Go Hotdogs!

Lauren plays NCAA Football on the PS3. She has a high school team called the Hotdogs.

Me: It's too bad you can't design your own mascot. That would be fun.
Lauren: "Ask me about my wienerrrrrrr!"

(a la Jonah Hill from Accepted... I know a few of you have seen it...) --



CJ dropped her beloved iPhone on the ground, face down, and it completely shattered the screen. Amazingly, all the touchscreen capability is still there, along with the fully-functioning phone. She is awaiting the arrival of her new 4S. *so jealous!*

And now... a super-long meme, only interesting to me! (Aren't they all.)

Friendslist Meme

1. Copy and paste your Facebook friends list.
2. [Bracket] people you've known fifteen years or more
3. *star* the name of anyone who was in your wedding party
4. Bold people with whom you went to school (grade school, university, etc.)
5. Italicize the name of everyone with whom you've worked
6. Underline the name of everyone who lives in your local area
7. Turn red people to whom you are related.

[Alicia]
[Allen]
Amy
Angela
Angel
AngieC
[AngieS]
[April]
[Bill]
[BobA]
BobD
[BobH]
[BobM]
[BobS]
Brittany
Bruce
[Caleb]
[Frances]
[CarolB]
[CarolI]
[CatherineJ]
*[CatherineJJr]*
Cathy
ChadE
ChadW
Charity
Charles
[Cheryl]
[ChrisB]
ChrisT
[ChrisY]
[Christopher]
[Christy]
[Cindy]
[Clara]
[Connie]
Connor
Crystal
[DavidG]
DavidM
Deanna
[Deanne]
Debbie
[Deborah]
Dee
Dena
[Diana]
[Diane]
Dianne
[Dirk]
Dominick
Donna
*[Doug]*
Dyanna
Dylan
*[Elizabeth]*
[Ellie]
[Evans]
[Everett]
[Frank]
[Gary]
*[Gene]*
[Grant]
[Greg]
Holly
[Ina]
Jack
[James]
[Janeen]
JasonK

[JasonP]

Jean
*[Jeffery]*
[JeffK]
[JeffP]
Jennifer
[Jim]
[Jimmie]
Joanna
[Johnny]
Joshua
[JudyA]
*[JudyF]*
[Julian]
[JulieE]
[JulieP]
June
Karla
[KathyG]
[KathyM]
[KathyS]
Kayla
[Kecia]
Kelly
[Ken]
Kenny
[Kenton]
*[Kimberly]*
[KimB]
KimP
KimS
[Klaus]
KristinS
[KristinW]
[Kristy]
[Kurt]
[Laura]
[Lauren]
[LeeAnne]
[Lily]
[Linda]
LisaJ
LisaH
LisaC
[Lizanne]
[Long]
[Lori]
[Luis]
[Lynda]
[Madellaine]
[Mark]
Mary
Matt
Melanie
[MelissaB]
MelissaD
[Michaelyn]
Michelle
[Mike]
[Pam]
[Pat]
[Patricia]
[Patti]
[Paul]
[Pedro]
[Penny]
[Philip]
Rania
[Ray]
[Renee]
[Richard]
[Robert]
[Ruth]

Sandra

[Scarlet]
ScottC
[ScottM]
[Sebastian]
[Shane]
Shawn
[Sheila]
Shellie
[Sheryl]
[Siegfried]
[StephanieY]
[StephanieF]
*[Stephen]*
[Sterling]
*[Steven]*
Sue-Ellen
Tami
Tammy
[Tara]
[TeresaC]
TeresaS
[Teri]
[Tiffany]
Tina
[Todd]
[Tom]
Tonya
[Traci]
[Tracy]
[Troy]
[Veronica]
[Warren]
Wendy
[William]
[Wynette]
[Yvette]
Zoë
Zonia

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Two Georges

For anyone who missed George Clooney's "Person To Person" on CBS last night (like me- oops), here it is!



Love his media room. :)

I've been playing Wham! on iTunes all week. Try doing that without hopping out of your chair and dancing. It may or may not have happened at some point.

Every now and then, when some really raunchy song comes on the radio, and I'm wondering what is going on with music today, I remember George Michael's song "I Want Your Sex" -- from 1987. "...Every man's got his patience and here's where mine ends..." Oh yeeeaaaah.

Remember, this was before we adoring girls knew admitted to ourselves that George was gay, and way before his scandalous trouble with the law. It was "the good old days" of George Michael.

^^ Um, no.

^^ ACK. Nooooooo no no no no.

YES. This.

Let's do some Wham! lyrics and reminisce over a more innocent time...

Lyrics of the Day

"...I'm like a maniac at the end of the day
I'm like a doggie barking at your door
So come take me back to the place you stay
And maybe we can do it once more
You say I'm dangerous, don't worry baby
I get excited at the things that you do
And there's a place for us in a dirty movie
Cuz no one does it better than me and you..."

"The Edge of Heaven" Wham!

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Plan B n' Stuff

Congratulations A&M grad and Denver Bronco Von Miller, the NFL's Defensive Rookie of the Year! WHOOP!!!

A&M Football season tickets still haven't been put up for renewal yet, due to an as yet unknown schedule for next year's home games. We are all eagerly awaiting the announcement, as there is now a waiting list for new season ticket holders. Awesome for the program! Last year was the first time ever that they sold out of season tickets!

So... the Plan B controversy. I think it's a great product for many reasons. To have it readily available to students is fabulous. It's already available at drugstores, but it would be nice to have other options.

To those who think it's wrong to use, don't use it. Plan B is safe and legal, so there isn't any reason it should not be made available to those who do choose to use it. Frankly, it's none of anyone's business if they do.

To those who think it encourages unprotected sex, take note of the common side effects:

nausea
vomiting
diarrhea
abdominal pain
headache

I imagine after taking it once, you never ever engage in unprotected sex again. That's a good thing!

One morning long, long ago, I forgot my birth control pill and took it later in the day, then took the next one in the morning. They were too close together and I had all those symptoms from just a slight increase in hormone levels. I don't think I forgot my pill again after that. Not pleasant. I assume Plan B is far worse... but much better than a D&C.

Also, at $25 a pop, it's ridiculous to assume that would be anyone's primary or secondary method of preventing pregnancy.

A final shout out this morning-- One of my awesome Aussie friends, Sue-Ellen, has begun reviewing movies for online mag Beauty and Lace! How flippin' cool is that? Read her review of This Means War here.

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Goodwill Outlet Shopping

Ever since the "hottest male singer" question on Saturday's meme, I have been thinking I forgot Lenny Kravitz. So... Bob Schneider and Lenny Kravitz.

 "Good morning!"

Wow. He cooks, too.

Laura said not to write about yesterday's field trip in my blog, so here ya' go... Whenever she calls me and opens with, "Wanna go to the 'hood with me?" I know we're going somewhere that's not the Arboretum, but won't be anywhere near "the 'hood." The only time I've been in the 'hood with Laura is when she was teaching there, back in the day.

I've been wanting her to take me to her favorite Goodwill store in town. It's sort of like an outlet, where the donated items that other Goodwill locations don't want is sold for $1.30 per pound. While the store is east of I-35, it's in an industrial park, not the mean streets of Pleasant Valley (where Jeff and I lived when we were first married... in a student apartment complex where the worst crime was the music our upstairs neighbor played).

Anyhoo... it is a fun place to search bins for treasure. Laura's best find so far was a brand new, in the box Cuisinart waffle iron for $3!

The only problem with the store is that it is quite dusty, between the not-so-clean household items that people are wildly tossing around, and the clothing that people pull out and immediately shake to see, which pops fibers and dust into the air. I had been giggling when we got there that someone had a surgical mask on. Later, I was thinking Goodwill could probably sell them for a quarter at the door and make a mint.

There's a process where employees restock the bins, where they open and close sections at a time. People wait by the sections about to open and all Hell breaks loose when they finally let everyone in. It's like a stampede. I preferred the areas where people were casually sifting through stuff after the crowd died down. That's probably why I only ended up with one item.

I think the best thing to get there is furniture. Most of it is broken, but if you are into woodworking, you can get incredible deals on things that just need a new leg or a fix on a busted corner. They had tons of nice chairs that just needed reupholstering and/or refinishing.

It's the location on Burleson Rd., if you want to take a look!

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Super Bowl Commercials

It was very nice to sleep in this morning.

What a fantastic game last night! Yay Giants! I also liked the halftime show a lot. Madonna looked very happy and energetic. She looks amazing. (Those of you who bet on the fishnets- cha ching!) I like it better when the artists say something to the crowd at some point, making a bit of a connection, but that would be my only complaint. Reminds me of a Cars concert we went to once, where the band never said a word to the audience all night, just played song after song after song.

It was a great game, with our great friends, too much great food and a few great commercials! My ad faves were...

Skechers Mr. Quiggly



M&M



Hyundai



Toyota Camry Reinvented



And... this is advertising... something...

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Super Bowl Sunday!

Me: Daniel Radcliffe said that he met his girlfriend at a Harry Potter wrap party.
Lauren: Harry Potter rap party?! (starts rapping....) My name is Harry... Harry Harry Potter...

I almost peed my pants.


Sunday Stealing: The 99'er Meme: Part 2

26) Are you happy with the person you've become?
Yes. Always trying to improve, but still happy.

27) What's a sound you hate; sound you love?
Hate the sound of crying/screaming babies/children whose parents are clueless that they need to remove the children from the show/restaurant/theater. Love almost any kind of music.

28) What's your biggest "what if"?
What if I had gone into my intended career in radiation safety?

29) Do you believe in ghosts? How about aliens?
No ghosts. I do think there are aliens out there somewhere, but they're either too busy or too unevolved to come visit us.

30) Stick your right arm out; what do you touch first? Do the same with your left arm.
Well, I'm on my netbook in the living room today. Right arm- a soft, green throw on the sofa. Left arm- the cats' scratching post.

31) Smell the air. What do you smell?
Butterscotch. I baked Hello Dolly cookies for our Super Bowl gathering later.

32) What's the worst place you have ever been to?
Downtown Cancún on our honeymoon. The hotel zone was awesome, with very friendly, warm and helpful local folks. We ventured downtown one day. Several shops we stopped into where we didn't buy something, we were cussed out or harassed by the shop owners as we left. We were also accosted by Americans relentlessly pushing timeshare tours. So obnoxious. Hopefully that was something that was going on in 1990 that has changed since then. I still won't go back there.

33) Choose: East Coast or West Coast?
Oooh. Hard. I choose... East Coast. No earthquakes. Closer to Europe for easy traveling.

34) Most attractive singer of your opposite gender?
Bob Schneider

35) To you, what is the meaning of life?
I think of life as one's chance to experience a full range of feelings, successes and failures, love and loss, while enriching the lives of others to the greatest possible extent.

36) Define: Art.
Anything created to stir one or more of the five senses- most commonly sight, but I think it could be any of them.

37) Do you believe in luck?
In some cases, yes. If you're playing Yahtzee and have a phenomenal game, I would call that luck. If you are diagnosed with a fatal illness and it mysteriously disappears, I would call that divine intervention.

38) Patriots or Giants? Or, who gives a rat's ass?
I like both teams about the same, but I'm going for the Giants, because Lauren is a big fan of theirs. Jeff said he thought I would base my pick on which team had the cutest quarterback.

Moi???????? :)

39) Will you watch the game? If yes, with who?
Yes, with Jeff, Jim, Scott and Julie at our place.

40) Do you drive? If so, have you ever crashed?
I drive. I've never crashed.

41) What was the last book you read?
The Politician by Andrew Young. Yes, it was a long time ago. I'm just not much of a book reader. I'm actually reading a book right now though- one from Kathy's raunchy romance novel collection.

42) Do you like the smell of gasoline?
yes

43) Do you have any nicknames?
not any cool ones :(

44) What was the last movie you saw?
Cashback. "An aspiring artist develops insomnia and takes a night-shift job at a store. He soon discovers that he can freeze time and begins disrobing customers." It's a British film with a lot of female nudity. It's pretty good, actually. Funny, with a love story.

45) What's the worst injury you've ever had?
Stepped on a nail poking up through a 2x4 when I was about 5 years old. It almost went all the way through the top of my foot. It took a while for the hole to close. I thought the tetanus shot was far worse than stepping on the nail.

46) Have you ever caught a butterfly?
No, but I have a photo of a great moment when a butterfly landed on my dad's shirt in Germany.

Lauren (age 3) on the right. "Opa. There's a butterfly on your shirt."

47) Do you have any obsessions right now?
not really

48) What's your sexual orientation?
straight

49) Ever had a rumor spread about you?
I'm not aware of any. If only someone could start something really awesome, I could get a cool nickname out of it!

50) Do you believe in magic?
Yes. "...in a young girl's heart... how the music can free her, whenever it starts" ♫

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FB Timeline and Saturday Six

For those who don't like Facebook's Timeline and are looking for a silver lining in all this, I have good news: None of your comments and likes on other people's posts show up on your Timeline, like they do on your wall. Whee!

Remember though, depending on the person's privacy settings, they can show up on the ticker and will likely show in the news feeds of mutual friends, and will always show on that person's wall. So don't go all crazy commenting and liking questionable things.

Patrick's Saturday Six

1. How often did you attend football games — or any kind of sporting event — from your high school when you were a student?
I attended almost all home football games, as did most of my friends, even though at the time we were typically battling Pearland HS to avoid last place in the district.

2. How often did you attend football games — or any kind of sporting event — from your college when you were a student?
I attended every home football game and a few away games when I was in college. I had the all-sports pass, and we went to tons of basketball and baseball games as well. I went to a few volleyball and softball games over the years.

3. Since graduating either, how many games have you attended?
I went to my high school's Homecoming football game when I was a freshman in college. That's about it. We went to three A&M football games over the years until last year, when we got season tickets and attended all the home games. We'll keep those tickets again this year. I have also been to a couple of volleyball matches and one men's basketball game at A&M since grad.

4. If you had to choose any sport to really get into, which sport would you choose and why?
Other than football? Probably soccer. I like watching fast-paced games where there are relatively few scoring opportunities- ones where you can really stand up and cheer when a team finally makes a goal!

5. If you had to choose any particular team to follow, which team would you choose and why?
Houston Texans. My hometown team! I haven't been following NFL football for years, but I have so many friends from home who post about the Texans on Facebook every week that I started watching them this season.

6. Your prediction: Who’s going to win this year’s Super Bowl?
Giants

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Usage-Based Internet Fees and the Future of the Web

I find it very ironic that the web is moving rapidly towards a graphics-heavy presentation style at the same time that internet providers are looking to change to usage-based fees.

Love infographics? I hate them. Most of them are so full of arrows and numbers, I feel I'm about *thisclose* to a seizure. Most importantly though, you can get the same information in voluminous text form in 1/100th of the file size.

Facebook's Timeline, as much as I like it (sue me :p), is very heavy on large photos (about 35kb each, in preview size). The mobile site doesn't load the big pics, so that is not a concern, but when my internet provider goes to usage-based fees, I will be more selective about viewing people's Timelines, and I won't be looking much at my own.

And YouTube? Netflix streaming? Get out. I don't know how that's even going to work. People will spend a lot less time watching videos when the meter is running and they're hearing that cha-ching! cha-ching!

Oh, and all those news links you click that take you, unsuspectingly, to a video story- those will be even more obnoxious when you're paying by the GB.

Last week, one of my clients wanted me to link a 4MB PDF for site visitors to view a pretty flyer for an event. The flyer contained all the same information that was already on that page in text form, in less than 1kb. Lovely, but that's a large percentage of data for someone like me who might view this thing on my phone, which has a 200MB monthly data allotment. We were able to reduce the size of the PDF to a much more reasonable 140kb, but still... A graphic with the same info on it? Why?

They wanted the link to say "Click here for the event flyer!" I wanted it to say, "Click here to view a 4MB flyer containing the same information you've just read." You know you would appreciate the warning.

Of course, I don't want to see the bland, text-heavy web of the modem days. It just seems there should be better image optimization and fewer graphics in places where text can be used.

Or the best option of all---- Just don't charge usage-based fees.

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Komen and Planned Parenthood

Obviously Komen's move to cut funding for Planned Parenthood has everything to do with politics and pressure from anti-abortion groups. I don't donate to charitable organizations with ultra-conservative sociopolitical agendas. And it looks like Komen will lose big on this decision to suddenly allow politics to direct their donations.

Today, in multiple interviews, Komen has said that they simply favor donating to more "streamlined mammography providers." (I agree with that, as you will see. I had actually written an unfinished post this morning. It follows below.) However, I do find that a very convenient and jarring turnabout from the original reason they gave for the defunding- "the Komen board voted that all of its vendors and grantees must certify that they are not under investigation by federal, state or local authorities." Riiiight. How many organizations did that affect? Just Planned Parenthood?

So... from this morning...

Why was Komen ever funding breast screenings at Planned Parenthood? I support the mission of Planned Parenthood. Their website says that "Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate," and "for more than 90 years, we’ve worked to improve women’s health and safety, prevent unintended pregnancies, and advance the right and ability of individuals and families to make informed and responsible choices." Clearly, it exists to provide much-needed pregnancy, abortion and birth control services. I would hardly identify it as a place to get a free mammogram.

Also, Planned Parenthood's client base is young women. Considering their very low risk, I think those donated dollars could be much more wisely spent.

Keep in mind, I am a breast cancer survivor, diagnosed at age 26. It happens, but it's exceedingly rare.

According to the New York Times, Planned Parenthood said, "...Komen’s money had over the years underwritten breast cancer screenings for 170,000 women, some of whose lives were saved as a result." Notice they omit the number. I'd like to see that number of lives saved, compared as a percentage to other groups with higher risk patients.

Again, I support Planned Parenthood's mission. It's just that I see only a vague connection with breast cancer screenings. There are several organizations who are focused on providing free or low-cost mammograms for women with financial need. Donations to the Komen Foundation might be better allocated to those groups.

Because of Komen's jumping from reason to reason why they defunded Planned Parenthood, I just don't buy either of them. It reeks of political BS.

Other breast cancer prevention and research non-profits to which people may wish to donate are listed at Charity Navigator. Look for the four-star ratings for the most fiscally efficient foundations. (Great site anytime you're looking to make a cash donation!)

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Random Wednesday

The Bachelor cast went to Puerto Rico this week. They were in Old San Juan, going all around to places we were not long ago. It's so beautiful. The blue cobblestone streets... brightly painted houses... the ocean... gosh I can't wait to get back there and stay a while.

Lauren decided for her graduation trip she wanted to vacation on the world's largest cruise ship. So we are now booked on the Oasis of the Seas. (She carries just over 6000 passengers and almost 2500 crew members.) She didn't even care where it was going, just wanted to be on it. I'm very excited to hang out on this ship! We're still going to Boston this summer, and we'll visit my dad in New York. We've just deleted the Washington DC portion of that trip.

Song Lyrics of the Day

...All along I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more...

Christina Perri- "A Thousand Years" (Christina's beautiful vid on the sidebar >>)

Oh, and... BOO-YAH.

8 million on Bookworm. A board full of errant V's and U's finally killed me. Next game, I'm going to work on the books. It's far less points than completing bonus words, but I'm hoping something super-awesome happens when you complete all of them.

Next game night... I'm so breaking out Boggle.

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