count your blemishes...you can't, they're all gone

Weekends + rock shows + best friends = happiness!

Friday night I trekked up to Austin for my belated Valentine's Day gift: Built to Spill concert for me plus 3 friends. The 3 I chose were Aneil, Chad, and Amanda. Alex added himself to the mix, and was a welcome addition indeed.

Built to Spill, whom I adore, are pretty awesome in general, but when they "jam" it sort of kills me a little. Hi hello I love pop songs which are typically 4 minutes tops, so the extended jam is a little exhausting. Here's some incessant jamming in action:

Luckily, however, their set was basically a greatest hits collection. Here is a good one of Doug (complete with fluffy beard) playing my favorite, Carry the Zero:

Here I am attempting to casually make a photo in which we look like we're a couple, but due to awkward camera angle my head is larger than his entire body.

Amanda and Alex attempt to pose for multiple cameras paparazzi style:

I love these two:

The cosmos were working in our favor, because multiple best friends appeared later at Club Deville, since Sean's band played a show down the street also! I loooove running into best friends out on the town and it was much fun indeed. Some of Aneil's friends were there too, so it was festive indeed. Here are some cuties:

Neha and Sonal are adorable sisters:

We are not sisters, but apparently are in love with our own, and each other's faces:

These lemon drops were the beginning of the end for Amanda:

I like this boy:

Unfortunately I didn't take any pics at lunch the next day, but it was lovely, as there were meat pies and Sean and Carol and Amanda and Alex and Kat and Such and Chad and Aneil. I had the best time ever! And gorged myself on flaky buttery yumminess.

Aneil and I went on anniversary special date Saturday night. First, he took me to Cavender's Boot City to try on boots:

I liked them but am going to wait before purchasing because as it turns out boots are pricey! But I look sort of adorable I think! We also tried 2 fancy restaurants, but the wait time was ridiculous so we ended up at my fave, Z Tejas, where I ate the richest most delicious fish ever. I washed it all down with rum, so by 10:30 I thought I might pop and/or pass out...oh! the epicurian lifestyle I lead! Extravagant! So instead of a night out on the town with friends or a movie date, I opted to have Aneil take me home so I could change into pajamas and fall asleep during the SNL monologue. Pathetic.

So, good weekend overall. It turns out I love: rock music, best friends, boyfriend, meat pies, cocktails, and overeating. No doi.

In weekday news, I had to come home and cram for my Marketing test but I think I did okay. The rest of the week I will be busy putting together my Management paper. School is exhausting, and apparently studying while simultaneously watching "Scrubs" season 4 works pretty well.

Houston janitors have gone on strike due to the recent formation of a janitor union, so it might start getting stinky in our building. Today the building manager went from bathroom to bathroom to drop off bottles of liquid soap, since there was no one to refill the soap dispensers in the bathrooms. Oy.

I am an idiot and had to call Tivo to make sure I understood how to fast forward/rewind. Apparently when you fast forward it auto rewinds a little to allow for better commercial manuevering. Brilliant, but apparently confusing for little brown girls trying to Tivo "The Bachelor".

Apparently Yellowstone National Park is sitting on top of a potential "mega-volcano" and if it ever erupts it will wipe out all of mankind and restult in an ice age. Ruh roh.

FM radio observations from my trip to Austin:

1) Light rock radio plays entirely too much Faith Hill. Also she sucks. The song "This Kiss" gets worse every time it is played, and could very well cause the Yellowstone mega-volcano to build enough pressure to erupt any day now. Light FM must be stopped! Her other song, "I love the way you love me" or something like that, may even be worse.
2) Celine Dion's Titanic song has not held up very well (i.e. it sucks so so much), despite its Oscar win. Blaugh.
3) The Beach Boys' "Kokomo" is really really awesome. This is true even when considered completely independently from its association with "Cocktail" (although who doesn't love a good Elisabeth Shue movie?) and viewed apart from the Beach Boys' brilliant catalogue. It's just great, great great.

I read a funny article today rating the top hits of 1964 and the writer's review of Doo Wah Diddy is hilarious. Here is a sampling:

As you can see by my dramatic re-creation of Mr. Mann's inner monologue, I am generally underwhelmed by this tune. HOWEVER. Its Wikipedia page does contain what I believe to be the greatest sentence in the history of Wikipedia: ''The song would later achieve worldwide fame when it was performed by Jesse and the Rippers on Full House, sometimes in medley with the Beach Boys' 'Kokomo.'''

As anyone who knows me could attest, I love Full House in a weird way. I'm sure once I figure out the damn Tivo functionality I will start recording reruns off TVLand. I love Uncle Jesse and the Rippers and their belief that a 60's cover band with no original material could maybe just maybe land a record contract with a major label! Love it!

2 ,yes 2, "Kokomo" references in one journal entry! Score!

Happy Day!

1) Jeffrey WINS! Project Runway. I'm going to reference my previous post, and make note that I was completely correct that he did not cheat, but was over-budget and had to lose the wigs. (But wasn't Tim Gunn adorable with all his crying and proud dad behavior?) Also, today I found the dress I purchased last weekend online, and it was part of Shelli Segal's "Rock n' Roll meets Hollywood Glamour" collection, so obviously it makes sense that I love Jeffrey's rock n' roll aesthetic. (Or, "goth", as Michael Kors would say). At any rate, hurrah for Jeffrey. (And for gorgeous Marilinda, the model.)

2) Tivo arrived! I think I have it all hooked up, but apparently it takes some time to set up so I might try it after Top Chef, but I am so excited!

3) Top Chef premiered and the new host is hot and only slightly less robotic, but still an improvement. I like that they specifically noted that Tom Caligula (or whatever his name is) is NOT an avuncular charming Tim Gunn-type mentor, but a mean mean judge. THIS is the reason that Top Chef won't replace Project Runway in my heart in the off-season, but I DO love food, so we'll see how the season turns out.

4) I made a 97 on my Management test! Hooooray!!!!!

5) Apparently I have lost 1 lb this week!

6) I see Amanda and Chad and Aneil in less than 2 days!

7) All 3 of my favorite brown girls are coming to my birthday party next month.

8) I SEE AMANDA CHAD AND ANEIL IN LESS THAN 2 DAYS!

le happy sigh

quick summary

Wilco makes me happy. Excellent show with 2 encores and a happy enthusiastic crowd. Plus Jeff Tweedy is freaking adorable. Plus there was a best friend collision extreme, with Amanda, Alex, and law school pal Amos, plus Aneil and his 2 best friends, Jenny and John. I think the group dynamics were okay though, and everyone had a lot of fun.

After the show, we went to Oak Hills for some post show cocktails and pizza. (visit Amanda's blog for photos and witty commentary)

I hated to say goodbye to such cute kids on Saturday, but luckily I was still able to hang out with Amanda the rest of the day at the fancy mall adjacent to Fiesta Texas. We were shopping for dresses for her to wear to a wedding, but I am the one who ended up buying a dress. Did you know Neiman Marcus only accepts American Express or Neiman Marcus credit? What's with that? Even McDonald's accepts Visa! Whatever. I am now a Neiman Marcus credit account holder...I'm sure that account will see tons of action in the next year, since I love to buy couture and designer brand items. Bleh.

We also drank Godiva Elixir, which was a delicious chocolately treat that you should all try!

In other news, I bought a Tivo! It arrives in 3 days and I can't wait. Obviously now that I am a Neiman Marcus shopper I can afford such extravagance! You can rewind TV! I can record Ugly Betty while I watch The Office! Holy crap! And the countdown to television bliss begins...

Project Runway finale tomorrow...prediction: Jeffrey is not found guilty of cheating, but is over budget and can't use the blonde wigs he planned to use for his models. I love his collection, so I am hoping I am correct and he gets to compete. Also, Amanda and Alex introduced me to Top Chef, which is the equivalent of PR but with food, so luckily I will have something to Tivo until PR comes back for a new season.

I am pretty uninteresting lately, but I'm blaming it on school work and lack of spare time to cultivate my quirks and whatnot. I will try to pick up some slack by visiting darling brown boy and seeing Built to Spill this Friday. Yes, I am going to Austin the weekend before my test. I'm craaazy!

I just got super excited whilst watching "Made" because the geeky girl who was made into a pageant queen got a kiss on the cheek from her crush, the guy who watches Stargate with her. I freaking love this show!

In summary, this week I love: tater tots with What-A-Burger ketchup, the fact that Amanda understands my love for What-A-Burger ketchup, the fact that Aneil doesn't understand my love for What-A-Burger ketchup yet accepts it nonetheless, everyone I saw Wilco with, Wilco, Sushi Zushi, the very thought of Tivo, keeping in touch with old friends, and young love. This week I hate: the very thought of my Management project, my bizarre addiction to Starbucks vanilla lattes, Houston drivers, and the fact that at this moment I'm not eating tater tots with What-A-Burger ketchup.

my ideal evening

So I finished my management exam, which was real long and entirely made up of essays, but I felt good about it (at least I was able to write something for each question), so that's good.

And after a solid week of dieting, exercising, studying, and being hopped up on espresso, I came home, put on pajamas, made cheese toast, and am currently drinking a lone star beer and watching the Project Runway season finale.

All that's missing is a handful of best friends and a cute brown boyfriend, and this could be the best evening of all time.

Hope everyone else is smiling. In 2 days I will be watching Wilco and it will be grand.

and you may tell yourself - this is not my beautiful wife!

Hey beauties.

The past couple of weeks have been significantly less eventful than the previous weeks’ and their constant vacations, but I will do my best to keep it interesting.

The other day I was driving home from work and I stopped at a red light and 2 men crossed the street in front of me. As he was walking, the big guy pulled his shirt up over his belly (I guess he was hot?) and just sort of held it there, belly exposed, and kept on walking. It was so funny...and I had to of course fight the impulse to get out of my car and hug his big ol' belly. That's the thing...I love bellies! My brown boy has a little one and I love it. By definitition I am supposed to hate bellies, since they are unhealthy and I don't want to lose any other loved ones to heart disease, but I can't help loving them! Maybe because my dad had a big furry belly and I loved hugging it too. My best frens may even remember my long ago fascination with "fluffy" boys and my unfortunate experience with one named Will Rogers (never before in the history of the world had a pretty hipster so thrown herself at a chubby OPAS exec). At any rate, I guess I've given up on overall fluff, but I gotta say, it's harder to give up the belly.

Speaking of bellies, check out the cute fluffy snowman/penguin statue I purchased today. When you press the button it sings, and the snowman dances and the penguins jingle bells. Can you believe they are already selling Christmas stuff?


Other things I have been thinking about:

1) How do they make store-bought hamburger buns? If it’s just a whole bun that is cut in half, why are the edges so smooth? Why was there never a Mr. Rogers episode in which he visited his neighborhood large-scale bread manufacturing facility? (oh man, his visit to the crayon factory was awesome)

2) Has anyone (besides me) noticed the amount of sexy that has been brought back lately? I mean, I’ll go ahead and say it, “Justin Timberlake, mission accomplished!” Here is a plot not only of the national average amount of sexy but my own personal sexiness, shown pre-JT and post-JT. (shown as percent sexiness):


Also, (and I don’t think this is a coincidence) the mastermind behind it all is the strangely charming, belly-toting Timbaland, further evidence that bellies are sexy, um back, um sexy/back. (Note the huge % increase in the chart above.)

3) Is it wrong of me to be rooting for evil Jeffrey on Project Runway? I think it’s a combination of the judges comments exasperating me (one week he is awarded for being rock n’ roll, then the following week they say he is too rock n’ roll and needs to tone it down, so the next week when he tones it down, he is berated for not keeping it real). Ugh. Also I’m glad he stuck around so we get one more week of Michael Kors incorrectly referring to his style as “goth”. And let’s face it: given the choice I would obviously opt for Jeffrey or Uli to be my stylists. Also, I think as my love for Tim Gunn grows, Michael Kors is less and less appealing. Sort of like when you have a boyfriend you looove you sort of lose interest in checking out other guys altogether. This is further proof that my love of Tim Gunn is indeed pure and true (love, truuuue love).

4) Why is “Flavor of Love” so appealing? Aneil (who does not have cable) is constantly perplexed about why I would watch such a thing, but when he came over this weekend, he too, was completely hooked. Our genuine excitement that a new episode was coming on was alarming. It’s just laugh aloud funny and perplexing and shocking all at once. And every time he kisses one of his ladies, he exclaims “Flavor Flav!” Why???

In non-pop-culture news, I was 3-for-3 in terms of hanging out with best girl friends last weekend. Amanda was in town for a bridal shower, Maria came over after she left to have dinner with me, then Amee stopped by after visiting her parents! Eeep! I love all of those girls!

Also, brown boy and I made it to our 1st anniversary as a couple. This was met with not much fanfare, as we live in 2 different cities, but there were lots of icky phone calls about love and whatnot. He is great, and I might have completely fallen apart this past year without him so yay brown boy! (Also he is cute, so that’s a relief.)

Thursday I am going to a meeting with my company’s VP of Engineering. We want to tell him we need to spend millions of dollars on compressor components. I really don’t belong in such a high-powered situation, I don’t think. And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

I have a management test tomorrow so I should get back to learning about motivation theories and whatnot (laaaame). This weekend I am going to San Antonio, where I will see Amanda + Wilco + Brown Boy, so I can’t complain at all! Life is busy but sunny this week, so hurrah!