Ramblings of a Long Island Girl.

Satirical. Inappropriate. Sometimes crude. Bitchy. Rambling. You know how I do.

Saturday, January 31, 2009

"The key to success is often the ability to adapt."

Brace yourselves. This is the last post you'll see on this blog. I'm going corporate. Well sort of. Within the next day or so, I'll be pimping out a brand new website version of Ramblings of a Long Island Girl. Yay!

Much, much, much, much, much, much thanks to the fabulous Alice (aka Aliceness on Twitter) for helping me set it all up and not killing me when I had 29 million questions about what the hell she was talking about (I'm not stupid, but I swear I can't grasp the concept of hosting still...)

But anyways, stay tuned within the next few days while stuff gets figured out. And then stay tuned within the next few weeks because I've got some other new stuff I'm working on too. Lots of change: new state to live in, new personal website, have to find a new job, who knows what else is in store? haha, the possibilities are endless but hopefully all good things.

Oh P.S. Jay & I watched The X-Files: I Want to Believe last night. I've heard lots of people just trash talk it or give generally negative reviews on it & I have to weigh in. I agree with Jana's opinion: it would have been way better as a TV movie rather than a motion picture. The supernatural element was weak & the plot wasn't strong enough to carry a movie. I loved having all the characters back (Yaaaaaay Skinner!), but it reminded me of a stronger episode of Fringe & a weaker (not weakest) episode of The X-Files. Also, isn't pedophile priests soooo 2006?

I'm off to do errands & see Michael Ian Black with my Pookie in NYC tonight. I'll leave you with Strider to say peace out to this blog:


Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Do not repeat them in the future. -Swami Sivananda

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Blogging Like Bored People Blog

Okay so we're having dismal snowy/rainy weather on Long Island today. My first-half of the day counterpart didn't come in today and the weather was all snow this morning, so there were a decent amount of cancellations. Basically, I've got not a lot to do & I'm bored so I'm doing what bored people do: blogging. I used to like having time to kill at work but the last 6 months has put me out of practice haha. So let's see what I can entertain myself by yakking about.
  1. New Lost tonight. I may or may not have seen it already. Go ahead, hate on me. I wouldn't go back & unwatch it for anything. I've had to stop discussing the show with my fellow geeks since I'm afraid of giving something away because there were (IMO) a lot of puzzle pieces that start to fit together more and I don't want to disprove something someone says by going, "Well, that can't be because..." And if you think that Jay & I talk about Lost because of the podcast, guess again. 85% of the time, we only talk about it if we're surrounded by friends who bring it up.
  2. Moving date approaches. I'm nervous but I've got a lot of fun things going on the next 2 weekends. I'm going to see Michael Ian Black do stand-up comedy in NYC with Pookie this Saturday night, January 31. She asked me if I wanted to go see it at 8pm or 10:30pm & my first thought was, "Why on EARTH would we go at 10:30pm? That's so late." Which then prompts me to think, "25? Fuck, I'm old."
  3. The following weekend is my "last weekend" in NY. The weekend of my 25th birthday. Annie is throwing together a Birthday/Going-Away Soiree with the BTR crew on Fri, Feb. 6. It's going to be good times. Well, duh. Cause with Annie's cupcakes, how could it not be good times? Also, I'm having a gathering in Herald's Square on Feb. 7. I don't care if the bar is a controversial choice. It's close to Penn Station, where I'm probably coming from & it's still cold in NYC. Therefore, that's where I'm having it. It's for Ian-face's birthday too (naturally). Good times will ensue as well.
  4. Fun Fact: My & Ian-face's 25th birthday coincides with the 2nd anniversary of Anna Nicole Smith's death.
  5. I'd really like to go to New York Comic Con again this year (Feb. 6-8), but the only day that I could make it is Saturday. This isn't a problem except that the freaking cast of my new favorite show Chuck is going to be there on Sunday! Also, the casts of Fringe & Joss Whedon's new show are going to be there Sunday as well. Yeah, I'm a geek. Stupid birthday.
  6. If you haven't already heard already, Scarlett Johansson is doing a cover of my boy Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye." I'm going to defer all discussion on this to Amanda.
  7. And finally, I'm thinking about making this blog into an actual website or at least updating the format/template a little bit. But more about that another time, I suppose.

Okay, I think I've successfully killed a little bit of time. I've actually written this blog twice because it didn't save the first time when I went to publish it and then it was gone. I was way wittier the first time, but oh well. At least it's 6pm now. May 7pm come fast & may 9pm come even faster. That's what she said.

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Doesn't She Mean Fist Bumping?

This is priceless:



How does she even know that about Barack and Michelle anyway? Journalists nowadays will stop at nothing to get a good story, I guess! (Note to self...)

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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Is Faraday's Mom the Ring Lady?!

Dear Lost,

Thank you for still being awesome.

Love,

Colleen

Monday, January 19, 2009

Colleen Vs. the Tuna Can, Round 2

Who will win THIS time?

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Taconic Tales or "Things That Could Only Happen to Me"

Alright, so this one is for you, Grandpa, the one who just laughed at me at 2:45am after I barged into your house & woke you up with tales of things that could only happen to me and who just shrugged and said, "Write it down."

So last night (Saturday), I had to travel up to Poughkeepsie for Sara & TJ's engagement meet-up at Mahoney's. I left in a good mood after an enjoyable recording of MetroBuzz. Although I was weary of making the trip up and back within the same night (I'm dog sitting again for my aunt), I was still really excited. So there I am, on the Taconic Parkway still near the Bronx/Westchester border, but on the Westchester side. Suddenly, I'm half-blind. My contact is no longer in my eye! I have really bad eye sight. Like, I'm a barely contact prescription away from legally blind. So this is not good. I find a spot to pull over. There's no shoulder on that part of the Taconic, so I pull over in the triangle shaped area between the parkway & an exit ramp. I've found my contact on my scarf, but it must have fallen out because my eyes were dry because it was rolled up and I couldn't unroll with. I tried, but it would have ripped.

I was too far along my way to turn around but not close enough to Poughkeepsie to justify driving further. I would have had to drive with one eye closed the rest of the way in the dark and then the 2.5 hours home much, much later that night. I ended up pouring water from a re-filled water bottle onto it to try to moisturize it so I could try to put it in my eye. I got it to resume regular contact lense shape, but my elbow hit my water bottle (I was too blind & anxious to get my contact into my eye that I had not put the cap back on it) and naturally, it spills directly on my iPod. Fabulous! It wasn't working on the way there, but it must have dried out while I was at the bar because thankfully, it was working again (knock on wood) for my drive home.

Sara & TJ's party was awesome. I had a kick ass time. So I was in a great mood again at 12:45am when I left to embark on my 2.5 hour drive back to my aunt's house, where I am dog sitting again this weekend. Well, my cell phone was dying. It was dying when I got to the party, but I had taken it into the bathroom with me and charged it for a few minutes here and there while I was at the party, just to buy me a little time on the way home with a working phone. I also needed gas, but was hoping that I'd have enough to make it to Queens or Long Island before having to stop. About 30 minutes into my drive, the gas light goes on (damn driving to Riverhead for work with all the stop & go traffic every day). The stretch of the Taconic I was on was unfortunately where the exits led to other highways or across the Hudson River or into Connecticut or whatever.

10 miles pass since the light goes on, it's almost 1:30am & I turn my phone on to call my dad to see if he knows anything in the area. He doesn't. I get off at the next exit, but there's nothing. Like, nothing. I keep driving & see a guy at a stop light. I flash my brights at him several times & wave my arms out the window. He directs me to "Go straight, bear left when you get to a stop sign & you'll run into a Mobile station." I head off in the direction he says, call my dad back and go, "I have no idea where I am or where this gas station is, but if you don't hear from me again soon, it's because my phone is dead & I may run out of gas so you may have to call the auto club or something. I'm by a Children's Hospital called---" Yup - that's when my phone died for good.

I found the gas station & started on my way back. Found the parkway really quickly but I'm still really friggin exhausted at this point because, well, it's late. Naturally, I'm not paying attention quickly enough and I end up going NORTH towards Albany instead of south towards New York City. The exits aren't close between (I love how Rt. 95 once you get into Delaware has it's exits corresponding with miles), so I drive a few more minutes to the Pleasantville exit and turn around to go south. Can we all guess what happens next? If you answered, "You missed the correct exit ramp & ended up accidentially traveling on the service road next to the parkway which then started to lead away from the parkway but were luckily blindly following a State Trooper who turns out was heading towards a different parkway that connected with the parkway you needed" then you guessed correctly!

So now I'm finally back on the Taconic Parkway going south. No cell phone & a half hour behind schedule. It's around 2am at this point and I'm still about 2 hours from home. My parents have no idea what's happening to me & I'm exhausted. I sped back to the Throgs Neck Bridge as quickly as I would dare to (with my luck or my level of tired, I wasn't going to push it). I made a beeline for my grandparents' house to try to use their telephone to call my parents & Jay to tell them I was okay. I should note that I was somewhat afraid that my uncle would wake up to the sound of someone coming into the house at 2:45am & come downstairs with his gun drawn on me (he's a cop). But I figured I'd take my chances and I had to pee anyway so whatever.

So that's basically where this story ends. My grandpa woke up while I was on the phone with my parents. I explained to him everything that had happened to me the entire night whining, "Why does this stuff always happen to ME? Who has a problem on the way there AND the way back?!" He just laughed at me and shook his head and said, "Write it all down." And that's what I did! My grandpa is so cool. I ended up getting back around 3:50am. I went to bed somewhere around 4:30 by the time I let the dog out and got changed and woke Jay & my parents up to tell them I finally made it home. A lovely little story about there and back again.

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Saturday, January 17, 2009

A Little Birdie Loves Me

Yeah, this may not be the greatest shot in the world. And yeah, it's far away. But YEAH it's real! A little birdie sent me this picture during the Golden Globes last week from backstage in the press area:

Gawd, I <3 Tina Fey. I want to shake her hand and give her a hug one day.

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Baby's First iMovie

So I've been teaching myself more cool things that my Macbook can do and moved into iMovie, which completely and totally confused me haha. However, thanks to some screen sharing sessions with JJ, I've learned enough to at least imitate what he what showing me (That's what she said) and decided to take this little video we shot one day when he drove me to work while he was in New York over Christmas and make it into a 34-second feature film just for you!

I think I shall title it, "I Need to Go 70 in a 50, Motherf*cker". Enjoy, it deserves a full 5 stars!




Next stop, Hollywood, right?!

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Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Oh this is the start of something good, don't you agree?

Okay, so the gorgeous Allison has requested I make a new blog post so that she doesn't have to see my bloody finger anymore and I kinda think she's right! So lucky for Ali and the rest of you tired of looking at my mangled claw, I've got an announcement:

I'm moving to Raleigh in the middle of February!

My last day of work is February 4 (a Wednesday) and my birthday is Sunday, February 8. I also found out as I got home tonight that Brian & Bobby got tickets to see "The Daily Show" on February 9, so I am going to go with them and then drive down to Raleigh that week and try to find a job, etc. I'll couch hop with Jay and Sara & TJ and who knows maybe Clif'll let me crash for a night. At least the slumber party will distract me from the absolute terror I have about finding a job haha. I told my bosses at work and although I was scared to do it, I was really more just sad in general. It's a nice place to work and they're really good bosses and I like the people I work with so it's kinda like I'd be losing more friends.

But anyway.

I'm really excited and really scared. I'm excited because I think that it'll be a great new chapter of my life but I'm scared about finding a new job. I accepted back in 2007 when I decided that if it came to it, I'd be the one to move that it would mostly mean giving up 90% chances of ever having a job in the fields that I have my degree in (Communications with focuses in Journalism & PR as well as a minor in English & Theatre). I worry too much and I think too much. And nothing is or will EVER be as beautiful as New York City and that's a fact. BUT I like Raleigh and even though it's clear that I will really want to end up back in NY someday, I cannot wait to start a new life there.

I'm just going to miss my friends. I'll miss Cassidy (bitch moved back from North Carolina as I was moving there), Tricia, Julia, Amanda, Amanda, Ali, Ian, Brian, Claudio, Randy, Anthony, Joe & Steph, Eddie, Bobby, and everyone around here that I know I'm not mentioning (forgive me). I'll miss the BTR crew, Annie & Jeff & Max & Maia and all of our mid-day margaritas. I'll miss Yankee games with Angri & Sabella & Storey. I'll miss my dog Strider. But most importantly I'll miss my family: my parents, sisters, grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousin. Just as way excited as I am to move, I'm just as sad that I won't get to see them whenever I want to anymore. I know that this post sounds somewhat shaky but I made this decision with both my heart and my head and I'm certain that it's the right one.

It's gonna be a big adjustment and I'm really gonna need a lot of support from all sorts of places.

Oh, and I'm gonna need a job if anyone's hiring...

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Thursday, January 08, 2009

Colleen Vs. the Tuna Can

DISCLAIMER: DO NOT SCROLL DOWN SLOWLY IF YOU DO NOT LIKE THE SIGHT (OR PICTURES) OF BLOOD, OPEN WOUNDS, OR STITCHES! Skip way ahead.

Okay, so I got an early start in 2009 with all the action. Sunday, January 4 started off as a normal day. Woke a sick Jay up at 7:30am after having gone to bed at 2:30am (Chargers game at a sports bar for Bobby's birthday then the last 2 episodes of Season 1 of Chuck did us in). Realized at like 9:30am that we didn't have to get up at 7:30am because I miscalculated what time we had to leave for the airport. Oops. We could have had a full extra hour to sleep. We were dog sitting for the weekend at my aunt's house, so we headed to my parents house for the worst bagels I've ever eaten, both in and out of NY combined.

Side note: On the drive over there, I learned that I bought the wrong version of The Sims for my Macbook. I wanted the one that went with the Livin' Large expansion pack - which I had just bought as well - but I bought The Sims 2. I don't know, I thought that The Sims 2 was the one that went with everything. I'm an idiot.

Anyway, after the crap bagels, I drove Jay to MacArthur Airport in Islip and sent him on his way. Went back to my aunt's house to clean up and basically wash everything that Jay had coughed on before going back home. My aunt also go very sick on her trip, so my grandparents were stopping by her house to leave food, etc for her. They head out the door at 2:15pm. I was waiting for the sheets to come out of the dryer and then I was going to go home. My mom wanted me back home between 3-3:30pm because as Italians, we eat dinner at like 3:30pm on Sundays.

So it's 2:15pm and Grandma & Grandpa say goodbye. I decide I don't to wait to eat dinner because I am hungry NOW. I get one of those single servings of tuna fish cans, that you peel it back to open and put it on crackers and eat. That'll hold me over. Yeah. I'm sitting on the couch, watching Supernatural on my laptop & Skype chatting with Jay, who is at the Baltimore Airport for his layover. Please note that Jay's new Blackberry had some sort of software issue that day and was not working at all. I go to peel back the tuna can and instead of peeling up evenly, it rolls up together (as in instead of an even horizontal motion, it rolls up vertically) and completely into my middle finger on my right hand. I looked down and saw immediately that it was not going to be okay. I ran to the front door and was SO lucky that my grandparents hadn't left yet. They were fixing something outside the house but had already started the car. My finger is a gushing blood like a fountain & I've got the plastic carton the can & crackers came in under it to catch the blood. By the time my grandpa got to the door 30 seconds later, there was A LOT of blood in there. I just called out from the door across the lawn, "Umm I cut my finger and it's bad."

My grandpa can't hear me and goes, "Huh?!" So I do the only thing I could do and hold it up, blood streaming and all. We go wash it out and it's evident that the bleeding is NOT going to stop and that it's really freaking deep. My grandparents place calls to my parents to tell them that someone has to come over to take me to the ER for stitches. Now at this point, I had left a very sick Jay on the computer for a good 5 minutes, probably wondering what's going on. So my grandpa types him the funniest message: "this is lou. colleen has to go to er. bye."

Yeah, I could only imagine what I'd do if I had gotten that message and had no clue what had happened and had no phone at all. So after we get my finger wrapped up, I called thru Skype to fill him in. My mom arrived and we went to the ER.

That's basically it. We were there for about 3 hours and some guy kept puking in the room across the hall from me so it smelled terrible. I didn't really cry at all BUT I did lose my cool when the doctor was pulling it apart and touching it to see if I had cut a tendon or not. And I started to shake from nerves and sweat when he put the anesthesia all around it because I could feel it going through my veins and it's just such an unnatural feeling in general. Something cold running through your veins and all. It took a good 3 or 4 minutes before it was numb. My dad had come down when he heard what was happening and he stayed in there with me because my mom's not so good with blood at all. It felt silly having both your parents with you in the ER to get stitches in your finger at 24 years old, but neither wanted to leave and I felt loved. I ended up watching him do the stitches.

Okay, so here's the gross part. I have pictures from my camera phone that I took while we were in the ER and then pictures of what it looks like now, 4 days later. I just took the badages off for the first time to change them right before I took them. I went big, huh? Gotta go big or go home. Thank goodness that I only cut my finger!





All stitched up:



Thanks for stopping by! Hopefully this is the only time I'll have to post open wounds on here ever again (knock on wood).

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