Double Movie Monday

I had Monday off due to the New Year's holiday... and boy did I make the most of my day off!

The first thing I had to tackle before I did anything else: clean my messy-as-hell room. I mean, just look how disgraceful this is.



I don't know why I have such a hard time keeping my room at home neat. I did a good job while I was living in California. But it was like the second I started living at home again, nothing made it back into the closet.

Instead, it ended up on my papason chair.

Or the floor.

I turned my Netflix on to some Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Swedish version) and got to tidying.

Cleaning up my room pretty much took all morning. But doesn't the end result look so fabulous!!!


Let's see how long it stays like that. Although, I do remember making a New Year's Resolution saying that I would clean my room every weekend. That seems like an easy enough resolution to keep, right?

I continued my cleaning streak and cleared out my purse and wallet. Man I had a ton of crap in there. No wonder it weighed a gagillion pounds.

After clearing my wallet of old receipts and useless gift cards, it can actually close. Hooray!

I ate a really basic and raw lunch, since I was still feeling some of the affects of my ginormous bacon bleu cheese burger from Sunday. I just wanted to eat something and know exactly what I was putting in my body.

Good, clean, simple.

After lunch, I showered quickly because my parents and I were heading to the movies. The three of us were going to see the latest Mission Impossible flick, but the my dad and I were going to stay and see the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Woohoo for movie double headers!

Mission Impossible was really good, definitely one of the better MI movies. I was on the edge of my seat for the entire last hour of the movie. My mom thought that I was afraid and kept reassuring me that the good guys (played Tom Cruise, Hurt Locker guy, Robin Thicke's wife, and the funny ginger from Shaun of the Dead) would ultimately prevail.

Somehow I don't think he's going to fall to his death.

Obviously I knew that. I'm not an idiot. I was just anxious about how they were going to pull all their spy shit off. So intense!

Another thing that made the movie more intense was when the power just randomly shut off in our theater. It was like someone turned off the movie screen and there was no more movie.

But only for about five minutes. The movie came back on...just with no sound. One guy in the audience decided to add his own sound effects, since we couldn't hear anything. It was pretty amusing.

And then the sound turned back on and all was well with the world.

After MI:4, my dad and I parted ways with my mom and headed to Qdoba to get some din before GWTDT started. I thought my best bet would be to get a salad, but a burrito just sounded so damn good.

We both ended up getting the vegetarian burrito with no rice (only because so effing much of it on there). I got mine with a wheat tortilla and some guacamole (because it's delicious).

I smuggled both burritos and two bottles of water into the movie theater. Contraband! Luckily, the theater's bag Nazi wasn't out there checking everyone's bags with her shrively Nazi hands. I scarfed down my huge burrito until the movie previews started.

The previews were basically the same as the previews before MI:4. I mean, how many times can I see a preview for The Grey in a day?

This guy does not look like he's f*cking around

Luckily, this round of previews also showed the preview for the Hunger Games movie, which looks amazing! So pumped!

Finally it was movie time, and thankfully there were no more unwelcome power outages.

I have to say that I really liked Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I wasn't really blown away by it (although it was nice to not have to read subtitles the whole time). Obviously it had great acting, great directing and all that jazz. It's a Fincher film for God's sake. I just think it lacked something that the Swedish original had (blardah, bleeduh blur?). I think the original had a darker quality while the American version was a little too Hollywood.

Is it just me, or does she look like Johnny Weir?

I will say that I do prefer Daniel Craig as my Mikael Bloomquist, and not because he is way handsomer than the Swedish version's Mikael Nyquist (who played the villain in MI:4, so there was that). I thought Craig did a great job in the movie, though I couldn't really tell whether he was trying for a Swedish accent or a subdued British accent. Whatever, he's still hot.

As for "The Girl", I like Noomi Rapace in the original over Rooney Mara. Mara was just...too pretty (even with the lack of eyebrows) to be the ass-kicking, don't-give-a-f*ck Lisbeth Salander. Noomi Rapace literally looks like she could kill you with her bare hands.

I am afraid of her

All in all, it was a successful day at the movies. Now there's only like a million other movies out that I want to see, yet don't have the time or the funds. Movie tickets are fricking expensive, man!

Lunchbox Laboratory

How was everyone's New Year's Eve? Awesome?

Mine was spent at work, which was not awesome but awesome at the same time.

It wasn't awesome because instead of working my usual 3-11pm shift and then getting the eff out of there, I had to stay until after 12:30 am so that I could help tape the overnight show after the whole fireworks show at the Needle. No one told me that before I left for my weekend on Wednesday, so needless to say, I was a little (a lot) annoyed. Although, it's not like I had any hot NYE plans. There was no hot guy waiting to kiss me at the stroke of midnight. Sad face.

However, me staying later at work was awesome because I got to have a front row seat of the Space Needle fireworks extravaganza from the roof of my building.


So freaking cool! There were a lot of King employees up there that weren't necessarily working on New Year's Eve, but wanted an uncrowded place to watch the fireworks. Smart move. Plus they got to park for free in our lot. I'm stealing that idea next year...if we make it that far. F*cking Mayans.

I watched outside for a few minutes, but watching a bunch of fireworks without musical accompaniment is kind of lame. So I went back inside and watched the rest on the monitor.

I'm not gonna lie, I think that NYE fireworks pale in comparison to Fourth of July fireworks. I mean, why is that the fourth gets all the cool-shaped ones, like the smiley-faced fireworks, while NYE doesn't?

I think it's because the Fourth of July is just an America thing (because America is awesome), while New Year's Eve is happening all fricking day. Literally, from like 5 in the morning, all we see is celebrations and parties from around the world. Once we get to the West Coast, everyone's kind of over it. There's really no reason to go all out.

Not to mention most people are shit-faced by the time midnight rolls around, so they really don't care.

I ended up getting home a little after 1am on New Years Day and pretty much face-planted into bed. Long day, indeed.

I got up seven hours later so I could go to the gym before meeting my cousins Kristin and Jessica for a noon lunch in Seattle.

After eating breakfast, I thought it would be a good time to make my lunch and dinner for work on Monday. The Sunday and Monday workdays are really tough because by the time I get off at 11 on Sunday, I pretty much have to go home and get to bed so I can get up early the next morning to go to the gym and go to work. So if I don't manage to get my Monday meals ready before I go to work on Sunday, I'm screwed.

I made what I thought was a pretty balanced and nutritious lunch and dinner, plus some snack, that incorporated some of the food resolutions I made yesterday. I was really proud of myself.

Then, as I was putting on my gym clothes, I remembered that I didn't have to go to work tomorrow because of the company-observed New Years holiday. Well, shit. I could have taken that time to clean my room, which really needs to happen. At least I'm ahead of the curve.

By the time I got my lazy ass to the gym, I really only had time to run a single mile. But hey, it's better than nothing!

I was totally expecting the gym to be packed with people who made those ubiquitous "get fit" resolutions. But when I got there, the place was a ghost town. There were literally five people in the entire three story gym. Tisk, tisk people.

I did a quick warm-up and then tried to really push it for the mile. According to my watch, I finished the mile in 8:39...which by the way is the fastest I've run a mile since probably junior high. According to the treadmill I was on, I finished the mile in 9:45. Yeah, I'm gonna go with the watch.

I raced home, took a shower and got all beautiful before making my way to lunch. I was meeting Kristin and Jess at the Lunchbox Laboratory in South Lake Union, which oddly enough is six blocks from where I work.

I got there first and perused the menu. It was pretty much all burgers, which is fine. I then saw that you could substitute any beef-patty with a healthier bean patty. Now, I haven't have a legit restaurant-style bean burger since I was in Scotland (Wannaburger!), so I was ready to pounce on that bean patty. The hard thing was trying to pick a burger to put my beany patty on.

Jess and Kristin got there and we analyzed the menu until we picked what we wanted. I got the "Bleu Marble" burger, which came with the bean patty, bacon, bleu cheese crumbles, sauteed onions and sweet chili mayo.

We also ordered the $3 mimosas that were on the menu. Although, instead of using regular orange juice like a sane person, they used Tang to mix with the champagne. I guess there's a reason why it cost $3.

Not like it mattered since the three of us ordered three rounds during the course of lunch.

When the waitress finally came with our burgers, our chins fell. They were fricking enormous! I mean...look at all that bacon!


Hoe. Lee. Shit.

I knew the burger came with bacon, but I didn't know it came with BACON! My arteries are screaming in pain as I write this. Now I just need to remember this moment the next time I think it's a good idea to bit into a really fatty meal. You're body will not like you very much.

Nothing better than starting a healthy new year with the fattiest meal imaginable. But whatever, I have the rest of the year to be healthy.

Each of us only managed to eat half our burgers, but that wasn't because they tasted like shit. They were so good. Those LBL burgers put Red Robin to shame...and no one even sang Happy Birthday to us!

After we sat there for about an hour and a half more, nursing our third mimosas, it was time for me to go to work and for them to go off and do whatever it was they were going to do.

Work today was pretty low-key, aside from the guy who thinks it's a good idea to shoot park rangers on their holiday. We watched Tony Romo suck it up between shows, which is always good.

Here's a wish to the Tim Tebow that I get out of working on time...or early if possible. Then I can sleep in, clean my room, and do some heavy cardio at the gym so I can get rid of my Lunchbox Laboratory baby.

But such a delicious baby it was.