Here’s how we know we’re parents:

We just bought a vinyl tablecloth.

Eeek!

Yesterday Sir Monkeypants and I were discussing the major life events of 2004, and one of mine was, sadly, “saw one movie in the theatre — Return Of The King — in the very first week of January.” And that’s not even a 2004 movie!

So we started to think of movies from 2004 we’ve actually seen (on video, of course) and we came up with a total of five. Gack.

So I present my top 5 movies of 2004:

1. Kill Bill Vol 2
2. Hidalgo
3. 50 First Dates
4. Hellboy
5. Taking Lives

And my worst 5:

1. Taking Lives
2. Hellboy
3. 50 First Dates
4. Hidalgo
5. Kill Bill Vol. 2

Aaaaaand we wonder why I had to kill Sidekick :).

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings. You are
entertaining and imaginative, creating whole
new worlds around yourself. Well loved, you
have a whole league of imitators, none of which
is quite as profound as you are. Stories and
songs give a spark of joy in the middle of your
eternal battle with the forces of evil.

Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

For the past week I’ve been pondering a probability question while late-night nursing. As with many probability questions, this one is open for debate. Although Sir Monkeypants has convinced me that he has the right solution, I thought I’d still throw it open for comments.

Say you have 10 items and one is special (i.e. you have 10 cups, and one has a marble in it). You start picking cups at random. What are the chances that the special one (the “prize”, so to speak) will be the last one you choose?

Sir Monkeypants doesn’t know this, but I started thinking about this problem due to something that happened a couple of weeks ago on The Amazing Race. There were 220 hay bales in a field. 20 had a clue in them, and the other 200 were empty. The contestants had to roll out bales until they found a clue. One girl wound up rolling out over 100 bales and still didn’t find a clue. I thought this was so statistically improbable as to be nearly impossible, but I can’t figure out how to mathimatically prove it. I’ve assumed that:
* 8 other teams found clues, so 8 of the clues are gone from the subset
* each other team took about 4 tries to find the clue, so 8×3 = 24 of the empty ones are gone too

That means out of 12 clues and 176 empty bales, she opened over 100 and still didn’t find a clue. What are the chances of that?

I freakin’ ADORE those ads for Reitmans clothing store featuring women in everyday situations — getting off the escalator at the mall, gathering up laundry, delivering a burnt turkey to the dinner table — strutting around and posing like runway models. I’ve been known to actually snort with laughter when they come on. Even after repeated viewings I still laugh out loud at them, every single time. I’m even considering shopping there.

Clearly I need more sleep.

FameThrowa, you will be pleased to know that today we purchased a new DVD player.

Sadly, however, our new PVR seems to be having trouble syncing up the sound with the picture, which was the problem with our old DVD player. It figures.

Happily, however, I just learned that our new set of satellite channels gets Veronica Mars, so now I can finally check out the show that has been widely touted as “the new Buffy.”

Sadly, however, we somehow neglected to record Lost last night, so I am without my fix — grrr.

Happily, however, the next season of The Amazing Race begins next Tuesday.

Ah, a girl and her television — a classic tale of the ages.

Seems to me that everyone in Ontario either hates Rogers, or Bell. I personally hate Rogers. Back when we got this house we signed up for basic cable, and after 8 months of giving us full cable and trying to convince us to pay for it, they just started billing us for it and said that all that time, we’d been given a “special offer.” I yelled at them. They suck.

In our new house, we are going Bell for TV and internet service. So I called yesterday to cancel our cable here. Of course they wanted to know why we are not having it hooked up at our new house. They transferred me over to sales and the guy was so obnoxious — “Why would you choose Bell? Have you even looked at what we are offering? You paid way too much for their PVR! You’re being had!” Shut up, buddy. I did my homework. I want Bell. In fact, we are going Bell specifically because of people like you.

Rogers sucks! I can’t even call to cancel my service without 15 minutes of nagging and cajoling!

On the other hand, called to hook up the Bell stuff. Granted he was ordering services so they were happy, but the woman was just so nice. She took our info and mentioned other things we could buy, but when said we were fine and knew what we wanted, she backed right off. Much, much better — we are happier already.

I’ve been wanting to post about this for a while, but I’m embarrassed because it reveals what a nosy neighbour I am. Oh well!

About a year and a half ago, a single mom and her daughter (I’m guessing about 11 or 12) moved in across the street. The daughter is very sporty and plays ringette in the winter and soccer in the summer, and so we dubbed them Soccer Mom and Soccer Daughter. Last summer, and I developed rather warm, protective feelings towards them, even though we’ve never actually talked to them. They’re just so sweet — Soccer Mom is always doing adorable things like playing basketball with her daughter in the driveway, or bringing her daughter and her friends snacks while they ride their bikes up and down the street, or mowing her epic corner-lot lawn all by herself with a crappy push mower while looking fabulous in yoga pants.

So last May, when we spotted Soccer Mom going out on a date, were were highly concerned and suspicious. Who was this guy? Was he good enough for Soccer Mom? Would he be kind to Soccer Daughter? Was he a man of integrity, quality, and good income? They started to date regularly and we noticed that he usually arrived on foot — what kind of guy was this, who didn’t even own a car?

It turned out he was walking over to see Soccer Mom because he also lives across the street from us — we have a corner house, and Soccer Mom lives across from the front of us, and Soccer Boyfriend lives across from the side of us. Holy neighbourhood scandal! Now, we were able to keep tabs on him as well as her. This led to an ongoing commentary, back and forth between Sir Monkeypants and I, and we looked out our windows at night:

Soccer Boyfriend is going over to Soccer Mom’s house with a case of beer!

Soccer Boyfriend is playing basketball in the driveway with Soccer Daughter!

Soccer Boyfriend and Soccer Mom are crossing the street and holding hands! And I think he just patted her bum!

Soccer Boyfriend is mowing Soccer Mom’s lawn!

Soccer Mom is going over to Soccer Boyfriend’s for dinner, and she’s taking her parents!

Soccer Boyfriend just walked over to Soccer Mom’s house, and let himself in without knocking!

Soccer Boyfriend is parking his car in Soccer Mom’s driveway!

And yesterday, there was major, major news. Soccer Boyfriend’s house is up for sale. He’s moved in with Soccer Mom and Soccer Daughter. It’s really nice of them to bring this little saga to a close just in time for us to move. We get our new house tomorrow, and we’re moving next weekend.

Congratulations, Soccer Family! We’ll miss you.

I’d like to put the following facts into evidence.

1. The First Lady is four weeks old today and is adorable and charming and sweet, and — shall we say — a strongly motivated nurser.
2. A good night’s sleep can be defined as six hours total, with at least one interval longer than an hour.
3. Diaper cream, when placed on your toothbrush instead of toothpaste, doesn’t taste very good, nor does it clean your teeth very well.
4. Garbage, when placed accidentally in the dishwasher, gets really clean but is still garbage.
5. You can make a LiveJournal post while holding your baby in one hand, but it’s really hard to play your new XBox.
6. Barbie Wild Horse Rescue is the best XBox game ever.
7. There’s no freakin’ way that so-called pregnant lady on the TV show Lost could survive a few hours, let alone a few days, without food, without becoming a much, much bigger threat to the survivors than any of the wild animals on the island, and don’t even get me started about the food requirements for nursing.
8. Britney Spears is really foolish for marrying that skanky Federline character, and a moron for even thinking about having his children. And she really, really needs to cut it out with the short-shorts that make her butt look huge. Sigh.

I once wrote a column for Sidekick about how every show I liked to watch on TV was on Wednesdays, and like four of them were on Wednesdays at 9. This year I’ve dropped almost all of the shows I was watching last year, but there are four new shows I wanted to try out, and naturally, two of them are on Wednesdays at 8, and two of them are on Sundays at 8. Why do the networks continue to force me to make such tough choices? We must get a PVR pronto!

Anyway, my real point here is that two of the new shows have already started and they are really good, so I thought I’d recommend them. The first (Sundays at 8pm) is Jack and Bobby, a drama about two brothers and their single mom. Jack, the older brother, is in high school, and Bobby is in grade 8. The show follows their exploits, but the cool thing is that we know, via cuts to a documentary being made 40 years in the future, that Bobby will eventually become President of the United States. Each episode shows you an event from Jack and Bobby’s life, and parallels it with a future event being discussed in the documentary. It’s really well done — cool storylines well-told, and excellent, interesting characters. I highly recommend it. In two weeks, it’ll be on opposite Desperate Housewives, which I think has real potential to become the ultimate guilty pleasure, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with the VCR.  Hopefully by the time Arrested Development debuts in the same time slot on November 7th, we’ll be in our new house with better recording facilities!

The other new show I’m already watching is Lost, which is one of the Wednesday at 8 shows (the other one, Veronica Mars, has also already debuted but it lost the VCR war). Lost is a little schlocky but I’m just loving it. It’s the story of about 50 people who survive a plane crash and find themselves stranded on a desert island. There’s the survival aspect, but almost as important, there’s something weird about their island — some enormous animal (or animals) are on the loose in the jungle. It’s totally addictive and even after just two episodes I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Other than Lost and Jack And Bobby, I’m only watching The Apprentice and The Amazing Race. Eventually I’ll add Arrested Development and The West Wing (although it’s on serious probation, especially because Jack and Bobby is similar and so much better), and hopefully Desperate Housewives if I can work out the taping.

Ah, TV, you are a good friend to the housebound nursing mother.