Sunday, April 24, 2005

It's just not a Vegas wedding without Elvis

My cousin, Derek, got married to his girlfriend (Liz) this week. On 4/20. His idea, I'm sure. They had a small ceremony out in Las Vegas. Sadly, the King wasn't present.

Derek and Liz - Aww!


I'm happy, because Liz is awesome. In addition to reading comics (she introduced me to Fables, actually, for which I am eternally grateful), she also speaks Spanish (Bueno!). Sis is happy, too, but also slightly annoyed because now that side of the family will forever refer to her as "Lizzie" to differentiate between the two of them. Hee.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Friday, April 08, 2005

Google meme

A leftover from my old lj account:
Google the images
copy
paste
enjoy!

1. The age you will be on your next birthday.


2. Your mother's middle name.

(from the Jew of the Day website - hee!)

3. Your favourite color.


4. The place you lost your virginity (someone's house, their car, your bed, the woods, etc.) or would like to lose your virginity if you haven't.


5. A bad habit of yours.


6. Your favourite fruit or vegetable.


7. Your favourite animal.


8. The last name of your kindergarten teacher.


9. The name of a pet.


10. Your favourite band.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

What, no "Piano Man"?

Went to "Movin' Out" tonight with Rob and Erin. It was spectacularly disappointing. Which is not to say that it was bad, just not what I was expecting. Not what a lot of patrons were expecting, if the grumbling on the smoker's porch during intermission was any indicator. I had wanted to see it, and now I have, so I guess that counts for something. For anyone who hasn't seen/heard about it, "Movin' Out" is basically two hours of interpretive dance set to Billy Joel songs. There was a plot, of sorts, but no dialogue (except for marching orders during the Vietnam scene) and the dancers didn't sing. But there was a live band above the stage, and the choreography was awesome. The only thing that really annoyed me: in one scene, one of the characters was dancing and the stage lights were shining right into the upper-level seats, blinding us to what was going on on stage. I'm sure it looked cool for the people at floor level, but those of us with crappy seats missed it and had to deal with bright lights burning into our retinas.

The Castle: NOT a restaurant

So...my company sent me to SC to help set up for the new Spring season. It was actually a lot more fun than I thought it would be. Drove up Monday morning, which was awesome because it was rainy here in Atlanta, and then almost as soon as I hit the state line, it suddenly cleared up and got really sunny and pretty outside.


Ghoti the traveling fish and Zeus the Moose (patron saint of my bad driving) accompanied me in the car, as always.


I wished I had been playing the license plate game (did anyone else play that during car rides as a kid?) because I saw plates from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee (not surprising, since they're not that far away), and also New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Lousiana, Rhode Island, and California. So that was amusing. Also fun? Listening to my Sabrina the Teenage Witch soundtrack. Don't laugh - it's actually really great driving music, 'cause it's filled with semi-obscure mid-90s pop. And it was one of the few cassettes I had in my car - I couldn't listen to cds because my phone charger was using the adapter, and I couldn't find a radio station I liked. There was even a Phantom Planet song on there, from the first album, which was a big surprise. It totally made up for the Britney. Afterward, though, I turned the radio back on, and the first song I found was none other than "Baby Girl," performed by Georgia's own Sugarland (featuring Jennifer Nettles)! So that was awesome. I think I actually squealed aloud as I turned it up to sing along. It's always awesome to hear one of the your favorite local artists on the radio, especially when you're in a different state.


Ghoti in SC!



This is how you can tell we're not in GA anymore: Pepsi, Pepsi everywhere and not a Coke to drink. Sad.


The store I was sent to is in a mall, and it's also the biggest store in the Western Division. This place was huge. Like, 4x the size of my store in McDonough. A little bit intimidating. But the people were all really nice and I got to meet Farrah, who's one of the most awesome people ever.

One of the big projects Michael and I got to work on was turning two T-walls into Prep Rally shops (Prep Rally being one of our themes for this season). We started off painting the two walls a lovely shade of bright yellow:

The WALL OF DOOM! before (actually, after we painted it, but before we fixed it up)


And then added shelves, face-outs, lettering, clothes, etc:

My WOD! after


Michael's WOD! after


Our first full day, Farrah kept talking about how she wanted to take us to "the castle" to eat dinner one night. She said they had really great food, but it was somewhat expensive. I didn't mind, as work was reimbursing me for all food and gas expenses this trip. Michael and I mentioned to another visual, Joshua, that we were going to "the castle" one night, which earned us some very strange looks. Turns out, "The Castle" is a gay bar in the city, but "California Kitchen" (or something like that), which is shaped like a castle, is a restaurant down the street. We all had a good laugh at that.


Not THE Castle, just "the castle"


Our company spends thousands of dollars on very silly things. For instance, I regularly receive collateral for brands that my store does not even carry. This stuff gets thrown out, and is therefore a giant waste of money. They also spend gobs of money on stuff like this lamp, which I could probably make for $50:

The $5,000 grade-school arts-and-crafts project


And then there's this little mostrosity, that you couldn't pay me enough to even attempt:

The $6,000 hunting-lodge-decor-gone-horribly-wrong-yet-still-PETA-friendly-world's-ugliest-lamp