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Friday, December 31, 2004

Amanda's Year In Review

So, I guess the year's over, huh? I'm a big fan of the countdown, and at this time of year there are a whole lot of them - best songs of the year, most memorable moments of the year, last seconds of the years. I suppose I'll participate (kinda) and offer you all the year in review, as far as Amanda's World is concerned.

The year that started out in a tidal wave of knee high horse crap didn't turn out so bad afterall. I've flown to Boston (twice!), Phoenix, and Miami. I got to see Jenna & Liz graduate from UVA, and all of my precious boys graduate from Tech. I got two raises, an office, and a promotion. I've been bitten by bugs, puppies and people. I've spent more nights than I can count going to bed after sunrise. I've done so with Jenna and Liz. I've gone to the dark side and entered "stinky" into my vocabularly. As well as "hooch" and "glooby." I got a Mac and an iPod (as part of the box set with my marketing job and Volkswagen, my yuppidom is now complete). I jumped in leaf piles. I went to movies. Lots of movies. I went out on dates with gimps, mics, idiots and engineers. I went through tough stuff. I had friends that stepped up to the plate and went through it with me. Then got me drunk. I was a slutty nurse. I was a little white lie. I participated in Flanaval. I saw Joe Gibbs return to football. I am still a Redskins fan. I had dinner parties. I did yoga. I got bangs. I went to funerals. I went to weddings. I did not get married. I still like Hillary Duff more than I like Lindsay Lohan, ya know, just as a person. I went to Hillel. I got a blog. Three, actually. I bought a house. I moved in with a very large white man. I've ridden in Sputnik, the hybrid car. I did things 'on the regular.' I've hidden from cops. I've called the cops. I've worn beer case hats and mocassins. I baked cookies at 5am. I went to the Vienna Inn.

That, my friends, is what I did this year. What did you do? What did you do with me? Please, feel free to share, as I'm pretty sure I fixed the commenting function.

Happy New Year everybody, may all the good things in your lives remain, and the rest be improved upon.

Have a fun, safe night, see you all in 2005!


Thursday, December 23, 2004

Ho Ho Ho!

Merrrry Christmaaaas! I hope all you lovely people out there - and the ugly ones too - have a lovely holiday season. I'm jumpin onto Mr. Child-of-Divorce's Wild Ride, but I'm thinkin things will still be holly jolly. I've got about 18 family dinners, Lucas' graduation party, an undoubted trip to Fridays, a visit with Pam, presents, becoming a Pirog for a day, seeing The Life Aquatic, quasi-hosting a Yankee Gift Giving Party, Drew's cocktail party, playing football, playing LOTR Monopoly (correct pronunciation, of course), and my Skins v. the cowgirls to look forward to. Not a damn thing to complain about there. Anyhow, wherever your plans for noel take you, I hope they're safe and happy and full of joy. I've noticed a severe rise in grinchyness lately among my friends, but I hope everybody can at least enjoy the time with friends and family. And unwrapping presents, well, that's just plain old fun. SO, in summation, Merry Christmas to you and yours. Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

GREAT NEWS!

Oh happy day!!! Harry Potter VI: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will go on sale July 16, 2005!! YES! It may be months away, but I'm still busting my buttons in anticipation! The last gap between books felt endless, so the very existence of an end in sight is just thrilling. I'm guessing that many of you are thinking "Oh yeah, Amanda sweats Harry Potter, I forgot," and visualizing all of the away messages and profiles celebrating the release of the first movie. Ahhh, memories. Happystretch :) Thank you, JK Rowling! There are lots of fellow Potter-fan friends of mine, but I know there are a lot of you who feel...otherwise, so I'll cease. But, *sigh, yay.

Last night Tyler had Hoybomb and I listen to the David Cross cd. Holy funniness batman. "No but seriously, I do support our white troops. I'm just kidding, I'm not a republican!" I suggest it to anyone who likes laughing at funny stuff. Speaking of, MITCH HEDBERG is coming to DC January 22. I know Kasey (miss you) and Jenna and I are planning on going. Lordy I can not wait. Come here little fellas, let me hold one of you, and feed you a leaf.

I can't believe Christmas is only 4 days away...insanity. Seriously. Although, put in Tyler's newly earned ex-pat perspective "Christmas is one day, not a whole month." So, decompress? I need 3 more presents, then I can decompress.

I'm a lucky ducky, I'm getting my hairs cut tonight, then I get to have dinner with AJ & Kenley!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! However, miles to go until I sleep; much work stands between now and then. And it is on that note, I bid you farewell.


Sunday, December 19, 2004

Hey, it's snowing!

Yeah, it sure is. Very Christmasy indeed. I'm bored; if you read this, come hang out anytime, cause, I'm bored.

It's with a heavy heart that I make this entry; my beloved little kitty face died yesterday. After 18 years of being the world's prettiest, sweetest, most social, loviest, and most talkative cat, we had to put Corky to sleep. She's been sick for quite some time, so it was expected. We always said that as soon as she stopped being comfortable, we would. I'm feeling very blue missing my little girl - and everyone that knew her's - favorite feline. But she had a great long life and was a good friend to an only child forever. Love.

On the up side, the weekend brought me some of my favorite people in the world back into town, and a Redskins win. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure they brought that one home for the Corkster. Pour some out.

They just showed one of my favorite parts of the Wizard of Oz: "Someday they're gonna erect a statue to me in this town, and..." "Well don't start posing for it now, get back to work!"

Oh Aunty Em, you clever old broad. I'm gonna try and drown my boredom in Judy Garland and twista's and ruby slippers. Man, I love this movie.


Thursday, December 16, 2004

The word of the day is...

Curmudgeon!

I actually woke up this morning with that word in my head and the thought "I need to make that the word of the day on my blog." 2nd thought: I need a life that involves actual people, and stat.

For those of you who don't know or aren't quite sure, a curmudgeon (according to Webster), is "a bad-tempered, difficult, cantankerous person." I don't think I know too many out and out curmudgeons, but there certainly are those among us who act curmudgeonly from time to time. I just really like using that word. Curmudgeon. I watched a little bit of a movie starring everyone's favorite curmudgeon, Ebineezer Scrooge, last night.

Addressing the needs of the blog: Yes, I do realize there are problems with posting comments and some of the links don't work and if you use certain providers you can't see any of the text at all. This will all be fixed as soon as I can sucker Drew into fixing it.

I'm taking tomorrow off in the name of using up some vacation time and getting some shopping done (or rather, all of my shopping done), so this could potentially be the last post until next week. I'm stoked for Alison, Laura & Molly's party on Saturday; if there's as much mistletoe as they promised, it should make for a very interesting evening. I'll prepare my party pants, and warm up my dancing - or rather, swaying - shoes (for some good old fashioned Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas Song dancin).

Back to the salt mines, I'll talk at you curmudgeons later.



Wednesday, December 15, 2004

It's a wonderful feeling, with the love in the room from the floor to the ceiling

I thought I was about to get some N*Sync Christmas from Kasey, but it turns out it was No Strings Attached. I'll have to settle. I've reached the point of the day where any and all additions of energy are welcome. And this one comes with the added bonus of memories of Oxford Hills. And the Wendy's - you know, the one...behind. I'm growing very disapointed with the audience participation of late. No comments? I know you're reading people. I know you're laughing. Let me in on the joke. You don't want blogstretch to go on strike, now do you? That's what I thought. I can hear millions of mice clicking on "comment" as I type. What a melodic sound. Quite different from the cocaughony coming from Nancy's office. Nanc, I love ya, but you really gotta get rid of that backup battery pack thing, it's driving us all bananas. Cookoo even!

OK, so, I like Gap commercials. I think they're really well done, they maintain their brand's look but change themselves enough to differentiate the campaigns. As they lost some clout in the coolness department in recent years, the ads with Sarah Jessica Parker and Lenny Kravitz were a stroke of genius, because, no matter what your preferences concerning them, they are the male & female embodiment of Cool. Genius. Their choices of cameos in the holiday ads weren't bad either - except for JC Chazes. I mean...huh? Did they mean to book Justin Timberlake and get confused? A single on the Drumline soundtrack and dating Tara Reid don't really up your stock too much. Yes, I'm panning him as I sit here and listen to the "take a space ride with a cowboy baby" song, but, I'm not in a commercial pushing Cool. (Although, to be fair, I am pretty damn fly, but, let's not split hairs).

Also, everyone I know needs to stop being in college of any kind. Everytime you all get a month off at christmas, it makes my time in the office crawl by so painfully in comparison. So, hurry on up and get your degrees, for the love of Amanda.

Yyyyyeah, I think that's 'bout all I got right now. Hollar back. Or else.

Oh, wait, I do have one more thing. Discovered Zach Braff's blog today. He's a cool guy. If Kasey relinquishes him, and Peru opens ups its borders again, do you think he'd go out with me?



Tuesday, December 14, 2004

The essence of Liz

LKE16: there is a sleep clinic right off of fifty
LKE16: i always think about going there
mads t r e t c h: dude, you should do it
LKE16: but then.....im like......eh
LKE16: im too tired

Fertile Crescent Rolls: Flaky, golden and full of inspirational deliciousness

I officially have no spare time to be doing this right now, but THAT is how dedicated I am to you people. I also don't really have anything interesting to say, but hey, that's the fertile crecent for most of my genius. Hop on the Amanda Mattos locomotive train of thought, it's a wild ride. I love it when I forget what I was gonna say and people are like "well, we were just talking about blah and blah and blah," as though my next thought would have any linear progression from the previous ones. Silly geese. Gooses. Moose. Many much moosen. I wonder exactly where in London Paul & Tyler are right now. I hope it's here:

I also hope that image worked. The image uplink thingy isn't working right. If not, it's a picture of my favorite pub, the Hobgoblin. Cheers!

I wonder exactly where Harry Potter is right now. I bet it's here:


I wonder what Olive Oil is doing right now....Probably this:

Ok, enough of that. But this is a fun game that could prove more fruitful when I'm less focused on other things. OK, audience participation portion:

Favorite Holiday Movie. GO!



Monday, December 13, 2004

5 Christmas parties down, 39 to go

Hello my friendlies. It's Monday morning, so you know what that means ... nonsensical weekend recap! It's that time where I try and remember everything that happened over the course of the last few days, and then cram as many references to the lighthearted as I possibly can into something short enough for my ADD-afflicted friends to not give up on. Ahhh, the torture of too much content and limited space, when oh when will I find a happy semblence of form and function? The agony!

So. I am a very tired little stretch this morning because I didn't get home from the Skins game till about 1:30. Much to Steve's chagrin, JackMack & I made it out of the parking lot, before the estimated 300 years were up. No search party will be necessary, no fossils will be found. It was a tough game, and by boys faught hard. The fans were intense, the competition was high, and we gave the Eagles a hell of a run for their money. That's this season's story - close games with frustrating endings. Oh well, I had a great time tailgating (me and 10 or 12 of my guy buddies. Upon pondering why I was the only girl there, Tony informed me it's cause I'm "like the only hot actual skins fan. That's a girl." Thanks Toner). Got tuff with Jack, ran into Motrain, saw lots of other heads, saw a skins fan make an Eagles fan cry... it was a good time. Coles tore shit up, Ramsey (save the game-ending interception pass) looked pretty tight, and our defense - as always - was beast as hell, McNabb & TO didn't do a whole hell of a lot. All in all, it was a hardfaught battle and I'm proud of my Redskins. And scene.

Alright, moving backwards in the time machine...Saturday I saw Finding Neverland, which was beautiful and wonderful and Johnny Depp is amazing and I loved it. My realtor, aka most adorable person alive, Kelly, had her holiday party that night, which was lots of fun, particularly because she has these two little dogs that look like cartoons. Then I met up with Natasha and Michael and headed over to the Dirty Sugar show at the State Theater. We got to watch Jenna & Liz pawn condoms and candy canes to the crowd while wearing fish nets, go go boots, and mini santa skirts. Also got to hang out with lots of tuff guys and watch Liz and Mike, and Jenna and Mark make lovey dovey eyes at each other all night. The requisite after party at Granite Creek followed the show, and a cab ride home with Iva (at 5:30am) made me not pass out there for once. Score!

And, Friday. After a rock em sock em Thursday night, the thought of putting on semi formal attire and getting my jingle bell rock on wasn't too thrilling. But I rallied and had just a lovely time at the DU Semiformal. Errr, I mean, Sean & Danny's Christmas party. Because I couldn't really not, I took the opportunity to meet up with Sarah & Kasey at the Front Page - in inappropriate attire. We distributed the trustability poll, met lots of people, had to elicit the help of some bouncers, and drank beer & white russians. All in all, I'd call it a success. BTW, I think I owe one or both of you some money for beers, because BWM ushered me out before I could pay you. BTW #2, layover and future long layover from Peru confirmed. Oh, Peru!

And, now you know. I've attended 5 Christmas parties in the past week, and have about 7 more to go over the next couple. I think I'm gonna have to start weeding out my friends. I'm a little overbooked right now. Psych, I like you all, continue having parties, and wanting me to come. I like parties, and you, and Christmas. I'm just sleepy.

Fin.


Friday, December 10, 2004

Smell Ya Later

Something tells me I may smell like alcohol as I write this post in a haze from the remnents of Jenna's birthday party. We had a lovely, adult dinner, all fancy, delicious and mature. Then the OC came on and the gears shifted a little from dinner party to slumber party in the overall feel. Then in about 10 seconds it shifted from a predominantly female gathering to a boy party, and that somehow lead to gettin funky at a honkytonk till it closed. Whooopsie daisy!

JV Restaurant
"AGELESS CHARM WITHOUT YUPPIE BASTARDIZATION"
Falls Church, VA
Est.1947

So good. And about 3 blocks from my house. KICK ASS! I just remembered I have a dentist appointment today. Gotta floss.

If Mike Mandell starts telling you a joke about the circus, stop listening, the payoff is...nonexistant.

However, if Lynette sings you happy birthday, listen up and enjoy, cause that's a thing of beauty. Jenna had the most special birthday ever. She got sung to 4 times within 2 hours. FOUR TIMES! That's just amazing. And Jenna's favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip.

Thursday, December 09, 2004

Booooooooooooya

Yeah, I have absolutely no reason for this post to be called "booya," aside from the fact that I wanted to write that word.

Let's see...yesterday was the TMP holiday party at Dave & Busters. Though we'd all hyped it up, Dance Dance Revolution is the hardest game ever, so we didn't spend too much of our POWER CARDS on that one, mainly just watched the Che Guevara of DDR go nuts all evening to the point of taking his shirt off. Now THAT's entertainment. As far as applicable skills go, Ellis rocked out Madden football, I took care of hot shots basketball, Kasey was the sharp shooter, Angie is a really good fire fighter, and Sarah is awesome at getting people to give her their tickets. Thanks to our ticket harvesting, we were able to get Katie, the beautiful flower (or, bright and sunshiney cancerous tumor, as Brent says she looks like) to accomanpy The Tree. We really need to figure out how to light that sucker up for the holidays...

Speaking of holidays and trees, I finally got my Christmas tree last night. Yesssssssssss! It's a pretty pretty douglas fir with lots of twinkly lights and too many ornaments. Actually, I had too many ornaments to put on the tree...to be saved for future living rooms that can hold bigger trees. I got the lovely bonus of a message from my dad's friend this morning, who runs a christmas tree lot, saying "Yeah, you weren't supposed to pay for that, so I'm tearing up your check. Merry Christmas!" Sweet! AND, I got my skins tickets for this weekend. Philly's good, but my faith in the Skins is unwaivering. There are about 3 or 4 Redskins ornaments on my tree, two of my favorite things coming together as one. Yesssssssssssssss!

Tonight Lizard and I are throwing a little birthday dinner for Jenna at my place. My first dinner party at 3152 and I've had absolutely no time to get ready for it. Yeah, should go well.... Oh well, I don't think the gang will mind if all the glasses don't match. Note to self: record the OC tonight. Come on, it's Thursday, you all knew I was gonna mention the OC at some point. Lordy, I hope it's a Christmakuh episode! I need to get Drew to help me free the mp3s from my college computer so I can hear "one little christmas tree" and the alvin & the chipmunks christmas song a million times over the next few weeks. My other favorite christmas song, Santa Baby, is already on my iPod, as it's on the Elf soundtrack.

Oh yeah, and Tyler and Paul are going to London tomorrow. Despite my raging jealousy, I hope you guys have a great time. Cheers! I'll be back here in VA going to approximately 4.2 holiday parties a day. My evite calendar is a little full, when am I gonna find the time to bake and wrap? ;)

Later kids. And quit throwin that ball in the house!

Tuesday, December 07, 2004

Another Day, Another Blog

Well, the server over at eBloggy (the previous home of Blogstretch) has been having too many troubles lately, so I'm jumping ship. You can still peruse my former musings at blogstretch.ebloggy.com, but this is my new home. It'll probably take a little while to get it all situated, but, enjoy.

And onto the things I haven't been able to post on ebloggy...

This weekend in Boston was faaaaaaaaaaantastic. We pahked the cah. We lost a lap top. We drank be'ahs. We ate chowda. We shopped. We ate a lot of other things. We drank a lot of other things. We strolled around Faneuil (sp?) Hall. We did Newburry Street. We saw the site of the Boston Tea party. We went to the aquarium. I held some starfish. We saw some penguins that look like George Clinton. We froze our asses off. We got presents. We bonded with a concierge. We faught with a cab driver. All in all, it was great to see Meagan and Dave and all the other Bostonites. For those of you I didnt get a chance to see, there's always next time. We had a wicked good time. And now we're all set.

I'm going to get my very first Christmas tree tonight! (Derik: ready to pay your penence?) What a milestone. The ornaments will be cheap and the decor will be chinsy, but it'll be Christmasy and mine. Jingle Jingle. Speaking of, I can hardly believe Christmas is upon us so soon. I've gotten about half my shopping done, and the other half...oh my, no clue. If you are looking for something to get for me, might I suggest America: The Book. We all know my propensity for all things Jon Stewart, and it's hard to believe I haven't gotten this book yet. And now it's not just receiving cult following and critical acclaim, but awards too! That'a boy!

So, the ONE Skins game I miss ALL SEASON and it was an awesome game that we one. I'm not complaining about the win, just my missing it. Stupid airplane and its lack of NFL coverage. I'm goin to the Philly game this weekend (PS: now accepting reasons for why I should choose you to come with me)...let's hope at the very least we can pull up with another solid performance. As crappy as this season's been, and with the exception of the 2nd half of the first Philly game, every game has been close, good, and winable. Let's look for some more of that. GO SKINS!

Kasey, Sarah & I went and saw Closer last night. I don't really know how to react to it. There were very good parts, the acting was good, it was definitely a good movie...but, did I like it? Not sure. I didn't not like it... Probably quite truthful about a lot of things, but boy oh boy does it give a very disillusioned and depressing view of love, and relationships in general. People are strange. But, worth seeing, I'd say. There were a lot of parts that made the three of us gasp - in tandem. My personal favorite highlight, however, was when as the credits rolled, Kasey said, "So is it bad that I've had 80% of those fights in the past 2 months?" Yes. Yes Kasey, it is. And another thing: as nearly pornographic and focused on sex as it was, there was never actually a single sex scene in the whole movie. Intriguing. Pat on the back to Mike Nichols for that one. I didn't even realize it as I was watching the movie because sex is so entrenched in the subject matter. Anyhow...

Ok, yeah, so, welcome to the new and improved blogstretch. Enjoy.