Our Snowman

LuLu won!

LuLu is THRILLED with a Monkey-go-Happy she won in a worldwide contest on pencilkids.com! It came all the way from New Zealand! To win it she had to correctly id the foreign city shown in a video, which i identified as Cracow in the first ever use of my eastern European history degree! Lol good for her!

Whew

Lisa and Lulu are making 90 Christmas brownies for school tomorrow (for 3 classrooms), each in their own little Christmas bag . . presents for the teachers are wrapped and delivered . . . presents for the kid's friends awaiting delivery . . .Junie has gift bags with candy canes, taffy, pencils, erasers, and sixlets ready . . and I'm cooking 3# of kielbasa for the kids to bring in too. Christmas is near!

The 2013 Holiday Program

Departing for the 2013 school Holiday program 12-17; I missed it due to a final exam.

Harsh but True

Non PC - aka "Correct" - opinion of the day: another teen, this one from WI, allegedly killed themselves because they were picked on in school, and oh the mighty cries to stamp out bullying and intimidation.

Well, yes. There's no place for that in the adult world, so why tolerate it in schools? 

But when people start taking their own lives because they were bullied on the playground, it's time to focus a wee bit on coping skills, proportionate emotional responses and perspective, and yeah, a little bit of "toughen the F up".

Anchorman 2

Home again, after seeing "Anchorman 2" with Lisa, courtesy of $5 Tuesday's at your local Marcus Theatres - with popcorn included in the price. LOL'd a ton, picked up a few new catchphrases, and followed it up by going out for decrepit, moderately burnt coffee at the airport Denny's. 

We finished the date with a flourish:, by stopping at the grocery store for kielbasa that YaYa told us  she needed *at 9 PM*  for a cultural fair at school tomorrow. LOL

Contract Law Final

I'm back from my Contract Law final, and officially done with my first semester of law school. The test itself was a b--ch, right up there with the toughest of exams I've ever taken (for a course where ambiguity is bad and vagueness is a killer, there sure were a lot of vague and ambiguous questions). I still finished after two of the allotted three hours, and I'm reasonably certain I didn't fail. I've taken the night off from work and - if I can get Lisa to agree - strongly desire to party all night, Old School style.

update: He did not, in fact, party all night. Old School. Or New School. 

A Little Light Reading

My contract law flash cards

Joan Fontaine

Some news this morning that made me literally gasp with shock, which makes no sense, as the woman was 96 years old: the GORGEOUS and talented Joan Fontaine has passed away. Since the late 80's, when I was a devoted watcher of the AMC (back when it was an actual classic *movie* station), I have been a fan of her work, and, to be honest, her hotness. Along with Brittany Murphy, she is now enshrined forever in the Dan Slapczynski Eternal List of Five. RIP

 @ Landmark Family Restaurant 

As Seen at Marquette's Bookstore - Ron Burgundy

RIP Quasi

Quasi, our deformed pleco, died overnight. He's been sick for over a week. Not 'ich' sick, but "lets move from the old folks home to the hospice" sick. RIP sir, and may you swim straight forever in whatever pseudo-heaven your soulless self has gone to in the sky.

Don't Forget!

Don't forget, tonight is the Psych Musical on USA!

Why are you online?? The Psych musical is about to start on the USA Network! Whoot-whoot!

Peter O'Toole

Actor Peter O'Toole has died at age 81. RIP

Sounds Right

Audrey Totter

Audrey Totter, a Hollywood femme fatale I just watched in "The Set-Up" last week,has passed away at age 95. RIP beautiful.

Snow

I just finished shoveling, with some "help" from Junie. It's a bit too many square feet of snow to clear for a fat guy with a shovel, but I persist, firm in the hope that someday one of my progeny will amount to something and lend me a hand.

Congrats!

Congratulations to Jolenne K on graduating from college today!

China has landed an unmanned probe on the moon. I . . . am not pleased.

Hot Dog!

To my great shock, it appears that I learned something in Criminal Law and the final went well!  I think that, barring the professor being on the take, I aced 32 of the 45 problems, bombed one, and listed 12 under "maybe" - but I'd go to Potawatomi on the odds of those "maybe's" being largely "correct" answers. This portion of the exam is only 1/3rd of the Final - the other 2/3rd's coming from two 2000 word take home essays I had to hand in to receive today's exam - so the possibility still exists that I stunk it up. But if I did, I stunk it up less than I feared four hours ago.

YaYa helps out Junie on the computer - and a toy right out of my youth!

I remember toys like this from when I was little!

Eliminated

Thanks to Rob Gronkowski turning all "Boo Hoo Brittle Betty" on me this weekend, the Bay View Slapjacks were eliminated from the consolation tournament of my fantasy league. I finish the year 6-8 (6-7 in the regular season).

Quote of the Day

“The better we become, the less conscious we are of our goodness. If anyone admits to being a saint, he is close to being a devil. Jean Jacques Rousseau believed that of all men, he was the most perfect, but he had so many cracks in his soul that he abandoned his children after their birth. The more saintly we become, the less conscious we are of being holy. A child is cute so long as he does not know that he is cute. As soon as he thinks he is, he turns into a brat. True goodness is unconscious.” Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Yowsers

Smiley may never box, and God willing he avoids street fights, but let me tell you *that boy can PUNCH!* I was working on the bag when he put on his gloves. He stepped in and barraged it with some combinations, then ripped into it with hooks that would rattle any ribcage. Mein Gott, he's got some power for his age.

Some pictures of our Christmas Tree