December 2002 Archives
According to USAToday.com, there's been a decline in the numbers of people and the length of their New Year's Eve celebrations. Whether or not that this is another sign that Baby Boomers are getting older or reinforcement that the economy is down, I plan on having a good time with friends. I won't get all gussied up, but I won't be sitting at home watch Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve, either.
Congrats to the winner of the big Power Ball jackpot. Although none of us were winners (the 19 tix I handed out were all losers), a lot of the talk around our house was what to do with all that money. Me? I'd keep the job for a bit, take the cash ($170,000,000) and invest most of it, give some to my family, start my own business to keep me occupied, and then live my life in comfort. What fun to dream.
Here's Kris & I wishing you (and yours, if applicable) the bestest Christmas ever. Happy Holidays!
From Andre Torrez, comes the Rubik's Cube Master. The only way I could solve one of these was by taking it apart, which I thought was pretty ingenious at the time.
The Golden Globe Nominations have been released. But, the real question is: Who coded that page? With fonts, underlines, and bullets all over the place, the page is quite difficult to read and horrible looking. Such a disappointment from the rest of the site.
Update: So the page has changed. I really should have taken a screen shot. It was pretty bad. Serves me right, I guess. [12.19.02 7:45 PM]
Last night on The Daily Show, Lewis Black reported on his "Persons of the Year." One of his nominees was Caesar Barber, who is suing McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and KFC for his obesity. Black's reason for including him: "He represents a perfect[sic] American. He's overweight, uninformed and litigious." The sad thing is, he's exactly right.
I don't know what's worse, hour-long commercials, or the commercials for the main commercial?
My parents and I have broadband. There are many advantages to having broadband, but a newly discovered one is NetMeeting. Below are two great examples:
That's my sister Beth for ya.
I finally got to watch Artificial Intelligence: A.I. last night. An interesting premise, a modern day Pinocchio. But the one line that got me was 2,000 years into the future, the alien talking with David says they can recreate a human based on its DNA for one day only. Once the human ('orga' in the movie) would go to sleep and become 'unconscious', they would never wake up. The DNA lacked the human of human being that makes us beings. The DNA lacked souls. I like that idea. It's what religion has been trying to explain all these years, manifested in gods, parables and prophets. It's really us that makes us us.
Until teenagers, my cousins and I, thanks to our loving grandmother, were able to count down the 24 endless days of December that Ryan recalls in his latest episode. We each hung a felt calendar with pockets for each and every day until the 25
Things are changing. We've put our calendars away, moved out of our teenage years, and out of the house. I got married. We're starting our own traditions. I bought our tree Sunday, put it together last night. I am starting new traditions but, thanks to my Mom, some traditions will be kept alive. All of my ornaments, passed along by a great-grandmother, adorn our new tree. We have a different kind of advent calendar, with special quotes, to count the days to Christmas, and St. Nick continues to fill out shoes every December 6 and will have balloons to let go into the Christmas sky. There will NOT be any presents opened before the morning of the 25
While walking home last night, I was conflicted while watching a blind person find their way. He was walking along, slowly feeling the way forward with his cane. Many times it got stuck in the snowbank along the edge of a planting. As I passed him, the planting ended and needing a guide, he headed towards the street & bus stop where a tree was in the way.
Here's where my confliction starts. Do I ask him if he would like any assistance? The way he was (what appeared to me) struggling, it seemed like he would need some help. But, at the same time, I want to give the disabled their freedom and respect. He is obviously has the confidence to get around. But, are there times when disabled need, and more importantly, want a bit of help and guidance? Should I have stopped and confirmed he was where he wanted to be?
The Sopranos season ended last night. Paul and I were a bit disappointed that they concentrated on the real family (Tony & Carmela) versus the real 'family' to close out the season. There were so many loose ends along so many plot lines, I was anxious to see a few get tied up (like Paul's grand prediction of Paulie Walnut's demise due to the promo materials when the season began) but to no avail, it was all about Tony and Carmela. Televisionwithoutpity.com has the episode in a nutshell for those of you that missed it, along with the rest of the episodes.
In the office lobby, the have just erected a Christmas tree, tied some bows around it, and hung some reflective balls and twinkling lights. There's no menorah or anything representing kwanzaa. Living in an ultra-liberal city (or at least it thinks it is), is this acceptable? The state capitol even erects a tree, though it's referred to as a 'holiday tree.' Around the US, there's plenty of celebrity trees. With a severe lack in representation of other faiths, is the Christmas Tree becoming a symbol for all ceremonies celebrated this time of year? And if it is, is that okay?
The hybrids are cool cars, getting about 70 miles per gallon (mpg). But, what if you could get 259 mpg? Someday you might in the VW 1-liter. Don't think about driving across the country on one tank of fuel, as the fuel tank is only 1.7 gallons big. But still, that's 440 miles on one tank. Wow. And it looks funky, too.
Our Holiday travel went well until our last flight. Due to high winds in the East, our plane was delayed two hours. The flight lasts 20 minutes. There's a bit of a disconnect for people to comprehend this. It was entertaining to watch people's mouths drop to the floor as they tried to do just that, when driving between the two cities take 90 minutes, or 120 minutes on a bus. Many disgruntled passengers did chose to take the bus, which we calculated as economically not worth it, and a big pain in the ass. The best reactions were the passengers that were angry the plane was delayed, yet they were arriving after the flight would have left if it had been on time. Security was not a problem, though I did get randomly searched once. Some security officials did run by, but I did not see any contraband confiscated.
Strong Bad will answer all of your e-mails. Hilarious.