Happy New Year!!

Apparently it's Chinese New Year. I know this because they changed the flowers at the Bellagio.





And look!! It's the World's Tallest Chocolate Fountain! It has nothing to do with Chinese New Year but it's super cool nonetheless.

Ouch...

I just slammed my thumb in my desk drawer. It hurt so much that I thought I was going to throw up. About a month ago I slammed my index finger in my desk drawer. That one still hurts. I may have broken some teeny tiny bone or something. Maybe I need to pad my desk drawers.

I think I finally got rid of my spyware problem. Marti's Ad-Aware suggestion didn't fix the Vundo thing but it did find some other junk that had snuck through. VirtumundoBeGone is what finally seems to have done the trick. ( Here's a direct download if you ever have this problem.) I haven't had a problem in a couple of days at least, which is longer than I've gone for weeks without seeing those stupid popups and my computer freezing up. Stupid spyware.

I liked these guys! Reality show contestants sure seem to play fast and loose with the law a lot.

I'm off to Hash House a Go Go tonight for my mom's 60th birthday. All the servings there are supposed to be huge. I hope it's good because I'm hungry.

Ah Ah Ah ooo Oh oo Ohhhh...

American Idol is back!! They say it's going to be the best season ever! Yay!!!

I thought it was pretty funny tonight. I laughed a lot. Maybe I'm just giddy. I did giggle when Ryan brought out his first "after the break". I guess I'm just stupid for the Idol.

I thought the "I Shot the Sheriff" guy was the funniest. He just kept singing the same two lines over and over and over and over. How are the criminals back home supposed to take him seriously now? And what's up with the dude that got the second chance and sang about Constance serving your needs winter, spring and fall. Creepy.

Awwwwwww...

Awwww galore...

I do know how to spell my own name...

Why do my co-workers argue with me over details in my life? Why would they possibly think that they know my life better than me?

If I tell this person that so-and-so’s wife is awful, she always argues that she must not be or he wouldn’t be married to her. A) What does being married to her have to do with anything? Maybe he’s just an idiot. B) I know her. You don’t. So you don’t get to make a judgment.

I mentioned something to someone about my nephew and they said that I didn’t have a nephew. Wouldn’t I know if I have a nephew? To be fair, people have told me that I don’t have a brother so I guess I can see where they’d argue the nephew point.

I told this person what age my mom was when she became a grandmother and they actually used the calculator to try and prove me wrong.

One person asked me how to spell my last name and when I told her she told me that was wrong. She said that I had told her a different way before. Now, if I were her, I might have thought that I wrote it down wrong before but apparently her theory was just that I can’t spell my own name properly on a consistent basis.

These are different people, mind you. It’s like a whole office of people who think I have no knowledge of my own life.

It's annoying. That's all I'm trying to say.

I'm getting angry...

I can't get rid of this stupid winfixer/winantivirus/TrojanVundo spyware crap!! I've used SpySweeper, Norton, TrendMicro Housecalls & Fix Vundo. They all say they got rid of it and then there the stupid popups are again. I'm running Panda Activescan now but I don't have high hopes.

Stupid spyware. What am I paying Norton and SpySweeper for if they're just going to tell me they fixed something when they didn't. Stupid Norton and SpySweeper. Stupid computer. I swear life was easier before I got one.

I'll admit it...I'm not ashamed...

I really didn't like "March of the Penguins". I thought it was slow and boring and the leopard seal scared me and I just wanted them to have the babies and get on with it already.

I did, however, love the "Happy Feet" trailer at the beginning of the DVD. They have it here. Choose the very last one labeled "little-elijah.2ya.com". The regular trailer is pretty cute, too.

Just when the holidays finally ended and I had enough time to get all caught up at work I got a horrible cold. I haven't felt like going to work all week, much less actually working double time to get things done. And, of course, I can't stay home because then I'd just get more behind. So I drag myself in and sit there trying not to cough and sneeze and blow my nose and be sickly too much. It's been a delight.

Just one more day and I can veg out in front of the tv and watch "Danielle Steel's Fine Things" that I dvr'd specifically for that purpose. I've seen it like six times. I have a little crush on D.W. Moffett. If Lifetime Movie Network would just play "Danielle Steel's Star" with Jennie Garth I could break out my video of "Danielle Steel's Message from Nam" and make a real day of it.

Guess what my New Years Resolution is...

That's right. Lose weight. That's one of them anyway. I tend to make a lot of resolutions. Anyway, sparkpeople.com just so happened to be giving away free memberships just when everyone started making New Year's Resolutions to lose weight so I joined up. It's pretty neat with the nutrition tracker and sparkpoints and all. It sort of makes the whole losing weight thing kind of seem like a game.

I got sucked into four marathons on tv this past weekend. Four! "The Twilight Zone", "I Love...", "Pasadena" and "The Biggest Loser". A giant waste of time? Perhaps. Enjoyable? Definately.

Those before and after pictures for "The Biggest Loser" are pretty impressive.

Check it out! VH1 is doing an "I Love...Toys". Cool!

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.