This week's assignment

Shannon and Chris have a friend who has a website that everyone I know will love: This week's assignment. I haven't completed any of the assignments yet, but I have tentative plans to do them all and email work reports. Let me know if you take part. Check out the website, or watch the first assignment below (you don't have to do them in any particular order).

What's my sugar to do?

I like the song Sugar by Lullaby Baxter. You can listen to it here. It's melancholy and I've been listening to it a lot lately. It reminds me of the song To Sir with Love somehow. What do you think?

Grandma

Some homework is cool

I recently finished my first website for my web design class, and it's keeping the family very entertained during their down time. I think it will keep you entertained too. It's an annotated guide to your online Amy Sedaris experience. Don't wait! Check out Amy Sedaris Online now! If you're short on time, at least look at the Martha Stewart video at the bottom of the Interviews page.

At least there's San Francisco

Life has been a little overwhelming lately, and the urge to keep this thing updated isn't that strong. My grandma had a stroke last week and remains in hospital. She's doing remarkably well, but even so, I don't expect that she will be able to live on her own again. My parents are here now. I'm very thankful to a have nurse in the family at a time like this; my mom has worked wonders at the hospital.

And then there's school.

I am going to San Francisco on Friday.

Even though I don't feel like writing, I might link to a few odds and ends during the next few weeks. For starters, you should check out this excellent Globe and Mail article about Anna Nicole Smith: The sad death of a knock-off. I get excited when I am witness to such stellar writing ability.

New Year's Tentative Plans

I didn't make a new year's resolution this year, but, as you know, I have quite a few tentative plans up my sleeve. One is proving particularly difficult to achieve: good posture. I've come to realize that it doesn't matter how slick you dress if you insist on slouching around like a cave man. While I think I walk just fine (shoulders back and all that), my sitting posture is the pits. I make every attempt to sit up straight, but I revert to the slouch seconds after the correction. I think this game will go on for months before I've achieved a consistent up-right position. Any suggestions? Maybe I should sit at the computer with books on my head?

The other plan that I have in the works is my effort to take people's recommendations seriously. There isn't enough time in the day to do everything my buddies recommend, but if I can't follow up on the suggestion, I can write it down for a rainy day. For instance, I just finished reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, which Imtiaz recommended over three years ago. I've also acquired a copy of the original Japanese version of the movie Shall We Dance?; my mom told me to watch it last year. There are three reasons for this plan. First, I want people to take my recommendations seriously, so I'm leading by example. Second, I imagine sharing books, music and movies with buddies (long distance and otherwise) makes for closer relationships. Third, people I know have great taste.

I just realized that I forgot to tell you that Michael and I saw Michael Bolton and his giant diamond earring while were in Cabo. Michael. Bolton. He was in the restricted balcony at Cabo Wabo (Sammy Hagar's night club) and we can't prove it because we forgot our camera. We saw Sammy Hagar too, but somehow it seems less important than Michael Bolton. We also saw this guy. When I say we saw a real cross-section of Mexico, I mean it.