My apologies

I'm a) too lazy, b) too stupid, or c) both, when it comes to fixing the video size below. Deal :)

Just wait until 1:13

Random LA Photo

From one of my trips to the Getty Museum. I just felt like my blog needed some more pretty-action.

Road Trippin'

So, my boyfriend and I hit the road recently, guinea pig in tow, for a family reunion in Montana.

Here's Vegas, with a long exposure, taken from the road at night:



We got to G-town after about 23 hours of driving. On the way my boyfriend tried to smuggle me into Mexico in order to sell my kidneys. Luckily that plan failed, but we did end up adding 4 extra hours to our drive. Actually, as we started our drive, I said, "crap, I left the mapquest printout on top of the tv." He said, "oh don't worry, I know how to get there." Famous last words, yes? We finally noticed we were going the wrong way when we ended up about 20 miles from Mexico. I was not happy and he provided me the ammo with which to nag him for the next 80 years.

Evidence of our detour:



Once we made it to G-town, I said hello to my puppy doggy:



And a robot:



It's funny what parents will keep in a garage.

Later we met with the fantastic Alex R. for lunch and the fabulous Melanie H. for dinner. The next day we hooked up with my best bud, packed up and headed for Glacier National Park.

On the way, I saw a few horsies:



And some other pretty scenery:



Then we met up with my dad and little bro and had the best steak of our lives. Sadly, I didn't manage to snap a photo of it. I had a feeling my fam would judge me for documenting my food adventures.

The next morning, the friend and I took a hike:










Pretty.

Being an accomplished hiker and internationally acclaimed frontierswoman, I recognized some bear poo near the end of our hike. "It has berries in it," I said. "And deer poo is more pelleted looking. I think."

Shortly afterward it happened.

Friend and I were nearly eaten by bears. At least, the hikers that came running out from the trail she and I were just on almost got eaten. And by almost, I mean they saw them and came running out. Similar.

Afterward, friend and I stopped by the Swiftcurrent cafe where I had hot chocolate and biscuits and gravy. Nothing like gallivanting around the outdoors to ruin your diet.

We packed up and headed over to the motel/hotel/resort/whatev. where the rest of the fam were meeting up. On the drive, we saw a grizzly near the side of the road. Almost eaten again! After we got to the whatev./resort/hotel/motel I decided I wanted to go on a horsie-back ride. After some convincing I got the friend to join me.



I later regretted this, as I almost killed her. Stupid allergies. Zyrtec, Benedryl, Cortaid cream, eye drops, a shower and an emergency inhaler later and my doped up friend retreated to the cabin for a relaxing coma as I went out for a family picnic:



The purpose of which was to remember my grandma by telling outrageous stories. Who knew 80-somethings got a lot of play on cruises? Note. To. Self.

We spent the night in a swanky cabin:



Then headed back for G-Town. I didn't realize that people kept elk in pens:



After G-town, it was time to go home. It was a lot of driving for such a short trip. I'll do it all again around Christmas, and I've decided that I need to travel more. To someplace other than MT.

July 4th

Do other countries make as big a deal out of their "independence" or equivalent days as we do?

Oh well. I made this from plain vanilla cake mix (added some almond and vanilla extract for a little more flavor), cool whip and berries. It was surprisingly good.

Happy you-know-what day!

"I wanna make love in this club...in this club...in this club...in this club...so on and so forth...etc....in this club"

What exactly constitutes appropriate bar and club attire in this city? In Montana, you can wear a sweatshirt, jeans and snow boots - as long as you do your hair and add makeup. Boulder, CO was similarly casual, though you would probably don a nicer shirt, better shoes and add a necklace.

My impression of the club scene here is, frankly, a bit trashy. Too much skin, frightening amounts of cleavage, shirts worn as dresses - sans leggings, and high, high heels. Makeup applied with spatula, big earrings, big hair and french tip nails. None of this is my style (except maybe unintentionally big hair).

What to do, what to do?

Peaceful

I am always surprised when a weekend goes really smoothly; no drama, no bumps in the road. I admit, I don't go with the flow very easily if I have made plans. If I plan to have no plan, I'm fine. But if you tell me you're going to go to dinner with me Friday night, I look forward to it all week. I think about what I'm going to order, what I'm going to wear, how much fun it's going to be. Then, if you cancel, I'm pretty disappointed. Especially if my backup plan ends up being sitting at home, watching my old Tevoed copy of Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle.

Luckily, this weekend was wonderful. I met up with my boyfriend's childhood friend and his wife on Friday - we had a lovely time eating out at this strange restaurant here in LA, the Formosa. Surprisingly good pad thai, for future reference.

Saturday the boyfriend and I braved IKEA, to hunt down a suitable futon sofa for my best friend's impending visit. I went crazy and chose a big, purple sofa to replace our wimpy loveseat. Pleasant surprise - the place wasn't packed. We also found a garage sale down our block, to which we donated the old love seat. Much easier than locating a proper dump, or inviting strangers into our house from craigslist. Shortly thereafter, we went out for food with Raging Texan and J00wish, and proceeded to Wii up a storm with MarioKart and Super Smash Brothers. Despite my disdain for pink, I always insist upon being Princess Peach when playing Mario Kart. I think it's my desire to flaunt the "girl power" thing. Or something.

Sunday I lounged on my big purple couch, nestled on it and leaned against our bookshelves. (I think IKEA has furnished 90% of our house.) It's amazing what a big comfy sofa does for homework productivity. I spent 6 hours doing homework and watching the following: Harold and Kumar go to Whitecastle, Van Wilder, and Just Friends. There is something about bad movies that really helps me get through homework, and I don't mind having Ryan Reynolds (who was in all three) filling up my television screen. After that, my boyfriend made a delicious Caesar salad, I worked out and went to bed.

Very pleasant, albeit not terribly exciting.

RIP

Who knew that my philosophy on life would come from Mr. Conductor at Shining Time Station?

Life is nothing if not absurd, absurdity is nothing if not humorous, and comedy is really fucking fucked now that we lost George Carlin.

Give Grandma hell for me, kay?

Things that suck about working in an office environment #21,004.

When making a beeline for the bathroom, after holding it in for hours in order to get several "urgent" tasks done, it is inevitable that someone will intercept you in the hall for one of two reasons: a) to send you back to your office to do another "urgent" task while your bladder slowly screams and you consider the social implications of wetting your chair or b) they want to talk to you about the cute things their baby has done since they were an egg waiting to be fertilized.

I do have an empty mug here.

Hmmm....

How awkward would that be? For my coworkers to come in? I'd be branded with a yellow letter, P. I don't know if I want to be that guy. Or gal, rather.

Golly gee, ole buddy, ole pal

A problem has arisen. Between full-time classes, full-time working and the freakishly long commute, I seem to have forgotten to go beyond meeting my coworkers and actually find friends. This was effortless in the latter part of high school and early college days.

Is it just me, or does this routinely happen to every twenty-something who relocates to a new town after college? I find myself over eager whenever I run into someone remotely close to my own age. "OMG you like paperclips? I LUUUUFF PAPERCLIIIIIPS!!!!!!" I don't intend to be that slightly off-putting overeager type, but here I am. Have I become some kind of hovering creep, or are the folks here less willing to meet new people? Is it the Los Angeles attitude, or is it my own doing? Maybe it's just my sheer lack of time.

Thank goodness my boo (best friend of ten years), is coming out for a visit over the 4th of July weekend.

Hopefully, once school comes to an end, I can start getting out an doing things. An improv comedy class is on my to-do list, and with the Groundlings freakishly close to my home, I may as well audition for their basic class. I think film festivals will be move #2.

Paper Mario: First Impressions

First of all, I want to say that I am a woman who considers herself to be a bit of a videogame geek. I clung to my Game Boy as a little girl, I envied everyone's Segas, Ataris, and Nintendos, and I cried for hours when Aeris died. I become conflicted when it comes to my thoughts on feminism and gaming, and I'm sure they'll come up soon enough, but I essentially want you to know that I love losing myself in this stuff. It's one of my favorite laid back things to do (ditto to hitting up the beach). I get a bit annoyed when people act like it's a novelty, and I also hate it when people call me a n00b and give me crap for not knowing that all your base are belong to us. Or insert some other random game reference here. Seriously, you'd think I, like, zoned a hoard of Lvl 55 Orcs and then slapped a kitten huffer while pissing on their precious Penny Arcade. Of which I am a fan, btw. And Sluggy. Old Sluggy. I also want to clarify that I'm not one of the gamer girls that closes herself off from society, hates pop culture and has a million pictures of pixies on her myspace page. I have dated plenty, I love me some Jimmy Choos, and unlike some geeks, I have seen the light of day. You also won't see me at ComicCon. No offense.

Anyway, back to Paper Mario.

First thoughts:

The intro is annoyingly long. I can't decide if I love or hate the mustache humor. In some ways, I feel over it, in other ways I'm eating it up because it feels lovely and familiar. Like your mom. (See what I did there?)

It stays dull until you can flip into 3D. The awesomeness commences.

The star power is awesomer than awesomeness squared. Wow. I love breaking stuff in games. Always fun. In addition, Mario occasionally finds a band of little Marios - he has an ass-kicking posse!

The talking parts are my least favorite. Some of the jokes are cute, but they aren't particularly clever, we've heard most of it before.

Even if you think you hate it, stick with it until you meet the ubergeek and his virtual dating computer program.

More to come...unless, like most bloggers, I promise you something, you get excited, and then I never follow up on it. It's like a cock tease, but sadder and there aren't any tassels.

Whoa

The end must be nigh...

I wrote five whole pages on the aforementioned infographic of Mr. Burt Reynolds and his Mr. Awesome Mustache. And I even had the balls to turn it in.

'Stache this

Here's the thing: I've taken what feels like eleventy billion undergrad classes. I am so beyond sick of them. Every assignment is tedious and I stare blankly at my computer, willing the words to just plop onto the page themselves.

So now, here's an infographic I just created for my Visual Communication Class. Time to write a few pages of analysis on this sucker. Oh yeah...I take my learnin' real seriously.

Men are from Mars, Scott McClellan is from Fantasy-Looney-Land-Oogy-Boogey-Boo-Popsicle-Face-Town

What I like best about the McClellan stories on the news right now, is the fact that there seems to be this concentrated effort, a strategy really, to discredit him. And by discredit him, I mean they want us to believe it's an, "invasion of the body snatchers," sort of situation. Like little green men beamed Scott McClellan into their flying saucer, and switched him out with an alien disguised as Scott McClellan. Or maybe a supervirus, hidden deep in the earth for millions of years, infected Scott McClellan and is now controlling his brain. Or maybe Scott McClellan is some kind of Antichrist. Yeah...that's it. Antichrist. Shame on you Scott McClellan, for being a pawn of Satan and bringing down mankind. Bitch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/washington/29bush.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Like a rock. A snoring rock.

And that rock is my boyfriend.

Story:

I spent most of the evening cleaning the bedroom - sweeping, throwing crap out, organizing the large closet, dusting, wiping stuff off, and singing along to Chicago as it played on the little 13" tv we have on the dresser. I have been really, really looking forward to sleeping in a reduced dust environment, especially after a long, hot day and hours spent making a billion potstickers (from scratch).

My boyfriend has a tendency to go to bed before I do - which is fine. I tucked him in (ain't that cute ;-)?), and went back to the living room to finish watching The Soup on E!, followed by a rousing episode of Saturday Night Live, starring Steve Carrell. Sometime in the middle of my late night television coma, I hear him open a door, stumble out of the bedroom, grunt, go into the bathroom, close the door, open the door, go back to the bedroom and close the door. This didn't exactly raise any alarms with me - zombie boyfriend is fairly typical around 1 o'clock in the morning. Saturday Night ends and I head to the bathroom; brush my teeth, wash my face, wipe off the counter. Then I wandered into the kitchen, made sure the oven was off, turned off the light. I grabbed a slice of cucumber, for my guinea pig, dropped it off in her cage, then walked to the bedroom to tuck in.

I tried to turn the knob.

IT. WAS. LOCKED.

I try it again, in case I'm channeling my inner blonde and...

IT. IS STILL. LOCKED.

I panic slightly and knock.

I knock again. And again. I get a bit frantic and start to pound and suddenly I am incredibly aware of both the bony part of the knuckle of my middle finger and the surprisingly loud sound the hollow door makes. I stop, reflecting on the fact that the neighbors are probably wishing ill upon me and mine.

Just in case, I try the knob again.

No dice. The frantic feeling turns to rage as I realize that I'm not going to get into my cozy, cool, soft, fancy, fabulous, awesome, loverly bed in my super clean bedroom. I start pounding on the door, wailing on it with both fists, trying out different rhythms as I attempt to shake and pound it out of its frame. "Hey? Hey! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!!!!! F#@K."

So here I am, typing on my laptop, in the living room, trying to figure out how to sleep on either the tiny rug or the wood frame, uncomfortable love seat we purchased from IKEA.

I am not happy.

Just imagine if someone broke in one night and I needed to rouse him from sleep to save me from a bad guy ninja - but instead my knight in fuzzy boxers snores through the entire ordeal. Or if there were, heaven forbid, a fire. What if I have an allergic reaction to my guinea pig, puff up like a blowfish and go into anaphylactic shock? Or, just humor me here, what if I WANT TO SLEEP IN MY OWN F@$KING BED.?!?!?! WHAT THEN, HUH?????!!??!!!

BAH.




*Additional note: The worst thing is the fact that I literally just moved the air mattress from the hallway closet (re: accessible), into the bedroom closet (re: inaccessible) this very evening.