Thing of the Day: Cheese Substitutes/The Olympics

Life updates:

1. The lack of cheese and frozen yogurt in my life since Wednesday has not only caused me to be emotionally tormented, but actually contributed to my physical illness. I have a minor stomach virus (I've always heard that yogurt has those bacteria cultures etc that prevents such ailments...hmm, Lent) and have been le miz since yesterday afternoon.

2. On a slightly happier note, Whole Foods has an extraordinarily impressive selection of cheese products that consist of absolutely no cheese. I spent an alltogether perfect Friday afternoon shopping for rice cheddar, soy mozarella, tofu ice cream, almond milk, and vegan gnocchi/ravioli. Who knew all these mediocre foods could come together to so wholly appease my desire for pizza, grilled cheese, and carbo-loaded pastas? Yummmm.

3. Whole Foods additionally offers an even more impressive list of cooking classes . Being as one of my yet-to-be-fulfilled-in-any-way New Years resolutions was to learn to cook instead of just eat, I have scheduled two cooking class dates. Yay. Prepare for dishes a vegetarian would never dream of devouring but eagerly anticipates cooking.

4. In non-food related news, Michelle Obama has invited the cast of Glee to perform at the Annual Easter Egg Hunt at the White House in April. Although my slightly more pessimistic/Republican friends (ahem, Dani), have greeted this news with "I guess that's where our tax money is going," I think this is utterly phenomenal. Someone get me to this party, ASAP. And when is this show coming back on anyway? I have had considerably less fun on the elliptical with a lack of new sick jamz every Wednesday night.

5. This semester, I am taking Rhetoric of Mass Media, a class based entirely on television and films. Other than Vanderbilt's Southern Foods class, I can think of absolutely no classroom activity I could possibly enjoy more. Taking this class has given me an opportunity to watch TV for school, I would like to present my opinions on HBO's new show, How To Make It In America. I'm going to go ahead and give it 3.5 stars from the get-go. First off, it has a really catchy opening sequence, which is crucial to capture the interest of today's 30 second tops attention span public. Second, the main character, Ben, played by a moping and gorgeous Bryan Greenberg, may or may not be my soulmate. He lives in Brooklyn, is currently getting over his bi-atch of an ex girlfriend while trying to quit smoking cigarettes, and have I mentioned that he is moping and gorgeous? Give me deep seeded emotional issues and big pretty eyes and I'm yours, HBO. Finally, the show actually seems to be moving along quite well--it's by the writers/producers of the epically bromantic Entourage, and reflects a similar sentiment in this show, without being quite so obnoxious. I look forward to seeing more cute moping/bro bonding.

6. Ever since Mama Bogo got a Blackberry, she has found that a good way to communicate sentiments to her daughters when they don't answer her BBMs is via updating her BBM status. Seeing that "Nikki Bogo" and "Violetta B" are her two only BBM friends, Mama B does this rather often with no quips about alienating other BBM contacts. Recent statuses have been "Allowance Monday :)" and "My daughters don't love me :(," but recently the Mother Ship's status read a mysterious "I Luv Johhny Weir."

Clearly I immediately Googled Johnny Wier in hopes that he was at least some sort of billionaire businessman, and found even better--

Gay ice skater.

Concerns about mothers' affair alleviated, I decided to watch some brief clips of his performances. Mama B, hailing from the motherland, has always been been Ice Skating's #1 Fan. Wee Nikki and Violetta, in addition to being given years of lessons of rhythmic gymnastics (yes, the kind Will Ferrell mocks in Old School), were given a few brief lessons in the sport of Ice Dancing. Although we epically failed, extensive You-Tubing of Johnny Weir has proved that he definitely hasn't. The man is ice skating to Poker Face and looking as fierce/of questionable gender as Lady Gaga does when she performs to it. Androgeny jokes aside, this guy makes ice skating look kind of...badass.

He inspired me to further watch Olympic ice skating/other Winter Olympic events, and may I just say, although the Winter Olympics are obviously the Summer Olympics inferior little sister, they are pretty damn impressive. My favorites thus far have been alpine skiing and ice skating. Alpine skiing because as someone who just learned the pleasures of skiing without injury/near death experience, damn, those moves are impressive, and ice skating because I think Mama Bogo (as usual) was right--it's awesome, and to be BBM Luved. This evening, in between "writing my paper," extensive Gchatting, and writing this blog post, I got the chance to catch some couples ice dancing. Sweet moves, France. Step it up, Mother Russia.

Things I'm looking forward to this week: Vanderbilt basketball, dinner at Miel, and does anyone want to do this?

Thing of the Day: Avatar

Things that are embarrassing but still sort of awesome: when you are riding the subway alone listening to the Glee soundtrack loudly in your headphones and casually bopping one foot along to the beat and the blatantly homosexual and wonderfully flamboyant purple-coated man next to you taps you on the shoulder and says "Gurlllllll, that's my jaaaaaaaaaam.

I miss you, Glee. Return to my television repertoire immediately. What I was riding the subway to was the show Fuerzabruta, which was really strange, kind of cool, and would have been significantly better if I had dropped a small amount of acid or a similar hallucinogenic material prior to entry to the theater. Watch this clip. It was weird. What wasn't weird was the show that I saw last night, Next to Normal. It's choreographed and set by the guy who did RENT, and like RENT, does an excellent job dealing with depressing and serious subject matters via upbeat musical melodies.

Speaking of upbeat musical melodies--I am obsessed with the new Lady Gaga/Beyonce song. A Lady Gaga/Beyonce collaboration proves two things to me: 1)Everything is right with the musical universe, and 2)Ebony and ivory are finally living in perfect harmony. Also, how did Gaga/Miz B know how I felt about my Blackberry when out on a Thurzday night? And I cannot text you with a drink in my hand eehhhhhhhh.

And finally:

On Monday night, I finally had the opportunity to see Avatar the way it was meant to be seen, in IMAX 3D. It was nothing short of a perfect film experience. James Cameron, how did you create that wonderful wonderful planet? What I would do to frolic in the forests of Pandora and play with larger in than life glow in the dark plants and fly on the backs of magnificent creatures to whom I was connected via braid link. Although in my ideal universe, I think the creatures would be considerably cuter/less terrifying. In Avatar, Cameron does a fantastic job combining fantasy with fact. Is the brutal war on Pandora because they have a magical substance that sells for ten million per kilo ("When someone has something we want, we find a reason to make them our enemy) loosely mocking America's own war on Iraq? Um, duh. The evil lieutenant dude even says "we will fight terror with terror." Does the Na'vi's love and appreciation of their nature and their planet compare quite shockingly with our own races' constant destruction of it for our own purposes? Yeah, clearly, in IMAX 3D. If the movie had absolutely no plot at all and consisted solely of 12 foot tall blue creatures with astonishingly human facial expressions running about and blowing shit up would I still think it was the most visually stunning film I had ever seen? Abso-freaking-lutely. Avatar is, after all, the most expensive movie ever made (it is also the fastest to gross 1 billion dollars in theaters, but that may perhaps be because IMAX tickets cost me an absurdly high $16.75) and every penny poured into the special effects was worth it. I don't know when the last time I saw an IMAX movie was, but Cameron has come a long way. When you are watching Avatar you feel like you are literally in the film. Animated and sparkling flora and fauna jump out at you. You can reach out and nearly touch the lovable blue aliens really well-built torsos. When predators launch and explosions startle, the theater audibly gasps. Despite the two and a half hour running time of Avatar, I was fully engrossed for every single second.

That being said (spoiler alert) there is no way those Na'vi critters would...mate...exactly like humans do. Come on, make out scene leading to wake up in the morning spooning scene. You could have been a little more creative. Perhaps some tail binding action? Maybe some sparks flying from the tree of life? Disappointing, J.Cam. Additionally, I would have liked to see more baby Na'vi. We had a few quick glimpses towards the end and they were remarkably cute. Maybe throw in a few dozen more in the DVD version?

Overall, this movie left me thinking that humans kind of suck. For example, on Pandora, a woman would never attack the McDonald's drive thru employee because they were out of McNuggets. It should be noted that I found out about this incident via a friend gchatting me that "it reminded him of something I would do." Said friend also sent me this gem about a woman who stole an ambulance to drunk-drive to her boyfriends' house because she "really wanted to see him" and "had a pretty good time" doing it for similar reasons. I don't thank my friends enough on this blog.

As you can see, I have not done much in 2010 thus far other than see plays and movies. The reason for this is three-fold. Firstly, it is really freaking cold in New York. I've been setting up interviews for a job in Chicago, and am really not sure I will follow through due to hatred of such weather. Secondly, my dentist, who is a good family friend, removed one of my wisdom teeth on a whim the other day because once I graduate, my mother's phenomenal dental insurance will no longer cover such procedures and I "have an abnormally small mouth, so we should really do this as a precaution." Spare the jokes, and thanks, ghetto Russian medical practices. And thirdly, I have all but given up my social life via New Years resolutions. Clearly I don't expect these resolutions to last long at all (I'm thinking week after sorority rush at Vanderbilt), but I am giving it my best shot as long as I'm trapped toothless in 24 degree weather.

Till then, a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon and Sex and The City season 4 on demand (how I love being home).

Thing of the Day: Lessons Learned

Preface: Picture fairly unrelated to the rest of this post, but how AWESOME would that be?

Four years ago, when I opened my Suntrust bank account in Nashville (a quick shoutout to the employees at Suntrust West End who have forgiven me somewhere between 5 and 15 overdraft charges), I was asked to create a pin for my debit card. 18 year old me looked down at my classy tricked-out flip phone and rapidly selected a pin based on a four letter word I could easily remember by spelling the numbers out on my flip phone key pad. Feeling clever, I proceeded to not to make room in my brain to memorize the four digits in the years since.

Enter Blackberry. Ever since I got the glorious PDA that never leaves my side but unfortunately lacks an old school number/letter keypad, one would think that I would have made the effort to memorize the four numbers that gain me access to cold hard cash. The one who might think that, however, clearly knows nothing about me. Ever since I first started using phones I have only memorized six phone numbers (my house, my mom's office and cell, my grandparents, my best friend Rachel, and one boy when I was 15). Furthermore, the only way to enter our campus apartments is via 5 digit access code. It took me until mid-October to memorize my own access code without checking my Blackberry notes, and I know only 2 others despite day-to-day entry into my friends apartments and the fact that all the codes are made up of only the numbers 1-2-3-4-5. The point being--ever since my phone keyboard stopped providing me with the numbers that make up my pin code (thanks a lot, QWERTY), I have had to resort to desperate measures to withdraw.

Usually I don't have much of an issue. Store purchases always have letters conveniently placed on the number pad where you swipe your card, and most ATMs still use the numbers as well. While abroad in Europe, I had several unfortunate ATM encounters where foreign alphabets threw me off and I was forced to either Google "phone keypad" on my Blackberry and cause a frustrated-at-dumb-Americans line to build up behind me, or grab a strangers' cell phone to quickly identify the numbers I needed. So despite embarassment, I never felt the need to really take the leap and embed the four digits to memory.

Until yesterday. A loving family member made the gracious decision to surprise my campus mailbox with a check, so I giddily headed down to the Suntrust office on the first floor of my building to make a rapid deposit and begin online shopping at work. As I approach the teller, giddy with check in hand, she has the audacity to ask me for my pin for "security reasons." Uhhhhhhh. "Can I borrow your phone?" is greeted with a dirty look and a flash of a Blackberry Tour. As I attempt to explain, the tellers' eyebrows retreat further and further towards her hairline as she judges me in utter disdain. I am clearly deemed an identity theif as the teller asks me to hold on and calls an intimidating looking superior who then proceeds to lecture me for a full two minutes about selecting a pin I am "capable of remembering." I am then told that my check will be held for 24 hours for further security reasons. There's a Gilt sale going on now, woman, I don't have that kind of time. But alas. After recieving a pamphlet about managing my student checking account, I am given a brisk goodbye and sent off.

I think I've learned my lesson.

On to embarassing moments for others. Now that I am a 21 year old responsible legal adult, I can judge the stupid decisions of those younger than me. So it must be said--what is with kids these days?! The Cheat Sheet this morning had not one but two WTF worthy pieces of news. Firstly, an 11 year old girl in Bulgaria gave birth to a child last night. On her wedding day. Sick. The Daily News quotes her as saying "I'm not going to play with toys anymore, I have a new toy now." I am going to vomit--there are several things that are incredibly disturbing about this case aside from the fact that this girl is ELEVEN.

1)Okay, no, she is 11. When I was 11 I learned from the son of the family who was renting the mountain house next to ours what sex was by engaging in one too many dates between my Barbies and his Kens. I was shocked that my beloved Barbara would engage in such an act and all in all didn't understand the logistics of it , but that may have been because Mattel didn't feel the need to equip B or K with genitalia of any sort. Nonetheless, the idea of humans engaging in the bizzare act was unthinkable.

2)Of course she's Bulgarian. Come on, Eastern Europe--no one is ever going to take you seriously if you continue to allow shit like this to go down on your turf. Lay down the law. Sex education in middle schools, please.

3)The girl is also quoted as saying "I didn't know I was pregnant until my grandmother said I'd put on weight. I just thought I'd ate too many burgers." W-W-WTF. I once spent a full eight hours watching I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant with Momma B this summer and have never heard as ridiculous an excuse. How many burgers is this child eating? And where oh where are her parents?

4)The new baby's name is Violetta, as is my little sisters' (hi, V). Since I have never met or heard of any other person named Violetta, I am going to take this as some sort of sick and twisted sign. To either join an against-child-brides-advocacy-group or call V and demand to know exactly what kind of crap she is up to her freshman year of college.

Moving on to the Cheat Sheet's second ugh-story. Next week's Gossip Girl will apparently be featuring a threesome. As excited as I am to find out who the lucky characters will be (Serena-Nate-Trip Vanderbilt? Olivia-Dan-Vanessa? Lily-Rufus-hot rockstar from Rufus's olden days...ah, I can only guess), this is completely inappropriate behavior for basic cable television aimed at teenagers. Back in the days of my dramedy filled teen-hood, the raciest shit ever pulled on TV was when Marissa and Ryan had sex in a random tent for some reason set up in their high school. And it took them three seasons! Maybe if we didn't air threesomes for impressionable eleven year olds to watch, we wouldn't have burger-babies named Violetta! Ick, world! I have learned my debit-card-pin lesson. When oh when will you learn your stop-encouraging-stupid-teenagers-to-have-sex-and-then-be-shocked-about-teen-pregnancy-statistics lesson? Oy.

Until then, I'll be counting down the minutes till my workday ends and listening to the "Glee Soundtrack"station on Pandora (Thanks, Caybabe!) Other music played on the Glee station:90s Disney movie soundtracks, the Rent and Wicked soundtracks, Bohemian Rhapsody, and Miley Cyrus. It's going to be a great hour and a half.

Thing of the Day: Halloween

Halloween is number two or three on my list of top five fave holidays (1. New Years Eve, 2/3. Halloween/4th of July, 4. Chrismakkuh, 5. Thanksgiving) and now that I have gotten back from fall break I have finally gotten sufficiently excited enough to begin adequately preparing. My apartment has been decked out in pumpkins and other seasonal fruits/vegetables (among my very few faults, being unable to destinguish between what is technically a fruit and what is considered a vegetable is moderately high on the list) for the majority of October, but seeing that we have a mere week left until the holiday, I have broken out the pumpkin cups and spider accessories. Sorry roomies. The other, considerably more important thing that I have broken out is my costume. I clearly can't reveal what I am being until the day (or in college, days) of Halloween, but it involves fake money, green fishnets, and a very LBD.

It's funny to me that all the holidays we used to get terribly excited for as children for very wholesome reasons (candy on Halloween, staying up all night on New Year's Eve, turkey on Thanksgiving, fireworks on the 4th of July, presents and cake on birthdays) are, for young adults, simply reasons/excuses to get excessively drunk. I come to this conclusion because every single person who I suggested come trick or treating with has responded either with a flat out "no," or an "only if we pregame." I am one of the founding members of pregaming's fan club, but for once, cannot see the purpose. What about putting on costumes and getting candy from strangers requires one to be intoxicated? Another thing that alcoholic friends refused to join me for this week was pumpkin carving at my sorority house. This time, pregaming wasn't suggested--probably because nobody should be wielding a knife and that close to accessible food in any state of inebriation--and I was flat-out greeted with "you're a loser." (In a twist of great hypocrisy, we will be hosting a Halloween/22nd roomie birthday party on Friday, complete with orange beer, spiked cider, and a plethora of unhealthy candies and revealing costumes).

In several other pieces of completely unrelated news:

1)Fall break was great and debaucherous. Charleston is a ridiculously cute city and I want to go back.

2)Does anyone know where I can get a Google Wave invite? I know its ridiculously geeky but I want this technology so badly. The 2 adorable Danish brothers who created it (Lars and Jens Rasmussen-duh. In my 4 months in Denmark, I learned that Danish people only eat three foods: fish, bread, and cheese, and that they only have three names: Lars, Jens, and Hans) just did a CNN interview about it and I want it on my desktop now.

3)Glee is officially my favorite show on television. After last Wednesday's mashup of "The Thong Song" and "I Could Have Danced All Night," I am officially denouncing both Gossip Girl (by the way, for those who watch Gossip Girl, check out this phenomenal GG Recap blog by the people at NY Magazine (Hire Me!). I am considering imposing this point system onto my own life. Thoughts?) and Greek in leiu of a wiser, funnier, better sounding teen dramedy. And, oh, Mr. Schuuuu.

Trick o treat lovers and friends.

Thing of the Day: Abbreviations

Today Momma Bogo sent me a text that read like so:

"Hi hun plz call gma she has smth 4 u. XO Luv u!"

This got me thinking about several things. Firstly--Momma B. You have a smartphone. You can type up to 180 characters into a single message to me. I understand hun, plz, and even luv (although I am slightly offended, since we all know luv =/= LOVE--thankssss, mom), but smth? Smth is not an appropriate abbreviation for the word it is meant to signify, which, by the way, is "something." I spent nearly one full minute trying to figure out why my grandmother had a Smith for me and what exactly a Smith is--the cocktail? The name of a beloved brunch spot on 3rd avenue? After 60 seconds of dumbfounded contemplation I realize mother has simply left out the o-e-i-n-g and given me less than half of the letters of a word to work with and my grandmother has something for me. Duh.

Something turns out to be a card I have to sign for a package she is bringing to the long lost relatives in Mother Russia. Borrrrrrrring. All that deciphering and not even a bottle of wine Ruski vodka (common grandparent to grandchild gift in the Bogo fam), let alone a handful of crisp bills.

This disappointing experience led to me to ponder on abbreviations--namely, those I find appropriate and use in everyday conversation on a regular basis, and those I despise and immediately judge people for.

A short list:

Fav. abbrevs:

-Fav. Not to be confused with fave, which just kind of sucks
-Abbrevs. Because abbreviations just has far too many syllables

-Ush (pronounced you-zhe), as in usual. Hard to spell, but comes in very handy

-Obv. Not to be confused with OBVI wish I hate hate hate and should be limited to the realm of 13 year olds with Blackberries and excessive amounts of Facebook comments.

-Miz. As in, miserrrry and death.

-WTF.

-OMG.

-BTW (pronounced bee tee dubz)

-Eva, neva, whateva, and any replacement of "er" or "ar" with just a. Gangsta.

Un-fav. abbrevs.

-LOL, LMAO, ROFL. I hate people who say LOL or LMAO instead of just "Haha." And ROFL? Please. You are not only a poor abbreviator but a liar since clearly you are NOT Rolling On The Floor Laughing and rather, you are typing to me.

-Ur. Just type your. Just do it.

-Ure. So much worse than Ur. Where did that e come from. What's the point of abbreviating if you tack on extra letters as you please?

-Plz. That doesn't look or sound even a little bit like please. Maybe pills. But please? I justtt don't see it.

-2, 4, and any use thereof (especially 2gether 4ever)

Just a brief compilation. Now, in full words, what in the world have I been doing for the past two weeks? Weeeeeeellll, other than the usual eating and drinking in excess I have:

1-Gotten my first post-graduate life interview. YAY. I might not have to rely on Google Adwords via my blog and personal checks via my mother to get myself through life after all.

2-Taken up several new television interests, namely, Glee, Bored To Death, and a rekindled love affair with Californication and Dexter. Also eagerly buidling up a TiVo queue of Modern Family. Between the first three episodes of the first two, a teenager has gotten pregnant, a crazy wife has plotted to take said teenagers baby and pass it off on her own, hot men have danced on stage and on football fields, a 30 year old guy has accidentally hooked up with a 16 year old girl (at St.Ann's, no less! Fellow Brooklynites rejoice--we are finally being recognized in television!), and two straight male best friends have gotten colonics together. Ah, fall TV.

3-And of course, eaten several meals worth noting. I won't bore you with the details but can't pass up a brief description of brunch at Marche Artisan Foods (croissant french toast with honey butter and cinnamon, goat cheese mushroom and potato crepes with warm gruyere sauce, smoked salmon and creme fraiche open faced sandwich , warm apple crisp a la mode, pomegranate mimosas).

4-There are birthday cupcakes in the office today. Crap. Till next time.