"no man is an island, but this woman is"

One of my favorite television shows of all time is "Gilmore Girls."  I actually own all 7 seasons on dvd (the only tv show that I actually own), and decided a while ago to watch them all through in order.  When I moved to Virginia almost three years ago, I started from episode one.  I have at last made it to the final season, and I think I'm on track to finish it before B gets back and we move.

I love the witty, intelligent, fast-paced humor of the show, and I think every fan has a love/hate relationship with the character of over-achiever Paris Geller.  But whichever side of the fence you're currently standing on, you gotta admit that she has some GREAT lines.  Something about the combination of sarcasm, condescension, and impeccable timing really grows on you after a while.  Everything out of her mouth is said with such severity that it can only be comical yet always possesses a large chunk of truth lurking behind it.  The actress who played her (Liza Weil) actually auditioned for the part of Rory, but she didn't get it.  Instead, they wrote the part of Paris for her, which I must admit is a pretty awesome form of flattery.

Here are a few of my favorite Paris Geller quotes (in addition to the title of this post):

"You don't fall in love with people that make you want to crap your pants."

"Well, how nice it must be to be you. Maybe someday I'll stumble into a Disney movie and suddenly be transported into your body, and after living there for a while I'll finally realize the beauty in myself. "

"Hey, you know, not everybody can be smart. As my mother always says, 'somebody has to answer the phones.'"

"If you need love, get a hooker. If you're having a bad day, find a ledge or a way to deal."

"I can't even read my own handwriting. What does this say? Whoever wrote this should be dressed in a clown suit stuffing bodies under their porch!"

"I can scare the stupid out of you, but the lazy runs deep."

ode to the airblade

When I traveled around the U.K. back in May, I got to experience first-hand (literally, in this case) the newest and best restroom hand dryer in the world. This even beats paper towels.  Ladies and gents, I present to you the Dyson Airblade!

To use it, you basically move your hands up and down for about 10 seconds (like in this video), and when you walk away, your hands are pretty much completely dry.  No wiping your hands on your jeans afterwards, no water dripping up to your elbow. 

I don't know what took so long for the laws of gravity to incorporated into the act of drying your hands, but it's good to be living in the third millennium now that the engineers have figured it out.   It also apparently uses up to 80% less energy than other dryers, and it's pretty hygienic.  Also, the "blade" of air is not nearly as painful as those super-powerful (and super-loud) XLERATOR dryers.  I always feel like I'm gonna get blown into the next town over when I use those.

I'd mostly seen these in Edinburgh and London, but if you'll be around D.C., they have them in the Museum of the American Indian restrooms.  I even made it a point to show my mom when we were there.  Not sure she was as impressed . . . maybe I'm the only one that gets excited about washing and drying my hands.

Can you imagine what the future might look like if we adapted this type of thing to our household drying situations?  No more need for bathroom towels, just stand in this contraption for 10 seconds and you're done!  Or what about as a hair dryer or used in your dishwasher?  The future is simply dripping with possibilities!

Has anyone else out there had the privilege to experience the wonderful Airblade?  Whaddaya think?

he's singing this song for you

This past week, I got to do something amazing.  And not only did I get to do this amazing thing once, I got to do it AGAIN the next day.  Yes, I had the chance see and to hear the angelic voice of Michael Bublé in concert not once, but TWICE.

NOTE: This post may have some "spoilers" - so if you have tickets to his show and want to be surprised, check back later to read my review!

Basically, I entered a contest to win good seats online sponsored by Nordstrom, and to up my chances I entered for both Norfolk and Richmond.  Well, holy smokes, I won the Richmond tickets!  My friend Charlene and I had already bought "cheap seats" (Row Z, of course) tickets to the Norfolk one, which pretty much sold out two days after they went on sale.  Here are both of my tickets, and note the $0.00 above that FLR2 on the top one:

I will forever KICK MYSELF for not bringing my camera to the Richmond night.  We were in the 11th row!  Amazingly close.  I'm pretty sure that the last time I was that close at a concert, I was getting pushed around in a mosh pit by my fellow high school sophomores.  When we got to our floor seats, there was a middle-aged couple sitting next to us, and the man asked my friend Monica and I if we were gonna hoot and holler and scream when MB came on stage.  "No," I replied, "but I just might throw my panties."  His wife got quite a kick out of one of my best-timed one-liners ever.  (Note:  I did NOT actually throw my panties, but I probably could have.)

The concert started out with this FABULOUS opening act called Naturally 7.  I've seen a lot of a capella music performances in my day, but this blew them all out of the water.  They mimicked instruments flawlessly (even an electric guitar), and they pretended like they were playing them, even going so far as giving the vocal percussionist his own drum stool.  My favorite was their "bassist" - his name is Hops, and he is super skinny with a ridiculously deep voice.  He's on the far right in this shot:

As for Mr. Bublé's set . . . whew.  Well first, let me go back in time and tell you about when I started listening to this boy sing.  I was in my last semester of college, the year was 2006, and I was taking a class called Voice for the Non-Major.  It was a great class for "recreational" singers like myself.  And in that class, the professor would often play a song or two by a famous or sorta-famous singer, and then he'd have us discuss what makes that singer good and what sets them apart.  One day, he played some MB, I believe it was his cover of "Moondance" (which ended up being me and B's first dance at our wedding, btw), and what I really recall from the discussion is the fact that you can hear his PASSION through his voice.  I know that all my past choir teachers had emphasized emotion, but I never realized just how well it could be done until that day.

And that passion that I heard through the speakers of the class stereo came through ten-fold at a concert with him there live.  I guess if you were to classify him, he's a jazz singer, and he had all those fun jazz moves and a great band.  He slid down his sloped stage, he twirled his microphone, and he gave witty commentary in an accent that I can only describe as "Old Hollywood."

  And his stage looked pretty cool, too.

 One thing I really like about MB and his concerts (or "parties" as he tells the audience to think of them) is the multi-generational appeal.  Gals my age were there with their mothers, ladies could take their husbands, and at the Richmond show, a 20-something guy two rows in front of us even proposed to his girlfriend during an adorable love song called "Everything."  You just don't get that at a Hannah Montana concert, folks.

I wonder if my husband would look that good in a suit with a skinny tie?

 As any of his fans can tell you, MB just seems like that boy-next-door kind of likable guy.  I loved the excitement he has for his band.  He goes through and introduces each member to us, saying insanely funny things about each guy that are hopefully untrue for the most part.  And for being such good sports, MB gives us a chance to just hear what they can do.  Here he is enjoying a solo from his trumpeter:

A real crowd-pleasing part of the evening is when he comes out into the audience, accompanied by our new friends Naturally 7 (they back him on one of the tracks on his Crazy Love album).  He involves the entire audience in the singing of his biggest hit "Home" - a song with which I have had quite the interesting relationship.  That song got a lot of radio play during that spring of 2006 time that I first heard of MB.  During that class discussion, I remember one of my classmates explaining that he also sings the song "Home" (which I had already heard but hadn't cared for much).  I still didn't like it--it wasn't in his jazz style, it was too sappy for me, I couldn't dance to it, and I really didn't relate. 

Fast forward two years to Summer of 2008, and there I am in my car, crying to this song, thinking about my Navy boyfriend who had been deployed for three months with many more to go.  I ended up including it on my "Deployment 2008" mix CD, and have appreciated the song so much since.  I'm sure the Norfolk concert was chock-full of current and former Navy spouses, and I hope Michael and his band know just how much that song has probably meant to every single one of us.  It was definitely a more emotional experience in Norfolk than Richmond.

 Me and Charlene, both wives of deployed submariners!

For those of you who think MB will be singing you to sleep every night as your future husband, I have some bad news.  He's actually engaged to this Argentinian bombshell.  Oh well, maybe Hops is single for ya.

Each night, Michael Bublé sang his pipes off for two glorious hours, and we're all left wondering how he can even squeak a word out the next day.  And how could listening to his silky-smooth, clear, and passionate voice be anything less than awe-inspiring?  I think my personal highlight is how he ended the night - his un-miked voice, nothing else, filling the entire arena.  It'll give ya chills, folks.  So nice I loved it twice!

And even though he dropped an F-bomb (or two), he's still a class act to me.