Peace out

Tomorrow is the Maestro's last day at work.

Quiz

Q: Guess who has reservations to the Aaron Karo show in NYC?
A: This girl.

I'm not even sure who's going with me - Erica? Kerry? Michael?

Roxie - I'll try to put in a good word for you and get you one step closer to being Mrs. Karo.

Shuttlecocks

Before leaving the Kansas City area Friday, I swung by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. While the collection itself didn't exactly change my life, the building was nice and the parking lot was the second nicest art museum parking lot behind Milwaukee - the holes in its roof were under the reflecting pool in front of the building, creating an impressive underwater effect. However, what drew me to the museum in the first place was the Claes Oldenburg sculpture above, which I'm pretty sure I prefer to our hometown Oldenburg - the spoon bridge. The museum has three of the sculptures - this one in front and two more in the sculpture garden on the back lawn. Of course there are more pictures on Flickr.

Alicia's guide to baby books

She doesn't know it yet, but my friend Phyllis is totally getting these books when she pops out the miniature person currently growing in her belly.

Runway

Thanks to the PR marathon on Bravo yesterday I was able to finally catch this week's episode. (No Bravo in Independence, MO? Shocker.) Daniel V. is emerging as a serious contender, although I personally liked Andrae and Chloe's dresses better. Plus, could my Santino-Austin Scarlett comparison have been more prophetic? Jay totally called out Santino for making a so/so dress using the same exact fabric Austin used for the Grammy's dress competition in Season 1. Right now I think any of the remaining 6, except Kara, could end up in the final 3.

I also learned Project Jay will be starting soon - finally.

...and although Diana annoyed me (she looked like a mannequin when she talked - her top lip never moved), I'm a big fan of the Fashion Nerd button she's selling on her website. I'm pretty sure I need one.

Downright disturbing

This makes less than no sense to me. Believe your eyes - that's Liza's ex David Gest and Da Brat. I fear the world may soon start spinning in the opposite direction.

Your friend recommends

I know I just raved about Lackawanna Blues, but if you take only one of my suggestions, Netflix Mad Hot Ballroom. You can thank me later. It's about children and I still loved it. That should tell you something. What's funny is I had moderate expectations for both movies, which they have far exceeded.

History you should know

I've said before that I have what I considered to be embarrassing lack of historical knowledge. If I were on Jeopardy!, any history category would be the death of me.

That said, I've been trying to read as many history/historically-accurate books as possible to increase my knowledge and have found them very helpful. At 10 separate occasions in every such book I say to myself "self, why don't I know that?"

A perfect example: in Assassination Vacation, I learned that John Wilkes Booth's family was the 19th century equivalent of the Baldwins (ok, that's not that important)...and that Booth's brother, years after the assassination, rescued a young man he didn't know from being killed by a train when the boy fell on the tracks. The boy was Abraham Lincoln's son.

Shouldn't that be an anecdote every school-age child knows? It's a perfect example of irony, at the very least. It makes history interesting and memorable. But instead, every child knows that George Washington cut down a cherry tree, which isn't even a f&%*ing true story.

Seen at the Independence, MO mall

• A dumpy teenage girl wearing a "Rock out with your cock out" shirt. Just when Laura was helping me warm up to clever (or not so clever) tshirts, something like this happens. Honey, this trend was started by Kevin Federline, whose example no one should ever follow....and do I need to point out that you, in fact, have no cock with which to rock out even if you so desired.
• Dippin' Dots: the ice cream of the future. You can't claim to be the ice cream of the future for decades on end. The future is here and you are not its ice cream. Case closed.

Am I missing something here?

Do hotels really keep any amount of cash worth stealing on hand or are these the dumbest robbers ever? People don't really still pay hotels with cash, do they?

Armed robbers hit local hotels

Change of Heart

Wasn't that the name of the cheesy dating show in the 2am time slot Laura, Kerry and I watched multiple night/mornings during college?

Anyhow, I've blogged about how I don't wear shirts with words on them. For damn good reasons, if I don't say so myself. However, I really think Laura should wear the tshirts she's been blogging about:

Jesus Hates the Yankees
More Cowbell

...and I would make a personal exception for:

Stay Golden

Worst Date(s) Ever

So the newest trend in speed dating is eye gazing parties, which is basically like speed dating except you just stare at your partner of the moment for 3 straight minutes with no talking. Could you imagine anything more uncomfortable? How do you stare at someone and not talk for 3 whole minutes? Does anyone else find the whole thing slightly creepy? Aren't the awkward silences supposed to come a little later in the relationship? There is nothing about this concept that makes sense to me.

Your friend recommends

Lackawanna Blues

You cold watch it only for the music and still not be disappointed. I'd like to nominate S. Epatha Merkerson for "Best Performance by an Actor Alicia Previously Only Knew from Law and Order." She will lose to Jesse L. Martin for his performance in Rent, but it's nice just to be nominated, right?

PS - I wish I was smart like Bejota and could make my Netflix movies automatically appear on my blog.

Disappointment on ice

After brewing beer on Saturday, we headed to Lake Calhoun to watch Gopher and Badger alumni play at the US Pond Hockey Championship. You'll notice the website says the game started at 5.30, so explain to me why it was ending when we showed up at approx. 5.50. We weren't even around long enough to hear who was playing from Minnesota. Big bummer, but it turns out Wisconsin beat Minnesota by 10 points anyway.

California Steam

(No, not Cleveland Steamer, you pervert.) Julie, Brandon, Laura and I hit the Vine Park Brewery this weekend to make our very own beer. There were a ton of options, and we setlled on brewing up a batch of California Steam, which is basically a Designer Imposter of Anchor Steam. We brewed the beer on Saturday and now it will stay with the nice men at Vine Park while it ferments. We'll go back in two weeks to bottle it and we get to make our own labels to put on the bottles...and no, we will not put your picture on it, so don't even ask. Above is Master Brewer me putting some hops in our brew tun. More pictures on Flickr.

Painful

I'm thoroughly convinced the woman who writes the blurbs for ktiv.com did not make it through freshman english...and I'm talking high school, not college.

Accused of holding up a Sioux Falls store and then holing up in a North
Sioux City, South Dakota, hotel with a semi-automatic pistol, Thursday Eric Hogie learned he could face 25 years in prison. Under extra security
and with special shackles, 24-year-old Hogie makes his way to a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, courtroom where he tells a judge he did not a rob a grocery store.

Check out the full article here if you think I must be making this up.

Mark your calendars

Bob Schneider will be back Sat. April 1. Tarantula!

PR Update

Fantastic episode last night!! All along I've thought the top 3 had to be Santino, Chloe, and Nick with Santino probably winning it all. Now I've got the feeling Santino may be cut before the top 3 because he refuses to adapt his style to the task at hand, similar to Austin Scarlett last season. My money's on Chloe now, but it looks like it's anyone's game.

I'm also v. excited for Jay McCarroll's appearance as a judge next week - looks like he'll have plenty of catty things to say...and you know how I like that.

Book corner

For those who haven't already read it, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America is amazing. It brings together two of my seemingly different interests, architecture and true-crime stories, remarkably well. I've also discovered I enjoy history when learned through books like this. A critic compared it to In Cold Blood, which is a bold comparison, but I have to agree. It's a damn good book.

Now I get to start Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. I might as well go ahead and say right now that I love it. Everything she does is magic.

Embarrasing email string of the day

Laura (through Netflix) : Your friend thinks you would enjoy The Great Transatlantic Cable: American Experience

Me: Do you know what's disturbing? I've seen this. My dad and I watched it over Christmas. If it wasn't this, it was a similar show about the cable. I'm nerdier than you even know.

Laura: Don't worry - while browsing NetFlix I realized I've seen Tupperware: American Experience.

Me: You win.

Another reason to love Netflix

I'm getting a little bored with the yoga video I have, so I was very happy to see Netflix has plenty of yoga videos for me to try out before buying a new one.

Very informative

I was pretty excited to see this headline about being a page in the SD House of Representatives on my hometown newstation's website. It promised a behind the scenes look at being a page, but actually has the least information possible in a news story. I was a page myself and it doesn't even make sense to me. It was missing all the important behind the scenes happenings such as:

• Walking around tables for hours on end to put bills together for the representatives' bill books, since the fine state of SD did not own a copier that could collate
• Gossiping about which Rep. was the cutest and which Senator was the sluttiest
• Pages making out in empty committee rooms
• The woman who was in charge of pages being thisclose to a nervous breakdown at all times
• Trying to fend off the advances of the freaklishly tall red headed kid from somewhere in western SoDak, whose name escapes me

If anyone out there had any inkling of doubt about whether or not I'm a huge nerd, I think this has settled it.

Jamie Cullum

Sunday March 12.

Who's in?

Update: Never mind, I'll be on a plane.

Q: How much do I love the Clueless "Whatever Edition" DVD?
A: A lot.
I just realized I have thought Jeremy Sisto (on the left), who plays Elton on Clueless, and Erik Palladino, who was in Can't Hardly Wait, were the same person all my life. Oops.

To do in my lifetime

I learned from the Frank Lloyd Wright superfan who Laura linked to on her blog that you can rent FLW homes, like the Schwartz House in Two Rivers, WI. Since I doubt I'll ever be rich enough to own an FLW home, this is a good way to live the dream without forking over millions of dollars.

It's actually more reasonably priced than you'd think - about $50/person per night if you have 6 people staying there. Only problem is finding those 5 other people...or a sugardaddy to take me there. Anyone? Bueller? You know you want to.

Check it out

I uploaded quite a few new pictures to my Flickr page.

The Napa pictures are old, just wanted to get them on Flickr, but the Santa Barbara, Sioux City, MIA and Chicago pictures are brand spankin' new.

Book Corner

I just finished Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is This? Highly recommended if you're a big Dorothy Parker fan, but definitely too long if you're not. For those who aren't familiar, Dorothy wrote mainly short stories and poems and is known for her wit. For example:

“I wish I could drink like a lady / I can take one or two at the most / Three and I'm under the table / Four and I'm under the host”

“You can drag a horticulture, but you can't make her think.”

“Now I know the things I know, and I do the things I do; and if you do not like me so, to hell, my love, with you!”


“Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves.”

“It's a small apartment, I've barely enough room to lay my hat and a few friends.”

“It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.”

“That woman speaks 18 languages and can't say "No" in any of them”

“They sicken of the calm, who know the storm”

Money cannot buy health, but I'd settle for a diamond-studded wheelchair.

Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.

The Monte Carlo casino refused to admit me until I was properly dressed so I went and found my stockings, and then came back and lost my shirt.

If all the young ladies who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, no one would be the least surprised.

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy.

Thanks Laura

For finally sending the pictures of me in Manolos. How hot are they? Someday, they will be mine.

Too bad

I won't be around Santa Barbara for the SB International Film Festival. Let's be honest, though - I wouldn't have gotten an ounce of work done, especially since our conference room windows face State St., the main shopping and dining drag in SB. You know I'd be peeping my little head out the window all day watching for celebrities or sitting at the bar all night waiting for Philip Seymour Hoffman to show up. One way or another, it'd be the most unproductive week ever.

Above is the view from our window, which was distracting enough without celebrities below.

Home owner

...well, technically not until October, but I've settled on living in the "Brompton" unit in Olin Crossings. I wasn't initially searching in this neighborhood, but am superexcited to live near the light rail and Minnehaha Falls and in an up-and-coming neighborhood.

Fulfilling her role as hetero-lifemate, Laura accompanied me to the sales model and a cruise around the prospective neighborhood this afternoon. I was a big fan of the modern open look of the the models and the fact that the standard finishings were equivalent to upgrade options at many condos I've seen. Plus, since it's new construction, I get to specify exactly what I want, right down to where light switches go. How fun is that?

I'm also excited to furnish a real house, and basically want everything from the Chiasso catalog Laura passed on to me, especially the chrome arc floor lamp. I fell in love with a nearly identical lamp at Design Within Reach that cost over $2,000. Whose reach is that within I ask?

Apparently, this is supposed to make me want to go to Mexico

Somehow Wisconsin college students in khakis and Gap sweaters waving at me from the back of a moving fan just isn’t doing the trick.

Don’t get me wrong…

…I couldn’t be happier to be working in Santa Barbara. It beats the pants off Minneapolis in the winter. There are cool shops, fun bars, good restaurants, fantastic weather, the whole shebang. Only there are a few things that just do not make sense about the place.

Attractive girl to attractive guy ratio: There are more good-looking young girls here than you can imagine. It may end up being bad for my self-esteem, like Copenhagen or Iceland. However, there are close to zero equally attractive men. Hell, there aren’t even many decent looking guys. And although it’s pretty much raining hot girls, Sanders, despite his best efforts, has never been able to land one of these girls…this from the guy who could even find a girl in Salt Lake City. The only explanation I can come up with is Santa Barbara is the lipstick lesbian equivalent of Palm Springs.
The homeless people: I have to give the homeless people in SB one thing – you are smarter than the homeless people who live in Duluth. Not that homeless people have much of a choice where they live, so maybe it’s pure chance. Anyhow, I have zero sympathy for the majority of homeless people in SB because they’re my age and are not physically disabled in the slightest. After seeing you make out, practice skateboarding, and play with your dog all day while I work, don’t be surprised if I can’t find it in my heart to give you money. Get a damn job!

Other than that, it’s been all rainbows and sunshine in SB after the luggage debacle. I’m especially excited to pack some open-toed shoes for next week.

I’m afraid of birds and I don’t care what you think about me -Randy Hickey

Last night’s episode of My Name Is Earl is an instant TV classic for me. This show is fantastic overall, but I can personally relate to Randy’s debilitating fear of birds. (See here.) Him playing dead in front of the ostrich and whispering to the delinquent boys to “call the police” was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a while. I’m pretty sure I would do the same thing if face to face with one of those giant bird monsters.

Gossip

I love gossip as much as (OK much more than) the next person, but if Lindsay Lohan is IN THE HOSPITAL, wouldn't she have the pregnacncy test done there, instead of having an EPT delivered?

Maybe it's her little sister who's knocked up? Now there's a rumor.

My thoughts on mascots..in case you wanted to know

Knowing my love for mascots, Laura alerted me to this article on the Slate. Although I love mascots, I don't think I'd ever want to be one. The woman in the article dressed up as my favorite type of mascot - unrealistically tall blowup mascots - similar to the Timberwolves' bobblehead mascot which makes me giggle uncontrollably. Although I don't find physical comedy from real humans as funny as a well-placed sarcastic comment, I can't get enough of awkward mascots. I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm just telling you how I feel.

I remember one of the first times I met Marc "Queen of the Bitches" Wendorf, he cracked me up with stories of mistakes he had made while serving as Goldie and not wearing his glasses. I'm pretty sure it's why we're still friends to this day.

PS - Brandon alerted me that there are certain fetishists who have sex with mascots, and that said people have whole conventions devoted to doing so. I believe they are called "furries." Let me assure you my interest in mascots is totally G rated.

Book Corner

I can't remember what I read before these two books, so it must not have been too memorable, but these are both highly recommended:

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber : A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts
A superinteresting nonfiction book (seriously) that makes you wonder why fiction need exist if there are true stories this crazy.

A Clockwork Orange
To restore your faith in fiction. I had never seen this movie nor read the book, although it kept popping up on the lists of "people who enjoyed your selection, also enjoyed this" that are popular on Amazon, half.com and Netflix. Those lists were correct. What a fantastic book...and yes, the movie is in my Netflix queue.

My Hero

After United left my baggage in San Francisco, I tried many times and many ways to contact them with no success. After I gave up on United, I tried contacting the Santa Barbara airport directly, still no dice. Almost 24 hours in SB and still with no luggage, I was starting to get frustrated and cranky...if you know me, you know how I can get when I haven't had a proper shower with all the right products or when I have to rewear dirty clothes.

That's when Sanders stepped in and called the SB airport pretending to be my husband who was tired of dealing with a cranky woman and they told him exactly where my luggage was. Apparently, I need to take asshole lessons from him (not meant to be a backhanded compliment). I didn't see him make the call, but I can only imagine he looked as he does in the above picture when speaking to the jackass at the airport.

The reward for being my hero is one free drink while we watch the Rose Bowl tonight. I have a feeling the bars in SB will be pretty rowdy esta noche.

Coming up from behind

SFO is thisclose to being on my list of Worst 5 Airports. It's strictly anecdotal evidence, but I'm delayed every time I go through there. Is it just me? It's also a horrible place to be stuck - no shopping, ridiculously crowded, bad restaurants, it's loud, it has horrible lighting, it shakes...I could go on and on....

I'm pretty sure SFO is going to knock Keflavik off the list, only because I know it will piss off Marc to see his home airport on the list.

Speaking of less than impressive airports, let it be noted that the baggage claim at Santa Barbara airport is a tent. For real...but don't worry my luggage is still in San Francisco anyway. They did only have 2 hours to transfer it.

Holiday roundup

I left good old Jtown Thursday night after a superquick week at home. I can't remember doing much but eating, shopping, and playing games for an entire week which was pretty fabulous. Debbie Kay and I went to the Sioux City Art Center and the Woodbury County Courthouse for some culture. I'll get the pictures up on Flickr soon.
After approx. 12 hours in Mpls, Laura and I left for Madison Friday afternoon. Saturday morning, Laura, Christina and I went to Milwaukee for lunch and to pick up Missy, then it was off to Chicago, where we checked out Millenium Park (again, pictures to follow) and picked up Mel. For New Year's Eve, we five ladies partook (is that a word?) in Deemo-Palooza at Mark, Deemo and Steve's apartment. Thanks boys - you were excellent hosts. Today, Mel and Christina left for Johannesburg, Missy left for San Francisco and Laura and I headed to Todd's house. Now we're at Amy and Marc's house recovering from our hangovers. Tomorrow I leave for Santa Barbara for work and Laura drives back to Mpls solo. Confused yet? I am and I was there for all of this.