Me Gusta, No Me Gusta Part-o Dos

No Me Gusta: Not Knowing Where My Money Is
The husband and I bank with Wachovia. Or should I say we banked with Wachovia? Am I still banking with Wachovia? The sign says Wachovia, but when we performed a balance transfer from our Wachovia card to a card with a lower interest rate, the woman on the phone said, "Oh - you mean you'd like to transfer funds from your Bank of America card to your Discover card." "Umm ... no - we hate Bank of America. We're with Wachovia. That's the card number we just gave you." "Well, yes, but Wachovia has been bought by Bank of America." "Oh crap - I don't want to go back to banking with them! They were AWFUL!!!" Fast forward to the following morning, at which time I saw a piece on the Today Show about how Citibank has actually bought Wachovia. "Uh ... wait a minute. The woman on the phone yesterday said Discover was making their check out to Bank of America. Should they have made it out to Citibank? I am so confused." Not as confused as I was about to get. Later that afternoon, I saw another piece online talking about how some other corporation had bought up Wachovia and several other failing banks and it was now in the top three biggest banking corporations, alongside Citibank and Bank of America. Okay, hold on. Where is my money??? Honestly, I have no idea. All I know is that the balance transfer went through just fine, my paycheck gets direct deposited right on schedule, and my checks to pay the bills are clearing with no problem. As Shakespeare would say, "What's in a name? A Wachovia by any other name is still FDIC insured ... I think."

Me Gusta: Katamari Damacy
What's not to love about this video game? The ridiculously bad Engrish subtitles. The awesome music. The hilarious song lyrics. The adorableness of your avatar. As the Prince of the Universe, not only can you wear a giraffe on your head, and save the red pandas, but you can carry around entire cities, nay, even continents in your quest to help your impulsive father, the King of the Universe, recreate what he has destroyed in a fit of anger. The game is simple, really. You start out with a small ball, which you roll around in order to collect objects by rolling over them to get them to stick to said ball. Some levels require you to reach a certain diameter in a certain time limit. Others require you to pick up a certain dollar's worth of items or a certain number of a specific object. All of them are really crazy, completely random, and totally awesome. My husband and I have seriously considered purchasing a PS2 if for no other reason than to play this game. The main thing holding us back: We would never turn it off, and our children would starve.

No Me Gusta: Election Campaigning
Was it me, or were campaign ads particularly awful this year? "He's too young!" "Well, he's too old!" "She's too pretty!" "Who the heck is Joe Biden, anyway?" "I'm a Maverick, looking out for Joe the Plumber!" "I'd like to take a page from the Kennedys' book and pull a Marilyn Monroe on Joe the Plumber ASAP." "Barack Obama isn't even a US citizen!" "You can't prove that, and I'm really going to help my case by absolutely refusing to let anyone see my birth certificate until after the election, at which time you'll hopefully have forgotten all about it. Besides, John McCain had cancer 20 years ago! We all know how common it is to get random cancer back after 20 years of remission! Why don't you just vote for plastic Sarah Palin?" "Are you insinuating I'm too dumb to lead America when - I mean, if - John McCain croaks? I'm not dumb, I just - I mean to say, America is like a pot pie, and without you plumbers as peas and you teachers and soldiers as the meat and potatoes we'd just not be anything to stand and fight against the forces of evil against this glorious country! I have the most excellent structure in my sentences, you know? Go Alaska Tech Women's Hockey!" Oy vey. On and on and on it went. I thought it would never end. It wasn't bad enough that the presidential ads were awful - the local representatives' all looked like they'd been put together in a high school design class, and none of them really talked about anything of importance. "He's actually from NY, so why should he be a representative in VA?" "Well, I'd make a better representative than him. All he's ever voted in favor of is to erect a crappy statue on Capitol Hill." Even allergy medications were going at it full steam. "Claritin takes a long time to kick in. Zyrtec works two whole hours faster than all the other leading brands." "Oh yeah? Well Zyrtec isn't telling you that you'll spend those two hours asleep because it causes drowsiness and Claritin doesn't!" Ugh. Never have I looked forward to an election more, not for the historicity of the event or because I was super eager to vote for a candidate I loved, but because I wanted nothing more than to stop those crazy ads.

Me Gusta: The Year After an Election
No campaign ads. No slander. The new guy is getting to know the ropes, so he isn't really making big decisions to screw up my life (yet). The old guy is making appearances on SNL and Conan and deciding which university he'll give the commencement speech at this year. It's so quiet. And did I mention there are no campaign ads? Ah, what a glorious year.

Me Gusta No Me Gusta Part-o Uno

Taking a page from MJ's book, I've decided to put together a Me Gusta, No Me Gusta List for those of you who care to know what me gustas and what me doesn't gusta. Over the course of the next week or so, I will make several entries telling you about some things I like and some things of which I am not a big fan. Without further ado, I bring you today's portion ...

Me Gusta: The Funeral by Band of Horses
Ever since this song first apeared on my radar in the Ford Edge ads last year, it's been a veritable love affair. (The irony of a car commercial featuring a song that is about death and whose actual music video revolves around a car crash is inescapable.) I had a great time trying to figure out what the song was, too, with no lyrics to Google and nothing but an insanely catchy guitar riff to go by, but I eventually worked my search engine magic and came out successful. The main guitar line of this song is, without a doubt, one of the catchiest you'll ever hear. I'd just gotten it out of my head from those Ford ads a few months ago, and then CSI started using it for their Season 9 premiere marketing. Looks like it's hear (bad pun intended) to stay.

No Me Gusta: The Ocean
It's up to no good, I tell you. Thousands of pounds of pressure. Trillions of gallons of undrinkable water. Sharks. Jellyfish. Fire coral. Shipwrecks. Barricuda. How could Quint, Captain Smith, or Coral stand a chance? Look, but don't touch. I love the beach, but I am terrified of the ocean. I don't typically go out past my knees, and even then, I often end up screaming and yelping as I bound back up the shore, "Something touched my leg!!!"

In for a long one...

Today is Schuyler's nine-month doctor appointment (you know, a few days after she turned 10 months old). I'm pretty sure this means we're in for more shots, which never makes for a fun afternoon to start with, but to top it off, she's already been kind of fussy all morning, and she's been incredibly verbal as of late. I'm really looking to an afternoon of screaming baby gibberish in which Scout "goy"s and "baba"s to me about exactly where I rank on her crap list for subjecting her to freezing cold baby scales and painful injections. With any luck, she'll exact her revenge by pulling my hair or peeing on me while I carry her to the bath tonight. I'm going to try to make today the happiest day ever (until 2:00) in the hopes that she decides not to be mad at me after all.

I was recently discussing with a friend of mine about how Scout gets mad at me and ignores me when I do things she doesn't like or don't let her do things she wants to. We were also talking about how she has the ability to say "mama" (she's done it a few times) but won't when prompted. (Instead, she says similar sounding things like "Nonna" and "baba" with a smirk) My friend gave me this heartwarming encouragement: "She's your daughter. This is how it's going to be for the rest of your lives. I speak from experience; just get used to it."

What a joy.

I think I have a problem

Michael Phelps' finals schedule is written on Post-its and stuck to my TV.

Last night, I literally ran through Walmart and begged my husband to drive over the speed limit on the way home so that we wouldn't miss the 200m freestyle finals.

I ignored my friends at their house for a full 30 minutes while I read the cover story about Phelps in Sports Illustrated.

I have joined a Michael Phelps facebook group and have Phelps Phan flair.

I have spent too much time on the internet reading stats and bios and checking his times against people like Basson and Cseh.

In spite of his large ears and the fact that he kind of looks like a cross between the ugly New Kid on the Block and a friend of ours with cerebral palsy, I find him strangely attractive.

Brendan's been making fun of me for days because of my new "boyfriend." He asks me if he should start lifting again, learn to swim, and run around in a tiny speedo all day to keep my attention. I promise, this will all go away in ten days, when the Olympics are over, and Brendan will have my undivided attention ... for the next 206 weeks.

Enjoy your smallpox blankets!

Brendan and I had a conversation last night about going green, the global economy, and what "good things" America has contributed to the world. It all started when we were reading the LifeWay magazine that our church distributes, and I was pleasantly surprised to find an article called "10 Simple Ways to Go Green." As many of you may have noticed, the Christian community isn't so big on the idea of going green, mainly (I submit) because it is an idea that predominately was started by the Democrats, and most Christians seem to think that God is Ronald Reagan - I mean, a conservative Republican. I don't know if we're just jealous that we didn't think of it first or if we just really like clear-cutting forests to make way for more LifeWay warehouses, but Christian and environmentalist don't seem to be two words that you find in the same sentence very often, unless, of course, that sentence is, "Wow - that Christian is very vocal about how strongly he opposes that environmentalist's perspective." So, when I saw that headline on the cover of a Christian publication, I was totally stoked.

"Brendan!" I said. "Look!" I said. "An article on going green! In a Christian magazine!" So we flipped to it, and I have to say I was a little disappointed. It started off well enough, citing the verse that says, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it," and talking about Biblical stewardship of the planet God has placed us on... but then it made it's mistake: The author suddenly changed from talking about how God has called us to take care of the earth and started talking about how good it is for the global economy to be environmentally conscious.

"Umm ... should Christians really be all about investing in the global economy?" I asked (because I really wasn't sure).

"Why not?" asked Brendan.

"Well, you know, global economy becomes one-world currency becomes one-world government becomes that creepy 'coexist' symbol ..." I trailed off.

"Do you think that a Christian's job is warding off the coming of the Anti-Christ?" he asked.

"Well, no. I mean, it's going to happen, regardless, but I'm not saying we should stop it. I'm just wondering if we should invest in it."

"Well, why not?" Brendan asked.

"Umm, yeah, sure. I'll take the mark of the beast if it'll save me $50 a year!" I said sarcastically.

"Will it really save me $50?"

"Come on; you know what I mean."

There seemed to be no clear-cut answer. Brendan figured that on the one hand, a man's got to eat, and there's money to buy food in the global market. On the other hand, the Euro is to be avoided at all costs.

We got back to the article and its talking about why we should go green because it'll save us so much money. "Money?" I asked. "Why does it have to be about money? Why can't it just be about the biblical principle? Why can't it be about caring for your children enough to try to make the world a little less disgusting for them? Why does it have to be about money and what's convenient for us? Why can't it just be about taking care of things for God's glory and respecting Him by respecting the stuff He gave us?" Then I remembered:

We are Americans.

If it isn't convenient and/or turning a huge profit margin, we don't want to do it. I mean, yes, it is nice that buying produce at the farmer's market saves me money, but it's nicer to think that locally-grown fruits and vegetables don't require several gallons of (Venezuelan or Iraqi) gas and oil to transport them to the area. Lowering my electric bill is nice, but not as nice as thinking that I'm one of many who are conserving fossil fuels. It's nice to save money by not buying disposable diapers, but it's nicer to think that I'm not dumping metric tons of non-biodegradable waste in landfills. All that to say, the money should be a nice side effect - but not the motivation. When money is your motivator, there's a problem.

"But what about my job?" you ask. "I don't like my job. I do it because I have to get paid. Doesn't that mean that money is my motivation for doing my job?" Well, yes and no. Your short-term motivation is to get paid, but what about the long term? Are you working just for the sake of the money? I doubt it. At least, I hope not. The end goal probably isn't more money: It's a roof over your head, food, health insurance, a reliable car to take your kids to school, things for your family's safety and provision. I'll amend the above statement: When money is your main motivator, there's a problem.

That being said, I actually pay to recycle. That's right: I pay to recycle. I don't have curbside pickup. I have to sort my own recyclables and make a special trip to a collection site in order to dispose of them. "Isn't that oxymoronic?" you ask. "You are wasting your precious fossil fuels just to make sure your tuna cans and cereal boxes don't get thrown away." Fair enough. However, I only take out recycling once a week, and I only drop it off when I know I'm already going to be driving near a collection site. That way, I don't waste a lot of extra gas to do it. However, I do have to use my time and some gas to dispose of it. It is not convenient to have an extra storage bin taking up space in my already-crowded, tiny kitchen, but there it sits. It takes extra time to rinse out every container we use and make sure it gets put in the right drawer of said bin. It's not fun to haul bags of garbage to my car and try to cram them into my trunk around all of the baby gear. The collection sites don't smell good, especially when it's over 100 degrees outside, but I go anyway. Why? Not because it's saving me money. Like I said - it's costing me in the form of time and driving a little bit out of my way. I do it because there's no good reason not to. Laziness just isn't a very good excuse. Convenience is for "ugly Americans," and I don't want to be one of those.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing about why we need to be "proud" to be American. There. I said it. Disown me if you must, but hear me out first: Why are you proud of something you didn't accomplish? Did you choose to be born here? No. It was by God's providence that you ended up here instead of El Salvador, Zimbabwe, or, God forbid, the dreaded France. Pride is for accomplishments, not chance happenings. I'm not proud to be a brunette; I'm not proud to be a woman; I'm not proud to be a Pennsylvanian because I didn't have a choice in any of those things. Those are not accomplishments, They just happened. Now then, I am proud to be a well-read individual. I am proud that I can utilize comma rules and parallel sentence structure. I am proud of my ability to play the flute (even though it's kind of lame), and I'm proud that I successfully ejected a human being from my body. Those are things I can be proud of. Those are things I actually did. "Okay," Brendan said, "maybe I can't be proud to be an American, but I can be proud of what my country has done, of what my people have done."

Thus began the next phase of our conversation: What "good things" has America done? Now, I'm a firm believer that we need to mind our own business and stop telling other people how to live. If other countries want to become communists, let them. We have no right to be the democracy police. (PS: Regardless of what your government school told you, we're not a democracy - that would mean the people were truly empowered. You have no power. The government just wants you to think you do so you don't go trying to get any.) We cannot (okay, we can and we do, but we shouldn't) just go around telling people that they must adhere to the same set of rules we do and build their government around our ideology (much of which we actually stole from Scotland when we wrote the Declaration of Independence). When Brendan made me stop and think about what America has done for the world, I honestly had a hard time thinking of things besides meddling in the affairs of the Vietnamese and our bad habits of overspending and making friends with other countries only so that we can take their oil.

"You can't think of anything?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, I guess we played a pretty big part in ending World War II," I admitted.

"That's it?" he asked, even more incredulously.

"Ummm ... yeah," I said. "I was going to say that we helped end slavery, but let's admit it: We only jumped on that bandwagon after England and a bunch of other countries had already abolished it; we did it reluctantly, and half of us wanted so badly to keep it that we went to war within ourselves. Not exactly a big plus for us."

"What about medicine?" he asked.

"Enjoy your smallpox blankets!"

In the end, he pointed out that we provide tons of grain for third world countries and give it to them free of charge. We also ship crates of AZT to AIDS-ridden countries like Uganda and Rwanda (and other places that end in "anda") without asking for anything in return. I'll admit, those are big things. They are good things. I was wrong. We do some nice stuff. I still don't think our nice things outweigh our ridiculous bad things (by ridiculous I mean both "for no good reason" and "based on sheer size"). However, when I really think about it, neither do my own. For every "good deed" I've done, I can think of about ten things I've done wrong.

As Brendan so sagely remarked, "Take your average individual. If you sat down and listed all of the bad things they've done, you could write a novel. That doesn't mean they have no redeeming qualities, that they're completely unlovable."

Then we had a great laugh at the thought of America being described as "lovable" because we both agreed that was a stretch. Tolerable, I suppose. Somewhat likeable on good days. But clearly flawed, just like the rest of us. I don't hate America. I wish we were less selfish. I wish we had better spending habits. I wish we'd go to foreign oil rehab and stop being a bossy younger sister. However, when I'm honest, I wish most of those things about me too. So, I guess I'm more "American" than I thought ... and maybe there are worse things to be.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure...

I just saw an interesting challenge on another blog I read from time to time. Basically, the long and short of it is this: Bare your privates, so to speak. Tell the truth. Expose your realities. So, here they are:

1. I am such an excellent housekeeper that my infant daughter is not permitted to go into the kitchen or bathrooms (unless she's in the tub) for fear she will consume something inedible from the floor and have to be rushed to the emergency room.

2. I read more books designed for teens (YA lit) than I do books for grown-ups (not to be mistaken with "adult" books).

3. While I am a stickler about making sure it gets done in the mornings, I very rarely brush my teeth before going to bed.

4. I have let a friend wash my dishes for no other reason than that I was just too lazy to do it.

5. I lied to four babysitters about why I was firing them because I was too chicken to tell them the truth. I told every single one of them that I got a new, work-from-home job (technically true, but it didn't start for a few weeks after letting them go) or found a friend who needed some extra money instead of telling them: they were keeping so many kids it was illegal, I could tell they weren't feeding/changing my kid properly, I was sick of them lying to me ... Good help is hard to find. Apparently, so is bravado and/or honesty.

6. Shortly after I became a Christian, I decided to get rid of my "really bad" secular music (Korn, Limp Bizkit, Orgy, Eminem). Did I dispose of them by throwing them in the garbage or setting them on fire to make sure no one else was ever subjected to such angry and filthy lyrics? Of course not. I took them to the local record exchange and sold them. As if profiting from sinfulness wasn't bad enough, a few months later, I bought new copies of half of those albums.

7. I've told my husband I was staying up late to catch up on work, and then ended up watching lonelygirl15 until two in the morning.

8. I haven't printed any pictures of my daughter since Christmas, partly because I never seem to have the money to do so, and partly because I'm just plain lazy.

9. My first ever C in a class was in keyboarding. To this day, I can't really type without looking at my hands.

10. My wedding dress has never been cleaned and is still hanging out in the ripped garment bag I stuffed it into in November of 2005. I keep saying that I'll get to it eventually, but let's be honest: I won't. This is the same reason my winter coat is still hanging by the door and hasn't been dry cleaned in two years.

Okay, I feel better now. Of course, none of you will ever come to my house again because you'll be afraid of catching botulism, but now at least you know what you're getting into.

And knowing is half the battle.

I Just Saw a Commercial with Ed McMahon

It appears the Prize Patrol Van is headed out tomorrow to deliver one of those giant, million-dollar checks.

If Ed McMahon is declaring bankruptcy and forclosing on his house and all that, why doesn't he stop handing out those giant checks? What if you win, and you go to cash the check, and it bounces? What do you do then?