Things not to do at your bachelor(ette) party

Ladies,

Maybe it's just me--I am willing to accept that possibility.  People are different.  They should tailor their various functions to their needs and desires.  Tonight, I attended one of the most bizarre bachelorette parties I think I ever had, and it got me thinking about all of the weird wedding-related things I've seen in the last 5 years.

Tonight, I attended a bachelorette party where (I don't know how or why) all of the mothers were invited.  The mother of the bride was there.  The mother of the groom was there.  The mother of the maid of honor was there.  Bridesmaids' mothers, and even grandmothers, were there.  It felt more like a wedding shower than a bachelorette party, but all of the women there seemed to think it was cool to get drunk.  So I am sitting there watching middle-aged women being all, "we're such cool moms, we're at a bachelorette party!"  They're downing alcohol like no tomorrow, the bride and her friends think it's funny at first, but it took very little time before they started getting disgusted.  This is unfortunately happening at a Hard Rock Cafe, and the second a Go-Go's song comes on, moms are singing and dancing at the top of their lungs in the middle of the restaurant.  (OMG.)  One bridesmaid finally had to tell her mom to stop because she had several drinks already, was still drinking, and was planning to drive herself home right after dinner.  (The mom, of course, seemed to think she was too cool to leave at this point and wanted to stay the rest of the night--which moms had not been invited to--going bar hopping with the wedding girls.)

Lesson: If you think you're a cool mom, great.  Go drinking with your friends.  Your kids don't want to see that.  Be an even cooler mom and let your daughter hang out with the real cool people--her friends.  

I should note that for this same wedding, all male relatives were invited to the bachelor party too.  My husband went for the early evening activities, but left before things got too weird, apparently.  I later found out that both the father of the groom and the father of the bride stayed the entire party.  The FOB ended up having to escort around the groom because he was too smashed to walk.  They lost two of the groomsmen in Denver.  The next morning one of the groomsmen woke up in the groom's mother's house wearing a woman's tank top with no clue where his shirt was or how he ended up at the house or wearing what he was wearing.  

Lesson:  Seriously--this is how you want your bride's father to see you?  Really?

I attended one bachelor party (that should be a red flag already) where the bride had required the groom to invite her friends (ironically, I wasn't one of them).  See, the bride had a lot of friends, and apparently all of them needed to be in the wedding; the groom, for whatever reason, didn't wish to involve himself in the wedding plans.  She had 15 female friends she wanted in the wedding, plus her brother.  The groom wanted me, my husband, and a friend from high school who couldn't make it.  Result: Eight of her friends, plus me (so that I could walk with my husband) stood on her side of the wedding party.  Her brother, my husband, and her seven other friends stood on the groom's side.  (Yeah, the wedding party pictures were unique, to say the least.)  Her reasoning was that because her friends were on his side of the wedding, they should be invited to the the bachelor party; and even though I was a friend of the groom, my invite was to the bachelorette party (which I ditched to hang with the...er, guys).  We ate dinner, and then were supposed to hang out at Dave & Buster's for a while, but all of the bride's friends were underaged, so we had to wait for an old enough (25 years) cousin escort to get them in.  That was supposed to be the evening, but the best man (bride's brother) was a cool guy, and wanted to do a "real" bachelor party.  Somehow I find myself in a car calling my older brother for advice on strip clubs, we drive to one, the bride's friends are standing there grossed out, and everything is awkward.

Lesson:  If your bride is making attendance of her friends at your bachelor party mandatory, RUN. Don't plan adult activities for under-aged groups.  And for goodness sake, if you are the best man, ask someone beforehand where the good strip clubs are; avoid asking your cool female friend to hunt down the information for you on the spot, which generally can result in a lot of her family members calling the next day with awkward questions.  

Alula

The Sims 3 CRC Installation Error

File this one under total weirdness.  I went out and bought The Sims 3 as a celebration for getting a job; I have been a fan of Sims games since the beginning.  Mostly I don't play the game a lot.  I enjoy designing the houses and living spaces and then watching the people mill around in their perfect little word, filled with resources, like it's a digital ant farm or aquarium--very soothing.

When I bought the game, I tried to install it on my desktop that evening after spending all day backing up my laptop.  Mr. Borealis had been on me for a while to let him upgrade the system on my Dell Studio 15 from Vista to Win7, so I figured I wanted this done before installing my new game.  The problem was, while Mr. B worked on formatting my laptop and installing the new OS, I could not get Sims 3 to install on my Desktop due to a recurrent CRC error that stated the .exe file on the disk did not match the .cab file, and that the disk must be corrupted, and to contact the software vendor.

I started looking online to find that many, many unfortunate game owners have had this problem, and EA Games either can't or won't fix it satisfactorily with a patch.  Their offered solution is to defrag your disk (which, let's face it, never works), to check for system updates, etc., etc.--"It must be user error, because we here at EA Games are gods."  There were more helpful solutions online from other users, and after trying it the EA Games way and failing to install 5 times, I was willing to try everything.  I tried installing as admin, popping the disc in and out repeatedly, clicking to ignore the error (resulted in a disk authentication error), copying the disk to the hard drive and attempting install from there--all to no avail.

Eventually, I begain to notice that the .exe file it was complaining about was not for the game itself, but for the EA Media Downloader.  So when the disc complained again, I opened up the install file and just deleted the contents of the Media Downloader folder because I hadn't planned to spend more money online.  I just wanted to play the game I had payed $50 to play.  TADA!!!!  After deleting that file, the game installs and plays perfectly.

Oddly enough, the game produced no errors when I tried to install it on my laptop.  Both machines were running Win7 at the time of installation, and both had well above the game requirements.  Several other users in online forums have reported similar anomalies, where the game seems to "like" certain machines and "not like" others for no apparent reason.

EA, get your act together.  Based on the input I read from other highly dissatisfied customers, your inability to patch this has led others to give the game horrible reviews, alter the game in ways that has affected the game performance to get it to even play, and even pirate the game to get what they paid for.  Is this the type of press you really want?

Alula

Lean Pockets Culinary Creations

Ladies,

I had to post a quick review here of a product that I recently discovered in my grocery store.  Maybe they had been there for a while, but I only recently noticed them.  The Hot Pockets brand has added some new flavors to their Lean Pockets "health food" line.  Granted, these items are microwaveable frozen things that don't really fill my personal definition of a healthy food due to the preservatives and general lack of fresh plant matter, but they are pretty good for sticking to a diet at 250-270 calories per pocket.  

Usually I like the Ham & Cheese, or the Turkey & Cheese, and there's also one that has broccoli thrown in the mix for color.  When I recently went to the grocery store to refill my freezer's emergency stock, I noticed new flavors, deemed the Culinary Creations line.  Admittedly, some of the flavors looked kind of weird, but my curiosity was piqued so I grabbed a few.  My verdict is that they were pretty good--at least, they added some variety to the Something & Cheese that I usually buy (they all kind of tasted the same before--not bad, just not distinguishable).

The Chicken, Bacon, & Dijon impressed me--I will definitely be buying this one again.  The Spinach Artichoke Chicken was okay, but didn't wow me.  I'm thinking that it may have something to do with my attempting to eat a food containing artichoke as a breakfast food; for lunch or dinner, it probably would have scored higher marks.  (Also note that artichoke does not mix well with Rockstar; learned the hard way so you don't have to!)  I will probably try the Garlic Chicken White Pizza and the Chipotle Chicken next.

Alula

Some Good News

I got a job!  It's an evidence technician position.  I'm starting Monday.

Alula

My body, Acting out

It is now (officially) a month since I first started feeling ill.  In retrospect, I'm wondering at the fact that it happened right after I graduated, and had a sudden resurgence in the last week of my job.  I blew out an eardrum, then had a wicked cough and sore throat, and this week, nausea, aches, and fatigue.

I'm beginning to work on a new theory here (it's not pregnancy--yes, I'm sure), because I'm starting to think these symptoms are in part psychosomatic.  I think my body is physically rebelling against my not being in school and over worked; I went two years being swamped with relatively good health.  Even being overweight, I had great scores on my cholesterol and blood pressure, and that's something coming from a family history that's horrifically bad on both fronts.  Now I'm sleeping, watching television, catching up on reading, and have time to write and publish--so why do I feel so crappy?

Every time I sit down to write I feel like I need to be doing something; mostly, I think I need to be finding a job.  I think I put in 10 new job applications today.  I finally have my husband's full support to focus on getting published, and after years of dreaming of doing just this, I suddenly have some subconsciousness need to avoid.  Last night I stayed up until after midnight researching jobs and property in Montana (would I *really* do it, now that my education isn't in the way?  I have no idea).

Munchkin, thank you for agreeing to hold the whip on the publishing cause.  I need it.  Until I adjust to this strange new way of life, I need someone providing structure for me.

Alula

This is what I am up too!

Pray their is more to fallow or I am going to fail my class!