A coworker has a 4-year-old daughter that just experienced her first "real" Christmas. You know, where she's old enough to understand the concept of Santa and getting lots of stuff because a fat guy feels generous once a year. Anyway, she's already starting to doubt the logic of St. Nick and is asking questions.

Q: How come the Santa on tv doesn't look like the Santa at the mall?
A: Well, it's a big job. There have to be regional Santas to get it done.
Q: How come Santa comes down the chimney? Why doesn't he come in the front door?
A: Because the door is locked, and since his reindeer are on the chimney, it's just easier access.

Ironically, her parents have her convinced that there are monkeys living behind the washing machine. When asked by her mother how the monkeys got in, the girl replied in a slightly exasperated tone, "Remember? You opened the door and they ran in, but they were so small you didn't notice them. And now they live behind the washing machine."

Perhaps the monkeys should bring the gifts next year.

In the holiday spirit, I thought I would share a picture of me when I was a kid, sitting on Santa's lap, screaming and looking horrified. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the one I was looking for. In its stead, I thought I'd share this.

Here's my sister, Brandi, (left) and I (right) on Santa's lap. As you can see, I don't look horrified in the least. My sister, however, appears a bit apprehensive. Static electricity is ravaging my hair. If you look closely, you'll see that I had a red icee mustache - probably the bribery my mom used to get me to be good for the picture. And I think Santa is considering going back to school.



Merry Christmas!

The receptionist is out today, so I'm at the front desk. A delivery guy came in and proceeded to narrate.

I open the door. She glances up from behind the moniter. She sees me. I place the package on the desk. I ask her to sign for it.

Here's what he missed: Her eyes widened slightly with fear, then she regained her composure and forced a smile. Even though she didn't find his narration amusing, she gave a sympathy laugh and signed for the package, hoping to hasten the event of his leaving. She then decided to blog about this creepy incident.

Plucking eyebrows is an essential task for some of us. That's something we all can agree on. It's not really becoming on most girls to have eyebrows like old Frida here.


But I've noticed something that a few girls are doing that I want to try and nip in the bud. They're plucking their eyebrows practically bald. And then applying powder on their faces, erasing the memory of the shamed eyebrows from their faces. No, seriously, I've seen this. What motivates girls to do this? I mean, I know some old ladies who do the same thing, but they manage to pencil in two nice, crooked, unnaturally arched eyebrows to replace the natural ones. These girls are having none of that. Why do they strive to look expressionless? Do you kids know how hard it is to convey anger without eyebrows? I certainly hope this little fad doesn't catch on.

I mean, I can understand getting a little carried away with the plucking. You try to even the eyebrows out and this happens by accident. Or maybe you're like anorexics and tanorexics - you look in the mirror and instead of seeing the skinny, tanned person you are, you see a fat pale person. So you go and starve yourself until you're a skeleton and go to the cancer coffin until you're a leather bag. So I understand how it goes with the eyebrows. But let's be reasonable here. And maybe consult your blunt friends. They'll tell you the truth, that you've assaulted your brows mercilessly. Thankfully, if you do get mad because of their honesty, your browless expression won't give it away.

So if you recognize yourself in this post, go ahead and grow those brows back. You won't regret it. And if you do, at least you'll be able to look angry about it.

The following might be considered yucky, so if you're eating, you may want to pass. And stop eating in front of your computer, you internet addict.

I just got over a quick but nasty cold. It pounced on me Friday, and I spent the whole day snotting and running to the kitchen for more paper towels. I know, right? Why use paper towels? Use kleenex like a normal person. Well maybe I like scraping up my tender nose on paper towels. Actually I don't, the paper towels were all I had. And for the record, when you spend Friday and Saturday in a constant state of fountain nose, the skin under your nose gets all scaly and peels on Monday. And when you think no one is looking and try to peel it off, some one will walk by and probably think you're a nose-picker. Just so you know.

Speaking of nose-pickers, on Sunday my sister and I were talking about the two kinds of kindergartners in the world: the booger-eaters and the paste-eaters. Sure, we'd all like to say we were paste-eaters. We'd also like to say that we don't know which one tastes better.

Now who's hungry?

My friend Eric has this awesome dog, Pupster (who I call Pugster). He's a great dog - friendly, sweet, not high strung or dangerous or anything. So I thought I'd do Puggy a favor and blog a personal ad for him, in case anyone with a cute sharpei happens across my site.

Single tan male sharpei seeks female dog for companionship - and maybe more! Enjoys romantic dinners, sunday drives, and eating young/elderly people. Want to experience "puppy love"? Send an email or call right away!
P.S. NO FAT DOGS!

Here's a photo of Pugster in all his glory. Isn't he precious?

So, you know how I signed up for Review Me? I actually got another site, besides their own site, to review. That's right kiddies, I'm getting paid to write this. Sweet, huh?

The site I'm reviewing is HotelReservations.com. It seems pretty similar to Orbitz and Hotwire. You can search for hotels, vacation rentals, car rentals, and flights. You can search different countries as well, but the only language besides English is Spanish. The site boasts that you can save up to 70% off of regular hotel prices. Since I'm not really looking to book a hotel any time soon, I did a search for a city I like, San Francisco. And then one I can stand, San Diego. In both hotel searches, I came up with a variety of hotels which can be sorted alphabetically, by price, by quality, and by best value. It seems like the "best value" options are generally about $10 off of what you'd normally pay per night.

As for the airfare deals, I noticed that their prices were about the same as Orbitz, maybe slightly cheaper. I think the main deals are to be found in their hotel prices. The site definitely isn't as pretty as more popular discount hotel/airfare sites, but that's fine. What matters is the kind of deal you get. I'm not terribly sure that I'd go with this site when it comes to buying tickets, just because I've never really heard of it, and I'm more inclined to go with companies I've actually heard of. Although priceline.com really angered me once, and I shall never use them again, nor encourage others to. I'd totally use this site over priceline. Die, priceline, die!

Anyway. With that said, feel free to give hotelreservations.com a try. You might find a good deal, and if so, more power to you.