I don't care that he's fictional...

There's a show on NBC called "The Office" and there's a character on that show called Jim and I'm in love with him.

I know that it could never work because he's in love with Pam.

Also, he isn't a real person.

I still love him, though.

Very, very much.

What the heck?...

I just cooked a frozen pizza and when I took it out of the oven it was whistling. Is that normal?

If I never blog again I've probably died from eating the whistling pizza. Have the CSI team check the leftovers.

UPDATE:

Although the whistling pizza was not very good, I have survived.

I just can't stop...

It all began again with The Bold and the Beautiful. I reaaaally didn't want to get sucked into that one but everyone else was doing it so I tried it and then I started watching every day in the breakroom at lunch. And it's stupid! It's not even good! Creepy Ridge and Dopey Brooke and Poor Bridget. Then Days had it's 40th anniversary. I had to watch the Bo and Hope marathon on Soapnet. I just had to. And I had to read a couple of Days message boards just to join in the reminiscing. That seemed harmless enough. But I read that Matt Ashford was back as Jack. And I loved Matt Ashford as Jack. So I had to tune in just to see him again and I saw Shawn and Mimi. They were hot together. I wanted to see if they were even hotter the next day. So I set it to record on the DVR. I was getting hooked again. After about a week I realized that I had been down this soapy road before and nothing good could come of it. So I stopped recording Days and I stopped watching B&B. But everybody at work watches B&B. They all talk and laugh and I was missing out on all the fun. I decided that it would be ok just to watch that one. It's thirty minutes a day. And I make fun of it. If I'm not taking it seriously then it isn't a problem, right?

Then NBC announced that Steve and Kayla were coming back to Days. Patch! But I wasn't going to watch. I wasn't going to get hooked again. I hadn't counted on the internet though. First I just figured I'd watch an old clip or two on youtube. Just to see if they were as good as I remembered, you know? But they were! They were sooo good. I had to see another and another. And then someone showed me how to score some Jack & Jennifer. And the next thing I know I'm staying up until two in the morning watching twenty year old Days of Our Lives clips. Within hours I've got a couple of gigabites of vintage soap on my computer and I just want more! I've got a lead on some good Justin & Adrienne but I'm dying to get my hands on some primo Eden & Cruz or Simon & Jessie or Johnny & Roxie. Plus, I've signed up for this site so I'm watching soaps from fifty years ago. And Days is back on the DVR to be recorded list because I have to see the big Steve and Kayla reunion. I'm sliding down that slippery slope of addiction. It's like the summer after 8th grade all over again.

I dig the clothes...

My company had a picnic today and it was like 107 degrees. I don't really enjoy company events but I always feel guilty about not going since someone has spent a lot of time planning them. So I went to the hot park and roamed around and played picnic paparazzi sneaking pictures of my co-workers for about an hour and a half. I also had my picture taken and talked to a bunch of people from work so no one can say I didn't show up. Then I came home and watched tv in my air conditioned apartment as God intended. It was a decent picnic, though. I liked the stiltwalker dude.

I just watched "The Secret of Roan Inish" and I'm just about dying to chuck it all and move to Ireland to run a shop or something.

Maybe my favorite Bellagio display ever...

Model trains! And trolleys! And little miniature Bellagios and Smithsonians and farms and bridges and tunnels and hot air balloons! And kites! They even have a little miniature nursery rhyme village with the three pigs and the little kittens who lost their mittens and the old woman who lived in a shoe! Awesome.

How does he do that?...

This guy was on So You Think You Can Dance last night. I thought he was pretty amazing.

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I'm not ashamed to admit it...

What with Lost, AI, House, So You Think You Can Dance and Clay’s new haircut I never got around to posting about last Sunday.

I went to the all-day free concert down at the Fremont Street Experience. It was quite a mixed crowd. The concert was teamed up with a Harley Davidson motorcycle ride for charity. So there were a lot of motorcycle people that looked like they stepped right out of “Mask”. No Sam Elliott look- alike as far as I could see, though. Darn. They got to stand in their own little gated off section and there was lots of dancing going on in there. They seemed to be drinking a lot but never acted drunk. I can't say that for everybody, though.

You know that family in low-budget horror movies that live in the rundown cabin in the woods? The family that is always drunk and over-sexed due to years of in-breeding and possibly some nuclear waste exposure from the illegal dumping in the creek out back? I stood next to that family for about three hours. One woman sprawled on a beach chair surrounded by garbage. I’m not just talking a couple of wrappers. I’m talking hours worth of garbage. Another woman decided it was a good idea to pull her tshirt up under her breasts even though her breasts were reaaaally saggy and her stomach was reaaaally flabby. That woman’s closest companions were a supremely drunk girl in a bandeau top who kept flashing her boobs at the stage and another supremely drunk girl who was inexplicably wearing a long-sleeved thermal Old Navy shirt even though it was like 85 degrees out. Old Navy girl spent most of her time dancing with/molesting the men around her. One of those men decided to pour alcohol all over some other woman’s chest and lick it up. This was all in a crowd of people, mind you. Including lots of little kids. Lovely.

During Muzik Mafia I stood next to a couple who were very fond of the “sexy” dancing. They were both like 5 feet tall and the guy was in the front rubbing his butt up and down the girl. Which I thought was odd. I’m no dance expert but I think it’s supposed to be the other way around. He kept hitting me with his flailing little arms.

The concert itself was pretty decent. Montgomery Gentry, Big and Rich, Dierks Bentley, Trick Pony, Gretchen Wilson, Muzik Mafia, Buddy Jewell, Rocky Lynn, Little Big Town, Brian McOmas, Emerson Drive and some other people I don’t remember performed. The sound wasn’t all that great and it was a lot of standing, though. Plus, they were handing out free Berries & Cream Dr Pepper and everyone was pouring them on the concrete so the ground was super-sticky.

We got tired at one point so we skipped out for a few hours and saw Mission Impossible 3. Some woman talked on her cellphone the whole movie. And there were only like 20 people in the theater and this family still decided to sit right next to me. They didn’t even leave an empty chair between us. What’s up with that? I moved. I hate going to the movies. I’d much rather just NetFlix it later and watch it at home. The movie was good, though. I love Tom Cruise.

Things I learned today...

If you throw a free country music concert really trashy drunk people will show up.

Using night flash and the highest level zoom in a crowd of really trashy drunk people makes for really blurry pictures.

Even if there are only 20 people in a movie theater, the annoying rude ones will sit right next to me.

In and Out Double Doubles taste better after midnight.

Some thoughts and stuff and whatnot...

What's with tv shows killing off characters this year? At least six of my shows have killed a character off. And a couple of them were characters that I really liked. I admit, it makes for good television but...c'mon...it's one thing to kill people off of a big ensemble like Lost but there were only three main characters on Ghost Whisperer. Did one of them have to get squashed by a falling airplane? With Andrea gone, who's going to work in the store while Love runs around yakking it up with the spirit world?

Speaking of death: The Death Psychic
(Warning: no one dies a peaceful death according to this site.)

Jack (Sean Hayes) and Karen (Megan Mullally) sang "Unforgettable" on the Will and Grace finale and I thought it was so lovely that I teared up a little.

There used to be a YouTube video here but it was pulled by the Man. Damn the Man.

If you go here and click on video library you can watch clips from all the seasons of SNL. It's pretty cool. And, for the moment anyway, there's a really cute picture of Kevin Spacey!

I've seen this linked a couple of places. At first I didn't get what all the fuss was about. Then I thought it was sort of cute. Then the guy busted out some Vanilla Ice moves and I was hooked.

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Sunday I'm going to an all-day boot-stompin' party down at the Fremont Street Experience. It's motorcycles and Montgomery Gentry and Two Foot Fred and Big and Rich and maybe even Keith Urban! For free! Cool.

Grey's Anatomy is my favorite show but...

Man, Izzie Stevens is irritating. Seriously. I just spent three hours yelling at the tv because Izzie Stevens is so irritating.

Bonnie Springs Zoo pictures...

Red Rock Canyon pictures...

Blah blah...I'm boring....

Hmmm....what have I been up to lately.

I swapped chairs at work. The chairs the regular folk get at work aren't all that comfy so I was using a big leather chair that an ex-co-worker had taken from the lawyer but she didn't like it so I swapped the chair that I had taken from a moving architect's assistant. But I was bored with the lawyer's chair so I took a chair that a supervisor didn't like and gave my chair to another person. Then I realized that I hated the chair that the supervisor didn't like. It didn't adjust and it tilted forward and it made my back hurt. The person I gave my leather chair to loved it, though, so I couldn't get it back. So I just gave up with the office hand-me-downs and brought my own chair from home. I work on the second floor and there's no elevators so I had to carry the chair up a flight of stairs. I guess I could have had some guy do it for me but...a) I didn't want to have to answer questions on why I was bringing my own chair to work and b) I don't need a man to carry things for me. But, actually, I kind of do because I just about had a heart attack. Seriously. I'm pretty sure that I just about had a heart attack. I didn't, though. And the chair is super cool. So...cool.

You'd think that wouldn't be the most interesting story I could come up with but it sort of is. I've mostly just been watching tv and movies. My life is dull dull dull lately. But Sunday I'm supposed to go to Red Rock Canyon, a new casino, the Bellagio and the Ghiradelli chocolate factory for ice cream sundaes on Mother's Day. That'll be fun. Then there's the Survivor finale. Go, Terry.

Stupid cheerleaders...

I just cried watching the Cheerleader Nation finale. Seriously. I didn't just get a little misty-eyed, actual tears came down my face. That's so lame.

I couldn't help it. Megan landed her full and she'd been working so hard all year and Ryan didn't even feel her ankle and Katie did that punch front thing and no one fell on their stunts and it was perfect and cute Coach Saleem was all "YEAH! YEAH!" and punching the sky and all the girls were screaming and jumping and bawling and then they won!

I'm not made of stone, you know.

I love You Tube so much...

I discovered that You Tube has my two favorite cartoons: Tex Avery's "House of Tomorrow" and Chuck Jones' "The Dot and the Line". I couldn't get enough of these when I was a kid. I've been wanting to see them again forever and there they were. Awesome.


House of Tomorrow


The Dot and The Line


I'm going to have to look around over there some more tomorrow and see what else I can dig up. I know they have a bunch of Sesame Street stuff thanks to this guy. I never get sick of Sesame Street.

Speaking of...I rented The Best of the Electric Company from netflix. Man, was that show 70s! When I watched it in the 70s it didn't seem so 70s but now it seems craaaazy 70s. It also wasn't nearly as fun to watch again as I thought it would be. Sort of a disappointment. The theme song still rocks, though.

Shhh....it's a secret...

I went to the Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage today. It's $15 and there's no local discount (boo!) but there are dolphins and lions and tigers and whatnot. It's really pretty, too. Lots of greenery and jungle sounds playing and places to sit and just watch the cats act crazy or sleep. Mostly sleep. There aren't any dolphin "shows" but there are trainers and they show the dolphin "behaviors" like jumping and waving their tales and generally being cute and stuff. I watched a bunch of people who apparently paid $500 a piece to be dolphin trainers for the day. That looked like fun. I'm not sure if it was $500 worth of fun but if you were spending a vacation day in Las Vegas you'd probably drop $500 on shopping and eating and gambling anyway.

I took pictures, of course.

The cats were pretty lazy.








The dolphins were really playful, though.

I don't really like celebrity gossip but...

Wow. Either Charlie is a big creep or Denise is a big liar. I've always liked him and I've never liked her so I'm leaning toward her being a big liar. But his history certainly leaves the door open for him being a big creep. Either way, the tabloids are going to have fun for a while.

Who I want to win...

American Idol : Taylor
Amazing Race : BJ & Tyler (the hippies)
America's Next Top Model : Joanie
Survivor : Terry


Just thought I'd throw that out there.

I'm just going to Jack next time...

So we go to McDonald's this morning. We pull up to the drive-thru speaker and order two sausage egg mcmuffins and two extra large iced teas. The drive-thru speaker repeats two sausage egg mcmuffins and two diet. We say "No. Two extra large iced teas." The speaker pauses a moment and then tells us to go to the second window.

So we get to the second window and the clearly non-English-speaking-so-let's-give-her-the-customer-service-job woman asks "sausage egg mcmuffin and iced tea?" We say yes and pay. We then realize that she didn't say two. So, when the window slides back open, we repeat that we wanted two sausage egg mcmuffins and two iced teas.

Well, she can't begin to fathom this. First she has us repeat ourselves. Then she looks at us confused. Then she closes the window and goes to talk to someone. When she comes back she has a little cup and says "hot tea?" What the...?!! Where did hot tea come from? Nothing was said that even resembled the word hot. Then she had the nerve to looked annoyed with us when we didn't want the hot tea.

Finally, after we repeated it like three times veeeerrrry slooowwwwlly, she figured out the concept of the word "two" and we paid again and she brought our food and we said thank you and left.

Why do fast food places always put people who don't speak English on the window? There are people in there who speak English. The old people speak English. The teenagers speak English. Can't they work the window? Most people go through the fast food drive-thru because they are in a hurry. So it would be helpful if the person helping them could actually understand them. That's all I'm saying.

I want one...

Awww.
Wook at the wittle wabbit.

Wanna' sandwich? It's only $148...

What is is claimed to be the world's most expensive sandwich goes on display at Selfridges Department Store in London, Monday April 10, 2006. Named the McDonald Sandwich, after it's creator, chef Scott McDonald, the ingredients are Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit, and English plum tomatoes, all packed into 24-hour fermented sour dough bread - and it sells for 85 pounds (US$ 148.33: euro 122.53) each.(AP Photo/Tom Hevezi)

I liked Crash better...

So I finally watched Brokeback Mountain. I've gotta say, I wasn't all that into it. The acting was definately good, I can't argue that. But I had heard for months about what a beautiful love story it was and I just didn't see it. I thought Jack and Ennis were a couple of losers so I didn't really care if they could or couldn't be together. I was just happy that Ennis' wife left him and married the nice supermarket guy. She was about the only person in the movie that I didn't find incredibly irritating. I guess I liked the waitress and Ennis' daughter ok. But Jack and Ennis? I couldn't stand them. And I didn't think they were romantic at all. They were just jerks.

Anyway...we can add Brokeback Mountain to the list of movies that I'm supposed to love but don't. Just this year I've also added Five Easy Pieces and March of the Penguins. I find the commercials for The Benchwarmers to be hilarious, however. I don't know what that says about my taste.

On a compeletely unrelated note, I discovered this game called Samorost 2 today. As you may have guessed, it is the sequel to Samorost 1. They're pretty cool to mess around with.

Just leave a message already...

I have six missed calls on my cell phone. They're all from the same number in Charlotte, NC. The only time they left a voice mail it was just somebody breathing for like thirty seconds. What the heck is that all about? It's annoying and borderline creepy. It's not as creepy as the guy who used to call me and tell me he met my parents at a "swingers" party, though. What was the point of that? It's sort of a weird angle for an obscene phone call, isn't it?



Mojave Max came out.
It's Spring!

I should have cherished better...

For some reason I decided to surf blogs using blogexplosion this morning. That led me to a blog that was talking about how myspace had helped them find some old friends. I've been wondering about a couple of my good friends from high school so I figured I'd give it a shot. So I sign up with myspace and, like in two minutes, find both of them! Cool! It turns out that Jeff grew up to be an artist in San Francisco. Which is pretty much what I hoped he would be. And Middagh is running for President. Which doesn't surprise me at all. And they're still friends. Which is neat.

Perusing their various profiles and whatnot, it seems odd that we ever hung out. I mean, one of these things is clearly not like the other. And that thing is puppy picture posting me.

When I find it I'll post this great picture of our English teacher that Jeff drew for me in high school. He drew it in a minute and it was incredible and made me think he was some sort of genius or something. It used to be in this little cedar chest that I stored all of my cherished high school mementos in. I emptied them all out last year so I could use the chest on my coffee table for nail clippers and remote controls. Now I can't remember what I did with my cherished high school mementos. I probably put them in a Walmart sack and threw them in the back of my closet with my cherished childhood toys.

ETA: I found it. He drew it on the back of instructions on how to "load DOS and enter your own data area".


I also found a bunch of magazines from high school that I saved. Now I'm going to have spend the afternoon drowning in nostalgia.

Yippee for me...

I put in $5 and won $625. Cool. Especially since I'm spending a fortune playing tourist this week.

Springtime in Vegas...

My nephew and his wife are visiting so I'm taking a few days off to play tourist on the Strip. Some of the sights so far:

Maybe the most offensive thing I've ever seen:



Elvis Chickens!!:



380 lbs of chocolate goodness:



Midnight in Paris:



Spring has sprung at the Bellagio:

Awwwww....

I've got nothing to say...

I just got tired of reading "the Oscars are coming, the Oscars are coming" every time I wanted to check my links.

The Oscars are coming! The Oscars are coming!

Here are my picks:

Lead Actor : Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) RIGHT!
Supporting Actor : Paul Giamatti (Cinderella Man) WRONG!
Lead Actress : Reese Witherspoon (Walk The Line)RIGHT!
Supporting Actress : Rachel Weisz (Constant Gardener)RIGHT!
Director : Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain)RIGHT!
Adapted Screenplay : Brokeback Mountain RIGHT!
Original Screenplay : Goodnight, and Good Luck WRONG!
Best Picture : Crash RIGHT!

I haven’t actually seen most of the movies so I’m basing these picks on nothing much. You might remember that worked really well for me with my Grammy picks.

ETA: I did pretty well. I even picked Crash. Cool.

I really enjoyed the show this year. I thought Jon Stewart was funny. The pimp song won. Whoda'thunk it? I thought all the women looked great. Well, Naomi Watts' dress was a little out there but everyone else was great. Salma Hayek's dress was gorgeous. Philip Seymour Hoffman's speech about his mom made me cry. So? I'm a sap. Jennifer Garner almost fell on her butt. She's so cute. Good show. I wish I could go to the after parties. Preferably as George Clooney's date.