Very Funny Christmas Commerical

The past few weeks have been loaded with final projects, final exams, and my qualifying exam. Now, it's time to kick-back for a few weeks and enjoy the mild winter. Ithaca has not even had a substantial snow this year. I realize today is the first day of winter, but Albuquerque had a ton of snow over the past few days. The weather machine is totally out of order.

Is anyone going anywhere exciting over the holidays? We're traveling down to NC over New Year's. It will be a short trip, but it should be tons of fun. Did I mention we're taking the mini-van! Oh yeah, I know everyone is jealous now. Honestly, I'm scared. A minivan has tons of cargo space. On the other hand our apartment does not, and I fear that we might be returning with stuff from NC that might otherwise find its way at the landfill. Even worse, did you know Ithaca has no decent stores at the mall? Oh, and the Syracuse mall is hardly worth a 20 minute drive--we are an hour away! So, I'm certain that we'll find ourselves at SouthPark to replace our tattered clothes.

What did you ask Santa for this year? (I'll be shocked if one person actually posts a comment answering this question.) Whatever you asked for, if it smells like beef and cheese (and it isn't actually beef and cheese) consider yourself cheated! If the last sentence made no sense to you, you have missed the movie Elf with Will Ferrell. Should you find yourself watching this film, notice how the elves are modeled from Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (see a funny critique of the film here). It looks like Buddy the Elf wears the same clothes as Papa Elf.

Finally, check out the video shown below. A friend of mine emailed this clip to me a week ago. It's pretty clever.

Definitions to order coffee

Recently, I have started reading the Language Log. One of the older articles is a commentary on the sizes offered by Starbucks. While the commentary is pretty funny, what caught my attention was the reference to the Latte Lingo page from Starbucks. I'll immediately note that this particular link to the Latte Lingo is found on the Japanese version of the Starbucks site. However, a Latte Lingo page also exists for Hawaii here. Seems like Starbucks may sense some tension with customers in the Pacific. Anyway, check out this list. One of my favorites is Whip, which is listed as

Short for "whipped cream." Want to save a few calories in your Caffè Mocha? Order it "no whip."

This is pretty dumb. Why have the list in the first place? Are there people that feel afraid to tell someone what they want to drink and use the wrong words? Do we enter another country when we pass through the doors of Starbucks? C'mon! And why do paying customers need too use the lingo that the coffee servers use. I refuse to call them Baristas (except this one time)! You're paying money for coffee! Let them do the translation of your order and condense the language if they need to do so.

Starbucks makes pretty good coffee beans, but the stores are ridiculous! Enjoy your experience the next time you order a pint of coffee at your local Starbucks, right around the corner.

A George in a Christmas Tree

Julia and I bought a Christmas tree last week. We had so many ornaments that we could not put them all on the tree (unless we bothered putting them on the back side of the tree). Even better, we put the remaining boxes for the ornaments under the tree as wrapped boxes--disguised ornaments! That's what you do when you have a small placed to live. Check out the pictures!