Mini love.

I am in love. With the Mini Cooper.

What a car, what cuteness :) Such a class act, in such a small package. I'm so leaning toward this as my final choice that I'm very surprised. I'm side-lined by the fact that I went in to check out the standard Hondas and Mazdas, and now here I am, hung up on the Coop.

Itching to test drive it come Monday. Woohoo.

To falling off the theater seat.

King Julian, what are they? What are they!

They are aliens. Savage aliens from the savage future.
They've come to kill us! And take our women!
And our precious meadows!

Get up, Mort. Do not be near the King's feet, okay?

Shh! We're hiding. Be quiet everyone. Including me.
Shh! Who's making that noise? Oh, it's me again.

~

Presenting your royal highness our illustrious King Julian the self proclaimed Lord of the Lemur etc. etc. Hurray everybody.

- He's got style!
- What's he like, King of the kiwi pigs?
- I think it's a squirrel.

Welcome, giant pansies! Please feel free to bask in my glow!

- Definitely a squirrel.
- Yep, a squirrel.

We thank you with enormous gratitude for chasing away the Foosa.

- The Hoosa?

The Foosa. They're always annoying us by trespassing, interrupting our parties, and ripping our limbs off.

- Yes, sounds good. Look, we're just - We're just trying to find where the people are.

Oh, my! What big teeth you have! Man!
Shame on you, Maurice! Don't you seethat you've insulted the freak?
You must tell me, who the hack are you?

- I'm Alex. The Alex. And this is Gloria, Marty and Melman.

Say just where are you giants from?

- We're from New York and we...

All hail the New York Giants! New York Giants!

- What are we doing, somesort of inbreeding program? I say we just gotta ask these bozos where the people are.

Excuse me, we bozos have the people of course.

- Hey, the bozos have the people!

Oh. Well. Great! Good! They're up there. Don't you love the people? Not a very lively bunch though.

- So do you have any alive people?

No. Only dead ones. I mean if we had a lot alive people here, it wouldn't be called 'The Wild', would it?

- The wild? Hold up there a second. You mean like the living in mud hut? Wipe yourself with leaf type wild?

Who wipes?!

Gallon goons.

What IS it with the gas prices already?! Can it BE any worse? Looking at how things are, I believe they can.. I just received this interesting e-mail from all major airline companies put together, imploring their customers to sign a petition against all this “futures trading”. The aviation industry sure must be feeling the pinch. Forget the freebies and the expensive air-fare; they don’t even start the planes at the gate anymore. The tug pulls/pushes them out to the runway before they even switch on their engines!

To think that the price of oil is this high because some nitwit decided that he would “predict” what it would be on paper and it keeps changing hands, again on paper. And the final delivery by the barrel is done ages from now. It was interesting to learn that trading regulations that were put in place to avert such an instance in the very beginning have become lax over time, and they have been bent to accommodate all these people who have driven us to this stage today. Face it, these people are smart – they are making money off a commodity that they have no direct use for, and are not even end users who are going to take possession of the barrel. Such price hikes driven by market manipulation are affecting the general economy as a whole. And people who are actually doing all this are not feeling the pinch, that’s for sure. Makes me wonder why I cannot apply myself to learning the tricks of the trade and be more knowledgeable about how the finance industry churns.

Until then, I keep reminiscing about the day when gas was $1.75 a gallon at the pump. Sigh, those glory days have long gone.

1:37 am

I'm losing what little hair I have. Yes, it is completely true, I'm not making it up. It started with that awesome pixie-ish cut Alexa gave me last year. To complete the look, she reduced the thickness of my hair around my neck. And it has never gotten back since. So here I am, blogging at 1.37am about my hair, or the lack thereof.

What a wonderful world!

Something sure is wrong though.. Every morning I think my hair has disappeared overnight. Poor me, the stress is getting to me. But now that the unpacking is all done, I should technically be lounging around on my awesome orange leather couch, sipping fresh fruit shakes and watching the extra HBO channels that Comcast threw in to save themselves a customer! Alas, this is far from the actual picture.

Am I doomed to accounting for every strand of hair and having a mini heart attack everytime I look in the mirror? Or can my awesome brown and pink (yes, pink) shower curtain damp my morning shock? Speaking of pink, someone was selling this pink puffy phone on CL. And you wouldn't believe how pink and furry (yes again, furry) it was. Omg. Girly? Monstrous, more rather. In fact that pink fur on the phone was as shaggy as the hair that the lead monster in Monsters Inc had..

Someone please get me a dresser and some guest room furniture soon. Before I shoot myself in between the eyes from an overdose of CL!

A new house

Starting from the hassle of finding a new place, to the botch-ups that happened in the process with the different leases, the crazy move-weekend, missing out on Stevie Wonder's concert (which I had been counting down to for like one whole year!).. all the way to trolling Craigslist for small pieces of furniture right now. I'm home..

Yay to that. Now comes the more interesting part of getting everything together, and unifying my decor etc. Ideally, someone would do this before they buy different pieces of furniture, but come on, I'm just grateful I'm in my new house. The "ideal" part can come later. Of course it'd be way easier if you blindly swipe your credit card at IKEA and pick out a whole range of stuff that is co-ordinated. But whats the point in furnishing your temporary home with all new stuff. Used will do for now, I guess.

And I still haven't gotten around to all the wall-art parts of it. Not have I re-stocked my fridge. Its B.A.R.E. Open it up, and you'll find a bottle of Tabasco sauce and one Hazelnut-Chocolate wafer. Oh, and that one bottle of milk. How nice. That is the next one on the list to take care of. Oh, and the guest room, and some additional furniture hunt as well.

It is going to be a busy year. How I hate 2008! More about 2008 when we come to the end of the year maybe. I can do this "2008: In retrospect" special like I'm some famous and important movie critic or something! For now, back to whatever.

War against Boring-Beige

Behr paint counter @ Home Depot = Disneyland
End of one hour of decision making = Citrus Blast and Red Brick. Bold!
'Priceless' Mastercard Credit charge = $85.00

And now, for the grand finale. Friday evening prep-work and Saturday morning rolled-up-sleeves. I'm so looking forward to painting. I'm such a novice at this, I did so much research online about tools and techniques. Some DIY sites claim it is the easiest thing to do, while others warn you that it is not as easy as it seems. So, brave me, after a couple hours of indecision, made up my mind to go ahead with it and have fun. You can ALWAYS re-paint if you hate what you've done. Or call the professionals.

Somehow, I feel that with the right paint, I could fall in love with my house so much that the one year I'd live there would be heaven. Furnishings, and pulling them off with one focal piece is another ball-game. But at least the paint is there to liven it all up. Maybe I can go all vintage-art-y with this apartment. Or I could do bachelorette pad stuff (minus any pink, of course, duh).

But I do have a new source of inspiration. Jonathan Fong. Wow, is all I can say. Check him out at his website. Some of his ideas are really good, and my favorite is the 'Decoupage Chair'. Such out-of-the-box thinking in many of his ideas and makeovers. Now I remember why I fell in love with HGTV in the beginning.

Maybe I will put up a picture book of the hilarious painting process once I'm done with everything. Should be a barrel of laughs for sure.

Move time.

Another weekend. And I've FINALLY found a new apartment to move into. No, correction: I've signed a lease. Phew.

Forecast for the coming weekend: Tiring move. Anyhow, good times. Though, the fact is, I'm moving out of my comfort zone. Four years in the South Loop, and now all the way up North. 15 minutes away! But, time for a change I guess :)

Next on the list: Furnishing the new place like I've always wanted to. Wonder what will come of that!

Yee Haw.

Having blogged about Boston, it would be unfair on my part to not write about the awesome trip to Nash.. Here is what I did:

- Arrived late (due to a highly delayed flight, bad SW.. no donut for you!)
- Tried a bite of "Creole Catch" over dinner
- Gave Gops a good surprise jolt! (And thereby made a pact to repeat act every week)
- Woke up late (nothing new about that..)
- Had awesome buffet lunch at Woodlands (YUM)
- Did the touristy stuff: Grand Ole Opry, Opry Mills, etc.
- Complained about the heat
- Watched Kung-Fu Panda! On IMAX.
- Complained about the heat
- Went home, and then did some more touristy stuff in the evening.. Nash downtown etc.
- Complained about the heat
- Did souvenir shopping, and had an awesome time at a honky-tonk dive bar called Tootsies. Best country-rock music ever. Turned out to the Jimmy Van Zant! Go figure, random luck.
- Watched a really odd indie flick called Happy Endings.
- Woke up on Sunday, late again
- Complained about the heat
- Went to the temple and ate free food
- Complained about the heat some more
- Went to VanderbiltU and chatted away forever
- Complained about the heat even more
- Packed my bags and said goodbye!

Yee Haw.

Chowda!

Despite the low-blow bummer with the apartment (that came Saturday morning) I had an awesome time in Boston. The fun part: being a laid-back tourist. I'm not one that can rush around frantically trying to cram in as much as possible into that one trip. Took it easy.

Did do:
1. Freedom Trail - The tour guide was a History teacher, very enthusiastic, and too cool.
2. Riverside Fair - Walked along the Charles River and went gaga over the local artisan stalls. Did chalk drawings on the cordoned off road like a crazy kid. Waited too long in line for a pottery session, and gave up. Bought a bell that actually said something very witty (should update).
3. Downtown - Nightlife, shopping, Food (obviously) and Ice Cream, Quincy Market
4. LAL-Celtics game: Woohoo.
5. Walked the hallowed halls of MIT, Vassar St. Wow, what a student center.

Planned, but rained out:
1. Cape Cod beaches
2. Jet Ski-ing.

Learnt:
1. Sam Adams is NOT a beer, but the Father of the American Revolution.
2. The face on Sam Adams bottle is disputed, but is actually Paul Revere.
3. Listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere
4. Boston is old, Boston is swampland for the major part.
5. A new recipe for Veg Biryani from Sugee (yay!)

That wrapped up the Boston Tour.
Now for Philly a couple of weekends down the line.

:(

I'm extremely disappointed. The awesome loft that I was supposed to move into has now been taken by someone who was willing to sign a two year lease, and was hence favored over me. Sick. After all the planning for my new layout, new furniture shopping, etc. I am in complete hate-mode right now.

And also not helping, is my Dramamine fix before the flight this morning. Making me droopy and more depressed about things in general.

Atleast it reflects the tattoo I got over the weekend. (Copyright: Jim Benton. Title: Life. Get one)

P.S. Its black outline - red tongue. Not filled in with color. And air-brushed. I haven't gone THAT cuckoo to actually get this permanently tattoo-ed on self.