GRRRRRR!!!!

Two absolutely heinous crimes were committed tonight. I am not a happy camper.

1. Allison Holker was eliminated from So You Think You Can Dance. She should have been the overall winner. Its ridiculous.








2. They announced the dates for the SYTYCD tour (thats what the screenshot is). I know you can't read any of the locations in the picture, but if you go to the website and look, none of the performances get anywhere even CLOSE to Texas or the south (no, Florida does not count as the south.) I actually wanted to go!

So I guess its time for ***Shameless Plug of the Month!***
Anyone want to Meet Me In one of the locations for the SYTYCD tour? And I'm really not kidding either. Just leave me a comment and let me know!!

Katie the Rookie

Apparently Katie hasn't figured out yet that if you take the pictures, we expect a post, and this story is too good to let go to waste. Hopefully she'll still post the pics and/or send them to me because I want copies anyways! :)

Last Friday, Katie, Stephen, Lindsey, and I went to see Lady in the Water. It was opening night, so we bought tickets online and got there an hour early to get our favorite seats in the first row of the stadium seating with the bar to put your feet on. So we sit down, start watching the pre-movie show (since its not a slideshow anymore), talking, etc. The movie is supposed to start at 10:30. 10:28 - The lights come on and the fire alarm starts going off! But this is a talking alarm that says "WARNING! WARNING! AN EMERGENCY HAS BEEN REPORTED!!! PLEASE EXIT THE BUILDING!!" (which Katie hears as "An EXPLOSION has been reported". Definitely gave her a hard time about that one.) So what do we incredibly smart Americans do? Nobody moves. A completely packed theater and we all just sit there, certain its nothing.

Stephen goes out to the lobby to see what is going on and calls us to tell us that they were making everyone evacuate. Do we listen? Nope! Lindsey, Katie, and I refuse to give up our "bar seats." Finally, after about 15 minutes, a security guard comes up to Stephen to tell him he needs to leave, and Stephen's response is "Do you know that Theater 7 is still packed?" (thanks for selling us out Stephen!) So they come in and make us evacuate. We leave our drinks at our seats, put a Mamma Mia playbill over Stephen's seat, and head out. We go out to the lobby and basically wander in circles, never quite making it out the door in hopes that we could still be at the front and get our seats back. We still wanted to see this movie.

Pretty soon, they start handing out the free passes. We are a little upset, but we walk up to a girl to collect our pass. Then we realize that everyone but our girl is taking up the ticket stubs before giving a pass. So we go to someone else to get another with our stubs. Katie can't find hers, so she starts digging through her purse. Then we notice several stubs on the floor. Thrifty Katie starts going around and surreptitiously picking up the extra stubs. All of a sudden, we hear someone call out a name and realizing they were reopening the theater, Lindsey takes off running about 100 miles an hour! She nearly takes out a couple of small children, but who cares? She got our bar seats back! Katie, having been in the middle of a stub pickup when the theater reopened, didn't get in before they posted someone at the door to take up the free passes before entering the theater. A problem for anyone else, but not "25 ticket McBroom"! Katie hands him a stub off the ground and says "I haven't gotten a pass yet!"

So, 1 hour, 10 free movie passes, 2 crying children, and several interesting pictures that we took in the lobby cause we were bored later, we finally got to watch our movie. Some people said it was burned popcorn that caused the alarms to go off, some people said electric fire in the elevator, while still others claimed it was a suspicious package left in the lobby. We'll never know the true cause of our adventure, but I'll always claim the suspicious package because it sounds much more dramatic. :)

LIMBOOOOO!!!

A couple of months ago, I posted about going to a Mexican Wedding with my friend Jaime and his girlfriend, Melinda. This weekend was Melinda's birthday which means.....another party! Melinda is also leaving on Thursday to go to Mexico to teach English for a year, so it was a farewell party also (with the running joke being "Melinda's being deported.") It seemed like a normal party at first - eating some Cousin's barbecue, talking over the DJ playing music that no one was dancing to - until they brought out.....the hula hoops.

That's right, we had a hula hoop contest. Once that was over, I thought that would be the end of it, until they brought out.....the limbo pole! We limboed!!! I haven't done a limbo contest since I was about 8 years old, and I think that was on roller skates at the Crowley Skating Rink. That, combined with the fact that I am 5'9" and not in any sort of good physical condition, I was expecting to be out after the first or second round. But I made it through all the way to the 2nd to last round! Top 6 baby! The funniest part was the other girls left towards the end actually knew what they were doing, to the point to where they were giving me advice on limbo technique! The next round after I got out was the end - all out but one.

So now, its the day after the limbo and I am SO SORE! My quads and my back are killing me! Apparently, I am never going to leave a party that Jaime or Melinda invite me to without being sore the next day. Mexican parties are workouts!
Me and Melinda at the wedding in May.

Not just a pretty face here... :)

I've got the brains too!

In case you haven't heard, it is HOTTTT here in Texas. Like, the high was 106 both yesterday and today and is forecasted at 104 tomorrow. We have parking garages at Sabre and usually its not hard to find a spot; a lot of people would park in the surface lots too. Not right now. I got to work before 9 am and the entire garage was full at my building. So I had to park on the roof level. At the 2 of the roof corners, there are towers where the elevator shaft and stairwells are. One of these had some shade this morning and of course all of the cars up there were right around it, hoping for a bit of the shade. I thought to myself, "What good does it do to have shade now? It will still be an oven when I get OUT of work." So I went and parked at the other tower, all by myself and in full sun exposure just to see (and maybe a little out of bitterness that I hadn't gotten to the shade first...). So when I came out to my car this evening, here is what I found:





The poor suckers who parked in the shade this morning





My Durango in the beautiful, beautiful shade! Haha! I win!

Jennifer Connelly? Really?

Back in March, I took a stab at one of Ryan's "This Is What I Clicked" posts only I called mine "I Click Stuff Too." One of my links was to a facial recognition site that can supposedly tell you which celebrity you look the most similar too by uploading a picture. My original line said, "Ever wondered what celebrity you look like? This site can tell you! Apparently I look like Jennifer Connelly....I wish!"

Fast forward to today....

I went to get lunch in the Sabre cafeteria. The head chef usually mans the line that has what I refer to as "real food" (not sandwiches, salads, or burgers) and today they had a chicken dish that looked really good, so I got in his line. Right as he was handing me my food, he said "So how often do you get told that you look just like Jennifer Connelly?" (And I could actually say that I HAVE been told that!) Of all the people to pull out of the air, he chose Jennifer Connelly. I still don't see it, but its a weird coincidence, don't you think?



Edit: Okay, after looking up pictures, I can see it a little bit. Except she has that beautiful color of hair that I am dying to have. And she's a lot skinnier. :)

Also, important safety tip: Don't search Google Images for Jennifer Connelly. Turns out she was a bit of an exhibitionist at one point and the search turned up NUMEROUS inappropriate pics...

"The Shirt"

This is a picture of me and some of my friends at dinner for a friends birthday. The only reason I'm posting it is because I am wearing "The Shirt" that everyone wanted to see. Got 2 more compliments on it that night.

Guest Blogger Today! (seriously we got this email at work. ha!)

Hello Luverlys,

It’s the Roaming Gnome here. I was absolutely gobsmacked when I heard I was up for election into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame. Have you had a chance to stuff the ballot box for me yet? I’d hate to think of the ribbing I’d receive from my fellow gnomes if I lost out to those pesky Keebler Elves.

It would be smashing if you could vote for lil ol’ me. And since they’re keeping me honest with only one vote per computer, I’d be tickled pink if you pass this link along to your family and friends:

http://advertising.yahoo.com/advertisingweek_06/icon_poll.html


Toodle Pip for now,

The Roaming Gnome

Two Posts In One

The Boring Post:
I know this is uninteresting but I have to say it cause it made me feel so good. I was one of the unfortunate people who didn't get work off yesterday. The whole building was pretty much empty besides my group. So we were having a meeting about a new pricing model that we were going to present to the product managers on Wednesday and I discovered a huge error in what we had. My boss was really impressed that I saw it and then we spent about 5 more hours fixing it. A small victory in my world! Okay, on with the interesting...

The Interesting Post:
For the past couple of days, my car has been feeling weird. Something in the front left side felt like when a washing machine gets unbalanced and starts freaking out in the spin cycle, but I didn't have a flat tire or anything. So my boss let us off early since no one was there and I decided that it was scaring me, so I stopped at Discount Tire to see if something was wrong with the tires. The guy thought my tires just needed to be balanced. About an hour later, he comes back in and says "Ms. Tate. I think we found the problem" Not a good sign.

I go out there with him and he tells me that I have basically been driving a time bomb. They took one lugnut off of the wheel and the wheel was barely hanging on to the axle. Turns out the wheel bearing was loose and about to fall off. The guy tightened it as much as he could, but told me to get it to a certified mechanic as quick as possible and to drive as little as possible. Thats a great thing to tell someone who has an hour commute every day on 4th of July week! So if you don't hear from me in the next week or 2, its because the wheel fell off of my car and I'm lying in the road somewhere (I'm not being dramatic at ALL)! :)

Is It Worth It?

The Scenario:
A little over a week ago, I went to Southlake Town Square for lunch as I do every now and then. As I was driving around looking for a parking spot, I saw a really cute shirt in the window of White House/Black Market. I knew it would look good with some white pants I had just bought that I wanted to wear the next day so I impulsively bought it....for $62.79. I immediately had buyers remorse thinking how in the world could I have just spent that much on a shirt? I vowed that I was going to take it back (probably to the one on University so I didn't have to see the same sales people!) Fast forward one week later: I wake up for work, I'm running a tiny bit late and realize that I have no clean laundry except my white pants and, you guessed it, the new shirt still wrapped up and in the bag. I decide that I have no choice and wear it. That day I got SIX compliments on my shirt - half of which were from guys who NEVER compliment my outfits (and no its not revealing). So now I'm wondering...can 6 compliments make a shirt worth $60?

Point:
I very rarely get compliments on my outfits. It made me feel so good all day long. And I'm making money now, I'm single with no responsibilities. Why not reward myself? Plus, I used to spend hundreds of dollars on formals that I would wear once, maybe twice, and never again. This shirt is something I will actually wear. Its totally worth it.

Counterpoint:
Are you kidding me? Sure I may be making a little money now, but in 2 months I've got to go back to the world of the broke grad student. Being frivolous now is a stupid move. And will those 6 compliments really feel that good when I can't even afford to buy food at the end of next semester? Totally not worth it.

Any thoughts from my readers?