IKEA Bus 8 is ON.

Is anyone still out there? I know this blog is less Broke207 and more just broken down right now, but I lost my mind for a minute and scheduled another IKEA bus. If you want to come, tickets go on sale at noon today.

There are no early birds this year because Eventbrite changed their payment structure and I’m only allowed one ticket type unless I pay them more money. Sorry I’m cheap!

I know that this year’s image is a little creepy, but there are just so few movie franchises with 8 installments.

Anyway… Hit me up with questions if you got ’em, and I hope to see you on the bus!

day 5: friday slump.

i had such high hopes for this week. i was going to eat cleanly, do laundry, go jogging EVERY DAY… this week was the week that would make up for the other 51 weeks that i spend mired in guilt not doing any of the things on my “to do” list. this week was going to CHANGE EVERYTHING.

it started well.

i jogged, i cooked, i paid overdue medical bills. i wrote every day. i ate so many vegetables!

IKEA busted.

well, IKEA bus (the squeakquel) has come and gone, and i’m finally recovered enough to write about it (a mere 18 days later) (i know) (i’m sorry).

well, recovered enough to half ass my way through a recap where i’ll omit a lot of details and probably not tell you what you want to know.  i’ll pretend that it’s because i want to preserve the mystique for future riders. yeah. that.

but be kind, i’m lazy because i’m exhausted.

there were actually a number of passengers who asked me how often i  run the IKEA bus, and recommended that i do it more often. which is totally a nice compliment, if woefully uninformed.

IKEA bus is actually a lot of work. not that i’m complaining (i’m totally complaining), but the snack research, and the phone calls, and the paperwork, and deposits, and movie selections, and ticket hawking/guilt trips… twice a year (or monthly, as recommended) would probably kill me a little.

but enough of my whining. for all the work, of course it was AMAZING. some highlights:

[black friday] balance restored.

black friday when all nuts this year. some stores opened at midnight, some at 4, some at 6… all of which made it nearly impossible for me to form a workable plan for a pleasant shopping experience. what was i supposed to do, hit the old navy and the target at midnight and then hang out at the denny’s until the mall opened?

NO. my digestive system could not take such a beating (although i still really do want to try out that grilled cheese with the mozzarella stix embedded inside, even though i know it’s wrong)!

i considered just hitting the midnight store and then going back later in the morning… but that also seemed less than ideal in terms of efficiency. so i decided to do something a little different this year- SLEEP IN.

it was actually kind of awesome. and then around 7, i leisurely got up, walked the dog, and headed to the mall. considering that i don’t need any big ticket electronics, and all the cheap movie titles were complete crap, it wasn’t like i was missing anything anyway (other than shivering in the cold with a bunch of other cranky folks who are more than willing to elbow you in the throat to get the last creepy stalker barbie).

and since i had already slept through the “best” deals, i also felt little pressure to hit the big boxes and try to scrape up what was left. so i just went wherever the hell i wanted regardless of big signs yelling DOORBUSTERS! and here is what i got:

back to school.

well, i’ve been a lazy sack this summer, and it was AWESOME. i actually read some trashy books, went to the beach, ate ice cream cones, got a terrible sunburn, did some flea marketing… all the best summer cliches, TO THE MAX.

although now that things are cooling down, i’m digging out my sweaters, dreaming of the pumpkin harvest and watching all the kiddos are getting shoveled back into their classrooms (as if that affects me in any way other than the bountiful reaping of cheap composition notebooks). and, i’m feeling ready to get back down to business.

so as of this morning, summer hours are officially closed.

what does this mean for you?

well, it means:

1. more posting! ok, not like that time that i lied to you and told you that i was going to post every day (i’m such a scumbag!)… but definitely more than once a week.

2. new features! i had a brilliant idea for a a new fashion feature, along with some recipes and some other awesome shit. possibly. possibly some other awesome shit.

3. old feautres! hey, whatever happened to the weekend pickthrough? or what about that time i tried to start a “store spotlight” section? and although increasingly this blog has moved away from the coupon factor (best left to maine’s own extreme couponer, i love to gossip), i would like to bring it back some deal hunting in smaller more subtle ways.

4. special events! one of my favorite things about the past year was my chance to be involved in some crazy projects. well, i’m definitely planning on keeping that shit rolling now that i’m done being lazy. there’s another SWAPmaine scheduled for october (we’re still working on the dates & location, but picture BIGGER & BETTER!), another IKEAbus planned for the spring, as well as the revival of the makeup project, and possibly a mystery event/appearance or two.  would anyone be into a cheap beer pub crawl/meetup (perhaps a joint venture with deal me in portland)?

anyway, thank you for weathering the low keyness that was my summer posting schedule. it was much needed, but i’m ready to reanimate. let me know if there’s anything new you’d like to see/old you’d like to see revived/thing you’d love to see more of/thing you never want to see again. or, you can just tell me what you did with your summer vacation.

i should go, because i’m going to be late for work. BUT, i’ll be back tomorrow with a small announcement about a “celebrity” appearance i’ll be making in september.

uh oh.

i’m in trouble. not entirely sure how it happened, but my $1,200 post tax season cushion is COMPLETELY GONE, and i have exactly enough money to pay my bills… leaving me about $68 to last me until my next pay day. oh, did i mention that i get paid every TWO WEEKS?

FUCK.

summer is the spendiest time of year for me, filled with after work margaritas, flea marketing and new sun dresses… in the last month, i indiscriminately blew through over $1,000 of  lazy $12 “i forgot to pack my lunch” days, several “OMG this skirt is only  $18” days, and everyone’s favorite “i can’t show up to this brunch without at least $20 worth of champagne and donuts” days… i really have no idea what i bought, but i had a crazy exciting month, so i’m sure it was fabulous.

being broke, markedly less fabulous.

shaking the mystery box.

sometimes, i apply for so many freebies and shit online, that i completely forget what i’ve applied for. in the last few weeks, i’ve had not one but THREE  mystery boxes show up on my porch with a WTF, and then subsequent OMG upon opening them. i’ve gotten some really kick ass stuff in the last month… and now i’m gonna tell you about it:

weekend pickthrough- lazy beyond comprehension edition.

so today the boyfriend and i celebrated the opening weekend of the dunstan school buffet with a hearty breakfast of nachos and home made donuts (and a promise to our intestines never to do it again). i brought my sunday paper along to pass the time in between plates, and came across something quite curious midway through my CVS flier- a product so ludicrous, i was stopped in my tracks.

EASY FEET!?

with the catchy tag line: “no more bending to clean your feet!”, easy feet easily qualifies as the laziest product that i have ever seen.

every year, americans invent more and more useless contraptions that allow us to do less and less. at first it seemed harmless. so what if we wanted to “set it and forget it” every now and again… it was cool. at least we were still bending down to clean our own feet. right?

are we really so fat/lazy/immobile that we can’t even bend at the waist anymore?

it reminds me all too much of the chair/toilet/feeding stations from the idiocracy world (which is a MUST SEE if you haven’t seen it).  and i worry that instead of retraining ourselves to exercise and eat normal sized portions (we weren’t always one of the fattest nations in the world), we’re just going to keep inventing devices that make it possible for us to stay obese.

i don’t know. i’m speechless. am i overreacting? is easy feet a clever invention or the eventual downfall of our civilization?

well, if easy feet isn’t our downfall, celine dion might be.

this looks totally unappetizing, yet i still really want to eat it.

the most shocking news story to hit this state in years: SOMETIMES PEOPLE LIE ON THE INTERNET.

i signed up for this IMMEDIATELY after reading this article.

an eerie amount of l. ron hubbard descends upon the librarything early reviewers list.

if you didn’t realize that my burlesque name (candy sprinkles) was an homage to this chick, you’ve been missing out.

so, you’re boning sephen dorff. (yeah, i’m obsessed with the hairpin alright)

local girl elisa doucette gets takes down the candie’s foundation. (oh, and if you were following her on twitter– you could have seen the resulting verbal boxing match where she took down bristol palin).

dust off your paypal account…WARY MEYERS HAS THERE OWN SHOP!

weekend pickthough- shiny and new edition.

in 2010, i had hoped that i would have both the time and the cash to give the ole website a total overhaul. well, that didn’t happen. but i did think that was time at least for a teensy little update. so voila! a shiny new pile of icons (for all the contact and social media crap you guys could ever want), and now even though it’s still a free wordrpress blog… the URL looks like a real website (broke207.wordpress.com still works too)! not entirely monumental, but at least SOMETHING. perhaps this month i will see if there is anything else worth tweaking (any suggestions?). but for now, you should probably thank me for these nice new updates by nominating me for best blog on the phoenix best of 2011 poll.

dude. TWISTER RAIN COAT. (thanks cindy!)

easily the most interesting tidbit of local news in the last 10 years. (spoiler- STRIPPER FIGHT!!!)

i’m positive that there’s a steamed clams joke in here somewhere…

chrystie over at ilovetogossip got a little lovin from local media this week! (OMG, did you know her sister is on the bachelor right now?)

i know this really hot girl who got a pair of pajama jeans from her brother for xmas, and now that’s all she ever wears. TRAGEDY.

the mysteries of the asian aging process revealed.

“I guess I need a snake lover,” he told The Daily Mail. “Or someone with multiple mongooses.”

how could it have possibly taken me this long to find out that hugh jackman has a tiny dog named PEACHES?

weekend pickthrough- burlesque blowout edition.

i’m tired. so tired. i have a hard time saying no to experience, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it tends to deprive me of things like sleep and money and sanity in a way that can make my life a little complicated. oh, and my ability to use and spell words declines steeply on less than 3 hours of sleep.  but, it’s been a pretty incredible couple of weeks.

for those of you who remember the chronicles of my first STRUT performance , and then my follow-up win, and have any interest in finding out how the story ended… i am pleased to announce that I WON THAT SHIT! the whole thing. pretty amazing really, but a longer story than i am conscious enough to tell right now. the cliff’s notes version is that i brought home the final round with a nancy drew inspired number with a hilariously oversized cardboard magnifying glass and some bloody hand print covered lingerie. huge props to my totally excellent and equally deserving competition (holly danger your sexy light-up UFO number rocked my universe), especially twisted cookies who actually tied for first (can you say COOKIE MONSTER SNUGGIE?). i really only won because i conned a lot of friends into coming to see me, and the tie was decided by audience enthusiasm. anyway, it was pretty much one of the coolest things that ever happened to me (thanks again atomic trash!), and yielded some pretty excellent side effects:

1. part of my prize is that i get to perform in the atomic trash 2nd anniversary show in january, so my burlesque career is not yet over!

2. a really awesome local graphic designer (and exceptionally nice chap) read my first article and designed a poster about candy sprinkles for a new font exhibition.

3. i got to bring the nancy drew piece to the burlesque-a-thon in boston this weekend, where i performed it on this terrifyingly giant stage (with 99 other acts, one of which involved A GIANT PLUSH VAGINA).

this third cool thing was rendered slightly less cool by the fact that we didn’t get out until 3:30, and still had 2 hours to drive home, and then had to get up for nutcracker rehearsal at 8:30. ouch. anyway, i’m delirious. and grumpy. and very very stupid right now. so before i make any more ludicrous typos or generally poor word choices…

**UPDATE**

4. candy sprinkles got a really fantastic name check/compliment in this bu online magazine article about the burlesque-a-thon. (read lauren 1-2 am)

researchers race to recover radioactive rabbits (no seriously, that’s actually the title of the article).

for my graphic design peeps, some hilariously infuriating quotes from bad clients. (sort of like overheard in the office with more requests for lens flares).

i adopted jobler! who will you pick?

puppies trump old people any day.

wow. i can’t believe that this is a college student. (the horrors of functional illiteracy)

go kurt vonnegut.

there is literally nothing better than hearing draco malfoy say “justin bieber, he is the man. boo-ya!” in a fake american accent. NOTHING!

is there anything lazier and more wasteful than washing potatoes in the dishwasher?

domestic bliss, stormtrooper style.