Ok, so have I mentioned that I'm NOT a big fan of Tony's friends from work? Nope...not a fan...

They're nice enough I suppose, but honestly? CAN NOT STAND most, if not all, of them...
One in particular, who shall remain nameless, is probably THE biggest loser any of you had ever met. Wait...it should be Loser, with a capital L...
Anywhooo...this guy recently got back together with his wife (and they have 2 kids) and Tony's been, errrr...signing us up for all these "couples" and "family" things with these people...
These days when Tony says, "Let's go out to lunch"...the (hidden) translation means, "Let's go out to lunch with him and his wife". Now, anxiety disorder aside, I'm a very friendly, talkative, outgoing person.

I have VERY little in common with this guy's wife. Ok, both of us gave birth. There's one thing. Ummm...let's see, what else? Well, that's about it. Last weekend we went to this place called the Greenville Fun Park with them and their kids. It's a sad, sad version of what it was years ago I'm sure...but it has go-carts, bumper cars, mini-golf and arcade games.
So the guys and the kids were doing their thing while me and wifey-poo were left alone quite a bit. UGH...it was difficult, at best, to maintain conversation. Finally we began talking about books...I read James Patterson, Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz, etc...

nope...she's never read any of those. BUT she reads Harry Potter. FIRST words out of her mouth after she told me she went to
WalMart at 5am to buy THE book...was how it ends...

Grrrr....
Anywho, basically what I'm getting at is I have nothing to talk to this woman about. Don't get me wrong, she's nice enough I guess. It's just me...
So all this week Tony and I've been planning to go to the beach. Great! Need to work on evening out my color. (More to come on that by the way

). Well, come to find out Friday morning...that THEY will be coming to the beach as well. So is this other guy, his girlfriend and their little girl. DOH!!

Great...a whole day of awkward conversation...with people I barely know and don't really like. I liken it to spending time with Cousin Eddie and his wife from the Griswold's Vacation movies.

..YEP...they're like that....
But then, sometime Friday morning, to ummmm...."borrow" a sentence from Tasha's pre-trip, "the Heavens opened up and the trumpets sounded" and I had a revelation....

I'll buy an iPod!! I can just put the little earphone do-dads in my ears and tune EVERYONE out!!

That way I won't have to participate in otherwise PAINFUL conversation!!
Hmmmm....ok, so this is an expense that I really can't afford though...money's getting tight these days, we've got vacation coming up...then Michael's birthday a week after we get back...this is not good. What to do, what to do...
AH HA!!! I have $200 in Office Depot rewards...I'll go there!! I went on their website and guess what they carry? iPods? Nope.

But wait...what's this? Zune?? Hmmm....sounds pretty cool...I'll go check it out...
So after I got out of work on Friday I went straight to Office Cheapo and bought me a Zune. Can I just tell you guys....I LOVE THIS THING!!! How did I live without it??? It's not the smallest thing in the world, and Tony laughed at me cause it was so big, but we'll see who's laughing when I'm listening to tunes and watching movies on the plane to FL in a few weeks...
It's got an FM radio in it, I can watch videos/movies...and music...ah, sweet music....30GB worth of memory...ALL MINE!!!

And it shows the album covers on the screen...it's just COOL.
So I spent Friday night ripping my CD's and synch'ing my tunes into this thing...and it came loaded with a bunch of music too....so I've got this great collection of music on here...a little bit of everything...from Neil to Allman Bros. to Nelly to Poison to Stevie Wonder to Paul Simon to Pussycat Dolls to MeatLoaf. Yep...I have really VARIED musical tastes...which is awesome (to me at least) when I put this bad boy on shuffle!
Now if I can just keep my big mouth shut....
Ok, so I'm one of those people that find it almost impossible to listen to music and NOT sing along...can't do it. I sing in the car, the shower...my office (which greatly amuses my co-workers). I find it hard not to sing out loud with this thing...
Anywho...I loaded over 200 songs on this thing Friday night

! I was READY to go...
Turns out it was totally unnecessary...they ended up not going. Just this other guy and his GF and their little girl...The GF was the most unfriendly, stuck up beyotch I've met in a long time. Even Tony didn't like her. BUT, the nice thing about Effie...which is what I've decided to refer to her as...Effie (Beyotch) is UNsociable...so I didn't have to talk to ANYONE yesterday

and got to work on my color.
Well, did I mention it was a totally cloudy day yesterday? And did I mention that I neglected to put ANY kind of product on my body at all yesterday? Too busy gettin' down with my bad-self...just me, my Zune and I...
Well, we left the beach around 4:30. Ish.
By the time we got home, the entire front of my body (except my face as I had sunscreen moisturizer on) was
BEAT RED
Now imagine this...you spend all day in a beach chair and get a sunburn...well, you're burnt all in the front and have this lovely dividing line going straight down the sides of your body!! Oh man...it's pathetic...

luckily already this morning it's not that bad...a little tender in a couple of spots, but not as bright and hot as it was last night!
So when we came back from dinner, we went out to dinner at this new seafood joint that opened up - Gilligan's. Sharkb8...they're from Charleston, aren't they? Well it was YUMMO!!! I had oysters (SLURP), and something called a steamed garlic bowl for dinner - crabs, clams and shrimp in this heavenly garlic-butter goo...
So that's about it...that's how my weekend's gone so far...today is going to be back to business as usual...housework, laundry, DIS'ing...
Chat at ya'll later!!