So tonight I will be departing for the city of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia. I have come prepared with ear plugs, comfy clothes and a pillow. I hope there are no kids on my flight. (no really..i like kids...i just don't think they belong on red-eye flights...) Oh, and I hope the flight isn't full and that one of the empty seats is next to me...knock on wood...
Last night was the first softball practice of the season. We didn't do much really as onyly 4 people (including me) bothered to show up. We hit some grounders, did some batting, threw the ball around a bit. For all of that I got a sore shoulder, and my legs feel like they are going to fall off. I think I will live though.
I have been kind of annoyed lately that I don't have anything interesting of funny to say. Sorry about that if you are reading this. Maybe it'll pass...

Here's a quote that I like:
"No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power"

Mulholland Dr. is a very strange movie. It's one of those movies that makes you think, "WTF??" for a while after you finish watching it. It was good though. I like movies that kind of mess with your head a bit. If I was a guy I think I would like Naomi Watts.

Here's a pretty good review of it. It contains some spoilers though so you may want to see the film first.

In other news, I made some really good split pea and ham soup today. It's am Emeril recipe, but I generally find that his recipes are good...even if his show is mainly just him throwing some stuff into a pan and saying "BAM!" a lot. I still like him ok; besides everyone has to have a schtick.

I think split pea is my new fave soup. (there had to be something better than Campbell's tomato...) Also, The second week of November is "National Split Pea Soup" week.

Well there is no Friday Five this week so I stole one from the archives...

1. What food do you like that most people hate?
The only thing that comes to mind is black jellybeans.

2. What food do you hate that most people love?
Chocolate...well I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite. I would much rather have a really good vanilla flavor.

3. What famous person, whom many people may find attractive, is most unappealing to you?
George Clooney...or maybe Brad Pitt. Sure they are nice, but they lack substance to me. I am attracted to people who are more than just nice to look at.

4. What famous person, whom many people may find unappealing, do you find attractive?
I don't think I like any unappealing famous people. Maybe I'm boring like that...
Although, I recently saw Jamie Oliver in person and a friend of mine said "Does he spit a lot when he talks?". I'm sure he didn't..at least I didn't notice anyone with umbrellas in the front row or anything. Not that I am particularly attracted to Jamie Oliver. I just think he's a cool guy who writes good cookbooks. Maybe it's the accent...I do quite like English accents....

5. What popular trend baffles you?
- Reality TV! GAWD when will it die??
- Those ugly boots that all of the celebrities are wearing now (UGG's). They are cute...if you're an eskimo and have a matching coat or are wearing a muff, or live where there is a lot of snow, but if you don't, they just look way out of place.
- Low-Rise Jeans...you know, the ones that barely cover the necessary parts. I was once on a flight where this waifish thin girl had pants on that barely covered her ass. Every time she leaned forward in her seat, her bum would almost come out of her pants. That's not the kind of cleavage that should be exposed...

JO!

On Tuesday I posted that I was a Geek.
Last night I got to prove it!
I met...
none other than..
JAMIE OLIVER!!

It was a last minute thing really. I was online browsing through a Food Network message board (being my geeky self...) when I saw a heading that said "Jamie in Seattle". I immediately clicked and found out that he was going to be in Seattle at the BonMacy's for an interview and autograph signing the following day! I dropped everything and started to plan how I could get over there to see him. I couldn't know that he was that close by and not at least try to get over there to meet him. So I made the arrangements and caught the 3pm ferry the following day. I knew there would be a lot of people so I got there as soon as I could and ended up getting a seat in the very front row. It was a good seat as it turned out later that he was pretty much right in front of me.
So he does his interview with the editor of Modern Bride magazine and she asks him all sorts of dull questions. Not boring really but he was sort of trying to lighten it up a bit and she just didn't think it was very funny that he was being like that. He talked about Jamie's Kitchen, T-Fal cookware, and other types of cooking related stuff, as well as his new project where he's trying to fix school lunches in England (if you have ever eaten a school lunch, you know how horrible they are...). It was all very cool and he was very funny and has sort of an "Eddie Murphy" type of laugh. He is exactly the same in person as he appears on tv.
After the interview we all got in a huge f*** off line that wound around the whole store for him to sign our books and things that we bought. I didn't have his newest book yet so I bought one and he signed it on the inside. The exchange went something like this:

JO: " 'ow ya doin' sweet'art?"
Me (with cheesy 100 watt grin on my face): "Hi it's so great to meet you in person!"
JO: "Well thanks a lot for coming out" (as he signs my book in huge swirly letters with his trademark 'xxx' next to his name, which he wrote 'JamieO')
Me: "Well thanks for being here. It must be hard when you have to be away from your fam so much."
JO (smiling and shrugs): "Yeah, well ya gotta do what ya gotta do"
Me (still with 100 watt grin): "Thanks a lot!"

And that was it! I tried to get some pics of it all but wouldn't you know that as soon as he got there, the batteries in my camera died. Thank god for the camera phone! The pics weren't as good, but at least it's something. The nice lady behind me in line used my phone to take a picture of me standing there while he signed my book.
All in all it was totally worth the 2 hours I sat there waiting. His new book looks really incredible and I can't wait to try them out!

Take the Geek Test
I am 15.97633% plain old run of the mill Geek. =) It must be all of those Star Wars movies I watched...

I really need to start blogging on weekends...
Margaret Cho is funny. She has a blog too.

Let's see, where do I begin...
On Saturday I went and did some shopping. While my daughter and I were at the mall, we happened upon a kiosk that was selling hermit crabs of all things. I have heard of people keeping hermit crabs as pets, (OddTodd for example...) but I hadn't really considered it until I saw this particular display. There was this huge glass..um...dunno what you call it...kind of like a terrarium but it was shallow and a lot bigger with wood and shells and rocks and tons of little hermit crabs crawling around inside. Some were as big as my hand and others were about the size of my finger tip. My daughter and I stopped and gawked at them for about 10 minutes and then went on to finish my shopping. I got what I needed and on the way back I kind of made the snap decision that we were going to get a couple of them. Apparently the name "hermit" crab is kind of a misnomer and they really live in huge colonies in the wild so it's better to get more than one. We each picked one of the small crabs and got a little 1 gallon plastic container to keep them in. I also got a little coconut shell house for them to live in. It says "cocohut" on the outside hehe So the one I picked one that was kind of purple-ish with flowers in it's shell (all of the shells were painted) and my daughter picked one that was orange with black tiger stripes on it. We brought them home and set them up with some lettuce to eat and a little water in the scallop shell that came with their little cage. They seemed kinda scared just hiding out in their shells for a while. They would come out if we held them but I think they weren't quite used to their new cage yet. We set them on some plastic drawers that my daughter has in her room for the night. Everything seemed ok.
When we woke up the next morning E came running into my room telling me that the hermit crab tank had fallen off of the plastic drawer! (damn cats...) I went in and there was the tank on it's side with all of the sand in one corner of the tank with the little coconut hut on top. I grabbed it and tipped it up looking for the crabs...found one...moved more sand..found the other. Both of them were kind of impacted with sand so I ran and got a bowl of water to rinse them off. As soon as I got them into the water they came right out...they looked a little freaked out, but other than that they seemed ok. They were both still alive despite being buried alive the night before... I fixed their house and the sand and put them back in and they seemed to be ok. They kind of looked at me like "WTF happened there?" I think they were a little suspiscious of us. I hope they don't think we intentionally tried to bury them alive.

OK...I'm talking about the crabs as if they had brains...time for a break...

If you ever need a good laugh...Engrish.com always comes through...

Friday Five

If you...

1. ...owned a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
I would serve only foods that have the consistancy of gravy...like sloppy Joe's, spaghetti, and beef stroganoff. I could call it Gravy Train or something clever like that...

2. ...owned a small store, what kind of merchandise would you sell?
I think I would like to sell smoothies. My estranged sister and I thought about doing this one summer. We thought about calling them "J Shakes" because both of our names begin with the letter J. They had yogurt and fruit and milk and a bunch of other stuff in them and they were tasty...too bad we couldn't get that one off the ground...

3. ...wrote a book, what genre would it be?
I would never claim to have the patience it would take to write a book. Maybe a children's book? Or perhaps some kind of how-to book...the problem then would be deciding what kind of 'how-to'.

4. ...ran a school, what would you teach?
I would teach basic computer stuff. It should be a requisite for graduating from any organized institution of learning. You would be absolutely amazed at how many highly paid professionals there are out there who can't remember how to change their password or where to turn a PC on and off or any number of mundane computer related tasks...(if you did you probably wouldn't go to the doctor again.)

5. ...recorded an album, what kind of music would be on it?
It would be hours of me playing songs that I know how to play on my guitar. These include:
Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd
Any number of songs by REM
Closer to Fine by Indigo Girls
lots of Young Life sing-alongs
There are more, but I can't think of them right now...
Of course the vocals would have to be recorded seperately because I never did figure out how to play and sing at the same time...

So I'm in the market for an MP3 player...
It's very annoying to be happily jogging along at the gym listening to some music etc., only to have it start skipping on you. I find it extremely hard to workout when I don't have music to listen to. It's a way for me to kind of get my mind off of the fact that I'm running out of breath or my legs feel like they're falling off... I think I've mentioned this before. I have to have music and I have managed to find some that I really enjoy listening to when I work out but it does me no good if my Walkman skips all of the time. Some days are better than others. It's very painful on the days that it's not working...

At last I am down to my final box of Girl Scout cookies. The damn things have been here for weeks on end and finally I've eaten my way through them all...(and I have the extra 2 lbs to prove it...). Now I can move on with my life and maybe actually see the results of my endless hours at the stupid gym...
This weekend was fun. I got placemats (Martha Stewart items are buy one get one at 50% off at KMart right now...gee I wonder why...) and some more fish for my aquarium. This time I got some Neon Tetras. I started out with 5. Since they are all identical, I decided to call them the "A-team". When I woke up Monday though, I noticed that one member of the "team" was missing...I couldn't see a body so I went on to work. When I got home I noticed one of the "team" members was kind of stuck in the plants...yep the team was down to 4. I took the team member back to the fish store along with a water sample and got a rain check. So far I've had 2 deaths which is good I guess considering a 10 gallon tank is supposed to be the hardest size to maintain. If only the bigger ones didn't cost a small fortune...
Anyway, Sunday I went shopping with my mom. We went to Seattle and got to stroll leisurely around Westlake Center for a bit. I got a few things for my upcoming "Philadelphia Extravaganza" that is just 15 short days away.

hehehe Oddtodd makes me laugh...

Do you like milk?

If you do, do not click here...




hehe...it's a good thing that I don't buy regular milk.

Friday Five...wooo this week has gone by fast...

1. What was the last song you heard?

Shiver by Coldplay. It's playing in my CD right now in fact. Friday is a good day for music at work...especially since 2 out of my 3 bosses aren't here today...

2. What were the last two movies you saw?

Hmmm...I rented The Hours on my daughter's birthday... I saw Revenge of the Nerds on TV one recent weekend...
I can't remember the last movie I saw in a theatre...it's been a while. I will be seeing one for sure in a few weeks though.

3. What were the last three things you purchased?

Groceries, an egg salad sandwich, and a birthday gift for The Monster.

4. What four things do you need to do this weekend?

I need (want?) to go to Seattle to shop for clothes for my upcoming trip...I'll probably do that tomorrow. I think my mom is going to come with me, but I'm not sure yet. (I kinda hope not lol) I need to do some laundry. I need to clean up the house in general, it's a pit. I need to dye my hair (still haven't done that...). I need to try to make a visit to the gym, although if I go to Seattle, I'll get in some walking exercise. Might even get some arm exercise depending on how much I purchase. =)
...i think that's more than 4...

5. Who are the last five people you talked to?

My daughter...repeatedly...to try to coax her out of bed this morning, a fairy, my cat Callie who always likes to cuddle while I'm in the loo, the woman who's hard drive crashed when she booted her PC, and the Vietnamese woman in Maintenance who wanted to talk to someone else.

The new fish is working great so far. He's much more lively than Jack I. My daughter wants to name him Jack II. Isn't that like betraying Jack I's memory? Will it confuse the other fish? He seems to be putting Diane in her place so that's a good sign. I had to tell him about the unfortunate demise of his predecessor...he's definatly watching his back.
In other news, I am continuing on my quest for fitness. I am barely hanging on to week 4. It's good to see progress though. I think it'll take me a little longer than 9 weeks to reach the 5k goal...at least my legs will have a shapely tone...

Why is it that guys seem to think saying the word "shit" makes them somehow seem more intelligent, or more manly or something? Even worse, why do they think they have to censor themselves in front of me? I have worked in a field that is comprised about 80% male for the last 7 years. I have heard the off-color jokes, the innuendo/harassment, the flatulence etc...I think I can handle whatever profanity they think they have to shield me from.

This site is so worth your time.

My favorite anecdote so far: by George W. Bush, "The American people's expectations are that we will fail," he declared. "Our mission is to exceed their expectations."

Indeed Mr. President...I believe you have accomplished that. Job well done.

For the record....already and each other are NOT a compound words.

I read an article in the NYTimes today about a woman in New York that is starting a trend called movieoke. It's meant to be like karaoke, but instead of singing like an idiot on a stage in front of a bunch of drunk strangers, you get to act out your favorite bits from movies.
This sounds like an awesome idea and I am wondering why people haven't come up with this before?
I can think of about 10 movies that I would do off the top of my head. There's Groundhog Day ("Don't drive angry"), any of the "older" Star Wars trilogy ("Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?"), Ace Ventura ("If I'm not back in five minutes...just wait longer!"), Naked Gun ("Say, nice beaver" "Thanks, I just had it stuffed"),
ok won't bore you with too many of those...hehe

I am very sad to report the first of my fish has died. Jack was a Marigold Swordtail and you're supposed to keep them in male/female pairs. So I got him and his partner Diane so that they could be happy and maybe have babies or something cool like that. Yesterday when I got home from work, Jack wasn't looking too good. The "sword" part of his tail was completely gone along with part of his tail fin. I was thinking the likely suspect was Diane because the other inhabitants looked really innocent...and besides they are really too small; Jack was kinda big compared to them. I kept an eye on him throughout the evening and he was kind of hovering in the corner doing his little fish thing. He looked scared...and kinda paranoid. I knew something was up but I didn't know what to do to help him. I went to the pet store to ask them what they thought might have happened and they said that Jack was probably sick when I got him and that's why Diane started picking on him. They said if he didn't make it they would replace him for free which I thought was kinda cool. So I went home and he was still kinda sitting there, behind the big rock this time, just hovering and not doing much...he was definitely watching his back though. I fed them and he seemed to just get the food that happened to float by his mouth.
When I got up this morning, I found him kind of laying on his side in the corner. His little mouth wasn't moving anymore and his little fins weren't um...finning anymore so I knew he was likely a flush candidate. I said a little prayer and had a moment of silence for him...
So now I will need to go get a bigger fish from the store that can take care of himself. Someone has to stand up to Diane and her basic instinct ways...
Maybe I'll name the new fish Dodi...
I finally found a picture of what my white/pink fish looks like. She (I think it's a she...) is an Albino Cory. I haven't figured out what to call her yet...still working on that one.
I also found a pic of my African Dwarf frog. I named him Cosmo. He is darker than the frogs in these pics, but you get the general idea. He's very friendly. Whenever I come up to the tank, he always comes over to look at me. I hope nothing happens to him...

I got fish from Petco this weekend...and a frog. I've been working for over a month to get the stupid tank water to a pH level that would not instantly kill anything live that I put into it and I finally succeeded. So 3 fish and $15 later, I have living things in my aqurium! I will see if I can find the names of the species of fish...I just can't remember right now.
I also went to a birthday party for my cousin's little boy. He's a year younger than my daughter which does come in handy at family functions once in a while. It's interesting to see other children around my daughter's age and kind of compare and contrast their behavior...what I found is that if she ever acts like he does then she probably won't be able to sit down for a while. =)
I guess it was kind of a boring weekend, although I did get another visit to the salon for my bi-monthly skin torture...she was no less brutal this time and I have the bruises to prove it. Ah what we women go through for clear skin...
I also bought a bottle of red hair dye...NOT the permanent kind, but the non-commital washes-out-in-24-shampoos type deal. I am experimenting for my upcoming Philadelphia Extravaganza in about 3 weeks. =) I may just do the back...I may do the whole thing. I havne't quite decided yet. Hopefully I won't end up with pink hair like last time...

Friday Five...

What was...

1. ...your first grade teacher's name?

Mrs. Anderson...then she got preggo and some other lady came in, but I can't remember her name. I do remember the ceiling falling down in first grade though. We had to be relocated to a different classroom for a couple of weeks. (no one was hurt I guess...or maybe I was and that's why I can't remember my teacher's name?)

2. ...your favorite Saturday morning cartoon?
I would say plain old, every day Looney Tunes. That's all they really had then. None of this Cartoon Network stuff that they have now. I also liked Superfriends. (Wonder Twin powers...ACTIVATE!) Later on I liked He-Man and She-Ra.


3. ...the name of your very first best friend?

Her initials are MR. Our birthdays were exactly a month apart. I think she still lives around here, but not sure...

4. ...your favorite breakfast cereal?

Hands down...Lucky Charms.
When I want a little cereal with my sugar, I like Frosted Flakes...or maybe Special K with strawberries
When I want "colon blow" type cereal, I like Raisin Bran.

5. ...your favorite thing to do after school?

There was a stretch of time in about 3rd or 4th grade where I watched one of the Star Wars movies every day after school. I was a bit of a tom-boy. I liked going down to the creek and playing in the mud, climbing trees, and fun stuff like that...

Ok had to post this before I go...

Did you ever wish you could hide your location when talking on the phone? Ever wanted to give the impression you were somewhere else?
SounderCover gives you the ability to add a background sound to any incoming or outgoing call, giving the impression that you really are in the environment where the background sound is normally heard.
Did you wake up late for work and you want your boss to think you're caught in traffic? Select the Traffic Jam background and give him a call from your bedroom :). He will hear your voice on top of this (click to listen).
Is one of your mates a chronic talker that just doesn't know when to stop? Use the Phone Ring 15s background and your friend will hear a phone ring 6 times, 15 seconds into the call. Tell him that your other phone is ringing and that you have to go.
Pretend you're at the dentist, in the park, on the street, caught in a thunderstorm, near heavy machinery or at a circus parade. The possibilities are endless! You can even use your own prerecorded sounds or sounds downloaded from the Internet.
You can assign background sounds to anyone in your list of Contacts or simply pick a sound when they call or when you call them. If the contact has an associated sound, it will show up as the default (but you can always change your mind and pick some other background

Were you a nerd in high school? I wasn't (I conveniently even got out of being called a band geek), but I found this article very interesting (although rather long.) There are some conspiracy-type theories that American schools are designed to create a generation of mindless, conformist, idiots. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that idea, but the concept was entertaining anyway.

Here are a few links to pass the day away...enjoy
Movie Alphabet Game #1
Movie Alphabet Game #2

And I know ALL the answers.... la la la. hehe

I had an epiphany on my way home from the gym last night...

Only in America do we get in the car and drive 2 miles to the gym, run on a treadmill for approximately 2 miles, then jump back in the car and drive 2 miles home.

But by jogging to the gym, I would miss Wheel of Fortune and Hollywood Squares. =)

After a weekend of fish tanks, shopping, and 2nd degree burns, I'm kind of glad actually to be back at work. It's been another steady day.
I'm almost done with cookies Part 1. Part 2 comes when we have to take orders and tell the people that we want more....yuck.
One amusing part of today...my name comes up as misspelled on the Spellchecker. The suggestion?
Jangles

Nope..not changing my name...