious Yawning
Science has yet to explain why humans yawn, or why we yawn when we see other people yawn. What we do now know is that both great apes and the lesser primates (macaques and lemurs) also yawn contagiously.


Fruit and Sex
Capuchin monkeys learned to use money this year. Using a silver disk as currency that could be exchanged for food, the critters quickly developed budgeting and began following the basic rules of utility maximization and price theory. A capuchin even discovered the fungibility of money — that it could be used to buy not only food, but anything. The first new monetary monkey market: sex. Researchers were stunned when a male offered a female a token for a quick roll in the hay and she accepted. Afterward, the female traded her new token for a tasty grape.


Gorilla Tools
Field researchers in the Republic of Congo caught gorillas in the wild using tools. One female lowland gorilla named Leah was filmed using a long stick to gauge water depth while walking through a swamp pond. Another researcher saw a different female lay down a dead tree trunk to cross a deep patch in the same swamp.


Giganto
Gigantopithecus blacki (a.k.a. Giganto) was a prehistoric ape that stood 12 feet tall and weighed 1,200 pounds. Giganto’s fossil remains were first discovered in 1935 in a Hong Kong pharmacy, and paleontologists long thought the species died out a million years ago. But this year researchers learned that the creature lived as recently as 100,000 years ago — side by side with modern Homo sapiens, i.e., us. Could he still be roaming the forests of the Pacific Northwest?


Onlinicus Gamblii
The common name of a new species of titi monkey discovered last year at the Madidi National Park in Bolivia was auctioned off to the highest bidder. The winner: GoldenPalace.com, which paid $650,000 to put its moniker on the new GoldenPalace.com Monkey.


Monkeys Like the Same Toys as Human Children
A psychologist at Texas A&M University published findings in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior showing that male monkeys like to play with toy cars while female monkeys prefer dolls.


They Also Love Celebrities
An experiment at Duke University Medical Center offered thirsty monkeys a choice: their favorite drink, in this case, Juicy Juice brand cherry drink, or the opportunity to look at computer images of the dominant, “celebrity” monkey of their pack. Despite their thirst, they chose to look at the pictures. Monkeys with status have food, power and sexual magnetism — everything the others crave. The impulse to look at these “celebrity” monkeys was so strong, it superseded thirst.


Surprise! They Dig Porn, Too
In the same experiment, researchers discovered that their monkeys would give up significant juice rewards if it meant viewing female behinds.