Do you find the E*Trade baby commercials hilarious? They posted out-takes to YouTube and omg, they are freaking hysterical.

From the NYTimes.com: Gary Chang, a Hong Kong architect, lives in a tiny apartment, but thanks to accordion-like wall units, he can create at least 24 different room configurations. Check it out.

This apartment is incredibly awesome and very futuristic (reminds me of The Fifth Element). If I had to live in small space, I would definitely want this guy building it for me. Chop and the dog would have to get their own next door. 😀

Whenever anyone asks me about the wedding, the question of gifts always comes up. And inevitably I end up defending my decision to not ask for gifts. I will not be registering for anything and we’re going to list charities people can donate too if they feel so compelled… but that’s never a good enough answer.

Don’t you want wedding china or silver?
Are you kidding? I’m a klutz and I break everything.. plus, there is no way I’m going to polish silver. Ever. No chance.

Everyone wants something, you can ask for anything!
We buy what we need/want and we’ve both lived on our own for years. I have every kitchen appliance known to man and I’ve been given almost all the dishes that I need.

What are you going to do when people insist?
Send them the list of charities to donate too or graciously accept cash and use it for the honeymoon.

I’ve been in and too a few weddings, and each one cost me a lot of money. If you’re in it, you buy the dress, matching shoes, get your hair done, plus you still owe presents. And then there’s the getting there (flight), car rental, hotel, etc.

We’re already having the wedding in a remote location, so everyone who comes is going to shell out a lot of money to get there, and we just want them to have fun and relax and party with us. That’s gift enough.

This, my standard response, is never good enough. And I don’t get it. We don’t need anything, and people are already spending money on us by coming… why are gifts such a big deal?

(Seriously, does anyone know?)

Last night I stuck dinner in the oven and went back to the living room to work. A few minutes later, some odd noises were coming from the kitchen and the dog and I both sighed and I yelled at Ellie (her normal thing is to knock stuff off counters and be generally annoying). Finally it got so loud the dog got up and I walked into the kitchen… to see the oven aflame.

Part of the heating element on the bottom had melted off and was burning the oven. I flipped it off, pulled open the oven, grabbed the pan and slammed the oven shut. Which was a good thing, because the element was popping and shooting sparks (apparently you should never open an oven if there is some bit of metal burning—yeah, I know, you already knew that. Shut up. If your dinner was in there you’d pull it out too!).

At this point we’re thinking it might be a short, but we’ll spend tomorrow calling oven repair people (is the Maytag man available?) and see if someone can come out and fix it. Anyone ever had this sort of problem? ‘Cause I really don’t want to have to replace the oven, lol.

And, here you go, your moment of zen (yeah I stole that, deal!): possibly the cutest thing I have ever seen. A newborn Madagascar lemur… and his stuffed animal.

Obama took the oath again, lol. Fortunately they went very slowly. 🙂

And he had trouble with the oath, LOL. He was going too fast, then he got stuck and the Justice had to repeat. And update, yeah, it turns out it was the Justice who messed up and Obama fixed. Nice.

Awesome.

And wow, the screaming crowd. Never seen so many flags waving at once in my life.

Obama is president! Although he hasn’t taken the oath yet, lol.

Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman are playing and it’s beautiful.

Walter Mondale and Dan Quayle … why are they there?
George HW Bush … looking not so good, very wobbly.
Jimmy Carter … young and spry, damn.
Bill Clinton … looking very good.

What people wear on their heads is SO very indicative of their political beliefs, let me tell ya.

Chop tells me they are removing people from the Mall because of frostbite. Let’s hope no one dies today.

The military band is the smartest group I’ve seen so far—hats AND earmuffs. It’s cold out there and with the wind chill it’s in the teens.

I am very excited today. New president, new era, dooodoodoowwaaaaaaaah.

I have CNN on, I’m barely going to be working and I am totally hyped. I debated heading to DC (I have a friend who lives downtown), but decided against it. Flights were expensive, I don’t have vacation time to spare, etc., ad nauseam. Now I wish I’d said fuck it and gone. 🙂