Assorted Potpourri, or a sort of "Here and There", if you will...Perhaps a Mish-Mash of Sorts, or Hodge-Podge, or Whatever the Words May Be

Thoughts from the Weekend:

• The cover story of this past week's issue of Time Magazine contains some fantastic visuals of our country's population as it hits the 300 million mark. You can read the article online at Time.com (be sure to check out the graphics on the right sidebar). Surprisingly enough, Egyptians make up 0.6% of the population but 22% of the country's ambient noise. We are loud.
  
  
• I filled up a full tank for under 40 bucks on Saturday. That hasn't happened since around spring of last year.
  
  
• I saw a line for a costume store this weekend that went out the door, and I'm wondering what percentage of Americans make their own costume on Halloween. My guess is that 30% buy a complete costume, 50% buy a portion of their costume, and 20% make their own. Here are my personal best and worst Halloween costumes ever:
  
  BEST
  1. Ziv Rudolph Lang, 2001. If you know Ziv, you know this costume, and you know that there was no one else I could have been that year. NO ONE ELSE.
  2. 80's Michael Jackson, 2003. Chris was 90's Michael Jackson. It actually DID matter if you were brown or white apparently, seeing as how I destroyed him in the dance-off.
  3. Myself, 1998. Always stupid to be yourself for Halloween, but I actually made Andrew masks for me and all my friends.
  
  WORST
  1. Injured Guy, mid-90's. I just put on bandages and walked around on crutches. Lame.
  2. Andrea, 2002. Look, I liked this costume a lot, but...everyone else was just grossed out. I wonder why? [EDIT: "Andrea" was a female version of myself. It was a little weird.]
  3. Devil, late 80's. It was a onesie.
  
  
• Texas Fight!
  
  
• Sunday was most certainly the last time that I will go over to my Uncle Samy's house on McClellan and take home a HUGE tray of aeblskiwa (or any other food for that matter) from my Aunt Birgitte (she's Danish), as they are moving to a condo next week. The good news is that an aeblskiwa experiment finally worked: we put pieces of banana in the pan and the aeblskiwa turned out so well! Nothing beats the original, of course, but the banana ones were really good! Much better than the chocolate, apple or blueberry attempts a few years ago. Aeblskiwa-aeblskiwa-aeblskiwa. I just like saying it.
  
  
• I bought a ton of Asian candy from Tin Tin this weekend, including lots of Super-brand sour candy. I also bought this peculiar twist on an old standard: Men's Pocky. Is that men's flavored? I'm eating it right now and it doesn't taste like sweat or beer or anything. And what's even more strange is the stuck-on nutritional info on the back of the package. Serving size: 1/3 of package. Servings per package: 2. Huh?

Edited November 1, 2006