Misadventures of the 10lees

Meeting Authors

I have met a couple authors in the past, including Gish Jen and Audrey Niffenegger, but today I went to a talk way up north in Redmond to hear Kim Harrison speak. She is one of my favorite authors, though I have never read a Kim Harrison book - instead I read those written under her psuedonym Dawn Cook. They are 'high fantasy' whereas the books she currently write are 'paranormal fantasy', which I don't read a lot.

It was very exciting to meet her, and I've posted the pictures on Facebook. But in case you don't go on there, here are the pictures that Scott took of us:

Staring...Out The Window

I'm just chilling at work, staring out the window (not really, I'm actually working mostly)... but I can't help myself, it's sooo beautiful out! Makes me wish I had a sailboat, or knew how to sail for that matter.

I hope you are all having a lovely day where ever you are, it's sure beautiful here! It definetly seems a shame to have to go to hot yoga tonight when it is already so warm out, but I know I'll feel much better for it!

Dateline's Financial Investigation

In case you missed it, Dateline NBC did a great mini-series on the financial mess... but I just can't believe the entitlement and stupidity of some people who took out bad loans.

In one case the lady took out a loan that would require her to pay $2100 a month, even though she only MADE $1600 a month. She said 'well, the bank thought I could afford it.' Yes, and so you took the loan and signed the papers... what?? My credit cards say that I can charge 20 grand, but that doesn't mean that I DO!! Clearly, they do not have my best interest at heart, they don't care if I am 20 grand in debt.

The next special focused on that very issue, credit card debt, it was amazing what debt collectors were saying to try and get people to pay. More than that, what people believed the debt collectors could do. The debt collectors who said they were sending the cops were totally lying (there is NO debtors prison in America and there hasn't ever been).

It was a good series. But the entitlement of Americans has to end, we have to realize what we can afford and what we can't and stay within our budgets! Then our community will be more stable. (not that I am an economist)

New Flooring!

Over the past week or so Scott and I have dicussed the fact that we need some new flooring in the kids' bathroom and our laundry room. In both the vinyl flooring is peeling up, so we headed into Abbey Carpet to check out what they had. We weren't thinking that we go with the first place we stopped, but they were very very nice and came over today after the store closed and gave us an estimate.

We are probably going to replace the vinyl in both our bathrooms and put tile in the laundry room - as it is also the entrance to garage and, really, a main entrance into the house. Now all we need to do is replace the carpeting, which we will probably be saving up for this year and expect to be able purchase relatively soon.

So yay for house improvements! It's not an addition, but it will still be nice.

Sarcastic News

If there is one thing I love, it's sarcastic news via The Onion. It always makes me laugh with it's hilarity, even if I just read the titles. But I have found the best thing ever - sarcastic horoscopes. Is there anything more funny than horoscopes? Now there is, check out these gems:

Cancer had its latest prediction all set to go, but then it found out about this cool new thing called Twitter, and well�you understand.

This week be sure to pray to St. Harold, the Patron Saint of Falling Down The Basement Stairs, Shattering Both Your Hips, And Laying Paralyzed Until Someone Gets Home.

A freak explosion aboard a Florida fishing boat leaves you with the proportional strength and speed of a red-bellied trout.

Your life will have a fairy tale ending. Unfortunately for you, it's the one with the three bears returning home.

I mean really, I find these more believable than the 'real' horoscopes. Now I get to read a horoscope each week that I can apply to my life... especially if I want to go to a Florida or have a fairy tale ending.

720 Pounds of Garbage

That's how much we took out of our backyard (in the form of a swing set and a plastic pool) and out of our garage and to the dump. Don't worry, that's the actual trash amount, we took two or three other trips to Goodwill.

We rented a uhaul, filled it up, and took a trip to the dump. It was quite fun and really great of my husband to clean out the garage. It was pretty much all him, as I was working alot last week. (thank you and love you!)

Hope everybody has a good week.

Random Facts

I found out today that the town a few over from me was name Slaughter originally. They changed it to Auburn, because really, who wants to live in a town called Slaughter?

Don't believe me? Here's a link or two for you...

Things I didn't realize...

Now, I'm pretty politically moderate, and I regularly pay my taxes. However, I can't resist taking a pot shot at the Democrats right now, because I didn't realize the reason they don't mind having their taxes raised is because they never bothered to pay them in the first place.

Either that, or they just aren't smart enough to know that they should pay them if they would like to be appointed to positions in the future. You'd think they'd have wrapped up their hanging tax issues when it looked like Obama was going to win the Presidency so they could be considered for an appointment.

Seriously, Dashle pulls out, Nancy Keillifer pulls out, and Timothy Geithner was held up (and seriously, confiming a TREASURY Secretary who didn't pay taxes - a shame!). You can, of course, check out all of these issues here, sadly only two of the thirteen were Bush's (read Republican) nominees.

I found it rather humorous in all.

Superbowl XLIII Commercials

Usually I review the top best and worst commercials, this year is no exception! However, all 3D commericals were automatically disqualified due to the fact that you have to have some lame glasses, which were not available at my local Safeway. Without further ado, here are the best:

Doritos commercial with the 'crystal ball', hilarious!

Coke commercial with the bugs who abscond with the bottle of Coke, even made the giant beatle look cute!

Hulu, an evil plot to destroy the world? With Alec Baldwin, that was pretty amusing. Also, TV does turn your brain to mush, nice to know some aliens will be enjoying the mush.

Pemco, though it wasn't their best one, because I love the series of Northwest profiles. I wonder if anybody outside of this area understood it.

The Clydsdale who loves a circus horse and follows her across the country. (Budweiser, of course)

MacGrubyer, or Pepsuber, which I technically saw during SNL, but was pretty hilarious being shown during the middle of the SuperBowl. However the third one on SNL was pretty funny, the dialog went something like 'pepsi, pepsi, pepsi', ok maybe it was just funny to me...

And the worst:
'Grease Monkeys' for Castro Oil (actually not 100% positive on the brand), I mean he kisses a monkey at the end, not to mention the racial overtones I have always thought the term 'grease monkey' has.

3D commercials because you'd think they'd have figured out how to make 3D that didn't require dorky glasses.

And a holding in the end zone is a safety, oh Steelers, how does it feel? Just like offensive pass interference cost us a touchdown in Superbowl XL, oh that felt good to watch that... well that and the following touchdown, and, in general, watching you blow the last few minutes of the game. Unfortunately I can't gloat too much, because you still won... argh! But it was a good game there in the end.

Stuff and Stuff

My life is pretty busy right now, we are completing a classification and compensation study at my work and that is taking up a lot of time for us. It is exciting to be part of such a large event, so I will have that experience where ever I go - which, for now, is nowhere.

Otherwise I am reading lots, which you can check out on my Facebook page, and I am watching some great movies... and possibly some not so great ones. I did try to watch Blade Runner the other day, but was sorely dissapointed in the fact that it was completely unlike the book. Mainly because the book was actual a great action movie, there is no reason to slow it down and pull punches.

Battlestar Galactica start this Friday! And I am glad all my regular shows are back with new episodes. Woot! That's about all that's going on in my life...

Historically Inaccurate Films

Scott found this article on the internet about the most historically inaccurate films, which we read it together, and found hilariously amusing.

Did you know 2001:A Space Odyssey is totally inaccurate because we didn't travel to Jupiter in 2001? (Also, I haven't met a computer named HAL and Hubble hasn't taken a picture of a giant baby in space.) And I thought it was Science Fiction, we should also add Blade Runner in 2019 when we don't have to send out Harrison Ford to shoot androids.

The only three on the list that are actually historically inaccurate are Elizabeth The Golden Age, Braveheart, and to a much lesser extent 300. The 300 shouldn't really be included because it's based on a graphic novel which is based on the historical event. The other two are based on actual historical events, and could've maybe been more accurate (they are just movies!).

However, Gladiator, Apocalypto, The Last Samuri and 10,000 BC are based on ideas, not on any actual event. Also, their main problem with Gladiator is the fact that Commodus wasn't exactly like the way he was portrayed - how about the fact there wasn't any person actually named Maximus??

Plus author's main issue with the The Patriot is that the guy was apparently non-enlightened and was a racist/Indian oppressor. I don't think those kind of details are added into movies and they don't nullify the details that are true. The symbol of the Democratic party is a donkey because of Andrew Jackson, the President who is famous for removing the Cherokee from Georgia even though the Cherokee had a SUPREME COURT RULING that nullified Jackson's decree. (See I learned something by watching The Presidents on History).

So now Scott and I are looking forward to adding lots more movies to our 'historically inaccruate' list. I'll have to get my list of Science Fiction together and see if it happens or not on the appropriate dates....

Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas!

We are finally having a white Christmas here, but it turned into a little bit of a bummer for the kids - their Grandparents can't come up from Portland because it is so bad down there! Actually Portland was only allowed cars with chains on ANY street, and they don't have chains. Our weather has gotten a little better, for those that don't know (and that may be most of you as nobody has been to my house outside of my mother) I live on a huge hill. I wasn't able to even get up my hill with my car last Monday - I did get half way up and and I had do a controlled slide back down. They FINALLY sanded our hill almost 7 days after the snow first started, even then they didn't deem it important enough to go down our street.

Also, apparently the US Mail doesn't deliver in any weather - if they have to walk up the hill with the mail they just will wait and deliver stuff later... maybe...

I hope you all have a wonderful day and a Merry Christmas... and that you get everything you wanted!

We Spent All Our Money On Lobbyists

...so could you lend us 25 Billion? It'd really help us out. Of course if we'd spent our money on research into finding a better gas efficient car maybe the American public would be buying our cars instead of those Japanese ones. Also, sorry about killing the electric car, we're just owned by big Oil.

Not that I'm frustrated by the bailout... (haha)... though I have seen some great skits. There is a Pets.com one (the Pets.com mascot, my favorite, is begging for 25 Billion so he can restart the company with a huge Superbowl commercial starring Gisele) and the SNL one where they talk about how the Cadillac lights on fire everytime they try and start it. You should check it out!

Mostly I am just hanging out, currently I am watching a Charlie Brown Christmas, which is just so cute! This should be required watching for all children. It's one of my favorite specials of all time (Garfield's Halloween is up there too). Of course there is always 'Little Drummer Boy' and 'Jack Frost', my favorite Christmas movie is still It's A Wonderful Life, which I think is uplifting.

Merry almost Christmas - I hope you are all getting in the 'mood', and if not, drink a peppermint hot cocoa, it's sure to make you feel Christmasy! (or have it snow where you live, though that's probably not happening here...)

Om, Yoga

I have been going to yoga regularly again. For those of you who don't know, I do Bikram yoga, which is a series of 26 asanas (poses) preformed twice each in a room heated to 104 degrees Farinheit. I am not big on the Spiritual aspect of yoga, which is one of the reasons I stayed away so long even though it's supposed to have these great benefits. However, the studio I go to doesn't have a lot of wierd spiritual mumbo-jumbo with their yoga. They will spill out the platitudes that come with yoga (accept where you are today, etc); however those are usually things that I need to hear.

Yoga keeps me sane, I find that if I make time at least twice a week I will feel close to normal almost 100% of the time. Although the last month has been rather a challange for me and my 'feelings'. I am not sure if it is the changing season, which can affect me, or the dose of xanax I took about a month ago. Either way, I've been feeling pretty good in the last couple of weeks, now I just need to stop worrying about feeling bad again. Isn't that the worst thing about any anxiety disorder, the worrying about feeling bad in the future? I think it is...

So off I go into the wild blue yonder to attempt to wrestle all my feelings and gain control over them. Wish me luck!

Watching My Team Lose

I haven't really blogged yet about this, but we have Seahawks Season Tickets, which hasn't been as much fun as it might have been if we were winning. Yesterday we went to the game with the Eagles, who were favored to win by 7 even though they were playing us at Qwest field. It was pretty sad to watch us lose... sniff!

We did have an awesome play within the first few minutes - a 90 yard touchdown with us all screaming in excitement. Here is a view from our seats, pretty good huh?

We did have an adventure with Drunk and Drunker sitting next to us. They were approximately 24 year old women (at least one of whom was married) who were pretty sad in their attempts to have men notice them. What was even better was hearing one of the guys behind us use the 'you have beautiful eyes' line. It had me (fake) gagging, but laughing.

I am going to yoga tomorrow in order to prevent having to watch hours of election coverage. But I hope you all vote!