Christmas Wishes

Since I haven't posted anything reasonably entertaining for over a month, it shouldn't bother anyone if I take time out for the McEwen Family Christmas wish lists. So here goes...

Mom:
Wondrous White Wines from the Vineyard (contact Sam for assistance on this one)

Dad:
Merrell Tundra Boots at REI -- size 11 -- $99.95. Catalog #725-586. These only come in one color. He went into the store and found them, so presumably you can too, but here is a link to them on the REI website as well: http://www.rei.com/online/store/ProductDisplay?storeId=8000&catalogId=40000008000&productId=47924528&parent_category_rn=4501323&vcat=REI_SSHP_FOOTWEAR_TOC



Lianne:
Gift card to Lands End
Gift card to Yankee Candle Company

Sam:
Clothes (casual sweaters and tops) XL
Walkman (CD)
Gift certificate to Golf Galaxy or equivalent (to go towards a golf bag)

Shannon:

A large stockpot, like this one (Mom would know where to find this stuff without shopping online): http://www.amazon.com/Calphalon-Commercial-Anodized-12-Quart-Stockpot/dp/B00004SY7G/sr=1-2/qid=1165701199/ref=sr_1_2/102-2825748-3560114?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen

And a dutch oven, like this: http://www.amazon.com/Innova-Color-Porcelain-Enameled-5-Quart/dp/B0000DJBK5/sr=1-3/qid=1165701449/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/102-2825748-3560114?ie=UTF8&s=home-garden

Those links were just for an idea; I don't care what brand or color they are as long as they're sturdy and well-made.

Rob: Rob was all cute and wrote a letter to his Secret Santa -- I'll just post it in its entirety...

Dear Secret Santa,

Here are some suggestions for me:

--Clothes. I'm guessing this is even more obvious to you than it is to me. My shirt size is either XL or 2X, preferably tall size if available. Pants are a bit tricky; I know I'm a 34 inseam, I'm pretty sure my waist is down to a 38-40 but I'm still losing weight. Consultmy fashion guru/love of my life Shannon if you need suggestions.

--A new watch. My current one is 8 years old and banged up almost to the point that I can't read the display. I don't have much of a preference as to style, just make sure the band is either cloth or leather with a buckle; the stretchy metal bands catch my armhairs.

--DVDs. Any seasons of South Park would be awesome. Also Talladega Nights, Little Miss Sunshine (if it's out), Clerks 2, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, Ghost World (an old fave of mine that I don't have on DVD yet), Shaun of the Dead

--An iTunes gift card.

Thanks, looking forward to celebrating Christmas with everybody, and happy shopping!

Stacey:

Okay, I had a hard time thinking of something fun that I wouldn't buy myself, but I want an I-Pod Shuffle to use for running and stuff. It's only $79 at the Apple store or online:

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore?family=iPodshuffle

Otherwise, I desperately need some new clothes and ski stuff, so I wouldn't mind a gift certificate to REI or LL Bean.

Nate:

Nate had an issue with getting his wish list to me in a timely fashion and I still haven't received an email he sent me this morning, so as soon as I receive it, I'll post his separately. I know it's snowboarding gloves and new lenses for his snowboarding goggles, but I don't know the exact details. :)

If anyone needs ideas for Daniel and Aspen, here are some:

Aspen could use clothes in the 3-6 month size. Also toys appropriate for an infant (these would be marked 0-6 months).

Daniel is still into superheroes, Mega Blocks Pyrates, and dinosaurs. He has expressed interest in a microscope as well, and he collects rocks and would also enjoy a stone polisher -- National Geographic Toys makes one that I've seen at Target.

Cheers!

Politics As Usual

I admit it: I am a Canadian citizen who has lived in the United States for 32 years with no intention of ever becoming a U.S. citizen, and yet, as a taxpayer, I do feel entitled to bitch all I want about the state of the States. You can shriek at me till you're blue in the face about how if I don't vote, I don't get to complain, and I will still not buy that. It's what makes America such a fabulous country: I can say whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want to say it. I hear tell that there are other places in the world where this sort of thing is frowned upon, and I love that I can do it here, and know they'd have shot me long ago in North Korea or wherever (I'm conjecturing -- I don't know much about life in North Korea, so I have no way of knowing how they treat dissenters there. I'm just assuming that in a country where you're expected to bow down to statues of your leader, shooting loudmouth dissenters is de rigeur).

And here's why I have yet to decide to become a citizen and bother voting (yes, I said bother): with candidates like these, who the hell would I vote for? Here's what one Congressional race in Colorado is right now: the Uber-Evil Marilyn Musgrave versus Angie "I'll Beat Your Ass Up" Paccione. And neither of them can give me one good reason to vote for them; instead, it's "Here's all the reasons why you shouldn't vote for her." And it's not like this is a phenomena related to this one race -- it's every race. To the best of my knowledge, the only positive campaign ad I've seen all season has been one in which a Democratic challenger for Congress has his daughters sing his praises in a very cute ad which constantly ran just before an attack ad from some group opposing his opponent. And unfortunately, he'd probably be a decent candidate, except I would excpect a truly decent candidate to stand up in public and say, "I'm sorry, I didn't authorize that ad, and I'm above its negative content. Since I'm the right choice for your vote, I don't feel a need to attack my opponent."

When that candidate comes along, I will perhaps look into handing over roughly $1,000 of my hard-earned salary to the Department of Homeland Security to process my paperwork and offer me citizenship.

There's something so depressing to me about having to cast a vote for the lesser of two evils, or to have to vote along party lines (and even now, you can't trust the Democrats to take care of a woman's right to choose or to children ahead of fighting a losing war) just to vote out evil members of the Religious Wrong (that's right, bitches -- I called you "evil," just like you call me and my single parenting, and my gay friends, and my Jewish son -- and I believe in your evilness more than you believe in God! Whaddya gonna do about it??). I admire those of you who do so with all the conviction you possess that you are doing the right thing.

In the meantime, I'm still a Canadian.

The Wiggles in Concert at MGM

 

Animal Kingdom Pals

 

Disney Disney Disney!!

 

WTF???

Okay, yes, technically I know that these are walking mops, come to life from some Disney film or another. But really, do they LOOK like mops? Can you therefore blame my mom and I are for briefly glancing at one another as they headed our way during the parade and saying, "What the hell are these giant hot dogs doing in the Disney parade??" No. You can't blame us.

Daniel's Pin Collection

 

Daniel Enjoys Epcot

 

Daniel Loves Him Some Princesses, Part 2

 

More New Friends!

 

A Kiss, and Some New Friends

 

Daniel Loves Him a Beautiful Princess!

 

Disneyworld Photos

 

Blogeurism

That's my new word. It's a combination of "blogging" and "voyeurism." Because it occurred to me this morning, as I was perusing random blogs and in some cases delving in deeply to the lives of people I don't even know, that this is merely voyeurism, except that I guess we're all sort of asking for it, if we're posting our lives on the web for everyone to see.

Personally, I find ordinary people way more fascinating than celebrities. I mean, I'll go to Gawker and stuff, probably more often than the next person, but reading about where Lindsay Lohan partied last night doesn't give me the same frisson of excitement that discovering in some random dude's blog that his favorite quote from a movie ever is the same as mine, or that the girl who writes She Just Walks Around With It has the same pair of sneakers that I do (only in a different color). I suppose this is because most days, I feel like the biggest fucking dork on the planet; I feel like no one I spend my day with (mainly coworkers, but sometimes family and friends) likes any of the same things I like or has any of the same opinions I do or has any of the same interests that I do. And so it's nice to know that I'm not THE biggest dork, but only one of many big dorks.

Some of the best things I've read about in random blogs lately:

1). Small-town Alberta teenagers cruising the highway over to the next town to pick a rumble with some kids over there that they don't get along with. (For some reason, there are a LOT of Canadians on Blogger.)

2). There's a woman who writes about the 100 reasons why she hates her husband. I think initially it was supposed to be kind of funny and maybe even tongue-in-cheek, but now it's gotten depressing. Depressing, but fascinating just the same.

3). I love photo bloggers! My favorite is this guy up in northern Ontario who keeps posting all these photos from an Inuit school project. (Again with the Canadians!)

4). There's this other guy who likes to post his responses to surveys similar to the stupid ones people fill their MySpace pages with, but these surveys are extra complicated, asking questions like "Steve McQueen or Marlon Brando?" And then he always throws in a paragraph's worth of explanation for his answer.

5). The guy who writes about which of his American friends he had dinner with that night. I'm not even sure where he's from -- he writes in English, but seems to be from Europe.

I'm always saddened, though, by the ones that are just like the shitty, pointless diaries we all kept in third grade. "Woke up, went to work, had a salad for dinner, talked the phone." Why does this need to be immortalized on the internet? I wouldn't even immortalize such things in my HEAD.

Lifetime Television for... um, whom?

In my family, we like to mock my older sister for watching far too many Lifetime Original movies. When she is not watching Lifetime, she is either out back smoking a cigarette, or watching The Hills and Laguna Beach on MTV. She is 38 years old, and agoraphobic (this is the diagnosis agreed upon by me, and by my aunt, who is a Canadian nurse, which gives the diagnosis some degree of professional cred). My sister is usually good-natured about the ribbing we give her. She knows the movies suck.

Lately, for some reason, my mother has also taken to watching Lifetime Original movies. And I've noticed that they all have the same characters and plot.

1. Nice woman with a sort of clueless husband and one or two children.

2. Crazy ass pyscho woman who is either a neighbor, or the nice woman's best friend.

3. Children, usually good and well-behaved, of the nice woman. These children will be eventually framed by Crazy Ass Psycho for bad behavior and somehow exonerated in the end.

4. Uninvolved, weak, stupid men.

The nice woman's very existence and life pisses off Crazy Ass Psycho, who then does everything in her power to dismantle this life, and kills a few people and family pets in the process. Eventually, someone -- usually one of the nice children -- cottons on to Crazy Ass Psycho's psychosis, and the police show up, and the two women fight, near to the death, and the nice woman wins.

Lifetime fancies itself "television for women."

Now, I ask you: is this entertaining? My mother and my sister will both tell you it's ludicrous and stupid, yet they can't turn away... similar to viewing a car accident on the interstate. I mean, I find this so bizarre. If something sucks, I change the channel. I find it hard to believe that this is the channel that caters to any sort of majority of women. I suspect CBS caters to more women than Lifetime.

I just don't get it.

Yeah, it's still me, and no, my LiveJournal doesn't diss you.

I just had to make a change. Preferably a change to something pink and girly. I was so over the navy blue with polka dots backdrop; everyone on Blogger uses that one, or the white version. And I don't care if you don't like my pink and girly blog template; my research shows that no one reads this anyway...

I suspect that there are select people out there who are not privy to my LiveJournal who believe that I use it to diss them. That is not necessarily the case, so stop being so narcissistic. I use my LiveJournal to have girl talk with my girls when they are not around to chat with. If you don't know what girl talk can involve, it's best you steer clear.

And, no, Evil Rob -- you still don't get to read it. Ever. It's just far too incriminating.

Bumper Stickers Are Stupid

Here's the thing about bumper stickers: they annoy people. That's all they do. Your bumper sticker even annoys the guy in the car behind you, who has 10 bumper stickers of his own. And have we sunk to such lows of rudeness in our society that we have to go out of our way to annoy one another? I mean, we all seem to be pretty capable of annoying each other just by the way we drive and the way we're so rude in line at the local Safeway and the way we slam doors in each other's faces as we're entering buildings... Do we really need to SHOP for annoying and then stick it on our cars?

Herewith, some of my favorite annoying stickers of the last week:

1). "Did the zebras paint the stripes on themselves?" This superimposed in bubble letters over a bunch of shiny zebras and crosses. It was, first of all, an ugly ass sticker. It reminded me of those heinous Lisa Frank metallic stickers we used to collect when we were in the 5th grade -- you know, totally covering every inch of our Trapper Keeper binders? So, a hideous eyesore to begin with. And then the ridiculous "in joke" of all the Creationists out there. "Ooh, if there's no God, how'd the zebras get their stripes?" I mean, is this the best argument you've got for Creation? Wow. And what's awesome and compelling about it can be distilled down to one small oval bumper sticker. That's amazing.

2). "Live well. Be happy. Annoy a liberal." Psssst, Conservatives! We're not the ones who are annoyed all the time!!!!!!!!!!!!!

3). "W: Still President." I'm pretty sure this was on the bumper of a W supporter's car, but here's the thing: when you emphasize the still like that, it makes it sound like you think he's been president for an eternity. So it kind of defeats its own purpose. Other than to annoy everyone else on the road.

4). "If God's not a Broncos fan, why are sunsets orange?" Please.

5). "Av-aholic." Yeah, I know, even friends of mine have this sticker on their cars, expressing their fandom for the Colorado Avalanche. But why do we have to let complete strangers in traffic know what sports teams we support?

6). "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless beauty." Um, what, you stupid hippy?

7). "God loves the whole world. No exceptions." Oh really? I can think of a fair few.

8). "My dog/cat/parrot is smarter than your honor student." What?? Who cares? Are you so threatened by someone's honor student that you were compelled to buy this sticker?

9). "Hang up and drive." Inevitably on a vehicle being driven by some fucking jackass yammering away on a cell phone. Indeed.

10). "Visualize using your turn signal." This was originally a slam against freewheeling hippies with a "Visualize world peace" sticker on their cars. Apparently only hippies don't use turn signals. My research tells me the turn signal problem is more widespread than that, but what do I know? After all, I'm the chick who thinks bumper stickers are stupid.

11). "Don't blame me, I voted for Kerry." Christ, if that's the best comeback we've got, no wonder we can't win a damn election.

And then, don't you find yourself reacting to the annoying bumper stickers by countering them in your head with a bumper sticker you'd like to get? Yeah, fuck the Broncos, man, I'm gonna get a sticker that says "If the Devil's not a Raiders fan, why do they wear black?" (Weak, I know. I can't make up slogans to save my life.)

Sure, every now and then I see a bumper sticker I find funny. Slower minds keep right. That's a good one. And I wouldn't mind having selected quotes from Kevin Smith movies on a series of bumper stickers. But I doubt I would stick them on my car. I wouldn't want to anger people, thus setting up my car to be the target of some psycho who thinks bumper stickers are annoying and decides to retaliate against my sentiments by keying my car or hitting me in a parking lot or just kicking in a panel or two.

Not that someone would be driven to that.

Daniel's Head: Not So Deformed After All

Well, no, I don't actually have photographic proof of this yet or anything. But I did take Daniel for a haircut on Monday night and let the lady clipper it to within a half inch of its life, and it looks really good! I don't think his head is as deformed as I thought it was. Maybe it's rounded off in places as he's grown? I don't know how skull-formation works. But I am truly pleased to know that we can do crew-cuts without any major issues, and that the whole Halloween costume in the works will be fine (it involves shaving his head completely, which he is totally excited about and would rather do right now than wait till October).


For posterity, the photo that I already emailed to most of you is above. I cannot wait to do a scrapbook page about this one. About The Look. It kills me -- kills me -- that he is only 5 and can achieve this expression while wearing sunglasses. I wonder if the personality would translate to the big screen? Maybe I should become one of those parents who push their kids into show business just to make money off them.