Queen Amaranthine

Love the logo!

No pictures to share at the moment...although maybe later I'll scan one of my daughter with Santa. I think I mentioned somewhere in another topic here that my son isn't telling for sure, but he doesn't seem to believe in Santa anymore. However, he plays along for the fun of it, since it seems presents are at stake!

May your dad have a swift recovery, Donna.

Agree that Christmas can be very tough. So many expectations and trying to relive the past. Spending the day in a bubble with your own family while so many suffer. It can be a hard one to balance.

Very true. My husband and I have learned to keep the holidays festive yet simple, especially for the kids. I don't want them growing up with awful memories of the holidays as I have from my teens and 20s when extended family issues and unnecessary drama ran the show. These days, I make sure family get togethers are short and low key.

My own little family enjoys simple things like making cookies and attending holiday lighting events to see Santa. I'm pretty sure my son no longer believes in Santa, but he plays along for the spirit of it, as well as his favorite holiday saying, "If you don't believe in Santa, you get underwear for Christmas."

As for presents, that too is light and lighthearted. My take is, if you want something extravagant, buy it yourself!

I've watched SNL on and off since I was 12 years old when the 1st cast was live. Overall, great show! It has indeed had its down years, though. I haven't been watching it lately and therefore don't know how good it is or isn't currently.

Some gems:

Emily Litella (Gilda Radner!)

Sketch with Cameron Diaz, where a host of a children's show was trying to prevent the characters dressed as letters K, F, U, and C from organizing in a certain, um, order

Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley as Chippendale dancers

Church Lady got old, but she was funny the first couple of times

Love the wild west family photos!

I am thankful for my wonderful family. And for my husband and me being in relatively decent health lately, a good long spell for us both.

And, on a minor scale, the lovely weather we are having in the plains today, right before the cold blast forecast for tomorrow!

 

People have been telling me to read this for years.

I finally picked up a copy over the weekend and just started it - and it is great.

Bryson is hilarious! Recently I started listening to the audio version of his "At Home: A Short History of Private Life" and, being a history-of-daily-life-details geek, am finding it riveting. He has a wonderful reading voice.

Some enthusiasms have no business mixing.

IWas the Wilco coffee through Intelligensia last year a one-time shot? For some reason I was thinking it was to be an annual deal, but maybe I was confusing it with something else or just plain wishful thinking because I missed the deadline last year. It was about this time last year, wasn't it?

I look drunk but I swear I was just shuttle-giddy:

Not unlike a first experience at a Wilco show?

Yes, no doubt those of us old enough do remember where we were when Challenger exploded. I was in the commons area of my college, chatting with a friend, when suddenly she was distracted and her face went blank. I thought for a second that I was yammering too much and should just wrap it up and shut up because she was drifting off, then looked over my shoulder to see what caught her eye, and saw the aftermath on the big TV screen in the commons. Chilling.

Great costumes and spooky house decor, timewasajoke!

very, very cool. I don't have the time to put that much into Halloween decorations, but I definitely enjoy a nicely spooked out house.

Same here--time is a major factor. We have some decorations up, but it's all piecemeal. Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year--a lighthearted holiday that requires no social graces or get-together obligations with dysfunctional relatives.

I was just thinking about this band last week, out of the blue. Love them!

Great interview--thanks for finding and sharing! Best line: "We're like a boy scout troop." One of the many reasons I love this band.

I am not even going to try my kids on Wilco--just couldn't take the rejection from my own children! How's this for awful: Nick Jr's Fresh Beat Band is in my area soon, and I seriously considered taking them. However, the past few weeks their interest in that show and music has been fading as they're getting just a bit older, plus we have many other activities going on that same week, so we won't go. I'm not heartbroken.

funny, i thought this was about the u2 song

At first, same here! Then after reading the "how high are you?" description I got curious and had to see what was going on here. (For the record, not high at all--I can barely handle sugar and caffeine, thank you very much).

Sea level: 698 ft.

I go through near-burnout phases, at which point I have to put Wilco away for a spell. As much as I love YHF, I came so dangerously close to burning out on it years ago that I can rarely listen to it anymore. I've done that with a few other albums from other bands over the years, and even though I have fond memories of them, I can't bring them out ever.

A few weeks or months ago (it all blurs together) I rambled on in some thread here about my long hiatis from Wilco. When I did finally cave in and come back, it was dizzifyingly sweet after such a long time.

How's this for obsessed: Last week, I went on a road trip for work and took my own car, with its 6-CD player. I decided to listen to a book on CD, since I don't get much time to read for fun lately. As I was taking out my music CDs so I wouldn't have to fumble with each book CD while flying down the Interstate, one that popped out was yellow. Yellow? I didn't recognize it at first. Then I realized it was TWL. It had been in my CD player for so long I didn't even recall what it looked like. It had been in that same slot for one year. One full year. I didn't listen to it daily, not even weekly, but still--! A year!

any of you freaks and geeks voters like undeclared at all?

I loved Undeclared! Too bad it wasn't on the air very long. I haven't seen Freaks & Geeks, at least not yet, but if it's the same style of humor it sounds worth checking out. Might hit a little too close to home about my own school days , though.

love how their cool credibility is immediately challenged when the host leads it off by playing his favorite song, You and I.

Maybe it was chosen for the radio-friendly factor, considering the media and audience for the interview.

The joy of passing along your OCD gene to your kids is that you watched this last night and look forward to your kids wanting to watch it again...and again...and again...

I quote more random words and phrases from Seinfeld than is probably socially acceptable - If they ever stop broadcasting reruns I'm sure I'll eventually be misdiagnosed as having tourettes.

My brother and I do that too and can really get on a roll. There's a quote from Seinfeld for practically every occasion.

I love board games, card games, etc. However, we don't play them as much anymore because I usually win and my wife can't stand losing.

Ha, that is familiar in my house too--if my strategic-thinking husband would let me win once in awhile, maybe we'd play more board games. It's the flip side with video games, though--apparently my fingers are faster than my brain. We had fun playing a virtual pool 8-ball game until I mastered it rapidly and won every game, then, so much for that one!

My favorite board game is Trivial Pursuit. I have a Trivial Pursuit book edition that I haven't played yet--kind of need the right audience to join me in that one. Pictionary and Uno are faves too. Best game app on my ipod touch is Firefly Hero--very addictive.

My daughter likes Candyland. My son likes an insect bingo we have. There's a game on the Nickjr website called Wubbzy's Underwater Adventure that is silly but a lot of fun, even for grown kids like me. I love to play it and watch my kids play. You accumulate tons of points so you can finish the game rather than get snuffed out, so my young kids get lots of hand-eye coordination practice and don't get frustrated with it.

I'm sure there are many; not everyone here is an old-timer. I know I became a big Wilco fan and joined VC probably a year or so before I had the opportunity to catch them live.

 

I imagine there are a lot of people turned on to Wilco by performances on Youtube, who become fans of the band's new/old material by checking out all that's been posted there. That's pretty much how I became a fan, each new song/video I came across appealed to me for different reasons. At that time, I often had no idea which "era" of Wilco the particular song was from, but that also made me want to get all the albums and figure that out.

Very cool. True, there are so many ways to catch up on the band's catalog now vs. a decade or so ago--YouTube, Spotify, etc.

About 10 years ago I was a fairly avid Wilco show attendee, but having a family and the spike in gasoline prices slowed me down considerably! It's great to have access to the "after the show" thread and live vicariously.

Sorry if this derails too much--it's something I've wondered, but I didn't think it worth its own thread but not sure where else to ask this: Is there any member of this site who has not seen Wilco live?

Yes, The Simpsons!

Other cartoons worth mentioning:

Duckman

Phineas and Ferb--although aimed at kids, it is genuinely funny.

Bryan Adams, 1984.

Lost

X-Files

Twin Peaks

Sopranos

Honorable mentions:

24. Lots of action and suspense, but some seasons the torture scenes were over the top.

Picket Fences. 1st couple of seasons were top notch, but then it veered away from quirky and into soap opera-y with too much personal drama among the characters.

Oh yeah, how about health issues? Joint aches, close-up vision rapidly worsening... they're manageable, yet clear symptoms of aging.