McDonald’s and Taco Bell

The menu at McDonald’s is a fairly static thing. I know they have tried to change this in the last few years by adding premium chicken and fancy salads and mixed coffee drinks, but if you want any of those things, there are better options elsewhere. Most people I know who eat at McDonald’s get the same one or two things everytime they go. People go to McDonald’s for double cheeseburgers, Big Macs, Quarter Pounders, and french fries. The things I order when I got to McDonald’s have been on the menu since before I was born. The McDonald’s menu offers an anchor of stability in this ever-changing world. I appreciate that.

On the other end of the spectrum is Taco Bell. Every time I go to Taco Bell, their menu seems completely different since the last time I was there. One week they’ll start grilling burritos, the next week they’ll start putting potatoes in everything. The interesting thing about these “new” menu items is that they’re usually just a rearranged version of something they already had. First they added gordita and chalupa shells. Then they mixed it up by adding something called “ranchero” sauce to the gorditas. Once we get tired of that, they’ll take the sauce from a ranchero gordita, put it on top of some nachos, and you have the new and exciting Ranchero Nachos! I get the feeling that most of the new items originate in the back of the kitchen sometime around 3 a.m. when the minimum wage employees get bored and start mixing things together in weird ways.

Today when I went to Taco Bell, they had a new “blackjack” taco. It’s a regular taco, but it has a blackish shell and some pepper jack sauce. Previously, they featured tacos with orangey red shells and something called “Volcano” sauce. If the Blackjack sauce is a hit, I’m sure it’ll follow the same path as the Volcano sauce and start showing up on nachos and burritos. Sometimes I feel like I’m being conned into getting excited about this stuff, but I have to give credit for their ingenuity.

Cooking

Now that Emily is here and I have less free time overall, I'm somehow finding more time to cook. And by "cook", I don't mean whip up a blue box of mac 'n cheese (although I do make a mean box of mac 'n cheese). I'm talking about actual, recipe based dishes that involve pots, pans, and occasional trips to the grocery store. In trying to figure out how I've been able to do this, I realized that cooking the perfect activity for me right now. First off, it requires me to get out of the house, but only on trips to the grocery store, where I can leave Emily happily strapped in her car seat while I roam the aisles in search of ingredients. Secondly, it gives me a something productive to do while she's sleeping, otherwise I end up playing too much Farkle on facebook.

When I really got to thinking about it, it dawned on me that cooking is like a live version of a WoW quest. You have to accept the quest, go out in search of the required items, and perform a designated number of steps in a particular order. The only difference is that when you're done, instead of having a Fine Leather Cloak, you've got a cider braised pork medallion. In either case, you get +2 to stamina.

So off I go to the grocery store, where instead of buying things like frozen pizzas and canned soup, I'm buying whole chickens and pork roasts and ricotta cheese. Which by the way, if you're looking for ricotta cheese, it's not with the other cheeses like parmesean and chedder. It took a phone call to my mother to figure this out, because neither I nor the walmart employee knew where it was. Turns out, it was near the cottage cheese, which I'm not entirely convinced is a cheese at all. But I could be wrong...I'm still kinda new to this.

Score One for the Human Race

Emily is 8 weeks old today. She stays awake more now than she used to. She holds her gaze on objects that interest her, and she'll grasp things placed in her open palm, but she can't walk yet, or even stand up! Crazy, huh? She pretty much just lays around. Apparently this is normal for newborn babies. Human babies, that is. Giraffe babies are up and walking within 30 minutes of being born. See for yourself:

I was a bit disappointed when I realized how far behind giraffes Emily is, but then I found out that the gestation period of a giraffe is between 400 and 460 days, compared to around 280* for humans. This means that a giraffe has had 57-65 weeks to develop before it's born, whereas a human has only had 40 weeks. So a 1 day old giraffe has been developing for as long as a 4-6 month old baby. This still puts giraffes way ahead of humans, since I have never heard of a 4 month old baby that could walk, or even stand.

This has me wondering whether a baby that stayed in the womb for 60 weeks would come out with legs strong enough to hold their own weight. While I was mulling this over, it occurred to me how silly this whole debate is to begin with. I'm comparing apples to oranges here! I don't know why it didn't occur to me before, but giraffes walk on four legs and people walk on two. The coordination required to balance on two legs has got to be significantly more sophistocated. So to even the race a little, I should be comparing a giraffe baby that can walk to a human baby that can crawl, and from what I can tell, human babies usually learn to crawl somewhere between 6 and 9 months. So if you compare a giraffe that stays in the womb for 65 weeks to a 6 month old baby that has learned to crawl, they're actually at about the same point developmentally. Of course, after that, the human leaves the giraffe in the dust by learning to do things like dance, read, operate cell phones, drive cars, etc. So in the end, I guess we are the more advanced species after all.

*I think this number is actually high, because it represents a period of 40 weeks, which technically includes 2 weeks before conception. It might be a moot point if a similar method is used in calculating animal gestation periods, but I don't know.

Blood Donations

I started donating blood in college when I realized they gave out free t-shirts. I hate needles, but I'm a sucker for freebies. I've got more blood donor shirts than I need, and they never fit anyway, but I've kept giving whenever I have the time and opportunity. My distaste for needles has lessened over time, especially when weighed against the benefit. I suppose I give blood for the same reason I stop for stray dogs...I hope that if my dog were wandering beside the road, someone would stop for her. I realize there isn't a direct correlation between me doing the right thing and someone else doing the right thing for me in the future, but I can hope.

You can't donate blood when you're pregnant, so I haven't given in almost a year. Yesterday I got a card in the mail from the red cross notifying me of an upcoming blood drive in my area. I get these periodically, but the text on this one was amusing enough that I thought I would share. I won't post the whole thing, just a couple of sentences to sum it up:

"You may have struggled with many fears the first time you donated blood. You may still struggle with those fears each time you donate. While you might be afraid of needles, someone else might be afraid of dying."

I guess they needed a nice way of saying, "Hey wuss....SUCK IT UP!!!"

The "Old Lady Paper" Revisited

I cancelled my newspaper subscription yesterday. As you might recall (but probably not), I've written here before that one of my main reasons for subscribing in the first place was to get the weekly tv schedule. Daniel thinks it's funny that I use the printed tv schedule at all and always refers to it as the "old lady paper". I've never quite understood this moniker. Are old women the only ones who want to save time in finding a tv program to watch? Do all young people these days have digital cable and satellite tv, therefor granting them access to on screen programming guides? In any case, I've always thought his depiction of my need for a printed tv guide was unfounded. At least, that's how I felt until last Sunday. That was the day I happened to be at my grandma's house for a family event. I was sitting in the living room when grandma came walking out of the front room* carrying the tv schedule. There is no tv in the front room, so I wondered why she'd bothered to take the schedule back there in the first place. As it turns out, she'd taken it back there because that's where her sewing machine is. What is the connection, you might ask? Well, before I tell you, let me remind you that the newspaper changed the format of the tv paper a while back and it no longer comes stapled together. This adds the weekly annoyance of me having to staple it together myself, which is a small inconvience, but an inconvienence none the less. As it turns out, my grandmother finds this lack of staples equally annoying, so each week, she goes to her sewing machine, and sews a line down the middle of the tv schedule. When I found this out, I enjoyed a moment of blissful validation in knowing that I was not alone in my distaste for what the newspaper was putting me through. However, this moment was quickly followed by the realization that I was sharing this moment with my 90 year old grandmother, which means that perhaps Daniel isn't completely unfounded in his characterization of my printed tv schedule.

*I have never understood why the "front room" was called the "front room" as it is actually located at the very back of the house.

Wanna hear a secret? Being a new mom is hard, ya'll! I can think of other life changing situations that are probably a lot more emotionally draining, but for sheer exhaustion and stress, this has to be up there. Keep in mind that I'm not feeling that at the moment or I probably wouldn't feel like updating this outdated blog, but there have been some rough days the last few weeks. Everyone says parenthood is so rewarding, and I'm sure it will be soon, but for now, it's more like being a personal assistant to someone who's demanding and insists you be on call all hours of the day. Then makes you get up and do things for them all hours of the day. Then forgets your birthday and doesn't even recognize you when they see you in the store. I know the day is fast approaching when that little face will look up at me and smile and it will all change. Even now, at 5 weeks, Emily can hold her focus on things, so during the short spurts when she's awake and active, she'll look with those big eyes and just stare at me for a minute.

For about a week there, Emily wasn't sleeping very well at night. Or at least, she wasn't sleeping in her crib very well. She'd fall asleep with me holding her, but would wake up as soon as I set her down. Now if it takes me more than about 30 minutes to get her to sleep in the middle of the night, I just plop down on the sofa and we sleep there for a few hours until she gets hungry again. The last week or so has been much better though. Last night, she went down at about 10:30, then woke up at 12:30, 4:45, and again at 6. Each time, she ate and went right back to sleep. It's amazing how that four hour stretch makes such a huge difference.

We've at least gotten in enough of a routine that I can get out to run errands to the grocery store or the library. We just head out after she eats and she usually falls asleep in the car then stays asleep in her seat for the duration of the trip.

I'll try to make future posts a bit more riveting, or at least have them include some cute photos. For now, I hear someone calling me....

Pregnant Women are Smug

The funniest blog I know of right now is The Bloggess. The lady who does that blog posted this link via twitter and I thought I would share it with you, because I've watched it about 10 times and it still makes me laugh. (BTW, there are a couple of lines you might not want blaring from your cubicle at work, so be forewarned.)

Pregnant Tootling

Last night while waiting in the check-out line at Walmart, I farted, completely against my will. I wasn't actively trying to stop it because, to be completely honest, I didn't know it was coming. It just hapened. If you have ever been, lived with, or spent a great deal of time with a pregnant lady, this will not completely shock you. If you think pregnancy is all glowing complexion and the beauty of new life, I'm sorry to have to break it to you, but there are stinky parts too.

Pregnant or not, if you happen to accidentally fart around people, it's embarrassing. The times that this has happened to me, I play dumb. I act like nothing happened and hope I'm the only one who hear/smelled anything. Sometimes I might be right, other times people might just be polite enough to ignore it and vacate the area. Very few times will people actually call you out on this in public situations. Last night when this happened to me, there wasn't a noise to worry about, and there wasn't a room-clearing stink, but let's just said my fart added a certain aroma to the area around me. I was the last one in line, so I only had to worry about the people directly in front of me, which happened to be a mom and her son. He was about 6 years old and they were sort of joking around and talking about this and that. A few moments after I noticed the smell, the mom leaned over and whispered something to her son. Kids at that age don't always understand that when you whisper something too them, it's because you don't want the people around you to know what you're talking about, so instead of whispering anything back, he replied to whatever she said with "It wasn't me!" The mom motioned for the boy to keep his voice down, then whispered something again, to which the boy replied in the same volume, "Mom, I didn't do it!!" At this point, I could no longer pretend my tootling had gone unnoticed, but I certainly wasn't going to fess up either when I had a perfectly good scapegoat standing right there! This was the end of the mom's conversation with the boy over the topic, so I just minded my own business and pretended nothing happened.

I was telling this story to my mom later that night and we agreed that there is a definite pecking order when it comes to blame for farting. As far as I'm concerned, if a stink is discovered in the room, and someone makes mention of it, the order of blame goes as such: dogs -> young boys -> grown men -> old people -> women. I'm not saying this is the most likely order for finding out who the actual offender is, I'm just saying this is the order in which blame should be assigned. If you were to chart this progression of blame, I'm not sure where pregnant women fall, but I am pretty sure that if you were plotting actual guilt, we're probably pretty close to the top.

Slugs

At night, it's not uncommon to see a slug along one of the baseboards in my kitchen. I don't think I've ever seen more than one, but it's not always the same slug because sometimes I'll see a really little one and sometimes I see a big one. I guess they have a rotation set up. I don't know exactly where they're coming in, or why, but it might have to do with my trash can? I haven't really investigated too thoroughly.

The annoying things about slugs is that I can't kill them like other pests. If I see a spider, I step on it. If I see a wasp, I spray it from as far away as possible. If I see a mouse, I put out a trap. But what do I do with a slug? Sometimes I just throw them outside, which probably does more to frustrate the slug than it does to deter him. (I say "him", but that's not really accurate. Turns out, slugs are either hermaphrodites or females, depending on whether they've ever had their penises gnawed off.) I've heard you can set out a slug trap bated with beer, but when I tried last summer, I caught a grand total of zero slugs. I would try it again out of desperation, but we don't really drink beer, so I'd have to go to a liquor store 8 months pregnant to get a Pabst (I'm assuming slugs aren't beer connoisseurs). Plus, I don't like the idea of leaving beer out in the yard with my dog as I don't know whether she is genetically predisposed to alcoholism.

This morning when I went outside to feed my dog, there was a huge slug on the side of the house, along with two big slugs on the outer rim of my dog's food bowl. I already have an outer pan of water that the dog's food bowl sits in, but the slugs were so long and adhesive, they'd managed to cross the moat. This was the final straw. I used a stick to gather the slugs together, then went looking for the Morten girl. As soon as that salt hit the slugs, they immediately recoiled to about a third of their size. I guess this is the worst thing you can do to a slug. When I got home, they hadn't moved from their original locations, so it looked like some sort of slimy slug death camp right there on my back deck. I left the slugs where they'd died just to serve as an example to the others, but I'm not sure slugs have attained the sort of cognitive abilities required to appreciate the weight of the threat against them. I'll just have to wait and see.

Rabid Velociraptors - Knowing is Half the Battle

Last week someone at work sent me a link to a webpage explaining the dangers of velociraptors. According to the website, "velociraptor attack is the 3rd leading cause of death for men age 27-29." And this whole time I've thought the 3rd leading cause of death for that age group was scurvy (right behind "stupid bicycle tricks" and heart disease).

After calculating the risk of death by velociraptor, I got to thinking about what other under-publicized causes of death might be lurking in the shadows of ignorance. The first thing that came to my mind was rabies. Most people don't realize how serious rabies is, but you really have to be careful. For instance, you may think that rabies can be cured by a little shot, but that's only if you seek early treatment. Once the rabies virus has reached the brain and symptoms begin to appear, treatment is useless. You can count on one hand the number of documented cases of people surviving symptomatic rabies. This is serious business!

While I was thinking about this, it occured to me that there was a potention overlap in these two dangers. I can't find any research on the subject, but can you imagine the damage that could be spread if velociraptors can carry rabies? I've only ever heard of rabies infecting warm-blooded mammels, but if velociraptors have evolved to be able to open doors, what else are they capable of???

I suppose it's a moot point as to whether velociraptors can transmit rabies, because what are the chances of surviving a velociraptor attack in the first place? However, have you seen the amount of saliva those thing produce? Consider the dire situation you'd be in if you survived a velociraptor attack with only cuts and scrapes, only to find out later that the infected raptor spit got into one of the cuts and left you with a raging case of rabies? Talk about raining on your parade.

Please, dear readers, I don't write this to scare you. In fact, I hope, if nothing else, this post will empower you. Know your enemy (whether it be velociraptors, rabies, or both) and know how to combat them. If you fear you may be exposed to any of these threats in the future, please keep a tire iron handy and talk to your doctor about vaccination.

Baby room update

For those of you interested in baby updates...this one's for you.

We got the replacement leg for the crib so Daniel finished putting that together. We've since added a glider, which is amazingly comfortable. The one we got not only glides, but reclines, which I think means if it were a decorating component on The Sims, the "comfort" stat would be a solid 9.

In other baby-related news, this week marks the transition from second to third trimester. Still smooth sailing up to this point, so no complaints. I have a check-up with my doctor tomorrow afternoon, but I think it's just going to be a quick one. No ultrasounds and no drinking glucose laden orange soda this time.

Lols

You know how people often write "LOL" in online conversations, even though they're not really LOLing?  Well, here is a blog that actually makes me LOL on a regular basis.  Except sometimes I'm at work and have to stiffle it, but the LOLs are real.

My neighbors called the police and all I got was this lousy blog post

Up until recently, the house next door to us and the one across the street have been unoccupied. They've been this way for quite some time, but in the course of a month, both have sold and had people move in. It's nice to have neighbors again, but we haven't really gotten to know them very well yet. I haven't had time to notice things like whether they like to sit out on their deck, how often they mow their lawns, or when they tend to come and go. Likewise, they haven't had time to notice that some weeks we forget to put our trash out, and on occasion, our garage door likes to pretend it's going to close, then wait until our backs are turned, open back up and leave the garage light flashing. As a result, when our new neighbors noticed that when most of the lights in our house were off, but our garage door was up and the light had been flashing frantically for over 2 hours, they decided to be on the safe side and call the police.

It doesn't really bother me that someone called, because I'm sure they were just trying to make sure my house wasn't being burgled. I just wish I knew what the criteria or theshold is for "suspicious activity" these days. For instance, the officer mentioned that the light had been that way for two hours, so whoever called had been paying attention for that long. If you think your neighbor's house had been broken into, perhaps giving the perpetrator a 2 hour head start is not a good idea. In two hours time, the majority of my worldly posessions could have been carted out the back door and sold on the black market. (Is there a black market for old NES cartriges and a stockpile of Life cereal? I may never know) I just wish that if there's to be an unofficial neighborhood crime watch, I would at least know who's in charge so I can tell them about my glitchy garage door and how running the dishwasher and the microwave simultaneously sometimes trips a circuit breaker. I don't want to be trapsing out to the fuse box with a flashlight some evening and end up in handcuffs.

Does my car know the three laws?

We bought a new car this past weekend. Today, I spent some time reading through the owner's manual, and I'm convinced that cars will be driving themselves within a decade. I present this evidence for your consideration:

Power steering - A long time ago, when you turned the steering wheel, that turned something else, which turned something else which eventually turned the tires. Sort of an "arm bone connected to the wrist bone" type situation. Now, the effort I expend turning the steering wheel is no where near strong enough to turn the tires, but I get help from the car to make it easier. If you've ever had the power steering go out on your car or you've driven a car old enough not to have this feature, you'll know what a miracle power steering is.

Speed sensitive controls - I'm excited to be driving a car with speed sensitive volume. If I start going faster, the radio gets louder so that I don't have to adjust the volume when getting on and off the freeway. Turning that little nob is such a hassle, right? Daniel's truck has this feature, and I love it. On our new car, not only can the radio volume alter itself based on my speed, but the windshield wipers do the same. My last car had variable speed intermittent wipers, but this takes it to a whole new level.

Anti-lock brakes - At one point, it guess it was common knowledge that if you're trying to stop your car on a slippery surface, you should pump your breaks repeatedly in order to keep them from locking up. Those days are no more. The concept still works, but no manual pumping necessary with ABS. Now, the cars do the pumping automatically whenever they sense that it might be necessary. I don't know how they know to do this, but it's probably more reliable than me trying to remember to do it myself.

Vehicle Stability Assist - This was a new one on me. I think it's a combination of traction control and electronic stability control. Basically, if the car starts skidding, it will take over and apply breaks to individual wheels in order to correct an over or under steer. In addition, the car might reduce or increase the engine power in order to attain the overall goal of me not wrecking.

In addition, my car locks and unlocks itself, turns on the headlights when it gets dark, and re-programs my radio presets if I drive outside the range of my usual stations. Mine doesn't, but a lot of cars offer a navigation system that gives you directions and keep you from getting lost. I've even heard of cars that can park themselves. Don't get me wrong though. I don't mind that the cars are starting to drive themselves. All I ask is that when they finally take over, the ride be smooth enough that I can do a crossword puzzle and not spill my drink.

Cute as a function of familiarity

A while back, I read an article on the internet about how real was too real when it came to artificial intelligence, robotics and CGI. I remember the page had charts and a write up about it, but I can't remember what it was called or even if it was an actual scientific study or just a joke on xkcd*. Either way, the idea was that anytime you see a human-like representation of something that isn't actually human (anything from a robot to Gumby to Tom Hanks in Polar Express), as the realism increases, the emotional attachment increases to a point, then drops off. In other words, as it becomes more realistic, it reaches a peak cuteness, then just becomes creepy. It was meant to explain why you feel an emotional response to characters in Wall-E, but not the ones in Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within.

vs

The reason I got to thinking about all this was because I saw this picture of a cute baby:

When I see a picture like that, there is a definite emotional reaction - an internal "squee" of sorts. This might just be because I'm 6 months pregnant, but I think it's more than that. I suspect most people would have have an emotional reaction to this picture, although some might be more effusive than others. With this picture, my attention is especially drawn to the baby's eyes. This is because, when a person is born, their eyes are as big as they will ever be, even though their head starts out small. This results in baby's eyes being disproportionately large compared to the size of their faces. Supposedly this is part of the reason why people have that automatic emotional response to babies and tend to perceive them as "cute". From there, I got to wondering if you could plot a baby's "cuteness" as a function of how similar they look to a full grown adult similar to the way you can plot the emotional reaction to human-like representations as a function of their realism

If you were to plot such a graph, on one end you'd have babies that look the least like adults. This would include babies that have some sort of physical deformity, but I think it would also include newly born babies. I'm not talking about newborns that have been cleaned up and had cute hats places on their heads, I'm talking about babies moments after they're born. At first sight, there is no doubt a strong emotional reaction from the parents of this child, but I don't think an objective observer would judge these babies as "cute". They're sort of slimy and gross looking and would probably score low both on "cute" and "adult-like":
Further along on the graph would be babies that have grown a little and are starting to look more like adults. Take the baby pictured above, for instance. He's been cleaned up, can hold eye contact and probably smiles a lot. These babies exhibit many characteristics of an adult, but they're still disproportional in the way they look and awkward in the way they move. I think this puts them at the height of their cuteness and gives them the innate ability to elicit a strong emotional response. If you don't think so, just take another look at that baby up there. Can you think of anything you could change to make this baby cuter? I can't think of anything. Maybe a puppy in the background, but I think that just reinforces my point.

As for the far end of the "adult-like" spectrum, I can only speculate on what would cause a baby to score high in adult qualities. Perhaps one of those children with the rare disorder that causes them to age incredibly fast? I can't find a picture of a baby who has that to determine how early that becomes noticeable. The only real-life example I can think of is less specific, but if you've ever seen a baby that looks like an old man, you'll know what I'm talking about. I can't put my finger on exactly what gives a baby this look, but they just tend to be bald, have less baby fat and generally look like they're scowling:

VS

In closing, I'd just like you to ear in mind that any information seen in this post is not based on any scientific study, double blind study groups, or statistical analysis. Unfortunately, until I can either find or become a wealthy benefactor, this whole hypothesis will remain complete conjecture. In the mean time, I did make a graph to represent this jist of my theory and hopefully lend it some credibility:


* EDIT: Thanks to the help of an astute reader, the mystery has been solved. The original theory plots what is known as the "Uncanny Valley".

Tunica

Have you seen the billboards around town advertising Tunica?  On I-40 near The Big Church, there's one that says Tunica is "Like a 24/7 Beer Commercial".  I've never wanted to be in a beer commercial.  In fact, I think I would just be annoyed if I had to subsist in a beer commercial, so I must not be their target audience.  This billboard made me less likely to go to Tunica for my gaming needs.  Maybe that was part of the point of the billboard though...to keep out us riff-raff who don't like beer commercials.  Last night though, I was coming back across the river bridge and saw another billboard that described Tunica as a "Highway to 'Hell Yeah!'".  I'm still not going to go, but I had to admit that this one won me back a little bit.

If I'm not back in 30 minutes....keep waiting.

Why am I posting a picture of a half-assembled crib? Because to get any further with the pieces they sent us, we would have to add "duct tape" to the list of required tools. The piece they sent us that was labeled as the front left leg is actually a mutant combination of a couple of different pieces, the result of which is not useful anywhere in the assembly.

They company had a form especially for this purpose in their instructions, so I emailed them a request for a replacement piece and am waiting to hear back. They were supposed to contact me within 48 hours of when I sent the email. That means I expect to hear back from them in the next 30 minutes or else...I guess my pizza is free. I don't know.

Springing Forward

Three years ago on my birthday, I thought I was turning 26. Daniel and I actually had a lengthy discussion about this. He insisted I was turning 27 and I insisted I was not*. After we'd resorted to using pencil and paper (including both math problems and a handy diagram representing age progression) to setting the issue, I realized I was turning 27 after all. Nothing had really changed, but I felt like I'd lost an entire year of my life. It was similar to the out-of-sync feeling you get when flying to a different time zone and realizing that your 12 hour flight only cost you 6 hours. These sorts of adjustments are hard because you're the only one trying to make them. You find yourself trying to reconcile being 27 or wanting to take a nap at 9am while everyone else is whipping past you on their unaltered, parallel paths. Twice a year, though, something odd happens. Everyone gets together and sets a date and decides to throw themselves out of sync together. This is known as Daylight Savings Time.

I always think of time as this unstoppable force. Even though I understand that the passage of time and it's measurement aren't the same thing, they're so intertwined that it's hard not to think of them as one in the same. From this perspective, Daylight Savings is a moment when everyone just agrees to suspend reality for a moment and move ourselves forward or backward in an instant. The only other comparable event I can think of is when a country's money has become worth so little that they just lop some zero off the end of the value and start again. Just imagine if this devaluation ever occurred on the same day as Daylight Savings time. One minute, you're standing there a millionaire at 3am, and the next minute, you've got a 10 spot in your pocket at 2am. I imagine that would be a little disconcerting.


* this, by the way, is proof that you should not be offended when I forget your birthday or can't remember how old you are. Try as I may, I'm not good at remembering these things, and it is not an indication of how much I value you as a friend. As further proof, to even remember what year I got married, I have to count forward from the year Daniel and I started dating, and the only reason I can remember what year that was is because I had just bought a new car and I know it was an '03 model. The fact that I can remember what year I bought my car and not what year I started dating my husband is because I have had to fill out a lot of forms asking what year my car is, but I have never had to fill out a form asking what year I met my husband. If one of my friends ever becomes medically incapacitated and gives me power of attorney to fill out all their medical and insurance forms, I will probably start remembering their birthday every year. Let's hope it never comes to that.

Wading through Baby Names

Picking baby names is hard! I had looked at names for both sexes before I found out we were having a girl, but now we're really trying to narrow it down to a list of favorites. We've already decided not to tell anyone our choice until we've decided 100%, so don't expect any surprise revelations here. I will tell you that we currently have 2 front runners for first names, but it's a free for all with middle names. I wish we could just cram together our two favorite first names, but they have a certain similarity that keeps them from sounding good together, so we're having to look deeper down the list of possibilities.

The thing about picking a first and middle name is that you can't just pick whatever name sounds good on it's own. You have to take all these things into consideration:

• Cadence - You've got to make sure the first name sounds good with your last name and that all three names sound good together. For instance, there will be no names that start with P because my last name starts with a P and that would just make the poor child sound like a radio host of tv weather person (...and now for our weekend outlook...here's Penny Parker). A lot of issues with cadence can be ironed out by limiting your choices to a certain number of syllables and letter sequences. I'm just trying to avoid name combinations that end up sounding like German nannies or Dickens characters.
• Nicknames - I don't want to open up the door to any nicknames that I abhor. If my child comes to me at the age of 13, having decided that they want to be called by a nickname, I would like to be able to call them that (assuming it's not "T-Bone") without cringing every time I do.
• Initials - You don't want a little girl who's initials are "HOE" or "DUM". Even things that might seem cute ("ZIP" or "TAP") are just fodder for jokes. Pick names with the wrong initials, and not only are you setting your child up to be the butt of school yard teasing, they'll never know the luxury of monogrammed towels.

Thankfully, I've been using a couple of great baby naming resources to help me out. The absolute best baby naming site I've every used is BabyNameWizard.com, followed by Nymbler.com. Thanks to these sources, I've been able to find names that I like by themselves, and I've been able to find names that sound good with the first names we've got, I just haven't been able to find one that's both. That's what I'm really waiting for...that moment of inspiration when the right name falls into the middle and strikes me as a perfect fit. Then maybe I'll have some real news to deliver.

Duct tape goes nuclear?

I've heard the joke that duct tape is like The Force....it has a dark side, a light side, and it holds the universe together. Having used duct tape to fix all sorts of things, this joke has some truth to it and I never thought you'd be able to make something more handy and durable than a regular roll of sticky, silver duct tape. To prove me wrong, 3M now makes "nuclear grade" duct tape available from Amazon.com for about $14 a roll. If that isn't amusing enough, click through and read some of the reviews people have left for this stuff. It's well worth the 5 minutes of your time.

These aren't your grandma's prunes

It's fun to think about how things are perceived differently based on their packaging, specifically food packaging. Recently, I saw an article that talked about Tropicana having recently changed up their packaging. For as long as I can remember, cartons of Tropicana orange juice had been adorned with a picture of an orange with a straw coming out of it. Recently, Tropicana decided to change it's packaging up and some people didn't like that one bit. In fact, enough loyal customers disliked the change that Tropicana is switching back to their original packaging.*

Lately, I've noticed several brands changing their packaging (i.e. the entire line of Pepsi products) but one innovation that I never saw coming was a product called "Ones". I saw a commercial on TV for these and they're basically individually wrapped prunes. According to the ad, the individual wrappers are supposed to lock in the juicy sweetness, but I bet it's just so that they can charge more. Plus, if you've ever bought a package of prunes and seen them all squished together, it's not very appetizing. I'm curious how many people my age or younger have ever actually eaten a prune. Prunes have a bad rap as a food only eaten by people who are either old or constipated. I admit that I started eating prunes when I was a kid at my grandma's house, and I know she was at least one of those things. The stigma is so strong, in fact, that a few years back, prunes stopped being marketed as "prunes" and instead are now called what they actually are...dried plums. It would be like if everyone got together and started hating raisins, so manufacturers changed up the packaging and started calling them "dried grapes" until people realized that they're not so bad after all. I would certainly hope they wouldn't start individually wrapping grapes though, because eating those guys would take all day!

The same company that's selling "Ones" have also started marketing prune juice as "PlumSmart Plum Juice". I have never actually had prune juice, so I can't speak to either the flavor or "digestive benefits" of it. I will admit though, petty marketing change or not, I would feel much less awkward standing in the check out line with some stylish new Plum Juice in my cart than I would with a bottle of prune juice.


*On a side note, I would be interested in knowing if companies get as many complaints about changing a product's formula as they do about the packaging. In fact, I can think of tons of products who's packaging I've seen change over time, but I can't think of a single product that I've stopped using because I thought they had changed the formula on me.

Dreams

Something about pregnancy has started effecting my dreams. I don't mean my hopes and aspirations for the future, I mean the actual dreams I'm having at night. Before I got pregnant, I might remember my dream a couple of nights a week. On the other hand, there was a night this past week when I fell asleep at a normal time, then woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom (something which has become a regular event), woke up again before the alarm went off, and then woke up when the alarm actually went off. This gave me three distinct sleep periods, and I remember a different dream for each one. I've always known that you remember a dream better when you wake up, so that's part of the explanation I've heard as to why pregnancy can do this to you, but I have to think it's more than just that.

Last night, I had a dream where I was trying to pay my taxes at the YMCA. When I handed them my driver's license, it said my name was "Elizabeth Cocalo". (Co Ca Lo is the name of the company that made our nursery bedding by the way, so that's where that came from) They tried to arrest me for having false ID, but I also had ID with my actual name on it, so they let me go. Then they refused to give me a haircut because they insisted my fake ID proved that I wasn't a U.S. Citizen. The lady was trying to be discreet about it, so she just slipped me a note that said "People with green cards are not eligible to receive haircuts". I was able to convince them that it was all just a misunderstanding and they agreed to let me get a haircut. Unfortunately, there were a lot of other people (bona fide U.S. citizens, I suppose) who were there for haircuts, so I had to sit in the waiting room and watch Jeopardy until a chair opened up.

Gears of War 2

One of the things Daniel and I like to do together is play video games. We've both been playing video games since we were kids, so it's something fun to do together. In fact, when we were dating, he used to bring over his laptop and we'd play Diablo II on a LAN. Since then, we tend to go through phases of what our go-to game is at any given time. Between then and now, the progression has been: C&C Generals -> Rise of Nations -> Battlefield 2 -> Battlefield 2142 -> WoW -> Halo 3 -> Gears of War 2.

Our most recent kick playing Gears of War 2 is mostly due to the online Horde mode. In fact, I don't think I've played through any of the campaign in that game. If you've not played Gears of War 2 in Horde mode, let me explain. It's played on xbox live where you're teamed up with other players to make a group of 5. You then play against a wave of NPCs of varying degrees of difficulty. Players don't respawn until the start of the next wave, but you can revive teammates that are "down" but now completely dead yet. Every 10 waves, the difficulty level of the type of enemies resets, but their base stats increase. This means that wave 11 actually feels easier than wave 10. There are a total of 50 waves. I've made it up to 26 and Daniel has made it as far as 34.

The reason we moved from Halo 3 to Gears of War 2 is entirely due to the online play. We played through the all of the Halo 3 campaign on hardcore, but after awhile the online play gets old. We just got tired of lopsided teams (which we saw fairly regularly, in spite of the intricate ranking system) and general mean-spiritedness (aka "tea bagging", trash talk, etc.). Since Gears of War has all the human players on the same team working together, you sometimes get people who can't pull their weight, but I rarely get on a team where people quit out early or sabotage their own team. Besides, in the rare instance where this has happened, your team usually fails out before wave 10 and you start over with a fresh bunch. On the other hand, by the time you've spent an hour getting past wave 20 with a group of teammates, it really is in your best interest to watch their back, work together, etc.

So there you go, if you're looking for a good multiplayer game to pass some time with a loved on on an idle Friday evening, give Gears of War 2 a look. Because nothing says "I love you" like hunting down the last wretch together.

Jeans crisis resolved

I'm sure you're all on the edge of your seats waiting to find out how the Old Navy jeans fit. Well, I won't torture you any longer! I'd ordered two pairs of the same size, but in a different waist. One has a full panel waist that goes clear up over my belly and the other pair just has a thick elastic band at the top. The pair with the full panel fit fine, but the other ones are too snug in the waist, so I'm going to reorder those in a different size and also get another pair of the full panel ones in a different wash. When those come in, I'll keep whichever pair fits better and send the rest back. That'll leave me with two pairs of jeans that will hopefully fit all the way through until after the baby is born. Unless, of course, I gain too much weight in places besides my belly. I gained 5 pounds last month, which isn't unreasonable, but I know it wasn't all baby. Some of it was just Otis Spunkmeyer "muffins" and Funyuns.

It's a girl!

Today was my second ultrasound! The verdict is in....it's a girl! More importantly, everything looks well developed and healthy. It was amazing how much the lady was able to tell from the ultrasound. She measured the baby's head circumference, checked for an intact upper lip, and was even able to see a layer of skin over the spine. She tried showing me where the kidneys were, but I just had to take her word for it.

She gave us 6 ultrasound pictures to take home. There were three of a profile view, one of the face (which looked like Skeletor), one as evidence that it's a girl, and one of the feet. The feet one is probably my favorite as you can see the little toes.

Based on my latest reading of the Sherwood Police Beat, here is a here is a list of things that can lead to you getting arrested for possession of drugs, other than being seen in possession of drugs:

1. Drive at a high rate of speed
2. Drive left of the center line
3. Failure to use your turn signal
4. Have a license plate with expired tags
5. Have a license plate that's illegible
6. Have no license plate
7. Park your vehicle at the Heritage building
8. Failure to leave a property after you've been specifically asked to do so

The search continues

I take back what I said about Old Navy. Upon further reading, you don't have to pay out-of-pocket to return items by mail. I found this out after getting my jeans from Penney's last night and deciding they weren't quite what I was hoping for. I thought I was going to really like them when I first put them on, but after sitting down in them and walking around the house for about 30 minutes, I caught a side view of myself in the mirror. The problem is that the "full panel" isn't entirely elasticy. I was expecting it to be like a belly band attached to the top of a pair of super low-rise jeans, which is what I've seen on my of the jeans in stores. These, however, had the panel made of a stretchy, but not entirely form fitting fabric, with a band of elastic at the top. I'm sure they would fit better as my stomach gets bigger, but for now, the top sort of balloons out more than I'd like. Daniel insisted they looked fine, and I'm not expecting maternity jeans to make me look like I just stepped of a runway, but I also don't want them to make me look like I just stepped into my 50's.

I won't return the JC Penney jeans until I knew whether I can do any better, but I'm not going to be wearing them for now. Instead, I went back to Old Navy and found 2 pairs of jeans in my size. I placed an order at around 11pm last night, and this morning when I got the email verifying the order, I clicked the little link to check the status. This took me to the Old Navy website, where, low and behold, right there on their front page was a code for free shipping on maternity clothes. I also checked the jeans I'd ordered and one pair had been marked down! These changes would have saved me about $15, so I called them up and spoke to a very nice gentleman at Old Navy. He told me that he couldn't apply the changes to my order, but was more than happy to cancel it so that I could place a new one. In my second order, not only did I get the same two pair of jeans for less, I also found a shirt and dress on clearance. So the downside is that I have to wait a little longer to wear a decent pair of jeans, but on the upside, maybe I will have actually found a decent pair of jeans.

Pants en route!

In my search for tall-sized maternity jeans, I found out that Old Navy has some available through their website. This was a pretty exciting discovery because I already have some non-maternity jeans from Old Navy, so at the very least, I felt like I had a better idea of what size to order. I try to avoid ordering clothes online when I don't know what size to get, but as a last resort, I figure I can always return things that don't fit, right? Thankfully, I checked Old Navy's return policy to try to verify this assumption before placing my order. Turns out, you can return unwanted items to the store unless the site specifically lists them as "Mail return only". If you see that, it means that you have to mail back unwanted items to get a refund, and they'll only refund the shipping cost if they sent you the wrong item or the item is defective. This is reasonable, except that on top of the cost of having them sent to me, I would also have to pay to ship them back. So in short, I might end up paying around $10 to try on a pair of jeans that I don't even end up keeping. With all that in mind, I decided to stick with JC Penney and their dated, but reliable, return counter. I found a coupon code online to get a discount and ordered one pair to try out. They should be getting here tomorrow, so hopefully I'll have a bit of variety in my wardrobe again. I love my new maternity corduroy's, but alternating daily between tan and chocolate brown cords can only go unnoticed for so long.

Super Bowl ads on a shoestring

In my post about the Super Bowl, I erroneously stated that a 30 second commercial for this years match was costing advertisers $30 million. It actually only costs $3 million. Considering that, I think I'll take two.

Miller High Life has decided that even without that extra zero, a 30 second Super Bowl spot is still over priced. At least that's the idea behind their commercial this year. Instead of coughing up $3 million for a full 30 seconds, they decided that 1 second is all they need.

Caveat Emptor

If you've been paying attention lately, you'll have noticed that a lot of items at the store are shrinking. For instance, most cartons of ice cream aren't a half gallon anymore, they're only 1.75 quarts. From what I hear, Jimmy Dean sausage rolls have also gotten smaller (Warning: clip is hilarious, but the language gets pretty colorful towards the end). Companies do this because more people remember how much an items costs vs. the exactly quantity that's in it. So people are happy that the price is the same without realizing that they're not getting what they used to be getting In the end though, the quantity is right there on the package, and it's up to the consumer to be aware of what they're buying.

In some cases though, things aren't so simple. Take fountain drinks, for instance. Everywhere I've ever bought a fountain drink offers sizes like "small", "medium", and "large". I don't have evidence to back this up, but it seems like a "large" coke isn't as large as it used to be. Not that I'm advocating that we all be drinking copious amounts of coke at any given meal, I just think think it would be a great benefit to the consumer if companies were required to advertise cup volume rather than arbitrary size name. After digging on their websites, I found out that the cup sizes are relatively consistant at McDonald's and Sonic, but Burger King cups are much bigger per size. However, you'd never know this from lookig at their menu boards. (Note to self: make cup size conversion chart to ensure proper ordering between restaurants).

Even if restaurants were required to advertise their cup sizes, there is still going to be a discrepancy in quantity of drink based on the amount of ice in the cup, but at least we'd have something definitive to judge by. And while I'm on this subject, I would love to know how much time is put into determining what ice shape and straw diameter is used at each fast food chain. It may be different at a local watering hole that just installs any old ice machine and buys their straws at Sam's, but I would think a company the size of McDonald's has spent money studying their ice. If you think I'm off my rocker here, pay attention to the drink dispenser next time you go to a drive-thru. It's become more common for these dispensers to have a button that drops the perfect amount of ice for the size cup you ordered, then another button that dispenses the correct amount of liquid to fill the remaining space in the cup. What I want to know is whether the shapes and amounts are standard to all McDonald's or if the manager at each location can tweek the setting to accomodate the shape of their ice and the tastes of the local market. I'm sure that at the very least, McDonald's dictates how many fluid ounces should be put in each cup, regardless of ice shape. I don't know if Sonic uses similar dispensers because I can't see what they're doing from my car, but I do know that every Sonic I've ever been too has the same kind of ice. And while I love their ice, I think that if you took two cups of the same size and filled one with Sonic ice and one with McDonald's ice, then measured how much space was left for liquid, the Sonic cup will hold less drink. I'm basing this on the fact that Sonic's ice is so tiny, it's liable to settle closer together and leave less room in-between cubes for liquid. Think about that next time you order "Route 44".

The Best American Sports Championship

As you probably know, this Sunday isn't just any Sunday....it's Superbowl Sunday. This is a big deal. You don't have to care anything about football or sports to know that this is a big deal. You can tell it's a big deal because there are displays at Walmart reminding you to get your themed cups and napkins. There are glossy sales ads devoted entirely to must-have foods to eat while you watch the big game. In order to complete your game-watching experience, you've got to have ice-cold drinks, hot wings, cheese dip, and li'l smokies. Didn't you get the memo? What does any of this have to do with football? Nothing. And that's why the NFL has a better championships than any other American sport. They make people who don't even like football want to watch the Super Bowl. How have they managed this feat? Let's take a look at what the Super Bowl has going for it.

Super Bowl Parties
If you only get invited to one party all year long, it's probably on either New Years Eve or Super Bowl Sunday. You don't have to have a favorite team, you just have to like snack food and the company of your friends. Even if you don't have any friends, there is always someone to watch the game with. Whether it's at your church or a bar, somewhere there is a group of people who will cheer or boo along with you. You don't even have to understand the rules of the game. I guarantee someone at the party will be more than happy to explain the rules to you or persuade you what team is more deserving of the title. Why do people go to these parties? Most of them don't really care who wins, they simply want to be included in what has become an American tradition. These parties are now so common and well-attended that Super Bowl Sunday is the second highest food consumption day in the U.S., behind only Thanksgiving. The game itself has managed to become the most watched television broadcast of the year. Which leads me to....

Commercials
If you don't watch the Super Bowl for the game, at least watch it for the commercials. So many people do just that that companies are willing to pay $3 million for 30 seconds of our collective time. And with so much money on the line, companies don't put up some commercial that you've already seen 3 times during re-runs of House. They offer something brand new that will hold your attention and make you remember what it is you're supposed to buy. As a result, some of the funniest, most memorable commercials have debuted during the Super Bowl. If you can't think of one off the top of your head, let me give you a hint....WWAAAAZZZUUUPPP!

Halftime shows
Some of the biggest names in entertainment show up to perform at the halftime show of the Super Bowl. For a few years there, the show was like a who's who of current top 40, but it's gotten more conservative after the 2004 debacle. Still, getting the likes of Paul McCartney or the Rolling Stones to perform is no small feat. This year, we get to grove to the smooth beats of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The Boss may not be the draw he once was, but he'll still hold most of our attention longer than John Madden. And the NFL knows this. A general audience is only going to sit through a minute or two of game commentary before wandering off to get more cheese dip. So instead, the NFL and the network snag some big names, set off tons of fireworks, and try to keep you in your seat until it's time for the next million dollar moment.

It's Easy
Try explaining the BCS to a non-sports fan, and their eyes are going to glaze over in about 4 seconds. The beauty of the Super Bowl is that it doesn't require you to sit through a 7 game series or fill out a bracket of 64 teams you know nothing about. Sure, there are playoffs, but in the end, everything is riding on a single game on a set night. The Super Bowl is the one-night stand of sports championships. No commitment required. You won't even be faulted if you forget the team names a week later. Just go with whoever has the best looking jerseys and enjoy yourself.

So there you have it, the reasons I think more people watch the Super Bowl than the finale of American Idol or the Academy Awards. I realize that some people actually watch it for the game, but the point I'm trying to make is that football fans aren't the target audience of the Super Bowl broadcast. Football fans don't care about Bruce Springsteen, they care about things like the nickel package and whatever it is halfbacks do. The NFL knows that these people will tune in. The viewers they're really trying to get is the people who might be able to tell you that the Steelers are playing the Cardinals, but who might also have a hard time remembering whether these are the Cardinals from Arizona or St. Louis. So for all of you out there who don't care who wins, enjoy the game!

Tall and pregnant

I went looking for maternity jeans yesterday. Everyone who sees me insists that I'm still so small for being 4 months pregnant, but my jeans beg to differ. Even doing the rubber band trick with the button and covering it all up with a belly band was getting uncomfortable. So I decided to go looking for "mom jeans" while I still had at least one pair that I could leave the house in. I suppose I could have waited a little longer and rolled up there in some sweat pants at the last possible moment, but I'd rather not.

From asking around, I decided to start my search at Motherhood Maternity. They had a lot of different styles to choose from and the lady there was very helpful. The best part was that, except for the stretchy tops, you would never know that the jeans were maternity jeans. The worst part was that they didn't carry any tall sizes. Instead, the sizes did something that has always confounded me. As the overall size got bigger, the legs got longer. I see this all the time, but I don't understand it. Perhaps there is a lineage of people who grow in perfect height/weight proportions, but I did not descend from these people. So I had to start looking elsewhere for maternity jeans.

My next stop was JC Penney's. After making a lap around the clothing department, I finally had to ask where the maternity section was. The girl wasn't surprised that I'd missed it and led me to two rows of clothing wedged between petites and work out clothing. In spite of their lack of volume, they had a pretty good selection of pants. I found a couple of pairs of jeans that fit well except for the length. This put me back at square one, except that I know from experience that JC Penney's web site tends to carry tall sizes. As I found out when I got home, this applies to their maternity clothes as well, so I might be ordering some from there. For the time being, I did find 2 pairs of casual corduroy maternity pants with a huge 2 inch hem in them. They were on clearance, so I got both pairs for under $20 and had my mom let the hem out to make them longer.

After relating the results of my pant quest to couple of recently pregnant friends, I got another tip on where to check for tall sizes, so between there and Penney's, I should be able to find some good jeans. Those I'll be able to wear year round, and once it gets too hot for the corduroys, I can switch to capris or some kind of shorts where tall sizes will be a moot point.

Sonic's condiments

When it comes to fast food menus, Sonic's is more extensive than most. Not only do they have more drink choices than you can shake a stick at, they have burger and chicken sandwiches (which could come on either a bun or Texas toast), foot long hot dogs, corn dogs, chicken fingers, grilled cheese, and wraps. And that's just the main entrees. For a side item, you can get cheese sticks, cheddar poppers, onion rings, tater tots, and of course, fries. On top of all that, they have a breakfast menu available all day (although granted, most of the breakfast items just require swapping out a hamburger patty and lettuce for a sausage patty and egg).

With this many different options, it's not surprising that they offer such a wide range of condiments. Most fast food places are content to stick with ketchup, but not Sonic. They have a condiment for any occasion. The only problem is that they don't seem to be able to pair my order with the appropriate condiment. I think their general tendency is to offer salsa in the morning and ketchup in the afternoon, regardless of what I actually ordered. At any time of day, I generally find a peppermint and a few salt packets in the bottom of my bag. The peppermint is a nice touch, but I, for one, have never taken a bite of fast food and thought to myself, "what this needs is more salt!" Maybe they should stop providing salt entirely and instead toss in a couple of desiccant packets in those foil bags to keep my grilled cheese from getting soggy. Now THAT would be useful.

Yesterday morning, I pulled in to Sonic and ordered a sausage breakfast toaster sandwich, two jr. chili cheese wraps, and a java chiller. When they brought the food out, the girl was very friendly and after reading over the ticket to confirm my order, she asked if I wanted any grape or strawberry jelly. This was a new one on me, and I'm still trying to figure out what part of that meal would have been complimented by jelly. Perhaps it would been best utilized eaten straight from the packet as a desert? I'm not sure. I went to Sonic again this morning, driving through to order two jr. chili cheese wraps. When I got to the window, the lady handed me my order and asked if I wanted salsa. I'm hoping that I misheard her and she actually asked if I wanted "to salsa", which would seem slightly less odd of a proposition. In any case, I turned her down.

The new old lady paper

About 6 months ago, I decided to subscribe to the Sunday paper. Part of my reason for doing this was to get the weekly TV schedule. Now that we don't have Tivo or any kind of digital cable, it's nice to know what shows are coming on when. I realize that I could get this same information online, thereby avoiding inky fingers, but I don't usually need to know what's on TV until I sit down to watch something. By that time I'm sitting down, I don't want to get back up and consult the internet prior to picking a show. My only other option is to flip around channels aimlessly or sit though the painfully slow scrolling on-air guide. After all, if I'm going to waste time watching TV, I want to actually be watching the TV instead of watching channels to try to determine what I should be watching.

The TV schedule that comes in the Sunday paper has remained largely un-changed for years. I know this because my parent's have gotten the Sunday paper for most of my life. I can remember using this weekly TV schedule almost 15 years ago. Apart from a change years ago when they flipped the hours/channels axis, nothing much has changed. It's not as compact as an actual TV Guide magazine, but it's stapled together and can survive a week's worth of handling.

Two weeks ago, everything changed. I was going though my Sunday paper pulling out the important parts (glossy ads, TV schedule, Parade magazine, and funny papers) only to find my TV schedule morphed into something entirely undesirable. Instead of being about the size of a piece of notebook paper folded in half, it's as big as the Parade! To add insult to injury...IT ISN'T EVEN STAPLED TOGETHER!! The lack of staples is the worst of it because I'm used to keeping the schedule turned to the current day. With this new format, if I try to do that, the pages go everywhere! I tried stapling it myself the first week, but it's just not the same.

There are bigger problems in the world than whether or not my TV schedule is formatted to my liking, but since it's one of the main reasons for me subscribing to the paper, it's disappointing. Daniel thinks it's funny that I use the TV schedule at all, referring to it as my "old lady paper". I do actually feel like a crotchety old lady complaining about something so mundane, but apparently I'm not the only one who's annoyed by it. The week after they changed the format, Daniel happened to be looking at the editorial page and showed me two letters with similar complaints. I felt a little validated after that.

Now that my tv schedule is all messed up, and knowing that I can get everything else I want from the paper on the internet, this might be enough to warrant canceling my subscription. The only thing standing in my way is that you can't cancel your subscription online. Anything that can't be done online always takes me twice as long to accomplish because it involves things like writing checks or finding stamps or making phone calls on my lunch hour. If it were a little more convenient to either get my TV schedule or cancel my newspaper subscription, I just would done that instead of writing this blog entry.

Walk It Out in the 60's

Because not EVERY post can be about pregnancy....

Belly Band or Tube Top? Either way, I'm a winner!

Four months into my pregnancy, and I'm finally starting to show! It's more or less obvious depending on what shirt I'm wearing, but my pants can definitely tell. Some of them are refusing to be worn at all. In fact, I wore the same pair of jeans to work all last week because they were the only ones I was remotely comfortable in. When I mentioned this to a friend who just had a baby, she told me about "belly bands". I had never heard of such a thing, so I won't assume that you have either. It's essentially a spandex tube top that's meant to be worn around your waist. It allows you to wear your regular pants unbuttoned, then pull the spandex down over the top so that no one can tell they're not buttoned and they don't tend to fall down. Then you just wear whatever shirt you want and the belly band just looks like a stylish layer.

I tend to be dubious of things like this. Especially things that obviously cost a great deal more to buy than they do to make. But I did find a cheap version at Target, so I'm going to give it a try. It it lets me put off buying maternity jeans for a little longer, it'll be worth it. I figure, at the very worst, I've got a new tube top!

Pregnancy has a way of complicating things. I mean it's a wonderful, beautiful thing, and the miracle of life, blah blah blah. But there is also the inability to stay up past 9pm or button my pants. And when I started getting a cold a week ago, there was the complication of what I could or couldn't take for it. Now, I'm not one to take medication for the duration of a cold, but I do like to sleep at night, so I checked the reference sheet from my doctor on pregnancy do's and don'ts. According to that, I can take Sudafed and some version of Robitussin. Armed with that knowledge I headed off to the pharmacy.

There is an episode of Everyone Hates Chris where he talks about his mom always buying generic versions of food. When it shows the things she's buying, everything is in a plain white package with black lettering telling you what knock-off item you're about to purchase. I wish my pharmacy had a section like that with just one kind of Sudafed. Instead, I was forced to choose between about 6 different kinds of name brand and generic Sudafeds. Some were just for congestion while others covered the whole spectrum of symptoms. Each one had the same active ingredient for congestion though, and the pain relievers were always Tylenol, so I figured it didn't matter too much which one I picked. But just to be sure, I asked the pharmacist whether the box I had was safe to take during pregnancy. She took a look at it, checked a list somewhere, and directed me to the kind of Sudafed that you have to buy from behind the pharmacy counter. I hadn't even considered this option, and when I got it, I realized that it had an entirely different active ingredient than the other Sudafeds. As it turns out, this other ingredient is what used to be the ingredient of choice for congestion, but now it's the ingredient of choice for making meth. But there is a generic, so I just had to show my driver's license and pay $1.50.

Always curious about things like this, the first thing I did when I got home was google the difference between the new Sudafed and the old Sudafed, especially as it applies to pregnancy. I'm sure it drives doctors and nurses crazy when people start any medical question with "I was reading on the internet...." but I would rather look something up on WebMD than leave a message for my nurse every time some odd question pops in my head. And what I found was that there isn't a consensus on what kind of Sudafed pregnant women. So I just did what I should have done to begin with and called my doctor's office for some clarification. The answer I got was that I shouldn't be taking the one the pharmacist gave me because there was a risk of increased heart rate.

So I'm back at square one and still can't stop coughing. I would have trusted either the nurse or the pharmacist if I'd only been able to get advice from one of them, but when they contradicted each other, I just decided not to take sides. Besides, cold medicine doesn't really help get rid of the cold, it just makes you feel better, right? So I'm just put on my big girl panties and dealt with it. When it comes to colds, I'd rather not medication anyway. When it comes time for an epidural....well, that'll be another story!

I've always heard that during a certain phase of their pregnancy, women have a "glow" about them. It's discussed as though it were a beautiful aura that comes over you as a representation of the sublime miracle of life. Then when I got pregnant, I found out that one of the main causes of this perceived glow is the increased amount of oil that your body is producing. So instead of making me glow, it's making me break out. Yay for pregnancy!