Happy Halloween, Cosby style

I loved the Cosby show when I was a kid. The other night, they showed a Halloween episode, and Cliff's costume made me laugh so hard that I almost spit water out my nose. Enjoy! (Note that this is just a quick recap of the show, so his costume appears shortly after the beginning of the clip.)

Dancing with the stars shocker

If you are following Dancing with the Stars and don't want to know who was voted off tonight, don't click the following link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14573491/.

All I can say is that this was just plain wrong. There are three couples that deserved to be in the bottom last night, and this couple was not one of them. Not even close.

In related news, I wish that they'd give that Samantha Harris co-host the boot. She's got the most useless job on the show, and she can't even pull that off. I've never seen a native English speaker have so much trouble with the English language, save for president shrub. Maybe he'll have a future in hosting television programs after his term is up...

Thankfully, I have DVR, so I record the shows for L. and me to watch, and we fast forward through all of the commercials, as well as most of the second night festivities unless there is an interesting performance to watch. Of course, we stop for each of the segments where they tell a couple whether they're safe or in the bottom two. For the first night shows, we probably get a good 45 minutes of actual program with the other 45 minutes being commercials and needless commentary by Samantha Harris while waiting for scores. The second night, we whittle down to about 10 or 15 minutes, tops.

I can honestly say that as much as I hate Comcast (especially after they got rid of the Microsoft Enhanced version of their DVR service and went to this completely horrible new DVR service), I am at least thankful that I can record a show and fast forward through all of the crap without having to worry about VCR tapes, etc. Which reminds me, if you're as pissed off at Comcast for the DVR dis-service that they recently rolled out, feel free to fill out the following survey and give them a good piece of your mind. It's enough to make me think about moving to Tivo or Dish Network.
https://www.teamcomcast.com/survey/survey.asp?s=01094254231184010197

Because we can, can can!

L. and I went out with our friends, C. and M. last night. We went to The Can Can in Seattle to celebrate C.'s 30th birthday. It was a blast! We got there early, and had drinks in the bar. They have some really creative drinks. If you go there sometime, I highly recommend the Bella Rouge. We then moved into the restaurant area to have dinner and see the Caberet show. The food was amazing, and the Can Can Castaways were incredible in their performance of I see London, I see France. It was a mix of dancers, who all had various specialties, such as contortion, bellydancing, comedy, etc. I really liked the music that they performed to as well, and Rainbow (the contortionist) answered one of my questions about the band who did one of the songs that I really liked. It turned out to be the band, The Bad Things, and the song I loved was called The Breaking. Her performance with Jonny Boy was really beautiful. I can't believe the positions that she got into! I really wish I knew where she got her shoes - they were so cute. The belly dancer was able to get through an entire performance with a sword balanced on her head, and her burlesque number was really impressive, too. The men were equally as amazing, all very limber and entertaining.

The highlight of the night was that M. called ahead of time to arrange it so that C. would be brought up as part of one of the performances. It was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. One of the Can Can Castaways dressed up as an 80s hair band member and lip-sync'd power ballads while stripping down into smaller and smaller underwear each time the song changed. There was no telling where this was going to go, and C. was just hilarious sitting there and making faces, and sometimes dancing along. I had tears streaming down my face throughout the whole thing. L. and I were asked a few questions and brought up to the stage as part of the show a couple of times, too. It was one of the most fun evenings out I've ever had.

Plus, it was just great to see C. and M. again. It's been a good year and a half or two years since I'd last seen them, and so much has changed for all of us. I've known C. since grade school, and we've been friends since second grade despite my moving away in third grade. We always kept in touch, and she's one of the coolest people that I know. She's so open and fun and down to earth. I'm so happy to be friends with her after all of these years. It seems impossible that we're all turning 30 now, and that she has two little girls! They're such a happy family, and I'm so glad that things have worked out well for her and M. They make a really great couple.

Bummer bachelor party

Can you imagine having to tell your girlfriend or wife (who was probably pissed off that you were at a strip joint in the first place) that you might have contracted TB from a stripper? Anyway, yyyyuuuucccckkkkk...

The Onion pens another gem

What a great way to explain trickle-down economics in the Reagan era:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/reaganomics_finally_trickles_down

Man, the people at The Onion are brilliant.

Not funny

I love watching comedy routines. I'm always up for some good comedians on Comedy Central. But, I have to say that I really don't understand the hype about Sarah Silverman. I don't dislike her, but I just don't really think she's that funny. I watched her new show, and the one this week was about her licking her dog's butt. Call me crazy, but something about that just doesn't tickle my funny bone. I've seen her on several other shows, and she makes some interesting observations, but nothing really struck me the way most comedians do. I realize that she's the comedienne du jour, but I guess I'm just not into her humor.

One person that I really can't stand, though, is Carlos Mencia. He annoys me, and I just think he's stupid rather than funny. Oh well, to each his own. I just really wish that Dave Chappelle would come back.

Interesting article about Kucinich

The Stranger just published a really interesting article about Dennis Kucinich. According to a survey that I took recently, Kucinich's platform most closely aligns with my political views. I immediately thought, "Ugh", because there is just something about him that I don't like. But, after reading through the article, I can finally pinpoint that quality - arrogance. His constant "I was right" or "I am right" attitude. It's good to have confidence, but some people just take it to a level that irks the heck out of me.

And after reading that he only recently became pro choice and in the past has supported all kinds of legislation to limit a woman's reproductive choices, I can definitely say that I wouldn't vote for him. I don't think any congressman should be dictating what a woman can or can't do with her own body. Period. And it's just a little too convenient that he changed his stance on that after running for the presidency. No thank you.

Season of change

It's definitely turning out to be a season of big changes for me. Not only did I recently get engaged to L., but I also just accepted a new job. I interviewed for a couple of different teams at my workplace, and got offers from each. Today I made my decision and accepted the one that I thought would be the best fit. It was a really difficult decision because both teams are really incredible, and I knew that I'd be lucky to work on either one. Today, I told several people on my current team that I was leaving, and they were all sad to see me go. And I have mixed emotions about leaving, because I have really loved the product that I'm working on and the people that I work with. But a couple of things helped me decide that it was time for a change, and I know that this new position will bring me great challenges and opportunities for growth. It's always hard to leave the people that you love to work with, but I am confident that I'll make good relationships on my new team and keep in touch with the old.

Weird dream

You know how sometimes you have a very vivid dream, and it really sticks with you for awhile afterward? That happened to me this morning. This one still kind of freaks me out, because it just left me with such an empty feeling.
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I'm in a living room with a large sliding glass door that faces a lovely view of the ocean. I wander around the apartment doing various things until I hear a bang at the sliding glass door and run back into the living room. I find that the tide has come in and waves are crashing up against the base of the door, with salt water making its way through the edges. The carpet is soaked near the door, and I'm not sure what I can do to stop the water from coming in, so I do nothing but wait for the tide to go out. Upon closer inspection of the door and the walls in that area, I notice that a section of the wall is nothing but a thin sheet of something and it is beginning to wear away. I wonder how I didn't notice this before buying the place, and I make a mental note to call the property manager to see what can be done about all of this. Because this apartment is on the first floor, I'm unsure what they can do about keeping the ocean from flooding into the living room each time the tide comes in, and I am upset that my perfect little world is disrupted this way.

I wander into the back room, which is still an unfinished room. I remember that I need to figure out how to complete the sheet rock and mudding, and wonder who I should call. I'm no longer in contact with people who would have helped with this in the past. So, I realize that I need to hire someone to do it, and I think about all of the horror stories I've heard about hiring incompetent people. Suddenly, I feel very overwhelmed. There is a lot of work to do ahead, and I sigh.

Beginning to plan the wedding

L. and I are starting the wedding planning. It's a lot of work, but L. is such a great help. It's nice to have him want to be involved.

Since this is my second wedding, there are a lot of things that I know from experience and want to do differently. There are also things that you don't traditionally do the second time around. For instance, you don't have to wear the white dress. The problem is that I kind of do want to wear a white dress. I don't want it to be all traditional the way my first wedding dress was; I definitely want something different, but you never know how people are going to think of that. I mean, I'm clearly not the young virginal bride or anything. My mom suggested a black dress that we saw online and that was really stunning. I love that dress, but I'm not sure whether I'd be on board with walking down the aisle in black. But, who knows?

The other thing is how many people you invite and how detailed you get with everything. Originally, I thought it would just be really small with the people who are closest to us. But, now I kinda want to just do the whole big gala because it's fun and you only do it once. It's a memory that L. and I will have forever. And people can always chose not to come if they don't want to attend.

I'm also not sure about bridesmaids. I had seven bridesmaids for my first wedding, and it was really great. But, you always have to leave people out, and whatnot. I hate that feeling of having to chose, because you never want to hurt anyone's feelings and if it were truly up to me, I'd probably have like ten of my female friends and family up there with me. But that's far too many, and I just don't have the heart to move people off of that list. And to be honest, I wonder if my sisters would be ticked off if I didn't ask them but had friends instead. I dunno. It seems like it might just be easier to forgo the whole bridesmaid thing altogether, but I'm still not sure. Ideally I could figure out three people that I'd want to be there with me, so I'll just have to think about it some more.

Right now, we're going through a whole huge list of locations and doing online research about them. We already decided not to do an outside wedding, because we'd just be worried about weather all the time. We're narrowing things down to a manageable list of indoor locations that we can easily visit. Then we'll narrow it down even further, and compile a list of information from each of our visits. In the end we'll chose the place, and then figure out what kinds of dates are available. As things are now, we're looking for a September or October date for next year. We both love the fall around here and think that would be really great. It will also be easy to wait until after this fall, and then hit all of the sales to get decorations for things like the tables, etc. So, it's a good time to be thinking about all of this.

For colors, I'm thinking that I'll do a deep plum or amethyst color, with accents in fall colors such as oranges, greens, reds, and yellows. The accents will be found in things like little pumpkins and gourds for centerpieces, etc.

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure that there will be plenty more updates coming in the future, so stay tuned!

Filth

I really need to clean my condo. Really badly. Since I've been sick now over a week, and having all of this asthma trouble, the least of my worries has been cleaning the bathroom or tidying up. But, I really need to do some of that stuff. I just can't go too long without cleaning because it drives me nuts. But the problem is that the dust and chemical smells can aggravate my already fragile lungs.

Tomorrow I just need to put on a dust mask and at least run a cloth around my place and do a quick sweep around the floor. Tonight I did take the grills off of my heaters and give them a quick vacuum because it was finally cold enough to need to turn on the heat and the last thing I wanted was a bunch of dust blowing out of them. So, at least I got that little task done. Little steps...