The Importance of Being Idle

Good Golly Miss Molly

2012-01-10T14:03:00.001-05:00

First blog post of 2012! Figured this would be a great time to write considering I'm stuck at home with food poisoning. Actually, yesterday was the worst of it. I won't get into detail, but I'm pretty sure it's that rather than a virus since Dave also had the same thing at the exact same time. We were a truly pathetic site yesterday, both laying on the bed all day writhing in pain. I honestly cannot even remember the last time I threw up that had no relation to alcohol. The worst of it has passed (sorry for the verbiage) but I'm all aches and pains now. I've managed to eat honey nut cheerios and bread, so all in all much better!

My 2012 started off with a broken iPod. Genius Bar analysis has determined that it will cost a mere $129 to fix a broken click wheel. The last time my iPod broke, the iPod doctor fixed it, but that didn't last long so this time I'm going to try these guys for $49 and will let you know how that goes. So today is the first day I'm listening to my own music (best album of 2011 - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, not just saying that because, it's really that good.) Up until now I've been listening to Slacker, Pandora, and the XFM app which of course don't work on the subway but have been a decent band-aid. There are so many songs I've missed over the last few weeks! Speaking of, I really don't feel up to writing a Best of 2011 song list this year. Usually I have about 60, but I didn't discover as much new music, plus many songs were abysmal, so I may type out my top 30 or so next time I write a post. Here are my list of 2011 gigs though (w/some videos):

Gigs 2011
Band/Opening Act - Venue
Beady Eye - Webster Hall
Beady Eye - Terminal 5

"The Roller"

British Sea Power - Koko (this was half in 2010/half in 2011)
Duran Duran/Neon Trees - MSG
Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds/The Hours - Beacon Theater

"Supersonic"

Paul McCartney - Yankee Stadium...video won't upload :(

Radiohead/Four Tet - Roseland

Southern Hospitality (Acoustic) Tour (Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra/Ed Roland of Collective Soul) - City Winery

"Good"

Subsonica - Highline Ballroom
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I also went to a lot of Broadway shows this year - Billy Elliott, Book of Mormon, Sister Act, Baby It's You, Jersey Boys (the best!!), and Hugh Jackman Back on Broadway
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Having been unemployed in February, I kept myself quite busy then as well by going to Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Live with Regis and Kelly, and taking the test to appear on Jeopardy which I promptly bombed.
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The only new news is that this year was a "Very Special Fromkin-Lane Christmukkah" featuring both families (my parents also went to the UK for the holidays.)

Christmas Crackering

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Tony was very excited about something, not sure what.

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Must run in the family though as Nan was also VERY excited.

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Dave wearing my gift to him.

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Cam opening his stocking.

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Olivia sucking on a lemon (still don't understand her food choices...a 7 year old who loves wasabi??)

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This puppet (Molly) was our gift to Dave's mom. You can tell she's a troublemaker.

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You may have already seen this as my FB profile pic, but it's my most favorite photo ever so I'm posting it here too.

We took an overnight trip to London with our parents as well. On Day one, we ate, went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, and ate some more. In the evening Dave and I went to Covent Garden to meet up with Ben and Charlotte. The indoor market was decorated with giant ornaments.

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The next day, our parents taxi'ed it, so Dave and I walked from the hotel in Holborn to the Eye.

Obligatory tourist photo

We took a boat ride on the Thames, and afterwards walked to Farringdon where Dave met up with his friends and I caught up with Joy and Andi. The rest of the week was rather low key, mainly seeing more friends in Essex. This was the first New Years I've stayed in since about 1997. I think I've got all of my "adult" new years remembered:

2011: British Sea Power at Koko/wandering around London/Flu
2010: NME or XFM at Brixton Academy
2009: Shoreditch bar, can't remember what it's called
2008: 515? Is that what that Camden bar is called?
2007: Balham Weatherspoons/me crying that I didn't want to be at the Balham Weatherspoons/watching the fireworks from Dave's bathroom window
2006: Bar at King's Cross when Erica & Heather were visiting
2005: Last New Year's I spent in the US?! Piano's/The Bravery at some random Motherf*cker party
2004: Salmon River with tuna sandwiches
2003: Carroll Gardens house party w/Robyn and Vicki (I think that was new years)
2002: Cream w/Heather, Erica, & Melanie
2001: Chelsea Brewing Co./me and Julie getting stuck in the snow on the West Side Highway unable to catch a cab
2000: Sleepover party at Heather M.'s
1999: Erica's party where the Nazi punched a hole in the wall
1998: Times Square (well as close as we could get, about 10 blocks away)/getting into a dive bar that served us

This year Dave's parents had a few friends over, and Antony and Amy came as well as Dan and Bruna who were in town from Italy via Norwich. We ate chili and did Karaoke.

My mom singing 'New York New York'

My dad's first time at karaoke (still can't believe that?!)

The back-up singers:

New Year's circle at midnight

Watching Jools

Happy New Year!

Melinda and Molly

Fromkins in England!

I'll leave you with Molly's karaoke:

One final thing I wanted to mention is this website: http://www.marcnesbitt.com. I worked with Marc during my 3 1/2 years at MTV Games and he's a really terrific guy (and a personal favorite.) He has a rare brain cancer, which is curable with vigorous treatment but is extremely costly and it's difficult for him to actually get to his chemo appointments. If you read the site for more detail, you can get a better idea of the situation and what he's going through, so if you have anything to spare, even $5, please consider donating. Thank you!!!

Current Music: Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - If I Had a Gun

I'm in Miami Bitch

2011-10-16T23:30:00.000-04:00

I thought I'd start writing while our Shepherds Pie is in the oven. I also just read that sushi should be tossed after 24 hours which is a total bummer because for the first time in my life I ate less then half of my order from last night (what's happened to me??)

On Friday night I finally watched 127 Hours. Danny Boyle is my favorite director, so I'm not quite sure how a) it took me so long to get around to watching it, and b) we let the Netflix disc sit in our apartment for over a month while we continue to pay their recently-inflated prices. Anyway, I thought it was terrific, except for the fact that I didn't realize how horror-like the "main part" was actually going to be. (DON'T FINISH READING THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT.) We all know that the main character cuts his arm off, but the details shown were absolutely horrific. I definitely did NOT realize he was going to break his bone first (two times actually), and I don't know why but I started crying as soon as that happened and just didn't stop until the credits finished. I always say I don't watch scary movies because I think they're stupid, but maybe I really am scared of them? If you were lucky enough to have gone with me to see Titanic in the theater, you might remember that I did the same thing (I literally didn't stop crying until the end of the credits.) Well, this was almost to that proportion which is highly embarrassing but I think warranted.

Dave and I are watching Taboo which is showcasing a man who loves his cars and a woman who loves the Berlin wall...and they "make love" to them too. Dave's already seen this show in the UK, so I think he's pretty excited that he gets to finally see it again.

Last week Dave and I went to see SubsOnica at Highline Ballroom. When I studied abroad in 2000 I discovered them, and even used them for my final in my Italian class the next year - my professor used to play songs for us and hand out a sheet of lyrics with half the words missing. We'd have to listen and fill them in (not as a test, but for educational fun.) So, I did the same with my favorite song of theirs, "I Tutti I Miei Sbagli", for my final. I never even imagined they would play in NY so I had to go when I heard they were coming. Casino Royale, another Italian band, opened for them, who were okay, I don't really know how to describe it, just very Italian. When SubsOnica came in, everyone was SO into it (by the way the entire Italian population of NYC was there and I think we were the only native English speakers in the audience.) Everyone knew all the words to all of the songs, the keyboard was on a spring and the keyboard player would push it in this weird, sexual way back and forth, and the singer had the crowd squat down on the floor and jump up a minute later - and everyone actually did it! People were jumping and dancing the whole time, and I always wish regular NY crowds were as enthusiastic as this. Here are photos:

SU LE MANI!

Nuovo Ossessione

I don't know how, but we managed to get Radiohead tickets for Roseland a few weeks back. They primarily played songs from In Rainbows and almost everything was from Kid A on and it was excellent.

Also, Adrien Grenier was standing above us in the balcony (he drives me crazy if you catch my drift.) Awesome lighting at this show too by the way.

Street Spirit

Four Tet opened which I was looking forward to because the I love the only song I know by them (him?), "Smile Around the Face", but it was just okay.

I'm going to see Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra play an acoustic show at City Winery on Sunday. It's such a small intimate setting, I can't wait. I'm also going to see Duran Duran next week, and Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds (aaaaaahhhhhh!!!) in November.

Last month we went to Miami for Glenna and Tony's wedding. We'd never been there before and were quite worried that the cost of food, drinks, and going out were going to be through the roof. Much to our surprise, when we walked through the restaurant strip in South Beach, all the brunch specials were $5.95, I couldn't believe it. Well, that's until the food came. I got an omelette with olive tapenade and goat cheese, sounds delicious right? Well, it came out all oily - I tried one bite and it kind of tasted hard boiled with oil on it (I'm holding back the vomit as I write this.) I thought the waitress was going to beat me up when she kept asking "You didn't like it!??" I figured the next day I'd be safe and get pancakes because how can you go wring with that? Well, they were not as as gross as the egg, but they did prove that you can most definitely also go wrong with pancakes.

We mostly hung out at the pool during the weekend as there were loads of jellyfish in the ocean. When we walked along the coastline I saw a one the size of my head which was quite shocking (my first time.) On Friday night we went to the rehearsal dinner where G&T handed out Oscar-like awards to those who had attended all 4 weddings of her and her triplet sisters. Then we saw Master P and Lil Romeo eating outside but I didn't know it was them until someone pointed it out. The best part of the evening was when the guests were surprised with a Mister Softie truck with ice cream for everyone, yum!!

Dave getting his vanilla on

I cheated and got sprinkles

The wedding itself was so much fun, very different than any I'd been to before. Everyone received a pair of sunglasses for the ceremony, their friend sang as they walked down the aisle, and all the people at the pool and on the balconies were watching.

First Dance (Glenna wore an amazing Betsey Johnson dress)

The dress I got at Ann Taylor for $20 down from $160 :)

They changed into matching Nikes that said Bride and Groom with the date on them.

The reception was at Niki Beach, and it had a movie theme. Here's the Concession Stand.

Everyone got to pose for the photographer in front of a step and repeat banner with their logo on it (I personally didn't get any good shots, obviously, but here it is.)

Later in the evening they had fire dancers perform on the beach.

The next day we rented bikes and rode up the boardwalk and then went to dinner at Barton G. They do insane presentations of all the food, but let's talk about the desserts. They bring you the menu on iphones, and the desserts start at $38 each. The couple next to us got the brownie ice cream sundae (that came with sparklers in it) which could easily have fed 20 people. It was a really nice place but we steered clear of that, the other desserts the size of our heads put together, and the $30 drinks.

Our chicken cordon bleu bites came in a shopping cart.

The check says "THE DAMAGE" which was absolutely titled correctly.

On our final day we were dorks and took a bus tour through Miami. This is the third one we've done now and I think they are really great if you don't have much time in a city and you have no idea what areas to visit.

Holocaust Memorial

Lil' lizard (on the bark in case you don't see it)

What a cock

Cool tree that has roots grow from the top down and then grow into the earth

Domino players in Little Havana

Speaking of weddings, there were a couple this summer. I already blogged about Rachel's in VT. Here are a few other highlights:

Julie looking very old school Hollywood glam while getting ready.

It was so hot in the bridal suite that the attendant had the fan blow up her dress.

Cake toppers of Eric, Julie, and Toby

With Vicki & Sherri (Lauren missed the wedding unfortunately, but fortunately she had a very adorable baby.)

Mom with two gents

Love her dress!!

Then we had rehearsal dinner silliness before Erica's wedding.

Getting ready

Applying the lashes

Right before becoming Mrs. Corvin.

With a very pregnant Erica.

Just us

Jenn's wedding took place in a barn.

The entire estate was gorgeous.

With a ridiculous sunset too.

This is how we do it

The after party took place in the library

Damn, my husband is gorgeous.

By the way, our room at The Hampton Inn had a jacuzzi in the middle of it. The Hampton Inn, who would have guessed?!?! (Also we were the only people we knew who had one.)

In other bathroom news, the showers in the rooms at the estate were HUMONGOUS.

So of course we all got in.

Our second anniversary is actually on Tuesday. Aaaand, we finally finished our wedding album! Well, we finalized it but haven't received it yet. We still need to choose photos for the DVD montage so I'm guessing that will be done by our third anniversary. Here's a fun photo from our wedding that I don't think I've posted before:

Can't believe I finally posted a blog. Bed time now.

Blowin' in the Wind

2011-08-28T17:09:00.000-04:00

I know that we had to be prepared, but after today's "storm", Irene was the most overhyped Hurricane ever. On Friday, as I was working my half day from home, I got three phone calls from my dad, and finally decided maybe it was a good idea to go to Associated for some groceries. But instead of buying water and non-perishables, I thought it was more critical to buy ice cream, yogurt, and swiss cheese (oh and Diet Coke and Sprite Zero.) The supermarket was like a zoo, you'd think we'd be trapped for weeks the way people were stocking up. Anyway, they didn't have the chips I wanted, so I dropped the bags off at home and headed back out to Trade Fair. I did then to decide to buy a 3 liter bottle of water amongst the panic, the chips (though still not the ones I wanted - apparently there is a shortage of Baked Tostitos Scoops during hurricane season), and some more totally unnecessary perishable items. In the evening, Dave didn't feel so hot so we went to C Town to buy orange juice (we have 3 supermarkets within a 3 block radius in case you were wondering.) The lines were absolutely insane again so we gave up.

Yesterday morning we were still awaiting the storm, which wasn't coming until the evening now, so we decided to take a walk around 11 am. Realizing we only had one dinky flashlight, we thought it might be a good idea to see what the local 99 cent stores still had in stock. We bought some more batteries, water, and lighters (we have about 75 candles thanks to a bag of tealights and the fact that my mother-in-law now works for a candle company), but had no luck finding a battery-powered radio. After coming home, we did actually realize that our alarm clock takes batteries (duhhh), so we headed back out and bought a 9V. It had started raining lightly at this point, but the 99 Cent stores all still had long lines of people buying duct tape and saying "I can't believe you don't have any flashlights left??" The storm was coming in a few hours, I mean really.

We anxiously awaited this pain in the ass by playing Xbox games (ilomilo, The Beatles: Rock Band (I still have to write that out properly), some make-your-own-Bobblehead-that-looks-nothing-like-you game on Kinect labs), Scattergories, cooked, did my nails, tweezed my eyebrows, and watched Party Down. I also read two magazines from my tremendous pile and finished The Hunger Games (disappointment, sorry peeps.) It had been raining at a normal level until the middle of the night when I heard it coming down hard. Then this morning it was seriously like nothing?!? When Dave and I headed out to take a walk around 1:30 pm today, the ground was actually dry!! We went up to 30th, had brunch (all of the brunch places were open and packed), and walked back. It's still a bit windy and the sky is gray/grey? but the temperature is pleasant. There were some fallen branches but nothing crazy. Here are a few photos of the most extensive damage we saw -

Not bad at all

Unless you own this car

I like the effort Duane, you've finally impressed me

I HAD to get Parmesan cheese (we made bolognese and chicken parm this weekend so obviously it was necessary.) This was the bread aisle in C Town today.

There were leftover Toast R Cakes which I just still can't believe.

Anyway, I guess I should give a shout out to the Earthquake as well. I had my headphones on when that started, so I couldn't hear people discussing anything, and I literally thought the skin on my butt was twitching. After about ten seconds of that I got up and everybody was like "Uh, do you feel that?" I made the smart decision to switch from heels to flip flops, grab my bag, and head to our safety point on the floor. Most of us decided to go down the 80 flights of steps (which I actually did once before when I worked on the 41st floor during the blackout.) Me and my jelly legs got to go home after that, so thank you Earthquake! Why Irene couldn't show up on a weekday, and instead faked us out during my only Fire Island weekend which was totally non-refundable, is still beyond me.

So, I started reading books again, yeah! I also joined a book club in which we just discussed "Gun, With Occasional Music", and I hated it. Next, I'm going to read the book I suggested for the September meeting but lost in the vote which is Rob Sheffield's "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran." Now that I have finally started using my eReader, I think the thing is absolutely amazing. And, I took out the latest book out from the Queens library digitally - it simply expires after 21 days and wipes from the device, so easy!! I also need to read "Super Sad True Love Story" as that's next for the book club, and the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy even though I'm still disappointed by the first. Where was all this sexual tension I kept hearing about??? Unless it's in books two and three, the Twilight series blows these out of the water.

Pumped Up Kicks

2011-08-14T22:49:00.000-04:00

I'm finally trying out Spotify. I don't understand how it works yet, though it looks fairly straightforward with a purty interface. So far I've been listening to Ellie Goulding and the whole album has been playing with a few ads. What's the difference between this and the version you pay for?

I've been stuck in the house all day because of the pouring rain. One thing I did was trash a garbage bag full of clothes. Despite having only worn most of these shirts during the 2001-2003 Sutton Place era, they were hard to part with (what if I one day suddenly had the desire to wear them again?) On the plus side, there is a TON of space in the closet now.

Hey, did you hear that The Stills broke up? Too bad.

I've been watching more Locked Up Abroads lately as well (best show ever.) During the commercial break while I was tensely awaiting the Brooklyn teenager's sentence for trying to smuggle heroin out of Colombia, I saw an ad for a show called Break Out. Apparently, its reenactments of jail breaks!! I am so shocked at how amazing the National Geographic channel is, and I haven't even watched anything about nature yet.

Check out this wack-a-doodle bike I saw in LIC:

A few weeks ago Dave and I went to see Man U at Red Bulls arena. On the first day we got to see their practice which was awesome because it was first come first served and no one was there, so we got to sit in the third row in the middle. Also, all of the players were out doing their Rockette-like drills and played a mock game.

In case you didn't know, Michael Owen is still as gorgeous as ever.

I took a photo with him back in the day.

Also, here's a quick video of the team walking past the crowd.

The second day they played the MLS All-Stars and I got to see David Beckham do his thing. Chicharito and Giggs didn't play, nor did Landon Donovan. I figure for a $90 ticket, I surely am owed approximately a $15 refund.

So, I've got 6 weddings to go to this year. And that means a lot of connected events. I'm not posting bachelorette party photos directly on Facebook, so instead I'll post them indirectly on Facebook through my blog.

For Rachel's bachelorette we went to the wineries. We stayed at her friends' house in Jamesport which had a tennis court, a pool, a ping pong table, a giant Elvis statue(?), and it overlooked the Long Island Sound. In other words, it was kind of amazing.

We took a limo from winery to winery.

Wine junkies

Go Rachel Go!

Back at the house we decorated penis cookies. In case you were wondering, there will be more penis cookie decorating, penis-shaped dessert, and penis-destruction to come in this blog post.

Whee!

I'm all shook up

The next bach party was the following weekend in the Hamptons for Erica. We stayed in another amazing house for this one.

Every good hen do starts off with a fly swatter fight.

Jackie T. had the biggest shoes I've ever seen.

Yay penis straws!

And penis cake! (Not creamy inside.)

There was also a jacuzzi on the left and the canal behind the pool, plus two outdoor decks and an entire outdoor kitchen. My back got nice and toasty while laying out (aka bright red and blister-popping good.)

Not sure who that guy is?

Julie's bachelorette was in the city. We took a striptease class and I'm definitely not posting any photos of that. Before going out for the night, we destroyed a penis pinata.

Then there was some dancing on the pole action (but not what we learned in the striptease class.)

Speaking of stripping, at the risk of sounding like a grandma, I absolutely cannot believe what girls wear out to clubs these days. On one pole, a girl was thrusting against it like her life depended on it, with some guy ramming his crotch into her from behind (clothed, but still totally unnecessary.) The other pole was much worse - some chick in a skintight black dress was also doing the thrust, with less force but enough so that her dress shifted all the way up to her waist!! Her friend told her to pull it down, and she barely did, then kept dancing with it up. Some guy saw me and Vicki hysterical (I'm talking projectile tears flying off our faces from laughing so much), that he stopped me just to say "DO YOU SEE THAT GIRL'S ASS??" Yes, yes I most certainly did. When I was going to bars at that age we wore jeans and a tank top and still managed to pull guys while keeping our dignity in tact and our asses covered. I met Dave in a turtleneck and bellbottoms, I mean are these 2011 non-outfits really a necessity??

Non-hos at da club

Afterwards we got pizza and Julie's sister Erica was taking photos of all of the ingredients, as if it was this new food phenomenon. The guys who worked there were really confused but it was funny if you were drunk like us.

Glenna's bachelorette party was on a Thursday night and I had work the next day, so naturally I participated in the open bar and flip cup portions of the night.

I probably should have stopped playing after the tenth game or so.

Her sister had a bag of little goodies for everyone like giant gem rings, rings with doggies on them, and butterfly barrettes. The next morning I woke up with a full face of make up and all of the accessories on my fingers and hair, plus I was still drunk, so work was awesome that day.

The final bachelorette party of the summer was Jenn's. This one started off with our car breaking down right as we crossed into Delaware after having driven for 3 hours. This is us eating KFC in front the gas station while we were trying to figure out a plan for not being stranded in the middle of nowhere.

We wanted to get 40s to complete the scene but they don't sell beer at gas stations in Delaware (BOO.)

Cheap gas and girls on a rock in the 'ware

Long story short, after about an hour trying to figure out how the hell to get out of New Castle, DE, a random AAA truck showed up and saved the day. This guy put our car on the flatbed and drove the 5 of us an hour and a half to the house at 1 am which was kind of a miracle.

Then we made penis cookies.

I still don't know why Kristine put the food coloring pen in her mouth but I'm going to go out on a limb and say it was an accident.

The weekend was pretty standard. A couple of people fell on the floor in the bar, a few puked, one of my friends came home minus her dress (you know who you are), I almost got our asses kicked by another group of girls because of my big drunk mouth, there was one door-slamming-in-the-eye incident thanks to the bouncer, a dance party on the counter with the bachelor party we'd met at the bar (while the bachelorette slept on the couch right in the middle of it), random guys showing up and fighting in our house, and some girls dissing us by saying "What are you, 28??" Ha, we wish.

On the last day, four of the girls had to go an hour south into Maryland to pick up the now-fixed car. The rest of us made two trips in the heatwave to the next town over to return all of the bikes we'd rented during the week. The logistics of the operation forced Ilyssa to sit in a car seat for one of the rides back to the house.

This was Operation Deflate Tubes Before the Psycho Cleaning Woman Comes Back.

By the way, what the hell is this electric slide dance that everyone in the bar was doing? I was so boggled that I took a video.

Current Music: Beyonce - Best Thing I Never Had

Tick Tick Boom

2011-07-05T22:15:00.001-04:00

I recently went to Arkansas for a work trip.

When we arrived on a Monday evening (I was with four other girls), we found out that almost everyone else from our group was transferred from our overbooked hotel (The Peabody) to smoking rooms in the dumpy Hilton. As we arrived so late, they sucked it up and gave our party two ginormous dual floor suites, and one regular room that two of us had to share (yes, I was in that one.) We headed out to meet our coworkers in hoppin' downtown Little Rock with a warning from a coworker who was already out that she got scared by a midget on the street?? So on our way to the bar, we saw these guys, and low and behold, it wasn't not just one midget but a gang of them who looked like wrestlers (well, three to be precise along with some of their 6 ft tall friends.) They had tattoos, one was wearing a sombrero, and frankly, I thought they were going to beat us up. Not wanting to obviously look scared and cross the street, we walked past them remaining cool and collected, until one of them yelled and I caved with a slight jump (it could have been much worse if I was not forewarned.) We made it to the bar in one piece where the dozens of drafts were on $3 special and they were actually playing The Libertines, so all in all Little Rock wasn't too terrible on a Monday night.

Lil' Rock

The next morning we had to be out of the hotel early, so unfortunately we missed The Peabody's "duck walk." According to the concierge, every morning at 11 am, they roll out a red carpet and ducks march down it and up into the fountain in the lobby in a grand ceremony. You can enjoy the rooftop view of mallards made of pebbles from my hotel room instead.

We headed to the North Little Rock plant to see how cosmetics are assembled (eye shadows, foundations, and mascaras, oh my!) In all seriousness, it was pretty amazing to see the assembly lines. What was uncool was my required outfit - steel-toe boots, lab coat, hairnet, and goggles. I looked like Laverne and Shirley (I'm sad to report I did not take a photo.)

(Does anyone want to be this for Halloween by the way?? Email me if interested.)

The next stop on the itinerary was most critical, a trip to the liquor store. To put this in perspective, the place we were heading to for the remainder of the week was in a DRY COUNTY. As in, they do not sell liquor in the county. None. No alcohol. Not available. You can bring it in but you can't acquire it. Did you even know those existed??? I digress. So, as I was figuring out what drinks to buy with my coworkers, it suddenly dawned on someone that we could actually expense the drinks (well, I'll actually find out if this is the case next week, eek.) That was goodbye Georgi, hello Grey Goose! We headed to Wal-Mart next to stock up on a shit-ton of junk food which I proceeded to eat all week. I'd have to say that the best thing that emerged from this trip on a personal level is that I now like beef jerky (thanks AK!)

The trip truly began when we drove out to our dry county to get our team building exercises on. Upon arrival, deep in the woods, we found our bunks and I was so happy to see that everything was clean and not buggy at all. All of the women shared a bunk, and the bathrooms were really nice as well. We had a patio area outside with a place for a bonfire, and the main lodge is where we had our indoor sessions. It was basically like summer camp but you could drink and get paid for it.

The bunks and main lodge

The pond outside of our bunk

Ladies' bunk

The bathroom was actually great

The fridge was not fully stocked at this point

Nor was the cooler

As you could imagine, for most of the week we did activities that demonstrated how embarrassingly poor we were at communicating with each other, and that we couldn't build a bridge using X amount of boards to save our lives (seriously, if we were in a real flood situation, all 18 of us would have been dead.) But we learned from it, and grew as people and all that good stuff and now I like my coworkers, etc etc the end.

One thing I should mention is that I knew there was going to be something heights-involved during the week, because really, how could there not be? I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever it was no matter how scary it looked - when I was in Teen Council when I was 17, we went to Greenkill (guys, I found the website!!) in upstate NY and did this activity where we had to walk high above the ground across a rope from tree to tree and I was scared, cried, and then didn't do it while everyone else did. I did NOT want to do that again, and more importantly, I did NOT want to embarrass myself in front of my new coworkers, so there was no way in hell I wasn't doing the activity.

So, on the first full day, before we even knew what was planned, the guide asked us if we'd commit to doing the upcoming task as a team, and we all agreed, so it was officially confirmed that I was up shit's creek (if we had to eat rats and their poop, I was going to do it purely out of principle.) We headed a bit further through the woods in silence, as I contemplated my impending death, and arrived to find a skinny platform jutting out of a tree with a trapeze at the end...A FUCKING TRAPEZE! I tried to calm down for a minute, thinking it's not a big deal, people here are actually excited to do this, plus, maybe it looks easier than the Teen Council thing? Well, next, the guide walked us around the different areas where we'd be stationed for holding the ropes for our colleagues and explained exactly what each person had to do. I really concentrated so hard to keep from panicking that apparently my composure was actually completely okay. It was so okay that when the guide said that the most scared person should go first because of reasons xyandz (and my eyes started tearing and I was looking away from everyone so to not be called out), that another girl who was apparently more panicked was spotted immediately by the group. I was so worried about myself that I didn't even see the other girl crying and she was like 3 feet away from me! Anyhoo, I really thought that I would go second and not delay my execution as long as I saw her go first, and after some hesitation she did go. And by go, this is what we had to do -
- Have colleagues attach two ropes to you through a chest and a waist harness
- Climb a ladder that leaned against a tree about 8 ft high
- Proceed to climb staples up the tree to 40 ft total height (did I mention I'm scared of heights??)
- Step onto platform and unlatch one of the ropes, send it back down
- Turn around, walk out to the end of the 18 ft platform (platform is 1.5 ft wide)
- Make sure toes are over edge of platform
- Cry (optional)
- Jump off platform to trapeze that is 8 ft away and positioned higher than your head, so that unless you are Stretch Armstrong, you are basically going to miss the trapeze
- Trust that your colleagues will brake the rope properly?!

When the girl before me was up on the platform she was crying and panicking A LOT. So much so, that when I was doing my helpful teammate thing below, I started crying out of fear (but again luckily no one noticed.) She finally did the jump and yes, she survived (as has everyone who has done this activity for the past 17 years), and without hesitation I said I'd go next. I raced to the top of the tree thinking I just wanted to get it over with and that I should really act like a big girl; I got to the top, sent down rope #1 (doing an excellent job at Plinko with the staples totally by accident), then turned around to set off down the platform. That's when I started crying. A LOT. I think all in all it took me less than 5 minutes to go from the ground to the trapeze jump, but in the end, after quite a lot of "I'll jump in a minute"s, I closed my eyes and (think) I tried for the trapeze. The drop took literally a second; it really seemed like so not a big deal when it was over. And to be honest, I quite enjoyed it once I was hanging in mid-air because at least there was a breeze in the 97 degree heat. So, that was my big jump.

Speaking of the heat, I failed to mention my daytime ensemble. We'd been warned that there were ticks in this area, and that I was going to get quite friendly with my coworkers as we'd be checking each other all over for them. I was not planning on having any creature on me - tick, coworker, or otherwise, so I made sure to dress accordingly. In addition to spraying 100% Deet all over me and my bag, I wore a long-sleeved shirt tucked into long pants, with socks pulled over my pants, and Timberlands I found in the back of my old closet in my parents' house from high school (I knew I saved them for a reason.) Needless to say, I looked like a classic 1994 wanna-be-cool looking idiot. After jumping off the platform, I think that I actually lost my fear of ticks (although, my assignment on the last day kept me in the lodge in air conditioning drinking beer while 3/4 of the group went deeper into the woods which was the main tick day so don't go by my example.) And I didn't even come home with a mosquito bite! I was on the lookout all week though - the weekend before my trip, I had gone to Rachel's bachelorette party in Jamesport, Long Island, and on the fridge was a handy dandy tick chart. Robyn kindly took a photo and sent it to me which I printed out on a large piece of paper for the trip.

Handy dandy tick chart

The home cooked food was pretty amazing - chocolate cake, ribs, biscuits with gravy, cinnamon buns, pink lemonade. I could go on but this is making me hungry.

It really was a great trip (I'm not going to get into the hard core assignments of the week, except for the night where we had to watch Remember the Titans and dissect it the next day - tough stuff), plus I got out of going to the office for a week. In summation, I would avoid Arkansas if you are afraid of ticks and midget gangs, but if you need convincing that you like beef jerky then I think it's the place for you.

Happiness in Magazines?

2011-03-25T19:45:00.003-04:00

Yes, it is in fact Friday. Though instead of posting THAT song to the social network of your choice, why not listen to one of these classics instead?

The Cure - Friday I'm in Love
Shed Seven - She Left Me On Friday
The Beatles - 8 Days a Week
Boy Kill Boy - Friday Friday
Lily Allen - Friday Night

My friend Ana decided to book a trip to Thailand at the last minute and she's documenting her travels at The Adventures of IndiANA Rodrigo. Go follow her! A few wise words to her from personal experience -

Beware of flying cockroaches
Drink lots of fruit smoothies
Get your nails did as it's dirt cheap
Go for the oil massage, it's so much better than the Thai one

By the way, I got the capital of Vietnam wrong at trivia, it's Hanoi, not Ho Chi Minh City. Shows how much I paid attention while I was there.

Sooo, I totally got a job! A good job too! My first week is finished (and I was home before 6 pm every day, jealous much?) So far so good, just lots to learn. And don't even get me started on the company store, I have heart palpitations every time I think about it. FYI, I'm working at a cosmetics company (because I'm worth it if ya catch my drift.)

I received flowers from my boss on my first day, how nice is that?? On top of that, Dave's parents were visiting with a back-to-back visit by Jay, both of whom got us flowers. Our apartment smells rather fragrant at the moment and looks quite pretty as well.

In other non-important news, I'm drowning in magazines (you'd think I would have learned my lesson from the Time debacle, but nevertheless...)

I'd been receiving Rolling Stone for the past few months and couldn't figure out who subscribed me. I thought it was either a gift or a random promotion (a bit odd considering I'd dropped their subscription years ago as I couldn't stand most of their political views.) Well, I get the dumbass award for this one - turns out I resubscribed myself and lost all memory of having done so. To be fair, they never billed me and, um, I was probably so busy the past few months that I simply forgot I'd done it. Anyhoo, I went to unsubscribe (the annual fee is only $20 but I just didn't want it due to my piled up backlog) and they actually pulled a "will you continue subscribing if we offer you 26 issues/year for only $10?" Well, it worked. If everyone knew they did this can you imagine how much money they'd lose??

I recently bought a Time Out NY subscription on Groupon - weekly issues for a year for only $10 (oh Groupon how I love thee.) I already skipped last week's issue and am on track to miss all of this week's events as well. So all in all a great purchase.

On top of that, I just started receiving Glamour, another magazine I really couldn't care less about - the last article I read was titled "Hey Guys, Let's Talk Sexting!" Really? People do that so much that it gets a dedicated article? Wow, I guess I'm old (or just not so Glamorous.) I found out that my United miles were about to expire, and I had so few that it was down to redeeming for two $25 Restaurant.com certificates and a magazine subscription. With options like Cigar Aficionado and Diabetes Forecast in my mileage range, Glamour truly was the best option.

Dave's had a subscription to Scientific American that he did not subscribe to for the past year as well. When I brought this up last week in passing, his mom told us that it was a gift from his grandma. Proper mystery solved!

Oh, and I've been getting Teen Vogue for free too! I swear I did NOT voluntarily subscribe to that one.

Dave is playing Limbo now and it's totes scary.

Time to win the $312M Mega Millions. See you on the flip side.

I Only Want To Be In Your Record Collection

2011-02-23T23:54:00.009-05:00

Things I've been up to lately:

- Traipsing through slush

- Adding all of my music from my iPod to my new Macbook (this includes manually re-adding to/reordering ALL of my playlists)

- Hula hooping (well, sometimes)

- Going to an InterNations mixer and not mixing outside of my friends

- Playing guitar on hard on Rock Band (only took my three years)

- Cleaning out my inbox

- Stuffing my face with Peanut Butter Puffins

- Reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

- Updating my to-do list

- Eating Korean food

- Debating if I like Korean food

- Sorting through all of my CDs and finally trashing the ones I don't need (why do I have Nappy Roots and The American Pie soundtrack again??)

Check out some fab CDs and some stinkers here (I had to document the mess):

Why yes, Interpol and Moby did sign those for me

And yes, that is a Backstreet Boys CD

Can you guess what the CD with the germs on the cover is?

I flipped this one upside down just to freak you out

On my last day of work I had to give back some company-owned things. As sad as that was, I was relieved to give back my crackberry.

Now in the hands of the authorities

Bye bye empty desk

I've been trying to make the most of my time off. I've therefore gone to see Late Night With Jimmy Fallon - guests were Dana Carvey, Minka Kelly, Ricky Martin, and Yngwie Malmsteen playing with The Roots. I also went to a taping of Live! with Regis and Kelly (not that exciting, I'm obligated to include the ! in the name) - guests included a pre-taped Matthew Perry which was NOT okay, and Chris Colfer from Glee. Kelly and Reg talked to my friend Jon about his Cookie Monster iPhone cover, so that was cool. I also took the online test for Jeopardy! (not that exciting, I'm obligated to include the ! in the name.) That test was horrific and the questions are not at all like what you see on TV. If I'm lucky I maybe got 5 out of 50 questions right, so you won't be seeing me on that show anytime soon (or ever.) I just applied for tickets to The People's Court and Rachel Ray. Is Cash Cab truly random or can you actually apply to be on it?

Recent clothing purchases include two bridesmaid dresses, stretchy pants from Express (I like to call them lazy pants) and pink and white baseball socks from American Apparel (let's just be honest here - that's the only thing I can fit in at that store.) Oh! We FINALLY bought a flat screen TV as you can partially see in the CD photos above, as well as a cordless iron and towels because that's what married people do. Our final purchase was renters insurance so don't even think about breaking in here to take our awesome iron.

Another recent key purchase were cherries at a bargain price of $1.99/pound. I have made a mental note to add this to my "Justifications for Living in Astoria" list.

This is my favorite video right now:

We recently went to the re-opened Museum of the Moving Image. Yes, there really is a museum in Astoria, and it's in walking distance from our apartment. The pics didn't come out so great though.

I got in trouble for taking this photo so I hope you like it

Model used in The Exorcist

Good Ole Yods

Mrs. Doubtfire's head

Afterwards we went across the street for 5 Napkin Burger's slider happy hour. $2 options include regular sliders, as well as veggie burger, turkey meatball, pork taquitos, and wings, plus $4 beers. Total yum.

The other day we walked from our apt to Roosevelt Island over this ghetto bridge made up of metal grates. I do not recommend wearing heels on that.

I also do not recommend going there on the windiest day of the year. We walked through the middle of the island (it looks like something out of 1984, a total Communist-type village), stopped for a bite to eat (yes, there really is a restaurant) and hightailed it out of there on the tram worried we had permanently lost feeling in our extremities.

This is seriously what all the island's businesses look like, regardless if it's a florist, post office, or library.

The church, seriously

Have some tram views (after all it is the London Eye of New York)...

It's coming!

It's here!

Obligatory tourist photos

Bye bye RI

I am enjoying my freaky reflection photo

The ride was surprisingly steady

Second avenue here we come

Once we got to Manhattan, we didn't know what to do and it was freezing so we played in FAO Schwartz. You can make muppets there! I want to make one but they are like $100 bucks or something stupid like that.

Did you know that this muppet is a shrimp?! I did not. Pepe the prawn:

Also, I finished watching Mad Men season 4 OMGsogood.

More spare time activities included attending a focus group (love the cash in hand) and seeing Billy Elliot on Broadway. I think something to add to my to-do list this week is creating a list of all the Broadway shows I've been to (I can tell you off the bat that my all-time favorites are Blood Brothers and Tommy.)

I've also been seeing friends who had babies, friends who bought houses, and friends who are teachers that are off from school this week. Speaking of, how cute is Heather's slow cooker all buckled up ready for the Super Bowl? Speaking of which, Dave won the half time in the pool.

I think I'm going to start a Tumblr of randoms things buckled up since I already have these in my library:

Check out my bootiful Valentine's Day fleurs:

So, using the Sitemeter at the bottom of my blog, sometimes I'm able to tell how someone landed on my page. Also, using another new-ish tool that Blogger has implemented, I can also now tell which posts of mine get the most hits, and similar stats. The page that's consistently been hit the most over the past few years has bee this one: Come To Jamaica and Feel Alright. I knew it couldn't have been the fascinating photos of us eating New England cuisine, or my amazing rendition of "Train in Vain" that kept drawing people in. Turns out that the hits all come from people clicking on the second photo (which I will not re-post here) which leads them directly to that blog post. I thought I was in some major photograph-rights violation this whole time, but it only occurred to me to today to see the rank of where the photo pops up when searching for "Jamaica, Queens" in Google Images. Well, mystery solved indeed. Why don't you Google image this yourself and see where the photo placement is? And also, how did this photo get linked solely to my blog??

Space Cadets Dressed in Fibreglass

2011-01-17T21:42:00.001-05:00

Wow, my 2010 "Top 60" is way late. I've come to the obvious conclusion that my taste in music gets shittier every year, as you'll see below. I think I'm just purely too lazy when it comes to seeking out new bands, though I do honestly feel that some of the craptastic pop in my top ten is acceptably catchy. And I know there's absolutely no reason to have "Fireflies" in there but I think it's cute. 60 Rihanna - Rude Boy 59 Owl City - Fireflies
58 General Fiasco - Ever So Shy
57 Mystery Jets - Flash a Hungry Smile
56 Lady Gaga - Alejandro
55 Plan B - Stay Too Long
54 Delphic - Doubt
53 Taio Cruz - Dynamite
52 One EskimO - Kandi
51 Wakey! Wakey! - Almost Everything
50 Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly - Collapsing Cities
49 Miike Snow - Sylvia
48 Ou Est Le Swimming Pool - Jackson's Last Stand
47 Marina and the Diamonds - Hollywood
46 Goldfrapp - Rocket
45 The Naked and Famous - Young Blood
44 The Script - Break Even
43 Rihanna - What’s My Name?
42 RPA & The United Nations of Sound - Born Again
41 The Joy Formidable - The Last Drop
40 Usher feat. Pitbull - DJ Got Us Fallin’ in Love
39 Ash - War with Me
38 Arcade Fire - We Used To Wait
37 Klaxons - Echoes
36 Broken Bells - The High Road
35 Trey Songz feat. Fabolous - Say Ahh
34 Lady Gaga feat. Beyonce - Telephone
33 We Are Scientists - Ambition
32 Badly Drawn Boy - Too Many Miracles
31 B.o.B. feat. Hayley Williams - Airplanes
30 Tired Pony - Dead American Writers
29 Ash - Return of White Rabbit
28 Hot Chip - I Feel Better
27 Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg - California Gurls
26 Carl Barat - Run with the Boys
25 The XX - Islands
24 I am Kloot - Proof
23 Yeasayer - O.N.E.
22 Jamie T - Emily's Heart
21 The Temper Trap - Science of Fear
20 Kings of Leon - Radioactive
19 Civil Twilight - Letters from the Sky
18 Kate Nash - Kiss That Grrrl
17 Mark Ronson & The Business International - Glass Mountain Trust
16 Fenech Soler - Lies
15 Florence and the Machine - Cosmic Love
14 The Joy Formidible - Whirring
13 Ke$ha - Tik Tok
12 Everything Everything - Schoolin'
11 Two Door Cinema Club - Something Good Can Work
10 Calvin Harris- You Used To Hold Me
9 Mark Ronson & The Business International - Bang Bang Bang
8 Ke$ha - We R Who We R
7 Two Door Cinema Club - I Can Talk
6 Everything Everything - MY KZ UR BF
5 The Wombats - Tokyo
4 Cee-Lo Green - F**k you
3 Katy Perry - Teenage Dream
2 The Courteeners - You Overdid It Doll
1 One Night Only - Say You Don't Want It

I seem to be going to less and less gigs each year. I'm just too tired! Also, I feel too dumb to take photos so there's only one (I probably should have stopped snapping pics years ago anyway.) Here's my list in alpha order -

Gigs '10

Ash - Santos House Party
Athlete - Bowery
Badly Drawn Boy - Le Poisson Rouge
Better Than Ezra - Webster

British Sea Power - Koko (Mairead made a good point about this on NYE - since they played before and after midnight, what year does this gig actually fall under?)
Everything Everything - Music Hall of Williamsburg
Florence and the Machine - Terminal 5 (the April show, not the bandwagon one)
Howie Day - City Winery
The Joy Formidable - Bowery
Julian Casablancas - Irving Plaza
Mark Ronson & the Business International - Webster

Rodrigo y Gabriela - Radio City

Two Door Cinema Club - Webster

Vampire Weekend - Bowery

Hands down Rodrigo y Gabriela takes the cake for best show of the year times about 29372536. I'm giving Mark Ronson and his all star band an honorary second with The Joy Formidable in third.

I have not been doing much as of late. On Friday night we went to two tapings for Comedy Central hosted by John Oliver (yay for free activities.) One of the comedians was making fun of a video game called Heavy Rain. I guess I should have known about it being that I work in video games, but anyhoo. What I took away from his jokes was that it's total drama, and not the video game type - basically, your youngest son gets hit by a car and dies, your wife leaves you, you're having issues with your older son, then the game actually starts when a killer comes to town. It's all psychological decision making. I want it but it's only available for PS3 BOO.

Check out the trailer, it totally looks like a movie:

On Saturday night we went to dinner with Liz and Graham at The Smith where I mainly spit globs of fat from my steak not-so-discretely into my napkin. After that we went into a gay bar that had a two-for-one drink special: two Grey Geese and two beers for $15! Also, we watched Miss America there which may have been the most appropriate place to watch a pageant ever. PS I can't believe that busted blonde chick won - what state was she from anyway?

Yesterday we were completely useless - we went to the diner and then sat on the couch all day watching Dexter Season 5. Who plays Cole? He looks so familiar. Okay, thanks IMDB, he was Whistler on Prison Break.

Today we spent half of the day (literally) waiting for our landlord to show up, to check on something to do with the "architecture", aka the apt. is set up illegally and maybe he got caught?? Anyway, he was supposed to come between 9:00 am - 12:00 pm, then at 12:30 pm we received a call that he'd be here at 1:00 pm, then nothing. No call or visit at all = GRRRRR! At least I got my crappy old laptop working while I was waiting for him, so I've basically spent the whole day pulling photos, documents, and music onto an external drive before the computer breathes it's final breath (I'm only on H bands - if the system fails and Haddaway doesn't transfer, someone will be held responsible.)
gthzjng
Oh, we also made meatloaf yesterday so that was of course a highlight.
gthnzjng
By the way, I went to London for Xmas. Here are a few photos...

Dave and his new hands (I think this is the funniest thing ever; also Hunter Mountain people should be having a flashback)

Then me, Dave, and his mom hula hooped

I barely went into London this trip ($50 roundtrip for the train!!) but at least I got to see some peeps (Laura, Kat, Joy, Andi, Maristela, Sunil, and Jon who happened to be in town as well.)

Kat and LauraAndi, Joy, Me

On New Year's Eve I was sick but forced myself to go to Camden since we'd already bought tickets to see British Sea Power. Holy mother of God you should have seen the girls on the train from Essex, it was the Whore Express! I know girls get more dressed up in the UK than in the US, but boobs hanging out, stilettos, and no stockings with skirts so short that I can see your twat is NOT okay!!

At Koko (where I was fully clothed), it was me, Dave, Laura, Mairead, Mike, Rich, and some of Alex and Emily's friends (they didn't go bc Emily was sick.) BSP were good but played a pretty short set. New Years came mid-set and one of the dudes climbed up to the canon.

BOOM!

Happy New Year

We were fortunate enough to see the British Sea Power bear!! Of the 8 or so times I've seen them, this monster had only appeared at Glastonbury '04.

You'd think that an NME night with British Sea Power headlining would equal indie music. Apparently it actually means dance music, therefore I did not dance. We stayed until about 3:00 am and knew we had to stay out till the first train back to Essex. Dave and I headed into central London to walk around and kill time. I was completely sober since I was ill (seriously, Diet Cokes consumed all night), so watching all the drunk girls walking barefoot, falling over, and puking was quite hilarious. We contemplated taking Boris bikes to Liverpool Street but decided to just take a picture on them instead.

Then I discovered something slightly unappetizing

We went to Bar Italia, which is one of the few places that stays open all night in London. I had the best panini of my life.

This is Dave after an espresso and a coffee at 4 am

We caught the 5:07 am train back to Essex and stayed at Eggman's house since our train wasn't leaving for another few hours. We finally made it back to ours around 1:00 pm. I was feeling so sick that I didn't get out of my pajamas for the rest of the trip.

Now Dave is playing Fable III and his avatar just burped in someone's face. I heart my husband.

Things I Disliked - 2010 Edition

2010-12-16T22:50:00.014-05:00

Let's kick this off properly:

Nicki Minaj

Simply awful. How can anyone listen to her "music" and say it's good with a straight face, let alone get by without their ears bleeding? Someone had to say it and now everyone else can feel free to follow (you can thank me later.)

30 Rock

I still don't think this show is funny AT ALL. Am I missing something, or is it just childish humor that somehow goes over my head? Not funny, and quite bad actually (sorry Emmys Foundation but you're wrong.)

The Red Hot Chili Peppers

It's not really their fault, it's more so 101.9's issue, but I can't hate the station solely because of Matt Pinfield. If you haven't been exposed to WXRP between 8:00 - 9:00 am on weekdays, I'll have you know that hearing a Chili Peppers song is 110% inevitable, and it's been like this every day for at least the past year. It started off as the principal that pissed me off, but now I've convinced myself to actually hate them. They do this with other bands too (ahem Foo Fighters, no thank you), and they recently began repeating The Black Crowes, and I certainly hope they stop because I don't want to dislike them. I know I could change the station, but it's not really an option when the alternative is Z100 playing Justin Bieber and talking about The Human Caterpillar.

Exhausted Phrases

Fail/Epic Fail/For the Win/WIN! These stupid phrases were funny for a nanosecond. If you still say these things you deserve to die.

Vampire Weekend's "Holiday"

This song was fine until they started repeating the Honda Civic commercial non-stop for the past month on both the TV and radio.

Synergy (Astoria)

Words can't describe how much I hate this gym. There is nothing wrong with the physical equipment, my problems are:
1) The instructors. This doesn't go for all of them, but there are a select few whose machismo is intolerable. Being harassed (sexually and being yelled at in general) are not what I paid for.
2) The chick who does "cardio dance" doesn't actually dance. I moved my feet back and forth a few times but that was it. FOR 45 MINUTES. I burned more calories watching the clock in that class.
3) Most of the time the instructors don't play music. NO MUSIC! How can you conduct an hour-long class and not play music? The only thing silence motivates me to do is want to punch you in the face.
4) The few classes I have experienced that do play music have been Eurotrash techno crap which I presume a majority of the 20-30 year old population of Astoria listens to (unfortunately this demographic includes my upstairs neighbor.) This is the one circumstance where it's actually better to not play any music.

Believe it or not, there were some things I liked, and even greatly enjoyed in 2010, such as:

My Fendi Sunglasses

I don't think I've ever owned a pair of sunglasses that cost more than $10 and not bought from a street vendor until now. Hooray for quality.

Dexter and Mad Men Being late to the game is never a bad thing.

Also, one more show (my favorite of the three?) -

Skins (UK version)

I'm totally obsessed with this show and maddened that my following "like" is not streaming Season 4 yet. And while we're talking about this, doesn't Sid look like Badly Drawn Boy's son?

Netflix

How did I not discover the wonders of Netflix sooner? This has basically changed my life - for the better for me, but for the worse for anyone who actually wants to socialize with me.

Mark Ronson

I knew a handful of songs from his first album, but I heard a lot more upon discovering that we had the NME channel while staying in an apartment in Spain. I went to see him at Webster Hall since and can't stop listening to his latest album. "Bang Bang Bang" and "Glass Mountain Trust"~~for the win!~~ deserve a listen, or 12.

"Bang Bang Bang"

The Bed Intruder Song

51 million youtube hits, what's not to like?

Light Up Beer Pong
Okay, I don't actually like it that much but I thought I'd post new photos.

I'm sure I'll think of more things that pissed me off this year so stay tuned. Ho ho ho.

Your Love is My Drug

2010-12-11T15:16:00.021-05:00

About my Flexible Spending Account: I put way too much money into it this year and now I have to spend it all asap - doctors and prescriptions by 3/31 (I have no need for appointments or drugs before then though) OR over the counter medicines by 12/31 (thanks for changing the law Obama...yes, that was sarcastic.) As a result, I have a few hundred dollars to blow on Gas-X. Seriously though, yesterday I bought Tylenol, Alleve, Mucinex-D, a thermometer, Sleep Aids, blister Band-Aids, and yes, Gas-X. Not to mention my mini spree last month of ThermaFlu, Ibuprofen, and Cortizone (note: I don't need ANY of this medicine right now.) Since pills expire (I just found out about this - apparently I've been taking Tylenol that expired in 6/09, whoops), I'm trying to stock up on a variety but I don't know what else to get now. I think I still have about $100 left and it's use it or lose it, so if you have any good over the counter medicines you think I should invest in please let me know asap!

Does anyone besides me still watch One Tree Hill? May I just say that I love how they revived the opening credits - every week they use a different cover of Gavin McGraw's "I Don't Want To Be" (that was the original theme song.) And when I say different, I mean dance versions, acoustic, sung by guys, girls, etc. (not sure what the etc. option represents but you get it.)

I recently started watching Mad Men (thank you again Netflix) and Pete Campbell is total swoonsville. Also, I had no idea that the actress who plays his wife is also Annie from Community - which must not pay so well being that both she and Joel McHale are on two shows at the same time. Speaking of which, did anyone catch The Soup's 300th episode when they did the montage of all the pop-up people? We also just finished watching Dexter season 4. In conclusion, as much as I love Netflix, it's completely ruined my desire to socialize. At this rate, between everything I have on the DVR and all of the shows I have queued up to watch in my head on NF, I doubt my friends will ever see me again.

Though, I will be be leaving my cave to see Better Than Ezra tonight and I am so freaking excited!! I haven't seen them in about two years and I'm all giddy inside. Also, I won tickets (yes, of course I did) to see Tricky at Brooklyn Bowl last night. It was not at all what I expected. I'm only familiar with his music from the mid-90s which is all trippy, but everything he played last night was a lot harder. That was fine, but he barely even sang - he left the girl to do it all (she was good but I don't get why he didn't rename his group if he wasn't doing anything on stage?) Also, he had about 30 people come out while the band played "Ace of Spades" (yes, THAT "Ace of Spades") and he danced with them and they kind of just bopped up and down and took photos with him. I didn't get it at all. And to top it off, he didn't even play "Christiansands!" I put up with the G train for that, I mean come on.

So yesterday I was trying to send a text with the word "proove" but my phone refused to automatically type the word. After retyping it about 5 times and getting frustrated, I realized that it's actually spelt "prove." I was sober.

I started the new Weight Watchers PointsPlus plan last week. The big life change means that I can now eat fruit, which I NEVER would do, since to me it was a waste of points, and now all fruits are 0 (for those not familiar, you're basically put on a budget regarding food, and they just changed how they calculate these points.) Well, I didn't think I did so great, but it turns out I lost 3.4 lbs. this week. Yay for fruit!

I made butternut squash fries for the first time the other day. The peeling and cutting of the squash was time consuming, and although the fries were delicious, I don't know that they were worth the effort.
Spaghetti squash, which I discovered a few months ago, IS worth the scooping and is a good substitute for pasta, especially if you like bland food. But really, I highly enjoy it with bolognese sauce.

I also just bought a ton of zucchini.

And to top it off, I bought canned pumpkin which is new for me, though I have no idea what to do with it.

All this from a girl that never grew up on squash, who would have seen that transformation coming? (You really know I have nothing to blog about when I go on about squash.)

Current Music: Friendly Fires - Photobooth

On the Edge of a Cliff

2010-11-14T19:52:00.003-05:00

After buying quinoa a few months ago and asking for advice on how to cook it on Facebook (thanks for the responses everyone), I finally made it tonight. I cooked it with spinach and chicken broth amongst other things (and it's a Weight Watchers recipe for only 1 point per serving.) Although I am super late on the quinoa wagon, I recommend it.

I was listening to Shed Seven while cooking. Back in high school, I used to listen to the radio show "Rock Over London" on W-DRE (RIP) every Sunday night (same night as the ska show "One Step Beyond" - anyone remember that?) I just told Dave about how I used to listen/record the show every week and then make mixed tapes of the songs that I liked. I had one live song which for some reason I didn't have the name/artist of. Years later after the show had gone off the air, I had a flashback about it and decided to do some pre-Google internet searching. Although no results came up for the lyrics, I managed to track down the DJ. So I emailed him asking about the song - the only thing I could tell him was that it was live, and that he'd also played Tasmin Archer on that same show. The DJ had saved all of his playlists and found the song for me!

Have some Going for Gold:
Going For Gold by Shed Seven
Keep in mind I was enquiring about a live version with an orchestra. PS, I still have that tape in my parents' house.

I may as well finish off my Spain trip recap even though I just posted a bunch of the photos on Facebook (it's also a procrastination Sunday.)

On the second Saturday of the trip, Dave and I left Los Alcazares and took the coastal route to our next destination. We picked Nerja to end our travels for two reasons - the first was that Kay, our tour guide from Malaga, had recommended it. Secondly, Kristine had told me that this was the town that she and Travis had stayed at (when I got back I told her I went there based on her recommendation - turns out that she actually went to a place called Nijjar, not Nerja...whoops.) It was a happy accident in any case.

The sea and mountain views on the drive were breathtaking. Also breathtaking (literally) were all of the extremely narrow viaducts that we had to drive over to get there.

Upon arrival (and once again confronting another 90 degree twisty hotel garage) we headed into the main part of town. Nerja is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. It had a typical European feel, but really stood out against anything similar from recent memory. There was a circular look-out point in the town that had amazing views of the water and mountains.

Main street leading to the look-out point

View to the right

View to the left

Bonus Photo: View from our hotel balcony

We stuffed ourselves with the biggest pieces of schnitzel I've ever seen (we had olives first so that counts as the Spanish portion of the meal), and got a drink in the evening at the trendy rooftop Buddha Bar. There were heladerias everywhere (that's iced cream shop to you) so I opted to get a flavor called "Chocolate Africa"??

Giant palm

More auto-setting camera action

The next morning we grabbed some breakfast at the hotel buffet (sadly there was no chocolate cake on offer) and headed to the local beach. The waves were a bit rough so Dave went in for just a bit while I laid under a wooden umbrella.

Old Young Man and the Sea

While sitting in the main square for lunch, a proper race started around us. The first group were adult speedwalkers - they weren't allowed to have both feet off of the ground at any point, which was pretty hilarious. After their three laps around the town center, we thought that was the end of the race, until kids of about 8-10 years old started running. I thought this was probably the cutest thing I'd ever seen until the next race was all 5 year olds! Cute overload.

We walked to more viewpoints after lunch.

Crystal clear waters

I think this is a King. He obviously had no interest in me (maybe because I had my Majorca bag with me and not a Nerja one.)More views

Atop the winding walkway

Little cave

The top left is the main lookout point

BeforeDuringAfter

(Those rocks were extremely painful, just for the record)

After watching some bullfighting back at the hotel, we headed into town again for dinner. Our meal included a pitcher of sangria, and we got to take the jug home as a souvenir. I cushioned it in my squishy, round travel pillow in my carry-on on the way home, and now it's sitting on top of our fridge, so come on over if you want us to make you some sangria in a pretty jug.

Sangria Champion

Dave getting his Mexican on in Spain

The final auto-setting shot

On the last day of our trip we headed to the hotel breakfast at about 6:30 am, before it was officially open. We had signed our names on a list to do this the day before, but we were literally the only people there - not even staff were present. After feeling like Goldilocks, and leaving our table a slight mess for the other patrons, we got in the car to start our journey back to the Malaga airport. This was actually the craziest part of the trip. As you may have read from my previous entries, we had some driving issues in Spain (in basically every place we'd gone to.) Nerja was no exception. So, we got in the car and set off. I thought the drive out of Nerja would be extremely straightforward (it was literally one long road with some roundabouts on the way in.) About a minute after leaving the hotel, the GPS gave us a direction we didn't think was right but figured was a shortcut so we took it. After going down a small hill, we drove down a 40 KM/hour one-lane road (with no sign saying which way to go), in complete darkness except for our headlights. We reached the end of the road which turned to gravel and we suddenly we were at the edge of a cliff over the Mediterranean!! Granted, the cliff was only about 5 feet high, and luckily we weren't going the full 40 KPH, but had we, we certainly would have driven over the edge. Thankfully there were two of us so I was able to get out and carefully direct Dave to make a K-turn, but that certainly shook me up.

To make matters worse, I got a copy of the Daily Mail at the airport which had an article about two men in Spain who had followed their GPS while driving in the dark and actually drove their car (the same kind as ours) into a reservoir and the driver died. This happened the night before. Is Spain trying to sabotage tourists, or what?? Here's the article.

Adios Espana

Current Music: White Lies - Farewell to the Fairground

Gonna Ride My Bike Until I Get Home

2010-10-31T14:29:00.028-04:00

In continuing our trip, we decided it would be best to leave Granada in the morning when it was still dark to avoid traffic in the confusing streets. We drove out of the hotel garage down the tiny one way cobblestone street (that had originally confused us when we first arrived) which led us to two directions - drive through a pedestrian plaza or drive down what seemed to be the wrong way towards a church. We opted for the church (because why would we drive through a plaza?), but that led us to a dead end. It seemed too dangerous to drive in reverse back towards the hotel, so at a standstill we simply couldn't figure out what to do. Luckily there was a cop nearby who confirmed that we DID in fact have to drive through the pedestrian plaza. Whatever, I'll never understand the driving in this country at all.

We made it out of the city much easier and quicker than we had entered and were soon on our way through the mountains towards San Javier watching the sun rise. We stopped at a random roadside cafe for a break, which was cool because it definitely did not seem like a place where non-Spanish speaking people tend to stop at. We continued the journey until we excitedly reached our destination...but of course got lost there too. Luckily, we asked directions in a furniture store that happened to be run by people from England, and they set us in the right direction (we had put the wrong town into the gps...whoops.)

Turned out we weren't staying in San Javier, but nearby in a town called Los Alcazares. The Lanes' family friend Brian was kind enough to let us stay at his apartment there, which was actually how our whole Spain trip idea had started in the first place. It was nice to have a place to settle for a few days where we could partake in some GTL. After arriving, we laid out by the community pool before heading to the town's main street.

Holiday Community in Los Alcazares

Well, I have to say I had quite a shock when we went for dinner. The street was full of English and Indian restaurants, no site of anything Spanish whatsoever! We knew this was a holiday destination for Brits (Brian's brother and friends also have apartments in the same community), but literally everyone and everything was straight out of the UK. It was totally fine, just not what I was expecting (nor was I anticipating that my Spanish vacation would consist of having drinks at a place so authentically named Route 66.)

The next day we walked to the beach and just laid out. Although we had beautiful views, another thing we hadn't realized was that we weren't actually on the Mediterranean. We were in fact on an almost fully enclosed sea called Mar Menor.

Mar Menor

The beach had cute wooden umbrellas for shade. Unfortunately that didn't shade me from the many unnecessary beyond-middle-age-saggy boobs that were exposed to the sun. I'll spare you any photos of that.

That evening we stayed in, cooked spaghetti, and watched The Godfather. So we basically had an Italian-themed night in an English part of Spain.

On Friday we rented bikes and rode along the promenade next to the beach. The map was pretty vague though - originally we thought we could make it around most of Mar Menor, but we probably got about 1/12th of the way there and hit a dirt road which seemed like the ideal place for getting lost in the woods in a foreign country. We couldn't figure out how to continue so we found the closest inhabited area (a Spanish part of town surprisingly) and had paella for lunch.

After turning around we headed as far as we could in the other direction until that path too stopped (this time because of a military sign saying do not enter.) The coolest part of this path was that the promenade turned into a wooden single-file bridge surrounded by 6 foot grass, which allowed for a ride with no other people around.

Good job auto camera settings

That evening we ate in again and then went out for a pint. I found myself fascinated by a cockroach that had climbed about 8 feet up the brick wall (we were seated outside) and was hanging out there for remainder of the evening without falling. I wanted to name him and Dave suggested Gregory. This was weird because I had been talking about The Metamorphosis but couldn't remember the roach's name the whole night. Dave, who had never read the book, randomly nailed it on the first try (of course he is Gregor Samsa.)

Tell Me Moor Tell Me Moor

2010-10-29T20:47:00.017-04:00

As much as we enjoyed Malaga, for the second leg of our Spain trip, Dave and I ventured through and around the city trying to leave. We trekked to a few rental car shops to compare prices only to end up booking our car at a random no-name place. So with our fingers crossed we hoped the insurance was legitimate and headed out to find our car which was parked literally on a street somewhere - we just had to look for the license plate in order to find it. We asked a guy on the next street for help with the car map, and he grabbed the keys to check out the license plate on the tag. While mid-thought of "he's trying to steal our keys!" he explained that he actually worked for the rental place and was on his way there. Turned out that our car was randomly, and luckily parked in a spot right near us.

After Dave got himself adjusted to our compact vehicle (props to the man - driving on the opposite side of the road, while sitting in the opposite side of the car, driving stick which he hadn't done in years, with the stick on the opposite side of his body), we promptly got stuck in traffic. You see, Malaga is in the running for the European Capital of Culture in 2016 so there's construction everywhere, which meant the GPS was of little help.

We eventually reached the highway to Granada, though the driving issues didn't end there. After missing our exit and turning around, upon entering the city we were completely baffled as to where the hotel was. We stopped off at a bakery where I had a ten minute conversation in Spanish with the manager (mostly saying "not ____" and "not ____" if I didn't know the word - process of elimination did actually work.) He called the hotel for directions which got us in the vicinity but didn't land us directly there. The street we thought we had to turn onto had a sign with a big red prohibited line, in addition to it being a tiny cobblestone street which we didn't even think our small car could fit down. We found a local garage (there is no street parking in Granada) with what seemed like an 80 degree angled twisty entrance and parked temporarily. We resorted to asking other hotels where ours was, and if we could even park in their garages (answer: a confused look followed by "No.") We finally found our hotel that confirmed we were to drive down that tiny "do not enter" street and into their 80 degree angled twisty entrance garage. The driving there made us nervous wrecks so we decided to extend our stay in Granada from one to two nights which I'm thankful we did.

We made it to the hotel just in time to hop on the small bus that took us up the mountains to The Alhambra. The easiest way for me to explain The Alhambra is that it's a Moorish palace/fortress/garden/small city that overlooks all of Granada. The first area that visitors walk around is called Generalife (pictured below.)

I'm obsessed with the views of the white houses on hills

The below pic is slightly reminiscent of this photo taken in Bath(Dammit, I never posted the photo I'm talking about, but a Bath recap is always nice.)

Little ~~pink~~ white houses for you and me

I can't believe we managed to capture these photos with no one else in themI swear we didn't carve this into the tree

The Alhambra and it's views were beautiful. The pictures of the detailing in the palace simply don't do it justice. This is a must to visit if you're ever in Southern Spain.

Another reason one should visit is Granada is for the FREE tapas! Every time you order a drink in this city, the restaurant brings you a small free plate of food. We knew that beforehand because we had inside information, but had we not, we probably would have blown an unnecessary amount of money on dinner. Instead, we spent a small amount of money on cheap drinks and filled our stomachs up on a lovely street of restaurants near our hotel.

I still don't know what the first tapa(s?) that came out was exactly. According to this website, perhaps it's a type of Montadito? It appeared to be a pate-like mush full of flavor on bread...I'll leave you to ponder that image for yourself, but it was quite tasty (in a good way.) Oh, I also removed the fried egg that came on top of it if that helps for identification purposes.

The second tapa(s?) was sausage on bread with a side of these tasty bean-type things that looked like mutant corn kernels. I saw the mutant corn-kernel bean things in a jar in the supermarket but couldn't decipher what they were. Ana - any help here would be greatly appreciated.

Third up were little franks in some sauce. Dave told me they were likely from a can but I'd like to think they weren't (although...how else would they come?)

We switched bars for the fourth drink and luckily didn't receive a repeat plate. At this place we received chicken croquettes with fries. I'd had this in Malaga and it was one of my favorites.

On our way back to the hotel we spotted a cozy tapas bar on that tiny cobblestone street where we were staying. One of the coolest things about Granada is that you would never know it until the evening, but there are charming little tapas bars that open up on practically every street. I think we fared best at this place - we were first given Spanish prosciutto (name?) on bread with a side of olives, and for round 2, a hard cheese with honey and dried cranberries on top.

Yum...cheese and honey tapasOh wine what you do to me

You would think that all of that wine would have made me sick. Well, it did! The next day we ventured out to grab food but I was feeling nauseous and had to head back to the hotel before truly starting our day. With me still feeling about 38%, we booked a bus tour around the city as I couldn't physically handle much more than that (let it be stated that I think I had a virus or fever and not just a hangover - there were chills and sweats involved.)

Our first stop was actually The Alhambra again. We drove up a different way which gave us another batch of beautiful mountainside views. I also don't understand how a bus that big physically made it up the side of the mountain but that's another story.

We passed the bull ring on the tour as well. Unfortunately no fights were happening when we were in town. I would have loved to seen one, but at least we watched some on TV during the trip - they were quite entertaining, though disgusting at the same time.

I don't know why this sticker was posted to this sign but I like it

After most of the journey, we exited the bus and walked around the area by the main church. I made friends with an ice cream cone that looked like a cartoon dog.

We roamed around for the rest of the day and accidentally stumbled upon multiple fountains at night.

Yay, we love fountains

I'm wondering if I'll finish posting about my trip to Spain by the time I go to England for the holidays. Part three to follow.

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly on the Plain

2010-10-24T19:36:00.036-04:00

Am I late on the bandwagon with this? PLEASE watch the funniest video I have ever seen (thanks Meghan!)

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On

MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON from Dean Fleischer-Camp on Vimeo.

At the end of September, Dave and I rendezvoused in Spain (he was in the UK handing in his thesis so we met in Europe for a vacation.) The trip was booked based on the fact that we were offered free accommodation near San Javier, but more on that later.

On a Saturday morning I arrived in Malaga in southern Spain.

(Malaga's at the Bottom)

After getting off the train, there was construction going on and I was in the middle of a major intersection clueless as to where to go in the heat with my large suitcase. I hesitantly tested out my Espanol with the closest ice cream vendor to ask for help in locating the hotel. She gave me a map and pointed in a direction, which led me to a large tourist map down the block. After studying the map for about 15 minutes, I figured I'd take a guess at a direction (1 in 4 were okay odds in my opinion.) In taking off, I moved two feet to the right of the map, looked up and there was the hotel...typical.

The "riverbed" next to our hotel

As Dave's flight wasn't getting in until the evening, I thought I'd have a wander (and after all, Spain's largest department store was only a block away.) Starvation set in and I walked aimlessly for a few hours trying to find a shop that was open (thanks siesta) or a bar that didn't have only men in it. I ended up buying a plain roll and a lemon jelly-flavored, unappetizing biscuit from a supermarket (a first of many not-dinner dinners to come.) I had no idea where I was, could not find it on the map, and eventually had to backtrack until I made it safely back to the hotel.

While waiting for Dave, I decided to brush up on my Spanish by watching dubbed Sex and the City and Gossip Girl (also giving me flashbacks of watching Dawson's Creek and Guiding Light in Italian while studying abroad.) It hit the 11 pm point and Dave still hadn't arrived, which got me freaking out - if I hadn't been able to find the hotel (and I speak some Spanish), then I figured he was probably lost. After confirming with the front desk that the area was safe (especially the case on a Saturday night), I ventured out to look for Dave. Oh, and by the way, ten feet out of the hotel I got harassed by a scary old man (thanks NH Malaga staff.) I darted until I was out of his eyesight and circled the deserted area of the train station completely baffled as to where Dave was. I even went into the empty station, only to find a lone security guard questioning what I was doing there. I had an excellent conversation in Spanish in which she confirmed that there was one more train arriving at 11:45 pm. I went back to the hotel to check Dave's flight status and the Aer Lingus site said it was delayed until the morning, but I was all dressed up to go out (and of course I was worried...) so I was not accepting that as an answer. I checked the airport site that confirmed his flight had been delayed, but only by two hours, and was landing any minute. I went upstairs to grab my trash magazine (so thankful they carry the UK mags in the Madrid airport), seated myself down in the lobby and thankfully Dave walked in soon after.

We then went out in the historic center to get some food (at which point I realized that I had been wandering around lost all day in an outer random area of the city.) No one would serve food at that time though, so we ended up in a main square facing the church...at Cheers. We had one drink before they closed and headed back.

The next morning we went on a great bike tour that took us throughout the city. Each of our bikes had a name.

Dave

One stop we made was to the square near Picasso's birthplace. There were too many tourists for a photo op with Pablo's statue so we posed together instead.

Everyone else was wearing a helmet...

We rode through the main park that was parallel to the beach. If I remember the story correctly, the man who built up the park brought plants from all over the world. They were quite the beauty (and quite ginormous.)
We also rode on the actual beach and stopped at a seaside bar. On the southern coast of Spain they cook Sardines on the beach which we had the delight of trying.

Pre-feast

Loving the guts

This is our tour group - you can find us in the GCute street we rode through - the guy at the end posing was a bonus.

Picasso was born in Malaga. Ironically my face is shaped like something from one of his paintings in this photo.

His childhood home is now a small museum. According to our tour guide, most people think that his art in Malaga is the "lesser" of the lot. You can judge for yourself -

In the afternoon post-tour we headed to a recommended tapas bar called Lo Gueno. Not being too daring, we had plates of paella, sausage, chicken croquettes, potatoes, and rabbit amongst other things. As this was a mid-afternoon meal, we ended up eating bizarre dinner #2 which of course was ice cream.

We meandered around the main street for the remainder of the evening.Our stay in Malaga ended with the hotel buffet breakfast. Mine included an amazing piece of chocolate cake. Hey, if the hotel wants to offer that for breakfast, who am I to reject such an offer??

Spain trip part dos to follow.

Also, for a deafening rendition of the blog post title, please refer to the PS 115 My Fair Lady sixth grade school play VHS where I completely butchered it (I was sick, okay??)

Never Thought I'd Be On A Boat

2010-09-12T23:00:00.005-04:00

Dave and I went to Ohio last weekend to visit Zoe and Hal. On Friday night we went out to dinner in Columbus and got the local tour, mainly of Buckeye themed places and things. These fans are crazy - not only do people own school buses painted with the team's colors, and giant inflated football players rise high over gas stations, but the stadium actually has football players in stained glass windows. Dave was so inspired by the support that he bought a Wisconsin Badgers mug at the airport as a souvenir.

That evening our hosts took us to Graeters ice cream shop. During the day you can watch the staff make ice cream, though we were there too late for that. We were not too late to take pictures in the ice cream playroom though!

Banana split see saw - perhaps my most favorite photo ever?

I can't even remember what flavor I got because the pretzel cone was so delicious.

The next day we drove two hours to Sandusky where their boat is docked in the marina. Dave got a nice American dose of barns and cornfields on the way. There were tons of churches on the drive, some with quirky messages. The hands-down favorite was "Come to my house before the big game on Sunday" - God.

Hanging out on the boat

It was windy and freezing and the waves were crazy on Saturday (thanks Earl) so we stayed on the boat and drank and grilled. I introduced everyone to Uno and I got whooped in Scrabble.

The "kitchen"Our "bedroom"

Peekaboo

The next day, the water was still super choppy, so we got a ride on a neighbor's boat to Put in Bay. Before leaving the marina, we stopped at the gas station for boats, as well as the pump out station. You can probably figure out what that's for. The smell was wretched.

Leaving the marina, holding our breathCedar Point was across the way from us. We didn't go because it was so cold out, but frankly, I was crapping my pants just looking at those roller coasters.The boat was going 35 mph but it felt a lot faster. I'm quite surprised one of us didn't fly off the back.I wasn't kidding when I said we were going fast, my hair was uncontrollable.Calmer waters

The guy who gave us a ride offered to make us Bloody Marys. I'd never had one so I asked him to please keep it down on the spice. Not only did my drink have Cajun spices around the rim, but I took a bite out of the pickle in it and I actually choked because it had soaked in all the spice from the drink. Zoe had declined one so he made her a ridiculous drink:

Melted Kahlua flavored chocolate around the rim of the martini glass
1 shot Godiva liquor
1 shot Godiva vanilla liquor
1 shot vanilla vodka
Espresso liquor
Peanut butter
Shake it up with ice and pour
Grate Ghirardelli chocolate on top
When he realized his peanut butter cup had melted, he put a strawberry with whipped cream on the glass instead.

The taste I had of this drink was insanely good. Never have I ever regretted my Bloody Mary decision so much.

The amazing drink

We ate the "Best Lobster Bisque in Ohio" TM. The restaurant is only 676 miles from NY so I can easily get some bisque whenever I want.

In Put In Bay, most people drive golf carts.

As you can see, we rented one.

Then Zoe smacked her head on it so Hal bought her frozen peas to ease the pain. This doesn't compare to the most memorable head smack of all time - Erica C. at the Excalibur...

Us: It's okay to cry.

Erica: (thinks about it) Okay WAHHHHHHH!

You can also rent these weird bug-like cars. I took took this photo while riding on the back of our golf cart.Since our ride was docking overnight at Put in Bay we took the ferry back.

Check out the sunset. Finally one of my camera settings worked.Sitting on the dock of the bay (well, close to it.)After coming back to beautiful Sandusky (yes, that's sarcastic) we went to Goofy Golf. This is Dave "in" the crane machine.Mini golf

In a castle!

After golf we went to Sonic. I had no idea that they brought food out to your car on roller skates, it was so cool! Unfortunately I couldn't get a picture of it.

The other exciting thing that happened this weekend was that we saw an Amish family! I'm talking full blown Amish style beards and bonnets. But they were staying on a boat so I was kind of confused.

Also, Dave smelt his first skunk (the animal, not the Camden favorite.) I enjoy the occasional Pepe Le Pew spray myself, don't judge.

Kappelmen controlling the boat

Bye bye Ohio!

I Could Tell That You Wanted to Jump in the Pool

2010-06-19T21:33:00.044-04:00

I'm staying at my parents' house tonight which has so far consisted of me trying to pull photos off my camera (success), eating spaghetti and meatballs (success) and watching bits and pieces of Definitely, Maybe (indifferent.)

Today was Erica's bridal shower. I got her Pyrex dishes. That shit is HEAVY.

The ladies:

The bridesmaids did the timer game where if it goes off while Erica is opening your gift you win a prize. I didn't win (I know you are thinking how did that happen??) Anyway, they gave out bride-related DVDs as the gift like 27 Dresses and Bride Wars which was a cute idea.

Much improved from the high school photos I put in her scrapbook.

We went to Long Beach Island for Erica Engelman's birthday two weeks ago. This house was wack-a-doodle. There were ten bedrooms, all themed like broadway shows. Oh, and there were also ten bathrooms, two living rooms, a dining room, kitchen, game room, porch, and two bbqs. And it was way cheaper than the tiny Fire Island dumps we usually rent.

Dave in front of the Cinderella room

This room was 1920s style

Below is the Lion King room. Even the bathroom had animal details - monkey shower hooks, leopard shower curtain, etc. Warthog in the loft...

Dave and I played Pac Man tons in the game room

Oklahoma (complete with chickens)

The Shoppe Place

South Pacific

Captain Hook

Camelot

Kat getting frisky with the toilet paper knight

Phantom of the Opera

Jackie and Kat in disguise

Our room was amazing. May I present Grease...

The tail lights on the couch lit up

This jukebox actually worked (and lit up too)

Staying in this room made me hungryI seriously wish prices like these still existed

I've been to New Jersey lots recently. We went to AC for Liz's birthday in May. Just because I like taking photos with stupid looking characters...

Oh! And here's one of Jonathan relaxing for good measure.

Here are some photos from our trip to Vegas with Vicki and Thom...

Bellagio Bug out

With my humps

My Cirque du Soleil contact hooked us up with tickets to Ka. It was Ka-nd of amazing! (sorry)

I tried my best Top Model pose with The Beatles outside of LOVE.

Fremont Street Dining

The restaurant we ate at gave us roses. I clearly felt like I was on The Bachelor.

We stayed in The Venetian. The hotel was ridic (especially the 8000 hallways and elevators we needed to take to get to our room.)

The pools were super nice. They now have Tao outside at the pool and charge $20 for guys to get in. Dumb.

In the Palazzo

We watched the "new and improved" Sirens of TI show outside of Treasure Island. It was HORRIBLE.

Last Saturday, I saw The Merchant of Venice in The Delacorte Theater in Central Park, starring the one and only Al Pacino. Heather waited on line from 5:30 am until 1:00 pm to get the tickets, so I think I may owe her a favor or twelve. I'm still in shock that I got to see him perform in person. On the way to the theater, I saw William Fichtner walking out of the park. I was tempted to yell something about GO but just didn't have it in me. He was tall and tanned, good looking too.

Speaking of celeb spottings, I saw Napolean Dynamite, Mini Me, and Method Man at E3. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and don't have any photos of our humongo booth. I recommend you check out our amazing new games Rock Band 3 and Dance Central (controller-less people!) And here's a link to the community team's E3 video: http://vimeo.com/12578646.

I had major issues sleeping during this trip. I think I was anxious about the booth in general, and just kept waking up between 5-6 am each day. The air in the room was super dry and messed up my breathing (now I have a cold.) Also, can we talk about the hotel for a minute? We stayed at The Standard downtown - it was meant to be retro, or whatever, but the decor was butt ugly, the bathroom was see-through, and the bed was on the floor. It screamed 1970s porn (not that I'd know anything about that.) We had a staff party at the rooftop bar on Thursday night which ended up with half of our group jumping in the pool fully clothed. The next morning I raced to shower, pack (including my soaking wet clothes), met Melanie for a quick coffee, and headed to LAX all with a massive hangover. My ears popped so bad on the plane that it still hurts when I sneeze.

Tomorrow I shall mainly be doing nothing for the first time in a while YEEHAW!

Bananarama

2010-05-31T11:56:00.015-04:00

I don't think I've been so excited to write on the blog since I started it. Some of you may have seen the new addition to our family on Facebook. I won our giant, stoned, Rastafarian banana (Jonathan Plantain) at Great Adventure on Saturday and have been laughing at it ever since. I have a vision of me taking photos of him everywhere possible (well, starting with inside of the apartment - I don't know if I can bring myself to take him to outdoor locations.) The photos then become a viral sensation and I end up with a coffee table book! (And to think I almost took the stuffed duck.)

The first photo, which has already been posted to Facebook, is me and Dave with him in the backseat of Liz's car on the drive home (it's always important to buckle up.)

This morning, Jonathan was relaxing with a coffee and the remote (it's a 3 day weekend after all.)

Fear not, more photos to follow.

Another big deal for me on Saturday was the fact that I went on the Scream Machine for the first time. Every time I've gone to Great Adventure, I refused to go on it purely because of the first drop (I'm great with loops but just can't handle the drops.) I think that going on Superman first made the decision easier (Superman is ride I've always liked, but this time and it almost made me crap my pants.) For whatever reason, it scared me, and it somehow convinced me that I'd be able to finally conquer the Scream Machine. Well, that drop was nothing!! You could barely feel it. I also didn't get my head knocked around too much like everyone had warned. The only bad thing about it was that as we were about to get on, a guy getting off the ride with throw up on his shirt ran past us to throw up some more over the railing. The clean-up took ages - Lysol the seats, hose the train, run the train empty, re-hose and Lysol. (No, we didn't sit near his seat.) I had never seen an actual throw up situation at the amusement park...nice way to start off the day.

Scream/Throw Up Machine

I was very relieved to see that Bizarro simply replaced Medusa as it's my favorite ride. All they did different was paint it purple and play loud voices ("He just fell in! Did anyone else see that??") They also play a ditty at the end "Bizzaro Bizzarro Bizzaro BIZZARO!" Felt like I was at the club.

They also added fire that shoots out which was dandy.

Everyone did Kingda "Freakin" Ka but me (the tallest, fastest roller coaster in the world.) I was not having that.

I was VERY unhappy to see that they removed the Sombrero ride. Anyway, we are heading out now - there's a street fair on Broadway with a bouncy castle.

Current Music: Jack Penate - Body Down

And We'll All Float On OK

2010-03-27T14:25:00.004-04:00

Yesterday I finally bought a pair of boxing gloves (only took me two years.) As for actually going to boxing, well, that's another story. Then Dave and I saw Hot Tub Time Machine (which started as a joke but I seriously wanted to see it.) It was pretty crude and funny, I recommend.

On the gig front, I took Dave to see Julian Casablancas at Irving Plaza the other night as an early birthday surprise. An under-hour set, he played his solo stuff as was to be expected, threw in 'I'll Try Anything Once' and 'Hard to Explain' (crowd went bonkers) as well as 'I Wish It Was Christmas Today'. His band was super tight, he had good interactions with the audience, and his voice was consistently powerful in that Julian Casablancas kind of way. Great show overall.

I'm going to see Ash on Saturday - and tickets were only $8! I've never been to Santos House Party so this will be a new experience for me. It's on Dave's actually birthday, poor guy only knows a few Ash songs, though Liz, Graham, and I hazed him with a playlist when we drank at their apartment during the noreaster (and beat them at Trivial Pursuit.) Speaking of Gliz, they went to Iceland (this Iceland, not THAT Iceland) this past week, and the day they landed, a volcano exploded for the first time in 200 years. I'm trying not to yell SCHADENFRAUDE! from the rooftops, though that does suck if that's the volcano they were supposed to be visiting.

Meghan and I went to see Howie Day the night of the second blizzard (and were were slightly preoccupied by the snow blowing sideways outside throughout the set which was slightly insane.) Anyway, Howie Day played an acoustic set, and did that thing I love where he records different sounds with a foot pedal and plays them back during the song. He played mainly new songs but threw in some oldies for good measure. Also, City Winery was a really different venue - assigned seats at tables with strangers, food service throughout, and a small stage (which we were seated very close to.) They also have the France vs. Italy World Cup of Cheese there which just sounds ridiculous (in a good way I think?)

I've also got tickets to see Florence and the Machine (easily my most played album of the year) and Rodrigo y Gabriela which I'm really only going to because Dave wanted to, so hopefully they'll be good. I'm also tempted to see Delphic at Music Hall if we don't go to Vegas that weekend with Vicki and Thom.

Other wee trips I've been planning (in my head) are a weekend to visit my relatives in Florida and a summer weekend trip to Zoe in Ohio. There's also a week-long vacation to who knows where (somewhere hot?) I went to Arizona last week for work - overall pretty chilly in the evening and not as many scary rabbits on the grounds this time. Most eventful part of the week was going to Pizzeria Bianco where they originally told us it was a 3 and a half hour wait (we only waited close to under 2 hours.)

A few weeks ago Zoe and Hal came to town. We went out in the evening and the next day met up with them and Ryan at the Chinese New Year Parade. The dragons were cool, but otherwise the floats were pretty ghetto. The quality of some of them looked worse than high school homecoming floats, or had sponsor names plastered all over them - like the American Airlines float that had a giant airplane with a few Chinese people standing on it.

People were popping pretty confetti the whole time which was the best part. Good luck cleaning that up.

We found Homer enjoying some bubble tea.

Afterwards we roamed the side streets for a non-crowded place to eat. We ended up at some restaurant that we thought looked normal, but our food was basically a bowl of oil with noodles in it. Naturally, that did not stop me from devouring most of it.

We walked down to the Skyscraper museum after that. The main exhibit focused on Shanghai which I think only would have been interesting had I actually been there. Otherwise it's a big room with drawings and models that I think would only be of interest to an architect or engineer. Not worth the visit.

On St. Patrick's Day Hoboken (which I vowed to never go to again after this) we went to Emily and Alex's Jersey Shore-themed party. I Snookified my hair (should have been higher in retrospect) and doubled up on the bronzer. When shopping for my best casual guidette outfit on Steinway Street, I discovered that women actually shop in those stores for real clothes!

Gym, Tanning, Laundry

Alex and some guy

Graham and Liz (and fake nails)

Almost forgot to mention that we bought a plant! It's hanging in our kitchen and is quite pretty with it's purple and green dangling leaves. The guy at the flower shop originally told us it was called something like a "Mandelebra", it needs feeding once/week, and that it cost $20. We thought it over and returned a week later only to have him tell us to feed it every three days and that it cost $15, ummm okay? After conducting some thorough research, a "Mandelebra" does not in fact exist...though a "Wandering Jew" does. How did I end up buying a plant with that name?! Anyway, ours isn't such a big boy (or girl) yet, but this is what the plant looks like:

Songs I love right now:

The Courteeners - You Overdid It Doll (will likely continue playing this throughout the year)
Goldfrapp - Rocket

Jamie T - Emily's Heart

Yeasayer - O.N.E.

Heather and I are planning out what to mix with our vodka tonight. Is it drinking time yet?

Lisztomania

2010-01-07T12:08:00.010-05:00

I'm waiting for Heather to pick me up, so to kill some time, here are my top tunes of '09!

60. Fabolous ft. Keri Hilson - Everything, Everyday, Everywhere

59. Bloc Party - One More Chance

58. Foo Fighters - Wheels

57. Skint and Demoralized - Red Lipstick

56. Passion Pit - The Reeling

55. David Guetta ft. Akon - Sexy Bitch

54. Kasabian - Underdog

53. Fightstar - City on Fire

52. Arctic Monkeys - Crying Lightning

51. Britney Spears - 3

50. The Twang - Barney Rubble

49. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero

48. Just Jack - The Day I Died

47. Ian Brown - Stellify

46. Doves - Kingdom of Rust

45. Muse - Undisclosed Desires

44. The Big Pink - Dominos

43. Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days

42. Phoenix - Lisztomania

41. Miike Snow - Animal

40. The Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition

39. Jack Penate - Tonight's Today

38. Scouting For Girls - Elvis Ain't Dead

37. Hockey - Song Away

36. Ladyhawke - Paris is Burning

35. Ian Brown - Just Like You

34. Matt Nathanson - Come on Get Higher

33. The Answering Machine - Emergency

32. Florence and the Machine - Raise it Up

31. Rob Thomas - Her Diamonds

30. Snow Patrol - Just Say Yes

29. 3Oh!3 - Don't Trust Me

28. Death Cab for Cutie - Meet Me On the Equinox

27. Cascada - Evacuate the Dancefloor

26. Matt and Kim - Daylight

25. Coldplay - Strawberry Swing

24. Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor

23. Hockey - Too Fake

22. Silversun Pickups - Panic Switch

21. Cobra Starship ft. Leighton Meester - Good Girls Go Bad

20. White Lies - Farewell to the Fairground

19. Friendly Fires - Skeleton Boy

18. Florence and the Machine - Drumming Song

17. Noisettes - Never Forget You

16. Jack Penate - Pull My Heart Away

15. Drake - Best I Ever Had

14. The Cribs - We Share the Same Skies

13. Miley Cyrus - Party in the USA

12. Hockey - Learn to Lose

11. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Heads Will Roll

10. Kris Allen - Live Like We're Dying

9. Phoenix - 1901

8. Florence and the Machine – You’ve Got the Love

7. Ladyhawke - Back of the Van

6. Marmaduke Duke - Rubber Lover

5. Friendly Fires - Jump in the Pool

4. Julian Casablancas - 11th Dimension

3. Empire of the Sun - Walking on a Dream

2. The Temper Trap - Fader

1. La Roux - Bulletproof

I know I know, some songs are pre-'09 or technically '10. Don't mind the shady ones as well.

Freeze Right Here

2010-01-05T21:22:00.062-05:00

Happy new year! I've started 2009 off with a cough, laryngitis, and a massive sinus headache, causing me to smush the left side of my face all day at work to relieve the pressure. 2010 is looking to be a fab decade already.

If you didn't know, I won a raffle at work a few months ago for 2 roundtrip Business class tickets to London, as well as 3 nights at the 5 star May Fair hotel with breakfast. This was obviously amazing being that I was going to the UK for the holidays anyway. I started the trip off with some chilled out time at the Delta Sky Lounge. This place was my dream airport waiting area - it was quiet, Jeopardy was on the TV, and they had free drinks and nibbles, including the best chocolate truffle of my life.

I'd been seated in First Class once before when I was about ten years old back when my dad could still swing upgrades as he worked for Customs (this flight was great until the transfer when we were seated in the last row of the plane next to the toilets.) I also took business class one way home from Vegas once on a work trip as there were literally no coach flights available out of there for the following two days so I actually didn't have a choice (poor me.) I must tell you, for an airplane I felt like I was getting the royal treatment. I even fell asleep for part of the time (thank you 160 degree beds.) I watched (500) Days of Summer, didn't blow me away like I thought it would but it was cute.

Although plans had changed and I wasn't staying with Dave for the first night, he still came to Heathrow to meet me and help with my bag (having a husband is fantabulous.) We headed to Laura's new flat in West Hampstead then promptly went out for Nando's (great website by the way.) We bought Lime Coriander and Medium sauce to cook with, I'll let you know how that goes.

Laura and I caught up (and drank almost a whole bottle of Smirnoff in the process) before going to meet peeps at The Borderline. It had started snowing and was past midnight when we called the taxi; her roommates had come home declaring "You can't go out! It's SNOWING!" No offense, but sometimes Londoners are real lightweights when it comes to snow.

With Alex, Ben, and Dan Dan

Emily and AlexLaura and Andy

Graham (and sort of Liz) There were two people in a Donkey suit at the bar. Bummed I didn't get a side shot.

More donkey

Dancin'

I asked the DJ to play Justice for Dan Dan and he responded with something like "Who?" And I was like you know, the band with the cross symbol. Still nothing. He turned Liz down on The Ting Tings too. Variety man! And that is why I prefer The Roxy.

After Laura and I returned home and ate about 12 pitas in a 5 hour time period, it was time for me to meet Dave in Romford (well, Gidea Park on the train if we're being technical.) He came with Ricky, Antony, and Amy (who we were staying with) and we trekked across the ice to their house. Then we spent the night making fun of Christmas Number Ones and playing Rock Band.
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The following day I went to Camden to meet Joy for a catch-up. We walked around for a bit but the snow just started pounding. I've never seen London like that, and Camden actually looked quite pretty. Dave and I booked it back to Romford, worried that our train would be massively delayed, which by some way of a miracle it wasn't. The five of us did a pub quiz, in which we came in 7th - which there was actually a prize for, being that we were the halfway team. We won a pound, so only nine pounds lost in all. Then Dave, Antony, Amy and myself had a game of Monopoly which I won! I beat a banker, a doctor, and a maths PhD student - how about a round of applause then (the key is getting all the crap properties, browns, blues, and purples ya know?)

The next week was spent in St. Osyth at the in-laws'. We did some shopping in Colchester, went to the Red Lion for Christmas Eve (as well as a pop in on Xmas as everyone gets a free pint), spent Christmas Day at Tony and Melinda's friends' house (and played lots of Beatles RB and Rock Band 1), went to Daniel's to see our niece and nephew, and M&T had their friends over for a dinner party (and more Beatles Rock Band harmonizing.) We also went to Colchester vs Southampton. The field was so foggy by the end that we couldn't even see the goal on the other side of the pitch (Dave has the photos so the upload will follow.) My favorite part of that game was listening to the guys in the stands heckle Eddie, the sulking mascot who I think was supposed to be an eagle. And also seeing the team tackle him after their goal.

Eddie

Back in Romford for a night, Dave, Ricky, and I watched 7 episodes of Flight of the Conchords Season 2 in a row. Because 'Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor' never gets old.

Ricky is a paramedic and was telling us ridiculous stories of how violent some of the callers are, as well as people calling for unnecessary "emergencies." I think my favorite was about a Somalian guy who called 999 because his legs hurt or were tired or something and didn't want to take himself to the doctor. When Ricky asked if he would have called an ambulance in Somalia for this, he responded "No, we only call the ambulance if it's an emergency." Doh.

The next day Dave and I checked into The May Fair. It was a trendy, boutique-type hotel with a simple, modern room and a big shower. They delivered a complimentary bowl of fruit to our room which was really nice and knocked on the door each day to see if everything was okay. The only bad thing I have to say was that the breakfast service was terrible. There's too much to complain about so I won't write the details, but if you ever book a room there, do not pay for the breakfast, there's a Sainsbury across the street and a Starbucks around the corner. No celeb spottings by the way.

In our free hotel room

On New Year's Eve we joined Laura and other peeps at Tabernacle near Old Street. I recognized the bar when I got inside as I remember having this conversation there. It was a low key New Year's, with Laura and I grabbing for burgers - reminiscent of the year we ate about 30 tuna sandwiches at the end of the night at Salmon River. (In this blog I've already discussed Laura and I stuffing our faces with pitas, hamburgers, tuna sandwiches, and vodka - do you see a pattern here?) The night ended with Dave and I taking a trip to Finsbury Park instead of Green Park (whoops.)

The next few days were mainly spent walking around central London as the hotel was in a very accessible location. I surprisingly did not blow all my money in FOPP, but I did buy Human Traffic on DVD for 2 pounds, as well as Franz and Stereophonics live DVDs for cheap too (in duty free HMV I also bought the latest Muse, Editors, Doves, and finally La Roux.) I heard about 294 languages in Primark and the only girls I heard speaking English I could barely understand. After ages pushing through people and queuing, I only ended up buying tights (love my new blueberry ones!), two plain long sleeve shirts, and some underwear. A good 12 pounds spent then. I also saw Shiraz for post New Year's drinks at the pub (though I don't know if he understood anything I said being that I lost my voice), a drink with Jay at All Bar One, Italian dinner followed by drinks at the pub with Laura, Dan Dan, and Alex, and a pub lunch with multiple hot chocolates with Sunil. Lots of pubs then. And you bet I hit Hex on the quiz machines.

There were giant inflatable things on Carnaby Street this year Crazy Billy hanging out the window

Posing (and freezing) on South Molton StreetI forget which arcade this isBig ballsReflectionMe and Winston was like peas and carrots

Hanging with the guys

On the last night we checked into a hotel (Park Inn) near Heathrow as I had to leave early the next morning. I forced Dave to watch Celebrity BB to see who was entering the house. What is up with Heidi Fleiss' face?! It was three years ago that I went to see celebs go in myself. Time flies!! Anyway, the local buses were quite confusing, particularly for getting to Terminal 4 but I made it in the end via the 4 pound shuttle. The Sky lounge at Heathrow was much better than the one at JFK, they had a full buffet breakfast that was bangin'. On the way back I watched The Office wedding episode (finally), Up (sad at times, cute, funny, but a bit slow moving) and Inglorious Basterds which was excellent (Spock included.) I also watched Too Many Dicks on the Dancefloor...again.

I didn't do my "Top 60" of 2009 yet. That's next up on the blog queue. I quite like that 'Tik Tok' song, dear me.

Life in Plastic, It's Fantastic

2009-12-15T17:04:00.021-05:00

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

2009-12-14T23:03:00.026-05:00

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.

No Brakes

2009-09-18T09:30:00.007-04:00

Hi blog! Remember me? I'm back! Want to know what I did this summer? Okay!

dfhdh

After 8 straight days of looking at apartments in Astoria (I must have looked at 25-30) I found my place - sans broker fee and I got them to lower the rent. It's the second floor of a three story attached house, nice red brick with a now-dying sunflower in the front. I really like this block and this part of Queens. I've got a 24 hour supermarket, gym, and Dunkin Donuts around the corner and even the fruit vendor stays open till crazy hours. The train's been crowded well after midnight and I don't ever feel worried walking around. Though the amount of guys hollering at me has gone up by about 95% in this neighborhood which can be quite irritating.

dfhdh

Finding movers was a bit of an annoyance as I didn't want to spend loads of money for moving literally one room's worth of stuff. Of course Normandie gave me a difficult time the morning of the move and almost didn't let me move out (yes, I'm serious), but everything got there in the end. My box spring actually wasn't fitting through the door which was a minor fiasco but I pretty much pulled it through myself when the movers were scared they were going to break it. I just bought that bed last year and paid the movers, that thing was going to fit no matter what I had to do!! I had several more boxes than I anticipated; here's one of Heimlich crammed between my photo albums and candle-making kit. It was the perfect spot for him and he looked so damn cute that I couldn't not take a photo.

Things are finally falling into place at my, er, place. I had an itty bitty roach problem - this was bound to happen being that in my past apartments I lived with mice (twice), bats (yes I said bats, thank you Binghamton), ants and even biting fire ants. I had an issue with a bathroom ceiling leak as well, but that's been taken care of, and all the little things that needed fixing have also been taken care of. I finally got cable/internet the other day, and most importantly DVR (Survivor started last night, hoorah!) We still need furniture; I'm so sick of sitting in my pink wicker chair that I just sit on the carpet now. I ordered a baker's rack which I'm really excited about, except the box is ginormous and heavy and sitting in my parents' house so I haven't been able to move it into my yellow and blue 70's style kitchen yet.

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And in case you were wondering, Dave finally got his visa - as in it's there, glued into his passport and he's coming on Saturday, as in this Saturday, to live! I finally get to live with my husband, what a concept! (Does this mean I'm not allowed to sleep with my teddy bear anymore?) I told him the first item on the social agenda is Gossip Girl night at Kat's on Monday. He promptly responded with "I have plans."

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Lots of wedding finalizing is happening this week as well. On Wednesday I went to see our flower centerpiece which needed some tweaking but is how we want it to look now. Last night I picked out the linens and the food at Fox Hollow. We didn't get a complimentary food tasting though which is total bullocks (thanks for the Chocolate Mint Martini though.) On Saturday I have my final dress fitting. I'm meeting with the officiant after that, then Dave and I are hopefully going to look for wedding bands on Sunday. Next week I have my hair trial (I got a tiara in the end, I am a princess after all) and then it's the bachelorette party in AC. I also had a surprise bridal shower last month. I figured I was going to have one because I saw items being bought off the registry, but I could not for the life of me figure out when it was going to be as I knew that whatever I had planned were really my plans and there was no way they could be the shower. I actually wondered if it was possible that this was happening after my honeymoon?!

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Anyway, I had planned to go to Gail's so-called 30th surprise party on Saturday, Aug. 15th. Mike had called me in advance and I knew it had a to be a surprise for her since he doesn't call me. He wanted to confirm that a few of her good friends would definitely be available for the party and I said I would be (knowing that I'd probably be going to Germany the day after and could have possibly gone to London to spend that weekend there, but I didn't want to miss her surprise.) He also told me that Gail would want to do something for her birthday, so if she sends an Evite out for a party to just go along with it. He then sent me an invitation in the mail which I thought was funny (but nice) being that mailed invitations are pretty old school, coming from boys in particular. The day before the party I emailed him because even though I'd packed the invite in a safe place during the move, I couldn't find it in the end. He said he was planning on getting Gail there for 8 pm so I should be there at 7:45 pm (little did I know, she had been helping him write that email.) I had run around all that day doing errands in Queens and the city, raced home, got ready (glad I decided on the platforms rather than flip flops), Hopstopped it (I had to figure out getting from Astoria to Bayside which is actually no easy feat), caught the N to the 7, and then had to hang out for 20 minutes at the Woodside station waiting for the LIRR. I caught the train that got me to Bayside around 7:15 pm but figured I was too early, so rather than wandering up and down Bell Blvd. for half an hour, I was pretty hungry so I went to MacDonald's and ate a salad all dressed up by myself. Apparently my friends had been wondering where I was, assuming I had taken that train and I'd arrive at the place earlier. At about 7:40 pm, I went to Monahan's, asked the hostess where the party was (who then apparently alerted another employee to go upstairs the back way to let everyone know I was there), but I spotted a bathroom and decided to fix my make-up, which again made them wonder what I was doing. I finally headed up the stairs, thinking why did they close the door?!?! They are going to think I'm Gail!! As I went to push the door open (and say STOP! IT'S NOT GAIL!!), that's when the surprise happened. I was so shocked that I actually cried!!

The invitation

My mom told me she bought these bears (that make kissing noises when you put their noses together and play wedding music) I think even before I was dating Dave, because they were so cute. Now that is wishful thinking!!

We played games at the shower, including my favorite, The Newlywed Game. The bridesmaids had emailed Dave with questions he answered and then I'd have to try to get the same answers. It was fun but I was stressed that I'd get a ton of answers wrong (which luckily I didn't.)

With my mom and the bridal partyBinghamton girlsHomegirlsThe hat made out of all the gift bows and ribbons

And speaking of gifts, I got awesome ones! From China settings (thanks Mom & Dad, David, & Stephanie) to a vacuum cleaner (thanks Robyn & Rachel) to toasting flutes (thanks Aunt Marcia who came up from Florida for this) to a Snuggie (thanks Jenn), our apartment is fully loaded with goodies. Thanks to everyone else too!! I still can't believe it was a nighttime shower, bonkers.

I stored all of the gifts at my parents' house while I was in Germany (blog post on that to come if I ever get around to it.) We stuffed a bunch of gifts in the hamper (thanks Annette) and strapped it in, and I had to take a photo because it made me laugh.The hamper of goodies included a dustbuster (thanks Aunt Ronnie's mom), but to my chagrin, when I went to plug it in and use it, it was already full of dirt! As in someone bought it, used it, returned it, Bed Bath and Beyond failed to check it, and resold it. Nasty! And yes, I just used the word chagrin.

My surprise wasn't the only one in the month of August. We also surprised Rachel for her 30th birthday.

SURPRISE!

Her party was at the Urban Kitchen in Hoboken. This woman gives you recipes for various courses and everyone helps cook a course right there in a small kitchen, then you get to eat it all.Vicki celebrated her 30th birthday a few weeks ago at Cabanas at The Maritime Hotel. Cool part of the hotel which I had no idea existed. Mark R. was there and gave me some tips about Fox Hollow and Hawaii as I'm following in his wedding footsteps. One key piece of advice he gave me was to emphasize to the caterers that they should make us the correct wedding cake as his was the wrong one (thanks Mark!)I celebrated Gail's birthday (her real one this time) at her wine and cheese party, and Julie's 30th on her rooftop in Long Island City (sorry, no photos of those.) Then it was my 30th birthday (thanks for the "You're 3!" card Glenna and Alexis!) We celebrated with mini beers and $1 sliders (I had about ten of them) at 123 Burger Shot Beer.

I wore the mystery dress in my closet that randomly appeared with a price tag on it. I guess I bought it before I moved to England? Well whatever, if it fits wear it right?

If this guy was a part of our group, can someone enlighten me to who he is? Thanks.

This is Julie's new-ish puppy Toby. The photo is a bit outdated, he's probably double this size now. He's a Goldendoodle, but I think he's actually a stuffed animal powered by batteries. I mean look at him, he looks like he should be in an ad for fabric softener for God's sake!

Heather, Liz, Graham, and I, plus work friends went to see The Bravery as part of the Amsterdam Live series (can't link that, everything turns up porn on Google.) This consisted of a free concert + free Amstel, hence a successful evening.Mr. Hudson opened the show. I had bought his single "Too Late, Too Late" in the UK a few years ago and never knew what happened to him and his Library after that. I'd heard about a recent Mr. Hudson in the music news who was a Kanye West protege (you HAVE TO click on that link), and really did not think this was the same band, but it turned out it was. They were pretty good; kind of reminded me of Bran Van 3000 with all those people up on stage. We met one of the band members outside after the show and she said a couple of them live in Kentish Town so of course I got excited.From past experiences, The Bravery have 75% odds of sucking live. This time they actually fell in the minority which was pleasing to mine ears. We stood in the front, jumping and sweating our asses off like it was 2005 (which I was in some dire need of.) The music was good, they played "Public Service Announcement," and I got to jump up and down. Now let's talk about style for a moment then shall we?

Sam Endicott likes to morph his style for every tour. First time around he looked kind of electro-rock with a forward swooping flattened mohawk thing, fine. Second time around, he wore the same navy polo shirt and white belt like 3 times on that tour. That look was my favorite, but if you are going to play the same city more than once, you have to remember to change your clothes!! Next he was going for a preppy Keith *swoon* Murray of We Are Scientists look. That one was okay, but felt a bit forced. This time was the worst - he was dressed like a wannabe Brooklyn hipster and was flopping his body around like a monkey with a dopey look on his face. This was quite disturbing.

We used to call this guy The Bug because, well, plain and simple, he looked like a bug. This time around he did not look like a bug at all! Maybe it was his hair or his tan, improvement!Here's Dirt, or should I say Mike Hindert (ahh now I know where the nickname comes from.) He's dressed up here which is kind of nice. A few Bravery gigs ago in NYC, they co-headlined with Ash at Bowery and he kissed their bass player. Then I mentioned the kiss to him at the next NYC show because I'm super cool.Unrelated to critiquing The Bravery, this is the Oconee Diner in Islip right near where I got my wedding dress. They go bananas with the decorations for each holiday (the first time I went it was decked out in Valentine's Day decor.) The below shot was for Labor Day. Can't wait to go back before Halloween!

Monday night was Gossip Girl premiere night at Kristine and Faith's. Here's B & S.I got the GG premiere night mixed up with The Biggest Loser party.

Last Saturday I saw Kid Cudi and Phoenix (don't go on this site if you are prone to seizures) at Terminal 5 for the Lifebeat pre-VMA show. Because we had the game set-up, we had VIP access and free drinks (sometimes it pays to work for MTV.) Short set and they skipped some of my favorites but I adore '1901' and 'Lizstomania.' By the way, in the latter, apparently the lyrics are "Like a riot, like a riot, oh!" I thought it was "like a rhi like a rhino!" Oops.

dtydt

We went out for Faith's Mike's birthday after that, and on the way home we had a fender bender. Some pimp wannabe (Mike put it better, Sammy Davis Jr.) hit the back of Heather's car while we were slowing down at a light in Chelsea. No one was hurt (and I was buckled up despite the four man squish in the backseat), but my neck and lower back bothered me for a few days after. Kristine had darted for the cop car she spotted as soon as it happened (thanks McLovin') and they wrote up a report even though Sammy was being a whiny bitch about it. We also quickly disbursed, being that there were too many of us in the car and we didn't want to get in trouble. Crappy end to the evening.

The next time I write on this blog I will be living with a boy, whee!

Wedding Silliness

2009-09-17T10:39:00.001-04:00

I just created my bride on The Knot, got it as close as I could!

All Things Go

2009-07-11T17:57:00.022-04:00

So, I started apartment hunting on Thursday and I'm already feeling totally exhausted. I also know Astoria like the back of my hand now. I was literally about to put a deposit in a realtor's hand today until the landlord decided she really only wanted a single person in the apt...unless I moved in for July 15th - because that really makes sense?

You'd think I'd be a little tired of The Beatles due to work, but I'm not! I'm actually watching Across the Universe at the moment (damn do I love me some Oh! Darling), and bought tickets for Sir Paul next Tuesday at Citifield. Let's just hope these tickets aren't fakes and me and my mom will be good to go. And speaking of the gents, I never posted photos from this year's E3.

My flight was coming into LA that Monday morning from Chicago (more on that later), so I had to book it to the Microsoft press conference. When I landed at LAX I realized that due to our idiot travel agency, my rental car was cancelled. I had to sort that all out, actually figure out how to operate the car, and then figure out the directions (got lost right near the place despite having a GPS.) I ended up at the back of the line when the conference was kicking off and I knew our game was up first, resulting me doing something similar to a wee wee dance but couldn't plead with security because of the confidentiality of what was gong down inside. I missed the beginning (Harmonix speaking and playing the game, screening of the game's intro cinematic - if you haven't seen it you really should watch this beautiful piece of work, and our 10 song gameplay trailer.) I got in just in time to see Dhani Harrison come out followed by Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono though, phew!

...followed by Sir Paul and Ringo. Seeing the audience reaction was almost as awesome as actually seeing them.

Tony Hawk photo for good measure...

I left to go to the convention center before Steven Spielberg came out, oh well.

Anyway, our booth was bangin'!

The outside was designed to look like Abbey Road Studios...

As was the inside...We won G4's award for best booth!

Harmonix demo team working their thang for the crowd inside "Abbey Road Studio 2"...Stephanie and Cheryl, aka one half of the "Booth Babes" (yes, myself included)Lego Rock Band action...In case you didn't know, there are a LOT of songs available on Rock Band!This year's E3 was a lot different from last year's. 2008 was great and all, but I barely ate and that was no fun. This time I had a handful of awesome meals and fun activities in the evening. This includes stepping on light-up floors with my co-workers...After that I stayed with Melanie and Eric in Pacific Palisades. They were having some drama with a funky smell emanating from somewhere. After multiple theories, the last thing concluded (when I was there) was that the stink was coming from the spiritual center's lake behind their apt.Things that look pretty don't necessarily smell pretty...As a result of the stink, Melanie and Eric were told that they could camp out in the empty apartment across the hall, so we basically squatted there for 2 nights. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice Melrose Place-style building, and a beautiful renovated apartment, but we were still squatting - like we literally dragged mattresses over, the computer for entertainment, and we would run across the hall to shower and get our things. It was bizarre!

Fosters (acting like they usually do)

For the dumbass moment of the weekend (I know you're thinking there could have been many of these considering it was me and Melanie together) - we rented Pineapple Express, and in case you don't know anything about it, the whole movie revolves around potheads. We were about to put it into the computer, Melanie opens the case and realizes it's not in there. We called Blockbuster and she explained this to the guy, and just as she's doing so, Eric walks in and asks what the problem is so I tell him - and he points out that the disc was on the floor right next to us...whoops! Melanie simply told Blockbuster "Nevermind we're dumb" and hung up. Of all movies for us to have done that with, it really could not have been more suiting.

High class squatting...Pre-LA I went to Chicago for Zoe's wedding. Debbie (my new friend of a friend who is now my friend, yay) split a room and were buds for the weekend. We stayed out with some peeps after the rehearsal dinner which landed us with two big hangovers. Not only that, but we got ourselves stuck with some dude who wanted to sightsee with us the next day. At least we had someone to take our photos :/

Me and Dee on a bridge...Cool fountain where the dude spits...The Bean...Our reflection...Holding it up...Ready to make out...

Winding walkway... Is this the fountain from Married with Children?Waiting for the wedding to start (of course I'm once again the outsider American in black)

Mr. & Mrs. Kappelman Cocktail hour, I was pretty much knocking people over to get to the sushi
Zoe with the bridesmaidsZoe had sneakers on!!Rachael and MarcYum cake...

Off to Kat's to try out her new Pimms recipe, ciao!

New in Town

2009-06-28T21:52:00.017-04:00

Ana visited New York (and me) these past two weeks for the first time. She mostly did sightseeing during the day while I was at work, and we did a bunch of random things at night and on the weekends. Like...

Checking out High Line Park - the new park on the old elevated train tracks on the west side which spans about 10 blocks. They still have train tracks laid throughout the park and tons of places to sit while you can look down over the various side streets (12th to 20th I believe.)

View above 10th Avenue... View of the spot where Ana was just standing... More views from the Chelsea end...We walked around the seaport...Ana playing tourist...We went to the BBQ-fest in Madison Square Park. Free Snapple and Pop Chips! Some random dude (on the left) took this photo. Too funny not to post... Even better... Ana's ankles were swollen from the flight. We didn't have a proper icepack so Meghan filled up a cleaning glove instead...Had to teach her beer pong...Went for Indian food at one of the tacky restaurants on 1st ave...Squished ourselves into the Love sign in Midtown...I got stuck in the E...At Better Than Ezra...Too pooped to write about the show, will save that for another post.Heather rented out a karaoke room at iBop for her 30th birthday... Graham with the ladies... Travis with the ladies...We went to Citi Field. It rained (of course.)During the rain time out...The Mets lost (of course.)Went to Banshee with Rachel and Robyn and had the worst pub quiz MC ever!! I knew the answer to "Who was the Prime Minister before Tony Blair?" Shows that I did learn something from living in London for a year and a half.We went to Crocodile Lounge for the free pizza (of course.)Then we took photos with monsters on the Lower East Side...I finally saw one of our postings for the game, yay!Yummmm crepes...We checked out wedding invitations and flowers, then went to the diner with my mom. Ana loves the diner, who could have doubted that she wouldn't?We got her obsessed with Pinkberry (and Red Mango, and Berrywild...)The stupidest thing I have ever seen - a massive line around the block for an American Apparel sample sale. Ummm are you kidding me? Maybe I'm even dumber for taking a picture of this. @$^$%# hipsters.I walked over the Brooklyn Bridge for the first time...Random stoop posing in Brooklyn Heights...Sculpture thing... More sculpture thing...And finally, more jumping photos (I was unsuccessful in getting any mid-air shots.)Time to leave Brooklyn, hooray!

Put 'em All Together and What Do You Get...HOOOOT DOG

2009-05-26T22:37:00.008-04:00

Saturday night we saw The Bangles at BB Kings. Antigone Rising opened. To put it simply, they were awful. They ended with a cover of 'Midnight Rider' though which was a bit redeeming. Lucky save.

I am not kidding, The Bangles rocked it. They played most of their classics (did you know that Prince wrote Manic Monday?) opening with my favorite, their cover of 'Hazy Shade of Winter.' 'In Your Room' was most excellent and I got excited when they played 'Watching the Sky', a song I used to love but forgot about. I had to do some research the next day just to see how old they are and it turns out that Susanna Hoffs is 50! FIFTY!!! Cute does not begin to describe this girl. I mean, she was always cute, making the eyes at the crowd and in videos and everything, but still looks like she's 25, it's amazing!

Sistas

Hottest 50 year old I've ever seen September Girls

I didn't want to film this one but I was running out of chances, so here's 'Walk Like an Egyptian'

I went a little hot dog crazy this weekend. Friday night we went out on the LES for $3 happy hour (I didn't even know that still existed) with a stop at Katz's in between. That was hot dog #1 plus a knish for luck. On Saturday I went to RK Bridal with Heather and Liz and under the latter's influence, went to Gray's Papaya (which I should mention I NEVER frequent.) That was hot dog #2. On Sunday, after The Bangles, we went to Rudy's. Those were free so I had hot dogs #s 3 and 4. Yesterday was a BBQ where I had to have one simply out of principle, but there were none! I had a sausage instead. I also had grilled haloumi for the first time ever. Hi, umm why did no one ever tell me to eat this cheese before? It was like heaven in my mouth.

I'm finally catching up on the first episode of The Bachelorette. They upped it to 30 guys from 25 and there isn't even a single cute one! Men must produce this show - are they kidding me with this selection?!

On Saturday I went for sushi in Forest Hills with peeps and on the way to the restaurant with Heather, a woman came out onto the street with her dog. I put my foot in my mouth and just blurted "That is a WEIRD looking dog!" I tried to cover it up with "I mean it's so different looking, I've never seen a dog like that before," asked the offended woman what the type was, didn't understand what she said and then complimented it's hair/fur because I didn't know how else to save myself all while being distracted by the dog. I told my dad about it because I couldn't get over how weird looking it was. So this morning I find this email from my dad in my inbox:

Subject: ugly dog !!

Meredith, I think the dog you saw was probably a Bedlington Terrier( looks like a lamb) . The other breed may be a Miniature Bull Terrier , big head like a torpedo !! Look at them on Google, tell me if I am correct.
Dad

That made me laugh the whole way to work! Retired people are too funny. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it was a Bedlington Terrier. The one I saw was a golden blonde/brown but here's an image from one I found on Google:

Somebody missed the evolution boat...

So, a bomb exploded 3 blocks from my apartment. Nothing new for me. Next blog I'm going to give a rundown of how trouble precedes or directly follows me everywhere I go.

The White To Your Left, The Red To Your Right

2009-05-18T21:15:00.025-04:00

On Friday night I walked almost 80 blocks after work just to avoid going back to the apartment. When I got home Meghan had started cleaning and I joined in (we were on such a mission that we didn't even cook dinner till after midnight.) As I was sitting eating unevenly (high stool eating off a low table to avoid the critters) Meghan found the source - ready for it? Breadcrumbs baby! Eggs, ants, and all. No bites since then but we've caught a few strays. Hopefully that's the end of it and I can stop having random conversations with people at the gym who approach me asking about my bites.

For Liz's 30th birthday we took a limo out to the wineries in Long Island. You may have known this from the book of face photos already.

Big Pimpin' Multicolored light action On the way to Lawngisland Birthday Stuffs Some Asti Spumanti Dance Party: Begin Liz, Graham, Andy, Me , MeghanSoda before the storm Winery #1 Line-Up Serious tasting Winery #2 It was cold, they gave us blankets More wine seriousness Followed by frollicking Pizza breakPoland Spring PosseWinery #3 where I discovered that Port is DISGUSTING Poseurs Winery #4 Riesling Damien and Erica came tooThis is how we act after 4 wineries Happy birthday Liz Cake cuttin' When Erica misbehaves Oi Obligatory choking photoIndie club in the limoContinued dance party back at the apt

Totally blah on the ride home

Yesterday was brunch-a-licious. Blockheads unlimited mimosas + too many tortilla chips = good Sunday. Some of the group went off to karaoke (yes at 3 in the afternoon.) Not quite sure if the bar actually allowed them to sing but I'm assuming so since I didn't hear otherwise.

Today I was illin' due to sinus awfulness all through the night. I alternated checking emails with watching the Grey's Anatomy season finally (OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE IT), Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and 4 Prison Breaks. Still on the list to watch: 2 Prison Breaks, 2 One Tree Hills, 2 Desperate Housewives, the Lost finale, and The Bachelorette. Last night I only watched 4 hours of Survivor. Not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself after the shows all end this week (except twiddle my thumbs until Big Brother starts.) Hello loser central.

Ladies and Gentleman We Are Floating in Space

2009-05-12T22:05:00.012-04:00

Quote of the night -

I just came back from seeing Star Trek which was excellent. I told Meghan that the contest for tickets through work was part of the celebration for Asian Heritage month. Response from Meghan: Oh right because of Spock. (HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!) Me: Spock is half Vulcan half human! For the record, John Cho, aka Sulu, talked via video recording prior to the movie starting. And I kind of want to watch more Star Trek now.

Yesterday was just plain silly. These are the silly things that happened in the span of two hours:

1. On my way out of work I got stuck in the elevator. It was on the 38th floor with the inside doors open but the outside doors closed. There were 11 of us in there, most from the Nickelodeon softball team who were overly concerned about being late for the game and having to forfeit. Julie called me while I was in there and I was explaining to her that no, I was not "in" an elevator, but I was in fact "trapped" in one, garnering laughter within. We were only in there for 15 minutes or so but I found it to be really funny.

2. On the subway home, I was standing in front of a guy who was sitting and had his eyes closed for most of the ride. He suddenly requested that I take my earbuds out and then asked if I had a relative in the military, perhaps a father or brother? I told him that my dad was in the army in the '60s if that counted (for the record my uncle and grandfather were also but I didn't mention them.) I said why, do I look like someone you know in the military? And he said "No, don't take this the wrong way, I'm just trying to drill my intuition." HUH? Do I look like some stringent, upright bitch? Well, possibly yes, considering a guy tried to pick me up last week by telling me that I look like I belong in The Plastics from Mean Girls (...but I'm probably sweet on the inside.) Do I need to change my facial expression or something??

3. When I went to get my stuff from the locker room at the gym, there was a notice taped to my locker saying I had to see management because I locked someone's pants in my locker! I guess I hung my black jacket up inside of my locker, and when I went to put my bag in, I saw black clothes hanging in another locker thinking it was mine, and locked my stuff in it. I returned the pants to the manager, totally embarrassing.

--This is not part of the silly stuff, but as I was walking home from the gym, I was laughing to myself about the elevator incident, and I bumped into Kristine. She told me she almost didn't want to say hi because I was so smiley and happy and she didn't want to interrupt. Apparently I don't just look like a bitch, but I look like a crazy bitch!--

4. I almost made the rest of the walk to the apt. with some normalcy, but I stopped into Duane Reade to buy soda and some old woman was sitting in one of those folding camping chairs with a drink in the cup holder, just chillin in front of the ATM. That's it! She was just hanging out there, it was so weird!!

Sometimes we just need silliness to get us through the week.

It's the Springtime of My Life

2009-05-10T09:21:00.020-04:00

I thought I was in the clear the past two days and then I woke up to 4 new bites (three near the elbow where they usually tend to be) and one on the ankle. In case you don't know the back story, as of last week, we have biting ants in our apartment. I know for a fact that they are ants because I've caught them in action. They are definitely not typical NY ants (did the biting part give that away?), but they are also light-colored and these bites are really fucking itchy! Meghan and I have some theories on where they came from but they've all been disproved (brought in from the park? No, because that was over 2 weeks ago; they live in the couch? (where we usually get attacked?) No, because we bought that couch last June and had no critters till the other day.) My dad thinks they came from someone else's apartment and the people brought them in from South America (huh?) I called maintenance to report it on Tuesday evening but the exterminator (who I keep calling the Terminator unintentionally) only comes on Tuesdays, so I'm living for a week with these monsters. So if you see me with massive bites you know why. Oh, and don't come over.

Happy to see a Carolina Liar video on the TV, though the singer looks super-mannequin like.

Songs I like right now:

Little Boots - New in Town

La Roux - Bulletproof (kind of obsessed with that one)

Noisettes - Never Forget You

Hockey - Learn to Lose

Marmaduke Duke - Rubber Lover

Jack Penate - Be the One
ljih

I just got motherflippin Bangles tickets!! They were the second concert I ever went to (Jones Beach with my dad in 1980something.) When I was a kid, I used to set up my room to give it a "concert feel" - put a cover over my lamp to dim the lights, set up my little Casio keyboard, and next to it was my pink Barbie guitar. Either myself, or with a friend, I'd act like I was the band, playing their albums for my fake crowd. For the record, my faves include "In Your Room" and their version of "Hazy Shade of Winter."

jug

The above show is at BB Kings Blues Club where I haven't frequented yet. I'm looking forward to the caberet-style atmosphere. When I was buying the tickets, I noticed that En Vogue are playing (first physical CD I bought - don't worry, I had plenty of tapes before that.) I kind of want to go but it's tonight so I doubt I could wrangle anyone in time (or in general.)
kjg

Nerd Alert: Friday was a good day - not only did I have a coupon for free Red Mango plus a topping (and it was ANY flavor yogurt, hello Green Tea) but I won two tickets to see Star Trek through work too! Although I've never seen an episode of the show, nor do I plan to ever do so, this is the second time it's popped up for me in relation to work. When I worked at ICSC, at the last Spring Convention in Vegas, we had our department dinner before the conference kicked off, and our VP gave one of the Meeting Planners Barry Manilow tickets for her birthday. I was joking around about wanting Star Trek Experience tickets (just because I wanted something for free, and the conference was in The Hilton which was Star Trek headquarters.) A few days later our VP pulled me to the side all serious and was like, I got you the Star Trek tickets and was like keep it on the hush, haaaa. Very nice of her but I really had done it for the principle of getting something for free. Immediately after the conference ended, I dragged Laura M. with me to the simulator and whatever else the "Experience" consisted of. The best part of that particular trip was following Star Trek, we went to The Sahara next door to ride the forwards-backwards roller coaster and screamed our faces off in relief that the whole thing was over. Not sure why it never occurred to any of us to do that in previous years.

So, I'm doing one Fire Island weekend this year with my friends. When push came to shove, I couldn't resist. Plus it's at the end of the summer so fingers crossed Dave will be here and he can experience Ocean Beach in all it's glory.

Yesterday, I went home for early Mother's Day. I went with my momma to get her dress for the wedding, which was going fine until I freaked out over a speeding car as I was merging onto 135 in Long Island and swerved and scraped the curb or whatever and got a flat tire. I will say that AAA is amazing - they logged my problem at 2:36 pm, and I was already driving away at 3:01 pm. Friendly service guy as well. Afterwards, we went to look at flowers for the wedding. Bouquets are pricey but boutonnieres clock in at $12 a piece - man flowers all around!

ljh

When I got down to the subway, my watch said 8:32 pm (I like to time the trip back from Queens), and I opened my book which was bookmarked at page 832!! Told you I was freak-ay.

I finished reading I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb last night. That book was da bomb! I've never seen so many bad things happen to a character. Seriously, like every chapter something worse happened! Awesome book.

klh

Thursday night was Franz Ferdinand at Roseland. The openers, Born Ruffians, did not do it for me. Franz on the other hand, well, were awesome of course. They played a great mix of old and new stuff, and although I'm still waiting for the new album to grow on me, I really enjoyed those songs live. Good background images as well.

On Friday night, after my triple dork sensation of free Red Mango, Bangles ticket acquirement, and winning the Star Trek lottery, I ran home and changed, made it to kickboxing, then went to Ella with Kat and Heather and peeps for Veronica's birthday (not in my gym clothes.) Got the dancing out of my system so I stayed in last night. While being eaten by fire ants, I watched Grey's from two weeks ago (eh), Survivor (do I have issues for actually crying during an episode of this?!), and then Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was much funnier than I expected, highly enjoyable.

jbb

I forgot to mention that I saw Rock of Ages two weeks ago. Prior to going, I was complaining to someone about how I can't stand 80s music (that being said by someone who had hastily accepted the free show ticket and was wearing a George Michael shirt on the same day.) Well, can I just say that I thought the show was EXCELLENT! Of course it brought back memories of shit songs (some which I enjoyed in my childhood, and some which are just plain comical) but the way they strung everything into the storyline was really entertaining. So much so that I would actually like to go see it again (hello, they played "To Be With You", I almost died in my seat.) Two of the guys from Styx and REO Speedwagon were there and played a song as the encore too.

Today's assignment: buy jeans that fit properly and look cool. I am 99% positive the result of this will be complete failure.

ujg

Currently Playing: Noel Gallagher - Talk Tonight (live)