The Don'ts of Personal Appearance.

for boys:

Don't wear soiled clothes or baggy trousers.
Don't wear torn clothes or clothes with buttons missing.
Don't wear conspicuous colors or patterns.
Don't wear fancy shirts or useless jewelry.
Don't wear your hat on the side or back of your head.
Don't fail to keep your shoes clean and well polished.
Don't neglect to bathe frequently and thoroughly.

for girls:

Don't wear dresses which show grease spots or perspiration stains.
Don't wear dresses with missing buttons; and don't use pins in place of buttons.
Don't wear dresses with frayed edges or with ragged linings.
Don't wear conspicuous silk hose.
Don't wear satin slippers on the street with a serge dress.
Don't dress the hair in an extreme or conspicuous style.
Don't use perfume to excess.

--from Everyday Good Manners for Boys and Girls by Ernestine Louise Badt (Chicago: Laird & Lee, Inc. 1922).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Hopefully you're spending it in some enjoyable way, consuming some sort of tasty food. As for me, I'm starting the day off right with peach yogurt. Thought you'd like to know. Anyway, have a great holiday.

Oh I figured it out, all right. I figured out how to get confidence when you're in a place of authority and you absolutely do not belong there. Make people question themselves.
"Sir, there is a blue pen laying on your desk."
"A blue pen or a violet pen?"
"Well I suppose it is a bit violet but it seems more blue-"
"-Is it or isn't it blue? Get me the answer and then come back and see me."

I'm wearing all black today. I feel like I should be a back stage person at some play or maybe I should be mourning a death of some sort. The only loss I have is the freedom from yet another weekend. It is rather gloomy outside today.

This mormon guy just left my work, after discussing the new temple being built in Newport Beach. (He was here to check on the fire alarms.) He said it's going to be beautiful, just like the early missions of California. I noted his white undershirt and smiled. When I was younger a friend and I made up fantastic stories about a mormon church across the street from his home. It was probably one of the first conspiracy theories I ever helped create, even if it was limited to our imaginative minds and perhaps our eavedropping, worried parents. Ah, memories.

I picked up a CD last night at one of the non-department-store-department-stores. It was one of those cheaply-made and cheaply-sold CDs that you know it is either hit or miss with the cd quality. The CD contained some of the classic songs by The Chi-Lites. I really just bought it because these guys had the coolest looking afros. But it turned out to be a gem.

I'm not a huge fan of silence. However, at work, I can only listen to non-lyrical music or basically Christian office-friendly type stuff. So after going crazy trying to find something new to listen to, Brandon handed me a CD he got on sale years ago. It's called "Sounds of Nature." At least it makes me laugh. It's basically classical music with a bird randomly singing and squawking at the least appropriate times. He also gave me "Moods of Thunderstorms" which was birds getting rained on.

Nathan and I were joking that there should be a CD called "Sounds of Technology." It would have the hum of a computer, the sound of typing on the old keyboard. Maybe the sound of the air conditioner could fade in from time to time. And to top it off, a random bird could chirp. But then the word "nature" would have to be added to the title. Nah.

I had one of those awful "end of the world" sort of dreams last night. I was sitting in class, looking out the window when a plane flying unusually low in a field next to the school just sort of dropped a bomb. Then there was one of those slow motion sort of moments when you realize what happened, the black cloud starts to rush toward you, and suddenly there's complete darkness and a piercing silence. I have been dreaming way too much lately. On a lighter note, that dream was followed by a dream that a friend's redneck father invited me to a football game in Troy. When I said yes, he gave me this hideous red vest to wear and told me to call my mom to tell her I wouldn't be home for dinner. There were also a lot of bloodhounds barking for no apparent reason. No wonder I'm sleepy all the time.

I just finished the first season of Smallville on DVD and can say that I am definitely a little bummed out by the ending—or lack thereof. You know, the first season of 24 was nerve-racking, yet they finished the season with a little thing called closure. Maybe the nice fellows at the WB could learn what that is. Other than its mid-episodal ending, the first season of Smallville is very good. Wendy usually did not participate in the viewing of the 21 episodes, but I thought they were great. The actor who plays Clark Kent is a very likable guy and I think that the actor playing Lex Luthor has caught the sort of dualistic character for which they were shooting. Oh yeah, the part where Clark's parents get turned into wolverines is awesome as well!

Today we get to register for Spring semester classes. Wahoo! I'm trying to decide which classes will be more bearable. I didn't put a lot of thought into my classes when I signed up for them for this semester, and I paid dearly with tons of reading in both. Ouch, I just remembered some homework I forgot to do in History. Well, keep it terribly real.

I've been informed that it's no longer Halloween. My apologies.

I had a nightmare last night. In my dream, the computer was in the bedroom and Brandon was sound asleep. I was super tired and wanted to go to bed, but there was this really scary screensaver with planets on it. For those of you who don't know, I (for some strange reason) hate the sight of planets. I especially hate seeing Jupiter, with its red spots and storms and whatnot, and the black void behind it. Anyway, I had to get the planets off the screen before I could go to sleep. For some reason I couldn't get the computer off screensaver mode, and I kept trying to press Alt + Ctrl + Delete but that wouldn't even restart the computer. Not even unplugging the computer would stop it. What an awful dream.

What does a cavity feel like? My tooth kinda hurts but I think it may just be sensitive because I just started wearing my retainers to bed every night again after missing a week. Brandon thinks the retainers are hilarious and calls them my dentures. At least I don't have braces. My sister never wore her retainers and recently had to have her braces put back on. That's no fun in your 20's. Anyway, my tooth is seriously not reacting well to my ice water. I just don't want to break my "no cavities" record. Ah, well.

I was eating some M&M's at work today as I was working on the computer. While staring at the screen I knocked some of the M&M's behind the keyboard. I don't even know if the "3 second rule" applies for dropping things onto less used parts of your desk, so I just rubbed the M&M's off and popped them in my mouth. Yeah, the moment I bit down I knew that was a stupid mistake. I was surprised to find one M&M had the exact texture and taste of a skittle. And I haven't eaten skittles in a while. That was totally yucky. Bleh.

So we went to Wendy's today, and it felt like a McDonald's playground. There were a billion kids there for some reason. I forgot that it was a holiday for many schools today. Anyway, we were talking about how kids will compete with one another on who can eat the most food. For instance, one little kid might say, "I can eat five tacos at once," only to be met with, "I can eat a whole pizza by myself." The whole "I can eat more than you" thing definitely ended after elementary school. Any further than that and there will not be a positive reaction. You're just a glutton then. I think Seth had a good idea when he said, "You should just teach your kid to say, yeah, you can eat more than me but you're going to be fat when you're twenty."

According to a new study performed by Cranium (the board game) and Money magazine, Orange County is the second most fun place to live in the United States. My question is, if it is so much fun, where is all the fun stuff to do? I don't question that OC is more fun than Denver, Colorado, but there has to be a list of fun things somewhere. Maybe because I have lived here my whole life I do not realize what is fun anymore. Also, how can OC be the second most fun city when it is not even a city? There are over thirty (mostly small) cities in Orange County. I think I'd like to have a word with Mr. Sperling at Money. Well, if you guys know of fun things to do here, please let me know—Wendy and I are looking for things to do and we usually end up going to LA to find them. Today I think we are going to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.

A quick post to let whatever readers still check our site know the site hasn't been forgotten. We paid for it, darn it, and we'll use it, just in due time. I've been sick, and as a word of advice, it may not be wise to push yourself to go to work on all week when you're sick because eventually you'll end up being out. I was out sick yesterday. For some reason my cold won't quit. It just keeps hanging on, and with our schedule, there really isn't time during the business week to rest. Ah well, it'll all be over when we graduate and retire. Go responsibility!

Okay, so now I'm sick. But that does mean that I've been able to spend some quality time with the couch all day today. I've pretty much just been watching SNL reruns and taking naps in between theraflu chugs. Yum. At least I'm sick today and don't have to be out of work again. That's good, I suppose.