Corporate Offices beware

One of my favorite things to do when I don't receive an answer I like from the usual morons that answer the phones at any of the companies I deal with is to take my issue to the Executive/Corporate Offices.
So here is another foot in the ass of the big companies:

Chase Home Finance Corporate Office
888-310-7995

Wells Fargo Corporate Office
866-878-5865

Wells Fargo Financial Corporate Office
888-247-0032

SNOW SNOW SNOW

Living in Northern VA I didn't expect to get over 24 inches of snow in 1 day.  Nor did I expect to get another 6 inches 2 days later...but yes it has happened.
I haven't been to work since Friday, my work follows the Federal Government schedule which has been pretty lax since I started working at my company, but in the past few days they've really been on the cautious side.
So with that in mind here are all the things I have done while being stuck in the house:
Organized kitchen drawers, organized kitchen cabinets, moved stuff into new hutch/server in dining room
Painted kitchen ceiling
Replaced 2 toilet seats
Bought a new toilet and bag of sand from Home Depot (the one day I left the house)
Got all my hair cut off, got my eyebrows waxed
Took the dogs for a walk, fell on my face
Reorganized built-in bookshelves and replaced wine glasses in kitchen
Vaccuummed house every single day
Made a carrot cake - from scratch
Spent over 1 hour and 30 mins on the phone with Verizon to save $20 a month on our cable bill but got my entire movie package back!
Shoveled an entire poo path for the dogs from the back door to the shed - and we have a big backyard
Hooked up computer to TV to watch Netflix instant movies
Called Netflix to complain about lack of instant movies
Called Safeway to complain about lack of resuable bag credit
Emailed Safeway to complain about lack of reusable bag credit
Bought a new shower curtain and hair straightener at Tuesday Morning - got home and realized curtain was kinda crappy, found an old one in the attic that looks great and found out that my sister has a straightener she doesn't use anymore so I will eventually have to make it back out to return both items
Went to grocery store to get wine, beer, dog food and garlic bread
Searched entire house for things to sell on Ebay, found car speakers and a Coach wallet
Worked for a few hours
Called 5 plumbing companies in the area since our washing machine has been backing up into the shower
Learned all about plumbing snakes, where to rent them, how long they are, etc.
Called Fairfax County and got them out here on the Friday the first snow began to check our sewers and they did!
Called Roto-Rooter and had the MOST ghetto plumber come and give us a $500 estimate to snake our plumbing
Called Fairfax County and got them while they were open and requested a copy of our original house diagram to see if we even have a sewer clean-out.  The fax is waiting for me at work
Found a rental place that we can clean the plumbing ourselves, with a camera and power washer for $110.  So screw you Roto-Rooter
Sold a wedding gift I didn't want and couldn't return on Ebay
Watched I don't even know how many movies

And that's just the general overview...more to come.
Today I am stuck home again, without a car because my husband took it to get to work.  So maybe I will paint the hallway where it is scratched from moving furniture around the house.

HILARIOUS

http://sleeptalkinman.blogspot.com/

I know it's been a LONG time since I blogged, I've been too busy at work to NOT do work! 

Twilight condensed

http://lucylou.livejournal.com/566295.html

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

This made me laugh - hope it does the same for you!

Paranormal Activity

My husband works in a shady part of town and working in a shady part of town enables you to come by "bootleg" movies.  So we watched Paranormal Activity at home this past weekend and I wasn't very impressed.  I think this is the same thing that happened to me when I tried to watch the Blair Witch Project at home and thought to myself "I was really scared by this??"

The effect of watching a move in the theater is the entire culmination of many elements - the entire theater gets dark when the movie does, you feed off of the crowd's emotions and you're not pulled away from the movie by text messages or a barking dog.  It forces you to get involved in the movie in a way you would never be able to from your couch.  So this is what I think we really missed out on...the visceral experience. 

Needless to say I wasn't freaked out by this movie and found the commercials were pretty misleading as to how scared people were.  Ok so the movie was shot in a "home documentary" style, but the door moved in the middle of the night, I just don't believe movies anymore.  If this was something on the Discovery Channel I wouldn't believe it either.  Sorry to say I didn't even jump once.  The movie did end abruptly and a lot like Blair Witch by not resolving anything so I guess that's the freaky part? 

My suggestion, don't waste your money, wait for the rental.

Away We Go

The description of this movie pulled right from IMDB is:
A couple who is expecting their first child travel around the U.S. in order to find a perfect place to start their family. Along the way, they have misadventures and find fresh connections with an assortment of relatives and old friends who just might help them discover "home" on their own terms for the first time.

I really enjoyed this movie.  It was refreshlingly honest and for once in the longest time it was a movie that A. Wasn't shot in NJ or NY B. showed people who weren't really rich C. showed in my idea "real life" - case in point Verona gets fat as pregnant women should.  Amen.

Yes, some of the characters such as Burt's (played by John Krasinski) "cousin" LN (played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) might have been a bit far-fetched, but who am I to say?  There might be people out there who don't want strollers and let all their kids sleep in the bed with them.  But they visit friends and family in different areas, including Canada to find the right home for their baby on the way. 

I laughed a lot too, one point I remember really well is poor Verona is only 6 months pregnant and the people at the airport don't believe her because she's so big and they refuse to let her fly and they have to take the train instead.  But at the end of the movie I sat back and felt satisfied to the point that I felt I had a hand in making the movie as I do when I force my husband to watch something i know he would NEVER on his own.  It was as he calls it "one of your 'plot' movies" that focused on character-building and not blowing up buildings.  AHHHHH, nice and comforting.  So my recommendation - add it to your queue and you won't be disappointed!

Pete Yorn & Scarlett Johansson

I read about Pete Yorn doing an album with Scarlett in Rolling Stone and thought "great another actress who thinks she can sing" and I was immediately disappointed by Pete Yorn, who I hold in high regard for getting sucked into this duet. But I downloaded some of the tracks off their album and I am amazed. They're not bad. She's not that bad either! I think they may be using some sort of voice filter on her to make her sound "smokey" but the end-result isn't shabby at all!
My favorite track so far is Relator which is really catchy and Scarlett sounds amazing.

Check it out!

The album is called Break Up, and it's on sale in Starbucks which is probably why I dismissed it off the bat. 

Changing my last name

When you get married and if you're like me you want to change your last name.  I started with the typical places - DMV, credit cards, the bank and Social Security. I've called all the credit card companies, sent a fax to the mortgage company, waited on a pretty short line at the DMV but nothing has prepared me for the other 1,000 places I have my name and email address on file.  Every website I login to requires either my email address or username.  And like most people I used my first initial and last name for my username or my email address.  I decided recently to change my gmail address from my firstname, old last name to my now firstnamemarriedlastname.  So just today my issue was transferring the ownership of this blog to my new email address and somehow I hope that my old gmail keeps forwarding to my new email address.  All this new-age name changing business really sucks when you think about how many places your maiden name really is.  SIGH.

Dunkin Donuts coffee - secret "coupon"

I love Dunkin' Donuts coffee more than any other coffee in the states. On my recent trip to Mykonos, Greece I did fall in love with Greek coffee, but once I left the island the "main-land" version of Greek coffee fell way short of what I was accustomed to and I chalked it up to the hotel, the water, and well the love-of-the-Greek that kepy that great tasting coffee safe in the hands of the staff of the Mykonos Grand. But I digress...
Dunkin' Donuts coffee is so great that we buy it in pound bags and brew it at home. Once you've had it you will never be able to artfully master drinking Maxwell House without a look of total disdain. But here is my secret, in the stores they sell 1 pound of coffee for $10. And while it may go on sale for $8.99 or so a pound, NOTHING will beat the deal in the store.
I have heard that not every store "participates" in this deal but the few stores by me have a deal where you buy 1 get another for $12.99 total. So that equals 2 pounds of coffee for $12.99. I have been to stores (but not too recently) that told me they don't participate in this deal and I have promptly walked out. So if you are on the quest for the liquid crack I called Dunkin D Bags coffee - the surprising twist is that it is cheaper at the actual store, now who would've thought?!
Keep this in mind next time you take the turn down that aisle in the grocery store that smells like the Columbians have peed brown liquid coffee gold all over the floor and haul your cookies to the closest Dunkin' Donuts.

Note: I did check their store online because someone left a comment that they don't have a DD store by them and unfortunately they don't give you the discount online but it's still cheaper than buying it in a store.  

Wedding and thank-yous

I recently got married and one of the final things to do was hanging over my head, writing thank you notes. I sat on the couch last week with the pile of cards and started the painful task of writing them. How can you say "thank you for the money" without really saying so?
Since a lot of my family is from New Jersey many (or almost all) got the "thank you for making the trip to be with us on our special day" note and "thank you for your generous gift".

I'm not sure if telling people that their gift went to good use on our honeymoon would make them happy or not but being the truth, I included it in many cards. We did use their money on our honeymoon for shopping, drinks and dinner - so thank you because while planning the wedding, paying our mortgage and other bills we somehow managed not to save a dime for the honeymoon and were praying that our families would be generous to give us money. Thank you family.

But one thing I did notice is that an overwhelming amount of people who came to our wedding, did so empty-handed. Now I don't want to sound anything less than grateful that they did come to the wedding but seriously, do they think that we wouldn't notice they didn't even bother to give us a card. I understand times are tough but really, even the lack of bringing a card in my mind is inexcusable. I guess just like RSVPing you can't teach people manners, we did have a total of 6 people who said they were coming to the reception and didn't bother to show. 1 couple did at least give us a pretty valid excuse at the ceremony but the other 2 couples no good excuse, or even a lame one. SIGH.

All I have to say is after planning a wedding for 140 people I truly understand why people hire wedding planners and why many people elope. It is hard work and something that people who haven't been through it before have any clue about. I had an amazing time and am very proud of myself for getting 50-something thank you cards out in the mail about a month after the wedding. But then again, I am a pretty responsible person and don't put things off...

I am full of blogging fever!

Maybe the Julie & Julia book has renewed my blogging or the fact that it's another crappy weekend day and I am forced to be inside and can't stand the thought of wasting away in front of the TV again, or maybe it's because I have so much to say that I am blogging so much today.
So far my day has been - reading a bit more of Julie & Julia, making a crock-pot Hungarian goulash which is filling the house with the most delectable smells, filling in more of my wedding scrapbook that my sister, Amy gave to me and finishing up the Thank You cards for wedding gifts.

If you've never had Hungarian Goulash you are missing out. The recipe varies from cookbook to cookbook but the overall premise is the same. I was at the ghetto Safeway yesterday (read: Jason's sister works there and swears they have a rat problem) and I saw a big ol' package of beef stew beef on sale for $9 for 2.8 pounds of meat. At the time I had no idea what I would do with it but I figured I would make beef stew with red-skinned potatoes in the crock pot. But today when I got out my Fix-It and Forget It 5-Ingredient Favorites crock pot cookbook I saw that I had written in the cover the recipe I had found for goulash.

After a call to my parents for some consulting - "Can I add potatoes; and the recipe calls for 2 pounds of beef but I have 2.8, should I add it all in now or saw off half this hunk of meat and freeze it?" And started cooking it. It's a very easy process, you cut the meat into pieces, in this instance I added potatoes, so I cut them into small pieces and cut a whole yellow onion and added 3 cloves of garlic of varying sizes. Then I mixed together ketchup, worceshire sauce, dry mustard, paprika (a must have along with garlic for almost all of my cooking and all Hungarian cooking), salt and brown sugar. I added this all to the crock pot, mixed it together and set it to cook for 9 hours. Being that I started this process at 1 PM my dinner won't be ready until 10 or 11 PM so my plan is to make Chicken Marsala for dinner and have the goulash for tomorrow's night dinner. I have to cook this chicken, it's been defrosting in the fridge for days now and will go bad if I don't do anything with it and I noticed the mushrooms I bought the other day have a small hole in the plastic covering the container which means they will go bad soon, too.

The Wii Fit

About a year ago when the Wii Fit first came out I gave into all the hype and bought the balance board and actually played with it for awhile. I have to say that I HATE WORKING OUT. I'm not one of those people that once I get to the gym who actually enjoys being there, I hate it.
I started working out last January and did so on a pretty steady routine for about 5 months, and I didn't lose 1 freaking pound. Everyone around me told me it was because I was turning fat into muscle and that muscle weighs more than fat. Bullshit. Not bullshit that it doesn't weigh more, but bullshit that I don't care. I wanted to lose weight and I wasn't. It sucked.
So about 2 months before my wedding I completely lost all motivation and stopped working out entirely.
Back to the Wii Fit, it was fun for awhile trying all the yoga poses, but the mastery of the poses was your ability to hold your balance, which is not the purpose of yoga. I got bored with the same old routines that lasted for about 2 minutes and the fact that you can't program a continious workout session, you have to keep picking up the remote and choosing your next workout pose. So needless to say, it lost my attention.
Recently I bought the Wii Fit EA Sports Active Trainer. It comes with "resistance bands" (read: a long rubber-band with 2 tie on straps) and a leg thingy. But it promises to be an actual workout routine complete with trainer and on-going workouts. I haven't tried it yet as it's been nice out after work and I've been walking with my dogs after work for about 1 mile a day.
But today was the beginning of Daylight Savings Time so that means unless I get out of work at 4:30 I won't be able to walk the dogs in the daylight. And the people that drive down my street barely avoid me when it's light out, and there aren't any sidewalks on my road, some of the routes that I chose around the neighborhood so have sidewalks, but not all. So I really don't feel safe walking after dark, and well it makes me lose all motivation to do so. When I leave work and it's already dark out all I want to do is go home, put on my PJs and watch TV.
So I'm hoping this new workout game will give all it promises and make me start to workout again. We'll see.

Julie & Julia

I am almost done with reading this book, I am hooked. It is hard to put down, even though I know the entire story from seeing the movie I still enjoy the writing.
I will say that the book is making me really want to cook. I went to bed last night thinking about the thawed-out chicken in my fridge but also the beef stew beef that I bought yesterday at the store and how I want to make beef stew. The fact that the chicken has been sitting undefrosted in the fridge for going on 3 days is what's setting me off, I need to cook it - today.
I've also been thinking about making truffles from the Sarah McLachlan cookbook, Plenty. They are actually really easy to make, it's just chocolate and milk. But I am a newlywed and still trying to lose that honeymoon weight, so truffles probably aren't the best way of achieving this.
SIGH.

Movies

Being a netflix addict I do watch a ridiculous amount of movies. We are on the 3 at a time unlimited account setting, which some people would say is just too much. But being as it is - there are still times that we don't have any movies in the house or anything that we really want to watch. Case in point - The Exorcist, the original. This movie sat on our entertainment center for days before we actually were "in the mood" to watch it.
I've never seen it before so I had no idea what to expect, Jason had seen it but it was years ago. I knew that it was set in Georgetown and was pretty creepy but that's the end of my expectations. We started it on a Friday night and in my house, Friday nights are pretty lame. We are both so exhausted from the workweek that we rarely stay up later than 11 PM. And this night wasn't very different. We started the movie late and I ended up falling asleep half-way through.
We finished it Saturday night and I was grossed out more than scared. And I didn't remember the set of stairs that Jason swore we stopped at near the gas station on our way home from Georgetown a few weeks ago...it obviously didn't mean that much to me. And if you haven't seen the movie yet you won't really know the meaning behind the large set of stairs, and the role they play in the movie.
So all in all, I think I missed the window of scariness for The Exorcist, I shoudl've watched it a long time ago when I was a small child for it to be really freaky. But my parents were good about not letting me watch inappropriate movies and I'm pretty sure The Exorcist would've made that list.

What I'm Reading

A friend at work loaned me Julie & Julia the story of an ordinary girl living in NYC who starts cooking her way through the Julia Child cookbook - Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I saw the movie a few weeks ago and knew that the book would be better than the movie. Not that the movie was bad, I enjoy Amy Adams as an actress and Meryl Streep was Julia Child and she played the role to perfection. But the book is always better than the movie.

I just started a few nights ago and am hooked already!

One of the things I like about seeing a movie before reading the book, if the movie is played well is being able to picture the actors in the role of the character in the book and with Amy Adams she makes Julie even more lovable.

This week in Northern VA

Or it might have been last week - but this is true

This guy cheated on his girlfriend and I guess her punishment was to make him stand in the middle of an intersection during morning rush hour wearing this sign:

I feel really bad for these dogs

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32581670/from/ET/?beginSlide=1

I have to share this with the world

http://twitter.com/shitmydadsays

I am laughing maniacally at my desk.

Good reading

A nice email forward from Kristen today:

Random Thoughts of the Day:
I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can't wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that's not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
I don't understand the purpose of the line, "I don't need to drink to have fun." Great, no one does. But why start a fire with flint and sticks when they've invented the lighter?

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you're going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you're crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

That's enough, Nickelback.

I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

The letters T and G are very close to each other on a keyboard. This recently became all too apparent to me and consequently I will never be ending a work email with the phrase "Regards" again.

Do you remember when you were a kid, playing Nintendo and it wouldn't work? You take the cartridge out, blow in it and that would magically fix the problem. Every kid in America did that, but how did we all know how to fix the problem? There was no internet or message boards or FAQ's. We just figured it out. Today's kids are soft.

There is a great need for sarcasm font.

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the f*ck was going on when I first saw it.

I think everyone has a movie that they love so much, it actually becomes stressful to watch it with other people. I'll end up wasting 90 minutes shiftily glancing around to confirm that everyone's laughing at the right parts, then making sure I laugh just a little bit harder (and a millisecond earlier) to prove that I'm still the only one who really, really gets it.

The other night I hit a new low at an open bar. I had already hopped on highway blackout when, inevitably I had to find a bathroom. Eventually I decided it was probably on the other side of the bar so I tried to walk over there, but ran into a guy coming the other way. We played that, Both go left, Both go right game to no avail, so I finally put out my hand to guide myself past and that's is when I realized, yup, that's a mirror I just tried to walk through. And the guy on the other side is me. Even cats can recognize their own image.

How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

The only time I look forward to a red light is when I'm trying to finish a text.

A recent study has shown that playing beer pong contributes to the spread of mono and the flu. Yeah, if you suck at it.

Was learning cursive really necessary?

Lol has gone from meaning, "laugh out loud" to "I have nothing else to say".

I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

My brother's Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, "Cuz we beat you, and you hate us." Classy, bro.

Whenever someone says "I'm not book smart, but I'm street smart", all I hear is "I'm not real smart, but I'm imaginary smart".

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

I love the sense of camaraderie when a n entire line of cars teams up to prevent a dick from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers!

Every time I have to spell a word over the phone using 'as in' examples, I will undoubtedly draw a blank and sound like a complete idiot. Today I had to spell my boss's last name to an attorney and said "Yes that's G as in...(10 second lapse)..ummm...Goonies"

What would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other?

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it...thanks Mario Kart.

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

I find it hard to believe there are actually people who get in the shower first and THEN turn on the water.

Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

I would like to officially coin the phrase 'catching the swine flu' to be used as a way to make fun of a friend for hooking up with an overweight woman. Example: "Dave caught the swine flu last night."

I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
Bad decisions make good stories

Whenever I'm Facebook stalking someone and I find out that their profile is public I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who just got the Red Ryder BB gun that I always wanted. 546 pictures? Don't mind if I do!

Is it just me or do high school girls get sluttier & sluttier every year?

If Carmen San Diego and Waldo ever got together, their offspring would probably just be completely invisible.

Why is it that during an ice-breaker, when the whole room has to go around and say their name and where they are from, I get so incredibly nervous? Like I know my name, I know where I'm from, this shouldn't be a problem....

You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you've made up your mind that you just aren't doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don't want to have to restart my collection.

There's no worse feeling than that millisecond you're sure you are going to die after leaning your chair back a little too far.

I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

"Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this ever.

I hate being the one with the remote in a room full of people watching TV. There's so much pressure. 'I love this show, but will they judge me if I keep it on? I bet everyone is wishing we weren't watching this. It's only a matter of time before they all get up and leave the room. Will we still be friends after this?'

While watching the Olympics, I find myself cheering equally for China and USA. No, I am not of Chinese descent, but I am fairly certain that when Chinese athletes don't win, they are executed.
I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello? Damnit!), but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

When I meet a new girl, I'm terrified of mentioning something she hasn't already told me but that I have learned from some light internet stalking.

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Why is a school zone 20 mph? That seems like the optimal cruising speed for pedophiles...
As a driver I hate pedestrians, and as a pedestrian I hate drivers, but no matter what the mode of transportation, I always hate cyclists.

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
It should probably be called Unplanned Parenthood.

I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

I think that if, years down the road when I'm trying to have a kid, I find out that I'm sterile, most of my disappointment will stem from the fact that I was not aware of my condition in college.

Even if I knew your social security number, I wouldn't know what do to with it.

Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, hitting the G-spot, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet my ass everyone can find and push the Snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time every time...

My 4-year old son asked me in the car the other day "Dad what would happen if you ran over a ninja?" How the hell do I respond to that?

It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

I wonder if cops ever get pissed off at the fact that everyone they drive behind obeys the speed limit.

I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

The other night I ordered takeout, and when I looked in the bag, saw they had included four sets of plastic silverware. In other words, someone at the restaurant packed my order, took a second to think about it, and then estimate d that there must be at least four people eating to require such a large amount of food. Too bad I was eating by myself. There's nothing like being made to feel like a fat bastard before dinner.