November 2008 Archives

Saturday morning Flopsy and I woke up bright and early to pick up Brian and Paul and head out on a ROAD TRIP (yes Scott, it IS a road trip even if we only drive an hour away) to Woodstock, IL. "Why Woodstock?" you may ask. Well, Woodstock, my friends, was the filming site of a little movie we like to call Groundhog Day. Despite the fact that the movie is fifteen years old and despite the fact that it's Thanksgiving Weekend, I can see no better place to go then to see all the places the movie was filmed!

In case you've never seen it, here's the trailer:

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So I picked up Brian and Paul and off we went to Woodstock, IL/Punxsutawney, PA. The difference between the town in real life and the town in the movie is that in real life everything is so close together! The houses they used were almost next to each other and all the locations are almost right on the square. And the square seemed so much bigger in the movie!

It was kind of funny that even after fifteen years there are still plaques all around town showing what everything is from the movie.

Here's what we saw:

We headed off to "Woodstock Square" AKA "Gobbler's Knob," where in the movie all of the festivities of groundhog's day take place.

Flopsy saw his shadow :-( Six more weeks of winter.

One of the first random plaques we came across was "Ned's Corner."

You know Ned...Ned... Ryerson. "Needlenose Ned"? "Ned the Head"? C'mon, buddy. Case Western High. I did the whistling belly-button trick at the high school talent show? Bing. Ned Ryerson, got the shingles real bad senior year, almost didn't graduate? Bing, again. Ned Ryerson, I dated your sister Mary Pat a couple of times until you told me not to anymore? Well?

Yeah. That Ned.

We also found the bowling alley, where Phil goes in to bowl...

And the location where the festival banquet was filmed (although we only saw the outside, and it was filmed on the inside"

After touring around the town for movie memories we stopped for lunch at Woodstock Public House. It had nothing to do with the movie, but Paul said they had good food.

I got myself a meatloaf sammich it was yummy.

At one point a strange old man stopped at our table and started singing "Hail to the Orange." But he got the words wrong.

After lunch we went to see the Opera House. In the movie the building serves as the Pennsylvania Hotel, and where, at one point in the movie, Phil throws himself off the top to his death.

Unfortunately, sometime life imitates art, and poor Paul plummeted from the top of the Opera House and died :-(

After that Brian was devastated and didn't want to be in a car (or maybe just wanted to rack up more train miles) so he ran off to catch a train.

I decided to let Flopsy drive home (he argues that the groundhog in the movie got to drive, so he should get to too). But that was a big mistake, because he just managed to crash it :-(

61. Watch all the seasons of 24 (3)
Finished!

63. Watch 5 Bond movies (2)
I saw two more!

147. Try three different wine bars (0.5)
I went to Townhouse!

November total: 3
October total: 12
September total: .5
August total: 14.5
July total: 10
June total: 3.5
May total: 13
April total: 0
March total: 1
February total: 5
January total: 13
Total Points: 75.5

one.
Friday I had the day off so after waking up at 9 I finally got up and showered at noon. I considered calling the opera to pretend to order tickets from someone I know who was working, just to mock them. But I didn't. Instead I headed over to MK's to see Sid because he was heading over there. We all watched an episode of Top Gear that I think I may have actually seen before. Sid and I came up with some brilliant ideas for what to do with their really deep crawl space in the basement. It's between building a giant scale model of a town or turning it into one of those things where you shoot water into a clowns mouth to make plastic horses race.

Sid and Matt got slices of pizza, but I had already ate so I did not. It was OK though, I watched them because I "like to watch people eat." I decided it was a contest. But it was kind of boring. Sid finished first though. Score one for India!

Here are some good quotes from the day:
Me to Matt: "i thought about you during the opera. Not the oral sex part, but the part where all their stocks crashed."

Me on the idea of them turning the crawl space into a shooting range: "The neighbors are going to call the police and say 'the gay guys next door are shooting at each other'"
What was funniest about that was that Sid and Sheilah heard me but I don't think Matt or Ken did.

two.
I am thinking of becoming a pescetarian. But I like bacon and hamburger a lot. And chicken. I was thinking of doing that for 2009. Or at least trying. I don't know if I could make it.

three.
Sometimes you wish you didn't live in a land of make believe. That something was tangible and in your reach. Sometimes.

Our American Heirloom Collection Turkey came with a couple of feathers in it. Those had to be plucked. Don't buy a turkey with feathers in it. Oh, and t's an 18-pound bird...for four people.

Tonight we made the buttermilk brine and set the turkey to soak overnight...

And I baked pumpkin spice cookies...but my family has already eaten almost all of them :-(

My friend in the ticket office said someone called in and complained that the opera Lulu was the "most expensive porn ever." Luckily I got to see it for free. SO does that make it the cheapest porn ever? Anyways I went to see it last night with my sister...

Here are ten five six seven reasons why Lulu at Lyric was kind of awesome...

1. It began with a guy in a BEAR suit playing a little DRUM. A BEAR playing a DRUM! If I had any say in the marketing I so would have just put a photo of that on the cover of the brochure.

2. There was more implied oral sex in this opera than any opera I have ever seen.

3. There was more murder in this opera than any opera I have ever seen. I think there were maybe...six murders. Something like that. And lots of blood.

4. Best part: when a woman tells a man "If my stocks go down I'll gouge your eyes out" and the man replies "Us bankers know what we're doing" and the whole audience burst into laughs and applause.

5. It was based on the writings of the same guy who wrote Spring Awakening, which was turned into a pretty kick-ass musical.

6. There was actually a movie that was written into the opera. I guess many places don't actually produce the movie. But we had it.

7. The sets were cool. I thought at least. It was really boxed in like you were looking real homes. And they had these screens come down that made everything look like some hologram black and white movie.

I'm kind of weird with opera, 'cause I've never been much of a music person and so I don't really get the music but I like story and theater and design so despite the fact that many people hate the music I really liked this as a performance. It could have stood to be about two hours long instead of four hours though...

Monday's horoscope...
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Remember when the very sound of someone's name would make your heart skip a beat and your ears prick up? That's why you'll enjoy today. The giddy feelings return.

Is it sad that I did in fact feel that way all day...but about a camera, not a guy?

Rumor on the streets is that the camera starts shipping today. Of course, that just means it goes from manufacturer to retailer to me...and I probably will not be in the first shipment anyways.

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For the record, my horoscope today did not say "You will be getting a camera today."

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What one article said about the camera: "If the camera has a perfect niche, it's for bloggers working for websites paying enough to allow them to buy expensive cameras. (None currently exist.)"

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OKOK, enough about the damn camera that is not shipping to me...

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Last night after work I met up with Brian for dinner. He is in town celebrating Thanksgiving of a Lifetime 2008. We grabbed some Giordano's pizza and caught up on each others' travel adventures. He told me about the time he let other people plan his vacation and not tell him anything about it. They just sent him text messages along the way telling him what to do. I so want to do that. Anyone want to plan a trip for me?
He needs to blog more so I can keep up :-)

Friday night I met up with Nadia and Bryan. We went to IHOP for pancakes and then went to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I actually found the movie to be both hilarious and sweet. Yeah...it made me cry. Is it a bad sign though that this movie which was basically supposed to be rated NC-17 didn't really phase me as being that bad at all? I mean, I guess there was a lot more penis than most movies. But whatever.

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Thursday I watched Everything is Illuminated because Jeff told me to. It was really good but confusing so I think I have to watch it again. It probably wasn't confusing but I have a tendency to forget to pay attention when I am watching movies at home. I didn't even realize that the guy in it was the guy from Gogol Bordello until afterwards when I looked it up. And I so want to find a sunflower garden and live there. Or at least visit and take pictures.

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And some random musings...

I feel like I'm walking on eggshells.

My nose ring was in too tight and I woke up and it was kind of sucked in a bit and so I pried it out and now the hole in my nose is bleeding. I'm sure you needed to hear that.

I hate the stupid things banks do to try to keep your account secure but also guarantee that you can't access your account yourself. I'm trying to access a credit card account online but it won't let me through unless I tell it my safety word. I don't think I have one of those.

Thanks to Target and the internet I got most of my Christmas shopping done today.

I don't know how to buy clothes for babies. And I have to realize that I can't buy a boy cute pink things.

Apparently my camera is being sold in China. I want mine now! It's supposed to start shipping at the end of November. But there is no guarantee that I will be in the first shipment. I want to take my 20 megapixel pictures and take HD video :-(

Everyone who reads this should leave a comment with two things you think I should do/see/experience in my lifetime. Gogogo.

1.
Tuesday night was my take my friends to the opera night. Porgy and Bess was presented at Lyric for the first time ever and I was excited to see it and figured it was one of those popular ones, being Gershwin and all, that a lot of people would want to see. So I got eight tickets and a bunch of us went.

We went to Townhouse for dinner. I pass by this place all the time and I also find it in web searches whenever I look for places to go for dinner around here. But it never really clicked that they were the same place. The bruschetta was excellent. The white fish was too. The 2 glasses of wine and vodka/strawberry/basil drink I had were also excellent although they made me kind of dizzy and kind of have to pee throughout the whole first act.

The production was amazing, although I agree with Heidi Weiss's article that we are so used to hearing the music in kind of the swinged up, jazzed up form that it was odd to hear it in the operatic form it was originally intended for. But it was a very nice night indeed. (and I don't just praise it 'cause I work there.)

2.
I have a love/hate relationship with MTV Books. Yes, MTV has a line of books and has for years and years. The love relationship started with Perks of Being a Wallflower which was published under this line. But really as the books are crappily written but I always think they will be great. I don't know why. I guess it's for the same reasons I have a love/hate relationship with MTV reality shows.

3.
I really didn't like either finalist on America's Next Top Model. I don't think I watch anything on TV anymore. I guess 24 starts soon. I really only watch that for social reasons though.

4.
I have a big box of shiny new accessories awaiting the arrival of my new camera. I hope I get it in time to shoot Josh's wedding :-(

1.
karma is a fucking bitch. how do i turn mine around? I seriously fucked mine up somewhere along the way.

2.
I want to be these guys. 12 male wedding photographers taking a bus road trip together? And their blogience (I totally just made up that word) gets to take a poll and choose what they do each day? It's awesome. I want to do this. I don't think a bus full of women would have the same results.
But in any case I am seriously addicted to this website.

3.
I was watching the Simpsons and wasn't sure if the weird lady talking was part of the episode or if I had accidentally turned it on audio transcribe. Turns out I had accidentally turned on audio transcribe (where a voice describes everything that is happening for blind people...I wonder if blind people would know the Simpsons is a cartoon?). And from now on I am only watching it that way. When a lady in a normal voice says "Homer shakes the bicycle out of his butt" it makes the episode ten-times funnier.

4.
I am in no way into Star Wars...but I kind of want to take light sabor combat lessons.

5.
I watched From Russia with Love, but Bond movies aren't as fun to watch when you are by yourself. I didn't really pay attention to any of it. Seriously, someone has to watch all of these with me.

6.
I have decided I need an iphone. I used to say that it seemed like it was good for everything but the phone part. But I am afraid of talking on phones so I guess that doesn't matter.
(Really though, anyone who has one is the reception on it good? The reason I hate talking on phones is because I am deaf and have trouble hearing what people say.)
My real reasoning for the iphone is so that I can blog from anywhere. The world doesn't want that.

7.
I kind of really want to eat this.

8.
It is snowing. I wish it was not snowing.

Friday night I met up with Andy and Robert and Sarah and KennyK and Sheila and co. to catch the new Bond Quantom of Solace. Did you know a new Bond film was coming out? I sure didn't.

Anyways.

We went to see it on a super screen, which apparently means a screen that is big. But the seats were way tiny and close to the ones in front of you. I ate expensive nachos for dinner. But I had only spent $3 on lunch so it evened out.

The movie was good. I haven't seen too many Bond films (anyone want to watch them all with me?) so I can't say how it was or was not a Bondy like movie. It was entertaining. My biggest complaint was that the action sequences were horrible. THey went so fast that you had no idea what the heck was going on and you couldn't tell who was Bond and who the other person was.

Is it a bad sign that whenever there is an opera in a movie now I get really excited?

Here is a picture of some of us in line, because people asked me why I wasn't taking pictures:

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Saturday night I went to dinner with my family at Dan McGee's. It was yummy. I took pictures of my food:

Mushroom soup

Chocolate Cake with Coffee Ice Cream

After two $60 meals in a week I think I need to stop eating for a while.

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Jen and Dale named the unborn child. Here's a hint:

Yesterday I was talking to Jeff about how I never really feel full after eating anymore.

And then I went to a seven-course wine-paired meal at Heaven on Seven with Andy and Aimee and Chris and Christi and some others.

And after the first three courses I felt like I was going to die.

And after dessert (which I forced myself to eat ALL of!) I kind of had to throw up in the bathroom (yeah, yeah I did).

I think this proves that I will never be a competitive eater...

Anyways, here's what we ate (and drank!)

Lagniappe
Grilled Andouille Sausage over Sweet Potato Polenta with Creole Mustard and Caramelized Onion
Roundhill Chardonnay
I really don't like sausage (mostly a texture thing) so I was nervous but there were no big chunks to bite into so I was OK. It was damn tasty too. The sausage tasted kind of like a hot dog and the spiciness of the mustard and sweetness of the potato worked well together. I told Andy it was too spicy for me though and he said there was nothing spicy about it. The wine was really good too.

Soup
Chicken & Andouille Sausage Gumbo
Rutherford Ranch Chardonnay
Yummy! It was a really good gumbo. Spicy though :) This Chardonnay seemed a little sweeter than the previous.

First Course
Crawfish Pie in a Flaky Puff Pastry Crust
Roundhill Pinot Grigio
I love me some crawfish...and I love me some crawfish that comes with a phallic-shaped pastry. I think it was supposed to be shaped like a crawfish. At least that is what we told the boys.

Second Course
Orzolaya with Chicken, Shrimp, Andouille Sausage, Tomato and Parmesan
Rutherford Ranch Merlot
The Orzoloya is kind of an Italian twist on Jambalaya. It's a bad sign though when you are on the fourth course and feel like you're going to die and have three more to go. The merlot was one of my favorite wines of the evening, really smooth (although every time I looked at my sheet and saw "Ranch Merlot" I kept thinking it was made with Ranch dressing. For the record, wine made with ranch dressing would be amazing).

Third Course
Creole Spiced Pan Seared Tilapia over a Crab Cake with Warm Remoulade Sauce
Scott Pinot Noir
OK, so by this time I really felt like I was going to die. So I could only eat a couple of bites. The crab cake was good and the tilapia was OK but I've had better tilapia before. But it was good. But I really couldn't eat much of it.

Fourth Course
Grilled Beef Tenderloin Tip over Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Homemade Worcestershire and a Vidalia Onion Ring
Rutherford Ranch Cabernet Sauvignon
The steak and the sauce were really good. Of course, I could only eat like two bites of tem at this point. The wine was extremely flavorful too. I was a little disappointed in the mashed potatoes. Mashed potato is probably my favorite food group but I like them thick. These were a little thin.

Dessert
Dessert Trio — Pecan Pie, Coconut Cake, and Peanut Butter Pie
Rutherford Ranch Moscato and Port
How can you go wrong with THREE desserts? Each one was better than the next. The coconut cake was very moist and the peanut butter pie was creamy and delicious. The pecan pie was my favorite because I love pecan pie. I ate them all...which I shouldn't have but you kind of have to eat three desserts when you are given three desserts. It's a law or something. The wines were my favorite because, well, I love dessert wine. They apparently only make about 75 cases of each of these a year and we got to taste them. Both were delish.

1. When did 99.9 change from "We Play Anything" to "We only play boring political talk in monotone voices"?

2. I've been at my job for over 2 years.

3. I think I am done planning things.

4. Dear techie friends. Say I wanted to create something so that I could put all my photos into a database with all their information (tags, description, date, etc.) and then dynamically put together online photo galleries that way, and have it possible so people can search for things and have it possible so people can search for things and have a photo gallery pop up that would display photos with that search term?

what insanely complicated coding would i have to know in order to make that happen?

Another Saturday night and I aint got nobody...so I headed over to the Grotto in Oak Brook to watch Professor John with Andy.

It was a fun show with John on piano, vocals, and fake trumpet and differentAndy on saxamaphone. John handed me the tambourine for one song, so I got to fulfill my lifelong goal of playing the tambourine.

Seriously, in my laziness to pick up an instrument I was so going to be the tambourine player for Smurph Pornagrafy, the fake band Nad and I have been planning since seventh grade. One of these days we are going to start a band.

I didn't want food food because I'd already eaten so I got some delicious chocolate chip cheesecake and a $4 peach martini.

At the end of the night, after most everyone else had left, I reached across the table for a half a glass of red wine someone had left behind and poured it into another glass of red.
Adam: Do you know that that is the same wine or do you not care?
Me: Oh, I don't care. Neither of them are mine.

Yay for a free glass of second-hand wine!

More Photos Here!

It's not every day that your friend sends you a facebook invite to come over to her new place to have a three-way with her and her roommate.

But, to celebrate their new apartment Chelsa and Tammy did just that...

Seriously, whenever I heard people say "yes we can" for Obama I'd think of Homer Simpson's line "yes i cannabis."

Anyways, here is how I spent my election night in 10 items or less...

1. JoeW printed up a huge U.S. map and every time a state was called we colored it red or blue. I chose to color in Canadia and drew in hockey players and mooses.

2. JoeJoe determined that the mortality rate amongst the occupation of president is pretty damn high for an occupation.

3. Pizza hut pasta is pretty good.

4. Alina went all out on the red and blue, with flowers, plates, and candy bars. We also had red shots and blue shots that we took depending on which states were called. Or just 'cause we wanted to take a shot...

5. At one point when the TV switched to local coverage they announced that one of the precincts couldn't read the results because they came back in this strange format that human's can't read: HTML. My suggestion was that if they opened it in internet explorer they'd have no problems. But no worries, they called in engineers. We never heard about this particular news story again.

6. When the screen announcing Obama won came on we seriously thought it was a mistake. Not because we didn't think he'd win, but because we didn't think they'd call it so early (even though he was obviously beyond in the lead)

7. McCain's wife's dress looked like classic first lady. Unfortunately Obama's wife's dress looked like she was pregnant.

8. If Obama didn't win, would he have denied his girls of a puppy?

9. I kind of wish I had gone to Grant Park. But I doubt I would have been able to see anything around the mob of people anyways.

10. More photos here!!!

Last night I went to dinner with Josh to discuss my job for his wedding. Crazy. I hope my new camera does in fact come in time to shoot his wedding! I also told him to specifically ask the restaurant for a hot, young, single, male bartender. And I told him that I am refusing to do table shots because I hate table shots and since there will only be 30 or so people there I don't think that it matters.

We went to Flat Top Grill. I'd never been there before! It was yummy. I got noodles and mushrooms and onions and plum sauce and shrimp. But they didn't give me enough shrimp (three really tiny pieces). To anyone who has been there, are you allowed to say get beef in a cup and then add a shrimp stick? And are you allowed to go back later just to add rice to your bowl? (I don't like the rice all mixed up and cooked with everything). Places like that confuse me so much!

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Speaking of wedding photography, I promise that I won't be this photographer.

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And you know you've been reading way too much about photography lately when on a news show they show a graph of the stock market and your first thought is "that histogram looks way underexposed."

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First the pumpkin spice latte, then the salted caramel hot chocolate, now the espresso truffle? Is Starbucks trying to make me broke and fat?

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While I am a supporter of Obama and am happy that he is our new president, I have some thoughts...

1. I watched so much 24 during the election that I seriously thought Obama and Palmer were the same person through much of the race.

2. I slightly believe that, since he kind of came out of nowhere, Obama may in fact be the modern-day Faust.

3. I think McCain must be very upset that he was not voted our first black president.

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Style Me Pretty, a wedding blog I read daily despite the fact that I am nowhere near getting married had a contest to design a color palate based around a little black dress. I entered, and here is my color combo. I wanted to do something different and fun and quirky. I think I succeeded in that but don't think I won because all the combos are so nice!

Sunday Joelina opened their home for a game night!

First we played "Ingenious." When I saw on the box that it said for 1 to 4 brains I thought I was fucked. I thought it would be some sort of trivia game and I am really bad at those. But it turned out to be a matching colors game and I am good at matching colors. I did pretty well, but Alina won.

We watched the Simpsons too and when they showed Homer trying to vote for Obama and it kept saying "one vote for McCain. Two votes for McCain" I was scared that that would really happen to me.

Joe makes the most excellent guacamole ever. It is way garlicky (I could probably live on garlic alone). The pizza wasn't so good though.

After that we played catchphrase for a while and the women totally dominated the men. They had such wonderful times such as...

- It's a red fruit.
- umm...cherry.
- pomegranate.
- cherry.
(the answer was strawberry)

and joe's wonderful clue of "bread man"

One of my clues was "George Washington" and so I said "The first president" and the girls guessed right. JoeW made a remark about how it would have been funny if I'd gotten it wrong, like as if I had said:
- The first president.
- George Washington
- Ummm, no
He meant it as a joke but then I told him I was actually scared that that was going to happen when I gave the clue.

After that we played mille bornes, a game I've played a bunch of times but will never remember or figure out how to really play. All I know is that on our first trip Jen and I went nowhere because we spent almost the entire game out of gas. We decided we'd stopped for waffles, so all was good.

And while we played that one alina worked on her rubik's cube and completed it and that was awesome.

Photos here!

So I guess I'm technically not a virgin because I did it once in theatre camp. But I don't know if that time really counted. But Saturday night Chelsa and I totally did it together.

I, of course, am talking about watching Rocky Horror Picture Show!

So besides the time we did a screening at theatre camp (yes, I was one of those kids), I'd never been to see it live! Which is totally a shame. Because seeing it "live" is kind of awesome. By live I mean they show the movie and people dress up and act it out in front of the screen and the audience yells and throw stuff. We bought kits of stuff to throw. And we got to dance which always makes a movie better.

Chelsa dressed as a Transylvanian and I did a half-asses Magenta by frizzing and crimping out my hair (which fell flat in approximately two seconds) and wearing a black slip and red lipstick.

The best parts are definitely the time warp, throwing toilet paper, and putting up glow sticks to "there's a light." The weird part was that some of the guys parts were being played by girls and it made it too much of an estrogen fest up there. Rocky needs to be a hunky guy. A lithe happy woman just doesn't really cut it.

Anyways.

The movie was a midnight showing but by the time they did the costume contest and dance contest and devirginized people it was 1am. When the movie ended it was about 1:20am. Which confused me but for the wrong reasons.

and we're back in business...

Chelsa: Are you spending the night with Ron?
Me: Ummm...I don't think he's into that kind of thing.

Chelsa: I'm probably just going to go home and watch a football game.
Ron: Oh, so you're going as a lesbian.

I didn't have any plans for Halloween so I decided to go with workJoe and Ron to the boystown parade. Ron went to go get gussied up in costume so I went with Joe and his sister to chicken hut to eat chicken and mashed potatoes and pita. Then we went to meet up with Ron. I finally got to meet Don, sho, since I'd never met him before, I'd previously assumed was a figment of Ron's imagination.

Ron showed off his awesome three musketeer costume and Don had a baby demon backpack that cried. I rocked my sesame street fairy costume, although I may have looked a wee bit more like I was going to a rave and not a halloween parade.

We headed over to the parade but soon after it started a big fire truck came through and parked right in front of us. Apparently they weren't part of the parade but someone was trapped in an elevator. So we had to watch most of the parade go around it.

It was tons of fun parade, but everyone hyped it up so much that I was a little dissapointed. It wasn't quite as over the top as I expected for it to be. And not enough almost naked men, even though the weather was gorgeous. What's with that?

But it was fun.

I really shouldn't wait a week before writing a write up because I forget everything.

photos here!

When the local news break was quickly wrapped up at 10:00pm and the screen switched to a display that declared Barack Obama the winner my first thought was "someone's getting fired for that one." Honestly, we all thought that someone made a mistake. Not that we had any doubt that Obama could take it all. We just kind of expected to not get a concession and a victory until the wee hours of the morning and even then we figured there'd be weeks of argument and debate.

So when a winner was declared so bluntly out of nowhere on the same day that the election began we were skeptical that they didn't accidentally prematurely put up the wrong screen.

Thankfully, we were wrong.

I still can't believe it was that easy and quick. But it just shows that we all need a change.

I like Obama for the reasons I've hated many of our recent presidents (namely two named Bush). It always seems as if the person who wins isn't the most qualified person for the job but the one who was bred to be in politics. Who knows if Obama is the absolute right one for the job but while he wasn't bred to be the leader of our country, I think he was born to be. And that right there is a big difference.

Can Barack fulfill all his promises? Probably not. But who really could? But he inspires people. He brings us hope. He makes us feel as if anything is possible. And more than anything I think that is what this country needs right now. For the first time in a long time I think people really feel like for once something can change for the better. And for that, I am overjoyed and proud that I have finally cast a ballot that helped a man I wholeheartedly support take office.

p.s. I managed to fix my photoshop and dreamweaver so stay tuned for lots of updates!

I voted this morning. I was in and out in ten minutes. That included the two minutes I spent standing in the wrong line. There was an electronic booth open so I did that. It was kind of a mistake because I really only vote for president and a few others and when you do the electronic one you have to skip through every screen and then it shows you all your answers on the screen to verify and then it prints a copy and shows you it again to verify. Next time I will just mark a box old school style and be done with it.

Then I took my voter sticker and headed to Starbucks to get a free tall coffee. If you show them your sticker they will give you a free coffee. So if the democratic process means nothing to you, at least get some free caffeine.

For the record, I was in line behind way more people at the Starbucks than I was at the voting place.

Ah, democracy in action :-)

Then later, Jeff told me I can go to Krispy Kreme and get a free donut. So I did that :-)

But they gave me a plain donut and not the advertised sparkly star patriotic ones. I bet if Barack Obama was president he wouldn't stand for such injustices...

Between 5pm and 8pm Ben and Jerry's is also giving out free ice cream...maybe I'll see if there's one of those on the way to Joelina's...

Maybe I lied about not posting. I forgot that I could post my game of life recap from the last two months. i forgot to do it last month because truthfully I've been totally forgetting about the list (not that that is really a bad thing...) and because I really didn't do anything list-wise in September. I'm sure Heather's the only one who missed it.

SEPTEMBER

116. Take a bubble bath (0.5)
Well, I took a Lush bath. Same diff.

OCTOBER
19. Go to two parades (3)
Went to the pride parade and the pride halloween parade :-)

43. Take three professional development courses (5)
Let's go with I did this...I had semi-private video training, a dslr class, and a wedding photgraphy class this year.

60. Music Box Massacre (4)
Stayed awake for 18 hours. It was awesome.

61. Watch all the seasons of 24 (3)
Not quite...4 discs still to go...

October total: 12
September total: .5
August total: 14.5
July total: 10
June total: 3.5
May total: 13
April total: 0
March total: 1
February total: 5
January total: 13
Total Points: 72.5

My regularly scheduled blogging has been interrupted by the fact that photoshop and dreamweaver have completely stopped working and will not reinstall on my computer. So I can't edit or post photos right now. How the hell am I going to survive? I suppose I could blog without photos. But really, what good is talking about going to the gay pride halloween parade without posting photos?

Hopefully adobe will come back to me with a solution soon or I can figure out something. Because I have photo-worthy events taking place every night over the next four days. And I get antsy when my blog isn't up-to-date with my life. And I am going insane trying to fix this.

Not that anyone else will miss me.

Consider this a vacation from my insanity (while I go completely insane trying to figure this out).

This has been a public service announcement from the val network.