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By kilax, October 12, 2012 6:16 am

What is your worst movie theater experience? And since that question is so negative… what is the best movie you’ve seen in the movie theater lately?

Ha ha ha. Have you seen this drawing from The Oatmeal about how movie theaters should be designed? Muah ha ha.

I thought of this question because we went to 7:00 pm PG-13 movie last night, and one couple brought their toddler daughter. Who was well behaved most of the time, except for when she was talking, crying, whining… the movie was boring FOR ME, I cannot imagine how it was for her.

But that was not my worst experience. We went to see one of the Fast & Furious movies (the one where they drive through a cave at the end) and I could not even follow the plot of this simple movie because teenage boys were running up and down the stairs in the (stadium-seating) theater the whole time. That was the worst experience I can recall.

We don’t go to many movies, and a lot of times we use coupons for $5 movies when we do go, so the movies are not as new, and there are less people in the theater… which is a good thing. People seem to lack common courtesy in the theater.

I do have to say though – one of my favorite movie experiences was seeing Zombieland with Steven and his brother. I think it was opening night, the theater was full, everyone was talking back to the screen, and for some reason, it was just hilarious. It worked well for that movie.

The best movie I have probably seen recently in the movie theater is The Avengers. So that shows you my movie taste. Or, maybe it just shows you how few movies I have seen recently!

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By kilax, October 10, 2012 4:59 am

Guess what? I was a little bit woozy from Scrubbing Bubbles fumes when writing this. Please excuse any incoherent-ness.

Time to help me out… by sharing your weekly/monthly cleaning schedule. Our house is mostly tidy (except my closet until yesterday and my side of the bed) and mostly clean (but no where NEAR Grandma level clean), but I feel like I could do a lot better on keeping up with things. So tell me – what is your cleaning routine like?  J – I expect you to have some good tips for me.

I am wearing a new Ultra Runner RokBAND from Gina! It’s for running, not cleaning, but the first one sent from the company had a little mistake on it, so I got another one. So… mistake-one for cleaning, new one for running!

My biggest annoyance is that we cook so much that we ALWAYS have pots and pans out drying on the counter (on towels). So the kitchen counters always seem a bit cluttered. Do you guys hand dry all your pots and pans? Meh.

I have been thinking about stamping my photos for this site with my blog url. I did it on Monday… then promptly forgot with Tuesday’s post. Ha ha. What do you guys think about stamping blog photos? Do you do it? Why or why not?

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By kilax, October 9, 2012 6:23 am

I need your help figuring out exactly how pathetic I am. 

So, I had a clothing avalanche* in my closet on July 12. I have 8 metal cube shelves to hold some items (example here) and two of the connectors came off. Everything fell on the floor, which already had stuff on it… and the connectors were lost. So how long did it take me to clean up this mess?

If you were guessing the amount of days between July 12 and October 8, then DING DING DING!, you guessed correctly!

I feel like I have bad juju with the walk-in closet gods now. Especially the personal walk-in closet gods. Sigh! What can I do to get on good terms again? Not be a slob? NOOOOO!!!!

Where do you store your clothes? Closet (your own?), dresser, on the floor?

I have my own closet and a dresser too. Yet, it never seems like enough space, and I am always donating to Goodwill. How does that work?!

Don’t worry! That is not how I spent my entire Columbus Day Holiday. I also went grocery shopping:

helped Steven with some FakeMeats.com photos, took an hour nap (shhh), met Anne for the first time (!!!) for a beautiful run, 

and a had a Skype date with my New York peeps. 

Did anyone else have Columbus Day off?

*Sadly, there is no photo to document the avalanche. 

Comments (29)

By kilax, October 8, 2012 7:40 am

• Purchase goodies for runners.

• Bake goodies for the fellow spectators (recipe here). 

• Make awesome sign (sign by RunNerdMom Run – so really, have someone else make awesome sign!).

• Lose sleep over excitement of spectating at the Milwaukee Marathon. 
• Wake up before alarm at 5:00, start sending good luck texts to Chicago and Milwaukee Marathon runners. 
• Bring extra items for runners (I had hats and gloves – people needed salt and aspirin. Oops.).
• Wear running clothes, so you can jump in with runners, if necessary. 

• Give the driver some gas money. 

• Arrive and set up shop.
• BE LOUD!!!

• Cheer for EVERYONE!!!
• But watch for your runners.
• Take photos of your runners.
• See if your runners need anything.
• Meet everyone at the finish for congratulations!

• Try to stay awake on the ride home.
• Don’t look at Facebook until you get home – too overwhelming on the smart phone. 

I ran the Milwaukee Marathon last year and a few running club friends came to spectate, so I wanted to cheer them on this year! I rode up to Milwaukee with my running club friends Riyanti and Chris and we set up along mile 19.5 of the course (and our friend Dave met us a bit later). We got there just in time to see the first woman run by. I opened up my pretzels and twizzlers to hand out right away. I figured those fast runners would not be interested in them (and I was right!) but we eventually went through the whole bag of pretzels and two family-size bag of twizzlers. And we got to see all of our running club friends! I love watching marathons and cheering! But boy, does it wipe me out!

If you were spectating, would you rather hold the sign, noise-maker, hand out goodies… or just stand there and cheer?

I have to say, I felt bad when people would go for the pretzels or twizzlers and drop them or not grab them. I need to work on that for next year. 

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By kilax, October 7, 2012 4:32 pm

Highlight of the Week: Busting out a hill run with Kelly on Friday night and not struggling too much. 

Monday | October 1, 2012: strength + 2.6 m walk (w/Steven)
Strength: weighted vest, boxing and dumbbells, Difficulty: medium, Felt: fun & challenged
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 61°/57°, Time: 42:39, Pace: 16:25 avg
Tuesday | October 2, 2012: 6.3 m run (w/GRCers)
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 48°/47°, Time: 1:06:33, Pace: 10:34 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Wednesday | October 3, 2012: strength class
Strength: BOSU & weighted bars, Difficulty: medium, Felt: strong
Thursday | October 4, 2012: 8 m run
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 64°/58°, Time: 1:20:31, Pace: 10:04 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: great!
Friday | October 5, 2012: 8 m hill run (w/Kelly)
Loc: Barrington, Temp: 50°/49°, Time: 1:17:27, Pace: 9:41, Difficulty: medium, Felt: excited to run with Kelly
Saturday | October 6, 2012: rest
Sunday | October 7, 2012: 8 m run
Loc: Neighborhood, Temp: 38°/36°, Time: 1:21:40, Pace: 10:12 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: nice and chilly

Notes:

• I don’t know what happened in my Wednesday night strength class but I felt really strong! I was able to hold boat pose for as long as Brian (our trainer) each time (but probably with not as good of form) and able to do curls/lifts/squats with a 36-lb bar at the end. I am not sure where that energy came from, but I like it! Things I do not like – accidentally scratching the floor with the end of the 36-lb bar. I feel really bad about that.
• Look at the Sunday picture. That yard FREAKED me out when I came across it in the pitch black. 
• Cooler temps = somewhat faster pace! Yay!
• I thought I would run again on Sunday after spectating at the Milwaukee Marathon. Nope. That wore me out. Tomorrow!

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By kilax, October 6, 2012 8:31 am

Teese had a booth at Chicago VeganMania last weekend, right near the entrance. Vegan cheeses aren’t really my thing, so I passed the booth quite a few times before I stopped to check it out. But they lured me in… with vegan nachos…

AND THEY WERE SO DAMN GOOD. I was sold. We bought some of their creamy cheddar sauce and mozzarella to try at home (the nachos used their nacho sauce which is a bit spicy).

Lunch was not hard to figure out the next day! Vegan mac and cheese! Something I sometimes still always crave, but can only get at Native Foods and S’Mac in NYC… and neither are this good. 

The bowl got filled up a few times. It was hard to stop. We may or may not have eaten the leftovers, cold, standing up in the kitchen, the next morning…

We were anxious to try the mozzarella, since the cheddar was so good. I decided to be adventurous and shred it (Steven had just squeezed the cheddar sauce out of the container for the mac and cheese).

Success!

It wasn’t as earth-shatteringly good as the cheddar, but it was definitely the best vegan cheese I have tried on the pizza, and beats having the pizza without cheese (as I always do).

So… now I am sad. We are all out of our Teese vegan cheese and I could really go for some mac and cheese. Or nachos. Or quesadillas. 

I suggested to Steven that he add Teese products to FakeMeats.com! Only because I want to share it’s awesomeness with others. It’s not for my personal purposes, AT ALL. Ha ha. 

Have you tried any “new to you” food products lately? Has anyone tried Teese?

(you can see the Teese ingredients here – contains soy, gluten-free)

Comments (18)

By kilax, October 5, 2012 7:13 am

Do you have an ICE (in case of emergency) contact listed in your phone? Who is it?

I’ve had Steven listed as my ICE in my phone since college. Recently though, I realized if something happened to me and someone had my phone, there would be no way to unlock it to see my ICE without knowing my passcode (unless there is an app or setting for that that I don’t know about!). So I added him to my lock screen:

Ha ha. Hopefully people won’t think they are calling Luca when they see his number!

When I am running, I have a ROAD ID on my shoe that has Steven and Erin‘s number on it, but it doesn’t hurt to have that along with the phone contact!

Comments (27)

By kilax, October 4, 2012 6:19 am

I mentioned on Monday that instead of thinking about holiday gifts I should focus on October birthdays, because we have about 40 bazillion. Or, at least enough that we spent $30 on cards at Hallmark on Monday.

Okay, we don’t have 40 bazillion, and there were some non-birthday cards in that $30 bill. What can I say? When I see a card I like, I have a hard time not buying it! And why not, when I have a handy-dandy box (from Hallmark of course) to store all my cards in:

One card I will not be buying though? Uhh…

Do you like to send out cards? Do you stock up on them, like me?

I tend to hunt for the perfect card, so when I am stocking up, it’s usually a specific card for someone’s birthday a few months down the road. I always get my dad’s mom a birthday card with inappropriate animal sayings on it (example: poodles on the front saying to each other “that bitch has had some work done,” then inside, “don’t worry about the haters, happy birthday” or similar), so for awhile I had quite a few of those! Well, until this year when I had two left and liked them so much I sent them both.

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By kilax, October 3, 2012 6:56 am

Did you guys see the Wall Street Journal article yesterday, Why We Are So Rude Online?

Data is rude irl. Come on Data, enjoy that Candy Corn Oreo!

I was expecting the article to be all about the perceived anonymity of online presences, but it actually only briefly touched on that, and mostly covered Facebook.

According to soon-to-be-published research from professors at Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh, browsing Facebook lowers our self control.

So apparently, when we present an “enhanced” version of ourselves on Facebook, and get a lot of “likes,” it boosts our self-esteem, which then lowers our self-control. So in order to protect our online image, we may be more likely to lash out (and be rude) online.

Also, according to the article:

• “People who spent more time online and who had a high percentage of close ties in their network were more likely to engage in binge eating and to have a greater body mass index, as well as to have more credit-card debt and a lower credit score.”
• “”They found people who spent more time on Facebook were more likely to give up on difficult tasks more quickly” (giving up on an IQ test).

So Facebook is making us RUDE and FAT and POOR and STUPID.

Hmm.

I did find it interesting, in the last part of the article, where a person interviewed said he purposefully tries to start fights on his Facebook wall, and will even go out of his way and message friends to join in on the fight… all for his entertainment. That is messed up. I think (I hope), most people are not doing it purposefully, and it’s just the fact that you do not see someone’s reaction when you post:

We’re less inhibited online because we don’t have to see the reaction of the person we’re addressing, says Sherry Turkle, psychologist and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor of the social studies of science and technology. Because it’s harder to see and focus on what we have in common, we tend to dehumanize each other, she says.

Personally, I have said a few things in blog comments and then gone back and thought “Geesh, that really could come off the wrong way.” I have even typed out comments… only to delete them, because I don’t know how people will read in to something I wrote. Teasing someone (or trying to be funny) online is hard, especially if your sense of humor is kind of weird (like mine is).

Why do you think people are rude online? Have you had any rude encounters online?

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By kilax, October 2, 2012 7:15 am

For all the minutiae I make you all suffer through on this blog, there is a lot that I leave out. Since my posts are usually focused on a certain topic, and are less diary style, there is a lot of things I do that don’t get blogged. Like, going to VeganMania with Steven,

attending my friend’s wedding,

exploring the Quad Cities…

And there is just a lot going on that I don’t mention – because it’s inappropriate, would unintentionally hurt someone’s feelings, is not my story to tell, shows you how awful I really am, etc.

I have been thinking about what I leave out on my blog, and what other bloggers leave out too. Because as you get to know bloggers in person, then read their blog, you notice what they told you, and what they wrote about something… or what they didn’t write about at all.

So, this sounds weird, but it’s fun to read someone’s blog, but know more of the back story to something they are talking about, or know that they are not posting because they are busy doing something they didn’t tell everyone about, and so on. Does that make any sense?

What do you leave out on your blog? Do you ever read an irl friend’s blog and think about the “back story” or what they left out… or aren’t saying, that they said to you?