I have things I should be doing this morning, but I'm too busy hating the world.

I find that can take up most of a Monday.

This is weird. I'm working with a man--I presume--named Sambo. By the last name, he probably wasn't born in this country. I have no idea how old he is, naturally, so I'm just assuming that the word Sambo has none of the cultural baggage it does here. I'm glad I'm not talking to him on the phone, because I don't know if I could call him Sambo without stumbling over it. How odd to have a name which is probably perfectly normal where he comes from but whic makes some people twitch where he lives now.

What I got was fine, but it was not what I wanted! I sent them an email -- we'll see what they give me.

My guess is coupon for a new sandwich!

I won this karaoke competition at my neighborhood festival last year and I will be a judge and also do a song to start off the competition this year. It's this Saturday and I can't think of what song to do AT ALL! I want a sort of upbeat rocker that the crowd will know but that's also unexpected. Any ideas????

Yeah, that would be distincly weird.

What made me feel old last night was realizing that it was the 25th anniversary of the VMAs. And that I was watching the day MTV premiered (to the sounds of "Video Killed the Radio Star" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" about seventeen zillion times).

Totally!

On the subject of gifts and registries and parties and such, why do people not open gifts at showers/parties anymore? I've gone to a couple lately at which this happened. WTF? It seems very rude to me. I want to see the reaction and I want to see the cute baby stuff received during baby showers. Also, why do I go to the trouble of wrapping the gift all nice when no one sees it? I may be a little more annoyed by this than I should be.

very patrician, WASP-y sounding name for a woman who would've been in her 40s/early 50s circa 1965.

Evelyn, Eleanor, Dorothy, Barbara, Alice, Louise, Brooke and other names based on distinguished ancestors

That was also an era of Unfortunate WASP Nicknames: Muffy, Bunny, Birdie, Babs.

I'm working with a man--I presume--named Sambo

I had a great uncle Sambo. Yes, my family is Southern. And, yes, we're white. It was a nickname he was given by the farm hands when he was a baby and called that his whole life.

The most interesting thing about it to me is that we all called him Uncle Sambo with no irony and not even thinking twice about it.

We didn't have cable, either -- but in the Boston area, we had a local video channel. V-66! Good times.

Loved that channel. They were responsible for breaking "Take On Me" by Aha.

Michael, Prince and Madonna weren't just born in the same year, but roughly in the same part of the rust belt.

Next year Bruce Springsteen (and Tom Waits) will turn 60!

why do people not open gifts at showers/parties anymore?

I think there's a notion out there that is boring for guests to have to watch gifts being opened. Personally, I suspect this notion springs from guest who were bored by interminable gift opening by people who invited everyone they ever met to their shower/party. I also suspect people don't understand that the gift-er wants to hear them coo and smile over the giftee's present, rather than getting a badly written thank-you note.

::thinks of college friend who I didn't see/hardly heard from for years and who then invited me to THREE showers::

I think there's a notion out there that is boring for guests to have to watch gifts being opened.

This is why I want more people to do something like what some friends of mine did at their baby shower -- they had play-doh on the tables, and while they were opening, we were supposed to be sculpting their baby. It was the perfect thing -- enough distraction so it wasn't boring, but you could still see the things and hear the ooh/aah.