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Monday, December 11th, 2000
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3:36 am - Ghosts of Christmas past
A long, long, long day at work.
Yes, I work Sundays, just like the NFL.
I came home and wrapped my nephews' presents so that I could hopefully get them started soon on their (the presents, not the nephews) long (today's word, apparently) trip across the continent. And I played one of my Christmas CDs to try to put myself in the Christmas spirit, at least temporarily. But it's no use. When you don't have kids and you're not a kid, it can be difficult to squeeze any special feeling out of the holidays. I'm not saying the holidays depress me; they don't. It's just that I don't get that end-of-the-year boost I used to enjoy so much. Christmas was such a weeks-long high when I was but a wee lad. In my memories, most of the season is at night, with snow on the ground outside and lights glowing inside. Holiday music playing on the radio, where the DJ is reading letters children wrote to Santa. Cookies and candy canes and garland and tinsel (Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen). A Ho-Ho-Hoing Santa doll that drove my mother absolutely bonkers...
But December's just another month now...
Oh, I guess I do still like buying gifts, for the most part, if it doesn't involve going to the mall, like I did on Friday (stupid, stupid). Or putting up with incompetent and understaffed Web sites. I don't really want anything for Christmas anymore, and I almost wished it were socially acceptable to call off gift-giving. That's right, I said it. Actually, I would probably still give gifts, but you can't ask somebody not to give you a present when you're going to give them one. They'd feel bad. And after all, I think everybody enjoys the actual experience of gift-giving. It's the nonsense that can lead up to it that we'd rather do without.
So, I'm no Scrooge. I just miss Christmas...
current mood:  nostalgic (comment on this)
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Saturday, December 9th, 2000
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1:29 am - "Delta 675, use alternate runway east of downtown"
For those of you who read briefly about the Christmas lights on my street (or want to now), I just wanted to report that they are up ... and they are as supernova-bright as always.
And yes, I still feel the same way about icicle lights...
current mood:  sleepy (comment on this)
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Thursday, December 7th, 2000
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9:11 pm - I'm so moooody!
Oh, how I have waited for this joyful day!
I just now found out that Punquin has made her ultracool mood icons available for LJ use. One of the reasons I've never used moods in the past is that I knew I'd secretly be wishing I was using hers ... and now I can!
Thank you, Stephanie!
And even though I'm really quite happy right now, I'm going to go with another feeling I'm having, and my personal favorite of all mood icons anywhere...
current mood:  cold (comment on this)
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8:45 pm - In a philosophical bind, but lightly so
I went out...
Shopping oddities (or not)
-- A half-inch Avery binder costs $4.99; an Avery binder twice that size costs $3.29. I do not need a one-inch binder... And it's the principle of the thing: I just don't like the idea of paying 50 percent more for half as much binder, just because they consider the smaller one to be some sort of specialty item and not their bread and butter.
-- A strand of 100 clear Merrybrite lights costs $4.99; a strand of 100 Merrybrite multi-color lights costs $7.99. But: A strand of 300 clear lights costs $12.99; 300 multi-color lights, also $12.99. What I was really looking for was a set of big, ol' blue outdoor-type lights. I went to three different places: nothing. This is why only old-timers have those lights!
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3:19 pm - God, I love having a day off...
Just to sit around, decompress, read journals, watch extremely fascinating absentee-ballot-application arguments ("I'm sorry, did you say she was dimpled, deposed or disenfranchised?," and, of course, burn myself, which brings me to:
Charlie's Kitchen Tip O' The Day
My friends, when cooking, do not place a plate on a burner just because you usually cook on high heat but didn't this time, so you didn't notice it was still on. If you do this, picking the plate back up later could, potentially, be very painful. Oh, and after noticing that you've burned your finger, though not severely, do not drop the plate back down and then pick it up again.
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Wednesday, December 6th, 2000
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2:51 am - Foxxxxxxxy!
I'm watching the Billboard Music Awards, and I have the following to report:
-- The Greg Brady/Eminem parody actually had a little wit to it.
-- Destiny's Child+Dixie Chicks+Faith Hill=sure success (it's also a dream I had the other night, but we won't get into that...
-- Christina Aguilera is still just too thin...
-- The Britney Spears/Kathy Griffin cat fight ... ehh ... but Kathy was OK overall...
-- No Doubt presenting, but not performing ... blehhh ...
-- Ricky Martin actually sang on TV without pushing his CD?
-- Carnie Wilson's new look: I'm happy for her, of course, but the whole surgery thing ... I just don't know ...
-- Randy Newman has always been ... and still is ... too cool ...
And just when I was going to give Fox a passing grade for this show, I saw the commercial for the next scorching-hot "reality TV" offering, which has couples going to an island where there are hordes of gorgeous people waiting to break them up. Oh, the chad-plagued public's going to eat this up with a spork. But...
Fox should really be ashamed of itself, and that's sayin' something!
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Tuesday, December 5th, 2000
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4:59 am - Slumber party
I went to work last Saturday on 90 minutes' sleep, and I'm still paying for it.
Actually, I made it through Saturday OK, got eight hours of sleep last night, and it's finally catching up with me now. It didn't help that the last two days at work have been extra special. Is it the Christmas season that brings out the moron in co-workers, or do I just notice it more at this time of year?
I remember an episode of "ER" where Carter or somebody was saying that if you can't get three hours of sleep, you shouldn't go to sleep at all. And I think that makes a lot of sense, because once you shut down the ol' noggin, it's not too keen on rebooting right away. My main fear in attempting what I did on Saturday is that I'll just plain sleep right through the alarm, and I use two alarm clocks, set a half-hour apart. Why do I use two clocks, both battery-operated? Because: 1) The electricity going out can't screw me, and don't talk to me about "battery backup," because it's too easy to leave a battery in there for years and not know how much juice is left; 2) If I sleep through the first one, the second should get me, since I keep it farther away (both make me get out of bed and go into the hall -- I'm not messin' around here, people); and 3) batteries die, sure, but you can usually see it coming when the clock starts falling behind; and even if one died at night, I've got the other one.
And the best reason for the two-clock system: It works. Do I need to tell you that I completely slept through the first alarm Saturday? That's right, I got up, walked out into the hall, turned it off, walked back into the bedroom, got back into bed, and remember absolutely none of it.
So I'm grateful for the system I use, and I'm grateful for the deepest 90 minutes of sleep of my life. Not that I'll ever do that again.
And Tonya, if you're reading this, yes, I know that's twice as much sleep as you need. But remember, this was a work day... that's gotta count for sumthin!
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Saturday, December 2nd, 2000
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2:22 am - Adam Sandler meets the plant monster
I was trying to finish watching "The Wedding Singer" before going to bed, but I just saw the original "The Thing" (1951) start on AMC. This is one of the best black-and-white movies ever made, and one of the creepiest. Which may be a good reason to go back to "The Wedding Singer."
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12:47 am - Stop toying with me! (or) They don't call it e-commerce because it's e-fficient!
So I took advantage of Amazon's free shipping before Thanksgiving, and I wasn't bothered by the fact that they required me to wait until everything was ready to ship. It saves them money, of course, but I'd rather just have one shipment to worry about, anyway.
But Amazon didn't send one shipment. They didn't send two shipments. And really, I quit counting after the third. Well, not really, but in the end, there were four shipments, from four different distribution centers in four different states. And the last one arrived today, with the toys I ordered for my niece and nephews. It was a little more dramatic than all that, though. You see, one of my nephews also has a birthday in December, and I set a deadline of Dec. 1 for sending his gift because he lives many moons away, across the inland sea, past the Rock With Four Heads, beyond the Land of the Fire People ... well, you get the point ... it ain't spittin' distance! And I wanted to send him one of the toys I ordered from Amazon, and then send the toy that arrived too late last year (more on that later -- don't miss it!) for his Christmas gift.
The Amazon toy shipment (as opposed to the Amazon book, book, and CD shipments) went out a week ago by Priority Mail. The mail is delivered here around 3:45 p.m. I had to have the package to the post office by 4:30. And I didn't even know whether the toys would arrive today. But they did (after a week's journey from a place called Nevada -- I hear it's beautiful), and I ran down, got the box while the letter carrier (she's a carrier and a character, and I mean that in a good way!) was still in sight, and came back up to wrap it. I've been saving boxes and packaging material throughout the year, specifically for Christmas, and had many sizes of box to choose from. The only one that the toy would fit in? The one it arrived in, of course! So I got everything else out of the box, stuck that stuff off to the side, wrapped the gift and repacked it, knocked over a planter in the process, and got over to the cute, little neighborhood post office just in time.
Now, you may ask, why don't I just have stuff sent directly to my gift recipients? First of all, I don't think that was even allowed in this discounted order. Secondly, I like to make sure that the gift I ordered is what they're getting, and that it has no signs of damage. If there's going to be a surprise, it should be mine, not the person I'm sending the present to. Third, I prefer personally picked wrapping paper and personally written labels.
Now, why did I have a present left over from last year? Ah, friends, I must take you back, back into the past, when the world was plagued by a frightening entity called toytime.com. (Hush now, stop that screaming. It's going to be OK.) I had read about various e-Christmas-shopping nightmares. But I had also been buying stuff online for a good while. I liked the wider assortment of items available from the smaller toy companies carried by toy sites. And I also had read that the sites were making an extra effort to have enough people around to handle the rush of orders. So, I rolled the dice.
And I waited...and waited...and waited.
And eventually, my large order began trickling in, in multi-box shipments and single-box shipments. When the boxes did arrive together, everything in those boxes would have fit into one of the boxes. Efficiency and savings were avoided at all costs, which I wouldn't have minded so much if everything had arrived on time.
Finally, I had everything I ordered except the gift for the aforementioned nephew. And I was out of time. So I called toytime.com to see if I could stop that shipment if it hadn't already left. I called three or four times, at different times of the day, and spent an average of 15 minutes on hold each time before giving up. I will say that they had really mellow on-hold music, some sort of mystical Far Eastern/American Indian blend that I found rather enjoyable. I did finally reach a human being, who told me that the final toy had not been shipped, and that she would be more than happy to cancel that part of the order for me.
And so, I headed out to the mall and fought my way into a toy store that was so crowded, an elf could not have negotiated the aisles. I'm not kidding here; the lines to the registers alone blocked the aisles so elaborately that there were moments where I simply had to stand still, doing nothing, waiting for an opportunity to squeeze through any opening and peruse the remains of the toy population on the shelves. It reminded me so much of buying textbooks in college.
But I found a gift for my nephew, and brought it home and wrapped it and packed it and mailed it. And thus ended last year's shopping extravaganza.
Except...
A week later, what do you think arrived at my doorstep?
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Friday, December 1st, 2000
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10:51 pm - "Then one foggy Christmas Eve..."
How rude to treat a fellow reindeer so shabbily...
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9:03 pm - Sing it, Bing!
Time to listen to my new (classic) Christmas CDs...
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6:51 pm - And the award for the worst awards show goes to...
I'm watching the replay of the My VH-1 Music Awards, and I am now convinced that this network should no longer be allowed to give out awards of any kind. The Fashion Awards sucked, the hosts of that show and this one were not funny, and I've just lost the last bit of respect I had for VH-1. If it weren't for the MTV Movie Awards, I'd suggest expanding that ban to include The Network Formerly Known As Music Television.
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1:12 am - Chocolate goodness
After I added brownies to my "thankful" list last night, I was basically thinking, "Mmmmmmmmmm ... brown ... eeeeez...." But it was too late to do anything about it, so I made them tonight. With big chocolate chips that were still partially melted when I ate them...
Another interesting story from the paper this week offered suggestions on how to avoid dry skin this winter.
My favorite tip: Take warm showers that last no longer than 4 minutes.
Now, that just won't do at all.
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Thursday, November 30th, 2000
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4:47 am - It's never too late to say thanks...
I can't believe that I actually started a "Things I'm Thankful For" list in anticipation of Thanksgiving, but then forgot about it when I went out of town for the holiday. Now, each time I visit a journal that has one, I'm reminded of my forgetfulness. So, since I'm not waiting until next Thanksgiving, and because I'm thankful for each of these things every day of the year, here we go:
Some of the Things (and People) I Am Thankful For (in no particular order)
clean air and water
my family and friends
down comforters
women
freedom of speech
electricity
intellectually stimulating conversations
carbonated beverages
trees
breeze
rain, but not cloudy skies
snow, but not ice
people who make me laugh
Rockport shoes
brownies
scientists who figure out the tough stuff
writers who can explain it to everyone else
indoor plumbing
a good education
being able to walk
color
umbrellas
oatmeal cookies
VCRs
Good Samaritans
sleep
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Tuesday, November 28th, 2000
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4:45 am - Smoke signals
In our paper, there's a story about a study that says mentally ill people are more likely to be smokers.
In the same paper, there's a story about a study that says thrill seekers are more likely to be smokers.
Um...
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Monday, November 27th, 2000
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4:03 am - "Your turn!"
I'm keeping the Dixie Chicks concert on the tape in my VCR right now, so every time I rewind back to that to tape something else, I catch them singing "Wide Open Spaces." I know there's got to be a major rush in performing live for thousands of people, but it would have to be multiplied several times by having an entire arena sing a verse of your song beautifully for you...
And on the subject, a musical quote:
"Sorry boutcha luck! Sorry boutcha luck!" -- Faith Hill, gloating after beating her husband at basketball
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Sunday, November 26th, 2000
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1:02 am - They shoot cranberries, don't they?
I'm back. A 30-hour diversion. We didn't go out to eat after all. Even though there were only the three of us, Mom made Thanksgiving dinner (I helped, which meant offering a little assistance at various points in the process and digging out the pans and big bowls she needed, which always leads me to wonder how she gets them in those impossible-to-reach nooks and crannies in the first place). Plus, since Dad was slow in coming in from watching the "X-Files" marathon (fine holiday viewing?), I got to try out my "Good Eats" turkey carving technique. It was an all-around excellent meal, and I'm glad I went.
Now, having said that, let's discuss the few movies I had a chance to see for the first time, which often happens when I visit my parents and their many movie channels and videotapes:
Eye of the Beholder I like Ashley Judd, because she's beautiful, forceful and seems to be afraid of absolutely nothing. And this film starts off with such promise. But then she starts killing people right and left, and things get weirder and weirder, and it just drags on and on and on and on, almost to the point where I wished she would just kill me and get it over with.
Drop Dead Gorgeous Again, I like Kirsten Dunst a lot. But I saw the second half of this movie, and that was easily enough to keep me from watching the first half.
The Matrix Because I haven't seen many movies at the theater recently, there are of course going to be films that I see later and think, "That would have been worth seeing." And then there's the fact that Keanu Reeves has ruined or almost ruined so many movies for me that anything he's in automatically has a strike against it in my book. Well, "The Matrix" would have been worth seeing on the big screen. It's smart, cool and eerie. But most of you probably already knew that. And I really didn't realize it until just now, but Keanu was just fine here.
Three Kings I have enjoyed most of George Clooney's movies, and I like war movies (mainly because they showcase bravery and remind us all why war is such a very bad idea), so I thought I would like this film. It does give an interesting look at the Gulf War, including the Iraqi side of things, but there was so much of it that just didn't click, so much that looked like it had been taken straight out of another movie. Not that it's a bad movie, but it wasn't brilliant, either. I did like Mark Wahlberg's character calling his wife for help from the Iraqi bunker, and her asking him if he wanted her to set up a job interview for him. A slightly light moment in an otherwise uncomfortable movie. No, I don't expect war movies to make me feel comfortable; I've mentioned before how much "Saving Private Ryan" bothers me, even though I think it's a great film. But a war movie needs to make me feel something significant, other than disgust. And this movie barely does that.
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Tuesday, November 21st, 2000
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2:06 am - Charlie, bird and the Chicks
I'm going home for Thanksgiving.
Since my sister and her family are feasting elsewhere, my parents and I will probably just go out to eat, but it's better than staying here. Not that here's bad. I just need to get away, watch 15 movie channels, sleep on a couch/bed (my room is now a miniature warehouse and the evil lair of a perpetually problematic Toshiba computer), and revel in how quiet everything is there ... and hey, if there's pumpkin pie thrown in there somewhere, all the better...
I'm just going to say this for the record. I don't have them listed in my interests, mainly because in lowercase, the name looks sort of suggestive, but there is no doubt in my mind that I love the Dixie Chicks. I love their music, their look, their attitude, their story ... everything.
Actually, I do have Emily Robison listed in my interests, because she's my favorite member of the group. I'm going to go add Natalie and Martie right now. But ... before I do ... just let me say that I'm watching their concert special, and somebody really needs to make sure Andy Dick never works again. I've said that before, but people just keep letting him out from under his rock...
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Sunday, November 19th, 2000
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1:38 am - Hey, this isn't a real dilithium crystal!
My folks are at a "Star Trek" convention this weekend.
This is one of the eccentricities that make them the interesting people that they are...
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Thursday, November 16th, 2000
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10:46 pm - My Angels
Until today, I had not seen a movie in a theater since "The Phantom Menace" (a disappointing kiddies flick, but probably still better than "Return of the Jedi" -- well, maybe). Mostly, this drought has been due to my determination that, quite frankly, there hasn't been anything worth seeing during that time. But I have a rule that says that I must go to movies that have my name in the title (OK, it's a new rule, so sue me).
Our paper here gave it two-and-a-half stars; Roger Ebert gave it a half-star. Ignore them. Go see "Charlie's Angels." Why? Because it's F. U. N. (unlike me, but that's a whole 'nother story.)
This isn't a particularly smart movie; it's not a particularly politically correct movie (sex still sells, and it kicks butt, too); it's not a particularly believable movie. And plotwise, it ain't exactly "The Usual Suspects"; you'll probably see it coming a long way off. But it really doesn't matter.
The stars are beautiful. The action is nonstop. The special effects are great. Hell, the opening sequence is almost worth the price of the ticket. And if there's anyone out there who doesn't love Drew Barrymore even more after this movie, well, I don't know what to say...
An aside: This was my first visit to the new "stadium seating" here. Even though there wasn't a scoreboard on the wall, I enjoyed it. It's roomier, anyway. And at least this theater plays decent music before the movie. Which brings me to another point: I know music videos are made to sell CDs, but have you noticed that when you've seen them enough, and then hear the song without the video, you can see the video in your head? I mean, if Faith Hill is "Breathe"-ing, I can see her doing it. The desert, the lighting, everything. Word for word...
Overheard at ticket counter: "...and then he found out I was 21..."
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