UN. I’ve been going through tons of blogs today looking for featurable content (seriously, wherefore art thou?) and have been reading beaucoup de complaints about the lack of “Merry Christmas” . . . but I can’t come to a definitive conclusion as to how I feel about the whole thing

PRO-MERRY XMAS
-more personalized holiday greeting
-it seems like it’s a catchall that has become socially acceptable at this point because it’s been like that for a long time – sort of the concept of wikiality in terms of holidays
-ignoring PC necessity of not offending anyone, ever, for any reason (which I like)

At the end of It’s A Wonderful Life (a Christmas standard for our fam), having George Bailey run around town saying “Happy Holidays, Bedford Falls!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

PRO-HAPPY HOLIDAYS
-everyone’s grouped into one bunch and nobody is horribly offended except those who insist on hearing about Christmas
-can extend from Thanksgiving until New Year’s (it’s created to cover the gamut of holidays throughout the winter season and isn’t actually made to not offend anyone, as far as I’m concerned)
-ensures that you can wish warm fuzzy feelings to those who celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or Flying Spaghetti Monster Winter Holiday

In conclusion, I have no idea. But, for the record, I say merry Christmas.

DEUX. There’s a help wiki being built, organized and stocked full of questions and answers. I love organizing stuff online (but not in real life – just look at my bedroom), so this is a blast for me . . . John described it as relaxing and he’s exactly right. For lack of a better adjective, the XWik is pimp. I think it’s going public soon! Woot.

TROIS. Game Boy is going swimmingly. I beat two more levels on Donkey Kong this week but have developed a horrible condition that I’d forgotten about until Day 2 of gaming began – Game Boy thumbs. Those suckers have semi-permanent indentations in the shape of the A and B buttons. Oops.

QUATRE. If you know any Chinese, can you help me out? We have a lunch place a couple blocks away from the offices where you can get three entrees and rice for $4, which, honestly, is a bargain. I’d like to be able to order in Chinese, though, because I think I can handle a couple phrases and it’s nice to be able to hear people make an effort to communicate with the people serving, no? So I know how to say hello and no (and thanks is “xie-xie”, right? I watched Sagwa on PBS and vaguely remember that), but any basic communication (how are you; could I please have; yes) would be awesome.

Have a good Friday/weekend/what have you.

I’m back! Delayed, but back to a rainy/nasty city that I love.

I had a feeling of dread on the plane, essentially thinking that I was going to have to go through at least 234898235025 emails when I came back, but it hasn’t been bad so far . . . I’ve sent out 100ish, which is not.bad.at.all for a Monday.

When we found out we were going to be delayed almost two hours, this
was my texting order: Pulse (hahaha, of course) to complain, Eugy to
let her know I’d be late, Facebook to change my status, then
Dad/sister/DDarlingests to express my occasional disdain for the
airline industry. Priorities.

I’ll write more after I bring my suitcase home from the office, unpack said suitcase and take an hour-long (okay, more like 6 minutes, but that’s still long) shower.

LaGuardia: left on time, sat on the runway for almost an hour; flew at 13,000 feet (thanks gov’t for opening space typically reserved for the military) and a higher speed and only arrived 10 minutes late

Jogged through O’Hare

O’Hare: left on time, arrived in Ohio 10 minutes late.

NOT BAD!

I took piano lessons when I was 10 (got into it late, what else is new?) and was a rockstar when it came to the one-note plinky songs that passed as melodies . . . but when it came to the Indian song (not PC!), I couldn’t handle it. My left hand got mixed up with what my right hand was supposed to be doing and I played it backwards. I’m left-handed, so having my dominant hand play the theoretically easier part makes things difficult.

OU has a wonderful/terrible (depending on how you look at it – being away from friends is rough and Ohio is a big state) six-week winter break, so one of my goals last year was to learn how to play Christmas Time Is Here on the piano over said break. It was a mess.

This really makes no sense, as I can type fine with two hands and handle complicated rhythms and whatnot and I understand music and chord progressions and how to read it . . . there’s just something about tickling the ivories that my brain can’t process.

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NEXT! I listen to last.fm radio stations at work as I help people take themes off their pages and tell them why they’re not showing up in their blogrings (change your rating to A or B!), and yesterday, I heard this phenomenal song called Section 12 (Hold Me Now) by Polyphonic Spree. It sounds like I’m From Barcelona meets a children’s choir, Rufus Wainwright-esque orchestration and Bjork’s overture to Dancer in The Dark, and I’ve listened to it about 20,006 times over the course of the past 24 hours. I have no idea why I haven’t listened to them until now.

The problem, though, is that it’s so dense and delightfully loud that when I have my headphones on, I’m rocking out so hard that I don’t even know what’s going on around me. Poor Eugy, who sits to my diagonal left, has to stand in front of me and wave her hands to get my attention. Wow.

Last but not least, I will be leaving the New York City metro area tomorrow morning and going home to a heart-shaped state where people make apple pie and love Jim Tressel. In an effort to save $50, I’m overshooting where I need to go and will have a layover in Chicago, so if you hear about huge delays in either LaGuardia or O’Hare, know that I’m probably involved and will be loving every minute of it. If it’s really that bad, I’ll have my laptop and camera and will post pictures of disgruntled travelers, especially if they have funny luggage.

Hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!

My friend Kate told me about Upright Citizens Brigade when I first moved to the city – it’s an improv comedy group that has shows throughout the week for a reasonable price . . . on Sundays, they have a show at 9:30 that you can see for free as long as you wait in line outside for about two hours. This is a long time, especially in the cold, but it’s good bonding time, you meet fun people in line who will talk to you about TV and it’s something we’ll tell our grandkids (“when I was your age, we waited in the cold for two hours – uphill . . . both ways! wait . . . “).

ANYWAY, with the ongoing writers’ strike, we knew there would probably be some fun people there.

We saw Paul Scheer (from Best Week Ever) going into the grocery store next door, so we knew he was coming and he’s been consistently funny each time I’ve seen him. Yay.

Amy Poehler introduces UCB, herself and the people coming in – in addition to Paul and the usual UCBers, Rachel Dratch and Seth Meyers (who is very cute) from SNL were there, and so was . . . wait for it . . .

John Krasinski!!!!111!!!1 (Jim from The Office, if you’re not a rabid fan like I am). He’s adorable in person – tall (6’4″ish?) with pretty blue eyes and a niiiice smile. My fangirl is showing. I liked that he wasn’t stuck-up like you’d think most Hollywood types would be – if you asked Charlie Sheen to help you move your couch down a flight of stairs, do you think he’d do it? I think he’d collapse under the sheer weight of it. Based on the hour and a half we spent in the same room, I think John is the type of guy who would help you move the couch and then would probably grill you some burgers and talk to you about ninjas. We would be buddies.

I’ve gotta buy a couch and then hunt him down. I’m on the third floor, man.

(uhhh, Oprah? I don’t understand your book club picks. I’ve got 40 pages left in it, and it’s pretty miserable. And, for the record, I’m reading it as part of the Nattymatty Book Club, not O’s)

I was talking to the other Dearest Darlingest last night and he’d mentioned how spoiled he’d become thanks to DVR . . . “I’ll watch a show half an hour after it airs if it means being able to skip commercials,” he explained. “I LOVE it!”

This brought up the issue of product placement in TV programming. As DVR becomes more standardized and less expensive (as technology tends to do), how will ads work? Will people be drinking more Pepsi or mentioning how they need more Doritos? Is it even going to be subtle?

And, furthermore, would you be okay with more ads if you knew you could fast-forward through the two-minute breaks?

oh, advertising.

Iiiiit’s Veterans Day! Hurray for my dad. He went over to the Old Country (eastern Europe) in the late ’90s during the ethnic cleansing insanity.

Lots of patriotic pride, Pops.

side notes from today: Bee Movie was terrible, I helped drag 11 ten-year-olds around the Upper West Side and I fell in love with a multi-million dollar penthouse.

Okay, here’s the thing. Please know that I know there are better things to spend money on . . . I’ve worked non-profit and loved it. There are starving children in Africa . . . yes.

At any rate, one of my Dearest Darlingests is self-conscious about his nose (which is really not any bigger than anyone else’s and it’d look odd for him to have any other schnoz). He’s gotten comparisons to Adrien Brody before, but he is far better-looking.

reference:
   
This looks vaguely like the two of us, except I *~smile with mah eyezz~* like Tyra insists and I tend to consume more than 30 calories a day. We do, however, own Academy Awards and display them prominently.

ANYWAY, in comparison to most other people, I am extremely flat-chested. I don’t even really care to get into size issues or anything because it’s just silly. But Andy and I, at some point, decided that should he decide to get a nose job – which he shouldn’t – I would have, um, augmentation done.

Is it going to happen? I highly doubt it and hope not. I feel like as we get older, we come to accept the things that make us who we are, whether that means we have to wear t-shirts made for eight-year-old boys or what have you. And, inevitably, you grow into your looks, right?

If you see me walking around NYC looking unusually endowed, ask me how Andy likes his new nose.

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edit: oh my gosh, you guys, was anyone going to correct my atrocious grammar? i must’ve been typing pre-coffee, hence “is is” and “then” instead of “than” – ahhhhhhh!

I’m glad so many people are saying “yes” – it’s far more than I’d expected. This is a good thing.

as for me, yes; of course. I’m not going to need them when I go wherever we go when we’re gone (wow, that should be a song lyric – quick, someone get a keyboard!) and I’m all about paying it forward.

Btdubs, Nanowrimo is okay and I’m currently having trouble setting up clues to something that, ultimately, won’t even come to fruition. Essentially, the main character’s sister is leaving clues for him to find her a few states away and (spoiler) her plans are going to systematically fall apart. Yikes. It’s a pity to write these cool things for people to do knowing that they won’t mean anything 50 pages later. Hmph.

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This afternoon, after recovering from my delicious food coma (Stephen is the best!) I responded to an email from a frustrated woman who was somehow linked to Xanga from an Ask.com search went awry.

Try as I might, I couldn’t come up with the search terms she’d used or even figure out how she got to the main page by searching for “a pattern for a toilet seat with Santa covering his eyes on the flip side”. She said that Xanga was very confusing and that she didn’t have a clear idea of how to find this information.

I don’t even know that such a thing exists, but I tried my best to guide her in the right direction and recommended some search terms that may help her on her quest to decorate her assuredly festive bathroom.

BTW, parenthetical mini-commercial, but everyone should go out and buy the most.comfortable.t-shirt.ever. American Apparel sells these tri-blend shirts (50% polyester, 25% cotton, 25% rayon) and they’re even softer than the oldest t-shirt you already own. I hate the word “splurge”, because most people use it liberally and think that you can just spend $300 on a pair of jeans – “it’s an inveeeeeeeestment!” no it’s not! – but this is $18 well spent. And, let’s face it, if you just graduated from college and think bagels and ice cream from the carton is dinner, $18 is a splurge. [shudder]