nothing edifying

St. Louis auditions were today. Having once lived in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, I am glad to report that St. Louis was worse! Even cringier!
Um. Woohoo! :D

Although usually I love watching Simon, I thought he was sort of mean to the triplets. Calling them fat? Pointless. He said the same thing about Kimberley Locke, but she did ok. Yut points out that it might have helped them if they hadn’t gone in dressed the way they did (little short pink mini dresses with frilly bottoms). It was like 3 Barbie wannabes. Simon et. al. didn’t comment on people who were bigger than the triplets who dressed less Barbie-ish.

Actually though, today, all the judges (except Simon) were cattier. Simon was normal level for him.

Even though I spend all this time talking about American Idol, it’s not even my favorite reality tv show — it’s just the one that started after I started blogging:p My fave reality tv show is The Amazing Race. But it’s not a guilty pleasure because I genuinely think that it’s a good show. This particular installment though, has been a little disappointing because all of the people left in the race are the younger, physically fitter, “pretty” couples. It’s more fun when it’s different types of people with different relationships with each other (like sisters, best friends, &c&c). Two of the teams are being called a “model alliance” and it’s not because they have held onto an alliance for this long:p It’s because the 4 people in the two teams are actors and/or models:p And there’s only 6 teams left (I haven’t seen this week’s episode because we have it saved on our ReplayTV DVR). So yeah, but whatever, it’s still fun. And let’s not forget that Phil (the host) is definitely “a choo-choo Charlie and a class act,” to quote Kristy, one of the contestants who is already out. :D

Wait, I just realized: I have a favorite reality tv show! Gah. <shame> But not enough to stop watching:p

American Idol is my guilty little secret. Well not-so-secret, now.
I can’t help it, I somehow enjoy watching Simon excoriate every marginally or not-so-marginally talented person who dares audition. Even better, I enjoy watching these people act surprised and insulted and as if they can’t believe he’d be so rude when he says something horrible — hello people, this is season 4! Granted, it’s a sort of schadenfreude, but I love schadenfreude. Well it’s schadenfreude interspersed with moments of I-can’t-bear-to-watch-this-poor-guy-embarass-him(or her)self-like-this-any-longer <cringe>. It’s also fun to watch the other judges wuss out and have Simon make the first comment whenever the person did pretty badly. So auditioners, if the judges say, “Simon?” after your audition you are screwed! He’s not always in the majority, and he’s not always right, but if they are quiet and have Simon comment first it’s overs, sorry, goodbye!

During tonight’s tv watching (I watched a lot of tv tonight actually — 2 episodes of Law & Order: SVU (last week and this week’s, thank you Replay), and Jeopardy besides the American Idol), I saw an advertisement with former Presidents Bush and Clinton in a joint effort to encourage tsunami relief donations and advertise a .gov address where vetted aid organizations are listed (I don’t remember the link, sorry, but this list of Organizations Working in the Disaster Area should be similar). Anyways, even though it’s for a good cause, still I felt sort of annoyed by them and the ad. They both looked so uncomfortable somehow and yet so eager to be in front of the camera, or something. Just weird. Then one of their lines was something like “We speak tonight not as Presidents, but as private citizens” and the first thought that came was “DUH!! You’re ex-Presidents! Of course you’re not speaking as the President!!” Grrr. Nitpicky, I know:p

Anyhows, moving on! Well okay, moving on, but with one parting quote from Miss Manners:

Our Founding Fathers established American protocol to be simple and unpretentious – and thus antithetical to the modern taste.

Nevertheless, the rule is that titles pertaining to an office that only one person occupies at a time are not used after retirement. A former president can use a previously held, non-unique title, as the first one did by reverting to Gen. Washington in retirement, or the plain citizen’s “Mr.”

This means that former President Bush should probably be Ambassador Bush (his highest non-unique previous title, if I am remembering it right) and former President Clinton should be Governor Clinton. Gah. Self-aggrandizing, that’s how it seemed somehow, even though it was about giving aid to others.

Okay, back to the whole moving on thing! We did another load of laundry today! Yay:)

Hehe, that sounds like a soap opera. A bad one:p

Okay, so I’ve been told that I did NOTHING this weekend. But it’s not true! I mean, besides the eating and the hanging out and the beating down of the Carthaginian army (I haven’t had a chance to completely smash their whole civilization yet, what with my busy weekend and all) and the managing of my Sims, I had to sleep!

Yesterday (Sunday the 16th) we went to 99 and got groceries. Sorry CT, I did NOT go up and down every single damn aisle!! Anyhows, in the shopping center/plaza/mall thingie that the 99 is in, there’s a pho place so we had pho (this is like turning out to be a food diary. I can’t help it, I love eating and food. If sleeping were more interesting, I would mention it in more detail also) which was good. I don’t know if it’s my favorite pho place — it probably is, and it’s certainly the one I go to the most — but it’s definitely a good pho place. Plus they make those shrimp and pork spring rolls that I love so much. The most important part of the spring roll to me is the peanut sauce. I’ve had pretty good spring rolls that were ruined for lack of a yummy peanut sauce. Or maybe they were mediocre in the first place, I can’t remember except that the peanut sauce wasn’t good:p So yeah, that was the shopping trip. Then we came home and played games:) My family in the Sims lost the grandfather and the old grandmother completely lost it — she was going gaga on the floor. A male therapist came down out of nowhere a la Mary Poppins (umbrella and all) and tried to get her together. He had to float down 3 times in a row cos she kept losing it:p So I finally created another family with an old dude to help her out. Haven’t played her since, so we’ll have to see how this works out.

Oh yeah, the laundry, we did 1 load of laundry today — the whites. But that’s the most important pile cos I was running low on undies. Only one load because someone else was doing laundry for part of the day. And tonight we had hot pot. We dumped in those fried tofu stuffs, clams, meat, enoki mushrooms, napa cabbage, fish dumplings, and quail eggs. Yum:)

Alas, work tomorrow. Oh well, at least it’s a short week:p

Saturday I slept in ’til about 1pm (you may want to read that as 1something:p), waking up only cos I had to pee pretty badly, not cos I set any sort of alarm:D It felt so lovely snuggled up inside the flannel sheets and comforter (omg, my fingers just typed out “computer” when I meant to type “comforter,” this is sick:p). I love flannel in winter.

I called misa up cos we’d said something about a dinner on Saturday earlier on this last week, but along with bad time sense, I’m not really a great planner unless I have to — if I am ever in an interview, and they ask me about my logistical talents, I would be screwed. So anyhows, we made dinner plans for 7:30. Clearly, this meant that I would have plenty of time later for chores, so I got Yut to play some hotseat Civ III with me instead… Civ is one of those games where once I start, a whole day can go by with me in my pj’s thinking, “just ONE more turn, then I’ll…” Which is what happened. But I’ll tell you what: The Celts are smashing the Carthaginians!!! That’ll teach you to pick on me, Hannibal, elephant or no elephant! (disclaimer: There are no elephant units in Civ III, please do not buy this game hoping for elephants; the Carthaginian unique unit in the game is the Numidian mercenary.) I only stopped at 6:50 or so cos I just had to get ready to leave the apartment and also, I still had her belated birthday presents unwrapped:p

We went to Pearl Oyster Bar & Restaurant because all of us love raw oysters and raw fish and raw whatever basically. They don’t take reservations, and the wait was an hour but they gave us a big lobster shaped pager (really cool looking — neb took a picture I will try to get a copy). So we went a couple doors down to Cactus Taqueria and got a pitcher of beer and some crispy shrimp tacos — yum! Those Cactus crispy tacos are soooo good! Then we went to Pearl and got some wine and the oyster sampler, tuna poke, Maine peekytoe crab cakes, and spiced fries with aioli. Everything was delicious! They had 6 types of oysters, all good; the tuna poke was raw tuna, diced and marinated with soy sauce, sesame oil, and ginger served on a bed of diced cucumber with a sesame cracker; the crab cakes had lots of crab; and the fries I think were spiced with paprika (all ingredient type information is just guesses on my part). Yut and I shared a hot fudge sundae for dessert and neb and misa had Meyer lemon cheesecake, I think. It was all yummilicious:) The only quibble I have with this restaurant is that I think if we hadn’t all had 1 1/2 tacos before we went to Pearl, not all of us would’ve been totally full.

Then we came back and played Mario Power Tennis and Ikaruga for a little bit. Yut and misa beat neb and me… I blame the alcohol and the cold:p I also showed misa The Sims 2 cos I really like it, we both enjoyed The Sims Bustin’ Out on the GameCube, and in May I think it will come out for the Mac. Actually, the Sims is a big seller and v. popular, I had thought that they did have a Mac version already; I can’t understand why they didn’t have simultaneous Mac and Windows releases — that just seems silly to me. Anyways, I had a lovely time.

So far this weekend, I have accomplished a lot!: the stay home (most of the day), play games (lots), sleep (lots), eat (yummy), which leaves just the laundering and the grocerying:p Plenty of time left, I think I’ll go play some Sims now:)

Ooooh yes! It’s Friday! And thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr. I get Monday off too. Still though, somehow, it won’t make going back to work Tuesday any easier:p
But I’m getting too far ahead of myself.

I loooooove weekends. Basically because I can sleep in and not have to keep track of time. I have horrible time sense, so keeping track of time is hard, and I LOVE SLEEP. You know how people talk about how they can get by with like 6 hours of sleep or whatever? Well NOT me! I need more like 8 minimum and 9 for happiness, with a capacity for sleeping something close to 20 hours being my current record. So yeah, the weekdays, they’re just soooo tough! And the weekend, it’s such bliss:)

But this weekend, I think I have to do some choresy stuff. We haven’t gone grocery shopping since before Christmas last year, and the fridge is mighty bare. Not that I don’t like takeout mind you. Just it’s been a while since I cooked anything. Also, laundry, haven’t done laundry since New Years. So yes, that. But besides those 2 things, I am planning on doing what I do most weekends: Stay home! Play games! Read books!

We’ll see how much of that I actually manage to accomplish this weekend. Ha! :D

Ha! So I know I said I felt tired, but this is ridiculous:

On my way home from work, I passed by a homeless guy. Only instead of saying, “Any spare change?” he said, “You look really tired; you go on home and get some rest!”

I know he meant well, but it left me thinking, “OMG!!!!! I must’ve looked like such a HAG ALL DAY at work!”

Shit.

Looking up at the bedroom ceiling…

I am sooo tired. It’s been a long day — except it hasn’t really been a long day, but that’s how it feels. I just moved cubicles again this week. You’d think that every cube is the same in cubicle land, but it’s not:p Now my “door” is not right out the hallway, but I’m right near the main entrance door and for some reason it sounds like there’s a great big wind blowing all the time out there in the lobby/elevator area. Oh well… all I can say is, I was pleasantly surprised by this whole cubicle thing… I think I was imagining some kind of Office Space sitch, so my expectations were v. v. low:) Ha, guess that worked out. I don’t think everyone had my type of thinking, and also, some of them were moving from offices with a nice window view so their perspectives are different. Okay, all sleepy, gonna go home now. Ooooh yeah another thing, I have a purple chair! Ooooh yes! :)

The funny thing is… I’m jumping on the blogging bandwagon just now — my friend has a blog and even my cousin in high school has a blog. Cos I’m slow like that. Also cos I read a lot of good blogs and I’d like to write one. Anyhows, okay that’s all for now. More in a bit, maybe.