hmmm, maybe they can manufacture more T-1000s

I was alerted to this story on National Geographic about a bendable concrete that heals itself with water. The substance is designed to make bridges and roads safer, and it sounds like a pretty nifty idea, but I'm just afraid the concrete will then start to develop a mind of its own, and then things are seriously going to go south from there. I mean, really, who needs buildings and roads that decide they aren't going to do what you want them to do, like, oh, I don't know, stand upright or lie there for you to drive over.

things I don't understand - prevalence of donut shops

There are a lot of things I don't understand.

In recent months, I've noticed that there are a ton of donut shops everywhere. And I don't mean places that sell donuts and other stuff too, whether it's grocery stores that sell donuts, convenience stores like 7-11 that sell donuts or places that sell donuts and Chinese food. (What is up with THAT anyway?) I mean donut shops where the main thing they sell is donuts. Sometimes, they sell other minor things too, like maybe bagels or muffins or something, but basically, the majority of their business is selling donuts.

Are there really that many people who eat that many donuts on a regular basis to keep all these donut shops in business? I mean, I like the occasional donut, but I generally know it's not very good for me, even less so than a bagel, and probably not even as good as other baked goods. I thought there was a whole health-conscious, fewer-carbs movement that started some time ago. The Atkins craze put an end to a lot of bread-based businesses. I used to love a store called Le Petite Boulangerie. When I was going to college at Cal, there was one about a block south of campus, and I loved being able to go in there and getting any manner of baguette or other fresh-baked goods. I think they might have gone away before the Atkins craze, but I was really sorry to see them go.

So with all the "eat more healthy" push going on, how are SO MANY donut shops able to stay in business? (Yeah, yeah, I've heard the jokes about the cops - I don't think that's an actual reason.)

I know there's a proliferation of coffee houses, but that at least makes more sense to me, since people addicted to caffeine drink a lot of it over the course of a day. And while drinking too much coffee has its own problems, I don't think it's as big an issue as consuming mass quantities of donuts.

Maybe this is something particular to Southern California, or at least the parts of Southern California that I happen to drive through on my way to work or other things that I do, and it's not the case of having a donut shop practically on every street corner in other places?

I don't understand why there are so many donut shops in business.

"Star Trek" - spoiler movie review

Seeing a new "Star Trek" movie is like revisiting my past, to the days when I was enough of a Star Trek nut that I went to conventions and such. OK, so it's not like I saw the original crew during its first run, but I used to really be into Star Trek, even before I was into "Star Wars". I was mostly a Next Generation person, but while I've never seen all of the original Star Trek episodes, I've seen (or at least know of) many of them, and I did see all of the films.

Then I heard that Paramount was re-starting the franchise, with J.J. Abrams directing the new movie. I'm not as enamoured of him as a lot of people are - I like a lot of stuff that he's done, but he's also disappointed me, so while I knew I'd probably go see the new film, I was reserving judgement on the entire idea.

And as it got closer to the release date, and then I saw the trailer for the new movie, I got excited again. The trailer looked awesome. And then, everything culminated in deciding to go to a midnight screening on opening night, which we did last night.


This movie was incredible. And as a Star Trek movie, it was an even more incredible movie. I can't think of a better way to reignite the franchise. I think there was enough in the film so that non-Trek people can still really enjoy the movie, and yet there's enough information given so that some of the more important points are still relayed. And really, if you've had any contact with life, even if you don't do Trek, you do know some of the details like the Kirk/Spock/McCoy relationship. But, if you are knowledgeable in the Trek universe, there are so many little things in this film that you can appreciate.

It's a sort of re-imagining of the Star Trek universe, but what's interesting is that it's not like recent franchises that have taken known stories and characters and used them but totally gone against what the original stories and characters did - the "Miami Vice" movie comes to mind. Yes, there are things in this Trek film that are very different than what happened in Trek canon, but the explanation is that this is actually an alternate reality. Because the Romulan ship and Spock were brought to the past by the black hole that enveloped them, things happened differently than they did in the timeline that we already know. So, the events of this film don't contradict or obliterate what's happened in Trek previously - this is actually a completely different timeline.

The opening segment of the film, all even before you see the title card, sets the tone of the rest of the film in being an incredible segment which sets out some of the story points but already jump-starts the action aspect of the film. George Kirk is given command of the Kelvin when the captain goes over to the attacking Romulan ship and is then promptly killed. Kirk has the ship evacuated and expects to join his pregnant-and-in-the-middle-of-labor wife, but when the autopilot fails, he makes the decision to stay with the ship. His wife pleads with him to leave, but he knows that without the Kelvin laying fire cover against the Romulan ship, the little shuttlecrafts have no chance of escape, so Kirk basically decides to sacrifice himself to save the others. He does live long enough to hear his baby boy being born, whom he names Jim after his wife's father, as opposed to Tiberius after his own father. And then the Kelvin, which Kirk had set on a collision course with the Romulan ship, crashes as Kirk is telling his wife he loves her and she sees the explosion outside the shuttle window. O.M.G. Ok, let's start the movie off by making me tear up, shall we?

There's then a short scene of young Jim Kirk joyriding in a car he's absconded with, and then we see Kirk as a young man, hitting on a hot Starfleet Academy cadet named Uhura who adamantly refuses to tell him her first name. Circumstances (and Christopher Pike) end up convincing a reluctant Kirk to join Starfleet.

Simultaneously on the planet Vulcan, a young Spock is already being tormented for his half-Vulcan/half-human heritage. He is offered admission to the Vulcan Science Academy, but he shocks them by declining and joining Starfleet instead.

One by one, the well-known crew of the Enterprise make their way to the ship, and more action and story happens.


Random notes:

The design of the Romulan ship was really odd. OK, so that's supposed to be in the future, but other than being jagged, it didn't really scream Romulan to me. It mostly looked like a giant jagged metal vegetable flying through space. It didn't look nearly as elegant as a warbird, though, yeah, I know, it was supposed to be a freighter and not a war ship.

I didn't catch the reference myself, but the husband did when Montgomery Scott was explaining why he'd been assigned to the equivalent of Siberia because of his messing around with transporting technology, and he references Admiral Archer's beagle. Well, that would be Jonathan Archer from the TV show "Enterprise", and the beagle would be Porthos. Awww, poor Porthos.

I noticed Chekov's use of "away team" to describe the team dropped off on Earth to stop the drilling. That term was actually developed during Next Generation. In the original series, I think they just used "landing party". And, in subtle Star Trek tradition, the non-recognizable dude is the one who dies - and he happens to have a red suit/parachute.

Why did Sarek have a British accent? Other than that, he was one of the characters that was very different for me. I loved Sarek, but he was always depicted as having been very stern and strict and disapproving of Spock because of his half-human heritage, but this Sarek seemed much softer than that.

Yeah, the Kobayashi Maru segment was just too frickin' hilarious if you already knew the outcome, and then there was the amazing confrontation between Spock and Kirk in the Academy hall.

They always have the obligatory "reveal" shot of the Enterprise, but it still works every time.

First movie out of the chute, and they not only kill Spock's mother, but they also destroy the planet Vulcan and mostly decimate the race. That surprised me. I thought that somehow, the recreation of another black hole that entraps the Romulan ship or something like that would end up resulting in another time travel thing that reverses everything that happened, but that never came to pass.


Chris Pine was really incredible as James Kirk. He has looks similiar to William Shatner during the original series, but he didn't have the staccato talking that most people make fun of Shatner for. He was definitely a terrific leading actor. But his name is so confusing - if you just change one letter of his last name...

Zachary Quinto did a terrific job as Spock, though I will admit that I kept waiting for Sylar to show up. I stopped watching "Heroes", but that doesn't mean I've forgotten how terrifying he was in that role. When Spock is being offered entrance into the Vulcan Science Academy despite his "disadvantage", and he asks them to explain what that means and they mentioned his human mother, I totally expected him to just kill the lot of them (except his father) on the spot. I'm sure all of the actors were feeling the pressure of recreating characters that are very well known and beloved, but how much more pressure was there for Quinto to play Spock while Leonard was there watching him?

Speaking of which, it was really terrific seeing Leonard Nimoy in this film. Yeah, I knew he was going to be in it, but I didn't know how that was going to work (I'm glad I managed to avoid spoilers), and I think they made the time-travel thing work really well. When he ends up meeting his younger self, I loved Spock's line about his general signoff ("live long and prosper") not really working in that situation since it would be self-serving.

Eric Bana was really terrific as Nero, the villain of the story. I'd heard how awful he was in "Hulk", but I thought he was terrific in "The Other Boleyn Girl", so this is the second film I've seen him in where I've really liked him.

Bruce Greenwood is someone I recognize but can't necessarily pinpoint what he's been in, but I do know that I always like him, and I loved that he was playing Christopher Pike. He played the perfect mentor to Kirk.

I don't know how they found Karl Urban, but I want to know how much of his performance was him and how much was him completely channeling DeForest Kelley. He was really remarkable, not doing an imitation of McCoy but actually being a young McCoy, being as irrascible as ever.

Zoe Saldana played Uhura, and she was good. I had no idea whe played the Haitian lady in the last two "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies - I liked her *much* better in this film. So instead of the whole "first interracial kiss" thing with Kirk, she ends up having a romance with Spock. Wonder how that's going to play out in the next film. I can't remember Uhura's heritage - was she from Earth too or another planet?

Simon Pegg was really funny as Scotty. The accent was good, but it wasn't just a generic Scottish accent - he did a pretty good job of being Scotty.

John Cho was fine as Sulu - I had forgotten Sulu's thing with fencing, so that was cool. I heard one of the people after the movie complain that he looked too Korean and not Japanese. Ummm, yeah, that's because he IS Korean. And what's the big deal with the name? After all, Jean-Luc Picard has a British accent.

I actually found Anton Yelchin as Chekov to be very distracting with his Russian accent, though I was amused when Chekov had to give a passcode to the computer that included "Victor", and his pronunciation of the "v" as a "w" made the computer not grant him access.

Now that I've seen the film, I'm very surprised at the casting of Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother. It's a fairly iconic character in Trek history, but her role in this movie was mostly a throw-away. I don't know that it would have mattered that much who was cast as long as they were decent in the one scene where she reassures Spock that she will always be proud of him.

A friend alerted me to the fact that the voice of Kirk's stepfather that comes over the car he's stolen is voiced by Greg Grunberg. I'll have to listen closer next time to see if I recognize his voice.


The music is very nicely done by Michael Giacchino, good use of themes we know and new music that goes great with the action on screen.

In addition to applauding at various other credits, we also applauded when Ben Burtt's credit came on screen.

And then, of course, the dedication credit at the very end to Gene and Majel Barrett Roddenberry was lovely and elicited much applause. What a nice touch.

black and white and red all over

A co-worker alerted me to this commercial. It can't be real. Can it? Seriously? No matter, it's funny. But it doesn't make me want to shop there. Besides, I can't. They don't say I'm allowed to.

"X-Men Origins: Wolverine" - spoiler movie review

I've been a fan of the "X-Men" movies, and I'd seen the trailer for "X-Men Origins: Wolverine", which looked really good, so I was looking forward to seeing the movie.

Overall, I really loved the film. Since I only know the X-Men stories from the movies and not the comics, I don't know how much of Wolverine's back story has been addressed in the comics or whether they took any of those stories to weave into the film, but I think they did a really good job of explaining Logan's background and showing how some of his signature identifications came to be and setting the groundwork for what we know and learn about him in the X-Men films.

The biggest revelation to me is that he has a brother, Victor, who later becomes Sabretooth. I don't think they've talked about him in the X-Men films. The two brothers aren't all that alike though - Victor has a definite evil streak in him.

So when Victor stomped on Logan's protruding-from-his-fingers bones, did that hurt Logan? You can't feel bones, can you? But Logan screamed. Maybe it was the sensation that the breaking caused in his hand? And when those bones break, do they grow back to normal size again? Or do they retract jagged back into his body? Because his metal (ok, so they're made of adamantium, but I can never remember that word, and I had to cut-and-paste to even put that word there) blades were pretty long when they bonded around his bones.

I was amazed at myself that I actually figured out that Logan's girlfriend was going to die. I did not, however, see it coming that the old couple who took him in would die, especially not in that horrible way. That was the most heartbreaking. But that's where he got his jacket and motorcycle from. I wonder what happened to their son. From the way they were talking (why would he have left his clothes there?), it was almost like he was dead. But we don't know that for sure. Maybe at some point, some guy will come up to Logan and say, "Dude, that is so my jacket, and that's my dad's motorcycle, you frickin' thief. Give them back!"

I loved the look on the old couple's face when Logan walked out with half the bathroom sink.

I did not, however, see it coming that the girlfriend was in on it and that she wasn't really dead, although I did have some suspicions about her. When the two trucks were blocking the road and Logan got out to talk to them and almost got in a fight, she got out and talked to them too, and she touched the guy about to beat on Logan. I thought there was something fishy going on about how she managed to persuade him, but then I put it out of my mind. Poor Logan. But she did prove herself to him. After she saved her sister (diamond girl was pretty cool), she went back to help Logan and ended up sacrificing her own life. But not before forcing military dude to walk until his feet bled and then walk some more. That was cool.

I liked seeing all of the new characters, but unfortunately, most of them were killed off, so unless they do even earlier "origins" stories about them, we won't learn any more about them.

Odd random things:


In Nigeria, Wade deflecting the bullets and cutting them in half and killing two guys with the halves in the process was cool. And efficient.

When military dude was trying to pull Logan back in and said that his country needed him, he responded with "I'm Canadian", to which I thought, "No, you're Australian".

The scene when the metal is being applied to Logan's bones was pretty awesome and really painful to watch. And I wonder if military dude was lying to Victor about Victor not being able to handle getting the metal as well. What made Logan ok to go through the process but not Victor?

So I wonder who military dude's son is, the mutant who killed his own mother?


I thought Hugh Jackman did a good job, and he was half-naked during most of the movie and entirely naked during a bit of the movie. Yeah, nice eye candy. I kept wondering how much working out he had to do for this movie to be in that kind of shape and look like that.

I'm not familiar with Liev Schreiber, dude who plays Victor, but he was really good too.

It was fun to see Dominic Monaghan, even if only for a short while.

Oh, and dude who was in charge of the diamond thing in Nigeria was totally dead Dubaku from this season's "24".

Deadpool was pretty interesting (and his lack of a mouth and therefore inability to speak seriously reminded me of Wybie from "Coraline"), and it's just been announced this week that they'll be working on an "origins" film for him as well - an "origins" film is already in the works for Magneto, which should be awesome, even though Ian McKellan won't be able to play him.

I didn't see Stan Lee in the film, nor did I see his credit, though I'll admit they buzzed by faster than I normally remember. I thought he was always in every one of Marvel's movies. Maybe I just missed him.

I loved the uncredited cameo of Patrick Stewart. OK, he looked funny because they had to make him look younger, but it really completed the circle for him to be there.

Speaking of which, one thing that I did absolutely hate about this film was how awful much of the CGI was. I mean, there were other parts where stuff was spectacular, yeah, but then there were other bits that were just amateurish.

When Logan is in the old couple's bathroom, he's examining his new blades. And unlike in the X-Men films where you marvel at them as well, it was pretty obvious that Hugh Jackman was holding his hands up and some tech artist was painting in the CGI that were supposed to be his blades. The parts did not meld together AT ALL. There were scenes of people driving in a car where it was also obvious that the actors were sitting in a car shell and moving backgrounds were being projected behind them in the windows of the car. There are also a few other scenes where it was obvious that the actors were in front of a blue screen, and the background was added in digitally later. The stuff looked layered on, not melded in. For a film of this calibre, it was really surprising for the CGI to be that bad. But then, it wasn't ILM.

And then, there's the issue of the extra scenes. Did you stay all the way through the credits? After a short burst of credits, there was the extra scene where military dude was seen still walking, and then he was stopped by military police because of the general that he killed.

If you stayed all the way through until the end of the credits, then you saw the rubble back at the island, and you saw a hand moving and reaching out to grab his head, which turned out to be Deadpool, and he opened his eyes and his mouth had been slit, and he just said "shhhhhh".

What? You stayed until the end, and that's not the final scene you saw? Instead, you saw Wolverine in a bar, presumably in Japan? Yeah, I didn't see that scene, although I did see it referred to in a story, and I was very confused.

Turns out, there are two different final, one with Deadpool and one with Wolverine. Each theatre has a print that has one of the endings, but there's no way to know which ending you're going to get. Presumably, both will be on the DVD.

when pigs fly

So you can't listen to the news or almost any conversation without hearing people talking and worrying about swine flu. Well, the authorities have been working round the clock, and they think they've pinpointed how it all started.







Yeah, ok, so that picture's been all over the internet. I'm just joining the masses. It's pretty disgusting, but the baby and the pig both look pretty happy, so how bad could it be? And someone thought it was better to stand and take the picture rather than, oh, I don't know, STOP THE BABY FROM LICKING THE PIG'S NOSE.


If you're actually concerned about swine flu, here's a simple test to find out if you have it.


OK, all of that should pretty much tell you how I feel about all the hysteria surrounding the swine flu outbreak.


A few people on a Disney-related discussion board that I'm on have posted inquiries about whether or not Disneyland has made any official statement about the swine flu yet. Following was my response after a few of those inquiries:

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not understanding exactly what kind of "official statement" people are expecting from Disneyland. They're a theme park, not a medical service. The CDC has already made their recommendations on how best to protect oneself. If someone is *really* that afraid, then yeah, I suppose they should just stay locked up at home and avoid any human contact, and if someone is really that worried about getting infected, then no, I guess going into a really crowded public amusement place wouldn't be their idea of a good time.

There's no statement for Disneyland to make. They can't guarantee someone's safety and that no one at Disneyland will have swine flu, and they're also not going to say, "everyone should cancel their plans and not come to Disneyland".

Last week, a retweet came through on my Twitter feed that I really, heartily agree with.

90 ppl get the swine flu & every1 is wearing a face mask. Millions of people have AIDS but no1 wears a condom!

neither one of them even comes close to being Chick Hearn

OK, so the Lakers lost tonight to the Houston Rockets in game one of the second round of the basketball playoffs.

I started listening to the game with about 8 minutes left in the fourth quarter. The Rockets were doing a good job, and the Lakers, not so much. The Rockets went on a 7-0 run and never really looked back. The Lakers had their chance at shots - and they missed horribly. And they didn't stop the Rockets.

I used to love listening to Lakers games on the radio. Even if the Lakers were losing, the games were enjoyable to listen to because of Chick Hearn. I didn't really lose most of my interest in the Lakers until Chick passed away because he was the one that was the consistent voice of the Lakers, no matter who was coaching or playing on the team.

So, it's the closing minutes of the game, and yeah, the Lakers were "supposed" to win, so their impending loss was coming as a bit of a surprise, at least to some people. And then dude who calls the play-by-play (don't know his name, don't care) said, "The Rockets are two minutes away from stealing this game." WHISKEY.TANGO.FOXTROT. S*T*E*A*L*I*N*G? Really. Seriously? What, did the refs hand them the game? Yeah, I heard that the Lakers weren't happy about the officiating, but that happens a lot with a lot of teams, and I didn't hear repeated examples of the refs blatantly making bad calls just so the Rockets could undeservedly beat the Lakers. From what I could tell based on the comments, the Rockets led most of the way through the game, with the Lakers only having the lead a couple of times, and they were no more than a couple point leads that vanished fairly quickly. It sounded like the Rockets had the game in hand most of the way through. To steal something means that it doesn't belong to you, that it belongs to someone else and that you have wrongly appropriated it. That is not what happened tonight. The Rockets beat the Lakers because the Rockets played better. The Lakers at no time were the rightful owners of the win. What an insult to the Rockets to say that their team "stole" the game.

And then, Mr. Color Commentary Guy (again, don't know his name, don't care) chimes in with less than a minute to go that it'll be interesting to see what effect this win has on the Rockets when it comes to game two. To paraphrase, "Will the Rockets be fat cats content to have won one game, or will they be greedy and try to take game two as well?" WHISKEY.TANGO.FOXTROT. G*R*E*E*D*Y? Really. Seriously? I don't remember his exact sentence, but "fat cats" and "greedy" were definitely his terminology. Isn't the point of the games to win, no matter where you are? Are the Rockets somehow supposed to make up for "stealing" game one by simply conceding game two to the Lakers, because after all, they wouldn't want to appear greedy by winning BOTH games, oh no, that would not be becoming of a guest in someone else's home. Give me a frickin' break. The Rockets want to take both games at Staples Center and then win both games in Houston and then be done with the second round and wait for the next round. That's not being greedy. That's called playing the game.

So much of this stems from the assumption that so many of the sports folks have that the finals will be between the Lakers and the Cleveland Cavaliers, because they want a showdown between Kobe Bryant and just-named-season-MVP-today LeBron James. I've heard more than one sports guy say that's what's going to happen, so let's just cut to the chase and get to it. Ummm, yeah, maybe on paper, those are the two teams who would be in the finals. But they don't go by paper - they go by actually playing the games. Because it doesn't always matter what the paper says. Some sports guys say that if the Lakers play at their best, they are unstoppable. Ummm, yeah, but that presumes they will be able to play their best at all times. And anyone who's followed the Lakers at any given time knows that them playing their best can turn on a dime. It's not about who's going to win if everyone plays their best. It's about who actually plays better than the other team. And tonight, it was the Rockets.

So both Lakers broadcasters seemed to come from the position that the Lakers are entitled to be in the finals, and anyone who gets in their way is just being wrong and not nice. If the Lakers screwed up during a game, Chick Hearn would have been the first person to point it out. He was definitely exciting to listen to when the Lakers were doing their thing, but when they weren't, he would tell you that as well, in no uncertain terms and holding back nothing. He never thought the Lakers were entitled to anything - they had to earn it, and if they couldn't be bothered to earn it, they didn't deserve it. He would have had a number of choice words for the Lakers tonight, and using the words "stealing" and "greedy" in reference to the Rockets wouldn't have been among them.

I've not missed Chick so much as I did tonight.

"Terminator Salvation" - movie and prequel book

We were in Borders on Saturday to buy something else (I *love* 40% off coupons!), and I happened to notice that Timothy Zahn has a book out tied to "Terminator Salvation" called "From the Ashes" (I'm including the Amazon link because the Borders link to the book sucks big time). It's billed as an "official prequel" and presumably gives you the story leading up to the events in the movie. The tag line to the book reads: "This is the story you must read before the brand-new movie hits theatres!"

I decided to buy the book on Saturday, but I've decided that I'm not going to read it until after I've seen the movie. I expect the book will set things up so that it makes the movie that much easier to understand, but I also think that lets the movie off the hook for any problems inherent to the movie itself. I love books that are related to or expand on movies, but I also think the movie should stand on its own, and you should not have to rely on a book to have the movie make sense.

So I'll be eager to read the book after I've seen the movie. I'm also planning on getting the official novelization of the movie, partly because I like Alan Dean Foster, who wrote it.

Part of why the prequel book caught my attention is that I love Timothy Zahn. I was introduced to him through the "Heir to the Empire" series of "Star Wars" books, which I absolutely love - Grand Admiral Thrawn and Mara Jade are definitely new characters worthy of being included in the "Star Wars" universe. After I read the first book, I liked his writing style so much that I sought out his catalog of previous books, mostly thanks to used book stores, and I liked him even more after reading those books. In particular, I love the Cobra series and the book of related short stories called "Distant Friends".


So, I'll have two more books to read after I see the movie. We have our midnight screening tickets for opening night. I can't wait!

Disney and M&Ms - a match made in candy heaven

For some time now, it's been possible to order personalized M&Ms (I've done that once, and even though it's a little on the expensive side, it's a lot of fun.), but now, you can get special Disney characters on your M&Ms too.

There are 9 different sets of designs that you can get - Mickey Mouse, fairies, princesses, characters from "Cars", "Toy Story", "Winnie the Pooh" and "High School Musical", princess weddings and Disney babies. Following are the designs in each set.


Mostly Mickey, but Donald seems to have snuck his way in.


Tink and two miscellaneous fairies.


Three of Disney's classic princesses.


Mater and Lightning from "Cars".


Buzz, Woody and alien from the "Toy Story" series.


Pooh and Eeyore and Tigger too.


"High School Musical" features the Wildcats.


Disney princesses have their wedding theme.


Nothing is cuter than a Disney baby.


You can purchase the Disney sets in three different quantities.


The 7 oz. bag for $12.99.


A cool dispenser that comes with three 7 oz. bags, for $59.99.


A 5lb bulk box that you can individually package however you like, making about 50 single servings, for $140.00.


These could be really great for birthday gifts as well as favors for weddings and bridal and baby showers.

real or made-up, it's still a funny story

I don't care if this story is real. I don't care if someone just made it up because it was funny. I still love the story.

Lipstick in School

According to a news report, a certain private school in Brisbane was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the bathroom. That was fine, but after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints. Every night, the maintenance man would remove them, and the next day, the girls would put them back. Finally, the principal decided that something had to be done. She called all the girls to the bathroom and met them there with the maintenance man. She explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night (you can just imagine the yawns from the little princesses). To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, she asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. He took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.

There are teachers.... and then there are educators!!!