Last seven days.

It's true.  I've been listening to lots of Rent, old school Third Eye Blind (LOVE) and LFO (obvs).  

In other entertainment news.  I bought the first season of Pushing Daisies this past weekend on my adventure to Target.  It was $25 bucks and I was stoked and then I remembered there is only 7 episodes.  That show is so magical I would pay $100 for it.  I have to finish the last few episodes before season two starts tomorrow night.

Fringe tonight!

xok

I can't even put into words how amazing the New Kids on the Block were.  How are they still fantastic!?!?  I found out that I was going Friday. On Thursday Robyn got two tickets and because Hillary and I both wanted to go we had to fight it out.   We told Robyn we were going to wrestle but really we picked a name out of a ramekin.  My name came out so I promised Hillary a bottle of wine and a t shirt.

Sunday Robyn and I met Cailtin and Liz at Quincy Adams and we headed in, with a plan to grab some drinks before heading into the craziness.  Well truth be told craziness came when we hit the Green Line and there were a ton of girls with old school NKOTB memorabilia including the mini dinner plate pins and the water bottles.  One of the women started playing Please Don't go Girl on her iPhone (which I decided I want BTW) and I did my Joey McIntyre dance - that I just made up yesterday.

Enjoyed some pumpkin beer and some crazy ass nachos at Boston Beer Worlds and we headed over to the garden at about 715.  I went to go look for a shirt for Hillary and the one I wanted to get her was sold out EVERYWHERE so I settled on an equally awesome one.  We went in to get our seats (which were insane) and watched the tail end of Natasha Bedingfield who is tragic and should be a rock star instead of the crap music she plays. 

New Kids came out around 8pm.  The opening was powerful.  Moving if you will.  Laugh go ahead but man it was chill inducing.  Cliff's notes on the show:

• Their new stuff I decided is NOT good - cept maybe a few songs
• They played ALL the goodies and were amazing doing so
• Jordan totally ripped his shirt off at one point - actually I think a fan (LOL a actual fan not a fanatic - when I read this over I laughed my ass off) blew it open and performed one of his solo songs like that
• Donnie picked up a guitar - but NEVER played it
• Donnie is hot
• Jonathan is adorable and I'm still waiting for him to break out of his shell
• Did I mention how fabulous they are?

I took four videos and you can see them all at my YouTube page but here is my favorite:

Tonight!!! Kind of my favorite New Kids song. Mostly because it reminds me of being a lil lady and being

sad I didn't have straight hair but when I heard this song and hearing them sing about the "girls with the

curls in their hair" always made me feel cooler than everyone else. :)

We trudged to the T to make our way home. I was tired but still on a concert high which can ONLY describe what happened next. So we're walking down to the platform in Park Street and I see this guy. I'm like I know him. I don't know how though. Ah ha!! I got it!! It's Rich Cronin. Rich Cronin from the band LFO. Don'tlie. You remember them. So blogspot is being mean and is not letting me put the video in here. So click here for some LFO awesomeness. He's the blonde one that points alot. Anyways. I geeked out and apparently said "Oh btw that was Rich Cronin" really loud and then started singing "I like girls that wear Abercrombie Fitch" which probably wasn't so nice of me. Rich I apologize (if I were famous I would Google Alert my name!) for making an ass. Anywho. He looked hot! I wanted to go on his train to talk him up but my uneventful friends wouldn't let me in fear of embarrassment. I just wanted to ask him if he went to the New Kids or the game (my money is on the New Kids). And maybe some more. Oh and also to tell him the Life is Good album was like my anthem of 2001 - and apparently September/October of 2008 because I am so into it again. Thank you Rich Cronin.

xok

This is part of the awesomeness that is Weezer.

Not my vid obvs but still.  Wish this showed Tom's douchey-ness.  Alas it does not - enjoy anyways.

Epic blog coming soon about New Kids, fun stuff, and seeing Rich Cronin on the train.

I know your dying.

OUR TEAM WON!!! The stress, tears, hours, and drama our team went through was TOTALLY worth it!!  Boot Camp was NO joke the toughest professional feat I have EVER been a part of.

AND to top it off I won $500!  I thought our group won $500 and split it but we EACH get it.

Anyways!  This is what I got in my email:

Yes I put it up next to my Big Chip certificate (Big Chip is an award you get for quality client service - I got it in July).

So exciting.  And I got called out as a good presenter.  Being a newbie to the presenting world (first presentation I EVER GAVE!) and being a casual and fun presenter.  Woo.  I feel like crying tears of joy after thinking about the stress.  

Instead I'm going to go browse the interwebs for a pres to myself (and for my birthday!! Soon!)

xo

I can't believe how frigidly cold it has gotten in Mass in the past few days.  I need to invest in some shoes that will keep my feet warm (not ready to wear my Uggs or ULU's).  OO which reminds me I have a coupon at DSW!  My hands are frigid too.

It's that time again!

It's definitely been a Weezer type of week!!  Ok so I listen to Weezer alot EVERY week but w/e.  I've been alone in the office this week so I've been listening to my iTunes (me and B usually play 80's iTunes radio - great day passer BTW).  It irks me to no end that if you bought an album on another computer - you can't play it on this one.  Example.  I downloaded MCS "Commit this to Memory" probably one of my favorite CD's of all time -  onto the PC I used to use at home that used to crash like every other day circa 2005-2006. Because of that,  I would have to keep registering my iTunes and when I finally got a computer than worked (THANK YOU MAC GODS) I was never able to register my pod (until I realized I could just make a new account - duh).  But I still cannot play that album on my computer - and well sometimes I just need to listen to it.  Reminds me of becoming a MCS convert, driving around in Long Island and getting Lauren - my non believer roomate - hooked on it.  Man I miss college and New York.  Ok anywho.

I need to plan a trip to New York REAL soon to see Lauren!!  The last one didn't count because it was work related  = nottt fun!  I think my work travels are done for the year though which is good.  Still want to go to Vegas as I noted on my myspace and the outpouring of people who said they would go with me was astounding.  I just need to go somewhere.

Ok things I am excited for:

The Office comes back tonight!!!!!  Seriously so excited.  What's going to happen with Andy/Angela and Dwangela.  Spoiler alert if you haven't seen the finale from last season - Andy asks Angela to marry her - TOTALLY stealing Jim's thunder - but last scene you see Phyllis walking in on past lovers, Dwight and Angela (hence Dwangela) necking in the corner.  Snap.  All I know is that previews show M. Scott with a mustache.  If you haven't watched EVER - watch for that.

Some other Office fun stuff.  I found this yesterday online - Serenity By Jan!!!!

Yeah I know.  Full of WIN.  The descriptions for the scents are amazing.  Personal Favorite.

Hunter Green: 

This youthful, firm scent will leave your mouth watering. While designing this candle I felt like a college girl again. Just as Eve was tempted by a decadent apple, you’ll be tempted by the most erotic scent of my collection, "Hunter Green."

Yeah.  AWESOME.

Oh also.  I've been procrastinating a tad this morning - but with good reason:

see Sarah Palin pictures

see Sarah Palin pictures

see Sarah Palin pictures

Amazing.  And if you didn't know already where my loyalty stands....

Thanks to Hillary who didn't think I'd wear it :)

xo

The crazy amount of work drama that went on after that last blog (literally 10 minutes after I posted it) is insane.  I almost want to erase it because it reminds me of how pissed off I was.

Anywho. Everything resulting from the drama was great and full of warm fuzzies.  Thursday I was whisked off to Minneapolis for the presentation I worked my face off for for like 2 months almost.  When we got there we practiced in person one time - took our class picture (again with the warm fuzzies) and put together the presentation room and action!

Side story on the class picture.  We go up to this gorgeous roof deck on the top of my companies headquarters to take a photo of the whole group (60-70 of us??) and up there EVERYONE is enjoying a cocktail and I see all my pals I haven't seen in months and I'm gabbing and long story short I end up RIGHT smack dab in the front middle because I was not paying attention to my original plan of hiding in the back.  Then the big boss comes and stands right next to me.  Greattt!  I'm chugging like 6 gallons of water due to nerves and I'm sweating like crazy and he puts his arm around me.  Seriously one of the coolest guys I know (and not because he would touch a sweaty me).

The presentation went really well.  The judges were eating when we started so I was hoping they wouldn't take notes on how nervous I was.  After I gave my first part I looked at one of my superiors and he smiled and gave me a lil wink.  Cheesy I know but that took all my nerves away immediately.  My second part went a lot better.  As soon as we were done and all the questions were answered I felt literally like a weight was lifted.  I felt like a huge rock of stress was gone from my body.

Party time. I checked into my hotel, changed out of my fancy clothes and met two lovely gals from my team in the hotel bar for celebratory lemon drop shots and a few glasses of wine.  Everyone wanted to go to a bar for more drinks but I was starving (I offically ate not one bite of food till like 9pm in fear of throwing up) so I stayed with Mike and Lori and ate some really yummy food in the bar.

I was going to go up to bed after but I realized I am NEVER in Minn. so I decided to join my co-workers out for some drinks and fun times (fun times they were).  First place we went was Brits.  Totally english bar (as opposed to Boston's Irish Bars??) and they have a huge lawn on the roof deck where you can play all kinds of fun lawn games.  So fun.  I never know what to drink out there because I'm such a Sam girl (Summit is NOT Sam guys...). We stayed there for a bit and I had a heart to heart with one of my account leads on our walk to the next bar called The Local.  CS was my PIC that night and we decided to stick together.  We however went to the second location ( never go with a hippie to a second location!!!! ) and proceeded to drink more.  I had some great conversations about Alkaline Trio and Motion City Soundtrack (from Minneapolis) with my friends fiance and random conversations about Facebook friending.  On the way to the bathroom I found the kissing room (where yes people go inside this dark lit room and make out).  I'll leave the forum open to whether I did or did not go in there:)

Went back to the hotel with Mike and CS and absolutely crashed.  Too much wine, too much beer made me silly.  My electric toothbrush exploded and I didn't even take a picture of it (one of many photo ops I missed during the trip).  Seriously my toothbrush exploded when I turned it on.  The batterys shot out of the bottom and battery acid (CS who was my neighbor called and asked me what that noise was) went everywhere.

Woke up the next day of the All Staff Retreat a little hungover but mostly still going off adrenaline so it was all good.  I decided it would be a good idea to drink a bit of every beverage I could find after getting to the retreat - I bring you my bevy of bevvies:

Yes I drank all of those through out the day and  a few more coffees and like 6 Diet Cokes to boot.

The day was also full of warm fuzzies and one big cold un fuzzie but this is my blog and I've already talked about it too much.  I realized this day that I also am devoid of accepting compliments.  So many people were coming up to me telling me how great I did in the presentation the day before and I was stoked about it but I was never sure what to say in return.  What sounds better to senior management: being like yeah thanks!! I knew I'd kick ass, or like "Ehh I was so nervous"  (I chose the latter) but I'm sure it wasn't the best call.  

I grabbed dinner by myself that night because the other teams were all studying real hard for their presentation.  I so conveniently sat across from the Scientology Center of Minneapolis (which I have a picture of it but it's not working).  There was a sign outside that said "Are you curious about yourself?? Come in..".  No thanks crazy face.

The night ended with some drinks with my favorites in the hotel lobby and much needed sleep.  Next day I woke up at 4:30 to make my way back to Boston.  The guy who drove me to the hotel found it so amazing that I worked in PR and kept asking me if I knew Dog the Bounty Hunter.  I'm serious.  He told me he wrote him letters telling him he thought he would be a great bounty hunter.  OOO Minneapolis.

EDIT: One more addition I forgot (but Pat reminded me).  In addition to my many beverages I enjoyed that day - I got to experience Dunn Brothers Coffee.  No - not owned by my good friend P Dunn but he wishes.  There are quite a few of them - one across from the office and one was IN the library we had our retreat at.  I was Dunn Brothers-ed out.  So good.  They had sugar free coffee shots in all the good flavors and not just Hazelnut and French Vanilla.

Speaking of coffee I think my next blog may include my ode to Pumpkin Spice Coffee.

xok

I have been so neglectful to my blog lately.

I've been so busy, from two presentations I have to give in Minneapolis tomorrow and Friday and other work stuff that should be taking precedence but isn't, I've barely had time to slow down.  I'm waiting for someone to call me right now so I found it good time to blog it up.

Tie at # 10 but obvs I had to leave the Raconteurs.  Sometimes I look at this and I'm like Hmmm I listened to this and that alot more than I thought.

Anywho.  Speaking of awesome amazinggg mindblowing music - DRUG RUG was on 90210 last night!?!? Seriously.  Who knows of them outside of Boston?  Maybe I'm just being naive but boy was I excited!!  I yelled out many times during last nights episode but that was probably the loudest and most excited.  I also yelled when they KEPT alluding to who Kelly Taylor's baby daddy was and then finally when they revealed who it was.  SPOILER ALERT it's Dylan McKay's.  I was really banking on it being Steve Sanders because of the crazy blonde hair on the kid.  Oh well.  Kudos Drug Rug.

Another 90210 tidbit a co worker and I were talking about.  Remember when the first 90210 was out and EVERY girl wanted to be Kelly Taylor or Brenda Walsh.  Everyone wanted to be them and wear what they were wearing and have a cordless phone in their room (ok maybe that was just me).  I have memories of my dad letting me watch it and I would walk around his apartment pretending I was Kelly.  I don't know if it's because I'm older but I think the characters esp the girls Annie who is "Brenda" and Silver "I don't know who she'd be" in this revival of 90210 are so gross.  I don't look at them thinking "Man they're SO cool I want to be like them" (Ok so I may say that while watching the Hills and/or Gossip Girl ALL THE TIME) I look at them and think "Please eat a sandwich.  No really please".  When did NO boobs or any sort of shape become in??  They are both so frighteningly thin and sick looking it's scary.  Don't get me wrong I totally LOVE this new revival of the very popular 90's show - but I don't think it's going to resonate NEARLY as much as the first one did.

In other awesome television news, Fringe was kind of amazing last night.  Not because of the weirdly aged newborn but for all the Stoughton references!!!! As Liz and I kept noticing - there is NO damn water in Stoughton and there is NO bridge that looks anything like that - or like the Verrazano and I previously noted. Good episode though.  Can't wait till they come to Braintree and bust some crazy science experiment going down at Motel 6.

For good measure - some Drug Rug fun I found on YouTube.  The first one is from March 21 2008 when I saw them with The Cribs (who are equally awesome):

Winter Time

For The Rest of Your Life
This one shows you how incredible the lady singer, Sarah's (who reminds me SO much of Teeter Sperber!) voice is.

xo

Tina Fey is my hero.

Are you kidding me with this!? Full of win.

Tune-age.

I'd like to keep up with this more but sometimes I forget.  I bring you my top 10 most listened to artists in the past 7 days:

Yeah I'm listening to Miley Cyrus and Katy Perry.  Both ladies have fun rocking albums and I have no shame.  Been in a wicked Killers mood for the past 4-5 days hardcore.  So good.  Still wish I saw them at Foxwoods.

So I watched Fringe last night and I think I liked it a lot.  JJ Abrams has a fetish with plane disasters and likes to recycle music from Lost.  No big shakes.  I liked it.  Joshua Jackson is reason enough for me to stick around.  Bonus: The show takes place in Boston (but unfortunately is filmed in Toronto).  Some of the sky scenes were obvs very Boston but when they were in "Chelsea" it looked way nicer than what Chelsea actually looks like.  Sorry Chelsea.

So I know my birthday isn't till another month and some odd days but I'm thinking about a return trip to Salem ala last year but actually on my birthday (Oct 18 for those who feel sad for not knowing).  I'm thinking HUGE mojitos from that bar we watched the Red Sox own in, rando witch tours, candy apples and Salem Beer Garden.  Thoughts?

xok

Opa!! 

Saturday I attended the Greek Festival in Braintree.  Very random and totally ironic (just saw Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and remembered how much I wanted to go to Greece - ok not ironic at all).  Anyhow while myspacing early in the week I got word that my pal Heather ( a real greek ) would be attending.  As Robyn and I are driving past the HUGE Greek church I exclaim with glee that we should go and crash it.

So I call my good friend Heather and turns out she's there and rather bored.  What I really wanted to get there was an evil eye bracelet.  I know you can get it at the lame mall kiosks but I just didn't want to do that.  And since the Greek Festival is about $3000 less than a trip to Greece I decided to buy one there.  It's very pretty.  And blue.  When we got to the Greek festival a festive Greek (i'm assuming) lead us to a space.  We find that the Greek Festival is actually outside - in the 90 degree weather.  Insane.  We perused the flea market like boutique which was very cool and everyone was really jazzed about their products.  I wish I took more pictures of some of the things that were there.  Alot of people were selling Christmas stuff and I couldn't understand why.  I bought said bracelet and also picked one up for Mom and Hillary.  Twinsies.  After a discussion on ouzo and how it was a shame they did not offer any at the festival we headed outside to meet Heather.  

So mad that we just ate before deciding to go because there were SO much - too much amazing food and aromas outside.  Traditional greek music was played by a band who's average age was 85 and kids and grandmas were dancing.  What I did want was a alcoholic beverage.  Not ouzo :( Was going to grab wine before I saw they had Greek beer.  Obviously I had to try it.

Before we left I picked up some traditional Greek pastries for Mom and looked at jewelry once more.  I don't know what it is with me and flea market jewelry.  I love it.  It's cheap and campy and always provides a fun story.  I have this one really rad ring that I get so many compliments on that I actually got from the Revere flea market.  I bartered and everything.  True story.  Let's go back.

Yesterday (Monday) I'm sure I saw death beside my bed.  I was more sick than I have ever been in my entire life.  I took my first sick day in like 3 years.  I couldn't talk, I couldn't walk - I pitied myself all day lol.  Usually I like to watch TV when I'm sicky but I physically couldn't concentrate on opening my eyes or getting up if I didn't have to.  Finally at 4pm I felt a little better and took a shower (which felt great) and watched Entourage and Big Brother from the night before.  Went to bed really early and woke up today feeling 95% better.  Still a little headache but mostly all better.

I actually just wanted my fourth 3-day weekend in a row.  

Minneapolis next week for All-Staff and new business presentation!  Then travel is done for this year.  I really want to go to Vegas for fun over Thanksgiving weekend.....

xok

Just because I love Sarah Palin so much....

Where did my long weekend go??

It was over before it started.  But it was a good one!

I took Friday off for my last STO (summer time off, natch) day my company so graciously gives to all employees.  I got my hair cut ( needed it SO bad ), got my car inspected ( was NOT going to forget about that ) and got a mani/pedi with Hurdy.  We decided it should be date night so we planned an outing to Fuji, by far my favorite place to get sushi in the South Shore area.  The drinks are amazing and the sushi is insane.  And anyone will tell you the highlight is the TV in the mirrors of the bathroom.  John and one of his work friends decided to join to.  We got SO much sushi.  We ate all but probably 2 pieces.  I took a picture of it with the enV but it didn't come out for some reason.  Sad because it was such a beautiful presentation.  Hillary was handicapped with her chopsticks so the waitress gave her "training wheels" for her sushi.  So funny.  I already want to go back this weekend.

Saturday night I kidnapped Robyn to come to Boston with me for Miss Heather's birthday!  Pictures of that to come later.  We met the ladies at HRC for drinks and then we moved on to the Black Rose where I saw the jerk who runs the nautilus at the YMCA playing in his "band".  And by "band" I mean he just kind of stood there.  I guess this story is only funny to people who have been bullied by him.  Anywho we discovered the Black Rose has a cool loungey type of place upstairs so we found ourselves some comfy chairs and chit chatted.  Alysse is telling her friends how when she was 13 I showed her what a 69 was by using my hands.  I decided to this time show her using my empty beer glass and Robyn's what I thought was empty beer bottle.  You know how this goes when I turned her beer bottle upside down I spilled it all over my legs, my shoes and even a little on the guys at the table next to me.  Robyn typically will leave like 2-3 inches of beer still in the glasss because apparently it's filled with backwash?? But she'll finish other drinks.  Yeah makes no sense to me.  After the BR we made our way to Hennessey - which was a place I've never been to nor have I never seen but they claim to be the best irish bar in Boston (lie).  They had cheap drinks and a pretty decent band who did good Killers covers.  Made it an early-ish night but still had a blast.

Sunday I invited some folks over for some fun in the sun.  Annie made an appearance seeing as I haven't seen her in like two months.  Tt was fun.  We gossiped and swam and talked about how awesome my guacamole was.  OK maybe not the last one but my guacamole made a re appearance but boy it was good. I think the one the week before may have been a little better but oh well.  Later Pat, John, Hill and I got some takeout and watched the new Harold and Kumar and The Bank Job - both which were pretty good.  Rounded out the night with some Mad Men and more fun.

Monday was a pretty chill day.  I made my probably last attempt at getting more color.  I swear I have an SPF force field around me.  I could sit in the sun ALL day long and get NOTHING.  Not a tan, not a burn.  Nothing.  Guess that's a good thing.  Monday, however, brought back two of my favorite shows:  Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill.  Gossip Girl is a new favorite of mine.  I watched last season off and on but I bought the DVD probably about three weeks ago that THAT turned me into a super fan.  My sordid history with One Tree Hill is a little deeper.I started watching this show at season 3 I think and from the last ep of that season I was HOOKED.  WHY do I like this show?  Honestly.  I can't turn it off.  EVER.  

I watched the new 90210 last night which was ok but better with mine and Pat's running commentary.  Long story short, girl from Nip/Tuck is the new Mischa Barton (talentless and homely), the whole cast needs to EAT big time, and Lucille Bluth may single handedly be the coolest grandma in the world, oh and Shannon Doherty needs to stay the whole season.  Fact.

xok