March Madness

For the past few weeks I've been playing a little game called - How long will it take my roommate to clean anything in the kitchen. Included in these games are:

Take Out The Trash
Clean the Cutting Board
Turn on and/or Empty the Dishwasher
Do the Dishes
Wipe the Counter
Clean the Area by Your TV Watching Area

I am so sick at being such a natural athlete and excelling at all of them that I decided to rest myself for bigger and better cleaning games also known as the "2009 Moving Out of this Hellhole Event". I felt the rookie really needed some practice in these areas since I would not be here to take care of it for Shoeless Joe Roommate. Especially in the very difficult trash event which she has only completed twice in one year and is in dire need of practice.

What did you say? You have questions/comments?

You're being immature - Yes I am.
You are cutting your nose off to spite your face - Indeed.
You are going to attract bugs unless something is done soon - You are correct, sir.

Well, maybe Roomie is preparing for other competitions - That's right, they are called 1997 90210, 2008 90210, American Idol, random VH1 reality show, and 20 other shows that are saved on DVR. There's also the "All I ever do is Work" Relay Medley (AKA "I Work 3 Days a Week Medley"), and the "I can't get up before 12:00" Backstroke and last but not least the latest event just completed 3 hours ago - "I can't vote for American Idol because my phone is in my bedroom which coincidentally shares the wall that my lazy ass is sitting against." Open.
Why not just say something to the Great Roommate - I am a sissy la la and am afraid of confrontation. And how would we have these games if I did?

How is Mr Roomtober doing with the events, well let's take a look and see.

1. In the trash event - we are at 1.5 weeks since I last completed that event. The trash has been over flowing for 1 week total.


2. This cutting board has now had oil and pesto on it for a grand total of 2 weeks.


3. Dishwasher - Tag team completion by myself because I needed dishes in it.

4. Dishes - COMPLETE. Dishes with disgusting mac and cheese and guacamole sat on our counter for three weeks before getting done. It was a tough road but the Sultan of Wash got through. Way to go! CONGRATS! That's GOT to be a record.


5. Counter Wipe - Complete. It went four days of Wonder Roommate preparing food on a dirty counter before I needed to make PBB's on it. Therefore another designated hitter for the big winner. Better luck next time champ.

This particular bowl sat on the counter for two days before our hero was able to complete that heat.


6. Living room area coffee table - Ongoing mess. There is never a time when there is a soda can, bowl, or cup on it. Besides total astonishment that someone watches TV next to dirty dishes and trash all week - This does not bother me because I don't enter that area, and so far we have not gotten any little guests.


I am really pulling for the Trash competition to be completed, as I believe that is integral to the purity of the apartment and to the games as a whole. The fact that little flying or crawling judges have not come in to review the event is beyond my comprehension. But The Mighty Mate will go on to fight another day.

In honor of the extremely competitive, strenuous, fast paced, back breaking fight the Might's got ahead of them - I give you ~ the Rocky Theme.

Gonna Fly Now (Theme From "Roc...

Disclaimer - I do not excel at all areas of personal cleanliness, however, I keep my clutter and disorganization in my room, not in common living areas. And my mess does not include 3 week old food. However I cannot promise you that my cats don't have a blog complaining about the disorganization of my closet.

Peanut Butter Balls

I thought I would share with you the Easter present I made for my moms. Hopefully she doesn't look on here before she gets them. My coworker made them at her chocolate party and I thought my mom would enjoy them because it is basically peanut butter and chocolate and my mom eats a reece's peanut butter cup like once a day. She eats one of them along with her blood pressure medicine.

This was during making them - I just think it looks cool.



And here they are post making. As you can tell some have crunchier chocolate on them then others - they are my mistakes in learning how to melt chocolate. I now know it is much easier to do in the microwave. Thanks life lessons. However, like some mistakes in life, the mistake chocolate was sooo good. I don't even really like chocolate and it is was delicious. Now I kinda feel sick though.
These guys look like little peanut butter south park guys, with chocolate hats.

I Won't Be The Lighter

I was just listening to a playlist from Holly Miranda (from the Jealous Girlfriends) and it reminded me of this song that I was obsessed with a year or two ago. Eternal Flame by a very kooky Brit, Joan As Policewoman. She is so cool and so is Holly Miranda. Cheers

Eternal Flame - Joan As Police...

Celebrity Sighting

There seems to be a theme for my celebrity sightings this month. Jonathan Bennett had a meeting with my boss today. He was Aaron Samuels in Mean Girls. Hopefully I can collect all of the Mean Girls actor sightings. Anyway, he was very friendly, very hot and a lot taller than I expected. God, I love these Mean Girls sightings.

Meow

This is a little ditty I bought at Buffalo Exchange, which is a high class version of a salvation army. It has everything you could ever want in a shirt.

Torn off sleeves - Check
Fluffy Cat - Check
Gold Glitter - Check
Already used and bought at a "vintage" store - Check

I can't wait to rock this in Vegas when my friends are out here.

Song of Your Direct French to English Translation Day

This song is by the French pop/rock band Phoenix. It is very fun. They are on SNL tomorrow. I love indie SNL has been this season. OK enjoy.

1901 - Phoenix

The Grotto

I am starting to learn that when my hiking book tells me the hike is easy - it means it's easy for someone like Lance Armstrong. My hike this weekend led me to The Grotto, which is a hiking trail in mountains above Malibu. The weather was kind of weird in LA on Sunday, but it was good for a hike because it wasn't too hot. As you can tell from the pictures it was really overcast plus I was at a high elevation and being so close to the ocean, the clouds were right above me. It was pretty cool. I was actually kind of scared though because there were not a lot of people on the trail and paranoid me thought I was going to get attacked by a snake or mountain lion or fall in to the canyon. Luckily that did not happen. I met a scientist on the way back up who was in town doing research and having conferences about deadly disease outbreaks, which I thought was an interesting job until he nonchalantly said "There was an emergency in Oxnard (about an hour from LA) that I had to check out" That is probably normal for him, but I definitely took a double take. But he just kept on talking. So anyway, aside from impending doom, the grotto trail leads down to a bunch of huge rocks that were formed from a volcanic eruption (actually that is doomy, where is this volcano?). Depending on the season a creek runs through the rocks and forms water falls. There was water running through, but it wasn't high. I didn't climb a ton around the rocks because I was scared about my foot, but I would like to go back and check it out. It was like a natural playground.

This was at the top of the canyon at the ranger station. I feel like it looks really eerie.


Looking out in to the canyon.


The Canyon


A meadow that you pass through on the way down.


You can't tell from this, but these rocks were the size of freight trucks.

Wiggity Weekend

This weekend was pretty cool. Friday night I went on a mini movie marathon and saw Sunshine Cleaning and Duplicity. Both were good. Sunshine Cleaning was good, I just think it may have been missing something. Duplicity was very good. Very consistent, very Ocean's Elevenish.

Saturday I participated in Earth Hour, which was kind of interesting. You are supposed to be electricity-less for one hour. I was pretty bored and waiting until the time when I could use electricity again. I sat outside and drank a beer and read by candle light and flash light. I played on the internet until it ran out of battery. I ate dinner by candlelight. I listened to the people below me talk about the TV show - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, which I really need to rent. I played with the cats using one of those laser beam pointer things. So I was basically playing laser cats. Ha ha. Then my roommate came home and ruined everything cause she HAD to use electricity. She couldn't wait 10 minutes? So anyway, I did all of these things in an hour and still I was kind of bored at times. I think I am just way too addicted to the internet and TV and lights.
I will post a separate entry with pictures from my Sunday hike.

This Is Just Insane

I have no idea what this is or what is going on, I think it is an old soap opera star. I do know that this is freaking hysterical. Kudos Me!

Celebrity Sighting

This week's celebrity sighting is brought to you by the psychiatrists in my building.
As I was walking out of my office, Lizzy Caplan was walking out of a psychiatrist's office. Incidentally, the same one I saw Sarah Silverman go to. I love Lizzy Caplan, however I had no idea what her name was because I only know her as Janis Ian from Mean Girls. If you don't know her from that she was also in True Blood and in a new show that is starting soon I think. It looks good. But I was pretty excited since Mean Girls is one of my faves. She looked at me and smiled and I said - "You smell like a baby prostitute". Just kidding I didn't say that. I didn't say anything actually, I just smiled back. Oh for those who don't have lines memorized from Mean Girls, the baby prostitute line comes from the movie.

In honor of this sighting I give you "Built This Way" that is in the movie. I love this song. Ironically it's written/sung by Lindsey's gf Sam Ronson. I wonder if that's how they met back in 2004.

Hiking Up to the Hollywood Sign

Today I went hiking up to the Hollywood sign. It was so cool. The trail gives 360 views of LA and it was a pretty clear day so pictures turned out pretty cool.
First of all the neighborhood that leads up to this trail is so cute. It's called Beachwood Canyon. It had ridiculously huge mansions mixed with little cottages that you would see in a little Irish village. It was very unique and diverse. Much like LA. Here are pictures from my hike.


This is in the little area called Beachwood Village that leads up to the trail. The Hollywood sign used to be HOLLYWOODLAND because it was an advertisement for the home development they were building in 1923.





This is the valley which is the side of the hills that I live in. You can see Burbank and the Verdugo Mountaint and the San Gabriel Mountains in the distance, that still have snow on them. You can't really see that in the picture.



The Hollywood Reservoir with Century City in the distance.



Downtown LA in the distance.



Downtown LA



The chain link fence that stops people from getting close to the sign.



The cameras that watch the sign. There are also motion detectors, alarms and audio warning systems. They really don't want people near there.



This is a dog I accosted on the way out. He is so handsome. The lady holding him couldn't speak english and I think she was a little scared when I pulled out my camera.

Chocolate Party

My coworker had a birthday party with a chocolate theme. There was every kind of chocolate desert you can think of along with different chocolate alcohols. It was super sickly sweet. I made s'mores bars, which were a lot of fun and so good. There were so many leftovers. This is a picture after the party, so I will pretty much be eating chocolate crap all week at work.

I Never Said I Was Role Model

So for this St Patrick's Day evening I went to watch one of my managers sing in a band. He sings with the Harry Gold Band, which is a cover band. They did a really good job. Harry Gold owns a medium size talent agency and he is also Tracy Gold from Growing Pains father. She was there and really cute and dancing and singing with her dad's band. It's been like, almost 20 years since that show has been on and I think she looks exactly the same. Also random and pretty surreal was when they played "Help from My Friends" with the dad from The Wonder Years sitting right there.

After that I went to a Karaoke bar called The Brass Monkey. As I got there a fight was just being cleared and I heard some dude say "Sorry man, that's just the Armenian in me" Oh OK - If that's your excuse, fight away. Anyway, supposedly there were glasses thrown and it was just nutso. The DJ said there had never been a fight in there before.
Then he said - You can fight all you want in here but you still can't beat this girl:



I love her. That video and these pictures are the reasons why Natalie is one of my fave actresses. Besides the fact that she is great at acting.

This Isn't Called Foo Foo Sweet Love Boot Camp

That is a quote from Tough Love, which premiered tonight on VH1. It's of course hysterical like most reality TV shows with crazy people on them. But the funniest part about it is that Steve Ward went to my college and I am not sure how he wrangled up this TV show. He was the guy that everyone made fun of cause he was so full of himself and clearly he still is since he thinks his opinion is so valuable that he can center a whole TV show around it. I must admit, it is pretty funny when he yells at some of these super stupid woman. Well good on you, Steve Ward, good on you.

New Blog

OK based off of the blog I mentioned below - Rules For My Unborn Son, my friend Kim suggested making one for albums. Since I am obsessed with music, I thought that would be fun and clearly I am obsessed with blogging as well.
So check it out - Albums For My Unborn Kid

The New Since You've Been Gone

I love the new Kelly Clarkson album and I'd like to introduce you to the 2009 version of "Since You've Been Gone". This one is not as good, obviously, since SYBG is one of the greatest pop songs ever created. But still super fun and written by Katy Perry.

I Do Not Hook Up - Kelly Clark...

In other recent album releases:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz: Amazing.
U2 - No Line On The Horizon: Better than I expected based off that horrific Boots single and Grammy performance. I need to give it a few more listens.

So Cute

My niece posted this on her blog - It is so adorable, I had to add it here. This is just screaming for a movie deal. Behold - the next Diablo Cody story.

http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/

I Love Greatest (FIll in the Blank) Ever Lists

ChordStrike lists their opinion of the greatest singer songwriter albums of all time. I think its pretty good. I think some things are missing, but all in all a decent list. There are no artist duplications. Interesting to note - George Harrison comes before John Lennon, and I like it. I also like that there is alot of chicks on there. Alot of polls seem to forget the ladies when it comes to picking best of lists. I will be listening to these at work tomorrow, because there are quite a few that I am not familiar with. That will be fun for my heavy metal listening coworkers who pretty much hate most of the music I listen to - Ha ha ha. Sucks for them. Kill yourself music all day!!!! Especially when we listen to Nick Drake who's #4 on the list.
Click here to see it all for yoself.

Hellbucks

I have officially been laid off from Starbucks. Corporate Starbucks is making stores get rid of people who only work a few hours a week. Due to the fact that I only work a few hours on the weekend, that means me.


This is both a blessing and an annoyance. I wanted to leave there - but I wanted to do it in my own time. Also I will lose my discount - which really sucks.



So I will begin the task of looking for another part time job. I had actually been doing that anyway (I applied to be a park ranger the other day - for some reason they didn't call). But I did have some promising news already, however I am not sure how much it will pay. One of the partners at my company is mainly in to promotions. Every weekend he flies celebrities out to Vegas and organizes a party for them and they pay him. So he needs someone to internet stalk for him and find out when their birthdays are, special occassions, etc... So that is right up my alley. I need to find out more info, but I think it will be fun.

Non Photography

The picture I posted the other day of Westwood was from a photographer that I found that calls her stuff No Rules photography. It is basically taking pictures and developing pictures in a non conventional way. It has really inspired me to get back into taking pictures. Her name is Nitsa, but I don't know too much about her. Here is some more of her stuff. I am going to go read up on it at her website.