This is the world that we live in...

So I (Katy) have told this story to a few people but I am going to put it out there for everyone since it's a lot easier then telling people one-by-one. Now, we normally don't write personal blog entries here, but this is something I want to disseminate.

Yesterday morning, I woke up to an e-mail from the CEO of Clarity Media Group (the company that owns my paper) saying they were shutting down the operations of the Baltimore Examiner, one of the two papers I work for. As you can imagine, my mind starts churning and I start to panic. Without two papers to work on, there would be no need to keep the entire staff of my office of 24 designers and copy editors.

I do not work on Thursdays because I go to class, so every piece of information I received was from second-hand sources aka my co-workers on gchat and text. Through this I find out that 5-6 people are going to be losing their jobs. Those who are laid off would work til the close of the paper (Feb 15) then get paid until the end of March and our boss would let us know by Monday. As any rational person would do, I start to panic. It's a very uneasy feeling knowing your job is in limbo. This isn't a boy breaking up with you or a paper you are stressed out with - this is your job. Your livelihood. Also, for those of you who know (and some of you who don't), I am having surgery in the beginning of March and having health insurance is sorta a vital part of this.

I go about my day, go to class (which actually provided a good distraction), then came home to hear that my boss had to make her decisions last night and that I should know soon. I, thankfully, still have a job, but 6 people, 6 good hard-working people, a few of them my good friends, will be unemployed in two weeks time.

You go about your day listening to all this crap about how bad the economy is and how Home Depot and all these other companies are laying off thousands of people. The House is passing a stimulus package to try and get our economy working again. A lot of it feels really distant and like there is no way it could happen to you. But these are tough times and a lot of people are losing their jobs. It's a scary time and I am so grateful that I still have a job. But it won't make it any easier that in two weeks, my office is going to lose 6 great people.

So yea, that is all. Thanks to everyone (including my BFF Jess) for talking to me yesterday and helping me get thru this craziness somewhat sanely. Well, really not sanely at all actually.

Mid-week Man Candy

I know I am cutting it really close with man candy this week, but I just got back from seeing this week's man candy live and in person and let me tell ya, he is still as hot as ever.



Here's to you Brandon Flowers, aka lead singer for my favorite band, The Killers. Jess and I realized again how we had forgotten him all this time and it's such an error on our part. He is just as hot today as he was when we first saw him live our sophomore year of college. The way he plays his keyboard and moves around the stage with such grace and ease...AHH. So amazing. I tried to find the best pic of him sans his weird Sam's Town mustache. I was going to put one with eyeliner from his Hot Fuss days but I think this works perfectly. So here's to you Brandon.

P.S. I was going to try and Twitter the set list as it happened, but I was way too excited about every song to take the time and type it in.

Jam of the moment

Lady GaGa = AWESOME

The dawning of a new era

OK, so inauguration was pretty sweet. It's hard to explain, but there is this crazy energy that is coursing all over the city. I(Katy) went to class today and as I was walk around Dupont Circle...everything just seemed more alive. Anywho, I think the reader's of this blog know that we (Jess & Katy) are Obama fans. However, as I(Katy) was re-watching his speech from Tuesday (I'm a nerd...leave me alone. I'm also going to be studying speechwriting soon so I want to listen to good speeches. Oh yea, and Obama's speechwriter is hot). There is totally an error in the speech. Obama says that he is the 44th person to take the oath of office. As I'm sure more American history buffs know, Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms as POTUS. He was counted twice in terms of the number of presidents, however, he did say the oath twice which means technically, there have only been 43 people to have taken the oath of office. Tsk, tsk. Do these speechwriters not have copy editors? Just wanted to share.

McCluca has been Twitter-fied

As we are sure some of our faithful readers have noticed, we have recently added a Twitter feed to our wonderful blog (look right). We've decided that we might "live blog" some events...aka LOST premier last night and our trip to Vegas in a month's time. I (Katy) have never really gotten the whole Twitter phenomenon...I mean...is that what a Facebook status is for? But for the purposes of this blog, Twitter provides a great means for us to keep you readers up to date on what we are doing/thinking without posting a bunch of useless posts. We think that the Vegas Twitter feed is going to be the best example of this since we will both be together and able to update y'all every moment of everyday. So let us know how y'all respond to the Twitter and if you have any suggestions of events we could Twitter in the future.

Am I that predictable?

ffiore957 (10:08:58 PM): btw, it's almost the blog's 1st birthday
SkitchKD (10:09:03 PM): i know!
SkitchKD (10:09:06 PM): what are we gonna do?
ffiore957 (10:09:17 PM): well you're probably going to post a picture of matt ryan
ffiore957 (10:09:22 PM): i don't know what i'm going to do

Mid-week Man Candy

This week's Man Candy is Michael Vartan. It's a travesty that he has never been Man Candy before. How could we forget Vaughn, Sydney's super-hot CIA contact on Alias? We cried so hard when he "died" (I guess that's a spoiler, but really, you should have already watched Alias). He also played the teacher in Never Been Kissed. Oh, and he's French. I can't believe Jennifer Garner ever broke up with him. Ben Affleck is a definite downgrade. So we apologize, Michael Vartan, for neglecting you all this time. It won't happen again.

Mid-week Man Candy

I have been excited about posting this guy for a long time.



Here's to you, Joshua Malina aka Will Bailey from the West Wing and Jeremy from Sports Night - two of my favorite shows EVER. Aaron Sorkin likes using the same actors in all his shows which works out well for me since I absolutely love Joshua Malina. He's nerdily adorable. I'm fairly certain he was also on that briefly lived show Big Shots (which also feature Michael Vartan ... who I am just now realizing has not been Man Candy and that might prove to be most egregious). So here's to you, Joshua. I will always watch my DVDs of WW and SN just to bask in your adorableness.

Jam of the moment

I(Katy) am in love with this song. I may have listened to it like 20 times in the past few days.

Mid-week Man Candy

It's the first Man Candy of the year! We have to start things out right.


Can you believe "Clueless" came out 14 years ago? I feel so old. That movie was, and still is, awesome. Paul Rudd was so cute as Josh, the nerdy ex-step-brother, and he's still hot 14 years later. It seems like he's in about 90% of the movies I watch these days, which is fine with me. I checked IMDB and it looks like he has some good movies coming out soon, so we have more greatness to look forward to in 2009.

Jam of the week

This is Sour Cherry by The Kills. I found it on OMFGG (Official Music from Gossip Girl..don't make fun, it's an awesome CD). Also as a side note, I (Katy) pick these with no input from Jess. That is all.