apples to apples

check this out.

the other day (it was tuesday) i was telling someone about my master plan to buy an iphone.

(a plan, by the w, which is about to come to fruition. this is a big deal. i have thought long and hard and practically and analytically about the switcheroo and i feel very confident in my decision. like, probably more confident than i feel about a lot of my decisions. not to mention my head might explode at the prospect of celebrity gossip at my fingertips at all times!)

anyway, back to tuesday. this someone told me i should hold off because, the word on the street was that the next day (that would be wednesday), apple was going to unveil a tablet computer and i might want that instead.

i told him he was probably wrong.

but in a nice way of course.

(because tablet computers. what is the point? more on this soon.)

then later that night (it was still tuesday) jaron and i were eating indian food that was way too spicy (for me) when his roommate came bounding into the kitchen and said we were never going to believe it but big news! apple was going to unveil a tablet computer tomorrow! (that would be wednesday.)

and i said, tell me something i don't know, buddy. and it felt totally awesome because i never know about stuff like this before people who actually care about stuff like this, but this time i did. (which actually makes me think it wasn't so much big, secret news at all.)

and then apple did unveil a tablet computer on wednesday (which was, that's right, yesterday).

and they named it... the iPad?

worst.name.ever.

i mean, i don't think i need to articulate what that name makes just about everyone think of. especially not when this madTV clip does it so well. (warning: that clip definitely references the vajayjay.)

seriously. are there no women on the apple marketing team?

and now i'll just go ahead and ask the big question, which is: what is the point of a tablet computer anyway? do we really need something between a laptop and a phone? really?

my current answer is no, but i also said i would never need an iphone (i mean who wants to be connected to the internet all the time?) (i do, i do!) so i'm probably wrong about the iPad, too.

though i am definitely not wrong about the name. awful now and awful forever. and that's all i have to say about that.

settled

friday night was game night at dana's. this means food and wine (and fancy lemon soda for me), and settlers of catan.

do you know about settlers of catan? people are quite taken with it. there was a lot of catan playing at the delaware beach house over the summer but i chose to just laugh at other people's intensity about the game instead of playing myself. there is just something sort of hysterical about hearing otherwise rational people shout out things like, "but two sheep for one wheat is a completely unfair trade!"

this time i joined the fray, with heather as my patient tutor and teammate. we didn't win, but we didn't embarass ourselves either, so i am chalking my first catan experience up as a success. next time around my strategy is going to include not sitting next to an open bag of gummi bears, as an hour or more of intense game-playing does nothing for my self-control, and a whole bag of gummi bears in one sitting does nothing for my general sense of well-being.

game night also included a rousing round of celebrity.

do you know about celebrity? everyone writes the names of a bunch of celebrities on pieces of paper, the pieces of paper go into a bowl, the people go into teams, and the teams have to guess what's (or rather, who's) on the pieces of paper. the first time around you can use any words but the celebrity's name to describe them. the second time around, you only get one word (same set of names). the third time around (same names again), you can only act them out.

i will warn you that playing celebrity with a cerebral group such as this one comes with a unique set of challenges. namely that the "celebrities" chosen included hilda solis (secretary of labor), adrian fenty (mayor of d.c.) and william makepeace thackeray (author of "vanity fair.")

for some of us (ahem, me), not too easy to describe (er, recognize), let alone act out. (yes, i wrote down lady gaga and charlie sheen.) but, let's just say that when i pulled out "mr. butt-man" on the charades round, i killed it.

the plastics

deride it though some people might, celebrity gossip has brought a lot of wonderful things into my life.

like today's post over at segullah.

that's right. a philosophical and even spiritual exploration prompted by spencer and heidi from the hills.

i would say stranger things have happened, but actually i am not so sure.

what's up, seven up?

after a little more than a week of having entirely the right amount of fun, i've spent the past couple days catching up on the responsible adult-type stuff i've been putting off.

or, as kj would say, i've been doing a little admin.

here's what's on my mind.

1. haiti. to say it breaks my heart seems like an unfair understatement, but i don't know quite what else to say. last night i read barack obama's piece in newsweek entitled "why haiti matters" and i loved it. haiti matters to us because we are fortunate enough to be leaders, and leadership is compassion. i often fall victim to thinking there are some problems in the world too big for a good solution, but compassion seems like the place to start.

2. the jay leno/conan o'brien throwdown. it is the train wreck i can't look away from. and i can't even stay up late enough to watch late night tv. i think jay leno is coming off like a big douche canoe here, but then again i've always like conan and his ridiculously tall hair.

3. the water heater at the casa de bennett. i think it must be inordinately small, because two mornings in a row now someone has beat me to the shower in the morning and there has been not a drop of hot water left. this means two mornings in a row now, i have washed my hair in the sink. it wasn't even fun when i tried pretending i was at some awesome, cheap hostel on an exotic vacation. plus, it made my neck hurt.

4. my new home. i am feeling really happy and settled here in a new and more confident way. of course, i knew that i would eventually work my way around to feeling like this, but it's nice to have a taste of it, with plenty more to come, i am sure. my life has the pace and the tone that i like right now. happy sigh.

5. i wish i had had a better hair cut when i met the president. i know this sounds like a "my diamond shoes are too tight" kind of dilemma, but my hair bugs me every time i look at the picture of me with president obama. and that is a lot, including just a few minutes ago. getting a good hair cut in d.c. has proved extraordinarily difficult, but i think i have worked up almost enough courage to try again.

6. fundraising for the press institute. i am in the throes of it. wanna help me out? every little bit makes more than a little bit of difference, especially since all donations will be matched dollar for dollar through march 10. your $20 will become $40! your $50 will become $100! and i will love you forever. think about it.
(and go here once you've made up your mind: www.globalpressinstitute.org)

7. i don't think i have time to get scuba certified before i leave for australia. i do have time to get unbelievably excited though.

what's on your mind?

(did reading that make you think of those capital one "what's in your wallet" commercials? because writing it made me think about them. i think i liked the ones with the vikings best.)

what heaven and auto zone have in common

i took a little trip to turkey last spring, if you'll recall, and returned to salt lake exactly six days before i was due to leave salt lake forever.

the timing, admittedly, could have been a little better.

throw in jet lag, a nasty cold and a most unfortunately (though temporarily) frozen credit card, and i think you can see why i was something of a spacehead the day i got back.

which is why, on said day, i drove away from the gas station without replacing my gas cap.

which i realized when i got out of my car in the parking lot at the bank, where i had driven straight from the airport (after stopping at the gas station, obvs) to take care of the credit card situation.

so back i went to the gas station to retrieve the forgotten cap from the top of the gas pump.

except that it wasn't there.

at which point i concluded that i had probably placed it not on top of the gas pump, but on the roof of my car.

at which point i concluded that the likelihood of the cap still being on the roof of my car was, shall we say, slim.

so, in my mind, it was nothing short of a miracle sent straight from heaven above that my gas cap was there! just perched on the roof of the car without a care in the world.

praises be to heaven above!

(my mom's response to this story: "oh, of course it was. i leave all sorts of weird stuff on the roof of my car and it's always still there when i remember it." why i did not ask for more details about this i'll never know.)

now, if you think i learned my lesson after that experience, you must not know me very well. because about a week ago, i realized that my gas cap was missing. for how long, i could not say. and where it could have been misplaced was an even greater mystery.

in short, the gas cap was gone.

and it would have been a true miracle indeed to bring it back.

but, did you know they perform miracles at auto zone? because i finally went there today to remedy my gas cap situation (after it was suggested that my car, sans cap, was at an elevated risk of bursting into flames), and they had just what i needed! a shiny, new gas cap that fit my little tank perfectly.

a prolonged life for me and my car, for a mere $8.76!

praises be to auto zone!

the end.

catch me if you can

one of my favorite jokes to tell when i was a kid was about a family of tomatoes. there was a daddy tomato and a mommy tomato and a little boy tomato. one day they were walking down the street (tomatoes walking! already so funny!) and the little boy tomato was having trouble keeping up. he kept falling behind and the daddy tomato was getting pretty annoyed. finally, without realizing the little boy tomato was right behind him, the daddy tomato whipped around and squashed his own son! while shouting, "son, catch up!"

catch up! ketchup!

i love that one.

all of that to say, let's catch up! (ketchup!)

for starters, there are a few glaring omissions on my "favorites of 2009" lists of the last post. thankfully i was reminded of them while reading emdawg's yearend lists. so, without further ado, i would hereby like to state that "(500) days of summer" and "away we go" were two more of my favorite movies of last year. even more than "star trek" and "new moon." (gasp!)

there. that feels better.

for those of you concerned with the progress of the 28 goals (and i assume that this is all of you), i am pleased to report that my goal to visit all the smithsonian museums is moving along quite nicely. mel b and i hit up the national gallery last week for an exhibit of robert bergman portraits (delightful) and emily h. and i spent yesterday afternoon in the museum of natural history (thanks, MLK!) drooling over the hope diamond, scoping out the best nature photography of the year and watching a 3D imax movie about the ocean.

i am pretty excited about the ocean these days, you see, because i am going to australia!

what the what?!?

that's right folks. it's a big johnson family exodus, actually. though only one johnson family member will be riding his motorcycle from sydney to perth and back. i'll let you guess which one that might be. the rest of us will be sitting on beaches, hugging kangaroos and snorkeling the great barrier reef. or, at least that is what i hope.

anyone know if i can get scuba certified in a month?

i also did a little branching out in my museum visiting this weekend and headed to the national geographic museum, where they currently have an exhibit about the terra cotta soldiers buried in the tomb of the first chinese emperor, complete with some of the terra cotta soldiers themselves. if you prefer to visit museum exhibits about chinese history with someone who can read all the plaques in a fake chinese accent, i suggest you go with guy smiley (which i did). and if you like jokes about things with no legs walking (which i do. see above), then he's your man, too.

check it out.

a neutron walks into a bar (a neutron walking! already so funny!) and says, "how much for a beer?" and the bartender says, "for you, no charge."

rimshot, heyo!

hilarious jokes aside, the exhibit was totally cool. if you live here, i wholeheartedly recommend it. if you don't, not to worry. you can just visit my own gravesite, which i expect will be something like that of emperor qin.

remember that one time my dad said it seemed like all i did was eat? well, i've been doing a lot of that lately, too. mostly because last week was restaurant week here in d.c. (don't even ask me about my progress on goal #13. it is not good. not good at all.) katie and i hit up filomena, a darling italian place in georgetown and i met ABK for dinner at firefly on friday. while i was waiting for him to arrive, it occured to me that once i came to d.c. to visit ABK, and now he comes to d.c. to visit me (and to go to fancy conferences on foreign relations. or something).

weirdsies. but in a good way.

and emily h. and i hit up coco sala yesterday for lunch. if you love chocolate (and we do), then you will love coco sala. they were only offering their restaurant week menu, which was still scrumptious, but some day i want to go back for a decadent, chocolate-infused brunch. doesn't that sound like heaven?

oh, oh! and of course i can't forget last's night trip to ray's hell burgers with jaron. such good burgers. and root beer on tap. the end.

jaron and i stopped at ray's on our way to see vetiver at the iota.





yeah, i had never heard of them either, but jaron said i was in the presence of greatness and he was right. they were awesome.

speaking of concerts in the middle of the week (so hip!), last thursday we went to see mary sing back-up with the carol bui band at the black cat (we ate at ben's chili bowl before that show. mediocre but famous chili dogs. and diet coke. the end.) and the headliner was this woman named joan as policewoman, who we learned was jeff buckley's girlfriend! which probably explains how she could rock brown leather pants, a gold top with shoulder pads and a ruffled neckline and a big fur coat, which jaron referred to as a lucille bluth fur.



in what is certainly a stellar decision, jaron moved out here last week and it has been super duper fun having him around. i like having a person from an old place with me in a new place and being able to show him some of the ropes has really helped me feel like this really is my home and i know what's going on.

i don't even have to use a subway map anymore!

so there.

like sands through the hourglass

as a general rule, i am not a very keen or successful observer of the passage of time. (read: i am late for everything, all the time, under just about any circumstance.) and so, my new year was ushered in without much fanfare. (also because i could barely stay up past midnight.) it just sort of became 2010, you know? and the only time i really notice it is when i write the wrong date on my checks. i didn't even make any resolutions because i am still plugging away on that big list of birthday goals.



but, i feel like a new year, not to mention a whole new decade (!) deserves a little more recognition that what i have given it (which is nothing) so i was delighted to come across this little exercise on suvi marie's blog. (note: not her real middle name.)



read on!



1. what did you do in 2009 that you had never done before?
visited turkey. bought a full-priced item from anthropologie. met el presidente. joined a gym.



2. did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for the next year?
i don't remember making any firm resolutions last year, so if i did i am going to go ahead and say i didn't keep them. i did keep last year's birthday goal, though, and i am on track for this year's many goals as well. and that is enough goals for me.



3. did anyone close to you give birth?
back to the "i can't keep track of time" thing, i get a little fuzzy on when my favorite babies were born. but i think i am right in saying that steve and sarah's baby summer joined the party in 2009, so i am going to count that. and three of my favorite people have babies on the way this year, which i am pretty stoked about.



4. did anyone close to you die?
we lost aunt rosemary this year, which still feels impossible.



5. what places did you visit?
denver a couple times to see the family, turkey and paris (just for overnight at the airport holiday inn), the outer banks, back to salt lake (so weird that now i visit salt lake), and d.c. before i moved here. california, idaho, moab. new york a bunch. oh, and montreal, if you count an emergency landing because someone on the plane had a seizure. which i do.



6. what would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
i can't actually think of anything. more time to ride my bike, i guess. and a new biking buddy.



7. what dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
oh geez. this is sort of a hard one. i don't really remember dates. but i am pretty sure i left salt lake on may 10. that was a biggie.



8. what was your biggest achievement of the year?
i would say landing a new job, surviving a cross country move and rebuilding my life in a new place, with my sanity still (mostly) in tact.



9. what was your biggest failure?
the mosaic i attempted to make at craft night. seriously. it was an epic fail.



10. did you suffer illness or injury?
nope.



11. what was the best thing you bought?
a map of the d.c. metro system.



12. whose behavior merited celebration?
remember when bill clinton got those journalists released from north korea? that was pretty bodacious.


13. whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
tiger woods. yuck. and charlie sheen. double-yuck. sarah palin, yuck, yuck, yuck.




14. where did most of your money go?
i don't even want to know. food, probably. with clothes i don't need being a close second. and my investment portfolio at a pathetic third.



15. what did you get really, really, really excited about?
glee!




16. what song will always remind you of 2009?
"sun in an empty room" by the weakerthans (thanks, evan and holly!)




17. compared to this time last year, are you:


a) happier or sadder?
i am happy now and i was happy then. but at this time last year i was starting to get pretty stressed out about the "next step," and that angst is gone.



b) thinner or fatter?
i would say about the same.



c) richer or poorer?
richer! (thanks obama! and no rent at uncle bob's!)



18. what do you wish you’d done more of?
biking.



19. what do you wish you’d done less of?
worrying.



20. how did you spend Christmas in 2009?
in denver, in my pajamas.



21. did you fall in love in 2009?
no. but it's on my list for this year.



22. what was your favorite TV program?
30 rock.



23. what did you do for your birthday in 2009?
dinner at dana's, cupcakes at emily's, lunch with aunt joyce. made 28 goals.



24. what was the best book you read?
east of eden by john steinbeck.



25. what did you want and get?
a sewing machine!



26. what did you want and not get?
a pony. seriously, nothing comes to mind.




27. what was your favorite film of this year?
for new films, i loved "whip it" and "where the wild things are" and "star trek." oh, and definitely "good hair." and, hello, "new moon," naturally. for revisiting old films, how had i forgotten the genius of "moonstruck"?




28. did you make some new friends this year?
that would be yes. i spent half of the year doing nothing but making new friends, in fact. and i am still at it. so far, so good.



29. what one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
would you believe that i can't think of a single thing? i mean, i am sure i had plenty of ideas in the moment, but i can't think of any of them now, so they must not have been that important.



30. how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
maybe wanna-be-hipster-suddenly-forced-to-be-pseudo-professional, with a sprinkle of what-would-penelope-cruz-wear?



31. what kept you sane?
netflix streaming. endless cell phone minutes. blogging. getting mail. old friends, even if they were far away.



32. which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
michelle obama. jake gyllenhaal. robert downey, jr. tina fey. and is it just me or did ryan reynolds come out of nowhere with a whole lot of awesome?



33. what political issue stirred you the most?
this is not an issue, actually, but the obama inauguration got me all kinds of stirred.



34. who did you miss?
the salt lake crew. all of them. especially my babies.



35. tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.
when we ask, we receive. and when we try, we can accomplish.



happy new year, folks! here's to a great one.