Matt, is your profile address good?

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Yep, should be.

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Insent.

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OK, have gotten a significant amount of work done, which is good. I'm also watching an old New York Undercover, with Chris Webber and Taye Diggs AND Ashford and Simpson. Word.

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Jesse's in tv heaven.

Sunday's foxtrot has the tree I'd have if I had a tree. Which I probably won't and mom said she won't give me the silver cat rattle my Aunt Carol gave me for my first christmas until I have a tree! NO FAIR! It's the most awesome silver cat ever. Very art deco-y, slightly evil looking. I love that damned rattle.

Honestly, I can't really picture me doing the holiday thing until I'm no longer doing it for other people, because for me, it is tied to those other people exclusively. And, y'know, I really don't want to think about my parents being gone, so I won't. But no awesome silver cat! Bah.

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Three contestants have spoken of their disbelief after being fooled into thinking they went into space for the UK reality show Space Cadets.

The three believed they had blasted off from a cosmonaut training camp in Russia, but were in fact in a fake spaceship in a warehouse in Suffolk.

They cheered up when told they had each won £25,000 ($44,300).

But one contestant, teaching assistant Keri Hasset from Birmingham, said she was "heartbroken" by the prank.

"When I thought we were coming back to Earth I was planning my speech. I was going to say it had been my childhood dream. Now I'm a little bit heartbroken," she said.

Ms Hasset, plasterer Paul French, 26 from Bristol, and footballer/recruitment consultant Billy Jackson, 25, from Kent, had suspicions they were being tricked when they had to hold a ceremony for a celebrity Russian dog called Mr Bimby on the spaceship.

[link]

I still think it was kind of a nasty trick.

But at leasat Mr Bimby got something out of it....

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Kat, wanna do all my christmas cards and mailings from now until eternity? (plz note: I've never done them. I'm a slacker. I have a PILE of Catalina postcards to send and are they going out before the new year? Nope.)

Uh, sorry craxy girl. The answer is Hell's no. And, FTR, I'm finishing your gift tonight so it might take a while to get to you, sarameg.

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Huh. When I went to bed at right about 9:00, I thought it was for the night. Seems my body and the cats thought it was just for a nap. I am hoping a hot toddy will help convince at least one of them it was not.

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I remember being in constant searing pain when my back was injured, and how it *does* get to your head. Or your....something. It changed my entire personality, because all my energy went toward tolerating the pain and not collapsing in a heap and howling -- I had no energy left to deal with people, and I know I got snappish and cranky and mean as a result.

Steph is unfortunately wise.

The tiny, tiny handful of times I've been in anything like chronic pain -- really, more like semi-chronic discomfort -- it's boggled me how emotionally sapping it is, how it colors everything you do and becomes the central event and everything else happens around it, or through it, or despite it. And I know that I only had it for hours, maybe a day or so, every now and then, and that it was comparatively nothing.

I've been having nightly horrific tension-y migraine-y headaches for about a month - and it is nothing compared to what ita is dealing with - and I was nearly in tears earlier. It's just shocking how draining pain can be, especially constant. (FTR, had a friend do muscle work, energy work, took handful of drugs, iced and then lightly heated it. Headache gone right now and I might cry just from the relief.)

ita, thought of you today because Sports Chalet is having a half-off scuba certification course now. PADI. $75. Just FYI.

Damn, I will send the book and cds on Monday. I totally spaced. Apologies.

Scola niece so cute! (In fact, entire Next Gen of Scola's family appears to all have the incredible eyes and heartbreaking smile that I think of when I think "Tom Scola.")

So cute! And yeah, with the eyes and smiles.

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guess who is up?

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