Recently in news Category
6:00am
Woken up by my phone ringing and shaking off the table. I couldn't answer it in time, but excitedly checked the message thinking my long overdue pregnant friend finally went into labor. No. It was my credit card's fraud department calling to check if I had purchased thousands of dollars of Liz Claiborne and QVC Cosmetics merchandise this morning at 4am. For the record, I hadn't. Interesting way to start Election Day...with fraud. I guess that's better than ENDING the day with fraud, like in 2000!
8:00am
Finally got out of bed, checked my email, and was greeted with this amazing and uplifting (and hopefully prescient) video clip:
8:30am
Working from home today so I can go to the polls at an off-peak time, and so I can be here in front of the TV at 3 when they start announcing east coast results. Did some real-American work, like a real hard-working American. Did not go so far as to put on any Bruce Springsteen music, but did play Hulk Hogan's theme "I am a Real American."
9:30am
Time to set the voting mood! I have very little patriotic music, so I opted for my mom's old baton twirling record that has lots of brass heavy marching band music on it:
10:00am
Time to suit up. From top to bottom:
10:10am
Time to go do this!
10:15am
Started a load of laundry on my way out to the polls, because real Americans are multi-taskers!!! (I think that is a verse in the Hulk Hogan song?)
10:17am
On the way to the VFW, listened to one of the few political songs I have, a personal favorite called "Jimmy Carter Says Yes":
(download here...)
10:25am
Had to step over some drunk hobos to get to the door of the VFW, where I was promptly greeted with a large American flag and a smiling woman. She directed me to the proper line, and I was checked in.
10:30am
Surprised to see that all the voting booths were paper-based, except for one lone electronic booth. I chose the lone electronic booth.
10:38am
Ballot cast!! Slightly disappointed no one offered me a congratulatory "I VOTED TODAY!" sticker. I loitered around for a minute thinking someone would offer me a sticker, or at least some candy. Nothing. I returned home, listening to the Violent Femme's "America Is..."
3:00pm
Decided to consult my new Tandy Executive Decision Maker (which is essentially a 70s corporate version of a magic 8 ball) on whether or not Obama will win. It wishiwashily predicted victory:
5:00pm
Leslie and I went on a run to Cupcake Royale to collect our complimentary babycake cupcake in honor of Election Day. I picked up this sticker to make up for the lack of stickers at the polls:
There was another that said "I support frostitution," but this one seemed more historically appropriate for today.
7:00pm
Refreshing nytimes.com every 12 seconds to see the latest scores.
7:45pm
Starting to feel the swing of the pendulum, excitement building...it is a wonderful feeling to know that your vote actually counted. I have never felt this emotion before, as Texas has gone Republican every presidential election since I was born. It's fun living in a blue state! Whoo blue!
7:50pm
Can't decide which network to watch, I've settled on ABC for the moment because I like Gibson, Sawyer, and Stephanopoulos. I just flipped over to CBS to check on Katie Couric, and all I saw was a chicken walking down the street at night, so I immediately changed back to ABC.
8:00pm
The Peruvian shamans hex on McCain worked!!! Barack took him! Holy shit, America!!!!! I haven't felt this proud of America since the Supreme Court upheld Larry Flynt's first amendment rights!!!!!
8:02pm
Good job, America. And good night.
Woken up by my phone ringing and shaking off the table. I couldn't answer it in time, but excitedly checked the message thinking my long overdue pregnant friend finally went into labor. No. It was my credit card's fraud department calling to check if I had purchased thousands of dollars of Liz Claiborne and QVC Cosmetics merchandise this morning at 4am. For the record, I hadn't. Interesting way to start Election Day...with fraud. I guess that's better than ENDING the day with fraud, like in 2000!
8:00am
Finally got out of bed, checked my email, and was greeted with this amazing and uplifting (and hopefully prescient) video clip:
8:30am
Working from home today so I can go to the polls at an off-peak time, and so I can be here in front of the TV at 3 when they start announcing east coast results. Did some real-American work, like a real hard-working American. Did not go so far as to put on any Bruce Springsteen music, but did play Hulk Hogan's theme "I am a Real American."
9:30am
Time to set the voting mood! I have very little patriotic music, so I opted for my mom's old baton twirling record that has lots of brass heavy marching band music on it:
10:00am
Time to suit up. From top to bottom:
- Star sparkle dangly earrings
- Red bandana kerchief
- Blue tshirt
- Blue ski jacket
- Red skirt
- Blue tights
- Gray cowboy boots
10:10am
Time to go do this!
- Driver's license? Check.
- Voter registration card? Check.
- Ballot research crib sheet? Check!
10:15am
Started a load of laundry on my way out to the polls, because real Americans are multi-taskers!!! (I think that is a verse in the Hulk Hogan song?)
10:17am
On the way to the VFW, listened to one of the few political songs I have, a personal favorite called "Jimmy Carter Says Yes":
"Can our government? Be competent?
Jimmy Carter says yes, Jimmy Carter says yes.
Can our government? Be honest?
Jimmy Carter says yes, Jimmy Carter says yes.
Can our government be decent and open?
As the 39th president...he has spoken, yes...
Jimmy Carter says yes."
(download here...)
10:25am
Had to step over some drunk hobos to get to the door of the VFW, where I was promptly greeted with a large American flag and a smiling woman. She directed me to the proper line, and I was checked in.
10:30am
Surprised to see that all the voting booths were paper-based, except for one lone electronic booth. I chose the lone electronic booth.
10:38am
Ballot cast!! Slightly disappointed no one offered me a congratulatory "I VOTED TODAY!" sticker. I loitered around for a minute thinking someone would offer me a sticker, or at least some candy. Nothing. I returned home, listening to the Violent Femme's "America Is..."
3:00pm
Decided to consult my new Tandy Executive Decision Maker (which is essentially a 70s corporate version of a magic 8 ball) on whether or not Obama will win. It wishiwashily predicted victory:
5:00pm
Leslie and I went on a run to Cupcake Royale to collect our complimentary babycake cupcake in honor of Election Day. I picked up this sticker to make up for the lack of stickers at the polls:
There was another that said "I support frostitution," but this one seemed more historically appropriate for today.
7:00pm
Refreshing nytimes.com every 12 seconds to see the latest scores.
7:45pm
Starting to feel the swing of the pendulum, excitement building...it is a wonderful feeling to know that your vote actually counted. I have never felt this emotion before, as Texas has gone Republican every presidential election since I was born. It's fun living in a blue state! Whoo blue!
7:50pm
Can't decide which network to watch, I've settled on ABC for the moment because I like Gibson, Sawyer, and Stephanopoulos. I just flipped over to CBS to check on Katie Couric, and all I saw was a chicken walking down the street at night, so I immediately changed back to ABC.
8:00pm
The Peruvian shamans hex on McCain worked!!! Barack took him! Holy shit, America!!!!! I haven't felt this proud of America since the Supreme Court upheld Larry Flynt's first amendment rights!!!!!
8:02pm
Good job, America. And good night.
My sister Staci sent me the most amazing news this morning, which is that there will be a really-real, true life barbeque at Southfork Ranch in Dallas in November. JR will be there. Sue Ellen will be there. Bobby will be there. And by god...I will be there!!
They are having a big 30th anniversary cast reunion and barbeque. And even though I made a promise to myself a while ago that I should quit being so impulsive and running off to do retarded things without thinking about them...fuck that, I'm half-tempted to buy one of the $500 seats so I can be that much closer to Larry! (And admittedly, to get the extra drink ticket.)
I'm gonna go and I'm gonna wear way too much blush and then I'm gonna drink whiskey and punch somebody out and then push them into the pool off the balcony and then go have sex in one of the barns and then get married and then get put in a sanitarium and then get pregnant with JR's baby and then blackmail him into buying me a condo and then get Bobby to finance a boutique for me to operate and then fake my own death in a plane crash. Basically, I'm going to experience every single plotline from the 13 year series in that one night. I have a lot to plan.
They are having a big 30th anniversary cast reunion and barbeque. And even though I made a promise to myself a while ago that I should quit being so impulsive and running off to do retarded things without thinking about them...fuck that, I'm half-tempted to buy one of the $500 seats so I can be that much closer to Larry! (And admittedly, to get the extra drink ticket.)
I'm gonna go and I'm gonna wear way too much blush and then I'm gonna drink whiskey and punch somebody out and then push them into the pool off the balcony and then go have sex in one of the barns and then get married and then get put in a sanitarium and then get pregnant with JR's baby and then blackmail him into buying me a condo and then get Bobby to finance a boutique for me to operate and then fake my own death in a plane crash. Basically, I'm going to experience every single plotline from the 13 year series in that one night. I have a lot to plan.
There was the time somebody tried to steal my car from my own driveway in Australia. And then there was this morning...
3:something a.m.
I woke up to the sound of a plastic garbage bin being aggressively rolled out to the curb. I cursed whatever dickhead neighbor decided to put out their trash at 3 o'clock in the morning. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to put my own bin out, and thought about getting up and looking out the window to see if my downstairs neighbors had done it, but I decided to stay in bed.
4:something a.m.
I was never able to fall back to sleep, so I got up and did some work on the computer for a little while, and decided to try to go back to bed since I was getting up at 6:30.
5:something a.m.
I heard somebody talking over a police PA system, and then realized I saw red flashing lights flickering through my curtain. I peeped out the window and saw a few cop cars, a few bashed up cars, and some neighbors in robes. One of the bashed up cars was in my planter box:
5:30ish a.m.
I started composing an email to my landlord to let him know what happened, and it had lots of, "I don't know what's going on, but..." and "I'll go check it out after the cops leave..." and I realized I was being a dumb scared little mouse, and that *I* didn't do anything wrong, so I hitched up some jeans and went out there to investigate and give her the contact info for my landlord.
5:35ish a.m.
So what happened was someone in a Cadillac must have been hauling ass down my street, and crashed their car into the back of a car parked on the curb in front of the western next door neighbors...and pushed that parked car all the way from in front of the neighbor's house right into the wooden planter box out front.
At the scene, the two neighbors in their robes were telling me how lucky they were because there cars were parked right there in the street, too, and this whole domino collision narrowly and miraculously missed both their cars. But...we three were the only ones out there. Where was the driver? "Oh, he split hours ago."
So he left his Caddy unlocked and smashed up in the middle of the street...with a case of Corona in the back seat. The police officer told me that she looked up the owner's driving record, and he had just got his license back after having it suspended for DUI.
7:17 a.m.
After sending them a tip, my local neighborhood news blog posted my report! I am a celebrity and a modern-day hero!!!
3:something a.m.
I woke up to the sound of a plastic garbage bin being aggressively rolled out to the curb. I cursed whatever dickhead neighbor decided to put out their trash at 3 o'clock in the morning. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to put my own bin out, and thought about getting up and looking out the window to see if my downstairs neighbors had done it, but I decided to stay in bed.
4:something a.m.
I was never able to fall back to sleep, so I got up and did some work on the computer for a little while, and decided to try to go back to bed since I was getting up at 6:30.
5:something a.m.
I heard somebody talking over a police PA system, and then realized I saw red flashing lights flickering through my curtain. I peeped out the window and saw a few cop cars, a few bashed up cars, and some neighbors in robes. One of the bashed up cars was in my planter box:
5:30ish a.m.
I started composing an email to my landlord to let him know what happened, and it had lots of, "I don't know what's going on, but..." and "I'll go check it out after the cops leave..." and I realized I was being a dumb scared little mouse, and that *I* didn't do anything wrong, so I hitched up some jeans and went out there to investigate and give her the contact info for my landlord.
5:35ish a.m.
So what happened was someone in a Cadillac must have been hauling ass down my street, and crashed their car into the back of a car parked on the curb in front of the western next door neighbors...and pushed that parked car all the way from in front of the neighbor's house right into the wooden planter box out front.
At the scene, the two neighbors in their robes were telling me how lucky they were because there cars were parked right there in the street, too, and this whole domino collision narrowly and miraculously missed both their cars. But...we three were the only ones out there. Where was the driver? "Oh, he split hours ago."
So he left his Caddy unlocked and smashed up in the middle of the street...with a case of Corona in the back seat. The police officer told me that she looked up the owner's driving record, and he had just got his license back after having it suspended for DUI.
7:17 a.m.
After sending them a tip, my local neighborhood news blog posted my report! I am a celebrity and a modern-day hero!!!
Yesterday! Was great! I had my review at work and got an unexpected raise and promotion!
Then in my excitement over that, I emailed a friend of mine in California and within 5 minutes got completely carried away and bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles to go celebrate! On Virgin America where you can text the cute boy in seat 9B and pretend you are flying to space with Richard Branson and Victoria Principal!
And once in LA, we're going ride subways and go see Point Break Live and find the finish line from Midnight Madness in Room 2704 of the Bonaventure Hotel!
Then in my excitement over that, I emailed a friend of mine in California and within 5 minutes got completely carried away and bought a plane ticket to Los Angeles to go celebrate! On Virgin America where you can text the cute boy in seat 9B and pretend you are flying to space with Richard Branson and Victoria Principal!
And once in LA, we're going ride subways and go see Point Break Live and find the finish line from Midnight Madness in Room 2704 of the Bonaventure Hotel!
John Rhys-Davies
- Traits: Welsh, short, chubby, hairy
- Best known for: being Indiana Jones' sidekick Sallah, and Frodo's dwarf friend Gimli
- Mnemonic device to remember him: John Rhys-Davies looks like Jefferson Davis "Boss" Hogg.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers
- Traits: Irish, hot, perfect lips, perfect body
- Best known for: being hot and perfect in Velvet Goldmine, being the Bend it Like Beckham coach, and his halfway respectable depiction of Elvis considering he's Irish
- Mnemonic device to remember him: My, my, my Meyers is nice to look at!
Rhys Ifans
- Traits: Welsh, tall, skinny, questionable hygiene, bad teeth
- Best known for: Hugh Grant's weirdo roommate Spike in Notting Hill
- Mnemonic device to remember him: Not necessary. Just remember he's the one that's NOT Davies or Meyers.
So I celebrated Christmas with Matt and Chris last night so we could do our gift swap before Matt and I left town. That Matt...we always joke about he is a superhero and we're just waiting to figure out what his superpower is. But seriously his superhero power is his memory, and his ability to parlay his good memory into buying good presents. Seriously, he is the best, most thoughtful present-buyer this side of the Mississippi. Look what I got!
#1: Golden Girls "Stay Golden" T-shirt that I've almost bought for myself 20 times, but never did:
#2: The most kickass pan in the world from my favorite online shop in the world (fredflare.com). It's a brownie pan specially designed so ALL the brownies can be edge pieces! I've been wanting this pan so bad, too! And Matt being Matt, also included a supplementary follow-up gift of brownie mix and eggs, so I could go ahead and make the brownies right there on the spot!!
AND I also got a promissory note for a special field trip to go ice skating! Would the wonderfulness ever end???
No!!! Because then we watched the Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas special, and I saw this sweater that Joan Rivers wore:
Continue reading Christmas Prezzie Round-Up!.
So here's what happened. The City of Seattle recently developed a new tram/trolley/streetcar system that connects the South Lake Union area to downtown. So we now have a South Lake Union Trolley. Apparently their marketing team didn't fully think through that, and hurriedly launched a campaign to brand it as the "Seattle Streetcar." Sadly, this is a total waste of time because we're all obviously going to call it the SLUT no matter what they paint across the side of it.
The SLUT officially launched its service last Thursday, with great fanfare and mayorial blessings. And this morning the SLUT had its first accident when an SUV ran a red light and smacked into it. When one of the guys at work saw the article on the Seattle PI website, he issued a challenge for everyone to come up with a sluttier headline. My co-workers seriously delivered:
The SLUT officially launched its service last Thursday, with great fanfare and mayorial blessings. And this morning the SLUT had its first accident when an SUV ran a red light and smacked into it. When one of the guys at work saw the article on the Seattle PI website, he issued a challenge for everyone to come up with a sluttier headline. My co-workers seriously delivered:
- SUV "Money Shot" Leaves Young SLUT Worse For The Wear
- SLUT gets banged - only skidmarks left behind
- Slut gets banged in the AM!!!!!
- Trucker sees red light, bangs first slut he sees
- SLUT forced to take break after unexpected early morning bang
- Following a morning incident, SLUT operates without protection
- SLUT Rammed After Ball Bearing Mishap
- SLUT is FUCKED!
- Morning quickie leaves local slut bruised and battered
- The new SLUT goes down for 30 full minutes as commuters look on
- Barely Legal SLUT gets knocked up
Have you ever had one of those nights when you're at the bar, and suddenly you realize:
The ring won't wash off. Does that mean this is legally binding??
- 2 of the 6 people at the table are internet-ordained ministers,
- 1 of the 6 people at the table is a Notary Public,
- 1 of the 6 people at the table is a lawyer,
- 6 of the 6 people at the table are pretty drunk,
- You have all the right ingredients for a quasi-legal marriage ceremony to be performed?
The ring won't wash off. Does that mean this is legally binding??
I went back to Texas for Thanksgiving, and as usual, my family crammed in a double-dare-dosage of holidays into the extended weekend. Thanksgiving was Thursday, Christmas was Friday. (For the past 10 or so years, my family has been exchanging gifts at Thanksgiving instead of Christmas. This is a beautiful thing, and I highly recommend it to anyone not tied to traditional "calendar-based" holidays. Let me put it this way: you get all your Christmas shopping done in October. And then sit around in November and December looking down your nose at all the chumps scrambling to buy gifts.)
Typically we've drawn names, but this year we decided to turn in into one of those swapping party games. I still don't know the proper name for it. White Elephant? Chinese Auction? White Chinese Elephant Auction? Whatever. There is a pile of wrapped gifts, and you draw names. On your turn, you can pick an unopened gift from the table, or steal something someone else has already unwrapped.
* Note: Mom refused to buy a present on Dad's behalf. It was mandated that he was responsible for selecting, purchasing, and wrapping his own gift. We were all quite anxious to see what this would be. The last time something like this happened he contributed a framed portrait of Sharon Stone.
** Additional note: The other mandate for Dad's gift was that it could not have anything to do with Sharon Stone.
I think I was 3rd out of 12, and my strategy was to choose the heaviest gift on the unwrapped table. When I picked up that box, Dad started squirming with glee. Little did I know that it was his box. I tore away the paper to reveal...
A hydraulic trolley jack:
He clapped at his own cleverness, and explained that he needed one for the shed and was hoping to steal it back. The swap pressed on. Staci stole the jack from me, although I don't know why she would ever need a hydraulic jack. I think she was just doing it for the satisfaction of taking it away from me. At the very end of the game, Dad stole the jack back from her...and thus succeeded in his master plan.
There was one spare gift left on the table from my Uncle Joe. Since the gift I got stuck with was too big for me to bring back to Seattle, I opted for that gift instead. So ladies and gentleman, my big Christmas present for 2007 was......an autographed Hooters calendar:
Merry Christmas.
I don't talk to my friend Amy enough, so about a week ago I tried to correct this by accosting her over IM, trying to distract her from working so we could get caught up. At the end of our conversation, she mentioned that she and her Sean (her husband, my non-biological non-legal baby brother, for all intents and purposes) were on their way to Vegas that weekend. She asked if I had any bets I needed placed.
"$5 on 17 black, roulette. Somewhere Irish."
I was mostly kidding, as that is my stock answer anytime anyone asks me anything about what to bet in Vegas.
Two days later, I get a weird frantic call from Sean with all the slot machines dinging in the background, informing me that they walked straight into Fitzgerald's downtown and plunked $5 on 17 black....which promptly HIT!? I was incredulous, and his side of the conversion included a lot of "I shit you not!"-type phrases. In roulette, hitting the actual number is a 35 to 1 payoff. That little $5 bet became $175. Sean told me he would give me "my" money over Thanksgiving. I said no, that it was "their" investment, and therefore "their" money. This quickly turned into a patented Halee/Sean argument stubborn-a-thon, which I think ended with me hanging up on him.
Two days later, I get a weird call from my dad saying that Sean had given him a Crown Royal bag full of 175 $1 Fitzgerald's casino chips that morning at the coffee shop. I got super annoyed, because:
When Amy got back to work, I sent her an IM threatening to kill both her and Sean. And then I learned how much trouble Sean went to (and how gleeful it made him) to execute the logistics of rounding up that many chips. From Amy:
So after hearing all that, I went from annoyed to annoyed AND amused. Which is like a double word score play for Sean.
"$5 on 17 black, roulette. Somewhere Irish."
I was mostly kidding, as that is my stock answer anytime anyone asks me anything about what to bet in Vegas.
Two days later, I get a weird frantic call from Sean with all the slot machines dinging in the background, informing me that they walked straight into Fitzgerald's downtown and plunked $5 on 17 black....which promptly HIT!? I was incredulous, and his side of the conversion included a lot of "I shit you not!"-type phrases. In roulette, hitting the actual number is a 35 to 1 payoff. That little $5 bet became $175. Sean told me he would give me "my" money over Thanksgiving. I said no, that it was "their" investment, and therefore "their" money. This quickly turned into a patented Halee/Sean argument stubborn-a-thon, which I think ended with me hanging up on him.
Two days later, I get a weird call from my dad saying that Sean had given him a Crown Royal bag full of 175 $1 Fitzgerald's casino chips that morning at the coffee shop. I got super annoyed, because:
- That means Sean got the last word.
- That is super-stupid to take chips out of Vegas, because if there is a security breach they will sometimes swap out the chips and not honor the old ones.
- That meant Sean got the last word.
- Sean was being a fucking pest to the casino, and cleared them out of 175 dollar chips, which is inconsiderate and possibly illegal.
- My dad is going to Vegas in a week or two, and he is totally going to steal all that money from me.
When Amy got back to work, I sent her an IM threatening to kill both her and Sean. And then I learned how much trouble Sean went to (and how gleeful it made him) to execute the logistics of rounding up that many chips. From Amy:
- "you cannot imagine the fun sean had getting all that converted to small denominations"
- "he almost got kicked out of the casino"
- "he spent HOURS"
- "i guess one pit boss actually took pity on sean and was asking what he was doing, so sean told him the plan. the guy was like 'but why?' and sean said 'because it's funny!' so that's the guy who told him to hit all the tables instead of the cage"
- "sean kept coming over to me saying 'I finally found a way to have fun in Vegas that doesn't lose me money AND isn't illegal!'"
- "then he recruited me and my dad to go change some more chips in b/c all the dealers were starting to recognize him"
- "so my dad was REALLY nervous about doing the changing. he kept making up all the elaborate stories about changing in the chips... he sat down like he was gonna play something, then said he was gonna make a side bet for the dealer. Then he sat there until right up till time for her to deal cards and pretended like his phone rang and EXPLAINED to everyone that his phone rang and he had to go"
So after hearing all that, I went from annoyed to annoyed AND amused. Which is like a double word score play for Sean.
