Welcome to Ave. Q

So guess what I did this evening. I went with my friend, Sara, to see the Broadway musical, Ave Q at the National Theatre. Why ever would I do such a thing? Well, here's how it happened. Sara introduced the music from the show to me last Thanksgiving. At first I was a bit skeptical about it, but quickly found myself laughing nearly to tears. After hearing the music, it got stuck in my head, and I really wanted to see the show. I made two trips to NY in the meantime and the first time it was sold out. The second, we couldn't agree on what to see (a.k.a. the others wouldn't agree that they indeed wanted to see what I wanted to see), so we saw nothing. I ended up buying the music and and found myself singing along more than once.

As it turns out, the show is traveling now, and it is making a brief stint here in DC. Since Sara has a B-day coming up, she guilted me into going to the show too--she didn't have to twist my arm all that hard though. I must say it was well worth it. I mean, who couldn't love a show that has puppets and deals with 20 something people (people like me) dealing with issues of life like racism, finding your purpose in life, dating and relationships, job seeking and internet porn (in song form no less)? Here is a clip of one of my favorite songs in the show, Everyone's A Little Bit Racist"(sorry it's a bit bumpy and the sound isn't great, but I didn't film it. It's a lot better in person):

I hope you enjoyed that.

Here are a couple of photos.

Inside the National Theatre

From the balcony by our seats

Poster at the theatre after the show

No, I don't claim to be a theater aficionado, however, I would have to say that Ave Q is one of the best plays that I have seen. It's a lot of fun. PG-13 rated for sure, but in my humble opinion, it's well worth the money. If anyone here in the DC area has a chance, I would recommend that you check it out (or find out if it's going to your area and see it there). There's about a week and a half left here.

Happy Birthday to Kade!!!

This is my Kade friend. Also pictured with the two of us is Kade's dear mother, Brenda. The picture is from a recent trip the two of them made to visit me in the District of Columbia.

It was 27 years ago today that Dear Brenda expelled Kade from her uterus. The world has been filled with joy ever since. It was 13 or so years later that I met Kade. We have been friends since then, but he's been my best-good friend since our Junior year in high school.

On my birthday, Kade sent me 26 text messages giving "26 Reasons Why We Love Darin" citing my quirks, fun/crazy memories etc. I will now attempt to do the same on my blog. So, to many of you, these won't make a lick o' sense, but here they are:

1).--He has the intelligence of...maybe an orangutan, perhaps

2).--He would rival A-nette Willie in any beauty contest, except the swim-suit competition, of course

3).--Our "put-up" list for Angelar (the previous two came from this list only modified for Kade)

4).--Jane Eyre, oh how I love that book because of Kade, maybe one day I'll read it all the way through

5).--Hello, I'm Kitty

6).--Duchess and Matza Ball

7).--The Bird Refuge--and yes, you can see the light from a mile away

8).--The overpass, and those unfortunate people with the sun-roof--boy Brigham City was boring

9).--This is hard, does there have to be 27?

10).--Denny's, the nachos, pico de gallo, and Ericka, lovely Ericka--she should go to Dillards and be fitted

11).--Billy-Bob and Nayloni and the most-foul odor I had smelled in my life

12).--The amazing techno-colored dream...(well you know the rest, Kade)

13).--The Brigham City Cemetery at night

14).--The cow lot in Nebraska with the new reigning champ of most-foul odor that I have ever smelled.

15).--Why Miss Scarlet, he's dead!! Oh and the pillow fluff and puking in the sink

16).--He types fast

17).--He reads even faster

18).--The unfortunate BenGay incident--didn't even happen to him, or to me, but hearing him laugh while I was explaining it, brought me to tears.

19).--The sweet Maddox outfit, and accompanying stories/accidents

20).--Oh, uh!

21).--He can find the greatest bargains, except for when it comes to Thanksgiving dinners

22).--Who gets Mono twice? That, and who has to have the same knee surgery three times?

23).--MWIDTM/Griz an MWINA (thanks pal!!)

24).--"Hi, can we get a menu?" "For here?"

25).--"I can't explain why I've become Miss Chatelaine"

26).--Cub river and "Not an inch"

27).--He's a great friend and has shown his loyalty many times. He listens to my problems and offers great advice, as well as keeps my ego in check. I'm lucky to count him as a friend.

Things That Must Go!! (11-26-2007)

I need to make another post for November 26 (you'll find out why shortly), so I'll keep this short.

1). People using "thx" instead of typing "thanks" in an email--I have, on occasion, used this, but have always wondered why I didn't type out the whole word, which would have taken about the same amount of time. My boss does it all the time, and of course, I won't correct her, but I shan't use it anymore.
2). Bluetooth Earpieces--People who use these look ridiculous, and they never take them off. It is a sad person who absolutely must be connected at all times. Handy for driving, maybe so, but is it really that hard to be normal and hold your phone to your head while you're walking through Target? I don't think so.
3). "Head On, Apply Directly to the Forehead"--Enough said!!
4). Drivers who will tail right behind you, and when you get over, they don't pass you--I just got back from a 4 1/2 hr. drive to Raleigh, NC. There are a number of pet peeves from driving but this one really got my goat on this trip. If you're gonna be a jerk and nearly plow into my rear end, have the decency to pass me so that I can at least give you the look.
5). LOL--I suppose this could go along with number one, but there are a number of things that bug me about the way people communicate electronically. I have never been a fan of the LOL. I opt to say "that's funny." I just have a hard time believing that people really laugh out loud at some of my lame jokes. I do, however enjoy the ROTFL or LMAO even if I don't picture someone rolling on the floor laughing, or laughing his or her ass off. So, in my humble opinion, LOL should go.

Just for fun

Thank you Cammie Jan. Oh, and here is this too:

On Being Grateful

I am a whiner, I complain about practically everything. However, this being Thanksgiving and all, I think I will take a moment or two to mention a few things for which I am grateful, trying my best to look for the positive, and not focus on the negative. I expect this to be a short post :^)

Family--the people in your life over whom you have absolutely no control, but the ones you're with more than anything. Though we in my family are a weird lot sometimes--okay a lot of times--I wouldn't pick anybody else to have for my family. My parents didn't do shabby a job of raising me, and they have always supported me in what I do--even if they are a little naggy. My sisters each offer something different and special, and each of them has a cute family with some of the funnest, most-adorable kids around. I love (I don't like to use that word a lot, but it's true) them all.
God and Church--I don't know where I would be with out the basis of faith that I have in my life. I know that without God's blessings in my life, I would truly have very little. Also with my church, I had an instant family when I moved 2500 miles away from my own family. This is far too al-encompassing for me to try to explain the gratitude I do have, so I will leave it at that.
Friends--I have been very lucky in life to be able to make good friends. I have two of the best friends in my two very-best friends, Kade and Cammie Jan. We have been good buddies through thick and thin. They are two of the most amazing people, whom I can trust with anything, and with whom I am not afraid to absolutely be myself. I know can do anything, no matter how stupid, and they will still accept me. I have become friends with a lot of great people where I live now. There are some very amazing people, with whom I hope my friendships continue to grow from here on out. To any of my friends, thank you. You all are great.
My iPod--that and my daily podcasts of Radio From Hell. They make my workday much more tolerable.
My job--That I have one and that I enjoy the people with whom I work. Sometimes I start to hate it, but I am always reminded that I like my job when I go over to the office with the people whom I support in my group work.
Ben and Jerry--They make the best ice cream--well them and Maggie Moos--personal favorites from B&J are Brownie Batter and Cinnamon Roll (or Bun), and from Maggie Moos is Better Batter Cake Carnival--try them and you'll fall in love.
So that's a short list, but there is much more for which I am grateful, but now, the aforementioned Cammie Jan has landed at the airport here in Raleigh and kade and I must go pick her up.

Fire!! Part Two

So, today at work we are having the annual Thanksgiving pot-luck. This is not held at our corporate office, but rather at our Virginia Square (OVS) office, where I started out, and enjoy visiting from time to time. Since I was bringing funeral potatoes (per request, mind you), I decided to drive in and spend the day at OVS rather than ride metro to Rosslyn with said potatoes, then have to trapse them back again.
I get here, make my rounds, and am getting settled in, what what to my wonderin eyes should appear than flashing lights on all of the fire alarms and the most obnoxious chirping sound coming from them. Luckily I am on the third floor here rather than the 31st.
I guess this means that I'm not due for another fire drill for some time now. In my humble opinion, fire drills can be fun, but there is a toss-up between where they are more fun. At corporate, you have to go down 31 flights of stairs, but you hear the soothing voice of a talking fire alarm. At OVS, you only have one-tenth of the stairs, but you nearly go deaf from the blairing, shrill chirps emitted from fire alarms. But in both, the give you a few minutes out of the office.

Things that Must Go!! (11-19-2007)

Hi all,

I've been out of town on travel for the past week (I'll write about that soon), and as such didn't blog much. However, I am back now, and would feel terribly amiss if I skipped out on my only weekly feature on it's third week. So here goes, the following must go:
1). Christmas music before Thanksgiving (FYI this was on my list before I heard Radio From Hell's)--It's bad enough that we are innundated by the stuff for the whole month of December. Now, it seems that Christmas music is being played earlier and earlier. The day after Halloween does not signify the offical beginning of the Christmas season. The thirty or so days from Thanksgiving to Christmas are plenty of days to celebrate. Maybe I am jaded from working in retail for four Christmases, but I do believe this over-abundance of Yule-tide joy must go.
2). People who still drive around with Bush/Cheney '04 stickers on their cars. I can understand the Kerry-Edwards folks a little more 'cause it's not hard to wonder how things could have gone differently in the past three years but they should get over it too. However, the people who were proud Bush supporters last election who don't at least question him enough to remove the stickers from their cars must be oblivious to what has happened to this country over the past seven years. If you can't get rid of that sticker, you #1, should pull your head out of the sand, and #2 you must go.
3). The watery juice on mustard and ketchup. I've heard it referred to Condirrhea. Eww. It's gross. I don't think that I should have to shake up the bottle to not have a soggy sandwich or hamburger. There must be someone out there who can invent something to rid the world of this nasty stuff.
4). People who come to the door, and rather than knock, say "knock-knock"--Just knock on the bloody door. It never really bothered my until my office neighbor pointed it out. Now it drives me nuts, and as such, it must go.
5). Men who wear baseball caps with business suits. I never noticed this in Utah, but now, everyday, on my ride to work on the Metro, I see multiple men in business suits heading into the District. When I see one of these guys with a ball cap on, I just want to rip it off and throw it out the door. I don't really know why, but I don't like it. I think these guys look like weenies, as such they must go.

11-12-2007 Things That Must Go

Today's things that must go are the following:1). Spam--Not the emails (though they are annoying too), the ambiguous meat product. Actually all ambiguous meat products are quite scary. Well, there are some who really like Spam, so maybe it shouldn't go entirely. But, the worst part about Spam is that awful-looking jelly on the top. That is just vile. It must go!!
2). Manipulative emails--Everyone gets them from friends or co-workers, the type that push a political point or a religious agenda. The worst part about them is when they say something along the lines that "if you don't forward this to everyone you know..." either, you hate Jesus, you don't support our troops, or the terrorists have won and they are going to force us to marry people of the same gender. Sorry, I don't buy it. I think that I can love my country, or my Lord and Savior just as much much as the next guy without clogging up my friends' inboxes. However, people who know me and my political leanings have, on occasion, forwarded funny political emails to me, and I appreciate them from time to time.
3). Football Players with Long Hair Coming out the Back of Their Helmets--It just looks ridiculous. I always want someone to just grab those flowing locks of hair and just pull the guy down.
4). (Suggestion from a friend, but I support it) Grocery Store Discount Cards--They were fun at first, now every store has them. And, if you don't have one of your own, they will swipe the card that they have at every register for customers who don't have a card. It would save time and money and a lot of hassle if they would just do away with them and give me the freaking discount without my needing to have a huggin' card.
5). The "Obsession" with Brittney Spears--Sure she's a train wreck, but I don't need to hear about every minute detail of her life. She's trashy, and has a lot more money than I likely ever will have, so it kinda makes me smile to think that she's such a mess. But really, I would be fine to never hear anything about her again--positive or negative. But, she is living proof that you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can't take the trailer park out of the girl. The media's obsession with her must go!!!

And those are today's things that must go. Please provide comments and suggestions for future lists. On that note, I must go to sleep.

Fire!!

Today at work, they had a mandatory fire drill. This is all good and well, but you may not know that I work on the 31st floor of my building. Sure, having the top floor of one of the tallest buildings in Arlington makes for some great views, including yesterday's sun-set, which was one of the prettiest that I have seen. However, when there's a fire drill, you can't use the elevator. So, we had to go down 31 flights of stairs. By the time we made it there, everyone was complaining that their legs felt like jell-o. That wasn't the worst, though. I was getting dizzy by going around and around. This is a picture from the bottom of my building looking up at the top after we all got out.In my humble opinion, going down 31 flights of stairs is not fun, but I am certainly glad I wasn't like some of my female colleagues who were in 3 inch heels.

Vote for Lola

Hi All,

A friend of mine is having an online poll on her blog. She is looking for a name for her fantastic new Kitchen Aid Mixer. I believe it should be named Lola Falana, after the 60's and 70's dancer, singer, actress extraordinare (I really don't know who she is, but I like her name). I would appreciate your vote for that name. You can vote for and see a picture of Lola here. In my humble opinion, a mixer named Lola would be awesome!!

Electile Dysfunction

Okay, so the title's not original, nor is it all that classy, but it makes me smile a bit, so that's that.
You see, Tuesday, November 6 was election day. And like all other off-year elections, there wasn't a lot going on. However, in the races of which I am aware, my Dems performed rather well.
Nationally, Mississippi's republican governor was easily re-elected (no big surprise there), but in Kentucky, the Democratic challenger unseated the republican governor. Could this mean anything for Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell? Here's hoping so. Those were probably two of the bigger races that were going on in the country (see, off-year elections are pretty boring).
However, on a local note, here in the Commonwealth of Virginia the entire State Assembly was up for re-election. What does this mean to me? Not a lot, considering I live in the Democratic bastion that is Fairfax County--more specifically "Falls Church" (in parenthesies because of the whole un-incorporated Fairfax County/Falls Church propper rigamorole), where opponents of the repug-type are hard to come by. However, there were key races in the State Senate that needed to be won by the Democrats to wrest control of the chamber from the reps., and they did it. They needed, and won four. There is a fifth that has not been decided yet since there is only a 90-vote difference, and there will likely be a recount. So now, my Dems have the governorship, and one of the houses of the State Assembly here in the Commonwealth--Hooray!
Since I am a native Utahn and was a student of Politcal Science, how could I possibly not mention all of the fun that happened in the Beehive State yesterday. Ralph Becker (D) trounced his opponent, Dave Buhler (r) in the race to become the next mayor of Salt Lake City--see Dave, people don't like you (click here if that doesn't make sense to you). I want to give a shout out to Bianca and Curtis and the other Young Dems who worked hard on the campaign, good job guys.
More importantly in Utah yesterday, the proposal to take money from public schools to give a tax break to parents who have their children in private schools went down in flames. The Voucher proposal was defeated in every county in the state.
I personally have been opposed to this since I heard about the bill that was in the legislature when I was an intern there in 2005. It's never made sense to me that taking money from schools would help them to improve. The bill finally passed the legislature in 2007 but the people of Utah, in their wisdom, did not want it.
My reasons for not liking the vouchers include (but are not limited to) these:
1). Vouchers will ultimately take dollars from public schools.
2). Private schools don't even require licensed teachers.
3). Vouchers are another tax-break for the wealthy.
4). Private schools are not required to accept all students, and as such, vouchers can leave many students behind.
5). (and very importantly) Public funds from vouchers would be going to private, religious institutions. That, is not constitutional, and would likely end up costing the state a lot of money in court costs.
So hooray!! Vouchers in Utah are dead (for now at least--just wait until the nasty pro-voucher people find a way to resurrect the issue). Of course I am not naive enough to believe that there isn't need for change in the public school system. In my humble opinion, however, vouchers are not the answer. Way to go Utah--voting progressivly for a change.

Somebody's Got a Case of the Mondays--My List of Things That Must Go

Dear Readers,
I have been wanting to add a weekly feature to the blog for a while. I have seen others' blogs who have a "Wordless Wednesday," which I like, but I don't think I should do because I have seen it a couple of times, and fear that my adding it would make it cliche (sorry I don't know how to make accent marks here). Now don't you be thinking that this idea of having a pet peeves list titled "Things That Must Go" is a Darin original. No, I will give credit where credit is due. I am ripping the idea off from "The Radio From Hell Show" (Kerry, Bill and Gina, X96, KXRK, Provo, Ogden, Salt Lake City). Their segment on the show happens every Wednesday, having the hosts' lists one week and a list from listeners the next week.
I decided to make it on Monday since that seems to be everyone's least favorite day of the workweek. Oh, and bare in mind that these will not exclusively be mine, but rather, I hope to have a conglomoration of various sources, including the aforementioned radio show whose podcast I listen to faithfully, friends and coworkers. I would invite anyone who wishes to add their things that must go to make a comment and I will try to incorporate them. So without any further ado, I give you my debut list of things that must go:

1) Mondays--As I previously mentioned, this is the least favorite day of the work week to many people. It means the weekend of fun and revelry are over, and we must return to our respecitve places of employment for 40+ more hours of hell. Let's face it, even if you love your job, everyone must admit that their secret wish is to be independently weathly, not having to dread the alarm at 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning. However, I do have to say, that if Monday wasn't the first day of the work week, we would all hate Tuesday. This brings me to number two...
2) Tuesdays--Tuesday, in my humble opinion, is the most worthless day of the week. It turns out that Monday usually ends up being a productive day, and it goes by rather quickly. Before you know it, it's already Tuesday. Three days of the week have something significant, Monday is the beginning of the week, Wednesday is hump day, and Friday is, well Friday. This leaves Tuesday and Thursday without any significance in the week--filler days really. Thurday is superior to Tuesday in that it is only a day away from Friday. Ergo, Tuesdays must go!
3) Toupees--Sorry men, you're not fooling anyone, except yourselves. If you don't have the self-respect to let nature take its course, you should get counseling. Speaking as one who is thinning up top, Deal With It!! Even a comb-over, as rediculous as comb-overs are, looks better than a man with a white, pencil-thin moustache wearing a (theoretically) perfectly-coiffed, oily-looking rug on his head. I saw that today on the Metro ride to work. I had to take a picture and I will post it later today, so check back.
4) People who say supposably--It's SUPPOSEDLY!! Oh, and it's ambulance, not amblience!
5) Oprah Winfrey--I hate her!! I work in the building that houses the local ABC affiliate for the Washington DC area. So when I was walking in, they were showing Good Morning America on the giant screen outside, and guess who was on--none other than Ms. Winfrey. It pissed me off instantly, just her air and arrogance that showed through. I think the reason why I don't like her is the same reason I heard a comedian once say she likes her: "She thinks she's Jesus." The woman seriously has delusions of grandeur (not to say that she doesn't do a lot of good things). I rememeber hearing her say very matter-of-factly "I always knew I was destined for greatness." I can't hardly stand her anymore. One last note is that I loved a line that I heard on an 80's sit-com when one character thought she saw a UFO, she said, "Airplanes aren't that thin, or that bright." To which another character responded, "neither is Oprah Winfrey, but it doesn't make her a UFO."
So, there they are, today's things that must go.