Do a wish list with an auto-record.

Yo, Hec. Did you see that Chavez has won his 6th Golden Glove? He had a tough year, so I'm pretty surprised. But YAY!!!

Actually, I thought his defense was way better this year than last when his arm injury was causing a lot of throwing errors. He only had like five or six errors this year, and seemed to steal a hit every other game. Good for Chavy!

JZ fixed the espresso machine! She called the help number and they said, "Oh, the first time it sometimes takes 10 tries before the pump will prime. Just keep hitting that button." I only hit it about 8 times, I guess.

Man, why do they make it so hard to make coffee when one obviously so desperately needs coffee!?

The house smells of oatmeal, which has been toasted in a bit of butter and is soaking overnight (it's steel cut) so it can be cooked up quick tomorrow morning. Yum.

My class is getting to that exciting time where we all have gone from, "buh?" to "OMG I'm totally getting it." I've angsted a bit about my research topic but I feel very focused. I bet y'all didn't even know I was taking a class, due to the lack of whinging! Especially Ginger and Deena...

Have packed for family reunion/Grandma's 90th birthday shindig in CT this weekend. Will go to bed shortly.

Other than that, I got nothing. NOTHING!

(edited to correct the perplexing plurality I attributed to oatmeal)

Cindy.... but won't that record every episode? They're running it in several timeslots, on two channels (at least for my cable), and every timeslot seems to be on a different schedule.

My TiVo baffles me sometimes. Like, thumbs down? Should I use it all the time, or not at all, or...?

I've got to email a bunch of relatives to ask them to donate toward my volunteering in Israel fund. Would it be a better idea to do this by cc-ing everyone, or writing individual personalized emails? Cc-ing everyone would be less likely to make anyone feel incomfortable if they can't or don't want to donate for whatever reason, but it also kind of feels like I'm asking for money and can't even be bothered to ask individually. But individual emails, on the other hand, feel like they could be too much pressure -- I don't want anyone to feel like they're being put on the spot and have to donate.

Any suggestions?

Hil, you could say that you're doing a group email because time is of the essence and that you didn't want to accidentally forget anyone. And you can easily work in (somewhere after what an exciting opportunity this is for you and the link) that you don't *expect* anyone to donate.

Hil, first of all - kudos on your Israel trip. What a great thing to do. I was in Israel this summer during the fighting, and the spirit of unity and the outreach to people in the hot zone then was amazing. Now the folks who lost homes, etc. are left with the work, without the same level of attention and help they had before. So kol hakavod on going over there to help. Stay safe!

Re: emails for funding - emails with a group of people in the TO or CC box (so that everyone can see everyone else's name and address) is one of my pet peeves. Since they're all your relatives, they might not care, but I hate having my address appear in an open TO or CC list. Just because I share a friend/cause/interest with the other people getting the email doesn't mean I want all of them to know where to find me, you know?

You can put something like "Hil's Family List" with your own email address as the address (in Entourage you would put "Hil's Family List " without the quotes) then put everyone else in the BCC box. They'll see that they're all on your "special list" (because of the TO line) and you'll save time, without shouting everyone's addresses to each other.

Good luck!

More 'ween pics: [link]

Ded from the hawt!

More 'ween pics

You know...you really ought to think about getting bangs.