I realized that when the time comes, we're going to have to just make up names for our kids. Not that this is an immediate issue. In fact, it probably won't be an issue for quite some time. However, the subject came up when I learned from Brandon's mom that our new nephew is probably going to be named Thomas. (This means my neice and nephew will share my parent's names.) Brandon's mom and I began discussing baby names, and I discovered I have a bias against pretty much every decent name there is.

For me, names don't carry the meanings that you read on those stupid cards you can buy in gift shops. Naming the kid "Bill" means he will be an accountant or some sort of manager who is balding, Ray will be a creepy uncle, and Sally will be a 40-year-old overweight lady. I realize none of those names are probably baby names that are stylin' or anything, but if I listed names that were and gave my reasons against them, I just might offend someone's playground bully-to-be.

Unfortunately, Brandon and I can't agree on the few names that haven't been tainted. Brandon says that if you name the kid "Jacob" he'll end up being called "Jake," and all Jakes are jerks. Come to think of it, I know a Jake-jerk. But I don't know that he is also a Jacob. I think all Allison's are pretty and popular, but Brandon thinks they're all fat.

So now you see why we're just going to have to make something up. It'll probably sound like an alien name, too. But at least we won't doom our offspring to be the smelly kids in class.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I was searching through the list of classes my college is offering in the spring, when I stumbled upon a class called, "Introduction to the Internet." I had to laugh when I noticed it's an online course.

One of the first things people say to me after learning that I grew up in Alabama is, "You don't have a Southern accent." I tried to lose the accent on purpose after I got here, because, as I generally explain, people tend to look down on you when you speak that way, and I didn't want to hear any more jokes about inbreeding and outhouses than I already heard growing up. But also, as I grew up in the South I fought to avoid picking up the accent. I watched a lot of TV and quickly decided the accent wasn't for me.

However, most of my friends and family embraced the accent. When my mom and sister came to visit in July, my sister was at a shop in Santa Monica and decided to try to keep silent as she made a purchase. The cashier said, "Well, you're not very talkative. Is something wrong?" She answered, "I'm just tired." Bing. That gave it away. He promptly responded with the usual question, "Where are you from?" I guess it doesn't help that much like I once did, she pronounces "tired" a bit closer to "tarred." Those vowel sounds always give us Southerners away.

Brandon kept me up all last night by kicking and moving around in his sleep. I woke him up a few times to make him stop, and each time he claimed he wasn't doing anything. Once, he was still moving while he claimed he was being still.

So this morning I hopped out of bed and searched the news to see if there were any overnight earthquakes, just to be sure. And for the record, unless I was feeling the aftershock from an earthquake in Indonesia on the 11th, Brandon was the reason for my sleepless night. Shoulda known.

During the drive to work this morning, I mentioned to Brandon how it seemed so funny to me now that during my teen years I had been so obsessed with a certain rock band. How could I find so much value and waste so much of my time worshipping them? But I was thinking, perhaps it wasn't that odd, since the Israelites worshipped a golden calf. How can you find interest or be entertained by an inanimate object so much that you actually worship it? But perhaps the reason I was able to be so intrigued by a mere band is that I was in a boring little town with nothing else to do. I mean, the Israelites didn't really have that much more entertainment.

Brandon joked that we'd just want to cut the calf's ear off and go buy something. (Note the influence of western civilization and materialism.) Then he said that maybe he'd just use the calf's poop. I agreed the calf's poop would probably be valuable, since the actual calf was golden. The poop would at least be 13 karat. Then we went on to ponder what the calf would eat. I figured it would be silver or a lesser metal.

All of this just goes to show you a golden calf could be entertaining after all. Not that we'll get one. It sounds tacky.

So I figured out what would be even worse than Top Ramen. Yup, Bottom Ramen.

I swore that I would never use a shaving razor that had four (4) blades. What do you need four (4) blades for? Were three (3) blades insufficient? Wouldn't four (4) blades just cut your face into hundreds of little pieces? Well, even though I think there is an extraneous blade, I purchased a pack because they were on sale. Apparently it doesn't cut your face into hundreds of little pieces. Would I reccomend a four-bladed razor? Eh. Just spend your money well and use lots of shaving cream.

We were about to walk out the door last night around 3:45 pm when suddenly we heard our doorbell ringing like crazy and children yelling, "Trick or treat," accompanied by little fists pounding on our door. Isn't 3:45 a little early for the monsters to be begging for food? Since all we had were two refridgerated "fun" sized hershey candies and some apples, we stood silently and waited for the brats to leave. We had to wait around a bit to make sure we had a clear getaway before venturing out, too.

We should have just given them apples and told them, "You're lucky you came so early. I haven't gotten a chance to put razors in these yet."