Lando Gets a Bad Deal

One-Take Music Video

Have you seen this? 172 students at a university in Montreal put it together in a little more than 2 hours. I love it!

Rockin' at the Hotel Cafe

In long-distance celebration of my brother's birthday (Well, mainly out of coincidence, but Happy Birthday, Ethan!), we went to the Hotel Cafe for a great [sold out!] concert.

Sara Bareilles was the headliner, and her voice - especially live - is A-MAZING. Wide range with perfect tone and pitch. And she has personality to boot! I was especially excited to see that Tony Lucca was one of the opening performers (as my previous post would support), and it was a treat when Sara and Tony sang together at the end.

I highly recommend seeing either artist in concert - their passions in playing and singing are best heard in person. :)



We were actually closer to the stage in the tiny venue than my blurry phone pictures would depict...

Lighten up

This short article struck me as "right on"... I know I overreact to things that ultimately don't matter. I especially like this part of the piece:

...your spouse does something objectionable. And you get angry. You say, "I can't believe you did that." Here's the thing: The angry part is always about you. It doesn't matter how in the right you think you are, how in the right you may actually be. The fact that it bothers you so much — that's your problem. I can't tell you how much I wish it were otherwise, but it's true.

So... awkward...

The more I see of his weird behavior, the more I believe that it's all a hoax.

Strong Apes = Dumped by Entertainment Industry

Remember these posts? If further proof of why apes shouldn't be used in advertising is needed, here is what became of one of the CareerBuilder chimps...

(Thanks, Ida, for passing along the article.)

Living in L.A. means...

...I spent 2 1/2 hours in traffic during a drive yesterday that should've taken 20 minutes.

...when Leah and I took a walk at a local park, a film crew was set up along the sidewalk and middle grassy area shooting a commercial. (Look for guys playing football outside when you next see a Coors commercial.)

...$22 at a locally-run produce/deli shop can buy fresh white onions, two kinds of lettuce, apples, oranges, Italian parsley, grapefruit, tomatoes, mushrooms, blueberries, green onions, avocado, carrots, two kinds of potatoes, a jar of roasted red peppers, a bag of sliced almonds, and chocolate-covered pretzels (the last one isn't healthy, I know)!

...Jon and I will be seatfillers for the third year in a row at the SAG (Screen Actors' Guild) Awards show in a week (Sunday, January 25th).

RIP Earl

About this time two years ago, Jon and I brought two $2.99-each, "fancy" goldfish into our home, Jazzy and Earl. Jazzy didn't last long, nor did Dart, nor did Franklin (the two goldfish friends we bought for Earl after each one subsequently died). We weren't sure if Earl was killing off his "friends" or if he had some deadly disease afflicting his tank-mates... After Franklin, we decided Earl needed to live alone for awhile. He didn't seem to mind, as this meant all the food went to him. He would always get especially excited when you talked to him - his body would wriggle expectantly to the top of the water.

Well, Earl started having some health issues. We tried about four different "tank" situations - first just a round bowl, then a fancy filtered set-up tank, then a large hurricane glass, then just a shallow glass bowl. He would get sick, we'd remove him from the tank and thoroughly clean it, and continue to medicate him in a shallow plastic tupperware. He'd recover, and we'd put him into a pre-medicated tank. He'd inevitably get sick again, and we'd repeat the process. His final "tank" was the shallow glass bowl, as it seemed to most closely mimic his environment in the plasticware in which he best recuperated.

Today Jon informed me of the news we had anticipated for the past several months - Earl was dead.

I have to say, after all of this, goldfish are MUCH more high maintanence than hermit crabs. We spent money on fish aquarium set-ups, food and antibiotics, and spent cumulative hours cleaning and fretting over our $2.99 fish. My hermit crabs only require water, food, and the occasional wettened sand and cleaning. But sometimes I forget they're even there - and they're fine. Happily surviving without issues. I think we will be a fish-less family for awhile now.

Rest in peace, Earl - well-fed in your warm, spacious pond in the sky. Maybe with other goldfish friends... unless you had been killing them because you prefer to be a loner.

Seen the new Bond movie?

We did last Friday. It was entertaining, though not as good as Casino Royale. I think the difference came from the director change between movies and seemingly-less witty banter. Quantum of Solace is mostly just action sequences with a plot that relies heavily on how much you remember about Casino.

I saw a red-carpet picture today of the "Bond girl" Olga Kurylenko from Quantum, and I didn't believe it was the same person... Judge for yourself:



They made her a different ethnicity!

Secretary of State video reactions

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/11/05/rice.election.reaction.cnn?iref=videosearch

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seems pleased to be passing off the presidency soon. (It has been a rough several years for her, so I'm not surprised...)

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/11/05/colin.powell.reaction.cnn?iref=videosearch

I really respect former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and I appreciate that Powell reiterates that both McCain and Obama said essentially the same thing in their speeches last night: "This is now over. Let's come together. We are all Americans again. Let's pursue a new agenda.... Let's get on with the challenges we are facing and solve those challenges."

I'm excited to be an American during this historic period.

First Earthquake

Well, I suppose it was inevitable that we would feel an earthquake at some point in our L.A. tenure... Today was it! I made a map to show where we were in relation to where it started... (You might need to drag to the right to view it all.)


View Larger Map


It felt like it lasted 10 seconds, but that could also have been because I work on the 2nd floor of an office building. (We might've been swaying longer than the actual quake.) Jon said it only felt like 2 seconds where he was (on the first floor of a clinic).

I always thought being in an earthquake would feel more like vibrations, but it seemed more like my office was being picked up and swayed and twisted around. I don't have anything on the walls, so I stayed planted in my chair until it was over. When it stopped, everyone at my office came out into the hallway and was like, "woah - that was crazy".

Pictoral updates

Poor, widdle stagnant blog. You've been verwy, verwy neglected recently. No new postie-wosties! Hopefully adding some travelling updates with pictures and links will suffice for now... :)

April
Jon and I took a weekend trip to Las Vegas.
We had a Spring Cleaning day with our Cornerstone neighbors.

May
I went to Oklahoma for my brother's OU graduation!

June
Per my previous post about a multitude of Fall pregnancy announcements, I've recently been attending baby showers.
Our "big" vacation was going on a cruise with a few other couples from college. It was SO relaxing to just hang out and be fed every three hours. :)
Upon our return, we had a beach bonfire with our church small group.
And last Saturday, for my birthday, we went to Disneyland!

July
We will move to Azusa, and Jon starts his new job!

Pasadena, Home of the Stars

Today, while waiting in our car at a stop sign, Jon pointed out a guy walking across the intersection with his dog. It was Rob Schneider. Yep, he lives here, too.

Holidays, Every Day

In honor of "National Leave Work Early Day", I left a whole 4 minutes early from work. I wanted to go earlier when I first heard the Day announced on the radio at lunch, but my husband encouraged me to be a "good employee." Pffft! So I stayed.

In confirming the radio's announcement, I also found that today (June 2nd) celebrates National Bubba Day and Yell 'Fudge' at Cobras in North America Day (<--if you live north of the Panama Canal). Didn't you know cobras gag at the thought of fudge? Duh.

I know I'm looking forward to July 27th when it is Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day ("because your houseplants will become healthier from knowing their environment"). And I'm certain my mom has been eagerly anticipating August 13th: Middle Children's Day. (I think Jan Brady made up this one.)

Movin' Down the Road

Because I "heard" that Jennipher S. gives updates (via our blogs) to our NorthWood home team, and Stephanie H. has expressed sadness for my lack of blog posts, I wanted to give you all a quick notice of changes for the Sampson duo...

Jon has decided to take one class per quarter at seminary from now until May 2009 because... he scored a new full-time job as a residential director at a local university campus (20 minutes east of Pasadena)! We will move into one of their apartment communities at the beginning of July, which is... SOON. We are both excited (and maybe a little nervous?) to have college students as neighbors, but the perks are fantastic. (Free housing in a 2-bedroom apartment! Free utilities! A meal plan! Benefits! Jon working with a demographic he enjoys! Stuff like that!) I'm sure we'll get some interesting stories from the experience that will appear on our blogs. :)

For now, please enjoy the below completely unrelated picture of one of my hermit crabs burrowing deep down in the sand only to run into the side of the aquarium.

(Sorry for the blurry pic - it's tricky through glass!)

Conversations Past Our Bedtime

While watching a commercial...

Grete: They make foam in a cup!
Jon: I do that, too.
Grete: Can I do it with you?
Jon: No. It's a personal hobby.

Las Vegas evening in heels

From MGM Grand to Monte Carlo: about 0.292 miles
From Monte Carlo to Bellagio: about 0.648 miles
From Bellagio to Excalibur: about 0.967 miles
From Mandalay Bay to our hotel (off the Strip): about 1.216 miles

Total (not including the walking around inside hotels): 3.123 miles in heels for one evening in Las Vegas

OUCH!

Facebook in Real Life

What would Facebook be like played out in real life?

Sneaky health

Have you heard of those books that give ways to sneak nutritious foods into meals kids will eat? Yeah. I do that for myself.

Pictured was my attempt to hide broccoli in my spaghetti sauce. (Ok, it's not really "hidden", per say, but it allowed me to eat broccoli without having to taste it!)First I pulverized it in the handy chopper...

Then I mixed it into my meat sauce. [Yes, I need to work on better "plating" of my food if I plan to post it for all to see.] :)

Can't resist...

There are a couple things I can rarely pass up:
1) things that are free
2) cookies.

When the two are combined, it's dangerous.
This situation happened for me at work today. There were dozens of remaining cookies from yesterday evening's catered work event, and they all ended up on the counter of the break area. With most food items, this normally would be okay because I only go back there to get water. But cookies were involved today. Lots of them. For free. So every trip for water turned into a cookie break.

Eight cookies later (and by "eight", I mean, eight big-fat-thick-catered cookies), I feel a little sick. I didn't eat lunch because the bazillon-calorie cookies kept me satiated throughout the day.

My name is Grete, and I have a cookie-eating problem.