Your Mission

At some point in the history of the world, somebody made an a cartoon about anthropomorphic firecrackers whose sole purpose in life was to explode. More importantly, at some point in my childhood I happened to see this cartoon. I think it was one of those "little ugly duckling that could" stories, where the larger firecrackers thumbed their noses at the little guy, who wanted nothing more to be part of a Forth of July fireworks display. And sure enough, in the end, his is the most spectacular display of them all. Or maybe he wasn't chosen, but was the lone survivor after all the others exploded. I forget. I don't really remember much about it, except it was pretty disturbing, and possibly at least slightly racist (my recollection is hazy, but at least one of the characters may or may not have been a caricature of Asian stereotypes.)
I think I saw it on the Disney Channel. I don't suppose anyone has any idea what the hell I'm talking about, huh? I just need to know that someone out there saw the same thing I did.

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My Computer Thinks I'm British

I've had My Yahoo! set up as my homepage for several years now. I can't say that I've ever really paid attention to the banner ads, although the low mortgage rates one with creepy elongated panting wolf with all the states written on him haunts my dreams.

But now for some reason, the past few weeks, every time I launch my browser, the banner ad on My Yahoo! is for a British company or website. Just today, I've seen an ad for Zurich Insurance (zurichinsurance.co.uk), "Europe's biggest ski-lift" (easyJet.com), Yahoo! Music UK & Ireland (music.uk.launch.yahoo.com), and BUPA, which is some kind of healthcare, I guess (bupa.co.uk). No explanation whatsoever. Weird. It's really great that HMV has free UK delivery, and that I can get 5 classic DVDs for just £5.99, but since I don't live in the UK and they wouldn't work in my region 1 player, I'd probably be better off going back to the stretchy wolf.

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The Worst Part of Waking Up

Labor Day. I'm not really sure what the point of it is, since all the stores are open anyway, but any chance I get to get in a few extra hours of precious sleep I'll take. Such was the case yesterday, as I layed peacefuly on the bed, wrapped snugly in an oversized blanket, dreaming of sugarplums or something, when suddenly I hear, "Guess who died?"

Still groggy, I ask who.

"Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter."

"Really? How?"

"A stingray punctured his heart."

"A stingray? Really?"

Well, great. How am I supposed to sleep now? I was bummed out for the rest of the day. I kept thinking about stingrays. She did the same thing to me when Christopher Reeve died. You can't just tell someone that somebody died first thing in the morning. What the hell is that? You've got to let them wake up a little first. Geez.

On the bright side, Brianna came home yesterday! Which of course would be significant to you if I'd mentioned that she's been in South Carolina with her grandparents all last week. She was in South Carolina with her granparents all last week. Maybe she'll write about her trip.

Anyway, I think people should wait until at least after breakfast to talk about death. What do you guys think?

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