BluEyedDaizy

Starbucks…we’ve had a good run, you and I.  You were there for me in my ignorant youth and I gave you so much of my money.  You comforted me with your big easy chairs and your cookie-cutter jazz sounds when I thought I needed to feel snobby, when I craved to be just a little bit snooty.  You fed my vanity to my detriment, or so I thought. What you really did was, keep me blind to what a REAL coffee should be.

I know, I know…you say you are reliable and are always with me no matter what city I find myself in…and this is true.  However, I’m afraid I have outgrown you.  You insist on staying the same old you.  You are so last century with your overly roasted, dried up nasty beans.  The only thing you’re still good for is your orange/cranberry scones, but that isn’t enough for me anymore, no…sadly, this is farewell.  Farewell to you Starbucks,  the McDonald’s of the coffee world, my eyes have forever been opened.  It is truly sad that it has taken me this long to find out what REAL coffee is supposed to taste like.  Good, however, that I didn’t have to actually travel to Sumatra’s Gayo Mountain region to find it.

Starbucks…meet my new coffee:

Wandering Goat Coffee Company (clearly in honor of the The Kaldi Coffee legend).

I had a cup of their wonderful brew at a fabulous little desert bar called Nib (a little restaurant that is still SO new to the local scene that they don’t even have a website yet…but let me tell you…FABULOUS!!!). It was presented to me French pressed and was so rich and smooth…I didn’t even need half and half. !!! I AWAYS NEED HALF AND HALF IN MY COFFEE (or so YOU said…LIAR)!!! It was everything I ever dreamed coffee could be…AND THEN SOME!  The best coffee I’ve ever had.

The truth is you wanted me to love you, but you never loved me.  You took, took, took and never gave me anything beyond a false sense of society and a plasticized vision of classiness.   I won’t weep for you though, no…you still have the blind masses devoted to your two-tailed mermaid logo, two-tailed like the two-faced coffee you turned out to be.  I wasted the best coffee drinking years of my life on you!!!

Starbucks, I think if we’re honest with each other, we will see that you won’t miss me, and I certainly won’t miss you.  Maybe if I find myself stranded in a strange city I’ll pop in for a bit.  Or, maybe I’d rather drink pond scum.  It wouldn’t be that much different…now that I understand what I’ve been missing, lo, these many years. LMAO!!!!

Ciao’!

A friend of mine has finally gone public with her exquisite jewelry creations!  This isn’t your ordinary beadwork…it has history!

“My jewelry is inspired from all of my travels looking for unique relic pieces….old pearls, antique rhinestones, vintage charms, precious religious pieces and mixing them with new handmade antiqued sterling silver wire and silver soldered elements to create a new relic for someone to treasure.”

And of “Miss Sally”, the piece pictured  above, she says:

“Miss Sally is a German doll unearthed in the old china doll factories of Thuringia. She has ‘birdcage’ skirt fashioned out of sterling silver wire. Inside her ‘birdcage’ hangs a little sterling bird charm and topped off with a vintage mercury glass turquoise bead.

Miss Sally hangs from a vintage turquoise and clear rhinestone crown. The necklace is made of sterling silver hand linked vintage turquoise mercury glass beads and old Japanese glass beads. The Japanese glass beads have a beautiful luster and a than vintage antique look that only these type of glass beads have when some of their luster coating has escaped.”

There is something utterly charming about taking an old piece of porcelain or stone/bead and re-visioning it into a beautiful piece of wearable art.  Recycling at it’s very best and most glamorous!  And each piece is totally unique.

Having had the privilege of visiting Cheryl’s jewelry studio, I can tell you it is brimming with nothing less than the most fabulous works in progress…I can’t wait to see what else she designs. It won’t be long before I can add some of her pieces to my own jewelry case.

You can visit her Esty shop directly here:  Inspired Relics, and also her main site, The Art of Nothing.

Goodbye ER.  Thanks for the ups.  Thanks for the downs.  Thanks for the memories.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!

A remake to the 1984 Kevin Bacon-starring film, “Footloose”, has been set to be directed by Kenny Ortega, the helmer of Disney’s “High SchoolMusical” series. It is expected to start its principal photography in Atlanta sometime this spring with a budget over $20 million and a possible 2010 release.

“Rumor of ‘Footloose’ Remake”: Ace Showbiz.com

Cinema-sacrilege! Say it isn’t so!! How can they do this to one of the most cheese-tastic movies of all the 80′s? I have to do something…I…don’t…I…gotta…CUT LOOSE! FOOTLOOSE! Kick off my Sunday shoes…Geez…Louise…I have a feeling that this will not end well.

UPDATE: Just…no words man…just…go here…Doveman’s ‘Footloose’: The Lillywhite Session - or, cut and paste this address:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94718524

Scroll down to “Listen Now”, click it – it’s a podcast from Lillywhite Sessions. It is a taste of the remade soundtrack for the new “Footloose” movie. The new version of “Footloose” starts at 2:42.  My head exploded at 3:55, and frankly, I’m surprised I lasted that long.

Update 10AUG2010 – look at what I found…

(O_o  Clearly this is a joke.)

I take it back…I’ve got plenty of words, lol.  From this music it is to be assumed that Ren is a suicidal EMO timidly tip-toeing around campus as he seethingly whispers; “everybody cut! everybody cut!”

And “Dancing in the Sheets?” It’s great, except it might make you think you’ve ingested some kind of methamphetamine as you time-traveled back to the Beatles recording session of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

The only slightly luke warm spot is “Almost Paradise” and that’s not to say it’s even close to a passable remake. It’s so whinny…it’s like “Almost paradise but I decided to kill myself instead…please, please LOVE ME! I just need you to LOOOOOVE MEEEEE!” Far too desperate in all the wrong ways.  I mean, if Ren was desperate it was because he was trapped not because he was melodramatic! He needed to get out of that stinkin’ small town but he couldn’t so then he had to save that stinkin’ small town and HE DID! And good for him.

If this soundtrack is a harbinger of things to come, then we can fully expect Ren to be nothing more than a stripped down version of Pete Wentz whose biggest ambition is to silently whine and moan about how badly he wants to do something about something but he’s just so depressed that he can’t figure it out so he’ll just go write about his feelings instead of taking it out on an abandoned warehouse like a real man does.

The only way this thing might (and that is a really big “might”) be salvaged would be if Kevin Bacon assumed the role of Reverend Shaw Moore (Bacon makes everything better, right?  Maybe that’s just with food…though I have to admit, I think it’s true of movies too).  :D  Sadly, I have a sneaking suspicion that he won’t be going near this thing with 22 1/2′ pole.

So depressing.

His inner turmoil is so acute and is evidence that Stains (yes, the dog’s name is Stains – no, not touchin’ that one)  has had to visualize something so distracting, so tantalizing that it keeps him from snatching not just one cupcake, but the entire plate of cupcakes…as well as the hand holding the plate.  If you look closely, you can see his nose flair slightly in resigned desperation.

What can be going through his mind…?  Honestly, I think Joel McHale sums it up best: “Stains went to his ‘special place’ visualizing a world where dogs are free to eat cupcakes and where savagely mauling crazy bitches with pony-tails would make him a hero instead of an outcast, emasculated and defeated on a shitty cable show.”

Carry on my brave little furry friend.  Be strong.

Edited to add: The HAPPY ENDING!! Way to go Stains! *applause*

Hypnodog.com

Complete with a beach, an umbrella, and a ginormous fruity drink with a little umbrella all it’s own (as all beach drinks should have).

So, life is somewhat chaotic these days (isn’t it always).  However, I find that there is a kind of comfort associated with chaos…if you never know what’s coming then life is continually freaking the crap out of surprising you and that can bring with it all sorts of stress induced psychosis adventures! Like the one I had yesterday.   Seems like whenever anything is going too well, some giant shoe somewhere drops.  Maybe it’s cosmic law, or maybe it’s Murphy’s law…either way, I am screwed.  Just when I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel…I realize, that ain’t daylight- that’s the FREAKIN’ TRAIN-LIGHT!!! and Chaos steps in and mangles everything all up again.

Yesterday, I was driving along merrily on my way with my mom and my daughter (who had just suffered the horrors of vaccination and was therefore due her traditional shot-bribe, i.e. an ice cream sundae) when suddenly, and without warning (as I turned onto a major arterial) I found my car being  forced onto what little shoulder was available by a sudden loss of acceleration and the horrifying sound of grinding and snapping gears.    It sounded like an asphalt monster had come to life under my car and was chewing it’s way through my floorboards.

In a situation like this, the five stages of grief work in shotgun succession (in my case, within about 30 seconds):  *BOOM*Denial, in it’s most acute form–> ‘no…no, NO! NONONONO!!!” Then, *BOOM* Anger (works best while smashing something – example: I smashed my hand on the steering wheel. Repeatedly.) “ARGH!!!”. *BOOM* Bargaining.  ”I promise I will never again torment telemarketers by pretending I am a) dead, b) 95 years old and just really glad to talk to someone or c) of foreign nationality, not able to understand a word they say if my car will just stop making these horrible noises and that maybe it’s only something like Godzilla-the-Twig caught in the undercarriage.  PLEASE!!!” *BOOM* Depression. “WHY DO THESE THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO MEEEEEHEHEHEHE!!!”  *BOOM* Acceptance.  The car done broke…again.  *pout*

Realizing we were in fact sitting in a car barely pulled off the road in heavy 40mph traffic, we decided the non-death inviting thing to do would be to stand outside and away from my poor little wounded Volvo, call for a tow and wait.  What a nerve wracking experience that was…every time a car, truck, bus rounded the corner, I was sure my car was going to be smashed to pieces.  But what can one do?

Sure, I could have dissolved into a puddle of hysterical crying right there on the sidewalk because I was certain it was the transmission (i.e. $3,000 in repairs)…AGAIN!! but what good what that do and what kind of example what I be to my impressionable 13 year old?  So, I did the next best thing.  I lectured my daughter on why “this is exactly the reason I always tell you to bring a coat! and you never do and look at you!  you’re freezing because…blah,blah,blah”  I think it was all my mom could do to NOT wet herself laughing at me.  Good times.  Good times.

Just when I am sure the tow truck will never arrive…who should come to our rescue but a truck load of fire fighters. (*grin*)

They pulled up behind us, jumped down from their lofty fire truck seats and actually said, “Excuse me miss, what seems to be the trouble?”  Apparently they’re either western fans or Python fans…or both.  Either way, I’m in major good luck and I’m pretty sure I could have kissed them for calling me “miss” as I passed “miss” about *coughincomprehensiblecough*-years ago.  They proceeded to push my poor little car off the main street (where the tow truck did finally show up to take my car to the shop) and my very bad day suddenly got better.

And then, my husband arrived (to manage the tow guy of course) and took us all to lunch where we commiserated with each other about yet another vehicle repair and where he and I toasted each other over the fact that “6 more months baby!” And he’ll be done with school! I’m telling you it cannot come fast enough.  We didn’t even breath the silent thought between us –> “what else is gonna happen before then?” *ugh*

So it all breaks down to this:

Ben & Jerry’s post vaccination celebration sundae: $5.89

Drive axel replacement and alignment: $270.40

For everything else, there’s xanax.

P.S.  Thank you mom for running along side our rescuers to catch them in action with your camera phone!  *grin*  Those boys could really move, couldn’t they!  LOL!

~first spotted at Movie Maven

According to a poll from The Daily Mail.uk, these six faces apparently possess the desired characteristics every British male wishes he had (in order: Hugh Grant, Daniel Craig, Orlando Bloom, Jonny Wilkinson, Ewan MacGregor, and Lewis Hamilton)

So, they took these six guys, threw them into a blender, hit frappe’ and this is what came out:

Look familiar?!?

I’m just sayin…

Of course, the irony is that he looks even MORE like Patrick Dempsey…who is a good ol’American, born in Maine, USA. LMAO!!

I love irony.  Mwahahahah! :D

…but I did and I’m hoping the 1 hour workouts I’ve started to do every morning (well…most mornings – not THIS morning…but most) will counteract the fact that I had ice cream for dinner last night.  Nothing like Neapolitan - vanilla/chocolate/strawberry.  I grew up calling it Napoleon ice cream…but what kid didn’t?  At least I knew who Napoleon was, however, I always thought it was odd he had an ice cream flavour named after him.

ANYWAY!  It’s Christmastime…obviously.  I mean, if the eggnog lining 50% of the shelves in the dairy cases of every local grocery store wasn’t the biggest giveaway, then certainly the annoying holiday car commercials yelling at us at every commercial break would be enough to tell everyone (“HOHOHO! MERRY CAR-CLEARANCE!!” *gag*)…it’s finally Christmastime.

But on to the good part of Christmas…my daughters and I have spent the last couple of nights making gingerbread trees, angels, and women (because we don’t have a gingerbread man cookie cutter…just a girl-one.  I’m not sexist, honest!).  Now…until this week, I’d never made gingerbread anything so it’s been a lot of fun and I have to say, the house smells heavenly!  Nothing like rolling dough in unison, to the beat of “I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas” and simultaneously watching an annual classic:  “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” THE ORIGINAL animated special (*rant alert* -not the overly glittery, horrifically altered and obscenely mutilated Universal Studios version – my apologies if you liked the movie– which rampaged all over the US back in 2000 shattering a sacred tradition of jammies, hot cocoa with itty-bitty marshmallows, and pillows piled up on the floor while watching the perfect-since-I-first-saw-it-back-in-1970something original “Grinch” and singing very loudly “You’re a MEAN ONE! Mr. Grinch!  You really are a heel!…”  I mean, how can anyone top that?  Why try?  Nobody, not even Jim Carrey, can sway me to the newer version – though I must say he did a bang up job of it.  Who (<<<HA!  Look!  I’m so PUNNY! *snort*) else but ol’Jimmy could make his face go in so many varied directions?  At the same time?).

Tonight, we decorate all of our gingerbread cookies and I’m ashamed to say I’ll probably need to buy more spiced gumdrops.  It was a small bag anyway.  And spiced gumdrops ARE my favourite!  And I didn’t even eat them all in one sitting…entirely.

P.S.  Thanksgiving sucked.  But that’s another post altogether.  *wink*

…it’s that I hate the other drivers on the road.  Not all drivers.  Just the class a, certifiable, cell-phone using, big mac shoving, screaming-at-their-kids-instead-of-watching-the-road morons that our roads are far too overpopulated with.  I mean, is there a ‘special’ driving school somewhere pumping out mediocre graduates of offensive driving? Cause I’m offended!  Anyone else?

Take this idiot incident de’jour for example:  I’m driving along in the left lane (I have a big @$$ truck and so I tend to be a bit extra careful because it’s a little difficult to stop several thousand pounds on a dime – ya…trucks do not equal agile, lol) and this little rice grinder on a lefthand side street (turning left into my lane) decides there’s just enough room to zip in…in front of my 6 ton grill…except there isn’t.  Jack hole stomps his gas and proceeds at full rice grinder speed (which is about 37 mph) and stops just short of committing sure suicide on my left front fender causing me to swerve to the right and the guy next to me to swerve into the bus lane!  And there he was, in the middle turn lane, with his hands flapping around like a crow on fire.  I only saw a little out of the corner of my eye as I went past, but I’m pretty sure ‘gestures’ were involved.  He actually had the nerve to be mad at me because he almost hit me.  I was just driving – minding my own and then I almost had a heart-attack because of this buttnut!  *sigh*

Sorry..this is gonna be a long rant…because I wish I could say it all ended there.  At least the ‘excitement’ ended…sadly, the stupidity continued (and not my own).  For only four blocks further, where the freeway intersects with my two lane (each way) street, some wanker decided NOT to wait at the first green light like a normal person (so she wouldn’t block the intersection as the 2nd light was red), and instead proceeded to drive up behind the line of traffic waiting for the 2nd light on the next block – and in doing so, she did block the entire intersection to cross-traffic (I stopped at the green light this person should have stopped at and just waited for the show to start).

This is an intersection that has a three lane offramp from the freeway emptying into it.  It was bad enough that this off-ramp was now blocked by this person’s inconsideration and poor spacial planning skills…but to compound matters, when the off-ramp’s light turned green, yet ANOTHER turd chaser (from the off-ramp) drives right up to the driver door of the first car (who is blocking all cross-traffic of the intersection) and sits there blocking the entire oncoming line of traffic of the street I’m on.

Did I mention this is during the morning rush hour?

So there we are.  I’m completely blocked, oncoming direction is completely blocked, and the off-ramp is 75% blocked.  Why?  All because of a mini-van who didn’t have a basic understanding of it’s own size because the owner actually bought into the whole ‘mini’ marketing concept which says in a nutshell, YOU ARE MINI!  SO SMALL YOU CAN FIT INTO A NUTSHELL! and is devoid of all logic because logic states that if you drive into an intersection when the car in front of you is actually sticking 10% into himself, then you will be 110% sticking into it and in fact will block the entire thing.  Not only that, but the universal law of blocking intersections clearly states that:

a.) the light you think is about to change green [and is therefore your justification for blocking the intersection in the first place - i.e. "I'll only be here for a few seconds - it's just about to turn green!"], will in fact be the longest freaking light in town (and it is) and it will have JUST TURNED RED (because the traffic system in my town is utterly screwed up – just like every other town).

and

2.) will attract other misguided idiots who think that if they drive right up to your driver door [thereby blocking the entire oncoming line of traffic with not only his full size van-self, but also the trailer that's hitched to him] that their glaring at you will magically enable you to move (which is just silly because you can’t go anywhere! You’re stuck in an intersection!).

The effects of which will entangle the entire traffic area in a web of unjustifiable congestion that will be felt for no less than 7 minutes [in the immediate vicinity], and 20 minutes [in a two mile radius], give or take a few minutes depending on effects of road rage.

When I finally did clear the intersection…and then made my own way onto the freeway (after waiting through 4 – count’em FOUR lights), I saw traffic backed up on the freeway from the off-ramp of the previously blocked intersection – and it stretched down the freeway for at least a half mile.

In short, I was late to work because of a mini-van’s over inflated sense of self-importance.  And now you know why I detest mini-vans.