Monday December 31 it worries me, this kind of thing
MEtRoday: none
I'm set for tomorrow. I've made my sweet & sour garlic sauce, thrown in the chicken to marinade overnight (making sure to keep some untouched-by-chicken marinade for applying while baking), I've got my green beans with almonds ready to go, the Netflix movies have arrived and are ready for playing non-stop tomorrow while I lay on the couch suffering from hangover. I've also got lined up large amounts of Deer Park water, some chilled & some at room temp, and a six-pack of Bud Light for ShowerBeers™. The only thing I need now is it to be cold/gray/snowy/rainy tomorrow, to foster the couch lifestyle that I will be exhibiting, but the forecast is calling for sunny/party cloudy, high of 48°.
Sunday December 30 i go ikea bang bang
MEtRoday: none
Since I went to IKEA and dropped $511.14 yesterday, that means today is assembly day. While several of the paper lamps I brought are pretty easy to assembly, under five minutes, here is a step by step process documenting the Kullen wardrobes that I bought. Yes, I bought two of these mo-fos. They are pretty large but I think they will provide the storage I need plus hopefully a little bit more. The first one was a back-breaking effort but the 2nd I banged out in about 1/2 the time. My new apartment is slowly coming 'round!
Also on this cam download were some pix I took during Christmas. Here is my niece, Sarah Jane, and nephew, Will, helping decorate the tree and check out the presents. We also made some cookies. These are taken at my brother and sister-in-law's house.
Saturday December 29 fuju2008 preview
MEtRoday: none
MEtRoday: Thursday:
1042, 
3112, 3247, 
3034; Today: 1109, 5081, 3112, 6126, 2039
After last night's meet-for-a-drink at Henry's (I smell trouble) which continued to a shirtless men drink free where I ran into to Jeff (who remembered me) and Tom (who did not) and then after that, and a few menthol Marlboros later, we're headed to The Eagle and then even after that the lights are coming up and it's time to go and even then after that it's 3:34 in the morning and I need to get off this internets and get some sleep. After all, work is going to be calling in a mere three hours from now. I drink a jug of water, take a deep breath and go to sleep, knowing all is well.
So I wake up a little late. It's still all in good timing to get to work on time with a little bit of rush, totally manageable. So that you can stalk me in the morn, when I'm busing I usually catch the D6 on teh 7:09 or the 7:16. That puts me into a time at work where I can first, get there, but then check email, get coffee, relax a little before heading into the Morning Production Meeting. You can catch the dram-uh of getting into this meeting precisely on time here.
As I said, I'm waking up a bit late but still on time for a rush. I get into the shower, which usually if I'm out by 7:00 then I'm doing okay and on schedule. The last time I looked at the clock before getting into the shower it said 6:46 and I knew I'd have to hurry things along. The next thing I knew when I'm getting out of my quick shower, the time is now 7:34.
WTF?
So I hurriedly (sp?) check the bus schedule and realize the next one is cruising by here in four minutes and I'm like a tornado getting dressed and out the door, grabbing iPods, phones, gloves, whatever is near. As I'm locking the door, the bus rushes by. FUCK! Luckily it's stopped by a red light on 15th St and I'm able to hop a chainlink fence, ran and catch it time. Did I mention I'[m hungoprah? Yeah.
I get off at the U-Stat stop, rushing to get into the train station to catch, duh, the train and there's a RLT (red line train) with its doors open, all Lenny Kravitz, and I'm running to catch that, pushing tourists and others out of my way. I catch that train.
The connecting train at MC L'Enfant is of course waiting
downstairs for me as my upstairs train pulls into the station. After a mad
dash down a moving escalater where I push aside more tourists and military
duds with about this much personality: ________. I'm at least on my way headed
south, to the land of airports named after two Presidents and imperialism colonialism.
I check the time and wonder if I can catch the 8:20 bus or whether I will have to grab a $7 taxi, judging from my arrival time at my last stop. Of course we roll into BradRock at 8:19, while my bus is pulling out, and yet for the fourth time this morning (remember Teh HungOprah) I'm forced to run to catch my connection, which I miraculously perform.
Good lord.
What's your morning commute like?
Wednesday December 26 there's beauty in the breakdown
MEtRoday: 1160,
3153, 3180
This is kind of a follow-up to yesterday's post, where I stated that Mary Richard's telephone number is 555-2312. Today I found an even bigger geek who has catalogued all or most 555- numbers used on television and in movies. I'm sure you're dying to pour over it so here it is.
Tuesday December 25 non-holiday posting
MEtRoday: Monday: 3082;
Today: none
Season Four of Mary Tyler Moore begins with new opening titles, the ones that I'm familiar with as memories from childhood. The familiar graphics are there but the clips have changed: Mary exasperated yet joyful in a crowded elevator, Mary washing a blue Mustang (even though she just bought a butter yellow one at the end of last season), Mary reluctantly tossing pork chops into a shopping cart. Also at the end they run the entire clip of Mary giving hugs to coworkers, full with the crushing of Ted's hat (this was edited from last season's credits at the hat-crushing stage) but yet propping it back open, generating laughs from everyone except Ted. Fave split second showing in credits: Gleem on sale for 69 cents in a supermarket window. If you don't know what Gleem is, you're too young to be reading this post. The kiddies can learn about Gleem here.
Episode One (The Lars Affair) introduces us to the Sue Ann Nivens character, played by Betty White. Mary's description: "She does the Happy Homemaker show at our station. You know, she gives household hints, sewing lessons, recipes, cooking lessons, things like that." She's sweet and all, but we all know Sue Ann is hot-to-trot, as she pursues an affair with Phyllis' husband Lars.
Oddly enough, she only appears in the premiere episode, and then isn't seen for the following seven (I'm only on disc one of the three DVD set). She does become a cast regular eventually, though. Maybe that doesn't happen until after the Rhoda and/or Phyllis characters leave the show, which is sometime during Season Five, Six or Seven, which are unavailable on DVD. Seasons 1–3 are newly available on iTunes.
Trivia: Mary's phone number is 555-2312.
Cynthia Zimmer: Rhoda's New York 83rd St roommate. I stay on 83rd St when I'm in New York, maybe close to Rhoda's fictional apartment. I stay on the West side, and I doubt Rhoda lived on the East side.
Flash Forwards: Lou has the idea to have a TV reporter ride on a patrol car to film arrests on the spot (COPS) and also to have live cameras in the newsroom (CNN live background).
Saturday December 22 word of the day
MEtRoday: none
Conurbation
con·ur·ba·tion // noun
an extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of one or more cities.
ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from con- [together] + Latin urbs, urb- ‘city’ + -ation .
Friday December 21 sushi go round
MEtRoday: Wednesday:
1242, 3182, 1020; Thursday: 4088, 3051, 3053, 3044, 
5165; Friday:
1281, 3182, 3024, 6081, 1066
Just in time! You come at right time! We need replacement chef and we'll give you one week trial!
Sissyphus has gotten me hooked on this game.
You make sushi to give to the customers plus you have to restock your supplies. It starts off pretty easily, with Onigiri, California rolls and Gunkan Maki, but by the 7th day you've got Combo rolls, you're throwing in shrimp and eel and salmon, it can get a little crazy. Note: this is not a good game to play when you're hyped up after chugging a pot of coffee. There's no pause button in between the day sessions, so once you hit the play button you're committed to the frenzy for a good five minutes or so.
MEtRoday: Monday:
1273, 3130, 3127, 1262; Tuesday: 5149,
3179, 2018
This afternoon my company that I do not own had its holiday party. The tradition of the party is that we do a "white elephant" gift exchange. This is when you take some piece of crap that you've been given, or is lying around and you want to get rid of it, and wrap it up, unlabeled. Numbers are drawn out of a hat, one to each person in attendance. The person with number one opens a gift. Person number two has the option of taking person one's gift or opening a new one. Person three has the option of taking one or two's gift or opening a new one. If your gift is taken by someone, you then have to draw a new gift. It continue on until all gifts are open, with the last person drawing having pretty much the option of taking anyone's gift. There was a "two-steal" limit on taking someone else's gift, to cut down on the time it would take for the 35 of us to open/steal gifts.
The company threw in five actual gifts that you'd want, put them into the mix so there would be some gold nuggets amongst the crap. I knew one of them was an iPod Nano, so I wanted the person two numbers in front of me to open that one, the person immediately before me would steal it, then I'd steal it and since that was the second time it was stolen it couldn't be taken away and I'd end up some a new Nano and some video to watch on the 'tro.
Didn't happen.
But New Greg in front of me did open a box that contained a supercool Canon SureShot, so I stole that from him, forcing him to open up a new gift. This thing was about as big as a credit card, with 7.1 megapixels; it was a really nice camera. Remarkably, no one after me took it, I shrunk to the back to get out of people's way, hoping they'd forget that it was up for stealing one more time.
Several people had picked after me, and it looked as if no one wanted to take the camera from me. Sweet! I knew the camera was mine. After about ten people it was Regina's turn, and of course she wanted to steal the camera. It didn't help that Lynn was standing there yelling "You can steal the camera!" with megaphoned hands. So Regina ended up with the sweet camera, I opened a new gift and wound up with a frikkin' candydish.
Damn, Gina!
Sunday December 16 pictures of you (and some of me)
MEtRoday: none
I haven't left the apartment since I got home from work on Friday. Sad, I know. I didn't go to a holiday party on Friday that I was invited to, I immediately changed into my house clothes after getting home from work, and after that I was in for the evening. Saturday turned out to be just as hermitized, with the impending snowstorm of course not showing up. Why does anyone listen to or believe the weather peeps here in DC? They're always wrong, and drooling at the hint of OMG a snowstorm in December, let's blame it all up to extreme weather. It's December, people, it's supposed to snow and be wet and cold and nasty. Remember?
So before Melba calls me out of hibernation for delish mexi-food this evening I'm rummaging through a box that has a delivery label to my first job out of school in Houston, so it's obvy how long I've been carting this thing around, since about 1993. It's full of photographs and cards and assorted what-nots, and I have to take it into the living room and sit down on the couch and start going through it, which takes a good two or three hours. It's basically a time capsule of that era, right around my the time of my college graduation, people I ran with at the time, The Twins™ early medical records, cards and photos my Mother had sent me from home, etc.
A / 1992: The Twins™, when they were about a year
old. Look at the fluff of those tails!
B / 1989: Aren't I quite the budding young architect?
C / 1992: My parents, Valentine's Day.
D / 1988: Friend and fellow architecture student Dallas Townsend and myself.
Look how skinny I was. Lookit! And the hair, wow, look at the hair. 2xLookit!!
Friday December 14 potential titles of future posts, v1:
MEtRoday: 3017, 3262, 3052, 5156
the start of the breakdown
get off me, betch!
enough with the punctuation already
123,5
why is it that this is no more?
all is quiet on new year's day
hazardous dukes
nick rhodes finally returns my phone call
and...
omg i just bought a volvo c30 and here are some pix
thank you, (insert your name here) for the iphone
you have new comments
encounters with ikea customer service
lame email
i can see the red, green & blue pixels of your eyes
smoke flavored almonds
i've misplaced my future could i please borrow yours?
be near me
1024 x 768
a new recreation to channel all this energy
Thursday December 13 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
MEtRoday: 6125, 3078, 6043, 1174
I'm trying to get things in order: finances, apartment, playlists, clothes and closets, modes of transportation, workout routine, eating habits, holiday shopping lists, all these white cables running about my computer, bills, wake-up time, belt collection, choice of color palettes, aging, new shoe choices, weekend plans, closing accounts, considering that I may be the Sudoku Master, wondering if the same people I see on the train during my morning commute consider me one of the same people they see on the train during their morning commute, the lyric "I know that's it over", 11:01, knowing that I won't get what I really want for Xmas, and what does 2008 hold, among many other things.
Wednesday December 12 )) 60 ((
MEtRoday: 1015,
1014, 3077, 6127, 4099
I've gotten off of my ass and replaced the top nav with December's calendar. I knew that wasted hour of television between ANTM and Project Runway was good for something.
Tuesday December 11 i've waited for this day
MEtRoday: 5053, 2030,
1227,
4089
This is it, the final episode of Cycle 9 of America's Next Top Model. The rules have changed for this one, since the episode's format is like the others. In the previous placemats, the object of the game was to successfully pick who was to be eliminated that night. But since we're down to three girls, one will be eliminated quickly, then there will be some bizarre runway show, and then Tyra will bless the winner and America will cry. Some of us from joy, some of us from heartache.
So in this placemat the object to to pick the winner. Instead of the blue elimination square (marked with "E") there is now an orange winner square (marked with "W"). So this is what you'll circle as your winner choice. Most of the other point play is same: fierce, Tyra calling someone "girlfriend", etc. OMG I just thought of the drinking rules trifecta! Tyra would say "Girlfriend, your booty likes fierce!" Slam 'em.
Recaps for last week's ep can be found at Television Without Pity and fourfour.
Monday December 10 how long has it been?
MEtRoday: none
How to sum up the past four days... It seems so much has transgressed since last Thursday. [big breath]
Friday: Franklin rolls into town, and after cocktails here at 1526/B we were in the mood for sushi so I suggested we head towards Dupont and go to Sakana, a choice that I know at least one reader might offensive, if it's only because this reader wasn't invited for the yummy tempera sushi that he introduced to me. You know who you are. After that, in our barhop night we scooted to Fireplace (ghetto) then to Omega where I mastered the Ms. Pac-Man machine (with a blister on my thumb to prove it the next day) and Franklin and I continued to drink Absolut Lemon on the rocks. Our nightcap for the evening was Halo, where F tried to demonstrate his wine knowledge prowess to the other patrons, but it was late by this point and the patrons had other interests on their mind.
Saturday: the afternoon started out with more home-grown wine spritzers, until it was the point that we had to run out for more supplies. The replenishing excursion turned into a Union Station shopping excursion which included purchasing Ralph Lauren sunglasses, Estee Lauder wrinkle concealer and Palm accessories and games. Later the evening evolved into an impromptu PorchParty with the J/Ts.
Sunday: homemade breakfast/brunch from yours truly consisting of coffee, omelettes, turkey bacon, hash browns and toast. A day trip up to Wilmington in the most comfortable Saab, then retiring to F's living room and watching movies and television, naps and thai carryout.
Monday: I sleep until noon, I believe F was up around 9 or 10 to get a little work done. After I'm up we efficiently run some errands and then it's time to catch my train. Blissfully an uneventful train ride later and I'm back at Union Station, catching the 96 to home.
It was a great birthday weekend, with lots of crazy, maniacal laughter shared between me and F. This was good for me, to be laughing so hard my stomach was hurting, to take the first step out of the fog of Rattle's death and The Twins™ concept coming to an end.
Here's some pix of me and F sporting our new fab glasses, where that fatal kiss is all we're needing:
MEtRoday: Thursday:
3139, 3066, 5022;
Today: none
Me and some friends used to have a Thursday night tradition of meeting up at Henry's for burgers, onion rings, cocktails, sex stories, gossip and loads of other fun. It's kind of trailed off in the last six months or so, due to everybody's life going in all different directions, busted checkbooks, part-time jobs, etc.
Last night I resurrected our little JoyLuck (even though none of us are Chinese-American immigrants) for a little holiday flavor. I don't think we'd gotten together since before the wedding, and it seems like even months before that. I formalized it with an evite and some of the responses were:
"Fabulous! Can I come wearing jingle bells
and not much else?"
"I would love to attend... I miss everyone!!!"
"Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude sounds like trouble
with a capital TRUH. Why would I miss that?"
... so I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. Unforch Ammiiee wasn't able to make it, but *$#*UClickPOpo*(*(#$*(*** Tommy showed up, and he's always up for a bit of fun. It was nice to be back at Henry's just hangin' out with the group. They surprised me with an early 26th birthday cake, and princess stickers. Luckily no cake fight broke out like at Ryann's bday party last February. That time was actually the beginning of the JL slowdown, and probably rightfully so, I mean when the cake doesn't even make it to the serving plates and instead ends up in your hair and smeared into your coat, it's time to step away from things for a while. But I digress.
After dinner we headed to Remington's to sing some bad 70s karaoke songs, but they closed the upstairs about five minutes before we arrived, so we sat at the bar for a while and had some Bud Light nightcaps. And I think there was a buttery nipple shot, too.
DMV Update: Successful! The whole process amazing took about six minutes, now that I had the proper papers. And thanks to the terrorists, DC has gotten its act together and networked all of its city services, so I was nailed with the $105 parking ticket from 2003 and the new driver's license ended up costing me $144. Thanks Osama!
Ok, it's wet and rainy outside, which makes me want to curl back up in bed. There's also a BSG marathon on Sci Fi. Both of these make me lethargic and I procrastinate getting ready for Franklin's arrival from Wilmington tonight. Enough computer time. I need to get this joint in order!
Wednesday December 05 coming up close
MEtRoday: 2058, 6078, 4030
Is it time to stop counting MEtRoday's when I'm only applying the rules to the trains? Should I also include the four buses I was on today? And the buses that I ride on a semi-daily basis? Maybe I'll continue it until the end of the year and then throw in the towel.
In this new world order of permanent war (where we have always been at war) one is required to provide a DNA sample, place a hand on the Bible and swear loyal allegiance to the Bush Dynasty before one is allowed to renew their driver's license at the DC DMV. I found this out this morning. As I trekked on buses across town into slush-n-snow filled Georgetown, only for them to tell me that no, I did not have the proper papers and that yes, I would have to go home to retrieve them. This is all after I've been waiting there for an hour waiting them for to call my number (C034, if you must know).
This would mean at least another hour to make it home and then another hour to make it back to Georgetown, then wait another hour in an uncomfortable chair, and then they would decide if they would accept my application. I don't think so. Instead I got on my third bus of the day and took it to FogBot and went to work. Trust me, it's easier this way. So tomorrow is Day Two of dealing with the very, very pleasant workers at the DMV.
Tuesday December 04 final four
MEtRoday: Saturday:
3131;
Monday: 3021, 1246,
3147, 5087;
Today 4068, 6068, 1007,
2027
I'm trying to get caught up on things, like a December navigation chart (above), finishing unpacking, getting used to life without The Twins™, etc., but it just seems I can't get motivated. Maybe writing that out will help.
Here's this week's placemat. Since we're down the final four I've reduced the number of points given for correctly picking the Challenge Winner and also the points awarded right before judging to two points each time. I guess you could pick your own number of points to allow, but just make sure everyone agrees with them before the show starts, especially if you're playing the drinking rules. By the way they've been dropping the fierce-bomb lately, it's hard to remain sober by the halfway point in the show.
Recaps for last week's ep can be found at Television Without Pity and fourfour.
