90210 Confessions

In honor of today being “90210 Day,” I have two things thing confess:

1. Is more of an interesting tidbit.  It was 3 years ago today that Jay first met my family.  We went to visit them as they were helping my sister Christie move into her freshman dorm room at Marist College, then went to the Palace Diner (represent) for some “get to know you time.”  It’s also my mom’s birthday today, which is why I remember the date.  Christie is now starting her senior year at Marist.  Time really does move motherf*cking fast.

2. I have never actually seen 90210.  I was too young to care when it first came out and then when I wanted to watch it, my parents thought it was inappropriate.  I have only ever seen part of one episode and it involved Tori Spelling and Halloween.  It was at a cross country team dinner when I was in 8th or 9th grade.  [Side confession: I often incredibly disliked running cross country but I think I've spoken about that on MetroBuzz, maybe?]  Should I invest in watching some of the seasons of 90210?  People seem very excited about today’s date.

Happy birthday to my wonderful mother!  I really, really, really want to go to the Palace now and get either sweet potato pancakes OR an egg white omlet with turkey and turkey sausage.  #omfgIMissCollegeDaysSometimes!

Tags: 90210, Marist College, Palace Diner

Oh, HAI SEPTEMBER!

Holy crap! When did it get to be September 1, 2010?!

I feel like the summer was 100% action packed and justified in going as quickly as it did but the months of January thru June went like woah.  I remember it like yesterday that I wrote a blog post about how excited I was for all the awesome things that 2010 had to offer and then we went to NYC to celebrate New Years Eve 2010 with Melissa.  I should actually tell the story of New Years Eve.  I asked Melissa a while ago and she said she had no problem with it.  Holy mother-f*cking-shit, that was 9 months ago.  If I get enough positive response saying they want to hear about it, I’ll blog about it.  Although when I don’t pimp this blog out on Twitter, no one reads it, haha.  Let me know in the comments if you want to hear about how Jay, Melissa & I rang in 2010.  If not, then word.  Regardless, I feel like so much has happened in 2010.

We went to Hawaii.  We got engaged.  I went to London.  We had the 30-hour-podcast.  We picked a wedding venue.  My aunt passed away.  We went to LA for the Lost finale.  Lost ended!  We got iPads.  We celebrated my grandparents’ 55th anniversary party.  Sarah & Amanda came to visit.  We went to Comic Con.  We went to Disneyland.  We fostered a kitten for a day.  We had our engagement party.  So much more that I know I am forgetting.  It’s insane how many awesome things have happened so far this year.

So anyways (ding).  Now that September has come along, we still have LADY GAGA!!!  Yay!!  September 19th at the RBC Center.  Katelyn and Jeremiah #2 are coming to visit September 17-19, too.  It’s going to be an awesome weekend.  I’m so excited.  I also took the month of August off from doing cardio workouts and I’m starting to feel super restless and getting a bit doughy again.  I’ve still been doing pilates 3 days a week but when you combine less than half a week of exercise with eating a ton of crap every day, it feels not okay.  So September is hereby deemed “get back into shape month.”

I’ve also spent the month of August reading a lot.  I was starting to feel like I spent too much time on the Internet so rather than refresh Twitter a million times a day and beg for questions on Formspring every night, I decided I’d read books instead.  Soooo I began with the Temperance Brennan novels by Kathy Reichs - aka the books that my new favorite TV show Bones is loosely based on.  I’m on book 5 right now, “Grave Secrets,” and hope to be finished with it by tomorrow.  I’ll have to write a review of the series when I finally finish them (I believe there are 10 or 11 in all) and a brief review of each book if anybody is actually interested.  Next up, I have “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” which I’m really anxious and eager to read.  Following that, I still have all the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) novels to read.  I read the first when I was on the plane back from London but still have the rest from the boxed set that I got for Christmas and I’d like to finish them all.  I’d also like to read The Hunger Games trilogy.  Does anyone recommend them?  I’ve heard a lot about them over Twitter and Facebook lately and gotten a ton of coupons for them through Borders and Barnes & Nobles the last few weeks.  Should I invest in them?

Alright, back to Grave Secrets.  Happy September, everybody!

And finally, as of September 1, 2010 - 240 DAYS UNTIL THE WEDDING!!!

[Note: I realize I never actually finished sharing the Hawaii stories, including how Jeff Fahey & I got shitfaced together during a Lost press event.  If anyone wants to hear about that, holler at me via the comments too.]

Tags: Bones, Kathy Reichs, Temperance Brennan

Jay & Jack Featurette on “Audibly Lost”

Alex from Audibly Lost has been working on a Lost podcasting documentary called “Audibly Lost.” I know he’s been working on it like crazy for quite some time now and has driven around the country interviewing people involved in the Lost community. Jay & Jack were fortunate enough to be interviewed by Alex back in March after the 30 Hour Podcast and now they’re the subject of his first featurette from “Audibly Lost”! It also has Kris White, Ralph Apel, Natasha Fray, Axel Foley from Lost Mythos Podcast, Josh & Amanda from Lost Flashbacks Podcast, and a special “appearance” by Michael Emerson. Thank you, Alex!! I’m so excited to see the rest of the movie!

An “Audibly Lost” featurette: Jay and Jack from Audibly Lost on Vimeo.

I really, really love with Ralph has to say about the finale party and friends coming together. Well said, dude. Tear.

Tags: Alex Foley, Audibly Lost, Jay and Jack, Kris White, Lost, Lost Flashback Podcast, Lost Mythos Podcast, Michael Emerson, Ralph Apel, The Lost Podcast with Jay and Jack

The One Where Heather Turns 21

My future sister-in-law Heather turns 21 this month.  I like parties and I like Heather so we threw her a 21st birthday party this weekend.  We played King’s Cup (they call it Circle of Death) a few times and it reminded me of awesome times with Amanda G. during college.  I loved that game and Heather’s party brought me back.  I think it also brought Clif back too because we both acknowledged “old school” rules, which was funny.

Anyway, we had cake:

We had friends:

We had Captain Kirk.  I wish I could explain more right now but I slacked at blogging/putting pics up back in April.  I *WILL* and it will be epic.  Consider this a prequel/having seen “Empire Strikes Back” before “A New Hope.”  Just trust me. When I tell the Kirk stories, they will be worth it.

So at some point last night, Jay & I decided it would be a good idea to balance on the papasan chair and take a pic. BAD IDEA.Especially when one party has gained weight (aka me).

I ended up with this bruise.  It was worth it but it freaking hurts even now as I type this.  It was worth it though for eating the extra pizza bites and having so much fun.  Happy Birthday, Heather!!!

sometimes you just gotta go there.

This is perhaps one of the best headlines I’ve seen in a long time:

Tags: Headlines, Star Wars Speed Dating

‘Lost’ Podcasting Downfall: The Great Name Debate

So after Comic Con, Jay & I fostered one of Heather’s kittens for a night while we found her a home with my co-worker’s sister-in-law.  This kitten was the runt of her litter & super tiny.  She was absolutely adorable and actually really liked me (animals liking me better than Jay just doesn’t happen).  She fell asleep in my arms that night.  Poor Zoe had a temper tantrum over the kitten being there for a night & refused to come out of the man cave for the day.  I felt really badly actually but it was only for a night, so we decided to just let her sulk and deal with it lol.

Here’s an idea of how small she was:

But perhaps the coolest thing was Jay & I taught her how to play Uzu on the iPad.  She was fascinated by the iPad:

So anyway, this all leads into something, I promise.  We didn’t want to get too attached to her, so we didn’t give her a name (her new owners named her Audrey).  I did, however, go on a name meaning site and start looking up some names just to see what would be a nice name to suggest to her new mom.  Idk, I like doing things like that.  I got super involved in looking at different names and then looking up where my name, Jay’s, my sisters, Jay’s sisters, etc. fell in popularity over the last few years.  I was looking at a list of the Top 1,000 names, too, for both boys and girls.  I’m not one of those people who has all their baby names picked out years in advance, mainly because I think that’s bad luck to do that.  But that’s just me.

The following exchange took place later on:

Me: “I like the name Jacob.  That’s not a bad name.”

Jay: “Eehhh, Jacob? I don’t know.  Could be too…I don’t know if I could use the name Jacob.”

Me: “Why not? Twilight fever won’t last forever.  People won’t associate that Jacob with Twilight in like 5 years.”

Jay <Pause, incredulous look>: “I don’t care about Twilight.”

Me: “Then what’s the big deal?!”

Jay <slowly>: “Lost…?”

Me <Beat>: “OH YEAH!!”

So here’s my question.  Since Jay’s got that whole Lost Podcast thing, does this mean that any Lost name is out of the picture for us to use in the future?  I think that pets are one thing, but is it fair to subject our future children to a Lost name that we just happen to like when they’ll probably spend the rest of their lives avoiding Comic Con so people don’t go “You’re JAY’S kid?! And your name is Ben?  How adorable!  Smile creepy for us, little Ben!  How’s Hurley doing, little Ben?” or “Hey, little Charlotte! Do you have a bloody nose? Would you like a chocolate bar?”

I think that’s why celebrities give their kids such f*cked up names.  They have to go for a name that can never be associated with any project they’ve ever worked on or character they’ve ever played lol.  Let’s face it: Jennifer Aniston could never have a kid named Rachel.  So that’s what I’ve been wondering for the last week and a half.  What do you think about it?

Tags: Lost, Pets

I really hope this marriage thing works out…

…because I already bought my pass for San Diego Comic Con 2011:

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed, stay healthy, & not take any more days off other than the wedding so I can even have a chance to be able to go next year.  But woo-hoo!

Tags: San Diego Comic Con 2011

“It was all started by a mouse.”

So the day after Comic Con was over, I went with Jay’s family to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.  I’d only ever been to Disneyland once before in 2008 when Jay & I celebrated our first anniversary.  We were at the park from 8am until after midnight or in layman’s terms, “we opened and we closed it.”  I had the BEST time.  I <3 Disneyland and California Adventure.

We started off at Space Mountain.  Hardly any line since we were there so early.  It was awesome. as evidenced:

Next we hit up Pirates of the Caribbean (which made me want to watch the movie really badly), the Haunted Mansion (made me want to burn the movie), Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain Railroad (it was just as fun as I remembered it but I don’t remember getting banged up so badly last time!) and one of my favorites, Splash Mountain.  Thunder Mountain, California Screamin’ and Pirates of the Caribbean were the only ones that we were lucky enough to go on twice.  Those are 3 of my 4 favorites (the last one being Tower of Terror woot!) so I was thrilled.

Naturally, I had to make sure that we took a picture in front of Cinderella’s Castle.  And by “we” I mean me, Jay & the person responsible for us meeting in the first place :)  P.S. That’s my shirt from the Chuck panel at Comic Con.

Splash Mountain, the first time:

California Screamin’ - the first time:

Group shot.  Yikes, why am I not looking at the camera?!

By the California Adventure letters:

We were lucky to be able to get to every major ride by the early afternoon.  I did learn - or rather reaffirm - one thing: that I was not meant to be a cop.  We all did the two Toy Story rides, where you shoot at things and get points, and I finished in last place both times!  I thought I was doing good because I only made shots when I felt I had it but yeah, that was not the right strategy for a freaking amusement park game!  It was SO embarrassing to do so badly.  [Uncle Lou, if you are reading this, I'm sorry!  I should've gone to the shooting range with you & Matt back in the day!]

So we finished off the night by watching the World of Color show.  Wow, it’s really spectacular.  I definitely recommend it if you’re there.  I envy people like Ralph who live right down the road from it.  Then again, I used to live 15 minutes from and work at Splish Splash which everyone I met in college & beyond was in envy of & I had a lot of “WTF crazy?!”   Anyways, I can’t wait til the next time we go back, though I think it should be the day before Comic Con starts, when there’s no blisters or overflowing toilets to slow you down haha.

Oh - quick question for all 6 of you out there - which Disney park do you like best and what’s your favorite ride?  I’d have to say Disneyland and California Screamin’ for me.

Tags: Disneyland

San Diego Comic Con ‘10 - Sunday

So Sunday July 25 started off with disaster.  After we got home from the Media Junkyard meet-up at about 3am, we had problems.  We got ready for bed and I was just about passed out when I heard Jay go, “WHAT THE F*CK?!” from the bathroom.  He had gotten up to just pee- no tp involved - and the toilet was overflowing.  Now, I had almost missed the Hawaii 5-0 panel on Friday morning because the toilet was overflowing as I was about to shower.  It had flushed after I used it, but I had thrown a piece of toilet paper in there just as I was heading into the shower (Jay was already gone and doing the H 5-opress) since there was no trash can in the toilet/shower part.  I flushed it and BAM!  The water level rose like crazy and stopped just short of overflowing.  Naturally, I freaked out because I’m naked and there’s no plunger in the room and I’m thinking it was my fault.  I managed to calm it down and told Jay about the problem when I got to the panel and when we got back before the J&J meet-up that night, there was still a little bit of an issue with it.  We called maintanence and they said they’d fix it while we were gone, no problem.  Well they never freaking fixed it!  So we have a disgusting gross puddle of septic water on our bathroom floor at 3:15am.  I called the front desk.  No one is on duty at that crappy hotel AT ALL but the one girl there.  No housekeeping, maintanence, anything.  She brings a plunger up and insists it’s “our fault” when Jay continues to insist that it’s NOT a plunging problem.  He plunges and there’s no suction and the overflow gets worse, proving our point to her.  She gives us like 10 towels and we soak it up overnight, all while trying not to breathe.  It was a f*cking disaster.

We went downstairs to complain the next morning on about 4.5 hours of sleep.  We were cranky, to say the least, but polite enough to the very helpful manager who gave us a refund for Saturday night.  We were also given the key to a clean room where we could shower and move our stuff to.  Jay went down ahead of me because he had to do press for the Castlepanel.  I headed down to the Convention Center about 45 minutes later and ran into Kolkie on the street.  We attempted to get into Castlebut it was full.  Instead, we said hi to Andrea Gabriel who was signing autographs in the Sails Pavillion and then headed into the Smallville press room to meet up with the other members of MJ.

In the Smallville press room, I saw Jonathan Schneider and Tom Welling, along with all the other stars of the show, like Erica Durant, etc.  I haven’t seen Smallville since the 100th episode in Season 5 but my dear Uncle Lou is a huge, huge fan so I made sure to get pictures of Schneider and Welling for him:

I met up with Clif & Nick after the Smallville press room and we ran into the always fun to talk to Tad Stones.  We all chatted briefly.  I headed over to the Castlepress room after that and met up with Jay and the lovely Rachel White with baby Chloe. [Side note: I need to point out that Kris & Rachel's daughter Chloe is one of the most adorable babies ever.  I think Jay wanted to take her home lol.  Between her & Isabel, my hopes for being able to go to Comic Con after I have kids have been raised drastically.]  We left the Convention Center after that and headed to meet up with a bunch of people to have lunch.  I really forget the name of the restaurant but it was…not that great to be honest.  It took forever for us to get our food and it didn’t taste great but that’s life and it could’ve been way worse.

We headed back to the Convention Center after lunch and did some last minute looking around.  Met up with Melissa after all the Pottercast/Harry Potter mania died down a bit and caught up with her, which is always a good time since we haven’t seen her since the LA Lost Finale party.  I’m bummed that the others couldn’t make it on Sunday so we didn’t get to see Frak or John & Bre (sad face).

It should surprise no one that our crappy hotel charged you for a late check out.  We didn’t want to carry everything around nor did we want to make Rob come pick us up at the Convention Center in the middle of the madness, so we forked up some $$ and paid for the late check out.  At about 3:30, we walked back to our crappy hotel one last time and got our stuff.  Rob kindly came to get us and we headed back downtown to pick up Clif, Jana, and Nick to drop them off at their new, not crappy hotel in Clairmont.  Later that evening, Jay, Jana & I went to a Glatfelter family barbeque with some of the best carne asada tacos I have ever had.  Seriously, it was delicious.  This is from the bbq, courtesy of Rob’s Facebook:

We headed back to Rob & Jay’s grandma Bev’s house later that night and passed out for a few hours before it was time to go to DISNEYLAND the next morning.  And on that note, stay tuned for a Disneyland post tomorrow and then we can finally be done with recapping the great San Diego trip of 2010.

Tags: Jonathan Schneider, San Diego Comic COn, Smallville, Tom Welling

San Diego Comic Con ‘10 - Saturday

So Saturday started out fairly rocky for us - we hadn’t gotten home until like 2:30am on Friday night after the Jay and Jack meet-up.  So when the alarm went off for 7am to tell us that we had a half hour to get our asses in gear and get to the Chuck panel at 10am (Clif had left the meet-up early and was already in line for the panel or on his way out the door at this point, I believe), it just wasn’t happening.  I thought I hit snooze but alas, I turned my alarm off.  We woke up again at 8:30am and did a “Holy shit, it’s 8:30am, we’re going to miss the panel!!”

Despite our panic, we were in super slow motion.  I skipped doing the Friday at Comic Con blog post that day to save time but it didn’t help.  Getting ready took forever and I was in desperate need of coffee.  We finally managed to get out the door at 9:30am when Clif texted us that we could probably get a spot in line with him but we had to get there ASAP because the line was moving quickly into Ballroom 20.  Jay & I got downstairs and out the hotel door when I realized I left my Comic Con badge on the table in the room.  I ran upstairs to get it and then sprinted a few blocks to catch up with Jay.  We had offers through Twitter to find people in line but the issue was getting there before they all got in.  We made it to the Convention Center pretty quickly but Clif had already gone in to sit down so he was out as an option.  We scanned the line and sent out some Tweets but no luck.  We had resigned ourselves to the fact that we were going to miss the Chuck panel for the second year in a row (last year we missed it because of the Lost panel).  And then, just in the nick of time, came our knight in shining armor, one Miss Kelly Jo.  I felt so guilty about jumping in line with KJ that I had to walk along the non-line side of the wall with my face down so I wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone.  I’m a terrible cheater.  But we made it in, so obviously my conscience was too bothered lol.  It started with Jeffster performing Lady Gaga and then went into the panel.

The panel was awesome - the cast members of Chuck were even more into being at Comic Con than the True Blood and Hawaii 5-0 casts.  They’re the people who get Comic Con and interact as such.  They ripped on each other (After a fan asked Adam Baldwin a question about Firefly, Ryan McPartlin who plays Awesome piped in, “4th season into Chuck and we’re still hearing about Baldwin’s old show!”) and gave us “spoilers” (Linda Hamilton is going to play Chuck & Ellie’s mom) and freebies that we didn’t have to go all the way to the Marriott to pick up (they threw the same ‘Nerd’ t-shirt into the crowd that Zach Levi was wearing).  Actually, one of the t-shirts fell - no joke - directly into my bag!  It was fabulous.  I wore the shirt to Disneyland on Monday.  The only downside to the whole thing was that there was no time for audience questions because it started so late! Booo!

We walked around the Exhibit Hall for a little while after the Chuck panel was over and got some food before heading to the Jay and Jack panel at the Santa Rosa Room in the Marriott hotel.  It sucked that they weren’t in the Convention Center BUT the Santa Rosa Room is really pretty nice.  The upgrade in chairs alone was wonderful.  The panel was, as always, a success.  Really nice turnout and they talked mainly about the end of Lost.  Ryan and Jen from The Transmission joined them and Clif filmed the entire thing.

It was nice to see some of the familiar faces of people who we get to see at each event throughout the years.  Lynn came back for her 5th J&J Comic Con gathering (the meet-up in 2006 & the panels from 2007-2010).  How awesome is that?!

We decided to check out the panel for No Ordinary Family, a new ABC sitcom with Michael Chiklis and Rita Julie Benz.  They showed the pilot and had a quick Q&A.  I liked it - I recommend checking it out; I think it’s going to really be a good one to watch this season.

We really wanted to stick around or go back to the hotel and then come back for the Kevin Smith panel that evening.  Kevin Smith is always the best part of Comic Con.  We were in line for the Lost encyclopedia panel with Jack, Ryan, Jen, Jo & a bunch of other Lost people when I got a text from Kolkie who was in line at Hall H for the Cowboys & Aliens panel (I think): “There was a stabbing in Hall H! Everything is shut down right now.”  We checked the Twitter & found out some of what was going on and figured we’d play it by ear after the current panel was over.  Sitting in front of us with Jo was none other than Sterling Beauman (Young Ben on Lost) who we had met at the Lost Finale party in LA back in May.  He used to skate at the iceplex that Jay & his family worked at in La Jolla back in the day.  Small world, eh?  Anyway, after the whole thing was over, I took a picture of Sterling, Jo & Jay and their matching haircuts:

Which Sterling then proceeded to Twitpic for me on my iPad lol.  Good times.  He’s a cool, cool kid and I really hope he has a long career ahead of him.

After getting word that the Kevin Smith panel was delayed for a while, we decided to just go back to the hotel.  It had been a really long day and we still had lots of partying to do ahead of us at the Media Junkyard/SHoE/10th Wonder meet-up at the Yard House that night.

After catching a ride back to the hotel with Aunt Cindy, Uncle Brett & Aunt Mary, a whole bunch of us left our hotel and headed to the Yard House.  I LOVED the Yard House.  It had a zillion types of beer on tap including Hoegaarden which I used to drink at the Beer Gardens (<3) in Astoria all the time.  Ah, I miss Astoria and the Beer Gardens.  Good freaking times.  Moment of silence for respect.

…

Anyway, again, I’ll leave you with pictures from that evening.  These are just the ones I had on my camera; a lot of people had way better ones, including Adam’s awesome shot that was my Facebook profile picture

I friggin’ love Ryan & Jen and I’m so glad they came out with us!

I guess this is why it’s called the ‘Yard House.’  Awesome concept but awkward when you’re trying to finish it.

Jay’s awesome LA-based family came down for the Jay & Jack panel and to hang out

Jack and I with TV Guide’s Damien Holbrook & Andrea Gabriel (Nadia on ‘Lost’).

Jay with his own Lost podcasting idol, Dylan of Scott & Steve fame.

This table is like the Jay & Jack Proboards Hall of Fame table haha

BOSTON!

Boston’s Hot Wife!

Everything’s silly time.

*I know that other people have more pictures from later on in the night and check out the MJ vidcast part 2 for me & Christine and me & Jay doing our own “everything’s silly time” interviews on camera.*

Tags: Chuck, San Diego Comic COn