Mishmash Musings

I currently maintain four different blogs that I try to update at least once per day. That’s a lot to keep up with, and I admit that I sometimes am at a loss as to what I should post about. Today I came across a site called Blogthings that should help me out with post ideas. Blogthings has a lot of free quizzes, memes, and other cool things that you can put in your blog on those days when there doesn’t seem to be a lot going on.

For example, I just took this Simpsons Personality Test and found out that I’m most like…. Homer!!

You Are Homer Simpson

You’re just an ordinary, all-American working Joe… With a special fondness for pork rinds and donuts. You will be remembered for: your little “isms” and philosophies on life Your life philosophy: “Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It’s what separates us from the animals … except the weasel.”

These quizzes just take a minute to complete, and the site even generates the code for you. Very easy, so I’m sure I’ll be visiting often!

That’s what I’ve decided is the ideal vacation length for me. Jerry and I are discussing what we’d like to do for our summer vacation, and he’s got all kinds of wild ideas for 7- or 10-day trips. But I absolutely hate being away for that long and can’t imagine doing that again so soon, especially since it feels like we just got back from that 9-day vacation we took at the beginning of March. Has it really been three months since then??

Anyway, I can only take four days of restaurant meals, hotels, and sightseeing at one time. Anything more than that makes me feel anxious before we even step on the plane, and puts me in a bad mood for the entire vacation.

There are still plenty of cool places we can visit for a short time like this, right?

A friend forwarded me this article from the Mainichi Newspaper website about a man who committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. I had to do a double-take when I saw the wording of the article: the main thrust of it seems to be that 14,000 passengers were inconvenienced, not that the guy died. Nice. Perhaps it’s just a problem with the translation, but that seems like a cold way to report the story.

It’s short, so I’ll post the whole thing here:

A man died after jumping in front of an oncoming train at a railway station in downtown Tokyo on Wednesday morning, inconveniencing about 14,000 passengers, police and the railway operator said.

At about 11:53 a.m., a man jumped in front of a rapid service train that was passing Yurakucho Station on the JR Keihin-Tohoku Line in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, local police said. Investigators are trying to identify the man.

The accident delayed 21 trains on the Keihin-Tohoku Line and the Tokaido Line by up to about 30 minutes, affecting some 14,000 passengers, East Japan Railway Co. officials said. (Mainichi)

These days, I shop online almost exclusively. It’s not that I have anything against bricks and mortar stores, it’s just that they simply cannot offer the same types of deals that online retailers can. This goes for virtually any item, from a $5 paperback to a $5,000 painting. No matter what I’m looking for, I can be relatively certain that I’ll find it online at a significantly reduced cost.

Of course, one of the biggest problems with shopping online is that I never know what kind of customer service I’ll get, especially when I’m ordering from a place for the first time. This means I have to spend an anxious few days following up on my order to make sure that the store charges the correct amount to my credit card, ships the item on time, and sends the correct item in the first place. If anything goes wrong during this process, it could take forever and a day for the store to straighten things out — which means even more monitoring on my part. How exhausting!

That’s why I can’t even imagine buying something as important as an engagement ring without thoroughly researching the store first to make sure they’re committed to customer service. You’d be surprised at how poorly even the bigger, well-known retailers fare in this regard. But one store that stands out above the rest is White Flash, the Internet’s premier jeweler. White Flash not only has the largest in-stock selection of sparkling diamond engagement rings, wedding bands, loose diamonds, and other jewelry, but also has an impeccable reputation for putting the needs of their customers above everything else. You can find lots of in-depth information about diamonds right there the site, which will help you make intelligent decisions about your purchase.

Buying an engagement ring is truly a special event, so don’t just put your trust into any retailer you come across. Instead, try experiencing the White Flash difference for yourself!

I’m not the least bit interested in politics, so this post shouldn’t be viewed as an endorsement of one candidate over the others. I just thought this video was pretty funny and wanted to share it here.

Everyone’s been talking about the series finale of The Sopranos, with some fans loving it and others hating it. Even if you never watched the show, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that it ended with a cut-to-black that left fans hanging — and generated an incredible amount of buzz.

Well, someone at the Hillary Clinton campaign decided to take advantage of that buzz by spoofing the now-famous diner scene in a video featured on Clinton’s website. Hillary and Bill are sitting in a booth waiting for Chelsea to arrive so Hillary can announce the official campaign song. It’s fun to count the number of Sopranos references, including parallel parking, onion rings, Don’t Stop Believin’, Johnny Sack, and of course, a cut to black.

Like I said, I thought this was a pretty funny video, and I’m not even a Hillary fan!

Check it out right here:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1

I’m one of those people who constantly worries about my family’s finances. I have seen far too many friends and acquaintances have their credit and financial standing basically ruined because of they weren’t prepared for various emergencies that came up. In consequence, they were forced into debt and are now faced with paying back the money they owe for years to come.

That’s why I not only keep close tabs on my family’s expenditures, but also make sure that we have enough in savings to cover unexpected expenses. I also have looked into different insurance policies, including auto, home, life, medical, dental, and even child insurance to help protect against excessive liabilities in those areas.

Some people might think this is overkill, but I believe I’m doing the right thing. I would much rather spend a few dollars per month on insurance premiums than be stuck with a six-figure hospital bill if something disastrous should happen!

So what do you think is the right age to let kids start playing video games? I’m not talking about the hard-core stuff like Grand Theft Auto or anything like that. I’m talking about Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart, and other games that are pretty much aimed at the younger crowd.

The reason I’m asking is that a couple of my friends have expressed… surprise (to put it mildly) that I already allow my son to play video games. He’s almost four and a half, and has been playing for a few months now.

I let him play because my husband is a big video game buff and is always playing one kind of game or another. Get this, we have Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360, two PS2s, a PSP, a Nintendo DS, and a DS Lite. Plus, he plays games on his computer too. So how can I possibly tell my son that he can’t play games?

I actually like playing video games with my son. With two DS units, we can go head-to-head on Mario Kart. My son is pretty good already and can give me a run for my money. It’s a great way to connect with him, and we both enjoy it.

Don’t get me wrong: I strictly limit video game time to 30 minutes per day. The rest of the time, he has to play with his other toys, color, or look at his picture books. Just 30 minutes a day isn’t so bad, is it?

While I’m a fan of television sitcoms, I can’t say that my love of comedy extends to the silver screen. It’s much easier to sustain jokes for a 21-minute TV show than it is to do the same for an 80- or 90-minute movie with no commercial breaks. So the only time I ever go see comedies at the theater is when my friends rave about them — which was definitely the case with Reno 911! Miami The Movie.

This film came out a few months ago, and a group of my friends convinced me to see it with them. They were going for the second time because they liked it so much. That was enough of an endorsement to get me into the theater, and all I can say is I’m glad I went!

Reno 911! Miami The Movie was one of the funniest films I’ve seen in a long time! The strength of the movie, in my opinion, is its very memorable characters. These aren’t the cookie-cutter stereotypes that often populate comedies, which was definitely a refreshing change.

My favorite character of all has got to be Lt. Jim Dangle, played by Thomas Lennon. From his ultra-short shorts to the pink bandanna around his head, Lt. Dangle cracked me up every time he was on the screen! He was in a lot of fantastic scenes that had the entire audience laughing out loud. One of the best ones had to be when he and Travis tried to bust up Suge Knight’s birthday bash. I loved it when Lt. Dangle pulled his gun and fired a warning shot into the air — only to have about 100 guns aimed at his head immediately after. That probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do at a party full of “gangsta” rappers!

Another great scene was when Lt. Dangle ran into the guys from the Aspen sheriff’s department and asked them if they received the nine applications he sent them. The Aspen sheriff at first thought the whole thing was a joke, so he was pretty surprised to see that Lt. Dangle was a real person. His reply to Jim was awesome: “There’s nothing in your file that would indicate our want of you!” Ha ha ha!!!

I just learned that Reno 911! Miami the Movie is coming out on DVD on June 19, 2007. That’s tomorrow, and I can’t wait! I was getting ready to buy a bunch of other DVDs anyway, so it’ll be easy to add this one to the list. If you somehow missed this movie when it was in the theaters, you’ll definitely want to buy the DVD!