I paid $21 to touch a piece of ice...and I loved it!

What I'm Listening To: Just Friends by Nine Black Alps

Yesterday Jim and I decided to try to get into the Milwaukee Public Museum's Titanic artifacts exhibit. Okay, we didn't plan very well, I'll admit it. It was super crowded, and even though we got there at noon, the first Titanic show with openings wasn't available 3:15 PM. Sigh. Since we didn't want to wait around for three hours, we just turned around, had lunch at Louise's (yum! I have a BBQ chicken salad weakness, you see.) and then drove home.

So that night, Jim got us reservations for an 11 AM walkthru of the exhibit for today, 12/31. The ticket prices were outrageous -- $21 apiece, plus service charges -- but we were super psyched!! We drove down to the museum again this morning, parked, and were ready to go for our 11 AM tour at 10:15 AM. We sat patiently in the museum cafe for a while, then we decided to try to kill some time with an attempt to find the famous Milwaukee prostitute hidden in the Streets of Old Milwaukee. Yes, it's TRUE!! We had heard about this whole thing from that John Gurda show about Milwaukee, and were excited to check it out.

Hey, I wanna see a mannequin dressed up like a old-tyme Milwaukee prostitute as much as the next person, so we started our quest. We searched and searched, all the while bitching and moaning about the lack of the old-tymey telephone that you could put a quarter in and it talked to you, and the disappearance of the movie theater. But alas, no prostitute mannequin. It was a big disappointment. But I gotta tell you, the Streets give me a totally bad vibe. Like there's ghosts in there. I am gonna do a blog on all the places that give me bad vibes some time. I just wish I'd seen a ghost!!!

Anywhoo, 11 AM rolled around, and Jim and I got in line for the Titanic exhibition. First they gave us boarding passes that showed who you were on the ship's first and only voyage. I was Mrs. Henry B. Harris, and my husband was a famous Broadway producer who owned the Follies Bergere! OMG, duh, of course I am in first class, because that's the way I roll. Jim, on the other hand, was some 23-year-old Scandanavian agricultural inspector dude in Steerage. Yuck! Oh well, TDB. On with the show.

We walk in, buy the audio tour (another $5 apiece, lovely!) and look at all the fun stuff. Bottles of booze, fine china and everyday plates, entire portholes, staterooms, steering bearings, old photographs, sheet music, menus, clothing, shoes, and lest I forget...the ice. There is a HUGE block of ice in one of the rooms so you can touch it and feel how incredibly cold it was in the waters of the North Atlantic. Yeah, it was COLD. Ice is COLD, people. And wet. Duh.

Then we got to read the listing of which passengers made it and which ones didn't. Of course, a first class hottie like myself makes it -- about 700 people out of 2200 did survive, btw. Jim, aka Nils Odahl, the Scandinavian agriculture inspector, does not. He was going to Peoria anyway -- he's probably better off. Ha. A lot of the passengers were supposed to be on other ocean liners or had personal or business situations where they had to get on the Titanic for some reason or another, but it wasn't their first choice. It was like a real-life version of that horror movie "Final Destination", where the kids who didn't die in the original movie's accident are somehow marked for death for the second time around. Wow. Do you think these passengers felt bad vibes on the boat when it took off? I wonder....

All kidding aside, the sinking of the Titanic was a horrifying tragedy that spurred some much-needed updates in ocean liner safety regulations. I mean, can you imagine that night? The movie with Leo and Kate doesn't even do the event justice. Seeing all those artifacts made the whole ship seem to come alive.

Afterwards we went to lunch in the museum cafeteria, and ate some sandwich that might have been tuna or chicken, we're still not sure. All in all, our day at the museum with tickets, parking and lunch included cost us a total of about $100 for the both of us. Well worth it, I say. (Even though they didn't have any ice bears in the gift shop. More about that in my review of The Golden Compass movie --wow!!)

I really recommend seeing this exhibit, which wraps up in Milwaukee at the end of May 2009, btw.

Oh, and before I forget, happy new year! :) See you in 2009.

Snowbored...sigh!

What I'm Listening To: When did your heart go missing by Rooney

I have been stuck in the house for the past three days thanks to snow. I am going insane. And it's Wednesday, which is now my official blogging day, so guess what? You get to hear about it!

When you're housebound there's only so much you can do. You can watch TV. Since we have Direct TV, we depend on satellite transmission, which is sketchy at best in a snowstorm. Luckily our dish is planted smack in the middle of our backyard, so Jim can go wade through the snow and brush the 3 inches of precipitation off the dish so we can get all 180 channels of excitement. However, even with so many channels, there's NEVER ANYTHING ON!! Seriously!!! So I'm forced to choose between watching some real estate show on HGTV where shiny happy hosts try to convince some inbred couple that having green shag carpet definitely is NOT a selling point, or my favorite, some movie that I've seen like 27 times already (uh, if I have to watch Spiderman 3 or Knocked Up one more time, I'm gonna try to impregnate myself with photos of Tobey Maguire, no kidding.)

Or I could watch my Netflix selections. I was reading that book "The Starter Wife" and figured, hey, wasn't that made into a show with that red-haired neurotic from "Will and Grace"? Why, yes, it was. So I requested a couple episodes of that -- wrong choice. It's super boring, except for the exciting discovery that Bill the Vampire from "True Blood" was in it. So that was kinda fun, for like a minute. But then I had to question why Bill the Vampire -- who, BTW, is now a Malibu homeless man in this show -- had highlights. When do homeless people get highlights? Only in California. Does he get mani/pedi's too? Sheesh, I'd give Bill a Brazilian, he is that HOT! Oh well, True Blood will be back on for their second season soon...must control self until then.

Then there's my favorite option when sitting around bored stiff -- EATING. Quick side note: Jim and I thought ahead for once and went to the grocery store to load up on snacks for this holiday week. And we're sitting there in the store and there's like a kabillion people running around like nutbags buying turkeys and all the trimmings, and I turn to Jim and I'm like, "Do you want anything special for like Christmas dinner or whatever?" and he's like, "No, veggie burgers are fine with me." And once again, I am reminded that I married the coolest guy ever! But seriously, who can resist snacking all day when there's nothing else to do around the house? And we bought these super yummy sweet potato cinnamon-flavored Pringles -- I highly recommend them. But don't come over expecting that we still have any in the house -- duh, I've already eaten them all. But you can have the rest of the pretzels if you want, 'kay?

What else? Oh, I'm reading like three books at the same time, and trust me, they're all dumb. I'm just reading one of them because it's Jackie Collins, and who can resist that crap? I've cleaned the house, but just like minor cleaning. I've shovelled snow at least 5 times now. We've taken a walk around the neighborhood in snow that came up to our knees. It was like walking on the beach, kinda. I've tried to do some online clothes shopping, but couldn't find anything I really needed or wanted. I've renewed my AAA membership, paid all my bills, done 5 loads of laundry, looked at everyone's Facebook page for stuff I might have missed in the past 6 months, and basically I'm done now. Honestly, I am almost excited about going into work on Monday.

What are you doing with yourself on this joyously snowy Wednesday? Oh, yeah. I forgot. It's Christmas eve. We aren't going anywhere, just so you know. We're visiting Jim's mom tomorrow, and then on Saturday we're gonna visit my stepdad's. I haven't bought one single present, but hey, I sent out some awesome Christmas cards!

So if you have any suggestions of stuff we can do while locked in the house, let me know! And yes, we've done *wink* that one too.

Happy Holidays! :)

Driving myself crazy!

What I'm Listening To: Believe by The Bravery

It's been snowing and sleeting and raining and basically weathering here in lovely Wisconsin for the past few weeks. And as we all know, bad weather equals bad driving. With all the examples of poor driving judgment calls begging me to make examples for you, I thought I'd put together a blog all about my favorite activity in the whole world -- driving (ha!) -- and the idiots that inhabit our roads.

As someone who failed her driving test THREE TIMES while in high school (don't worry, I finally passed!), I think I have earned the right to make scathing comments about other people's driving. According to my sister, I drive "like a grandma" (and our grandma had a temper, for sure!), and rightly so. I have had TWO accidents in my entire driving career, and both of them were someone else's fault. Top that safety record!! So come along with me as I ridicule, report and hopefully rectify my fellow road warriors' horrid driving habits.

TAILGATERS -- Excuse me, sir? If you get up my ass any more, you're going to be able to brush my teeth! So LAY OFF. I don't give a goody two-shoes where you're going, but you'll get there eventually. And driving so close to my bumper that I can't even see your headlights isn't gonna help you any when I decide to slam on my brakes so you can pick my chrome out of your teeth, you impatient ass!

One time I was trading similar driving horror stories with a friend of mine, and she's like, "You should brake check those asses!" and I was totally clueless. Turns out brake checking is tapping your brakes repeatedly so that the person gets all pissed off that you might be braking, or god forbid, slowing down. When I'm lucky these jerks just pass me and then I get to exercise one of my fingers -- guess which one?!

CELL PHONES -- Just hang up. No one is that important that you have to talk to them while you're driving. I don't care if Joe Bob left you for Mary Sue and now you think your kid might have ringworm and if you don't talk about the whole horrifying mess of human hellaciousness that is your life right now with your friend Joleene while tooling down the street in your Ford Fiesta you might just die....no one really cares, seriously!! HANG UP. Or better yet, pull over and chat away. Good luck with that ringworm problem -- I hear it's a bitch to get rid of.

NO SIGNAL -- Here's something I see every day on the highway. It's like the driver's thoughts go something like this: "Oh, I gotta get off at this next exit. Might as well just zip into this lane in front of everyone. What? Give them a signal that I'm changing lanes? Why the heck would I want to do that? Life is surprises! Get with the program! See ya!"

What is so difficult about flicking a little knob on your car's steering wheel? Is it like physically impossible for you to touch that knob? Did they not teach you about that in drivers ed? I mean, really. Coming from me, the girl who FAILED her driving test once because she didn't pull over for an ambulance, this is just a no-brainer.

SLOW TURNS -- Why is it that whenever someone wants to turn in front of me, they have to do it at 1 mile an hour? Is turning the wheel so physically daunting that you have to slow down to a snail's pace to accomplish it? It's not like we're playing Pole Position here, people. Turning a little faster isn't gonna make you spin out, even with some snow under your tires. Jeeez, live a tad!

BLIND SPOT -- Every time we drive down Lincoln and I'm getting ready to turn right onto our street, someone is just sitting there in my blind spot. What do you people do, plan this birdseed? I'm serious, EVERY TIME I drive down Lincoln. I call it the Blind Spot Curse.

Well, there's a lot more I could add, but I can't think of any right now. Usually they come to me on the road...go figure! Drive safely, and for cripe's sake, drive sanely!

Why don't you just dye already??

What I'm Listening To: Cold Water Music by Aim

See the cute family photo above? Yes, I think that's the last time I saw my natural hair color. I think I was 8 years old. No kidding. I even had to lighten the picture a little so I could remember what my original hair color that was. Muddy, dirty, mousy....BROWN. Arrrrgggh!

Ever since then I've been on a rampage to find the perfect shade of hair color that will, as the magazines all say, "make my face light up!" Just so you know, lit-up faces only happen on jack 0'lanterns, not on human beings, so all you ladies out there on the same search can call it quits now.

It started off small. In high school, I decided to be a little bold and get some subtle highlights in my spiral perm (shut up, it was the '80s. Not having a spiral perm at the time was pretty much tantamount to social suicide at Waukesha North, 'kay?) I told my hairdresser to stay SUBTLE, and she obeyed. So I come home from the JC Penneys salon and my mom was like, "I thought you got highlights!?" and I'm all like, "Uh, I did!! See?" as I dig out a couple gold strands. Well, I'll admit it, my new highlights were even hard for me to see. But I had highlights -- weren't they supposed to look natural? My mom was all like "I spent hard-earned money for the natural look?? How do I know you didn't go spend that money on something else, like clothes?" Okay, this conversation leads us to another totally different blog about my relationship with my mom, so I'll basically wrap this up by saying I never got highlights again while living at home.

My next hair debacle was during my early college years. Upon arriving at Beloit, I decided that chopping off my golden brown locks into a Louise Brooks bob was a hot look, and then to top it off, dye the whole shebang dark cherry red with a dye that I mixed myself from Sally Beauty Supply products. Yeah, it was foxy, for sure. Well, it was the early 90s, for cripes sake. Just watch "Saved by the Bell: The College Years" if you don't believe how hip and trendy I was with my cherry cola hair. I'd insert an old college photo here to prove it, but Blogger is not playing nice with me today and won't let me insert a photo in the middle of my blog, so that sucks.

Oh, and I recommend DO NOT mix your own haircolor. It is a pain in the ass, and you aren't even getting paid to do it like your stylist is, so stick to Salon Walgreens, as I will later reveal as my personal haircoloring secret.

So I kept the cherry red bob for quite a while, but then later in college I started growing my hair out, and by the time I left college to move to San Francisco my hair reached the middle of my back. After it got so long, I couldn't seem to mix the right amounts of hair color, so I was a Salon Walgreens convert from that day forward -- forget the whole Dr. Frankenstein mixing lab and color cooking in my bathroom. Pre-mixed hair color is where it's at, people! As we all know, I am lazy and impatient, and kinda a cheapskate when it comes to spending money on myself, so $7 for a box of haircolor that I can do in the shower is a total steal!!

My hair coloring odessey began with auburns and light auburns, dark auburns (too cherry for this budding professional receptionist!), and then finally I got sick of red all together. After almost 15 years of dying my hair some form of red, I decided that I was done. By now was 2004 and I'd had enough of being eclectic and funky. I just wanted to have my old brown hair back!!

Can I just tell you? FORGET IT. My hair was NOT going to forgive me for all the years of torture. "You want whaaa? To go back to my original shade?" I can imagine my hair screaming (okay, if hair could talk. I don't think it can, though, but sometimes I'm not sure) "Are you effing KIDDING ME? We don't even remember what that shade is, dahling!" So like knights chasing the holy grail, I am still searching for the perfect hair color shade that will return my hair to the color nature gave me.

I've tried "Brown", "Light Brown", "Golden Brown" and even "Ash Brown". I've tried Nice n' Easy, L'Oreal, Feria, and Garnier. It's impossible. Nothing works to bring me back to the land of plain ol' brown. Well, the color's not horrible, like my hair turns green or anything. But it's always RED in the end. Some shade or glow or highlight or undertone of red always shines through in my haircolor. I could never get a dirty brown again if my life depended on it. But I'll never stop trying!! I might even shave my head to get back to my natural color. Uh, on second thought, that would be a no. I am waaaay too vain for drastic measures. :)

Have you ever dyed your hair? What made you do it? Do you love it, or are you now a slave to the 6-8 week routine? Join the club, sista!

I have a peeve, and it's not my pet

What I'm Listening To: Pretty Green by The Jam

Question: What is the point of basting shut a jacket or overcoat's back vents? No one seems to know that this basting thread should be removed before wearing a new garment.

Answer: To annoy the bejeezus out of me, Abigail Reagan.

You know, there are some things in this world that just make you roll your eyes and utter "Eegaads!" For me, I'm set off by seeing someone wearing a jacket with its back or side vents still held together by the original manufacturer's basting thread.

Okay, so here goes (cover your ears if you want):

HELLO, PEOPLE. WHEN YOU BUY A NEW JACKET, AND IT HAS VENTS ON IT, SOMETIMES THEY ARE BASTED TOGETHER BY THE MANUFACTURER TO AID IN SHIPPING. CHECK THE VENTS BEFORE YOU WEAR IT, AND IF NECESSARY, SNIP THE EFFING THREADS, YA ASSES!!!!!

Ahh, that felt better.

I cannot TELL you how many times I have seen this in out in the wilds of Wisconsin. I have seen it on women, on men, on people who are fashion-conscious and should know better, on people who should know worse, and so on and so forth. I went to a big charity event a couple months back, and the guest of honor was wearing her vent stitches like they were the latest style. How embarressing. It was kinda funny, since she was acting like the sun shone out of her ass, so I didn't bother pointing it out. Ha!

Well, one time I did point it out to a total stranger. Shut up, I couldn't help myself!!! I saw this woman on the escalator at Macy's with her overcoat's back vent still sewn shut. So I tapped her on the shoulder and I'm like, "Okay, I'm not trying to be a bitch or anything here (this approach always works when you have bad personal news, trust me) but your vent of your jacket is still held together with the shipping stitch. You should get that cut off so the vent is open, like it's supposed to be." And she was all, "Thanks!" but in a nice, appreciative way. No kidding. So I guess I get an extra couple minutes in heaven for being so helpful, huh? Yeah, right!!

So what can one do besides have a personal conniption fit as they internally debate whether to mention to a total stranger that they are committing a minor fashion faux pas? I think that maybe this situation could be cut off at the pass by proactive salespeople. When you buy a new jacket the salesperson should kindly remind you to cut the basting thread on the vents, right? That's like the nicest thing a salesperson can do, besides giving you a bigger discount than you deserve. I mean, you would want them to help you wear the latest fashion in the correct way, right? Why not help you prepare your purchase for the real world by pointing out the details that helped them sell the garment to you in the first place? It's just common courtesy!!

But why do the basting of the vents in the first place. Well, yes, it does help in shipping, but I also found out that it aids in tailoring and fitting the garmet to your personal dimentions. When you first put on a new jacket, close it (not button it) to a point where it skims your hips, i.e., very, very close, but not enough to pull or wrinkle. Check the distance between (center of the) lowest button and (inner end of) the corresponding button hole. The inbetween difference is the amount you want the jacket (hips and below) taken in. You can't do this properly unless the vents are stitched shut.

So maybe I should shut up about this now, because really, it's not that big a deal. But seriously, watch people's jacket vents, and see how many times this winter season you see where someone forgot to cut their basting stitch. You will be shocked at your findings, and hey, maybe you'll acquire a new pet peeve in the bargain!

Happy Holidays!

HD stands for what again?

What I'm Listening To: Skanky Panky by Kid Koala

We watch A LOT of television at Casa Reagan, because just admit it, there's really nothing better to do after work. (oh, besides go to the gym, which we absolutely luuuuuuurve. Kidding!) I almost feel a sensual connection to that box that connects us with the doings of the outside world. The Reagan apres-work ritual includes walking in the door, changing out of our work clothes, debating whether we're gonna go work out or not (usually we go, sigh!) and then coming home and eating dinner in front of the TV, scanning through the programs we've DVR'd from previous days. Jealous yet?

Yeah, it's the life, alright. Sometimes, though, I get the feeling that we're the only ones supporting the Nielsens television rating statistics -- no one else seems to watch TV any more. When we go out with other couples, I'm all like, "Wow, did you see what Nico and Wendy did last night on Lipstick Jungle?" or "God, Chuck Bass is so evil. Tying up Dan Humphreys at Yale was totally TM! What did you think?" and they just give me these pitying looks like I'm some kind of nutbag that lives in a refrigerator box over by the railroad tracks. "Television?" they sigh. "Who has time for television? And when we do have the time to watch, we only watch educational shows. You know, for our children's sake." Yeah, that's when I start frantically signalling the server for a double vodka tonic and maybe some earplugs so I don't have to listen to their sanctimonious birdseed.

That's fine. Don't watch TV. See if we have anything to talk about then! Now there's more Chuck Bass and his sexy whisper for me! Yay.

Anywhoo, with this devotion to TV in mind, Jim and I decided that since the economy sucks ass we might as well do our part and spend some cash on a LARGE APPLIANCE, because, hey, that's what a new TV really is, people. So after 5 years with a plain 27" screen television that was the size of Kentucky and heavier than a wet elephant, we decided to upgrade to a 46" flat-panel HD -- insert bunch of technical gobbledygook here that only Jim really understands-type -- television. I let Jim do all the shopping and reviewing and comparing and etc etc because let's be honest here, I know he likes that techie stuff more than lil ol' me, the girl that was in the bathroom when God was handing out patience.

First we picked up the new television at Best Buy over by Southridge on Wednesday, right before Thanksgiving. Yeah, we timed it so when Jim's brother and his family came to town for the holiday they could drool... oh, right, and enjoy the loveliness of a large-screen television with us for the first time. Whatevs.

Then on Saturday the Directv installation guy showed up, and in three measly hours we had HD TV, with a DVR and a new remote! Whoohooo. Unfortunately, the installation guy couldn't put the new HD satellite dish on our rug porch where the original dish had been, so he had to install a pole in the backyard to stick the new dish in a location where it could find the signals. Who cares? Just one more place that Jim had to trim the grass by hand...he'll manage!

So as of Saturday at 6 PM we have had HD TV. And can I just tell you, it is AMAZING! I have been blind but now I can see! Okay, I can see now almost too well. (You didn't think we were going to get through this blog posting without a complaint, did you? Come on, now!)

I dug up an old recording of Chuckie babe, just to see if the hotness translated okay to HDTV. Uh, it did. You know when you're watching soap operas and the way the filming is lit seems a little different than most other television shows, like a little TOO real? With HD, the details are so crisp, and the lighting is so perfect, it's like Chuck is in the room with me.

This level of television detail, okay, I'll admit it, kinda FREAKS ME OUT. I mean, before, when the television didn't have that much detail to purvey, these television actors were just actors, people in another time and place, people who I didn't really believe existed, people in another dimension, almost. You know what I mean, fantasy! NOW, with HD, it's like these people are REAL. They look REAL. It's freaky, for sure. I feel like I could almost touch them, and frankly, I don't want to. Okay, I'll stop now, but I just wanna say, crazy stuff here. Next thing you know, we'll have hologram TV's that get projected from some chip behind our eyeballs, and that concept just makes me shudder. By the time they roll that out, I'm kinda hoping I will be made into soylent green or something.

You out there in TV Land with HD -- what do you think? Is it live, or is it hi-def? Or hey, should I just turn the damn thing off already and read a book?

Turkey Day Tribulations

What I'm Listening To: The Creeps by Camille Jones (yay, Fedde le Grand!)

It's gonna be Thanksgiving in like 20 minutes, people. What are the lovely Reagans doing for this delicious holiday, you may ask? Well, gee, let me tell you!

First of all, we are having company over to Casa Reagan. Jim's brother, wife and two children will be traveling all the way from Atlanta, Georgia to join us for Thursday's feast. My teenage niece and nephew-in-laws are a real treat. We call them Tweek (the niece) and Turtle (the nephew) respectively. Tweek is a 18-year-old ADD-afflicted 12-sided-dice microchip, and Turtle is just the cutest 16-year-old sloth you've ever seen. We heart them to death! Pat and Sue are fine, for grown-ups. At least they won't bitch when Turtle wants to play another round of Call of Duty 27 and Tweek is talking a mile a minute about her love of Tolkien, Hello Kitty and the Beatles, and oh wait, do you want to go run around the block again? So we're just gonna sit back and be entertained.

Speaking of entertaining, we aren't really going out of our way for Pat and crew. As you may know, I can't cook. Well, it's not really that I can't cook. It's that I hate cooking. My lack of patience makes a lot of tasks pretty difficult, but cooking's one of the worst. I mean, waiting for something to bake is torture!! I can't stand it! So forget it. Seriously!

Anyway, we decided that instead of killing ourselves cooking a turkey and the all the requisite sides we are going to have Rupena's do it for us. Yes folks, a catered Thanksgiving. For a very appealing price tag, you can get a whole turkey, stuffing, potatoes, vegetable, rolls, gravy, cranberry sauce and a nice pumpkin pie, all without lifting a finger! Oh, you can just shut your disapproving mouth right now. I am so sick of being chastised about taking the easy way out here. Here's how that went. We're on the bus, right, and I said to Jim, "You're gonna call Rupena's today about the turkey later?" and he agrees. Now, I didn't really want to get into why I wasn't cooking with my bus friends, but then we had to explain what I mean about Rupena's, and three seconds later it's a chorus of, "oh, a home-cooked meal is what Thanksgiving is all about. You really should cook your own turkey. It's so eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeassssy!"

Yeah, right. It's so easy. I was talking to a friend at work who was describing her Thankgiving ritual. "Okay, so first I'll need defrost the turkey for TWO DAYS (emphasis mine), then soak it in brine (WTF is brine, people? Isn't that like pickle juice or something?), then I'm gonna...." and after that I just tuned her out. That sounds like the worst gastronomic torture ever. Brine? Two days of defrosting? And then there's the delicate choreography of making sure all the sides come out of the oven at the right time so that you can put everything on the table together and be all Martha Steward about it. And don't forget the decorations! Sheesh, I'd rather perform drunk Lasik surgery on my own eyeballs than make a freakin turkey dinner. I can see it now -- mix one turkey dinner, multiple timing issues, my hair-trigger temper and the fact that I have the patience level of a Veruca Salt. Shake until combustion occurs. Result: One really pathetic holiday meal, and everybody's hungry and pissed off as a result. Yay!

So we're not cooking, just serving. I don't care what anyone says anymore. And you know what? I think we'll use paper plates, too, just to keep it all casual and Stallis-style. We might even serve Schlitz, but that's still under debate.

Be advised, I am warning you right now: on Monday 12/1 I don't want to hear about your deep-friend Cajun turkey with cornbread stuffing and how Paula Dean came over and make her famous sweet potatoes and how you can't believe we gave up so easily and ordered in. Whatever. I'm just thankful that we won't have any dishes to wash afterwards...unlike the pile of filthy porcelain that some sorry-asses will be stuck with!!! HA!

Happy Thanksgiving, haters! :)

Eating is fundamental, but so is a happy weight!

What I'm Listening To: Idealistic by Digitalism

I've struggled with my weight all my life. You should read my high school journal -- every other page was "I have to lose 20 lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or I'm gonna scream!!!!!!!!!!", no lie. Then every other page was me proclaiming my undying affection for some dorkasaurus ass in one of my classes, and how he never looked at me, how I was just gonna die if he didn't answer my note, blah blah blah. Did I tell you about the time someone....oh, right, my weight. Sorry about that. (oh, don't worry Layla, I'll bring my senior picture to work...soon. I promise!)

Anywhoo, as life went on I just kept putting on the pounds. I won't bore you with my stories of how I tried to lose the weight, how I went on Atkins, how I tried every other Cosmo and Glamour magazine diet they published, how I flirted with skipping meals (which also introduced me to the wonderful yet cranky world of low blood sugar), how I exercised like a nutbag and still nothing. I've tried to inspire myself by reading every heroic fiction book about the fat girl who loses all the weight and then SURPRISE! everyone loves her, all her bad habits disappear, she gets a boyfriend and everything turns out okay -- yeah, maybe the fictional heroine lost the weight in the end, but I was still a chunk eating her second bag of red licorice Nibs.

Okay, I'm getting off track here, but basically this was how my dieting odyssey went until about 2006 when I hit my heaviest. Jim and I were really overweight. Uh, have you seen my wedding photos? There's a reason you don't wear satin when you're fat, people.

So there was this weight loss program at work, and what happened is employees paid $10 a month to participate, but you got a ton of money back if you lost weight. I thought it sounded super dumb, just a repeat of all the diet rules I already knew, but finally I gave in and asked Jim if he'd join with me. I mean, the money was a real incentive, seriously. And oh, let me let you in on a secret - we lost weight.

It was kinda funny dieting with my husband. He was like completely oblivious to any diet guidelines, rules that every woman knows like the back of her hand. Trust me, I have never questioned these rules. I mean, if someone told me that eating dirt would make you lose weight, I would be out there making mud pies with cinnamon in them, no kidding. So when Jim would ask silly questions like if he could still have Doritos (uh, they're corn, and that's a vegetable...right?) or what was so bad about Culver's (don't go there!) it made me laugh out loud. Here was a total diet virgin and I was there to break his cherry. So I taught him about baked vs. fried, veggies vs. processed foods, and next thing you know, he's shaking his head at me when I'm putting mayo on my veggie burger. Sheesh!

Every week we weighed ourselves on these program scales and then we got the checks if we lost weight. To make a long story short, Jim lost 100 lbs and I lost 30 lbs by the power of teamwork and making some really easy changes in our lives and our eating habits.

How did we do it? It was no more double meat gyros with extra sauce, no more Chinese food every Sunday, no more supreme pizzas at 2 AM. I mean, you're talking to a couple who used to eat a dozen eggs, bagels thick with cream cheese and half a package of bacon for their Sunday brunch at home. Basically, whatever we could stuff in our maws was fair game! Now it's smaller meals, veggie burgers and steamed vegetables for dinner, exercising 3 times a week, and an occasional meal out. We have maintained our new weights now for about a year!

When I started this blog tonight, I really wanted to talk about our nightly snacks, and how much I adore pretzels, but I couldn't tell you about the end of our dieting journey without telling you how we got there. So maybe next time I'll tell you about my love affair with cheesy poohs (otherwise known as cheese-flavored Quakes, those little rice cakes) and how I'll never turn down a fudgie (yeah, it's a Skinny Cow frozen fudge bar, so get your mind out of the gutter!).

I applaud you if you're trying to lose some weight, and if you're not, well, as my mom always told me, everybody could lose 1o lbs. Happy eating!

Our 4th Anniversary -- can you believe it?

What I'm Listening To: My Favorite Book by Stars

Today is our 4th wedding anniversary. I just want to tell you how happy I am that I met my husband Jim and that he decided that hey, he had nothing better to do, he might as well take a chance and marry my sorry self. Oh, yeah, he loves me too! Today at work he sent me a bouquet of a dozen white roses, my favorite.

There are so many reasons that I love my husband. He is my best friend, the other half of Team Reagan. He makes me laugh every day, sometimes so hard that I tinkle a little. We finish each other's sentences because we are so in synch. He understands me completely. The best part of my workday is seeing his smiling face coming down the escalator at work (we work together) so we can go catch the 4:10 PM bus to Westallica.

So much has changed since we got married four years ago in our living room by a justice of the peace, and so much has stayed the same. Same, Jim is still my heart of hearts. Changed, we've lost a total of 130 lbs since we got married! Same, we still live in Stallis in our little place. Changed, we have a new kitchen! What more can we say? :) I'll keep you posted here as things get even better!

The song that I'm listening to as I write tonight's blog entry, My Favorite Book by Stars, is our song. It makes me tear up just listening to it, because I love my husband that much. Have you ever looked at your loved one and just felt so much love in your heart that it was almost painful? That's how much I love my husband. I just can't stop smiling when I think of him. Okay, I'll stop the sappy crap now.

At lunch today we were talking about the question of "at what point in your relationship did you know that you could totally be yourself with your spouse?" and both Jim and I were like, when you poop your pants. Because I will totally admit it, I have pooped my pants more than once. One time, when I was on Atkins, I ate all these sugar-free chocolate bars. Uh, don't do it, I'm warning you. Then we went out for sushi that night, and next thing you know, I was in a public restroom swabbing the decks because I'd let the cat out of my bag, so to speak. It wasn't like I meant to do it, people. Really. But I had to slink back to the table, and be like "Get me OUT of here!" to Jim, who had to create some excuse so we could make a clean (okay, kinda shitty, ha ha!) getaway.

Jim has done lost his drawer control, too, but lucky for him it's been at home. But I think that was the moment when we knew that we needed to stick together. Ha ha! Needless to say, when you hear your spouse yell down the stairs "uh, honey, need some help here! Oh, and bring a plastic bag and some lysol!" you're not expecting to clean up after them. But honestly, I think that stuff just brings us closer!

So I wanted to share with you that it's our anniversary, I heart my husband, and I hope that everyone can find the kind of loving relationship with someone in their lives that I have with my huzzie. Happy Reagan Day! Oh, and please keep the crap in your pants, people!

Our Little Place -- The Kitchen Remodel

What I'm Listening To: Overkill by Men at Work

For those of you following along at home, Jim and I recently renovated our severely outdated kitchen. How about a little background, first, huh?

So, the gay guy who lived in our house before us (yes, the "Shirtless Men Cruise Line" brochures and gay porn catalogs that continued to be delivered to our mailbox long after he left confirmed our suspicions on our previous homeowners sexual leanings) was a great woodworker and handyman (he even wired the whole house in Cat 5e data cabling and installed a sound system in the living room walls - super cool!) but he had some horrible tastes in colors. So we had red cabinets on one side of the kitchen, the white ORIGINAL cabinets from when the house was built in the 1940s on the other side, and the aforementioned green counters. Teensy pantry that stored nothing. Then he painted the kitchen in a light yellowish green, with PEACH trim. UGH! The only redeeming factor about the whole room were the nice hardwood floors.

For FOUR YEARS we lived with that kitchen. I mean, we had a lot of other stuff to do on the house that took priority, and money, of course. Replace the cement front steps (we called our place "Crumbleporch Manor" for a while, there), replace the roof (ask me what a pain it was to actually find roofing contractors who return phone calls), and then replace the severely rotted wooden fencing and install a retaining wall and new 6' high fencing in the backyard (best money we ever spent, no kidding! I couldn't look at our neighbors one more second!!). I love crossing things off our homeowner "to do" list!

I have to say, waiting so long for a new kitchen wasn't that bad -- it just made us appreciate the new kitchen even more when it was done. The old kitchen was functional, but it just was ugly. We had a really old dishwasher which we never used because it's just me and Jim, and we use paper plates. because we hate washing dishes. Uh, while it may not be really environmentally friendly, it's super logical for us. Oh, that, and I don't think I could eat my nightly snacks out of anything but a Dora the Explorer paper bowl. Shut up, if you saw them you'd understand that no one, and I mean no one, says no to the Dora bowl's plaintive printed requests of "Count all the red stars you see!" And the old sink had a soap dispenser -- that was pretty cool, I must say. And a water filter built in, with its own faucet. Whooohoo! So we were living okay.

This year we finally saved enough money to get our new kitchen. We were psyched. We decided to go to the NARI show at the State Fair grounds to find us a kitchen contractor. Yeah, that was fun. Everyone we went to looked at us like we were insane for thinking that we could remodel our kitchen for less than $30,000. I don't know about you, but I am not going into hock for more money than our car is worth for a room that we barely use because we are the laziest cooks ever. And then, every time we mentioned that we lived in Stallis, the eyebrows went up even further. We heard "Oh, we don't work in West Allis because the city inspectors are super strict!" over and over from about 4 different contractors. It was a nightmare.

Finally, we made some appointments with some maverick contractors (ha!), had our meetings, picked our dude, scheduled a date, and next thing you knew, we had a new kitchen and it was within our original budget. YAY!!! Our contractor -- Creative Cabinets, btw -- was great. He showed up when he said he would, installed it the way we asked, helped us find other subcontractors to do the stuff he didn't do, finished the job in the timeframe agreed upon, and charged us the price he originally quoted at the start of the job. It was a very pleasurable experience, and we got the kitchen we wanted.

We got new cabinets in a light oak mission style -- one of the cabinets has glass doors, too -- with brushed copper fixtures and pulls which just look so perfect, it's not even funny. The counters are light silestone, and the sink has a nozzle which detaches to use as a sprayer. He replaced our tiny pantry with a lovely cupboard with rolling shelves. We painted the walls light blue and the windows and doors trim white. Gorgeous!!!! It is our dream kitchen.

Okay, we didn't get a new dishwasher installed because as I mentioned before, we hate washing dishes. I cannot tell you how many people said to me "You didn't get a dishwasher? You're gonna have a hard time when you try to sell your house." Jesus, people, like you never washed a dish in your lives? Toughen up, bitches!! And the new sink is a little smaller than I thought it was going to be, and I miss using our crappy dishwasher as a drying rack (because running that dinosaur wasted more water than the Hoover Dam, and it took 2 hours to do a load, no lie!), but we did get a new stove (which we used twice since we bought it in September, no kidding) and the paint colors we used look fabulous against the silestone countertops! All in all, we're very happy.

So if you're lucky enough to get invited to our house, please make a lot of happy noises about our kitchen, because we are very very proud parents. Next up, the bathroom. Don't get me started on the ugly tiling colors and the leaky showerhead...arrrgggh! :) And then I get new bath towels! Yay!

Yay! A new president! What's next?

What I'm Listening To: Let's just listen to the silence for once, 'kay? Thanks!

I just wanted to let you know that I voted for Obama. And yes, I live in Westallica (thanks Otto!), land of the mullets, corner bars, the blue-collar man, and yes, a bunch of really depressed McCain supporters.

We got to our polling place at Jefferson Elementary School on Becher at like 6:45 AM, because usually we leave for the bus stop at like 6:35 AM, so we just wanted to go and vote before going to work. Figured there'd be a smaller line, hey? Well, no. We got there, and we were like 30th in line, no kidding. And as we stood there for 15 minutes, I swear about 35 more people showed up and lined up outside.

Taking a gander at my neighbors, I saw that pretty much every age group and generation was represented, from the first-time kiddie voters who were probably skipping class just to get in line, to a couple ladies who I think first cast their stone ballots with a chisel on an episode of the Flintstones. KIDDING! It was awesome! I heart Stallis! But I'm thinking all these people are hard-core Republicans -- I mean, Stallis doesn't have a bar on every corner because we're a happy positive group of individuals, okay?

So that got me thinking (get out of the way, it has thoughts!). If I lived in an area of Milwaukee that was more, uh, in line with my kinda lefty political beliefs, where would that be? Well, maybe not Stallis. Every day on our way home from the park n' ride there were like 5 huge McCain/Palin signs that gave me the creeps, I won't lie. Bay View seems to be the right direction, but really, just too granola and almost too leftist I think. Oh, and I look super gross in birks and tie-dye, no kidding. Tosa? Ugh. That little village thing they have going is just pathetic -- puhleeeeze stop trying so hard to be cutesy AND cool at the same time because it's totally NOT working. So I guess we'll just stay in Stallis and keep laughing at the McCain signs until they get taken down...hopefully soon, people. HINT!

So it took us like 15 minutes to get through the line and vote. Yay! I heard the lines were ridiculous in other places, but we had a very pleasant experience, even if I did try to tell the polling volunteer how to do his job. Hey, I was just trying to help, buddy! Ya ass!

I think it is so cool that so many people came out to vote for this election. I tried to find some numbers, like the population of the United States is X and X number of those citizens voted, but no dice. If anyone has the percentages, please send me a link. I'd like to see them! Jim says that the reason everyone came out to vote on Tuesday was because of the tanking economy, but I think it was because we're just sick of the same old song and dance from the Republican politicians. "Hey, Joe America. You are a dummy!" was basically what they were telling us all along, and we just sucked it down because we didn't know there was anything else to eat. And this time, McCain/Palin tried on the old suit of birdseed again and tried to feed it to us, and on November 4th we spit it in their faces. Thanks Saturday Night Live, and a special thanks to Tina Fey!! That was so great!

Great, but not so great, you know? It's a new president, but honestly, what's really going to happen in the next four years? We've been hearing the same promises from politicians our whole lives, and what's changed? We still have poor people. We still have super rich people who can get away with whatever. We still rely on foreign oil. We still have a substandard education system. Our taxes still rise every year. I'm not expecting miracles, but I am expecting something...anything but what we've just went through with the last 8 years! PLEASE!

PS: Even I'm getting sick of the serious blogging. Stay tuned for something funny, I promise!

Movie Review: Sex and the City

What I'm Listening To: Never Even Told Me Her Name by Air Traffic

Remember like six months ago, when everyone (okay, I mean women) flocked to the theaters to see the Sex and the City movie? Yeah, uh, that wasn't me. But hey, I made a point to put it on my Netflix want list, it showed up, Jim's in the basement playing on his compy, so I took this opportunity to watch the movie, and, of course, share my findings with you. Enjoy!

How can you be female and admit that you hadn't seen some episode of the Sex and the City tv series? (For a while, though, I thought it was called Sex IN the City, which totally makes more sense, right?) I'm pretty sure I've seen all the seasons, but I could be wrong. Back in the olden days, when I lived alone on Humboldt in this teensy, dark and sad little apartment (oh, and I think I was clinically depressed too -- hey, you be the judge!), my pretty regular weekend ritual was to go to the Cousins around the corner from my house, order two 6" Italian subs with no tomato (oh, they're for my friend, she's waiting at home. Yeah, riiiiight!) and then go to the Blockbuster and get a couple episodes of Sex and the City, and spend the rest of my waking weekend hours lying on the couch and stuffing my gaping maw. FUN!

Glued to the screen, I actually believed that Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha were kinda my FRIENDS. (On a side note, why couldn't these women have regular names, like Jenny, Cindy, Jo Anne and Michelle? Not glam enough, I guess) I mean, the characters all sorta got on my nerves, and the outlandish outfits and label mania just seemed really ridiculous, but it was comforting to know that even hotsie-totsie New York women (read: seriously attractive and rich women with little to do all day but have long lunches and wear get-ups that even Cloris Leachman would turn up her nose at) got the short end of the stick on the dating scene just like I did. So when I struck out at the bars (oh, like that happened! Ha!) I could go home and commiserate with Carrie and Company, because even though my shoes were from Payless and I liked a nice vodka tonic a lot better than any cosmo, we were all waiting at the Lonely Hearts bus stop for the Love Shuttle. Ha!

I was kinda scared to watch the movie because I thought I might like it, but it turned out okay. From a technical standpoint, it was a nicely assembled piece of work. Straightforward storyline, helpful background review, fun music, and all the accoutrements of the show. So fine, there you go, a happy little movie.

But you know I'm never satisfied! I wish this movie had gone to ridiculous and fantastic lengths to end the whole franchise with a real bang, if you know what I mean. In my version, Miranda takes Brady to Central Park to shoot Uzi's at male tourists, Samantha starts her own porno film studio, Charlotte immerses herself in her new religious life and moves to Israel, and Carrie is so broke from spending all her money on clothes and purses that she ends up working at Famous Footwear.

But no. In a nutshell, the story stayed true to form. BORING. Carrie finds true love with Big. Carrie loses true love. Carrie finds true love again and yay! love rules the day. The other characters had their own story lines as well (can't forget about nympho Samantha, career-obsessed Miranda or hopelessly-removed-from-reality Charlotte), but they were so insipid and so incredibly far removed from what I had experienced from the television show that it was almost painful to watch them in these watered-down cliche scenarios. By the end of the film, I had to look away in disgust. Sad.

I think the only good thing about this film was the emphasis on the importance of friends in our lives. So give your friends a hug and tell them the next drink's on you! :) Oh, and skip this movie, if you have any respect for women at all. We're not all enraptured by a pair of Manolos or a Louis Vuitton purse...seriously!

I watch Mad Men. So should you.

What I'm Listening To: Leave Them All Behind by Whitey

Sunday 10/26, a prophetic day: the season finale of Mad Men. You can look it up on Wikipedia if you're not familiar, but if you are, I'm sure you're still wiping your eyes and crossing your fingers that there's a season three.

Jim and I have been watching this show since its inception, and we basically would stop breathing while it's on because it's such a compelling show. The outfits, the hair, the cigarettes, oh, and did I mention the plot twists? It's just amazing.

And Sunday night was the final episode of the second season. Wow, what an ending. So many revelations, I thought they were re-writing the bible and adding a chaper..Revelations, Part II. It was almost too much to take, but in the end, we all knew what happened was meant to be.

For me, watching this show is like seeing inside a time capsule of the 1960s. But seeing the show's actors perform in other venues is like seeing your third-grade teacher at the grocery store. R-O-N-G. It's just so weird. I mean, Jon Hamm aka Don Draper was just on Saturday Night Live for cripes sake! Not that he was very funny. But it was so freaky seeing him NOT be Don Draper. Of course, the Saturday Night Live writers knew what they had to work with, so they didn't let him out of character...much...the entire show. But it was funny.

Speaking of characters, we don't really have a favorite character. I mean, they all have their own pros and cons. And I think we're supposed to be confused, to be ambivilent about who we want to root for and who we want to boo at. It's such a convoluted and complicated show -- I don't know.

But I'll admit, I'm kinda over the whole thing. The clothes are cool. Don is interesting. Joan has a nice, uh, hairstyle. But I'm getting to the end of my attention span with this one. It's like when you play house as a kid. The first time is super cool. But the next time you try to play, it just doesnt' feel the same. With the second season over, I kinda feel like they can't pull anything new out of the hat. Of course, I'm sure I'll be super surprised next year when Don like goes apeshit and shoots Pete in the face or something. But at this point, I'd kinda rather watch True Blood on Sunday nights and then go to bed. Is that bad? Oh well.

See you next season, I think.

Trick or Treat....or just shave already!

I hate fast food, but these are the cutest babies ever!! Happy Halloween!

What I'm Listening To: Last Chance on the Stairway by Duran Duran

Halloween is NOT one of my favorite holidays. I hate trying to find a costume. I mean, every Halloween in college my costume was a 50s circle skirt, saddle shoes, a cardigan and then I'd carry around a book of poetry. And people would always be like "Betty Crocker?" and I'm like, "No, Sylvia Plath." Yeah, dressing as a tortured 50's poet who committed suicide by sticking her head in an oven is kinda like Betty Crocker...I guess. Trust me, I never got lucky on Halloween.

And the whole thing with women dressing as slutty as possible because just this once, they can get away with looking like Paris Hilton's prostitute cousin because hey, it's Halloween! I mean, really. It's like, just pick a profession and add the prefix "Slutty" to it, and there you go, instant Halloween costume. Slutty Nun! Slutty Firefighter! Or how about Slutty Pick n' Save cashier? Or Slutty Cell Phone Salesperson? Or my favorite, Slutty Grandma! Oh wait, that's a cougar, not a Halloween costume. Never mind!

I am psyched about handing out candy on Sunday for trick-or-treating, though. That's definitely one of the perks of owning a home vs. a condo. It's sooper cute when the Halloween candy collection time starts. Little kids and their first Halloween costume. Moms pushing strollers with the kid toddling along side them. Kids walking up to your door still stuffing candy into their mouths. Our Nascar-crazy neighbors and their front lawn installation of inflatable (and incredibly tacky) Halloween decorations. Halloween in the suburbs is awesome! Too bad our candy is gonna be totally disgusting -- well, at least to me and Jim. Our overriding sweet tooth forces us to buy the nastiest candy available so we don't dig into the stash before Halloween hand-outs starts this Sunday. Bit-o-honeys, anyone? Sorry!

But you know what's the worst? These "kids" who aren't kids anymore -- those TEENAGERS who put together some stupid outfit like, uh, a Packers jersey and say they're Aaron Rodgers or carry a skateboard and say they're a skateboarder as their costume -- and then have the nerve to hold out their pillowcase at our door like they still deserve some candy. That is just R-O-N-G, wrong! Man, give it up. Halloween is for the under-12 set. Not for kids with facial hair. No kidding!!

So this year Jim and I are going to buy a couple travel-sized deodorants and maybe even a box of tampons, and hand them out to these brazen little freaks. I cannot WAIT! Jim wanted to hand out Schick razors for the kids with the 5 o'clock shadows, but I was afraid we'd get a call from the cops about handing out razors that weren't even buried in an apple first. Geez, you gotta do everything for these kids nowadays! :)

What age did you stop trick-or-treating? Let's hope it was before high school, people. Happy Halloween!

The infinite appeal of the unexpected

What I'm Listening To: On Board by Friendly Fires

Finally Netflix delivered our DVD of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Can I be really honest? It was disappointing. Maybe because Shia La Beouf is a terrible actor. That's probably some of it. But I'm thinking it was more because I'm not 12 years old anymore and don't fall for all that adventure chase scene crap -- no, it's not suspenseful anymore, not after you've seen more movies than Leonard Maltin. Uh, trust me on that one. You're talking to the girl who had to go see Less Than Zero in the theater with her MOM. So I think we can safely say I've seen it all.

Anyway, every time there was a chase scene, a cutesy-poo kiss, a weird a-ha moment, or some scenario where you weren't sure what was going to happen, I would pause the movie, turn to Jim and say, "Now, what if Indiana Jones was just like, 'Awww, I give up. Just shoot me already!' to that Russian agent that was constantly chasing him. Or, after the Russians are shooting at Indy -- I mean, there's like 20 of them and one of him, and they MISSED EVERY SHOT! -- and they actually HIT him and he dies and then Karen Allen had to carry the rest of the movie? This film is sooooo predictable."

Hollywood is so predictable. And we as viewers suck it up and never complain, because that's what we want. The expected ending. The lovers kiss. The good guys win. The bad guys die. The chase scene is thrilling.

I guess what I'm saying is, wouldn't it be kinda cool if the UNEXPECTED outcome happened in a movie? And I would LOVE to see some avant-garde director make a new kind of film, a movie where this unexpected-ness was the basis of the whole thing. For example, what if they played super boring trance music during the chase scene? Or if the lovers hate each other not just in the beginning, but throughout the movie, and they don't get together -- at all? Or if the random machine gun shooting actually hits the star? Or if the love scene has a super hardcore metalhead soundtrack? Or if every single thing you EXPECT about a certain interaction on screen has the exact opposite result?

Yes, if that flick was ever made, now that would be the coolest movie ever. A movie full of total mind-bending twists. A movie that ends with a decomissioned hero. A movie that ends with people sobbing because Batman's dead, Superman is really just like you and me, and the romantically-estranged-yet-destined-to-be-together couple both end up with STDs.

Not that I'm a pessimist or a total misanthropist, mind you. Because I like a happy ending the same as the next person. Seriously!! But I'm so bored with all these recycled formulaic Hollywood movie plots and stories. When are we going to see some director or writer push the envelope with all the tools at their disposal -- photography, plot and soundtrack -- and show us that we as their faithful audience deserve better? We don't have to cry on cue when they strike up the Bette Midler song at the hospital bedside! We don't have to hide our eyes when the scary villian starts threatening the hero, you know? Let's have a movie where we can't practically recite the dialogue before the actor even opens their mouth!

I dare a director to make such a movie, one that doesn't pander to the almighty dollar, but just to their sense of adventure and especially to their sense of the unknown. Anyone? Uh, Quentin, put your hand down. Sorry. :)

OMG this was my favorite song in high school!

What I'm Listening To: Repetition Kills You by the Black Ghosts

I love music. And what I love the most about making it to this decade is all the various wonderful and wacktackular ways you can get your music delivered to your eardrums. I mean, when I was a kid there was just vinyl. Very boring and limited. Then there were tapes, but you could only play them on some clunky stereoriffic machine that was anything but portable. (Remind me to tell you how I made my own version of the Walkman in the 4th grade...no kidding!) Then there were boom boxes. Then there was the crappy Walkman that played tapes, then the versions of the Walkman which played tapes and had auto-reverse, where it would flip the tape over for you AUTOMATICALLY, which was like, a godsend for a lazy teenager like me.

Then they came out with CD's! Whoohooo! And then portable CD players. Then you could rip and burn premade CD's, and also make mix CD's on your computer. At this point, I thought this was the culmination of the glory of music, portability and creativity. It couldn't get any better than this, I remember thinking to myself back around 2002. I mean, making mix tapes sucked (see my other blog entry) and CD mixes were awesome but limited to about 17 songs per CD if you were lucky. But, oh no. It got better with the magic of mp3's. And downloading music from the internet. And the internet in general. (Oh, and finding out someone else out in cyberspace also cried to that one super depressing song by Suzanne Vega -- aren't they all, though? Kidding! But that's another blog post, I promise!)

And then, tah dah! The musical powers that be continued their intrepid trek into the space where only true innovation treads -- streaming internet radio and satellite radio. Sites like Pandora. Last.fm. And last but not least, XM Radio.

Thank god for XM Radio. We have XM Radio in the car, and it is phenomenal. It's satellite radio and, they have these "genre" radio stations, and (yes, I'm finally getting to the point of this blog, you impatient ass!) I love the one called "Fred". It's Channel 44, in case you care. Every time we get in the car I turn Fred on. And basically every time it comes on, they are playing a song that I LOVED in high school or college. No kidding!! When I yelp for the 247 millionth time that I love this song or that song on Fred, Jim's always like, "You can't love every song. How can you love every song this station plays?" and I'm like "Uh, you try spending your high school weekends in your room with a tape player and the MSOE radio dj's as your only friends. Music was my BEST FRIEND, man!" Ha. Sniff.

Okay, so anyway, just wanted to let you know about Fred. They have played stuff like "Under the Milky Way" by The Church (uh, my first make out session soundtrack) or "Elephant Stone" by the Stone Roses (uh, remember Bailey's? A fun place? First time I went there, they were playing that song) or "Hey Ma and Pa" by Fishbone (uh, dated some guy because the only music we had in common was Fishbone, so that's all he'd play when we hung out) and a million other tunes that just make me all misty-eyed for my lonely high school days and then my fun college nights!

Do you listen to XM Radio? Which one of their genre radio stations bring it all back for you?

PS -- Check out LAST.FM, if you dare. :)

Book Review: Twilight, Part II

Uh, see what I mean? I'm not the only one fascinated... even the Fug Girls are onto Steffie!

Book Review: Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Aren't vampires cute? Not this one!

What I'm Listening To: All Cried Out by Fink

Last night I finished reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. First off, the fact that the author spells her name StephEnie bugs me. Just wanted to get that out there. But that's not the only thing that bugs me about this book. Oh, don't worry, I'll tell you everything!

Jim and I were vacationing in Door County in August with my uncle and his family, and I saw that my teenage cousin was reading this book. As we all know, I am a devotee of all things teen-timer-y, from Gossip Girl to the Clique books. Anywhoo, I made a mental note to request this book from the library when we got back to civilization. I also looked it up on Amazon, and saw all the tweenie raves, so it was a total duh book choice for me.

So I FINALLY got the book about a week ago (after being on the library waiting list for like a month!), but it took me a couple days to get to it, because I was in the middle of another book. I didn't mind waiting -- reading two books at the same time gets too confusing -- and I was kinda putting off reading Twilight because I was afraid I would be disappointed by yet ANOTHER neo-gothic vampire tale. Just so you know, Jim and I are not vampire nutbags, but we don't mind a bloody neck or two. We're watching TrueBlood on HBO, and boy, we don't even pause that one for snarky comments, we like it so much!

I finally finished my other book, and started reading Twilight. What's kinda weird about this book is the fact that all the current tired cliches and props that are recycled in a lot of Meyer's contemporaries' teen novels -- ie, dropping high couture brands Prada, Coach and Juicy Couture every three paragraphs, referencing text messages as actual dialogue, or treating the computer as if it could actually be a secondary character -- are curiously absent here. It was refreshing, to say the least. I mean, once or twice Meyer made mention of what Bella and Edward were wearing, but the descriptions was so vague that the book could have been set in the 1950s from what she told us about their outfits. There were no pop culture references, no mobile phone discussions, and not even a paltry designer jean can be found in Forks, Washington. Is this chick Bella even for real? Or does Meyer strive to appeal to the timelessness of the vampire myth by completely stripping her story of cultural touchpoints?

Along with providing you with a bare-bones character, we are supposed to believe that Edward is in love with 17-year-old Bella, and that Bella is in love with 85-year-old-but-looks-17 Edward. Okay, people? Edward is a VAMPIRE. Bella is a HUMAN. Edward loves Bella like a lion loves a big fat gazelle. But the difference here is that Edward doesn't want to kill Bella because he wants to prove that he can CONTROL his "thirsting". What. Ever. Edward goes on and on about how much he loves Bella and how much he wants to protect and cherish her because, get this, she SMELLS GOOD. But really, it's like a carnivore who is trying to be a vegetarian. Sadness abounds. And Bella loves Edward because he's preternaturally beautiful. That, and he's super strong, super fast and, oh, didn't I mention? Super foxy! Whoopie!

After a while, I got so fed up with the melodramatic protestations of love and longing between these two saps that I wanted Edward to just kill the bitch and get it over with already!!! But I won't lie (to use an Anne phrase) I read that book in like a day. I couldn't stop turning the pages, even though I was appalled at the overdramatic language and the gothic subtext of love, loss, longing, and lack of cell phones. Oh, btw, Edward and Bella never get past first base. I'm not kidding. BORING. Not that I wanted to read about their passionate embrace anyway, mind you. That would be just creepy. But Meyer stays true to her rock-solid Mormon faith and the lovin' never goes below the neck. Get it, neck? Vampires? HAHA!

Bottom line, I thought this book was okay. So okay, in fact, that I requested the rest of the series from the library. Hey, at least I can read them for free. :) And Twilight the movie's coming out in November! Uh, totally Netflixing that one, 'kay?

Read any trashy vampire books lately?

Yeah, we had a dog. HAD being the operative word.

What I'm Listening To: Listen to the Beat by London Funk Allstars

I looooove dogs. We don't have kids -- not that I'm gonna go into that here -- and unfortunately, we also don't have a dog. But I always wanted a dog. I mean, when I was growing up we always had two cats. Oh, their names changed over the years -- Velvet, Cloudy, Lassie, Baby Kitty, Bob -- but we always had cats at our house, never a dog. So I've never had a dog, not ever! And we see so many adorable babies every day -- on the street with their jaunty tails, and cute little faces. Awwww. Super cute! I love dachshunds and shelties and pugs and cocker spaniels and pomeranians and shih tzus and...I could go on forever. I looove dogs.

One time we had a dog. No kidding! Here's how that went.

When we bought our house back in the summer of 2003, first on my list of things to do (uh, besides sage smudge the house for ghosts, duh! Because the place might have had a ghost or something. Remind me to tell you about my ghost issues later, 'kay?) was to convince Jim that we needed a dog. NEEDED a dog. So we had this "pros and cons of dog ownership" conversation like a hundred times on the bus on the way home. I was always watching the Humane Society website for cute dogs. We couldn't decide what to do. So finally, after getting fed up with not making a decision, we just went to the Wisconsin Humane Society and got ourselves a dog.

Baby was a 3-year-old mutt who had been picked up by the place as a stray. She was a smaller dog, and very cute. But I'll tell you one thing that isn't two things, we quickly realized that Baby couldn't give two shits about me and Jim. She was there for food, water, walks and taking a dump. Otherwise, she couldn't be bothered. She didn't want to play. She didn't want to be petted. She just wanted to give us dirty looks and lay there. Boring. At least she didn't bark...at all...which was a good thing.

But once we got her home I realized she had all these scars in her fur around her neck from fighting with other dogs. And every time we took her for a walk it was a real adventure. She HATED other dogs. I mean, lunging, growling, etc etc. It got to a point where we were afraid to walk her because she was so aggressive, something they neglected to inform us about at the humane society.

Jim and I were kinda getting sick of investing all this time and energy and money into a dog that basically hated us, hated other dogs, and hated life in general. I mean, what dog doesn't want to play with a ball? Baby didn't, that was for sure. What dog doesn't want to hang out and watch teev with their family? Baby was like, hell to the no on that one, kids. We bought her so many toys and treats she must have felt like she won the lottery, but nothing worked. Besides, Jim and I were out of the house at work from 6:30 AM to 5 PM every day. That must have been super boring. So I don't blame her for being pissed off and bored stiff -- she was pissing on the kitchen rug basically every day, anyway, to get back at us. (We kept her gated in the kitchen all day - bad idea. We should have just crated her like everyone told us to, but I felt that was totally inhumane. Later I found out that dogs actually like being crated. Who knew!)

The straw that broke the camel's back was Mother's Day, 2004. We were on a walk, and this guy was out washing his car. His dog was sitting his his front yard, and it was not on a leash. So his dog starts trotting over to Baby, and the guy's like "Oh, don't mind Rover. She's a really mellow dog!" and I'm like, "Uh, our dog's not!" and next thing you know Baby and Rover are having an all out dogfight. I was totally scared so I dropped Baby's leash and freaked out. The guy called Rover and broke up the fight, and yelled at me for dropping the leash. Good thing Rover was okay, but I wasn't.

I cried all the way home, and Jim and I agreed that that was the end of the line for us and Baby. We took her back to the humane society that afternoon, with all 549 of her toys and a 50 lbs bag of food. The humane society asked us why we were returning her, and I was like, "Uh, because she's a danger to other dogs and a lawsuit when she attacks a kid or something is not something we're really interested in right now, thanks though!"

As she was led away from us, Baby looked at us with this "and what were your names again?" face. She didn't care one way or the other that we just gave her back to the humane society. She was like, "Whatever, that's my doggie fate". So Jim and I are sobbing through this whole experience, and we both feel like utter failures in our canine venture. But you know what? I think Baby was better off. Maybe she found a nice family to play with her. Maybe she's hanging out right now with them at the park. Although, maybe they put her down because of her temperament, though I'm not sure if the humane society does that or not.

Either way, that was our dog experience. Thank god for the cyber dogs on Facebook. I mean, I think that's all the dog I can handle right now. Jim and I have decided that we will probably get another dog, but with a lot of conditions -- one of us has to either work from home or be retired so someone's with the dog all day, and the dog has to be a puppy. Oh, yeah. And the dog has to actually care about us, for real!

Do you have a dog? Good for you. :)

You actually left the house? My First West Allis Bar Review

What I'm Listening To: Chase Me by Hexstatic

We were getting stir-crazy sitting around the house last night, so we decided to go out. Now, as I'm loathe to admit, it's tough scaring up people to go out with on short notice, so we just went by ourselves. Oh yeah, did I mention that we went at like 7 PM on a Saturday night? Yeah. We did.

Before you leave the house, obviously you have to decide where to go. We had talked about going to Bryant's, that retro-lounge that just reopened over in Bay View. But let me be totally honest with you, I just didn't have enough energy to deal with the pretentious granola crapola that makes up the Bay View bar scene. Oh, that, and I think that you have to dress up for Bryant's or something. I don't know, too much work for this lazy West Alien...ha ha!!

While we're on the subject of West Allis bars, let me tell you a little story about the first time Jim and I ventured out to find a neighborhood hangout. So we'd been living in our new house for a couple months, and we're like, "Hey, we drive past like 20 bars a day on our way home from the State Fair park-and-ride lot every night. We should find a cool bar that we can hang out at after work. The best part is that we won't have to drive there -- we could even WALK HOME. Whoo hoo!" So the search was on to find a cool West Allis bar to quench our thirst after work.

I'm super excited. I mean, everyone in Stallis seems so down to earth. So unpretentious, so fun. I don't have to get all dressed up anymore, because wearing pj's to the Pick n' Save is like wearing a tux to the opera around here. This is gonna be awesome!!!

Our first foray into this nightlife wonderland was a place called "Glen and Carla's Chat-a-while" which was right down the street from us on Becher. Okay, it was the name that got me. Oh, that and I was hoping for a glimpse of Glen. Or Carla. I was somewhat concerned about how we'd come across, so Jim's wearing a tshirt and jeans, and I'm wearing a tshirt and jeans. Nothing fancy. I'm thinking our outfits screamed "Townie!". No matter. We walk in on a Saturday night around 9 PM, and swear to god, every head in the place swivels to check us out. It was a tiny place, and they all glared at us, like we'd let sunlight into their little mold factory. Sheesh. Uh, I'm wearing the West Allis uniform, people. Maybe I should have worn my pj's?? WTF!

So we lumber over to this gorgeous old-fashioned wooden bar, and sat there. And sat there. And sat there. We're staring at these "commemorative" plates behind the bar, just mesmerized by the schlock. Okay, think of every patriotic cliche you know -- eagles, sobbing American Indians, purple mountain majesty, eagles, amber waves of grain, fluttering flags, stars and stripes, eagles, oh, did I mention eagles -- and then put it on a china plate and stick it up behind your bar. The only thing that was missing was George W. Bush standing there singing the national anthem on repeat. Oh, and propped up next to these glorious bits of Americana was a little hand-written sign that said "We sell Avon." Like that's what I'm thinking as I down my fifth Schlitz: "Cripes, I've run out of Avon's "Sexy Siren Red", wonder if they have any at Glen and Carla's".

Finally, after about 10 minutes -- I'm not kidding -- the bartender saunters over like she's never seen us before. "Oh, hey, you want a drink?" And there's where I made my first mistake. I asked for a vodka tonic and the bartender just smirked at me. "Third Ward asshole", she's thinking. Plain ol' Smirnoff's is fine, too. Drink comes, and of course, the tonic's completely flat, and there's no lime anywhere. Just my luck. Jim was smart, and asked for a Miller product...in a bottle.

FIRST RULE OF WEST ALLIS BARS: Don't order a drink that has more than 2 ingredients, or you'll get a dirty look, a flat drink, and probably both. If it comes in a single-serving bottle, it's a sure bet.

Here's how the rest of the night goes down. Drink my flat drink. Play the "Either-Or" game with Jim, which is good for about 15 minutes before we run out of candidates. Stare at the plates on the bar, which the bartender so kindly informs us are for sale. Yay. A cute shaggy dog comes into the bar, and starts sniffing our ankles. I lean over to pet the dog, and it scurries off like a furry cockroach. Throughout this entire hour-long ordeal we are completely and utterly ignored by the patrons, the dog, and, most of the time, the bartender.

SECOND RULE OF WEST ALLIS BARS: If you want to have a decent conversation, round up a couple people to come to the bar with you, more than just your spouse. Seriously. Because no one else will talk to you.

After about an hour of overwhelming excitement, we just left and walked home. I could tell you a couple more stories about other crappy neighborhood dive bars that we've investigated, but the story is the same every time. Walk in, get the hairy eyeball, look around at the dim lighting and the blaring sporting event on the TV, drink one drink, get thoroughly ignored. Needless to say, I'm not too keen on West Allis hospitality.

So after the past birdseed experiences, it was a tough decision to go to this place over on S. 88th and Greenfield...the Lil Downtown Lounge.

We'd read about this new place online and hey, from the pictures it looked pretty interesting. But right off the bat, Jim and I failed the one rule of going out: We arrived at our destination before 10 PM. Actually, we arrived at like 7 PM. And, duh, what do you think the bar was like? DEAD. Completely empty. But we were so antsy we had to get out, so we sat down and had drinks with Sam, the owner (well, at least that's what his picture says in the online article about the place).

We had two beers apiece and just sat there on our barstools and listened to the oldies radio station. I mean, the bar's decorated a la TJ Maxx furniture department (no, I'm serious. Some of those fake plants looked awfully familiar to me, the girl who haunts the discount stores for interior decorating assistance) and dark red walls, with a bar neon-lit from underneath. How can I accurately give you a vibe for this place when we were the only people there? So, we stayed til 8:30 PM and headed out. Maybe we'll go back at a later date, and definitely at a later time.

Maybe if I'm up to it, we'll review some more West Allis bars for you. For now, you're just going to have to experience it on your own. Good luck with that!