The straw that broke the camel's back

Before I get to the story, in this scenario, yes, I AM the camel. Just so we're clear...Mmmmkay?

As most of my faithful readers know (all 5 of you), DJC and I have the most ridiculous neighbors EVAR. They live on all sides of us; below, to the left and to the right. They do some of the most insane things I've ever seen humans do. A while back, I had a conversation with an old friend about some of the recent neighborly antics and he urged me to do a blog post about them. But instead of ranting on and on about how I almost lose my mind on a daily basis (because really, these people get me pretty heated), I chose to just not pay as much attention to the comically lame goings on...until today.

So, since I've already started down the road of ridicule, I may as well give you all the whole picture. Here are some choice events that have taken place over the months...

-The downstairs neighbors have two fat male children. They hoot and holler at all hours of the day and night. No, really...they actually hoot like animals. They also like to slam each other off of the walls while grunting and carrying on. Sometimes, I wake thinking that they've gotten a new pet orangutan. Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.

-The neighbors to our left don't really have much to do during the days. Every so often the man will get into his car in the driveway, sit there and absolutely fucking REV his engine for all its worth for three to five minutes. In case you didn't catch that, he sits there with the car in park and puts his foot on the accelerator, guns the shit out of it, and doesn't let it up for three to five minutes. After he's satisfied, he gets out of the car and goes back into his house. I've also observed this guy lift the hood of the car and then point his leaf blower cranked to full power at the car's motor for the same period of time. Not sure why. Straight up bizarre.

-Recently, the city decided it was going to cut large chunks in the street in front of our houses, make a bunch of noise, create some of the most interesting detours ever, kick up a lot of dust, and then fix those large chunks a few days later. Not exactly sure what the purpose of all the construction was other than to completely inconvenience everyone on the street. One morning at approximately 8am, the city decided to start re-paving. Immediately after they began their work, a neighbor's car alarm went off. I heard the tell-tall "beep beep" of someone turning the alarm off, and then the "beep" of re-setting the alarm. Not two minutes later, the alarm went off again. By this point, I was looking out the window in the general direction of the commotion. I watched the neighbor walk outside and re-set the alarm. Not two minutes later IT WENT OFF AGAIN. She walked outside and re-set it a third time. You get the picture...wash, rinse, repeat. It went on like this for a total of 5 times before she gave up and just left the alarm off. My god.

-The neighbors to our right sometimes have loud dinner parties...at 3am...with every light in the house turned on. But those are pretty rare. Plus, they have a cute dog that looks up at me when I blow kisses at him, so we'll let them slide.

But none of these things were so offensive that I had to write about them. Annoying, yes. Puzzling, certainly. But whatever. What pushed me over the edge into complain-land was today's incident. Read on...

-As I was studying for my physiology lab exam this morning, I heard the "beep beep" of the alarm for downstairs neighbor's silver Toyota Highlander (note: when they got this particular car, the bumper was missing a significant amount of paint. No problem, though...that's what spray paint's for!). Despite hearing the man, who we call Big Tobacco because we've never seen him without a cigarette hanging from his lips, walk out onto the back deck, I just figured that they were leaving and paid no more attention. But the beeping continued...on and off, on and off, on and off...for FIFTEEN MINUTES! I looked and sure enough, Big Tobacco was just standing on the deck clicking the alarm remote incessantly. I have no idea why. When I came home later in the day, he was at it again, although not for as long. But seriously, WTF?!

So EMcK and everyone else, there you have it. I have finally had enough. My neighbors are clearly some of the strangest people on the planet. The stories might seem funny to you, but its only because you don't have to live near my weirdo neighbors. Still, reading back over them, I have to laugh. I mean, seriously, who can be that freaking out there?!

Figure skating originality FAIL

Here I am, sitting on my new couch, dressed in fleece, sweats and Uggs, eating a chocolate croissant and ready to catch up on several days' worth of DVRed goodness. So many trashy shows to watch! Whatever will I choose first?!

But alas, I made the mistake of checking to see what else was on TV before diving in. And I found a figure skating competition. Its a little known fact that I am an absolute SUCKER for figure skating. And with the 2010 Winter Olympics right around the corner, there's a ton of figure skating to be had on TV these days. Cool! But as the top female Russian competitor took the ice, I became frustrated. Here's the thing:

There's a world FULL of amazing music out there. Why must every freaking female skater for the last 20+ years use Bizet's "Carmen"?! I mean, seriously. There are only so many ways it can be done, and no one can really do it better than Katerina Witt in the 1988 Olympics:

I think the ice skating code of points should be officially revised to ban "Carmen" from ever being used again in any competition. My god. Since Witt's gold medal performance, anyone and everyone has tried to re-capture her magic. Its just soooooooooooo painfully overused! Hell, Beyonce even starred in an MTV atrocity of pop-culture called "Carmen: A Hip-Hopera". This stratospherically bad display of horseshit also starred Lil' Bow Wow. Based on that fact alone, the graceful, elegant sport of figure skating should shun "Carmen" from competition use forever and ever, amen.

That's all. I'm done ranting now. I just wish skaters didn't play it safe with such an unoriginal, yet beautiful, piece of music. Taking the easy way out never pays off. Pick some different music, for crying out loud.

Excuses, excuses...

There's a ton of things going on right now and I wish I had time to write them all down, but the reality is that I just don't. I feel bad about letting my blog fall by the wayside, but that's just how its gotta be for now. I apologize for the lack of posts and stories. I do have some good ones that I will get to eventually...promise. And if I'm not mistaken, I owe you all two more installments of gorgeous California pictures. One of these days when things calm down a bit...

Night photography

Take one full moon, add two people who are mesmerized by the light of said moon, one Sony H1 camera on manual mode, an amazing sky full of light, whispy clouds and this is what you get:


If the night could have had a soundtrack playing, this would have been it..."The moon and the stars were the gifts you gave..."

And then, the street with a few cars coming by...

So cool...

T Minus 364 days...

DJC and I will be married exactly one year from yesterday. We were a bit concerned with how the weather might be so late into October, but if yesterday's weather is any indication, we've got nothing to worry about. It was gorgeous. Warm, sunny, lovely. Perfect for our outdoor ceremony. It's all so exciting.

Speaking of exciting, I recently went for my first wedding dress appointment. My mother and my sister came with me, which was good because I was a little freaked out. I am not a size 6...hell, I'm not even a size 10, and I was a pretty worried that I would have a difficult time finding a dress that fit. I'm VERY broad through the shoulders, chest and back and I knew that these features would present some issues when trying things on. And I wasn't wrong. Basically, I will have to find a dress that fits my upper body and tailor the ever-living hell out of it to fit my hips and waist. As Evelyn, my consultant, said in her heavy Russian accent, "You are all boobs. No butt. All boobs". Yep. That pretty much sums it up. Needless to say, a strapless dress wasn't going to work. Straps were needed...and quickly.

However, despite all of the challenges, I did manage to find four dresses that I am in love with. Unfortunately, the salon I went to last week didn't have five out of the six dresses I found on their website and wanted to try on. Luckily for me, though, my friend MC's adorable wife is THRILLED about helping me find a dress and has offered to join me for an appointment at a salon in the South Bay (secretly, I think she's just thrilled that MC has a female friend). They carry the same designers as the previous salon, so perhaps I will have more luck finding the remaining 5 dresses that I want to try on. I honestly can't make a decision until I can try those last ones on. But my goodness, this whole thing is overwhelming! And despite my worries, it was also a lot of fun. My mother and sister were very honest, but not brutal. I can't wait to go through the whole process again with JAC.

My parents are moving to Florida in about two weeks, so I am doing my best to do as much wedding-related stuff with my mom as I can before she departs. I can't believe I'm going to have to do the bulk of the wedding planning without her here...but plenty of people do things all by themselves, so I shouldn't whine too much. But still, it'd be nice to have my mom here. Oh well.

This whole wedding thing is crazy and fun and totally daunting. But I'm starting to enjoy it...finally. =)

An open letter to Bay Area radio stations

Dear Live 105, 104.5 KFOG, and 106.1 KMEL,

Due to some sort of electrical glitch in my car stereo, yours are the only radio stations I am able to listen to. Hence, I've heard every song you all seem to play in an hour long rotation every time I drive to or from classes. I've had it with the repetition and the lack of playlist imagination. I'm prepared to bail on you once and for all if my demands are not met. Here's what I want:

*Live 105: Please do not play the following Sublime songs ever again: "Santeria", "What I Got", "Caress me Down", Wrong Way" or "Doin' Time" ever again. The last song in that list is especially out of place seeing as that its now almost November and clearly not summer time when the livin's easy. I mean, c'mon...Sublime was a most excellent band and they had WAY better tunes that these. Finding a few shouldn't be all that difficult, if you actually tried...or cared.

*And while you're at it, Guns N' Roses and Metallica DO NOT belong on the same station as Death Cab for Cutie, The Cure and Weezer. Seriously, pick one genre and stick with it! Are you an alternative station that plays cutting edge modern rock or a station that will mix in the redneck stuff just for variety?

*KFOG, this one's for you, but not exclusively because Live 105 is guilty as well...PLEASE, for the love of decent music, can ya'll retire the Bob Marley songs already? You may ask yourself, has anyone made ANY respectable reggae since Bob Marley? The answer is probably, however you all seem to think that Bob is the end-all be-all of this annoying genre of music and play the same five songs over and over and over. Again, Bob had quite an extensive repertoire...dig a little and give "Three Little Birds" and "Buffalo Soldier" a freaking rest! Oh and Live 105, you can also retire Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock". If I hear the lyrics "Out in the street/they call it murrrrrrrrrrrder" one more time, I might lose it.

*A number of artists have covered Bob Marley songs over the years. One that comes to mind is Annie Lennox, who did a lovely cover of "Waiting in Vain". It really doesn't sound a whole lot like the original because Miss Lennox was smart enough to cut the reggae beat out of it. Perhaps this is why I enjoy this song so much. Anyways, there's a ton of stuff like this out there. Look, mmmmkay.

*Alright KMEL, you're up. As the best choice for hip hop and R&B in the Bay Area, I PLEAD with you never to play "LOL Smiley Face" by Trey Songz again. The lyrics are astoundingly asinine: "Shorty sent a TwitPic/Said come get this/L-O-L smiley face, L-O-L smiley face". The first time I heard this song I had to wonder whose fucking idea was it to actually produce this piece of shit? I can't believe someone at Atlantic Records didn't slap Trey Songz upside his fool head when he pitched this idea to them. Its quite literally the LAMEST song I have ever heard. The previous owner of this title: "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. I didn't think it could get worse than that...but I should know better. It can always get worse. Fuck me.

* And while we're talking about crap, what exactly is an "Ice cream paint job" anyways? God, has hip hop really been reduced to this kind of suckage!? Can't you all just replay some old Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul? Somewhere, Tupac and Biggie are rolling over in their graves.

* Overall, all of you, PLEASE try to expand your playlists. There was a time where I was in the car between 5 and 5:30pm daily. I knew that I could hear "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters on Live 105, "Jackie and Diane" (Really!?! How is this still on the air?!) on KFOG and "Here I Am" by Rick Ross on KMEL. EVERY DAY. The same songs at the same time. It went on like this for about a month. The complete lack of interest in actually playing something different or effort on the part of the "DJs" was not lost on me. There's SO much music out there in your respective genres. Please try to broaden your horizons and play something not so common and sucky and expected. Or else.

Love,

The Enforcer

Sometimes, my commute doesn't suck all that much

I was on my way home from class today, angry that I could have gotten an extra nine points on my most recent exam had I only given my answers in the correct units (damn it!), when it started to rain. "Big whoop," I thought. It had been raining all day. At times, the ferocity of the downpour was such that seeing through the windshield became difficult.

But on the way home, the sun broke through the thick grayness while the rain came down steadily creating a gorgeous full rainbow. Luckily, I glanced over, smiled, and then immediately grabbed my camera. Note that I took the pic through my window which was covered in rain drops. If you look closely, the beginning of a second rainbow is there, too. Pretty cool. It definitely snapped me out of my angry funk. Suddenly, sitting in traffic wasn't so bad.

Good thing I always carry my camera with me...

The carnage

The Bay Area experienced its first good storm of the season today. It was a doozie, for sure. This picture was taken right down the street from my house. Even though it blocked nearly four lanes of traffic, the huge tree thankfully missed all the power lines and more importantly, the Comcast lines.

You see, I seem to have picked up a nasty little cold and all I wanted to do after physiology lab was curl up under a blanket and spend some quality time with the DVR. When I saw the tree, I panicked a tad. But all was well with the cable. Wish all was well with me...

See you all soon. *sniffle...sneeze*

Early lessons learned...

After a little searching, a lot of worry and a metric F*CKTON of stress, DJC and I have booked a venue and set a date for our wedding. Believe me when I say that this was no easy feat. And its a HUGE relief to have that very large hurdle taken care of. I've honestly never been so stressed out by something in my life...not by midterms and finals, certification exams, car accidents, money issues, parental sicknesses, etc. When faced with the task of finding the perfect venue that would allow for the things that DJC and I want, I quite literally became sick to my stomach. More than once, I verbally said that I didn't want to do all this...I wanted very much to marry DJC, but I became nauseated at the thought of planning it all out. City Hall would have worked just fine. Everyone kept telling me how much fun I should be having, but I just felt ill and overwhelmed.

Single ladies, take note: No matter where you are in your relationship, its never to early to start thinking about what your ideal wedding would be like. I think part of my problem stemmed from the fact that I didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted in terms of a venue, or anything else for that matter. It should be easy, right? Girls think about this type of thing all the time. I know some ladies who have every single detail planned, and they're not even in a relationship. For them, I can imagine that settling on a venue, caterer, dress, etc, would be a breeze. But for me, someone who thought she'd never be getting married EVER, I haven't actually spent any time thinking about what I wanted. And thus, choosing a venue became a huge stress for me.

I haven't started shopping for a dress yet, but again, I find myself in the same boat. I have no clear idea what I want. The only thing I do know is that my dress will not be white, ivory, cream, eggshell, or anything resembling those colors. But as far as silhouette goes, I'm totally clueless. I faithfully watch TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress", but all of those dresses are so over the top and *totally* out of my price range. The only thing I've seen on that show that I really dig is this, and talk about over the top...sheesh! Perhaps I should start looking at dresses, or at least start thinking about how I would like to look on the big day...

The take home message here is that its always better to have a game plan when taking on a new endeavor. I had no idea what I was up against with this whole wedding thing and I'm just starting out! I know it should be fun, and I'm sure it will be at some point. But for right now, I'm just going to enjoy the relaxation that comes from knowing that we've got a venue and a date locked up. Onward...

Monkey see...

Major dork-out warning. Read on if you want to get your nerd on...

When I registered for physiology this semester I thought to myself, "How much could have changed from when I took it during my undergrad days?". BTW, that was in the late 90s. The answer is, of course, LOTS. Some of the things that happen within the human body remain largely a mystery with new discoveries being made all the time. Naturally, there's plenty that I didn't learn back in the day.

During the neurological unit, the professor presented a short video about mirror neurons which was especially interesting for those of us in the class who play sports or dance. The basic idea is that the more athletic ability you have, the more you enjoy watching sports and the more you emotionally invested you get. Watching the sporting activity or dance produces the same neurological response as if you were doing those actions yourself.

Mirror neurons are located in the premotor cortex of the inferior parietal lobe of the brain. Recall that the parietal lobe plays a role in coordinating the body's motions and integrating sensory information. The video presented a study with individuals doing certain simple physical tasks, such as opening closing one's hand. EEG data shows that the area where mirror neurons are located fired strongly. Then, the same subjects watched a video of the same task. EEG data showed the exact same area of the brain fired strongly again, leading researchers to conclude that, as far as this area of the brain is concerned, watching the activity is the same as doing it.

Of course, this finding has implications that reach into a great many fields. One such field is childhood development. Current research is looking into how infants learn and understand actions from simply watching them. If you think about it, this makes sense. I know that I've successfully gotten more than one baby to clap his or her hands after demonstrating how its done a few times.

The mirror system has also been linked to empathy, emotions and intentions (or goals). Studies have been done on autistic individuals that have showed that the mirror neurons do not fire as strongly in autistic individuals, either when they are performing the task or watching it. They are able to imitate the action, but don't understand why they're doing it. Anatomically, these individuals have thinner regions of mirror neurons, leading researchers to suggest that perhaps autism is caused by a lack of mirror neurons, thereby leading to deficits in social skills, emotions, empathy and understanding the goal of various actions.

Basically, what all this means for me is that because I am a fairly athletic individual, I understand the goals of sports and dance, and therefore become more emotionally invested. My mirror neuron system is responsible for this link between action and emotion. This is why I get so mushy gushy when I watch ballet or why I find certain sports (OK, all sports) so interesting and entertaining. Chances are, if you played sports at some point or possess a fair amount of athletic ability, you like watching other people play sports, too. Suddenly, it all makes sense. Fascinating.