new drawing materials...

i bought some new paper and some soft pastels in an effort to make some colorful drawings. i am very nervous though, i have little confidence that my drawings will come out nice with an infinite amt of colors at my disposal. even when i paint i use a limited palette, we'll see how the drawring goes. check the art blog tomorrow for the results.

this week is kind of flying by. i signed up with "meetup" dot com to see if there were any people locally that were interested in some of the same things i am, and a random girl wrote me saying she was also new to town and doesn't know anyone besides her boyfriend. so i think we might have a drink tomorrow night. woo who. a new friend!

i'm kind of at a loss for what to do lately, all the tv shows are ending for the season. i've even started reading. i should probably get my money out of my netflix membership and start watching some of the movies i have piled up.

roch-cha-cha

last night i drove out to rochester.. i kinda like that town. its way more city-like than syracuse.. i'll be excited when all the hunts move there.

we had dinner and a BUNCH of drinks (i know, shocking) at "the old toad", a british pub... i had the artichoke bake, it was pretty great.

we went to another bar after that. we couldn't figure out the name of that bar, but the bartender was drunk and gave me the wrong change twice, in my favor. hee hee...

we woke up sunday morning and headed to nick tahous for one of their infamous garbage plates. yum!!



i've put together a comprehensive album of pics from the holiday here. enjoy!

onward to christmas.

it's saturday evening and my sisters and all their animals have left. my roommates went to get new phones and i am all packed to head out to my 2nd adventure of the thanksgiving weekend. i'm driving out to rochester, ny to meet up with lee and tammy. they are passing through on their way back home from MI. i've never really been out to hang out in rochester. i'm looking forward to it.

thanksgiving was fun. i took many pics. here are a few of the highlights.

we finally stopped at the hornets nest for one. we found out that they ignore the no smoking rule there. you can tell by the look on em's face.


the feast... i even had a little bit of turkey this year.


we showed up to take pics at our usual place and the photographer wasn't there. we had to do them ourselves in the backyard.


then we made some engagement photos for sb and jr.

this weekend has seemed really really long. :)

tomorrow thanksgiving is here....

and in celebration i am posting my random nov pics like everyone else, so i can have a clean slate of a camera card for the weekends festivities..

we've been cleaning here all week in preparation for the guests arrival. the hardest part is the waiting.. i am not usually on the "waiting" end of things.. i wonder if i am going to get out of work early tomorrow...

i'm watching the american music awards.. jimmy kimmel is so funny.

no painting today..

i had on my agenda to paint today. but, i didn't get to it. i woke up late, i was out pretty late last night, on a date.. the best part about this guy is that he's my height. :)

i was able to log a bunch of hours of work, i got my laundry done, and i took a walk. but i am still extremely tired, and looking forward to bed after amazing race.

omg.. check out the comment on the "nutcracker" post..

so my roommates and i get home from the nutcracker...and i'm checking my mail... i have an anonymous comment on that post from a stranger. i do a little investigating and see that whoever left that comment found my blog by doing a google search for "flirtman4fun".. now in case you don't remember the post that i referred to that email address, it was this one. from what i can deduce, "flirtman4fun" googled himself, saw that i posted his solicitation for sex on my site and is pissed off. omg.. this is too funny. maybe he'll come back.. he's been on my site for a total of 45 minutes from what i can tell. fingers crossed.

nutcracker tonight.

i got some free tix to the moscow ballet's nutcracker tonight.. my roommates and i are going. i think it will be fun, i saw the nutcracker for the first time last year, actually i saw my first ballet ever last year too. now my parents can go to their first ballet.. they are going to be so cultured when i am down with them. :) they are so lucky that i don't have a lot of friends here in syracuse.

last night the cable went out at 7:30, so the three of us piled onto the new couch and hovered around the business card sized portable color TV aunt theresa gave me for xmas years ago to watch survivor.. then in the middle of the episode, we lost power. good thing we have that tv.. :) it was sad actually the lengths we were going to to watch our shows. :) when you find yourself squeezed onto the couch, in the pitch black squinting at a minuscule handheld battery operated television, cursing the cable company you know you have a problem.

i had wicked heartburn last night. i woke up choking, feeling like the back of my throat was burning out the back of my body. i couldn't get it to stop either.. i ended up having to get up, go downstairs, eat about 27 TUMS and pace around trying to relax and not cough so it would subside and go away.. finally i was able to fall asleep for a little while on the couch... needless to say, this morning was a red bull kind of wake-up.

this weekend i feel free. i don't have a million website edits hanging over my head.. maybe i'll do some more painting. or earn some extra cash working freelance.

pics, pics and more pics...

while i was downloading my figure drawings i realized i took a few candid from around the house here that i meant to put up...


this is typical fatty pose. she would actually make a good figure drawring model. she holds these bizarre poses for great lengths of time.. she's loco...


the other day cath finally cooked up the rotting apples we had leftover from the apple picking season. i walk into the kitchen and she has this strange contraption.. its sooo cool, it peels, slices and cores the apples lickitty split! it makes eating apples fun again, and it looks like it was created in the 1700s.

click on the image below to see my latest figure drawrings on my art blog..


ps... if you can't login to comment for some reason its because i switched over to blogger beta... just leave an anonymous one and leave your name if you want..

figure drawring tonight..

tonight i return to figure drawring.. i took last week off since i was at work so late election night (and it was the season finale of LOST) and i didn't go the week before cause it was the show opening in armory square.. soo.. tonight should be good. i didn't go into the basement though adn look for my pastels, so it'll be just charcoal again. plus, i am kind of scared to make the jump from black and white to color!! the potential for the drawrings to get muddy real fast is HUGE!!! i think that watercolor could be cool, i am more apt to go there before i venture into the pastels. but the passtels look sooooo good. ughh, such a dilemma...

beer club...

tonights beer club meeting was the best one yet. i met a couple, they were very nice. he brewed, she consumed. annnnnd, i got the coveted personal invitation to the presidents christmas party. he said i should definitely plan on getting cab for that night. sooo... cath, would you be able to pick me up and give the fischers a ride home too if i can convince them to come?

i've also decided that i want to become a card carrying 'beer judge' there is a 2-3 hour written exam plus a 30 minute tasting exam to the national beer judge test. one of the members of our club is a master or grand master judge. you have to score a certain grade on the exam, and then earn a certain number of points in judging to earn the title of grand master judge. its the highest and there are only a handful in the nation. so... i might need to switch my xmas wishlist from artwork to beermaking materials. :)

how cool would that be to be a certified beer judge? the people in the club that are judges or have taken the exam say its really hard. :) i'm up for the challenge.

i met a guy too tonight at the bar. he was nice and kinda cute, but he was 38. that is a little old for me. :) we'll see if i run into him again. ;)

as i type this, i periodically hear a phone dialing ontop of a cowboy movie. its mike dialing in voting for emmit smith on dancing with the stars. :) such a geek.

i've also decided that i need to go back to nyc. its been a couple of years since i've been and i was talking to cath about it yesterday and she begged me to let her come, so i talked to breed tonight and me and both my roommates are invited to go down. cath was last there when she was pregnant with sarah, and mike has never been. wtf... so we'll go down and do the touristy stuff, see rockafeller center, maybe ice skate, empire state building, ground zero (how awful is that that it s tourist attraction now.. ) maybe even get a ferry out to ellis island. i've been by the statue of liberty, but never to the island itself.. i'd like to see a broadway show if possible, i'm sure they want to see times square... it'll be a good time, with a free place to stay... and i know how they love the subway!! :)

beer club tonight..

hopefully this month is the "12 Beers of Christmas" party announcement.. the president of the club is a brewer over at Saranac and he makes 12 different beers at his home for this party. i think last year he made actually 18. anyway, last time he had a party i was too new to go, this time i am not so new and i actually know a couple people in the club (no thanks to my cousin who was the one that got me to join). plus its nice to drink beer just once a month. ;)

i am still in disbelief that next wednesday starts thanksgiving.. are we going out that night brown sisters and hunt brothers? i think we should. what thanksgiving is complete without a hangover?

creative weekend.

i've done a bunch of art projects this weekend... i painted, i mail arted, and i designed in illustrator. shiiiiiit, some of them are on the art blog. some of them are secret till may. fatty jumped up right on my paints as i was painting last night, getting her fat furry paws all covered in paint. luckily she is slow and i was able to grab her and cath was able to wipe the paint off of them. i would have just put her outside and let her walk it off.

it's been a rainy rainy weekend. i watched transamerica yesterday, it was a pretty good movie, i see why felicity huffman got so many accolades for it. next up from netflix is 'ask the dust' and 'the lady killers'. one is colin farrell and one is tom hanks.

a list...

while i am in this negative state of mind, i might as well make a list of bad things afflicting me right now.

1. my coworkers hate me.
2. i spent 3 hours last night, and 3 hours today recording and erasing da ali g show to dvd from the dvr i just went to "finalize" the dvd so that it will be able to read on any dvd player and i get a "disc cannot be recorded on" error. 6 hours of my life i can't get back, and a wasted dvd, and 6 more hours of taping i'll have to do to get those shows back. i think it'd be easier to just buy the dvd set from the store.
3. i downloaded and signed up for "secondlife" and my graphics card won't support it. it keeps crashing and shutting down the program on me. secondlife sounds like free online SIMS. :(
3. i haven't found anyone to go to europe with yet.
4. uhm, that is all i can think of right now, people are reading and writing inspiring things to me on my blog, so its dissipating the negativeness. thanks guys.

am i in the wrong?

where i work, there are people of all ages.... and the younger people seem to hang out outside of work, pretty often. i've never been invited to hang out with them. how do i know they are hanging out, you ask, i have a coworker who is invited to hang out or go to parties 3 times a week it seems, and he lets me know that these events are going on... i'd like to think i am unintentionally not invited... but the people that seem to be hanging out makes me think of the 'popular' clique in high school, and insecurity sets in, and the negative tapes start to play over and over in my mind...

when i don't go anywhere on the weekends it amplifies my feelings of aloneness. for example, this weekend, i'm in town and have nothing to do... i get word that there is a work gathering going on at a bar downtown. my invitation never comes, not from the coordinators, not from the coworker that is apparently in the 'cool club'. i get the feeling that my coworker is not going to go, he has plans, plus i feel awkward asking if i can go... but how come he's not extending an invitation to me? who likes to be knowingly excluded? i ended up getting wine and tried to make cath go with me to mulligans, when she refused i settled for countless episodes of the 'dog whisperer' and 'da ali g show', putting this non-invitation behind me.

this morning said coworker tells me he went afterall. hurt and jealousy wash over me. is he intentionally trying to hurt my feelings by rubbing it in my face that i was excluded? i am starting to feel rather resentful of said coworker, and the 'popular' kids.

i haven't felt this much like i don't have any friends since the first few months i moved to boston. i know "things take time", but i am a rather impatient person. does anyone have any ideas to share with me about meeting someone(anyone) that likes to be spontaneous and do things and go places? i wish LK would move to syracuse. :)

i'm feeling like i need to start seeing a therapist again.

i love wine!

cath and i stacked two tons of pellets in the shed tonight when i got home from work. it went pretty quickly, i'd say 3o minutes tops.

then i taped two episodes of dog whisperer. i was so productive today. now i'm having a relaxing two glasses of wine. don't worry, i took a prilosec. i know i love wine, but i can't remember the last time i had it, its been giving me some serious acid reflux.

tomorrow i am having lunch with mrs fischer, i taped nip tuck for them while they wait for their cable to be installed in their phat new house, so we are making a transfer. i'm glad the weekend is here.

i can't believe there are only 2 weeks till thanksgiving. insane..

i can't think of any plans i have this weekend. i think i am on call, but i'm not really sure, there is no official schedule right now, but its surely my turn.

i hope to acomplish taping all the shows (ali g, dog whisperer, greys..) off the dvr this weekend, then i want to get my cousins website edits off my plate, then i want to start and think about my sisters wedding invitations/save the dates. all while enjoying myself this weekend. :)

election day...

since its election day and i work for a news organization, i'm here at work still at 10pm. the polls closed here in NY at 9pm, and now all the interns are scrambling around entering data into our systems. it was kind of nice though coming into work a little later. i got a bunch of stuff done before work.

it kind of amazes me the voting process.. apparently i have been registered to vote at my parents polling place since college. i haven't voted there in at least 12 years, in fact, i've registered at 2 or 3 other places since then. mike and i went over to the polls after my morning walk and there were about six 90 year old women behind the books. i pulled out my license and they looked at it like i was a freak. no ID required to vote. i bet i could have gone back and voted again at night claiming i was SB. then they asked me if this was my first time voting. i've decided that old people are a really bad judge of age. getting carded or asked how old you are by a senior citizen has lost its thrill, they are too out of touch. next time i get carded by someone in their 20's will be an accomplishment...

besides needing no proof that you are of age or actually a registered voter, another thing that amazes me is how they tally the votes so quickly, esp when the people thre are well into their 90's. we didn't have fancy electronic voting machines, they were the typical booths, walk in, pull the handle that shuts the curtain, flick the little knobby things, and push the handle back to register the votes. how the hell does that ancient machine count the votes?

pics...

Here are some pics of the new couch.. it comes tomorrow. cath had to put it to the "brown test", of course. here are some more pics of the shopping trip to raymore and flannigan.



here is the pic of my busted camera, it is pretty f'd up. now its going to be my back-up...


and here is a pic from jenny p's taco night/girl dinner.. it was hidden on the internal memory card of my old camera. i never posted it did i?

i got some new things!!

my camera came in the mail!! wooooot! it seems to take fantastic pictures.. i got all the accoutrements for it too! i didn't have to buy them separately! hahah.. the coolest thing so far is that when i take a pic vertically no matter which way (turning the camera left or right) it rights the picture in the viewer. so neat! since its the same camera almost, my memory card easily fits right into it! i'm so excited!

another thing that i am so excited about is i got the dvd recorder working. i've taped 2.5 episodes of dog whisperer now. and i can add titles to the shows. wooot!

my roommates and i went out to the movies tonight with my fisching friends, and their friend beer. after seeing borat we went to dinner with my halloween gift certificate. it was great. borat was pretty funny. i still am a little partial to 'da ali g show', but the movie was a lot funnier than i expected.

we cleaned out the shed today in preparation for the 2 tons of pellets that are coming for this winter. now i am afraid to go into the basement, my roommates moved a bunch of stuff from the shed into the basement. :(



tomorrow i have a bunch of things to do!
- i will continue to tape the rest of the crap off cath's dvr. i love this new dvd recorder!!
- i will go to target and buy myself a camera case.
- i will get my prescription and various other items at eckerds
- i will go couch shopping with my roommates. (very excited about this)
- i will go and see the fischers new house! wooot!
- laundry.

i was on tv...

i'm on tv... i was in a little skit yesterday on our tv show here called "bridge street". its kind of like regis and kelly. b*ll and i played "fans" of julies for a day in the life of skit. it brought me back to the day when the brown sisters would put on all sorts of productions with our video camera. i felt like i was reporting and in the background "the bandit" was going to run through the shot and then i could run over and maybe get an exclusive interview.

my camera is on its way!

my ebay friend says that my new camera is on its way! wooot! i can't wait! then i can take some pics of my poor broken camera. i better buy myself a case stat!

last night i went to this outlet of sorts with mike. he had already been there earlier in the day and scouted out a dvd recorder for $51. (cause the one he doesn't use in his room can't be transferred to the front room tv). we tried it out in the store cause the store is not really a new merchandise kinda place. its more like, come see what fell off our truck, kinda place. the packages have all been opened at some point, serial numbers are filed off things, etc. but the prices are pretty dirt cheap. i've bought a couple of old skool label makers in the past few months for my mail art, and i saw the same one there for 99 cents. :( i should have bought it just to have so when i break the new one i bought i'm not stuck..

tonight is cath goes to bingo and mike and rebecca eat pizza and chinese food respectively. however, cath is NOT going to bingo tonight, so she's partaking in take-out night. i think i might set up my painting studio in the living room next to my office and paint a little tonight while cath catches up on her shows.

tomorrow is the big borat viewing. i can't wait!! anyone else planning on seeing this?

i couldn't resist..

You paid attention during 80% of high school!

68-84% Pretty good, you know that there are libraries and newspapers, and you remember what you've read. You were a child that wasn't left behind!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
Make a Quiz

woo who ebay!

this weekend my camera started acting really strange and taking fuzzy pictures. (you might not have noticed in the photo album.. i might have deleted all the REALLY crappy fuzzy ones.) at one point last weekend my camera even stopped taking pics, just black screens. i had to throw it on the ground (thus cracking the viewer even more) to get it to work again.

nipping that camera disaster in the bud i am the proud winner of another ebay auction. its a nikon s5 (my old one was the nikon s1, for those of you keeping track). they are making the s10 now. so, don't fret nay-sayers, i didn't get the most expensive one i could have. the one thing that made me consider buying the s9 was the wifi picture transfer, how sweet does that sound? this s5 has a pretty sweet "curve" design to it. that was one of the main selling points for me.



the next ebay purchase i make will be a beer bottle resistant case.

in other random news, i got a haircut, i won "1st place most original" for my candy corn costume in an office contest. i got a $25 gift certificate to an area restaurant for that. i was on our morning show called "bridge street" dancing to the monster mash in my costume yesterday. this morning i was part of a skit they did about one of the cohosts, i played the part of an autograph seeking fan. i'll let you know if it becomes available as an internet clip. tonight i am going out to dinner with my roommates and then we are going to an art opening for the figure drawing group i have been going to. i'll be in the next show don't you worry. then i get to watch LOST in real time, not on thursday.

this weekend a cath and i and a few friends are going to see 'borat'. i have some pretty high expectations, so i hope i am not disappointed.