musical confusion

Like any other low-level employee chained to their desk in a cubicle, I love Pandora. But Pandora has some new features that I am not so sure about.

For instance, Pandora suddenly knows who my friends are and what music they like. I think this has something to do with Facebook, since when it tells me one of my friends likes an artist or song, it pops up with their Facebook picture. I do not recall connecting my Pandora to my Facebook. Then again, I do not recall lots of things, so I could have done this. It has also been brought to my attention that Pandora could be lying about which friends like which artists. This could be to make me feel less like a weirdo for liking certain things, but that seems like unnecessary enabling on Pandora's part. There was an incident in which Pandora accused a friend of liking Creedence Clearwater Revival and she insisted she did not. I don't know who to believe anymore. (For the records, yes, CCR did pop up on my Pandora, but I told them I did not want to hear anymore of that. Who am I, a 50 year old man? Sheesh Pandora.)

Please note my awesome skills using Paint. You can also judge me on my stations all you want. To each their own I say!

Another excellent feature Pandora has added is they occasionally place the lyrics of the song playing under the song. This has caused me, more than once, to do a little chair boogie while lip-syncing. This is embarrassing when your boss comes into your cubicle and you are rocking out to Kings of Leon or something.

I think my favorite feature of Pandora, which I'm pretty sure they've always had, is that they tell you why they are playing a particular song, based on the songs you have "liked". For instance, when people ask me what kind of music I like I can now reply with confidence that I enjoy music with "basic rock song structures, subtle vocal harmony, major key tonality, and extensive vamping". That sounds SO much better then "Oh, I don't know...a little of this, a little of that. I enjoy show tunes and Jay Z, in other words." So, Pandora has taught me a lot about myself.

They also have embedded audio commercial breaks, which can be extremely startling. I don't need a commercial break about Plan B emergency contraceptives when I am just trying to bop about to Barbara Streisand.

Now, I wasn't lying before when I said I have an eclectic taste in music. I really do enjoy show tunes and Jay Z. But a word to the wise: don't try to add all your favorite music to one Pandora station. Instead of it becoming the most epic and awesome play list you could ever construct on your iPod, the station will inevitably just become all trance music, all the time. Trust me on this one. Jay Z and Hairspray do not play nice together.

things my boyfriend does

Day late, as usual. Never mind, let's see what we have for today shall we?

My Boyfriend Can't Find Things

I know this particular habit is not exclusive to my Boyfriend alone (then again, most of the other stuff he does is, from what I understand, common to menfolk). He can never find anything. As we all know, he's not the neatest person out there, but he can't even remember where he put something he just had in his hand five minutes ago. He's a bit careless like that. 

He also tends to just leave things lying around where they don't belong, which probably leads to his inability to find anything. You know who ends up finding everything? That's right, me. I find his underwear tucked into the couch cushions. Belts and shirts draped on every surface. Socks everywhere! Under the coffee table, in a dusty corner of the bathroom, tucked under the cabinets in the kitchen. Sometimes, tangled in the bedsheets when I crawl into bed at night. 

Remember these from the SATs?

Tumbleweed is to Desert as...

         a. icecream is to potatoes

         b. fisherman is to mountain

         c. socks are to my apartment

The correct answer is C. (When in doubt, 'C' your way out, right kids?) Those things roll around in the breezes from the AC all day long. It's awful. Then he complains he has no socks. He does, they're just no longer living in his sock drawer.

He often shuffles into the kitchen, opens the fridge or a cabinet, stares inside for a beat or two, then closes the cabinet and shouts to me "Where is the mayo/bag of chips/sauce/cheese?" or "I thought you bought pasta/cookies/granola?"

"I did," I'll reply, "They're in the cabinet/fridge."

"Nuh-uh, I just looked." Then I will sigh, get up from what I was doing, open the cabinet or fridge, move something aside, and voila! The snack he so desperately wanted.

Boyfriend works nights, which means I am fast asleep when he leaves for work around 12:30am. The other day I was working on my computer when I noticed his keys sitting on the desk. 

"I'll bet he doesn't know these are here," I thought to myself, "He never puts his keys here. I should move them or remind him he left them here." How right I was. Only I forgot to mention this to him. That night, as I slept peacefully, dreaming of shopping sprees and french fries, I was awoken by a kerfuffle. 

Boyfriend had barged into the bedroom (seriously, he slams doors OPEN, not closed), turned on the lights, and was grumbling "I can't find my keys!"

"They're on the desk." I pointed groggily, cursing myself for not telling him while I was awake. 

"You KNEW they were there THE WHOLE TIME." He huffed, and stormed out. The whole time of what? The whole time he was looking? Well yes, I did. But I was ASLEEP. Maybe if he put them where they belonged.

I'll often get text messages while I'm at work and he'll ask me where something is. For instance, this past winter, his tax returns. 

"They're on the dining table." I tell him. No, he says he checked and they're not there. 

"Alright, look in your boxes." I bought him two neat little black storage boxes at IKEA which I use as repositories for all his junk. They make me happy. 

"They're not in there either!" I can tell he's whining by the tone of his text.

"Well I don't know what to tell you. I know I put them on the table and I told you 80 basquillion times not to lose them!" Then: radio silence. A little while later, I get another text:

"I found them."

"And where were they?"

"On the table."

I don't know why I even bother sometimes. Though when I get to say I TOLD YOU SO it is extremely satisfying.

thieves!

I just want everyone to know that I made up the word wogging weeks ago! It's my new favorite workout. I can't believe this person stole my word.

http://www.fitsugar.com/Treadmill-Workout-Burns-300-Calories-8071311

oops.

Sorry I have been an absentee blogger this week. I have a bunch of posts planned out, I just haven't had the time to write them! Don't worry; I managed to scrounge up a Boyfriend story for later this afternoon too. :)

This morning I came across what might be my new favorite shopping website. LuLus has an awesome selection of adorable dresses, shoes, and accessories at really reasonable prices. And if you sign up for their mailing list, you get a $5 coupon, how sweet is that?*

Here are some things from the site that I really want/love:

Fluttery Frock Dress - $38

Pockets, little keyhole back, the color is "Gucci Blue" which speaks to the side of me that wishes this really was Gucci and I could afford it. As Don would say: "Great throw-on!"

Blue Hoo Ring - $10

Seriously. How cute is he?

Zad Agate Ring - $13

I enjoy large rings and agates. I would probably choose the red one.

Jeffrey Campell Splendid - $114 :(

I saw these originally on the Nordstrom site on sale for like $60. I was like, "Oh hi shoes, I love you. Maybe I'll come back for you." Then I went back and they didn't have my size. Now I can't find them anywhere in my size, or on sale. LE SIGH. Of course now I want them more. I'll go lurk around Nordstrom Rack next weekend and see what they have I guess.

*Little hint that I use when I'm signing up for email newsletters of any kind: I use a separate email address than my usual one. I have an old Yahoo account that used to be my main email address, but when it was time to get a "grown up" email I stopped using it. Now whenever I sign up for newsletters I use the Yahoo address, so my main in-box isn't cluttered with spam and junk mail. You can also just make a separate email address for newsletters and the like. Yay organization!

oh sookie

I'm not sure I have ever seen anything more delightful than Snoop Dogg's ode to True Blood.

Snoop Dogg - "Oh Sookie"

things my boyfriend does

Gosh, writing these posts at home is difficult when Boyfriend is hovering around wanting to know what I am writing about him. Anyway, I locked him out of the room so here we go...

My Boyfriend Sleeps...A Lot

Boyfriend sleeps a lot. Nine times out of ten, if I walk into a room that he is in, he is sleeping. Or drinking. Or sometimes both. Which we all know is dangerous because he spills. But mostly he is sleeping. He prefers couches to beds which is insane to me, as we have a really, really awesome bed. I don't really like when he sleeps in bed with me anyway. He hogs the bed, snores, breathes loudly and generates a lot of body heat. He also has vivid dreams.

The other night he was in bed with me and we were asleep. It was the middle of the night and I woke up for some reason. Groggily, I realized I was awake because Boyfriend was convulsing next to me. I peeked one eye open to see what was the problem. He appeared to still be asleep, but every so often would twitch an arm or a leg violently. 

Still half asleep, I was wondering if there was something wrong with him when suddenly he leaped out of bed and raced into the living room. I laid in bed, sleepy and confused and wondered what the hell was going on. I was slightly afraid he was sick and might puke and I don't do puke so I stayed put. He was out of my line of vision through the bedroom door. I waited to see what he would do. It was silent. He didn't turn any lights on. The best I could guess was that he was standing silently in the dark living room. Then he went into the bathroom and came out a few minutes later. He seemed fine. He got into bed, we both went back to sleep without speaking.

Next morning I asked him what the hell he was doing the night before.

"Oh my God I had a terrible nightmare!" he told me, looking frightened just thinking about it.

"What happened?" I asked, curious.

"I was being chased by a giant bee! Like, giant. You know I hate bees!" *

"Seriously? A giant bee?"

"Yes! It's because of those Orkin commercials with the giant bugs trying to get into people's houses. But seriously, that dream was so scary."

"I guess so. You were convulsing in your sleep."

"Well I was RUNNING! From the giant bee!"

Yeah, I'm okay with him and his bees sleeping on the couch. Now, for this week's bonus feature, which would have been more spectacular had a certain someone not gone through my pictures deleting the ones of him that pertained to this post...the very first Things My Boyfriend Does Collage!!

I used to have so many more pictures of him sleeping. I also threw in one of him as a child because he was so cute. And wearing jammies, so he might as well have been sleeping. Notice he had no food because I'm sure whoever was supposed to feed him was nervous about all the spills.

I'm not sure there will be one of these next week, since, to be completely honest, Boyfriend doesn't do a heck of a lot. There's only so much I can write about him sleeping and sitting on the couch. If anyone has any good boyfriend stories (you know, about Boyfriend, not just any old boyfriend) that I have missed that you think would be good to put up here, let me know!

*He does hate bees. Once, we were at his parents house in the pool and a bee flew near his head and he sprinted out of the pool and ran into the house, slamming the door behind him, leaving me with the bee. Very manly.

this is so creepy

This is just too much. Dior contact lenses. CONTACT LENSES. And these don't even help you see.

via The Gloss

movin' on up

This map below from Forbes.com shows the amount of people moving into (black lines) and out of (red lines) any given county in the United States. It's interactive and pretty interesting. Unsurprisingly, more people are moving OUT of Essex County, MA than IN. Probably because the weather sucks and house prices are astronomical. I guess rich historical background doesn't count for much anymore.

Where Americans Are Moving

Forbes.com via Daily Intel

and also, soccer

Yum yum yum.

seize the gaga

Could this be any more amusing and fabulous?



Huff Post via Go Fug Yourself

for the birds

Roughly transcribed conversation that took place between Boyfriend and I last night:

Me: Gosh, what do I want to do right now? I really feel like going to the mall but I know I'll have more time tomorrow.
Boyfriend: ...
M: It's like I just get this feeling inside me and I NEED TO SHOP. I don't even need to buy anything, I just need to be in the presence of purchasable items.
B: Yep. [news about oil spill comes on TV]
M: I feel like I should do something for those birds. With the oil. Like can't we go and clean them? Can't we just bring our own Dawn and wash some birds? Those poor birds.
B: You want to go to Louisiana to wash birds? I'm already using my vacation time, I don't have time off for that.
M: I don't even have any vacation time left. I'd just go, it's a good cause. I feel like work would have to pay me for that, for being a good Samaritan.
B: They probably wouldn't.
M: Yeah, you're probably right. [pause] I just have this feeling! Like I can't even control it. I just need to be at the mall!
B: The mall!? I thought we were talking about the oil birds! You just jumped from saving the birds to going to the mall all in one train of thought!
M: My brain works in mysterious ways.

things my boyfriend does

My Boyfriend Spills

You all saw the shirt I made him from last week's story. I wasn't lying. Pretty much every time he eats, more food gets on the table, floor, his lap, down the front of his shirt, than it gets in his mouth. Maybe that's why he eats so often. When he does eat, so little of it actually end up in his stomach.

When we first moved in together, I'm not sure anyone believed Boyfriend could possibly be as messy as I was making him out to be. I saw more than one person give me a "stop pretending to be such a neat freak, we all know you're a slob too" look when I complained. But I knew. I knew someday someone would be there to witness The Great Spill-dini in action. Of course, it was Jamie, my Best Friend Extraordinaire.

Jamie and I were doing the usual - being two old spinster ladies just spending a quiet evening at home - when Boyfriend arrived with Chinese food. Hooray! Delicious snacks! We dig in. Boyfriend has a terrible habit of putting everything he eats or drinks precariously close to the edge of the table. I constantly find myself scooting things away from where they can topple onto our wall-to-wall carpeting. The sweet and sour sauce was no different. Only this time, I didn't get the chance to scoot it.

I don't know how it happened; I only know that it happened in slow motion. I saw the sweet and sour sauce container go airborne. It was spinning through our living room, spraying sticky globs of amber sauce all over the place. My face contorted into a visage of horror. I may have screamed. Then it was over. Boyfriend was just staring at the mess. Jamie fidgeted uncomfortably.

"DO SOMETHING!" I finally roared, "Don't just sit there! Paper towels, stat!" He finally broke out of his stupor to get paper towels, but there is only so much you can do for something as sticky as sweet and sour sauce. To this day there are still hard, congealed spots of sauce on the carpet that poke my toesies when I walk over them barefoot. There was an innocent Ritz cracker box sitting on the table when the melee took place and I discovered the next day that the sweet and sour had effectively glued the box to the table. Took a lot of elbow grease to get that sucker unstuck.

Jamie at least now understood my plight: "He just...sat there." She later commented, incredulously. I nodded sagely.

"He spills." I said.

Of course, there are many, many incidents of his spills, some of which I'm sure I didn't even get to witness. One of the more annoying ones was The Ice Cream Spill of 2010.

I had spent the whole afternoon scrubbing the kitchen until it shone. Boyfriend came home and the first thing out of my mouth was "I just cleaned this kitchen. Do. Not. Make. A. Mess." Boyfriend decides he wants ice cream, so he gets out a bowl, a spoon and the ice cream. I'm just standing off to the side, hovering. Then he scoops the ice cream out of the container directly onto the floor. Again, he stares at it.

"PICK IT UP!" I am screeching, "I JUST MOPPED!" He grabs at the ice cream with his bare hands, and procedes to walk towards the trash barrel with it.

"NOT IN THE TRASH! IT WILL MELT IN THERE!" I am turning blue in the face as I watch the ice cream dribble all over my clean floor.

"What do I do! What do I do!" He is scrambling around like he is holding someone's bleeding organ.

"The sink! Put it in the sink!" He drops what is left of the melted, sticky mess into the sink. "You better clean up every last droplet of ice cream off that floor." I say, livid.

"Alright, alright, calm down." He says, rinsing his hands and getting a paper towel.

Later I found one congealed ice cream drop in the middle of the floor.

shopping sleuth

So I am a big fan of ModCloth for their interesting collection of t-shirts and dresses. I am wearing my Catcher in the Rye shirt I got from them right now! I've had this dress on my Wish List for a few weeks now. I can wear it to work when it's hot without a cardigan over it because it has sleeves, and it also has pockets. This makes it awesome. It is, however, a little pricey for el cheapo me.

Leapfrog Dress - $49.99

This morning I was perusing the Forever21 site, and came across this. Imagine my surprise/glee:

Printed Shapes Woven Tunic - $27.80

Qu'est-ce que c'est? Looks like the same dress to me. For a fraction of the price. And, if I am a very lucky girl, I will be able to find it in the store and won't even have to pay shipping. Because now I have to have this dress. I don't know who the one from ModCloth is made by - I can't find that info on the site. If the Forever 21 dress is a knockoff, it is spot on and that is fine with me. It's even got the pockets! El Cheapo wins again.

EDIT: I actually posted a comment in the reviews section of the ModCloth site, not to be nasty to them, but I feel like I should alert my other shopping lovers of a good deal. ModCloth rejected my review, on the grounds I didn't buy the item, but they wrote a very nice email explaining their pricing policies. They got back to me so quickly and took the time to write a personal email. Rare in customer service these days. So ModCloth, you still rock!

she's crafty

If you know me, you know I kind of love big, gaudy, sparkly jewelry. Usually that means cocktail rings. I love big, huge, door-knocker sized rings. But when I saw this necklace on the Madewell site I was smitten. But I am also somewhat frugal, at least when it comes to certain things. This necklace was not worth the NINETY-EIGHT DOLLARS they wanted for it. Those aren't even real diamonds! Then the gears in my brain slowly started creaking into action. I saw a DIY project in my future. I had a similar necklace and similar beads, so I got crackin'.

Madewell Version - $98

Katrina's Version - Mostly Free

I had the chain necklace that I got from Target for maybe $12 in the fall. I'm sure you can still find something similar either at Target or Forever21 and the like. The pink beads were a gift from my Great Aunt, who also has a love of all things gaudy. I get tons of old costume jewelry from her, and while a lot of it is ugly, these bead necklaces are cute. I have them in a bunch of colors too. I just threaded the pink beads in amongst the necklace. They probably would have stayed in place on their own, but I used an awesome little clasp my Great Aunt gave to me specifically to hold together long strands of beads. The necklace just closes as it normally would.

 You can kind of see the clasp in this picture, along with the other beads I have. It's just a gold circle that opens and has a little clasp on it. I'm sure they don't even make them anymore. Sorry for my lousy photos, I am no photographer, that's fo sho.

The Cut really likes this necklace too! (Madewell's, not mine. Though I am sure they would be impressed with my skillz.)

Special shout out to Great Aunt Evelyn for the beads!

I think I might do more posts like this since I have a few artsy-craftsy projects tucked up my sleeve. Plus, I am lusting after this book and as soon as I get my greedy little fingers on it I'm sure I'll have lots of disastrous projects to show off.

just take my life savings why don't you steve

http://www.apple.com/iphone/design/#design-video

This week: checking my upgrade availability.
Next week: pre-ordering if I can.
Three weeks: bragging.

ahhhh!

Preview of Harry Potter from the MTV music awards. Gosh I really am a nerd, but I don't care. I love Harry. Every July or so I re-read all the books. They're just so good!

i seem to have snagged my dress on a nail

I love Kristen Bell. Go Veronica Mars!

David Mamet's "Lost Masterpieces of Pornography" w/ Kristen Bell, Ed O'Neill & Ricky Jay from David Mamet

things my boyfriend does

Sorry this is a day late, yesterday was a very busy day and I just didn't get a chance to post this. Anyway, here it is! I might actually be running out of content for this section faster than I thought. I'll have to rack my brain to remember some of the other hilarious things he does. If anyone thinks of a story I haven't posted, please let me know! Otherwise we may have to change this column to "Things My Mother Does," which I'm sure will be equally amusing. Hmmm.

My Boyfriend Helps Out Around the Apartment: Part II

After the vacuuming incident, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that Boyfriend was just not going to be a good helper. I started referring to him as "my toddler at home" when I was out with friends, because that is what he acted like most of the time: "Now where do we put our dirty socks? In the hamper remember? Go ahead and put them in there, good boy!"

However that Boyfriend of mine is just full of surprises and I came home one afternoon to find him very chipper and proud of himself. I knew right away something was wrong. 

"I washed the bathtub for you today!" he said, swanning around humming to himself as he attempted to do his own laundry. 

"You did?!" I said, incredulously. "Like, you used the tub cleaner and everything?" 

His swanning around came to an abrupt stop, his face got that "cannot compute" look that it so often has.

"What bathroom cleaner? We have special stuff for that?"

"Uh, yeah. What did you use then?"

"Dish washing liquid." He said this as if I was the idiot for not thinking of it. There was definitely an implied "Duh!" on the end of the statement.

"You can't wash the bathtub with dish washing liquid! That's for DISHES!" I was flabbergasted.

"Why not? It's soap isn't it? Just be careful not to slip." 

How this boy made it through twenty-four years of his life without figuring out that dish washing liquid is not what you clean a bathtub with is beyond me. I know his mother must have cleaned; their house is always very clean when I go over there. How he didn't notice that she wasn't using Dawn to clean the tub is beyond me.

Speaking of dish washing, one afternoon a few weeks ago I left Boyfriend a note just asking him to do the dishes, empty the dishwasher, etc. Normally he can somewhat handle this task. I usually find forks in with the mixing bowls and cookie sheets in with the dinner plates, but he's not very good at matching games so I let that slide.

on this particular afternoon, I came home to find the sink empty and the dishwasher running. Ah, success. I reached into the cabinet for a drinking glass. The first one I pulled out was dirty. Whatever, our dishwasher sucks, it happens. The next one I pulled out had orange juice residue on the bottom. Strange. I checked the plates. Yep, there was a bowl with oatmeal caked on the sides. 

"Boyfriend?" I called, holding the offending dishes in my hands.

"Nyeahhggh?" he answered, which is his standard answer for everything from "Do you want a cheeseburger?" to "Would you like a root canal?"

"Did you check to see if the dishes in the dishwasher were clean before you put them away?"

"No."

"Oh, well, they were dirty. You put away dirty dishes. How did you not notice this?"

"Nyeahhghh." He shrugged. I sighed. 

Lesson learned: If you're having dinner at my house, make sure you're eating off a clean plate.

Because this was a day late, you get a bonus photo:

I'm sorry for the crappy quality. It's from my phone and I couldn't fix it. I made him this shirt. He DOES spill. Hmm, I smell next week's story!

sparkles!

Look what my wonderful wonderful Mom bought me!




I've been coveting this watch since I saw it while we were shopping in South Carolina, but I didn't have the money to spend. My Mom was out shopping and saw it so she bought it for me! Isn't she the best ever?!

I love it so much, it's perfect for summer, plus it's my favorite color: sparkle!


Fossil Riley Multi-Function Watch

movies

I saw Sex and the City 2 this past weekend. It was awful. I have much higher hopes for Toy Story 3. Especially after this promo. The best part is when he dances, teeheeheeee.