Look! A deer head!

A few weeks ago my little town had its Santa parade. Now, the week prior it had been almost balmy for this time of year. That of course meant it would be freakin' cold for the parade. Luckily, I live on the main drag so I can sit on my front porch bundled up in a blanket and watch the parade without much trouble.

I went on the Santa stroll and tossed my name into various drawings the local businesses were having. I actually won an exercise ball from my chiropractor's office. I haven't yet inflated it. That's the new year's goal...well, inflating it and actually using it.

The picture is of my sister and big deer head on a shopping cart. My sis is the manager of the bakery at the local grocery store. The store always has their departments decorate a cart and it gets pushed in the parade. For some reason, the bakery went with the idea of making the cart look like Rudolph. It seems someone in the store had offered to give them one of their deer heads off their wall. Tah dah! I yelled at my sis to come closer to me and quickly took the photo; hence the blur. Thankfully, my sister was able to scoot away before the next float caught up to her.

As you all know, I've been very bad with updates. All I can do is offer up that it has been a busy December. I co-hosted a sweet party the first weekend. The following weekend was my office party. For the second year in a row, the person sitting next to me won the flat screen tv. I think I'm going to sell tickets to get the seats next to me. After a few years, I could buy my own tv.

I've gone to a couple of flicks. I think I already talked about how great Fabulous Mr. Fox was. Or did I? It is super cool; a perfect vehicle for Wes Anderson's quirky talents. I saw Avatar and was disappointed. The effects are cool, but it's way too long. You could have easily taken out an hour of stuff. You see every plot point long before it happens and some bits seem like ideas that were later used in Aliens. And, the final big battle made me laugh. Not a good thing. The big highlight was seeing a 3D trailer for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Oooohhhh, I can't wait for that one. Hopefully next week will be Precious, Up in the Air, and Sherlock Holmes.

I am also going to serve up the usual Best Of Lists. Don't know yet if I will try and tackle a Best o' the Decade or not.

MERRY CHRISTMAS LOVELY FOLK!!

Disco Tree

Here's the new, retro Christmas tree my aunt got for me at an estate sale this past summer. It's not very big, but I don't have a lot of room so that's okay. I believe you aren't supposed to put lights on it, so I have them coiled under the tree and hanging nearby. It's a bit dis-organized, but I don't care. I like it. I had to squish up the living room portion of my DVD collection that has spilled from the two large sets of shelves that are in the hallway in order to make space for the presents. Now all I need to do is buy a couple more gifts and take care of the Christmas cards and I am done!

The small, colored ball ornaments are some I got on clearance a couple of years ago. The larger ones are some that hung on trees from when my Mom was a kid. Pretty cool.

No, I'm not dead.

It's been a long couple or so weeks at work. I have finally caught up with the projects that belonged to the assistant who was gone for almost a week and a half because of her babysitter issues. She hasn't said word one to me about them by the way. I am in the middle of selecting VAV boxes for a hospital we got. I'm on 110 of 203. It takes me about 2 hours to do 50 of them.

In the midst of all that, Disney was upset that myself, the front office lady and a woman from the service department went to lunch one day without asking her. Now, she leaves half an hour early everyday so asking her to go to lunch would mean she would have to make up the time somewhere. I just always assume that she can't go because she has to work through half her lunch to leave at 4:30. Anyway, apparently we hurt her feelings. She wouldn't talk to the front office lady for almost two days. Finally Front Office had had enough so she called Disney on it. Disney told her she just wanted us to all get along and be friends...blah, blah, blah.

Thus, Hands Across The Office was born. Okay, only I called it that, but none the less all the office chicks went out to lunch that Friday. Most of the conversation was dominated by the four of them talking about their children. Whee. Disney thinks we should do this once a month. Ack. Can't wait.

Here's some super fast movie reviews:

Paranormal Activity: B+ It would have been a bit higher had there not been a problem during the screening of the film. Right at the first really big shock moment the "slide show" that normally comes up in between films started flashing on the screen. It broke all the tension that had been built up so the big finale wasn't quite as big as I think it would have been.

Where The Wild Things Are: A Everything about this is great. It's visually amazing, the acting is spot on (especially the young actor who plays Max) and I even enjoyed Karen O's music.

Men Who Stare At Goats: B+ I enjoyed this a bunch. Clooney is fabulous and it's always good when Ewan McGregor is around. Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey are great in showing two sides of loony. It's hard to make the transition from a non-fiction book to a fictional movie, but for the most part things work.

Today, it's Pirate Radio...or as it was called when it came out months ago in Britain, The Boat That Rocked. Looking forward to seeing Nick Frost (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz) and Chris O'Dowd (The IT Crowd).

Now, off to the bank, the post office, Christmas shopping and a movie. Whew.

OH, almost forgot. I need more single friends. I got tickets for Illinois vs. Ohio State basketball and was very excited. I completely ignored the fact that the game is on Valentine's Day. My thinking was since Valentine's Day is on a Sunday then most people would go out Sat. night and their Sunday would be open. Apparently, this is not the case. Shows you how often I "celebrate" Valentine's Day. So, as of right now, I have one ticket looking for a ticket holder. Any takers?

Winner, winner, runner up chicken dinner

This evening I was at a trivia night/fundraiser that also had a costume contest as a part of the festivities. I ended up runner up in the women's division and got movie passes (sweet) as a prize.

I went as Annie from Misery, mostly because I would be coming straight from work and I needed something that would be easy to change into.

I believe it was my homemade sledge hammer (pictured) and fake Paul Sheldon romance novel that put me in the running.

Originally I was going to go as Mia from Pulp Fiction, but since I don't have Uma's long neck, the wig I'd bought made me look like Moe from the Three Stooges. Kathy Bates was much easier to pull off.