Ramblings of a Long Island Girl.

And awaaaay we go!

2009-02-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

In honor of the month of February, Ramblings of a Long Island Girl is moving to a brand new website, which can be found at www.collwrites.com.

Again, thank you Alice for all of your help. And thank you Jay for bugging me for the last month to actually do it.

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

2009-01-31T11:18:00.009-05:00

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

Blogging Like Bored People Blog

2009-01-28T18:00:00.002-05:00

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.

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.
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."
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.
Fun Fact: My & Ian-face's 25th birthday coincides with the 2nd anniversary of Anna Nicole Smith's death.
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.
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.
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.

Doesn't She Mean Fist Bumping?

2009-01-22T16:10:00.001-05:00

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...)

Is Faraday's Mom the Ring Lady?!

2009-01-21T23:38:00.001-05:00

Dear Lost,

Thank you for still being awesome.

Love,

Colleen

Colleen Vs. the Tuna Can, Round 2

2009-01-19T22:34:00.000-05:00

Who will win THIS time?

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

2009-01-18T23:30:00.001-05:00

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.

A Little Birdie Loves Me

2009-01-17T14:34:00.000-05:00

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.

Baby's First iMovie

2009-01-15T09:25:00.003-05:00

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?!

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

2009-01-13T22:56:00.001-05:00

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...

Colleen Vs. the Tuna Can

2009-01-08T09:57:00.006-05:00

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).

Adios 2008

2008-12-31T17:03:00.000-05:00

What's to say about the end of 2008? It was a year that started out sorta crappy (He Who Shall Not Be Named & [edited so that no one comes after me legally, physically or otherwise] then turned liberating (~~Dobby~~ Colleen is freeeeee!) then was fun (roadtrips to North Carolina) then depressing (not having a job for more than 2 weeks made me bored out of my mind) then fun (yay finding a job again) then depressing (moving out of Astoria & back to Long Island meh) then super fun (the cruise & the rest of my AWESOME summer, including but not limited to the James Taylor concert, 4th of July, the wedding on July 5th, my parents' surprise 25th anniversary party, working from home as gas prices were out of control, Comic Con, randomly flying to Raleigh just to see "The Dark Knight" in IMAX, etc.) then stabled out (starting a new job in August & settling into the day-to-day life with trips to Raleigh every 2-3 weeks).

It certainly was just as action packed and roller-coaster a year as 2006 & 2007 were. Geez, I can't remember a stable year since before I graduated college. But I've had some amazing things happen the past two years, so I can't complain (much).

So what does 2009 hold for me? Endings and new beginnings. Things that I've been doing for years just aren't fun for me anymore and it's (heartbreakingly) time to move on. Stuff I thought I wanted to do (career-wise, as one example), I don't know if it's for me anymore. Everything new that I've got planned (more details to come!) is exciting and friggin' terrifying at the same time.

Since we're leaving for our annual New Years' Eve family dinner in approximately 4 minutes and I have yet to brush my teeth, here's my summary for what I have learned from 2008:

There will always be tough times & things to worry or freak out about - and with my personality, I'll probably magnify each time about 29,000 times worse than need be - but there will always be those great times that are staples. Like big family parties and upcoming weddings (I'm going to be a bridesmaid in Sara & TJ's wedding on September 5!!!) and Comic Con and beach trips and Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years. And the fact that I finally got Jay to start reading "Harry Potter" last night. And those are nice things to always have, no matter how shitty things may seem. Life is livable.

Merry Christmas 2008 From Colleen, Jay, & the Fam

2008-12-25T19:13:00.004-05:00

After a bit of a delay and then some lost luggage (it got delivered finally, not even 5 minutes ago), Jay finally arrived here for Christmas! We've been doing a lot of eating, drinking, and being merry. I was showing my family what my Macbook can do and we decided to do some "Merry Christmas" messages. So without further adieu, here are some holiday wishes from us:

P.S. Sorry about the bad lighting!

Have a Keifer Sutherland Christmas

2008-12-24T18:08:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!!

For your holiday cheer, here's one of (in my opinion) the reasons why YouTube is so awesome. This clip NEVER gets old.

My First California Christmas Experience

2008-12-23T02:01:00.000-05:00

California last weekend with Jay's family ROCKED. Seriously, I had such an awesome time. We flew in on Saturday morning, with our connecting Southwest flights meeting up in Vegas and then flying to Burbank (I had no delays getting in to Las Vegas but Jay did; we then had a bit of a delay leaving Vegas because of snow in Utah I think, but it was way better being delayed with someone!)

Anyways, here's some pictures from that weekend, with captions. There's also a video in here of Jay playing guitar off-the-cuff in the kitchen while no one was paying attention. I noticed he was and grabbed my camera to pretend to take a picture and recorded some of it before he realized what I was doing & we had to go eat or whatever it was. Enjoy some of our lame pictures from our very fun Christmas #1!

Video First:

Now the photo album:

We drink when we are delayed in airports, no matter what time of day it is.

The start of the (literally) 24-hour long game of Risk that Jay & his family played!

Taking a break to text/look at pictures. We're so technologically dependent.

Naturally, we had to take a picture of the game before we went to bed that night to make sure no one cheated over night! Jay is green.

My first time ever playing Wii bowling.

All tuckered out from my 10 minutes of Wii Bowling (plus it was like 9pm NY time...)

We played in Claire's Accessories during a quick mall-trip on Sunday, 12/14. Sylar - I mean Jay - wants glasses for some reason...

I found the pickle hidden in the Christmas tree & went to claim my prize! (Okay, maaaaaybe I had a tad bit of help from Aunt Mary & Uncle Brett...)

All set for take-off from Burbank to JFK and wearing my headband because it hurt my head when I tried to sleep :)

God, we LOVE JetBlue...

On the Day Before the Day Before Christmas Eve, Justin Timberlake & Andy Samberg Gave to Me...

2008-12-22T08:12:00.000-05:00

A holiday classic brought to you by my blog, YouTube.com, and Hulu.com

Step 1...

Angels We Have Heard on High

2008-12-20T23:36:00.002-05:00

Happy 25th Birthday...

...And 10th Christmas in Heaven

It's Delightful From Inside (TWSS!)

2008-12-19T16:02:00.004-05:00

It's snowing like crazy here in New York. My sister's boyfriend, Jeremiah #2, works right near where I used to work, only in a way cooler spot that directly overlooks Madison Square Park in the Flatiron District (I was 2 blocks north of the park on 28th/5th). He took this picture of all the snow in NYC and texted it to her, who sent it to me and somehow made its way onto the Internet! So thanks, #2 :)

Here's the view of the snow in NYC in Madison Square Park:

I really, really miss living in NYC.

Wait, When Did PostSecret Become So Greedy?

2008-12-18T08:24:00.000-05:00

I'm back from California and I've got a huge post to talk about it, but first, I'd really like to finish a thought/post I started more than a week ago. As you may know, I am a huge fan of PostSecret. I have two of the books and bought my boyfriend another one of them last year for Christmas because we both love looking at this genius website. I don't think that 25% of them are real, but I do believe that 100% of them relate to someone in some way. From time to time, I'll even repost one on here that I like & want to share (find the category "PostSecret"). Like she usually does with most of the things I've come to love (cough cough Fiona Apple cough cough), Cassidy sent me in the direction of this site probably a good 2 or 3 years ago. New "secrets" are posted each Sunday on the website linked to above. I actually sent in one myself earlier this year, but it was never put up. Perhaps I should keep trying.

But anyway, my love of the website has been thrown out there. And that's what makes me so disturbed about what I found when I visited the site bright and early on Sunday, December 7, 2008:

Seems innocent enough, right? Until I started thinking. Why would a website that's hosted by BLOGGER a FREE Google-owned blogging website that I host THIS very blog on need to start begging for donations? I absolutely love this website, but right now, I'm starting to feel like this is the blogging website equivalent to the Catholic Church's Bishop's Annual Appeal. To make matter's worse, every 5 postcards or so, these appeared:

Frank originally claimed to be wanting to donate money to the suicide prevention hotline "Hopeline," but why would he need to beg for money to keep a free website running? They don't even have archives on PostSecret; sometimes you'll get lucky and the previous week's "secrets" will be up, but most of the time, if you don't catch them within the first week, you're out of luck and have to wait until the $30 book is published. And as someone pointed out in an email he posted to the website, "I would prefer any cash donations be directed to the suicide prevention hotline; HopeLine (not PostSecret)."

I can't help but get the suspicious feeling that Mr. Warren is really only trying to pay for his book tours. We're in and have been in for the last 12 months a bonafide recession. These are tough economic times and someone who spends their week reading postcards with people's darkest secrets and deepest fears and insecurities on them should realize this, too. This almost seems silly to question, since the answer is 98% "DUH!", but is Post Secret really just a business opportunity for Frank Warren?

There is truly nothing wrong with asking for help, but trying to guilt someone with the excuse, "I am desperate to keep paid ads off this site..." is really shady. Do you get some sort of tax break if it comes from donations and not from paid advertisers?

I guess there really is no such thing as a completely unselfish act and Frank Warren & PostSecret are swept up in the money-making tide. But why am I complaining? I'm still gonna visit the site every Sunday and probably buy the books I don't have eventually.

I Was Just Doing My Job!

2008-12-13T06:14:00.002-05:00

It's been a while since I've had a Dumb Colleen story. Last night, I had a fantastic time at my company's holiday party, btw. I don't think anyone had less than 3 glasses of whatever their drink of choice was. I told my parents about it when I got home and their response was, "Yeah. We can tell." Whatever THAT means.

Anyways, here's what I did today:

Early this afternoon at work, one of the doctors, handed me an envelope. Now, I'm used to him handing me envelopes and usually it means, "Can you please stamp this?" 9 out of 10 times, he'll ask me out loud because they are very respectful and nice to you there. So when he just said, "Here you go." I assumed that since it was a shorter day for everyone, he was just cleaning house and wanted me to mail something and that it was simply a case of him being one-track minded (as in 'it's Friday and we all have to be out of here early so we're in time for the Christmas party').

So I start to automatically put it into the postage machine without even bothering to look at it or basically even get up to do so. My co-worker Linda rushes over to me and goes, "DON'T DO THAT!" She grabs the envelope out of the machine. "That's your holiday bonus!!"

Oops. Well, in my defense, I was really expecting it so how was I supposed to know what I was handed? haha, I'm a dumbass. I tried to mail my bonus!

Okay, off to the airport. Jay & I are going to California til Monday. Yay! I wanted to do fun video blogs from the airport/plane (we have the same layover in Las Vegas), but I was told I have a problem lol. We shall see!

My Macbook Does Cool Things Part 2: The Sepia Diaries

2008-12-10T08:04:00.000-05:00

I promise to stop with the lame videos soon but SERIOUSLY I haven't even BEGUN to explore everything this computer can do! Yesterday morning, I found out that I could film using different effects and backgrounds yay. So last night, I decided to once again be a tool and film in sepia. I know all these settings are old news to most of my mac-whore friends, but I don't care, I'm having a ton of fun playing around with this myself (That's what she said). I promise the videos will stop soon and life can go back to normal.

So here's Colleen featuring Jay's voice presented in sepia! Golf claps.

Andy Samberg Creates Funny Videos

2008-12-08T23:10:00.002-05:00

Thanks to Mr. Skypeck aka Chris in Boston for Tweeting this video last night. It is hilarious. Trust me. Just watch it:

My Macbook Does Cool Things

2008-12-07T22:27:00.004-05:00

Sooooo I found out that not only do I have this awesomely clear quality internal webcam built into my brand new Macbook, but I can actually record things using this webcam and (naturally) post them to the Internet!

...Which is, duh, exactly what I attempted to do just now. Forgive my tired, dirty looking appearance - I actually did shower this morning, but my 2 hour nap mid-day kinda ruined that I guess. So for all you fanboys and girls out there (ahem Paul Rudd, I'm talking to you!) who have always wondered what I look like when I'm at my hottest, here's your chance. :P

Call Me Mac-Allister Now!

2008-12-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

This is why I'm so excited about my new, beautiful Macbook, which arrived on Wednesday. Observe my Dell, duct tape/ external webcam/speakers/mic and all next to my pretty new computer. Excuse the doofus who insisted on being a part of the pictures via Skype video.

Bigger is not better.

Observe the external speakers, the duct tape, the ghetto web cam & external headset set up.
P.S. That's my dog Strider in his Halloween costume as the background!

The next set of pictures exhibit the duct tape, just because it seems that people think I'm being melodramatic when I say my laptop was held together with duct tape:

Band-aid from Jay's dad, Jack.

Isn't she lovely? I think I should name my new Macbook. Any suggestions?

Bless your heart if you made it down this far. Now that the computer issue is taken care of, I have to go to Verizon early tomorrow to get my phone fixed. It stopped charging. I bought a new one and it still doesn't pick up that the charger is plugged in. Boooo. I hope I don't lose all of my pictures and favorite texts. That would be sad...

An Apple a Day

2008-11-30T23:51:00.006-05:00

November 30, 2008. 11:30pm.

I finally purchased a Macbook after almost a year of computer problems. I didn't get one of the new aluminum ones (way way cool but a little too expensive), but I got the white one and I'm really excited. I think it was one year ago this week that I was staying with Jay at his school for the week and he tried to start the Mac attack slowly by having me use his laptop while I was there, but I finally jumped on the Apple Bandwagon over the last two months that I have been using John's iBook. So...yay! No more external speakers and half-working external microphones and clumsy external webcam hookups and terrible sound quality when recording podcasts!

Holler.

November in a Paragraph (or Two)

2008-11-25T10:13:00.007-05:00

I know I've gone MI-blogging-A the last month, but I've had nothing really interesting to say. Went to Raleigh for two fabulous weekends in a row. Dog sat for my aunt last week. Workin'. Seeing movies (Loved Zack & Miri Make a Porno and Role Models, really liked Quantum of Solace). Finally finished all 4 books of the Twilight series - I hated Bella right until the very end where she got a lot more tolerable, but over all really enjoyed the second and third parts of Breaking Dawn actually. I think Eclipse and Breaking Dawn kept me interested because the stories branched out to other characters and not just Bella self-loathing and pining about Edward, which made me question how anyone could ever let their young daughters read books with such a terrible role model for a heroine. Now I'm continuing my decline into geek by reading Harry, A History by Melissa Anelli. I think it's quite fascinating though. Hung out with Ian and the newly engaged Joe Matero & Steph (and her rock). Met up with Julia, Amanda & Topher this past weekend and saw the Mepham High School's version of Dracula, which was directed by my Home Fry himself, Eddie. That's about it.

Anyway, the last month really has flown by, which is why I've had nothing interesting to really say haha. Although Jay did get me into Chuck this past month and it's awesome. Definitely check out that show (Season 2 is on hulu.com and I haven't seen Season 1 yet but it's not hard to follow at all). Anyways, I should get to work. I have to work this Friday even though only one doctor will be in, so Jay & I won't get to spend Thanksgiving together, which is a major bummer. Hopefully the next few weeks go by quickly, since we won't see each other again 'til Dec 13 when we go to California for the weekend. I'll probably get all whiney before then though.

To conclude this energized post, here's a funny cartoon from the New York Post. Dedicated to all my Mets fan friends out there:

Do you see what I see?

2008-10-29T08:05:00.002-04:00

One of my awesome MetroBuzz listeners brought this to my attention:

'Nuff said. Thanks Keith!

Disk Jockey with a Sense of Humor

2008-10-27T20:29:00.003-04:00

I had one of those rare, simple moments that are great this morning on my way to work:

Britney Spears' new song, "Womanizer" came on the radio immediately followed by Justin Timberlake's not-so-new song, "Cry Me A River."

How freaking genius is that?! I laughed my butt off...

Wait, isn't this why WiFi was invented?

2008-10-26T20:52:00.005-04:00

Seriously, who doesn't?!

But I totally and completely unashamedly admit to it.

[Source]

Podcast Awards Time!

2008-10-23T09:37:00.003-04:00

Okay boys and girls, it's Podcast Awards time! Voting opens today, October 23 and closes at the stroke of midnight on November 7 (11:59pm on November 6).

You can vote once every 24 hours per IP address or name/email (cough cough). Just go to www.podcastawards.com and vote for "MetroBuzz" in the Best Comedy category. Whether you just do it this once or you remember to do it every day, I'd be so grateful. Here's what your ballot should look like, hehe:

Thank you so much. I went to the awards ceremony last year in California with Jay and it was really cool, so it's kinda surreal that we were actually nominated this year.

Didn't They Try to Find Some Good For You and Me?

2008-10-22T22:28:00.006-04:00

This was on PostSecret this week. It poses an incredibly taboo question. Discuss:

It's somewhat disgusting that we still need to worry about this happening on America today.

Christmas in October

2008-10-21T08:20:00.005-04:00

It's time for a happier post about my weekend, one that doesn't involve airplanes. So this weekend, I had a completely work-free weekend for once. We went to 5 Guys with Clif (as per usual), then we were going to go see "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" but the time was listed wrong online, so instead, we went back to Jay's house and watched "Casino Royale," since I've never seen it. I love action movies like that, so I really liked it a lot. Jay & I actually each bought the book of short stories that makes up "Quantum of Solace" to read on Sunday.

After breakfast on Sunday (Jay's dad cooks brunch every Sunday morning & it's so good), we did some errands and what not. Then, we went to dinner and to again attempt to see the movie. As we were finishing dinner, I got a text message from Chris in Boston, telling me that MetroBuzz got nominated for a Podcast Award for Best Comedy!!!! I'm actually really, really excited about it. Last year, when I went to California with Jay to watch him accept the award for Best Entertainment podcast, I never ever thought that we'd get nominated. I was incredibly giddy after finding this out, so naturally, a celebration was called for. Since we had already paid the bill, we decided to just go up to the bar in the restaurant and do straight vodka shots. 10 minutes later, two semi-drunk award-nominated podcasters walked into a movie theatre. We then proceeded to giggle our way through the entire first half. We had gotten popcorn and I placed it on the arm of the chair next to me. Jay for some reason decided to lift up the arm and popcorn flew everywhere, which prompted more obnoxious giggling from us, but there were like 5 other people in the theatre and we were in the back row. So whatev. (Btw, the movie was pretty good - having spent a year as an outsider in the indie music world, it was actually quite believable to me and made me really miss living in NYC even more than I already do.)

We went to the mall on Saturday, October 18. Tell me what's wrong with this picture:

Alright, gotta peace out - Time to go back to Job#2 work before I head to Job#1. I didn't say it before, but thank you so much to anyone who is reading this who helped nominate us for a Podcast Award. I'm really so excited. I'm going to be bugging everyone to vote for us, starting Thursday, October 23, 2008. You can vote once every 24 hours and I'd really appreciate it if you could do it. Just go to podcastawards.com and vote MetroBuzz in the Best Comedy category and vote for Jay's podcast, The Lost Podcast with Jay & Jack in the Best Entertainment category.

Finally, I'll leave you with another cheesy kitten video. I took this at literally 5:15am, so if I look exhausted, it's because I was. But I've already gots a boy and he was there while I filmed it, so again, whatev son! Okay, I really need to do work now :P

JetBlue May Give Free Alcohol, But US Airways Gave Free Coffee...

2008-10-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

Here's the final installment of my 3-part miniseries about experiences traveling to/from NY-NC.

The one thing I always maintain when flying is that I won't relax until I'm actually on the ground in my destination. This isn't a safety thing, it's an actual "LaGuardia is the worst airport in the history of the world except possibly JFK" thing. I cannot even begin to count how many times I've been on a plane, taxiing towards the runway for an on-time departure, when there's been some sort of problem - 98.3% of the time from LGA's end - and I've been stuck sitting on runway or tarmac for a while.

This is what happened to me today. 7am flight. Early in the morning. Should be no problems. Get to RDU this morning and successfully still have a ticket (yesterday's incident had not haunted me at 6am this morning, thankfully). We board at a reasonable time and start taxiing towards the runway in order to take off at our scheduled time. Then suddenly, we stop.

Pilot gets on the PA and goes, "Well, it seems that LGA is having ground delays, as usual. We'll be delayed here as a result for around 20 minutes." It's never a good sign when the 'fashion seat belts" light goes off. We wait. 20 minutes later, we're told that we have to wait another 10 minutes to call us back and let us know what time we can be rescheduled to depart. Naturally. The flight attendant makes a hilarious comment at this point to us, remarking, "Gotta love NY. There's always delays, even early in the morning."

During this 10 minutes, something interesting happens. Now, I'm sitting in seat 1F, which is the window seat in the very first row on the right side of the plane. This isn't the most ideal seat in the world but being that US Airways bumped me off this flight that I booked back at the very beginning of September because they didn't know that their own plane actually took off on Saturday, I had no option in my seating. However, I would have missed what happened next had I not been sitting here. The flight attendant gets a phone call, distinctly says, "I understand" and unbuckles her seat belt. Then she gets up, opens the door to the airplane and lets the pilot out.

Yes, the pilot got out of the plane.

The man sitting next to me and I look at each other and go, "Well, that can't be good." We can't see what he's doing on the left side of the plane, but then I see him go around to the wing on the right side of the plane. He wipes the condensation off of it with his hand and then comes back on to the plane and tells the flight attendant, "We're good." At this point, I'm wondering if "we're good" means "We're not going to crash if we ever do take off" or "We're actually going to get this plane in the air."

About a minute later, he tell us that we've got a departure time of 10 minutes. Finally - but only 40 minutes late (and it's sad that one has to consider "only 40 minutes" a true blessing when flying) we take off.

To her credit, the flight attendant kinda rocked. She reduced the price of water, soda, and juice to $1 from $2, alcohol from $7 to I believe $6, and gave us free coffee and Biscoff (yay! only thing I miss about Delta are those cookies man). I was confused when she said that coffee and tea were free and she told me and the man next to me that "Since we waited 40 minutes on the runway, it's the least I could do. Plus, ya'll probably could use some caffeine. I know I could!"

So yeah, another trip to Raleigh in the car, another unnecessary airline drama over. I had a great trip - the whole not stressing about having to work thing really worked out well haha - and I'll post more about that later or tomorrow morning.

Apparently US Airways Rewards You For Flying With Them By Canceling Reservations

2008-10-19T17:45:00.004-04:00

I'm leaving to go to dinner and see a movie with Jay in a few minutes, but here's a little update on my apparently not-dead airline curse. If you missed my story yesterday, I had a bit of a problem getting to Raleigh from LaGuardia Airport because there was a "mechanical problem" that was apparently undetected until they decided to do a maintenance check of my plane as we were boarding. We had to wait around, not knowing if we'd be able to leave NY or not, until they found us another plane to take us here.

Well, I go to check in for my 7am flight tomorrow morning around 11am this morning and there's a problem with my confirmation number. My reservation apparently did not exist. Upon calling customer service at US Airways, I was told that because I failed to make my flight out of New York, my tickets for my return flight were cancelled by US Airways. First, she made it sound like I hadn't checked in on time for my flight there, which was bull because I checked in at 11:56am Friday for my 11:55am flight Saturday. I explained to her exactly what happened to that flight and said I'd scan a picture of my boarding pass from LGA and email it to her as proof. She put me on hold for several minutes. When she finally came back, she had put me back on my flight back to NY.

Thank God it all worked out, but seriously, how ridiculous is that? Like, are they going to have to find spots for all of us on that flight from yesterday because we all lost our return trip reservations or am I just the cursed one? And how on EARTH did they make a mistake not knowing that one of their planes actually FLEW SOMEWHERE?!

I really cannot be late to work at 11am tomorrow morning, so think happy thoughts for me to NOT have any problems tomorrow morning!!

The Airplane Curse Continues: Why Our Country Is In a Depression and Other Assorted Rants & Realizations

2008-10-18T11:54:00.006-04:00

And the curse continues.

I'm sitting here at LaGuardia, paying for Internet, because my flight is delayed indefinitely. 11:55am flight and it's a beautiful freaking day outside. Today was supposed to be my non-stressful day where I didn't have to work at all for once until Monday morning and could finally have a non-work-filled weekend with Jay. And it really did start in a relaxing manner. Got up, watched "Grey's Anatomy" online (it was actually quite fabulous), had plenty of time to get ready and leave with 2 hours to spare.

Then I hit standstill traffic on the Cross Island Parkway and was delayed for over 30 minutes. It finally cleared up and I went to the bagel store in Astoria that Jay loves and got a ton of bagels. There was a long line, which I expected, so no surprises there. I get to the airport finally and the parking lot is closed, of course. I manage to get a pretty good spot in a different lot and run inside to security. It's like 11:10am at this point.

Here's an actual somewhat humorous part: The family traveling ahead of me on the security line managed to EACH set off the security metal detector AND all have to have their bags checked for having liquids that were too big, etc. No, they were not black or Arab. They were just plain ignorant dumbasses. The girl was arguing over contact solution. I felt like screaming at her, "Let it go! Buy the travel size for a fucking dollar when you get to where you're going, bitch."

But moving on to the funny: The guy looks at me strangely after he checks out my bag. I know exactly what's up and I go, "If you're wondering who would bring bagels on a plane, it's me."

He goes, "Yeah, I was actually. Why?" I explain that I'm bringing NY bagels to Raleigh, where they don't have good bagels and I promised to bring them down. He started laughing a lot and let me go through.

So I get through security and into the terminal and I find that my gate has changed, but no one had told me this originally. So I trek all the way back from Gate 7 to Gate 1 with my heavy bagel-filled bags. It's 11:30am. I see that we're not boarding yet and McDonalds is right near the gate, so I go get a fountain Diet Coke (who can resist fountain beverages, seriously) and get back to see boarding has begun. I get in line and I see people coming back off the plane. I inquire why and some gal tells me that it's because they said something was wrong. The woman at the gate tells us that they've been informed by the crew that there's a "maintenance problem" and they have to wait for maintenance to come and look at it and then fix it.

The woman sitting next to me is an older version of me. She immediately started bitching about how she's been here for 2 hours and is positive that the plane has been sitting here for at least that long, so why on Earth would they only decide to check it NOW, 20 minutes before take-off? She's got a fabulous point. And I'd bet my next plane ticket that they didn't check the plane earlier because they didn't want to do work before they absolutely had to. Not to get controversial, but that's the fucking problem with this country today. No one wants to do work, to work hard. No wonder the economy is how it is. There's a bunch of lazy assholes in this country. I work 7 days a week and I have nothing to show for it, yet someone who doesn't work at all and has no drive or desire to can just open their hands. After 9/11, people wanted things and they got it, regardless of whether or not they could pay for it and now we're all paying the price. I'm talking about everyone, lest anybody think that I'm picking on the lower income people. You invest your money in the stock market, it's still paper money. You get caught spending money you don't have in the first place on second homes and what not and then whine about how life's not fair. I see people who come into my job with worker's compensation injuries and some continually make excuses to not be able to go back to work. God forbid you got into an elevator with crutches or had to limp from your desk to the bathroom. God forbid you have to go back to working for a living.

You're either lazy or you're greedy. Greed is the head of a Wall Street corporation who still takes his $500,000 bonus for the year regardless of all the jobs that have been lost because of how shitty you ran your company. Greed is constantly taking, taking, taking and not putting back into society. And I'd say that 90% of the people I know and am associated with are NOT like that. So it's not all hopeless, but there's a large faction of people in this country that are like that and it's not fair to the rest of us who are losing money, jobs, etc. And as I've bitched about before, we all treat each other like complete shit. Even the ticket agents here are being nasty over the loudspeaker and I have not heard one person - myself included - who has confronted them in a nasty way (or at all) yet.

So at least this delay hasn't yet brought on a fit of crying and swearing yet I've just decided to take it out on my fellow Americans. The update since I began writing this post about 45 minutes ago is that they're going to try to change planes. We have to wait for them to get another plane, then bring it to the gate, then have the crew change planes themselves, then prepare the cabin, then maybe get it checked out by maintenance to see if it's good to go, then we'll get our boarding time. Joy. I love spending my supposed-non-stressful-Saturdays waiting in airports for a problem that could have been detected hours ago to be solved now at the expense of everyone else.

Maybe I'll go update "The Plane Truth" while I wait. Or go network and try to find someone who lives/works in Raleigh now to find me a job there so I can move and not have to ever wait around in airports twice a month again.

So Madonna Walks Into a Divorce Attorney's Office...

2008-10-17T09:10:00.000-04:00

This cartoon is from the New York Post yesterday and when I saw it, it made me literally laugh out loud:

Did I Stutter?

2008-10-16T08:23:00.000-04:00

This makes me giggle:

Hey, Colleen! How've you been?!

2008-10-15T21:55:00.003-04:00

It's been a really long time since I've actually written a "how I'm feeling/doing" post vs. the "what I've been up to" post. I figured now was as good a time as any, since it's one of those very rare moments where I don't have anything to do within the next 15 minutes.

I'm...exhausted. My life is getting up, doing work for job#2, which is a content writing gig I did full time all summer on a project by project basis. It ended the day before I went to San Diego in July and when I got back, nothing was going on and I got a new job that's actually outside of my house and around people and legitimate in that we all know where all the money comes from and none of my bosses have 'questionable' past endeavors that I know of and it has benefits and means I have to actually shower every day. 2 weeks after I started job #1, which is working as a medical receptionist in shithole Riverhead (the traffic gives me rage every morning. 15 miles from home and I have to leave 30-35 minutes early grrr), I got approached from job #2 about another 6 week long project. I figured, "Hell, I want to move to NC and I want as much money as possible beforehand, so why not take on 2 jobs that require 40 hours a week each?" So I get up early, do job #2, go for a run, shower, do any loose ends from job #2, leave at 10:30am for job#1, take my break there 2-3pm and do work #2 during that time with Internet that I steal from the parking lot, go back in for work #1 until 7pm, when I go home and work on job #2 from 7:45pm until I'm at a stopping point for the night. The rest of my life is filled with airports and podcasting and weekends that go all too quickly, where I'm actually still spending a decent amount of Jay & my's "down time" doing work for job#2. And the 6-week gig ended the first weekend of Oct, but now there's more to do again.

So yeah, that's how I've been. Busy, exhausted, and getting more wound up by the day. Add into that friends who make me feel like absolute shit because they think I don't like them anymore no matter how many times I explain that that's what my life is right now. Everyone is busy and works a lot; no matter what the state of the economy is, I know that everyone feels that way at some point. But I don't like the million "Wow you're alive" comments, like I don't know/feel stressed out as it is that I don't get to see them as frequently anymore. I'm tired. I really don't spend all of my other weekends hanging out with other friends you think I like better than you & I need you to understand this and cut me some slack here. I spend it doing work (like the literal 27 hours I logged in from Friday night to Monday morning on a new project that I was told would be like a one day thing) or traveling. I need a good 2 weeks notice for things nowadays. I'm trying to keep track of plane ticket prices and balancing my schedule to actually make time to get my car fixed, go to the denist and doctors and gyno and all those things I haven't done in way too long. I'm trying to keep track of apartments and job openings in Raleigh so that when the time comes that I feel like I can go, I know exactly what's what. I was supposed to start writing my book series back in effing JULY & nothing's been done since like the third week of August. I have too many things on my mind and it makes me uptight and tense and I just plain have forgotten HOW to relax in general and I see it happening and I hate it. I've gotten bitchy and boring and not really much fun at all anymore, but that's just how it is.

The only reason I haven't totally cracked by now is because I know that it'll pass. It's just not passing fast enough, haha.

One of those days

2008-10-09T18:30:00.001-04:00

Hey boys and girls! Today is October 9, 2008.

Do you know what that means?

It's 10-9-08!!!

Nagini Is Hungry

2008-10-01T10:15:00.000-04:00

I heard this wonderfully gross story at work on Monday night. It was the perfect cure to stop eating so freaking many M&M's instead of dinner. Kallie, a high school senior, told me it:

A girl she used to work with had a pet snake. She used to sleep with this snake each night because "it was just like a dog." There came a time when said snake stopped eating. It also stopped curling up on her bed and began to stretch on longways next to her. Kallie's co-worker began to worry because her beloved pet snake had stopped. She took it to the vet after a week of not eating.

What did she learn?

Oh, nothing. Just that the snake wasn't eating because it was preparing for a big meal. What meal? Oh, just HER. Apparently the snake was stretching because it was sizing her out to eat her.

Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew. Ew.

Can you imagine going into work and being like, "Where's Sally Jo?" "Oh, her pet snake ATE HER last night."

Ew. Ew. Ew.

So much for loyal pets.

Ew.

Oohhhh sweet child of mine

2008-10-01T09:24:00.000-04:00

More lameness + Bad camera angle on my face + drunk eyes = word.

Calling Clay Aiken Fans.

2008-09-30T21:16:00.002-04:00

Clif has an announcement and I drunkenly try to bring a joke back from the dead, much like the ~~person~~ deity it's about.

I'm not going to pretend that this is interesting, but I the battle at the end makes me giggle.

...And Found

2008-09-29T07:42:00.001-04:00

'Nuff said.

Thanks St. Anthony

2008-09-26T00:40:00.001-04:00

I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING I FOUND MY RING!!!

Where on EARTH was it? Well, here's the full story:

As you may or may not know, I lost the ring that Jay gave me two weeks ago to this day. I've been absolutely devastated and massively, embarrassingly emo about it. I've been looking and re-looking everywhere, every day. I knew that it was in my room somewhere, but it was nowhere to be found at all. The bare basics are I had it on my desk right before I went to bed. I had moved my lamp onto the ground the night before and when I woke up early that Thursday morning, I moved my lamp back onto my desk and knocked into the ring. I didn't know what fell - I just heard a noise of something hitting the ground - and when I went to put it on a few hours later, realized that's what had fallen. I had looked at the ground at the time it fell, but didn't see anything and was so in need of coffee and a good morning urination that I didn't even bother to look at the time.

When I realized what had fallen, I freaked out hard core. I couldn't find it ANYWHERE that morning. My dad was still home and he helped me look and finally, I was late to work and had to halt the search til that evening. No luck. The next day, Friday Sept 12, I had to go to my grandparents' house in Syosset to spend the night because I was driving to LaGuardia Airport early early the next morning to go to Raleigh to visit Jay. I'm not gonna lie: I seriously was on the verge of having a breakdown those few days because I was just so upset. I returned home from Raleigh relaxed and hopeful that I'd find it. But still no luck. We looked EVERYWHERE. In the sheets, in the bed frame, through the garbage (Friday was a garbage day and my mom had dumped all of the garbage from our rooms into the main trash can outside that morning), in everything under my bed, in the lamp, in every drawer - open or closed at the time - , in my closet, through every shoe, in the wall, in the pipes, in the radiator, everywhere. I'm way anal and I need to put all of my clothes away before I go to bed every night, so although there were no clothing with pockets out at the time, we still looked anyway.

Then there were a few things that I guess put this into motion from the Universe.

Last night, as I went to bed, I moved my lamp again (I've been re-creating it every morning with no luck - I'm seriously fucking crazy) and had the idea to look inside it once again. But it was on and really hot from the light bulb and it was late, so I made a mental note to look this morning. Last week - circa last Wednesday or Thursday - I declared my hatred for this lamp, which was my mom's when she was a kid & I've had forever. I think I even tried to punch it. It's a nice, ceramic lamp with roses painted on it. I even swore about 82 times that I hated looking at it, hated it, wanted it gone from my room because I blamed it for knocking my ring into oblivion.

Prior to this thought, I was doing my usual masochistic moping and decided to search on eBay for the same ring. I found it here and told Jay about it. Because it was like $50 at the time - and white gold (mine is sterling silver) - he offered to get me this one as a replacement. I decided against it, then changed my mind, then decided against it again, then changed my mind. Finally, I decided against it before we went to bed. He was wonderful as usual and said that he'd do it anyway if it didn't get crazy expensive.

So this morning, I decided to search through my parents room and then the laundry room. My sheets had been moved to the laundry room that morning that my ring was lost, before I realized it was gone. My mom, who along with my dad, has been incredibly helpful and tolerant these past few weeks, had brought the sheets upstairs to her room and carefully laid them out on her own bed in order to see if the ring was stuck there. Since probably the Monday I got back from Raleigh (Sept 15) & couldn't find it, I've been desperately thinking of places it could have been. So this morning, I looked in their room just in case it had fallen there without her noticing and I moved the washing machine and looked through it, just in case it had fallen there.

I had no luck and then I basically had an emotional breakdown. I mean, I was sobbing in the shower and on the way to work. I was talking to Jay about how it was gone and he, as my parents and grandma have maintained, said that I had to have faith and believe I'd find it. I just had a complete panic attack over it and couldn't breathe and totally lost it in a way that I hadn't before. I guess I just completely lost hope at that point. He again offered to get the white gold version of the ring on eBay and I freaked out more, saying how it wasn't mine, I wanted MINE back, I couldn't wear one that belonged to someone else. He managed to convince me that once he gave it to me, it would become mine and it would be okay. We agreed that if it stayed under $100, he would get it. He made a bid with 10 minutes left for $100 right before he went to make a presentation in class (thank you Steve Jobs for inventing the iTouch), but someone outbid him for $102 at the last minute. He was disappointed that he didn't win it, but I was for the first time, very calm about it.

Maybe it was thanks to all the crying this morning or maybe it was because I had some sense of faith finally, but I realized when I went on break and he told me how sad he was that he didn't win it that it just wasn't meant to be. I knew then that if he didn't win it, then it wasn't meant to be. And the reason it wasn't meant to be was because I'd eventually find it. That was the first time in two weeks that I came to some kind of acceptance about it possibly being gone for a long time. I still looked this evening when I got home, as I have done for the last 2 weeks, but I didn't freak out or cry at all.

I was sitting here around 11pm and saw that the top of my lamp was slightly off. Now, I've noticed this every night for the last week since I tried to take it out behind the bleachers, but been too "fuck you, lamp" to really do anything about fixing it. But when I looked at it tonight, I remembered how I wanted to search inside it again. So I looked in and saw something. It didn't look out of the ordinary, but I figured I had to fix it because it IS an old, nice lamp and I should act 24-years-old and fix it. I took the cover off and saw that this thing in there wasn't gold, like the trim of the lamp, but silver. So I took it apart further and guess what?!?!?!?!?! I knew a split second before my hand met it, but still couldn't believe it til I saw it. That's why it wouldn't fit back in the correct way last week!!

YAY!!!!!

I promptly started screaming with glee (isn't glee a great word) and danced around my house until my parents and Katelyn told me to shut up so they could go to bed. Thank you to everyone who put up with all of my incredibly emo and borderline breakdown-like behavior and texts and Twitters about this ring. Naturally, I haven't taken it off since I found it lol.

And you know what? I swear it doesn't even feel like I ever went 14 days without wearing it.

Pictures to explain. I think if you click on them, they'll enlarge:

The Ring on the Milk Carton

2008-09-25T09:55:00.002-04:00

At least my boyfriend has a sense of humor about it, even if I don't:

How can I get this on a milk carton?

P.S. My room has become comparable to Homeland Security and/or TSA. Nothing gets in or out of it without being searched fully and routine searches and re-searches of areas of the room (aka all of it) are conducted daily. And just like in the real world, all that's come of it nothing substantial has turned up and I'm delayed getting to places I need to be.

The Universe's Easy Target

2008-09-24T07:25:00.004-04:00

So upon waking up to learn that this is the 4th straight week that we have a problem with MetroBuzz that may require re-recording (at least it wasn't my computer this time lol), I check the weather forecast for the weekend. I'm flying out of Islip on Long Island to Raleigh late late late on Friday night and guess what? Yup, it's supposed to rain in NY, Philadelphia (where my layover is) and Raleigh, where I'm supposed to arrive at 12:19am. If I were flying from LGA, I'd automatically plan to be delayed or cancelled, but since I've yet to fly out of Islip, I'm remaining optimistic...somewhat. I tell Jay about the yet again screwed up podcast and the bad weather and - pairing this up with my still missing ring ("St. Anthony, St. Anthony, stick around...") and some other news that we got yesterday morning that bummed us out - he goes:

"I think the universe has the most fun fucking with you because you have the best reactions."

Yeah. That's probably true. I should work on that.

Drinking Water in Raleigh

2008-09-22T20:32:00.000-04:00

Nothing better than a poorly shot video in a darkened bar. We have fun though.

Kittens at Play

2008-09-21T20:12:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to post these videos all week long, but haven't had a free moment to. When I was in Raleigh last weekend, I decided to go all mom on the kittens and take videos. Are they cute videos? Yes. Are they probably interesting to everyone else in the world but me? Not at all. But this is my blog and I'm apologetically showing off Ledger & Jasper the kittens. Little Zoe the kitten was camera shy (aka still sleeping). Ledge is the gray one and Jasper is the white one.

Aaaaand:

You Know Times Are Tough When...

2008-09-14T12:42:00.003-04:00

Jay & I saw this in a parking lot in Raleigh yesterday:

Hurricane Ike has knocked out one of the oil reserves that services the Southeastern U.S., so some gas stations are shut down while others have raised the prices higher than New York prices and set a $40 limit per trip.

But to have to sell your Hummer and advertise it in a parking lot? Now I know just how tough times are...

Oh where, oh where can my ring be found?

2008-09-12T19:49:00.003-04:00

So in the last 2 days, I've

Lost my ring. It fell off of my desk yesterday morning and when I realized what fell, I couldn't find it ANYWHERE. I've taken apart my bed, bed frame, sheets, radiator, gone through the garbage, gone through every drawer that was open (and closed), all my clothes, taken every single item out of my closet, and even gone through the laundry & entire garbage, since today was a garbage day & my room's garbage got consolidated with the house's garbage. It's absolutely nowhere. Even my parents have now admitted (they and my sister have helped search my room and the house yesterday and today) that it seemingly has fallen off of my desk & disappeared into thin air. I'm beyond upset because that ring had such special meaning to me; I actually asked God this morning to "Take my iPod instead." Yeah, THAT'S how much I mean business. I just don't get it: something falls on the floor; you HEAR it fall, yet it disappears completely. Does anyone have any other suggestions on where I can look?
After waking up every hour last night after dreaming of places I found my ring, then getting up to check to see if it was prophetic or not, I finally got up at 7am & searched everything, including the garbage, again. I took a break to take a walk through the woods near my house, only to realize after an hour, with about 10 minutes til I got back to my car, that I did not have my car key with me. Thinking that it was lost somewhere in the woods, I called my sister Katelyn, who came with spare keys. The key was sitting on the seat the entire time, but I still had to wait til she came bc I was locked out.
Temporarily lost my sunglasses before leaving for work. Found them after much searching on the seat of my car. Was still 8 minutes late for work.
This post has taken ages to write. Why? Because I'm a dumbass who spilled beer on her computer keyboard while still looking for her ring & the "S" key does not work correctly now. This is what happens: swswsssssssssssssssswswssssssss asw (that should say "was" here is "say": sway). If you're going to cause my computer to further deteriorate, world, then at least let me look down on the ground right now and see my ring shining brightly up at me. Nope, nothing.

I'm leaving for Raleigh tomorrow morning on US Airways from LGA at 9:05am & returning home Monday morning on at 7am flight for work at 11am. It's gonna rain all weekend. Wish me luck, karma, prayers, etc.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to buy a lottery ticket.

VM (Yawn) A's 2008

2008-09-09T16:08:00.008-04:00

Let's talk about the VMAs and how Russell Brand's constant reminder of the current state of our country has made me realize that the exact same thing can be sad about the boring piece of crap that was this year's MTV Video Music Awards.

Where to start, where to start? I know! How about with Britney Spears!

The obvious: She looked way better than she has in a long time. Her ass, admittedly, was out of control in a good way. Some more of the obvious: WTF?! First, Mariah Carey, now Britney! It's so nice to see that MTV cannot be bought out by publicists and managers at all. And be so charitable! She won her first 3 VMAs ever for a song and video that she basically had no part in other than just showing up and not throwing a fit. Britney's had FAR better music videos than "Piece of Me" - ones that she's actually had a sober hand in making. "Toxic" anyone? Even "Oops I Did It Again" - Titanic necklace and all - deserved to win over that video. Britney's win just goes to show that even in the real world, people's self-esteems are pampered to, just as though they were given an honorable mention in the 5th grade science fair.

Russell Brand

Just...not funny. He tried way too hard (that's what she said). The political jokes and the Jonas Brother jokes may have been funny if they hadn't been repeated so many times. He made me laugh twice: The first time was when he called Michael Phelps a "real life Aquaman" and the second time was so hilarious that I can't even remember it right now. But seriously, the Jonas Brothers/purity rings gag was just overdone. And ridiculously annoying because they weren't even good.

Pink

Awesome as always. Thanks to Rachel VC, I do love me some Pink. That song is catchy.

Jordin Sparks

Still couldn't tell you any of her music that isn't "Tattoo" (and I only know that song when it gets to the chorus), but I give her mad props for going off-script and telling Russell Brand to shut the f*ck up about the purity ring jokes. Because we were all thinking it anyway.

Katy Perry

She looked adorable, but I really wanted her to sound good and she just didn't do anything for me. I was hoping to at least sing along with her cover of "Like a Virgin" but MTV only showed the first verse of it and then cut to commercial, before coming back in from commercial and showing us the last chorus of "I Kissed a Girl." I wonder if that was also to cover the fact that she didn't sound much better than a Simpson performance. Maybe I'm being too critical, but girl didn't prove herself to me.

Miley Cyrus

Is she 16 years old or is she 30 years old? Also, who told that girl that she knew how to sing?

Kanye

Thank goodness for Kanye's lack of short term memory because he, as ususal, kicked ass. Too bad he wasn't featured more so.

Lindsay Lohan

Looked and sounded sober. Good for her.

Back to what I said in the beginning, comparing the change we need in this country vs. the VMAs, it's pretty straight forward: Re-vamp your channel to play music again or at least a healthy balance of music and television shows and don't make every awards show seem like its geared only for 14-year-olds. That's how you get people to watch them. That's all I've got for now. My brain hurts. Though MTV did get huge ratings for this year's show, probably because everyone tuned in to see Britney Spears.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

2008-09-02T23:38:00.001-04:00

Another Labor Day weekend has come and gone. Jay came up to NY again, just like last year, but this year, we stayed at my aunt's house on Long Island. It actually totally rocked because she's in Key West (hello and goodbye, Gustav) til next Monday, so we got to play house for a few days. In no particular order, we watched the second season of The X-Files because we're cool like that, played with the dog (I'm technically dog sitting), played in the pool, went Down Port with Ian, Matero, & Bobby, braved a trip to the Outback (which we swore off back in January after we went 3 times in one week), ate McNulty's (greatest ice cream ever), partook in a croquet battle with my family for my mom's birthday (don't ask), scared ourselves into being awake all night because we thought we heard a noise that ended up being the dog sitting down heavily at 4am, and ate an entire pizza/order of garlic knots from Alfredo's in one sitting (ugh). Dropped him off at the airport at 6am this morning, boooo. Now I don't know what to do with myself alone here for the next week, but at least I'll be in Raleigh in 12 days. Countdown commences.

Anyway, for some work anecdotes:

A man told me last week that I look like the type of person who is "used to getting her way by charming people or by not charming people" and that he bet that I was the "youngest in my family and the only girl." Umm, that could not be further from the truth on either account. 1) I cannot look like someone used to getting my way because a) there is a reason that I am not in sales, but rather a writer and that is because I am horrible at expressing what I want while I am speaking outloud and b) That's why I get so high strung sometimes; because I don't know how to charm my way into getting what I want, so I just freak out about stuff not working out before I even give it a chance! So WHATeva playa. 2) I am NOT the youngest in my family, nor the only girl. In fact, I am the OLDEST of THREE girls and a neutered dog. Pffft. Smart ass.

A woman who brings her mother in twice a week was talking to me about Broadway. This woman begins to tell me about the Broadway revival of "South Pacific" and then goes on to mock whisper, "It must have been GAY night!!!" Without even really giving it much thought, I kinda said to myself, "Well, duh, you went to see a Broadway musical." Then she continue, however, to declare, "SERIOUSLY, I do not care WHAT you do in your own private home but I do NOT wish to see you hold hands or do other sexual things in public!!" That was at the point where I gave up.

Okay, many more to follow, I am sure. The end for now!

my love, you know that you're my best friend

2008-08-22T19:44:00.003-04:00

As Labor Day approaches, I find myself in a similar position that I was in 2 years ago - one that I despise with a passion I cannot describe. I miss Astoria and last summer a lot. A LOT. This moving home thing is way harder than I thought it'd be. However, this time around, it's so much nicer to have someone to make it all worth it...

now progress takes away what forever took to find

2008-08-20T08:15:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. LeRoi Moore

I honestly haven't been into new Dave Matthews Band since my junior year of college, but I've seen the band perform many times and it's just so sad. It like that kid you hung out with constantly your freshman year of college passed away and even though you haven't seen him since, say, Sept. 11 your sophomore year, knowing that he's not around anymore to create still feels like a huge loss. So R.I.P.

For any DMB/former DMB fans/interested parties, here's the set list from the show last night:

Tuesday Aug 19 2008
Staples Center

Bartender*
Proudest Monkey*
Satellite*
So Damn Lucky*
Eh Hee *
Water Into Wine*
Burning Down The House*
Dancing Nancies*
Loving Wings*
The Maker*
Sledgehammer*
Grey Street*
Dreaming Tree*
Crash Into Me*
Everyday
Anyone Seen The Bridge*
Too Much Intro*
Ants Marching*

Encore:
Sister+
Corn Bread*
Two Step*

Delta Does It Again

2008-08-19T10:00:00.000-04:00

As if the obvious wasn't enough, here's another reason why Delta is a mess of an airline. Last night, I received my weekly email with Delta's fares. Although I've publicly sworn off flying Delta many, many times, the promise of a $69 ticket each way was almost too much temptation to resist. (Back story: This afternoon, I was looking into possibly flying to Raleigh this weekend - I know it's not really practical at all, but let's face it; being back on LI makes me restless to go do things far away from LI.)

So anyway, here's a screen cap of the email, which was sent at 9:26pm on Monday, August 18:

Please note that it says, clear as day, that flights from JFK to RDU for travel this coming Saturday to next Monday or Tuesday are $69 each way.

So, I figure, "Hey, why not just check it out? Don't have to buy a ticket, just look..." Here is what happens when you follow the rules - magically, the trip is $339. I may consider myself more of a writer than an accountant, but this makes no sense. I try one more time, thinking perhaps I screwed up the dates or something. Still:

Upon further investigation on the website, I learn the following:

So...it's $129 each way to/from RDU from either JFK or LGA? That's significantly different from $69 each way. And if the site just wasn't updated as of me writing this (it's almost 1am early Tuesday morning/late Monday night), then why even send out an email if the website isn't updated?

Nice job, Delta. Nice job.

Angelina Jolie is Mother-of-the-Year

2008-08-18T19:16:00.004-04:00

I'm bored. At the risk of being a little bit of a Perez-copycat, I just had these thoughts while I was killing time looking at this magazine in the bathroom before (you know when you have nothing to do, so you just finish looking at whatever's staring you in the face when you sit down even though you're already washed-your-hands-done?) & had to take a picture of the cover and add my own things:

1. Congratulations to Angelina Jolie for actually being a mother and being exhausted after taking care of her children. Let's all give her a Noble prize for being such a fucking saint. The only woman in the world to be exhausted after dealing with 6 kids under the age of 8. Duh.

2. The thing that is wrong with Madonna's face is that she's old, she works out too much, and she's had about 19 too many plastic surgeries.

3. I'm cranky, but let's call it feisty.

Colleen Go Boom

2008-08-17T13:00:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure which is funnier: what happens or that her name is Colleen:

California Dreamin'

2008-08-16T10:37:00.005-04:00

I had the craziest dream last night and I have no idea what it means at all, though I should probably just take it as it is:

I was returning home to New York (JFK airport for some strange reason; I usually fly out of LGA) from what I think was Raleigh (minor detail I forgot after waking up). I had a flight that left early in the morning and the last time I looked at my watch in my dream was 6:45am. I fell asleep. I woke up and I was on a JetBlue flight (which I guess is why I was supposed to be at JFK, since it doesn't fly to LGA), but it was strangely quiet. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something. I was in the front and like, "Eff this! Let's get off this pliz-zane!" I looked at my watch and saw that it said 9pm, but thought not much of it, thinking that maybe it was 9am & my watch was just spazzing. I left the plane. It was sorta set up like the "Soarin' Over California" ride at Disneyland - very wide.

I walked off and into the airport and immediately got confused. It wasn't JFK. I kept walking, this time a little more, "Ummm WTF?!" Then I see a huge sign on the wall: "Welcome to Los Angeles International Airport."

Naturally, I'm a little bit panicked to find out that I have not landed in New York, but LAX in California.

So I run back to the plane and am magically not stopped by security or anyone and I go back to my seat, as they're in the middle of announcing that we were unable to land at John F. Kennedy Airport and had to fly to LAX instead. (As Jay pointed out when I told him this morning, "So...they couldn't land in NY, so they...flew to California?")

As one can only do in dreamland, I find a free customer service representative as soon as I get into the terminal, who looks and sounds suspiciously like my Aunt Carol, who I only see like 4 times a year. I explain to her that I'm part of the NY JetBlue flight and I needed to get home. She took me to this back door - almost secret entrance - to a ticket counter that also doubled as a line at a grocery store. Yes, it was still set up in LAX. I explained to him the situation - realize that it's actually only 6pm since it was PDT time - and he looks up my next flight options back to NY.

At this point in my dream, I'm magically also on the phone with Jay, explaining what's happening to him. It was the same situation as when I returned from Comic Con; a Wednesday and I technically didn't have anything to do until the following Monday. So I suggest to the ticket agent/grocery store clerk that I can wait til the following morning to get a flight out (hey, when in ~~Rome~~ Los Angeles...). Jay and the Aunt Carol look/soundalike try to shush me up, but I insist the whole time, "It's fine. I don't have anything to do the rest of this week and Jana lives in Burbank, she can maybe come pick me up! I've never seen LA!" Jay keeps insisting he'll call his Aunt Cindy or some other relative he has in LA or even Ralph & Stevi while the Aunt Carol look/soundalike is hushing me up, like I'm an idiot for not wanting to rush back to NY on a red-eye flight.

The man tells me there's a flight leaving very soon or else there's another one at 11am the next morning. I'm all about calling Jana in Burbank to show me LA/introduce me to David Duchovny ((sigh)), but just as I'm about to find out what flight I am taking, I woke up.

So, what does it mean?

Happy 2 Year Anniversary!

2008-08-16T08:03:00.000-04:00

Happy 2-year anniversary, Collwrites! Even though I made a post back in January 2006, this wasn't a regular thing until August 16, 2006. Meeeeeemories....

Don't Trust Boys You Can Only Operate With a Coin.

2008-08-15T18:50:00.002-04:00

Jay just discovered both the Dresden Dolls and the Hype Machine, so I'm being ignored over Skype while he plays and decided to write a blog post about nothing while I pass the time.

La la la la laaaaa!

37 Hours in Raleigh

2008-08-14T20:22:00.005-04:00

Not much to report here. Made a spur of the moment trip to Raleigh last weekend. Jay, Clif & I went to see The Dark Knight in IMAX, which rocked. We walked around downtown for a little while because a free concert was going on outside, but were too cheap to pay cover charges in any of the bars there, so we went to a bar at North Hills mall since Clif & Cassidy had met us there for a little dinner at 5 Guys and Clif went with us in our car and left his there. It was actually really fun. At first, we were doing that whole, "We're only going to order the drinks that are the specials of the night so we save money" type thing. Then when we sat down, it became "Colleen needs to try that giant margarita they have here!" Then it turned into "Okay, one more drink!" Then "Okay, let's order the hot wings, we're kinda hungry." It was really fun and I'm glad I went. I left at 7am Sunday morning because it was my dad's birthday.

On a girly side note, when we were walking around down town, we stopped in front of the entrance of the free concert. It looked familiar and I looked around and realized that we were standing in the exact same spot that Jay & I first met! All together now: "Awwwww!"

The end.

Oh and Clif willing used my lip gloss because no one had chapstick. Priceless.

The Cooch Couch.

2008-08-07T17:26:00.003-04:00

This may be the greatest furniture ever:

Found them here: http://31504.livejournal.com/50971.html

Hilarious.

Entering the World of Yesterday, Tomorrow, and Fantasy

2008-08-05T12:15:00.000-04:00

Enough of all the depressing airline posts! Although it may not seem like it, I do actually spend like a good 40% of my day NOT focusing on flying. As previously mentioned, Jay & I celebrated our one year anniversary with a trip to Disneyland. It rocked. Much thanks to "Producer Ryan" for the hook-up and the special reservation to Blue Bayou! And of course, a million thanks to Jay for taking me! :)

Getting ready to leave Ralph's apartment

Yup, we're still hammin' it up, ready to leave.

Pretty.

Splash Mountain

Hollywood Hotel of Terror, Time #1

Hollywood Hotel of Terror, Time #2

Damn, my flight to Hoth is delayed.

Space Mountain

Just a little woman, not strong enough to lift weights...

Chillin'

Celebrating our actual anniversary at - where else? - the airport!

The Curse Even Affects Fake Flights

2008-08-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

So last week, on Monday July 29, Jay & I went to Disneyland in Anaheim, California to celebrate our one year anniversary. The whole day was awesome. My first trip to Disneyland totally rocked :) I cannot wait to go back. I'm in love with just about every ride we went on, most particularly The Hollywood Hotel of Terror, Space Mountain, the Indiana Jones ride, Splash Mountain, and Soarin' Over California.

Speaking of Soarin' Over California, it's a simulated flight that takes passengers up into the air and over the landscapes of California. I kept joking to Jay to beware, because me + flying = you never know. So we got our Fast Pass for it and as we're waiting on in line, we're laughing back & forth about our upcoming "plane" ride. We get inside and sit down on the left hand side on the ride, and buckle our seat belts when we hear a male attendant say to the female attendant, "This ride malfunctioned at the end of the last trip, so these people have to get up." So they make everyone that was sitting on the left of the ride unbuckle their seat belts and wait til the "next flight"!! Jay just kept looking at me and repeating, "You've got to be kidding me, you've got to be kidding me. You actually delayed us from getting on this plane ride and it's not even real!"

Yup, you can't make this stuff up kids. I'm cursed!

Also, I forgot to mention in my mammoth previous post, at least I was not on this flight: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-07-28-delta-jfk-delay_N.htm

And Trent from Pink Is the New Blog had a bit of a problem too: http://pinkisthenewblog.com/home/london-calling-take-two/

Typical Delta.

At Least JetBlue Gave Me Free Liquor

2008-08-04T10:20:00.005-04:00

Because I know everyone loves a good airline story from yours truly - and I've got lot so 'em - here's what happened to me Tuesday, July 22 as I attempted to leave for San Diego, California on a 6:40pm direct flight from JFK Airport in NYC. I was flying JetBlue.

Let's preface this by saying that the weather forecast for July 17-22 was rain. July 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21 came and went without rain at all. In fact, it was quite humid and sunny all week. So naturally, the one day that I need to fly out somewhere, it's going to rain.

So I'm already freaking out that morning when it starts to rain. It stops, I hear it's supposed to pass early. Still way worried and being totally neurotic (more so than usual) the entire day because I know that something is going to happen, because something ALWAYS happens to me when I fly. On the way to JFK, my mom finally actually snaps at me me to shut up because she's had enough. But I know what's what, so whatev.

I arrive at JFK at 5pm for my 6:40pm flight, so I'm already early. Go through security with my first ever problem - my watch set off the metal detector, which is strange since I always have it on and it's never been a problem before. I'm assuming this means that either 1) JetBlue's sensors are very sensitive or 2) Delta's metal detectors are just for show. I'm going to assume option 2. A security guard was kinda a douche to me, but it was the end of the day & I was too nervous at what could possibly go wrong, so I didn't take offense.

I get through security and I've still got a full hour before takeoff, so I get a beer and bust out my broken laptop and my turkey sandwich & try to relax. So far, everything is on time except for the flights to Raleigh-Durham, actually. Ah, irony. This man approaches me and asks if I'll do him a favor and watch his 3 & 6-year old daughters while he goes to buy water and crap. I know I don't look dangerous or anything, but I was a stranger and I did have an alcoholic beverage in my hand. But he was from the Northwest, so maybe they're more trusting out there or something. They begin to board my plane EARLY. Yes, EARLY! Daddy Northwest isn't back yet, so I start to get a little nervous after the 3rd boarding call about 8 minutes after the first. I pack the girls up to go look for their dad, but he comes back at last. So I run over to my gate and we're boarded early for an early departure.

They tell us to turn off our cell phones/portable electronic devices and play the video on what to do should we encounter a problem in-air, blah blah blah. I say my goodbyes to my parents, to Jay, Jana, etc., letting them all know that I'm on my way and it's early! This was around 6:30ish. I fall asleep and wake up at 7:20pm because an announcement is being made. I look outside (no matter what, I'm still little kid enough to always want a window seat) and we're still at the gate. The announcement says that we're going to be indefinitely delayed here, so we can feel free to use the restroom or turn on our cell phones again. As soon as this is said, it starts pouring outside. Naturally, I burst into tears. I call my parents, Jay & Jana and all three of them answer with the EXACT phrase, "Why are you calling me?" All I'm thinking/self-pitying/crying is, "Why is this happening to me AGAIN?! THIS ISN'T EVEN DELTA!!!" So I'm pretty much a mess at that point. My parents are spouting this annoying, "It's all in your positive attitude, that's what will stop the delay - positive thoughts!" bullshit that makes me hang up on them. Jay & everyone on his end (Jack, Rob & Bev) are cracking jokes that's I'm NOT in the mood to joke about yet, but at least Jana, James, & John were sympathetic. It was awful. I was convinced beyond doubt that the flight was going to get canceled anyway because that's my luck. Though we've driven towards the runway, the pilot tells us that he's turning the plane off since all departures are closed & only planes that are low on fuel can arrive.

Finally, after an hour of waiting (so 2 hours after we were supposed to leave), the rain clears out and we start to move again. No announcements were made yet, but at least we're doing something. James is keeping me informed through a JFK radio tower feed on what's going on throughout this entire delay, so at least I've got some idea of what's up. About 15 minutes go by and then we stop again. Pilot gets on the P.A. and goes, "Well folks, we're #8 in line for take off, but it seems that a plane has landed on the departure runway and has malfunctioned. We don't know how long it will take someone to take it off the runway, but until then, all departures have been shut down again."

Not gonna lie, I started freaking out again. My phone was dying, so I couldn't text or use it for calls as much. After a teary phone call to Jay about how now I'm going to have to go through this alooooooone (insert breaking voice & sobs), my phone dies. I continue to feel sorry for myself. I don't even have any shame at this point, because I hate my flying experiences this much.

I actually like flying. Contrary to popular beliefs, I don't hate airports at all. I hate airlines themselves and I particularly hate the lack of respect given to customers and the terrible customer service. Before I go on, I just wanted to clear that up.

My phone died around 9:20pm. We were only delayed this second time by an additional 45 minutes, so "luckily" we took off at 9:30pm. Because at this point, we had been delayed almost 3 hours, word was that we were going to soon have an issue with fuel. We saved a little in that hour that we shut the plane off, at least. Which leads me to a question: Why don't more planes do that? If you're going to blame your dying industry on fuel costs & not your complete lack of respect for your customers, why aren't more planes shut off to avoid wasting gas? ANYWAYS, we ended up making a 5:45 minute flight in just five hours (our pilot was BOOKING) and I stared at the the JetBlue personal TV screen the entire time - keeping it on the channel that shows you where you are flying over. Obsessive? Yes. But it made me feel more like I had some sort of control.

However, there was one great thing about the flight. Our flight attendants were awesome. They were all under age 30 and I got not 1, not 2, but THREE free little Vodka shooters with some tonic. Let me tell you, that's one way to calm down after a stressful evening. Also put me to sleep for a good hour and a half. I can't blame JetBlue for this issue at all. I slightly blame JFK for not being better organized - taking 45 minutes to get a plane off a runway? No one even went out there for the first like 25 minutes. I was on the opposite side of the plane, but those who were on the other side could see what was going on. Mainly, I just blame my terrible, terrible luck.

But at least JetBlue gave me $15 worth of free liquor.

R.I.P. StarkedNY

2008-08-04T09:51:00.002-04:00

I actually have some sad news. After 2 years of editing StarkedNY, I've just very suddenly found out that the blog is being canceled by the network that owns it. I loved maintaining that site and it was such a sudden notice, that I can't help but be really sad over losing it. I know that it's not the only site to be closed down in the network. Blame it on the economy or the stats or my base pay was too high, but it still kinda sucks. That blog helped me pay my rent when I wasn't working for those 2 months and before that, it was how I paid for NC visits and Comic Con this year and last year. I guess now I have to find something else to supplement that income. Originally, I was given a 2 week notice to end on August 14 (ironically the very first day I started editing it back in 2006). I was told a warning email came 2 weeks prior to that, but I never received it. When I questioned her, my channel editor said that she had sent this notice to me last Monday (conflicting with the '2 week earlier' story the head boss emailed me), but I checked my spam, trash & inbox again and still it wasn't there. On Sunday, I was told to "disregard" that 2 week notice and it was actually a ONE DAY notice. A "miscommunication" that I think is somewhat unprofessional. I've sent an email to the big boss to get clarification on StarkedNY's final day, but thus far, have not heard anything back. I understand how times are and how businesses work, but still the way it was handled - I never once yelled at anyone or said, "This isn't fair" and still don't intend to do that at all, so why am I being ignored for a simple question? - makes me feel as though they don't really respect their bloggers at all. What is it with the world today that everyone treats each other like crap?

However, I'm very grateful that the second blog I picked up for the network was not canceled.

The Real Reason the Airline Industry is Dying

2008-07-02T10:33:00.000-04:00

On my way to and from Raleigh this past weekend, I had yet another round of airport HELL. Since last April, I have been on an airplane almost every month. April, June, July, August, September, October, November, January - skipped February & March by driving in order to AVOID flying - May, and June. Starting with Katie's wedding on August 4, and every subsequent time (with the exception on one trip), I have had a problem. Hell, even on the months I didn't fly - December, end of May - there were problems. Jay's flight on December 27 was canceled and when we tried using JetBlue in May, it was also delayed 2 hours. And this past weekend, particularly Friday evening, as my flight was delayed 2 hours, then canceled, then re-instated 20 minutes later for the original 2-hour delay time, then pushed back, then moved up to an even earlier time, then delayed 3 MORE times after that. And they canceled like 6 other flights that day that weren't re-instated. Then we had a flight attendant who told us that (paraphrasing) "Yeah, who knows what the delay was? Could have been weather [that's what they told us at the airport as we looked out at the bright, sunny sky], could have been something else. Who knows really? You guys are lucky you're flying today."

Lucky. To get a service we paid for to actually deliver? And that woman sounded bitter to be working. Well, we were all bitter to be jerked around and inconvenienced. We weren't getting paid to be there, either.

See here's my opinion on the whole airline industry going out of business:

Everyone is saying that it's gas prices. They're raising fuel prices, tickets cost more, less people flying, forcing airlines to charge to check your bags, etc.

Well guess what? Gas prices are up and people are still driving places that they have to drive to. Maybe they curtail some trips or carpool but they're STILL driving, there's still a TON of rush hour traffic. People who have to fly places, be it for business trips or to see their significant others - we're STILL gonna fly, even if it's expensive. Cause if not, we'll just drive and that's just as expensive.

The problem, as I see it, is the airline service and lack of reliability that your plane's going to take off on time. When you leave LGA, it's a "suggested leaving time" - if it leaves at all. And anywhere else, at least from my experience & I know it's happened to Jay several times too, you're lucky to leave within the same hour. SO many people missed their connecting flights this morning and this week is a HUGE vacation traveling week. To get mistreated by the staff who are there to help you, to be told you're "lucky" a service that you paid a lot of money for is actually happening (albeit 3 hours later than you paid for it) - yeah, that's a slap in the face. The airline industry is going out of business because they're unreliable, they treat their customers like utter sh*t, and they're just poorly run businesses. Paying a lot of money is one thing, but that's how EVERYTHING is right now in this economy. But why should you pay that much money when you're just barely getting what you're paying for. If you even get it at all.

The people in charge don't give a crap at all. They don't care enough to impose policies that show their customers they care or to enforce any type of Passengers' Bill of Rights. Rather than good customer service, you get made to feel like you should be thanking them for doing THEIR job, because it's a "privilege." Well, lower the airline prices to $100 round trips and then we'll suck it up and get what we paid for.

The gov't gives so much money to the airline industry; they can't offer incentives to hire more people, so at least the staffing problems are fixed? So Christmas-time isn't ruined when a crew refuses to fly because they've gone over their flying hours for the month? Maybe we could actually fix something in this country for once. And btw, not being able to bring a water bottle past security is also a scam. Who wants to pay $3.75 for an 8-ounce bottle of really cheap water? Could a terrorist also just buy a bottle of water and go to the bathroom and put in whatever substance they want to use to blow up a plane?

I just hope Southwest starts to offer more flights out of different airports and that they're direct, since as far as I've seen, it's REALLY rare to find a direct flight from Southwest to anywhere that's not Baltimore or Philly and there's only like 4 flights out a day. Then again, Islip is a really small airport on LI, so that could be why there's not many choices.Everything but Southwest is going to go out of business soon, starting with Delta. And I say good riddance.

Today, My Grandparents Have Been Married 53 Years

2008-06-04T15:30:00.005-04:00

...And they're still happy & gallavanting through Hungary, Germany, Austria & The Netherlands right now. Word.

You know that you're tired when you put Neutrogena Facial Wash in your hair thinking that it's shampoo despite that fact that you've already washed your hair moments before.

Cruise to St. Thomas, St. Maartin, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico tomorrow! Be gone June 5 - June 14.

Tomorrow Ain't Bad As It Seems

2008-06-02T17:15:00.007-04:00

The contents of my apartment are now in my parents' living room/on my bedroom floor. Moving is exhausting and emotional. I really did love my apartment in Astoria & it makes me sad to have had to leave it. And I already miss living with Amanda. I watched crappy TV last night (Living Lohan, shut the hell up.) without her and it's just not the same! But the truth is, if I had stayed, I wouldn't have been able to save up money for what I want to ultimately do. And that's something that makes everything that's completely shitty shitty shitty right now completely worth it in the end. I walked around my apartment right before I left, after everyone else had already gone & took some pictures of it (okay, my lazy former landlord was letting the new girls move in a day early w/o coming to inspect our place, so I wanted proof we left it in good condition because damn it, I want my $850 security deposit back!), including my view from the roof. That freaking roof was my salvation last summer; it's so peaceful out there, day OR night. It's what I'm going to miss the most. But enough depressing stuff. Let's get on to the boring stuff. Here's some pictures from move out day:

By the way, I'm going on the cruise for my parents' 25th anniversary on Thursday. That'll be fun :)

We loaded my crap up in 1 minivan, 2 Rav 4's, & a Highlander.

It actually looks smaller with nothing in it...

Empty bedroom

One last look at the infamous, wonderful roof...

Haha, I saw this cat randomly walking on the tin part of the little roof & thought, "HA! A CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF!!" Insert dork comments here.

Peace out, 23-39.

Even Strider won't go in the living room...

Parking Tickets Also Suck

2008-05-29T14:47:00.002-04:00

Things That I Will NOT Miss About Astoria:

Parking tickets.
Moving my car on Tuesday & Wednesdays nights (or early Wednesday & Thursday mornings)
No air conditioning
Paying rent

The list of things I'll miss is way bigger, but my zillion-dollar parking ticket from yesterday morning was really fucking fantastic, let me tell you.

Did I mention that Jay & I started up a site called John Mayer Did What as a joke? I was really good at keeping up with it for a while there, then it got lost in the shuffle of all the insanity of the last month. I'm going to try to do it on a regular basis again. I'm only mentioning it now because the last few (I thought) have been funny (if it's your humor, because it's way dumb humor) and the one that I did today was in honor of the Lost season finale. I want to see how fast a dumb site like that can spread, so let's spread the love...or something...

I'm going to see Billy Joel later at Mohegan Sun with my sisters. I'm not going to get home til like 2am, then I refuse to not watch the Lost finale right away. I'm going to be incredibly cranky tomorrow between not sleeping at all and knowing that I'm in the crunch time for packing. Wish me luck, I'm gonna need it...

Packing Sucks

2008-05-27T23:45:00.004-04:00

It's so funny. I HATE packing. Last year, I was packing up to move out on my own (with the lovely Amanda) to Astoria. And I did not mind at all. I stayed up ALL NIGHT (literally) packing and went running on no sleep at like 6am, fully energized. I was so excited to pack and move. That was when Jay and I were still just talking and I know I talked to him til like 2am that night, then kept packing til 6am. It was just really exciting "I'm moving forward" times. This year, I decided packing sucks ass. I hate it. It's a pain in the ass to do and takes away from precious sleeping hours and all the dust makes me sneeze. Meh. It's almost midnight and I'm sitting on my roof right now, procrastinating from packing, and sulking hardcore. Or rather, whining hardcore.

John & I just recorded our last regular episode of MetroBuzz in Astoria (potential Rooftop Session on Friday, but it's a very 50/50 thing right now because we haven't actually asked our guest yet if he wants to do it lol). Naturally, I got nostalgic. Amanda recorded with us as our guest. She recorded our first MetroBuzz ever in Astoria with us and she recorded our last one. I'm such a freaking girl. I wish things had worked out better, but I've got some REALLY amazing things planned for early next year and in order to do that, I HAVE to move home to save for it. So I'm going to do my best and not be a massive emo bitch til then lol. I think I can do it because I literally have something fun to do every weekend from now (well this weekend is moving so that doesn't count) til the last weekend of July. But right now, I have to rip off the bandaid, like Jay said.

I'll stop being a baby after the actual move happens. Right now, I'm just still bitter about all the disruption that this packing is causing. But I'm seeing Billy Joel with my sisters on Thursday night, which is going to rock!!!

Okay, it's getting cold outside and I've really got nothing relevant or important to say other than packing sucks. Today was Brian's birthday, so he and his new girlfriend Dina came by on their way to the Mets game (they live in Connecticut) as my dad and I were moving the first round of my stuff out. We all went to the Beer Gardens afterwards - Dad included (it was his idea to go this morning when I talked to him). That was actually REALLY fun. I love that I inherited my dad's love for drinking beer. He bought us 2 pitchers, which though was only 2 beers for each of us 4, it was still really awesome. My dad rocks. Happy Birthday, Bri :)

Oh My God I'm Back Again

2008-05-26T11:16:00.002-04:00

Take 400 at attempting to blog again on a regular basis! I've been busy busy busy since I last posted, but that's all good, though now it's going to be a long ass, busy few months. Good: I've basically got something going on every single weekend through the last weekend of July. Bad: Sadly, I'm moving home to Long Island on May 31, which I really don't want to do, but I know I need to save money so I can start the next chapter in my life :) (Holy cliché sentence...forgive me for that, please). Buuuuuttttt anyway, moving May 31 back to the 'rents, because I'm on a 6-month plan. What's that plan? Guess you'll have to wait and see (though you can probably guess...).

Since I stopped posting just shy of April Fools Day, here's a little prank from this week's PostSecret that I think is hilarious, albeit somewhat cruel:

Happy Memorial Day!

Sign of the Beaver

2008-03-28T13:00:00.000-04:00

Thanks to my dear cuz Paul who gave me the heads up on this controversial commercial that's airing in Australia:

P.S. The John Mayer Rumor of the Day:

John Mayer likes to play 'Chubby Bunny' with tampons instead of marshmallows.

South of the Booooorderrrrrrr!!!

2008-03-27T12:53:00.002-04:00

Jay & I finally hit up South of the Border. I've been begging him to take me there since I discovered that his college is only 20 minutes from there. But yes, it's just as ghetto as rumored to be. We were trying to locate Mexican food, but the food at South of the Border looked like it was baaaaad news. Since our last NYC-Mexican-food-adventure did not end well the next day, we've earned the right to be picky. So we drove back to North Carolina and around for like 45 minutes before we found a decent Mexican restaurant.

Oh and I've finally now seen Back to the Future - all three parts. Why it took me 24 years is beyond me, but I'm happy to report that I love them.

Below are a few lame pictures from South of the Border, just to try to convey the initial glee at seeing it, before the realization sets in that that's basically the entire thing to really get excited about. However, it's free and 15 minutes from Jay's school, so it was totally worth it. There's a video that Jay took without me knowing it of me trying to get on that dinosaur to take the last picture, which was an adventure in of itself. I kept sliding off of it; it was so funny.

Yes, this is the real sign.

Pedro welcomes us.

Jay and Pedro, straight chillin'

They had dinosaurs South of the Border?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAY!!!!

And finally, for your John Mayer Rumor of the Day:

John Mayer likes to eat Raisin Bran with strawberry-flavored Clorox Bleach instead of milk.

Dear John Mayer

2008-03-23T23:44:00.001-04:00

"It is true about the moving."
-Jay Glatfelter, Sunday, March 23, 11:16pm.

Stay tuned to the end of this post & you'll see what he's talking about.

Anyways, today's Page Six said, "THAT John Mayer is so self-obsessed, he Googles himself every morning, and has been known to respond to online rumors just to clear the air." Soooo John, if your Google picks up on this blog post, then now that I've got your attention, let me ask you if you'd like to really slum it with the little people and be a guest on a wonderful podcast about news, entertainment and pop-culture. It's called MetroBuzz and you're allowed to say "fuck" on it and talk about new & improved methods or variations of the now infamous-though-still-completely-unappealing-to-me-sexual-act of "Superman dat ho." You should email me at the show's email - MetroBuzz@gmail.com - and appear on our show to clear up the following rumor that I'm going to spread right here, on this little blog that no one but my boyfriend reads because it's part of his job:

John Mayer likes to eat pickles & drink Brooklyn egg creams while riding his bicycle with no hands and - gasp! - NO HELMET!!!

Moving on, here's the video that was promised about 2 paragraphs up:

Happy Easter everyone!!

Bye, Bye, Spyware

2008-03-22T22:15:00.001-04:00

I don't have any more Spyware and we were able to salvage most of the music and pictures and documents and all that, so that's good I guess. But somehow my videos didn't copy, so I lost a lot of Marist ones and I'm really really bummed out about that :( :( :(

Anyway, I have no idea how many people really actually read this thing or whatever - I think that it's about 6 or 7 - but I'd kinda like to do some sort of interactive posts. Like a game or caption or something that everyone enters in the comments. I don't know, something. Blogger asks people for questions and you have to answer it as part of your profile. Maybe something like that? Jay thought it'd be cool if I took a page out of the guy who called into MetroBuzz with a love letter his friend had gotten from her cousin, just because it was so priceless. Have people send in love notes they found or that they want to anonymously say. That'd be kinda fun too.

Anyone out there wanna play? Tell your friends! I need a hobby...

Adventures in Spyware!

2008-03-21T23:17:00.010-04:00

Spyware sucks. I got a nasty case of it last night right before Lost started & spent all freaking night trying to get rid of it, including buying some stupid program that Anthony recommended with money I definitely do not have (grrrr). Nothing's working and I keep getting lovely pop-ups (I think my first thought this morning was, "Wow that girl has to have A LOT of space in her mouth to fit that. Somebody get me some popcorn and a notebook...") and lots of great security warnings, all of which are a part of the virus. [Actually, given the explicit nature of some of these pop-ups, I was wondering if the Trojan virus that has infected my computer is not actually named after the famous horse but rather named for the contraceptive. Because I'm sure that my computer would definitely be rockin' some herpes or the clap by now.]

All my passwords have been changed on another computer; cookies, Internet history, cache, etc. have been deleted. I had to drive all the way back to Astoria from the 'rents house on Long Island tonight so I can meet up with Anthony on the Upper West Side at 9-freaking-am so he can completely restore my entire system. I think the only person happy about this is Jay since he's been begging me to let him do that to this piece of shit Dell that doesn't even get sound anymore (thanks Cal for making me bring my laptop into the office every single day for an entire year but getting everyone else laptops for work!). Meh I want a Macbook.

Soooo I may or may not have a computer ever again, depending on if Anthony is as good as he says he is. Everyone please pray that he's as good as he says he is or I'm going to freak out just a little bit.

Oh on a side note - if you're going to create Spyware, may I suggest 1) to go fuck yourself & then let Santa Claus rape your mother or 2) learning how to use proper spelling. If a "System Alert" pops up telling me to click this 'baloon' in order to "download malware removal software," it's pretty much a dead giveaway to not go click and download even more Spyware. You make thousands of dollars, maybe even millions to ruin people's lives - I'm sure you can invest in a dictionary or go to dictionary.com.

Here's the picture of what I see on my screen every time I open a new broswer. WARNING for everyone else. I think it gets bigger if you click to enlarge it.

Thanks, TalkShoe!

2008-03-20T18:13:00.002-04:00

As you may or may not have seen in the comment section of my previous post, TalkShoe VP Aaron Hauser left me an apology. I also had someone point out after hearing John & I talk about this on MetroBuzz that because it's free, we can't hold them too accountable - and reassured me that everyone there had a great time regardless.

I have honestly been meaning to post a follow-up to that post and say that TalkShoe did indeed make a donation to Autism Speaks earlier this week. Thank you for the apology, Aaron, and to Dave Nelson, the Founder & CEO of TalkShoe, for making a donation to a good cause. I truly appreciate both gestures. I do love your site and have had great fun participating on live podcasts on it.

Thanks again to everyone who came by and donated!

Talkshoe Wouldn't Let Autism Speak Today

2008-03-16T22:35:00.002-04:00

After months and months of planning, my boyfriend Jay and his dad Jack of "The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack" had their 25-hour-marathon live podcast. It started yesterday (Saturday March 15) at 3:30pm & was scheduled to end today (Sunday March 16) at 4:30pm. They were raising money for the charity Autism Speaks. I followed along the donations that were made to PayPal and all in all, they raised $2,625 (and counting!). I was there for the entire time, minus an hour and a half it took me to drive home to my parents house. I've been awake since 8:30am yesterday morning. It is now 10:36pm.

The show started off with the Married Man Podcast, a podcast about relationships, etc. that Jack does with his friend Dale. It's hilarious. After MMP, Lost star Jorge Garcia (Hurley) stopped by for a good 3 or 4 hours. However, the company that was hosting the live podcast, Talkshoe, had issues (as usual it seems) & poor Jorge was left waiting for almost an hour til we could get it started again. Jorge ROCKS though & after the guys were done deciding who the Top 10 Coolest, Toughest Guys in Movie History are (I think Han Solo won in the end), he spent a while answering questions from fans. Talkshoe allows people to participate in big group calls or podcasts. You have one administrator (in this case Jay) who can mute or unmute anyone who is there in the chatroom with a microphone. I asked a question; Jorge, Jack & I made fun of Jay. It was grreeaaattt.

The rest of the 25 hours was filled with other awesome guests, such as Ryan & Jen Ozawa from The Transmission podcast, Jimmy Aquino from Comic News Insider podcast (he's the guy responsible for Jay & I meeting Michael Emerson), Ralph from the Dharmalars/'Lars & Cue the Music podcast (for a good 5 hours, including while I was driving, so I didn't even miss much of it lol), and a whole lot of other Lost podcasters such as Kurt from Black Rock, Josh from Josh Meister, and a lot of others whose names I feel genuinely terrible about not remembering at this 40-straight-hour of consciousness. Our good friend Clif was on. John Norton & I were set up to at the end, from 3-4pm. Lost actor Daniel Dae Kim (Jin) was going to go after us from 4-4:40pm. I know, right? FUCKING AWESOME! Jay and I were looking forward to a MetroBuzz meets Jay and Jack verses segment (we were all going to take one of the Indiana Jones movies and debate which was best, then leave voting open to the public). Seriously, we were so excited for it, especially since we both had been up and involved for the entire show. The only thing more perfect for us than such a FUN way to end such a tedious event was for Daniel Dae Kim to show up and talk. Oh yeah, wow, cool. Look at that. DDK was going to. He had only from 4-4:30pm to talk because he has such a busy schedule filming Lost now to make up for the time lost during the WGA strike. But awesome of awesome, he was still willing to do it. HOLLER.

Guess what? At 3pm, JUST as John & I were about to call in and record, Talkshoe, which had been running adequately since the Jorge Garcia event 18 hours before, decided to COMPLETELY CRAP OUT. Not just a "malfunction" but a total crash that they called an "error in their coding" that would be fixed within 30-60 minutes.

It was not fixed within 30-60 minutes. Everyone in the chat room waiting for us to start was so patient and wonderful. It was stressful to not know what was going on, to have no control over the situation, to know what was at stake. Daniel Dae Kim (and I call him that bc I have never spoken with him; I call Jorge by his first name because I have now officially spoken with him one time lol) was so gracious to continue trying to access the chat room until his free time was up. We waited from 3pm until 5pm to no avail. Talkshoe never went back up and Norton & I never got our chance to play with Jay and Jack. Jay & I were so disappointed that we never got to do that section together after using that as the way to get through the rough 25 hours to stay awake & sane. I was really excited to do the live show and interact with everyone. I hope that Daniel Dae Kim doesn't think badly of them because the issue was TALKSHOE'S FAULT, NOT THEIRS.

That's the thing. Talkshoe sucks. They're a company that, according to their website, "a new way to create live group calls, conversations, discussions and interactive podcasts." Basically, Talkshoe markets themselves as a company that specifically caters to large groups. Jay & Jack's Autism Speaks podcasting marathon was a big deal. It was "official." The charity knew that it was happening and expected donations as a result. Talkshoe let us all down with its numerous service errors. As a result of these errors, Autism Speaks suffered. The errors resulted in a loss of donations from potential listeners who were turned off by the lack of the interactive podcast that is the main aspect of Talkshoe's service.

Here's what I propose to all those who participated in Jay and Jack's live marathon podcast and to anyone who is a supporter of Autism Speaks. Let's start a campaign to get Talkshoe to rectifiy their mistakes by donating money to Autism Speaks. This will make up for the loss of time and donations that the charity suffered as a result of THEIR continually technical issues.

Make blog posts, comments on a website, or email a complaint to Talkshoe at support@talkshoe.com. This may not seem like it, but to anyone who was involved in this event, it really was a big deal to us & Talkshoe has let us down completely. Urge them to make a donation to make up for the donations that were lost because of them.

If you'd like to make a donation to Autism Speaks, you can do it through PayPal, by sending it to LPDonate@gmail.com OR you can send checks made out to Autism Speaks to the following address:

P.O. Box 40716
Raleigh NC. 27629

Thanks. Hopefully we can do something. The theme of this weekend seems to be making a difference in lots of different ways. And thank you to everyone who came by during the 25-hours and helped Jay & Jack raise $2,625 electronically. Can't wait to see the total number after the checks come in :)

'Cunt' Still Needs To Be Reclaimed

2008-02-15T19:11:00.007-05:00

I know I'm a day late for my traditional V-day post, but I got up at 2:45am yesterday morning and drpve 9.5 hours to North Carolina to surprise Jay for Valentines' Day. I was going to do this while he was recording The Lost Podcast last night, but I kinda passed out right after Lost was over and didn't get around to this. So here goes:

If you haven't already heard, there was major controversy yesterday when actress Jane Fonda appeared on The Today Show with Vagina Monologues' author Eve Ensler. Meredith Vieira asked Fonda about her appearance in a benefit performance at the Hammerstein Ballroom last night to raise money and awareness for women and girls. Fonda told about her inital reluctance to do the show, because she was "asked to do a monologue called cunt." Everyone freaked out. Vieira laughed nervously. NBC made her issue an apology. Watch for yourself.

The "issue" in question:

Meredith Vieira's apology:

Now, I'm not going to go into how I feel about The Vagina Monologues. I did that last year, so you can read it here (it's honestly probably my favorite thing I've ever posted here). I wanna talk about the word cunt.

The "C-word" is a lot like the "N-word." At least, in my opinion it is. It's used as a pejorative term to describe a woman (ie "I think Hillary Clinton is a cunt."). It's used to describe a vagina (along with toadie, dee dee, nishi, dignity, monkey box, VA, wee wee, horsespot, nappy dugout, Rebecca, Mimi, split kinish, schmende, etc al.). It's used lovingly (ie "Julia, you're my favorite little cunt."). It's - well, you get the point.

Eve Ensler wrote "Reclaiming Cunt" not to be offensive or controversial. She meant it to take a traditionally negative word and reclaim it as an empowering word for women. By taking away it's derogatory connotation, Eve thinks women can make it a positive term. Instead of cunt meaning bitch or whore or weak or lowly, why not take this word and make it mean powerful or strong or woman or beautiful. After all, cunt is just another word for vagina. Yes, we call men "dicks" when they act like assholes...but then again, we also call anyone we don't like a "douche bag" - another object associated with a vagina. Not for nothing, but why are we so sensitive to that word? Dick is thrown around so casually and no one gasps in shock or threatens a lawsuit when it's used on them. Why make cunt so taboo? Yeah, it's a crude, abrasive word, but why does it have to be? The idea behind "Reclaiming Cunt" is to turn the use of 'cunt' as an insult into the use of 'cunt' as a glorification. If you don't give power to someone to deprecate then they won't have it! Take that power back, don't let 'cunt' be used as a bad word.

NBC making Merideth Vieira apologize for Jane Fonda using the word cunt is a prime example of WHY Eve Ensler included "Reclaiming Cunt" in The Vagina Monologues. It's taking a step backwards from what the V-day movement has worked to achieve the last 10 years. I'm not saying that women should start throwing that word around like a softball, but

The monologue itself is short, but always a crowd pleaser. I'll leave you all with it as I go. I think I've scared my boyfriend with my rant about cunts. Happy V-day everyone. Pussies unite.

I call it cunt. I’ve reclaimed it, “cunt.” I really like it. “Cunt.” Listen to it. “Cunt.” C C, Ca Ca. Cavern, cackle, clit, cute, come—closed c—closed inside, inside ca—then u—then cu—then curvy inviting sharkskin u—uniform, under, up, urge, ugh, ugh, u—then n then cun—snug letters fitting perfectly together—n—nest, now, nexus, nice, nice, always depth, always round in uppercase, cun, cun—a jagged wicked electrical pulse—n (high pitched noise) then soft n—warm n—cun, cun, then t—then sharp certain tangy t—texture, take, tent, tight, tantalizing, tensing, taste, tendrils, time, tactile, tell me, tell me, “Cunt, cunt,”say it, tell me “Cunt.” “Cunt.”

P.S. Hi Rachel and the rest of my lovely Vag girls who may be reading this :)

Uhhh...Sh*t Happens?

2008-01-25T21:16:00.000-05:00

Okay, this made my little immature self laugh. Which is good because today was not a great day:

One more week...

That Time Jay & I Met Michael Emerson

2008-01-20T09:37:00.000-05:00

Soooo this is how Jay & I kicked off 2008 by meeting Michael Emerson. Jay is friends with Jimmy & Joe from the Comic News Insider podcast and Jimmy is longtime friends with Michael, so on the evening of January 1, we trekked to Harlem (Joe has a sweeeetttt apartment, btw) and the boys did an interview with him and his wife, Carrie Preston. Carrie didn't join them til the end, so I sat with her for the first three-quarters of the recording. They're both really, really nice and it kinda rocked. So that's how we started 2008. Be jealous.

Oh & I've got like a zillion pictures and stories and crap for posts that I've been collecting for the last month that I've been slacking, so this is only the beginning. Be joyous as well as jealous.

With Michael Emerson

Jimmy, Jay, Michael, Carrie, Joe

Download the Michael Emerson interview: http://media.libsyn.com/media/cni/OneShot-LOST.mp3

Download the CNI episode Jay & I were on: http://media.libsyn.com/media/cni/CNI121.mp3

You always were a step ahead of the rest

2007-12-18T20:55:00.000-05:00

Happy 24th Birthday. It's been 10 years since the last time I saw you.

December 20, 1983 - May 17, 1998

The 7am Survey

2007-12-18T07:42:00.000-05:00

I should be either doing something productive right now, or at least sleeping for a little while. Instead:

1. Who has your whole heart?
:)

2. How did you wake up this morning?
Jay called to tell me him plane didn't crash at like 6:30am. So that was pleasant. Then my alarm the second time, like 4 minutes after I hung up.

3. Which is more romantic: sunrise or sunset?
Sunsets on the beach :D

4. Are you wearing any non-clothing items?
Huh? I'm wearing earrings...

5. What did you do yesterday?
Went to work then to a bar for a little Secret Santa action.

6. Who was the last person to call you
Jay

7.Would you die for anyone?
I would.

8. Did you meet anyone new today?
No, but it's only 7:25am right now.

9. Have you ever been on the radio?
Does a podcast count? Does working for an internet radio station count?

10.What did you drink today?
Water. But since it's not even 7:30am yet, I'll go with yesterday: I drank water, coffee, Diet Coke, & beer.

11. Do you like honey?
I like the Mariah Carey song "Honey," rumored to be her code word for something naughty and featuring P. Diddy back when he was still Puff Daddy.

12. What's the last bone you broke?
My toe, I think?

13. Do you know the date?
December 18. I will know every single date until Dec. 28.

14. Where was the last place you went shopping?
Borders Books

15.Did you sing at all today?
No, but it's still early and I haven't taken a shower yet ;)

16.When's the last time you cried?
Saturday (Dec 15)

17.How many letters are there in your last name?
10

18. When did you go swimming last?
Ummm, July, maybe?

20. What book did you read last?
I'm reading "His Dark Materials," so technically the last book I finished was "The Subtle Knife." In the middle of "The Amber Spyglass" though.

23. Do you live near your best friend?
Yes and no.

24. Do you like animals?
Sure.

25. Are you scared of spiders?
Not really

26. Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
I have 8 piercings, but in boring places.

27. Can you play guitar hero?
I have NEVER played Guitar Hero.

28. How do you walk?
Like Frankie Valli

29. What do you think of Fergie?
What does it matter? I think her boyfriend is somewhat attractive, back from his All My Children days. Updated: I now also think she's hilarious.

30. Do you read Rolling Stone?
Not really anymore.

31. Do you believe in love?
I do.

32. Have you seen Titanic?
I defer this question to Princess Cupcake Assface himself, Randy. But yes, I have.

33. Did it make you cry?
Everything makes me cry nowadays. But don't tell anyone.

34. Do you want to get married?
Yes.

35. How old do you want to be when you have kids?
Not too young that I don't get to live life, but not too old that I'm 429 years old at my kid's Sweet 16.

36. Who was the last person you rode in a car with?
My mom.

37. When was the last time you were so high you threw up?
Why would you make yourself high enough to throw up? That's not really fun.

38. What are you doing tonight?
Maybe seeing a movie, then maybe going to an open bar with Amanda, then recording MetroBuzz. Or maybe that order will switch around, depending on whether or not I can get a guarantee that recording won't take the normal 6 hours of my life that it shouldn't be doing.

39. Where were you five hours ago?
Asleep.

40. Are you wearing socks right now?
No.

41. What have you eaten today?
Nothing yet.

42. What are you wearing right now?
Pajama's. Actually, flanel PJ pants & a Longwood High School Theatre shirt (South Pacific for anyone who really wants to be technical).

43. Have you bought any clothing items in the last week?
I don't think so.

44. What is the last thing you purchased online?
I try to stay away from online shopping, since it's addictive and dangerous, but after the Yankees lost the ALDS, I got mad & bought a Vera Bradley bag online, which I am still in love with.

45. Do you miss anyone?
All the time.

46. Do you get scared easily?
Depends on what type of scared. Not really of stuff like scary movies or bugs or the dark or trying new things. I've found that when you conquer one fear, another one just pops up to take its place. That's kinda disturbing to me.

47. Do you curse a lot?
Like a sailor, but I'm working on it.

48. Are you scared of the dark?
Not at all.

49. Who was the last person in your bed?
I was.

50: What do you know about the future?
That it's coming and it's not bad if it's different than you always thought it would be. And that everything will be okay in the end.

Caesar doesn’t have the slightest idea what’s really going on.

2007-12-14T23:27:00.000-05:00

"Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything.”

This has been both a good week & a crappy week, but when I saw this on Wednesday, it made me laugh:

Laugh while you can kids, you never know when you won't be allowed to anymore.

That Time I Didn't See Mos Def Followed By That Time I Saw The New Pornographers

2007-12-12T16:47:00.000-05:00

It's been a busy busy few days. Monday night I was invited to see Mos Def & Justice perform at the Bowery Ballroom for Fader magazine and Cornerstone Mixtape's 150 party. I wasn't allowed a plus one, unfortunately. Though I pretend like I had the greatest time when I wrote about it for Starked NY (that's how I was invited), it was NOT that much fun. I started out bored, then made a "friend" in this woman who was there by herself bc she worked with one of the sponsors til I lost her after I went to the bathroom. Then I spent the next like 3 hours by myself and did that thing you do when you make yourself miserable by harping on the fact that you're the only person there without ANYONE to talk to. I saw most of Justice but was cold and it was getting late and I was just getting progressively more pissed off in general that I left a little after midnight, before Mos Def came on (though I read on Brooklyn Vegan that he didn't come on til like 1am). It really would have been fun if I had someone there with me that I knew. Justice wasn't bad but the indie band that opened (White Williams) really wasn't that great. Some guy who worked for Fader, who was taking video and pictures, told me he saw them at CMJ this year and they were much better, but who knows?

At least it was sponsored by Southern Comfort, so the entire night was open bar and only of SoCo, Jack Daniel's, and Budweiser Select. So that was fun to entertain/feed into my feelings of self-pity for a little while til my rational side kicked in and reminded me that walking down Delancey really late at night, drunk and alone, was definitely one of the DUMBEST things that I could do, so I cut myself off at like 10:30pm before I could even get a good buzz.

Last night, Amanda & I skipped out on this Women's In Music event at the Chelsea Hotel in order to head to the Apple store in Soho to see The New Pornographers. It was fun but the acoustics from where we were standing weren't so great, so it was hard to hear the vocals at points. However, I must say that Neko Case is really pretty in person (at least I think so), even if her hair isn't quite as red as it is in all the promo pictures, haha.

Here's the setlist:

1. All of the Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth
2. Use It
3. All the Old Showstoppers
4. Challengers
5. My Rights Versus Yours
6. Adventures in Solitude
7. The Laws Have Changed
8. Unguided
9. Don’t Bring Me Down (ELO cover)
Encore: Bleeding Heart Show

I took a video of them singing "My Rights Versus Yours," but it's not the best of quality. Pictures and the video are also posted on Starked NY (can you tell that I'm trying to get as many page hits as possible on it nowadays. I realized the mo' hits, the mo' money, the mo' I have for plane tickets to North Carolina, so support a lovesick gal and freaking refresh that shit every hour on the hour. I don't really care for writing about celebs much anymore but $$$$$ & xoxo is a helluva motivation.)

East Village Reunion

2007-12-10T11:47:00.000-05:00

Saturday night was a little Marist reunion of sorts, organized by Eddie (who's birthday is today - HAPPY BIRTHDAY HOME FRY!!!) and the rest of the boys from the Deceitful Whore (the name for Eddie's apartment our junior/senior years). It didn't end up being on the Upper West Side, but rather in the East Village. Yay L Train! (Sarcasm.) I forget the name of the bar we went to, but it was this little Irish pub type place that was really fun. Caught up a little with Julia and Anthony, who I haven't seen in way too long, so that was fun. Nothing really of note happened except the girl who was in the one-stall ladies room for way long, then some dude came out and after like 25-minutes and went, "Oh, she's really sick in there." Suuuurrreeeee. "Sick." If by "sick" you mean ---- ah, I'm trying to keep this PG-13, so use your imagination. But it's exactly what you're thinking.

So anyways, pictures below, yadda yadda. Nothing too exciting.

To note: Check out the new Billy Joel song, which is from the perspective of a soldier and sung by this dude from LI. I want Billy Joel to write a song for ME to sing. Granted, I don't really sing or do anything musical anymore except work in the music industry, BUT I'd totally sing a song in public if Billy Joel told me to. That's all, the end.

Home Fries Reunited!
Julia likes to stare at my chest.

What's up, asshole?

Roommates!

Group photos are fun.

Amanda's new Facebook photo?

Apparently I bite.

Random pic that looked like a cross between Ronald Reagan and Satan.

Of North Carolina, Moby & Reunions

2007-12-08T11:30:00.000-05:00

Okay, so. Saturday night. I've done basically nothing all day but clean and read and watch TV. I went to bed at 5:30pm last night because I had a bit of a migraine. My head hurt for most of today, but it feels much better. I'm going out to the Upper West Side in an hour to meet up with Eddie, Anthony, and whoever else for a little Marist reunion.

So I was in North Carolina last week, from Tuesday, November 27 - Sunday, December 2. Luckily, I had a relatively smooth airport experience both ways. I'm a rockstar for getting a week and a half off from work. *Pats self on the back.* Got lots of Christmas shopping done before I left, which is gooooood.

Got in around noon on the 27th and Clif picked me up. We chilled for the entire day: got some food and then walked around in downtown Raleigh and visited the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Museum of History. Then we hit up the mall for a bit and met Jay back at Clif's apartment. All in all, a really really fun day :)

After dinner with Jay's fam at the infamous Ruby Tuesday, we headed back to University of North Carolina at Pembroke where Jay goes to school. Hung out there all week, watched the entire first season of Veronica Mars and the movie Children of Men. Friday night we went back to Raleigh and went to this little indie venue called the Brewery to see the singer of Jay's old band perform with his new band. We got back at like 2am & had to get up at 5am because Jay had to work from 6am-10ish (he keeps score for hockey games). Saturday night we went to this burger joint where we had our first unofficial date in April & then to the movies to see August Rush. It was a really sappy chick flick, so naturally I loved it & cried at the end. We stayed up til like 2:30am after the movie because we had to finish Veronica Mars before I left, which was probably not the best of plans since I had to be up at 6am to get to the airport by 7am because I had an 8am flight.

Waaaaaaay too early on Saturday morning at the Iceplex. Like 7am too early. Like you can see the dark circles under our eyes too early.

All in all, it was really great: relaxing, nice to just do normal couple things that we never get to do because of the distance. So naturally, I've been sulking all week about having to be back in New York.

So anyway, we had our office Christmas party on Thursday night at a bar called Hi-Fi. It was actually incredibly fun. Afterwards, Max, Jeff, and I trekked all the way to Chelsea to a nightclub called Hiro, where Moby was spinnin'. Yeah, I'm not really a big fan of Moby, to be honest, but it was still cool. Jeff pushed me up on stage when he came out, so I took pictures from like a foot away to put up on StarkedNY. So click on that if you're a fan of Moby or if you want to see the pictures for shits & giggles. I got home after 3am though, so I was a bit of a zombie yesterday but surprisingly not really hungover at all. Then again, we were sober by the time we got to Hiro, since the open bar on the boss ended as soon as we left the office party ha.

Okay, it's 9:45pm and I need to go get ready to leave here soon. Peace out cub scouts!

The opportunities are endless...

2007-12-03T10:46:00.000-05:00

Personally, I think it's been a pretty weak past few months on the Post Secret front. However, there were two from a few weeks ago that I really liked and definitely identify with:

North Carolina was awesome last week. More on that later/tomorrow, but check out Jay's brand new blog cause he beat me to it (ah, not paying attention in class). He also totally copied me, loser ;)

A Werewolf Bar Mitzvah Sounds Nice Right About Now

2007-11-03T17:57:00.000-04:00

Thank God this crappy ass week is over. No use talking about it & everything that sucked about the last 5 days, but damn man, when it rains, it pours.

Anyway, Ralph sent me this the other night and it's hilarious, so I'm sharing it with the world! Yay the brilliance of Tina Fey :)

Tracy Morgan - Werewolf Bar Mitzvah

Love, actually, is all around us.

2007-10-29T09:46:00.000-04:00

Rachel & Will's wedding on Sunday, October 14, was absolutely gorgeous. It was a small ceremony on a hillside in West Park, NY (upstate near Poughkeepsie). Rachel looked utterly beautiful and Will looked pretty darn handsome too :) I loved that it was such a small wedding, because you could really feel the love all around (yeah I think I'll take some wine with this cheese). Her brother said a little something at the alter about the two of them, which had everyone in tears. Then, at the reception, her dad gave one of the sweetest toasts I've ever heard. He first spoke about Rachel, then about Will, then about how great they are for each other. I literally cried for like 15 minutes afterwards because it was so touching.

Oh yeah and I decided that I guess I'll have a wedding after all - maybe - but it's totally going to be a roast of me & my husband. Cause really, the best parts of the wedding are the speeches (who doesn't like people talking about them?), the open bar, and the dancing. So I'm just going to make it a roast with an open bar and then everyone can dance like it's 1988 again afterwards.

Here's Rachel singing Sinatra's "From This Moment On" to Will as a wedding present. She has such a gorgeous voice:

Pictures:

A wedding on a hillside

Vows

With DJ Annie & Julia

Me & Houlia down by the open bar

The multi-talented Ryan Dafoe.

As always, Steph is the hottest girl (non-bride) in the room...

And as always, we are the dancing queens!

With the beautiful bride and an truly inspirational friend :)

Dumbledore's a Cover Boy

2007-10-25T10:18:00.000-04:00

I know that I haven't been around here in ages and now I keep getting harrassed to update. I don't think I've really posted since July, and a crapload has been going on. I've got a ton of work to do right now and I'm going to visit Jay in NC tomorrow, BUT I promise to play here more often cause I've accumulated lots of fun stuff recently. I actually wrote a whole post up about the Joe Torre/Yankees crap, but then decided against posting it because it helped me get it out of my system haha. But anyway, I'm gonna do a total cop out for now. At least it's funny...

The people at Best Week Ever are genius:

For the record, I think that J.K. Rowling's announcement was awesome. Yeah, so what, Dumbledore's gay? It doesn't change the story, it doesn't distract from it (I don't think so at least), and I think that when people say, "Oh well, it doesn't matter that he's gay, what's the big deal?", that statement in itself IS the big deal. Time will tell if in the long run, it has an impact on literature or not, or whether or not society can handle a popular, powerful, beloved fictional character being a homosexual. Regardless, I think it's a very positive message she's sending to fans. Let's discuss it, if you are so inclined.

Related: I came across this article the other day, which gave me a chuckle. It's 7 clues that we should have picked up on that showed Dumbledore's sexual preference.

Anyway, shoutout to McSherry because I know she's the only one who'll actually read this :) I'll be baaaaack!

Magenta, don't release the dogs

2007-08-04T05:55:00.000-04:00

Dear Katie McSherry (& whomever else this may concern),

I'm sorry that I have not updated my blog like promised. I am leaving for Chicago in mere seconds and wanted to pop on here and give you my word that I did start a post yesterday like I said and that I now have TWO funny stories that happened to me and I will share them with you and the world when I return home from Katie's wedding tomorrow.

So, please, forgive me, my dear!

xoxo,

Colleen

P.S. My opinion on Harry Potter is also coming.
P.P.S. San Diego fucking ROCKED.

'Kink' Just Got Kinkier

2007-06-27T17:00:00.000-04:00

So who remembers when I shared with the world the view directly across the from my office window? Well, I got into work today to find that the Kink Museum of Sex has accessorized a bit:

Yes, that does say "Golden Showers," "Penetration," "Scat," "Mudlarking," & "Knicker Wetting." At work before, Jeff & I were trying to figure out what "Shrimping" is. I was going to look it up on urbandictionary.com, but got too lazy.

Updated: I did just look it up. Oooookay then. Shrimping. Anti-climatic. Probably doesn't taste as good as actual shrimp, either.

So you treat your love like a firefly, like it only gets to shine for a little while

2007-06-16T23:25:00.000-04:00

Okay, so let's tell the story about how the dude setting up my new desk last Wednedsay asked me out. Twice. He'd only been there for 16 minutes. Great. Then he asked me what religion I was. I answered, "Catholic," & he asked me if Catholics were allowed to date outside the religion (he was Muslim). It was good, fun, awkward times.

My roommate is SO supportive of my troubles:

[Amanda's sn]: there must be something about your purple star boxers that just turns him on in the worst way.....

I fucking love my purple star boxers. Bitch. Oh yeah & a bird crapped on me the same morning when I went to take the garbage out. Nice.

Yeah, Astoria.

2007-06-06T23:03:00.000-04:00

Amanda and I are officially moved into our new apartment in Astoria! Yay, NYC livin' :) I'm too lazy to write about it, so enjoy some videos we made on our first night. OH! I had to go into the office really quickly during move-in day & was SO exhausted from not sleeping one bit the night before that I was waiting in the subway to go back to the apartment, just totally spacing out when some random dude just walked up to me and handed me this note:

SO funny. He didn't try to hit on me or anything like that. He just handed it to me, I thanked him & he shook my hand and thanked me for being so "hot" and then WALKED AWAY! It was SO random but it had been a rough ass like 9 days & it was just an awesome NYC story lol

Okay vidoes! A virtual tour:

I had a little trouble...

The end.

"We want to be as irresponsible as possible, without being illegal."

2007-05-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

Hooray for 3 day weekends. After the weekly trip to Shiro’s with Uncle Lou last Friday (holler hibachi), I went back to Ridge. On Saturday, I picked up Ian-face & Claudio and off we went to Hartford to visit Brian for his 23rd birthday. After enduring 3 hours of “Colleen’s a bad driver, we’re going to die” taunts from the boys, we finally got there. Because Brian’s the greatest friend ever, he had 2lbs of wings, fries & onion rings waiting for us. Ian-face, also the greatest friend ever, had purchased 2 cases (yes, cases) of Sam Adams Boston Lager for the celebration.

We hung around Brian’s kick ass apartment for a while & dicked around. I managed to get the boys to reprise their rendition of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” which was hysterical. At our senior prom back in high school days, Bri, C-dawg, & Ian had gone up to a teacher that Brian had a crush on and sung it to her in the middle of the party hall. It was so funny; I felt that after 5 years, it needed to be busted out again. I took a video of part of it. Despite their severe “this is NOT going to appear on the Internet or your blog” warnings, I’m putting it up anyway. I miss the good old days when this was the shit we did every single day.

(Here's the 2nd part)

After a rousing game of darts (no poker for once), we kicked around the idea of driving to either Foxwoods or Mohegan Sun (casinos in Connecticut), as Ian-face really wanted to go. We decided to hit up Brian’s favorite bar first since the rest of us were ambivalent about going. Because I’d drank the least, I wasn’t going to drink at the bar in case we decided to go, as I’d (of course) end up having to be the driver. We met up with one of Bri’s friends from work. This is the bar (Vegas) that's famous for having liters (yes, liters) of beer. At one point, I walked with Brian to a gas station so he could buy cigarettes. We were still debating going to a casino, despite it being midnight at this point, but the big issue was whether or not they could go the hour it would take to get to either one without drinking. So Brian decides to call the Hartford police station & ask the desk sergeant if there’s an open container law in Connecticut (you can’t have open containers of alcohol in a car in NY at all). He was on hold for roughly 23 minutes, but we got our answer: Nope. As long as the driver wasn’t drinking, the passengers could be.

In typical Brian fashion, he thanks the officer (O’Brien) and goes, “Thanks, man. We want to be as irresponsible as possible, without being illegal.”

Yes, that is a direct quote. He even repeated it when the cop went, “Um, WHAT?!”

I love my friends.

We didn’t end up going to the casino because at this point, it was 1am and I was tired of not being able to drink. We walked back to Brian’s apartment & chilled there. And by “chilled” I mean, “Claudio passed out almost immediately while Bri, Ian & Brian’s friend Mike D. did shots of cheap orange vodka that Colleen knew better not to touch because cheap orange vodka means trouble.” Naturally, we had to fuck with C-dawg while he was sleeping, hehe. The night got better when we put on Arrested Development & I totally dorked out. I’ve been stressed out because of work stuff and moving preparations & couldn’t sleep at all, so I ended up doing the 3 weeks’ worth of dishes that had built up in Brian’s sink. It took me over an hour, til almost 5am. Claudio had passed out in the most inconvenient way possible on the couch & Ian-face had fallen asleep on the bathroom floor (cheap orange vodka always means trouble) soooo I ended up sleeping for an hour & a half on the most uncomfortable chair ever. But it was all good.

We were celebrating Uncle Lou’s birthday on Sunday, so I got the boys up early, dropped them off at the ferry so they could get to Port Jefferson & headed to Syosset for bday weekend, round 2. On the way back, I was starting to think about work/moving shit & making lists of everything I have to do this week in my head. I totally wasn’t paying attention and ended up getting pulled over for speeding (74 in a 50, go me) right before I crossed the Throg’s Neck bridge. Now, honestly, I’ve been pulled over like 6 times before. Thank heavens for Uncle Lou’s PBA card, which has gotten me out of all of them. I figured that this time, my luck was out, it would just be fitting with everything lately that I’d get a ticket and have to worry about going to court and getting points off my license and paying a zillion dollars and giving up a day to taking a defensive driving class to make up the points, etc. I was so distracted, so exhausted that when the cop came to the window, I was literally shaking. Then fate stepped in (again).

Cop: Why are you shaking?
Me: I’m nervous.
Cop: Why are you nervous? Because you’re a Yankees fan (I was wearing my Mariano Rivera shirt) and they’re losing?
Me: (nervous laugh) Yeah, I was at the game on Tues. It was awful.
Cop: Tuesday? So was I!
Me: Didn’t you just want to cry after that first inning Manny home run?
Cop: Tell me about it. Tell you what. You stay put. Whose card is this?
Me: My uncle’s.
(Goes to his car & gets on the phone, as I wait.)
Cop: I called the number and the guy said he didn’t know you!
Me: (Look of horror) WHAT?! I live with him! His badge number is [###]!
Cop: (Laughing) I’m just kidding. You can stop shaking, it’s okay. It was just speeding, that’s all! Unless you have any weapons of mass destruction in here that I should know about.
(At this point, I’m PRAYING that the boys didn’t leave any beer in my car.)
Me: Umm, I just have a lighter…
Cop: You were just speeding. Go home, relax, stop shaking. It’s fine. Have a good weekend. Let’s go Yankees!

Yeah. So…that happened. Thank you, universe. Thank you, thank you.

ANYWAY, Monday, I hit up Smith’s Point Beach with Ian-face, Claudio & Frankie, which was awesome. Okay this never-ending post is finally over. It really wasn't that bad of a way to spend the last 15 minutes... :)

Of "Lost", Haircuts, Apartments & Graduation

2007-05-18T21:08:00.001-04:00

For all my Lost fan friends, this may be the funniest thing I heard all week:

JNorton15: So you want to see possibly the best Lost message board quote ever?

JNorton15: "When Rose said to Bernard "If you are going to be hiding in the bushes, lets get you into something dark" .. was she refering to herself ???"

Anyway, I didn't want to leave a sad post like I did yesterday as the last one I did, especially since May 17 is over & I feel much better now AND there's all sorts of awesome things going on right now.

1. I cut my hair, about 7 inches. I don't think I look like me at all, but sometimes you just need a change, so I'm glad I did it :)

2. Amanda Giordano & I are moving into an apartment in Astoria, Queens on June 1. Visitors welcome. Yay, NYC livin'. It's sort of scary to officially be an "adult" now, but we all know that I'm definitely not going to start acting like one any time soon. Hooray for being broke, but it'll be worth it...

3. I helped Paul from Barenaked Hurley (the Lost parody band) write his last 2 songs & it was really fun. I stayed up literally all night on Tues so help him finish it, but it was such a blast to be a part of something that awesome. If you're a Lost fan, go to iTunes & download the Barenaked Hurley podcast feed, because all of his songs are hysterical.

Finally, to all my Marist friends who are graduating - GOOD LUCK! I'm so proud of you guys & I miss you all a lot. I'll (hopefully) see most of you tomorrow, whenever I get up there (I'm going to Rachel & Will's grad party). <3

And in my heart you will remain forever young

2007-05-17T10:29:00.000-04:00

After 9 years, it really shouldn't be this hard. It really shouldn't...

~~Happy~~ Anniversary.

Why Not Another Survey?

2007-05-09T00:52:00.000-04:00

JANUARY
1. Who kissed you on new years? Does Cassidy count? I licked Ian's cheek - what about that?
2. Did you have a new year's resolution this year? I'm pretty sure I have the same one each year. It hasn't worked yet though haha :P
3. Does it snow where you live? Yes
4. Do you like hot chocolate? Yes
5. Have you ever been to Times Square to watch the ball drop? I've been to NYC on New Years Eve, but if you're a New Yorker, you KNOW to stay away from Times Square on Dec 31!

FEBRUARY
1. Who was your Valentine? What's a Valentine?
2. When you were little did you buy Valentines for the whole class? I did indeed. Anyone surprised?
3. Do you care if the groundhog sees its shadow or not? Not really, but I always do hope for spring.

MARCH
1. Are you Irish? There's some Irish in there, somewhere.
2. Do you wear green on St. Patty's Day? I'm a festive gal, so yes.
3. What did you do for St. Patty's Day in 2007? Got drunk at dinner with my uncle, went to the movies to see "Premonition" wasted, sobered up & drove Cassidy and Tricia out down Port then went to Danny's house with them at like 2am til 4am.
4. Are you happy when winter is pretty much over? Ummm, yes.

APRIL
1. Do you like the rain? I don't mind the rain, honestly.
2. Did you play an April fool's joke on anyone this year? MetroBuzz sorta did an April Fools joke! :)
3. Do you get tons of candy on Easter? Sadly, no. Ask me why.
4. Do you celebrate 4/20? Umm, ask someone in my cast from "Something Completely Different" (2004) why I do not celebrate 4/20. Your clue: "Hardcore anal". Fuck YOU, Randy.
5. Do you love the month of April? I don't hate the month of April. Cassidy's birthday is in it, sooo...cool.

MAY
1. What is your favorite flower? Yellow or orange roses :)
2. Do you like the spring? I do.
3. Finish the phrase "April showers": Better only last for the first week of April?
4. Do you celebrate May 16th: I celebrate March 16 as the day after Ceasar got stabbed. May 16, not so much. Am I supposed to?
5. Is there anything special about May to you? Tricia's birthday is May 4, so Spider-Man is always released on her birthday, wooooo. It's Annie's birthday too! Cinco de Mayo, anyone?! First time I ever had a shot? Tequila with Cassidy. We went to Mason Ole right after the SAT's. Nice.

JUNE
1. What year did/will you graduate from high school? June 29, 2002. Claudio's birthday, the one year anniversary of getting my license.
2. Are you doing anything fun during this month? Christie & Matt graduate high school & are having a joint graduation party at my house.
3. Have a favorite baseball team? Yankees, duh. Duh.

JULY
1. What will you do on the 4th of July? I always go to Bing's party in Mt. Sinai & then fireworks on Cedar Beach. I love Bing with all my heart, he changed/saved my life as a teacher, but maybe this year I can finally do something different. I probably won't, but that's okay because Bing's party is always great, great time :)
2. Are you going on any vacations during this month? Comic Con, because I rock.
3. Do you blast the A/C all day? Depends.

AUGUST
1. Are you doing anything special at the end of your summer? Comic Con in July! Woo-hoo! SO excited.
2. What was your favorite summer memory of '06? Let's not talk about summer '06. Seriously. I spent 3 days a week at the beach & the other 4 days working in retail, hating life. I drank my recently graduated life away 3-5 nights a week. Ugh. Ugh. However, I did see Counting Crows & it was awesome.
3. Did you have a sunburn? Now? No, it's fucking May. As noted in question #3, I was at the beach literally half the week, not wearing sun screen & never got burned once. Yay, skin cancer in 10 years!
4. Did you go to the beach a lot? Yeah, um, maybe someone else can answer this.

SEPTEMBER
1. Will you be attending college/school? I'm so not justifying this with an answer.
2. Who was your favorite teacher? Bing & Throgy. Bing taught me how much I loved journalism & Thorgy taught me what it was to not give up & to trust myself, no matter what. I owe them everything.
3. Do you like fall better than summer? Ehhhh, not for the last 2 years. Maybe it'll change.

OCTOBER
1. What was your last Halloween costume? I got shitfaced & threw up all over everything this past Halloween, so it doesn't count. Therefore, Eddie & I dressed up as Britney Spears & Kevin Federline Oct. 2005 and it was the best costume ever. Accents, tattoos, vodka, babies & all!
2. What is your favorite candy? Reeses or Swedish Fish.
3. Who's birthday is during this month? Chris & Lizzie Poo have the same bday (10/8). Steph H is 10/30 & Steph N is 10/27. That's about it, unless the Facebook tells me otherwise.

NOVEMBER
1. Whose house do you go to for Thanksgiving? My aunt Anne's.
2. Did you know GoofyAuctions.com was started this month? WTF?
3. What are you thankful for? Being okay
4. Do you love stuffing? Tom's answer is best: "i love your mom's stuffing"

DECEMBER
1. Do you celebrate Christmas? I do, indeed.
2. What is December 1st, 2007? 7 days before Jenna's bday? A Saturday? Probably absolutely nothing cause I have no life?
3. Have you ever been kissed under mistletoe? No.
4. Get anything special last year? No.
5. What do you want this year? Ask me again Dec. 1.