Snickers Seinfeld style

I don't know why, but I can always go weak at the knees for a snickers bar and maybe some vanilla ice cream. The combo of caramel, nuts and chocolate is enough to send me over the top in saccharine goodness!

Once, for Christmas, my mom gave me a $200 string of pearls that I have been coveting for quite some times. Then, my brother handed me his gift--a $60 Starbucks gift card, and trust me, the look of bewilderment in my mom's eyes at how I howled, "OH MY GOD! THANK YOU!!!!!" at his gift in comparison to the relatively staid "Wow, thank you, these are beautiful!" I responded to the pearls with was hilarious.

On a daily basis, I cannot open my eyeballs fully, nor function at full capacity without a coffee from Starbucks, so naturally, I welcome any giftcards that I can associate with that energizing feeling :D

However, I need to take this book with me because I will be forced to read it, locked down in the courtroom with no other alternatives. I've only done a third of the assigned reading.

God, graduate-level math really sucks.

Red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

It's such an amazing, sexy car--and a total classic. How could you not want one? I'm not a bigtime car aficionado, but this is truly a dream car. I would play only Johnny Mathis or The Chordettes as I drive it around sunny So Cal...

if it's only people who want to talk money that are left.
Money. Who wants to talk about it? You either have it, or you don't. I usually don't have stunningly large amounts of it. But people talking shop about investments when everyone else is bored out of their mind listening is a surefire reason to get out.

people are on their mobiles a bit too much.
I am the first to head towards Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and e-mail when a party is dead. But if I see other people relying on their mobiles a bit too much, then I'll wrap up convos, and say goodbyes. Taking photos of your fellow partiers with your phones or exchanging number is understandable party phone use, but not hanging out waiting for the party to end.

the drunk girl makes a break for the bathroom.
Seriously, there's always one person, usually a girl, who can't hold her liquor, and though she may have just been fawning over a partygoer, or dancing on the grand piano, there always comes a point where she has to blurt out, "'Scuse me!" and make a break for the bathroom. There's nothing quite like that to serve as a mood killer.

you're just plain bored with it.
I have been at the most hoity toitiest of parties that were ultimately boring, with hosts that do nothing did nothing to make everyone welcome. Time was that I would wait around in the hopes that things improve, but experience dictates that things never improve.

Seamed stockings and lace
She left it all anyway
Still, she's pin-up queen.

But it's no wonder--the journalism market is seriously saturated, and with the younger generation, myself included, turning to outlets like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show for the fake take on real news, it is highly likely that news stories will get shorter and shorter, and served up increasingly in byte-sized bits.

The commuter lifestyle that life in big cities forces one into has also contributed to getting much news on the go. In reality, NPR News is my No. 1 outlet for news gathering.

Another surprising news source for me has been following @NPRPolitics, @NPRNews, @DiggNews, @NYTimes and other news organizations like these on Twitter. They give the snippet up front, then, if necessary, I will click on it to get the expanded story. If print organizations do not get on the Social Media bandwagon like so, they will be extinct sooner rather than later.

Michel Gondry
"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". "The Science of Sleep". And countless influential commercials, short films, projects and collaborative efforts. How can you not love Michel Gondry?

Really, I don't know where I'd start. How did you envision filming that one scene in "Eternal Sunshine" where Jim Carrey keeps walking back and forth on a darkened street, and Kate Winslet gets "erased"? What does it really mean at the end of "The Science of Sleep" when Gael García Bernal falls asleep in Charlotte Gainsbourg's bed?

Coco Chanel
She was not just a fashion designer.

She was an arbiter of class. She died single, childless and ludicrously rich in the Ritz Hotel en Paris, and the world mourned her. I'm certain it's because we all thought that fashion would go to the dogs after this.

Where would I begin? How did you know that the combination of cream and black tweed would look so sharp? Why choose a camellia to be your signature symbol, as opposed to a more obvious rose? How come your enamel jewelry looks so damned amazing, when everyone else's looks shoddy and thrown together?

Bill Murray
The man needs no introduction. There are too many films, shows, appearances to tell him that I loved him in. There are also too many things he says that can put me in stitches. But truly, if I had but one single moment with Bill Murray, I'd ask:

What did you say to Scarlett Johansson at the very end of "Lost In Translation", when you leaned into her, whispered it so intimately, leading her to cry?

I must know!

A Real, Live Geisha
In the 1920s, there were approximately 80,000 geisha in Japan. Now, in the modern age, these numbers have fallen to somewhere between 1,000 to 2,000.

I want to know everything about their lives, as if I was trying to become a human recording of their amazing existence, before the "flower and willow world" they live in withers away in the face of the reality that maintaining geisha lifestyle, training and culture are seriously expensive.

Tell me everything! Demeanor, kimono, makeup, hair, dance, song, accoutrements, and even how they manage to keep balanced and strutting along smoothly on those geta sandals. I feel as if they are celebrities, keeping a tradition alive in a small, sheltered pocket, as the rest of the world encroaches upon them.

Vampire Weekend
Seriously? I'm saying realtime jam session within the confines of the elevator with the "whitest band", as StuffWhitePeopleLike.com's Christian Lander declared them in a Salon.com interview. Ha!

Let me drum my fingers on the elevator banister as Ezra Koenig belts out the lyrics to "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance", or "Oxford Comma", and I would fangirl out like crazy.

Graham Norton
He may just well be the funniest British man, ever. Truly.

Watching his show "So Graham Norton" on the BBC has left me in stitches. His inappropriate remarks delivered with a side of "devil may care" attitude, as well as the funny games he thinks up to involve his audiences, such as "Bring The Ugliest Gift You Have Ever Gotten To The Show", and giving them prizes accordingly, leads me to believe that the man would be immensely entertaining whilst stuck inside a elevator.

Ewan MacGregor
I have given you very good reasons for the past 7 men and women that I would like to meet. Now let me give you a very blatantly carnal reason for this next one.

Gah.

Ewan MacGregor. Yumm...

"Moulin Rouge", "Trainspotting", "Emma", "Down With Love"...I don't even need to get into his role as young Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Just, yumm....

iPhone

I'm already a multitasking monster with my Blackberry Curve, I'm sure I'd be positively dangerous with the iPhone.

Any day you can catch me on my Curve chatting on GoogleTalk, Yahoo Messenger or Blackberry Messenger. Or I'm taking video or photos and uploading them to Twitter and Plurk, checking and updating Twitter and Plurk, and updating my status on Facebook. Not to mention maintaining my life in Calendar, Tasks and Notes.

The one downside, of course, is figuring out how to transfer 3 years worth of Blackberry contacts into the iPhone? Anyone? Anyone?

Don't you think that if horse-drawn carriages existed, people would stop to smell the roses and enjoy life a bit more?

Unfortunately the only places where you can have a carriage ride nowadays are few and far between. The last place I indulged in this was in New York's Central Park. I am also told that downtown Indianapolis facilitates horse-drawn carriages.

A nice carriage ride through the park every Sunday afternoon would do people a world of good. Don't forget your parasol!

For myself, a quiet starer is much easier to ignore. With iPod pumping music to my ears, a good book and my Blackberry in hand, I can be in my own little world within seconds, like The Little Prince.

Dancefloor by Kylie Minogue

The lyrics say:

On the dancefloor
Gonna lose it in the music
On the dancefloor
Got my body gonna use it
On the dancefloor
The best that you never had but now you've lost me
So come on watch me getting over you

This girl is audacious enough to say "I was totally in love with you and gave it my all, but you've messed it up. So now watch me getting over you by having a great time and you will know what you've lost." The defiant attitude is fantastic.

No.
I hate it when it's said when I want to hear "yes".

Well...
It's the precursor to "No."

But...
It's synonymous with "No."

If a bear and a shark went mano a mano, I would have to say I'm putting my money on the bear. Or whatever Dwight Schrute says.

Crunchy Peanut Butter by the Spoonful

Peanut butter. Peanut Butter on whole wheat crackers, peanut butter on sliced apples, peanut butter on a slab of whole wheat bread. Peanut. Butter.

I am tired of seeing the schlubby dressers out there! Come on, get with it! Why can't we all go back to the era of men running around dressed like Cary Grant and Eva Marie-Saint in "North By Northwest"? In the workplace, I have seen people wear absolutely inappropriate things that reflect that they are not only unhappy with their jobs, they feel mediocre about themselves. Baggy, slouchy jeans, inappropriately bare tops, flipflops, et cetera, et cetera. And the women are usually much more guilty than the men are on the scale of inappropriateness! Unbelievable!

Sure, we can't all have Cary's chiseled face, and Eva's beautiful blue eyes or flaxen blonde hair, but beginning to dress like we can emulate the classiness they depicted both inside their characters and out can go a long way in terms of presenting ourselves in our real-life, daily worlds.

"Patience. All the best things in life can be ruined by jumping up and down throughout the process. And that's not just for cakes--it goes for men too." - from my BFF, Jonathon A Gbenekama.

"Whenever you're in doubt in a social situation, just ask yourself, what would Fred Astaire do?" - Gregory Nava, Director

Aric and I have decided we are definitely parallel to April Wheeler (Kate Winslet), the woman who tries like hell to fight the marginalising society pressures and dreams of a bigger life for herself and her family. Many times in the past I feel as if I have always done the right thing, the adult thing to do...and I get shifted aside anyhow. Watching her trying to deal with it all, and eventually succumb in a self-inflicted moment of insanity, it made sense. The film is sprinkled with very sparsely with dialogue, which lets our laconic heroine emote a million moments with one flash or her eyes, or one shake of her fragile wrist. Tragic, yes. But also inspiring, in the same way that Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) was inspiring in American Beauty.

All My Loving by The Beatles

This song is so fun, catchy and easy to sing. But I would prefer to pick up the harmony, if someone would please sing the main line.

The most bizarre gift I ever received was a New Kids on The Block beach towel, *years* after they had been big, had their 15 months of fame, and then faded into obscurity. It was not near a birthday, or near a gifting holiday, like Christmas. It just was. This horrendously ugly, neon-colored NKOTB beach towel.

It was from an older female relative, who had mistakenly assumed that all young girls of that age would want this absurdly gaudy beach towel. Wow. It was about 2 years too late.

Just the other day, this same relative, a decade and a half later, handed me a pink-colored Lladró knock-off ceramic of a woman holding her baby in her arms. Again, nowhere near a birthday, or near a gifting holiday, like Christmas. This time, I gave her a big hug and tried to rectify the silence I presented her with when I received the NKOTB towel and said, "Wow, cute! Thanks!"

I suppose the times may change, but a bizarre gifter never does! :)

I don't know why, but this is one place I never made it when I was living overseas, and I truly regret it, deep down in the pit of my travelbug heart.

Amsterdam, meh. I didn't care that I missed out on a red light district and decriminalized hash in their coffee shops. Poland and Austria, hmm. They just didn't seem exotic enough to me after living in Germany for so many years.

But Ireland, wow. I fully expect to get lost wandering some cobbled streets and meet my husband. (Well, it would probably be more like: I'm inebriated on my favorite, favorite, Guinness, in some pub, and he's some bloke on a stool near me....hee hee.)

I need to see how green it is. I need to drink a *real* Black & Tan. I need to see the land of Cecelia Ahern, Frank McCourt and James Joyce, et cetera, et cetera.

There's a lot I need to do.

I stopped it because, quite truthfully, I discovered Hulu.com a few months back. It's difficult to battle Hulu.com with a book, as amazing as this book is. I will go back to it once I get out of this phase.

There's Gotta Be More To Life by Stacie Orrico

Oh GOD this song is seriously cheesetastic, but I love it nonetheless. It's great for running to at the gym.

It's the ultimate Los Angeles outdoor venue...glass of wine, some brie, a baguette, and you're set.

Here I Go Again by Whitesnake

It just is.