I weighed myself last night. I should only do it once a week but sometimes I just have to get on the scale. I was kind of surprised at the number on the scale. I mean, yes, I'm surprised at the actual number staring back at me just on principle. Last night's number was surprising because of how different it was from the number it showed me 44 days ago. This new number was exactly 19 less than that original number. It's an average of around 2.5 pounds a week which is pretty good. But I do have to admit that I have cheated a wee bit. There have been fries. Beth can attest to my cheat day meal of pizza. I'm finding that if you do allow yourself one tiny indulgence and don't go overboard that this really can work. I just need to stick with it for the rest of my life. Ugh. Damn my chubby little genes.

Well summer is starting to wind down around here. Cadets are starting to show up. Classes are less than a month away and I have a feeling it's going to go by really fast.

My inner-geek is sad

Today marks the first day of Geek Fest '08 in San Diego. I promised myself last year, whilst standing in an insanely long line, that I would NEVER do it again. Yet here I am, at work, pining for the fresh San Diego air and the joys of mocking the costumed masses. Ugh. I used to make fun of fanboys and fangirls. Never did I think I'd want to be with them at the yearly festival in which one can geek out as much as they can without any shame. How often does one get to see a Storm Trooper walking with an Orc? Not often. Have you ever seen Magneto grab a coffee with Wolverine? No! At Comic Con you would.

So Dana, my sister-in-geekdom, and I are currently making plans for next year. Our goal is to stay at a hotel in walking distance from the convention center. This would help us arrive early enough to be at the beginning of those obnoxious lines. Plus who wouldn't want to spend a long weekend in San Diego? It's freaking great there.

The mind is a terrible thing to, um, uh...

My memory isn't what it used to be. Last night I was talking to my friend Ashlee and she reminded me of something that happened when she was here. I was thrilled that she brought it up because it was something to blog about. As of this moment, I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Anywhoodle, I saw Mamma Mia and Dark Knight this weekend. I took my mom to both movies and we had a plan of attack that worked pretty successfully. We went to see Mamma Mia on Saturday and bought our tickets for Dark Knight for the next day. The lines were quite long both days but we knew we didn't want to stand in line again on Sunday. So we got there just as the show before ours ended. We went right in and got our favorite seats. Meanwhile we both kept going in and out to get napkins, straws, go to the bathroom, etc. On Mom's first trip back out of the theater she noticed the long line that had formed for our movie. Ooops! Oh well. There was a couple that came in when we did so we didn't feel so bad about it. There was this Asian woman who was the first to get in the theater from the line that had formed outside. She looked like she wanted to kill us for being in the seat she most likely wanted to be in. There's a good chance she assumed we hadn't left from the last showing of the movie. Oh well.

So Mamma Mia was cute and fun and set in Greece. Dark Knight was not cute and not fun and certainly not set in Greece. It was, however, one of the best movies I've seen in a very long time. I definitely liked it better than Batman Begins which says a lot. But I give you this warning with all the love in my heart: make sure to have an empty bladder before the opening credits roll. It's a looong movie and I don't suggest missing one minute of it.

Chester the molester

Ok, a funny thing happened last night but I'm not sure it'll translate well if you don't personally know my uncle. I'll see if I can give you an idea. Let me start by saying that he is a very harmless man. Yes, I refer to him as the "Dreaded Uncle" but that's only because when he comes to visit he stays WAAAAAYYYY too long and can be annoying. The annoying thing isn't anything he does intentionally but it's just a myriad of things about him that I don't understand or don't like. Plus he looks odd. I don't think he's bought a new piece of clothing in over a decade. In fact I think most of what he wears dates from at least the 80s. He tends to wear a lot of my grandfather's clothes (my grandfather is dead so don't think that he's wandering around somewhere in the buff 'cause his son stole his clothes). He has disheveld hair which he cuts himself with a Flowbee (no joke). He has a full beard and walks funny because he has a bad back. He's very sheltered too. He is pretty much a shut in if you exclude his trips to the Dollar Store.

It's worth noting that when he visits, he tends to take an obnoxious amount of pictures of his grandkids (my cousin Jess' kids, Cade and Zoe). So he ALWAYS has a camera or videocamera around his neck.

Ok, now the story. Cade and Zoe are in a gymnastics program and we (me, Mom, Dad, and Dreaded Uncle) went to see them last night. All the parents stay and watch their kids and they all tend to know each other. So last night we (me, Mom and Dad) went in and headed straight to Jess & Eric and stood with them to watch. Dreaded Uncle didn't follow us but instead grabbed a chair and started taking pictures. Well some of the parents got a bit nervous. Actually I think it's weird that he didn't automatically acknowledge his daughter or her husband by going to them and saying Hi before settling in to take pictures but I guess that's beside the point.

So there's my odd looking uncle, by himself, taking a ton of pictures of little kids. One of the directors of the gym took him aside to speak to him. He finally convinced her that he was, in fact, the grandfather of two of the kids. She kind of forced him into the gym part to sit in a corner and take pictures. We suspect she wanted him out of the way of the other parents. She then came right over to us to explain what had happened. The poor girl felt bad about it until we, through our tears of laughter, assured her that she not only did the right thing but that we think he looks suspect too.

He really had no idea how creepy that whole situation looked to anyone. In his world some random guy can take pictures of 4 and 5 year olds and not think twice about it. We were later joking how much funnier it would have been if he were outside taking pictures through the windows. Instead of the gym director taking him aside we would have gotten to see the cops arrest him.

Snoozeday

If you've got some time today, check out Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It's the perfect combination of Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Joss Whedon. The other two acts will be aired on the 17th and 19th I believe. It'll only be viewable thru Sunday I think on this site.

Oh and I've lost 13 pounds which is amazing considering I took a 'diet vacation' last week.

"There's too much learning going on at that school."

So the other day I was wondering if there were any books that were made into a movie and then into a TV show. I've found two. Any guesses?

I wonder if there's anything that went from book to TV show to movie. This is probably less likely. Wait, I just found one.

Now there have been some movies to tv shows with books to follow. Heck Buffy was a movie, then a TV show, books and even comic books.

In the immortal words of the Go-Go's

"Vacation...All I ever wanted..."



It was great to have a few days off from work. My friend Ashlee was visiting from LA so I thought a quick trip up to Myrtle Beach would be fun. We were supposed to go to Hard Rock Park but I lost interest. I'd still like to check it out sometime. We had a nice, relaxing time there except for the few occasions when she was having asthma attacks. Yeah, those were fun. She had lost her inhaler back in LA and I guess the air at the beach didn't agree with her. It was pretty scary actually. Once we were back in Summerville she seemed to be fine.

Myrtle Beach was a blast. I'd been there 2x before but don't remember much about it. The weather was great and it cooled down at night so we could sleep with the door open to the ocean (love that!). We had a great view...



And I have to be accountable that while I was on vacation from work I was also kind of on vacation from my diet. I wasn't HORRIBLE but I wasn't great either. Let me tell you, it was worth it to have one of the best burgers I've ever had. And I love me some burgers so I know. As it turns out, there are a couple of locations in the Charleston area so I'll have to visit them during my next diet vacation.

I'm sad to be back at work but I really loved having that time off. Ok, don't laugh but I'll probably take a day or two off during the Olympics. I'm kind of a freak for the Olympics and I'm SUPER curious about China too. I'm interested in how much we'll be able to see of the real China and not the China they want us to see. Plus the Olympics are after my class is done and before fall term starts so I figured it'd be a good last time to take a break.