August 2010

It's not easy being green...


Contrary to popular belief, I have not yet melted.  It's been hot enough though.  Nevertheless, I'm still here.  I haven't broken down into a puddle of Mer flavored goo on the steaming sidewalk despite this summer's best attempts to make Melted Mer a reality.  How are you all holding up?  Try strapping some ice packs to your thighs with ace bandages.  It really helps.

Okay, I'm kidding.

Well, not really.

Let's just get on with it.

10.  Despite the fact that this summer's heat has been merciless, I've been fairing pretty well on the weekends thanks to my pool.  I've spent more time in my pool this summer than probably all the previous summers since I've had the pool combined.  Because of this, I'm happy to tell you that my tan is fully realized.  I know, I know....skin cancer.  I KNOW.  There is this consensus that pale people should be pale and being brown should be left to those with a lot of naturally occurring melanin or a plethora of really good bronzing powders.  Yeah, screw that.  I'm a good girl.  I wear my sunscreen.....on body and face.  Regardless, sunscreen or not, you spend enough time in a pool and you're going to get tan.  I'm tan.  I'm, like, Zulu Warrior tan.  I'm so tan, I had to go out and buy darker makeup because the normal stuff I own is too pale.  And I love it.

9.  Because I'm signed up for their newsletter or some such thing, GolfChannel.com sends me all kinds of fun little things from their site like Playing Tips and Quotes of the Week and Photos of the Week and photo galleries of players I have listed on my Favorites list.  Not long ago, they sent me this one of Ian Poulter (and this Spanish dude who is not Sergio named Alvaro Quiros) and it made me completely fall out laughing.  Look at this silliness:

I took one look at that shit and just lost it laughing.  I don't know what they're doing but the first thing that popped into my head was "I love to sing-a, about the moon-a and the June-a and the spring-a!"  It's helped along by the fact that Ian is dressed like a cross between an Easter Parade and member of some barbershop quartet at the Spring Pageant.  I was totally slain with giggles.

8.  I went to Ravinia last weekend.  For those of you non-Illinois people who are unfamiliar, Ravinia is a big outdoor music festival that goes on all summer.  They showcase all kinds of acts from jazz performers to blue grass to big bands to pop.  Last weekend, I took my mom and a few of her friends to see Crosby Stills & Nash at Ravinia.  It was a nice night with wine and snacks and good music.....and I didn't get one mosquito bite.  I love me some Crosby Stills & Nash and even though they didn't play my favorite song (Suite: Judy Blue Eyes....which I guess is hard to do without Neil Young), it was a pretty entertaining show.  And I didn't get one mosquito bite!

7.  Number seven is going to begin the movie segment of this month's list.  There will be some intermissions between but this is the first of numerous movie references so settle in.  Make popcorn if you want.  So, I went to see Salt.  Truly, there are few things better for me than watching Angelina Jolie be a complete badass for like two hours.  I don't care how you feel about her and Brat Pitt and their cornucopia of children and whether she stole Brad from lame ass Jennifer Aniston or whatever.....she still kicks ass at being a smoking hot badass on screen.  Plus, Salt has Liev Schreiber.  I don't know what it is about Liev Schreiber but I find him almost terminally sexy.  I don't know if its his voice or his cheeks or what but he really has it going on.  Plus, it was a pretty good movie.  The plot was actually interesting and it channeled the old spy movies from the eighties where the bad guys were always Russians.  I miss Russian villians.  They're fun.  Salt has them so, you know, WIN.

6.  While taking the wheelie bin out to the curb one Sunday night, Joe and I found a little frog.  I mean like a seriously LITTLE frog.  Here, look:

I think it's a cricket frog or a little tree frog of some kind.  I was instantly in love with this frog.  He was the tiniest little frog ever and he just sat in my hand and didn't try to leave and didn't pee on me.  He was just a nice little frog who loved me.  And I loved him for the whole 20 minutes I was allowed to keep him.  Then Joe made me put him in the yard because he said it wasn't nice to keep him in captivity.  I knew he was right but I cried anyway.  Every night when I let the dogs out, I look for him.  I told Joe if I ever find him again, I'm keeping him and I'm naming him Rambo.  Best little frog ever.

5.  A number of days ago, I was jonesing for some Japanese hibachi so Joe and I went to our favorite local hibachi place, Tokyo House, and had us some hibachi.  Usually, hibachi tables seat eight or ten people.  As Joe and I are only a crowd of two, we got seated with some other people we didn't know.  It was a dude and his brother and their mom and the first dude's two little sons.  I don't know if it was the mom's birthday or what but there they were.  The little boys in question were like four and seven years old.  The four year old was sitting directly across from me and he totally made my night.  When the chef came out, he started doing the customary utensil flipping routine.  He had a metal spatula and a big knife and he was just flipping them all around like the drummer from Motley Crue or something.  This is such a customary hibachi thing, I barely notice it anymore.  The little boy across from me, however, noticed in a big, BIG way.....and he totally flipped his shit.  He freaked right the hell out.  He had a combined look of fascination and complete terror on his face.  He looked like he didn't know if he wanted to run or cheer so he split the difference and put his napkin over his head and sat very, very still.  He'd pull the napkin away a touch and peek out and then freak out and duck under the napkin again.  Once he realized there was no immediate threat to his person, he took the napkin off but continued to hide all parts of his face from the nose down behind the napkin.  He could see but he still had his seemingly impenetrable napkin shield to protect him.  He finally came out from all forms of hiding.....and then the chef lit the grill on fire.  The child did the silent scream.  His face was contorted into a look of screaming horror but no sound came out.  It was like a scream on mute.  Again, there was the napkin hiding routine......and then he realized he was in no combustible danger.......and then the chef starting flipping eggs around with his spatula.  At this, I thought the kid was going to have a stroke.  It was so cute and so funny at the same time, I almost died.  I think I felt a kind of kinship with this child because I tend to react oddly to things too.  I mean, I can watch a scary movie and laugh but scream with terror because toast pops out of the toaster.  I'm very easily startled so I know what it is to see something flying around and think my life is in immediate and pressing peril.  Poor kid.  He has a life of being scraped off the ceiling ahead of him.  Either way, it was complete hilarity.

4.  Movie segment, part two.  Like all geeks, I was geeking out about Scott Pilgrim Versus the World.  Most fun movie I've seen this year.  It's funny and it's clever and it's unique and it's a total blast.  I don't think it's really for anyone who isn't of the geek species.  It's pure geek fodder.  Nevertheless, if you played video games in the 1980s, this movie is for you.  Personally, I'm kind of over Michael Cera.  He just does the same things over and over again and it works for him.....but, you know, the world already has a Matthew Perry.  Either way, he's very enjoyable in this film.  So is whichever Culkin kid is in it.  He cracked me up big time, whoever the hell he is.  It wasn't the Home Alone Culkin and it wasn't the Signs Culkin....so whichever one is left, that's who it was.  Keiran maybe.  I don't know.  There's too many effing Culkins.  Anyway, there are so many things in the movie that are just so silly and random and ridiculous and it was such fun.  :o)

3.  I'm not going to go on and on about it because I went on and on about it the first time I saw it but Avatar was re-released in theaters in 3D with nine minutes of extra footage.  I'm telling you, I practically did a jig to the theater.  I love that movie.  I don't care what you say.  I LOVE it.  3D Ultrascreen, baby!  I want to see it like 80 times before it goes away again.

2.  I've got tickets to see the Penguins play the Blackhawks on October 1st.  I guarantee you that I will be the ONLY person in the building in a Penguins jersey and I'd probably end up getting the shit kicked out of me were I not going to be with three other people who are burly and will be wearing Blackhawks jerseys.  If you watch it on television, when the Penguins score a goal, that one person cheering madly and screaming "I AM SCORE!" will be me.  Feel free to bask in the glory of my awesomeness.

1.  The Wizard World ComiCon was just here.  Let me tell you, this is like a geek's heaven.  Not as much as the ComiCon in San Diego but good enough.  I had such a great time.  I got a Firefly statue that was signed by Nathan Fillion, and I saw Data and Chekov and Kirk from Star Trek live and in the flesh, and I saw Adam West, and I talked to Adrienne Curry from America's Next Top Model/My Fair Brady (who was AWESOME, by the way), and I got all the True Blood comic books, and I got a Wesley Crushers shirt.  If you watch The Big Bang Theory, you should know all about The Wesley Crushers bowling team.  I was totally geeking out about that shirt.  I also got a cool Spock shirt and a Fruity Oaty Bars shirt.  There were lots of geeks there in awesome costumes just geeking it up and having a great time.  It's nice to be around a horde of fellow geeks.  It's like you can fly your freak flag as loudly and as boldly as you want and people don't laugh at you or judge you or make fun of you.  More times than not, they stop and look at your freak flag and say "that's cool!"  Geeks don't get that a lot.  Even though it's kind of cool to be a geek now (I mean, just look at TV.  The Big Bang Theory, Chuck...), geeks still get looked down upon and made fun of.  Sometimes, you know, we just like to gather together and feel cool and accepted.  And even if you think being the cool kid at the comic book convention is lame, just remember that Shatner was there.....and Shatner fucking loves us.......and NOTHING is cooler than Shatner.

So, there you have it.  I have some fun things going on in the coming months so these lists should get more interesting.  Is interesting the right word?  I don't know.  I don't care.  I'm out like trout!  Until next time, my little globs of peanut brittle!