Dec 18, 2010

Tabernacle Fire

As many of you know by now, the LDS Provo tabernacle burned down yesterday. Even though I live within a mile of the building, I had no idea until I heard people talking about it at work.

I've been in the building on several occasions and it's been enjoyed by many many people since it was constructed in the 1880s. It's sad to see such a historic building destroyed.

Since I live close to the building, I had several people ask if I could smell smoke at my house, but I didn't smell anything in the air. However, when Tiberius came home last night after being outside for most of the day, his fur definitely smelled like smoke. Because he's so fluffy absorbent. And no, that's not a mistyped sentence. The rule, when it comes to Tiberius, is that any adjective used to described him is preceded by the word "fluffy" ("He's being so fluffy nice right now." "Oh no, Tiberius is fluffy hungry." etc.). Don't mock me; everybody's got stupid things when it comes to their pets. Besides, you don't want Tiberius to get fluffy angry with you.

Dec 17, 2010

Open Mic

As many of you know, my darling husband Trevor has been pursuing comedy pretty heavily over the last two months. It's been really fun to be a part of (I'm at a comedy show at least once each week), and opportunities are already coming out of it. So far there have been several open mic nights, two real gigs, and one comedy competition (which he won, of course). He's mostly doing stand up since that's where the most opportunity is, but there are some improv/sketch things going on as well.

To those of you who live in Salt Lake or Utah County: I encourage you to come see him perform live sometime (hit me up and I'll let you know when and where upcoming shows will be).

To those who don't have the opportunity to see him in person: I finally got around to recording a set at an open mic night last night. Perhaps someday I'll get a video with better sound quality and from a bigger show, but for now this will have to satiate you. (Note to those sensitive to this kind of thing: there isn't really anything dirty in the following set, but there is some mild language and brief mental nudity)

Emcee guy at the end is John Moyer, who wrote The Singles Ward, The RM, and Mobsters and Mormons. Yeah, brushing shoulders with all sorts of fame, here. Did I mention Trevor opened for Dave Ackerman of Diaries of a Dirty Tongue last week? Yeah. Big time.

Dec 10, 2010

I Want to Ride it Where I Like

While getting exercise and saving the environment are not very good motivation for me to bike, an adorable bike helmet disguised as a herringbone cap, is a very, very good reason. Summer of next year, I'll likely be living within biking distance of my place of employment. I'll have to keep this in mind.
 
Also, need to start saving up the $9,500 I'll need for that Fendi bike that everybody makes fun of, but I must admit, I find quite charming (the perfect mix of vintage and modern! and all of that storage space! and a leather holder for your GPS device!).
Hmm, though perhaps then I need some sort of brown version of the bike helmet so everything ties together a little better...

Or, you know, go with the other option: not spending $9,500 for a bicycle. If I sold everything I own (including car) and put all of my savings toward it I'd be like...1/3 of the way there...okay, okay, I guess I get why you were making fun of it...

Dec 6, 2010

Date Night

After dinner, we tried to go to the MikaRose Outlet, but it was


So we went to see "Tangled", which was a thoroughly enjoyable film. Aside from being full of Disney magic (like the Disney films of the good ol' days), it also solves this important problem:

Dec 5, 2010

Schemes

Someday I want to have six kids. One boy, then four girls, then another boy. So my children will look like this:
What do you mean, family planning shouldn't be centered around name schemes?

(Also, what do you mean "Enne" isn't a real name? I have a mage gnome who would argue otherwise...What do you mean, "if WoW character names count as real names, I might as well name my child 'Lolyousuck'"? I pick good names; I think Enne is cute. Thank you.)

Dec 2, 2010

I didn't intend to write another cat post, but there was a cat event...

Tuesday morning: Fidel comes outside with us as we leave for work, providing his typical morning kitty escorts to the car (he's a protective little guy). As we pull out of the parking lot, we see that Fidel has approached a group of women we don't know and is enjoying being pet by them. Trevor and I comment to each other how friendly and nice Fidel is and how much we love him.

Tuesday evening: We come home from work, expecting to see Fidel waiting for us by the door as it has been snowing and he does not like the cold. He is not. We assume he'll show up soon, but as it gets a little later, we start to worry and Trevor goes out looking for him (accompanied by Tiberius, the snow rescue cat). They come home empty-handed. We hypothesize that Fidel is in somebody else's apartment, as we've had more than one neighbor mention/complain that Fidel will just go into anybody's house he likes.

Wed midday: Fidel finally comes home, and we are glad he is okay. His collar is mysteriously gone. But he has been known to escape collars before (though this most recent one has lasted a long time comparatively).

Wed late night: I let Fidel outside again (he doesn't like to be cooped up for long). Trevor expresses concern that we shouldn't let him out before we get him a new collar. I don't worry much about it.

Thurs morning: Fidel comes home (he also doesn't like to be outside for long) wearing a brand new collar we've never seen before. Complete with jingle bell and rhinestones. Which is not appropriate (Yes, I know Tiberius has a rhinestone collar...but he's a fluffy, sweet cat meant for lying on velvet pillows and Fidel is an athletic, serious cat meant for hunting worg.)

So apparently somebody is trying to steal our cat.  I can see assuming he's a stray. He's perpetually hungry and kind of a mess all the time. And his old collar was really shabby looking (months of trying to scratch that thing off will do that). And, as we've discussed, he's very friendly and doesn't understand that he can't go into other people's houses. But he's our cat. He may be loved elsewhere, but we loved him first.

The plan is to buy him a new collar today and replace the mystery collar. When he goes to whoever is attempting to adopt him (I assume he'll go back again; he can't be stopped from anything), hopefully they'll get the message. It kind of makes me sad for whoever is out there excited about their new nice kitty, because I'm sure she'll (of course it's a she...did I mention the rhinestone collar?) be sad that she can't keep him. But there are plenty of cats out there who need homes. And Fidel belongs to us.

Dec 1, 2010

Orabrush Review

I bought an Orabrush last night (available at select Utah WalMarts), intending to review it for my blog.
 "But Andrea, you don't really do product reviews," you may say.
 "Well, the tongue-scrubbing Orabrush is a product of interest to me and I can do what ever I want," I may respond.
"Why is the Orabrush a product of interest to you? You are not exactly the queen of oral hygiene..." you may ask.
 "What exactly are you getting at here?" I may ask back. After we have a conversation about how I should floss more, I may get around to those reasons:
  1. Orabrush was invented and is headquartered here in good ol' Provo,UT. And who doesn't like supporting a local start-up?
  2. Orabrush is a YouTube success story (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/media/27adco.html), and I'm highly interested in social media marketing stuff.
  3. I'm a fan and acquaintance of local comedian Dave Ackerman who gets paid by Orabrush to make videos of himself in a giant tongue costume (best job ever?).
The original Orabrush video:

Note: I did the spoon test thing and think I'm okay. But I didn't really seem to get anything on the spoon, so maybe I did it wrong? I'm still afraid of having bad breath.

An example of the giant tongue costume:

Note #1: I know the idea for this particular one is somewhat ripped off from Orbit Gum's dirty mouth stuff...but it's amusing nonetheless.
Note #2: One of the construction workers is played by another local comedian acquaintance of ours, Jose Bacio...I'll have to post sometime about my immersion into the Utah comedy scene and my very funny husband's exploits there.

Anyway, time for the actual product review part. And the conclusion is: I suck at Orabrushing. It may or may not be a good product; all I know is I don't think I'm capable of using it how it's supposed to be used. I have a strong gag reflex and have a very difficult time with putting things on my tongue like that. I've tried and failed at brushing my tongue with a toothbrush and tried and failed at tongue scrapers, so I don't know why I thought an Orabrush sounded like a good product for me. This is my official non-review.