Scott got a long-desired record player for Christmas and we finally broke it out today along with all the albums that have been gathering dust in the garage for the last 20 years. Found all the old stand-bys.....CCR, BTO, Doors, Beatles, AC DC, Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane, along with the errant Abba, Elton John, Sound of Music and ten versions of Hair. Can you guess who brought which music to the marriage? Anyway, loved by all is Peter Frampton, so it's with much joy that we introduce Ry and Si to the talk box.

Totally stolen verbatim from Threebase.com: "The good kids in the UCSC Engineering Department attempted to celebrate Engineering Week by arranging 3,800 Post-Its in an homage to Super Mario Bros. Too bad the nerdy Econ department tore it down. At least the Web page lives on."

I love harmless college pranks (or hacks). I especially love engineering student college pranks. A couple of others: the Cannon Heist courtesy of Harvey Mudd and Caltech; Al Gore Buzzword Bingo from an MIT graduation ceremony. In fact check out MIT Hacks listed chronologically to enjoy almost 20 years of fun. Gentle reminder: green type means you can click through to the link!

Trees 5, 6 and 7

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Some lovely-looking gifts have been arriving for the holidays.....and they've been packed in styrofoam peanuts. In an effort to find the best way to recycle these, I offer the following tip: The Peanut Hotline, 800-828-2214 and loosefillpackaging.com, is the national reuse program for plastic packing peanuts. Consumers can drop off their leftover plastic packing peanuts at Peanut Hotline collection sites. There are over 1,500 collection sites in the US. Just pop your city or zip code into the search bar and it will find a location close to you. Yeah!

Tree 4

Tree 3

By the way, if you want a fun gift idea for teachers, give them a movie-night pak. The Bay Area version includes Newman's Organic Microwave popcorn (no trans-fatty acids, no partially hydrogenated shortening), Joby & Marty's Belgian Dark Chocolate Pearlies, Fizzy Lizzy sparkling cranberry juice, and of course a Blockbuster gift card all wrapped up in a stocking (or some other non-denominational wrapper).

Tree 2 in the series.......

The probability of getting out Christmas cards this year is slim to none. I don't need a Christmas letter because I have this....and everyone is checking this every week, right? So instead, I'll gradually post our "Tree" series, taken at Davies Symphony Hall as we were being shoo'd out after the concert on Saturday. You'll notice Ry's demeanor change by about the 5th tree, as he finally got into the spirit of running from tree to tree to have his picture taken with Si. Enjoy.

Mrs. Brady did a great job yesterday at the Peter and the Wolf concert. She didn't actually conduct the piece - she narrated. But the super-cute conductor, Benjamin Shwartz let her take the baton for a brief moment. The San Francisco Youth Orchestra is always fun to watch....even though I did notice that the number of long-haired boys decreased dramatically this year (what's up with that?). The coolest number that they did in addition to Peter and the Wolf was a percussion piece where a huge timpani faced the audience and stayed on stage as 4 drummers came up the aisles playing a half beat behind each other on what looked like snare drums. It was amazing. As you can see, we like to sit over the orchestra so we can see the musicians up close and personal, as well as see the conductor's face. If you've never sat at this angle, I highly recommend it at least once so you can see the passion in the facial expressions and hand and body movements that the conductor puts into each piece.

Last year my dad sent me these beautiful photos of the Harbin, China Ice and Snow Festival. I've provided a link for the 2005 photos - they're truly amazing and there's tons of info on the site about the whole history and process of the festival. It even gives some really good tips if you're thinking of going. So, anyone up for a mid-January trip to Harbin?

MARSHMALLOW ENTRY UPDATE: PLEASE CHECK THE FEBRUARY 14, 2008 ENTRY (OR CLICK THE "FOOD" LABELS) TO FIND MY LATEST EXPERIENCE IN MAKING VEGETARIAN (NOT VEGAN) MARSHMALLOWS.

I never considered myself to be a big marshmallow fan. I like the little ones floating in hot chocolate, and who doesn't like a roasted marshmallow over the campfire and then put into a s'more? And I had tried store-bought homemade before (oxymoron?-yes) and again, fine but nothing special. Then I went to Bittersweet Cafe on College Ave. the other day and had a true homemade marshmallow with my hot chocolate. Yum, yum and double-triple yum. So now I'm obssessed with trying all the homemade and pseudo-homemade that I can find. Andronico's makes their own very delicious "hand-crafted" version (look for them near the fancy cake and pie case). Here's a link to a homemade recipe that I haven't tried yet so can't vouch for - but many reviewers seem to like it so I think I'll try it soon.

Because I now log in hundreds of auto miles each week, I think I'm going to start looking at the non-Chevron options for gas. I've been a loyal Chevron customer since I was 16 years old and they gave me my first credit card ever. Wednesday alone is Oakland-Danville-Oakland-Berkeley-Hayward-Oakland day. To that end, I've posted a new link to the right to check on local gas prices. It will continually update itself so keep checking back.

By the way, while I'm in auto mode - a little plug for AAA. I had a flat tire on Thursday afternoon. Si's halau (hula school) was dancing as part of a tree lighting festival and we had to be there AT 5:00. I called AAA at 4:00 and by 4:20 I was on the road (spare on - shredded tire off). I'm guessing they see a lot of BMW's in Lafayette where I broke down - last time that happened to me in Berkeley it took 2 different tow truck guys to figure out how to change the tire. I bet if I'd had my Samba they could have done it lickety split.