The Shoe Store Enigma

I have a lot of shoes. Oh, I only wear a few pairs, but I have a lot of shoes that I never wear because of one word....pain.

I don't go out looking for painful shoes. I try on many pairs in the store, attempting to find the balance between style and comfort. But yet, I never succeed in the comfort part. It is because of this that I have come up with a theory about shoe stores - they have a magic spell that makes shoes feel comfortable so you will be tricked into buying them and keep coming back for more when their true colors come out. A women could put on a pair of black dress shoes inside a shoe store, walk around for an hour, and buy them completely convinced that all the problems of pinched toes and blisters were a thing of the past. But the moment that you walk out of the store, the magic shield lifts. You can put on those same super-comfortable shoes 10 min after buying them, and all of a sudden, someone has driven a spike into the toe and attached a razor blade to the edge to take all the skin off the foot. So after a few times of wearing them, you realize that the pain is unbearable and head back to the shoe store to start the horrible process again. This is why I have a collection of uncomfortable business-appropriate shoes in my closet, and added one more pair yesterday. We'll see how long these ones last.

I Picked Up An Evacuee!!

Don't worry...not some random person off the side of the road.

Thursday afternoon, right after I got out of class, my cell phone rings. I answer it, and it is my college roommate Deborah! She lives in Houston with her family and she called me to tell me she was on I-35W just north of Fossil Ridge and that she would be in town until the hurricane left!

I know, a horrible hurricane shouldn't really be a reason to celebrate, but I don't care. The last day of April, Deborah moved out of our Abilene apartment and into an apartment in Montevideo, Uruguay and has only been back about a month, so this was the first time that I got to see her since her South American adventure. They spent one night at one of her parent's friend's house and then in the Hyatt Regency at DFW Airport. So yesterday, I picked Deb up from the airport and we went and hung out with some of my new friends (we had a Pee Wee Herman party....a whole other topic). Then this morning we went to the Galleria to meet Nichole for lunch before I came back to FW to watch the TCU game. It was a short visit, but was totally wonderful.

All of the news that we've seen about the hurricanes has been bad and telling how upset everyone is, and although I really do feel bad for the people hurt by the storms, Hurricane Rita gave me the best surprise present that I could ever ask for.

Go Frogs!

So as most of you know, I went to ACU for my undergrad degree. Football was not even really on our radars. Most people went to 1 game their freshman year - thats all it took to realize that no one went to games - and then 1 game their sophomore year - because you had to for pledging. I think it goes without saying (although I'm going to say it anyways) that games were not televised.

Now I go to TCU. Football is a big deal! People actually care! Games are on TV and if they're not home games, people get together to watch them on TV! We have pre-tailgate parties, tailgate parties, and post-tailgate parties. And it is so much fun! I know we're not Big 12 or anything, but Mountain West is still pretty cool. It is so weird to actually look forward to football games and go and get excited about what is going on! So if you ever want to know where I am on a game day, look towards the field....or at least the nearest big screen that my friends and I will be gathered around.

New Show Reviews

So I have begun the arduous task of clearing my DVR of all the shows that I have recorded over the past couple of days, so if you are wondering what new shows are good and which are bad, here you go. And if you aren't wondering....well, I just don't know what to tell you.

How I Met Your Mother: Excellent! It is really funny and has great characters. The premise of this show is a man in the year 2030 is telling his kids about how he met their mother in 2005. It is kind of in the style of The Wonder Years only a lot funnier and about twenty-somethings instead of kids.

Kitchen Confidential: May become my new favorite comedy show. It has Bradley Cooper (Will Tippin on Alias) and a lot of funny characters running a restaurant. I don't know what else to say, but you should watch it.

Barely Legal: Turned it off halfway through.

The War At Home: I gave this one 2 episodes to impress me and was sadly disappointed both times. They spend too much time with witty sayings in between action and so the plot development is VERY scarce. You don't really get to know the characters and the show so far is going nowhere. I predict 2 seasons max.

Two and a Half Men: After the Emmy's, I felt bad for ol' Charlie, so I tried to watch his show again....and was reminded why I only watched 1 episode the first time around. Dud.

Supernatural: Surprisingly good. I didn't think I would like this one, but I loved Jared Padalecki on Gilmore Girls so I decided to try it. It really has potential.

Well, class is over, so I've gotta go. More show reviews later.

I'm Sick

So tomorrow I have my first MBA midterm, and today I turn up sick. Isn't life just grand? It always happens to me in the same way too:

Day 1 (yesterday): I sneeze all day long, probably about 30 times over the course of the day. And these sneezes actually hurt the back of my throat.

Day 2 (today): My tonsils and whatever else is in the back of my throat are swollen so it hurts to swallow and is hard to breathe

Day 3 (tomorrow - midterm day): Throat hurts worse AND the fatigue/sore muscles set in.

So as we can all see, I have somehow developed impeccable timing to ensure that I will be in bad shape on the day of my first test. No fun at all. :(

Fall TV Preview

Okay, I have officially received a threat of being removed from a blogroll, so I guess I'll actually have to start posting again! To get it out of the way, grad school is great, friends are great, life is generally pretty great right now...ask me again around November and I may have a different answer.

Last week, I opened my mailbox and pulled out the Entertainment Weekly that I have been waiting for - the Fall TV Preview. This is the issue where they outline every show that will be on the major channels during primetime this season. So since I have decided to start new shows from the beginning this year, I had to sit down and plan out what I will be Tivo-ing. I don't have a ton of time to watch TV, but at least when I do I will only have to watch things I actually want to! Here is my Tivo schedule for the fall, unless some of the shows suck and I stop watching them.

Monday:
How I Met Your Mother (7:30 CBS)
Kitchen Confidential (7:30 Fox)

Tuesday:
Gilmore Girls (7:00 WB)
House (8:00 Fox)
Supernatural (8:00 WB)
Im' boycotting Amazing Race because its family edition
Boston Legal (9:00 ABC)

Wednesday:
America's Next Top Model (7:00 UPN)

Thursday:
Okay, this is the hard time slot...I had to pick only 2 out of Alias, Survivor, OC, and Joey :(
Alias (7:00 ABC, unless Michael Vartan gets killed off, then it is replaced with OC)
Survivor (7:00 CBS)
Reunion (maybe. 8:00 Fox)

Friday/Saturday:
Nothing

Sunday:
The War At Home (7:30 Fox. 1st episode wasn't great, but I'll give it another week)
Desperate Housewives (8:00 ABC)
Family Guy (8:00 Fox)
Grey's Anatomy (9:00 ABC)

So there it is. I'm sure I'll get weary and stop watching half of the shows...especially new ones because several won't be any good. If you ever need an episode of one of these shows, let me know...I'll have them on my DVR.