lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Friday, July 29, 2005
Hi. "Veronica Mars." 8/7c to 10/9c tonight. CBS. There WILL be a quiz.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Tales from the crypt.  Ick.
So I mentioned how I've become an actress recently.  One perk of that is being able to read parts of some scripts before they're even shot, let alone air.  There's one, for instance, that I recently read fourteen pages of, some of which had names like Rory and Luke on them.  If you're interested at all in what people with names like that might have said and can read PDF files, let me know and you might be the lucky recipient of fourteen... mystery gifts.

Oh, okay, I'll spill.  The mystery gifts are actually fourteen Ticonderoga #2 pencils, never before used!  How can you beat that?  I don't think you can.
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005
I do not like lobster.
That's what I learned Saturday when I tried it for the first time at Epic's annual steak and lobster "Epicnic."  I figured there was a good chance I would like it, since I've liked other seafood like crab, but not so.  I wouldn't completely dismiss the idea of trying it again sometime in a setting where it was perhaps a little more, "prepared," we'll say, and assuming I don't have to pay a fortune to do so, but I won't be going out of my way to.

The picnic was at Devil's Lake State Park a little ways north of Madison, on a gloomy, stormy day.  It was raining most of the drive up there, and by the time we arrived had slowed to a sprinkle.  It had completely stopped by the time we got our food, which was fortunate since the only available seating at that point was out in the open under the sky.  The corn on the cob was awful, easily the worst I can ever remember eating (a term I use loosly as I stopped after about two bites), and I believe we've covered my opinion of the lobster, but the steak was good -- and amazingly (and to my taste) not too well done -- as was the salad, watermelon, and cake.  And who's gonna complain about a free meal, anyway?  Not me.  I never complain.

As usual, Josh had finished eating and was waiting for me to finish when thunder rumbles began to become more prevalent and a very dark sky crept its way toward us.  That was about the time a park ranger drove by announcing on a megaphone that we were under a severe thunderstorm warning.  Okay, time to eat faster.  On the way back to the car, I stopped by the restrooms but decided to forgo the luxury when I saw how much of a line there was.  Good thing, too, since as it was it started Pouring right as we reached our car.  We could actually see and hear the downpour maybe a couple hundred yards away and coming steadily and quickly toward us before the deluge let loose on us.  That's not something you get to experience very often.  I recommend it.

Most of the way back to Madison it was pouring pretty handily, hailing at one point (which I can tell you makes you very nervous when you're in your three-week-old vehicle), and a bolt of lightning decided to strike right beside the road we were driving on.  Fun.  Although I must say I greatly prefer to enjoy my storms from the comfort of my own home rather than having to drive through them, but I'll take what I can get.  Just as long as my car doesn't get smashed up by hail or struck by lightning.
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Monday, July 25, 2005
Do we at least get spontaneity points?
On Friday the head of the company Josh works for offered a free flight to the Seattle/Portland area for anyone in the company who was interested in spending next weekend there, as she had extra seats on her charter flight that would otherwise go to waste.  After discovering that there were both Viva Voce and Turin Brakes concerts in Portland during that time, and after discussing it a bit, Josh and I decided to go for it and ask for seats on the flight.  Too bad we weren't the only ones.  She apparently had many requests and ended up deciding who would go via a lottery.  We lost.  Poo.  That would have been fun.  Not completely without cost, but fun nonetheless.

On the plus side, now we can watch "Veronica Mars" on CBS on Friday in all its HD glory.  (Too subtle?  Yeah, I thought so.)
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Thursday, July 21, 2005
WARNING:  I'm about to get super  bossy.  Deal with it.
Okay, here it is.  There's this show I've never mentioned called "Veronica Mars."  This show I've never mentioned is on a little network called UPN that apparently half the country doesn't even get.  Or, if they do, seem to assume nothing on the network would ever be worth watching.  And most of it isn't.  But for every ten "One Tree Hill"s, there's one "Gilmore Girls."  Thank goodness.

The point?  Yes, perhaps I should actually get to it.  For four episodes, not having UPN, which is the only acceptable excuse for not watching "Veronica Mars," will no longer be one.  One week from tomorrow, on July 29, CBS will broadcast two episodes of the show, starting with the Pilot.  The two Fridays after that will each broadcast one additional episode from the first season.  I have inspected the episode choices and deemed them suitable for unspoiled consumption and nicely representative of the series without causing too much confusion in the area of the season-long-mystery arcs.

So.  Your assignment, ~~should you choose to accept it,~~ which is MANDATORY, is to watch those four episodes of "Veronica Mars" on CBS.  I mean it.  This is not optional.  "I have to be out of the house" is not a valid excuse.  There are VCRs.  "I don't have a TV" is not a valid excuse.  There are stores.  "The power was out because of a storm" is not a valid excuse.  There are backup generators.  "I don't have a backup generator" is not a valid excuse.  There are stores.  You get it yet?  There IS no excuse.  There is no escaping this.  And there is no escaping my wrath if my orders aren't followed.  Not kidding.  I will hurt you.  I will hurt you where it most counts:  my blog.  That's right.  I will STOP POSTING.  Period.  You will cry.  Period.  And it will be your own fault.  Period.  Because, to quote [name deleted for your own protection], "You have a problem with Veronica, you're pretty much dead to me, so just... evaporate or something, I don't know."

Hey, I was right about "Gilmore Girls," wasn't I?
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Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Don't even bother.
After a weekend in Ames helping Kaly try on a multitude of wedding gowns, "caddying" for my mother-in-law (a.k.a. moM) while she played disc golf in the Iowa Games, and watching my temporarily-demoted-from-the-Chicago-Cubs Corey Patterson go 2-for-5 at an Iowa Cubs game (yay!), we were about half an hour away from home Sunday night when Josh turned on WGN Radio because the CD we were listening to had finished.  I was half-dozing (it was about 11:15pm), when the host of the program uttered a name that immediately jerked me out of my semi-conscious state (I literally physically shot up in my seat the second I heard it, just ask Josh):  Ted Raimi.  This is not a guy that is mentioned.  Like, ever.  And not only was he being mentioned, but he was actually going to be a guest on the program  after midnight.  [For those of you uneducated on the joy that is Ted Raimi, he's an actor who played Lt. Tim O'Neill on "seaQuest," Joxer on "Xena," and has been in tons of other movies, usually in smaller roles, including one of the newspaper staffers in the "Spider-man" movies, which happen to be directed by his brother, Sam Raimi.  He also happens to be one of those people I've never met but am in love with.  But I digress.]

We got home before midnight and I was dismayed to find that we couldn't get WGN to come in at all on our boom box.  Luckily we discovered that they also stream on the internet, so we paused the stream while we ran around the house looking for our tape recorder and an audio cassette we could tape on -- not the easiest feat when you haven't used an audio cassette for anything in about four years.  We succeeded, eventually, and had a lovely little primitive setup of the tape recorder sitting in front of a computer speaker to tape the interview.  And it was good stuff -- he doesn't get credit for being the funny guy that he is (actually he doesn't get credit for anything, really).  Sure, we were up till 1:30 recording it, but now we can take our primitive little audio tape and convert it to a very-not-primitive digital file that I can then spread to my other Ted-loving friends like Marina, who dare I say loves Ted even more than I do.  Scary, I know.  :-P
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Friday, July 15, 2005
Vacation without the vacation.
Saturday morning we drove up to Oshkosh to go to a day of Lifest (a Christian music festival), where at a silent auction they inexplicably had disc golf discs signed by Rebecca St. James.  We saw most of a short Lost and Found set, a smidge of Something Like Silas, and all of Anberlin, The Violet Burning, Blindside, and Spoken (that last one pretty much entirely for Josh -- I like all the others).  We pigged out (way too much, by the way) on Papa Murphy's pizza, cheese curds, fresh cinnamon-sugar mini-donuts, and smoothies.  It was seriously hot, though not quite Cornerstone Hot (if you don't know what that means, nevermind).  We stayed for some of the midnight bonfire worship, but were starting to get both sleepy tired and tired of (not) singing songs we didn't know -- though apparently we were the only ones -- and of singing the first verse of "Amazing Grace" over and over (there are other verses, you know).  I always love a good campfire, though, it takes me back to our nightly devotions at The Point at Camp Okoboji when I was growing up.  Love it.

We spent the night at a nearby campground trying out camping in our new Rendezvous for the first time.  The vehicle isn't really designed for it, because the second and third rows of seats don't fold down to the same level, but with building up the lower level with a folded over comforter and blankets, it worked okay.  In the future we'll probably use an air mattress to make it more comfortable, but it's nice to know that it works.  Tents are fun, and can be cooler because you can get air circulation from outside without letting bugs in, but there's definitely something to be said for just being able to drive away and not have to take down and fold up your tent.  And not have to worry about it leaking if it rains.  ;-)

Sunday we went disc golfing at a course we'd never played before in Appleton (as opposed to the course we've played a couple of times when we've been up there for other Lifests), and drove over to Point Beach State Forest on Lake Michigan, where we spent the afternoon relaxing on their lovely (when kids weren't throwing sand) beach and playing canasta at a picnic table in the shade while trying to keep our cards from blowing away in the lake breeze.  It was hotter than we would've liked for hiking, so we only took a short walk to see Rawley Point Lighthouse.  We'd like to go back there and camp sometime, maybe in the fall when there's some color on the trees.  Supper in Appleton at Señor Tequila's and we were off for home.  To watch Heather Bowie get her first LPGA win.  :)
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
So this is what it's come to.
By now I'm sure I've made my "Veronica Mars" obsession painfully clear. Well, it reached new heights yesterday when I registered as an "actor" on a casting website so I could have access to sides (definition: select script pages/excerpts released for casting purposes of guest-starring roles, used by actors for audition preparation) for the show. It's a great source of potential spoilers, and the several pages they currently have up from the season premiere gave me a much-needed "VM" fix in the middle of summer. Yup, I've finally gone over to the dark side, folks. And, just in case you're wondering, I'm non-union. :-P
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Monday, July 11, 2005
And that's why you always tape golf tournaments when you're away from home.
You know, in case one of your favorite players, and one who's never won an LPGA tournament in her six years on tour, all of a sudden gets her first win after starting the final round five shots back. That way you can sit on your couch at 1am Sunday night watching her play three playoff holes through your fingers because you're so nervous, and then see her finally win it on the last one.

Then you let giddiness set in.

Heather Bowie with tournament host Jamie Farr

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Friday, July 08, 2005
Oh, the ANXIETY...
As if it weren't bad enough that the Cubs have now lost a whopping EIGHT games in a row and are all of a sudden four games below .500, my favorite player, Corey Patterson, has been in such a slump lately (he hit .284 in April, .273 in May, and .157 in June) that he's actually being sent back down to the AAA Iowa Cubs, despite the fact that he's been in the Majors for years. Ouch. I guess I agree that it's better for him to try to figure out what's wrong without the perpetual boos of the Chicago fans, but it's still very painful for me to see a player I love so much struggling to the extent that he's demoted to the Minors. The stress I feel over this is just so not healthy. I NEED you to well, Corey. For my own well-being. But no pressure or anything. :-P
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Thursday, July 07, 2005
Once upon a time, there was a little logue known as Trippy, or Trip-o-Logue Horatio Bloomenfeld for short.
Trippy was very sad, because he had been abandoned by the side of the road by his supposedly loving and giving caregiver, Beth-Annie.  When Beth-Annie realized how she had failed her beloved Trippy, she cried and cried.  She looked high and low until she finally found little Trip-o-Logue and put him back on her blog where he belonged.  Trip-o-Logue was very happy to be home again.  The end.

(Ep-i-logue:  Trippy still has some abandonment issues and will probably need therapy.  My bad.)

DAY NINE: Thu. Dec. 2.
Yup, we're still on the cruise.  Last full day for it, and we spend it in Key West.  Well, eventually.  We got up early enough to sort of see the ship finish docking at the port, had breakfast and decided to kill time before we were called for our turn in the U.S. Customs Inspection (no one could go ashore until everyone had been cleared) by taking ourselves a little video tour of the ship for posterity.  The ship was finally cleared around noon, and as we didn't have any specific plans for this port, we started off just walking around and doing a little shopping (I've got to get my postcards, refrigerator magnets, and Christmas tree ornaments -- good time to get those, thankfully -- the three things I collect from places we travel).

[key west chicken.]

We had been looking at sidewalk menus for a place to eat lunch, and finally settled on Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville. Not the most original thing, I know, but we were hungry and a Cheeseburger in Paradise with a big fat juicy margarita sounded extremely appealing. Then it was time to -- you guessed it -- walk some more! We walked past the Hemingway House, past the Key West Lighthouse, and then just through normal old streets, with houses that look something like I imagine parts of New Orleans look. Did you know that people grow cacti in their yards in Key West? Neither did I.

Eventually we got to the Key West Cemetery where we took a self-guided tour I had printed out off the internet before we left home. Some parts of it were sort of hard to follow (that's what we get for not wanting to drop $16 each for a real, guided tour), but it was still interesting enough. We made our way back to the main touristy area, and after a bit of unsure walking eventually found (and verified that it actually WAS -- it was a little unclear) Mallory Square, where the daily Sunset Celebration happens. We just sat and relaxed there for a while, and watched vendors and performance artists gradually begin to arrive and set up their doings for sunset. We managed to even watch some of one guy's act, which involved among other things intricately wrapping himself in chains and then escaping from them. He was a little weird, actually, but I guess that's part of the charm of the whole thing. Unfortunately our "all aboard" deadline was about ten minutes before sunset, so we had to abandon the whole Mallory Square thing and watch the sunset from the ship. Ah, well. There are worse places. ;-)

[key west sunset.]

We had our final dinner where we said goodbye to our tablemates and waiter, and then began the unenviable job of packing up our cabin on either side of going to that evening's show, a former member of the Motown group The Drifters. A little last-chance stargazing on the sundeck and we were in bed before midnight.

Picture pages, picture pages.
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Friday, July 01, 2005
Tiger would be so proud.
About a year ago we went to an LPGA tournament in Aurora, IL.  The end.

Okay, not really.  If you've never been to a golf tournament before, there are sponsor tents and the like everywhere near the entrance, with people passing out samples of food and candy and other little freebies, asking you to fill out surveys or enter sweepstakes, etc.  So at this tournament last summer, before we went out on the course we attended a little tour of a couple of Buick vehicles with an OnStar demonstration.  Then we filled out our little surveys and happily took our free visors and Callaway golf balls for our trouble.  They were nice vehicles but a bit out of our price range (plus we weren't even remotely looking for a new vehicle), and OnStar was something we knew we'd never get -- not that it wouldn't be handy in a way, just not worth the cost.  Yeah, we really just wanted the free golf balls.

So how ironic that yesterday we brought home this, complete with -- you guessed it -- OnStar.  We weren't planning on buying a new car yet, really.  Not until they started clearing out the 2005's at the end of the year at the earliest, and maybe not even until they were clearing out the 2006's.  But.  Then General Motors did this whole everyone-gets-their-employee-discount evil evil ploy, which made us start looking at vehicles online a bit, which made us decide to go and test drive a few -- you know, just for the heck of it.  We'd made a huge mistake.  Next thing we knew, our salesguy was spending three days calling probably every Buick dealer in the Midwest looking for a Rendezvous with a color, the options, and the approximate price we wanted.  The problem with the end of a huge sale like this is that almost every Rendezvous in the Midwest was already sold.  Which is how we ended up with one with OnStar.  We basically ended up grabbing one lacking a few of the options we wanted (like ABS), but with an extra package including some things we didn't really want, like OnStar (which we will not pay for once our free first year is up) and dual-zone climate control.  On the plus side, it was only about $100 more expensive than some of the more base end vehicles we'd been looking at, and some of the extrras we wouldn't have gotten otherwise are actually kind of nice, like an anti-theft system and a readout that tells you things like your fuel economy, what direction you're driving, and the outside temperature.

So now we have a vehicle that can hold the really tall boxes from IKEA, the trees we already bought (hehe), and as many as seven people.  And all with only a few miles per gallon less (highway) than our itty bitty little sedans.  Oh, and now Kaly gets a good deal on a car that actually runs, and we get more for the Lumina than we could have gotten on a trade-in.  Heck, we're practically MAKING money by buying this car.  *grin*
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