Superdawg.

Order up.

Shhh...we brought ketchup.

Food delivered.

Superdawgs.

Eating my dog.

One the Superdawg way, one the Val way.

Josh eats his dog.

Double fisting.

The aftermath.

Chocolate shake.

Maurie and Flaurie.

Posted by valry at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

1. Last night I met up with Nad for dinner. We went to La Magdelana and I had the yummiest Enchiladas Poblanas with beef and mole sauce ever! Afterwards we went back to her house (I finally got to see her house!) and played Smooth Moves on her borrowed Wii. It is the most insanely stupid yet awesomest game ever. You have to hold the remote in different ways and this porno/Jack Handy voice comes up to explain how to hold it. And then it gives you three seconds to do each task. And even though some of the tasks are as simple as sweep a leaf off the floor, it's hard because it takes about 4 seconds to figure out that that's what you're supposed to do. My favorite was the one where you had to hold the Wii in "mohawk position" and stab a piece of meat to eat. We called it the Pat Bertoletti.

2. Seriously, having scissors near a mirror is a bad idea for me. At least my bangs don't look as bad as the last time I decided to cut them myself...

Posted by valry at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

one.
Last night MK invited a few of us over for a bbq. We ate burgers then I kicked everyone's ass in Rummy (seriously, that is the only game I know how to play and I'm awesome at it...did I ever tell you about the time Hood and I started a game of 5 million Rummy? And how our plan was to get our game televised? Yeah, we were awesome like that).

Here is a picture of MK bbqing:

Afterwards, despite the fact that it was 11 and MK's an old man who needs his sleep for work, he showed me his new old-man toy Cadillac CTS 3.6. Gotta say, it's kind of hot. Especially the TV that pops up from the dashboard James Bond style. And the hugest moon/star/sun/galaxies far far away roof ever. But he wouldn't let me watch a DVD. :( And he wouldn't drive me to a place where I could actually see stars. :( He did however take me on a nice little drive around the neighborhood where I got to see it action. And it was a fun ride...even though it's not THREE HUNDRED horsepower :-)

two.
I saw a really cute dress while looking for something to wear to Joelina's wedding but it was $380...this weekend I found it on sale for $115. Good enough for me.

three.
American Idol is a horribly crappy show. Discuss.

four.
In two weeks I leave for Amsterdam...I should start planning this trip...(no pun intended...)

Posted by valry at 8:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Is it OK to spend $60 on your dinner if the ballet you are going to was free? I think yes. It all balances out...

Em and I met up after work at One North. Her friend works there so we got a couple of special deals :)

We started out with a Duck Confit Fettuccini with black truffles and vanilla-honey butter (thanks to a free coupon...) and then split between us a Grilled Venison Flank with Caraway potato fritters, tricolore, and apricot-mustard sauce and the Crab Souffle Cakes with Hericots vert and citrus-mint salsa. Oh, I also had a sufficiently girly pom peche martini. Yum. After that we split a chocolate hazelnut torte because it was the only chocolate thing on the dessert menu. And I had a nice free cappuccino :)

After 2 hours of eating and conversing we headed back across the street to the opera house. American Ballet Theatre is in town, and with it came comped tickets to Sleeping Beauty. I was so excited for the ballet! Disney's Sleeping Beauty has always been one of my favorite movies, and it's definitely one of my fav fairy tales.

The ballet was BEAUTIFUL, but the last act could have been much shorter. I mean, once the prince comes and kisses his princess the story is OVER...you don't need another half hour scene of a party. And why was little red riding hood at your party?

Posted by valry at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. I booked a flight to Amsterdam. Seriously.

2. Spending $40 a night to sleep in a room with 12 strangers just seems wrong...

3. American Idol is the most boring show ever without Danny.

4. Yet another reason to get a Wii.

5. I am covered in crawfish juice, soap, and ice cream. Despite the fact that it's an Idol night, a Top Model night, AND I got discs 5 and 6 of season 2 of 24, I went out to Pappadeaux with Andy and co. to get some crawfish! I ate a pound and managed to be the messiest eater ever and squirt crawfish juice clear across the table and all over my face and clothes and hair.

Then in the bathroom while trying to wash up, I went to pump some soap and the soap squirted all over my shirt.

Then I got a yummy dessert of sweet potato pecan pie and dumped some ice cream on myself.

Seriously, I am the messiest person EVER.

Since Aimee and Chris are getting hitched this weekend they got a very special dessert :)
They did not dump it all over themselves.

Posted by valry at 11:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I guess you can call me un-Chicagoan and probably un-American while you're in it. You see, I am one of those people who dresses their hot dog as such:

Yes, yes I take a little hot dog with my ketchup.

In fact, I had only, to my recollection, ever eaten a hot dog once before that wasn't just and only smothered in ketchup. (That time was in L.A. when I went to Pink's and got a humongousaur chili bacon cheese dog.) And, in fact, I refuse to even order a hot dog in Chicago for fear of being looked down on for ordering it with "just ketchup."

The anti-ketchup thing isn't just a Chicago thing though, it's an American thing. I mean, I might as well get a side of French fries instead of Freedom fries and just call it a day. While every area has a special way that makes a hot dog theirs the one thing almost everyone can agree on is that if you order ketchup on a hot dog you might as well be a communist.

In Chicago, a hot dog is basically Vienna beef topped with a salad: mustard, onion, neon green relish, celery salt, tomato, peppers and a pickle spear. But I hate mustard. And I hate relish. And I certainly hate peppers. And, quite honestly, I just plain like ketchup. But, I suppose, you really can't knock it 'till you try it. So I made it one of my missions for the year to, finally, after 27 years, try a Chicago-style dog.

Josh and I hit up a place in Wrigleyville tonight that was recommended by his friend. We each got ourselves a dog, some fries, and a Coke, and dug right in.

So...it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Despite the fact that I hate all the ingredients they still kind of worked together. And despite the fact that I normally hate any crunchy plus soft combos it was completely edible. I still didn't like the peppers because peppers burn my lip and taste all hot and sour. At least this place cut them up though; I couldn't bite into it if they were whole. All in all though, I ate the whole thing and, I guess, it was kind of tasty.

So maybe, every once in a while, maybe I'll order myself a Chicago dog. But, who are we kidding. I'm a ketchup kind of girl.

Posted by valry at 10:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

1. Yesterday was apparently national pie day. Josh and I headed to Bakers Square to celebrate. They were giving away free slices of pie, but they ran out of basically any cream pie. I got blueberry. Mmmmm. There was a guy there returning a pie. He bought a week ago and he said that it tasted rancid. He had kept it in his car for a week and then ate it...

2. I bought a milk this morning but it turned out to be frozen.

3. Every time I order from J Crew the next day I get an email announcing free shipping. Either I always should hold off just one more day, or they do it on purpose.

4. You really shouldn't take a shower and than 10 minutes later go out into negative degree weather. Your hair just turns into a bunch of icicles.

5. When did it become a trend to wear giant furry Russian hats?

6. I am going to scream. Or cry. Or both :'(

7. It's a real Coke day.

8. I bought some shoes yesterday because the store was having a promotion where overnight shipping (which usually costs a LOT) cost negative $5. Yes, negative. They paid me $5 to ship the package overnight.

9. When someone starts a game of scrabble with an 80 point word using all of their tiles, you know you are in trouble. Until a few moves later when they haven't had any vowels and you land a triple word score with a z on a double letter :-)

10. I have nother else to say, but I thought ten was a nice, even number.

Posted by valry at 7:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday I turned 22 (+5). Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with me!!! It was definitely a day filled with the three things a woman wants most: chocolate, wine, and naked men!!!

1. Chocolate
In the afternoon Nadia and I met at Chocolate for Your Body. Nad got a regular mani and I splurged on a "chocolate signature". It's my party, I can splurge if I want to!

The manicure involved a cocoa scrub that made my hands nice and soft (and tasty I can assume), truffles (to eat, not for my hands), and coating my hands with a layer of chocolate.

After getting our nails all purdy Nad and I headed next door to Kristoffer's Café and Bakery

for some chocolate flan and coffee. It was a cute place but, let me tell you, I have never before peed in a bathroom that had a urinal in it. Ew.

2. wine
After gussying up our nails and caffinating ourselves, Nad and headed over to Jen's place. In the time it took to walk from the car to her place, walk down the wrong pathway and get locked in the alley, I seriously felt like my hands were going to fall off. Luckily we finally found the way in to thaw off. Then Josh called and apparently the bar lost my reservation for 15. Fuck. Isla came and drove us to the bar and they were working on setting up our table. Thankfully they were still able to accommodate us.

The restaurant we went to was Volo Restaurant and Wine Bar and it was delicious. We had good wine, good food, good friends...

I tried some marrow bones and will never ever eat them again. Honestly, I really think all those chefs pretend they like such things to be all pretentious. But how can anyone like that crap? It had the texture of sandy snot and tasted horrible. On a better note the steak tartar was DEVINE and the duck confit was DEVINE. Josh and I also shared some Seared Yellowtail Tataki, but we still haven't decided what kind of citrus was pickled.

15 people showed up, which was totally awesome. Sarah came and, despite the fact that she hardly knows me, she completely gets me because she gave me a pink sparkly dragonfly and a Victoria's Secret gift card (pink, dragonflies, and VS are three of my very favorite things). Chelsa from work came and brought a friend. Rob and Chris and Aimee showed up despite having to be at a party in Milwaukee later that night. Meredith and Isla and Jen and Alina and Jenny and Adam and Nadia and Josh came too!!! Jen gave me a cute Smurfette tee and a pink candleholder. And Nadia gave me what she described as a "lame" present of a candleholder. It totally wasn't lame! But she said it was my fake present because my real one, a pink Rabbit wine opener, didn't arrive yet...In talking about this some people overheard pink rabbit and assumed it was something else...

Josh showed me what he really thinks of me by getting me a bottle of Bitch wine.

The label is PINK and, well, I am a bitch, so it's only appropriate.

Honestly I did not expect anything from anyone, I was just happy people came out during the zero degree weather!!!

My wine was yummy too. I was bad and ordered whites then proceeded to order a lot of red meat. But ohwellz. I had a lovely white wine flight. Then I had a Gewurtztraminer. Later I also had a yummy muscado d'asti.

They brought me a yummyyummy flourless chocolate cake with mint ice cream and everyone sang and I got to make a wish on my candle, which is always my favorite part, because I wish on just about everything you can wish on.

3. naked men
After the wine bar I bid adieu to a few of my female friends and all of the few guys left and the remaining chicas headed to Annoyance Theatre. We hung out at the bar there and played the game of Memory that I found on the shelf. Did I ever mention how much I suck at Memory? Ask me exactly what a certain person said to me at a certain time and I can probably repeat our conversation word for word. Ask me to remember where the little black boy is and I go blank.

After a couple rousing rounds we headed into the theatre for SKINPROV and the perfect night of entertainment to get your mind off of the fact that your best guy friends all ditched you for another party and none of them even bothered to call to wish you a happy birthday. But who cares about that when you've got drinks and half-naked men!!!

We beat the rest of the crowd into the theatre for prime first row seatage. The show was basically a bunch of men improving scenes and taking off all their clothes. They ended the first scene by all taking off their shirts. A couple short scenes later they paired up for small scenes that each ended with "Let's take off our pants." By the end of the show (and some taking off multiple pairs of underwear) we were left with g-stringed and jock-strapped men and a whole lotta nakedmanass.

After the show we headed back out to the annoyance bar to talk with the guys, still walking around shirtless. They got me a couple of shots and I ended up having both a buttery nipple and a pussy shot on them. The one naked man told us that he'd sucked more cock than anyone else there...and then introduced us to his lovely girlfriend.

We stuck around until they closed, drank some drinks, chatted up the bartenders, then headed off to Uptown Lounge...mostly because it was just around the corner and fucking freezing.

The bar definitely wasn't my cup of tea. Mostly because I hate talking to people I have absolutely no interest in. And because every three minutes the waitress came up and asked us if we needed anything else. We stayed out till about 4:30, well past the text message the guys sent to say their party was over.

All in all my party was totally awesome and I am so happy that everyone came who did! I have tons of amazing friends and I am glad they came out to share my night of turning 22+5!!!

INCRIMINATING PICTURES HERE!

Posted by valry at 9:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Today was our departments Christmas party. Yes, yes, I know that Christmas was a while gone by now, but we're busy people damnit.

So a bit after noon we took the rest of the day off and headed to Quartino for lunch. We had three pizzas (I ate two: one topped with bunches of fresh spinach and one with a slab of spicy but yummy sausage), Italian "sliders" (a small sammich of fresh mozzarella (made in house) and tomato), nice pillowy gnocchi and green beans, and a sulumi platter of Duck Prosciutto, Bresaola, olives, artichokes, cheeses, and a few spreads. Yumyum.

When they brought out the dessert menu I was told that since we were also celebrating my birthday that I had to order dessert so I got some yummy profiteroles stuffed with chocolate sauce and vanilla gelati. When they delivered it everyone sang Happy Birthday. But then the restaurant staff brought me a cup of gelati with a candle so they sang again. I passed around the cup but was ordered by the boss to eat my whole dessert myself. Done and done.

After lunch we headed to 10 Pin for some bowling. It's a cool little place (I actually always expected it to be bigger) with a nice (but expensive) martini menu (I had a yummy peachy keen martini) and giant screens of music videos playing above the lanes. The first round sucked. I came in dead last. The second round I had the second highest score. I attribute that to the fact that for that round the scoring screen had turned to PINK. The next round we did a face off of marketing vs. pr with the losing team having to buy Starbucks for the department. Alas, marketing lost :-( I was horrible that round. The next round I did better (because the board was now a different shade of pink), but we still managed to lose again. Ohwellz.

Posted by valry at 11:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Josh is back from Korea! Last night we hit up Piece. He was actually the one who brought up wanting to go and brought it up, which was funny because I had only just been there with Emily a few month ago. It was rather crowded when we got there, but luckily it didn't take the full hour wait they said it would. As we waited I ordered a beer called "Festivus" which actually was probably the most pleasant tasting real beer I've had. I'd seen it in Time Out so I decided to get it because it description sounded OK: "he leaves spices out altogether and instead coaxes a maple syrup-like sweetness from this strong, dark, Belgian-style ale with a touch of toasted malts in the finish."

We finally got seated but our table was right near the door/check in area so people walked by and bumped our table all night. We ordered up some yummy guac which was tasty but a bit spicy. I gave Josh his Christmas present which included an iPod sock and Beatles playing cards. He gave me a cute pink pouch thing and a letter opener that doubles as a hair clip, both from Korea. I can't wait to wear it in my hair so when someone asks me to open a letter I can say "Sure!" and whip it out!

I wanted to introduce him to the wonder of the white pizza with mashed potato and bacon topping, and he wanted meat so we also got a red pizza with meatballs and Italian sausage (I shot down his wanting ricotta.) They were both yummyyumyum.

On our way home we drove my Brookfield Restaurant and saw that it is no longer Brookfield Restaurant!!!!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WTF?

At least the cow is still there.

We then stopped for Coldstone because, you know, 2 pizzas and guacamole and beer isn' enough to fill you up... So I ordered a small strawberry shake and then they asked me if i wanted strawberry ice cream with strawberries in it (which was what was on the board). I said yes and they said they wanted to make sure because some customers get mad because they wanted vanilla with strawberries. Who wants vanilla in a strawberry shake???

We called it an early night because Josh doesn't get any sleep.

And then I watched part of Alice in Wonderland on On Demand but passed out a little after ten.

Posted by valry at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

What's the funniest thing ever? When one of the most brilliant minds of modern American humor goes for the cheap joke.

"If pocketbook means vagina, what happens when your pocketbook gets snatched?"

***

Anyways...Last night Em and I went to see "An Intimate Evening with David Sedaris" over at Steppenwolf. I picked up the tickets a few months back because I really wanted to see it. I think I managed to score the very last pair available. I've been taking a buy now ask later approach lately, where if I see something I want to see I just grab the tickets and hope someone will go with me. Luckily Emily took me up on it.

Before the show we stopped off at a little Italian place across the street, Mangia Roma because it was raining outside and this pace was close. I thought it was closed because it was dark and empty and I didn't see any staff but the sign said "open" so we went in. Turns out it was just dark and empty. I ordered a drink they dubbed the "Leaning Tower" which was Bacardi, pina colada, and grenadine. Basically if I sipped from the top it was all rum and if I sipped through the cocktail straw it was all grenadine. There was pina colada mix floating in the middle that you couldn't drink through either technique. The salad was really good with this somewhat spicy basil vinaigrette and they gave us some really buttery focaccia. For dinner I had gnocchi with mushrooms and clams ending my year and a half avoidance on all things clam (see: food poisoning in Florence). It was tasty and spicy, but much more expensive than I had anticipated.

After dinner we crossed the street to the theatre and headed to the upstairs venue. The show itself was awesome. David Sedaris is an amazing writer who is probably one of the few authors who is even better in book on tape form. I've never seen him live before so it was a treat to listen to him perform. He started out with the aforementioned joke because the producer who introduced him had been talking about the next Traffic Series production, the Pocketbook Monologues and had said that "pocketbook" means "vagina." He then went on to read a new piece he's working on for his upcoming book. The story was about an old neighbor he used to have and their relationship.

I was expecting for him to read shorter pieces, but this one was rather long, but it was so incredibly intriguing and interwove together so seemlessly. After reading he explained that it was something that he was still working on for his book. He went into a spiel about how Wal-Mart wanted him to change the cover (a skull with a cigarette in its mouth) because they thought it was depressing. Sedaris said that he thinks Wal-Mart is depressing. I agree. He then said that it looked like a book he would want to read. "Say there are four books in front of me. This one has Jesus on the cover. This one has Jesus on the cover. This one has a pony on the cover. And this one has a smoking skull on the cover. I'm going to pick up the smoking skull." He said that he named his last book "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" as such because his boyfriend Hugh had a dream where someone was reading a book by that title and Sedaris 'wanted to make his dream come true." He really was as interesting and entertaining just talking as he was reading his work.

Then he read parts of a second essay about fashion, parts about glasses and why he would rather just squint ("If something is more than 6 feet away, I'll just deal with it when I get there.") and bow ties (and how he came to realize they were for impotent men).

After that he fielded questions about his writing process and said that when he is stuck for writing he takes out high school text books and does the homework assignments in them.

Since I first heard/read Sedaris I loved his work, and I'm really happy that I got the chance to see him read. It was a great evening. My only complaint was that he really only read one and a half essays. Granted the full one he read was a longer piece (he said to someone later that he normally reads a few shorter pieces, but wanted to do this one since he is working on the book) was amazing, but I wanted more.

The thing I think I liked most about him was when he couldn't hold back laughing at his own humor. It's one of those things you're not supposed to do when performing, so it made him seem more like a regular person. There were a few moments when reading when he just smiled and tried to stop but you could tell he was chuckling at what he wrote.

Emily took off after the show, but I waited around and bought one of his books that I didn't own to get it signed. I'm really surprised at how many people left right afterwards. When I got up to see him the first question he asked me was "Who did you come with?" Hilarity ensued:

David Sedaris: Who did you come with?
Val: A friend of mine, but she had to leave.
David Sedaris: How are you getting home then?
Val: The train.
David Sedaris: Are you in high school?
Val: Ummm....no...I'm....
David Sedaris: How old are you? You look like you're 15.
Val: 27.
David Sedaris: Oh, I guess it's OK that she left you here then.

He then said that when my friend wants me to go see David Copperfield with her and she wants to wait afterwards that I should leave. He then drew a picture of me vomiting because that's what he does on people who ditch him.

Posted by valry at 7:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

one.
Goodbye Ghetto Garmin!

Hello, Garmin Garmin!!!!

A cookie goes to anyone who can guess what the very first thing I did was when setting it up ;-)

two.
Since I didn't go to work today, I went to see MattyK at his work so we could finish setting up my four-o-wunk for work. I brought him some coffee and leftover cake and he was afraid of it because he doesn't like mushrooms. I had to explain to him that my cake did not really contain mushrooms.

I gave him his present and he was pleasantly surprised that I picked out a tie that was not garishly bright pink and opted for one that I felt looked like something he would wear but with a touch of pink to it. It was mostly gray with little diagonal stripes of light pink, dark pink, and white. He actually at least told me that he liked it and would actually wear it. I hope he will :-)

three.
I met up with MikeyB et. al. at Lou Malnoti's even though I'd already eaten. Scotty came!!! I greeted him by jumping on him and hanging off of him for a while. Julie has a picture. MattyK did not wear his pink tie. Joe has learned that Alina is always right. David Duchovney is apparently the porn equivalent of the crypt keeper or something like that.

After dinner some folks headed home and some headed to a bar and Dave, Julie and I could not find the bar no matter how hard we looked for it. Eventually we found it, but Julie gave up and left. Once we got there MK, Scotty, and Karen left. That meant I spent a torturous rest of the night sipping on my bailey's and coffee with Mike and Dave. I say torturous because...
Mike told Dave about how I slept with him in Vegas but that I wouldn't cuddle with him.
They both kept trying to get me to order all of the guys in the group in terms of who I want to sleep with the most.
Dave kept singing the song Crazy Bitch about me
They figured out their plans for sleeping with women at Joe and Alina's wedding...

They did at least come up with the brilliant plan to kidnap Alina right before the wedding and send me down the aisle in a thick veil so Joe wouldn't know it was me until too late...brilliant. :-)

Posted by valry at 12:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Pop Quiz: Alina's plane leaves at 7:30am. Val's plane leaves at 8:40am. Who arrives at the airport first?
If you guessed Alina, you are sadly mistaken and do not know me at all...

Friday
After arriving at the airport ridiculously early, going through Southwest's new seating procedure (which is the most basic thing in the world, but, apparently, impossible for most others to understand), and sleeping through much of my flight, I arrived in the fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada to...rain? It rains in Vegas? Apparently Vegas doesn't know this fact either because it seems to break when it rains: the escalators all stop working, the porn guys stop coming out, employees go outside to sweep the water from the streets...sillyVegas.

I met up with John and Alina and headed to the hotel, the MGM Grand, where we checked in and waited in our room for Mike who was driving in now that he lives oh so close in California. Once he arrived we headed downstairs, found that the lions were not going to be out (I demand my money back), ate sammiches at 'wichcraft (yummy steak, egg, and oyster mushroom sammich), and waited for Alina and Mike to get married. Joe's plane hadn't arrived yet, so she had to take what she could get...

Then it was on to gambling! Alina and I played penny slots while waiting for JoeJoe to arrive. Penny slots is one of those games that you just desperately want to lose but can't. It takes forever to lose a dollar. Alina managed to only gamble $2 the entire weekend and retained every cent.

Joe came and he and the boys hit the tables. I played $20 at the roulette table but soon after everyone at the table left and it was just me. That makes for very boring gambling because it goes way to fast and there is no interaction. I was prepared to leave anyways, but played one more and won $54. :-) My lucky number 13 and its corners helps me every time!

I told Joe that I was up fifty and he thought "so what" because he assumed that when I said fifty that I meant cents. And he did an awesomely amusing double take when he saw that I had actual chips :-)

After gambling a bit and drinking a bit we headed across the street (leaving MGM for the first time since arriving) to New York, New York. We settled on a dinner at a Mexican place: Gonzalez Y Gonzalez in the heart of NYC where I got me a soso chimichanga. And then it was off to the show!

We went to see Zumanity...the sensual side of Cirque. We decided on the show because I had never seen Cirque du Soleil and Alina had seen many but not this one. It was kind of more a Cirque du Soleil burlesque show. While sitting and waiting for the show to begin, some of the actors started going around looking all hot and kind of flashing people and such and then there was a little pre performance.

I think my favorite act was the first one, which had two naked women swimming in a giant fishbowl. Yes, that was my favorite. The tricks they did though were phenomenal and really unique, like nothing I have ever seen. It was at the same time so graceful and dance like and, yes, a little erotic. It was beautiful though. The rest of the show was neat too. I am just glad I was not pulled up on stage though. It was more like a burlesque show than what I'd think a typical cirque show would be. It was mostly just individual acts mixed with comedic filler and singing. But it was very amazingly good and a fun show.

After the show we hit the streets and everyone made me get a giant margarita. I ordered a strawberry one and asked for it to be in a pink glass. If I was going to be forced into caring around and drinking a margarita as big as me, it was going to be pink damnit.

We walked the strip with drinks that trailed down to my knees. Surprisingly I was the only one who didn't think it was a bad idea to sip the "free extra tequila shot" that they poured on top directly from the top of the drink. How am I the only one who can take her tequila straight???

We checked out the new Planet Hollywood casino which replaced the Aladdin and looks like a crappy giant billboard from the outside. The way I see it there are two types of Vegas hotels: the shiny fancy purdy ones (see: Bellagio, Wynn) and the over-the-top themed ones (see: Excalibur, Treasure Island, New York, New York). This fit neither and wasn't even Planet Hollywoodesque. It was just kind of there. Inside though it had one of the best redeeming qualities of any hotel on the strip. There were certain sections deemed "pleasure pits" that had go-go dancers in the gaming area. Now, I know you're all thinking Val this is the second time you've said that the naked women are your favorite thing. But fear not my friends, what made these Pleasure Pits so awesome was that the game tables were PINK! :-)

After a bit of gaming and trying and failing to chug down the remaining margarita, we headed back to the MGM and called it our first night in Vegas.




Saturday
Saturday we all dragged ourselves out of bed and headed downstairs to the Stage Deli for some yummy sammiches. I had a brisket on sourdough and i was indeed yummy. Then we hit the strip again for a walking tour of the wondrous city. We stopped at Bellagio to check out the new garden setup...unfortunately it was still under construction. It was all decked out for Christmas with penguins and trees and reindeer. We went in search of a restaurant for dinner because I was determined to go to a fancyshamancy place and thought I knew just the one, so we found it and made reservations. John and Mike headed back to MGM to watch some sports so Alina and Joe and I went off to explore.

We found the new Trump hotel, which is just a big golden phallus. We walked through Wynn because I think it's pretty. They replaced the floating flower balls that usually hang from the sparkle trees with sparkle balls for the holiday. And they had PINK poinsettias :-) We went through the Venetian and watched the gondolas go by. We stopped at the creperie in Paris to share a crepe (delicious!)

After our snack we headed back to MGM for sports and gambling then back to the Bellagio for dinner. We ate at Todd English's Olives because all I really wanted to do in Vegas was eat at a celebrity chef's restaurant. We had an amazing view with the Eiffel Tower right out the window and the spectacular fountains going off right outside.

They start you off with some olives and two different olive spreads. I'm not a big fan of olives but the spreads were just very salty and I like salt. I decided that if I was going to do this, might as well do it right, so I ordered myself a $42 kobe hanger steak with foie gras mushroom sauce, polenta, and a crispy mushroom frisee salad. It was the most delectable steak I've ever had. The mushrooms in the salad were breaded with a crunchy texture and the steak was so tender and the sauce was thick and delicious. Mmmmm. Sorry, I was not able to get a good picture (there is still one crappy one).

I also shared a bottle of Syrah with Joe and Alina and it was tasty as well.

The waiter asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu and almost thought we said "No" so we had to yell at him...as I said, if I'm going all out, I'm going all out. I split two desserts with Alina and Joe: a creme brulee and a chocolate volcano cake with a hot fudgy center. Drool.

After paying my $80 tab Alina and I headed off to the Rio for show #2: Penn & Teller. Damn you people because now when I saw them all I could think of was KennyK and ScottyMcHotty and how they would look awesome if they went as them for Halloween. :-(

The show rocked. Especially when they showed you how they did the tricks. Like they did that cup thing where the balls magically appear under the cups...and then they did it again using clear plastic cups. Of course, even though they explained it it still made no sense and they still kind of magically appeared :-)

They did a knife trick where they brought someone in from the audience blindfolded them and pretended to throw knives at them. They actually did this same trick at cirque as well. So, even if I knew it was a trick, I still could imagine that if I was brought on stage I would be crying and screaming so loudly they'd hear me three casinos over.

I think the best quote of the night though was just before juggling broken bottles Penn, explaining on the level of injury it might cause said "I won't be rushed to the hospital or anything. I'm not Roy."

After the show Alina called Joe who said they were headed to the Venetian. So off we went to the Venetian. When we got there, we saw that Joe had tried calling and that they went to O'Shea's to play beer pong instead. Which was way closer to where we started. :-( Needless to say , we were pissed. Now I am definitely one to see both sides of most arguments. I agree that they did try to call us to tell us several times. I was pretty upset though that they did not do the polite thing of staying where they told us they'd be until either we arrived or they were able to get in touch with us. What fueled the fire even more was that minutes after we got to O'Shea's, John announced that they were done there and we were heading to the Venetian...

So I was pretty pissed because I thought it was rude of them to not be where they said they'd be and to leave without actually getting in touch with us. But at the same time, I do understand that they (and by they I will mean Joe) at least tried to tell us. Alina on the other hand is a bit more stubborn than I am...and when you pair that with John, you're not going anywhere for a while. They argued for a bit, resulting in this conversation between me and Mike as we sat there watching:
Mike: This will be a while. Let's just go in the back and make out.
Me: OK!
Mike: After all, love solves everything.
Me: Wait wait wait. Don't bring love into this.

We walked through the Venetian and the Wynne again...

John: Mike, look this is your first time in the Bellagio.
Me: Did you just say Bellagio?
John: No Val, this is the Venetian.

Me: Those two drunk are like if Bert and Ernie grew up and got wasted. Except slightly less gay.
Alina: Slightly.

Me: Mike, will you buy me that dress?
Mike: Only if you sleep with me.
Me: Yes! Totally worth it for three seconds of work.

That plus Johns drunken ramblings, John and Mike completely failing at picking up women, Mike's trying to get me to make out with him the whole night, and John trying to throw me in the waterfall pretty much sums up our time there...

We cabbed it back to MGM where Alina retired and the rest of us gambled. I finally got to play the pony game I'd been dying to play. It's this really old game from the 70s or something with a race track. There are five plastic ponies that race in a circle. Odds are given and you place quarter bets on the horses you think will come in first and second. It actually isn't hard to win at because if you for the most part stick to 3-1 odds ones you're most likely to win and will make your money back. I, however, managed to make $26 by betting on a horse combo with 104-1 odds!!! :-) I also like the machine because it is so old that it actually clinks out quarters :-)

I decided then to walk away so that I'd finish with a profit of about $50 in all. Not bad for really only playing roulette once and the ponies once :)




Sunday
Sunday morning we checked out of the hotel and headed to downtown Vegas to the Golden Gate for $6.95 prime rib and $1.99 shrimp cocktail. Mmmmm. Counter balances the $42 steak :-) John left earlier, so it was just Mike, Joe, Alina, and me.
Downtown Vegas is not nearly as fun during the day because none of the lights are on :-(

Back at MGM the boys wanted to watch the Bears game and Alina wanted to chill. So I headed to Bellagio myself to catch a "Oh, Holy Night" fountain show. The show was beautiful as always and amazing because there were a ton of tricks where the fountain reached heights well above the height of the hotel. Then I browsed through the garden that was now fully open, grabbed some Jean Philippe pastries, and headed out to catch another fountain show before going back to the hotel.

Alina and I got some Starbucks and ate the Jean Philippe tiramisu and pumpkin cheesecake, which each cost about as much as the prime rib I'd had for lunch :-) Then we joined the boys for the final ten minutes of the game to watch the Bears lose :-(

Mike headed back home to California and Joe and Alina and I headed off to the airport. We sat around for a while because we ended up leaving even before the time I wanted to leave at :-) Then it was the plane ride home where Alina taught me the real rules of Sudoku which made the game so much easier to play (I thought you just went up and down/side to side, I didn't realize the boxes counted too) and we snacked on snack packs.

And thus ended my fourth trip to Vegas in four years and the only time I have ever made any money gambling!
Can't wait 'til next year!




MORE PHOTOS HERE!!!
p.s. sorry about the millions of spelling mistakes in the picture captions. I did it late at night with little light in my cramped seat on the plane. Maybe I will fix them later...

Posted by valry at 11:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My day at the Krystal Square Off.
a report by Val Bromann

Yes, we drove ten hours to Chattanooga and ten hours back to Chicago to watch people eat hamburgers for eight minutes.
Yes, we are weird and wacky and insane.
Yes, it was totally worth it!

The whole event started at noon with "Free Krystals, games, etc. etc." We had to check out of our hotel by 11 and had nowhere else to go, so we arrived around 11:30/11:45. We saw some people in Krystal Fan T-shirts so we went to scope out where we could get some. Nad and I bought red ringers that say "Official Fan of the World Hamburger Eating Championship." Bryan got a yellow one that said "Future Champion."

The T-shirt lady showed us where they'd be giving out free Krystals. We told her that we'd never had any before and then we'd driven the ten hours from Chicago just for the contest. She mentioned that she hated White Castles.

We went and stood in line for Krystals, where we started to determine that it seemed that we were the only people there who did not live within a 2-mile radius of the event. Are we really the only crazies in the world?

So we got our Krystals. A Krystal Lady came up and took my pic because I'd put on my t-shirt and had my burger. We told her our story about never having had a Krystal before and driving all that way. And she gave us free posters! Score! She then pointed us in the direction of the Krystal Confessional where Nad and I got a video taken of us trying our burgers for the first time (see previous entry)

Shortly after coming out, T-shirt lady came and tracked us down with another Krystal person. She asked us if we really drove all that way just for the competition. Yes, yes we did. We came, of course, to cheer on our hometown Deep Dish hero!

They kind of thought that was awesome...and then kind of gave us free V.I.P. passes. !?!?!?!?!?! WHAT?!?!?!

We were kind of totally shocked!

That basically meant that we got to go way up in front of the crowd and watch in the press area. SUPER AWESOME because that meant not only did we have great seats, but we didn't have to worry about trying to find and save seats at all!!! And we'd be right there in the action! And maybe even get drooled on or something!

Nadia and I were seriously the giddiest little clams you would ever see in your life. EVER!

We wandered about collecting more awesome Krystal stuff. We got a free t-shirt, thunder sticks and pompoms! We watched the competitors being brought in convertibles (except for Sonya...how did she not get a convertible??) And then stood in line to get autographs but were only able to maddeningly score Joeys.

We went and tracked down the woman who gave us the passes and she let us through the ropes and told us where to go...which ended up being just us and the press. Seriously, I don't think any of the other VIPs knew that they could come around and stand right up front...

First were the bunnettes, then the amateur competition, then the National Anthem...and then...the MAIN EVENT (only slightly delayed due to live bowling coverage...)

All the competitors were introduced...then they were off! And my oh my can they eat!!!! and eat. and eat. Actually eat is the wrong word. Consume? Devour? Absorb? Ingurgitate?

It really was the Joey, Pat, Bob show..."Humble" Bob Shoudt was mighty impressive at chowing down burgers...especially for a vegetarian
:-)

And Joey "Jaws" Chestnut was...amazing! Seriously! I don't know where all that food goes! And then...and then...in a history making, record-shattering moment...he hit 100!!!! 100 burgers in less than eight minutes!!! Holy processed cow meat!

The Krystal Square Off was an absolutely amazing battle and ended with Joey "Jaws" Chestnut in first (103 Krystals), "Humble" Bob Shoudt in second (95 Krystals), and "Deep Dish" Pat Bertoletti in third (94 Krystals). And I can't even begin to describe how defeated Pat looked (especially since just a few weeks ago he defeated both Joey and the great Tsunami Kobayashi at Chicken Wings).
:-(

It was an amazingly awesome contest. Those eight minutes were completely worth 20 hours in the car...

Afterwards we hung around and got pics with a couple of the eaters, including Mr. Joey Chestnut himself.

Then we went and got a picture with Pat. He asked if we'd met before and said he knew he'd seen me before. (he most likely remembers seeing our crazy selves at the Jalapeno eating contest, although we were too chicken to go up to him there). :-) He also asked "You didn't come here just to see me, did you?" "[yescauseyourehot] nono, for the whole event!"

Truth be told, the original mission of the trip was to see Kobayashi in action. But alas his jaw injury had kept him away :( Ohwellz. I am so happy that we went anyways!!!

So we let Pat go because he had to catch a plane to Chicago and we had to drive to Chicago.

And then we drove to Chicago.

And that is a very long drive. (but did I mention that it was totally worth it?)

**MORE PICTURES HERE!**

Posted by valry at 11:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Let's start with Saturday

I woke up at 5am on Saturday morning surprisingly awake. I think it was kind of like when you're a kid how you can wake up on Christmas morning before anyone else and be completely ready to go. Except instead of waiting for Santa Claus I was waiting for Joey Chestnut and Pat Bertoletti. I showered and packed up my car then went to pick up Nadia and Bryan.

Before 7am we were already on the road to Chattanooga for the Krystal Square Off, the only Major League Eating sanctioned hamburger contest, and one of their top two competitions. The Square Off is held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, 600 miles away and a nine and a half hour drive.

The drive was boring and fun and beautiful and crazy all at the same time. The road signs wanted us to play pong but we determined that may be a bad idea. We also determined that there has to be some sort of street called neutralville between the neighboring towns of brownsburg and whitestown.

At about one or so we made it to our first destination: Cave City, Kentucky. Cave City is an anomaly of a town that is basically my idea of heaven. Our first stop int he town was Big Mike's Rock and Gift Shop and Mystery House. We wandered the gift shop for a bit and then purchased our $1.06 admission for the guided tour of the mystery house...

The first room we went to was full of posters. You know the things: the sentence that has an extra "the" that you completely ignore, the drawing of the two hands drawing each other, the staircases that you can't tell which way was up, etc. etc. Pretty basic everyone's seen it stuff...

The next room was blacklight posters. A room filled with blacklight posters. That was all. They glowed. It was psychedelic or something.

And then on to the good stuff...

The next room was freaky deeky awesome. There was a water fountain and the stream of water ran UPWARDS. And there were pool balls on a ledge that fell UPWARDS and stayed there. And there was a chair that balanced on the wall and I sat on it and was like floating. And the whole room felt like I was going to topple over because it was on weird gravity-defying angles. It was hard to even stand in there!

The next room had a little house thingy and when we went in depending on where you stood you looked either really short or really tall. And then there was a ledge that looked like it was completely on an angle, but in reality was the only thing that was perfectly straight across so when you stood on it you felt completely in balance even though it looked lopsided and you were toppling over everywhere else.

Then it was on through a hall of portraits...those things that look normal at first but then change to look all freaky when you pass...and that was that. The most awesomest Mystery House ever! Totally worth the buck admission. We tipped an extra buck to our fourteen year old tour guide Alex and headed on our way.

We were going to go to the old decrepit wax museum...but it was closed...perhaps permanently :(

We passed by the KY action park (mmmhmmm) but did not go...

We stopped at Dinosaur World, which is kind of a park like Jurassic Park but I don't think the donos are real. We didn't feel like paying the $10 admission though...

Then we stopped by Wigwam Village. It's a motel...where all of the rooms are wigwams. Seriously, these babies have real beds and cable TV and everything. And are shaped like wigwams. I am so making JoeJoe take us canoeing or something around here sometime so we can stay in these :)

Then after it was a quick bite to eat and we headed off to Tennessee, Georgia, Tennessee (silly directions)...

The views through Tennessee are awesome...but we especially loved the runaway truck ramps going up the mountains...

By about seven we made it to Chattanooga and our wonderful Days Inn! Ideally we would have stayed across the street at the Sheraton (they sponsored the Krystal Square Off and so we assumed they hosted all fo the eaters there) but in the interest of saving $100 we opted for cheap motel. Once there we basically passed out for a bit watching a crappy movie. Then we walked a couple of blocks to Sticky Fingers BBQ for dinner. The food there was amazing. I got a pulled pork/half slab combo with Tennessee whiskey bbq sauce. The meat completely just fell of the bone. I picked it up an the bone was completely dry. And it wasn't fatty at all. That's a rib!

We were thinking of doing something afterwards but we were all pretty much exhausted so we went back and called it a night. Needed to rest up for the Krystal Square Off and the long, long drive home...

***MORE PICTURES HERE!!!***

Posted by valry at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. Trading Spaces was on tonight and that was the first new episode in forever. They, of course, retooled the format...again. Each time they do it it gets worse and worse. They now have compeltely lost the two key elements: they no longer really focus on getting to know the homeowners, and tey no longer show you how easy and great it is is to do all the projects..it sucks more and more.

2. Went out tonight with Josh and Nadia to Fridays. They have parmesan encrusted quesadillas which we got just because it sounded so ridiculous. We loaded Josh up on carbs. I finally got to give Nad her birthday present. I basically buy her what I want in powder blue in green... We are too alike. We then went and drooled over stuff in bed bath and beyond.

3. I am sooo glad I didn't buy the large poster board :)

4. I need to wear all polyester when I go rafting, so I went to the sports store and loaded up on anything I could find that was 100% poly and 100% pink :)

Posted by valry at 11:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. It should seriously be illegal for a package that contains ONE cookie to have under nutritional information "Serving size: half a cookie (servings per container: 2)"

2. At one point today it took me thirty seconds to remember which was right and which was left. I put my hands in "L"s and stared at them. Doing that really does nothing for me, I mean I never pay attention to what my hands are doing; I just make the formation, look, and know, it usually just triggers something doing that. But today it just didn't click. I am losing my mind...or maybe I just need to go back to kindergarten.

3. I already write 35 things for my list next year...guess this means I am writing a list for next year...at this rate I will have 300 things by January. Any suggestions?

4. I went to eat with Josh tonight at Sandbar...I ordered a banana...seriously, I ordered a banana. It cost me $6. I also had two drinks and feel pretty damn loopy right now. This is why I don't drive anywhere. The drinks come in the same glasses as the candles...don't mix them up!

Posted by valry at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Friday:

Nadia picked me up and then it was off to Cleveland! OK...sort of... First, we took a pit stop at Freddy's (it was basically on the way). Nadia indulged her childhood memories of thick pizza squares and some limoncello gelato...I got myself a fried artichoke (YUM) and some pistachio gelato (DOUBLEYUM).

Then we headed to the city to pick up the boys (Bryan and Jim) and swap cars and then we were finally off!...But not before driving around the city for about 20 hours and stopping at the Skyway McDonald's (I'd never even known that that place existed until earlier this year. It's a McDonald's...smack dab in the middle of the highway. And it's kind of scary.)

So then we were finally off to Cleveland! On the way we discovered the great musical stylings of cereal (otherwise known as a promotional Halloween CD from General Mills that was in the car for some reason...catchy stuff), sang aloud to Kelly Clarkson (at least Jim did), utilized ghetto mapquest, stopped at a gas station that accepts cereal as payment, and ate some symbolic cheetos (because I wouldn't let anyone eat anything orange on my roadtrip).

Then we finally made it to Cleveland!!!!

We checked into our hotel and asked the desk clerk for suggestions on anything that would be open at 11pm in the somewhat-deserted at that time of night downtown area that would still have dinner. The guy rattled off a few places but he was hard to understand because of his "off Cleveland accent" (aka, Jamaican). Then some random dude told us he'd take us in his limo. Nad and I declined and Bryan whined but we weren't about to get into some random dude's random limo.

We walked a couple of blocks and came across the restaurants that we think the Jamaican dude was telling us about, but, surprise surprise, they were all closed.

Luckily one of the places that looked like it was just going to be a bar and was open turned out to be a restaurant and so we ate and watched some Sox. I had a yummy steam and cheese and mushroom and onion sammich on garlic bread with cheesy bacony fries (because I'd left my bird seed in the car). The garlic bread made it. Then we wandered back to the hotel, stopping to check out the guitars (like the Chicago cows) and Jacob's Field, which was kind of right there in the open.

Saturday:

Saturday we headed out bright and early to go see the thing we actually went to Cleveland for in the first place...THE WORLD'S LARGEST RUBBER STAMP!!!!!

Ok, OK, so maybe it wasn't the entire reason for going to Cleveland...but I think it's awesome!

So after we pondered the greatness that is THE WORLD'S LARGEST RUBBER STAMP we headed off another block to see what I guess technically was our whole reason for going to Cleveland: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

We basically went because we wanted to see the Warped Tour Exhibit. There was a Clash exhibit there too, which made it even better.

The Hall was pretty oddly laid out, but we got to see a lot of neat things (sorry, no cameras were allowed, so no pics for you :( ). I liked it a lot because music photography is some of the most interesting photography you can find. I love it.

The Warped Tour exhibit was cool, especially the Lisa Johnson photography and some of the really random things they displayed (I especially liked the hair clippers used to keep the mohawks coming!)

Other hall highlights: Michael Jackson's rotating glove, Madonna's wardrobes that look really well made compared to others, wondering why the Monkees weren't featured :(, wondering why the hell they had a special music of Ohio exhibit until we realized we were in Cleveland, Pink Floyd Wall, weird mesmerizing TV installation, the Hall, the Clash, hearing everyone who commented that they never knew the Clash had more than one song, what may be the World's biggest Hot Dog, Fries, and Coke (The hot dog was actually used to fly Phish into a concert once)...

All in all, it was a pretty fun museum!!!

After the museum we headed back to the hotel to grab the car and then took off looking for the "house with the leg lamp in the window" and we found it!!!

This was the house that they filmed "A Christmas Story" at. It's apparently in Cleveland! Technically they just shot the outside scenes there. But some dude in California bought the house for over double its market value and fixed up the outside and did what he could wit the inside to look just like it did in the movie. He also paid over double what the house across the street was worth to build a gift show and museum. Crazy.

It was kind of neat though. They fixed it up with everything from the leg lamp in the window, the turkey in the oven, the BB gun in the corner, soap on the ledge, and a Red Ryder comic on the bed.

I can't believe I paid $7 to see it, but it was totally worth it I say!

After the museum we wandered the market a bit, grabbed some yummy coffee, and went on a Brewery Tour of the Great Lakes Brewing Company! I've never been on a brewery tour before...not like I like beer, but it was still interesting. Especially since it was a small 25-person operation and not a giant beer conglomerate. They gave free samples (technically we had to pay a quarter to abide by the law). Notyum.

We did dinner at the Great Lakes Brewing Company restaurant. Nadia and Jim both partook in the beer sample...For $10 they got 4-5oz. samples of all nine beers that they had on tap. Since I do not like beer I ordered a Coke, but I wanted beeryness so I go the Stilton Cheese Soup that was made with beer (YUM) to go along with my Pretzel Chicken (I think there was beer in the mustard sauce too).

Jim said that I look like Luke Wilson. Which then resulted in the following conversation:
Bryan: She looks like Helen Keller.
Nadia: Do you even know what Helen Keller looks like?
Jim: Helen Keller doesn't even know what Helen Keller looks like.

We capped it all off with chocolate chunk ice cream that was also made with beer (SOOOOOOYUMMMMM), who knew beer could give ice cream such a good taste!!!!

Sunday:
Before heading back to Chicago, we decided to check out the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. We saw Dinomasaurs, and stuffed creatures, and glaciers, and earthquakes, and butterfly photography and Balto the Wonder Dog.

There was some dog training demonstration going on where they had doggies doing an obstacle course right in the middle of the museum. Of course, the doggies were in a smaller space and much closer to the crowd than they were used to so some of them got distracted. Like one who instead of going through the tunnel decided to come say hi to us, and then went into the tunnel, paused for a few moments, and then came back the same way. Toofunny.

Anyways, they museum was literally filled with dogs wandering around. Odd.

What we really cared about though: Jewels!!!

I picked out all of the pink stones that would be appropriate to include on my future engagement ring. They are all in the photo gallery. Gentlemen, take note. :)

One last note: On the museum and rest stop, etc. there were signs on the window telling people that they are not to bring guns inside. Umm, thought that was a given! Who knew!

So, that is Cleveland in a rather large (dare I say World's Largest?) Nutshell.

PICTURES HERE

Posted by valry at 7:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jenny: Adam tried to kill me.
Adam: That's right, I stabbed her.

Last night Nadia and I finally made it over to Jen and Adam's new house. It's a pretty sweet townhome overlooking a golf course (or so we're told, as it was night and we couldn't see much outside). It's a really nice place aside from the outdated light fixtures and the mirrors behind the bed (left over from the 60 year old couple who used to live there...ummm...gross.

We went to Bakers Square for some pie shop special and then played pool where we did Reegers versus non-reegers and then married women versus non-married women (Adam qualifies because he is not a married woman).

There was a sign in the pool hall for a new cherry beer by Sam Adams, and the bottle on the sign clearly said "Made with real cherries and cherry." Anyone know the difference??? (actually, I looked it up and it's supposed to say cherry flavoring, but that is not what it said.)

Anyways, Congratualations Jenny and Adam on your fabulous new house, and on a wonderful year of marriage! Happy Anniversary!

--------

1. Instead of showing file names, my computer keeps showing Chinese characters

2. I promised him that this would make the blog...I totally randomly ran into Brian C. on the street the other after not seeing him in forever and a year. Sometimes Chicago is the smallest city in the world.

3. I hate when you sit down to watch a movie you've never seen before and then realize that you've seen it before.

4. I made a massive apfelstrudel (seriosuly, I was afraid that my kitchen was going to explode).

5. You know you are insane when the one-hour photo place says they will call you when your order is done...and hey don't call for twenty-four hours...not because they forgot you, but because it seriously took them that long to complete your order.

Posted by valry at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Seriously, every time I have to go somewhere, Batman happens to get in my way. I go to drive JoeJoe home, road we want to take is closed. Why? Batman. Want to go to a restaurant, have to walk a hella the way outa the way. Why? Batman.
FUCK YOU BATMAN!

(here is Batman's helimicopter. I don't know if they were filming the helimicopter or the helimicopter was filming shots. All I knows is it was coming down might close. The pics SUCK because I could not use a flash. But you can kind of make it out...i think.)

Went out to Italian Village with all my favorite married and soon to be married couples.
Adam says I have to introduce myself to dates as "My name is Val. I licked the public watermelon."
I told him he has to introduce himself to people who are not dates as "My name is Adam. I wrecked the Berwyn Car Spike." (p.s. I totally blame Adam for the near future demolition of one of the countries proudest monuments in order to construct a Walgreens. I KNOW it was somehow his doing!!!)
I had the tastiest veal-stuffed ravioli with mushroom shallot cream sauce. I kind of inhaled it.
Bryan told Nadia she has cankles but later retracted the statement citing that he would never have married her if she had cankles.

Posted by valry at 12:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Does it count as "going to a carnival" if you are all by yourself and don't ride any rides?
Does it count as "going to a concert" if you bail before the band even gets on stage?

So, sometimes you just want to hear the song that you wish to almighty was about you and cried a little when you found out it wasn't (despite the fact that your name is not, in fact, Delilah) sung live. Then sometimes a crappy band who thinks their the shit even though you've never heard of them breaks something near the end of their set, insists on fixing it to play their last song while insisting that everyone sing along (while insisting, of course, that people have even heard of them). Then they, of course, run late...Then you wait for AN HOUR AND A HALF for them to set up for the band people actually came to see (30 minutes in someone finally came to the mic to say they were having "technical difficulties," and hour in they finally decided to turn off the power on the stage to fix the problem, and an hour and a half in we finally bailed so we could make it to a movie (I have no idea when they actually made it to the stage)...And that is how Val did not see the Plain White Ts in concert :(

So the concert that I didn't see despite being there for longer than it should have lasted was at the DuPage County Fair, so beforehand while waiting for Nad and Bryan, I got me a corn dog and a lemon shake up...and maybe a funnell cake. That counts as going to a carnival, even though I didn't Tilt a Whirl. Eh, I'd probaby have thrown up a corn dog and a lemon shake up and maybe a funnell cake anyways.

We bailed on the concert before it even began because we had to catch us a 12:01 showing of The Simpsons. It was kind of awesome. And by kind of I mean really. And by really I mean stupendously. More so than the plot or anything I think it was some little tiny things that just freaking made it for me. But alas, I will not give anything away, because I don't do those sorts of things.

Posted by valry at 2:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

1. Thursday I went for sushi with Josh and Nadia. We were supposed to go to this one really good place but they were packed and had a ridiculously long wait. So we ended up at another sushi place a few doors down. Now, I have a theory here...If you are in Lincoln Park and one sushi place is packed and another is completely empty there is probably a reason... (I probably also shouldn't take restaurant advice from a boy whose favorite restaurant is Tasty Gyro...) We did have an excellent appetizer of teriyaki beef rolls. And I had yummy plum wine. But the waiter was a meany who would not bring me the plaid 3-legged pony I ordered (he said they were all out of the other types of ponies) and who sat on my imaginary friend. Mean mean waiter :(

2. I baked pudding. OK, OK, so you don't really bake pudding. But it counts. I then ate my pudding all alone by myself watching a movie with a former Dawson having a lot of sex. It was an enjoyable movie. The pudding was too lumpy (I am too impatient some times).