this really sucks in a good way

i purchased the yellow version of this vacuum:
i was a little hesitant when i checked it out at target today, as it seemed significantly smaller than my previous vacs, but at $60, the price was right, plus i had a spend $50, save $10 target coupon. it is pretty frickin small and lightweight. i was happily surprised by how well it sucked up hair, dust and dirt and for once i feel like our living room carpet is clean, which is nice. so thank you laura for the recommendation as well as the offer for your extra vacuum. hopefully this plus the roomba will keep this place in decent shape. i also vow to take better care of this vacuum and hopefully extending it's life. brown.

this was not convenient timing

my vacuum has apparently died and with 4 people (including messy ass dave) and one ginormous dog, not having a vacuum cleaner is not good. we have roomba, who gives a valiant effort, but is more of a daily maintenance type of vacuum....he just doesn't get everything that he should. now i am faced with a very difficult decision, especially considering how much money i have been spending lately. i could go for another one of those $75 relatively cheap, but not that effective vacuums that will surely die in less than 5 years or go get one of those dyson monster vacs. i'm sure you all have seen the commercials. these fuckers cost up to $500, but might be worth it if they actually work as advertised. i dunno. what should i do? i am kind of getting sick of having a messy house and want to take better care of it. my new blogging style has not really captured the attention of people like i hoped and i am not sure if anyone is still reading this, i may be on my own on this one.

dave's 35th birthday was a success

the portions of dave's birthday party where i was awake, were pretty awesome. a decent number of people showed up, a nice mix of people i see regularly and some that i rarely get to hang out with. we were able to finish off the quarter keg we had purchased earlier that day. we played a bunch of flip cup. someone mentioned that i was "looking hot" which was a nice ego boost...assuming it wasn't said with a malicious/sarcastic intent (ala "you're the coolest, homer simpson..) everyone seemed to be having a good time...even those that didn't take part in the drunken antics. it did get loud during the boys destruction of the girls in flip cup and i was a little concerned with the neighbors who were intermittantly checking things out from their bedroom window.

other things i noted:

• i was happy to see laura back to her old form, drinking and talking trash
• i wanted to see karen's sky diving video, but everyone had to watch olympic swimming (yawn...)
• it was good to drink with nikki and just see her in general since she has been gone for a month
• renée is a very good singer
• i decided i need to hang out w/ eskay in baltimore and bub and jill in silver spring
• bub would rather me call him bub than mark, which takes getting used to

people also played rock band, took shots (lots of them) and just generally had a good time. as the night wound down, some people were clearly too intoxicated. a few people ralphed outside, but luckily had sober people driving them home. after a lot of beer and way too many shots, i decided 3am was a good time to pass out. little did i know what was to occur next.

apparently, minutes after i collapsed into my bed, a friend of ours, who i will not refer to by name, was passed out on the couch. he/she then proceeded to vomit what was described to me as "black death w/ noodles". from all accounts, the volume of said vomit reached absurd proportions. it got so bad that it made another person run to the bathroom and upchuck. well our friend managed to vomit but was passed out and unable to really move. therefore, the people still remaining at the party, led by louise and some guys that have never met our friend, had to carry said vomitter out the door onto the patio, all while our roommate nicki was berating our friend and telling him/her to "man up". then louise had to clean up what was apparently a lot of puke. all this occurs while i lay asleep, blissfully unaware of the defiling of my carpet.

anyways, louise was up until 5am making sure our friend was ok (she had to work a double that day too) and they apparently woke up at some point in the morning and was able to make it home. i am sure this person is very embarassed about the situation and i would be too. that being said, we have been able to clean up the carpet pretty well. also, we know that this was an accident and don't really hold anything against our friend...although i am thinking they owe us a favor at some point.

so overall, i think this was our best party since my birthday last year. i am so glad i went to sleep when i did. considering how i was feeling at the time, i would not have been able to deal with that situation. i am also glad louise was able to tough it out and handle all of the dirty work. i showed my appreciation yesterday with a gift.

now the only question that remains, is what to do about my birthday. i will be turing 30, which sounds old, but as i have mentioned in the past, 30 is the new 12. i don't really care about making a big deal about my birthday as i tend to not enjoy being the focus of attention. that being said, i did really have a fun time the other night and would look forward to another similar evening. i would have to make sure that we keep an eye on how many shots people take as well as trying to keep the noise down so my neighbors don't get pissed off.

can you touch it?

well i came across a deal for refurbished ipods and thought long and hard about what to do. i am very intrigued by the ipod touch and all the touching that is involved. it seems like an iphone without the phone, which is fine since i have a good cell phone that i never use anyways. the problem is, they are expensive compared to the old boring ipods and they have much less storage capacity. initially this seemed like a problem for me as i have accumulated roughly 5o gigs of music, with about 30 gigs of stuff on my current busted ipod. the touch comes in 8, 16 and 32 gig varieties. i knew 8 would never cut it, so that option went out the window. i figured 32 would work, but the idea of spending $430 + tax on it seemed just a little out of price range. the 16 gig for $299 seemed like the best fit like i was an ipod goldilocks.
so i started to go through my massive music collection and began to remove things from itunes that i never listen to. well there was a lot of stuff that i had just collected cause it was free, but never listened to (oneida, menomena, etc). there were a lot of downloads where i shrugged my shoulders and thought "why not?"(dr. aliemento, iron & wine). there was a lot of music that i held onto because it was music that was made by groups/musicians that i know are good, but never really did anything for me (grizzly bear, the national, victor vaughn, etc.) there was also a lot of full albums i got where i realized i only really liked one or two songs (yael naim, bats for lashes, etc.)

after many trips through my music collection i took out all of the non-essentials and stuff that deep down inside i knew that i would never listen to and widdled everything down to under 13 gigs (of all lil wayne mix tapes, just kidding...but he does take up more than his fair share of space in my itunes). looking through it now, my collection is now a lot tighter with all music i know well and love. this will end the days of someone picking some random song on my ipod while i am driving and me having to embarassingly ask, "who is this?"

i realize now that i held on to all of that old music like a musical packrat. in the same way cleaning out old, useless junk from your basement (which i would like to do sometime in the near future), cleaning out a lot of old music i would never listen to felt surprisingly good.

so i will hopefully be touching sometime tomorrow, while retiring my old and loved ipod boring to my bedroom where it can still function perfectly well in my ipod stereo dock.

in other random news, i learned that one of my faves, amy poehler will be starring in the new office spinoff, which also includes the ridiculous aziz ansari. i don't see how this could fail. it would be nice to round out the cast with another snl alum, rachel dratch, who is equally hilarious, if not quite as nice to look at (i am referring to poehler by the way). it could make up for her getting the shaft from 30 rock.