New Year's Eve Plans

Well, the end of the year is upon us and once again I am faced with a difficult decision. What am I doing for New Year's Eve? It's always a stressful decision for me because, of course, not every single person I enjoy hanging out with is going to be at the same place I am at. I try to be a people pleaser, so I always have trouble deciding who might be mad if I show up and who might be mad if I don't. Obviously the best scenario would be to end up somewhere that has the maximum amount of my family and friends as possible. It's just usually hard to arrange because of babysitting issues, availability to stay the night (driving not allowed), whether or not everyone likes everyone who may be there, etc.

But, I believe I have finally figured out what my plans are. Hopefully it will be a blast and I will sing and laugh and frolic the night away while not throwing up. On that note, I hope all of you guys end up having a great New Year's Eve and survive any party you may be going to without throwing up.

AND DON'T DRIVE HOME!!

A SpongeBob SquarePants Kind Of Life

Okay, I have the SpongeBob SquarePants edition of Monopoly and now I really have to have this edition of The Game Of Life. How cool does this thing look. Here's the product description found on the Amazon website:

Experience life in Bikini Bottom! You could become a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, move into SpongeBobs pineapple, and adopt a Giant Clam as a pet. Maybe youll get named Champion Bubble Blower, become Planktons friend for the day, and win a years supply of Krabby Patties! But watch out you could also get stung by a jelly fish or have to go to the hospital because you have a bad case of the suds. If youre the one with the most clams at the end of the game, you win! Game comes with Game Board, 4 Plastic Character Pawns SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs, 3 Mountains, Bridge, 6 Buildings, Spinner, Stack of Play Money, 50 Life Tiles, 78 Cards, Bankers Tray, Label Sheet, and Game Instructions. For 2 4 Players, Ages 7 and Up.

Anyone who would like to buy this for me, feel free to do so.

Saddam Hussein Is Dead

Saddam Hussein has been executed in Iraq. The 69 year old former dictator was hanged in Baghdad at 06:05 am Saturday, December 30 which was 09:05 pm Friday, December 29 here in Missouri. It is reported that the execution was videotaped although coverage was not shown live.

Matisyahu

The Hasidic reggae beatboxing superstar. I've known about this guy for quite a while now, but his popularity is growing. He may not look like a reggae rapper, but his beats are awesome and his message is pure. This is a 2 minute video from his performance on the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Missouri Facts I Never Knew

These facts were all found on Legends Of America so I am not responsible for their accuracy.

Called the Brothel Law, it is illegal in Missouri for more than four unrelated persons to occupy the same dwelling.

St. Louis offers more free, major visitor attractions than anyplace outside of the nation's capital. These include the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis Zoo, Cahokia Mounds, Museum of Westward Expansion, St. Louis Science Center, Missouri History Museum, Anheuser-Busch Brewery, Grant's Farm and more.

Anyone under the age of 21 who takes out household trash containing even a single empty alcohol beverage container can be charged with illegal possession of alcohol in Missouri.

Missouri was the third most fought-over state in the Civil War, right after Virginia and Tennessee.

The first successful parachute jump to be made from a moving airplane was made by Captain Berry at St. Louis, in 1912.

Kansas City has more miles of boulevards than Paris and more fountains than any city except Rome.

St. Louis was the site of the demonic possession incident that inspired the book, and later the movie, "The Exorcist."

Iced Tea was first served at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904

2009 Camaro

I want one. Nuff said.

Changes Are Coming To Downtown Springfield

Work to start on downtown development

A Thursday groundbreaking is set for the College Station Car Park and urban entertainment complex.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the $20 million project will begin 1:15 p.m. on College Street west of Campbell Avenue.

Bounded roughly by Campbell and Market avenues and McDaniel and Olive streets, the 77,000-square-foot proposed commercial complex has been in the works since 2004.

Guests include Rep. Roy Blunt and John Askew of the Environmental Protection Agency office in Kansas City.

article was found on News-Leader.com

Update On The War

U.S. military deaths in Iraq pass 9/11 toll
Tue Dec 26, 2006 1:39 PM GMT
By Ibon Villelabeitia

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The deaths of six more American soldiers in Iraq pushed the U.S. death toll to at least 2,978 -- five more than the number killed in the September 11 attacks -- as bombs killed more than 20 people in Baghdad on Tuesday.

At least 89 U.S. soldiers have died so far this month, making it the deadliest this year after October's toll of 106, and adding pressure on President George W. Bush to find a strategy to extricate 135,000 U.S. troops from the messy war.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the invasion in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein, which Bush said was an integral part of the "war on terror" following the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

U.S. officials say 2,973 people were killed in those attacks, excluding the 19 hijackers....

Rest of article from Reuters here

Video Of Silver Dollar City Christmas Tree

I took this video tonight of the 5 story special effects tree. It's only 2 minutes and 30 seconds long so it should be okay for dial-up (talking to you Bobbie - ya loser).

You'll Never Guess Where I've Been....

Yep, that's right. I went to Silver Dollar City again tonight. I am definitely getting my money's worth out of this year's season pass. Tonight I went with my best friend Bobbie and her two children, Janean and Cordell. We watched the parade, ate smores, did some shopping, took lots of pictures, etc. I'm not gonna bore you with the details because I have several SDC posts on here already. But, I do have a couple of pics to share. And yes, Bobbie, I am emailing these to you so you can use them as wallpaper. And also emailing them to your mom.

I Think I Made It

I believe that I am now officially done with my Christmas shopping. I was finally able to finish up my Dad's gift today and his was the last one I had left to get. I also managed to get my no bake cookies made today that Mom asked me to bring on Sunday. Everything that needed to be wrapped is wrapped and in the car. I think I made it.

A few days ago I didn't think I was going to be able to survive the hustle and bustle of the season, but everything has fallen into place since then. I even received the calendar I ordered for my sister. Don't worry, she doesn't like the internet and I've never told her I have a blog, so she won't see this. I got her a calendar that is personalized with pictures I took of her kids throughout the year. Walgreens.com lets you upload as many pictures as you want, then you choose your calendar design and go through and decide the layout of each page. You can also add personalized text showing birthdays and anniversaries. The calendar cost $19.99 before shipping & handling. I believe my final price was $27.xx, and it was well worth it. That's a unique, creative gift that I know she's gonna flip out over.

Okay, now that I've done some advertising for Walgreens, I'll get back on topic. As I was saying, I'm done. Going to meet some friend in Silver Dollar City tomorrow evening before I go to work. After I get off work Sunday morning I am heading straight down to my Dad's house for a Christmas breakfast and gift exchange with some siblings and neice and nephews. It's gonna be great. I hope that all of you have as much fun spending the holidays with your family as I'm going to have with mine.

Burger King's Xbox Games

Just in case any of you are interested in how good/bad these games may be - here's my opinion. Pocketbike racer is pretty challenging and the graphics are waaaay better than I expected them to be. Granted, I'm not saying they're great. Just that for a $3 game it's way above my expectations. The races are a lot of fun and you can even race against your buddies (or total strangers) online.

BigBumpin is a total blast. There are different types of games you can play with bumper cars, my favorite of which is the hockey style game. It's crazy fun to have 4 players playing red team against blue team and slamming into each other chasing the puck.

Sneak King I have not yet played. I did buy it, but I've had so much fun with the other two that I haven't gotten around to even opening it yet. But I'm sure it's also going to be a great game. I am very impressed with the quality of all three of these games and I can honestly say that each purchase I made was the best $3.99 I've spent in a long time. I highly recommend these games for any Xbox owner out there, because the fun-factor is unbelievable.

iPod Owners, Beware!

I have a 60G video iPod which is one of my most prized possessions. I am protective of it almost to the point of absurdity. Couple that fact with the knowledge that I have just spent a solid 8 hours of my time repairing, reformatting, and reinstalling thousands of music files to an iPod that crashed big time yesterday and you might see why I decided to warn you guys in advance of a possible problem.

Luckily for me, the iPod that crashed yesterday wasn't mine. Unluckily, the iPod that crashed that wasn't mine, was in my possession at the time the major breakage occured. See, I had a friends iPod because she was seriously lacking in music and I have an abundance. So, I brought hers home with me so that I could beef her music selection up again. I have actually hacked my iPod with a program that allows me to transfer my music to any pc and transfer music off of anyone elses pc to my iPod. Shhhh! Don't tell Apple!

She told me when she sent her player home with me that it wasn't charged. So, I decided the first thing I would do is get it all charged up before I began. I plugged it into the computer and iTunes opened up like normal. But a notice immediately popped up that a new firmware version was available for her iPod. I chose to download it, realizing that my friend is bad with computers and probably had needed to upgrade the firmware but maybe didn't know how. I could do this for her. So I did.

Then I noticed that after the firmware upgrade was complete, her list of songs never showed up in iTunes. So, I disconnected the iPod and reconnected it to allow iTunes to refresh it's connection. Now her songs popped up correctly. But wait, there are little exclamation points next to each song title. I click on one to play it and get a message that the "file cannot be found". ????? So, I click on several more random songs and get the same message. Wow, does she really have this many corrupt songs on here? Where did she get these, maybe she downloaded some corrupt files.

Soon I realize all her files give the same message. I look over at her iPod screen (which I had never done yet) and notice a warning icon on the screen instead of the usual "do not disconnect" flashing message. ????? Apparently her iPod doesn't work right. Something is wrong. I start looking up info on the internet about technical help with iPods and discover that a whole lot of people are having a huge issue with their players right now. Some are unable to find their files (like the one I broke), some are unable to sync up with the pc, some are not recognized by the computer, some give a "read/write failure", etc., etc., etc.

Basically, what it boiled down to is that recently a new version of iTunes was released (Version 7.0) and a new firmware version for the iPods was released (Version 1.2.1). No one is real sure exactly which of the two is the main problem, but somehow one, or possibly both, of these upgrades is causing the players to crash. Yet amazingly, Apple has not yet released any type of fix for the issue their upgrades have caused - or even acknowledged it in any way that I could find. People who were having these major issues were posting on forums from as far back as September that their machines were crashing after the upgrades. I think I finally got the one I broke restored, but it sure did take a lot of work. Don't get me wrong - I'd rather spend hours working on fixing it than spend the money it would have taken to replace it for my friend.

Either way, let this be a warning to you. Do not upgrade your iPod or your iTunes for a while. It could cause some serious damage. And really piss you off. And scare you into thinking you're going to have to spend a lot of money to buy a new one. If your iPod is working, don't try to fix it!

Catholic Priest Accused Of Sexual Misconduct....25 Years After Death

According to an article in the Monett Times, Father Eugene Deragowski, has been accused of sexual abuse involving a minor. Father Deragowski served at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church of Pulaskifield, MO from 1965 to 1971. During his service there, there are no records of him being accused of any type of misconduct. He passed away in 1981 and in October of this year the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau received the accusation of sexual abuse.

The Diocese has met with the complainant and followed all proper procedures required to handle such a claim, including contacting the appropriate law enforcement agencies. I just thought this was an interesting case because of the timing involved.

The Freedom Tower

Yesterday, two 25-ton steel columns were erected at the former site of the World Trade Center. Construction of the Freedom Tower has now begun. The tower will be 1,776 feet high and is expected to be opened in 2011.

You won't find me having very many strong opinions on this website because I try not to use this space to beat you to death with my feelings and beliefs. However, I do have an opinion about the Freedom Tower. I hate it.

I strongly believe that as soon as the rubble was finally cleared from Ground Zero, construction should have began to replace the Twin Towers with exact replicas of what they used to be. Not to have offices and people in them ever again, but simply to show the terrorists who took them away that this is America and we will not be forced to cower and change our ways out of fear. The same size and height, the same skyline symbols that they used to be, with the biggest American Flag ever created flying from the top of both buildings. That's what should be in that spot. That is how we should honor the people who died there. Those people never saw the Freedom Tower, how is that supposed to become their symbol. They died in the Twin Towers, so let the Twin Towers become their memorial. We are the greatest country on this earth, but by building a park and a Freedom Tower I believe we are showing the world that the terrorists have us scared.

Christmas Is Gaining On Me

I started off so good this Holiday season, I just knew I was getting everything accomplished early. But alas, I am officially "behind schedule". I do not have everything purchased, I do not have every item wrapped, I haven't even bought ingredients yet for the stuff I'm supposed to make.

My blog is suffering because of my ineptitude. Christmas is not only gaining on me, it is getting ready to run me over. I apologize for the gap in posts here. I just simply have not had time. But rest assured, tomorrow night I go back to work and while I'm stuck at my desk I have plenty of time. So, I will post more then.
Until then, I have to get back to wrapping gifts.

Congratulations Bobbie!

Today, my best friend graduated from MSU here in Springfield with a Bachelor's Degree in Social Work. Today also marked the end of her first week as a state employee because she is so damn smart she has already been hired into her professional field.

I will not reveal Bobbie's true age, but let's just say she's not young. LOL. Actually she's only in her mid-30's, but she went back to college and earned her degree while working full-time and being a single mother. In fact, 2 years ago she earned her Associates Degree while working 56 hours a week. Bobbie and I used to work together and in our early 30's we convinced each other to return to college. Both of us had attended before, but had never finished because life happened. I took the easy way out and chose an Information Technology degree that I completed in 2 years. But Bobbie is in for the long haul. Now that she has received her Bachelor's, she will be taking a small break to concentrate on her new job for a while. But she will soon be working towards her Masters Degree and is considering getting a PhD. I'm hoping she does, because I wanna call her Dr. Bob.

Anyway, Congratulations Bobbie! You worked hard, you sacrificed much and YOU DID IT. I knew you could. I am proud of you.

As soon as I get a chance, I will add a picture of the graduate here - unless, of course, she tells me not to.

**UPDATE** Posted picture as promised

Well, It Was Bound To Happen

Nintendo has just announced that they are recalling 3.2 million wrist straps for their new Wii remote controller. The current wrist straps have a diameter of 0.024 inches and can be exchanged at any local Nintendo service-center for a new wrist strap which measures 0.04 inches in diameter.

The recall came about after several users reported having the controllers fly out of their hands during gameplay and cause damage to tv's, walls, and even people. What I can't figure out is that most of the instances where damage occurs mentions that users have lost their grip on the remote, or actually hit a person, wall, or coffee table while swinging the remote. But so far, I've only read one story that actually confirms a wrist strap breaking and the user admitted that she glanced the controller off of the coffee table during one of her moves. After contact was made with the coffee table, then the wrist strap broke. So why does Nintendo have to spend so much time and money replacing wrist straps? Does anyone know how many people who have lost control of the remotes were even using the wrist strap?

Oddly enough, all of these stories about injuries and damages have not hurt sales of the Wii console. In fact, the publicity seems to be having more of a positive effect than a negative one. The reports make it obvious that the games are so fun it is easy to get a bit carried away. And we all know that the fun factor is the most important part of a gaming system.

Santa Claus Fell And Broke His Leg...

on December 3 after the 52nd annual Nixa Christmas parade. In a strange coincidence, so did Nixa City Alderman, Steve Tallaksen. No one is sure how Alderman Tallaksen suffered his injury, but several witnesses watched in horror as Santa fell from the back of the fire truck he had been riding on.

The strange happenings continued as both men spent about 5 days in the same St. John's hospital room and both broke their femur in 4 places requiring a rod, pins and screws to set the leg. Reports are that the hospital was flooded with calls from children expressing their concern for Santa, but I am unsure how many phone calls Mr. Tallaksen received.

Both men are on the road to recovery and Santa wants to ensure everyone this will not disrupt Christmas in the least. He encourages all children to remain being good boys and girls and to expect him as normal on Christmas.

Alderman Tallaksen, however, doesn't have the advantage of the magical qualities that Santa possess, and he must not put any weight on his leg for at least 30 days. I wish both men a speedy recovery and I hope they both have a SAFE holiday.

article here

Chocolate Peanut Butter Chip Fudge

INGREDIENTS
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 (14 ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup peanut butter chips
DIRECTIONS
In heavy saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips with EAGLE BRAND® and vanilla, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat. Add peanut butter chips; stir just to distribute chips throughout mixture.
Spread evenly into wax paper lined 8- or 9-inch square pan. Chill 2 hours or until firm. Turn fudge onto cutting board; peel off paper and cut into squares. Store leftovers covered in refrigerator.