Oscars 2012

We went to an Oscar party over at our friends' house - the party was fun but the Oscars are so boring, amirite?  Billy Crystal was recycling jokes from decades ago... we thought about playing a drinking game (with jello shots of White Russians my friend had created in a fish-shaped mold, if you can imagine that) but quickly realized that for the sake of our livers (and the fact that we're now Old and it was a School Night) that was a very bad idea.  About every 5th time Crystal laid an egg, we were like, Where's that FISH?

But!  There's always the fashion...  Oh, the fashion!  Here are my favorites:

Octavia Spencer is a gorgeous woman - I LOVED this dress by Tadashi Shoji.  There were a lot of these sunburst-y dressed last night, but I thought she wore hers best.

 Everything about Michelle Williams was ADORABLE.  That DRESS!  Her sweet little hair cut!  Her tiny little baby doll face.  That sweet little bow at her waist.  AAARGGGH!  She makes me LITERALLY feel like a troll.  Did I mention we once ate brunch at a the same cafe in Brooklyn as her?????????

 Some of my friends (who I'm henceforth going to refer to as my Agents Provocateurs, with a French accent, a la Christopher Plummer.  PS, who's still got IT?  The Captain does, that's who.) said they didn't like this Giambattista Valli dress on Emma Stone, but I thought she looked so stylish.  1. I love it when red heads wear red, 2. She looked really youthful and fun, and 3. She can really do no wrong.  Except for The Help. Snark.

Speaking of Doing No Wrong!  Meryl was right, we DID collectively groan when she won the Oscar!  Not because she didn't deserve it, but, it's like, Give some one else a chance!  Can I have that dress,  I mean, really?   I loved ALL the gold gowns at the Oscars - and there were quite a few, weren't there?

Special Note:  How cute was Cameron Diaz's hair?  I'm thinking about running straight to my hair dresser with this picture.  What was with that stoopid ass routine she and J Lo pulled?

w00t Pawn: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

M's been playing this game Skyrim on Xbox for about a month or so now.  As far as I can tell, it's not really about doing or accomplishing anything - you're just this elf guy that walks around this Medieval-y, Lord of the Rings-y type of place and interact with people and forge stuff and like, barter for cheese and special helmets and whatnot.  You know how when I review a game and I'm like, This game kind of sucks because all you do is run around killing things while what would be REALLY nice is if you just walked around and enjoyed the scenery while holding hands with someone you loved?  Well, THIS is that game, except, you don't hold hands with anyone, which I think is a real lost opportunity.

You operate this character who's some kind of Elf, even though you don't really see him because it's first person.  M says this is called a "Role Playing Game".  So, you walk up to people and you scroll through these questions you can ask them and then they say the answers, and then, I don't know, maybe you go to the next village or something?  M been a real sport about jumping in rivers and looking at stuff when I ask him.  Some of the physics in the rivers are screwed up so when you're in the water it's all wonky.  I did some research and apparently later he'll ride a horse up a mountain and it's kind of dopey.  There's this one guy?  And you walk up to him and ask him to sing a song?  And then he stands there are sings a damn epic tale.  That was hilarious.  Eventually he meets up with this lady who for some reason follows him around and grudgingly tells him, "I am sworn to carry your burdens."  I'm not sure what that's all about.  Some of the ladies have giant boobs but not everyone, so it's not the most misogynist game I ever saw.  So.  There's that.

So, it's very pretty, but to tell the truth it's a little boring.  Like sometimes M's character will LITERALLY sit down at a grindstone and sharpen his own knives and shit.  For realz.   And I'm like, What's going to happen next? And M's like, I don't know, I might walk over to that other village.  One time he did fight a dragon though.

For some reason it makes me really antsy when I can't tell when these games are going to be over.  It's like... he could play it forever.  I suspect this is happening...

The Voice?

The Voice is about as interesting as American Idol (not very), but for some reason I like watching it on fast forward and skipping past all the sad stories about dead and dying relatives and their high high hopes because occasionally you do hear something kind of interesting, like this:

Dang, that song is solid, amirite?

Eggs

I've become mildly obsessed with preparing eggs recently.  I like poached eggs very much and I believe I've tried all the methods of poaching - the vortex, the plastic wrap method, and even... the microwave (not recommended).  I finally bought those special silicone egg poaching cups and they seem to work best of all, although some perfecting still needs to occur.  

Then I decided to go the full nine and bought some egg cups and a soft boiled egg scissors thing - have you ever seen this marvelous contraption?  The soft boiled egg really does it for me. How have I lived my life this long without experiencing the unadulterated joy of using egg scissors and then poking my "toast soldier" and demitasse spoon into its glorious depths?  

egg scissors OMG!

The Bright Side of the Street

Well, my damn foot got worse and worse, until I now find myself wearing the dreaded BOOT around.  The good news is, as much of a drag as it is to drag around, it does help my foot feel a bit better.  Right now I'm trying to focus on the bright side of things and looking forward to summer when my feet will be in sandal shape and I can (hopefully) once again start enjoying my rather fabulous shoe collection.

I've been thinking about those people who face adversity with a smile and good sense of humor - the kind of person I'm definitely NOT!  But, I'm trying to work on it.

Here's a song that sort of reflects that idea:


As an aside, when M & I watched this, he said it looked like all the dolls were preparing to murder the people!

If it's not one thing, it's another

So, last weekend, on top of my damn foot problems, I got a bad cold, which developed into a sinus infection, and spent the entire week laying around on the couch, searching for the will to survive!  It was grim.  I watched a LOT of movies, including Out of Africa, and Love Actually, and a bunch of sad movies like Rabbit Proof and The Door in the Floor, based on the half-terrible book called A Widow for One Year (each title is worst than the other), but, at least it's based on the good half.  Although, I sort of wanted it to be based on the bad half because I quit reading it, and I always wondered what happened in the end.

My Doctor told me that I should carry on with my netti pot, but only if I used distilled water because people had DIED of a BRAIN-EATING AMOEBA.  Ugh.  I did some research and it seems it happened in Louisiana.  "Louisiana!" I thought.  "Well, sure, in Louisiana they have brain-eating amoebas in their tap water."  Of course, one doesn't like to take chances with that sort of thing.


Mostly I've been really bored, so I'm vaguely happy (that's not the right word) to be going back to work tomorrow.  

Pain Scale

So, darn it all!  My aforementioned plantar fasciitis has gotten really bad.  I went to the orthopedist today and got some bad news.  My feet are basically going to need to be removed at the ankle.  It's fine.  I'll be double pegged, and I will henceforth speak in Pirate. We looked at xrays of my feet, and it was as if... a demented lunatic could not have created a more bizarre picture of what human feet could look like.  My orthopedist actually shouted things out like, "Oh My God! This is terrible!" and "Look at that one!"  Even my untrained eye could tell these were some seriously jacked up feet.  In fact, just now, I googled "jacked up foot xray" and none of them look as bad as mine.  On the internet, ye lads and lassies!  On. The. Internet.



Which brings me to the pain scale.  My doctor had one of these hanging in his office:

Whereby I am, obviously, a 10.

However, as everyone knows, that is an inadequate pain scale, and the most accurate one was created by the Brilliant Allie Brosh at Hyperbole and a Half:

(It's really best to read her descriptions.)  In her (more accurate) scale, I am clearly an 11.  I tried to explain my level of pain to loving husband after a routine day at work with as little walking as I could get away with.  It was as if I walked 10 miles on my left foot and 20 miles on my right foot while carrying a 100 pound sack, and every half mile a Nazi in uniform beat the bottoms of my feet with a switch.  

Coffee

What is the best method of coffee preparation?
    A. Italian stovetop cafetiere
    B. French Press
    C.  Pour over coffee


I've been drinking pour-over at work because I'd finally had it with the swill they serve in the cafe.  It's quite good, but I'm not sure it's as good as my cafetiere.  Although, coffee out of the cafetiere is served in the comfort of home and hearth, where everything tastes better, while the pour-over is "enjoyed" at my desk at work, where everything tastes like misery. We first had pour-over in Seattle (natch) at what I believe the locals call "Fake-bucks".  It's a Starbucks in disguise that looks all fancy and stuff.  When you order a coffee, they start the pour-over and you have to stand around for several minutes (apparently a three-minute pour is perfect), which is all very fine and good when you're on vacation in Seattle in the afternoon, but what if it's morning and you are standing in a line full of asshats ordering pour-over coffee?   Sometimes at work I try to spend three minutes pouring out the water, but that's mostly impossible.  Amazon actually sells a pot which will slowly pour your water which sells for $50!  It's an effing watering can.

$50

Stay tuned for my thoughts on poached eggs.