OK, OK, one more, only because this is almost eerily accurate… (except the life of the party thing. What’s THAT about? heh)
20 Questions to a Better Relationship
eXpressive: 5/10
Practical: 4/10
Physical: 4/10
Giver: 8/10
You are a RSIG–Reserved Sentimental Intellectual Giver. This makes you a People-Pleaser.
This post doesn’t have a title because, well, it’s about a whole bunch of things.
Awwww, just look at that little angel. No one would ever guess that just 20 minutes ago he was running around alternating between whipping his brother with his partially-decomposing stinky sock, screaming “No!” and “Shut up!” at the top of his prodigious lungs, and preparing the world for the new Olympic sport “M&M Nostril Embedding.” As a side note, boy, are they ripping people off with portrait prices nowadays. $27 for THREE SHEETS of pictures????? The nerve.
My Secret Santa present arrived today! Woohoo! Well, OK, it arrived yesterday, technically, but I wasn’t home to receive it, so I got it today. Thank you!
I got my first ever Trackback today! Dang…am I SUPPOSED to feel this important? 
Thanks for the ego-boost. I needed it today, I think. I will write more on that later. I don’t feel adequately prepared just now.
Let’s see, what else? Oh, have I mentioned that Globe Santa totally rocks? FIVE presents for EACH boy came in the box! Wow. I am so grateful for them this year, among other people and agencies. This year was especially hard, but just knowing that so many people really do care takes such a load off of my mind, and makes me hopeful that there WILL be a day finally when I DON’T need that kind of help. I think THAT is my only holiday wish this year.
This was cute.
| You are 45% geek | You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.
|
Please excuse any wonkiness over the next day or so, especially within the gallery section. I have not been able to remember for the life of me how I had integrated the Gallery application into my site the last time I had it up. (And of course, being the flake that I can be sometimes, I don’t seem to have a copy of the modified version hanging around anywhere that I can find) I think it may be because, with the addition of skinning to the actual application, the template scheme is a bit different, and a bit more complicated to work around. In any case, I just don’t have the time to deal with it right now, and my gallery is irritating me enough that I decided just to integrate it into MT via a photoblog-type thing. (note to self – MUST learn to be less of a control freak)
Not that anyone is particularly thrilled with my gallery. I can accept that. But I like it, so it needs to be the way I want it.
I also decided to just give up on the whole forums thing (for now), so I will be removing that link.
Any other suggestions on what I should do with this site (change things, add things, burn everything, just chuck the computer out the window and call it a day) would be most welcome. 
[EDIT] I think I have succeeded in integrating my gallery! I had to size down the images a bit, and I am not quite sure how I feel about that, but I have other places where I have the images posted full size, so if someone is really interested, they can just contact me. Hope you all like it![/EDIT]
ABC News: Christians Aiming to Boost Religion
In California, a group called the Committee to Save Merry Christmas is boycotting Macy’s and its corporate parent, Federated Department Stores, accusing them of replacing “Merry Christmas” signs with ones wishing shoppers “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays.” The organization cites “the recent presidential election showing political correctness is offending millions of Americans.”
Though in so many places PC is over the top, putting Christ back into Christmas shouldn’t mean Give December to Christ
Happy Holidays is an appropriate greeting when one is not sure of the faith practiced by a particular person. It gracefully honors all. I don’t see a problem with that in an inclusive society.
Sure, Christ was actually not even born on December 25, and the Christians conveniently appropriated the story of Mithras to allow pagans to convert more easily, but forget about when Christ was actually born, Christians have chosen Dec. 25 for the honors. Why do they forget that other religions had their holidays first at this time of year? Hannukah has always been 8 days because it is symbolic to the celebration. Why 12 days for Christmas? To make it bigger than Hannukah? What about other winter celebrations such as Kwanzaa, Yule (the Winter Solstice), Ramadan, St. Lucia Day, or Omisoka? Why do so many Christians send Christmas cards with Santa, stockings, candles and candy canes on them? What are they celebrating? Aren’t those cards early attempts for PC among various Christians when you aren’t sure how religious the receiver is?
If you want to put Christ back into your own life, you are welcome to. Why should everyone else have to be polite to Christians at Christmas when groups like those in the article have no desire to be polite to people of other faiths?
Oddly enough, if those Chistians who feel GWB put Christ at the helm take a look at the White House holiday decorations (directed by First Christian Lady, Laura Bush) they would note the utter lack of Christ or allusions to his birth. Santa’s, reindeer, candy canes and Frosty the Snowman but no angels or stars (PC decorations even in public places).
I think a lot of what’s going on is bizarrely overheated. Although I choose to say “Happy Holidays” out of respect for the religious and secular diversity of my area, I’d NEVER be offended by a “Merry Christmas” wish. I don’t stop and think “that’s a Christian thing, don’t say that” or any such nonsense. Yes, political correctness can be a pain, but so are false pretenses of anti-Christian bias, the off-tune carol being sung so obnoxiously in certain Fox-y regions of the media this season. When Bill O’Reilly tells Jews who don’t care for Christmas excesses that they need to move to Israel, is he behaving in a particularly Christian manner? Is he the victim of bias? Obviously not.
We rented
First of all, it had unbelievable visual effects. Anyone who knows me knows I am very into 3d effects, and a few of these were nicely done enough to have me oohing and ahhing ALMOST as much as I did for The Incredibles. Not ALL the effects, mind you, there were some that were groan-worthy, but several scenes were cool. The manifestation of the different planets and environments was great. This had the potential to be a spectacular experience. The plot and the acting (or more likely, the script, as the actual plot of the Riddick stories is kind of interesting), however, fell a little short. I AM glad we rented the director’s cut version, because I definitely wasn’t confused as far as the storyline as I had heard happened with the theatrical cut. Although from what I know of the actual Riddick story, this movie should have been more like 2 HOURS longer (as opposed to 16 minutes) than the theatrical cut in order to truly tell everything.
Although at times it started to borderline on the B movie/camp area, those moments were thankfully short. Some of the scenes lacked viable believeablity, such as outrunning the solar heat, but the made up for the “Oh, come ON” factor with plenty of excitement and a few cleverly done cool stunts.
I was disappointed with the role Thandie Newton played, however, because I think she is a fantastic actress, but I really think it had more to do with poorly scripted scenes (not to mention WAYYYY too much eyeliner. Yikes, get thee forth, spook-lady!)
All in all, I would probably give this movie 3.5 out of 5 stars. It hasn’t turned me off to the Riddick series at all, and in fact, I really do hope they continue with another movie. I am also interested in picking up the animated
And hey, Gregory loved it, so I guess that’s the most important thing.
So I picked DJ up from preschool today, and we were going to go preview one of the schools I have picked as a possibe choice for him to go to kingergarten at next year. As we are waiting for the bus, trying to keep our faces warm in the biting air, this woman comes out of the school, bringing her daughter over to the minivan that is parked right in front of us. The woman opens up the rear door closest to our side, deposits her daughter on the seat NEXT TO an empty car seat, closes the door, and goes around to the other side of the van. I am thinking, “OK, she wanted to make sure the little girl was safely on the opposite side to the street before putting her in the seat from the other side of the vehicle.” No. The woman gets into the van and DRIVES OFF. Umm…does anyone see anything WRONG with this picture? The little girl didn’t even have a seatbelt on!
Sure, back in our day we never even knew if our cars HAD seatbelts. Heck, I know i never wore one. But cars were made like tanks and there were less of them and people didn’t ram into each other because the other car was one inch ahead. Now it’s more like driving in a serrated tuna can at the Indy 500 Speedway while dodging bullets and irate soccer moms. Get a clue, lady! We are adults, we can CHOOSE to gamble with our lives and not wear a seatbealt. Children aren’t able to make that choice. Nowadays, there is a reason we aren’t even allowed to bring our newborns home from the hospital unless we have a carseat.
On a more positive note, I was quite enamored with the school we toured today. I thought I had already made a choice, but this school made me change my mind. Now, if only I am able to get him IN there. Oh, and Gregory could go, too, once I get his transfer rolling along, since it is a K2-8 school. *keeps fingers crossed*
I decided that on this dreary Boston Monday morning, this blog needed to be spiced up with some top-notch eye candy. Hope you enjoy it as much as I have! 
(Warning, some rude language contained in this post.)
People who ride the bus in Boston are quite interesting. At times a bit terrifying, as when the boys and I almost got caught up right behind two crazy chicks that started smacking the crap out of each other as they were getting on the bus. At times highly entertaining, like the time this guy came on and was like “Move on back people, I’m not a small man now, you gots to move your asses,” then proceeded to regale the entire bus with the fact that he was creeping on his girlfriend, but he wouldn’t get caught because she was wayyy over there, and he went wayyy over here, but he was on his way home now to check up on her ass. “Cause you know you got to watch your girl. While you ain’t watchin’, she creepin’. Just like you.” Classic!
Or how about this exchange I witnessed the other day.
(Woman walks on the bus, passes her transfer to the bus driver.)
Bus Driver: Excuse me, Miss, this is not the right transfer.
Woman: What? That’s what the other bus driver gave me.
Bus Driver: No, they didn’t, this transfer says the 18th (It was the 19th)
Woman: I’m telling you that’s what the other driver gave me. I just got off the bus.
Bus Driver: You need to pay your money, this transfer is no good.
Woman: What the hell are you talking about, I just GOT this transfer! I need to get home.
Bus Driver: Not my problem. Either pay the money or get off.
Woman: Oh, I gotta get off now? You need to take this up with your coworker, I’m telling you this is what she gave me! I need to get home.
Bus Driver: Then put your money in the box.
Woman: I don’t HAVE any money, all I have is this fucking transfer that your dumb ass coworker gave me. How was I supposed to know it was from yesterday?
Bus Driver: Did you look at it?
Woman: No, I didn’t fucking look at it, I put it in my pocket, what you think?
(Meanwhile, the bus hasn’t moved while this argument is taking place. This went on and on…and on…for almost FIVE minutes. I kid you not. People on the bus were getting…shall we say..irritated? Neither the woman nor the bus driver would budge. Finally someone came forward and put a dollar in the box so we could just go already. The woman starts to go take a seat, muttering about “asshole bus drivers,” when the driver gave his last pot shot.)
Bus Driver: Well, you’re a liar.
(The woman freaks out completely, and charges back to the front of the bus. I swear I thought she was going to clock the guy in the face. lol)
Woman: Who the fuck are you calling a liar? I ain’t no damn liar.
(Bus driver finally decides to call the bus security people or whomever)
Woman: I don’t need this shit.
(Woman gets off bus)
Bus Driver: Yeah, go ahead and go, liar. Next time bring some money.
(More cursing can be heard from the sidewalk as the bus finally pulls off.)
Lone Voice From the Back of the Bus: Yo, can I get my dollar back?
I have been doing a little bit more tweaking, and FINALLY got around to fixing my gallery! I even have a little random gallery image box on the sidebar, so you can decide if you want to see the rest. I still need to fix the layout and whatnot, but all my images are there. Enjoy!
Now I only need to put the forums back up (or decide if I want them in the first place).
Sunday Brunch meme is in the more section.
I was really unhappy with my holiday layout. It had a kind of “slapped together” feel to it. So, I changed it. I freely admit I was inspired by a layout done by Blog Moxie, so I endeavored to make a (NOT exact – NO pixels were stolen or harmed during said reenactment) reproduction of it, and I think I am much more happy with this one. I guess I just haven’t been as creatively inspired lately as I have wanted to be. I haven’t done Poser in weeks now, and really have no desire to even open it up. I haven’t installed all of the files on my computer, even, since I replaced the hard drive. I reinstalled the program itself, but the prospect of spending several hours going through CDs and files to reinstall the rest just seems daunting. Someone give me a swift kick, please?
It’s almost like
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