is this thing on?

Brian and I attended the Monolith Music Festival at Red Rocks last weekend. The festival was awesome but I have one complaint: I'm really frustrated with everyone's utter disregard for the designated smoking areas (and by everyone, I really am referring to everyone - except us). I hate to break it to you smokers but even though Red Rocks is an outdoor venue, that doesn't mean your cigarette smoke will magically disappear into the ozone. No, it goes into my nose and mouth and upsets me. I don't share my bad habits with you. Do I spit my chewed off fingernails into your nose and mouth? No. I am respectful to those around me and I don't do it in public. You know something is wrong when there are so many people smoking, it looks like the bands brought a fog machine. Don't get me wrong, I was prepared to smell some pot here and there because I know how the typical music groupee can be but I was not prepared for the amount of cigarette's that inundated my soul. It...

politics bug me. there's too much hatred and division that seems to be attached these days. we're all one nation, yet we're at war with ourselves over the words "republican" and "democrat". it seems that all too often democrats and republicans slam the door shut and no one dares listen to anything anyone in the other party has to say with any seriousness or consideration. i went to some democratic parties before the DNC here in Denver, i've watched the DNC and the RNC and i've felt pretty slimy the entire time. nothing about it feels educated or sincere at all. the focus seems completely off and the media should be banned from it all because they only make it worse. here's my solution: high school class president elections. those were real elections. there were no parties to get in the way or hinder anyone's thoughts or ideas. it was just people, wanting to make a difference in their school (or maybe just prove that they were popu...

Brian and I spent the weekend in Colorado Springs visiting with my family. Saturday night we decided to play 'balderdash'; we don't actually have the board game so we just use a dictionary and some scraps of paper. Now, 'balderdash' is more of a Fangio game than a Stoess game so Brian wasn't all too enthused about playing it but he was a good sport and stuck it out until the second or third word. I should note that we were using a dictionary from 1890 which meant you couldn't make up definitions using modern terms or others would know it wasn't the correct one. My brother picked the word 'redecraft' for his turn and we all dutifully scribbled our best guesses at the definition and handed them in. My brother began to read the entries and the first one out of his mouth was this: "redecraft: an early form of easy mac produced by the Kraft company". Yep, that would be Brian's. Needless to say, Brian stopped playing after that. I gu...

i slept in until 10:30 this morning, ate breakfast, and then fell back to sleep for another few hours. needless to say, i can't sleep. brian and i went to another rockies game last night and watched as they sadly lost to the padres. on a side note, it struck me last night that the Padres basically translates to "the dads". it's kind of silly. anywho, in traditional Rockies fashion they toyed with our hearts. it's the bottom of the 9th with a guy on first and second, then 4 balls walks the next batter. bases are loaded and Tulo's up to bat. our hearts get all fluttery with the hope of a grand slam because this is baseball and miracles do happen. and then 3 strikes and it's over, just like that. never have i felt such anti-climactic hope until i started to fall in love with baseball. BUT, once every blue moon the hope pays off and that miracle does happen and that's why i keep going and why i refuse to leave before the game is officially over. i...

my cats recently turned 2 years old and before i knew what was happening, i found myself holding a plate of wet cat food adorned with 2 burning candles and i was singing happy birthday to them. as the cat's eyes pleaded with me to get those strange burning sticks out of their food and as brian looked at me with complete awe (and not good awe i'm afraid) i reflected for a moment and felt completely ridiculous. so i retorted, 'well, give me babies or it will only get worse!" oi.

I won't lie. I'm really excited about "The Dark Knight" movie. I had not realized just how much "Batman Begins" turned the corner for comic book heroes until this week. Back in the days of yore, ahem 1997, I went to the theater to see the George Clooney/Chris O'Donnel/Alicia Silverstone attempt at Batman and I remember loving it. Therefore, when I saw that it was going to be on t.v. last night (and in the spirit of the new movie coming out) I excitedly decided to watch it. Oh. My. Goodness. Seriously? I couldn't even sit through the whole thing; it was so cheesy. Like Velveeta Cheesy. Like bad script, bad acting, bad fight scenes. When Batman and Robin started adolescently fighting about which of them Poison Ivy was in love with I just had to stop. "Batman Begins" makes it all seem real. They aren't silly, imaginary villains anymore. They are real, scary predators and the things they do aren't all that far off from real...

today marks a pretty big moment in my life: i scored '100' in my 4th round of bowling tonight. internet, do you realize that's the first time i've hit 100 in 16 years? this, my friends, is HUGE. brian says i should buy a bowling wrist guard just to commemorate the occasion. that's cool and all, but i was kind of hoping for a slurpee.

i don't know if it's the 'brand' of light bulb we bought but it really makes me sad that in order to be energy efficient, our house has to feel like a warehouse. we went out and bought enough of the 'green' light bulbs to furnish our house and now every time i turn on a light it flickers and then gives off the harshest light ever. i thought i would just get used to it over time but it never fails: every time i turn on a light i can't help but utter, "ugh". i suppose it's a small price to pay for the good that it does but it will involve me getting over my obsession with wanting a room to feel 'warm'. maybe we'll just switch to candles.

i decided i wanted to plan a fun little weekend getaway but because we don't have the time or the money, it couldn't be very far away. i added a nice twist to it by turning it into a surprise for brian and i was pretty stoked. i did lots of research and ended up with fort collins. i transferred money to my personal/private account so brian couldn't see any charges to the bank account. i printed directions to the hotel and to any other place i thought we might like to go. i told brian i would drive and he would have to wear a blindfold the whole way there. i had thought of everything. again, it's not very far away and not entirely all that exciting...but as a secret, it was awesome. and folks, i did a really good job at keeping it a secret.... for about a week. one day i asked brian when his spring break was to see if it corresponded with our little getaway and in the midst of the conversation, the following words came out of my mouth: "so your spring break ...

* just watched the academy awards. they were saying they weren't sure how the jokes would be because they usually spend 7 months working on them but because of the writer's strike they only had 10 days. i would say they should always only have 10 days. either that or always have john stewart host. i enjoyed it a lot. * brian and i attended Denver's "Artopia" event last night. it was our first time i would highly recommend it. unless you don't like free alcohol, free food, lots of swag, good art and good music. i think the highlight for me was stumbling across an old five iron frenzy band member who now plays in the local band "heart of palm". i really enjoyed their show and i decided i love bands that have like 10 people in them. i also really enjoyed the art and wished i had a million dollars to buy it all to put in my house. or, learn how to do it myself. * saw a CSI episode about dog fighting. if you make dogs fight. stop it. serio...

did you guys know you can send a "text to land line" message? i somehow missed out on that little technological advancement. i blame it on the fact that i'm almost in my late 20's; and that's old. a few months ago one of my acquaintances at work ran across a man who's name was ricky martin. so of course i said, 'she bang, she bang' and it became a little joke for a week or so. like if ricky came in i would go and say, "she bang, she bang is here to see you"; or if something didn't go right he would say, "no she bang, she bang"...you get the idea. then the phone rang the other day and an automated voice told me i had received a "text to land line" message and i was about to hang up because A) i get automated calls all the time and B) what the heck is a "text to land line" message? but my curiosity got the best of me and i pressed '1' to hear my message... and what i heard was an automated lady s...

brian and i went bowling for our last 'date night'. we were both a little sad that it costs $4 to rent a pair of shoes so afterwards we went to k-mart to see about buying ourselves some of our own. low and behold, the one pair that was my size was on sale. and by sale, i mean they were practically giving them away. the tag said, "regularly $36.99, now $3.50". i don't have to tell you that i snagged those right up. now i only have to bowl once and i've gotten my money's worth. i hope you have all experienced finding such a good deal because there's really no describing how satisfying it is. now, anyone want to go bowling? i bowled an 86 last time so watch out. i'm pretty good.

i've gone and caught the sniffles. and by sniffles i mean i think i'm dying. so i just wanted to let you know that if i die, i'm leaving my CD player to you. that's right, YOU. it's your lucky day. now i'm going to go and continue to cough up all my organs.

a fairly new co-worker was kind enough to pick up the mail for our office today. she was sorting through it and saw a name she didn't recognize so she asked me who it was. me : 'oh, that guy. he got fired for sleeping with the boss a few years ago. i guess it was a big scandal and they even used to turn in expense reports to be reimbursed for their hotel bills'. co-worker : 'oh my goodness. i was not aware of that. i think i'll open it just to make sure it's nothing important'. letter : 'we at the radison would like to thank you for your continued support to our hotels and would like to wish you a happy new year'. that basically made my day. you can't plan stuff like that.