October 2007 Archives

You may recall my brief foray into movie-making in hopes of winning things (at least it's hard for me to forget), but it turns out it wasn't for nothing after all, because I got the official word from Major League Eating that the video won. I was never entirely clear on the parameters of the competition, but it appears there was some sort of judging and I came out on top. My travel to Tennessee is now being sponsored by the MLE, while my lodging is sponsored by Krystal (two separate sponsorships = weekend of awesome). Originally, the contest rules had a trip to Vegas for two built into the winnings, but I'm not sure if this trip is replacing a Vegas trip. The word is, I will be the "star bunnette for the ESPN Krystal show," though--again--not entirely sure what that means. I think it means you might see more of my forearms than the other ladies'. So don't forget to set your tivo and watch for my forearms!

Things are nuts here with the Rockies fever. I'm having a hard time telling if this is national news or just local mayhem, but they decided to sell the World Series tickets online this year, which was greeted with much general booing. But then, moments before the website was due to open for business, it spread that you couldn't buy multiple tickets under one IP address. And since many businesses, including ours, operates under only one, everyone made a mad dash out the doors to position themselves in front of a computer that would actually work. Only, of course, to find that the entire website crashed (something about 8 million people trying to access it all at once) and only a handful of tickets were able to be sold. They're trying again today, and I'm just glad I don't have the money to spend on these tickets, because: craziness. If we make it to the 6th game in the series, it will not only be a special Halloween viewing of America's Next Top Model, but a baseball one as well. That's a lot of pressure for themed food planning.

In other news, I had my hair cut into some sweepy side bangs, like so. This breaks some sort of having-my-hair-almost-exactly-the-same streak I've been on for the the past few years. I'm still adjusting; turns out when you have bangs you spend a lot of time whisking them out of your eyes. If you've spent your whole life never having to whisk anything out of your eyes every five minutes, this small task seems very time consuming.

Remember when I wanted to be a bunnette real bad and my hopes were dashed and they used an old ANTM model in booty shorts instead? Remember when I said I was going to Chattanooga to cover the Krystal Square Off and how all the eaters love Krystal because they treat the eaters really well and really get behind them for the whole experience? Remember when I told you that Krystal contacted me and offered me a slot as an official Krystal Counter?

Maybe you don't remember the last one because it JUST HAPPENED!

First drinking the cocktail out of a coconut and now becoming a counter for an eating competition. Everything's coming up Liz.

I suppose I'm what you would call a fair-weather Rockies fan, but man the weather sure is fair! Seriously, I'm having a hard time remembering a time in my life outside of last night where I sat and watched almost an entire game on the television by myself. (Okay, for the first hour it was mostly "Heroes" with some game during commercials, but c'mon, I'm only human.) Some friends were watching the game at their house, but J and I had been feeling too tired to make the trek over. I only really regretted it during the middle of the game when all the exciting stuff was happening and there was no one there to cheer with me. I kept yelling plays down the stairs to J, until he came up to sit with me for awhile.

At one point I said, "They're gonna win!" and J got a wild look in his eye and hissed, "Don't say that! You'll jinx it!" So I know he cared a little, too. Anyway: World Series, suckas!

This past weekend, I hosted my first LUPEC meeting, which gave me an excuse to make all the tiki-themed drinks I've always wanted to try. I believe my crowning achievement was a banana daiquiri served in a coconut with an umbrella straw. Drinking a cocktail out of a coconut has been a lifelong dream of mine, and I'm happy to tell you it's as awesome as you might imagine. Yes, it was cold and sleeting outside, but in our hearts it was a warm beach. Turns out if you drink enough rum, you can be anywhere you want!

This meeting also allowed me to experiment with all kinds of fun snacks. I even fried up some plantains! I saw these cupcakes and knew I had to try the banana ones. A few weeks ago, I swear I saw a bag of those little candy bananas somewhere. I know this because I distinctly remember thinking: who would buy a big bag of just bananas? Of course the answer turned out to be: future me, and for the life of me I couldn't remember where I saw those stupid bananas. All weekend I was like, "Oh, maybe it was that one candy store...oh, let's try Big Lots...ooo, was it Cost Plus...oh, I guess it could have been Blockbuster..." to no avail. I even tried to find Runts and oh my god, could I not find freaking Runts anywhere. Finally, I conceded defeat and just drew the bananas on with some icing. I woke up on Monday morning and remembered quite clearly that my office has a big candy dispenser full of Runts. Ce la vie. The sad truth, of course, is that no one likes those bananas and everyone would have just picked them off anyway.

Also, it turns out I'm a genius at tropical fruit trays. It's like my hidden superpower. I was planning on just throwing some junk on a plate, but all of a sudden it was, like, making pineapple boats and fanning kiwi slices and turning mangoes inside out and shit. Seriously, I'm thinking of taking my show to the road and making the big bucks on the fruit platter circuit.

Happy Friday! And happy, er, October. Uh, happy this blog isn't totally dead, it just appears that way! I wish I had something exciting to tell you about why I haven't been around much. I wish I could tell you I was pregnant or that I had been one of 16 people selected to participate in a series of televised events and had to keep it a secret, but I think I just straight-up didn't blog for, like, a long time. Not as many people checked in with me to make sure I wasn't dead, so at least you've come to terms with my slacking. In any case! I am going to try to do better, and seeing as we're coming right up on NaBloMo you can expect much more from me starting in a couple weeks. Daily Liz!

There are all these little posters hanging up along major streets in Denver. They are fairly small and make with really cheesy stencils and spray paint. They simply say: Ron Paul 2008. For a couple weeks we kept forgetting to look up who this Ron Paul was and we hypothesized that perhaps he was running for class president at the local high school, or maybe it was part of an advertising campaign for some show or band. But when we finally looked it up, it turns out he is running for president...of the United States. The joke is on us though, because Krista pointed out that "Ron Paul" is one of the top internet searches, so ha ha his stupid trick worked. Which raises the question: do you have handmade Ron Paul signs in your neighborhood? Do they also look like they were made by second graders?

We are in the midst of a burrito war at work. Every day the burrito man comes to the office and the receptionist announces his arrival and office people go running to get their morning burritos. I'm not much of a burrito person in the morning, at least not on a daily basis. But don't try to take the burritos away from these people, because they will tear you up. So the burrito man is sort of a staple here. But then! There was a burrito lady! And the announcement would come that the burrito lady was here, and then later that the burrito man was here. Did he suspect something? Did people like the burrito lady better? She eventually stopped coming, and I suspect it was from heavy influence by the burrito man and his band of burrito enforcers. You would think this would warn people off the burrito territory. But today an announcement went around from a coworker, who was--you guessed it--selling burritos of her own. Because I don't go for the burritos and because the kitchen is out of my view, I keep track of the burrito war purely by announcements and emails alerting me of the current burrito status. But today when the burrito man came, a half hour or so after the coworker announced her new business venture, there was silence. Then his arrival was announced again. Let's just hope he doesn't find those stray tinfoil wrappers in the trash.