We bought the husband snow clothes today.  Online!  We went to Sun & Ski Sports (where they’re having a pretty good sale) to try on sizes and I used my iPhone to see if their prices could be beat.  They could.  By a lot!

Here’s his outfit:

Spyder Evade Systems Jacket - Blizzard/Atlantic [$239.96]

Spyder First Tracks Insulated Pants - Blizzard [$165.00]

Now we just need to buy some goggles and we’re set!  Any goggle recommendations?

Also, time to start hitting the gym again.  I hear snowboarding is tiring.

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I’m starting to get an itch for an HD video camcorder.  Maybe the prices will drop with the bad economy?

Thanks to my awesome brother-in-law, John (affectionately nicknamed “Virus”), we get to play cool PS3 games that we didn’t buy.  One of those games is Ridge Racer.

Usually when I’m busy with schoolwork, the husband plays either NBA 2K8 or this game.  The graphics are pretty sweet and the customization of the cars is pretty complex.

It’s really funny because the husband talks to the female announcer lady that talks to him throughout the race.

For example:

When she says, “Good luck!”

He says, “Thanks!”

When she says, “See you at the finish line!”

He says, “OK!”

When she says, “Are you ready?”

He says, “Yes!”

When she says, “Give it your best shot!”

He says, “I will!”

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I better graduate soon or else these innocent conversations might develop into something more.

We went in wanting to buy Army of Two but walked out with The Simpsons Game.

As much as the husband and I enjoy video games, I have to admit, video game fanatics are freaks.

Customer: So, are there some cool powers that you get to use?

Clerk: Oh man, that’s the best part.  You have so many cool superpowers that you get to use.  There’s this one power where you can look into the water to target the enemy.  That’s the one I like to use the most.

The Simpsons Game is really fun.  Lots of puzzles to solve as a team — a lot like Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance.  But it’s ten times more hilarious.  Great Simpsons humor — in typical fashion their comedy targets a wide range of topics: Grand Theft Auto, tree huggers, EA executives, play on words, Jelly Donuts, etc.

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The husband made a ridiculous confession on Sunday night.  As he was opening his Taco Bell Big Bell Box meal, he looked over at me and said dramatically, “I have a confession.  I think Taco Bell might be my favorite fast food place.”

I, of course, was outraged by this.  When I went on to name all the other great fast food establishments, Whataburger (my personal favorite), Jack in the Box (with their sirloin burgers and ciabatta bread), he interrupted me by saying, “– I don’t know, I just really like the ground beef.”

Shocked, I started to stutter, “But, but, it’s the cheapest meat ever!  We can just buy tubes and tubes of ground beef and make it ourselves!”

I will admit that Taco Bell is probably the most cost effective.  The Big Bell Box includes a crunchy taco, a bean burrito, the new queso crunchwrap, cinnamon twists (which he gave me!) and a large drink.  All for $4.99.  That’s pretty darn cheap.  If I’m going to eat TexMex fast food though, I still prefer Taco Cabana.

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I’ve been buying furniture for the student lounge in my college and because of that, I’ve become intimately familiar with craigslist.  I’ve used craigslist in college and sporadically since moving to Houston but I’ve never monitored it day to day like I have in the past few weeks.  First of all, people on craigslist are crazy.  Their descriptions are crazy.

I know you want to try to make your product sound good but when you start describing your couch’s color as “organic” because it’s brown, you’ve crossed the line.

Also, people are selling their Cantoni (Italian import) designer couches for ridiculous amounts of money on craigslist.  Are they successful?  Do people who can afford Cantoni couches go on craigslist to look for used furniture?  Don’t people with that much money hire interior decorators?  I don’t know.  This is a mystery to me.

I also think it’s funny when someone writes “vintage furniture” or “retro furniture” and you click on the photo and it’s just modern furniture that’s just plain old and worn.

I also think it’s funny when people get personal in their ads.  When they start talking about how they just moved in with their boyfriend and girlfriend and they have to get rid of furniture.  Or the new place they moved into is just too small.  Or maybe that they need money for a new TV so they’re selling their barstools.  Does personal connection sell better?  Maybe.

I am also amazed at the number of ugly couches that exist in the world.  Horrendous flower patterns that could not possibly be fashionable ever.  I have never seen a floral couch that I liked.  Sigh, I guess there’s a couch for every taste.

If you have an ugly couch, you could enter it in Regis and Kelly’s Ugly Couch contest.  The winner gets $5,000!

I think it’s fascinating that wherever I go in the world (not counting Asian countries or the U.S.), most street vendors assume I am Japanese and call out Japanese phrases to me.  It’s not because I look Japanese or dress Japanese (very far from it), but because Japanese tourists seem to have been EVERYWHERE.  I haven’t traveled to too many countries but in Italy, Belgium, France, TURKEY, and Mexico, someone somewhere on the street will call out to me in Japanese.  It’s usually just “konichiwa” or “ohio” but sometimes it’s complete phrases.  Sometimes people try to start a conversation with me in Japanese!  I was in Italy and a young man in the clothing store told us in Japanese that there were more men’s clothing upstairs.  It’s not like it was a dodgy old fruit stand peddler who was stuck in WWII days.  And then he was really surprised when we told him we spoke English.

When I was visiting schools in Turkey, the kids would run up to me and ask, “Japon?  Japon?”

Someone needs to applaud the Japanese tourism industry because it’s done a heck of a job taking Japanese tourists to all corners of the globe.

Sanky says that Japanese tourists are found in even the most remote villages.  The husband hypothesizes that the Japanese are the first Asians to have enough money to start participating in world travel and tourism and so most tourist places cater to that.  Sanky says the Japanese value traveling more and it’s one of their few forms of leisure.

The first night in Playa del Carmen, we heard several shouts of Japanese directed towards us as we walked along 5th Avenue.  But after a day on the beach, we were both about 5 shades darker and the second night we walked to dinner, we no longer got the Japanese greetings– as if no self-respecting Japanese woman would let herself get so tan.  I think towards the end of the trip, some of the waiters we encountered considered giving us Spanish menus.  Especially because we tried some local restaurants off the beaten path where not many tourists ventured.  I’m not even joking.

All joking aside, I really am pretty dark.  My mom’s not going to be happy about this.

I just hope this doesn’t mean I have to drink more freckle juice every day.

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We watched the end of Federer vs. Nadal in the Cancun airport (in BerryHill of all places) and it was a lot of fun to cheer for Nadal with the rest of the Spanish tourists.  The husband, however, was cheering for Federer and was pretty disapponted that he lost.  But even he admitted that it’s a bit much for Federer to put on his preppy sweater right after a long, sweaty match.

Do you remember that scene in that Jeopardy! episode of Friends (I have absolutely no shame in still making references to Friends four years after the show ended) where Ross asks “What does Rachel claim as her favorite movie?” and Joey says “Dangerous Liasons”? And then Ross asks what is Rachel’s actual favorite movie and Joey says “Weekend at Bernie’s”?

That’s kind of like this post (without all of the confusing punctuation). If someone were to ask me what my favorite song was lately, I would want to claim:

Flobots - Handlebars

Shucks, I can’t put the video in here because they’ve disabled embedding for this music video. If you’re curious you’ll have to click through the link.

It sounds like bad Eminem at first but the lyrics are smart and I think the music video is powerful. I also think the trumpet solos are creative. In full disclosure, I first heard this song in Forever 21 at Willowbrook Mall on the northwest side of town.

But then I would be compelled to admit that my actual favorite song lately is:

Jesse McCartney - Leavin’

I don’t like the lyrics, don’t like the video (although Jesse is cute in the video, in a Jonathan Rhys Meyers kind of way), but it’s catchy! Such is the way of pop music, I suppose. I had no idea who Jesse McCartney was so I looked him up on wikipedia. Apparently he co-wrote “Bleeding Love” for Leona Lewis. Which is cool.

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I should have wrote about this in the raves post but the husband came home with Virtua Tennis 3 on Tuesday night (for only $20 at Radio Shack!). We’ve been anticipating this since our days of playing Virtua Tennis on Sega Dreamcast! The graphics are gorgeously rich, the gameplay is fantastic, and the details are impressive. On clay courts, the dust stirs up when you run, you slide on the court depending on your momentum, the ball leaves marks on the court wherever it bounces and the players move very fluidly. My only complaint is that they don’t have enough players to select from (they’re missing Justine Henin and Novak Djokovic) but they make up for it by allowing you to create custom players.