I am all a flutter - completely to my own surprise - Mr Hal Holbrook just came in to my place of business.
It is rather exciting to meet a fellow whose work you've always admired. What a pleasant man.

By Technomage (Houdini) on Sunday, February 16, 2003 - 01:31 pm:

Thats so cool! =)

Yes, Mr. Holbrook is a very good actor. He has appeared in many great films including "The Firm" and more recently, "The Majestic".


Biography and Film Credits of Hal Holbrook

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, February 28, 2003 - 02:42 pm:

Please keep your fingers crossed for me. Because after being unemployed for almost two months I'm just a call away from finally getting a real job and being out of the clutches of retail, I'll get my weekends free now, YAAAHHH.

You all will of course be the second to hear if I got the job. My mom being first, she'll be glad I'm no longer just hanging out at home.

By The Chosen One (Buffy) on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 06:14 pm:

News:

Weird Al's New Album

" Poddle Hat"

MAY 20TH

Coming soon to your Music stores!!!!


Buffy

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 09:36 am:

Today's my little sisters birthday, she is 23 today. I hope she likes the gift I got her, I found a book called The World of the Dark Crystal by Brian Froud. She loves his artwork and the movie so I hope she likes it, oh and I got a signed edition. It is a reprint but then again if you DO find an original copy they tend to sell for $300-400.

So all together now... HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNIE!

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 10:43 am:

I have that book

Happy Bday Jennie

By Technomage (Houdini) on Thursday, July 03, 2003 - 11:19 am:

I need everyone to send me your good positive energy. A little bit of good luck might help too.

I interviewed yesterday with a consulting
firm for a 12 - 18 month Xerox contract position in Rochester.

They are checking out my references today, and
I should get an answer sometime next week.

So.. send that good energy!

-Houdini

By The Chosen One (Buffy) on Sunday, July 06, 2003 - 06:58 pm:

* Transmiting Positive Energy*


* Transmiting Positive Energy.................................*


Buffy

By I, (Ranger) on Wednesday, September 10, 2003 - 03:13 pm:

The emperor of the known universe seems to be condescending to mere mortals enough to like kindergarten....

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, September 22, 2003 - 01:32 pm:

Thanks in great part to Fred and John my computer is finally back up and running as of yesterday. I have given it a name and in the cheesyness that is my nature I named it Cortana.

By The Chosen One (Buffy) on Tuesday, October 07, 2003 - 06:09 pm:

I won a trip to the Bahamas!!!!! It looks like Fred and I are going on our honeymoon!!

Buffy

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Sunday, October 12, 2003 - 04:23 pm:

I'm finally back online.

By The Chosen One (Buffy) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 09:47 am:

The Yankees are in the World Series!!!!!


Buffy

By I, (Ranger) on Friday, October 17, 2003 - 03:19 pm:

Well, they should be Steinbrenner sure paid enough for them.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, October 20, 2003 - 02:30 pm:

Didn't NYY pay 50 Mil for Godzilla? Or something like that?

By I, (Ranger) on Thursday, October 23, 2003 - 12:50 pm:

OMG they're letting giant lizards on the field? Now the Marlins are gonna option Mothra.

:D

By Vengence is Mine (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, December 15, 2003 - 03:05 pm:

happy birthday to me

By I, (Ranger) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 10:47 am:

da da da DA DAda

The song doesn't really come across in print does it?

By Technomage (Houdini) on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - 01:10 pm:

Send your good energy this afternoon. I finally got a job interview, and its today at 4:00.

Wish me luck, and good sharp wits.

Bryan

By I, (Ranger) on Saturday, February 28, 2004 - 10:36 am:

Luck

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, March 03, 2004 - 12:35 pm:

Wits.

DAMN! too late. ;)

By Merlin (Merlin) on Monday, May 10, 2004 - 11:52 pm:

I got a new place to live! A whole house! Ooooh, the network I could build...

-= Merlin =-

By GCM2235 (Norm) on Sunday, May 30, 2004 - 02:35 am:

I'm working now. It's physically intensive and not in keeping with my education, but it pays more than any other job I've had.

Norm

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, June 01, 2004 - 07:58 am:

Congradulations!

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Monday, June 21, 2004 - 01:49 pm:

Brenna and I are getting married this saturday, June 26, 2004.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 10:02 am:

I am just waiting for the comformation but my MSR is positive I'm gonna be ok'd for my car loan. Then I can go to the dealer and pick up my "new" used Jeep Cherokee, yay.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 01:26 pm:

I got approved for the loan so I will be hopefully(as long as my mom is home) picking up my car tomarrow night.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 03:17 pm:

Gratz on the new ride!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 03:39 pm:

Thanks Nat I just wish it wasn't comeing at the expense of my previous car.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:44 am:

What happened to the previous car?

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:30 pm:

I was in an accident on Friday morning and is now undrivable and not worth repairing

By Technomage (Houdini) on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 - 08:06 am:

Researcher claims to have found ruins of Atlantis!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138608,00.htm
l

By I, (Ranger) on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 03:54 pm:

your link is dead

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Friday, November 19, 2004 - 04:55 pm:

add the 'l' to the end of it and it works fine.

By GCM2235 (Norm) on Thursday, November 25, 2004 - 06:53 pm:

Well, I hope it's safe to say now.

I got a job last week. Pays more than I've made before and closer to home than any other job I've had. Maybe I'll be able to make enough to move out of NY :P

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, November 28, 2004 - 04:26 pm:

Gratz Norm! BTW just curious, why do you wanna leave NY? Taxes?

By GCM2235 (Norm) on Saturday, December 04, 2004 - 10:53 pm:

Mostly taxes. Property taxes where I live are outrageous. Plus, the weather blows.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 10:10 am:

Once you get away from the great lakes area the weather isn't so bad come wintertime. But I hear ya about the taxes. Around herer there's lots of people who can't afford them, a couple years ago the property taxes in NYC got another hefty hike even though it was already highway robbery.

By GCM2235 (Norm) on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 09:54 am:

There's also the fact that my temporary assignment was terminated in an apparent attempt of the company to cover their butt for being late. But I'll complain more in a non good news forum

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 01:46 pm:

As I may have told some of you my bf John is taking me to Vegas this saturday for a 5 night vacation of gambling, cigar smoking and indulgence. I thought we were going to be staying at Mandalay Bay, which made me squeak with glee since they have sweet bathing tubs (separate from the shower) that you can really soak in. I am a huge fan of soaking tubs. My apartment used to have one of those big, deep, enamel tubs with lion's feet until they renovated the bathroom. I miss that tub, it was sooooo nice to soak and relax. It also warms your bones during the winter. I never actually bathe in the soaking tub, it's better if you shower off any yucky body sludge first before you step into a hot soaking tub with bath salts.

Anyway, I still have to get my fat bubblebutt to the gym during the vacation so I don't slack off. They charge $30 to use the gym facilities, but they waive that fee if you purchase a spa treatment of $50 or more. So I figured I could splurge in a massage or facial or something. They ask if you're a guest at the hotel and ask for your reservation/room number when you book an appointment. So John had to spill a secret, he was going to suprise me but we were actually going to stay at TheHotel instead of Mandalay.

The only thing that would make this vacation any more perfect would be a proposal. *crosses fingers* It's about time anyway, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 02:44 am:

Well... I got a proposal

No date set for the wedding yet, because we're going to hold off on wedding planning until I get into the NYPD come springtime (income = $$ for wedding).

I will share more details about the vacation later on, we just got home- lucky we got home today. Shitty weather canceled one of our flights to Cinncinnati, luckily we got an afternoon flight direct from Vegas to JFK but that flight was delayed. Blah

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 08:30 am:

At least you got home safely and congrats on the engagement Nat.

By Technomage (Houdini) on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 09:45 am:

Cool. I'm happy for you Nat.

Oh and Merry Christmas

By I, (Ranger) on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 01:38 pm:

Yay! Congrats - although I don't think you're supposed to tell the potential bride that according to Emily Post. Screw her.

I got married in October. Would have gone for Halloween if it had been a weekend that year. A friend got married on Februalry 29 so she only has to remember her anniversary every four years

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Friday, December 24, 2004 - 03:26 pm:

Thankies, thankies!

Other than food poisoning the vacation was great. We went to this very pricey, but very good seafood buffet ($60 a pop with unlimited Perrier-Jouet champagne) and it was either bad raw oysters, or smoked salmon. The next day it hit us pretty hard and we were stuck in our hotel room- which isn't bad considering it was a corner suite facing the strip on the 24th floor. AWESOME views of the Las Vegas strip.

If any of you get a chance to stay at THEHotel or Mandalay Bay, I recommend it most highly. The entire place is beautiful, so much detail and not garrish or gaudy at all. Mandalay has a tropical south east asian theme with lots of palm fern and lotus petal motifs all over the place. THEHotel is on the Mandalay premisis, it shares the casino but there's a corridor that takes you to THEHotel. The motif and style is very different from Mandalay. It's very sleek, shiny, geometric and contemporary with ebony and ivory colors. It's very elegant and "Manhattan-ish". Every room in TheHotel is a two room suite with 2 42in. plasma TV's (one for the living room, one for the bedroom and a third small one for the bathroom). The interior of the rooms are done with a gold/silver/ivory/black color theme. The bathroom was my favorite because it had a spa soaking tub. To give you an idea how big it was, well.. You know me I'm not a small person. John is 6'3. We both fit very comforatbly in the tub with room to spare.

We were lucky and got upgraded to a corner suite, which had two bathrooms. This came in handy when we had food poisoning.

Anyway Mandalay/THEHotel is a great place to stay, but a lousy place to gamble. Not only are the payout and comp system kinda sucky, we strongly suspect they rigged their video poker machines because a strange, consistant bad-luck aura seemed to loom ONLY in their casinos (they also own Luxor, Excalubur and a few others). We knew it wasn't bad luck, because the instant we went to other casinos our poker hands were more "normal". I don't want to get into detail, but it suffices to say that certain hands weren't coming up as statistically frequent as they should have.

We had to skip the Hoover Dam trip because of the food poisoning. So got a little extra time to explore the strip and see the other casinos. Luxor is kinda crappy if you have a pyramid room, they have a separatte tower that has better rooms. Excalibur was craptacular. It was very cheezy, the decor lousy, the customers scummy.

NYNY casino was OK, it was more a charicature of NYC then any accurate representation. Particularly the Coyote Ugly Bar. For those who have never seen the real Coyote in the east village, you're in for a surprise. You see the movie Coyote Ugly is sooooooooooooooooo far from the reality that it makes me wanna puke.

I remember seeing a clip from the movie "I WANNA BE A COYOTE UGLY GIRL!!!!" Oh? So you wanna be a skanky ugly crack whore working in a scummy east village dive where you're afraid of the patrons, with people are doing coke and shooting up in the bathrooms- which are so filthy by the way, you'd better not touch anything or you'd catch herpes. That's the real Coyote Ugly, if you don't beleive me come down and see it for yourself. Forget Tyra Banks, the bartenders are hideous and skanky, if that's your style you might like it.

The MGM grand was actually kinda nice, it has a 1920's hollywood art deco theme.

I didn't get to see much of the Alladin, but the Desert Passage shops are really nice and charming. There's a nice middle eastern theme throughout and an area inspired by the The Alhambra in spain.

Next was Paris, and I though it was really nicely done! While NYNY was more of a charicature, Paris was more like the actual place they wanted to represent. It was elegant and the attention to detail was admirable. We went to Mon Ami Gabi for some french onion soup, steak, trout & pomme frites.

Bellagio is fancy-shmancy. Very very lovely place to stay and explore, but on the downside it was very "touristy". When you're a fun loving adult enjoying Las Vegas the one sound you don't want to hear is a baby crying or small child throwing a tantrum. 80% of the crowd were people who were NOT staying at the hotel, but there to see the sights. They have a greehouse xmas display as well as a cool water fountain show. See the show at night, it's much more impressive at night. They had some cool displays of giant xmas tree ball ornaments stacked into 20ft pyramids. For some reason "Chef!!! Your salty chocolate balls are the BEST!!!!" kept popping into my thought process.

Caesar's Palace was pretty cool John didn't like it there. It was a little tacky in some places, but I thought it looked kinda fun. There was a big statue of Ceasar right by the main lobby and I kept giggling at the "Life of Brian" scenes that popped into my head. "Haiw Ceasaw!" one guy actually walked by an said "Haiw Ceasaw!" and joked with his friends when they walked by the statue so I knew it wasn't just me!

We also went to the Palms to go to Alize which has the BEST romantic views of the Las Vegas Strip. You will also pay $350 for a meal. All I can say is that I am a big fan of Foie Gras. The Palms is OK but I didn't notice much of a theme. We didn't gamble there either since we just wanted to go back to our room and digest after the rich meal at Alize.

When we got back to our hotel room, John proposed to me. He was thinking about proposing to me at Alize, but opted not to since he knew I'd cry and sob like a bitch, and I'm sure he would have shed a few tears too. That's something that you don't want to do with people watching. And yes I cried like a bitch when he asked.

I did a little Spa hopping, I am used to Manhattan prices so $120 for a facial isn't outrageous to me as long as the service is top notch. Both Mandalay and THEHotel have a spa of their own, I heard good things about both so I wanted to try both. Normally I wouldn't have opted for any spa treatments, but it cost $30 to use their gym facilities (per day), and this fee is waived if you purchase a spa treatment of $50 or more. So what the heck, may as well, right? I prefer Spa Mandalay to The Bathhouse (TheHotel) because of the decor. The service was equally good, but in terms of interior design I think Spa Mandalay was more relaxing due to my personal tastes.

So that's the bulk of my vacation experience :P

By I, (Ranger) on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 10:50 am:

Wow.

Food poisoning AND a proposal. ;)

Thanks for the review, better than Frommers, but I strongly suspect that the first big resorty type vacation we ever go on will have a set of mouse ears involved somewhere

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, December 26, 2004 - 05:04 pm:

Yeah, Vegas is really not a place you want to bring your kids. The whole place is designed for adult hedonism and gambling. So many places are off-limits to minors, you may as well just leave the kids with the grandparents. There's people handing out flyers with picks of nudie girls to advertize their gent clubs, they also litter the sidewalk "Mommy what's that?". The casino waitresses usually wear some variety of butt floss too.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - 09:25 am:

mmmmmm... Butt Floss... I like the mint flavor.

By I, (Ranger) on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 - 04:17 pm:

GAK!

By Not again (Norm) on Wednesday, December 29, 2004 - 08:24 pm:

I heard the whole 'family-friendly' Vegas was a thing of the past.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Sunday, January 02, 2005 - 07:17 pm:

It never was family friendly. Everything revolves around gambling, smoking and hookers- plus free booze if you gamble. Can't have kiddies around for stuff that's 21 or over. While kids are allowed in the hotels, they are banned from the casino floor. You're allowed to pass through, but it's a no-no to sit your 2 year old on your lap while you feed the slot machines. They will escort you out of the casino if you do stuff like that. I think it's always been the practice, the casinos can get in to serious LEGAL trouble if minors are caught gambling/drinking on their property.

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Monday, January 03, 2005 - 05:12 pm:

well, more good news.

Today we had the moment of truth, my second "equifit" evaluation was today.

Results:

Old fat % = 39%
New = 36.9%

2.1 % bodyfat los is not bad at all considering I haven't been able to work out much during December and I drank like a fish, smoked like a fiend, and ate a little too well during thanksgiving, new years and the vegas trip.

The fat percentage translates to:

8.15 pounds of muscle gained!
4.5 pounds of fat gone!

yay me!

Oh yeah, and my blood pressure is down!

By I, (Ranger) on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 03:24 pm:

Rich-um! rack-um! ruck-um!
Get that ball and really fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffight!

So okay I was never a cheer leader but the sentiment is what I'm shooting for, Nat

By Ms. Vice (Nat) on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 04:44 pm:

thanks hun, tho I'm not feeling too great right now. Amanda gave me a new weight lifting routine yesterday, much tougher than the first. I am in a bit of pain now, plus my insomnia has been hitting me full force for the past 5 nights. No sleep = no body recovery.

By The Chosen One (Buffy) on Wednesday, January 05, 2005 - 09:24 pm:

Congrats on your proposal!! If you need any thing ( like advice or have questions...) Let me know. I am so happy for you!! I know that you will be a very beauiful bride!

Buffy

By Life is a box of soft brown things (Norm) on Saturday, July 22, 2006 - 11:38 pm:

I got that big promotion!

By Merlin (Merlin) on Monday, July 24, 2006 - 04:19 pm:

Congrats!

By Technomage (Houdini) on Sunday, August 13, 2006 - 01:14 am:

yeah!!!

By Gerrit (Gak4178) on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 - 02:04 am:

Sarah and I got married on Dec 19, 2004.
We moved to Albuqueruque on January 15, 2005.
We got a house together on November 11, 2006.
Isabelle was born on November 27, 2006.
I am still alive, believe it or not.
(At least, I was at the time of this post!)