Things That Make Me Happy: CSI Miami Marathon Edition

CSI: Miami is not a show that I watch regularly. However, every week A&E always has mini marathons, when they play a bunch of episodes back to back, and I can't help but get sucked in every time. It's a show that I can either turn on if I just need some background noise, or if I choose to sit and really watch it, I can become totally entertained and completely engaged in the story. CSI: Miami combines many of the things I look for in good TV all into once nice package. I understand that sometimes the situations are pretty unrealistic... and that Horatio is a total drag... but I still really enjoy what this show brings to the table. I mean it's got lots of nice bright colors, beautiful scenery, a good looking cast of characters, and interesting stories to think about and follow along with. Not to mention the characters play with some insanely cool tools, and there is also usually some pretty good music in each episode. However, I think my main reason for watching the show is Caleigh... because I am utterly in love with her hair.  

I wish this was my hair.

Things That Make Me Happy: Super Mario Brothers Edition

OK. OK. OK. I have been an AWFUL blogger recently. Molly pointed out to me the other day that it had been almost two weeks since my last post. I had no idea it had been that long... I AM SO SORRY! My new toy (see picture below) finally arrived, and this is the reason I have failed to blog recently.

I blame it all on Mario. He sucked out all of my creative blogging energy, and held me captive... forcing me to save his girlfriend the Princess Peach, and defeat the evil Bowser at the same time. I must admit that I have been a HUGE Super Mario Brothers fan since the good old days of my original Nintendo Entertainment System. Finally an exciting single player game existed in my world, and Mario and I became fast friends. At the time not many of my friends were really into video games, and the ones that were really didn't enjoy playing Super Mario with me, due to the fact that I always beat the pants off of them. Oh well. This only allowed me to further my amazing skills... and thus fuel my passion for all things Super Mario. So once again, with this newest addition to my life and the Super Mario Brothers family, my creative juices went by the wayside, and my ridiculously juvenile competitive desires took over. However, I have successfully beaten the game... and am thus back to my normal regular blogging schedule.

Stories That Make Me Laugh: Speeding Ticket Edition

So this story doesn't actually make me laugh (due to the fact that in the end I had to shell out a fair amount of money), however, I suppose there is a bit of humor in it. At the end of my sophomore year of college I had intended to spend the last few days casually packing, and hanging out with my roommates. That all changed though when I got a call from my mom asking me to come home a day early. Our dog at the time was sick and had taken a turn for the worse. My mom was afraid we were going to have to put him to sleep, and she didn't want to go to the vet alone. After I hung up the phone I quickly packed up my stuff and threw it all into my car. Even though I was in a huge rush, I still managed to squeeze in a few moments to relax with my bestest buds, and chit chat before needing to say goodbye. Now as a side not I should probably add into this story the fact in that I tend to drive a little on the fast side (and that this is well known amongst all of my friends). So while we were chit chatting one of my friends, knowing I was anxious to get home quickly, happened to bring up my amazing speeding skills, and commented on the fact that she found it crazy that I had never gotten a speeding ticket. I sort of chuckled, gave my friends all big hugs, and hopped in the car to drive the three and a half hours home. By the time I actually made it on the road it was dark and nearing towards the end of the night. There were barely any other cars on the road, and I was making great time home until... Mr. Policeman decided to pull me over. It was an unenjoyable experience that ended with me receiving my first (and thank goodness so far my only) speeding ticket, and these words of wisdom from Mr. Policeman in a rather stern voice "didn't you notice that when you were passing all the other cars that they were STANDING STILL!" Ugh. I called my mom in tears and slowly continued my journey home. By the time I got home it was well past midnight and I was exhausted... so much so that I accidently left my ticket on the kitchen table (and at this point I hadn't exactly made it known just how fast I was going). The next morning the truth came out in a funny turn of events. I won't come out and say exactly how fast I was going... but I will set it up for you as a sort of word problem below, should you be tempted to do the math. 

I am currently 27 (and will be 28 in May). I got my permit on my 16th birthday. As a Christmas present that year my parents got me a brand new car. My mother nearly fell over when she realized that the number she saw on the ticket was actually the speed I was going... not the year of the car (the two happened to be the same). Good luck figuring this one out!

Stories That Make Me Laugh: Chicago Dining Edition

February 2008

Since tonight is the premiere of the newest season (season 21) of The Real World I thought it would be the perfect time to share this story. This past February I went to Chicago with a couple of my guy friends to visit two of my most wonderful and dearest friends in the whole wide world, Sarah and Adam. Sarah is one of my bestest friends, and I hate that she lives so far away, but I do try to make it out to visit her as often as I can (or at least as often as my bank account can afford). So during this particular visit we happened to have the most amazing (and entertaining) dining experiences ever. It started on the first night, when we decided that we would all go out for a really nice dinner together with a couple of Adam's Chicago friends. It was a bit late in the night, and every place we tried to go had no open tables for such a large group. We were just about to give up when we stumbled across this one really cute restaurant, that just happened to have a table free. We were ecstatic, since we were starting to get really hungry at this point. So we gathered together, and the hostess led us to our table. AND by table, I really mean our room. Somehow we managed to snag our own private table, in our own separate little room (much like a Chef's Table). It might just have been the most amazing thing ever. The rest of the diners were out in the busy restaurant eating and chatting away, while we were in this fancy mahogany room, surrounded by wine and liquor bottles, in our own little private oasis. The waitress would come in pour us our glasses of wine, and then close the french doors behind her, leaving us to continue being our ridiculous crazy selves. Unfortunately I have no pictures to share of this dinner, but it was definitely one of my top five best dining experiences ever. After the amazing dinner of fabulous food and wine, and great conversation, we were pretty sure that this moment could not be topped. HA... were we wrong. The next day we decided to grab a quick lunch at a bar/brewery/pub place down the street from Sarah and Adam's condo. We noticed an extremely LARGE line outside the door and got very worried that we would get stuck waiting, and thus our quick lunch would not be. We went inside to check on the wait, only to discover that there actually was no wait. Hmmm we all thought. How odd. Anyways, we sat down and ordered several of their beer samplers (they brew their own beer - so obviously we had to try all of their offerings) and perused the menu. Our table just happened to be right next to the entrance to another room. In this other room there were several tables with people sitting, but no one was eating, and even though these people were all sitting together, they appeared to not know each other. Once again, hmmm we all thought. At this point we started to notice groups of about 10 people at a time walking into the room, and after about 15 minutes they would then leave (some a bit upset) and a new group would come in. So finally we stopped a girl as she was walking by us and asked her what was going on. She was a bit crazy, and looked at us like "Oh my God (insert valley girl voice here)... how can you not know what's going on?!?" before telling us in a rather loud and obnoxious voice that "Duh, it's the auditions for The Real World, season 21!!!!". Oh... oops! Silly us for not knowing. So needless to say our "quick" lunch turned out to be about a three hour lunch, due to the fact that we could not keep our eyes off of the train wreck that was the Real World auditions. We had a few other stellar dining moments as well during this trip... but these two were the best. 

Things That Make Me Happy: Mr. Jones Edition

This morning in the car I heard this song three times (on three different radio stations). I was lucky enough to hear it in its entirety each time too. Mr. Jones is one of my absolute all time favorite songs, so I got pretty excited. Since it's an older song it isn't really played on the radio that much anymore, and when I do hear it on the radio I seem to only catch the very end of it. Because of this, it seemed a bit odd to me this morning that I would get so lucky as to hear this great song like I did... so I decided to take it as a sign of good things to come!

Things That Make Me Annoyed: Rebranding Edition

So I have been meaning to write this post for days now, but I kept distracting myself... with things like cocktails and computer games and stalking the Amazon website to track the status of my recently purchased new toy (a black Nintendo DS - which I am just a little too excited about, and unfortunately all of my checking and rechecking of the website is not speeding up it's arrival... go figure!). So I apologize that I have not posted in so long. Anyways... Happy New Year everyone! I know personally I am really really glad that 2008 is over (I'll just say it wasn't exactly my best year ever), although I am feeling a little more anxious then usual because I have hopes that 2009 will be a really really good year (and I am a tad nervous about implementing some new changes in order to make this happen). Which brings me to this post. 

So the other week I was out running some errands, and I stopped into the grocery store to pick up a few things, one of them being some Diet Pepsi for my mom. Well, I stood in the aisle of the store for a few minutes, staring blankly at the spot on the shelf where the Diet Pepsi usually is. I couldn't find it... or any other variety of Pepsi for that matter. And this is why.

They'd gone and changed up their logo/design/branding. For those of you out there that do not know this about me, I REALLY don't like change. I understand that change is often required, and that good things can actually come from change... but these facts don't really ease my worries about change. There are some changes that I am OK with (usually when they are suggestions made by me), for example getting my haircut, or moving the furniture around in my room. Then there are the changes that just don't sit well with me, like the above mentioned rebranding, or like when my parents painted our house while I was away at college, and I came home to a completely different colored home (in these instances it was not my idea to alter the said object, and chances are my opinions were not taken into consideration). So I picked up a case of the "new" Diet Pepsi and continued on down the aisles contemplating how ugly I though this new design was, and how I couldn't believe that they had gone and changed it on me (I don't even like Pepsi... but still... how could they do that to me?). Then I hit the OJ aisle and was faced with this.

Oh gosh. Now my favorite orange juice has gone and rebranded itself as well. Why? What was the world trying to tell me? Yet again another ugly new design, but the message was pretty clear... both of these companies were attempting to revamp their image, and produce a better looking and feeling product (I'm not sure they have succeeded, but they didn't ask me my thoughts... for if they had you would certainly NOT being seeing these new designs on your supermarket shelves!). However, I had to wonder. Is 2009 going to be the year of the rebranding? Is there something new and exciting out there for everything, and everyone? Well, I guess 2009 should also be the year for the rebranding of Victoria... and that is my New Year's resolution... to make some BIG changes, so that I can have a better and happier year than I did last year.