Hamsterrific

Eric Hananoki has been blogging at The Hamster since before most of us ever heard of blogs. He's just announced he'll be winding things up there at the end of next month, but there's a good reason: "As some of you may know, I’ve been involved with 'The Al Franken Show' and its website since Air America Radio started a little over a year ago. Recently, I was offered a full-time job as a show researcher and blogger. I’ve accepted, and will start on May 31." Congratulations, Eric (and we'll miss the Hamster)! Hope this doesn't entail you having to move from Hawaii to Minnesota; I'm not sure I'd do that even for an Air America position...

I've Been Chandrasutra'ed!

Thanks to Melanie McBride for letting me participate in her "Blogger's Blogger" interview series - here are my responses to her questions. Needless to say, Chandrasutra (a great adjunct to What She Said, by the way) has now moved from the "Where the Women Bloggers Are" sections of my Bloglines subscriptions to my main sidebar blogroll...

Liberal Coalition Blogaround

Every now and then I remind myself that I'm in the Liberal Coalition and it's been way too long since I've done a blogaround (i.e., plug what's going on in all their blogs):

Alex Greenwood repros an interview between Amy Goodman and Greg Palast. Sooner Thought seems to do nothing but reprinting presumably copyrighted material; I wish they'd do more original writing there. If I wanted to read stuff other people have done, I'd click on a link. (Update: Alex assures me he has permission to copy this material, and presumably other stuff that he reproes verbatim; that his time is limited; and that his other readers don't mind at al. I still stand by my desire to see more original writing from him, as I think his voice is unique and deserves to be heard more. When my time is limited, I tend to refrain from blogging.)

Amy reminds us that yesterday was Arbor Day. Love the graphic!

Andante's puppies are very cute indeed.

Bryant Gries doesn't mention me in his LC blogaround, but I haven't been posting a lot so I can't blame him. He also talks about black superheroes, but not as much as Rich Watson does in his blog Glyphs.

Charles2 regrets his skepticism. I don't; I remain highly suspicious of official US stories about pretty much everything nowadays.

One of Chris Brown's Friday questions is, "What gets you more riled up: the cost of gas, the cost of concert tickets, or the death of Blue Beetle?" None of the above, I'll have to admit; I don't go to concerts any more, I still think Americans pay less for gas than we should, and I happen to think Countdown to Infinite Whatsis was pretty well-written, so there you are.

At Corrente, Riggsveda reports on how we can't afford civil rights any more.

Echidne is concerned about Concerned Women for America.

Edwardpig passes on a little-mentioned sidebar about the Saudi prince's recent hand-holding visit to Bandar Bush.

Holden at First Draft appreciates captioning as much as the next person, but I miss thought balloons in superhero comics.

Guy Hall's girlfriend is home to recuperate - yay!!

Jeff at Speedkill seems apoplectic over today's young folks' wacky views on religion.

Jesse at In Search of Telford discusses Swiss fortifications and the Democrats.

John McKay at archy is totally not shocked that US torturers are caught lying as well.

Jude Camwell at Iddybud isn't the only one pissed about the way the radical right wants to define their Dominionist version of Christianity as the only acceptable one.

Keith at Invisible Library wonders where the utopian dream went awry. But Bullwinkle, that trick never works!

Maru Soze goes to Jeb!Land - 'nuff said.

I'm really looking forward to MercuryX23's analysis of the Ten Commandments and how they should be interpreted against a modern backdrop. So far he's only tackled the first.

Michael at Musing's Musings posts his Random Ten, a "meme" that I totally can't get into not having an iPod (nor really paying attention to any music past 1985 or so).

Mike at Left is Right obviously thinks that, with Jane Fonda's autobiography out, we ought to give her first second husband equal time, and I agree. (Yeah yeah, I forgot Roger Vadim was prior to Tom Hayden, so sue me...)

Moi at Bloggg has been doing some great publicity for autism-related events.

Mustang Bobby chronicles cable news shows' disappointment in a story where all's well that ends well, except in a bit of a denoument.

Norbizness' Weekly Recap is not to be missed by anyone who thinks Variety is a boring old fuddy-duddy rag.

NTodd Pritsky is easily blinkered by some headlines.

Rivka's new daughter is even cuter than Andante's puppies. Wait, that didn't come out right...

Scott at Gamer's Nook is doing the Revlon Run/Walk for Women today.

The Scrutiny Hooligans have also taken to swiping of articles, lengthy quotes from other blog posts, and even poems rather than just links to same, which is weird because they do often have original writing. What's up with that, guys?

Now, obviously this means I much prefer original writing in blogs to wholesale, verbatim copying of others' words, but on the other hand originality does have its limits elsewhere. For instance, Steve Bates doesn't like the Republican rewriting of the historical record at all, and I have to agree with him there.

Steve Gilliard shreds the whole Republican Robin Hood mythos into little tiny pieces.

T. Rex reminds us that today's Republicans are far more wasteful than yesterday's Democrats.

Trish Wilson offers catblogging both real and pixillated.

Upyernoz is Boston-bound; good time of year for it!

Last but not least, Wanda gives us more puppies. Puppies, I tell you! You can't go wrong with puppies! Hey, what did I just step in?

Silly Site o' the Day

Even professional artists get stumped by this one. Via Jane Hamsher, can you tell which pictures are actual photos and which are CG? Robin (the aforementioned professional artist) got five right; I got six right. For cheaters, here are the answers.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy checks out the dry cleaning. At least she's not licking the plastic this time...


On the other hand, Datsa just wants to be fed...

...yeah, a bit of foreshortening there...

Mark Your Calendars

I don't know what y'all look forward to in May, but for me it's the Ninth Avenue Food Fest. Two weeks and counting! Even though, admittedly, it's not what it used to be (but what is?)...

Silly Site o' the Day

You know, when stuck with an energy-sapping lingering cough/illness, it's probably not a good idea to stay up a bit past midnight watching Return of the King again just because it happens to be on TV. In honor of my foolishness, and via Lis Riba, here's an Elvish Name Generator and a Hobbit Name Generator. I'm either Lessien Nólatári or Camellia Moss of Lake-By-Downs... oh, who'm I kidding, I'm the latter.

Silly Site o' the Day

This is how out-of-it I am: I didn't even realize that yesterday was Administrative Professionals Secretaries Day, and that today is Take Our Daughters and Sons because god forbid we exclude boys even though it's always okay to exclude girls from everything else To Work Day. As you can imagine, I got nothing at all yesterday in the way of gifts or lunch or even a card. But I'm trying to feel the love anyway. Can you feel the love? Via Atrios.

Silly Site o' the Day

Falling behind again, both in reading and blogging, partly due to this horrible lingering cough and partly due to Blogger still being bloggered for posting (I have to clear my cookie cache every single time I want to post from work, for instance). So it's come to this - advertising a game created by a fast-food corporation as a Silly Site. Well, it is kinda silly... Via Pam at Beancounters.

Local News

The good news is that TWU Local 100 has reached an agreement with Liberty Lines and the Bee-Line buses are running again. It's actually tempting to ride the buses to and from work again because you can ride free throughout May - but not that tempting, I like my half-hour commute too much. The bad news is, rabid raccoons have made a comeback in our area, which doesn't surprise me as I've seen a lot of dead 'coons on the sides of local roads lately. Glad I have indoor kitties!

Silly Site o' the Day

Another one making the blog rounds like lightning, what with Just Us Sunday and all that. I first saw it on TBogg's site. It's the Miss Poppy catalog! Brilliantly sick religious kitsch out the-- um, unholy places! Naturally they're a friend of the Landover Baptist folks...

Blog Sheroes Meeting Photos

Okay, let me defend myself by saying that I don't usually take such sucky photos, but (a) it was really, really dim in Madame X, and (b) I was sick and getting sicker. I've tried adjusting the levels but eff it, here they are in all their glory. If you want to see who was there by blog name, go to Nichelle's write-up and click on various blogs listed there which also mention the gathering. Because I was so under the weather, I'm having problems remembering which names go with which faces, so the only folks I'll identify below are in the first photo because I actually had substantive conversations with each: event co-organizer Liza "Culture Kitchen" Sabater has the camera, and Barbara "Mahablog" O'Brien is in the background. For the rest of the photos you're on your own, but feel free to come forward in the comments and introduce yourself if I've captured your image digitally!

As I said to the group when we took turns introducing ourselves, it was such a pleasure to see women of all colors and sizes there. I enjoyed the company a lot, but hope the next meetup is in a place that's a little more central, has food, plays the music more softly so people can actually hear each other, and doesn't charge $7 per drink...

Silly Site o' the Day

The good news is that the morning went well, but it was only the first step in a longer process, so I'm hoping to be able to make a major life-changing announcement in maybe a couple weeks. The bad news is that this past weekend's dampness, last night's Blog Sheroes meetup (review and pictures to follow later), and the plummeted temperatures this morning have kicked my cough back into high gear, so I'm still feeling a bit weakened and, well, fallible. Now, if I were a Pope, maybe then I'd be infallible. Until I, you know, died. Which even I acknowledge is a really crappy segue into today's Silly Site, the Pope Name Generator, via Frog. Somehow I feel slightly more empowered as Pope Monstrous Phil VI than as plain ol' Pen-Elayne...

Blog Sheroes Tonight!

Liza is one of the organizers. Barbara will be there. So will Lindsay and Professor B and a whole bunch of women who aren't on my blogroll yet but probably will be after tonight. I leave in a couple of hours. The venue kinda freaks me out, prude that I am (that prudery also being one of the reasons I haven't reproed the meetup poster here), and it looks like they only serve drinks, no food at all, but nonetheless I'll be there with blank nametags and Pen-Elayne "business cards" in hand and look forward to meeting lots of very cool blogging women!!

Silly Site o' the Day

Just finished munching on egg and onion matzoh and watching my Ten Commandments DVD a little while ago (hey, you celebrate Pesach your way, leave me to celebrate Pesach in mine), so as it's officially Just Us Sunday I thought I'd pass along an appropriate site for the Dominionists meeting later today who seem so hell-bent on believing only selective and convenient-to-them portions of the Bible (man plus man equals bad) and not others (thou shalt not huh? oh, that's just a guideline, not a rule, and besides, It's Okay If You're A Republican). Via August Pollak, it's their kinda guy - Jesus Christ, Supercop, who is he but the Dominion's prop...

Maintenance Notes

I'm still a bit burnt out from Estrogen Month, the work situation, not to mention this stupid lingering cough-cold-whatever, and so I haven't been tinkering all that much with my blogroll, let alone having enough mental energy to actually write down the blog essays floating about in my head (I have a really long one about "rights" versus "entitlements" stuck in there, as well as a shorter one which is essentially an ode to old-fashioned prudery that I might not post because it could piss off a lot of progressive blogger buddies). But I made a few sidebar updates today. I added Natalie Bennett, who has been doing such a great job with her Friday Femmes Fatales posts at Philobiblon; moved Alas, a Blog from News+Views Guys to Dynamic Duos, now that Pseudo-Adrienne has joined Ampersand in posting there permanently; moved skippy the bush kangaroo to News+Views Groups because it's effectively a group blog now (skippy can finally use the royal "we" for his blog and mean it literally); and wiped the Message Boards section from my sidebar because the links were mostly for my convenience and I haven't visited message boards in ages. In addition, I've consolidated the three "Where the Women Bloggers Are" sections in my Bloglines bookmarks (also linked to from the sidebar just above the start of the actual blogroll) to two sections - essentially the smaller section whose blogs I find myself reading when I have the time, and the much larger section I get to once in a blue moon but want to keep around as reference for others.

RIP Ruth Hussey

I watched The Philadelphia Story about a month ago, and agree completely with eRobin's remembrance.

Passover Treats

This year I'll be celebrating Passover like I celebrate most things nowadays - vicarously through blogs. The first thing I'll need is a Haggadah, which the Velveteen Rabbi provides quite nicely. Here's the entire thing in a handy PDF file. Here's a nice Passover primer from Riggsveda, complete with cute kitten and matzoh. More Pesach blogging links as and when I see them...

Silly Sites o' the Day

Once again via Chazarmaveth, The Pig of Death, come some more Passover goodies. JibJab is now featuring the Flash video "Matzah" on its site, but beware of the mandatory ad preceding the download. And speaking of ads, an author who hopes to sell a lot of copies of his book about the Alps has created a cute little Happy Passover card to, you know, mainly hawk his book. At least this trip through the Haggadah from z-kit.com doesn't have extraneous advertising, but it's all in Hebrew and moves at a seizure-inducing pace.

Rosie Really

Rosie O'Donnell doesn't update her blog that often, but when she does it's breathtaking. Here are her thoughts on being asked to appear on David Letterman's show recently, and here is an absolute shining gem about her visit to a home for sexually abused girls. Read past the poetry format and the lack of case sensitivity, it's well worth your while.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Ah, Earth Day! The colors of spring - the beautiful whites and pinks and lavenders and oranges of the outside foliage...

...the sinister purple reflection in Datsa's eyes as he stalks the apartment waiting to be fed...

Silly Site o' the Day

And the day's not starting off well, with Datsa waking us up at about 4 AM, but there you are. Amy decided to go walkies about 5:30 and upended the matzoh, so I guess that means Passover is imminent. More cat blogging later, despite my general pissed-ness at our li'l darlin's, but for now, have some sweet, sweet music care of the kitty drum-beat! Via Terry at I See Invisible People.

"Lilia, Oh Lilia...

...last night we met Lilia, Lilia our braa-aand new neighbor..."

She was with her youngest son, who was pretty impressed with our comics library (we gave him a few on which Robin had worked, of course). She has at least one more teenaged son (we think another one is graduating either prep school or college, as she gave us a heads-up about a familial gathering to celebrate said matriculation to take place in a couple of months), and she'll be moving in gradually over the next month from elsewhere in the neighborhood. All the advance warning about all of this (none of which seems to constitute excess noise at all!) gave me a very good feeling about our new downstairs neighbors. And there's no language barrier as with Susan and Boris (who suddenly moved out a couple weekends ago, as you may recall), whom I liked a lot, but his English, like his hearing, wasn't that good, and hers wasn't much better.

We also met Mary, our landlord's assistant, which was delightful because, although I've spoken with her a number of times on the phone throughout the last year, this was our first face-to-face. And I found it amusing that we still tended to talk over each other as we do on the phone! I think we're very similar personalities. Unfortunately, all that unexpected conversation hasn't helped my cough, and as today is my boss' last in-office day before his overnight trip to Boston and his subsequent flight out to Europe (where he'll be for the next two months) I'm on the phone a lot this morning as well. Hope I can bounce back at least in time for Sunday's Blog Sheroes Meetup, not to mention Monday's - oh, that's right, I'm not going to mention that until afterwards, don't want to jinx anything...

Silly Site o' the Day

Passover is fast upon us, so get ready for Seder-Masochism! Via Chazarmaveth, the Pig of Death. Is it just me or does doll-fumetti seem to be making a comeback?

Now Mind You, I'm Not Buying It, But...

...I do find the Malachy Papal Prophecies kind of interesting anyway, particularly given how they appear to be dovetailing with the beliefs of the wacko Rapturists who supposedly constitute Bush's base.

Silly Site o' the Day

Due to a lingering cough on both our parts (mine's a relapse, Robin's decides to flare up again every time he leaves the house), Robin has yet to start giving me drawing lessons, but maybe I should get in some practice with Scribbler. Via Susie Madrak.

Car Catch-Up

This morning I hit 6000 miles, but I think there may be some liquid coming out of the bottom of the car so I'll have to make time during my upcoming vacation days to take it to the shop, get the oil changed, yadda yadda. On the bad/weird side, my Cultivate Peace magnet is missing from the rear bumper area and, given the ever-more-polarizing political atmosphere in this country, I'm reluctant to replace it. (Oh, and it seems the crap eyeglass frames that broke today were an odd size, naturally, so my new ones are only slightly less dorky than the ones in the picture on my sidebar...)

Ms. Litella Speaks

What's all this I hear about opposition to John Ratzenberger becoming Pope? I mean, look at that face. What's not to like? And he was so adorable as Cliff Clavin in those TV shows, and doing voices for all those animated movies, and just look at his Made in America fansite! Why, I should think my fellow citizens would be pleased as punch to have this man as our new Po-- what? Ratzinger? Ohhhh, that's very different! Never mind.

"I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass..."

Cracking eyeglass frames, however, I can do without. Off to Pearle tonight to spend money I don't have on new frames I suddenly need desperately. Wearing my old dorky glasses (the ones in the picture on my sidebar) in the meantime, and there go any plans I might have had to get me some free B&J ice cream...

Yesterday's Lost Post

I tend not to blog any specifics about work, as I think that's inviting nothing but trouble and, you know, you don't have to blog every little thing that comes into your head. But I don't mind writing about work-related generalities, particularly if I feel they may be of interest to local readers. Yesterday my boss had a meeting with the New Rochelle Department of Development and found out what they're building about a block and a half away from our office - a new Whole Foods Market. As the only other one in Westchester County is a ways away in White Plains, and I never seem to be in Manhattan often enough to visit any of the three stores there (besides which, not the best idea to schlep groceries on the subway), this convenience pleases me greatly.

Road Worrier

Seen on a van in front of me yesterday:

You can get it here for a buck-fifty.

Silly Site o' the Day

Blogger's still being bloggered for me, giving me only small windows where it seems to work okay, so even though the workload is lightening a little with my boss only a few days away from his vacation, I don't know how much I'll be able to post. Maybe what I really need is Bloggy, the world's first automated blogging robot. Via Shirazi.

Silly Site o' the Day

First seen via First Draft, apparently the Freeway Blogger has started a satirical website called Abstinence Only.

More Estrogen Stuff

Pretty good follow-up by Astarte to her initial politics and video games post (thanks for the mention, Astarte!). And yet another two-steps-forward-one-step-back reminder as male blogger Nick Lewis ponders why women aren't on self-selecting A-lists and why BlogHerCon (of which I'm now on the advisory board, thanks ladies!) hasn't scheduled a panel on this obviously urgent topic that seems to be brought up only by male bloggers every three months two months week and a half or so...

Eye Eye, Ma'am!

Even though I still think we're all misusing the word "meme," I like this idea from Shakespeare's Sister, which was pretty easy for me since I always have my digital camera with me and can post to Buzznet fairly quickly, so I'm not waiting for anyone to send me a chain-bloggie on this. Here's a close-up of my eyes:

Perhaps too close... and I still look weird (to myself) without glasses...

Silly Site o' the Day

With Bloglines back up, I had a chance yesterday to find something a bit easier to work with than yesterday's Mr. Apple Head Silly Site. Since it's Sunday, why not have the kiddies play Jesus Dress-Up? Via Arthur Hlavaty.

A Taxing Day

Now that April 15 has come and gone, it's time to smile about the whole thing as Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff explains the income tax. And speaking of taxing, it seems that Harry Potter is stuck in a dead-end Muggle night-job after graduation...

Random Dog Blogging

A convergence of dogs this morning at the vet, where I went for a refill of Datsa's medicines...

On the left is the very hyper Fozzie, 6 years old; on the right is Riley, almost two. Don't know the one in the middle but his owners, according to Robin, wore very strong cologne or perfume or something. I just missed snapping a picture of the three dogs nose-to-nose-to-nose, it was adorable.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, I can't get onto Bloglines at the moment, which means that not only can't I catch up on blog reading (which has gone by the wayside quite a bit in the last couple of days), but I can't access any of my Silly Site bookmarks. So I went searching, and found Mr. Apple Head. Go on, play with it, it's good for you.

She Draws Comics!

From the Friends of Lulu blog comes this announcement:

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art and Friends of Lulu have combined forces to produce a very special and timely exhibit of the first 50 years of women's comics. SHE DREW COMICS presents decade after decade of beautiful artwork and unique products by women cartoonists, from the early 20th century to the 1970s, culled from the vast collection of longtime artist/writer and comics herstorian Trina Robbins. The diverse exhibit will be featured at the museum from Friday, May 6 to Saturday, May 14, and will be dedicated to Brenda Starr creator Dale Messick, who passed away in early April at the age of 98.

Taking the role of this exhibit's curator, Robbins herself will be at the opening reception on May 6, from 7 to 10 p.m. Golden Age cartoonist Hilda Terry (creator of the Teena newspaper strip, which ran from 1941-1966) will be a special guest at this reception, which is free to all attendees.

I'm particularly excited about this because not only haven't I seen either my "sparring partner" Trina nor my inspiration Hilda in way too long, but my friend Cat will be visiting us from Vancouver and this seems like the perfect exhibit to take him to! Hope to see a lot of you NY'ers there as well. The event isn't listed yet on MoCCA's website but if you go there you can find directions and so forth.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy in the bathroom, with Robin and the feather duster...

Sounds like a game of Clue or something...

Silly Site o' the Day

What do you get when you cross Willy Wonka with that Coppola movie featuring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando? Why, Chocolypse Now, of course. Via Pam at Beancounters. See, this is the type of comic book story I wish I could write...

I Come To Bury the Meme, Not Praise It

Just so you know, there's another "meme" chain-bloggie floating about now, called Caesar's Bath for some reason. The essence of this one is, "List five things that people in your circle of friends or peer group are wild about, but you can’t really understand the fuss over." Just as with the DBM (Dreaded Book Meme), there are certain assumptions at work here that bother me. The DBM assumes that all of us naturally read books. The Caesar's Bath meme assumes that all of us have a circle of friends or a peer group. For the last year at least, when my company's office moved out of Manhattan, I have had no real social life, thus no actual circle of friends other than Robin and my bloggie buddies. I don't have a clue as to what the bloggie buddies are wild about, and I'm not going to think of things that enthuse Robin but not me 'cause that's almost like a Cosmo "what drives you mad about your husband?" quiz or something. So, at the risk of sounding redundant, please don't send me this chain-bloggie either. Please don't send me any chain-bloggies, it's not like I'm at a loss for subjects about which to write (just the time to devote to it).

The Up-Side of Unpaid Overtime

As one of my unpaid jobs is property manager for the building my boss owns, I have to sit at my desk while the after-hours plumbers finish installing the spiffy new faucets in the bathrooms and the world grows dark outside. At least I can catch up on blog-reading. Maybe even blog-posting, if Blogger behaves. Hope I get out of here by 9...

Et Tu, Alton?

Karin Kross wasn't kidding with her "fangirl" report back in January about the Alton Brown book signing. Last night I witnessed what I can only describe as "the Mary Sue episode" of Good Eats. It's episode EA1E11 and it's called "This Spud's For You Too." The episode write-up doesn't do it justice. It concerns AB's car breaking down near a farmhouse wherein lived his biggest fan, who just so happens to need his help in preparing potato recipes for her jealous boyfriend, and it looked like it might be veering into Misery territory for awhile there, but that kind of petered out and, like I said, it just wound up being extremely Mary Sue. But, um, in a good way, I guess. So now I'm curious as to who wrote it...

Silly Site o' the Day

Starting to see the light, what with the recent major office tasks behind me and my boss leaving for his next European vacation in about a week and a half. If all continues to go well I think I'll be tackling comics again very soon, maybe even writing a script or two. In celebration I give you, via Kevin Moore, the "redubbing" of some classic comics by the very naughty Jay Pinkerton.

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's apparently making the rounds - a "remix" video of what I guess is supposed to be an in-your-face wingnut "patriotic" song (I have no desire to watch the original). I first saw it via Bitch Ph.D.

A Failing Grade

So it seems the College of American Pathologists made a little oopsie and sent vials of 1957-58 pandemic flu strain (that killed as many as 4 million people back then) to at least 3747 labs in 18 countries. Thank goodness, once again, for Canada, which discovered the disastrous mistake and alerted WHO. As many of these vials were sent out as long ago as last October, one can't help but wonder how much of the strain might have escaped in the ensuing months. Oh, and it's probably not a good idea to outsource your quality control and shipping.

Why I Heart Julia

She is the cool mom. And HM is a very cool (and lucky) kid.

Silly Site o' the Day

Another nod to National Poetry Month - the Mad Libs-like Love Poem Generator (first seen on Bookslut). I assure you, it's pure coincidence that I chose this Silly Site on the birthday of the famous person I had a crush on for years.

Dworkin Belatedly Remembered

That's more like it. Wonder if any of these news sources happened to mention why they didn't run the obituary until three days after the fact?

Creative Writing Alerts

To all of you who have more leisure time than me, and an inclination to post your fiction writing on someone else's blog rather than your own, there are two interesting bits floating about:

T. Rex proposes

A group of us should get together and create our own online magazine for the purpose of publishing our fiction, poetry, drama and other literary works. Theoretically, we would push it in the direction of becoming a legitimate publication that amateur writers would submit stuff to and the like, maybe we'd even appear in literary market and things like that. We could also include articles and essays on literature, reviews, and stuff about getting published or the art of writing. We would run the show and we could take advantage of something we're all familiar with, blogging software, in order to organize and run the site

Click here for more details.

And Michele Agnew has issued the Fairy-Tale Challenge, which has been ably met by first entrant Mamacita, whose short bit I liked a lot.

An Interesting Experiment

I'm not much for looking at site statistics. Way I see it, I'm never going to be an A-list blogger because, among other reasons, I don't stick to one subject or area of expertise, I don't blog often enough or regularly enough to merit an increase in readership, and I don't talk enough about comics so I think a lot of those readers wandered off. Like I said back when I first started Pen-Elayne on the Web, I will have considered this blog a personal success if I have as many regular readers as I did back when I self-published INSIDE JOKE, which was around 200 people every six weeks. And I got up around that number fairly quickly so I'm happy. Except I'd like more time to blog about comics.

But I digress. Robin amuses himself occasionally by checking out my site stats. As we know, these numbers are based on how many readers actually visit the blog, which is not the same thing as how many people actually read it. How do I know this? Because I don't visit blogs that often, I read everything via RSS feed to my Bloglines newsreader. And I have to figure a lot of other busy folks do the same. At present, as far as I know all the accepted forms of ranking blog popularity seem to rely on various site meters, and there's no way to measure how many people read my (or any) blog via a newsreader rather than clicking to the site.

So is there a way to figure out one's true readership? Well, when I was doing my Estrogen Month posts, part of the participation request involved people having to check out my sidebar to make sure they didn't vote for any women who were already on my blogroll. Robin noted a sharp rise in my daily stats, by about a third, that corresponded with these posts. After Estrogen Month was over my site visits dropped to where they'd been previously, and I'm inclined to think that's more a function of newsreaders than of a drop-off in posting frequency (although that dipped as well).

So if any of you out there want to figure out what your true readership is as opposed to what your site meters say it is, you might want to try doing the kind of thing I did last month - do something that involves people having to visit your blog, keep it up for a regular enough period of time (say, a week), then compare stats from before, during and after. One of the easier ways to do this if you're on Blogger is to set your site feed from "full" to "partial" so that people have to click on your blog to see your entire post, but unless this is your preferred way of doing things I wouldn't recommend it, as some of us who use newsreaders tend to give up on partial posts if we're busy, and just skim the blog rather than clicking to read the rest of the post.

The Death That Isn't?

It's all over the feminist blogs but nowhere does Google News even seem to acknowledge the death of Andrea Dworkin. The death of a controversial person doesn't usually merit silence, even in the mainstream press. Dare we hope that the rumors of her death are greatly exaggerated? (I'm not a particular fan of hers, I just don't like the idea of an acknowledged public figure dying and not even getting mentioned in the mainstream news.)

Update: In the comments section, TheaLogie reports that the mainstream press, at least in Britain, is finally noticing.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Hanan Levin, to whom I apologize after believing all this time that he was female, a very silly add-on palindrome.

Book Meme-Free and Proud

I love you, Echidne. I love you too, Erishkigal. I adore all my bloggy friends. Please don't pass the book meme to me. I have neither the leisure time for book-reading nor the inclination to answer questionnaires. It's been nigh unto forever since I've read Fahrenheit 451, although I caught about a half hour of the movie the other night; I don't do desert-island questions; I have no memory to spare for things like the last books I purchased or read; and I'm not reading any books at present because I'm trying to get through two boxes' worth of comics as I've previously mentioned. Thank you in advance for understanding, everyone.

Milestone Notes

Happy belated birthday to Terry at I See Invisible People (great birthday post!), and happy birthday to Pissed-Off Patricia at Blondesense!

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's spreading like wildfire among the lefty blogosphere (I first saw it at Jeanne's place but that was only because I clicked on Body & Soul a few seconds before clicking on umpteen other blogs that mentioned it), so I may as jump on the bandwagon. Seems SF Gate columnist Jon Carroll claimed to have received an anonymous manifesto by a group calling itself Unitarian Jihad, which I found pretty funny even though I don't know that much about the Unitarian Universalists (except I once went to a UU wedding and, as I recall, everyone who attended had to either read a bit of poetry or perform something in mime; ah, good times...). So it inspired this fellow named Bill Humphries to create a Unitarian Jihad Name Generator, and Josh Larios gets into the act and creates a First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name Generator, and we're all just giggly over this stuff.

Transitions

So in addition to both me and Robin looking for work, the home situation has suddenly gotten strange, as our downstairs neighbors (the Russian doctors) seem to have suddenly moved out. When we saw the moving van this morning we thought it might be for one of their children, they have a son who visited and stayed almost every weekend, but we came back from doing some errands (we figured it'd be easier on them if we moved the car and gave them some space for a few hours) and everything was dead quiet, with both their cars gone, as well as their son's and the rent-a-van and the moving truck, and their blinds pulled down. If they are indeed gone I'll miss them; although it was sometimes tricky parking my car between their two, and being a little hard of hearing the family patriarch occasionally liked to blast the TV, they were among the quietest and nicest neighbors I've ever known, and we have no idea what kind of folks will be moving in now. As this house is fairly close to a college I'm hoping it won't be partying-type students, but we have little choice in the matter. At least it's still downstairs, rather than upstairs. Although I could wish some strange workman with a ladder hadn't been around yesterday morning, as some wire or other seems to have been snipped and the cable in our living room is now out of operation for the weekend, just when it's gotten quiet enough under that room to watch TV again.

Obligatory Canadian Comics Content

Yeah, this is a comics blog too, honest. Only there are a couple boxes' worth of comics sitting unread in the bedroom; we weren't invited to or even informed of the Sin City NYC premiere or the Eisner memorial, both of which many of our industry friends attended; Robin's "between jobs" at the moment (DC and Marvel editors needing pencillers and inkers, take note!); I don't know when I'll ever get my contrast/comparison review of "Dorothy Gale: Journey to Oz" versus "Lions, Tigers and Bears" posted; and perhaps it's best not to ask me how the script for Megillat Vashti is going. I really need a new job (potential employers, take note!) that doesn't drain the soul out of me, maybe in Manhattan again so I can get more reading done on public transit and have something of a comics social life again.

Anyway, the world goes on without me, and I wanted to pass along two comic-related stories in the news of late: the US Army is looking for folks to help them produce psy-ops propaganda comics in Iraq "for youth to learn lessons, develop role models and improve their education." I guess part of the propaganda is internalized, as unlike Japan and Europe we're still equating "comics" with "youth." And remember the Pope comic? Well, another one is now being done in Colombia, only this one envisions His Late Holiness "as a superhero battling evil with an anti-Devil cape and special chastity pants." And apparently osteoporosis as well, judging by the cover art. So you see, Americans aren't the only ones equating "comics" with "superheroes only" (even Sin City can't seem to shake that)...

Silly Site o' the Day

If the internets aren't working well for you, particularly in the evenings, you aren't the only one. The web's been real sluggish for us as well. Doesn't matter what browser, there's major suckage and "page not found"edness on all of them. This actually bothers me more than Blogger (which is free), as we're paying for our ISP and DSL and all those other cute acronyms. Ah well, it's not like it's in our control. One needs a bit of patience in order to use new search engines like Yagoohoogle (via Bitch, Ph.D.) and MSN Search Spoof (via Lis Riba).

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

My fierce beast!

Datsa and I like to play a version of patty-cake, with his paw and my hand smacking each other, but to tell you the truth his heart wasn't really into it at this moment because he was thinking of food (about 10 minutes till feeding time as I type this).

Sheroes Meetup Moves

Elaine's lovely post (look Tild~, she plugged your CafePress site too!) reminded me to pass along the update from Liza Sabater about the Blog Sheroes Meetup - turns out it's still second Seder night (Sunday, April 24), but the time has shifted to between 7:00 PM and 10:00 PM and the venue is now Madam X at 94 West Houston Street, between LaGuardia and Thompson and not at all near the "1" train line so this may require some rethinking on my part...

Ride on the Peace Train Bridge

Via Julia, some positive world news for a change.

Silly Site o' the Day

It's National Poetry Month, so I'm told. Never touch the stuff, myself; too little of it nowadays has meter and rhyme and form, and too much of it is more than I need to know. So I let poem generators like this one do the work for me. Via Kathy Flake.

RIP Dale Messick

Lived to the ripe old age of 98, God bless her.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Dori at Backup Brain, a chain reaction Flash game she calls "horribly addictive." I can't exactly figure out how to make the chain reactions happen, but when they do it's pretty cool to watch.

Talking with Tild~

Tild~ Dallelie and her family are visiting in NYC this week, and although we missed getting together by a few hours (if we'd gotten in touch yesterday I'd have probably seen her late this afternoon or this evening, considering today was a bonus vacation day in exchange for working on Sunday) we did have a lovely hour-long chat, during which we discussed how scarily alike we are (this happens to us gal bloggers more than any of us care to admit), job-hunting, tomorrow's Firesign chat at which she promises to make an appearance whilst I'm still there, Estrogen Month and her fabulous "She-Blogger" posters (did you know Tild~ has a CaféPress She-Blogger site? I think we should all buy mugs and bring them to the Sheroes shindig later this month), sf fandom in the '80s, and of course all of you. Your ears were all burning, weren't they? I also caught her up a bit on the talk 'round the blogosphere, as she's been suffering from a bit of online withdrawal, and promised we'll have a get-together like we had for NTodd next time she visits. She's back home in Meen-eh-SOH-taa tomorrow evening (yes, she has that cute MN accent and all), so I 'spect y'all will be hearing from her shortly after that.

Silly Site o' the Day

My soulmate and I are headed out for our annual checkups shortly, now that I've been informed I'm effectively making $200 less every month due to rising health insurance costs. But before I go I wanted to pass along something Lauren found on the Biography Channel's website: who's your dead celebrity soulmate? I kept getting writers and artists, which I suppose is fitting, but when I think of the word "celebrity" people like Poe and Van Gogh aren't the first to leap to mind.

Holding Out for a SHero

Well, although I got in touch with Susan Mernit after all (note to self: read the subheader next time to find a person's e-mail address!) about tonight's Reuters panel about blogging and journalism, and she said "come on by" and all that, and it's a gorgeous day and I'm not going to work tomorrow, I think I'm going to give it a pass after all. Sheer laziness, I suspect. Also a morning doctor's appointment. But be that as it may, via an e-mail from Liza Sabater I just found out about another event that strikes my fancy a bit more than "are bloggers journalists" (which always struck me as a dumb question anyway, as the simple answer is that bloggers are writers who use a certain program for their one-to-many writing - some are journalists and some aren't). My 20th century sensibilities prevent me from retyping a couple of the "t" words involved in the event's title (yes! I'm an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy!), but it's part of the Blog Sheroes Meet-Up series, and it sounds a lot like a preview what Lisa Stone and Elisa Camahort have envisaged for BlogHerCon over on the left coast. The only down-side is that it takes place on April 25, the night of the second Seder, so observant Jewish bloggers won't be able to attend. But other than that, the location is great (on "my" subway line and right near Monster!) and the company so far includes such luminaries as Lindsay Beyerstein and Barbara O'Brien (whom I've been wanting to meet for ages). No word on whether men are allowed, but it's a bar so I guess they can congregate elsewhere in the area. At this point I hope to be there with my infamous "invisible women blogger" nametags in hand...

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Lis Riba, the perfect search engine - Pupna! As advertised, it "retrieves exactly what you are searching for (and absolutely nothing else!)"

Silly Site o' the Day

Good morni-- oh, it's afternoon already? Oh well, at least I'm getting caught up at the office. Took me awhile to get into the Blogger edit function, as I had to wipe all my cookies yesterday when I came in because my Bloglines insisted on having all its menu-type text remain in Klingon past April Fool's Day. Oh well, could be worse - could be a NET DISASTER! Via Pam at Beancounters, although I see a few other bloggers in the past day or so have gotten a kick out of employing the Dinosaur function...

The NY Blogging and Journalism Debate

Everyone's been talking about the one in Washington for so long ('cause hey, when you get "Jeff Gannon" and Wonkette on the same panel, Sex Sells and it's not like anything else is of interest), but nowhere have I seen anything about the upcoming "Blogs and the Media" panel in NYC on Tuesday until today, while looking through my Gals in Waiting section and seeing mentions of it from Halley Suitt and Susan Mernit. Susan's discussing a possible NYC blogger get-together afterwards, but alas she doesn't have either a comments section or a way to e-mail her that's visible on her blog. Just thought I'd mention this panel for interested locals...

A Weekend of Birthdays

Roxanne's was yesterday, and Maru's is today! Two great bloggy gals! Go wish them happy birthdays!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Ampersand at Alas, A Blog, this "zoomquilt" is indeed a neat piece of interactive art. Just sort of position your cursor so it "points" left and bask in the infinite zoom...

Maintenance Notes

CE Petro is one of many bloggers to move away from Blogger lately; here's her new URL at Typepad. If you've moved to a new URL and I still have you listed on my sidebar under your old one, please let me know so I can update accordingly. Me, I'm staying with Blogger; except for the template mishap, which was fairly easily rectified once I figured out what had happened, I'm not all that het up about the service; the latest problems seem to be behind them for the most part; and, most importantly, they're still free and there are no guarantees that for-pay services won't experience frustrating glitches as well (look at Movable Type's varied comment-spam problems, for instance). Update: Moi has moved her Bloggg here, and Seeing the Forest has cleared space here.

Musings on Catholicism

With John Paul II finally, mercifully released from his suffering into, millions presume, the hands of the God he served for so long, Billmon takes a fascinating look at the state of the Catholic Church and wonders where it goes from here.

Wrapping up Estrogen Month

As in, "in a neat tidy box so all you have to do is click on one post to find the archives." This one's for you, SB, and I hope it will serve as a handy link for those asking the question "Where are all the women bloggers?" as well as those considering Estrogen Month for a Koufax 2005 nomination as Best Series. I'll also stick this link onto my sidebar, pretty much where you'd expect to find it. Below is a handy-dandy table containing the links to almost all my Estrogen Month posts (sorry about all the blank space preceding it, it's my first-ever attempt at a table so I'm not sure how to get rid of the space) (Update 8/20/06: A year and a half later, I finally learn how to get rid of the excess blank space that used to precede this):

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6
Day 7	Day 8	Day 9	Day 10	Day 11	Day 12
Day 13	Day 14	Day 15	Day 16	Day 17	Day 18
Day 19	Day 20	Day 21	Day 22	Day 23	Day 24
Day 25	Day 26	Day 27	Day 28	Day 29	Day 30

And here's Day 31, 'cause March is like that with 31 days and all. I'm also going to repro the Photoshop I did on Day 19 just 'cause I got a kick out of doing it:

And of course don't forget the three permanent "Where the Women Bloggers Are" sections in my public Bloglines bookmarks, situated right beneath my "News+Views Gals" and "Kultcha Gals" sections.

Silly Site o' the Day

Did those of you who read Pen-Elayne via direct visits to this blog miss me? My apologies, and I'll confess it's only partly Blogger's fault. Due to one of Blogger's many recent problems, something happened to my template early yesterday afternoon and the bottom half got wiped, but (again, because of those recent problems, as well as my workload and exhaustion and knowing my RSS feed was fine) it didn't occur to me to check it until this morning. Fortunately, thanks to Laura's wisdom and all the changes I'd made during Estrogen Month, I've been doing lots of template backing-up lately, so I was able to restore everything by the good old copy-and-paste method. If I felt better I'd do a happy dance, but I'm going to let this guy "speak" for me instead. Via Des at GreatScat!.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

April Fool's Day is also the day we celebrate Amy's birthday.

Eight years old and as cute as ever.

Silly Site o' the Day

White Rabbits, and welcome to the cruelest silliest month! I'm not big on perpetuating April Fool's Day pranks, although I can appreciate clever ones coming from others (as long as they're not mean), so leave your favorite AFD 2005 findings in the comments. Meanwhile, speaking of rabbits, via Kim Hackett at Mizzkyttie's Mind, it's a page of bunny suicides! Aww, poor widdow things, won't someone think of the bunnies...

Update: Oh, what the heck. Throughout the day I'll add the AFD 2005 post referrals that amuse me as I come across them:

Amanda Marcotte is kind of dizzy

Girl-on-girl weirdness as Roxanne Cooper does Michelle Malkin

Trish Wilson is mean to Wilford Brimley, or his cat

More AFD links from World Nut Doily The American Street

And yet more from Teresa-Nielsen Hayden