the facts are these

Grant: You finish season 4 of Who yet?
me: Not yet [...] I want to but I want to like have it be perfect
like I'll light candles or something
and put on a silk nightie
and get some wine
and get ready for my night with the Doctor
Grant: Just watch the fucking episodes
me: on an unrelated note, Eccles was in my dream last night
Grant: Was it a sex dream?
me: IT WAS ACTUALLY NOT
all we did was decide that we liked each other and that we would totally do it
AND THEN THE DREAM CHANGED THEMES AND HE DISAPPEARED AND WAS REPLACED WITH LEA MICHELE MAKING AN ANGRY FACE AT ME
which has happened a lot lately

For the past week I've been on a cross-country road trip with my best friend before he goes to med school in the fall. We went through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and made it to LA and sangre_fria by Thursday, even taking time for a full day in Austin and New Mexico.

I don't have all the photos I've taken because the first 1 GIG of photos I took from Florida to Arizona haven't been edited yet. But today Burger Drunk Burger took a trip to Lake Arrowhead outside LA. It was about the most beautiful place I've ever been. We bought cheese, a baguette, salami, and other assorted snacks from Trader Joe's and sat by the lake with a picnic. I can't even express what a perfect day it was. The weather was perfect and cool, the sky was an amazing clear blue, and everything around us was just unbelievably beautiful. I really can't tell you that the photos I'm posting are anything as beautiful as it actually is.


(album here)

My birthday passed somewhat uneventfully at the beginning of the week, with the exception of getting harassed by some crackheads in the Wal-Mart parking lot. So I'm 23 now. I had Grant, Nick, Orlando Rob and his girlfriend over on Saturday for a James Cameron movie night, which basically consisted of Titanic. It's long enough to satisfy.

As my trip to LA to visit sangre_fria gets closer I keep having more travel-related dreams. First I dreamed that Grant and I were going to take off in an airplane that was basically a flying car with a trailer, and so I refused and said they needed to bring us a real plane. (And then Grant vanished and I found baby birds and kittens in a corner of the airport, so that was a drastic change in tone.) And two nights ago I dreamed I was packing to take a flight to Paris. So now I want to go to Paris. Failing that, watch French Kiss and eat macarons.

This weekend I'm going home to go to the Grant Seafood Festival (my roommate will, of course, remain at home with the shotgun and the pit bulls). So I'll hopefully get off my ass and charge my camera before then. Maybe the big cat people will be there again. And maybe I'll snap a few photos of the food before I shove my face in the little paper trays.

Grant: Stephanie will be dragging me to that Gerard Butler movie soon.
me: What, the Ugly Truth?
Grant: Yeah
me: My sympathies
Grant: I plan on ogling Katherine Heigl in strappy dress, but I'm still not happy about it
me: Did you forget that Katherine Heigl looks like your mom?
Grant: Maybe she has a nude scene? I'm trying to stay positive.
me: YOUR MOM
Grant: Oh fuck you. FUCK YOU. Now I have nothing.

Grant: Since when is Will Smith a scientologist?
me: There were rumors a few months ago.
[...]
Grant: Now he's getting Xenu with it. No? Fuck you.
me: That was awful.
Grant: Nonsense. So what did Will Smith say to the thetans?
me: Welcome to Earth?
Grant: Welcome to erf. Close.
me: How many more of those jokes do you have? Can you do one about Wild Wild West?
Grant: What did Will Smith say to conventional religions?
me: What?
Grant: "No, I don't want nada. Nonna that. Brutha be six gunnin' runnin' that. Buffalo soldia. Look, it's like I told ya! Any damsel that's in distress be outta that dress when she meets Jim Xenu." I'll be here all night folks.
me: Did you remember that?!
Grant: Hell yeah.
me: You actually remember quotes from Wild Wild West off the top of your head?
Grant: Uhhh. Yeah. You don't?
me: I have nothing I could even say to that.

It started out well enough.

me: I'm going to make a test run of my London broil for Thanksgiving sometime soon.
I need people's opinion, and I trust the residents of your apartment to tell me the truth and give suggestions. Would you like some free food maybe next week or this week or something?
Grant: Most certainly.

Then it took a swift turn for the worse.

Grant:I decided I would make a sweet potato pie
me: NOOOO
I WAS GOING TO
Grant: FUCK YOU IT'S MINE
me: HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Grant: FUCK OFF
me: NOOOOOO
Grant: FUCK
OFF
me: NONONONONO
Grant: FUCKCKKKVCKV
OFF
me: RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Grant: No, seriously, fuck off my fucking pie
me: I'll make ANOTHER pie!
A BETTER PIE!
Grant: PIE OFF
me: PIE OFF
Grant: ROUND ONE, FIGHT
me: PIE OFF PIE OFF PIE OFF

Newsflash: Fire-roasted tomato and olive oil Triscuits are fucking delicious.

Wow, you guys. An update is long overdue here. Um, okay. So this past weekend I went up to Orlando to go to Universal Studios Islands of Adventure with all my friends. I don't "do" roller-coasters, but neither did Kate or Nick, so we hung out on the Caro-Seuss-el and other kiddie rides until we all met up again for the Jurassic Park exhibit and then later the Spider-Man ride which I went on three times - more on that in a minute. I've never been to ANY of the Universal Theme Parks, as I'm a Disney person, so this was all new and exciting. Even better - free. I think the Jurassic Park section is my favorite for pure nerd value. For anyone who hasn't been there, you actually get to walk under the giant Jurassic Park gates with the theme music playing in the background and there are dinosaur heads poking out of the woods and the actual visitors center is there and eee eee eee eee eee!

Spider-Man broke at the climax the first two times. At that point, everyone else said "Fuck this" and waited outside, but me, Bryan and Rob went on for one more try, and it worked! It worked!

That night I slept on the couch at Tivoli, and Ethan and I stayed up until six in the morning talking about everything we could think of. The next day, Ethan, Grant, Kate and I went to International Prime Outlets to shop. Grant bought SOCKS, SOCKS, SOCKS, pants and shirts. Did I mention the socks? Because he was really excited about the socks.

After the shopping, Nick, Grant, Ford and I went to a cigar bar for a few hours. I had a Mike's hard lemonade, which was good, and then we stopped by the liquor store to get more booze before heading over to Kate's to watch Fern Gully. FERN GULLY. Which I haven't watched since I was maybe eight. I spent the night on Kate's couch that night after showing her a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother, which I was pleased to hear her quote the next day.

Sunday was the big day of the weekend. Kate and Ethan had, for a few weeks, been planning a surprise birthday picnic for Bryan and Rebecca's 21st birthday parties. I already gave Rebecca her present last week - reusable Target shopping bags, and before you laugh, she was very pleased with them. I confess that I have no idea what to get Bryan, but his birthday isn't technically here yet, so I'm still safe. Anyway, the surprise went off without a hitch. Neither of them had any clue. It was fantastic. We went boating on the lake, Bryan climbed on the roof of the pavilion, we all played badminton aided by copious swearing - it was a lot of fun. Also, Bryan was smashed. Which was immensely amusing. He drank a good portion of a bottle of Gentleman Jack.

I'm very impatient to get my MOO Mini Cards that I got with my flickr account. Bryan knows what I'm talking about. I've been checking the mail obsessively for weeks now. And then last week I noticed that it's been THREE WEEKS, and checked, and it hadn't actually been ordered. So now I reordered last Thursday and I've been dying ever since. I bought frame mats to be able to set them up the way I want them and I made size mock-ups with green paper and I WANT THEM NOW.

Grant: ...The classical station just started playing original music from Diablo 2.
me: Seriously?
Grant: Yes. It's very good music. But I was chilling on Mozart, and then... I.... recognize this? Why am I thinking of murky tombs? Di-ab-lo? WHAT THE FUCK

I love everyone.