JodyTheBad's Pirate Ship!

I had a really great weekend! Sean babysat all day Saturday so that Mark and I could see a movie (we saw "Devil Wears Prada" because it got good reviews and I was in the mood for uplifting) and go to dinner. (FOGO!!!!!!)

It was a great day out. I don't think Mark and I have made it out for both dinner and a movie since before Connor was born. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but it's the kind of formula I like. Streep was really amazing, I loved her, and I worked for someone scarily like her character back at MATRA. (We even called her the Dragon Lady.) I had a really good relationship with my dragon lady, though, because I was awesome at my job. ;)

Sunday Julie and company came over for a good visit. Connor is SO CUTE when Miguel gets here. He shrieks in joy when he sees Miguel. We had some grilled pre-marinated Costco chicken, it turned out very nicely for the effort it took to prepare it and it was even cheaper than ordering pizza. (But not much cheaper than making Costco pizzas, as Sean pointed out.)

The surprise of the weekend, though, was the show "Who Wants to be a Superhero." Naturally we had to watch this reality show, Mark being superhero-obsessed, but to my shock it was very cute and well done. People make up super hero personas and then compete for the opportunity to be immortalized in a comic. Stan Lee is the host/judge. Since they obviously can't test on how high a building these people can leap, they are testing their superhero morality. I heard the concept but wondered how they could really do that. Well I was totally delighted with what they did on the first episode, and I highly recommend it to anyone who has ever had a passing interest in superheros.

It's showing on Bravo, USA and Sci-Fi channels, so if you have cable you can probably still catch it.

Every so often I clean off my desk and eye with irony the Clutter Control book I keep buried under all my clutter. Even if I manage to get the rest of my house under control (and it is getting better slightly faster than the continents are drifting) I don't think I'll ever have a clean desk. I know, I know, Flylady's 5 minutes a day would do wonders for me, but what I have on my desk is controlled chaos. I just need to have some things right there in front of me, every attempt to have a place for everything has failed miserably.

But I guess it's OK, there are worse things in life than a messy desk.

So Mark accidentally got me this Nintendo DS video game for my birthday: Brain Age.

I didn't want this game, I wanted another one. But Mark overheard some conversation about it (probably with my mom) and had it in his head that it's what I wanted. To make matters worse, when we got the package from Amazon, he ripped it open right away so we couldn't return it, so we got stuck with it.

Since we own it, and I figure my brain really CAN use a workout, I decided to see what it had to offer. What I mainly discovered is that the way I say "blue" is not recognized by the voice recognition software, and that means my mental age is about 70. Yay!!

It gave me some exercises which I did ok on. I did another set of tests and it said my mental age was 34. Cool, I thought, that's exactly right!

When you do the setup for this thing, you enter your name and birthdate. It excitedly congratulated me on my upcoming 34th birthday. "That's odd," I thought, "this is my 35th birthday." I thought I'd entered the wrong year or something, but then upon thinking about it, I realized that for the past year I've thought I was a year older than I actually am. I don't do the math every time someone asks me my birthday and obviously I got a little off at some point.

So for my birthday I get a whole extra year. Go me!

An excerpt from one of the Amazon reviews that made me chuckle:
"I would suggest sticking with "Brain Age." I've noticed an improvement in my handwriting since using "Brain Age," and I've observed my brain age drop from seventy to a twenty-three over one month of training. While some scientists have issued reports attempting to disprove Kawashima's studies, I believe that regular use of Brain Age has kept me sharp over what has been a lazy summer vacation. For example, I've always been horrible with telling people how many syllables were in a phrase, but now I nail that specific exercise every time after a month of training."

This person's kitchen table has a more up-to-date blog than my kids do:
Some dude's kitchen table blog.

The more time goes by the more I am glad that Ralph Reed lost the election. I'm glad that someone that is supposed to be a leader of the Christian Coalition can't show corruption and not suffer for it. The voters gave him a big thumbs down in the recent election for Lt. Governor.

I have wondered this a lot lately and finally took the moments to look it up. Mushrooms are in fact good for you, not just empty calories. I wonder how fried mushrooms in horseradish cream sauce stack up. ;)

I took a Harry Potter personality test and it told me I was most like Hagrid. I can live with that. The Quiz.


Harry Potter Personality Quiz by Pirate Monkeys Inc.

This is what I think when I look at LJ last 30 pictures. (Sean forwarded me the picture of Killer's twin)

Jawa Jedi training

Oh no, I just realized this jewelry makes me look like a pimp!

First drawing is for Gnomtrix and Jae (sucks to live in a country with no AC. MOVE!). . . .

Woman thinks. . . .My husband is sick, but isn't his doctor HOT???

This should be titled "Stuff on Sean's Cat"

Connor in class (he is a lining-stuff-up fool)

I always knew those Olympians were mutants. . . .

Thanks, Sean. =) (You have to click on it to get it to work. Even stranger.)

I realize the day is not that far along, but I can't see any other picture contending. Odd Picture.

This is from the 30 pictures link I gave earlier. Feel free to try to compete. Only innocuous pictures, please, I don't want to corrupt my mom or something.

I just noticed that today's IMDB movie of the day is An Ideal Husband, one of my all-time favorite movies. As I lovingly reviewed the IMDB information on the movie I JUST noticed that one of actors - Jeremy Northam - played Mr. Knightly in Emma, another of my favorite movies (that I have just finished watching over the past few days.)

If I were S, I would have watched one movie BECAUSE of the other but I'm slow on the uptake with actors and whatnot.

Incidentally, Jeremy Northam seems to have no major life tragedies, although he is unattached after dating a few models, so hopefully he just never wanted to get married.

EDIT: By the way, no one else in my circle of friends really loves this kind of movie the way I do, so I have no one to recommend movies to me. If you like period pieces (not even sure that's a pre-requisite) with witty banter, meaningful looks and romance then let me know what else I should watch!

I couldn't be more excited about this show. I LOOOOOVE Aaron Sorkin's writing, and it was a sad sad day when he left West Wing. It went from being one of my favorite shows ever to being unwatchable. It was painful. I don't know if it truly became awful, or if it was just so much worse by comparison that I couldn't get over it. Normally my standards for TV dramas are pretty low, though - most are at least watchable.

Anyway, I'm super excited about this particular show not only because it's Aaron Sorkin, but also because it's about something that I have a vague interest in - I enjoy seeing behind the scenes of almost anything and I have an almost train-wreckesque fascination with the entertainment industry. Soo many people would sell their souls to make it big in Hollywood, yet I know of so few "stars" that seem to have happy healthy lives. The only exceptions I've been able to come with are possibly Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. They seem to have it together. The rest seem to have issues with lots of divorces, drug or alcohol problems, eating disorders, that kind of thing. Maybe it's selective attention, though.

Also, did you know that if you're amongst the super-rich, your chance of a yachting-related death positively SKYROCKETS???

Sorkin could write a show about the most boring thing imaginable, like, say, a sports show, and I would still love it. So counting the days 'til Studio 60!

The same guy has been spraying this house for bugs since I was in 4th grade - that's 25 years now! He used to play video games with me and my brother when we had our original Nintendo. He was a teenager and much better than we were. I just think it's interesting that we've had this bug man longer than most people are ever married at a stretch. =)

It's fun to do something you do every day and see how much worse you are at it just because you're sick. I feel semi-alert at the moment, I wouldn't have a problem getting in the car and driving, yet, I do much much worse at the little quickie games I sometimes play on the computer, like this one:

Helicopter Madness!! (My own title)

So maybe I shouldn't drive after all. =)

I'm sure it has to do with having a toddler, but I've been sicker in the past year than I have been in forever. Everyone except Mark is once again enjoying a snotty cold. Poor little Chase - I can't give him any cold remedy for another month.

Anyway, the topic of the day is pain medications. I take Tylenol, the extra-strength kind. I don't really understand the idea of normal strength Tylenol. Perhaps it's because I only rarely take any meds at all. By the time I find the bottle, I am hurting pretty badly, the pain is the focus of my life, and I want it gone. Not just a little gone, but as gone as possible. Tylenol doesn't cause me to get tired or make me hyper or anything like that, so I always take the full dosage allowed. I can't imagine the circumstances under which I'd prefer normal strength Tylenol. I think I just have this magical point before which, a pain can be ignored and after which, it consumes me and must be eradicated!

I just saw a commercial on TV for Tylenol - it was a woman cautioning against exceeding the recommended dosage. That got me to thinking about the instructions on my box. Take 2 pills every 4-6 hours, not to exceed blah blah blah.

I happen to know a person or two that weighs 100 lbs, and a person or two that weighs 250lbs+. Is it for real that the same dosage works exactly the same in two people of such different sizes? I guess it's POSSIBLE. After all, even though I have more background in biology than the average American, it is still pretty much magical the way pain medication works in my view.

If a larger person should in fact have a higher dose, I wonder why they don't give weight ranges on bottles, like they do for children's medications. Maybe drug manufacturers fear that people that weigh 100 lbs are not very good at reading charts and so they'd accidentally take the 250lb person's dose. I can only assume that their current dosage (if it is weight dependent) assumes very small people to prevent small people from ODing just by following directions.

Ah well, in any case, my 2 pills seem to do a decent job for me so I'm not too worried about it, just curious.

The other day S. mentioned that he was going to start a diet THIS INSTANT. I was impressed. I always have plans to start a diet, but it's always about 3-5 days from now, which have a way of never arriving. What happens is before my magical day arrives I go to the store, and there's a nice box of donuts on sale or something; such a good deal I can't resist! And then there's no sense in starting a diet when there's a box of donuts in the house going to waste.

So my big plan is to go to the store and not buy any junk. We'll see how it goes.

There's a news story today about a woman who used fertility techniques to get pregnant and ended up with triplets. The idea of taking care of three babies at once makes my brain hurt. Taking care of my two seems overwhelming at times (at least by about 6pm most nights.) But the news story is that less than three years after having the triplets, she got unexpectedly pregnant with QUADRUPLETS. EEEEEEEEEK! In the news story, she didn't sound like she was joyous at this development. I am not sure I would be either. Their one bedroom apartment probably seemed crowded even before the new arrivals.

The news story: 7 babies!

In other news, I am recently obsessed with this (POSSIBLY NOT WORK SAFE) URL:
30 pictures

It is the last 30 images uploaded to livejournal. You can click on the images to access the journals. I am telling you, I don't know what people did pre-internet to release their inner-weird.

I'm excited because the new season of Project Runway starts soon (already started? TiVo makes life weird). I have no interest in personal fashion, I have no sewing skill, I have no craft skills what-so-ever, and yet I am fascinated with this show. I think it's because I enjoy the personalities of artists. For this reason I get more sucked into this show than the general competition shows out there (Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother) I am giving Treasure Hunters a shot but it's not on my must-see list yet. My favorite reality shows are Runway, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and The Apprentice. The Apprentice doesn't involve artists, but at least I can relate to the problem solving they have to do on that show.

Hopefully Runway and SYTYCD can hold me over until my beloved comedies come back in the Fall. Ah, The Office and Earl, how I miss you!

I had lunch with S (to borrow his super-impenetrable mechanism to keep real identities secret) at Sweet Tomatoes yesterday. We have developed a theory that we will always run into someone famous, based solely (I believe) on the fact that we once saw Jennifer Nettles there. Since the Nettles-sighting, we have been kind of celebrity-lite, although we do seem to always see at least one older woman evidently dressed as a clown. There must have been some period in fashion when it was OK to wear two different types of plaid at the same time.

This time, we hoped to run into Clark Howard, a consumer rights advocate that lives in Atlanta. Before heading to lunch I made a stop at Costco to buy my weekly fortune of diapers and formula, and I'm fairly certain that I saw Clark Howard in a different aisle. I don't think he needs more attention than he has so I let him shop. Plus, I'm not sure what I would say. I thought about it a lot as I shopped (in case we ended up next to one another in line) and I settled on "I love the sense of humor you have about your cheap-ass self!" Although I'd probably leave out "cheap-ass."

I decided to create a blog for myself so that I wouldn't feel so constrained by the ostensible purpose of the Mightybear blog - to share what's going on in the life of my kids. As much as I love my kids, they do not share my love of, for example, video games (yet) and reality TV shows, and I need an outlet.

This is a test, this is only a test.