Musings
03/16/08 -
uniquely priya - My wife is a happy person with the ability to see the positive in a situation. Her cheerful disposition helps her make friends easily. She is one of the finest managers I have seen, meticulous about completing every task on time with quality and within budget. Sudha was the only female student in her Engineering class at Hubli, a conservative town in North Karnataka. She was a first ranker in all...
03/16/08 -
Certifiable Princess - I am writing to thank you for being the low life piece of scum that you are. Not only did you feel it was okay to smash my passenger window of my car and steal my purse, but you also were inclined to use my credit card. Sadly for you, Crack Whore, you weren't able to use my card. It is maxxed out. I also appreciate you using, rather, attempting to use my card at a 24 hour gas station that is all...
03/16/08 -
Blistered Avalon - When I was little, I dreamed of being chased. Sometimes, the assailant was the thumbtacks hanging posters above the head of my bed - they would fly through the air, aiming to stab me, and there was no where I could run that they couldn’t follow. Sometimes the assailant would be an unknown man, and no matter which room I hid in, he would always be a step behind in. I would eventually escape our...
03/15/08 -
Nerd Litter - I know I should be writing about current music, this being one of those shiny newfangled MP3 thingies I've been hearing so much about. But today, I can't. It'd be disingenuous to pretend I can listen to anything but a nearly two-year-old song, "Coming Down The Hill" by El Perro del Mar. Since recently getting her new album, From The Valley to the Stars, I decided I should first revisit 2006's...
03/14/08 -
Ian's Blog - Out of a lack of inspiration I’ve been tardy on blog posting lately. But thanks to Emily and Litlove I don’t need to come up with a subject—I’ve been tagged for a meme! This is the Kindness Meme: 1. List five kind things you do for yourself. 1) Have my shows: Now that I’m off most nights I actually have a TV schedule. Here it is: Sunday: HBO—they just finished what just might...
03/14/08 -
Amazon - Well, good morning, friends. I was looking through my collection of previously-written short-shorts and decided to share another anecdote with you. I hope you find it amusing in a "quaint" way. Before I continue, I'd like to point out that the comment button on my last blog (Fading Eyesight) failed to work. Many of you complained that Amazon wouldn't let them post. I reported the problem...
03/13/08 -
Hooks and Bullets - Today, I made my usual run through one of my favorite web sites, Michigan Sportsman, looking to see if there were any hot topics that I might need to write about this morning. The first one I saw was a post titled hunting partners, and for what ever reason I was intrigued to read it. The gentleman went on to say how he had just lost his hunting partner, which happened to be his beagle dog, and...
03/13/08 -
BluePrint Zine - Past midnight I lay here contemplating what happened to my life, and the memories of being a child and growing up. For all these things seem to be vacant from my mind, as I can only recall small glimpses of my childhood. Where did my story begin and how I got to where I am is a question that I ask myself, the answer lies within my dying memory. ...
03/13/08 -
My Journey to Eliminate Debt - In my post: Eliminate Debt: Where do I start? I recommended doing a financial timeline, listing all the events that have lead up to your current financial position. Doing this exercise has helped me a lot so I have decided to share my financial timeline with my readers. Teen years I paid cash for what I wanted, earned money from doing markets with mum Early 20's Had a good job, the first thing I...
03/12/08 -
Beautiful World - So I’ve made it my goal to start getting up earlier and go running. If I go to bed at a decent hour, my body usually wakes itself up around 6am anyway. I just have to choose whether to follow through with that initial urge… or not. I usually choose not, roll over, and go back to sleep....
03/12/08 -
17 Seeds - With eyes like sweet caramel and a thick head of blond hair curling playfully to the side, just one look from that broad-shouldered boy would send me places I knew a young black woman in the Blacklands of North Carolina shouldn’t go. He wasn’t the first white boy that I’d turned a furtively affectionate eye toward but he was the first to return with a longing of his own....
03/12/08 -
Mommy's Blog - You know how making bold statements that begin with words like, “I never…” is kind of a bad idea? Well, so is saying that you’ve prayed for the health of your children, because right after I wrote that in my last post, there was an injury. It seems praying for the health of my children wasn’t enough. I should have also said a prayer to offset my parental stupidity. Or perhaps been more...
03/11/08 -
Mormon Mentality - I fly too much for work - sadly I achieved platinum status on two airlines last year. I like to observe people who are in the plane and try to figure out why and where they are going. Some are easy to figure out - the vacationers. Others are clearly students headed somewhere, while there are also a significant number of business travelers, particularly on flights going to New York City. And then...
03/11/08 -
Seven Miles to Nowhere - I'm 3/4 Italian. My dad's full-blooded, both sides of his family having come from Sicily; my mom's 1/2 on her father's side. Growing up, I was lucky enough to have known my mother's grandfather until I was into High School. I knew he came over on the boat when he was 12 or 13. I knew that he came knowing no English, that his family settled in Pennsylvania and then moved to Akron to work in the...
03/11/08 -
CBEB's - Like any red-blooded American teenager, I grew up worshipping at the altar of Led Zeppelin. At one point in my life, I owned all their official albums, plus a live bootleg (note: this was before In Through the Out Door was released, so I can proudly say I never owned that piece of shit). I even had that big-ass Led Zeppelin poster hanging on my wall....
03/10/08 -
Will In The World - Conferences today (I’m writing this from my office); USC’s Writing Program requires instructors to do one-on-one conferences with each student once per assignment, of which there are 5. I’m basically, then, the one professor my students really connect with to some real degree. I like that. It opens it all up to remind everyone that my class isn’t about the room it’s in. ...
03/10/08 -
Big Blue Barn West - I watched in amazement as the family fell apart. I wasn’t surprised by my mother’s reaction – even though she had declared many times that she was going to leave him and wanted a divorce. In the end they were a couple of months short of being married for 50 years. It was my siblings that surprised me so much....
03/10/08 -
H^2 - For the longest time, computers and computer related things have been my hobby. Most recently building & tinkering with my HTPC has been an ongoing thing in my house, and now that it’s mostly complete (a good working setup that won’t need to be upgraded for quite awhile), It’s time to move on to something else. After all, I’ve made my hobby (computers) my job. ...
03/09/08 -
Beetqueen - I touch his nose and make a boop noise and he disolves into gigles. I can do this for five minutes straight, each time getting the same bout of hysteria, and then two seconds later, stone cold silence. My husband can play a snoring game with him,* and yet when I try, my son throws me a look of “are you kidding me?” and turns right back to his stuffed monkey. One day he is fascinated by the toy...
03/09/08 -
laelaps - Given how much time I spend writing at a computer (be it for this blog or my book), I thought I'd indulge in a little more navel-gazing about my writing habits. What I write is usually dictated by my surroundings and the time of day, and as much as I might like to change things a bit I can't help my own quirks & predilections....
03/09/08 -
beanland - Then there was the gathering up of stuff. Stuff to take care of me. Stuff to take care of Mackenzie. My own private food supply because did I mention the hospital food was nasty? Assorted things Scott had grabbed “just in case” when I sent him home to get my “hospital bag” after the doctor broke my water. Um, I hadn’t packed a hospital bag but he could tell I was in no mood to quibble so...
03/07/08 -
Amberfire.In.Us - Are you a coffee lover? It seems in the last 10 years, we have all become coffee snobs! How did that happen I wonder? Good marketing? I don’t know how suddenly overnight it became acceptable to pay $5.00 to buy a cup of coffee. It seems weird to me, yet we all seem to do it....
03/07/08 -
Ken's Blog - Today a friend asked me the following question: “Blogs are a very public way of revealing thoughts. Did/does it make you uncomfortable at times?” A very good question. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the answer is non-trivial. The best analogy I can think of is with driving a car...
03/07/08 -
Adventures of a Bad Ass - We pack up after work and drive down to the home of our hiking buddies, Skidmark and Balloo, for Skidmark's 30th birthday bash. Lots of friends, lots of beer. Our gift to Skidmark was a framed photograph of a group of hikers (her included) in varying stages of undress at Bryant Ridge Shelter in Virginia....
03/06/08 -
Blistered Avalon - When I was little, I dreamed of being chased. Sometimes, the assailant was the thumbtacks hanging posters above the head of my bed - they would fly through the air, aiming to stab me, and there was no where I could run that they couldn’t follow. Sometimes the assailant would be an unknown man, and no matter which room I hid in, he would always be a step behind in. I would eventually escape our...
03/06/08 -
If Mom Says OK - Don’t know why it took me so long for this fact to hit me, but today I realized that I was now outnumbered in my own home. It went from a fairly balanced male/female ratio to one that is clearly stacked against me. (I say ‘fairly’ because while there were technically two women in the household, only one could truly be called a ‘full-time’ resident - what with one being a high school senior...
03/06/08 -
Jackie Cameron - One of the joys of blogging is that from time to time somebody else comes up with the idea for your post. And it is now time for Bob Hruzek’s What I Learned from ….monthly writing project. This month the theme is - THE LAW. I thought and thought, I started writing and then I stopped. I have really taxed my brain on this one. ...
03/05/08 -
Chasing Paradise - My sister is having an affair. She’s been married to my brother-in-law for nearly 17 years. But they’ve been together for 20. She first told me about The Other Man in January. I had suspected something for a while. Just the way she talked about him was enough to raise eyebrows and suspicions. Something seemed not right about it. Like they were more than friends....
03/05/08 -
Just Peachy Baby - Before I was a mom, I didn't have that much exposure to playground politics. I mean, I can't even remember when I had actually stepped onto a playground as an adult. Sure, I've been at parks for barbecues and picnics. And I've seen kids playing on the jungle gyms, swings and slides. At a distance....
03/05/08 -
The Girl From The Ghetto - Sure, it’s hard to think back 23 years and just pick only 10 meaningful concerts. I had it down to 13, and I’m still upset I couldn’t at least put in Eminem in my top 10. So I’m giving him a shout-out here. That day we spent on Ford Field together was awesome. I was close enough to make a stage dive and get kicked out of there. ...
03/04/08 -
juno henry - It’s been over a year since Henry and I broke up, and I’ve said very little about the relationship that was, since that happened. This is not me breaking my silence. Not exactly. But i feel moved to write, which happens less and less frequently these days, as I feel my world slowly crumble before my eyes — so I let the muse speak from within me, and I lay myself bare before you. ...
03/04/08 -
hannah's blog - Gypsy was a really good dog and I’m sad at her demise, not because she’s free of her restricted but protected life, but because I was always been ambivalent about keeping another creature captive. And yet, had she run free, her life would have been a lot shorter. It was a lesser of two evils situation that we got into because my mother wanted a dog in exchange for being compliant and agreeing...
03/04/08 -
sleep eat run - I didn’t realize how much I truly missed having a kitchen until I got back into the kitchen. I haven’t been cooking much since I went out to dinner twice over the weekend; that’s not a normal phenomenon for my family but we were celebrating a bunch of birthdays over the weekend so treats were in order. But today I “got my feet wet” in cooking again: I woke up this morning, toasted (!!!)...
03/03/08 -
ontario locavore - One of the things I have had to come to terms with when I switched to not only eating local but to having a holistic household in general is that I am living much more closely with nature now. Without chemicals and pesticides on my food and floors, I find bugs in the strangest places. Several time, for example, I have opened my fridge to find a snail crawling across the milk jug or up one of the...
03/03/08 -
write or die - True to nature, I had not done the exercises regularly during my illness. Once I returned to work on Tuesday (the weather was cold, but no rain!), I let the need to get caught up overwhelm my need to do the exercises. I had to force myself to take the time to return to PT on Thursday. I had lost a lot of the movement previously gained. After an hour of walking on the treadmill, doing the stretching...
03/03/08 -
Flying High - Well there are loads of things that run thru my head............ Scared of what future holds for me ... i am excited but a lil scared i dont know what am i suppose to look out for, its like rite now i am flying aimlessly. How do i know wat is rite or wrong for me how do i read the signs?? But before all that i dont know if i have completely shut off my past and how do u do that? or how do i know...
03/02/08 -
lyndas world - What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? Holy crap, my back hurts. Do I blame Dan or the cat for pushing me out of bed at 4:30 in the morning? What were you doing 12 AM last night? Playing World of Warcraft and chatting....
03/02/08 -
lucy loves australia - I was having a think the other day about what options there are for you if you are scared of flying, but still want to visit Australia. There are 2 options really — one is to get there overland and/or by sea. The other is conquering your fear of flying (there is probably a third option that involves tranquilisers, but not too sure on the legalities of that one!). So, firstly — conquering...
03/02/08 -
my plain view - I was talking last night about how I wish I had learned to ski when I was little so that I wouldn't be so afraid now. When asked what difference it would have made Laurie and I said, "When you are little, you don't know any better. You don't know that when you fall, it is going to hurt! You don't know that you could lose control and going flying off of a mountain (Jason, it is possible).” You just...
02/29/08 -
Dani Rodrik - In my senior year at Harvard, I applied to six different graduate programs: a business school (HBS), a program in international relations (Fletcher), a doctoral program in political science (Harvard), a doctoral program in economics (Yale), and two public policy schools (HKS and WWS). In other words, I was as confused about my career goals as you can imagine. Once again, I was the beneficiary of...
02/29/08 -
dilbert blog - The biggest problem with any city is all the traffic. And much of that traffic can be avoided if the city is designed right. I imagine homes above ground, connected by a network of underground bike and robot paths. The bike paths would allow weather-free, flat paths, and parking, from anywhere to anywhere in the city. No cars to contend with, and wide enough for senior citizens to putter around...
02/29/08 -
kents bike - We've had some of those warm, clear days we seem to get every February in Issaquah, the days that sucker you into thinking spring is just around the corner and then the cold rain returns for many more weeks. But for now, it's wonderful. I'm out running a bunch of small errands on my bike when I see her. She's walking her dog, but stopping every few feet to pick up trash and shove it in a big plastic...
02/28/08 -
the reel addict - Even worse, it seems like you’re also going the Eddie Murphy/Tim Allen route and starting to make too mainly family friendly movies. Though THE GAME PLAN was cute, you’ve got another Disney remake in the works (RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN), and it was just announced that you’re starring in a film called THE TOOTH FAIRY where you will apparently play a guy who has to save the tooth fairy kingdom....
02/28/08 -
mouse words - I love to shop, but sometimes buying eludes me. I’m notorious for being indecisive in the area of my wardrobe. I often wind making unwise purchases in a last-minute rush as the store closes. That means I’ll be back shopping again soon, after I realize the outfit I put together is really pathetic. Even when I can make a decision, there has to be a catch. Like the last time I went shopping for...
02/28/08 -
the daily burns - I am not very romantic. I appreciate romance & am incredibly grateful that my husband IS romantic, however, I lack…something. I tend to be more utilitarian practical. I love practical gifts. Our first christmas together ryan bought me a pair of diamond earrings & a (really cool) toiletry bag. I apparently gushed a little too much over the toiletry bag & not enough over the earrings…i could be...
02/27/08 -
poot and cubby - The other day after we dropped Elliot off at preschool, Arlo and I went to Starbucks. We were waiting in line behind a cop. Even though I’ve never been arrested (or even pulled over), cops always make me nervous. As I stood behind this tall, authoritative man, I wondered if I was breaking an obscure law that I was unaware of. He turned around suddenly and I felt sure that it was all over. That I...
02/27/08 -
Dani Rodrik - When I applied to Harvard College as a high school senior from Turkey, I wrote on my application form that I wanted to major in electrical engineering. Huh? Wake up Dani, there is no electrical engineering major at Harvard College! Nonetheless, I was admitted, through some quirk of the Harvard admission process which I learned about years later....
02/27/08 -
economonkey - You might not need money to be happy, but unless you feel like living off the grid and growing your own food (in which case, I say good for you) you’re always going to have bills to pay, so you need money to live. For most people this means getting sucked into a life of wage slavery. Hate your job? Suck it up, you need the money. Feel like taking six months off to write a novel or travel the...
02/26/08 -
retarded rugrat - Most of you know what issues I have with shopping for pants. I have an adult sized waist, and tiny little kids legs. In other words, I’m short enough, but not thin enough to get into kids ski pants. So finding ski pants was always going to be an issue for me. The other issue was price. Seeing ski pants priced at $449.99 was a real downer. As we made our way through the stores, I began to feel...
02/26/08 -
2Blowhards - Yup, that's right: Today the in-laws received a business-solicitation letter pitching the idea of buying cremation services now rather than waiting 'till the usual time. Some alluring passages from the Neptune Society's letter: ...
02/26/08 -
run jen run - Babies are annoying because they cry a lot and poop in their pants. Kids are annoying because they ask too many questions and need too much attention. Teens are annoying because they wear clothes that are a) too small or b) too big. Twenty-somethings are annoying because they think they run the world. And then people over 60 are annoying because they think they have earned the right to be rude to...
02/26/08 -
The Rotund - So, let’s discuss. Does a fat body have to be portrayed in a “fat positive” light in order for something to count as “fat positive” art? In other words, does the focus of art that supports the concept of fat acceptance have to make beautifying fat a part of its mission? We talk a lot about Leonard Nimoy’s Full Body Project. The images are gorgeous celebrations of the body. Another...
02/26/08 -
The Writer Bee - As you may or may not recall, it was just a little over 2 years ago that I was running from Cujo and broke my foot at the ski house I was a part of in Killington, VT. It was a long time healing and I ended up going to the closing on my house with crutches. I worked hard, though, and was still able to hike the Inca Trail only 4 months later. The worst was over…or so I thought. I’ve had a...
02/26/08 -
ezra klein - In general, I don't pressure myself to post on weekends. If I'm around, I do. If not, not. Today, however, I was absent for an altogether sadder reason. I was in New York, attending the memorial service for the younger brother of a dear friend. My friend's sibling was an extraordinary young man: He was born with health problems that left him mute, and with some facial disfigurement. His was a...
02/24/08 -
beet queen - My son had his first fever on Monday. I thought he felt warm from the moment he got up, but it took a few hours of him wanting to snuggle to convince me the body heat he was producing wasn’t just another genetic link he shares with my husband. My son is not a snuggler. He is far too busy running all over the living room, trying to climb everything and hunting for carpet fuzz to patronize me by...
02/24/08 -
throwing things - There was so much -- so much! -- hype about the quality and professionalism (or ringerism) of this year's American Idol crop that the show almost convinced us to forget that it's not necessarily the best singers who make the best pop stars -- it's the ones best able to connect with the current pay-for-downloading audience. It's a good thing that we had Simon to remind us, ever-more desperately, that...
02/24/08 -
teachers college - I learned that it is necessary to make an example sometimes, but you can never make an example out of a student at that student’s expense, nor can you make an example out of a student just for the sake of making an example. I also learned that a good teacher has a plan for when things like what follows happen. I had to divert to plan B with the students… I originally had planned to lead the...
02/22/08 -
Nurse Sean - I walked through my front door at 20:15 last night feeling beaten and broken. My brain felt like it had been placed in a blender on high–simple thoughts felt like complex calculus equations. It wasn’t a bad week, per say. It was simply busy beyond belief. And it wasn’t really a fun busy in which I was floating from one fascinating challenge to another. No, it was just wall-to-wall basic...
02/22/08 -
the other side of kim - My antipathy towards new cartridges and calibers has been extremely well-documented, so when Reader Ed K. wrote to me to ask whether I’d heard about the new cartridge offering, the .327 Federal Magnum, I wasn’t that enthused, at first. I’d heard about it, but never followed up with some research (because when it was announced in November 2007 I was deep in “I’m Going To Vienna!” mode...
02/22/08 -
byzantium shores - In terms of preferred times of day, I'm really pretty schizophrenic. I can pick reasons for liking every time of day. I used to loathe mornings, but years of getting up early have made me attuned to morning's charms. There's a crispness in the air on a fall morning, and on a humid summer morning, if you get up early enough, the mist hangs around the ground and dampens the sound of the world. I love...
02/21/08 -
rachel lucas - My totally awesome boyfriend, “Rupert”, who lives with me and is the only reason I eat square meals on a regular basis and don’t dress up my dogs every day, was at work last week when he got a call from his mom telling him a package had arrived in her mail from the National Guard, addressed to Rupert. It’d taken a few weeks since it was postmarked to get to her because they didn’t have...
02/21/08 -
2Blowhards - It's not yet Hong Kong. Or even Manhattan. Not yet, anyway. But I wouldn't be surprised if Seattle's planners and their political and media allies, deep down in their hearts, would like the city to resemble those places. When I was growing up, Seattle was a city of detached houses. There were a few areas with "high rise" (in Seattle's case, six floors and higher) apartment buildings. Other areas...
02/21/08 -
Escape Brooklyn - Last night I had one of those "New York City is so great" moments. It lasted a couple of hours. I had coffee after work with a friend, then met DH for a free screening of that new movie Penelope. (Cute but Reese Witherspoon needed a much bigger part.) And I kept thinking: isn't NYC fantastic? Where else could I live and experience this? And what a great deal to see a new release movie for free!...
02/21/08 -
stuff white people like - Many white people will look into the window of an ethnic restaurant to see if there are other white people in there. It is determined to be an acceptable restaurant if the white people in there are accompanied by ethnic friends. But if there is a table occupied entirely by white people, it is deemed unacceptable. The arrival of the “other white people” to either restaurants or vacation spots...
02/21/08 -
big ass belle - Kayla is blind and paralyzed on one side. She is lying in her bed in pediatric ICU, slowly turning her head to the left, where she grimaces, shivers and then repeats. Over and over she does this, a pained writhing, the sole outward manifestation of her swelling brain and spinal cord trauma. Head injury. Blunt force trauma. These dreadful things would seem mysterious ~ what happened to this little...
02/21/08 -
evilganome - I am going to be getting an award from the school I work for. It's a pretty big deal. The award is given out by the school, not just the department. I guess I sort of felt pretty good about it when I first heard, but it took on a whole new meaning when I found out I had been nominated by the students. The young people in our grad program are very busy. They probably have a heavier workload than...
02/20/08 -
roboppy - People usually ask me if working at Serious Eats entails gorging on free food all the time. No, most definitely not. ...I mean, there is a ginormous apple pie in the fridge right now (about the size of a baby's bathtub or an obese cat) that I eat a slice of nearly every day and will probably last for the rest of the month, but we don't usually have giant pies lurking in our kitchen. I swear....
02/20/08 -
fattening of america - Those of you who read The Fattening of America remember my friend Mark. He’s the guy who had the unprotected sex with the woman from planned parenthood. Mark was used to introduce the notion of morale hazard. This is the economic concept that says that, due to insurance, individuals may change their behavior and not engage in as much preventive care. As discussed in the book, Mark is a thrill...
02/20/08 -
fops and dandies - In addition to a Super Stop & Shop, Northport is also home to a Salvation Army Family Store. At first glance, it looks really discouraging and forbidding: it's right by the train station, monolithic, and sits squarely in the middle of a lot, leaving no real parking spaces. But once inside, and after spending an hour going through each aisle (time always flies by when thrifting), I found a LOT of...
02/19/08 -
Escapable Logic - The suit they wore was an Astronaut’s suit. They likewise carried a portable air conditioner around with them. Everything about the SR-71 mission was cool and macho enough to twang the heart of any red-blooded American male. Just one thing about Ben Bowles is an exception to the clichéd archetype of the macho fighter pilot: ...
02/19/08 -
bedouina - I bought a wig today. For my Lebanese and non-California readers, I apologize for no makeup, but this is the way women look in the Bay Area. I should have put on lipstick but I forgot... This is what three months of chemotherapy looks like. Below are pictures of me over the last six ten years. My own family has trouble recognizing me from one day to the next....
02/19/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - I spent a few hours with my accountant this morning to figure out my taxes. There was a time I tried to do this myself, but after once having to pay a shocking amount in penalties for a mistake I made on the federal form that the IRS caught three years later (and yup, I was liable for three years of penalties), I've found that having an accountant is well worth the investment. This year, I was...
02/18/08 -
the other side of kim - I think women don’t understand how clinical men can be when it comes to analyzing a relationship. (Note: just because we don’t talk about our relationship with you, doesn’t mean we don’t analyze it.) Here’s how I explain it. I think that men keep a running ledger going in their subconscious—all the good/great things about their relationship on the one side, and all the bad/terrible...
02/18/08 -
Corduroy orange - If anyone in Pittsburgh wants to try a cricket, stop in at Reyna Foods, 21st and Penn in the Strip, where crickets come in a variety of flavors. I tried a sour cream and onion flavored cricket last weekend. Truth be told, it was so dusted with the sour cream and onion flavor that I’m not sure the cricket part provided anything but crunch, but it was an interesting experience nonetheless, though...
02/18/08 -
Bats In My Belfry - Mushy Peas, not just for eating. I suppose I ought to get those put back in the cupboard. Hard to see but I’ve gotten pretty anal about lifelines. Thanks to the sensible comments from Stellaluna and Himself, I’ve gotten over feeling like I’m “wussing out” using lifelines. In fact, I find it quite freeing. After counting stitches obsessively to be sure I’m on the right count and pattern,...
02/15/08 -
rachel lucas - It takes a special kind of self-absorption to claim to know - without any doubt - how other people think and feel, especially when you’re talking about enormous groups, such as “women”. Add to that self-absorption a thick squirt of projection and you get statements like this: Every woman I know — no matter how successful and ambitious, how financially and emotionally secure — feels...
02/15/08 -
dilbert blog - When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh....
02/15/08 -
foothills - Ever since Nicaea, the Church has held that Christ has two natures: He is fully human, and fully divine, at one and the same time. His two natures cannot be separated, but are nevertheless distinct. This is a difficult thing to keep in mind (he said with dry understatement). While knowing and believing that Jesus is God-Incarnate, Man Divine, I tend not to think about Jesus’ human side. But Jesus...
02/15/08 -
Texas Liberal - Women, gays, blacks, and self-defined punk rockers make the most reliable friends. At least they did for the person I had become. Knowledge is not inherently power. It depends if you are in a situation where what you know can be applied. However, the more broad perspective on life that comes from knowledge is a form of power because it allows you to better understand and take advantage of your...
02/15/08 -
11d - Last year, it became obvious that we needed to fix up the kitchen sooner than later. The stove was too small and out dated. The ceiling was sagging from a leaky tub upstairs. It was dark and ugly and cramped. So, we started squirreling away money and buying the kitchen magazines. Now, if you want a kitchen that will be just fine for making waffles and burgers, you can get by with a $20,000 kitchen....
02/15/08 -
the donovan - I have always had a fascination with firearms. I got my first gun, a M1873 Springfield Trapdoor, when I was 15, as part of a family distribution of guns from the old family hardware store. All the males in the family got one. I still have it, natch. The first one I bought myself, was a Commission 88 Mauser, which I bought at Woolco, in 1975, the day I turned 18 and could buy one. It was $35 or...
02/13/08 -
ironic sans - Thursday is Valentine’s Day, a holiday where it’s customary to give a card to your loved one just to say “I Love You.” But even before the Catholic Church decided to honor one of its Saints with a holiday on February 14, this month was celebrated as a month of fertility festivals going all the way back to ancient Greece and Rome. I’ve decided to honor an entirely different group of people...
02/13/08 -
dilbert blog - When I think of the ways I could die, almost all of them are better than being killed by flying poop. That’s the sort of thing that could erase a lifetime of accomplishment. I would instantly stop being the guy who created Dilbert and forever be known as the cartoonist whose head was crushed by a turd. If I die from frozen restroom waste, my friends and family would have trouble stifling a laugh....
02/13/08 -
Jamie Abroad - I started this blog about two and a half years ago, living in a borrowed room at a friend’s house, translating for free room and board, living on about $100 a month, rewriting essays until three or four in the morning. And now I’m sitting down to finish it, living in a borrowed room at a new friend’s house, my life stuffed into a backpack. In one week I'll be on the boat to China, not much...
02/12/08 -
3quarksdaily - Learning about the Museum of Broken Relationships in Berlin (it really does exist...), I asked readers to write in with an artifact that deserved to go on view there. It need not be a concrete artifact, but could be a memory, an idea, a painting, or a puppy, and anonymized entries were welcome. To say one word more than that would be to seriously take the fun out of what follows. ...
02/12/08 -
Always Aroused - Cut him some slack, I told myself. After a long dull marriage, he’s in the first heady rush of sexual exploration. He just needs to find his sea legs. He’ll be fine. With those hopeful thoughts in mind, I eventually scheduled a coffee date with Mr. SV for a week in the future. In the meantime, we continued to make each other’s acquaintance over the phone and on instant messenger. One...
02/12/08 -
beanland - Until I became a parent, I didn’t realize how those two things related. Now I know that, at least during this stage of parenting, they are inextricably linked. And so our story begins. Nighttimes are going very well for us, all things considered. But they invariably go better for Scott because he is not the one waking up at odd hours and trying to fumble in the dark to feed a ravenous...
02/11/08 -
certifiable princess - Sadly for you, Crack Whore, you weren't able to use my card. It is maxxed out. I also appreciate you using, rather, attempting to use my card at a 24 hour gas station that is all lit up and has cameras everywhere. We have your transaction on receipt and your ugly fucked up mutilated looking mug on video. Do you not realize that a crack whore such as yourself would be noticed immediately? You are...
02/11/08 -
bitch phd - Niece was born, obviously, a long time before PK was. I don't think my sister will mind my saying that niece was unplanned, and conceived while sis was still in college; sis spent a few years as a pretty damn poor single mom, and then one ill-advised year married to niece's dad (a nice guy, but somewhat trifling, as they say). Sis married again a year or so after the divorce, and she and brother-in-law...
02/11/08 -
Crooked Timber - The fun continues in the 4th sentence so allow me to add that: “Bars such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Galaxy or Hershey must be labelled ‘family milk chocolate’ in the EU, as they don’t contain enough chocolate to count as chocolate under these rules!” So yes, it’s worth noting that chocolate is not immune to policy considerations. It may sound silly, but it’s obviously a huge industry...
02/10/08 -
College Callgirl - As a young girl, I eventually acquired one porno tape, Masseuse II, given to me by an enterprising school chum who got a handjob for his trouble. I liked the Randy West and Steven St. Croix scenes a lot because they were both kind of mean and rape-y, if not that attractive. And the plot was good; I still think it’s really hot to roleplay the legitimate masseuse who lets herself be talked into/coerced...
02/10/08 -
sarah pullman - In slightly less good news, there were a few sad casualties among the things I shipped from Toronto on Greyhound. Of course, I managed to wave goodbye to my things just as the temperatures across the centre of Canada dropped insanely. So my boxes of belongings voyaged across this fabulous but frozen country, transferring between trucks 3 times I'm told, in temperatures averaging around -30ºC....
02/10/08 -
mochi runner - The reception venue was beautifully lit with candles and little white lights. I wish I had pictures of the actual wedding to share (the bride and groom are just about the cutest couple ever and the ceremony was beautiful), but I kind of stink at picture taking. Also, I'm not sure I would have been able to juggle a camera and bouquet of flowers. I was so sad to leave my Ole girls and Minnesota....
02/08/08 -
beet queen - Ever since my son was born I have a pretty high tolerance for gross. Not that he’s particularly dirty or overly messy, but he is nearing his first birthday and feeding time for him has become good practice if I ever find myself in say, a war zone. I can duck and dodge bits of pasta, carrots and all sorts of fruit chunks like a pro. In addition to my food evasion tactics, I have also grown...
02/08/08 -
Escape from LA - So the last day and a half I have been pretty low, but there are some things that happened..actually one in particular that made me remember the little things....I got a postcard from Winter Park which is where I hurt my knee...a bit dazed and confused it took me about 3 minutes to figure out who Mitch Wesp was...wow...it dawned on me...he was the Ski Patrol that took me down in a sled... a big bear...
02/08/08 -
Dangerous Girl - I think sometimes people attribute my anger management problem to the fact that I'm from Detroit. That makes sense I guess; Detroit's an easy target. You can know nothing about it but still have some cursory understanding that it's a rough place. And it is...but it isn't. In a lot of ways it just got the short end of the stick for like 40 years. But no, that's not why I'm such a psycho. Besides,...
02/07/08 -
matt cozart - Brought together without order, distinction, or design (for sex) to divide or subdivide into branches or subdivisions that may be read with ease to dishearten a schoolmaster one versed or skilled in treating diseases of the eye characteristic of woman or womankind bred from the best or purest blood or stock a cup-shaped vessel with a long handle, intended for dipping up and pouring...
02/07/08 -
just hungry - A Dutch friend of mine asked me today, "What were your impressions of the food in the Netherlands?" I had to think a bit, especially since I've only visited there twice, briefly, and only Amsterdam both times. It also got me thinking about all the good, and bad, memorable moments I've had relating to food while travelling. Here are a few...though no Dutch food memories, I'm afraid. (I have a feeling...
02/07/08 -
melody nelson - During the procession, we had a very talented string quartet interpret The Beach Boys' God Only Knows while the bridal party and adam walked down the aisle with his parents. My parents and i walked down to Henry Mancini's Moonriver (how so audrey hepburn and new york of me!). When we were announced as husband and wife, the quartet played The Zombies' This will be our year (our favorite song and one...
02/06/08 -
2 blowhards - Even in a large, liberal place like Seattle I normally see cars sporting only a single die-hard Kerry/Edwards sticker from 2004 or perhaps a sparkling new Obama one. I said Seattle was liberal, so maybe that's why virtually all cars I notice having lots of stickers have lefty slogans. Only a few times a year do I spot heavy-duty right-wing sticker plastering. Could this be because righties are, uh,...
02/06/08 -
lg business solutions - Yesterday, while standing in line to self-check my groceries, an older man seemed perplexed by the process. I offered to help, and his excited response was: "I have done this a 1,000 times: Just take it easy." His anger surprised me, and I thought about it much of the afternoon. I concluded that he wasn't angry, he was frustrated that something so simple seemed so hard and that others could see...
02/06/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - One thing I've noticed about myself is that when I'm very focused on personal finance (usually to the point of tracking my budget to the penny), I tend to gain weight. When I'm focused on losing weight or otherwise increasing my level of fitness, tight control over my finances starts to slip. I don't mean that I start running up debt or anything like that, but temptations that didn't exist before...
02/05/08 -
fattening of america - Another guy ran with a stick extended out in front of him with two donuts bouncing on a string on the end. Like a dog at the race track, he never took his eyes off the prize. The run was only $15, one of the cheaper races I’ve entered, and that brought out lots of college students and other runners. In all, 3,000 dozen donuts were handed out. The race organizers let baby joggers enter (I pushed...
02/05/08 -
fickle foe - Someone on the third floor of the English building has a real problem with people who don’t wash their hands. Right now there are nine signs in the bathroom begging, threatening, or trying to scare people into washing their hands. Some are just friendly little signs with a happy person washing their hands. Others show close-ups of the influenza virus and tell us that this will be our fate if we...
02/05/08 -
zen habits - The summer after high school, afflicted with a serious case of boredom, I would often spend my time baking away pool side, or watching Jerry Springer or Maury Show at my then girlfriend’s house. In fact, we spent so much time watching these shows, and ones like it, that I began to see patterns in the scripting of human behavior. You would think I would use this new found skill for good, but...
02/05/08 -
Surgeon's Blog - Inside a vein, it's always perfect. No matter the state of the rest of the body, when you open a vein and look inside it's smooth and shiny and slippery. The inner wall glistens and lavishes the eye with a creamy-khaki surface. Not that it's common to get into one on purpose: but for things as minor as a cut-down (directly opening a vein to insert a large IV), or as major as a portal-vein...
02/04/08 -
nursesean - It is a super-duper, BMW designed, Saeco built, espresso machine! I have been shopping around for a high quality (but not prosumer level) machine that I can play with on a daily basis. I have had a long history of coffee drinking that all started when I was fifteen years old. I’m steel reeling at the fact that I am twice as old currently! So, I guess you could say that my coffee adventure...
02/04/08 -
ficklefoe - It was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was a time when people rarely, if ever, washed their hands - in short, it was a very dirty time, full of sickness and disease.” Oddly, these signs it not last long. I assume some indignant student was appalled to see Dickens, Melville, and Twain used in an advertising campaign, no matter how noble the end may be, and tore them down...
02/04/08 -
beetqueen - My great aunt died today. Wow, it feels wierd to write. It’s not exactly a surprise to any of us. She was 94 years old. She’d had at least two heart attacks, a pacemaker, blocked arteries and in the last six months she’s had some pretty bad falls. Bad enough to land her in a nursing home, a place I know she never wanted to end up. Sadly, the nursing home was getting ready to transfer her...
02/03/08 -
Escapable Logic - One of the many adventure camps of my fortunate life was a 6-year stint as a USAF pilot, which sounds more impressive than it is. But the core of that experience is instructive: If you attend USAF Pilot training, you want to be a fighter pilot. That’s as obvious as saying that, if you attend Julliard, you want to perform at Carnegie Hall. And if you want to be a fighter pilot, you embrace all the...
02/03/08 -
cranky professor - Monday we went to the Vatican Museums - utter overload, of course. I concentrated on the huge sarcophagus set-up in the Pio-Gregoriano collection, trying to prepare them for the Mathews book. The advantage of a big load of real things is that it sometimes helps students to understand two important things. First, that ancient art was not all one-off pieces of creative sculpture, but was often...
02/03/08 -
Escape from LA - I had a sticker on my bike in college that said; "Escape Mediocrity"..at the time i just thought it sounded cool. I didn't really understand what that meant. I am reminded of this as I read and think a bit about being creative. It seems that many of us creative souls and anyone who is concerned about their own place in life worry about our own goodness, talent, ability and force. We are constantly...
02/02/08 -
Midnight Hour - I like gadgets. I like tinkering with gadgets. It doesn’t really bother me when one of my gadgets doesn’t work perfectly when I fire it up the first time, because I am reasonably confident that I can dig into its settings and change the undesired behavior. If intuition fails me then I am confident I can find information from other users on the internet to help me solve the problem, and I’ll...
02/02/08 -
Lost Posts - Currently listening to: Could've Gone Mad - Poe Well, how do you know if I'm really listening to this? Maybe I'm really listening to Fix You, by Coldplay. In fact, that is what I'm listening to. Oh, wait. The song just changed. Now I'm listening to Ultra violet, by U2. Anyway, just thought I'd write stuff. I've always wanted to just ramble on my blog, but I never really do that. Well, that's...
02/02/08 -
MetroDad - All my daughter wanted for Christmas from Santa Claus was a Cinderella princess doll. I have to admit that, for quite a long time, I contemplated not getting one for her. As a modern dad who considers himself fairly progressive when it comes to parenting, I don't like subscribing to outdated notions of gender stereotyping. Besides, I felt conflicted about buying into the whole "Disney Industrial...
01/31/08 -
john mcnamara - Okay, we all know that there really is no art to it. Hot people get naked and do all sorts of mild to wild things to one another, showing off amazing bodies, incredible muscles and well-shaped implants. Nothing to it, really. The "actors" in pornography are not really known for their acting skills. The dialog is usually pathetic, unless of course, the flick is foreign, and then, since I have no idea...
01/31/08 -
dilbert blog - Suppose a stranger starts beating you with a stick for no reason other than his own entertainment. He’s got you cornered, and no one is around to help. Luckily for you, he loses his grip on the stick, and drops it. You grab his stick, and without it the stranger can’t stop you from escaping. Are you evil for ruining his fun and stealing his stick for your own selfish happiness? It seems...
01/31/08 -
Big Brass Blog - From my friend, Julia, she has fought the good fight for years against multiple cancers and for the longest time, seemed to be holding out against it. But judge for yourself, she has a power that I am not aware of and is placing her options ahead of herself as she faces the future. She is one of the most interesting and fantastic persons I have ever known. A baseball fanatic, she actually played...
01/30/08 -
katie kokopop - Lately Matthew keeps opening up the refrigerator and pulling out the ketchup. I don’t even know why we have ketchup - probably for a brisket recipe I tried last year. The only time Matthew eats ketchup is when we go out to eat and he has french fries....
01/30/08 -
fox in the woods - In less than two weeks, we will be a "normal" family. By normal I mean Kevin will actually be home to spend time with us in the evenings. We can eat together, read together, draw together, have more dance parties together, take turns working on art projects, and acting all around as a happier and much more functional unit. Also, we will have better health insurance! Now I can work purely for fun as...
01/30/08 -
Amy Lin - Today was my last “first day of school” at Cornell. As I was walking to my first class of the semester, I felt as if I had stepped back into a long lost life. I went into the already jam-packed Collegetown Bagels for my old-time favorite Honey Wheat bagel. (I cannot begin to count how often I craved a CTB bagel while eating my mantous for breakfast in Beijing). As I continued my trek to class,...
01/30/08 -
Electronic Cerebremectomy - 1. Do you remember learning to read? How old were you? Oddly enough, I do remember learning to read. I know I had started learning in kindergarten, and by the summer before first grade I had read Charlotte's Web. I remember learning to read because I learned by reading Fun with Dick and Jane, and my sister was named Jayne. I don't know, I just really liked reading it, and I held on to that book...
01/30/08 -
Confessions of a College Callgirl - My first real boyfriend pool was a group of underemployed guys in their mid-20s who let me and my slutty friend Jenny watch them play Vampire: the Masquerade between the time junior high adjourned for the day and our parents came home from work. Jenny had seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show, knew all the lyrics of “Punk Rock Girl” by the Dead Milkmen, and smoked pot with her mom, facts which...
01/30/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - I think I've been relatively lucky in that the pinch of inflation hasn't hit me as hard as many others over the past year. The price of groceries has certainly gone up, but the timely arrival of a new grocery store in the neighborhood and resulting fierce competition has helped mitigate that. I don't buy books or electronic gadgets, and I swore off buying clothes until the mortgage is paid off unless...
01/28/08 -
aag blog - In time, emotions cooled and trust began to be rebuilt between the former lover and me. He apologized and made amends. I did the same. And eventually I let go of the anger toward him over this girl reading my blog uninvited. Until, that is, the idea was hatched that she and I should attempt a bit of hatchet burying. Almost immediately the topic of the blog came up; she asked for a “show of...
01/28/08 -
ann althouse - The dots are the dots from newspaper printing that he enlarges and emphasizes for distinctive effect. Don't you think our children need to get more excited about dots so they can appreciate pop art? I do! I dot! The mirrors relate to some of the prints on display, especially a series called "Reflections" that has as its subject matter works of art partly obscured by reflections, like this one...
01/28/08 -
Dangerous Girl - I came back last week after spending three glorious weeks in the Northern Hemisphere. Holy shit was it awesome. We first stopped in Detroit to see all 5 billion of my family members, which was great. They're funny people. Weirdos, in fact. I also got to give husband a tour of The D: the original Dangerous Town. But I'll write more about that later, because I have to skip to Brooklyn before I...
01/27/08 -
certifiable princess - I realize that I am seeing many people die. I am not talking about the Frank Sinatra's and the actors/actresses that make it well into their 80's. I suppose I am feeling a little affected by the sudden death of Heath Ledger. The man was 28 years old and had the world by the balls. It reeks heavily of the similar demise of Anna Nicole Smith and moreso of my own personal tragedy of losing my friend...
01/27/08 -
confessions of a hand model - I have figured out why I was so sick last week. No, I didn't have time to shlep to my doctor's office and get a check up and blood test. I have self-diagnosed, using a combination of WebMD, a vivid imagination, and a small dose of hypochondria. I contracted the West Nile Virus. Remember all the fun paranoia from a few summers back? Right after the post-9/11 Anthrax scare, but before the bird...
01/27/08 -
bitch phd - This is of course somewhat related to the fact that I no longer live in Seattle, city of hills and decent public transit, and I am no longer toting a 10-20 lb nursing baby all over town. Ah, the good old days. But in any case, I'm determined NOT to buy a second car, and I know through wasteful experience that joining a gym is heinous. I want to start taking yoga classes again, but--catch-22!--the...
01/25/08 -
Agoraphilia - Our cat, Hamlet, died last night. He'd been in poor health for some time, wasting away before our eyes, so his death came as no surprise. Hamlet lived far longer than we had expected, did not seem to suffer a great deal, and remained with us to the end. Dignified, graceful, and well-loved, in life and death alike! A fine cat, our Hamlet. I broke the news to the kids soon after they woke, making...
01/25/08 -
Pipeline - There are some well-known expensive ways to make scientists happy: buy them lots of equipment and put it in fancy new buildings, pay them lots of money to work there. Come to think of it, that works on just about anyone. But there are some cheap ways to make them happy, too, and companies are really hurting themselves if they don’t pick up on them. Recognizing what the people in the lab do...
01/25/08 -
buggy doo - Were you aware that I love Christopher? Because I do. Not just because he is the cutest, smartest, and funniest 5-year-old around (and I'm being purely objective here), but also because he's just so all around cool. He's got a tremendous sense of self and sometimes makes such wise decisions I can't believe he still wears Spongebob underpants and sleeps with a stuffed dog every night. While I was...
01/24/08 -
Corduroy orange - I’m almost done with a book I got for Christmas, The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp, which, in short, is a history of celebrity chefdom in America, beginning with Julia Child, James Beard, and Craig Claiborne (though Craig was only a writer who worked closely with a chef by the name of Pierre Franey who didn’t get a byline in any article for years, despite the fact that he was the force...
01/24/08 -
Kaboom - I left the terp Billy the Kid with the locals, and followed SSG Boondock’s lead around the corner of the house – a mud hut, really, only consisting of two small rooms that supposedly housed two military-aged males, one of the men’s mother, three younger women, and four children. We were operating in the farmland outskirts of Anu al-Verona, acting on a tip one of the local Sheiks had provided...
01/24/08 -
dilbert blog - Then I did a Google search on positive personality adjectives, to see how they line up with your choices. Surprisingly, there is a poor correlation with your descriptions of yourselves and an extensive list of positive personality adjectives. For example, skeptical, clever, eclectic, fabulous, and flexible aren’t even on the list, let alone moist. (As a side note, if you read the list of positive...
01/23/08 -
2 blowhards - My wife isn't a fan of one of my peculiar activities, so I have to sneak off without her in order to indulge. Well, I did so today, anyway. And it's hard to do, I might add. Do what? Stop in at an In-N-Out Burger fast-food joint. And why is it so hard to do? Am I that much under Nancy's thumb? The second question is debatable, but the first one can be answered clearly: there are no...
01/23/08 -
Around the World - I decided to go visit and pay my respects. I didn't have my camera so the picture above is of me in front of an entirely different tomb, Humayun's, which is in New Delhi, not even Old Delhi, although it's just as old. I stopped there on my way to another tomb the Hazrat Nizamuddin Darga, which is very much a lively scene in an living medieval community and in front of which-- and the reason I went--...
01/23/08 -
Jamie Abroad - One of my favorite modern Japanese artists is the painter and illustrator Akira Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi works in many styles, but his most well known works are his massive ink and oil paintings depicting fluid meshes of modern and feudal Japanese life in broad “Where’s Waldo?” style paintings. While at first glance identical to 17th and 18th century Japanese paintings where swathes of quickly...
01/22/08 -
Army of Dude - Missions became longer and started earlier so we could walk in from miles away. It was the tail end of May and we had begun to feel the summer heat creeping in from a mild winter. Everyone had a distinct memory of the Mosul summer, and we were preparing for another one further south. In the darkness of May 18 we began to clear and search scattered houses and lots. Without electricity and the sun...
01/22/08 -
Musgrove - Whether you and your boyfriend have been dating for three months or three years, he deserves to have a wonderful present from you whenever he celebrates his birthday. Well-thought out gifts are always a great way to show your affection and love for your boyfriend. Some men may not be as open emotionally as women, but your boyfriend surely could not resist giving you a kiss or a hug in exchange...
01/22/08 -
Bats In My Belfry - On the knitting scene: got sidetracked (surprise!) away from the Old Shale wrap for a couple days. Woefully short on cloths for kitchen. Got a bunch cranked out and am back to the wrap. Makes me a bit nervous because it’s so important but I’m moving along…probably about six inches done and it’s meant to be sixty. So, quite a bit to go. So, aside from mindless knitting when my brain is on...
01/21/08 -
brianford - Frozen paintballs don’t work well. Every round we played someone’s gun jammed up with paint. Not only did they jam in the barrel, but most of the time they would break in the barrel. In some cases the paint became so brittle it broke in our pods before we even had a chance to use them. And when they did hit you it was like being hit with a rock. Now…I’ve been hit with paintballs before that...
01/21/08 -
bean land - Then she yawns. And yawns again. So I whisk her away to her crib where she fusses herself to sleep. Woah. Hold it. No, that would be what the books say she should do. Mackenzie is an angel, but she is not a book baby. She likes to be awake during Block 1 and so she fights sleep tooth and nail. Typically, she just fusses* and squawks occasionally until her next feeding, but sometimes she does wail...
01/21/08 -
marty nemko - When a disparity hurts females or minorities, major efforts are implemented to redress the situation. Why not with boys? In our politically correct world, if you point to an inequity against women or a minority, you’re considered heroic, but dare you point out a deficit suffered by men, you’re demonized as a whiner or anti-female. Today’s media leaders, when in college, were relentlessly told...
01/20/08 -
Buzz Machine - I never cease to be amazed anew at how cable companies think it is their job to make their customers’ lives difficult. I challenge any cable executive to publicly go through the experience of being a customer at their own companies and tell me straight-faced that it’s pleasant and efficient and worth the money and effort. Today, I drove a half-hour to the only Cablevision “store” within...
01/20/08 -
Book Journal - As a rule, I avoid crowds. I am not an agoraphobe, but dislike crowds on principle. The inevitable if unwitting poke of strange elbows into breast and back. The potentiality – and it has been realized – of someone throwing up onto my shoes. The premise, the presumption implicit in any crowd, from concert hall to kaffee klatsch to office party, that shared experiences are the only ones that count....
01/20/08 -
Sexless in the City - As a rule, I avoid crowds. I am not an agoraphobe, but dislike crowds on principle. The inevitable if unwitting poke of strange elbows into breast and back. The potentiality – and it has been realized – of someone throwing up onto my shoes. The premise, the presumption implicit in any crowd, from concert hall to kaffee klatsch to office party, that shared experiences are the only ones that...
01/18/08 -
surfeited - I meant to write a long, reflective post about my fellow libertarians and paleo-conservatives and their (often disappointing) reaction to the Ron Paul newsletters. But that horrow show hasn't played itself out long enough to form valuable thoughts on it. Instead, I thought I’d mention a phone call I got a few hours ago - one that will haunt me for a week. But first, a little theological...
01/18/08 -
sgt grumpy - I've heard from several people that they want to hear from me more often, but I can't really write more, so I am going to steal an idea from CI Roller Dude and break this post up into two parts, maybe three if I get lazy. I get a lot of civilians who ask me what it is like to be a Soldier, what it takes, how I handle it, and stuff like that. I think most people imagine it is like in the movies,...
01/18/08 -
dr helen - Do you ever have one of those periods where every appliance in your house starts to break down? I had one of those this month and am just recovering from the bill handed to me by the Sears repair guy for my front loader washing machine. Last month, it was the dishwasher, prior to that, the stove and refrigerator. I remember one of my colleagues muttering to me once about his appliance woes, saying...
01/18/08 -
the donovan - Staff Sgt. Terry Dahl holds a real 9 mm pistol in his right hand and a toy 9 mm pistol in his left at an Iraqi police station in Seddah, to demonstrate how similar the fake and real weapons look. Coalition forces are asking shop owners to stop selling the toys to children so they are not mistaken for insurgents. Staff Sgt. Dahl is with the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion. .[Update: As reader...
01/18/08 -
11d - Every morning, my husband rushes around the house locating his blackberry and his turkey sandwich before running out of the house for the 6:50 bus to Manhattan, To avoid bodily harm, I wisely decide to stay out of his way. Instead, I pour myself a cup of coffee and watch 15 minutes of the morning news shows. I'll flip back and forth between CBS and NBC. The shows are interchangeable. Perky people...
01/16/08 -
bedouina - I just came back from a weekend in Los Angeles that reads completely out of character for me: movie stars, shopping, comedy shows, the beach. The actress Camryn Manheim has been a friend of mine since we were in third grade and her father hired my father to teach engineering at a university in central Illinois. We lived down the street from each other for four idyllic years, until both our dads...
01/16/08 -
dilbert blog - Recently I discovered I am a talented lyricist. This came as a big surprise to me. It all came together when I realized most songs I enjoy are gibberish. I can TOTALLY write gibberish! For decades I believed my favorite songs revolved around deep thoughts artistically embedded in metaphors and allusions. It turns out they were gibberish. My first hint came after reading an interview with...
01/16/08 -
fox in the woods - In less than two weeks, we will be a "normal" family. By normal I mean Kevin will actually be home to spend time with us in the evenings. We can eat together, read together, draw together, have more dance parties together, take turns working on art projects, and acting all around as a happier and much more functional unit. Also, we will have better health insurance! Now I can work purely for fun as...
01/15/08 -
intueri - A similar disagreement occurs within psychiatry. There are those that believe that insight alone will result in behavior change… and then there are those that argue that insight alone does not necessarily result in behavior change and thus, one must also explicitly address behaviors. For example, someone may enter therapy and eventually learn that the reason why he cannot enter intimate...
01/15/08 -
Waking The Midnight Sun - I’d suggest, though that the angst that an agnostic in a Christian town feels over self-exposure’s got nothing on the potential for anguish of the rabbit-hole jumpers. You know, those crazy, quackified “conspiracy theorists.” Being agnostic about religion or the abstract label referred to as “God” has even less potential for psychic discomfort than being agnostic about that other abstract...
01/15/08 -
Bats In My Belfry - Appetite has been slow in returning after being sick but after the walk this evening I found myself really hungry. Happily the grocery store is again stocking the vegetarian entrees they carried before the holidays. I guess with the limited room, they did away with the veggie stuff to have room for the holiday stuff. Sugar vs. veggie? I go with veggie. Anyway, I stocked up on “Cordon Bleu”,...
01/14/08 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - The corporate Amex certainly changes my mindset. I know this place is hellishly expensive with the exchange rate, but that didn't bother me at all unless I was spending my own money. Need something cheap to do on the weekend? I managed to meet up with a local running group in Richmond Park on Sunday. They were very nice to me and it was a pretty cheap day as being a foreigner in London goes: my...
01/14/08 -
money dick - You wear dark clothes, your sad eyes mope behind long dark hair that covers one side of your face. Downtrodden mannerisms are always the daily special, and these habits have developed your affinity for angsty music. Perhaps you experienced a Shakespeareian love affair that crash bombed. This caused an emotional regression that left you crippled. After that moment, a certain Dramatic weight began to...
01/14/08 -
rabbit blog - Devo needed a friend on the bus because he was sort of nerdy and really big - maybe 250 pounds and 6 feet tall. I needed a friend because I was one of maybe three white kids on the bus, plus I was a cheerleader, which meant that two days a week during basketball season, I wore a cheerleading uniform to school. Getting on that bus in my fucking tiny skirt, some of the girls would glare at me like...
01/13/08 -
bitch phd - A well-fitted bra holds up the weight of your breasts with the BAND, not with the shoulder straps. There are five ways to check your bra for fit. (1) First, after adjusting the straps, does the cup fit smoothly? Obviously if it wrinkles over the nipple it's too big (or else this particular cut is not for you). If the top of the cup cuts into your breast tissue--the worst instance of this is when...
01/13/08 -
Wife in North - That was yesterday at about 11am, shortly before he climbed on his train. At 8pm, I discovered that we did not have any water in half the house - that is to say the family bathroom upstairs and the shower room downstairs. Not a dribble. I cursed and eventually went to bed where I lay awake for most of the night listening to gale force winds storming around the house and banging their fists on the...
01/13/08 -
ER Nurse - I am beginning to hate smokers. My state just banned smoking in all indoor spaces. In my city this regulation has been in place for some time. I am so tired of seeing smokers lining the sidewalks outside building, puffing away like fools. I always think: don't they realize how dumb they look? Or don't they care? They are addicts after all. They just have a legalized addiction. Not only am I tired...
01/11/08 -
Bean Land - Unfortunately, my dad brought a nasty gastrointestinal variety of the Dreaded Gamboo with him from California when he came out for Mackenzie’s birth. He didn’t realize it until it hit him hard the day after she was born. Many lysol wipes and buckets of purel later, Scott and I were both sick as well. Scott’s mom was spared, as was (thank you for answered prayers) Mackenzie. My dad stayed...
01/11/08 -
not the mama - Okay, enough with the squeeing over photos (though, trust me, there will be MUCH more of that to come after Saturday). Right now, we’re onto a new order of business: a name! We’ve discussed names a lot, but we haven’t come to a conclusion. And I was thinking that my lovely readers might like to offer their input. Winston is named after Winston Smith, the main character in Orwell’s 1984,...
01/11/08 -
Sabine's Garden - Mid afternoon, napping in my bed (scantily clad, which becomes important soon). The wind is blowing over thirty miles an hour, and slamming the heavy wooden door that leads from my patio to the deck. Because of the wind and cold, I have the dog door shut and locked. I jump up from my nap and run outside to close the outside patio door. I turn to go back inside to find that all of the doors are...
01/10/08 -
prison pete - Friday afternoon I managed to bump into the officer who wants my computer programming skills. He told me that I am still on his payroll and that he was scheduled to meet with the superintendent this coming Wednesday. He told me he expected to get the go ahead, but that I might have to work in the computer repair classroom in the Education Building. On the one hand it would be good to have direct...
01/10/08 -
materfamilias - Apropos of wanting what I have, I am so enjoying the simplicity of steel-cut oats, brought to a boil and then simmered in salted water for 15 or 20 minutes, served with milk and a sprinkling of brown sugar or a dollop of maple syrup. Sometimes I add diced apple to the pot for the last few minutes of simmering; sometimes I stir banana slices to the porridge in the bowl and let the hot oats bring out...
01/10/08 -
Cobb - The men at the opposite corner were three and certainly older than me. They wore dark suits and ties these three black gentlemen. One of them eyed the newspaper and then began to dialog with the other two just out of earshot. I usually go over to that corner, but tonight for some reason I did not. I hadn't noticed that they were there or I would have gravitated. It's what I'm supposed to be doing...
01/09/08 -
Lipka Boys - Lately Matthew keeps opening up the refrigerator and pulling out the ketchup. I don’t even know why we have ketchup - probably for a brisket recipe I tried last year. The only time Matthew eats ketchup is when we go out to eat and he has french fries. The other day in the car Ethan, Matthew and I were listening to the part in the Magic Flute where Papageno has his mouth sealed shut by the Three...
01/09/08 -
Agoraphilia - What motivates tenured law professors to write? I suppose that some do so as second nature, as automatically as lesser scholars breath. Perhaps other law profs write out of a heroic sense of duty, confident that what they publish will change the world for the better. It takes more than that to get me to write, alas. It seems that my inner 14-year-old, still going strong despite decades of scolding,...
01/09/08 -
dana goldstein - I cook, I read fiction, I sleep...but I also write long-form journalism. One project in particular has been important to me these past few months. The article had been embargoed in the Prospect's December print issue, but it's now available online. In October I spent a week in my hometown of Ossining, New York, reporting a story on this uniquely integrated school district's attempt to close the...
01/08/08 -
bitch phd - You know what I realized yesterday, after some really hot sex? I don't even want to be thin. If I could tap a magic wand and be 5'8" and 120 lbs., I wouldn't. I want to be fit, yes, and have lots of energy, yes, and look hot, yes, but only the cultural trope that being all those things requires being thin makes me think about thinness at all. I like my body. It's the one I've had for twenty-five...
01/08/08 -
Agoraphilia - Toilet paper rolls can fool you. You think you have a good quarter of a roll left, and next thing you know, you’re sitting on the pot trying to remember how to wipe your bum with just one square of paper. The problem is that the toilet roll’s depth (i.e., thickness of paper on the roll) doesn’t diminish in a linear fashion. With an unused roll, you can get about three sheets in one rotation....
01/08/08 -
Obsidian Wings - Andy was a wonderful person: decent, honorable, generous, principled, courageous, sweet, and very funny. The world has a horrible hole in it that nothing can fill. I'm glad Andy -- generous as always -- wrote something for me to publish now, since I have no words at all. Beyond: Andy, I will miss you. My thoughts are with his wife, his parents, and his brother and sister. What follows is Andy's...
01/07/08 -
Crooked Timber - No, I’m here to report that when I brought in the local paper from the front porch this morning, I found that the cover story on this week’s Parade was all about Benazir Bhutto. (Parade, for those of you who don’t get the thing, is the standard Sunday supplement in run-of-the-mill newspapers in the deep interior of my continent.) The cover asks, “Is Benazir Bhutto America’s best hope...
01/07/08 -
snively - A while ago I think I mentioned toying with the idea of building a pirate ship out of bottles. An idea became a reality over the last two months and now I'm the proud parent of a plastic bottle pirate ship. I used 5 rolls of duct tape, 1 roll of twine, and 420 Poland Spring water bottles to create the ship. It took about 40 man-hours and I'm turning it in for my HASS class tomorrow morning. The...
01/07/08 -
get rich slowly - With so many excellent choices, it was difficult to pick just three winners of Yeager’s book. He writes, “I cried — both with laughter and real tears — to the point where I’m throwing in an extra book — at my own expense!” That’s a generous thing for a cheapskate to do. Ultimately, we chose the following stories: The “Frugal” Aunt I have a dear old aunt. She...
01/06/08 -
the infinite sphere - On Saturday I felt like I was coming down with a cold but I still wanted to get out and do something fun. The weather, which had been down into the low teens last week (practically intolerable for this southern girl) had warmed up to a nice 50ish, so hiking to a cave was a nice option. Three of us decided to visit the cave where I'm about to start the biological inventory, but this trip was just...
01/06/08 -
slacktivist - The name stuck. Lefty started writing op-eds for the campus newspaper. The pseudonym was liberating, allowing me to follow ideas to their logical, if outrageous, conclusions, writing wild words with the kind of crystalline moral clarity that comes from being 21 years old. Lefty even wrote a few sharply critical attacks on the agenda and personal character of our egomaniacal, do-nothing student...
01/06/08 -
Dragoncave - The last several months have contained a real struggle to find anything for which to be grateful. There have been many times when I couldn't find anything to be grateful for, not even one small thing. There have been many times when I have felt picked upon by all the gods, targeted for unrelenting, merciless cruelty; victimized, mired in the muck of life, wounded and unable to heal; even prevented...
01/04/08 -
Cobb - Sunday, I took Boy up to Six Flags Magic Mountain. The best ride there is called Tatsu. We waited in line for 2 hours before we got our thrill on. During that time, we were chatted up by Michael and Suzanne. Michael is in Hollywood, he's an actor and producer and it wasn't 10 minutes before he handed me his card. Suzanne is a train the trainer at JPL, I got hers too. It was a cool and wide ranging...
01/04/08 -
Jimmy Moore - People always ask me if I really read every single e-mail that comes to my e-mail box. I guess that's a fair question considering the daily traffic at my blog is nearing five digits and the e-mails I receive are in the hundreds a day. But, to answer that question, YES I DO! And not only that, I try to make it a point to RESPOND to all of those e-mails with all the courtesy and respect that you...
01/04/08 -
neoneocon - I heard it on my car radio this evening while I was driving. I don’t even know what they were saying about it—I just caught some fleeting mention of the name, and something about it being the last one in Maine. The last what in Maine? The last Howard Johnson’s restaurant. How the mighty have fallen. One with Nineveh and Tyre, and all that. My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings: look on my Works...
01/03/08 -
11d - As I pulled out of the parking lot from school, the steering wheel made an odd creaking sound. Like an old man bending down to pick up a pencil off the floor. I chalked it up to the cold and put it out of my mind. I'm creaky in the cold, so the car must be, too. I had a bag full of ungraded finals and a three page shopping list. I bought preppy shirts for the boys and took them into Manhattan...
01/03/08 -
Pipeline - There is a pecking order in chemistry. That’s because there’s one everywhere. If it’s a human endeavor, staffed by humans, you’re going to have hierarchies, real and perceived - who you did a post-doc with, what huge company you're a big wheel in. But that doesn’t mean that we have to bow down to them, and it doesn’t excuse this sort of thing, from The Chem Blog: ” Waaaaaayyy back...
01/03/08 -
dilbert blog - I take pride in small accomplishments. For example, I have always been proud that I could take any medicine, no matter how awful, without complaining. This is an extension of my greater power of liking, or at least tolerating, almost any food taste. It’s a gift. Recently, I met my match. The other day, I felt a possible cold coming on, and started looking through the drawer where we keep all...
01/02/08 -
babalu blog - My mother was old enough to remember the early days of the revolution with vivid detail. On New Year’s Day, 1959, the family awoke at home in Miramar without the knowledge that Batista had fled. The prior evening, they had enjoyed a typical Cuban New Year’s Eve meal of pork, black beans and rice and the essential 12 grapes eaten typically by Spanish families at the stroke of midnight. The only...
01/02/08 -
shakespeares sister - I'm having trouble thinking of my own answer to this one, since I am, of course, the World's Best Girlfriend. As for accidentally admiring celebrities in the presence of one's partner, Al and I had this conversation (which I'm lifting from my personal journal) right after we got together -- so long ago that Al was still identified on my blog as "Crush Boy." Other than that, the dumbest things I can...
01/02/08 -
metro dad - All my free time is being spent wrapping up the year at work, attending a flurry of holiday parties, updating my facebook status, and figuring out what books to give my family as presents. I've also been spending a lot of time trying to figure out how much I need to tip everyone for the holidays. How much does one give to the newspaper delivery guy? Do I really need to tip every single garage...
01/01/08 -
heather leigh - The psychological condition that precludes me from total vacation relaxation has not abated this year. In fact, I believe that I have created more projects for myself than I could accomplish. Granted, some of the projects may appear to be relaxing; reading a huge stack of magazines (the fact that many of them contain Halloween recipes should tell you how far behind I am), having my friend Suzanne...
01/01/08 -
Random Fate - So here I am back “home” in Southaven, Mississippi. I had lunch today at Krystal Hamburgers; not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but a vice I miss despite the evolution of my palate since I moved away. Originally I was not planning on any visit here this holiday, but my fathers mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks ago, so I had to join the parade of relations...
01/01/08 -
Virtual Memories - One of my coworkers asked me how I could possibly read Proust, as he’d fallen asleep in the first 30 pages every time he tried. When I first talk about it, I invariably sound like I’m pursuing it “because it’s there”, as if reading these books is the same as climbing a mountain. And maybe it is. Because what I’m reading for, besides the totality of the experience and the wit, are the...
12/31/07 -
pharyngula - First off, Superman was always a jerk. It's actually a bit off-putting: while he has this profound moral goal of helping the little guy, he's also constantly treating Lois Lane like dirt — he uses his superpowers to get the big scoops at the newspaper, and Lois is always getting demoted to the "advice for the lovelorn" column. When he does let her get a story, it's always in the most condescending...
12/31/07 -
Random Fate - So here I am back “home” in Southaven, Mississippi. I had lunch today at Krystal Hamburgers; not gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but a vice I miss despite the evolution of my palate since I moved away. Originally I was not planning on any visit here this holiday, but my fathers mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a few weeks ago, so I had to join the parade of relations...
12/31/07 -
See Me Get Rich - For the past two years, my aging vacuum tube ham radio has been sitting quietly tucked away in the closet on a shelf. My Ham Radio pursuits come in spurts. Since I was first licensed at age 13, during some years I have been quite active in Ham Radio and during other years the radio has been completely silent. So tonight, after two years, I decided to bring the old gal out of mothballs and plunk her...
12/30/07 -
lg business - The question I raise today is about the need we feel from somewhere deep inside us that makes us human; the feeling that calls upon us to be loved or, if you prefer, liked intensely. When we feel loved, we smile a lot, move about with great confidence, focus on whatever is at hand, reach out to others, share and give whenever and whatever we can. When we don't feel loved, we are a mess. We may...
12/30/07 -
Jill at Cornell - Friday night around midnight at Chatelet. Torrents of rain are falling from the sky and it’s cold. Clusters of soaked and tired Parisians are waiting for their trains, dreaming of a warm bed after a long week. There’s unassuming old me, walking down the stairs to the platform to bid a friend goodnight before returning home on foot. I swipe my card to go through the turnstile even though I’m...
12/30/07 -
business pundit - It could be a great thing in many ways, if every tiny action or behavior could be measured. You can be shown the stuff you need and want at the time(s) that you most need and want it. The problem with this situation is that it rests on the assumption that what we want is what is good for us, or good for society, and the deeper you go into the human psyche, the less that is true. To understand why,...
12/28/07 -
YetAnotherBlog - I know I've bashed religion now and again in this space, and I've probably specifically bashed Christianity here as well. And with good reason. If my relationship with the church was a romantic one, the church would be the ex that I kept changing myself for, trying to make it work, but she never changed for me. And, leaving out the metaphysics, there are some fundamental errors of thought, in my...
12/28/07 -
Lost Posts - So, while I was down in Cali, during the day we’d go hiking, swimming, sailing, or just loafing on the beach. At night in the cabin, the available activities changed. You can read, play board games, talk, or play poker. Now I was never much of a poker fan. I tried playing it a bit the last time I was in Cali, but I didn’t take to it. Well, somehow seeing Casino Royale got me more interested....
12/28/07 -
Escape from LA - well...it is official..."Boy from Los Angeles decides to move to the mountains and become a ski instructor...news at 11." I woke up this morning...of all days, Dec 7..the day that will live in infamy..Pearl Harbor...and at 6:30 am i peered out my window and saw the following.... yes...snow on the ground in Boulder which for sure means snow in the mountains. I have had a job interview scheduled at...
12/27/07 -
The Midnight Hour - When I asked this of life merely a few weeks ago it gave me the obvious reply, “I’m serious, and don’t call me Shirley, because now I’m pissed, and I’m going to own you for the next 45 minutes.” Read on to find out why I asked this benign and powerful question. I stopped at the Fresh Market on my way home from work that weekday afternoon. It was about 5 PM and I was still wearing...
12/26/07 -
Winter Camper - Greeting Campers, I started this blog almost 30 days ago with the intent of telling the history of Winter Camp. For those of you patient enough or with an abundance of unused time on your hands, who actually went back and read “Whose a Winter Camper?”, I say Thank you. For the rest of you, here is a summary. A buddy of mine Doug and myself, were always getting in trouble. Our usual reason...
12/26/07 -
Hard to Find - When I was a kid, the belief that Santa knew my name and was going to come down the chimney and bring presents--specifically for me--made me feel special, tapped in and alive. The Christmas Spirit was easy for me to have then. I had 100% belief in something magical and wonderful. As the years went by, several weeks before Christmas I would feel that tingle in my bones the first time I heard a...
12/26/07 -
Burning Bird - Sitting here, listening to a freshly downloaded Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas album, I'm reminded of when we lived on Grand Isle in Vermont. We lived in a rented house with a view of the lake from the living room, and the main road and hills from the large country kitchen in the front. You had to turn down into our drive, which made leaving a bit difficult at times during adverse weather....
12/26/07 -
Whiskey in My Sippy Cup - Let me preface this by saying how much I love you. My life got a little better on the days each of you were born. I have relished every moment with you so far; every nose-bleed and poopey diaper and science project. You are my whole world. Got it? Good. Stay the fuck out of my room, already. I know that you ache for me when we're apart, and I miss your precious little faces, too. But...
12/26/07 -
IFSA - I cannot begin to fathom how normal things have become. My routine: Wake up to one of Australia’s finest commodities: The speaking alarm.” It’s time to get up, the time is now 7:15 am” I make my own breakfast or walk to school early to purchase an orange poppy seed muffin, or a slice of banana bread, and dig this, they toast it and slab butter on top! School is just as normal as any, there...
12/26/07 -
Cognitive Daily - As you might have noticed, I decided to forgo my plan to post a daily Christmas song, as I thought that it would look bad for one of my blog's first contributions to The Prospect to be a lawsuit from the RIAA. The 17 robed web editors who control my days and haunt my dreams would not like that. And I live to avoid their displeasure. But there's no reason you can't make this Christmas CD on...
12/25/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - True story: someone who skipped my wedding after RSVP-ing that he and his wife would be there spent the next year and a half mentioning that he had a really great gift for us. I was deeply hurt by the fact that his excuse for not showing for the wedding was that he was "too busy" that day, but I did my best to hide it; in the meantime, I didn't care about the gift. This turned out to be a good...
12/25/07 -
Dear Santa Claus - Once there was a little mouse, who didn't have a name. He lived in a great big house, this mouse, the only mouse in the whole wide house. He day dreamed he had playmates who were friendly as could be. The little girls would bring their dolls, and dress up and have tea. The boys would play at cowboys or Eskimo or Spanish. But when he tried to touch them like a bubble they would vanish....
12/25/07 -
Moscow Blog - Its pre-Christmas and I need to get some more presents before I am flying back home. Well, its looking good already. I think I have 70% or so. And hey, I got the biggest task behind me already. Last time I have been home, my Grandma put 150 EUR in my hands and told me to buy a present for myself. No, not to keep the money and enjoy myself. No, the task was clear, to get something, put it in the box...
12/24/07 -
The Iconic - This one is going out to every poor sap who spent a sizable chunk of their monthly minutes calling up every retail outlet that either carries the Wii, videogames, electronics, or worthless gewgaws that go bippity-boop. Unless you've rolled straight 20s this holiday season, odds are you missed out on your chance to buy your kids or significant other the much sought-after Wii (because seriously,...
12/24/07 -
Destination Austin Family - How do I begin a story that took place 45 years ago and involves kitchen cabinets, Wigilia, Midnight Mass, a game of poker, a generator, a maternity ward and a Christmas stocking? The best way, I guess, is to go exactly in that order of all those mysterious events and items. My mother was always an active woman, from my memories, and from what relatives have told me. Being the sixth...
12/24/07 -
Libby Purves - It's silly season. Faith Central offers you a round-up of the strangest Christmas stories around this year. 1. Starting with this six meter high, Christmas tree made out of 60kg of Chocolate. 2. Then onto the news that K-Mart in the US has renamed its Christmas trees 'Holiday Trees' in a seasonal politically correct move. 3. Nativity plays were the next to fall foul of the PC police, with...
12/21/07 -
Scary Stories - Some business had detained me in Chancery Lane nine in the evening, and thereafter, having some inkling of a headache, I was disinclined either for entertainment or further work. So much of the sky as the high cliffs of that narrow canon of traffic left visible spoke of a serene night, and I determined to make my way down to the Embankment, and rest my eyes and cool my head by watching the...
12/21/07 -
Megan McArdle - Last night I met Daniel Drezner for dinner at an Ethiopian place near my house. As he had fifteen minutes or so after dinner before he had to go to the airport, he walked over to inspect my new digs. As we neared the gas station kitty-corner to my house, a very large man started following us along the street. He was walking way too close to us, but not so close that two compulsively...
12/21/07 -
Wife in the North - In London, we used to go to a flower market , buy bagels, drink coffee and pay a nice coster man for a 6 foot tree "guaranteed not to drop its needles eva." Last year, we drove out to a farm and looked round a barn where dozens of trees dangled from the rafters and all I could think of were hanged men swaying gently in the breeze. Quite took the edge of the festive jollity. This year, my husband...
12/21/07 -
Listen Missy - Ive got a big year-end post in the works and, shockingly enough, it's probably going to happen by the end of the year. That's right. My year-end resolution is to stop procrastinating, to be reversed come January 1. Meanwhile, I've got a backlog of iPhone photos that I don't want to clutter up my Flickr page with. So, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: My Life According to the iPhone, October...
12/21/07 -
Mcsweeneys - Seriously, guys, no party this year. I know you've all been looking forward to it, but I really just don't want to celebrate this one. It's a little trite and, frankly, over the top. Take a look at past celebrations; I feel overindulgent. Just not my style. And I'm not just saying this with the expectation that you'll throw a party anyway. This is no false front. This is straight talk, so listen...
12/21/07 -
Neatoroma - A policeman’s job is never easy, but dumb criminals make it somewhat easier. This list was whittled down from a much longer list of stories of the stupid things lawbreakers did this past year. These are in chronological order instead of rank. The dates are from the news stories; in some cases the crime itself happened earlier. Most of the links have accompanying video. 1. Lottery Thief Sets...
12/19/07 -
The Merrill Dubrow Blog - Over three years ago Omnicom, Michael Birkin, Tom Harrison and Dale Adams came calling. At first when they described the position and location, I think I was taken aback a little bit…Where? Dallas, Texas? I had never thought about living there. We gave it some thought, explored the idea a little bit and lo and behold, here we are and loving it. At first friends would say, "Your next door...
12/19/07 -
Beanland - First, let me just tell you how thrilled I am about our Christmas tree. I grew up with fresh Christmas trees. Some of my favorite memories of growing up involve going to the mountains and cutting down the tree with my family, smelling the tree all month when you walk past it in the house, and decorating it with homemade ornaments and lots of lights. In recent years, my family’s tree has...
12/19/07 -
Musgrove - It is played in bars in front of friends and onlookers. Dummy a shot with the left-hand striker only to power in a clinical finish with the right-hand man to emerge victorious and you are a hero to your friends and look good to the ladies. Score an own goal that dribbles at a snail's pace from your midfield past a flailing goalkeeper and you are a loser, mocked by men and pitied by women. As...
12/18/07 -
Prison Pete - I was called to the mess hall around 12:00 today. It was the first time I had darkened the portals since leaving that building one week ago. It was the first time any staff member contacted me about the status of my programming project. As a side note, I have not looked at the manuals or any of my notes or programming since that date either. The officer that called me down is the one that got...
12/18/07 -
Waking The Midnight Sun - When you stumble out of the movie theater at 1:30am, after seeing this, suddenly everything and everyone in the subway becomes a dream… The drunken girl with the short-cropped blonde hair and a young-old cute-worn face: dangling off the metal pole she talk-shouts to her prettier, blonder, longer-haired friend and a tall, drunken man-friend with basset-hound eyes about Carmen. Carmen, who...
12/18/07 -
The Crochet Crumudgeon - Been knitting for about a year now. I enjoy it greatly. Even when I hate it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot as time goes past. What do I want to do with my knitting? Do I want to be a sweater maker? Churn out lace? Do complex patterns? Design? I’m not sure. Worse, I’m conflicted. I see works all over the ‘Net by folks who completely blow me away with their talent. In all cases I...
12/18/07 -
Cobb - The Sprite is now eleven. On the way back from picking her up from her grandfather's house, she asked me the following question. If you could be the boss of any business, what business would that be? The answer was Bowen Labs. The idea is that I make custom secret laboratories for my clients. I have never gotten over Batman. Most of what I've done in my career, the most fun I've had, was...
12/18/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - I started my Boston Marathon training cycle this weekend with a 15 mile run yesterday and a 9.5 mile run today. Both runs were tough, especially with the sloppy rain/snow mix this morning. Getting through them felt like something of an accomplishment, though. That sense of accomplishment is similar to how I feel when I achieve one of my financial milestones. Marathon buildup is tough. There...
12/18/07 -
dilbert blog - It will come as no surprise to my regular readers that I sometimes exhibit inappropriate responses in social situations. For example, when I hear about a tragedy, and there is something remotely funny about the event, that’s the part that gets my attention. If a guy dressed in a bunny outfit kills a forest ranger, I can’t focus on the tragedy part. In that sort of situation, I would probably...
12/16/07 -
IowaHawk - The sub-prime mortgage crisis threatens to kill the dream of home ownership for millions of Americans. Here is one of their stories. castle_iowahawk As many of you know, I am a longtime resident of Lakewood Mobile Home Court, a gated community on the outskirts of Coralville. When I first moved to Lakewood in 2000, I was attracted by its affordable rental rates and many amenities, such as...
12/16/07 -
Harvest Community - My brother Steve always jokes that I have a terrible memory. Quite often when he hears me give a sermon illustration using a childhood memory, he’ll call or write to give me the historically correct version of the event I was describing. I’ll be the first to admit that his memory is far better than mine. He actually remembers the sounds and smells of the airport the day we landed in the United...
12/16/07 -
Londonist - Urban legends of the more sinister variety have always intrigued me, so continuous whispers and friend-of-a-friend tales concerning a mutant race of beings inhabiting the dark tunnel systems, sewers and subterranean passages beneath the capital are always welcome, even if unfounded (despite rumours circulating as far back as the nineteenth century). However, one thing us folklorists do know is that...
12/15/07 -
SAHM Ramblings - As I was looking though the Sunday ads this morning, I noticed some items on sale at the sporting goods store. I yelled to DH in the other room "Hoonnneey! Foosball, ping pong, air hockey and pool tables are on sale this week. We need to get one before the Midwest Enforcement people come to get us." He laughed because he knew exactly what I was referring to… In Spring 2006, while living in Los...
12/15/07 -
Imagethief - He is not one of those December curmudgeons who bah-humbugs his way through Christmas. Give me trees, tinsel, candy canes and a big dinner with my friends. My dad used to roast a goose for Christmas. How traditional is that? And we're Jewish. There is, however, one Christmas tradition that I dread every year, and that never gets any easier to deal with. That is the office "secret Santa"...
12/15/07 -
john shore - Ah, the Christmas season. What a great time for party-going! The problem is that it’s difficult to get invited to more than about two Christmas parties a year–one of which is always a work Christmas party, which, punch bowl or not, is pretty much exactly like going to work at night. Either way, two parties in 30 days doesn’t say “festive season,” so much as it does “feasible siesta.”...
12/14/07 -
No, I Am a Cat - I've had boogers all day; they never seem to end! Mitch had class and something else tonight: he's doing sound (or something) for some benefit somewhere. That's all I know. He should be back soon; but regardless of when that it, I'm going to bed at eleven. Or so I think. I want to do the dishes before I get ready; I hate watching them pile up-and up-and up until the sink is so full it takes me...
12/14/07 -
Woolgathering - So I live with my friend in an apartment. When it comes to cleaning the place the general rule is you make the mess you clean it. This rule works for the most part except for when I am actually planning on cooking something (I very rarely cook) and find out that my room mate went on a cooking spree and all the pots and pans are dirty. You see I guess there is no time frame in which we must clean...
12/14/07 -
Peking Duck - The contents of this post are subject to a public health warning - please do not read around your meal-time. So the restaurant I went to with my friend Bill on Saturday night is known as a relatively upscale local Peking Duck house up in the far-north section of Chaoyang off the Third Ring Road. It's got a beautiful painted sign outside and is well appointed and classy. As soon as we sat...
12/12/07 -
Bob seldo - Previous fevered daydreams had led me to imagine that I would make a romantic connection walking down the canal with Pretty Canal Girl, or perhaps strolling by the river with Flappy River Girl. Instead it has happened with Kathryn, at a mutual friend’s Holby City-themed fancy dress party. (You see, it was my friend’s going-away-to-Australia fancy dress party, and she is vet, hence it obviously...
12/12/07 -
An American in Moscow - Today, as I was walking back to the office from lunch, a Russian kid (I'd guess he was 10 or 11) stood taking a whiz just off the sidewalk, completely oblivious to the food traffic that streamed (excuse the pun) by him. Now, I work in a fairly busy area of Moscow. Not Times Square busy, mind you, but pretty busy. For the D.C. readers, I'd equate the area of my office to be something like the...
12/12/07 -
Sabines Garden - Setting: Sitting at my desk in my office depth calibrating well logs. President of the company walks in… Self: Hello PresFirstName, how are you? Pres: Fine, fine. *Looks around* Are we alone? Self: *Gulp* Yes sir…. Pres: (Stoic) Do you have a few minutes to visit with me? Self: *Gulp* (Thinks, “oh shit, what did I do?”) You bet… Pres: Just wanted to let you know that...
12/11/07 -
Cobb - This weekend, I spent about 10 over two days hours watching kids play volleyball. It was Boy's first two day tournament. Their team, which is a club team, got eliminated in the second round of the Bronze bracket, which was better than they expected. They have only been together as a team for about two months. Not surprisingly as with many youth sports, they were playing against 'professionals' who...
12/11/07 -
Bay Blab - Pheeeeuuwf. Nothing like a Sunday to catch up on a couple of months of dirty laundry. At least it's done. Now I can go back to wearing clean clothes for a few days or so. But I really need to come up with a better system. I hate how much time I spend doing laundry. It seems like such a waste when there's so many other interesting and worthwhile things to do, like experiments in the lab. So I'm...
12/11/07 -
Cardio Girl - Chris left a comment yesterday (I would link to her blog, but she doesn’t have one) and asked me how long ago I joined the Cancer Club (almost ten years) and made the comment that she did not have access to the internet back when she joined the Club. And that got me thinking about how fortunate I was to have access to the internet during that time. I got the diagnosis in October 1997 and...
12/10/07 -
Entertainmenttop - Hi, im 21 yrs old and i was wondering if i have a gambling problem. I go to the casino every week one night i lost 1,000 that’s the most ive lost in one night. At other times ive lost 600, 300, 200 and there are times i have won 1500 on deal or no deal. I went this weekend and only lost 60 dollars and i was able to control myself not to go to the ATM. Now here’s my problem after i leave...
12/10/07 -
Materfamilias knits - Last week when I was too tired, too cranky for my regularly-scheduled Wednesday Shoes Post, my sister left a comment asking if that meant there'd be two pairs of shoes this week. Well, Hilary's gone off to London, England (after finishing the Victoria Marathon with a time that qualifies her to run Boston next year), so I don't think she'll be checking on me. But I thought I could show you two pairs,...
12/10/07 -
Baby Squared - You're all getting gift cards this year. I'm a big fan of Christmas, and always have been. I love the music, the food, the parties, the decor, the traditions. I even sort of like Christmas shopping. Rather, I did, back before babies, when I had nothing in the world but free time. (At least, that's what it seems like in retrospect.) I'm not a procrastinator, so I usually spread my shopping...
12/09/07 -
Althouse - Following to the interests of visiting family, I took one step onto the ice skating rink at Rockefeller Center and fell flat on my back. I'm used to ice skating, so I can't tell you why this happened. Was it the fresh Zamboni-izing? The weirdly leaden, horribly rigid ice skates they rent out? Or was it sheer inattention and overconfidence? I don't know, but it hurt, especially my pride. I went on...
12/09/07 -
Not The Mama - Last night, Jamie and I were sitting at the table playing Monopoly (Day Four of the advent calendar: Family Game Night) when we looked up and saw Winston spying on us. He does this frequently — lurks at the top of the spiral staircase, watching us. It’s creepy, and our friends never believe that he actually does this. Since I had my new camera sitting next to me (because it hasn’t been out of...
12/09/07 -
Cogitamus - Something is happening to my friends. Even my most trusted, down-to-earth, sensible friends. Slowly, over time, they’ve forgotten how to speak English. I don’t mean they’re speaking French, or Italian, or Spanish, or Russian, or anything so romantic. No, it’s as if they’ve become pods, taken over by alien beings who shun the virtues of a straightforward sentence or an elegant...
12/08/07 -
Captains Quarters Blog - Good news, men -- master shoe designer Manolo Blahnik has created a new line of men's footwear. If you don't recognize the name, your wives or girlfriends can explain that his designs are highly prized and very expensive. Now, possessors of the Y chromosome can have the access to Blahnik's genius, as represented in this new design: manolo.jpg Men, we've waited years for this opportunity....
12/08/07 -
Mcsweenys - Greetings. You've met me at a professional convention or social gathering, and we've exchanged business cards. If you're thinking, "This jerk's got one wordy business card," allow me to explain. These here are the directions. My business card is the red-yellow-and-green thimble-sized ball of putty I handed you along with this paper. Yeah, that's right. My business card is a ball of putty. See,...
12/08/07 -
Colors Outside The Lines - I am out in Oregon cracking the whip over Almost Grown to finish her thesis on time, and while it hasn't been the trip from h*ll, it underscored things I hate about air travel. 1.) Feeling like you've been seated at the kiddie table at a formal function. I ended up in the second to the last row of the plane, seated next to a woman traveling with an infant and a less-than two year old. They...
12/07/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - Okay, I admit it: I'm struggling a little bit at the moment. I'm fighting off two demons, Gimmee-gimmee-gimmee and I-don't-wanna, and it's all got me a little bit tired. I walk up either Fifth Avenue or Madison Avenue in the evenings a couple of nights a week, and I've been feeling really pleased with myself that despite the decked-out window displays, I haven't been tempted by anything in the...
12/07/07 -
In the Realm of the Rational - Ah, election time approaches. A time for Indecision and Decision, youth activism, and feelings of importance (rather unwarranted) mingled with despair at the futility of it all (more on-target). This is the most wonderful time of the four-year span for logicians. I am not a logician, but I love advocating for logic. People hate me for always wanting a reason, but even more so for constantly...
12/07/07 -
Stumbling and Mumbling - Gonzalo Otalora wants good-looking people to pay more tax, to compensate ugly ones. Is he right? Luck egalitarianism, as defended by Richard Arneson (pdf) says he is. This says people should not be worse off than others because of brute bad luck, things they have no control over. And being born ugly is such bad luck. And it's costly. Even leaving aside the impact it has on one's social life,...
12/05/07 -
Daring Young Mom - On Sunday Laylee was in agony-induced meltdown mode over a sore neck which got more and more stiff as the day wore on. By noon she was unable to turn her head at all and sobbing every time we moved her an inch. Worried that the stiff neck might be indicative of the big scary M-word and unsure whether or not she had a fever as she’d been wearing a huge parka all day, we decided to take her...
12/05/07 -
J. Timothy King’s Blog - I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to. I got pushed in, as it were. That’s one of the things I hate about swimming in the jury pool; no one ever does so by choice. The other thing I hate is that it’s filled with shark-infested water. In this age of big-brother paranoia, there are two places I avoid if I can: government facilities and airports. But today’s jury pool experience was different...
12/05/07 -
I Broke My Ankle - I'm so very frustrated. So I came home to visit my grandmother and was planning on going down to NYC to visit one of my good friends Daphne. I did get to visit my grandmother for like five minutes, later that night I broke my ankle on a bad sidewalk in Worcester. So for the last two days I've been confined to the couch in my parents living room. I can no longer drive. All I can do is take vicodin...
12/05/07 -
Mark Anthony Neal - It’s really hard to believe that it has been five years. And for you those five years have been nothing but constant change—the first eight months you spent in New York, eleven months in Texas and the last three years here in North Carolina. You might end up being the most cosmopolitan of us all. But I really wanted to talk to you—leave you something that you can go to when you’re older, so...
12/05/07 -
scratchings and sniffings - Well, I went to work finally, and got a job at a cat hospital, in the city. We cared for nothing but cats. I am not going to go into a long story about that job and how it changed my thinking on cats in general (mean cats are way scarier than mean dogs, that's all I'll tell you). But, I will say that it was at the cat hopsital that I was fully convinced that cats not only are happy indoors, but that...
12/05/07 -
wandering italy - Many of my Thursday afternoons are spent in San Francisco’s Museo Italo Americano brushing up on Italian conversation. It goes without saying that travel is a much richer experience if you know at least a little of the local lingo. It certainly lessens your dependency on maps or the kindness of particular strangers who happen to speak English. A few weeks ago the teacher who sits in on these...
12/04/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - Last week, I went apartment shopping in my building. Two apartments are currently up for sale: one has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a private terrace; the other is the same configuration as mine (one bedroom, one bathroom), but without the extensive renovations that the prior owner in my building did. Both had open houses last weekend, so I went to both. The three-bedroom apartment is...
12/04/07 -
samizdata - A few weeks ago, I was talking to a work colleague about the kind of sport shown on the BBC television channels (not Sky or the satellite stuff). One thing that came up in conversation was how little boxing there was on the BBC. Was this just because Sky and the paid-for TV channels had bagged all the top fights? It seemed so, but was there something else going on, like a PC revulsion on the...
12/04/07 -
Powell River Books - Where John goes, so goes Bro. Or maybe it is the other way around. Sometimes it's hard to tell. When John takes his quad for a ride into the bush, he's never alone. Right behind in his own handmade plush box is John's Black Lab named Bro. Bro likes riding in all types of winter, but his favorite seems to be winter. He's a true "Snow Dog." The only thing that Bro doesn't like about snow is...
12/03/07 -
Cultural Blah Blah - A few weeks ago we lost one of our favorite creators and I lost a friend. Kazuko Oshima was not only a talented Jeweler, an amazing artist and as she would always say our very own “dadaist” but she was also a true friend and supporter of not only CulturalBlahBlah, not only my life and dreams but of creativity and the human spirit. She believed that young creative talent would be our future...
12/03/07 -
Army of Dude - Groundhog Year After a year, the days began to melt together. Notable firefights, deaths and strange happenings were the only vivid memories used to recall particular dates. June 12 was symbolic throughout winter and early spring. It was the day the worn and battered would escape. The day that would mark a new beginning of our lives. The day we would return home. With a clear conscience,...
12/03/07 -
Bloggasm - 1. You’re like an exothermic reaction, you spread your hotness everywhere! 2. I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves. 3. You’re like a dictionary, you add meaning to my life! 4. If I was an enzyme, I’d be helicase so I could unzip your genes. 5. I’m attracted to you so strongly, scientists will have to develop a fifth fundamental force. 6. Baby,...
11/30/07 -
Greta Christina - I have a nosy question for my godless readers. If you had to pick a religion to belong to, which one would it be? Is there any religion that appeals to you, with rituals and politics and practices that strongly resonate with you? Do you ever have moments, listening to a church choir or attending a peace march, when you wished you had whatever it is believers have -- and if so, which believers...
11/30/07 -
Scott - The following blog is a transcript of an email conversation between a friend of mine and me. I have edited out some of the comments that were “off topic”. PAUL: WERE YOU GONE FOR ENOUGH TIME TO MAKE YOU RETHINK YOUR PRIOR POLITICAL/RELIGIOUS STANCES? SCOTT: No need to rethink when you are correct. I'm still holding out hope that you will wake up and see that I have been...
11/30/07 -
Alice's House - I returned from checking on my Dad in Canada this morning to torrential rains and a nasty cold. My Father is looking at months of rehab before we can even think about where and how he should be living. Forutnately many of these decisions must be made by his medical staff as my analysis shifts from bleak to dim to cautiously optimistic at the drop of a hat. While I was up north I had a lot of...
11/29/07 -
Sinocidal - A not so special day is fast approaching in a rickety old rickshaw with a few cases of lager and a couple of bottles of Buckfast strapped to the back. One year ago on November 19th, the large, sweaty loins of the Internet opened up and after a few grunts, squeezes, deep breaths and screams of ‘boil the water and bring plenty of clean blankets Betsy’, Sinocidal was finally dragged into this...
11/29/07 -
Media Bistro - It's time for the 2008 presidential candidates to do some crucial humanizing PR gigs before the primaries. Chief among them: Talking to TV Guide about your viewing habits. The listings mag was kind enough to give us a sneak peak at their December 3rd "Presidential Candidate Edition" issue, which is hitting stands on Thursday: # Hillary Clinton is a fan of HGTV makeover shows, Grey's Anatomy,...
11/29/07 -
Versus Populum - Here is a reflection by an Orthodox priest that I received from a (Lutheran) mutual friend of ours. I want to get it up for comments before I make my own, but I do eventually want to say some "Lutheran" things about it. (Several Lutheran friends of mine have already criticized it elsewhere, so I'm going to digest their concerns and work through my own approach here later.) This is, in my opinion,...
11/28/07 -
Steve-Sara - Now that we're not at some shady internet cafe and instead in the comfort of our new apartment, Steve has given up on any kind of ending to this blog. I'm hoping that we don't have to tell the same stories over and over, so here's a summary of our best and worst in South America. ...
11/28/07 -
Moon Over Pittsburgh - I've always been fascinated by the image of the wheels coming off. For me, at least, few metaphors are more vivid, more evocative, more perfectly descriptive of a certain state of affairs. The wheels break away and the carriage clatters to the road, scraping and groaning, its passengers tumbled together in the wrack or thrown free of the wreckage, bodies akimbo in the gutter or amid traffic,...
11/28/07 -
Around World Stuff - At the moment the world’s highest paid job is crab fishing in Alaska. The frozen waters off the Alaskan costline it lodges a veritable fishing goldmine and crab fishing.Crab fishing is the most significant of the Alaskan commercial shellfish industries. The waters of Alaska, notably the Bering Sea, Bristol Bay, Dutch Harbor and the Kodiak and Aleutian Islands are home to rich bounties of...
11/27/07 -
Aginoth - I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. ...
11/27/07 -
NYC Tango - When I first started tango, I thought:" wow, this is heaven for single guys.". What else can get you so close to a woman and to so many women? I was driven to be a very good dancer so I can dance with the prettiest and the sexiest, and many of them. A good dancer I became, I found different meanings in tango. Dancing with friends, I've found joy and peace. Dancing with Strangers, I've found...
11/27/07 -
Gunner777 - The S&W Model 27 is the original .357 Magnum revolver and was first produced in 1935; production ceased in the 1990s. The Model 27 was built on Smith and Wesson’s carbon steel, large N-frame and was available with 3 1/2″, 4″, 5″, 6″ or 8 3/8″ barrel lengths and had adjustable sights. The model 27 came about from the 38/44 Outdoorsman which was an N frame chambered in the 38HV...
11/26/07 -
Tiny Revolution - 1. I resent evolution for making me mortal. Thanks a lot, evolution. 2. More precisely, I resent evolution for making me (a) mortal, (b) aware I'm mortal, and (c) care about my mortality. Any two of these would be okay, but adding the third creates all kinds of problems. 3. I resent evolution for making me care about other organisms which are mortal. If possible, I resent this more than...
11/26/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - Trader Joe's opened in New York a year or two ago and Ive been having a torrid love affair with it ever since. Like any relationship, at first I saw only the good: vegetables, chicken, peanut butter, and other staples are cheaper at Trader Joe's than anywhere else I've been in Manhattan. Trader Joe's' bottled curry sauce is pretty similar to mine, but it doesn't take half a day to make like...
11/26/07 -
The Beginning Farmer - The question running through my mind lately is this ... Pigs or Sheep? What should the next addition be to Stoneyfield Farm. Even though we are not on the farm yet and have no definitive plans of when that will happen (if ever), I would like to see us, and the us in this case means myself and my dad, take steps in the direction that I would eventually like to end up. Maybe it just means I help...
11/26/07 -
Cobb - Just got back for the woods with Boy and an inch of dust on the Transporter. We went target shooting with the local Troop. Shooting is now officially boring. Due to some glitch in the works, our range master didn't show up at the appointed time, and we spent half of Saturday doing things we'd rather not do. Like throwing tomahawks. There are any number of things one can do on a Saturday afternoon,...
11/26/07 -
Dan's Journal - My principal, who is somewhat of a visionary given today's principals, puts up quotes every morning for the staff fto read. This was this morning's quote: "I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive." John Gardner I smiled when I read this, because...
11/25/07 -
Coppers Blog - ...at least that's what I was led to believe. By that I thought they meant it wouldn't be as cold as the UK, but I've just been across the road to post a letter and found it's officially blooming cold. We went to a nature reserve earlier today and they had one of those telescopes to see the birds with: the eye part of my head nearly got stuck to the device. At the moment it's about -15, so it's...
11/22/07 -
gulf stream blues - My India visit is drawing to a close, I'm now just trying to kill time while I wait for my very long journey home. Overall it was an interesting and enjoyable trip but I'm eager to get home and be in my own bed. Interestingly, when I lived in New York I would dread going back after a trip, but now each time I go away reinforces how much I love living in London. It's funny, I moved there feeling...
11/22/07 -
eric mansky - Last week, Sara and I returned to our apartment from a dinner with friends and noticed our front door had been jimmied open. There were wood chips in the hallway—wood that had once belonged to our door. We walked inside and then noticed our two Mac laptops were missing. I’ll be writing about this more later. But for now the short version is that the police came right over in force—about a...
11/22/07 -
melancholic feminista - Za learned about this situation while having a conversation with some of colleagues about why some of his students are doing so poorly. He gave them two chances to take an examination that really required putting in the hours to memorize bones. The only way to do well on this exam, unless you have an amazing memory is to sit there and work with flash cards or whatever mnemonic device to know your...
11/21/07 -
moxie - Feels like my heart has been ripped out. And I can hardly breathe. My Mom keeps calling and reminding me how beautiful it was that Bentley sat on my lap and slept next to me almost every minute of the day and night for the last 2 weeks, "He wanted to spend his every last minute with you." Tonight, he made some sounds that made me want to do anything for him and scream, NO....not yet Bentley. Then...
11/21/07 -
shauna rumbling - We read A Thanksgiving Turkey by Julian Scheer today. It's a nice story about life on a farm in another era. A boy goes hunting with his granddad, and though they successfully kill several different types of animals, the cunning turkey they're after remains elusive through several seasons. The hunting team goes out before Thanksgiving and calls the turkey in close. The grandfather sees the bird's...
11/20/07 -
Frugal Zeitgeist - Shopping at pharmacies in New York isn't generally a fun experience. Cashiers don't really smile on the whole, and they seldom say anything other than NEXXXXT! It's not what you'd call a friendly experience. The drugstores in my neighborhood are not all that well-maintained, either. Aisles are often cluttered and messy, and it can be really hard to find what I'm looking for without feeling my blood...
11/20/07 -
The Winter Campers - I started this blog almost 30 days ago with the intent of telling the history of Winter Camp. For those of you patient enough or with an abundance of unused time on your hands, who actually went back and read “Whose a Winter Camper?”, I say Thank you. For the rest of you, here is a summary. A buddy of mine Doug and myself, were always getting in trouble. Our usual reason for getting in trouble...
11/20/07 -
Midnight Hour - When I asked this of life merely a few weeks ago it gave me the obvious reply, “I’m serious, and don’t call me Shirley, because now I’m pissed, and I’m going to own you for the next 45 minutes.” Read on to find out why I asked this benign and powerful question. I stopped at the Fresh Market on my way home from work that weekday afternoon. It was about 5 PM and I was still wearing...
11/20/07 -
Mad Melancholic Feminista - I don't like to "emote." I probably wouldn't have chosen to use the word "emote"; I would've said that I don't like to throw tantrums, bully people into agreeing with me, employ guilt, or blow off steam when I am frustrated. But, let's stick with "emote," since its the word that my mom and I agreed on. We had a conversation about how much my family likes to "emote," except for me. Another...
11/20/07 -
Buzz Machine - I apologize, blog friends, for having been silent since Wednesday night, when our family lost my brother-in-law, Steven Westmark, to a sudden and tragic heart attack. I almost turned off the comments on this post, which may seem rather odd. But I know that you all would offer my family condolences, and if you do so in the comments and emails, I’ll feel guilty not responding to each of you...
11/20/07 -
Kate Kelsall - Whatever happened to “you're welcome” as a polite response to “thank you”? I cringe when I hear “no problem” or “no worries” in response to my thanks. It’s one of my pet peeves. Other responses that are more palatable to me and that I can live with include: “Not at all” is used in some cases in response to thank you to indicate that the offer to do something or an...
11/19/07 -
Easy Writer - As writers, our ability to multi-task means we do things that often seem so --unrelated. For over 23 years, I've dealt with the mental illness of three, and now two relatives. I married into a family plagued with it for at least two generations. It hasn't been something that I could walk away from --though many times I wished I could. I have imagined the life I thought I could have. I've taken...
11/19/07 -
Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Cavalry - Writing their reports at the moment. Revenge! That will wipe the smiles off their nasty little faces! A lot of teachers give everyone top marks for everything, but I see it as my duty to say quite clearly "Your child is an illiterate cabbage," if this is the case. "He is in the advanced class because no one has ever failed him. Nevertheless, he speaks English like a dog." ...
11/19/07 -
Gay Banker - Last month, I said that I might buy boyfriend number 1 a place to live, so that we no longer have to live together in the same house. But in terms of what kind of place to buy, or what area to look in, I've been leaving all the decisions to him. Last week, after countless viewings, he told me that he's finally found a place that might be suitable. "I think perhaps you should see it GB,"...
11/16/07 -
Financial Rounds - I'm on my college's undergraduate curriculum and assessment committee, and I'm sure it's because of some egregious sins I committed in a past life. We had a meeting the other day, and after an hour and fifteen minutes, it was still going strong with no end in sight. So, I left to go pick up my kids. After looking at the agenda, I thought we could get 'er done in about 30 minutes, but that means...
11/16/07 -
bovine bonanza - The local livestock auction is every Friday. The cattle are sold and then marked with the numbered irons to identify the animal's buyer. Vryburg, originally uploaded by Benjamin Long. I arrived in Johannesburg in the middle of the night with no real plan. My friend’s father was in town for business so I thought I would look him up. I found his hotel and soon realized that he had checked...
11/16/07 -
L.A. Smog Blog - Who the fuck doesn't hate their neighbors in L.A. right? My relationship with two neighbors in this apartment complex has waxed and waned in the past three months but as of recently it has definitely become increasingly difficult to not either 1) Steal their cats 2)Piss on their doorway 3)Fuck up their car or other various truancies. Why you ask? Let me set up the Neighbors that Neil and I have...
11/16/07 -
Dead Fruit - Through the streets of Brooklyn he runs, A most magestic and brilliant beast, Outpacing even the most dangerous Huns, Never stopping for a feast. Built by George and named by Josh, Bucephalus and I were fast friends, Reeking of character but hardly posh, Slavishly tethered, I thought oh Gosh! And we kindled a love that ne...
11/16/07 -
Active Margin - I caught the second half of a session on teaching climate change to underclassmen and secondary students. The issue is a complex one, as are all scientific topics, but the politicization brings it up by an order of magnitude. As it does, I guess, with any topic. I have strong opinions on issues of civil liberties, economics, the environment and science in general. I like to consider myself...
11/14/07 -
Carpet Blogger - The Most Important American Holiday is in one week. Thanksgiving rocks because there's no phony (or real) religion or rampant consumerism -- only food and friends and family. This is likely to be the first of several posts dealing with the First Annual Baku Diaspora Istanbul Thanksgiving. We held two gigantic Thanksgivings in Baku (see here and here). This year, about 30 folks are leaving a...
11/14/07 -
Shakespeare's Sister - For the discriminating breast aficionado, the world has been a grim and hostile place ever since women's bodies stopped being objectified and feminism was rendered unnecessary. What with men spontaneously abandoning strip clubs and porn during the Great Egalitarian Awakening of 2006, there hasn't been a naked, non-feeding breast seen in public since Madeleine Albright's wardrobe malfunction in Joe...
11/14/07 -
Alec Soth - Last week while I was traveling my wife had to put down our sweet dog Charley. Charley wasn’t named after the Steinbeck book, Travels with Charley (he came with that name from the Humane Society), but he was as worthy of adoration as Steinbeck’s poodle. Though Charley usually came to the studio with me, I never took him on the road. I probably wasn’t as good of a companion as Steinbeck....
11/13/07 -
Chapter 11 Studios - Yes, it’s true. The surgeon removed my kidney. It was a bit of a surprise. Apparently it may have been more than just the stones that were causing me problems. Turns out the kidney itself was full of scar tissue and inflamation from my many previous surgeries, not to mention the fact that the surgeon found the beginnings of lots of other little stones buried in all the kidney’s various...
11/13/07 -
Jack In Berlin - I saw a newspaper yesterday. The headline? - ‘WINTER BLITZ!’. Shit. Anyway Sarah is here so all is good and readers can look forward to her apt criticisms of me :( My new project involves an EU Directive which bans lead being used in certain types of projectors. There was an exemption granted but now it has been suddenly withdrawn. Shock! LEAD Bombshell! dLEADly! MisLEADing! That is how...
11/13/07 -
The Resurgence - What causes poverty? The question presently plagues many serious Christian thinkers and leaders. The answers vary but the proposed solutions are the stuff of our political campaigns every four years. We can already hear the discussion from the various candidates for the presidency in 2008, both Republican and Democrat. One candidate, John Edwards, actually wants to make poverty a major issue...
11/12/07 -
Lauren of Arabia - On the eve that marks my eight month mile marker here in Yemen, I find myself sitting here pondering the thought, 'what the hell are you doing in Yemen???' For some reason, I thought of several fond memories of my family during the holidays...maybe it's due to Ramadan here. It's a southern Italian tradition to have 7 different types of fish for a large dinner on Christmas Eve...while we did...
11/12/07 -
11 D - I'm packing up and getting ready for today's classes. We'll be discussing Rousseau in my theory class. I can't say I'm looking forward to describing the general will. After Political Theory, we're having "fun day" in Politics and Media. We're going to watch All the President's Men. As I'm waiting for the projector to warm up, I'll tell them about the first time that I saw that movie. I was...
11/12/07 -
bitch phd - Three days ago, I raised my right hand and said, "I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and the Constitution of the State of Illinois, and that I will faithfully discharge my duties to the best of my ability." I don't really know when I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. It's not one of those stories that involves me dreaming about courtrooms when...
11/11/07 -
Of Humans and Horses - We set off early this morning to try to break the back of the journey south. Sarah took the first go driving and got us to Monticello but we couldn’t find a coffee house anywhere. Some of these small towns have to be seen to be believed – they are so scruffy and look like they have been dumped there without a care. There just isn’t anywhere in UK like that anymore – all available space...
11/11/07 -
Bite by Bite - I almost completed two decades of my life eating meat. I was perfectly sympathetic to vegetarianism - most of my mother's side of the family were veggie, and my mum was brought up that way, although these days she eats meat. My maternal grandparents were vegetarian during WWII rationing. I lived for almost two decades thinking that vegetarianism was admirable, but I "couldn't cope" without...
11/11/07 -
Badly Blog - One of the hardest aspects - after having hopefully overcome two-types of leukaemia - is explaining to people that this post-transplant complication is potentially just as life-threatening. My new bone marrow has engrafted successfully. It is making new red blood cells, platelets and white blood cells – the cells that help fight off infection. Unfortunately, these new white blood cells are...
11/09/07 -
Mommy Life - For all of us who feel only the deepest love and affection for the way computers have enhanced our lives, read on. At a recent computer expo (COMDEX), Bill Gates reportedly compared the computer industry with the auto industry and stated, "If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25.00 cars that got 1,000 miles to the gallon." In response...
11/09/07 -
KC Dog Blog - I'm doing a 180 today. It's my blog, I have that right. I'm also probably going to get roasted for this one. So let me have it. But a couple of days ago, ABC News ran a special feature on a new company called FlexPetz. The company is basically a dog rental service, or maybe a time share, for dogs. The company has started with a base in San Diego, and have expanded to LA and to New...
11/09/07 -
Listen Missy - Although being busy makes me happy, I'm just coming out of a multi-month period of too much. My neck and shoulders are registering as much. Incidentally, I'm sure you've heard that multitasking is making me and everyone dumber. (Wait, I'm too dumb for that article. Try this or this (gated).) I prefer not using the word 'dumber'; rather, I am simply incapable of focusing my attention on one thing...
11/08/07 -
dilbert blog - When you see people who are struggling in life, you probably feel an urge to help. You might talk yourself out it, because you have your own problems, or you don’t know how to help in any lasting way, or there are just too many people in need. But you have the urge to help those less fortunate. It’s in your DNA. You’re good people. On the flip side, when you see people who are happier than...
11/08/07 -
john coleman - My first real crush was in eighth grade. There was a girl in my homeroom – we’ll call her Lisa – who demanded all my attention. I was the new boy in school, and she was the popular (gasp!) cheerleader. I thought she was a picture of adolescent perfection. Her voice was like spring, and her smile was a crisp Sunday morning. She spoke with a Georgia belle’s drawl, and she always managed to...
11/08/07 -
Candy Sandwich - I was early. Uncomfortably alone in the bar, with my first human interaction since Sunday (other than a minute with my landlord and a shouted discussion with the repairman who liked my photography and my ShopVac), I ordered a soda. I ordered an appetizer. I left them both on the bar for my "one, two, three... five, six, seven...." I wore the wrong shoes. I stuck to the floor a little too well...
11/07/07 -
Fly and Field - In June of 2006 I received a phone call from Will Blair of The Best of Kamchatka. I was surprised to hear from our outfitter. He was supposed to be on the peninsula, welcoming his first of 13 fishing groups to the fabled wilderness of Russia. Bad news was imminent. Due to the loss of FAA status, the Russian airline that was scheduled to transport us to the Kamchatkan hub Petropavlovski would not...
11/07/07 -
Thought Crimes - A few years ago, sitting in my San Francisco apartment, I watched a documentary that within the first half hour had me reduced to a sad-eyed puddle of nostalgia. Most of it was shot in Louisiana and Mississippi and as I watched outdoor shots of that flat green, almost jungle-like landscape with its levees and bayous, as I listened to the soft accents of the people being interviewed, I found myself...
11/07/07 -
Expedition: Life - The arrival into Prague was uneventful. It was also the only portion of the trip that would retain that designation. Pretty much every event/thing/item that followed getting off the bus in the city had some unique twist to it. First, upon arrival a group of us attempted to find our hostel with no real directions or true sense of where we were. About 20 minutes and a lot of steps later we finally...
11/06/07 -
Scribble Pad - This morning we were discussing you, my place to scribble where i talk to myself and check if i can word some things, let off steam, think aloud. he spoke of you with finality, though it was i who said that you were dead. but thats untrue. i haven't run out of things to say. i merely haven't yet safely negotiated a space to talk from. - now that there is another person who would be affected by...
11/06/07 -
abortion clinic days - I want to tell you about a young woman I saw today. She had been to the clinic last week but because her mother had not completed state requirements, they were re-scheduled. Another counselor first began talking to this 16 year old but felt that they were not going to make a connection because of what seemed to be anger coming from the young woman's words, body posture and general attitude. When...
11/06/07 -
Spiritual Journey of a Lightworker - Rory then replied that he would be interested in hearing how my line of thinking progresses. Well, here it is. "Why do I blog?" is slightly different than "Why do I write?", but there are also similarities. Writing could be on a much smaller scale where I write strictly for myself or to share my thoughts with a few friends. Blogging is writing on a grander scale. Blogging puts my writing out...
11/05/07 -
Sugar Queens Dream - From the desk of a really nice and trusting woman ,Who, should have been told the truth years before she was old enough to become addicted .... Dear Tobacco Companies, I really feel that you lied to me for years... Shouldn't you be held accountable? I don't understand why you never told me that smoking wasn't pretty , popular , deadly , addictive and that years later I would be left not...
11/05/07 -
Doodlius - Hello again, ye cartographers charting the Map of Truth. Baba Doodlius here, with today's Mystery of the Universe! There are many Mysteries of the Universe out there, of varying degrees of difficulty to reveal. Many of them have some Cosmic significance, or at least some relevance to your everyday life. This week's entry is nothing of any importance whatsoever. So why would I even bother...
11/05/07 -
Opinionated Black Woman - Letting go is necessary; letting go of people that hurt you, letting go of relationships that are harmful and not fulfilling, letting go of jobs that are stressful and not good for you, letting go of bad habits…but letting go is necessary if you are to live your life in peace and find yourself. It is not necessarily the letting go that is hard—the hard part is usually identifying those...
11/04/07 -
Hedge Wizards Diary - I'm rooted to the spot. My teeth are chattering. I need to know what's round the corner, but I can't summon up the nerve to look. I need to empty my bladder. Rewind. I'm not one for keeping my PC hugely up to date, for several reasons - including those of finance, stupidity and, er, not really needing to anyway. Once every decade or so a situation arises that said PC cannot cope with, and...
11/04/07 -
Your Earth - My husband and I are stargazers. Sometimes, on a particularly clear night, we lie in the middle of our driveway and look up at the night sky. We are blessed with a few acres of property, far enough away from the city lights so we can actually see the stars. We are also blessed with an abundance of trees. Our long driveway is the only place where their magnificent canopy doesn’t block our view...
11/04/07 -
Midget Wrangler - I love sandwiches....and I mean love them! If I had to pick my favorite food in the whole world (and I'm including chocolate and cake in here) I would pick sandwiches! But not any sandwich mind you, I don't eat sandwiches that I haven't made myself, cos I hate mayonnaise and sandwiches in the real world are generally just dry and crap. As for those sandwiches you buy in work, packed in a plastic...
11/02/07 -
Slaves of Golconda - I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about a blog post as much as I’ve had occasion to think about this one. For a long time it’s been a distant speck on the horizon, the post I would write when I was well enough to do so; and then all of last week I was testing my desire to write against my capacity to do so. But what repeatedly quickened my pulse and compelled me towards the keyboard was...
11/02/07 -
One Good Thing - The last two weekends have been devoted to home improvement. Specifically, it's been devoted to watching my sister and brother-in-law improve my home. My sister banned me from painting after watching me apply blue painter's tape over the base trim in what she deemed an unsatisfactory manner. My sister is a painting fiend. She's already painted all the walls in her own house, and half the furniture,...
11/02/07 -
texas golden girl - One would expect being an escort would invite these sort of responses. I’m still amused and confused by the number of e-mails (and a few phone calls) in which I was called slut. I always resisted the urge to write these men back and tell them that if they were going to call names, they should use a dictionary first. Technically speaking, I was not a slut as an escort. I had one boyfriend at a time...
11/01/07 -
Scalpel or Sword - So a well-known frequent-flying sickle cell princess is finally brought back into a room after a 3 hour wait in triage. I actually have a soft spot for these patients somewhere deep inside my crusty facade, because unlike many other chronic conditions that cause mystery pain, this disease actually harms those who are afflicted with it. You never see an old sickler, and it's rare to see even a...
11/01/07 -
Expat in The Tropics - Literally! I don't remember so much rain in Panama, or is it that after those years in dry Curacao my mind has erased that? Anything is possible, and we do put unpleasant things out of our minds all the time. In any case, let me tell you........ it rains in Panama!!!! And it rains everyday in October. It comes down in sheets and everything turns damp and mildew grows everywhere. If you do laundry,...
11/01/07 -
The J Train - I was in the mood to cook something new today, so inspired by the always wonderful Amateur Gourmet, I made polenta. Fascinated though I've been over the years with Italian cuisine, I have never attempted polenta. You'd think that as a Southerner I would have made grits, which are more or less the same thing, but grits just aren't a staple in my neighborhood of Kentucky. So this was new...
10/31/07 -
dave treston - I think my favorite group of gym-goers are the older gentlemen in their 60s or 70s. While many gym-goers wear standard workout attire, these guys have no problem working out in slacks and a button down shirt. At first I thought they looked ridiculous, but then I tried picturing my own grandfathers in cut off t-shirts and sweatpants and realized how cool it is these guys don’t even care, they just...
10/31/07 -
bitch phd - When I was sixteen, I went to visit my sister, who was 23 and living in San Francisco. I stayed there for three weeks, and it was one of the more important experiences of my adolescence; it was the first time I got a chance to explore a city other than the one I grew up in, and do it by myself. I remember a lot of things from that trip. I remember drinking coffee for the first time, I remember...
10/31/07 -
melancholic feminista - My husband never gets sick. He goes years without seeing a doctor, taking a day to rest from a cold, or even take an aspirin. When he returned from his annual exam with a new physician, he delighted in rubbing it in that his doctor was hard pressed to find anything wrong with him. (I am the opposite; I get sick a lot.) When Za does get sick, boy, does he just hit it out of the park. I awoke at...
10/31/07 -
child style - Halloween costumes have become a source of dread for me. It seemed simple enough when I had one kid and she was an infant. I made all her decisions, so she was a pumpkin, a black cat and then she started having opinions and all my ideas of Halloween went out the window. I have this notion that you should be scary, according to your age group, for Halloween. I would never give my young child a...
10/31/07 -
jacks mama - I think it would be much easier to work than stay at home. At least I'd get a break for 8 hours a day. Jack and I went to Urgent Care yesterday. He's had a cough and cold off and on for 2 months. It turns out he has allergies. I kind of assumed as much but when he told me his neck hurt really bad it scared me. All I could think was Spinal Meningitis. I don't know anything about it but for some...
10/31/07 -
the cerebral outpost - So many things have been going on around me lately ... thought I'd make a little list and give an abbreviated lowdown on each item. Oh, and sometimes, you just have to add images. The husband ... My own, personal superman, is fully recovered now from a stroke a year ago last September, two more stents inserted into his heart later on in the year (he now has six), and then a fibrilator implant...
10/29/07 -
Washington Bureau - I’m not particularly fussy when it comes to haircuts. Growing up, the four brothers would line up and my mom would do her magic with the electric snippers once a month. As an adult in the United States, I’ve always been a Supercuts kind of guy. Do it quick, get it over, and pay as little as possible. But I’ve always enjoyed the experience of getting a haircut overseas. Somehow, the...
10/29/07 -
Lubabnomore - While running late for work this morning I found a set of keys at the train station. They were left on a bench at the platform. It appeared the keys were for a rental car. The key-chain had the rental company's logo on one side and some numbered codes on the other which could no doubt identify the car. I wanted to get the keys to their rightful owner. Personally, I would hate to lose something...
10/28/07 -
Blogs of the City - I'm listening to Bon Jovi's "Have a Nice Day" album at the moment, and am loving "Have a Nice Day" track. Their other ones are pretty good too, and suddenly I feel like reminiscing on my teenage years. The band has been on Channel V's "Rock Icon" and their latest single "(You Want To) Make a Memory" has been all over the channel. They are releasing yet again another album after 2 years called...
10/28/07 -
mad as hell club - Back when you were still a brunette, we lived in the same dormitory at Boston College. It was freshman year and we were acquaintances, doing the what’s up nod when we saw each other on campus, going to dorm parties in the same crowd. We went on a group retreat to Cape Cod, one of those university-organized Kumbayah fests where they encouraged us to create covenants with ourselves or something like...
10/28/07 -
chase me ladies - They were obviously lying, and I proved they were lying within two minutes when I asked them to name this ideal woman and they named some dancing girl from the television, a woman famous entirely for her arse, rather than her sensitivity, intelligence, etc. The girls' list was equally mendacious. In South America it is difficult to get a girlfriend if you don't have a car, but you would never...
10/26/07 -
Breastfeeding123 - I believe in gentle discipline. The term “discipline” comes from a word that means “to teach.” With a baby and young toddler, gentle discipline was relatively easy. I hid away breakable or dangerous items. The “terrible twos” weren’t so terrible if I could anticipate my child’s need for food, rest, or snuggles. When my older child was three, she turned the tables and taught me...
10/26/07 -
The Lowest Deep - Apropos of nothing, was reminded of this story about a priceless Stradivarius cello stolen from a cellist at the LA philharmonic by a kid on a bike in LA and, quite naturally, thought to myself "that's terrible." But I didn't think it was terrible simply because someone had stolen $3.5 million from someone else. If we were talking about $3.5 million in cash, one person would be out a couple...
10/26/07 -
Road To Surfdom - It was Francis Bacon who wrote an essay On Revenge, which began ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice’. I don’t know how it went down with the English public when he published it in 1625, but he’d cop an earful of abuse on Australian talkback radio if he was imprudent enough to voice similar thoughts today. I happen to agree with old Francis though, which possibly explains why I’ve never...
10/25/07 -
Thoms Word - IKEA, Mööö I don't like crowds, and i hate shopping. So naturally i jumped at the chance to go furniture hunting with my partner Roberto at the new IKEA in Portland. Fall came early to Puddletown. (Actually it came right on time this year, but usually we procrastinate, putting it off until later in October.) I don't know what it is about rain that makes people in this river village so...
10/25/07 -
Texas Golden Girl - People often want to know how stripping and escorting affected me. I think I have enough distance from both to be able to begin to answer the question. Since stripping came first, this post is first. The immediate effects of stripping were obvious: crippling knee problems, back aches, secondhand smoke, plenty of firsthand smoking, too much drinking, constant colds and coughs. And because I...
10/25/07 -
Whiskey in My Sippy Cup - Let me preface this by saying how much I love you. My life got a little better on the days each of you were born. I have relished every moment with you so far; every nose-bleed and poopey diaper and science project. You are my whole world. Got it? Good. Stay the fuck out of my room, already. I know that you ache for me when we're apart, and I miss your precious little faces, too. But...
10/24/07 -
Air Traffic Controller - After 18 months at my present location, I'll be moving on at some stage soon. Just a couple of weeks ago I applied for a position at another tower and was lucky enough to get a job. My transfer date is yet to be confirmed but I'd expect the move to happen in the first half of 2008. Where am I going? Well, I never disclose where I work (although if you pay enough attention to the detail of my...
10/24/07 -
Agoraphilia - A recent conversation about dating activities raised the following question: Why is bowling more popular than miniature golf for a date? (I don’t know this is true, but based on the relative number of bowling alleys versus mini golf courses in my region, it seems to be.) The obvious answer? Bowling alleys typically serve booze, while mini golf courses don’t. But that answer raises a...
10/24/07 -
The Dilbert Blog - Last night I attended a meeting at our local school. It was part of a larger program put on by the police to teach parents how to prevent their kids from using drugs when they get older. My personal objective was to make it through the night without making any inappropriate jokes that would embarrass my wife. It was a narrow escape. Let me tell you, there are some situations where it is...
10/23/07 -
guide to life - Words can do more damage than a loaded gun yet we continually throw them around with careless abandonment. Ever heard a parent say to a child “I wish you had not be born” the words may have bubbled up from a deep frustration but their impact nonetheless is devastating. Children do not have the logic to go “Oh she didn’t mean it she is having a bad day” they internalize they think “She...
10/23/07 -
tired but happy - Okay, I don't love all of it. But today was very full, and I got a lot done, and I didn't have to sit at a desk for 8 hours doing the same thing. In the morning, I went to a short meeting with a colleague and we drafted a response to a lunatic rant that someone sent out to the entire faculty list at the college where we work. It was a good meeting. We got a lot done in only 30 minutes, and I...
10/23/07 -
girls gone child - Eleven years ago to the day, I was fifteen years old. I was a Sophomore in High School, on my way to an appointment downtown with my mother. The fire was burning several miles away when we left. It wasn't supposed to come close to our house, but suddenly, the wind shifted and evacuations were under way. My brother and sister left with a neighbor and my mother and I left our appointment early to...
10/22/07 -
Mrs Micah - When having some tv troubles the other day, I recalled a decision my parents made years ago. Namely, they kept the same tv for 18 years. That’s right. It was actually two years older than I was. But it was good quality (I don’t recall the brand) and served faithfully. It probably helped that we didn’t watch much tv, though we did watch movies pretty often. When I was about 13, it started...
10/22/07 -
Adventures on Firethorn - We started the weekend with a trip to Red Top Mountain in Georgia to celebrate the wedding of Ryan and Keturah Coryell. The weather was spotless, and the location rather sentimental for us, since we camped at the Red Top State Park the first night when we decided we wanted to start "dating". Ask me about the part where Patrick took off his shirt and loaded the trunk with various trees he plucked...
10/22/07 -
restless mania - This guy is my age, maybe slightly older (he and I both graduated in 2001 from UMd.-- he has a degree in history) His point about the shirt "looking cool" has some merit. Like I told him, divorced from the context of the dark annals of Soviet history, the hammer and sickle look kind of cool on a T-shirt. Ditto with Che Guevara T-shirts. I can see how apolitical people, even those supposedly...
10/21/07 -
Whisky for Beginners - Bumper sampler assortment We had people over for dinner tonight -- none of whom had ever met each other. Jo's a kiwi who works at a Go-Kart track here in Birmingham, Jonathan's a young English lad who's been living in Poland, and was crashing on our couch until he found somewhere more pleasant to stay -- and Clutch is a Scottish theatre set builder who sings and plays in the band (X) is greater...
10/21/07 -
Sun Lit Water - My father was born in Mercy Hospital in Durango, Colorado on July 28, 1947. His parents didn’t live in Durango, but they were following something of a family tradition in traveling across state lines to give birth in a better hospital than those available nearby. They lived at a trading post a few miles southeast of Farmington, New Mexico, in the region known as the Checkerboard because the...
10/21/07 -
Run Trails - Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of joining 60 trail runners for the 4th annual Lake of The Sky 33-Miler in Tahoe City, CA (LOTS). This challenging and scenic out-and-back is one of only two trail races on the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) each year, providing one last opportunity to enjoy the TRT before it is buried in snow for the next five months. Cool weather and hearty volunteers combined for a...
10/19/07 -
One Good Thing - Honeysuckle is still broken, and the company that processes our payments (ahem, PayPal) is not being particularly helpful or efficient. Steve made a small tweak and shifted the Tip Jar over to his Parentland site, so if anyone would like to buy something from the store, go to the tip jar and round up to whatever amount comes closest, then email me and let me know what you want and I'll send it out...
10/19/07 -
Waking The Midnight Sun - Sunday evening, a quarter to eight, and I’ve just arrived home. I’m tidying up the room and dealing with the strong impulse, which has been coming and going in the past month or so, to grab up all my books, and toss them out the window. Or at least, stick them in a box and leave them on an A train, an offering to the subway. Every now and then I get this urge to get rid of my books. Last time...
10/19/07 -
Escape Brooklyn - But even still, I believe in financial transparency so I'm okay with people knowing my numbers. And it doesn't affect what I write, most of the time. But perhaps it's in the back of my mind that my sister may read my blog so I shouldn't say mean things about her. And I know reading this blog makes her uncomfortable because of the many details of my life, especially around our parents and my...
10/18/07 -
manifest density - I am pleased to announce that I've recently upgraded my shaving technology. Before this I was using a red Mach3 Turbo that my mother gave to me, which worked well enough. Prior to that I was using a Mach3, which was indistinguishable from its successor except for a lack of redness and failure to incorporate the word "turbo" into its name. Also, it seemed slower. But I'm now the proud owner of a...
10/18/07 -
dave weigel - I finish up at work and leave to buy a book, at a store three blocks from the office. It’s 60 minutes until I need to jump on my bike and head to the house of a new-ish friend who’s decided I’m worthy of playing Trivial Pursuit with on a weeknight. But I want to buy a book for a friend, and I mosey around the store for a while, grabbing a nice one and some stuff for myself (ooh, the Skeptic’s...
10/18/07 -
Rob Patey - There are a countless number of phrases in the corporate lexicon that make my blood boil and turn me from a placid Bill Bixby into a roid raging green skinned Lou Ferrigno. Here are just a few. Touch Base – The most common corporate bastardization of this phrase is usually uttered as "After this meeting, let's touch base about the plan of action." I'm assuming you used the words "touch...
10/17/07 -
Psychcentral - Some people love the summertime, others love the cold of the winter. Me? More than anything, I love the changing of the seasons. It really doesn’t matter from what season to another, I love the fact that there’s a certainty, a progress to the year that you can count on almost like nothing else in this world. Fall doesn’t care if you’re sad or depressed, it’s coming nonetheless. And...
10/17/07 -
Froggy Ruminations - I’m sitting in the airport this morning, waiting to leave North Africa and Ramadan behind me. While it has not been all fun and games, I have enjoyed my trip. Coincidentally, I started reading The Looming Tower on my flight over, what a poignant setting to digest this incredible work - and being joined at the hip for two weeks with a former general from the Egyptian police didn’t hurt...
10/17/07 -
Bolsinger - Our SC Marathoners for Malawi Team took part in the Chicago Marathon today in temperatures in the 90s that were over 22 degrees above normal and with 86 percent humidity. The unusually hot temperatures led to the death of a Michigan man. ( My heart goes out to his family.) As well as an most unexpected conclusion: The Race Organizers canceled the race because their were so many people going...
10/16/07 -
Manifest Density - But while Matt (and, one suspects, professional apple pickers) thinks it's silly to pay to perform this sort of labor — even if just with time — he's guilty of doing the same thing. Sure, he's a professional pundit now. But for a long time Matt belonged to the class of folks offering electronic ruminations for free — a practice that leaves a lot of professional writers scratching their heads....
10/16/07 -
Iconic Midwest - I hate days like these because I can't turn on the f-ing television without seeing something that pisses me off. My wife insists on watching the NewsHour on PBS and I watched until I couldn't stand it any longer. The combination of willfully spread inaccuracies designed to further a leftist agenda coupled with a less willful scientific ignorance they don't have the basic intelligence to mask,...
10/16/07 -
Jesssica Schneider - In case you haven't noticed, my cat Oscar has decided to start up his own blog at www.chubbyoscar.blogspot.com. There you can gloss over the daily activities that fills the life of a chubby cat, which aren't many. He will update on occasion, provided the blog does not intrude too much into his nap time. He insists this blog is about him and only him, but will consider posting photos of the other...
10/15/07 -
jeff vrabel - I can't be sure, because I've never actually encountered a foosball hustler before, because I never for one moment considered the physical possibility that a foosball hustler might exist, that there might be a person in the world who plays it for more than the occasional beer-fueled killing of time, that anyone might remotely take seriously an activity wherein you rocket a marble back and forth on...
10/15/07 -
sarah kelly - I don't know if it's jet lag or just the fact that it's me, but I went to bed at the completely reasonable hour of three eh em and woke up like a shot again at five. Half an hour later, here I remain, poring through old emails and thinking those frustrating thoughts that always fade out like a guy talking as he's meandering down a hall. So what's better than thinking? I've been safe at home in...
10/15/07 -
steven berlin johnson - hose of you who read the first pages of Everything Bad Is Good For You know that I was freakishly obsessed with baseball, and particularly baseball statistics, when I was a young kid. In the last few months, our just-turned-six-year-old has gotten equally obsessed with baseball, which of course is why I had children in the first place -- so I could shag fly balls and talk about the Yankees with...
10/14/07 -
Nurse Ratched's Place - Now that I’m done hosting Grand Rounds, I have time to start looking again for the perfect job. I’m heartbroken because the man of my dreams, Steven Jobs, never contacted me about a job, or my new iPhone. By the way, Steven, the offer is still on the table, so call me. This is a job that I could really get into, just as long as I’m not required to get into that dress. There isn’t enough...
10/14/07 -
majikthise - On the 12th day of estrus, my true love gave to me: Twelve Rabbits humming, Eleven gripers griping, Ten Keepers keeping, Nine judges judging, Eight cocks a-wilting, Seven fundies praying, Six lawyers winning, Five MRAs Four fightin’ words, Three mad men, Two lady loves, And stooge for the patriarchy!...
10/14/07 -
fat mammy cat - rumbles on. Follow this conversation if you will. ...'she just sat there like a fool.' 'Oh Christ-' 'Who?' 'Beyonce Knowles, she's an idiot. The PETA crowd totally got her.' 'What was she supposed to do? She's a singer and she thought they had won a dinner with her. Okay she uses fur in her collection and maybe she needs to be able to defend her choice in-' 'OH my God, defend! Don't start....
10/12/07 -
blame it on rioja - Moving southwest from San Vicente de la Sonsierra, just across the Ebro River, you will soon come across another mid-valley hilltop village, Briones. (On a clear day, from the balcón in the Sierra de Cantabria above Sanmaniego, you can make out all four hilltop villages of winemaking Rioja in one east to west sweep: Laguardia, San Vicente de la Sonsierra, Briones, and Haro.) Yesterday, I asked...
10/12/07 -
lewis and clark trail watch - One of the more enjoyable things about my research is sampling the various wares to be found with Lewis and Clark themes. It's all pretty silly because the expedition did not have fancy chocolate bars and scented candles and soaps and lotions. But perhaps they had coffee and beer. We know they had whiskey--barrels and barrels of whiskey--so the Jack Daniels company's commemorative distillation a...
10/12/07 -
joel asutherland - Apparently, we're all crazy in a lot of the same ways. As a result, I have to really dig deep for a fresh list. Here it is: Upon first viewing, I hate most movies I've been really excited to see, knowing that I'll probably love it upon second viewing, but still hating it just as much. I have a large collection of action figures -- if you want to make me mad, call them toys, and if you want to...
10/11/07 -
Dead Fruit - Strange things happen when your life is enclosed by 3 gray push-pin cubicle walls. After spending day after day after day surrounded by the commonplace objects littering my desk, a bond has grown between me and my desk-wares. While these objects would normally go unheeded by a passerby, I would like to highlight a particular device that I feel a unique attachment to: My Automatic...
10/11/07 -
All Outdoors Online - For your sapling bow projects: Try to find a straight sapling of some hardwood about 2" thick where the handle will be. If you can find or borrow a saw, that will help you cut the bow staves and will work out better than chopping and breaking them off at the base. Most hardwoods are good bow woods. If you avoid conifers, poplars and willows you should be in good shape. The Maples, the Oaks, Beech,...
10/11/07 -
Texas Fly Fisher - I was getting restless this afternoon, so I headed to my favorite gun range, Eagle's Peak, to get some practice in with my XD. My logic was that since it was 100F degrees out the range should be close to deserted. I arrived at the range around 5pm and there was just as many folks there as usual. I've been there now several times so I've gotten to know the range officer at the desk, Ron. who is...
10/10/07 -
The mad house wife - I assume the generation currently being brought up by Generation X will get the next title after Generation Y. Will that be Gen Z? If so, what happens after them? Weird. I’ll call them Generation Z for now. Several events this past week have made me excited about what they are going to be like as adults (other than the usual fantabulousness of my own kids, of course). My impression of Gen Z...
10/10/07 -
Whispers in the Loggia - You could say I had a “close call” a couple days back… In retrospect, that’s what it feels like. And as with any “close” call that isn’t a final one, it might just be better that it happened than if it didn’t. Driving home from a (long-delayed) haircut, I took the usual curve off of one of the bridges that empties out into the River City, with its usual transition from the...
10/10/07 -
Corduroy orange - I made perhaps the best cup of iced coffee ever this morning, thanks to some prep I did yesterday afternoon. First off, it’s important to know some of the background behind iced coffee. You can’t make it the same way you make iced tea, by simply pouring hot tea over ice. When you do that with a cuppa joe, the result is a weak, tepid cuppa crap. Some people (coffee shops, especially) get...
10/10/07 -
Wastedbirthcontrol - My darling Tori Anne, You are 16 months old! And I am EXHAUSTED. You are always moving, always active, always go- go- going. Usually somewhere we don't want you to go. I know to you it feels arbitrary and random--that we just don't want you to have fun--but the truth is, there is just a lot of dangerous shit around and we don't want you to get hurt. But try to tell you that! Impossible....
10/10/07 -
Inlovewithiraq - Rubbing shoulders with Iraq… the every summer urge that consumes all my savings and completely drains me emotionally and physically; took me inside Iraq this year rather than around it….it was not easy for my family but in the end it was much worth it. When I arrived to Erbil airport I smelled the air of home and the scorching heat stung me immediately but I was happy and willing to get...
10/10/07 -
laglux - Life used to be simple in my youth, at a time where the only Concern was to make a living. One needed only marketable skills and Money, thereafter obtaining almost anything you wanted not outside what was defined as legal. Today, the complexion has most definitely altered. Xerox machines seem destined to photocopy every Driver's License and Social Security Card some Thousands of times. The...
10/08/07 -
Faith and Fear - So this year Fear knocked out Faith in the 162nd round. But I can't just keep on walking. Not just yet. As was the case for Henry Bemis in The Twilight Zone after the H-Bomb proved it was capable of total destruction and before our bank teller's glasses slip off his nose, we will have time enough at last to look ahead at what needs to be done to repair the New York Mets. Goodness knows, they can...
10/08/07 -
Cobb - I had an unusual evening the other night. Oddly enough it was somewhat familiar but then altogether alien. See I took the wife out dancing at a club in Inglewood. I almost never do that. I'm sure we've been out, but we haven't been in quite this environment in a very long time. In fact, the last time it happened, I wrote about it too. Dancing with Sluts. The good thing was that this was a much...
10/08/07 -
Open Up - My Dad sent this to me and I thought I’d put it up here, since not much has happened today and I’m not really feeling very writerly tonight. If anyone else wants to play, feel free! Leave a comment to let me know so I can check your blog. 1. First name? Shari 2. Were you named after anyone? My Dad named me after my Mom, Charrie. 3. Do you wish on stars? Used to. Now I pray. ^_^ 4....
10/08/07 -
Maggie's Farm - What am I doing wrong? Okay, I'm tired of beating around the bush. I'm a beautiful (spectacularly beautiful) 25 year old girl. I'm articulate and classy. I'm not from New York. I'm looking to get married to a guy who makes at least half a million a year. I know how that sounds, but keep in mind that a million a year is middle class in New York City, so I don't think I'm overreaching at all. Are...
10/08/07 -
I Love The Madness - yupyup i'm back once again =) frm ikea sigh.. so boring... i mean seriously. the whole thing went lyk tis. aft comin home from the Zoo rite my paps sent my sisi off fer tution. then came back fer mii at 6 when her tution ends. Mum wanted ALL of us to go visit some furniture shop to get my sisi a new and MUCH more stronger cupboard. yes. so in the end we ended up at some dumb wulu place...
10/08/07 -
Like Cigarettes - As I attempt to cram the over-priced, over-sized sandwich into my mouth it sags at the end. A small landslide of badly-made runny mayonnaise spills out over my hand. The gooey white substance coating my fingers, a slice of tomato and cucumber drop to the concrete with twin wet plops. The ill-fated slices cause a stir among some gathering pigeons. Messy food is irritating! How can you be expected to...
10/05/07 -
Stephanie in the Gambia - So my adventure today: You know when you start a home improvement project (ahem, Mom and Dad) and don't realize that you've forgotten something until you're in the middle of it? So you stop what you're doing, get in the car, and drive the 20 minutes to The Home Depot and find all the other ninnies who've forgotten something too on a Saturday afternoon (my case, a Wednesday)? You buy what you need...
10/05/07 -
Mp3 Online - What is the great secret of how Martins, Gibsons, Taylors, Fenders, Gretsch's and the like, sound so classy? The answers should be clear really. They are made cleanly and beautifully from very good soundwood and the best materials and always are finished off to look so shiny and squeaky clean in the store. However, some of these legendary guitars dont always play and sound quite like their price...
10/05/07 -
Michael Totten - Now that major combat operations are finished almost everywhere in Iraq’s Anbar Province, the United States Army and Marine Corps are more like a United Nations peacekeeping force with rules of engagement that allow them to kill if they have to. “We’re like the Peace Corps with muscles,” is how one soldier put it when I left with his unit at 4:00 in the morning to deliver food stuffs and...
10/04/07 -
Pink Pig Nyc - White Castle has been around, believe it or not, since 1921. It claims to be the first of the big hamburger chains, and who can doubt it? I always thought maybe Wimpey ate White Castles in the Popeye cartoons. Now, although New York is not thick on the ground with the cheery little fortresses, there are White Castle outlets here. There's one on Eighth Avenue I always forget about. There's...
10/04/07 -
Lisa's Travel Journal - We entered to see the saddest sight ever, a hole with a rusty manky climbing frame and lots of sad and sick looking monkeys, they looked like little humans with there heads in there hands, some where pulling there hair out and generally looking distraught. We saw more than enough of that and moved on to the Jaguars and Ocelots who were not much better off in smallish cages and exposed to lots of...
10/04/07 -
Ruthie Zaftig - I used to read Seventeen Magazine, when I was younger. I was always mystified by their constant and vague references to “the right time to have sex.” This idea was never further clarified. I always wondered, What does that mean? When I find a boyfriend I’m really attracted to? When I’m eighteen? When I think I’m in love? In my case, and in the cases of so many other young women, I was...
10/03/07 -
Dead Fruit - It’s 11:00 am on Sunday morn. You walk into a diner and order the usual fare. Eggs, pancakes, etc. Clearly, though, this post is not concerned about your food preference. Let’s talk juice. It’s probably going to be orange or apple. Maybe grapefruit if you’re exotic. But what happened to pineapple juice? It’s not even considered as a option. Not even a thought…. or even an after thought....
10/03/07 -
over adulthood - While most of us took the necessary steps to avoid appearing “metrosexual” over the last few years, male hipsters took a step in the opposite direction. In addition to plucked brows and excessive skin care products, a male hipster wears clothes tighter than your average 15 yr old girl desperate for attention. The result is a strange lanky excuse for a man whose jeans reveal everything, if...
10/03/07 -
emerson direct - In contemporary times, GE is the term used metaphorically to refer to the idea that we all wish we worked for Google, had Google stock. or were bought by Google. In more subtler terms it refers to the anxieties we as marketers and site owners and SEO folks feel about our impact in Google’s search engine. Think about our world and how Google has managed to work its way into our lexicon. Lik...
10/02/07 -
Punkass blog - Is it midterm time already? It must be - the weather is changing, the days grow shorter, and the wind blows over hill and dale, caressing the campus and picking up the smug cry of the newly hatched ‘concern’ feminist. Hearken to the self-righteously uninformed screed of the third-runner up of the Bestest Girl/Honorary Boy competition as she makes the first of many homes she’ll find in...
10/02/07 -
kindly pogmothoin - I guess I’m getting a little philosophical now that I’m in the last year of my 30s. I feel in some ways the press of time more than I have before, but that could just be all the cultural messages I’ve absorbed over the years that your life is pretty well over at 40. Which, objectively, I know it’s not — I mean, how many fabulous people do I know over 40? — but it’s still such a Big...
10/02/07 -
ursula k leguin - In an interesting and favorable notice of Changing Planes (which you can find elsewhere on the site, in Spanish and English), the Argentinean reviewer asserts that since Le Guin isn't a hard science fiction writer, "technology is carefully avoided." I stuck a footnote onto this in my translation of the article, and here is the footnote expanded — because this business is really getting my...
10/01/07 -
Insearchofwalden - Sometimes, I just need a swift kick in the ass. Fortunately, I have someone to give me that kick when it's necessary. As I've said repeatedly, I have been sick all winter. I don't recall a time in my 31 years that I've gotten so sick for so long. In fact, I'm sniffling while I write this. I spent most of yesterday sleeping. My husband and my son have seen me lying in that position a lot recently,...
10/01/07 -
Missanthropy - I have what my Writing and Literacy instructor is calling a “midterm project” due on Wednesday. I have actually done some preparation for it. Rather than my usual reading through the material quickly again, sitting down in front of the computer, and just pounding out five or seven pages, I’ve actually had to think about this one. And it hurts. This paper alone consists of about 20% of our...
10/01/07 -
Ellee Seymour - I was removing the last crusty flakes of mascara when I saw IT through the mirror - and froze. A spider the size of a dinner plate attached to the side of my bed. I could feel the ends of my hairs tightening in shock. Equipped for such an emergency, I silently inched my way towards the spider catcher perched on my en-suite shelf, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on this unwanted leggy guest....
09/30/07 -
Sardonic Bomb - Remember last week, when I told you I was going on an adventure to look for holes in the wall? (And get your minds out of the gutter! I'm talking about hole in the wall restaurants, not the kind of holes in the wall that Senator Larry Craig goes looking for.) Well, it's on! First, the day after I wrote about our adventure, we (Annette and I) found a delightful place on the corner of Franklin and...
09/30/07 -
Beetqueen - Right now I am overwhelmed. We are quickly approaching the end of the first nine weeks of school. For many schools all this means is sending home some progress reports. Since we are on block 4, it means our first “semester” is ending. That means I have to get all the essays I currently have graded in order to get the next batch on Monday. I’ll have to have an even quicker turn around on those...
09/30/07 -
Fickle Foe - I have appreciated the beauties of a sleek, shapely cape for as long as I can remember. I always wanted to wear one for Halloween, no matter what I was dressed as. Halloween pictures show such original costumes as cat with cape, rabbit with cape, hobo with cape. On my tenth Halloween I finally figured out that a cape complements no costume as much as that of a vampire, and my attire for the next...
09/28/07 -
bookslut - Here’s a thought game: imagine a young carpenter, in her early-to-mid twenties, let’s say. She’s been working wood for, what, five years? More? Maybe she got into wood working because of her mom or grandpa or aunt or maybe because her industrial arts teacher in seventh grade was so rhapsodically enthusiastic about her first birdhouse that she got the bug there and then. So now she’s twenty-two...
09/28/07 -
nick van der leek - Why is this so important? Let me put it this way: If you're married for 20 or 30 years, that's a long time to live with someone. What do you plan to do with each other all that time? Travel, eat and jog together? You Need to share something deeper and more meaningful. You need a common life purpose. Two things can happen in a marriage: (1) You can grow together, or (2) You can grow apart. 50%...
09/28/07 -
Far From Perfect - I just returned from about three days (I lose track of time here) of continuous patrols and raids, so this post will be brief. However, I thought it important to share with the handful of readers I have, and maybe a few others what our enemy is really made of. I keep reading reports and seeing news broadcasts where the anti-war movement is describing the terrorists/insurgents as freedom fighters...
09/28/07 -
alexander way - A portrait of Miss Speechless as a young shutterbug. Perhaps it's just the joy of sharing the love for words with someone else that makes IMing with my daughter so much fun. We can almost predict each other's patterns of speech, we've lived together so long. From the first, my kids both have loved words. Talking, hearing stories, telling stories, putting on plays...IMing is still a recent phenom...
09/28/07 -
unicorn hat - I have a hard time understanding people's lack of spirituality. I fully understand people's lack of religiosity, especially their disdain for the historical implications of most organized religion, and of any dogma in general. But at the same time, spirituality, my "faith" informs everything I do. That's not to say that I do things because I'm "supposed" to, because it was written down by man, but...
09/28/07 -
Electric Wand - We all tend to take maps for granted. In the 17th/18th centuries and even beyond, there were decent sized areas of the world which were just being explored and mapped for the first time. Now, the ease of access to cartographical data means we don't much give them a second thought. I bought a couple of Ordnance Survey Explorer maps the other day, and was quite surprised at how expensive they are...
09/26/07 -
Chris Has Stepped Out - So I had to make a road trip last week and on the way back home I took some back roads at a leisurely pace. As I was driving down a lonesome highway in the middle of nowhere I saw a scratchy old billboard advertising “Gus’s Really Good Fresh Beef Jerky 90 Miles.” Below that line, in smaller lettering, were the words “Beef Jerky, Honey, Olives, Restrooms.” I have expressed my deep...
09/26/07 -
costik - This machine, it played one It pushed start and program run It's an IBM 360/85 This computer came alive. This machine, it played two, Overloaded voltage to the CPU, It's an IBM 360/85 This computer came alive. This machine, it played three Designed its memory to one IC It's an IBM 360/85 This computer came alive. This machine, it played four Changed its logic from And to Or It's...
09/26/07 -
in training - The dreaded mud run. Usually only used if - like in the video - the guys are late or slacking in some other way. Royal's troop did not have to do a mud run until week 21 and even then it was not for any particular offence, just to "give the lads a good kick up the arse" in Royal's words. [Royal's mud run story here.] Royal was not impressed that the troop in the video had to go through one so...
09/25/07 -
bye bye shadowlands - I was completely engrossed by Steven Thayer's novel, "The Weatherman." I could not put down Dan Brown's "Angel's & Demons." And yes, I hate to admit it, but "The Da Vinci Code" interested me, too. I know it's horrible writing to end a chapter with, "But she had no idea what was going to happen next..." And yet, I turned the damn page and wanted to find out. I am now completely engrossed in a very...
09/25/07 -
Portrait Diaries - Magic is real. Not in the sense that something that is magical can be an entity but in the fact that magic is not perfect, it has flaws to it just like you and I. It is therefore maybe not THE answer but a big key to finding the answer. By believing, you let go of your own insecurities and those of others around you. The key is to believe with blind faith that what you believe in is real,...
09/25/07 -
Inmedias - About ten years ago, my friend Scott starting sending me music by Robyn Hitchcock, someone whom prior to that point I'd never listened to. I was attracted to many of his tunes (I loved "Viva Sea-Tac!" especially), but I couldn't say that I became a major fan. Then, in 2001, Hitchcock reunited with some members of his old band The Soft Boys, and they hit the road, including a gig in Washington DC,...
09/24/07 -
one hand clapping - I’ve been thinking to take up woodworking. Furniture making, to be precise. My grandfather used to be a furniture maker - and it would be great to be able to make something tangible, something you can look at, touch, even sit on. But woodworking courses don’t come cheap. And on top of that you need to buy the tools and materials. Good tools cost an arm and a leg. Did i mention my partner...
09/24/07 -
lileks - Some of these pieces of paper just annoy me; I can’t throw them away, because they’re old, and somehow that bestows a degree of Importance to History they certainly don’t deserve. We can’t keep everything, can we? No. Example: a brochure advertising the Plugmold system. It was a 1950s glorified power strip embedded in the molding; hence the name. I kept it because A) the name is so wonderfully...
09/24/07 -
amber colored life - I found a note from him the other day. I was cleaning out the glove compartment in my car, in search of an old obsolete map I wanted to archive. A blue envelope caught my attention as I sifted through the stack of papers, and I recognized Hansel's handwriting immediately. I rarely ever use my glove compartment for anything, so it's not all that impossible to think that I've only just now come across...
09/23/07 -
terriorists - Jack does get a little too cute sometimes, replacin' perfectly good human words with a "dog" word—like pawly for poorly, apaws for applause, and pawful for…well, you get the idea. He probably shoulda' kept a closer eye on the humans who were helpin' him write. I gotta' keep mine on AHM every minute or she'd probably be usin' words like pupular or pawfect too. Humans love getting' carried away...
09/23/07 -
red pills - You rejected corporatism – the suppression of competition by government, at the behest of politically-connected businesses and at the expense of their competitors and of you, the consumer, under the guise of ‘consumer protection’; forced cartelization of industry; and of businesses profiting through the theft of being financed by tax dollars. “You rejected government healthcare. “You...
09/23/07 -
silent running - An Australian is happy to be known as an “Aussie.” An American, depending on where they come from (Mate in Texas gets very bitchy if you call HER a…) is happy to be known as a Yankee. ‘Hoosier’ is probably the only other American name like this for Americans, or for Americans of any one state. Not just a slang name, it’s on signs and in business names. The word was in circulation as...
09/21/07 -
dar kush - Understand something—anything I say here (or any of you guys say, as well) is colored by my own perceptual lenses, which are formed by my beliefs and values. My underlying belief: the vast majority of human beings are pretty much the same. And living and social systems tend to evolve toward greater levels of complexity. I never said that progress (if that’s what it is) toward a world without...
09/21/07 -
unorthodox atheism - On My 15th, my birthday of all days, our nation's unthinking mass of teenage protesters who are itching for a cause are refusing to buy gasoline. I'm sure the 12-year-old economic genius who thought this up is very proud of its viral spread. However, the thousands of high school and college students in hundreds of groups on Facebook who are taking part in this 'protest' are idiots. "Reed,"...
09/21/07 -
ann kroeker - I used to hate Crocs. I thought they looked ridiculous–the design, the colors, the plastic-ness of it all–yuk. I even discouraged my determined daughters from sinking their spending money into buying a pair for themselves. “Those are going to be a fad, like jelly shoes, and by next year, they’ll be ‘out.’ I wouldn’t buy them, if I were you. But if you insist…” They bought them,...
09/20/07 -
living in patagonia - The day started out with turbulent winds, thick clouds and torrential rain showers. The weather reminded me of growing up in Washington State. The smell of rain cleaning the world around us hung heavily in the air. The weather worked its magic. Our view from the house showed sheets of rain pelting the earth and the waters of Lago Nahuel Huapi growing to the size of ocean waves. I spent the...
09/20/07 -
Hive Mind - As you can see on the right, I had some high hopes for what kind of harvest I'd see. Look at that! Five honey supers on the hive on the right (Hive 2) and two on the hive on the left (Hive 1; the final box on the top there is a feeder). Why, that should probably yield somewhere between a jillion and a double gadjillion gallons of honey! OK, maybe not so much, but it does look to be quite a bit....
09/20/07 -
Lawyers, Guns, & Money - o I was a bit disappointed -- though not surprised -- to see Frank Bruni (for whom I have previously expressed my contempt) downgrade Luger's today to two stars (from its Ruth Reichl anointed three). For Bruni - who knows less about food than he does about pretty much anything else - it was a serviceable review. He's right about that wine list, but wrong, I think, about the service and the location...
09/20/07 -
Bad Astronomy - Answer: there is no upper limit. Regulars know I am not an ad hominem kinda guy (unless they really really deserve it). But stuff like this pushes me well beyond my limit. Synopsis: on The View, a horrifying chit chat show where Barbara Walters stands out as an intellectual giant, their new co-host — and I can barely type this, it makes my brain hurt so much — says she doesn’t know if...
09/20/07 -
Accidental Akronite - 25 of my favorite pens lined up and ready to be used … Check 8 notebooks filled with notes about the novel I haven’t been able to finish and the short story ideas that were hurriedly scribbled down these past four years … Check 100 ways to procrastinate and not actually take the cap off the aforementioned 25 pens or open the 8 notebooks … Check, Check 47 negative editorial voices...
09/20/07 -
Rocket Kirchner - The crossing is the true account of the most important event in my life. It was the event that as American pragmatist William James refers to as “the soul crossing a critical juncture to reach higher safety.” This happened to me on May 1, 1974. I haven’t been the same since. It reverberates to this day in the early 21st Century, by setting into motion the vital interior transformation that my...
09/18/07 -
agonist - Turkish days begin late and this is a wonderful quality in a people, if you ask me. Of course, I am certain there are businessmen, bankers, brokers and other assorted rat-race types who get up like I used to at 5:00am and in the office by 630. But not me. And not the vast majority of Turks. I am sitting in a coffee shop, using the Istaklil Caddesi's free wireless, drinking coffee better than that...
09/18/07 -
One Good Thing - I received a lovely email this week from B., a woman who was raising an ADHD child before there was a diagnosis for it. Forty years ago, children with behavioral disorders were just considered bad kids, and of course mothers got the blame. Autism was blamed on "refrigerator mothers," a label pinned on my friend Lisa's mother when her younger brother was diagnosed. Doctors assumed that she withheld...
09/18/07 -
cunning realist - She's now ready for adoption. The staff named her Melanie. I visited her yesterday, and the change is incredible: clean, stronger, and healthy (for new readers, background on this with photos is here). She's still purring away loudly, and really wants to get out of that cage. If you live in the New York area and you're looking for a friend for the next fifteen years, please consider it. Call ahead...
09/17/07 -
rabbi blog - Hayim, the beloved patriarch of the family, slipped into a coma. Everyone feared the worst. The family was called. The son flew in from New York. The daughter arrived from Boston. The aunts, the uncles, all sat despairing, waiting for the end. Suddenly, a miracle occurred! Hayim opened his eyes. Weakly, he motioned for his son to approach so he could talk to him. Hayim was weak from the illness,...
09/17/07 -
artfulcodger - Tonight I saw a screening of the documentary film “My kid could paint that,” at the Minneapolis Lagoon theater — complete with a question and answer session with the director, or(s) Amir Bar-Lev, after the film. The documentary is about Marla Olmstead, a 4-year old girl (now 6) who has been the subject of international news stories, and has sold over $300,000 dollars worth of art. Basically,...
09/17/07 -
The Hive - The net result being that we are continually fed and re-fed the same information - much the same way that major broadcast networks and Hollywood studios and big record labels decide what we will be watching and listening to. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. Hyperaggregators are not the way forward. Learning how to Google to find the precise thing that you want is the way forward. I subscribe to the...
09/16/07 -
black five - I was able to shake Tony Snow's hand and tell him "You were there when we needed you..." He responded by pointing at Dana Perino while I shook her hand and saying "She is too..." The President was very intelligent, razor sharp, warm, focused, emotional (especially about his dad), and genuine. Even more so than this cynical Chicago Boy expected. I was overwhelmed by the sincerity - it wasn't...
09/16/07 -
net weed - My original idea was to pawn the thing, since I needed the money more than a horn I couldn't play. A bunch of cassette tapes were crammed into the case as well, even into the horn's bell. On most of them was a label reading, "The Orphans in the Palace," and six of these were numbered. I popped in number one and hit play. It was some guy telling me the sad, funny story of how he came to be who he...
09/16/07 -
2 blowhards - Whatever there is that has to be said about high school reunions has almost surely been said already. Good. That means I can write to my heart's content without straining for profundity. So raise those cliché-protection shields and batten down the banality-absorbers -- I just had my 50th high school reunion and I'm here to blather! Does anyone remember an illustration done around 40 year ago in...
09/14/07 -
infomean - Greenhouses are a great addition to anyone’s garden. They come in all different sizes and you can nestle them right where you want them and with smaller versions of greenhouses you can move them quite easily. That said, as great as they look and of course smell, there should be some type of manual to buy when you are first setting up shop in there. There are many things no one bothers to tell you...
09/14/07 -
pandagon - Coddling? Enough is enough? I dare say that Malkin is implying that our insufficiently fascist government should respond to a maybe act of vandalism by uncoddling someone, but who? It’s not like the police are shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Do de do, who cares if someone vandalizes the Vietnam War Memorial.” They’re investigating the crime. If they find who did it, I suspect that...
09/14/07 -
Boing Boing - The beloved Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencil (Its slogan, "Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed," is stamped in gold foil on each pencil) went out of production in 1998. It sold for fifty cents. In 2002 you could get one on eBay for $10. They now fetch $30. How much with they cost five years from now? I've written about the Blackwing on Boing Boing in 2002, 2005, and 2006. I guess it's about...
09/13/07 -
all about latvia - because our government is very stable. You can cry, you can picket, you can demonstrate. You can sue it, but nothing will bring it down. ... because only in Latvia, you can say I love my fatherland and be called a fascist....
09/13/07 -
ripples in sand - Truth be told, as I kid, I really wanted to be a paleontologist. [I also wanted to be a fashion designer at one point, but thankfully that didn’t happen. My wardrobe consists of jeans and t-shirts, not exactly trend setting.] In my quest as a 7 year old to become a paleontologist I read all the kids dinosaur books and I could pronounce all those long scientific names. I remember reading Zoobook’s...
09/13/07 -
lance mannion - Is there anywhere in the English-speaking world outside of the Mother Superior's office in a convent where a novice has just been scolded for listening to her iPod during morning prayers where calling something "unacceptable" produces anything but derision and scorn? Unacceptable? You know how President Bush is reacting to being told his pet general's plan is "unacceptable"? He's rolling...
09/13/07 -
INSIDE MUSIC MEDIA™ - Did you see or hear about the Video Music Awards sponsored by MTV Sunday night? It was business as usual. Controversy as to whether Britney Spears looked as good as she did before giving birth to her two babies. She did an uninspired, bikini-clad rendition of her new single Gimme More....
09/12/07 -
The (Mis)Adventures of Pen & M - I took that thing we did senior year in HS just a little too seriously. so every 5 years i write myself a letter. so far I've met myself being uncanny, too-talkative and melodramatic, spot-on and possibly much too vague. my friend danica was intrigued. so i finally after months of harassment have fished them out of the paper binder bin in the back of my closet. letter 3 can't be opened until summer...
09/12/07 -
excommunicate - I had gotten to the dock at around 12:30. I had no idea what time it was, I had only a few bucks in my pocket. For some unknown reason I left everything else at home. I looked up at the sun and then down at the giant compass on the ground. Thankfully I had when I was a child I learned to make a sundial. I used my self as the clock hand and faced north. Wow, it was already 3:30. “You know what that...
09/11/07 -
BWC - Last week, baby blue jays were in the yard at my apartment. Three, I think. Too young to fly, they hopped along the ground and cried for food, which their mother regurgitated for them after swooping down from the trees. In the backyard is a fenced area where the first-floor tenants let their two dogs out a few times a day. I expected the baby birds to hop into the fenced area at times, and wondered...
09/11/07 -
shiemi - Because men like John Goodman and Bernie Mac get to have careers on television but sitcom-moms-of-three still have size-two waists. Because even feminist magazines publish fat-phobic articles under the guise of it being a "health issue." Because anti-capitalist activists still use expressions like "fat capitalist pig." Because girls are dieting at the age of nine. Because side effects of the most...
09/11/07 -
debunking christianity - Conversion is rarely brought on by a slow, gradual process of thinking and seeking before finding, though it is not unheard of. Many times it is instant, powerful, emotional, and life-changing. Disbelief may come in an equally powerful traumatic and disillusioning moment, or it may come from the gradual and slow erosion of wave after wave. For me, deconversion was not a decision, but a realization. I...
09/10/07 -
Bootstrap Productions - I keep finding a certain theme in the tv pilot ideas that bubble out of my subconscious and wake me up in the morning. Hmm! They seem to have to do with a terrible grating painful imbalance in the world or in people (or among people) and someone who re-balances it in a self-contained episodic kind of way that nevertheless contributes to figuring out the balancer person's life somehow. It's so...
09/10/07 -
chebeh expression - When I was a little girl, grandpa’s house on a hill had a balcony overlooking the sea, directly! It’s just too bad I don’t have a picture of it, because I was too young to want to take pictures back then. I LOVED going up to the balcony, anytime, night and day.. I’d just sit and stare dream-fully at the sea… I just love how peaceful it was; just enjoying the beautiful scenery and...
09/10/07 -
sarah lane - The salt water flush is mildly unpleasant to drink, so I've been chugging it down as quickly as possible, just to get it over with. I've read on the internet that people have the hardest time with this part of the fast. I don't blame them - it's like swallowing a quart of seawater. Still, doable. But I'm not kidding about staying near the bathroom. The lemonade itself is actually yummy, and the...
09/10/07 -
susan hanshaw - I had the good fortune to see Jefferson Starship perform this weekend at the Sausalito Art Festival, a world class showcase of art and crafts in the Mediterranean village overlooking the San Francisco Bay. The spectacular display of art aside, there was something about the experience that has left its mark on me. I felt a connectedness of energy that moved me. There we were among what must have...
09/10/07 -
uniquely priya - My wife is a happy person with the ability to see the positive in a situation. Her cheerful disposition helps her make friends easily. She is one of the finest managers I have seen, meticulous about completing every task on time with quality and within budget. Sudha was the only female student in her Engineering class at Hubli, a conservative town in North Karnataka. She was a first ranker in all...
09/10/07 -
Infinite Connections - When I was 28 years old, I was living with the man that I was engaged to at the time, Fred. I know I have mentioned him several times in this blog, and I've mentioned that he passed away while we were together. What has struck me is an ongoing storyline that involves Fred, in the never-ending movie that is my dreams. What happens is that from time to time I have a dream about Fred. It's not...
09/08/07 -
Julia Buckley - Facebook. I love it. And yet I hate it. Recently I’ve been getting in touch with a few old friends through it, which is of course a heart-warming story of the way the lovely internet can bring people together. But it has totally worsened my already disproportional obsession with checking my emails, which is a soul-chilling tale of the way the evil internet can make people go maaaad. OK, so...
09/08/07 -
Alas! - I’m sorry, y’all. I was unclear about what I meant in the last post. Let me try to be more clear! And specific! Woo, I know you all wanted that TMI. So: I have a medical disorder which means that my body has decided it doesn’t really need to produce the hormone that stimulates periods. Eh, says my body. Who needs progesterone? Not me! Consequently, I haven’t had my period in 8...
09/08/07 -
Weekly Dig - There are these things on city streets. Street signs, they're called. They're there because Bostonians are filthy, filthy man-beasts, completely incapable of traversing the public byways without spraying trash, Dunkin' Donuts cups, lottery tickets, half-eaten plates of fried rice [Google Image search didn't work for that one -- ooh, wait, here ya go], broken vodka pint bottles, clothing, sand left...
09/06/07 -
poes deadly daughters - True crime story #1: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note that politely informed her this was a robbery and asked her to please put all the money into his bag. The note was signed with the full name of the bank robber, who was apprehended soon afterward. True crime story #2: Guy walked into a bank, handed the teller a note ordering her to give him all the cash. She pointed out that...
09/06/07 -
IP blog - Spending my holiday last week in the Hungarian countryside during one of their national days prompted me to think a few things about patriotism. Hungary is, I am convinced, one of the most patriotic countries around. By patriotism I mean a kind of pride in or love of your own country. Some people I know think that any form of patriotism is a Bad Thing. I don’t agree, but that’s not the point...
09/06/07 -
vodkapundit - Lest you lose sleep from eager anticipation of the next televised display of modern American political debate, a viewing of this short film from the late, great writer and actor Robert Benchley is in order. Mr. Benchley won an Academy Award for this short film in 1935. If you are unfamiliar with his work -- or the work of the many other American wits who lunched at the famed Algonquin Round Table...
09/06/07 -
Dr Love - Spy movies are akin to stealing your friend’s marijuana plants: Hollywood makes money on them because everybody’s too scared and would get in too much trouble if they told the real story. Thusly, every spy movie could be the biggest bunch of fabrication s