Please disregard the previous post until Monday.  I'm going to Falcon Ridge, BITCH!

HEh Heh.  Free tickets.  I love you, Carrie.  Thank you!

Seriously, rain be damned.  And I'm almost more excited about the camping because I haven't been camping in ages.

The afternoon The Gent and I were idiots and decided we'd go play tennis in the rain.  That was actually a lot of fun, until the torrential downpour and a random bolt of lightning scared some sense into us.  But ya know, you gotta play in the rain every once in a while.  Let your hair down.  Or in this case, let it frizz to high hell.  LOL...

Have a good weekend folks!  See you Monday.

In lieu of blogging for the next few days, I'm going to post a to-do list of things I want to accomplish before Friday.  Feel absolutely free to nag via comments with no fear of retribution.  In no particular order, here is the list:

• finish kitchen
• reorganize cabinets
• stack tupperware properly (AGAIN...grrr.  Silly Gent! Am going to have to teach him)
  
• laundry
• put clothes away
  
• move desk
• straighten wires behind tv
• slaughter Gent if he doesn't put gaming stuff away when done.
  
• bookshelf to Gent's room?
• organize file stuff, put non-immediate stuff under bed
• bathroom
• store long hair stuff (hair is not long, stupid!)
• scrub floor and tub
• litter box
• organize girl crap (how many bottles of lotion do you need anyway!?@$@#%)
• dust, vacuum, sweep, mop
• hang dart board (dartboard is hung at regulation height, btw.)
• kick Gent for giving me wrong information.
  
• rehang dartboard one inch below current position to achieve ACTUAL WDF regulation height *sigh*
  
• ceramic antique bed pan under chair for cat toys (it's a toyslet! get it? HA!)
• finish hanging pictures and posters
• buy cable clips
• affix ethernet cables along wall
• reorganize tools
• reorganize closets
• front closet
• bedroom closet
• Gent's closet (has my camping gear in it, fyi.  I'm not doing his chores for him, if that's what you're thinking)
• fix television and wires in bedroom
• put away aquarium stuff under bed
  

And here are some things that don't necessarily have to be done before Friday, but I want to get done soon.

• clean out brown metal cabinet, sand, spray paint white (stencil fun on cabinet? eh? maybe? Actually, this will tie in with the art I'm going to hang in the kitchen, so I'm leaning towards a big YES on spray stenciling)
  
• magazine holders
• sort magazines, free up cookbook room
• organize cookbooks
  
• build unit for DVD shelving on top of bookshelves
  
• make curtains for shelves in kitchen
• make slip cover with opening for cabinet in hallway
• find 11x14 with 8.5 x 10 matte black frame
• have print made of Marilyn
• hang on wall to balance out pictures so my anal retentive "EVERYTHING MUST NEEDS BE SYMMETRICAL FORTHWITH!" alter ego will stop making ooga horn noises in my head when I look at the one wall in the living room where the photos are. not. perfectly. balanced. unnng!)
• sell old dishes when new dishes come in
• warn Gent I bought new dishes (tee hee!)
• reassure Gent by telling him at least I didn't bring home an animal
• ENJOY ZEN OF NEW APARTMENT
• Have party.  Have a few, in fact.
  

So, yesterday I came home from work.  We'd been up until 4:30 am after having seen Dark Knight (so Awesome!).  I had planned on supplementing my 2 1/2 hours of sleep before work by taking a half hour nap after work because I really wanted to get a jump start on getting this apartment clean and organized once and for all.  That soooooo didn't happen.  We ended up sleeping for 15 1/2 hours.  When they say you can't catch up on sleep that you've missed, that's a load of bullshit.

So I didn't get started cleaning the apartment until this morning.  I can now see the carpet in my room.  The living room is clean and the kitchen is mostly clean.  We've managed to contain the disorganized crap into one area: the "dining room."  I put quotes on that because my kitchen table is small enough to fit in our kitchen and so our dining area is being converted into a computer desk/dart board area.   And parking space for my bike when we're not playing darts.  My goal is to have the apartment completely and utterly organized by Friday.  Realistic enough.  Hell, if I bust my ass, I might get it done tomorrow.  But definitely Friday.

Instead of spending most of the day inside today, we decided that we'd go play a few games of tennis being that we've yet to utilize the tennis courts at our apartment complex (one of the reasons we chose this place).  We played 12 games with me winning the match 7 to 5.  I was never much for tennis, couldn't get the gist of scoring, coordination problems, etc.  But I love sports.  And I liked hitting the ball back and forth with either the wall or a friend.  However, since we've acquired a Wii and have been playing tennis on there, I've gotten the hang of scoring. With that understanding we were able to take our tennis skills outside for realz.  And it was wonderful to have won my first official tennis match. 

However, the Gent wasn't happy.  We were sweating our arses off and decided to go back to the apartment to change into swimsuits and go for a dip in the pool (another reason we chose this complex).  Catching the last half of the Yankee game we decided we'd wait, then changed our minds (they went into 12 innings for chrissakes) to go play one more match of tennis after having dinner at a local diner.  The Gent was determined to beat me.

And he did.  First 6-1 and when I insisted best two out of three, he beat me 6-0.  The spirit was willing but my feet were incredibly weak.  So he wins the backrub even though I so desperately need it.

I also decided that I wanted to start counting my Weight Watchers points again and get back into the groove of following the program since I have all the paperwork, just not paying for the meetings.  I earned 24 activity points today between the 25 games of tennis and the housework.  Now, there's talk that you're only allowed to use four of them per day.  There are others who say you can earn as many as you want but they only count that day, you can't bank them for later, so long as you don't hurt yourself.  I'm going to go for the "as many as you want."  I definitely worked off those hot dogs I had for breakfast. lol.

But seriously, I'm still keeping within my alloted range.  I dipped into my flex points yesterday.  I didn't want to do that again today because I'm saving them for the rest of the week (if I use the rest at all, I really don't want to get into the habit of using them).  And I don't necessarily want to count all of my activity points towards my daily total because that would put me at 6 or something.  But I will use enough to put me back to my per diem and if I earn extra, then that's just extra that I know I've earned but am choosing not to use. *shrugs*.  Something like that.

So yeah.  My goal is to lose 150 (at least) in two years.  That's a doable goal.  If I get it done before then, fine.  But two years.  I used to be 150 and I let myself get ridiculously overweight because of an unhealthy relationship with food.  Mother used to keep snacks under lock and key, and we all know what is forbidden is just that much more alluring, so when I got out on my own I ate all the stuff I was never allowed.  All the time.  When I finally caught on I was twice my weight.  And granted, I have lost 35 pounds, but it also took me three and a half years to do so because I was only making a half-assed attempt to lose it.  (so, technically I only need to lose 115 more).

And it's weird.  I never paid attention to it, the gaining weight.  I'm a healthy girl on the inside with a fat exterior.  I have the spirit in me to want to run and jump and do all the things I used to do when I was younger (not to mention maintain the stamina to handle going back to roller derby soon), and then I get reminded that I'm not as spry as I used to be when I'm getting winded and tired easily.  So I decided I wanted to get back to a healthy weight so I can have the stamina to do all the fun stuff I used to do.  Well, not used to, I still do it, but I won't get as exhausted.  And hell, even if I get down to 180 I'll be ecstatic.  One website says my target weight should be 143, another says 182.  Anywhere in between is fine by me.

It was a fun day.  I didn't get as much done around the house as I would have liked, and I'll probably be sore as hell tomorrow, but still.  Good day.

So, I busted out the GPS today to do a little geocaching.  During lunch a coworker of mine and I went out to hit some right by my office.  The first one was easy, just your garden variety "virtual" cache.  The second one was a half-mile away so we decided we'd hit it as well. 

I was trying to glean clues from people's logged comments.  There was mention of someone bringing their bike up stairs, another mention of nooks and crannies.  I still didn't find it.   After the third snake I encountered I decided that I'd had enough and would call it a day and come back when I'm more prepared.  It was amusing though:

Coworker: "Oh look, here's the cache, they put a fake snake on the-"
Snake: *flicks tongue*
Coworker: "Holy shit!"
Me: "Yeah, that's not a fake snake, buddy."

One of them was a nice looking ribbon snake and the other two were small green snakes.  I might have liked to have taken one of them home if I didn't already have my heart set on an albino pink corn snake like I had before it "disappeared" (put in quotes because I still doubt the circumstances surrounding its "disappearance", but whatev). 

Still didn't find the cache so I'll have to go back.  I think I'm going to have to get one of those metal reachers.  I don't like digging around into nooks and crannies that certain critters like to hide.  I like snakes, don't get me wrong, but I get ten kinds of wiggety if it's not my own.  And bugs? Fuhgeddaboudit. 

I spent most of the day today hanging pictures.  I've got a shload more to hang, but they need frames.  They're odd sized frames so unless I make and matte them myself, it's going to be a while.  But it's basically a collection of stencil work that I purchased from the Kismet Gallery in Troy (visit their ebay store), some pictures of local stencil artists' work and signed, numbered concert linoprints (Dresden Dolls and The Hold Steady) and stuff. 

I was very anal about my picture hanging, measuring, leveling, making everything moderately symmetrical, keeping everything balanced (I need a new 8x10 portrait style print to hang on the wall or I'm going to go batshit insane because the balance is off). 

I'm still working on this apartment.  It's horrible, I've been here two months and I'm still not fully settled in.  I'm trying though.  Working around my natural tendency towards sloth.  I want a party!  Haven't had one in ages.  Want to at least have the place looking decent and have people over while it's still nice out.

It's about time I got off my fat ass.  Just thought I'd check in.

Oh! Almost forgot: We are totally addicted to Trauma Center: Second Opinion.  It was given an overall score of 80 on MetaCritic and I highly recommend it. 

I don't recommend it if you're trying to finish unpacking your apartment and cleaning your bathroom because it's highly distracting. ha haaa.

Ta, dahlings!

Hellboy II: Grade C+

I anxiously awaited the release of Hellboy II.  I loved the first one, loved Ron Perlman, loved that this demon-man loves chocolate bars and has a soft spot for cats.  The bad guys were eeeeeeevil and meeeeeean and the monsters were just as intimidating.

Hellboy II? Not so much.  The monsters/creatures in this movie were interesting and definitely reeked of Pan's Labyrinthiness (which I thoroughly enjoyed).  However the script was banal!  Incredibly.  Didn't do justice to what Guillermo del Toro brought to the plate in the way of direction and I'm guessing he blew his creativity wad on effects and had no mojo leftover for the actual dialogue.  The most enjoyable part of the script was the acerbic comments made by a shopkeepers "baby": "I'm not a baby, I'm a tumor!".

The bad guys were, well, not as menacing.  Prince Nuada (the white emo guy you see in the trailers) was bad, but not bad enough.  And his sidekick monster  looked like a cast reject from Men In Black II.  And the tooth faeries? Destructive, yes, but they were cute!  You can't have an evil little monster be adorable as hell!  Has this ever worked before in film history? Please share.

The Gent mentioned this and he was spot on, we were both glad to see Doug Jones voicing the character for Abe Sapien.  However, every time he opened his mouth we kept expecting David Hyde Pierce's disembodied dialogue.  Jones did a great job, but DHP brought a little something extra to the character.  They set the bar high in their decision to cast DHP in the first Hellboy which set up Doug Jones to fall just short of the mark. 

But I still enjoyed it.  And it probably won't stop me from buying it when it comes out on DVD.

(x-posted)

(x-posted from myspace)
goddamnitty shit fucking booger garbled asspicking shit fucky BALLSACK RATFARTS!!!!!!!!

I have been wanting to come back to derby.  Now that I quit my second job I was seriously considering it (I want to straighten things up at home first, but soon).  The Derby name that I have been sitting on for MONTHS has been taken.  It wasn't on the fucking roster before.  I checked.  But apparently this girl has been rolling for about two years now SO WHY WASN'T IT ON THE GODDAMN ROSTER!!!! (or why didn't I see it before? GRAH!!!!) *kicking the internet to death with my skates*

GodDAMNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!  IT WAS PERFECT!!!!  I still might be able to get it, since it's showing up as "low" and "very low" for similar entries but still.  I didn't want to be a variant of a name that someone else had (Mine was spelled differently), I wanted it to be mine.  An original.  It's something that I had come up with and have been keeping a secret since December/January of this year.  But now someone three hours away has it, which makes it worse, it'd be sorta fine if it were California or something. 

This makes me angry. Now I have to start all over.  I didn't want to be Chesty LaBruise anymore and I was going to change it to something more fun, start over.  I supposed I can still try to either get this name or come up with something else, but goddamn it. 

argaigdfpoawiuretpo;aeijhg;iohlkahfgjklahdfkjghadklfjghlksdajfhgliaeuhtilruhgjuhg!!!!!!!

ass monkey codswallop is what this is.  I'm never going to get to sleep now,  I'm so fucking pissed off.  I'm spitting lightning and shooting lasers out of my eyeballs, I'm so fucking ANGRY!!$(U%($UT^P(%IYTUPU *spontaneously combusts*

where's my fucking happy place?  (and my car keys for that matter, those have been MIA for two weeks now....)

Here's an excerpt I received from an online promotion for Amtrak that was emailed to me.  Pay particular attention to the highlighted portion.

Drive, sleep, and shop your way to a faster reward.
Make it a Triple Play and earn up to 2,000 bonus points with Amtrak Guest Rewards program partners July 1 through December 31, 2008. Earn 300 bonus points when you Drive with any of our car rental/sharing partners or moving services. (highlight) Earn 500 bonus points when you Sleep with any of our hotel, cruise, luxury rail or home loan partners. And, earn 200 bonus points when you Shop at our online mall or other shopping partners. That's not all… if you transact with at least one in each of the Drive, Sleep and Shop categories, you will receive an additional 1,000 bonus points.

Me: this made me snort/laugh when I read it.
The Gent: Are the bonus points made available on their website, or just left on the
nightstand?

I am having a bitch of a time trying to decipher these clues in two different caches.

Clue #1:
refgkfgffgfkgaffaldfagmptyjgptyuyepfrhtrrdgptyupmrqpomy
yjtrryjtrrgobrsmferdydrbrmyuyjtrrfrhtrrdgptyuqpomygobryjtrrdrbrm

Clue #2:
Northing/Y: 1440662.440
Easting/X: 685900.354

I think these are UTM coordinates but I can't make heads or tails of them.  Help?

I was perusing wikipedia yesterday and caught this under the "did you know?" section.  It was only there briefly but I'm glad I found it!  Check out her other videos as well (some bits are repeated, but other stuff is thrown in that might be new)

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