Zombie Thursdays is a weekly feature with guest blogger, Miranda. You can read more about her here . Today is Thanksgiving in the United States, a day in which we are supposed to reflect on the things that we are grateful for. We are to give thanks for family, friends, good fortune, and good health. What should be a nice, quiet, and reflective holiday is anything but. In reality, we celebrate by watching parades, football... and feasting. We feast, and we feast, and we feast, feast, FEAST (to quote Dr. Seuss)!  Really, we are not that unlike zombies. Zombies’ main driving force in life, er, death, is to devour humans. And on this day of all days, it is humans’ main desire to gather in hordes and devour the bodies of animals. Afterwards, the humans stumble around in a stupor, often moaning and groaning with bits of food hanging from their mouths. In honor of Thanksgiving, the holiday of eating, I thought an appropriate topic for this week’s “Zombie Thursday” would be the d...

About a year ago, I worked part-time as a customer service representative where I now am full-time. Even though I'm full-time, I'm still a temp. If you've been a temp at a big company, you know that things have a way of not always working. This thing in particular was my email. HR had forgotten to approve my extension so my email had been locked out. Of course, I was still working at the office, and I needed to email. The workaround was to use my personal email address. (This address doesn't have my name in the handle and was created back when I still kept my Aerosmith fan contract in my back pocket, so you can imagine that had a definite non-professional angle.) Regardless of how collegiate-centric my address was, my name did show up in the 'From' field and the email was sent. Fast-forward. Starting this September, I started getting emails with really vague subject headings like 'Open House' from a name I sort of recognized, but not really. Let...

This is Lucky. We call him Bud. You'll see reference to him on Twitter as The White One. This is one of my most favorite pictures of him taken with my crappy little camera phone. Cute, isn't he? It wouldn't be so far a stretch to say "adorable." (Provided you like cats. I acknowledge that there are anti-cat people out there, but you need your head examined.) Anyway. Lucky is a cat best not to be left to his own devices because he does things like break shelving units, get his head stuck in tissue boxes, or set fire to his tail. Lucky is a cat who's catnip of choice is attention. Negative attention to be exact. We don't like it, but after two and half years with the mammoth beast, we're used to it. Hubby is more patient with the shenanigans than me. Want to know why? Lucky loves Hubby. Hubby loves Lucky. Lucky loves Hubby so much that he gets despondent whenever Hubby has to go out of town. There's a certain process to the despondenc...

First, a big thank you to Miranda for yesterday's guest post . I hope you all enjoyed it. This post originally was going to be about how different musical genres work with different writing genres, but now I'm thinking it should be about food. That I'm thinking food isn't surprise. At times, it runs my life. This week is a prime example as it seemed I announced to Hubby every time I saw him "Am hungry. Want food." This is bad because 1) I don't need to eat that much and 2) Hubby and I work together. (Note: when you work in the same office as your husband always request to sit far away from him. I did.) Also, the office has an affinity with food. I found blueberry pie in the kitchen earlier this week and we had waffles this morning. Waffles. And not those frozen out of the yellow Eggo box kind, but the kind you need a waffle iron for. When this happens and the entire space smells like a good and proper pancake house, it's hard to resist. And with...

As I mentioned in yesterday's entry , Miranda will be blogging every Thursday. You can learn more about Miranda here . Hello, readers! Welcome to the first blog installment in “Zombie Thursdays!” What started out as a joke has now become a collaboration of sorts. Most of you probably do not know me at all, but that’s okay. Horror and love of the grotesque is a unifying factor in the world-- we will soon be great friends... the kind who will shoot each other in the head if we ever become infected. This first blog is something I wrote a few weeks ago around Halloween and touches briefly on “Zombie Love.” Enjoy! Image courtesy of Bahman. Zombie Love: Aim for Some Head? Most of my friends know that I am obsessed with zombies. I LOVE zombies. Zombie movies, zombie books, zombie artwork, zombie games, zombie pinups.... everything zombie culture! Naturally, this time of the year is perfect for someone like me. Being Halloween, every where one looks there are zombie movies on T...

I'm very excited to announce a new feature on this blog... Zombie Thursdays. Because, let's be honest: who doesn't like zombies? Miranda, Living Dead Flirt/ Zombie Expert "Who is this irresistible creature who has an insatiable love for the dead?" Miranda's undead obsession began at the age of 8 when she first became fixated on two films, Bram Stoker's Dracula and Buffy the Vampire Slayer , both released in 1992. Rather than identify with the heroines of the films, she developed unhealthy crushes on the vampires, a horrific sexual attraction that haunts her even in adulthood. When Night of the Living Dead first entered her life in grade school, she was soon getting her friends to play "Zombie Tag" and pretending that the tops of slides were attics to hide in. A true necro-mantic, the things that make her "squee" are zombies, parasitic twins, and guy-liner. Miranda is also heavily involved with shadow casting Repo! the Genetic Opera (a...

Last night I completed my 50,000th word on my NaNoWriMo project - a yet to be titled urban fantasy. A lot of people would be jumping up and down at this point, but I'm keeping myself reserved for two big reasons: 1) I have at least 20,000 more words to go and 2) I know this is only the shitty first draft. "But Alicia," you're thinking, "you're being too hard on yourself." Believe me - I'm not. A shitty first draft is a novel's right of passage. That initial version that you started on the diner napkin? Shitty first draft. The paragraph from a writing exercise? Shitty first draft. The one that your dog dragged it's ass on? Shitty. First. Draft. Author Anne Lamott has a whole chapter dedicated to this in her book, Bird by Bird. (You haven't read it yet? Pick it up. Now .) In the chapter, she says: "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something - anything - d...

This was taken from an ad for a Facebook application. There were a bunch of questions that people in my list supposedly answered like 'Did Alicia Gregoire shower this morning?' (I shower at night) and 'Is Alicia Gregoire a gold digger?' (Why yes, that's why I married hubby.) However, this question prompted me to talk about it. I would definitely dress up in a mascot outfit and run around under the following conditions: It was a cute green critter. (CGC for short.) It wasn't in high summer. It was Febreezed prior to my use. It became viral and therefore gained me some followers. So, Mysterious Question Answerer, how can I call you my friend? Between saying I'm a gold digger and thinking I wouldn't wear a mascot outfit, you clearly don't know me at all.

Hi Blog, how're you doing? I know I said I wouldn't be evaluating us until December, but I wanted to check in and see how you're feeling with the few enhancements made in the last few days. See, I'm trying to put you out there so people will linger for a while. (You kind of need a make over I think.) One of the goals I have in my Blog Comprimisal Immersion Program is to visit you at least once a week. But, I'm thinking that two times would be twice as awesome. So I'm thinking Mondays and Thursdays - how does that work for you, Blog? ... Good, I'm glad. I'd like some suggestions from you on what our focus should be. Like, I think that certain things should be discussed on certain days. Talk to me, Blog. Let's have a conversation about this. Much love, Me

Created by Oatmeal So I wouldn't survive a zombie apocalypse or a bite. Maybe I should read the Zombie Survival Guide, huh? What did you get? And while you're here, read about The Infestation !

For a long, long, LONG time I was a die hard Aerosmith fan. I fell in love with them with the advent of Get a Grip and made the journey backwards to learn their roots. I was able to recite all their lyrics and knew when a line got changed live. I prowled used record stores in Cambridge looking for bootlegs. I ebayed for unique items (like the pewter wings logo belt buckle that has never been on a belt I own). I made sure I was present for each New Year's Eve concert. I've stood on the stoop of 1325 Comm Ave more times than I should have. I was that fan. Because of my fangirl ways (and working in a computer center in college), I met like-minded people where our common interest was a certain Boston-based quintet. It was awesome to find so many people who felt the same way. The relationships that started out superficially expanded and I'm happy to say that a few that I met back in 1998 are still my friends in 2009. The type of passion I was able to muster for Aerosmith d...

The product development and QA department in our office in populated by rabbits. Because of this, we've had to get creative with space. Stage One of Create-a-Space was taking our 4 person cubes and making them capable of holding 6, but only in certain spots. When all was said and done, we acquired maybe 10 more spots. What you see on the right is Stage Two, or a corner of it. Yesterday they took our loungey area and added a rabbit run. Erm, I mean additional desk space. Behind this piece is the outside. And doors that lead to the outside. This series of desks are close enough to the door that you can't walk behind it. I'm wondering if this is actually a secure option for our breeding developers, or maybe a Darwinesque attempt at filtering out some of the staff. In recap, the office is currently in Stage Two of Create-a-Space, Rabbit Developer Edition. I'm afraid to see Stage Three. Update: Various work people have assured me that this blockade is fire chief co...

I know what you're thinking. 'It's November 4th. What the hell is wrong with you?!" Rest easy. There's nothing wrong with me. I fully support Christmas coming after Thanksgiving, not before. Nothing is more surreal than purchasing Halloween candy with a backdrop of icicle lights. That being said, look down. The above picture was in my inbox this morning and almost splashed coffee all over the monitor. This is great for two reasons. The mall that is next to my office building installed their Christmas lights when I wasn't looking yesterday. I love me a good Christmas light display. There are a few houses nearby that go hog wild come December 1st and to my hubby's (sometimes) exhausted disgust I have to see them. I don't know of anyone who doesn't like Christmas lights. They're all glowy and pretty. Or horrifically tacky and even those have some merit. You need to commit to a tacky light display. You can see more Christmas tackiness here . If you...