List of crap that continues to roll around in my head like the little light-up ball in Penny’s circle-of-doom toy:

:: I NEED to fix my damned RSS feed. After I moved my crap to a new hosting thingie, I messed up the feed.

:: Must.. finish.. scrapbook. (Only to move on to other projects. heh)

:: Budget budget budget. I have to figure out how I’m going to get an Apple MacBook Pro with all the goodies (CS3 for example) without having to “donate” a liver or leg.

:: Clean the apt.. get rid of CRAP (i.e. books I don’t read, books Adam doesn’t read, Adam’s Star Wars banks (mwa ha hahahaha)) and all the other crap sitting around collecting dust.

Sorry this ‘update’ is boring. I just needed to vent a bit.

I need more time during the week and I need more weekend time.

Our apartment just gave us our yearly lease notice.

They want to up our lease by $130.

If you hear a faint noise in the distance, it’s me.. screaming at the top of my lungs.

How the HELL do people find AFFORDABLE places to live without it being in a) a shitty neighborhood or b) a hole in the ground.

And don’t get me started on houses or even condos. Why is everything so expensive? WHERE ARE THE JOBS that pay for these homes?

Why do they insist on upping a BELOW MARKET RATE apartment? Is that just dumb or what?!

It’s just so depressing.

My coworker Sarah and I got to attend the ad:tech interactive media conference yesterday. A fun day of advertising and San Francisco – who would pass that up? Not ME!

So after some parking issues (Fremont BART needs more normal parking spots. We didn’t find ANY in the normal area and had to breakfast-it-up at Starbucks while we waited for the reserved parking to open up. Blah.)

Sarah’s new tumbler and my white chocolate mocha. It’s not healthy, but it’s damn good.


We amused ourselves with the silly idea that someday we’ll see BART in San Jose. Or better yet, connected from Fremont to Daly City… oh such thoughts!

On our walk from the BART station to Moscone Center, I snapped photos..

It really was a lovely day.

We signed in and checked out the ad:tech expo; going up and down each row talking to people and getting various goodies. I’ve always liked all that random junk that is given away. Anytime my dad would go to a job fair he’d come home with a bag full of stuff. I’d try to get the best pens or coolest looking highlighters from him.

When we finished making the rounds and had nobody else to talk to we called it a day and waited for Maya at The Coffee Bean. On our walk to the coffee spot, we stopped in at a bookstore where I splurged and bought Guerrilla Advertising and 1000 Journals.

When Maya showed up we shimmied over to Oola – an awesome restaurant where we had dinner and drinks.

Fun was had and my feet didn’t fall off! If you need cute walking shoes I suggest Merrell shoes. They are SO comfortable. My feet didn’t hurt at all. (These are my shoes, but in black.)

I’m really getting tired of our damn oven.

So let’s rewind a bit.. say to around Thanksgiving ‘06. Our oven was starting to behave funky. It’d take foooreever to preheat. We’re talking like an hour to get somewhere in the vicinity of 350 degrees. “Don’t be ridiculous!” Balki would not approve. Anyway.. we thought we’d be able to squeak by and have Lonny’s Aunt’s magical 2-hour turkey. Oh no. What we had was… very hungry guests. For a dinner that should have started around 7pm, we didn’t eat until after 10pm. Luckily we had enough goodies to tide people over. The turkey finally cooked and we fed our wonderfully patient friends.

A few weeks later we noticed the digital display looking funny. Like this:

Pushing the buttons didn’t do any good. It just laughed at us.

So now the laziest battle began – who would end up calling or going to the complex office and let them know our oven went kaput?

Reasons, some logical, some stupid, flew back and forth.

“Did you call the office?”
“No I was busy all day – you do it.”
“You’re the one that wants to bake things.”
“So, you’re the one who came home first.”

Great huh? And yes dammit I wanted to bake things. Weeks had passed (we don’t use our oven often, as you can tell) and I got a bug up my butt about baking. I wanted to bake green cupcakes for St Patrick’s day – and while I had the option of going to a coworker’s apartment to cook, I still wanted our oven fixed. So I finally told the apartment complex people the damn thing is broken – so fix it.

WEEKS LATER (still before St Patty’s day, mind you) and one fix-it job that didn’t work later… we got a BRAND NEW OVEN!! (pretend Bob Barker just said that)

AWESOME right?

Two weeks into having a new oven and only ONE BAKING ADVENTURE later.. our oven display looks like this again.

(same pic as above, but you get the drift, yah?)

Why? Have I offended the oven gods in some way? Should I be baking more? Am I to sacrifice a cupcake next time? Just throw it into the burning jaws of our oven and tell it bon appétit!

Phooey.

I’d like to bake again. I’ve been watching Tivo-ed episodes of the Food Network’s Ace of Cakes and I’m ready to learn the world of fondant. I want to make things of cakes. Okay that last sentence made sense in my head, not sure about yours.

Anyway…

Back to the lazy battle.

“Did you call the office?”
“Noooo…”

Everyone else in the world is talking about this. Have you seen it yet? If not, you just might be missing the funniest thing ever. If you don’t think this is funny, um, well then poo on you.

Well that trip was quite the blur.

The slot machines were surprisingly nice to me. They allowed me to continue playing or purchase tickets to something or feed me. So they served their purpose. I’d put in $2-$5 into a one or five cent slot machine and magically walk away with $35-$60. I specifically liked the Indiana Jones slot machine as it would show us a clip of the movie (Raider of the Lost Ark) each time 3 Bonus wheels would pop up (hehe 5 times in one sitting for moi!) Another fave, the Black & White & Sevens Ballys machine. I got the $44 progressive on that one!

Anyway, I didn’t play the tables – though the Casino War game looked fun.

We saw one show and went to one exhibition. The show was the popular Blue Man Group at the Venetian. TOTALLY WORTH SEEING. It’s just.. so.. weird. I’d like to go into depth about this and that what was cool.. but then it’d ruin it for all of you. It was some good ole fashioned weird alien-like wacky fun. The exhibition we saw was Bodies at the Tropicana. For the most part it was really interesting, I mean, these are real bodies.. very educational and all that. But I must say the one thing that really bugged me was seeing what a brain looks like after it has had a stroke.

OH so OK, Excalibur – you suck. I will probably not stay there again (I’m setting my sights on Mandalay Bay, THEhotel, Bellagio, or the Venetian for next time.) Anyway.. because we read online, we knew that the Excalibur pool was under renovation and that we’d get to use a pool from another hotel. Turns out we had access to the Luxor. Well spiffydoodles! It was 5pm on Friday and we were all toasty and thought a nice dip in the pool would be great. Just to make sure we call the front desk – sure enough, they said that we would have access to the Luxor…but not right now. The pool closes at 6pm and they are no longer accepting Excalibur guests tonight. WTF? It’s VEGAS and the pool closes at 6pm? Why not give Vegas a curfew of 10pm while you’re at it. Anyway. The people at the front desk mentioned that we would also have access to the pool at New York, New York! HOT DAMN! Oh but it closes at 6pm too. LOSERS. So we decide to get up bright and early the next day. We get ready, slather ourselves in various SPFs and 2-10 Express it to the Luxor. We get ALL THE WAY TO THE FAKE LITTLE DOOR (a doorknob/card reader on a podium, next to Mr Pool Bouncer) and the guy is like “oh no the Excalibur pool is open. We aren’t letting Excalibur guests in.” ARRRGH. It would have been nice if last night the goobers at the front desk would have said “BUUUT If you show up bright and early tomorrow, we’re opening our pool up!”

But they didn’t.

Because they’re asses.

So fine, we head back to the Excalibur pool, walk through the construction hallway and are given extra towels because most likely there are no chairs left. They didn’t have too many chairs available. There was gravel all over the place, the slides were closed off, the decor wasn’t finished and the palm trees were still bundled up. Pool #1 was ICE COLD. Like Northern California ice cold water. Pool #2 had much more people in it, including children, and was slightly cloudy -but warmer. Perhaps from all the pee the children contributed to it.

So yea we tried the ice water one… but ended up in the pee-warm pool. Yeeah nice huh?

I can’t divulge much else about Vegas – you know, what happens in vegas… “still happens” as Adam or Maya says.

BUT I must say the strangest thing…

I’m standing there with Iris, Matt, Emily, and Adam (while waiting for Maya and Brian to meet up) and we’re chit chatting.. then out of the blue.. “OMG JENNIFER?!” And all of a sudden this weirdo chick is hugging me!! haha

KENDRA FOUND ME! My dear friend Kendra, who in my mind was supposed to be at her home (snorkling or swimming or jogging or eating funny foods) in the Virgin Islands was standing right there – shocking the crap out of me. It was a VERY QUICK meetup and I was still rather shocked when she ran off – still trying to explain how she thought she saw me earlier.. etc etc. So after that very quick reunion Maya and Brian showed up and we started off to our destination, NY-NY. On the moving walkway I saw Kendra coming the opposite direction so I yelled for her and we finally got a few moments to catch up. It was so fun seeing her again – it’d been about 10+ years since we’ve seen each other!

It’s amazing how many people populate Vegas on any given day and yet friends can still run into each other.

Vegas was fun and I already have plans to return! More shows to watch, a trip to the Boneyard, luxury hotels to stay in and of course, more slots to play!

Random memory list!
:: Maya got her Elvis moment!
:: I tried two kinds of whiskey and now have a new favorite drink (Knob Creek and Coke)
:: I also tried a kind of sake and didn’t care for it too much. Willing to try other kinds however.
:: We had the BEST sushi at MGM’s Grand Wok & Sushi Bar
:: Best photo setup- Matt trying to lick a Blue Man!

More photos here!

I’m going to Vegas. Gonna win millions!

I leave you with this awesome (odd and funny) cover of Fergie’s “My Humps” by Alanis Morissette.

And if you haven’t had enough of that – there’s last year’s American Greeting’s version of “My Humps”.

bye now!