Monday, September 29, 2008

Innneresting...

I was channel surfing and came across and episode of How Its Made about maxi pads. Can I just state that I'm strangely intrigued?

Now its concrete pipes. Kind of not as interesting - I must say.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Tina Fey is Awesome!

A couple of weeks ago, Tina Fey returned to her roots at SNL to do the opening skit as Sarah Palin and Amy Poehler as Hillary Clinton. If you haven't seen it or want to see it again - click below.



This weekend, Tina Fey reprised her role as Sarah Palin in a "recreation" of her interview with Katie Couric (Amy Poehler). Can I just say brilliant? The thing is if you watched the actual interview - this parody is not that far off in how Palin answered Couric's questions.



I hope Tina Fey gets an Emmy for these performances.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

A Whirlwind of a Week

Last week started like any other except for one thing - a countdown had begun. My Greek was leaving to visit family to Germany and was going to be gone for a few months. Yes, you read months and not weeks. Which is one of the reasons I haven't really been updating this thing.

Its funny how denial works. He kept saying that he was leaving but I wasn't hearing it. I knew he had the tickets, but the date seemed so far away. Not until he was saying good-bye to my parents and Jake did I realize that this was actually happening. And for those of you that know me - I did react emotionally to it.

Last Wednesday, some spontaneity kicked in and we decided to see Wicked at the Pantages. Can I just say - WOW! It was a great show and I look forward to going again before they leave Los Angeles. I have to admit that I will never really see The Wizard of Oz movie again the same way. In the show/book, it explains what happened before Dorothy showed up and the musical really gave The "Wicked" Witch of the West this endearing personality. I'm not going to get into the details because 1) you can look it up if you want and 2) I don't want to spoil it for anyone. Let's just say that I had a few "no shit!" and "A-ha!" moments in the Pantages. And lets not forget a couple of times that the hairs on my arms stood up because of the great performance of Teal Hicks as Elphaba (The Wicked Witch of the West) and Erin Mackey as Galinda (Glinda the Good).

The rest of the week seemed to be a lot of running around on its own - but with a great added twist. My old HS buddy Kelena was dropping by for a visit. It was weird trying to be a good hostess to her and try to be a good gf to Kostas while he got ready for his trip. Lucky for me, Kelena only needed a bed and a set of my apartment keys to feel right at home. ;-) I was very happy to have been able to spend time with her while she was in town; even though it was mostly in our pj's. And no - we did not have any sort of pillow fight while she was here. Pervs.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

My Father, The Hero

Last year, I bought a couch from Levitz - an experience a part of me felt I would forget and only remember with warm memories because of the new piece of furniture I received.

A few months ago, I noticed to notice that one part of the couch felt differently from the other. I thought I was only me until Kostas started making comments about it too. Because Levitz furniture filed for bankruptcy about 6 months ago - my warranty went out the window. Honestly, I have just come to accept that this is how it is and will buy a new couch sometime next year.

Enter my father.

If you don't know my father - the man can fix ANYTHING and in the most creative ways ever. We have this little game we play, when something breaks in my apartment I pretend to fix it or pretend to not have a solution and TA-DA instant handyman. The man even brings me extra tools so he has them here to fix things. Through the course of some conversation, I make a comment about the broken couch.

At this moment, he has the couch on its side with pieces all over my living room floor claiming victory in finding the root of the problem.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Of All The Freaking Frakking...

After a whole week of not having my car...after almost reaching my limit with the whole public transportation system..

It was not the starter - it was the battery!

I could have fixed the car!!!

DAMMIT.

My Mom Is A Panther!!!!

Monday, September 08, 2008

A Case of the Mondays

I had this feeling this morning that I shouldn't get up for work. I fought the feeling and went in. Overall the day was good...until I went to my car. Now a couple of weeks ago, I got to my car and found one of the tires flat.

Today - the starter died.

I had opted to stay late, to wait for the traffic to die down - go figure. So by the time all this happened, most of the coworkers heading in my direction had already gone home. Off to the metro I go!

To get home, I take the Metro to downtown LA and then get off on one stop that has all of the buses that pass down the street from my place. I get on the bus and am happily entertained with my Scrabble on my iPod. All of a sudden, I look up and see this on one of the monitors in the bus.



This has to be the worst thing I have ever seen! Do they feel because we are trapped we have to be subjected to this crap? I have to make sure my iPod is properly charged for the trip into the office tomorrow morning.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Got Themselves Some New Fans!

Yesterday was great day my friends...a great day.

Kostas, Jake, and I went to go see some amatuer Sumo wrestling at the LA Sports Arena. I walked in with the intent of having a good time and I walked out with stories to tell for years to come.

I have no idea where to start! We arrived at venue when the doors opened and we got GREAT seats. The first portion of the program was the qualifying rounds for the three weight classes competing that day; lightweight (weight up to 187 lbs), middleweight(weight up to 253lbs), and heavyweight (weight over 253 lbs). In case you dont know the rules of sumo, its pretty simple.

The winner of a sumo bout is either:
The first wrestler to force his opponent to step out of the ring or the first wrestler to force his opponent to touch the ground with any part of his body other than the bottom of his feet.

There must have been about 30 people in our section and about 70 people total in the arena when the qualifiers started - so when we screamed or heckled...it was heard by everyone. The lightweights were up first and we all decided to cheer on Art. Lets take a gander at Art's profile picture in the program:

What cracked me up the most was that he would have to take his glasses off before getting into the ring. Unfortunately, he didn't qualify but we will get back to him during the OPEN WEIGHT competition. And if you think that sounds like fun, you are getting ahead in the story!

After we got warmed up with the lighweights, we moved onto the middleweights. The middleweights brought us more bouts and well...here we go. Lets start with James.

This is James:

James is 55 years young and quite the sumo wrestler. He was the oldest competitor and a nice guy I must say. Just so you all know, he is also "The Rope Master".

Guy #2 to speak of is Mark. Oh Mark. When we first arrived we saw this guy warming up in the ring. Now...most of the non-heavyweight wrestlers wore biker shorts or something underneath their mawashi (the official name of the diaper that Jacob found out from a security guard and kept correcting me because he got sick of his mother embarassing him). But not Mark! Oh no..Mark went against the grain and let it all hang out. On top of that he had this way of walking around that was really funny. Here is a quick picture of Mark and his greatness. Mark is the guy in the middle with the pony tail. The way he is standing is the way he walks.



After a few qualifying bouts we get to the heavyweights! I have to say that I was pretty impressed as to how many Americans there are wrestling. Another thing I noticed was this spiffy move that I named "The Wiley Coyote" where they would be pushing on one another like below and then it would seem like they would take a step back to get their breath and then they would charge - one would get out of the way and then the other guy would get out of bounds and lose. I dont know about you, but that made me laugh everytime because I thought, "Why didnt the guy know he was going to do that?!?!"


So after the Final rounds, the wrestlers were hanging around waiting for the Open Weight competition to start. This allowed some fans to get up close and meet some of them. Including me...



After the Kodak moment, the Open Weight competition was about to begin and we snagged some seats about 4 rows from the stage. That gave us a great opportunity to watch the action up front. The Open Weight competition is very different from the regular weight competitions because anyone in any weight can compete against one another. So yes, someone from the lightweight category can be drawn to compete against a heavyweight. And yes, it did happen and yes...it was quite hilarious - even Jake got a little mad.




Ah yes - sitting really close you get all the action. The slapping! The grunting! Seeing too much of the wrestler's inside thighs...(shudder)



If we had to endure it in person, you all have to suck it up and see it too! I took that picture specifically for this blog. You are welcome! :)

Another thing that we noticed was that these guys all seemed to be friends. This was evident in the Open Weight competition between Siosifa (heavyweight) and Art (lightweight). And yes, that is my laughing and screaming on the tape.



The best moment of the day has to go to Mark - remember him? Yes...well this video captures the essence of the day for him I believe. As Kostas said, "He seems like he's the guy no one likes."



Truly one of my favorite moments when he ran away. If I wasnt recording I probably would have fallen on the ground from all the laughing.

All in all - a great freaking day people! I highly recommend going to one of these things if you get the chance.

Hiatus Over!

I don't know why I haven't been posting but I'm back now. Just got to get my shizz together to get some posts up.

More to come...