Mr. Clean

The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser might be the coolest thing I've discovered lately. Goodbye scuff marks on my baseboards! Goodbye scuff marks on my tile! Hello to my new favorite cleaning product. Yours for only $2.99 at Walgreens. In a pack of 2. Good things do come in pairs.

The World Is Not Your Ashtray

I need a bumper sticker that says this. One of the things in life that makes me angry and flushed as soon as I witness it is someone throwing a cigarette out of their car while driving down the road. Really? You don't have an ashtray in there that you can use?? Because I really think you do. Every time I see it, it just makes me upset. You don't want to leave cigarette butts in your car, but you will throw them out of your window and litter the streets with them? That's awesome. Really. Maybe there's some other reason that makes more sense as to why people do this, but if there is, I'm not aware of it. Please enlighten me if so.

Along those same lines - I was in line at the drive-thru the other day and witnessed a lady get her drink, open her straw and promptly toss the straw paper out of her window. In addition to the world not being your ashtray, it is also not your trashcan! What the heck? Are you that lazy? Didn't you learn when you were like 3, to pick up after yourself? That's just lazy and irresponsible. It's like people are living in their own little world with no regard for what goes on around them. It's very disconcerting.

Aren't we all supposed to be good stewards of the earth? Am I making that up? I think at the very least, not littering the streets with trash and cigarette butts is a step in the right direction.

End ranting diatribe.

Singin' in the Rain

One of my favorite movies is Singin' in the Rain and it was on Turner Classic Movies last night, a fabulous station that shows fabulous old movies. It makes me wish I lived in the 20's and could wear cool flapper dresses and dance with Gene Kelly and sing like Debbie Reynolds. Growing up dancing, I'm not a hard sell when it comes to musicals, but I have to say, even my husband stopped to watch for a little while. Ahh musicals, making marriages stronger, one showtune at a time.

I wish there were more of them today - there's something to be said for escaping into a world where everything's in technicolor and problems are solved with a song and dance. The women are beautiful, without looking anorexic or hoochie-fied and say things like "honest". The men are dashing gentlemen who romance their ladies and say things like "By george, I think I've got it!". They're just so dreamy and happy and lovely. It does a girl's heart good to take time out of her day to watch one.

Don't get me wrong - I love the heavy stuff too. The Last King of Scotland was one of the best movies I saw last year. But it's nice every now and then to just escape. And I think Hollywood would be well-served to remember that. They put out all these heavy, dark, morality tales - some excellent, some not and I think we need more of the light-hearted stuff sometimes to let us escape and remind us that there is good in the world.

Stay tuned for my next blog entitled: "My Favorite Torture Scenes." :)

Hotel California

I've always sort of known that I'm more a hotel kind of girl than a pitch a tent kind of girl. More into room service than campfire cooking (though I do heart s'mores). A fan of big fluffy robes and not big hairy spiders in my tent...or bears....or anything big and hairy for that matter. More like Troop Beverly Hills than the Redfeathers. But this past week I finally really gave in - I always felt like I wanted to be one of those cool girls that could hike and camp out for days, but really, I'm just not. I love being outdoors, just not living there.

And the reason I gave in might have to do with me just being wise beyond my 27 years, but really I think it had a lot to do with staying at the Loews Santa Monica in CA this past week. A big king size bed with super soft sheets, that big fluffy robe, and a balcony that looked directly onto the beach, with the Santa Monica pier to the right. Oh, and all the little bottles of shampoo and lotion that smelled so good I wanted to eat them.

I think my first inkling of this though, might have come from a trip in high school I took with some friends to go white water rafting on the Ocoee. White water rafting = awesome. Camping in torrential downpours while holding up the center of the tent so it wouldn't fill up with water and collapse = memorable, but not awesome. And one of the funniest parts of that was when the huge bolt of lightning illuminated our tent around 2am or so and one of the guys we were with shrieked "Oh my God, we're gonna die!". That's right, these fellas we were with were not so much the outdoorsy, rugged type as the intellectual, chess-playing type. So the girls ended up pitching the tent ourselves. Good times. Girl power. It really is one of the best high school memories I have, despite the drama of it all.

So all this to say, bring on the 5 star, 500 count sheet, mint-on-my-pillow hotels, because this gal is ready to check in.

Sweep The Leg

One of the reasons my blog is named "The Dojo" is due to my love of The Karate Kid. I just couldn't get enough of Daniel LaRusso taking on the Cobra Kai punks and winning the All Valley Karate Championship with the famous "Crane Kick". And I sort of wanted to be Elisabeth Shue - she was also in another one of my favorite movies, Adventures in Babysitting. But I digress. So, imagine my sheer delight when a friend of mine shared this with me:

www.sweeptheleg.com

It pretty much made my week. And please notice that it was written and directed by one Mr. William Zabka (aka Johnny). I feel it is my duty to share it with as many people as I can. It's just so well done. So, please, enjoy. I think there should be more music videos like this - I would be happy to write and direct "Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner".

Veronica Mars

Something you should know about me is that I love television. I work in it, I have entirely too many shows and my brain is probably rotting away, but I can't help myself. So this blog will probably end up containing alot about television. But I digress.

One of my favorite shows, I venture to say that it's my favorite, is Veronica Mars. If you haven't watched this - immediately Netflix the first season - it is some of the best tv you'll ever watch. That and the first season of Lost. But I digress again. So after the long holiday hiatus, it finally came back last night in all it's glory. And I was not disappointed. I mean, the writing is just consistently smart, funny and just plain great. However, getting in the way of my enjoyment of said tv show is this nagging knowledge I have in the back of my head that I acquired yesterday while reading EOnline, or some such website. My favorite show is being pulled off the air in March (it will be back) to make room for, get ready for this, it's going to get it's own line:

The Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll

I'll just let that sink in for a minute.

Seriously? My favorite show is being replaced by a reality show about the search for the next girl who can prance around the stage in stilletos and hot pants. Now, I'm not hating on the Pussycat Dolls - there is obviously an audience for them as evidenced by their move into popular music. But do we really need a reality show about it? And sadly, it will probably do better in ratings than Veronica Mars, because clearly, America loves reality television. I admit I watch American Idol - but if I had to choose between it and Veronica, well, Veronica wins hands down.

All I'll say is that if Veronica gets cancelled or moved to a bad time slot because of this stupid reality show, heads at the CW will roll. That's right - I can make it happen. Okay, maybe not, but I am going to be so upset. I hearby declare war on reality television.

Charleston

This is my new favorite city. My husband and I went there for our 3 year anniversary this past weekend. What an awesome place - charming, romantic, peaceful, clean air (which I appreciate living in Atlanta). And so much history - we went to a church on Sunday morning where George Washington went on a visit to Charleston in 17something. Crazy. Delicious food, great shopping. Of course, I think you might have to be a bazillionaire to live there, but it's fun to dream. We asked our tour guide on a walking tour we took how much property was and he pointed to a bed and breakfast across the street that was on the market for 5.5 million dollars. Right. We're only a few mil short, otherwise we totally would have gotten it. Ha. That's another good thing too - we were the only 2 people on this tour - advantage of going in the off season! And it was in the 70's during the day pretty much the whole time we were there. Which is weird in January, but I wasn't complaining. We stayed in a great little inn that gave us free breakfast and wine & cheese in the afternoon and had a cute little courtyard. We walked all over the place, down cobblestone streets, along the battery, oohed and aahed over the architechture and the horse & carriages. It was just really a fun, refreshing place to be and we didn't want to come home. If we'd had our dog with us, we really might have stayed! So, in conclusion, I heart Charleston.