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I think I wrote about this several months ago, but I’m too lazy to go back and look. Anyway, unemployment has allowed me to indulge in some of my favorite guilty pleasures. Correction: it’s allowed me to indulge in some of my favorite CHEAP guilty pleasures. These are mostly limited to TV shows.

• Anything on the food network: I love semi-homemade cooking and unwrapped. I could do without the silliness of good eats, but that show did teach me how to perfectly poach catfish. I like the meals on 30 minute meals, but Rachel Ray bugs the crap out of me. Maybe it’s just her accent. I heard her say the Spanish word ‘tapas’ like Tap-ass at least ten times on today’s show.
• Project Runway: any season, any rerun, anytime.
• E news
• E True Hollywood Stories
• My Super Sweet 16 on MTV
• Adult Swim on Cartoon Network
• HGTV
• Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel

Memorial Day kicks off summertime. Kids are getting out of school, graduating, moving on. I’m ready to move on mentally. To have a break. I really haven’t been too too stressed lately, but basking in the laziness of the wedding aftermath has been therapeutic. I’m ready to do something exciting. I’d like to take a mini-honeymoon since Danny and I won’t have our real honeymoon until Christmas, when we have time to go somewhere for 10 days or more.

I’ve been doing some cleaning lately. I took the time to go through the piles of mail that have accumulated over the last month. Aside from gathering up a two inch stack of mail to be shredded, I culled through the ads and flyers and found a 1.5 year old gift certificate to Amazon that my cousins sent me for xmas back in 2004. It is set to expire in early June, so I decided to just spend it on whatever I wanted. I usually try to spend gift certs on useful items: appliances, books, etc… This time, I used it to buy two soundtracks from the show The O.C. I don’t watch the O.C. but I feel that A: soundtracks can have some fantastic music, and B: they connect me to current pop culture that I miss out on bc I’m wrapped up in my cable TV shows or friends’ blogs. Lately, Danny and I have been saying that music on the radio is crap. I get so excited when one of the local radio stations has a 90’s weekend. Am I old? Has it been 10 years since I graduated from high school, when I cared about going to concerts?

My high school reunion is next weekend. I’m looking forward to it. I think it’s because I’m staying busy and still trying new things. I haven’t resigned myself to a life or a job or even a geographic location. I can’t take full credit for my circumstances though. I’ve been given lots of opportunites not to mention the support of Danny, my family, and my friends. I feel like I can walk into my reunion and say “yes, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.” I never thought I’d be able to say that but I can. And I am very very very lucky and blessed. I have the confidence to move forward, but I wouldn’t have it without the hundreds of little pushes and catches from so many supportive people. I guess my point is, it’s not all me and I’m saying thanks. So, thank you.

Today is Danny’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!!!!

We went to On the Border for dinner tonight and we are still stuffed to the gills with pseudo-TexMex. Hey, at least they have queso. It was good but now we are painfully full and neither one of us wants to deal with work for the rest of the week.

Since Danny buys gadgets and new toys often, I had a hard time thinking of something cool to buy for him. I took him out to lunch and to a movie this weekend, but I wanted to give him something to unwrap on his birthday. I got him these:

The Labyrinth. No, not this one.

THIS one.

This. Is. Hard. I saw it and knew Danny had to have it, at least so I could play with it. Selfless: that’s me. One of my Jr. High teachers had one and I spent hours trying to get that damn BB around the track.

We played it for a while and determined that no human without super skillz could get the ball all the way to the end. Okay, so we gave up after five minutes, but it’s impossible!

I also got Danny a rubik’s cube. He is low on desk toys (he has none) and he needs to raise his level of “desk play” to that of his coworkers.

I also bought him a mini rubik’s cube because the regular one is impossible! Do you see a pattern here? We’ve both played with the mini-cube and have determined that it is just as cantakerous as its big brother. If it is doable, we feel even stupider-er.

Finally, here’s a game we can’t lose: Rubik’s snake. You make shapes. Bam, you’re done. However, many of the “shapes” are questionable. If you can guess what this is, I’ll give you a cookie.

It was out there. I knew it was out there, but did I dare search for it? This weekend I did. Fanfic: Veronica Mars fanfic to be precise.

I am not a professional writer of fiction, and I do not pretend to be one. However, after reading some of the Veronica stories posted, I thank GOD that professionals are doing the actual writing for the show. Admittedly, most of the bad stories are simply platforms for the the graphic sex scenes. This doesn’t disgust me or bother me. I kind of knew what I was getting into. Some of the stories (sans sex scenes), are actually very sweet if not a bit retarded.

Despite whatever intentions the writers had, the plots are usually boring/ridiculous and the dialogue is hilarious. Of course I read this stuff! It’s gold baby!

…back to my sad little UPN drama-world….

From Lisa:

Four jobs I have had:
1. Secretary at a gravel and concrete plant
2. Massage therapist’s receptionist
3. bus “girl” at a German restaurant
4. Researcher for a headhunter

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Dirty Dancing
2. Office Space
3. The Big Lebowski
4. Elf

Four places I have lived:
1. Johnson city, TX
2. Denton, TX
3. Austin, TX
4. Menlo Park, CA

Four TV shows I love:
1. Battlestar Galactica
2. Veronica Mars
3. Arrested Development
4. The Office
(so many to choose from: Project Runway, ANTM, My Name is Earl, )

Four places I have vacationed
1. Japan
2. France
3. Mexico
4. Canada

Four of my favorite dishes
1. Chicken tikka masala + naan
2. breakfast tacos
3. stuffed pork loin
4. Salmon and chips (as in fish n’chips)

Five sites I visit daily
1. www.televisionwithoutpity.com
2. www.fark.com
3. www.gofugyourself.com
4. Lisa’s blog
5. SFGate.com

Four places I would rather be right now
1. home with Danny and kitties
2. Kyoto
3. Austin
4. New Zealand

I get the feeling that I’m the only one who’s excited about the upcoming winter olympics. When I was a kid, watching the olympics each night was a huge, huge deal. My parents would record hours of coverage during the day and then we’d all sit in our back room in front of our big, wooden TV cabinet and watch the figure skaters glide across the screen. We watched Debbie Thomas and Katarina Witt (Mrs. MacGyver) battle it out. I secretly yearned for sexually questionable male skaters. I was ten. I couldn’t tell. I thought this was hot.

But who cares? They’re fun to watch - the women more so than the men, but still. I was cheering and gasping and holding my breath like everyone else….and I will again next weekend.

The perfect I’m-too-lazy-even-to-drive-to-Wendy’s and I-have-cool-snacks-in-the-fridge-for-once dinner.

sliced asian pears
sliced hachiya persimmon
double gloucester-with-stilton cheese
mixed grain crackers
a bottle of David Bruce 2002 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot Noir

Mmmm…yummy.

While checking out at cockblister (aka Bbuster) tonight, Danny and I asked the person behind the counter if any of our first-choice dvds were in. We were about to take home two of our third-choice picks because we were getting movies at 10:30 on Saturday night. It so happened that they had three movies we’d been waiting for. We grabbed them all and rejoiced that we didn’t have to check the shelves lamely week after week.

One of our first-choice picks was “The Brother’s Grimm”, a terry gilliam film starring matt damon and heath ledger. Matt Damon and Heath Ledger = grin. Movie overall = frown. It pretty much sucked. I’m not familiar with other terry gilliam movies but I hope this was not representative of his style. The story was bad bad bad and how, tell me HOW, can you have Heath Ledger and Matt Damon in a movie and not make either one of them the least bit sexy? Come on! They weren’t covered in prosthetic makeup or playing mentally challenged characters. Seriously, I was disappointed….

….and it wasn’t even funny.

Coming up: Serenity, Mean Girls, and Robots.

Danny and I went and saw the latest Harry Potter movie last night. You know you’re in for it when the only thing you’re craving is a big tub o’ buttery popcorn and there’s only one good way to git it.

The movie was probably the best one. I’ve never read any of the books, but the movies are fun to watch. I also want to see The Chronicles of Narnia and I don’t even care about the blatant Christian message.

In other news, I’ve been a busy bee. I spent all weekend working on my take-home final for statistics and I turned it in tonight. Whew…I did enjoy that class. The content was good but the 3.5 hours after work on Monday nights killed. I’m glad it’s over.

Now, I can focus on the pressing matter at hand: Christmas shopping. I’ve done a bit of it with the help of Danny and Daniel back in Texas. I’m not shopping for as many people this year which is somewhat unusual. Maybe it’s because, in the back of my mind, I’m working out the logistics of getting all of my gifts to Texas in one suitcase.

Right now, Danny is asleep on the sofa and the cats are sleeping on different levels of their kitten castle. Life is rough. Time for me to play online with a glass of wine.

I know: I’m a fruitcake.

Sadly, I knew it all along (and I totally had a crush on him in the seventh grade).

And now….