I have student loans from Sallie Mae.

Sallie Mae cares very much about my privacy.

Therefore, Sallie Mae sends every communication to me as a password protected PDF attachment.

This includes the monthly message that my bill is available to view online.

So, every month, I have to download an attachment, string together a complex password they set up for me, and read through a wordy message which essentially tells me to go to their secure website to pay my bill.

Why do I read each of them? Because I never know when one of those messages might actually be important.

Am I the only one who thinks this process is overkill?

Just send me a message saying “Your bill is now available for viewing on our secure website.” in a plain-text e-mail! Leave the password protected attachments for communications that need to contain sensitive information and/or that I want to keep for reference.

I gained .5 lbs since last weigh-in two weeks ago.

That’s an 18 lb loss since starting the contest.

A fellow Loser thinks that something happened to the official scale here at work. He’s been tracking his progress at home and, according to his log, he lost 4 or 5 lbs. According to the official weigh-in today, he hasn’t lost anything.

I figure that if the scale is messed up, it’s messed up the same way for everyone. So, it won’t affect my standing in the contest. If the scale is not messed up, then I just need to do better. But “I need to do better” is pretty much the attitude I would have no matter what.

8.5/10

Tony Stark runs the largest arms manufacturing company in the world. On a trip to the Middle East to sell their newest weapon, he is kidnapped by terrorists and forced to build a copy. Instead, he builds a high-tech suit of armor and escapes. Upon arriving back in America, he decides to finesse his invention and use it to fight evil.

Not only does this movie have an amazing cast (Robert Downey Jr, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow), but the mix of action, humor, and romance strikes just the right balance. The action scenes are awesome; much better than Transformers because you can actually see what is going on. The character progression of Tony Stark from self-absorbed playboy to a humanitarian superhero is believable.

On the other hand, there are a ton of unbelievable things in the movie. When Tony first uses the suit to fly, he crash lands into a sand dune and emerges from the rubble of his suit virtually unharmed. Trying to perfect the jet propulsion on his boots, Tony shoots up into the metal ceiling so hard he should have broken his spine or cracked his head. And so on and so forth.

Molly wanted to be sure I mentioned the cool computer system Tony used to design his suit. It was sort of like the computers in Minority Report, but taken to the next level: 3D. Given the advanced technology used, I think the film should have been set in the future.

Even though I could critique a lot of the movie, there are enough things that they got right to make me forgive the ridiculous aspects. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it in the theater and will make sure to enjoy it again when it comes out on DVD.

Molly assisted in the writing of this review.

This book was an amusing quick read. It does a good job of presenting the thoughts and attitude of a middle schooler through text and drawings in a (mostly) accurate and entertaining way.

Unfortunately, the main character doesn’t seem to learn any lessons by the end of the book. Because of this, I wouldn’t recommend it for actual middle schoolers. As for high schoolers and adults, I think it is a book worth borrowing from the library.

Molly and I went with her Aunt Judith, Uncle Robin, and their two nephews to see the Indians play the Yankees on Saturday.

I’m not a sports fan, but I found some of the game to be pretty exciting. The Indians scored three runs in the second inning, the Yankees scored three runs in the sixth inning, and the Indians took the game with a run in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Molly’s uncle keeps up with the Indians pretty well and provided a running commentary throughout the game. I probably know more about baseball now than I ever have.

There was an amusing moment when the Yankees had a player up to bat and Robin had never heard of him. I was sure that I had, which was pretty surprising considering my low interest in the sport. After some discussion, Judith cleared up the matter by mentioning that the player shared a similar name with the former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.