dinner party – Page 2

I Like You! – Amy Sedaris

I just finished reading the book “I like you” by Amy Sedaris, the star of the show and movie Strangers with Candy. I really liked the show and the movie and always found her to be pretty funny, so I was excited when I received her book as a (vary late) birthday present.

I went straight to reading it and was very surprised by the book. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting and the first 20 pages were the best part of the book. From there the commentary went down hill pretty quickly. To me it seemed as though she got bored with writing it after those first few pages and just started to throw shit in to fill space. Over all the book reads like Martha Stewart on LSD. And that may be an understatement.

I will have to say that my favorite part of the book was the wacky and random photos that are interlaced throughout the book and used as backdrops for the recipes. However there are a few photo montages that just go on for way to long.

I like a lot of the recipes and will be trying them out at the next dinner party I have but the book just keeps going and going and going. I’d definitely check this book out of the library or borrow it from a friend, but I’m not sure it really needs to be part of my book collection.

Royality

What an excellent weekend!

Let’s see, Friday we were going to go to GGB. But Jason talked me out of it because he said that the line was going to be too long. Either way, Constantine and I ended up staying in and watching a movie called Driving Lessons. It was pretty entertaining.

Saturday we got up and went shopping. I spent the last of my Best Buy gift card. I really hate that store. Such over priced Crap. Constantine bought a new Apple Macbook! Yay for him! I also got a new mouse for my computer and bought the new Futurama Movie. We watched it on Sunday and it was pretty good.

After that we headed to Inglewood to look at an apartment complex that was for sale. Sooo ghetto. That night we had a dinner party at Jason’s, his cousin was there and we played Catch Phrase. I came up with the word “Royality” and to answer “Dime a dozen” I said, “Hookers!” Very funny times!

Sunday Constantine and I went hiking looking for this Nazi camp called Murphys Ranch where some crazy lady built a hige mansion with tons of neat underground stuff. We never did find it. Googled it when we got home and found out that we were on the wrong side of the canyon. Stopped at El Burrito on the way home and ran into Jason and his cousin again.

Obama Wins Iowa!

Good job Iowa… with the whole Obama thing. Not so much on the Huckabee…. WTF were you thinking?

I’m glad that Obama won there and that Hillary was in second, although if things continue like this, that probably means Hillary would be vice-president… Anyways, I really don’t like that woman, I don’t want to see her in the White House.

But the whole Hukabee? WTF! I’m glad to see that Ron Paul got 10% of the votes, 6% more then Giuliani got. Ron Paul is great. lol

I found this thing on Digg yesterday about companies that helped and were built by Nazi Germany, pretty interesting read.

The last few days have been interesting. I worked in Temecula yesterday. Annoying ass drive! 180 miles in one day for a commute! The office out there is disgusting as well! Only two people work there, but there’s 6 computer terminal/desk things. There’s soda can’s and water bottles piled everywhere and nasty stains on the carpet! The two room office has only a SMALL window in the corner, which was covered up so basically no sunlight gets into the office at all. I sure hope I _NEVER_ have to go back to that gross place!

Constantine comes back tonight which is exciting, and tomorrow we have a dinner party with some of his friends. That will be fun to meet more of them. Then next weekend we are heading out to Vegas to meet up with Zach and Amanda, that will also be exciting. I’m really looking forward to it!

I’ve found some other fun articles lately.
1) 50 ways to be romantic
2) 41 ways to melt a women’s heart
– I know, I’m not a woman, but I still like the suggestions! 🙂

Adios!

Oracle and Old computers

The other day I started trying to install Oracle on my home computer… I didn’t quite realize how old those suckers were.

Neither of my two servers have enough RAM to run Oracle server. How sad is that! I have both an AMD 64 3200+ with 512 Megs of RAM and a Pentium 4 1.6ghz with 1 gig of RAM. Both of which are RIGHT at the minimums for Oracle to run. Later that day, I was doing one of my FAVORITE past times of Stumbling. And I found this great site with a list of all the processors and the associated benchmarks. My oldest computer is the 5th from the bottom at 221 and my other computer is at 401! :'( I gotta upgrade those suckers! They are sooo slow!

I can get a Dell $500 computer which would be rated at 1,400 on that list! :'( Too bad I can’t afford SHIT anymore!

Speaking of, I was looking over my finances the last couple months and there’s about $900/month that I can’t account for. I know I’ve been spending a lot more lately then normal, but MY GOD! $900/month worth! That’s fucking insane.

I have taken actions to rein in my spending today. First, I changed my direct deposit so that savings money is AUTOMATICALLY transfered to my savings account. Second I have changed banks so that my spending and my bills account are at SEPARATE banks, the direct deposit change also changed so that these will be AUTOMATICALLY funded with the correct amounts. And lastly, I have paid off my Amex card (which thanks to the new car had ballooned to over $7k!!) and will not be using it anymore except for in emergencies and buying stuff online.

I am also creating a new rule for myself, any purchase which must be funded by a loan, must be kept and used for twice the length of the loan. IE. I financed the new car for 3 years, it must be kept for a minimum of 6 years. Although I am personally shooting for closer to 10 years, unless gas prices go crazy high.

In gas news, Congress passed the new CAFE requirements, so the average vehicle will be getting 35mpg by 2020. Personally, I think it should be 2015 at the latest, but at least it’s a start in the right direction… uhoh! There I go with the whole Pot, kettle, black thing!

This past weekend was really great, Saturday night we had the last dinner party of the year. Constantine bought the group UNO Attack. It’s SO much fun! Everyone should go out and buy it! Jason of course cooked an amazing dinner of Chicken Catchatori and I made Eggnog CheeseCake. Delicious! I was so fat buy the time the night was over!

Sunday I had a business meeting at 9am and then Constantine, Jason, Erick and I went out to Noah’s in Manhattan Beach for breakfast. I did laundry the rest of the day and cleaned the house, I emptied out all my cabinets and washed every dish I own, washed the cabinets themselves, and some other stuff.

Monday I started cooking our dinner for Wed, I made the dessert and the noodles. I’m making Constantine a traditional Black family holiday meal. Although, not as CRAZY as our real family gatherings with all the candies, and side dishes, the 800 pies and what not. Just the standard main fair of Roast, Mashed Potatoes, Noodles, Corn and one dessert! 🙂 It’s going to be delish! I can’t wait!

I also bleached basically everything in my house last night, the counter tops, the stove, the floors, the bathroom. It’s almost as if my cleaning lady had come again! Oh how I miss her! :'(

Tonight we are going to the Charles Phoenix Holiday Jubilee and before that we’re going to dinner at Philippes the ORIGINAL home of the french dip! Should be a wonderful night!

Tomorrow Constantine and I are having our holiday festivities with the previously mentioned meal, and then present opening! I can’t wait to see if he’ll like what I got him! I sure hope so, because that boy doesn’t give ANY hints about what he wants… And he’s seen how my family does christmas shopping.
“Hey mom what do you want?”
“Oh, an all in one printer”
“Do you have any models in mind”
“Not really”
“Ok, I’m going to go out and get it”

So shopping without hints was hard for me! But I feel that I got him something he’ll really like. 🙂

A Slightly Annoyed Weekend

So this weekend had a few road bumps, but overall it was pretty good.

Friday, Const came over and we headed out to Sport Chalet and then Fry’s to get stuff for the trip. I still have to buy a portable alarm clock. After that I took him out to Hermosa Beach because a while back he mentioned that we’d never been there. Anyways, we got there and started walking around and I was a little annoyed by how indecisive he was being. We ended up going to this Sushi place which really wasn’t all that great and cost way to much money for what we got. Went home after that and ended up just staying in and watching TV.

Saturday we got up and headed out to Target to get some more stuff and then came home and made Lamb for lunch and watched Touch of Pink. Which was a really good movie. I highly suggest seeing it.

Const left after that and I lounged around, finished planning Europe and did some other stuff. Erick came over a for a couple minutes and a cup of Apple Cider. I just sat alone all night after that.

Got up early the next morning and drove to Santa Monica for a bike ride. Went less then a mile and my chain kept slipping off. Very annoying. Got home and found out that Erick and Const had hung out Saturday night, which was a bit annoying to me. That’s just not something you do, hanging out with a friends boyfriend without even inviting the friend. Anyways…

I spent Sunday cleaning and packing. Const came over about 5 and we went and bought wine and cheese for the dinner party. Headed over to Jason’s about 7 and we had an excellent night, till the end when Jason brought up the whole Ben thing, which put me in a sour mood. Got home about 11 and tried going to bed, but I couldn’t hardly sleep all night. So I came into work late.

Yep, that’s about it. Adios!