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The votes are in for the Internet Movie Database's Best of 2004. It seems I'm not the only one who thinks Eternal Sunshine was the best film of the year. Whoo hoo!

The Oscars are Sunday and I have no plans. Kristina will probably call me and we'll gossip during the show, but she'll be an hour behind. It's a little weird, but whatever. I'll do like I usually do and mute the speeches (I even change the channel during acceptance speeches). It is fun to read the closed captioning too.
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I'll admit it, I tried eHarmony a couple years back. I liked the test, but not the results, and especially not the matches it suggested. It kept sending me soldiers that seemed barely literate. Anyway, I gave up after a couple of months.

This article on AlterNet delves into the background of eHarmony and its "scientific technique", as well as its fundamentalist background. Yikes! It's good stuff.

AlterNet: Love Machines
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Because I love you all, I'm going to share with you the greatness that is Arj and Poopy. My favorite episode is "Brutally Ambushed", but all of them are quite hi-larious.

They are done by the same animator who did the bunny music video.
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Don Cheadle rocks.
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Neil Patrick Harris is guest-starring on Numb3rs tomorrow. I knew that was him (but I double-checked anyway).
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Our mom told Leah and me this weekend that our aunt and uncle are moving to Austin from Kansas. It's kind of hush-hush since he is leaving a church he has been preaching at for a while now (and they don't know yet). I am really looking forward to it, because I love both of them and I haven't seen them since my drive back to Texas from Minnesota almost four years ago. He has been called to a church in Cedar Park, so I can't really attend there regularly, but I will definitely visit. Both my uncle and aunt are very intelligent and have these quirky senses of humor. My cousin is going to stay in Kansas; she is still going to school up there and really likes it. They will be down here near the end of the month to look at houses.

I realize this post is far from linear - suffice it to say, I'm really happy that my aunt and uncle will be close by!
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I'm watching "Medium" (taking a break from "Kinsey" on PBS) and I have the closed captioning on b/c this show is really quiet on my TV for some reason. Anywho - while the character said "I think her parents are on the East Coast", the captioning said "I think her pants are on the East Coast." Ha! I love closed captioning levity in sad, dramatic moments.
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I applied for this show. I was tempted to post my application here, but it was a tad too personal. Can you believe that? I discussed my long Texas lineage, my grandfather who raised cattle, my Heinz 57 ethnic makeup, and even my blogging tendencies. So now I've done that, but they want you to send in a video/DVD too. I don't have a video camera or anything. I don't even have any close friend that does. So nothing may happen with this. If they are intrigued enough by my written application, than they know where to find me. Where else will you find a mid-twenty-something eldest daughter of an eldest daughter of an eldest daughter, from seven generations of Texas lineage, with some construction knowledge? I doubt there are many of us out there. But I could be wrong. . .

P. S. If you have a DVR or video camera and live in the Austin area, let me know. . .=)
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Okay, I stole that line from a card Leah and I saw at Target yesterday. I don't really feel that strongly about today. Basically, I don't care for it either way. There was one Valentine's day in college when I had an admirer who bought me a chocolate rose. He also gave me two tickets to see Sheryl Crow (for me and my then-roommate Kristina) when he couldn't come with me. He was really quite sweet, but I wasn't attracted to him at all. I think he was attracted to me because at the beginning of school, we sat next to each other at a choir dinner. We both got fortune cookies with the message, "Happiness is seated right next to you". Now if we had gotten together and had kids, wouldn't that be a nice cheesy story to tell? But no, it just didn't happen. Last I heard he was managing a symphony in Ohio, and my friend Alice said his girlfriend looked like she could be my twin. That's a tad scary.

This afternoon a couple of women in my office were serenaded by some Chord Rangers. It was very sappy, but sweet. Being serenaded is embarassing to me. My first memory of such was at a Mexican restaurant (now a Chinese buffet) where a mariachi band sang feliz cumpleanos a mi, and I started bawling. I think I was about 6. My parents never put me through that again. I've gotten much better about it now, but having a barbershop quartet sing to me - I just don't know.

Maybe if they were all really cute. I think could deal with that.
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Kris and Jon lost the Amazing Race to Freddy and Kendra. WAAAA.
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I'm so applying for this.
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Here's the pic of Alton and me from last weekend at BookPeople. I usually don't wear my glasses, but I was lazy that morning.

Of course, I ran into someone I went to college with at church that morning. That's the way it always is!

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I now have 50 g-mail invites to get rid of, erm, give out. Any takers? I seriously don't know that many people that would be interested in gmail. Does anyone?
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I really like these ads for Mercury (even though they are related to Ford, and I'd never buy a car from them):
Weatherman
A little competition

The funniest ad I've seen lately is definitely "Tuckey Junkyard" for Snapple. The first time I saw it I laughed for about a minute straight. It's mid-way down the page (Junkyard Car) on this site at AdAge.
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Here is Wikipedia's definition of chick-lit:

"Chick lit" is a slightly uncomplimentary term used to denote popular fiction written for and marketed to young women, especially single young women in their 20s, working in the business world.

This is a somewhat specific definition, but it is basically true. The publishing world tends to look down on chick-lit, yet makes boocoos of money off of the genre. From what I've observed in my reading of much chick-lit, the books tend to cover moments in the lives of women. Their business lives (mostly in urban cities, such as New York or London), their failed or non-existent love lives, and more. Leah and I have recently gotten into Katie Fforde, a British author who writes about 30-something women dealing with children, ex-husbands, failing estates, shipboard ventures and more. I would classify her as chick-lit, even though no one in her books works in the publishing world or is a typical 20-something. I've tried looking for more about chick-lit being a post-feminist form, and this is the best I could with a subscription to "Book" magazine: Guardian Unlimited: The imitation game

So there's my very basic, basic summary of the form born of Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary.
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TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES has set up blogs for 31 characters for their 31 days of Oscar. My faves:

Stella Dallas
Otto from A Fish Called Wanda
Charles/Smithy from Random Harvest
Norman Bates
Terry Malloy from On the Waterfront
Dr. Strangelove
Billy from Kramer v. Kramer
Regina from Charade

Too fun!! I commented on Smithy's and Scarlett's.
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I picked up this book at the library on Saturday. I am more than halfway through and am very frustrated with it. The writing is well-done, but the characters just aggravate me. I had this problem with Mary McGarry Morris' work "Songs in Ordinary Time". I get very frustrated with characters who continue to make stupid mistakes. I keep reading "Fiona Range" hoping that Fiona will come to see sense, that her frail cousin Elizabeth will speak up, that her aunt and uncle will tell her truth about her parentage, etc. I am skimming far too much, waiting for this moment. I had hoped that this book would be a better experience than "Songs in Ordinary Time", but no.

I also checked out a book (not on purpose) from the library that I have read before. That drives me nuts. I should probably go to another library. It is getting to the point that I have read all I care to at the neighborhood library. How closed-minded does that sound? Ah well. They only get new books in every so often.

I am also in the midst of Michael Chabon's "Summerland" that I bought at Half Price a year ago and hadn't read until now. It is quite unlike "Kavalier and Clay" or "Wonder Boys". It's somewhat Harry Potter-ish or "A Wrinkle in Time"-ey, except there's a lot of baseball and little people in it. I'm not sure what to think of it, but at least it is inventive! And I really like Michael Chabon.
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