irritating

I'd really like to know what the keyboard shortcut is that I manage to hit every couple weeks that magically switches my keyboard to Dvorak and makes me think, as my mom used to put it when she tried typing on Leslie and Bryan's laptop, that I'm having a stroke. It's kind of irritating. Anyone?

oh my

Chalk it up to my own ignorance, but I didn't realize Tina Fey was quoting Sarah Palin's interview with Katie Couric exactly when performing her parody on SNL. Oh my...

That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the -- it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

UPDATE:
I know more than a few people despise Sam Harris, but I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I really enjoyed his opinion on Sarah Palin in this article in Newsweek.

Also, I refer my readers to my much more eloquent sister for some great Hall sarcasm related to the election.

cool name

Want to hear a cool name? I met a girl today whose name is "Yocheved" - I love the Hebraic "ch!"

I find I write a lot less day to day nonsense on my blog since I've been writing in my journal every day. I'm guessing you readers secretly enjoy not being subjected to a list of every activity I did in a day. But that is also my excuse for not having quite as many posts lately...I wait for something good before writing. Like a great name, or an interesting movie, or to report on how many times I've puked. I'm all better now, by the way. Two more people at Matt's work have come down with the stomach bug, so he's definitely the source of my sickness. Jerk.

I'm taking Carolyn out to lunch at Cisco tomorrow. It should be fun!

Happy belated birthday to Emily!

feeling better

I'm feeling much better. I've had a few real meals now and they've gone well, so I think I'm good now.

I just watched the documentary F**k (I'll use the polite starred-out version of the title like Netflix does) and it was interesting. I particularly enjoyed the quotations from people like LBJ's comment on Ford's economics, some history on the FCC and profanity, and did you know there's something called eco-porn? There were also interviews with and clips of some funny (and controversial) comedians. Plenty was said about the First Amendment too. Did you know in the first season of Deadwood on HBO they averaged using the f-word 69.3 times per episode? And that NYPD Blue wanted to have someone give the bird on camera in an episode, and when the network didn't like it, Steven Bochco said they could either let them do that, or they would use their contractually guaranteed right to use profanity 34 times per show to have Dennis Franz's character called an asshole 34 times in that scene? Also, F**k claimed that if their documentary were aired uncensored on network TV, they would incur like $260,000,000 in fines. Goodness. Definitely not for those who can't stand a little profanity (okay, a lot, 857 times or so).

Good weekend, until it wasn't

Boy howdy, I couldn't wish stomach bugs against my worst enemy. Things were chugging along for this to have been a great weekend. I had a really nice and relaxing time with Mom at the ranch - we even had a bonfire Friday night. Then we had Roberts family dinner on Saturday night with John and Susie, Rick and Em, and Luke. Highlight: John's famous mac and cheese. But then Sunday had to go and ruin it for me - I woke up early feeling unwell and right after Matt left for work, the floodgates opened. From 8am to 4pm, I was pretty miserable and vomiting left and right. Mom came over in the afternoon to work her mom healing magic, which definitely helped. At 5 o'clock I was cleared to try some Saltine crackers and Sprite and they went okay. By the time the Cowboys game came on (Go 'Boys!), I was feeling better and had even managed to get some Tylenol down to help with my aching body parts. Actually sleeping last night was another rough time but by 1:30am I was feeling brave enough to take my Ambien, so eventually I got some sleep.

Matt left for work this morning and won't be back until late Wednesday - he has work training in Chicago. Not the best timing from my view since I'm still pretty pitiful and recovering, but he's probably not too sad to be getting out of the vomit lair. First actions taken by me this morning: cleaning the bathrooms, Febreezing the hell out of everything, and doing laundry. But now my stomach is suggesting that it would like to supplement the dozen crackers I ate yesterday with something, so I'm off to check out what food we have in our bland section. Wee!

as promised

I took a picture of the stocking I'm needlepointing for Matt.

This is what it will look like when it is done (except I think I'll put "Matt" instead of "Jason" at the top!):

And this is what the actual stocking looks like right now:
The first step was the black and white boxes because they are done with special stitches (satin and Scottish). Then I tackled the dark blue, which is almost complete except for a few tiny spots in the more detailed areas. Right now I am working on the slightly lighter blue that appears under the dark blue - you can see I've filled in most of the right side with it. After I finish with that color, I will start on the cardinals and area inside of the circle.

I'm going to the ranch today to hang out with Mom. Pene's coming too, of course. Then I'm coming back tomorrow afternoon in time for family dinner at the Roberts house. Luke is in town for the weekend so it'll be the whole gang.

I'm loving my new iPod. Matt and I discovered checking out CDs from the public library; they have quite a collection! So we are being introduced to a lot of new music. So far we've mostly been getting CDs of artists that we have heard on satellite radio (I listen to Sirius through our TV and Matt listens to XM on his computer at work).

We picked up Rock Band 2 on Sunday and are enjoying it. I agree with one review I read, though, that it is more like an update to the original game than a true sequel. But that doesn't bother me a bit. The developers really listened to the gamers and fixed a lot things that weren't ideal in the original. The interface is a lot better and the new "Tour" mode is a big improvement. And of course there's all the new songs. We don't have a favorite yet, but there are definitely some good ones. We've only unlocked about half of them so far. Unfortunately our guitars are on their last legs - the Guitar Hero III wireless guitar's green button is completely shot - and we had to start using the Rock Band guitar, along with our Guitar Hero II guitar. The Rock Band guitar isn't 100% either, but it works well enough. So I've been doing more drumming and singing that usual, and my drumming has gotten inexplicably better since we stopped playing lots of Rock Band. Don't know how that happened...

Outsourced

Outsourced is a really cool movie. We just watched it tonight. I actually got to see and spend time with Matt yesterday and today and he doesn't even have to go into work tomorrow! This is after he worked until midnight on Wednesday night and sometime later than 2 am on Thursday. Things were going very badly on some of their September 15 (extension deadline) projects but they've resolved all that now.

We got quite a bit of rain today from Ike. No crazy wind or anything, just a good 1.5+ inches of precipitation. We don't mind at all.

The stocking is going really well. I worked on it a lot today while Matt was at work. I slept really late and with the rain and all, sitting on the loveseat watching/listening to movies while needlepointing seemed like the perfect activity. I'll try to remember to take a picture of my progress sometime tomorrow and post it.

Ooo, excitement - I got one of the new 120 gig iPods last night. It's so silvery and pretty and I don't have to worry about paring down my music selection any more because it holds it all.

Murphy

We had to put little Murph to sleep yesterday. He had been having all sorts of problems last week, and finally made it very clear that it was time by refusing to eat this past weekend. He spent the weekend in the care of Dad while Mom and I were at the ranch, and we returned to find him calm and seemingly not in pain, but ready to be done. Mom sat in the hallway when we got back and he let her hold and cuddle him like he hasn't submitted to in years. He spent Sunday night snuggled between them on the couch, probably trying to reassure them.

On Friday before Mom and I left for the ranch, I got one last picture with Murphy.