It Ain't Mother's Day

But it is my mom's birthday today.
Happy Birthday mom!
And while she probably will never read this post (let alone this blog), I want her to know that I wish her all the best today and I hope she's enjoying it.
(I'll probably get online later this evening and give her a proper 'birthday-worthy' post, complete with embarrassing pictures!)

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In other other news;
Hotness has been out of town the last three days on business. (Not far, though. She's still in the same state.)
She's coming home today, so I guess I should've cleaned up all the pizza boxes and beer cans from the living room before I left for work, huh? Ah well, at least she'll have a surprise when she opens the door, right?
(Just kidding! There are no pizza boxes or beer cans all over. Just porn DVDs. Sheesh! What kind of slob do you think I am?)

I'm glad she'll be back finally.
I never sleep well when she's gone, so I'm looking forward to getting a full night's RESTFUL sleep tonight.
Pretty pathetic, huh?

While I've been up late, I've been able to watch some movies:
A Night At The Roxbury
Ugh! Another SNL skit that should've been killed at birth.

Beowulf
Eh... I liked the story but I didn't like the CGI-enhanced actors. I think this would've been a much better film as live action (with CGI monsters).
... besides, who wants to see a naked CGI-version of Angelina Jolie? Real would've been much better. (Speaking of which, I need some 'alone time' now...)

Winter Camping.... Again

(Feeling a bit of insomnia so what better to do than blog about the weekend?)

As if camping in the snow and cold once already this year wasn't enough, a friend and I decided we'd do it again.

Actually, he had promised his daughter she could go last time, but due to a scheduling conflict she couldn't make it. With this being the last free weekend before spring, we planned a quick 'overnight' trip so she could experience winter camping and decide if it was something she'd like.

... which she did.

I got all my gear together on Thursday night and quickly packed the car in the morning on Friday before I left for work.

After the day was through, I high-tailed to my buddy's house to unload my car and load up his so we could carpool.

He was still getting his stuff ready, but that didn't take long.

After we got our stuff in the car, his daughter had to pack her things to go (coloring book, story books, crayons, etc...). Getting her ready to go is a lot like "cat herding" so this took a while.

We got her loaded into the car, made a couple of last minute grocery and liquor store stops, and a quick bite to eat then we were on our way.

It was alreay much later than we planned on getting out, so by the time we got to the campground it was almost 10:00 p.m.

We set up the tents, got our sleeping bags unrolled and shortly after getting his daughter tucked into bed, we sat around and drank some Rum and Coke before calling a night at 12:30 in the morning.

The weather was quite a bit warmer than the last time. Around the mid-30's.

Since it had warmed up some, the snow wasn't nearly as deep as it was when we were there last time. There was still plenty of it though.

There was a lot more humidity, however, with all the melting snow. And, the wind picked up and was blowing on Saturday so that even though it was warmer, we were still chilled to the bone.

Since we only planned for an overnight trip, we didn't bring firewood.

Our trip was cut short, as off in the distance it looked like the wind was blowing in some real nasty rain clouds.

We quickly packed up our gear, then hung around the campsite playing in the snow until we took off for home.

The evening was pretty uneventful and continued to be so into Sunday.

Hotness & I pretty much didn't do anything that day other than go to Lynnwood and see Brian then drive up to Everett to see Jim.

In talking to Jim, I found out more about events that'll be taking place up in Calgary when I get up there next month, which I'm excited to tell you about.... later.

I should probably wait until they actually happen before I talk about "what could happen" and jinx it for myself.

Suffice to say, I'll be taking A LOT of pictures when I'm up there!

Iron Man

Iron Man
May 2, 2008
Oh. Hell. Yes.

Full length trailer below:

Costco

Tonight I met up with my buddy G-rod.

It's new comic book day, so we went to the Comic Stop to pick up our latest issues. (BTW: "ECHO" came out today. You did get a copy, didn't you?)

Then we drove to Costco so he could get a few things.

While we were there, we saw that you can now buy caskets at Costco.

You know, why pay retail prices when you can get them for wholesale... and in bulk apparently?

I'm not kidding, check it out:

So besides that, I saw deodorant that is so strong it's more maximum than 'maximum strength'

Does this mean it's actually 15x stronger?

Mmmm.... hot dog lovin'

I hope they don't forget to use a 'condom-ent'.

Hey G, smile for the camera!

When we got done, he loaded his car and took off.

I needed to get some gas and if I get at least 10 gallons at Shell I can get a FREE collectible microfiber towel. Woo-woo.

Although, what makes it 'collectible' is up for debate, but whatever.

So I managed to squeeze just over 10 gals. into my car:

And got a tacky, brown microfiber towel to clean the inside of my car with.

(You actually get to choose between brown, red, or yellow. I guess your choice of colors is what makes them collectible.)

Yippee! A free towel!

Well, that was about the highlight of my day.

What can I say? It was pretty slow today.

You Call That A Small?!?

For lunch the other day I treated myself to Wendy's.
If I leave work right at noon, I can usually get there, order and get out and back to work in about 20 minutes. Pretty good for 'fast food'.

Anyway, I ordered the el Cheapo meal and a 5-piece chicken nuggets. I think my grand total was less than $4 altogether.
The meal came with a 'small' soda, but the cashier asked if I wanted to get a larger size.
"No thanks, a small will be fine," I said.

So she grabbed a 20 oz. cup and filled it up.
20 freaking ounces of soda! That's H-U-G-E!!!

No wonder Americans are fat and diabetic, we keep shovelling in the sugar like that and thinking "well, it's a small so I'm not having too much".

In just 20 years, portion sizes of food of increased radically along with obesity statistics.
See for yourself what portion sizes should be.
You can also take this test to see how portions have changed over the last 20 years.

I'd been trying to be good. I've been working out at the gym and was drinking water or tea at lunch, but thought "Eh, what the heck! I'll get a soda today."
Now I gotta work two-and-a-half times harder to make up for all the sugar I just put into my body.

Yeesh!

The Fun Never Stops

I have awesome friends.

No really, I mean it.

Today I got to spend a good portion of my day with one of them running around Seattle again.

This time we hit a couple of different spots.

First up: The Seattle ComiCard Convention at Seattle Center.

(For those not 'in the know', this isn't related to the Emerald City Comic Convention)

Then off to find Kurt Cobain's grave. (Or as we found out... his "memorial")

It all started like this....

My friend Jim (a.k.a. Technogreek) has a cousin who has a friend who is a B-I-G Nirvana fan.

When this friend found out that Jim was from Seattle, he freaked-out and asked if it would be possible to get a picture of Kurt Cobain's grave to put up on his wall.

As Jim was relaying this to me, I mentioned that he might like to do a grave-rubbing as a gift as well. (As I had done it myself not long ago)

This sounded like a cool, yet creepy, thing to do so we planned to get together and do this when the weather was nice.

It turned out that today was going to work out to be that day, so he emailed me earlier in the week and we made plans to meet and take care of that.

Then, last evening (as Hotness and I were coming home from yesterday's events) I got a call from Jim saying, "Hey, how'd you like to meet earlier and go to the Seattle ComiCard Covention? I have to do some shmoozing for ECCC and I can get you in for free."

I didn't have to think twice about, so I said "Heck yeah!".

We got there before they opened the doors to the general public and he went to do his "thing" while I went to talk to a couple of the guests briefly.

One of them was Mike Grell, who is a close friend of my mom's husband.

The other was Roberta Gregory, who I was able to get a self-portrait sketch from to add to my collection.

We didn't stay long, as this wasn't in our original plans, so we left and grabbed a quick bite at Dick's (Washington landmark for burgers) and catch up with what's been happening with each other before going to Kurt Cobain's grave.

After searching around for where he was buried we found out that there isn't an actual grave for him, but rather a memorial bench in a park in Seattle.

Well, okay. So we'll make a rubbing of the plaque on the bench.

Um... no. Can't do that either.

It turns out that the bench is just that. A bench.

And not even a newly placed one in honor of the dead musician, but just a standard, old wooden bench that was already at the park.

Can you say LAME?

I can appreciate that the fans need some kind of object to bestow their gifts on, but it's actually kind of sad that it's nothing more than an old park bench with a bunch of graffiti on it.

It's hardly identifiable from any other park bench in Seattle.

We ended up taking a few pictures and calling it good, then headed back north to the Comic Stop so I could pick up my car.

When we got there, George and Paul were also there, so we hung around and talked for while.

Then Jim had to get home to get some work done and Paul went to go grab a late lunch, so they both left.

I stuck around and talked with George a little while longer, then figured I'd better get going home myself.

Hotness called and asked if I wanted to meet her in town and grab a bite to eat. Food sounded good (when doesn't it?), so I was going to meet her at a place in our neck of the woods called The Duvall Grill.

When I arrived there were more of our friends who were also there having something to eat, so we sat with them and had a great time talking and eating. (You'd think I was from an Italian family, wouldn't you?)

*Phew!*

Now I'm home again. Relaying the events of today for anybody who's interested.

I want to say again that I have incredible friends.

In just two days I..

1) went to a museum

2) visited a toy store

3) stopped at a comic store (THREE times -THREE stores)

4) walked to Pike Place Market

5) met some comicbook professionals and got in free to a convention

6) visited a memorial for a dead rockstar

7) drove through the parking lot of the Greek Orthodox Church in Seattle

I hope you had as much fun as I did.

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03/05/08

Fixed Kurt's name. Sorry.

Thanks Elwood.

Sat-ART-day

Hey there! Happy March 1st!

Hotness & I began this month by joining Liz, G-rod and Kristi for a day of fun in and around Seattle again.

We met in Bellevue and had breakfast at Chace's Pancake Corral.

It was pretty good, but the place is popular so it was pretty packed.

We ate quickly and then left so we could get stated on our adventure for the day.

Here we are (from left to right: Liz, Kristi, G-rod, me and Hotness)

After that we headed into Seattle to go to the Seattle Art Museum for the Roman Art from the Louvre exhibit.

We kind of all took our time and viewed everything at our own pace, but the museum got packed very quickly and at times was difficult to navigate through. Eventually we sort of split up and I was the last one to make it through. (I like to read everything but I'm a slow reader and it takes even longer when people keep getting in front of you and blocking what you're looking at)

Everyone waited for me downstairs, but I kind of got lost trying to find my way out of the Roman exhibit and wandered around looking at some of the other stuff on display.

For example...

Some blown-glass sculptures of antlers and skulls:

and an original Roy Lichtenstein painting:

Eventually I found my way around and started to head towards the exit where I got a couple of other pictures of these cars that were hanging from the ceiling:

I met everyone outside and discovered that we had been at the museum for quite a while.

It was well past noon and so we decided to have some lunch before doing any more sightseeing.

We decided to have Mexican, which was kind of mediocre (we've had better, that's for sure) and then walked to Zanadu Comics. I wanted to pick up a couple of books, and I knew they'd have them. (Sure enough, they did)

From there we went to Pike Place Market to get some coffee (or at least Hotness & I did) and find a restroom. Not necessarily in that order.

We also checked-out a toy store called the Dragon's Toy Box, where I picked up a couple of new Smurf characters. (That still doesn't make me gay or anything)

The morning looked kind of gray and overcast, but when we got to Seattle it had cleared up and the sun was out.... until about now.

We left the toy store and went outside to walk back to the car and it started to rain.

Nay! It started to rain and hail on us. Terrific.

By now it was almost 5:00 p.m. and the sky was getting dark so we called it quits and all headed back home.

Hotness and I made a detour into Redmond to pop into the new Comic Stop location in Redmond Town Center.

We hadn't been into the new store since it opened so we popped in and said "hi" to Mike and also make use of their 'facilites' where we were introduced to "Evil Lynn".

I was so startled, I almost lost bladder control. Luckily I didn't and took this quick pic to capture my moment with her:

We got home, picked up the mail and got into PJ's to lounge around the house in.

Another 12-hour day filled with fun and friends.

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A few more random pictures from today: