| Sunday, December 10, 2006 |
| Random notes |
* Other Michigan football fans may moan and groan about the team's inclusion in the Rose Bowl instead of the Bowl Championship Game, but I am happy about it. For one thing, the Rose Bowl is the iconic college football game. And it's played on New Year's Day, as God intended. Bowl games shouldn't be played on January 8 -- a workday, a Monday! They should all take place on New Year's weekend, so you can sit around on your days off and watch college football 'til you can't stand it anymore (or run out of snacks and/or beer, whichever comes first). Ohio and Florida will kick off at 5 PM here on the West Coast, so most Californians won't even be home before halftime. Lame, lame, lame.
* Every December Joe and I put together a mix CD of our favorite songs from the previous year and send it to our musically inclined friends. Unfortunately, there are always a bunch of songs I discover that came out in previous years and are thus not eligible for inclusion. Among the really fantastic 2005 songs I didn't hear until 2006: The Decemberists' "Infanta," The Celebrity Pilots' "We've Lost Kasparov," Bob Mould's "Circles," the Pernice Brothers' "Snow," and, from way back in 2000, Patty Griffin's "Boston." More about 2006's music to come later in the year.
* According to the IMDB, the film "Little Children" has yet to play on more than 37 screens in the entire United States. This is an exquisite film directed by the acclaimed Todd Field ("In the Bedroom"), with a wonderful cast, headed by Kate Winslet. You'd think it would be a shoo-in for multiple Oscars, but the movie's low profile won't help its case. I hope it gets a wider release someday so more people have a chance to see it. Its true audience, though, may have to wait until it comes out on DVD; it has a lot to say about the joys, fears and limitations of parenting a small child, and those folks don't get out much. If you have kids, add it to your Netflix queue now and watch it after the little ones have gone to bed.
* If it's December, it must be time for TV car ads featuring husbands and wives giving each other new vehicles, topped, of course, with gigantic red bows. (In one ad, the entire neighborhood gathers across the street to watch the lucky woman get her new SUV.) Since Joe and I tend to keep our gift budgets in the low three figures, neither of us can expect to receive a shiny new car this Christmas, but I couldn't help but wonder: where do you get those enormous bows? A little Googling turned up KingSizeBows.com -- "Use our giant bows when giving a large gift such as a car, RV, house, big screen television, pool table, a horse or appliance" -- which charges $48 for a massive ribbon. (A horse? Gosh, I wouldn't have thought about putting a giant bow on a horse!) There's also BowDecor.com, whose home page notes that "all Bows made in Bow, New Hampshire," a nice touch. |
posted by 125records @ 1:29 PM  |
|
| 4 Comments: |
-
That's something that's always bugged me: okay, a car is sort of obviously not a likely gift from any but your Gateses or Buffetts...and maybe I'm just a cheapskate, but even things like thousand-dollar plasma TVs seem rather excessive as gifts. The point of these ads, as usual, is to guilt people into spending way more than they can reasonably afford. (Consider that the average household income in the US is under 40k - not many folks can afford to spend $1,000 on one person's gift...unless they just don't know many people and have a very small family, I suppose.)
-
The tradition in my immediate family has been not to go overboard with gift giving, and I have carried that into my adult life. I heard a piece on NPR recently about the surprisingly large percentage of people who still haven't paid off LAST December's credit card bills.
-
Please post the playlist from your CD. I downloaded Snow this morning and look forward to mining more gems!
-
Ohio STATE and Florida. Ohio STATE and Florida. I don't really care all that much, but cannot resist this essential correction. In less picky news, thanks for the tap about Little Children. The content is of interest - but more to the point, I just looked it up on IMDB and discovered it also marks the (OK, second or third) return of Jackie Earle Haley. Kelly Leak! OMG! I'm sure you or one of your correspondents has blogged about this, but I wasn't paying close enough attention. This is really exciting news.
|
| |
| << Home |
| |
|
|
|
| About Me |
Name: Sue
Home: San Francisco Bay Area, California, United States
About Me:
See my complete profile
|
| Previous Post |
|
| Archives |
|
| Links |
|
|
| Powered by |
|
|
That's something that's always bugged me: okay, a car is sort of obviously not a likely gift from any but your Gateses or Buffetts...and maybe I'm just a cheapskate, but even things like thousand-dollar plasma TVs seem rather excessive as gifts. The point of these ads, as usual, is to guilt people into spending way more than they can reasonably afford. (Consider that the average household income in the US is under 40k - not many folks can afford to spend $1,000 on one person's gift...unless they just don't know many people and have a very small family, I suppose.)