Holiday Hangover

Wow, I'm wiped out. Too much Too Much™ this year.

Wanted to poke my eyes out yesterday at work. I may have mentioned this before, like a few thousand times, but you know how some people just make you insane? Like just the sound of their voice in the morning makes all the little hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you suddenly become almost understanding of those murder-suicide stories on the news? Okay...bad example. Just the murder stories.

I am once again considering looking for a new job because a women I work with is making me nuts. Why do I always do this? I've got school starting on the 7th (and eek! I'm taking an online independent study class.), the bathroom remodeling starting and I'm going to Europe in February. Too much Too Much™.

I'm also considering a trip to San Francisco to see the sweet boy I met on my cruise. I have frequent flier miles that are about to expire and I can't use them for Europe...and I can't use any vacation time so have to do it over a holiday. Hmm, is that crazy? I'm pretty sure I know the answer.

Not much else going on. We watched Ocean's Eleven (or is it Ocean's 11?) last night. Macaroni got the box set from Jboy so guess what we'll be watching today? Not that I'm going to complain about looking at Brad and George and Matt and Don and Casey and...

And I suppose I should clean up all the Holiday Vomit one of these days. These should be the last of the photos. Take care!

Randy w/one of grandma's plates

the coat hanger was a big hit

Look at what Santa brought me!

Wait, this isn't a DVD. It's a book!

Merry Christmas!

Jboy's bugging me to get off the computer so no photos of today's display of obscene consumerism. Had a very nice morning at mom's and then came home for a 2 and 1/2 hour nap. Just finished watching The Simpson's Movie, one of Macaroni's gifts from Santa.

Off to bed now. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and don't have to work tomorrow like me. Love you!

Here comes Santa Claus

I hope. My living room looks like a tornado hit. Yes, that's what it usually looks like, but it's got lots of green and red going on right now. It's 11:26. I've wrapped about half the gifts for tomorrow at mom's, but Santa hasn't shown up with presents for the boys yet.

And their stockings are down in the basement. Down those stairs my arthritis won't let me climb. Santa sucks ass this year.

Hope everyone (all 3 of you) are having a fun, safe and very merry Christmas. Photos from mom's tonight:

Ruby looked like a princess in this coat...that Shannon found for $5!

Look at those chompers!

Oops! Rotate

Macaroni and me

Pete and mom

Earl and Joan

Macaroni adores his older cousin Malcolm...the trouble twins

Rachel, Serdar and Malcolm

She's pregnant!

Leah and Andrew

Juli, Meaghan, Jack and Daren

Marie and Bobby

Shannon, Ruby and Randy

Say "Santa!"

I had to use my old camera for this shot because this new camera

is much, much smarter than me and the timer is in hiding.

Can you tell I'm counting?

And it's begun...

Christmas with Ron & Kim & the kids at mom and dad's house today. Tofurky, which always makes me happy. Tried to keep it low key, not too many presents today, those will come Christmas morning. Still need to sneak out of work tomorrow to find a CD for Jboy. Unless he keeps acting like an ass. Then I'll need to find some coal.

Katie brought a tape of her last skating

competition, she's really good

too much energy

Shannon, Randy and Ruby

Kim, Ron, Katie and Jacob

Macaroni and Momma

I cropped out the finger he was giving the camera

Macaroni and his older cousin Katie

Grandpa and Rube

Sleepy Ruby and Grandma

Giggling

Enough photos!

See, I told you so

Joss is getting lots o' love in all these end of year Top 100 lists. Here's one for his fans...EW's Top 25 Fansites

Joss Whedon with his vampires

8. Joss Whedon

whedonesque.com
Launch Date July 2002

What You'll Find Devotees of Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon will find a reservoir of material about anyone who's starred in (or, it would seem, breathed near) his nerd-magnet projects: Buffy, Angel, and Firefly/Serenity.
Nitpicky in detail and sprawling in scope, recent blog posts have singled out subjects like Nathan ''Mal from Serenity'' Fillion (Is the Desperate Housewives star, listed as one of PEOPLE's Sexiest Men, hotter than cover boy Matt Damon?) and James, a.k.a. ''Spike,'' Marsters (He's a singer. And a natural brunet. There are pictures, people!).
Then, just when you thought the panting was getting a mite too heavy, the Whedon fans move on to the finer points of filmmaking.

Why It's Essential Whedon himself has been known to break news here, like his February announcement that he'd quit as director for Warner Bros.' Wonder Woman project. ''[Now] you don't have to link to every rumor site!'' he wrote. What a guy!

Official Site He doesn't have one. — Nisha Gopalan

Couldn't agree more

On USA Today's Pop Candy Top 100 People of the Year list:

#26. Joss Whedon. Normally, we'd shower him with praise for his latest TV show or film, but this year Whedon tried something a little different: He created a comic based on a TV show and a film. Buffy Season Eight exceeded expectations, and it has brought many more folks, particularly women, into comic-book shops. Next year we get the best of both worlds, when Joss returns to TV for a series with Eliza Dushku.

Do not poke the crabby person

Just call me Ebenezer. I am so not in the holiday spirit. Our Christmas tree is still sitting in a box on the kitchen floor. I managed to mail two packages, out of the five or six I really should have sent. I started sending out cards but am only about a third of the way through the list. Oh, and don't even get me started about the stupid holiday photo cards. I should have just done my usual "hoilday = late January" instead of trying to get them done before Christmas. Thank goodness Joss is so hot! And I still haven't finished shopping. Wait, I think maybe I've finished shopping, I'm just not done with my list.

For real, do my kids need presents? Don't they already have enough video games (not that I'd buy them video games, mean old mom that I am) and fucking trading cards? I could literally wallpaper my entire house in those damn things. Drama queen, I know, although that's an interesting math question...bet I could.

Work is making me insane today. Insaner. Our computer systems are so slow, I think the gerbil died. Someone stole my sugar, so I'm drinking tea with soymilk and no sweeties. I've been eyeballing the candy canes on my coworkers desk, thinking that black peppermint tea might not be bad. I don't think she stole my sugar though, so I probably shouldn't steal her candy canes. What else? Today is Eid, so both of our Somali workers are gone today and tomorrow. Short staffed, not that it's anything new around here.

Listening to Nikki Sixx right now. He has the sexiest voice, I hadn't really remembered that about him. Although, come on. Everything about Nikki is sexy. The cute boy I kissed on my cruise met Nikki like a month ago. Had a photo of him on his phone and everything. "OMG! You touched Nikki?" I'm so easy.

Wait, this is a crabby blog. No more Nikki or cute boy talk. I need to book my trip to Europe...wait...even with all the work involved I can't complain about getting to go to Europe. Okay, the computers moving again. Guess I'm out of things to bitch about. For now.

Actual tears.

I just can't get over this.

edumacation

So I just got back from New Student Orientation. I still need to take a one day course at the end of February to rewrite my degree plan before I'll know exactly when I can graduate...but if I don't wuss out again it should be before Jboy. I hope. Instead of the three classes I needed two years ago, I think it'll be more like five or six. And I'm only going to do one at a time this go round.

I'm probably bugging my neighbors because I'm listening to Fair to Midland as loud as my crappy cd player will go. They were playing early 80's lite FM at the orientation. Thought I might have to poke my eyes out with all the new shiny pens I got, but I'm sure that would have only enhanced my hearing and made my head explode. The frikken Christmas carols on the boat weren't that bad, and my ears were bleeding then.

Speaking of the boat...I'm ready for another vacation. Why do human beings still live in Minnesota? It's fucking cold. And it's not even technically cold yet. Macaroni loves the skiing, that's what he's doing right now, but I'm not an outdoorsy person even when the weather's nice. Need to work on moving somewhere warmer. Or Scotland. In like eight years.

Nothing good on the interwebs to link to. No good Netflix reviews...I fell asleep during The Limey...so I don't know if it was good or not. So instead I'll give you this, little Summer all grown up and dismembered. Hopefully the strike will end soonish so that we can get an entire season. I hate that another FOX show looks good. It's the kiss of death.

And that's what it's all about

Cool interview with Joss, hope I'm linking to this correctly. Just have to get past the annoying commercial at the beginning. Just remember, there's no advertising money to be made on the internet. The studios suck.

The interview was done the day of the pencil drop.

Joss sees snow

There was another rally for the writers today, this time in Boston. And yes, I did check to see how much last minute airfare was. Couldn't justify $800 so I'm stuck in MN snow.

Fun article here about the rally and what I think is my favorite strike photo yet. Except of course that photo.

"My mom let me skip school to support the WGA!"

How'd I miss Alan?

Alan Tudyk showed up to ME Day late but damn, he's much too pretty not to include. I wonder how much shit he got from people for starting the Serenity sequel rumor.

Funniest thing I've seen lately

And also, sad because it's true. Taken from here:

December 10, 2007

We are heartbroken to report that despite our best efforts, including sending them a muffin basket, making them a mix CD, and standing outside their window with a boombox blasting Peter Gabriel songs, our talks with the WGA have broken down. Quite frankly, we're puzzled as to why this happened. We talked about it all the way home – after we walked into their hotel room, slapped our list of demands on the table and abruptly left the negotiating session – and none of us could figure out what went wrong.

While we're not going to point fingers or assign blame, we do feel justified in saying that they are entirely at fault. The AMPTP has successfully concluded 306 major agreements with unions since its founding in 1982, and there has never been an incident like this. Except for that writers' strike in 1985. And the directors' strike in 1987. And that other writers' strike in 1988. Aside from three isolated incidents, however, this strike is completely without precedent.

We believe our New Economic Partnership™ proposal – under which the average salary for writers making between $220,000 and $240,000 would be $230,000 – is the single greatest document since the Magna Carta. And we have proved, over the last five months, that we want writers to participate in producers' revenues. Mostly by repeatedly saying, "we want writers to participate in producers' revenues." Still, we must be clear: Under no circumstances will we knowingly participate in the destruction of this business. If we destroy this business, it will only be through accident and incompetence – that's the AMPTP Pledge®!

While the WGA's members can clearly stage rallies, concerts and mock exorcisms, maintain unity in a large and diverse workforce, gain the support of a majority of the general public, prompt a sharp dip in our stock prices, derail half a dozen major movies and force us to refund advertisers' money after they learn that they'll be getting "American Gladiators" instead of "Chuck," we question their ability to get things done. It is now absolutely clear that the WGA's organazis are determined to advance their own personal ideologies, political agendas, sexual preferences, barbaric tribal customs, canine wardrobe choices, religious beliefs and blood rituals upon working writers and other working persons who depend on our work industry for their work.

Instead of negotiating, the WGA organizateurs have made demands, then expected us to counter with our demands, and for them to adjust their demands, and for us to do likewise, until we reach a mutually acceptable resolution in some sort of "give-and-take" process. Needless to say, we consider this to be a roadblock to progress (of both boldface and italic proportions). Thus, we have asked that they withdraw these demands:

They demand full control over reality and animation programming, despite the fact that neither genre requires any writing at all. It is, after all, a well-documented fact that "Flavor of Love" is a Frederick Wiseman documentary about a man who happens to be choosing a bride from among 20 whores, and that "Family Guy" is entirely improvised by a cast of extremely precocious illustrations.

The WGA is demanding the right to join in strikes of other labor organizations. This is simply unacceptable, as we plan on gutting the contracts of many other unions in the upcoming year.

Their proposal for Internet compensation could doom the Internet media business before it ever gets started. (Projected start date: October 4, 2012.) We have already offered the writers a very generous $250 per episode for using their work on the Internet. Sure, $250 may not sound like much, but it adds up – a whole season of "Heroes" would cost NBC.com nearly $6,000! Who's going to pay that money? Go look at at the "Heroes" web site – unless you count Nissan, Cisco, Sprint, and American Express, nobody's willing to step up and advertise on such a risky and unproven medium. And who knows how much longer those fly-by-night operations will be around? (I mean, have you seen the Nissan Rogue? It looks like a Pontiac Aztek fucked a PT Cruiser, am I right?)

The writers are demanding that, when we sell content within our own companies, we have a neutral third party ensure that we aren't deflating the price in order to cheat them out of their share. This lack of trust hurts, quite frankly, especially after all we've done for writers over the years. I mean, we've stuck with them through thick and thin – even going so far as to bankroll their unprofitable vanity projects, like Forrest Gump, Lord of the Rings, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

In summary, the writers are demanding respect they haven't earned, privileges they don't deserve, and money for work they haven't done. And those are perquisites we reserve solely for the severance packages of departing CEOs. Simply creating a hit show isn't enough – if they want tens of millions of dollars, they will have to earn them by driving a company so far into the ground that it's worth $85 million to shareholders to be rid of them.

We urge the WGA's pedophorganizers to abandon their Quixotic pursuit of radical demands. We will not let you tilt at windmills. (We have placed all studio windmills under heavy security). The fact of the matter is, we're going to win this thing. We've got enough material to wait out the strike. On the feature side, we've got great scripts ready to shoot. How do we know they're great? Because they were already
hits! Get ready for "Talladega Nights" starring Dane Cook! Wait until you see "Titanic" with Keira Knightley and Zac Efron! And on the TV side, we've got enough reality shows to choke a horse. Literally – one of the shows is "Can You Choke This Horse?" And for the fall, we're already working on "Can You Choke This Horse With the Stars?" (Pepsi, you want a logo on the horse? Consider it
done.)

We look forward to hearing from the WGA. Once they've unilaterally
dropped the majority of their demands and acceded to our wishes, we look forward to having a full and frank exchange of ideas with them.

Can you tell my own union is in contract negotiations right now? Wish I could fly to Boston for tomorrow's rally. I wanna hang out with Joss everyday.

Time flies when you're lazy as hell

I can't believe it's already the middle of December. Crap! I've got way too much going on; recovering from my vacation, enrolling in classes, getting the remodeling project going. And now I've got to do Christmas shopping too? Uggh, this is why I need a personal assistant.

Been dragging my feet on all the stuff I'm supposed to be doing, looking at photos from the cruise and the picket. I want to go back to Mexico. Or LA. Minnesota winters suck for my knees.

Earring

That's us

Look at all the pretties!

i heart this man

Summer Glau = future Terminator

Eliza Dushku = I can't wait for Dollhouse

Brett Matthews, Jossy, Brian K. Vaughn, Drew Goddard and Jane Espenson, so much big brainy goodness!

J. August Richards, Tim Minear and my captain Nathan Fillion

Vacation Highlights

Mary and I tried to make friends with many of the 200 people in our group but only a handful of them would talk to us, even after the speed friending thing we did. Oh well, we hung out with the cool kids.

I got a nasty case of SeaWhiskeySickness and spent the entire first night puking in our cabin.

Got accupuncture for the first time. Totally helped with the seasickness too.

Cabo San Lucas was beautiful and the only hot day that we got.

We laid out in sweatpants and hoodies and our towels wrapped around us, but dammit we got some sun.

The food was mostly crap.

Our VIP guests (Ron Glass, Michael Fairman & his family, Jonathan Woodward, Nectar Rose and Sonny Rhodes) were amazing! I could listen to Ron Glass laugh all day, Jonathan is totally insane and very entertaining and Sonny is one of the sweetest men ever.

Had my first Tarot Card & Palm readings. Cried my eyes out.

We didn't get to go to Ensenada because the swells were too high. And we didn't buy souvenirs in Cabo because everyone kept saying Ensenada would be so much cheaper. Sucks.

I kissed a cute boy.

We went to the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego while waiting for our train.

Ate at Red Pearl Kitchen in LA...super yummy dumplings and spring rolls.

Saw Fair to Midland play at the Troubadour in LA...you know you've been to a good rock show when the lead singer pukes on stage.

Joined the writer's strike in LA, walked the picket line for four hours.

Saw the following actors:

Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau, Eliza Dushku, Alan Tudyk, Juliet Landau, Amy Acker, Morena Baccarin, Nicky Brendon, Felicia Day, Raphael and Yan Feldman, Ron Glass, Harry Groener, Tom Lenk, J. August Richards and Camden Toy.

And writers:

JOSS WHEDON, Jeff Bell, Steven DeKnight, Ben Edlund, Jane Espenson, David Fury, Drew Goddard, Brett Matthews, Tim Minear, Marti Noxon, Doug Petrie. Plus Loni Peristere who is a special effects wizard and oh holy crap, Brian K. Vaughn who writes all of my favorite comic books! Plus, Sarah Michelle Gellar dropped off donuts for us. There were probably a lot of other people too that I just didn't recognize.

Went to a little "after strike picnic" and hung out.

Got my photo taken with Joss Whedon and didn't even care when he rubbed my fat roll.

Saw Serenity at Midnight.

Came home and slept for over 15 hours.

Mary and Jonathan Woodward

BLISS

I'm way too tired to blog about the vacation (even after sleeping 15 hours straight) other than to say it was great. Mary and I experienced a little something we like to call Revenge of the Nerds and I got a serious case of SeaWhiskeySickness but still it was so much fun. I went into this wanting nothing more than a decent photo with Joss. I'm a very happy girl.