Month: August 2008

Gone Baby Gone…

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I was sure if I should post this or even talk about it but I am slightly frustrated. I had this event happen to me once in the past with Jenny Craig. You get your counselor, you build a relationship with them and then she disappeared. I mean got a promotion and left without even letting her clients know. It was frustrating to the extreme because I spent over 2 months getting this women to understand my limitations with finances and food allergies. But once she was gone it wasn’t so much that she just left but from there one oout for the next month, each week I was bounced from counselor to conselor. Never seeing the same person more then once and spending half my time there going over again and again what my limitations were.

So, to my utter frustration I have had a problem with my personal trainer these past few weeks. He didn’t show up for our session two Mondays ago and then didn’t show up again this past week. Luckily they had another trainer I could work with the first time but this past Monday I had to reschedule. Frustrating since I had spent 30 minutes in traffic on my day off to get there to and from the gym. But whatever, the guy was booked solid and no one else was avaible. On Tuesday when I met with the new guy, R, he told me that my last trainer was gone. Without a bye your leave.

Is it wrong of me to be frustrated? I mean these are people who are suppose to help be a support system in our weight loss/training journey and it doesn’t seem that they even see their clients as real people. How could you spend so much time with someone and then just leave them hanging? It pisses me off and I have been trying to gt past my self-doubt and my desire to see this as a sign, once again, that I shouldn’t be loosing weight. That I am meant to be a fat ass for the rest of my life? Or I should just learn, that like with some friends, they just leave you.

Slytherin Student Update 5

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Yep, its yet ANOTHER update on the Slytherin Costume. I have decided to stick with the Converse Double Uppers for now. I am attempting to find silver shoe laces but they are being a bit elusive at the moment. I have ideas if I can’t find what I am looking for but it is a tad frustrating. You would think silver laces would be easy to find… they aren’t.

So, Saturday after work I will be taking back the other two pair of shoes. I thought about keeping them but in truth, I don’t need all of those shoes. I have ones in my closet I still haven’t worn. But I do have my eye on a possible pair for the future if I continue with the Slytherin Student costume after a year. Converse has this great “design-your-own” shoe program. When you can pick different canvas’ for the outside of the shoe, inside of the shoe, the back, the rubber, laces and you can even personalize it on the back or the side of the shoe.  I think a pair of shoes personalized the Hogwarts Houses since they have enough different colours you can mess around with.

Anyways enough of that. I am hoping that by the end of August I will have the plain white oxford shirt and the laces purchased. I will let you know how it goes but its likely that it will be a few weeks until you hear from me again.

The Flame Wars Begin

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I was just taking a few moments to look at the Fandango page for the Clone Wars, the new animated Star Wars movie/tv pilot coming to the big screen on August 15th and surprise surprise the haters are already blasting away. Seriously!? The movie doesn’t come out for almost two weeks and it has a so-so rating because people can’t help but blast away at anything that Lucas does. And unfortunatly, most of them are written with a severe lack of knowledge.

Several of the complaints are why would Lucas even think about making an animated movie! How dare he, he should just make the next trilogy of the Star Wars series. Well, to answer this: the movie is a pilot for the new tv series that is coming out starting on September 1, 2008 for the Cartoon Network. And its not like this is the first animation version of the series. Hello! Anyone remember the awesome shorts they did for the Clone Wars on the Cartoon Network between AOTC and ROTS? Maybe the reviewers never saw them? But this movie goes from where those take off and expand upon that part of the story and the war. We will finally get Assaj Ventress on the big screen! And more about the history between Obi-Wan, Anakin and Grevious and so on.

The other part of the flaming is just for the general hatred people seem to have with Star Wars and anything associated with it. Personally, which I don’t understand. Its not like the movies are a real war or anything to affect our daily lives. Real people aren’t dying but I swear you would think by the way people react that Lucas had mass murdered thousands of men, women and children. And I don’t understand, I just don’t. Its fiction, its not real people! Why waste so much hatred on something you could just ignore. In truth, this is nothing new. Ever since i got online and found a wider range of Star Wars fans I have been surprised about the venemance that people hate Lucas, even those who consider themselves fans. But this isn’t the first instance I have seen it online for this movie. I saw the same thing over at the The Leaky Cauldron when they annouced that the Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince trailer would be shown in front of the Clone Wars. Pages upon pages about how stupid and horrible Star Wars is and how could anyone ever like it. The movies suck, blah blah blah. And not just the PT but the OT. I mean, really? How much energy are you wasting? I can dislike people for their actions and what not but to hate a series? Whatevah…

And then the other complaint is the animation style. The stylized animation… nothing new and somewhat of a new technique in 3D animation. The style isn’t knew. If you watch the original Clone Wars animation you can see the stylized style which is simiular to other cartoons out there. It just takes that format and puts it into 3D and more rendered and relalistic looking then a flat animated image. God forbid they try something new.

But in truth, if people want to bitch and whine because they hate Lucas let them. Its annoying as hell, yes but why let it ruin our fun, right? Ignore the reviews you see online unless the person has seen the movie and not just the trailer. And pay attention to people who know what they are talking about and not just petty frustrated I’m bored so I will write this review. See it for yourself, judge for yourself and check back here on the evening of the 15th for my review. 😀

Here is the trailer everyone is either raving or bitching about:

And some of the original Clone Wars Cartoon:

Slytherin Student Update 4

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Bought some shoes today and of course like anything else. I couldn’t buy just one! Thats crazy talk! Especially when there are sales going on. I ended up not buying any Mary Janes or any other school girl like shoes. I got three pairs and they were all on sale.

1st pair: Converse Chuck Taylors Double Uppers in Tan and Black but they came with green and white shoe strings. They were on sale from 46.99 to 24.99. The inside layer is tan and I think I may be able to colour it with a marker or something and then find some silver laces.

2nd pair: A pair of Bjornal Black Slip ons from Rack Room Shoes on sale for like 14.98 from 29.99

and finally the

3rd Pair: A pair of black La Vida from Skechers. They were on sale at the Skechers store for $9.95 from $25.00. The ones I am linking to are in the same style but not the actual shoe.

I have no idea if I am going to keep any of these but they are to try out and see if they will work at all.

The Other Boylen Girl DVD

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Well, I finally got a chance to see the big screen adaptation of The Other Boylen Girl by Phillipa Gregory. I can’t help but wonder, why did they even try. Obviously this is not an adaptation but a movie influenced by. Kinda like, I read this book and I will write this movie that inspired me to do it but leave out everything but maybe just a slight essence of the story. I mean heck, they didn’t have to be influenced by the book or say it was an adaptation since the rumors of Mary and King Henry VIII are rumors that have been flying around since they were alive and both at court.

Now, the first thing that got me was, while I enjoy Eric Bana, how can you not even try to make the actor protraying one of the most infamous kings in the history of the world look like him! I mean come on!! Its not like its possible he may of had dark brown hair and brown eyes! There are portraits of him.

But the movie was just a jumbled mess and I can’t even put into my words how bad it was. So, I will just say don’t bother watching it. Watch the BBC version instead.

Slytherin Student Costume Update 3

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Well, I bought my socks tonight. It was funny though, I was talking to my best friend about the socks I was looking for (he doesn’t read my blog btw) and he told me about this great site he found when looking for tabi socks. When we got back on dinner, I asked him to look it up for me and low ‘n’ behold he directed me to Sock Dreams. The store I talked about in my last post.

So, with his help and thoughts we went thru the site and found several pairs of socks. I ended up buying a few different pair just for the fact I couldn’t choose just one pair. But the best part was I found these great pair of socks, loved them! Now, I didn’t look at the name until Lor started laughing…. the name of the socks: Sorcerer Socks. They come in four different versions: dark green & silver, dark blue & silver, dark red & gold and black & gold. Hum! I wonder what they are for?! lol! And yes, I bought them. I mean heck, they were only $6.00, great price for good socks. I also picked up a couple other pairs: Green Knees in the green & black that are over-the-knee socks and also only $6.00 and I picked up the Dreamy Striped Tubes in the Charcoal, Black & Olive which are also over-the-knee socks at $12.00 a pair.

But here are some great facts about the socks: dreamy striped tubes are made from 90% recycled cotton, green knees from 80% recycled cotton. The sorcerer socks aren’t recycled anything. But still – the idea of the socks being made from recycled cotton makes me feel kinda good. Stupid, huh?

Anyways, socks ordered and hopefully I will receive them soon. BTW, if you do see anything you like there – you can get first class USPS shipping free. A nice plus on the top. While it does go slightly against the whole shopping locally, I have only one thing to say – find me a sock store in Albuquerque with this selection and I will go there. Targets’ socks are boring.

Garage Renovation

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Slowly this summer I have been trying to get my garage finished. Meaning insulation, drywall, painting, organizing et al. As of this morning we (my friend Lor and I) had put up 2 rolls of insulation, the icky pink stuff, which is about 8 panels. I started around 10:30am this morning while I waited for my father to come and help me. I got about 2 or 3 panels after moving around a butt load of boxes I still have yet to finish unpacking. But I got them done and then my dad showed up.

Now, last night after talking it over with my father we decided to go with wallboard instead of dry wall. For one main reason – among many – is that is it a frak ton more durable then dry wall. From what was explained to me was that usually you spend a lot of time in the garage fixing holes and cracks in the dry wall from when something hits it and puts a hole in it. Your car door etc. The other plus is that with it being wood – you can nail things in, in more location. Made sense and it is the garage walls. It doesn’t have to be pretty. It needs to be functional more then anything else. It has to stand up to projects, doors, etc.

So, dad showed up and we unloaded his truck and finished two more panels. They were smaller then the regular 15″ wide panels so we ended up cutting up one section of drywall and finishing off two of the smaller ones. Then off to home depot after unpacking three pieces of wallboard out of the truck.

All and all it was a good day. We picked up four more rolls of insulation, paint for the walls, some small hand saws to get around some gas lines and the grounder in the wall. But, we have all but 6 panels done and the small portions above the garage door. We didn’t do those because it was getting hot and it would mean more a ton of furniture around. But we got one wall board up.

Tonight my plan is to drag my best friend to my house and move the furniture into the center of the garage against the other boxes so that there is an opening along the wall. Here are some photos:

Last of the open panels, you can see some of the furniture blocking it. The cabinets were something my best friend got from a job he worked on. They will be a portion of the work bench that will be in the garage after we are done.

Here is the rest of the same wall. All insulated. Curtesy of myself, Lor and my dad. Yes, I know how to put insulation in!

Blurry pic of the wallboard before putting it on the wall. We (meaning my dad) had to cut a small hole into the side to make it fit around the copper piping for the, I think the water or gas. Not 100% sure.

Wallboard is up! You can see how it fits around the pipe now. Its only held up with a few screws since we need something to make the heads of the screws lay flush to the board and not stick out. Next tot he wall board you can see the dry wall that the house builders did before I moved it. So pretty…

Pic of my dad taking off some items that were screwed into the 2″ x 4″‘s (quality home building here!) that don’t seem to have a purpose. This is one panel we can’t really insulated since its all the wiring and the grounder is in the concert at the bottom – its in a great location and no the outside of the edge. Pic of that later.

So, thats about it. This was my Saturday. We hope to finish this off on the 17th.

Slytherin Student Update 2

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So, its time to buy some more items for the my Slytherin Student Costume. But at the moment, due to loosing weight and inches I am concerned about purchasing the skirt, shirt or sweater. So, maybe next month or the next. Instead I think I am going to start looking for the shoes and socks. They won’t change in size. At least I hope not.

For the shoes, I can’t help but want to go the school girl route and get some blocky Mary Janes or Penny Loafers. I am being very tempted by some sweet looking saddle shoes from Payless though. I love saddle shoes, always have but I’m not sure how well it would look with the school uniform. Maybe, I will get them anyways and just wear them in general or they will just sit in my closet with all my other shoes I never wear. But what I am going for is just a plain black mary jane looking shoe. Simiular to this one at Payless: Bottom Mary Jane. But I may shop around, especially since its back to school time and these are generally around more often now then after October.

But I am finding a ton of socks I want to buy. Of course, being Slytherin, I can’t imagine me wearing normal boring socks. So, instead I think I will have some fun with it. I found some awesome socks at this online store called: Sock Dreams. Now the main problem I am having is picking just one, maybe two pair to choose from depending on my mood. But Sock Dreams has some really cute over the knee socks as well as knee high socks. I also found some really cute ones at a place called Clever that only has a few pairs of socks that would work but I can’t help but love the Argyll ones they have in black-grey-white.

So, now I just have to make a decision or just go ahead and order everything and just be more broke then I already am. But then again… I do have an awesome pair of knee high boots from Doc Martens with a piratey look to them with a sweet 1 1/2″ – 2″ heel that would look pretty sweet with one of those over the knee socks. Hum…. decisions decisions 😀 Made even harder by the fact that I love socks… they can be so much damned fun!