Wow, lots of things to write about again.  Let's see if I get them all (taking bets as to whether or not this will ever happen).

URU Live launched (or now, Myst Online: URU Live, aka, MOUL), and it's very exciting!  There are already new features added in, the graphics look amazing, the lag is a less prevalent and linking is super fast.  The in-game staff is starting up and things are looking great.  It's weird though, since it's funded by Turner, there are a lot of new clothing options, including CNN shirts.

I went to the ordination of our Curate at Calvary, and it was awesome.  The service was about two hours, but it flew by.  The sermon was amazing, and the music was some of the most beautiful I've heard at church (although sadly, only the organ and timpani were live, the brass and bells were synthesized for once).  Afterward, there was a huge spread of food (including stuffed mushroom caps) and I even got to have a yuengling (wine was also available).  And to top it all off, I finally got an answer to a question that has been bugging me for a while: Where does the Episcopal Church get it's saints from?  The Assisting Bishop was there and I asked him and he told me that they are decided upon at each General Convention (each province in the Anglican Communion sets their own saints, granted there are some universal ones that just about everyone agrees on) and an updated list is created (I'd like to find this), and apparently, at the last General Convention, C.S. Lewis was declared a saint!

I watched the VGA's on Spike (hosted by Samuel L. Jackson, who did a great job), and they showed the first ever preview of the World of Warcrack, er, I mean Warcraft expansion.  I wasn't really impressed by the trailer itself (but then again, I don't play WoW, so I really didn't know what was going on), but they had a live choir, which impressed me a great deal.

My favorite recent quote from the writers of the Associated Press:
"An Indian athletics official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media…."
These are the kinds of things that make PR associates crazy (and pretty much fall into Lewis Black seizures), as well as journalists (having to print that).

I went to Tecumsa District's annual Christmas party, which was a lot of fun.  I had a good time talking with people, meeting new people, eating and just generally being merry.  The roads getting to the Carriage Inn in Elisabeth were a bit crazy, but still worth it.  It was like how I would hope good office Christmas parties to be, just filled with scouting folk.

As I was driving (can't remember where), there was a car with a "got moxie?" sticker on it, and I though of KoL and saber-toothed limes.

The title of this blog comes from when I was working on wedding invitations for a friend and I misspelled Catholic…that one goes in the trash, not the mail.

I just found a new game, Line Rider.  You create a track for a sled rider.  It's a lot of fun, if you get a chance, check this video out:

And finally (at least until I press submit and then realize what I forgot), the rabbids of UbiSoft wish us all a Merry Christmas (although it does feel wrong talking about URU and UbiSoft in the same post):

It's been a while, I've been meaning to type an entry for about a week, so here goes:

I headed out to the Koinonia reunion/poor man's Christmas, and had a blast.  I am the proud new owner of glitter paint, a build a pumpkin pirate set and waterproof matches!  On the way there, I got to call 911 for the first time.  I got off of the turnpike at route 30 and saw a deer bolt across the road from behind a sign and get creamed by a car (although at first, but how it was running, I thought it was a dog).  The deer went spinning into the air, completing a lot of flips and finally landing in the next lane.  No one in the car seemed to be hurt, but I called 911 regardless, the deer was blocking an entire lane in a spot that is prone to being backed up anyway.  The connection to 911 was crackly, but when they transfered me to the local police, it was fine.  And when asked if the deer was alive, I got to reply, "When I passed it, it was still twitching."

McDonald's has a new chicken ranch BLT, that actually looks pretty good.  At some point, I may finally have to use my gift certificates and check it out.

There is a house up the street with a lot of Christmas decorations (I decorated outside, and it doesn't look too bad, but kinda white trashy, but is still festive), and one of them is a white, lace seal balancing a ball on its nose.  I've never really associated seals with the holiday season, but maybe I'm missing something.

My neighborhood has been having all kinds of water problems recently.  The fire hydrant up the street started gushing uncontrollably the same day a water main broke behind my neighbor's house (the back hoe used our driveway!).  And yesterday, a water main broke on old route 22.  So far nothing has affected our house's water (knock on wood).

I couldn't make it up for Food for Thought, but I'd like to try to come up next semester to perform chicken nugget theater.  And even though it's a bit late, here's the traditional finals week link: Kitty Cannon!

It was on Family Guy, and I've talked about it every now and then since, but did you know that when you combine iced tea and lemonade, it's called an Arnold Palmer?  I never knew that, nor do I think I would ever go into a restaurant and order an Arnold Palmer.

The Army has a new commercial and aside from the new pixilated camo they're using, the last shot shows the nametag on a soldier's shirt…Salazar.  I wonder if anyone has told them…

I've been looking for a Rolling Rock Santa hat for a while now (we sold out of them at G. Thanks and never got any more), so I headed to Jo-Ann Fabrics and picked up green and white fur and mom and I made one.  It came out really well, we have a few kinks to work out, but it looks really cool.

Cat and I went geocaching yesterday.  We had all kinds of problems with the GPSr, it wouldn't updated which way we were pointing (but would update our location occasionally) so we ended up doubling back, climbing a lot more than we needed to, and generally bushwhacking when it wasn't needed.  I saw on the news this morning that there was a major eruption on the sun and the radiation sent to earth is affecting cell phone reception, power grids, satellite television and yes…GPS devices.  But after we found the cache (near an odd sort of furniture graveyard featuring a bedroom set as well as various kitchen appliances), we did the typical reading of logs and swapping of swag, and I also released a travel bug.  The United Nations sent them out to raise awareness for Diabetes, and it's on its way to Pakistan (the UN set the goals, not me, I was thinking, maybe it could go to NYC…but apparently, the UN had other ideas).  The lesson we did learn though was that whenever Cat or I would tell the other to "make sure you don't die," the other would promptly fall over or injure themselves in some way.

Ok, I think that's all. I'm going to an ordination tonight at my church (first one I've ever been able to go to), so I will catch everyone later!

Ok, I forgot stuff (and that never happens….right).  Fun stuff found on the net:

How to communicate in a professional manner via e-mail (funny, not serious)

Cell phone karma – funeral

Cell phone karma – vet office

Once again, enjoy!

It's always wonderful to reconnect (or at least make contact) with old friends (above title provided via the profile of one such friend, who I've missed a lot).

Let's see, a whole list of things to muse over coming your way:

Nothing says Christmas like wrapping presents in front of the tree, the house glowing with lights (sadly, no snow was falling) and the Christmas episode of Futureama playing on [adult swim].  Mmmmm, holiday goodness.

Thinking of random things on television, the Eucaneuba dog show was one.  Wait a minute, didn't we just see it on Thanksgiving?  That's what I was thinking, but it was on again, but it was a different competition.  One, because the carpet was different.  And two, a different winner.  This time, it was an English Setter, the first time a dog from the sporting division has ever won, so that was cool to watch, I felt like I was part of history.  A part of history that will be overlooked by all but a very small portion of the general population, but history nonetheless.

Also on TV (and I think I heard this on Family Guy), has anyone noticed how Oprah's shows are strangely bi-polar?  One day she gives away cars, the next, she's walking with Elie Wiesel through Concentration Camps (the first I heard about all over the news, the second I watched after seeing a promo for, and it was really good).  Just odd.

I think it's also odd how much attention the Muslim Senator-elect from Minnesota (I think) is getting.  Yes, again, it's interesting and historic, but must be a bit disconcerting, especially for him.  I do think it's outrageous the stir people are causing because he's said he'll take the oath of office on The Koran.  I think people should let him get to the work of being a Senator and actually respect not only his religion, but the fact that he decided to make sure he stayed true to himself (it makes me wonder how many Senators/other people in public office read the book they took the oath of office on).

I've also come to the conclusion that I don't particularly like most painting and photography.  When I took aesthetics, I was always drawn to sculpture and installation pieces, things that push mediums to the boundaries (and of course music, but rarely will you find music associated with pieces in galleries and museums, except of course for the Vespers piece from the exhibit last year at Saint Vincent, which was so cool).  And yes, I have a few paintings that I like (even less with photography), I just don't like it all that much (as compared to "getting it").  But hey, people will like what they want and that's fine with me, afterwards, everyone can always agree on getting ice cream!

And randomly speaking of food (wow, there's been quasi-transitions and everything in this post!), I went to Qdoba on 22, across from Miracle Mile, and I highly recommend it.  The food was excellent, the atmosphere was decent, and I even found out that I really like Tabasco green pepper sauce.

Ok, I think that's all for now, have a good one!

Ok, a whole bunch of things I wanted to write about in the last few weeks fell through the cracks, let's see if I can get them all this time:

A Charlie Brown Christmas Special was on the other day, and I love that everything stops for that special.  Everybody I talked to watched it, even though they were in the middle of doing other things.

The fake Rolling Rock is running this ad campaign that makes their own fake controversy, the tv spots apologize for their other spots with a guerrilla at a pool party(which I don't think actually ever aired on tv, just the web).  The new webpage is horrid and has a "timeline" which is all stupid lies, trying to sell out the Rolling Rock brand and their list of '33' mysteries is pitiful at best.  Just in general it's horrible and I'm so sad to see it gone.

I just saw video of the brawl at the Mexican President's inauguration.  Apparently U.S. politics are quite boring (they also showed clips from Czeck, Russian and Tawainese politics, and yes, we're boring here).

Peter Jackson was "fired" from The Hobbit.  Apparently New Line owns the rights to produce it, but only for a short time longer.  And since Jackson is suing them for royalties they owe him for the LotR trilogy, they are trying to force him out of that lawsuit before their rights are up.  theonering.net has some good coverage of the situation if you're interested.

The official Star Wars site is running a contest to come up with Jacen Solo's Sith name.  I'm about five books behind, but basically, Princess Leia and Han Solo got married had three kids (Jacen and Jania, twins and Anakin, no deceased), Jacen went through this huge journey in The New Jedi Order, and basically discovered that there aren't two sides of the force, just the force, and how one uses it (and coincidentally, the Sith were a race of people originally).  He was basically groomed by his uncle, Luke Skywalker, to head the Jedi Order, and now he's "going to the dark side," so I don't know how they are making that mesh with what we learned about the nature of the force earlier.  Still could be cool either way, you'd get your name in the acknowledgments!  (ok, I'm a huge dork, I know, and it continues below)

I got to watch all of Firefly, a TV show (a Sci-Fi Western, yes, it's possible and it works very well, it has been endorsed by Orson Scott Card, the author of Ender's Game) from Joss Whedon, and I fell in love with it.  I think if it had been on for any extended period of time, it would have been better than Buffy (Buffy had somewhere between 140 and 150 shows, Firefly aired 11).  However, Fox decided that the pivotal pilot episode shouldn't be shown until the middle of the season, confusing everyone, and otherwise mismanaged the show.  It lived on in the feature film Serenity, which I saw first and fell in love with the 'verse there.  Check it out if you get a chance, you won't be disappointed, even though it sucks how it ends, you can tell Joss had much story to tell and suddenly, no more.

I finally got the skinning on the site to do what I want, so enjoy the blue.  I'm still working on more updates, including photo galleries, so sit tight.

Tomorrow I'm off to cook with the rest of the Commissioners at the rechartering event.  So once again, I will be donning my Koinonia apron (with many thanks to Sarah and Stacy for the wonderfulness that is the apron).

Well, that's it for now, talk with everyone soon!

Ok, the big news is that I'm a winner in the 2006 NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  Basically, the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a month, because how many times have we said, "When I write a book," or something to that affect.  The novel isn't done, the characters are still kind of up in the air at the moment, but that's ok, I never had plans to publish this book in any sort of way, it was more to see if I could do it (and I even started two days late!).  It's been a fun month, and I would like to try again next year…I think I'll do a fantasy novel (and try to release parts, if not all of that).

Look at me, I won!

Other random musings:

If anyone has seen Cash Cab on Discovery Channel (a trivia gameshow inside a NYC cab), I find it so odd that people always get out of the cab waving their money around.  You'd think they would know that's not safe to do.

Over Thanksgiving we watched the Eucaneuba Dog Show, but it's being promoted again.  I'm not sure if we watched last year's or what, but I'm confused.  Still enjoy watching them though, even if the frickin' toy poodle won best of show.

Random clothes have been lost and found, which is odd.  I lost two coats (more like couldn't find them, really) and then found them, which was nice, I really like both of them.  My one pair of pajama pants have been missing for a while.  I'm thinking maybe they're still packed away with college stuff.  And just the other day I went to put my slippers on, and they're missing too.  It's so weird, I must be going crazy.

 I think that's all for now, my fingers hate me from all the typing this month.  Talk with everyone soon!

Aaaaaaallllright!  Happy Thanksgiving everyone (if a bit preemptive)!  I hope everyone can enjoy it surrounded by people they like and have a safe holiday.  Just remember, Thanksgiving is its own holiday, and we should treat it as such…just ignore the part about the small pox-infested blankets that our ancestors gave to the Native Americans…

Anyway, to celebrate Thanksgiving, the people at Ubisoft made a new ad for their game Rayman Raving Rabbids (I think the whole campaign is funny, especially the cow one I posted a while back):

Also, new clips from the next Harry Potter (Order of the Phoenix) are popping up online, very exciting stuff (neither the Harry Potter site nor Google Video will let me embed these) :

The official trailer/site

HBO behind the scenes featurette (about four minutes)

Again, have a great holiday everyone: enjoy the company and food, and be safe at the sales!

Well let's see, it has been a bit, hasn't it.  I was at Saint Vincent for Founder's Day for the Institutional Advancement reception.  They had sushi!  And these really good chicken stuffed mushroom caps.  It was kind of odd though, as I was by far the youngest person there.  I did sit with a really awesome couple from Delaware, and we had a good time (the wine helped).  I got to see the fireworks and the light up, even though it was pouring down rain, which should have been snow, but it was fun anyway.  Afterwards I grabbed a cup of tea, a biscotti (not a potato for everyone on K-4) and headed to Jan's room and visited for a couple hours.

Other than that, I've been keeping busy trying to catch up with my NaNoWriMo project.  My current goal is to write 5,000 words a day (except for Thanksgiving), that would have me finishing the project on Sunday, so I can do that.  I've written over 3.500 words today (so of course it's logical that I take a break to write this…).

In other news, I was able to try out the Wii at EB Games (excite truck) and I had a good time…and Cat still owes me five dollars.  And she knows this, but denies it.  Apparently, we're fighting.

Anyway, I finished two books recently: The Great Hunt and A Walk in the Woods.  The first is the second book in the Wheel of Time (I won't let myself start the third before I finish two other books, Wicked and Reaper Man, but I really want to start it).  A Walk in the Woods was entertaining, it's about a guy hiking the AT.

In other book news, there will be a new PostSecret book coming out, right now slated for New Year's-ish.  I'm excited, but I hope it's longer than My Secret, which was too short in my opinion, especially after how long the first book was.

Well, that's it for now, catch everyone later!

Ok, more things I've been forgetting to post over the last few entries:

Barnes and Noble sent me a catalog.  That made me really excited (especially since there are coupons!), and I've been having a great time reading through it.

A few people were asking about the completed HansoExposed video.  Basically, over the summer, ABC produced this website where you could track down different video fragments and put them together to get some of the back story about the Hanso Corporation, funders of the Dharma Initiative.  This video is all the fragments (embedded at my site, linked on LJ):

I also mentioned the installation of the 26th president Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and you can watch the entire service here.  It is long (over two and a half hours), but worth watching (for the massive amounts of fabric alone…oh yeah, and the ecumenical and spiritual importance as well).  Quick briefing: Presiding Bishop is like a Catholic Cardinal, but there is only one in a country, and Bishop Katherine Schori (Bishop Katherine is what she likes to be called) is the first woman ever to serve in the position.  The opening music is really good too, and I think it's fairly soon after she comes in the door that the dancers around the baptismal font start to do their thing.

I was at the Alumni road show yesterday, and it was a big success, made some new contacts and had some really good conversations (and they served sushi, only one type, and I roll my sushi much better, which was disappointing, but still good).

A few thoughts I meant to put in the last post but forgot, plus some thoughts on the weekend:

When I went to go vote, the lady said to me, "It's just like ordering at Sheetz."  She was right though, I really did like the new voting machines!

Also, I mentioned it somewhere in there, but people shouldn't get too hung up about stuff, it will change again in two years anyway with more elections for the house and the president.

The weekend was great, I went to help out the team for SVC K-4, The Real Thing.  I got to be a Wheatie, and generally had a good time (very worn out though, but I got to splash around in the sink for three days, so I was happy!).  I was really excited too that they read my wheat letter (and they read it last, which was cool, it felt all special and stuff), and Stacy's went over real well (with one exception, and I need to call her about that).  So overall, good weekend, normal 'problems' but nothing unexpected (note to self: absence and abundance).  It was really cool to see one of the participant/quasi team members who worked at Outdoor Odyssey interact with other staff members and go back to where he was all summer, kind of like looking in a mirror.  I told a few people I would send them links to videos, hopefully I remember them all (as always, they are embedded at my site, no need to follow links):

Goo Goo Dolls – Stay With You 

Goo Goo Dolls – Better Days

I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting a few, remind me and I'll pull them up for you.  I'm still really tired, about really behind on my novel, so I'm off for a while, hopefully to get some sleep, I'll post again soon when I'm more coherent.