I came home from work tonight expecting to write the final paragraph of a paper I had to submit online sometime today, then do some studying for the two finals I have tomorrow. Well, somehow, the computer turned my four-page paper into a 107-page paper with one line of text per four or five pages, and I can only see about five lines of my paper. Did I mention I have finals tomorrow? I should really be studying but want to figure out where the hell my paper went. This sort of thing has never happened to me before, so I'm kind of distraught. I need to write the paper again, but part of me hasn't given up hope that my paper in its original form is on the computer somewhere. If this has ever happened to you, let me know how to fix it (or tell me to just give up) ASAP. My paper giving me the finger - F
I went to my neighborhood Parcel Plus to send a package to my parents (look for it on Monday or Tuesday, folks), and the Parcel Plus guy was so nice! He asked me if I needed any stamps or anything, and then as I was leaving, he said, "Do you know that the postal rates are going up?" I said, "Yep, January 8th, right?" And he handed me a book of two-cent stamps, on the house! Now THAT is good business. You better believe I'll be going there for all of my shipping needs in the future.
Like Paris Hilton, I too am all over the Internet. I'm on Facebook, Friendster, and now MySpace (and I did match.com, but that worked out pretty well). I resisted myspace as long as I could, but I never check Friendster anymore, Facebook really only keeps me connected with Interlochen kids who are now in college, and a group of my friends are all on myspace and I wanted to reconnect with them (and most of them don't read my blog... losers). I feel kind of weird having so many memberships in online groups, especially since all of them were supposed to be THE group to join. Now I'm in three, and I promise you and myself that that's my limit. If the next big Internet "stay in touch with people and have a web page" thing comes along next year and I'm tempted to join, remind me of this, OK?
Child abuse is bad. I would never say anything otherwise. There are probably more children getting abused than we might think, so to use a catchphrase, "raising awareness" is probably a good thing.
Okay, I totally have the Christmas spirit - I have gifts and wrapping paper and I'm thinking about putting on my mix CD of holiday music while I do some laundry - but there is nothing that takes me OUT of the Christmas spirit more than "The Christmas Shoes" by New Song. This has to be one of the worst songs ever written. A dirty little kid buying shoes for his sick mother on Christmas Eve? Bogus! There's also the mean-spirited shop owner and the kindly stranger, narrating the song, who gives the kid the money he needs to afford said shoes. And then, of course, there's the children's chorus. Now, in such holiday favorites as "The Night Before Christmas" by Amy Grant and "Merry Xmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon, a children's chorus is used to great effect, but in "The Christmas Shoes," it's just overkill... and the song is too low for the kids. They all just sort of growl the low notes. Bad, bad songwriters. Bad.
Nate got a raise - yay! Partly to celebrate our new-found monetary growth, but mostly becuse we were both feeling too lazy to cook anything, we ate at Raja Rani, an Indian restaurant downtown.
Have you seen the new Chanel commercial starring Nicole Kidman? It's fantastic, and yet thoroughly bizarre all at the same time. Baz Luhrmann directed this commercial and you can totally tell - before I knew that he directed it, I thought "Wow, this looks so much like Moulin Rouge!" Nicole looks fabulous, as does her super hot co-star, but it's just so weird. It's more of a mini-movie with a lot of product placement than an actual commercial. There's a three-minute version, but I've only seen the 1-minute cut. Look for it - it's visually spectacular (spectacular!) but a little too avant garde for me.
Since every school in Wayne, Oakland and Washtenaw counties has a snow day today, I had high hopes that I would, too. No such luck. Apparently college snow days are a little harder to come by.
I didn't rewind my tape from ABC Sunday night, so I missed the first hour (I got home from work in time to watch the second hour!). It was good, but I'm not feeling it yet. I need a little time to get to know the designers, and I kind of thought the challenge was lame. I'm sure that deconstructing your clothes and turning them into something new is difficult - y'all know I couldn't do it - but it didn't seem as though it was a challenge that really showed the designers' strengths and weaknesses. 
Blogging about the weather is probably lamer than talking about the weather, but it must be done: it is COLD here. I just checked weather.com (mostly because I'm trying to avoid a tiny bit of homework) and it is 0 degrees outside. Not Celsius, mind you. Fahrenheit. It is no degrees right now. 
Oooh, I LOVE Life Cereal! It is so delicious. I've been eating mostly cheap cereal the past few months, but last night I bought some Life and had it for breakfast this morning. Yummy yummy in my tummy! I could probably eat the whole box in one sitting, but then what would I have for breakfast tomorrow?
Okay, let's do a little compare and contrast. Real preemie - looks real. Plastic preemie - looks plastic. Real preemie - wires and stuff. Plastic preemie - all sorts of wires and stuff (not in this picture, but keep watching Grey's Anatomy). Real preemie - eyes! Plastic preemie - tape over eyes! (again, watch GA and other medical shows) Real preemie - looks like a real baby, only mini. Plastic preemie - looks like an alien.
Years of watching ER coupled with the last two weeks of Grey's Anatomy have taught me something: the animatronic guys still need a little work on premature babies. When I look at that baby in the picture, I don't think "oh, sad little preemie." No, I think "mildly creepy baby-esque hunk of plastic." I'm not personally acquainted with any premature babies, but to me, the ones we see in TV shows always look fake. Step it up a little, folks, 'cause you know we can't use real premature babies.
Say what you will about Saddam Hussein - military genius or crazed psychopath, I don't care. This isn't a political blog. I just want to point out that I think this picture looks like a scene from "Saddam - The Musical." Look at the staging, with one man right in front of the other, as well as the onlookers on the sides. Also, though it's an action shot of sorts, you can see that both men are raising their arms, sort of like the final pose in "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina" from Evita or "It's An Art" from Working. Plus, Saddam sort of has that Topol thing going on. If you look very closely, you'll see that he's really saying "TRADITION!"
Oh my heavens, do I love fondue. I went to a Christmas party last night and ate about as much fondue as I could stand... and then I ate some more. I mostly ate pound cake dipped in the chocolate, but I also had strawberries, cherries, grapes, pineapple, and itty bitty rice krispie treats, which I had never had as a fondue item before. It was sublime. 
I know I'm not the only one who's been thinking about Nic Cage and Johnny T. since we found about this face transplant thing. Remember this movie? I loved this movie. I think I've seen it about six times.
Oooh, I like it. Still, not as cool as European money. I also like the tie of the guy in the background.
The new $10 - B+
Yes, this concerned me when I first read it. Seems like Lord Lloyd Webber is going to mount a stage production of the movie version of The Sound of Music - upon further investigation, I discovered that he's just acting as producer, and is not adding any new music to the score, so that's definitely good. However, he is going to do a reality TV-style search to find the woman who will play Maria, and the show is tentatively titled - brace yourselves - "How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?" Ouch. How do you solve that problem, indeed. It's not like Julie Andrews could reprise her role - she's 70, for Pete's sake - but I think an American-Idolesque contest is a bad idea, too. Whatever happened to good old fashioned auditions?
Saginaw, Michigan is back on the map! A winning Mega Millions lottery ticket was sold at the South Michigan Express Stop, 408 S. Michigan - somebody I know may have just won a share of 35 million dollars! This is better than that Simon and Garfunkel song!
