is that it's much warmer here than in chicago (near 50 degrees! crazy!), thus affording me the opportunity to wear this dress out to new year's parties tomorrow evening. (though without the creepy pink half-tights.) my plans? a late afternoon party with tommy's coworkers, then onwards to goodspeed's pre-party party, then out to julian sanchez's craaaazy libertarian party (which is "strongly welcomed black tie," hence the dress).

what are you all doing?

We've got a ton of holiday chocolate lying around the house. Through no fault of the considerate chocolate-givers, some of it is white chocolate. Which, I feel compelled to point out, is gross. It's just cocoa butter and sugar, people. The white chocolate bon-bons are particularly horrifying: fat and sugar flavored with fake butter. Ugh.

On the other hand, those little Ghirardelli squares? Pretty great. And I'm not quite sure how Cadbury defeated his snobby continental artisan peers, but god damn if the English haven't got a solid lock on milk chocolate technology.

A lot of folks seem to be glad to kick 2005 out the door and down the street. Not me. This has been a pretty good year for me. I moved into a new place, I met a lot of new people, I got a new job, and generally started to feel non-aimless. In fact, this year saw my life reach an all-time low on the Quiet Desperation scale.

Sadly, this means that my days of being an interesting person have probably come to an end. I suppose I can continue to crank out technical curios (although even they will be hurt by a decline in personal Stick It To The Man-ism). But let's face it: basically happy people are basically fucking boring. I apologize in advance to those of you who I will meet at the cocktail parties occurring between now and my death. To help you prepare, here are my planned conversation topics, ordered by decade (approximately). I invite you to compose your respondent bon mots in advance.

• Real Estate Prices


• What Baby Pooped On


• College Prices


• Pointless Hobby


• Quick, Let's Make Financial and/or Spiritual Plans!


• Kids These Days, What's Wrong With


• I Don't Think They Should Have Put Me In A Home


• I Am Wandering Through The Neighborhood In My Bathrobe! I Think I Am Going To See Pearl Jam, Or Possibly Artie Shaw, Although They Are Both Are Dead!

Another problem with contentedness: it's making me into a fatass. This is the time of year when I would normally start complaining about the looming onrush of New Year gymgoers, who will get in my way and then linger there, doing stupid things. But this year I'll be one of them. My 4-5 day/week regimen is long gone; three is a spectacularly good week for me now. And between sicknesses, visitors, projects and generally having better things to do, it's been months since I even hit that mark. But that's all going to change! Yes! I will radically alter my lifestyle. I will remain pleasantly slim. And, while I'm at it, perpetually youthful and vigorous.

Or if that doesn't work out, I'll pick up a used copy of the Everybody Loves Raymond box sets, settle down in front of the TV with some Cool Ranch Doritos and wait for death. It's called a backup plan, people, and it's what responsible life strategies are all about.

via amber, i tried out this celebrity-face-imaging thing-a-majigy that is supposed to scan and analyze a photo of you and tell you what celebrity you most look like. why this is important to anybody, i am not sure, but it certainly is fun...turns out my top matches are a) katie holmes (this is totally untrue, btw, and will do nothing to diminish the TomCat nickname) b) jk rowling (i can see that a bit more; blond, big schnoz, etc) c) kate winslet and d)....martina navratilova.

yay.

who do you get?

On Wednesday I dialed 911 for the first time. In retrospect, I shouldn't have. I had just gotten back from dinner with my mom in Louisa and was unloading the car when I saw some guys fighting at the end of the block. Two combatants, two onlookers. From my vantage point, it was hard to tell if it was a fight club situation or a serious brawl. But someone ended up on the ground, so I went upstairs and called the cops. Despite the perennial horror stories about 911 service in DC, the system worked great for me. A patrol car coincidentally rolled by and scared off the brawlers (who left together on seemingly friendly terms) before the 911-dispatched cops could make it to the scene. But a squad car did show up within five minutes, flashing lights and all. The dispatcher called me back, the miscreants dispersed without getting arrested, and generally everything worked as it was supposed to. I considered myself a satisfied DC resident.

But the DCPD has really gone the extra mile. Spurred (I like to think) by my hawk-eyed citizenship, our neighborhood now has a police horse. Or it did last night, anyway. Take that, evildoers!