The 2009 VMA Awards

Trying something new... gonna live blog my thoughts during the 2009 VMA's. Here we go:

The show is starting with a tribute to Michael Jackson. Madonna is introducing the tribute and talking about Michael's life, telling stories about her interactions with him. It's a sad beginning. The crowd is subdued. Madonna looks different, took me a minute to recognize her. Her speech is very touching, she looks like she has been crying. I am close to crying myself.

The entire place goes dark as Madonna finishes talking. On the jumbo screen various Michael Jackson video clips begin to play and live dancers appear on stage to recreate the dances wearing various outfits that are Michael's classic style. And then Janet hits the stage as Scream plays. The crowd is going nuts. Beyonce looks like she's meeting a celebrity for the first time when she spots Janet.

Now the show kicks off for real and Katy Perry sings "We Will Rock You" as Russell Brand rises up out of the stage wearing a top hat and looking sexy. Seriously, the guy is HOT. And the english accent just makes him hotter. He's wearing a version of a suit with "skinny pants" and I'm liking them. Of course now he's talking about the "sack of magic and wand" he keeps "tucked up in these delicious trousers" and Taylor Swift is looking seriously embarassed.

First award is up - Best Female Video. Shakira and Taylor Lautner (Jacob from Twilight) are presenting. They cut to show Lady Gaga in the audience and she is looking like a freak. Seriously. I'm embarassed for her. Anyway, she's up against Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson, Katy Perry & Pink. And the winner is... Taylor Swift. Was there ever any doubt? Nope. I am fairly sure she will win every award she's been nominated for tonight. My brother jokes around that Taylor Swift could easily take over the world and I completely believe him.
OMG, Kanye West just crashed the stage and stole the mic from Taylor in the middle of her speech to say that he believes Beyonce had the best music video. That was the most douchebag thing I've ever seen. I already knew the man was a major asshole. He has always managed to make a scene at awards shows. But to take somebody else's moment in a category that has nothing to do with him is worse than him just being a dick about not winning one he was nominated for. I love the guys music but I don't think it's worth listening to anymore. He's proved on multiple ocasions that he's not deserving of any respect. Taylor didn't even finish her speech. She just looked so mortified. I feel bad for both her and Beyonce that this happened. What a way to start the show.

After the break, Russell Brand reminds everyone that "we are here to love each other in Michael Jackson's honor". He is referring to the Kanye scene, but doesn't bring any special attention to it by addressing it directly.

Up next, the award for Best Rock Video and Jack Black comes on stage with huge fake muscled arm and a tshirt that says Brutal Legend. Green Day takes the award away from Coldplay, Fall Out Boy, Kings of Leon & Paramore.

Next up is Taylor Swift perfoming live from the subway and then coming out onto the street in front of Radio City Music Hall. I believe this performance was pre-recorded, so there's no evidence of her trouble with Kanye a few moments ago. Next performance after the break is Lady Gaga. This chick is weird. Very weird. And one of her male dancers is wearing a lace thong over his face. But I like her music and even though it's not my normal taste in performances, there's no doubt that it is entertaining. She even began bleeding profusely from her bra right after she banged on the piano. And now she's hanging from the ceiling, spinning slowly and appearing dead. Hmm... oh good, it's over. (Don't tell anyone, but I kinda liked her performance in a way).

Now we're to the Best Pop Video and it's Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Cobra Starship, Wisin Y Yandel (never heard of them or their song) going head to head. And the winner is... Britney Spears. Wow, I'm kind of shocked that it wasn't Taylor.

Green Day performs next and they start inviting the crowd up on stage. Not sure if anyone realized they were going to do that or not, but there were no major injuries so it all worked out.

Then we get an extended trailer of the new Twilight saga movie "New Moon". Love, love, love these books. The movies are decent and the new one looks good. But the books are where it's at.

Beyonce takes the stage with the next performance. I have a huge girl crush on Jennifer Aniston and believe that Jen is the most beautiful person in the world, but Beyonce runs a tight second place. She is absolutely gorgeous. And she's got moves that make the men squirm in their seats.

P. Diddy comes out next with some chick I don't care enough about to remember and presents Best Male Video. This one has Eminem, Jay Z, T.I., Kanye & Neyo battling it out. As P. Diddy is running through the script before the nominees are announced, he says Kanye's name and the crowds goes crazy booing. No love for douchebag Kanye. And T.I. wins the award. I was voting for Eminem, but as long as it wasn't douchebag Kayne, I am happy. I actually got much love for T.I. too, so it worked out.

Jennifer Lopez presents the award for Best Hip Hop video. Eminem beats out Flo Rida, Kanye West, Jay Z, and Asher Roth. Eminem takes the stage to accept his award and thank the fans. He definitely looks a bit older, but I still think he's cute as hell. I'm a huge Em fan.

And now my man Marshall is on stage with Tracy Morgan to present the Best New Artist Award. The nominees are Lady Gaga, 3OH!3, Asher Roth, Drake and Kid Cudi. Lady Gaga wins and she is in another, even weirder outfit than earlier. She's almost wearing a red lace dress (it's like see through) and she's wearing a red lace mask and a huge feathered hat. Halfway through her speech, she does take off the mask and hat and throws them down on the stage so she can speak clearly. Then she tells us that her moonman is "for God and the gays."

Pink performs next and while on stage she is blindfolded and steps into a harness which lifts her 30 feet above the crowd. As she's rising, she rips of the blindfold so I'm not sure why it was even put on. But now she's dangling above everyone doing flips and acrobatic tricks while singing "Sober". It should also be noted her that the left side of her body suit is transparent and a pink glittery heart is the only thing hiding her left breasticle from us. They are really doing some major tricks up there in the air and her voice sounds great through it all. I'm impressed. She lands safely on stage and gets a standing ovation.

This brings us to Video of The Year and we're back to the major names. Beyonce, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Britney Spears. Luckily, Kanye didn't win this one either. Beyonce takes home the award for "Single Ladies". She got up on stage and immediately asked for Taylor Swift to come out and reclaim her moment that had been stolen from her. Beyonce didn't even give her own speech. Very classy Beyonce, I really appreciate that. Taylor finally gets to give her speech and thank everyone she wanted to for her earlier award.

The big finale for the night is Jay Z. They're making a huge production of his arrival and he gives us an amazing performance. He was joined by Alicia Keys who has a big, amazing voice.

As the show is wrapping up, we see a trailer for the movie being released in October that is Micael Jackson's rehearsal footage from the huge London tour he was preparing for. I will go see that movie. The man was amazing. I love you Michael.

My Brother, The Creep

Last night, at around 10:00 pm, someone knocked on my front door. I was in my bedroom playing video games on the computer and watching MTV2 on the TV. I was vaguely aware that I had heard Scott walking down the hallway sometime in the last 30 minutes or so, but I was pretty sure I heard him say he was going to bed. So I ignored the knock, whoever it is can just go away. I'm not interested. About a minute later, the doorbell rings. I glance at my watch again... yep, it's 10:03. I'm not answering the door for some stranger this late at night. I lean around the corner of my doorway and look at Scott's bedroom door. His door is shut, the lights appear to be off. He's definitely in bed. But he hasn't been there very long, maybe he's still awake. So I give him a loud whisper "Scott, someone's at the door". No answer. Oh well, back to ignoring the stranger at the door.

Another minute passes, more knocking and another ring on the doorbell. I tiptoe quietly down the hall, careful not to make any noise. I sneak up to the door and peek through the peephole. Our porch light isn't on, so all I can see is a shadowy figure. I stare through the peephole for several minutes. I'll admit I was a little freaked out. Especially when this shadowy figure rattled the doorknob. I didn't want to turn on the porch light because I didn't want anyone to know I was standing there, so I just continued staring. The figure turned around and I could see some sort of writing or image on his back. This made me think "what if it's a police officer who needs to tell us something".

By this time it's been almost 10 minutes since the first knock on the door. I reach over, flip on the porch light and crack the door open slightly so I can see who's there. Imagine my confusion to find Scott standing on the porch looking slightly aggrevated. "What the crap is going on?" I ask as he pushes his way inside. Apparently when he laid down to go to sleep there was a very loud frog right outside next to his wall or window, so he had grabbed a flashlight and went outside around the house to scare it away. Locking himself out in the process. It was hilarious. Here I was afraid to open the door and the shadowy figure I was being creeped out by was my own brother. He's lucky I finally braved up and opened the door. He might have had to sleep with that frog otherwise.

I Think I'll Wait For A Sale

Looks like WalMart is trying to increase their profits again.

MMM.... Eye Coffee

Spotted this in the coffee shop at work the other day. I decided not to try it.

Relatively Funny

This past weekend I attended a Tupperware party with my two sisters. Just by mere coincidence we ended up sitting beside each other in order of our ages. I'm the oldest, Wendy is second and Melissa is the baby. During the demonstration, the hostess showed us how you can actually bake a cake in the microwave with the new Tupperware bowls. She made a chocolate cake with cherry pie filling mixed in. After it had cooled she began cutting it and serving it so we could all see how moist and yummy it was even though it had been microwaved.

When she started to hand me a piece, I politely declined by saying "No thank you, I don't like cherries." She tried to hand it to Wendy who said "No thank you, I don't like chocolate." So she moved down toward Melissa and held out the piece of cake, to which Melissa said "I am so sorry, but I don't like chocolate or cherries." At which point we all died laughing. It would have been funny enough if we hadn't been all lined up in a row, but to hear it back to back like that was hysterical.

My sisters and I look nothing alike. If you saw a picture of us all together you wouldn't guess we were even from the same family. But spend a bit of time in a room with us and there's no denying it. We are definitely related.

A Blogging Dilemma

I’m having a dilemma. A blogging dilemma. I want to use this blog as a place where I can just say what’s in my heart and what’s on my mind as a way of releasing my worries and frustrations, etc. I like that if I did use my blog for that purpose, random strangers from across the interwebz can leave me comments and offer me advice, or sympathy, or simply tell me I’m stupid for worrying about such trivial things. I think that would be a great service to me; it would help me see things from a fresh perspective if I got this sort of honest feedback from people who don’t know me enough to worry about offending me or hurting my feelings.

Unfortunately, as soon as I made my first post several years ago I decided to tell all of my family and friends “please check out my blog”. And several of them do - which immediately meant I am not able to use it as a place to tell the world about any doubts or worries I’m having about my family and/or friends. Because they might read it. And be offended. Or have their feelings hurt. And that would suck…. a lot.

So naturally, I do not use this blog as a place to get things off my chest. I’ve convinced myself that’s okay because I truly do not want the people I love reading something here that may upset them. But lately, I’ve actually been considering inventing an alter ego for myself and starting a new blog that my family doesn’t know about. And the more I consider it, the more it bothers me to realize how I’m censoring myself here on my own blog. It’s not like I am looking for a place to trash talk anyone. I have no need to post anything horrible here, would never say anything like “so and so is such a dirty whore” or “I wish so and so would never speak to me again”. I simply don’t have those kinds of thoughts. But there are times when I want to whine about how I wish someone would make better decisions, or I had my feelings hurt because so and so did “this” to me, etc. And I’m afraid to post those types of things here even though I desperately want to.

So what’s your opinion internet? Should I just suck it up, say what’s on my mind and have enough faith in myself, my family and my friends that nothing I post will cause a serious issue? Or should I start a new anonymous blog and not share the web address with everyone I know? Or is it completely wrong of me to want to get things off my chest in this manner?

Not So Funny Now, Is It?

Yesterday I stopped by the local Walmart for some groceries and a bag of Timothy Hay (for my pet bunny of course) and I overheard part of a conversation that made me laugh. I was up near the front of the store and passed by a small group of employees all huddled together talking. There were a couple of women who were probably in their 40's, one who seemed to be a bit younger at around 30, and a gentleman who was roughly late 30's. As I walked by, I overheard the sentence "I've heard from several people that Farm Town is better than Farmville." I actually snickered out loud. OMFG, these "middle-aged" people at Walmart are standing around having a discussion about Facebook games. It made me laugh for two reasons. One being, my friends and I have had this same silly discussion and we prefer Farmville... these Walmart idiots are wrong. The second reason I laughed is because working in the IT industry you can't help but realize that the older someone is, the less likely they are to stay on top of the newest trends in technology. Add that to the fact we live in a rural type area and you can sort of understand why it caught me by surprise to realize what these people were talking about.

It cracked me up so much that I immediately texted my brother, who also works in the IT industry, something along the lines of "ha ha, just passed a group of middle-aged people standing around in Walmart discussing which is better - Farm Town or Farmville." He texted back "lol" and I carried on with my shopping trip. But suddenly a few minutes later, it hit me... wait a minute, I'm middle-aged. I will be 39 in less than 2 months. OMG, I'm getting old and my mind refuses to realize it. Now I suddenly feel bad for laughing at these guys. They are probably around the same age as me. And I'm a Facebook addict who plays the same silly games they were talking about. (I play Mafia Wars too, but I digress). I have even nerdier discussions than this one with my friends. It makes me wonder what the younger people I work with think of me.

And the whole thing has taught me a lesson: The next time I tell a story about anyone who is over 35, I will no longer use the word "middle-aged" to describe them. Instead I will say "older" so it won't appear as though I'm making fun of people who are basically my age.

The Infamous JK Wedding Entrance Dance

Okay, two things. I know no one reads this blog AND I know that everyone has already seen this video. But I am posting it here because I love it and I want a place to store it so I can always track it down in case I wanna see it 4 years from now and I forget what it was called.

This is so much fun. I actually cry watching it (because I'm a nerd and I cry more for pride and happiness than I do for sadness). I would love to meet all of these people, they look like a fun bunch.

Just tried to upgrade my Alltel account to a new Verizon phone & learned im not eligible until January. How very disappointing.

Sitting at Patton Alley Pub with my friends & coworkers to celebrate my bosses bday. Good friends, good food, good times.

Just watched the space station go over my house in Republic, Mo. Pretty cool.

Roadtripping thru Arkansas, drinking a new Sonic strawberry limeade chiller. This drink is amazing.

Tonight we grilled some brats, played some Rock Band & sat outside chillaxin. Its been a good night.

Whatever it is, I hate it

I am in a bad mood. Or maybe it's a sad mood. Possibly even a minor depression. Hopefully just a funk. Honestly, I have no idea what kind of mood I'm in. I have cried two or three times today. I have gotten angry way more times than I should have. I have laughed less than half as much as usual.

I want to sit here and do nothing but finish the book I am reading. I want to watch a funny movie and laugh myself to tears. I want to login to WoW and complete some daily quests and farm some more herbs. I want to go to bed right now and let sleep end my day. I want to stay up all night and distract myself on the internet.

I am not normally like this. I don't know what's causing it. I don't even know what it is. But whatever it is, I hate it.

Yuck, it's Monday

Back in the day, when I worked in a factory doing manual labor on a production line, I knew that Mondays sucked because it meant a return to the grind. The weekend was over, no more relaxing on the couch. My time belonged to "the man" once again and since my time had just been my own for two days in a row, Monday was always the adjustment period. The day I was grumpy about being stuck indoors making widgets instead of sitting on the front porch at home and sipping some iced tea. But I was never one who hated Monday's and threw a big fit about them. They sucked worse than the rest of the week, for sure, but it wasn't a huge deal.

However, I am now officially declaring that Mondays suck and I hate them. Let me explain - I now work in a customer support environment on a computer helpdesk. In case that statement alone doesn't make you guys realize how bad my head hurts on Mondays, then let me give you a couple of examples of how every Monday around here works:

1. Did you know that every Monday at least 73% (not an actual statistic, but it's gotta be close to accurate) of all employees in my company forget the password they have used every day for the past 2 years? And when they call in, they make sure to let us know how stupid we are for doing whatever update we did over the weekend which would cause this login issue. Every Monday. Seriously.

2. Did you know that even though our pc tech's only work a normal 40 hour / 5 day work week, people are angry to discover that the broken monitor they called in at 6:00 pm Friday evening was not replaced before 7:00 am Monday morning? Seems as though our hardware department needs to hire additional magic fairies to secretly do the work over the weekends when no one is here. Because the magic fairies everyone believes we already have are just not pulling their weight anymore.

But I think the worst part about working in any type of customer service environment on a Monday is the fact that the majority of your customers are suffering from their own Monday crankiness and taking it out on you. Not only do I dread Mondays on this job, I almost always get a tension headache on those days. It sucks having to apologize to people who are pissed off that "you guys did something to my computer over the weekend" when "we" didn't do anything. But I do apologize. Over and over again. And it gets to me. It really does.

Me having a bad Monday no longer has anything to do with me... it's all about taking abuse from everyone else who is having a bad Monday. I know I'm not the only person who has this problem. I feel sorry for all of us who deal directly with customers. Luckily, Monday only comes once a week.

Having a bit of insomnia tonight. Watching shows about babies. I want one. But not as bad as i want sleep.

I Has A Bunny

Earlier this year my beloved hedgehog, Bella, passed away. Not having her to hold in my lap and talk to has been bothering me more and more lately, so I decided it was time to get another pet. After doing some research I found that a Holland Lop bunny may be just what I needed. Cute and cuddly and content to sit in laps, yet not as temperature sensitive or easily startled as a hedgehog. So I found a breeder nearby and last night I went and picked out my new little friend.


Here's a picture of him sniffing around his new environment and checking out his toys. He's 8 weeks old and is actually going to be bigger than I first imagined. I'm still working on naming him... haven't completely settled on one yet. In the meantime, I'm just calling him Bunny.



I've got to work with him to get him used to his new environment and get him comfortable around me. Apparently they can even be easily trained to use a litter box and can then be allowed to roam freely around the house (as long as it has been bunny-proofed, of course). I don't think we'll get to that point, simply because bunnies love to chew and I would hate to risk him chewing on a door frame or an entertainment center. But it's pretty cool to know that I can let him down and he won't mess on the carpet.

Sitting at a bar, listening to a live band. Gotta be at work in the morning. I should do this more often.

I am getting ready to wipe my laptop & start a fresh install. Im scared.

Testing mobile blogging capabilities. If this works okay then I may start building my blog up again. Woot.