2004-01-12

The Gender Genie. I decided to give it a try, and cut and pasted my entry from the 7th. Results? I’m male. Wouldn’t it be funny if the Gender Genie said that Fred was female? I thought to myself. I went to a random entry of his, pasted the text in the little box, and hit “submit.” Male. I called Fred and told him that according to The Gender Genie, I’m male. “I knew I was gay!” Fred said. Later, he called me back. “I put four different entries from your journal in The Gender Genie, and it always comes back male. Then I did four of mine, and it said I was male, too. So I put four of Nance‘s in, and it came back female. Same with Jane.” I need to go crack open a beer, watch the game, scratch my balls, and think about what this means.

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Nance emailed me a head’s up at the end of last week regarding something in US Magazine, and when I got the latest issue on Saturday, I looked, and sure enough, there it was.
Don’t see the offending body part? Go here for a closeup. Apparently they’re having a fit over at US – this is what Nance forwarded to me: January 8, 2004 — LOOK closely on page 72 of Us Weekly and you’ll see a body part that isn’t supposed to be showing. A story about the second season of “Top Model,” a reality show hosted by Tyra Banks, is illustrated with a photo of a redhead in body paint accompanied by a blond male model on one knee. His raised leg is supposed to conceal his nether regions, but something is dangling into view. The Us editors are furious with UPN, which provided the photo. A network rep said, “It’s been busy around here and apparently someone took their eye off the ball.” “Eye off the ball”! Hee!
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Did I mention that when I was in Maine, we went to the movies FIVE different times? It rocked, because Fred isn’t a big fan of going to the movies, so I got to see all the ones I’ve been wanting to see: Cheaper By the Dozen – predictable, but any movie with the ultra-adorable Tom Welling in it is worth the price of admission. Elf – the perfect role for Will Ferrell, and some really funny scenes. Something’s Gotta Give – some funny scenes, but it dragged a lot; I think my mother slept through the first half of it. I was pretty disappointed, because I wanted to see that more than anything, and it wasn’t nearly as funny as I’d hoped. Cold Mountain – this is the movie I wanted to see least, and I loved it more than any of the others. Who could have known that Renee Zellweiger could be so funny? We were in a crappy little theater, every seat was taken, it’s a 2 1/2 hour movie, and still I loved it. That says something, right there. Mona Lisa Smile – which I liked more than I expected. I’m not a big Julia Roberts fan, but she’s definitely got charm. I did want to slap the hell out of Kirsten Dunst, though. And that Maggie Gyllenhaal is the coolest chick ever, ain’t she?
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I know I mentioned that I was getting a Dyson vaccum due to an unexpected bonus that Fred got around Christmas. I ordered it through Amazon (free shipping!), and it arrived while I was still in Maine. At first I told Fred he wasn’t allowed to touch it, because he wouldn’t let me bring the new camera to Maine with me, but then I relented and asked him to take it out of the box and put it together before I got home. Sunday, he vacuumed the entire house with our old vacuum cleaner. Monday, he took the Dyson out of the box, put it together, and vacuumed the house again. He actually saved what he vacuumed up to show me, because he was so impressed with how much there was. There was a huge amount of stuff – mostly cat hair – and when I vacuumed on Tuesday, I got a huge amount of dust and cat hair, too. I cannot say it enough – I LOVE this vacuum! LOVE IT. Love the color, love the great suction, love the way you can see what’s whirling around in the canister, love the attachments, love the long hose (I can just barely reach the top of the stairs, with the body of the vacuum at the bottom). LOVE IT. I went out into the garage and vacuumed the rugs out there, which were coated with pieces of dried-up leaves the wind blows into the garage every time we open the door. The Dyson sucked those up without even blinking. Two thumbs up to the Dyson, at least so far! I also went into the spud’s room, which rarely gets vacuumed (the spud appears to be as careful and conscientious a housekeeper as her momma), and filled up the canister. I was both impressed and icked out, because the spud’s room is very small. Clearly I need to yell at her to vacuum her room more than once every six months.
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This year, my sister made her Christmas present to me, and I LOVE it. It took her some ungodly amount of time to finish and it’s beautiful, and did I mention that I LOVE it?
My sister sure does rock.
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Da Bean sure does love his daddy. Have you ever seen a more content kitty? (This picture was taken using the “night vision” setting on our new camera)
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