Recently watched a few movies, including "Enemy of the State" (Will Smith, Gene Hackman), "Sweet Home Alabama" (Reese Witherspoon, Candace Bergman), "Pollyanna" (Haley Mills), "Swiss Family Robinson", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", and "Executive Decision" (Kurt Russell, Halle Berry). The last one has been on TV almost every day for 2 months. We've seen bits and pieces of it A LOT.

Gene and I both have noticed and commented on the same phenomenon recently: people going around turns in their car seem to have to lean their heads like they're going to tip over or something. Maybe they feel that they're race car drivers or something, I don't know, but it makes them look really goofy. Driving through a turn at 35 mph hardly makes you a race car driver, and although it may subject you to addition G force (directional acceleration), it's minimal at best, so why do they do it? Is it learned behavior - they see others doing it so they mimic them? Is it to impress other drivers ("out of my way, I'm TURNING here"), or simply to entertain those of us who think they look ridiculous? Who knows. The whole thing doesn't make any sense. If you're turning left, then while your car tires are experiencing centripetal (not centrifugal) force (a common misconception), the only thing YOU'RE really experiencing is Newton's First Law of Motion, which dictates that you lean to the RIGHT, not to the left, so you can't claim that some external force is making you do it (Newton's first law isn't a force at all - in fact, it's actually defined as inertia, the lack of a force). It must all be psychological: maybe you're trying to compensate for something, or maybe you're trying to shift your weight to help keep the car on all four wheels, who knows. The only way you won't look like a goof, however, is if your head stays in the same spot it's normally in - in other words, keep your head level - don't tilt either direction. In fact, we had a good chuckle a while back, as we were driving around - discussing this very subject. Misti was driving, and I was in the passenger seat, and we made a right-hand turn. She leaned to the right for whatever reason, while I let Newton's first law do it's job (I leaned left), and we nearly bonked heads in the middle. Of course, most of the time, I just remain right in the same spot, not leaning either way - it's the only thing that makes any sense, in my opinion. I forget what Gene had to say about it, but I remember that he had witnessed the same behavior and we had chuckled about it. Next time you go around the Spaghetti Bowl, take note: it looks like you're watching NASCAR.

The weather has been a little screwy this past week. It snowed earlier in the week, but has been really warm (in the 50 or 60s) the last few days. Of course, none of the snow stuck, but it was a nice change of pace.

Becca loves wooden puzzles and says "stuck" a lot lately. She climbs on chairs and sticks her head in between bars and such on the furniture and then, matter-of-factly, says "stuck" - not in a panic or anything, she's merely stating a fact. It's funny.

LOTR 2 was much better than LOTR 1 - can't wait for 3. If you recall, I didn't like LOTR 1 - it wasn't as good as all the hype built it up to be. With LOTR 2, there wasn't nearly as much hype, so I think I enjoyed it more. I wasn't expecting it to be any good (especially after the first one), and was therefore pleasantly surprised. I really think the 3rd one ought to be pretty great, though, so I might be setting myself for disappointment... hmmm, we'll see.

We had a hilarious conversation at work a few days ago about toilet paper and dieting. Betty first told us about the "toilet paper diet", but declined to admit that she'd tried it. From there, everyone had their opinion on which way was the correct way for the toilet paper roll to be oriented (dispenses over the top, or from underneath). Of course, we all know that nobody really cares, and most people don't keep it on the roller, anyway. We just keep the roll on the counter top, so there isn't any issue. While some others agreed, I was actually interested to learn that some people actually have those dispenser rollers installed sideways (so that the roller is vertical), so that the issue isn't "top or bottom", but left or right - then it just depends whether you're right or left-handed. And, of course, we all know that right-handers are the vast majority.   =)