Normally I pick a fun t-shirt to wear, and then I choose a sweatshirt to match. I would, say, wear a bright turquoise shirt on a cloudy day, and complement it with a green or red sweatshirt for the pop and contrast. But for the past three weeks, I've done it differently:

I broke the time up into three one-week sections, to correspond with my three colors of sweatshirt: Red, Green, and Blue. Then, in each one-week section, I chose a sequence of t-shirt colors and designs to logically complement the week's sweatshirt, ending of course with a pink shirt on Saturday. Here's what I've got so far:

Week One: Red Sweatshirt

Monday - Orange t-shirt

Tuesday - Pink t-shirt

Wednesday - Maroon t-shirt

Thursday - Yellow with orange tie-dye

Friday - Turquoise "Zaves@8" t-shirt with yellow lettering

Saturday (Shabbat) - Pink t-shirt, like always

Week Two: Green Sweatshirt

Sunday: Yellow "MATT3" shirt with turquoise and lime green design

Monday - Sky-blue collar shirt with periodic white stripes

Tuesday - Green t-shirt

Wednesday - Orange t-shirt

Thursday - Purple "Adventure Day Camp" t-shirt with green lettering

Friday - Light blue "Dynamite Wednesday" t-shirt with orange and yellow decal

Saturday (Shabbat) - Pink t-shirt

Week Three: Navy Sweatshirt

Sunday - Yellow t-shirt with iron-on peace sign decal (red and blue)

Monday - Red "Wulapalooza Event Staff" t-shirt with white decals

Tuesday - Green and white-striped collar shirt with periodic blue stripes

Wednesday - Turquoise w/white lettering: "The more you read, the more you know"

Thursday - Yellow t-shirt with red and blue peace sign decal (this one with blue rings on the sleeves instead of grey)

Friday (today) - Grey shirt with colored decal: "Dance the night away"

Tomorrow - Pink t-shirt

On Monday night, I made a pot of Campbell's cheddar soup, with egg noodles to boot. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't as good as their tomato or potato soups!

Let me preface this by explaining my love for tomato soup. It's delicious on a cold dreary day, and (remarkably) on hot and happy ones as well. Always better with egg noodles.

So, soup was on sale. I like cheddar cheese, so how could cheddar soup be bad? (This logic worked perfectly well, by the way, with 'New York Cheddar" Kettle Chips.) Turns out that some things just aren't meant to be made into soup. In fact, even once cooked and mixed with noodles, it still wasn't terribly soupy. It felt a little like someone melted down cheddar cheese, and mixed in some milk. Which very well could be the case.

I dearly love cheese, and my love for soup is incomparable. But if I ever again get the urge to combine them, I'll make sure to have another ingredient in there too. You know, just for flavor. And texture. And color.

No, not Bruce Springsteen. He was awesome. :-) I'm talking about the national anthem.

Jennifer Hudson's perverted rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner disgusted me. Sure, it was passionate and all, and I guess she looked patriotic. But that doesn't change the fact that she CHANGED THE UNDERLYING RHYTHMIC STRUCTURE of our national anthem.

It's one thing when Aretha Franklin changed My Country 'Tis of Thee at Pres. Obama's inauguration. For one, My Country 'Tis of Thee is solely a ceremonial piece. It holds no official status in America, and isn't an official symbol for anything. For another thing, she just changed a couple bars. She didn't fundamentally reinvent the entire piece's foundation.

When Gregory Lee Johnson burned the American flag in 1984, he was protesting actions by the Reagan administration. Maybe he was justified, and maybe he wasn't, but everyone agrees that he had a compelling reason for descrating one of our country's most sacred symbols. Ms. Hudson wasn't protesting a war, or even making a statement. She was simply showing off by

Now, I'll admit that my patriotism is occasionally different than what you'd expect. But I think we can all agree that our national anthem is sacred. It represents not just America right now but all of America's history - the Declaration and the Bill of Rights, freedom from slavery and the right to vote, and yes, even our wars, when they were right and when they were wrong. So I accuse Jennifer Hudson of the unpatriotic perversion of a sacred national symbol, because I am offended.

So last fall, when I was writing the "Noah's Ark-ticle" column for the Collegian, I reviewed Daria Snadowsky's awesome book Anatomy of a Boyfriend. Turns out, my review is mentioned on her blog! How cool is that?

Here's my original review, which is apparently from recent enough that the language doesn't seem forced and childish. :-P