Kimnapping!!
Mood:  silly
Now Playing: Have yourself a merry little christmas - Diana Krall
I haven't been on the American Idol messageboard for quite a while, but I decided to go on to prospero, which is the board that all of the Fox network's shows are on. I've peeked in to the 24 forum a few times, especially back when I was posting on the AI board quite frequently. I remember a topic being "We are the knights who say Nina!" I got a kick out of that, liking Monty Python and all. Anyway, I posted my first message on the 24 board today. The members are probably going to think "Who the hell is she?" I've been a devoted 24 viewer from the very beginning, and I introduced Kurtis to the show last season. I wanted him to see the first season, so one weekend we watched almost the entire season on DVD, we watched 10 episodes in one day, it was pretty crazy, but fun. (how's that for a run-on sentence?)

But I saw some postings that just about killed me, the first ones from the "Plot Twists/Speculation" part of the 24 board:

Why does Hector want Jack?
1) He wants information from Jack. Maybe identities of other American agents working undercover in his organization and others. ("Hey, Mr. Terrorist, I have the identity of a US agent inside your group. Give me $50 million and I'll tell you who..."). Maybe access codes and passwords so Gael can cause even more trouble at CTU. Whatever.

2) He's recently been approached by a terrorist named....Nina Myers. He doesn't trust Nina (obviously) and he wants advice from somebody who knows all about Nina.

3) He wants a real bad-@$$ to go on a suicide mission, and Jack is simply the best. And with Kim now kimnapped and held hostage, he has leverage over Jack.

Kimnapping!!! I just about fell out of my chair!!! Kim is ALWAYS getting herself in some kind of trouble, and gets kidnapped (or kimnapped, more appropriately) regularly. I think she's been kidnapped at least twice each season. For those of you who don't watch 24, this is amusing because 24 is supposed to take place over 1 day, or 24 hours (hence the name)... so for Kim to be kidnapped twice in 24 hours, she can get kind of annoying. Now Kim is working in CTU (counter terrorist unit) with her dad. We were hoping that somehow Kim would just disappear. I know that the guys want something nice to look at, but Kim is not the answer!!!! Try making her a little bit smarter, please?

Here's another post from that thread:
Personally, I hope it's not a Kimnapping, only Kim being in the right place at the wrong time. Kim didn't think Gael would be back so soon and just got caught in bad timing. And Adam is supposedly coming back because Kim called out thinking Gael was Adam.

I got a kick out of this, too -- called "Read before you post":

-- A few words about the use of the words "died", "dyed", and other misspelled variations of the word "dead": After the Season One finale, there was much speculation about whether Teri (Jack's wife) was really dead. After several weeks of occasionally heated discussion, a member who was still learning English syntax started the following thread:

Cast - is teri died? Subscribe
From: JLB106 5/22/2002 9:21 pm
To: ALL (1 of 318)

9716.1

she did short her, but she's not deid.,
she had to erace all thing's that said she was goign to Germany, and Teri saw her speaken it, so she shot her, but she's not deid.!!!!!!!
w/ 24, u never know
jessie

The above use of the word became one of the first cultural icons of the 24 Forum. Many members, in tribute to the original post, purposely misspell the word when talking about the death of a castmember (or in some cases, an inanimate object such as a coffee mug)


Looks like my night is going to be devoted to cleaning and 24.

I made it through Monday!
Mood:  lyrical
Now Playing: Elvis -- If everyday was like Christmas
Yes, I am definitely in Christmas mode. Good news, I haven't bounced any checks and I have $11 in my wallet! I'm practically rich!!! I'm going to attempt to write a humorous poem about the holidays, if it meets my approval, I'll post it on here.

I forgot to mention the annual foot in mouth award which was awarded to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (who had dinner one night across the street from where my dad was playing in Easton) for his statement, "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Here are some of my favorite quotes from previous winners:
2002: Actor Richard Gere who said: 'I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I'd think 'No, actually I am a giraffe.''

2000: Hollywood star Alicia Silverstone for her comments quoted in the Sunday Telegraph.
'I think that [the film] 'Clueless' was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness.'

I don't know if I'm still sick or I'm just coming down with yet something else, but my throat is really scratchy this morning. It feels somewhat like a porcupine is lodged in my throat.

It looks like the Fantasy football party is coming together, we actually have people coming, yay!! There's a bunch of work and cleaning that needs to be done still, but Kurt straightened up the 'puter room last night. Well, I'm going to get back to work. More later, possibly.

P.S. I won another Ebay auction (ack!), for a DKNY dress, but I got a really good deal on it. I'm also currently winning an auction for a Dolce & Gabbana dress shirt, but I doubt that I'll win it, there are still 12 hours left and my maximum bid is only $2 away from being overtaken.

I forgot to talk about football!
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Merry Christmas, Baby
The Redskins beat the Giants and the Cowboys lost to the Eagles!!!

There was some real football being played yesterday, before I went to bed, I was watching New England play in the snow, that was pretty cool. My predictions for playoffs and super bowl:
NFC Division: Philly vs. St. Louis
AFC Division: New England vs. Kansas City
Super Bowl: Philly vs. New England
OR
Cincinatti vs. Carolina

Speaking of Patsy in my last post; his season is over, he is having surgery on his foot. Hopefully he's learned something this season... I hope that he gets together with Tim Hasselbeck to work on being more mobile. He's taken quite a beating this year and if he stays in the pocket as long as he has, he's going to keep getting sacked. He's a great QB and I'd hate to see him take a career-ending hit.

In other Redskin news, Bruce Smith, 40 year old defensive end FINALLY broke Reggie White's 198 sack record during the game yesterday, sacking Giant's backup QB Jesse Palmer. Bruce Smith has been whining all season about his playing time, because Spurrier has been starting Regan Upshaw who IMO, is a much better DE. Nothing against Brucey, but 40 is usually too old to be playing in the NFL, especially for a defensive player. Darrell Green on the other hand, was still kicking ass at 40, and he retired last year at 42. It seemed to me that Brucey was getting a bit selfish and couldn't help blitzing every single play, not to mention getting an offsides penalty or two. Just a little too anxious, he seemed to me. I hope that he gets 200 sacks and then makes way for some talented younger players.

Now I'm getting off my soapbox, since I know nothing about football.

Stressed and overspent
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: All I want for Christmas is you
Well, the title says it all!

I definitely overdid it this weekend, I have hardly any money left. I spent too much going to lunch on Friday, too much at Food Lion on groceries, too much at Rite Aid, too much on Ebay. It's basically a replay of last payday. It's amazing how quickly all that stuff adds up! But did I really need to make all the impulse buys that I did? Every little purchase adds up. *sigh*

So I'm pretty bummed out right now! I did take another chunk out of my Christmas shopping, but it's still not finished, so I'll be facing the crowds the weekend before Christmas. Oh well, at least I know what I still need to buy.

I was feeling pretty miserable yesterday, I guess that I have some kind of flu bug, I had a fever, headache and upset stomach. I went to bed at around 5pm yesterday, had weird dreams. In one of them, Kurtis and I were at this party with a bunch of people I went to high school with, but Patrick Ramsey (QB for the Redskins) was there too, and I was asking him when he was going to get off the bench so that he could score me some points in my fantasy league. Then he was making out with some girl, it was pretty bizarre.

My stomach is still upset, and it seems like there is something going around at work. Ugh. Well, I have to finish typing this description and get some other crap done. Maybe I'll bitch some more later about my sorry state of affairs.

My day alone
Mood:  smelly
Now Playing: Christmas- A year without Santa Claus -- Mr. Heatmeiser
I just got done watching the Army-Navy game. Poor Kurt. To drive all the way up there in that mess and then to have Army lose, too. Kind of like watching the Redskins! Hopefully they'll beat the Giants tomorrow. If they don't beat the Giants, hopefully Philly will at least beat Dallas.

My day was fairly productive... I got some shopping done, got my hair cut, baked cookies and bread, got the cats food and got some presents wrapped.

The bread and the cookies definitely didn't turn out quite how I expected. I was thinking that there would be beer in the fridge to make the beer bread, of course there wasn't any, so I used Sprite. It was okay, but I found out later that it was undercooked. At the same time, I decided to bake cookies using a modified cake mix recipe. They didn't turn out so hot, either. Oh well, I'm glad that Kurt can cook, otherwise I would starve (or learn how to cook better!).

To test out the roads, I decided to do some errand-running and left the house at around 1:00... looks like everyone else had the same freaking idea. I'd called Hair Cuttery and they told me that they were dead, (as in had no customers, not literally dead) so I was thinking that I'd be in and out of there in no time. I was definitely wrong on that one! I was there for about an hour and a half, but I got a good haircut, so I'm happy. The woman (Cheryl?) put a lot of layers in it, so hopefully that will give me some volume. On the way back down Mountain Road, I stopped at Rite Aid to do some shopping... bought some wrapping paper and some other stuff. Then I went down to Petsmart to get the two boys their gourmet food (speaking of them, they aren't up here with me, so I'm guessing that they're destroying my nicely wrapped presents)... while I was there, I saw a black pug, I've never seen one that color before. After that, I walked over to Michael's (Craft store) to get some cute things to decorate the presents with. I was going to drive to Value City for more Christmas shopping, but I really didn't feel like driving any further down the road, so I decided to check out Marshall's. That was my first time in there, it's kind of like T.J. Max(x?), but a step below.

By that time, it was almost 4 and I headed back home... the temperature was dropping and there were some slick spots in the road. I felt really bad for cancelling with Stef, but there were a number of reasons that I did so... and she told me that they'd have fun without me, which I have no doubt of. Right now they're all probably getting drunk, eating tasty food and having a blast while I sit here playing on the computer. As tired as I am now, though, if I were there, I'd probably be asleep on the couch!! I never did get back to sleep this morning after Kurtis left, so I've been up since around 6:30 this morning, and that's earlier than a normal workday for me. I've become so lame in my old age! Now I don't like driving at night, consume no more than 3 drinks a week (if that), consider going out for dinner a night on the town and like being in bed by 10pm, even on weekends. *sigh* I don't know if that's a good thing or not, but I know that I spend less money and my life is much less stressful than it was a few years ago. I probably have more bills now than I did then, too. Hmm... it's probably the therapy (and the antidepressant sure helps, too!). Speaking of which, I think that I'm going to send a Christmas card to my psychologist. She probably saved my life, I was at the end of my rope just 11 months ago.

Well, I'm a little sleepy and I think that I'll read my book downstairs for a while. I'm going to try to stay up until Kurt gets home.

Up too early
Mood:  hungry
Now Playing: Nothing, actually
Kurtis left about 45 minutes ago to go to his Army-Navy game in Philly, so I'm up early. I'd like to go back to sleep, though and I probably will in a few minutes. I decided that I'd get up and check the weather reports and Ebay. I've become a bit of an EBayaholic lately... the Christmas party at work is on the 20th of this month and I needed to find a dress, so I decided to give Ebay a try, I've never bought clothes off there before, so we'll see how this turns out. I found a Dolce & Gabbana and a DKNY little black dress that I've bid on, but right now I'm losing the D&G bid. That's okay, though... I've already won 2 auctions for little black dresses. :-P~

It looks like the beach is going to be a wash today, I guess that I'm going to spend the day at home reading. I'm thinking about trying out that beer bread mix, too. The only beer in the fridge is Heinekin and Guinness, though and I'm not sure if I want to use either one of those. I've heard that Sam Adams is a good beer to put in the mix, so I may go buy some. It's still snowing outside, I guess it snowed about 3 or 4 inches last night... it's supposed to snow a few more inches and then stop sometime this afternoon.

Well, Tai is destroying the computer room and I'm getting sleepy, so I think that I'm going to get off of here. More later if there is more to mention!

let's see if I can get these links to work
Mood:  irritated
Now Playing: Pearl Jam - rearview mirror
I just checked those links in my last post and I'm going to see if I can fix them, the html is all weird. Anyway, here are the links, hopefully they will work: Reuters Oddly Enough News (daily) Story about psychologist studying stigmatics Weeping statue story Cannibal article Well I freaking give up, I just tried all of those links and for the life of me I cannot get them to work. Try cut and pasting these into your browser if you want: Wait, no! I figured it out! They should work now, they pasted with an extra http://, so that's what the problem was. I'll edit them in my other post, too. Sorry, I'm losing my mind. :) I'm happy now. Things are okay!! I hope that you enjoy those articles.

Religion, snow and cannibals.
Mood:  quizzical
Now Playing: Stacey's Mom
I just started to make this entry, but my internet explorer spazzed out. Silly computers. This has been another strange day, waiting for the snow, thinking of someone I used to be friends with in high school and wondering how things might have turned out otherwise. Splitting migraine headache that has now mostly subsided thanks to my trusty imitrex... It's looking more and more like snow is in the forecast for the next few days, so that most likely is going to put a damper on my Ocean City trip that was supposed to take place on Saturday. I hate to be such a big wimp about driving in the snow, but I just don't trust my car enough and not to mention my freaking nerves. By the time I got across the bay bridge, I'd probably pull over and go into a catatonic state! It's not even the snow that bothers me that much, it's more of the freezing rain that makes me uneasy. Snow provides much more traction than ice! Right now they're calling for 2-4" for tomorrow morning, but we're supposed to have a mix of nasty stuff through saturday night. People freak out when they find out that we're getting snow, too.. they could predict flurries and people will be running to the store for milk, bread and toilet paper. I'm avoiding food lion tonight! I've been checking my "Oddly Enough" news from Reuters and there is another story about that cannibal in Germany who ate a willing victim. You can read about it here: News story about the cannibal guy There was also an article about a weeping statue of Padre Pio, a monk who was made a saint last year who was also a stigmatic... I find the stigmata phenomena quite interesting and spent some time today reading about it. A gift from God? Or is this just a fascinating example of how powerful the mind is? I found this passage out of an article entitled "psychologist studies mystery of stigmata": "The stigmatics' wounds do not get infected, a condition Martinez calls a ''superimmunity.'' This occurs, Martinez said, because a person's belief is so strong that it may change the body's biology. The mind and what a person knows about Christ are integral to stigmata, and changes in those beliefs are reflected in its occurrences. For example, Padre Pio's wounds were in his palms, where traditional belief has held that the nails were driven into Christ's hands, Martinez said. However, newer archaeological research shows that nails were more likely driven into the wrists of the crucified, where the arms' bone structure would better support the weight of the body, Martinez said. More recent stigmatics have had wounds in their wrists instead of in their hands, Martinez said." Perhaps while I'm snowed in, I'll explore this subject more thoroughly. In the past several months I've become more interested in religion and religious artifacts. I think that since I didn't attend church growing up (at least not regularly or of any specific denomination) it gives me a non-biased view of all religions when some people (particularly Catholics) appear to be somewhat jaded.

Weird busy day
Mood:  spacey
Now Playing: Joe Bonamassa -- Miss you, hate you
It's been a strange day.

This morning I did the table for Fuzz's CCEPS SWM seminar thing (stands for County council of engineers, planners and surveyors / stormwater management)... ate too many donuts. It must really be true what they say about the simple carbs, because the number of donuts that I ate should have filled me up, but I was still hungry. No, I'm not saying how many I had, but it was too many! After that, I went back to the office, sent some emails, ordered the pizzas for the lunch meeting today. I was so happy, they actually came on time! The people at that Papa John's are so incompetent, I swear. There was a different delivery guy today though, so that's probably why they were on time. The other guy is a jerk. He actually complained about his tip one time!! What a loser.

I was running around trying to make sure that everyone had everything that they needed for the meeting, and then my mom called. Told her that I'd call her back in a few minutes, but I never got a chance to. I guess she's bored sitting at home, so she figured that she'd call me at work? Who knows.
Anyway, I was about to call her back when Ron (one of my 20 bosses and a VP) asked me if I wanted to go to lunch. So of course I gratiously accepted! We went to Adam's Ribs in Severna Park where I had a tasty caesar chicken salad. It was nice, Ron is a funny person. It was also nice to hear that he feels the same way as I do about a few people at work.

I also talked to Anthony today for the first time in a while, we were supposed to get together for lunch when he got back from his coast guard 'cruise'. Anyway, he needs a date for his Christmas party and I'm trying to convince someone that I work with to be his date. We'll see what happens with that, but I don't have high hopes for it. Either way, we're going to lunch on friday at this seafood place in Glen Burnie. Should be fun.

Well, I have to get some stuff finished for work. I'll try to be good and update tomorrow or friday, I'm a little worried about the weather for my trip downy ocean on Saturday.

Post turkey and pre Christmas
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Pink Floyd -- Learning to fly
Ahh, so my plan of keeping my blog updated hasn't worked out so well!

C'est la vie.

Well, Thanksgiving is over, it went fast and without a hitch... I made pumpkin cheesecake and twice-baked sweet potatoes (what's tater's, precious??) and nobody got food poisoning, so I would say that it was a success!! We had over Kurt's mom, brother Kraig and my grandfather (mom's side).

Friday was devoted to LOTR, we had a marathon of sorts. Kurt's mom hadn't seen any of the movies, so we introduced her to the extended version of the FOTR (that's Fellowship of the Ring for those non-savvy). After she left and Kurt and I couldn't come up with anything to do, we watched the extended version of the Two Towers (aka TTT). Still not LOTR'd out, though. I'm ready for ROTK (return of the king)... it comes out on the 17th of this month.

On Saturday, I spent the day with my dad. We went to Arundel Mills where he bought me two pairs of shoes for Christmas, a nice pair of black dress shoes and a pair of brown sketchers for casual wear. I'm so happy, my old shoes were looking pretty sad... my other pair of dress shoes had holes in the sole! After that, we were going to go to the cemetary to visit my grandparent's grave, but it was a hoppin' day for funerals apparently and some guy who didn't have a firm grip on the english language told us to come back after half an hour. So we decided to bag that idea, since it was freezing and windy to boot! We ate at a Chinese restaurant that was one of my grandmother's favorites. I had honey sesame chicken and my dad had shrimp chow mein, I think. My fortune cookie was pretty lame, as they have been for some time. Whatever happened to the cool fortunes?

After lunch, we went to the Leisure world house... I got quite a few of my grandmother's Christmas things, ornaments, Santas, a ceramic Christmas tree and an urn. There were two large urns that I would have liked, but a) I don't have enough room for them at home and b) We didn't have enough room for them in my dad's car. We were packed in there like sardines, my dad could barely shift gears!

Sunday morning Kurtis and I went to pick out our Christmas tree. I was freezing my ass off because I forgot to bring a jacket. We picked a really nice one, but when we got home discovered that it was about a foot too high. Kurtis did quite a bit of work to get it in the house and in the stand. I later apologized to him for getting mad last year when he picked out the tree without me. Better late than never, right? Besides, I want Santa to bring me lots of presents this year and I have to make up for some of the bad things. ;-)

So the house is mostly decorated, the tree is up, lighted and mostly decorated. I wish that the cats would leave presents alone, because I really want to wrap presents and put them under the tree. Yes I know that it's early! I just like the way that it looks. :)

I'm going to try to be good and keep this thing updated. I swear!!!