i'm so glad that the hoff is recovered from his accident. he's been doing some great work lately, by the way. definitely take the time to check out this video. the song is catchy -- i'm afraid it might be stuck in my head all day tomorrow.
sheesh, that guy is so great.
it kinda made me want a hasslehoff t-shirt.
initially, i went online expecting to find this classic:


then i found shirts with this:

and this:




there are quite a few knight rider shirts, and a few with fun photos of the hoff. there are also a couple "what would hasslehoff do?" shirts available (although i didn't think the graphics were nice enough to link to -- really, i must have *some* standards!).

i think this one might be perfect for steve:



lastly, i unfortunately found this specimen:



for shame, hoff haters!

...

and since hasslehoff isn't exactly the most american of topics for me to be writing about latelate on independence day, i would like to take this opportunity to highlight a more american news story this evening: kobayashi has done it once again, winning the annual independence day hot dog eating competition on coney island by devouring 53¾ of nathan's famous hot dogs in 12 minutes. takeru, we didn't doubt you!

i am so totally marking my calendar to buy this when it goes on sale on july 21st.



(just kidding!)

we're in michigan for a superfunpacked week: a wedding, two milestone birthdays (60 & 40), a baby shower and a multi-day family reunion. whew!

steve got in a couple of days ago (he came ahead of me for the bachelor party), and i arrived in yesterday. we've already accomplished quite a bit: steve went to the bachelor party (they went to a lugnuts game), a wedding rehearsal and helped throw a massive rehersal dinner at his folks' house (which was tonight, a day after the rehersal -- which i've never heard of before), and i helped throw the baby shower today. busy, busy, busy!

next friday night we'll be hanging out in ann arbor, so if any of you reading this want to meet up with us, drop me a line. by that point most of the festivities will have concluded and we'll be able to relax...

tonight i went to meijer on my way home (steve's mom only has skim milk, which i can't handle, so i had to pick up 2%). i get lost at meijer nowadays. i decided to look for a couple of little things and it took me *forever*! i guess meijer-ing is a skill that i've forgotten. i've lived too long in the land of smaller inner-city supermarkets, where you have only a few brands of each item (except for pasta sauce, of which there are a zillion varieties at any store but a bodega).

my one other michigan thought for tonight: i love driving around michigan on the weekend of the fourth of july. you're bound to see fireworks from the highway, and it's pretty dang comforting to me, since it reminds me of childhood. i remember that we'd sometimes pull over to watch, and i thought it was sooooo cool to just stumble across a fireworks display on our way to or from a family get-together. happy fourth, everyone!

i thought i'd take this opportunity to update you loyal readers on the saga of the wine-stained pants. i tried to get them dry cleaned, but was told that they were not cleanable. i then took them into the restaurant, where the manager told me he'd talk to the waiter and get back to me. i left him my business card and the pants (hell, i didn't need them anymore), but didn't hear from him for a week. i probably should have stalked him, but i've been mega-busy. anyhow, i finally called, ready to rip him a new ***hole. (i am convinced now that i was too lax on them at the time -- all they gave me were a couple of desserts and the glass of wine that we drank before the waiter spilled it. they didn't even pay for my cab home, which i thought he agreed to at the time). anyhow, i was able to prompt him to remember me, and eventually he told me that if i bought new pants and brought in the receipt he'd reiumburse me. argh. i mean, i do need new pants now, but doesn't he realize how traumatic it is for women to shop for pants, especially under pressure? i went to ann taylor (since that's where the originals were from, and where good lined work pants cost $128 when they're not on sale) and they didn't have anything that i liked -- mostly cropped pants in summertime, it turns out. it wasn't until afterward that i realized i should have just bought ANY pair of pants and taken them in to show him the price. argh! now it will have to wait until after our michigan vacation. hopefully he'll remember me and won't try to haggle with me. yet again, argh.

one last note: thank you to those of you who generously donated to support me in the san francisco aids walk that i'm doing in a couple of weeks. i'm thrilled to have reached my goal, which steve says was too wussy in the first place. hopefully i can raise a couple of hundred dollars more.

this here is my new favorite blog. well, it's tied, i guess (since i still love datawhat). anyhow, the new fave blog is all about taquerias around town. mmmm...

on a very different note, i just signed up for my first ever charity walk, the AIDS walk san francisco on sunday, 7/16 in golden gate park. i probably should be doing some sort of charity run since i need to get back in shape... anyhow, i'm walking with the UM club of golden gate, and i'd *lovelovelove* it if you felt like donating and helping me reach my fundraising goal. you can submit a donation very easily via my webpage. thank you!

steve and i had a lot of fun on the folger's 'tolerate mornings' website, which has a kick-ass wakeup call application (the "eagle" selection is much better than "lucy" or "sheldon").

as it says, you're awesome -- like bacon.

ugh. i have been fighting a summer cold for about a week (which i -- of course -- got from steve). my throat hurts and my head is filled with phlem. ew.
we did have a pretty good weekend, though. we discovered a cool little bar right near us with good burgers (score!) and had dinner with some new friends (although i had to beg out early since my throat hurt.

laugh du jour: chris from family guy meets a-ha.

wine spill update: the cleaners can't get the red wine stain out (drat!). i guess that means i have to go into the restaurant and show them, and then try to convince them to give me $ for new pants.
the pants were from ann taylor, and i went to ann taylor yesterday to try to find some similar pants, but had no luck finding anything in my size that was the same color (kind of a grey-ish tan). i'm thinking my best bet is to print out the home page of the pants section on anntaylor.com and show them that pants are generally about $100-130 at that store. thoughts, anyone?

hooray! we rented out our condo in chicago! we have tenants moving in july 1. we did have to pay a month's rent to an apartment finder, but hey, at least we won't be throwing quite as much money down the toilet each month.

well, this has never happened to me before...

i was at dinner with a colleague (aka business friend) and the waiter spilled half a bottle of (pretty expensive) wine all over me. my shirt-front and lap were SOAKED. i had no idea what to ask for, and the red-faced waiter was clearly ready to do pretty much anything (he pretty seriously offered to even let me somehow borrow his pants to get home -- which i declined in favor of wearing an apron over my stained pants).

what should i have asked for?
i got the bottle of wine comp'ed (as well as dessert and coffee), and am taking in my dry cleaning bill.

did i wuss out? should i have aimed for free dinner? originally they only offered the wine -- was that sufficient?

argh.

i must go now. steve says i smell like cabernet...

that's weird -- i just noticed that my last post (which described my trip on 5/9 to E3) was posted on 5/5 somehow. i think i must have done that accidentally, and that i was actually posting someday around 5/12. so, um, yeah, i changed it.

...

i hate to say it, but i can't stop looking at this silly one page ad for windows live messenger. i am a dork.

i only have a couple of friends on myspace (my bro, a couple of coworkers) since i only really use it to tinker around and try to understand what in the heck everybody sees in that site. however, i've just added a new friend, which increased my # of friends by 25%. check out the most depressing friend on myspace ever.

...

it's been a crazy month here at the hall household. lots and lots of travel.

after my trip to LA, i was here for a few days and then steve and i both parted again. i went to a search marketing conference in hilton head (brutal to get all of the way there via non-direct flights for a one day event). i wasn't originally planning on going since it took for-frickin'-ever to get there, and since i don't know much about search (we work with an outside company on most search marketing campaigns) but then steve pointed out that if i don't know much about search, i really *should* go, and then i realized that i had a conference two days later in florida that had early morning (7:30 am!!!) starts each day, and realized i would be silly not to go out east a couple of days early to get acclimated to eastern time. so... off i was to hilton head. i had about 36 hours in between conferences and didn't really feel like blowing my own money to stay over in hilton head alone (i got tons of mosquito bites the one evening i was there anyhow) so i went up to michigan for about 30 hours, and hung out with my mom for mother's day. it was damn swell -- we got along great, and i took her to a day spa. :) she also agreed to let me eat at two of my favorite places while i was there. we took a few walks (her favorite thing) and i taught her to do sudoku puzzles (she's now addicted as well). all in all, it was a great trip. i just wish i had been in michigan longer so that i could have spent more time with friends. i am back in four weeks though, for the mega-trip that involves steve's bro's wedding, my dad's 60th, my best friend's baby shower, and perhaps some sort of way of honoring another friend's 40th (even though her party is during the wedding, which means that i can't make it)

whew. i'm tired already thinking about that trip. of course, it's late, so that could be it too...

wow! a list of the biggest stupid online ideas! i love it!

what i love about the northwest part of the country: no bug screens needed on windows!

sorry it's been so long since i wrote. i have been traveling, and it's been nuts. i'm so exhausted that i'm going to keep this short...

last week i was in seattle. microsoft has this big shindig for advertisers, which has gotten bigger and bigger over the years. this year's agenda included the taping of a couple of segments of donny deutsch's show 'the big idea' where he interviewed both bill gates and jay-z. it was pretty damn interesting to hear bill gates speak. i saw him before a few years ago, and i think he's even more nervous somehow. he talked a lot about his love of technology, and about his philanthropy. however, the thing that all of the news media really seemed to focus on in their coverage was that (when asked) he basically said that being the richest guy in the world is a huge hassle, which i can totally imagine is true. he has to ride a different route to work every couple of days, i've heard. and apparently (according to unverified rumor) there was some sort of kerfuffle with jay-z's posse since they usually pack heat and that wasn't allowed on the campus in redmond.

poor bill was sweating up a storm under the lights. he so totally needs certain dri, which i am a huge personal fan of. he had pit stains the size of grapefruits. :(

jay-z was still overwhelmed by bill. he was so obviously in awe that it was cute. too bad he didn't give bill some fashion tips



anyhow, after the conference ended i stayed in town and saw my college buddy shannon, who just had her supercute baby clara five weeks ago. she and her hubby greg are so hip -- they took me to this cool restaurant/bar that served yummyyummy crepes. it made me think of cafe zola in ann arbor.

then on saturday i went to my first ever crew regatta. my friend john rowed with UM and now lives up in bellingham, wa. he was already planning to come down to seattle for the weekend when he found out that i'd be there, and he and his lovely wife ashley took me along with them to see the UM crew team get crushed. they were rowing in this major regatta that had about a dozen races. they were honored enough to be asked to row in the big race at the end, but the poor club team at UM was racing against the varsity team at washington (which had several teams) and the RUSSIAN NATIONAL TEAM. now, i have no idea who thought of that, but that was just cruel. russia let washington row near them for awhile, and then kicked everyone's butt. still, it was a neat thing to see, and the alumni club had a big tent there with free food and drinks. i got to meet a couple of ex-crew-ers that were up from sf, so maybe i even made some new friends.

speaking of michigan, steve got to see some folks there last weekend while i was finishing my trip to seattle. i came back to an empty apt here and was a bit sad. it was nice to have some time to just do silly sara stuff (like organize insignicant little piles of things around the house and stay up reallyreally late) but i was lonely. on sunday, though, i had a great girly day. i went with a friend-of-a-friend (my childhood buddy anna's friend jessica) out for girly brunch and pedis. it was awesome, and it was the chummiest girl outing i've had since coming here. i actually walked with her when she went to catch her train afterward and was really sad when she went home.

then on monday i left again and went to LA. i had some meetings for work, and i also got to attend E3. it's as nuts as they say. the visual stimulation is overwhelming, and the booth babes really are incredible. i had my photo taken with a few just for laughs, but didn't have a decent camera with me (stupid pixel-y phone cam) so i'll have to scan in the one that was printed out for me.

i'm not a gamer, as many of you know, but the convention was still amazing. EA's booth was probably the coolest. their superman game really impressed me, and they have this game called spore that i think i could really get into. i'd link to the reviews, etc, but i'm sooooo tired. i also got to see tony hawk bail mid-trick in the promo show for his new game, and i got to see fatal1ty (crazy famous gamer) kick a whole lot of ass.

i could have stayed over last night, but i was sooooo tired, and hadn't seen steve in a week. in fact, i'm still tired now and haven't seen much of him, so i'll sign off.

happy and tired in sf..

hooray! we had a fun weekend!
steve and i went up to yosemite this past weekend, and had a great time. we loved the place we stayed at, evergreen lodge, which had nice cabins (ours had a faux woodburning stove), a pretty darn good restaurant, and a bar where they had a live band playing on saturday night.
the weather even cooperated -- which was a bit of a surprise after 2 months of straight rain here in n. cal. saturday the sun came out a bit and we hiked around stanislaus national forest and saw the major touristy things in yosemite valley, and then on sunday we got up early and snowshoed around some giant sequoias. it was so peaceful and lovely! we were the only ones on the tour with our guide, eric, and didn't even see other snowshoers until we were almost back at our car at the end of the trip. snow was falling most of the time (it was actually sort of "wintry mix"-y) and yet we didn't even mind. i had my hat off after a while because it was the sort of lovely precipitation that you don't really mind.
it was a nice bonus that i'm apparently pretty good at snowshoeing. the guide kept making cracks at how i was going to break the course record (steve and eric let me go first) and i kept running ahead of the boys. i guess i was just excited!
we didn't take many photos, but the few that we took that are okay are posted on my flickr site, here.

it has been soooooo rainy here since we moved. it's been a big bummer for me, since i like walking to work, and i don't think i've worn a skirt more than once and my white pants *at all*.
i finally started leaving my favorite shoes at the office so that i don't have to lug them back and forth every day. i'm especially loving my funky new black pair. i wear black pants never every day, so these are going to get lots and lots of use...



on a very different note, steve agreed to take a mini vacation this weekend. i have tomorrow off and we're going up to yosemite national park. i'm sooooooo excited! it's beautiful up there! i've only been in the summer, and it's still snowy there due to all of the rain we've had lately, so it should be really different. we've rented a cabin here and are planning to go on a tour, as well as do a little bit of hiking, biking and snowshoeing. our cabin has a fireplace and the lodge on the property (which reminds me a bit of a summer camp) supposedly has a bunch of activities this weekend, including a billiards tournament and easter brunch. woohoo!

happy easter, everyone!

ooooh...poor detroit!

life is good.

tonight i went to my first meeting of a local bookclub group. we ate sushi, drank good red wine, and had really good discussions about a book i thoroughly enjoyed: the undertaking: life studies from the dismal trade.

i suppose it's cheating just a little bit to have a book (and a topic!) that's so ripe for conversation and count the bookclub as something to be excited about, but i really do feel the group could be a good fit for me. it's an especially nice surprise to have enjoyed it so much, since it was a random bunch of women brought together by craigslist (which, hey!, worked for me in chicago!).

i still desperately miss my group back in ann arbor, but i'm optimistic. the women tonight were a good mix, ethnically (black, white, asian), professionally (banker, boutique owner, teacher, artist, chef, non-profit manager, and me) and personally (married, dating, swinging single, mom). i just hope that i like the next book that we read as well. we've picked two and the folks that couldn't make it will help us narrow it down.

in the meantime, i'm going to attend another meeting of a bookclub that friends-of-friends invited me to. we're reading assassination vacation, which i'm also excited about. the meeting is during passover, and we're having a kosher potluck.

in other news, i am pining for a new handbag. well, that's not really news. still, i am really sick and tired of everything that i own, and i'm finding that my clothes here don't seem to fit in as well as they did in chicago. and (despite the fact that i'm female) i dread shopping, and so i'm craving a new bag. i particularly like this one, although i'm not sure if i like it better in brown or white. i would like to think that if only i bought it i wouldn't lug my computer home every night and would just carry around one fashionable bag instead of a big fat bag of work and an overloaded purse.

last item of the night (and then i'd better go read for a bit): check out sonya kitchell. she's a niece of a woman that i work with, and i got her CD back in january. she's been picked by starbucks as an artist that they're going to help break, and the CD just got released today in all starbucks locations, as well as traditional outlets. she hit SXSW, and now she's going on tour. i'm excited to go and see her at the swedish american hall here in town (and yes, the venue has something to do with my excitement -- maybe steve and i will whip up some of the meatballs that we bought frozen at ikea beforehand for a thematically appropriate supper). let me know what you think...

sorry that i haven't written in awhile, amigos.
life is good.
it's rained ever since we got here, and i've been insanely busy with work, but i'm still so happyhappyhappy.
somehow we're happy as larks with each other. steve's been sososo good, making me dinners, doing laundry, and being my personal trainer at the gym (even when i was nearly in tears on saturday because i was in so much pain, he praised me for being "tough"!).
i'd say i was blessed, but i think that has connotations beyond what i'm trying to convey.

i am feeling very nostalgic lately, though. i think i may have already blogged how i had a dream about walking through fort awesome, and very clearly remembered the view from the bathroom window at night (i guess i dreamed about the bathroom because that's where i was most likely to be in the middle of the night). i had a similar wave of nostalgia when going food shopping here, missing my dear coleman's in ann arbor, and fox & obel in chicago's streeterville. i miss walking through the old west side to see what everyone has planted in their spring yards, and to admire the jack o'lanterns in the fall. and i miss walking along the chicago waterfront, whether at the marina in grant park or over the bridges that cross the river.

i am sure i'll feel nostalgic someday about it here too. i guess it only takes a couple of years. for several years i was nostalgic about my singleton days during the wild 90s internet boom in new york. i don't really pine for that anymore. i love the city, but that lifestyle is apparently too far away for me to viscerally miss it.

san francisco is a beautiful city geographically. the hills are completely transfixing to a midwesterner like myself. whenever we cross the bay bridge (either way) i am grateful for steve driving so that i can look at the houses all precariously perched on the hills over oakland, or the curvy roads lined with apartment buildings and victorians here in the city.

i will admit that we have failed a bit in the same way that we did in chicago: we picked a non-neighborhoody neighborhood to live in. there are a few little shops and some cute restaurants here, so it's a bit better than chicago, but i do miss seeing the flower-filled yards, the neighborhood parks with kids playing baseball, and the the sense of community those sorts of thing seem to create. it's going to be baseball season here in my neighborhood (two blocks from Pac-T&T-SBC-Park) very, very soon. i suppose that may conspire to make me feel a part of the city -- and therefore *love* the city -- in a way that i don't quite yet.

i so totally want these stamps. i mean, i know that i can't really pay for postage in yen in the US, but they still rock.

also, i can't get enough of google romance. sure, i'm already taken, but the fact that it's "a free date plus the added accrued value of the past decade’s worth of post-Industrial Age online marketing genius, all tied into a real-time, video-based, GPS-tracked, psychographically astute and environmentally pervasive promotional system" has really made me think twice about the good and bad qualities in my long-term relationship. i think steve and i need more buzzwords.

i don't exactly work on advertising for super-sexy brands, but then again, cleaning *can* be sexy.

speaking of sexy... well, actually, i guess i'm NOT continuing on in that vein -- i'm heading in quite the opposite direction: check out these superheroes on the toilet postcards. i especially love wondergirl.

i don't know what's more depressing: reading about the state of the US auto industry, or reading about the war in iraq. ick.

things here are really crazy, but good. but then again, don't i always say that?

this week has been exhilirating. i've been working on some side projects, and then working with my main client on some big strategic stuff. i've sold through some mega-big ideas, and so overall i'm fine with the fact that there have been long hours.

...

i woke up in the middle of the night the other night, and as i trudged down the hallway to the bathroom i remembered the way i loved the moonlight coming into the window in our bathroom in ann arbor. the floor was always *really cold* but the light was diffused at a beautiful angle through the bathroom window and it was always so peaceful at night.

i'm not sad to have nostalgia about a2: i miss my friends there, but i'm happy to have pleasant memories.

hopefully each stop on our little road through life will have random memory-inducing moments like that. :)

i so totally need this shirt.

you should have heard how it made steve laugh.

these cards make me laugh a ton. so yeah, we're laughing a lot tonight. i had a hard day and need it.

here's one more funny thing: i ask myself this question all of the time.

i am so sorry that i've been a bad correspondent.
i've been working a zillion hours (well, not really a zillion, but a LOT) and i'm so exhausted and tired and yet i am feeling a massive amount of guilt because i owe everyone an email and call, and i miss hanging out with steve.

:(

my crunch period at work is almost over, though, and i've accomplished a helluva lot over the past few weeks, so despite how worn out i am, i feel good about the work that i'm doing. i'm good at it, and i've achieved some awesome things the past few weeks. i've sold through an almost 300% increase in my budgets and am now working on the staffing plan. i'm taking over some smaller accounts from one of our sister offices and am pitching a HUGE new account.

one thing i need to do (other than find a time to workout!) is be a bit better about managing my stress. i must remember to be "little miss sunshine" as much as i can at work, even at the end of a 14 hour day, and not inhale the lovely gifts of chocolate and cookies that vendors ply me with.

and, oh yeah, i need to sleep.

i miss you all. my last big project (well, of the ones i know about) is over on monday at noon, so please cross your fingers for me that the meeting monday morning goes well. you'll hear much more from me after that.

lovelovelove,
s.

farewell to fort awesome...

our friends adam and rachel live in a hip, funky loft in the not-so-swanky part of soma here in san francisco. they invited us to a party with the best theme i'd heard of in a long, long time: cake vs. pie. tastings were scheduled for 9:30 with voting shortly thereafter.
it all sounded so perfect.
i read further down in the emailed invitation. they listed their phone number and email address for RSVPing, and then their address: the number, street name, and the name of their place: fort awesome.

i gasped aloud.
"steve! adam and rachel call their apartment 'fort awesome'!!!"
we had to verify with them that we weren't somehow reading it incorrectly.
and we weren't.

i felt a little trigger of sadness, since i felt such ownership of that home name. i know that we haven't lived there in over two years, but still...
we packed up the personalized pint glasses, and steve took them over as a host/hostess gift. we kept one since i'm such a sentimental sap.

alex is here visiting, and i told him the story. he agreed that i have a reason to be a bit sad. even if adam + rachel's place is awesome, our fort awesome will always hold a place in my big ol' sappy heart.

my friend bruce pointed out this awesome website: boatnerd.

i was plesantly surprised to finally see some sort of article on area code loyalty. i've kept my 734 even during my move to chicago, and don't plan on changing it anytime soon. it's obscure enough that i get asked about it all of the time. (where's that???)

steve and i took a bit of a road trip yesterday. we went down to santa cruz to see my friend kate, who was in from chicago. we drove down highway 1, and loved exploring the coastline. you can check out some of our cheesy beachy photos here.

go shani, go shani! i don't care what hedrick says, you gotta do what you gotta do, and he did it! (and i agree with alex, who pointed out that the NBC interviewer sucked. of course, with costas as their lead, it's no surprise.
on the other hand, i'm so done with apollo. i can't believe the hype this guy got both in salt lake and torino. and honestly, he couldn't bring himself to admit it, but he was just outskated. hyun-soo ahn beat him fair and square.
looks like the same sort of overhyped jinx has hit bode miller too. i wonder if it's as bad of a sports jinx as the wheaties box jinx if you're super-hyped by the media prior to going into olympic competition.
ponder that, will ya?
on a very different note, i have to say that i'm now even *more* into joey cheek, what with his charity donation to "right to play" and the fact that his challenge to sponsors has led at least 10 corporations to match his donation.
rock on!

omg, bob costas is soooo mean! what a horrible commentator for the olympics on NBC!
i mean, he can't seem to come up with anything nice without it being some sort of build-up to a snarky comment! during the parade of nations at opening ceremonies he was so amazingly creative with his nasty comments (which i'll paraphrase):

"sweden has been very successful at the winter games. that success, however, has not been matched at the summer games."

"armenia has a very small delegation. of course, they have no real chance at a medal."

"denmark, of course, is here under heavy security because of the recent cartoons controversy."

so anyhow, he's basically a jerkypants. and then tonight he interviewed poor lindsey jacobellis, and was practically taunting her about her stumble that led to losing her commanding lead in the snowboard cross. at the end he even said "congrats on your silver medal" with what i swear was a sneering emphasis on the word "silver." sheesh. what an asshat.

i do have to say that i think joey cheek's excitement over his speed skating gold medal was super cute. what do you think?

we had our housewarming shindig this weekend. we had folks over to watch the wacky euro-nutso olympics opening ceremonies (what was up with playing disco during the 'parade of nations'???) while having opening ceremonies of our own. these torches were the coup de grace. seriously, we may have gone through two batteries each in 3 hours, but they ruled.

we had a great weekend overall. i'm pretty much well again (although my head still fills with a bit of snot overnight) but the weather was so great and i was feeling well enough that we did all kinds of fun stuff. we went to the chinese new year's parade and out for indian food (hooray! there's a good indian place right near our apartment!) with melissa and david on saturday. and on sunday, after steve got back from his first soccer game, explored a bunch of the parks. we loved walking along baker beach. soooo beautiful!

and now, after that fun... back to work. it's going to be another long week at work. luckily i can listen to the olympis telecast in the background, and replay any superexciting great performances (and wipeouts). dvrs rule!

wow -- these are truly amazing cakes. i especially love the "marge and homer simpson in a bathtub" cake under the new creations heading.

god, i love what white castle does in advertising. it was the most fun brand i've ever worked on, even if my time on the brand was brief. check out this viral campaign that they've been doing, trying to get the day after the super bowl to be considered a holiday! steve and i were just saying that last week, and if only we'd known, we could have joined forces with them and lobbied together!

check it out -- the san francisco chronicle did a big story all about the building that we're renting in. makes us sound ultra-swanky (of course, assuming that the plumbing is all working).

i arrived at work this morning to find that my voice had disappeared overnight (and since i left home before steve was up, i hadn't noticed it sooner!). argh! i've never lost my voice before, and it was extremely stressful! i cancelled most of my meetings for the day and tried to do everything via email, but did find myself whispering/croaking at my coworkers and trying to stifle my hacking cough.

i never admit that i'm sick, but i do believe steve's sickness has indeed caught me this time.

by around 3 pm i was beat, so i actually headed home and went straight to bed. of course, now that's got my sleep schedule a little out-of-wack, but i think i should be able to pass out pretty soon, thanks to some sleepytime tea.

our place is still a mess of boxes, but i did make a little progress this evening, and steve made me some yummy soup, so the day wasn't a complete wash.

i just hope i feel good enough by sunday (and non-infectious!) so that i can go to my friend derek's for his HDTV superbowl-watching fete. we don't even have cable hooked up, so we can't watch it here!

on the plus side, we found out tonight that the contamination test (to see if the flood from the toilet contaminated the carpet) came back negative, so they don't need to replace the carpet, and we can fully unpack. hooray! hopefully we can also get our washer + dryer hooked up tomorrow. it's been over two weeks and we have a massive pile of dirtydirty things!

croak. gnight.

wow, i'm tired.

there is a ton going on for me at work. luckily, my clients and co-workers are very cool, and the campaigns themselves are much more interesting than i thought they'd be. i *almost* didn't mind working 11+ hours every day this week so far.

we're still not very unpacked, but we're getting excited about feeling more at home. we've got the bathroom upstairs mostly functional again (although not the toilet of doom, for which a new valve is on order) and my clothes are finally all in a closet. steve's office is still pretty much in boxes, but he's been working at the kitchen table, and is now using a land-line internet connection instead of his cellular connection. hopefully he can find his apple airport somewhere in the boxes soon so that the wireless network can be set up and we can both be online at the same time.

the weather here has been just as we expected -- 50s or so, and a mix of rainy days and blissful blue-sky ones. for some reason the rainy days here are extra rainy, though, since my hair product couldn't come even close to standing up to the weather-induced frizz. :)

i can't wait for this weekend. i want to sleep in and get the rest of this place unpacked. i want to feel like we're home again.

miss you all!

well, we're finally both 'home' here in san francisco.

home is still full of noisy dehumidifiers, torn up carpeting and floorboards, and no furniture, but, hell, it's home. our stuff arrives in the morning, which we're really excited about. it'll be great to have furniture, dishes, and a coffee maker again.

steve is sick (shocker!) but it sounds like his japan trip went well.

i saw three great movies at sundance, and found out that my clients are super fun.

i already wrote that 'thank you for smoking' was great, and i'll stand by that. it was our group's favorite, and had lots of laugh-out-loud moments. there's some controversy about katie holmes's performance, since her character supposedly has great tits (she was quite miscast, both physically and dramatically) and the fact that the movie premiered at the toronto film festival with a long sex scene showing her boobies, and then was shown at sundance with a shortened sex scene with no jugs. the rumor has it that tom cruise demanded that they cut the scene, and that he wasn't even able to watch it without his crazy e-meter going off.

weirdo.

anyhow, the director has said that it was a technical problem. um, sure. and apparently they're claiming it'll be released with the original, longer scene intact. i guess i'll just have to go and see it and see if i have to take back my "physically miscast" comment.

the second movie was 'alpha dogs' which was really well done, but incredibly hard to watch. the story is disturbing because it's true, and it further convinced me that i could never live in LA since i'm convinced that while it could happen in other places, somehow it seems like it's such an LA-valley sort of tale.

the third was 'quinceañera' -- and it won the dramatic prize. we were kinda worried about it, since we saw it at the end of a long day, and weren't really in the mood for a dark or downer sort of film after 'alpha dogs' but we were pleasantly surprised. it was touching and lovely, and i'd tell you more, but you can look it up online if you'd like.
i'm pretty tired, and steve's already in bed, so i'll sign off now...

remind me to tell you about the wild night at the bar that followed.

it was all fun, but i'm just so dang glad to be home!

hello from park city!
i'm at sundance today with some clients, and it's snowing *beautifully*!!!
we saw the movie 'thank you for smoking' which was hilarious. definitely a must-see.
i was really torn between my desire to see something really good ('thank you' had positive buzz) and something completely crappy/wacky, since it would be kinda fun to see a movie that isn't going to be picked up for distribution. however, i laughed tons and forgot about my waterlogged sf apt for awhile, so it was perfect.
gotta run -- i'm typing this from the intel lounge, and there are others awating their internet fix.

i'm writing ya'll from NYC tonight...

our first week in SF has not exactly gone according to plan. :(

first of all, let me clarify by saying that work is going extremely well. i really like my colleagues, am pleasantly surprised by the cool stuff that our office is doing, and they are so dang glad to have someone in my role that i'm veryverymuch appreciated.
so all of that is good.

what's sucked is my apartment situation.

as mentionned previously, we spent sunday night at the airport.

monday i went to walgreens and picked up the provisions i needed to stay in the new apartment for the first time: toilet paper, paper towels, shower curtain, detergent, soap, etc. i was really excited. i got everything from our suitcases unpacked and on various shelves throughout the house and was feeling really good when i went to bed.

i got up around 2 am to use the bathroom and found over an inch of water on the bathroom floor, and water seeping into the carpet all around it. there was water dripping into the kitchen (which is almost directly underneath the bathroom) via a lighting fixture. needless to say, i freaked out.
building maintenance was extremelly fast at responding (thank god) and was able to shopvac up the standing water in the bathroom. apparently the toilet had overflowed. the water appeared clear, but well, nobody knows just how clean and clear it was.

luckily the water didn't seep into the bedroom, so i was able to try to sleep that night. i did set my alarm to go off every couple of hours (although i was awake both times) so that i could feel the floor around the mattress and make sure the water hadn't somehow crept that far.

at 7:30 am the water removal experts came, with large fans and lots of other miscellaneous equiptment. they put plastic runners down the hallways and cautioned me not to walk around barefoot until they had water testing experts come in to see if the water was contaminated. they hooked up their fans and then i went to work.

i got a call from our landlord that afternoon. he told me that there was debris (specifically, wads of kleenex and a qtip) in the toilet and basically accused me of causing the mess. he said there was damage to 4 other apartments and that although he was going to file a claim with his insurance, they would reject the claim because he was renting it. he asked if we had renters insurance...

well now, normally, we would have renters insurance. and we do have our property insured, but since it's en route to san francisco (in a truck somewhere, heading west) i hadn't insured our place in san francisco yet. i simply didn't make it one of the first things that i did that one day i'd been in san francisco (instead i focused on getting the electricity and phone hooked up and some addresses changed on our chicago bills).

argh.

so our landlord basically tried to get me to admit to wrongdoing (when i suggested that it was the previous tenant, he said "we had no problems the whole year she was there") and said that he'd keep me posted as the costs were determined.

arrrrrgh.

today i was on a flight most of the workday, and then finally spoke with building management this evening. not only was the building manager (perry, who seems like a good guy, and -- if my memory from 2 am serves me well -- is quite good looking) very responsive and nice the night of the disaster, but i wanted to get the scoop from them since i figured they don't have any skin in the matter of who's paying for it -- they know that the bill will go to the owner.

perry confirmed that there was indeed a qtip in the toilet (he also said he'd send me digital photos). i was *relieved* to hear that it was one with a blue 'stalk' since it confirmed for me that it couldn't have possibly been me that caused the flooding. i only have q-tips with the white paper 'stalks', and while i'd been 99.9% sure that i hadn't even used one that evening it was great to get that burdent of potential responsibility out of my head (seriously, who cleans their ears at night? i do it after i shower, and i didn't even shower there until the following morning, in the downstairs bathroom). it's little solace though, since i know that i can't really prove my innocence, and i'm still really freaked out because perry also confirmed that there was damage to multiple units in the building. he said the costs could be as high as $20,000. that made me almost drop the phone.

i don't know what the next step is, if i have to get a lawyer or what. i am really freaking out and am wishing steve was here (he's in japan this week).

originally i wasn't looking forward to traveling this week (first here to ny, then to utah for a weekend at sundance) but now i'm extremely grateful not to be in that apartment with the whirling fans and the potentially contaminated carpet.

argh.

everyone reading this: please cross your fingers for me that justice will be done and they'll realize it wasn't me, but instead the previous blue q-tip using tenant who caused my apartment's plumbing catastrophe.

we made it!
we arrived in sf this evening, and then went into town and got the keys for our apartment. woohoo! our new mattress was already delivered, so now we have a lovely apartment with just suitcases of clothing and a mattress in it.
tonight we're at a hotel near the airport, since steve flies out tomorrow morning for japan. i'm taking the bart (best name for a public transit system, ever!) in to work in the morning. woohooo!

(more later...)

i am sooooo full...
this week has been a blur of packing, dinners with work folks, and pile-ing up stuff in our apartment. i am tired. and -- did i mention? -- full.
although it's been nice to be invited to a bunch of dinners (and also very convenient since our cooking implements are en route to san fran), it's not as flattering as it sounds, since they were all with reps. i mean, i guess i can assume that they like me, but i'm still doubtful that they all wanna be my friends forever.
tomorrow will be flattering, though. at least, i think.
one of the members of my group at work sent out the sweetest "Send Off" party notice. i got all misty/teary eyed reading it. i love my group, and can only hope that they have liked having me as a coworker and boss.
i know it sounds very junior high of me, but i'm really hoping we'll have a good turnout tomorrow night. going away parties are so bittersweet...
i remember my going away fiesta in nyc very well. we had dinner at rancho (unswanky place on the upper west) and there were many more people showing up for the shindig than had RSVPed. the waiters were really annoyed that we kept needing more chairs. and i couldn't have been more flattered.

----

speaking of flattered: thank you, sharon, for the lovely voicemail. i miss you too, darlin'. if i'd gotten home before 10:45, i would have called, but i know that's darn late for me to be callin' the next time zone. :)


----

ps. sleep well, zac, and safe travels.

sorry i haven't posted, amigos.
this week has been super crazy.
steve and i spent a lovely weekend last weekend in san fran, searching for an apartment.
steve had made us many, many appointments, and so we spent friday running all over town. we had two that we really, really liked, and so we were psyched right away. i mean, we realized we were going to have to pay and arm-and-a-leg, and so we focused on just finding something nice within our price range.
the two that we were excited about on friday weren't beat by anything we saw on saturday morning, so we went to see them both again.
both happened to be in south beach, which is a newer area, and right by pacbell park. the upside is that it's got a lot more going on than the 'newer' area that we live in here in chicago, and that it's still within walking distance to work if i feel like it (and there is indeed a train if i'd rather do that).
so anyhow...
the first one that we saw and reallyreally liked was in a community that was built in 1988 and has several buildings around some courtyards with a pool. the buildings are various heights, and the apartment was a two bedroom/two bath with pretty good closets and an *amazing* rooftop deck that was basically the size of the living room.
the second one was just built last year and has a two floor open area for the living room, tons of built-in storage, in-unit laundry and has a gym on the building's second floor. there's a gigundous master bedroom, an open area upstairs off of the living room (kind of like a large balcony) and a den that is where you enter the apartment. it's not really the sort of place where you'd have two bedrooms, but it's the *perfect* place for a huge bedroom, a home office, and a den (for my library and the TV).
so we ended up going with the second one, even though there's no roofdeck. we were silly and didn't take photos, but there are two sites online with renderings of the building. you can see it here and here.
we're really psyched!

then we got back to chicago, had a moving company (practically a squadron of people -- 6 of them) come in on tuesday and pack and cart away all of our stuff (very traumatic for a control freak like me, but still very cool that we didn't have to pack it all up!) and now we're living out of a couple of suitcases. we left our mattress here and ordered a new one for san fran (we desperately needed one anyway) and we've got the fun things that moving companies won't take to keep us amused: the open liquor bottles, my matchbook collection and our plants. :)

work is a little crazy since i'm pretty focused at this point on the west coast accounts. i was actually told not to come to a client meeting at my chicago client's office today, which made me sad. i know i need to learn to let go, though, right?

tonight i went with a vendor and my awesome team at work to dinner and then the bulls game. i'm going to miss a lot about this town. the people i work with are amazing. it's an awesome restaurant town. the architecture is beautiful and inspiring. the bulls, however, don't make that list. :) i think i'll still root for the sox, though. time will tell. after all, we'll be living just a stone's throw from the giants. maybe i'll expand to actually liking baseball overall.

nah. probably not. i'm from michigan.

just a short note to ya'll to apologize for not writing.
i've been pretty swamped trying to get up-to-speed on my new west coast accounts, as well as trying to figure out how to explain all of the things i learned about my midwest clients over the past two years to my replacement.
steve and i are in san fran, looking at about a zillion apartments this weekend. steve did an amazing job booking the heck out of our schedule, so it should be exhausting, but good. we'll have lots of options. :)
cross your fingers for us. more soon...

favorite things discovered in 2005

movies:
um, we didn't really see very many movies.
i guess we saw five that i can think of.
we loved March of the Penguins (or rather, La Marche de l'empereur)
we liked Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland.
...and we saw The Aristocrats and Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, but were underwhelmed by both. Perhaps our expectations were too high.
oh yeah, we also saw Chalte Chalte, which is a Bollywood film that i borrowed from a friend. i wrote about that sometime ago, but i'm too lazy to link to that right now...

books:
Three Junes by Julia Glass -- beautiful book, and not as girly as the cover would have you think
A Round-Heeled Woman by Jane Juska (which i just leant to my mother-in-law)
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan by Jamie Zeppa -- my bookclub's favorite book this year
Sammy's Hill by Kristin Gore -- it's not going to win any literary prizes, but i snuck down to the hotel bar to read this late at night in scotland, and kept laughing out loud
Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld -- so perfectly captures adolescent awkwardness you'll find yourself shaking your head and grimacing at the narrator's faux pas
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer -- just like Zac said, "sweet, clever, and totally engrossing."
Julie and Julia by Julie Powell -- just finished it, and it's a perfect light read for a foodie like me

music:
CDs:
- The White Stripes "Get Behind Me Satan"
- Reginald Robinson "Euphonic Sounds" (crazy good ragtime, composed just this decade!)
- Carla Bruni "Quelqu'Un M'a Dit"
- this crazy compilation called "Sons of Yma: A Collection of Peruvian Garage + Instrumental Bands From the 60s"
- the new Talking Heads boxed set
- Michael Buble (cheesy, but he has a voice like caramel and i love his covers of standards)
- Josh Rouse "Nashville"
- i'm embarrassed to admit it, but there are a couple of songs on "12 Songs" by Neil Diamond that are great

Live Shows:
- Lollapalooza (i can't believe i'm saying that since the name itself is so '90s, but despite the 105 degree weather, it rocked, especially The Black Keys)
- The Farmington Community Chorus Christmas Concert

foodstuffs:
Hema's Kitchen: yummy, yummy Indian food
This cool teashop called Tea Gschwindner (no, don't know how to pronounce it) that has awesome tea and that gave steve free tea because he was drinking some crappy tea from somewhere else
Argo Tea, where i got really into the mojitea (like a mojito, with mint tea and lime juice) and their yummy blend of hibiscus tea and apple cider
LuLu Petite's vinegars, especially the fig + meyer lemon version
The Ferry Building, in San Francisco

miscellaneous stuff:
White Sox World Series sweep (and going to Game 1 with Tracy -- thanks, Tracy!)
the game "Ticket to Ride"
the game "The Great Dalmuti"
our penguin humdifier
kickboxing together at Lakeshore Athletic Club on tuesday nights

up all night...

for those of you that i've already talked/complained to this vacation, i'm sorry to do it again.
for those of you that are wondering what's going on since i haven't posted, here's the latest:

steve and i are trying to figure out how and when we'll be moving to san francisco when we've both got huge amounts of work the next three weeks, and then we are scheduled to go to japan around january 20-ish (he would be leaving before me for work meetings, and i'd join him on the 26th).

anyway, i've been unable to sleep.

we're already freaking out that we're going to lose money selling our condo in chicago (there are 16 units just like it for sale in the building, and the building is offering two years without condo assessments -- ugh). and then i spent today trying to pin down the details of our japan trip, constantly running into problems with incomplete train schedules (eg: i found them for one direction, but not the other direction) and fully booked towns (no room in sapporo prior to the snow festival!). then steve told me about some crazy new projects he's going to have to do right after the japan trip that are already stressing him out.

steve and i decided tonight that both financially and stress-wise, we're going to do two things:

1. not go to japan for fun. steve will go for work, and sara will just concentrate on moving. that means we'll save a bunch of money that we'll need for the move, and that we can move in late january/early february (a timeframe that was previously available due to the trip). and that means steve can be focused on work stuff after the japan trip.

2. we are going to hire a realtor. we really wanted to sell our place 'fsbo' but even with me staying in the US we can't figure out how we'd be around to show our place since steve will still need to go to japan and i will still need to be working in san fran.

ugh.

i don't like these two decisions one bit.
i realize that they are probably for the best, and that we will be able to get out to san fran a bit sooner, but i'm sad about it.

i'm trying to comfort myself with the knowledge that there are cheap tickets to asia a heck of a lot more often from california than there are from the midwest, so hopefully we can reschedule our trip for sometime when we're not moving and i'm not supposed to be training a new employee (did i mention that i have a new employee who starts in SF on 1/17???). and that would probably be more fun anyway, since japan is pretty cold with not-a-whole-lot going on in late january.

(sigh)

this has not been a relaxing holiday break.
i am excited about the move, but i've been so stressed about it that i'm sleeping too little and drinking too much coffee. and then to add to the stress i've had to go through all of my childhood mementos at my dad's place (aka my childhood home) since he is now pretty much living full time at his girlfriend's. don't get me wrong: i am really happy for him and it is the best possible reason to put a house up for sale. i cried a ton when we went through my grandma's house, cleaning it out to put it up for sale. that was really sad because she's not well and wasn't with us. but saying goodbye to your childhood home isn't easy if you're a sentimental sap like me.
i save everything.
i cry at every movie.
and i lived there until i moved out for college.
...so i bucked up and went through lots of boxes and cabinets of old stuff: yearbooks, love letters, cross-country medals...
i didn't even cry until we drove away.

i'm just not good at dealing with this many things at once. i'm generally a pretty good multi-tasker, so i don't think it's just me -- i think it's probably a lot. it hasn't helped that it's been rainy and gloomy every day (although it is what i expect -- it's michigan in winter, after all).

i am really happy with life in general, but i can't wait until march, when hopefully this is all said and done and we're living in sunny california. i could really use some sun.

now here's something i *could* help with, but it's a little bit odd: toilet flushers are needed in louisiana.

holy crap, when will it end? according to ad age, gillette will launch a new razor, the six-bladed 'fusion' system, during the super bowl. wasn't it just recently that men only needed one blade to shave? when did this whole multi-blade thing start, and can we get shick and gilette to stop escalating it? i am petrified at the thought of having steve use something with 32 blades on his face!

this is the first time i've really wanted a video ipod. i don't have a commute (well, not for another month or so) and i'm not a big TV person, so i haven't really seen anything that's made me want one. however, this download really strikes a chord with me. i have always loved that WPIX airs this on christmas in nyc, and i remember really enjoying the fact that my dad's friend had a videotape of a fireplace playing on his tv when we went over there for christmas.
happy holidays, everyone. i hope one of you out there reading this is able to download and enjoy this.

whoa! thundersnow!!! sweet!

this site is going to make my life much, much better (regardless of where we live). on the downside, i will really have to get back into going to the gym!

i'm in california for a conference...

things i love about the midwest:
- autumn leaves
- cider mills (with cider mill donuts)
- daffodils and crocuses in spring


things i love about california:
- fruit trees full of beautiful citrus in the wintertime
- the ocean
- walking barefood through the grass in december (as i did today)

today we received our first holiday card for 2005. thanks, cousin robin!
in honor of that, i hereby determine today the beginning of the holiday season in the hall household!

the move is looking pretty solid. the details have to be straightened out, but my boss is pretty committed to making it work.
i am saddened by the prospect of having to navigate the political and personal waters of a whole new office (i *love* my coworkers) but i'm excited about the opportunity to move to a fabulous new city. i never would have thought i'd have the opportunity to move out to san fran with a secure job -- it's almost too good to be true.
since my boss is convinced it's happening and since the san francisco office all knows that i'm considering it (and coming out to meet them all) it's pretty much public knowledge. i could always turn it down if it doesn't go well next week, or if steve decides he doesn't want to go. however, i can't imagine my first impressions of the folks out there being completely wrong, and steve is really excited.
my head is spinning. thank goodness i was completely swamped at work today (i counted and at one point today had 12 different things going on concurrently -- all of which i did piss-poor at!).
i have to leave home at 5:45 am tomorrow for a trip, so i am going to bed RIGHT NOW.

g'night.

this site seems too good to be true (so somebody should let me know if they can poke some holes in it). some guy started this search engine that's powered by yahoo! search and gives part of their profits to charity. you can select which charity, too.
they even have a convienient "Add GoodSearch to Your Firefox/Netscape Search Bar" link, which means they're thinking of us non-IE folks (NICE!).
can anyone poke a hole in this? anyone?

wow, what a crazy week it's been.
it looks like we may be moving, folks.
my company is really interested in moving me out to san francisco, and since it sounds like they're going to make things work out in terms of salary/support staff/etc. i still don't know all of the details, but my boss has been insistent that he can make it work and that the rest of the details (relocation, etc.) are just en route from HR in NY. meanwhile, he has me going out there for a day next week to meet with everyone in the office and has steve meeting me out there to go apartment shopping.
this whole thing has happened so fast.
i am really excited about the opportunity, to say the least. sf is such a great town, and i love the idea of building a group from scratch for OMD. i've done it before at companies that i didn't like as well, and i know that i'll be well supported here. i also love everyone that i've met in that office, which is a good sign.
more to come. stay tuned...

sorry i've been so bad about writing. there's been lots going on, especially in regards to work.
i can't say much since i don't know who all is reading this, but i'll update ya'll as soon as possible (maybe even tomorrow).

thanksgiving was lovely and mellow. my dad was in florida and i still haven't heard from my mom (not a peep from her on my birthday), so we spent a couple of days with steve's family. it was nice not to have to rush around, and we finally caught up on sleep. we've both been fighting off colds, so we really needed it.

we had a really nice time visiting with some friends in A2 yesterday. things were kinda thrown together at the last minute, but i did get to have my favorite dish ever, chicken hyderabadi, at shalimar. mmmm... travis is now a convert, as he even wrapped up the leftover "crack" sauce to take home. mmmm...

we flew to michigan on thursday and back on saturday, and i'd highly recommend doing your turkey-day travel then, if you are able to. there weren't really any lines at o'hare, which was great (to be fair, we were at the northwest/continental terminal, which is usually pretty mellow compared to the united and american ones).

i'm catching up on all kinds of random stuff today, and getting all of our lists ("to do" list, holiday card list, shopping list, wish lists, etc) organized.
i am a big list maker, so this isn't such a bad thing.

i was going to run out to the verizon store to get my phone fixed (for the second time this week -- for some reason it can't hold a charge and they already tried replacing the battery), but it's nastynastynasty out. ick.

i have a lot of things on my wish list for christmas. even though i don't need it, i so totally want an ipod nano. it's just so dang cute. and i don't use my ipod all that much, but i'm sure if it was smaller (oh say, nano-sized) i would take it everywhere.
anyhow, i think the ipod accessory craze may have finally gone too far. check out this crazy ipod shuffle accessory. eek.

check out this slideshow on the nytimes site from a guy who skiied the king's trail in sweden, and saw some amazing northern lights.

i forget if i had it on my list of 'things to do in life' or not, but i definitely want to ride a dogsled someday.

my fave podcast that i can't download to this here computer ('cause it's owned by my company): bruce springsteen's six-part "born to run 30th anniversary podcast."
and yes, i'm a dork.

steve had taken advantage of this awesome deal where hilton hotels in japan were $4 a night on expedia. can you believe they're not honoring it?!? sheesh. at least we got a $250 credit out of it, which will help when we pay for oh-so-expensive hotels in japan during our stay next january.

did i already link to this awesome commercial from sony? it's received so much attention in the ad industry lately, i have no idea if non-ad people have heard as much about it as i have. i guess it doesn't really matter to me -- i love the ad, and just hope you do too.

once again, keenan is right: this sounds like the only reality show i'd watch (well, other than 'dancing with the stars')

speaking of 'dancing with the stars', have you seen this video of yoda getting down? classic.

i was in ohio this weekend, seeing family.
since my cousin had to run an errand at a nearby mall, we stopped in at abercrombie + fitch to see what all of the hullabaloo surrounding their new tshirts is about.
i think this is my favorite photo ever of us.

my wish for all of you (five) dear readers, of course, is that your love never goes sour. however, if it does, i hope that you'll be badass enough to consider doing this to your wedding band. yowza.

apparently we're not the only fans:
Comedy Central has extended The Colbert Report to air through 2006 (originally only ordered for 8 weeks). on average, there are 1.2 million total viewers per show.
so apparently we're not the only fans (and we're not nearly as hardcore as this dude. sheesh. i hope he doesn't break into stephen's house!
is it just me, or is allstate a bit of an odd sponsor for the official online site?

this is my favorite spam ever. i keep getting it, and i'm so tempted to call and order.

steve said "let's go flip some cars!"
i pointed out "it's raining"
and he said "oh yeah, nevermind"

still, ROCK ON WHITE SOX!!! nobody here in town doubted you today! i heard there was even a big crazy line of sox fans at harry caray's. :)

there are fireworks going off here. chicago loves pyrotechnics!

omg, steve just started freebasing lunesta due to their heavy advertising within the world series.
damn you, advertisers!

i can't believe what this poor guy went through. wow!

and i can't believe what we went through last night watching 14 innings! sheesh. and then for the game to be run-less at this point, i mean, geez, it's way frustrating...

i have been passing the time sending stupid IMs (with steve's permission) to a cute boy whose company is throwing an event on "thursday, 11/8", which doesn't exist. he's shirked all responsibility and now i'm sure he's never coming back to this town again (i can imagine him going "that girl from x company keeps bugging me even when i'm not the contact person. i wish she'd quit stalking me!")

baseballbaseballbaseball -- i'm just not used to the pace of it. i mean, c'mon -- i'm from detroit and we haven't been into baseball since the 80s.

this is my favorite 'opinion' column ever.

holy crap that was a long baseball game. go sox!

check out this lovely video. trust me.

...

steve wanted to find an indoor soccer league to play on this fall/winter. i'm trying to convince him to join a cornhole league instead. he thinks it sounds gay. he's right.

...

we so totally want these ice skates but they don't come in our sizes. drat!

sorry to tell you guys this, but bernie mac sucks.

omg this has to be the stupidest thing i've ever read. well, at least today. anheuser-busch is discontinuing it's 'beer pong' promotion because people are using beer when they're playing. i love that they're claiming that people were supposed to use water for this.
sheesh.

on the other hand, this hard hitting news blurb about hot dog sales during the sox games this weekend is exactly the sort of news bite i needed at the end of a long monday. thanks, chicagobusiness.com!

thanks, kdogg, for bringing this hot-off-the-presses news story to my attention.

GO SOX! (man, am i glad that i went last night instead of tonight -- it's nastyrainycold tonight)

it makes me an even bigger loser to admit it than it does that i found the article, but i'm not going to hide my nerdiness from the three of you that read this, no way! i completely understand how this guy feels about sudoku. there, i said it.

omg these little emergency kits are so funny. i wish they had an "i'm at work but feeling hungover" version. that never happens to me, of course, i'm just sayin'.
i think it would be awesome if they had one and a media vendor sent them out to ad agencies. :)

now this is just plain weird. apparently the government has been working with printer manufacturers to implement some sort of coded tracking system into all printed pages. spooky!
that makes me want to send a whole bunch of money to the electronic frontier foundation.

i've just gotta see this musical when it comes out!

also, i've gotta remind myself to view statler & waldorf's movie reviews when they come out. good stuff!

goooooooooooooo sox!

what a great cap to a really nice weekend!

yesterday we very blissfully did a whole lotta nothing (well, except watch the crazy UM game at home and the gym), then made a big meal for our friends danny + ann and our little homeless eva.

today we walkedwalkedwalked up to lincoln park, where i met some girlfriends for a girly afternoon at the chocolate cafe (a trend that i'm excited to see catching on after going to one with melissa in san francisco last year). mmm... fun truffles like earl grey, ginger and mojito! and (bien sur) fondue. mmm...

we got together not only to talk about expanding our (shrinking) bookclub, but also to talk about what else we want to do in life. i've been on kinda a kick lately, debating this with friends. i guess i am at the stage where i am pretty happy and yet am wondering how i can fit in the things that will really make my life kick ass, when i'm so dang busy doing non-ass-kicking things all of the time. i was pretty inspired by this book and also by this one. so my girlfriends sally, cass and i got together to discuss what sorts of things we want to do, and to help make some plans to start doing them together. we're going to take dance lessons of some sort. and cass and i are going to go glass-blowing. and in the spring we'll go skydiving (sally has said that she'll be right there on the ground with martinis for us afterward).

here are some other things that are on my list:
- go dogsledding
- see the Northern Lights
- take a bullet train
- try surfing
- learn about ikebana
- go to Greenland
- learn Spanish
- stop fearing downhill winter sports (skiing, snowboarding) and give them another try
- learn to flyfish
- start playing piano again

what's on your list?

dude! the daily show has booked the white stripes to be it's first-ever musical guest. sweet!

in other celeb news (yes, i'm pretty much ignoring the tomkat news), looks like martha stewart gets to go to canada. i wanna go and paddle a giant pumpkin too!

during a hearing in the u.s. senate today, army general john abizaid, chief of u. s. central command, said al Qaeda is not a monolith like IBM. rather, it is a franchise operation like mcdonald's. um, okay dude.
eva pointed out that he's probably just trying to use mcdonald's in a positive light, since it's the most well-known franchise organization.
um, okay. still kinda an odd thing to say.

did you know that if americans used public transportation 10 percent of the time, the u.s. would reduce its dependence on imported oil by more than 40 percent?

r.i.p. don adams.
long live get smart.

steve pointed out that we need to pick up some new habits.

and my brother pointed out that i'd probably get a lot more enjoyment out of this 80s slang dictionary than he does. and he's right.

and now, for a news roundup.

i knew the apple nano was too cute to work properly in it's initial version, but i didn't predict that the screens would crack. i'm waiting for the second release, at least.

yet another reason chicago rules (and where we beat new york): we now have two ikeas. splorgen!!!

and the most exciting news story i've seen in awhile: some japanese scientists took the first photos of the giant squid. i like the coverage that the moscow timesgave the story.
i like the infographic here.

damn! i can't believe they are limiting this model search to women 27 and under. i was gonna be the best spokesmodel ever. check out the official site, which has a pretty killah soundtrack.
damn!
i am so bummed.
on the official site, he even explains that the contest is for *all* ladies, black/white/hispanic/whatever. i soooo got back, and i can't believe they don't want to see me strut it.

wow, check out the awesome liner notes from the silly bollywood movie that steve and i watched last night. my friend parul recommended it to me, but i think i'd prefer one with less domestic disputes and more singing and dancing. the description asks some really awesome questions:

Priya & Raj two sides of a coin, different as chalk & cheese. Raj – the impulsive, middle-class, hard-working, emotional fellow allows cupid to play havoc with his heart strings & in comes Priya, the prim & proper, sophisticated & practical girl. Both are smart enough to see their differences because it’s rather visible to the naked eye. They throw caution to the winds & dare to fall in love. And then suddenly the game changes….& so do the rules.

The initial rush in your veins when you see a loved one becomed trying. The joy of canceling an appointment to be with your lover remains, but it just becomes abit impossible. Love sort of goes into the background…..the wound made by cupid’s arrow begins to heal. The need to impress no longer exists. What does all this stand for? Cupid gone stupid or cupid gone tepid?

Is there any chance this relationship can see what destiny has planned for it? Or does destiny really play a role in a man woman alliance? They say relationships are made in heaven…...but are tailored here on earth. Will the gravity of familiarity get them or will love shine through it all?

The problem is eternal. The issues are the same. Men will be from Mars & women come from Venus. Is this story any different…No….we say with full confidence & glee. It is the story of every man & woman, only what remains to be seen is….are they going to walk into the sunset hand in hand? Is what happens to all of us….or has someone just changed the end credits.

from john kerry's speech today at brown university:

"Katrina is a symbol of all this administration does and doesn't do. Michael Brown -- or Brownie as the President so famously thanked him for doing a heck of a job - Brownie is to Katrina what Paul Bremer is to peace in Iraq; what George Tenet is to slam dunk intelligence; what Paul Wolfowitz is to parades paved with flowers in Baghdad; what Dick Cheney is to visionary energy policy; what Donald Rumsfeld is to basic war planning; what Tom Delay is to ethics; and what George Bush is to “Mission Accomplished” and "Wanted Dead or Alive." The bottom line is simple: The "we'll do whatever it takes" administration doesn't have what it takes to get the job done.

ahhh, detroit.
i can't imagine how those knuckleheads could possibly re-elect kwame kirkpatrick, but then again i have no idea how gw got re-elected president.
apparently kwame threw out some wonderful insults at the motor city suburbs during an election debate last week. it resulted in this awesome quote from oakland county executive l. brooks patterson:

"Kwame has largely been a very affable person to work with, but once in a while he makes comments like these that really hurt relations," Patterson said. "I'll continue to work with him because he's the leader of Michigan's largest city, but he's not going to be on my Christmas card list."
...yes, but is he on his kwanzaa card list?

i guess it is time for me to (sigh) make my first retraction/correction. on sept. 8th i gave credit (where credit is not due) to keenan, for a box of wiggles fruit snacks that mysteriously appeared in our kitchen cabinet while we were out of town. while it is completely in character for keenan to leave such a surprise for us, it was actually danny who left the wonderful present for us.

um, thanks, danny. and, um, sorry k-bob.

again, i'm going to have to say that i think everyone should speak about the recent tragedy as hurricane katrina. i saw both a sign and a red cross ad today that talked about helping victims of katrina and i think it's definitely gotta suck right about now to be one of the almost 78,000 women in the u.s. named katrina.

on a somewhat unrelated note on this day of national disaster remembrance, remember when everyone in the south was worried about attacks of killer bees? i didn't really find a good answer while searching around on the web, but i did find a weird christian site with a killer bees game. this is supposed to be fun for kids? sheesh! creepy! and to make things even more super fun, i followed the links (you should too) and read about what things will be like in the biblical millennium. um, okay guys, whatever you say.

i don't know why i'm so smitten with the idea of the egg and muffin toaster, but i am. i don't eat breakfast sandwiches often at all, but i love the idea that a toaster can have this added function so that we can all make egg mcmuffins at home. of course, from a work perspective, i hope nobody buys the damn thing.

keenan: i am sorry that i keep forgetting to 'thank' you for the wiggles fruit snacks. i am sure that they are probably really delicious, but i have not yet overcome my fear. on a positive note, each time i open my kitchen cupboard and see them i think of you. :)

congrats, porchsleeper, on having the
third-best-selling cd on the web's biggest indie music retailermilesofmusic.com. you guys rock. of course, i think you rocked harder when you had supercute drummer steve #1, but then again let's all just be glad i feel that way, okay? (no hard feelings, steve 2.0, right?)

finally! some mainstream criticism of the disastrous hurricane katrina rescues/recovery efforts and the even more disastrous "let's not criticize the rescue/recovery effort" stance that the retards in the republican party were originally taking.

thank you colleen patrick and eric boehlert.

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in other news, here's more proof that yahoo is evil. funny how it took a search to unearth this article on yahoo! news, when it was easy to find in the technology news listings of all other sites.

i'm not usually all that excited by the j. crew catalogs that still come, inexpicably, in the mail each month. however, they do have some awful purty shoes this time...

these are pretty fun. i have no idea where i'd be able to wear them...


these are also hella fun, and isn't it true that you can wear fur with everything?


ooooh...

still, i think my leading favorite wantthemnow shoes for fall are these absurdly colorful ones from fornarina:



if only i had a shoe budget for fall! (drat!)

home alone: day 2
steve would be so proud of me: not only did i make myself dinner two nights in a row (and it was healthy!), but i also made myself breakfast smoothies both days, worked out both days, and packed my lunch today.
i had no idea i could function domestically this smoothly without him!

and now on to random thoughts:
i was sooooo down with that 'dancing with the stars' thing this summer. well, i was at least down enough that when i was at the gym during the rebroadcast of the penultimate episode i ran home and tivoed -- then watched immediately -- the final episode. however, i think i'm going to even more into the follow-up trend, scheduled for next winter, since they've got much better stars participating: "(ice) skating with celebrities" which will be 'starring' deborah (a.k.a. debbie) gibson, dave coulier, bruce jenner and todd bridges. nancy kerrigan (!) will be one of the skaters participating.

on a more positive pop-culture note: i know there are people out there (myself included) who think people magazine is trash. well, it's trash that i find amusing now and then even though i know it's a waste of my time and brainpower. however, it turns out that when they feature 'regular' people instead of vapid celebrities (like their disgusting coverage of britney's baby shower) it can have a really positive effect: they recently ran two articles that resulted in outpourings of donations by readers:
- story #1: jeannette murphy, who volunteered in an institution housing mentally disabled children and then grew up to adopt (with her husband, john) 23 children, most with special needs.
- story #2: terrell pough, age 18, of philadelphia, became a single parent and is responsibly raising his daughter, diamond, while working and going to school.
readers offered money, clothing and a house (!) to the murphys, and sent pough enough moolah for him to rent a two bedroom apartment and pay his bills for a year so that he can save up to give his daughter a better life.

of course, there have been all kinds of wonderful stories (once you get past the FEMA f**kups) this week about people helping in the wake of hurricane katrina. isn't it nice to see other examples too? :)

when steve's out of town i tend to stay up late, puttering around. i guess it's just not that exciting to go to bed when there's nobody there to hang out with.
and then, when i finally give up on being up-and-about, i can't fall asleep 'cause there's nobody there, lying still next to me, calming me down.
i am such a spaz.

okay, so i decided to cheer myself up. therefore, here is a list of things i'm really into right now:

* sudoku puzzles
* the sights
* this random cd of 60s peruvian surf music that i bought yesterday
* smucker's natural peanut butter on apple slices
* blue diamond flavored almonds (especially the wasabi & soy sauce ones)
* better made bbq chips -- an old favorite of mine, and my brother just brought me some from michigan. yum!
* the idea of these crazy bars called larabars (i've only tried one, so i can't say that i love them all): there are only 2-6 ingredients total, and they're totally natural
* the scent in love again, by yves saint laurent (my favorite summer perfume, which fortunately for our budget only comes in perfume and not all of the other add-ons (bath gel, soap, lotion, etc) or i'd have to have them all
* hanging out on our deck, where this weekend it has been party central

i can't understand how anybody -- even a die-hard republican -- can be a fan of this administration after the f**kup in the wake of hurricane katrina (which i refuse to abbreviate to "katrina" since i've decided i'm against naming natural disasters real 'people names').
check out this interview with the mayor of new orleans. sad, sad stuff, but i love that he's taking the federal government's inaction to task.
i also get really worked up reading michael moore's open letter to w.. say what you will about michael moore's tactics (which i don't always agree with) -- but he is spot-on this time, in my opinion.
what i find particularly horrifying is that this disaster is something that has been predicted for the last few years. the times-picayune (a great newspaper name, in my humble opinion) wrote a great series of articles in 2002 about the subject. of course, this didn't prevent federal funds for much-needed repairs and upgrades to the crazy levee system from being cut in the past few years.
and then there are the awesome features of the nytimes's interactive graphic, so that you can overlay household income and non-white population statistics over the map of the new orleans area.
do you think they're related?
i do.
argh.
sooooo angry.
i have a wonderful colleague/co-worker/employee/friend (i hope she considers me a friend! she works for me, but is really a great partner in running things in my group at work) whose family is from the city of new orleans, and who lost everything this week. she has 11 people arriving to stay with her short-term, and then after some of them head out to stay with other family members across the country she will probably have four people living with her long term. i just hope i can help get her what she needs to help them all, since i can't really do anything about the pain and stress she's felt this past week as she struggled (and continues to struggle) to get ahold of family and friends (there are still some she hasn't heard from) and to help them get to safety.
we've had beautiful weather here this week, and it feels so unfair (note: i wanted to write something like "it feels ironic" but i knew that wasn't the right word. i went to wikipedia, hoping they would suggest somewhat similar words, and found that the definition of irony on wikipedia includes an awesome star wars reference. enjoy.)