This was a really great movie.  It’s French, so you have to read subtitles.  See the link for more of a recap.  It’s a well-crafted mystery.  It was nice to not have the entire thing figured out in the first 20 minutes.

I’d totally give it 4 out of 5 stars.

Our friend John was going to Thailand for a few months, so Eddie asked if he could borrow John’s 2 24″ monitors until we could buy some new ones.  John said yes, and Eddie used them until he got 2 24″ Samsungs from the Full Tilt store.  The Gateway stayed in the closet.

Now that we’re getting ready to move, we decided to see if it could be fixed or whatever.

We hauled it out of the closet, plopped it on my desk and hooked it up. Green haze everywhere.

Eddie contacted Gateway, who’s response basically was, “It’s not under warranty.  Go fuck yourself.”

Eddie called around to a few computer repair shops and found one that said they could fix it.  $200 and it would be like a new monitor.  Seeing as the thing cost over $1,000 to begin with, $200 sounded pretty good.

We take it yesterday.  This afternoon the place calls:

“Sir, we have good news for you!”

“What?”

“There is nothing wrong with your monitor.”

Blink.

Blink, blink.

“Yes, there is.  I guarantee you there is.”

“Well, we’ve had it on for 7 hours and we see no green haze.  So we were thinking maybe it’s the cable you were using, so go ahead and bring that in and we’ll test it.”

Now, we told them yesterday that the green haze was over multiple inputs, so to me that would rule out the connection, but whatever.  Eddie takes the cable and goes to the repair shop.  He views for himself that there is NOTHING WRONG AT ALL.

He brings it back home, after making a deal with the manager of the shop that if he gets it home and there’s green haze, we’ll video it and they can make a “house call” and see it for themselves.  Free of charge.

It’s been home and on Eddie’s desk for 5 hours.  No green haze.

I am so confused.

edit:  Well, now it’s back.  Fuck.

We’re moving to Denver.  And we’re SO FREAKIN EXCITED.

We have given our landlord our 30 days, and we’ll be leaving before that time is up.  He wants to give us until September 15th to vacate, but we most likely will not wait that long.

Instead of having to move all of our extremely huge and heavy furniture, we are attempting to sell it all on Craigslist.  We are planning to sell the following:

• Our bedroom suite
• Living room furniture
• TV
• Both of my desks
• Wingback chairs in entry room
• Oak table in entry room
• Patio furniture
• Grill
• Kitchen table

The stuff with lines through it has been sold already.  And we put the ads up yesterday.  This is nothing compared to how quickly we sold Eddie’s Ford Taurus, which has to be some sort of record.  He hit “Publish” for the ad, and within 3 minutes had 1 phone call about it, while he was talking to that guy 2 more people called about it.  Two of the three people immediately told him they were on their way with cash in hand.

Total whiplash at how fast it happened.  Within like 1 hour it was gone.

We have some people coming over in the morning to look at my desks to see if they want them, one of our friends wants the coffee table, which we’ll sell to him if no one wants the complete set of living room furniture.

We paid GOOD money for all of our stuff, so we’re not going to take just whatever people want to give us for it.  If we don’t get the asking price, then we’re just going to take it with us.  But as fast as some of the stuff has sold, we’re not too terribly concerned about selling the other stuff in the month or so until we leave.

I’m kind of sad to see the big stuff go, cause I mean…it’s OUR STUFF.  It’s the first big furniture we picked out and bought together.  But, it’s also enormous.  I don’t want to have to live in this huge place just because that’s the only way all of our furniture will fit.  We bought the bedroom suite to fit the bedroom in the first house we lived in here in Vegas.  That bedroom was GIGANTIC.  So, in turn, the furniture is huge as well.  So, we would rather downsize and be able to live in a smaller place for awhile, save money on rent, pay bills off, and THEN buy furniture again.

A lot of people on Facebook have asked me why we chose Denver.  We went to a website called findyourspot.com, which asked about 80-100 questions about different things:  what climate you would like, the “art scene” you’d want, just many various questions.  Denver was one of the places it spit out, others being Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Salt Lake City, etc.  We did some research online and chose Denver.  It just seems like an US place.  An Amanda and Eddie Place.  We’re so excited to get there and get settled.

We have big plans about starting to get exercise.  I’m only 29.  I shouldn’t get winded when I’m making the bed and talking at the same time.  That’s ridiculous, and horrible for my health.  Eddie has heart disease in his family, and I would like to keep him around for a while.   We’re going to start taking walks (Denver is supposed to be very walkable), eventually start running, we’re gonna buy bikes and go bike riding.  I want to lose weight by exercising, not by starving myself because that’s the only way I know how to lose weight.

I’m just so excited about the prospect of it not being over 100 degrees for months at a time.  According to the City-Data.com message boards, it gets REALLY HOT sometimes in Denver.  A whole 90 degrees.  Psssssh.  That’s not hot.  Try walking out of your house and feel like not only have you walked into an oven, but you’re also blowing a hot hair dryer in your face.

Eddie asked me today if I was going to miss Vegas.  Sure, there’s things I’ll miss…I’ll miss being able to go to the Strip if we want.  I’ll miss being able to go to boxing matches.  I’ll miss some of the people we’ve met here.  But I won’t miss the weather, the rude people, how expensive everything is.

I’m going to get to move to another brand new place with my best friend.  How much better can life get?

Oh, and I’ve filled out so many job applications that my right hand and wrist stopped working.  I was in so much pain I was contemplating sacrificing one of my few remaining pain killers.  (I have to take a half of one each time I have a migraine, and I’m down to just a few.)  I didn’t take one…just a lot of Advil.

If reading Dooce has taught me anything, it’s YE SHALL NOT BLOG ABOUT WORK.  I’m going to take that as even to not blog about the possibility of getting a job, so I shall refrain.

It’s difficult to find something to blog about when I can’t talk about work, I can’t talk about the thing that might be happening, or about the other thing that might be happening.

So, I guess I can just blog about not being able to talk about anything.  Or about how I can’t make anything chainmaille without my wrist hurting so badly I can’t move it.  Or how much the Reds suck and how I want Dusty Baker to actually realize that batting Willy Tavaras in leadoff or allowing Alex Gonzales to still play shortstop while they are the 2nd and 3rd to last in being the most horrible baseball players in MLB WILL NOT MAKE THEM BETTER.  Bench them or I will have to come to Cincinnatti and strangle you with my bare hands.

Either that or just do all movie reviews all the time.

Watched this tonight.  Absolute piece of rubbish.  It started out pretty good, was interesting and such.  However, it got dumb FAST, kind of like “Wanted” did.

Avoid at all costs.  Two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

(Oh, and watched the entire thing and still don’t understand wtf the pebbles were about.)

Eddie:  “I just can’t get poker out of my mind.  Whatever I do, it just swings right back to poker.”

Me:  “Well, stop trying to fight it, then.”

Eddie:  “I guess I could do that.  Didn’t really occur to me.”

Me:  “Just think about hands.  Eventually, you’ll realize that, for some reason, a giraffe is playing at your table.”

Eddie:  (laughing) “Okay.”

Me:  “And then, all of a sudden, you’ll realize you’re in the OCEAN!”

Eddie:  (really laughing hard now)

Me:  heehee

Monday was Eddie’s birthday, as well as our friend Jody’s.  (Jody lives in Canada and has come down to stay with us for a few days.)

So, to celebrate, we went to Lotus of Siam for dinner.  According to many reviews, it is the best Thai restaurant outside of Thailand.  It’s SO GOOD.   We got like 2 appetizers and 5 entrees to share between the 3 of us, then the waitress brought Eddie and Jody a dessert platter to share for their birthday, and sang Happy Birthday to them.  It was really sweet to see this little old Thai woman sing Happy Birthday.

The dessert platter consisted of a scoop of coconut ice cream, fried bananas, mango and some sort of sticky rice dessert thing.

While we were eating dinner, we were talking about what we could do after.  We were either going to go to the Strip and do something, or just go to a casino near the house and play penny slots and drink.  Since I’m still recovering from being really sick (also why there have been zero blogs for awhile), my vote was to just play penny slots somewhere close.

We went and played quite a few machines, but by far our favorite was one that we could all play together, and then sometimes (and somehow, I don’t think we ever figured it out) the “feature” would happen.  It was “Reel ‘em In” and it was SO MUCH FUN.  The feature would happen on two big screens above us, and was 4 fishermen that would either catch fish or race.  My guy won like 8 times in a row, and then Eddie chose him too and he started losing.  We figured that the computer can tell that more than one person has chosen the fisherman and sorta fixes it where he doesn’t win anymore.  But we still had a ball.

I think the two of them had a great birthday.

The backups go back to 2001, and cover many different parts of my life.  I’ve found 3 audio mix CDs that are pretty good (well, except for the fact that a Paris Hilton song just came on the CD I’m listening to at the moment), that I’ve been listening to while weeding through the past.

There are things that are hard to see again.  There are blog entries that were hard to write, but even harder to read now 4 years later.  There are text files that I wrote to try to keep myself up during the down times with Eddie, quotes he said from texts and IMs and things I remembered him saying.  Those were even harder to read than the blog entries.  I had to go to Eddie’s office and get a big bear hug after reading those.

There are also things that make me sad.  I was so incredibly insecure, I thought I was fat and ugly and that no one would ever want me.  I don’t know if anyone else would get that vibe by reading these things, but I do.  I suppose it’s probably because I actually lived in that 21 year old body, and remember how miserable I was.

It’s easy to get caught up in being miserable when the only one in your tunnel vision never asks you out.   But, I finally just gave up on him and moved on.  I don’t think he ever even knew how I felt, to be honest.  Boys can be dumb sometimes.

But, we’re friends now, at least on Facebook.  I will say…it’s hard to not be friends with the person that cared enough to sing at your grandfather’s funeral.  No matter whether or not he ever asked you out on that date you wanted so badly.

However, I will say that finding the love of my life in Eddie makes me forget about everyone else on the planet that I ever liked/thought I was in love with.  It really does make you realize just how much you weren’t in love…how much of it was just being young and getting caught up in a whirlwind.

And check out what I said was the soundtrack to my life:

Love Will Always Win by Faith Hill
Stop Falling by Pink
Beautiful Goodbye by Amanda Marshall
Outside by Aaron Lewis of Staind and Fred Durst
Who I Am by Jessica Andrews
Nobody Knows by Tony Rich Project
I Wanna Be With You by Mandy Moore
As I Lay Me Down by Sophie B. Hawkins
Looking In by Mariah Carey
Somewhere, Someday by Jennifer Paige
Driftin’ Away by Garth Brooks
Uninvited by Alanis Morrissette
Just My Imagination by Gwyneth Paltrow and Babyface
Have You Ever by Brandy
Dear Diary by Britney Spears
Did You Ever Love Somebody by Jessica Simpson
Everytime I Close My Eyes by Vanessa Amorosi
Long, Long Time by Mindy McCready
Mercy by Tabitha Fair
Reflection by Christina Aguilera

Can you get ANY MORE PATHETIC?

But, as Jess told me the other day, “You always did like a ballad, boo.”  lol

There are things that are fun to read, things I wrote in my 21 year old infinite wisdom.

Things like the 5 million question questionnaire that Steph wrote for me.

Like the ‘random facts about me’:

• tall, very fair, blonde hair, blue eyes, of british decent, loyal.
• absolutely adores .. my friends, singing, music, reading, taking pictures, computers, watching tv, diet pepsi, vanilla swiss almond haagen daas, cafe mochas, magazines, babies, charlie brown, winter, snow, the cold, red scarves, victoria’s secret, my beaded purse, j crew, my cell phone, tommy hilfiger, hammond’s cinnamon ribbon candy, ralph lauren, roses, ‘the godfather’, the sound of an electric guitar, abercrombie & fitch, thunderstorms, video games, ducks, harmony kingdom, donald duck, monopoly, candles, reese sticks, chanel makeup, carmex, tiffany’s, saks fifth avenue, the shoe department at nordstrom’s, neiman marcus catalogs, fire jolly ranchers, documentary type shows on a&e or the discovery channel or the history channel, ’law & order’, ‘friends’, dvds, black cars, waterford, hotel rooms.
• dreams of .. being in love..and being loved in return..the kind of love that just radiates around to everyone else.
• rather detests .. spiders, the smell of vanilla, computer errors, failing, being hurt, not pleasing someone, being ignored, people that lie, being out in the rain, having to go to sleep, having to wake up, drawing, rude people, needles, exercising, deep water, memories that just won’t fade away, confrontations, taking notes in class.

I’m still the same when it comes to just about all of this stuff.  The only thing is I don’t think I’m as materialistic as I used to be…most all the designers and stores wouldn’t be on my “absolutely adores” list now.  Although, I can’t lie…Tiffany’s still would be.

The thing that caught me was the line about what I dreamed of.  “being in love..and being loved in return..the kind of love that just radiates around to everyone else.“  I have found that.  And that makes me smile, to know that my 21 year old self will be happy, incredibly and stupidly happy, in about 3 years.  She’ll be miserable for about a year, but it’ll all work out just wonderful.

(I found the picture, by the way.  Had to find it, just in case he becomes famous someday.)

I really don’t know.  I hope that I can one day tap into that part of my brain while I”m fully awake…perhaps if I do, I can become a really great writer.

I’m just not one, I don’t feel.  I feel like I can’t write out a story or whatever in a way that makes people want to read it.  I would give anything to be able to write like Rebecca Woolf, the way she writes amazes me.  How she wrote about her grandmother and her son seriously nearly blew me away.  I just sat here in awe.

I want to strike someone like that.  I want to be THAT good at something.

And I’m terrified that I never will be.  I mean, I’m nearly 30, and I STILL haven’t found my “thing”?  Doesn’t that mean that I probably never will?

I like many things.  I like singing, working on computers, making jewelry.  Of those things, making jewelry is what makes me the happiest.  I can sit and make jewelry for hours at a time and forget to eat, pee, everything.  BUT, I can’t come up with ideas on my own, which we’ve already covered.

I love to sing, but it’s like that’s a private thing between me, myself and I.  I never have let anyone hear my true voice, I’ve always hid it from everyone.  I only belt it out when I know I’m alone, or when the music is loud enough that it can’t be heard.  Even when I was in high school and going to a vocal coach, she didn’t hear it either.  The reason why I hide it is because I don’t want to be told I sound bad.  I still have a little bit of a dream to become a famous, successful singer.  I will have that dream until I die.  But I just can’t do it, I have horrible stage fright and am terrified to allow anyone to hear my true voice because of failure and rejection.

The only thing I feel like I am truly really good at is loving my family.  Which I guess is definitely better than, well, NOT being good at that.  And I, thankfully, have myself a wonderful family that love me just as well as I love them.

Thank you Eddie, Mama, and Daddy for being the bestest family a girl could ask for.

Just…wow.

Eddie has loved No Doubt forever.  In particular, he loves Gwen Stefani.  Ever since I’ve known him he’s talked about his undying love for her. lol  It’s not a sexual thing, he just thinks she’s BEYOND AWESOME.

So when we found out that No Doubt would be the headliners for Tiger Woods’ annual benefit, we knew we would be going.  So, last March, we got up very early and grabbed tickets as soon as they went on sale.  Even doing it as soon as we did, we still wound up quite far back, in one of the side sections near the back of Mandalay Bay Events Center.  Mandalay Bay’s arena is HUGE, so we were pretty far back.  (all the photos I took are up on Flickr, if anyone wants to check ‘em out.  I was able to get a couple good shots even from as far back as we were.)  (I got a set, and Eddie got a set. They were both in the back side sections.  We chose mine to keep since they were on row B and sold his row J seats on Craigslist.)

So, last Saturday we get dressed up and go to the show.  Eddie played poker for about an hour or so while we waited for the show to start (he did really well…hit all his draws and basically any flop that he played a hand).  According to the tickets, the show started at 8pm, so around then we started heading to the Events Center.

We get in there and get seated while The Sounds are playing.  I’ve never heard of them before, but they put on a pretty good show and the lead singer has a really nice voice.

After The Sounds, Paramore came on.  Now, talk about the lead singer having a good voice!  Hayley or whatever is awesome.  Her voice is crazy good, and she’s a very good showman.  Their set was very good.

After a little bit, Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers came out to read a little thing and introduce Tiger Woods.  Well, everyone booed him so bad that he just abandoned his little index card and was like “Oh, forget it.  Here’s Tiger Woods.”

I felt bad for him.

Tiger then came out just to thank everyone and to let us know that No Doubt would be coming up in a little bit.

No Doubt put on an AWESOME show.  And it was so awesome to hear Eddie have such a great time.  He knew the words to every song, screamed them all, and, well, screamed any chance he got.

We really needed a night like that.  We had such an awesome time.

(And that was even before the best part.)

The band starts “Just a Girl.”  They’re almost done with the song, when Gwen steps down off the main stage onto this little ledge thing, jumps down OFF the ledge, and RUNS down the side of the aisles…toward the back of the arena.  Eddie, at this point, has pushed me and him both (we were only on the 2nd row, and on the aisle to begin with, so it wasn’t much pushing) down to the steps where we could, like, hit her hand while she ran past or something.  She runs past our section, then COMES BACK and runs up into our section!!

This is her running past us to get up higher in our section:

She stood up there and sang the chorus of “Just a Girl” a few times, getting the crowd involved, etc.  I stood near our seats and Eddie stood up there near her to get photos and grin like crazy.  I was SO EXCITED for him.  He just loves her so much.  Some of the photos he took are blurry but I DO NOT CARE. lol

The best one:

I grabbed her while she ran past the first time, and when she ran past the second time.

Was so beyond totally awesome.

So then after a few more songs, the show was over.

We really needed a night like this.  It was like the stars aligned to give us the perfect night.  Eddie played online before we left and won, he played poker at the casino and destroyed it, we got to see No Doubt, AND Gwen came to OUR section to sing part of a song.  I mean, really?  Out of ALL the sections in the arena?  AND when we sold one of the sets, we sold Eddie’s, not mine.

It was just a perfect night.  Absolutely perfect.

• Talked to my parents today and found out that my last living grandparent is very sick.  Fucking awesome.

• I tried to cook myself food and being a dumbass I walked away from the stove while water, milk and butter were coming up to a boil.  Now the entire house smells like burned milk.  Fucking awesome.

• Was playing poker today and rivered a full house.  “Yay!”, right?  Not when the other guy turned a bigger one.  Fucking awesome.

Ack.