Wow, I don't even follow college football but that was a huge beatdown Stanford put on USC. Mollywhopped!

Thanks, msbelle! That was a big omission. I've put up a few of him now.

Right now, mortgage goes out on the first and all other bills are set for the 15th and I never ever have to think about it. I need to find a way to have that back.

I have autopay set up for my mortgage with every paycheck, so every two weeks, approximately half of what my monthly payment would be. I don't have to worry about the money being there and I'll actually get my loan paid off a little faster than paying it monthly (because it's the equivalent of 13 payments year). It's one of the options the bank gave me for autopay, in fact.

I haven't been able to get the rest of my bills on autopay yet, though, the due dates are all by calendar date and it's just inconsistent. What I do is every payday I make sure that all the bills that will be due before the next paycheck are paid. spreading the due dates as evenly through the month as you can (weighted by the amount that is usually due) should help stabilize your cash flow. Should. As I said, I haven't got a system for that, myself.

I hope you can appeal the tax bump, brenda. That sucks.

This is cool: Sapolsky's outstanding Stanford lecture on "The Uniqueness of Humans"

Stanford primatologist and anthropologist Robert Sapolsky scores big with this grad lecture on "The Uniqueness of Humans," a humbling, inspiring and sweet 30 minutes on what it is about humans that makes us unique from our animal cousins, and how many of the seemingly unique features of humanity can be found elsewhere.

David Tennant was just on Graham Norton. I love that man. He's so sharp and sexy. I didn't think I'd like the Doctor after Nine, but he rocks.

You know, I think I've grown as a person this past year.

When I go into the basement, or come downstairs in the morning, and find a live roach, instead of screeching and doing the heebiejeebie dance, I've come to uttering mildly "I hate you I hate you I hate you I HATE YOU" and either stomping or going to fetch the diatomaceous earth (basement) to liberally douse the area. It's progress. Or resignation.

Today I have:

-watched V

-color coded a stack of paperwork and a light plot in preparation for a 2-day focus. (Who knew that, at age 41, preparing for work would involve coloring?)

-made lasagna and divvied it into lunch size portions

-made peanut butter cookies (now cooling)

-somehow tweaked my back such that standing up straight is difficult after sitting for any length of time

Face-Off With a Deadly Predator

Short, fascinating video about a National Geographic photographer and his encounters with a leopard seal in Antarctica.

What happened is this huge leopard seal thought he was some lame-ass predator and tried to teach him how to eat penguins.

I should have been in bed hours ago, but I have to share: Loki got the wild rumpus on, and had landed on a chair after being chastised for pawing the blinds.

And then he farted audibly. And levitated a good 3 feet, total bottlebrush tail and stegosaurus fur on the back. He;s now a good yard away from the chair, washing indignantly.

These creatures amuse me immeasurably.

The chair clearly MADE HIS BUTT EXPLODE! No wonder he's not exactly feeling the trust.