Work Got In The Way (subtitled: Why My Posts This Week Suck)

Okay, so Hispanic Heritage Month is still three months away, but that doesn't mean I can't give a little shout out to Gloria Estefan. Here goes:

"I realize you’re wanting something new
My posts were short – the most that I could do
My less than clever moody side
The one I wish would try to hide from me

But you know when you have something on your mind
You’ve been trying to share it for the longest time
So before you surf your other sites
I want a chance to finally make it right

But the work got in the way
There’s so much I want to say
But my job has been rough
All of my deadlines are tough
I just want to laugh again

I had no time for my US
I felt like raising a fuss
Wanting to say something fun
But the work got in the way."

Where's My Music, iTunes?

I bought an iPod last year. It is possibly the BEST investment I have made since.....since....well, it was a great buy. I listen to my iPod EVERYWHERE I go....in the car, at the gym, on a plane, walking around the city, walking from our condo to the parking lot (I swear that the other people in my building think I'm anti-social), etc.
So I've downloaded a ton of songs from CDs to my iPod as well as singles that are not worth buying a whole CD for via the iTunes store. I'm talking about singles that I have loved since the 80s that I probably wouldn't dare go into a music store to buy a CD for without some embarrassment (ie - Expose). I thought the iTunes store had everything - rarities, b-sides, etc. to save me from those embarassing situations. But imagine my surprise at how easy it was for me to buy 'Respect Yourself' by Bruce Willis and June Pointer (of Pointer Sisters fame) but not 'We Don't Have To (Take Our Clothes Off)' by Jermaine Stewart or '(My Girl Wants To) Party All the Time' by Eddie Murphy. It's a travesty. Here are some other songs that I wanted to get off iTunes only to find that they don't have it (and no, I don't want the karaoke version):
'My Sweet Lord' by George Harrison
'Breakin' - Ain't No Stopping Us' by Ollie and Jerry
'Feel Good Time' by P!nk (I bought the Charlie's Angels 2 Soundtrack just for this song)

If anyone knows where I can find these songs, including Jermaine Stewart and Eddie Murphy, I'm open to suggestions.

The 'Not So Obvious' Hunk

So I had started this other post when I first read that Dermot Mulroney and Katherine Keener were divorcing a couple of days ago but I don't think it relayed my sentiments very well so I'm giving it another stab since the thought was sparked by Amy's post about how Dermot Mulroney has something about him that makes him attractive.
With People Magazine coming out with their 'Hottest Bachelors' list this weekend, I decided that maybe (just maybe) we should pay tribute to those that will not be pictured in this weekend's 'Hottest Bachelors' issue.
Daniel Craig is a 'Not So Obvious' hunk to me. (But I think a bunch of ladies all over the world would disagree with me since 'Casino Royale' has been out.) He's not conventionally good looking, like Brad Pitt or David Beckham. But there's just something about him that puts that silly looking grin on my face whenever I see him...sigh!
Dermot Mulroney fits in this category as well - often overlooked when a bunch of girlfriends are sitting together talking about hot men unless a picture of him is right in front of you and then you remember....'oh yeah, Dermot.' I might even throw him in the 'ruggedly handsome' category...but he's handsome nonetheless.
There are a ton of 'not so obvious' hunks out there - I wonder when People Magazine will have an issue dedicated to them.

No Fair!!

From the Washington Post:

"Ryan Gosling with a large party enjoying shrimp brochettes, fajitas and a mariachi band at Dupont's Lauriol Plaza Tuesday night. The heartthrob Oscar nominee was in town for two days of lobbying on the crisis in northern Uganda, a cause now catching up to Darfur in terms of drawing Hollywood firepower. Tall for a movie star."

First, my friend Jen N. runs into Drew Barrymore in Dupont Circle. Then, Jen Liu runs into PRINCE!! in London. When is it going to be my turn??! My George Costanza sighting from 4 years ago just isn't enough to keep me going.

I Feel Pretty...So What?!

I like to dress nice when I go to work eventhough our office is business casual (although in the summer, it looks like a day at the ballpark for some). I don't come to work in suits or anything - just summer dresses, nice heels or flowy skirts with cute sandals. I mean isn't summer the time where you get to show off your arms and legs and perfectly manicured toes? Or in my case, my farmer tan, sock lines and bruised legs from softball?
So today I donned a new silk, trapeze dress I got from Nordstrom. It's cute with big flower prints and I threw a black cardigan over it because 1) it's kind of chilly today and 2) to make it more work-friendly.
From my own group, who are used to my form of dress and know that I LOVE fashion, I've received several compliments already. It's nice to get compliments. But then I went to get a drink at the cafeteria and I got some strange looks from women. I got the feeling that they thought I was overdressed.
What do I say to that....'So What?!' I feel pretty, oh so pretty....(ok, i'll stop there with the song & dance).
There are plenty of women in this office that don't dress nice enough and we're supposed to be IT professionals. Instead, I see frumpy and dumpy coming down the halls and I kind of roll my eyes and think 'they're just screaming for a makeover.' I wouldn't want to go through the censure that I put others through so therefore, I dress nice - maybe it's a little too nice but I don't care cause I feel good and feeling good is half the battle - Yo Joe (what? wait....whatever).

Wow, I'm . . . .Old.

So I was watching the news today (okay, by "news," I mean Access Hollywood). They're really talking up this Matt Lauer interview with Prince William and Prince Harry next week. But here's where they got me: evidently, if she were still alive, Princess Diana would be celebrating her 46th birthday this year. And she died almost 10 years ago. So she was only 36 when she died??? Holy crap. Is it just me? Or didn't she seem older? That's only three years older than me. When did I get old?

P.S. I don't care what anyone else says, Prince Harry's the hot one.

I Miss You...Will & Grace

Carrying over from the bad TV post that Amanda had last week, I just wanted to give a shout out to my still favorite TV show, Will & Grace. If I'm lucky (and remember), I can still catch one to four episodes a night on the CW (10-11pm) and WE (11pm - 12am). Boy, are those lucky nights for me.
I just happened to catch an episode last night - it was the one where they all went to the movies to catch a special showing of 'Sound of Music.' Grace dressed up as Maria, Will as Captain VonTrapp and Jack as one of the kids in their play clothes (made from Maria's drapes). That show always manages to crack me up no matter how many times I've seen it. They had so many memorable episodes - where else are you going to find out that a Barry Manilow fan is known as a 'Fanilow' or Jack's auction screen name is 'Hotsy Totsy' or run into a 'frosted mini-wheat' named Beverly Leslie (as Karen likes to call him).
I agree that the show did eventually go downhill but I felt there was only one reason it did and I have to say it was Grace. She started to get annoying and I didn't enjoy any of the scenes she was a part of. If they could've had a show just about Jack & Karen, I would've been one happy camper.
Will, Karen & Jack...I miss you! You made for some good TV. I don't think I've laughed that hard since 'Wings.'

Twice Around

Okay, so let me start by saying I am glad my former co-worker from Texas from 6 years ago finally removed me from her "mass joke/chain letter forwarding" e-mail list. As much as I love some good e-mail diversion to break up the drudgery work can be, I just didn't need that crap clogging up my inbox. At least half of the time, I'd heard better jokes from my 3-year-old nephew. But now and then, I find before me "the little e-mail joke forward that could," an e-mail that not only bestows upon me a surprising chuckle, but that I actually deem worthy to protect in one of my "save" folders. During some mailbox spring cleaning, I found this little gem. True, they're not all masterpieces, but there are some good ones in there. I am particularly fond of 5, 6, 8, 10, and 17.

Children's Books That Never Quite Made It:

1. Strangers Have the Best Candy.
2. The Little Sissy Who Snitched.
3. Some Kittens Can Fly!
4. Where Would You Like to Be Buried?
5. Kathy Was So Bad Her Mom Stopped Loving Her.
6. The Attention Deficit Disorder Association's Book of Wild Animals of North Amer- Hey! Let's Go Ride Our Bikes!
7. The Kids' Guide to Hitchhiking.
8. Why Can't Mr. Fork and Ms. Electrical Outlet Be Friends?'
9. Bi-Curious George.
10. You Are Different and That's Bad.
11. Dad's New Wife Timothy.
12. Pop! Goes The Hamster....And Other Great Microwave Games.
13. Testing Homemade Parachutes With Nothing At All But Your Household Pets.
14. The Boy Who Died from Eating All His Vegetables.
15. Start a Real-Estate Empire With the Change From Your Mom's Purse.
16. The Pop-up Book of Human Anatomy.
17. Things Rich Kids Have, But You Never Will.
18. Controlling the playground: Respect through Fear.

She's Into You....Or So I Thought

It is a very blah Monday. I have been really busy at work but if you ask me what I've been doing, I can't really quantify it except to say, 'I went to lunch at Chik-Fil-A...yum!'
So interesting story of 'things aren't always as they seem' from the weekend.
A bunch of Purdue friends got together at the new local hang-out, Clare -N- Don's, in Falls Church. Our friends, 'T&A,' had a gig Saturday night and after what seemed like a never-ending softball game earlier in the day, just hanging out in the nice, warm weather sounded like good fun. Good friends, good fun.
So T&A are playing their tunes, sounding good, working the crowd....and in the crowd, they were working one couple in particular ...they're on their first date...awww. I keep glancing over at them. They make a good looking couple. She looks like she's having fun, he looks like he's having fun and why shouldn't they - they've got like eight empty cans of PBR (Pabst's) between them and they just kept coming. So the night goes on, they seem to be enjoying the music and I'm thinking 'these kids just might make it.'
The happy couple eventually leave before T&A's second set is over but not before Andy, or 'A' of 'T&A', can whisper into the mic, 'So will there be a second date?'
Giggles all around and now the REAL story comes out....the good stuff....oh yeah!
So after 'T&A' are finished for the night, we all gather round, talk about how great the gig was and the people sitting in front of us also joined in a bit and we start talking about the first date couple. The guy sitting in front of us comments, 'Oh man, I ran into Max (the first date guy) on line in the bathroom and I'm like 'how's it going, man?' and he's like, 'dude, it's like the hindenberg...it's going down in flames!'
Shocked expressions all around.
Then Andy chimes in with, 'When Max got up to go to the bathroom, I kind of whispered to the girl (can't remember her name), 'So how's it going?''
Her response? A shake of the head and a point at one of our Purdue buddies, Anthony, with a 'Do you know him?'
Hilarious!
In hindsight, just talking about all the things that went on that we didn't really see, I guess other clues that the date was not progressing well would have been:
1) how she kept saying how she didn't eat and she was hungry but all that was in front of her were beer cans
2) when Andy stopped to talk to the couple, she asked if Andy was single.

And here's just a couple of things that went wrong:
1) PBR? PBR? I don't care if it's $2/can...it's PBR...there's better stuff out there.
2) You're at this bar at 6:00 - that's chow time. Buy your date some dinner especially if she expresses that she's hungry. Appetizers, sides, ANYTHING...just buy something to eat. Trade in three cans of PBR for a $6 appetizer.
So knowing what we know now, I guess if we could relive that moment where Andy whispers into the mic, 'So, will there be a second date,' someone could have yelled, 'Hells no!'

I guess she wasn't that into him afterall.

"Mourning" Cupcake

Our receptionist informed me of some sad news today. Reeves Bakery downtown has closed its doors. Reeves Bakery was established in 1886, but I remember its more recent years from "cake day" at the office (you know, the catch-all birthday celebration each month - kind of like the generic treat day they had in elementary school for the summer birthday kids).

Reeves, you were good to me. I especially liked your German chocolate varieties.

http://www.reevesbakery.com/index2.html

Looks Like Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays

Yes. That someone would be me. If only I had Ron Livingston's antics to entertain me at work on a Monday. I am feeling the effects of a cut middle finger (an incident involving rifling through my make-up bag, oblivious to the disposable razor carelessly thrown in there). Right now, my middle finger feels most comfortable in sort of a half "bird" position - away from the other fingers. Is this because of the awkward band-aid and fear of further injury? Or is some higher force trying to tell me I'm having a case of the Mondays? You decide.