nothing to say

okay, you need to fast forward through the first minute and a half or so before it gets really disturbing...funny, but frightening. i dont even have the words....







update: i recently came across some articles about this video saying its fake. oh well, either way, its still hilarious!

they check up on me, and i say, "hey guys"

i DARE you not to bust up laughing!

Update

yes, the alarm is still going off.
however, i have been informed that it is not a car alarm as i originally had thought. it is a house alarm. and this raises some interesting questions....

who set it off and how?
arent house alarms supposed to trigger something that informs the cops that a house is being broken into?
why havent the owners of teh house/the cops/the alarm company come to turn the alarm off?
WILL the alarm be turned off before i have to try and sleep, or should i just take some tylenol pm now?
hmmm....

dear lord make it STOP

in honor of the wonderful background melody that i have been listening to for (no joke) 1 hour and 27 minutes, i thought i would post this for your viewing/listening pleasure. (its really more for the listening pleasure, because the graphics are kinda annoying) i hope you enjoy it *just as much* as i am enjoying my melodious torture...

"brooklyn style" pizza and brooklyn law....

a while back, i posted about the "new" dominoe's brooklyn-style pizza. well, it appears that a few of the professors from my school have taken great offense to the implications and are trying to find grounds to sue on! i find the whole thing really amusing. i love the east coast!!!

birthday #2 -- partying down in the l-e-s of n-y-c in the c-o-l-d

so, we celebrated my birthday out here in new york on saturday night. one of the coldest freaking nights of my life...of course, having my birthday in january, what else could you expect. even spending my last two birthdays in oregon, i dont think it was ever this cold...anyways!!

we started off the night with a "girls-only" (sara, sylvia, myself, and eventually heather) dinner at tio pepe's. it is right around the corner from a subway stop, but as it was butt-freezing cold, sara and i decided to cab it up to the west village for dinner. the food was amazing. we all ordered the same thing--shrimp fajitas--because the waiter said it was his favorite thing on the menu. when they brought the food, though, there was no shrimp. odd...somehow, the waiter had written down "vegetarian fajitas" instead of "shrimp" even though we had sat there and talked about it for a few minutes. but, he was super nice, and brought us a bowl of garlic shrimp. dear lord, i almost plotzed (yeah, i dont know how to spell it, or the actual meaning of the word, but i enjoy it nonetheless).
i had mentioned early in the evening to the waiter that we were out for my birthday, so when they brought out our desert and there was no candle or singing or anything, i was a little disappointed. i was even MORE disappointed when they brought out desert with a candle and sang to someone ELSE in teh restaurant. well fine. so i was a little sad...but then! right before we left, the waiter comes up to me and hands me a flower he had made out of a paper napkin and said he was sorry they didnt sing and happy birthday. it was way better than a stupid song! the flower made my night....
from there, we took teh world's longest cab ride over to the lower east side (you wouldnt believe the amount of people out driving on a saturday night in new york city!!), so this club called the SKINny. i had called ahead and reserved a private room for us...although, it was under the name "suzanne." *sigh* i swear, i can say "susannAH" twelve times and they still get "suzanne." whatever.
anyways, we get there, i talk to the bartender to find out where we are supposed to be and they say we are up in the dj's booth. we head up there adn there is already a group of people up there. these two girls come up to me and say, in teh bitchiest of all bitchy tones, "uhm, this is a private birthday party." and i say, "i know. its mine." yeah, im a badass. anyway, i turned around, went back to the bartender, and he went up and kicked them out. HAHA!! its always nice to get your way on your birthday!!! so, the dj's booth was up these horribly steep stairs that i almost killed myself on a couple of times--but that might have been because i was wearing 27-inch heels and was just a little on the tipsy side (a girl never reveals when she is slobbering drunk). but the room was super cool. the dj was right there, and he was AWESOME, and there were couches and all of my friends, and some of their friends! and it was a good time all around.
from there, we moved on to another bar a few blocks away. i hadnt really wanted to leave, and, since it was my birthday, i pouted until alex said he would give me a piggy back ride all the way there. i do enjoy being spoiled....
to alex's credit, he was able to carry me about four blocks before he had to stop. well, he also took a couple breaks...i think he almost sprained his knee at one point, too, which was funny to me at the time...
so, he put me down about a block and a half away from where we were going to end up, and i stood pouting on the corner until casey came back and gave me a piggy back ride the rest of the way. of course, he wasnt as nice as alex, and basically dropped me when he was done...but whatever. i was carried! (disclaimer: im never this annoying when its not my birthday!! well, not "never" but less likely!)
i couldnt tell you the name of the next club we were at, or where it was. all i know is that we went in and it was somewhat crowded, and we walked to this backroom that was all white and no one was there and clockwork orange was playing on a large tv...odd. oh!! and the bathroom had chalkboard-paint on the walls and provided chalk so you could write! and write i did! it was fun!!
from there, a lot of people left, and andy and i decided to walk back to this bar piano's that ive been to a few times that we both like. andy didnt carry me, though, so i had to walk 6 blocks in heels. and ice. and snow. on my birthday. damn him for having pride! =) i got to piano's, was there for like 10 minutes, then decided to go home. what a waste of walking...

and then i spent the whole next day avoiding phone calls and sleeping and not studying. hurrah for birthdays!



the dinner girls....sarah in the blue with print, sylvia in the solid blue

zach and i


i love love LOVE this picture of matt and i! oh i love him



my home-town friend erin was able to break out of her job as a first year law associate for a couple hours and come out and celebrate with me!! unfortunately, she had to leave early so she could be back at the office bright and early on sunday morning!!



me n andy diamond.
2/3 of the forority--me and heather.....i dont have ANY pictures of alex...odd...




casey with erin and her friend....uuhm....juliana? juliet? julia? something like that...



okay, so, living in new york, especially in teh winter, does not afford one many opportunities to become tan. if anything, one tends to become translucent. its all very depressing. so, i decided that i was going to have some friggin color on my birthday, and heather suggested i do mystic tan, which is the spray tan, so you dont have to deal with uv rays etc etc. so, i said, okay, ill do that. and heather proceeded to give me some advice. she told me that i need to be extra careful with my feet and hands because they tend to have rougher skin and soak up the tanning stuff more than other parts of your body. the tanning place provides this lotion stuff that you are supposed to apply liberally to both feet and hands...
well, okay. so, i thought i DID apply liberally to my hands. i really did! and my feet...well. heres the thing. i figured, its friggin JANUARY who is going to see my feet? so i rubbed a little of the lotion on my ankles and quickly over the top of my feet. yeah, neither of these attempts were sufficient. my hands are okay...they are slightly orange, but for the most part okay. until you see the crease between my thumn and forefinger....
but my feet. they are DISGUSTING. the top of my feet look diseased because the tanning stuff stained my toenails this orangish-brown color. you have no idea how gross it is. and the bottom of my feet....well....you can see exactly how i stand on my feet because they are horribly horribly stained. and just your luck, i took a picture!!! now, the picture isnt that good. i took it when i got home from my birthday party, so i wasnt in the clearest of mind frames to take a decent picture....but you can definitely see where it is stained and where it is not.....and now imagine, the part that is stained is a deep dark orange...yeah, i am one hot mamma....

birthday #1 -- on the home front

so, while i was home, we hade an early birthday celebration for me (i mean, seriously, who wouldnt want to constantly celebrate my very existence??). the evening started off normaly enough, AMAZING traditional birthday tortellini, artichokes...enough food to kill a small army. but soon, those darn ashton genes kicked in....and this is what the night turned into:



his eyes are SO SCARY!!

yes, that is joe montana in the middle.





arent you sad you missed out???

today was an AWESOME day.

wow, have you ever had one of those days that just keeps getting better and BETTER? well, that was my day, today.

so, i have been meaning to a) walk around nyc because i havent done that since i moved here, and b) find good coffee. so, yesterday, i decided that today i was going to do both of those things, and i invited casey along with me. last night i went onto city search and found grey dog cafe, that purports to be some of the best coffee in nyc. casey wanted to go at 730 (hahahahahahaahaha, no.) and i wanted to go around 1130, adn so we settled on 1030.

i got down there a little early, and he wasnt ready, so i half-slept on his recliner for about 10 minutes til we were ready to go. it wasnt really the best way to start off a day. i was tired and a little crabby. we get off the subway at west 4th, and im still a little out of it, yearning for some coffee. we walk in a circle before we find the place, and as soon as we walk in, the intoxicating aroma of coffee washes over us, and i am already feeling a little better. i order a large cup of house coffee and a toasted whole wheat bagel with cream cheese. now, the coffee wasnt amazing (it wasnt bad, it just wasnt what i was hoping for) but the bagel was pretty good! AND they put on a minimal amount of cream cheese, which thrilled me. i hate gobs and gobs of it on my bagels. and, teh bagel itself was really realy good. yumm....
so, casey and i sat around there for a while. we had each brought books to read from school, so we did that for about 10 minutes, adn then talked for a while. then we decided to walk for a wihle.

we left grey dog, then started aimlessly walking until we hit the water on the west side (hudson river), and we walked along that for a little bit. then we came to christopher street, and decided to walk down there. we came across a brooklyn industries store, that was having a "mega sale" so we went in. i didnt like anything on sale (expensive if not on sale!!), but casey found a really nice pea coat. and since he had lost his other pea coat (dont ask), he went ahead and bought it. $80!! super cheap! and it was really nice, and lined, and there was a little padding in it for warmth. AWESOME.

so, then we continue walking and decide, hey, let's go to washington square park! so, we try to do that. all of a sudden, we realize that we must be going in the really wrong direction. we notice this because we walked almost all the way back to the water. which means hte park was somewhere behind us. oops. so, we turn around and walk down bleeker.

side note 1: last night, as i was messing around on citysearch.com trying to find good coffee, i stumbled across magnolia's, which i had heard of before, but had forgotten about. this bakery has world-famous cupcakes. in fact, i have never been there before, but every time i talk to someone they are always talking about the huge lines out the door. i had asked casey about it, and he said he had never even heard of it, so i told him all about it.

back to the story. there we are walking down bleeker, and casey goes, hey, isnt that the bakery you were telling me about? i look up, and there is magnolia!!! and the best part about it? there was NO LINE. we walked in, grabbed our cupcakes, paid, and left. AWESOME.

we continue walking, and we stumble across washington square park! yeah!! we made it! and by sheer accident, too!!

so, as we are walking into the park, we notice some plain-clothes cops arresting some guy. we avoided that. but as we continue walking, we see more plain-clothes cops arresting another guy, and THIS guy is being forced to spit stuff out of his mouth. yeah, it was some huge crazy drug-bust going down. it was AWESOME. we were just a little sad we had missed the chasing part (we heard from someone else sitting in the park that there had been a chase...).

side note 2: before we had gotten to the park, i had mentioned to casey that i was bummed that i have been here now for almost 6 months, and i have yet to see a famous person walking down the street.

so, we continue wakling and are passing a dog run, and im lookin at all the dogs and thinking how cute they are. and then i look up at this woman who is leaving teh run wiht her dog. and i stop. i know, its pathetic, but i was just STARING at her. you always think that when you see someone they're not going to look like they do in the movies. and there is no way that they are going to be as beautiful in person as they are in the movies.

so, who did i see? Jean from X-men (pheonix!!). and if you dont know who im talking about, GO WATCH TEH MOVIE. it was freaking AWESOME. she is unbelievably gorgeous! and i was SO EXCITED!!!!! oh my god, i almost died. i freaking love x-men. i feel like the biggest tool gushing about seeing someone famous, but my GOD it was AWESOME. now, the even more awesomeest (thats right, its a word) thing about it is, when i got home today, i looked her up so i could post a link to her picture so you all could see her. and when i clicked on the first picture, she was not only with her dog that we saw her with today, she was wearing THIS EXACT OUTFIT! insane! AWESOME!!! and this picture just doesnt even do her justice. she is an amazingly beautiful woman.....i was SO EXCITED! i called three people (none of you picked up by the way!!).

so, after she left, we had our cupcakes. yum!! AWESOME. and then we watched the dogs for a while, and i fell in love with this cute little dog. guess what it was called. a PUGGLE! its a pug/beagle mix. oh my god the cutest thing i have ever seen in my LIFE!! AWESOME! now, teh one i saw was a little older, and a bit more pug. i almost died....

so, then we continued walking and we went to the gap, where i bought two scarves for $6/each, and then we went to old navy where i bought three shirts that i had been wanting for about three months now for $3.50/each! AND the warmest scarf ever for......NINETY SEVEN CENTS!! AWESOME!!!!!!!!

all in all, it was an amazing day. this is one of the reasons why i love new york. yes, i suppose you could have this same experience in la or sf, but there's just something about new york...my god i love it here.

and we saw jean!!!!!!


hope you had a good day, too!

what IS this crap?

sometimes i feel as though im going batty. i spend 20 minutes to a half hour cleaning dishes this morning, only to go back in there now to find my sink full. AGAIN. who KNEW i ever used this many dishes? what is WRONG with me?! you know what i actually think it is? kitchen elves. dirty thieving evil little kitchen elves. dirtying up my dishes.

oops!

so, it has been brought to my attention that i never totally finished my milk story.

okay, so, i left for california the day after my last final. the night after my last final, the school threw an end-of-term party for us at this club called slate. now, im not going to even link to it, because i wasnt all that impressed. basically, you were yelled at no matter where you stood by some huge bouncer guy saying "you cant stand there! move!" anyway, the final was over around 930. by 1015 i had chugged three beers at home. then we went to the bar where my friends proceeded to buy me drinks (i love male friends). and we were out til at least 4. we closed down two bars, actually. i got home and went to sleep around 5 or so. then i got up at 10 because i hadnt packed yet and i had to leave by 2 for the airport. i had also planned on cleaning my apartment before i left. unfortunately, i was too hung over to deal with packing and cleaning....
i packed (not well) and i started to clean but then i just wanted to lie down on the kitchen floor. so i didnt do anything. let alone take the milk out of the fridge....


and thats the end of the milk story. =)

oh elvis and pike, how i love thee....(thees? thys? hmmm....)

so. i love elvis cole. and joe pike. i do. i cant help myself.
who are elvis and pike, you might be asking? well, they are partners in the elvis cole detective agency. yes, they are characters from a book. well, not just A book, but a series of crime novels. i thoroughly enjoy them. elvis wears hawaiian shirts and loves jimminy cricket, and has a crazy pinocchio clock, and drinks falstaff beer, and lives in an A-frame house in the hollywood hills....alas, i am getting carried away.
the author of these books, robert crais, has written a few other books not in the elvis cole series, and they are pretty good. (in fact, one of his books, hostage, was made into a movie starring bruce willis. it was actually a pretty decent adaption--fyi, sum and mom, sookie was in it!!).
but, the point of my little love-fest here is that i have been a bad fan. a very bad fan, indeed!!! crais came out with another book almost a YEAR ago! and i had no idea!!! but, now that ive waited so long, it is coming out in paperback on january 23 (ahem, birthday present, ahem!). AND!! a joe pike novel is coming out this february!!! two crais novels within one month!! yeah!!!



ooh, and in other release news: bob saget's "farce of the penguines" (sp?) comes out at the end of the month! it is guarantted to be raunchy and dirty and i so cant wait to buy it! (ahem, another birthday idea, ahem!)


oh, by-the-by, for those of you who werent aware that my birthday was coming up, its on january 21, and i will be turning a quarter of a century. holy crap...

excuse me as i hurl...

so, tonight is the night i decided to clean my kitchen. ive slowly been working on the different areas of my apartment, cleaning and re-organizing, etc. and ive been saving my kitchen because of the fridge. okay, let me start here:
i love new york. i really do. however, there are a few things about the city that REALLY bother me. for example, there is not a single store here that keeps their refridgerated (sp?) items cold. i mean, theyre always *chilled* but never the correct cold temperature. now, this is annoying because a) things taste a little off, AND b) FOOD GOES BAD REALLY REALLY QUICKLY. its friggin frustrating. i finally found this one brand of milk that, for one reason or another, doesnt go bad quite as quickly. however. the last time i went to buy milk (uuuuh....beginning of december maybe?) NONE of the milk was remotely cold. it might have been SLIGHTLY cooler than room temp, but that was it. however, i was craving my raisin bran, so i needed milk. i bought the milk and used it that day, and it was fine. warm, but fine. the NEXT FREAKING DAY i went to pour it on my cereal, and it had already gone bad. so then i was bitter and i didnt want to buy anymore milk. i was also heading into studying for finals, and--dont ask me why--i didnt throw it out right away. that was a mistake.
okay, so, now everyone is caught up. bad milk in the fridge. oh, its now january 7, and the milk was still in the fridge. yeah, i left it in there while i was back in CA (ill explain why later). when i got back on thursday, i thought that my whole apartment would smell rancid. it didnt! the fridge didnt even smell!! well, this morning, it started to smell. (for the record, i dont think ive ever been THIS disgusting before. this isnt the norm for me!!!!!) so, i decided to not only throw out the nasty ass milk, but i figured i might as well go through my fridge and see if there were any other expired items in there (there were, but just a few, and werent gross or anything--ie, a thing of yogurt that expired a couple days ago, but wasnt nasty). anyways, i hadnt really decided how to deal with teh milk. i REALLY didnt want to pour it down the drain because the plumbing isnt all that great, but i didnt want to throw am almost full carton of rancid milk in teh trash to sit for a couple days...well, my problem was solved when i picked up the carton and realized....it was more of a solid substance. ew. ew ew ew ew. easier to throw out, but the idea is just nasty.

and thats all. =)