We've now cracked the $6K barrier over at the 'Thon! Considering we only raised $7045.45 last year, I'd say that is pretty darned spectacular. If you haven't linked, donated, and / or sent your photo in yet — you'd better get crackin'. The party is over at 11:59 p.m. EDT this coming Sunday, and won't resume until October 2005!

And now, just because I can...things that have annoyed me lately...

The hurricanes may be gone in Florida (for now at least, *knock on wood*) — but they have been replaced by something almost equally as annoying. The "we're all in this together" commercials. Everything from cars, to furniture, to power companies, to grocery stores. You name it. They all feel our pain. They're all standing side-by-side with us through this crisis. You really wanna help? Screw the no down-payment until January on the SUVs I can't afford anyway and toss me $20 toward the new roof fund, Ford. As it is, I think we both know you owe me after all the cash we poured into that exploding-tire death trap you liked to call a '98 Explorer, now don't we?

Each time one of these airs the husband and I have started to turn to one another and quip, "Schooner Tuna. The tuna with a heart." The commercials are almost as brilliant as our local media repeatedly telling us by radio when the power was still out in over 40% of our county to "just check our website for more hurricane-related information". Granted, I jones so hard when we're knocked offline that if you'll just give me 3% left in the laptop battery and a working land-line, I'll make it connecting to AOL dial-up for seven days somehow if need be — but Jane Q. Public generally isn't that resourceful.

And last but certainly not least, can we just quit it with all the "reunion episodes" planned on primetime television already? Seinfeld. Dallas. Your day has passed. Move along now. You're not even hip enough to get a goodie bag at the Emmy's any longer. You're certainly not worth wasting a Botox-filled evening of my time. Reunion eppies are one step down from "flashback episodes". And we all know the only purpose those serve is to snag the writers and cast a full week's salary for 10 minutes worth of new crap surrounded by 20 minutes worth of commercials and old filler we'd already forgotten previously by the time the credits rolled. No one really wants to watch an aging Charlene Tilton reenact a love scene circa 1981 anyway.

I should've had a V-8.