One of my favorite lazy foods of all times is ramen noodles. 

This is not a revelation, nothing new. In all likeliohood you who are reading this now are probably well aquainted with ramen noodle soup.  If not, learn much more about it at this Ramen blog here.

There are two things about ramen I wish to mention at this time: 

Someone recently published  a list of fun little time-wasting games, designed to ease those last few work hours before the blissful holiday parole.

Most were fun, nice little confections.  But one, Falling Sand , I found had much more hidden depth than it seemed at first glance.

I drive 100 miles a day, in one of the most congested and busy metropolitan areas in the country. 

I ask no pity, it was a choice I made for myself, to be able to live where I live and work where I work, and I can live with it.

However, such a commute obviously comes with hardship, and I have discovered, among other things, that I am one of the 60% of US drivers with a tendency toward road rage. 

There's a discussion going on today in Liz Kelly's Celebritology blog at the Washington Post site, about stupidest movie moments, inspired by Amazing Planet's list of "49 Dumbest Movie Moments" (links to both the Liz Kelly's discussion and the Amazing Planet list at the bottom).

[I posted the following on Liz's discussion, as well.]

To me, many of the stupid monents I've seen listed aren't necessarily "stupid."

I carry around a bunch of electronic devices. For some reason, I find them sort of comforting; they are extensions of all that pocket stuff we carry around to let us know that we exist and are part of society.

Most of my gadgets are just for entertainment though (like an iPod, PSP, voice recorder, GPS tracker, etc) and just happen to live in my bag. At any given time they may be in there or not, though most usually are.

I have to admit, against all my common sense, I kinda like some of the many energy drinks that have flooded the market over the past few years.

But before I say anything about that, I should divulge my greater perception of these energy drinks.

Within my lifetime, the consumption of soda in this country has skyrocketed.  When I was a kid, you could get the little 8oz bottles of Coke anywhere, and then there were the 12 Oz cans and the 16 oz bottles.  A typical "large" coke at a fast food restaurant was 16 oz. 

My company recently announced that at least for the time being, the only profssional IT ceritfication exams they would pay for are those for Windows or Mac.   

A collegue of mine, a Unix administrator, wondered what are we Unix people, chopped liver?

I say bah!  Unix-type folk don’t need to be told by some corporation, who gets paid to do it, that they’re qualified to work on the company’s products.  So there.

I am outraged at this whole business of states spending so much time on, and in some cases actually passing,  CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS banning same-sex marriage.  I feel sadness and shame in all my fellow Americans who feel it's somehow their duty to butt into and control other people's relationships--especially when so many "normal" marriages are so poorly maintained, hypocritical, even abusive.  Plus, there are so many more pressing concerns facing us all.

(Now, it may be that, to at least some of the politicians pushing it,  the inflation of the same-sex marriage issue is largely an election strategy; the issue not so important in and of itself, but designed to get out the religious conservative vote.  Whether that’s the ultimate goal or not doesn’t diminish the fact that it’s real time and real money spent on the issue, and the results affect real people’s lives.  And McGuffin or not, enough people do feel strongly enough about it to allow the politicians make it a  big issue, no matter what their ulterior motives are.)