A Muddy Good Time

Last Saturday I took my friends Jen and Michael's kids for them while they movedhouse. I arranged to meet at the uptown library for muffins and music (a pre-school program where kids can come for breakfast and eat while listening to the Saint John string quartet, or duet as it was last week). We then ventured to the museum (conveniently almost next door) for a look and a play in the Discovery centre. How do I get 4 kids back to our house without worrying about car seats? The bus of course. Another exciting adventure for them. Home for pizza. And then while Jeremy napped I took the other 3 out to play in the mud and splash in puddles. Yes, I willingly endorsed the kids getting wet and dirty. I also endorsed them playing with sticks. (provided they used them in their own area away from each other, which they did) Kids are better with guidelines and boundries in play than we give them credit for. They had a hoot! Yes, they got completely soaked, but that's why we have rain jackets, splash pants, boots and a change of clothes for home. That's also what makes the hot chocolate taste so good on our return.

Sock Monkey

It was Jeremy's 2nd birthday earlier this month. In the spirit of trying to limit the amount of toys that the boys have I decided that I would spend his birthday money on a new bedding set. I found a cute set at Winners and brought it home. Little did I know what was waiting in the birthday package from my parents. My mom had made Jeremy the cutest sock monkey quilt set (with a sock monkey and pillow case) I love it so much (and so does he and a jealous big brother). Here are some pictures. Coincidentally, the baby storybook quilt that Jill had made Jeremy that sits on the rocking chair in his room is lined at the back with a sock monkey pattern. So I'm continuing to play on this retro-childhood theme and bought him a canvas print of S is for scooter for his wall. They had T is for tricycle too but someone else had already bought it when I went back to Winnners for them. I'll have to check Winners in Moncton. Oh yes, I took the other bedding set back.

Fabulous New Look

I'm very excited about this! I have finally found a way to change my blog template. Thanks to Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates, it was easy. Well, the difficult part was choosing which template I loved the most. They were all so wonderful. I've added a link to her site so you can pretty up your blog too.

Yay, I did it!

A little while back I asked for help to remove SnapShots from here. Thank you for your overwhelming non-assistance with that everybody. I then asked at Yahoo! Answers. Again, overwhelming non-assistance. So once again I headed over to SnapShots to try to figure it out myself. I did exactly what I thought should have worked, turn SnapShots off your site. It didn't. But being the oh so clever person I am, I tried another avenue. You ever notice how these sites are extremely helpful in the how to set up their feature, but not so much with the how to delete their feature. So I went for logic. I read the 'how to add to Blogger' part and did the complete opposite. And it worked. Horray! I feel a sense of calm descending on my blog once again.

100 Movies

I must be on a movie kick, at least blogwise it's piquing my interest right now. This week, the Yahoo! movie editors compiled their list of 100 movies you should see before you die. A pretty serious offer if you ask me. As with any of these lists you could probably debate any title and add your own offering. I didn't make the list, I'm just commenting on it. Seeing as my favorite film (Gone With the Wind) didn't make the list, it makes me question it a little. I've starred the ones that I have seen. Here you go:

12 Angry Men (1957)
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed By: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

The 400 Blows (1959)Directed By: Francois Truffaut
Starring: Jean-Pierre Leaud, Patrick Auffay
Why You Should See It

8 ½ (1963)
Directed By: Federico Fellini
Starring: Marcello Mastroianni, Anouk Aimee
AThe African Queen (1952)
Directed By: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley

Alien (1979)
Directed By: Ridley Scott
Starring: Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright

*All About Eve (1950)
Directed By: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Starring: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders

Annie Hall (1977)
Directed By: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton

Apocalypse Now (1979)Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall

The Battle of Algiers (1967)Directed By: Gillo Pontecorvo
Starring: Jean Martin, Yacef Saadi, Brahim Haggiag

The Bicycle Thief (1948)Directed By: Vittorio De Sica
Starring: Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola
Why You Should See It

Blade Runner (1982)
Directed By: Ridley Scott
Starring: Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young

Blazing Saddles (1974)
Directed By: Mel Brooks
Starring: Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder, Slim Pickens

Blow Up (1966)
Directed By: Michelangelo Antononi
Starring: David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Sarah Miles

Blue Velvet (1986)Directed By: David Lynch
Starring: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper
Why You Should See It

*Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Directed By: Arthur Penn
Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard

Breathless (1960)
Directed By: Jean-Luc Godard
Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Directed By: David Lean
Starring: William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins,

* Bringing Up Baby (1938)Directed By: Howard Hawks
Starring: Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn
Why You Should See It

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
Directed By: George Roy Hill
Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Katharine Ross

*Casablanca (1942)
Directed By: Michael Curtiz
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid

Chinatown (1974)
Directed By: Roman Polanski
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, John Huston

Citizen Kane (1941)
Directed By: Orson Welles
Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Directed By: Ang Lee
Starring: Chow Yun-Fat, Michelle Yeoh, Ziyi Zhang

*Die Hard (1988)Directed By: John McTiernan
Starring: Bruce Willis, Bonnie Bedelia, Alan Rickman

Do the Right Thing (1989)Directed By: Spike Lee
Starring: Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee


Double Indemnity (1944)
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Starring: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed By: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden

Duck Soup (1933)Directed By: Leo McCarey
Starring: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx

*E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Dee Wallace Stone, Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore

Enter the Dragon (1973)
Directed By: Robert Clouse
Starring: Bruce Lee, John Saxon, Jim Kelly

*The Exorcist (1973)
Directed By: William Friedkin
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair,

*Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Directed By: Amy Heckerling
Starring: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold,

The French Connection (1971)
Directed By: William Friedkin
Starring: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider

*The Godfather (1972)
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan,

*The Godfather, Part II (1974)
Directed By: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton

*Goldfinger (1964)Directed By: Guy Hamilton
Starring: Sean Connery, Honor Blackman


The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)
Directed By: Sergio Leone
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef

Goodfellas (1990)
Directed By: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci

The Graduate (1967)
Directed By: Mike Nichols
Starring: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross,

Grand Illusion (1938)
Directed By: Jean Renoir
Starring: Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim

*Groundhog Day (1993)
Directed By: Harold Ramis
Starring: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

A Hard Day's Night (1964)Directed By: Richard Lester
Starring: The Beatles

In the Mood For Love (2001)
Directed By: Wong Kar-Wai
Starring: Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung

*It Happened One Night (1934)
Directed By: Frank Capra
Starring: Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert

*It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Directed By: Frank Capra
Starring: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore

Jaws (1975)Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

King Kong (1933)
irected By: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Shoedsack
Starring: Fay Wray, Robert Armstrong

The Lady Eve (1941)
Directed By: Preston Sturges
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Directed By: David Lean
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn

*The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)Directed By: Peter Jackson
Starring: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen

M (1931)Directed By: Fritz Lang
Starring: Peter Lorre, Theodor Loos, Otto Wernicke


M*A*S*H (1970)
Directed By: Robert Altman
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt

*The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Directed By: John Huston
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet

*The Matrix (1999)
Directed By: Larry Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss

Modern Times (1936)
Directed By: Charlie Chaplin
Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard

*Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Directed By: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Starring: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin

*National Lampoon's Animal House (1978)Directed By: John Landis
Starring: John Belushi, Tim Matheson


Network (1976)
Directed By: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch

Nosferatu (1922)
Directed By: F.W. Murnau
Starring: Max Schreck, Gustave Von Wagenheim, Greta Schroeder,

On the Waterfront (1954)
Directed By: Elia Kazan
Starring: Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Directed By: Milos Forman
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, William Redfield

Paths of Glory (1958)Directed By: Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Ralph Meeker, Adolphe Menjou


Princess Mononoke (1999)
Directed By: Hayao Miyazaki
Starring: Billy Crudup, Billy Bob Thornton, Minnie Driver

Psycho (1960)
Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh

*Pulp Fiction (1994)
Directed By: Quentin Tarantino
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman

Raging Bull (1980)
Directed By: Martin Scorsese
Starring: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty-Gentile, Joe Pesci

*Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman

Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
Directed By: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Gong Li, He Caifei, Cao Cuifeng

Rashomon (1951)Directed By: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo


*Rear Window (1954)
Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr

*Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Directed By: Nicholas Ray
Starring: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo

*Rocky (1976)
Directed By: John Avildsen
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Talia Shire, Burt Young

*Roman Holiday (1953)
Directed By: William Wyler
Starring: Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert

*Saving Private Ryan (1998)Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore


Schindler's List (1993)
Directed By: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes

The Searchers (1956)
Directed By: John Ford
Starring: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles

Seven Samurai (1954)
Directed By: Akira Kurosawa
Starring: Takashi Shimura, Toshiro Mifune, Yoshio Inaba

*The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Directed By: Frank Darabont
Starring: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman

*The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Directed By: Jonathan Demme
Starring: Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn

*Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Directed By: Stanley Donen, Gene Kelley
Starring: Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds

*Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)Directed By: David Hand
Starring: Adriana Caselotti, Harry Stockwell


*Some Like It Hot (1959)
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon

*The Sound of Music (1965)
Directed By: Robert Wise
Starring: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer

*Star Wars (1977)
Directed By: George Lucas
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher

Sunset Blvd. (1950)
Directed By: Billy Wilder
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim

*Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Directed By: James Cameron
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton

The Third Man (1949)
Directed By: Carol Reed
Starring: Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles

This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Directed By: Rob Reiner
Starring: Rob Reiner, Michael McKean, Christopher Guest

*Titanic (1997)Directed By: James Cameron
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet


*To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
Directed By: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford

*Toy Story (1995)
Directed By: John Lasseter
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles

The Usual Suspects (1995)Directed By: Bryan Singer
Starring: Kevin Spacey, Gabriel Byrne

*Vertigo (1958)Directed By: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak

*When Harry Met Sally... (1989)
Directed By: Rob Reiner
Starring: Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan, Carrie Fisher

Wild Strawberries (1957)
Directed By: Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Victor Sjostrom, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Ingrid Thulin

Wings of Desire (1988)
Directed By: Wim Wenders
Starring: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander

*The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Directed By: Victor Fleming
Starring: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)Directed By: Pedro Almodovar
Starring: Carmen Maura, Antonio Banderas


The World of Apu (1959)
Directed By: Satyajit Ray
Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Swampan Mukerjee,

I think that makes 40 that I've seen. And okay, even if Gone With the Wind wasn't on the list a number of movies that I love were (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Roman Holiday, Star Wars, When Harry Met Sally, All About Eve, the Wizard of Oz and It's a Wonderful Life). But here's something that I often wonder about. More and more video stores are taking good, classic, qualilty movies off the shelf to make way for newer rentals. How many of these movies would you actually be able to find at your local DVD rental place?

We have this theory...

One of the top 'surprise hit' movies to come out this month is the remake of Escape to Witch Mountain, Race to Witch Mountain. I am not surprised. In fact this is the first movie with "the Rock" that I've ever wanted to see. Why? Because I loved the original. It was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It also confirms a theory that Jonathan and I have about movie making today. They are catering to our generation. Jonathan first started talking about this with the X-Men movies. What better way to bring in an audience than to make these comic books into movies. You already have a set of fans ready (provided you do it well). And it worked. 3 X-Men movies later (plus a movie about Wolverine all ready to hit the screen this summer). Last summer's Transformers is another example of this. What 30ish person didn't play with these when they were younger? And what's coming next? GI Joe will be out this summer. Even I played GI Joe as a kid. When you begin to think about it, it isn't just that they are catering to us, it's also that it is our generation taht is making these things. What a kid's dream come to true to make your childhood play come to life on the big screen! I wonder what else will make the trip?

Why are you so cute?

Normally my Jeremy is a very smiley boy. He's very pleasing. Once in a while he is as 2 year olds are and not agreable in the least. Tonight was such an example. I had gotten him changed for bed in the living room rather than his bedroom (I know, there's my first mistake). Well, I gave him his clothes to go put into his laundry (which he normally does no problem). Tonight he just looked at me and said, "No clothes Mama" dropped them on the floor in front of himself and pouted. He then looked at me to see what I would do. I have to admit that as much as I prefer smiley Jeremy, pouty Jeremy is very cute indeed and I have to bite my lip not to smile. I didn't smile. I did get up, tell him to pick up his clothes and put them in his closet and walked out of the room to see to another task. He did pick up his clothes, and put them where they belong, pouting all the way.

Watch for Flying Objects

I commute between schools twice a week. It's not a huge commute, just from the North End to the Lower West Side. And usually there's not a problem. Today however, the drive was scary. It all started when I exited my first school and a pile of snow fell on me from off the roof. It continued when I could not get my car door to open (or stay open) enough to allow me and my backpack to enter it. Why? Huge wind force at work. As I was driving, I noticed a number of scary factors to this wind. Not just the usual branches and flags waving. Nope. Not today. Today the huge McDonald's sign was weaving back and forth. Today branches hung precariously as I drove past them. Today one of the traffic lights rocked back and forth so viciously I thought it was going to fall on me. Today I jumped as a big (looking) object flew by. (It turned out to be a cardboard box thankfully). And as all of this was happening the DJ said, it looks like it's a bit windy out there. Really? I hadn't noticed... It turns out that we were expecting (and received) winds ranging from 40 to 70 km/hour (that's 60 to 120 mph for my American friends). So I have now offically reached Maritimer status as I'm blogging about the weather.

Blog Party

I've never been to a blog party before but I'm enjoying it greatly! Lots of blogs by all sorts of people from all over the place to check out. I have to admit that I'm new to community blogging. I've been blogging for 4 and a half years now, but limited to people I know blogs. It's only recently that I've started to discover the blogging community. My friend Jill through her quilting has discovered so much more than I have this way. But I do like to connect with other people. In the past few months I've started to look at the blogs of strangers for ideas. I'm a mom of 2 pre-school boys (ages 2 and 4) and like to see what other moms are doing with their kids. I'm a teacher (grades K-8) and like to see what other teachers are doing too. I'm a reader (which is why I started a book blog) and look to other book bloggers for inspiration as to where to go next. I'm a cook (which is why I started a cooking blog) and love reading other's recipe blogs and trying different things.
This blog is my whatever-is-in-my-head at any given moment blog. Looking back at it I can track different highs and lows and random thoughts of my life over the past few years. I like to blog because I like to write. Sometimes I write I lot and other times I can go quite a while without a single word typed. I hope you enjoy checking out my blog as you continue your path of random blogs to read. There's lot of good stuff out there.
I've had fun checking out the 5 miunutes for Mom site and amazed at all the sponsors and prizes that you have gathered for this blog party. Were I to recieve a prize my top 3 picks would be: INTL 5 - Handmade Journal Cover, USC 45 - Pair of shoes from Eleven, and USC 10 - Big Combo Pack from Mabel's Labels. Other prizes that tickle my fancy are USC 58, USC 77, INTL 34, INTL 49, INTL 7, INTL 3, INTL 30, INTL 49, INTL 60 and USC 21. There were so many great prizes to read through that is was hard to narrow down!

Snap!

Okay, a long while back when I was playing around with blog features, I added Snap! to my blog and now I just find it really annoying. The most annoying part is that I don't remember how I added it and I have no idea how to get rid of it. Please help me!

How old am I anyways?

I think it happened at 26. I just started to forget how old I was. Age was such an important thing when I was a kid. How old are you? The answer never was I'm 7. No it was I'm 7 and a half. Or I'm 7 and 3/4's. And I always knew. Somewhere in my later 20's I just started to forget. I pick 26 because I got married when I was 26. I moved across the country at 26. It was a real adult experience year. Ask me how old I am now and I have to think about it. (I'm 33).
So today I read an article about Pac-Man. Pac-Man was such a marker of my childhood. A recognisable symbol. Everyone knew pac-man. We played Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man...collected Pac-Man cards and stickers...even watched a Pac-Man cartoon. Do you want to know how old Pac-Man is? Almost 30. That's right, next year is the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man. Right there in my face an age marker.
So I started to wonder about other age markers.
Here's some of the pop-culture items that mark my past.
Cabbage Patch Kids: ahh the frenzy of 3rd grade. Having a Cabbage Patch Kid was like a marker of the great mom that you were sure to be one day. Cabbage Patch Kids were 1st mass produced in 1982, making them 27 years old.
Tetris: what a computer addiction Tetris was (and is, I've recently rediscovered in Tetris Friends on Facebook) - 1985 was the design date on this one making it 24 years old.
Strawberry Shortcake: orginally designed in 1977 making her 32 this year.
The Dukes of Hazzard: How I loved Bo Duke and how my brother and I tried to enter and exit our parents Red Ford through the rolled-down windows. John Schneider who played Bo Duke is turning 49 next month folks. The Show originally aired from 1979 to 1985.
Underoos - the fun dress up underwear. I had Wonder Woman. 1978 Fruit of the Loom started to produce these babies.

The Facts of Life: What girl didn't love this show? We even pretended to be these characters. FYI - This year Blair will be 46, Jo and Natalie will be 43, and Tootie will be 40...or at least the actresses who played them.
Monchhichi - does anyone else remember these? I really, really wanted one when I was 7. They were a Japanese toy/cartoon that spread throughout the western world in the late 70's/early 80's.
Star Blazers: for a long while I thought my brother and I were the only ones who remembered this show. Then sometime back in my early 20's we found someone else who not only remembered it, but could sing the theme song with us. Then we found someone who not only rembered it, but owned the DVD release. Ahh, my sanity was verified. For those of you not in the know, or racking your brain, Star Blazers was one of the first true Anime English dubbed cartoons to do well in North America. The premise was that the crew travelled in a big spaceship (the Argo) that looked a lot like a sea ship with a big red bottom on various missions to save the planet earth. The charcters included Derek Wildstar, Nova, and my favorite Queen Starsha.



Star Blazers Closing Lyrics

We're off in outer space
Protecting Mother Earth
To save the human race
Our Star Blazers

Danger lurking everywhere
But we know we've got to dare
Evil men with evil schemes
They can't destroy all our dreams

We must be strong and brave
Our home we've got to save
We must make the fighting cease
So Mother Earth will be at peace

Through all the fire and the smoke
We will never give up hope
If we can win the Earth will survive
We'll keep peace alive
With our Star Blazers

Sorry, I went off on a nostalgic tangent there. Back in my childhood memories. You know what's sad? and kind of contributed to this nostalgia today? One of my gr. 8 lessons this week was based on TV music. The CD clips that were in the lesson were to me really, really easy. (and yes, I know these shows were already running in re-runs when I saw them the first time around, but...) But I couldn't believe that not one person got all 7 of them. And only 1 student (out of 2 classes) got 6. The themes were": The Flintstones, The Jetsons, Sesame Street, The Andy Griffith Show (not a single one got that one), Mission Impossible (some got it thanks to the movies), the Addams Family and Gilligan's Island (some in one class got this one, nobody in the other class figured it out). Gilligan's Island people! I know it still runs in re-runs or Deja-View. And I've seen the DVD's out in the stores. The other thing that was a marker of my age was in the discussion we had on family sitcoms and the music for them. When I think Family sit-com my first thought is The Cosby Show. That name never crossed a student's lips. Their family sit-coms are the Simpsons (granted it's been around for about 20 years and I probably would list it too), the Family Guy (only ever watched one episode), Everybody Loves Raymond and My Wife and Kids. But then when I got to think about it, they hey-day of the family sit-com really doesn't exist anymore. It was a staple of my generation (Family Ties, Growing Pains, Full House, Who's the Boss?, Mr, Belvedere...) and the generations before (the Brady Bunch, the Partridge Family, All in the Family...) but what's on like that now? It is The Simpsons and the Family Guy.

lists, lists, lists

I call it the celebrity complex. Certain people (and I am one of them) love to fill out questionnairres. We used to read them in magazines about our favorite celebrities and now, thanks to the internet, we read them about our friends. All the little weird trivia things that make us tick.
These used to come in email format (which seems to be going the way of snail mail) and now, thanks to Facebook, they are in our notes. I find these pop up every so often and people get hooked. Not for a long time, but for a bit. The latest wave started with the 25 (or 30) random things. The appeal to that is wide enough to hit a lot of people. List 30 random things about yourself and so on. Then they all started to come around, the one I filled in today was a yes or no only survey. I've also done book surveys, movie surveys, music surveys. There's the list things beginning with the letter of your name, odd things, kid interview (cute for a keepsake), the google "your name needs..." etc...
I like these while they last, but I think they are starting to die down again, which is fine with me. It kinda makes me wonder why are we so apt to share something about ourselves oneline? I learn a lot about my friends, the irony being that I communicate with a lot of them more online than person to person. Are we really so busy that we can't spend time with each other?