Let me just say… moving is a BITCH.

That is all.

Male Celebrities I hate…
-Justin Timberlake
-Russell Crowe
-Will Ferrell
-Ashton Kutcher
-Kevin Federline

Male Celebrities I love…
-Ewan McGregor
-Hugh Grant
-George Clooney
-Pierce Brosnan
-Jon Stewart
-Alan Alda
-Christopher Walken
-Robert Downey Jr.
-Johnny Depp
-Lewis Black
-The men of U2 (shut up, Stan and Kamin)

Male Celebrities I used to love, but now I can’t stand…
-Tom Cruise
-Mel Gibson
-Robert De Niro
-John Travolta

Male Celebrities I used to hate, but now I really don’t care…
-Leonardo DiCaprio
-Adam Sandler

Names are arranged in no particular order. Feel free to disagree or add your own. FYI, I left politicians and political pundits off the list on purpose. I excluded dead people, because really, all good lists have an end.

Happy Birthday to my little brother who turned 22 years old today!

Well we’re back in Philly again. Arrived yesterday morning on a red eye. The trip was incredible. My first real vacation in five years.

Tom and Melissa’s wedding was beautiful. I’m so happy for them! The road trip was amazing. Certainly the best trip I’ve ever taken. I’ve seen so many spectacular things that it’s hard to believe it all really happened.

In the next week, I will definitely be writing in detail about the trip and posting more pictures. Right now I’m back in the office and boy does it suck. All I want to do is hike down a canyon or drive up a unpaved road.

Well here I am at the end of Day 6 (4th day on the road) of my American West trip. So far this trip has been incredible. The pictures of these places don’t even come close to the real thing. I wish I could spend another two weeks out here.

Seen so far: Valley of Fire State Park, Snow Canyon State Park, Zion National Park, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (via the gorgeous unpaved 46 mile Cottonwood Road), Kodachrome Basin State Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Goblin Valley State Park, and some of Arches National Park this evening.

I’m in Moab tonight, and we’ll be in Arches and Canyonlands tomorrow. After that it’s on to Mesa Verde where (hopefully) we’ll find a place to sleep. I’ll probably write more than you’ll ever want to know about the trip when I get back, but for now, here’s a picture Edo took of the moon rising at Arches tonight.

Sitting here in McCarran Airport taking advantage of the free wireless. Very cool. Don’t know if I’ll be posting much over the next week, but if I have access I’ll check in here from time to time. If I can set a few posts on time delay, I might do that as well.

Tomorrow: Tom and Melissa’s wedding!!

Sunday: ROAD TRIP!!

Back in Philly on the 26th.

Anyway, that’s all for now. Guess who still has some office work to do….

Desert Trip: A Packing List for the Freakishly Pale:

Fallene Total Block Clear Sunblock, SPF 65 (for face in strong sun)

Hawaiian Tropic Ozone Sunblock SPF 70 (for body in strong sun)

Neutrogena UltraSheer Dry-Touch Sunblock, SPF 45 (for face the rest of the time)

Neutrogena Healthy Defense Oil-Free Sunblock Lotion, SPF 45 (for body the rest of the time)

Banana Boat Aloe Vera with Vitamin E Sunscreen Lip Balm, SPF 30 (lips burn, too)

Jergens Natural Glow Daily Moisturizer, Fair Skin Tones (for my efforts to make my skin look less translucent)

Stylish every day sunglasses (for any time there’s daylight, or when I have a hangover)

Oversized sunglasses (for those moments in extra blazing sun)

-Big floppy black hat (to wear when dressed up)

-Big floppy navy hat with chin tie (to wear in the wind)

-White bucket hat (to wear the rest of the time when I don’t want to look perfectly idiotic)

For all of those who asked, or were curious, here is the tentative route we are planning to take out West.

Click on the thumbnail to see the full-size image, including a list of route points on the left column. Warning: the image is 520KB in size and you might have to tinker with your browsers’ autozoom settings.

(This guest post has been brought to you by Edo.)
(Edo disagrees with the usage of the passive voice, and the editing of the disclaimer above without marking it as edited.)
Edit: Edo is a pain in the ass.

Update: We’re no longer staying at the San Remo on Saturday night. They’re turning it into a Hooters and there’s construction mess everywhere. So now, #1 on the map = The Luxor. :-)

Some of you may have heard that the new apartment hasn’t turned out to be quite as wonderful as we first thought. The bathroom was actually in pretty crappy shape, and the kitchen has less cabinet space than our current one, even though it’s four times larger. Whatever, we’re dealing with it. They are fixing the bathroom and we’re buying some more cabinets. The plan was that we go on vacation starting this Friday (the 15th), and return on Monday July 25th. Then we have to be out of our current apartment and into the new place by August 1st. Fine. No problem.

Then, this morning we got a knock on our door, and it’s the maintenance guy (I’ll call him Theodore) asking us if we can move BEFORE we leave on Friday. That’s four fucking days from now. Turns out that our current apartment has been rented out starting August 1st, meaning that the new tenant was told he could MOVE IN on August 1st. And Theodore, who will need to do some work in our old apartment to get it ready, will be on vacation from July 25 to August 1st.

It’s not his fault. The management company’s secretary (I’ll call her Eleanor) was told of our vacation dates and Theodore’s a long time ago. Weeks, if not months ago. And she still rented the apartment out for August 1st. So it’s her fault, and she doesn’t have any idea of how to fix the situation. Congratulations, Eleanor. You have royally screwed your two longest and most reliable tenants.

Did mention that I have about three weeks of work to cram into four three and a half days at my job? And somehow I’ll have to find the time to pack (and not misplace the stuff in the move).

We might start moving as early as tonight. Happy birthday to me, indeed!

Happy birthday to Holz! Happy birthday to me!

As Holz put it to me earlier, “We’re not even in a new age bracket. We’re just in our late twenties.” Translation: we’re old.

So in honor of the anniversary of our births, here’s some completely useless information about the birthday song: Fun Facts—Happy Birthday to You.

Holy crap! How did it get to be July 9th without me writing a single thing this month? I’m not really sure how that happened. Well, maybe I am a little… Here’s a quick update:

-Live 8 was good. Would have been better if I didn’t have to work that morning, but whatever. We have some very boring pictures of the crowd. VH1 and MTV are showing 5 hours each of commercial free Live 8 footage on Saturday if anyone is interested.

-The 4th was mostly uneventful, but I did perfect a new muffin recipe.

-We’ll be gone most of this weekend, then we’re leaving on the 15th for ten days. I still intend to post my trip plans…. We’ll see if I actually do it.

-The apartment into which we are moving is not quite as great as I originally thought. But we’re still moving. By August 1st. Chaos ensues…

-Edo is making his biannual pilgrimage to the motherland in August. I’ll have three weeks of non-stop orgies and partying to plan.

That’s all for now, as it is after 3 AM. Hope everyone has a good weekend!