Lenten Fail

Yeah, so - I'm still logging into Facebook. I fail.

I mean, it's not bad, really. It's only to check to make sure that no one is still trying to contact me with important info through facebook. Though, I am really surprised at how much SPAM I'm getting in my notifications now. I log off for 24 hours and I have 10 new notifications - most of which are ads. It's really bizarre.

But at least I've cut back significantly. That's a start, right?

Ben and Jerry's Does Politics

A friend posted this to MK-O recently. Hysterical. Just thought I'd share because everyone loves ice cream!

Ben & Jerry’s created "Yes Pecan!" ice cream flavor for President Obama. They then asked people to fill in the blank to the following: For George W. Bush, we should create "_________".

Here are some of their favorite responses:

1. Grape Depression
2. Abu Grape
3. Cluster Fudge
4. Nut'n Accomplished
5. Iraqi Road
6. Chock 'n Awe
7. WireTapioca
8. Impeach Cobbler
9. Guantanamallow
10. imPeachmint
11. Good Riddance You Lousy Motherf’er...Swirl
12. Heck of a Job, Brownie!
13. Neocon Politan
14. RockyRoad to Fascism
15. The Reese's-cession
16. Cookie D'oh!
17. The Housing Crunch
18. Nougalar Proliferation
19. Death by Chocolate...and Torture
20. Credit Crunch
21. Country Pumpkin
22. Chunky Monkey in Chief
23. George Bush Doesn't Care About Dark Chocolate
24. WMDelicious
25. Chocolate Chimp
26. Bloody Sundae
27. Caramel Preemptive Stripe
28. I broke the law and am responsible for the deaths of thousands...with nuts

Is it that time of year already?

Happy Mardi Gras! Of course, this means that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent.

So what did I decide to give up?

Facebook. Yeah - seriously. Just as everyone was starting to migrate over from MySpace, I've decided to give up the social networking site for 40 days. So no logging in... no surfing on my IPod, no keeping the browser window open at work... nothing. I'm done with photo posting, status updates, and wall-spamming.

It really is difficult. I logged off tonight and restarted my browser after surfing ITunes. Force of habit put me back on the homepage. Guess I'll have some web-reworking to do.

Why give up something so trivial? Well, isn't that the point of the Lenten season? Give up something that doesn't make you a better Catholic? Granted, I haven't been to church in... well... a really long time... but I could be doing so many other things than surfing on to Facebook. Like spending time with M, practicing my dance steps, exercising, cooking, or meditating. Sitting in front of the computer at night does take away from some of my social time. And I seem to communicate with my friends more through wall posts than from phone calls and emails.

So that's why I'm taking a break for 40 days. I'm sure I'll break down a few times and check on certain people here and there. But I won't be on 24/7 y'know.

But for those of you who are following the blog on Facebook: you'll still see notes posted because my Blogger account is synced with Facebook Notes. But I'm not actually logging in. (That's not cheating!)

See you in 40 days!

Minty Fresh

It's amazing what you discover when you are on the road. Late night news watching prompted me to sign up for mint.com: a personal finance tracking website that allows you see your spending habits without having to do the math.

It sounds a little sketchy at first. Enter in all your bank log in info and let the pie charting commence. But I figure, if the local news is reporting on it, it can't be that bad, right? (Plus, there is a whole privacy policy, secure server, statement all over their website. I think we're okay.)

So now, I can see how much I really DO spend at Target per month. Oh... wait... this is supposed to be a good thing?

Anyway, the point is to see, on average, how much we spend where per month. And then set a budget. And maybe stick to it.

Just a tip: turn off the alerts to your email. Otherwise you are gonna get spammed every time you fall below a certain balance or go over budget during the month.

Movies Move Me

With the weather being the way it was this weekend, plus having an extra day off on Monday, I decided to take advantage of my extensive free time by catching a couple of movies.

As I mentioned before, I saw Slumdog Millionaire on Friday with M. This movie is well worth your $10. It's not the most feel good movie ever, and frankly, I left the theater feeling more like a greedy American, but it is a good film. The story is kind of familiar (guy loses girl, guy tries to find girl, guy has loser-ganster brother... etc.) but the way its told is totally unique. Plus, you get to see a nifty little Bollywood dance during the ending credits. Hooray!
Verdict: SEE IT NOW!!!

Sunday included dinner with K and J and Burn After Reading. This was a movie I originally wanted to see when it was in the theater because Brad Pitt plays a complete moron. Well, let's just say that this was one of the most f'ed up movies I've ever seen. Actually, I wasn't really sure what the plot was. A brief synopsis: everyone is sleeping with everyone else. People die. And the CIA are involved. The end. Oh, and Brad Pitt plays a funny gym rat.
Verdict: see it... but you need a dark sense of humor.

I took advantage of Netflix's Instant Play option and watched Across the Universe on Monday. I remember seeing previews for this a while ago, but don't remember the premise. Storyline is simple enough. But it was kind of like watching Mama Mia on LSD. Every character is named after a Beatles song (Jude... Lucy... Max[well]... Prudence). The characters bust out into Beatles songs throughout the movie. There is lots of sex, drugs and rock and roll. And Bono makes an appearance and sings "I Am the Walrus." What? Wacky. Kind of glad M missed that one. The crazy animation sequences probably would have freaked him out.
Verdict: I'd say it was worth it. But I probably would have liked a few martinis before taking this on.

Names

Because I can't get enough facebook spam - so I'm bringing this over here too:


1. YOUR REAL NAME:
Jennifer Marie

2. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME (mother and fathers middle names):
Marie McDonald (Not bad... not bad at all. I could move to the midwest and stuff.)

3. NASCAR NAME (first name of your mother's dad, father's dad):
Tony Wallace (I can't make this stuff up...)

4. STAR WARS NAME (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name):
Groje (now, the trick would be to figure out if you pronounce the "j" as "jay" or if you pronounce it has "hey."Hmmm... decisions...)

5. DETECTIVE NAME (favorite color, favorite animal):
Brown Cat (well, that's just pathetic.)

6. SOAP OPERA NAME (middle name, town where you were born):
Marie Hayward

7. SUPERHERO NAME (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning):
The Aqua Latte?

8. FLY NAME (first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name):
Jess

9. ROCK STAR NAME (current pets name, current street name):
Lucy Beadnell (I kind of like that...)

10. PORN NAME (1st pet, street you grew up on):
Cleo Adrian (technically, our first pet was Bozo, but we got Cleo, the goldfish soon after.)

11. YOUR GANGSTA NAME (first 4 letters of real name plus izzle):
Jennizzle

13.YOUR GOTH NAME (black, and the name of one of your pets):
Black Lucy

14. STRIPPER NAME (name of your fav perfume, fav candy):
Happy White Chocolate (say... what?)

Happy V-D!

What? V-D isn't appropriate? Fine. Yes - it's Valentine's Day y'all. Even as a married woman, I can't stand this holiday. (Although - it did give me the excuse to bust out my bright red Puma sneakers.) I mean, fine - the holiday is cool for little kids with puppy love crushes, new relationships and newlyweds. Granted, I'm still technically a "newlywed," I've been with M for a little over 4 years. And he never liked the holiday to begin with.

This time around, we're actually going to a nice dinner. (Which is shocking in itself - I'm all for eating at Jack's, but something about a good prime rib is definitely calling my name.) So we're heading to Carver's with J and B tonight.

But even last night, things were all V-day like. M and I checked out Slumdog Millionaire because we've had this Regal Theater gift certificate sitting on our fridge for the past 5 months. (The movie was incredible! Definitely see it if you can.) But there were lots and lots of couples (some more decked out than others) in the theater too. So I guess more and more smart couples realize that you don't need ONE day to celebrate your love for one another.

Apparently you need an extended weekend. *groans*

Anyway, happy Valentine's Day or Singles Awareness Day to all.

Movie Buff

I finally broke down and rejoined Netflix today. I'm hoping that I can catch up on the movies that I failed to watch growing up (and within the last several years.)

The top five on my list:

1) Burn After Reading
2) Amelie
3) Hairspray
4) Failure to Launch
5) In Her Shoes

And Slumdog Millionaire is in there too. But won't be available until March. I guess I should add Twilight for kicks as well.

Oh. Just Because...

Random Squees

I'm super excited about a couple of things:

I found out today that the level 3 (intermediate) classes at the studio for Samba, Quickstep and a few others are actually "beginning" classes for "intermediate" dancers. Kind of like the Paso Doble workshop I took this weekend with Ron Montez. (Which by the way, was awesome. Ron is FUNNY. And brilliant. Well worth my funds.) Sooooo... I can take more classes at the studio on Thursday. And I was kind of curious about Samba anyway. Especially after Benji and Dmitry's choreo posted below.

Mark started a blog!!!! And I'm now one of his "followers." So perhaps I can find out what really is on his iTunes playlist because he seems to be posting quite frequently. You can follow along here: http://mkik.blogspot.com. I'm excited to follow along.

Speaking of iTunes: I caught a segment of "The Italian Job" this weekend. During this segment there was this eletronic-type song playing the background. Some Googling later, I found out it was a song called "To Get Down" by Timo Maas. I am now addicted to this song and I'm trying convince my instructor to use this as a showcase song. (But I might have an uphill climb. The song is pretty quick for a WCS.)

And finally, this may be the season that I finally tune in to Dancing with the Stars. The additions of Chelsie Hightower and Dmitry may be the final calling. Plus, M is probably going to tune in because Steve "The Woz" Wozniak is competing. Yup, the guy that founded Apple computers.

Plain Dumb Luck

I have had one crazy week. Between appointments, meetings and my CAR not starting on Wednesday, I consider this to be pretty amazing considering.

So yes, my car decided that it didn't want to start Wednesday morning. The key physically would not turn in the ignition. Called AAA Emergency Roadside. Said it might be the starter. Said I might need a new one. Fantastic. Was able to get it started but instead of going to work, I drove it straight to Nissan. Coincidentally, I also needed my 60K check up. So I guess this was my car's way of saying "get off your ass and take me in."

Rented a car because I needed to go to work and didn't want to sit around for 5 hours. Got a Nissan Maxima... which was huge. But kind of cool. Push button start. Fast car. :) Maybe a little Bat-mobile-ish. But it was either that or a Kia Spectra. (BARF!)

Into work I go. Get a call 4 hours later. Service desk says they want to recode all my keys because the key that has been working for the past 3 years suddenly doesn't want to work anymore. Fantastic. Especially since all my keys are in different places and if they aren't coded together, they won't all work. So off to Rancho to grab M's key for my car, then back to Enterprise to return the really expensive rental, then back to Nissan for another 45 minutes. (At least there was free wi-fi, snacks, and Scrubs on TV in the lounge.) Get car back. Jet back to work for the last 30 minutes of my shift. (And office birthday cake. Score!)

Leave work - realize that I'm leaving work a little later than I should on a Wednesday because I need time to dress out for dance. Accidents on the freeway galore! I don't get home and settled until I'm supposed to leave for my class, ready to go. My justification for not going: by the time I'd make it there, I'd be 15 minutes late and be counted as absent anyway. What's the point? So hmm... that leaves my evening open.

What do I do? Attempt the Argentine Tango! (Attempt is the key word. With one class, I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.) But yeah! I get to go West Coast Swing. Kind of glad I did that. Ballroom makes me happy. I was not in the mood for jazz hands after today.

Friday rolls around and I get a message from my dance professor:

Dance Students -

Unfortunately I had to cancel class this past Wednesday last minute; I rarely miss class, and when I do I try and find a guest teacher to substitute. I want to remind everyone that despite the holiday we will have class this Monday, February 9th. ARC observes the holidays on February 13 and 16. Have a good weekend.

Tight! I lucked out with that one.