Category Archives: Media

Only 3 more shopping days until my birthday!

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Test Week is still going very well. Yesterday, Dave wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed home and worked from his laptop in bed. I worked on my laptop in his office. It was strange, we hardly spoke to each other all day, but it was nice to know that he was in the house. We eventually got ourselves dressed, just in time to go out for dinner. I’ve cooked something every night this week – in addition to super-fancy omelets for breakfast – so I needed a break. We went to one of those standardized chain Mexican places, which was quite yummy. We were going to watch “Shaun of the Dead” when we got home, but we (or rather, I) got caught up in “Project Runway” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Girl” (possibly my favorite new show), and the movie idea kind of collapsed.

On the subject of Project Runway: The challenge this week was for the designers to make a wedding dress, but the models were the “clients” and got to have input as to what type of dress they wanted. The idea is that the designers have to come up with something that fits what they want to design, and that also makes the models happy. I have to say, my favorite was Kara’s, who won. That dress was gorgeous. But I’ve pretty much decided that I like all of Kara’s clothes (so far). The one who lost was whiny, crying Nora, who I was very happy to see go. The dress wasn’t all that bad, really, it was just a little too standard-bridal-gown – which should be expected, when the model who gets to choose the dress’s design is 16 years old. But as Angie has already mentioned, the worst dress by a mile was Austin’s. Good lord, what was he thinking? Teal and hot pink and animal print on a wedding dress? WTF?? It was horrifying.

Back to real life: today Dave is at work, and I’m home with the cats. Usually, Dave’s cats go outside during the day, so I just have Teenie inside (who’s old & sleeps most of the time), so I can work in relative peace. Today, however, Cleo (the 6-toed cat – I swear she has thumbs) doesn’t want to go out, and she has been a ball of neediness. I cannot keep the damn cat off of me. I don’t know what her deal is. It was cute for a while, but now it’s starting to annoy me. Especially when she does that bread-kneading thing with her very long claws. Ow.

Oh, have any of you seen Dave’s mum’s cottage? Apparently we have it for a week in June. Yay, I can’t wait!

Project Runway Drama

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This probably holds no interest for anyone except a couple of the girls who read this, but here goes the summary of last night’s Project Runway. For those who didn’t see it (read: guys), here’s the recap: 9 designers were split into 3 teams of 3, and they had to each come up with a dress for some new annoying singer whose album is in stores and is apparently being heavily marketed. The singer is kind of like an Avril Lavigne-Ashlee Simpson-Courtney Love hybrid. She seems to like the tattered babydoll-whore look, but she’s total cheese pop music with a faux punk coating. So the three designs they came up with were Kevin’s (which won, for some reason), Austin’s (which, as Sally has already mentioned, was truly god-awful) and Jay’s (my personal favorite).

Anyway, they all had to vote as to who was the weakest person on each team, and then the judges made the final decision on who’d get booted. Unfortunately, this week it was Vanessa, the cute British woman who actually seems like someone I could be friends with in real life because she’s a bit of a loudmouth smartass. I really wanted them to boot Nora, who cried through a good portion of this week’s episode – and accused everyone of stealing a pattern piece that she lost, and then cried more when someone called her on it. Nora also has a really stupid quasi-mohawk hairdo that I am quite honestly sick of looking at, so I want her GONE! Her clothes are boring and ugly, so I’m holding out hope that she’s going to get kicked off the show very soon.

On the subject of Austin’s tears, which was mentioned in previous comments… I’m honestly trying to decide who’s the bigger queen between Jay and Austin. I mean, Austin’s tears this week were pretty melodramatic, but do you remember Jay’s reaction when Mario got kicked off? He said that he hadn’t boo-hooed like that in decades. Um, dude, you’re only in your 20’s, you don’t exactly have “decades” to choose from yet. And yes, Austin has the Dickensian dressing gown and the knee-high night stockings, and he is Master of the Glossy-But-Not-Whorey Lipgloss look. But Jay shows up for his interview segments wearing huge Elton John circa 1972 sunglasses and a fur wrap, for God’s sake. I think the difference is that Austin doesn’t seem to realize just how queeny he is, and Jay sort of revels in it.

So yeah, this post was mostly just for the girls. Sorry guys, I’ll try to write something more unbiased next time.

fun links

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I don’t know if any of you are as obsessed with celebrity mocking as I am, but if you’re anywhere close, you need to go see Go Fug Yourself – yet another thing for which I must give props to Sally at Catoptric. It’s all photos of celebrities and some of the most genius fashion commentary I have ever read. Great posts you should see include Ashlee Simpson, Juliette Lewis, and my favorite, Britney Spears (actually, there’s lots of Britney-mocking on that site, but that one remains my favorite). I’ve recently seen the girls who created this website as commentators on some “awesomely bad fashion” show on VH-1. Go figure.

The other is Manolo’s Shoe Blog. It is hilarious, and my favorite picture there so far is this one of Paris Hilton and Pam Anderson. I guess Pam doesn’t care so much about her panties being visible in public, since most of the world has already seen her naked. Panties seem downright modest by her standards. Oh yeah, Pammy is also wearing leg warmers on her arms. Riiiiight.

Prepare to have a couple of hours sucked out of your day with those. I’ve added them to my “Fun Links” section for future reference.

The Ex Files

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Prepare yourselves, kids, for yet another weekend recap. (Does anyone even read these things?)

Friday was a rough day for me. Lots of money problems, combined with a dash of work complications, turned out to be the perfect recipe to make me cry. I had talked to Dave in the afternoon, so when he came over that evening, he brought me flowers to cheer me up. He’s so awesome. He also bought “Shrek 2” because it just came out on DVD. I have to say, Puss in Boots is probably the greatest cartoon character I’ve seen in a long time. Great movie.

Saturday, Dave went to work and I cleaned. That’s pretty much a standard response for me when my life feels out of control. The state of my apartment is one thing that I have control over, so I exercised that power. The place looked pretty darn good when I finished, too. Now if I can just maintain it until my family shows up in 2 1/2 weeks… Anyway, Saturday night, Dave came back over and we got Indian food (yum) and rented “Close Your Eyes“. I had heard this had gotten good reviews, and the main character is Goran Visnjic, the Croatian hottie from “ER”. It was a good movie, although a bit creepy for me. I ended up covering my face through at least a couple of scenes. (Anything that involves needles going into flesh, or pointy objects going into eyeballs requires me to look away from the screen. And this movie had both.)

Sunday, we went shopping at Best Buy and Target, which are always 2 of my favorite stores. Then we went to see “The Incredibles“. That was a fun movie, although I think all the little kids’ reactions was probably more entertaining than the movie itself. During the plot exposition, they get all fidgety and bored, but man oh man, do they hoot & holler when stuff blows up. Actually, I loved the Pixar short before the movie about the little dancing sheep. He was adorable.

Oh, there was also a brief-but-strange encounter with Dave’s ex-wife at the movie theater, but I’ll leave that story for him to tell on his blog, if he so chooses.

And today, it’s back to work. I have to head into the office in just a bit for a meeting. Fun stuff.

vets, teen angst, abstinence, etc.

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Teenie’s vet appointment yesterday went pretty much as expected. I like the people at this vet’s office, they’re very nice. They were quick & efficient, gave me the cream that I needed to fix up the spot on her ear, and sent us on our way. I was going to have them give Teenie her shots while I was there (2 birds with 1 stone), and the vet told me that since Teenie is now a senior citizen and almost never goes outside, she thinks it’s safe to put her on a rotation of getting her shots every 3 years instead of every year. She said that it’d be different if she was a dog, but she’d rather not over-vaccinate animals unnecessarily, and I thought it was cool that she didn’t just take the excuse to give her the shots and charge me for them.

Oh, thinking of good/bad vet stories reminds me, if any of you live in the Seattle area, don’t ever take your kitties to the Cat Care Clinic in Bellevue. They’re evil. It’s the veterinary equivalent of a bad mechanic – they will make up shit that’s wrong with your pet that isn’t true, just so they can over-charge you. And they won’t let you stay with your pet while they’re examining them, which is just shady if you ask me. And yes, I am leaving the proper name of the place on here, because I hope someone googles them and finds this post. That whole organization should be shut down.

Other stuff…
* My next GBC entry is to have a conversation with myself at age 13. I’m still trying to figure out how to do that and make it funny, and omit all of the trauma that I’ve tried to block out of my memory for the past 15 years. Hmm. It’s going to be challenging, for sure. But maybe that’s the idea.

* It looks like Dave won’t be able to go to the UK for Christmas because of some stuff going on with processing his visa, so he’ll most likely be coming home with me for the holidays. I’ve run this idea past my parents, and they’re cool with it. One condition: Dave will be sleeping in his own room, and I’ll be bunking with my sister. Hmmm. I think it’s kind of ridiculous (and funny) that we have to put up pretenses for my parents, who know perfectly well that Dave and I spend almost every weekend at one of our respective abodes, and it’s not like one of us ever sleeps on the couch. But I’d like to spare myself one of my dad’s “as long as you’re under MY roof” speeches, so fine, I’ll go along with it. Parents, what can you do?

* Has anyone been watching “Surreal Life” on VH-1? Here’s what I’ve learned: Jordan Knight is an asshole, Dave Coulier is surprisingly normal, Charo is funny as hell, and that American Idol chick is a spoiled brat who I don’t think I’ve ever seen smile once. Oh, and both Flavor Flav and Bridgitte Nielsen scare the absolute crap out of me.

* New episode of “ER” tonight. I think I’m probably one of the few people who has never gotten tired of that show. I still love-love-love it. It’s all about Goran Visnjic, the hot Croatian… Yum.

kinder, gentler blogging challenge

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Last year a group of Scott’s friends pulled this thing called “The Great Blogging Challenge” where they wrote about a different topic each day for a week. They’re redoing it this year, only now it’s the “Gentle” Blogging Challenge because it’s one topic a week for a month, which is a bit more manageable. I’ve decided to join up with this effort, since I now read all of Scott’s friends’ blogs and have pretty much claimed them as my own friends, since Scott seems to have disappeared from the world of blogging altogether. (Where in the world are you, dude?) If any of you are interested in participating in this blogging challenge (maybe you need inspiration of something to write about?), go here [link 1] and read the rules.

I don’t really know what to write for this first challenge, because it’s supposed to be “8 new, cool links” that I’ve never featured before on my blog. This is Carl’s idea, and unlike him, I don’t use the BlogSpot “next blog” feature to find new & interesting blogs, and I don’t much care to. So I’m just going to tell the story of my weekend, and work in the links where I can.

Friday night, Dave and I rented “Fahrenheit 9/11” [link 2]. It was good, in that sort of awful “I don’t ever want to see this again” kind of way. I really don’t like Michael Moore as a person, and I think he sometimes has a tendency to stray too much into conspiracy theories, but it was definitely worth watching. If that makes sense.

Saturday, we finished the floor in the living room at Dave’s house. Hooray! We still need to put on baseboards [link 3], but that’s a project for another weekend. Then I made dinner – I made my mom’s chicken with sour cream and mushroom sauce, which is soooo yummy. It’s not quite the same thing, but this [link 4] is a very similar recipe. We also watched “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” [link 5], which I thought was great. Kate Winslet is just too damn beautiful for her own good, even with various insane punk rock hair colors. Speaking of which, if you happen to envy those blues and oranges that she has, you can go here [link 6] and get some for yourself.

Sunday was shopping day. Whee! Dave bought a bed [link 7 – and I now defy any of you Northwest natives to get that damn “why buy a mattress anywhere else?” jingle out of your heads], a beautiful Persian rug [link 8] from Pottery Barn that matches the gorgeous new furniture in the living room perfectly, and a cool trunk/chest [link 9 – boo-ya, extra credit!] from Crate & Barrel that will either serve as a coffee table or extra seating in the bay window, depending on how it looks in the room when it shows up.

Oh yeah, and I’m adding Gwen, Alissa and Angie to my sidebar list, because I read their blogs all the time, and you should too.

neurotic cat, once again

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Teenie does this same thing every fall: she scratches the spot in front of her right ear until it bleeds. Then, when it starts to heal (and I’m sure we all know how much scabs can itch), she scratches at it some more. Which makes it bleed more. So it never heals. I’ve never figured out why she does this – despite our 8 years of cohabitation, we’ve never quite taken up each other’s native language, so the whole thing is somewhat of a mystery. I have a theory that it has something to do with allergies, change of seasons, something like that. Who knows.

Typically when this has happened in the past, my vet gave me a special cream to put on that spot to make it not itch (and that won’t be harmful if she ingests it, because after all, she is a cat, and she’s going to lick off whatever I put on her). So this year, I dug the cream out of the back of my medicine cabinet, only to find that it is no longer cream. It’s way past its expiration date, and it’s now more of a liquid form. Hmmm. Not good. I called a vet down the street and asked if I could get more, and they said I need to make an appointment. So fine, we’ll go to the vet on Wednesday. I asked the nurse if there was anything I could put on there in the meantime. She told me I could use Neosporin, but that I shouldn’t use that “Neosporin with pain relief” stuff because it has lidocaine in it, and it will numb her tongue. The mental image of that was kind of amusing to me.

And that pretty much sums up the excitement of my week. In other news that may or may not be interesting to anyone:
* The headache is now just off and on, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was last week. So I’m back down to just taking the occasional Tylenol, nothing more hardcore than that.
* I got a new project at work: more writing/documentation, which will allow me to work from home. This is expected to last until January 30th. Pajamas all day, every day! Whee! Actually, it really is a good thing because writing = lots of downtime, which means I’ll have time to update my certifications (which I’ve been procrastinating about for months) and I won’t have a problem taking time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hey Alphagal, Dave’s going to meet up with me in New Orleans after Christmas – are you & the hubby going to be around?
* My brother has been calling me every day to get work-related advice, because his boss is being accused of sexual harassment. Not by my brother, of course, but by other women in the office. (And no, he doesn’t work for Bill O’Reilly. Although I love that story, too.)
* Have I mentioned how much I love Jon Stewart and The Daily Show? This interview is short and sweet.
* Speaking of which, you know how O’Reilly said that all viewers of the Daily Show were stoned slackers? Turns out that people who watch the Daily Show are more likely to have college degrees than O’Reilly’s viewers. Take that!