Harry Potter and more of the box cat!

The line is under the tent.



The Wesley's Flying Car at the HP Exhibit

Yesterday I got to check out the Harry Potter Exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. This is the only Midwest stop for the exhibit. Thanks to having friends who are members, I got to see the goods before the general public. Sadly, they didn't allow anyone to take photos. All I have is the picture of the car that was near the ticket counter and a shot of the outside of the museum. The white tent covers the area where people will be standing in line as they make their way to the exhibit itself. Because the response has been so positive, the exhibit's stay was extended 3 extra weeks.

If you are able to make it, I recommend paying the $5 for the audio tour. You get to hear the costume and set designers, etc. talking about what goes into their creative process. The exhibit is set up very well and is full of cool props and costumes. I enjoyed getting to sit in Hagrid's chair and seeing the dementors' and Death Eaters' outfits up close. As an added bonus, currently the folks manning the exhibit are from Great Britain so you get to hear plenty of kick ass accents as you mill about. I'm not sure if they will be there for the entire stay, but they are there now and I was in aural heaven.

When you first go in, there is a quick sorting ceremony. Then you are lead into a room with several screens each about the size of a painting. The door shuts behind you and it's you, the screens and four walls. There is a montage of clips from the movies then a visual effect making it seem like you are on a train. Like magic, one of the walls moves back and with a bright light and some smoke you see the Hogwarts Express and the tour begins. Pretty slick. You can check out some of Hagrid's Hut and the Great Hall. You can also toss a Quaffle if you so desire.

In other "news," we have more video of the box cat! I don't want to give anything away, but I can promise you will laugh your butt off. I want this cat as a pet.

Check out the cat

dreamday cafe: The Box Cat

Found this on galaxy carol's site. Very funny, esp. when the cat leaps out of the box. Not surprised that this video is from Asia. I half expected the cat to be wearing a pink dress and bow.

Setting The Bar

Sometimes an experience seems to be so perfect it can not be topped. Last night on Cheaters, I was proven wrong.

I thought the "case" involving the woman who followed her cheating man into the bathroom at a bowling alley, all the while slapping him over the head with her shoe, was the best thing I'd seen on that show. I now have a new favorite.

I missed the beginning of the episode so I didn't get to enjoy the run down on the relationship and it's current woes. I didn't get to see the "report" of the suspect's behavior. I didn't even get to see the moment when the client sees the video showing what their (in this case) wife was doing.

None the less, I got to see the "confrontation," which really was the best bit. The husband is having a yelling fest with his wife, who has been sleeping with his brother because hubby wasn't "taking care of her," if you know what I mean...nudge,nudge, wink, wink. The brother seemed to be having some sort of party because there were about 4 or 5 other guys out in the yard who were not members of Cheaters' security trying to keep the brothers apart. The camera guy is going in circles around everyone as they are yelling and cussing, etc. At one point, a man in a bathrobe comes into frame and starts going after people with his weed whacker!!! He's trying to lop off their feet or something. I have no idea who this man is! Is he a friend? Is he a roommate? Is he a neighbor?

At first, no one notices because he's sort of in the background of the action. Finally, security figures out he's trying to take people out at the ankle and they take him down. During this altercation, you can hear host Joey Greco saying "This is not going well." (INSERT WICKED LAUGH AND ROLLING ON THE COUCH HERE)

But, the absolute best part is yet to come. Later, Joey is talking to the brother to get his side of the story. The bathrobe guy and a couple of other dudes who had been there this whole time come up behind the brother. The bathrobe guy's robe is no longer tied so when he puts his hands on his hips in a defensive stance, his arm motion opens up the robe and TAH DAH!!! Leopard. Print. Thong.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Holy crap it was funny.

Tomorrow I'm taking a vacation day to go up to Chicago to see the Harry Potter exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry. Yes, I am a dork. Hopefully, I'll get some good pictures to post.

Also, to answer Laura's question about the peeing incident. I won't name the place, but it's initials are JCP. No pun intended.

Twice in one day...holy schnikies!

I forgot to mention a couple of things.

I'm not sure, but I think A Million Little Pieces author and Oprah bitch slap victim, James Frey is in a phone service ad. It's the one where the Dad finds out his three daughters are discussing his lovelife with their friends. I believe the youngest daughter says someone's grandmother finds him "super delicious."

Also, I can recommend the new Silversun Pickups cd, Swoon. I have "Panic Switch" on repeat in the car. I usually listen to it for my 30 min. drive home. Because radio around here is generally crap, I didn't even realize that the song seems to be the first single. Here's the video.

Strange bits and bobs

Comment overheard from freakishly Republican boss on Earth Day while he was on the phone with a friend, "If we shot all the Democrats, that would probably cut down on a lot of CO2..." This is why I don't talk politics at work.

Today while I was in the mall shopping for a birthday gift I was standing at some clothes racks near the dressing room and I heard someone peeing in the dressing room! It sounded like a 2 liter bottle of soda was being poured on the floor.

The IT Crowd is my new favorite British show. I picked up the season 1 DVD. Sadly, it seems I missed it's run on IFC. Damn.

Run Matt Run

Okay, gotta post fast since I'm at work.

Yeah Matt! (Not seen in photo) He did the marathon in 2 hrs. 49 minutes. I would have taken 2 years, 49 days.

Wind beneath my wings man...wind beneath my wings.

Eggs, Kites and Marathons

Hey all, hope everyone had a great Easter. I enjoyed looking for eggs with my nephew, followed by flying his new Winnie The Pooh kite. On Saturday, I went to a birthday party for the one year old daughter of some friends. They had hidden eggs all over their yard for the chillins to go looking for. Disney was there with her kid, who threw at least 2 fits that I know of, one of them within seconds of walking into the house. Screaming brats always make for a good time. I found an egg and tried to give it to one of the little girls, but they were oblivious to my voice so I kept it myself!

A friend of mine, Matt, will be running the Boston Marathon this Friday. I've signed up to get progress reports during the race. I feel confident he will do well. GOOD LUCK MATT!!! Run like a crazed customer is chasing you down to ask you if you have the latest issue of Paula Deen's magazine in stock.

Last week, while riding back from lunch with some co-workers, one of them actually tried to argue AGAINST recycling! Seriously? How is recycling bad? He was talking about a conversation he had with his son. His kid asked why they didn't recycle their newspapers, etc. Dad explained that they had a burn barrel that they used to get rid of the paper so it didn't go to the dump. He told us that he thought the school was "brainwashing" his kids into trying to make their parents feel guilty about not recycling...because this whole "global warming thing is a joke, just like the energy crisis in the '70's." I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at the conversation since about 90% of the office is Republican. I considered saying something, but if I know anything about this guy, I know his mind does not change. Ack. Wonder if he's doing anything for Earth Day?

winner winner chicken dinner

I never thought I would say it, but...I'm really glad Carolina won last night. Why? Because it meant that I won the office pool!!! I thought I was out of the running thanks to the guy in the lead having picked all Final Four teams, whereas I had only 3 of them. But, thankfully, he picked UCONN to win it all and that meant thanks to the Tar Heels, I squeaked by winning by two points.

YAY! I would have had it locked had I not stuck with Duke for as long as I did, but in the end, all was well. 53 bucks well actually. I ended being 29,674th in the CBS Sports.com pool, which was much better than the 400,000+ I was after the first weekend. I'm also pleased to say that all 3 of the women that participated in the work pool ended up in the Top 5! Sweet.

The game itself was not quite what I thought it would be. The Tar Heels had their way with the Spartans, which is what I thought would happen, but I didn't think it would be quite so lopsided. During the second half, I was bouncing back and forth between the game and Paranormal State on A&E. I did enjoying seeing Larry Bird and Magic Johnson during the ball presentation earlier. How many months till next season starts?

Down to one

It's looking like I will not be winning the pool at work. Now that I'm down to just Carolina as my only viable pick, I think I'm out of luck. Maybe I'll come in second and get $20. The Michigan St./UCONN game was great. MSt. could do no wrong and UCONN just seemed befuddled at times. The Nova/NC game was much more of a drag to watch. The first half went along pretty quickly but once no one could hit a damn basket in the second half it was much less fun. This wasn't the Nova we saw the last couple of games. Oh well, since I have Carolina picked to win, I'm not complaining.

Did my first fairly big bone headed thing at work on Thursday. I was faxing out a proposal/price quote to a customer when I accidentally faxed over our pricing sheet. The pricing sheet shows the unadjusted list price of the equipment, the corporate approved discount pricing, and what we actually priced the unit at. Obviously, this is not something you want just roaming about out of the office. I was very lucky that we sold the item at the approved discount price; we hadn't marked it up any on our end. I'm hoping the customer saw the sheet, thought "what the hell is this?" and just tossed it out. It had been a frustrating morning to begin with after I found out the 4 hours of work I'd done at home that night was for not. It seems like I almost broke the fax machine; I was hitting the "stop" button so hard and fast. Made me want to cry. Oh well, lesson learned I suppose. It didn't help that Disney had to pop her head out of her office and let me know that she'd never done that. Great pep talk! I felt better at lunch though when, while she was trying to tell us that she wasn't very good at math or anything mechanical, she used the word "medical" instead. In fact, she used it all three times she repeatedly made her point. Got a nice chuckle out of that one. Made me feel like I was back at the bookstore listening to the uber talk and use incorrect verb tenses. Ah, memories...