Normally I’d just put my earbuds in while I cruise the highway but 1) my Zune is still on its way back from the Zune hospital 2) mini workout-player is in Spouse’s truck and 3) so are the earbuds. All of this means I am FUCKED for a 2 hour drive. Except…

My CR-V has a six disc cd changer. I’ve had a few random discs in there for a while and by random I mean Juliana Hatfield, Mary J. Blige, Kate Nash eclectic (see above re: earbuds). At the last minute, I remembered that I still own some actual physical CDs – I KNOW – so I grabbed some faves. Here was my soundtrack for the drive to the Springs:

1. Patty Griffin, Living with Ghosts

This album remains in my top 5 of all time. Spare and gorgeous, not to mention awesome to sing along with.

2. Sarah Harmer, You Were Here

Smart lyrics, catchy beats – also fun for singalong.

3. Beastie Boys, Ill Communication

I remember when this album came out and there was NOTHING on the radio that sounded like it. It was the first glimpse of the “real” Beasties and their Sabotage video became legendary. ‘Cause you can’t, you won’t and you don’t stop.

4. Chris Isaak, Heart Shaped World

10th grade A.P. English trip to Toronto. I bought the tape and did my damndest to wear it out. Apparently I did the same with this disc because fully two songs won’t play anymore. Boo. Still love EVERY single tune.

5. Joan Osborne, Relish

One of my favorite albums ever and possibly in my top five Debut Albums. What if God was One of Us is still a good song but my fave without question is Right Hand Man. That song made me a fan for life.

6. Van Morrison, Moondance

Sentimental favorite. Someone asked me what my favorite song was a week or so ago – I’ve got a ton of faves but my favorite love song probably EVER is Into the Mystic.

So those are the discs I cranked through on the drive down. The way back has a whole other handful of discs.

I’ve been reading so there will, actually, be an update to the book list but I’m not sure it’ll get done today. On top of that, I may make the drive to Aspen tomorrow to FINALLY get to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I’m inordinately excited about the film and it’s totally worth the trip.

Dear Russell Crowe, Please learn the meaning of “metaphor” before talking about it. You’ll sound less dumb, I promise. For example, Gladiator wasn’t a “metaphor for death, and possibly vengeance.” It was a movie that was LITERALLY ABOUT VENGEANCE AND DEATH. Your mole freaks me out sometimes, you seem a little crazy, but I usually like your movies. Quit TALKING about them and trying to RUIN it for me. Love, Yg

Anna Paquin comes out as bisexual in defense of GLBT rights and CRASHES the website. LOVE HER. We should all be for equality anyhow but I’m sick of hearing straights (AND GAYS) claim that bisexuality doesn’t exist. It’s especially great that she’s in a committed relationship with someone because being engaged/married/committed doesn’t mean you’re LESS bisexual, it just means you’ve chosen to have a relationship with the luckiest person EVAR.

Sherlock Holmes. You have no idea how close this entry came to being called “No shit, Sherlock.” I loved it. Funniest fight scenes ever, while still being great fight scenes. Possibly the best role Jude Law has ever played. Irene Adler still kicks the most ass. All that and they managed to honor the tradition of Holmes not filling you in until the end of the book without making the film suck. I REALLY want to see Iron Man 2.

We rented Precious and Sorority Row. I’m not sure which we should watch first, though we probably won’t play Shane’s (awesome) drinking game. I maintain the only thing WRONG with his drinking game is that people haven’t reached the level of cynicism and/or pessimism about child abuse as they have with international natural disasters. Therefore Haiti Telethon drinking game = funny with a side of going to hell, Precious drinking game = OUCH, OUCH, THE FLAMES THEY BURN.

Jennifer’s Body was pretty fantastic. I love that it’s a girl movie – like Whip It but if your best friend wanted to kill/torture you instead of covering for you at the Oink Joint. Amanda Seyfried is GREAT.

The Princess and the Frog is growing on me. I love the soundtrack and I’ve watched the movie twice. It will probably never have the nostalgia of The Little Mermaid for me (I can probably recite the film BY HEART despite it being my favorite AND most hated Disney film) but it’s really good.

My rant about The Little Mermaid can take on its own entry. Seriously.

Surrogates was SURPRISINGLY good. I’m always willing to give Bruce a little leeway since I’m his number one fan (in a non-creepy, NON-MISERY, not even sending fan-tweets kind of way) but it managed to be a seriously decent murder mystery/action flick with some social commentary. Possibly my favorite kind of film.

I’m WAY over hearing about the sex lives of Tiger Woods and Jesse James. I think it’s a terrible thing to have attained enough fame to lose your privacy and have all of the details of your private life to become public fodder. If you like reading about the destruction of someone’s personal life, I’d argue that you’re not all that happy with your OWN life. Find something besides other people’s self-destruction to make you feel better.

In celebration of our Zombie Lord, we’ll be watching Sorority Row and eating steak and twice baked potatoes. I’m also going to make Deviled Eggs (which may seem appropriate – heh) for the Spouse even though I can’t stand them.

1. The chicken was awesome and (in keeping with RealSimple tradition) very easy and DELICIOUS. The boys were very happy.

2. I dig those fucking SteamFresh things. I’ve probably eaten more vegetables in the last year because of those bags than I have in the last five years.

3. That might be a slight exaggeration but probably not by much, unless you’re counting vegetables on pizza.

4. I didn’t use the olive oil called for in the breading recipe because I use pre-minced garlic that has a smidge of olive oil in it. Turns out the olive oil was totally not missed.

5. Beer is AMAZING.

I’m also apparently having some blog issues with regard to commenting. I thought it was maybe the theme, so I changed the theme and then ran into a whole other bunch of problems so I’ve resorted to IntenseDebate as a temporary solution. I do like that you can use your twitter login to comment so I’m hoping it works out until I have time to poke at the bugs going on here.

Spouse and I are both set up on XboxLive (yay for prepaid cards on sale) so I’m looking forward to LOTS more BandHero.

In unrelated and totally lame news, I bought a scarf today that matches my rainboots. I’m embracing my lame. I’m also considering dying my hair a pinkish blonde, just for the hell of it. That would also, incidentally, match my rainboots although that’s not my main motivation.

I am INORDINATELY excited to find out that other people hate noise-canceling earbuds. I LIKE being able to hear ambient noise. It’s the kind of thing that keeps me from being mugged or hit by cars. While there are definitely times when it’s good to block everything out, I’ve found I can do that by using my attention span/imagination which makes it unnecessary to render myself nearly deaf. Yay brains!

Something I’m not excited about: finding a dentist. I haven’t been to the dentist since we moved to Colorado and I’m working up one hell of a cavity on one of my right molars. I hate the dentist. HATE.

Best news of the week: Colorado FINALLY got around to sending me state certification as an EMT-B (I’ve had national certification since the fall). That means I can finally look for a medical job!

Supernatural was back this week and although I’m only halfway through the ep, I’m stoked. I missed the massive amounts of sarcasm and creepy/scary (not to mention hawt). Mercy is on a par with the sarcasm but balances it out with more humor (and laugh out loud, at that). This weekend’s movie lineup includes: Jennifer’s Body, Sorority Row, The Informant, Tenure, The Princess and the Frog and Where the Wild Things Are. Yes, we are random. I may also do a Yg + Spouse recap of Twilight/New Moon because we cracked me up.

I’ve been reading Finch but I’m not gonna lie, the CONSTANT use of. Fragments. Is Really. Annoying. Probably it’s supposed to convey. Speech pattern. Or tone. Mostly. It makes me want to throw. My fucking Kindle across the room. So I keep putting it down. Listening to Oryx and Crake on my ride home from work each day and it just reminds me how much I love Margaret Atwood. The listen is a refresh before I start In The Year of the Flood (ALSO very excited about).

That pretty much sums up all the immediate stuff. I’m going to do a yoga post before the weekend is out (shocking, I know) but for now I’m going back to my chocolate chip cookies and delicious Coors Light. Shut up, I like it. I don’t critique YOUR beer.

I’ll always think of Corey Haim as the ONE person who was probably actually Corey Feldman’s FRIEND while Feldman was insane. It’s too bad that the drugs got a hold on him because Haim was actually a decent comedic actor.

I was awake for almost 24 hours yesterday which made me a bit cranky by the time I got home. All-nighters in college were no sweat but an all-nighter where you actually have to do physical labor? Not so much fun.

In unrelated movie news: The Runaways really makes me want to see it mostly because Joan Jett and Lita Ford (but especially Joan) were my HEROES during the ‘trapped at the crazy church’ years. Joan was one of the first celebrities I remember seeing who looked like me (ish. If Joan was a Missionette.) – skinny, boy-like shape – but kicked as much ass as I hoped to.

The Ghost Writer looks good and if it hadn’t been made by an unapologetic child-rapist, I’d probably see it. Not gonna lie, the SERIOUSLY mixed reviews of Alice have me not feeling even a LITTLE bad about missing it. Take that Johnny-it’s-okay-now-because-he-has-a-family-Depp. P.S. Having a family doesn’t make it LESS TRUE that he drugged, raped and forcibly sodomized a 13-year-old.

Now that I’m down to 40ish hours, I’ve been re-evaluating the system. When I work afternoons (leaving the house at around 1pm or later) I find that I’m actually MOTIVATED to clean in the mornings. I get up, put things away, wash the dishes, et cetera. When I work mornings, though, I get up at about 4:30 am so that I can leave the house by 5:30 and let me tell you there is NO HOUSEWORK HAPPENING. If you’re lucky, I remember to clean up after myself so that there aren’t clothes strewn about the house and makeup all over the bathroom countertop.

The problem with working mornings is that when I get home I’m TIRED. It’s typically been a full 8 hour day and my shifts involve physical labor- not just standing at a cash register. I get to decompress on the drive home (45 minutes, more or less) and then by the time I’m at the house, I want to lay on the couch. Alas, dinner needs to be made and let’s face it, Spouse is the breadwinner no matter HOW many hours I work. I’m cool with the cooking and cleaning being part of my job, I just don’t LOVE it. The cooking is generally a nonissue but when I get home from work, there are invariably the dishes from Spouse’s breakfast (cooking and eating) sitting there, as well as the clean dishes from the night before and probably clean dishes in the dishwasher too. Not exactly INSPIRATIONAL.

This week I decided to do an experiment, since last week’s cleaning BEFORE work went so well. I’m still not going to clean at 4am but I thought I’d do something to help with an afternoon energy boost – enough to pump me up for cleaning and then I could cook and relax. So after I got home from work, I let the dog out and got on the treadmill. It turns out that a nice solid 30 minute run (intervals of some sort usually) gives me enough energy to beat the midafternoon tired slump and then I could clean with the music cranked up. Once I get the dishes done (one of my least favorite things) I put laundry in (once a week) and did a quick run of the floors (every other day). After that, I start dinner and clean up as I go. Once dinner is done, I’m all about the couch – at least until about 9 (when I have to pass out or risk not hearing the alarm for work).

So far I’m optimistic about the new system working. It looks like my morning schedule will be more regular and the run has the added benefit of making me feel good (in addition to keeping me awake).

In my ‘Newest Music’ playlist this month: MoZella – Belle Isle, Ben Folds – supersunnyspeedgraphic, Chin Chin – Chin Chin, Hurray for the Riff Raff – Young Blood Blues, Ladytron – Velocifero and the Glee Soundtracks.

State of the Union. Yeah, I played WET on my Xbox instead of watching. Frankly, I think the whole point of the internet is to keep me from having to watch the news. I’m largely disappointed that everyone in Washington is too busy trying to keep their jobs to actually DO their jobs. I’m tired of them bitching about something being wrong when THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WITH THE POWER TO CHANGE IT. That’s not to say that’s what I think Obama was doing but I couldn’t stand to watch all the bi-partisan asshattery.

As an aside, every time I see John Boehner I think “John Boner” and then wonder how someone named “Boner” got elected in Ohio. And then I go OH YEAH.

Listening to MoZella’s album and I LOVE IT. It’s like a cross between Feist and Maroon 5. Also the Glee soundtracks and am continuously creeped out by She’s Having My Baby – to the point where I may need to delete it from my entire collection. P.S. How did we get THAT but not Single Ladies?

Whip It came out in DVD. I was VERY EXCITED. I watched it three times. It will get its own entire post.

Indulged a little today by getting a manicure. I’ve been working with cardboard pretty much nonstop for the last month and have an event Monday and Tuesday. The back room project is over at work (at least this stage) and my hands can (hopefully) return to normal. At the very least, the mani will make me presentable for the event and then I can hopefully maintain.

Sometimes when my husband is looking for something and can’t find it, I want to hit him with a hammer.

Dead writers. I can’t be arsed to care, really.

Haiti. Well, the only time we care about poor countries are when there are natural disasters, not things like DICTATORS AND GENOCIDE. SIGH.

Booked my flight for the Seattle trip. Next up- hotel rooms.

We’re watching Public Enemies right now. I’m currently unimpressed. I did watch I’ve Loved You So Long on Netflix and I thought it was fantastic. The Edge of Love was passable but not great.

Listening to Middlemarch on my afternoon commute. The audiobook is DEFINITELY better than reading the damn thing myself – especially since it’s a practical use of the drive time. Eliot is droll but somewhat heavyhanded in the use of narrator commentary. I am reminded (as with East of Eden) that some topics are just as relevant now as they were in other centuries.

I still love work. I’m enjoying it immensely and have fun with my coworkers. Hard to beat that!

The muffins allowed me to test my new silicone muffin pans and they are FANTASTIC. I love them. If I could, I’d replace most of my bakeware with silicone. On the current wishlist: those measuring cups/spoons that flatten, as well as a colander.

My Xbox is wending its way to the house as we speak. I’m very excited about it and picked up some used games from GameStop. Fatima promised we could conference and watch bad movies on Netflix, so I’m looking forward to that.

My hands ARE pretty thrashed from work. I’ve been having issues for the last year/year and a half with dry nails that peel (rather than split or break) and recently discovered that a fix seems to include 1. No nail polish and 2. Lots of lotion. I trimmed my nails tonight and there wasn’t a single peeler. The hands ARE hella dry from all the cardboard though. I might actually have to get out my lotion gloves overnight.

New current playlist is an autolist with Lily Allen, Kelly Clarkson, Britney, Gaga and Katy Perry. I’m REALLY enjoying it.

Other random news. Brit Hume- WTF? Because Christians, especially FAMOUS Christians, NEVER have extramarital affairs? WTF *SouthCarolinaGovernor* cough. I think Brit’s a first class idiot. See also: not everyone subscribes to your idea or need for forgiveness. Jackass.

Tomorrow’s post-work excitement will consist of seeing Avatar again and/or cleaning the basement. Piper was mad that we left today and got into the coffee grounds in the laundry room garbage. Mmmm. Coffee grounds. This would likely be less annoying if I 1. drank coffee and 2. thought coffee smelled good. Damn dog.

I might do some more reading before bed tonight- Middlemarch is even more effective than Ambien.

Speaking of which, I have a day off this week (!) and Spouse has mad noises about a second viewing of Avatar. I’m all for it.

Chuck returns next week! So does Burn Notice!

I finally decided what to spend my h$liday money on – a long-wanted XB0x 360. It was a close battle between that and the entire 5 seasons of The Wire but I opted for multi-user fun. Not only that, Fatima helped sway me with promises of long-distance movie viewing and snark. The 360 marks the last of my ‘frivolous’ purchases for the next 4 months (save for “gift” money)- the only resolution I made this year. No books or music until I’ve read through everything on the kindle and listened to everything on the Zune at least once.

Happy New Year!

1. Closing shift – virtually no traffic on the way there or on the way home. My only complication in life is people who don’t know how to drive in the snow and/or mountains. Takeaway: if you can’t, DON’T.

2. Glee! I love Glee.

3. Criminal Minds! I love Criminal Minds. The last couple of episodes have been crazy intense. Such a good show.

4. Mercy! It was back tonight after a hiatus and I am surprised by how much I MISSED it. I have a hard time describing for people why I like it so much but all of the characters are messed up in their own way and no matter what happens on the show, I feel GOOD when I’m watching it.

5. I don’t work until 1pm tomorrow which means AMBIEN.

I feel okay admitting this because Husband just said (while watching Paul Simon, David Crosby and Nash) “More guys who should be dead already.”

What’s terrible is the number of singers who don’t have the pipes they used to. Just because you USED to sing a song doesn’t mean you should keep trying to do it. Clearly.