My newest toy

It's finally arrived... my highly-coveted Zojirushi Mr. Bento Stainless-Steel lined Lunch Jar.

A few weeks back, I was trying to find a cool birthday gift for Allison, when I came across this bento-box thermos-thing online. I just had to have it. Apparently, it's got four sealed bowls that stack and fit into this thermos container thingy that helps food retain its temperature. I can't wait to use it.

Allison got the one I sent her last week, but apparently she thinks it's freakish. Brian thinks it's kinda goofy. We'll see how they feel after they see all the awesome bento meals I take to work from now on.

We can dance if we want to

That was random.

Brian and I were picking some things up at Target after the gym tonight, when three artsy-looking guys came skipping around the corner, arms linked, dancing toward us, w/ "The Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats blaring from one of their bodies. It was quite the sight to see. I smiled at them and they smiled back, without even thinking of slowing down. They kept on dancing down the aisle... all the way across the store... past the checkout counters. I imagine they safety-danced all the way through the parking lot and into their car.

Weird (but cool).

28 welcomes you

Happy Birthday to Allison (my best friend), who turned 28 today.

I Know Nothing

So Friday night at the airport, I'm putting my shoes back on after going through security, when I notice these two Japanese girls having problems at the scanner. Apparently, they had a lighter in their bag and the clerk was trying to ask them how they wanted to deal with it - throw it out, mail it back to themselves, or take it outside. So she yells out, 'Does anyone know how to say "matches" in Japanese??'

I perked up and got excited. My first instinct was to jump up and say, "I'm taking a Japanese class, how may I be of assistance?" But then I started going over my Japanese vocabulary in my head: "My name is Claudia." "How are you?" "It's very nice to meet you." "Hello." "Goodbye." "Good morning." "Good evening." "See you later." FUCK! Nothing about matches at all! I quickly realized I wasn't as useful as I had hoped to be.

My next thought was to look up the words in my Japanese text, which I happened to have on my carry-on. By the time I got it out and flipped to the index, though, the girls were already heading out to dispose of the lighter. And "matches" wasn't anywhere to be found in my book anyway.

So yeah.. It kinda bummed me out that I didn't know enough Japanese to help the situation.

Sayooonara

I'm flying to Sacramento tonight to see old friends and to attend a baby shower in San Jose. Be back Sunday night.

Gan batte kudesai!!

Tonight was the first night of our Conversational Japanese class. Brian, David and I are planning a trip to Japan for later in the year, and thought it'd be cool to enroll in a Japanese class.

Tonight we did basic pronunciations and some common expressions. It was nice to be back in a classroom after [GASP!] four years. I totally felt like one of those obnoxious over-achieving "non-traditional students" though. You know the ones.. the ones that take one class "just for fun," ... who know all the answers to all the questions ... and who prolong the class by asking endless stupid questions we don't need to know for the test. Yeah, I think that's going to be me. I really want to do well in this class.

Brian thinks I'm on crack, but I think knowing Spanish is super-helpful for learning Japanese. Not because there are any similarities in the vocabulary or anything. But just because my mouth is used to pronouncing words that English-only speakers aren't used to pronouncing. So when they say "matte" in Japanese, I just think of how I pronounce "tomate" in Spanish, and it sounds virtually identical. It will be interesting to see if the teacher notices a Spanish accent on my Japanese.

(OH, and gan batte kudesai = Do your best!)

Not too bad

So thanx to Randi, I looked myself up in the Urban Dictionary and here's what I got.

LMAO

Heh. I just figured out that means "laughing my ass off." (Shut up.)

I just used my iTunes giftcard to buy Eminem's greatest hits album, Curtain Call on my friend Megan Fidell's recommendation. I'm LMAO. It's fabulous.

So worried...

I am so worried about what's going to happen to the 28-year-old reporter taken hostage a few weeks ago in Iraq. I can't stop thinking about it.

The iPod Shuffle Gods Are Smiling...

I just got back from Day 2 at the gym. Tonight's workout mix kicked ass!:

"In the Garage" by Weezer - just imagine the yelling at the end: "No one hears me sing this song!" (My resulting epiphany: Teen angst is an insanely good workout motivator.)

Followed by "The Finale" from Les Miserables on full blast. Nothing like a broadway-calibur cast belting out the chorus to get your blood pumping: "Do you hear the people sing? Singing a song of angry men? It is the music of a people who will not be slaves again! When the beating of your heart echoes the beating of the drums, there is a life about to start when tomorrow comes!" That is SO my next ring tone.

And last but not least, Jesus Walking On the Water by the Violent Femmes. It's the fiddle!! That thing makes you feel like doing the Ashlee Simpson hoe-down dance right there on the elliptical runner!! No seriously, try it. It's crazy!

Anyway.. there were some less cool songs in there too, but I just thought these were so randomly great, I just had to share. :-)

Work Out Mix

So 3 weeks after making my go-to-the-gym-more-often-resolution, I'm proud to announce that I finally got off my ass and went to the gym tonight. YAY ME! I'll be up to 3 gym days a week in no time..

It's been so long since I was at the gym that I wasn't prepared with a good workout mix tonight. In fact, I've pretty much decided that I'm sick of all the music on my iPod, so it's time to change. I need suggestions for songs I can work out to por favor. Angry chick singers are a plus. Songs w/ slow starts that explode into angry punk anthems are good too. Retro is cool too - as long as the beat is quick and inspirational. So I got this iTunes giftcard from xmas burning a hole in my wallet. Whatcha got for me?

Movie Review: Brokebutt Mountain

I had heard mixed reviews about this film, but, personally, I loved it. And not just for the raw, hot, grunting, gay sex either. And not just for the giggle-inducing, double-entendre dialogue in the opening scenes either.

Actually, the gay sex was kept pretty confined to one scene. Primarily, the film told a heart-wrenching love story, and set it beautifully in a backcountry paradise. I had no trouble getting into the characters and their story. I bawled like a little baby by the end of the movie... though I must admit that the subject is one I'm particularly sensitive to. (I just cannot comprehend homophobia/gay-hatred/gay-bashing. It's just so pointless and tragic.)

Heath Ledger did an amazing job. I was less impressed w/ Jake Gyllenhaal, but he did an a'ight job nonetheless. Michelle Williams of Dawson's Creek fame (aka, the girl Heath Ledger impregnated while making this film - method acting much?) did surprisingly well.

Oh, and here's a bonus tip in case it helps you to decide whether you should see this film: you get to see Anne Hathaway's boobies, which came as a complete shock to me, since the last movie I know of that she was in was THE PRINCESS DIARIES 2!!! Go Anne Hathaway!

Actually, the movie loses points for Anne Hathaway's goofy hair transformations over the course of time and for the crappy job the make-up artists did aging the actors. Other than that, I thought it was a moving, aesthetically inviting, thought-provoking film. Final grade: A-

Final sidenote: Shannon prefers to call it "Bareback Mountain." Which do you think is funnier, brokebutt or bareback? I much prefer brokebutt for its overt crassness. :-)

But it'll hurt if I swallow...

How come everyone thinks I'm faking?? For the record, I really am sick. Ok, not so sick as to be unable to sit through a two hour movie, but still too sick to negotiate and argue and put on trials for 9 hours. My throat is killing me. My glands are swollen. My sinuses are coated in flem. And I'm probably contagious. At what point am I sick enough not to go to work?

So Tristan and Isolde was kinda dumb. It was a cross between Braveheart and Romeo and Juliet, so maybe you'll like it if you're into that. Me, I don't like these Shakespearean type of love stories where people meet and inexplicably fall in love, so I didn't care very much about the characters. I was just really indifferent about the whole thing. Plus, I'm not a 12-year-old girl or a gay man, so I wasn't all hot for the young male lead - the kid who plays the Green Goblin's son in Spiderman. I don't remember his name now and I'm too lazy to go look it up. James Franco, I think? And the girl lead just wasn't hot enough. So the movie gets a D+.

Oh, and just a quick shout out to Shannon - thanks for giving my 11-year-old nephew my blog address! He's already posted a comment! You can all thank Shannon for this blog going PG from now on.

PS - The title of this blogpost is PG - remember that commercial??

Feeling much better all of a sudden..

Brian has a bunch of free tickets to see Tristan and Isolde toniight at 7pm at the Palms. Call one of us if you're interested. I'm sure my sudden turn-around is due to my taking it easy at home for the day. :-)

Sick Daze

So I called in sick today. I think that's like the 5th time in the year and a half I've worked there. Is that bad? I actually have been hoping for a sick day lately. Sometimes it's just nice to stay home in your pajamas, have soup, and watch tv while everyone else is at work.

Brian has been sick for about two weeks now. With my ox-like immune system, I thought I'd managed to avoid getting what he had, but now it doesn't appear that I was so fortunate. I've had the same horrible headache for about 24 hours, my throat is dry and scratchy, my body is sore, and I'm a little dizzy and light sensitive. Hopefully this is as bad as it'll get.

Strange things are afoot at the Circle K..

Before I forget, and since I wore it tonight, I just wanted to say thanks to Greg and Ally for this customized tshirt that they got me for Xmas. (Thanks also for the iPod armband!) Very appropo!

Rose Tint My Ass, Tropicana Cinemas!

I heard a vicious rumor that the Rocky Horror Picture Show was no longer playing at the local discount theater. After calling around and poking around on the internet, I found out that the rumor was TRUE.

But, my fellow tranny-lovers, there's no need to despair. It looks like both casts have found new homes. Frankie's Favorite Obsession premieres at its new location, Hamburger Mary's, on January 21st. And Divine Decadence seems to have a new, albeit shady, home at the Take 1 Night Club.

I'm definitely interested in checking out the show at Hamburger Mary's in 2 weeks. Anyone else game?

My new crack

'
Thanks a lot Housekeeper.. now I'm hooked on Project Runway. I Tivo'd my first episode last night - a rerun I think - the one where they had to design lingerie. I cried at the end. WHAT? That's right, I cried. WHAT OF IT?! With it's addition of catty gay men contestants and Apprentice-like challenges to the Top Model formula, how could a show like this not work? Or, rather, "work it?" And, you're right, Heidi Klum is the most adorable pregnant person ever.

I can't believe it!

Chad Lowe and Hilary Swank are kaputs!

My "O" Face

Friday night, Brad, Vanessa, Shannon, David, James, Marie, Marie's man, Jesse, Brian and me went to First Friday. We ran into a bunch of people there, including one of my victims from work (a girl who was almost kidnapped, but she fought the guy off), the student body president/homecoming king of my high school, and this woodcarver who mistook me for Rebecca Lobo (I played it up the whole time - I'll post the full story on the tall blog later). As always, First Friday was a good time.

Saturday night, Brian & his family and me went to see Cirque Du Soleil: "O" at the Belllagio. Brian and I had given his family tickets to the show for Christmas, which ended up being a really good idea, since everyone loved the show and got to spend time together. The show was pretty darn cool. I'd say it's my second favorite Cirque show now, after Ka. Watching it made me hate Le Reve even more. I can't believe what a rip-off La Reve was of this show!

So now we've seen 4 of the 12 Cirque shows (Mystere, Ka, O, & Dralion - Le Reve doesn't count cuz it's techincally not a Cirque show). For Valentine's Day, we'll probably see Zumanity.

Well well well..

Lookie who got herself a purse just like mine..

Bad TV: The Results Show

I can't believe they kicked off the funny guy from Sports Center and kept Master P...

:-(

Resolutions-smesholutions

So did anyone else catch the TWO HOUR season premiere of Dancing with the Stars last night???? It was surprisingly good! I'd never heard of WWF Superstar Stacy Kiebler before, but now, after last night, my money's on her. She is g-g-g-gorgeous!

Lisa Rina was looking pretty good too. Tia Carrere (of Wayne's World) got sympathy points for doing this a month and a half after giving birth.. And the host of SportsCenter also got sympathy points for being amazingly cute and funny, even though his dancing sucked. Master P (father of Lil' Romeo) on the other hand, gets no props from me. He didn't even try! Poor Ashley DelGrosso (his cute chunky professional dancer partner) won't get very far this season.. I suspect they'll be going home tonight.

So yeah, good stuff..

Resolutions

Resolutions suck. LIke I said before, I've done a piss-poor job this week of fulfilling mine. Oh well.. let's just get them out there, if just for the sake of pretending:

1. Stop talking on the cell phone on the drive home from work - Daytime minutes are a killer, as is my driving on the 95 when I'm on the phone.
2. Make a budget and stick to it.
3. Buy a house.
4. Finish my estate administration duties.
5. Go to bed every night by 10:30. (HA!)
6. Visit the gym at least three times a week. (HA HA!)
7. Get to work at 7am, NOT 7:30.(HA HA HA!)
8. Do something interesting and different with my hair this year
9. Clean out the garage
10. Eat breakfast before work
11. Get invisalign braces
12. Get the damn tooth implant that I've been too scared to get.
13. Keep the dishes clean
14. Watch the Netflix I've had for over 6 months, or else just cancel the damn subscription
15. Finish reading those stupid books
16. Stop blogging/playing on the internet at work
17. Watch less TV in order to get all of the above done. (HA HA HA HA!)
18. Have a notebook handy at all times and actually jot down good ideas and interestign dreams.

Flavia-FLAV!

For Christmas, my wonderful husband got me a Flavia Fusion Drinks Station. So far, it kicks butt. Basically, it's a one-cup coffeemaker, only it's a lot cooler than most others on the market. It makes cappuccino, espresso, tea, hot chocolate, mocha, coffee, and other assorted hot drinks. It's also cool cuz there is no clean-up involved. The drink packet/pod is the filter and the coffee, so you just pop it in and throw it away when it's brewed.

One drawback so far though is that the coffee packets are only available online, and they're pretty pricey. For example...

.43 per packet of specialty coffee or tea (like chai or vanilla)
.32 per packet of chocolate
.20 per packet of whipped topping (for cappuccinos, lattes & other frothy drinks) and
.41 per packet of espresso

The other thing is the size - each packet only makes about 8 oz. of coffee, not counting the frothy stuff. So to get a regular 16-18 oz. Starbucks sized drink, you're looking at about a buck. Which is still better than Starbucks, but not as cheap as a regular coffeemaker or making tea the old fashined way. Of course, you can't make a Milky Way Cappuccino in your old coffee maker.

The time-saving factor is nice too. It makes each packet in about 20 seconds. That's much better than the 5-20 minute wait at Starbucks in the morning. Nevermind the fact that there's no Starbucks (or any other coffee shop) within a 5-mile radius of my job.

I just spent $150 on an online order for coffee refills though.. which is kind of startling. I'm keeping the box and the receipt for the machine, just in case I find anything better in the next few weeks. So far though, it looks like the husband picked a good one. Any pod-coffee-maker users out there have experience with other comparable machines? If so, I'd love to hear your thoughts..

Also, if you are interested in buying one, let me know and I'll email you this promotional thingy they want me to whore my friend's email addresses out for.

Hot Lunch

Now this is a real coincidence. Just days after learning what a "hot lunch" was, it came up during a conversation w/ my boss and the judge. The judge was telling us about a lady down at the indoor swap-meet who used to pay guys to hold a glass bowl over their faces while she shat in it. My boss wittily pointed out that if you took the bowl away, you'd have a "hot lunch."

I couldn't find the doorknob fast enough. (Damn, I have an interesting workplace.)

Reno New Year's Extraordinaire

Boy, do I take lots of pictures. Two pages worth this time. You'll get the links in a second, but first the backstory..

We flew up to Reno for the New Year's weekend. Things didn't necessarily go as planned, but that was okay. The plan was to play in the snow and party in Tahoe New Year's Eve. That plan was foiled when Carson City, the place we'd planned to stay that night, declared an emergency evacuation because of flooding.

So our party moved to Reno instead.. Saturday we stalked our old friend Jae Yi, who we hadn't spoken to in about 6 years. We put our stalker-skillz to work and found a potential address for him. Then 10 of us - a random mix of friends from college and high school - showed up on his doorstep. Only it wasn't his doorstep. Turns out he'd moved just a few short days earlier. Damn.

So we inititated plan B. We called his parent's house in Vegas and got his new cell #. I love trusting family members.. Anyway, we met Jae for sushi later that night, which was a really good time. Mission accomplished.

Then it was off to exciting downtown Reno for some New Year's Eve action. The boys we met up w/ had some absinthe (that's read "ab-synth," not "abs in the" or "a.b.s. in the," as some might think. Inside joke, nevermind..) Anyway, the boys had absinthe in their hotel room, so they got nice and liquored up for the festivities.. Meanwhile, the rest of the group shared a nice, warm bottle of tequilla on the street just before midnight.

Shannon was the mack-momma-supa-star of the night, w/ her choice of 3-4 boys. (We suspect one was gay). Unfortunately, the one she chose wasn't quite able to finish out the night outside of the bathroom. (No wonder that shit's illegal..) Too bad for her..

Shannon's consolation prize is that she gets the "most-amazingly-cool-ex-girlfriend" award for not even batting an eyelash at the prospect that her ex-boyfriend David *might* be snogging the girl we were staying with. Props.

The weekend continued w/ lots of horrible, disgusting, immature, perverted euphemisms for sexual acts.. for example: the "Bismarck" and the "dirty sanchez".. warning, that link is horrifying..

New Year's day we finally got some snow action up on Donner Pass. It even snowed in Reno on Monday. So ultimatley we got our snow play adventure. And our absinthe adventure. And our Bismarck adventure.. Good times.

As promised, here are the pics w/ no captions and no fun themed background for now cuz I have no time!!

Reno Pics Page One and Reno Pics Page Two