Melyssa-with-a-Y

Last Friday, a bunch of us watched An Inconvenient Truth . Very timely, as it turns out, since the movie won an Oscar on Sunday night! I had a flurry of thoughts as I watched it. One, I should have watched this movie long ago. (duh) Two, I wish I could ride a bus to work or use some other form of public transportation. But at least I go from place to place quickly and don't sit in traffic, adding to the carbon dioxide problems. I am going to go to the website and try to offset my carbon emissions . $9 a month is pretty affordable to help the Earth, even a little bit. Three, I miss Al. It's hard to explain. I worked for him in the Senate ('91), went to NYC for the convention in '92, worked again in the VP's office ('93), for the '96 campaign and the '97 Inaugural. I went to high school with his daughters. As I sat there listening to him give the global warming presentation, I couldn't help but think that if he had won in 2000 (who am I kidding, he D...

Sunday night was Oscar night, and my birthday! and that's all I needed -- a great excuse to have a party! For the party, the food had to be themed according to the Best Picture nominees. (I had a good three weeks to think about this, after all...) Babel: Since the movie takes place in Morocco, Japan and Mexico, I had plenty to choose from. I served chips and guacamole and salsa. Letters from Iwo Jima: Sushi (I went to World Markets and got nice chopsticks) Little Miss Sunshine: Fried chicken (first big scene in the movie, they have fried chicken for dinner) and biscuits and cole slaw The Departed: Samuel Adams beer and Boston Cream Puffs (couldn't find the pie) The Queen: Walkers Butter Cookies and Sticky Toffee Pudding (yum! from a mix at World Markets) We also had Oscar ballots, so everyone could try to choose the winners. I wrapped up some goofy prizes, (most correct answers, best picture, best director, fewest correct answers) but by the time the Oscar show ended, ever...

• A-Available/Single? Available. • B-Best Friend? Kelly. Since we were 4. That's nearly THIRTY YEARS! Yikes! :) • C-Cake or Pie? Cake, please. Yellow, with chocolate icing. • D-Drink Of Choice? G&T • E-Essential Item You Use Everyday? Does the Internet count as an item? • F-Favorite Color? Red. • G-Gummy Bears Or Worms? Bears. Or sours, if I can find them. • H-Hometown? Washington, DC. • I-Indulgence? Pumpkin spice latte. Once a year. • J-January Or February? February. Birthday month :) • K-Kids & Their Names? None, but I'm making a list of names with Y's in them for future reference. • L-Life Is Incomplete Without? Laughter. • M-Marriage Date? see letter A. • O-Oranges Or Apples? Apple, if we're talking pies. Orange if we're talking Bowls. • P-Phobias/Fears? Spiders and things that go bump in the night. • Q-Favorite Quote? Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did - only she did it backwards, in high heels! • R-Reason to Smile? My nieces. • S-Season? ...

My 33rd year (technically, it was my 34th year, if you consider that a person's first year is between birth and age 1) was a pretty good one. It was something of a roller-coaster, but overall I'm happy with the way it ended up. There were weddings ( Ryan & Becky, Stu & Jenny ), babies ( Max K., Callie W., Cebrina B., Gabriel C., Claire B .), trips ( Orlando, Tampa, LA/SD, Boston ), and a BIG MOVE (and an awesome road trip with my cool cousin M.). I've made new friends, found some old friends again, and lost some friends along the way. I surprised myself by learning to knit new things ( socks, cables ), cook new things ( chicken lettuce wraps, avocado-tomatillo salsa ) and build new things ( bookcases, desks ). So, now that I'm 34, I will: Meet some of babies mentioned above; travel to new cities; see more live music here in Austin; knit more new things (socks with cables!); cook more new things; meet more new people; and have fun at my job. I will also fina...

or, "If you follow the flock, you could end up a lamb chop." or, "If you're not the lead dog, the view never changes." Yes, Dad. I know, Dad. (those were my responses.) All of that started at a very early age, along with a small collection of buttons that said "Question Authority." When I was in high school, Dad cut out a paragraph from a newspaper interview with Margaret Thatcher . She said that her father had taught her "never to do things because other people are doing them; do what you think is right and persuade others to follow you." The last line of the paragraph (which I still have to this day) said, "It was a tough upbringing." I guess all of Dad's insistence on "go your own way" and "question authority" has managed to force these concepts into my subconscious. I firmly believe that just because something has always been done a certain way doesn't mean there isn't a better way to do it...

Newsweek, in a bid to garner some of the audience that enjoys all of those makeover shows (including my personal fave, What Not To Wear ), decided that Kim Jong Il needed a makeover for his 65th Birthday. So they asked some well-regarded designers (though not as well known as Versace, Hilfiger or Armani) to give him updated looks. The results are, well, frightening. Go to the Newsweek website and click on the link to "Fiercing the Veil", in the lower right. (You can pause the audio as soon as it starts, or you can listen to why the design ers chose the looks they did. ) Here's a sample. (Is that a rocket in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?)

I made chicken pot pie! Four of them, actually. Weight Watchers individual-sized chicken pot pies , in little ramekins. Here's what they looked like when they came out of the oven: Aren't they purty? And when I cut one open, it looked perfect, and tasted just as good. The topping is easy, made with Pillsbury biscuits sliced in half. Slicing the biscuits in half is probably the hardest part! I used the knife that attacked me to cut up the chicken, and at that point I remembered that cutting up chicken was precisely why I bought the new knife... the others were much too dull. It worked beautifully. AND, I cleaned it and put it away without incident. Phew. Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful Saturday... I went to HCW and picked up another skein of the white yarn so I can finish the flag socks. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't leave HCW having only bought one little skein of yarn. :) I got six skeins of 3 lovely shades (2 of each, not 6 of each!) of Berroco "Lo...

Ok, that just sounds weird. Almost as weird as the thought of Tony Danza playing the role of Max Bialystock in the Producers . As one columnist said, "I wish that was a joke, but it's not." I get it, he's a song-and-dance man. I wish I could say confidently that he's a good actor, but with only Who's the Boss as reference, who knows? Having seen the Broadway production more than once (with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) :) , I just wonder how the audience will react -- particularly to a skinny Max. Many of the jokes are funnier because Max is a bit... zaftig. But if Susan Stroman thinks he can do it, then I wish him well. After all, Matthew Broderick's first run was really a direct channeling of Gene Wilder's Leo Bloom in the (original) movie . It took him a while to make the role his own. So good luck, Tony. (oops, I mean, "Break a leg!") While we're on the subject, Uma Thurman as Ulla in the new movie ? AWFUL. I will say that Will ...

MZ sent me this "Spell with flickr" site today. Write your name (or whatever other text you like) in the box and click "spell." You get something like this: But wait, there's more! Once you have your word spelled out, you can refresh the page and get all new images, or you can click on each letter individually to see different versions.

When I was working at the Council on Competitiveness two years ago, we produced a little 8-minute film explaining how high performance computing affects everyday life . [Most of you know this, because I have forced you to watch it at least once!] DreamWorks Animation was on our Advisory Committee, and they very kindly offered to help us put the video together -- and we got to use the "Psychotic Penguins" from Madagascar in the film. March of the Penguins came out around the same time, and then Happy Feet . So these little tuxedo-clad waddlers are everywhere! My mother decided that as long as I was going to be associated with this HPC video, I should start a collection of penguins. I'll admit, I didn't fight her very hard on this, because a) penguins are cute, b) I work in an industry where the penguin symbol is well-known , and c) she's not really serious. Right? I momentarily forgot that I come from a family of collectors, and no matter how hard I fight th...

because apparently I have a really sweet slice! heh. Last weekend I bought a nice new chef's knife. My old one was a Betty Crocker piece of crap and I never used it -- the blade was strangely serrated, which isn't at all how a real chef's knife is supposed to be. So I got a gorgeous Kitchen-Aid one with a red handle . I never understood when chefs said the knife should be heavy and feel good in your hand, until I held this one. And boy, it works well. I cut up those green beans in a flash on Tuesday night. Cut up everything else in sight, too, including my finger! OUCH! It wasn't so much in cutting the food, it was in cleaning the knife that I did damage. Instead of wiping off the knife from the back, I had the blade facing the sponge. (My ever-supportive father said, "I thought you were smarter than that." Thanks, dad. :) ) This knife is probably sharper than any other I have ever owned -- which only makes it worse, because if that's the case I definitel...

As I was getting out of the shower this morning, the radio station played "We Built This City" by Starship. You know how certain songs remind you of specific places, times, or people? This song has huge memories attached to it, all of which came flooding back today. When this song came out in 1985, I was in seventh grade, and thus eligible to join the synagogue youth group. One Sunday, the youth group was doing a clean-up project in the wooded area around the synagogue building, which was unfortunately being used as a trash dump by all of the neighbors. The 10th grade boy in charge of the project [let's call him "Joe"] was using this as his community service requirement for his Eagle Scout badge. To say that I developed a "crush" on Joe would be like saying Mount Everest is "sorta tall." This was the beginning of my affinity for smart (and smart-ass) boys. [Here come the rose-colored glasses...] Joe was funny, smart, cute, and arroga...

I love Jeremy Piven . (in addition to just finding him adorable) He has played John Cusack's "buddy" in everything from Say Anything to Grosse Point Blank to Serendipity , and is now kicking a** every week as Ari on Entourage. So when Andy decided he wanted to go see Smokin' Aces (again) this weekend, I was definitely in. Faith, Matthew, Andy and I went to Alamo Village on Saturday night. Andy warned us that the movie was a little violent, but since the plot involves a mafia hit on Piven's character, I wasn't too surprised. It was a little bit bloodier than I expected... the horde of would-be assassins worked with everything from automatic weapons to a metal spike to a chainsaw - but it also had some comedy. Some things I learned from watching this picture: I still love Piven. and he really is a great actor :) Andy Garcia really sinks his teeth into the good guy/bad guy role. He's still using the snarl that he perfected in Ocean's Eleven, but i...

... and since Phil Connors is nowhere to be found, I'll tell ya what happened this morning in Punxsutawny, PA: Phil (the groundhog) didn't see his shadow, so it's going to be an early Spring . This confuses me a little, because I would think that if the sky is clear and the little rodent "sees his shadow", there's going to be an early Spring. Sunny skies = warmer weather, right? Apparently not. Turns out it's the opposite. If he doesn't see his shadow, early Spring. Never mind that the weather didn't get really cold on the east coast until recently - I guess none of the members of The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club have seen "An Inconvenient Truth." ;) More Groundhog Day info may be found here. (The official site, groundhog.org , seems to be having trouble with the one-day onslaught.)

(with apologies to Brando) On the heels of Marcia's post, Too Stupid to Live , I thought I'd share the 2006 award winners of the True Stella Awards - people who file (and sometimes win) the most ridiculous lawsuits imaginable. Not quite as you've-got-to-be-kidding head-slapping as the Darwin Awards , but close. They're called the Stella Awards in honor of the woman who spilled hot McDonald's coffee on her lap in 1992, and was awarded $2.9 million in damages. (As it turns out, there's a lot more to that story than you might have heard... including the fact that there were 700 other cases of people being burned by coffee from the golden arches, and the judge reduced the award to $480,000.) I think my favorite is the 5th runner up, who never realized that outside the shopping mall is, well, OUTSIDE , and there might be some wild animals living there. The 2006 True Stella Awards Issued 31 January 2007 ( Click here to confirm these are legitimate. ) #5: Marcy Mec...