Friday, February 29, 2008

No...Can't...Resist...ahhhhhhhhhhh

Apparently Jessica Simpson had a movie.

No kidding. It apparently also made about $.02 in the US.

BUT - in Ukraine it made over $250,000.00 (which, considering a movie ticket costs about $1 there, is a lot.)
Ukrainians apparently feel about Jessica Simpson the way Germans feel about David Hasselhof. They think she's just like Barbie. No Kidding.

Thursday, February 28, 2008

And in slightly less philosophical news...

PRETTY!

Life, the universe, etc.

My sister and her husband recently became parents to a lovely baby girl. She's really da*& cute, I'm serious. This has gotten me thinking about parenthood and the trials and tribulations facing parents today. So many people wait to have children until they can 'afford' to do so. (This is a fallacy. One never really knows what the costs and benefits of parenthood are until one is actually doing it.) I have a slightly different philosophy. Granted, what I'm about to write is probably what many people are thinking about but don't put into words, but hear me out.

Having children has much less to do with finances than with the readiness of the parents. For example: my sister and her husband are at a point in their lives where they will be better able to give that gorgeous little darling the attention and love she deserves than if they'd tried having a child earlier, what with grad school and working etc. While their lives haven't stopped and they will still be working, etc, they've chosen this time in order to benefit their child. In my mind this is one example of how ready they are to be parents.

I only hope that when it's my turn I'm able to be a good mom.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Monday, February 25, 2008

<3<3<3<3

I love this plane.

I LOVE this plane.

I think I want one. I'm sure I could rig it up to carry two and recoup my investment by giving rides. Sure! It would Work!

Okay, Okay, I know Celeb watching is silly....but...

I have a theory. Angelina Jolie is pregnant again. While I think most people would agree that she is normally a smoking hot woman that kind of oozes sensuality, it is also true that she has, in recent years, a tendency to be incredibly stick thin.

So, my theory is that Brad keeps knocking her up to get her to gain weight. It looks good on her, it really does, so why not? They can certainly afford the kids, and unlike other folks in Hollywood whose woeful stories shall remain anonymous because I feel bad for them, they seem to be good parents.

So let'em be happy and start a clan all by themselves. Why not? Babies are adorable!

Friday, February 22, 2008

Lunar Eclipse


On Wednesday night STM and I witnessed a really neat thing - a full lunar eclipse. It was snowing lightly earlier that day (note: my office was open, no early closures that day either. Idiots...) but the wind picked up and blew all of the clouds away. It turned out to be beautifully clear and crisp! I must admit, the picture is NASA's, our camera doesn't have a tripod so all the pics are a little blurry.


The neatest thing in my mind was that the full moon was exactly 10:41pm EST, and the height of the eclipse was from 10:01pm to about 11pm. It was pretty awesome!

%&*%^$&$#$%&!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our office follows the standard set by the Federal Government concerning inclement weather.

If there is so much as 1/2 inch of snow in this region, the gummint will usually shut down, often for the whole day.

1/2 inch of ICE, however, which seems to me to be a little bit more...well, I don't know...likely to CAUSE ACCIDENTS.........

Unscheduled Leave. Meaning: we're open, but if you can't drag your sorry butt into work we'll not dock your pay.
How does this translate to my office? Open.

Sigh.

Anne Boleyn, Part Deux

Okay, so I did a little research.

It turns out that Anne Boleyn was noted as wearing her hair unbound. It happened often enough and was UNUSUAL enough for the time period that it was written about her.

That still doesn't excuse the rest of the bloody cast. Nor does it take away from the fact that she wore a French style headdress often enough (see here for an example from The Other Boleyn Girl) that she made it fashionable in England to wear such headgear.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

On Life

On Tuesday I finally made a move I've been thinking about, planning, obsessing over, and generally giving Super Thin Man migraines over for the last three months. I gave notice at my job. At the latest my last day will be April 15th, to give me time to train the newbies (note: plural) and get certain things finished before I go.

Well, what next you ask? It looks like I'll be a housewife for a bit.

Wow.

Housewife. Domestic Engineer. One who does house-type things and perhaps cooks.

I'm also going to be writing a plan for a home-based business creating my own line of ointments, creams, soaps, etc. along with a possible line of home-spun, hand-dyed yarns in small batches.

First, though, I'm gonna take some time off. For this I have STM to thank. He has a very stable, very secure position and they keep telling him how great he is (I agree, BTW). Thus, if we are careful and sensible with the finances, and if we make definite plans to move somewhere cheaper (which could be any number of places, especially in comparison with Fairfax, home of the $500K 800 square foot condo) we can afford this for a while. We are thinking maybe Leesburg or Frederick...maybe as far out as Front Royal. Someplace not too far from said decent workplace of STM's.

Wow. Life changes fast.

The Tudors

While looking for nice images to illustrate my rant about the Tudors, I came across this.

Yeah. Henry VIII's sister would pose like this in public. Sure. Again, also with the hair down.

On TV shows

As many of you who read my blog may know, I usually watch only those things which do NOT have commercials. On Demand and the movie channels are my friends.

Then there's Project Runway. PR isn't really my fault, you see, my friends from grad school started a tradition a year ago, for season three. Every Wednesday we would gather at the house of one of the gang and eat junk food, drink too much for a weeknight and watch Project Runway. The silliness of this (in terms of having a Thursday morning life...) was compounded by the fact that PR comes on at 10PM on the East Coast. So....we would all be getting to bed after drinking and eating too much at about midnight on an either school or work night, depending.

Sigh.

Needless to say these nights were grand fun, and though they didn't continue this year my addiction to the show continues. I think it has a great deal to do with the fact that they actually DO stuff. Granted, the soap opera factor is kind of fascinating, but the reason I really watch is to see what kookie assignments they get and watch how they all deal with it. I know personally I would not have been up to the challenges they are presented! Also - I love the end products. Even the terrible ones are fun to see, just to see how terrible it CAN be.

Although I still think Christian is a little twat and Jack should have gotten the fan favorite (all season I was hoping they would bring him back. I LOVE Jack!) Unfortunately I also must admit that Christian is a talented little twat, and does really deserve to be in the final with Jillian. Sigh.

And, in a rather related statement - I COVET Anne Boleyn and Catharine of Aragon's entire wardrobes from The Tudors.

COVET. And cannot afford.

But I do have to make, yet again, my standard complaint about one very common mistake in such period shows - one which I don't think they made in the movie The Other Boleyn Girl, but I digress - the HAIR. I don't care how much of a grasping power-hungry little wench Anne was or is portrayed to be, at court the chick would have ALWAYS worn her hair up. None of this part-up Part-down BS either. It most likely would have been totally covered, not even just up in a 'do. Sigh. Yes, having her long flowing locks down shows how GORGEOUS she is and how EASY it was for Henry to get hooked, but come ON. Sheesh. Look at a painting or two. Really. The paintings of ANNE, even. There is even a DOLL that's more accurate. Scroll down and you'll see the tidbit about the headpiece on the doll.

Ahem...and now back to our regularly scheduled insanity. Personality #1529 has been locked up and put in a straight jacket. That should keep her occupied for a while.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Being a reason not to post on one's blog

Awwwwww!

I especially like the pics of the new grandparents.

Monday, February 4, 2008

Skiing and other pursuits

Last week STM and I went with my good friend to Maine to ski at Sugarloaf for a week. Little did we know that they take the term 'ski in-ski out condo' quite literally. We could watch the nearest lift out of one bay window to see when they started running in the morning and had to walk a whole 50 feet to the edge of the nearest slope. It was tough. STM and I have only really been skiing a few times, so going for a whole week was a real treat. Also, blueberry beer is intriguing, but that's beside the point. At the beginning of the week I was certainly the Queen of Green, the greener the better! We had daily lessons included in our ridiculously cheap ski package, so STM and I took advantage. By the week's end I was very sore from using all those muscles differently than usual, however, I was also up to the 'dark' blue slopes. I'm hoping that in the next trip I'll get to do some black diamond slopes. STM and my friend are still more advanced than I, but I'm narrowing the gap.

Also, I started a new crochet project. It's going to be a shawl for my grandmother. I'm planning to make one for each of them, actually, but the other will be made on my new 7' triangle loom, which FINALLY arrived! It sorta hangs like a picture on the wall, which is neat!

My sister, SWMBO, had her little girl on January 18th. Needless to say my sister hasn't posted a blog entry since, lol! I am now addicted to watching the Flickr account with the pictures to see when they post more :)

So. Today is my first day back from vacation, and I had 95 emails in my box this morning. I'm still going through them. I suppose I should go continue with that....