Kuiper Sophie Smith was born on 1/13 weighing 7 lbs. 4 oz. and standing 20 inches tall. She’s perfect and we’re all on a babymoon.

And for inquiring minds and their wanting to know…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

On Halloween I passed out candy for about an hour (I saw the cutest little boy dressed as a tiger–in one hand he carried a half eaten jolly rancher and in the other he carried a plastic sword–apparently this baby tiger was armed). Then we went to the Moore and saw the legendary Henry Rollins. Many of you know how much I dearly, dearly, admire Henry. Back in the old days, I used to listen to his spoken word religiously on cd. We sat way up in the balcony, (this woman with an enormous head of long frizzy hair sat next to Josh and her hair practically had its arm around him) and there we sat for two hours and forty-five minutes. I had no idea that Henry Rollins was going to speak for as long as he did. He talked for so long, we had to sneak out at 10:45pm before the parking garage closed. I was disappointed, but we had crampy little seats, The Hair was invading Josh’s space, and it was a school night after all. I had a feeling he might go for three hours–he is very passionate about our current political state.

In addition to some very poignant national security musings, memorable moments included Henry’s early interactions with Van Halen, interviewing Christopher Walkin, (and finding NO difference between Walkin the character and Walkin the real person), and some really excellent banter regarding the defense of gay marriage. Henry also has his own radio show where he pulls out his old vinyl and plays it, (check it out here, it’s pretty great). The best story was Henry enlightening the audience about The Ruts, the british punk band who created one of the first ska/punk sounds in the late 70’s. They lost their lead singer to heroine before they could produce a second album and the band never reclaimed their initial path to stardom. The band’s guitarist, Paul Fox, was diagnosed with lung cancer over the summer (and sadly died a few weeks ago). The Ruts reuninited to create a benefit concert and Henry was asked to perform as the vocalist. He described the concert as containing one of the best moments of his life: singing onstage with many of his punk rock idols. I was really moved by his story and so, of course, I looked it up on youtube and found it amazing. Here is my favorite:

I’m a proud Barack Obama supporter! Today I checked my myspace and there was a new blog from Obama with video from his recent appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show. I clicked on to see what he had to say and the first video had me laughing. You can view it here. That’s right Obama busting a move with Ellen. The man has some pretty good moves!Happy viewing! 

The following is a short list of useful tools, that just might help you be more productive while blogging, working, and playing. The best part is that all of these tools are free for the taking:

Programs:

• GIMP – If you don’t absolutely require Photoshop, this image editor is for you
• FastStone ImageViewer – Great for image file conversion
• UnFREEz – Create GIF animations

Web-Based Utilities:

• GuerrillaMail – Get an anonymous short-term email account
• TinyURL – Convert any convoluted URL into something “tiny”
• YouSendIt – Send any file (up to 100MB) over the Internet without using email

Palm Programs:

• Converter – Fantastic measurement converter
• ChemTable – Periodic Table handy for those chemistry questions
• CryptoPad – Encrypt any files on your Palm Pilot

For the complete list, please refer to my blog, @ the Library!

Last night was the Justin Timberlake concert.  It was really awesome!  The only thing I didn’t like was Good Charlotte opening for him. They seemed really out of place.

Here is my top 10 of the show:

10. Meeting up with other Justin fans before the show and getting a drink…Erin it was good to see you and meet your sisters.

9. Seats. The stage was in the middle with the seats around the stage and that made for a better concert experience. There was stuff happening on all sides of the stage.

8. Finding out Jeana and Mara were sitting not to far from us. We could look at each other during the show and it was like we went together.

7. Parking downtown.. We parked further downtown in Tacoma instead of close the the Tacoma Dome. That was super smart of us to do because we missed the traffic.

6. Justin Program. It was $15 but worth it. Tons of pictures of JT and a set list which is nice to look back at later when I’m old and can’t remember what he sang.

5. Show. The show was amazing, with backup dancers and singers and a band. There were a lot of people in the show.

4. Bringing Justin to the stage in a box/bin. Before the show started the singers and dancers were coming out of the back room and people were freaking out. We were sitting where you could see them coming out. Funny thing was that there were tons of people standing there waiting for Justin to come out. Then most of the performers had come through there was a bin on wheels with a lid that came through with 2-3 security or stage hands around it. It obviously had Justin in it but yet here these girls stood waiting and screaming for Justin. It would have ruined everything if he came out before the show when his whole thing was coming up from the bottom of the stage…ah teenagers.

3. Screens. There were these see through screens that would come down on the stage depending on which section of the stage Justin was on which was awesome because you could still see everything going on.

2. Singing and dancing. Two of my favorite things if you know me. I loved every minute of it.

1. The best thing about the JT concert…him singing Dick in a Box. That’s right he sang it near the end of the show which was freaking awesome. We were doing all the hand movements and everything. When he started singing the song that might have been the loudest it was all night and it was really loud all night.

So yes, the show was awesome, Justin was awesome and I didn’t get arrested for attacking him!

Spent some quality time with my girlfriend last night watching numerous episodes of Weeds. I’ve never seen her laugh so much.

If you haven’t seen this I highly recommend it. We watched it On Demand, but available on DVD as well.

Some of you know that I’m one of the many boring people that is trying to get in shape and lose weight. (I won the partner contest in December for the Biggest Loser at work by losing 14.8 pounds!) But I gained 7 back and we’re doing it again. Since it worked before, against everything I used to believe in, I’m dieting. The hardest part of dieting is not the giving up of all the things you like to eat or the dragging your ass to the gym, but instead it’s the becoming high maintenance that kills me.

Here’s the thing. I’m doing Weight Watchers and I love it (I never thought I would say that). It appeals to the database girl inside of me that likes to fill my spreadsheet with what I’ve eaten and calculate the points (see “google-whore“). It’s ilke a puzzle I get to do every night. But I also like that I really can eat what I want if I realize that eating that piece of chocolate means less steak and no wine. Or drinking that glass of wine means veggies for a snack instead of popcorn. You know what I mean? It’s all about realizing moderation and how you just can’t eat on impulse and fill your gut with everything your heart desires without having to live with the consequences.

And then there’s the exercise. Even though it is really hard to get into the habit, I am generally happier after the gym and I try to tap into that emotion every time I go. Having books on my mp3 player to listen to or NPR or watching the food network while I do the machines (I know, crazy?) helps get through it.

So what is this high maintenance crap I’m talking about? Well, I always prided myself in being someone who likes most food, will try anything, and even though I may have some favorite restaurants I’ll lobby for, I’ll go almost anywhere and will order everything if people will let me. But now I have to carefully choose the restaurant and when people want an appetizer I have to decline and if my sisters want to share something and they pick a dish that will kill my points I have to bow out. It’s really hard for me to be the picky one. I hate it. But I’m learning how to work with most places now that I am memorizing how many points everything is. It’s not just food though either. I need to start to be high maintenance about my time as well. “No, I can’t meet you for dinner after work because I need to go to the gym.” That kind of shit. Realizing that I really won’t go if I don’t go right away. Maybe I need to go in the morning, but that’s like rewiring my entire personality.

How boring is this post? Well let me leave you with two things I have come to love. Because I rarely eat pasta or cheese while trying to lose weight, because those eat my points up so fast I wanna cry, I have to find alternatives. You can imagine how happy I was to discover Carba-Nada noodles which are hardly any points and actually taste like fresh pasta (and cook in four minutes, I love that).

And then there are the cute little Light Laughing Cow cheese bites. They taste really good and I can have 5 of them for only 1 point! Inside the wrapper they also have fun factoids like today’s was “New Zealand was the first place women got the vote.”

I’ll keep sharing if anyone’s interested and I apologize in advance if some of my posts begin to get too focused on this. But there it is.