We Don't Need No Stinking Color: 8 Great Black & White Movies

Kids these days don't know what they're missing. Sure, surround sound and CGI are neato...but so are these films, made without the benefit of Glorious Technicolor.

1.) Some Like it Hot

2.) It's a Wonderful Life

3.) Arsenic and Old Lace

4.) Philadelphia Story (1940)

5.) Roman Holiday

6.) Casablanca

7.) It Happened One Night

8.) His Girl Friday/My Favorite Wife (tie)

Begin As You Wish To Continue

The title phrase is good advice in nearly every situation. Relationships, educations, careers, vacations, junk food binges...

And also, blogs.

I don't want anyone thinking I'm actually going to be consistent. Thus, I commenced blogging with a post here, a post there, then a flurry of posting. Which will no doubt be followed by a famine. Or not. Wouldn't want to be predictable.

The only routine I hope to establish is the Friday Top 8 List. Friday, because it's the best day of the work week (when slacking off is a matter of course), and Top 8 because 8 is my favorite number (and because I'm too indecisive for a Top 5 list and too lazy for a Top 10 list).

I don't want to attach my first Top 8 list to this wordy, explanatory post, so I'll work on it after I get back from lunch. Which is to say, I haven't decided on the topic yet.

Staggeringly Brilliant!

Happy St. Paddy's Day! Let's have a Blood Drive!

I walked into my office building this morning, wearing the obligitory green sweater (the days when I enjoyed being pinched by strangers are long past)...and what to my wondering eyes doth appear, but a sign announcing the big Red Cross Blood Drive being held today from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. "That's nice, what a worthwhile charitable endeavor," I thought to myself. Then it hit me: "What kind of genius holds a blood drive on St. Patrick's Day?"

Think of the ramifications for just a moment:

My first giggle was for the brain trusts who would give blood on their lunch break, then get rip-roarin' drunk on four sips of green beer at the Ha'Penny Pub's Happy Hour after work. I do not envy them the headache they will have when (if) they awake. But they'll deserve it for being stupid. I'm not a nice enough person to feel any real sympathy for those poor sots, but I'm willing to mine their plight for laughs.

In my innocence, it didn't immediately occur to me that some people start celebrating early on this, their favorite holiday, work day or not. My co-worker who donates blood regularly says she's pretty sure they don't ask you if you've been drinking when you give blood. Seems like getting rid of a pint of blood wouldn't be the best way to improve your blood alcohol level. Might not be the best way to avoid a hangover, either. I'm just sayin'...

I don't know enough about biology to know whether a drunk's blood would adversely affect a recipient if they receive a transfusion with a significant blood alcohol level--but it sounds like a recipe for tragedy...or a Saturday Night Live skit.

Let's just hope they're screening the blood for high levels of Guiness.

Does it make me a bad person to want to follow some of these blood donating revelers to the pubs and watch the show?

I'm not a Catholic...

... but I gave up laziness for Lent.

As I never have been and never will be Catholic, I don't need to observe Lent. I've chosen to participate for the last 3 years because I think the idea of spending 40 days trying to make oneself a better person is pretty keen. The nice thing is, not being Catholic, I don't have to deal with the world famous Guilt if I happen to lapse in my lenten observance. (I just realized that I don't know if I'm using the lingo properly--anyone who is fluent in Catholic-ese can let me know if I'm mangling the verbiage.) Still, I'm trying to make sure that the absence of crushing Guilt doesn't allow me to rationalize falling back into my laying- on- the- couch- watching- bad- TV- instead- of- doing- something- useful - with- my- time habit.

I confess I slipped a bit yesterday--which was a bad day to slip, considering Monday is the only weekday when the utter dearth of decent TV shows on the schedule rivals Saturday afternoon's spectaularly slim pickings. But I did tend to a couple of household chores--and that's a good sight better than majority of my most recent (pre-Lent) days, so I think it still counts.

The reason I gave up laziness for Lent is a) Sloth is my favorite of the Seven Deadly Sins, and thus it was the most challenging to sacrifice; b) I don't indulge in any of the most popular vices, so the standard list of alcohol, gambling, smoking, and/or cheating on my spouse didn't give me much to choose from; and c) I'm tired of going up an entire dress size every year, and I figured that altering my epically sedentary lifestyle might help reverse the trend. So would avoiding all those boxes of Girl Scout Cookies I ordered in the doldrums of January, but that's just not realistic. Frankly, I'm impressed that most of the boxes are still unopened almost 5 days after their arrival.

I'm hoping that all that propaganda about "it takes three weeks to establish a good habit" is true, and that by the time Easter rolls around, I will have become Officially Less Sedentary. And maybe Officially Less Fluffy, too. I mean, miracles still happen, right?