Time to break out the noisemakers and streamers!

This was New Years last year:

There were frozen daiquiris. Then there were more mixed drinks. And then there was champagne. Then there was Kerrin, who did a fine job of handling her liquor.


And then there was a lot of time by the toilet for the first few hours of 2004.

I'm pretty excited for New Years this year. Actually, I get excited for it every year, for a few different reasons. This year it's going to be different, and I'll be celebrating with a good mix of Medway friends, Union friends, and my roommates. I can't wait.

Around December 28th or 29th every year, I decide it's imperative that I make some New Years resolutions. I'm not sure why I suddenly feel this panic that the new year is right around the corner and I still haven't made a resolution, because I think they're pretty dumb. And I tend to make my expectations too high every year. Dr. Phil says I'm setting myself up for disaster. Maybe that's why I make the same 3 resolutions every year. Anyone up for sharing their New Years resolutions below??

Tastes Like Chicken

This one time, when we were immature college students, Kate wanted to see what an eyeball tasted like. I'm not sure why, but I voluntered my right eye.

Along the lines of totally random things to kill time, I'm addicted to this "new" phenomenon called Google-whacking. I had heard of it once before, but yesterday on the Today Show they had the guy who invented the concept. For those out of the loop, you go to googledotcom and type in any two words, with just a space in between, and try to get only one hit. So for example if you type in "sarong chimney," you get 3,610 hits. It's hard. It's also addicting. So far the closest I've gotten was "glossiest putty," which gave me 34. Let me know if you find any really small ones, and if you actually get ONE, I might have a prize for you.

I'm on vacation this week...I'm very bored.

SNOW!!!!

It snowed! It snowed!

(picture taken from my bed)


I woke up a little before 7:30 this morning, despite having gone to bed on the late side. I think I still have that "snow day" instinct in me, and as soon as I woke up I had to run to the window (well, roll to the other side of my bed and lift up the shade) and see how much snow we got. The good news is that we got about a foot of snow. The bad news is that everyone is at work. There's not a single person to play in the snow with. And even if people were around, I'm not even sure where you go sledding when you live in a city. I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking my sled with me on the T to Newton or Brookline...

Alas, I will be making snow angels with our weird neighbor who seems all too eager to have us over for dinner.

Want a train that loops the loop...I still want a huuuuula hoop

It's Christmas--I'm bored. I was sort of hoping I wouldn't be one of those people who blogged 6 or 7 times in one day, but I feel like I have it in me if I persevere. I hope you all got wonderful presents that you'd like to share with me (except your new sex toys, Kate--that's all you).

I have a nice little Christmas story to share, as my gift to you. Tonight we were driving home from visiting some family friends, and the car in the lane next to us hit a deer. I looked up just in time to see the deer being launched maybe 15 feet in the air, over our car, and onto the side of the highway. The airbags in the other car went off, and we got deer guts on the windshield. DEER GUTS. It was awful.

In totally unrelated news, I'm done with the semester. Although it's not the 7 weeks off that I used to enjoy at Union, I still have a couple weeks of doing nothing but babysit and see friends. I'm trying to find a good book or two to read while I take a much needed break from books about educational philosophy and teaching first graders to read. Any suggestions?

No-Show

It's another disappointing Christmas in the Gross household...Santa skipped my house again. This is like 12 years in a row. I even went to bed early last night. But when I woke up this morning--no presents under our invisible tree, and no presents stuffed inside the imaginary stockings. Maybe Santa just couldn't find the tree and stockings...

Anyway, I found this pretty entertaining. But mostly because I could see my parents wanting to do something like that, if only they could figure out how to make an EBay account. My parents like to "make a point." There was this time, when my brother and I were maybe 8 or 9, that my mom decided to go on strike. Apparently we were a little too bratty and ungrateful for her liking. So she didn't cook meals, didn't do laundry, and didn't clean up any of our mess. I don't really remember it--in my head, I had a great time, eating ice cream all day and not getting yelled at for not picking up. My mom has a different memory, and claims there was a lot of crying. Looking back, I'm not really sure I learned much from it. I'm guessing the Ebay dad's kids are just building up resentment and making plans to become the next Menendez brothers.

I hope you have a great day celebrating with your friends and family today. And stay away from the fruitcake.

It's not too late

If you're still wondering what to get me this year, I'm about to make your life much easier. I suggest you check out this.

Maybe you can find something here for your mom, sister, or girlfriend, too. I'd suggest staying away from the gold spandex pants though; those were so 2003.

I need some music

I need your help. Yes, you. About a month ago I got a new computer because my old one died. In its defense, it was getting old, and I never treated it very well. It was not "evil," and I was nowhere close to throwing it out the window or putting it in the closet, like a certified crazy hallmate of mine did once. However, since it died, I lost all of the music that I had downloaded over the past four years. I've spent the past few weeks downloading hundreds of songs, but it's mostly stuff that I listen to often, especially things that I'm currently into. But I feel like I'm leaving out a lot of good songs that I don't hear as often on the radio. So, I need your help in suggesting some good classics that I might have forgotten, or stuff that you particularly like that you think I might like. I can be convinced (or forced) to like almost anything, just ask Kate.

Feels like deja vu

We had a bit of a reunion here this weekend. Josh was in from Ohio, so the rest of the Union boys came out...and the three of us welcomed them to the city with a proper Porter Square party. And then one of the roommates here at 9 Acadia decided we should make sure for certain that the agents at Apartment Rental Experts (or, 'Perts) know how much we appreciate them finding this great apartment for us, so we even had a late-night rendezvous with the broker you may have heard stories about. The only disappointment of the party was the fact that we made a few friendly bets about what Losure would or would not do during the party, but he was relatively tame for most of the night. There was a bet of how long it would take until Losure decided to eat this:
And also how long before he stumbled and knocked over this:
Oh well, we'll get you next time, Losure.

Happy Holidays

Welcome to my first drunk blog. Enjoy your stay. Tonight the Union guys arrived to the great city of Boston. It felt just like old times, and it made me miss Union a lot. Tomorrow we party again, only this time at Casa HelenKateStacy.

I took the T over to Brookline, and a nice man at Park station told me something along the lines of Jesus lives, and that I should repent my sins, or die in hell. Then he wished me happy holidays. Now here's the thing. I'm not a big fan of November through December 26th. I'd even go as far as saying I hate this time of year. I love holidays...I look forward to Halloween, the Fourth of July, and even Groundhog Day gets me somewhat excited. I like getting together with family or friends, eating food, and looking forward to this one special day. I guess it all boils down to a lot of jealousy. To have a holiday that I don't get to celebrate makes for a pretty lousy day. However, our country has turned this holiday into an entire season, which only prolongs this feeling. Anyway, that's not really the point of this rant. It's the fact that our culture is so obsessed with being politically correct that we are hyper aware of offending ANYone. So rather than say Merry Christmas, most people I know just say "Happy Holidays!" And some of the time, this is OK. It's a nice way of acknowledging the diversity in our country. But most often I find that what we say doesn't always go along with what we do. For instance, I'm a regular watcher of the Today show, and all this week they have a special on getting ready for "The Holidays." So each day they have some expert who shows us how to prepare a "holiday" meal, and pick out the perfect "holiday" outfit. But when you create an outfit that is entirely red and green, perhaps with a little jingle ball to match, or produce a christmas eve dinner, it's not a "holiday" thing--it's christmas. What is the point of making the effort to be PC and say "holidays" when you mean Christmas? If you mean Christmas, then say Christmas. You can say "holidays" all you want, but if you're arranging a holiday flower display out of poinsettias, it has nothing to do with any other celebration besides Christmas. You're not fooling anyone.

I know this is somewhat of a touchy subject. And I'm not sure if other non-Christian people even feel the same way that I do about this Happy Holidays business. But it makes me think...we worry SO much about being politically correct, and think that we're doing things that make everyone feel comfortable. What have I said or done in order to make myself believe that I'm "politically correct"...

The Beginning of an Era

It's happened. I've created a blog. I've toyed with the idea for awhile since I was introduced to the concept in the fall by Kate. (Look, I'm even learning html!) My problem with blogs is that they can very easily suck. People write about what they ate for lunch, and even if you unconditionally love the blogger (I've got the lingo too), you probably don't care. Personally, I've been sitting around doing nothing for a good chunk of my 22 1/2 years on this planet, so I'm happy to read about someone else's encounter with a treefrog as they walked to the mailbox earlier that day. However, I'm aware that most other people aren't as fascinated by these types of stories. I also have been told on more than one occassion that I'm a bad storyteller...turns out I have a tendency to tell uninteresting stories. So naturally, I worry that a blog will just allow me to spread these unintersting thoughts and stories to a wider audience. Should I decide to keep up with this blog, I hope you'll tell me when I get to that point.
My other worry with a blog is that if you don't tell about events in your life, then you tell about your thoughts on some issue A. It doesn't take long for most people to realize that I don't always enjoy sharing my feelings. I'm wondering if I missed that day in kindergarten when we talked about sharing how we feel. Even with some of my closest friends, the people who have seen me when my hair is 10 inches high in the morning, I am still often hesitant to talk about something that's really on my mind. But we'll see...maybe this whole blog idea will be a good way to get out of that rut so that I don't turn into one of those crazy people who straps dynamite to themselves and blows themself up inside an ugly office building.
In the meantime, I'd like to remind you of our party this Saturday. Some of you might be familiar with what happend the last time we here at 9 Acadia hosted a party. It's sure to be a good time.

Those apartment rental experts are friendly AND professional, even at 4am.