Cookies-Cookies-Cookies!

Last night, we had to go shopping for weekend food-stuffs after work, so we got home pretty late for a work night. Made vegetarian curry "meatballs" and rice for dinner - fucking fabulous.

I made homemade choccie chip cookies, modified for the "I.B.S. Diet," and I have to say, they turned out soooooo good. They turned out more like cake cookies, which G and I have decided is a good thing. Rather than being greasy and "chewy," they're a little bit fluffier and softer, too. I had worried that they'd get rubbery after having cooled down, but today they're still nice and soft and very, very chocolatey. There's very, very little saturated fat in 'em, and they didn't send me into an I.B.S. attack. I had been craving chocolate chip cookies all week, and it would not leave me, so I had to try making them...come to think of it, this is the first time I've ever really made chocolate chip cookies "from scratch," and I really enjoyed it. Basically, I modified the traditional "Nestle Tollhouse" recipe, substituting egg beaters in place of eggs, and Smart Balance Light in place of butter - oh, and I didn't put in nuts because I prefer straight chocolate chips in my cookies. I would consider this recipe modification a success, and am now quite happy to have my insatiable craving fulfilled - amazing how a little chocolate is all one needs to elevate a very shitty mindset.

Masters of Horror

After dinner and cookie baking, we "tag-team" cleaned the house so that we wouldn't have to fuck with it the rest of our anniversary weekend. When we do that, it takes all of 90 minutes to have a spotless house totally ready for relaxation and snuggles.

Once we settled in, we watched this week's Masters of Horror, which was John Carpenter's opus, "Cigarette Burns." Oh. My. Satan. This was the most fucked up Masters of Horror yet! It's now my absolute favorite, with Tobe Hooper's "Dance of the Dead" as my second favorite, and John Landis' "Deer Woman" as my third favorite. We still have Lucky McGee [May] and Takashi Miike [Audition] to go. May is one of my all-time favorite horror movies, and I love Takashi Miike, so...the final episodes still have much promise!

PF Changs

G is treating me to PF Changs tonight for our anniversary. It's pretty cold out, and it may sleet tonight, so I'm hoping that it waits until we've had our fun down at Utica Square. I really hope that mother nature decides on snow rather than sleet...the prospect of walking around Utica Square under a light evening snow quite appeals to us.

G's Birthday

I gave G his birthday gift early, and he about died. I got him The Devil's Rejects "Last Supper" poster. It is so deranged, and yes, we're hanging it in our livingroom. I never got to write it here, but The Devil's Rejects is now one of our all-time favorite movies. It's *right up there* with A Clockwork Orange on my list - and no, I'm not kidding.

Off to get all gussied up for our date night! Have a great weekend, everyone.

M O O D:

p e p p y

PS - We're gonna be played on "Black Sunday" again this weekend - Eeeep!

Has anyone else with Gmail noticed recently that when you click on the S P A M folder, you get delicious recipes for this Hawaiian delicacy up top? Sheer brilliance, I tell you.

BEST. PARTY. EVER.

It was last Friday [December 9th], at the aquarium! SO amazing. The banquet hall was jaw-droppingly beautiful for Christmas - I really regret not having brought the camera. The food was amazing - the chef even prepared a vegetarian dish for me - and the company gave away probably thousands of dollars' worth of prizes [which of course, did not reach G and I - heh]. We all got to take home a beautiful glass dolphin keepsake though, so everyone was able to take home a timeless souvenir from a fabulous company event.

The coolest thing was walking around with a glass of wine [or two] and looking at all of the displays totally in private! No hordes of screaming children, just about 200 adults all decked out in our evening holiday best, taking it all in at a leisurely pace.

It was really neat when it got to be a bit later, because most of the tanks were turned off and switched to "moonlight" mode. You'd think this would be a real bummer, but it was actually quite cool in an unsettling sort of way. When the lights went off, a lot of the fish that tend to hide during the daytime came out, and all swam closer to the front of their tanks when the "night cycle" was on. G and I cupped our hands around our eyes to look into the tanks and since it was so dark, all depth perception was lost, and we both felt like deep sea divers on a secret mission. It seriously felt like we were snorkeling under water, and it was creeptastic...especially when suddenly, a fish would swim right up to the glass out of nowhere. Imagine my reaction when the 98 pound catfish's face was suddenly *right there,* looking me in the eyes!

The shark tank was most amazing at night. When I first walked into it, I was a little unnerved because again, the depth perception factor was really "off." I kept feeling like the sharks were swimming right at me, rather than past me. Totally fucking cool...especially since I'd also gotten quite tipsy.

It was very encouraging knowing that our corporate offices not only paid for this party, but certainly did not skimp on us this year. It seems that Tulsa being the "hick bastard stepchild" to the L.A. elite is finally over. I believe that the reason is that our new head hancho has worked in offices all over the world, so he seems to have less of a "zip code discriminatory" attitude. He's all about wireless communications and quite a forward-thinking kind of guy. It seems that he's devoting equal respect, attention and budget to all of the offices - from London to L.A. to Denver to Tulsa. G and I also received word that our departments are going to grow a bit next year, so it's nice having the ability to celebrate the holidays [finally] without a sense of impending doom concerning our company's local longevity.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I just got over a migraine about a half-hour ago. Had to stay home today. One thing about the I.B.S. is that the only medicine I can tolerate now is enteric-coated aspirin, which isn't nearly as powerful as ibuprofen. So...yeah...that's sort of a shitty new development in the health situation. I tend to suffer from these once a month [yes, it's related to The Crimson Tide], so I gotta figure out what I can do to overcome that now too...which I will. I always do.

M O O D:

e h .

This is a follow up to that topic.

"My guy" [the one that I'd wanted to win last season, AKA the only season that I will ever have watched] Bo Bice's album came out yesterday. I haven't heard it yet, probably never will...might sample a few tracks for shits and giggles. However, it doesn't surprise me to read this scathing review from All Music Guide. A juicy excerpt:

"So what did 19 Entertainment, exec producer Clive Davis, and the whole American Idol album crew do for Bo's album? They threw everything that worked for Bo on the show out the window — the Southern rock, the blues, the classicism — and shoehorned him into a bland alt-rock setting somewhere between Nickelback and Bon Jovi. Clearly, the idea behind this is that what appeals to the show's audience won't appeal to the record-buying public, particularly to teens, but instead of building on the audience Bo had on the show, The Real Thing alienates them.

Kelly Clarkson may have gotten hipper, sexier, and dancier on her debut, but that worked, not just because she had good material and charm, but because it appealed to her core teen audience. Bo was a bit older and appropriately had an older following, listeners who pined to hear '70s-styled pop and rock — and not just because there wasn't much of it out there, but because Bo did it well, and he sounded distinctive doing it. Not only is that sound nowhere to be heard on The Real Thing, but Bo no longer sounds distinctive. He sounds exactly the same as every other mainstream male rock singer in 2005 — all of his songs have indistinct verses that surge into an anthemic chorus where all the heavy guitars kick in, inching the volume up to a point where it becomes a glossy wall of digital sound that drowns out his vocals.

The music is tightly wound and meticulously clean, the antithesis to Bice's loose, earthy appeal. Most of all, the songs — even the handful of good, professional tunes, both, not coincidentally, co-written by either Jon Bon Jovi or his longtime partner Richie Sambora — all sound exactly the same, following the same flow, bearing the same dynamics. This isn't modernizing Bo Bice — this is neutering him, giving him an unwelcome extreme makeover that doesn't fit."

The rest of the review is quite an eye-opening read. [I consider following stories like these as "homework" for Corvo].

Oh, but wait - gotta add this other possibly juicier tidbit in:

"If Bice were teamed with a bunch of new singer/songwriters like DeGraw or John Mayer, he would have had melodic, classically styled pop/rock songs that he could have sung better than their authors. Instead, 19 paired him with Ben Moody from Evanescence, Ashlee Simpson's collaborator Kara DioGuardi, and the hack of all hacks, Chad Kroeger from Nickelback — the man who equates love with being willing to eat off the floor — for a set of heavily processed, cumbersome, mildly active rock that's too boring to be memorable."

I find it interesting that the American Idol production company allowed their "golden girl" Carrie Underwood to be herself and to go with the genre in which she fits [country pop], but didn't do that for Bo. I just learned the other day that some of the huge labels will actually sign "the competition" and then promptly shelve the newer band, so that the artist can't take money away from the label's "pet" artists. This doesn't surprise me at all, and I can't help but conspiracy-theorize about what happens to a lot of the American Idol "winners." How some of them seem to do so well, but others just...fade away, even though the winner alone isn’t the only one who gets "signed."

Now, Bo does have his own fans, and he may receive better reviews and press from other publications, but this isn't a very good start. I also find it sad that the track listing shows that he only contributed to two of the songs. He barely wrote any of his own material, and that's [I believe] one of the saddest things about it all. I do hope that he proves me wrong and finds a way to rise above this corporate corner that he's put himself into. But to me, his "success" is beginning to smell like record label "chum."

Oh, and is it just me, or does he sort of look like Constantine now? Creepy.

M O O D:

s u s p i c i o u s

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Participation Positives
12.12.05

*I have room to breathe and to daydream at my job.
*I'm able to take breaks - even "mini breaks" - with my husband again at work.
*I look great in hats, so I don't have to do a damn thing to my hair if I don't wanna!
*Guacamole [one of my favoritist foods in the world] is a "safe" food for me.
*I'm constantly working on something creative that fulfills me beyond the 9-5.
*I have a beautiful family that doesn't make me loathe the holidays.
*I'm 10 pounds lighter than I was before Thanksgiving.
*I'm one day closer to a 3-day weekend for my and G's anniversary!

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Yeah...that feels really good!

M O O D:

g r a t e f u l