DMB

Ok, as Jenny points out, The Dave Matthews Band broke the bands-that-start-with-the-and-end-with-band-always-fail curse.

Guster

I'm getting bad about blogging... I think the weather is depressing me. Had a good weekend though, went to see Guster with Chuck, Abby, Jenny & Aaron. They are so incredible live! It was an interesting evening, here are some highlights:

- Jenny almost got in a brawl with a girl who was leaning all over her trying to get closer to the front. Jenny said, "I'm a Taurus, I'm not budging" and eventually, the girl turned around and aplogized - shocking!

- Abby and I were getting leaned on by the girl next to us too, but we suspect she was enjoying it

- the first opening band, the Blackouts, was good, though they looked like Band Nerds trying to go cool.

- the second opening band, The Gabe something-or-other Band, sucked royale. Don't they know that their name dooms them to failure anyway? I can't think of any popular "The so-and-so Band" bands, can you?

- on the way home, Chuck got pulled over for speeding. The irony of it is that Chuck is a very conscientious driver and doesn't normally speed. He was PISSED. I was sympathetic at first, knowing that I normally DO speed so I shouldn't throw stones, but after getting one too many snotty comments, I had to point out that if I had gotten a ticket, he'd have no sympathy and would lecture me like I was his teenage daughter. He's still stressing about our insurance going up. Ah, the joys of being married to a Virgo (he did apologize though =).

Hell-p

Can't ............stop ..............eating ................Love .................... Hearts.

So fizzy, so yummy.... and the little sayings... so clever. I got a white one (my FAVORITE color) that said "MY ALL". I wanted to save it for a funny little moment - give it to someone and say, "here, I'm giving you MY ALL". Ha ha, cute... witty... NOPE. I ATE IT! Couldn't hold out.

Cruel Summer

How cruel is it to have the weather go from sunny and 85º to snowy 35º in a matter of days. That's Rochester for you.

Twisted and Bent

Though the weekend was getting colder and colder, it was very fun. Friday night we enjoyed The Don and Bill Show: Slightly Bent -short animated films by Don Hertzfeldt and Bill Plympton. Don Hertzfeld is a comic genius. I love him.

Saturday, Squib came for a visit and we enjoyed a day of shopping and sightseeing. I get a bit cynical about Rochester as an interesting destination, but there's some good stuff to see.

Saturday night we saw "The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert" at the Dryden. A wonderful movie! Even as a drag queen, Guy Pearce is hot. I want to be a drag queen. I want to wear outrageous clothes, wigs and makeup. Not all the time, just now and then.

Bleeping Bleep

We are developing an obscenity filter a project at work. To protect the brands. That said, it's pretty funny to be able to legitimately swear at work. Our developer is enjoying himself quite a bit in researching text to use to test the filter. He had a notepad full of printed pages with words such as "rubbers" highlighted in yellow.

I was going to post the list of words, but then I realized that every perv in the world would find my blog. YIKES. I have enough pervs reading it now ;-)

In a document I sent out, I needed to give examples of how the filter would work, but didn't want to really use bad words (well, I wanted to use them but knew it would be inappropriate), so I wrote this:

For integrity sake, lets assume the word "tog" is obscene and the word "beck" is also obscene and is often used in many creative ways to make additional obscene words. The user types the following message:

It is hot as beck down here in Florida. I almost got into a tog with a becking little old lady. She was a crazybeck from beckford. I hope I don’t look like a beckface in this picture.

The message would be filtered to result in the following:

It is hot as ***** down here in Florida. I almost got into a ***** with a ***** little old lady. She was a crazybeck from beckford. I hope I don’t look like a ***** in this picture.

I love my job.

Mac & Cheese

For Peppermint Tina, here is a link to the Macaroni & Cheese recipe I made. Only I used Monterey Jack instead of Muenster. And I topped it with fresh parmasan cheese (extra mmm factor).
Fabulous Recipes: Macaroni and Cheese

Here's the basic formula:
any cheese = good
more cheese = better
too much cheese = not possible

Girl Power

I read that this site, Bust, embodies the new feminist movement. Whatever the hell that is. Either way, maybe it's got some good stuff. I haven't looked through it yet. Let me know...

Grabby Rabbit

This is cool. Thanks to Tim for sharing...

grabby rabbit

The Day I Almost ate $10,000

Today was Comfort Food Day at work. We ate a ton of food. I brought in homemade baked macaroni & cheese - mmmmm. I also brought in a package of Oreos. I noted that the package advertised the chance to win $10K, so I assumed there'd be a game piece inside.



After shovelling down about 5 oreos, four with smiley faces and one with an "M" on it (briefly thinking, "odd, an m instead of a smiley face, hmmm... oh well" chomp, chomp, chomp), I wondered why I did not see a game piece. I decided to investigate further, only to realized that to win $10K, you needed to find 5 oreos that spelled out M-O-N-E-Y. OH THE HORROR!! I was dying as I inspected each remaining oreo. If I found O-N-E-Y in the package, I was going to commit Hary-Cary! Thank GOD it wasn't the case. Sarah had eaten an "M" too, so we deduced that it wasn't the winning letter.

How the HELL can they ethically have contests that involves requiring you to "keep" the actual food? They know some poor sap like me will eat first and think later and they won't have to pay. It's a ploy, a scam, and a ripoff and they deserve to be punished! I'm thinking of suing for pain and suffering for those tense moments when I thought I ate $10,000.

When I am King

This is one of the cutest & funniest online comics I've seen in a while. WARNING: It's R-rated. Thanks to Roymeo for the link (he finds the wierdest stuff =)


When I am King

Changing Rooms

Since being bedridden last week, I've become obsessed with a few shows on BBCAmerica. My absolute favorite is Changing Rooms. Neighbors, with the help of an interior designer, redo a room in the others' house in two days and with a budget of 500 pounds. They do the coolest damn things. The website has some before and after pictures. Here's one example:


BEFORE


AFTER

I'm very close to being totally inspired to actually do something to my house.

House Invaders is cool too, it's similar but they help one couple make changes throughout their house. Differences are not as dramatic.

Ground Force is interesting too, they redo a garden area, but the fact that the woman on the show goes bra-less is very disturbing. She's doing manual labor, throwing things about, with her hoo hoos flapping in the breeze (and yes, she's always cold too). On the website she even brags about it, she thinks she looks sexy. Maybe after seeing Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars, she'll realize it's not.

The Proximity Encounter Curse

Well, only I could be in LA on Oscars weekend and not see ONE celebrity. OK, I saw Kyle MacLachlan on his way into the Vanity Fair party but it was an oggling situation. I don't like the oggling situations, makes me feel cheesy and unimportant. I prefer an "as we passed in the grocery store I made a cute comment about freezing Peeps so you don't have to wait for them to get stale" type situation. Thus, the "proximity encounter" curse continues.

Last year I was in LA for a conference, stayed at the Beverly Hilton... home of various celebrity events. What goes on while I'm there? A tribute to Red Buttons. I see celebrities, yes... but they're all 65 or older. Oh joy.

Then, the year before that, I'm in LA for the 4th of July. Stayed at the Mondrian, a swanky Ian Schrager hotel where by day, you have a nice pool area and by night, you have the Skybar, a velvet rope night club run by Rande Gerber, hubby of Cindy Crawford. Wanted to both enjoy an exquisite hotel experience and hope to see someone cool. That day, while shopping on Melrose, I walk by Danny Bonaduce. Rather disappointing. Shouldn't Cameron Diaz be shopping on Melrose? And then, that night at the Skybar, who do I get to see? ... drumrole please...
Danny Bonaduce. I'm cursed I tell you.

I'm just betting on my next trip I'll see Gary Coleman at the Newark airport.

Debunking the California Cuisine Myth

As promised, a blog about my trip to LA. I no longer believe that LA is the healthy food capitol of the world. There is a burger joint on every corner. They have Fatburger, Astroburger, Hamburger Hamlet and, God's gift to all burger lovers, In-N-Out Burger. In-N-Out Burger is constantly mobbed. I bet even the skinny minny actresses (Jennifer Connelly, please EAT something!) go there and get a "Protein Style" - lettuce wrapped around the burger instead of a bun.

Though it was a brief trip with not enough time to hit a Jamba Juice, the two dinners I had also proved that there is rich, fattening food to be had in LA.

The first night, I went to dinner with four lovely ladies to a place Jennifer recommended -Ammo, and we ate like barbarian men. After our appetizers and soup, we ate hearty entrees - lamb chops, steak, meatloaf, porkchops and the poor vegetarian among us has risotto. We didn't stop there though, between the five of us, we got four desserts - gourmet ice cream sandwhiches, chocolate cake, mmmm. The very cute waiter was so surprised, he gave us a dessert for free with a reason something to the effect of, "you ladies really put it away".

The second night, Jamie took us to Lola's, the birthplace of the Sour Apple Martini. Their martini menu included at least 30 other choices which all sounded yummy, especially the French Kiss (with chocolate kisses) and the Clockwork Orange (with orange sherbet). If I lived in LA, I would make it my mission to try all of them. For dinner, though it could make a meal in itself, I had a side of homebaked macaroni & cheese to go with my chicken ravioli. Mmmmmm, a little bit of heaven. And again, it didn't stop there... three desserts split amoung five of us, the best being the fresh baked cookies, hot out of the oven, with a side of vanilla ice cream. Mmmmm. They ended our meal with a little tray of gumballs, which I proceed to swallow instead of chew. Some gum just needs to be swallowed, I can't stop myself.

All in all, I ate like a little piggy in LA and loved every minute of it. I can't wait to go back and have enough time to get a Jamba Juice before heading back to Lola's for more mac & cheese and a Clockwork Orange.

The Details

So some of you are wondering what happened to me. Basically it's this - problems in the baby making department. So on Monday, I was put under and had a Laproscopy, where they checked around my organs via two incisions, one at my lower abdomen and one in my belly button (which really FREAKS ME OUT - I have b.b. issues - thank God I was out cold!). Doc found a little endometriosis, got rid of it. Found alot of scarring in my uterus, cleaned it up. So, perhaps in the next few months, will get prego. Not that I'm totally ready for that, but I think I am. And after seeing how good Chuck was at waiting on me hand and foot, I feel confident that he'll take damn good care of me when I'm as big as a house and demanding Krispy Kremes at 3am, not to mention taking care of a little one.

So that's that. I'm still hobbling a little and still in a good bit of pain, but I'm also receiving cards and flowers and gifts and well-wishes from my wonderful family and friends which is priceless. I am blessed.

Ow Ow Ow

Ok, I didn't have time to write my posts and then went in for surgery. Now I am in some harsh pain and can't sit up for too long without feeling like a teenager at camp on Friday the 13th (ie, I feel like someone is stabbing me in the shoulder, stomach, and right butt cheek). Can't complain about the sleep though, getting lots of it and it's nice to just doze off whenever I feel like it. Chucky is taking stellar care of me too. The cynical side of me wants to say, "he damn well better, I'm the one going through the pain", but really I just feel very lucky and very loved by him and I know that if it could be him instead of me, he would gladly trade places.

OK, gotta go lay down now... will try again tomorrow.