blow

Let me tell you about a movie that really blows. Mr. and Mrs. Smith. This movie blew so bad it made me angry, I think because I was really hoping for better. Maybe that's my problem, but I want to complain about it anyway. I think I was also mad because normally I totally dig secret-spy movies, like True Lies and the Long Kiss Goodnight. Let me give you some specifics, so that you don't fall into the same trap I did.

The plot blew.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were uber-hot, but they blew.
Seth from the OC was in it, and his acting skills really blew, plus the reason why he was in it blew.
The beginning blew.
The middle blew.
The end had a good shoot-out scene with no real purpose or explanation, and also blew.

I really hope none of you are in the unfortunate position of having to watch this movie. If you are, I recommend you buy yourself some mint chocolate M&Ms. They're so good they're like crack and they will get you through anything.

double-duty

I got conned into pulling double-duty at the YWCA yesterday - I taught my usual spin and stretch class Friday at the butt-crack of dawn, then later that night I taught the cycle to the movies class. We watched Millions, which was quite a good movie. About halfway through the movie my rear started aching from so much active duty and so I got off the bike and pretended to stretch for most of the rest of the movie. It's good though to get paid to watch a movie.

Today we took the train to the Mall of America. Normally this time of year we avoid that place like the plague but we had to go watch a friend play in a quartet in the Macy's courtyard. They were very good and it was a lot of fun. There were also some other good perks: we got a little more shopping done (almost there!), we saw some LIVE models at Abercrombie and Fitch (oh my!), I had some Taco Bell (always good), saw some friends (except the ones that went MIA), and it kept me away from my new addiction, online boggle (website withheld due to dangerousness of the addiction).

SNOW DAY!!!

We got about 8 feet of snow today with more coming so my Studly Hubby did the thing a Studly Hubby should do in a situation like this and took a few hours off so we could go SKIING. Except, we realized on the way home that the warm weather was makng the snow awfully sticky and skiing may be more hard work than fun. So, we thought we'd go ICE SKATING instead. But then we learned that the neighborhood ice skating rink hadn't been cleared yet of the 8 feet of snow (and one lone guy was working on it so it would probably be several weeks). So we gave up and went running in the snow, then drove to the local fancy grocery store and bought banana cream pie and sushi and a muffin. And THAT was super fun. And my Studly Hubby pushed me on a swing which was also super fun. And then we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory which was better than I thought it would be (but wouldn't have been without the banana cream pie and sushi and muffin). Mmmmm all that chocolate is going to distract me for at least a week...

Paris Hilton as... the new Santa?

I'm almost afraid to post this, but it can't go without posting...

Joe Moretti of Cranston, RI, has built a Christmas display around Paris Hilton with 38,000 lights (most of which are pink) and giant 8-ft tall pictures of the gal. Is this modern art, or just a weird form of Santa-bashing? It got him on CNN anyway.

Beautiful Ring for a Beautiful Gal

Engagement announcement!

A good friend of mine from high school dragged home a boy I know from the same high school sometime after high school and managed to con him into proposing to her last week. He's a good boy, from the same stock as my Studly Hubby (went to the same elementary school). The boy further proved his worth when he had my Studly Hubby's studly jeweler parents make a custom ring for her that's almost as cool as the one they made for me. Way to go girlfriend!

A Quest for Hot Yoga

I considered going on a quest for the Holy Grail, but chose to go on a more attainable quest considering I live in the Twin Cities.

It turned out to be harder than i thought it would be.

There was a hot yoga class at CorePower Yoga in downtown Minneapolis (the side closest to where I live) at 9 am today. I thought, okee dokee, traffic shouldn't be too bad downtown on a Sunday morning, neither should parking, plus they have a sweet student discount. I was wrong about everything but the student discount (actually I never found out about the discount). Even though the place is less than 2 miles from my apartment, it took me almost 20 minutes to get over there because every block has a light and every light was red. When I did get there it took another ten minutes to go around the block to look for parking because every street was an inconvenient 1-way. It turns out the studio has no parking that I could find, and thanks to a stupid vikings game all the ramps and lots were $20 event parking. All that left was the meters, which are short term and more expensive than I had quarters.

Angrily, I drove back home, which only took 5 minutes because all the lights were green.

So the next class opportunity was at 10 am in Uptown at the Bikram Studio of India. This place supposedly heats their studio up to 115F and was a heck-of-a-lot more expensive, plus it was almost 6 miles away in a part of town with dubious parking, constantly horrible traffic, and a known population of uppity snobs (I think that's why it's called Uptown).

Anyways, it turns out I can take the freeway to this place so it only took 10 minutes, and it had its own parking lot (although I drove past the place three or four times because the sign was too small to see from the street). It was still super-expensive, but they had some nice amenities like rentable everything, lockers, a sun light in the ladies locker room (whoa!), and two extra teachers that were there to help the new people (that's me!). Plus it turns out the studio is actually only 105F (phew!).

The teacher for that class was a rather militant dude that ripped me into a horseback riding clinic flashback (clinics were done by this crazy screaming german lady). He barked all the orders, constantly came around and yelled at you to try harder, got mad at anybody who talked, and gave almost no water breaks or other kinds of breaks. Some of the things he said were uncannily similar to the wise words of my old riding teachers: chin up, look straight ahead or look where you want your body to go, heels down (or in yoga it gets slightly more complicated, heels may be up, or one heel down and the other up, etc). By the time it was over my hair was completely soaked with sweat (and I have a lot of hair), my clothes could have been wrung out, I stank like a pig, and I could hardly see straight. Now that's a good workout.

Post by request: Dandy Warhols detailed review

It appears some of you are Dandy Warhols fans and are demanding more details on the concert we went to Wednesday night. I didn't have time till now to do this, and it's already fading fast, so i'm going to expunge as much as I can before I completely forget where I went or who I am. I'm going to do it reviewer-style with some upsides and downsides. Don't get me wrong, I loved the show, but I feel it's my obligation to describe the whole deal.

upsides:
- they are super energetic in their music and made you want to dance
- they played almost all of our favorite songs
- the set was very long, at least an hour and a half
- Zia played with the opening band a little bit, causing quite the ruckus
- 1st ave club is a great place for a show, they played the movie "hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" while we were waiting for the bands to come on
- they were surprisingly professional and very very good musicians.
- They also altered quite a few of the songs a little demonstrating a rare breed of versatility and skill and making it more interesting
- the audience was full of grungy young people wearing pretty entertaining and trendy outfits, it was definitely good for people watching
- the place was packed (I dunno if this is good or bad but I guess it's good for them). The floor was smashed full of people all the way to the back wall and you could hardly walk around upstairs, although we didn't have too much trouble getting a good spot for viewing the band (most everybody was on the floor and we stayed upstairs).

downsides:
- they had a strobe light facing the audience for a few songs, i hate when they do that because it gives me a headache - cool effect for them, not so cool for the audience
- A few of the songs went on and on and on with just instrumentals and not much change, we didn't mind so much the first time but they did it at least once more and it got old.
- Zia didn't take her shirt off
- The lead singer, Courtney Taylor-Taylor, wasn't incredibly interactive with the audience, he rarely spoke or made eye contact. He had a few cool dance moves and sang really well and had a cool outfit on though.
- They didn't start playing till 10:30 and we didn't get home till 1:00 am, and then had to get up at 7 am to go to work (ugh). Why don't bands ever play earlier on weeknights?

So overall it was super-great and we had a good time. I even had a few beers, since they claim (on their website) that they're a good band for listening to while drinking beer (they are). I think the Dandy Warhols are on the up-and-up, and I'm thrilled I got to see them at such a great venue.

PS There's an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Walker Art Museum in Mpls going on right now and I got to see it Friday night, it's pretty cool although some of his work is rather traumatizing since he liked to use death and destruction as his focus sometimes. So this week had a consistent theme - Dandy Warhols on Wed night and Andy Warhol on Friday night, although the themes are somewhat unrelated I suppose.