Ripping CDs has become my life

I haven't written because I've been spending every spare minute reripping every CD we own. Somehow, most of them were ripped into .wma format way back when instead of .mp3. So I'm redoing it. And it takes forever.

I'm so ready for Lost to start up again tomorrow! Yay!

Oh, and if you're on Facebook, be sure to stop by and see the amazingly hilarious and embarrassing pictures that I posted in one of my albums. They're awesome.

Karaoke!

Last night was awesome fun! We started out at the Brazen Bean where they served very yummy martinis. However, they had no beer. Marc wasn't happy about that. It was taking some other folks from work longer than we expected to make it downtown, so the group at BB made an executive decision to head to the Rogue for some grub. (Yes, we just went there last week, but we went back because it was so good!) We hung out there for quite awhile; Kristin, Jocelyn, Neil, Justin, and Courtney joined me, Marc, Greg, and Pete there. Then Adam and Shelly showed up for a bit. After A&S took off, the rest of the group headed out to the Boiler Room. (Yes, we went there last week, too, but it was fun, so we went back!) There was hardly anyone there when we first arrived, and there was no line for karaoke, so I signed up to sing Dirty Little Secret (see, that practice on Rock Band paid off!). It wasn't good. I know I sounded awful. But it was fun. The computer froze up on my lyrics, so I had to wing the second half of the song. A little later, I sung Only Happy When It Rains. Then it got crowded and I stopped. Good times! Phil and Agnes showed up just as we were heading out, so we didn't get to hang with them for long. We drove a bunch of people home, picked up some Taco Bell, and then crashed.

Tonight we're supposed to go to a keg party benefit (long story...), but it's raining and below freezing outside, which means that the roads will likely be really yucky later tonight. We'll see what happens...

Yeah, now I'm the Dork

First, I'm switching to a larger font for this blog. I don't know why I've been using something so small all these months, but I'm sick of squinting, so I'm done with that.

I came home yesterday to find a MacBook of my own waiting for me. Marc claims that his MacBook was lonely and wanted a sister. Bizarre, but okay. The last time I used a Mac was my senior year of high school for a graphic design class. It's interesting to use a computer when I don't really know how to use it. As I said to Marc yesterday, I feel like I'm having to relearn logic. I'd forgotten what a pain it is to switch to a new computer, and that hassle is compounded by the inability to just copy My Docs from the old one to My Docs on the new one. This is a whole new ballgame. I think I (will) like it though.

Marc is a Dork

He's sitting on the couch with his new MacBook, and he's video chatting with our buddy Claus who lives up in B.C.

Dork dork dork. If you could see me, you'd see me rolling my eyes.

Another new restaurant experience

Another of my resolutions this year is to go to new restaurants. I feel like there are so many places to go eat in this city, but we haven't historically made a good practice of leaving the "Beaverton bubble." I've said in the past that we should seek out new places more often, but this year we're following through. Eating at the Rogue Brewery on Friday was new. And as I mentioned in my last post, they made, quite possibly, the best burger we've ever eaten here in town.

Last night, we tried to go to Fire on the Mountain with Slimey, Chris, and the kids. It was packed, so we went down the street to Pause. Great food! I had a chicken sandwich; Marc had another burger. I can see this turning into a problem as we discover more places we like to eat at and have to carefully choose where to eat out from an increasing number of options on the weekends.

Mark it down in the history books

It's 1:30 a.m. on Friday night/Saturday morning. I got up at my regular 6:00 a.m. Friday morning, but somehow I wasn't asleep at 9:00 p.m. like i usually am on Friday nights. Amazing.

Today was pretty eventful! Laura came to visit at work with Amelia, then they went out to lunch with me and Kristin. Since we ate right by the Mac Store, I decided to take the plunge and buy an iPod Touch. It ROCKS. And I still don't quite know exactly how it all works. I'm excited to dig into it more tomorrow (or later today, I guess).

We skipped happy hour because we met up at Adam's place (which I love because it's on the hill with an awesome view of the entire city) after work. We had a couple of drinks and then headed out to dinner at Rogue with him, Shelly, his roommate, and his roomie's girlfriend. I'd never eaten there, and I must say that their Kobe burger with bacon and bleu cheese was pretty much the best burger I've had in a long time.

Then we went to the Boiler Room for some karaoke action. It took forever (and sitting through some awful songs--except for the awesome rendition of Wonderboy) before Shelly finally got called. She rocked No Rain and just about everybody in the place was singing along. Then we left. No, I didn't partake.

So we went back to Adam's place and played Rock Band--I still love that game!!!--for awhile. I was THRILLED that he got a couple of songs by All-American Rejects. I sung them both and got a 99% on one and 100% on the other! Rock on! Later I sang Vasoline by STP and got 100% on it, too! That made my night. Now my throat is sore, and now I know what songs I'll look for the next time we go to a karaoke bar. :)

There were lots of good quotes tonight. I wish I could remember them--and I wasn't even drinking! Here's one good one though.
Marc: I wanna climb that tower! Let's climb the tower!
Me: The crane? (There's a huge crane outside Adam's place to aid in the construction of a new residential building down the street.)
Adam: We're not drunk enough yet.

Yeah, like we'd ever climb a crane. The thought of it is funny.

Idiocy

Deal or No Deal. I think it's on every night of the week these days because of the writers' strike. I find it simultaneously hilarious and sad that, night after night, the contestants exclaim their positivity that the case they've chosen contains $1,000,000. It's a game of CHANCE, people. No matter how much you want for it to be true, it's absolutely stupid to proclaim that you're POSITIVE that the case you chose contains $1,000,000. Ultimately, these people pass up $200,000 or $300,000 deals because they're sure their case holds more, just to walk out at the end of the show with $30,000 or so. Lame.

We went to the Mac Store tonight to look for a replacement laptop for Marc since his has been in the crapper lately. I also wanted to check out the iPod touch in person. Since we bought new laptops at the same time last summer, we agreed that from this point forward, we'd buy new laptops at the same time every time. We get way jealous when one of us gets a new gadget that the other doesn't. Anyway, we walked out with only one laptop, and Marc's not even sure that he'll keep it. I'm majorly tempted by the 16GB Touch, but it's hard to spend $400 on an iPod that doesn't even have as much storage as my big, old, clunky iPod. I just know that as soon as I buy it, they'll come out with something better or cheaper. Such is the way of electronic life. I passed on the laptop for now because I just couldn't justify spending the money on something I really want but don't really need. My computer's fine. I'll survive. For now. But if you see me pouting, you'll know why.

Jewelry

If you know me, you know I'm not a huge jewelry-wearing kinda girl. But I was invited by a friend of Kristin's to a jewelry party tonight. Hey, it was advertised in the Evite as a jewelry and dessert party, so how could I resist? Anyway, it was cool, and I did find a ring to buy. Someone made the most fabulous lemon bars I think I've ever had. I'll have to figure out who and get the recipe. The highlight of the night was Kristin's concoction of champagne and pomegranate juice. Yummy! And the cherry on top of the sundae was that it started snowing on my way home! I love snow. Remember we got some snow on Christmas, but I'm still waiting for a nice, real blanket of it. A snow day from work would be nice, too. :)

Winter Party Recap

Good food? Check.
Nice music? Check.
Fun with friends? Check.
Catching up with coworkers who I rarely see? Check.
Marc entertained at a Hold 'Em table most of the night? Check.
Not wearing shoes a majority of the time because they hurt? Check.

From what I remember, we had a good time at the party last night. We didn't end up going out afterwards, but that was probably for the better...

Preparing for the Party

I was wide awake at 6:30 this morning and told myself, "F that!" and went back to sleep until 8:30. I took a shower. I went down the street to get a pedicure. Amazingly, even though I haven't been there in a couple of months, they greeted me by name when I walked through the door. I may have said this before, but I think it would be fun to learn Vietnamese so that I could understand what those ladies say about people. Every time someone came in, they would all gab with each other for a minute or two. It reeks of "we're talking about you"--I'm just dying of curiosity about what they actually say.

Now I'm home for a few minutes before I head off to my 3+ hour long hair appointment. Cut, color, curls. I LOVE getting my hair done. Then, I'll come back home, get dressed, do my makeup, maybe do some pre-funking, and we'll head out. Some people are already planning on hitting some bars or clubs afterward; we may just tag along. I'm excited!!

I promise to post some pictures of the madness tomorrow.

Army of Ducks

This is flippin' hilarious.

Army Of Ducks

Love it.

I'm pooped. I'm exhausted. I just got back from my monthly volunteering at the Oregon Food Bank, where we processed over 10,000 pounds of food, and I'm dreading how much my back and shoulders are going to ache tomorrow. I don't know how to choose which of three pairs of shoes to wear this weekend. I also don't know what color eyeshadow I'm supposed to wear with a red dress. I'm hopeless.

Does anyone know what language this is and what it means? Please don't tell me it's an insult. "A demain, mon petit chou."

Eyebrows waxed

My eyebrow wax was quick and nearly painless--at least compared to the waxing experiences I've had in the past. I really like how they look, too!

That's all I've got. Nothing else is going on. Another day in the life...

Shopping for high heels

As I've mentioned, my company winter party is this Saturday. I went shopping for shoes this afternoon after work. I hate shoe shopping (unless I'm shopping for Danskos...). I especially hate shopping for shoes to wear with a dress when I don't have the dress with me to see how the shoes look with it. I found a pair that I liked enough to buy, but I'm going to continue looking just in case... tomorrow I'll stop at Nordstrom Rack.

I also made an appointment to get my eyebrows waxed tomorrow. I've never done anything to my eyebrows, so this is a bit scary. As Marc commented, "Just don't have it so they look like they're drawn on with a pencil." Heh.

It's only a matter of time

Oh, the world we live in. It's only a matter of time until EVERYthing in our lives is somehow connected to a computer or network of some sort. It doesn't seem like that long ago, I was amazed at the Walkman-ish portable AM/FM radio and headphones that my mom got for free after sending in some proofs of purchase from cereal boxes. Of course, I was 5 years old and promptly left it out in the backyard during a rain storm, after which the cheap-o thing never worked again.

Anyway.

I logged on to Blockbuster.com to update my queue today, and I got a pop-up message that blew my mind--even though it's really not that big of a deal. The Web site is now smart enough to know what we rented in the store and point out when those items are also in my queue. Flippin' awesome! Now I don't have to remember every time we rent something in the store to come back to my queue and take it out.

That rocks.

Marginal success

I think all the vitamins along with mass amounts of liquids I've been consuming over the past few days actually helped prevent me from getting all-out sick. Knock on wood. I'm not getting any worse... but then I'm not feeling a whole lot better either.

Next Saturday is our work "winter party"--since, for whatever reason, we don't have a holiday party in December. Last year I bought three dresses to choose from for the party. One ended up being too small. This year it fits, but I'm still not going to wear it. Maybe next year. I just need to find a new pair of shoes... and get a pedicure... I do have an appointment scheduled at my salon that day to get my hair cut, colored, and styled. Hey--I don't get many opportunities to get all gussied up! I have to take advantage of them when they come along! Marc suggested that I get some fake eyelashes to wear. Uh... no, I don't think that'll be happening any time in the near future. Everyone always tells me that my eyelashes are already really long, so I don't know what the big deal is. I just need some mascara. Marc likes eye makeup though. On ME, not himself. I'll see what I can cook up.

ODing on Vitamin C

It's been a long time since I was sick. I remember being sick around exactly this time of year for the past 3 years, but since last January, I don't think I've come down with anything nasty. Maybe in the spring there was a sore throat kind of thing, but that was a still a long time ago. Today I woke up with bad sinus pain and a reasonably snotty nose. Boooo. So I've been drinking orange juice and vitamin water, eating vitamin-fortified foods, and popping vitamins most of the day in hopes of nipping this in the bud. The last thing I need right now is something to distract me from the hundreds of call notes I have to read every day at work this month--not to mention the planning I still need to do for the statistical analysis of those call notes. Blah.

Happy New Year!

I already like 2008 better than 2007--mostly because I prefer even numbers to odd ones. Actually, if all the numbers are odd (like 1997, though 1991 is even better because it's a palindrome), that's okay, too. I'm very tuned in to numbers. Don't know why. Enough of that.

We went to a Hawaiian-themed party last night at Steve and Andrea's. Andrea cooked lots of awesome food (which I ate way too much of), and Steve made some interesting drinks (Kahlua-colada, anyone?). It was an evening of great conversations and lots of laughs... and Dance Dance Revolution. Yes, that's right. I have now experienced DDR first-hand. I think Marc's the only one who didn't play. In the fog of my memory from last night, I think Marc mentioned having video of me doing DDR. That's scary. We also played Wii games for awhile, and Marc managed not to injure any more fingers while playing tennis.

ETA: Video of me and Steve playing DDR...


On to my resolution for the year. It's a simple one. I'm going to ask more questions. Not the nosy ones, but the "I'm interested in you" ones. I can't tell you how many times I engage in conversations with other people that start with them asking me a question (about my day, the weekend, a hobby--whatever) and later end or move on to other subjects without me asking them about something. I *always* realize this when it's too late. The other way this occurs is that I feel like I'm invading someone's privacy when I ask questions, but I need to realize that I'm not. Let's see how I do over the next year.