Chillin' New Year

New Year's Day brought gorgeous sunny skies to southern New Jersey...and temperatures in the mid-upper 20s. It was too cold to be standing around after I'd just spent the day before running around Center City Philadelphia, so I stayed in Oaklyn today. I did go out to breakfast at the Newton Diner, just as I did last year. The place was packed when I arrived around quarter after 10. I overheard a bus boy mention that two waitresses hadn't bothered to show up for work. It explained the quality of the food and service, too. The waitress was nice, but took forever to get to me (and I'm just one person). While my waffle was delicious, golden on the outside and soft on the inside, the ham was too dry and the hot chocolate tasted more like brown water with a little sugar.

I stopped at WaWa across the street to get a real hot chocolate that tasted like chocolate, milk, and turkey lunchmeat. It's a good thing they weren't nearly as busy as the diner. One cashier said to a customer that five employees called out or didn't show up that morning. (Did I mention how happy I was to have off today?)

I passed the rest of the first day of 2009 quietly. I ran SpyBot and Avast! in an attempt to get this blasted virus off my computer (they didn't work). I baked bread. I watched the rest of The Chronological Donald, Vol 4. I finished Flight of the Silver Turtle. (I really loved both those books, BTW. A little confusing for someone who isn't a sci-fi geek, but still a lot of fun.)

This set was really worth the 31 dollars I spent on it yesterday. Turns out the Donald cartoons of the early 50s were among the ones The Disney Channel tended to show the most when I was a child. I reveled in the delights of such classics as Donald Applecore, Trick or Treat, Working for Peanuts, the Cinemascope Grand Canyonscape and Chips Ahoy, and the wonderful educational featurette Donald in Mathmagic Land. (As someone who still hates math, I really appreciate seeing Donald struggle with it as well!) Disney didn't stop at reviving childhood memories, either. Included as bonus features were ten modern shorts from the 1999 Saturday morning show Mickey Mouse Works. I fondly recall seeing many of those shorts in college, and a bit later as part of Mickey's House of Mouse.