May 2005 Archives

We didn't go anywhere for the long weekend, but it was still nice to have an extra day off, even if it still didn't feel like enough.

Friday night Deepali came over and hung out and watched "LOST" with us. We were also supposed to give her a couple things we got her at Disneyland (as thanks for house-sitting), but completely forgot.

Saturday we had sheep herding earlier in the morning, and Bandit is still cutting in on his outruns. It's a lot more subtle now, to the point where I'm having a hard time spotting it, which makes it hard to correct it.

After that we had lunch, and went browsing at Best Buy, because I had a $100 gift card to spend, and I couldn't decide what I wanted. It was between an iPod, Nintendo DS, or a new graphics card for my computer. We ended up going home empty-handed.

Marc got a migraine in the afternoon, so while he took a nap, I played World of Warcraft for a few hours, while Harvey and Bandit played and napped.

In the evening, Leslie came down and we went to go see Revenge of the Sith again. While we were waiting in line, we saw this one couple heading for the IMAX showing of the movie, and they had a little kid with them dressed in this full Darth Vader costume. It was the cutest thing.

Sunday we went over to my aunt's house for a barbeque. My cousin Mark does a pretty good job with barbeque chicken. After dinner we ended up playing blackjack for a few hours, and Marc went from $125 to like $1200 or something. Too bad it was just fake money.

Monday morning we had to get up early to pick up my parents at the airport. We ended up having to park because their flight was delayed, and we figured it would be a little while because they still had to go through customs. At one point I went to the bathroom, and of course while I was on the toilet my cell phone rings. I figured it had to be my parents calling, but my purse was hung on the stall door. I tried to reach to get it, but it was too far away, and as these things go, the toilet flush sensor thought I'd gotten up and decided to flush the toilet. So not only was I not able to reach the phone, but I got a nice spray on the butt as well.

Anyways, it didn't take my parents long to get through customs at all, and we left the airport to meet Leslie for lunch at the Fish Market. My parents seemed to have had a really good time. They really enjoyed Japan. They also brought back cute little gifts for us, a couple from Kenny (who's staying in Hong Kong for two months for school and an internship).

On the way home, Marc and I stopped by Best Buy again, and I finally decided on the graphics card. Marc was really against me buying the DS because he didn't think I'd ever play it, which is probably somewhat true, but I still really want to have one. I really want an iPod, but that's another case of would-I-ever-use-it. My coworker has offered to let me use her old MP3 player, which I figure is a better alternative. If I really use it a lot and decide I still want an iPod later, then I can worry about it. For now, the graphics card is the thing I'll use the most, and it was getting to be time for an upgrade. For any geeks that might care, I got an NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT.

And that was about that. Hope everyone else had a good weekend.

This weekend is a long weekend, woohoo! We don't have any plans this weekend, other than possibly hanging out with friends and a barbeque at my aunt's house.

Yesterday Marc was working really late, so I was pretty much on my own. I took Bandit for a 45-minute walk when I got home, and then he played with Harvey for about 5 minutes before lying down from exhaustion. Poor Harvey wasn't nearly ready to stop playing, so he kept coming over to Bandit and licking him on the face. By the time I'd finished dinner and everything, Bandit looked like he'd dipped his head into an entire vat of hair gel.

The boys play rough, and I guess Harvey is either thin-skinned or just doesn't have the hair protection that Bandit does, because in this past week he has gotten so many scratches and scars. It looks like they've been fighting or something.

Oh, one funny little anecdote. Last week, before our trip, my dad took Harvey to the vet to get a Bordatella vaccination. Now, I think I've posted a picture of Harvey before, but if you didn't know, he has a huge, wide head. It's massive. So the vaccination is given intranasally, and the vet warned my dad that there might be some swelling in the face afterwards. My dad said, "Heh, how can you tell?"

I still have a bunch of pictures to upload, I'm totally slacking. I need to take some pictures of the dogs too. I did take this video of Harvey trying to get Bandit to play tug with a toy, but Bandit's being a possessive butthead and just growling at Harvey to let go. And this is a mild moment in the household.

Woohoo! So last night was the "LOST" finale. Wow. Just wow. I can't spoil it, because I know Deepali hasn't watched it yet (she called me in the middle of it, frantic because her DVR had missed it, total suck). But she's coming over this Friday to watch it on our TiVo. :)

I think I was a little over-hyped and a little over-spoiled on it, because some parts were disappointing, mostly because I'd heard that such-and-such was going to happen, and it never did. I think I need to take all spoilers with a grain of salt from here on out. But it still managed to shock me like whoa, and I CANNOT wait for next season.

I had agility class last night, which went pretty well, except for one part where I misjudged where a jump was behind me, and nearly crashed into it. It almost looked like Bandit and I were trying to jump it at the same time. That really got my heart pounding, heh!

Hmm, really not much else to write. Snuggles has finally come out of hiding since Harvey's been staying with us. She always takes a few days to adapt to a change in our living situation, the silly girl. I'm really relieved that Harvey's good with the cats, although he did try to tackle Stubby at one point. Stubby showed him who was boss though, later on when he gave him a few good whacks on the head.

Anyways, so agility and "LOST" was pretty much all I had time for last night ("LOST" was two hours). Evenings just aren't long enough.

My coworker sent me this link to this eBay auction, which has to contain the longest item description I've ever seen. Insanity.

There was some stuff that I forgot to blog about yesterday, and lo and behold, I've forgotten it again. Anyways, on to what I do remember...

When we were in LA, we managed to catch "LOST" on TV. Awesome episode. I cried, and even Marc got teary-eyed. The scene between Sun and Jin was just too sad. I gotta say that it's great to see an Asian couple on TV in a real relationship, passionate kissing and all, heh. And it's awesome to see Daniel Dae Kim, playing a guy who's hot and just a normal guy, not emasculated like so many Asian men who aren't doing kung-fu seem to be on TV/movies.

The finale is tomorrow, I can't wait.

No Bravo at the hotels, so I had to wait until we got home to watch the "Showdogs" finale. This show could've turned out to be like "Showbiz Moms and Dads" where the people were just total jerks and nuts, but the "Showdogs" people ended up, for the most part, looking like pretty normal people. The show really ended on this sweet, positive note. I still think Kyra is annoying as hell, but damn if she doesn't know how to market her dog and her act.

We also watched "The Apprentice." No surprise there, Kendra won. It was actually annoying to watch Carolyn and George try to be diplomatic to drum up some suspense. I don't know what happened to Tana, I think she just let it all get to her head. She was "bedazzled." It was pathetic to watch her try to defend herself.

As for Episode III, I have to say that Anakin was really hot in this one. I wasn't really into him much in II, possibly because he still looked too young, but man, I was really digging him in this one. Which made what happened to him all the more sad. This is definitely a movie to watch on the big screen though. The fights are pretty amazing. Marc and I are watching A New Hope again, and then we'll probably watch the rest of the original trilogy. We tried to rent it on DVD, but of course they were all out, so we've had to resort to the VHS tapes, which suck.

The dogs are just crazy. Our house is covered in slobber, and water, and all you hear is scuffling dogs and panting. I feel like we're running a doggy day care. I love it!

My parents called this morning from Japan. My dad asked me how the house was. I said, "You mean your house?" And he said, "Yeah, I don't care about your house!"

Whew! What a long, strange trip it's been.

First, I want to thank Deepali for house-sitting for us, and taking such great care of our pets. Especially the fish, which can be a daunting task. She did an awesome job, and we really appreciated it!

So I managed to finish most of my work stuff on Tuesday, and Marc did too. So we decided to leave for LA on Wednesday morning. Sadly, there would be no time to see Richard Dean Anderson at E3. We left the house a little before noon, and drove down to my parents to pick up Harvey. A little background on Harvey for those who aren't familiar: he's a 60-pound, two-year old pit-bull mix, who is hyper as hell.

He also hates water. Because of that, he really doesn't get bathed much. My dad used some of those bath wipes to clean him off the night before we picked him up, but still, when we loaded him into the crate in the car, and started driving, the smell was pretty bad. We ended up having to drive with the windows for a while to try to air it out.

It was funny when we drove through Gilroy, because then it started to smell like garlic too. I told Marc that it smelled like Harvey had gone and rolled in a bed of garlic. Then Harvey farted. And then it smelled like Harvey had gone and farted in a field of garlic.

For the drive down, we'd taken out the back seats in the Rav4, and had Harvey in Bandit's crate, while Bandit was on the floor between us and Harvey. We also had a large, portable mesh crate for Bandit, which I had folded up and placed on top of Harvey's crate. Bad idea, because at one point we stopped, and the mesh crate flew forward and landed right on top of Bandit. The funny thing was, he didn't make a sound! Not even a yelp or anything. So while Marc was trying to pull over, all I could see was this big folded crate, knowing Bandit was underneath there somewhere. I actually began to worry, because he made no noise at all, and didn't even move. (He was fine.) Maybe you had to be there, but it was hilarious just how nonplussed he seemed by the whole thing.

We did make it to our hotel in LA in one piece. We stayed at the Radisson, and the really nice thing about our room was that it was on the first floor, and it had a little "backyard," which had a concrete porch and fencing. Marc and I joked that it wasn't much smaller than our backyard at home.

Now Harvey has always been great with people, and was pretty good with other dogs when he was a puppy. But I think as he's gotten older, the pit side of him is making him more dog-aggressive (contrary to popular belief, pits are not naturally people-aggressive, but they can be quite dog-aggressive). He still gets along with Bandit great, but he's known Bandit for a while and is really bonded to him. Anyways, our hotel room had a closet with these full-length mirrored doors, and when Harvey first saw his reflection in them, he went berserk and totally attacked the mirror. It took a few seconds for him to realize that it wasn't another dog there. There must have been something about that mirror, because even Bandit was weirded out by it.

Thursday morning we got up really early and drove a half-hour to Burbank to drop the dogs off at doggy day care. I was a bit stressed, because even though Harvey used to be fine at dog parks, the mirror incident made me nervous. The people there were really experienced with dealing with this stuff though, so I wasn't too worried.

Marc and I then drove to the convention center for our day at E3. It was great as usual, and to somewhat make up for not seeing RDA, I managed to meet Stan Lee and get his autograph! Marc didn't know who Stan Lee was (he's basically the father of Marvel Comics, and was the guy who created Spiderman, the X-Men, Hulk, etc.), but he stood in line with me and got an autograph for Kenny. Marc took a picture of me and Stan Lee, which I'll have to post.

Since we were only there for a day, I didn't get as much swag (free stuff) as I did the years before, but I still managed to get a few free shirts as well as an inflatable Conan sword, haha.

By 3 o'clock, Marc was pretty tired, and I was getting pretty worn down too. I'd pretty much seen most of what I wanted (including Nintendogs for the DS, which was just the cutest game), so we left a bit early and went to pick up the dogs.

When we got there, the lady told us that when they let the two dogs out into the play yard, the first thing Harvey did was pick a fight. Arg. So they said they had to keep him in a separate kennel for the whole day. Luckily, they didn't seem to think it was a huge deal, and I'm guessing they're used to that kind of stuff happening. They told us that Bandit wasn't too happy about it, and kept sticking around Harvey's kennel, so they put him in there with him for the day.

In the evening, we went to have dinner with a bunch of people from E3. They handed out "awards" to us volunteers, and I got the award for "E3 Swag Mistress," since I guess I always seem to get the most free stuff. What can I say, I'm Chinese, it's in my genes.

Friday morning we went to Disneyland/California Adventure. I don't know what I was thinking, bringing Bandit to Disneyland, aka Land of KIDS. But Marc had a bunch of treats, and kept him occupied, and we managed to get through the crowds and to the kennels without incident. We did have to do a lot of maneuvering and careful timing, but overall Bandit did really well this trip.

The kennels were pretty nice too, they had a little fenced yard to walk the dogs in and everything. It was a little stressful handling two dogs, each with their own problems, and Harvey being as hyper and strong as he is, but we managed to get through unscathed.

Disneyland was fun, even though the changes for the 50th anniversary didn't seem that big. Space Mountain was still closed, too, which Marc was super disappointed about. At one point we were on the rapids ride at California Adventure when there was a problem, and we ended up being stuck on the ride for like a half hour. It was really hot, so that was pretty sucky. The fireworks show was cool, though. We didn't end up leaving until 12:30 am because of the dogs (we wanted to leave when there were as few people as possible), so we were pooped.

Saturday morning we got to the park before it opened, and managed to ride all the rides we wanted to within the first hour. By noon we were really tired and sore, so we decided to take a break and watch Star Wars at the theater in Downtown Disney. I really liked it. I may blog more about it, but I think this blog is long enough, so I'll just say I really enjoyed it.

It turned out to be a nice break for us, and we were pretty refreshed afterwards, but by 6 in the afternoon we were tired again. I started getting heat rash on my legs too, which was really uncomfortable. So we wussed out and ended up heading back to the hotel early, and didn't go back to watch any of the night shows. We rested in the hotel a while (we stayed at Red Roof Inn the last two nights, and it was actually a pretty nice motel - good beds!), and then went out for some pie.

Sunday morning we got up early for the drive home. By the end of the weekend, we had gotten pretty good at shuttling the two dogs around (Harvey even got used to his Gentle Leader). I slept almost the whole way home, and was totally shocked when we did get home, because it didn't feel like we'd been driving that long.

So Harvey's going to be staying with us for the next week because my parents are in Japan/Hong Kong. I was worried about how he'd get along with Snoopy, even though he's met him once before, but luckily they all get along fine. It's a bit crazy having three boys in the house though. Snoopy and Harvey are both humpers, so there's quite a bit of humping going on around the house. And it's funny, even though Bandit's always seemed like a very submissive dog, around the other two, he's always the one who drinks first and eats first, and Snoopy and Harvey are pretty much made to wait their turn.

Okay, I think that's enough writing for today. You're probably not even reading this because you probably gave up reading a long time ago, heh. But anyways, we had a fun vacation, although I don't think we'll be bringing two dogs on a trip again, unless it's a dog-related trip!

I probably won't be blogging much this week, since Marc and I will be leaving for LA sometime tomorrow. It'll be the two of us, Bandit, and Harvey, which should make for some interesting times.

It doesn't look like I'll get to see Richard Dean Anderson, which makes me very sad.

Anyways, on Friday, Steve invited us to go see the A's play the Yankees. I think there were actually more Yankees fans than A's fans there, it was really weird.

Saturday morning I had to wake up really early to go get a recheck on my new contact lenses, and to get my eyes dilated. They gave me those stupid-looking sunglasses to wear outside, which I did for a second before Marc laughed at me, and then I promptly changed to my regular sunglasses.

We didn't have herding that day, since they were having a shearing demo at the farm, so I rented our agility instructor's agility yard instead, and we went down there after lunch. The rental was for an hour, but by the time we'd practiced for a half-hour, both Bandit and I were hot and tired and ready to quit. Marc actually tried running Bandit through some of the obstacles, and actually did a pretty good job.

In the evening, we were supposed to go see a movie with my brothers, but Leslie ended up being so late that there wasn't time to go see one. So we just kind of hung out for a while and talked and watched TV.

We didn't really do much on Sunday. I totally slept in, until almost noon.

Deepali came over last night so that I could show her everything for when she comes to house/pet-sit for us while we're in LA. She didn't bring her new dog with her! I was disappointed. We're leaving her in charge of our two cats, one dog, 6 fish, and a hamster. I can't imagine what it would be like if we left the other two dogs at home as well.

I think that about covers the weekend. Now I'm off to see a doctor about my butt.

Sometimes, I feel like a 26-year-old trapped in a 90-year-old's body. A couple months ago I managed to tweak a muscle somewhere in my lower back/butt area. I've been having intermittent pain there since then, but yesterday it got pretty bad, to the point where doing anything, sitting, bending, walking, became painful. I thought it would be gone by today, but it feels horrible today. So I finally made an appointment to go see my doctor on Tuesday.

I am currently faced with a dilemma. So next Wednesday, Marc and I are planning on driving down to LA in the evening. The plan is to go to E3 for a day, and then Disneyland for a day or two. My parents are incidentally also going on vacation at that time, and asked us if we could watch Harvey for them. Long story short, we're bringing Harvey and Bandit with us. Deepali has graciously agreed to house-sit for us while we're gone, and watch the cats, fish and Snoopy. We're taking the other two with us, because three dogs is a handful.

Anyways, my dilemma. So I found out that Richard Dean Anderson (McGyver to most, O'Neill to the Stargate geek that I am) is going to be at E3 on Wednesday. We were originally going to leave Wednesday night so that I wouldn't have to take that day off of work. But I really, really want to see him, so now I'm considering taking Wednesday off and driving down early in the morning to make it in time. What to do? I should take a poll.

We watched "The Apprentice" last night. I've never been a big fan of Kendra, and I thought Tana had a good shot at making it, but after last night, I'm not so sure anymore. Kendra did a really good job, and her talent and drive seems to outweigh her immaturity. Tana's always been brash, but in this episode, she was brash in a way that was unprofessional. Also, the whole Bedazzler fiasco still lingers.

It's finally stopped raining on Wednesdays, so I actually got to go to agility class. Bandit was a bit off, not really paying attention, and really distracted. The other dogs were kind of the same. Not sure if it's because it's been a while, or if there was something in the air or what.

I didn't get home until almost 9, and Marc and I had dinner while we watched "Showdogs" on TiVo. This was the episode where all the families met for the first time and stayed at the same bed and breakfast. So hilarious. It's scary that I can totally see myself like one of these people (most of them have turned out to be fairly normal though, way more normal than the "Showbiz Moms and Dads" people).

After "Showdogs" was "LOST!" Awesome. I'm on pins and needles with this show, I love it. Can't wait for next week.

And then, we quickly fast-forwarded through "American Idol" just to see who got kicked off. Not that I really care anymore, I haven't cared about this show much since the first season. I just like to see the crummy people in the beginning.

At that point it was pretty late and time to go to bed!

This morning I woke up with horrible neck pain and a raging headache. It turns out that last night I screwed up and accidentally set my side to be 55 instead of my usual 25 (yeah, my number went down a bit). Marc also slept poorly, because he somehow set his to 80 (he still hasn't found his perfect number yet).

Why do I keep seeing John Rocker in the news? Please, John, just go away. Your hair looks like shit, by the way.

Marc got his new computer yesterday. His old one kept having boot issues (I replaced the RAM once, and it worked for a bit, then started having problems again). So he found a pretty good deal on Dell for one. It came with a free 19" flat screen! I told him he should give it to me to be nice, but he wouldn't. Some husband.

Not a whole lot else to write about, sadly. Right now I'm thinking about how messy my side of the office is. I really should clean it tonight.

Anyone want a free mattress? It's queen sized, and only about 4 years old. Take it, please!

In this past week, I've heard the same joke made from two completely different sources. One was someone's blog, and the other was the Tonight Show last night. The joke referred to the news that the Bush administration is opening up the last 58.5 million acres of national forest, set aside for protection by Clinton, to possible logging, mining and other commercial uses. Both the blogger and Leno noted that this must be the No Tree Left Behind administration.

And since I'm now feeling political, I thought this was an interesting editorial: What do liberals believe?

For some reason I'm reminded of an experiment we read about in sociology class in college. As I remember it, you seat four people around a table, and in the middle of the table is a bowl of beans. The objective for the people is to amass as many beans as possible in a certain number of rounds. Each round, every person is allowed to take as many beans as they want from the bowl. At the end of each round, the number of beans that are left in the bowl will be doubled.

In theory, if each person took a minimum number of beans, and left the maximum number of beans in the bowl, each person would end up with a maximal number of beans at the end. However, each person believes their neighbor is going to take more than their fair share, and subsequently takes a little more for himself. Each person thinks this way, and in a few short rounds, the bowl is empty.

It's a very interesting commentary on society and human nature, and it's always stuck with me as something very, very sad.

Anyways, free mattress anyone?

Marc and I drove separately to work on Friday, because he had a doctor's appointment to have a red mole removed on his neck. In the afternoon the wound started to bleed, and he couldn't get it to stop, so he called me. I went to his work, and told him to put pressure on it and not let up. I did go to try to find a band-aid from the visitor center there, but the security guard didn't have any. He did suggest using a maxi-pad from the women's restroom, which I didn't think Marc would be too thrilled about.

The bleeding did finally stop and we managed to get home. The bandage Marc had on was pretty gross, so I had to change it, but unfortunately it started to bleed again when I took the bandage off. We put a new one on, and I told Marc to keep pressure on it again for at least 10 minutes. He wanted to lie down and I told him he had to sit up. He whined, and stopped putting pressure on it exactly at 10 minutes, insisting that the bleeding had stopped. I said fine, but don't blame me if you start bleeding again. Then we napped for like 20 minutes.

Sure enough, I woke up to Marc going, "ugh, I'm bleeding!" Which he definitely was. I'm not the squeemish type, but this was nasty. He looked like he'd been stabbed in the neck. There was blood all over, dripping everywhere, and the area around his bandaid had a huge, nasty clot of blood. I had to help him clean it off, and I swear I almost puked.

So this time, Marc listened to me and kept pressure on it longer, and it finally stopped bleeding.

Rest of the Weekend

Friday night, the episode of "Bay Area Backroads" with the story on Forest Home Farms, where we take Bandit herding, aired. It was pretty cool to see, because there's a lot of stuff that happens there that Marc and I never knew about. The fun part was seeing Jan on TV, explaining all about sheep herding. There's an article/transcript for the segment here.

We burned it to a DVD, so I'm working on figuring out how to get the clip online.

Our new bed arrived on Saturday morning, and the delivery guys had it set up in a matter of minutes. I'm trying out a sleep number of 25 right now, which is super soft, but seems to be the most comfortable for my back. It's funny though, because I practically sink into the mattress. At one point Bandit was lying on my side of the bed, and when he went to get up, he rolled over onto his back and then had trouble getting up! It was hilarious.

I went herding with Bandit, and then came home and wrapped presents for Allison's 2nd birthday. We bought her a Care Bear and a cute little dress and hat from Baby Gap.

After the party, Marc and I watched part of Suspect Zero, which isn't that good. The main actor (not Ben Kingsley, he's usually good) was terrible. He's kind of distracting.

Sunday we met up with my family for dim sum for Mother's Day. The restaurant was so crowded, it was nuts. Marc wanted the steamed pork buns, and we weren't seeing them anywhere. My mom tried to track some down, and she was like a woman on a mission. She kept bugging every waiter about it, until finally one guy was like, "IT'S COMING, IT'S COMING!" and waved her off.

We got my mom and my grandmother some flowers, and we also got my mom a DVD of House of Flying Daggers.

I spent the rest of the day working on the new site design and playing games. Exciting!

First, it's Friday! (Happy dance time.)

I meant to blog yesterday, but ended up watching this demo at work all day, so didn't have time. Not that there's anything horribly interesting going on in our lives at the moment, but it's still fun to litter the internet with my verbal garbage on a daily basis.

Wednesday night it rained of course, which meant no agility. And of course, Wednesday was the only night it rained. Suckage.

I did, however, get my pillow on Wednesday! That was exciting. It's a little stiff, but I think it just needs breaking in. It also smells like chemicals, presumably from whatever process they use to mold the foam.

We watched "LOST," which was, as usual, awesome. We also watched "Showdogs," which had one hilarious bit where Brandon and Ryan were having a breakdown because they were feeling so inept (which they are) about showing their dog, and about how they're not stable enough as a couple to be raising this dog. Brandon, through his tears, said, "We're going to be just like that couple with the Busy Bee!" Which was so true. Next week is the last episode, and all the people are finally going to meet each other, which should be interesting. The big dog show should make for some good laughs.

Last night I got home really late because I went to get my hair done, since it's been forever. My stylist must have raised her rates, because it was crazy expensive. Oy.

Marc and I did manage to watch "The Apprentice." Man, Craig got fired fast. Marc and I are doing this thing now where when we see each other, we say, "hellooo" in a low voice like Trump used to say last year, every time he went into the boardroom. I don't know why we found it so funny, but someone must have pointed it out to Trump, because he hasn't said it at all this season.

This morning I stopped by this cafe across the street from our house to pick up some espresso and a chocolate croissant. There's one guy who's always working there, and for some reason, every time he thinks I want a white mocha. I'm guessing there must be some other Asian chick who goes there regularly and always gets a white mocha. I don't even go there that much, maybe like twice a month.

Finally, after he asked me if I wanted a white mocha for like the umpteenth time, he said, "I don't know why I always think you want a white mocha." Your guess is as good as mine, dude.

So yesterday I went there, and there was some new guy working there, and I told him I wanted a regular mocha. The new guy didn't know how to work the espresso machine I guess, so he called the regular guy over, and he made my coffee. I drank it on the way to work, and thought it tasted funny. I realized then that he must have made me a white mocha.

When I went there this morning, the guy asked, "white mocha?" It's hopeless!

I'm a 30, and Marc is a 65.

What the heck? you ask. Well, Marc and I bit the bullet yesterday and bought a Sleep Number bed. We've been hemming and hawing over this for a while, because I get a lot of back and muscle pain, and we think it may be our bed. Marc is perfectly comfortable with it, which makes sense since our numbers are so different (the lower the number, the softer the bed).

Anyways, it's more expensive than a conventional bed, but we got a pretty good deal on it. At Sleep Train they were selling them for $3299 (and $2699 at Select Comfort, but Sleep Train was offering no sales tax). The last time we were there they quoted us $2000 for a returned bed, which they re-cover, but it doesn't have the 30-day return policy. When we went last night, they found out they didn't have any available. So they said they could sell us a brand new one for $2350. Not exactly what we were looking to pay, but it was a nice discount. So we bought it! The bed comes with a 20-year warranty, and supposedly lasts that long, so the extra cost may be worth it.

It's getting delivered this Saturday. My pillow still hasn't arrived yet, but hopefully it will sometime this week. Marc says after this, I can't complain about back pain anymore.

Marc's Psychic Stomach

So last week, when I volunteered to give out ice cream at our work fair, I grabbed a couple extra bars of ice cream when we were all done. I saved one for Marc, and put it in a styrofoam box filled with ice to bring home. Unfortunately, the ice wasn't cold enough, and by the time I got to Marc's work to pick him up, the oreo ice cream bar was a little soft.

So yesterday I went to the cafeteria to use my free meal ticket. I had $8 to spend, so I decided to get myself some ice cream. I was about to grab a mint ITS-IT for myself, when I saw a single, lone Chipwich sitting in the freezer. Marc loves Chipwiches, and they're hard to find, so I grabbed that instead. This time I put it in styrofoam on dry ice to keep it frozen (the perks of working in a lab, hehe).

So I called Marc and told him I had a surprise for him. The first thing he said was, "It's not another ice cream sandwich is it? 'Cause the last one was kind of melted."

I was crestfallen! I just said, "no! It's not ice cream!"

Then I started thinking about how maybe I should just eat the Chipwich myself, since he was being so ungrateful.

Anyways, I went to the lab for a bit, and came back and there was a message on my phone. It was Marc. The message said, "I just wanted to clarify, that if my surprise is a Chipwich you got from your cafeteria, then that's okay!"

That's just spooky.

Miscellaneous

"LOST" is new tonight! How excited am I?

I'm hoping against hope that it doesn't rain tonight. We got rained out for agility last week, and I'll be pissed if it happens again this week. I love rain, but why does it always have to fall on a Wednesday?

Have you seen MSNBC's coverage of the Michael Jackson trial? They're using the scariest picture of him for their little "MICHAEL JACKSON TRIAL" graphic. You can see it on this page, about halfway down. I feel icky just looking at it.

Then there's that Jennifer Wilbanks girl. The one who ditched her 600 wedding guests and her 14 (14!) bridesmaids. One columnist commented on how he saw her buggy eyes in all her photos, and thought that she looked like a girl that was going to bolt, or run, or something. Which is funny, because I thought the same thing about her pictures. She looks like a deer in the headlights in all of them. Reminds me of how Snuggles looks like in all the pictures we take of her, and sure enough, she always runs off as soon as the picture's taken, ha.

Anyways, something has to be wrong in that girl's head, because people, SHE CUT HER HAIR. That's just drastic, I tell ya. Apparently she doesn't really think she's done anything wrong, which also gives you a little clue to her mental state. But the best part were these quotes from her fiance: "Ain't we all messed up?" and "Ain't we all made mistakes?"

Classic.

Marc and I took Bandit to Petsmart last night to pick up a couple things. We found out they have those savings cards now (the girl there asked us, "You guys want to sign up? You're here all the time!"). I gladly signed up and added yet another key tag to my collection.

They're serving Philly cheesesteaks at the cafeteria today, and I'm thinking of going to get one. I got a free meal ticket yesterday, for volunteering at the sustainability fair we had here at work. I basically passed out ice cream bars for an hour, which was surprisingly fun.

So for a while now, I've been having bad luck with pillows. I bought a $60 Tempurpedic pillow a while ago, the kind that's contoured to your neck and stuff, and it was horrible. Too hard, and it gave me headaches. I ended up switching to the $15 pillow I got for free, and that worked for a week before I started getting headaches again.

So Friday after work, Marc took me to the mall and we went shopping for a pillow, preferably like the one he has, which cost $130, and has some sort of space-age foam in it ("space-age" was my term). We didn't find the exact thing at the first store we went to, which is where we went to look earlier for the Sleep Number bed, but the guy was so nice and helpful, and the pillow I did find was pretty comfortable. So we ended up buying it.

Of course, when we went to another store to look, we found a pillow that was just like Marc's. The funny part was that the box said, "Space Technology Foam" on it, which had me cracking up.

Anyways, my pillow wasn't in stock, so I'm waiting for it to be shipped to me. I hope it comes soon.

That night, Kenny and Henry came over and we all went to go see The Interpreter, which wasn't bad, but a bit overly long.

Saturday I took Bandit herding (he improved a lot), and then went to go get an eye exam (it's been 2 years) while Marc went to go watch Jacob play baseball.

We rented The Stepford Wives in the evening (I know, we really need to do something else besides watch movies). I was surprised that it was quite different from the original.

Sunday was just a boring day of errands. I had to go to the fish store to get a new cleaner shrimp, because I think our original one died. I also picked up a cute orange starfish.

Anyways, I think the new pillow was the highlight of my weekend, which is pretty sad.