Holiday

It feels so good to be home! Ben and I left Wednesday morning at 9:30. At 11:00 we hit standing traffic in Glenwood canyon. We were routed back to Glenwood Springs and told to wait a couple hours. Apparently a semi-truck jack-knifed on the part of the canyon already down to one lane because of a rockslide last month. Oh, and all of this with pounding rain and a cat mewing in the back seat. We had to stay in the car because of Molly, which made the situation even more unpleasant. At 3:30 the road was still closed. I asked a cop if they thought it might be cleared tonight, and he said he didn't know. Geez. Ben got us a cheap hotel room and we ate Kentucky Fried Chicken and watched Mythbusters. All in all, it wasn't a bad night, just a bad day and a total waste of time. This morning, Thursday, we left at 7 am and it still took us 4 whole hours to drive the remaining 160 miles to Denver because of bad weather.

But all that aside, we had a great, relaxing trip home for Christmas. We had some good food and good times with the family. We saw The Life Aquatic again, and I've decided that it is a really good movie. Just as predicted, my enjoyment increases after contemplation and repeat viewings.

It's been a long two days. I'm going to bed now, but I'll post some photos later, after I learn to use my iPod Photo.

Defeat

Sprays, scolding, and swatting didn't work.


My couch is now officially and literally a cat scratch post.

Advance screening

I just got back from seeing a sneak preview of The Life Aquatic. Feelings are mixed. Some parts really clicked, some were not nearly as great as they should have been. Some characters were good, some were poorly formed. I think it might grow on me. I felt the same way after seeing The Royal Tenenbaums, and now I really enjoy that film.

The security check for recording devices was annoying. After waiting outside for 40 minutes for the door to open, they announce that you have to put camera phones back in your car because they are not allowed in the building. Right as they open seating they tell us this! They could have at least given us advance warning so we could put our phones away without losing a seat. Ben ran my phone out to the car (what a sweetheart). They did the whole purse check and body swipe-with-a-beeping-stick thing. Funny thing is, I could have easily snuck in a camera in my yarn ball of knitting if I'd wanted to. They hardly glanced at it. :-)

Holiday season

We've been busy with holiday errands here and there. I wish it would snow more, it's gotten up to 60 degrees! Now is the time for parties and I'm scouring the Martha Stewart site and magazines for the perfect festive finger food. I'm looking forward to going home for Christmas. Ben and I are taking our cat, which is bound to be an adventure in travel! Work is pretty hectic now with vacation schedules, moving offices, employees shifting roles, and sharing space with a spinal doc. I'm excited for a break.

Wish List

Although I'm still uncomfortable writing wish lists, I get the feeling it's helpful for others. Here's a few things I wouldn't mind having in my life:

LoTR Return of the King !extended edition!
A pretty comforter that matches my bedroom, not too feminine
Thread and thread rack
"England Made Me" album by Black Box Recorder
A real ironing board with a nice pad
A ballet DVD (like Swan Lake or Sleeping Beauty or something)
Red Octane 2.0 Ignition DDR pad (just one, with foam insert, unfortunately expensive)
Candles. Lots of pillar candles.
A melon baller
My Fair Lady DVD
The Red Shoes-Criterion Collection
Edward Scissorhands DVD
Sweaters are always nice, so are gift cards to Home Depot and Target
Serving things (platter, big spoon and fork, etc)
Knife sharpener

11/23/04

I can check off one of those movies. I rented The Five Obstructions. It was pretty good, but Ben and Brian and I agree that Lars Von Trier is a twit.

Only one more day of work this week. It's also Ben's last day at work. Yea! Then we get to eat turkey and potatoes. Yea!

The Nintendo DS is out. It's a sweet sweet little machine. Ben wants one for Christmas. I'll mooch off him for a while, then decide if I want one myself. Gotta check out that WiFi. Plus there's a new Animal Crossing game for it (though they haven't announced it for America yet). Lest we forget, Animal Crossing is the game that sucked my life away 2 years ago. I played that game every day for 6 months. Seriously. Every day.

Good Movies from 2004

I would recommend seeing:
Primer
The Incredibles
Hero
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
Before Sunset
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hidalgo
Napoleon Dynamite
Spider-Man 2


Movies I'm looking forward to seeing:
The Five Obstructions
The Life Aquatic
Tokyo Godfathers
A Very Long Engagement
The Phantom of the Opera

Back to the Movies

Oh man, I was so sick last week. Luckily I was well by Saturday night, when I got to eat at Mataam Fez for my boss's birthday. Moroccan food is pretty fun to eat. Unfortunately, Ben got sick that night so he couldn't join me. To make up for it, tonight we are going on a date to Ethiopian food. He's tried it before and loves it. It'll be my first time.

I saw Primer at the Starz center last night. This movie is by far the smartest, most innovative, and dizzying movie I have seen this year. It has a very small distribution, so please look for it coming your way and be sure to see it.
I don't want to give away too much, because a lot of the movie's joy is trying to figure out what's going on. It's one of the few movies which expects the audience to actively listen to keep up with what's happening. But if you want to know more details, read Roger Ebert's review here.

What also impressed me immensly is the story of the film. Shane Carruth is an engineer-turned-movie maker. He wrote, directed, starred in, and edited the entire film. The whole thing was made for $7,000 and shot in a five weeks. Anyone who has attempted to make a movie will be utterly impressed with these numbers.

Go see Primer.

11/5/04

I love having Fridays off work. I'm able to get so much done around the house, and then have Saturday to play! I'm trying to train Molly on a leash. She's still pretty scared of going outside and is annoyed by the leash, but I think with time she'll come to enjoy it. Baby steps. :-) I found some useful information on leash training here.
Nothing too exciting has happened lately. I'm looking forward to seeing The Incredibles this weekend. Also, Mavi sent out a mass e-mail telling us about her newfound career in Shanghai, working on the latest Merchant Ivory film, The White Countess. Sounds like she's rubbing elbows with a few stars.
It's just another sunny and windy day in Colorado.

The First Snowfall

Seems like it snows on Halloween every year. I love it.

The horror of horror movies

Ugh. Tonight Ben is leaving for the Superhouse. He and Brian are going to watch their annual Halloween horror movie marathon. This year they get an extra hour: 25 hours from midnight to midnight. This is always a bummer for me. I've tried to watch horror movies, but I really can't stand them. So I get to be all alone the entire night and day. I'll probably stop by once or twice just because it's something to do.

American McGee's Alice

So I've never played this game, but a lot of my friends have. I always liked the artwork and thought this would be a fun dress to sew.

I didn't use a pattern, just my dress form and my grandmother's Dress Design: Draping and Flat Pattern Making from 1948. I probably spent about 10 hours on it.

One part I regret is that I didn't make a full circle dress. I gathered one very long piece, thinking that that would suffice. Now I think it would have been easier to sew together two long pieces to make a square, then cut out the waist in the center of a circle. Oh well.

I also tried to make a petticoat. Those are hard! I ended up adapting the storebought one from my wedding dress.

There are two sets of planetary symbols I've seen used on Alice's apron. The symbols I used (Jupiter and Neptune) are the ones from the video game.

The blood was darker and thicker than I'd hoped. It didn't blotch well, instead I got thick smears. But the point comes across:-)

Halloween

The Superhouse threw a Halloween bash last night. Yea! A place to wear my costume!



Ooo, candles! It was a very windy night, so these required frequent re-lighting. Those are Severed Ladies' Fingers. Recipe courtesy of Martha Stewart.


Protoman and Alice.

Who? Compare for yourself:





Matt as Gumby. Jarred as a serial killer.


You must read Bruce's sign. Trevor as Karl Rove.


Katie's a high school goth. "Can you give me a ride home?"


Jeff is a puppet from Team America. He says the pose makes the costume work.


Brian as the Re-Animator. Jeff is Peter Griffin.

Neil as the Chicken who attacks Peter Griffin.

New York in 23 hours

When Ben heard about The Last Starfighter the Musical at Storm Theater he knew he just couldn't miss it. He talked me into using Jet Blue, an airline I've come to love, and said we shouldn't bother with a hotel.

So we left Denver Saturday morning at 1 am and arrived in New York at 6 am. We hopped on the subway and had breakfast at Tom's Diner. You can see the famous "Restaurant" sign between us.

We took a long walk through central park. I went shopping at one of my favorite stores, H&M, near Rockafeller square. Then we strolled over to Times Square to locate the theater. We happened upon a fantastic pizza place. Mmmm, New York pizza. Ain't nothing like it. Unfortnately, my appetite was so out of whack from our weird schedule that I couldn't eat nearly as much as I would have liked.

The musical was...cheesy. Ben enjoyed it immensly. I found it funny at times. I hated the movie it's based on, what can I say? Besides, the musical wasn't the reason I came along. I came for the adventure.

The last item on our agenda was an egg cream. Not to hard to find one, even in the rain. I think the place was called West Side diner. Strange how all the diner-type restaurants have the same menu with the same cantalope and cottage cheese dish, and a bored girl sitting at a cash register up front.

After an exhausting flight home, we collapsed in bed aroudn midnight Saturday night. Although it was thoroughly awesome, I don't think I'll be making another trip like that anytime soon.

Kentucky

Ant invited Ben to be his groomsman, so we got to visit Kentucky. Rural Kentucky. Not much there, but we had a fun time exploring anyway. I pet a baby cow! Oh, and yes, that is a deer gun rack.

Santa Monica

I went on my first business trip in September. My company went to Santa Monica to participate in a drug trial start-up meeting. It's beautiful there.

San Diego

Been travelling a lot lately. In August Ben and I went to San Diego for a wedding. We visited our friend Neil too, who recently moved to California from Golden. His house is pretty sweet.

Cats I like

Ben and Demolisher (left), Coby (right)

Kuro: MIA (left), Amanda and Natasha (right)

Rain

Fall has come. Despite not watering my plants since a month ago, the petunias and morning glories still bloom.

But there is frost on my car in the morning, so any plants I want to keep alive over the winter have come inside today. Including the catnip.

Demolisher is self medicating today.


herbed