What's On?

Well, after Mad Men I had my choice of, among other things, The Time Traveler's Wife or Inglorious Bastards. Now, I really enjoyed The Time Traveler's Wife. It's a good sob fest, even if you know what's coming. But, even though Inglorious Bastards is not Quentin's best work, I always have to go for Tarantino.

One more thing....

Mom, I'm very disappointed in you.

We watched "The Killers" the other night and it turns out all of the scenes in the US were filmed in Georgia... And not just anywhere in Georgia but Atlanta, Douglasville and WOODSTOCK!!! Now how is it that you didn't manage to find Tom Selleck when he was in town???

Kick-Ass

Loved it, especially Hit Girl. ;)

One other item of note...

I was so proud the other day when, as we were flipping through the channels and came upon "Return of the Jedi" on Spike TV, Miss B. said: "Oooohh! Star Wars!!!"

Bergdorf's

One of my work colleagues recently noted that the latest Bergdorf's catalogue contends that: "All a woman needs is good teeth, eyes and hair -- everything else can be faked."

Score!

Today we went to Woodbury Commons. (And apparently, so did much of the rest of the population of the Northeast). There was a traffic back up all the way from Exit 16 (where the mall is) to the Thru-way Service Plaza prior to the exit (which I believe is a distance of nearly 13 miles). We finally made it to the toll plaza to get to the outlet mall and traffic was at a standstill, so we had to go to the next exit, turn around and try to get to the mall from the opposite direction.

Overall, it ended up taking us like three hours to get there from home. Ugh! But, at least once we got there they had good things... but I do have to say it was a bit insane that there were queues (like at an amusement park!) to get in to Gucci, Tory Burch and Coach. The joint was open until 9pm and even at 8:50 there was still a significant line outside of Gucci... as if it were a nightclub or something. I felt like telling all of those people that there's a Gucci outlet in Secaucus, where I can certainly say I have NEVER seen a line of any description.

At the end of the visit we had purchased a suit, two dresses, an outfit for B, two pairs of boots, a sports coat and countless amounts of awful outlet mall food including a hot dog, carvel and Starbucks products (that actually took a half an hour to procure). So much for that recession. I'd hate to see that place on the day after Thanksgiving!

FYI

To the woman at Starbucks who attempted to put her hand inside my dog carrier before actually acknowledging that said dog carrier was attached to my shoulder... I'm not carrying around a four and a half pound dog as an ice breaker. I'm not looking to meet new people. I'm carrying the dog because she doesn't like to be left alone.

I, on the other hand, am perfectly happy to be left alone, especially by strange women with European accents at coffee shops.

I guess this is what happens when a cat person becomes a dog owner.

I know I've said this before

(Ana, you can confirm that). But I am finally going to start writing that book. Somebody call Oprah's Book Club before she goes off the air, I could really use the advance. ;)

The Devil and the White City

I just finished reading this the other day (thanks to the Mom for giving me her copy)... so, Chicago's big plan to "out-Eiffel" the Eiffel Tower was the invention of the FERRIS WHEEL?? Really? This is the best the US could muster? A carnival attraction?

Otherwise the book was okay, but I did find the story telling between the tale of HH Holmes and the planners/architects of the World's Fair to be a bit disjointed.

Hmpf. Next on our list? Well, I was planning on trying to re-read Eat, Pray, Love (loved the movie, by the way)... but I also have The Monster of Florence and One Day. We'll see what comes first.

Hmpf.

Isn't it annoying when people only contact you when they want/need something?

Have you ever had one of those days?

Perhaps, one of those days that starts out with you getting up at 4:30 am and loading yourself, your toddler and your labradoodle puppy into your car for a drive to Virginia?

Then, about 24 minutes into that drive, when you find yourself on I-295 somewhere between Trenton and Burlington, New Jersey, through a construction zone, said labradoodle decides its a good time to fully empty out his intesines and bladder?

So, you next find yourself pulled over in the parking lot of a Dunkin Donuts, in the dark, without a leash for the dog trying to clean out a crate (and the only cleaning products you can locate besides paper towel are (a) wheel and tire cleaner and (b) leather cleaner.)

A few minutes later you may find yourself trying to end a conversation with a trucker who happened to also stop at the DD and now wants to know what kind of dog you have.

Then, you'll get back in the car and start over.

Until you're in the middle of Maryland and you realize (x) you have not packed shoes for your child and (y) that said labradoodle has decided now would be the perfect time to get car sick, twice.

Thank god for the 3G network and Wal-Mart is all I have to say. Yup, next I found myself and Miss B. hitting up the aisles of the Towson Wal-Mart (which just happened to be having some work done on its sewer system so the whole exterior of the place was as similarly stinky as the dog carrier...)

As an aside... you know you're purchasing your pet care products at Wal-Mart when the puppy pads you buy have a picture of a NASCAR car and driver on them.

Back in the car, everybody... (Sorry, by the way, Towson Wal-Mart employees, for the green fleece blanket that was left in your parking lot.)

One last stop? Of course, before we get to the "Farm" we had to pull over on the side of Route 340 for yet another bathroom break. (Standing, on the side of the road while 18-wheelers blow past at 65)...

Then we visited the farm and made an exchange. Pound for pound this "breeder" (aka Dr. Moreau) is making a mint.

On the way back? Well, nothing can be easy, can it? Of course not. See prior post re: arch nemesis. Arch Nemesis (aka "Suuuuu-san") scheduled a conference call which I had to be on for 12pm. At 11:54 I was approaching a Chick-Fil-A in West Virginia with the hopes that I would be able to distract Miss B. long enough with french fries and chicken while I was talking title and survey.

Did this work? Sort of. For much of the call I had to stand outside the drivers side door of my car with a cell phone in one hand balancing a laptop in the other. (Oh, and did I mention that we drove past a car fire just before approaching the CFA?)

Conference call done, lunch eaten... then on the road back to Jersey.

We briefly stopped in to Harper's Ferry, but can you believe on a random Thursday afternoon there was no parking? (FYI: National Parks Service I want my Six Dollars back).

We also hit up an LLBean in Marlton, NJ and managed to crash "Customer Appreiciation Night" and got free food, drinks and a 15% discount. That was a pleasant surprise, but I don't know that it made up for much of what had come before. ;)

Arch Nemesis...

is at work again.

All I'm saying is that she scheduled a conference call for tomorrow at 12pm. This is beyond, beyond, beyond inconvenient.

Yes, I'm going to be remote telecommuting via blackberry phone with laptop accompanied by my two assistants, one toddler, one canine.

Get Your Algorithms Straight, Buddy

Okay, so it's time for another Facebook related complaint. Do you ever notice how on your sidebar on Facebook there are these cutesy little suggestions for you? (Such as: "You haven't spoken to [____________] in a while, why not check in?").

Well tonight's not so useful suggestion said:

"Should this be your profile picture?"

Unfortunately, the photo it suggested was a somewhat unflattering photo of someone's girlfriend. Noting, that said girlfriend is decidedly not me. Yeah, I think I'll pass on making that photo my profile pic, thank you very much.

This one's for Leda.

Project Runway

The Philip Treacy episode is really cool!!!! Love all those wacky hats!

Zac Posen...

Hmpf. I don't know how I feel about this. Lynda from the RH of DC is wearing a Zac Posen for Target dress, that I also own. I bet she didn't get hers for $17.48 though!!!

Why we love iTunes...

It's been 24 years since Ferris Bueller's Day Off was released. (what!?!? How did THAT happen? See previous post re: turning thirtysomethingunmentionable...) Anyway, it's been 24 years of me loving the music but there being no soundtrack released.

Well, thanks to imdb and iTunes I've managed to recreate most of the music. Sadly, The Dream Academy's version of "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" isn't available, but while searching for it I did come across the Vitamin String Quartet. I have to say I love their string versions of pop songs! Who knew, "Bizzare Love Triangle" works with strings!

Other random purchases? Florence and the Machine, Michael Crawford/Barbra Streisand and Big Audio Dynamite.

One other thing-- why on earth didn't I have "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" on my iPod? I guess I downloaded my Police cd back when I had my original iPod and was actually concerned about memory space?? Unclear.

I'll Never Fall In Love Again...

Over the weekend I had a fantastic girls' day out with Thisbe. This was our birthday treat to ourselves as we're both turning a thirty-something number this year that we will leave unsaid.

Thisbe hit up the TKTS booth in Times Square and scored us great tickets to Promises, Promises! Tickets in hand, with plenty of time before the curtain, we went to The Park for brunch. Afterwards we walked around a bit in Chelsea.

At 3pm we headed to the Broadway Theater and had a great time! The show was really entertaining and everybody in the cast did a great job. So much singing, so much dancing! (And who knew Tony Goldwyn could sing???)
Afterwards we ran out to the stage door and Thisbe worked her usual magic and we got autographs from Kristin Chenoweth, Sean Hayes and Tony! (And, kudos to Thisbe for remembering that Tony Goldwyn was the bad guy from Ghost...) While waiting outside the stage door we also saw Eddie Redmayne, who has just finished a run on Broadway in Red with Alfred Molina and can be seen currently in "The Pillars of the Earth" on Starz!

After our stage door antics were through we retired to Ava Lounge atop the Dream Hotel. Yummy drinks and food from Serafina topped off our day. We toasted to thirty-something more exciting years and figure we'll do it all again when we turn 70 (and hopefully, we'll do it again before then too, but the point is, years from now if you see two little old ladies stalking Broadway performers and then getting tipsy on a roof deck, you'll know they're us).

It's 2:59am

and I'm hungry!

Worlds Colliding

Why is it that every television show I'm interested in watching is on Tonight???

Project Runway (on the same time as: Real Housewives of DC), then Bethenny Getting Married (which is on the same time as Jersey Shore)... thank god for replays. Though I do have to make the commitment to a four hour block of television viewing!