Ok, so, I get the hiccups pretty frequently. I actually get them more than just about anyone I know. To make matters worse, they're usually pretty hard to get rid of. Many of your common hiccup cures won't work on me. *Sigh*

Well, the other day on our way to NY, I got the hiccups on the plane. Now a while ago my mother had the hiccups and I did the whole "I'll give you ten dollars if you hiccup right now" bit. It actually worked on my dear old mom and she apparently stowed that info away. Now...anyone who has met my mother knows that she's a little Bolivian woman with a fairly strong accent. She speaks english quite well but occasionally things get lost in translation. Like when I got the hiccups on the plane.

So there I am, hiccuping away and I see my mother watching me out of the corner of her eye. Quite suddenly she says, rather violently, "GIVE ME TEN DOLLARS!!!!!" I laughed so hard that I disrupted all the people around me. I had to calm down before I could explain to her that it didn't quite work like that.

The other day Owen had the hiccups (which he gets ALL THE TIME! He's so the perfect dog for me!!) and once again, my mother sits there watching him for a moment. Then, once again, quite suddenly and somewhat violently she goes: "BOO!!!!" After I had composed myself, I tried to convey that I didn't believe that worked for dogs the way it did for humans.


Awesome.

Your daily dose of positive.

Wouldn't it be funny if that was the title to this post and then you went on to read it and it was just like a toxically negative diatribe about this, that and the other? I think that'd be funny but that's not how I roll.

So, the weather in The Burque has been so purty lately. It's a bit windy, but we've been rocking warm weather days for the past few weeks now. The added bonus is that everything is beginning to bloom. It makes me wanna go play football and drink lemonade, because you know, that's what you do when the weather gets nice.

(I'm pretty sure that this post is going to be a random blah-blah about things that are tickling my fancy right now. It's not going to be real deep. Just a heads up.)

Ok, is anyone else out there watching Idol? I'm totally addicted to it. In my ever so humble opinion, I'm enjoying this season significantly more than I have the past several. I think there are some really great folks on this year and I think they're thinking outside the box a bit. It doesn't always succeed but it's more interesting to watch than last year. BTW, does anyone else think that Carly Smithson's Irish accent has gotten stronger as of late? It was barely noticeable in the prelims and now it's really prominant. Huh? Also, how fun was it that Dolly Parton was the guest artist last week? Very fun!

Dolly's totally a lady that I'd like to hang with. I bet she's got some great stories about Burt Reynolds. The ladies over on Go Fug Yourself think that the real Dolly either died or retired several years back but that the proverbial "they" have just continued to dress people up like her. It's a sort of "Dread Pirate Roberts" thing, which is hilarious and slightly scary.

I met some friends of a friend this weekend and during the course of our conversation it dawned on me how thankful I am to have at least some knowledge of comic books. Ladies, I'm telling you if you want to be able to hold a conversation with almost any guy these days, you better at least pick up Fables because, trust me, almost every guy you know is reading comic books. At any rate, I'm glad that I had this knowledge because it's been my experience that dudes really appreciate encountering a girl who doesn't make them feel like King of the Dweebs for reading comic books. And truth be told, if you judge guys because they read comic books and you've yet to experience the joy that is a really fuckin' good CB then you should just go home, you judgemental, hateful bitches!! (So much for the daily dose of positive...) So, in conclusion of this topic, I'd like to send out a heartfelt "Thank you" to the folks in my universe who thought to put a comic book in my grubby little hands.

Moving right along, I was at a furniture store this weekend and I saw this really great chair and a half, which is exactly what it sounds like: a chair that is wide enough that it equals a chair and a half. Anyhoo, not only was this a very comfy chair but it also unfolded into a twin size sleeper! Even more cool was the fact that the mattress wasn't your run-of-the-mill sleeper mattress but an inflatable mattress which eliminated that whole bar/spring in the back thing you get with so many other sleeper sofas. I, of course, threw myself onto the thing with great enthusiasm and was pleased to give a very good report. That chair will likely be finding its way to my casita in the near future. Hoo-Ray! Now I can handle four overnight guests, so pack your bags everyone!

I get on these snack kicks every now and then and right now I'm in the throes of a love affair with chips and salsa. A/N I just looked up the definition of "throes" and that word means 'a violent struggle, convulsion, spasm or pang'. Umm... that word doesn't mean what I thought it meant. Dangit!!) Ok, whatever, I'm digging on the chips and salsa right now and very often, I'll throw in a dollop of sour cream and just send the whole darn snack off into the stratosphere!

On a another food related note, during my time in Appalachia I was introduced to and fell in lurve with a steak seasoning named Dale's. This stuff is awesome and truly is the secret to rad burgers. About a month or so ago I had a huge hankering for burgers and set out to buy supplies. But, hey, guess what? Dale's isn't sold in The Burque. I looked in every grocery store I could get to and no one had it. Meh. Double meh. So what did I do? I went to the Dale's Steak Seasoning website and ordered some. Success! I am now the proud owner of a case of Dale's Steak Seasoning and I finally got to have my yummy burgers.

All's right in the world.

No more talk of darkness!

So I believe everyone is aware of the fact that I fancy Gerard Butler, even though I can't for the life of me say his name right. (It looks like Gerard, but it sounds like Jared? Huh?) I mean look at him, he's really rather dashing!



Hi. Hi. Hi.



And we of course all know that Mr. Butler was none other than the brave and heroic and unbelievably abdominally blessed King Leonidas, yes?





But did anyone else know that he also plays the music of the night?



What the fuck?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Now there may be some of you out there who will feel that I've gotten some bad/wrong information, however to those folks I have just one thing to say: Imdb it, effers! It's all there!!

I feel a little bit like I've been lied to. Like, 75% of the reason I was so taken with Mr. Butler was because he totally exuded this manly-man kind of vibe. I was willng to overlook P.S. I love you because I thought it was just one of those movies, ya know? You know how sometimes awesome people make really silly movies, like Gary Oldman in Lost in Space? Yeah, like that. But apparently Mr. Butler has a thing for tragic love stories and that makes me wonder if he's just a giant, glistening vagina.

I'm completely torn.

*A/N: Apparently this post caused somewhat of a kerfuffle because folks have been emailing about it. WTF?! Several of the referring URL's for this post were emails and google searches. The google thing wouldn't be so weird if they weren't all done today. I'm scared I'm going to get nasty notes from the Gerard Butler fan club... or worse, from the Phantom of the Opera fan club!! Eek!!!

"No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog does. "

Everyone, this is Owen. Owen, this is everyone.

Owen is my dog. I adopted him today. We're happy as clams.

"Save us!!"...and I'll look down and whisper "No"...

With the release of several pictures and some hype about the upcoming Watchmen movie, I thought I'd pick up a copy and give this particular graphic novel another shot. I read it some time ago and didn't care too much for it. Something about it, though I can't quite remember what, didn't sit well with me. Occasionally with this medium, certain things about a graphic novel or comic book can turn me off. Art is a big one. There was a...what was it? A Wonder Woman or perhaps Powergirl book/series that used old school art, at least at the beginning and I couldn't read the damn thing because it looked like one giant comic strip from the funny pages. One of the main reasons I enjoy Fables as much as I do is because it's really rather pretty, especially the covers. I also enjoy the Buffy, Season 8 series because they've done a good job with the likenesses of the characters.

The paper that a graphic novel/comic book is printed on is important to me as well. I couldn't even touch Batman: A Death in the Family because the version I had access to was, like, newsprint. Like a newspaper. Ugh.

Now, the art in Watchmen isn't pretty by any means but it doesn't tear at me the way some do. And it's an Alan Moore work so the writing is rad enough that I can forgive somewhat ugly art, much the same way I do for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. That series has really ugly artwork but it works so well in the context of the story that I can forgive Mr. Moore and Mr. O'Neill quite easily.

At any rate, I'm going to give Watchmen another shot, maybe read it a bit more carefully. I'll definitely go back and read the book excerpts that I ignored last time. Maybe the whole thing will make a bit more sense this time around...

I've wandered into a few comic book shops around this town (The Burque has SEVERAL and they're all pretty well stocked from the look of things.) but I find the task of picking up new material a bit daunting. I picked up Civil War recently and I read that but I don't know where to go with that series from there. I miss spending time with Batman. I even find myself wondering what Superman is up to but these characters have been around for so damn long that I don't know what's worth reading or where to start. I'm not even sure what's happening with my favorite stories like Fables or Y: The Last Man.

Perhaps I need to do more research...

The other day I was driving home from work and I saw a bird walking up a hill. I mean, that's cool and all, it's his prerogative if he wants to climb up a hill.

But I couldn't resist rolling down the window and hollering "Yo bra, don't you know you can fly?!"

Am I the only who didn't know this?!?!

Hey folks, remember this douche bag and his lame story line on LOST?


Did anyone else know that he is also Xerxes, god king of Persia?

Because I most certainly did not. And I'm kinda freaked out now. This dude is creepy. Seriously. Creepy.

Honestly though, was I the only who didn't know this? Am I the only one who cares? Whatever. If you all come back at me with the whole "Yeah, Amelia, we all knew that it was that dude." then I'm gonna flip out. I hate when people do that. It irks me. BS you knew that, you didn't know! My high school BF used to do shit like that all the time. But would he call Huggy Bear out when HB started trying to convince us that there was, indeed, an underwater tunnel that led out into the ocean? No, he let that crap slide all up and down that street.

Shot, if you're reading this, tangents. Gotta love 'em!

Ok, hold up. Along the same lines of Mr. Xerxes up there, did you guys know that the wife from Lucky Louie, this little chit:

also played Delores, Paulette's little sister in the cinematic masterpiece, Grease 2?

CRAZY!!!