CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Relax; you already know which sweetheart is for you. You do not have to reject anybody. The person not chosen by you will intuit your intentions and bow out. This frees you up to meet with your destiny.
December 2008 Archives
eye candy for heather
I know Heather waits for this... Yesterday the Victoria's Secret semi-annual sale started so I took off after work for my semi-annual stock up.
By now I have this sale down to a science...start with the bra bin...then move on to underwear...then the periphery items (pajamas, shirts, etc.). Always look at tags because they like to try to trick you into thinking the non-sale merchandise is sale merchandise. Go to the line that looks as long as every other line, but goes twice as fast because it is really one line that feeds into two cashiers. Science I tell you.
Anyways, here's the loot...
(Yes, yes Victoria's Secret DOES have a line of collegiate gear for U of I)
See what you're missing out on boys? ;-)
scotty is leaving me soon
I went to the frog bar last night to see scotty. It was fun but I forgot the memory card for my camera :( I felt naked all night. Scott is scared of me though and thinks I am weird. Andy called me the most girly girl he knows. Which is odd because I'm really not that much of a girly girl. My financial panther then gave me the option of filling out paper work in the parking lot or at his house. So I went to his house which ended in me laying in his bed and being shot in the ass. That's all I'm saying.
coffee break
Starbucks is advertising their new tea lattes that debut in five days. I am afraid that that means the end of the espresso truffle (pronounced expresso by everyone who works at starbucks).
new years
I still have no clue what I am doing for new years.
it's either...
go to mk's party (where I will probably end up crying)
go out with my best friends (but they are both married, and I am so totally not... and they don't really have any plans yet)
somehow split my time between the two of those.
Go to bars in the city with a friend from work.
Go to bars in the city with Heather if she is in town.
I'm not sure what to do.
So Sid brought up having a threesome in the comments of my last post. Obviously, this is what ensued... (sorry Jeff, had to post it...)
Val: but if you, sid, walter, james, joejoe all have dates i'll be left out in the cold :(
Jeff: well there will be no single women, that doesnt mean no single men
Val: i know. but i don't know how quality these other single men would be...
not that the list of guys i mentioned is all that quality... :-)
Jeff: shiiiiiitttttt you just dont know what you are missing out on
Val: hey, you're the one who wants to bring a date...i'll be the one drunk on slushy drinks and lonely...
Jeff: haha yeah but the last time that happened at a wedding, i just got cried on
the last time if happened overall you were half passed out and unresponsive
Val: :( i'm a bad lonely drunk
Jeff: i dont even thnk you were that drunk at the wedding
Val: yeah, i wasn't really drunk. so see, maybe i would be slutty at a wedding when i was drunk ;-)
Jeff: 3 some it is
haha
Val: threesome with who?
Jeff: i dont know, whoever, i will see where the night takes me and have everyone else force feed drinks on you
who knows maybe it will be an 8 some
Val: haha
i'm trying to think who i would have the threesome with if i had to choose
Jeff: haha are you getting double teamed or is it 2 girls and a guy
haha
Val: i dunno. unless it was with joe and alina...
you would be one of them i think...but it's mostly a trust thing and because i know you the best
Jeff: yeah
you should see if heather wants to be your date to rob's
everyone knows her
Val: hmm...true
Jeff: tell her i am going, she will be sold
Val: oh, i'm not enough of a selling point?
Jeff: dude, i am awesome
Val: you don't think i'm awesome?
Jeff: i am just saying heather will be sold on ME!
wooo1
woo!
go me
Val: i'm awesome AND cute, take that
Val: hmmm...but that does make it sold for the threesome...you, me, heather. mmmhmmm
Jeff: haha josh might kill me
one.
I am working on a playlist of songs involving the word "baby" or something that seems babyish. For instance I have come up with songs like "Hit me Baby One More Time" and "Cradle of Love." Anyone have any suggestions?
two.
I have received 2 calls in the last month. I am what you call "popular."
three.
I watched a dumb Lifetime Christmas Wedding movie the other day. But I got really annoyed at the end when the wedding photographer was just using the flash on his camera, because it totally took me out of reality :-)
four.
My DVD player broke with a Netflix DVD stuck inside of it. Jeff said it would be easy to get it out. Ummm....yeah...this is what happened:
I bought a new one. And...you'll be so proud...I bought a black one instead of the pink one they had.
five.
Rob and Christine were in town so I headed out to Bourbonnais to see them and get dinner. We got Steak n Shake because it's the only time Rob can get it. They made fun of me for liking coleslaw...and for having a small chest... At Rob's place we watched some of Pirates of the Caribbean in HD and it looked really weird. Like too real and too fake all at the same time. It looked like something on PBS. It was odd. Walter and Sid kept trying to get me to smell their feet but I wouldn't.
And the more Christine and Rob described the wedding the more we realized just how amazingly kick-ass it will be.
On the way home Sid and I devised a plan for the wedding, as I will be one of about 3 or 4 single women there and can have my pick of all the nerds I want :-) He said I have to dress slutty but not too slutty to be scary to them and that I need to know stuff about Stargate and the like. He also said if all else fails James can be plan B.
Christmas was kind of OK and went much better than I expected. I did get enough gift certificates to pay for 1/3 of the lens I want! Oh, and Guitar Hero World Tour! And I think everyone liked what I got them. I think my fav was the Superman/Bears shirt I got for my dad, because those are two of his favorite things.
On Christmas Eve we went to see Yes Man. Which was pretty good. I mean, for the kind of movie it was. I kind of want to start a band like the one Zooey Deschanel is in in the movie. Then we came home and watched the copy of University of Illinois Vs. a Mummy that Brian gave me and Hamlet 2. Then I watched some of A Christmas Story and stayed awake tracking Santa until he got to Chicago.
On Christmas we went to See Benjamin Button. It was good but reminded me of Forrest Gump. And I didn't quite get how the whole aging thing worked. Because
(SPOILER)
he was born as a baby but old but died as a babybaby, which didn't make sense, and I was kind of expecting to see a big Brad Pitt with a baby head, like this:
(END SPOILER)
Anyways.
Samson came to visit. Him and Luke played.
My dinner came out OK despite burning the carrots and them shriveling to nothing and despite accidentally dumping half a bottle of pepper into the chicken. Here are some dark blurry pics:
Yesterday (yes, on a Monday), my dear friend Josh got married. They were originally going to get married in June, but decided to buck it and move the wedding up to December (no, no she is not pregnant). Jennifer came in from Korea on Friday (no, no she was not a mail-order bride), they went and got their license, and slightly over 24 hours later they were set to be married!
The wedding was small. She wore a red dress. They didn't walk down the aisle and instead just went up to the front and announced to everyone that their wedding would be starting. They exchanged vows and rings and a kiss (a very long kiss...hey, she's been in Korea for the last year!), and then we all went out to dinner. It was a really amazing wedding because they didn't do really anything "traditional" just because it's "traditional." It wasn't fussy. They just wanted to get married, and they did it their way.
And did I mention that they had the fabulous sense to hire me as their wedding photographer?
So...I have a million photos to go through. But here are a few highlights...
OK...I refuse to end this year with ends still loose...
So remember that time, way back when in August, when I went on a road trip to South Dakota? Well...it's about time, I suppose, that I post those pics...
Mount Rushmore Road Trip Photos!
Friday night I met up with Brydia and Jenadam (yeah, those don't work) to go to gameworks and play some games.
I'm totally an oldschooler and like my pinball and pacman and skiball. But I like me some House of the Dead because I get to pretend I'm in a horror film and because, unlike all those playstationy games, it shows you where to go so i don't end up getting stuck in a room not knowing how to get out...
I did find another game that I played purely because I could play with the pink gun.
And I traded my 25 tickets from ski ball in for a tootsie pop. Actually, the guy didn't take my card so I think I got my tootsie pop for free :-)
Nad stole my camera while we played DDR. This was my first time ever playing DDR in an arcade (I played it for a round once on Alina's Wii). p.s....yes, we always forget that you can't turn the camera vertically.
Every once in a while I am inspired to play a game of chess. This particular occurrence happened while watching an episode of True Life on TV about young geniuses. One of them was a super important chess guy. There are two things you should probably know about me before I go on. One is that I have no idea how to play chess. I kind of know the basic movements on the pieces, but that is about it. Two, is that my favorite piece to move around is the horsey and I get sad and don't care anymore once my horseys are gone. But that doesn't really have anything to do with the question at hand. You see, in order to play chess I play the game that came on my computer that tells me where I can move. This comes in handy because I often forget. But today it presented me with something interesting...
It was my move. I am the white one. I wanted to move one of the little white stumpy ones forward. I know that little stumpy ones can only move forward by one (two on their first try) or diagonal one when there is something there to eat.
So I clicked on the piece intending to move it forward by one. The computer presented me with this though, showing that I could either move forward one OR I could move diagonally to this empty spot.
Ummm...OK, so I moved it diagonal and the black little stumpy piece was eaten.
So, my question to anyone out there who plays chess is this: WTF? Is that a real move for some reason or is my chess game just broken?
1.
No I wouldn't turn down jewelry if a guy wanted to give me some (anyone? anyone?) But I do hate the idea of any guy just going to a store to pick anything up because women are all the same and like the same jewelry. I would hope that if a guy were to get me jewelry it would be something that was truly my taste (hint hint)and not just something he saw on TV. Anyways, this made me laugh:
2.
My phone is out of batteries so it keeps beeping every few minutes. The charger is only a few feet away, but I am too lazy to plug it in.
3.
The more i plan my fake wedding the cheaper it becomes. Of course, I am kind of planning 10 fake weddings so I guess it unbalances out.
4.
Godiva chocolates may very well be the greatest food known to man.
5.
Burger King is now selling a Whopper cologne...I would buy it if shipping wasn't $10.
6. The pigeons were cold and huddled up to the eternal flame.
1.
MattH: is that a homemade lens?
Me: kinda.
My homemade lens cover:
what is does:
2.
First, don't think of yourself that highly. Second, action speaks louder than words.
3.
I so wish I had a picture of me in the button.
4.
faeriewingtips: i at least take comfort in the fact that in february i will have an amazing new man in my life
glitterbot: ?
glitterbot: a really small one
faeriewingtips: yes, size doesn't matter
5.
I am making Christmas dinner this year. I think I am making pan-roasted chicken, roasted carrots, and mashed potatoes.
6.
This reminded me of something Sid would like.
7.
When I was in MK's room with Sid the other week I saw on the floor a CD with the label "Porn for Matt"...I was going to say something...but then I realized that it looked suspiciously like my handwriting. This year for Christmas he got a CD titled "Naked Pictures"...and then he put it on the TV screen for everyone to see :(
8.
I went to this new place Boulevard for dinner with Josh. I wanted to give him his Christmas present of bacon chocolate bars before his anti-baconite fiancé came back. I accidentally told him that I bought it online because I had an online coupon. Oops. (I would have bought it for him anyways...) I had a yummy breaded pork, but the gravy and dumpling were a little salty. I had to explain to Josh that each season of 24 is not in consecutive days. He had to explain to me that Alaskans aren't illiterate.
My financial panther threw a holiday party
many people came by and he was rather jolly
Professor John played piano, and antlers were worn
There was wine and sandwiches, brownies and popcorn
The night was filled with family and friend
and we drank and conversed until way past the end
Last night was apparently the biggest and brightest full moon of 2008.
So this week was a whole lotta Lyric celebrations. So here is my work week...mostly in bad pictures of food...
Ticket Department Party
In all fairness my department was invited and I didn't just show up because I spend more time than I should in ticketing. But in any case they had a party with lots of yummy food that people brought in pot-luck style.
(p.s. Ron brought the chicken mcnuggets...)
They had a white elephant gift exchange. Ron got a talking puppet. No one should ever ever give Ron a talking puppet. Eric got a used library book that Ron bought.
Chelsa traded some playdough for the used book...this what ensued...
Holiday Party
- the walls are fuzzy. The curtains are immovable. And only some of the couches have tassels.
- So I heard this rumor about Mario...
- assesstify
- mushroom cappuccino bisque shooters? hello awesome. (really, i am probably the only one there who liked them)
- A mushroom is a fungus. eric - like cheese?
- I like anything on a stick...adam- that's my motto too.
- the party went from 4pm - 7pm...I left around 8 when they kicked us out.
If you are looking for something to get for me for Christmas.
This guy was outside my office yesterday. I think I should tell him I will interview him if he gives me $20. Or that for $200 I will redesign his website and edit his resume, because they are both kind of bad. I think it looks way desperate to offer to pay for an interview (of course, I am sure he will get offers...just probably not the ones he might want...) but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.
Eatfeats (an awesome competitive eating blog, where I get 99.9% of all my ce news) now links to me from their sidebar navigation under "competitive eating fans." Yes my friends, I have arrived.
1. I have a love/hate relationship with New Years. I love it because for a moment, to me, it truly feels like everything is fresh and clean and I have a whole new year ahead of me that I haven't fucked up yet. But I hate it because it is this one night with so much pressure and so much meaning jammed into it.
And I hate to say this because I absolutely love my friends. But there is kind of a long standing tradition between me and my best high school friends that we always spend New Years together. And I love that tradition...except that they are all married now and I am so totally not. And we end up doing things where it's basically just us. So while they are all paired off I get to be the lone single one with no one to kiss at midnight. And so it kind of makes me sad.
2. Dear Josh, please send invitations for your wedding that is two weeks from today.
3. What are the qualifications for a dream to be a "sex dream"? I say there has to be at least nakedness. Jeff seems to think hand holding or something counts.
This was sparked by me pointing out that I am a dream slut for making out with four different guys in my dreams over the last week...
Jeff: wait wait so if you are making out but naked, it is a sex dream but if you are making out but clothed, it is not? i call bull shit =P
Me: i don't know. but no sex took place. i am not that dream slutty. i'm not just going to take off all my clothes and do you without at least dinner, jeff...even in my dreams.
4. And now for something a little more wholesome...today was a cookie exchange!
Amsterdam is getting a makeover.
I currently have four versions of photoshop installed on my computer. At least my backwards loophole way of getting the newest photoshop legally worked :-) I should get rid of some of my old versions. I really don't need version 6.0 anymore...(p.s. I actually did manage to use all four versions of it today...so maybe I should keep them...or just stop being lazy and figure out where the features I need are hiding on the newest release...)
I found Christmas wrapping paper with pink in it :)
My financial panther send me a Christmas card and he wrote in it that he chose the card he had with the most pink in it to give to me :-)
It is unfortunately not feasible to spend $350 and take two days off of work to fly to Virginia next Wednesday night to see Ravens Place's final show :-( I seriously thought heavily about going. Not that I've ever seen the band before...or heard their music...But I guess now I never will.
Is it bad to tell your sister that her baby shower has to be early since 24 premieres that night?
Is it bad to tell your sister you changed the theme to her shower because you found cute invitations that were still boyish and babyish without being overwhelmingly baby?
The directions for my hot chocolate suggested putting cheese in it...
I seem to have a reputation at work. Every time I mention baking someone asks if I put bacon in it. Every Friday someone asks me if I am going to any eating contests. Every Monday someone asks me if I went to any eating contests.
I did nothing but chores this weekend and I still got nothing accomplished. I want things in order before the year is over.
My dog ate a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of vegetable soup for lunch.
Mom: Do you want to play checkers?
Me: No
Mom: Good, because I don't have any.
big jim slade (i guess it's nsfw):
one.
The other night I had a dream that involved me hooking up with Jeff. I told him not to be flattered because in that same dream I also witnessed a car running over a baby's head. And for that matter the next night I had a dream that Michael Cera proposed to me at an Obama rally. Yeah, I've been having some weird dreams.
two.
This commercial bothers me so much. It's like a woman sitting there playing a video game in her pajamas while her more put together friend basically tells her everything she should do with her life. Seriously, there is just something messed up going on in these girls' relationship.
three.
This is how I pack for vacation too. But I am a Canon girl.
four.
i just saw a commercial for american idol and they didn't show any bad singers...there is something wrong with that picture
five.
Have you ever seen The Kentucky Fried Movie? I Netflixed it and had totally forgot how awesome it is. Go rent it.
six.
I am shooting my first wedding in less than 20 days. SCARY.
seven.
this is what I did with my night. I am boring.
Ever experience dejavu? If you happened to just check the top and only the top of the blog for the last three days, you may not have noticed something strange going on here...see posts one, two, three. :-)
For another side of the story, here are Brian's: one, two, three
OK, enough of that...
After leaving Woodstock on Saturday we decided to head out to Niles to see the leaning tower of Niles because Brian had never seen it. I've blogged it here before, but it's still awesome every time you see it. And since I never got to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I take what I can get.
Enjoy!
Do you ever have deja vu? I don't think so, but I could check with the kitchen...
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:
***
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:
One of the first things we saw was the "Car Crash Scene" plaque. Apparently the car crash was there...even though (despite me just watching the movie the night before) I couldn't remember any car crashes happening.
Other sites we saw included the movie theater where in the movie, Phil goes to see a movie all dressed up oddly...
The alley where Phil finds the old man dead...
and the "Bill Murray Stepped Here" sign that commemorated the place where the infamous puddle was in the movie!
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 a meatloaf sandwich, Brian got a hamburger, Paul got fish tacos, and Flopsy ate some crumbs that I fed to him under the table.
At one point a strange old man stopped at our table and started singing "Hail to the Orange." He said though that he didn't go to U of I, but he had kids who went there.
While eating we came up with a great idea that what if we relived our trip to Woodstock over and over and over just like in the movie. We ended up talking about it so long that most of the day passed us by.
So we left the restaurant, avoided all looming dangers, and left the quaint little town. What a perfect day for us all!
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:
***
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.
Brian stood in for the Groundhog Official and pronounced that there would be six more weeks of winter.
We passed by the Courthouse Jail where the bar scenes were all filmed...
And then we went in search of some of the houses that were used in the movie.
What was really odd was just how close they were to each other, literally just a few houses away.
First we found the piano teacher's house...
And then the "Cherry Street Inn."
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 saw a turkey sandwich on the menu, but then remembered that I've had way too much turkey. So instead I got a delicious meatloaf sandwich.
At one point a strange old man stopped at our table and started singing "Hail to the Orange." But he got the words wrong.
And Brian bought Paul some paper-doll-like stickers.
After lunch we decided to grab some dessert. We went to Bella's Gelateria, which used to be the Tip Top Cafe, which was the restaurant they frequent in the movie.
And from there...well...the rest of the day...well...can best be shown through a short film...
