Fishy?

The holidays were great. We're exhausted from running around like crazy. We had a nice time with our families, though, so it was worth it. We managed to get the (increasingly crispy) tree taken down last night, and we're looking forward to getting our home back to normal.

On an unrelated note, my brake pads need replacing. And I need an oil change. I'm trying to find a place that won't scam me, which is super annoying. I went to a website for a local place and found the following coupons, which seem great at first glance:

until you look at the fine print. You can only use the coupon if you present it prior to any estimates. What? So, basically the price will vary depending on if you use the coupon. Heath said they told him that it was because the give the discount "anyway" even if you don't have the coupon. So that's totally dumb and weird. I'm not sure if I'll go there, but I don't have a ton of options and I'm afraid the dealership will rip me off. Ugh what to do?!?!?

Love/Hate

Last night, Heath and I were watching the news, and the reporters were trying to get comments from Rod Blagojevich. He was trying to go for a run (apparently he's quite an avid runner), and at some point said something along the lines of running being healthy, helping you clear your head, and ...

"...hopefully putting love in your heart."

I turned to Heath "Does running put love in your heart?"

"No, it makes me hate things."

(It's true. It makes him hate things. It makes me hate things, too, sometimes.)
(But he still goes out and does it because he knows its good for him.)

Oh the Muppets

Heath and I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol (awesome-ness with Michael Caine great as Scrooge) last weekend, and I was reminded of how adorable they are! Today BoingBoing featured some great videos that are now up on YouTube. I'm sure there is even more muppet goodness out there, but these two were easy for me to grab right from the BoingBoing site. Enjoy!

Beeker's rendition of Ode to Joy



Gonzo & his Chicken Orchestra's version of The Blue Danube Waltz

a thick icy coating

so yesterday was downright balmy. but windy. then rainy. and today is FREEZING. so last night's rain + today's frigid temps = an icy coating on EVERYTHING. including my car. my car doors were frozen shut one day last week (grrrr), and i knew they would be again today. so i brought my cup of warmish water to pour along the top of the door. (how i long for a garage!) hooray! it worked and i was able to get the car started while i chipped away at the 1/4 - 1/2 inch of ice on my windshield. there has to be a better way...

so this morning when i got to work safe and sound (thank goodness - there were a number of accidents and close calls on the way), i saw this blog post on the simple dollar with frugal ways to beat (or at least deal with) the snow and ice. i'm definitely going to get a squirt bottle and do the alcohol + water + soap spray for my windshield. it will surely save me lots of time and labor on these icy mornings.

now, if only there were a way to warp heath work so he didn't have to walk and stand in these temperatures waiting for the train! definitely check out the post -- it has some really good (and cheap) ideas!

missent

not what you want to see on an important package shortly before Christmas! here's hoping it gets here safe and sound!

too weird

last night on the way home from school, i saw a car with some crazy damage on the side of it and was thinking it would be cool to snap a picture. then my mind wandered and i started to think about how if you had a fake eye, wouldn't it be handy to have a camera built into it so you could just snap a picture of whatever whenever! am i weird?

now this afternoon comes, and i find this article!

there is a filmmaker who lost his eye and is seeking to have a webcam installed instead of a glass eye! creepy but cool, and how weird that i just thought of something like this last night!

"argh"

how did using quotes for emphasis become such a common error? i see it far too often, so this made me smile. (from fail blog.)

Mail Goggles

most of the people that read this blog (all 4 or so of you) probably would never need this feature, but i thought it was super clever and wanted to share it. gmail offers a tool through google labs called mail goggles. while the description doesn't come right out and say it, this tool is to keep you from making the email equivalent to a drunk dial.

if you attempt to send an email between certain hours of the night (e.g., midnight to 4 am - you can set the times), the system will make you answer three math problems correctly before allowing you to send the message. the general idea is that if you aren't mentally adept enough to answer the math problems (perhaps due to consuming more than a little alcohol), there is a reasonable chance that the email would be one you may regret in the morning.

how clever is that!?

i'm a hybrid car!

Fun stuff!

34.5 miles per gallon

Created by The Car Connection

Big Spenders

is anybody here really really truly surprised? ugh.

AIG has used up about 3/4 of it's $123B bailout loan.

come for the cycling humor...

...stay for the poignant medical drama and love story.

i began reading the fat cyclist blog quite some time ago. i don't remember how i found it, but i stumbled across it somehow. it was hilarious. the author, fatty (elden), does a great job of writing up his cycling adventures and poking fun at the dorkiness of bike riders of all kinds. even heath, with his minimal familiarity with cycling and its mini culture, has found a number of his posts entertaining.

a great proportion of his posts are humorous, but there is a subset that focuses on the events surrounding his wife's battle with cancer. it's touching and heartbreaking and so raw and real to read about the challenges and fears and joys and ways of coping as they go through this illness. the family's strength is amazing. fatty's experiences are real and vivid. he admits that he needs escape from the situation sometimes, which he gets through mountain biking, he admits the guilt he feels, he admits his fears and celebrates small victories. his wife, susan, was in remission when i started reading the blog. she has since had a relapse, and things are not looking good. they have recently had a pretty significant scare, which is what prompted me to post this. last night's post was so touching, it brought tears to my eyes. definitely worth checking out if you have a few minutes.

needed a laugh/pick me up

feeling a bit clobbered at work today, so i needed a laugh. checked my google reader and found this on boing boing, which did the trick. hooray for rss!

also found this site with 25 cool pumpkin carvings via digg.

which reminded me of this link i sent to heath yesterday. i have NEVER seen such amazing pumpkin carving in my life. it's hard to believe that's wha they are -- look at that detail! he even includes a tutorial, so now YOU can be awesome at carving pumpkins, too!


i'm feeling better now.

worthwhile article

great article. it's a bit long, but really well written. i'm partial to it because it involves triathletes. i remember seeing the articles on the tri forums when a man in san diego was killed in a shark attack. this article tells his story and the interesting stories of people close to him.

blast from the past

piece on the most influential early educational computer games.

if you're feeling nostalgic, click here.

call me queen kelly

because now i have a crown. ugh. finally got the temporary one replaced with the porcelain one. this visit (cementing of the actual crown) was not fun. but it was not nearly as unpleasant as the crown buildup visit. double ugh!

i have totally capitalized on my dental benefits. booyah!

model-actress

so i was clicking through the news on cnn.com this morning and saw the breaking headline about hugh hefner losing one of his "girls next door." apparently, one of his three live in girlfriends, holly madison (age 28 - he's 82), has decided to break off their "relationship" (quotes are mine).

Hefner was surprised to hear Madison discussing their breakup, but acknowledged he knew a split was imminent after he told Madison that they would never wed or have children.

holly. please.

what does it say about my generation that a woman of this age is THAT out of touch with reality? i used to think that these girls were just money and attention grubbing and that everybody involved was on the same page with that and thought it was a just dandy agreement. this is evidently not the case for holly. it's pretty sad, really. she was really thinking they would get married and have kids. when she shared a bed with him and his TWO OTHER GIRLFRIENDS. oh, and it's HUGH HEFNER. wow.

eBags Gripe

so here's the deal. i signed up for one of those "do surveys to earn money" deals a while back. i recently got an email notifying me that some of my $90 that i had earned was going to expire so i'd better redeem it. rather than paying you cash, you have a number of gift card/coupon/discount offers to choose from. needing a new "nice" bag for school (i.e., north face backpack isn't quite stylish enough for me to bring to class too much longer), i figured i would go with the $75.00 ebags.com voucher. only after i selected this option did i notice the caveat - $75 off a $200 purchase. doh! so, i poked around the website and found some things that got me to $200 (harder than it sounds even with a $100 business case in the mix). i thought - hey bonus - everything is an extra 20% off. So, thinking that it would be approx $200 - $75, plus shipping, i figure my total will be somewhere in the $140 range. right?

wrong. apparently the $75 can't be combined with the 20% discount, so it was still going to cost me close to $200. Ugh! Not sure how to proceed. I suppose the best solution is to not do anything, but i hate giving up my $75, especially when i do need a new bag. maybe i could take a few items out of my shopping cart and see what happens. grr. i hate stupid fine print stuff like that. i could've gotten subscriptions to Maxim AND Computer shopper AND Shape AND a free year of the Blockbuster improved membership. Who knows that the fine print on those is, though!

update your links!

we had some issues with our wedding blog, so it now has a new address -- http://heathandkelly.blogspot.com (as opposed to what it was before: kellyandheath.blogspot.com).

sorry for any inconvenience!

entrepreneur

a key to starting an effective home based business is coming up with the idea. what can you do from your home? what can you sell or provide? when in doubt, do lots of things.

one stop shopping for babysitting, pitbulls, and grapefruit.

the real problem

heath sent me an article this afternoon that has to do with the whole controversy surrounding vp candidate sarah palin's pregnant teenage daughter. the author makes some interesting points in the article, but the one that resonates most with me is the following (emphasis added):

This is not a Republican issue or Democratic problem. We need to put aside the partisan B.S. and confront unplanned pregnancies. Let's do all we can to keep our kids from either having pre-marital sex or unprotected sex.

Then we won't have to deal with them choosing to have an abortion or not, or, as the Palins noted in their statement, seeing our children "grow up faster than we had ever planned" and having to confront "the difficulties of raising a child."

this is consistent with opinions I've had regarding abortion for a long long time. i have to say i'm pro-choice, but the reasoning behind it is not based on some women's rights-hippie-liberal yay kill babies position. it's based on my careful reflections on the issue.

i don't think abortion should be made illegal. that being said, i think abortions are an awful awful thing and want nobody to ever have to even consider one. i firmly believe that if they are made illegal, desperate women (and girls) will turn to the "black market" abortion options that will undoubtedly emerge. there, they will be exposed to even greater risks than those already associated with the procedure, such as lack of sterile facilities, untrained practitioners, etc. the problem of abortion is not due to abortion being legal - it is due to unwanted pregnancies. if we can address that problem, the abortion issue will resolve itself.

abortions are not the problem, they are the symptom, and simply eliminating the symptom does not cure the disease. i'm pleased that somebody else (with a louder voice than me) has stated this perspective as well.

i know my pro-choice perspective puts off some more conservative folks, but please remember that pro-choice does not mean pro-baby killing. it simply means that i do not believe that legislating against this unfortunate procedure would be an effective way of eliminating the problem. in fact, i think it would make things worse.