Jen tagged me to do this and while I usually abhor memes, I adore Jen and would jump right off that cliff if she suggested it, even gently. So:
The first player of this game starts with the topic “five weird habits of yourself” and people who get tagged need to write an entry about their five weird habits as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next five people to be tagged and link to their web journals. Don’t forget to leave a comment in their blog or journal that says “You have been tagged” (assuming they take comments) and tell them to read yours.
N.B.: I have a real problem with the syntax of the words “five weird habits of yourself”. I can’t help feeling that was either written by a toddler or a Frenchman with a bad grasp of English. So I’ve changed it to “five weird habits”, which is far less inelegant. You COULD say “five weird habits you have” but considering the context of blogging a meme, I find the “you have” to be redundant, although not as redundant AND badly worded as “of yourself”. Seriously, I shudder every time I read that.
1. Well, I guess that nails habit #1 into place. I’m really strict about grammar and spelling and syntax and have been accused of being an obnoxious grammar nazi by, like, everyone. Once, I had this blogger friend that used apostrophes incorrectly and as much as I liked the guy, I finally lost my cool at him over IM, yelling in capitals about how one should and shouldn’t use an apostrophe to contract a word. Inelegant syntax is worse than misspellings. Those are human errors. Inelegant syntax, it’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. I can’t help but correct it. If the president of Burundi were to approach me on a subject of international importance, I would rephrase his plea if it didn’t sound well-worded to me. Nevermind that the president of Burundi is probably excepted due to his questionable level of mastery in English. WHEVS, Burundi.
2. When I find something intolerably cute, I bite the inside of my cheeks. I have NO idea why I do this but I’ve done it my whole life. Maybe I’m trying to repress the urge to grab the cute thing (pet, baby, scene in a movie, Stuart) and squeeze the life out of it from hugging it so much, I have no idea. Stuart will see me do this when I’m being affectionate and he’ll tell me to stop.
3. I don’t like eating bananas the way nature intended, which is putting the big thing in your mouth and biting. I have to make small slices of banana and eat the slices. I don’t know why and DON’T READ TOO MUCH INTO THIS EVEN THOUGH YOU ALREADY HAVE, it creeps me out to put the thing in my mouth and bite.
4. I really love putting ketchup on potato chips. To be fair, I don’t eat potato chips all that often. Maybe once a month. But when I do, in the privacy of my own (or others’) homes, I will totally put ketchup on them.
5. I can’t watch devil-oriented horror movies. I can watch any other kind of spook or gore, but something catholic in me can’t deal with the devil plotlines. It’s too real to imagine the serious evil that people inflict on other people every day, and to attribute that to some maniacally laughing overlord just rattles my bones. Once, I read Rosemary’s Baby while all by myself in my dorm room, all in one sitting, and was so freaked out and horrified at the end that I went running out of the building, desperate to interact with someone and shake the terror from my nerves, and ended up sitting with a colleague from my lit class talking about fear and evil for a couple hours. We were never very close but I’ll always be grateful that he talked me out of it even though he barely knew me. That’s the mark of a good person. AS OPPOSED TO THE MARK OF LUCIFER. See? Freaked out.
I’m tagging Sarah Hatter, because I think she’s suitably quirky (read: neurotic) to have some funny things to share, and Joshua Norton for the same reason, even though I don’t think either of them will actually do it. And then Shana because I KNOW how weird she is. Weirdo.

So here’s the thing. I want a messenger bag. I’ve always had something approximating a messenger bag but I’ve always been more interested in style than functionality so I’ve never gotten one that really has everything I need in a daily bag. Currently, I’m using this brown purse with an extra long strap as a messenger bag, but it’s basically a large hole with very little division in it and exactly small enough to be annoying when I’m trying to fit one last thing in there, or when I’m trying to find something. I want this to be the last messenger bag I ever buy, I want it to be sort of stylish at least in an urban way, and I want it to have at least SOME of these features:
a zipper somewhere on the outside of the bag, preferably on the flap
pockets on the exterior of the body of the bag, inside the flap
at least one division, if not more, inside the bag itself
a metrocard/workID slot
a sidepocket for ipod or cell phone
at least fifteen inches across the bottom
I DON’T want it to have any of these features:
large reflective stripes anywhere, because I am not actually a messenger
a heavy fabric that will make the bag heavy to begin with, nevermind all the stuff I’ll put in it
a really ostentatious logo
more than $75
I also want it to fit, at any given point in the year or in my future, all the things I’m carrying, like:
my chunky wallet
at LEAST one book, presume hardback just to cover all the bases
my ipod
my cell phone
keys
hand lotion
gum
pen
notebook
gloves/scarf/hat
also possibly, in the future, things like:
my laptop, powercord, and mouse
manuscripts/other people’s work I’m critiquing
Do you see my problem? I need a bag that could carry half to all of these things without being unnecessarily heavy or bulky, and without making it impossible to access all of them. I’m organized when it comes to bag interiors but I need the bag to meet me halfway. I also have an incredibly talented mother who can sew anything, anytime, so I’d definitely be able to add some features to the interior if I so desired, like that metrocard/ID slot.
What I want, ultimately, is a bag I could carry every day to work or school without sacrificing efficiency or space. I still like my little cute girly purses, but more and more those are becoming reserved to weekends or evenings out. For work (and one day, hopefully, school), I need The Bag to End All Other, Lesser Messenger bags. I happen to know that R.E.Load could make me the bag of my dreams but it’d cost $200 and I can’t face that. I’m currently contemplating this (but I don’t think the interior is compartmentalized enough for me), this (because it has a side pocket but no interior-flap pockets or exterior-flap pockets), this (but I’d have to see it in person because it’s sort of untraditional), and this one from kipling, a brand I love and very tempting because it’s EXPANDABLE, very cool.
But I need more options before I decide (and I need to meet all these bags in person, the task for Monday’s day off) and I want more options from you guys. You city-dwelling cool girls, where do you get your bags? How much did you pay? How do you like them? Any hints or links or leads would be gratefully appreciated – I’m determined not to get another bag that will disappoint me. (And Stuart is determined NOT to spend a ton of money on another bag he suspects I’ll stop loving after a year.)

So techies out there? Help. We have a Belkin wireless router that, while a little weak when it comes to the other end of the apartment, works pretty well. Suddenly yesterday, it got angry.
The internet is working fine – Stuart’s computer is plugged directly into the router via cable modem. But even when my laptop is literally RIGHT NEXT TO THE ROUTER, I have no internet. It’s not that the little signal thing is out, and this is the weird part. The signal meter is FINE. It’s just that I open safari, with almost full-signal strength, and nothing loads. I am not connected. Safari cannot connect to google because you are not connected to the internet. WTF?!
Does anyone know what this means? I open my internet connect panel and the strength looks just fine, the correct router is selected, and everything. Does this make any sense?
Kisses and gratefulness to anyone who can solve it. And yeah, right now? Totally surfing off a nearby connection. WHAT.
UPDATE: Thanks to Neff’s advice, I power-cycled not just the router but the MODEM as well. I’m back on my own wireless network now. It still remains a mystery that while my wireless signal was obviously not working, my computer thought it was getting a strong signal. Weird.

So I was just telling Biscuit that I’ve got this very sudden, very massive headache, and he asks me if a flowerpot fell on my head and it occurs to me, maybe a flowerpot DID fall on my head, so check it out: let’s say, sometime four years ago or so, I was walking down 50th street and instead of taking a right on 6th avenue, I took a left, but if I’d taken a right, I would have met a man named Frank and started dating and eventually, I would have moved to Prague with Frank (because he’s Praguian, reasons Biscuit) and in Prague, we would have walked down the street on the fourth of January, 2006, and a flowerpot would have fallen RIGHT out a window and landed on my head, are you still with me because see, I didn’t take that right, I took a left, so instead, there’s this lonely guy named Frank walking down the street in Prague and suddenly BAM, a flowerpot falls from a window and lands RIGHT NEXT TO HIM, SEE? And now I have a headache, but I’m also not married to some tool named Frank in Prague.
So everything worked out okay.