Things That Can't Be Beat

* Melted cheese - it can come on a pizza or in pasta or just plain by itself, it's fucking amazing.

* Cold cherries on a hot afternoon - you can eat them like they are popcorn, you can be all sensual and sexy with them, you can tie the stem into a bow or feed you s.o one by one, the point is that they are just delicious as they are refreshing.
True fact: lemons have more sugar than cherries per volume, hat tip Herbert.

* Tea on a cold day. If you add a salami sandwich with a good book, it's basically a recipe for perfection.

* Being completely and utterly honest with someone, incredibly liberating, painful process...that everyone should try once.

* Russian ice cream when I'm missing my childhood.

* Warm, out of the oven (black-Russian) bread on a cold winter day, especially if you have to walk.

* Getting lost in the woods. Both scary and thrilling.

* Sex with someone you love. Especially if you know theirs and they know yours.

* First time make out session, first time sex usually sucks, but first time make out session is the best.

*Listening to Radiohead while driving in the car, for that matter add Pink Floyd and Beatles plus John Lennon to the list of music.

* My father's singing and my mother's cooking.

* Talking for hours on the phone.

* Candle light.

* Being in a movie theater all by yourself, a showing for one.

* Touching my mother's face.

* Shabbat evening prayers.

* Sitting with my mother and sister, the feeling of family in general.

* Meeting someone in the airport after a long time absence.

* Quoting a specific movie and knowing your best friend will know exactly what you are talking about. I will triumph!

* Standing by someone's side even if you know they are wrong.

* Jazz music wafting through the house (real jazz).

* Dancing.

Wrapping Gifts

I'm totally the bag & tissue type of "wrapper." But I prefer gifts wrapped in wrapping paper, especially if it's unusual or tends to look like vintage aka brown paper and brown string.
I also find it really neat to draw little pictures of snow scenes. My sister is a master of this.

I guess I'm finally getting into the spirit of New Year's!

Jewish Ancestry

I found this whole topic fascinating.

More on this later.

(I really want to expand on this more...but with a runny nose and fever no such luck...for now.)

I Know It Shouldn't

But articles like this depress me. It really reminds me of 1984 and that's never a good thing. More on this soon.

This Is Genius

via ace

My kind of Site

141,013 People

Looking for payday loan?

via Gib (who's death toll I totally beat! Huzzah!)

Update on Nickelback

They really do suck.

via Peter:
Third from the bottom. Two Nickelback songs simultaneously proving they sound exactly alike.
http://wfmu.org/onthedownload.php/0410

I love this anecdote.

Taft was always made fun of in my AP History class - he couldn't get out of a bathtub it seems - or at least that was the rumor. He seems to have a sense of humor though...


President William Howard Taft was an enormous man, weighing more than 300 pounds. While introducing the President to an audience, Senator Chauncey Depew pointed to the President’s huge stomach and said, “He’s pregnant (pause) … with courage.” The audience laughed loudly.
Still pointing to Taft’s stomach, Senator Depew added, “He’s pregnant (pause) … with integrity.” The audience again erupted in laughter.
Then President Taft came to the podium, put his hands on his huge belly, and said, “If the baby is a girl, I will call her ‘courage.’ If it’s a boy, I will call him ‘integrity.’ But if it’s gas, as I suspect it is, I will call it Chauncey Depew.”

The Mystery of the British Accent

I'm over it. You think living in Scotland would harden be to the English accent as just sounding different. But no, I was still one of those people who adored it and thought everything sounded better in a British English. In fact I was like Michael in Arrested Development who didn't detect Rita was "special" because of her British accent.

I was on the very late (delayed by an hour and thirty minutes) train from New York to Boston. I was drained emotionally, physically, what have you. All I wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. However, the British women three rows ahead seemed not understand such simple concepts as talking quietly or behaving as adults should on a night train. Anyhow, at first I thought they were Southern, the accent didn't seem familiar. It was only when one of these yahoos was getting up to yell loudly to one of her friends across the car that I realized they were British. The British accent never sounded so harsh and unsophisticated. And just like that my love affair with it was over.