In defense of Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day...my opinion (and really...the only opinion that matters!)

It seems like Valentine's Day is massive hot topic button.
No, not this type of Hot Topic


Naturally the tendency is to like Valentine's Day only when you're in a relationship. Which makes sense...it's all about love, sex, and the other warm fuzzy stuff. A whole day to celebrate your LOVE, oh golly gee, what could be better...

And if you're single, then either you just treat it like a neutral day or you vehemently oppose anything related to all things reminding you that you're NOT in a relationship.

I'm here to argue in defense of Valentine's Day. Yes...me...the girl who'd rather stab her eyes out than deal with Christmas and every other pagan holiday.

I get the rationale of "why do you need a day to tell you to get flowers, you should be doing that anyway blah blah". Yes, which is true when it comes to the materialistic side of it...the same with Christmas as well. Some things are just common sense: don't buy roses on valentine's day. Yes, they are overpriced. It's not the stores' fault. I worked in a flower shop (Bryan: Select Roses on 10th line if you remember!), it's the suppliers in south america who jack it up, and thus the retail stores have to do the same.

But as great as it is to think of the utopic situation where out of the blue you get roses, jewelry, whatever, some dudes/couples need a little help. Let me put this in perspective:

Kraig bought a timeshare before i met him. Trust me, it's the worst purchase a person can make. It's the only property that goes DOWN in value right off the bat. Anyway you can "deposit" it and exchange your week for weeks elsewhere but there's a deadline (hence the word "time" in "timeshare"). I can truly say that without those deadlines, we never ever would have vacationed anywhere. It's easy to say "someday we'll go to X place" but with vacation time, schedules, money, time just flies by and you realize it's been years since you've gone anywhere for more than just a 3 day weekend. It was fantastic to be FORCED to take a vacation and be guilt-free about it (for those of us that have guilt over taking time off of errands and other To-Dos).

Valentine's Day is nice because you don't NEED an excuse to have to take the time off. To tell people you are busy. To revel in your love. To have a day where you specifically think "damn...i LOVE this guy/girl." To have a set scheduled day where damn right, you're getting laid. To find a card that expresses everything you feel if you're not a fantastic writer yourself (you don't get the same concentration of cards focused on love any other day of the year...and those are people PAID to write about love. For $4, if it gets the point across that youc an't the rest of the year, that's a good investment).

I'll admit, I'm a little biased. Valentine's Day is a chick holiday with a focus on jewelry and chocolate (i'll subtract the flowers...as much as I like them, I've been quite scarred by the flower shop job. I like the IDEA of flowers and i'm a little picky based on the cleanup factor later..stargazer lillies are AWFUL, MESSY, and a PAIN IN THE ASS to dispose of.)

Okay, so for single people, there's a whole other slew of arguments in favor of it. Nothing bonds women better than bitching about men and consuming chocolate. Much like Valentine's Day is a great excuse for couples to get together, the same applies to chicks and their girlfriends on Vday.


I've told this story a billion times but I'll say it again: my best Valentine's Day was not with a guy...it was when I was single for the first time in a few years and my friend Christine brought a carnation to work for me, saying she knew it would be a bit rough on me since it was my first Vday experience singlehood. It was the sweetest gift ever: it's one thing when your boyfriend gives you a flower on Vday, it's another when your friend who has no obligation to get you something still remembers you.

I guess my point is: it's about Love, in all shapes and forms. Whether its friends or your significant other. Christmas is about traditions and buying crap, St Patrick's Day is about drinking, July 4th is about USA...a day filled with Love, in any form, sounds pretty damn good to me.

(no matter how bitter or upset I may be on that day)

Carrie and Sabina (and Nicole's) Excellent NY Adventure

Last week I went to NY for the first time with Carrie for our friend Liz's wedding, met up with Nicole there...I can honestly say it's been a long, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time since I laughed as much as I did on this trip. Maybe because I was both sleep and shower deprived, and Carrie is one of the funniest people you'll ever meet.

Just like San Diego...only dirtier, louder, and more expensive...and yet, still pretty dope.

Here was the plan (bear with me):
1. Red-eye on Wednesday. Arrive Thursday morning.
2. Thursday get a rental car, spend the day in Manhattan. Everyone told us that it would take HOURS with traffic. Turns out we had zerrrrrooo traffic...to quote Alanna "It's Yom Kippur. 75% of the city is in temple".
3. Saw WEEKS' worth of tourism in a single day. Everything south of Central Park. I'm not kidding. Did MOMA in 45 minutes. Saw ground zero, took some pics, ran to Century 21 only to discover it was closed for the holiday, got some S'Mac on with Carrie's Ohio friend Tara (soooo sweet, and her kids are adorable too), got to see my beloved Chelsea Market (Food Network bitches!)...you name it....

4. Drove up Thursday night to Fishkill. Which is the boondocks north of the city.

5. Friday morning I slept in like a MOFO. Got ready. Went to the wedding in Cold Spring (ummm is it bad that we entered on the heels of the bride?)

6. Killed time by changing in the car, shopped around Cold Springs, then changed again in some forest with a dude in a red truck driving back and forth...fortunately I was changing in the back, where the windows were tinted...maybe he caught a nip slip from Carrie.

7. Went to Garrison, had an UNBELIEVABLE time at the reception. Went to the after party in the hotel next to ours in Fishkill.

8. Slept in some more, then Nicole Carrie and I drove to Ossining to see Jeff and Liz's SUPER AMAZING HOUSE WHY DO HOMES IN ORANGE COUNTY SUCK SO BAD...their home (and backyard) is enough to make me want to move to NY!

9. Did some nature walk in Rockefeller park...

10. Went back to the city, vegged out with Nicole's college buddy Kit...walked EVERYWHERE (over 30 blocks)...

11. Drove to the ghettoooo (some area called Jamaica...much like the real Jamaica, i was ready to be robbed) where our hotel was near the airport...

12. Got up ridiculously early Sun morning and flew back.

And that was NY in a nutshell.

For the pics...

I'm in AWE of the Olive Garden in Times Square. You don't understand...my mission in life is to eat there. This might trump my desire to go to Italy. I want a window seat in this Olive Garden sometime between now and the day I die:


Let me tell you about Canal street. I wanted to go because last year I saw the knockoffs that my friend Wendy got when she went. It was nuts. Cops were everywhere, and there's people whispering "whaddiya want?"...they would have laminated pictures of Coach or LV merchandise, you say what you want, then they run off to some van to get your requested item. The trick when you go into a shop is to say "hey, where do you keep the Coach stuff"...then they take you through some secret hidden door where there's a teenie room with the REAL knockoffs. Well Carrie and I get locked in a room (with this huge black guy who was also buying stuff for his "bih-niz")...after we both got horrible Gucci knockoffs, I realized we couldn't get out. There's this crazy locking system...the chick inside with us had to get on her walkie-talkie to get someone on the OUTSIDE to buzz us out. Crazy! If there had been a fire, we would have been fried along with dozens of horrible Gucci and Coach knockoffs. The price you pay for fashion!


Nicole perfected my infamous "side shoulder" pose:


Us girls with the gorgeous bride...it's been too long since we've all been together! And can someone PLEASE explain to me why natural light makes us all look older?! Thank God I don't have a job that requires me to be in natural light all day, ughhghghgh this is why I think botox is the shiz (note to self: inject some fat under my eyes...and into my boobs...).


I didn't have the extra camera battery so I'll have to wait till Carrie gets hers up online to post the rest of them (minus any drunken debauchery pics of course!)

Back to the land of the living!

Done!
I'm back!
All the travels!
All the pictures!
So much to write!

And most importantly...I'm writing this on my BRAND NEW LAPTOP...my baby! It's pretty! It's also alot heavier than I thought (that's what you get for performance)...

Stay tuned for more writing finally...yee haw! I have a pulse!

Canada Trip: Days 3-7

Oh where oh where is Sabinas latest blog about the Emmys and the red carpet crazy outfits???
Nothin here for me to read about your opinions and thoughts!

She's in Canada...with no DVR and no time to watch tv (gasp)...I didn't even know the Emmys were on...

So I've totallys lacked on writing, mostly because Kraig was here and he spent more time on the laptop my dad's got in the basement than I did.

Friday was a day of shopping, picking up Kraig, more shopping (saw Syl's wedding dress, gorgeous, and tried on the most AMAZING red dress from BCBG. It's sad when Kraig is like "who cares that it's $340cdn. You HAVE to buy it. HAVE TO."), then did this all you can eat sushi thing. Then Kraig met my dad, which went exactly as I figured it would: my dad was friendly, cheery, all that good stuff. He even gave Kraig a HUG...my dad hasn't hugged me since I took the plane ride to move to California 8 years ago.

Day 4, Saturday, we got our Caveau de Schezwan on...it's a sit-down buffet. To die for. For real. Then we wandered around the market till 5:30, where my partayyyy night got on...hung out at Lonestar, drank like mad, and saw dozens of friends I haven't seen in ages. I was jonesin' for Poutine, and I had promised Bryan that my first time having poutine would be with him. Well Lonestar doesn't have poutine, so I went next door to Dunn's ordered gravy and cheese curds (also got a side of fries, only because they charged me for the whole damn poutine so I figured i might as well take the fries as well even though I had a plate of fries waiting for me back at Lonestar)...went back to Lonestar, and proceeded with my "do it yourself poutine"...so, so good...

After that, headed out to a lounge...went home, all good times...i had SO MUCH FUN (Thank you thank you thank you Bryan for organizing it!)

Sunday was The Bog day, which pretty uneventful....

Monday at 3:30am woke up to take Kraig to the airport, only to have the plane break and he then missed his connecting flight, sohe got back to LA pretty late. I spent the day with Christine and her boys (I am beyond impressed with her ability to maintain total calm in the face of chaos), got my poutine on with Bryan later :)

And finally, today, Day 7...got to see Erin at work, got to see Stacey's house and meet her adorable little girl Faith, got to chill for a bit with Sylvia and her mom, and got to enjoy my mother bitching me out for something so incredibly retarded. My dad agreed to drop me off at Syl's mom's house because he needed the car, and Syl offered to drive me home...this concept rocked my mother's foundations and she went into serious hysterics. I have no idea why. My dad and I were like "WHAT is your problem woman!?!"...

Tonight she wanted me to go through some of the crap I still have at home so I can pack stuff up to take home. Her logic is that my brother and i still have too much crap in our house (well, her house, whatever) and that she wants to clear stuff out. BUT...thing is, she's a PACK RAT. I've found over the course of the past few days things that i know 100% for sure that I threw out last time I was here (uhhh my Dangerous Minds soundtrack cassette? This ghetto VHS on makeup application?!)...so WHY am I throwing things out only to have her go back and insist that she may need it?!

She's also mad because she figures all I had to do was see my friends ONCE and that would be sufficient...ummm, no, i'm going to max out every second that i can with my friends since the next time I see them will be...who knows! (Okay it might be sooner than we think if Syl has a post-elopement reception in ottawa)

Going to Toronto for the next 2 days, and then Friday will be my last day...sniff...this has honestly been one of the most awesome trips EVER. I wish I could stop time...it's amazing how homesick I am. I went to the grocery store today and was like a moron touching all the products I had forgotten about...and i bought a big container of Kraft Peanut Butter...oh and these like baby cookie things that have chocolate on one side...how you can actually catch a Sens game on tv...seeing YTV...

My flight tomorrow is at 8am and my mom wants to leave at 6:15am. Her theory is that if something happens, that gives us enough time to call a cab. (Oh gee, I guess with my cell phone and the $20/min roaming fee since they're too neanderthal to get their own cell phones). It'll take us max 20 mins to get to the airport....

Comic Con pics

OKAY...finally...
Here's the pics from Comic Con 2008

I'm DONE. You hear me? I'm DONE. I'm so over going. My goal this year was to photograph just random nerdness. Kraig went almost every day, I just went on Saturday (Sunday gave my tix to Tim and Mark, after we filmed Mark's band's music video snippets).

A few things to note...

Felicia and I are noting the bromance brewing between Kraig and John


Summer Glau is every nerd's wet dream. She's not hot enough to be a regular actress, but put her in 4400, Terminator, Firefly, Serenity...and nerds everywhere are ready to shoot their loads.


This kid was the freakiest person I've ever met. I think he was there alone, which is a warning sign #1. When Kraig took his picture, he freaked out asking whether he got his STINGER in the picture. And then he ranted about how cool his stinger was (warning #2)! He was almost getting aggressive, like kid, chill the eff out!


This guy was from Stargate or Battlestar Galactica (i think i mislabeled the images in Shutterfly)...I don't know who he is, but he was GORGEOUS. I mean, honestly, I don't know why every nerd woman there didn't rape him. I felt like when I walked by it suddenly got all slow-mo and "I just died in your arms tonight" played in the air...he was supa dupa fly.


Nathan Fillion is such a douchebag. His shows all tank (minus Desperate Housewives), he can't act his way out of a paperbag, and he's not even remotely attractive. I don't see how this tool has a job.


I used to work with this guy. What's scary is that everyone was in awe of him when he was wandering around, and my reaction was "OMG...i worked with that guy!"...What are the odds?



So that's it, I'm DONE with Comic Con, i'm done with posting pictures, I'm over it!

Note that it was so humid in San Diego, I was rockin' some crazy wavy curly hair...grrrrrrrrrrr....nothing says sexy like crazy frizzy wavy hair, a Disney tshirt, and running shoes. Yeah!

No...it can't be...over...

It's one hour till Sunday, which means there's only a few days in my Xmas vacay left...

Oh the humanity, no! My anxiety is already creeping up. Which maybe contributes to why I screamed at my husband like a madman (madwoman) this morning for using the stupid built-in cutting board instead of a regular dishwasher-friendly cutting board.

Anxiety = bad.

Watched a few DVDs over this holiday...

Movie Review: 28 Weeks Later
I really enjoyed 28 Days Later, mostly because it's concept of a "rage virus" was a fresh take on the usual zombie movies. It doesnt' make sense that dead people attack live people and can move like an athlete on steroids; it does make sense that there's a virus that makes you do crazy sheeot.

Let's just say the original movie is like an Academy Award winning movie compared to the sequel.

The is that 28 weeks later the world decides that you can go back to England because the last of the infected have died of starvation. First off, no one in their right mind would think less than a year later is okay to go back. Secondly, you wouldn't bring back civilians....oh but then you wouldn' thave a movie if you didn't have some retarded civilians effing everything up...

Anyway, I won't even bother with the rest of the review except to say that it's the usual monster comes after the good guys, good guys keep running, monsters keep chasing them, repeat repeat.

Movie Review: Smoking Aces
I was really excited to see this movie, for two reasons:
1. A crapload of people told me it was incredible. I forgot that a crapload of people = masses, and masses of people are generally morons.
2. Ryan Reynolds is ridiculously hot.

The gist of the movie is that there's one dude that has a hit out on him, and the pricetag to whoever can kill him and get his heart is a million bucks. So we follow various groups of hitmen (plus two hit women) plus the FBI agents who are also out to find him before he runs.

Jeremy Piven, who's normally a total blowhard, is VERY good as an egotistical magician who's going nuts in his hotel room knowing that people are out to get him.

And the tales of all the quirky-yet-lovable-or-uber-cool hitmen were very entertaining.

My main beef was the very end...totally predictable AND boring...like they couldn't come up with something else. Except the DVD shows they DID have an alternate ending, which was equally bad.

So...if you don't care about the very end, then I guess it's pretty entertaining. Would have been nicer to have some great fight scenes, instead of just straight-up fight scenes. And you can't go wrong with Ryan Reynolds, beard or no beard. And the DVD outtakes were pretty good.

And because I can, a gratuitous picture of Ryan Reynolds:


I've got out on Netflix "Strangers with Candy" and "Au Revoir Les Enfants", so hopefully those will live up to the hype.