Happy Halloween - Tomorrow

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Ipod Price Drop

Just a quick update on the ipod photo 20 and 60gb models. On Best Buy's website at least the ipod photo 20gb has been dropped to $249.99 and the 60 to $349.99. Now if you're okay with no video I guess it's cool that you're saving 50 bucks - but then I can't help thinking - okay, you're already spending a chunk of change, for only 50 bucks more you get a smaller, lighter version with a bigger screen and video, all with a longer battery life. I guess I knew it wouldn't be a super significant price drop - the cheap side of me was just hoping for a miracle.

My Mouth Is Officially Stupid

I wouldn't have guessed in a million years that I'd be writing a blog today. This morning at 8:00am I had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. To be honest I was dreading it. Now I'm sitting here feeling silly for worrying about it so much. I honestly feel fine. By the time I got home I felt pretty much perfectly normal and am just taking it easy to be safe. Pain-wise doctors have always told me I have a high pain tolerance but seriously, I must be really lucky because I've had migraines and canker sores that made me hurt much worse than this. So I've just taken an ibuprofen to be safe but I don't think I'll worry about taking the harder prescriptions. I've got them if I need them but cross your fingers, so far so good.

The thing that's really killing me is this whole cold liquid diet thing. Literally two minutes after I got home I started trying to weasel my way into some real food. I keep trying to convince my family that cold fried chicken is cold, so it meets one of the doctor's criteria, right?

But really, I am going to be good and force myself to be careful and relax the next couple of days just to make sure everything heals well. So, if any of you out there haven't had your wisdom teeth out yet and are dreading - really, don't - the worst part about the whole deal was how bad I was feeling before the surgery worrying myself about it.

Illustration Friday - Cold

So here's a little sketch I did when I first got my Wacom of a simple little cold snowman. I've been thinking about putting it on cards to send out for the holidays. I'm just not sure about how to go about doing that so that it's cost effective.

Salsa or Salsa?

In an event that was probably nearly as painful to watch as it was to participate in - I tried to learn to salsa dance Saturday night. The company my husband works for held a "Salsa y Salsa" night at a local culinary institute. When my husband mentioned free food I, of course, wiped the drool off of myself and said, "sounds like fun". Now the catch is the second salsa of "Salsa y Salsa" night. That salsa is of the dancing variety. Apparently, the company hired a dance instructor to try to teach us to salsa and merengue.

Now at this point I should mention that I would love to know how to dance. I think dance classes would be fun, but there is a big difference between dance classes and what is basically a corporate mixer where my biggest thought is, "Don't get your husband fired, don't get your husband fired..."

After meeting plenty of appropriately nasty women, (oh, you're a homemaker) the food was finally brought out. It was okay. I mean, let's be honest, a culinary institute is going to make nice fancy food, but good Latin American or Mexican? Please. If it's not some side street, hole in the wall joint it's just not going to be good. The same usually applies to hamburgers and fried chicken, but I digress.

So at this point I'm still thinking it's a moderate success (I've refrained from punching the nasty women's faces and the mediocre quality of the food has kept me from embarassing myself at the buffet). Then we go to dance. It starts out slow enough that I can keep up. So far, so good. The merengue isn't too difficult. But then comes the salsa. Oh God. I sort of understand it if I concentrate and don't go too fast but my husband, I love him to death, but my husband is struggling. By stuggling I mean mashing my toes to bloody hell. Oh, and spinning me into the other people on the floor. You know it's time to get off the dance floor when you're having to ask yourself "Oh, did I just knock that girl unconcious?".

The rest of the night we watched the other people dance. It made me feel not quite so inept. I'm not going to make fun of people because hey, everybody was having a good time and that's what matters. But, just to give you an idea, I will say this, my husband is an accountant. No joke. I actually got to watch a room full of accountants trying to do the salsa. Classic. I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Anyway, to answer the question posed by the post "Salsa or Salsa?", I can say that both the delicious condiment and the sultry dance of love are fun - but I'll stick with the food, it may give you heartburn, but it won't make your toes bleed.

In Case You Haven't Already Heard...

Apple announced the new 30gb and 60gb ipod. They're slimmer. They have longer battery life. They come in white or black. They have a larger color screen. They have, drumroll please, video. Oooooooo...
So apparently the deal is that people will be able to purchase for $1.99 or so, episodes of shows like Lost or Desperate Housewives and watch them, commercial free on their ipod. Now this is a great idea, but to be honest, I'm probably not going to pay money to watch a show I already pay a cable bill to see.
What intrigues me is the thought that someone, somehow, will figure out a way to pull shows from say, a Tivo connected to a computer, and plug them into the ipod.
In any case, regardless of whether people are interested in video or not, the unit will sell as they cost the same as the previous generation ipod photos.
Which brings up the ultimate question for the monetarily unendowed (read: me) - Is there any place where the ipod photo sans video can be purchased now at a discount? Please?

Illustration Friday - Lost

I had some trouble with this one. I don't know if it was a case of too many ideas - or too few good ones. Just be thankful that it wasn't an image of a missing poster with a tooth on it. Pretty much all my thoughts right now are revolving around the impending wisdom tooth (actually teeth) removal. Instead you get a sort of "lost in thought" concept.

Like a Logic Puzzle... With Numbers

Okay. So I just discovered a brand new way to waste time. It is called Sudoku. Basically there are a bunch of boxes with a few numbers in them. You have to fill in the missing numbers. Each larger box must contain the numbers 1-9 with no repeats and each horizontal and vertical row must do the same. Ummm... just click the link before I confuse myself to the point that life's not fun anymore.

Wisdom Teeth - Not Very Wise At All Actually

So, apparently I'm going to have to have all four of my wisdom teeth removed... next Wednesday. I'm not looking forward to this. I've never been knocked out for anything before so I'm feeling a bit nervous. It doesn't help when the doctor calls it "twilight sleep". Twilight sleep? It just sounds creepy - like a horror or suspense movie. First there was Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and playing next Wednesday newcomer Geeky Girl in Twilight Sleep.

Girls and Videogames

Okay - here's the deal. I love videogames. I mean really - I could sit and waste obscene amounts of time playing videogames. It sure didn't help growing up with two older brothers - there are pictures of me in diapers playing Atari. As I got older I watched my brothers write game programs on the Commodore 64 (I pretty much had no chance of being a normal girl - I see that now). So I've always played videogames.
But as I got older and we got a Nintendo, then a Sega - something happened which I thought nothing about at the time. My friends and I would go to each others houses and play videogames. As in girl friends. All of them had some sort of gaming system and sleepovers weren't real sleepovers unless we made the trip to the video store and rented a game. This continued without any of us giving it a second thought until about 8th grade. Then all of us stopped. I don't know why. We probably wanted to feel older, we wanted to impress boys, we wanted to be normal and fit in, and above all we did not want to be embarrassed. It sounds silly now - but at that age anything that sets you apart is a strike against you - and being a girl kicking all the guys' asses at Street Fighter is definitely not the norm.
So - fast forward to college when every guy's dorm has a Nintendo 64 with a copy of GoldenEye. Having not picked up a controller in a while the controls on the 64 seem impossibly complex - but after a few rounds I get good, real good. So I go get my own 64 and rediscover how much I enjoy gaming. Later on when my husband (back then just my boyfriend) and I had a little extra money, he was trying to think of something fun to spend it on. I suggested we get a used Playstation (I realize now that moment probably pretty much sealed the deal on him proposing to me years later). From that moment on I have happily and proudly wasted hours playing tons of videogames on a plethora of consoles.
It makes me wonder though - why just me? All those other girls never started playing games again. And I still have yet to run across women my age who play videogames, but pretty much don't know a single guy who doesn't. Is it still the same old fear of being made fun of? Is there still societal pressure dictating what women should and should not be interested in? I don't know.

Go, Go, Gadget Wacom

Okay - what's a geeky girl without gadgets? I figure it's about time to tell you all about one of the greatest things ever invented (well, not really, but I'm trying to convey immense excitement here) - the graphics tablet. I have a Wacom graphire 3 that I got on sale at Best Buy right before Wacom upgraded the Graphire line to the Graphire 4. I've been using it about every day since I got it. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes to sketch, paint, design things for the web, or if you just really like cool computer gadgets. It really works as advertised and I'm telling you - the thing is blowing my mind. So, if you're geeky gadget brain cells are starting to do the happy dance - put this one on your wishlist, or start saving - because it's one gadget that's worth it.

Get your creative geek on. 

Illustration Friday - Float

Okay - so here goes my very first illustration friday post. I've been lurking quietly in the background for quite a while telling myself nothing I do would be good enough (there are some really talented artists there). Then I thought - so what? It's supposed to be fun and there are just too many times in life when I'm afraid to do something because I'm secretly worried about what people will think. So today I made myself draw a quick sketch of the first thing that came to mind when I thought of the word float. Inevitably I ended up of a sketch of food. That's just my way. Hopefully now that I've gotten over my fear there will be many more not so great (but way fun to draw) illustration friday sketches to come.

Happy October - Time for Sausages and Beer

Happy October. In honor of the season we held a grill out - brats, kraut and beer. Fitting, no? Except for one of our guests doesn't like brats - she thinks they taste like uncooked meat. Okay, so polish sausage, kraut and beer. And then, being the lovely people that they are - the different friends want to bring over goodies. One brings queso and chips. Another various mushrooms to toss with olive oil and cook on the grill. So now it's queso, grilled mushrooms, polish sausage, kraut and beer. A perfect American Oktoberfest. Throw in a little Leon Russell on the C.D. player, drink a few more beers and I do believe that you now have a truly eccentric Latin American, Asian, Polish, German Oktoberfest hootananny. Needless to say, good times were had by all. Of course you probably already guessed that by the fact that it was refered to as a hootananny. So my advice on how to kick off October - get your hootananny on.