Hey all. Julie and I made it up to Loveland yesterday for our first ski day of the season. The mountain had a decent base of nice crisp snow and my freshly waxed skis were slippery as hell. But, I thought I would change things up a bit and try our snowboarding for the afternoon. With Julie’s help (and extreme patience), I started to get the hang of it, though I never graduated past “threat to all within 25ft radius upon unloading from chair” status. It was a blast, though. She and I are both a wee bit sore today – but if you’re not sore, you weren’t trying hard enough. That’s what I think, at least.
On a semi-separate note, our CP+B gift this year was one of those HD pocket cams. Great little gadget! We took it up to the mountain and snagged some fun shots. Mind you, this was also my first time doing a video, so it’s not the cleanest editing job you’ve ever seen, but it gets the job done.
Sorry for the “rhymy” headline. Just wanted to share this photo Julie and I took last night after we’d finished setting up and decorating our first ever Christmas tree. Once we got all the ornaments home, I think we learned a few lessons on color coordination and such. But, by and large, I’d say it’s a fine looking tree. And we’re so happy to have it in our new house. Murphy, on the other hand, is still a bit confused about the whole affair.
In case you hadn’t seen this yet, or just wanted a warm fuzzy feeling in advance of tomorrow’s epic Civil War game, I present you the controversial I Love My Ducks video (controversial as Disney says they never gave permission for the use of Donald in this video – lighten up Disney!).
Just saw this – in YouTube’s new 1080p to boot! Thought I’d share the joyous holiday vibes and repost this for your viewing and listening pleasure. Man I miss the Muppets.
Slaon.com offers a helpful condensed summary of Palin’s Going Rogue so you don’t have to endure what is sure to be the pain of reading it. But, since everyone’s talking about the word according to Sarah, it might be useful to have the skinny on what she wrote (or what she told Lynn Vincent to write). Follow this link for all your reading displeasure.
Slaon.com offers a helpful condensed summary of Palin’s Going Rogue so you don’t have to endure what is sure to be the pain of reading it. But, since everyone’s talking about the word according to Sarah, it might be useful to have the skinny on what she wrote (or what she told Lynn Vincent to write). Follow this link for all your reading displeasure.
And if you want a real “whoa, what just happened” moment, read Salon’s posting of Lynn Vincent’s supposed leaked diary on meeting Sarah Palin and their interviews for the book. It’s pretty scary. It really reads like a joke, but I haven’t seen anything anywhere admitting that it’s a hoax. Anywho, read with a grain of salt. That link is here.
And if you want a real “whoa, what just happened” moment, read Salon’s posting of Lynn Vincent’s supposed leaked diary on meeting Sarah Palin and their interviews for the book. It’s pretty scary. It really reads like a joke, but I haven’t seen anything anywhere admitting that it’s a hoax. Anywho, read with a grain of salt. That link is here.
So, that’s it, we’re done! Julie and I have moved into our brand new house and boy are our arms tired. We closed on Friday night, as the snow began to fall. It was a race to get to the title company in time. With traffic and the impending snowmaggedon, both Julie and I were a bit late, but no worries. Closing happened pretty quick and we were a bit stunned that after about 50 minutes, we were handed an envelope with a ton of keys.
We drove back to our apartment and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine to celebrate (while continuing to pack, of course). That was our last night in Thornton, and it was a busy one. We stuffed as many things as we could in boxes and tried to organise as best we could. But our excitement overcame us and we decided to haul a small load of fragiles down to the house that night to see the place for the first time as owners. Murphy came along and was thoroughly confounded by all the hubbub.
At first I thought I was reading an Onion headline: ‘Phone texting reveals sensitive new “metrotextual”.’ But, alas, this comes from Reuters, so it can’t be a joke. The article says that men have become quite comfortable texting other men with “x’s” (which is a shorthand for ‘kiss’) as a sign-off. According to the article and a T-Mobile research study, “nearly a quarter of men (22 percent) regularly include a kiss on texts to their male mates.” I call BS, or not. Who knows, it may be true. But then it goes on to claim that 1 in 10 men over the age of 55 also do the same. For reals? Seems fishy to me. A clinical psychologist, Ron Bracey, was quoted in the article as saying, “the advent of mobile phones and social media means more communication is done non-verbally, and through this it seems men can more easily share their feelings with others — especially their male friends.”
So, let’s presume 25% of you guys are actually signing off with a bromantic “x” in SMS’s to you male pals. Is it because you’ve always wanted to share your dude love, but have only just now found a safe way to do it? Personally, I feel like the “x” is a fairly innocuous sign-off symbol and doesn’t have much deep meaning at all. Hell, I’m not sure the symbol has ever signified anything more than a bit of whimsical flirtation at best. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the symbol – in fact I appreciate it. To me, the “x’s” and the “o’s” have always been a friendly coda, the norm in the Internet age when tapping out “sincerely”, “love”, or “with kindest regards” on our keyboards or thumb-pads has gotten too laborious or unnecessary. And that’s not meant contemptuously, it just is what it is – a norm.
What gets me, though, is the odd progression of this metrosexual/metrotextual meme. Poor actual homosexuals are now left with a comical linguistic association with men who put too much gel in their hair, wear argyle and send cellular love around the world with “x’s”. That seems a bit unfair, trivial and trite. Maybe we should instead call these men enthusiastic-dressers and x-texters respectively, and drop these plays on words respectfully.
My MINI sat waiting for me in the snow this morning with a peculiar outgrowth of snow on the passenger side. Oh, that goofy Colorado snow! My new tires kicked butt today – the car drove like a champ on the ice and snow and I made it into work safe, sound and prompt.
The above graphic is not real, lemme say that first. But if the ISPs had their way, they’d love to sell you this. And this is why net neutrality, the set of proposed rules to keep all Internet traffic equal, is so important. Because the Internet should not be like cable. The Internet should be like, well, like the Internet – a conduit of equal opportunity. [via Gizmodo]
