Friendship Day!

Mood:


Yay! For friends!  What a nice one! I found more holidays for August. They're kind of fun. Normally, August seems so dull when it comes to holidays, so it was nice to find some.  These holidays really make you appreciate things that you might normally take for granted.  Here are the holidays that are month-long: American Adventure, Cataract Awareness, Golf, Happiness Happens, National Inventor's, National Panini, What Will Be Your Legacy, National Catfish, Peach, and National Picnic month. Interesting. I didn't know most of those.  Today's also Lughnasa. Which is a Gaelic holiday. (I'm part Irish/Scottish, so this is interesting to me.) It marks the beginning of the harvest season. Kind of cool. It's also US Air Force Day. 


I went to services again!  My dad joined us, too. Wore my kippah for the 3rd time! Also, this was the first time I actually put my hand over my eyes, while saying the Shema.  It's supposed to help you focus on just the prayer. It feels weird that I'm adding the stuff most people do. But, good at the same time. This time our old cantor led it. She hasn't done it for us for a while. She's so passionate and so into it.  It's really cool. A lot of people showed up. In fact, we have a new family to the congregation. They're from South Africa. Really interesting!  They also have 4 kids.  I wasn't able to talk to them later, because everyone was swamping them. Maybe next time? 


I looked up the World Union for Progressive Judaism. They're an international organization of the Reform, Liberal, Progressive, and Reconstructionist Jewish Movements. (That's how they describe themselves.) It's very interesting. Mom gets their newsletter. I'm planning to also. Kind of cool to see what goes on with other Reform-type Jews. In other countries, we're apparently called Progressives. We're a more liberal branch of Judaism. More interesting stuff! 


We watched the new Alice in Wonderland movie. It was pretty good. Nice and trippy, like it should be. I didn't like how the Hatter had 2 different accents. 1 was so thick I could barely understand him. The main actress wasn't too bad, but she wasn't the best Alice. They did really well with the Cheshire Cat! I loved him! It was too perfect! The bloodhound was cute too. The White Queen was a bit bizarre, but fit right in. Other than the voice thing, Hatter was played awesomely! They made him a bit more 'mad' than a lot of ones I've seen. The Dormouse kicked butt!  For such a tiny thing, she was very bold. The Red Queen was interestingly done. Had a good ending too. 


I found another great forum! It's at: JpopAsia Very cool site! It's devoted to a variety of Asian music. The main ones being: J-pop, J-rock, C-pop, K-pop, J-rap, J-trance, and anime. The main site has a directory of artists. On their profiles they have info, videos, chat, lyrics translated in English and in Romaji, and other cool stuff. They also list the top charts of each genre. There's news, polls, and journals too. The forum part's great! I've only explored one section of it, but haven't run out of looking at and discussing fun topics. I've been making a lot of friends on there already. Most have given me 'Welcome Cakes'. This is part of their 'life' section of the site. You can earn points for things, win trophies, send virtual gifts, buy a virtual house on your fave artist's profile, find treasures, make a playlist, and get matched up with other users on the site too. I could probably spend all day on there.  I've been looking for a more active/interesting forum lately, so it's perfect. I just have to time myself when I use it. 


I played a little of the Sims 2. Man, my Sim gets crazier and crazier! He wants to be closer than just friends with everyone. I found out what they call their 'sex.' It's called Wohoo! Funny! They cover themselves up, and eventually there's fireworks over the bed. A little weird. I also gave him something that's a career path reward. It's a machine that can make meds and viruses. He gets a lot of money for making meds! Haven't tried the virus part, yet.  He still likes to spy on his neighbor, and his neighbor still beats him up. He doesn't learn, does he?  I'm in the middle of constructing his second story. He sometimes goes up there, even though there are walls for just 2 of the rooms, and there isn't a roof up yet. Kind of strange. He got promoted twice, too. Now works with the government on a top secret project. Something exploded in flames again in the oven.  It looked like he was burning up. But, he seemed saner this time, and didn't have a sponge bath in the sink.