What a way to start a day!

So I woke up this morning without an alarm, and noticed it was light out, which scared me that I was running late. I looked at my phone, which I set for my alarm, and it said it was 1:20 am. I was certain I was just misreading the 7 as a 1, so I rubbed my eyes, and put on my glasses, and indeed, it said 1:20, while my big clock on the dresser said 6:20. So I set my normal alarm clock and went back to sleep.

I then had weird dreams about how the time zones somehow got shifted and we were now going to have daylight earlier, so we could enjoy more of it. (?) Actually, in the dream, it was as if the earth had rotated but everyone and all their houses, cars, etc. stayed put, so we were technically now in California, rather than Ohio. Weird.

I feel awful now. I keep sleeping with my hair in a ponytail to keep it from tangling and making me all sweaty, but apparently the ponytail propped up my head last night so my neck is all weird. And my wrists hurt, though I can't determine a why on that. And still with the sore tailbone.

I decided not to do hockey this season because of lack of time, and the tailbone so I didn't go to practice last night. Yet, I still wake up feeling as if I had. Sheesh.

But I did shave my legs this morning. I hadn't done that in a couple months. So now I get the joy of rubbing them together like a cricket. :-)

They Might Be Giants, and fireworks tonight. Should be mildly amusing at least.

Nostalgia

Someone posted this in a comment to someone on my friends list. This is a really cool site of hard to find and regional foods (lots of candy). They have Bun! I love Bun! I don't think I've seen it since I was little and dad would take us to the grain elevator with him, and they sold them on the honor system in the office there.

The list of things that are actually discontinued is really interesting too. Who knew there was ever Green Giant Canned Corn on the Cob? Chewels is on there, as is Dr. Pepper gum, which my little sister loved and Willy Wonkas Punkies which were short lived and terribly yummy. And sadly, automat76, Low Sodium Cheez-its are no more.

An important punctuation issue!

From the Chicago Manual of Style's Q&A page:

Q. My question is, is there any standard for the usage of emoticons? In particular, is there an accepted practice for the use of emoticons that include an opening or closing parenthesis as the final token within a set of parentheses? Should I (1) incorporate the emoticon into the closing of the parentheses (giving a dual purpose to the closing parenthesis, such as in this case. :-) (2) simply leave the emoticon up against the closing parenthesis, ignoring the bizarre visual effect of the doubled closing parenthesis (as I am doing here, producing a doubled-chin effect :-)) (3) put a space or two between the emoticon and the closing parenthesis (like this: :-) ) (4) or avoid the situation by using a different emoticon (Some emoticons are similar. :-D), placing the emoticon elsewhere, or doing without it (i.e., reword to avoid awkwardness)?

A. Until academic standards decline enough to accommodate the use of emoticons, I’m afraid CMS is unlikely to treat their styling, since the manual is aimed primarily at scholarly publications. And the problems you’ve posed in this note give us added incentive to keep our distance. (But I kind of like that double-chin effect.)

While I agree that the purpose of the CM is for academic discourse, I also think that there should be grammatical standards, even in more casual communication. Plus, I have agonized over this vry question myself. I personally usually do option 2 because I feel the emoticon itself is a separate element from the closing parenthesis. What do you think?