Regarding those Twilight books

I remember years ago when someone said the words Harry Potter. One second we were all living regular lives and then boom! Harry Potter was ruling the world. This 'kids' book was in the hands of my co-workers, my friends, my mother's friends...it was inescapable. I read them all and loved them all. Great series.

A few weeks ago we were at the Man's brother's house for our nephew's birthday and sis-in-law #1 is returning borrowed books to sis-in-law #2. #2 asks me if I've read them, and tells me they're the Twilight books.

"Oh," I say, "I heard of those. They're some new big series of books on Vampires right?"

"Yep, these are the first four of the series if you want to borrow them?"

"Okay," I say, sort of wanting to get into a new series. I do love to read, it just takes a lot for me to pick up a book for some reason.

I cracked the first one open last week and finished it on Sunday. It was...okay. Decent story, fast read - but after the deeply layered plots and characters of Harry Potter this series had a lot to live up to - as far as I'm concerned. I'm a few pages into the second and not sure if I want to continue - but let's be honest, they're all sitting on the end table next to the couch and I'll probably end up reading all of them.

I have to say this, the relationship between the two main characters just reeks of all things I wouldn't want my teens to be involved in - mainly this whole 'can't live without you' and 'I only hang out with you and all of my other friends can just suck it 'cuz they obviously, like, don't understand this undying love we share'. Yikes.

However, I do send kudos to the author, Stephenie, for writing these, finding a publisher and getting a movie deal - that's awesome! So congratulations. With the gajillion amount of books in the world aspiring authors can only dream they'll hit the heights that she is. Rock on girl.

I'm on my way Lynn!

Lynn, of course, is my hairstylist/colorist/strand expert.

I have an appointment with her this afternoon for a LONG overdue dye job. I had an appointment a couple of weeks ago that I cancelled - I decided to go check out my friend's newborn instead. Plus we have a wedding to attend this Friday and I figured I'd attend with freshly did hair.

I can imagine how interesting this is to all of you.

Next time you read my words they'll be typed with the fingers of a woman who has no grey hair showing. Oh, the excitement!

How did people live before DVR & Tivo?

TV IS BACK BABY!!!! WOO!!!

We have two DVR's, one in the living room and one in the bedroom. It's burning up every night with favorite old shows, shows that pass the time and new shows that will get a chance. Here's how it breaks down at our place:

Shows we can't miss:

- Amazing Race (LOVE this show)
- Survivor (watched every freakin season)
- Criminal Minds (love the psycho-ness of the cases)
- Grey's Anatomy (sometimes weak, but still a must-watch)
- CBS Monday night lineup: Two and a Half Men/Big Bang/How I Met your Mother...etc. (funny funny)
- Lipstick Jungle (more me than the Man...nice juicy show)
- CSI Vegas (my favorite cast of the CSI's)
- New Adventures of Old Christine (hysterical)
- Medium (cool...and I like the cast)
- Prison Break (the brother without the brains is yummmy)
- Heroes (the Man's show...I never got attached)
- Desperate Housewives
- Damages (if it ever returns...)
- 24 (coming in January)
- American Idol (yes, we're addicted, it's back in January)
- Lost (reluctantly...)
- Smallville (totally the Man. Seriously, why can't he fly yet???)

Shows that pass the time:

- CSI NY and Miami (I'm tiring of these two...)
- Law & Order
- Private Practice (I'm SO not a Kate Walsh fan...but I like the show)
- House (I can take it or leave it...too many characters in this show, and they're getting weird with the Wilson thing...just get back to the medical stuff okay?)
- Boston Legal (predictable, but good)
- NCIS (the Man watches it more than me)
- Dirty Sexy Money (cool show)
- Pushing Daisies (more the Man than me...but I'll watch it if it's on)
- The Ghost Whisperer (the Man's got a thing for Miss Jenny Love Hewitt)
- Numbers
- America's Next Top Model
- The Bachelor (such fun nonsense)
- 'Til Death

New shows:

- Worst Week (cracked me up...so far so good)
- Kath & Kim (I'm looking forward to it, premieres in Oct)
- The Mentalist (like most cop shows with a boring twist, will end up in my Pass The Time category)
- Fringe (so far so good)
- Knight Rider (holy crap, the pilot episode was so bad we killed it halfway through and immediately took it off the DVR list)
- The Ex List (starts in Oct)
- Do Not Disturb (this show SUCKED! it's off the list)
- Gary Unmarried (first show was okay...so it remains on the list. plus it's a half-hour comedy which translates to about 18 minutes on DVR, who doesn't have time for that?)

Wow. Could we possibly watch more TV? Yikes. Check out this site...has the lineup day by day. Which reminds me...I also like 20/20 and Dateline - depending on the stories.

I'm sure there are shows you love that we aren't watching. I have to be honest, we just never clicked with 30 Rock. I know The Office is hysterical, but somewhere along the line it got lost in the DVR lineup. When it hits syndication and the rerun world I'll catch up with it again. I took Dancing with the Stars off of the list as I hate the celebs they have this season. Ugly Betty is one of my favorite shows but A) I fell behind and B) I HATE Lindsay Lohan...but I do plan to Netflix-in the seasons to watch it that way.

Plus, let's be honest, there's only so much we can fit on the DVR's. Watching TV in real time is so five years ago...

How do you like your controversy?

Apparently there's two ways to pronounce the word 'controversial'...

A) Con-tro-ver-shull

B) Con-tro-ver-see-ul

Merriam-Webster is no help, I found this on their site:
Pronunciation:\ˌkän-trə-ˈvər-shəl, -ˈvər-sē-əl\

I lean towards A for my pronounciation.

I'm glad that's settled.

Am I alone in thinking this?

The headline reads:

Blaine risks going blind in stunt

I immediately think, "Cool!"

You can read about his new stunt here, but let me save you the trouble - he plans to hang upside down above Central Park for 60 hours. It's too bad it's not above Boston's park, that way I would totally go throw things at him.

Blaine's advising Dr., Dr. Napolitano, says, "hanging upside down for a long time increases blood pressure in the head, especially in the eyes. That could lead to blindness."

However the article ends with this, Nevertheless, Napolitano says the stunt could yield valuable data for doctors, which makes me think the Doc is as hopeful for some idiotic injury as I am.

Arrr!

Didja know today be blog like a pirate day? Well it be, so Pirate On!

Yeah, we're going to need the name of that contractor

Just saw this story on the lone house that withstood Ike:

****************************************************************************

Yesterday, we received an amazing submission from iReport.com user austinheli. His photos showed a lone house standing in a wasteland left in Ike's aftermath.


We contacted austinheli, who is Ray Asgar, a private helicopter pilot based in Austin, Texas. He visited Gilchrist and Galveston Monday to photograph the damage left after Hurricane Ike slammed the coastal area last weekend. The lone yellow house caught Asgar's attention. He said it was the only structure standing for miles.


Considering the extent of Ike's devastation, he said, it was "odd to have nearly any damage to one home." Several users left comments on Asgar's iReport, joining a debate about whether or not his photos were real. One user who jumped in was Kelley1. "This is my sister's house. It is real," she wrote. Shortly afterward, Kelley1 uploaded a photo of the yellow house that was taken in May.


Kelley1 is Judy Hudspeth and the house belongs to her sister, Pam Adams. Pam and Warren Adams rebuilt their home in February 2006 after Hurricane Rita destroyed it the previous year. Hudspeth said that the couple hired a contractor to build a home that could withstand a Category 5 hurricane. Warren Adams watched over every step of the construction to make sure it was done correctly.

The couple evacuated to a friend's house in Lufkin, Texas, hours before Ike made landfall last week. Hudspeth said they've been without power since Saturday, and that her sister was "hysterical" when she initially heard everything was gone in Gilchrist.

Pam and Warren have since learned that their house is one of the few in the area to survive the storm. They are returning to see the devastating damage today.

***************************************************************************

You can find the story here, don't you love it? The photo of the lone house among all of that devastation is just incredible - I commend the contractor.

Filed Under 'Things I Didn't Know My Husband Could Do'

We ran some errands this past Friday. On our list: go to sign shop and check on digital prints that we're having blown up (they look great), grab a quick lunch (sushi for me, seafood medley for him), go to doctor to have stitches removed from the Man's wrist (looks okay but he still feels something wrong with it), stop at camera store and see if they have any photography classes I can sign up for (they do, but not for a month or so, and we'll be gone), stop at CVS for Vitamin E oil to help remove his scar (per suggestion from pharmacist I bought the capsules to break open and use instead of straight oil)...

...and lastly, stop at eye doctor so I can pick up pair of contacts.

Everything before 'eye doctor' is sort of clustered in the same area. As we left CVS the plan was to hit up the eye doctor last. We would pass our house on the way though, and the Man had to pee, so I pulled in and took the door key off my keychain while keeping the car running. The Man went in the house and I went to the eye doctor. When I came back home I dropped my keys on the table and bounced onto the computer for a little bit before we left the house to go to our nephew's birthday dinner.

Anyone notice what I didn't do? That would be 're-attach the house key to my keychain'. As we left the house the Man said, "Do you have the keys?" "Yep!" I answered and he turned the thingy on the door handle and shut the now-locked door. "Oh," I said, "the house key is still inside." "Fuck." he said.

We called his mom on the way to our nephew's and she said she had a key. Cool. After the little party we stopped at his mom's house (five minutes from ours) and went back home. We tried every key on the freakin' ring, and couldn't open the door. Awesome. It was raining, and a little chilly. The perfect scenario to be locked out.

The Man called his mom again and she said she had given us the wrong keys. His sister would run over the right ones. He hung up, pulled out a credit card and started playing with the lock. Don't you know he opened the door? With a credit card?!

Lucky for us the deadbolt was not engaged (I would need the key to do that...)

Needless to say we called his mom and told her not to bother, we broke in. With a credit card. I've never actually seen that done, and would have doubted that it actually worked.

Apparently I've married a criminal.

If that's not a PSA for deadbolt locks then I don't know what is.

GO PATS!

Go Matt Cassel!

GO PATS!

GO MATT CASSEL!!!

GO PATS!!!!!!!!!!!

What was that?!

This past Tuesday night we were watching TV when we suddenly heard a sound...a loud-ish, sharp quick sound as if something had crashed to the floor, or a door slammed. Something. We paused our show and went on the hunt. I went upstairs to the bird's room to see if something was amiss up there...it's not unusual for our Grey bird to pry his door open, jump out and get into mischief. On this night the birds were mischief-free; as I walked in they all looked at me from behind their cage doors. I tossed them some peanuts and walked into our bedroom - where everything was where it should be.

Meanwhile the Man was downstairs in the kitchen to see if a plate had slipped in the sink or something, but nope, no problems there. I checked in the basement...no problems there.

We got back on the couch and continued watching TV.

A couple of hours later the Man was upstairs and asked me to bring him a up a diet Coke on my way up. I opened the fridge and pulled one out from the back of the second shelf of the fridge. As I moved the can a rush of brown chunky ice fell to the bottom shelf. WTF? I looked to where it had fallen, and then I looked on the top shelf and saw a can of diet Coke that had split open. Apparently the very back of the fridge gets ice cold, and when this soda froze it popped the can and spilled ice everywhere.

And yes, that was the sound we heard.

Oh, and yes again, the crumbled ice is still in the fridge. As long as it's frozen I've decided I'm un-concerned about it. I mean really, it's all the way in the back, I'd have to move everything....eh.

9/11

Can you believe it happened 7 years ago?

Wow.

The Dancing Bird

Introducing Dice! *applause*

Our youngest loves to dance and I finally decided to get him on video so you could all enjoy his moves. A few notes on the video:

A) I recorded it on our old digital camera, so it's silent - but that's actually a good thing. The only way I get him dancing is to warble a wordless song while smacking my hand on my thigh to give him a beat...and you don't need to hear that.

B) I realize he's far away; this camera doesn't give a zoom option while recording, and if I stood up and got closer he would lose interest in dancing and would immediately jump closer to 'get the camera'. However, you can still see him open his wings to begin the performance which concludes with some true left-to-right rocking.

He's too cute for his own good. Enjoy!

Just a quick note

The baseball team I support is the Red Sox. Sox, of course, is a plural form of the word Sock, however, this does not mean you can use 'sock' when describing my team in the following manner:

"Red SOCK Nation"

Do you see how dumb that sounds?

If anyone at ESPN is reading this (and, of course, I highly doubt they are) please pass a note around your office so that I don't have to hear 'sock' on SportsCenter anymore.

Thanks.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

This morning we went to the doctors office for the Man's physical. I don't normally tag along like some naggy wife that insists on seeing the Dr., however the Man had wrist surgery last week - and can't drive (both our cars are standard). So off we went, me in the position of chauffeur.

While he was in with the Doc I was sitting outside the waiting room in the main lobby of the office building. I'm not a fan of hushed waiting rooms...and there was better people-watching in the lobby. As I'm sitting there a mother and her two almost-teenage sons came through...the sons each sat down in the lobby while the mom went into the pharmacy. As I flipped through my magazine I started listening to their conversation - I couldn't make this up if I tried:

Kid #1: "I wanted to gouge my eyes out this morning...felt like killing myself." (in jest)

Kid #2: "Why your eyes? I don't think that would kill you."

#1: "Yes it would, it pushes your brain and you die"

#2: "No, I don't think so..."

#1: "Yes, it does."

Kid #2 gets up, runs into the pharmacy and comes back a minute later, "Mom said it wouldn't kill you."

Kid #1: "Well it would, she's wrong."

At this point I must have missed something, or I was distracted by someone coming in the building, so you'll excuse me for not knowing how urine entered the conversation...

Kid #2: "Your pee is sterile, it can't kill you..."

Kid #1: "Yes it can. If your eyes are gouged out and someone pees in the eyehole you would die."

Kid #2: "No way! Your pee is sterile! It wouldn't kill you if you got pee in your eyehole!"

Kid #1: "Yes, you would die..."

At this point mom comes out of the pharmacy and they stand up to leave.

Kid #2: "Mom - tell him you would die if your eyes got gouged out and someone peed in the eyehole!!"

Mom looks at them, then looks at me apologetically.

Mom: "Are you guys really having this conversation right now?!"

Me: "Actually, I have to go home and Google it now because I have no idea what the answer would be. I'm pretty sure if my eyes are gouged out I have bigger problems then someone peeing on me!"

Mom cracks up, the kids look at me like they're not sure if I'm kidding or not and the three of them walk out of the building as I shake my head.

I'm back home now, and I'm not about to attempt to Google this as I A) have no idea how to start and B) don't want to see the nonsense that shows up when you Google 'pee' 'eyes gouged out' 'empty eye hole'.

I guess we'll never know...

Things that make you go FUCK

You can file this picture under 'Things you don't want to see'.


First on that list? Your reigning NFL MVP, three-ring-winning, perfect-season engineering, starting quarterback being helped up from the ground.

Second on that list? A replay of the injury, showing his knee going in a direction it was never meant to go.

Third on that list? Matt Cassel, coming in to play. Everyone say 'Hi Matt'!


I wonder how many calls have been made to Culpepper this afternoon...

Brady's injury, whatever it is, most likely means he won't be returning anytime soon, if at all, meaning most things I was looking forward to this season are now in limbo. Like...oh...the playoffs. Like the always-stressful regular season meeting with the Colts. Like the Pats/Jets game. The Pats/Chargers game. Did I mention the playoffs?

The Pats have a pretty soft schedule this year, and it was a team effort to go 18-0, so no, I'm not writing them off that easy. But let's be honest...Tom Brady is Tom Brady.

I still have a few things to keep me entertained though...let's start with hoping the Giants do NOT make the playoffs. I hope the Chargers make the playoffs and have another heartbreaking loss - hopefully the Colts can beat them this year. Speaking of the Colts I don't want Peyton rocking another ring - so until the Pats are figured out I'll pick the Cowboys to hoist the trophy on Feb 1.

At the moment I'm continuing with my lazy football Sunday. Latah!

Outburst II

We had some friends over for dinner a couple of weekends ago. With the Red Sox playing in the background we decided to play a boardgame and pulled out Outburst. It was a game the Man had before I met him, and I pulled the battered box out from the back of a closet.


We pulled out the cards, re-read the rules and started playing. The

Shhh...

We have our first quiet weekend approaching in almost two months. To add to the happiness storm Hanna is supposed to dump some rain on us tomorrow.

Yes, I know, people hate when it rains on the weekend, especially one of the last ones of the summer...but I love nesting inside when it's pouring. I think it's cozy. Piss and moan at me if you will.

TGIF :)

My favorite time of year

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?!?!?!???!

I AM! WOOO!!!!!!!!! If my world was perfect the Patriots would be opening the season by playing tonight, but instead it's the crap Giants playing the even crappier Redskins. You bet your bra I'm rooting against the Giants...let's be real - they have as much a chance of reaching the playoffs as I do growing a cup size by Sunday.

You say they'll reach? I'll bet you another cup size my Pats destroy them this time. But enough about the past...let's focus.

If you're any sort of football fan then you've probably frowned at the soft schedule facing the Pats this year. You can blame half of that on our crap division...Miami sucks, the Bills suck and don't even get me started on Favre QB'ing the Jets. He may be a living legend, but he ain't bringing no ring to Gang Green. Got it?

I'm not looking for a perfect season this year but I am looking for a lot of W's. Beat the Colts. Beat the Steelers. Crush the Chargers again...and again. It's too bad we don't meet Dallas or the Giants during the regular season...

At the moment the Giants are leading the Skins 13-0 with under 10 to go in the 2nd. I'm happy to have the sounds of football flowing from the TV...but Sunday is the day that matters - my Pats kickoff at 1pm against the Chiefs. Um, yeah, the Chiefs. After that we'll check out Dallas, who plays at 4 - and then a big Colts/Bears showdown for the late game.

So, football is here, but that doesn't mean I turn my back on my Red Sox. They're gaining on the first place Rays - and with 6 Sox/Rays games to go this division is heating up. How lovely that my Sox should reach the post season again, with a chance for back-to-back World Series wins while the Yankees ROT! SUCKERS!!

Okay. I'm out.

Cereal

Following up my dated yogurt snack of yesterday I'm now chowing on a late breakfast of cereal. The 'best used by' date is May 2007 on the unopened box. Clearly, I'm rolling the dice.

The only thing I notice is perhaps a lack of flavor, but the Man and I figure if I didn't know how old it was I probably wouldn't notice anything at all.

In other news - I have a migraine that won't go away.

Yogurt

There was a deal on yogurt in my supermarket a few weeks back, and I bought 20 cups...like $.50/each. Soon after I got sick of yogurt, and there are quite a few cups left. I just picked a cup out for a snack and noticed they all have dates of Aug 26 on them...but I'm still eating it.

Safe? Not safe?

I guess I'll let you know.

Spam Spam Spamity Spam

Yes, we all get spammed to death, but the sex ones are the more humorous to me with their in-your-face emails.

Like this subject line on one of them:

Pound your lady into submission nightly

I'm not sure whether to be offended or excited?

Or this one:

Shoot your load in her

What if she's busy, or just brushed her teeth? Was she the one who was just pounded into submission? She's probably too tired to 'take that load'.

Who are the people clicking on these emails and thinking "Oh my god YES! I's gonna pound her! WOO! And then shoot 'er. Or in 'er. She'll LOVE it! The email said so!!"

This is our world.