I may feel like I’m in a huge drought, but apparently I can be creative when I’m drinking.  My magnetic poetry from the other night after a few glasses of wine at T.J.’s birthday dinner was pretty decent upon further analysis:

[Note: I made a kick ass playlist for cleaning which means that I'll probably do that song quote thing I do for the titles of the next few blog posts.  Play along in the comments if you can guess the song in the title.]

If someone had told me at Sara & TJ’s wedding on September 5, 2009 that I would be starting my own wedding registry up exactly one year later, I would have laughed at them.  But that’s exactly what I did today.  Jay and I went to a store (sorry, we didn’t finish scanning everything we wanted so I’m not going to say which store yet!) today to start our wedding registry and damn, it’s a tedious process that involves way too much thinking haha.  I did finally update our wedding website, though.  I announced our wedding party, which you can find here: http://jayandcoll.com/wedding-party/.  I’m going to be doing a lot more updating to it over the next few days and going to try to do it regularly.

I started working out again this weekend, which so far doesn’t really feel very productive lol but I’ll get back into it.  I wish that weekends and holiday weekends lasted longer because I could use more than 3 days off from work now that I’ve gotten into being super productive.  In addition to working out and starting our registry, I did more research on finding a wedding band - more on that saga later - and cleaned the entire kitchen last night.  Anyway, tonight, I wanted to start on the bathroom, but I bought a shoe rack for the back of my door today and that was going to be my project instead.  Annoyingly, my closet door is smaller than a normal sized door and the freaking thing wouldn’t close right once I put shoes on it.  I was frustrated beyond belief and took the whole thing apart and am going to just return it and go back to messy closet.  Needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood for any more home grunt work after that and decided to start updating the wedding website instead.  I’ll just clean everything else while Jay is at work tomorrow.  I’m hoping I also get some time to read my book by the pool, too.  Last few weekends of fun in the sun are upon us

On a random note, I was watching old Apple keynotes with Jay before and I have to say that Steve Jobs is an excellent speaker.  I didn’t really get bored once.  It was fascinating to watch the announcement for the original iPod from back in like 2001 or whatever it was.  I must say, I enjoyed it.

Another random note.  I realized this weekend that I really miss podcasting.  My old roommate Amanda (of Metrobuzz’s Rooftop Sessions) had floated around the idea of us doing a podcast a few months ago and my friend Sara and I have joked around about doing a female version of the Married Man Show because Sara is super entertaining and gives great advice in general.  Ah, well.

Final random note.  Jay’s been watching the first half of Season 1 of Glee and this show was WAY better the first half.  I hope that Season 2 is more like the first half of 1.  I’d really hate to see Glee go the route of Nip/Tuck post Season 3 because that would make me really sad.

In honor of today being “90210 Day,” I have two things thing confess:

1. Is more of an interesting tidbit.  It was 3 years ago today that Jay first met my family.  We went to visit them as they were helping my sister Christie move into her freshman dorm room at Marist College, then went to the Palace Diner (represent) for some “get to know you time.”  It’s also my mom’s birthday today, which is why I remember the date.  Christie is now starting her senior year at Marist.  Time really does move motherf*cking fast.

2. I have never actually seen 90210.  I was too young to care when it first came out and then when I wanted to watch it, my parents thought it was inappropriate.  I have only ever seen part of one episode and it involved Tori Spelling and Halloween.  It was at a cross country team dinner when I was in 8th or 9th grade.  [Side confession: I often incredibly disliked running cross country but I think I've spoken about that on MetroBuzz, maybe?]  Should I invest in watching some of the seasons of 90210?  People seem very excited about today’s date.

Happy birthday to my wonderful mother!  I really, really, really want to go to the Palace now and get either sweet potato pancakes OR an egg white omlet with turkey and turkey sausage.  #omfgIMissCollegeDaysSometimes!

Holy crap! When did it get to be September 1, 2010?!

I feel like the summer was 100% action packed and justified in going as quickly as it did but the months of January thru June went like woah.  I remember it like yesterday that I wrote a blog post about how excited I was for all the awesome things that 2010 had to offer and then we went to NYC to celebrate New Years Eve 2010 with Melissa.  I should actually tell the story of New Years Eve.  I asked Melissa a while ago and she said she had no problem with it.  Holy mother-f*cking-shit, that was 9 months ago.  If I get enough positive response saying they want to hear about it, I’ll blog about it.  Although when I don’t pimp this blog out on Twitter, no one reads it, haha.  Let me know in the comments if you want to hear about how Jay, Melissa & I rang in 2010.  If not, then word.  Regardless, I feel like so much has happened in 2010.

We went to Hawaii.  We got engaged.  I went to London.  We had the 30-hour-podcast.  We picked a wedding venue.  My aunt passed away.  We went to LA for the Lost finale.  Lost ended!  We got iPads.  We celebrated my grandparents’ 55th anniversary party.  Sarah & Amanda came to visit.  We went to Comic Con.  We went to Disneyland.  We fostered a kitten for a day.  We had our engagement party.  So much more that I know I am forgetting.  It’s insane how many awesome things have happened so far this year.

So anyways (ding).  Now that September has come along, we still have LADY GAGA!!!  Yay!!  September 19th at the RBC Center.  Katelyn and Jeremiah #2 are coming to visit September 17-19, too.  It’s going to be an awesome weekend.  I’m so excited.  I also took the month of August off from doing cardio workouts and I’m starting to feel super restless and getting a bit doughy again.  I’ve still been doing pilates 3 days a week but when you combine less than half a week of exercise with eating a ton of crap every day, it feels not okay.  So September is hereby deemed “get back into shape month.”

I’ve also spent the month of August reading a lot.  I was starting to feel like I spent too much time on the Internet so rather than refresh Twitter a million times a day and beg for questions on Formspring every night, I decided I’d read books instead.  Soooo I began with the Temperance Brennan novels by Kathy Reichs - aka the books that my new favorite TV show Bones is loosely based on.  I’m on book 5 right now, “Grave Secrets,” and hope to be finished with it by tomorrow.  I’ll have to write a review of the series when I finally finish them (I believe there are 10 or 11 in all) and a brief review of each book if anybody is actually interested.  Next up, I have “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” which I’m really anxious and eager to read.  Following that, I still have all the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) novels to read.  I read the first when I was on the plane back from London but still have the rest from the boxed set that I got for Christmas and I’d like to finish them all.  I’d also like to read The Hunger Games trilogy.  Does anyone recommend them?  I’ve heard a lot about them over Twitter and Facebook lately and gotten a ton of coupons for them through Borders and Barnes & Nobles the last few weeks.  Should I invest in them?

Alright, back to Grave Secrets.  Happy September, everybody!

And finally, as of September 1, 2010 - 240 DAYS UNTIL THE WEDDING!!!

[Note: I realize I never actually finished sharing the Hawaii stories, including how Jeff Fahey & I got shitfaced together during a Lost press event.  If anyone wants to hear about that, holler at me via the comments too.]

Alex from Audibly Lost has been working on a Lost podcasting documentary called “Audibly Lost.” I know he’s been working on it like crazy for quite some time now and has driven around the country interviewing people involved in the Lost community. Jay & Jack were fortunate enough to be interviewed by Alex back in March after the 30 Hour Podcast and now they’re the subject of his first featurette from “Audibly Lost”! It also has Kris White, Ralph Apel, Natasha Fray, Axel Foley from Lost Mythos Podcast, Josh & Amanda from Lost Flashbacks Podcast, and a special “appearance” by Michael Emerson. Thank you, Alex!! I’m so excited to see the rest of the movie!

An “Audibly Lost” featurette: Jay and Jack from Audibly Lost on Vimeo.

I really, really love with Ralph has to say about the finale party and friends coming together. Well said, dude. Tear.

My future sister-in-law Heather turns 21 this month.  I like parties and I like Heather so we threw her a 21st birthday party this weekend.  We played King’s Cup (they call it Circle of Death) a few times and it reminded me of awesome times with Amanda G. during college.  I loved that game and Heather’s party brought me back.  I think it also brought Clif back too because we both acknowledged “old school” rules, which was funny.

Anyway, we had cake:

We had friends:

We had Captain Kirk.  I wish I could explain more right now but I slacked at blogging/putting pics up back in April.  I *WILL* and it will be epic.  Consider this a prequel/having seen “Empire Strikes Back” before “A New Hope.”  Just trust me. When I tell the Kirk stories, they will be worth it.

So at some point last night, Jay & I decided it would be a good idea to balance on the papasan chair and take a pic. BAD IDEA.Especially when one party has gained weight (aka me).

I ended up with this bruise.  It was worth it but it freaking hurts even now as I type this.  It was worth it though for eating the extra pizza bites and having so much fun.  Happy Birthday, Heather!!!

This is perhaps one of the best headlines I’ve seen in a long time:

So after Comic Con, Jay & I fostered one of Heather’s kittens for a night while we found her a home with my co-worker’s sister-in-law.  This kitten was the runt of her litter & super tiny.  She was absolutely adorable and actually really liked me (animals liking me better than Jay just doesn’t happen).  She fell asleep in my arms that night.  Poor Zoe had a temper tantrum over the kitten being there for a night & refused to come out of the man cave for the day.  I felt really badly actually but it was only for a night, so we decided to just let her sulk and deal with it lol.

Here’s an idea of how small she was:

But perhaps the coolest thing was Jay & I taught her how to play Uzu on the iPad.  She was fascinated by the iPad:

So anyway, this all leads into something, I promise.  We didn’t want to get too attached to her, so we didn’t give her a name (her new owners named her Audrey).  I did, however, go on a name meaning site and start looking up some names just to see what would be a nice name to suggest to her new mom.  Idk, I like doing things like that.  I got super involved in looking at different names and then looking up where my name, Jay’s, my sisters, Jay’s sisters, etc. fell in popularity over the last few years.  I was looking at a list of the Top 1,000 names, too, for both boys and girls.  I’m not one of those people who has all their baby names picked out years in advance, mainly because I think that’s bad luck to do that.  But that’s just me.

The following exchange took place later on:

Me: “I like the name Jacob.  That’s not a bad name.”

Jay: “Eehhh, Jacob? I don’t know.  Could be too…I don’t know if I could use the name Jacob.”

Me: “Why not? Twilight fever won’t last forever.  People won’t associate that Jacob with Twilight in like 5 years.”

Jay <Pause, incredulous look>: “I don’t care about Twilight.”

Me: “Then what’s the big deal?!”

Jay <slowly>: “Lost…?”

Me <Beat>: “OH YEAH!!”

So here’s my question.  Since Jay’s got that whole Lost Podcast thing, does this mean that any Lost name is out of the picture for us to use in the future?  I think that pets are one thing, but is it fair to subject our future children to a Lost name that we just happen to like when they’ll probably spend the rest of their lives avoiding Comic Con so people don’t go “You’re JAY’S kid?! And your name is Ben?  How adorable!  Smile creepy for us, little Ben!  How’s Hurley doing, little Ben?” or “Hey, little Charlotte! Do you have a bloody nose? Would you like a chocolate bar?”

I think that’s why celebrities give their kids such f*cked up names.  They have to go for a name that can never be associated with any project they’ve ever worked on or character they’ve ever played lol.  Let’s face it: Jennifer Aniston could never have a kid named Rachel.  So that’s what I’ve been wondering for the last week and a half.  What do you think about it?

…because I already bought my pass for San Diego Comic Con 2011:

Now I just have to keep my fingers crossed, stay healthy, & not take any more days off other than the wedding so I can even have a chance to be able to go next year.  But woo-hoo!

So the day after Comic Con was over, I went with Jay’s family to Disneyland in Anaheim, CA.  I’d only ever been to Disneyland once before in 2008 when Jay & I celebrated our first anniversary.  We were at the park from 8am until after midnight or in layman’s terms, “we opened and we closed it.”  I had the BEST time.  I <3 Disneyland and California Adventure.

We started off at Space Mountain.  Hardly any line since we were there so early.  It was awesome. as evidenced:

Next we hit up Pirates of the Caribbean (which made me want to watch the movie really badly), the Haunted Mansion (made me want to burn the movie), Indiana Jones, Thunder Mountain Railroad (it was just as fun as I remembered it but I don’t remember getting banged up so badly last time!) and one of my favorites, Splash Mountain.  Thunder Mountain, California Screamin’ and Pirates of the Caribbean were the only ones that we were lucky enough to go on twice.  Those are 3 of my 4 favorites (the last one being Tower of Terror woot!) so I was thrilled.

Naturally, I had to make sure that we took a picture in front of Cinderella’s Castle.  And by “we” I mean me, Jay & the person responsible for us meeting in the first place :)  P.S. That’s my shirt from the Chuck panel at Comic Con.

Splash Mountain, the first time:

California Screamin’ - the first time:

Group shot.  Yikes, why am I not looking at the camera?!

By the California Adventure letters:

We were lucky to be able to get to every major ride by the early afternoon.  I did learn - or rather reaffirm - one thing: that I was not meant to be a cop.  We all did the two Toy Story rides, where you shoot at things and get points, and I finished in last place both times!  I thought I was doing good because I only made shots when I felt I had it but yeah, that was not the right strategy for a freaking amusement park game!  It was SO embarrassing to do so badly.  [Uncle Lou, if you are reading this, I'm sorry!  I should've gone to the shooting range with you & Matt back in the day!]

So we finished off the night by watching the World of Color show.  Wow, it’s really spectacular.  I definitely recommend it if you’re there.  I envy people like Ralph who live right down the road from it.  Then again, I used to live 15 minutes from and work at Splish Splash which everyone I met in college & beyond was in envy of & I had a lot of “WTF crazy?!”   Anyways, I can’t wait til the next time we go back, though I think it should be the day before Comic Con starts, when there’s no blisters or overflowing toilets to slow you down haha.

Oh - quick question for all 6 of you out there - which Disney park do you like best and what’s your favorite ride?  I’d have to say Disneyland and California Screamin’ for me.