Baby, It's Cold Outside

This morning I've been mainly looking at photos of Curacao and drooling all over myself. We are planning to book, so if you've been, please provide tips and such (thank you!)

Yesterday, after standing in the freezing cold for almost an hour and a half (heads up, Uggs do not work if you stand in one spot for this long in single digit weather), we finally got to enter the theater for the annual Oscars Best Picture Showcase (AKA Ethan Hawking day - I just thought of that!) We had already seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, which I thought was okay, but I'm not a huge Wes Anderson fan so it was my least favorite of the 5/8 Best Picture-nominated films I've seen.

The first of the day was Boyhood, which was really great. For some reason, I thought that they had filmed all of the actors at 3 points over 12 years, but this isn't the case - the film shows them (all of the actors) at multiple points over the 12 years. For the idea and execution, I definitely think it deserves the Oscar.  

The music from each era played throughout the movie (as you could imagine), but I couldn't focus on the party scene because 'Helena Beat' was playing in the background and I got so excited that I couldn't see straight.

Also, can I be friends with the lead guy? His character is super chill and I want a friend like that. 

The second film was The Theory of Everything. I readied my packet of tissues in the cup holder - a good plan as I cried about 17 times (though the tissues were scented which threw me off in the middle of my hysterics.) Overall, I liked the movie and it made me emotional and appreciative of all that I have in my life, but I wasn't blown away. I think he'll get the Best Actor Oscar because, well, he's playing Stephen Hawking, but really I'd like Cumberbatch to get it. Felicity Jones was excellent, by the way.

Let's also take a second to look at how similar Eddie Redmayne and Stephen Hawking look here:

The Imitation Game was next and it was mine and Dave's favorite of the lot:

The story was excellent, as was the acting. I really hope this wins something (is it nominated for Screenplay?) I have a feeling it just won't though.

We ended the day with American Sniper:

I generally like war movies, but watching this one kind of scared the crap out of me (equal parts terrorist and sandstorm.) At the same time, it reminded me of The Walking Dead, swapping out zombies for terrorists, which was probably a weird, yet fitting way of looking at it.

Overall, I probably liked yesterday's movies almost equally, though The Imitation Game and Boyhood were preferable to me in terms of Oscar-worthyness.

I would also like to thank AMC Lows 34th Street for their kind reminder in every bathroom stall - "Please do not flush 3D glasses down the toilet." Huh? Who does that??

We just passed the 1 year anniversary of moving to our "new" apartment (and what better way to celebrate than with a leak coming down through the walls from the 3rd floor?? Don't worry, we have our Spongebob towel soaking up the water, because that's what he does.) Anyway, our neighbor brought us part of a sugar cookie house the other day:

I love getting baked goods from her, it's sweet (literally and figuratively.) Much better than our old upstairs neighbors who would have techno dance parties every Sunday afternoon.

Does anyone have a Roku? We are thinking about buying one. Advice please?

Oh yeah!  This happened the other day:

At least it was sunny?

Current Music: Foster the People: Pumped Up Kicks

We Stayed in by the Telly

A few months ago, I received a notification that I may be able to participate in an some e-book settlement. Without hesitation, and without having any idea what book I purchased or which app I used to do so with for this case, I opted in. Well, my settlement has come folks, and oh, is it sweet:

In case you can't read that, it's for a whopping $0.73. Woohoo! I can buy, uh, erm, one of those singular Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Miniatures from the gas station convenience shop with my settlement money (hopefully.)

Dave's parents bought us a personalized calendar with our names in all different scenarios for Xmas this year.  Here's February:

And for the record, here is January:

We're watching old Jools Holland episodes. He led one of the introductions as "Now, let's enjoy Aloe Blacc!"  I like that intro, it's cute in a show where introductions can be repetitive. For the 'mericans who don't know Jools, he was previously in the band Squeeze. Have some "Up the Junction":

That's one of those songs I only first heard a few years ago and found out it was Squeeze, and then was like that's Squeeze?!

Which was kind of like the time when I was like, "Hey, what's this song? I like it!" and the Google search turned up Depeche Mode:

And same for this Blondie song (swoon):

Then she performed it at Glastonbury this year, and I was all kinds of happy:

It's absolutely freezing outside, so I've been watching the Saturday Night Live in the 80s and 90s specials on VH1 all day today. I remembered so many of the sketches and jokes to the T, meanwhile I can't even remember what I ate for lunch today. They were interspersing musicians' clips and they were so 90s-tastic - Garbage, Barenaked Ladies, and my boys got featured too:

Oasis - Don't Go Away - Saturday Night Live 1997 from Melwen Tinuviel on Vimeo.

Noel Gallagher tickets went on sale on Friday morning at 10 am for Webster Hall in May, and yes, I set a Fitbit alarm just to make sure I got back to my desk in time for this. This was the chain of events:

Ticketmaster site at 9:59 am --> refresh --> refresh --> redirected to Ticketweb very slowly --> Noel Gallagher Webster Hall search --> select 2 tickets & checkout --> loading --> loading --> panic --> call Dave to get tickets --> Dave doesn't answer --> original screen still loading --> go on Ticketweb on my phone --> go on second web browser for tickets --> panic some more --> 10:07 am tickets sold out --> 10:08 am 122 tickets on sale at Stubhub for more than double the price --> I leave to cry in the bathroom.

Well, the last part wasn't true but I was close to it. I'm usually so good at getting tickets pre-sell out (reference Franz Ferdinand at Bowery Ballroom here, and Radiohead at Roseland here.) There are activist groups against touts rights? Because I think I've found a cause that I can truly get behind. (I'm seeing him at Governor's Ball, but the set and size won't be the same. Totally not the point.) Still not sure if I'm more upset or furious, but probably the former.

Also, Papa John's now has a PIZZA WITH PICKLES ON IT!

Current Music: Paul McCartney - Let Me Roll It

Neighborhood #1

Last night, Dave and I walked around our old section of the neighborhood for the first time in months to see what was still in business, what had closed, and what had opened. The King of Falafel went from simple street cart to a huge green monstrosity:

I know they've won the Vendy and always have a huge line so they needed to expand, but it was a ridiculous sight. There's even a TV screen menu on the other side! They have a regular-sized cart on 30th Ave. so there is still some authenticity to be found if you like to get your shawarma the old-fashioned way.

Crescent Lounge, right by our old block, is now closed. The replacement bar looks very similar, and is showing the Grammys tonight, so it's probably the same clientele.

And not that I walked past it, but Scandals, the strip club by Queensboro Plaza has closed. End of an era, amiright?

We finally checked out sekend sun (new-ish bar in the old Veslo space.) $2 off happy hour till 8 pm on a Saturday + good music + giant Queens sign. Might be my new favorite place?

Bonus: I spilt an entire glass of wine and the waitress replaced it for free (they are definitely getting a nice Yelp review for that.) I got white wine all over my sweater, crotch, front of my jeans, and somehow, the backs of my knees into my boots. Then I walked home in 25 degree weather which was not so pleasant. As a side note, I also accidentally spit my gum out into my hair while I was walking and talking, not once, but twice last night. So, um, yeah.

They played Penguin Prison in the Gap today. They are finally playing Brooklyn in March and I'm going, hooray! That's the same week that I'm going to see Catfish & the Bottlemen and The Cribs, so I might die.

We got dancing speakers.  Jealous much?

Current Music: Catfish & The Bottlemen: Cocoon (still on repeat)

Channels in the Stream

This morning's Tottenham v. Arsenal game inspired me to finally write a blog post. Can you PLEASE look at this resemblance??

Guys - Tomas Rosicky is Bruce Jenner's secret love child!

The fact that I think that I'm the first one to see this resemblance (and it actually got me to write a blog post for the first time in months) is pretty lame indeed, but I really believe I've discovered something here. That's on top of the fact that it took me 20 minutes how to figure out how to put these images side by side on the Mac. But hey, that's what Saturday mornings are for right?

We've decided to join the ranks of the anti-cable movement by calling it quits and moving directly to streaming. Well, that was until Time Warner talked us into a sweet deal of keeping the few basic stations + DVR + high speed internet for $100/month cheaper than what we were paying today. We've got HBO Go (thanks for letting us "borrow" your account mom and dad) and Netflix, and we're going to get Hulu Plus so I think we're all set. This means that I can still DVR all of my favorite reality TV shows (Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother) and watch Mindy Girl and New Project (uh, yes, I really just wrote that) with the ability to fast forward through commercials. Now, we just need to find out how to get the AMC shows and we'll be ready to call Saul.

This morning, I was looking through some old posts from summer 2006 of when I traveled to SE Asia (I was sending the links to a friend who is going), and there is literally 1 photo posted from the entire 5 week trip. I cannot believe how much difficulty I used to have with uploading photos to this site, along with adjusting the layout - I used to spend hours trying to post things on here. Today, the Jenner-Rosicky photo posted in its right place in a split second! My, how the web has has evolved. Also, I noticed some pretty horrific spelling errors in those posts, as well as the use of the word "component" instead of "opponent." {CRINGING}

Since I'm heading out to Zumba shortly (yes, I used to think it was the "lazy person's exercise" but I've since seen the light), I'll leave you with my most favorite Zumba song ever (I play it so much, even Dave knows the words.) You can thank me later.

I Love It When We're Cruising Together

Back in May, Dave and I went on a cruise with my parents to celebrate my mom's 70th birthday.  I had no idea what it was going to be like (I just never had the desire to go on one before - prime example being skipping out on a senior year spring break cruise with a handful of my friends to go to Cancun instead.)

I have to say, the cruise was SO fun.  There was never a lack of anything to do.  We even enjoyed it more than the all-inclusive resort we went to last year in the Dominican Republic.  I'll give you a run down of some of the things we did (I do not have an impeccable memory - I wrote this post ages ago and never completed it until now):

View from our room when we boarded, woohoo!

Day 1:
Free raffle you say?  There was an "art gallery" on deck 6 of the ship (more like a hallway with about 20 paintings that rotated out every other day), but they were some of the nicest paintings I've ever seen.  The auctioneer held a mini seminar about the gallery to lure people in for the rest of the week's auctions and events, and held a free raffle so we decided to attend.  Dave was the lucky winner of a woman's $125 bracelet which I've now got in my possession (thanks!) A man winning the bracelet was pretty funny, but not as funny as the 10 year old kid who won entry to the slots competition in the casino.

Chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool

The highlight of the day was the Howl at the Moon Dueling Pianos. We ended up watching this for probably a good 3 hours that night. And the 3 entertainers were so talented that we spent another 2 nights watching them.  To top that off, 2 of them played a show of their original music in the city, and we actually went (I was slightly embarrassed, but they advertised it, and we could see that there were some other cruisers there as well.)

Day 2:
I was over-the-top excited to play Bingo, until I turned up to the kick-off game and found out it was a $40 entry fee!!!  My parents had already bought their tickets, and we had a $150 credit (which disappeared in about 2 hours by the way), so we gave it a shot.  No winning here, but this was where the rec staff was introduced to us. We quickly grew to idolize these people, along with the other entertainers, which was of course totally ridiculous, but felt like a celebrity spotting every time we saw them on the ship.

Out by the pool, we watched the Mr. Sexy Legs competition, and on the subsequent sea days we watched synchronized swimming and hot dog eating contests.  We'd recognize the entrants on the days following, who also gained a mini celebrity status + applicable nicknames, as sad as that sounds.

**Updated view**

We watched a Cirque show in the evening, a Motown tribute, and then went to the evening party out on the deck.  We spotted our favorite member of the rec team, Jovan (who, at Bingo, was introduced as Serbia's own Mr. Bean), and he spotted us as well and came over with the camera crew.  This is the embarrassing video that followed:

This was shot on Monday evening, and was shown on one of the TV channels every 15 minutes for the remainder of the cruise (through Sunday.)  Yeah, we became "those people."

Day 3:
On Tuesday, we laid out on the deck (I received a complimentary rash all over my chest which lasted for the remainder of the cruise) and watched some of the aforementioned competitions.  In the evening, we went to 90s Power Hour at the night club (Backstreet's back, all right!)  Every night there were about 10 people max in the club, and I was the only one dancing.  Hey, YOLO!  We also went to the 70s party on the deck which was exactly what you'd expect it to be.

Ummm by the way, they are crazy obsessive about handwashing on this ship.  Totally understandable, but they brainwashed us so much about germs that we always make sure to close the lid to our toilet seat at home now (too much information?)  The "Washy Washy Band" would perform in front of the entrance to the buffet, singing songs like "If you're happy and you know it wash your hands" and spray you with anti-bacterial stuff.  And they got the biggest shout out of anyone during the last day's staff appreciation/talent show. (Yes, I said talent show.)

Day 4:
On Wednesday, we played some giant chess before we got off the ship.  Check out this view while we played:

Docked!

Check out the water, the bluest of blue

I told you this boat was HUGE

We took a bus tour of Bermuda which was quite informative.  Some key learnings:

• Bermuda has the most churches to people in the world (seriously, there was a church on every block, and the tour guide named all of them.)
• The houses are required to be built out of concrete to withstand hurricanes.
• Bermudians have the strangest accent I have ever heard (no offense.)  They sound like a cross between English and Dutch, and sound like Goldmember (again, no offense meant.)

Bootiful Bermuda

It was too cold to go in the water, so we admired it from afar

This place is located at the dockyard.  The locals come here to steal the wifi.

In the evening, back on the boat, we watched Rock of Ages.  I was cringing at first (I forgot how corny the musical is, even though I loved it on Broadway), but about halfway through I began to embrace it, and concluded that it was still good (cring-ey, but good), even when performed on a cruise ship.

The highlight of the evening entertainment was Dancing with the Breakaway Stars.  The couples were made up of the rec team members paired with cruisers.  I'm not going to get into details as you know what it entails if you've seen the show, but this was perhaps one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my entire life, and quite frankly the highlight of the cruise.

Day 5:
Dave and I took the ferry to Hamilton on Thursday, and ate a $60 lunch in a pub (OMG that's expensive!)  I also got a new hat and beach cover up, along with a pen that has a crab leg on the end which opens and closes (yay for souvenirs!)  On line to board the return ferry, Dave thought the guys and girl in front of us in the queue were cruise ship entertainers based on their conversation.  We later found out that they were in fact members of the ship's Second City comedy troupe, Rock of Ages, and Burn the Floor (ballroom dancing cast) - they were all friends, AND they were allowed to leave the ship just like regular people!  OMG!  Worlds colliding!

Back on the boat, we dragged my parents to the nightclub for 50s and 60s hour.  It was full of people their age, and was the most crowded it had been the entire cruise.

Afterwards we went to the "glow party" on the deck.  Here's our friend Jovan (WATCH THIS.)

Day 6:
I spent some quality time in the hot tub with people my parents' age who primarily enjoyed comparing cruises (on Carnival they give you robes when you get out of the hot tub!) and ask questions like "You're from New York?  Have you ever been to Wo Hop?"

I then went to Beatles trivia in the Atrium.  They played the first 5-10 seconds of the song, and about 7/8 of the people (of Beatlemania age I might add) were like "What?  What kind of trivia is this?"  I thought I had scored pretty well, but alas, I did get about 5 wrong and my team lost (for the record, a few I missed were "Chains" and "For No One," but I did get "Only a Northern Song," so that must count for something.)

We watched the Second City improv show in the evening.  The best bit were two guys acting out a rock opera with every new line starting with the next letter in the alphabet, and the theme was a father and daughter on a trip to Disney World.  Pretty hilarious, but I guess you had to be there to get the full effect.

And now a belated birthday celebration for Dave

The 80s night on the deck was pretty standard, except there were also fireworks which were kind of amazing being that this was a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Day 7:
I'm picking up this blog post almost 3 months after I wrote about the first six days.  A few additional highlights I can speak to are:

Discovering an upper deck with about
200 chairs and no people in sight

Towel animals

Bringing my mom into the Svedka Ice Bar

Back of the boat action

Hot dog trucks!!

Family time

The Martini Bar

Representing Queens

A rare moment of emptiness on the party deck

Tons of receipts from things we actually had to purchase (OOPS)

Blackjack

Though I didn't participate, the top deck had a ropes course, basketball court, miniature golf, and 4 waterslides.  It was insane.

And how could I forget...
- A Bavarian food feast
- Laughing at people doing Zumba from the pub balcony like a creep
- Watching the various entertainers sing along to the dueling pianos for one of the pianist's last night of his tour (so emotional, it made me feel like my own family member was leaving)

There were a ton of things I didn't do as well - Flywheel on board, a Rockettes-themed workout, scavenger hunts, etc., but you really can't fit everything in, it's crazy.

After the comedown of pulling back into the pier, getting our bags, and taking the long walk to land, we were able to catch a cab and were home in 20 minutes!  The luxury of taking a ship out of Manhattan is indescribable!

In short, I don't think I'm likely to go on another cruise for another couple of decades, just because I want to explore other far away lands, but if your family asks you to come with them on the Norwegian Breakaway, I highly recommend you say yes.