Would you have the courage to jump?
                                       
                                              

Can I take a rare moment and complain?  I am turning 38 in two days.  So I will turn 38 on Thanksgiving Day.

Now I have never been big on birthday celebrations but I must admit that I always feel like I get stiffed on my birthday.  I was raised poor so we didn’t get much on our birthdays in fact a few years I didn’t get anything.  That never really bothered me but I feel like having a birthday near a major holiday causes some of us to get stiffed.

My birthday is always around Thanksgiving Day.  So since the time I was growing up, we always celebrated my birthday in conjunction with the holiday.  This probably sounds petty but everyone would gather together to celebrate the holiday and then sometime near the end they would suddenly bring out the birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday.  It always felt like my birthday was tacked on to the end of the holiday celebration.

I am sure others have the same problem in fact a few of you have a birthday around Christmas.

I think because of this disappointment that I have always sort of downplayed my birthday.  But for some reason today it is making me a little crabby.

Does your family make a big deal about your birthday?

People say that they just don’t want to see anyone kissing.  But I think that misses the point.  Over 1500 people complained to ABC.

So lets be honest for a moment.

Does this kiss

make you feel more uncomfortable than this kiss

or this kiss?

Adam Lambert has received some attention for his American Music Awards performance because he kissed a guy.

ABC received complaints from more than 1,500 people about the “sexually charged performance.”

Adam said he “wanted to break down a double standard that existed where female performers are often sexually provocative while men don’t do it that often.”  Here is the link:  Link

I do wonder if there would have been the same complaining if two women had kissed.

Do you think we respond differently to two men kissing than we do to two women kissing?

A woman from Quebec was on long-term sick leave because she was experiencing depression.

But the insurance company saw photos of her on Facebook where she was on the beach, “having fun at a Chippendale’s show” and was at a birthday party.

The woman is claiming the insurance company stop paying the benefits for her depression because they saw the photos on her Facebook.

The woman said, “In the moment I’m happy, but before and after I have the same problems.”  Here is the link:  Link

Are photos of the woman having fun proof that she is not depressed?

“The Twilight Saga:  New Moon” pulled in $140.7 million for the weekend.  That made it the third on the all-time domestic chart.  Here is the link:  Link

Do you intend to see New Moon?
                              

My wife and I went to the movie “The Blind Side” tonight.

In the movie that was based on a true story, a rich white family took in a homeless black kid.  I really liked the movie and would give it an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10.

My parents took in foster children and my brothers who stayed with us the longest were hispanic.

If you were to adopt a child, would it be more difficult for you to take in a child of a different race?
                                                                                 

It was announced last week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would stand trial for being the mastermind behind the Sept. 11th attacks.

He will be transferred to New York and tried there.

President Obama and the U.S. Attorney General have predicted that he would be convicted and executed.  Here is the link:  Link

I would think it would be important to any American that he gets a fair trial. 

Do you think Khalid Sheikh Mohammed can get a fair trial in the U.S.?

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announced that there is no longer necessary for a woman to get checked pap smear every year.  They say that woman can get checked every two years now.  Here is the link:  Link  (No word on a save the vagina campaign).

This is right after the United States Preventive Services Task Force announced women can wait until 50 to get mammograms.  Here is the link:  Link  (I hope I didn’t collect all those topless photos for free mammograms for nothing).

Do you get the feeling that most of the women’s screening was a bit excessive?
                                       
                                               

I was reading a short article about online friendships.  The author of the article said that 162 people were interviewed to compare online friendships to offline friendships.

According to the article “offline friendships involved more interdependence, breadth, depth, code change, understanding, commitment, and network convergence than online friendships.”  Here is the link:  Link

Do you think your offline friendships have more depth than your online friendships?