If you watch either “So You Think You Can Dance” or “America’s Best Dance Crew” and don’t know yesterday’s results, read no further!!!

I’ll leave a little space for you so you can avert your eyes.

SO WHAT IS UP WITH THE PEOPLE WHO WERE OUSTED YESTERDAY?!?!?!?

First of all, in SYTYCD, I was thinking it was Comfort’s time to go. I was flabbergasted last week (yeah, you heard it, I said FLABBERGASTED) when Kherington was booted. But I could see the logic behind it - she had started incredibly strong but hadn’t had many strong performances in the weeks before. I wasn’t happy, though…she was one of my favorites. I also loved Comfort (though it seems like Kat Deeley loves her more), but it was her time to go.

But THIS week, I cannot BELIEVE that Will and Twitch were in the bottom two! Will, by far, is the best technical and most gifted dancer they have. I think it was one of those cases where people don’t think they have to vote for them, and they vote for the person they are scared would be voted off, which in this case, was Mark. It was evident on his face that he believed that he was going to be in the bottom two, and I wanted to cry when Twitch found out he was in the bottom.

WILL!!!! WHY WILL!!??! He was an incredible sport about it, and really, he no longer needs to win the show to go far. It may even be a blessing that he’s not the winner because now he’s free to do whatever he wants. People will be knocking his door down with offers. But that doesn’t make the sting any less - he should have lasted longer. I guess the world isn’t ready for James Brown!

THEN…

In America’s Best Dance crew, a similar phenomenon was going on.

Yes, I know that Supreme Soul could be seen as a bunch of cocky bastards. And yes, I know that Super Cr3w doesn’t have a lot of choreography and they have a lot of tricks. But I sincerely thought that they would end up being the top two crews - that we would have a battle of the titans of dancing. The two best crews to me were Supreme Soul and Super Cr3w (having to type that 3 is really annoying). But noooooooooooooooooo….no one in America voted for them so yesterday they were in the bottom two. The judges were just as surprised as I was, so surprised that L’il Mama brought out her claws, stating, “When I see boogiebots on stage I don’t get excited.”

It was hard to see these guys on stage, who I’m sure believed that they were going to make it to the finale, standing there with tears in their eyes after performing waiting for the judge’s critique. Then when Supreme Soul was ousted, I actually felt bad for them (though I had predicted to Dave in the first episode of the season that they’d get ousted early because of their cockiness) as they tearfully watched their exit clip montage.

It should never have been these two guys in the bottom two.

Boogiebots needs to go!

…and yes, yes, I know. Rather than complaining about it, I should vote, but I hardly have time to shower, much less vote for these things. Maybe that’s what the problem is - all the people who would have been voting for these fantastic people are too busy!

Anyone else watch these? What did you think?

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I may have mentioned it before on my blog, but we’ve put our house on the market. Yes, the housing market in Chicago is really horrible and we may lose money, but Dave’s commute to his new job (which really isn’t that new anymore) is pretty long, and if we lived closer he would be able to stay at home and come in whenever work needs him, rather than just staying at the hospital like he does now.

So we’ve been planning on putting our house up for sale for a while now, and last month finally made the decision that the time was right. It’s tough, though, because this is our first house and we adore it. It’s the house where Ben was born (not literally, of course) and there are so many wonderful memories associated with it. Long ago, when we first found the place, we fell in love with it instantly. It wasn’t in an up and coming, “cool” neighborhood, it was on a busy street, and it was a duplex, but there was just something about it that we really loved. Four years later, it’s time for us to go. If we didn’t have to, we probably would have stayed here for much longer, but it just wasn’t meant to be.

Today is our open house. We’re camped at Dave’s parents’ place (where they’re having a party and we’re in one of the rooms listening to them karaoke and scream in laughter - it’s funny) waiting for a good time to return home. We’ve cleaned our house like we’ve never cleaned it before. Every nook and cranny has felt the wrath of my bottle of Fantastic or my Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. And I know I’ve mentioned it before, but the magic eraser is awesome. I had scrubbed our shower for hours trying to get off soap scum, trying several cleaners. I checked online and saw that the magic eraser was pretty effective, and *poof*, just a little bit of scrubbing and my shower door was sparkling clean.

Truthfully, I don’t want to part with this house. I love this house. It’s not just a house, it’s our home. I always joke around with Dave that me and Ben were going to cut eyeholes in some white sheets Brady Bunch style and haunt the house as people come to see it. I know, though, that it’s time to let it go and let someone else enjoy it. *cries*

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It’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m debating on whether or not to wake up Dave and actually try to make it on time to register for the race. Registration is between 6:30am and 7:30, but who knows how it will be with traffic and everything!

Anyway, I’d been a little disappointed with myself this week since I had joined the race and have really done minimal fund raising. I’d been out of town and haven’t had much access to the internet (as you could see by my lack of posts). So when I checked my sponsor list yesterday morning, I wasn’t surprised to see that I really didn’t have a lot - outside of this blog, I really hadn’t made an effort.

Lo and behold, this morning I saw a surge in my sponsors, and Dave and I raised together a total of $545.00, with our whole team raising a whopping $1,730.00 together (thanks largely to the efforts of our other team mates).

So this morning, right before I wake up what will be a cranky Dave who will probably say, “Why are they doing this so early?” I give you. my wonderful readers and my incredibly loved family, a heartfelt THANK YOU. You’ve given me the warm and fuzzies this morning, and I appreciate your support. I will definitely come up with something awesome to show my gratitude to all of you who sponsored!

p.s. I’ll be live-Twittering from the race, check updates on the sidebar!

Tags: Whine and Cheese, Quickies by Yano
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You know, I’ve always been worried about a “The Day After Tomorrow” type of disastrous event coming down on us - Global Warming biting us in the ass in the form of a super snowstorm that freezes the whole northern part of the planet. I always thought that living in the Midwest wasn’t too bad - all we really have to worry about are tornadoes and the occasional flooding in the basement.

…until last week.

That’s when a cougar was shot in Chicago. Not a suburb of Chicago - in the city, the very middle of the city. For the last couple months, there have been reports of people who had thought they had seen a cougar or large feline prowling about. Turns out that in the months before that, people in Wisconsin were reporting the very same thing. I’m sure if we made a map “Law & Order”-style, we’d see a trail of little red marks showing the path of the cougar based on people’s reports. But yes, the cops cornered a cougar in an alley of a residential neighborhood and took the cat down in a shower of bullets. I feel a bit bad for the poor lost kitty, but I’ve read that even in California they’re hesitant to try capturing wayward cougars because they can be pretty unpredictable and hard to tranquilize.

So yeah….a COUGAR. The only wildlife I’ve ever been scared of in these parts are raccoons, because they have rabies. When I lived in California, we visited some friends out in La Brea who had said that they’d seen a coyote, and had heard stories of cougars. But that’s Los Angeles - they have mountains there. A cougar is a mountain lion. We have no mountains here! We are plains people!

Craziness.

You know what’s even crazier?

We had an earthquake on Friday. Well, not Chicago, but the epicenter was 200 miles away, close enough for people in Chicago to feel it. Ironically, although for the 2 nights before it I’d been awake at 4am (check my twitters), Friday morning I was sound asleep in bed, oblivious to any rocking or shaking. I was pretty disappointed that I had missed it, because the only other time I had experienced an earthquake was when I was in California (though I recall feeling one when I was a kid, but I think I imagined it). It was a pretty hefty earthquake, measuring a 5.2. Fortunately, although some people were shaken up (hardee har har), no one was injured.

I was working on Friday, thinking how I had missed it, when I felt the familiar rolling and swaying. By then, though I had thought it was wishful thinking. Since I live on a busy street, the house often shakes when trucks pass by. I had thought that I was just imagining the earthquake, and that it was just a truck driving by. I later checked the news and read that what I had felt was actually an aftershock.

What’s going on with Chicago? I feel like I’m in LA again! What’s next - mudslides, brush fires and an increased number of boob jobs?

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Dear God,

Hey there, big Guy, long time no talk. Oh wait, we talked last week at church. Sorry I was so distracted, you know how Ben gets when he sees a whole bunch of prayer songbooks in one place. And really, I was paying attention, even though it seemed like I was talking to Fatima the whole time.

Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about something going on in my life. It’s something that has been bothering me for the last several months. At first, I thought it wouldn’t bother me, since it’s been something I’ve gone through many times before. I consider myself a pretty patient person, things don’t affect me too easily. But this time, it’s been really hard, I think I am really close to that breaking point. I can’t take it anymore.

Truthfully, you’re the only One who can do anything about it.

Please…

Please stop the snow!!!

Seriously, Dude, it’s been snowing for 4 months straight this winter. The snow hasn’t had time to melt from the last storm before the next one begins. Last week, after some really nice temperatures, the snow melted away and for sure I thought Spring was here, but no-ooooooooooooo, yesterday You dumped another 4-7 inches on us.

At first, I thought it was pretty cool. “Oh, we’re getting so much snow so early in the season!” I made sure to go out and take pictures after the second or third snow just in case I wouldn’t get a chance to later on in the winter, since in the last decade or so, we’ve only had four or five major snows a year. This winter? I would say about 15 major snows. That doesn’t even count the ones that are less than an inch - those were, like, every day. It’s so much that all of the anti-global warming people are like, “Global Warming Schmobal Warming! See, there’s no such thing! We’re getting so much snow that the polar ice caps are coming back! We don’t need to save the environment!”

Now I don’t want You to think that I hate snow. I love snow, Man! If I didn’t love it, we would have stayed out in Long Beach. I have all these wonderful childhood memories of building snow forts and making snow angels that I want Ben to have, too. He loves going out in his sled and getting pulled around (though the deeper the snow, the more of a workout it is for us!).

But yeah…I think it’s about time that You brought on Spring.

Thanks.

Love,
Your pal,
Christine

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Email I received the other day…

Christine,

For this particular audience (xxx and xxx) I was impressed as a customer with your delivery of the basics. That was about as fast as this contingent will go and still retain the knowledge delivered. I want to congratulate you for connecting with us on a personal level, while still maintaining a very high level of professionalism.

I think that if we make a few more passes over the same material, stopping a few times to connect the software process with our business processes, as we did today, we will really be able to function once we make the switch.

Thanks again on what I consider to be a very good use of everyone’s hour.

Sometimes all those crazy non-stop days are worth it…knowing that it’s appreciated…

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Muhahaha! It was my plan all along to bring you lurkers out of hiding! Fools!!!

Seriously, though, I had no idea I had so many readers. I was thinking that since I had started neglecting this blog last year that my readers had left, sighing to themselves, “Damn, that used to be a really good blog. Now it’s crap!” I was thinking that I just had my 4 or 5 regular readers left - not counting 3D friends and family spying on what I’m doing. But lo and behold, there is life out there! The numbers in my web stats aren’t just guys looking for p*rn and hot asian lovin’.

I want to thank you all for reading, and for all your kind words in the previous post. Last year was a real challenge for me (as I will get into more in an upcoming post - don’t worry, that password will be coming soon!) and although this blog had always been a refuge for me, it had been something I just didn’t have time for and felt guilty for neglecting. This year I’ve felt a new surge of inspiration, life is now a breath of fresh air, a new start. There’s a lot of changes I want to make here, starting with posting more and using this blog as a way to once again sort out the thoughts that rattle around in my head.

Next time I need a blog-ego boost, I’ll threaten to hide posts from you all!

Thanks again for reading, everyone, I really appreciate it and am humbled that you find me interesting.

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