Vegetarians Do It Better

A new study covered in a recent Evening Standard article concludes that, on the whole, vegetarians are simply smarter than meat eaters. Just as I always suspected! This study is coming out at the perfect time for me- I can have it in hand when I get flack from my family for not eating prime rib on the holidays. The study doesn't many any grand conclusions about whether being veg can boost your brain power, or if smarter people are just more prone to go veg, but it's worth a mention..

Definitely check out the link to the article- it is pretty funny and also informative. Here's another article if you'd like to learn more. And for more info on being veg/ recipes/ resource- click here.

Sleigh bells ring... I guess...

Christmas is on Monday, as in six days from now, and I am sorry to report that I am just not really in "the Christmas spirit". Is it just me? I feel like Christmas just up and pounced when I wasn't looking. I don't mean to sound like a character from Fiddler On the Roof, but where has the time gone?! I'm still in pumpkin season.... This isn't right!

I would say that my lack of Christmas season is getting to crisis-mode. I AM from Connecticut, and we Connecticut natives do tend to take Christmas VERY seriously. Especially those of us lucky enough to be from Torrington- home of the First Christmas Village. Torrington is so Christmas that Christmas music gets piped through the streets downtown, the biggest social event of the year is the day the Christmas tree on top of the theatre marquis is lit, and our local cable provider has a separate channel dedicated exclusively to video christmas cards and other local coverage of christmas decorations and parties.

Torrington is so Christmas that "Merry Christmas" is the only way to greet anyone between Thanksgiving and Late January. And, most importantly, the Official Annual Christmas decorating contest. Not for the faint of heart, the contest gets more and more heated every year; there's the brash, the tasteful, the ornate, the expansive... The old standbys and the sleepers... Rumors fly about questionable tactics and how early the decorating should start. Should the top prize go to the intricate downtown homeowner with the 30,000 feet of garland and the amplified seasonal tunes (I'm not kidding) or the slightly more demure homeowner with the acre and a half "winter wonderland" theme that becomes slightly less classy each passing year? Choices, choices.... Needless to say, the bar is raised back home in Torrington, and I don't think my yuletide ambivalence is going to cut it...

So I don't know that I'll be able to fake the boisterous yuletide spirit when I go back home to Connecticut this weekend. I am just not in the spirit, I'm not grinchy or anything, I just am a little ho-hum about it all. I don't know why, I've gone through all the motions- Christmas parties have been attended, went to the Nutcracker, sent out my christmas cards, heartwarming christmas movie marathon with my friends (and it was extra fun), been listening to Christmas music left and right, decorated a tree... All the usual traditions have been attended to and crossed off the list. Well except for Christmas shopping.. My Christmas gifts list just, amazingly, keeps on growing despite my dogged efforts to cross names off. But I'm just not feeling it yet.

Well, there's no real resolution on this Christmas-spirit crisis yet. We'll just have to see how this unfolds...

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BRIAN! You have the most Christmas spirit of anyone I know... Hopefully some of it will rub off when we have our annual yuletide times :)

miscellany

-On with the New Progress Report:
New apartment- check :)
New job- applying/ trying...
New phone- on hiatus...
New car- getting there...

-Have fun on the Web:
online shopping conundrums: www.Gifts.com
irreverant musings: http://www.corporate-casual.com/
Interactive Amy Sedaris interview

-Encouragement of the Day:
Winston Churchill-
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.


-Will Ferrell quote running through my head:
We elves try to stick to the four main food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corns and syrup.



- Other Notables- Best part of the day so far: finding out my friend Dan is a very talented songwriter, thanks for sharing!


Happy Birthday Alex :)

Adventures in Phone Shopping

It's time to take advantage of my New-every-Two deal at Verizon, so I've been busying myself with reading online reviews and quizzing my friends as to what they know or have heard about various phones. What I have found, however, is that presently Verizon Wireless seems to have two main strategies as to cell phones: crappy or ugly.

I love the look of the pink razr. Sleek, feminine, compact... The only problem is that everyone who has one or who has ever used one hates them. Apparently it is hard to text on them, and that's kind of a deal breaker. Afterall, why talk when you could just text? Also they break frequently, the camera falls off, and sometimes they just die for no reason. I guess that is why they are so cheap these days. So the pink razr is a pipe dream.

Then there's the other two phones I've been considering from LG: Here's the first- the LG VX8300.
. As you can see, it is cool in a 2003 sort of way. It is supposed to work well, according to all the reviews, but it is not cute! It is chunky! I'm going to have this cell phone for the next two years (hopefully), and I don't want to be stuck with some chunky, clunky looking thing. Bad design kills it.

The last phone I've been considering is the LG VX 8600:
. As you can see, this one is sleek like the razr, just in a mortician-chic sort of way. The design team got it half right in that the idea is to make it look cool, it is just way too Star Trek meets Six Feet Under. Plus it holds finger prints, and I know how I am; I'd have to carry around alcohol swabs to avoid having my phone look like fingerprint dustings at a crime scene.

I guess I should count my blessings that this is what occupies my thoughts right now.. But it's just so frustrating. With all the talented people in the tech and design industry, this is the best Verizon has to offer right now!?! Ugh. It's not even worth it.

even the best laid plans...

A foot and change of snow got in the way of my plans to travel to Chicago this weekend. I had been very much looking forward to the trip- I've never been to Chicago and this was as good of an opportunity as any to see the sights and have some good old Midwestern fun. The weather, however, thought otherwise. But it turned out to be a fantastic weekend despite the change in plans- I had an unexpected long weekend to spend around Boston. The weather was about 30 degrees better here than Chicago (speaking of weather, did you know that Boston is the true windy city- the windy-est city in America despite Chicago's misappropriation of said moniker), I didn't have to spend any time in any airport, and lots of fun plans found me at the last minute. Midday lunch date on friday, lots of good walks, a pub crawl, met many interesting people, saw a few good movies, brunch, finally got to attend to some long standing errands. All in all the perfect mix of busy and relaxing. It may not have been the weekend I had intended, but once again I find that the universe has a way of freeing you up to give you just what you didn't know you needed.

John Lubbock:
What we see depends mainly on what we look for.