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Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
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1:22 pm - In defense of Twilight and Twi-hards
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Awhile ago, I added a bunch of Beauty and the Geek cast members to my friends list on Facebook, figuring they probably wouldn't add me back. Most of them did (most of the geeks anyway), but of course, I don't interact with them or vice versa (excluding our friend, Drew). Until today. I posted this funny Twilight article about how crazed the fans are, and how a simple concept of a story has turned into such a phenomenon. I found it amusing because I know I'm crazy, and I'm too old to be a fan, and I have a kind of obsessive personality. And most of the article is kind of true. But this BATG guy, John English, took it to a whole new level.
John English is the guy in the blue blazer, to give you a frame of reference.
For all of you shallow, uninteresting, insecure fans of one of the worst books I've ever read, here is how pathetic you are. I'm glad someone finally spelled this out with illustrations. I actually gave it more of a chance than he did, and made it through the second book in its entirety. I will never get that portion of my life back. Please read, enjoy, and for the love of God, grow up!
Hmm, now I see why he was the first one eliminated...
Yes, the article was probably written maliciously to call Twi-hards losers, but I didn't take it that way. I think Twilight brings people together and gives girls something to hope for, even if it is a little far fetched. Yes, we go a little crazy, but so do football fans, yes? The Twilight Saga is our Packer game, and Edward is our (former) Brett Favre. Or Aaron Rodgers I guess now.
From a personal level, I will always be a sucker for a romantic fantasy story geared towards children. It's my lot in life to publish a children's fantasy novel, so I'm using the excuse of "research." But in reality, I get sucked in along with millions of other women of all ages. It keeps us young.
And I see nothing wrong with that.
current mood:  contemplative
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, November 5th, 2009
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9:25 pm - InStyle Makeover Tool
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| Monday, October 26th, 2009
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2:26 pm - Milwaukee Fashion Examiner
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That's me!
http://www.examiner.com/x-28006-Milwaukee-Fashion-Examiner
I now have an excuse to go shopping A LOT! Haha. If any of you have any article ideas, lay them on me! I have a handful of ideas, but I'm supposed to post 2-3 articles a week ideally, so I will always welcome suggestions. I will post my first article this week, so you better all read it (please?)!
current mood:  optimistic
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, October 23rd, 2009
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10:12 am
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Remember when I applied to be a Milwaukee Fashion Examiner? Well, I hadn't heard back from them, so I pretty much forgot about it. Then today I glanced in my Spam folder and saw that they had replied back and accepted me the very next day. The email said I had to reply in three business days, but now it's been over three business weeks. Anyway, I replied back and apologized, so hopefully it'll still work out. Stay tuned for future articles about Milwaukee fashion!
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
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7:40 pm - Could I BE wearing any more trends?
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Skinny jeans...check.
Slouchy boots...check.
Blousy top...check.
"Leather" biker vest...check.
Gap card bill after today...no comment.
Nah, everything but the boots were on sale, and those were cheap anyway, so I only spent $81 on the entire outfit. How's that for bargain shopping? Before today, I wasn't sold on the whole jeans tucked into boots thing, especially on people with hips, but I think it actually works in some cases.
OK, seriously, need to stop buying things for a bit.
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| Sunday, September 20th, 2009
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9:02 am - Museum of Science and Industry
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Scott and Christina weren't able to come over yesterday due to family obligations, so I got the idea of going on a date with Nate to check out the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. I hadn't been to the museum since my 8th grade class trip, so I was pretty excited to go back.
When we first go to the museum area, I couldn't find parking, so I was frustrated right off the bat. Luckily, while circling back, Nate spotted the museum parking garage. Parking ended up being $16, so parking on the road might not be a bad idea in the future. But at least it was very convenient.
We went in and bought general admission tickets + the Harry Potter Exhibition, which came to $52 for the both of us. I would say it was plenty reasonable if we had given ourselves more time to wander through the museum; but unfortunately, we only had an hour and a half until it closed. I think we did cover half the museum, so that's not too bad. The most time was spent looking at the airplanes and U-505 submarine. Next time, we'd like to hit the space area, and I really want to see the fairy castle. I saw it when I was a youngster, and I think it was always my favorite part of the museum. Well, besides the Harry Potter exhibit, but that doesn't really count.
When the museum closed, we had an hour and a half to kill before it was time for us to go back and see the Harry Potter exhibit. Thanks to my trusty phone with GPS, we found a nearby coffee shop, got lattes, and walked around Hyde Park to kill time.
At 5:15ish, we headed back to the museum and waited around inside. They let us lined up a little before 5:30 (we were in the 5:38 group). A guy with a (probably fake) British accent asked us Harry Potter trivia while we waited. When it was time, they let us in to the exhibition.
The first part was a guy wearing a Harry Potter-esque robe, and he was standing next to the Sorting Hat, sitting on a stool. He took three volunteers to sit down and have the Sorting Hat tell them which house they were in. Each of the three volunteers wanted to be in Gryffindor, and wowzers! They all were. Haha. Next, we stepped into a dark room with like seven vertical big TV-sized screens that showed a montage of all the movies. Then, dramatically, a set of double doors next to us opened into the exhibition part.
Most of us consisted of costumes from the movies and some props. The really cool part, though, was that each section was completely decked out and themed to be a different aspect of the movies. The first section was comprised of each professor's different classrooms. Next there was Hagrid's hut, adjacent to a whole Quidditch section. They even had a game set up much like the basketball toss games at arcades, except it was Quidditch themed. Then came the Forbidden Forest, where all the evil creatures and characters lurked. Speaking of creatues, they had "life-sized" likenesses of all the different creatures in the movies--house elves, Buckbeack the hippogriff, a thestral, a huge dragon's head, and the giant hairy spider. Finally, we walked into the great hall where candles hovered above us, just like in the movie. After finishing up with the exhibit, we wandered around the Harry Potter gift shop. I eyed some of the Malfoy figurines, and the movie replica wands were pretty cool, too, but I didn't buy anything.
So anyway, the Harry Potter exhibit was definitely worth going to for me. And it got me even more excited for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is scheduled to open Spring 2010 at the Universal Orlando Resort.
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| Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
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4:01 pm - Old School
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The topic of the Space Ghost Coast to Coast cartoon came up today, and I mentioned how Hanson was on it, so I had to youtube it and watch it again. Oh my gosh. They were so awkward. However, in the same playlist, I found my favorite appearance at the time...
Oh ridiculousness. I didn't realize back then that Zac was annoying, Ike was the biggest nerd ever, and Taylor was actually tolerable. Sort of. But yet, I'm still laughing at parts of it.
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| Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
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6:42 pm - Bangles & Bags, Too
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I just found the coolest store in Port Washington. It's called Bangles & Bags, Too.
I've been kind of eyeing this store since I moved here, but I thought it might just contain cheesy, homemade items that don't appeal as much to the younger crowd. I figured since Nate wasn't around tonight until later, that I'd take a peak in anyway and see what they had to offer. My eyes popped open with excitement the second I walked in. Not to be cliche, but it was like a kid in a candy store. There were so many interesting handbags and accessories covering the entire inside of the cute little shop. The store was divided up by colors, and there were many colors to be had. I wandered over to the purple section first and found this crazy flower necklace.
Below that was the pink section and on the opposite was went brown, yellow, orange, black, green on the back wall, and then miscellaneous stuff after that. Odd, I don't recall a blue section, but there must've been one. Anyway, of course I paused at the yellow section and wanted to buy it all, but instead, I hastily snatched up the big, bug-eyed, not Nate-approved sunglasses.
Since they were closing in 15 minutes, I grabbed the white bag I was eyeing when I walked in and headed to the checkout.
The stuff I bought was kind of off the wall and big (and OK, maybe a tad gawdy but big accessories are in right now, yes?), but they didn't just have crazy stuff there. They had all sorts of handbags in all color combinations and all sizes, some even looked like imitation Coach and Chanel. And they had tons of cute fashion jewelry. I need to take you all there next time you visit because I thought it was a very fun store to wander around in.
While I was in the area, I also stopped at this clothing boutique called Fashion Safari or something like that. I couldn't really get what the store was for--whether it's a second hand store or what because I noticed some Banana Republic, Forever 21, and Coach labels. For example, they had a few Coach sneakers that were only $65. At least, that seemed like a pretty low price for Coach sneakers. So those were really tempting, but I couldn't find a size, and they were about to close, so I walked away. They had a few cute items, though. Some decorated martini glasses and cutesy gifts like that, too. I'd go back there again, but it wasn't quite as exciting as Bangles & Bags, Too.
I kinda dig living here.
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| Monday, June 1st, 2009
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7:07 pm - My Haircut!
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| Friday, May 29th, 2009
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8:45 am - Nick Carter in a movie?
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Haha, I just saw this on Youtube: Monster Island, an MTV film starring Carmen Electra and including Nick Carter. The first 2.5 minutes is pretty lame, but I think I must keep watching!
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(comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
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8:14 am - New House!
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This weekend was almost entirely dedicated to our new house. Friday afternoon, we closed on it, and for awhile, it was looking like we wouldn't end up walking out of there with keys. We were on a very tight time schedule, and they had me start signing my married name, but halfway through, she realized I was supposed to be signing Castro, so we had to resign everything. But after an hour or so, we did get out of there with our keys!! After that, Nate hauled some stuff over to the house, and I went grocery shopping since we were having some people over to see the new place (officially housewarming party to come once we have furniture and decor and stuff). Then, we just grilled out and ate and drank, making a mess of our kitchen only 5 hours into owning the house. Oh well!
Saturday, Nate and I woke up earlyish and headed to Home Depot to get paint and other necessities. I had been really torn on what I wanted to do about paint, so I enlisted the help of creative interior designer extraordinaire, Samantha, to get her opinions. For the living room, I went with Gobi Desert with an accent wall of Egyptian Nile. The kitchen is Gold Buttercup (Samantha and I had originally come up with a richer, brighter yellow, but it looked too much like Packer colors, so I went lighter). The bedroom is Smokey Blue. I love the bedroom color the most. It definitely looks like a room you want to curl up and sleep in. I'll post pictures of the actual painted rooms either later tonight or tomorrow. Anyway, around noon, my mom came over to help clean and paint. We painted until about 4ish and then quit and decided to go furniture shopping.
We headed to Colders since they are the closest furniture store, and we knew they were having an awesome Memorial Day sale. On anything in the store, you got the full price back to spend on more stuff. So pretty much, it was half off in the end. If you spend $2,000 on a couch, for example, you'd get $2,000 to spend on other things. Anyway, we ended up getting everything we needed--a couch, loveseat, yellow!! accent chair, kitchen table, bed and mattress, dresser with a mirror, and a nightstand. It's supposed to be delivered by the end of June, so that's exciting. I can't wait! The only big purchase we have left for the time being is Nate's new TV, which will be happening in a couple weeks. After the shopping adventure, my mom headed home, and Nate and I went to bed.
Sunday, Nate and I tackled some more painting and unpacked the kitchen a little. Then at night, I took a break and went to Sarah Hadler's 21st birthday party. It was fun, and I'm glad I went (if only for an hour or so), but it definitely made me REALLY REALLY cranky the next day. Not only cranky, but ridiculously uncoordinated, which made me more cranky. I was running into everything and accidentally painting the ceiling and just getting really defensive whenever Nate said anything. It was bad. But I got a little better once my parents showed up at 11 to offer more painting assistance. We got a crapload done, and now the living room, kitchen, and bedroom are all painted except for some touching up to finish today. It looks so much better than it did, and much homier.
I always forget how much moving sucks, though. I mean, I don't mind it that much considering I do it every year. But it sucks being in two homes at once and having some stuff at one place and some stuff at the other. Nate wanted to bring Spunky over on Saturday, so now she's living in the house, and Amber's still at the apartment. Which means, we're trying to make sure to be at both places at some point in the morning and afternoon so the kitties don't get lonely (or hungry in Amber's case). But we're planning on moving Amber over to the house later this week, too, so then it won't be so bad, and I won't feel guilty when I leave each place.
Stay tuned for pictures soon.
current mood:  excited
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
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10:31 am - Welcome to the Bad Girls Club
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The Bad Girls Club came to an end last night with the reunion episode. They definitely went out with a bang. I wish the rivalry between the Ambers and the Fab Five would've ended, but that would've been too good to be true. There definitely were some unnecessary fights, but it wouldn't be the Bad Girls Club without that. I thought Tiffany probably could've handled herself better--one minute she seems so mature and cool, and the next minute, she's throwing gummy bears and pillows at Amber M. And Ashley and Kayla were pretty much fighting for no reason, of course. Whitney's Boston accent cracks me up, "I'm from the Noth Sho-ah (translation: North Shore)!" I guess maybe that's the equivalent of living in Shorewood and saying you're from Milwaukee? I'm not sure. She's still annoying, though. Ailea...ugggggggh. It was HILARIOUS how Perez thought she was gross and kept telling her she's a hoe and didn't want to hug her. And Sarah and Noah should get married and have babies.
Throughout the season, we've been keeping a tally at work of different Bad Girls Club related things. Here are the results.
Number of times Boston said "Boston": 66 if you count the reunion and clip show from a couple weeks back/31 if you count the regular episodes and the reunion/27 if you just count regular episodes
Number of times Sarah showed her boobs: 13.5 (the .5 was just showing one boob) We should've kept track of how many times Ashley did, too, but alas, we did not.
Number of times Amber M. acknowledged someone else's boobs (in the form of commenting or physical contact): 9 if you count the clip show, 8 if you don't
That's all folks!
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| Tuesday, March 24th, 2009
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9:47 pm - Vote for my rehearsal dinner dress
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| Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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10:19 pm - Who-re
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I'm such a reality TV whore right now. I think it's getting a little ridiculous. At least when you watch like dramas or sitcoms, you can get into the story or have a laugh and take a break from reality. But reality TV is pretty much universally considered smut, yes? I guess that's how I roll right now because my current shows consist of...
- The Bachelor (which was INTENSE and SHOCKING tonight)
- American Idol
- Bad Girls Club
- America's Next Top Model (starts Wednesday!!!!!!)
- Make Me a Supermodel
Yikes. I think that's it for now. Then, I have Project Runway whenever that starts up again. I don't know if What Not to Wear counts as reality TV...I don't think so. I don't think makeover shows count. Or wedding shows. But besides that, I have House and Grey's Anatomy, and those are the extent of my "can't-miss" weekly shows. Luckily, with a house in the [hopefully near] future, I'm starting to get into watching HGTV. That's kind of educational ish. Plus, it's something Nate and I can both enjoy watching, so that's nice.
Although, in my defense, I was only watching Bad Girls Club because Sarah's on it and the Bachelor because a friend of a friend of a coworker or something was on it, and I was curious who she was. So those shows will probably be out of my repertoire after this season. I watch American Idol so I know what the rest of the world is talking about--and I do enjoy it, I admit. I have no excuses for the modeling and fashion shows...I just like fashion. And tall people.
Back to the subject of houses, no new news on ours. We are the only offer on the table, but we're still waiting for the bank to make a move. First, we were supposed to hear something on Friday, then today, now tomorrow. I guess this is pretty typical when it comes to foreclosures, though. Luckily, we have time to kill. We're just impatient.
.......I miss Beauty and the Geek...and Average Joe. Reality TV with nerds on it never seems to last. Sad face.
current mood:  nerdy
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, February 27th, 2009
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8:49 am - My take on this week's American Idol
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| Friday, February 20th, 2009
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2:19 pm - Fun timed quizzes
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| Monday, February 2nd, 2009
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10:11 pm - Just an update...
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We did not get our dream house. Nate called me at 4:00 and told me that an offer had already been put down and accepted over the weekend. Our realtor said we could do a counter offer for more, but we didn't want to play the game, especially since it was the 2nd house we've ever looked at, so we took it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be and to keep looking. I was really bummed at first of course, but now it's OK, and I'm ready to continue the search.
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(7 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, December 30th, 2008
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2:14 pm - dresses!
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| Saturday, December 27th, 2008
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6:55 am
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I can't believe how many people have been getting sick lately--all around the same time. Well, it hit me last night. I think I threw up like 5 or so times. Feels like food poisoning again, but then Nate probably should've gotten sick, but luckily he didn't. Just ate some bread...hoping it stays down. Ugh.
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| Monday, December 15th, 2008
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6:52 pm - THS: Clay Aiken
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I'm watching True Hollywood Story about Clay Aiken on E! right now. It's very educational and amusing. In one part, they interviewed Dancing with the Stars people about when Clay came out, and Lance was like, "Very original, Clay. Very original." Haha, hilarious. I love Lance. I guess they did come out around the same time, eh? They also showed some fans' reactions to finding out he was gay. The angry ones reminded me of my mom. Hehe, hi Mom! Oh, and what the hells is with Clay talking to some guy on the Internet and having a one night stand in a hotel, then washing his hands for five minutes and leaving? I guess there's also this book about Claymates called Out of the Blue: Clay it Forward. Crazy fans are fun--I should pick up that book. I still think Clay kind of looks like my cousin, Nate, sometimes so that's kind of odd. At least in the American Idol era--not now with his scary long brown hair. Yuck. What is with his scary long hair anyway? I get that long hair is in or something, right? But some people just need not have it (yes, Isaac of '97-'99, I'm also talking to you). Off topic, there's a commercial for cinnamon rolls, and I really want one. "Diets" = teh suck. Justin Guarini...not a fan of him. Hahaha, girls threw underwear at Clay, and he kept them to see how much he could collect. Speaking of fans, they totally ruined the life of this guy Clay slept with in the hotel. Yikes. Oh boo. Now we've gotten to the ugly long hair era in the show. Well, he is in Spamalot, so maybe he needs the hair for the role. We'll assume that.
current mood:  lazy
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