Caught in the undertow

Stupid mistake today. Last night, I got it into my head that today was Thursday so I went to bed early since my Extreme Body Makeover class starts on Sept 1. I woke up at 5:40am today, and made it to the gym by 6:10. Perfect timing, except... it's Wednesday and my class doesn't start till tomorrow. I'm such a dork. So rather than being a woose (I know others disagree with my spelling, but I don't care!) I stayed and did a 40-min cardio workout. I even did a bit of running on the treadmill, thanks to Jay-Z and Linkin Park. (Something about their music makes me want to run. And no, I don't mean that because it's bad.)

Thomas Friedman was at Microsoft giving a talk yesterday. I'm glad I went. He was a little annoying in terms of talking about how earthshattering his ideas were, but otherwise a very interesting talk. There were a *lot* of people who attended.

Today is Blog Day 2005. According to who, I'm not sure, but it's all over Technorati. I'm supposed to recommend 5 blogs to you. Choose your 5 from the list on the right.



TJ is making great progress on getting his motorcycle back together - he got the new painted parts yesterday (a nice sparkly dark blue, which I helped him pick!). It looks like he may get to ride it before the nice weather is gone. Woo hoo! Almost makes me want to get another bike. Maybe next year.

Have a great day!

Raging at unreachable glory

I got my prize from the San Jose Mercury News fashion editor today - it's Hollywood Glo body luster powder from Benefit Cosmetics. It's like they know me and my desire to be girly and glittery!!

I also made an appointment to speak with the UW Bothell CSS Program adviser next week. I'm going to ask her if it's possible to register for 0 or 1 class only per quarter, based on how my schedule goes. I'm thinking of registering for the Technical Writing course next quarter, which meets on Saturdays only. I think it's something I can handle, since it's only once a week, and on the weekend.

I have been so good this week - 3 days sticking to the Weight Watchers plan. (I'm not kidding, this is a streak for me.) It's actually getting easier and I'm much happier eating the stuff I made - it just seems healthier.

Thanks to Leslie for providing me with a new website I think is just SO cool, even more so because it's an Idealab! company. It's basically a cross between Friendster and ePinions. You write reviews of local businesses that you can share with friends. We're always doing this via word of mouth, so it's cool to have a site for it. I use mailing lists at work to get this info, but I like this site so much better! Let me know and I'll send you an "invite" to be in my network. You can get $5 Starbucks cards for writing 5 reviews. I wrote my first 5 today. Leslie is way ahead of me with 50! :)

Well, back to reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Baby, baby

Dre & Dave had their baby Evan last Wednesday. Congratulations!

An's Book Club #3: Little Earthquakes, Jennifer Weiner

Grade: A-

Facing a loooong flight to Savannah last weekend, with no more studying to do, I picked this book up (finally in paperback!) at Half Price Books. It was on my wishlist at the library forever, but I kept forgetting to pick it up when they'd notify me, and after a week, they give it to the next person on the list.

I finished this book in two days. It was easy to read, and her characters are multi-faceted and interesting. I'm a sucker for well-written chick lit. This book focused on the interwoven stories of four new mothers, so it doesn't exactly mirror my own situation, but I have enough friends who have recently had babies that it felt like I was hanging out with them. I have to admit that some of the detail in the book around childbirth and the change in lifestyle when the baby arrives made me even more squeamish about the prospect of having kids. What I love about Jennifer Weiner's writing is that it's just like talking to a friend - her writing is hilarious, sarcastic, and straightforward. Reading this book made the long flight seem much shorter, and provided me with some laugh out loud moments, which earned me some weird looks from fellow passengers.

A change will do you good

I was messing around with the template for the blog and somehow all the stuff on the sidebar ended up at the bottom. I didn't want to spend too much time figuring out how to fix it, and I thought a new look would be kind of fun. I find this one very soothing. Let me know what you think.

Princesses was a fun show, without much substance to it. I'm not sure I would be willing to pay more than the $36 we paid for our tickets. The songs were ok, with a couple of good pop-flavored tunes, like "Success is the Best Revenge". The sets and lighting were impressive. On the whole, though, it didn't even come close to being as good as Jesus Christ Superstar (my all-time favorite musical EVER), and I'm definitely not willing to see it again. I think Leslie and Yamini have maxed out their musical quota for the year. But I appreciate their willingness to go with me!

Our dinner at Andaluca was YUM. We ordered a lot of small plates and shared. The only bad thing we had was one of the items on the calamari plate - it seemed like it was calamari swimming in ketchup and mustard. I'm sure it was far more sophisticated than that, but I couldn't get past the way it looked and I think that tainted its taste as well. The service was great, and I'm totally impressed that our waitress remembered all of the things (7+) that we ordered without writing them down.

I spent this morning in a frenzy of cooking. The last box I got from Pioneer Organics, unfortunately, mostly went to waste as I didn't properly *plan* what I was going to do with the vegetables. By the time I got around to cooking, a lot of the stuff had gone bad.

So this week, I was determined to be on top of it. I made a savory, slightly spicy coleslaw and curried couscous with broccoli and feta from the Cooking Light 2005 cookbook, baked eggplant slices with light mayonnaise and parmesan from the Weight Watchers website, and roasted red potatoes with Italian seasoning (my own recipe).

I usually hate eggplant and was dismayed to find one in my box this week (I forgot to list it as an exclusion on the Pioneer Organics website). However, this recipe was great! I guess you can put mayo and cheese on anything and it'll taste good. Kind of like deep frying, only healthier. It also helped that I remembered the trick of sprinkling the eggplant slices with salt to get some of the water out, and forgot about the slices in the oven, so they cooked until they became very thin and soft, almost like eggplant chips. Even TJ agreed that they tasted good! Incidentally, when I showed TJ the whole eggplant, he didn't know what it was. Shocking!

Oddly enough, after all that cooking, I'm not at all hungry, and it's not because I snacked while I was cooking. This always happens. I guess I know what I'm having for dinner, though. Yay! Staying on track with my healthy eating plan should be a snap this week!

I got my letter saying I got into UW Bothell's CSS program yesterday. I'm really torn now. For some reason, actually getting the letter has made me want to start school again, despite my previous resolution. (How quickly we forget!). I have to decide by Sept 6 what I'm going to do. Wish me luck.

so inconceivable

Quick update as I wait for Yamini and Leslie to meet me. Tonight we're going to see Princesses, a musical at the 5th Avenue Theater downtown. A girl I knew from Pittsburgh, Anisha Nagarajan, is in it. Plus it's a contemporary musical about high school girls. What's not to love, for a Girls' Night Out? Before the show, we're going to eat at Andaluca. I've been wanting to try this place for a long time, and I looove tapas.

Oh, right, I got sidetracked at the thought of yummy Spanish food. The pic above is my left eyeball. Isn't that cool? My eye doctor, Dr. Barry, asked me if I wanted him to email it to me, and I said no at first, thinking "who wants a picture of their eyeball", but then I realized it would be cool to post on my blog. I was happy to see that the eye doctor uses Windows XP and Outlook. He's also got these neato sideburns and is *really* tall. Not that I'm checking out my eye doctor or anything, but he just doesn't look like an optometrist - maybe what those hip 20 year old guys who are straight, but care about what kind of shoes they wear, look like when they grow up.

And I got a 4.0 in CSE143. Yay! I guess my obsessing paid off. But I am *so* glad it's over. And taking more classes just doesn't sound appealing right now. I am way more productive at work now that I don't have a 2 hour distraction in the middle of the day!

I've been doing pretty well keeping my food journal, too. I had a miserable day Monday because I ate a bunch of garbage on the plane, so I used most of my "extra" points up that day. And I totally stopped tracking while I was in Savannah. Which means I need to be very monastic about what I eat the rest of the week. Something tells me Andaluca isn't going to help this. But I guess I can stick to the plan tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday since we don't have plans to eat out. If I can just keep my weight steady this week, I'll be happy. I'm not sure how people can stand to weigh themselves every day. I would freak out - once a week is bad enough, and it's so dumb to worry about a number like that anyway. I removed the weight loss ticker because I couldn't change it without creating a new one on the site and reposting it. Stupid. I'll come up with some other way to post progress here. (More for me than for you...)

Ain't nothin' but a hound dog

I don't think I can resist the urge to buy this. I talked to Lisa extensively about it at lunch today and she can get it for me at a discount, and it sounds so fun, and addictive, and she might let me babysit Otis when she goes on vacation and...

Peanut and Spike will be jealous.

Ain't no use in complaining, when you got a job to do

In my zeal to pack extremely light for my short trip to Savannah, I left my camera at home. Nevermind that it's tiny and weighs hardly anything. I didn't really regret the decision until I got to the Savannah airport yesterday to get on my flight back home.

As soon as I walked into the airport, I saw 3 rows of about 20 chairs each filled with teenaged boys, all staring straight ahead, not moving or talking. They looked like kids on a field trip being punished for something. Then I saw an older guy in an Army dress uniform standing next to them. I went to the USO counter to ask what they were doing, and it turns out these guys were brand new Army enlistees on their way to Beaufort, SC to start their training. Yikes. They were *so* young and it made me very sad to see them. I'm sure some of them were there because they genuinely want to serve their country, but I'd guess a good number of them were there because they didn't have any other options - no job and no money for college. What an awful time to be in that position.

Sometimes I think we should have mandatory military service for *everyone* (men and women) like they do in Israel or South Africa or any number of other countries. I hate the idea that folks with enough money can just avoid military service altogether while poor kids who don't have other options are sometimes forced to choose it. Maybe that makes me a Communist. I just don't feel like I did anything special to have been born into a family that could provide for me more than adequately. I also think it's dumb that boys have to register for the draft but girls don't. For true equality in this country in all aspects, we women need to be willing to sign up for the unpleasant stuff too.

Ok, I'll get off my soapbox now. I added a ticker to the very bottom of the page to detail my progress towards my weight loss goal. My motivation is our trip to Hawaii next year. I can't go until I'm at my goal. Unfortunately, in the last 8 weeks I've consistently gained weight so I'm actually pretty far from where I want to be. On the other hand, my ultimate goal is a number I haven't ever weighed as an adult so I'm not sure if it's even humanly possible...

Today Lisa and I signed up for the Extreme Body Makeover class at the Pro Club for September. I'm more than a little frightened by the thought of having to be at the gym at 6:15am but at least I have the guilt of letting Lisa down to motivate me.

Though I don't know her personally (love the Internet!), I am super-inspired by Gina's blog. I think I will institute my own version of the Challenge, and commit to 100 workouts by the end of the year.

Wish me luck!

On a dirt road that is soon to be paved

Hello from Savannah! It's terribly hot and humid here and it reminded me of why I usually don't visit my parents in the summer.

My mom came home from the hospital today and seems to be doing well. Yay! They are now watching our wedding video for the 2nd time so I had to escape. Since TJ and I watched it last week, I have no desire to see it again. It's kind of embarrassing to watch yourself on camera.

Back to Seattle tomorrow, and back to work. (A short week anyway.) I did fairly ok on my CSE143 final - 163/180, but I'm not sure if it was enough to get the 4.0 I was shooting for. Definitely a 3.9 at least, but since I'm a perfectionist... Grades should be posted next week. I'm really glad my 5 days a week trek to UW is over, though!

More when I return home!

Do you really want it?

I won something else from the San Jose Mercury News for a comment I made re: fashion tips - woo hoo! I'll let you know what it is when it arrives. I'm hoping it'll be girly and fun!

It's your day - woman's day

I heard from my dad early this morning that my mom's surgery went well this morning. She'll probably stay at the hospital a couple more days but should be home by the time I get there on Saturday. Yay!

Now back to our regularly scheduled shallow post about pop culture. :)

So I caught up on 3 nights of Rock Star:INXS today. The Sunday show, which is now on VH1, then last night's performance show, which was amazingly good, and tonight's results show. A fun way to spend an evening. Since they all had to perform in a "stripped down" way (if a string trio in the background can be considered stripped down...), it sounded a little more like "American Idol" than I expected. Jordis did a really gorgeous version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" but it just wasn't a rock song - it sounded very pop diva-ish. And surely Marty got some pity votes for having to sing a Britney Spears song, because I didn't think he did as good a job as the votes would indicate. But the true show-stealer last night was MiG. He usually seems quite bland to me, but he did such a moving version of "Baby I Love Your Way" that I'm actually going to buy it on MSN Music. It even made Dave Navarro/Mr. Rogers get all choked up. I swear that man's image is going down the toilet. Next thing you know he's going to host "Evening Magazine" or some other fluff because no one will take him seriously as a rock star after this show.

In addition, I watched So You Think You Can Dance, the latest cheese-fest from the producers of American Idol. I'm such a sucker. But ever since I saw "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" as a kid, I looooove watching good dancers dancing to contemporary music. (Still not much of a ballet fan, except for our family tradition of going to see The Nutcracker every Christmas - thanks Amma!) The dancing was really fun to watch, and TiVo makes it really easy to skip over the looong commercials, stupid comments by the contestants (shut up and dance already!) and the annoying hostess. Ryan (I think that's his name), the breakdancing kid from LA, completely blew me away with the amazing mambo routine he and Melissa(?) did. That was well worth the 2 hour show! (With Tivo it was more like 45 minutes, anyway. God Bless TiVo.)

And now for something completely different...

I did some serious thinking today. I'm at a point where I have a lot of conflicting priorities in my life, and it's only going to get worse: work, school, family (including Spike and Peanut), friends, home (wifely stuff), and trying to get in better shape. I've always tried my hardest to succeed at everything and make everything I do a number one priority. But honestly, I just can't do that anymore. I'm no longer at a point in my life where one thing is the clear priority (for example, when I was a full time student, or just a single gal working at Deloitte).

I'm not doing a great job of balancing everything and I can just feel the stress building up inside. I can't be my best self, or do my best work, in every aspect I mentioned above. So I'm making some hard choices:

1. Losing weight and getting back to regular exercise is one of my (real) top priorities now. I've been trying to do this for 15 years (half my life!) and the amount of time I have wasted on this effort makes me cringe. I don't want to keep pretending to do this for the next 20 years. I need to just buckle down, do the work, and get it under control now. So forgive me if this blog becomes a journal for my weight loss program and an outlet for my whining about it. Someday that project will be complete :)

2. If I get in to UW Bothell, I'm going to defer enrollment until Winter or Spring Quarter 2006. I just can't take on more responsibilities now, as much as I really want to learn more computer science. At that time I will re-evaluate why I want to do it, and whether it's worth the sacrifices I'll have to make.

3. I am going to focus more on doing a great job at work, in my current role, but I am also conceding that I don't want to become a VP. I've been told in the past that I have leadership potential, which is great to hear, but I'm just not willing to sacrifice everything else to get there. If my performance is good enough to warrant leading a small team, that would be great, but my main focus will be on my current position and how to be great at it and stay challenged in the long term, rather than always keeping my eye out for what's next.
This one is especially hard for me since I've always been taught to strive for the next level and prepare for my future. But honestly, I think I've arrived there already. I love my current job - it's a perfect fit for me. The team I'm on is fantastic, and the culture, benefits, and financial rewards for working at Microsoft are better than I ever could have imagined when I started working in the real world 6 years ago.

If I can follow through on these three things, I will be much less stressed out all the time, and can more fully participate in my life with TJ, the dogs, and our friends and family. That's the stuff that counts, isn't it?

Let your bright light shine

Yay! I have turned in my last CSE143 homework assignment, including the extra credit portion. Now all I have to do is study for the final. Woo hoo!

I am also sending good vibes to my mom who's having surgery tomorrow. I'll go to Savannah this weekend to hang out with my family and make her tea while she's recovering. ;)

Peanut's hotspot and chin allergies are much better now after several days of cone-wearing. The crafty dog figured out that the inside of the cone is textured and he could rub his chin against it to scratch it. Now that's enterprising. And Spike is less afraid of him. And we've almost gotten used to Peanut crashing into us from behind with his giant cone-head.

I finally posted the rest of the professional wedding pictures to our Smugmug site. Check them out - we're very pleased with Bradley's work! Now I just need to figure out which ones we want to enlarge to hang up in our house. It would be nice to get that done before our first anniversary!

I hate myself for loving you

That lyric goes out to CSE143. Due to my obsessive nature, and the general allure of the programming/debugging cycle, I have spent the last 12 hours trying to get my last homework assignment right. OK, I took a break of about an hour and a half total to get something to eat, sell my toaster oven to a guy who saw the ad in the Micronews, and shower. Other than that I've been holed up in the bedroom, which is the only room with an air conditioner, working on this program.

TJ, in his infinite wisdom, suggested using one of our breakfast-in-bed trays for my laptop since it gets so hot. Thanks Jasmine & Chris for this multi-tasking wedding present!! I wish I had figured this out much earlier in the day. My husband (hee hee) is so helpful and smart. Maybe one day he'll read my blog...

Tomorrow I may attempt the extra credit portion of the assignment. I'm not sure yet, as I'm still annoyed by how long it took me to do the regular parts of the problem, plus I've still got to study for Friday's final.

UW Bothell is waiting for my grade in CSE 143 before they let me know whether I've been admitted. So I guess I'll find out the week after next whether I get in.

Peanut has to wear The Cone aka the Elizabethan collar, this weekend to keep him from bothering the wicked hotspots on both of his back feet and an allergic reaction on his chin. He is such a great dog- he got used to it really quickly and is tearing around the house like the cone doesn't even bother him. What a trooper. Spike is terrified of the Conehead Peanut, and gives him a very wide berth. He seems very worried about getting trapped in the cone, which has the bitey end of the Peanut.

Today is Judy's birthday. Judy and I went to Canevin High School together, and met 18 years ago almost to the day. She was the first person I met at Orientation, and one of only 2 people I still keep in touch with from high school. Happy Birthday Judy!

TJ and I had a lovely breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Kirkland today. I guess the secret is to call ahead and get your name on the list, and show up before 9am. The buckwheat pancakes were YUM, as usual.

Question of the day: Do Canadians refer to Canadian bacon as "bacon"? Then what do they call regular bacon?

Could I have been a magnet for money?

I made some significant progress on my final assignment for CSE143 so I am allowing myself to blog today. However, I'm too sleepy to write anything interesting, so I apologize in advance.

Rock Star:INXS was ok today - I was writing code and watching at the same time so I didn't pay full attention to the show. Suzie's performance was really good, but no one else really impressed me today, not even the faboo Jordis. Ty's version of "No Woman, No Cry" was pretty good, but didn't deserve the loads of praise heaped on him by Dave Navarro & INXS.

Apparently the huge dinner before weigh-in day was bad news. This week I'll try to do it differently...

My new CDs arrived today - woo hoo! I'll have something to listen to on the way to UW tomorrow, if I remember to load them in the CD changer.

Your love is better than ice cream

Well, I completed an entire week sticking to the Weight Watchers plan! This is quite an accomplishment for me since I usually get bored somewhere around Day 2 and blow it quite spectacularly.

A quick summary for those of you not familiar with Weight Watchers - rather than counting calories, every food has a certain number of "points" which are based on the calories, fat, and fiber. So it's an easier calculation - rather than worrying about 1300 calories, I get 22 points a day, plus an extra 35 per week. After a while you memorize the number of points in things you eat frequently so it's not too complicated and easy to keep track in your head. I find it much easier and far less annoying than counting calories. In addition, most veggies are 0 points, so eating them has the double bonus of being good for me, and I don't have to "count" them.

TJ and I went to Claim Jumper tonight since I had 21 points left for the week at dinner time. Perhaps not a smart decision since I weigh in tomorrow morning but we'll see how it goes. I may have to adjust this next week and do the big dinner out on Saturday night instead, to give me time to "recover" before weighing myself.

My goal for this week is to work out at the gym for 30 minutes each morning. Oprah has said she really doesn't like working out, but she thinks of it like bathing or brushing her teeth - it's just something she does every day. Nathalie and I also plan to walk a couple of evenings a week, so this should be a good way for me to get back on the exercise wagon.

In the interest of being accountable and all that, I'll tell you that my goal is to lose about 19 pounds by the end of the year. That will put me in the healthy range for my height and then I'll figure out if I want to lose some more. It's not an especially aggressive goal, but one I think I can stick to. Wish me luck!

Never comprehending the race had long gone by

So as I suspected (and as TJ has been telling me for weeks - I should listen to him more), going to the gym this morning made my blah mood disappear. Instantly. Apparently 30 minutes sweating on the elliptical is the magical cure. I guess is shouldn't surprise me.

We made waffles this morning in the fancy waffle iron we got for a wedding present (thanks Carey!) and invited Dave (no blog) and Ginger, his Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Ginger is as big as The Peanut so we wanted to see how they'd get along in the house, as Peanut sometimes takes a while to warm up to other big dogs in his space. They mostly ignored each other. Ginger decided to harass Spike a little by following him around and boxing him into corners. He showed her some ferocious teeth and before things got too out of hand (for Spike, anyway), TJ let him hang out on the couch. But otherwise, the experiment went well.

The other experiment I did was mixing in fresh blueberries into the waffle batter. I got the blueberries in the last Pioneer Organics delivery and wasn't sure what to do with a whole pint. The blueberry waffles turned out great, except for some burnt blueberry residue in the waffle iron. I've also eaten the blueberries with the ginger ice cream I bought - talk about YUM. And did you know the actual fruit part of blueberries is sort of greenish? I think the skin is the only blue part. Weird. Oh, and neither Spike nor Peanut will eat one, which is surprising because so far, the only things they won't eat are raw mushrooms, raw onion (which is bad for dogs anyway) and lettuce.

Peanut's got another hot spot on his foot, unfortunately. Hopefully we won't need to bring out The Cone. It's supposed to be really hot here all week, which will probably make it worse. Poor puppy.

Congratulations to Kristin on her new job. Sad for me, she'll be moving back across the country. I have to figure out when to see her before she goes. Which will be extra-challenging since I have literally no vacation days left. Boo.

Keep on drivin'

I got a speeding ticket today. The second one in 2 years from the illustrious Bellevue police. Boo. Yes, I was screamin' down Bel-Red Rd doing 48 in a 35-mph zone. But honestly, why, between downtown Bellevue and my house, does the speed limit change from 30 to 35 to 40 to 45 in a < 5 mile stretch? And it's not like I was driving recklessly or anything. I think I'm doomed to one speeding ticket per year, so I guess I should just suck it up. This after getting a manicure and pedicure. So much for the relaxing spa trip.

Got taken in by the Starbucks marketing machine today and bought the Antigone Rising CD. I guess they caught me in a weak moment because I've never bought a CD before without hearing a single song. They're a chick band who write their own songs. Kinda rockin, kinda mellow. It's surprisingly good. Plus it's got a track co-written by Rob Thomas. Their lead singer Cassidy has a very familiar-sounding voice but I can't quite place it yet.

Oh, and sometime next week, UPS will deliver two new CDs to me: the soundtrack to Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which has a ton of great female singer-songwriters on it, and Nightwish, a sort of metal-ish band from Finland which I can only describe (poorly) as a cross between Evanescence and Queensryche.

Dre's baby is due in 10 days or so. Yay! We've offered to pick up her dog Norm when she and Dave go to the hospital. Norm is a big mellow guy and gets along well with Peanut, though he's not afraid to stand up for himself if need be. (Which says a lot about Norm. Not many dogs stand up to The Peanut.)

We had a bunch of friends over for poker last night - first time in a while. Actually, first time since before the wedding, I think. It was a lot of fun, and I came in second, winning $60. Pretty sweet, since I wasn't really playing to win at all - I just like having friends over and chatting w/ everyone during the game. John won again (for the 3rd time - he wins every time he's played @ our house).

Fun weekend. I'm trying to figure out how to get some stuff done around the house given the major case of the blahs that has overcome me. The good news is that I've stuck with Weight Watchers for 6 days now, which is *way* better than I've done in a while. And I'm not starving. Yay.

I laughed and shook his hand

So much for the diligent show recap idea... It was just too hard to type and watch Tuesday's performance show at the same time, and I didn't want to watch it twice (I'm not *that* obsessive, really!).

But I must say that Jordis absolutely blew me away with her performance of "The Man Who Sold the World". I stand corrected, as this is not a Nirvana song, but originally written by David Bowie. She was so good that I have had the song in my head for the last 2 days now (with her voice, not Kurt Cobain's, which is a good thing.)

In a twist of very smart marketing, you can buy individual songs from the show on MSN Music. So that's definitely on my list to download, along with Ty's performance of "Everybody Hurts" from last week. I'll probably buy every song that Jordis performs, except for the Hoobastank one, which is just too annoying to listen to, Jordis or not.

My CSE143 class is winding down, and I still haven't heard from UW Bothell regarding admission to their program. I'm so impatient! But I think I'll hear the decision in the next week or two. It'll be nice to be done with classes for a while. The 5 days a week schedule is grating on me a bit - especially since the traffic seems to be getting worse.

TJ and I are hosting a poker night for a bunch of alums from Ruddock House next month. Woo hoo! I wonder if we'll get a lot of folks from out of town? If so, it'll be a nice sort-of reunion thingy.

Dream Baby Dream - Monday Rock Star: INXS

The Monday show is hard to watch but fortunately it's only half and hour and it has that car-crash allure. Interestingly, they spend the first 5 minutes on a recap of the previous week narrated by the grating Brooke Burke, and another 15 on intro and commercials. So with TiVo by my side, it's quite bearable.

Are these guys really "friends" like they claim to be? They never saw each other before the show and they're in competition with each other for crying out loud! They pretend to be sad when people leave, but they must really be thinking "Yay - it wasn't me, suckah!"

Jessica the sorority girl is providing, like, a lot of like, deep thoughts on her fight to survive. That girl can sing, but boy does she not belong in a rock band. She seems like a slightly more badass version of Britney Spears down to the skimpy outfits and gyrating on stage. Maybe she can find her very own backup dancer to marry.

Marty gets a visit from his sister. Who cares?? He's such a dork.

Singing clinic - the guy worked with Axl Rose and Courtney Love. Um, they don't strike me as particularly good singers. Brandon reminds us he can't change his voice because he's 31, which is unfortunate because he can't sing as evidenced by his abysmal performance on "Tempted" last week. And dude said he has the widest range of the bunch?!! Apparently dude also says Deanna's voice is turning to vinegar because she's old. Bummer.

Song selection time. Ty and MiG (love the capital G) should be thrilled about "We Will Rock You" since they've both performed in different productions of that musical. JD is pulling his scheming crap again with Suzie and "The Letter" so he gets the song he wants - he makes my skin crawl. In an amazing flash of insight and drama, Jessica realizes people hate her. Ty doesn't want "Everlong" which blows my mind - it's the only Foo Fighters song that doesn't suck. He gets stuck with it but I think he can work his magic. Jessica is singing "Blister in the Sun" for like, HER LIFE, guys. During rehearsal, Brandon demonstrates that not only is his voice mediocre, but he has no rhythm either.

And what is with having a Nirvana song in the mix every week? Ugh. I realize I'm in the minority of people who don't think Nirvana was the best thing to happen to rock n roll, but still. All their songs sound the same to me. Of course, Jordis could make me like elevator music, so maybe she'll turn the tide for me.

So there. I offer up my humble recap of tonight's show. Thoughts?

I could no more stop dreaming than I could make them all come true

Ugh, it's been a while hasn't it? I got pretty far behind on my CSE143 homework and spent most of last week working on Assignment 6, which I turned in late. Fortunately we get 4 free "late days".

I got a fun surprise in the mail today - a copy of the 7/22 San Jose Mercury News and a DVD of The Village. Turns out they did end up publishing my comment about Rock Star:INXS, right under a huge pic of Dave Navarro with the caption "On TV, Dave Navarro acts like Mr. Rogers." I made that comment in reference to his intro speech to the contestants on the first show. Now I'm worried he's going to come and kick my butt for ruining his bad-boy image...

So that's pretty cool. I don't think I'm a terribly good writer but you can always count on me for an opinion. I've tossed around the idea of writing show recaps for Rock Star:INXS here because the official ones on the Website are so damn boring - they're as bad as listening to golf play by play on the radio - they drain every ounce of energy from the performances and make you *not* want to watch the show.

I aspire to be as witty as the Jaded Journalist on the American Idol website - his recaps are worth reading even if you've seen the show as he's absolutely hilarious. My recaps won't be that good, nor will they be as regular (since no one is paying me to write in this blog!) but I'll make an honest effort, I promise.