when nerds do Halloween

Halloween and I never really got along when I was younger, mostly because I hadn't really yet embraced the fact that I was a nerd. It's hard to be a nerd regardless (as treasurer of the Latin Club and the Amnesty International Club, I don't think I have to tell you how much touch I did NOT get in high school) but then you've got Halloween and your friends all want to dress as something slutty and you're like, how come they only make Han Solo outfits for guys? And if I dress up as Amanda from Highlander, is anyone REALLY going to get that reference?

So I would usually dress up as a cat or a ghost or something else boring, but my heart was never in it, especially since my friend Lindsay spent a good four years in a row trying to talk me into dressing up as a tomato. You will never see pictures of me dressed up as a tomato on Halloween, and why, why is that? Because I refused. I may be a nerd, but I've still got some self-respect.

So it was a few Halloweens ago that it finally occurred to me that I could celebrate Halloween like a nerd does, meaning I could dress up as some esoteric cartoon or comic book or literary or pop culture character and people might actually not trashcan me or knock my books to the floor while I was walking into AP English class. Not that they did that to me in high school anyways, because nerds quickly learn to choose one of two survival tactics while being teenagers: a) Blend and disappear into the wall, or b) learn martial arts so you can kick everyone else's ass if they give you crap.

I went with option b.

So I started dressing up as Buffy and Catwoman and a bunch of other fun, moderately slutty but still pop-culture-alternative characters and Halloween finally, FINALLY, became fun for me.

This is me two years ago as Neil Gaiman's Death (and yes, I'm aware Death was a brunette, but blonds should be allowed to kill people too).

Me as a blond Death. Also, that's my friend Chase, and men, no, she's not single, stop asking.

What Neil Gaiman's Death actually looks like.

And speaking of blonds being allowed to kill people...

I found my costume for this year. Meet Harley Quinn, the Joker's main squeeze, and a true blond that kills people. A lot.

The first two photos are very classic Harley Quinn in a jester outfit, but a) the jester outfits look lame on 95% of the population, and b) the outfits are skin-tight, and I've got more than 1% body fat, so no thanks.

The second two photos are Harley Quinn from Batman: Arkham Asylum, the new video game, and I love the new look they've given her.

So I'm combining the first look and second look by keeping the color scheme all black and red, then mixing in some punk and Arkham Asylum by throwing on a red and black corset (the one I was wearing in the Dia de los Muertos pics), black and red arm warmers, a black skirt, red tights, black fishnets, tall black boots, and painting my nails black and red. I'll also be sporting pigtails and throwing on tons of black eye makeup and blood red lipstick. Wish me luck.

And Benni is going as a very classic Joker, so we should balance each other out quite nicely :)

So does everyone have their Halloween costumes? What are y'all going as?? I wanna know!!

grim grinning ghosts

As promised, pictures from my weekend: on Saturday night, my guy and I went down to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and celebrated Dia de los Muertos with a few thousand other Angelenos. It was freakin' awesome. I took lots of pictures. I apologize in advance.

Me and the boy. Not quite rocking the Calaca look but close enough, eh?

Me. That corset is going to get another use for Halloween, too. Oh, I haven't told you my costume yet? It's....well, I'll tell you on Thursday :)

rest in peace, Dee Dee Ramone. We miss you.

I really think having "Actor/Husband/Father/Count Dracula" on your gravestone would be kind of badass.

okay, so I lied (but only a little)

... I didn't get a chance to upload pics last night because everything was all crazy-busy-like. Ever have that? Monday's work day just keeps on continuing into Monday night and you're like, "Leave me the hell alone, it's 7 pm already??"

So I'll try to post my past weekend's pictures on tomorrow's blog, sorry about that. Life is what happens while you're making other plans...

PS Is anyone else really, super terrible at reading those little Captcha words? You know, when you're leaving a comment on a blog or forum, it's those little wavy letters that you have to read and then re-type into the blank space below to make sure you're not a computer in Bangladesh?

And does anyone else think those Captchas are secret little messages? Sometimes I get ones that say things like "glee" or "fiery" and I think, THE UNIVERSE IS TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING!! SPEAK, O UNIVERSE!!


I never claimed I was normal.

Dark side of the dinner party

First of all, a huge THANK YOU to everyone who weighed in (no pun intended, honest!) on their thoughts about food for my last post. I loved all of your kind, thoughtful comments; they totally made my day. I love how so many of you view food as comfort and love, or a way to honor the memory of someone who's passed away, or find it an expression of your creativity. And I can completely identify with those of you who struggle with what food means, and how much balance it requires in our lives. Ugh. I'm right there with you. And I've definitely been to that place where food is simply fuel to get me going through the day, or helping me fend off boredom.

So my gratitude goes out to each and every one of you for letting me know I'm not alone in occasionally making food my best friend, my worst enemy, my lover, or my family. :)

And speaking of food, I'm gonna hold off today on posting about what I did this weekend (hint: it was at a cemetery), but I wanted to tell you guys a funny anecdote about a dinner party my guy and I attended last week.

I made toasted goat cheese bread for the party and (okay, okay, I'll just start using his name already) Benni made some sort of divine kielbasa and cooked onion and green pepper kabobs (does anyone else have an almost Pavlovian reaction to the word "kabobs" by automatically conjuring up Bret and Jemaine of the band Flight of the Conchords? No? Okay, I'm insane). And to answer your question, Lira, no, Benni is not my Jewish Mother who yells "You're too THIN!" (that's YOUR job, girl), he's the son of a New Jersey pizza-maker. That should explain a lot.

So we head over to the party where I promptly meet my long-lost BFF, this artsy-cool chick who is about as socially inept as I am but dresses way better and says the word fuck in front of her dad, who's standing right beside her nodding when she uses it in the sentence, "UC Santa Cruz weirded me the fuck out." She's a few years younger than I am, infinitely more cool, but totally me, if, you know, I wore orange nail polish and dyed my hair black. And said fuck in front of my father.

Anyways, so Benni is talking about how he went through his rebellious (read: totally hot) phase where he got a couple tattoos and went skydiving, and I kid you not, this girl almost chokes on her bread as she starts laughing when he mentions skydiving. We wait for, you know, the crumbs to stop flying when she finally wipes her eyes and explains.

Turns out she had a friend who went skydiving a few years back with some crusty old skydiving instructor, and I should explain something about skydiving right now: the first few times you go skydiving, you go tandem, which means you are literally strapped to your skydiving instructor in case you freak out or black out or urinate all over yourself, one of which I'm planning on doing when I eventually go, I haven't decided yet which one will make the best Tweet. Probably the urine.

So imagine this poor guy jumping out of a plane, first time sky-diving EVER, tied into his flight instructor so that his back is up against his instructor's stomach, and his flight instructor growls, "You're in my world now," before promptly DYING OF A HEART ATTACK approximately 10,000 feet above the ground, and this guy at some point has to figure out a) that his flight instructor is now dead, b) how the hell he's going to land, and c) how the hell he's going to land strapped to a dead body.

So the three of us are literally crying in laughter at our table, which is about the time that other people, seeing that we are obviously laughing at something, wander over and ask, "What's so funny?" and all we can shriek out between the tears and hysterical laughter is "He had to land on the dead guy!!" and "You're in MY world now!"And people would just sort of back away and head towards the dessert table.

Sometimes, you just gotta laugh at the horrible and tragic. But man...are those not the best last words EVER?

And with that...Happy Monday, everyone! :)

food as metaphor

Okay, here's a question I'm posing to each of you to spill or share, if you're willing:

What does food mean to you?

(Lemme explain.)

I think of food as a metaphor. Food is never just food to most of us...it's comfort, love, nourishment, guilt, an unexpected treat, a gift, a curse...food is very emotional. And when someone else makes us food, it's doubly emotional.

I'll back up a bit by explaining what spurred this particular post. That Boy I Adore moved here a week and a half ago, on Columbus Day, and needed (understandably) a few days to get his place in order, and then I took off for the weekend on a camping and canoeing trip where I proceeded to panic and flail a lot and get lots of mosquito bites, because that's how I roll.

So I get back into town on Sunday afternoon and my guy offered to make me dinner that evening, at his place, as his pots and pans finally came in the mail and he bought groceries.

We eat a delicious dinner, he is careful not to put any red sauce on my stuffed pasta shells (I don't like red sauce), and the food is amazing. Also, he packs up the leftovers for me to take for lunch on Monday to work. Did I mention I adore this guy?

Monday night, I stop by his place for about twenty minutes just to say hi after work. Again, he has cooked dinner for me, which, when I have to leave, he packs up for me to eat later. I feel like a jerk for showing up for food and then running out the door.

Tuesday night, I have an acting class, but I show up, again for about half an hour after work, and lo and behold, he has made a delicious dinner again. And packed up leftovers for me to take to lunch on Wednesday.

Wednesday night, same thing. Amazing dinner, incredible dessert (he made chocolate covered strawberries to surprise me, even though I was the one who was supposed to make them), and then packed up the leftovers for me to take to lunch.

As we were eating last night, watching the Phillies beat the Dodgers on TV, something struck me. I put down my fork and looked at him. He looked over at me, concerned. Was there something wrong with the food?

No, I said. But it had just occurred to me that it had been over fourteen years since someone had cooked me dinner four times in a row. And I felt so incredibly loved by this.

You see, when my mom finally divorced my dad when I was a kid, she became a single full-time working mom, receiving no child support from my father. So we moved into a much smaller house, and it was just me and her, and we took care of each other, but because she worked all the time, I had to step up. I did all the grocery shopping, cooked all the meals, cleaned the house, made sure the bills were paid on time... I had to become an adult, really quickly. And I knew that if I was hungry, there wasn't going to be anyone there to feed me or cook for me. I had to learn how to do it myself.

Whenever my mom or someone else did cook for me when I was a kid, I would feel so incredibly loved and taken care of. It's a feeling I can't describe, really. But it was someone caring about my well-being, when I was raised in a home that didn't do that very often, and I felt special and watched over. Someone making food for me was a real treat, and to this day, it still is. I equate food with love, and when I want to show love or need to feel loved, there is usually food involved.

The worst part is, when I go to those deep, dark places where I don't love myself, I stop feeding myself. Incredibly unhealthy, I know, but we are all just human.

I'll tell you a secret: this past January and February, I was not okay. I was going through a devastating breakup with someone that I cared for very much, who cared for me very much, but we knew we weren't making each other happy. It was harder than just about anything I have ever done, to let this person go, and let him let me go.

I was not eating, at all. In fact, I was starving myself. Not because I thought I needed to lose weight. Not even because I thought I didn't deserve to eat. I wasn't eating because I simply couldn't function.

So I did one of the smartest things I've ever done (note how amazingly humble I am!): I put my friends on baby-sitting duty for me. I asked this girl, and this girl, and this girl, and this guy and his amazing fiancee, to come over each night and either help me make dinner or bring me something to eat because I was not okay.

And they did.

And I got through it all, because I knew I was loved.

So here I sit, eating my left-overs from yet another wonderful meal that was made for me, and I feel ridiculously loved and spoiled. And yes, I've already expressed gratitude to my guy, but I will, again:

Thank you, sweetie. I really, really appreciate it.



k guys, now it's your turn to share :)

just keep paddling, just keep paddling...

A few months ago my good friend Lara invited me to come camping and canoeing this weekend with a bunch of her friends that I'd never met before, and I think before she even finished asking me my response was HELL YES, LADY.

So I pick Lara up Friday night, and we spend the next 4 1/2 hours driving to Moabi Regional Park, off the Colorado River (on the border of California and Arizona), arriving a little after midnight.

"Please tell me we don't have to get up at 7 am or something ungodly like that to go canoeing," I tell Lara.

Lara checks her text messages and then laughs.

"Nope. 6:30 am!"

Riiiiight. Have I mentioned I'm not a morning person?

We get up grumpily on Saturday morning and I try not to walk into things as we get ready to head out for the day, then grab a van down to the shore where our rented canoes and paddles are ready to go and waiting for us. We have packed lunches, sunblock, and our cameras. We're ready to go!

Upon arrival, I immediately buckle and strap on my life vest, as I am not a strong swimmer at all, and as we are waiting for our canoes I realize two things:

1) I am the only one wearing a life vest. Everyone else just kind of throws theirs in the canoe.

2) I am definitely the only one wearing my life vest while I am standing on the shore, thus outing myself as the Goddess of all Dorks.

We get in our canoes, and here's where a couple issues arise: the first being that I am a MORON and packed my nice, expensive camera in a ziplock bag in our cooler, the second being that I stupidly also packed my CAR KEYS in Lara's backpack, so a sort of panic explodes in me as I realize that if our canoe tips over at all and we lose the cooler or the backpack at the bottom of the river, I am facing losing my very nice camera, and/or losing the keys to my car which I need to DRIVE ME BACK TO L.A.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Lara," I say, and the urgency of my tone of voice causes my friend's head to whip towards me. "We cannot lose the cooler or the backpack. Having the canoe tip over is NOT an option."

She stares at me, concerned, then nods. I try to feel better.

The second issue that comes up is one that happens quite frequently to me, as I am an impulsive, quick-thinking decision maker who occasionally (okay, frequently) jumps into something without getting all the facts.

We're canoeing down the Colorado River, it's 100 degrees in the air, 60 degrees in the water, I'm trying not to think about drowning or the canoe tipping over or me drowning while trying to recover my car keys at the bottom of the river when it occurs to me that I have no idea how far or for how long we're canoeing today. So I ask, and the answer I get is this:

17 miles.

We are canoeing down the Colorado River in 100 degree heat for 17 miles and oh my god please kill me now.

And I think back to those times at the gym where I've done rowing exercises or whatever and I think, when I'm at the gym and I get tired I can just stop and walk away and get into my air-conditioned car and then go eat McDonald's to go undo all the excercise I've just done. THAT was nice.

Because when you're paddling in the middle of the river and you get tired and you stop, your canoe stops too, and then it's just you and your canoe buddy and you're not going anywhere anymore except drifting down the Colorado River. So you have to keep paddling, because nobody is going to haul your canoe or your butt for you.

So I kept paddling. My arms are killing me.

The good news is that I calmed down quite a bit about the whole drowning thing about halfway through the morning, the canoe never tipped over, we stopped frequently for breaks, and when we finished at 4 in the afternoon I was still (mostly) standing.

That night we feasted on salmon, korean bbq, sausages, mashed potatoes, caesar salad, twice baked potatoes, and a huge spread of cheese, crackers, and salami. Much better than McDonald's. I washed it all down with s'mores and root beer. And then I spent a good half of the night staring up at the sky, lost in how beautiful the stars are. I really miss seeing stars.

What I have to show for my amazing weekend is: two sunburned knees (the only body part that got sunburned); 15 (at last count) mosquito bites; and really buff arms. And a very sexy farmer's tan from my t-shirt, yaaaaay.

And as promised, with my (stupid! stupid!) camera on board the canoe, here are pictures for your viewing pleasure:

ready to launch! Note the non-used life-vests...I took mine off halfway through the day out of sheer embarrassment.

view from the canoe.

some ancient Native American hieroglyphs you can find carved into the walls along the Colorado River.

Me! And Lara, in the background, doing all the hard work and keeping my butt afloat.


I hope you all had wonderful weekends! I can't wait to read all about them :)

trip like I do

So here are a few pics from my trip...please bare in mind that they are awfully boring, as plane trips generally are (and we like to keep them that way), and road trips across the United States, while very pretty at times, also usually make for boring photos.

So BEHOLD! The most interesting photos I could find!

ipod plus plastic cup of sprite= happiness

this is my friend Pepper's cat, Adelaide. Note that I'm a jerk and didn't take any actual photos of PEPPER and I; just her cat. She texted me (Pepper, not the cat) while I was halfway to New Mexico with "We didn't take any pictures!!" Oops.

Don't look back in anger...

But you can look up anytime you wish. The clouds were beautiful.

So I'm off on another adventure this weekend - a camping and canoeing trip that I've been looking forward to for quite a while. And hey, when I'm back from THIS trip, maybe I'll have some better photos to share with y'all.

Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend :)

and this is why I don't do drugs

Sometimes, when you don't feel very well and all you want out of life is a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese, as it's the ultimate comfort food, and you're stumbling around in the kitchen trying to not drop the butter knife on your bare feet and you reach into the fridge to grab your half a stick of butter and your milk so that you can actually make yourself that big bowl of macaroni and cheese but everything is a little bit underwater since you're not actually feeling 100% so you grab the stick of butter and then you close the fridge door but you forget that your head is still in the fridge so you end up closing the fridge door on your own face.

It's hard out there for a spaz.

plane trips and road trips and weather, oh my

Pop quiz:

Who sang the kick-ass early-90's hair-band ballad "Cherry Pie?" If you guessed Poison or Whitesnake, nope, you're dead wrong. It was Warrant!

And this is just one of many fun facts you learn on a road trip. But let me back up to the beginning.

So I have to thank my friend Shaun for not only giving me a ride to LAX on Friday morning (at the crack of why-the-hell-am-I-up) but for also having hot Starbucks waiting for me in the car when he arrived, which I had fully intended on buying him. So Shaun is pure concentrated awesome in my book, not that he wasn't before but this just sort of seals it. I adore that guy.

I end up at LAX well before my flight, fly through security (for whatever reason, whenever I wear my Batman t-shirt at airports, security peeps seem to like me a lot more, I don't get it either but I'll keep doing it until the charm wears off) and have some time to read my book (I'm still reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) and have breakfast before my flight takes off. And I thank God every time I fly that I am built like a Hobbit because I was squished beside a window and a very nice southern gentleman who happened to be completely unaware that he possessed elbows, but I still made it through okay.

So my good friend Pepper picks me up at the airport, yelling "GOOBER!!" at the top of her lungs over near baggage claim, so loud that about five other people sort of stop in their tracks fearfully, as if it's a war cry from Willy Wonka. Goober is my nickname that only Pepper calls me, because everyone else just refers to me as "spaz" or "that little retarded blonde girl". Or "Little Crane," which is the nickname my kung fu instructor gave me after watching me do my kung fu forms once, and I kid you not, he paused as he tried to give me some sort of helpful advice and what he came up with was, "Try it again...but without flailing your arms so much."

Yup.

Pepper and I head off to a surprise dinner, meaning that the restaurant was a surprise, not the fact that we were eating dinner, and lo and behold, how much do I love this girl, because she took me to Pops off of Route 66 in Oklahoma. Pops is one of those restaurants that I can't really explain... except that it has a huge neon soda pop bottle outside and carries more than 500 different brands and flavors of soda, served alongside burgers, fries, shakes, and patty melts.

Did I say yum already? Because YUM. And Pepper knows I'm a root-beer-aholic, so I was in heaven.

That Boy I Adore drove in and met us at the restaurant (Pepper: "Do you think he might have missed seeing the restaurant from off the road?" Me: "No, because I think the neon glow-in-the-dark fifty foot tall soda bottle THAT YOU CAN SEE FROM SPACE might clue him in."), then we stayed the night in OKC before spending the entire next day driving, then crashed (not literally) at a hotel in Gallup, New Mexico. The next day we were off again (after eating breakfast at a Cracker Barrel, am I the last person on this planet to discover how awesome Cracker Barrel restaurants are?) and then we landed in Los Angeles late Sunday night.

And then we woke up Monday morning to rain and clouds and I just about died of happiness.

Hello, autumnal Los Angeles! How I've missed you!! Keep that rain coming!!

So I will post road-trip pics in a day or two...but I hope you all had lovely weekends and that wherever you are, you are enjoying autumn to its fullest :)

checklist

Airline ticket confirmation and photo id?

check.

Swiss army knives left at home?

check.

baggie of totally innocuous fluids that the government has somehow mandated as explosive when combined? (Can we get a Mythbusters on that already? I really want to see Jamie try to blow up a plane using mascara, leave-in conditioner, lip balm, and hand sanitizer.)

check.

Ipod playlist created and set to start off with Led Zeppelin's "Ramble on", possibly one of the greatest rock and roll songs of all time, followed by the White Stripes' "Little Cream Soda"?

check.



Everything else is just details, kids. Have a sweet weekend.

OK(C) by me

Happy Thursday, everyone! I hope you all have a great weekend ahead of you - some of you (okay, one of you) is even getting married! YAY Celia!

As for me? I am catching an early flight tomorrow to beautiful downtown Oklahoma City (I've never been before, so if it's not beautiful, just let me be surprised, k?) to visit and hang with my good friend Pepper (she's the hot redhead hanging with me in the picture below -- doesn't that pic look like it should be an album cover? And may I be the drummer, please?). That boy I adore is moving across the country, having finished taking care of his father in New Jersey, and he is meeting me in OKC and then we are driving the rest of the way together back to good ol' sunny SoCal, where he got an apartment just down the street from me.

I'm so excited I could puke, the minor reason being I love road trips, but mostly because I'm awfully fond of not doing the long-distance thing anymore. Just think! My relationship will no longer be dictated by T-Mobile's cell tower reception! And oh, the cuddling that is in my immediate future. HUZZAH.

So I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Thursday, a terrific Friday, and a fantastic weekend. I'll catch you guys on Monday, hopefully with lots and lots of pictures :)

Pepper and I, contemplating our next Rockband appearance

something wicked this way comes...

I love October so much, I really, really do. So here's my usual round-up of affordably awesome stuff to do this month (again, apologies in advance: this is usually LA-based stuff. Also, please note that I try to keep everything on here less than $15 per person, but this month, there's a couple events over the budget, so don't get all huffy.)

Happy October, everyone!

Nick Horny* kicks ass.

This Tuesday, Oct. 6th (tonight!!) at 7:30 pm, he's hanging out at the Skirball and reading from his newest novel, Juliet, Naked. Hang around after the lecture to get your copy of the book signed, because he's just that cool.

Admission is free, but reservations are required. Get 'em here.

In the Egyptian theater, no one can hear you scream...

on Friday, Oct. 9th, the famous Hollywood theater is screening a double feature of Alien and Aliens. Just don't eat spaghetti for three weeks after you see the movies.

Check it out here - general admission is $10

Like art? Like walking?

What if someone COMBINED THE TWO, ooooh....

On Saturday Oct. 10th, from 11 am to 5 pm, Pasadena is holding their 4th annual ARTWalk, where you get to walk around all over pretty downtown Pasadena (in the Playhouse District, no less) and look at tons of art. The event highlights some of the best Southern Californian visual artists showcasing their work in painting, sculpture, watercolor, photography, mixed media, ceramics, jewelry, drawings and printmaking.

Best of all? Totally free...until you buy that vase for $400. Here's the details.

Not sick of Pasadena yet? Good, because there's chocolate to be had!

The very next day, on Sunday, Oct. 11th, someone who is a freakin' genius decided to create something called the Los Angeles Luxury Chocolate Salon.

Happening down at the Pasadena Center, chocolate fanatics like myself can taste & experience the finest in artisan, gourmet & premium chocolate from over 30 professional chocolatiers. Plus, as if chocolate wasn't enough, there's wine tasting too.

It's $20 for advance tickets for adults and $25 at the door; kids under 6 are free; and kids 6 -12 are $10. No, I'm not kidding. This event is really happening. Praise the gods.

Manners are always important

Oh how I love Book Soup. There's books, there's...no...soup, but occasionally if Johnny Depp is in town you can find him here. You can also find the coolest book readings, like nifty advice on zombie manners, being read out loud on Monday, Oct. 12th at the store. How thoughtful of you, Book Soup! Now I'll say please when I beg for brains.

admission is free.

Where The Wild Things Are comes out Friday, Oct. 16th!!!

Oh my god can't.stand.the.awesome.

A haunted scavenger hunt in LA?

Where you can make your own Blair-Witch style documentary that will premiere on the big screen at the Egyptian theatre, and then after the awards ceremony, you can stick around for a double screening of The Lost Boys and The Goonies?? Sweet!

it's true

general admission is $32, $30 for students and seniors

Halloween is my favorite :)

If you're looking to celebrate with kids: the Descanso Gardens in La Cañada hosts the Pumpkin Roundup on both Oct. 24th and 25th. Along with costume parades, there's sing-alongs, face painting, pumpkin decorating, and pony rides (Oct. 24th only for pony rides).

General $8. Senior/Students $6. Children (5 to 12 years) $3.
Guild members and Children under 5 free.
Tram $4. Enchanted Railroad $3

If you're looking to celebrate with other adults: November 1st is Dia De Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and LA likes to celebrate it in style - we kick off our celebration on Saturday Oct. 24th at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery -- and calaca apparel is HIGHLY encouraged. I went to this last year -- it's amazing.

admission is $10.

and if you're not trick or treating on Halloween night:

Spend it with the UCLA Film and Television Archive when it presents The Skull (1965), a Peter Cushing thriller about supernatural grave robbers. Then visit with Christopher Lee and the cave-dwelling tricentenarians of City of the Dead (1960). Both of these would probably freak me out...considering the movie Gremlins scares me. Yeah...

Admission is $10, and you can get tickets here

*UPDATE: it's actually Nick Hornby, as pointed out by my friend Wilder, but I think everyone agrees that Horny works just fine as well. Hey, if the shoe fits...

screwing with your work productivity...

Rules of Thumb

warning:

a) this website is totally, totally addictive, particularly for random info junkies like myself; and

b) some of these people actually know what they are talking about, and some of them don't. Take the rules of thumb with a grain of salt and then go forth into the world and spread your newly acquired esoteric knowledge.

Have a great weekend, everyone!!