Just a very bad wizard.

I am really failing at Halloween this year. I never even bought a pumpkin. Usually I get a little one to make a jack-o-lantern out of for Halloween night.

Tomorrow I have to go to a training seminar all morning. This annoys me because Halloween is the one day all year I can wear my horns to work. I have a feeling they won't appreciate the horns over at Pfizer. Hey, I just got an idea...I should go as Viagra! I got the horns, now what? I can wear blue and tape fair balance to myself. (That's the fine print about the 4-hour erection and going blind. :p) Folks at Pfizer will LOVE it. Of course, it will seem a bit dated to anyone who doesn't know what I do for a living.

I saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno tonight. Really cute! Lots of laughs. If you want a lighthearted comedy, and we could all use one these days, I recommend. I'm such a dork though. Miri seems to be wearing a different hat and scarf combo in every scene. It's making me want to get all my different homemade hats and scarves out now. Yarn pron!

I just wanted to mention here that I really liked Across the Universe, which I saw with cynima this weekend. In fact, I think I like it the more I reflect on it. I saw it Sunday night and that I'm still thinking about it on Tuesday night means it must have really gotten to me. I've never been really into the Beatles, though of course I respect them enormously, and after I visited Liverpool in May I became much more interested in them than I ever have before. After seeing this movie it is clear to me how woefully limited my Beatles experience has been. Their sound is so varied and there are so many songs I didn't even realize were theirs (Helter Skelter, for instance -- I only knew the Motley Crue version). Now I'm listening to several of their albums and it's amusing to see how many Beatles songs and song references were wedged into that movie.

I thought the movie was visually exquisite; the actors were all very appealing, visually and aurally; I liked story too, even though it was similar to that of the musical Hair. I knew the movie had gotten mixed reviews but I hadn't read any of them. I still haven't, because now that I've seen the movie and liked it, what does it matter what the critics thought? I think I'll buy it on DVD when it comes out.

I'm feeling not so eloquent but I feel I should post about what I've been doing the past few days...I saw 2 Broadway plays in 3 days, and for under $100, which is rare for me and quite cool. One was Talk Radio with Liev Schreiber, which I saw with cynima last Thursday. I liked it a lot, very compelling and funny, a good combination, and Liev is of course great. And on Saturday I saw Translations, a Brian Friel play about the Anglicization of Ireland (meaning how the English went in and decided to rename everything in English instead of Gaelic) and how they started to take control of Ireland right before the Potato Famine of the mid-1800s. I went with my mom and enjoyed that too; even if it wasn't a lighthearted play, I found the topic interesting, and the set design was cool. After the play there was a discussion with some of the actors and an NYU professor of Irish culture, moderated by Angela Pietropinto, a woman who seems to keep popping up randomly in my life -- she was on an episode of Another World that Andrea appeared in and she spoke to my acting class in high school once. You may remember her as the mom in Welcome to the Dollhouse.

I also watched two movies this weekend: Babel and The Science of Sleep. I didn't love either one of them. Babel was another one of those Crash-type movies with lots of different people from different backgrounds and how their lives come together in various tragic ways. I thought the Japanese part was the best. I'm not very familiar with modern Japanese culture but the movie certainly made it look like those kids have a great social culture. (Then again, the same could be said for American teen movies.) As for the latter movie...well artistically it was cool, but I didn't completely get the point of it, and it didn't really have an ending.

I was pretty geared up for the Oscars this year, having seen most of the movies nominated for best picture, plus it seemed like this year there was no clear front runner and an upset could happen. But all the winners were exactly as predicted it seemed, with the exception being that Pan's Labyrinth didn't win best foreign film. It cleaned up in the art categories though, which is fair. Overall though, I have to say, with a few exceptions, that this year's Oscar telecast was one of the most boring and unfunny ones ever. I don't want to blame Ellen Degeneres, because she isn't the only one writing the jokes, but where *were* the jokes? Will Ferrell and Jack Black's song and Seinfeld's routine were the only saving graces. I also wish they played longer clips from each movie.

It's slushy and slippery and generally gross outside, I didn't get enough sleep and I feel very much blah this morning. This Sunday is the Woodside St. Patrick's Day parade. It's going to be my first one, anyone wanna come with? I'm also looking forward to the actual St. Paddy's Day parade in NYC, which is on a Saturday this year, which means there's an opportunity for much merrymaking if anyone wants to join me for that.

Okay, I really never had much interest in seeing The Devil Wears Prada. But I'm bored and for some reason was seized with the interest to see some Oscar-nominated movies/performances, and it was available on On Demand, so I bought it. Not five minutes of this movie have passed and I'm fuming, so much so that I went to the computer and signed on just to vent.

Okay, I get it, this girl is no fashion mag princess, she is not glamourous, she is not frou frou. But she has an apartment in in the Lower East Side, her boyfriend is Adrien Grenier (who seems to be a cook or a chef or something at this point, and probably in the trendy sense), she went to an expensive school, and we're supposed to be seeing her as what? A normal, boring every day run-of-the-mill one-of-us? Fine. I will try to suspect disbelief to the extent that I can pretend she has roaches in her apartment, and know they don't cast unpretty girls in lead roles in movies like this, and I can pretend that she is somehow awkward (though she clearly is not), but the breaking point for me came in the scene where she's talking to Meryl Streep's Anna Wintour character and she actually utters the words "I know I'm not skinny." EXCUSE ME??????? She's a fucking STICK. I know Hollywood tries to insult our intelligence all the time, but to make Anne Hathaway actually utter those words disgusted me. But I already paid for this piece of crap, so I could see Meryl Streep be delightfully bitchy, so I guess I will just root for the bitchy editor and not the supposedly poor, lowly, ugly fat girl. Ugh.

It is FREEZING BUTTCRACK COLD in here. I've got my armwarmers and my hot tea but jeez people! Why must we bake or freeze? Is there no happy medium? One of my colleagues said she thinks it's so we won't dress too scantily in the office. :p

I should probably be working now but FEH I'm instead going to tell you about my new backpack. I went to Paragon with albauk yesterday and bought one of these. I had totally not planned on buying a pack yesterday, but I've been thinking about getting one for years now, and there was a sale, and and and... It was a good deal, really. I saved over $50 from the regular price.

Question now is, am I bringing this to the festival? If I bring this bag as my main trip bag, should I also bring a smaller bag? Is it worth it to bring a big pack if I'm going to need to carry another bag anyway? Should I put the pack in my big wheely duffle bag and just wear the pack to the festival? Will they let me into the festival wearing a pack that big? Even if they don't, I guess Shosh or one of the guys can carry it back to their campsite for me. It's not SOOO very big really. I know we can't bring booze into the festival though. I wonder if that means I am going to have to get one of them to take stuff back to the campsite anyway. ARGH. But you know, it's a good argh, as arghs go.

After our pack-buying extravaganza (Shosh got one too) we went to see X-Men 3 and it was fun. I can't believe it's taken me 2 months to see it. Now I have to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2. I may be the only person I know who doesn't care about seeing Superman Returns.

Hello kids, it's Monday morning afternoon and I hate everybody! They've got me reading and re-reading the same tedious stack of business cards and stationery I was working on on Friday. I haven't even had any time to post a short meaningless update to my LJ. Every time I do, someone drops a new revision in front of me. So over it! So I'm ignoring the one that's in front of me right now and posting anyway. Well at least I got paid today.

This weekend, I ate a lot of pasta. Too much. Didn't go to the gym once. On Saturday I had tea with my mom, cousin and aunt at Takashimaya, an upscale Japanese department store on 5th Ave. I never knew the place existed but it was very cool, even if I really couldn't afford to buy anything. Their cafe/tea room is very reasonable though and I tried a sample of a devilishly creamy and decadent $70 cake. Like a mouthful of cream. Then my mother and I went to see Finding Neverland. Definitely a tearjerker, and good, but not a very memorable movie. I was distracted by Johnny Depp's obvious eyeliner. Then we went back to Queens and ate at Pasta Del Giorno. And mom gave me her substantial leftovers to take home.

I thought I'd finally finish putting my sweater together in knitting class but that didn't happen, because apparently the sleeves were not big enough for the body and my teacher had to figure out some tweaks to make them fit. Hopefully next week I will finally actually have a sweater. Seems I was still having gauge issues even though the folks at Purl told me it was fine. I knew it didn't look right! Oh well, it should be okay, if a bit big.

Sunday I lazied around watching the National Geographic channel. Then I went food shopping and made Texas Two-Bean soup. And did laundry. Watched the American Music Awards even though I hate music award shows, just because Clay was going to be on. He presented an award with Kathy Griffen, who came out in a wedding dress asking him to marry her. The nerve! He was a good boy and said no of course. Good fake husband!

And today, cynima and I booked our cruise! We're doing the New Orleans/Cozumel one. Now we have to find a flight. And travel insurance, which I don't usually get, but Andrea has convinced me we should. The Carnival agent tried to sell us $99 travel insurance but that seems really expensive for a 5-day trip, doesn't it?

I'm through 5 days' worth of penicillin and though I feel fine, I still have a white spot on my tonsil. In 4 days I leave for a vacation in which I will be sharing very close quarters with 30 people for over a week. I must say I'm a bit concerned. The doctor said I would be considerably less contagious after the first 48 hours. He said I could even cook dinner for someone else, provided I wash my hands well. I don't know whether that means all my symptoms were supposed to be gone by then too. But like I said, I feel fine. I finally got around to making my parents their anniversary dinner (a month late) tonight. It went very well. Mom liked everything, and she's the hardest to please. The baked chicken hoisin buns from this month's Cooking Light were a big hit.

This is the longest time I've gone without updating in awhile. What have I done, hmm...Friday, I went to Middletown for Cherene's birthday (hello Ricky-husband!), stayed over at Denise's, didn't get enough sleep, came back, went out with Emily and saw Vanity Fair last night (decent movie, lovely sets and costumes, and I like Reese Witherspoon, though she looked very pregnant throughout). Ron Livingston (of Office Space fame) walked past us on St. Mark's Place. He looked sort of...crazy. Maybe he was having a conversation with someone and I just spotted him at an awkward moment. But it was a fun casual celebrity siting. Funny how Sex and the City actors are some of the most spotted around town. I saw Sarah Jessica Parker last year and I hear Chris Noth regularly rides the subway.

Tom Welling looks like a Greek god in the new Smallville poster...but when doesn't he? :-) Oh that reminds me, I watched the pilot of Jack and Bobby that came on a free DVD in EW last week. Didn't really like it. It was like a WB afterschool special. And I hate the bitchy girl who's Jack's love interest. Does being a mean judgemental bitch really turn guys on? Christine Lahti is good though. Maybe it will get better; sometimes these shows take a while to get their bearings.

Babbling now...good night!

( Okay, maybe not...meme below )