42 loooong minutes into it...

... finally, PIRATES! And then Captain Blood turned into a pirate, and then the real pirates were gone, and then within three months Blood was the most powerful pirate in the Caribbean, and then in the end he went back to the English army (which he disdained at the beginning of the movie).

Maybe I don't know enough about actual events in England's history to be able to appreciate the film. I just didn't see what all the fuss was about. (Pre-pirate he was a doctor, and I mean, come on, with a last name like "Blood" what other professions are really options for you? Vampire? Mortician?)

It did incent me to watch Pirates of the Caribbean again, though. But first I got distracted by The Breakfast Club rerunning on TV for the nine millionth time. Despite the commercial breaks and awful license with cutting scenes (to the extent that I'd be saying the lines along with the characters, and suddenly it would be the next scene but the actual scene wasn't finished, so I'd have to say the missing lines really quickly to catch myself up with the next scene - yeah, I'm that much of a dork about this movie - which I why I rarely watch the TV version anymore, but I happened to be ironing and cleaning up iTunes simultaneously so it was nice background)...

What was I saying? Oh yeah. What a brilliant movie.

Except that there were no pirates.

Behold, the power of advertising.

I have a birthday coming up next month, and I have to say that I would not be at all disappointed with one of these babies.

Especially since Her Majesty has taken to eating lettuce lately... Seriously, whenever I'm making a salad (which is often) she sits at my feet and whines until I give her some lettuce. Just a little bit, since I haven't found a definitive answer on whether it's bad or good for her. But she loves it.

It's kinda freaky.

I only wish the Chia thing was an actual head of something. Then it would be PERFECT.

(Yes, it's been 15 hours and I'm still awake. SIGH.)

Attention, frugal winos.

I found this merlot to be quite palatable. And it's on sale at BevMo right now.

You will be begging me for a copy of Billy Idol's Happy Holidays CD.

Click here to hear an utter abomination of O Holy Night. Click it!! And hold out for the "DEEEEEVIIIIINE" part. Hold out!!

As mystery Matt commented on The Sneeze, "I shall inflict it on my friends and non-friends alike."

Merry Christmas!

The longest day of my life.

I woke up at 3am this morning, which really isn't all that unusual. I blame it on a combination of it being the witching hour and owning a black cat. The unusual part was that I couldn't go back to sleep - at all. Sometimes it takes up to two hours, but I almost always get back to sleep. Not today.

So, since 3am this morning, I have accomplished the following:

• watched three episodes of The Office (plus deleted scenes)
• watched part of a crappy very old Dawson's Creek episode
  
• attempted to go to the gym at 6am only to wait 20 minutes and have it still not be open, at which point I gave up and went home
• ate breakfast
• [at which point the power on my entire block went out, causing me to rethink my next activity]
• cleaned up the 1/2 inch of dust on all the furniture in my apartment
  
• finally pulled out the down comforter and new comforter cover (the one I've been coveting at Ikea for about two years now, but refused to pay $50 for - a few weeks ago it was on sale for $20 - I hadn't even planned on going to Ikea that day, it was kind of serendipitous)
• [at which point the power came back on]
• got my glasses refitted
  
• dropped off dry cleaning and did four loads of laundry at the laundromat
• ate lunch
• figured out The Plan for getting to the airport Sunday morning
  
• walked (back) to the gym, did my gym thing
• walked to the grocery store and video store (to pick up THIS! which I learned about from THIS! garrr)
• double-checked The Plan for getting to the airport Sunday morning
  

And it's only 3pm. And I'm not even tired. And it's prime napping weather.

Guess I have to continue to be productive. It's my day off! Bah.

Friday five.

Five things I hope to do while I am home, in no particular order:

• visit the International Spy Museum
• meet my oldest friend's two year old
• visit the Baltimore Knife and Sword Company
  
• while I'm in Balmer, visit the American Visionary Art Museum
• sleep past 3am (SIGH)
  

I have done this. Actually.

And so, it made me laugh.

Keeping 'em guessing.

I haven't been taken very seriously at work lately, so I decided to shed my usual uniform of jeans and Docs and try out some serious professional garb to see if that would help matters. It really was more of a sociology experiment than anything else. At this point I could care less if people take me seriously.

Both yesterday and today I wore suit-like skirts not from Ross Dress for Less, with coordinated sweaters that cost more than $20 each, oh and stockings with heels.

I'm not sure whether people took me more seriously about my questions and suggestions. But I did get a LOT of questions about whether I'd had an interview that morning. One such question was asked in a large group gathering to say goodbye to a fellow long-timer who was lucky enough to have found a new opportunity. I thought that was hilarious... especially since I never actually answered the question.

What the hell. Most people know I'm looking anyway. The veep is even helping me out in that arena.

Have I mentioned I now have FIVE bosses, as opposed to the aforementioned four? And someone who insisted I fill out some form as per "the process" got all upset because I filled out the form as per his own request? And allegedly I'm changing roles but there is no plan to transition my existing work, which basically means I'll be doing my current job PLUS my new job, which definitely means that I will do all of them poorly because I refuse to work past 5pm?

I can already predict the new year: "I'd like to move us right along to a Jen(n). Now we had a chance to meet this young woman, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over her."

Joseph is the new Joaquin?

Tonight after the annual viewing of the Charlie Brown Christmas special, I watched the end of Mysterious Skin, which I started Friday night but fell asleep during. Not for lack of interest - it wasn't the most pleasant movie to watch, but the story and the actors were compelling and gut-wrenching.

I have to say - after this and Brick, I am predicting that the former 3rd Rock From the Sun star will be bigger than big in the very near future. And I never even liked or watched 3rd Rock From the Sun.

That's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it.

And now, on to the next depressing sexual abuse story! (This one has our friend Gael. So it's got that going for it.)

Perhaps my iTunes and my Netflix need to get together and go to counseling?

Have a nice day.

To broccoli!

Intelligent children may be more likely to be vegetarian as adults, suggests a study published online by the British Medical Journal.

And here's where I say, nyeah nyeah nyeah.

When life imitates government...

... you know that you're in trouble.

Get what you give.

I pay $18/month for my gym membership. The hours stink, half the time it's self-service to get a locker, there are only two elliptical machines, and the TVs are positioned awkwardly over the treadmill area so depending on which treadmill you choose, you might be straining your neck to view the monitor.

But it's $18/month. I don't complain.

On the other hand! This news made me quite livid. Of the hundred or so channels I have access to right now, I watch about ten on a regular basis (five of which are network channels). Why can't I pay, say, $1/month per channel I watch, and maybe $5/month for HBO, Sundance, etc., instead of paying a set rate for those plus several ESPN channels, several Spanish channels, E!, Lifetime, SpikeTV, sixteen news channels that repeat the same crap over and over, and one channel that apparently shows Law & Order 24/7?

(And don't even GET me started on this news. Yeah, because Scrubs and That 70's Show really need to be viewed in high-def.)

So I've decided to cancel my cable television starting in January, and just stick to good ol' Netflix. At $19/month, I can deal with being behind a season on the latest pop culture in exchange for no commercials and corporate raping of my bank account every month. And I can hope that they will offer these fascinating episodes sometime soon. The only things I will probably miss are Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And I will miss them hard.

Maybe I'll subscribe to the TV Guide. A wise man once said, "If you read the TV Guide, you don't need a TV."

Post-Friday five.

Five stupid facts about names, in no particular order:

• Thanks to a $10 million gift, Columbus Children's Hospital will soon break ground on the Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department and Trauma Center.
  
• Eventually choosing "Gone With the Wind," Margaret Mitchell originally considered naming her novel "Tote the Weary Load."
• At least 3 Americans are named ESPN.
• In 2005, McDonald's offered rappers $5 every time one of their songs mentioning a Big Mac was played on the radio.
• The Thai word for "Bangkok" is 164 letters long and tells the city's history.

Source.

New year's resolution #1.

I will NOT buy ANY MORE CHRISTMAS CARDS until I have sent out all the cards in my current stash (about 8 boxes, all half full, even after this year's batch). No matter how cute or funny or quirky they are, or how much on sale they are, or how quickly I forget how many cards I have in my current stash, I will NOT buy any more Christmas cards until they are all gone.

And don't be surprised if you get Christmas cards throughout 2007 in my efforts to get rid of them.

FOUND.

I hereby re-join the world of the living, and I hereby relinquish my hold on my virtual boyfriend, Sawyer, at least for a little while...

What a bloody terrible ending to season 2.

And I only say that because I'm pissed that I don't have season 3 readily available.

Early Friday five.

Five questions about - what else - LOST! - because I'm up to season 2, disc 4 and I still don't know what the hell is going on. (Contains no significant spoilers, which probably doesn't matter anyway, because I'm behind compared to all the people who read this, who actually watch the show - and those who don't do either of those things probably never will.)

• Does Michelle Rodriguez's character go away soon? Please, can she?
  
• If the hatch has a trash can, one of those metal flip-lid dealies, what do the people on the beach do with their trash? (I'll skip the obvious - WHY does the hatch, that has been hermetically sealed for eons in the middle of the jungle on some god-forsaken island, have a flip-top metal trash can?)
• Where the hell is the dog?
  
• Where are they taking Charlie's character?
• Just how many nicknames can Sawyer come up with?*
  

________________
* Which was your favorite? So far my vote goes for "Mr. Clean", a close second is "Hans and Chewy." I look forward to disc 7 bonus features, where they recount all his nicknames in a montage not unlike this one. Only funny.

Yes, yes...

... I own Billy Idol's holiday compilation. (Now who wants to touch me? I said WHO WANTS TO FUCKING TOUCH ME!)

I couldn't help it. It was calling to me at Best Buy tonight - just LOOK at that smarmy cover photo! The only Christmas music I currently possess is the Sesame Street Christmas Album from 1975, and a hidden track called "I Will Be Hating You for Christmas" by Everclear (which I played dozens of times after the David debacle). And a bargain at only $9.99... I just had to see for myself.

Don't get me wrong. There is a surefire time and place for Billy. Who amongst us hasn't run across "White Wedding" on the radio and snarled right along with him?

But yeah. This holiday compilation is as bad as you think it might be. Possibly even worse. His liner note includes the sentiment, "Another part of my performing these songs is that they are a challenge to sing... It was fun to come up against all that and find these songs sing themselves." Oh, so the songs are the terrible singers then? Riiiiiiiight.

It's so bad, in fact, that I know at least two people who are getting copies on the sole basis of the BAD.

I bought it along with a 70's concert video of a KISS show as a present for my brother. At least I could tell the checkout guy that the KISS video needed a gift receipt.

But first...

... before I got Lost tonight, because I am in "catch up on shit that people lent me or just give the shit back already" mode, and since it was pretty short and required little effort or thought, and because I haven't thought about alternate universes in a while, I watched The Animatrix.

I have to ask: what is the connection with cats? Cats were featured in two of the Animatrix shorts, and in the Matrix (I) itself there was that one black "deja vu" cat. I also found it very interesting that Her Majesty, who usually only shows remote interest in Discovery shows about big cats, perked up for most of the viewing of the animated series.

And by "interesting," I mean FREAKY.

Google was no help on this one. Any thoughts?

But I waaaaaaaaaaaant it.

I have never been so intrigued by a clock I can't afford. I saw this, live and in person, at the store in Pasadena. It's even cooler in real life... And the orange matches my couch... And don't I owe myself a little Christmas present this season?

I can't justify the purchase. But just knowing a clock like that exists makes me happy. Surely eBay will have a knockoff available for 1/8 the price someday soon.

Don't panic.

I admit it. I freaked out a little bit when I thought the mail had come, and there was no Lost: Season 2, disc 2 in my mailbox. I'd just sent two discs back this morning, and my entire evening revolved around the plan of watching disc 2 which Netflix told me would come today.

OK, maybe "a little bit" isn't entirely accurate.

I immediately began to curse Netflix. They'd never let me down before, but I'd heard stories of others who waited weeks for their DVD requests to arrive. Weeks?! Could I really wait weeks?! They had to pick NOW to start letting me down?

Then my thoughts strayed to what the hell I was going to do with my evening. Would I actually have to GO SEE a movie instead? Stranger Than Fiction is the only one I'm remotely interested in, and I'm trying to hold out for the Parkway on that one.

Would I have to shell out $4 and pick up disc 2 from the local Silver Screen? I wasn't above it, I'll tell you that much.

When I got back from the store after the first mail check, the mail had actually come, and there it was. In all its glory. Season 2, disc 2.

It's an addiction. It really is.

I don't use the term "douchebag " often, but...

Why would anyone serenade their new wife with the tune, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling"? What a douchebag.

Friday five.

Weirdest questions I have ever had to answer on a scantron, in no particular order:

1. what is 52 times 3 plus 37 minus 8 divided by 4 plus 1/3 of 88?
   
2. using the below map of the area, what is the shortest distance you would drive to get from the bar brawl to the jewelry heist?
3. when responding to a complaint, is it better to a) ignore it, b) acknowledge it and empathize with the complainer, then explain the rationale, c) tell them to call management or d) say "lalalalalalala I can't hear you" while sticking your fingers in your ears?
4. what is wrong with this sentence: "Johnny done went and got himself in a car crash." a) punctuation error, b) grammatical error, c) spelling error, d) nothing?
5. which diagram below accurately depicts the following scenario: an old lady is waiting for the bus at corner U, when a car stops and picks her up, drags her up and down V and W streets, violates her at corner X and leaves her outside a vacant lot at corner Y?

(The paraphrased fifth one was very early in the test. I guess it's designed to weed out all the faint of heart as early as possible.)