Last post of the month

I don't really have anything to say, but I wanted to write something for this last day of November! I saw "Capote" last night. I thought that Philip Seymor Hoffman's performance was truly remarkable. However, the film wasn't that good. It was slow in a lot of places, so slow, I wanted to leave or fall asleep at times. But, like I said, PSH's performance was amazing....he will definitely be nominated for an award and I wouldn't be surprised if he wins.
This coming Sunday I am going to see "The Family Stone," and I cannot wait! I hope it is as good as I want it to be. I saw "Derailed" the other day. Not a great movie, not a bad movie, just OK. Last week I saw Harry potter & The Goblet of Fire. It was AWESOME. I think it's my favorite of the 4 films to date. I want to go to Hogwarts, wish it was real. I also saw "Jarhead" last week. It was alright. I'd see it again just to watch Jake Gyllenhaal dance around in a Santa hat, nothing but a Santa hat ;). I also watched "Millions." It was one of my netflix'd movies. I loved it. It was surprisingly very good. The little boy in the film is too cute, and the story was sweet. The film's score by John Murphy was excellent as well. Even though the composer is no longer a client of ours, the score was still absolutely beautiful.
Wow, I've seen a lot of movies recently.
December is tomorrow! 24 days til Christmas! 23 days til I get to go home! 2 more hours in this office for today! eckk
That's it for now. PEACE.

Chocolate is better in color

Has anyone seen this M&Ms commercial? I love it! :)

"Thanksgiving's gone..." I keep thinking of that lyric and I've been singing it, which is appropriate, don't you think? :) It's from the Stellastarr* song, "Lost In Time." Anyway, Thanksgiving was good. My weekend was 4 days long, and although I dread Mondays and Sundays because of Mondays :) I am ready for this week to get going...and the next and so on, because I'm so ready for Christmas to get here. I'm excited about going home for a week!

Today I'm working hard on organizing a better follow-up system for my boss. He complains about the one he currently uses, however, it is a good system, he just doesn't use it correctly. I've explained it to him several times and it works, but he can't stick to anything for more than a few days. Yeah, so I'm trying to come up with a new one. I'm also working on some things that I'm doing for my "life makeover." Three of my friends in Texas are doing it and I've decided to do it with them. In one year, my life will have been made over! and done by me :) We have certain things we have to do and then once a week, we discuss everything together in a meeting. Since I don't live in Texas and I can't physically be at the life makeover meeting each week, I'm patched through by conference call. I have a lot to do before tonight's call! Might start a new blog, unpublished of course, but for me to organize my weekly tasks and then to be able to see my progress. :)


I'm listening to Stars today. I found the band on Amazon, strangely enough. I was looking for a particular Jenny Lewis song, and the album, Set Yourself on Fire came up in my search. It's keyboard-heavy, boy/girl trading vocals, lots of girl harmonies, dreamy dark pop stuff. If you like New Order, The Postal Service, Broken Social Scene, and Rilo Kiley...you will probably dig it. I'd say that's a good mix of what Stars sounds like. Apparently they have two other previous albums. I've been listening to their latest release. I'm going to go see if I can find their other stuff, hopefully it's available on itunes. Oh yeah, and they are Canadian...Montreal.


Depeche Mode. Anyone seen their new video? The song is called "Precious." I love it! They are getting older, but so am I, so whatever! The piano in the song kind of reminds me of another loved band of mine, Kent (from Sweden). I am working on my top albums/top songs of the year. I think this year is going to be a little rough. There is nothing I can think of in an instant that really just blew me away. But I'm still going to make the list. I will post it before the year's end. The website that I posted above (it's the link for the Depeche Mode video) also features other videos.....if you have not seen "Fix You," by Coldplay, it's worth a watch or two. Also there, a video from James Blunt. Heard of him? He is a musician based in the UK now, but was once an army general who served in Kosovo. His video for "Goodbye My Lover" is available there, too. The girl in the video is Mischa Barton, just a random fact for ya. Oh and there's a Royksopp video. Pretty good. And some Madonna and Ricky Martin....gag. Not old Madonna, but gag to Ricky Martin and most of Madonna's new stuff. Watch out for Shakira though. She's in like every add in between the videos that you click on. Seriously, Shakira sucks.

The Weekend

I just wrote an entire blog and then I went to add some photos before publishing it, and the stupid pop-up blocker thing caused me to lose it! I'm so frustrated! I really really hate blogger right now. I hate explorer and I hate my pop-up blocker thingy too!

Ok, since I'm completely frustrated and I don't feel like rewriting everything, I'm going to do a quick shortened version.

FRIDAY:
I wasn't going to do anything. I planned on doing nothing and I was annoyed and tired after sitting in my car for over an hour trying to get home from work. The traffic was a nightmare. I guess everyone was leaving town early for the upcoming holiday. But my friend, Ryan called. He used to live here, but he moved to Texas a few months ago. He called to say that he was in town and wanted to meet up for a drink. Since I have not seen him in a while and I wasn't doing anything, I decided to drag Quinn along with me and go meet him in West Hollywood. At 10:30 he was still at dinner, so we decided to get a drink in the area and wait for him call when dinner was over. We went to Formosa and had a beer. It was then midnight and we hadn't heard from him. We just decided to go after that. Even if he had called right then, there wouldn't have been a lot of time to really hang out and talk and stuff. So we headed back to the westside and ended up at Renee's, as usual. Just before closing, Shane, Aaron and Margaret walked in. We had one more drink with them and then went to their apartment to hang out a little while longer. I wasn't going to do anything that night and I ended up getting home after 4 in the morning.

SATURDAY:
Woke up starving. For the two days prior, the only thing I had eaten was Ramen. I knew I was going to make a special trip to the South Bay Galleria on Saturday to eat Chic-Fil-A, so I wanted to be really ready for it. Yes, I know I'm a freak about Chic-Fil-A. Season, Quinn and I left our apartment at 12:45 and we got to the Chic-Fil-A at 2:45! I was soooooo hungry! But then very satisfied. I just don't understand why there are not more in the LA area?
Ok so after that, went home & relaxed for a little while and then got ready for dinner. We were meeting at Firefly in studio city at 7pm. Of course we got there at 7:15..we can't seem be on time, ever. Luckily, we were not the only ones who were late. Michelle and Corey were about 30 minutes late. So, Adam, Season, Shane, Michelle, Corey, Quinn and I had a good time at dinner. We ordered drinks and food (had some really good cheesy baked mashed potatoes and that was it because I was still full from chic-fil-a earlier). Michelle made Adam a cake and she's the best! Chocolate cake with creamy chocolate frosting. Yum. After dinner, we ended up at 3 of Clubs...a bar in Hollywood that we used to frequent a lot, but don't anymore since we live on the other side of town now. One side of the bar is a lounge and the other is dancing. I didn't go into the dance side at all that night. Adam had plenty of drinks and shots. I got him the shot you only drink on your 21st birthday, the cement mixer. So gross, it curdles in your mouth. Season got a pretty good picture of his expression. Hopefully soon, she will send me her pictures from the night and I can post those. Adam used a fake ID for the last year to get into bars, so it was time to retire "Matt Cole." It was a military ID and his name was Matt Cole. We all had fun, and I'm glad the guy is now legal..finally! Here are some photos from the night:






SUNDAY:
Woke up, went to Ralph's with Quinn and did our Thanksgiving dinner shopping. We are cooking even though it's going to be a small gathering this year. Usually we cook for 15-20 people (and there is about 8 or 9 who come), but this year Season is going to be in Philly with Shane and Shannon is going to be with her boyfriend's family. But we're cooking anyway. Adam might come over, Justin and Cricket (Quinn's sister) too. I love love love Thanksgiving, I'm really looking forward to it. 4 days! :) After shopping, we went home and had a marathon of the TV show, Lost. I am completely hooked now. We have 2 more discs to watch and then were almost all caught up. I will need to hear from Justin about what we have missed so far in this season. Another show now that I'm going to have to watch regularly. Jeez. I talked to my Grandmother last night for an hour and then I watched Gray's Anatomy and went to bed. Oh and by the way, if anyone has seen the commercials for the Stouffers's new frozen dinners, "corner bistros," and is thinking about trying them...my advice is DON'T. They are not that good. Another reason I need TIVO back....by watching commericals again, I am buying gross frozen dinners. I think we are going to get our buddy, TIVO back sometime after Christmas. Yippeee.
Tonight I'm going to see the new Harry Potter movie at warners studio with Adam and tomorrow night I'm going to see Jarhead at Universal studios with Quinnie. And then it will be Wednesday and my last day of work for the week. So glad it's a short week!
That's all I have to write for now. The first one had a lot more details, but I just couldn't rewrite it all again, sorry. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

PS...

my favorite spam email currently is from "The North Pole." Sender: The North Pole. I crack up everytime. ;)

New Baby :)

Molly called me this morning with some GREAT news. She's pregnant again! Only 3 weeks. I'm so excited!!!!!!!!!! I get to see her and Riley in Houston during Christmas vacation, too. Molly put up a video of Riley on her site. The link is in my "links" section on the sidebar. Go check it out. She is too cute.

Also, for anyone who cares, the new Starsailor record is currently on repeat on my ipod. It's excellent. I really liked their 2nd album (Silence is Easy), but their first (Love is Here) is the best. This album, their 3rd release, titled On The Outside is not as good as the first, but better than the 2nd. So I think they are heading in the right direction again...James from starsailor used to be on my "list," but he lives in the UK, is married and has a couple kids. He's just not a good contender for the list, but he's still adorable. I forgot to mention, they are a great live band. They are touring Europe right now...hope they tour the US again soon!

Well that's all I have to say right now.

Tuesday

So I ate some disgusting orange chicken from panda today. I used to love panda. I'm not sure I'm ever going back. It's so hard to find good (and I mean GOOD) chinese food for a decent price. Panda was never the greatest, but it was cheap, fast and better than the chinese restaurants that serve cat! Anyway, the person who took my order was a man, I swear, wearing a dress and lipstick and a wig. He freaked me out a little bit, too. Why do men who want to be women just freakin be a man and be with men and be GAY? Because being yourself and being Gay doesn't really bother me. Why should it? But pretending to be a woman when you are a man and smiling at me, like you're my little old aunt who just came over to say HI....yeah that's not cool.
My boss went to a sushi lunch with a friend today. He had too much Saki (is that how you spell that?) and he's been prank calling me for the last half hour. Like I don't know that it's him? He is so childish sometimes. He goes on these "business lunches" with this friend about once a month or once every few months. Last time they went to lunch, the guy wrecked his car because he drove up onto the sidewalk of a street going about 60mph. These men are 43 and 53 years old...they think they are 16 when they get together. It's ridiculous.
Something else that bugs me....I wear a freakin sweater today because this morning when I wake up, it's cold in my apartment. Cold enough that I actually turned the heat on while I got ready. So now I'm at work, in the valley and it's 85 degrees farenheit. I'm sweatin around in my car, blastin the A/C... It's November and earlier this morning I had the heat turned on! What is wrong?
This coming weekend we are celebrating Adam's (seasson's little bro)21st Birthday. The original VEGAS plans have been postponed to sometime early next year, as not everyone could make it this weekend. So now we are cleebrating in town, probably somewhere in Hollywood. I can't believe the guy is only 21. In my mind, he's been like 25 for the last few years. I'm also heading to the store sometime this weekend to get the goods for the Thanksgiving meal that we are cookin up. Here's the menu:

~Turkey
~Cornbread stuffing
~Rice dressing
~Greenbean casserole
~Mashed potatoes
~Gravy
~Crescent rolls
~beer/wine/drinks
~dessert: peanut butter pie

The menu is pretty traditional, except we don't really like sweet potatoes or cranberries, so we're leaving those dishes off the menu. The rice dressing is traditional in my family, but not very traditional for other people. It's delish, though! It's my favorite thing on the menu. But the greenbean casserole is pretty tasty too. And Quinn makes the best mashed potatoes EVER! If you look at my flickr page (it's on the sidebar on your right), I believe there are some pictures from previous Thanksgivings.

Last weekend I went shopping with pops. We went to Amoeba (the greatest record store in the world), kohls, michaels, DSW shoeplace, and target. I had to "page" dad in the kohls. Very annoying when you are circling the store, about to have a panic attack because you've been searching so long that people are starting to stare at you in a weird way. I used to not let these kinds of things bother me, but as I get older my patience is running out. Once when I was about 7 I got "lost" in Sears. I like to think my dad lost me, but hmm, he was the adult and I was the child. We used to go to Sears with my dad a lot..one or two of my sisters and I at a time. Mom would usually be with one or two of my other sisters doing some other errand on the other side of town. I usually chose to go with dad because I wasn't really a "girly" little girl. I hated being in shopping malls all day and riding around in the car from fabric store to grocery store to the next with mom. Dad liked to get in and out most of the time. AND Sears also had this candy thing in the middle of the store. We usually got an icee or those sweet colored balls, like cherry sours, but all kinds of different colors. Where would you go if you were 7?! Candy! He also didn't really "watch" us. Mom threatened us if we left her side. This was probably a good thing because if she didn't we would be hiding in some clothes rack or causing some kind of trouble and she would have gone nuts. Anyway, Dad walked in to a store and he pretty much went straight for the automotive section. In Sears there was all kinds of things to play on. This particular time that I got "lost" I was playing on the tractors and the next thing I knew I couldn't find my dad or my sister, Ginger. They left me. It was cool though, I was a pretty brave kid. I walked up to the customer service area and waited at the counter, while they paged my dad over the PA in the store. Apparently, I kept the customer service workers entertained with all kinds of stories. I don't remember being scared or worried or anxious or anything. But anyway, yeah so back to the weekend. Pops and I also went to the Getty museum. Nice day, pretty good weather except for the LA smog. And after that we saw "Shopgirl." I don't think my dad enjoyed the movie as much as I did. He likes the true-happy ending "Dreamer" films most. This wasn't a bad ending, but it was no "Dreamer." Anyway, I love Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman was pretty funny. The film was shot in many parts of Silverlake...where I used to live. So it was sort of neat to see the familiar areas up on the big screen. Restaurants and streets that I've eaten at/walked down/driven up many times...those kinds of neato things. Good Movie.
My boss should have been back by now and he's not. They probably went to a strip club or something a middle aged man who thinks he's 16 years old would do. Gotta go do some work now! Peace n chicken grease.

Today I've been thinking about what my life is missing. I have also been thinking about how many mistakes I've made today, alone. I woke up late because I thought I hit snooze on my alarm and I actually just turned it off. When I pulled out of the parking garage, I pulled out right in front of someone. They let me know that they were pissed by honking and holding down the horn. I forgot to drop off a package on my way to work like I was supposed to, so I had to call a messenger to come pick it up and deliver it on a rush order. The messenger showed up 4 hours later. I wrote some emails today and I misspelled MANY words. Luckily, those emails were all personal and not work-related. I took down a phone number wrong in a message that I was taking. When my boss called the person back, he got some non-english speaking person on the other end. These mistakes are all very minor and don't mean a lot in the grand scheme of life, but I wonder what they mean, and I wonder if things would be different if I had gone through this day error-less. Suppose I woke up on time and left on time, the person I pulled out in front of wouldn't have bene there and I wouldn't have pissed him/her off. I wonder how many little things it takes to cause a major effect on something BIG? I know I think too much and I should be thinking about so many other things. But I wonder if I'm missing something in my life because I overslept too many times? I wonder if timing really is everything? How many times have I missed an opportunity or was saved from bad circumstances because of the little things? These are the dumb kind of things I think about on a daily basis. When I was a kid, I remember laying in my bed at night trying to fall asleep, and for hours I would try so hard to understand where I came from and what truly existed aside from what I knew (which at the time, was not a lot). I fell asleep eventually, but in those moments I can remember being so awake and so exhausted trying to "understand" it all. I don't really know any more than I did then. Back then though, I was listening to paula abdul on my walkman and these days I'm listening to Ryan Adams on my ipod. It's the same thing...I'm still wondering these unanswerable space-like questions...many years later, only the music and the format have changed. I feel asleep to Ryan Adams' new CD Jacksonville City Nights the other night. It's the perfect sleepy time music. I love his voice and each song just flows right onto the next.
Season made me a new mix CD. I uploaded it onto my ipod. I'm so excited to listen to it tonight on my way home from work.
I've ordered some stuff for Riley's scrapbook that I'm making for my friend, Molly. The stuff is great..I love it. I've ordered all the pictures that I'm going to use from an online album that Molly made for me with Snapfish(which is, by the way, my favorite online photo thingy). I just need to find the album that I want to use and start scrapping. The ideas are already there-I'm keeping them in a safe place(yeah right-my head!). I forget stuff A LOT, so I did actually right down some of these ideas on paper. Anyway, I'll take pictures of my book as I work at it and post them here so you can see what I'm talking about.
My friend, Season has a blog now too! Go say HI if you have the time. She's just getting started, so there's not a lot to read yet, but it's cool that she's blogging! I love it. I wish everyone had a blog. Season is running a marathon next year and she's been training for it over the last 2 months. They run in groups every saturday. This week they are up to 14 miles! I'm going to cheer her on at the actual race next year, I think it's so great what she's doing. She's the kind of person who is dedicated to everything she does/starts/etc. And she's my shubes! She came over last night and we hung out and just watched TV and talked. It was nice having her around. We plan to do it every Wednesday night now! Something else to look forward to :)
Pops is in town and I think were going to grab dinner together somewhere tonight. I don't have any real plans yet for the weekend, but I imagine I'll be doing something with him. Last weekend we went to the Huntington Gardens and took a 3 hour tour. It was probably only a 2 hour tour, but my group was made up of 75and up year old geezers and if you didn't know this, they are not the quickest people in the world! Our tour guide was this little old lady, she was sweet though. And fast! The gardens were beautiful and the day turned out to be nice...not too hot, so that was good.
Well this entry turned out to be longer than I thought and I'm out of things to say now. Tomorrow is FRIDAY! :)

Oh yeah and Zach Braff says he still loves me and that he's going to post a new blog, but what the hell? That was over 2 months ago!

free music wednesday

Well, free music anyway. I've just discovered Mazarin, who have been around a while, but are new to me! Here's a song to listen to and it's called The New American Apathy. Check it out.
And here's something I found..it's a video to Grandaddy's song, "Jed's Other Poem." It's cool because the video was programmed in Applesoft II on a 1979 Apple ][+ with 48k of RAM. As someone who knows nothing about computer programming, this does not mean a lot, but that blinky green text sure is old school and I like it. Go watch it. The song is good, too.
Peace for now.

what I've been doing today...

If you are interested in iPODs and subway maps and my music suggestions, this entry might entertain you.
Check out this site, ipod subway maps dot com. It's hilarious! Well, I think it's funny. It's probably usefull for a lot of people that ride the subway and listen to their ipods on a day-to-day basis, but I find it amusing. Nonetheless, the site is good.
In music news, signed to Travis's UK label, Independiente, the London based new-wave, influenced rock band, White Rose Movement has a their new single available on video and I'm posting it here if you want to check it out. The song is called "Love is a Number." Pitchfork gave the song a 5 star rating, however, I'm not sure I agree.

Remember a few months ago, I posted about the band, Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah? Well, I'm still loving them and I'm still clapping and saying "Yeah!" I think everyone I know should too. Here are some songs to get you listening...This is Home On Ice, Upon This TidalWave of Young Blood, and Over and Over Again. All you need is a QuicktimePlayer to stream them. Just click on my links!
I will be back later to blog some more about music, but I just got interrupted with some actual work. Can you believe that?!

It's November 1st

The first day of November, the 11th month of the year...I'm surprised how fast this year is going by. One of these years I think I'm going to have a mental break down just because I can't figure out how time is going by so fast. Once, when I was 8 I remember sitting in front of the VCR clock just to count the minutes in an hour. I did this because I was a strange child, and because I was waiting to go to my friend's birthday party. I had an hour to wait. It was one of those moments when you are told something you don't understand exactly. I was trying to understand time. I was all ready to go to the party but my mom said I had to wait an hour, so I put on my Tiffany tape and I watched the minutes go by on the VCR timer. I was totally into Tiffany more than Debbie Gibson, just a side note in case you were wondering. Back to time...After that hour passed I had this new found understanding of time. That hour was sooooooooooooo long. I have a slight obsession with time because in high school when I worked as a hostess at Outback Steakhouse, I did a lot of counting of the minutes. There were a lot of busy nights at Outback where I didn't have to count the minutes, but there were definitely the slower nights, too, where I didn't have much to do. On those slow nights, I would draw little boxes on the hostess stand. Each box represented one minute and for every minute that passed, I colored in 1 box. It made the time go by faster, somehow, and it was this weird feeling of accomplishment when the boxes were full.

I saw "The Weatherman" over the weekend. It was alright. I laughed more than I thought I would, but it was more of a serious movie than a comedy. I expected it to have that "American Beauty" ending, but it was more simple than that...I'm not sure what to think of the ending. Anyway, not bad, but not great-super-fantastic-5 stars! I want to see Shopgirl, Walk the Line and Prime. All three are next on my list to see.

It was Halloween yesterday. I went to one party on Friday night, but I didn't dress up. No crazy and fun pictures to share, sorry. Maybe next year.

Has anyone seen the Itunes Custom Cards? I got one a few months ago, but now I'm seeing them more and more. They are a new way to promote music. This will eliminate the use of the bulky promo singles CDs that usually make their way into some recycled bin. These cards are easy to send, are instant, sleek and DIGITAL, which is where music is heading altogether, anyway. Here's an example of what one of these cards looks like: .

Well it's almost 4 oclock now. I have 2 more hours left in the office and then I'm going to see pops tonight for dinner. He's back in LA for 3 more weeks for the end of his assignment. After the new year, he suspects he will be out here once or twice a month, which will be nice. That way I'll get a chance to see him!

That is all for now. PEACE OUT.