Not too impressed with the guys this week. Here’s my four favorites:

- Jason Castro did a beautiful rendition of “Hallelujah”. Almost acoustic, wonderfully controlled, and brimming with emotion. Loved it!
- Danny Noriega’s “Tainted Love” was fun, and although he made love to the camera a bit too many times, I enjoyed the performance
- I loved David Cook’s arrangement of “Hello”. Never thought of it as a rock song, but he did it well
- Chikezie really did a great job singing “All the Woman that I Need”, but I don’t think he has the popularity to make it

Luke definitely needs to go, he’s been crappy for the last several weeks. I’m not sure who the second guy to get booted is - I like all the rest of them. David Hernandez might get some backlash for his stripper past (save the stripper! save the world!) but he did OK this week. But my picks will be Luke and Chikezie.

Something I found on perezhilton, and found pretty funny:

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Ben has really been loving TV lately. His favorites are the Little Einsteins, Mickey Mouse Club, Caillou, Doodlebops and the Teletubbies, though I’ve got a Tubbie ban in my house. Sometimes, I want to watch TV, too, or I need to work in my office. So I’ve learned that kids’ shows are also online - so Ben knows if we go up in the office he can watch his shows up there or if I’m watching LOST he can watch on my laptop. He’s slowly learning how to use a mouse, since a couple of these are interactive, which I find hilarious. It’s so cute to watch him watching the computer - he sits so still and is totally into it. Don’t worry, he’s not watching TV all the time. He also loves building towers with his blocks or racing Lightning McQueen and The King around the floor!

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Testing! Testing!

this is a test!

This is a test!

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Last time there was a total lunar eclipse, I was stuck in Buffalo on a semi cloudy night. Today’s weather report is “mostly clear” so we’ll see how well I can see the lunar eclipse. Anyway, here’s some info on it!

Lunar eclipse to occur Wednesday night
The last total lunar eclipse until 2010 occurs Wednesday night, with cameo appearances by Saturn and the bright star Regulus on either side of the veiled full moon.

Skywatchers viewing through a telescope will have the added treat of seeing Saturn’s handsome rings.

Weather permitting, the total eclipse can be seen from North and South America. People in Europe and Africa will be able to see it high in the sky before dawn on Thursday.

As the moonlight dims — it won’t go totally dark — Saturn and Regulus will pop out and sandwich the moon. Regulus is the brightest star in the constellation Leo.

Jack Horkheimer, host of the PBS show “Star Gazer,” called the event “the moon, the lord of the rings and heart of the lion eclipse.”

Wednesday’s event will be the last total lunar eclipse until Dec. 20, 2010. Last year there were two.

Wednesday’s total eclipse phase will last nearly an hour. Earth’s shadow is expected to blot out the moon beginning around 7 p.m. on the West Coast and 10 p.m. on the East Coast. West Coast skygazers will miss the start of the eclipse because it occurs before the moon rises.

link to article

You can bet if I can see it, there WILL be pictures. I may even bust out the tripod and zoom lens if the weather’s right!

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I am swamped with work and Dave’s gotta work super late. Yay, Valentine’s day!

Hope you all have a good one. If you don’t have a Valentine, don’t fret, because I love you.

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Since I’ve started in my new department (not sure if it’s even really a department or if it’s just a whole other part of the company) I don’t travel as much anymore. Actually, I don’t travel at all. Which is awesome, though I do get a pang of wanderlust every now and then, and I do worry about losing my elite airline status and having to board the plane with commoners the next time I travel.

Also, we no longer have our downtown office (it’s been more than a year) which is really a shame, because I really loved working downtown. Right now, I just work from home. My schedule is pretty packed all day, and since it’s been really cold lately, Dave’s dad has been coming by to take care of Ben instead of me dropping him off. Sometimes he takes Ben back to his place, and usually Dave picks him up on his way home from work. So there have been times in the last couple months where I haven’t left the house for days. Usually it makes me a little bit crazy and grumpy, so I’ve tried to at least leave the house to do some groceries or grab coffee. But when it snows, I don’t even feel like leaving, so I end up being a pale hermit, sitting on the couch, up late, late at night with just the glow of my laptop to illuminate the room.

We’re up for some snow today, I’m too lazy to get up and look out the window to see if I need to shovel it - our snowblower died a couple weeks ago. Maybe before work I’ll head out to Starbucks and treat myself with something yummy.

Man, I can’t wait for winter to end!

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If you’re not doing anything this weekend, spend some time talking about the wonderful female Vagina - for charity! I will be at Friday’s show…

2008 will mark the 10th Anniversary of the V-Day College Campaign to end violence against women. The heart of the V-Day Campaign is benefit performances of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues”, which have raised millions of dollars for domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers and other charities.

In the five years Oakton Community College participated in V-Day, we raised more than $25,000 for local shelters. In honor of the 10th anniversary, we will once again participate by presenting two performances of “The Vagina Monologues” on February 1 & 2. (8 pm/tickets $12 each/Oakton Box office 847-635-1900)

Also, my wonderful, phenomenal friend Jen will be in it (who is such a good friend to me, even though I suck at being a friend), so that’s extra incentive to go!

There’s more info about the Vagina Monologues show and the movement to end violence against women at the Vday site:
http://www.vday.org/contents/vday

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In preparation for this Thursday’s LOST season opener (btw I am as giddy as a little schoolgirl), I’m re-watching Lost Season 3 on DVD. I bought it at Costco right after Christmas since no one got it for me. Since it’s been a while since the last season - almost a year, so I need to brush up on what happened in the last 16 or so episodes. It’s fun to go through it again, and to hear the commentary on some of the episodes. The first several episodes, which I like to call “Yano in a Cage” because that’s how I feel when watching. I don’t enjoy them, but I’m stuck watching them because they’re setup for the rest of the episodes. But it was pretty boring to have Kate and Sawyer in a cage for 6 episodes, going nowhere, screaming and getting beat up all the time. Jack, in the meantime, languishes in an underwater holding tank, brooding, angry and showing off his muscles as he sweats.

I haven’t yet gotten to the good stuff of season 3, where all the “Oh Shit!” starts happening, like at the end of the episode where Kate goes to save Jack only to find him playing football with the evil “Mr. Friendly” or when Mikhail rises from the dead. I’ll probably get to that stuff by tomorrow. I’ve cheated a little and started going through the extras (the Todd McFarlane toy thing was pretty badass - I want one!) as well as the Easter eggs, but I want to make sure I finish this sucker up by Thursday. Thursday has never felt as exciting as it does today!

Now a little question I’m going to pose to those of you who know me: Have I lent out my Lost Season 2 or Firefly to any of you? I can’t seem to find them anywhere. I think I might have lent them out, but not sure to who….

Have You Seen Us?
…

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Didn’t have the computer for the first 15 minutes of the show, but the first 3 people were pretty good. Not awesome, but good.

7:14 - The Mariah Carey wannabe - I could tell that she was going to be awful. I think if she just sang with her normal voice, she would have been good. Other than that, it was pretty laughable. Aha! Randy agrees with me.

7:28 - The Girl Obsessed with Simon - I was thinking that she was going to be obnoxious and sucky, but she was pretty awesome.

7:37 - The eleventh chance guy - I think he did ok…worse people have made it through…

7:39 - The guy with cymbals on his belt - entertaining. Definitely very entertaining. And he hasn’t even started singing yet! I think Reynaldo’s “I am Your Brother” song was 10x better

7:50 - The guy who had a swollen lymphnode - sounds like a sweet guy, but no wow factor, though people will love him

7:56 - The Irishwoman - Wow! Get me a bowl of lucky charms. She sounded great. A little rough at a point, but still really good.

Oh wow…didn’t realize that this is just an hour of Idol…I was expecting it to last longer! All in all, a lackluster night. No one really blew me away. Tsk tsk.

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Last Friday we had our company holiday dinner. Which is more like, “People who used to work for X-Systems who invite other people in the new company who live in Chicago to a holiday dinner but end up being the only ones who want to meet up”. There were only about 13 of us there, counting significant others, and it was a nice small group. We had it at our favorite place to spend company money - Bob Chinn’s. I love Bob Chinn’s for many reasons - the food is excellent, I adore the garlic rolls (yes, I know it’s the same point as the first), the Mai Tai’s are awesome, and the biggest reason - it was my mom’s favorite place to eat. We would always go there on special occasions, and the garlic rolls were so good, she would bring a large purse and take a couple home.

It was a nice dinner…nice to see people I work with now and then. We started off with Mai Tai’s, and let me tell you, they were STRONG. I know I haven’t drank in a long time, but I only had about a quarter of my Mai Tai and I was already starting to feel it. Dave decided that he’d be the designated driver, but I was already getting so tipsy that I decided to slow it down. We started out with some great appetizers - calamari, crab cake nuggets, oysters rockafeller and blue crab claws. The great thing about having a big group of people? Getting a lot of appetizers and being able to sample each one. Dan was ordering shots - some thing called the “Duck Fart” which is a drink that the crab-men love when they’re on the boats. I don’t know how manly these men are, but the duck fart consists of Kahlua, Bailey’s and Crown Royal, which to me tastes like chocolate milk. It was delicious!

Then I had my mandatory cup of clam chowder - Bob Chinn’s is my favorite. Nice and thick with just the right amount of potato and clam. I knew that it was going to get me pretty full, but I ordered it anyway.

Then came my entree - the Ex-Crab-Aganza! Claudine accused me of ordering it just to say the name. She’s partly right! A plate full of crab - four different kinds. In a word - HAPPINESS! I love crab. I kept on smacking my lips and saying “Mmmmmm!”, moving my head from side to side, just like Benjamin does when he’s eating something he likes. It made me and Dave laugh, because, of course, we always have to talk about our son when he’s not with us. We’re THOSE people. We can’t help it!

Two garlic rolls, one cup of clam chowder, one ex-crab-aganza, three duck farts and at least one Mai Tai later (not sure how many mai tais, since they kept on refilling my glass) we had dessert, and even though all of us had kept on insisting that we were stuffed. We had a wonderfuling sampling of their best deserts - one coconut yam pie, one luau cake and on choconut pie. So our supposedly full bellies were able to finish most of the desserts because they tasted so good!

Considering how much I drank, I didn’t feel drunk or even buzzed at all. All I felt was full. Full and content. It was as if the food I had eaten had absorbed all of the alcohol leaving me with a belly full of satisfaction.

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