Christine has been asking me to post this video of her Uncle Tom from Nebraska for the last couple weeks. I finally got the time, energy and motivation to hook her up. Enjoy!
You guys decide.
Drunk? Click To View The Video
Monthly Archives: June 2006
The New & Improved Chris vs Chris!
Well, y’all… here it is! Christopher worked is cute little ass off for weeks on the redesign (I helped some… by reorganizing content and offering feedback on the layout, and by giving him a little oral encouragement every now and then and this is what came of all the labor… the brand new cvc site.
Personally, I love it!
It’s not quite perfect yet… Christopher is still working on fixing a few bugs here and there (I don’t think it works in IE yet either– a big bug), but it’s way faster than our old site, it has a much more organized home page so you can see more posts without scrolling and clicking on as many links, and the overall design is a little cleaner than the other one.
Christopher and I have both changed a lot in the last year and a half since we started doing this blog, so it was only natural the blog would evolve too.
So kudos to my boy for all his hard work and a job well done (as usual). You rock, Christopher! 
Squeaky Clean Colon Cleansing
So about a week ago, Christopher expressed to me his desire that I get more fit. Translation… he wants me to lose weight. I didn’t react to that request so well which then prompted a fight where he also expressed that I’m difficult to talk to about things… but that’s a whole ‘nother post all together. Point is… it prompted me to turn over this new leaf in the Christine Fitness Regime. Now… please understand that prior to this, I didn’t see myself as “unfit.” I’d been doing an hour of cardio 5 days a week, kicked Christopher’s ass in a 5k run in March, and always had salad for lunch and subbed salad for french fries whenever I ate out. But… I wouldn’t mind looking like Pam Anderson (without the hepatitis sunken in eye look) and I definitely don’t have THAT body… so I have decided to make that my personal goal. Then I will be happy, Christopher will be happy, and maybe he’ll start inviting me to come along when he goes out with his friends. We’ll see…
<-- Very nice body (good job, Pam!)Well… as a part of my new health regime, I got myself a personal trainer who suggested I do a colon cleanse. So I am… I chose an all-herbal one that basically consists of taking two pills (one fiber pill and one that’s a plethora of– according to the package– seemingly beneficial herbs all powdered up and made into the other pill).
When I told Christopher I was doing this, he decided to research it on the web, and called a bunch of his friends who he thought would have knowledge about it, and then came to the conclusion that colon cleansing is nothing more than a marketing ploy by drug manufacturers to sell a product that no one can prove really works or not.
Maybe he’s right. He did do the research.
But I have to say… since I started, I feel better. I haven’t had a single stomach ache. I don’t feel as sluggish. I mean, at the expense of sounding gross, I really don’t see how completely emptying your bowels twice a day WOULDN’T be good for you. It seems like getting waste out of your body, as opposed to letting it sit there and rot in your colon would be a thousand times better than the alternative. And… after two weeks, I’ve lost three inches around my stomach which realistically couldn’t be just fat from working out and water weight from drinking the gallons upon gallons of water I’ve started drinking. I think it’s safe to attribute at least some of that to the colon cleanse.
Anyway, he and I are both interested in hearing what other people have to say about it, and their experience with it, and what not. So feel free to chime in and give your thoughts.
But in the meantime, here’s to a squeaky clean colon, and my new & improved, healthy lifestyle, AND the Pam Anderson body that’s just waiting for me.
Big Decision… Big Day… Lasik, Here I Come!
So I finally, finally, finally did it! Yesterday, while at my optometrist’s office, I made the decision that contact lenses are going to be a thing of the past for me, and I’m going to finally get Lasik surgery. I’ve been wanting this for years, but just never got around to making the appointment with the surgeon and committing to a date to go under the knife (er… I mean, laser). But now it’s set in stone. August 17th is the big day!
I’m super excited about this. If you’re someone who was lucky enough to have crap eye sight like myself, you’ll understand when I say -5.25 in my left eye and -4.75 in my right pretty much sucks. I can’t see my alarm clock sitting on my nightstand a foot away without picking up my glasses and looking through them. I can’t swim without googles. I can’t fall asleep when Christopher puts on Band of Brothers (again) because I know when I wake up, my eyes will feel like sheets of plastic have been glued to them. I can’t cry and make Christopher feel guilty about yelling at me because the next day, my contacts will fog up like San Francisco in December.
But freedom is just around the corner!
No more little round cases, no more forgetting that I’m out of saline, no more crawling around on the floor looking for the one I dropped. It will be life changing to say the least.
God gave me perfect vision as a child, and a doctor somewhere in Beverly Hills will (hopefully) give it back to me at 32! It will be a rebirth… it will be like visiting Asia for the first time! Everything will be new and different. There will be no more unhappiness in my life. I will be a brand new woman… full of exuberance and lust for life. Despite what Christopher says, I think my expectations are realistic.
I will keep you all informed of the inevitable life-changing events that will certainly be rooted in this decision to get my corneas cut open and then welded back together. Ahhh… life is good, y’all. Life. Is. Good.
BTW… if you have stories about people who needed enhancement surgeries right away, or went blind, or some shit like that… keep ‘em to yourself. I don’t need anybody to piss on my parade. But if you want to send me gifts and flowers after my surgery, you’re welcome to. I like tuilps.
Keeping Romance Alive…
So thanks to myspace, I recently reconnected with one of my male friends from high school. He used to be one of my best friends–the closest thing I ever had to having a protective older brother– and I always thought very highly of him… still do. So we recently reconnected and are still in the process of talking about what our lives have been like for the last 15 years and last night we were chatting online about our respective relationships and he made an interesting comment.
He said that his girlfriend told him that he wasn’t “the marrying type” and he was sort of offended by that (despite the fact I think most guys would rejoice to hear that, especially if the girlfriend wasn’t breaking up with them after realizing it). And we talked a little bit about how he used to have romantic notions of finding the right girl to marry and all that… and then made the comment I found most interesting. He said… “Romance is hard to maintain though.”
I can see his point. I think a lot of guys run into this eventually. And I think it’s somewhat problematic in a lot of relationships because (1) women tend to like romance (or I should say it’s a bigger part of the relationship for them) than men; (2) most guys put in a lot of effort to be romantic in the early stages of a relationship and then don’t keep up that effort as the relationship becomes more secure and comfortable; and (3) the dwindling acts of romanticism on the guy’s part can cause the woman to feel like she’s now being taken for granted, or less appreciated than she once was.
So I decided to write a post on keeping romance alive…
Now, I can only speak from personal experience, and I don’t feel that on the spectrum of all the women I know, that I need romance as much as many of them do… but I of course, like every woman, appreciate romance when it comes my way…
But here are some ideas for the guys to throw a little bit of romance back into their relationships. It’s better to do it before your wife or girlfriend mentions that she feels the romance has died in your relationship, so if you haven’t done anything remotely romantic in a while, consider the fact that you happened to read this post as a fate’s gentle reminder…
1. Send flowers. As cliche as it sounds, every time Christopher surprises me with a bouquet of flowers, it reminds me how lucky I am to have a guy in my life who thinks about me when I’m not there. And variations on this are also great. One night, I was at Christopher’s place, working on my laptop while he was working too during a period where we both had tight deadlines and the only way to spend time together was to actually work in the same location (sadly enough) and he found a picture of a rose on the internet, printed it off, and came over and handed it to me. I still have it on my desk and it makes me smile every time I look at it. My ex used to leave a flower tucked under the windshield wiper of my car when we worked in the same office building with a post it note telling me to drive home safe. All of those are very romantic gestures.
2. Make her dinner. Even if you can’t cook and you end up serving Chef Boyardee ravioli from a can, she will appreciate it. There is nothing sweeter than arriving at your guy’s house to find a candlelit table and his best plates and silverware out on the table, and an open bottle of wine waiting for you. Taking your wife or girlfriend out to dinner is always really nice, but knowing you put in the effort to make something for her yourself is very romantic.
3. Send her a card. Buy a blank card at Hallmark for $3 and write something simple inside letting her know you were thinking about her and she means a lot to you. It will be a really nice surprise when she opens her mailbox and sees it among the bills and junk mail.
4. Go for a drive to someplace beautiful. We live near Palos Verdes, so there are a lot of beautiful views from the hills above the ocean, but you can find them anywhere. Take her for a drive and share the view. It will mean a lot to her that you saw something beautiful and then thought of her.
5. Hold her hand when she’s not expecting it. I remember sitting in a coffee shop type of diner after Christopher and I finished playing in our racquetball leage and we were talking about something going on at his job and he reached over and held my hand. Despite that there was nothing romantic about that setting at all (except for maybe that Christopher was dripping in sweat after playing racquetball
), it was something I remember vividly, so it must have made an impact.6. Give her something small and meaningful. Despite my affection for diamonds
, sometimes the smallest thing can be the most meaningful. My friend’s boyfriend was at the mall and stopped at one of those carts where you can have them take your picture and put it on a mug or t-shirt or whatever. He took a piece of paper, wrote ‘Jason “hearts” Melissa” and had them make it into a keychair. When she wasn’t looking, he clipped it onto her keys later on, and she thought it was the coollest thing. It cost him about $5, but to her, it was one of the best presents he gave her.7. Make her a mix CD for her car. Include her favorite songs and some typically romantic songs.
8. Kiss her like you mean it. Couples kiss all the time and even kissing can become routine. Kiss her when she’s not expecting it and let her know in the way you do it that the kiss means more than just another kiss.
9. Tell her you love her. When you’re not in a discussion about how you feel about each other, not finishing a phone conversation, and not before you turn over to go to sleep.
10. Write something sweet spontaneously. Ask her for a pen when you’re at a fast food restaurant and write on the paper napkin that she’s beautiful and hand it to her. Simple, but romantic.
I don’t think romance is hard to maintain (like I told my friend). But I also think romance is easy to fake and women shouldn’t feel like guys who are romantic necessarily love them more than a guy who isn’t. A guy who shows his girlfriend or wife every day in lots of ways how important she is in his life– and never does a “romantic” thing– is a hundred times better than a guy who is full of romantic little notions and never backs it up with anything real. But if you think you’re girlfriend would like a little more romance now and then, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find something that will make her smile. Romance should be looked at like a bonus. And an amazing guy is an amazing guy whether he’s romantic or not.
