Russian Spy Death or MURRRDDERRR

Is anyone else fascinated by this story like me? Isn't radiation poisoning an odd way to kill someone? Weirder and weirder. I thought this article was talking about a St. Pancreas Court.

For those who bemoaned the lack of spy intrigue with the demise of the Cold War, this mystery can definitely tide you over. If anything, I've learned not to piss off Putin. I'll scratch that off my list of things to do.

Genes Will Out

My mother's DNA test results came back. A very interesting surprise from my mother's Irish Catholic maternal side. The report says:

"Interestingly, your haplogroup is also very significant because its members constitute three of the four major Ashkenazi Jewish founder lineages... Around half of all Ashkenazi Jews trace their mitochondrial lineage back to one of four women, and your haplogroup K represents a lineage that gave rise to three of them."

L'chaim!

No More Tuesday Night Class!

Yup, last night was my last class. My group handed in our paper and our professor let the class out early at 8pm. I just have to get through my Thursday nigh class without strangling Man Pretty, and I'm done with the semester.

My plan for all my free time? Tae Kwon Do lessons and World of Warcraft. I'll make night elf, undead, and human characters. At least one will be an enchanter.

Jewish for the Holidays

As I considered the implications of converting, I thought the Xmas thing would be a no-brainer. My family celebrated the holiday sans Christ. We had the tree, no church, and gift opening on Christmas Eve. There wasn't much tradition in our celebration.

I am missing the oddest things about the holiday. I love Christmas carols, especially sung by John Denver or the muppets. The small white lights and tinsel are missed as well. It's so weird walking down the main aisle of CVS feeling like an alien until I see the bin of 99 cent gold coins. It also feels like I am wearing glasses that allow me to see how Xmas saturated the world is. I'm starting to understand how growing up in this kind of environment can help breed self-deprecating humor and/or brilliant psychologists.

My holiday celebration this year won't be any different except that my gifts might be wrapped in Chanukah paper or I will be getting a menorah as a gift. I'm going to use this year to test out how to celebrate the holidays. Also, "War on Christmas" my ass...

How to Tell You've Thrown a Good Party...

... days afterwards you still bust out laughing at remembering bits of the party ("Czech... fuck!" had me cackling like a loon last night).

... you keep getting compliments on the party.


... the only leftovers you have are booze.


... it encourages you to think up more parties you can throw.

Welcome to the Pleasure Dome

My brother and his girlfriend stayed overnight Saturday night. Since my brother is cool, and values his sleep, he bought me a queen-sized air mattress. It basically takes up most of the floorspace in my livingroom. Have I deflated it over the past two days? Have I adorned it with pillows and comforters? Yes. Did I eat my dinner last night sitting on it? Hell yes! The mattress is ridiculously comfortable and I was so spent from my party it too much energy to, you know, get up, sit up etc. Maybe my new (hopefully single) neighbor downstairs will come up and get the wrong idea? I just need a man servant and a veil.

Karaoke Investment

Since karaoke was such a blast last night, I have ordered these CD+G's

Party Refrigerator Magnet Poetry

I found this on my fridge today:

My naked blue spring
Was above her cold winter
So leave that thick skin
Between his happy season
And dance for wine



Indeed.

I Give Good Party

Last night was my 30th birthday party. A party that I had been planning for months. I even considered not throwing myself a party since I will be getting my MBA May 2007. In retrospect, that idea was sheer nonsense!

I made a trivia game based upon my life and that was a hit. The food which I got from the Chateau was almost completely gobbled up. I also got an Edible Arrangement - which was yummy and perfect.

I have to say the $57 I spent on a home karaoke machine was THE BEST party investment I've ever made. It was so popular, I had to start a sign-up list. I sang The Rose, Bobby McGee and dueted for Paradise by the Dashboard Light, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and Rock Around the Clock. My brother brought down the house with What a Wonderful World complete with the Louis Armstrong voice.

Clean-up was a breeze and I have a lot of wine and beer leftovers. Oh well, I know what I'll be having for dinner for the week! Photos are in my flickr photostream.

Darkest Before the Light

My actual birthday sucked goat balls granted. But the day after, more than made up for it! I wound up leaving early from work because my bosses had left around noon and no one was calling the company. I hope I won't be in trouble Monday.

So, I ran an errand to use up my Gap gift card and get clothes for the holiday party season. Very straightfoward and easy. Plus, traffic wasn't horrible that early in the day. On a whim, I tried on this dress, and it looked awesome on me so voila birthday party outfit! When I got to the checkout counter, all the computers went down so they couldn't accept credit cards. I waited for about a half hour as they slowly got through the line of customers and I had to run to an ATM to get cash to pay for my clothes. Not fun!
On top of this, I had decided to send Man pretty surfer dude a head's up email letting him know the group opinion and course of action regarding his lack of contribution. I tried to word the email plainly, with some humor, and a smidge of scolding. Of course, emails aren't the best mode of communication so he hit the roof. When I returned home from my errands, I had two emails waiting for me from him. The first one was him explaining all the "work" he had done and claiming he felt ambushed. The second was a threat to me that if the group complained about him to our professor, he will show the professor my email with derogatory comments about the class. Since I love being blackmailed, I basically told him that he needs to write something for our paper and if he wanted to solve this mess, he needed to talk to other group members. Ass! I felt so overwhelmed and stressed from the day, I called my parents. They invited me over so I got to open my presents, hear family gossip, and get my mom hooked on sudoku. I felt MUCH better!

Today was the big family Thanksgiving celebration and my brother came home so I had more presents. My mom got a huge, gorgeous cake for the extended family to celebrate my birthday. I got more presents at Thanksgiving! I was completely overwhelmed between the glasses of wine and the gifts. Man, I think I'm going to be known as the cousin whose inappropriate sense of humor busts out with a couple glasses of wine. I think I'm being profound or helpful when I suggest that someone being discussed is autistic or when I tell my male cousin about the requirements of male conversion to Judaism by asking him if he's circumsized - IN FRONT OF HIS SISTERS!

I ate too much of course but points-wise, I'm still okay but I did dip into flex. As you can see, my Amazon.com wishlist has been cut in half thanks to the excellent gifts I got. Now, onto figuring out how to spend my Sephora gift card... Life is tough, I know.

Man Pretty Surfer Dude Poaching Season

My entire group wants to kill him. He has done jack shit for our group paper due Nov. 30 and we had set today as a deadline to get the paper done. I am the final editor and smoother for our various pieces of the paper. I sent Man Pretty a reminder Monday about how he hasn't written his piece for the paper and he sent a reply saying that he would have his piece done by last night. Did he? Nope! So, our final paper doesn't list him as a contributor and we're going to talk to our professor. It is frustrating and horrifying to have such a dead weight in a group. I have never encountered this level of disregard in four years in the MBA program. Ugh!

The Gift of a Bra Fitting

A couple nights ago, I hit the mall and Lane Bryant was offering a free bra fitting which was timely considering that I had been thinking that maybe I needed to downgrade a cup size.

Guess what? My cup size is perfect if I have the right band size. So, I went up on band size and found the most comfortable and flattering bra ever. Ladies you know that side bulge you have while wearing a bra? That is breast tissue and should be pushed forward not to the side. Now that I am 30, I am happy to say that all my breast tissue is correctly forward. Plus, I have less neck and upper back pain.

'Tis the Time of Year

In late November, I tend to come home and find in the mail a birthday card with a check or two. Or even more cool, a PACKAGE waiting for me on my doorstep filled with birthday goodies. These annual gifts help relieve any work or school stress or tension. Hmm... now off to figure out what to buy with a gift card...

WOOHOO!

Weekend

My new cut and color is fabulous. Sadly, I don't have a digital camera. My hair is mostly dark brown and on my crown, I have auburn highlights. The cut is basically pixie flippy but somehow also mature/professional. Of course, I bought all the product shoved on me: wax and root lifter. I went to Blondie Salon and they were perfect.

I also saw "Borat". It was hysterical, offensive, and raunchy. I loved the way he said "vagine". This weekend was also when I went party decoration shopping. It turns out there is no such thing as simply browsing in a party store for me. I'm a party store WHORE!

Don't Laugh But...

... I'm starting Tae Kwon Do lessons in December. A co-worker came up with the idea for the women in my dept to sign up for a class. It's not too expensive and looks like a fun form of exercise. Plus, I'll get to shmooze with co-workers and hopefully that will translate into positive things at work. I like the idea of kicking things too.

Weight Watchers Meeting Attendees: A Reaction

Generally, I enjoy attending Weight Watchers meetings. They keep me motivated, give me ideas for food and how to deal with the holidays. Overall, the people at my regular meeting are awesome. There are two people who make a big impact on the time spent in the meeting and I find myself getting annoyed by them. I don't know if they are a routine Weight Watchers phenomenon or not.

One woman is extremely slow and asks nitpicky detailed questions. Our meeting leader mentioned a good lemon pepper seasoning. This special woman insisted on finding out the brand name for the good seasoning as well as the other bad seasonings. The poor meeting leader didn't know the names and luckily distracted her by jangling keys (kidding!) Ms. Nitpick also wastes our time by grilling the group leader about the point values of certain foods. Good God, we are given a handbook and also there is a website to look up points!

The other woman didn't bug me too much until the most recent meeting. Obviously, I've had food issues all my life and I've worked out my own way to eat healthy and deal with a world full of unhealthy choices. This other woman's method is to completely remove herself from her family and holiday celebrations. To avoid the bad food, she sits in another room or leaves with an excuse of having a "migraine". No matter how many alternatives or suggestions the group gives her, she shoots them down. I'm starting to think that she wants to be a martyr and suffer for her weight loss. I can't imagine ostracizing myself by choice, especially from family. Maybe she has no confidence in her willpower and that's why she takes such extreme measures? It's very disturbing.

Saturday Hair Chopping and Dye-ing

I met with the salon stylist a couple weeks ago and it sound like I will get this cut and this color:

No Solo for Me

I auditioned for the solo in "Adonai Roi" last night - along with 7 other people. I didn't get it. The conductor said that my sound is too big so she opted for the anglo whispery-sounding sopranos. Eh, her loss. I can sight read and with my nose and cheekbones my mouth is like a fricking cathedral! It would have been really cool to get the solo since I'm converting to Judaism and on that note I'm a bit disappointed. Luckily, there was another Jew who didn't get the solo so we can kvetch!

Weekend Recuperation

My weekend kicked off with a fun night of drinks with the gals at Tempo. Word to the wise, if they are offering free shots DECLINE.

Saturday night, I had tickets to "12 Angry Men". We tried to grab dinner at Montien. Another word to the wise, if a Boston restaurant says that they don't need reservations, make one anyway. Since Montien had no room for us, we wound up going to Jacob Wirth. Their maple turkey tips are divine.

The play itself was really good. When I'm seeing a show, I like reading the actor bios to keep track of how many have been on "Law & Order". Another fun thing to do with "12 Angry Men" is to try to guess how many jurors will change their vote in each round of voting. The cast was really spectacular and they got 2 curtain calls.

Yesterday, I had errands and a group meeting. I don't know about you, but I am pooped. Phew!

Pre Veterans Day

The group presentation went well last night. There were two possible bad things/hang-ups.

1. The professor's questions during Q&A demonstrated that he didn't listen to our presentation. What the hell kind of organizational behavior professor HASN'T heard of Hofstede's cultural comparisons? We had to repeat answers to questions a lot.

2. Man pretty surfer dude prepared NOTHING for the presentation. It was horrible. The 4 of us were standing behind him as he presented. He just rambled and read off of the slides. I had a smile on my face but towards the end of his part it was basically a grimace of horror that he did no research and was pulling stuff out of his ass. The other guys in the group are rip shit and want to kick him out. I knew it was bad when man pretty was presenting and the guys were stone-faced with bright red ears.

We were one of three groups presenting last night. The third group was AWESOME! They did a video presentation analyzing the leadership skills of Darth Vader complete with excellent movie clips. They even had a montage of Vader choking people. One group member came in later in the presentation wearing a Vader mask and did the Q&A as Darth. Plus, I got back my first paper for this course (in freaking NOVEMBER!) and I got an A-. Only 2 more classes left! Boo. Yeah.

Democrats Now Control Congress. Bush is a Lame Duck President

Life is Good

I finally got my car inspected today! I bought my car in May 2001. In 2002 I had it inspected in June, 2003 July, 2004 August, 2005 September, and this year I broke the cycle by letting it go until November.

Tonight is my group project presentation for the hated Leadership class. As we worked on the presentation, I found out that I'm not the only person who hates this class. Girl pretty surfer dude hates it as well. He picked up on some more ways to trash the professor. He's a fellow Sagittarius so it makes sense that both of us loathe the class. Basically after tonight, I'm done work-wise for the course. My group paper is basically done and I just finished my final individual paper. So, that just leaves me work for my Tuesday night class. Woohoo!

This weekend starts early with a jaunt to Tempo Friday night. Then Saturday night I am seeing "12 Angry Men" with dinner beforehand at Montien.

My First Gray Hairs

Well, it was inevitable as time marches onward. I thought the hairline around my ear was looking a bit ashy so I assumed it was leftover summer lightened hair. Nope! It's gray hair creeping along my hairline.

It's really weird to have this stamp on me that says I'm getting older. Mentally, I feel like I'm 20. Physically, I'm the healthiest I've been. The weird part is who I imagined I'd be when I went gray. Oh well, luckily I'm getting my hair cut and dyed Nov. 18!

Sweet Jesus it's Good to Wake Up Today

Six years people. Six years of a tanking economy. Six years of lies and incompetence. Six years with two wars that only accomplished spending billions of dollars and killing thousands of people. Six years of bribery, scandald, and molestation swept under the carpet. Five years of manipulating our fear.

We're back! We have the House and I bet once this day is over, we'll have the Senate. Can anyone say supboena power? To top off this glorious election result, Rumsfeld is resigning! Isn't that tacitally an admission by the Bush administration that the war was a mistake?

My On-Notice Board

Yes heroes, you can make your own board here.

Schadenfreude is Oh So Sweet

When I first heard about this, I thought:

1. Finally a story to bump the Kerry joke off the front pages!

2. Is there a secret homosexual cabal deep within the Republican party?

3. How long will it take him to get admitted to rehab and/or blame a priest?

The White House is trying to "downplay" Haggard's influence. Just like they did with Abramoff even though there are records of him[Abramoff] visiting the White House HUNDREDS of times. The timing of this is all too sweet considering the Right Wingers were gearing up another round of gay bashing to scare Christians to the voting booth, in the wake of New Jersey's gay marriage ruling. I don't want to crow too loud but there is this tiny flicker of hope in my heart that we may just do it. That we may be able to take back Congress. Nothing can make me happier than Russ Feingold with subpoena power!

Reds, the movie

Since Reds has finally come out on DVD, I got a copy via Netflix. I have to say, I am extremely disappointed with the film. It's not revolutionary at all. In fact, it downplays some of the truly revolutionary people around the time. Emma Goldman had basically 5 scenes in 3 hours of movie. Basically, the entire movie is a will they, won't they romance stretched over horrible dialogue, acting, and occasional historically important events. I cannot believe that Louise Bryant was considered a feminist based upon her portrayal in the movie. She just nags John Reed, serves food, and adoringly watches him make speeches. I like Emma Goldman's quote about her, "Louise was never a Communist; she only slept with a Communist." The only character I could stand in the movie was Jack Nicholson's Eugene O'Neil because he totally called John and Louise on their "revolutionary" bullshit.
So, I am still in the market for a well-made revolutionary film that will blow my mind. This one didn't fit the bill.

Tuesday November 7 Tips

This Tuesday is Election Day. If you live in MA and don't know how to vote, check this out. Based upon what has happened to the American voting system over the past six years, I have some handy tips.

1. Bring your cell phone (especially if it's a camera phone).

2. Program your Town clerk's phone number into your cell just in case there are any shenanigans.

3. Know that you have the right to request a paper ballot.

If you have no idea why you need to be vigilant this Tuesday, read:
This
This
This

Beyond the voting machine issue, there have been problems with voter purges across the country. This is what happened in Florida and Ohio and just because you don't live in a battleground state, doesn't mean you shouldn't be informed and aware.


Happy Voting People!

Retail Therapy = Retail Insanity

I basically spent $300 Friday night shopping after work. On the up side, I picked up my first holiday gift for this year.

I went to The Avenue looking for a belt and/or holiday outfit ideas. But they had these gorgeous soft warm sweaters in nice variety of colors and (way over priced) jeans. That wound up being the first $100 of the night.

Then, I went to Payless Shoes because I noticed that I don't have any good heels for work. Plus, the work shoes I usually wear have worn down soles since I tend to roll my feel when I walk. Yeah, those shoes look like I'm some kind of bow-legged circus freak the way the sides are so worn down! I found the perfect pair of heels and then noticed there was a matching brown leather pair. Another $50 down.

My next stop was Best Buy to pick up a home karaoke machine as part of my birthday party prep. I was able to find the exact machine I wanted with a nifty $6 off tag plus I picked up a karaoke CD. That was a lot of fun when I got home. I think the hardest song to sing karaoke to is Bette Midler's "The Rose" since for most of the song, you just have repetitive plinking piano chords as cues. This little trip cost me $90.

The final stop in my shopping madness was Bath and Body Works. I needed new shower gel and of course they had a sale for buy 3 get 1 free. For the foaming anti-bacterial soap, the sale was 3 for $10. So that is 7 soaps for those of you keeping up. Then of course I had to get moisturizer and some shower accessories. The poor clerk probably thinks I'm a germ-phobe. I discovered a couple new scents that I'm loving: sensual amber and coconut lime verbena. This store cleaned me out of $60. Ehh, I couldn't resist the pun...

RCN Begging

Ever since I cancelled my RCN service, I have been getting daily messages from RCN begging me to come back and they'll knock off $20 from my monthly bill. Gee, that's so tempting... Oh wait, I was laughing so hard I deleted the voicemail message! Pathetic? Yes. Too little too late? Yes. Service worth the discount? HELL NO!

2 Frustrating Days

I have a September inspection sticker on my car so the past two days I've been trying to get my car inspected. Day 1 didn't work because the inspection guy at my local place was at lunch and Day 2 didn't work because I would have to wait an hour to get inspected (plus the counter guy was a complete attitudinous asshole). Yet again I am encountering difficulty in getting shit done in my life as a single person.