Romantic comedies aren't exactly my favorite film genre, but I just saw an amazingly sweet one. It's called "Love Actually" and it's a great piece of ensemble storytelling. Each plotline is unique yet compelling in its own way. There's Hugh Grant as the Tony Blair-ish Prime Minister, who falls for one of his aides. There's Emma Thompson married to Alan Rickman, who is tempted by his secretary. There's Liam Neeson who, after his wife passes away, bonds with his 10-year old stepson and advises the boy through his first puppy love. There's Laura Linney who longs for her co-worker yet denies her own needs for those of her mentally disabled brother. There's Keira Knightly who marries one man yet is longed for by the man's best friend. There's the aging pop singer who realizes that he'd rather spend time with his loyal manager than to any of the women he can have. There's the awkward English guy who goes to America to pursue his goal of finding hot American chicks who will sleep with him just because he's British. And there's many many other story lines that all weave together very well. Highly recommended!

Today I took a LONG exam (nearly 4 hours) for the title of "Staff Analyst." For a couple of weeks prior to the exam, I was studying past questions dealing with flow charts and their crazy symbols (i.e. a diamond is a decision, a rectangle is a process, a triangle is storage). Fortunately, none of that was even on the test! I guess they decided to update the test from its 1930s incarnation. While waiting on line to get into the test, I think I was hit on. I'm not sure, I'm bad about figuring those things out. But she gave me her business card and wrote her cell phone number on it. But then she said something about her boyfriend. I'll never understand women!