Random Thinking

Beth got lots of cool gifts but this is the coolest by far. Her grandmother wanted to get Beth something special so she had me go out and buy her a laptop computer and printer.

Beth had planned to go out tonight but she was running a fever of 102.5 a little while ago. Even on Tylenol she is still over 100. At least she can talk to her friends on the computer.

So for Christmas, Beth got a new laptop computer, a clean room, and a fever.

Three hours and two big garbage bags later…

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

This is the very last song of the week off my iPod for 2008. Next Friday is a whole new year!

Daniel Powter is a Canadian singer, song writer. He is from British Columbia. Powter released his first album in 2000, but it wasn’t until 2005 with the release of his huge hit, Bad Day, that he achieved commercial success. The song was used by Coca-Cola for an ad campaign in Europe which helped the song reach number one virtually everywhere on the continent. It was also used by the show American Idol which helped push it to the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, making Powter the first solo Canadian male artist to top the Hot 100 since Bryan Adams in 1995.

The song has had such huge success that it is overplayed and can be annoying but I love the video for it. It’s the kind of video that can make you cry if you are a romantic.

Bad Day
Where is the moment we needed the most
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost
They tell me your blue skies fade to grey
They tell me your passion’s gone away
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

You stand in the line just to hit a new low
You’re faking a smile with the coffee to go
You tell me your life’s been way off line
You’re falling to pieces everytime
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Well you need a blue sky holiday
The point is they laugh at what you say
And I don’t need no carryin’ on

You had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
The camera don’t lie
You’re coming back down and you really don’t mind
You had a bad day

(Oh.. Holiday..)

Sometimes the system goes on the blink
And the whole thing turns out wrong
You might not make it back and you know
That you could be well oh that strong
And I’m not wrong

So where is the passion when you need it the most
Oh you and I
You kick up the leaves and the magic is lost

Cause you had a bad day
You’re taking one down
You sing a sad song just to turn it around
You say you don’t know
You tell me don’t lie
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You had a bad day
You’ve seen what you like
And how does it feel for one more time
You had a bad day
You had a bad day

Had a bad day

SPOILER ALERT: (Read the following only after watching the video!!!)
From Wikipedia:
The music video is directed by Marc Webb and features two single people, a male (Jason Adelman) and a female (Samaire Armstrong), waking and going about their daily schedule. The video shows this happening over a three-day period, but makes no distinction between the days. The main event is the two adding graffiti to the same wall, separately, on each day, culminating in the completion of a heart. At the end of the video, life mirrors the image created on the wall, with the boy offering the soaking wet girl a red umbrella in the pouring rain, as a cab stops for them. Parts of it are shot in a split-screen. Throughout the video, Powter is shown with his tuque, playing his piano. The Metro Red Line subway in Los Angeles was used during the shooting of this video.

Update: This is my luck…. 10 minutes after posting the link to YouTube, Virgin Records forces YouTube to shut down the video for copyright violation. So here is a link to AOL’s site where the video is available. You have to watch an ad first… sorry about that.

Daniel Powter’s Bad Day

Beth and a happy tree.

Beth and her favorite author (with Dr. Bagles Cain right behind her).

Mikey enjoying Christmas.

Mommy enjoying Christmas,too.

Beth and her cousin Tracy-Anne enjoying seeing each other enjoying Christmas.

I just checked the NORAD site and Santa has finished most of the world except for North and South America. He is currently in the South Alantic near the South Sandwich Islands. I hope he brought something nice to all our friends in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

$28,500. That is how much Isaac Toussie’s dad had to donate to the Republican National Committee to get his son pardoned by George W. Bush. The younger Toussie had cheated Suffolk, NY out of $5 million in a land scam and had falsified documents in order to get people qualified for HUD mortgages who otherwise could not have gotten mortgages. Toussie got five months home confinement (go to your room!) and did not have to make restitution for any of the money he stole. And now he has a completely clean record. As the NY Daily News said, “[This is either] breathtaking abuse of discretion that smells of cheaply bough political favoritism [or] Bush is a tone-deaf moron.” I say, why can’t it be both?

Update (12/25): The report today is that Bush has recalled the pardon. He claims that it was a mistake and that he had no idea that Toussie’s criminal record was so extensive or that Toussie’s pop had donated so much money to the RNC. Sure he didn’t.

This has been going around the internet recently:

According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year (the only members of the deer family, Cervidae, to have females do so). Male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter, usually late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers until after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to every historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, every single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen had to be a girl.

We should have known that when they were able to find their way.

As anyone who saw the TV program, “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” knows, this simply can’t be true, although the show does appear to have several inaccuracies including that female reindeer never grow antlers and that there is a lack of dentists at the North Pole.

Anyway, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Santa’s reindeer are not just your run-of-the-mill reindeer. They are, in fact, a whole separate species from Rangifer tarandus, the reindeer that run around in Alaska. They are the sub-species, Saintnicolas magicalus. The main difference between S. magicalus and R. tarandus, is that S. magicalus has developed the ability to fly, a trait not normally found in the family, Cervidae. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game tells us that as long as S. magicalus is supplied with frequent breaks for carrots, they can fly long distances in very short periods of time. In addition both males and females of S. magicalus retain their antlers all year round.

This one is actually a couple of years old. At least I edited it for Beth so it is more typical, right? But for some reason she still didn’t want to hand it in.

To whom it may concern,

Beth Paul needs to leave early today. Beth is needed by the CIA to help fight the massive invasion from outer space has an appointment with the Physical Therapist to work on her knee. We will pick her up at 1:30.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

I think this one was rather accurate but Beth insisted that I write her a different one.

To the attendance office,

Please excuse Beth for being absent yesterday. She didn’t want to hang out with you boring people.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

I had to pick up Beth from school yesterday and because of the snow I decided not to go back. Instead, Beth and I watched “Dragnet” on TV Land. One of the episodes featured a teenage actor, Michael Burns, so we looked him up on IMDB to see how his career progressed. We found out that he quit acting and went on to get his PhD in history from Yale and was a college professor for 20 years and is now retired on a horse farm in Kentucky. Very cool. We also found out that he was born here on Long Island.

This made us realize that you could search IMDB by town so we decided to find out which actors were from our town. It looked very promising as right away we found Diane Franklin, who was in an episode of Murder She Wrote! That makes her high on our list. From there we only found two people who had any kind of movie career… both in the porn industry! Jeremy Steele* and Lindsay Lane* were born in our town and have been in numerous X-rated flicks (Steele has been in more than 100 although I don’t know if that is something to brag about). Is this what Plainview is noted for? (shock!) Of course, they were just born here and we do have a hospital so maybe they weren’t actually from Plainview. Diane Franklin was raised here so I’ll stick to bragging about her.

* I will leave off the links as even the names of the films are rather… graphic.