Premature Thrilleration

It turns out that I posted my Thriller tribute prematurely a couple of days ago (#7). I had NO idea that today was the 25th anniversary of the release of that album. My boss told me that Good Morning America had asked people to send in their best Thriller re-enactments and/or parodies. They played some of the best ones on the air yesterday (crap, I missed it).

The reason I even found the video of my high school pep rally was because R was doing a youtube search of his high school and I decided to do the same with mine to see what would come up. Most of the stuff was from recently graduated classes, so I picked the oldest video I could find and oddly enough, it ended up being a Thriller dance. The fact that I found it was a fluke and the fact that it occurred (and that I blogged about it) just days before the anniversary is just wacky. Ha ha...I love it when things turn out that way.

In the process of doing some youtube research for this here blog post (trying to find the GMA clips), I seem to have stumbled upon a Thriller dance phenomenon. I knew there were other wackos like me that liked to dance to the song, but I never knew that there was a whole movement of sorts if you will.

There are several world records that Thrill the World is trying to break for the most simultaneous Thriller performances and largest Thriller dance (they even provide a series of videos where you can learn the moves to said dance). There's marching band Thriller, toddler Thriller, Legos Thriller and there's even Indian Thriller (my personal favorite so far). I guess you could say that I'm thrilled I found it! (ha ha)

Anyway...because today is the 25th anniversary of the release of the album, I found a website that has alot of fun Thriller parodies to share with you. Click on the link and join me as I head over there to get my Thriller fix. Let me know which one is your favorite.

Here is mine: Indian Thriller with phonetic "translation" of the lyrics. Warning, do not click on this if you are consuming food or beverages...it might ruin your computer or cause you to choke.... yes it's that funny.




GIRLY MAN!
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You do realize that now I won't be content until I do MY OWN reenactment of Thriller right? OK. You have been duly warned. I only need 22 more people (I can think of two right now) to qualify to participate in the record-setting event. Anyone care to join me? You've got some time to think about it...let me know. In the meantime, go to youtube and learn the dance!

Michael, you will be missed.

Last night I was in bed watching the news of Michael Jackson's death, tears were rolling down my cheeks as I sat in disbelief. I felt strange because I've never really taken the death of an artist or celebrity so personally before. Amidst my sadness, I realized that this was probably because I was not only mourning the passing of a true legend and gifted individual, but a piece of my childhood as well.

I gather from the text messages, twitter updates and facebook updates I've received, that I'm not the only one that feels like a part of their childhood is gone. Michael Jackson was one of the first musical influences of my youth and to this day continues to be one of my favorite artists.

I can vividly remember singing Beat It on the play ground and trying (unsuccessfully) over and over again to replicate his dance moves on my living room floor. The first time I saw him do the moonwalk on TV gave me goosebumps and that red jacket and glove will forever live in my memories. I would force my poor little brother to watch my Moonwalker video over and over again (so much so that he ended up loving MJ too). I thought he looked so cute in the Bad video and I practically rubbed out the video cassette on the Smooth Criminal song from rewinding and playing it so much because I was trying to figure out how he did the leaning over thing (I still love that song and choreographed it for my final in modern dance class a couple of years ago). Recently, when I went looking for my Moonwalker video tape and noticed it was gone, I bought another copy on eBay, my brother wanted to borrow it of course.

My first copy of the Thriller album was literally a copy. It was a cassette that my parents got for me. They had a friend that had the Thriller record (yes, record) and they had it dubbed for me. I can't tell you how many times I played that cassette tape. I think we finally had to throw it away from repeated exposure (don't worry, I have since bought my own, real, Thriller CD).

For my senior year in high school I used one of his songs for my final presentation. Whenever I hear it, I remember how nervous I was sitting in front of the class. I had to give an oral presentation and the boy I was obsessed with liked was but 10 feet away. For Halloween (OK fine, not only during Halloween) my ring tone is the Thriller song (the video of which probably planted the seed for my love of all things scary) and let's not forget about my obsession with Thriller in general. I love those videos of people doing the dance at their weddings and such and I've always wanted to learn the dance and do it in full costume.

It's strange because on Wednesday as I was driving home I had been thinking about Michael Jackson because they were playing that song that goes "mamasay mamasay mamasacusa" and I thought to myself...what the heck is a mamasacusa? which led me to I wonder if I should do Thrill the World this year? (I was going to do it last year, but then I realized that a pregnant Thriller wouldn't work out quite so well). Perhaps this will be the impetus I need to get my neglected project going again.

And just like these, there have been many moments where his songs are interwoven with events in my life.

I am also sad because of a very selfish reason. I never got to see him in concert. I was too young to go to his crazy concerts when people were passing out and all that hoopla. I always said that if he toured again (in the US) I would go see him and now I'll never get the chance.

The next couple of days of endless tributes on TV and radio are going to be hard. I'll enjoy listening to his songs on the radio, but gosh darn it, I'll probably cry again like I did this morning in the car (thanks alot Power 96 for that tear wrenching tribute).

Rest in peace, MJ. You've touched the people of this world in innumerable ways, you will be missed and never forgotten.

Camp Thriller

Before I begin with part 3 (...is it part 3? I lost count already), I'd like to wish my friend Marilu and her son Andrew happy belated birthdays. Can you believe he's 1?! He's going to be a total athlete when he's older because this is the baby that skews all the "your child should be doing this by this age" stuff. Ha ha.

I've totally dropped the ball on my birthday blog posts; it seems I'm wishing more people belated birthdays than actual birthdays these days. I need a calendar...and no, I do not want my Secret Santa to get me a calendar, so don't get any ideas.

Anyway, on Friday the 27th, we made it back to Miami safe and sound despite the gas crisis. On Saturday, the following night, I went to Jenny's house for a little campout. I was joined by some of the people that we had just gone on a road trip with and also some new folks as well: Amber, Meg, Laurie, Lisa, Damian and little Dylan. Jenny's parents had set up some tents on the side of the house in the grass to make it seem like we were camping out. It was a great little camp out, but seeing as how we're horror fans and it was Halloween weekend, it wasn't just ANY campout, it was a Camp Crystal Lake campout (hee hee, even baby Dylan got into it).

They had also hooked up a small TV for us and were playing movies on it all night long. We had beer, smirnoff, snacks and also a fire grill on the grass where we cooked hotdogs, banana boats and smores...the only thing left for us to do was sing kumbaya that night. They even added this bit of authenticity: Earlier, I had been fooling around with Jenny's Jason mask, but was later surprised by the man himself (what an actress!).

A great time was had by all, but when the food was gone we, immature people that we were, started looking for other things to do. We noticed that the neighbors behind the next door neighbors were having a huge party, so we decided to pop over the wall wearing the Jason mask to scare them. Meg wanted to be the one to scare them so she grabbed the Jason mask and a kitchen knife (yes a real one) and was the first one over the fence. I wanted to get in on the action too though, so I borrowed Jenny's Michael mask and clumsily made my way over the fence as well (good thing I wasn't the one holding the knife). Jenny's parents (yes, we had an audience by now) had brought me a ladder so that I wouldn't bust my ass trying to get over the fence, but I didn't need it and was able to do it with much wavering and holding on to other people. Once I made it over the fence, I grabbed the ladder so that I could stand on it to look over the wall (I'm not that short, it's a high wall). When I got to the wall, I set up the ladder right next to a bush (so the audience at Jenny's house couldn't see what I was doing), but at that point, I noticed that Meg was grabbing lawn chairs from that person's yard, so that we could stand on those instead. That seemed like a more sturdy option so I quickly grabbed the ladder and started running back towards Jenny's house. Of course everyone that was watching me was cracking up because they said that I came back running like a scared animal.

Meg and I jumped up on the chairs and started looking at the neighbors, she was making attacking gestures with the knife and trying to be intimidating, but we soon were disappointed because nobody seemed to notice that there were two maniacal killers on the wall. I started bouncing my head from side to side (to the beat of the music) to see if that would get us noticed. Fortunately it did, but unfortunately a dancing Michael isn't very scary. They laughed and pointed at us...not exactly the reaction we were going for.

Back at the house, we decided that we had to try it again with another party. Since it was the Saturday before Halloween, we didn't have to go too far to find another party. The neighbors in front of her house were also having a party, but this time, we got more volunteers. Someone put on the Scream mask and Laurie put on a skull mask with a veil (hilarious, I wish I had a picture). We snuck up to the side of the house and started acting like maniacal killers. They pretended to scream and be scared and we were happy because we finally got the reaction we wanted, albeit a fake one, but a scream nonetheless.

After we had fun scaring people, Amber and Meg wanted to drive around looking for more parties to freak people out, but I felt that that would be a little crazy. Instead, I suggested that we should dance to the Thriller song in the street (cause you know, that's not crazy at all). And so it began: Jen, Meg and I made up a little Thriller routine and started dancing to it on the street. We practiced alot so that if someone were to actually pass by, we could really show off our stuff. Once we had it down pat, I remembered that I had my iPod in my car. I hooked it up, opened the car doors and blasted Thriller from the car. So now, not only did we have the steps, but we had the actual music too (talk about professional dancers)! A short time later, we saw a car coming down the street and figured this was our chance! We started our synchronized Thriller dance in the middle of the street and pretty soon, the people from the party across the street began to come outside and watch the drunk old ladies us dancing too! It was quite fun putting on a show like that.

At 1 am, I finally decided that it was time to go home and I bid my friends farewell, I wish I could've stayed and actually slept over in the tents with Jen and Amber, but even I will only go so far.

Stay tuned for part 4...Wow, I had no idea this would be so long...perhaps I'll finish this Halloween weekend post before December.

That's it, I'm wearing my leotard next time.

Last night, my friend A and I went to the Lady Gaga concert. Having never really gone to one of her concerts before, I wasn't quite sure what I'd find there, but I knew it would be interesting to say the least. Since I'm not super involved in the Little Monsters fanhood (like I am with the Glamberts), I wasn't familiar with sayings such as "paws up", or with the ways that her fans like to dress when attending these Monster Balls. I got an inkling that there would be sights to see when I read the dress code for the concert. It mentioned no masks or broken glass, but beer/soda can hair rollers were A-OK (as long as they were empty). Hm, interesting. I guess my cute little headband just didn't cut it, not there anyway.

After paying way too much for a beer, we took our seats and they started playing MJ songs to keep the crowd entertained. I had to fight every inch of my being to not stand up and dance when they played Thriller (but I did dance in my seat). A was trying to dare me to get up and dance to it. I had not consumed enough alcohol to take her up on said dare, so you will not find videos of the crazy Thriller lady on YouTube (sorry folks, maybe next time).

At one point, they were flashing a phone number on the jumbo screen. You could send text messages to that number and they would come up on the screen. A was thinking of something to text so she could embarrass me and she was holding her phone ready to type, when all of a sudden she glanced up at the screen and freaked out because it said "Claudia Mylastname put your paws up!". She and I started cracking up and freaking out. It was so funny because here A was trying to surprise me and somebody else had beat her to it (I figured it was my friend M who was also going to be there). It was pretty cool because we were quite lucky that I actually got to see it since we both weren't necessarily paying attention to the screen at all times.

The opening act was OK (don’t even remember the name). A and I kept wondering, is that a man or a woman? and making commentary on the wardrobe (A said, I've got a pajama like that). Then Lady Gaga took the stage. She's such a show-person. She's got great stage props/backdrops and she really knows how to work the audience. She seemed really nice up there. She interacted with fans that were close to the stage (giving them stuff, playing with their costumes, accepting/wearing their gifts). She even grabbed her phone and called a fan in the audience during the show...lol, that was neat. The dancing was great, the costumes were crazy and the pianos were pretty cool (one was shaped like a car, the other one was on fire). There was a huge monster on stage and at one point, and even her clothes were shooting off sparks (Gaga's, not the monsters; monsters don't wear clothes silly!); never a dull moment. She doesn't lip-synch and she really gives it her all (no half-assed performances there). It was lots of fun, too bad I was sitting so far away. Unfortunately the tickets were so expensive that I didn't really have a choice.

A and I found out the hard way that when you reach a certain age, you just need to buck up, start shelling out the money and get closer seats. For starters because you can't see. My little glasses weren't cutting it especially since she and I were sharing them in order to see, you know, details, like whether the opening act singer was a man or a woman. Then at some point Gaga starting singing a song with the line "show me your teeth". Poor A was wondering what body part she wanted us to show her. She kept asking me, what did she say? Fortunately A did not comply with the request of showing what she thought Gaga had said..... Feet or Teet, neither of which would have been appropriate.

There were lots of people dressed up in crazy outfits too (painted faces, soda cans in the hair, wigs, tulle, leotards, bows made out of hair, hair made out of bows, crazy looking heels that I would so never wear, beautiful eye makeup, jazzercise clothes); it was fun to look at. I think there were even two lost Glamberts in the crowd because they wore mainly sparkles and peacock feathers. A was appalled at how many women looked like hookers...lol. I would've liked to have done that too (dress up crazy, not look like a hooker), but since I went straight from work, not really an option; perhaps next time. Yes, we both felt very old-ish and overdressed (as in wearing too much clothes, apparently pants were optional), but we sure had a great time!

Carnival of Carnage Review

Oct 24th, I hopped in a car with Jenny, Amber (her niece) and Ricky (Amber's bf) and drove four hours North to Orlando. Our friends Claude, Meg, and Laurie met up with us over there. Once again it was time for Halloween Horror Nights (HHN). Unfortunately the little camera that could...couldn't anymore, so I had to take my old camera hence the sucky pictures.

Crappy camera + they don't really let you photograph inside the houses + there were no scare zones = I didn't take more than 5 pictures that night. Jenny and I were discussing what haunted houses we liked better than others (Dead Silence, Friday the 13th, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Psychoscareapy) a couple of days later and we decided that we needed to make a little video on youtube of us sitting at a table drinking coffee and discussing the pros (lots of houses) and cons (no scare zones!!!) of the event and then we decided that we needed to be in a focus group for Universal so we could tell them what we thought about their event (because we really did sit and discuss details and such) and then we decided we needed to get a life.

The haunted houses were great (except there weren't enough people to scare you inside of them) and the Bill and Ted's show was fun (especially the SAW and Michael Myers bits), but the fact that there was only one quasi-scare zone really sucked. I look forward to getting the crap scared out of me on the streets of Universal because unfortunately, I've become somewhat immune to the haunted house scares, so not having that made the event feel somewhat incomplete. Oh well, at least I still had the backstage tour to look forward to.

The following day, we headed to Universal again for our behind the screams tour of HHN. We were in the far left lane of the parking entrance, and unfortunately the preferred parking entrance was on the far right (can we say BIGGER SIGN people? especially since the day before the prefered parking entrance was on the LEFT), so of course I missed it. We had to go up and down the parking garage and out all over again and wasted 10 minutes. Because of this we got to the tour late and some guy named Philip was quite mean to us. He treated us like children that had misbehaved "you're two minutes away from not going on the tour"...yeah OK dad. Last year we arrived to the tour on time and they had us waiting for a couple of minutes, so we assumed that the same relaxed attitude was in play here. Wrong. Philip the drill sergeant was going to make sure we were put in our place.

Thankfully we had David as our tour guide again (we requested him from last year since he was so nice...unlike Philip). When we finally broke free of Philip, Dave was just outside the door and was calmly telling the rest of the tour group about the history of HHN and was not on his way to the haunted house and was not angry because he was waiting for us to get there and we were not holding the group up (like Philip had led us to believe). David greeted us nicely "hey, it's nice to see you guys" and it almost seemed like he remembered us. I figured that was impossible since he must see thousands of people a year while leading tours. He must say that to all his guests. So the tour began on a crappy note, but nothing was going to kill my buzz because I love HHN.

Our first stop was the Dead Silence Haunted House (eeeeek! jumps up and down with excitement). The attention to detail was awesome and they had some pretty cool effects with mirrors and such. This is the only house that really startled me the previous night. I was taking furious mental notes to see what I could incorporate into my own haunted house. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the scenes that I had planned for my house were also in this one. Their wall of dolls left alot to be desired though.

After that we saw the wardrobe and makeup areas and then headed towards the next haunted house, Psychoscareapy: Home for the holidays. This is an old favorite of mine, so we really enjoyed getting a closer look at this one. The premise was that the asylum patients were on a field trip when their van crashed into a community of homes, letting loose all the wackos within it (including the one standing by the door in this picture). This was a pretty cool house because the whole time you really felt like you were in someone's house. The path would lead you in and out of different homes. It was very effective and I was able to get the perfect picture for my Christmas cards this year. The only bad thing about this house was the lack of asylum actors (I think it has to do with what night of the week we went though).

Side note: On our way to the haunted houses David our awesome tour guide asked me if I was having a haunted house again this year. Can you believe that people? He remembered my crazy ass a year later? That's pretty impressive.

Our next stop was a lovely home on Elm Street (oh look it's for sale!). Our favorite scene from that house was Johnny Depp's bedroom (not for the reasons you're thinking) because they had completely turned it on it's side and had you walk right through his bloody bed. Pretty neat effect. I never got a sense that I was in the boiler room though, and the Freddy masks were kind of cheesy. I mean, if you're going to use $5 Walgreens masks, then at least don't shine any lights onto your actors...keep them in the dark please so I can at least imagine that it's real for a split second. At the end of this haunted house Philip was bugging David on the phone that we had to hurry up, so we went over to a little museum they had set up for HHN freaks fans such as ourselves.

The museum had little stations set up for each house where you could see the wardrobe and floor plans of each house. My first love was architecture, so I wanted to pocket the floor plans, but unfortunately I wasn't wearing a trench coat, so...so much for that. Oh and Philip was there once again ranting to poor David about how he thought we would be done by now (you know, since it was 1:01 and the tour was slated to end at 1:00pm and all). Put a sock in it Philip...you really put a damper on our tour experience (can you tell I didn't like Philip too much at this point?).

After the tour we headed over to the Twister Ride, the Mummy ride (awesome) and to the Jaws ride. We all had a good laugh later when we were comparing pictures because Meg and I had more pictures of the tour guide than of the shark. After this we went on a couple more rides and then it was time to leave. I wanted to hide in the bushes and stay for another night of HHN, but I don't think everyone was on board with that plan (there's roaches in the bushes). We hung around for as long as possible, but the security guards had their little kick-everyone-out-parade and that was the end of that (Noooo, but it's only 6pm!).

After Universal Studios, we headed over to City Walk to grab some dinner. While we waited for our table at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., we heard that Thriller was playing on the loud speakers outside so of course Jenny, Meg and I did what anybody in that position would do and broke into a choreographed Thriller dance in the middle of City Walk (oh, you mean you wouldn't do that?). The song played three times in a row until they finally noticed that there were lunatics dancing in the street decided to change the CD for some reason.

Once inside Bubba Gump, we got a lovely table with a view of the whole restaurant. I quickly picked out my favorite waiter to stalk admire and shared him with the rest of the ladies at my table (aka Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man from hereon in), but unfortunately he was not our waiter. Jenny and I never have the same taste in men, but she grew fonder of him as the evening passed and repeatedly got busted staring at him. This situation led me to share a humorous story with my tablemates (which I will also now share with you) about the time that I was 15 and my friends and I went to Bennigans to celebrate my friend Ayleen's birthday. We had a cute waiter named Dan and the whole evening I kept talking about Dan and how cute he was and how I wanted him for dessert (you know stupid 15 year old stuff). When Dan actually came to ask us what we wanted for dessert Cristy's mom pointed at me and blurted out "well she wants YOU for dessert". I have never wanted to be swallowed by the earth as much as I did that day. Fast forward 17 years and there we were sitting at Bubba Gump and I knew I shouldn't have shared that story because I had paid too much attention to our waiter that evening. I had a feeling that would bite me in the ass later.

At this particular restaurant, they have signs on each table that you're supposed to flip when you need the waiter to come. This is pretty cool because ANY waiter that passes by has to come and help you regardless of whether he is your waiter or not. You can see where this is going right? Well, someone had immense luck and good timing and flipped the sign at a moment when NO other waiter was in sight and Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man was walking by. He stopped at our table and everyone pointed to me saying that it was my birthday and that they should sing happy birthday to me. I denied the birthday accusations and refused the proposed serenade. But alas, my tablemates were not satisfied because they noticed that they had not embarrassed me, so of course they threw this little gem in at the end of the conversation "...oh and she wants YOU for dessert". It's amazing what 17 years will do to you. I wasn't embarrassed at all this time and found the whole thing to be hilarious as did Mr. hot-shrimp-waiter-man.

After our lovely dinner. Claude Meg and Laurie headed back to the hotel because they were driving home that night. Jenny, Amber, Ricky and myself went to the movies at CityWalk and we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. I think that was the perfect end to a wonderful Halloweenyfied weekend! Sigh. Goodbye Universal...see you next year (maybe)!



ps. I didn't forget to get gas before leaving this time.

Driving Miss Claudia

Ah...carpooling with Claudia...always an adventure.

I carpool with a lady from my office every day. It's nice to have someone to talk to (and dance the YMCA with) on the long drive to and from work every day. Sometimes we wear hats, sometimes we dance to the Thriller song, sometimes we just laugh at the guy next to us picking his nose (not because he's picking his nose, but because, hello, if you're gonna do that, get tinted windows buddy). There are some pretty strange people (and cars) out there. Fortunately, I have my camera in my purse, so I will share a couple of tidbits I've managed to capture.

Exhibit #1: Driving home I see a car that is falling apart...literally. The bumper is tied on with string. The license plate is half on-half off. My favorite thing here is the bumper sticker though: "Honk if parts fall off"... Ha ha...I was actually surprised that it said that. I mean, I had seen the sticker on other cars before, but not on cars where parts might actually fall off! I'm sorry for the bad picture quality, but it's hard to take pictures and drive at the same time. I didn't really want to add to the damage on this car.

Exhibit #2: Driving to work I see this....I'm all about hanging cute stuff from your rear view mirror, but there should be a size limit to the things that you put up there. This lady had a stuffed dog hanging from her rear view mirror. The thing was so huge though that it looked like a real puppy hanging from it's neck. Very morbid and very distracting... "Oh my God that woman has a dead chihuahua hanging from her mirror"! Yes, that was my first thought when I saw it.

Fast forward about 3 weeks and we get Exhibit #3: We're driving home this time and I notice a car that has a large picture of a dog taped to the back window. This leads to a full on discussion between J (my carpool person) and I about why someone would do that. Perhaps it's a lost dog (but then wouldn't you write "lost dog" on it somewhere? and wouldn't you just post it in your neighborhood? unless it jumped out of her car on the commute to work so it could be anywhere?), perhaps she just really really loves her dog, or perhaps her little dog died (which would be quite sad). I was so enthralled with the picture in the back of the car that I didn't quite notice the front. Look familiar? Yes folks same driver, different angle. It's the hanging dog lady...I don't know if she's following us or what, but her scary dead chihuahua has got to go. Ha ha...I can't believe we saw the same lady again...and that she's got another lovely tidbit on her car that I didn't notice the first time (but you can kind of see it in the first picture). What a nut!

Come to think about it, she must think we're the crazy ones for taking pictures of her while driving.
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Seeing as I had so many protests on Tuesday's post...Happy birthday again Jenny! Have fun at Disneyland tomorrow!

Perhaps if it had been called "Killer" instead of "Thriller".

This whole month, I've been on a 4-day work week schedule which has allowed me the opportunity to be off on Wednesdays. Coincidentally our local movie theater shows free kids movies on Wednesdays, so I've been taking Christian to a movie every week.

It's been quite an experience since he had never been to the movies before. On the first trip (Charlotte's Web) we had much seat shuffling (he doesn't weigh enough to keep the seat down very well) and multiple loud outbursts regarding the plot. Our second trip (Bee Movie) featured TWO bathroom trips and remarks about how big the "TV" was. This last trip (Alvin and the Chipmunks) had him asking to go home halfway through the movie and to get him more popcorn please. I'd like to say that each time it gets a little better, but I'm not really sure. Fortunately the movies are free, so he's going to get alot of practice on movie theater etiquette this month.

On our way out we passed one of those cardboard stands that advertises coming attractions. This one had a picture of a guy in a mechanic suit with crazy hair and a white face holding a knife. I saw it and said "Oh look Chris it's Michael Myers from Halloween" (NO, he has NOT seen the movie). His reply? "That's Michael Myers? It looks like Michael Jackson". Um, no babe, Michael Jackson doesn't walk around with a knife.

Poor MJ, so misunderstood.

Did someone say zombies...

Well, now I've gone and done it. I've thrown my hat over the fence and now it's time to figure out how I'm going to get it.

I signed up for Thrill the World for this year, so it looks like I need to start practicing my dance moves. I've updated the website I created in 2007 (the first time I wanted to do this) so I'm ready to go. This year's World record attempt event will be on Saturday October 24th at 8:30pm.

The only thing left to do now is to find more crazy people like me that would love to do the Thriller dance. Hm...good thing I have 3 months to do it in...

Alright. Here we go! So...who's in? (don't worry, I won't make you dress like a zombie...unless you want to that is).

Bag Lady

A little while ago Tere asked "What's in your purse?".

Well, I'm just getting to it now, so here it goes.

Here is the purse...

















...and here are the contents:


You're lucky I was carrying my smaller purse, otherwise I might have needed to take several pictures in order to capture all the junk I carry in there.

OK let's dig into this puppy and see what's there:

Eyeglasses case: I like to use them for night driving and watching movies. The actual glasses may or may not be in that case. I'm special like that.

Extra large rubber band: I've been meaning to put that on Christian's toy box in the car. I don't want the lid flying all over the place.

Napkin: I carry this napkin as a color sample in case I see stuff for CMan's birthday party. I want to make sure whatever I buy coordinates with the rest of the tableware that I've chosen.

My keys from work: No, I don't work at Fleet..it's just a key chain.

Scrunchy: I have my hair up 90% of the time.

Checkbook: must pay the bills!

Phone: very important. This is the cheapest, plainest phone available. This phone does not take pictures or do tricks of any kind (well, it plays dead sometimes).

Various receipts: Halloween season is approaching, so as you can see, I've done alot of shopping at Michael's recently.

Sunglasses and case: notice the sunglasses are not in their case (black case). They are both independently floating around in my purse.

Crystal light drink mix: I've been meaning to drink this, but I keep forgetting...it's going to grow legs soon and walk out of my bag.

Airborne on the go powder mix: In case I'm feeling icky.

Car registration papers: that reminds me, I need to renew my registration.

Hair clip: see "Scrunchy" above

Crybaby candy: I love sour candy. One time I ate so many of these that my tongue bled. Masochist. I think the sourness quality of these has declined though (perhaps to keep fools like me from bleeding).

Pen: you never know when you'll need one (this is never in my purse when I need it though).

Wallet: stuffed with more receipts. I have a bit of a hoarding problem.

Computer disks: I was transferring some of Cmans pictures to my computer at home.

iPod and ear bud speaker thingy: the ear buds are floating around because I disconnect them to connect the iPod in my car. I love this toy. I use it when I go to the gym, but I still haven't made any playlists for the gym, so sometimes I end up listening to the Sound of Music when I'm on the elliptical machine. Yesterday I worked out to Thriller...figures huh.

Michael's flyer and coupon: like I said...I've been spending lots of time there. I think the cashiers know me by name now.

That's all I have for you folks, I'm glad I didn't get caught doing this meme on a day when compromising things were in my purse..ha ha.

So what's in your purse? leave a comment if you do this meme.

Mama needs a money tree

My son Christian has reached that age where he asks for everything...and I mean everything he sees. I'm almost scared to turn the TV on these days. Catalogs that come in the paper are also dangerous. I guess it's my fault because the other day I gave him the Toysrus catalog and pen to circle a couple (key word: couple) of things that he liked. Bad idea. Now he wants to go around with a pen circling everything he sees everywhere. I've created a monster.

The sad thing is that I want to buy him all the things he likes, but I know I can't (and shouldn't).

And now, an example of how bad the "mommyIwant monster" has become....

Yesterday we were watching TV and they were playing a commercial for a Nerf Wii game which looked pretty cool:

Chris: Mommy, buy me that!
Me: What is that?
Chris: It's a nerf gun game
Me: Oh that looks cool, we'll see (bonus: no darts to poke Jordan's eyes out)

The next commercial comes on

Chris: Mommy, buy me that!
Me: I don't think you want that.
Chris: Yes I do. Why not?
Me: It's a carpet cleaning product.

Yeah. It's gotten way out of hand.

On that vein, time for a shameless plug. If you'd like to help me win $500 (so I can get Chris that oh-so-desired carpet foam), head on over to ivillage on Facebook and help Jordan win the Cutest Kids Costume Contest! The child with the most votes wins $500 (Hello!) so please vote and pass this on to your friends so they can vote too!

Jordan is dressed as a baby Michael Jackson (from Thriller of course), so check it out! Voting runs from: Monday, Nov 9 - Sunday Nov 15.

Please click on this link or this link.
You have to have a Facebook account to be able to vote.

I'm not sure if you can vote every day, but please give it a try!

Thanks