invasion

Swarms of cicadas emerging in Midwest
Billins expected after spending the past 17 years underground

CHICAGO - Coming soon: Brood XIII. It sounds like a bad horror movie. But it’s actually the name of the billions of cicadas expected to emerge this month in parts of the Midwest after spending 17 years underground.

to learn how the sound of a cicada's mating call is the equivalent of a blender and why one man refuses to do ice sculptures for outdoor weddings in chicago this year go here...

happy anniversary

i saw this stapler in the new papersource catalogue and went nuts. i think it's the coolest thing in the whole wide world. unfortunately it was sold out as soon as i went online to check it out. i guess many other share my fantastic taste in staplers.

i casually mentioned to M that i would love to give this rainbow trout a good home. our one-year-engagement anniversary was May 6 and while i wrote him a sweet email, he surprised me with my stapler.

when M proposed, i kept saying "are you kidding me?" over and over again as i walked away from him down on one knee. when i opened my box a year later, that was all i could say as well. i couldn't believe that i was marrying the greatest guy in the whole wide world who would give me a rainbow trout stapler.

so now my stapler is aptly names "Are You Kidding Me." oh so appropriate and oh so wonderful.

here's a picture of me and Are You Kidding Me. notice how i've perfected

the fish face. i think he likes it. welcome to the world Are You Kidding Me!

V.I.P. with the N.D.B.P.

no, your eyes are not deceiving you that is OWEN WILSON and by his side, the lovely KATE HUDSON.

this time last week i was trying to recover from a night spent at the Ghostbar worrying that one of the consultant's i was in charge of was going to leave the bar with kate hudson instead of owen wilson. disaster averted, he didn't. although he did manage to wake up, still drunk mind you, and run 18 miles on two hours of sleep beginning at 3:30 am...but that's another story for another post

anyways, for any of you Dallasites who have NOT been downtown lately, you mst go there as soon as possible. props to Ross Perot Jr. and his vision for the Victory development because when it's complete, Dallas won't know what hit them.

if you have time, make it a priority to stay at the W, eat at Craft and mosey on up to the Ghostbar. it's worth your time, if only to people watch. and let me just tell you that the night we were there, the N.D.B.P.'s (North Dallas Beautiful People for those who don't listen to Galloway) were out in full force. the silicone acrobatics were particularly entertaining as were the maneaters (or meneaters, for the grammatically inclined) looking for elderly, rich prey. needless to say that my business suit stuck out like a sore thumb. Ghostbar is not for the chic-of-heart.

*for any who were wondering, kate hudson is more gorgeous in person that she is on screen, it was seriously ridiculous...

object of connoisseurship...

it's here! Diet Coke Plus can now be found on the shelves of a store near you

"...You might need to, if you're a Diet Coke fanatic like Victoria Beckham, the former Posh Spice, who drinks almost nothing else and claims to hate the taste of water. Diet Coke is the one addiction that public figures willingly own up to. It's the only beverage in the back of producer Harvey Weinstein's limo, and makes up one half the diet of Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden. The other half consists of peanuts. A 12-ounce can of Diet Coke, which may contain from a third to half the amount of caffeine in eight ounces of coffee, is the breakfast drink of choice for many college students. "I like that fake sugar taste," says Stanford sophomore Margot Markman, who usually has the first of four daily 16-ounce cups from her sorority's fountain at 8:15. It is one of the few things you can buy at a gas station that's also an object of connoisseurship. Kristen Scaletta, a senior at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., who recently cut back from about a gallon of Diet Coke a day to three quarts, drinks it only from cans, preferably at room temperature-a taste she formed as a child when she had to sneak it past her parents to drink in her bedroom. Other people insist on the flavor of Diet Coke from liter bottles, or McDonald's."

*just in case you were curious, or wanting to bring me one, i take my diet coke from a fountain, with a 1/4 cup of crushed ice. styrofoam cups are preferred, but the plastic cups at QT will always work as well...

**in keeping with the journalistic standards i learned in the hallowed halls of Castellaw, the text of the article can be found here and many thanks to the Prune for forwarding it along