Those "music" videos are positively puke-worthy! I agree with Terriks, although I do confess to watching several episodes of the NYC bunch. Afterward, I always felt a bit mentally dirty: That was an hour of my life wasted that I could never again get back. Shallow people famous for simply attempting to be famous. Kinda makes me long to be a hermit, and definitely makes me fear for the future of humanity. Anyone see "Idiocracy"? Yeah. We're there.

I really enjoyed this - had actually never heard of civil forfeiture. You must hang in with the video for the final minutes, which are so clever!

natal, can you post a photo or link of your foot-operated trash/recycle cabs, muspic, can I see your cork floor? We're doing cork as well. The telling sign for me was when I went into a "wood flooring" showroom. When I asked where their cork display was (the whole floor was covered in the different wood flooring), I expected them to say they didn't have one (like most stores). Instead, they took me to the area where the employees stood all day. All cork. No wood. Enough said. Alabamamommy, our current house has white Corian counters. They were here when we bought the house and were afraid of them at first, but now we love them. I cook every day and never had any problem getting anything off them, including red white and tumeric. I spilled about 4 t. of tumeric on the counter when I was making keema yesterday. I got most of it right away. After I was done cooking, I saw that I missed a spot. I sprayed the spot with 409, let it sit a few minutes while I cleaned up then came back and it came right off. We've also had success with set stains using Soft Scrub, and even a baking soda paste. For the kitchen in the house we're building, my must haves were: * cork floors (I need the sound proofing for living with a brain injury and active boy!) * walk in pantry (that it is 9'x9'11" is a bonus) * all base drawers * wide aisles * pulls instead of knobs * dropped baking center so I don't have to stand on my tippy toes while kneading bread, and open on two sides so my son can help. * foot pulls for trash * hands free water faucet * island (I ended up with two. WIth my TBI, I can't go out to socialize much, so two islands give me a "little kitchen" where I can focus and not be distracted (aka, burn the house down). The second island allows others to be "in the kitchen" to help prep, socialize, clean up, etc. without being in my space. I can't wait! *desk area for printing recipes, menu planning, etc. * side by side frig. It just works best for the way we live. Funny story, when we bought our current frig, the deciding factor was the one that fix a pizza box. In the last four years, there have been less than 5 pizza boxes in there! We cut out most processed foods. So we love the side-by-side because when I cook dinner, I always make larger portions so we can get 2-4 leftovers out of it. There are packaged in lunch size containers in frozen. Everything is easy to see in the morning, when DH grabs his lunch. * Full size freezer in pantry. We currently have a chest freezer, but we'd like to be able to buy a part of a cow from a local farm, so we're getting a side by side freezer to store our meat and extra bulk goods. DH's must have, beyond what's above: * deep single sink for washing pans (Usually I clean up as I go, but often I run out of steam by the time dinner is done, so he'll do clean up. I figured if I give him the sink he wants, he'll do it even more!) * energy star appliances * water sense sinks * Sharp microwave...

I watched the CBS shows and I've watched the Dateline and some of the Dr. Phil. I don't know what to think, other than believing an intruder is the least-likely scenario. Not impossible, but very unlikely, due to the way the note was written, the way the body was discovered, and Burke's interviews shortly after the crime and 18 months after the crime. Burke said he heard his mother come into his room and then go out of it looking for JonBenet, and then he heard her in hysterics (as he said in the interview afterward "going psycho") and just stayed in bed pretending to sleep or trying to sleep, rather than go try to find out what had happened. Picture your own kids. You burst into your 9 year old's room and then just as suddenly depart. You are frantically crying and screaming, alerting your spouse and then placing a 911 call. Your 9 year old doesn't freeze with fear. They don't hide. They also don't come ask you what's wrong. They don't go find dad and ask what's wrong. They just stay in bed and wait. The only reason I can think of for him to do this is either that he was used to the sound of adults "going psycho" in other parts of the house and did not find that unusual/alarming--or he knew what the problem was and was waiting to find out how his parents were going to handle it.