Winter

I thought this looked kind of moonscapey.

Web treats

If you are entranced by the Web, you will enjoy Rule the Web, How to Do Anything and Everything on the Internet -- Better, Faster, Earlier. It's not a Web for Dummies type of book. It assumes you know how to navigate the Web. The author is Mark Frauenfelder, founder of Boing Boing, an interesting blog full of oddities.

The book contains tips and recommendations on what you can do, and where, on the Web and on your PC. A few examples:

• Audiobooksforfree.com, free audiobooks
• BookMooch.com, an online community book exchange
• Ratemds.com, a rating site for doctors
• Zillow.com, real estate information including how much your house might be worth
• Tips on how to avoid drowning in e-mail (p. 283-6)

Alas, I don't think the book will help me with the milk I spilled on my keyboard this morning.

Trouble with the mail

This bit of mail was returned to me. If you look closely, there is a small chunk of the original envelope inside a larger envelope. (I whited out the address.)

At the top is "Return for better address." Does that mean that if I put a complete address and new stamp on it this would go through the mail?

Fun with words and phrases

I love words. And witty phrases. Here are a few recent favorites.

Via the The New Yorker

• fed-upness
  
• ginned up (as in "You must be ginned up to think that there's no such thing as global warming.")
  

From "The Eyre Affair"

• fatuousness
• "mad as pants" (crazy, nuts -- not in a good way)
  

Forwarded to me by EclectChick:

• Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
• Bozone: The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
• Arachnoleptic Fit: The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.
• Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

From an interview on NPR. The interviewee was referring to the presidential candidate ads running in Iowa (the Iowa caucuses are the first in the choosing-a-presidential-candidate sweepstakes).

[The presidential campaign ads are] Content free and information challenged.

And we have 11 more months of this. God help us.

Christmas displays without the annoying crowds

Want to see the cool Christmas displays in shop windows but don't want to fight the crowds? Or, if you're short like me, don't fancy looking at the backs of tall peop0le who insist on standing in front? You are in luck.

Check out 10 New York displays on BuzzFeed. Not quite the same as being there but you can stay in your cozy, warm slippers and make your cocoa just the way you like it.

Is it a sport?

It's not really a sport unless there's the possibility of dislodging your intestine.

Stephen Colbert* in I Am America and So Can You! (I so love the title of this book.) Also from the book:

If you think temporary tattoos are OK, maybe I can interest you in some temporary eternal damnation.

I mean no disrespect to the listeners who have not had children. There's no shame in being a genetic dead end.

I am not the sharpest knife in the spoon.

Click here for Stephen's "On Notice/Dead to Me" list.

*Stephen Colbert/The Colbert Report has a faux news show on Comedy Central. He acts like a self-involved, right-wing news host (a la Bill O'Reilly from Fox News) but it's all a joke. In an interview, Colbert describes his Colbert Report character as a "well intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot."

Christmas gift ideas

BrandFlakesForBreakfast has a great list of gift ideas like a pet nest bed, wooden USB memory sticks, drippy pillows, political chew toys for dogs* and loads of other cool stuff. The site is also a super way to waste time at work.

*Includes Bush, Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I'd like to get all three. I'd make them all make nice nice. Then I'd let Sophie at them. As is her wont, she'd shake them violently as if to break their necks.

Thanksgiving and family

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It's when my Mom's side of the family gathers for a day of fun. This year there were 23 of us.

My cousin Joni always bring Lefse and by quite early in the day it is all gone. It's really fun to see the little kids chomping away on a little roll-up filled with sugar and butter, moving the Norwegian treat to the next generation.

Every year the kids play with these wood strips. This year they used them to make paths through the living room. They also like to stack them in towers and knock them down. They usually do this in the linoleum-floored laundry room. With no carpet cushion, the tumbling wood strips are very, very loud.

My brothers and I used to play with them at our Grandparents' house. I can't remember where my Grandpa got them. They are varnish and stain samples from years and years ago. In a day of video games and DVDs, it's so fun to see the kids drag out the retro toys.

Sophie gets a chance to meet and greet everyone, lick the little kids in the mouth and clean up spills. She loves the day but the Friday after she seems like she has a hangover.

The day always goes way too fast. One minute you're hugging and greeting everyone. The next it's dark and everyone is going home.

Thanksgiving

Philosophy and Mutts. Lovely!

Nice way to start the day

I overslept this morning. I was having a weird dream. It was about renovations and redecorating at my allergist's office. (The new waiting room was quite lovely.) Not quite worth the mad dash to get ready for work.

Funny Grandma

My Grammy lived until 98. Up until the last couple of years she was quite the spitfire. She had all sorts of goofy sayings like:

• Are you having a spell? (If we were acting really silly.)
• Did you fall in? (If she thought someone was spending too long in the bathroom.)
• We have to get there [a restaurant] before the nasty church people. (This was uttered on Sundays when we planned to go to lunch. She wanted to beat the church rush. However, she was dedicated to her church and faith which makes it doubly funny.)
• How are [his/her] people? (She would ask this if you told her about a new friend, platonic or romantic. She wanted to know what the person's family is like.)
  

New term

I don't like the term "brain fart." I like what it stands for -- not being able to remember or think of something, losing your train of thought mid sentence, etc. It happens to me. A lot.

I heard another, more refined, expression that means the same thing: brain fluff. It's more descriptive for me. I think of that airy batting that comes in stuffed toys and quilted items. That's how my brain feels on many days.

What now?

I found an old notebook. I used to keep it in my purse to write down shopping lists, book recommendations, ideas, etc. There was only one page with writing on it. Here's what it said:

Father and mother separated to different sons' houses -- then they find their long lost adopted son at a car dealership by the train station.

Huh?

Enough madness already!

Great words from the prophetic Rabbi Michael Lerner:

The central message of both Chanukah and Christmas is the affirmation of hope for a renewal of goodness in the midst of a world that is increasingly dark and fearful. For the ancients, that was expressed through holidays of light—burning the yule log or lighting candles as a sign that even while the days had grown shorter and the sun seemed to be less available, we believed that it would return. Chanukah taught the world that a small group of people (the Maccabbees) could fight the overwhelming power of the Hellenistic empire, and triumph. Christmas brought the message that a little child, always a symbol of hope, could bring love and kindness to the world, with tidings of peace and generosity.

This year, we need to get back to those messages of hope. In a world in which our Senate has just signaled, through the confirmation of an attorney general who couldn't muster the courage to acknowledge that waterboarding is torture, that the Bush Administration need not respect international law, and in which our Congress keeps spending hundreds of billions of dollars to fund a war that the vast majority oppose, and in which our presidential candidates are unable to commit to bringing all the troops and advisors out of Iraq before 2013, there is a desparate need for ordinary citizens to experience of hope for a world of peace, generosity, and ecological sanity.

Read the full text here.

Your site has a few problems

I received a mailing today from Keller Graduate School of Management. Normally I throw these things away. Today I felt like taking a look. I typed in the URL but could not find anything but minimal information on the various degrees. There are small descriptions but you can't click through there or anywhere else for more detail on degrees, tuition, etc. But you can fill out a form for more information on their MBA. What if you're not interested in an MBA but something else? Why should I have to give you my information in order to get information from you?

Aaargh. End of today's rant.

Bumper sticker fun

I saw this bumper sticker today. I usually refer to Wal-Mart as The Devil's Little Sweatshop.

This and more at StampAndShout. Stocking stuffers!

This is meant for kids?

Krista, a friend from work, received this birthday present, as a joke, from her husband. A faux Barbie Happy Hour Play set. It's meant for kids.

Well that's a good idea!

This caught my attention on the Idea Sandbox blog:

Look beyond immediate conclusions. Break it down - the problem, your customers, a project - into smaller chunks and examine alternate solutions. It may sound completely different than you expected.

I have some breaking down to do.

Word of the day: vapid

Vapid -- it can be mean to say and it just sounds good.

According to dictionary.com:

1. lacking or having lost life, sharpness or flavor
2. without liveliness or spirit

In German the word can be fad or fade (fa-da), words which can said just as patronizingly.

I am Midnight?

I stole this idea from Julia's blog. This explanation is about 40 percent true. Unusual habits? Experiment with lifestyle? Huh?

You Are Midnight

You are more than a little eccentric, and you're apt to keep very unusual habits. Whether you're a nightowl, living in a commune, or taking a vow of silence - you like to experiment with your lifestyle. Expressing your individuality is important to you, and you often lie awake in bed thinking about the world and your place in it. You enjoy staying home, but that doesn't mean you're a hermit. You also appreciate quality time with family and close friends.

What Time Of Day Are You?