Obesity and Dry Pine.

I'm feeling very random today, so excuse my ramblings. (Is that a word?)

Random thought #1...
Have you ever watched a show on obesity where the camera person gets shots of obese people from the neck down? I often wonder if those people are watching the program at that exact moment and say to themselves, "Hey, I have that exact same shirt! Hey, I have those exact shorts! Whoa, I've been there before! Wait a damn minute, that's me!!"
I mean, seriously, don't you find it strange that these camera operators are videotaping people without their consent or knowledge? I highly doubt they have to get permission since the person's face isn't in clear view. Just imagine if you were one of those people they were videotaping and you saw yourself on camera for all the world to see.
It's just something I've pondered lately since my Tivo has been recording lots of shows of this type.

Random thought #2...
Did you know that if you climb Mount Everest and you suddenly die or find yourself dying, that a) no one is going to rescue your ass and 2) your body will be left there for eternity? Why is this? Well, the altitude is too high, so flying in a rescue helicopter is impossible and it would take at least 20 trained people to move one average-sized person down the mountain. So, let's just say you get a wild hair up your butt and try to summit the mountain. If you take too long to hike up/down and use up most of your oxygen, you're basically screwed. Forgot to bring enough water? So long, amigo.

If you really think the bonds you've established with your hike-mates will save your life, you're wrong. They will leave you faster than Lindsey Lohan leaves her man. Then they will call your wife/husband and tell them that your body will be a human sicle on the side of Everest as long as the Earth is in existance. There's no possible way they can ever get you down from the mountain. If that's not enough motivation to prohibit idiots from ever climbing that mountain again, I don't know what is.

Random thought #3...
If you're ever stranded in the African Wilderness and decide that you're thirsty, just squeeze a delicious lump of elephant dung into your mouth and you'll be A-OK.

Random thought #4...
My mom tells me the other day that my dad was so enthralled with an Olsen Twins movie that he was actually visibly aggravated when he had to leave to go somewhere before the movie ended. His response, "Now I'm not going to know how this movie ends!" My dad is 6'5", 220 lbs. and a true man's man. The fact that he was even watching an Olsen twins movie is comical.

Random thought #5...
On my way to work this morning I saw my first dead Christmas tree sitting on a curb waiting to be picked up by the trash collectors. This made me unbelieveably sad for some reason. Christmas came and went WAY too quickly this year. Now there aren't any good holidays for about 10 months ('til Halloween). This sucks!

Would You Like More Meat, Ma’am?

Joe and I "celebrated" our 3rd anniversary a few weeks ago. When I mean "celebrated", I mean we went out and bought a $1 card from Sav-A-Center and hurriedly wrote "I love you" so that it appeared we had put some thought into our marriage. Actually, the celebration would come later since Joe's gift to me was a fabulous night out at the Imperial Palace Casino in Biloxi to watch the Cirque Jungle performance (my gift to him is the Def Leppard/Journey concert we'll be attending on the 17th).

We double-dated (how cheesy) with a couple who married one week before we did. They're fun to be around, and we always have a great time when we do things with them. Can you sense that I'm building up to something really exciting? I am, you just WAIT!

So, we get to the casino around 5 p.m. and meet up with Shawn and Trish. Let's call them "Shish" since the trend seems to shuck the conventional method of actually calling people by their first names and, instead, opts to meld the names together into one stupid sounding name (think Brangelina or Bennifer). We meet up with Shish and walk into the casino together. After we got carded (yep, uh huh, we got carded) we made our way into the casino and decided to stop at the buffet to get dinner before the performance.

We make our way to the buffet and notice that there's a long line that extends longer than the length of a football field. Surely, I thought, this line was not for the buffet. Perhaps they were giving away $10 bills somewhere or maybe David Hasselhoff was signing autographs at the bar. These people would be insane to wait this long for 3 day old meatloaf and crusted macaroni and cheese. I was wrong. I'd have to eat a pre-meal to wait in a line that long. That pre-meal would have to consist of a starch, vegetable, meat, bread and tea (preferably unsweetened w/ lemon). So, in other words, mama wasn't having that. Shish seemed OK with waiting, but after standing in line for two minutes, Shish decided against waiting. We ultimately decided to go downstairs to the "swanky" restaurant in the lobby. When I say "swanky", I mean expensive. I'll explain in a few minutes.

We walk into this really cool place. It's somewhat dungenous in its decor - dimly lit, lots of natural stone on the walls, huge wooden chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with lit candles instead of electric bulbs, fire pits, medieval men bludgeoning crappy tippers with weapons of mass destruction. Still paying attention? Good. I was kidding about that last part. There really were fire pits in the place.

A man named "Ox" is our waiter for the evening. I'm not sure if this is his nickname/stage name or if his mom was cruel and actually named him Ox. I didn't ask to see his birth certificate or anything, so I'm really not sure.

Here's how it went down with Ox:

Ox: "So, have you guys been here before?"
All: "No."
(During this time I'm looking under my napkin, under the table, and under my dinner plate for the menu. No menu, not a good sign.)
Ox: "You guys are in for a real treat." (My first thought, no we're not.)
All: "Great!" (I had a fake smile on at this point because I look to my right and notice huge chunks of meat turning around on some prehistoric fire pit/skewer thing.)
Ox: "This place is all about meat. You see this red/green coaster right here? (Points to coaster on table) You turn it to green and our wait staff will bring you a continuous stream of meat. There's tons of meat to eat. Meat, meat, meat and more meat. I hope you guys like meat!"

(With each utterance of meat, I felt the urge to purge. For those of you who know me, I'm not much of a meat person. I will occasionally dine on cow and chicken, but that's pretty much the extent of my meat eating. It's very hard for me to eat something that was once living, so I automatically knew this wasn't going to be a pleasant dining experience for me - especially since the meat was brought to us in such a barbaric way.)

Shish: "Great, wow, exciting!"
Joe: "Great, wow, exciting!"
Natalie: ""
Ox: "Ok, turn your green light on and let's go!"

And so it began.

Meat, meat, meat. Ox was right. There was meat galore. Lamb, cow, pork, no innocent animal was spared! It was like a meat glutton's delight. Here's the most fan-fricken-tastic part of the whole dining experience - you couldn't even have a conversation because you were constantly interrupted to feast on more dead animals.

Shish: "So, what have you guys been up to (talking to us)?"
Us: "Well, ..."
Waiter: "More meat, ma'am, sir?"
Joe: "SURE!"
Me: ""
Us: "So, Shish, how is the baby?"
Shish: "Well, she's..."
Waiter: "How about a huge chunk of meat, ma'am/sir?"
Joe: "SURE"
Me: ""

So, that's basically how it went down the entire time. We basically said three words to each other the entire night, and Joe got his fill of meat. I ate a small bite of cow and tried to fill up on the black bean soup at the bar. $110 later I walked out of the restaurant more hungry than I was when I first got there. Yes, you read that right. We spent $110 on meat and a salad.

It was, quite possibly, the stupidest dining experience I've ever had. I can see how this may have been a good idea in theory. I just imagine two meat-eating guys sitting on a fraternity couch (half drunk) saying, "Hey, do you want to start a restaurant that only serves meat?!" In my mind, I named these guys Bubba and Bo just because I hate those names and always imagine backwoods idiots when I hear them. At least Bubba and Bo had enough common sense to hire a decorator for the restaurant. I'm sure if they'd had their way deer heads, indian dream catchers, Lynard Skynard t-shirts, and car parts would've been the main focal points of the establishment.

Cosmo Wong.

Here are the invites I made for my sister's upcoming lingerie shower/bachelorette party. They are tea-length. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out considering it was a last minute whim kinda thing. ;)





Every once in a while Cosmo will do something so cute, so random, so ridiculously odd that there are really no words to describe it - so, I took some pictures.

Yes, that's Cosmo, and yes, that's a piece of black paper dangling from his mouth. He sat there staring at me with this piece of paper in his mouth for a good two minutes - totally oblivious of its presence. It's something akin to having broccoli stuck in your teeth and being totally unaware of it while you're talking to everyone you see.

Even better yet, he looks asian in these pictures. Cosmo Dong Nguyen.

I’m Married to Emeril.

I'm not a cook. Joe is not a cook. Joe watches two episodes of "Emeril Live" and thinks he's a gourmet chef. Dog eats raw chicken. House nearly catches on fire. Grease burns on my arms.

All this for one delicious meal of chicken parmesan. Read on.

So, yesterday (Sunday) was a nice and relaxing day for both of us. Joe was off of work, I had no other obligations, so it was one of those sit-back-and-do-nothing kind of Sundays - the kind where you don't even brush your teeth until the afternoon. I went to church yesterday morning, so I DID brush my teeth before noon, but I digress.

After putting up all of my fall decorations and deciding that I am, in fact, Martha Stewart, Jr., I decided to go one step further and cook a meal for my man. You see, I don't cook. It's not that I can't cook, it's just that I don't wanna. I don't wanna and you're not gonna make me. I think cooking is a major PITA (if you don't know what that means, think about it for a while). I mean, you spend quite a bit of $$ on all the ingredients, you spend hours preparing the meal and then cleaning up afterwards and all for what? So your man can tell you how much he loves you while burping and farting out the meal you so lovingly just made for him? Eh, it's not worth it!

All of that aside, I started preparing my meal. A few months ago (the last time I cooked dinner, in fact), I took a chance and made chicken parmesan. Not to brag on myself, but that was the best darn chicken parmesan I've ever eaten. And I'm a chicken parmesan eating fool, so I know what's good and what's not. I lovingly laid out the raw chicken - yum, E.Coli. I set up a separate station for the egg wash (how technical), and a separate station for the bread crumbs - I even crumbled up some Ritz crackers in it just for that extra crunch. I'm ghetto like that.

So, I went to the sink to wash my hands for the 10,000th time - yes, I'm a bit OCD when it comes to raw chicken. As I turned back around, I saw a yellow puff of something whisk past me. Was it a ghost, perhaps? Maybe an explosion of some sort? No, of course not, it was a dog - a little yellow dog - and he had something hanging from his mouth - something slimy, something infested with E.Coli, something repulsive - something like mommy and daddy's dinner. Yes, the little bastard stole a chicken breast with lightning speed and swallowed it whole. After I finally suppressed my urge to throw up, I hurried to the computer to make sure it was OK.

Did you know that dogs can eat raw chicken and other raw meats and have no adverse side effects? Bacteria doesn't affect them like it affects us. In fact, many people feed their dogs a diet that consists of only raw meats and vegetables. So, there's your veterinarian lesson for the day. Do with it what you wish.

After the dog/chicken catastrophe, Joe walks in the kitchen and starts to act like Emeril. He doesn't say "BAM" or anything stupid like that, but he acts like the resident expert of the kitchen. Mind you he's probably never cooked an entire meal in his life, and he's had no formal training whatsoever, but since he's seen two episodes of Emeril Live, he knows how to pan sear chicken. So, I just stand there rolling my eyes at him the entire time because I like doing that sort of thing, and he just stands there letting hot grease splat all over his arms, you know, because that's what Emeril does.

After I took back over the responsibilities of searing the chicken, Joe does the unthinkable and starts telling me how long to leave the chicken on each side, la da da da da. So, not being in the right frame of mind, I flipped the chicken over, and splattered about 7 cups full of grease on my arm. Well, more like a tiny dot of grease, but it hurt like hell, and now I have an ugly welt/scar on my forearm. I should join a bike gang, I'd fit in perfectly now. I'll buy one of those cool t-shirts that says "The bi*ch fell off" and wear leather pants with spiked boots. And instead of saying my scar is from grease, I'll just say it's from a gang fight in Tijuana - that sounds more interesting.

I guess I left out the part where the stove caught on fire. Yes, the remaining grease that didn't splatter on my arm spilled out on the stove and caught on fire. So, instead of doing the smart thing and acting calmly, I just managed to stand there saying "Oh, oh, oh my God, oh, uh oh, oh!" I'm not sure what Joe did in that amount of time, but the fire was extinguished and all was well. He decided to leave me alone after that.

You're probably saying to yourself - oh my, their chicken was destroyed - uh huh, my friend, it was delicious! Just as good as the first time I made it. Joe ate two pieces of it, and I had the one piece that I butchered as it was cooking because I'm always paranoid that the chicken isn't cooked thoroughly. I used to cook it for so long that it would come off of the grill or out of the oven the size of a pea. Now I know better and cook it for just the right amount of time - you know, the three or four times I've cooked it during our three year marriage.

Oh, Cosmo is OK, too! :)

Invitations.

After searching for weeks to find a great invitation for my sister's bridal shower, I finally decided to bite the bullet and make them myself. I guess I consider myself somewhat crafty, so I was up for the challenge. For anyone who knows me, I'm a stationery/invitation freak, and since this is my only sister - my only sibling, for that matter - I want everything to be very special for her shower(s).

So, for your viewing pleasure, here's the finished product. For my sister's safety, I've blurred out the important stuff. I hope you understand!





What do you think?

American Idol III

I'll wrap up my AI story today. I wasn't able to finish adding the final pictures to my picture pages last night because I was busy working on my sister's bridal shower invitations. So, if you're mad, be mad at her. It's all her fault. You can call her and complain if you'd like, her number is
601-347-

Nah, I can't do it.

So, I'll just write today and add the pictures later - maybe tomorrow, maybe next year.
I left off my last entry right about the time we entered the arena and first saw our seats. So, this is what happened next...

As we were sitting there two women cops came up and started talking to us. They mentioned that the Idols usually randomly picked people out of the audience to come backstage to meet and greet all of the Idols and their band. I was game, Joe was game, so we told the cops to put us down on the list since they seemed to think they had an insider's connection with the group. They were living in la-la land because we never heard anything about it again. I guess they wanted to impress Joe - I saw them wink at him a couple of times. Jezebels!

(Later we found out that the two chicks on row 1, seats 1 & 2 were chosen. Random!? I think not!)

So, after dropping a whopping $60 on a bottle of water and a scoop of ice cream, we were seated and ready to go. The show was supposed to start at 7 but didn't actually get going until about 7:15. The band came out first and started warming up by playing the American Idol theme song. Then the big screen behind them started showing small clips of all of the Idols. The only Idols who garnered screams/whistles from the audience were Chris and Taylor. Everyone else, as far as the audience was concerned, was dog dookie. Is dookie a word? It is now.

The first Idol to come out was Mandisa (sp). Let me tell you, this woman can entertain. She was so energetic, powerful, she commanded the stage. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume she'd been entertaining for years. I was definitely impressed with her although her constant mentioning of "needing a man" got old after a bit. This is how it went down.

"Hey, HOUSTON, I need a man!"
"HOUSTON, thanks for having us, any single men out there?"
"How many single gals in the house? Have any single guy friends?"
"I like my mens big. Any takers?"

I'm like, gee, girl, keep it in your pants! Get this woman a man STAT!

Oh, she also got very sweaty after about 1 minute into her performance. She carried a black lace handkerchief in her hand the entire time yet she never used it. I kept thinking to myself ((please, Mandisa, wipe your face)). The huge screen magnifying the sweat X 1,000,000 didn't help matters much eiher. Ok, I'm just being mean.

So, after Mandisa sang a few songs, Ace graced us with his presence. At this time our camera battery had completely died, so Joe was running around like a mad man trying to find a place to plug in the battery pack. If we hadn't been showing everyone and their brother the pics we took earlier with Chris, Ace, and Bucky, we probably could have gone the entire concert without having to worry about the battery. Next time we'll know better. I also wish I would've brought my own camera as back up. I just didn't feel like lugging my Rebel around because it's quite large and the bag is cumbersome.

Since I was worried about Joe finding a place to charge the battery, I didn't really get into Ace's performance. There was one point where he moved his chest in this really weird ryhtym - like a heart beat or something. It kind of grossed me out for some reason. I thought it was mucho-cheesy, but I soon forgot about it when he started acting normal again. Methinks he tries too hard sometimes.

As he ended his performance Lisa came on the stage. By this time Joe was back, and we were able to get some decent shots of Ace and then some great shots of Lisa.

Lisa is absolutely gorgeous. I always thought she was cute/pretty on the show, but she was never one of my favorites, and Joe didn't care too much for her either. After she came on stage, Joe was like, "Who the heck is that?" Not only is she gorgeous, but her voice is incredible, too. Oh, and she can play the piano. I know she did a few Elton John songs during her performance. This was Joe the entire time she performed --- .

Paris came on and did a duet with Lisa. I believe it was "Waterfalls" by that group with the girl w/ a condom eyepatch. I'm having a dead zone right now and can't remember their names. I like to call Paris Cybil because she has multiple personalities. Paris'/Cybil's ghetto personality Bonqueesha was out in full-force at the concert on Saturday night. I much prefer the smooth-singing, 40's-style personality that Paris has shown us before. I'm not into watching girls "drop it like it's hot" and having sex with props on the stage.

Bucky came out next. I'm not sure if the sound guy didn't know what he was doing or if Bucky just doesn't know how to project his voice, but I couldn't hear him the entire time he was on stage. When he was almost done with his performance Kelly came out and did a "Grease" duet with him - they sang "You're the one that I love!". Well, more like they just swayed their hips to the music and barely sang at all. I had to strain my ears just to hear them b/c neither of them were projecting.

Kelly had ZERO personality. All of the other performers, up until that point, had been very energetic and excited to be there. Kelly was just very ho-hum or perhaps the jeans she was wearing were so tight that they cut off the blood flow to her brain. I'm not sure who picked out her outfit, but either they were blind or had on a pair of beer goggles. Her jeans were about 10 sizes too small. So much so, in fact, that the zipper was down during her entire performance. I couldn't wait for her to be done with her performance. After she was finally finished, there was a 20 minute break which was great for us since we needed to charge the camera again. There was no way I was going to miss Chris, Elliott's, and Taylor's performances.

Oh man, I have to get back to work now. I just realized how long this was - it's already 9:20 a.m. I'm sorry, friends. Tune in for another AI installment tomorrow. ;)

American Idol II.

As promised, this blog will be about my AI experience. (There are pictures below for those who can't read.)

Here goes...

Joe and I left early Friday morning for Houston. The drive there was pretty uneventful with the exception of a major traffic accident that we somehow managed to by-pass. If we hadn't followed the few other brave souls who exited off of the interstate by driving across a grassy area and onto a service road, we would've been stuck in traffic for hours.

So, once we got to Houston we decided to check out the Galleria. I'm not much of a shopper, but I was game since I'd heard how massively large the place was. You could walk for hours and not even see half of the stores. They had stores that I'd only heard about on celebrity blog sites - Niemen Marcus (did I spell that right?), Nordstroms, Tiffany, Saks - you know, all the stores that sell a pair of socks for $400. Pocket change, my friend.

Ok, I just realized that I'm rambling on about things that have nothing to do with American Idol. Sorry if I bored you.

Skip ahead to Saturday (the day of the concert). We went to the Galleria again because 1) we knew where it was and 2) we didn't know where anything else was. After spending hours there and then hours trying to find invitations for my sister's bridal shower, we decided to try our luck and swing by the Reliant Arena to see if some Idols were hanging out - this was around 3 p.m. The reason we even attempted to stalk the Idols was because my friend Jill had luck at the Birmingham concert when she just kind of stumbled upon their tour bus behind the arena. So, I figured, hey, if they signed autographs in B-ham, surely they'd be signing them in Houston. I was right!

Joe and I had to sneak past security guards to get behind the arena. This was very risky because they had guns and swords and dogs with rabies all ready to go if someone should try to get past them. We managed to get past them with only a few battle wounds - some infected dog bites, partial deafness from the gunshots, and broken limbs from tripping a few times.
(Are you still paying attention?)

I'm kidding. The only security guard present was eating a donut and watching Oprah in his security booth. We were fine.

So, after driving for a bit we stumble upon a small group of people gathered behind some barricades. What do I spot? A bald head. Whose head is it? Chris Daughtry's! Woot! So, I'm yelling at Joe, "Stop the car, it's Chris, it's Chris!". Then I jump out of the car while it's still rolling - this is no joke. I'm not quite sure where my sanity was at that point, but I just had to snag a photo of Chris and didn't care if I had to walk up partially paralyzed or gimped out.

After making it out of the car safely, I ran up to Chris and also spotted Ace. Double woot! As you can see from my profile pic, Chris is in love with me. Yes, he is. Our eyes met and that was it. He held his arms out, pushed his other fans aside, and called my name. We ran towards each other like Dudley Moore and Bo Derek in "10".

Eh, a girl can dream.

Actually, after patiently waiting my turn, I finally got to hug him and get a picture with him. That was it - nothing too exciting or out of the ordinary. In person, Chris looks exactly like he did on television. I think he was even wearing the same jeans/shirt he wore a few times while on AI. He's quite short, though. I'm 5'9" and had to bend down to him to take the picture. Also, someone asked me if I grabbed his butt or if he smelled nice. The answer is no - the man has children and is married, oh, and so am I - and as far as smelling nice, I don't recall. I do know that he didn't smell like ass or anything foul, so that's good. :)

After I used Chris, I moved on to Ace. Ace, Ace, Ace. I can honestly say that I wasn't a big Ace fan during his run on AI. I thought he was cheesy and nothing more than boy-band material. However, after meeting him in person, my views have changed. He's just a genuinely nice guy. When he smiles, it's sincere and from the heart. He had a gaggle of fans who were there specifically for him - these women were probably in their late 40s or 50s. Most of them couldn't even speak when they finally got to him. He was so patient with all of them, and he hugged each of them like they were family members or friends.

Even Joe liked Ace after he met him, and that's saying a lot.

Some of the fans were asking Chris if Taylor was going to come out and sign autographs. His response was, "Taylor is a grown man, if he wants to come out, he will. We're out here because we want to be out here. Everyone makes their own decisions about that."

So, my guess is that Taylor is a snob now and thinks he's above signing autographs for fans. I also thought it was in bad taste for the people there to ask Chris and Ace about the other Idols. Does anyone else think that's rude? I never expected Taylor to come out.

After signing autographs, Ace and Chris took off on their scooters and left us all alone. We waited for another 30 minutes or so and then rushed back to the hotel room to change for the concert. Our hotel was right across the street, so we were only gone for about 15 minutes. I'm glad we came back again because that's when Bucky came out to sign autographs. Ace came back with him, too. Bucky only stayed out for about 3 minutes and then he went back to the arena. He signed Joe's hat (so did Ace), made a few funny comments, and then he was gone. Bucky reminds me of half of the guys I went to high school with, so I instantly felt comfortable around him.

We waited around for another hour or so (in the rain, I might add) and then decided to start lining up for the concert. It was about 5:30 at this time (the concert doors opened at 6).
Once we were inside the arena we went to find our seats. We'd met some great people at the fan area, and they had third row seats as well (three seats down from us). How crazy was that? They were from Baton Rouge, too. Actually, most of the fans hanging out with us were from Louisiana. Who would've thunk it?

We couldn't believe how close our seats were to the stage. I mean, usually there's a pretty substantial gap between the first row and the stage - not at this place, partner.

And then...

That's all for today, my friends. I just realized that this post is super-long, and I really need to get back to work now. I will finish up my AI experience tomorrow and add the remaining pics. In the meantime, enjoy these pics.

Click HERE for my American Idol pics! Make sure you zoom in on the poster or you won't be able to see all of the pictures.