Friday, April 29, 2005

photo friday

I'm always lurking on Photo Friday, so I figured it's about time I submit something. This week's challenge is 'fancy'

Chinatown jade

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

happy birthday, Ben!

Remember in art class (in 1988) when we had to do self portraits? There's nothing like having a room filled with oil pastels being driven by teen angst. I hope your birthday is lots more fun than that.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

plus some black jellybeans

I was looking for patterns for a knit doll online and came across the Poopy Sheep.


Do you have a sense of humor? Poopy Sheep is crocheted and filled with black jelly beans which "poop" out the back hole.

I do have a sense of humor. I guess I just don't think a poopy sheep is funny. On the other hand, the people who think the poopy sheep is hilarious probably wouldn't find my recent posts very funny at all.

Monday, April 25, 2005

as long as I've written about Nazis once...

I figure I should just get this one out there, too.
This weekend on our way to a rafting trip in Coloma, Alex and RM started talking about potential names for Alex's practice once he's a real live optometrist. We've discussed this many times before and decided that hair salons and vision care places have some pretty bad names. In the past we've come up with "the EYES have it", "EYE can help" or "EYE, EYE, captain" but this one took the cake:
Alex: Maybe I should just call it the Third R-EYE-ch
RM: Yeah, and then your slogan could be "Because even a Nazi shouldn't not see."

I will admit it took me a long time to get the Nazi/not see part. But that was okay because when I finally did get it I realized that I had actually extended the life of the joke, providing myself with laughter even while alone.

Friday, April 22, 2005

Thursday, April 21, 2005

at lunch

I learned two things from Paul:

1. Someone had the brilliant idea of editing the entire NWA album, Straight Outta Compton... keeping only the explicit lyrics. Excellent.

2. Fried is okay again. I have always been and always will be a big fan of fried, but now I don't have to be ashamed to say it anymore. I'm also extremely jazzed to meet the new Colonel.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

happy birthday, Greg!

I almost forgot to post this today. Because I was so "busy" at "work".

Without a friend like you I would never have a kick ass job, play so many board games or scare the crap out of myself by going white water rafting.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

please don't make me watch UPN

Britney, Britney, Britney.
I'm so sick of her that when May 17th rolls around I'm not watching this.
Britney stated "I am so excited about the series... As I mentioned before, I am now going to be expressing my personal life through art. This series will show us falling in love and all the adventures that went on overseas during the European leg of my Onyx Hotel tour. It's going to be an exciting ride." Kevin feels this project will speak for itself. Simply put, he says, "It is a documentation of love."

oh, who am I kidding. You know I would totally watch it, but it's on at the same time as the Amazing Race. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, the Amazing Race may have it's final episode before May 17... so never mind.

That new Britney Spears show is going to be awesome. But not as awesome as this.

Monday, April 11, 2005

happy birthday, Mindy!

Growing up with a sister only 11 months older was wicked awesome. You paved the way and I was always right on your tail, annoying the crap out of you. Because we were forced to share a room we ended up sharing clothes, magazines and albums, for better or for worse. We got into some decent fights over the sharing, and once again I'll take some time to say sorry that I pulled your hair out, scratched your face and bit you. But that's what you get for even thinking about wearing my Star Wars pajamas. We can look back at those times and laugh now, right? Right?
There were some good times, too. Like the time we agreed what a loser the family therapist was and the time we pooled our money together to buy as many black rubber Madonna bracelets as possible.
I have to admit that the moment which best defined our sisterhood for me happened last week when without more than four spoken words between us we both confessed and understood the shame of having participated in the viewing of Behind the Camera: Mork & Mindy, the unauthorized story.
Maybe we felt compelled to watch it since I spent a good amount of my childhood being called Mork, while you were always being asked where Mork was. At any rate, I'm glad you're my sister and I love you.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

oysters, ice cream and the masked luchador

It's important to remember that San Francisco has much to offer, so that's why last Saturday Greg, RM, Alex and I attended O'Reilly's Oyster & Beer Festival. Beer and oysters? In a festival format? Free admission? okay.
I thought that it would be a lot more festival-y, as in there would be games and fried dough, etc., but it was basically a big open space lined with tents for oysters and tents for beer and a big stage where Irish step dancing and Irish music happened. We got there pretty early and left before it got too crowded. Out departure was prompted by a band who labeled their style as a fusion of Jazz and Celtic music. Unfortunately that meant we missed the shuck and suck contest. damn. But we did have some beer and oysters. Here is a picture of Greg and RM drinking 6 dollar beers while we looked for a place to sit. Let it be known that a $6.00 beer will make RM angry.

As long as I put a picture of beer (and it's drinkers) up here, I might as well bust out some of the oyster biznazz.



I'm not a big shellfish fan. I also don't like slimy food, but I was feeling the pressure since it was an oyster festival, so I finally gave in to a small oyster. It wasn't so bad. I loaded it up with horseradish to be on the safe side so basically it ended up being an experience about chewy horseradish. I can't say I would make a habit of eating them, but I tried. I had a bite of a fried oyster later on in the day and HATED it. But not as much as Alex hated opening the door to an unlocked port-a-potty to find someone already in there relieving himself. I didn't know what happened until afterward, but I heard Alex say "you know, these things do lock" and I was all "yeah, duh, I know" but it turns out he was talking to the peeing stranger.

With the Oyster fest port-a-potties behind us we ended up being tourists for the day and walked over to Ghirardelli Square for some ice cream. Alex ordered something called the Warm Cookie Bottom sundae, it sounded dirty to me but I ate some anyways. Oysters and warm cookie bottom, I told you San Francisco has so much to offer. After our throats hurt from ingesting so much sugar we headed down to the Musee Mecanique.

It was in this museum that I found out you could watch a mini execution for a quarter, mechanical bowling is awesome


and although Alex was defeated, Greg is one serious arm wrestler... strong enough to take down the masked luchador.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

rehab, vestibular stizzy

Looks like I'm an A+ patient in my vestibular rehabilitation therapy. I've been doing my exercises everyday and it seems to be paying off, I'm noticing some relief of my symptoms and my balance is getting lots better. I can even walk a (sort of) straight line with my eyes closed. I can't believe I'm in my 30s and I'm bragging about being able to walk. The thing that sucks about VRT is that it takes about an hour out of my day... everyday. When I have an appointment with the physical therapist I can kiss another hour goodbye. I'm not going to get bitter about it (like everything else) because I'd rather give up an hour of each day doing weird crap my eyes closed and turning my head quickly in various directions than suffer with dizziness for the rest of my life. And sometimes the exercises are fun, especially when Alex helps me out; while I balance on one leg on some foam he times me and even catches me when I start veering off to one side. Isn't that sweet? I can't wait until he gets to push me around in my wheelchair, it's like a window into the future. I've also done some fabulous redecorating all around the apartment by taping up focal points for exercises. These are some fancy focal points consisting of a single letter written on the back of a business card and hung at eye level using only the finest of Scotch tapes.

Today I did some rehab when I got to work by repeatedly walking down a long hallway while turning my head to each side. This wasn't too embarrassing, because no one ever walks down that hall. VRT offically got fun after lunch today when I got some of my coworkers to do the hall run with me. Not only was it hilarious, but I was able to find some comfort in the fact that one of them felt just as bad as I did when we finished. Sorry, Sean.

Saturday, April 02, 2005

me not good at thinking

Yesterday, being April Fool's day and all, I thought I would play a joke on Alex. My joke was to put a rubber band around the squirty hose thingy at the sink so when he would turn the water on in the kitchen, instead of having water come out of the faucet as expected, he would be left in shock and awe of his mysteriously soaked shirt. The problem with this joke was that hours went by and nothing Alex did had anything to do with the kitchen sink. I eventually decided that while he was in the bathroom I would empty his water glass as well as the mostly full Brita water pitcher... forcing him to fill up something. As I'm emptying these things I notice some stray coffee grounds in the sink that really bother me, so I decided to rinse them away. ha ha. Now I'm standing at the kitchen sink with a soaked shirt feeling like a big idiot. I was able to escape from the sink and change my shirt without Alex noticing, however I'm not convinced he wasn't aware of my uncontrollable bursts of laughter. About a half hour later Alex needed water and decided to fill up the pitcher. I didn't figure on this, but did you know that when you flip the top of a Brita water pitcher up to fill it you are completely protected from the spray of water coming from the squirty hose thingy?
If my practical joke failure isn't enough to convince people of my lameness, try this one. We lost power yesterday while I was talking on the phone with Wil. I'm still chatting away telling Wil all about our power going out when I start wondering why I don't hear Wil on the other end. Then I realize the POWER WENT OUT so the phone just isn't going to work. I pick up my cell phone to call him back and discover I only have his cell number stored on my cell phone, so I pick up the home phone to look up his home number. I start pressing buttons and wondering why I can't see anything. That's right, I picked up same phone that I had just put down less than 30 seconds ago, there was still no power, and I was still stupid.

Friday, April 01, 2005

I'm addicted to lines. LINES!

Last Wednesday I stood outside the Metreon for a good portion of the day with some of my coworkers and a camera crew to cover the launch of the PSP. I would never make fun of the 500 people who waited in line to get the PSP at midnight, I'm especially not going to mock the first 10 guys in line who waited anywhere from 18 to almost 48 hours in the rain and cold.


These people are the fans I won't poke fun of (except the guy who wouldn't sign an image release and freaked everyone out). Not only do they guarantee I'll still have a job, but once I got to talking to them I found some weird place in my heart for them. Over the 14 hours I spent with these dudes I got kind of attached; with some it was much like that dysfunctional love/hate relationship between a kidnapper and his victim. With others I found a genuine respect for their gusto, because it was fucking cold out there. This is Dan.


His girlfriend brought him warmer socks and shoes in the evening. She also brought him some dinner. Dan was actually in the store doing some stuff with PR people when his lady dropped by. Oh, Dan. Hope things are going okay for you.
The first guy in line, Richard, was pretty cool. Here he is contemplating a hot dog.


He had a handmade hat and scarf set created with some army camouflage yarn, we talked about it for at least 10 minutes. That was the point where I realized I might be a bigger geek than anyone in the line. He was so tired of people asking him what he was waiting for that he started answering people with "Tickets are going on sale for the Backstreet Boys reunion" or "N'Sync is doing a free performance." I was only there for a fraction of the time he was, and I was pretty bored with answering the "what's all this about?" question as well. The best conversation regarding the line was between an insanely enthusiastic older gentleman and my boss.
old man: Say, what's this line all about?
boss: It's the launch of the PSP.
old man: Now what's that again?
boss: At midnight a handheld device, the PSP, will go on sale.
old man: So it's a sale?
boss: Well, these people will be the first to get the units, but they cost the same as they will in other stores.
old man: So they just want to be first. What does it do?
boss: You can play games, watch movies and listen to music with it.
old man: And how much does that cost?
boss: Around 250
old man (while smiling and nodding): Oh, what people spend money on these days! Good for them! You know, I should get in this line. I'm addicted to standing in lines.
boss: You're what?
old man: I'm addicted to lines. (then screaming at the top of his lungs) LINES!



This giant PSP was across the street from the line and the screen was counting down how many hours and minutes were left until purchasing time. Add Dick Clark and we would have been all sorts of compelling to millions of Americans. or not.

I left at 11:45pm, before the first sale, but I bet Mr. 500 had to wait a pretty long time before he actually had his hands on a PSP. I wonder if he actually got his PSP before the Circuit City opened the next day.