music.and.games.

I've been listening to yael naim nonstop recently. She's great. Some of you may recognize her song "new soul" from the macbook air commercial. I like that one too, but my favorites are "too long", "far far" and "paris" which she sings in hebrew (just paris, not all of them). Much of the time while i'm listening to her, i'm also playing free cell. When my computer was fixed, they replaced the system board and the hard drive, so my free cell stats were lost. They were pretty good too- something like 82% successful. Now i'm stuck trying to reestablish my free cell mastery, and it's not going well. Sometimes i'll have a hot streak and win a bunch in a row. But then i turn around and lose 8 straight. I'm not sure what's going on, but i'm not happy about it. Not at all.

brit.

The kid i was watching was playing with a toy like this today. When you press the shape buttons, it says the name of the shape. It took me a while to figure this out though, because i kept pressing the circle button, and it said "sa cle." Turns out the toy had an english accent.

this.was.my.dinner.the.other.night.

It's duck. Here's m. cooking it. She was given the sous chef training class, and was in charge of slowly spinning the hanging duck to ensure proper and even cooking. I know you can't see things too clearly here, but it looks a lot better without the flash than with it. There it is on the right without the flash. I can't tell you how delicious this was. If i ever tried hanging meat in front of a fire to cook, it would be burnt in some places and raw in others. I guess i'd need a talented sous chef as well.

oscar.

I'm not sure how i feel about the academy awards results. Some were good (once, for one. If that silly disney movie enchanted won for best song, i would have slit my wrists). Some were bad. Maybe not bad per se, but a little discouraging. I didn't see the one that won a ton- no country for old men- but it didn't seem like anything i'd be interested in. At one point, la vie en rose was brought up, and i kept thinking that i'd seen part of it (but not all), but couldn't figure out how that would have happened. I finally remembered watching it on netflix instant (where you can watch the movie instantly on your computer), but it was at night and i was tired, so i turned it off and thought i'd finish it the next day. Apparently that didn't happen. So i knew a little bit about it, and was happy they won for best makeup and she won for best actress. Nicely done.

roadkill.

The other day i was driving to work, when all of a sudden i saw a giant dead raccoonlike creature smack in the middle of my lane. It was placed in such a way that there was no going around it, and i was forced to drive directly over it. It was so large that i heard the distinct "thump, thump" as it came into contact with the underside of my car. I was seriously grossed out- even felt a little gag reflex coming on. It was almost like i killed the poor thing myself. It could have been worse, i suppose. It could have gotten stuck under my car and been dragged for miles only to come to rest when i reached my destination. What a pleasant surprise that would have been.

abc.checkmark

I'm really getting annoyed about the spell check feature on blogspot. It hasn't been working for quite some time now. (I'd guess two months, but it could only have been one.) Is it just not working for me? What about all you other blogspot posters? It's not that i'm a bad speller per se, but it makes me have to pay more attention to my typing skills instead of just hitting the abc checkmark once i'm finished. Grr..

help? someone.please?

I got my computer back with a new hard drive (again) and a new system board (again too). I transferred everything that was on my external hard drive back onto the laptop. Unfortunately, i realized too late that when i saved data onto the external drive, it was saving a whole new copy- i didn't specify it to copy over duplicate files. So now i have 40.3G of music in iTunes- about 4 times as much as I really have. I'm not sure the best way to delete three of the four copies of each song. I certainly don't want to do it manually. I'll be working on it forever. What i really need is my own personal tech support person to show up and help me organize all my electronic data. For someone who's so anal about organization in the real world, i'm horrified at how disorganized my life is in the virtual world.

boy.question.

I've been requested to gather opinions from all you loyal readers (especially the male ones among you). A friend of mine recently met a nice fellow, and they had an entertaining discussion that night. While the conversation was fine, she didn't feel any chemistry- he wasn't really her type. However, the guy e-mailed and asked if she wanted to meet up (for a casual day thing). She's ambivalent. I said she should give it a shot- maybe she'll find out she's really attracted to his personality, and that will make him more attractive as a whole. She's worried about giving him false hope since he's clearly more into her than she is into him. Also good to know- she'll probably see him from time to time regardless, so it would be good to leave things non-awkward. What do you think?

movie.review.

I saw two movies today in preparation for next sunday's oscar awards- "juno" and "there will be blood." I usually try to see all of the best picture nominees, but this year i'm way behind. I'll be lucky to get three of the five in. I like to do double movies, and these two worked out perfectly timing wise. They also looked like the most likely to win the award.
There will be blood was up first. At 157 minutes, it was a long one, but there were only a few times i glanced at my watch. It was a rough movie- a story about daniel, an oil tycoon and his young son on their trek to become rich. We see the price of greed, and how it impacts all involved. While this wasn't an uplifting movie, and not my favorite by far, the character development was impressive, and made you develop strong feelings for both main characters. I wouldn't be surprised if this one wins multiple awards.
Next up was juno- a completely different type of movie. This one was about a pregnant teenager (juno) who decides to give the baby up for adoption and finds potential parents in a local newspaper. I loved this movie! It ended perfectly- not in the idealistic way, not in the depressing way, but with a perfect mix of everything. This is the one i'll be rooting for!

monkey.babies.

I've had a busy social life recently- thursday at a bar with 30 year olds, friday at a bar with a bunch of lesbians (which made it difficult to pick up boys), and tonight at a bar with a bunch of 21 year olds (where i wouldn't want to pick up boys anyway). Evil twin #1 called yesterday to see if i'd be up for trivia night- something she's great at, and i'm not so great at. She's "slightly" competitive, so i made sure to tell her my trivia skills weren't so sharp, but she was happy to have me along, for moral support if nothing else. I'd never actually been to trivia night, and always pictured it as much dorkier than it really was. It was a blast! We ended up at a bar in between bu and bc, so our fellow trivia players (of which there were many- 45 teams total, with a maximum number of 6/team) looked like my little brother's friends. I definitely felt old. We did fairly well considering our team had only two players, both of whom were girls This created issues when a large quantity of the questions were sports related. Not current sports either, but 1990's sports- the decade before i started paying attention to baseball. So, out of 45 teams, we came in 7th. Not good enough to please et#1, but good enough to satisfy me on my first trivia night ever.

happy.valentine's.day.

I tagged along with jen and her friends and went to a bar in waltham tonight. I even wore my fabulous wine colored eel skin high heels in honor of valentine's day. They're super high, and make my feet hurt after a bit, but it was worth it. I also found a pair of jeans that are long enough to wear with the heels- a rarity in iteslf.

call.me.jeff.

Meet r. She's my cousin david's seven year old, which makes her my first cousin once removed. Here she is:

She's a firecracker alright. I spent much of the weekend following her around while she took (and posed for) pictures with my camera. Since there were hundreds of new people around, she kept getting names confused. She regularly called me jeff. When i told her that was a boys name, and as far as i know i'm a girl, she would think about it and then call me jeffanie. That made a little more sense, and eventually she got to steph. I didn't feel too bad since she kept calling her close cousin patrick, kevin. He lives near her, and babysits somewhat regularly. I think she's just not too great on the name front.

e.on.turning.six.

Yesterday was e.'s 6th birthday. I missed it (and the family dinner the night before) since i was in chicago. That was sad, but i did get to talk to her from the runway in new york right before she went to bed. Today a. sent me an e-mail entitled "e. on turning 6." Here's what it said:

To herself while dancing up the stairs in the evening:
"I just love it when it's my birthday...I just absolutely LOVE it"
Upon returning to the kitchen:
"My cheeks hurt from smiling" :)

If you don't know her, or have never seen her, this may not be as adorable as it is to me. Just picture a teeny-tiny firecracker who couldn't be happier with herself.

chicago.

I got back from chicago late last night- 11:45pm to be exact. My uncle passed away last wednesday, and i was lucky enough to be able to head out there for the wake and funeral- one of the benefits of not really working. It was definitely one of those mixed emotion situations. On one hand, it was incredibly sad, especially every time i looked at one of my cousins or their young children. On the other hand, it was so great to see everyone. We realized that it had been over three years since i'd seen any of my first cousins (there are four of them, three with spouses), and four and a half years since i'd seen their kids (eleven of them- my first cousins once removed). They didn't make it to our big family reunion in july due to various scheduling issues, and everyone was so much older. In a strange way, i feel closer to my cousins kids than my cousins. I think it's because they're closer in age to me. Either that, or just because i act so young for my age! I have tons of great pictures- many taken by 7yr old r. I'll post those in the next day or two.

twenty-ten.

I'll be out of town for a few days, so you'll have to survive without me. I don't know what my internet access will be like, so i'll take this opportunity to say...

...happy twenty-tenth birthday nora!!!

It's really on sunday, but since we had her party tonight (or last night, really) i think it's appropriate to wish her well now. The party was great (as are all her parties) but sadly, i forgot my camera. So any pictures that i post in the future are not my own, but hawked from another party goer.

because.i'm.still.a.kid...

..i really want one of these cool plasma cars. I've been riding it around the house for the past week and am wishing they made a larger version so my legs wouldn't keep cramping. It holds up to 200 lbs, so grown-ups can use it, but since our legs are a tad longer than a three year olds, you have to ride with them all bent and sticking out funny. If you know any kid between the ages of 3 and 29, you should buy them one of these things. You can kind of see how it works here.

old.guy.

I went to a new voting location today, and there were some old guys manning the check-in tables. One of them gave me my form and sent me to a booth. I started filling it out and realized that he'd given me two voting forms. When i went up to turn mine in, i tried to give the extra copy back, and they kept saying "don't show him! He'll try to get you to change your vote!"If i wasn't so honest, i'd have two votes in right now. I guess the old guy was a democrat too.

election.preparation.

In preparation for voting in the presidential primaries tomorrow, i took this test. I already know who's getting my vote, but was interested in learning more. I like that this test allows you to click on each issue and get an explanation of exactly what it means. Way to simplify! Sadly, the candidate i matched with most closely was only a 38% match, and when i clicked on the name, this is what it said: You have a poor match with x. Unless you particularly like his character and background, you should vote for another candidate. Ha! And this was the top match! I think that this could be because i left my answer as neutral to some of the issues that i wasn't as concerned about. Maybe i'll retake it and put a little more effort into every question. My lowest match (huckabee, i'm not ashamed to say) was only an 8% match, and that one said: Mike Huckabee is not for you. You disagree on all important issues. At least that puts my mind at ease.

new.food.

I had bone marrow for dinner tonight. I bet most of you can't say that!!