Not a good way to start the day..

I was in a rush for work this morning and as I'm driving through my condo complex, I turn head-on into the path of a gigantic garbage truck. I slammed on my brakes and was like, 2 inches away from hitting him. Thank God I didn't. It definitely got my attention though...

PS - Unrelated - I added like 12 new posts to the tall girl blog, while I've been' hobo-bloggin' it over here. SORRY!

I'm a triple threat, baby

Outcast Genius 60 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 65% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in all three, earning you the title of: Outcast Genius. Outcast geniuses usually are bright enough to understand what society wants of them, and they just don't care! They are highly intelligent and passionate about the things they know are *truly* important in the world. Typically, this does not include sports, cars or make-up, but it can on occassion (and if it does then they know more than all of their friends combined in that subject). Outcast geniuses can be very lonely, due to their being outcast from most normal groups and too smart for the room among many other types of dorks and geeks, but they can also be the types to eventually rule the world, ala Bill Gates, the prototypical Outcast Genius. Congratulations! Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 55% on nerdiness You scored higher than 87% on geekosity You scored higher than 97% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

Recreational Lesbianism & Other Hijinks

Saturday night we had Greg's going-away party. All kinds of crazy shiznit happened...

I got to see some bellies, some boobies, a funny t-shirt, and a special anonymous guest.

There were also plenty of festive activities, like the requisite belly-dancing... some table-dancing.... and some chair straddling here and there...

People were telling wild stories.. Like it or not, Kat got a surprise rendition of the Happy Birthday Song... There was even a little gunplay going on.

And, of course, there was the drinking of shots, shots, and more shots. Alternatively, others opted for taquitos.. delicious little force-fed taquitos. Mmmm...

What else? There was plenty of love to go around. There were all kinds of hot couples there.. like this one, this one, this one, and this one.

I got to get cuddly w/ lots of folks too.. like Mark, Vanessa, Anne, Haiti, Nicole and her Ex, and then Anne again. :-)

At one point, a gang of tall people (6'4". 6'5", 6'6" and 6'6") got together to have a decent conversation without having to get cricks in our necks... Not that I have anything against short people - they're fun too.

What else?? Oh yeah, after a couple drinks, I managed to convince Shannon to channel Janice Dickinson. Mwah ha ha!

And, like I said before, there was some recreational lesbianism going on. I got pics, but I'd hate to incriminate the parties involved, so I'm not gonna post 'em. I may not be the brightest marble in the shed, but I've made a couple good decisions here and there. I'm thinking w/holding evidence here could be a good idea. Anyway..

The party was chill at times, scary at times, shocking at times, and hot as hell, but it was overall a good time.

(Click here to forego the story above and just see all the pics).

I Bet They Don't Have THIS in Knoxville

My friend Greg is moving to Knoxville, TN next week. :-( Last Friday was his last Friday in town, so we took him out for one of our favorite traditions - Korean Karaoke. It was cool. The night's hits included Skid Row's 18 and Life, Eminem's Lose Yourself, New Kids on the Block's Hangin' Tough, some crazy song by Ramstein, Culture Club's Karma Chameleon, Guns N' Roses' Paradise City & Sweet Child O' Mine, and bunches more. Here are some pics of the action.

Sex Toy Quiz

Take the The Sex Toys Quiz!

Immigration Issues

Time out from the shallow stuff for a sec.... In my court, we get alot of people w/ tickets for driving without a license. About half of the people cited for this are illegal aliens who cannot get driver's licenses b/c of their illegal status. One of our judges has apparently gotten fed up..

Yesterday in open court, he started asking Latino defendants if they were "illegal" and if they "swam across the river" to get here. He also threatened to deport a couple defendants if he saw them in his court again. It was pretty damn degrading. In addition, he asked a guy w/ a ticket for driving w/ out a license how he got to court that day (a valid question). Well, the guy says his sister-in-law drove and pointed to a Latino lady in the audience. The judge then demanded that the lady produce her driver's license. Fortunately for her, she was able to show one. .

Still.. I was pretty bothered by the whole thing. Here's my position: immigration status is only relevant if we are talking about identification of the defendant OR if we're setting bail (because we have to determine if there is a flight risk).

If the person appears in court like he/she is supposed to, and we're satisfied w/ their identification (through fingerprints, booking photo, ID, whatever), it shouldn't matter what their immigration status is after that - that's not our jurisdiction. Neither the city, the county, nor the state has jurisdiction over immigration. You wanna know why? Cuz it's a purely federal issue. Says so right in the constitution.

I am 100% of the opinion that immigration status should play no part in determining sentencing. I don't want to know why you don't have a license - only that you don't. And anyone who doesn't have one should get the same penalty, regardless of their accent, skin color, nationality, etc. It just invites racism to consider immigration status as a factor for sentencing. That's what I think. I've got a Latino last name, is that going to get me a harsher sentence if I commit a traffic offense and forget to bring my driver's license to court?? I should not have to be subjected to that kind of suspicion just b/c of my name and skin tone. If the ICE (as the INS is now called) isn't doing a good job w/ its deportation procedure, that's the ICE's problem.

Am I just raging crazy liberal on this? What's the consensus?

Latest addiction

Can't stop crunching... just too delicious.

YEE-HAW!

Friday night Shannon, Kat, Nalani and me all went to Gilly's to see about some bull-riding. Lucky for us, it was both country night AND the Toby Keith concert after party! Yee haw. Kat was the only one ballsy enough to ride the bull. I was going to, but then they made us put the camera away. And you know how the saying goes - if you can't blog about it, it's probably not worth doing anyway..

Here are some pics of the evening taken from Kat's blog.

Eat your heart out Janice!

Inspired by Janice Dickenson, I went and got this photo put on my Costco card today:

Striking a pose was a little embarrassing in front of all those Costco customers and employees, but the end result was well worth the effort.

Movie Review: The 40-Year-Old-Virgin

I LOVE LOVE LOVED this movie! It had me laughing out loud the whole way through. It's definitely one of those quote-worthy movies. The jokes were all very clever, and the delivery by the actors was excellent. I was also excited to see Catherine Keener, of Being John Malkovich fame, back in action. She was adorable in it. I'm officially adding her to my "girls I'd go gay for" list.

I might just be partial to the movie b/c the main character had a lot in common w/ Brian.. like collecting toys in their boxes.. customizing his own action firgures.. playing video-games... not having a driver's license (Brian didn't get one until he was 21).. being a virgin... OH WAIT, forget that last one. Nevermind about that. The point is, the main character was cute.. and hilarious... like Brian. ;-)

Brian thought the movie ran too long (at about 2 hours), but I disagree. Yeah, they could have wrapped up the story in an hour and a half, like all those other short comedies do, but I liked the extra time they spent developing the characters. By the end of the movie, they were all really likeable, and all had that everyday-Joe kind of charm, like the guys in Old School. Plus, c'mon, it was CONSTANT LAUGHS! I definitely felt like I got my $9.50's worth, even just for that extra half hour of constantly laughing my ass off.

Finay say: "A." Worth the evening admission. Plan to buy the DVD. Keep it next to your copy of Napoleon Dynamite. :-)

Girls, can this guy come to the bachellorette party?

..pretty pretty please?

Top Model Season 5

((SIGH)) Alright, Tyra, you got me.. Although I was mega-pissed to learn that Janice Dickenson got booted as a judge for Cycle 5 of America's Next Top Model, I'm still going to watch. I just can't resist. I'm hooked.

The new cast has been announced and the season starts Sep. 21. Top three for me at this point are: 1) Kim, 2) Bre, and 3) Jayla, with Kim as my choice to win. Anything can happen once the show starts though - as we know from previous cycles, this competition is all about attitude.

You might think you've beaten me Tyra, but you'll never get me to watch that crappy daytime talk show you've been plotting! NEVER!! (unless you cross-brand w/ top model, which actually isn't a bad idea - CURSE YOU TYRA!!)

From the "getting old" department..

This is Jani Lane, former lead singer of Warrant back when I was madly in love with him:




And this is him now.


I feel so........ ashamed. What the hell happened Jani??

I like girls with really big...

problems. Here's my pick for song of the day: Gwen Stefani, Cool.

Lobster Dilemma

Brian's mom Cherie is the sweetest lady in the whole world. She's always buying us things and sending us gifts. In college, we ate filet mignon a lot thanks to Cherie sending us Omaha steaks in the mail...

Last night Cherie came back from Boston. While at the Boston airport, Cherie decided to bring us back New England lobsters. Awweeee.. so sweet. Only thing is... they're still alive.

This is where the giant hypocrite inside of me gets exposed. Although I am a happy meat-eater, I've never had to actually kill my own dinner. At the grocery store, I always feel bad for the lobsters in the tank. So yeah.. now we have two live lobsters in a box swimming around in the fridge. I feel so bad for them... I can't possibly kill them myself.

I told Brian last night that we should set them free. He brought up a good point though - there's no saltwater in Las Vegas. So now I don't know what to do. I mean, they're probably going to die anyway.... unless I can find some kind of local lobster sanctuary.... but they were a gift... maybe if Brian killed them while I was out... hmmm.

Tshirt hell

Yesterday, Matt and Randi let us use their new pad to silk-screen tshirts. It was a super good time. We had a few snafus here and there, but I think everyone came away happy. (At least I hope they did!) Click here for more pics of our tshirt making adventure.

Bye bye baby..

Last week was totally flippin' crazy. I was 1) sleep deprived, 2) nauseated, 3) headache-y, 4) neurotic, and 5) anxious the entire time... My darling-dearest best friend Allison was in town, Mon-Sat and somehow managed to put up w/all my craziness.

While she was here, we also managed to pick a bridesmaid's dress that we both liked. Doesn't she look pretty in the head scarf we picked for the bridesmaids to wear??? JUST KIDDING! This isn't the dress or the headpiece we chose. I won't ruin the surprise by posting a pic of the real deal. Rest assured though, it's purdy as hell.

Anyway, Friday night we went to a Las Vegas Area 51's baseball game. The game itself was super boring, but hanging out w/ Allison and friends and eating junk food was cool.

Also cool was the fact that we got a bunch of free crap, like hats and Chipotle burritos and loaves of bread. Here's Allison, Kelly and me chillin' w/ our free hats, and Brian and David w/ their free bread.

We spent a lot of time trying to figure out what the mascot was supposed to be. It could have been a stingray, but it also could have been Jar Jar Binks. At one point I did elbow my way past the little kids to ask the mascot if it was in fact supposed to be Jar Jar Binks - you know.. Area 51.. aliens.. Jar Jar Binks - but he wouldn't answer me! Now I guess I'll never know. Oh well..

Another highlight of the evening was this lady. I don't think anyone there had nearly as good a time as this lady. She was SO EXCITED to hear Y-M-C-A! She ran up to the front of the stands and danced her little booty off. She was amazing! Everyone cheered for her when it was all said and done.

Good times... Anyway, now Allison's gone and I'm sad. :-(

Most humiliating way to die..

Of heat stroke, on a street corner in Henderson, dressed like a gorilla, for the amusement of motorists and the profit of a used car dealership.

Funny kid question

My 10-year-old nephew turned to me the other day and asked: "What's the C-word?" I was like, "WHAT?? Where did you hear that??" He explained that someone had called his other aunt "the c-word" and he wanted to know what that meant. Oh man...

I told him he wasn't old enough to know. Later on he asked Allison, and she told him that the C-word was "confidence." My best friend can be so cute and funny. :-)

Song for the day

Can't stop playing this song today...

Mean to Me by Tonic

Get crazy w/ the cheez whiz

That title has nothing to do with anything, it was just stuck in my head. Anyway... I've discovered this IM'ing program called Trillion, and basically, it's like crack. It combines Yahoo IM, AOL IM and ICQ so you only need one IM'ing program. If I didn't spend enough time on the computer before b/t two blogs and five listserves, this has definitely put me over the edge.

The moral of the story is that I want to compile my buddies' IM'ing IDs to add to my list. Mine is "claudiagoestoeurope" on Yahoo IM and "cladeedahdee" on AOL IM. What's yours?

Pretty good weekend

Friday night we had such big plans. Brian and I were going to go out to a nice restaurant to celebrate our eighth anniversary and then stop by First Friday. Things didn't quite pan out that way though. Instead, we got home from work and passed out. We woke up at 9:30pm, decided we were too tired to go out and stayed in and watched a DVD. Old and lame, I know.

Saturday Brian went to Mesquite, NV for an Ad Club Board retreat. I spent the day catching up on sleep and Tivo'd shows. That night, I met up w/ Shannon and some friends of hers from work for Korean-karaoke at Club Ya Mang. After a little bit of soju, I did my rendition of Eminem's Lose Yourself and then headed off to my next destination..

After karaoke, I met up with Nat, Nalani and Hilary for some Rocky Horror Picture Show action. Here are some pics of that... First there's Nat and Nalani..



There's also one of Hil and me, but I have a double chin in the photo, so ya'll don't get to see it. Instead, here are some pretty funny kids that were there..



It was a good time, except for, as usual, all the drunken teenagers made me feel old.

Sunday my darling Brian came back to me. We finally got around to celebrating our anniversary by going to Shibuya at the MGM Grand. It was super nice. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for a classy night out. (We really enjoyed the shrimp tempura with spicy aioli, the tuna tar tar w/ spicy caviar and tobiko, and the yellowtail.)

That's about it.. pretty good weekend.

I guess some guys are into that kinda thing

I finally had my one-year review today. Despite the recent string of embarassing events, my boss decided to go ahead and let me have a 35% raise. Methinks I should fall on his desk more often. (Not like that, sickos).

Did I happen to mention that I'm impressed?

Just got back from the Violent Femmes show. Holy crap they are so good! They didn't play the song I wanted, but that's okay. They did a good job anyway.

Over there

So last Wednesday I watched this horribly wrenching, violent show called Over There. It's about the Iraq war. I had heard some buzz about it, but only tuned in by accident, b/c it was playing in the time slot of 30 days (Wed, 10pm, FX).

I wasn't sure how to react right after I watched it. It definitely pulled me in and kept my attention.. but it was so horribly graphic, so horribly brutal. This couldn't possibly be entertainment, I thought. I was pretty sure then that I wasn't going to watch this show ever again.

Over the last week though, I've managed to digest it.. and, without doubt, I'm going to watch again. It sounds corny, but I feel like it's filled a void. Even though I listen to NPR, and I get Newsweek, and I hear every day about the people dying in this war - I still feel like I don't have enough information. Like I'm still completely ignorant. I want to know who these people are. Know HOW they died. Know who killed them. Know what happened after they were killed. Know what's being done differently b/c of their deaths. This information will never make it to me through the news, though. This show, although fictional, fills that void.

In the last week since I watched the show, I've heard of at least two groups of Marines killed in Iraq. Each time, I was truly devastated. It knocked the wind out of me. This didn't happen to me before I watched this show. Now I have a vested interest. Now I care. It's sad to say, but these fictional characters have painted such a vivid picture, that I can no longer nonchalantly dismiss the real reports of real people dying. It makes me sad that our news media can't do this job itself b/c of fear of "editorializing." Anyway, I'll quit rambling.. the bottom line is this: if you feel disconnected from this war in any way, you should watch this show. Even if you think you can't stomach it, watch this show.

Silk screening

I guess we're silk screening tshirts this weekend... I've had so many great ideas for tshirts lately, but I haven't written them down and now I forgot.. Here are some I can remember:

1. Chismosa (gossiper in Spanish)
2. Chapusera (con artist in Spanish)
3. Trust me, I'm a Lawyer (can get this at Urban Outfitters, so maybe not worth a silk screen)
4. I Say "Hella" (Saw this somewhere)
5. I'll Mess with Texas (also saw this somewhere.. see picture below)
6. 6'5" ..and no, I don't play basketball.
7. Mrs. Felguayo (Mine and Brian's last names combined)
8. More Cowbell!
9. Snape kills Dumbledore
10. What's the gossip??

Ok, so I need more. Fun t-shirt ideas please!!