easy sing karaoke songs
Current mood: accomplished

This weekend, I karaoked for the first time solo. Last time was in college with a bunch of people doing the B-52s "Love Shack". As many of you know, but vocal talents are limited and I destroyed Carly Simon's "You're so Vain" in front of an audience of senior citizens at the La Jolla Sheraton lobby bar. They were very nice and clapped anyway. Given this experience, I am starting a list of easy to sing karaoke songs for those of us less gifted in this area. A few of these are from articles found goolge searching "Good karaoke songs for bad singers" Please feel free to comment with your own suggestions. Some of these just happen to be songs that I know the words to really well, so they got put on here, they may not be for all bad singers.
-"Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks
-"Daydream Believer" by the Monkees
-"Dancing in the Dark" by Bruce Springsteen
-"YMCA" by the Village people
-"Ice Ice Baby" by Vanilla Ice
-"I Got You Babe" by Sonny & Cher
-"Here Comes the Rain Again" by the Eurythmics
-"Faith" by George Michael
I'm beginning to believe the key is to really know a song and perform the heck out of it so that no one pays attention to the poor vocals you might possess.

10:33 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

cafe noir
Current mood: crunk
Category: Food and Restaurants

Cafe Noir, French for ’we put crack cocaine in our beverages’.  This can be good occaissionally, but not more than once a month, for me.  Be cautious about extra expresso shots, too.

10:31 AM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Cool, new discovery
Current mood: amused
Category: Travel and Places

is ’street view’ on Google Maps. In certain locations, you can view and navigate within street-level imagery. I can actually see my front door and apartment window on here. You can virtually take a walk down a street and through a neighborhood. Very helpful for those monumental-directional oriented people, virtual site visits and stalkers alike. Fun stuff, maybe even cooler than Google Earth.

8:42 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment

Boo to Baja Fresh (downtown SD location)
Current mood: aggravated

So, I splurged by ordering pickup from Baja Fresh last night. When I got there (when they said it would be ready - 10 minutes after I called) they were closing up shop - doors locked and everything, when it was at least 8 minutes before 9. They had the audacity to give me attitude when they unlocked the door to let me in. I get home only to find that they put pinto beans in my chicken tostada rather than the black beans I ordered. Bitches!

FYI, from previous experience I’ve learned that if you go there in the evening for a pickup order, don’t actually stand at the register labeled ’Pick Up Here’, because they will let you stand there for 10 minutes and then tell you that you should have know to go to the register furthest away from the one actually designated for pickup.

Point Loma BF service is far superior. If you have a choice, go there.

8:57 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

10,000 B.S. - don’t worry, no spoilers here - you’re NOT going to see this movie!
Current mood: disappointed
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

better known as 10,000 B.C. is officially the worst movie I have ever seen. I'm not even sure what movie is being promoted to the 2nd worst on the list. Nonetheless, I cannot believe how seriously this movie takes itself because it really should be considered a comedy. I was absolutely Ling MAO at the absurdity of it all. Had I not been there with friends who were there to laugh with, I would have walked out of the movie as soon as the spunky protege hunter character landed his crotch on a branch during the first chase scene through the rain forest trying to escape some ostriches on steroids. It was something like Jurassic Park meets the Flintstones. Had I left, I would have missed the explanation of the following historical artifacts/events: cave paintings, the building of the pyramids, humans confronting the wooly mammoths and the saber tooth tiger, Osama bin Laden taking a time machine back to be the co-leader of the main tribe in this movie and other exciting events that this movie soo fantastically brought to life.

The accents of the main characters, who spoke English (which is historically correct, of course), were something like a medieval British accent but they kept switching into other accents. After a thorough discussion of this topic with my fellow movie watchers, it was decided it was some sort of Pangean accent...you know, from when all of the continents were 1 big land mass. This idea would also explain how the main characters ventured through every ecosystem during the course of the movie. From the mountains, to the rain forests, to the desert, and then down the Nile to Egypt. WTF!?! All the other tribes that were encountered and even the pharaoh did not speak English, but definitely something very tribal (also obviously historically correct). What a waste of time - translating all these languages back and forth that apparently existed during the time period. The climactic ending scene, which was a confrontation between the protagonist and pharaoh had 2 translators - that's 3 different languages people!!!! Why?!?

So, the story goes that this young tribesman ventures from his hunting village in order to retrieve his blue-eyed life love from the people who kidnapped her from the home village and pillaged all of there fresh wooly mammoth meat. Following in his fathers, footsteps, who 'betrayed' his tribe years earlier, the guy wins over the saber tooth tiger, several African tribes and his fellow villagers along the way with lines like 'I'm older than I look' and 'surely you remember me, I saved your life' (this is the line he used on the CGI saber tooth tiger). Oh yes, I don't want to leave out the emotionally intense scene where Osama bin Laden tells the protagonist that his father actually didn't betray the tribe, but was actually trying to save the tribe by leaving the wooly mammoth tent village. Boy, was he angry with Osama for keeping this from him, after all the years of his fellow villagers shunning him for what his father did. This anger could have been the driving force for his exuberance to lead the uprising of the Egyptian slaves, but it wasn't, that actually might have been interesting.

The ending scene could not have been more perfect. The protagonist and his blue-eyed love return to their village, giving up their hunting ways and become agrarian. They, of course, embrace and kiss, blah, blah, blah. The are silhouetted in a sunset background with a river or lake in it. BUT, get this, the water is totally still! They used a still picture for the ending scene. C-mon did their budget run out and they couldn't spring for a moving image on their blue/green screen?

11:59 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Vegetable Lasagna
Category: Food and Restaurants

(Many omnivores I know actually prefer this lasagna to the traditional meat lasagna)

Ingredients:
1-1/2 C light chunky muchroom & garlic pasta sauce (like Classico)
1 (14.5 oz.) can stewed tomatoes, undrained and chopped
2 C low fat or fat free cottace cheese
1/2 C grated parmesean cheese
1/4 tsp. pepper
cooking spray
9 uncooked lasagna noodles - no need to pre-cook for this recipe
3 C shredded zucchini (about 3 medium) - food processor is ideal for shredding
6 (1 oz) slices provolone cheese, each cut into 6 strips

1. Prehead oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine pasta sauce and stewed tomatoes. Stir well and set aside.
3. Combine cottge cheese, parmesean cheese and pepper. Stir well and set aside.
4. Coat 13x9 baking dish with cooking spray.
5. Layer ingredents evenly as follows and repeat twice:
a) 1/3 tomoato mixture
b) 3 uncooked lasagna noodles
c) 1/3 zucchini
d) 1/3 cottage cheese mixture
e) provalone cheese strips
6. Cover (with foil) and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
7. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes until thoroughly heated.
8. Let cool 15 or so minutes and serve; Yields 8 servings.

5:42 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Lasagna recipe
Category: Food and Restaurants

Ingredients:
9-12 lasagna noodles (1 regular size/small package)
1 lb. groud beef
1 jar spaghetti sauce
1 pint cottage cheese
1 C sour cream
6-8 oz. mozzarella cheese, sliced
Parmesean cheese

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Bring water to a boil in a large pot and cook noodles per package instructions. Rinse and drain
3. Brown meat in skillet. Drain fat, if any and add spaghetti sauce.
4. Cover bottom of pyrex oblong pan (9x13) with about 1/4 of the meat sauce.
5. Layer in order:
a) 3-4 noodles
b) cottage cheese & sour cream (you can premix these or just throw them in the pan -they kind of mix together when you do that)
c) 3-4 noodles
d) about half of remaining meat sauce
e) mozzarella cheese slices
f) 3-4 noodles
g) remainder of meat sauce - be sure it covers the noodles completely, otherwise the noodles get tough in the oven.
6. Sprinkle w/ parmesean cheese
7. Heat in 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes until hot and bubbly
8. Let cool and serve

You can make this ahead and refrigerate until you're ready to serve. Obviously it will take a bit longer to heat. Also, I don't measure these ingredients when I make this, so it it may vary from my version. You can easily vary the quantities of ingredients as you like. i.e more or less meat, more cheese, more cottage cheese/sour cream, etc.

9:30 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Comic Con International
Current mood: amused
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

This past weekend 100,000+ people invaded downtown San Diego for the 2007 Comic Convention International. This is the Mecca of people watching. I carried my camera with me Thursday through Saturday and made a few trips down to the convention center. Check out the photos on flickr: Comic Con photos

3:08 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment