Lately when I have insomnia I end up watching reruns of The Cosby Show. If there were any fictional household I'd want to have grown up in it would be the Huxtables. When I watch I feel ever so slightly envious of their family dynamics and how even when they disagree they still so clearly love each other. That envy, however, pales in comparison to how much joy I get from watching the show all these years later on TV Land or Chicago's WGN.

Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashād played so well off each other as Mr. and Mrs. Huxtable that it was hard not to want to be in on their happy little secrets and mutual love for each other. Maybe I'm wrong or cynical but I doubt very much that a lot of children grow up seeing their parents interact so well.

I realize that this is a fictional family and that many families have problems and don't always see eye to eye or even get along that well. It's probably also a little fantastical to suppose that any real family has quite what the Huxtables had.

Still a half an hour or so a week of embracing the fantasy (just a tad!) probably doesn't hurt as long as things are kept in perspective. And what's even better (and so glaringly obvious in our current age of the disappearing sitcom) is how good The Cosby Show was...how well-acted and well-written.

When I was a little girl I loved "Peter Pan" more than any other movie and I read the J.M. Barrie book it was based on over and over again. As I grew older I (of course!) realized that Never Never Land was a luxury only children could indulge in and that it was most definitely not a place for adults.

But there aren't any rules than say occasional day dreams aren't allowed. A little bit of childhood imagination should follow us into adulthood to help us get through the really trying days!:) Visualizing a vacation in Hawaii (especially when you're waiting in a traffic jam) contributes greatly to inner peace~

This sounds like fun:

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/doc/com/1677020068.html

Only on Craig's List, could you find this!:)

 The following article is a bit old, but very informative and quite interesting, especially for anyone interested in becoming a potential guinea pig in clinical trials...amazing that some people make a career out of this:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.05/feat_drugtest.html

The New Yorker also ran an article back in '08:



http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/01/07/080107fa_fact_elliott


and here's a website for clinical trials:

gpgp.net 

And if you live in the Baltimore area and pick up the City Paper...the back pages have several opportunities, though those clinical trials often seek a specific target audience...

Just added the seductively sweet "Favourite Things" by the Golden Filter to my MP3 player. Clocking in at 4 minutes and 33 seconds it seems a lot shorter and may tempt you to hit 'repeat' quite a few times.

Not the kind of favorite things you'd find in The Sound of Music. This stuff is funkier and definitely not the kind Julie Andrews had in mind.


Take a look at the words:

New York, Sydney, Paris, London, New York, Sydney
These are a few of my favourite things
Ice cream, chocolate, coffee, sugar, ice cream, chocolate
These are a few of my favourite things
Candy, lollies, kitties, bunnies, knee highs, stockings
These are a few of my favourite things
Vintage, dresses, vodka, whiskey, kitty, bunny,
Paris, London, sweet girls, cute boys, vodka, whiskey, cameras, pictures
These are a few of my favourite things
These are a few of my favourite things
These are a few of my favourite things
Vintage, dresses, vodka, whiskey, cameras, London
These are a few of my favourite things  

I love how 'ice cream' and 'chocolate' are mentioned more than once...definitely my kind of song!!:) My favorite music website (/http://www.allmusicguide.com/) has this info on them:


by Jason Lymangrover

The Golden Filter are an enigmatic New York electro duo that started gaining a buzz from their remixes of Cut Copy and Peter Bjorn and John. Even with their identities hidden from the Web, word of their music spread after they sent their first song, a breathy, arpeggiated disco jam titled "Solid Gold," to a few music blogs in the summer of 2008. Dummy magazine signed Stephen (production/synths) and Penelope (vocals) to their fledgling label soon after and the two made plans to play SXSW before going on tour with the Presets. In 2009, the Dummy label released "Solid Gold" as a limited 7" with "Favourite Things" as the B-side.