cutest thing since Nick in a pink bunny costume

This pic made my day:

Someone's drunk in the kitchen

As if I couldn't do 90% of his routines from memory already, I'm going to see Jim Gaffigan perform live in Portland on Friday. I'm going with my roommate Maria and 3 of our friends who have heard of him but don't really know what he's all about. I hope they don't get annoyed when I start saying "HOT POCKET" in falsetto during the show.

Jealous? Of course you are.

The end of Cal's football revolution?

Well, its been a great ride. Our hopes for the season were raised higher than ever before, but after watching last night's game, it feels more like the Holmo Era than any time since 2001. Sure, we catch a few more passes than we did in the late 90's, but the quality of the play calling seems strangely familiar ("Up the middle" anyone?).

I think there is a silver lining, though. Remember when we were terrified by some Big 10 school recruiting Tedford away from our cracked and cramped stadium. Michigan is probably feeling pretty good about their coach right now, since he has slowly crawled back up the rankings to #15 after an embarrassing loss to Appalachian State. Meanwhile, Tedford has managed to take his team from #2 in the country to irrelevant in just 21 days. It reminds me of how our team could manage to give up 21 points in 2 minutes under Holmo.

For better or for worse, we may not need to worry about losing Tedford after this season.

My own fire update

The red part is the Santiago fire in Orange County. The bright green marker is my parents' house.

Disco Inferno

So I thought I would give you the latest on the San Diego fires. They are already 10 times worse than the fires a few years ago. Both my Aunts and Uncles have been evacuated. One set is living with my parents. John is living with me on a voluntary evacuation. The air was just too bad where he was. Here in PB things are ok. There are clearly a lot of evacuees around here because there is NO parking anywhere. John and I just got out of the water after what was actually an amazing surf session. 3-5 feet, glassy rights and lefts perfect for longboarding. Long rides, clean lines, cool water. I have to say though that I felt a little like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned. But the news said we should stay off the road, don't use cell phones or appliances, and generally stay out of the way. Well surfing was none of those things so in a small way we were doing our part. In all seriousness though John and I are trying to figure out where we can pitch in and are looking for volunteer opportunities. I don't have any money or stuff to donate but there are about 10,000 people at Qualcom Stadium and they might need some help. All reports say that the relief efforts so far are going really well. But we just got word that FEMA is on the way, so we expect everything to go to shit pretty soon. Someone's gonna do a heckufa job on something. But the family and everyone I know is fine. Thanks for asking. More to come.

We are so screwed...

Does everyone realize that we just lost to a team that was beaten badly by Notre Dame, who was slaughtered by USC, who lost to Stanford. Basically, we suck far worse than anyone thought.

The Back Up

wow

Canada is Weird

Erin is right. Canada is weird. And cold.

They've already started minting coins to commemorate the 2010 Olympics. Wes, I brought a quarter home for you. It features a proud member of Canada's Olympic team: The Curler.


I was also attacked by a crocodile.


The food was amazing. Nick, the streets really are paved with smoked meat, and it is delicious.

My Front Yard

This tree is right outside my front yard. Its monstrous and beautiful. Its changed colors twice in the last week. I took this picture yesterday.



PS - You know that smell right after it rains? You know the smell of a wood fire far off in the distance? Combine those two - it pretty much smells like that here all the time.

Things I learned during my weekend in DC:

1. John Fenwick was the first European to settle in West Jersey. I learned this at the John Fenwick Service Area. Fascinating.

2. I am out of shape enough that Wii sports make me tired.

3. The Bears are STILL the Bears - infuriating, yet slightly comforting.

4. The state of Delaware is good for nothing but tolls: 14 miles of road and $9 worth of tolls to be exact.

5. My music collection is horribly outdated. Am taking any and all recommendations of good new stuff.

6. Washington-Dulles Airport is in fact in Virginia, which IS NOT on the way to New York from Washington DC. In fact, it is approximately 46 kilometers in the opposite direction of New York, in case anyone was wondering.

Not that it's surprising...

The Bears are still the Bears. I was guilty, like most of you, of forgetting that for a few weeks. I'll admit I had visions of New Orleans in my head and I lost sight of the fact that...it's still the d*am mother f*cking piece of sh*t bears.

End of rant.

a picture for my dorky rallycom friends

send me strength, friends.

chad is coming to stay with me.

(maybe he will help me change my hubcap covers and fix the door lock on the apt.)

it's raining like crazy right now.

i'm so excited that al gore won the nobel peace prize (but still doubt he will run for pres).

and sat night (while chad is here--i'm a great hostess), i am going to one of those crazy (and expensive) squirt bottle restaurants with a friend (who insists it's really great). i'm hoping we'll have room to go to this place on the way back, but i doubt that will happen. when i told joe, one of my favorite farmers that i was going to this restaurant on saturday (he and the chef are friends), he told me i'd love it, and then he pointed to his pants and said, "these are david's!" uh. is it just me or is it really weird that they are sharing pants? (actually, they were hand me downs)

Thinks that make you go: Whoa!

So, I was reading my dorky blog about all things TV, and I followed a link to ew.com about how Kevin Smith will be directing an episode of LOST (which is very cool in a very dorky way). The first paragraph goes like this:

"It's October, and we're still around four months away from Lost's season premiere. By that time — Spoiler Alert! — the Boston Red Sox will have beaten the Colorado Rockies to win the World Series, the University of California will have edged out the LSU Tigers for the college football national championship, and my hometown Seattle Seahawks will have capped a Cinderella season by beating the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Yes, my awesome Desmond-esque precognitive powers extend to the world of sports, too."

Did you see it? When he wrote "the University of California," he was talking about us! This required a double take equivalent to the one I took the first time I saw the Ford commercial with the giant bear chasing the Heisman trophy (at first, I was irritated that they hadn't portrayed the Bruin as being small and dickless. Then, after some time, I realized that it was a Golden Bear!). So, this is what it's like to be the team everyone is talking about.

Has anyone been to Montreal?

I'm going to Montreal this weekend and I'm looking for suggestions of things to see, do, and (of course) eat. Anybody been there?

Summer in New York: Screw You

87 degrees and humid in October? In New York. The one decent season in this town is fall and I'm getting screwed out of it. On the other hand, having worked twelve hours days for the past 8 days, I didn't really notice until last night.

A moment of silence...

...for our dear friend Nick.

There are losses, and then there are LOSSES. May he not take this one too hard...and may the Golden Bears follow in the Cardinal's footsteps.

Like frogger, but real life

I've decided to keep a running tally of times that I almost die in Mexico - so far I'm up to 4! Score! For the record, being a pedestrian in Mexico City is like playing frogger. One would assume that you walk with the green light, right? Wrong! Red and green lights mean nothing here - they're merely suggestions. One would also assume that being in a crosswalk means that cars have to stop, right? Wrong again! Cars speed up to try and hit you while in a cross walk, especially really white people like me (that last part I'm only 20% sure about). It's 3:30 here and I will spend the rest of my day in my room watching E! in Spanish. I'm too tired to venture out into the mess that is this strange city. And no worries, this will not be turn into my travel blog - I do not intend to hog anything. I just need some English human contact, alright?!

T.M.B.G.

I had the pleasure of catching the They Might Be Giants concert at the House of Blues in San Diego last night. It was a 14 and Up show, which as the lead singer said was "very sophisticated." It was an interesting show as I was surrounded by a very diverse crowd. By that I mean it was white nerds of all ages and weight classes. Everyone there was either an adolescent or was in some way trying to relive their adolescence. It was also very clear that everyone there would have been perfectly happy for them to play the entire album "Flood" from start to finish, and that the band had NO intention of doing that very thing. They played a lot of new stuff which was very good, and peppered in some songs from flood, but ended the first set with Birdhouse In Your Soul, ended the first encore with Istanbul, and ended the second encore with Particle Man. But any time they played one of those songs they did it a little different because it was clear they have been playing those songs since 1990 and are getting a little sick of them. It was a fun show, tickets a little pricey, but the least intimidating crowd I have ever been around at a concert. Yay I posted!

The Immodium is packed and ready!

Alright kiddies, I'm off to Mexico. Wish me luck - here's hoping that I don't kidnapped by banditos, arrested by the Mexican police, or get violent diarrhea (although, that might help with my diet)! I'm going to go bathe in mole...mmmmm...Mexican food...

Green > Purple

So at the SC-Wash game last Saturday, a couple of things happened that turned me off to Husky fans, who I usually liked and had no real problems with before:
- Right after I walked into the stadium, some frat boy came up from behind me, put his chin on my shoulder and yelled "WOOF!!! WOOF!!!" about as loud as he could into my ear. The look on my face had to be priceless because I had no idea what had just happened as he stared me down after his little display. Classy.
- During one play, two USC offensive lineman got injured. One nearly made it to the sidelines while the other just lay where he fell. Medical staff attended to both (post-game diagnosis, dislocated patella - out for season; high ankle sprain - out 3-4 weeks). Anyway, when both players were down, the Husky cheerleaders started a back-and-forth "Go Huskies!" chant. And the crowd responded ENTHUSIASTICALLY! Very classy ... I didn't know it was cool to cheer when opposing players are down and have BOTH SIDES medical staffs on the field.
- Even after all of this, I still bought a purple shirt that says U-DUB on the front seeing as how I didn't have a Washington shirt yet (adding to my Pac-10 collection of Cal, Stanford, Oregon and OSU). Just tried it on right now ... and lets just say that purple is NOT my color. I don't come CLOSE to being able to pull that off. Maybe its good that I didn't go to Washington Law - I definitely look much better in green.

A little glory of my own

I got a raise! Woohoo!

Bask in my reflected glory!

My photo has been selected to be one of three photos that represent my lab on the internet (see above). Literally dozens of people a year, who visit my lab's webpage and wait more than 20 seconds before clicking through, will see my photo on the bottom corner of the page. Yes, I look stoned, and I am totally in that woman's intimate space, but apparently I have what it takes to succeed in the world of stock photography. If you send me your computer monitor, I will sign the screen and send it back.