Silly Site o' the Day

A good riddance to 2009, says I. May 2010 be one of full employment in the Riggs Residence. I'm not big on making resolutions, but I'm big on silly sites that generate them. Here's one I particularly liked:



This New Year's Resolution Generator is via Gerard. May your 2010 bring everything you wish for!

Silly Site o' the Day

Very, very slowly I'm starting to add 21st-century musical acts to my iPod. But I must admit, Auto Tune really turns me off, so I don't generally follow anyone who overuses it. Which is, what, about 95% of current pop stars? So while I know who Lady GaGa is, I don't know her music. I'm informed that this is a parody of her song "Poker Face," and I've no reason to believe it isn't.



Via my neighbor, sf writer Keith R.A. DeCandido.

Silly Site o' the Day

Well, this is more of a "what to do with sites" than a silly site in and of itself. Andrew James at BoingBoing recommends the Wikipedia-using game "Click to Jesus." Seems to me, though, that the winner of this game should be the person who uses the fewest clicks to get to the Jesus page. On my first attempt it took me four pages, including the initial Random Article, to get there.

Silly Site o' the Day

Via Mark Evanier, Buzfeed presents 21 News Caption Fails. I hope they or someone else tackles the "worst of" 2009.

Silly Site o' the Day

I'm really sorry to see the end of this lovely three-day weekend. We grocery-shopped and I even got some ironing done, as well as washing a few things (now that the rain is over) in our house's street-level laundry room. The machines worked beautifully on my blanket, but alas not nearly as well on permanent press sheets and pillowcases, which came out far too wrinkly. In any case, I'm relaxing now, watching yet another ad-laden TV showing of The Wizard of Oz, which gives me an excuse to post this:



From How It Should Have Ended, via Eric Gjovaag at the Wonderful Blog of Oz, of course.

Silly Site o' the Day

A fine Boxing Day it was, with a few live matches on telly this morning and rain most of the day as I finished my Christmas Carol marathon for the year. Another pleasant day at home, just enjoying each other's company. Here's a beer bottle seranade for your holiday weekend:



Via Robyn at Serious Eats.

The Christmas Feast

Ever since Robin mentioned that his Christmas dinners back in England were more or less equivalent to Thanksgiving here, I've wanted to do a sort of "second Thanksgiving" to celebrate the occasion. This year I think I've finally succeeded. In addition to all the goodies on our fold-out table in the living room, we made ourselves a nice little repast which will not only make for a terrific fry-up on Boxing Day (traditionally the day for bubble and squeak, at least in this household), particularly since I'll be home tomorrow as it's a Saturday. So, here's most of the food prepared and arranged on the kitchen hutch:



Back row: curried cauliflower and the turkey breast. Front row: roasted vegetables (parsnips, carrots, mushrooms and onions, which I laid out on the bottom of the pan in which I did the turkey) and brussels sprouts with sliced garlic and walnuts. Far right: brown rice dressing with onions, celery, mushrooms, chestnuts, sage and a bit of oregano. Not pictured: the tomato bisque with cilantro, the gravy, and the plum pudding which was sitting in the living room until about an hour ago.



Robin served and I got to pose for a Happy Christmas photo (munching on a walnut) in my sparkly green velour thingie. Below are the individual plates (mine then Robin's):





In between food prep, eating and the rest, we've watched at least a half dozen versions of A Christmas Carol in chronological order, and I've pretty much given up on it after the '51 Alistair Sim version. Tomorrow I try watching the two in colour featuring George C. Scott (1984) and Patrick Stewart (1999). Oh, and we've already thought up the germ of an idea for our 2010 holiday greeting card. So all in all, quite a nice day. Hope yours was merry and happy as well.

Silly Site o' the Day

Happy Christmas from John Cleese:



Via Crooks & Liars. Also via C&L, for those of us who gave up on Seinfeld after the characters all got too selfish and mean and unfunny (and for those of you who never watched Seinfeld), a short explanation of Festivus:



I suspect I may add to this post more throughout the day as I work my way through all my unread blog subscriptions.

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

With plenty of snow still on the ground from last weekend's blizzard, it's a White Christmas here at the Riggs Residence, and the cats couldn't be happier:



Robin tells me he took this after a flock of birds had just taken off from the yard across from us, hence the intense interest on the part of Datsa and Amy.



The cats are now fed and sleeping, so I think I may go back to bed as well.

Happy Merry

It's way too early on Christmas morning and, since we don't really do presents even in the years when we've had money, there's really no incentive to be up at this hour other than the cats having woken us. So, without further ado (click to embiggen):



This is the card which I conceived and which Robin drew and fashioned. Bear in mind, ideas are easy, execution is hard. My favorite bit is the facepaw. Anyway, this was sent out to friends and family via snail-mail on Monday, and with any luck most of them will receive it by next week. I'm now sending it out to all Pen-Elayne readers via this blog. And yes, I got some more last-minute things for the table, including finally locating mince pies at the one place I was fairly sure they'd be found, the local Irish foods shop:



Added since last time is the stollen, the Toblerone package (both on the left), the mince pies and a few golden delicious apples in the now-fruit basket.

May your days be merry and bright.

Silly Site o' the Day

Whew! Everything I wanted finally done, and Christmas is almost here. Tomorrow's going to be a fun-at-home day with a dinner that I hope rivals our Thanksgiving one. Y'all know that NORAD-Santa is Twittering this year, yes? And here's something else to get you in the mood:



Via Meredith at io9. Tomorrow I sit through our DVD which features 10 live-action versions of A Christmas Carol...

Silly Site o' the Day

Before the reference becomes dated, if it hasn't already: the Tiger Woods "Sext" Generator (via Matt at the Comedy Central blog). Trigger alert: it features a thoroughly unnecessary Photoshopped shot of the golf champion smiling and looking like he's been beaten.

Silly Site o' the Day

Growing up Jewish, a few Christian things have always mystified or fascinated me, and I'm not just talking about bacon. I think advent calendars are cool, for instance. From New Year's Eve to rocket launches, what kid doesn't like counting down? Avedon is on top of the advent goodies here, pointing to a few British ones such as the Dr. Who Advent-ure version and the Liverpool Museums offering which I really liked since these days my museum visits seem to only be virtual.

Silly Site o' the Day

These days, I think many of us should take all the help we can get. This extremely clever site, at which I could spend a good deal of time, is via August.

Holiday Table, Take 2

I thought we were all done getting things for the table display, but I underestimated the generosity of my coworkers, my company's vendors and my boss' acquaintances, as well as my sudden desire to get Christmas-y fruit, so here's the latest version:



I have no idea what's in the stacked boxes (not opening them until Friday), but I used the basket, whose contents were mostly packaging and are almost all gone anyway, to hold the satsuma oranges, blood oranges and Meyer lemons. And that's about my Whole Foods shopping for the year.

Silly Site o' the Day

Ahh Robin, you didn't think you'd be able to get through this season without at least one Jingle Cats reminder, did you?



Blame Maru. (Oh, and good job Laura helped us change over to Blogger commenting yesterday, as I got another Halo-spam comment today and can no longer even go into the system to delete it.)

Silly Site o' the Day

Didn't get a lot done today; it's just too cold to venture far from the bedroom space heater, even with layers on and our heat supposedly fixed. Snow everywhere, even if it's not that thick. They'll never plow our driveway, so it'll all turn to ice during the night, which of course means Rob has to walk me to the bus tomorrow. Winter definitely arrived too early. On the other hand, theoretically it's a good day for playing games, provided your computer resides in a warm room. How about Paper Cannon? Here's a couple walk-throughs:





Via Sheila Lennon.

Silly Site o' the Day

Really? Twoddler is an actual thing? Via the Comedy Central blog, and would they lie to you?

Comments Changing

I found out via another blog that Haloscan, the commenting service I've used since like forever, is "upgrading" to a pay-only format and the free service will go away in a week. As I've never spent a single cent to blog and don't intend to start now, I've just enabled Blogger's own comment feature. It breaks my heart that I may no longer have access to old comments from folks who are no longer with us like Leah and my Dad, but that's the 'net for you, we knew it was ephemeral when we signed on. So excuse me whilst I test things out... Okay, it seems that Blogger comments don't work as long as Haloscan is still around, so we'll see what happens a week from today. Update: Thanks to Laura we're ported over now from Haloscan to Blogger's own comment mechanism, and even, though you'll no longer see any old Haloscan-based comments on the blog, I have them saved into a personal archive so I don't lose the memories.

The Holiday Table 2009

Robin put all our live action, musical and animated versions of A Christmas Carol on two commercial-free DVDs, and we spent this cold afternoon watching the animated portion. The one I liked the best will be posted here on Friday. I'm saving the live-action non-musical versions (we currently have 10 of those stretching across the 20th century) to watch chronologically over Thursday night into Friday, then probably listening to a few readings of the original over the weekend whilst ironing.

But first, this morning I secured the postage for our cards (a half-hour queue at my local post office, even though I arrived right after it opened) and ran other errands, thinking to myself how much our holiday table needed filling out. So I brought home some stuff, laid it out, lit our holiday candles, and here's the result:



Looks a lot cheerier now. I love the gingerbread figure with the earmuffs!

Oh, and to get everyone else in the right mood, here's my Wholly Trinity of blog posts from years past ("long past?" no, my blog's past!):

You Shall Be Upheld in More Than This
(my tribute to different versions of A Christmas Carol, which
probably needs some updating)

"So That's Where He Got the Crown of Thorns!"
(my love-hate relationship with Rankin/Bass cartoons)

I Hear People Singing, It Must Be Christmastime
(my obligatory Christmas music post)

Enjoy, all!

Silly Site o' the Day

I don't care how non-observant a Jew you are, Strip Dreidel is all kinds of wrong (via the Comedy Central blog).

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

I really must do something about all my medical-related papers lying about:



I'll get right on that, just as soon as the holiday cards and my ironing are finished. Maybe by 2010.

Silly Site o' the Day

With one thing and another, we're way behind in this year's Christmas card and Riggs Residence Roundup, but hope to have our act together by the weekend. It's a comfort knowing we can't do worse than a New Yorker cartoon. Via the Comedy Central blog, most other people seem to be able to do far better at making their own, vastly improved New Yorker gag cartoon. You know, one that doesn't make one gag.

Silly Site o' the Day

It's not holiday-related but it is cool. The London skyline modeled with veggies:



Via Serious Eats.

Silly Site o' the Day

Seems Carolyn Ibis did a little more research on Straight No Chaser, the glee club featured last week here on Pen-Elayne, and found a treasure trove for the holidays. From their new album, animated by Dan Meth, let's all do the Christmas Can-Can!



Here's another one from Meth:

Special Christmas

Be sure to mute it at the beginning (mandatory ad) and end (loud music).

Silly Site o' the Day

No Chanukah ones to pass on today, but I haven't caught up on my blog reading in awhile. So here's a gallery of digital magazine re-creations by Josh Gosfield featuring the most famous '60s French girl singer who never existed, Gigi Gaston (via BoingBoing).

Silly Site o' the Day

Between the icky weather and mostly Robin really being downed from my company holiday party last night, we wound up not being able to make a planned Chanukah party this afternoon. Ah well, I guess we're at that age when one party a weekend is all we can handle. Anyway, continuing with Chanukah stuff, here's a cute ecard that Kathy passed along. No idea how she managed to embed it...

Silly Site o' the Day

Chanukah (aka The Holiday of the Alternate English Spellings) starts tonight, and naturally I don't have enough candles, so I'm headed out shortly to buy some. I'll never understand how I can start with a couple boxes of 44 (exactly the amount needed for the eight days) and wind up with a half-filled box. Mom happens to be coming in for Chanukah, staying with my Aunt Kenie for the week, so I'm hoping to drive up to Rockland County next weekend to see her since this weekend's all taken up with errands and parties. Poor Mom, she's not used to the winter cold, living as she does in the desert in the winters (although she tells me it was 36 degrees in Vegas a couple days ago). Maybe she should take Tom Leher's advice:



Via Mark Evanier.

Mo' Photos

Because I wanted to empty the camera prior to this evening's company holiday party, and because I wanted to fill the content column of this blog so it comes closer to matching the length of my sidebar.



I can't believe Robin can cut avocado so neatly and thin, so I had to take a photo of this "deconstructed tuna salad" (okay, tuna and avocado and mayo on a plate) that he made for himself.



Sunrise on the morning of my 52nd birthday last week, December 2. I decided that was a good day to take the camera to work, in case anything interesting happened. Nothing really did, but I got a lot of nice photos of decorated office buildings.



You'll need to click to embiggen this. One of the trees at Columbus Circle in the early morning. It looks a lot neater in the evenings.



Pretty, wreath'y building!



Love the candy canes.



I had to go to the bank (lower right) at lunch to cash a check, so I snapped my yearly photo of the Hanging Snowflake at 57th Street and Fifth Avenue.



The Hanging Snowflake, closer up.

Lastly, here are some protesters at Times Square (mostly in the background):



There were three different sets of protesters in the miserable cold rain that evening. I believe these folks were the gay rights demo in response to the idiotic NY legislature. There were also two anti-war groups further down Times Square.

Belated Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

Very belated, actually, since I skipped last week. Between overworking, the weather, and life changes I haven't been keeping up with things as I'd hoped. I finally took the first step this morning, bleary as I still am, to consolidate some of the many DC comp boxes I've yet to read (at least they keep Robin on their comp list, but I'd trade that in a heartbeat for giving him some work!). Naturally, this left us with a temporarily empty box, and Amy took advantage.



Cuddling with Rob, who initially "packaged" her.



Put back down on my dresser.



Marking her territory with her scent glands. "Yes, I have decided I like this box!" Mind you, she's purring the entire time. Loudly.



And of course, kitty-in-the-box playing with a string, which is kind of cuteness cubed.

Oh, I also wanted to make sure everyone's heard about the cat-cam experiment.

Silly Site o' the Day

'Tis the season for glee clubs, I guess. I quite liked this one, in keeping with the season:



Via Louise at Pem's House Blend.

Silly Site o' the Day

You say you can't get enough of those old Beatles Christmas-greeting recordings, but you need them tweaked just a bit for this brand new age? Robin highly recommends the Beatles Christmas mashups of Tom Teeley, who seems to specialize in such.

Silly Site o' the Day

Ick, very rainy and windy and not going to be the best commute, but I need to get to work early (and doubtless stay late again) so out I go. I haven't done a generator in awhile, so here you go:



iPhone email message generator via Gerard.

Silly Site o' the Day

ThisMan is a brilliant hoax. It may have you believing you've dreamt of him too. Full story from Annalee at io9.

Silly Site o' the Day

Too busy watching the latest Halmi is-it-or-isn't-it-a-train wreck to blog. Here, have some mother-effin' pterodactyl (via Arthur).

Silly Site o' the Day

One of my favorite subjects, pareidolia on parade, gets its due in Jesus Sightings in Review - 2009 (via The Awl).

Happy Birthday, Robin!

My darling husband shares a birthday with comic book writer Paul Jenkins, artist Leonard Kirk, and Firesign Theatre cofounder David Ossman, among others. While David and Paul both have Facebook pages, Robin does not (although he has a Wikipedia page). So please feel free to pass along your birthday wishes via the comment thread below this post. Just click on where it says "no comments yet" or "X comments - thanks!"

Shake Hands with My Uncle Max

One of the first things that drew me to the music of Allan Sherman, besides the fact that Dad really liked his stuff, was a song entitled "Shake Hands with Your Uncle Max." I was in wonderment at how Sherman could know about my Uncle Max! I eventually concluded that everyone must have an Uncle Max, but I think mine was more of a hugger than a hand-shaker.

I adored Max, always looking forward to trips to my "ancestral spawning grounds" and the house in Nyack wherein he and my Aunt Kenie had lived since before I was born. Happy memories of visiting that house are practically imprinted into my DNA. And it was all because of Kenie and Max and their children, my cousins Mara (whom I still worship; we're the only two girls among my generation of "Friedman cousins") and Jeff. The photo below, taken at Mara's son Micah's graduation party a few years ago, is how I usually picture Max in my mind's eye.



The last time I saw Uncle Max was at my brother Jay's house early last month. Last evening he passed away, and I'll miss him more than I can say. He and my Dad were two of a kind in many ways. Members of my family are certain that they're together now, somewhere, talking about the stock market, just as they're probably doing in this photo:



Yes, that was taken at the Nyack house. I'm glad I didn't listen to Dad and Uncle Max when they kept saying (as I recall) "What are you taking so many pictures? Put the camera away."

Silly Site o' the Day

I continue to be astounded at how quickly Facebook can disseminate information, and how wonderfully it can be parodied. Here's what Facebook might look like in the Star Wars universe (via Maru).

Silly Site o' the Day

Another loooong day at work precluded me from spending more than a few hours with Robin on our 11th anniversary today, but at least we have the weekend. We did get a little TV watching in today, including this recommended video from The Rachel Maddow Show:



I can has sleep now?

Silly Site o' the Day

So, so tired. Just got home. Bleary. Game? Yes. Via Tild. Yes. Please to give Robin job. Yes? Tired.

Silly Site o' the Day

Wow, what a wonderful group of birthday well-wishers on my Facebook wall! Everyone from family to all the different circles of my personal Venn diagram... I'm touched and humbled, thank you all. It's been a weird birthday, in too many ways to enumerate at the moment. I hope my comic friends keep spreading the word about Robin needing work, and in the meantime I continue to be very happy, if exhausted, in my job, and we're plugging in there! Oh, speaking of milestones, I love the way one of my heroes, Stephen Fry, commemmorated his millionth Twitter follower:



Via just about everywhere, and deservedly so.

A Note from the Management

I saw it on I Can Has Cheezburger and couldn't resist:



I have no ability to blog nor access to any social networking sites whilst at work (our company's servers block almost everything), and I'm going out for drinks with "Dexter Fong" from Firesign chat afterwards, so I shan't be home until around 8 PM tonight. Therefore, I thank all and sundry in advance for any well wishes, they are very much appreciated. As ever, the best present I can think of is for someone to offer an inking or pencilling assignment to Robin Riggs, one of the most talented, speedy and reliable comic book artists around.

Silly Site o' the Day

White rabbits, and it's T-minus two hours until I turn 52 years of age. As we're currently a one-income family we're not doing presents this year, but Robin made me the coolest birthday card so I'm a happy camper. Know what would be the best birthday present ever? If an editor would give Robin a job. That would be keen. Until then, it's naught but odd Freddie Starr videos for you, me hearties:



No hamsters were harmed or eaten in the making of that video. Although there are always skeptics:



Ah, the old ones are always the best, aren't they?