Not as hungry as I thought I'd be. So far.

Yesterday I joined Weight Watchers. I was tired of feeling really tired all the time, being out of breath after walking out to check the mail, having my knees hurt when I stand up in the morning, all that stuff. I'd also really prefer not to get diabetes, which I'm at risk for. So far I'm not starving. It's a pretty good system, really. You can eat anything you want, but only certain amounts. It encourages you to make better, healthier choices because you can eat more that way and get better nutrition (sneaky!). I ballooned up after I had the pneumonia and both me and my husband, Maynard McGuffin, gained a ton of weight after the wedding. It was only eight months ago and already he can't wear the suit that fit fine back then. I don't fancy being a young widow, so the diet thing will be good for both of us. Maynard's onboard. He's already started walking to work just for the exercise. I think it'll help to have a little moral support.

God Wants You to Name the Baby after Him

The headline is the title of one chapter of Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing, which is one of my favorites to read if I need a good laugh. Sure, I'm getting a laugh at some poor child's expense, but I'm mostly laughing at the goofy parents who go around naming their children Mikayla and Macques. I understand wanting to name your baby something unique, but I swear people are just making up random sounds and deciding those are names. Poor kid's gonna spend a lifetime saying, "My name is Sidney, spelled C-Y-D-N-E-I-G-H." Anyway, the website is a hoot. It's comprised of quotes taken from baby name message boards around the internet, followed by smartass commentary from the person who does the site. Hi-larious.

My husband says if we had a kid we should name it Euphrates Throckmorton III. Our name isn't Throckmorton, so that would be fun for the kindergarten teacher to figure out.

Still doing a little sprucing up, but I have links today

I'm still not done playing with the look of this page, but I haven't had a lot of time to mess with it this week. Maybe today will be better.


Interesting stuff in today's Lasso, the blog of the Austin American-Statesman. In an entry entitled "The Eternal Sunshine of a Mind Just Like Mine", there is a discussion continued from yesterday's entry of how we tend to isolate ourselves into little groups of people who think just like us. Of course this creates a very us-against-them mentality and I'm sure eventually it'll break out into a shooting war. Except all those gun nuts (THEM!) will have the guns and WE! US! will have, um, hopefully U.N. peacekeeping forces or something. As someone who grew up among a whole lotta "them", I don't have many solutions to offer. Everybody thinks everybody else is crazy and dangerous, with no end in sight. Maybe we'll finally get together when the aliens land and suddenly we have a much bigger "them" to worry about, and suddenly gay marriage doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.


On McSweeney's front page today is a satirical piece listing "Movies Directed by Mel Gibson's Father, Hutton Gibson" (now world-famous holocaust denier). Sample:

Poor Judgment at Nuremberg: A war crimes tribunal convenes in Germany, but since there has been no Holocaust there is nothing for them to do. Court is adjourned and everyone goes to lunch.