lewis and clark had a journal. you, beth-annie, have a diary.

Thursday, October 31, 2002
I suppose it is Halloween.
I don't care for Halloween, so I guess I don't care.  Did I mention I don't care?

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We need our own commenting system.
Seriously.  No, seriously.

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"Every waking moment, they're out fighting foo."
"NextYear" has regained its rightful place on our Wednesday night television soundtrack.  And all is again right withthe world.

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Things That Bug Me.
CD liner notes that fail to contain song lyrics.  And,hey, while we're at it, let's add CDs that don't list track lengths anywhere.  Both the new Foo Fighters and Sixpence albums are guilty of both of these.  Shameful.
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Tuesday, October 29, 2002
"I am so smart, I am so smart, S-M-R-T..."
So Ticketmaster decided to add said Sixpence concert to their online database the same day I wrote my little rant, which of course I only found out after I had called the radio station long distance and been kept on hold for about 15 minutes, and then been told the concert information by what I assume was someone just reading the information off the Ticketmaster site.  Lovely.  All is good, though.  We bought four tickets, two for Kaly and her friend Melissa, who will be driving up from Greenville College for the concert and then ditching school and staying with us until Thanksgiving Break.  How fun.  We like to encourage delinquency in the young people where we can.

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Josh's Sleeptalking, Installment Two.
"Over here.  If I could just have some more space to set some down."

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Things That Bug Me.
Old Navy commercials.
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Friday, October 25, 2002
Our server appears to be fixed.  This has nothing whatsoever to do with the ensuing paragraph.
What do you do when a local radio station is giving away tickets to a Sixpence None the Richer show on November 15, whose tickets they have said go on sale on Saturday, October 26, but you can find no evidence anywhere outside of this radio station that the show exists or the tickets are going on sale tomorrow at all, let alone at what time, or that there is even a way to buy tickets (i.e. a phone number), etc. etc. etc. ?  You want to buy tickets, even if they are supposedly $20, and even if the show is all the way in downtown Chicago on a workday, because the venue is apparently a relatively small one and it would be quite cool to see them in such an intimate atmosphere, but at the same time that intimate atmosphere makes it all the more imperative to get tickets as soon as they become available lest they sell out, although how will they sell out if nobody knows how to buy tickets, we just want to buy tickets, someone tell us how please!

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Things That Bug Me.
Concerts that may or may not exist and if they do exist for some reason do not want you to buy tickets to them.

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Things That Confuse Me.
Messages on our answering machine that consist of the following, and I quote:  "Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah blah blah blah.  Blah blah."
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Wednesday, October 23, 2002
A server note.
As many of you know, my blog, Matt's blog, and Kaly's blog are all housed on our (Josh's and my) server.  If anyone has periodically been having problems accessing these pages over the last couple days, it is because some things have been moved around and our server has been crashing intermittently ever since.  We haven't been able to pinpoint the problem, but hope to have a temporary fix sometime tonight until a permanent solution can be found.  We apologize for any inconvenience.  Servers suck.  :)

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Things That Bug Me.
Servers.  Just kidding.  How about mushrooms?  Yeah, that works.
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Tuesday, October 22, 2002
There is something rotten in Glen Oak.
Let us talk about "7th Heaven," shall we?  OK.  I watched this show.  Still do, I guess.  But not so much because I think it's good.  More like I feel some weird sort of obligation to.  Well, not an obligation, exactly, but more like I feel I might miss something if I don't.  Like I want to know how things end up for this fictional family that I for some reason apparently care about to a certain extent but who pretty much all bug the heck out of me.  The characters bug me, the basic plots (if you can call them that) bug me, the writing bugs me, the acting bugs me...

I didn't used to feel this way.  I used to look forward to every episode.  Then at some point during last year's season, the show really started to get to me.  How annoying the characters are.  How irrationally they behave (especially the women).  How at least half the actors can't really act worth spit (this seems to be especially true of guest stars.  Even people I've seen act convincingly in other things for some reason fall flat here.  Why is that?)  How the episodes all have some special message or theme--which isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, but the way it is often presented is sappy ("It's okay to dream.  It's important to dream."), or done in such a way that the three or four separate storylines in that episode all somehow *magically* teach different characters the exact same lesson at the same time.  You know, just like real life.

I hate how the Camden kids all seem to fall in and out of "love" so quickly and easily and over and over and over again that when the characters are supposed to actually feel more seriously about a love interest, there is absolutley nothing the script or the acting or the directing can do to convince me that this is any different from any of their other "relationships."  Sorry, but one should be able to see a difference between how a character feels about someone they supposedly want to marry and someone they just made out with twenty minutes after they met them.  Yuck.

Was this actually at one time a good show?  I think it was.  I think there was a time when the plots were... there, and weren't stupid, and were actually believable--funny, even.  I think there was a time when the characters were not so annoying, the tender moments not so gag-inducing, the relationships not so superficial.  Wasn't there?  So what happened?  How has this show deteriorated into something so cringe-worthy?  It is quite sad.  And I weep.

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Things That Bug Me.
Bad (or at least worse) remakes of good movies.  Examples:  Miracle on 34th Street.  Sabrina.  The Parent Trap.  And I can only assume the upcoming The Truth About Charlie.  They think they can improve on Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant with Thandie Newton and Mark Wahlberg??  Oh, wow, sign me up.
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Monday, October 21, 2002
Bethy be in big big trouble.
Kaly has a blog. It is pretty. Here is a link to it. Please go there. Thank you.

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Things That Bug Me.
Snipers.
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Friday, October 18, 2002
And now we are so happy, we do the Dance of Joy.
I found out last night that one can now listen to KFOG, the greatest radio station 'twixt the Pacific and the Atlantic, online. Happy I am. Conveniently linked to it on the right, I have. Welcome you are.

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Things That Bug Me.
Solo artists who plant their big, beautiful face on every one of their album covers.
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Thursday, October 17, 2002
Kaly's monitor sucks, Craig.
Please send her money for a new one. Thank you.
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I am such a devoted fan.
We FINALLY saw Spider-Man last night. You know, only five months after it was released. That's what we get for waiting until it came to the cheap theater. I figure that's got to be some sort of a record. Anyway, I got to see my Ted in something new for the first time in a couple years. Nice. He wasn't in it much, but when he was he was funny. And at any rate it made me happy. In that silley way where you just smile and you can't help it. Just like I did when I saw Marco Sanchez in The Rookie and Jonathan Brandis in Hart's War. Even though those were only for a few minutes each, too. What can I say, I love my "seaQuest" people unlike any others. In the entertainment world, anyway.
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Tuesday, October 15, 2002
I am such a bad wife.
Perhaps I should wish my husband a happy birthday while it is still. Barely. So Happy Birfday, honey!
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Aren't I spiffy.
I am trying to learn me some html. Bits and pieces, anyway. Of course, I a delving into things like style sheets and classes as I've come to want to change more and more things from the original template of this page. So this will probably be in a constant state of flux over the next little while as I experiment with different things and undoubtedly mess others up. Hopefully only temporarily. Feel free to let me know if you see anything you particularly like or don't like, or if anything looks a bit horrendous on your computer or browser or whatever. Sometimes it's hard to know if things transfer exactly right. So. There you go. And thank you, Andy, for the html books and your AIM advice. You have been muchly helpful.
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Monday, October 14, 2002
I knew there was a reason we went to buy Josh's birthday present tonight and that Target was out of them so we had to then go to Wal-Mart and thus were driving home and listening to the radio at exactly 10:14pm CDT.
For if not, we never would have heard "Breathe Your Name" (a better song than either "Kiss Me" or certainly "There She Goes," in my opinion--nah, not even in my opinion... more like fact) on what is, as far as I can tell, Chicago's most mainest Top-40-type radio station (101.9, "The Mix"). And there was even a DJ there to tell folks who was responsible for that lovely new tune. As much as I'm torn between wanting Sixpence to have commercial success and wanting to keep them to myself (or, ourselves, as the case may be with much of my readership), it did make me happy.

As did hearing Josh utter the words, "I'm Barbie, World Class Explorer!" as he played a demo game on his new Playstation.
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I am inspired.
My blog's new face-lift has given me a desire to improve it even further. In the next week or so I will attempt to, um, improve it in some way(s) or another(s). I have already added a few extra links, and will probably try to add some more random things along the side column--things that might change from week to week or month to month or that I can just add to whenever. I'm not feeling very creative right at this moment, but I want to feel creative, so we'll see if I can will myself to be. I guarantee there will be some new stuff, I just don't guarantee it will be good.

And I promise I will soon have something resembling a REAL blog entry, not this random, incoherent, lacking-any-sort-of-point crap I've been sticking up here lately.
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Friday, October 11, 2002
The unthinkable has happened.
Sixpence None the Richer's new site is finally up. And it has stuff on it! Actual stuff! Like a new video. And television performance dates. And pictures of Leigh with long hair. Oh, yeah, and like you can listen to the whole album or something, but whatever.
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Thursday, October 10, 2002
So this is my new blog.
The old one didn't seem so bad, really, until compared to this one. Then it looks downright dull. (You can see what I'm talking about by clicking any of the archived months, which are still the blah colors. Quite a difference, no?) I'm also going for an "autumnal bliss" color palate, if you will, and methinks I will try a new color change with each season and see how I--and you, the viewers--like it. I welcome any comments or suggestions.
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Tuesday, October 8, 2002
Folks, seriously, it does not feel like a whole week since I've posted.
I am on a mission today.  A mission to start determining what albums out there are worth dropping money for.  Now, if I were still in Ames, I could do this relatively easily by checking out most CDs I have potential interest in from the public library's extensive collection.  But, unfortunately, the CD selection at Kenosha's public library system, well, it sucks.  Bad.  Thus I must come up with another way to hear the CDs without buying them.  And I'm afraid amazon.com's song samples just aren't going to cut it.  So, the only viable option left is to download each individual song from an album.  Wherever those songs can be found.  If I'm lucky, the artist's site will have a few, or in rare cases even all, of an album's songs right there on the site.  That makes me happy.  Very happy.  But, in most cases I will have to take the time to search and temporarily download songs from file transfer programs.  I can then listen, decide if I want the album, and then buy it or not accordingly.

I really wish more artists/record companies/whatever would make it easier for non-diehard-fans to listen to more than one or two tracks or 30-second samples from an album.  I mean, really, how else are we supposed to know we want it?  Or do most people just run out and blindly buy a whole album after hearing one song they like on the radio?  Sorry, not me.  With CD list prices skyrocketing towards $20 (heck, you can get most DVDs for as cheap now), I want to know what I'm getting before I get it.  The problem, of course, is that most artists are so freaked out over the whole "music piracy" deal that they won't even think of making entire albums available for listening to on the net for fear they will lose album sales.  Well, in my case, they may be losing them by NOT making their music available.  Ironic, isn't it?

Anyone with a logical solution that would be fair, legal, and make everyone happy? Yeah, didn't think so.

So anyway, after that babblement, the following are artists by which I currently do not own a CD, but am looking into possibly buying one.  Or two.  Or three.  In no particular order.

Bush
Beck
Moby
La Rue
Howie Day
Remy Zero
The Benjamin Gate
Seal
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Norah Jones
Jack Johnson
Nina Gordon
Pete Yorn
Dishwalla
Luce

If anyone has any other artist recommendations for me based on what you know of my taste (or, heck, even just completely random), feel free.
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Wednesday, October 02, 2002
Frozen pizza is a bad, bad, evil thing.
Every once in a while, Josh and I make an attempt to eat more healthily.  Please do not laugh, it's not nice.  We will typically start trying to drink water instead of pop (I refuse to call it soda), eat more fruits and vegetables and less fat (read: less cheese), and keep from falling back on fast food as much (economical, too).  This usually doesn't last very long, but at least we try.  Sometimes.

More realistic, I think, is to more gradually sneak healthier foods into our routine so we aren't so tempted to just dump everything and go back to the yummy stuff.  Compromises are good, too.  Examples we have been successful with:  switching from 2% to 1% milk--not a big deal, but neither of us will ever be able to stomach skim, and it's better than nothing;  drinking a lot of juice, some pop, and some water--we're never going to be able to give up pop completely, and juice is still loaded with sugar, but it also has nutitional value, so at least it's not empty calories...I drink water whenever I can stand to (ie, when I don't really need a drink with flavor);  using light margarine and fat free cheeses where we can't taste a difference--which pretty much means ricotta and cream and not much else;  trying to stretch high-fat dishes (mac and cheese, pizza, meatloaf, etc.) into more meals than we would have in the past;  buying snacks like hard breadsticks instead of Doritos or potato chips;  using whole wheat bakery hamburger buns instead of white mass-produced ones with practically no nutritional value;  etc...

One of the biggest day-to-day problems we had until recently was breakfast.  Josh is usually in too much of a hurry to have time for a bowl of cereal (what I usually have), so he had just been having one or two granola bars every morning, as had I when I needed breakfast on-the-go.  And, as my mother pointed out to me, most granola bars have about as much sugar and not much more nutritional value than a lot of candy bars.  We needed something that was relatively inexpensive, we could grab and eat in the car, would be filling enough and provide a reasonable amount of energy, and have a decent amount of "good-for-you" stuff as well as as little as possible of the "bad-for-you" stuff.  And it had to be something we would both like and wouldn't get sick of.  Yeah, right.  I was convinced that such a thing did not exist.  I was wrong.  The answer: Bagels.  With fat-free cream cheese.  Cheap, quick, easy, yummy, little sugar, practically no fat or cholesterol, and a good amount of both protein and calcium.  We are geniuses.
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