The Big DumpTruck

Gosh, I got behind in reposting Still Life with Interviews. I have a new one from November and the most recent one posted now. I'm sorry about that!

*As a disclaimer, I am trying to continue with the normal, mundane posts, even though my every thought is on the other side of the world. If you are thinking I am insensitive for continuing the grand tradition of stupid blog posts in the face of tragedy, well, might I suggest CNN.com. I cannot undo what is done, and I cannot take away all we received for Christmas. I'm just saying.*

I wanted to give a quick toy review based on the stuff Santa (and relatives) jammed under the tree this year. Apparently Junior was a very good boy, that's all I'll say.

Winner, Mom's Favorite Toy (All Around)
Geomags. Holy cow, are these things fun. And addictive. I just ordered more (and they aren't cheap). But they are indestructable, and last night we played with these for almost 2 hours, no television on in the background or anything.

Winner, Mom's Favorite Game
The board game CountDown. Well, it isn't really a board game, but you know what I mean. Hey, any game that involves math (adding for now, but subtraction, multiplication and division when he can handle it) but is fun gets an A+. I like this better than any of the video games he received.
Most Heartbreakingly Disappointing Toy
The GameCube game Ty 2. (Not to be confused with Tak 2). Ty the Tasmanian Tiger was one of our favorite video games ever. I cannot say enough good things about it. It was easy for Junior to play even two years ago, and it was easy for me to play (which is saying something). So when Santa saw Ty 2 was out, he got one. I guess the makers of this game assumed that only people who played the original would pick it up, because it doesn't start easy and build up, it starts out in the middle of a huge battle with multiple bad guys from the first game. I mean, 10 seconds after you start it. What the hell? And then, when we got past that, we have to battle these huge robots. NONE of us can get past that, which means we got 10 minutes into the game and got hopelessly stuck. It puts you in an endless loop until you kill off all these robots before they kill you. I cannot begin to express what a disappointment this game is, given how much I adored the first one. So sad.

Winner, Best Grown-up Toy
Mr. Dump got me an Archos AV420 Video and MP3 player. It works like an iPod (or iRiver, or any of the others) but it can also record video off the tv to play back later, like a VideoNow or JuiceBox, except not proprietary. I have a 3 hour Dickens special from PBS on there right now, and a couple of cartoons. Plus about 1/3 of my CDs are on it. Don't get an iPod, get one of these. Really. (And Mr. Dump got my iPod, which was barely 4 months old, so we're BOTH happy!)

Winner, Junior's Favorite Toy
Okay, it's a 10-way tie, as you can imagine, but I think if he had to pick one thing, it would be the Robosapian he got from his grandparents. This thing is unbelievably cool. The grownups are having as much fun as the kids. The only issue we ran into was that they all run on the same frequency, so you can't buy more than one per household. Then again, you don't really need more than one. It was kind of funny to watch them at mom's house do synchronized movements. Hey, anything for a laugh.

We've officially started making note of the "lasts" of 2004. This morning, I pumped gas for the last time in 2004 (unless I decide to make a run for it and road trip hundreds of miles from here between now and Friday. I mean, it could happen, but probably won't.

The last paycheck of 2004 is coming up. And I need to make the last grocery store run of 2004. I live such an exciting life.

In other news, The Cubes I ordered came in! This morning I set up Ted and Ann. I gave Ted the blue screen of death for his computer, and gave Ann Outlook. But I could have had her playing solitaire. I just didn't want to have to repremand her on a daily basis for never doing any work.




Please note that Ted, above, has donated for Tsunami relief via the links in the upper right corner of every page of this site. I have also added a link to Oxfam America. I saw pictures of boxes of supplies being distributed with their logo on them, and realized these guys are getting in there quickly. Speed is of the essense.

From here, the best we can do is donate money to the organizations that can best get to the areas that need the most help and supplies.

I personally chose to donate to Doctors Without Borders, which narrowly edged out the International Red Cross. I think either of these are worthy.

If nothing else, my donation makes me feel a little less helpless right now.

Updated: You can now donate to the American Red Cross (earmarked for Tsunami relief) via Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/paypage/PX3BEL97U9A4I)

2nd short week in as many, and I'm already getting depressed that we have to wait a whole year to hit the holiday/days off season again. I mean, from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, we're flush with holidays. I love it. Live for it. I'm in the post-holiday "oh my God, I have nothing to look forward to" period. Sad.

Or maybe it's just me. Some people are happy the holidays are over.

What would be nice is if I had this whole week off with Junior. Man, do I ever miss school vacations. We had no idea how great we had it back then.

[Rereading]
Man, do I sound happy today or what?

I'm sorry, but I am only human. Although I'm officially working from home (no, really I am) I took Junior to the mall for lunch today, and I snuck into Filenes to see if they had any sweaters. I got a $50 sweater set (black) for $20. And then I had to walk by purses for the 2nd time and got sucked in. Oh my goodness, it was like being in a candy factory. And the amazing thing was the discount. Am I supposed to turn down a $5 purse? I'm only human you know! Sheesh! So ya, I bought three. Black, red and purple. I was going to give one of them to my step-daughter, but she hates my taste so I may end up with all three of them. Hey, at least I can say I tried, right?

p.s. The Chuck E Cheese isn't open yet but it is WAY bigger than I thought it would be. It looks nice. The only way to access it is from outside the mall (just like the Old Navy and Circuit City.) Oh, and the DQ/Orange Julius is open.

p.p.s. Why the HELL did they get rid of Auntie Anne's pretzels? Communists!

Ahhh, Sunday Morning. I keep thinking it's Monday, and I'm guessing I'm not the only one. I am sitting here resisting the uncontrollable urge to go to the mall. I want to take advantage of the sales, but I don't want to have to take Junior with me, as he hates shopping and the whole thing would end up being a tremendous pain in the butt. Mr. Dump knew I wanted a sweater and some pants and a pair of shoes for Christmas, but was wise enough to not buy me any of the above. I mean, you don't just buy shoes for someone else for a gift. But you can tell that person to go pick out some shoes after Christmas.

I'm also hammed out. I love ham, don't get me out. But I had it for three out of the past five meals. Dinner Friday night, lunch yesterday, and a few bites of ham and potato soup that my sister made last night. It was great ham, and there is still a piece or two of the leftovers in my fridge right now, but I could really use some chicken today. I did get the leftover lobster bisque from my sister's house. Silly humans were eating the ham and potato soup because it was "home made" (as opposed to the bisque, purchased at Scupperjacks. Have you ever had it there? Heaven.) So I think I need to bring some over to my mom's house because I do NOT want this to go to waste, and I think my dad would like some.

And you?

Yes, I'm sad it's over. It really did sneak up this year. But in another way, I'm glad it's over. You know, I won't dwell on it too much. I was looking to see if we had any Kahlua around here. Is that too much to ask?

I do an evil gift exchange with a group of friends I've had for something like 10 years now. Many moons ago we started a tradition we like to call "Secret Satan". It involves sending something evil instead of nice for a Christmas present. You know, every time you're out and you think "God, you would only buy that for someone you hate" you get to buy it and send it to someone in an effort to be the person who sends the most evil gift of all.

I say the person who sent me my gift wins. It's so evil, I made a little video of it in action for you to enjoy. Thanks Jack. You're a pal. Junior loves it and is watching it even as I type.

(This video file is just under 500k)

View the Video

It's December 23rd - Festivus! Feats of strength will happen later this afternoon, when I try to open the child-proof cap on my Advil.

And it is now time for the airing of grievances:

1. To Blog Spammers - I hate you. I detest you. You are the stuff on the ground in the parking lot that I avoid stepping on. The only thing lower than you is a person who would read your crap and visit your site and buy something, thus ensuring the cycle continues. They have yet to invent the proper word for those idiots.
2. To The people who ignored facts and voted for Bush anyway, because it was the American thing to do. Oh, wait, are they now admitting there's no exit strategy? Huh, when Kerry mentioned that during the debates, they said he was full of smoke. Well, where there's smoke, there's fire, and boy, are your pants ablaze, W.
3. To our dental insurance carrier: You stink. You are a waste of premiums. $750 deductible? Per covered individual? So my family's annual deductible costs could reach over 2200 bucks? What is the point of the insurance? Free cleanings? Hell, those are only 40 bucks. I'd prefer dental insurance that makes me pay for cleanings but covers 100% of a root canal with no deductible. You stink. You stink like festering gum disease.
4. To Britney Spears: Are you crazy? Your husband is the Larry Fortensky for the 21st century. Congratulations for your complete descent into irrelevance and white-trashery. That was some wedding "gown". And p.s. your insistance thatwomen everywhere wish they were Mrs. Federline amuses me to no end. No thank you, I'd rather be with someone who bathes, dresses appropriately in public, and doesn't come off as a grocery store bagger on a bender. No offense to grocery store baggers.
5. To me, for being so damned lazy. Sheesh! And also for continuing to add to this list instead of creating new posts.

I don't remember if I've mentioned this before - so if I did, you can just skim on past or perhaps visit one of the other fine blogs I've listed over on the right. See you tomorrow!

Okay, for the rest of you - I just wanted to say that when I was a kid of Santa-believing age, every Christmas Eve was a hellish sleepless night for me. That's right. Hellish. You know why? Because Santa won't come if you're awake. And if you do happen to wake up, you have to pretend you aren't awake because what if that noise wasn't really the heat registers but Santa in the living room? My house growing up was tiny - 4 rooms and a bath, and if I breathed the wrong way, Santa would know for sure and he wouldn't leave anything. So I would lay in bed, rigid with fear, waiting for either sleep or sunrise.

Doesn't that sound happy?

It wasn't. I did the same thing the night before Easter. I was always the kind of kid who heard noises at night and assumed the worst. I am exactly the same as an adult. It was a blessed relief to learn the lowdown on Santa, let me tell you.

Okay, so fast forward to last night. Junior asks me what he should do if, on Christmas Eve, he needs to get a tissue in the middle of the night. Because he's not supposed to be awake, you see. Oh God, how cruel to make our children so much like us. Junior may look like his dad, but he's got so much of me in him. His current paranoia is tornados hitting the house, or fire burning it down. I refuse to admit to him that tornados are a big fear of mine. Even though, as I told him for the 100th time that I'm almost 40 years old and I've never seen a tornado, so I'm pretty sure we live in a safe place. It's weird how you have to act like you aren't afraid of things you are, just to keep your kids sane.

Anyway, I told him it's okay for him to get a tissue, Santa knows that sometimes people wake up and roll over. And that Santa is in and out in an instant, so chances are, he wouldn't be there anyway. I mean, what else do you say without blowing the whole thing. I just wish someone had told me that when I was little, but who's to say whether or not it would have made a difference.

I think this is going to be the 10th Christmas in a row that Santa doesn't bring me a garage. I'm starting to really dislike the guy. I mean, I only ask for one thing, right? A garage. It doesn't even have to be that big and fancy. I'll take a plain one. I'll even handle painting the inside and putting up shelves and hooks so we'll have a formal place to hang up our shovels (snow and the other kind. Dirt?) and our power tools that we don't really use as much as we should, which you can tell by looking at the shrubs in front of the house.

So I don't think Santa is bringing a garage because he probably already would have had to start working on it, don't you think? It's only a few days until Christmas (Junior can do the math, so he has reminded me about 700 times that it's only three more days - see, public schools work!) and I think they'd have to put in some kind of foundation. I'm resigned to looking out the window on Saturday morning and seeing my driveway. Resigned, but not happy about it.

Okay, sorry for the interruption. Moving servers is a bigger pain in the nether-region than I anticipated (due to my stupidly trying to upgrade some software at the same time) but I think I've got it all set. My email was a bit off yesterday and this morning, but I have a work-around in place. Whew! Remind me to not do that again, okay?

What else, then?

Oh, right. I need to update my Christmas music page - it just isn't high on the list of priorities if you can imagine that. The thing is, I haven't purchased much in the way of holiday music this year. I had a couple of items in my Amazon basket, but when push came to shove, I didn't end up buying them. I did pick up two CDs, though, and will give you a brief review because you mean that much to me. I want to help you with your CD buying, you know.

Barenaked for the Holidays - A+
Just fantastic, really. And it even contains three Hanukkah songs, two of which are just beautiful, and a version of I Have a Little Dreidel that had the kids clapping their hands and singing along. The one sore spot for me is the remake of Do They Know It's Christmas. Do not mess with the all-star 80s version, gentlemen. The best part of that song is switching singing styles between Boy George and Bono, and we were forced to fake that when we tried to sing along with you. Really, did this song need a remake? No.
Radio Disney Jingle Jams - C-
I'm just not crazy about it. I'm sure there are tweens out there who think this is the greatest Christmas CD ever, but I remember thinking that about the Partridge Family Christmas album. We were both wrong.


The ones I want but didn't yet buy:
Chris Isaak Christmas - I've heard nothing but good things about this.
A John Waters Christmas - yes, that John Waters. No, he doesn't sing, he just picked all the offbeat (and some disturbing, I hear) songs.

Okay, the DNS servers need to talk to each other to get you guys pointed to this new server. I feel like a character in Horton Hears a Who. You know, the people who yell because nobody believes they exist: "We are here we are here we are HERE!"

Today school was cancelled due to snow. It wasn't much, so I'm not exactly sure why they cancelled, but actually, it worked out for me because Junior developed a cold or something over the weekend and I didn't want to keep him home because he's already missed too much school. This way I could keep him home and snuggle up with him (did I mention he passed it along to me?) and it wouldn't count! Weee!

In other news, a friend of ours from the place where we eat breakfast on Sundays gave us a little box of treats and I just now discovered that her peanut butter fudge is EXACTLY like my grandmother's used to be. Now I have to hunt her down and force her to give me the recipe. You see, Grandma B decided to never give anyone the recipe. Or she'd leave out key ingredients. I don't know why she wanted to take the recipe to the grave, but she got her wish.

On that happy note...could it be any COLDER out there?

Would you rather win a Best of Blog award or a few "Buy one get one free" coupons for margerine? Right.

I did nominate my two favorites over at http://www.blogmechanics.com/bob/ for the Best of Blog awards. I would love to be as good and as funny as my favorites. Maybe if I put a little more effort into it. A little more "elbow grease" (What the hell is that?) to channel my dad circa 1977.

Okay deep breaths. Mr. Dump is out looking for a Christmas present for me, with a whole 6 days to spare! Do I have a wonderful guy or what?!

Yesterday there was a fine dusting of snow and frost on everything. I don't even think it was a measurable amount of snow. So the general consensus was "ah, that's nothing" and none of the roads were treated. Big mistake. You see, it was cold out...very cold. So that stuff wasn't melting and evaporating. It was melting and freezing. Instant ice! It took Mr. Dump over THREE HOURS to drive from Leominster to Framingham. He missed his 8:30am root canal appointment because he didn't get to Framingham until after TEN AM! I am going to be so upset if this means the appointments (I think there are three remaining) float over into 2005 and the dental insurance makes us pay the 2004 deductible AND the 2005 deductible. I would seriously pick a fight with them over that, that this is all "one" thing and should be treated as such. I'm not paying 1500 in deductibles just because the treatment requires a week between appointments.

Anyway, I only mention Mr. Dump's commute because in my infinite wisdom, I planned to work at home yesterday. I had the furnace cleaned, saw Junior in his school play, and had a follow-up doctor appointment. I like to jam as much into a single day as possible, to get it all over with at once. I did sneak in a stop at the grocery store to pick up as much stuff as possible to get through until after Christmas - you know, the things we need every day, like juice boxes, stuff for school lunches, little bags of cotton candy. No wait, those are for Christmas presents.

Anyway, I would have lost those three hours of work and pay if I'd tried to drive in (we go the same way at different times because I have school bus duty at 7:45 and he's already at work by then, usually) and thus not been paid for them. To hell with that! I'm not losing money because someone decided not to throw some salt down.

First, I wasn't going to send out any Christmas cards this year. I barely sent any out last year, and I didn't want to break tradition. Except we kept receiving them, and I started to realize that if you get a card from me every year for 20 years, and then two years in a row you send me a picture of your child/dog/swimming pool, and I don't return the favor, you're going to think that somehow you offended me and I hate you, or no, in fact, I never liked you at all.

So, after receiving the card from my sister with this cute picture of my niece and nephew, I thought "I can't have our friends and relatives hanging them on refrigerators all over central Mass, but not hanging one of my boy!" So I bought a box of cards, which limited me to 18 people. Oh man, I used to send out twice that, but somehow, I had fallen out of touch with a couple of people and don't even know if I have their addresses any more. I keep hoping they'll send me a card so I'll have the right address, but so far, I'm sure they are thinking the same thing of me. The thing these people need to know is that I lost my list of current addresses and for some people, the only ones I had were at least 3 or 4 years old. Seriously. I tore the house apart the other day. And then asked Mr. Dump to please get me an address book (nothing big and flashy) for Christmas.

So 18 people are getting cards, and if you expected one but didn't get it, it isn't that I don't love and appreciate you, it's just that I only had 18 cards and 20 photos (at 29 cents a print there) and 20 stamps. Yes, I know I can buy more of all of those things, but it's also only about a week before Christmas.

I also didn't get around to writing up one of those funny little letters to put in the card, so maybe I'll write one this weekend and put it here on the site.

I was forgetting a group of people from my shopping list. See, my brain knew there was something wrong. Of course, I'm a little stumped as to what to do. You see, my son is in an aftercare program at his school, and that is run by about 6 college-aged (or post graduate) men and women, who are really great. I like them all, as does Junior. He's sort of "assigned" to one of them for check-in and quiet time, but after that, he goes off with whoever is doing the activity he's interested in. If it was more of a one-on-one situation, that would be easy. But it really isn't like that, so I have 5 or 6 people to buy for.

I'm thinking maybe I'll just give them each $5 worth of Dunkin Donuts gift certificates or something, but my fear is that I'll forget one of them. That would be bad.

Anyway, I'm just happy my gift radar was working properly. They really are great with the kids, and make it SO much easier for me to feel good about leaving him with them every day. And he claims it's his favorite part of "school" so it has that going for it.

Okay, this is the part of the Christmas season where I start to panic that I've forgotten to get someone a gift. I think I've accounted for everyone, but you know how it is. I know I have plenty of time left to take care of this, but it still nags at me. I sent out my Holiday Evil present as part of the Secret Satan gift exchange. (You know, gifts to bring horror and laughter. One year I gave out an autographed copy of Jamie Farr's autobiography. I have received in the past the Henry Winkler version of A Christmas Carol, and Bill and Hillary paper dolls. You get the idea.)

I can't say what I sent this year because I know at least one person who is involved in it reads the dump, and even if she isn't the recipient (she'll know soon enough, eh?) I don't want to spoil anything. Let's just say I'm really proud of myself. This was some good evil. It's the 25 cent Candy Bar Salad of Christmas gifts.

I ordered something from Amazon for Junior's teacher, and I'm hoping it comes in by Thursday because I'm going to be seeing her on Friday at the holiday play so I could give it to her then instead of sending it in on the bus with Junior. Of course, stuff I ordered from Amazon on November 26 was shipped on the 28th and arrived today so hoping for a Thursday arrival of stuff I ordered yesterday, even if I didn't go for the free shipping this time, still seems unlikely.

Okay, I think I'm going to have to use this one next year because it's so late in the season that it would cost me my life savings to put a rush order on creating and shipping me custom cards made with the following photo:




I took that picture the other day. It's my new train set, going around my Dept 56 village. The train station I want now is of course retired, but I did find a set of three railroad figures. That's one of them there, adjusting the time of the next expected train.

I thought this picture came out great, and wanted to make a Christmas card out of it. Of course, you're supposed to use pictures of your kids on your Christmas cards, but the Dept 56 village was so much more photogenic than a kid who doesn't want to sit still and have his picture taken. *sigh*

So lets pretend that this is your holiday card from me. I'd add some crappy background music, but I hate sites like that. Ho Ho Ho!

So tonight we were invited to my best friend's house for their annual Christmas party. One of the things they do is have everyone bring a dessert, and then they give out prizes for the best ones. Last time, I worked really hard on some almond cheesecake squares (like, even made little leaves for the top) and was trounced by all the chocolate desserts. So I told my friends I was still bitter at losing the last time I went (kidding) so I wasn't going to bring a dessert. This week I decided to invent a desert to bring, maybe something totally disgusting and chocolate-filled. Either that or a Jell-o(tm) mold with money suspended in it instead of fruit cup, you know, to bribe the judges.

But my step-kids are here, and my step-daughter suggested I go with my first idea - a bowl full of candy bar chunks. And then maybe put Cool-Whip on top. I mean, what's better than candy bars, right? Let's cut to the chase here.

So we went to Brooks pharmacy to buy candy bars and they were having a sale - anything by Hershey was 4/$1.00! Woo! She and I bought a ton of candy, and decided to put Marshmallow Peep-like Snowmen on top instead of the Cool-Whip. I thought this would be an amusing entry.

So of course, there was a woman who made a chocolate eclair ring (oh my GOD!) and two different trifles, made from scratch brownies, these little brownie cups with a pudding/cream cheese topping that was amazing, etc. etc. You had to write the name of your dessert (but not your name) and put a cup next to it. All the guests were given three pennies to vote with.

Well, as we're leaving the hosts said it was time to tally the votes - my sister and brother-in-law are still mocking me for my entry, which we called "25 Cent Candy Bar Salad". My step-daughter deserves all the credit for calling it a salad, by the way. Brilliant.

Guess who won. By almost twice as much as any other entry.

My sister almost peed her pants. I offered her the recipe and she said "No thanks, I already know how to crush candy bars". I got this gorgeous Williams-Sonoma Cookbook.

See, all the kids weren't that interested in Egg Nog Trifle, but man, they really did love a bowl full of pieces of candy bars, it turns out. And they got to vote too! Of the 9 little snowmen originally on top of the bowl, only 2 were left by 8pm.

I'm kind of embarrassed, but at the same time I laugh all over again just thinking about it. I suppose next year I'll go for a regular entry just to give someone else a chance to win, but man, was that ever funny.

David Brudnoy lost his battle with cancer last night, and the world is a sadder place. If I had to say one thing that amazed me about him, it was his ability to consume books at a rate most humans would crumble under. Not Harlequin Romance-sized stuff, but great, honking non-fiction works that would take mere mortals weeks to read and understand. But David would read these books so that he could discuss them, in great detail and with great understanding, with the authors on his show every night. I mean, most interviewers fake it. Read the front cover, maybe chapter one, a summary provided by the publicist, and skim the rest pulling out a nugget or two so they can sound like they've read it. I never ever got that sense with David, and if he did do it, he owned up to it up front.

No, I didn't know him personally, but from where I used to sit in my car listening, I was completely in awe of his intellect, his ability to empathize, and to communicate, not only because he did it so well, but because his voice was just wonderful to listen to.

And so, the world is a sadder place today. He was one of a kind.

Okay, I was reading an article on holiday tipping, and it says you're supposed to tip your rubbish collectors. I have never done this. I mean, I totally appreciate them, and the job they do, so it isn't that. It's just that I cannot for the life of me figure out how I'm supposed to tip them without having to stand out there in the cold, waiting for them to drop by. I suppose I could just listen for them, but they don't always come by while I'm still home. I'd be afraid they'd think the envelope was loose trash and throw it away. Buh-bye Christmas tip, hello one more year of lid flinging.

So what are you supposed to do? Tape an envelope to the lid? How on earth is that going to work? If I were a little hard-up for cash this time of year, I'd just drive around looking for trash cans with envelopes on them. It would be trick-or-treating for twenties.

So tell me, have any of you ever tipped the rubbish guys? How did you do it?

(Also, I've heard that USPS employees aren't supposed to accept tips so how do you handle that? I mean, at least tipping the mailman is easier because there's a spot to leave the card.)

The morning DJs on WXLO were mocking those who run out to buy batteries and bread when a dusting of snow is predicted, but darned if our power didn't go out *5* times last night...once for at least 15 minutes (I didn't actually keep track) and yes, we had to use candles. I don't know what I did with my favorite flashlight that converts to a lantern - the last time I remember seeing it was when we last camped at my sister's house. Looks like I'll have to ask Santa to bring me another one because man, it was really dark in the house last night, and you just don't think about how you are going to get around if you don't have everything handy. Which, of course, I didn't because historically we never lose power. In our neighborhood all the lines are underground which REALLY helps. It also helps that we live relatively close to a small substation. The last time we had a "long" blackout, that I can think of, was the night it went out 10 minutes before they named the winner of Survivor (the one with Colby, I think) so I was completely livid because I'd watched all season only to miss the announcement of who won. Man, that's a stinker.

I think the mini-outages last night screwed up my Tivoing of Christmas specials, which stinks. I forgot to check this morning, but Charlie Brown had been in the queue, and that was around the time we had the long one. Oh well. It could have been FAR worse.

Sometimes, I assume I've already used lines in the title before. But as a creature of habit, I can't help myself. Plus, it's hard to come up with original, unique titles for every entry. What am I, the library?

Hmm. Maybe I should change the title to that. But it might be misleading, because if I rename it, the first paragraph won't be true, so then I'd have to change the title again.

Do you see what I face every day?

We're in such a lovely weather pattern. The weatherdudes promised us...promised us that the temperature would get above freezing so that the heavier rains expected this afternoon would be just that...rain. Right now it's 29 degrees outside (Fahrenheit, Anji) so the 7+ hours of rain so far today have just coated every tree and bush until they all seem like a mere glance would shatter the branches and send everything dropping to the ground. This is indeed interesting when you know your drive home is on roads that are lined with lots of huge big giant trees. I am so looking forward to it. I hate hate hate driving in this weather.

So thanks, weatherdudes, for adding to my frown lines. You are so not getting a Christmas card from me.

I deleted one point four megabytes of spam from my comments text file last night. 1.4 meg. In a text file.

Why oh why oh why? And the thing is, this takes effort to do. I really don't believe it's automated - although I'm sure someone will tell me if I'm wrong - which means someone is actually taking the time to go in, open the comments, and leave the spam. Over and over and over again. Can it really be that lucrative to leave hundreds of comments in the archives of a barely-read blog? If it's an actually person, they have spent at least a couple of hours over the last two months, leaving these things. What kind of return can they possibly get? Is this the result of all those anti-spam email bills?

Can't these people just find normal jobs?

We went for the fake tree this year. I know, I know. And again, I know. I love the smell of real trees too. I love the whole experience of going out to look for the perfect tree. However, the perfect tree does not love me. Last year I really could tell my sinuses were acting up once the tree got in the house. I have read that real Christmas trees have a mold factor, some being moldier than others, and I happen to be allergic.

So we got a fake tree that looks, I might add, really nice. I'm pretty happy with it, considering.

Plus it already had the lights on it, which is a bonus.

New content on the Thyroid Humor page! Don't forget to tip your waitress.

More locals have checked in on the SMart KSears thread about the Mall at Whitney Field. I love knowing that people from the area are reading. Of course, that means that like any celeb, I now have to completely dress up and do full makeup when I go out of the house, because I could run into any of you and the paparazzi from the Sentinel would have a field day.

So the question I have, that was raised in the comments of that post - can someone remind me of the name of the restaurant that was attached to Woolworths? I have Harvest something stuck in my head, but I know that wasn't it. As I said in my comment, it always seemed really dark in there. Now I'm wondering if it was to kind of, well, hide the food.

On a similar subject, do any of you remember when the Victory Market at Twin City Mall (in the old location, when it was right next to Kmart) had a restaurant in the back?

Wow, it feels weird to not have the Nano deadline staring me in the face anymore. I really love doing it - there is no way I would write that much without the pushing and prodding of trying to "win" the attempt. Now I'm kind of sad that I didn't finish last year because it puts a hole in my record.

I have decided that I have to keep going, while the muse is still in the room. Not with the same intensity, but I am going to allow myself the long rambling "just write anything" moments to keep momentum up. I hit a point on Sunday where I really liked what I was writing. There was an actual plot. I want to expand on that before I let it fall to the wayside like the other 2 finished attempts and the half attempt from last year. I have a lot of paper covered with crappy writing, that's for sure!

I don't have a copy of the finished product with me, but I can tell you that the thing I was writing about when I hit 50k was something about how you don't want your hands to smell like pudding. I'm surprised Random House hasn't already called...