If you stand close to it, you will go up on the evolutionary scale.

Here's the new phone I got for Christmas. After receiving it, I considered tossing a bone into the air to see if it would turn into a space ship. I love it. Along with the phone, I got a cold for Christmas. Cold Ease lozenges are my new favorite snacks because I really don't want to be sick for the rest of the holidays.

While visiting with friends, I had the opportunity to play Guitar Hero. I did pretty well on the "Easy" setting. I conquered "Kool Thing," "La Grange," and "Barracuda." But, as soon as I had to toss in that pinkie finger on the "Medium" setting, I tanked big time. I made up for it playing bass on "Sabotage."

I had to work on Friday so thankfully missed the early riser sales. I did swing over to Wal-Mart this weekend. I try to avoid Wally World at all costs, but my boss got me a gift certificate there as a present so I was a bit stuck. Somehow, and I still don't know how this got there in the first place, I found the 2 disc director's cut of Zodiac on DVD for $5! Seriously. I am as confused as you are, but I snatched it up right away. I watched about half of it last night listening to the audio commentary featuring James Ellroy. He is insane, but very funny.

And, speaking of movies. Here is my annual Faves list. The best of list will wait till Oscar season since several movies haven't made it to the sticks yet.

**MISH'S FAVE MOVIES OF 2008**
1. The Fall--The most visually interesting movie of the year as far as I'm concerned. Read about it here.

1. The Dark Knight--Brilliant, twisted, troubled and funny in a macabre sort of way. Fave part: the pencil trick that lets you know just how unforgivably and unsympathetically insane the Joker is.

2. WALL*E and Kung Fu Panda. Each of these movies showed just how beautiful and emotionally resonant animation can be. The folks behind WALL*E deserve some sort of award. They gave real character and depth to inanimate objects. Relying on sound design and truly smart storytelling, you followed the story and cared about the little robots (and the buddy cockroach). Made me cry. As did, Kung Fu Panda. Again, beautiful animation plus smart writing that elevated a pretty recognizable storyline. Great voice work by Jack Black and Dustin Hoffman.

3. In Bruges--Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson star in a deeper than you think it's going to be "comedy" about two hitmen hiding out in Bruges. Farrell really shines and I'm sure it doesn't hurt that he has Gleeson, who is always great, to play off of. It got lost in the shuffle (bad release time frame, bad promotion--it's not a rollicking comedy), but it really stood out.

4. Iron Man and Wanted. Go here and here. Highlight moment of Wanted: Wesley hits his "best friend" with his keyboard at work and as the keys, and a tooth, fly by the screen we get the words "Fuck you" spelled out. HA!

5. Doomsday--This movie is completely insane. It's part Mad Max, part medieval action movie, part sci-fi; it's all over the place, but this is a very good thing. Directed by the same guy who gave us the super creepy cool movie, The Descent, Doomsday runs over and through almost every genre, but still comes out with its own voice. It has its own rulebook, but it follows those rules which keeps it from becoming a hodge podge of "I'm not sure what I want" sort of moments. Very entertaining.

6. Quantum of Solace. Short recap here.

7. Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Go here.

8. Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. Light, frothy, and brimming with great actors and smart writing. Francis McDormand, Lee Pace, Cirand Hinds, and Amy Adams make this a true pleasure to watch.

9. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. Get your Ford on here.

10. Mamma Mia, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Penelope. Mamma Mia is just fun. Nick and Norah made me love Michael Cera even more and Penelope had James McAvoy with shaggy hair. Nuff said.

Side note moment: Best use of gratuitous partial nudity combined with soap and water in a movie--Hugh Jackman cleaning up towards the beginning of Australia. It's overdone on purpose, but as a straight gal I want to thank Baz for going over the top.

To check out in '09:
Slumdog Millionaire, Waltz With Bashir, Happy Go Lucky, Benjamin Button, Rachael Getting Married, The Wrestler, Tell No One, and Frost/Nixon.

Whoosh. That was long. Next time, music. Run away now.

Follow That Fat Man!

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/home.html

Go Santa go!

Merry Christmas.

Icing, but no cake

Here is what I woke up to this morning. Whee, ice. Half an inch of ice actually. This tree is right outside my bedroom window. I planned ahead yesterday and brought my work laptop home. I grabbed a few files so I'd have something to do today if I couldn't get in to the office.

It took 20 min. to get the ice off of my front and rear windshields. I decided to see if I could get the laptop to play nice with my internet connection. I checked emails and as soon as I saw one of the other sales assistants who lives out this way was working from home I made up my mind to do the same.

It worked out I only had about 3 1/2 hrs. worth of work to do. Oops. Not sure how this is going to be adjusted down the road. Will I need to work through lunches for 4 or so days to make up my time? Will anyone care? I don't know that we were exceptionally busy today. A lot of places didn't even have electricity around here so the chances we got bombarded with jobs, etc. today are sort of slim. Still feel a little guilty though.

Here are a couple of other photos.




I just missed getting a photo of a raccoon walking along the edge of the sidewalk in front of the abandoned gas station across the street.

Office Party: The Wrap Up

Well, I didn't win the TV. I was at the table with the guy who did win the TV so I got spritzed with his happiness as it were. He and his wife were quite lucky the whole night. They each had won a prize before he got the flat screen.

I did win a gift certificate to a local Italian restaurant! I think I will either save it for my birthday in a couple of months, or I'll use it one day when I'm craving pasta and low on cash.

There were all sorts of ways to win the prizes. Most were random drawings, like my g.c. "game." We did have a couple of trivia contests. The theme this year was advertising. Our table did okay, but we didn't win. The table full of people who cheated by looking up things on-line with their phones won! Bastards.

There was one game of physical skill. A putting game was being given away and everyone got to take 5 putts. I kept hitting the ball too hard, practically banking it in. I attempted by best Bill Murray ( "a Cinderella story..."). Apparently, my best Bill Murray isn't that great because no one got the Caddyshack reference. Or, horrors of horrors, perhaps the people nearby hadn't seen Caddyshack! I will have to fix that and soon.

I also tried being clever with my name tag. I wrote my actual name on it, but followed with the phrase "or MR. TIBBS!" Nothing. Zip. Only a few people asked why I wrote that and when I said "They call me MR. TIBBS!" I still got nothing. Sigh. I'm not sure that option #2 of "Ishmael" would have gone over much better.

I was hoping to sit next to my friend who recommended me for this job, but her table filled up almost immediately. I wandered around for a bit and thankfully the wife of one of my sales reps took pity on me and invited me to join them. I ended up eating with my two reps, their wives and the guy who hired me and his wife. Dinner was great; my prime rib virtually melted in my mouth.

Overall, it was a nice night. The food was great. I probably should have mingled more, but I'm not very good at that. I won a prize. One sort of downer happened after dinner. After the service awards were handed out, our boss introduced all the new people. Before he started going down the list, he said "I always forget someone when I do this..."

I think you can guess what happened.

My name was near the staple on the second of two sheets and was hidden. Or that's what his story was. The sort of ironic bit was I was sitting at his table eating with him. He'd been in the general vicinity of my person for the last hour. He was going through the names alphabetically so I knew right away that I was the one he was skipping. When he finished up, the rest of the table got his attention and pointed out he'd forgotten me. There was a quick OH CRAP sort of moment. The one benefit of the moment was it didn't get pointed out that I was there alone.

When he was reading names off, he'd follow up by saying what department the person was in and add that they were there with their husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend. So, while the people I don't see everyday may not know where I work exactly ('cuz he skipped that part), they also don't know I was a loser and came by myself.

Keep your fingers crossed that we have decent enough weather that I can finish my shopping. I've never been this far behind before. Hope the rest of you are having better luck. Later kids.

Holiday Cheer

Heard some guys talking about this on ESPN radio. Holiday music with some Toto tossed in for fun.

Lost and found

I FOUND MY SCARF!!!

Little bastard was hiding in a drawer that I hadn't checked because I normally don't stick cold weather items in there. Guess I shouldn't be surprised. Still, I was quite happy and we have been reunited.

We've already started getting gifts at work. The party is tomorrow night, but this afternoon our corporate office gift arrived. It is...drum roll please...

A box of assorted cheeses.

Tah-dah! Our corporate office is in LaCrosse, WI...natch.

It was amusing when our office leader poked his head into my room and told me I needed to "go grab something from the box of cheese" before it was all gone. As a U of I grad, I couldn't in good conscience snag the cheese in the shape of Wisconsin's "W" so I went with the dill cheddar chunk instead.

On another "lost" note, I picked up season 4 of Lost on dvd and continue to be impressed by how much they put into these things. The menu screens always look amazing. The transitions between those screens and what you've selected to watch are smooth. And, the extras are usually quite good. I re-watched The Shape of Things To Come the other night so I could enjoy me some Michael Emerson. Fabbo.

Hopefully I'll have a post party wrap up on either Sun. or Mon. Have a good weekend!

This, That, bit of The Other

Everyone has probably already heard about the BCS "declaring" Germany the winner of WW2, but just in case you haven't check out the link. I was laughing out loud in my car when Bob & Tom were talking about it.

It's not everyday that something happens in your corner of the world which results in the lead story on The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Rod Blagojevich Is a Jagoff

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

My workplace Christmas party is this Sat. night and I have nothing to wear. I attempted to go shopping for something new on Mon. evening. It was, of course, crowded at the mall which didn't help my state of mind. I hit 4 stores to no avail. In this tiny spot in my head I hold this thought that I'm going to find that one shirt, sweater, whatever that will transform my person. It never happens though. Everything is either too small, too frumpy, too disturbing (really, who the hell believes that woman in the 16+ size category crave horrid animal prints), or just the wrong color. Apparently clothes can only be in one of three shades that change every few months. Arrgh.

Also on the bummer note--it looks like one of my favorite shows, Pushing Daisies, is getting the axe after the 13th episode. I shouldn't be surprised that one of the best shows out there is being dumped. I saw a promo after tonight's episode for a new ABC show about Homeland Security cops, or whatever they would be called. Just what we need, another low cost reality show. Wee. This world is messed up.

Missing

Take a minute and look to your left. Now, to your right. Have you seen my scarf? My favorite scarf has gone AWOL. I am very sad about this state of affairs. My scarf is sort of a cross between Walgreen's cheap chic (which was where I got it and it was cheap) and a shorter Doctor Who style scarf. I fondly remember buying it with Jinn; she got one just like it, though I don't think she wore it as much as I wore mine. I know I had it last winter so it should be here somewhere. I checked with my other winter items, but considering my other items were in three different locations I guess I should not be surprised that I can't find the damn thing.

The first blasts of snow have landed in my neck of the woods. It took me 90 min. to get to work on Mon. Normally the drive lasts about 30 or so. There was an accident near the exit I take and traffic was backed up about 3 or 4 miles. It took me almost 40 min. to do those miles! On the way home I spotted the remnants of another accident...lots of tracks in the snow and in the ditch...wait for it...a refrigerator. You heard me. A fridge with one squished up end was laying in the ditch. Hopefully it just fell off the back of a truck and rolled to its final resting place.

Coming soon the always expected and possibly dreaded Best of '08 lists. Run away, run away!

Editing with a less than speedy connection

Found a link to a site where you can try your hand at editing a Radiohead "video." My connection is not super fast so I couldn't see the video real well. Check out my work.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I JUST CLICKED ON THE LITTLE BOX BELOW AND YOU GO TO THE SITE, WHICH IS IN JAPANESE. HAVEN'T YET FIGURED OUT HOW TO ACTUALLY WATCH THE VIDEO I MADE. WHEN I DO, I WILL LET YOU KNOW.

If you would like to do your own go here.