ROLL ON YOU BEARS....the redux

Aaaah, college football....one of America's greatest pastimes. I've been sitting on the couch watching the Virginia Tech vs East Carolina game eagerly anticipating the start of the Cal season. I was going to do a whole new Cal pre-season post, but I think the one I did last year on that other blog will do just fine. After a dismal, disappointing late-season showing in 20007, not much has changed in the way us Cal fans feel. So, in the spirit of being carefully optimistic (but waiting to be let down, as always), I present "Roll On You Bears 2007"...

It's that time of year again, sports fans. Fall will always hold a special place in my heart...not only for the lovely turning of the leaves and yummy pumpkin pies, but for FOOTBALL. Cal football, more specifically. There's nothing like Bezerkeley on a day when the Bears are scheduled to play. We usually all meet at Kip's, which is possibly the divey-est of the Berkeley dive bars, but the drinks are cheap, strong, and the game is always on at least seven different TVs. The day is even more exciting when Cal manages to win one.

Now, for all of you that are gonna call me a hater with no faith, listen up. You know, at some point in time, you've thought to yourselves, "Yeah, Cal may have the lead right now, but they'll find a way to screw it up". And sucks as it may, you're usually right. It's just fact. We've all been Cal fans long enough to accept this, even though every year, we all have such positive feelings about how *this* team is THE team to finally take Cal to the Rose Bowl.

Somewhere in the middle of my freshman year at Cal, it happened. I became a DIE HARD fan. I don't really know how I became so loyal...maybe there were subliminal messages hidden in every class I took...maybe there was a night of hardcore Cal hazing that I've successfully blocked out. Who knows. The point is that EVERYONE I know from Cal feels the same way about the Bears. I work with a guy who graduated in the 60s and to this day, a good 30 minutes can be killed listening to him talk about Cal athletics. He's just that dedicated. All of the old cheers and chants remain unchanged and whether or not we admit to it, we can all sing at least two bars of Sons of California. Some of us have even been known to bust out the Cal Drinking Song at a restaurant in Mexico...and at BT's wedding! We're just that dedicated.

So, as fall and the regular season schedule approach, my awesome college friends and I will be cheering for the Bears until we're hoarse and hoping for the best, because DAMN IT, this year will be different!

This is also a friendly reminder that you can always visit the California Golden Blogs for all of your serious (and hilarious) Cal football analysis needs. To those guys, Cal football is a religion and they totally know their shit. Hi CBK! Hi Ragnarok, Hydro and Twist! =)

AAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! So excited! I love this time of year!! Until game time, GOOOOO BEARS!!

Dear Korto,

photo courtesy of Bravotv.com

After watching last night's episode of Project Runway, I gotta say...Girl, I really, really, REALLY want a coat to match my current purse. Can we work something out? Although, I know how heavy my purse is, ya know, because it's made of seat belts and all. I can't imagine how freaking oppressively heavy that coat must feel. But goodness, it's stunning. LOVE! I want. I covet.

Pure comedy

If ever you want to be entertained, and I mean really entertained, you'd do well to find yourself at the bar of a restaurant full of old curmudgeonly locals, that's showing not just any, old, regular Olympic sport, but rhythmic gymnastics.

The comments that came from these gentleman as they nursed their microbrews were priceless. Half of them didn't even know what we were looking at. One mentioned (to his credit) how closely rhythmic gymnastics resembled the Cirque du Soleil. The bartender exclaimed that the hoop competition was the most amazing and exciting thing he had seen since the Games started. I believe he was genuinely impressed.

But the best comment came from a guy who was sitting amongst several college kids behind us. All were fairly athletic looking and were also totally unimpressed by the events on the big screens.

"Baseball gets the axe and you can still win an Olympic medal for this crap. What is happening in the world?"

So upset, he was. And to be honest, as much as I love dance and artistry and all the frivolity of rhythmic gymnastics, I kind of agree. Shoot me.

P.S. I am SOOO sad that the Olympics are over. Watching the NBC closing wrap-up at 11-ish, I teared up a little. Laugh if you must, but I've loved watching every minute of the Games. And I've watched plenty of minutes, trust me. I'd just be cool with the competitions going on for like another, say, month or so. ;)

Song of the week

Periodically, when I'm really feelin' a song I hear, I'll post it in the sidebar over there. I don't know if anyone ever notices as no one ever comments. But, this week's second song means a lot to me for two reasons:

1. Recently, I'm deeply saddened by the VERY untimely death of Leroi Moore, who served as the saxophone player for The Dave Matthews Band since the band's inception. A musical genius, he was. There were a million songs I could have chosen from that highlight Moore's remarkable talent, but I like "So Right". A lot. (Also, I couldn't find the album version of "Jimi Thing", which has the ability to cheer me up no matter what kind of mood I'm in. The lyrics for "So Right" can do that to me as well... "Our love is so right...forget the clouds that rain on your light..." Mmmmmm.

2.DJC and I will be celebrating our four year anniversary this weekend and before we met in person (lots of online and phone conversations before a face to face meet), "So Right" was one of the songs that made me smile because it reminded me of him. I made him a DMB CD, and he said that it made his ears bleed. I don't care, though. This song will always be tied to the way he made me feel before we met.

So, yeah. If you're liking the music, feel free to drop me a line and let me know. Otherwise, I'll continue to change the songs weekly with the understanding that no one listens to them but me...

So. Not. Funny...

...and yet I freaking crack up *every* time I see this one:

I like the little song the troll sings, but DJC thinks the funniest part of the whole commercial is the noise he makes when he comes out of the portal.

Whatever the case may be, how random is this?! WTF!!

"Sorry that you lost your files...Here's some fruit to make you smile...Hooooh haaaah, hooooh haaaaah"

Totally lame. Totally funny.

Exercise FYI

If, perchance, you walk into your standard Tuesday Core Challenge exercise class and see these things laid out...

...I have but one piece of valuable advise to give you. Turn around and RUN. Run like the fucking WIND!!

OMG, I am fairly certain I will not be able to walk tomorrow morning. Thanks Amelia! Kisses! =(

Olympics Overload?

This weekend, I've watched bits and pieces of:

- Rowing
- Volleyball (Men's and women's indoor and beach)
- Softball
- Basketball (Men's and women's...and oddly, I didn't hate it! I KNOW!!)
- Gymnastics (Speak your mind, Bela! Tell it like it is!! The women's vault finals were bullshit!! You got robbed, Alicia!!)
- Trampoline (tramampampoline!)
- LOTS of boxing
- Women's marathon
- Swimming (MICHAEL PHELPS, MICHAEL PHELPS' MOTHER, MICHAEL PHELPS' LIFE STORY, and countless interviews. I swear, they could give this guy his own channel and never run out of material. NBC LOVES talking about him! ALL PHELPS, ALL THE TIME!)
- Diving
- Men's and women's track and field (Usain Bolt! Damn, I'd love to see that guy *finish* a race at 100% instead of pulling up with 15 meters to go because he was smoking the hell out of everyone)
- Fencing
- HANDBALL (Are you kidding me?!?! It's like water polo...on land...and not nearly as cool. I'm still amazed that they hand out medals for this. Laaaaame.)
- Men's field hockey (???? Seriously.)
- Men's water polo
- Weightlifting

Perhaps I need to get off of the couch. Ya think? ;)

il headache...

Last weekend, DJC and I checked out a place in Oakland called The Wine Mine. The medium-sized wine warehouse is run by a very knowledgeable and friendly guy named David, who is totally happy to talk shop with patrons all day. This place is a hidden (literally!) gem in the Temescal area.

On Saturdays, they have $1 tastings...meaning, you plunk your dollar in a tin can and then get to try at least five different wines. Last weekend, the theme for the tasting was "Summer Sparklers". Usually, I'm not so into the sparkling wines, but I figured I'd give it a go. Amazingly, I found something I liked...it's called "Il Rosé" and it comes in the most peculiar bottle. Here, have a look-see:

No, you're not imagining things...it does indeed have a bottle cap top. No cork. Once opened, it has to be finished.

David only had a few bottles left after the tasting and so when I contacted him last week, I asked him to put however many he could aside for me to pick up this weekend. On Saturday, DJC and I swung by to collect my three bottles of wine...but we also stayed for the $1 tasting, this time the theme being "Asian Food Pairings". YUM!

Anywho, earlier this morning, I sludged my way through the most difficult kickboxing class EVAR, and then endured the supermarket...all before actually eating anything. When we got home, DJC cracked open one bottle of the "Il" to enjoy with our lunch. As expected, he was not a fan, and I liked it more than the first time I tried it. So, aside from about a glass and a half, the duty of not wasting all the yumminess fell to me. It went down well. But then I remembered why I don't drink sparkling wines...

Holy lord in heaven, I had the worst headache I think I've ever had. And I'm not just saying that. I couldn't do anything but faceplant in bed and try to sleep it off. Total epic fail on my part. Only copious amounts of water could stop the chorus of sledgehammers in my head.

Thankfully, all's well now. I still have two bottles, so I think I will be taking both to Lucky_girl's baby shower (when that get rescheduled) for everyone to enjoy a glass or two. It really was quite good....just not in the amount that I downed today. Ooof!

Dear NBC,

I'm tired. So very, very tired. Why must you show the premier Olympic events (read: anything involving Michael Phelps and swimming in general or gymnastics) SO LATE AT NIGHT?!!? Seriously, what's with the tape delay? Do you really think that us west coast folk need to see re-runs of Friends instead of showing the Games at the same time that the east coast gets to see them? C'mon...

A coworker made a great point today: We live in the OMG-I-need-to-know-NOWNOWNOW age, and thanks to the wondrous power of the interwebs, we can know now. Hell, it's 11:31pm and I already know who won the women's all-around and it HASN'T AIRED YET on the west coast.

Listen up for a sec, okay. Here's the deal. Thanks to all the media hype, people want to see gymnastics. You need to, and I can't stress this enough, air it EARLIER. So help me god, if I have to see Kerri Walsh in a tiny white bikini playing beach volleyball and taking up precious primetime television space on one more night, I think I might lose it. And the funny thing is that I actually like volleyball.

But you know what I like more than volleyball, NBC? Sleep. And thanks to your fucked up Olympics broadcasting schedule, I ain't gettin' a whole lot of it these days.

I would like to say a huge thank you for the extended tight shots of Ryan Lochte during his gold medal ceremony earlier, though. That almost made up for everything. Almost.

I'm also pretty happy that all of the diving events have aired early in the evenings. Exposing the American public to a less popular, less publicized sport is always a good thing.

Seeing as that I know who wins pretty much everything you're airing at obscene hours, and I have tonight's broadcast DVRd, I'm going to bed. I hope your ratings on the west coast suck, because you suck.

Word.

Cultural Sensitivity FAIL

OOOPS. Nice one, Spain. Dumbasses.

Respect.

I should be sleeping. I have to get up early tomorrow for work. And yet, I don't really care how tired I will be in the morning...the Olympics are on and I cannot turn them off.

Can I just say that I am SO blown away by the USA swim team?! My god, they are so dominant at these games. So many medals. So many world records broken. So many reasons to piss off my neighbors with my cheers.

I am 100% convinced that Michael Phelps is not human. A gold medal-winning MACHINE, he is. The 4x100m free relay damn near brought me to tears. And I LOVED watching ex-Cal superstar Natalie Coughlin bust some ass in the 100m backstroke earlier tonight. And don't even get me started on Aaron Piersol and Matt Grevers. Simply. Amazing.

There are only two words that describe how I feel: MAD. RESPECT.

GO USA!! =)

Gluttony at its best

From the Sunday afternoon weight-gain fest:

We had a little carpet picnic while watching all the spectacular athletes. Good lord....the food was so amazing. So much cheese! And the Spinyback Sauvignon Blanc went perfectly with all of the bright flavors. Deee-lish!

And here we have the crowning glory of the afternoon:

BT's peanut butter cheesecake of heaven. Not gonna lie...I ate a little bit tonight after I got home from the gym. DJC was at the grocery store getting dinner...I waited (just barely) until he walked out the door and then chowed down. He would have frowned at me had he seen it. Inside, I'm kinda frowning at myself a little...all that hard work at the gym earlier (I totally suffered through SOOOO many squats and lunges)...gone. Oh well. Its worth every extra dead lift I have to do...

Thanks again to BT and Miss E for coming by to hang out. I love my guys, but every now and then I need to spend time with my girlfriends, too. Cheers, ladies!

Cheese hangover

BT and Miss E came over yesterday to watch all of the DVRd Olympic stuff and to just hang out and catch up. They brought fresh farmer's market cheese. LOTS of cheese. And a peanut butter cheesecake that Arvay recommended we try. We ate cheese, bread, grapes, raspberries and more cheese until we couldn't eat anymore. After a ten minute break to melt the chocolate, we went for the cheesecake. Throw two bottles of wine and staying up waaaay too late watching the amazing swimming competitions into the mix, and you've got the makings of complete and total overindulgence.

I think I ate too much yesterday because today, I don't feel so hot. TOTALLY worth it though.

Like DJC said, "There's nothing better than consuming lots of food while we sit on the couch and watch other people in peak condition exert themselves." Amen, dear.

Hooray for cheese and peanut butter cheesecake! I'm off to work and then to the gym...for about two hours. ;)

Misc.

Lately, I've seen the word "bereft" misused on several very well-know websites by several very well-known fame-whores bloggers. As a result of their misuse, their commenters have started misusing it as well, because, really, who thinks for themselves anymore? Let's clarify, shall we?

First and foremost, "bereft" IS NOT a synonym for "upset", mmmmkay? You can't be bereft because your favorite reality TV star got voted off, nor can you be bereft because you didn't win a t-shirt in a silly online contest. Got it? Good.

Now that we've got that out of the way. So, what does it mean, then? Well, according to Dictionary.com:

be·reft: –adjective
2. deprived

Here are two examples of how to use it correctly in a sentence: They are bereft of their senses. He is bereft of all happiness.

After someone (who will remain nameless) recently made it blatantly clear to me just how irritating grammar snobs can be, I've tried to let simple errors slide. But when a word has changed meanings thanks to the blogosphere, I have to say something.

Moving on...YAY for Joshua winning SYTYCD! Double YAY for Twitch finishing second. And I don't care what the judges said:

Phillip Chbeeb won that battle. Periodendofstory. Love ya, Phillip! Call me! We'll do lunch!

That concludes your SYTYCD coverage until next season. Whew!

One of these days, I'll get around to the Batman villains post. I promise. LOL!

BRING ON THE OLYMPICS! Both the DVR and my schedule are cleared and I'm ready to consume mass quantities of the awesomest sporting competition on Earth. Woot!

Have a great Friday and an even better weekend! Peace!!

Even though I said...

...that SYTYCD is dead to me (after Will left), I have to admit that, yes, I'm still watching. In the interest of keeping the blog free of my dance ramblings, I figured I'd save all my comments about the show for BSYTYCD, where I knew I'd be in the company of people just as looney as I am about dance. But, unexpectedly and unfortunately but understandably, Ted shut BSYTYCD down recently. So here I am again, posting about a show that is supposedly dead to me. Fancy that.

Anyways, tonight the winner of season 4 is crowned (and I promise...not another word about SYTYCD will grace the pages of this blog...until next season). For me, last night's show was kinda ho-hum intermixed with some moments of brilliance. Case in point:

(Let the whole thing load and then skip to 1:50...that's where the fun stuff starts. A season-long thanks goes to kelxk3l for uploading all the great videos!)

Just look at those toe-touches. Holy smokes. Fantastic display of athleticism from both Joshua and Twitch. I have to say though, I hope Twitch takes it. I know he's a super-duper long shot, but Nigel was right (for once) when he said that no one can entertain like Twitch. If he doesn't take it all, I'd be cool with Joshua winning it. The height of those toe-touches alone should merit some kind of award.

And although this is a very entertaining and fun departure from the usual SYTYCD styles (thank god there was no disco last night!), KezRad pointed me to this example of what a true trepak should be. Very cool. Thanks for the tip! =)

In any case, it's all over tonight. And just in time, too! If I had to choose between the Olympics or SYTYCD, the Olympics would win hands down, no matter what sport happens to be on (yes, even weightlifting...hee-hee!) =)

True Colors, the redux

A while back, I did a post on that other blog called "True Colors". Lately, I've been thinking more and more about it, and the people that inspired it. For all of my new readers (all two of you... HI!!), here it is, in its entirety:

I used to think I was a pretty decent judge of character. I thought I could spot certain personality traits fairly easily. Over the years, though, I've made several HUGE errors in character judgment and had just chalked those errors up to misreading an anomalous personality. Just recently, I've started to notice that I screw up more than I get it right. I'm starting to think those egregious missteps were less anomaly and more plain stupidity on my part. Looking back, I've completely written off perfectly amazing people, like Jed Bodger and Dalton Brown, because I thought I had them figured out. I had them both pegged as a big, happy-go-lucky, empty headed jocks. Nothing could have been further from the truth. With guys like Dalton and Jed, I actually enjoy being wrong because it means that they had SO much more to offer than I initially saw.

Conversely, I've given WAY too much credit, attention and love to people that I thought were brilliant individuals, only to discover later that who they were deep down really scared me. Both of DJC's old roommates, Kevin Brown, and one o-chem lab partner (who will remain nameless) fall into this category. It's cases like this that make me question why it is that I only see what I want to see in people when I first meet them and why I choose to ignore the fairly obvious signs telling me about fairly obvious flaws. Friendships like these always end poorly, although more for me than for the other person, mostly because I'm disappointed in me...but definitely in them, too. I guess I just expect people to fit into my idea of what, or who, I think they are. My bad....

I know no one is perfect. Humans, by nature, are flawed. Hell, I'm the most flawed of all. And I'm OK with who I am. But in the future, I really need to listen to my inner voice when I see people display characteristics that I know will cause me grief in the future. I need to stop seeing only what I want to see.

On Saturday night, BL and I had a very deep (albeit drunk) conversation that made all of these missteps clear as day to me. He recounted a time when his mother laid it all out for him: "There are two types of people", she said. "One type whose energy you will feed off of and vice versa, and one type that will steal your energy and drain you." At the time, BL blew it off, but over the years her words made more and more sense to him....just as they did to me on Saturday night. All of a sudden, a recent friendship that had ended badly was exposed for what it was...a complete drain on my mental energy. BL said that he's known people that fall into the second group, and those people never stay around for long. Something always happens to drive the friendship to an end. Astonishingly, I knew exactly what he meant.

Sadly, since my original post back in 2007, I haven't gotten any better at listening to my inner voice about certain people I've met. Since my last post, two people have taken me for all I'm worth...and I've let them. But after my enlightening conversation with BL last weekend, its all much clearer now. Recognizing who's who is half the battle. Really.

BL is one of the ones whose energy I feed off of. It's contagious. Over the years, he has pushed me WAY beyond where I am willing to go, mentally, physically, and emotionally. But I know he'd never do anything to willingly hurt me and if things were to go wrong, I am comfortable in the unequivocal knowledge that he'd be there to pick my ass up. With the recent ex-friend situation, I'm not so sure. That's a big distinction for me. I trust all too easily.

At the end of the day, we all have a fair number of both types of people in our lives. But knowing who's got your back and who you can trust...that's the key.

Great weekend...more rest required

After a crazy afternoon, evening and early morning of over-indulging in food, drink, dancing, amazing friends and conversation, I needed to lay low today. Minimal contact with people, lots of comfort food (read: greasy Mexican), lots more water, a couple of Advil and copious amounts of sports TV (read: The X Games) were all on the agenda. The weather even cooperated and stayed cloudy, cool and windy all day, thereby facilitating my couch camp-out under my favorite down blanket.

Unfortunately for my pounding head, DJC and I had RVSPd weeks ago to a birthday party taking place today. And not just any birthday party, mind you. A celebration for a one-year old. For all of you that know me, you know I don't do kids on days where I feel good. Today, I felt far less than good. And getting to the party's location...I came dangerously close to my breaking point. Not pretty.

But it was all worth it to be able to snap a pic like this:

How stinkin' cute is THAT?!?! Love her!

In other kid news, HUGE congrats go out to Lucky_Girl and her hubby! This weekend, a little ahead of schedule but healthy nonetheless, they became parents for the first time. YAY!! Let me know when ya'll come up with a name for the little guy, k? So exciting!!

In non-kid news, a huge thanks goes out to all the folks that made this weekend great. You all know who you are. Thanks for braving a night of (tame, but good) drum n' bass. Thanks to Kuze and company for cranking out another solid Still Doin' It night. And even though I was a bit resistant and skiddish around all the kids, thanks to JC for the invite and for allowing DJC and I to be a part of such a special time for your little one.

Happy Monday, everyone. Soldier on... =)