Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve was going to suck, but now Jen and I are driving down to Gulf Shores for the night.

I need a little sand and surf in December...

More to come.

Happy New Year, everyone!

TV commercials shouldn't make you feel icky, either

In a sort of follow-up to Ian's last post, I present "Fudgems."

For some fine commentary, see Slate's "Ad's We Hate" at http://www.slate.com/id/2156187/.

Little of this, little of that

Okay, I've been a bit lax in updating this blog over the break. So shoot me, I'm on vacation.

Not a lot has been happening lately - we're mostly in a holding position, awaiting the new year and the subsequent return to school. Two things of interest have happened in the last few days, however:

1) My sister, a compulsive reader of the oh-so-tacky society pages, discovered a little gem. A group of women with too much money got together for a little potluck dinner or some other such recreation. The writer described each guest's dish, concluding with that of the one unlucky soul who brought (I'm paraphrasing here) 'small hotdogs wrapped in pastry.' Pigs in a blanket, anyone?

2) We had a reunion last night of some people from my elementary/middle school last night. The good? Surin West has excellent Thai food. The bad? People were looking around at the newcomers, whispering things like, "Who is that, again?" A bit awkward at first, but the evening was fun, and drunk guys outside of Starbucks are always good for a laugh.

What day is it again?

I'm having a rather difficult time keeping track of the days, especially since the Advent calendar has been exhausted for the year. It's still Wednesday, as far as I can tell, but it feels like Saturday. We took the bulk of the decorations down this morning, excepting the three trees. Yeah, three. My dad, who coincidentally is allergic to pine, has a great time hauling logs twice a year. In the past, Alabama Power would take them from the grocery store's parking lot and stick them in a lake or something (little sketchy on the details), but no longer, so now everything's being dragged to the curb for collection/pulping by the garbage men. Sort of a depressing end to the holiday, but that's the way it goes, I guess.

My vacation is quickly winding down - I'll be back in Edinburgh in a little over a week - and already I have a list of things to do:

1) Join gym (thanks, Santa).
2) Get ******* Accomodations to take my money.
3) Find a part-time job.
4) Start thinking about a real job (Monster.com turned up a post at Trailer Life Magazine...please, God, no...).
5) Pay Ian for the Spain flight (I haven't forgotten, man).
6) Start writing again, as I've produced a grand total of roughly 2,000 words since I got home.
7) Get published. I'm being really optimistic on this one.

The day after

December 26 always begins with a sense of disappointment. The Main Event is over. No one sings songs about the day after Christmas; no one (in this country, at least) exchanges gifts today, except those people who just couldn't get around to it before yesterday. The Christmas specials are through, though it comes as a relief that most radio stations in town are no longer playing wall-to-wall Christmas music and that TBS's annual "24 Hours of A Christmas Story" has come to an end. One by one, the neighbors will begin to take down their decorations, though the big rush will wait until after the first of the year. Leftovers will be served tonight. (Since dinner was beef tenderloin, however, I'm not upset by this.)

The nice thing is that everything is on sale, so we're going to do some exchanging today and see what we can find. Jen may have a clothing trip to Atlanta in the near future. Meanwhile, I'm going to see my dentist today. Joy to the world, eh?

Christmas Eve

And so we come, once again, to December 24, the culmination of months of shopping, menu planning, and keeping my sister away from her presents. The last bit is the most difficult, honestly. She's like a little kid this time of year.

We have church in an hour, church tonight, and dinner with old friends afterwards, and then tomorrow is the Big Day, so there will almost definitely be a lag in my posting. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Christmas bribes

When I was in the first grade, Anna Sibley came to class and told us all about her magic elf, this mystical being that left candy in her shoes in the nights leading up to Christmas. This seemed like a pretty good idea to me, so Jen and I dutifully left shoes by the front door before retiring that night. All that came of that particular experiment was being summoned from bed to explain to Dad why our shoes were in the middle of the foyer, but once we filled Mom in, things changed. Having selected elves, Jen and I were then treated to two weeks of gifts, left each morning outside our bedrooms. Not a bad deal at all.

As we got a little older, the elves came less frequently, eventually stopping by only during the final three days before Christmas. The presents improved, however, and once Jen and I left grade school, it wasn't such a big deal if we didn't get two weeks' worth of small toys and candy (and FAO Schwarz sweatshirts one year, for whatever reason). Dad still decried the entire practice as pagan and tried to phase it out, but the elves were resilient.

They're still coming, actually. I got lovely earrings this morning, and my elf is due again tonight. Of course, we're now to the point where often Mom beats us to bed, and sometimes the presents magically materialize before morning. I've been meaning to have a word with my elf about that...

Christmas Lights

Click to Play

I have no idea why Blip chose this screen for the thumbnail, but here's a little movie I made about some of the more interesting Christmas decorations in my neighborhood. The quality is bad - but try taking video with a tiny camera out a moving car's window at night in the rain, then compress a 9-minute clip to 7 MB, and you do better, eh?

Someday, I will actually film something well. Tonight wasn't it.

See this group

To the chagrin of my mother and sister, I truly hate most pop Christmas music. The stuff on the radio is bland, trite, old, and overplayed - when you only have about 100 Christmas songs in rotation and you're wall-to-wall Christmas from Thanksgiving onward, you tend to repeat just a little. By this time every year, I'm ready for anything else. Justin Timberlake begins to have a slight appeal, and that's just sad.

That said, we went to the most amazing concert last night. For those who haven't experienced Trans-Siberian Orchestra live, imagine this: mix Christmas standards with a narrator who really wants to be Morgan Freeman, a director who looks - I'm quoting this - "like Alice Cooper mixed with a Super Mario Brother," a bunch of electric guitars, keyboards, and an electric violin, a few string players from the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, some pretty excellent singers, lasers, and freaking hot flares (really, it was like standing in front of the fireplace), and you have TSO's Christmas show. The manager used to manage Scorpions and Aerosmith. Now he does Christmas rock operas.

I can live with Christmas rock operas.

The best part came after the Christmas portion of the show, when they broke into some of their other numbers. We got "Layla." We got "Flight of the Bumblebee." We then got the sexy rock opera version of the Queen of the Night solo from The Magic Flute. My favorite moment had to be "O Fortuna" - the audience wasn't initially sold on the idea of a song in Latin, but heck, this is Birmingham. I was ready to head bang with the band. I didn't realize one could head bang to Classical music, but I'm convinced.

If TSO were taught, we wouldn't have this mass aversion to Classical music. Seriously. See this band.

New Year's

I was just checking MSN this morning, and they offered a list of the top ten places to do New Year's partying. New York was on it (duh), as were Aspen, Goa (?!?), Sydney, and - yes - Edinburgh. Hope y'all have fun with your (paraphrasing here) four days of hedonism, dog races, and first-footing...the respite from the 40-mph winds has been nice. Really, I can wear my hair down and still look halfway human when I get wherever it is I'm going. The car also helps.

Back on topic, no concrete plans here yet for the 31st. The problem is that Birmingham just isn't a party capital of anywhere, not even Alabama. Mobile probably wins that one for Mardi Gras, if nothing else. The clubs are sketchy, South Side is very sketchy at night, and personally, I refuse to go anywhere Nick Nice, the Q's infuriating nighttime DJ, is going to be. (You can keep your shorties, Nick. Any woman who calls in to your program and doesn't tell you what an arrogant pig you are has zero self-respect.) It's not even feeling like December around here - I had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen yesterday, sat on the patio, and wondered why nothing was blooming except the confused Japanese cherry trees. Add to that the fact that many of my friends around here are going to be absent for the holiday, and it's looking like New Year's may end up being a quiet affair.

At least last year was fun. The Glee Club knew how to party, even if it was with a ridiculous assortment of André "champagnes" in a single hotel room.

Christmas partying

Proof that alcohol is not essential to a good night...

My church's college group Christmas get-together was tonight, a lovely dinner at the even lovelier Anna Bloom's house, and a good time was seemingly had by all with not a drop of the sauce in sight. Seriously, there was Milo's Tea, fruit punch, and water, but here's a sampling of the topics covered:

Cartoons and other television programs our parents didn't let us watch
Childbirth, naturally, on the dining room table, and with or without appetizers (in mixed company, no less)
The nature of the cruditée
What constitutes a quiver
Alabama football
Auburn football
Why Bear Bryant is overrated
Greek life and the almost universally sketchy Betas
Babysitting
The ethics of getting onto Facebook post-college
Crunchy-looking leaves and children
Summer camps and bathing
Emo
"Got Joy" and other campaigns we'd rather not think about
...plus a smattering of embarrassing childhood memories best never repeated in cyberspace. Oh, Barbie...the horror.

Sleeeeeep

This is getting ridiculous.

I woke this morning at two, feeling quite perky and ready to go. Knowing that would never do, I rolled over and tried to regain unconsciousness, telling myself I'd turn on the lights and lull myself back to sleep with sudoku if I couldn't make it by three.

I sort of made it by three, however, and was off and on until seven-thirty. The nap this afternoon was in order.

Tonight, The Pursuit of Happyness. Let's see if Will Smith can do better than the dancing penguins...

Saturday

This hasn't been the most productive 48-hour period of my life. I got my portfolio up to date (I had no idea my Texas retreats piece would be the December cover of ET!), did a little girlie shopping, and basically lounged around.

The one truly annoying thing about this vacation is that I seem to be unable to sleep through the night. For no good reason, I'll wake up three or four times between midnight and seven, usually just for a moment, but it disrupts my sleep. It also gives me odd insight into my dreams...

Oh dear...

The worst night thus far has to be the one in which I woke up hourly between midnight and six. It's now 10:30, so I'll try to stay up a bit longer, think happy thoughts, and try to get a solid night's sleep. Tomorrow night is the Christmas program at church, and I want to be prepped for that.

I should look over the music...

More good and bad

The bad: Edinburgh still cannot figure out my accommodation payment status, and now I have to call them long distance tomorrow morning between 8 and 10:30.
The good: Maybe I'll finally get to bitch them out for being incompetent and wasting my phone money.

The bad: Callie figured out how to get into my shoebox and chewed up a pair of Kate Spades.
The good: I got new tennis shoes! Without the stuffing leaking out the back! On sale, no less!

The bad: Happy Feet has a lot of unnecessary social commentary.
The good: Hey, dancing penguins are dancing penguins.

The bad: Birmingham cannot make up its mind what month this is supposed to be.
The good: It was 75 degrees today. (That's about 24 C, Ian.)

Extra bonus good: I got another letter from the convent today! Always a good thing.

Monkeys with typewriters

I'm a humanities person; I'm certainly no IT genius. Somehow, however, I've managed to become my family's tech support, and usually, with enough web searching and forehead smacking, I can muddle my way through our various spyware problems.

Not today.

Around 7:30 last night, a rather annoying browser hijacker made its way onto the computer. Google sent me to random ad pages. AOL Mail ceased to function. Even Facebook refused to let me on. My entire arsenal failed: SpySweeper, Spybot S&D, AdAware, Bazooka, and HijackThis could find nothing wrong. In desperation, at about 8 AM I actually ran Windows Update, which hadn't been done in God knows how long.

61 updates, including Service Pack 2. It took about two hours to get the system back up and running.

Then I added Windows Defender, Microsoft's new anti-spyware freeware, but it also came up clean. Even Norton found nothing (granted, Norton's definitions date to approximately 2004, but it was worth a shot).

I hate admitting IT defeat, but around 2 PM I told my mother that I was hopelessly stumped, and suggeted calling Geek Squad. A quick check of their site revealed the bad news: $250 for a house call.

Well, I had nothing better to do than throw the ball for Callie, so I kept searching for something odd. After removing about 200 porn/casino/loan links from the registry (how did those get there?), I stumbled onto SpywareDetector, which isn't freeware but gives a detailed log of malware even without registration. The thing found 13 worms in less than two minutes, the worst of which I was able to remove manually by following the registry addresses and the directions into the system files.

At 5 PM, the system was functional once again, further proof that enough monkeys with enough typewriters will eventually come up with Shakespeare.

I did a geeky little happy dance.

Someone tranquilize my puppy, please

Shortly after coming home, I was informed that Border Collies consider naps to be a waste of time. I didn't realize how true that was until today.

I had a headache, and so I had stretched out on the couch until the medicine could take effect. This was completely unacceptable to Callie, who brought me balls and jumped on the couch until I threw them for her and played tug of war. I tried relaxing with one arm off the couch, but that didn't work. When the dog's attention was diverted, I rolled over to face the back of the couch, hoping she would get the message. No such luck: obviously miffed, Callie proceeded to attack my head until I threw the ball once more.

Maybe this is a phase...

Fun on the road

Our friend, Sarah, and her two roommates hosted a lovely cocktail party in Nashville on Friday night, so Jen and I drove up to camp at their place. This was the first time I'd really been driving in three months, but I wasn't too worried - the car had just been checked out, the bulging tire had been replaced, and I knew which side of the road to stay on. Plus, Jen had promised not to play Christmas music the whole way up.

Three hours later, we arrived in Nashville with no problems. We spent the night and prepared to leave around 9:30, which was when the fun started.

I had just pulled out of Sarah's driveway when a dashboard indicator light came on. This was not what I needed before caffeine, and certainly not what I needed before a three-hour drive. Jen took the manual, but all she could find was that it was an indication that the anti-lock brakes were out. Thinking unkind things about the car and recalling the Pimpmobile's breakdown in Foley, I grabbed the book and quickly figured out that I had manually disengaged the system by pushing the button (what the heck?) while I was turning my seatwarmer on. Model of German engineering, right there.

Happily caffeinated, we set off into Nashville's light Saturday morning Interstate traffic. I-65 was the clearest I had ever seen it, until a state trooper pulled up in the HOV lane and everyone dropped closer to 70 to match his pace. Suddenly, his lights went on and he pulled over. I darted one lane to the right, just in time to see the two cars previously in front of me collide with a wheelbarrow (again, what the heck?) and each other.

Having narrowly escaped the wheelbarrow in the middle of I-65, we were then visited by occasional NASCAR wannabes - people who do at least 90, pass on the right, and give no signals.

I was happy to see my own driveway once again.

100th post

I just noticed that this is my hundredth post. Fancy that.

It's been quite a day around here, from picking my sister up at the airport to keeping the puppy, Captain Insano, occupied and out from under my bed. In less than 48 hours, Callie has ripped a hole in her mooing cow's back and has now taken to dragging her fleece pillow around the kitchen. She also wants to chew my stuffed lemur and my sister's yodeling bear. It's actually quite difficult to coax her out from under my sister's bed - the place looks like a tornadic debris field, and somehow Callie has made herself a nest among the photo albums and other detritus. Cow comes in handy in these sorts of situations...

I also had TCBY with Jen today, for the first time in three months. Frozen yogurt! Amazing! Why has this not crossed the pond yet?!?

Tomorrow will involve a three-hour drive and a cocktail party in Nashville...more to come.

My dog is insane

Callie, our almost-four-month-old Border Collie, is adorable, alert, playful, intelligent...and completely insane.

Her favorite method of greeting is the Leg Jump, in which she aims for the waist and attempts to scale one's pants. Sometimes she gets traction, sometimes not. Sometimes she bites one's cuffs or shoes for kicks. If successful in her ascent, she will then lick/chew any exposed skin within reach.

After the formalities, Playtime commences. Playtime is actually a constant state of affairs - as the Border Collie book says, this breed considers naps a complete waste of time. If adult Border Collies have the intelligence of a five-year-old, Callie's somewhere around two - if she's not being amused, she will make her presence known, either by bringing over one of her approximately two dozen squeaky toys or starting back with the Leg Jump.

She has a proclivity for jumping, actually, whether on people or on the couch (or on people on the couch, she's not picky). She will also climb people and begin a furious bout of licking/chewing. Sometimes she drags a squeaky toy or two into the fray. I discovered a piece of rawhide left in my lap at the computer this afternoon.

Today, we acquired our new Mooing Cow, the current hit. The cow comes with a lovely, not-so-realistic voicebox which Callie has almost learned to operate. When she can't make it talk, she just shakes the bejeezus out of it.

Callie's wearing herself out now, since we have to begin the Bedtime Ritual in five minutes. She gets Christmas music at night. Slightly spoiled? Maybe, but she's cute.

When she's not climbing my head, that is.

"Welcome home"

This morning began at 4:45 GMT. As I write this, it's approaching 8:45 CST, or approximately twenty-two hours later. I'm still going somehow. A taxi, a bus, two planes, a three-hour car trip, Chinese food, a crazy puppy, and one most welcome shower later, I'm still hanging on to consciousness.

This will be remedied within the hour.

Coming home was a little on the insane side today. I'm not in the most coherent state of mind at the moment, so here are a few highlights:

-Edinburgh is ridiculously quiet at 5:45 AM. Seriously, everyone finally leaves Princes Street and the stores close. The Ferris Wheel looks rather eerie, actually.

-A full moon over Waverly Bridge is a lovely sight.

-The same security guard questioned me twice today, once as I was checking in ("Has your computer been out of your hands since you've been here?") and once at the gate ("Since I last saw you, have you purchased anything?") He seemed to feel bad when I had to move my makeup kit to the checked piece.

-There was a handful of 50-something Scottish men out for a "boys week" in Philadelphia on the flight, as well as a 7-year-old kid from New York. "Where are you from?" the kid asked. "We're from Scotland," one of the men replied, "the greatest country on Earth!" The kid then followed this with, "Oh. Why do you talk so funny?"

-There's no sight quite as fascinating as the northeastern coast of Canada in December after having flown over open ocean for hours. It looked like the tundra down there, all white ridges and frozen lakes. I would upload images, but I'm currently too tired to fish out my camera.

-Continental had the best airplane food I've ever tasted, hands down. Now, if they'd only get Coke Zero...

-I'm not usually a fan of New York, but I got all excited when I saw the Statue of Liberty from the plane.

-Newark is...well, Newark, but there was nothing quite as sweet as the Customs agent of Italian descent and City origins welcoming me home. He did make a crack about my name ("Ashley Simpson, huh?), but I'll forgive him this once.

-Newark, I'm not going to pay $7 for a lousy sandwich. No. Bad, New Jersey. Bad.

-It seems that the people operating the Atlanta tram have tampered with the recording. Guys, I can read, but I want the voice to tell me the next stop. Come on. Concourse T, anyone?

-My puppy, Cali (or Ugly, to my father), is adorable but completely spastic. She has a bedtime ritual. This seems to be a subtle hint from my parents that I need to hurry up and give them grandchildren already.

-I have a television. In my room. It gets more than four channels, and there's no £137.50 license. There is House. Then again, there's no Jeremy Kyle.

That wasn't so bad

This was my view this morning at 8 AM. Yes, 8 AM. The sun was trying desperately to make it over the horizon, and I was attempting to drag myself from bed. I had nothing but a string of dreams all night long. This is why I shouldn't drink.

Realizing that my packing time was down to less than twenty-four hours, however, I pushed aside the alarm clock and made myself begin to compile roughly 100 pounds of luggage (God, I hope it's under 100 pounds this time...I don't have a scale, and it's still too early to bother people about locating one).

It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Less than an hour later, I've put together two suitcases and most of my carry-on (the computer's not going in until the last possible moment, like maybe tomorrow at 5 AM). I remembered appropriate dress footwear, a step up from some of my earlier Christmas break attempts.

I've also packed the various foodstuffs requested by my parents yesterday afternoon. The conversation went roughly as follows:

Me: It's kind of rainy and windy out there, so I've been napping all afternoon.
Mom: Are you bringing home any tablet?
Me: Um...wasn't planning to. I can go get some... uh, today.
Mom: No rush, whenever you have time.
Me: I'm coming home in less than 48 hours. I should get it today. And whisky fudge...

Edinburgh was behaving itself when I left my room, but the rain had recommenced once I hit the lobby (what else is new?) and continued for the next hour. Adding insult to injury, the wind was far too strong to permit an umbrella (again, nothing new there). I did manage to find the food and a squeaky furry haggis for my puppy, which I'm assuming she'll kill within minutes. So yes, there is now tablet in my suitcase, which will hopefully still be in tablet form by the time it reaches Atlanta. If not, it's good in pieces.

I love you, Mom. :)

Christmas carols, week two

This morning's service went well - our duet was a success - though I was once again reminded of the variations between American and Scottish Christmas carols when one of the altos told me she would be singing "We Will Rock You" in two weeks.

"Queen?" I asked, more than slightly disturbed.

She then laughed and sang a few bars, but as she did so, I couldn't help but stomp along.
Stomp-stomp-clap, stomp-stomp-clap...

Good news and bad news

The bad news: the MacDonald brothers were voted off of X-Factor.
The good news: Ben is still on.

The bad news: the office's copy of Love Actually was checked out.
The worse news: so was Blockbuster's copy.
The good news: Saved! was in stock.

The bad news: my US Blockbuster card doesn't work over here.
The good news: they were willing to give Cali a new card.

The bad news: we needed a cake for post-football sorrow drowning, but all we had was Tesco.
The good news: Tesco sells chocolate Yule Logs.

The bad news: Stanford lost their football game.
The good news: if Ian ever wants to be a rapper, he's got a name all picked out.

I may just be employable

I've received some strange calls from my sister the psychology/French major at Northwestern since she started her college career. ("Lauren, where's the Rite-Aid?" "Jen, I'm in Connecticut, how am I supposed to know?" is one of my favorites.)

Tonight's was great. Jen, who is multi-talented, is a writing tutor, and one of her tutorees has a creative writing assignment. It's 10 PM here on a Friday night and my phone starts ringing. Jen's student wants to know how to format dialogue - when to indent? Do we need dashes? What if the character speaks two lines?

Apparently, I'm a good font of dialogue formatting information, though I would recommend that the girl pick up any paperback novel - not an avant-garde work, just something Rite-Aid would sell - and look at the layout for hints. Just don't ask Jen for directions to Rite-Aid to get it.

(Ducks as something large and heavy is thrown my way from Evanston.)

Not an exciting night

So I had planned to brave the gale and head up to the street ceilidh last night, but that was before a cloud of dust rose on George Square in the wind tunnel and attacked my eye. I may have scratched my cornea, I don't know, but I winced and wept and added more eye drops than I did even post-surgery for two hours during seminar, then headed home for a hot cloth. That did nothing, so in desperation I ran to the drug store/post office thirty minutes before they closed for a tube of gel. By the time my mother called, forty-five minutes later, I had tons of gel in my eye and a couple of Anadins in my system, and was feeling surprisingly better. Thanks, Mom.

Regardless, I didn't quite feel up to another wind assault, so I stayed in and finished reading my rummage sale bad horror novel. After the heroes get strangled for the umpteenth time, justice prevails. Never saw that one coming... I also printed off my portfolio and essay to hand in today, which took a while - I bothered looking on the LLC website for guidelines and ran across their style sheet. Granted, Claire said we could just be consistent, but I went ahead and modified my essay to MLA and double-spaced it. Stupid A4 margins...stupid single-side only... There comes a point where you care less about the dying trees than about your wallet, and twenty-eight pages is a lot for a single essay. Then came the portfolio - also double-spaced, but double-sided. It's forty-three pages long. I'm not printing eighty-six pages off if I don't have to.

I miss the Master's Office printer. Things were simpler then, and I didn't have to buy my own toner.