The Monster Show-Down

Iron Chef Godzilla versus challenger King Kong. Someone has waaay too much time on his hands. Via Laura.

Lesser Known Awards

Well, I've finally submitted my Koufax nominations and cleaned out that section of my Bloglines clippings, but I've yet to nominate for either Firedoglake's Golden Crony awards or the A.H.O.Y. awards, so I'm passing them both along in case y'all are into these things more than I am.

Silly Site o' the Day

Congratulations to Firesign chatter TOR Hershman on his holiday parody song making the top of the Soundlift downloads chart in its category!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)



Where's Amy? "Where's s'he (pronunced "see")?"



Ahh, there s'he is...

To My Favorite Boobooshka

Happy birthday, Avedon!

Setting the Record Straight

Wil Wheaton confronts the fallout from this essay by having a heart-to-heart with his parents. More proof that, as good a writer as you may be, there are often very compelling reasons not to write essays sharing personal details with the whole world, even if you're trying to make cogent points, without checking first with the subjects of those essays.

Silly Site o' the Day

One of the best places to check for silly sites lately is Mark Evanier's blog. Every week or so he runs a game he calls "There's No Such Website!", giving readers five choices of sites on which to click (using TinyURL so you can't guess the origin by running your cursor over the link) and inviting them to guess which of the five isn't real. I usually get 'em on the second or so try, but I think last week it took me all five to find the fake one. It's a clever and fun little exercise! And it also causes me to shake my head at some of the real ones. Hope I don't spoil Mark's game too much today by pointing y'all to one of those "oh my goodness it actually exists?" places, Afterlife Telegrams. "For a donation of $5.00 per word (5 word minimum), we can have telegrams delivered to people who have passed away. This is done with the help of terminally ill volunteers who memorize the telegrams before passing away, and then deliver the telegrams after they have passed away... Since we can not guarantee delivery nor prove that a message has been delivered successfully, our customers do not pay for 'deliveries'. They pay for 'delivery attempts'." Cartoonist and webmaster Paul Kinsella also runs an Online Cemetery, which actually seems like a nice idea considering the number of people who want to do (and have done) tribute pages to departed loved ones.

Back from the Front

Melissa chats up a soldier.

Craig Murray Speaks Out

Is anyone the least bit surprised that a click on Murray's eponymous website yields an error message (at least at the moment)? But Blogsearch should yield you lots of blogs mirroring the information. Update: Ah good, it's back.

Estrogen Month Year

Can we finally put the "Where Are All The Women Bloggers?" crap to rest? Just asking.

Pass/Fail

Took the treadmill part of the stress test this afternoon. The disappointing news is that I didn't last very long before I was winded and my legs started to ache (hence the "fail"), I have so little stamina nowadays it's scary. But the good news is I can go on the stationary bike again, as well as increase other physical activity, because my heart is operating within normal parameters when I exercise. Since the 8th I've been afraid to breathe wrong for fear of setting off the a-fib again! I also noticed I can do a kind of biofeedback thing to lower my heart rate if I'm hooked up to a monitor, so I'm going to get a fairly cheap one and start practicing.

Time-Waster Times Seven

Yes, I've been tagged again, and the only reason I'm answering this is that it's a slow week and I've done all my urgent job-stuff and I'm trying to take my mind off the treadmill test this afternoon. As mentioned before on this blog, these time-wasters aren't actually "memes" even though they're mislabeled as such - this is what a meme actually is. Anyway, onward:

Seven Things To Do Before I Die
• Write at least one more comic book story (preferably Megillat Vashti)
• Collaborate on at least one more comic book story with my husband
• Live in a house of our own where we can control the heat, have a garden, etc.
• Travel to at least one English-speaking country where I've never been (probably Ireland or Wales but I wouldn't mind Australia or New Zealand)
• Finish reading all the stuff that's in my house, particularly my comics
• Make over $50,000 a year
• Celebrate the swinging of the political pendulum back toward common sense

Seven Things I Cannot [nor do I wish to] Do, this time with movement as the theme!
• Roller Skate
• Ice Skate
• Ski
• Snowboard
• Skateboard (are you getting the pattern here?)
• Ride a roller coaster or any other stomach-turning amusement ride
• Ride a motorcycle

Seven Things That Attract Me to [fill in the blank]... Robin
• His talent
• His intelligence
• His humor
• His hands
• His eyes
• His lips
• His... well, never you mind

Seven Things I Say Most Often - I'm afraid this positively stumped me, as I fancy myself having something of a wide vocabulary, so I'll turn it over in the comments section to folks like Robin or Leah or Julia who know me personally. What seven things do I say most often?

Seven Books That I Love/Seven Movies That I Watch Over and Over Again/Seven Songs I Play Over and Over Again - Ohhhh no, I answered these with the Time- Waster Times Four post, I don't want to go through that again.

Seven Celebrity Crushes
• David Cassidy
• Phil Collins
• John Denver
• Justin Hayward
• Hugh Jackman
• Ewen McGregor
• David Ossman (Firesign Theatre)
That's just off the top of my head and over my lifetime. I'm lucky enough to know one of the crush'ees personally.

Seven People I Want To Join In, Too - I don't like chain-blogging as a rule. And I'm not all that interested in reading take after take on this one. So I've broken the chain. Do be thankful.

Silly Site o' the Day

I had an odd dream last night. The linear bits I still remember had to do with hanging out with Jeff Gannon (whom I kept calling "man-whore" despite my usual tact in such matters) and a bunch of right-wing bloggers, who did nothing but trash-talk left-wing bloggers and complain about how liberal bloggers did nothing but trash-talk and complain about them. I have no idea what it means except (a) to reinforce my belief that, despite our differences in philosophy, we're all probably more alike than many of us care to admit and (b) I've been reading too many political blogs lately, particularly those that pay an inordinate amount of attention to other bloggers with whom they don't agree. Geez, I have over 800 subscribed blog feeds from people whom I generally like to read, so it still mystifies me why anyone would deliberately seek out writers they don't like to read! Ah well, onward. I seem to be out of holiday-themed silly sites, so how about this one via Angie, entitled Bareback Mountain, from the good folks at Psychic Bunny? Yeah, nothing political or controversial about that at all, just good clean silliness...

Silly Site o' the Day

This is just wrong in so many ways. Via Scaramouche.

Time-Waster Times Four

Oh crap, Maru tagged me. I'm really bad at these things:

Four jobs you’ve had in your life:
Day camp counselor
Substitute teacher
Mortgage processor (temp job)
Secretary

Four movies you could watch over and over:
The Wizard of Oz
Star Wars: A New Hope
Young Frankenstein
Brigadoon

Four places you’ve lived:
Bronx, NY
Roselle, NJ
New Brunswick, NJ
Brooklyn, NY

Four TV shows you loved: In chronological order growing up:
Bewitched
The Partridge Family
M*A*S*H
Fernwood 2Nite/America 2Nite

Four places you’ve been on vacation:
London
New Orleans
San Francisco
San Diego

Four websites you visit daily (that aren't on the bloglists):
Other than Bloglines (i.e., my blogroll), I tend not to visit other websites on a daily basis - not enough hours in the day!

Four of your favorite foods:
Sushi
Latkes (as I just made some)
Sushi
Sushi... okay, um, sashimi?

Four places you want to be:
Vancouver
Manhattan (during the work day)
San Francisco
Lewes area (visiting Rob's relatives)

Four books you could read over and over:
No time for book-reading any more, I'm afraid, but pretending there was enough time, the 14 Oz books, the complete works of Shakespeare, and my dozen Lang fairy tale books, which is plenty more than four.

Four songs you can't get tired of listening to:
Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)
Chords of Fame (Phil Ochs)
A Trip to the Fair (Renaissance)
Closer to Fine (Indigo Girls)

Whew - don't worry, I won't tag any of y'all...

On Harmful Mental Conflicts

But I think there is harm. I tell her Santa Claus is a myth, you bring her here, and she sees hundreds of gullible children, meets a very convincing old man with real whiskers... this sets up a very harmful mental conflict within her. What is she going to think? Who is she going to believe? And by filling them full of fairy tales, they grow up considering life a fantasy instead of a reality.

Who knew Doris Walker (from Miracle on 34th Street) took up substitute teaching? Honestly, it might be fine for Susan, but (assuming the story's true) a sub doesn't have the right to act so irresponsibly with first graders who are other people's kids, for goodness sake. They want to know the history of Nickolas of Myrna when they're older, they can watch the History Channel like the rest of us do. Via Joanne Jacobs.

Stressing Out

Went for an EKG and the first part of my cardiac stress test this morning. The EKG showed my heartbeat as normal and steady, so that was a relief. But I had to sign a waiver and everything for the treadmill part of the test which I'm getting Thursday afternoon. Considering all the risks I hope I did the right thing! I certainly don't want to induce a heart attack or anything, but it is a cardio center after all, they have doctors on staff and they know what they're doing and they assured me the risks are extremely low... and the cardiologist with whom I have an appointment next month won't even see me until I get his office the stress test results, so it's rather a Catch-22 situation.

Silly Site o' the Day

I wouldn't want to live anywhere near this house, but they sure do a great holiday light show to the tune of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Wizards in Winter." Via John at Crooks and Liars.

The Grater Good

Whilst Robin napped yesterday around sundown, I lit the candles for the second night of Chanukah and made the latkes. We'd gone out earlier and I was able to find both salt-free bread crumbs (although, if they're salt-free, how come the ingredients list says 5% sodium?) and salt substitute, which both went into the recipe. Grated six medium potatoes and two carrots so I spared my poor fingers the onion and used the chopper on that. Came out pretty well!



I tried to arrange them in the shape of a Mogen David (six-pointed Jewish star), but I don't think I did too well.



Why does the second batch always come out looking not as good than the first? Still tasted great though! As in previous years, I garnished with both sour cream and apple sauce, but I think the sour cream tasted better.

RIP Vincent Schiavelli

Damn. I watched him a lot in recent years on those Magrack "Cook with the Pros" shows (you could hardly avoid him there, he was ubiquitous), but before that he was always either "what's his face, the guy in that movie" or, of course, John BigbooTAY.

Silly Site o' the Day

Pimp my nutcracker, yo! Via lots of blogs but I first saw it at The Poor Man.

Royal Message

The Queen's Christmas message for this year.

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 12/18 thru 12/24/05

I've reorganized my Liberal Coalition blogroll on my left-hand sidebar, as I found myself a bit behind on it and several members have shifted around (Keith Kisser has gone on hiatus, Clonecone is posting again, both Leah and The Farmer have their own blog feeds so they're added individually and Corrente moves to Group Blogs) and I also wanted to make sure it was correct in case we vote in any new members (LC people, please see recent posts about that on our mailing list; if you can't get onto the list please ask NTodd for assistance!). Now that I'm caught up with bloggy goodness I can pay it forward!

Bora aka Coturnix is hosting the next Carnival of the Liberals, so be sure to get your submissions to him by 5 PM Eastern time on January 3 in order to be considered for inclusion! I've tried to keep up with all the carnivals but the carousels are making me dizzy, so it's all I can do to keep my promise to try and do these weekly Top Tens (and of course my daily Silly Sites)... Oh, Bora also has a great post about blogs and schools.

Bryant did another Finger Puppet Theatre, in case you're keeping track. I loved the changing designs from panel to panel!

Clonecone is back with a Fond Farewell to the Fourth (Amendment).

Tena brings tidings of comfort and joy!

Check out T. Rex's conservative media bias timeline. He also debunks the myth about rich people being generous.

Maru, who always makes me smile, points to a fascinating article about puzzling ancient artifacts.

Michael at Musing's Musings posts a pictogram; can you figure it out and pass it on?

Moi reaches a milestone in her family genealogical research.

Natalie Davis passes along some yummy-sounding cookie recipes, both for the oven and the soul.

NTodd exhorts us to keep fighting the good fight.

Lastly, Trish Wilson offers a Geek's Guide to Picking Up Chicks in Computer Labs.

(Okay, that's a Top 11, I added one for the holidays... after all, it's one more, innit?)

Symbols

I've always been fascinated by rituals and symbols and icons and the like. I've spent much of the afternoon re-watching The Face: Jesus in Art and other programs talking about the origins and evolutions of holiday traditions. Of course, some of the best traditions are the ones we make ourselves. Although I've nobody onto whom I'll be passing these, at least I have a blog.



My traditional Christmas sweatshirt, getting pretty threadbare (and definitely too small!) by this point...



I like that we can put the Chanukah candles under (okay, next to and under) the fiber optic Christmas tree this year.



Here they are, all lit for the first night.



Food is a favorite tradition. I spent a few minutes cleaning out the larder of all the things I shouldn't be eating on a sodium-restricted diet, so I'm a bit too tuckered out to actually make the planned latkes tonight, but they'll probably be lunch tomorrow so I've gotten out all the ingredients at left. Center and right are the meat we'll be having for Christmas dinner, the turkey (for me) and ham (for Robin). This dinner itself, again due to the sodium thing, is a bit more subdued than originally planned, but we shot the works at Thanksgiving so I'm fairly happy, and of course we have all the afters which we laid out on the living room desk and which I pictured yesterday.

Hope your day has been as lovely as ours!

Silly Site o' the Day

Christmas began at midnight (the cats failed to speak), Chanukah begins at sunset, and I've actually finished reading through my massive blogroll for the first time since before I went into the hospital a couple weeks ago. And so to bed, but not before announcing that

My Elf Name Is...

Floppy Hot Chocolate (and it suits!)

What's Your Elf Name? (via Karen)

Fifty Years of Tracking Santa

NORAD's tracking site, for both dial-up and broadband.

Happy Merry



May you and your loved ones each find the peace we all crave.

An Atheistic Christmas?

Nona passes along this article from about.com regarding Conflicts over the Meaning of Christmas Season. I think it nicely encapsulates the current "culture war" nonsense.

Charge Their Doings on Themselves

There follows my choice of quoted section from A Christmas Carol pertinent to this year. It's really only the last paragraph, but I had to quote enough to give it context.

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

This was the exchange that really stood out for me this year when listening to the Geoffrey Palmer-read audio version of the book (still available for free from the Penguin Podcast).

Christmas Treats

Robin was missing the old-fashioned English atmosphere of Christmas goodies he'd had growing up, so this year with his steady income we decided to splurge a bit on what I call "food porn." Mind you, with my recent hospital experience I'm not about to partake of it all, but we just wanted to have it around for the holidays. And with all of the extraneous boxes and other studio stuff out of the living room at last, we could set the "table" (Rob's old desk that we'll finally get hauled off in the new year) for one last hurrah.



Here's the entire spread, minus the banana-tree fruit bowl we keep in the kitchen which has (duh) bananas, lemons and limes as I didn't think that was very Christmas-y.



Robin was so excited to find a Christmas cake! I have no idea what a Christmas cake is, he says it's not the same thing as the Christmas pudding next to it, and there's no American equivalent, so I suspect I'm in for an interesting experience. We also have the requisite mince pies, ginger cookies and, in the background, oranges. It's not Christmas for Robin without the smell of oranges and coffee, although I draw the line at cigars.



Someday I'll learn to take a picture without my robe's sleeve getting in the way. We have lots of dried fruit and nuts as well as various "breads" which are actually more like cakes...



And grapefruit as well (although I'm not at all sure the avocados are seasonal) and candy and Cadbury roses... I think we're fairly well set through the new year!

Silly Sites o' the Day

Mark Evanier has amassed a few fun animated Christmas greeting cards. Be sure to click them all!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

A lovely afternoon! We spent way too much money on Christmas "food porn" (photo coming tomorrow after we set down the tablecloth and arrange everything), Robin cleaned up the living room and computer room so everything is put away either on studio shelves or in closets, and the cats have been particularly frisky:



It must be the holidays!

Silly Site o' the Day

Via both BoingBoing and Jim, it's Droidel, apparently officially sanctioned and all...

One Ringy-Dingy...

Have I mentioned not to initiate any phone calls to me unless pre-arranged? I'm letting the machine take everything now, as I noticed my heart rate tends to go up involuntarily whenever the phone rings. Don't know if it's a Pavlovian thing (having to respond to ringing phones at work so quickly for all these years) or a blood pressure thing, but I'm not letting this stuff get to me any more. My health is just too important. So please don't be put off if your phone calls get screened; it's not you, it's me. Thanks for understanding.

Strike Is Over (If You Want It)

They're back at the bargaining table, and union members have been asked to report back to work. Be patient with the union's page, it takes awhile to load as one might imagine (which probably means lots of people are Googling them instead of the management-owned newsbots to find out what's really been going on, which makes me very happy).

Reading Between the Lines

Very good post by Avedon on media manipulation.

Low-Sodium Latkes

Today and tomorrow I'll be shopping for both Christmas and Chanukah food. I've found a recipe for low-sodium potato pancakes, but I'll probably wind up doing my usual recipe anyway with a couple of key substitutions (the non-stick spray instead of cooking oil, and and Mrs. Dash in place of the salt) and hoping for the best.

Silly Site o' the Day

Thank goodness for Hanan Levin who, even though he's currently on vacation, has pre-posted a bunch of items just in time for the holidays. My pick today is Astronaut Jesus.

Silly Site o' the Day

Tarantino Does Rudolph. Film at 11. Via Hanan Levin.

I'll Take the Locals

Steve Gilliard is your go-to guy for perspective on the current TWU strike that's shut down NYC subways and buses. His every post on this topic is must-reading at the moment. And Julia is the go-to gal. Not to slight any others but I'm waaaay behind in blog-reading so I haven't had a chance to check out others' takes on this yet.

Happy Midwinter's Day

Or, for the modern world, start-of-winter-day. Hope everyone has a nice winter solstice. My boss is in the office (and the country) today for the last time this year, so it'll still seem like a long day to me. I also note that Google has begun their annual holiday countdown doodle.

For Those Who Think a Turducken is Excessive...

Apparently you ain't seen nothin' yet. How about a ten-bird roast? If that weren't enough, the article notes that it's "is a simpler form of an early 19th century French royal feast that consisted of 17 birds - from a bustard, one of the largest species of European bird, down to a garden warbler," and that "Multi-bird roasts are not a new concept. They were popular throughout medieval times and well into the 19th century..." Who knew?

It's On

Okay, I admit it, this is one of those days I'm actually glad I don't currently work in Manhattan. Good luck to all my commuting friends during this time.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Eva Whitley, Virgin would like to wish everyone a happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

Silly Site o' the Day

Hey, I'd hire him. Via Tom Peyer.

Comics Tomorrow, Blogskim Tonight

I love Bloglines' warnings of impending wossname. I'll be off doing something else tomorrow evening, most likely catching up on comics reading, because of the following announcement:

Bloglines will have a planned outage on Monday, December 19, 2005 in order to relocate to a new data center. Here's our planned schedule for tomorrow:

2:00pm Pacific Daylight Time: Your subscriptions will stop updating with new items.

4:00pm PDT: The Bloglines site will be completely offline. During this time you will not be able to access your account.

8:00pm PDT: The Bloglines site will be back online by this time. New articles posted during the outage will appear in your account.

We look forward to vastly improved hardware capacity and tons of elbow room for growth. Thank you for your patience during this outage.

We're not going to beat around the bush about this. Bloglines performance has sucked eggs lately. Why? In short, Bloglines has been busting at the seams like the Incredible Hulk.

All of us here at Bloglines have been foregoing sleep and social lives over the past several months to keep Bloglines running and preparing for our move to a new access center (with bigger britches and a very elastic waistline).

So hang tight because there's a light at the end of the tunnel. The move will happen soon; we'll keep you posted.

Personally I haven't had many problems with Bloglines at all, but I still think this is a very spiffy warning notice, and I could do with a bit more time away from the computer.

Read Me A Story

I'm not big on reading blog fiction; I think it reminds me too much that I should writing more fiction of my own, which I've all but abandoned these past few years for reasons even I don't quite understand (all the more peculiar given I'm still getting requests to publish my stuff if I ever get around to doing it again). I suspect I'm also something of a genre snob. But I am big on friendship, so I wanted to pass along two items from friends:

Lee "Budgie" Barnett has written over a hundred short stories, what he calls "Fast Fictions," since last August, and he's still going strong. This is an interactive kinda thing, as he challenges his readers, "Reply with a title (maximum of four words) about which you'd like me to write a fast fiction of exactly 200 words, together with a single word you want me to include in the text of the tale. (Completely daft suggestions will be ignored, so no suggestions of 'antidisestablishmentarianism' along with a title of 'sex lives of cornflakes.') I'll try to do one a day, but no promises." An interesting experiment!

And as mentioned in the comments section of yesterday's photoblog entry, Cliff Meth would like folks to read Cunin's Big Breakfast by Lawrence Heath. Rabainu TamTam's blog Havdalah is fairly new but seems to promise many such entries, carrying on in the grand storytelling tradition of Sholom-Aleichem.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Desi, the heartwarming tale It's A Wonderful Internet.

A Winter's Late Autumn Stroll

As mentioned below, we went into Manhattan today, mostly so I could close out a bank account from a place where I'd been banking for almost 30 years but which has no branches around where we live now and has been screwing up my name and address changes for at least the past seven years so I'd had enough and opened a new account with the bank downstairs where I work. That done, the almost-impossible-to-find Cadie pop-up sponges bought in quantity at a local Gristede's (a supermarket which only seems to abound in that borough), and our sushi brunch eaten (yes Mom, lower-sodium soy sauce and I dipped a lot less than normal), we decided to walk around a bit and see if we could spot some cool store windows and get in a few more errands. Of course I took pictures.

We walked across 23rd and started up Fifth. I seem to recall that this building pictured on the left used to have a Christmas-all-year store, but I think it's a hotel now. Still, the windows are always cheery this time of year (click on it to see an enlarged version), although we could have done without the bars. Our goal was to reach Lord & Taylor to see the Unwrap the Wonder fairy tale display, and for some reason I thought it was at 34th and Fifth but it wasn't at that corner when we got there and I didn't remember it was only four more blocks up or we would have kept going. But we didn't know that yet...



Fifth and 27th. Which naturally leads to...



Balls! Actually, this was taken on the bus home, at some point (probably my being pissed that I couldn't remember the L&T cross street) I put the camera away in disgust. We saw the Macy's displays from last year along 34th Street, but not the ones from this year on Broadway as I didn't know that's where we needed to look and we were getting tired and somewhat frustrated at that point (traversing 34th a couple times to go to two Payless stores in search of another pair of the comfy sneakers I bought last week probably didn't help, although I did procure said item). I don't have very good luck at window displays, I'll need to plan better next time! Anyway, we were plumb tuckered out after getting some rather hefty packages from Midtown, more about which below, so we visited Godiva (mistake #2, their hot chocolate is expensive and stingy!) and didn't even have enough energy to browse the Bryant Park holiday shops whilst waiting for the bus home.



Rob was in a bit of a grouchy mood, despite listening to Christmas music on his iPod. But that's not why I took this picture when we passed Lincoln Center. Here, let me zoom in a bit...



That's right, a herd of Santas, no doubt running amok! Be afraid, be very afraid! (And I agree, there really ought to be a collective noun for Santas, and "plague" is a poor one.)



This monstrosity is why we decided to quit while we were ahe-- uh, while we somewhat broke even in terms of the day's enjoyment and our stamina, and not push ourselves to go to a movie as well. Rob only had to schlep it a block to the bus then a half a block home, but that was bad enough. The sucker is heavy! Here's its temporary home in Robin's studio (note the bluelined pages-to-be-inked on the shelf below). We decided to take a couple reaction shots of the cats.



Amy seems to take to it...



...while Datsa appears a bit leery. Oh, and by the way,


this page was first printed in the newspapers exactly one hundred years ago today. (As with the others, click on the picture to see a larger image). All in all, not a bad day, lots and lots of walking done (doctor's orders!) and only one blister found so far...

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 12/11 thru 12/17/05

Welcome to my weekly roundup of the ten posts that caught my eye the most from my fellow Liberal Coalition members! I actually went on the LC mailing list for the first time in a couple months (mailing list participation is another thing that I've had to let slide because there are only so many hours in the day), only to discover that a couple LCers have new blogs, so I've adjusted the blogroll accordingly. Here's what stood out for me this past week:

Norbizness has the unedited scoop on the Brian Williams-George Bush interview.

Keith at Invisible Librarian points to some not-so-invisible Librarian Trading Cards. I think my first husband should submit one too.

Jude at Iddybud has some lovely thoughts for friends following her mother's death, and Alex at SoonerThought remembers OKC Community College president Bob Todd. (I can't believe it's taken me that long to get the wordplay of that blog's title... then again, there are folks who still don't get the wordplay in mine...)

Bryant at Make Me a Commentator!!! presents - Finger Puppet Theatre! Here are parts one, two and three.

Horatio gives us munchies for thought about marijuana and the profit motive.

Athenae at First Draft is angry that modern so-called journalism isn't angry enough.

John at archy and The Farmer, now at Harry Dogwater, are having a sort of scientific back-and-forth. Here's John on the mammoth, and The Farmer on, um, the Harvey Probber MoHair Sofa.

Wrapping things up is Echidne writing about being a token woman, much of which struck a chord for me as well.

Off to Manhattan now - see you later!

Silly Site o' the Day

Teh cute continues, with the Baby Bush Toy Co. Aww, wookit the cuddly Li'l Looming Disaster Pillow! Via John at AMERICABlog.

Some Have to Live Like a Refugee

Not to make light of real refugees, of course. But apparently something was going on yesterday with the pay-to-blog service Typepad, so a number of very good bloggers took temporary space here on free Blogspot until the problem was rectified. Yet another reason why I see absolutely no incentive to switch blog hosts; glitches and maintenance are universal, and I'd rather have an outage on a free service than on one for which I'm paying.

RIP John Spencer

A tragic case of life imitating art, only this time the heart attack was fatal. I'll miss him exceedingly, he was one of my favorite actors. I'm really getting tired of being reminded of mortality these last few weeks...

Teh Cute

You have no idea how soothing it was to create this category in my Bloglines subs and put the following blogs in it:

Adorablog

Cute Overload

The Daily Kitten

Any others of which I should know?

Silly Site o' the Day

The good lord willin' and the subways don't strike, we'll be heading into the city tomorrow morning to do some errands and take in some store windows. So in the spirit of the season, why not request some carols from the Singing Chins? Via Moi at Bloggg.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Amy was rolling about on the carpet being all cute and frisky when I returned from our office holiday luncheon yesterday, and Datsa was giving her puzzled looks, so naturally I got my camera and their attention.



Love them laser eyes!

It's Koufax Awards Time Again

Nominations are open! This is the one I really kinda want to win someday 'cause I feel like I'm part of that community, having actually met both Dwight and MB. Unfortunately, since I'm neither a focused, single-topic blogger (I'm not solely political nor comics nor photoblog nor New York nor, well, anything) nor a prolific writer this past year (while I blog every day I don't do too many long essays unless I have energy and/or time, both of which have been a scarcity in 2005), it's unlikely I'll make the finals or even semi-finals in this year's voting. However, I should like to claim some community karma based on all your good wishes following my recent hospital adventure, and request that you consider me in the category of Best Series, as I haven't missed a single day all year without posting a Silly Site. Thanks in advance!

If It's Not Too Much Trouble, Marley Was Dead

The Penguin Podcast is currently featuring the first installment of A Christmas Carol as read by Geoffrey Palmer. (The header for this post is an in-joke between me and Robin having to do with As Time Goes By and pledge drives.) Very psyched to listen to it this weekend! Via Claire Robertson.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, my adventure last week should make for a ripping wrap-up to our annual holiday card "what we've done this past year" insert, but don't fret if you've led a slightly more boring life - the good folks at By Accident can help out! Via Neil Gaiman.

Turducken for a Good Cause

Come on, admit it. You know you love the idea of throwing a turducken party for the coming hoildays, even though you wouldn't want to actually make that 3-birds-in-1 yourself. And you've been waiting for an excuse to order it from somewhere. And you still want to help Katrina victims. Well, wait no longer - Cajun Grocer will donate 5% of your net purchase to the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation that will be directed specifically to victims in Louisiana. (If you're not into turducken but still love that Nawlins food, here are some other suggestions to benefit the locals.)

Crying on the Inside

I was wondering why The Daily Show was a rerun on Monday, and what the deal was with last night's Moment of Zen. Karen found out what was up. So sad...

Silly Site o' the Day

Went to my PCP today. I'm old enough to remember when "PCP" didn't mean "primary care physician." Anyway, my blood pressure is still through the roof (which I attribute to this frigid weather, but who knows) so she's upped the dosage on my BP med, and I've scheduled tons of fun tests at the local cardio center for the week between Christmas and New Year's. Fun fun fun! Just trying to stay mellow today and henceforth. Am I angry or am I calm? Am I both, like this illusion (via Zed at MemeMachineGo!)? Who knows?

I Second the Titters

Via Julia who got it from Teresa (and I miss both ladies bunches and bunches during this too-cold-to-go-out season), it's the Wrathful Dispersion controversy. The linguistics major in me loves this!

Separated at Birth?

Damn, someone beat me to it. (Warning, site has annoying music and pop-ups.)

Silly Site o' the Day

A very happy birthday to my first husband and longstanding friend Steve Chaput, who just started as a branch (head) librarian in Queens! Here Steve, have some sushi pillows (via Xeni at BoingBoing)!

Silly Site o' the Day

Back at work, trying to take it easy, nobody's really pushing anything major on me yet so it should be an okay day. Going food shopping after work to get all the stuff that's Good For Me so I can initiate a proper dietary shift. Hey, have you seen this Ambigrams page (via Zed at MemeMachineGo!)? Very cool stuff!

Partial Eclipse of the Heart

As I said earlier, if I write or talk or think too much about my recent adventures, it only gets my blood and heart rate going again, the very thing I'm supposed to be avoiding. But if I don't write about it people are going to keep asking me. So, for anyone thinking of calling me up to chat about how I am: I'm fine now, I was in hospital overnight mostly for observation, I'm on what they considered the proper meds, I'll be making follow-up medical appointments and trying not to get too worked up or move around a lot until I regain my energy which is sapped mostly by talking on the phone so please don't call, thanks for understanding!

So, my 48-year-old body decided to give me a belated birthday present last Thursday morning, when I awoke at 6:30 AM feeling like there was an anvil on my chest. I wanted to make sure it wasn't a heart attack, so I had Rob call 9-1-1, and the FDNY EMS guys were there almost right away. My heart rate was over 180 and very erratic. I was able to go to the bathroom once more before they gave me a few mouth-sprays of nitro whisked me over to the NY Presbyterian Allen Pavilion's emergency room center, where I began to feel better but was hooked up to so many monitors and tubes that, in retrospect, it was a very good thing indeed that I'd performed my morning ablutions. I was also grateful I'd plugged in my cell phone to recharge the night before, because I'd turn out to need it for most of my stay.

Still in ER, where I was to remain for most of the day, stripped and in two thin hospital gowns (one for the front and one for the back), I called work and told them I wouldn't be in that day, and probably not the next. I called my parents to check on whether there was a family history of a-fib, and found out, surprise surprise, that both Mom and Dad have the same condition. Which led me to wonder when exactly they were planning on telling me that, which might have saved me an ER trip as I could have gone to a cardiologist long ago, which of course raised my heart rate and blood pressure (my systolic was also around 180)... and not getting into a room for hours and hours after being told I'd have to stay overnight didn't help either.

Finally, around 5 PM, hours after Robin had gone home at my insistence, I was taken for an ultrasound, after which I spoke with the resident cardiologist. She said the ultrasound showed I had an enlarged left atria (shouldn't the singular be "atrium?", I thought) and that, together with the erratic heartbeat which I've experienced before (as a sort of "flutter" which usually goes away within a minute or two but didn't this time), put me at risk for blood clots and possibly stroke. Again, not that much of a surprise considering family history (grandfathers who both passed away from heart attacks in the days when they were far less treatable, a maternal grandmother who'd had a series of strokes). She gave me a couple options for what was to come on Friday - they were either going to start me on cumidin (which is what my dad takes, I'd earlier learned), but that took a few days to kick in so they'd need to keep me until Tuesday, and I was adamant about getting out ASAP. They could also teach me to self-inject a different anti-coagulant called lovinox, which didn't thrill me (I'd make a lousy heroin addict) but if it got me out of there the next day then fine. Then she started to pile it on - I probably have high blood pressure (not "borderline" as I've been told by every doctor I've been to for the past 20 years), I might have the onset of diabetes, and hey, have I considered stomach stapling?

Say WHAT? Why on earth would I, as someone who has been naturally fat my entire life, for a moment consider elective surgery which could kill me? You can imagine at this point what's happening to my stress levels, dear readers.

Then she left me alone to ponder my fate - apparently there was some sort of fire drill so none of the orderlies were around to take me back to ER or up to the room I had been told was waiting for me since around 3 PM. Yeah, completely alone for an hour, no stress there. Back to ER and lying in an ever-colder corridor for another hour, no stress there! Finally taken to the wing where my room was and left in that corridor by the nurse station... I actually got into my assigned room (a private one, amazingly!) by about 8:30, with no working phone or TV ("the technicians are only here to hook them up between 11 AM and 7 PM" I was told - then why didn't they get me there before eight bloody thirty?? yep, stress level just fine!) but with lots of blood pressure taking and such. I was somewhat ambulatory at last if I unhooked the oxygen nose-thingie and dragged the hepirin IV into the bathroom with me; fortunately I'd only had a bit to eat at around 2 PM so I didn't need to take care of too much.

So I tried to sleep, which as you might suspect is nearly impossible at a hospital, even once one gets used to the needles and oxygen thingie and crib-bars and drifts off in a quiet room overlooking a lovely scene of the Marble Hill Metro North station... because each time the intercom went off it sounded in every room, and I was awoken every couple of hours by nurses wanting something or other. The night nurse came in around 2:30 AM to ask me questions that they needed for their admissions forms, and wound up falling asleep herself! Why that couldn't have been done during the entire day I'd been in ER just waiting around was beyond me.

I was also given various pills and, by morning, my heart was back in its proper rhythm and I was happily eating breakfast and anticipating release until - the Bureaucracy struck! In mid-bite I was asked to go into the corridor where a wheelchair was waiting to take me for a heart CT, only the wheelchair was too narrow so the nurse went to get a gurney, during which I was somewhat accosted by a very chipper physical therapist and asked to walk to the end of the corridor and back so she could see what my resting and active BP were. Active was over 210 systolic, not terribly good, but again, consider the venue. I returned to the gurney where I waited for 20 minutes more only to find out it was the patient next door who was to have the procedure, not me! So I returned to my room to finish eating, after which a nurse came in and told me I'd been scheduled for cardio version, which is a mild electrical shock they administer to get the beat regular again, but I couldn't have it because I'd eaten breakfast... which naturally nobody told me I shouldn't be eating if I were to have the procedure, so why did they bring me brekkie in the first place? A short while later I was almost forcibly hooked back up to the heperin and told I'd have to stay again because of the cumidin, to which I adamantly objected, demanding to see the doctor to whom I'd spoken the previous day. Then the "whole team" of 8 or so professionals visited me and started in on the same thing about me staying. This was getting ridiculous!

I was at a loss. The phone was hooked up, so phone switched on at last, called my boss who actually calmed me down more than anyone else had been able to, called Robin for about the fifth time that day asking him to make ready to bring a few days' worth of personal effects in case I actually would need to stay, so he was on his way. Finally the cardiologist came in and confirmed what I'd suspected, that my heartbeat had gone back to normal during the night and no medication would be needed at all. I was livid at this point, which I'm sure my blood pressure reflected. More waiting, then one of the doctors came back with an EKG to confirm the cardi's diagnosis, and I was home free. Robin arrived... and we waited another couple of hours. All told, it was almost sunset when I was finally released, with prescriptions for saline nasal spray (seems my addiction to Neosynephrine finally caught up with me, and I'll be happy to be broken of that habit!) and enteric aspirin and Cardizem, instructions on what to follow up on with which doctors, a very icy winter wonderland awaiting me, and an equally exhausted and frazzled husband. Home by 5 PM, to what I'd hoped would be a restful weekend except it took two hours to fill the Cardizem Rx on Saturday morning (we struck out at the first two pharmacies we visited) but it wasn't a total waste as I bought new footwear and other necessaries. I haven't rested as much as I'd wanted to this weekend, but am going back to work tomorrow anyway (to, yes, make some phone calls).

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 12/4 thru 12/10/05

Two weeks in a row, despite the hospitalization - I definitely think this type of blogaround is workable, and cannot recommend it highly enough to my fellow Liberal Coalition members. Here's what stood out for me in their blogs this past week:

Bryant at Make Me A Commentator! weighs in on The Shark Attack War on Christmas, suggesting that when one actually gets beyond the sensationalist headlines from lazy reporters one usually finds there's no war at all (kind of the opposite of the sorry reportage by the American media on the real war going on). I can relate - Robin just showed me this page from the Daily Mail which purports to collect anecdotal examples of "Christmas killjoys," but when you click on and read the actual stories linked to from the headers you find none of them are about dissing Christmas after all, they're really about annoying neighbors or overzealous administrators who were immediately disciplined for excesses. In other words, as with so many other modern media manipulations, there's no "there" there.

Charles2 at the Fulcrum misses the days when we were pretty damn sure we weren't the bad guys, but part of me wonders if those days ever really existed.

Chris "Lefty" Brown is nostalgic for the dream time when he was a kid and could fly. I still have flying dreams, but mostly when I can manage to dream lucidly, and even then my main matter-of-fact dream power nowadays seems to be telekinesis.

Leah at Corrente, Michael at Musing's Musings and Mustang Bobby all weigh in on Hillary Clinton's disappointing support of a Shark Attack flag-burning amendment.

Kathy at Liberty Street reports that other Flight 924 passengers have said they never once heard the "B" word from bipolar Rigoberto Alpizar at all - in fact, not hearing it from anyone except FBI folks after Alpizar was shot dead by air marshals. Her link didn't actually take me to that story, though, so I found another one here at the Times Online.

Maru at WTF Is It Now?? has been keeping track of dumb things that President Bush has said this past year.

Natalie at All Facts and Opinions has a lovely remembrance of John Lennon these 25 years onward. Speaking of which, Keith at The Invisible Library takes the long view and gives us a positive outlook, which goodness knows I need.

Silly Site o' the Day

Trying to take it easy, as both blogging and talking on the phone seem to raise my heart rate and blood pressure. That's the main reason I haven't done my hospital-overview yet, I've been rehashing it on the phone with friends and relatives and every time I go over it again I find myself more agitated. Still, if I get it all in pixels here I won't have to do it on the phone any more, so I'm going to try to push myself one last time later today. But first - the B Squad, via The Poor Man!

Passings

RIP Richard Pryor and Eugene McCarthy.

Silly Site o' the Day

Got a little kip in after I blogged and showered, so I'm not all that sleepy at the moment despite being pretty rest-deprived in the hospital. Besides, Robin's busy watching a train wreck of a movie. So I have time for my usual daily post. Overview of hospital stay coming later in the day. Meantime, is the Saddam Hussein trial still going on? I feel so out of touch. Via Desi, it's Everybody Hates Saddam!

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Here's a nice one of Datsa and Amy together enjoying the living room sunbeams:



Now that Rob's rested from his last deadline and I'm home again, we may finally tackle that pile of boxes and such this weekend and get the studio in order again.

The Beginning of the End

It was hard to lie in hospital yesterday and not think of the death that occurred exactly 25 years earlier. I'll always consider John Lennon's assassination and Reagan's ascension as the two events that turned my world (and certainly this country) around from hopeful to dangerous and possibly suicidal. I haven't even begun to catch up on blog reading since my return from hospital, but wanted to recommend a quatrain of posts from Huffingland to start with:

Martin Lewis: Still A Drag… John Lennon’s Death - 25 years On
Steve Anderson: The Beatles Changed Everything
Megan Pillow: A Letter to Yoko Ono on the 25th Anniversary of Her Husband's Death
Darin Murphy: Experiencing John Lennon

I look forward to reading others' reminiscences and tributes to one of the most extraordinary people of the 20th century.

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm home. Will blog more later about my experience. Thanks to all of you out there for your wonderful wishes, they really buoyed me when Robin read them to me and there I was with no landline and crappy TV and frustrated that they insisted on keeping me overnight for "observation" and-- oh, sorry, I'll blog more about that later. Upshot is, I'm on meds to bring down the blood pressure (which I'm convinced was high because of the venue) and have to see some specialists and gradually alter my lifestyle and such which I was going to do anyway. Should I go in for a Couchbike (via Robin again)?

Silly Site o' the Day

Hi, this is Elayne's husband Robin posting today. Today got off to a scary start when Elayne woke up with severe chest pains. She's thankfully okay but they're keeping her in the hospital at least overnight for observation. We initially feared Elayne was having a heart attack so we called 911 and the wonderful folks from FDNY EMS came and quickly diagnosed it as atrial fibrillation. They took us down to the hospital where the doctors confirmed the diagnosis and connected Elayne up to all manner of drips and monitors. When she sent me home with instructions to look after the cats and post some new content to her blog Elayne was sitting up comfortably reading a pile of Entertainment Weeklies with just one drip in her arm and waiting for a bed to be made available for her overnight stay. All being well she'll be home and posting herself tomorrow although it looks like we'll have some horrible wintery weather to trudge through.

I wasn't sure about posting this silly site today, thinking it too morbid, but Elayne insisted so here it is.

Talkin' Baseball

There's not much sporting activity on TV to interest me at present besides the occasional figure skating contest (and then it's usually just to make fun of Dick "Dick" Buttons). So I was pleased to read on my ex-husband's culture blog that there's going to be a world baseball championship in the US next year, falling pretty much right between the Torino Olympics (which I plan on watching with as much attention as my sports-widower husband can tolerate) and the start of the Major League Baseball season. The cynic in me opines that this is only happening in the first place because the US baseball team didn't even make the cut for the last summer Olympics, so this way MLB gets to be involved and with the US Pool team stacked with ringers professional players this country is bound to make the final.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, Rob's birthday is over, as of course are our 7th anniversary and my 48th birthday, and with today and tomorrow both being dates that will live in infamy there's not much to celebrate at the moment, so I thought I'd pretend it's still Rob's day and give him another site for his amusement. Via Len, a quiz that asks the musical question, Superhero or household cleaner?

Now Hear the Word of the Blog

This site is either fairly new or I'm just catching up to it, but I think it may have the potential to do much good. "Word of Blog enables blog owners to spread ideas and influence throughout the blogosphere, promote causes or services that they believe in, recommend products and organizations they like, and create communities of like-minded blog owners, all through blog word of mouth." It's based in New York City, is run by Matt Turck, Imran Ahmed and Stefan Buxton and is currently in beta mode. It offers "badges" (buttons) you can affix to your sidebar or include in your blog content. Of courese, all the badges say "Heard the Word of Blog?" underneath them so WoB gets to advertise itself at the same time. I'm not much for blogvertising, but if WoB allows folks to omit their self-horn-blowing from the badge coding I think this could be very valuable as a community builder.

Inker Boy!

A very happy 44th birthday to my husband Robin, who doesn't need to help me clean off the car this morning (thank goodness that snow sprinkling last night wasn't anywhere near what had been predicted!) but will anyway. Thank you for being a part of my life these past 7+ years, my beloved soulmate.

Also happy birthdays to Leonard Kirk, Paul Jenkins (Update: All three of these birthdays made The Comics Reporter today - you're quite welcome, Tom!) and David Ossman.

Silly Site o' the Day

This one's for Robin, who still takes my breath away. [Update: Link fixed.]

Silly Site o' the Day

I don't think anyone expected that bit of snow to ice up overnight; it took Robin over ten minutes to scrape off the car this morning! Thank goodness he finished BoP #90 last evening and had the availability! Had we known I would have put the car cover on Friday, but I'd expected to go out Saturday and wound up not feeling well, and after it snowed yesterday morning I didn't feel steady enough on my feet yet to risk the steps even though Lillian's boys did a great shoveling job... But the car is now more or less de-iced and I made it to work fine, but dang, I'm cold. My radiator's the only one in the office not working. Having done a lot of blog posts this past weekend (and fallen behind in my reading - it really is true, one can't keep up both reading and writing), I just don't have the words at this point, but I might find them on this website, via Tom Peyer.

A Seasonal Reminder

All this talk by religious-reich blowhards about how including citizens consumers who don't celebrate Christmas in polite greetings of the season is somehow dissing Babyjesus is, of course, a cultural diversion no different from Shark Attacks! and White Woman Missing! and Shoppers Trampled! and to pretty much the same purpose. Its amusement and/or shock value is designed, among other things, to take citizen viewer attention away from actual life and death issues. That said, I personally suspect that everything some of these pundits believe about Christmas came from the Rankin/Bass studios, bearing which in mind I therefore present my usual annual links. Nothing like the classics.

Remembering Billy

Cliff Meth, the only person with whom I'm currently in touch who knew Bill Dale Marcinko longer than I did (even Chris Estey seems unreachable online these days, although I hope he'll email me), hadn't heard the news of Billy's death until I emailed him, and as his comment indicates we had a long chat about it last night. Another newspaper has since confirmed the account of the first article to which I linked and omigod, they ran Billy's picture with him looking exactly the way I remember him and the tears have started flowing again.

I'm still not in the proper state of mind to commit that many more memories to paper - although our long out-of-touch period in the last couple decades has given me enough emotional distance so that I didn't become a basket case upon learning the news, as I mentioned to Cliff I'm either blessed or cursed with enough failing memory that there's just not that much detail I'll be able to recall without help from my old files (including a page with chapter headings for a biography I swore way back then I was someday going to write about him), which are currently stored up in the loft and won't be retrieved for at least another week. But a few things do stand out.

I remember the raisins, sure. I was the one who taped them into the issues of AFTA, afta all. I remember Billy warning me I needed to remain interesting at all times if I wanted to keep his friendship, because he treated friends like sitcoms and gave them a 13-week run and if they were no longer amusing him he'd drop them, so that cruel-to-be-kind (okay, maybe just cruel) mindset taught me to always try to keep up with his maniacal mind. I remember him running enthusiastically into my dorm room a few times to retrieve me and make me listen to whatever his newest musical discovery was. Much of my musical tastes were formed by Billy. Very much of my comedy taste was formed by Billy. Buried somewhere in Rutgers I'm sure there are videotapes of Millard Fillmore and Dawn, the TV show we did in the style of Fernwood/America 2night with Bill in the Martin Mull role and me, well, not quite doing a Fred Willard, more like a recurring Jennifer Coolidge-in-Chris Guest film type of role, as well as writing bits for the show. I remember realizing a few years after college that much of what came out of Billy's mouth had been uncredited Firesign lines. I remember he also introduced me to the Church of the SubGenius, and probably fandom in general. He introduced me indirectly to Steve when he was kind enough to take out a CBG advertisement for my zine INSIDE JOKE (which wouldn't exist if it weren't for AFTA, of course) and Steve became one of my first subscribers and later my first husband. I remember going to see Clash of the Titans with Billy when it came out in theaters, and making fun of Bubo the owl for days after. I remember him trying to get me to read comics, but at the time my disposable income went elsewhere and I didn't feel like forking more of it over to keep track of superhero soap opera.

And I remember the death hoaxes. AFTA was short for "Ascension from the Ashes," and Bill did at least three death hoaxes during the time I knew him - I dimly recall once it was Bill who had died, and once it was Dale (Bill's twin brother). And never did he mention, as the newspapers did, that he had a real brother; in fact, he insisted repeatedly he was an only child. Cliff has written a draft of what will become part of a tribute page to Billy, and with my permission he took a couple literary liberties in the first couple paragraphs. I'm the one who really wants to believe this death is another one of Billy's hoaxes (the brother thing, the "body charred beyond recognition" bit, so many things seem so... well, comic book'y or soap opera'y), but as Cliff said who would burn down an entire house and procure a body in order to carry it out? Well, who besides Bill? But we're all so much older now than we were in the days of the AFTA death hoaxes. So I guess it's true after all, and Billy died as he lived - ironic to the last. It appears there will be no ascension from these ashes. Estranged from old friends, he instead surrounded himself with boxes of old memories that literally blocked help from reaching him in time to save his life.

That's all I want to write for now, before I prepare to reopen the emotional wounds again upon perusing my old AFTAs and CROW #26 (no, there never were #s 1-25, that was another money-making-scheme/hoax) and other papers currently stored in the loft. The longer reminiscence will probably appear in the tribute page Cliff will be organizing. I urge anyone with an interest in paying tribute to contact Cliff about that.

Silly Site o' the Day

Beware! Via my cousin Marc, it's the Warning Label Generator!

Anniversnow

Yep, we're definitely cocooning today.



The view from our living room window when we got up this morning. I hope Lillian's sons shovel the steps!



Amy seems to like it well enough. She was watching the perplexed birds and squirrels and hoping we'd open the window for her. Fat chance.

Liberal Coalition Top Ten
Week of 11/26 thru 12/3/05

Let's face it, you'd have to be somewhat superhuman, or have more leisure time on your hands than I do, to pull off a regular Liberal Coalition blogaround. When I get caught up on the reading I often don't have time for the writing; a thorough LC blogaround usually takes me the better part of half a day. But if I go through via Bloglines and save ten specific posts that caught my eye more than any others and give them a plug, why, that's practically doable! Thus my version of the popular "Top 10 'meme' thingy." Now, let's see if I can keep it up weekly. :) In no particular order:

Bora at Coturnix finds atheists in White House holes!

Lambert at Corrente cautions Beware of the First Mother!

Kathy at Liberty Street details Condi Rice's European troubles and the thoughtless incongruity at - once again! - the White House.

MercuryX23 reminds us to resist the war on NoDWiSH (the Non-Denominational Winter Solstice Holiday season, an acronym he created which I still think is lovely).

Steve Gilliard and Jen at The News Blog link to and discuss Jonathan Larsen's blog post about the imminent and untimely demise of Morning Sedition, and examine the current climate of anti-Semitism.

NTodd at Dohiyi Mir has some lovely wintery photos and links to another amazing kitty story.

Lastly, Scrutiny Hooligans note the Atlantic currents that kept Europe more temperate are slowing.

Wooly, Bully

Happy 7th anniversary, Robin! Traditional gift for #7 is copper or wool, so I got him a marino wool jumper (my people call it a "sweater") and he got me a pashmina shawl which I adore because at last pashmina is no longer trendy. We plan to spend the day (which has begun, but I mean after we wake up again) cocooning out of the cold - me in bed catching up on comics, Robin at his drawing table.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Thanks to Laura I just found out that Leonard Kirk has started a blog. Leonard, I expect to see lots of Troma movie reviews. Everyone remember to stop by there on Tuesday and wish Leonard a happy birthday (yep, he shares a birthday with Robin, who inked him on Supergirl and some other books for 4½ years and with whom he still has long rambling conversations; the "froggy goodness" portion of his banner is from this cover they did).

The Penis Mightier

Via KenD from Firesign chat, an article on the amazing art of Qigong, entitled Man, 50, pulls truck with penis. Uh, Mom, it's probably best if you skip reading this one.

Wendies

RIP Wendie Jo Sperber.

And I'm very sorry to read (via Kath) that playwright Wendy Wasserstein is battling leukemia.

I've always loved the name Wendy, however it's spelled, and these two women have been a major reason why.

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm sure there's a term for "that blah feeling you get the day after your birthday when you wake up and find the temperature has dipped below the freezing mark and you're too tired and achy to get your outside errands done so you postpone them until the afternoon and settle in for some blog reading," but it's not coming to mind. Therefore, it's time to play some Panda Fruit Bounce, via Sarah Dyer who explains the instructions for those of us who can't read Japanese.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Well, she observed sarcastically, I'm certainly starting off my 49th year of living on the right foot, or hand as the case may be - only I could get a paper cut from a birthday card. Le sigh. Anyway, the workday was far less than fun than I'd hoped (I think the birthday pizza combined with polyurethane fumes to give me a fairly queasy stomach all afternoon) but I got a lot done at the office anyway, with which my boss seemed pleased, and Robin took me out to dinner and my mommy and daddy called me and all your lovely wishes are just grand thank you all so much, so overall it wasn't a bad way to start off our celebratory week. On to our anniversary on Sunday! Oh yes, and we returned from dinner to find the latest As Time Goes By reunion show airing in between PBS pledge breaks, so we caught a bit of that whilst the cats, um, were cats:



Dame Amy meets Dame Judi...



...while Lord Datsa just kinda, um, hangs out.

Um.

Oh, and I'm totally jealous of Dexter Fong, who announced on last night's Firesign chat that he will be attending the Moscow Cat Theatre tomorrow. I swear, this website is so cool it's Gaiman-worthy...

Silly Site o' the Day

It's my 48th birthday today, so I get to choose something that fits my mood - cute and romantical, something old and something new. Romeo and Juliet told entirely in emoticons! Via Michael at Blog of a Bookslut.

Everyone's A Little Bit Racist...
or, The Tale of My Little Negro Friend

Today is Blog Against Racism Day. (It's also ; click on the virtual-ribbon button for more info.) I've always believed the first step in combating racism (and lots of other -isms and prejudices) is recognizing it in ourselves, becoming conscious of it. Of course, one doesn't necessarily want to be too hyper-conscious, and compensate for that "oh my god am I being racist now?" paranoia by acting all PC (in its original sense).

So what comes out is a bit of a balancing act, which goes something like: You realize you're in a situation with a stranger who's Other than you, and a teeny part of you is uncomfortable because they're Other and you don't want to be seen as being uncomfortable because that would be obviously racist but oh no it's too late because your reptile brain has already acknowledged their Otherness which you can't help because it's right there on the surface and there's no way not to notice something that's surface but you need to fucking relax about it because they're just a person too.

And this all happens in your brain in like a split second.

But it's okay. Because when you were a little girl and the other kids hated you and mocked you because you were Jewish and fat and a crybaby but mostly Jewish, your bestest friend whom you called a boyfriend because that's what little girls do sometimes was a lovely Negro boy named Michael Cook. And you adored him and were proud of adoring him because you knew it made other people uncomfortable to see the two of you together and weren't you so much more enlightened than they were in having a friend who was a different color than you (no, I didn't know from a word like "enlightened" then but I felt it anyway). And first and foremost he was Michael, no question about that. But secondly he was your Little Negro Friend, because he could be, because you felt good and right and proper having a Little Negro Friend.

PC at age 7. I think that (and singing the song "You've Got To Be Carefully Taught" over and over because, my God, I understood prejudice pretty early thanks to my classmates) kind of set the tone for how I'd deal with other people later on in life. Even Republicans. :)

When I was first getting to know comic book professionals, I became friendly with Christopher Priest (ne Jim Owsley) and we had a number of email discussions about racism, which usually began with him remarking something along the lines of how he hated the feeling of getting in an elevator and seeing, out of the corner of his eye, that some women almost instinctively clutched their purses more tightly. And I told him the story of Michael Cook, and from then on Jim was the new version of My Little Negro Friend, which created much amusement for the both of us when other Usenet rac* participants couldn't figure out what "MLNF" meant. And I still call him MLNF, because he can be, because it feels good and right and proper having a Little Negro Friend again when we're all adults and Past All That but Not Really because... well, because everyone's a little bit racist. And you fight it with knowledge of your own stupidity and shortcomings, and you fight it with efforts to become a better person, and you fight it with humor.

I often wonder where Michael Cook is now.

Breaking Comics News

Yeah, I miss doing that. Ever since my job moved away from Manhattan (and I chose to concentrate my online participation on the blogosphere rather than message boards) I've been so out of the loop with my friends in the comics community, both socially and professionally, that the only industry news I get now is via Robin. And the only news I'm usually allowed to post is about Robin, and only then after getting permission from editors and such. Well, I'm happy to report that I have received said permission from Robin's current editor, Nancy's wife (you do know who Nancy from NYC is, yes? she sometimes posts here too), so therefore, drumroll etc. etc., I'm pleased to announce that Robin is now the regular inker on DC's Birds of Prey, a terrific book written by the wonderful Gail Simone (this brilliant piece she did a few years back is required reading) and featuring, as you might expect, some of the most interestingly-done female characters in the DC universe. We haven't yet figured out what it is with Robin inking strong female characters (he also did a 4+ year stint on Supergirl), but I'm quite pleased, and we couldn't ask for better birthday and anniversary presents (my birthday's tomorrow, our 7th anniversary is Sunday, and Robin's birthday is next Tuesday)!