Boo!
The Halloween Party went well, and it was really fun.
Not much time to post since work is so busy, but here's a link to some photos from the party. I'll add links to a few other folk's pics from the party, too.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Boo!
Boo!
The Halloween Party went well, and it was really fun.
Not much time to post since work is so busy, but here's a link to some photos from the party. I'll add links to a few other folk's pics from the party, too.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Darjeeling Limited Now Showing... & Misc. BS
Hmmm... Good news! I didn't miss Darjeeling Ltd; it just wasn't playing in Memphis yet. So I'll be able to try and see it this weekend, although I am hosting a party and also want to try to attend the River Arts Fest back at my old stomping grounds (So Main).
Work is very intense and busy right now. If there's anything worse than doing mindless tasks for a living, it's being extremely busy with mindless tasks for a living. But, then again, I know for a fact that it's far worse to be toiling physically at mindless tasks for even less money, so maybe I shouldn't complain. Maybe, as they say, that's why they call it work!
I got even more stuff yesterday. Pretty lipsticks from my mother; I'm a sucker for lipstick... Some headphones that were on my amazon.com wishlist, but unfortunately they are way too big. I'm giving them to Bill. Now I still need headphones for work since mine are falling apart.
I'm pretty confident that I'm prepared for the Halloween party on Saturday. I hope the rain stops before tomorrow, so that we can enjoy the new chiminea at the party. I plan to take lots of photos and enjoy myself.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
STUFF!!! (Materialistic Mutterings)
Wow! Lately I've been getting so much flipping STUFF through the mail! It's mainly because of my birthday, I suppose.
Check it out:
My new prized possession:
Walkuski's striking Polish poster for Rosemary's Baby. It arrived earlier this week. This is a gift from Bill for my birthday. It's currently being framed; unfortunately it won't be ready in time for the Halloween party. It's going to be so damned cool.
Other birthday items:
From my lovely long-time friend, Heather Z., a Feist CD (The Reminder)arrived last week:
Made possible by my mom's generous amazon.com gift certificate:
From the Pottery Barn, I got a HUGE wooden tray. It was on sale, and I picked the medium-sized tray, but when it I arrived, I realized I probably should have checked the dimensions before I ordered it. It's lovely though, and I can definitely find a lot of uses for it.
I have a souvenir t-shirt from the goat festival that says "You Get My Goat" and has a goat winking on it.
I'm waiting for a fancy alarm clock that wakes you to light instead of BEEP BEEP BEEP to come in the mail, too.
Check it out:
My new prized possession:
Walkuski's striking Polish poster for Rosemary's Baby. It arrived earlier this week. This is a gift from Bill for my birthday. It's currently being framed; unfortunately it won't be ready in time for the Halloween party. It's going to be so damned cool.
Other birthday items:
From my lovely long-time friend, Heather Z., a Feist CD (The Reminder)arrived last week:
Made possible by my mom's generous amazon.com gift certificate:
- A PJ Harvey CD (White Chalk)
- A Kelly Link book (Stranger Things Happen)
- Conjoined Twins, a book by Christine Quigley.
From the Pottery Barn, I got a HUGE wooden tray. It was on sale, and I picked the medium-sized tray, but when it I arrived, I realized I probably should have checked the dimensions before I ordered it. It's lovely though, and I can definitely find a lot of uses for it.
I have a souvenir t-shirt from the goat festival that says "You Get My Goat" and has a goat winking on it.
I'm waiting for a fancy alarm clock that wakes you to light instead of BEEP BEEP BEEP to come in the mail, too.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Sunday, October 14, 2007
My Birthday
I turned 34 on October 12. As birthdays go, it was not bad, although I have to admit it started out a bit shaky. There were surprises of both the pleasant and disappointing variety.
Bill's gift for me didn't arrive before time to leave, so that was kind of disappointing, for example, but it wasn't really his fault. So he decided to tell me what it was, and that was a very happy surprise for me. He ordered my favorite Walkuski poster, Rosemary's Baby, from a Polish poster dealer. Wow! I hadn't even dared to put that on my wish list; the most I asked for was the Walkuski postcards. How thrilling to be surprised with even more than you could hope or wish for! I can't wait until it finally arrives. I hope we manage to get it framed in time for the party.
I had a really cute email birthday card from my Mom, who had thoughtfully sent me a generous gift certificate for Amazon a few weeks prior to my birthday in order to give me plenty of time to order stuff so it could arrive in time for my birthday. I am just having a little trouble deciding! I'm thinking I'll stockpile books with it.
I traveled to rural middle Tennessee, where I mostly grew up, to attend a fainting goats festival and visit old friends and relatives who still live in the area. I stopped by my paternal grandparent's home to visit them and my Dad on Friday. We had a Sixteen Candles kind of day there, because they had forgotten it was my birthday. I can call it a disappointing surprise, but it stopped being a surprise years ago. But they were nice and everything. I had fun playing with my dad's cat. I taught him to sit on my lap and we became buddies(the cat, not my dad). I also saw my dad's new place, then I left for my hotel room about forty miles away.
Bill had made reservations for a rather nice room in Columbia, TN with a jumbo jacuzzi that was almost as nice as the one we had in Vegas last year on my birthday. No view of mountains in the distance though, just cheesy mirrors on the ceiling. :)
I went for dinner at La Hacienda, which is a modest little Mexican restaurant that Stephen and I used to frequent. I try to go there once in a while and remember old times. The food's not bad, and it's very much the same as it was back then. Afterwards, it was time for champagne and a soak back at the room.
The next morning, I got a pretty early start because I didn't want to be late for the Fainting Goats show at the Goats, Music, and More festival in Lewisburg, TN. I think goats are adorable, so I just had to go check it out. It was basically like a livestock show, the goats were judged based on their body structure and musculature, their propensity for fainting didn't really factor into it. I did see a few goats faint, however. I also saw a goat costume contest that, oddly enough, featured at least two Elvis Presley goats. I also caught a goat impersonation contest, during which one of the contestants dressed up like Elvis Presley and performed a few of the King's standards, punctuated with "bahs" now and then. I have video of that. Maybe I'll post it here or on my web page, if I have a chance anytime soon.
I bought a souvenir tee shirt that says "You get my goat"... and there wasn't much else to do there, to be honest, so I left around noon. I went to visit my maternal grandmother and her husband. for another Sixteen Candles afternoon. My birthday is not such a memorable occasion, I suppose! But, since I was turning 34, maybe they thought I'd prefer they forget. They did have homemade ice cream, though, so that was great! After our visit, I went back to the hotel to rest a bit.
Later, I went to Nashville to check out a Halloween store for possible party decorations. I was going to visit Ricardo, but he was on call for some reality show he'd started working on the day before, so it didn't work out. Then I went to Ichiban, another one of Stephen's haunts, to have some sushi. I had a delicious meal. I had a little bit of Zipang, the sparkling sake, so it would feel celebratory. Then it was back to the jacuzzi for a nice soak.
I came back home rather early in the day. Bill and worked on cleaning up the branches from the tree he cut down earlier in the week.
That was my birthday weekend. It wasn't bad. It had some less than stellar moments, I guess, but at least I don't feel old yet! I haven't resorted to lying about my age! Maybe I should start feeling old, but I really feel like 30s are still young. Talk to me about starting to feel old when I'm in 44, or maybe 54, or... when I'm 64.
I'll try to upload goat footage soon!
Bill's gift for me didn't arrive before time to leave, so that was kind of disappointing, for example, but it wasn't really his fault. So he decided to tell me what it was, and that was a very happy surprise for me. He ordered my favorite Walkuski poster, Rosemary's Baby, from a Polish poster dealer. Wow! I hadn't even dared to put that on my wish list; the most I asked for was the Walkuski postcards. How thrilling to be surprised with even more than you could hope or wish for! I can't wait until it finally arrives. I hope we manage to get it framed in time for the party.
I had a really cute email birthday card from my Mom, who had thoughtfully sent me a generous gift certificate for Amazon a few weeks prior to my birthday in order to give me plenty of time to order stuff so it could arrive in time for my birthday. I am just having a little trouble deciding! I'm thinking I'll stockpile books with it.
I traveled to rural middle Tennessee, where I mostly grew up, to attend a fainting goats festival and visit old friends and relatives who still live in the area. I stopped by my paternal grandparent's home to visit them and my Dad on Friday. We had a Sixteen Candles kind of day there, because they had forgotten it was my birthday. I can call it a disappointing surprise, but it stopped being a surprise years ago. But they were nice and everything. I had fun playing with my dad's cat. I taught him to sit on my lap and we became buddies(the cat, not my dad). I also saw my dad's new place, then I left for my hotel room about forty miles away.
Bill had made reservations for a rather nice room in Columbia, TN with a jumbo jacuzzi that was almost as nice as the one we had in Vegas last year on my birthday. No view of mountains in the distance though, just cheesy mirrors on the ceiling. :)
I went for dinner at La Hacienda, which is a modest little Mexican restaurant that Stephen and I used to frequent. I try to go there once in a while and remember old times. The food's not bad, and it's very much the same as it was back then. Afterwards, it was time for champagne and a soak back at the room.
The next morning, I got a pretty early start because I didn't want to be late for the Fainting Goats show at the Goats, Music, and More festival in Lewisburg, TN. I think goats are adorable, so I just had to go check it out. It was basically like a livestock show, the goats were judged based on their body structure and musculature, their propensity for fainting didn't really factor into it. I did see a few goats faint, however. I also saw a goat costume contest that, oddly enough, featured at least two Elvis Presley goats. I also caught a goat impersonation contest, during which one of the contestants dressed up like Elvis Presley and performed a few of the King's standards, punctuated with "bahs" now and then. I have video of that. Maybe I'll post it here or on my web page, if I have a chance anytime soon.
I bought a souvenir tee shirt that says "You get my goat"... and there wasn't much else to do there, to be honest, so I left around noon. I went to visit my maternal grandmother and her husband. for another Sixteen Candles afternoon. My birthday is not such a memorable occasion, I suppose! But, since I was turning 34, maybe they thought I'd prefer they forget. They did have homemade ice cream, though, so that was great! After our visit, I went back to the hotel to rest a bit.
Later, I went to Nashville to check out a Halloween store for possible party decorations. I was going to visit Ricardo, but he was on call for some reality show he'd started working on the day before, so it didn't work out. Then I went to Ichiban, another one of Stephen's haunts, to have some sushi. I had a delicious meal. I had a little bit of Zipang, the sparkling sake, so it would feel celebratory. Then it was back to the jacuzzi for a nice soak.
I came back home rather early in the day. Bill and worked on cleaning up the branches from the tree he cut down earlier in the week.
That was my birthday weekend. It wasn't bad. It had some less than stellar moments, I guess, but at least I don't feel old yet! I haven't resorted to lying about my age! Maybe I should start feeling old, but I really feel like 30s are still young. Talk to me about starting to feel old when I'm in 44, or maybe 54, or... when I'm 64.
I'll try to upload goat footage soon!
Friday, October 12, 2007
Local Boy Does Good
Here's some news on that other politician from Tennessee.
Nicely done, Al!
Along with the IPCC, he's been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
I'm proud of him and feel he deserves recognition for many of his efforts, not the least of which would be the work he's done recently to bring attention to environmental issues. However, part of me wonders why the Peace Prize is used almost as a "do-gooder" type of award some years instead of strictly being awarded to those who promote peace. I feel that the argument can be made that protecting the environment can, in a sense, be considered "making peace" with the planet, but it seems so abstract.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
Would it be more suitable to present the prize to a pacifist rather than an environmentalist? Is environmentalism a form of pacifism? Preserving the environment is crucial to all our endeavors, I understand, but does it promote peace?
Nicely done, Al!
Along with the IPCC, he's been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change".
I'm proud of him and feel he deserves recognition for many of his efforts, not the least of which would be the work he's done recently to bring attention to environmental issues. However, part of me wonders why the Peace Prize is used almost as a "do-gooder" type of award some years instead of strictly being awarded to those who promote peace. I feel that the argument can be made that protecting the environment can, in a sense, be considered "making peace" with the planet, but it seems so abstract.
According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
Would it be more suitable to present the prize to a pacifist rather than an environmentalist? Is environmentalism a form of pacifism? Preserving the environment is crucial to all our endeavors, I understand, but does it promote peace?
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, October 8, 2007
Well, damn! I blinked and suddenly Darjeeling Limited is no longer showing in Memphis. That kinda sucks. I know the reviews haven't been great, but... I wanted to see for myself!
Eastern Promises is still showing, but I didn't see it over the weekend. We were so busy. Some of Bill's code monkeys joined us for dinner at Bosco's Friday night, then came over to our place for drinks. Saturday was filled with family events, as relatives of Bill from New York were visiting. Sunday, we concentrated on chores.
We did watch a really entertaining movie called Severance. I suppose it's sort of like The Office (UK) + Friday the 13th - the supernatural elements... I enjoyed it, but expected it to be a bit more humorous based on the trailer. It did include a quite a bit of comedy.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Busy Busy
I've been extremely busy lately - especially at work. I haven't managed to do much of anything interesting, though.
I still haven't made it to the theater to see Darjeeling Limited or Eastern Promises. I hope I can do that this weekend.
Yesterday, I went to vote after work. I noticed this morning that it seems none of my choices won! I guess I just love the underdogs and commmies, what can I say?
Afterwards, I went to the Brooks to see Army of Shadows(L'Armee des Ombres). The movie was fantastic. It really had everything: torture, Nazis, the motherfucking French Resistance, ordinary people turned extraordinary, heartbreaking assassinations, striking cinematography, and a beautiful, yet restrained score. I'm really glad the Brooks shows films like this. And they're a short stroll away from our house, so that's even better.
The movie, and the fact that it's Friday, have put me in a good mood, even though the local election didn't go exactly as I had hoped.
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