Wednesday, December 31, 2008

New Year (Working)

I love New Year's Eve. This year might suck a tad though. Still don't know what exactly is going on tonight, as far as parties go. I do have to work until about 11:30pm. So basically I'll go in for a few hours (third time today), come home and spend midnight drinking champange with Molly, then head right back to the northside looking for a party. Oh well.

I guess since the year ends in less than ten hours, I have bought all of the 2008 albums I'm going to buy. Now I can start working on my best-of lists. Here are the candidates:

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology
American Music Club - The Golden Age
Atlas Sound - Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
Beck - Modern Guilt
Black Keys - Attack & Release
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Lie Down in the Light
Calexico - Carried to Dust
Brendan Canning - Something for All of Us
Cat Power - Jukebox
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Coldplay - Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Momofuku
The Cure - 4:13 Dream
Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs
Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams
DeVotchKa - A Mad & Faithful Telling
Flaming Lips - Christmas on Mars [soundtrack]
Fleet Foxes - s/t
Islands - Arm's Way
James - Hey Ma
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Magnetic Fields - Distortion
Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Conor Oberst - s/t
Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
R.E.M. - Accelerate
Shearwater - Rook
Sigur Rós - Með Suð í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust
Silver Jews - Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
Son Ambulance - Someone Else's Déjà Vu
Supergrass - Diamond Hoo Ha
Travis - Ode to J. Smith
The Walkmen - You & Me
Weezer - s/t [The Red Album]
Brian Wilson - That Lucky Old Sun
Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Normally at this time of year, I have most of my lists done. Not this year though. I'm sure I can put something together fairly quickly, but I just haven't. Plus I went on a little shopping spree and picked up some last-minute albums. I think I bought most everything I wanted this year. The only two albums I still want from this year are Bon Iver's and Deerhunter's. Any other suggestions?

Anyhoo, I hope everybody enjoys their night. Have a good 2009!
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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Ex-Smoker, Day 77 (Done)

Yesterday was my last day on the Commit lozenges, so I guess I'm officially nicotine-free. Yay for me!

I was getting pretty worried last week about a possible addiction to the lozenges. The cherry-flavored don't taste too bad, and I found myself looking forward to taking them. However, I got lucky when I went to pick up my last box at Target.

The box I bought had a bonus pack of cappuccino-flavored lozenges. And I am very happy to report that they taste even worse than I had imagined. God they are so gross! They don't taste like cappuccino at all!! They taste more like popcorn covered in maple syrup. Molly can't even stand to be around me when I take them because of the smell.

This is all good because I gave away any cherries I had left, so I am only stuck with cappuccino. I have no choice to either do nothing or eat popcorn covered in maple syrup. Perfect!

Okay, so now that this is over with, I really need to get into shape. I quit smoking and all I have to show for it is a bigger gut. Not good. I'm going to start running again. Join a gym or something. I can't waste my sudden healthiness. Before I moved to Richmond, I was running for twenty minutes four times a week. It was great, except that I ruined it by following up the workouts with a cigarette and some fast food. I already never eat fast food, and now I quit smoking. No more excuses, Taylor!!
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Sunday, December 21, 2008

Almost Christmas

I went back to work on Wednesday after a week off for vacation. I only worked three days this week (then a few hours yesterday morning for some tapings), but it felt like twenty days. I hate going back to work after vacation... I guess everybody does.

Didn't really do much over vacation. I kept saying that it was my first vacation in around four years where I didn't have big plans. I could've gone home, but Molly only had two days off and I wanted to spend time with her. The only plans we had out-of-town were head up to DC for a museum run and go to my sister's place for the weekend. Neither really went as planned.

Mika got pretty sick right as our vacation started. She spent a day or so having bad sneezing fits, then her eyes got all swollen and pink. We skipped DC and took her to the vet. Seemed like she had some sort of pink-eye virus. She ended up with three different medications. I still went to my sister's over the weekend, but Molly stayed home with the cats. Mika ended up getting better just as my vacation ended (of course), but it was a little scary for a while. She seems like normal now, back to destroying the Christmas tree.

Monday and Tuesday were the days I had off while Molly went back to work. I spent my time getting caught up on some super-violent movies that, for some reason, Molly never really wanted to see: Rambo on Monday, and Shoot 'em Up on Tuesday. Lots of guns and blood and stuff, so good times.

Speaking of movies, we saw Slumdog Millionaire on Friday. Pretty good. Go see it. Danny Boyle is so awesome. I want to see a movie around Christmas but haven't decided between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Valkrie, and The Spirit. Shit man, I want to see Marley and Me too. I loved the book.

Oh, one last thing of awesomeness. We got a Wii. I found a Toys 'r Us nearby selling them, and went ahead and picked one up. Holy crap, I love it.

Mii


Mollii
(That was stupid.)
(Plus Molly is going to kill me for posting that.)
So far the only games we have are Wii Sports (of course), Wii Play (kinda stupid, but I love the fishing game), and Mario Kart (awesome). This weekend I downloaded the old NES Super Mario games and have been playing them. It's funny how I still remember the old secrets and stuff after like fifteen years of not playing them. Just sweet.
Well, I hope everybody enjoys the holidays. I have Christmas day and New Year's Day both off. Christmas is all planned out, but New Year's is still a little up in the air. I went to Carytown's New Year's thingy a couple of years ago, but it's gotten even more nuts since. The idea of spending New Year's shoulder-to-shoulder with 50,000+ people and spending an hour in line getting a $7 beer doesn't sound like fun. Well there is that Gwar show downtown. Hmmm.
Anyhoo, have fun! I'm going to start working on my year-end music lists soon.
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Thursday, December 11, 2008

Mika


This is Mika, our new kitten. We picked her up about two weeks ago from Richmond Animal League.

We figured now would be the right time to pick up a new cat. Sophie had been pretty rebelious lately, and we figured kinda lonely too. She definitely didn't take too kindly to having Mika around at first, but she has made huge strides over the past few days. The first week was filled with hisses and growls, but hardly any swats. We had Mika locked up in the spare bedroom for a while, but we figured we'd let her out to see what would happen. And Sophie got used to her very quickly. I wouldn't quite call them buds yet, but it's getting close.

Mika, by the way, is a very sweet kitten. That's why we got her. She loved being around people, and handled coming home like a champ.

She's become quite rowdy lately though.

In fact, we don't have many good pictures of her yet because she is constantly running around. Her new thing is climbing the Christmas tree almost to the top. She rarely naps, just crashes hard at night. We worry about her craziness because her wound from her spaying wasn't exactly healed when we got her. It popped open a couple of days later. I took her to the vet and she got three staples put in. She gets them out Monday, and we hope her rowdiness hasn't caused any further damage.

She's been great though. It's been nice to hear two cats running after each other again. I really look forward to coming home to see her, even though she is killing my sleeping by jumping on my head or scratching my legs. She'll calm down though. She just has a bunch of kitten energy right now. She's very personable and we love having her here.
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Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Christmas Cat


Don't let the thrilled look fool you, Sophie isn't exactly in the Christmas spirit. We got her (well, all of us) an early present, but I don't think she likes it. I'll post about it this weekend.

Now the tree, that's something to get excited about.
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