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Can you believe it is already March? Does anybody else think the year is flying by?

Tired just thinking about it

Too much is going on in the world.

Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether or not citizens have the right to bring suit against the government when they feel the separation of church and state is being ignored - such as in the case of President Bush's faith-based initiatives, which give preferential treatment to religious applicants over secular applicants. Perhaps it should just be called the "good works initiative". When applying, people can strip out any and all references to religion in their applications and get money based on the merit of their organization, not because they believe in the same God the president does. (Okay, I know that wasn't fair but come on!) The Supreme Court has previously held that taxpayers may challenge government assistance to religion but with a new court, who knows what will happen.

Issue 2 - The push to make it mandatory for all pre-teens to receive a vaccination to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV). Here's what I've learned so far - the drug companies recently had a drug, Gardasil, approved by the FDA and have been aggressively marketing to mandate vaccinations. Texas Governor Rick Perry has already signed an executive order for his state that requires all sixth grade girls to receive the vaccination. The drug must be given before a girl is sexually active to guarantee immunity from the most common causes. There are 40 types, the vaccination protects against four, two of which account for 70 percent of cervical cancer. The drug company recommends the vaccinations be given between the ages of 9 and 26. The push for early vaccination comes out of a study that showed trial subjects who were sexually active at the time of the vaccination had higher rates of cervical neoplasia (i.e., abnormal cancer cell precursors).
And here's some info on current cervical cancer rates in the U.S. Since 1955, cervical cancer rates in the U.S. are down 74 percent - thanks to the introduction of the pap smear. Fewer than one in 10,000 women over the age of 18 will get cervical cancer each year, and only about one in 30,000 will die from it. In the majority of these cases, the women did not get routine checkups and so did not discover the cancer until its later stages. Women who do contract HPV and are later diagnosed with cancer usually contract the virus in their 20s and 30s. The first reports regarding the pills efficacy came out in 2002. No long-term research has been done. Click here for more information. Oh, it should be noted that worldwide - worldwide, not the U.S. or other developed nations - cervical cancer is the second cancer-related cause of death for women. The regions with the highest risk include sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. You have to ask yourself, do we really need that vaccine here or would it actually help millions of women in developing nations? At $360, the drug company stands to make an estimated $3 billion if they are successful in getting a nationwide mandate.

And finally - Al Gore uses electricity even though he is fighting for folks to help stop global warming! Egads! Are you frickin' kidding me? Seriously, has the right-wing spin machine gotten so far off track it can't come up with anything better to hit this poor man with? Guess what? You can't claim global warming isn't happening anymore because everyone knows it is. Don't worry, though, as the polar caps melt and the water levels rise, you'll get the first hint you were dead wrong when you're standing knee-deep in water in what used to be your flood-free home. A .07 degree rise (or whatever it is) over the last 50-100 years might not seem significant to you but it seems a helluva lot warmer in the poles, at the tops of mountains, to the glaciers that are disappearing. And yeah, Gore uses electricity and drives cars and does all of those things we all do. You know what he does to offset that? He buys green energy - you might have heard of it, wind power, solar power, hydro-electric power. And the man buys offsets to reduce or negate his carbon footprint. Pardon my angry tirade but anyone who doesn't feel some sense of responsibility for what has happened to our planet is a yahoo. (Click here so you can understand the insult I just lobbed your way.)

Wooley Bully

Our cats love their Wooley Bully. They completely destroyed the first one, the poor thing reached the point where even a nice hot round in the washing machine could not restore it to its original Wooley Bully self. So we bought them a replacement model this past Christmas and the little guy has already taken a beating. Anyone want to place a bet on whether or not this Wooley Bully will make it to the end of the year?

The Number 23

I met with Ann Saturday night to grab some dinner and catch The Number 23. Holy crap, P.F. Chang's at Bridgeport Village still has a frickin' outrageous wait. I had thought this would die down after the initial opening but apparently it hasn't. Want to know how long it was? One hour and forty-five minutes. Holy schnikes! The other restaurants weren't quite as bad but in order to hit the movie time we wanted (7:55pm) we had to leave and go eat at Stanford's. The movie was interesting but the variances between the filming of the main storyline and the alternate storyline were almost distracting. Carrey does an adequate job playing a man that slips into paranoia as he reads this book seeming to parallel his own life. What I found less believable were the wife and son, who pretty much jump on board the crazy train. At one point, the son is busy helping dad dig up skeleton bones while mom is walking into an abandoned mental institution in the middle of the night. The most intriguing piece of the movie was the madman's ability to see the number 23 everywhere and in everything. I found myself counting the letters in my name - 19 - to make sure I couldn't get sucked into the madness.

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

The Discovery Channel is airing a program - The Lost Tomb of Jesus - on March 4 that makes the case that Jesus had a family, which included a wife and son. I expect that even in the face of overwhelming evidence, believers will continue to deny whatever conclusions are reached that contradict what they already "know" to be true.

Clinton vs Obama: Part I - The Iraq War

Facts:

1. Obama was not a member of the Senate at the time the vote to go to war was cast.
2. Obama gave a speech against the war approximately two weeks after congress voted in October 2002.
3. Obama did not have an opportunity to vote.
4. Hillary did vote for the war in Iraq.
5. Hillary states that President Bush misused her support and botched the war.
6. Hillary also states "I want to be very clear about this: If I had been president in October 2002, I would not have started this war."

Saturday in the city

Darr and I spent yesterday touring the city with Beauty the wonder dog. We originally planned on just heading downtown for some breakfast but once there it seemed silly not to go to the park and then go shopping and then go window shopping and then... and then... and then... We left early and returned home just in time for dinner, a yummy plate of Fettuccine Alfredo. Beauty was a trooper but I complained quite a bit after six hours on the road. Apparently my shoes are not made for walking. Along our journey we found great bread at St. Honoré Boulangerie and excellent blackberry and raspberry soda at Hot Lips Pizza.

Grey's Anatomy moving to days

It is official. Grey's Anatomy has jumped the shark. If you haven't watched the episode that aired yesterday (15 February) and you don't want to know what happens, stop reading now. I was both delighted and annoyed by the last five minutes of the show last night - delighted because one of my favorite characters returned and his sexiness is wonderful to behold, annoyed because that character is dead. Grey's has always sort of felt like a high-end soap opera, with better-looking characters and far more clever dialogue. But now that they have dipped into that 'the dead come back' well, I fear we can expect the following:

• The introduction of Meredith's evil twin, who returns to Seattle to kidnap their mother in an attempt to wrestle the estate out of Meredith's greedy grasp.
• The revelation that Dr. Callie Iphigenia O'Malley is the love child of Dr. Webber (the chief) and Dr. Ellis Grey.
• The discovery that Christina is a Cylon-inspired robot who is cloned upon death.
• The love triangle developing between Addison, McSteamy, and Alex takes a dramatic shift when McSteamy and Alex hook up.
  

So my prediction for the next episode is that Meredith will somehow be saved. Look for the moment when she takes her first breath after almost drowning. We'll be forced to sit through yet another proposal, because it takes nearly losing your loved one to figure out you want to get married, and we'll have a double wedding as the O'Malley marriage dissolves.

Madeleine Peyroux

If you like Billie Holiday, you'll like Madeleine Peyroux. Her smooth voice drips the lyrics into the music. It sounds classic yet fresh. My favorite song so far - Don't Wait Too Long. Good enough to play over and over and over again. But Between the Bars is also amazing, the perfect low-key dinner party background song.

The new and improved Hullabaloo

Amid much fanfare, we proudly introduce our redesigned site, www.hullabaloo.ca. Although it is listed on the site, I must thank the following people without whom I would not have been able to complete the project.

1. Darr, who provided much needed technical assistance and general support.
2. Kevin White, for designing the greatest cartoon depictions of our family ever.
3. Travis Beckham, for drawing background patterns and sharing them with the world for free.
4. Apple, for creating the incredibly easy and fun, albeit sometimes frustratingly irritating, iWeb.

Beauty's Valentine's Day card

Darr's comment

Darr is restricted from commenting because I upgraded our Blogger account and he didn't do it in time and now he can't. So, this comment is from Darr.

"Scones are fantastical wonderful happyness."

Geico

I got our auto insurance renewal paperwork in the mail today and was taken aback upon reviewing said document to find the folks at Allstate had been billing us a surcharge for non-standard auto insurance. Here's a brief history...A few years back when our crappy cars finally gave out on us, we chose to use mass transit to toodle around town for a year. We live in the city, it seemed a perfectly reasonable and cost-efficient decision. As a result, we canceled our auto insurance. If you have no autos, it follows that you should not be paying for auto insurance. About a year later, when we bought Olive (i.e., the Nissan Sentra) and ordered Sophie the Great (i.e., the Mini Cooper), we had to pick up auto insurance and were punished with a higher premium because of our year away from cars. This policy is stupid. Not driving for a year isn't going to make you a worse driver - in my case, riding the bus effectively erased all previous bad driving habits and eliminated the proclivity for road rage I had been developing since my aggressive teenage years behind the wheel. Stupid, bad policy.

So, I called our Allstate agent to see about getting the surcharge removed. We had been with them for nearly three years so it hardly seemed fair for them to continue charging us for not previously having insurance. And you know what he tells me even though we currently are considered preferred clients, he needs our permission to check our insurance score again. And checking isn't a guarantee he'll be able to do anything for us. I told him to forget it, then I hung up and hopped online. First stop, Geico.

Geico's tagline is "fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent," but you know what? Fifteen minutes saved us forty percent. That's right. And now, I love the gecko. I was able to call back our agent and calmly inform him that we were canceling our insurance with their company as of 6 March. When he called back a few minutes later, he got Darren, who told him we wouldn't appreciate a call in a year to see if he could get our business back. Yeah, thank Allstate, but no thanks.

I'll buy you a beer

I found yougotbeer.com after someone at work forwarded the link to a site with daily beer haikus. Yeah. Daily beer haikus. Seems ricockulous but what can you say? Some people really like their beer. A link on that site lead me to yougotbeer.com. What a fantastically clever idea. Got a friend who lives in another state that earned a promotion? Is someone you know the proud parent of a new Toyota Prius? Celebrate the moment by buying your loved ones beer. Here's how it works. (Because I'm a tech writer and I've got spare time I'll step it out for you.)

1. Open a browser on your desktop.
   Note: I recommend Mozilla Firefox. Internet Explorer sucks ass.
   
2. Type www.yougotbeer in the Address field and press [Enter].
   
3. Click Buy Beer in the navigation bar or click the Buy someone a beer online today! link.
   
4. Type the recipient's name in the Recipient Name field and the recipient's email in the Recipient Email field. For example, if you wanted to send beer to me, then you would type my name in the Recipient Name field and my email address in the Recipient Email field. Go ahead. Try it.
   
5. Select a greeting from the Greeting drop-down list.
   
6. Type your name in the Your Name field and your email in the Your Email field.
7. Type a message in the Message field.
8. Click the calendar icon and select the date on which you would like the beer to be sent.
9. Select how many beers you would like to buy.
   Note: An increment of one equals $5. For example, buy three beers and the person will receive a $15 beer gift certificate.
10. Do one of the following:
    
    • If you want to receive an email when the beer is picked up, check the Email me when the beer is picked up. check box.
    • If you do not want to receive an email when the beer is picked up, clear the Email me when the beer is picked up. check box.
11. Click Save to Cart.
    Note: If you would like to start over, click Reset Form. You can click Reset Form at any time.
12. Verify your order is correct and do one of the following:
• If the order is correct and you do not want to buy beer for another person, click Proceed to Payment.
• If the order is correct but you want to buy beer for another person, click Add Another.
• If the order is not correct, click Edit and make the appropriate changes.
• If you no longer want to buy your loved ones beer, click Delete.
  Note: Why would you do this? Seriously. Buy beer. It's good for you, it's good for your friends, and it's good for the economy.
  
13. Complete the online form to pay by credit card or log in to PayPal to pay using your PayPal account.
    Note: Any field with a red asterisk is a required field and must be completed in order to process your beer request.
    
14. Click Continue Checkout.
15. Click Pay to place the order, click Cancel and Return to Merchant to cancel the order or click Edit Payment Information if there is an error in your billing information.

It's that easy. And at the end your loved ones have beer. What's better than that?

Apple ads bothering Gates

Hee hee. Click here and here for the articles. Sounds like someone (i.e., Bill Gates) is jealous.

The Super Bowl and winning a yuppie food coupon

Thanks to my husband's unfortunate Super Bowl pick, I'm $20 richer.

Turkey confit and friends

The Steenhuis-Bickels came over for dinner tonight with baby Noodle in tow for a lovely evening of eating, drinking (for those of us without alcohol allergies), and gabbing, punctuated by some baby crying and cooing and general cuteness. Darr determined later that our menu ended up being a combination of rustic, winter dishes - lentils with carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes, and bacon, bean pot medley with carrots, parsnips, potatoes, leeks, and proscuitto, and turkey confit on a bed of greens. For dessert, a surprisingly difficult to make crepe cake with lemon cream. Mabel was pretty compliant when it came to the Noodle petting her belly, which she happily flipped over to expose to our guests. Ellie took advantage of an empty lap. And Beaut, well, she stayed underfoot - literally. I posted some pics of our evening, including a Photo Booth pop art creation of the Noodle with her mom.

Alphabet dinner

Neither Darr nor myself were feeling particularly ambitious last night when it came to preparing dinner. As we reviewed the contents of our kitchen cupboards and refrigerator, we started to notice that our leftover options all started with the letter "B". And so alphabet dinners were born. Our first alphabet dinner included the following: bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and beets. It was, admittedly, a hodgepodge of food but everything turned out well - a little too well (i.e., burnt) in the case of the bacon - and we had fun musing over our new creation, which we figure we'll use on the kid(s) someday (as in "Hey kid(s), we're having chicken, cheese, and cereal for dinner tonight!" or "Come on kid(s), it's 'P' night and we're making pasta and having papaya dipped in peanut butter!"). Alphabet dinners require all food to start with the chosen letter, but does not require all sauces, condiments, and the like to start with the same letter.