Wicked Smart

"Look Jeff! Finger condoms!" So tonight was the bi-annual company bowling event. Last time we held this, there were almost 40 people that ended up tryin to squeeze onto 5 lanes. This time around...there were 13. And 3 of them were kids! I showed up early to do the whole paperwork/payment thing and noticed at the shoe rental counter there were these foil packages that said something about protecting your fingers from the bowling ball holes, in case you were worried about who used the ball last. The picture was not very helpful at removing my mind from the gutter (the gutter-get it???? bowling! gutter! hahaha!)and since they were only 3 for $1 I had to buy them. Jeff showed up next and I had to tell him about my crazy find. I mean, really, who expects tiny finger condoms? And wouldn't they be hard to keep on your fingers as your hurl a 10+ lb ball down the lane? Jeff and I thought they were hilarious and he snapped a few pictures of the packages for the office bowlin...

I am thinking the bunny would have the upper paw as it would be hard to imagine anyone not doubled over laughing at a man in a giant pink bunny costume threatening to "kick your ass!" Costumed pub crawls are the best.

*Feedback, and then a voice comes over the loudspeaker* "And now-now-now, for the first time ever-ever-ever on this blog-blog-blog, a recipe-pe-pe..." Melodramatic? Never! This recipe is absolutely worthy of such acclaim, such pomp AND circumstance, such astounding appreciation that Paula Deen and Tyler Florence should kneel down and worship at the alter of it. Hmm. I guess Paula Deen wouldn't as it doesn't include any butter. But Tyler Florence could totally worship it. In fact, there is no reason he shouldn't. You know, it kind of burns my butt he isn't lighting a candle now! What a jerk! Take 8oz of cream cheese. Never use light cream cheese as that's an abomination to all that Philadelphia Cream Cheese stands for. Unless you are a certain somebody who eats cream cheese like it's going to be pulled from the shelves and rationed like WWII tin metal tomorrow. In that case, PLEASE use light cream cheese as I don't have a cute enough black dress rig...

Yesterday's obsession was fruit, today's is Macys, which I still slip up and refer to as "The Bon" from time to time. I have to say it bugs the crap out of me when people correct me when I do that. You know what store I'm talking about, I know what store I am talking about, there is no reason to interrupt what I'm sure is an utterly fascinating story about shopping to correct my choice of store names. But regardless of what it is called this week, I love it. I have never, and will never pay full price for anything there as it will inevitably be on sale 30 days later..which is really the full reason I love it. Well, that and they do tend to have great customer service. And return policies. And they ship me boxes of tacky fish crap and then have UPS stalk me for weeks over it. Okay, maybe that last one belongs on the cons list...

You have to REALLLLLLY love garlic to ever need a clove of Elephant Garlic, made even more monstorous by their placement near the tiny onions. Produce sections actually fascinate me as I love to see rows and rows of fresh produce. I love the colors and (most of) the scents, even the gross fruits and vegetables I would never purchase, like eggplant. Farmers markets are even more enticing to me, I spend way too long walking down the lanes and in and out of each booth. The most terrifying part is knowing that Summer, aka "the dawn of all good fruit" will soon be upon us. These are the months where I spend way too much money on way too much fruit, and am forced to pawn it off on everyone I know because I will never be able to consume it all but can't help myself when I see a roadside produce stand. And although I am happy I don't live in Eastern Washington for a rather large variety of reasons most of the year, these are also the months I am SO grateful I don't as...

Last post (this week, muwahahaha) about the Sounders. Tear. They won the United States Open Cup (USOC) last season, which is awesome as it was their first season in the MLS and they were able to kick ass and take names. They beat out DC United (or should we say DC Usucktid)in their home stadium 2-1. I remember watching this game on tv and finding it interesting that there was a complete lack of sportsmanship shown by both the opposing team and their fans. Both just got up and walked out of the stadium after the team lost. And I know most people would leave but it is not that hard to show a little courtesy and appreciation for a game well played by spending 5 minutes watching the award ceremony even if the home team loses. There is no reason to bolt out of the stadium as if you had eaten too many chili dogs!

Qwest Field. 3.25.10 Sounders vs. Philidelphia Union. It may look a bit overcast in this picture. That does not even begin to explain it. Essentially, there were almost 37,000 of us morons standing around in the pouring rain with the wind gusting off of the water watching two teams slip and slide around the field for 90 minutes. And it was fun. It was loads of fun, minus the soaked-straight-through-to-your-bones feeling. And the "Okay I might not be able to see the field but at least having these people standing directly in front of me is keeping my nipples from protruding through my bra, two layers of shirts and northface jacket" wind. I bet none of you can guess who went home and took a 30 minute blistering hot shower, turned on the heater in their room for the first time in a month and wore sweats and a long shirt to bed. Only 8 more days til the next home game!

What more is there to say?

These folks are some of Sounders Wave, the kick ass band that plays during Sounders games. My friend from h.s. plays on the Wave. That puts him in the "cool" category but only from March to October. (Just kidding!) I've heard they have cool new moves and songs this season, so can't wait to see/hear them, unless it's the macarana and then I revoke the "just kidding."

In honor of the Sounders season opener this week, I am making Wicked Smart wicked awesome with a week o' soccer. Anyone who ever said futbal can't succeed in the US needs to swing by Qwest Field one of these days and see the excitment that brews and explodes during the 90 minutes the Sounders are on the field. This sport has as much of a chance of succeeding as baseball, basketball, american football; it just needs to walk the fine line between spending the money necessary to make a successful league with the world's top talent and not falling into the black hole of bankruptcy. I don't really want to make the blog a soapbox to preach exactly what I think should happen in the MLS or why exactly Americans refuse to embrace it, so I'll leave it at that. But honestly, don't knock it til you've tried it. And good luck getting tickets!

I had the BEST time tonight at the Jamie Cullum concert, he is hands down one of my top 5 live performers. I would pay obscene amounts of money to go to his concerts, but luckily the tickets were a birthday present (yipee!). Really, I cannot say enough good things about him. He's lyrically a genius, he's got an amazing, distinct voice, plays multiple instruments, and has great interaction with his audience. Plus, you can't beat a man who can do a cover of Radiohead (High & Dry), Jimi Hendrix (The Wind Cries Mary) and Justin Timberlake (Cry Me a River), while still performing a full set of his own award winning music! And when I say award winning, I also mean Academy Award Nominated (Gran Torino). I had to spend the entire show with Lady Parkinsons McFluffyhair sitting in front of me, bobbing and weaving, blocking my view from time to time. And of course she had no rhythm so it was like watching an entire concert with Michael J Fox sitting in front of you. That lady wa...

Aren't these the cutest things you ever did see? Okay, yeah, me either. But they are cute and I love 'em. I saw these spice jars at Anthropologie just before my birthday so told a few people I wanted them and then sat back and waited for them to prove how much they love me. I ended up with 8 of the 10 so not too shabby! Of course I waited around too long to actually order the other 2 so when I finally went to check last week, they were no longer offered on the websites. A quick call to the stores in Washington revealed I was screwed. So I emailed customer service to ask if they had any left in stock that just weren't up on the website for any reason, but after about an hour decided I didn't want to wait for an email response so called the 1-800 number. I was able to make an order over the phone (seriously, when is the last time anyone had to order something over the phone? It was weird.) but the woman informed me that #8 and #9 had only 1 of each in stock, so she w...

As your body grows bigger Your mind grows flowered It's great to learn Cause knowledge is power! It's Schoolhouse Rocky That chip off the block Of your favorite schoolhouse Schoolhouse Rock! And now, a mathmatical equation: What do you get when you combine 2 girls + a sunny Friday afternoon + hand-dipped ice cream bars from Costco? Two very whiney girls in need of a nap. But really, can you blame them? It was a big day. They had a lot of excitement, what with getting to ride in the car, walking all around Costco and then topped it off with a giant ice cream hand-dipped just for them! I bet they sleep really well tonight! *Somehow I get the feeling this post will result in a future picture of the day blog entitled "This is why we don't make fun of the blondes."

After some rather ingenious whining by yours truely, Shannon stopped by and brought me my season tickets for the Seattle Sounders. Yea! Or, to make my excitement a little more clear, YEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully the players and the league are able to reach an agreement and avoid a nasty strike and we are able to go enjoy the game on Thursday. I can't believe it's been basically 5 months since last season. We are both going nuts with anticipation!

In honor of the holiday, enjoy some cheesy Irish jokes! What do you call a fake stone in Ireland? A Sham Rock! When is an Irish potato not an Irish potato? When it's a French fry! What do you call a diseased Irish criminal? A leper con. Why would you never iron a four-leaf clover? Because you shouldn't press your luck! How can you tell if an Irishman is having a good time? He's Dublin over with laughter! One day a man walked in a bar with a box. He sat down, opened the box and out popped a leprechaun. The man told the bartender, "I want a Rolling Rock and a shot of whiskey for my buddy here." There was man sitting at the end of the bar watching all of this and, after the leprechaun drank his shot of whiskey, he ran down to the end of the bar and spit in the guy's face. Then he ran back. The guy with the box said, "I'll have another Rolling Rock and a shot of whiskey for my buddy here." After the leprechaun drank his shot of whiskey, he again ran ...

Okay, so I'm cheating. I'm a cheater. I actually took this photo the other night. It is a self-portrait of Heather and I, taken outside of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Of course, that's so obvious, everyone could see that right? Hehe. Apparently this is what my camera does when I turn the camera around mid-picture when I try and see if it actually took a picture. I think it looks cool.

I went outside to grab some boxes from the storage closet and as I went to close the sliding glass door saw THIS! Holy moly!!! I don't know what exactly it is, but you can all guarentee that I did not go back outside to put the box back when I was finished. I was even creeped out taking the photo from the inside of the screen.

After a few hours of restless sleep on a half-inflated air mattress in a freezing cold room (seriously Heath- it was fine, don't worry your pretty little head about it, you were a great host!), all I really wanted to do was get a pound of jo-jos, drive home, put on sweats and climb into bed. What I did instead was have breakfast (at that one place, you know, the place by the bowling alley???) with Krista. It wasn't jo-jos and tv but it was amusing none the less. Especially where she looked past me and said "isn't the mountain pretty today?" and I looked around trying to figure out how she expected me to believe in the 10 years since I lived there they had moved Mount Rainier from one side of the road to the other. Turns out, she was just looking at me while talking. Huh.

Heather with Frankenfurter, who is just a sweet transvestite. Highlights of the evening: * Walking into the bathroom and seeing a framed collage of photos from I Love You to Death, a movie filmed in Tacoma and starring Kevin Klein, Keanu Reeves, Tracy Ulman and River Phoenix and which has great fondness for Amanda and I after having every person in our motel in Long Beach tell us it was the best movie ever. It is not. * Watching an out of shape audience member in a too-tight, too-short dress bend over, grab her ankles and in the process show her hoo-hah to those of us not standing on the stage. Some surprises should not be had. * Watching an out of shape cast member unwrap her too-tight, too-short wrap dress, revealing her black bustier and tiny boobs with foil Oriental Trading Co. shamrock "pasties" attempt to dance around seductively. Perhaps she did not receive the memo about surprises. * Getting pelted with cups and cups of rice thrown "up and back" (house rule...

FEAR THE WRATH!!!!! Hmm. Perhaps I should reconsider this whole pay-per-print idea if it means my general office supplies don't just fall apart in my hands...

I barely made it in the door this morning before Shannon mowed me down and told me to take a look at the printer. Apparently, when we were trying to brainstorm ways to save money Carrie decided making the printer in our area a "pay printer" was a great idea. Although I agree expenses need to be cut and usages should always be charged, I think this is a little extreme. I thought I would draw the line at pay toilet but perhaps I should scale that line waaaay back to pay prints. This is not a gas station. There is no slot for coins. I do not carry enough nickles with me to do my job. I would go broke trying. P.S. Carrie didn't really do this- we have no idea why it says "insert coin" but since the printer is at her desk, it only makes sense to blame her, right?

I find it very odd that Walk is represented by the shape of a man but Don't Walk is simply a hand. And I get it. Hand held up STOP!!! But they are conflicting images. I think the Germans had the right idea with this, although they have stopped using Hier stehengeblieben/Heir weiterlesen (boo).

I kick ass! Thanks to my coupon obsession, I just purchased $103.36 worth of products for essentially $18.55, after rebates. That's right, I paid a mere 17% of retail price just by owning scissors! It was a little bit more than I had calculated beforehand but I accidently grabbed a product that was a little more expensive and lost my $2.50 off mascara coupon so ended up paying full price for 1 of the 2 mascaras, but honestly I can't complain too much :) It is the only part of the 4 Cover Girl makeup I paid for after all. $30.55 Out of Pocket $12.00 Rebates Actual Total: $18.55 One downfall of couponing though, is that I really don't have the room to stockpile all of these items so I am feeling very disorganized in my bathroom. With the addition of 3 John Freida and 2 Pantene Shampoo & conditioners purchased today I am up to 5 extra shampoo and 3 extra conditioner. I also have shoved 2 boxes of hair dye ($1.99 each-score!) and 4 bottles of sunscreen/aloe vera under m...

here's a llama there's a llama and another little llama fuzzy llama funny llama llama llama duck

PS, I'm not on crack...it's a song. A song that I like to sing around llamas and, well, ducks. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama

I'm in the middle of a big spring cleaning. My parents are having a garage sale sometime in the next month or so, and with moving in 4 months, I thought what better time to go through every drawer, every closet, every nook and cranny and clean out the junk? I've gotten to the point where I'm going through all of my old papers and files (which is much harder than one would think) and found, scratched on the back of an email, a list. flashlight newspaper rubber gloves noise makers bell feather boa Whaaaaaaa? I don't have any idea why I ever would have written down such an odd assortment of items and, to my recollection, I have never worn a feather boa and rubber gloves while reading a newspaper at night, though there are a few nights between 18 and 22 that are a bit blurry (glug, glug). The email on the other side is not any help either, as it is just a regular email between me and a friend with no mention of pranks, dressing up, or random get together that requires a...

While out and about this morning I came across this dog. I really wished I could have gotten a picture of him when he was up in the back window, but sadly, he did not go back up there. Why would I take a picture of a dog in a car, not even looking in my direction? Oh, that's right...he was wearing a DIAPER!!! Seriously people, how lazy are you that you have to diaper your dog instead of taking him out of the car, letting him do his business and picking it up and throwing it away? Perhaps you shouldn't own a dog.

So I come home tonight and after ordering takeout for dinner and flipping through the telly only to find nothing worthwhile on, I decided to go online and see if I could watch a movie there. I log onto hulu and get to the movies page and scroll through the first page. Nothing. So I go to the next page and find something called "Killer Condom" and it's listed as a horror movie. Needless to say, I didn't watch it but it definitely cracked me up so here you are :) If anyone ever watches this, please let me know the point of the movie, thanks!

Imagine being t-bagged by THAT!!!!!!

Chirp, chirp. Easter decorations have arrived! Woo hoo!

Me: Do you think I can put my cell phone on the company account? Shannon: OOh put mine on there too. I want a new phone. Me: Okay. But how to convince the company to pay for it? Oh I know, let's each have a baby and then work from home 2 days a week, then it will be necessary to have a company phone! Shannon: Brilliant! Me: And having a baby makes much more fiscal sense than just paying for our own upgrades. Shannon: Yeah, Carrie thought it made so much sense she's having a 2nd one! *Carrie looks up from her computer with the evil eye and flips Shannon off, and then returns to working, leaving Shannon and I cracking up.*

My Aunt gets all sorts of weird crap. I'm not exactly sure where she obtains it-she might purchase it (maybe for her grandkids?) but throughout the years, several items have filtered down the family tree and made their way into my hands. Now, I like tacky things to a point. I have a tiny wooden butler greeting visitors in the foyer of my apartment. There is a light-up Welcome to Las Vegas sign on my desk at work. I have a picture frame in the shape of 1950's glasses covered in fake jewels, given to me as a birthday present one year. The key to tacky is moderation. You need to sprinkle tacky throughout the home, surrounded by normal items. And at no point should you have a tacky fish platter or matching salt and pepper shakers from Macy's!!! This is the newest addition from my aunt. She technically gave it to my father, who, in turn, passed it on to me. I have no idea why he wouldn't want a guarenteed shot at the lottery, but his loss is my $441 Million Powerball...