Valentine's Day

I know, I know... I got (all two) of you reading my blog every day because I was posting like crazy, and then I go and take a three week hiatus. New job, new apartment... I've been busy! Anyway, baffling, I know (considering my relationship status of the last, um, six years?), but I actually had a really fun Valentine's Day, for once. Emily and I had some of our girl friends over for a fancy dinner party. Well, as fancy as mismatched silverware and not enough chairs gets. Anyway, it was a fabulous time...

Emily made a tasty and delicious dinner in her adorable new apron. I stayed out of the kitchen, surmising our guests would like to actually enjoy the food.



Ellie brought us beautiful flowers. So I guess I really did get flowers for Valentine's Day. Awesome.


The girls. Yes, we really did make some of them sit on the couch because we didn't have enough chairs


Ellie and I discovered we have Valentine's-colored Razr phones. We thought it was really cool at the time, okay.


Dessert was various things dipped in chocolate. It was pretty awesome.




A couple hours of girl talk later, the party finally ended. It was an excellent evening!

Cake or death?

I just heard the best rumor ever - my favorite British stand-up comedian (because there's more than one?), Eddie Izzard, will be playing one of the bad guys on 24! I haven't been this excited about TV since My So-called Life. I hope he's at least in make-up but I don't think too many transvestites end up terrorists so I'll try not to be disappointed.

Actually I would rather JOIN the circus...

Yesterday I took an online career interest quiz, thinking it might give me some insight into what careers I might enjoy. Turned out it was like an elaborate game of Would You Rather... in which I had to pick the activity I would most enjoy. Some of the questions, to give you an idea of the usefulness of this quiz, were "would I rather plan a birthday party for a five- year old or parachute out of an airplane?" or "would I rather sell insurance or raise chickens?" or my favorite, "would I rather tame wild animals for a circus or set up the salad bar at a family restaurant?" Needless to say, this quiz did not provide me much clarity. It was very, very entertaining, however.

Changing my tune...

For a girl that maybe played Atari, like, a couple of times, I've sure been playing a lot of video games lately. On MLK day Emily invited us over to play her new Nintendo Wii, which has definitely made me reevaluate my "video games are a waste of time" hypothesis. Not only are Wii games really, really fun, but they can also be quite the workout. Here are some pictures of us (with wriststaps secure) playing the boxing game below:

As you can see from the blur that is Emily's deadly fists, this is better than Taebo.


Someone grabbed my camera and took pictures of Emily and I's fight. As you can see from my unusally competitive facial expressions, I was in it to win:



Taking a break between rounds...



And we're back at it...


I think I might have won this one, but for being so competitive at the time I can't really remember now. I think I've finally realized what all those 12 year old boys have been raving about - video games are fantastic! I think I'll go have another try at guitar hero tonight...

We'll "never find an apartment without Guido"...

After only one afternoon searching for an apartment, I have concluded that brokers are New York's equivalent of the used car salesman. One of the more entertaining ones we met today, let's call him Guido, came complete with a giant gold cross on a chain thicker than my pinky, a thick aura of cologne, and plenty of manipulations up his leather jacket sleeve to try to get us to sign for one of the crappiest apartment we'd seen. I really really wanted to ask him if he knew he was a walking caricature, but as I felt any more time spent in his presence might result in my needing a shower to ever feel clean again, I held my tongue.

Freedom

After officially quitting my graduate program, I felt it was safe to dispose of all the journal articles I had taking up space in my room. Here is the stack I got rid of last night:



There's probably 40x this many taking up valuable space on my hard drive, that might take longer. I felt a ritual burning of the papers might be taking things a bit far, but my mom did remove the NYU sticker from her car to provide me some symbolism. Thanks mom!

The 12th Street Guitar Hero Fancier's Association

Recently, I attended the first meeting of the 12th Street Guitar Hero Fancier's Association, which was founded shortly after President and Founder Brigham procured the inexplicably enjoyable Playstation game, Guitar Hero. Here I am giving it my first try. I'm not sure I looked any less silly as my skills improved:




Basically the game plays songs and you have to "play" the guitar along with it by pushing buttons and strumming. (It's a lot harder than it sounds). It's actually so intense that people were practicing while waiting in the dugout:


Sisters Erin and Liesel then had a Message-an-a-bottle-Off. I'm pretty sure Erin won but Liesel still gets an A for effort.


To end the meeting, our President treated us to an inspiring rendition of Freebird. For more pictures and detailed minutes, see his blog.