Last night we went to a friend’s birthday party and they had a karaoke box set up. Sadly, most of us were too chicken to get up there and sing… lights too bright and not enough alcohol I guess. There were a few brave souls and one of the songs they chose to sing was “Elvira” by the Oakridge Boys. You know the one:

“My heart’s on fire, Elvira
Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow
Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow
Heigh-ho Silver, away!”

Until yesterday, Mike had never heard that song (shocking, I know). But the funny thing is that it wasn’t at the party that he heard it for the first time. Oh no, he overheard a certain mother singing that song to her son in the kitchen just that afternoon (that would be me). Was it just a crazy coincidence or were the gods trying to pay tribute to the Oakridge Boys that day? I guess we’ll never know

My biggest pet peeve of this year so far is this:

When people pronounce it “two thousand and nine” as opposed to “two thousand nine”.

I have no idea why it bugs me but it really does. It’s almost as bad as flour, or fingernails on a chalkboard.  I suspect the root of the annoyance goes back to my elementary math teachings, in which I learned that the word “and” denotes a decimal. So when someone says “two thousand and nine” in my head I picture the number 2000.9, which is just nonsense. Pure nonsense, I tell ‘ya!

It’s the last day of 2008. This day will never happen ever again!

Here’s a snapshot of my day:

• Slipped on the ice walking away from my car
• Found a new home for our foosball table (thanks, Akono!)
• Tried an elliptical machine for the first time
• Ate a ham sandwich and an orange for lunch
• Got some really good news regarding my job
• Slipped and fell on the ice walking to my car
• Ate bodacious blue cheese burgers for dinner (thanks, Mike!)
• Hooked up the webcam my mom bought for me cuz it FINALLY arrived (thanks, Mom!)
• Had a lot of fun talking with my mom via the webcam, of course
• Watched Rocky IV and Elf, two of my favorite movies (Six inch ribbon curls, honey!)

And now I plan to go to bed. Yes, that fluffy pillow and those three layers of blankets are calling to me.

I get some rest because tomorrow I plan to be a darling hostess as people join us to watch the big game - MSU vs. UGA, and also at some point I want to go to Staples or Office Max. I can’t think of anything better to do on my day off than to wander around with no time limits, drooling over laptop cases and calendars. I’m like a kid in a candy store in those office supply stores!

We love foosball. We have a foosball table in our home. It’s not a Tornado, but it’s still no slouch. And it’s hardly been used because we just don’t have the space to play it. My father-in-law bought it for us several years ago knowing we liked foosball but not realizing we didn’t have adequate space for it. We thought we might have the room some day, but that day is getting further and further away. We have Luke now and we don’t have any plans on moving into a bigger house.

Do any of you out there have an interest in adopting a foosball table? He’s very quiet, great with children, and doesn’t leave crumbs on the floor. He would be the perfect addition to any home. If you’re interested, just leave a comment or email me and we’ll work something out!

My husband has the worst luck with telephone customer support. I don’t know why he doesn’t just opt for the e-mail route. He says it’s because with email he doesn’t get that instant gratification with the problem is resolved. I say it’s because he doesn’t have enough excitement in his life.

This latest issue came about when I was balancing the checkbook and noticed that Microsoft had deducted a larger than usual amount of money from our account for Mike’s XBox Live subscription. When I asked Mike about it he knew right away it was wrong so he did some investigating. He had switched from a monthly billing to a quarterly billing, and apparently Microsoft - the biggest software company in the world - doesn’t have the adequate software to handle that kind of change. What happened was they charged us for the regular monthly subscription one day before Mike switched to quarterly. And since Mike changed the billing to quarterly ONE DAY after the monthly subscription started, they just tacked on the quarterly billing. Forget about prorating, that one day just cost you $8. Thanks for playing!

Mike didn’t waste any time getting on the phone to Microsoft. Since it was after hours he got bounced around between several people, none of whom can call English their first language. He tried desperately to explain the situation but they kept trying to argue with them, citing really ridiculous reasons as to why we got billed for that extra month.

Excuse #1: “You’re behind a month because we don’t charge your card until the end of the subscription period.” This is just absurd. When we made our first payment back in February, that’s when our service started. We didn’t call them to in January to sign up and they said, “Oh yeah, don’t worry about paying for awhile. We trust you.” Cuz it’s not like they can repo the online service if we don’t pay.

Excuse #2: “Your card was declined when we tried to run it in November.” We may not have much, but we surely have at least $8 in our account at any given time. And they did take the money out of our account. I’m a nerd, I keep track of these things. It was at this point that Mike was given a warning because he used a swear word. “Sir, I’m trying to keep this professional.” I think professional was out the window when they started making stuff up.

Excuse #3: “Because you switched your subscription after the monthly subscription had already renewed, you got billed for both.” I think this is where Mike gave up for the night. He called back the next day and got the same explanation. He did get the employee to agree that billing him $8 for one day of service was not fair, but unfortunately he couldn’t do anything about it.

I was at work when he called the third time, but I wish I could have been there to witness it. He got the employee to agree that he had paid for 13 months of service for the time period of February 17, 2008 to February 17, 2009, but that’s where he hit a wall. The point of argument was how many months there were between those two dates. Here’s how I imagine it went:

Mike: So you agree I paid for 13 months of service and only got credit for 12?

Microsoft: No, you paid for 13 months and got credit for 13 months.

Mike: HUH??

Microsoft: Your subscription runs from February 17th through February 17th.

Mike: Right, that’s 12 months.

Microsoft: No, that’s 13 months.

Microsoft has over 89,000 employees all over the world. I think this one was in the bottom TEN. Last time I checked, February 17th of 2008 to February 17th of 2009 is 12 months (roughly). To be sure, I ran a calculation on timeanddate.com:

From and including: Sunday, February 17, 2008
To, but not including : Tuesday, February 17, 2009

It is 366 days from the start date to the end date, but not including the end date

Or 1 year excluding the end date

Mike had to really spell it out, but they finally agreed that he did indeed pay for 13 months and only got 12. It took some persistence, but Mike got our 8 bucks back! And he’ll be using the prepaid cards for XBox Live from now on. That is, if he doesn’t decide to switch gaming systems altogether

As if the Apple Fritter Taste-Off wasn’t enough, we also had a much less formal chili cook-off. Brett made a batch, I made a batch, and Dad made a batch. We all agreed wholeheartedly that Brett’s batch was the best. Don’t get me wrong, it was all good, yummy good, but Brett’s was definitely most worthy of a blue ribbon.

Chili batches from left to right: Dad’s, Brett’s, Mindy’s.

Mike and I went to the grocery store on Christmas Eve to buy some last minute supplies for our Christmas breakfast. We looked for shredded hash browns in the freezer section but couldn’t find any. There was a store employee there stocking shelves so we asked him if they had any more in stock. This was his reply:

“No, we keep restocking them but we can’t seem to keep them on the shelves!”

Either they need to fire the person in charge of their supply orders or there is a dire need for frozen hash browns. It can’t be a sudden surge in demand. I mean, they’re hash browns, not Tickle Me Elmo.

No matter, if anyone knows where we could find frozen hash browns please let us know. We think we might want to stock up in case they ever run out again.

My brother and sister and I have been saying for years that Sweetwater’s Donut Mill makes THE best apple fritters. My dad has questioned this claim, citing that Wesco and Bill’s Shop n Save bake some pretty stellar apple fritters. He brilliantly suggested that we put them all to the test at our Christmas gathering and the rest of us happily obliged. Since our families weren’t crazy about spending money we didn’t have on gifts we didn’t need, we opted to do something more fun and memorable instead.

We had five brands of fritters on the judging table:
A. Sweetwater’s Donut Mill
B. Wesco Gas Station
C. Bill’s Shop n Save
D. Tim Horton’s
E. Quality Dairy

We developed a highly sophistocated scoring system based on six criteria: weight, value (cost per ounce), appearance, fruit presence, texture, and taste.  My dad carefully weighed each fritter and then my brother, Brett, calculated the cost per ounce for each.

We awarded each fritter anywhere from 1-5 points for appearance. The better looking the fritter, the more points it got.

Dad then sliced each fritter in half and we made judgments regarding the ratio of fruit to pastry. The more apple chunks we could see, the higher the score. Nothing fancy.

Finally, we were able to partake in the pastries and we tasted each one, judging on both texture and flavor. The highest score a fritter could obtain in the first five categories was 5 points, but in the area of taste they could earn as much as ten. Because really, it’s the taste that matters in the end. It was tough judging because they were all so delicious, but by the end we all had a good idea who was going to win this contest.

We tallied up the scores and declared Wesco the winner! Congratulations, Wesco!

Here are the full results:
1st: Wesco Gas Station
2nd: Bill’s Shop n Save
3rd: Sweetwater’s Donut Mill
4th: Quality Dairy
5th: Tim Horton’s

We had such a fabulous day. We had so much fun. It’s such a silly thing but that’s how our family is. We’ve always been crazy about food.

By the way, I took home the leftovers and I can say with certainty that if we were judging who had the best “day after” fritters, Bill’s Shop n Save wins hands down.

Misheard Lyrics - Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter:

This week I discovered….

• the comfort and joy of yoga pants
• the petite clothing section at Kohl’s (woohoo!)
• that hard work does pay off (in case I didn’t believe it already)
• I really like De La Soul

What have you discovered this week?