Today is a strange anniversary day. August 31st is always a day that makes me look back at my past. I got married 12 years ago today. (I got divorced in 1993.) So it makes me look back on the past, on the reasons I made choices that I did. I realize how different I am today. This is a good thing.

Today is also the 5 year anniversary of Princess Di’s death. The significance of that is not so much that she died, but that the Insignificant Other & I broke up - one of many times - shortly after the accident. Maybe the night before her funeral? Anyways, he actually proposed to me later in the month, before my birthday. But he would never set a wedding date, and by January, 2001 I gave up. I figured 3+ years was enough time to finally come around.

It’s not so much a day to think of loves lost as it is to think of personal strength gained. I am a better person then I was 12 years ago or even 5 years ago. I am proud of the person that I have become. I’m thankful for the lessons I’ve learned.

Turn right? Turn left? Oh my, which way to go?!? Well, it seems that smart human sperm have memory. We’ve all known that some men think with other things then their brain - but was it really the smart sperm doing the thinking for them? [via Metafilter]

Every sperm is sacred … Every sperm is great … oh my, I can’t stop singing that song now!

Know what amuses me to know end? When I follow a link on a site to another site that takes me to another site, and by the time I hit the third site I start to think, “Wow! This person is pretty interesting!” I go to add them to my Blogroll, then look at theirs … and discover that they have my site listed under their daily reads - and yet they have never left a comment here!

Dear comment-phobic readers, want to know a secret? When I settle in to read blogs, the first blogs I read are actually the ones that have left comments behind. That is often how I first found my very favorite reads. Even if it’s a little comment, like “that’s funny!” or “I agree with you!” you can say it. Man, disagree with me even, I don’t mind - I love hearing other people’s points of view!

So … leave your mark. Don’t be shy. I promise, it’s painless.

I’m going to try to bring skins back to the blog this weekend, but I have a *long* to-do list of other things to do too. So I’m considering being lazy and just using the same pop-up window design (with my smiling face all over it) for the pop-ups on other skins. You guys don’t mind, do you?

I know I’ll want these someday: Hinsdale How-to TiVo upgrade instructions. It just cracks me up that you have to “Bless” your TiVo before you upgrade it!

Thanks to the timing of when Peter quit the game, he is being counted as the contestant voted off this round - and the polls will be closed. No need to vote anymore - I’m still in Big Blogger All-Star. WHEW! That was scary, because I *really* didn’t want to see Rusty go.

More scoop here if you are interested.

Thank you *so* much for everyone’s support. There will be more voting next week, so I’ll possibly end up begging and pleading for more help then!

Mike, aka cootieszilla, has me laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes with this fantastic tribute to me! Do it for the future Christines! Go and Vote Rusty Out!

Thank you. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Remember that little Big Blogger All-Star! game? Well, guess who was nominated again? Yes, me. Craptastic. So once again, a plea for help. See, Peter has quit the game, which puts me in a really uncomfortable position of having to vote off the one person I didn’t want to see go - Rusty. But it is now a choice between Rusty or me, and … I’m not ready to go either. I don’t want Rusty to go, but I have no choice since Peter quit. So, can you help?

The power of my vote was noticed - two contestants nominated me with the plan of getting me to vote Rusty off. I wasn’t going to let them use me like that … then Peter quit. Craptastic.

Pleeeeease help. Go here, vote for Rusty. Spread the word, share the love. Meanwhile, I’m going to be sitting on the edge of my seat for the rest of the day.

Weebl and Bob This is hysterical! Pie is good. Mmmmm… [via JavaJunction]

A pizza pie that is. I was late because of stuff we had to wrap up at the office in order to meet a 9am deadline tomorrow morning, but I still made it to meet some of the H-Town Bloggers tonight!

Kymberlie left the office before I did, so she was already there with Steven - and they were sweet enough to share their pepperoni pizza with me. Yummmm… I’ll add tomorrow to who all was there, showing up late made it hard to go back through intros with everyone. It was great to finally get to meet Kathy because I’ve read her site for such a long time. Elaine has the fun task of keeping all of us bloggers in line (and showing up for events!), and there was also Hanna, Marc (Mark? Marcus? Damn head cold - my ears are still messed up!) and … several others that I will add right here tomorrow.

I wish that Matt and Laurence (and all the others) could have made it. Maybe next time?

As Ken recently mentioned, there are Pepsi campuses and there are Coke campuses. (Coke the drink, thank you.) Back when I went to A&M, we had both drinks on campus, but I have noticed this change. So, which sort of campus was your school? And which one do you think is better?

Personally, I agree with Ken.

It was announced today that the Olympic choices for the 2012 Summer Games has been narrowed to either San Francisco or New York. Houston and Washington DC have been eliminated. And it leaves me wondering …

Why would you want to come here anyways? I can’t imagine summer games here. Heck, it was a high of 96 degrees today, and the next 5 days don’t show any promise of being any cooler. Heck, it won’t be cooler until late September. The athletes would melt.

I will admit, Houston has put a lot in to this. Like $1.3 billion on new stadiums. They had a pretty good plan too - you can read all about it at the official site.

Personally? I’m glad it won’t be here. Traffic would be a nightmare. Add to that the potential for us to have to pay more in taxes to support it. As if paying taxes for a new baseball and football stadium already wasn’t bad enough.

Letterman did a Top 10 tonight on why it should be in New York. They were great!

More articles on the Houston Olympic bid:
:: Houston out of running for 2012 Olympics
:: USOC vote another blow to Houston’s image
:: Olympic snub brings anger as well as apathy
(more…)

Someone dared to turn down Microsoft? Yes. HP has decided to offer Corel WordPerfect with consumer PCs instead of Microsoft Works. I used to use WordPerfect all the time, and I still use it at home. I love WordPerfect, and to this day hate Word. I gave in, because I figured that sooner or later Corel would have to bow to the pressure of Microsoft and WordPerfect would be gone. Now it seems like this might be the CPR the company has needed. A girl can dream, can’t she? For more on this, visit Slashdot. [via Lockergnome]

The H-Town Bloggers are getting together tonight at Star Pizza! It’s been years since I’ve been there - so I can’t wait! Want to come and join us?