Life in Plastic, It's Fantastic

The Barbies of 2009 are truly bland, what happened? I remember wanting one so badly, and for my birthday during 1st grade I got 3 -

Exercise Barbie (I had the gym too)Day to Night Barbie And Peaches and Cream Barbie (what a dress!)

The selection today (in the giant Barbie section of Toys R' Us no less) was pretty much bare except for some generic looking Barbies and random guys (what happened to Ken?) as well as some convertibles and ponies. We got our niece a Barbie that has long hair and you can do cool things with it so that one's got a bit of oomph at least. Two things I always put on my Chanukah list as a kid that I'm still waiting for are the giant Barbie head (you could do her hair and make-up):

And the Snoopy Sno-Cone Maker

I found out the trick to surviving Times Square Toys R' Us during the holidays, which is to pay on the ground floor. There are literally 30+ people on all of the other lines, on the main floor I had 1 person in front of me with three cashiers - it was kind of amazing at the lack of common sense people have.

Since Dave left for England, I've been mostly catching up on all the DVR'ed shows as I'm behind from the wedding and honeymoon (typical stuff, just saw the Gossip Girl threesome, uh boring.) And I have some Jersey Shore to catch up on. Have you seen this cartoon yet? I enjoy The Situation.

(It's so nice it's posted twice.)

Even the guys I shared houses with in Fire Island weren't THAT bad.

Speaking of people attempting to look muscular, I joined Synergy tonight. NYSC was too expensive, and I was taking two subways just to get there. I will miss my boxing classes but hopefully this will be a new era (with my own clean, non-stinky, sweaty gloves.) The schedule is looking good so far. The classes I want to take are Boxing, Cardio Dance, Cardio Kickboxing, Zumba (never tried it, what's the deal?), and Spinning. Do we think there's a difference when Kikboxing is spelt with a k? Is it harder?

Off-topic - Some people sent me wedding photos as email attachments. Before I plop them in the post, I'm not sure if everyone knew of all the bad things that happened the weekend leading up to the wedding. The disasters included:
- There was supposed to be a Noreaster.
- My hairdresser (who I've been going to since I'm 12) canceled because she had to go into the hospital. She helped me get a replacement but I didn't confirm it till about 12 hours before she needed to show.
- The car I was driving to the rehearsal dinner stalled in the middle of Jericho Turnpike and my dad had to come rescue me.
- The hotel bellman moved all of the girls' dresses over to the bridal suite at the venue. The bracelet I bought specifically to wear on the hand where the wedding band was to go was in a box in a bag on the cart. It disappeared and I ordered the maitre'd and bridal attendant to search for it outside (you can boss people around on your wedding day which is kind of awesome.) After 20 minutes, they came back with the wet, smashed top and bottom of the box but there was no bracelet to be found (which by the way I coincidentally (?) saw a guest wearing at the reception.)
- Gail went into the bathroom of the bridal suite in navy sweatpants and came out with them dyed with pink splotches because some idiot decided to bleach the floor and leave it all wet before we all went in with our dresses.
- No Noreaster but it rained enough that we couldn't take any photos outside.

Well, that's about it for the bad parts, but the rest was amazing. I'm not just saying that because I was the bride. Now for a few photos (more to come when I get the official ones.)

Rehearsal Dinner

Walking down the aisleParents up at the frontBridesmaids in tealThe ceiling above us Doing the marriage thing

"I do"

Married! (again!)

We walked into the reception to Magic Carpet Ride

ParentalsFromkin family photo Lanes

Tomorrow night I shall be going to dinner at Jean Georges Nougatine. Feel free to be jealous.

Current Music: The Bravery - Fistful of Sand

Words Don't Sink It Swims

I haven't written a blog in ages. Thought I'd start this one off a bit cheery but I had to go and spill matzoh ball soup all over the kitchen floor. And I don't have any paper towels. And it's all over me after I just took a shower. Motherfucker!!!

Chappy Chanukah peeps! I got some fun stuff for the holidays like this new watch -

A bangin' Coach bag

And the Twilight DVD

I kind of Twilighted myself out this weekend - watched that Saturday night, then watched Taylor Lautner on SNL, then finally saw New Moon on Sunday. The best part of that movie was when Jacob got a haircut, hallelujah!

Jacob before - sorry but this hairdo is just so so so so bad The haircut wasn't the only improvement. The hot body definitely helps.

Jacob after - so so so SO good

Can I be Team Jacob for the actor but Team Edward for the character? Is that legal? The effects in this movie were ten times better than Twilight, those were just laughable (but laughable in a way that I will still watch the DVD repeatedly.)

We had the first annual MTV Games Bake-Off today. I actually tried to make something both fattening and tasty for a change. I decided on Chocolate Nut Bars (recipe courtesy of some lady who contributed it to Lauren's bridal shower book.) Personally, I thought it was delicious but the middle was a bit mushy when I cut it. I put the pieces in a more vertical rather than horizontal tupperware container - that with the combined "falling apart effect" made my entry appear unappealing to the masses - I think maybe two people touched it. Next year I'm all about presentation, or at least something simple people can grab, like cookies, or Holiday Turds (which someone actually entered.) At least I now have staples in my house that I'll never use again such as white and brown sugar as well as flour and vanilla extract.

Chocolate Nut Bars aside, I'm headed to the UK on Friday wahoo!!! If you don't include my 5 hour stopover at Heathrow over the summer, I haven't been back to London since last Xmas/New Years. Not sure if I blogged or bragged repeatedly about this previously, but I won the grand prize in a raffle at a voluntary seminar at work. Well, let me tell you my friend, sitting through that was well worth it as I won a pair of round trip business class tickets to London with a three night stay at The May Fair for two with breakfast included. Now what to do about the paparazzi who will be stalking me outside the hotel?

Things I plan to do while I'm there include seeing my friends (can't wait!!), figuring out how to get to central London from where I'm staying (Tring anyone?), eating drunken falafel (preferably in Camden), getting my Britpop on, spending time with Dave's family, beating him in Wii shuffleboard, and doing some shopping. Does anyone have New Year's plans yet because I'd like to jump on that, thanks.

This blog post will not contain any proper photos as I'm working off our desktop that runs on Linux. Yes, you heard me correctly. I have no freakin' idea how to use this thing except for the internet and the geography game. Speaking of photos, MTV opened a "Digital Oasis" on one of our floors. It contains a bunch of those kiosks you find in a Duane Reade and you can not only print photos from a CD, memory stick, internet, etc., but you can even make photo albums, calendars, posters, and more. And we get a $100 credit each month to use it. Not sure if I should print honeymoon pics or Southeast Asia ones that have been sitting on a disc for three years first. Also, in case you are wondering, I haven't received digital photos from the wedding photographer yet, hence nothing for the blog or F-book for the moment.

Songs I've been obsessed with lately:
The Temper Trap - Fader
Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension
Alicia Keys - Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart
The Cribs - We Share the Same Skies

I plan to do a Top 60 again towards the end of the year (or this week.) As for the gigs, I kind of lost track of what I've been to lately which is a first, eek. I also don't have many people I wanted to punch in the face in 2009 so that list may not appear as well, though I'll try hard to brainstorm for that one.

Anyway, let's leave it with "Fader" because it's so so good and the love needs to be spread. Think Wham! if they were around in 2009. My God I could listen to this all day. If anyone can get me into the Koko show on the 21st I'll buy you Digestives.

This isn't an actual video, but an image with the song playing.