Almost 13,000 page views? Cool.

Bloggers, this post comes from an under-the-weather Rachael, so despite my hopes of matching Nicole’s amazing wit and captivating journey of a week that was definitely more interesting than mine, I will warn you that this post can do nothing except fall short.  I will be accepting flowers, money, and chocolates as well-wishing presents.

Our blog seems to have a pattern of making Rick Santorum look stupid, even though he really really doesn’t need any help.  I mean really.  And maybe this is a little “did he really say that?  Because he didn’t say the whole word”-y, but in my opinion, he did say it and I think it may be campaign suicide for him.  But at the end of the day, he’s pretty much out of the race if you ask this Washington insider.  Romney will be the Republican candidate.  Please register to vote and keep the white office black & blue the way it belongs (because Barack is black… Democrats… blue… …yeah…).

Anyway, moving on.  I forgot to mention in the last post that I completed my baby blanket for my work friend, Amber.  This is her and her baby, Alayna.  My computer doesn’t recognize that spelling, but that is correct as far as my friend is  concerned.

Her and her baby.  Aren't they cute?

I MADE THAT OUT OF STRING. F YEAH.

My bizarre collage.

In more artsy news, I finished the still life you guys have seen a shot of too many times, we started our next project (a collage), and I purchased a giant latchhook project to give Devin when he’s (likely) in Chicago next year at DePaul.  Because that’s where it looks like he'll be going to school.  The picture of it is at the bottom of the post because Blogger is so dumb about picture formatting.  And in more artsy news, Devin and I (well, I may be the only one of the two of us who actually wants to do this) are considering doing a modified form of that 100 day photo challenge.  More to follow.

Special shout out to Derek, because as I was perusing my Microeconomics textbook, I came across some relevant food factoids that prove his “there is no ethnic/spicy/interesting/nonwhite food here” stories true.  But first, a backstory is in order.  We all know I’m bad at Econ.  I’m actually good at Econ now.  I have gotten A’s on both my tests.

That’s not relevant to the backstory, just me bragging.  The backstory is that my Econ textbook is written by a professor who works and lives in Middlebury.  That is where Derek goes to school.  I know that’s not a very long backstory, but I guess another pertinent detail is that he is a very colloquial writer, and I was flipping through his special Colloquial Glossary (kind of pretentious, right?) when I found these entries, or lack thereof.  First picture, see "Ketchup", second picture see "Sa-" words.

If you cannot read this, it says "Ketchup (noun) Spicy, thick tomato sauce used on, among other foods, hot dogs.

If you cannot read this, it includes words like "Sacred Cow", "Scrooge", and "Sears Catalog", but not the word "Salsa".

So ketchup is “spicy”, and, importantly, in a long Colloquial Glossary, there is no entry for “salsa”, which to me proves that David Colander (that’s the professor) doesn’t know what it is.  I know this is totally based on fallacies, I just found this ironic and Derek-affirming, and those of you who are aware of the Derek effect know we like to affirm all of what Derek says and does.  Looking forward to his response to Nicole’s little jokey joke.

But we can’t focus on that for too long, lest we scare our shy lovebirds back into the bushes where they prefer to carry out their interactions (this sentence should be deleted for ramble-y-ness and incompetence.  Oh well).  Next time any of us blog, unless someone gets adventurous and posts tomorrow, it will be April.  And what happens in April??!?!!

You guessed it! No, you didn’t.  But what happens in April is the College Jeopardy! test.  I purposely lower-cased the “test” of that phrase so you would understand that the ! in Jeopardy! is just part of the title of the show Jeopardy!, sort of like the website Yahoo!.

So, you may ask, why does that pertain to me?  Well, because I have encourage you all to try out, I will be hosting a Jeopardy! quiz right here in this blog.  Here are the rules: 1) Don’t google stuff even though it would be really easy to do so. 1.5) If anyone besides Derek gets 100% you lose automatically, because I assume you’ve cheated.  The first week is exempt from this rule because these questions are easy. Trying to warm you up.  2) Ask in a question format 3) Quick Tip #1: On Jeopardy!, whenever they ask about an author in Final Jeopardy!, it’s always Jane Austen. 4) #3 isn’t always true, but in my experience, Austen is featured on the show so often that I believe Alex must have a crush on her.  If you don’t know who Alex is, you don’t get to play.  And you’re a Communist.  Which is okay, I’m just assuming you’re such an ignoramus that you’ll take that as a fat insult when it’s not necessarily an insult.

Alright, Jeopardy! question time!

1)      He is a white, male, conservative (potential racist?) running for president.  His name rhymes with Dick Stantorum.

2)      She was born the year her native country engaged in a “revolutionary” war with one of its colonies.  Unperturbed, she went on to write romantic fiction that is still regarded as influential today.

3)      This is the city that DePaul University calls its home.  It is famous.

4)      This professor at a well-known university has been known to call ketchup “spicy”, and despite having a Ph.D. from Columbia University, has never heard of or tasted salsa.

These Jeopardy! questions were more to help you realize how much you really learn from my blog posts than anything.  I also wanted to advertise the fact that the College Jeopardy! test is coming up.  Sign up today.  Here’s one real question for y’all.

Final Jeopardy! Category: Presidential Pets

Clue: Name three pets of Democratic presidents and their species.  (The pets, that is).

Good.  If you are interested in looking at real Jeopardy! clues to practice, this website is pretty interesting.  It is an fan-made archive of all the clues/players of recent years or of ever.  Not sure.  Haven’t really navigated it much.  Yes, I did search for Ms. Topping.  No, I did not find her.

That’s about it for today, players.  I am serious about this book club idea, so be thinking of books you guys would like to read this summer.  I have mine picked out already.  It’s nonfiction.  More to follow.

Bye for now.

-Rachael

P.S. Dad bought me a crepe dinner in D.C. for my birthday.  Lookit what I got!!

This is what the latch hook project will look like. It is called Monterey Sunset. It'll look like a rug when it's done. Right now it looks like a screen. You put yarn in the holes to make it not look like a screen. More to follow. It's really big, and proof that I'm an 86-yr-old woman.