HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Be back soon...

I know ya'll miss me but don't worry, I'll be back soon. Just let me get through the Chrismukah season and I'm yours again!

Until then, miss me!

~JT

Have a Very Merry Chrismukkah!

The second day of Chrismukkah is today! It's the most wonderful time of the year!

For those of you unfamiliar with this holiday, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:

Chrismukkah was popularized by FOX television program The O.C.. On the show, the character Seth Cohen has a Jewish father and a Protestant mother. As a way to merge the two faiths, Seth claims to have "created Chrismukkah" when he was six years old...Seth simply said in the first season's Chrismukkah episode that it was "eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents," with a stress on the word "many".

You might be a bit confused as I am neither Jewish or Protestant. However, I am a fan of The O.C. Somebody has to carry on the tradition now that the Cohen's are off the air (tragic!). Besides, who wouldn't want eight days of presents, followed by one day of many presents." It's fun and we support Seth Cohen!

HAVE A MERRY CHRISMUKKAH!

Spotted - Frosty at the Market!

Click the image to make it bigger -

Ever have one of those days...

...when you just want to hit something or somebody? Yesterday was one of those days.

We started the day off with two hours of phone coverage. Yes, I had to answer and direct calls from those on Medi-Cal. Who wouldn't want to do that?! What? Did you ask if we had support staff? We're down to one but she can only answer the phone TWO HOURS AT A TIME! WTH?!?!?!?! She sure as heck doesn't do anything else! Useless #$%^&*($*&%#)(%*&#(##$%^&!!!!

We continued the day with a computer that seemed to do nothing but compute...or rumble...or scan...or whatever it was doing to make the little green light continuously flash the WHOLE FRIKKIN DAY! For those of you not familiar with this, it means that my computer was doing everything else BUT what I wanted it to do. It had no time for me. I wanted to throw it out the window!

It gets better - I was approached by the section chief, AGAIN, to update a website that DOESN'T EVEN BELONG TO ME! What time? Oh, it was 2:30. Excuse me, but it takes several hours to download, convert, make sure they're ADA compliant (they seem to be taking over the world outside of the parking lots too!), upload, complete all of the required information for each frikking document as required by the Department, etc...I finally had to hit the power button on my computer because I couldn't get it to do anything I wanted it to do and I sure as heck wasn't staying any later so that I could do somebody else's frikking work.

It was just one of those days...but now it's Tuesday. Stay tuned...

American River Branch Christmas Party 2008

American River Branch had it's Christmas Party Saturday night. The meal was a traditional ham, caesar salad, green beans, etc. Shortly after, a member of the branch whose family owns a bus, drove us around for some caroling and Christmas lights. We even managed to crash River City Ward's Christmas party by stoppping by to share our joyous song and spirit! They wish they could be us but they can't! HAAA! Oh, and thanks River City for taking our empty cider cups! :-)

Here are the boys of ARB (C'est moi!, Dustin "Mississippi/Co-Tex", TL, and Lance). It's how we do, I know.

I just know this was the highlight of Ariane's entire evening! She got to sit next to me for dinner!

Once dinner was over, we boarded the bus...

While boarding the bus, there was hot chocolate and apple cider for the taking aboard our holiday voyage. Here we are waiting for the bus to take off... (Dustin, Shanna, Ariane et moi!)

After caroling and crashing RC party, we struck it out to Stanford Ranch to see the Christmas lights. Here is just an example of what the people of SR do -

This is csomebody's one car garage they converted into a Christmas scene. Pretty fantastic!

And that ends the evening of the ARB holiday enchantment!

Passing Out Homeless...

Thanks to JMo for heading this up the past two years! Throughout the year, she gathers items such as sweatshirts, hygiene kits, hats, etc, along with lunches. She got PC.com to donate 40 for those "green" bags to use for this purpose.

Saturday morning, JMo, LW, TL, and I bagged everything up to hand out to the homeless throughout downtown Sacramento.

Here is TL as we made about 100 sandwiches. It's super fun once you get your routine going.

JMo and LW put together the PC.com bags with the sweatshirts and hygiene kits.

The lunches included a bottle of water, a few cutie oranges, a danish, granola bars, a bag of chips and three sanwiches:

We threw in some candy this year. Everybody needs little sumpin sumpin around the holidays!

Here's a pic of the hygiene kits and the sweatshirt:

It is so much fun doing this. I remember when I was asked to partcipate last year. I had my concerns. After a few bags being passed out and seeing the thankfulness of these people, I adjusted. I now look forward to this event! We've learned to look in areas further away from Loaves and Fishes as there are usually an abundance of people handing out items. We usually try to get those people who aren't able to make the trek to L&F. However, this year, we had plenty of extra and noticed that the other handouts have come and gone. We made the surrounding area of L&F our final destination. Here's what was so cool about this experience - we had already handed out most of our lunches and bags but had candy bars and hygiene kits left. We parked on the corner as the people flocked to the car. Not a few minutes later, a family drove up with clothes to hand out. Then another car showed up with lunches. I thought it was so awesome that we all happened to show up at the same place with a variety of items to hand out, meeting a broader range of needs of these homeless people. Such a awesome experience. I'm so proud of LW too for joining us this year!

N. Lake Tahoe

The first weekend of December, Mom & Dad Turner, LW, JMo, TL and I stayed at Edgelake Resort in timeshares. It's located right on the lake just as you come into town from Hwy 80. I wasn't expecting much but it ended up being a very decent place to stay. Mom & Dad came down for dinner Saturday night. We had ham, turkey, and all the trimmings. Then we watched "Meet Me In St. Louis", you know, the one with 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'? Such a fantastic night!
It had a very small kitchen, especially when there were four of us trying to get all up in it to get our dishes done for our ham/turkey dinner!

The gas fireplace was one of the better ones I've experienced. It actually gave off heat...except for the one night that it just didn't work. BOO!!! We did get it fixed the next day.

We found four lost geese in the grass area. Don't they know it's almost Christmas and they could become somebody's roast beast?

We managed to find a sushi place while we were up there. In doing so, we came across this Italian restaurant, MOFO'S! Alowizzle, this one goes out to you!!!!! I. WAS. DYING.

As you can see, the weather was fan-freaken-tastic!! Here's our cute little pier.

I thought this was a cool shot, so I took it -

More of the cute little pier, and the very low lake -

We played games, read up on the latest Hollywood gossip, got our Christmast movies on, and enjoyed each other's company! It was delightful! Thanks for coming up, everyone!

I've decided to go Blu...

Bear with me as I wave my geek flag for just a moment - Much like Beyonce (or shall I say Sasha Fierce?), I have found myself at a crossroad <Listen!>. As movies are being released in both DVD and Blu-ray formats, I realize my mad decision making skills are about to be implemented. Just less than a year ago, the High Definition (HD) format war was in full effect, HD DVD vs. Blu-ray. I figured I had at LEAST a year before things settled down and a format winner announced, giving me quite some time before I had to spend money on this new technology. Uhhhh I had no idea prices would drop so soon! Let me tell ya, there were some tempting prices for Blu-ray players on Black Friday. I was almost ready to buy the $128 Magnavox Blu-ray player just so that I’d have one ready to go for my first Blu-ray purchase. You know how desperate I was if I was about buy a Mag! YIKES! My electronic cohort who has my TV’s twin would probably keel over had he known. However, I managed to remain strong and not give.
I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not, but Mamma Mia will be released on 12/16. This is the first movie in a long while that I decided I’d pay full price for as soon as it was released. It’s absolutely fantastic! Anywho, not sure if you’ve noticed but 12/16 is on its way, full speed ahead folks! I have to choose between DVD and Blu-ray. Mamma Mia would be a GREAT movie for Blu-ray as the scenery is amazing! I’ve made my decision and I’m buying it in Blu-ray, player or no player. At least I’ll have it…
…which brings me to this – I’m totally getting a Sony Blu-ray player! Why? Oh because I have enough Sony points to get a free one, the super nice one too! I just knew all that spending would count for something one of these days!

Here’s the little gem here:

For those of you wondering what the difference is, think of the difference between VHS and DVD. Once I started watching DVD, VHS hurt my eyes! Now when I watch HD on TV, even DVD doesn’t look nearly as good. For those of you without a discerning eye, lucky you! You’ll save yourself a lot of money if you aren’t able to tell the difference. For those of us who are able to tell, the resolution of Blu-ray and HD programming is much higher than what we’re all used to. It’s fantastic! It’s taken me a while to be sold on this new technology, but I think it’s finally happened, and with Blu-ray disc coming down in price, now is the time for me, I think.

Turner and Disney in December!

For those of you who may not have Disney classics on DVD (shame on you if you don't) Turner Classic Movies will be showing 26 classics every Sunday throughout December. How exciting!

Here's a preview (don't forget to pause the music coming from the blog music player on the right hand side of the page):

TCM Presents The Family Classics @ Yahoo! Video

Christmas Divorce (Cute!)

A man in Jacksonville calls his son in San Diego two days before Christmas and says, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are divorcing. Forty-five years of misery is enough."

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the father says.
"We're sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Denver and tell her."

Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone. "Like heck they're getting divorced," she shouts, "I'll take care of this."

She calls Jacksonville immediately, and screams at her father, "You are NOT getting divorced. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'm calling my brother back, and we'll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don't do a thing. DO YOU HEAR ME?" and hangs up.

The old man hangs up the phone and turns to his wife. "Okay." he says, "They're coming for Christmas and paying their own way."

GG

Enjoying a little bonding time, S & L are snuggled together watching a romantic movie. Things appear to be going well.

Smitten, indeed!

Until next time...

XOXO,
GG

Gobble Gobble!

Happy Thanksgiving

to all of my turkeys!

More Turkey Ha Ha

Turkey HaHa

Black Friday 2008!

Black Friday is nearly upon us. Each year I'm usually one of the many fools standing in line at 5:00 a.m. waiting to get in to Best Buy or Circuit City. This year, I don't really need anything...but then have I ever really "needed" anything? Well, maybe once, but the past few years I've just been up early just because I enjoy the thrill of it all. Actually, I just thought of something that I really WILL need this year. So, I guess I'll be up at 5:00 again, for sure! Goodness knows I can't pass up cheap DVD! I noticed some places have them for as low as $2!I'm sure my hands will overflowing with digital video goodness in addition to the item that I really do need. However, as the world transitions from DVD to Blu-Ray, I will say that I'm going to be a bit more cautious/selective when purchasing actual DVD.

Anywho, here is my favorite site that somehow finds the ads for Black Friday and posts them for the world to see. I LOVE BLACK FRIDAY! It's the most wonderful shopping day of the year!

Posts can be found on the main page:
http://bfads.net/

While actual scans of most of the ads can be found here:
http://bfads.net/Adscans

Enjoy!!!

Roomba Kitty!

Push the play button to view. Hit the pause button on my blog's music player on the right hand side further down the page to pause the music.

Oh heck no!

Dad and I were up in Auburn a few weeks ago to check out some old Buicks. We stopped at the Foster Freeze's up there to get a tasty treat. While we were sitting there enjoying our treats, we were presented with this little view. Yes, these fools bought two ice cream cones specifically for their dogs! It's just wrong!!!!! WRONG WRONG WRONG! Go buy a bag of dog food for crap's sake!

Fatiqua and TL

You all know how I've been trying to get rid of Fatiqua for what seems like forever, right? I recently decided I would try AutoTrader this time. I needed to take some new pictures. Once again, her battery was dead. I had to give her a jump so that I could back her out of the garage for picture time. Unfortunately, the SRS light came on again! AGAIN! Out to EG Acura she went. She had to spend the night. Remember the last time this happened? I got to drive a TSX for a few days? This time it was a 2008 TL! Pearl white too! Could this have gone any better?!

Here are some pictures of TL. I must say that after driving her, a few of my happy thoughts were shattered. I've only wanted this car since the day it came out in 2004! Now, I'm not so sure I'd run out and buy one. Don't get me wrong, if I tripped past one for the right price, I'd still manage to enjoy it.

Here are a few things I found disappointing:

1. The visibility towards the back of the car sucked! The butt is too high and the back window is too slanted, making it harder to see out.
2. The sunroof is ridiculously small.
3. The turning radius is HORRID! Fatiqua and her big a$$ has a sharper turning radius than TL had.
4. There wasn't as much room in the back seat as I would have liked. One never knows when you're bound for a road trip with ones peeps! However, there was plenty of room for car seats. Make no mistake, I'd make it work!

Now for some of the positive things:

1. SO. FUN. TO. DRIVE.
2. Plenty of room in the front seats.
3. Leather and all the trimmings.

Here are some pictures of TL.

It was fun while it lasted!

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

I acquired two tickets to an advance screening of "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas". I had heard nothing about the film and never saw a preview. Looking at the flyer, I had reason to believe it would NOT be as horrifying as it was. "A timeless story of innocence lost and humanity found" the flyer says. WHAT?????

Unless you are a die hard Nazi history buff, you'll probably want to stay away from this movie. Here is a brief synopisis. If you plan on seeing it, don't read any further.

Set in Berlin, 1940s, Bruno is an eight year old kid, whose father is a Nazi. They move not far from a camp or "farm" as young Bruno believes. He meets a kid his age who lives on the other side of the fence in the "farm". he tells Bruno he hasn't seen his father in three days. Bruno wants to help him find his father. He digs a hole under the barbed wire fence, puts on a pair of the "striped pajamas" and becomes part of the "farm". I think we all know what happens in these "farms". This definitely makes one think about what else could have happened surrounding these camps. Absolutely horrifying! The end is haunting. Yick.

http://www.boyinthestripedpajamas.com/

BTW: Was I there at 7:00 to make sure I'd get a seat? Yes. Was there a line already forming to get in to see the midnight showing of "Twilight"? Ohhh yes there was. Unbelievable...

GG

Spotted - S & L standing rather close together at a church dance. Are they smitten...or perhaps just having a hard time understanding each other?

Poor boyfriend P, what is to happen with him?

Stay tuned...

XOXO,
Gossip Guy (GG)

Elder Maxwell called this one decades ago!

Okay, so I wasn't one who did all that I could do to support Prop 8. Frankly, I got tired of hearing about it and the election in general! Okay? Okay. My bad. After reading this, I will definitely think harder about the issues at hand. Hello! He called this back in 1978! 1978!!!

R-E-V-E-L-A-T-I-O-N ! ! !

Here is a timely quote from a past talk of Elder Neal A. Maxwell, First Quorum of the Seventy(1978):

"Make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters, in the months and years ahead, events are likely to require each member to decide whether or not he will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions. President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had 'never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional or political life.'

This is hard doctrine, but it is particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ. . . . Your discipleship may see the time when such religious convictions are discounted. . . . This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.

Resistance to abortion will be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened....Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even in these, however, let us leave a record so that the choices are clear, letting others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, but others will step forward, having been rallied to rightness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds which was, till then, unconscious of itself. Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves, 'summer is nigh.' Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat."

--- Elder Neal A. Maxwell

NY Coming Soon!

I know everyone is waiting with baited breath to hear about JT seeing AP in NY. I apologize for the delay. I really haven't been home at all this week. Tales and pics coming soon though. I promise!

Friday Quote

If you think health care is expensive now,
...wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
- P.J. O'Rourke

A coworker forwarded this quote to me earlier today and what was the first thing that came into my mind? MEDI-CAL!!!! True story!

Live from New York...it's AFTER HALLOWEEN!

It's after Halloween but this is still funny...

Halloween Ha Ha Ha

More Halloween Ha Ha

More on Obama...

Here is a video starring Phil Berg who was on the Savage Nation, previously discussed on a prior post of mine below. Watch it. It's about ten minutes long.

Halloween Funny #1

Today's Get Fuzzy...

Click here for Get Fuzzy comic.

So true!!!!

Michael Savage

Hunker down for this! I was listening to the Savage Nation yesterday on TALK 650. Yes, he can be a bit extreme and paaaassionate sometimes but he tends to have a good grasp on what's going on.

Phil Berg, a Democrat and a former deputy attorney general of Pennsylvania, was on the show for about 90 minutes yesterday discussing his lawsuit against Barack Obama. They had a fascinating discussion regarding BO's birth certificate and U.S. citizenship (or shall I say, lack of). If, indeed, everything turns out to be true, this guy shouldn't be running for President. He shouldn't even be a Senator!

The discussion is online. Take some time and listen to some of it here: http://michaelsavage.wnd.com/?pageId=2256

Sheep Voters

TL forwarded me this clip from the Howard Stern talk show which plays on Sirius radio. I think the guy is foul. However, I think this little stint is BRILLIANT! This is part of the reason why I think choosing a political party or affiliation doesn’t make any sense. People tend to choose a side and don’t even know why. They’ll vote one way or another, but not know what they voted for or why they did. It’s a popularity contest. It’s a vote amongst the races. It is so scary to think ignorant people such as these are out there voting for the next President! I think the majority of the people vote for one candidate solely because they’re affiliated with a particular party. They don’t even know or listen to the issues. It’s not right.

Listen to this clip. You’re going to be in shock…or maybe not. It's about three minutes long. Enjoy!

http://www.bpmdeejays.com/upload/hs_sal_in_Harlem_100108.mp3

What day is it?

Check this neat lil' calendar out! If there is ever a time you have forgotten what day of the week it is, here's a reminder...Brady Bunch style!

Disneyland

We may have stopped at Disneyland on the way home from Palm Springs last week. Everything was decorated for Halloween. FANTASTIC as usual!

Minnie was sportin' a new dress for the season.

We got to ride the new Toy Story ride in California Adventure. GOOD TIMES!!! It's a 4D interactive ride. SO FUN!!! The lines in the parks were short for the most part.

Here's our gear we had to wear for the ride.

What are those on our heads? Oh, that's right.
We each received Year of a Million Dreams mouse ears!!!!!
Granted, it's not the suite but I guess the ears will have to do.

I thoroughly enjoyed the music played in New Orleans Square...