The Snook and I saw Monsters Inc. today. It was even better than I expected. I was worried that the little girl would annoy me, but instead the story of Sully and Boo completely won me over. Of course, the best part of the moviegoing experience was seeing our Aussie friend Scott in a Showtime commercial before the feature. He’s the pale redhead in the middle of this picture. In the advert you see three black and white photos of him (“By day he’s a clerk…”) and then suddenly he morphs into Russell Crowe (“… but tonight he will conquer an empire!”). We laughed and laughed. Congrats, mate.

Ron started a meme! He’s created the blogger code and even a handy cgi that generates it for you. Here’s mine:

B5 d++ t++ k s f+ i o x- e+ l+ c–

My Geek Code is already available on the about page.

I am the New Year’s Resolution Girl! I joined the gym today and made an appointment to see a personal trainer tomorrow afternoon. I am going to get fit, fit, fit. But no yoga. I learned that lesson already.

Apparently Kirsty MacColl’s last album is going to be released soon. I’m not such a big fan, but Snookums’s mom is. That article has some good information about her influence on modern music (and musicians).

I hate spammers. That’s why I loved this detailed war of words with one of them. Great reading, if you’ve got a few minutes.

I can’t stop giggling. President Bush referred to Pakistanis as “Pakis”. Oh my. My American readers probably don’t realize that this is a majorly offensive term elsewhere in the world. And he didn’t even apologize! Who’s advising this guy, anyway?

Now they’re saying that the suicide “Osama supporter” kid may have developed mental problems from his acne medication. Obviously we’re not quite done grasping at straws.

The Food and Drug Administration says 147 people taking Accutane, which affects the body’s central nervous system, either committed suicide or were hospitalized for suicide attempts from 1982 to May 2000.

That statistic covers eighteen years. I’m sure during any eighteen year span you could come up with 150 people who committed suicide while taking Pepto Bismol. Or drinking Mountain Dew. Or being on their period. This doesn’t seem like a very meaningful line of research to me. (And God, how embarrassing. Not only did he suffer the indignity of being called a terrorist, but now everyone in the world knows the poor kid had to take special medicine for his pimples.)

I didn’t know Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy’s) died! Wow. Even the Snook knew who he was. I remember reading somewhere once that he only started doing his commercials to help the company rebound after a “tainted meat” scare back in the 80’s. The article doesn’t mention that. It does say, however:

In 1956, he was working at a barbecue restaurant in Fort Wayne, Ind., when Col. Harland Sanders of KFC fame stopped in on a promotional tour…

Who knew that such a historic fast food moment took place right near where I grew up?

This is amazing. Check out some of the most momentous Usenet posts ever.

I never really noticed before that Bill’s comment phrase is “Sing out, Louise”. When I looked at it today though, I suddenly realized where it comes from: Gypsy! The Bette Midler version was just on TV here the other day. The only thing more amazing than Midler’s constant hamming was how much Cynthia Gibb looked like Natalie Wood. And I knew I’d seen Herbie before… He was in Animal House!