I wanna be a part of BA
Short but sweet: We ended up going to Buenos Aires. We´re here now. More later when we have more time in the internet cafe.

Rock and Roll Poll
Let's suppose that Victor and I can't make it to Dublin and end up going to Buenos Aires instead. Should we spend one night of our weekend seeing the White Stripes? Here are some facts about the show:

• We both love this band.


• The show is at Luna Park, the largest indoor stadium in Argentina.


• Victor and I have both seen the White Stripes more than once.


• We have seen them in small venues as well as a pretty large one.


• In order to get to the BA show, we may have to skip our fancy dinner for the night, therefore not taking advantage of the ridiculously low prices for good food there.


• We have no idea if and where tickets are available.

So, what do you guys think?

Chicken 'n Beer... er, Beef.
Well, it looks like our Dublin plans might be kaput. The flights have really filled up in the last few days. Victor has done some checking to see if we could fly a different airline or even connect through another European city, and it appears as if we have no viable options. I'm pretty bummed. On the other hand, this means we'll probably go to Buenos Aires instead, and that will be much cheaper. We went there last summer and really enjoyed it, and I can stock up on cheap but cute shoes. And eat beef. Lots of beef.

One of my new favorite things to cook is roasted chicken. I was inspired after reading this article and recipe. So far I've tried the lemons/garlic option and also tried a concoction of herbs. Both chickens turned out great, and it's so easy. Whole chickens are cheap, and we usually have leftovers, so we win both ways. In fact, I've got a chicken waiting to go in the oven right now. We're going to let it cook while we work out. I think I'm going to make smashed sweet potatoes to go with it. Yum!

In other news, we are in the middle of a Star Wars marathon. We're watching the last of the original three tonight (I've only seen them once, and it was in high school; Victor, on the other hand, has seen them a zillion times). Then we're going to start on the new ones, which I have never seen. This is all in preparation to seeRevenge of the Sith next week. Victor is disappointed that we're not going tonight, but he wants me to go... so we're catching up.

The Superparty Shuffle
We have about 1000 albums loaded into my computer in iTunes. Victor did this to load them into his iPod, and he just left them there because I have a pretty big hard drive. Yes, we still buy CD's, but they're all loaded on the computer so that he can do the iPod thing (and now, of course, I can use them for my iPod shuffle).

So one thing we've been doing lately, especially when we play Dr. Mario (an obsession of mine), is leave the iTunes on party shuffle mode. Now, I know plenty of people (hi, Mark!) who think that the shuffle feature will be the death of the album format, which would be a sad thing indeed. But when you've listened to so many of these CD's for so long, it's refreshing to hear the songs as stand-alone entities. Plus, it's like you discovered an amazing radio station with no annoying DJ.

Here's a breakdown of our musical collection, based on like:
80% - liked by both Mandy and Victor
12% - liked by one and tolerated by the other
7% - liked by Victor and disliked by Mandy
1% - liked by Mandy and disliked by Victor

For example, Victor can't stand Bright Eyes, yet I like him. Conversely, I can't stand Pavement/anything by Stephen Malkmus, Stereolab, the Pixies... all bands that I probably should like, based on my other musical tastes. However, there's just no liking them for me. And we have a LOT of their albums... at least most of them, if not all. The iTunes party shuffle seems to really like Stereolab. I can understand, though, that they would be played a lot, since we have a bazillion Stereolab albums. On the other hand, party shuffle loves the shit out of that annoying Ratatat album. We have one (1) album by them, but every single night I am subjected to them. Does this album sound to anyone else like bad Christmas muzak? Every time I hear it, I see fake snowflakes in my head.

Victor loves it when the party shuffle continuously plays stuff I hate. I wonder what this says about relationship.

Random words strung together...
Tomorrow Victor's dad is flying up to Dallas for a business meeting and will also stop by the church and vouch for Victor... just one more requirement for the Catholic Church. He's also flying home tomorrow afternoon, so we have all of Sunday to go get DIY wedding invitation kits, and then I can start on my calligraphy.

Judging by last night's episode of The O.C. and other snippets I've heard online, I'm going to really like the new Coldplay album. I'm really looking forward to it. Also, judging by the new iPod commercial, I'm going to really like the new Gorillaz album. Finally, judging by this paragraph, I watch way too much TV.

We're still keeping our fingers crossed for Dublin, but things still look a bit bleak.

Well, I wrote it into my Bible, so it's in there now!
Hey there! I have not forsaken you. I guess I'm just lacking stuff to say lately, kinda like Kris. Here are some recent news items:

Item 1: For our three-year anniversary, Victor got me an iPod shuffle. I love it. The speakers are pretty much blown on my car, so much that the only thing that sounds good is NPR (which is fine because I love and support NPR). But I bought a tape adapter for the shuffle, and it actually sounds good! Now I have to choose between getting my liberal news fix and rocking out. Oh, how life is hard sometimes.

Item 2: After a full ten years of ownership, my car is still kicking it. Sure, it's looking old and worn, and I did just have to drop almost a thousand bucks to fix the water pump and other stuff, but it's been a good little car. Sometime this month I want to give it a full detailing for its tenth birthday.

Item 3: We're trying to go to Dublin for Memorial Day. We are booked in two hotels, the MontClare for Friday night and the Alexander for Saturday and Sunday nights. Until three days ago, the flight looked great. But some last-minute ticket buyers have taken up many of the remaining seats. We may have to fly through Heathrow or Gatwick instead of straight to Dublin. Or maybe we can catch a flight on one of the other airlines, like BA or Aer Lingus. We're determined to get to Dublin somehow. I haven't been there in almost five years, and I am really excited to go. Of course, if all else fails, we've got a backup plan... we'd go to Buenos Aires again instead.

Item 4: If you haven't gone here yet, check out kittenwar. And if you happen to come across my ex-cat Liam, please vote for him!

Holy crap...
I know! A new post. Sorry, it's been a bit crazy lately. I went to San Antonio last week for a fun, infuriating, and exhausting work trip. I've finally gotten over the infuriating part, I think, and I'm still a little worn out from the fun. San Antonio's downtown is really pretty. From what I hear, a lot of the rest of the city isn't quite so nice. Still, they've obviously put a lot of money into revitalizing their downtown, and it seems to be working.

This weekend, Victor and I saw two baseball games. Friday night we saw the Rangers sadly beat the Red Sox, who just weren't on top of their game. We were vindicated at Saturday's game, though. We thought about getting tickets to Sunday's game, but it was sold out already. Boston won, though. Victor had a hell of a time getting the pictures we took downloaded, but he finally succeeded late last night. I quickly took a look at them this morning, and we got some great shots. We were pretty close to the Sox dugout on Saturday, and with the new camera's great zoom, we were able to take some fairly close-up pictures.

Tonight I'm going to upload some of them to flikr and also upload my sister's baby pictures to Shutterfly.

Oh, yesterday I got some Miu Miu shoes at the Neiman Marcus outlet for just over a hundred bucks! They were marked down from well over $300, so it was a good bargain. Of course, last night I stayed up tossing and turning while thinking about money woes. Oooh, look, someone's auctioning off a pair of the shoes I bought on eBay. Cute?