Almost done my shopping, yay!!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: the ceiling fan
I've been a bad girl and haven't posted in a few days. I've been pretty busy in between work and home... saw ROTK wednesday, I loved it! We're going to have to see it again, though because people kept applauding, talking and generally being annoying in the theatre. We even had a crying baby! Who on (middle) earth would bring a baby to a 3 hour 40 minute movie???

Thursday I went with Fuzz, Kevin and Kathy to our Christmas luncheon to City Lights in Baltimore (Harborplace). I had the steak & cake, quite tasty! That evening I went to Kohl's and purchased one of Kurtis's gifts as well as a flannel sheet set for the bed that we'd seen previously but couldn't find in the right size. Spent a lot of money there, but got great deals, so I can't complain. I also tried finding shoes to wear to the company Christmas party tonight, but I didn't have any luck.

Yesterday was hella busy at work and I also had phones, which compounded the problem. By 4pm, there were only 5 or so people left in the office, it was sooo empty! Next Friday (after Xmas) is going to be even worse, I imagine. Kurtis left early to go Christmas shopping and then he called to ask what we were doing about dinner. We decided to both do some shopping and then meet at Glory Days at 6. There was a bag sitting on the table and he told me that I could have one of my presents early, since I would need it for the party tonight. At the top of the bag was the bra I needed to wear with my dress. At the bottom of the bag, there were some ribbons and I asked him what they were... he told me that he didn't know what they were doing in there so I pulled on them and out popped a jewelry box! Inside were beautiful diamond earrings!!! :):):):):):):)

I have to get ready for the party now, hopefully I'll be able to do more updates later this weekend. :)

Happy Hump Day!
Mood:  rushed
Now Playing: Isaak -- Two Hearts
Topic: Lord of the Rings
This will be just a quick post, since I am leaving work in half an hour to go see The Return of the King!!! It's been getting glowing reviews so far, I can't wait to see it. :) Even that old cranky critic Ebert gave it 3.5 stars out of 4. :-P~

Right now I'm trying to finish up on some proposal processing. Yuck! If I have a chance, I'll post my review after the movie tonight. Kurt and I are meeting with Bob & co at DuClaw afterwards to discuss... we're going to the 2:40 showing and Bob is going to the 3:20 showing. No, we couldn't wait. We had to see it on the biggest screen!

Bye for now!

Reflective
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Black eyed peas -- Where is the love? (I looove this song, if you haven't heard it, you have to find it!)
Topic: Introspection

Who would have thought that I'd become such a fuddy-duddy at 23? Thinking back, 23 has been a pretty positive year. I can't think of any other year that has been as good as this one since before I was a teenager. I don't have much angst anymore, I guess that's a good thing. It's nice to have a fairly stabilized life. Sure I'm broke and am in horrible debt, but now I realize that a lot of people have it a lot worse than me. At least I have a job that can get me out of debt eventually! I may hate my job at times, but this has been the best place I've ever worked. Some day I'll get a college degree. My therapist wants me to get some testing done so that we can see if I have some kind of learning disability. There is a question as to whether or not I have ADD, so I want to get that cleared up before I start taking any classes.

I think that I've wasted enough time at work today, so I'm done until tomorrow! :) (unless I write more at home)

Gonna be a busy rest of the week
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Courthouse -- Isaak (one of my favorites)
Topic: Lord of the Rings
Kurt and I are taking off a half day tomorrow to go see the final movie, "Return of the King" in the Lord of the Rings series. I can't wait, I've been waiting for this since the last one!

We're going to the 2:40 showing... the Bobses (aka Bob, that's our Gollum name for him) is taking his son and 3 other family members with him to the 3:20 showing, since they have school they are seeing it separately from us. Kurtis wanted to see it on the "big screen" and the largest theatres at Muvico are 11 and 14 (I think that's right), and the showing on one of those was at 2:40. The movie at 3:20 is on the second-largest screen, but that's not good enough for this movie! 'Tis the best movie, so we must have the best movie theatre! And what better place to go see ROTK than the largest-grossing movie theatre in the whole U.S.; none other than Muvico at Arundel Mills! After the movie, we're going to meet at DuClaw (brew pub, tasty food, tasty beer) to discuss it. We may watch TTT (the Two Towers) tonight (extended version, of course) to gear up for ROTK tomorrow. Right about now, 100 movie theatres in the U.S. are showing the Two Towers. Today is "Trilogy Tuesday" and a select group of theatres are playing all 3 movies today, I think that ROTK won't come on until 11 tonight, though. So those people are only getting a one hour advanced showing, really. We considered going to the midnight showing tonight (Muvico had it showing on two screens at 12:01), but since the movie is 3 hours 40 minutes long, we wouldn't be home until probably 4 or 4:30 a.m., and that is just a little too late to be up. I would have done it 2 or 3 years ago, but I fear that I'm getting old.

(continued on next entry)

Bryan's reply
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Somebody's cryin -- Isaak
Topic: Football
Can you believe his reply to me?

Sorry I was a no-show. My son has an ear infection and I was home with him with a 102 temperature. Did you bring me some leftovers?

Not "Sorry that I didn't call." Sorry that I was a no-show! I didn't CARE that he wasn't there, I was just pissed that he didn't call! Duh.

Patsy had surgery on his foot today, they said that it was "successful". I think that I heard the junkies say that this morning. I'm looking for an article about it, but all I can find is on poor Tim Hasselback's 0.0 quarterback rating. Here's an excerpt from the article:
"I'm going to play better next week," Hasselbeck said. "I'm telling you that right now."

That's hardly an audacious guarantee. Hasselbeck has nowhere to go but up after his 0.0 quarterback rating in Washington's 27-0 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday.

"I'll be disappointed for a long time about it," Hasselbeck said. "But at the same time I need to forget about it."

Hasselbeck went 6-of-26 for 56 yards with four interceptions. Perhaps out of sheer mercy, the NFL's complex quarterback rating formula automatically bottoms out at 0.0 when the performance gets bad enough. If not, Hasselbeck would have been in the negatives.

Poor Timmy. I think that he's a good QB, just had a bad day Sunday. With a QB rating of 0.0, I would HOPE that the other team would win! So the shutout by Dallas is understandable.

There is a little blurb at the end of Timmy's article about Patsy... "Ramsey had surgery on his foot in Charlotte, N.C., on Monday. He'll wear a walking cast for about a month and should be ready to return for the spring minicamps."

I wonder why he went to NC for the surgery? Hmm. Oh well.

Asinine co-worker/fantasy league member
Mood:  on fire
Now Playing: Build me up buttercup
Topic: Rants

One of the people who didn't show up for our Fantasy Football party on Sunday had the AUDACITY to send me a smartass email. It pissed me off horribly, but thankfully I stopped myself from saying, "F-U, asshole, thanks for calling!!" I composed a reply and sent it to Kurtis and the two other coworkers who attended the party. Bob told me that he liked my reply, but Kurtis told me that I shouldn't lower myself by replying in terms that this jerk would understand. Following is the email that prompted my outrage:

HOW 'BOUT THEM COWBOYS?!

Well, I lost the fantasy playoffs, but that Texas ass-whooping of the Redskins sufficiently comforted me. As Jerry McGuire said, "Show me the money"!!Don't take it too hard, the Cowboys are just a superior team. See ya in the playoffs! Oops, I forgot....the Skins AND the Pansies both missed out. See ya in the funny papers.


Following is the reply that I was going to send:

Uh, no, sorry. The Cowboys aren't a superior team, the Redskins just suck. You'll see soon enough when the Cowboys lose in the wildcard playoffs.

HOW 'BOUT THAT THING ON THE WALL CALLED A TELEPHONE?!

Where the hell were you on Sunday, anyway? Even Dallas fans know that common courtesy is to make a phone call when you aren't going to show up at someone's house! I think that was rude of you to not call us.

I'll have your money on Friday; I spent my last $20 on wasted food for the party.


Instead, I used Kurtis's diplomatic suggestion:

Yes, I was disappointed the Skins lost, it seemed as though they just called the game in, knowing their season was over. I was more disappointed that you didn't show or call, which resulted in a lot of food being wasted.

I'll have your money on Friday.

*sigh* At the very least, he won't be invited to our house anymore! Hopefully Kurtis won't go with him to the Army-Navy game anymore, too. It seems that the past two years that he's gone he hasn't had a good time, and that isn't just because Army lost.

That's it for now, I'm still cooling down.

Guests who don't call, Crappy Redskins, Survivor Winner, Electric Toothbrushes and Saddam
Mood:  accident prone
Now Playing: Chris Isaak -- Always got tonight (needed a break from Christmas music)
It is most certainly a Monday. I'm having problems getting the water in my bottle into my mouth. It keeps wanting to jump onto my shirt. It's only water, though -- there are much worse things, and my shirt is black so no stains. I haven't made it to lunch yet, though, so there is still a good chance to mess it up.

The Fantasy Football party didn't go exactly as planned. Two of our guests didn't show up, and they also didn't call. If you don't show up but tell me you aren't coming that's one thing, but if you don't call, that makes it ten times worse!! Oh well. Guess we'll just have to eat all the food that we have now.

Both the Ravens and the Redskins lost yesterday, which made for a crappy party, too. My beloved 'Skins got shut out by the Cowboys, it was a massacre. Tim Hasselbeck must have thrown 4 or 5 interceptions. I finally switched the channel, it was unbearable to watch.

The 3 hour finale of Survivor was on last night, Sandra won! I'm so glad, that guy John was such a jerk. Lil ended up winning the final immunity prize and she took Sandra to the final two instead of John, which ended up being a mistake on her part since everyone hates John and would have chosen her for the million bucks. They did a little piece on a few different contestants on the show, including one on Rupert. It appears that everyone else liked him as much as we did! It seemed that this other Survivor guy, Shawn (or was it Sean?) was a little bitter about Rupert, he said that he didn't feel that Rupert was portrayed fairly on the show. He said that they showed all of his low points, but none of Rupert's. So much for reality TV! But hey, we all know that reality TV isn't exactly real. ;-) I know that from my American Idol experience!

We started using our electric toothbrushes over the weekend. I absolutely love it! My teeth feel dentist-clean after I'm done brushing, and there isn't as much of the toothbrush-mint taste so if you eat or drink something afterwards, it doesn't taste too weird. Nice.

Yesterday morning they announced that our buddy Saddam Hussein in Iraq was finally captured! Now if we can only get Bin Laden. :-P~ Hopefully someday Iraq will have a non-corrupt government, whether it be based on democracy or not. Democracy would be nice, but I don't think that we should necessarily push other nations to do what we feel is right. Then again, people being stoned to death is a little barbaric for a misdemeanor offense. Then again, if we stoned child molestors and murderers to death in the U.S., that might be a good idea! No lethal injection here, no sirree! Just stoning and chinese water torture... or better yet, we could subject people to watch countless hours of Barney and Teletubbies!

That's it for now, maybe more later.

So sleepy
Mood:  chillin'
They really need a "tired" mood.

Got a lot done today, but not nearly enough. Tomorrow morning we'll be vacuuming and dusting. What fun.

Bob just called a few minutes ago to tell us that Elijah Wood is going to be on SNL tonight, so I guess that we're going to have to stay up and watch it now, since I'm sure that they'll do some LOTR spoofs.

Kurtis spent $250 at Costco today, a good deal of it was our new toothbrushes; they're the electronic high-tech kind. My mouth feels cleaner already! No, really it does. We were walking around Costco, and one of the sample ladies had this glazed ham that was incredibly tasty. So of course, we ended up buying a freaking ham! It was the best ham I've ever had though, I swear. So we're going to cook the ham tomorrow instead of a roast for our party. I made all the dips and deviled eggs today, too... I also cleaned the oven, which was a fun job. Really tired. Okay, I'm not making any sense, so I'm not going to write anything else.

Pray for the Redskins to win tomorrow. I hate the freaking Cowboys.

So many things to say, so little time
Now Playing: Isaak -- Wicked Game (acoustic)

So many topics to cover... I was thinking about making a couple entries with different topics. More specifically; one topic for Survivor, the other ones for a crappy day, a radio day for the Hartley household, and a 24 hour ban on LOTR speak for me.

So I'll break it down.

Survivor (Pearl Islands)
I've gotten sucked into Survivor this season, unlike most of the previous seasons (with the exception of the first show with the fat naked gay guy).
Thank freaking GOD that the girls got together and made an alliance. I cannot stand John and I can't wait until he gets voted off. Of course, the season finale is on Sunday, so hopefully I won't have to wait too long. They voted off Burton, which is fine with me, but I really wish that they would have voted off John first. For those of you not familiar with the show, John is this smarmy-ass, cocky, arrogant S.O.B. who is the most conniving jerk that I've ever seen on reality T.V. He even lied to the other tribe members by telling them that his grandmother died!! There are now 4 members of the tribe left; Darrah, this chick from Arkansas or something FAR south, she had a horrendous accent, then there's Sandra who I like, she really helped out her tribe at the beginning of the game with her Spanish, she has also been honest for the most part. Lill is a mid 40's scoutmaster who was voted off earlier. Not sure how I feel about her. Then of course there's John the asshole. I think that I want Sandra to win, but Darrah may be the strongest person in the game.

Now on to other things...

No Lord of the Rings talk for me today

Kurtis challenged me to go an entire day without talking about LOTR, using any terms relating to Middle Earth, talking like Gollum/Smeagol, etc. So far I've done well. I almost called him Shmoogle once, but I stopped myself. I'm not sure if that should count anyway, since it's more of a pet name than a LOTR reference. My time is up tonight.

Radio

Both Kurtis and I were on 99.1 WHFS's morning show this morning. Over the past few months, we've been listening to the Sports Junkies on HFS. Anyway, this morning they were making fun of one of the dj's spoon and were saying it was a ladle, serving spoon, etc. They said that it had holes in it and if you tried to eat cereal with it, your milk would run out through the holes. Well I had to call in and tell them that it was called a 'slotted spoon' and that it was indeed for serving stuff and not for regular use. Later on, Kurtis called in for "Fantasy Notebook" on Fantasy Football advice. He asked them if he should go with Marc Bulger (of the St. Louis Rams) or Chad Pennington (of the N.Y. Jets) at QB. They replied Bulger, which was exactly what I'd told him they would tell him and who he was planning on putting in, anyway.

On to the rest of my day. I've been rather irritable and people have just been generally doing stupid stuff to piss me off. Then the receptionist was 40 minutes late back from lunch (I was absolutely starving by that time) and I saw that the other secretary (or shall I say Administrative Assistant to be more politically correct) had screwed up my article in this month's edition of the Harmonizer. I've been putting monthly installments of my American Idol trip into our company newsletter, basically a summarized version of the AI journal that I have on my website. Anyway, there is a sentence that got cut off in midstream, it reads, "After securing our seats, we walked down the concourse to pick out our We got a good place, right next..." instead of "After securing our seats, we walked down the concourse to pick out our camping spot. We got a good place, right next...". So that really irked me, because now it looks like I'm a retard who doesn't proof-read and can't compose a logical sentence! Once I've finished writing Part III, I will post it here and on my website, since some people are interested in my AI experience, but they don't want to read my lengthy journal.

Well, that's it for right now, hopefully I'll get a chance to post over the weekend. It's going to be a busy one getting ready for the party on Sunday. Hopefully the weather won't interfere with anyone's attendance.

Earthquakes, getting old and crappy weather
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: If every day was like Christmas
Man am I tired...

The tree trimming party ended up back at our house, with the party leaving at 11 last night! It was a lot of fun, but I'm pretty exhausted. I'm not used to staying up that late anymore. It's funny to hear what people say about other coworkers once the alcohol starts flowing.

Turns out that we had ourselves an earthquake on Tuesday that measured 4.5 on the Richter scale. According to Meredith Dunn of Virginia Tech's seismological observatory in Blacksburg, an earthquake of this magnitude is expected to occur once every 40 to 75 years. "Basically, this was a once-in-a-lifetime earthquake," Dunn said. So I guess that I've experienced my only earthquake! It's funny to hear people describe what they thought it felt like. Here are some excerpts from the article:

"I'd compare it to a train going by fairly closely," said Sgt. Scott Cox, the evening shift patrol supervisor in Virginia's Albemarle County.

"It felt like maybe an 800-pound gorilla jumping up and down," said John R. Roberts, the county attorney in Loudoun County, whose budget meeting with a fellow official was temporarily derailed.

"I looked up. I thought somebody had hit my vehicle with another piece of heavy equipment," said Tom Garber, 39. "The bulldozer started rocking."

Farther north and west, at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's mountaintop home near Charlottesville, curator Susan R. Stein said she felt an "undulating, extended rumble." She heard a gentle roar like a drumroll, and a large copper kettle shook on a brick countertop. The third president's china was jostled but unscathed.

It also felt like: an overloaded truck rumbling by, a detonation at a stone quarry, target practice at a military weapons range -- just a few of the things residents initially thought they had experienced.

At first, I thought that someone was walking on the roof, it was really weird -- then it felt like someone was jumping up and down on the roof so hard that I thought it would cave in! I felt the building shaking, but it never occurred to me that it was actually an earthquake. Everyone was looking around like, "What the hell was that?" Donna called me and says, "What is that? It feels like an earthquake, but we aren't in California." I just laughed at her and told her that they must be doing some work on the roof. I even saw the story about the earthquake on the news that night, but they said that the epicenter was near Richmond and I figured that there was no way that we would be feeling it here. Turns out that I was wrong! Apparently it was felt up and down the east coast, as far south as North Carolina and as far north as New York. Pretty interesting! We've had an awful lot of natural disasters this year; snowstorms early this year, all the rain and flooding, hurricane Isabel, a few tornadoes, some severe thunderstorms with high winds (which spawned the tornadoes), an early snowstorm and now an earthquake! I think that we can call that an extraordinary year.

Just in time for our Fantasy Football, there is a chance for crappy weather this weekend, too. Right now they aren't sure if it's just going to rain, be a yucky wintry mix, sleet, freezing rain or snow. I swear the weather forecasters don't know anything. We have a flood warning today, too. Marilee said that the river is only about 2 feet under the bridge in Ellicott City; it's even higher than it was after the hurricane.

The National Weather service says this:

Saturday Night: Rain and snow possible after 1am. Chance for measurable precipitation is 40%. Partly cloudy, with a low around 28.

Sunday: Rain and snow possible. Cloudy, with a high near 36.

Sunday Night: Rain and snow possible. Cloudy, with a low around 30.

Monday: Rain and snow possible until noon. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 44.

Can you be any more vague, people???

The Weather Channel has THIS forecast:

Saturday: Cloudy. Highs in the upper 30s and lows in the low 30s.

Sunday: Rain. Highs in the low 40s and lows in the upper 30s.

Monday: Times of sun and clouds. Highs in the upper 40s and lows in the low 30s.

I'm predicting rain, since they can't make up their minds; there is a significant temperature difference between the two forecasts. We'll see what they have to say tomorrow.

Today at lunch, me, Kurt, Bob and Dan are going to play the Lord of the Rings game... we're also talking about skipping out of work early next Wednesday to see Return of the King. I hope that happens!

Well, I'd better get some work done, more later if I have the energy.