Hee hee. King Kaufman puts that whole George O’Leary/Notre Dame debacle into hilarious perspective. Oh, and he invented plastic. 🙂

What corporate mascot are you? I regret that I am the Micro$oft Office Paperclip, and Snookums is Ronald McDonald. What a fine pair we are. (Link courtesy of John again, who has all the best links lately.)

Despite Divorce, Cruise Expects Warm Reception in Australia. I don’t think he should hold his breath. We’re all very pro-Nicole over here. The evening news showed her landing in Sydney to spend the holidays with her family. Nobody wants to applaud Cruise and his puffy-lipped trophy girlfriend.

Fun! Yesterday the Snook and I headed down to the Sydney Aquarium for some fish interaction. They’ve got these great walk-through oceanariums with all kinds of Australian sea life. The “Sharks and Rays” one was the absolute scariest. I kept flashing back to Jaws III. Ooh, and remember when I discovered that my ideal zoo date was a moon jellyfish? I finally saw some of them and I’m forced to agree. They’re pretty (at least when they’re in the water).

Have I mentioned that Sydney has both Taco Bell and Mountain Dew? Unfortunately there’s a trade-off though. I was riding the bus with Snookums the other day when I realized that something was missing. We’ve been through the central shopping district several times, and never have I seen that familiar blue sign. There’s no GAP! Where are we going to buy our pants now?

Here’s an essay about a 25-year-old who suddenly gets a new half-sibling. Yeah, I identified a little bit. “The mathematics of a post-nuclear family is a bit stunning. When my [brother] enters kindergarten I will be entering my 30s. When [he] goes to prom I’ll be a soccer mom. By the time [he] is legal to drink, I’ll probably just be coming out of rehab myself. When I’m 50, [he]’ll be 25, the age I was when [he] was born. We weren’t [siblings]; we were victims of circumstance.” (Link courtesy of John.)

London went on full terror alert today. “Anti-terrorist detectives fear that the capital could be the target for both Islamic extremists and renegade Irish terrorists trying to disrupt the peace process.” In other news halfway around the globe, it rained a little bit in Sydney this morning but was still warm enough to wear shorts, Australia hit 436 in the first innings at cricket, and my only worry leading up to the Christmas season is which beach to hit. Life is good.

SO TIRED. But the house is done. Thursday morning the Snook and I were woken up at 8:00 a.m. by the washing machine delivery man. After that was successfully installed, we had a quick breakfast and then Snookums headed off to IKEA. He had a shopping list of all the pieces we needed to create our custom entertainment center, office space (with desks), dining room set, dresser, closet shelves, and bookcases. While he dealt with that nightmare, I stayed here to meet various deliverymen with our couch, TV, refrigerator, microwave, vacuum, and crock pot. I had a slight mishap with the couch legs (I didn’t realize that there were two long and two short, so my sofa was lopsided at first), but eventually I got it up and the slipcover on. The Snook made it home and the two guys that drove the rental truck carried everything upstairs. Then began the great assembly frenzy. We managed to get the bedroom stuff done and finally unpack, and then we started on the entertainment center. That’s all we had time for before the Snook’s friends arrived for our housewarming party. Much alcohol followed. Fast forward fifteen hours…

More assembly on Friday. We get everything together except one last bookcase. Our carpet has disappeared beneath a mountain of bubble wrap and cardboard boxes. But it’s done! And it looks cool. I’ve got “Before” and “After” pictures to put up soon.

Sorry to bore you with all the details, but some people (*cough* Amy! *cough) have been wondering why I haven’t been e-mailing every three hours. I can barely type right now as it is, my shoulders and hands are so sore. (I never want to see an Allen wrench again in my life.) IKEA is the devil kids. There were times Friday I would’ve given my right arm for a power drill…

Hmmm. I just realized that time difference between where I’m posting and where my server is located means that posts are coming up on the wrong days (I’m across the International Date Line now). I’m going to do some tinkering…

New Poll! In honor of the amazing custard croissant I had from the local bakery this morning, I’m asking about your favorite baked delights. (I bet you can guess what I voted.) And as usual, I’ve taken the liberty of interpreting your responses for you. 🙂