Week 1 in Review

Welcome to the first of a weekly series featuring recent high- and low-lights in Squeaks's small world and elsewhere around the globe (according to news and other sources picked at random). Here goes...

Squeaks's Top 5:

1. My blood test results reveal gross Vitamin D deficiency. Prescribed mega-doses for the next 3 months. This Smeagol needs to get out more. Literally.
2. Update on home guitar lessons: Getting the hang of G2, C2, D, A, and E chords; and the intro to Tom Petty's Free Fallin'. Uh huh. That's right.
3. Back-to-back episodes of Criminal Minds and/or Without A Trace on ION... Until the unsubs and their gruesome deeds creep into my dreams, this new pre-bedtime routine is kinda nice.
4. New volunteer orientation at Clinic by the Bay, a non-profit providing free healthcare to the working uninsured in my own community. Can't wait to get started!
5. Birth of our friends' baby boy, Benjamin!

The Economist's Top 5:

1. Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, marking "Congress's likely descent into bickering and stalemate..."
2. Tensions rise in Cote d'Ivoire, "where Laurent Gbagbo is still refusing to step down after losing his bid for re-election at the end of November."
3. Queensland, Australia, is underwater, "but Prime Minister Julia Gillard has more on her mind than the billions of dollars in damage to mines, farms and cities in the boom state."
4. Boris Nemtsov, former Russian deputy prime minister under Boris Yeltsin -- and a leader of the liberal opposition party -- is arrested, "charged with disobeying the police and swearing, despite video-footage that showed him asking the police to 'calm down'."
5. Suicide bomb kills at least 21 Egyptians, mostly Coptic Christians, but bloggers say it has "nothing to do with a crisis in Muslim-Christian relations, but rather with how all citizens suffer under ubiquitous corruption and oppression."

Umm... Some good news, please? OH! Star Wars Miniland is coming to Legoland California in March 2011.