Here's my New Mexico reflections blog entry:

places I went:

Kristina lives in Moriarty, so a lot of time was spent there.
Taos: Taos Pueblo, San Francisco de Asis Church (Ranchos de Taos)
Santuario de Chimayo
Nambe Falls Park (with a killer walk up to the falls)
Santa Fe
Albuquerque: Old Town Albuquerque, where I bought art and jewelry, and campus area, where I bought Putamayo CDs at Peacecraft, ate lunch at the Flying Star, enjoyed an independent bookstore, and later lunched at the Route 66 Diner
Jemez Springs, where I spent the night here.  We took a hike to see the waterfall, then caught a rehearsal concert put on by the kids.
Jemez State Monument
Coronado State Monument
Las Vegas, where we ate at the Spic and Span (the extreme amount of green chile on my chicken sopapilla just about killed me) and soaked our feet in the hot springs

I tried to eat as much green chile as I could; I had green chile enchiladas my first night there (El comedor de Anayas), an Albuquerque turkey sandwich (Route 66 Diner), and the killer chicken sopapilla (Spic and Span).

Monday night, Kristina made posole for us, with red chile as a topping. It was really good, but oh. my. god. so spicy.

It was great to spend time with Kristina and her new husband (whom I had only met once before). They really treated me like a special guest.

I was glad to get back to my own bed, in my somewhat clean apartment though. I don't think I'll fully recover from the trip til after the weekend.

Kristina wants me to move to Albuquerque, and I must admit it is very tempting. I love the area. The view of the mountains just blows my mind. I think I would enjoy living there, but I have to stay in Austin for a few more years, anyway. I made a promise to stay at my job for a few more years, so I will.
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if I didn't still harbor some stage fright. American Idol has raised the age limit to 28.

'American Idol' Sets Audition Dates

re: posting, although I won't have computer access on my vacation, I might do some audio blogging, so keep checking back.

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My results from a personality quiz I just paid half a mind to:

"Wackiness: 24/100
Rationality: 68/100
Constructiveness: 50/100
Leadership: 62/100


You are an SRDL--Sober Rational Destructive Leader. This makes you a mob boss. You are the ultimate alpha person and even your friends give you your space. You can't stand whiners, weaklings, schlemiels or schlemozzles. You don't make many jokes, but when you do, others laugh out loud. They must.

People often turn to you for advice, and wisely. You are calm in a crisis, cautious in a tempest, and attuned to even the finest details. Yours is the profile of a smart head for business and a dangerous enemy.

You have a natural knack for fashion and occupy a suit like a matinee idol. Your charisma is striking and without artifice. You are generous, thoughtful, and appreciate life's finer things.

Please don't kick my ass."

That'll teach me not to pay attention to my choices.

Thanks to Charlie.

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Mel, Leah and I caught "Anchorman" yesterday and it was so funny. My stomach hurt at one time from laughing so hard. The cast is great, and the cameos are terrific, but that Steve Carrell is who made me laugh the hardest. His character is just dumb as a post. The film is not high-brow comedy, but it isn't that stupid. It's just great. I normally wouldn't see a movie like "Anchorman", but that Will Ferrell - I'm just a fan, I guess.

When he was on Saturday Night Live, he was in my favorite running skits: the cheerleaders and the singing schoolteachers.

Anyway, I'd recommend seeing it. It isn't as great as "Elf", but it is pretty damn funny.

update: I just found this on NPR's site: NPR : The Joys of Will Ferrell. It's a neat discussion between Elvis Mitchell and Susan Stamberg about Ferrell and why he is worth watching in films.
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I can't believe some people. Eventually, gmail will be openly available, and I bet someone who paid for an invite will feel stupid.

***GOOGLE GMAIL INVITES + BONUS ORKUT INVITE***
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thanks to a Gauche:

1. Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly? Astaire
2. The Great Gatsby or The Sun Also Rises? neither
3. Count Basie or Duke Ellington? Ellington
4. Cats or dogs? dogs
5. Matisse or Picasso? Matisse
6. Yeats or Eliot? Eliot
7. Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin? Keaton
8. Flannery O'Connor or John Updike? Flannery
9. To Have and Have Not or Casablanca? THaHN
10. Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning? pass
11. The Who or the Stones? Stones
12. Philip Larkin or Sylvia Plath? Plath
13. Trollope or Dickens? Dickens
14. Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald? Ella, totally.
15. Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy? pass
16. The Moviegoer or The End of the Affair? pass
17. George Balanchine or Martha Graham? Graham
18. Hot dogs or hamburgers? pass
19. Letterman or Leno? What about Conan?
20. Wilco or Cat Power? pass
21. Verdi or Wagner? Verdi
22. Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn could act.
23. Bill Monroe or Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash
24. Kingsley or Martin Amis? pass
25. Robert Mitchum or Marlon Brando? Mitchum
26. Mark Morris or Twyla Tharp? pass
27. Vermeer or Rembrandt? Vermeer
28. Tchaikovsky or Chopin? Chopin
29. Red wine or white? pass
30. Noel Coward or Oscar Wilde? Wilde
31. Grosse Pointe Blank or High Fidelity? GPB
32. Shostakovich or Prokofiev? Prokofiev
33. Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev? pass
34. Constable or Turner? Turner?
35. The Searchers or Rio Bravo? pass
36. Comedy or tragedy? comedy
37. Fall or spring? fall
38. Manet or Monet? Monet
39. The Sopranos or The Simpsons? The Simpsons!!!
40. Rodgers and Hart or Gershwin and Gershwin? Gershwins
41. Joseph Conrad or Henry James? Henry James
42. Sunset or sunrise? sunset
43. Johnny Mercer or Cole Porter? Cole Porter
44. Mac or PC? Mac (she says as she types on her PC)
45. New York or Los Angeles? um, neither.
46. Partisan Review or Horizon? Horizon
47. Stax or Motown? Stax
48. Van Gogh or Gauguin? Van Gogh
49. Steely Dan or Elvis Costello? elvis c.
50. Reading a blog or reading a magazine? blog
51. John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier? Gielgud
52. Only the Lonely or Songs for Swingin’ Lovers? Only the Lonely
53. Chinatown or Bonnie and Clyde? BandC
54. Ghost World or Election? Ghost World
55. Minimalism or conceptual art? I have to choose?
56. Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny? daffy
57. Modernism or postmodernism? modernism
58. Batman or Spider-Man? spiderman
59. Emmylou Harris or Lucinda Williams? don't like either.
60. Johnson or Boswell? pass
61. Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf? Austen, completely.
62. The Honeymooners or The Dick Van Dyke Show? Dick van Dyke
63. An Eames chair or a Noguchi table? pass
64. Out of the Past or Double Indemnity? Double Indemnity
65. The Marriage of Figaro or Don Giovanni? Marriage of Figaro
66. Blue or green? Blue
67. A Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It? Midsummer Night's Dream
68. Ballet or opera? opera, totally.
69. Film or live theater? Film
70. Acoustic or electric? acoustic
71. North by Northwest or Vertigo? NbyN
72. Sargent or Whistler? Sargent
73. V.S. Naipaul or Milan Kundera? pass
74. The Music Man or Oklahoma? I can't choose!!
75. Sushi, yes or no? yes
76. The New Yorker under Ross or Shawn? no opinion
77. Tennessee Williams or Edward Albee? Williams
78. The Portrait of a Lady or The Wings of the Dove? Portrait of a Lady
79. Paul Taylor or Merce Cunningham? Merce, since he and Cage worked together.
80. Frank Lloyd Wright or Mies van der Rohe? Wright
81. Diana Krall or Norah Jones? UGH!!
82. Watercolor or pastel? pastel.
83. Bus or subway? subway
84. Stravinsky or Schoenberg? Schoenberg
85. Crunchy or smooth peanut butter? crunchy
86. Willa Cather or Theodore Dreiser? Cather
87. Schubert or Mozart? Mozart
88. The Fifties or the Twenties? Twenties
89. Huckleberry Finn or Moby-Dick? Huck Finn
90. Thomas Mann or James Joyce? pass
91. Lester Young or Coleman Hawkins? no opinion
92. Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman? Dickinson
93. Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill? Lincoln
94. Liz Phair or Aimee Mann? Aimee Mann
95. Italian or French cooking? Italian
96. Bach on piano or harpsichord? piano
97. Anchovies, yes or no? no
98. Short novels or long ones? short
99. Swing or bebop? swing
100. "The Last Judgment" or "The Last Supper"? Supper

Apparently my TCCI is 1.136, but I might have done the math wrong.

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I just spent a long time on google looking up people I went to high school with. I found out this girl, whose parties I once attended, married her high school boyfriend. That is just crazy. I never find out anything about myself when I google, because my name is shared by a random 19th Century author. I should really find something useful to do now.
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Angry Alien Productions, currently showing Titanic (re-enacted by bunnies). Just the music makes me want to scream out laughing.
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Last night I went to my first First Thursday. Mel, Leah and I met Jay at Guero's. We parked down at the Statesman and walked up to Guero's. It wasn't a bad walk, since it was shaded and there was a nice breeze. Once we met Jay, we had to wait almost an hour for a table (I'm not exaggerating), and that was because this girl let us have her place on the wait list, giving us her pager as she left. I hate to think how long the wait would have been if she hadn't done that. We got drinks while we waited and the margarita was great, but after the good walk and an early lunch, I could really feel it. I felt faint and stupid. Once we finally got a table (we stood while we waited), I could tell my legs weren't happy with me. The service was pretty good, and the spinach/mushroom enchiladas Mel and I shared were deliciosas. However - Leah's flautas were gross (the chicken was pummeled), and they charged Jay $0.65 for a tiny side of cheese for his beef tacos. My review - good food, but really not worth the wait. The great company made up for it though. By the time we had finished dinner, the shops we wanted to visit had closed.

For August - we plan to eat before we head out to S. Congress so we can actually do some shopping.

Although - by then I won't have any money left over from my New Mexico trip. Oh well!
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?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
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