Three Dog Night

For details on how I spent Thanksgiving, make your way over to Listmaker.

Since Listmaker sums it up so well, I would like to use this post to declare my love to a dog named Princess. Princess is my cousin Leah's dog. Leah is living in London right now with her boyfriend, so my other cousin, Jason is taking care of Princess while she is away. After the three days spent with Princess, I have decided that I want a dog. Having grown up with cats my whole life, I never really gave dogs much thought. But lately, I have wanted a dog more and more. And the holiday with Princess clinched it. I know that all dogs are not as cute, calm, and little as Princess. But one day, when I am a little more financially secure, and a little more responsible, a dog will be mine!

How can you not love this dog?




Tiny Princess and the giant cat Sunshine


Oh, and over Thanksgiving I promised Stone Groove that I would post this picture.


I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, even if yours did not include an adorable dog.

A weekend with a foreigner, IKEA, and a rock

This weekend, Allie's friend Yvette from South Africa, by way of Manchester, England came to visit. This was only her second time to the states, the first to Boston, so touristy activities were on the agenda.

On Saturday, we (and by we, I mean Allie, me, Yvette, Sam, and Erica) went to a delicious brunch at Sound Bites, a great brunch place near us in Ball Square. We then made our way into Boston to Faneuil Hall, where we then decided that we wanted to see the site of the Boston Tea Party. Unfortunately, we never made it. We walked for a good hour, and then realized that we made a wrong turn way back. We were all getting cranky so we decided not to pursue our mission any farther.

Sam attempting to steal a street sign after our failed attempt to find the ship.


We crankily made our way to the North End where we indulged in a delicious Italian meal. After, I was way too full to get any more food, but Erica, Allie, and Sam were brave enough to get more food at Mike's Pastry Shop. I admire them.

Allie with her moonpie, with Erica's ghost next to her.


Sam's Rum "Babuh" which was 85% rum, 15% actual pastry. Notice the drip from the cake.




Sunday:
Last weekend IKEA finally opened about 30 minutes away in Stoughton. My sometimes nice brother and sister-in-law got me a wonderful gift certificate for my birthday/housewarming in September. I used the gift certificate to get a bookshelf to put my books and DVD's that have been sitting in boxes for months. Thanks again Youthlarge and Listmaker.

Allie admiring an IKEA ottoman.


Basking in the comfort of a chair.


After spending FOUR hours in IKEA, and consuming delicious Sweedish meatballs and cinnamon rolls, we headed off to Plymouth to see Plymouth Rock.
The rock....very exciting?




It's a good thing that I am going home to Maryland this week, because being a tourist can be exhausting!

Pump it up!

I am proud to say that within the last month or two, I have made going to the gym a semi-regular routine (about 3-4 days a week for 45 minutes.) I have never been a huge fan of the gym. But my wonderful iPod makes the experience much more enjoyable. If I have the right song going on my "Gym" mix, then the time on the elliptical or weights flies by, making the gym much less dreadful.

With that in mind, I only have 156 songs on my gym mix. While most of them pump me up (by the way, Elvis Costello's "Pump it Up" is indeed part of the mix), I feel like I am going to get sick of these songs soon. And once I am sick of them, the gym might become a dreaded experience once again.

Stone Groove was nice enough to give me a code that he got from Bose for 15 free downloads from iTunes. Thus far, I have only used 3, with 12 remaining. I would love if my valued readers would be so kind as to help me with suggestions on good motivating gym songs to download from iTunes. Handwashings: What got you through the NYC Marathon on your iPod?

Here are some examples of what is already on the mix. Most of the music is not very good, but it does the trick:
Beastie Boys, Britney Spears (taken from my dear roomate), Gorillaz, Kanye West, Jay Z, Ludacris, Outkast, Archers of Loaf, Hives, Hot Hot Heat.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

A Weekend with Listmaker and Youthlarge

This weekend Allie and I went down to see Youthlarge and Listmaker
The weekend included:
A whole hell of a lot of making fun of me. What else are big brothers and sister-in-laws for?
A whole hell of a lot of walking, and shopping.
A whole hell of a lot of eating, then complaining.

The happily betrothed couple.




I don't know what is more beautiful: the Manhattan skyline or the delicious ice cream from the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory.


Walking across the Brooklyn Bridge




All in all, it was a great weekend. Thank you Listmaker and Youtharge for having us, and for letting us burn countless CD's.

No "Lost" tonight honey, I have a headache

All day yesterday, I was excited. It had been three weeks without a new "Lost." It has become a weekly ritual that Heather will come over, and we (and by "we", I mean Allie or Heather) will make dinner, then sit back and relax for an hour of Lost.

Last night was turkey taco night. We quickly ate in anticipation of what we had been waiting three weeks for. And in typical Lost fashion, it was everything that we had expected.

Typical Lost: The whole hour keeps us in suspense. Nothing is ever resolved. This week seemed even worse though. The episode ended with a cliffhanger of course. But now, they are starting a whole new arc next week! I don't care about these new characters (and the incredibly annoying Michelle Rodriguez!) This is so frustrating!

My analogy for the show is that its like being in an abusive relationship. It is so good to you, but it beats you down repeatedly, but you keep going back to it. But Heather's analogy is much better. Her gem: "This show is like having sex without reaching orgasm." I will leave it at that.

An Unfortunate Tale

Today at work, we had a company meeting. This was followed by an assortment of Chinese food that was delivered. It was oh so delicious.

To me, one of the best things about Chinese food is when the meal is over, and it is time to read your "fortune." I put the word fortune in parentheses because over the years, the word has lost its meaning in these once delightful cookies.

When I was a kid, before I could read, my mother used to make up fortunes like "Your daughter will be a good girl today." I was always amazed that the great fortune cookie people always catered to me (or my mothers) fortunes.

As I got older, I of course realized that these fortunes were not catered directly to me. But, it was still fun to read the fortunes nonetheless. Lately though, I have noticed that I rarely ever get an actual fortune inside the cookie. Instead I have received stupid philosophical sayings that no one in their right mind would describe as actual fortunes.

Today at the company lunch, the customer service department (all five of us) sat together and read our fortunes. I was shocked (SHOCKED!) to see that not one of us (after opening many fortunes each) had a real fortune.

I am saddened by the sad state of fortune cookies. I wish we could return to the glory days of when fortune cookies were actually FORTUNE cookies. But since this is obviously not to be, I will go back to the classic game of adding "in bed" to the end of the fortune. I have to find some ways to have fortune cookies continue to be fun.

An example of the pitiful state of the fortune cookie industry.

What is the big deal?

The following statement is probably going to be considered blasphemous to many of my friends: I honestly do not see what the big deal about Harry Potter is.

I'm sorry- I've tried my hardest to like it for quite some time!

I've read the first few books. I'm in the process of reading the fourth book. I've seen all the movies. And yet I still find myself dumbfounded to the mass appeal of this series.

When I was in London, we went on a group trip one weekend to Bath. On the way back, we stopped by Oxford, and toured Christ's Church College. Apparently parts of the Harry Potter movies were filmed there. The majority of the 30 or so people in the group were freaking out about this. I could have cared less. This is just one example of the many times that I have felt out of place for not being an obsessive Harry Potter fan.

Now, I am working at the educational software division of Scholast..., the company that publishes Harry Potter. My first week at work, I was given the sixth book of the series for free, a gift to the whole company from Scholast.. And apparently, we get to go to a free screening of the fourth movie the night before it opens. So now I am trudging through the 4th book so I will not be completely lost during the long movie. How/why do kids (and adults for that matter) want to sit through a 3 hour movie/ read an 800 page book?

So could someone please answer me why Harry Potter is so adored? And while you are at it, could you also explain to me the appeal of the Dave Matthews Band?

Mission Irresponsible

Yesterday, everything was going just swell. I had a fine day at work, followed by a good work-out, then meeting my wonderful roommate afterwards. My gym is right next to where Allie goes to grad school in Porter Square in Cambridge, so I go to the gym after work to work out for about 45 minutes before her class lets out, then we drive home.

Every parking space in the lot at Porter Square is for "compact" cars. I suppose my car could be considered compact, but I guess SUV drivers do not know what that means. With this in mind, it is usually pretty hard to maneuver into such a small space. Yesterday, I was pretty proud of my parking job under such a tiny space, and admired my work on my walk past my car to the gym.

Following the gym, I met Allie and we happily walked back to my car, sharing stories about our days. We get back to my car to find that the car to the left of me had done the worst parking job EVER (and I say this as a person who sucks at parking.)The dumb ass car was parked to the left of me, its rear sticking out into the parking lot about two feet. To his left, he had left probably three feet for the car next to him. But for me, the generous guy left me about four inches. There was about the same amount of space on the passenger side. This left Allie and I with no conventional way in which to get into the car.

After much discussion and distortion of our bodies, we decided to go the Mission Impossible route. Allie opened the door just enough to tilt her body sideways to put the key in the ignition to open the windows. After doing that, I hoisted myself up on the jerks car, and climbed in through the window.

After making it in, and backing up so Allie could get in, we decided to write a note to the asshole. I can't remember exactly what Allie wrote but it was explained what we had to do to get in the car, and also kindly suggesting that this person go back to driver's ed and learn some common decency.

Unfortunately, I did not have my camera on hand to document the atrocity that this person would probably call a good parking job, or of me climbing in the window. 'Tis a shame, but you will just have to use your imagination.

Daddy's Little Clone

So I've had a blog for a few weeks. Already I feel like I have run out of things to talk about. I was explaining this to Stone Groove the other day, and his advice was to "write about how much you love your daddy." Since I have nothing else to talk about, and since he loves to read about himself so much, I will oblige his wishes.

More and more lately, I have noticed how much I have become like Stone Groove. Whether it is saying stuff like "la dee doo doo" (one of his many phrases that do not make sense) or being weirdly silly like him. Mrs. Groove tells me how much I sound like my father (usually when I make a snide or pessimistic remark.)

My mom hates that when I come home, Stone Groove and I communicate around her by bickering. When I was living at home for a couple months after graduation, we had a routine, and became more like buddies.

So I guess the point of all this is that yes, I love my daddy (and mommy too of course.) Are you happy now Stone Groove? You got a blog all about you. But this is getting way too schmaltzy. So take the pictures below as proof that I have become way too much like him.