Roommate News

For those of you who know me well, you know I do not like my roommate. There are dozens of reasons why that I won't really get into right now... but the good news is that he is finally, finally moving out! I've been waiting forever for him to move out as he constantly told me his living there was only temporary. Now, nearly two years later, he's finally moving out. I've been waiting so long that I finally decided about a month ago that I should probably move out first. I even looked at some apartments a couple weeks ago and have been trying to determine exactly how much I can afford. Part of it is that I'm ready for a change... I've been there almost 2 years and that's the longest I've lived in one place in about a decade. Of course, now that Marc is leaving, I have to decide if I want that change to be a 1-bedroom apartment or if getting a new roommate will be enough change for me. Ugh. Big decision. I have to decide relatively soon; he's moving out until mid- to late-December and I've got to give 30 days notice.

On the Bus, Gus

I'm sitting on the bus heading back to Washington, DC, after spending a little over 24 hours in New York City. Gotta love free bus wifi! We left at 6:30 and were supposed to arrive at 10:45 but didn't get to the tunnel out of Manhattan until 7:22 so I'm guessing we are quite a bit behind schedule. Then, a little bit ago, the bus driver announced that we were going to have to detour because of some tractor trailer problem. It was hard to hear what she said but I heard something about the Chesapeake Bay Bridge so if we are going over that, it has to add a lot of time to our trip, I would imagine. I wish I had some idea where we were... but I'm in the back of the bus and it's so dark out. Anyway, I'm fine for now. I can imagine I might get a little stir crazy if we are hours late but I'm good with my reading material, movies and free Internet.

I went to New York to watch the Cavs play the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, which was pretty cool. I'll write a separate post about that and post some pictures later. Today, then, I just decided to walk around, do some shopping, etc... I basically walked for 6 straight hours so I'm happy to be on my butt. I went to the Holiday Shops at Bryant Park, toured the New York Public Library, and then basically just walked all around the Broadway/Times Square area, checking out different shops and the various Broadway theaters. Oh yeah, and I went to the big flagship Macy's, where I actually bought a bunch of stuff. It was a pretty nice and full day actually.

Now, we're literally driving through suburban Delaware, stopping at traffic lights and such, so it makes it a lot easier to find landmarks. Middletown, Delaware. From what I can tell on Google Maps (on our increasingly slow Internet), we're about two hours away from home. 60-90 minutes behind schedule.

Surgery for my dad

Tomorrow my dad is going in for a knee replacement surgery on his left knee. I know it's a pretty routine surgery nowadays but I'm still worried. I know my mom is a nervous wreck and I feel bad I won't be able to be there for her and for my dad after the surgery. Hoping my brother steps up... Anyway, here's praying everything goes well.

No, Fox, that doesn't really make me feel better

So imagine a team that had BOTH World Series Ace pitchers on their staff! How great a team would that be? Oh right, that was the Cleveland Indians last year. So yeah I don't think anyone in Cleveland is too excited to be watching Game 1 of the World Series with the Phillies and their starting pitcher, Cliff Lee, take on the Yankees and their starting pitcher, CC Sabathia. Here's Fox's acknowledgement of the suckiness:

"You Still Have Lebron" is what it says at the top of the screen. Yeah, great. Lebron is awesome but he's not won us a championship. In fact, he hasn't even won us a game this season yet. :-(

Second Place Showing in Trivia

By the way, we placed second tonight in trivia! Very exciting. It got us $25 in gift certificate money for the bar where the trivia takes place plus a bunch of Halloween loot, like candy and fake bugs and a jack-o-lantern pen that has punching arms. I am very proud of us but I do feel like we probably could have won first place again (we won once before) had we actually listened to each other. We had the correct answer to at least 5 more questions but let someone else on the team convince us we were wrong.

Basketball Season!!

Tomorrow is the start of the NBA season and I cannot tell you how excited I am. Go Cavs!! I just bought a ticket to the Cavs vs. Knicks game next Friday night in New York City. I bought bus tickets to go up there about a month ago but I've been struggling to find game tickets. I just kept trying and trying and finally, success! I know it's not the best seat but it's better than nothing. Should be interesting to see all the Lebron wooing in person. Anyway, I'm planning on going to see the Cavs in a few different cities this season. New York, Washington, Philadelphia and, of course, Cleveland. And who knows where else? I might make a trip up to Boston too.

Advance Movie Screening: Amelia

I get these free advanced movie screening passes every so often (seems like once a week lately) and last night was no different. I got to see Amelia, starring Hilary Swank as Amelia Earhart. I'm a huge fan of Amelia Earhart's. I wrote my first in-depth research paper in college about her and her feminism, plus my grandmother always claimed that she was a distant relative of ours. I never really believed her since she never could explain the connection but who knows? Anyway, I was eager to see the movie because of the story it told, not so much because of Hilary Swank. She is one of those actresses that I'm not a big fan of. Personally, I mean. When I've seen her on talk shows, there's just something about her that I don't like. Her acting is fine enough. That being said, I found her really grating as Amelia. There is talk (supposedly) of her being nominated or even winning another Oscar for this portrayal and wow, I hope not. Maybe Amelia herself was grating so Hilary did a bang-up job but I think it was more the performance that was grating. I was more fascinated with how they were able to make her so full of freckles, which I'm pretty sure are not natural to Hilary.

As far as the movie goes, it was your average biopic. They overdramatized some stuff and left out a lot of information but it showed an interesting snapshot of her life from the time she was asked to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic until she passed away - basically it's Amelia in her 30s minus one flashback. If the ending happened exactly as portrayed, then it's ridiculous that there have been any rumors that she survived. They were literally in the middle of nowhere.

I would recommend this as a rental or a wait-for-cable viewing unless you are desperately fascinated about Amelia Earhart.

Lebron James stalking

The pride of Northeast Ohio, Lebron James, is making the TV talk show rounds to promote his new book and upcoming movie. He'll be on The View on Monday and Late Show with David Letterman on Tuesday night (with former President Bill Clinton so that will be a good show all around). Then he'll fly to Los Angeles and show up on Jay Leno's new 10pm show and Jimmy Kimmel Live on Friday.

I'll be watching them all, of course, but I hope they don't all go like his appearance on The Daily Show (see clip below), which was full of wooing. Uh no. Thankfully Jon didn't have much to offer.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
LeBron James
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

After that, he'll return to Cleveland for Training Camp! I'm really excited about this season and already have plans to go see the team a few times this season.

Traveling, traveling

I do enjoy traveling but I feel like I've been away from home forever. A month ago today, I got back from a family vacation in South Carolina (so I was gone a whole week before that) and in that month, I went to New York City for four days for a wedding, made a road trip to rural Virginia with some friends, and went to Chicago twice for work. Plus, my brother and his family came to visit for 4 days so I spent a few days touring DC with them so even though I was home, it still felt like I was playing tourist for that weekend, too. All my trips were pretty fun. It pretty much rained the entire time in Hilton Head, SC, but at least it was really relaxing. New York City was amazing - the first time I'd been there. Even Chicago turned out okay. This last trip I got to hang out with my college roommate for a few hours. I took a ton of pictures that I may link to eventually but I'm really looking forward to having a few weekends of relaxation and staying at home and getting things back to normal! My next trip is three weeks from today - I'll be heading back to Cleveland for 5 days.

SpeedCine - The Fast Way to Find Legal Movies Online

One of the librarian email lists that I'm on sent around something about this site, SpeedCine, which lets you search and browse for free movies available online. Once you find a movie, it tells you where you can find it online, either for free or for a fee. It's pretty cool. I can see it being useful. It even contains direct links so you can get right to the movie.

"Tiny librarian is hell on wheels"

Cute story with video about a librarian in Akron, OH, who is also a Roller Derby girl. My favorite part of the story is that her number on her playing jersey is "796.21 -- the Dewey Decimal library index number for skating." Heh.

'Time Traveler's Wife' Series Travels to ABC

Woo woo, this is my 1000th post! Too bad it wasn't a bit more substantial. But I am excited to hear that they might turn The Time Traveler's Wife into a TV series. Makes more sense than a movie because it's a confusing tale to tell to trim down to 2 hours. And I loved the book. (via)

Guess where I'm going next week?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina!
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Headed to vacation in South Carolina on Sunday! Looks like I may see some interesting characters.

The Superstars Champs are Crowned

I've been watching The Superstars on ABC this summer. Right up my alley... sports plus celebrities trying something out of their element. I will pretty much watch anything that has celebrities trying something out of their element. It was enjoyable enough. I'd recommend it. All the episodes are available on Hulu. If you want to watch, then I'd suggest you stop reading though because I'm going to spoil the winners.

See, the show paired professional athletes with celebrities and the athletes/celebs competed as teams. The problem is that one of the celebrities was Maks from Dancing with the Stars. A professional dancer was one of the celebrities? But isn't he also a professional athlete? Seems like a ringer to me. And it's no surprise that his team won! They basically dominated the entire show, winning something like 8 of 14 events. Even expecting the outcome, it wasn't a bad show though.

"Netflix to stream early seasons of 'Lost,' others"

This news about Netflix streaming the first five seasons of Lost plus some of the older seasons of Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives is great news to me, even though I've already seen all those seasons. Now that I have a Tivo, I'm able to watch their streaming stuff directly on my television so anytime I want to watch an old episode of Lost, it will be easy to pull up on my TV!! (via)

That reminds me that I've meant to do a review of my Tivo. I should do that soon.

Going crazy?

Maybe a month or so ago my closet door broke in my bedroom. The doors are full-length mirror doors that slide. What happened was the back door's frame broke away from the mirror part. I didn't hurry to call maintenance to come fix the door because my bedroom was a mess. Plus, the door still basically worked. It was just a little tougher to slide it. It's been a few weeks now and I still haven't gotten around to calling. But yesterday I noticed that the door is fixed! I don't understand it! Did maintenance come in and do some sort of checkup and fix it on their own without telling me? Did it somehow fix itself? I have absolutely no idea but I guess the latter option makes more sense... maybe one time when it got pushed to the end of the closet, it reattached itself. But it sure is on there securely now and I had tried to reattach it when it first broke and it was way too heavy. So, so crazy. I wish I knew what happened.

Two Good Summer Movies

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend advanced screenings for two upcoming summer movies and both were really good so I highly recommend them.

The first was Julie & Julia, which opens August 7th. It stars Amy Adams and Meryl Streep as Julie Powell and Julia Child, respectively. Both do a great job! This movie is based on a book of the same name, which ironically has been suggested as a book club book at one of my book clubs probably at least 5 times and I've never had any desire to read it. The movie is a little different from the book because it's adapted not only from Julie Powell's book (where she decides to cook her way through a Julia Child cookbook in a year's time) but also from Julia Child's book. So, while you are seeing Julie's experience as she struggles with this project and attempts to find meaning in her life, you simultaneously learn about Julia Child. Anyway, it's really good. I'm not sure I'm doing a good job of selling it.

The second movie, (500) Days of Summer, is a romantic comedy, I guess, but so not cliched like most romantic comedies are (but don't get me wrong, the cliched romantic comedy is not always a bad thing!). This movie follows a guy (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the 500 days of his relationship with Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel. The movie states from the first sentence that this is not a love story and I guess it really isn't but it's really funny and clever and enjoyable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is maybe best known for playing the kid in 3rd Rock from the Sun, does such a great job and looks so adorable in all the sweater vests he wears. I don't want to spoil it or anything but it's very good. Go see it.

I Want One: Crocs Coasters

It's funny that I don't find Crocs that cute when they are actually on someone's feet but these little Crocs coasters are adorable. And on sale! (via)

Pet Airways

So now there is an airline solely for pets. Interesting. It seems remarkable that there is a service for this but I suppose people need to transport their pets across the country and don't want to ride with them in the car. Right now, it looks like only cats and dogs are eligible but soon reptiles, birds, and even pigs will be welcome! But judging from the content on the site, the pets are taken care of very well.

Some of the pictures on the site are really funny and it seems like they have sort of a tongue-in-cheek approach, so good for them, but the constant use of "pawsengers" is a little annoying.(via)

Power Outage

Ugh. Our power went out last night around 11:30ish. Again. It was just a few weeks ago when our power went out at night for about 5 hours. The power company supposedly caused an intentional power outage in late May to update our lines so that unplanned outages wouldn't occur. Now it's been twice since that happened that not only did we have unplanned outages, but they were lengthy outages. Before that, I don't think we had a single outage the entire 16 months I'd lived here. This time, the power didn't come back on until about 11:30am. So, yes, 12 hours. The weirdest thing is that a few hours after the power went out, they restored partial service. This meant that only one in four of the outlets in my room worked, that our kitchen light worked but our refrigerator had no power. The bathroom light worked but the outlet in there didn't. Our air conditioner didn't work... etc, etc. It was really odd and ridiculously inconvenient. Thankfully, the outlet that operates the fan that I sleep with was the one outlet in my room that stayed on all night so I didn't die from heat exhaustion.