Got 35 inches of snow in total.

This Tuesday night promises another 6 to 8 inches. 

I've only half-way completed shoveling my driveway.

And I'm running low on Diet Coke.

Baltimore is snowed under! 24 inches of snow and counting. What is more, this is heavy snow, not the light and fluffy kind. Last night as the snow began falling, the temperature at ground level was just above freezing; as a result, the snow that hit the ground melted, and as temperatures dropped, froze.

Below is a pic of my backyard (click to expand). Good for me that I remembered to refill the bird feeder.

These toys are pretty blah, except Security Guard Skipper.  He has a motion detectory in his belly button!

http://www.happymeal.com/en_US/standalone.html?s=Intro&swfH=450&swfW=772&bs=toys&swf=/en_US/swf3/sections/toys/intro/intro.swf&bgc=%23000000&ID=#Intro

Cheeseburger-flavored Doritos!  I couldn't believe it.  Chips are not part of my diet at the moment, but I had to buy a bag.  And the chips actually do taste like cheeseburger--there is a whiff of char-boiled burger smell as the chip is first popped into the mouth, followed by a ketchup taste and then quickly on its heels an American cheese taste.  Delicious!  Not a good as the basic cheese-flavored chip, but still an entertaining diversion.

The sheer audacity of the attempt amazes me.

Perhaps that is where
the ducks go in winter--
children each take one home.

I haven't laughed this hard in months.  (Don't look for truth, look for humor.  Truth will be nearby, laughing.)



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January 25 is Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

www.sealedair.com/products/protective/bubble/funstuff/bubblewrap_appreciation_day.html

Pop some bubbles at www.bubblewrapfun.com/

The final nail in democracy's coffin: www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/22/AR2010012200659.html

221 years is a pretty good run.  Still, it's going to take at lot of time and expense to update schoolchildren's textbooks, and replace every occurrence of "democracy" with "plutocracy," "a government by and for the people" with "a government by and for the corporations."

I stumbled upon "callipygian" as a middle-schooler with a mixture of amazement and amusement (and perhaps a tingling in my underutilized nether regions) when preparing for the PSAT exams.  An adjective meaning "having shapely buttocks," the word itself seemed awkwardly constructed and antiseptically uncomplimentary.  "Nice ass" seemed more to the point.  The word remained in the hinterlands of my memory, until brought forward when attempting to describe this video.




 "Callipygian bobsledder splits tights."

Callipygian's etymology is recent, circa 1800.  Perhaps it can into existence as prudish pre-Victorians searched for a circumspect word to describe the artwork of their more uninhibited Greek and Roman brethren.


Does this word have a twin, a word meaning "having well-shaped breasts"?  Probably not, as those scholars who made it through the English public school system and devoted themselves to a life of the mind tended to be more focused on the rear.

Note to self: come up with a word meaning "having well-shaped breasts."

"Former Edwards aide Andrew Young says the ex-senator and his former mistress, Rielle Hunter, once made a sex tape, according to someone who has seen Young’s book proposal."  Source: www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/06/28/2009-06-28_aides_tale_of_john_edwards_sex_tape.html

Could be the start of a political thriller, the search for the missing sex tape of a candidate for President of the United States and his mistress.

Incidentally, Rielle Hunter is the model for the protagonist of Jay McInerney's "Story of My Life."  About a NYC party girl, the novel is little more than a third-rate rewriting of "A Catcher In the Rye."  (I had a friend who knew Ms. Hunter.  She actually did end every anecdote with "story of my life."  What is more, based on his recollections, a certain amount of sympathy is to be accorded Edwards for his misstep, as Hunter by his account is the very definition if not the very caricature of "gold digger.")

Hemingway pontificated that "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn"; and while that may have been true a hundred years ago, it is truer nowadays to say that it is Salinger's opus and not Twain's that is the most seminal.

Break it down--



"You're not God--you don't know who has a soul or who doesn't."

A few days ago,  televangelist Pat Robertson on his tv program "The 700 Club" said that the Haitians' current suffering was a result of a pact with the devil that their forebears made several centuries ago, offering their fealty in return their freedom from their brutal French overseers.

Satan has issue a respond in a letter to the editor, written by ghost writer Lily Coyle (content.usatoday.com/communities/Religion/post/2010/01/haiti-earthquake-blame-game-god-or-the-devil/1):

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll. You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

Wanted to make a note of this scene, my favorite in the movie.  Ting fights Toshiro, a Japanese fighter with lightning quick hand and foot work:

I haven't had much free time last month for thrifting, but I've made a few finds.

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The snow like the wound
remaining after a bandage
is pulled off.

According to the book "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," Elizabeth Edwards “tore off her blouse, exposing herself. ‘Look at me!’ she wailed at John and then staggered, nearly falling to the ground.”

The first time I read this I wrongly imagined it was John Edwards [failed candidate for 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination, later exposed for cheating on his wife Elizabeth who was dying of slow-moving, inoperable cancer] who had fallen to his knees.  Perhaps because I thought he was one who should have fallen to his knees, begging forgiveness.  I would have thought better of him if he had done so.

A year ago NBC moved Leno from his 11:30 pm time slot to 10 pm.  The move was universally declared brilliant by the clattering classes ( www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/five-reasons-nbcs-leno-mo_b_150134.html ).  Talk shows were far cheaper to manufacture than scripted shows, they drooled.  Profit margins would soar, they yelped.  This is the future of television, reality shows and talk shows, from early morning to late night, they trumpeted.

I despaired.  I hate Leno.  Leno is a focus-group created comedian, more politician than comic.  He never takes a risk, he never takes a stand, he never offends.  His every joke is pre-tested and pre-packaged to appeal to an ever-narrowing demographic, middle-aged, middle-class, corn-feed, conservatives.  He is the very definition of boredom, the vanilla extract that is added to boredom when making boredom cookies.  (I'm a Daily Show/Colbert Report fan, you might have guessed.) 

Yesterday it was announced that NBC has pulled the plug on Leno at 10 pm, and intend to move him back to his original time slot.  What amuses me the most is what the pundits are now saying, the same ones who called the original move brilliant a year ago--it was the most moronic move in the history of television, they now say straight-faced.

Was listening to Tom Hayden, 60's activist, ex-husband of Jane Fonda, on Book TV.  He relates an anecdote about 9/11, in response to a question about opening hearings into a possible 9/11conspiracy, that I've never heard before:

"I know somebody who was there [near Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001], who took their 12 year old kid up on the rooftop and saw the second plane hit the building.  By the way I do believe planes hit buildings...there's some who don't, I do....  And when the plane hit the building, this girl fell over backwards onto her father's lap and went blind.  Psychological blindness, there is such a syndrome.  And she remained blind for a year.  The inability to cope with or process something that should seem obvious but it's so shattering to your assumptions about the natural world, the country you live in, your family, your personal security, she went blind.  She now can see, but it took one year for the blindness to wear off.  So, you could generalize that to the state of the nation as a whole I think."

I couldn't find any more about this incident, despite a ten-minute Internet search.  It could have happened, and remained private, but my BS detector is lit up.  The story is so affecting and fraught with symbolism it smells funny.

The majority vampire population is running out of human blood, without which they will stripped of their superficial grace and appear as their essential selves, debased, cast-down vermin.  A perfect metaphor for humankind at the start of the 21st century, running out of oil and resources.  Interesting premise, but it appears it is not followed to it's logical conclusion, and instead resolves itself into standard vampire fare.  Disappointing, but still I will probably see it when it comes to dvd.