Brianne Blogs?

We had the best day ever as part of our Inauguration Celebration! We went to breakfast and it was great and then we headed to Times Square for the coverage on the large screens. There were a ton of us in Duffy Square and tons more lining the sidewalks. Also, it was freezing, but the body heat surrounding us helped.

We watched the whole show and it was fantastic. The yelling, the flag waving, the booing at Bush. All so great! For some reason during the speech and after as the three of us were standing around hugging, chatting, hi-fiving, a lot of press photographers were taking pictures of us. So, keep your eyes peeled as there were multiple photos of the three of us singing, hugging and talking.

Our theory was that they thought one of us was famous. I really cannot tell you how many pictures were taken of us and we’re still not sure why. But how great would it be to open up a newspaper or magazine and see Lisa, Brianne and Meghan smiling happily at you. We surely enjoyed our 15 minutes of fame today and I’m just so happy to have finally cast a vote for the winner!

I am so excited about today! I’ve already cried twice and haven’t left the house! We are on our way to times square! Updates to follow!

This post was supposed to be about our triumphant return to Theatre after boycotting Broadway for several months to show our anger over the closing of our favorite shows. However, this post is actually about me being an idiot at the show and therefore is much more interesting.

Friday afternoon, Meghan and I took our extremely cold selves down to Times Square to stand in line for discount tickets. We stood in line for much longer than we thought we’d have to given the 17 degree weather and the biting wind and the instant numbing of our extremities. When we got to the front of the line we decided to see an off-Broadway spoof of Broadway shows as that felt like a fitting way to come back to live Theatre, by mocking what we’re still a little pissed at.

Anyway, we get to the theatre and a nice woman says “oh, are you in this row?” and we were the last two seats in the row. So, we say “yes” and her entire party gets up for us to get into the row. As I’m walking past this woman, I look her in the face and say “guess we should have gotten here first” and she makes some nice lady reply and we take our seats. Okay, nothing abnormal about that.

Then I remind Meghan to turn off her phone, as I do at all movies or live events since she can never seem to remember, even when they ask you to at the movies, but that’s a story for another day. Anyway, I see that she is texting, and I look over and it’s for me to read. And it says “wouldn’t it be funny if I had left my phone on and my phone rang and it was a Sex and the City ringtone?” Well, I didn’t know how that would be any funnier than any other ringtone ruining the show for everyone and I certainly didn’t understand why she texted it to me instead of saying it, so I lightly smiled and moved on with my life. Meghan and I are so different that the things that she thinks are funny I often to do not and vice versa, so I didn’t think anything of my not understanding what she was saying. It happens all the time.

Flash forward to after the show as we are getting in our taxi-that’s how cold it was. We get in the taxi and she says “great seats”. And I say “yeah”. Again a little confused as to why she is saying that now, but again chocking it up to my lack of understanding of most things Meghan. And then she says “I mean, we were sitting next to Cynthia Nixon!” To which I reply, “WHAT?!” After a lengthly discussion in the taxi I realize that the nice lady I talked to and looked right in the face was Miranda from Sex and the City. She’s my favorite character on the show and I didn’t even realize it was her! And it’s not like she was walking down the street and I didn’t notice her, I talked to her and squished by her to get to my seat and still missed it! What? It was at this point that Meghans Sex and the City ringtone comment made sense and she realized that I wasn’t playing is super cool as she thought I was in the theatre, I just had no idea what was going on…in our row…two seats away from us. I mean, Meghan was sitting next to her daughter and hearing everything they said and I was just in my own, no celebrity here, world. Crap-it!

And the strange thing is, I always see celebrities and have to point them out to Meghan and Lisa when we are out walking or whatever. But, put one in my face and I’ve got nothing. This is so unexpected. It makes me wonder how many other famous people I have talked to and had no idea…

Friday, as I was innocently signing out of my e-mail, I see there is an article linked to the MSN homepage about those of us who are not members of Facebook. As I am a proud non-member of Facebook mania, I read this article and found it quite funny. http://www.slate.com/id/2208678/

Some of my favorite parts:

“At 1:37 a.m. on Jan. 8, Mark Zuckerberg, the 24-year-old founder and CEO of Facebook, posted a messageon the company’s blog with news of a milestone: The site had just added its 150-millionth member. Facebooknow has users on every continent, with half of them logging in at least once a day. “If Facebookwere a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria,” Zuckerberg wrote. This People’s Republic of Facebook would also have a terrible population-growth problem. Like most communications networks, Facebook obeys classic network-effects laws: It gets better—more useful, more entertaining—as more people join it, which causes it to grow even faster still. It was just last August that Facebook hit 100 million users. Since then, an average of 374,000 people have signed up every day. At this rate, Facebook will grow to nearly 300 million people by this time next year.”

“Friends—can I call you friends?—it’s time to drop the attitude: There is no longer any good reason to avoid Facebook. The site has crossed a threshold—it is now so widely trafficked that it’s fast becoming a routine aide to social interaction, like e-mail and antiperspirant. It’s only the most recent of many new technologies that have crossed over this stage. For a long while—from about the late ’80s to the late-middle ’90s, Wall Street to Jerry Maguire—carrying a mobile phone seemed like a haughty affectation. But as more people got phones, they became more useful for everyone—and then one day enough people had cell phones that everyone began to assume that you did, too. Your friends stopped prearranging where they would meet up on Saturday night because it was assumed that everyone would call from wherever they were to find out what was going on. From that moment on, it became an affectation notto carry a mobile phone; they’d grown so deeply entwined with modern life that the only reason to be without one was to make a statement by abstaining. Facebook is now at that same point—whether or not you intend it, you’re saying something by staying away. “

So, friends of mine-and by friends, I do not mean Facebook Friends as the Facebookers of the world like to refer to those people they will never actually speak to but who have “friended” them on the site-I am not a Facebooker and never will be. Yes, I am a holdout, and a proud holdout. I amsaying something by staying off Facebook. I am saying that if I don’t talk to you now, I don’t want to be talking to you. If you sat behind me in high school and we didn’t talk then, I don’t want to be talking to you now. If you saw me everyday across the parking lot at Southwestern and now want to know what I’m doing and where I am, I say to you, No, stalker, I do not want to be talking to you, either!

I’m sorry, but if your only form of communication with someone is via Facebook, that person is not actually a friend. There are people with whom I only e-mail and never call or see in person. Those people are not my friends. They are people I sort of keep in touch with but who do not deserve the moniker of  “friend” and I won’t let them give themselves that title on some website.

So, members of the 8th most populated country, Peoples Republic of Facebook, I am proud to not be a member of your squirming masses and when you seceed from the Union, I say go, and go with my best wishes and don’t e-mail me asking me to be your “friend”.

As I’m sure you all saw on Thursday, a plane did a bit of an emergency landing onto the Hudson river about 25 blocks from our house. As it was on the news all day here, we had no choice but to see it over and over again and hear over and over again what went down. By far our favorite part was how they let the women and children go first off of the plane. Meghan and I were particularly glad to hear that even now, in 2008, the women and children get to go first. On behalf of women and children everywhere and as a person who could end up in a similar plane situation I am thrilled that this is still the way of the world.

Daily readers: I am sorry that I didn’t know the date and set up my posting incorrectly. So, it’s 1145pm eastern and I am posting this and in a few short hours, you will get another one. So sorry that you had to live january 17th without your daily dose of my unimportant ramblings and thanks for pointing it out, Meghan. Also, Meghan, I was just going to post this one but thought since you are at work that I’d post a second just for you to enjoy later. You are welcome!

Last night, Meghan, Zak and I went to see Defiance as part of our current “see all the movies that are out because they all look so good and may be nominated for awards” plan. This movie was really really great. Up there with Doubt this movie season. I recommend seeing this in a STAT fashion. It was so good that even though it was frackin’ cold outside and we had to walk to the subway, Meghan and I talked about how great it was which almost made us forget that our extremities were being frozen off.

I’ve been upping my game on the Wii. When I was in Oklahoma, I found out that I could download old nintendo games onto the Wii and play them and I’ve been playing Super Mario Brothers 3 like a mad-man.

I’ve also been methodically playing MarioKart and increasing my skill. I’m no Jeff, but I’m much better than I used to be. Although, there’s this race where it’s dark and you don’t know where you are going and I keep falling off of the course, so that’s a bummer, but if the course is well lit, I am rocking it hard. Anyone, who is not Jeff, is welcome to visit and challenge me to a race. Challenge extended…

Meghan and I went to see the movie, Last Chance Harvey a few days ago. It was a nice little movie and I liked it, but I think it’s fair to say that if you saw the previews, you have basically seen the movie. I liked that they case the taller Emma Thompson with the short Dennis Hoffman and they let her wear heels and didn’t pretend he was taller. It was nice to see a couple that didn’t fit together perfectly. It was like real life. Way to go, moviemakers. Another thing about this movie, is that there may have been an age requirement to see it that Meghan and I did not meet. We were by far the youngest people in the theatre. No one else was even under 50. So, I think it’s safe to say that the geri crowd would appreciate this and should see it. All the geri’s in our theatre, including the one that got pissed at Meghan for kicking her chair during the movie, seemed to enjoy it. Do with that what you will.

So, I love to read the fine print at the bottom of commercial screens when watching TV. You’d be amused by the things they sneak at the bottom of the tv sreen during commercials. Some of my favorites are:

1. A Pop Tart commercial that talks about how giving kids Pop Tarts are healthy options for kids and says “Pop Tarts are made with real fruit”. Fine print: “real fruit content equal to 10%”.

2. A commericaial for Slim Quick drinks that show a cartoon woman drinking these drinks and then instantly losing weight. Fine print: “cartoons lose weight easily, real women need diet and exercise to lose weight”. Uh, thanks?

Unrelated bonus information: Meghan and I learned from my awesome useless information calendar that she got me for Christmas that the cement in the Hoover dam won’t be done curing for another 500 years. Take a minute to ponder that. Interesting, huh?

Yesterday, Zak and I went to see Revolutionary Road. It was really good. I, of course, liked the book better but the movie was pretty solid even though it’s a bit of a buzz kill.

We were with the strangest audience who laughed a lot. And in case this made you think “I didn’t know this was a comedy” you aren’t wrong. It’s not. Zak and I spent a lot of our time laughing at the fools laughing around us.

Unrelated side note: congrats to the only person I would consider marrying, Ben Rothelisberger on the Steelers win.