Tick Tick Boom

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?

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

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

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.