Christmas cactus and traffic jams...

I went to the Ethel M's Chocolate factory cactus garden tonight. It's pretty cool all year long but they have it lit up with Christmas lights during the holidays. I took a bunch of pictures but they mostly turned out like this:


Here's a few I took that are a bit steadier. It'll give an idea of what it's like at least.




Then we drove through the "Gift of Lights" in Sunset Park. I've never actually done that on Christmas Eve before. There are a lot of people there on Christmas Eve. Like hour-long traffic jam proportions. It was fun though. I was going to take pictures of that but my batteries died. They probably would have all looked like that acid-trip-Christmas picture up above anyway.

Merry Christmas!! Happy Hanukkah!! Merry Chrismukah!!

Lazy Sunday...

This cracks me up every time I watch it.

Some pictures...

I shopped all day and didn't really buy anything. I did see some cool stuff on The Strip, though.

Flower polar bears from the Bellagio:




From the Fashion Show Mall's crazy Showgirl Christmas theme:




And a fuzzy cab. Just 'cuz:

Merrier Christmas to me...

My holiday spirit is on the rise again.

Trans-Siberian Orchestra was awesome. It did have a craaazzzy light show that blinded me, gave me a headache and made me sort of dizzy, though. It was cool to look at. I forget between concerts how impressive the singers are in that show. I just love it. It makes me so happy. It makes me so happy that I won't mention how annoying it is when a show starts half an hour late because half the crowd is milling around the lobby and then after the show has started people still come filing in for another half an hour disrupting everyone else's experience.

Yesterday we unexpectedly got our way-bigger-than-last-year Christmas bonuses at work. That's cool because I could really use it to buy some presents this weekend. And pay off some presents that I've already bought.

I brought home a giant stack of work to do today so I can maybe get a little caught up. Tomorrow is all about Christmas on the Strip, though. Yay! The Bellagio Conservatory of Flowers has their holiday display up so I'm going to that. Then it's just shopping, shopping, shopping at all the Strip malls. There's like five so that should keep me busy for the day.

This is funny. And not that far-fetched.

Merry Christmas to me...

Trans-Siberian Orchestra tonight! Yay!

On a less yay note, I don't see any possible way that I'm going to get everything done at work and at home that I need to get done before January 1st. I always enter the holidays wanting to enjoy them but I end up just getting completely overwhelmed with everything. Plus, we get all these holidays off from work so all the stuff that I'm overwhelmed with actually has to be done in less days then I would normally have.

But, still...Trans-Siberian Orchestra tonight!!! Yippee!!!

It's like the Paolos moved in...

Wow, the people who live upstairs from me are really screaming today. They were going at it this morning but then they left for the day. They just came back and they started up again right away. They scream all the time but this time seems especially bad.

It's weird because they're pretty nice when you see them at the cars or coming in or something. They do sort of keep their kids under lock and key though. There are always kids running around outside but I never see theirs. Sometimes the little girl takes the trash across the street to the dumpster and the mom stands on the patio and watches the whole time and yells at her to hurry up and get back. It's kind of bizarre really. I mean, I think parents should watch after their kids way more than they do nowadays but it is strange not to let them out to play at all. It's a pretty safe gated community. It's not like I live in the ghetto or anything.

I hope the parents are screaming at each other and not the kids. Not that screaming at each other in front of the kids is ideal but it's a little bit better.

Oh well, I guess it's none of my business really. I'm sure if I did a survey of the neighbors they'd have a lot of weird stories about me, too.

That's it! No one is getting any whatnot...

I was really planning on getting into Christmas at work this year. I was going to buy decorations for my desk. I bought cards and little festive bags for everyone in the building to fill with cocoa and cinnamon sticks and whatnot. I was going to search out fun, unusual gifts to give to the people who work under me. I had forgotten why I never did things like that in this office. I hate Christmas in this office.

First there’s the whole Secret Santa thing. I don’t participate in Secret Santa anymore because everyone is so incredibly rude and insensitive about the presents they receive. The whole point of Secret Santa is that you don’t know who gave you the gift so to stand in the middle of a group of people complaining about it is just awful. And what do they expect from a stupid Secret Santa gift anyway? Diamonds? And there's always someone who won't abide by the dollar amounts. They're giving somebody a $40 gift on the day everyone else is getting little $5 trinkets and then the people who only spent $5 feel like cheapskates. The $40 person always says something like “Oh, I don’t buy gifts based on price. I buy things I think the person will like.” Well, just buy them the present then. Don’t join the gift exchange that has set price limits.

So I didn’t sign up for Secret Santa and then some other people decided that they didn’t like the way the original Secret Santa works so they would start their own Secret Santa. Did I want to join that one? No. I’m already spending a fortune buying cards and festive bags and filling them with cocoa and cinnamon sticks and whatnot. Whatnot adds up. And I just know that the people doing the original Secret Santa are going to start talking smack about the other Secret Santa people and it’s going to be a whole month of West Side Story-style Secret Santa feuding around here.

Then there’s the poinsettia plant incident. The stupid poinsettia plant. Every year our office plant lady gets all these poinsettia plants and puts them everywhere. Every year she forgets to put one in my office. It’s true that my office is way the heck on the other side of the building but she put one in the office right around the corner from mine so it’s not like she wasn’t already up here. So anyway, a person downstairs asked if we had gotten a plant and said that the plant lady had an “extra” and told me to take it. So I did. Like twenty minutes later another person is at my desk telling me that two other people were all upset because I stole the poinsettia and the boss won’t like it. Then someone in my office asked about me stealing the plant. Then about an hour after that I get an email about how I stole the plant and the boss won’t like it.

Is this really what my life has come down to? Stressing about poinsettia plant placement and Secret Santa? Wasn’t I supposed to be traveling the world and doing something exciting right about now?

Hey, but the Unknown Comic from The Gong Show is the mc at our Christmas Party. With the bag on his head and everything. That’s exciting, right? Right?

Why I will be cooking the turkey this year...

YAY!!! I have 4 1/2 days off!!! Yippee!!!

The night after I set the stove on fire boiling water, my mom decided that I was going to cook the entire Thanksgiving dinner. I'm not sure if the two things are related. Originally I was even going to have to make homemade pie crusts and everything but I persuaded her to just buy some Mrs Smith's instead. I might bake some homemade bread, though. We used to have the best homemade yeast rolls for Thanksgiving but then we started getting lazy and just heating up some frozen ones. We eat the canned cranberry sauce and I'm already good at opening cans so I guess I really just have to learn how to cook the turkey and make the dressing. I guess I can handle that. Only time will tell.

Why I won't be cooking the turkey this year...

I just caught my stove on fire trying to boil water.

San Diego, The Final Days

The final three days of my San Diego vacation were all pretty much the same so I'll combine them. There was a lot of driving with me as the navigator. I tended to read the map upside down and a couple of times headed the wrong direction. This is why I do not sign up for Amazing Race. Well, that and the fact that I'm quite overweight, out of shape and have a floppy ankle.

Anyway...Day Four started out with a trip to Old Town. It's original buildings from the beginning of San Diego which now house touristy shops and restaurants. I wasn't all that excited about it, really. A lot of other people seemed to be, though. The only place that I liked was "Ramona's Marriage Place" because it's like the Spanish-style house I've always wanted with the enclosed courtyard and wildflowers everywhere. Plus, it was just a museum, not a Mexican restaurant or junk shop.

Next we headed to Heritage Park. I thought you could tour the houses but you can't because they're Bed and Breakfast Inns. The outsides were pretty, though.

We took a lunch break at the Seaport Village which I enjoyed. Then we went over to Coronado to see the Hotel Del. The Hotel Del Coronado was one of the main reasons that I wanted to visit San Diego. I wanted to see it badly enough that I braved the Coronado Bridge to get there. It's very high and goes over the ocean and there really aren't any beams or anything to keep you from just driving over the edge. Plus, there's a bunch of suicide hotline posters all along it which made it even creepier.

I was very dissapointed with the hotel when we got there. It was surrounded by new hotels and there was construction everywhere and it just wasn't at all what I had anticipated. We decided that what I had actually wanted to do was go to the 1888 Hotel Del Coronado in 1888. Which would have been awesome but...you know... impossible. So we paid our $5 for parking like fifteen minutes in their lot and went back across the scary bridge to San Diego.

We started the 59 mile scenic drive next. It's very scenic (thus the name) and enjoyable and I recommend it to anyone taking a vacation there. It takes you through all the beach towns and past most of the major tourist attractions. There are a bunch of different stops you can take along the way be we just got out at the Point Loma Lighthouse and La Jolla.

Here's one of the views from Point Loma. It was really gorgeous and peaceful up there.



Day Five we drove up to Julian through a fire-ravaged state forest. Julian was just more old buildings turned into restaurants and bric-a-brac stores. It's very popular but we didn't stay that long. Back in San Diego we went to see the Marston House.


I wanted to tour the inside but I didn't want to wait an hour for the next tour to start so we went back to Balboa Park. We got lost looking for the Aeronautical Museum and then we finally found it and didn't want to go in so we went back to Old Town to tour the Whaley House. When we got there, though, it seemed really touristy and cheesy so we just bought a cool souvenir book from a gift shop and went back to our hotel.

As you may have guessed, vacation fatigue had set in.

The next day we checked out and headed up Old US Highway 101 on our way home. We stopped long enough for me to take a picture of the longest wooden pier on the West Coast in Oceanside.

Right outside of Oceanside is the San Luis Rey Mission. It was just pretty everywhere you looked.



Our last official vacation stop was the Pala Mission. I didn't enjoy it much because there was some sort of block party going on right in front of it. It's really hard to soak up the history of a place when all you can hear is the thump thump thump of hip hop from a couple of loudspeakers about 100 feet away.

It was still pretty, though. All of the California Missions are pretty. What's up with that?




And that was that. We enjoyed ourselves but were very happy to see the lights of Las Vegas when we got back. It's good that I like it so much here because I'm too poor to go on another vacation for ages.

An exchange that just happened at work...

Annoying employee: "Where is the statement?"

Me: "It's here but the credits have been cut off. I'm waiting to get the credits. You can take it and enter the invoices for now."

Annoying employee grabs the statement and walks off.

Five minutes later the annoying employee is back with the statement.

Annoying employee: "All of the credits are cut off."

Me: "That's what I just said. I'm waiting for the credits. You can enter the invoices for now."

Annoying employee starts to leave but then turns around.

Annoying employee: "Can I just enter the invoices for now until the credits come in?"

Me: "Shut up! Are you an idiot!? Get away from me!"

Ok, actually it was more like...

Me: "Yes."

San Diego, Day Three

Zoo day. My mom and I didn't really want to go to the zoo at all. We don't really like to see animals in cages. Everyone kept telling us how great the San Diego Zoo was though so we figured we should go.

First we took the bus tour around the park. It was about 40 minutes and showed around 75% of the park. It was a double decker and I got to sit on the top so that was neat. It is a nice zoo but there were still several exhibits that made me feel pretty bad for the animals. I know it's stupid to feel bad for animals at the San Diego Zoo. I mean, if any zoo is getting regularly checked out it would be that one.

I did like the orangutan area. They seemed to be having a great time. And they were so loving and fun with one another.



I probably would have been happy watching them all day but I wanted to see some of the other animals.




We got a little tired of the Zoo after a few hours. We were way in the back and didn't want to walk all the way back to the front so we took the SkyFari Tram. (I stole this picture off their website.)


It terrified me. It was very high up and it did not look very safe. I know that it was safe but it didn't seem safe. Anyway, I was freaked for the whole ride. Which, thankfully, was only like five minutes long.

After I got off the flying death cart, we headed over to the Balboa Park museum area. The buildings were built in 1915 for a fair and now they house a variety of museums. There are also several gardens, including a Japanese Tea Garden which was lovely.





That night we headed downtown for the hilarious play "Triple Espresso". It was great except our seats were front row center and the play had forced audience participation and I had a mild panic attack thinking they were going to pull me up on stage or make me sing in front of strangers or something.

Gee, my San Diego recap is exposing a lot of my hidden fears. The whole height one comes up again on Day 4.

San Diego, Day Two

Day Two we took a short drive to Escondido to go to the Wild Animal Park. On the way we passed an ostrich farm. As I pondered what they do with the ostriches we passed an ostrich jerky stand. Best not to dwell too deeply on that.

The Wild Animal Park is really incredibly cool if you’re into animals at all. Most of the animals are roaming “free” on acres of land. There is a train ride that you take around the perimeter for about 45 minutes and they point out all the different animals and what they’re up to. Sometimes they’re really active and sometimes they’re hiding off somewhere snoozing. On my particular train ride the tiger was in hiding but I did get to see some goats that jumped up into a tree to eat. They can’t climb so they just jump up there. It was really cute. Of course, I didn’t get a picture of it.



The regular part of the park is pretty amazing also. There’s a couple of walking trails that you can go on that lead you past a bunch of different animals.





Except for a few birds there aren’t any cages. The animals are just behind low fences and, in some cases, will come right up to the fence so you’re really close.



Some of the ducks and other birds are just wandering around freely. We also saw a couple of deer roaming around but they weren’t actually part of the park. Apparently they just like it there.





Then, when you’re way too exhausted from walking up and down and up hill after hill you can head over to the botanical gardens and rest beside a lovely stream.



I swear, if this place was in my town I’d be going every weekend.

Before we went back to our hotel that night we went to the Spruce Street Suspension Bridge because some lobby magazine said it was a cool place to go. We got about halfway across it and then freaked out because it bounced up and down a lot and it was over a canyon and it was built in 1912 and...really...how long are those wires supposed to last?



The suspension bridge wasn't as scary as what I did on Day 3, though.

San Diego, Day One

Our first evening in San Diego we got lost trying to find a restaurant called the Hob Nob Hill. It was supposed to be this diner from the 40s and it was really played up in a travel book that I bought. So we drove around looking for it and ended up in some strip mall with a Borders where we bought a street map. This was the best thing we did the whole vacation. San Diego has some messed up streets so we needed the help. Like when you're driving down street A but then at the intersection the name changes to street B and then at the next intersection it not only changes to street C but goes in two opposite directions. Seriously. You could turn left and be on street C or you could go straight and be on street C. Without the map we probably would have ended up in Mexico somewhere.

Anyway, Hob Nob Hill wasn't that impressive but it was on First Street which may be the coolest street ever. Every house was a great old Victorian with big porches and bouganvillia hanging from every surface. It seemed that way, at least. First Street ended up being the street we used the most to get back to our motel and every time we went up it I found some new house that I loved.

We didn't really do much else the first night because we had been driving all day and then we got lost and we were pretty tired. We just went back to the room and unpacked and watched Cold Case.

Day one was Sea World. Their computers were broken so we got free parking. The weather was pretty bad the first few days (dark and drizzly) so there weren't a lot of people there. We could just walk into anything without a wait. It was pretty much like that the whole week, which was cool. You could see where they had the ropes set up for two hour long waits so it was nice we didn't have to bother with that. Everything closed a few hours earlier than in the summer though so we had to keep moving to pack everything in. Sea World has a donkey on display. I just find that amusing. It's a cute donkey. It gets a lot of attention. Other than that, there were the usual dolphins and whales and whatnot. My favorite show was Pets Rule. It was just regular dogs, cats, pigs and ducks doing tricks. What? Shamu was impressive and all but a dog setting up his place for a date is way better.

Sea World was fun and it would be great if you had kids. It wasn't nearly as good as Day Two, though. Day Two was by far my favorite part of the whole vacation.

Look! Pictures!...

When I came back to work this morning every single surface of my desk area was covered in piles of work. Actual piles. A couple of them were probably two feet high. Aaack!

Here are a some pictures from my vacation:






There are a bunch more here. (I hope that works.) None of me, though. Sorry. A ton are of animals that I can't identify because I didn't note what they were when I took the picture. D'oh.

I'll try to write a proper recap of my vacation later. I better get back to my piles now.

Clay's totally going to get engaged...

Starting Sunday, I'm not going to have any internet access for seven whole days and nights. That's the longest I've been without the internet in like ten years. I wonder if I'll even miss it? I wonder if I'll break the habit of looking in every day?

Only five more hours and I'm free. Wheee!

The N's gone old school...

The N is showing old episodes of Degrassi Jr High and High every night and I'm staying up waaay too late to watch them. I can't help myself. Besides the whole nostalgia factor, they're just so good. Way better then the new series. Last night they were showing the one where the bully kids were making fun of AIDS and then one of them finds out that he might have HIV! Dun dun dun. So he takes the test and is waiting for the results and...well...I fell asleep. I don't remember if he had it or not! So annoying. I'm going to have to go find some episode guides or something.

I only have two more days until vacation and I'm beyond anxious. I'm actually feeling a little queasy. That could be from the Taco Bell I had for dinner, though. Not a good choice. Anyway, I managed to do all the work that I needed to do which makes the two days even worse because I'm just sitting here thinking about how I get to go on vacation in two days. At least when I was busy I had other things to think about.

I watched the Bloody Mary episode of "Supernatural" last night and it freaked me out. Totally. I was freaking.

My computer should be off right now...

Jessica was looking for some blog activities last week so I went looking around and found The Memes List. If you scroll down a bit you can open a popup window or a sidebar with stuff for every day of the week. I'm going to do some later but I'm supposed to be doing a lot of work around the house today and I think that I've procrastinated long enough.

It does suck...

The Dyson is pretty incredible. It pulls up stuff that our other vacuum never touched. Plus, it's lightweight, easy to clean out and you never have to replace the filter. (Well, unless your dog eats it like the salesman's did.) And it's a pretty yellow color. Cool.

I watched some decent movies this past week.


"Elephant"(18/250) took a bit of getting used to since huge chunks of the movie are just the back of some kid's head walking around a high school. It ended up being very good. It was mesmerizing. It's sort of a bait and switch that the advertising used that picture, though. It kind of makes it seem like it's going to be a romantic teen movie and it most assuredly is not.

"A Very Long Engagement"(19/250) was wonderful. It's a beautiful period-romance-mystery-war movie with comedic elements and Jodie Foster speaking French. She's not the star, though. It's directed by and stars the actress from "Amelie" which is one of my favorite movies. I really recommend both of them if you don't mind subtitles.

My mother said that "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" (20/250) was like a longer ABC After School Special. I liked it. I'm sure if I was 12 I would watch it a hundred times and try to figure out a way to get a trip to Greece for my 16th birthday.

I think I'll go Netflix the After School Special DVDs. I had forgotten all about "Dear Lovey Hart: I am Desperate".

It's expensive but it really sucks...

I think I'm going to buy a Dyson vacuum cleaner tonight. I can't really afford one but my old vacuum went kerplooie last night and I have to get a new one. I figure I should just get a good one this time and hopefully it will last a long time. Hopefully. If not, I'm going to feel like a big dupe for paying $400 for a vacuum cleaner.

I've been getting pretty stressed out with vacation prep. I couldn't find the right clothes to take. I couldn't figure out how much money I needed. I couldn't get my dog reserved at the kennel because her vaccinations are up on 10/29 and we won't be home until 10/30. So one measly day cost me $160 for a vet visit where she of course had infections that needed $40 medicines to fix. We went to get the car checked out and the dealership said that we needed $600 in "maintenance". $600! To clean out some hoses!? On a car that runs perfectly fine. I don't think so. We gave them 30 bucks for the lube and left. Now I've got to do three weeks of work in two weeks because all of my work deadlines fall in the week that I won't be there.

Other than that stuff, I haven't really done anything since my last entry. I've just been watching tv. Waaaaay too much tv. I watched so much tv that I said enough and dumped like half the shows that I was watching even though I liked them. Maybe I'll catch them in summer reruns.

Gotta love PBS...

A moonwalking bird.

Just boring blather...

Well, I added an extra night to my vacation. I'm really excited. I haven't been on a proper vacation in years. I've gone out of town for a couple of days and I've taken off work and "vacationed" here in Las Vegas for a week but the last actual vacation that I can remember taking was when I turned 21 and came to Las Vegas. That was almost 14 years ago. And it was Las Vegas! I mean, Las Vegas is great and all but I really think it's time to branch out to other tourist destinations.

Yay!

I tried watching "Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason" today. Maybe I was just in a bad mood or something but it was unwatchable. I love Renee Zellweger but she was driving me nuts. I turned it off in the middle.

I did watch "Eddie Izzard: Glorious". It wasn't as consistently funny as "Dress To Kill" but it was still pretty good in parts. I just love Eddie Izzard.

Two completely unrelated people brought up the "Johnny Castaway" screensaver to me last week. I haven't thought about Johnny Castaway in years. Why the sudden interest again? Weird.

Ah, well. I guess I'll go read J.D. Robb. I'm completely addicted to the "In Death" books.

Mmm...mac and cheese...

I've come to the conclusion that there is entirely too much to do in San Diego and I don't have nearly enough time to do it all. I was planning on going for four days. My must do list is Sea World, Wild Animal Park, Balboa Park, Old Town, Horton Plaza, Hotel Del Coronado, La Jolla, Gaslamp Quarter, Triple Espresso and Julian. There were a ton more that I wanted to do but then cut. I actually don't see how I have time to do these things. I think I'm going to add a day.

I went through all my clothes trying to put outfits together and I ended up giving two garbage bags and a computer box full to Goodwill. Why did I save all those clothes for so long? I found a white t-shirt with three mac and cheese stains on it. What was I expecting to do with this shirt? There were some things that I had washed and now the sleeves were too short. I can understand keeping things that are too small in the hopes that I might lose weight but I really don't think my arms were going to shrink in the future.

I told you so...

See there? Not one single person or show that I wanted to win won.

I did like Donald Trump's Green Acres best and he won the coveted Emmy Idol title. That's something, at least.

Who won't win at the Emmys...

It's Emmy Day! It's Emmy Day! Next to Tony Day, it's my favorite TV day!

This is who I would like to see win at the Emmys tonight. Therefore, they won't win at the Emmys tonight.

Outstanding Comedy : Desperate Housewives. (This one was hard because I want Arrested Development and Scrubs to win also. Overall, I like Desperate Housewives the best, even though it's probably unfair that it's even in this category. Actually, Desperate Housewives might win thus proving my theory wrong right off the bat. Oh, well.)

Outstanding Drama: Deadwood. (Lost will probably win.)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series: Jason Bateman--Arrested Development (Just because I've loved him since Silver Spoons. Tony Shalhoub will probably win.)

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series: Hugh Laurie--House (I want Hugh Laurie to win in an almost unhealthy way. I'm guessing Ian McShane will win.)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series: Marcia Cross--Bree, Desperate Housewives (Teri Hatcher will probably win.)

Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series: Frances Conroy--Six Feet Under (Ummm...i have no idea who will win. I hope they don't give it to Glenn Close for The Shield.)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Terry O'Quinn--Locke, Lost (Again, no idea who will win.)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series: Conchata Ferrell--Berta, Two & a Half Men (Doris Roberts will probably win.)

Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: Sandra Oh--Cristina, Grey's Anatomy (No idea who will win.)

Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series: Jeremy Piven--Ari, Entourage (I adore Jeremy Piven but I'm sort of waffling on this one because I just heard that Peter Boyle is the only Everybody Loves Raymond castmember to never win. So it would be nice if he won.)


I watched a couple more new movies yesterday. "Crash" (16/250) was excellent but not exactly fun. "The Incredibles" (17/250) was excellent and very fun.

Who says you can't go home again?...

I downloaded Google Earth this morning. I'm afraid that I might get addicted to it. (I know. Me? Addicted to something? That's crazy talk.) I found the satellite image of the town I grew up in. I saw my elementary, junior high and high schools. (They seemed much smaller than I remembered.) I found my old house and the nursery that I worked at. (Smaller.) I followed the bike trail that I used to ride all the time. It was so fun. I love just typing random cities in the Fly To search and watching the earth back up and move at my whim. I control the planet! That's cool for a control freak.

Anyway, it's fun stuff. Download it. Play.

I just got finished watching "Fever Pitch". (15/250) It was very cute. I have a ridiculous crush on Jimmy Fallon.

I'm going to go Google Earth my San Diego vacation. Only 35 days! Yay!

Survivor: The OC...

Well, now my favorite Survivor is Stephanie. I love Stephanie. Is it fair that she gets to play again? Probably not. Do I care? No.

Bobby Jon still seems two crayons shy of a full box. He's a good guy though. I hope he gets to play for a while. I don't like Brandon. I like Judd. They made the right decision voting Jim out. A 63 year old guy is not going to make it in a 120 degree jungle. I feel bad for the guy who got the tree stuck in his arm. Ouch. And now he seems poisoned or something. Ouch.

Ugh..The O.C. What are they doing to my show? I was so excited that it was coming back and now I have to put up with all these stupid new plots. What's with the evil alcoholic? Is she going to hobble Kirsten in that cabin? Why is Jimmy still a giant loser? Why did they write such a horrible, horrible, stupid character like the Dean of Discipline or whatever his title is? Seriously. I'm supposed to believe that some dude can just come into school and start threatening people and yanking kids around by their arms and talking down to lawyer parents and whatnot? That's just stupid. And the actor is ridiculous with the staring. God. I really wasn't happy with tonight's OC. I want my core characters interacting with witty banter and cute expressions. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Stupid writers.

There. I feel better.

In between Survivor and The OC I rearranged my living room tonight. I rearrange my living room about four or five times a year. It's amazing how many different ways that furniture can go. What with all the moving furniture around and the glass of tea I drank and the OC angst I'm all wired up and not remotely sleepy and I was supposed to be in bed thirty minutes ago. If I don't get to sleep soon I'll be up all night. There's a narrow window of opportunity for me to fall asleep. After a certain point I'm just watching Nick at Nite until the alarm goes off. That point is fast approaching.

More Survivor talk...just get used to it...

I went through all the Survivor bios and picked my pre-show favorites.

My favorite man and woman are Danni, the sports radio talk show host from Tonganoxie, KS and Jim, the retired fire captain who's been married to his junior high school sweetheart since 1963. That's junior high. He's been with the same woman since they were like 12. That's so sweet.

I think Jamie is the cutest guy.

I don't like Morgan or Brandon. At all.

All of this will most likely change by 8:15 tonight.

What would I do if there was no tv?...

I've been trying out the new shows. I really liked "Supernatural". It was spooky and fun. Plus, the guys are cute. What? That's important. Hopefully it won't get cancelled.

It's Survivor day! YAY! As long as the returning players aren't Jerri and Jonny Fairplay I'll be as happy as can be about 8 oclock tonight. (Click Jonny Fairplay's link. Really. He's so irritating.)

Napoleon and Pedro are doing the Utah State Fair ads.
Click Napoleon's Sweet Ads.

Another one about me being lazy...

So there are a lot of things that I need to do today. I need to do laundry. I need to scan postcards for my other blog. I need to wash dishes. I need to put away some stuff I bought like two weeks ago and just threw the bags on the floor. I need to clean up my computer area because it's covered with restaurant receipts. (On August 24th I had chicken parmesan from the Village Pub. Mmmmm...so good.) I don't want to do any of these things, though. I just want to sit on the couch and watch tv and maybe read the Fall TV Preview issue of TV guide.

Will the responsible angel on my left shoulder be able to beat the slothful devil on my right? Only time will tell.

This is a horribly depressing entry...

I just watched the HBO documentary Children of Beslan. It's some of the children who were held hostage when the terrorists took over the school in Russia last year telling the story of what happened before, during and after. It was fascinating and frightening and very, very sad. The things that happened in that school were so horrible that, if it were fiction, I would say the writer went too far. These children saw so many people die. They had people blow up in front of them. It's just unbelievable.

While they were being held, the hostages weren't allowed any water. (One terrorist tried to give them some and the leader blew her up.) Now the survivors leave bottles & cups of water at the memorial sites and graves for their loved ones. That's such a simple thing but it makes me want to cry. Some of the families of the children who survived go to school with their children now and watch over them all day. Their new school has armed guards. There's one boy who builds Lego schoolhouses with missles on them for protection.

I've got to stop with the documentaries. I'm going mental with the terrorists and the kids in the brothels and the old men accused of murder and the hippies blowing stuff up. Don't they make any documentaries about puppies and laughing babies?




So this entry isn't a complete downer:

A little Jedi squirrel in the making rescued from Katrina.

Jedi squirrels and internet porn...

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Actually, I can feel it in my ankle...

I woke up late this morning. The car wouldn’t start. We couldn’t find the number to call roadside assistance. Our cell phones had no reception. I spent ten minutes walking around my apartment to get half a bar so I could call someone to give me a ride to work. I fell off a curb rushing to meet my ride and hurt my ankle. I didn’t have any breakfast. I forgot to bring a lunch.

This is going to be a good day. I can feel it in my bones.

Aliens & Radicals & Eddie Albert, oh my....

I watched two new movies this weekend.

"The Weather Underground" (13/250) was a documentary about a group of white, young, mostly well-off, anti-Vietman War protestors who decided that to not combat violence with violence was violence. Yeah, I'm not sure they really understood it either. Anyway, they bombed a bunch of stuff in protest and hid out from the FBI for about ten years. (I found it sort of funny that they were fighting the capitalist American government from an expensive townhouse in NYC and a houseboat in Sausalito that I'm sure their capitalist pig parents paid for.) The movie was very interesting and quite boring at the same time. It did make me think about how the current state of America is certainly ripe for this type of group to emerge again. I'm surprised that they haven't already.

"Escape To Witch Mountain" (14/250) was very similar to "The Weather Underground" in that it was a Disney movie from 1975 about two alien children trying to escape Donald Pleasance and Ray Milland and get to their spaceship with the help of Eddie Albert, a black cat named Winkie, a Winebago and very, very bad special effects. Oh, wait. It wasn't at all like "The Weather Underground." It was fun, though.

I know better than to read this stuff...

I completely overloaded myself with Katrina message board talk last night. Did you know it's Bush's fault? No. It's Nagin's fault. It's Brown's fault. It's the governor's fault. It's the looters' fault. Aren't the looters awful? No. All the looters are victims. Even the ones that stole tvs. They stole tvs because they lost theirs in the flood and needed another one. All poor, black people are bad. That's racist. All poor, black people are good. Even the ones who rape and murder people. They can't help themselves because they're poor and black. Everyone who stayed behind were drug addicts on welfare. Racist! They were all the working class backbone of the city and had three jobs. It's the queers that are bad. Blame it on the queers and Mardi Gras. God flooded New Orleans just to get to them. Blame Condoleeza Rice. She bought shoes.

Uncle! I'm out. I can't read this stuff anymore. It's just so stupid.

I really want to know what Mike Myers was thinking when Kanye West went off script. Especially when he got everything back on track and Kanye blurted out "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Ha! Someone needs to interview Mike Myers right away. Why hasn't anyone interviewed Mike Myers?

I'm a quitter, but at least I'm not hungry...

Well, the diet is dead. Shocking news, I know, considering how much I seemed to be enjoying it in my previous posts. I don't think it was a very healthy diet, anyway. I was losing like a pound a day so that was great. I was also losing any ability to concentrate, all my muscles started hurting and my teeth felt like they were going numb. That seemed bad. So I went to Marie Callendars and had some soup and cornbread and a turkey dinner.
I'm going to try to keep up with the no sweets part of the diet, though. I think that's where most of my calories came from anyway. I eat a lot of sugar. I ate a lot of sugar. Not like in a "This one piece of chocolate is very satisfying" way but in an "I'm just going to eat a few m&ms...that was good...I'll eat a few more...crap! I've eaten the whole bag again" way. I think if I cut out sweets and started exercising every day I'd end up losing the weight I want without starving myself.

Or, you know, I'll just be fat. Whatever. There are worse things to be.

If I blog it, it will come (Pt 2)...

My local news is doing a story about New Orleans tonight called "Out of Tragedy Comes Heroes".

Three day weekend! YAY!!!

Where is the love?...

The Hurricane Katrina coverage is bothering me. Have there been any stories about courage or heroism or generosity? If there have been, I've missed them. All I've seen is looting and rape and murder. I assume, like with any other disaster, that this situation brought out the best in people as well as the worst. I just wish the media would balance the good with the bad more.

The treatment of this disaster just seems different then the SF earthquake or 9/11 or the tsunami. Or maybe I'm just viewing it differently. I don't know.

On a lighter note, some Big Brother producer needs to tell Howie to stop making his "Hurricane Howie" jokes. Poor guy has no idea what's going on.

They're trying to break me...

I was pretty hungry when I got off work yesterday and I was thinking of a new, exciting way to prepare yet another grilled, skinless, chicken breast. I was feeling pretty ok about that dinner until I got the mail. Of course it had to be Pizza Hut coupon day. And they don't just have one picture of a pizza...no...they have multiple pizzas. I have to admit I wavered a bit but then I remembered that I don't even like Pizza Hut much. So I'm throwing that away and what's underneath it? The frickafrackin' Black Angus dinner for two coupon! You know, the one with the Wagon Wheel Sampler platter with the fried zucchini and the loaded baked potato and the bread. Oh, the bread! The bread that I love beyond all reason. And the fudge cake at the end. Sweet chocolaty goodness with a vanilla ice cream chaser. Somehow I managed to throw that one out, too. Then, when I settled down in front of the tv with my salad and chicken breast, they played that Olive Garden commercial with the skinny guy talking about trying all the different combinations of pasta and sauces. I just had to mute it. Enough is enough.

The actor was hot, but...

I tried to watch "Prison Break" last night. I think it's a well-done show but I just didn't care much. I was really enjoying it at the beginning and then I just got more and more bored and I finally just turned it off about an hour and a half in. I don't think I'll watch it anymore, even if Wentworth Miller is kind of good-looking.

When I was doing my movie roundup I forgot to mention "Beyond Borders" (12/250). It wasn’t very good which was probably why I didn’t mention it. Still…it’s a movie that I had never seen before so it counts. Clive Owen is in it. Clive Owen is hot. That’s about the best thing I can say for the movie.

Any funny title I write seems wrong...

From CNN:
Louisiana evacuees should stay away for at least a week to avoid "a wilderness" without power or drinking water that will be infested with poisonous snakes and fire ants, state officials warned Monday.

That paragraph scares the crap out of me. If I lived in Lousiana and I read that I would probably never go home again.

This guy called in to some channel this morning and said that, during Camille, a bunch of people went to high ground to escape the flooding but then were killed because all the poisonous snakes went to high ground too. That's scary.

I'm so hungry...

Three more movies down on my 250 goal:

"Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" (9/250) I laughed a lot at this. I felt stupid for laughing but I laughed anyway. I couldn't help it. It was funny.

"Brother's Keeper" (10/250) This was a great documentary. It was about these four weird old brothers that all lived together and one of them dies and another one is accused of his murder. It frustrated the heck out of me. I just wanted everyone to leave them alone. They were just a bunch of old men not bothering anybody.

It's sort of weird at the beginning but, if you stick with it, it's really interesting.

"The Upside of Anger" (11/250) This was pretty good. I liked the cast: Kevin Costner, Joan Allen, Keri Russell, Alicia Witt, Evan Rachel Wood & Erika Christensen. It was kind of crazy.

Here's the deal about "Upside of Anger". They eat a lot. Many scenes are of them preparing meals and then eating them. Meals that looked really good. I just got finished watching CBS Sunday Morning this morning and seeing the lobster corn dogs and sirloin burgers. I really didn't need to watch a movie where skinny, pretty women eat all the time.

I read a book, too. The book was sort of sucky but I guess I can still count it as 1 out of my 100 books I've never read before.

This is going to be hard, isn't it?...

I started a diet today. Now I'm dying for some potato chips. I don't even like potato chips that much. I don't usually eat potato chips. It's just the idea that I can't have the potato chips that's making me really, really want some. It probably isn't helping to write about potato chips. That's just making me want them more.

I really want some carrots. Lots of crunchy carroty goodness. I'm dying to eat some carrots. Mmmmmm....carrots.

Let's see if that helps.

Is there a saboteur in our midst?...

Half my office is on a diet and my boss brought four dozen doughnuts to work today. Ha! I don’t think he knows about the diet/contest. It would be kind of funny if he did though and was just messing with everyone.

Either the tests are crazy or I am...

I took the "What Classic Movie Are You?" quiz and I ended up being the coolest movie! I thought I'd be like "Plan 9 From Outer Space" or "The Blob" or something.

But, aaackkk! Look what famous leader I am:


It is true that a couple of my "enemies" at work have chosen to quit rather than get fired. I may have had something to do with that. They deserved it, though. They were doing bad things. Bad, bad things.

OK. I didn't like that leader result so I took the test a couple more times to see if I would always end up as a mass-murdering psycho. The second time I was Albert Einstein and the third time I was Abe Lincoln. Then I did the movie one again and ended up being "Apocalypse Now." Twice.

I'm so confused. WHO AM I?!?! I think I'm going to need some therapy now.

They're going to be so embarrassed later...

This fixation that the "Friendship" on BB6 has with "Cappy" is flat out crazy. He was a contestant on a tv show and he lost. He's not dead. You don't need to make a little memorial to him in the HOH room. Loons.

Go James.

I just watched "Sudden Impact" (8/250). I don't know why I like these Dirty Harry movies so much. They're actually pretty goofy plotwise and the acting is a little over the top. I'm loving them, though. I just have "The Enforcer" and "The Dead Pool" to go and I'm done with the series. What will I do then? I guess I'll have to start watching Clint's spaghetti westerns.