Angela Tung Oversharing on the internet since 2005.

In case you don’t know, “1000 ATRO” stands for “1000 Awesome Things Rip-Off,” an idea I, well, totally ripped off from this guy.

I’ve written about this before, but one of the great things about living out west is all the weird and cool birds.

In New Jersey and New York, most animals are brown and gray.  It’s a woodland area so that makes sense.  Except for aggressive cardinals and blue jays, rabbits, deer, groundhogs, and, birds need to blend in to hide from predators.

But out here, I’m guessing because of the weather, the birds are much brighter and more varied.  Back home I’d see robins, crows, sparrows, pigeons, and an occasional egret out in the swamps of Secaucas, but here you drive ten minutes outside the city and you see hummingbirds, quail, hawks, and who knows what else.

Even walking from my area to Fillmore Street, I’ve seen hummingbirds in mid-flight over hedges full of flowers.  Whenever my SF pal and I go to the Golden Gate Park area, we see some strange and wonderful feathered friends.

I should get a book and learn how to identify them.  Someday.

In case you don’t know, “1000 ATRO” stands for “1000 Awesome Things Rip-Off,” an idea I, well, totally ripped off from this guy.

The other night MB and I were desperate for something to watch so we turned to good ol’ Netflix.  As you probably know, Netflix now offers movies and shows you can watch online.  This is great except most of the movies are either really old or really bad.  Yet somehow Outland, starring Sean Connery, seemed appealing.

Let me start of by saying that there were tons of really good sci-fi movies in the ’80s.  The Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, and Aliens are just a few.  But for every one awesome ’80s sci-fi movie, there are at least five bad ones.

Outland was one of them.

First of all, the plot.  (Spoilers follow so if you really want to see this terrible movie, don’t read on.)  I’m not even sure what it was.  It starts off promising enough.  Miners on Io, a moon of Jupiter, start to go nuts for seemingly no reason.  The reason turns out to be that they’ve been taking an illegal drug like amphetamine, sanctioned by the mining corporation so that they can keep working long hours.

I guess this is supposed to be a secret but doesn’t really seem like it.  And Sean Connery way too easily breaks into the head guy’s messages and finds out all the information he needs in about two seconds.

Then all these “bad guys” show up.  To tell you the truth, I spaced out during this part and don’t know why they were there.  To bring more drugs?  But the thing is everyone KNOWS they’re coming.  There’s even a big countdown clock: 15 hours till the bad guys show up! 12! 10! 1!

The bad guys show up very calmly in regular clothes and with briefcases.  Everyone knows they’re bad, and all the hundreds of people on the ship don’t do anything.  It’s all up to Sean Connery, and he basically one-handedly beats all these bad guys.

But what’s so awesome about ’80s sci-fi movies is all the ghetto “high tech.”  The green screen computer monitors, the huge click clacky keyboards, a futuristic telephone that’s basically a cheap TV monitor.  Sean’s weapon of choice?  A shotgun.  No lasers or vaporizers for this cowboy!

And for some reason everything is white and plastic, and everyone wears baseball caps and jumpsuits.  Everyone drinks coffee out of small white plastic mugs.  And cigarettes for everyone! though oxygen was probably pretty scarce out in deep space and all.

Then again, twenty years from now, today’s sci-fi movies may seem equally as badly awesome.

In case you don’t know, “1000 ATRO” stands for “1000 Awesome Things Rip-Off,” an idea I, well, totally ripped off from this guy.

We’ve all been there.  Walking along, perhaps humming to yourself, when the person in front of you drops something on the street.  “Miss!” you shout.  “Ma’am!” or “Sir!”

“You dropped something!”

Sometimes it’s just a scarf or gloves.  But sometimes it’s much more valuable, like the time I saw a woman drop a wad of bills.  How could she not have noticed?

“Ma’am, ma’am!” I called.  “Is that your money?”

She looked aghast at the cash, then up at me gratefully.  “Thanks so much,” she said.

Or the old guy at the airport I witnessed dropping a key ring with what looked like every key in the universe.  “Sir!” I yelled.  “Is that yours?”

The same aghast look, the same gratefulness.

Just yesterday on the train back from my interview, I noticed a guy who had changed seats had left his wallet in his previous seat.  Thanking me, he shook his head.  What if I hadn’t noticed?  At least three people had walked and hadn’t seen it, or hadn’t bothered to tell him.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t think I’m earning karmic points or something.  I just like having the excuse to break out of my shyness to shout across a crowded train station: “MISS, YOU DROPPED YOUR SWEATER!”

But what if they don’t hear you?  Do you take that extra step of picking up said dropped item, running up to the person, and handing it to them?

Why yes, you do.

Because wouldn’t you want someone to do that for you?

In case you don’t know, “1000 ATRO” stands for “1000 Awesome Things Rip-Off,” an idea I, well, totally ripped off from this guy.

The long hot shower after the workout is the best part of the workout.  It’s the relaxing, refreshing reward for dragging your ass to the gym and slogging through four miles on the treadmill.  It’s a shower you deserve.

Especially wonderful is the taste of salt running into your mouth when you’ve had a really hard run.  The taste of salt is the taste of victory.

The showers at my work gym were actually pretty nice.  Not Chelsea Piers nice, but they were clean (for the most part) and had all the amenities: body wash, shampoo, conditioner (though I used my own stuff since their quality was crap) lotion, and hair dryers.  Of course you couldn’t luxuriate in the work gym shower.  Most likely you were rushing back because of some dumb meeting or conference call.

Weekends I ran in Central Park, I would delay bathing till after my run in the late afternoon.  That’s how much I loved the post-run shower.  I wanted to be especially grimy so that I had to wash my hair twice.  It was sooo satisfying.

Ecrivain pointed me to the site, 1000 Awesome Things, and it’s, you guessed it, awesome.  So I’ve decided to rip them off and do my own version, hopefully on a weekly basis, and hopefully I won’t repeat stuff from the original list.

#1000: Falling asleep while reading.

I love to sleep and I love to read.  What better combo than to drop off with a book against my chest?

I also love that feeling of being so tired, I can’t get my eyes open.  It makes me feel healthy.  Unhealthy = insomnia from too much caffeine or not enough exercise.  I feel balanced when I involuntarily go unconscious at a reasonable hour.

When I was a kid I had a long bout of insomnia.  Since then I hate not being able to sleep.  I don’t get too anxious about it now, but feeling wide awake at midnight doesn’t feel natural to me.

Drifting off while reading during the day isn’t the same.  No naps!  They’re as bad as caffeine after 12 PM for me.