www.stylemepretty.com

The latest surprise is that the beautiful lady and I got married! Now most of you reading will already know this, but I thought I would go ahead and state the obvious. BECAUSE, if I didn’t mention it, everyone would be like, “Why didn’t he mention the fact that he got married?? It’s kind of a BIG DEAL!” SO, let’s all avoid the drama.

But honestly, September 19 was the most amazing day of my life. I seriously don’t have the words to explain how awesome it was. I had the best groomsman, a beautiful day, supportive friends and family and the most breathtaking wife.  It went by so quickly! Kind of like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland the first time I rode it–I had seen this pamphlet (I FOUND IT!!) where this rider has somehow turned into a skeleton, so I closed my eyes almost the whole time because I was so scared a skeleton was going to end up sitting next to me!!! I ended up missing the whole thing. So I learned from my mistakes and made sure and kept my eyes open during the entire wedding. Except during the prayers. But maybe I peeked a little during those, too. SHHH!!!

Amazing camera skills by Becca Patterson

That’s a terrible analogy, but I think you get the point. Wedding=awesome. Can’t wait for my next one.

Haaa, jk!

And I will brag for half a second (I typically hate bragging as well as braggarts) and say that I wrote a song for Kar and sang and played guitar for her at the rehearsal dinner. It was pretttttty awesome. I might have cried but the tears were mainly because I’m allergic to rehearsal dinners.

A Book

OK, so. Update. currently into reading books. Yes, with words. LARGE WORDS THAT TAKE UP ENTIRE PAGES. Just kidding. but really. but not really. While Kar and I were on our honeymoon, I actually got to just sit around and read. I used to read on the bus to work in LA, but since I moved north I haven’t really had the time to read.  So there.

I need to embed some random stuff, but it’s hard to do when people are creeping over your shoulder. hmmm…I’m sure I can work something out. <edit, have since embedded a few things, yayyy>

OH! So everyone runs up and is like, “Soooooo, how is married life??” like It’s supposed to be this crazy thing that I never expected and am supposed to react like, “OH MY GOSH it’s so crazy and this person just shows up every night and stays with me all the time!!” But honestly, I’m not a DB, and I know they’re just making conversation and being nice. But I can honestly answer that married life is freaking awesome. I decided a while back, that while I am a lone WOLF, I must have company. The catch-22 to that is I get annoyed having people around too much. I get uncomfortable and claustrophobic and have to escape! The AMAZING thing about Karli Meg is that I can spend 2390948943 hours with her and it is PERFECT. We can be laughing and cracking up and being ridiculous one second, and the next second just sitting there not talking and it is awesome. She understands how weird I am and that I’m just quiet sometimes and it’s amazing. She also stretches my small mind quite often. I highly recommend this whole finding your life-partner thing.

But enough NICE CRAP. Geeze.

So one quick humiliating story…I was chatting with my CEO’s secretary the other day, and the CEO comes out of his office and the secretary asks him about his golf schedule and being the “funny guy” that I am, said, “Count me in!” thinking that they would chuckle and go about their business. but NO. CEO turns to me and starts asking about my golf game. I freeze and bumble like I’m talking to one of my childhood idols (Hulk Hogan, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Leonardo), Batman, James Bond, Arthur Hoopes).  Probably didn’t impress him too much and might not be in the running for the promotion to VP, but whatevs. He knows I play golf. We’re pretty much BFF’s. He already gave me his AIM name bigpimp9023. not sure if it’s real.

OK, I have seriously written a novel, and not a single interesting thing. Oh, I recently realized that I enjoy working on computers…so if you have one that’s being funky, let me know and I’ll take a look at it.

OH MAN!!! P.S. do NOT watch Rachel Getting Married. Probably the WORST movie ever made, after Something’s Gotta Give, Dan in Real Life, and The Proposal. Seriously. I rarely dislike movies but holy crud that was terrible.

Annnnnd I just found out they don’t block Hulu here.  Time to catch up on Family Guyyy

1. Karli and I are engaged!! Probably not news to anyone who reads this, because you know us and have already been to the 120919 parties that we’ve had to celebrate. We only have about one month until the big day. It will be awesome and I’m so excited to have this sweet young lady as my wife!

2. We got a new apartment. I am living there for now (read, bachelor pad), and it is soooo much better than my last place, which was not only a spider den, but was also a tiny tiny step up from this. Karli will move in after the fantastic wedding. We have yet to throw a house-warming party because we don’t have enough seats for everyone yet (see picture below for example)!

3. Uncle Larry and my cousin Nathan came to visit for about a week! We visited the city a few times, and I must say, I am kind preeetttttyy obsessed with that place. We found a few good record stores and a few great restaurants. I am tempted to bail on our new apartment and find a tiny, disgusting one for 8 times more money in the city. I’ll have to run that by Kar…

4. I swallowed a nickel

5. Seriously, though, I swallowed a nickel!

6. My new jeans are WAY too big. Like I could go on a diet commercial and show how much weight I lost using these jeans. They’re that big.

7. I seriously can’t think of anything else. So I will call #7 random–Something happened and I can’t remember, but it was awesome!

So now that you’re all caught up on my life (who cares), let’s jump in.

Lately I have been on a few kicks…Twitter, technology news, music sites and newish things. Twitter is self-explanatory-I use it more as a news-sharing site than a rando site, but I do enjoy my share of solid, useless 140 character ramblings.

But Twitter kind of kicked off my love for getting info 24 hours a day on everything. Which led me to Technology news–like Engadget, cnet.com and a few others. For some reason I enjoy reading about the latest and greatest. The current drool-worthy piece of tech for me is the HTC Hero which will save mankind.

Next is music sites, specifically playlist-creating sites that you can share. I know Tumblr has been doing this kind of thing for a while–people can upload music and share it out, like Twitter on ‘roids–but I found this sweet site called 8tracks.com where you can create playlists and share them with anyone. They seriously have tons and tons of music and it’s a great way to find new stuff. You can do this with Slacker and Pandora, but I find that they tend to overplay the same rotation of songs, and they might not choose GOOD music, but genre-specific music. 8tracks tackles this by having REAL PEOPLE upload their fav songs. So you know that the music is good. Find me on there (search “leftoversilo”) and you can play the playlist I put together.

Another site like this is Grooveshark. Similar to 8tracks, but you create your own playlist for yourself rather than for sharing. It’s kind of a selfish version of 8tracks. So all of you who start 95% of your sentences with “I”, go ahead and use grooveshark. Just kidding. But really.

What else…hmm…I’ve found that I am a valuable tech resource at work, which is awesome, since I enjoy helping people, and enjoy tech. 1+1=fun.

I have so much more info I want to share, but I think that would be an info overload, and I want to save some for my next post in 93 months, so I will stop there.

Anyway, I think that’s all for now.

Another discovery…I enjoy playing bass. Not to be confused with bass.

So annyywwaayyy…things have been really really busy lately. Let me see if I can fill you in on the past few months in 12 words or less…xmas, xbox, tv, karli, ruidoso, texas, addie, mandin, mom and dad (counts as one word) new year, the letter M, annddd…tuna. Good. Glad we are up to date.

But really. Things are crazy. Work is good–who knew gift cards were so consuming and challenging? And who knew people actually FREAKIN believed the gift card emails going around. thanks, middle-aged women, for forwarding on a stupid “gift cards won’t work” email, along with your cute dog and cat emails, that could possibly put me out of business. But really, who reeaaddss those mass emails? There was this one guy at a place I used to work at who would just forward those ALL day. Seriously, I got like 45 mass emails from him in one day. So I emailed a friend of mine and said…”Frick, this dude will not stop sending me cute cat emails.” Little did I know–i had pushed reply all. Yeah. So you guessed it–no more cat emails. It was an awkward moment, for sure, but a great one nonetheless.
That was actually the SAME place one of the mail guys used to call me chris. I just kind of let it go until it had been like 4 months and he STILL called me chris. Then I think he found out because I saw him and said hello and he awkwardly looked at me and shuffled along. Hmmm.

So anyway. I’m on my blackberry, so I don’t have any awesome images for you, but I WILL say that you should go to pitchforkmedia.com and search for “all my girls” by Animal Collective. Just a warning-your head MAY explode. It is THAT good.

Also…I gueessss I am playing acoustic guitar this week at church, so if you are around the bay area–hit up Rolling Hills sunday to watch me choke. Still deciding which KISS member to dress up as. What? Not a good idea? Neither was chicken and waffles and that turned out amazing!!

So that’s enough for now. Hopefully it won’t be another 3 years before the next post. but maybe. I like to keep things mysterious!

I am currently scheduled to get a haircut–mainly because I look in the mirror and describe myself as that dirty kid in kindergarten that no one really wanted to sit by but the teacher always paired you up with and when he turned in homework it had Cheet-o fingerprints all over it (his name was Cody). THAT’s what I look like. Too bad it costs $1893 million dollars for a haircut, unless, of course, you want to do it yourself–but then you end would end up with a cut like our little friend here. NOT a good idea. I remember I went to this place in Woodland Hills and was slightly nervous when my haircut-person (salonist? Barber-a?) did not speak english. I was even MORE nervous when she shaved my head. But at least your hair grows back. Unless you are Howie Mandel (NOT to be confused with Nelson Mandela).

So Halloween is fast approaching, and the more I thought about it, the more Halloween makes me uncomfortable. I must say I am definitely NOT a fan. People dress up in weird clothes, ask for candy, and ring your door bell when you don’t want them to. THAT, to ME, sounds like what Bums do EVERY DAY. They just have a good excuse on Halloween. Or maybe a Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon. But they don’t ask for candy. Maybe they should?

But anyway, out of all the ridiculous things, it’s also just a really good excuse for girl’s to make anything into a ho outfit. Some people don’t even TRY! I can’t link to this because I am at work, but check out the “Lingerie” costume on this website. Ok, last time I checked, Lingerie was not a costume. But maybe not? Maybe I’m too oldschool. Maybe I should just go sit on my porch, smoke a pipe, talk about the good-ol days and scream at the kids on my lawn. That doesn’t sound too bad, actually. I just need a leisure suit. Maybe that will be my Halloween costume. Or maybe I’ll just come naked and say I’m a newborn.

Let’s just all agree that we’ll skip Halloween and just get straight to Thanksgiving. Sounds good. Agreed.

But I guess I should have saved a Halloween post until closer to Halloween, buuuuut…no.

Ok, anyway, I actually had a huge post written, but it was stupid, so I deleted it, and instead invite you to search Youtube for R. Kelly’s masterpiece “Real Talk.” I also darree you not to say “REAL TALK” after every sentence you speak upon watching the video. It is pretty much impossible REAL TALK. And I knoooow it has been out for a while, so don’t be surprised if when you tell someone about it, they annoyingly say, “oh, yeah, that’s pretty funny-but i saw that a few months ago.” If anyone says that to you, just stand up (if sitting) and slowly applaud them for their amazing pop-culture knowledge REAL TALK.

Ok, sorry for the lameness–I will post the most amazing blog post EVER tomorrow (no pressure) REAL TALK.

The results after about a week and a half? I am down 300 bucks. Not so hot. I tried to pick up some hot stocks and research “up and coming” stocks on various websites, but it was all to no avail. I am down and I have lost “money.” If I continue to lose money, hopefully they won’t virtually reposess my house or force me into virtual bankruptcy. But maybe. Maybe if I lived in Second Life.

So it pretty much is safe to say that unless you really know what you are doing, stay out of the stock market. But I guess that really goes for anything. Except eating. You don’t have to be a pro at eating to eat. Anyone can do it. Some just don’t do it very well…like people who chew with their mouth open, or people who smack, or breath really heavily while they eat. siiiiiick. I think my worst eating habit is probably eating very slow. I’d say about 12-15 times slower than a normal human.

So anyway, the weekend is sooo close, and this one should be pretty entertaining. A weekend with friends, some corn mazes, bowling, a little food, and hopefully a lot of nothing. But if I do get bored, I will definitely NOT ask people on yahoo answers what to do this weekend. Terrible idea. Unless you love sock snowmen. Which many middle-aged women do. So if you are a middle age-aged woman…you’re welcome.

Ok, time for lunch.

OK. So, just got back from watching C+R and I must say I am really impressed and motivated by the film. I really think it was well done and coherent. So many docu-movaries try to push a point but fail to engage the viewer, leaving you educated but really BORED.

BUT, this movie combined two issues very close to my heart–Social Justice and Music (capitalized because they are really THAT important (“THAT” capitalized for emphasis and nooot sarcasm, surprise surprise.)) I really think everyone should go check out this movie–even if you’re not a crazy hippie crying over dead trees, or don’t even know what a hippie is–I really think this movie will bring to light an issue that many of us have never really even thought about. I don’t want to necessarily spoil the movie for you, and I am definitely not a movie reviewer, so I will stop and say that I really enjoyed it, and please check out the post below to hit up the website and check it out. PLUS!!!—the interviews with Cornel West are so entertaining and a movie could probably be made out of all the ridiculous stuff he says. It’s magic really.

And if you get a chance, shoot Ms. Karli King (not to be confused with Karli King), the wonderful gf, a note and tell her good job on working so hard on the film, and congratulate her on her new job with Taproot in San Francisco (a.k.a. The City (according to locals, that is what it is called–along with their interstates having no “the”‘s in front of them. This is very difficult for a guy coming from SoCal where literally everything has a “the” in front of it–ex. The 405, The 101, The 10, The 5, The 867-5309.))

But anyway, enough about that stuff.

So I saw this great tv ad today for Dunkin Donuts and got really excited, so I jumped on their website to find one near me and there isn’t one close at all!! But when I was searching, I came across Krispy Kreme donuts. THAT took me back to Freshman year when I used to drive through the canyon every other day and get a DOZEN donuts (half chocolate glazed, half regular glazed) and a chocolate milk, and drrive alllll the way back to campus-and by the time I hit campus I had eaten them ALL!! EVERY OTHER DAY. So you can imagine what these nuggets of goodness did to my shapely physique. So I felt guilty one day after eating a half dozen and put on my running shoes. After I ran about a mile, I got soooo sick—so I went to my dorm room and just lay on my bed. And that was probably the last time I ever had krispy kreme donuts. But I would probably eat one now, I just haven’t had the chance!!

Maybe the last thought for the day–after almost having an accident, I think they should pass a new law along with the hands-free law. I’m thinking should be illegal to try and stare at someone to guilt them while they are illegally talking on their cell phones without their handsfree pieces. I say this because I was driving on 580 today (notice it is not “the 580″–it took much practice to fix that), and noticed this person driving terribly! So i pulled up next to them (race/gender/age will stay anonymous as to not support stereotypes), and they were on their phone without a hands-free unit!!!! “Illegal!!” I said to myself–and proceeded to drive alongside them and stare at them to guilt them. After staring for a few seconds too long I turned forward to notice JUST in time that traffic had stopped. SO. You know the rest. Thankfully Roger (my trusty steed of a truck) was not injured. So moral of the story–mind your own business and let the cops handle the turds on their cell phones.

OK. So two posts in one day. Pretty ambitious of me, I must say. But don’t expect it every day!

So, in the fashion of my realist expectations, I will NOT send this link to my family and friends, but will rather hope and pray for a few days that someone will stumble upon it, find my first few posts hilarious, send it to all of their friends, who then send it to someone famous, who then contact me about writing a book, movie, screenplay, etc……OK. Sooo, maybe that’s not keeping in line with my realist expectations, but whatevs. The truth is, I’ll probably be really excited about this blog for 3 days TOPS, then find out no one is reading it, then send it to my family and friends who will begrudgingly click on the link, read a few paragraphs then never click again. Hmmm.

But random thought for the day–the gf and I ARE going to watch a docu-movarie (a documentary movie) tonight called Call+Response (pronounced Call & Response). It’s a great piece about modern human trafficking that I think everyone should see. It’s easy nowadays to be so wrapped up in our material, self-involved world that we forget to think about some of the issues happening right around us. The movie is about an hour and 20 minutes long, and is showing in select locations, so check out if it’s showing near you (and view the trailer) by visiting Call & Response’s website.

Kar-Bar (the GF) has been volunteering tirelessly for Call+Response the past 4 months, so it will be great to see the outcome of all of their hard work at that great place. BUT–one thing that is annoying–is the fact that this is a GREAT opportunity for all sorts of people to find out about human trafficking, and a great cause for OTHER non-profits who are working to abolish modern slavery to support, but they don’t take advantage of it! Case in point–when I hear about a certain anti-trafficking group backing out of buying tickets and supporting this cause, it kind of makes me sick. So many foundations are just trying to push their brand and how cool they are and how great their cause is, and it just turns out to be a lot of fluff with no substance. SO. Before you really support a foundation, PLEASE find out what they ACTUALLY do, not what they say. OK, really, that’s it. I’m off of my soap box.

One last thing–I am a HUGE bargain-scavenger–so here is a great deal on a 22″ LCD tv. I bought one kind of like it a while ago for my XBOX and it is sweeeeet.

And p.s. if anyone has an extra laptop they want to get rid of/sell for mega cheap, let me know since mine went KAPUT. Henry (yes that is my laptop’s name) died about 4 days ago. He was a great computer with a wonderful sense of humor. Rest in Peace, Henry.

Ok, more to come later.