Another Year Over (Well, Almost)

Man, parts of 2004 seemed to drag on interminably while they were happening, but now that it's almost over -- four more hours, in my time zone -- I can't think where it went. Suddenly, I want it back.

Search Request Thursday: Brought to You, for Once, on an Actual Thursday!

Yep, here's the latest batch of wacky search requests:

who has really "ticklish armpits": I don't know, but based on the number of hits I get from people looking for "ticklish armpits" and variations thereof, he or she must be really popular.

can i become ticklish on my feet: Alas, this person only hopes to achieve popularity.

translation seussian: Translating Dr. Seuss is just... wrong. Like translating the Koran or something.

the Cat in the Hat used a total of only fifty distinct words: Yes. But, unlike Green Eggs and Ham, I don't think any of them had two syllables.

noranti christmas song: Ah, yes, there's nothing like a Farscape Christmas. Mangling carols and eating "cop porn..."

Artemis Fowl slash fanfiction: Eww. Though I say that mostly just because they were really crappy books.

"how to make a ukelele": It surprises me to discover that I ever actually discussed this topic here. But apparently I did.

henchperson uniform: You can fulfill all your henchperson outfitting needs right here.

walkman fanfiction scenes: People are writing fan fiction about consumer electronics now?

didi edgley: Is that Gigi Edgley's sister?

what clothes to take on an alaskan cruise: Well, if you're going this time of year, I'd recommend thermal underwear and a nice furry parka.

why do people in Albuquerque, NM make such stupid awful jokes about: What? What do they make stupid awful jokes about? And why have I not heard them?

Search going to a new years party and need some good hairstyles for medium hair: You also need some google skills, I'm afraid.

hidden side effect of cough drops: Wait a minute, what's this in the fine print? May cause leprosy?!

blooper headache decapitation: Well, I guess that'd cure your headache, but it seems like a heck of a blooper to me.

dvd player won: Uh, congratulations.

Huckleberry Finn slash fanfic: Well, at least that's a much better book than Artemis Fowl.

wearing layers of knickers: Living in the desert, I've always believed in the wisdom of dressing in layers, but I've never gone that far.

Current Events Coverage

I've just been reading the Wikipedia's excellent and thorough article on the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. And, man, words like "horrifying" and "stunned" don't even really begin to cover it. When you see it all laid out like that, it's almost too damned much to take in. Recommended, if painful, reading.

H2O Achieved!

I love my plumbers. I called 'em up around 9:00 and was told they had several emergencies to deal with today and they weren't sure when they could be by, but they showed up by 11:30, fixed the leak I knew about and one I didn't, re-insulated the pipes that froze, and were done in an hour. So I now have water again. Yay!

Mind you, I'm not sure whether it pleases or depresses me that the plumbers remember my name and know without looking it up where I live.

Anyway. Off for a shower!

Peeping Round the Door to See What Parcels Are for Free in Curiosity

A brief summary of the materialistic side of my Christmas (er, in the "gimme stuff" sense, rather than the philosophical sense, of course).

What I Gave:

A set of Firefly DVDs and a copy of Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head to my sister and brother-in-law.

A toy mouse to their cat.

Two big tubs of Legos to my nephew.

A couple of packages of blank CDs and an assortment of downloaded country songs to my mother. (Yes, I have now introduced Mom to the joys of Napster.)

A Lord of the Rings calendar (artwork, not movie stills) and a gift subscription to New Mexico Magazine to my Dad and his wife. Also a decorative Santa plate which I got as a free gift from somewhere and which seemed much more like something they'd like than I would.

A selection of fudge to my grandmother.

What I Got:

A telephone. Which I badly needed, as my current one is dying painfully.

A light sweater blouse.

Candy.

Lavender bath salts.

A couple of old Pink Floyd CDs: A Saucerful of Secrets and Meddle, which puts me a step closer to my completist desire to have all of Floyd to put on the mp3 player.

Chocolate covered pretzels. Mmmm, my favorite!

A soft bathrobe with kitties on it.

A Lord of the Rings calendar (movie stills, not artwork).

All in all, not too bad, I'd say!

Also, in addition to various prezzies and random items of food -- oh, and a coffee mug she got from some promotional thing and apparently didn't have room for in her cabinet -- I also came back from Mom's with a couple of Michael Crichton novels. Timeline she finished, closed with a snap, handed to me, and said, "Here, I'm done with this. You can have it." And State of Fear she apparently bought twice by mistake. Oh, yeah. Apples and trees, folks. Apples and trees...

Search Me

So, when I opened up my suitcase last night, there was a little note in it saying they'd hand-searched my luggage. That's the first time that's happened to me. It's a little odd, thinking about strangers going through my dirty underwear and stuff. And goodness only knows what they made of the giant box of Rice Chex I had in there because it's impossible to go to my mother's and not come back with weird random food items. (Typical conversation: "I had to write off six of these, and I'm not going to eat them all! Here! Take one!" "Umm... OK.") Amusingly, I think they may have repacked my stuff more neatly than I did.

Down and Safe

I'm home. I'm tired. I've got a ton of e-mail and stuff waiting for me, and unpacking, and suchlike, so you're not going to get a huge, detailed report on anything out of me just at the moment.

The cats are alive, although they seemed reluctant to come out and welcome me home. Maybe they're mad at me. Oh, well, they'll get over it.

The big news is that I was greeted upon my immediate arrival by my next-door neighbors, who informed me that the pipe where my trailer connects to the park water valve was leaking and they'd shut off the water for me. I just checked it out and yup, it's leaking. Damn thing probably froze. I can tell it's been cold here, because a surprising amount of the snow that fell before I left is still on the ground, which is pretty amazing. Anyway, looks like I'll have to call a plumber in the morning. Sigh.

No Comment

Hmm. My "number of comments" indicator isn't incrementing now when I get new comments, apparently. Why does this sort of thing always seem to happen when I'm away from my regular e-mail account and thus not getting notifications when I get new blog comments?

An Extremely Brief Update

Turns out Death Valley is really quite pleasant in December.

Merry Christmas and such!

I Have Landed

Mom's not up yet, so I figured I'd snurch some time on her machine to let you all know that I did not die in the snow. The roads weren't very bad at all, and it appears the storm was pretty localized, because by the time I got about 30 miles out of town, it was all gone.

Anyway, I got into California just fine (although my plane was an hour late; I think we spent longer sitting on the ground than we did in the air on the second leg of the flight).

Last night we mostly just sort of hung out and talked. I am coming to the disturbing realization, at the age of 33, that my mother's political opinions and my own are not, as I'd always believed, light-years apart, but in fact are mostly damned near identical. Considering that I've just been reading about how scientific research (to oversimplify grossly) suggests that we mostly tend to turn out like our parents regardless of what we do, I find that I can only shake my head, sigh, and give due credit to the power of genetics.

Anyway. Off to Death Valley soon.

Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Well, I'm off soon to brave the scary snow, heading north for a while, and thence west by plane. I'll be at Mom's until Sunday. We're going to spend a couple of days at Death Valley, because, hey, this is the time of year to visit, then do the Christmas thing at her place. I may or may not find the time to update while I'm gone, so I'll just say Happy Holidays to all of you, and may none of you crash and die in the snow on the way to the airport.

Oh, and since it's become sort of traditional to list the books I take with me on trips, this time it's: The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker (which I was kind of hoping to finish before I left but didn't quite manage), The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore (as previously mentioned), Claudius the God by Robert Graves, Dancing Barefoot by Wil Wheaton, and Freedom and Necessity by Steven Brust and Emma Bull. Which is doubtless overkill, but I have a deep fear of being stuck on an airplane with nothing to read.

Mother Nature Is a Cold-Hearted Bitch

I think there is more snow on the ground than I've ever seen here. I'm not sure I can get out of my driveway, let alone to the airport. Aaaargh!

Don't Let It Snow

It's raining outside. This worries me. Rain at these temperatures tends to turn into snow, and snow is bad for driving in and bad for flying in, both of which I am doing tomorrow.

In Which I Contemplate Getting Off My Lazy Ass

Hmm. Considering that I'm leaving to go visit my Mom tomorrow morning, I guess I really should, like, go and pack soon.

Some People Talking to Some Other People

Speaking of Jim Carrey -- well, I was a couple of days ago -- here's an interview with Carrey and a couple of other people about the Series of Unfortunate Events movie. I've really enjoyed the books, and most of the buzz I've heard about the movie has been pretty positive. I also really like the director's attitude as expressed here. I may have to get out to see this one.

While we're at it, here's another interview, this one with writer Christopher Moore. I love Moore's books. They're wild, wacky, wonderful fun. I'm planning on taking his newest, The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror with me when I go out to my mother's for Christmas. Hey, it's seasonal!

No! Anything but That!

I'm not on dayshift anymore. In fact, I've been off work for several days. And yet I keep waking up at, like, seven o'clock in the morning. I'm not becoming a, a... a morning person, surely? *shudders at the thought*

Betty's Nickel Movie Reviews

So, like I said earlier, I actually went out and rented some movies this weekend, something I do very infrequently these days, given that I'm so backed up on watching the stuff that I actually own. But, hey, sometimes it's good to just see something different.

So, yesterday I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Interesting movie, intriguing premise, some good cinematography... But, I dunno, maybe it was just a little too low-key, in that art-movie kind of way, or maybe it was over-hyped to me a little, because, while I thought it was pretty good, I didn't really enjoy it quite as much as I'd expected. It was really interesting to see Jim Carrey playing an emotionally subdued introvert, though. It's a performance that's light-years away from his usual comic mugging, enough so that I honestly didn't even recognize him until his name flashed up on the screen some ten minutes into the movie, and even then I had to stare at him for a while before I was really convinced it was him. And I just can't help but think, man, the guy really can act. Why on Earth does he waste himself on the stupid cartoony shit he's known for? And then I remember that he's made millions doing that, and I can't honestly say that if I were him I would have done things any differently. So, hey.

Today I watched Kill Bill, Pt. 1, and I'm honestly not sure what to say about it. Yeah, it really is basically an orgy of violence. And it's violence that's almost cartoonishly stylized one moment; eerily, balletically beautiful the next; and just plain horrible and disturbing the moment after that, until the three begin to blur together and it's difficult to tell which is which. I'm not sure there's any redeeming moral value to it, but fortunately I'm not the sort of person who believes movies have to have redeeming moral value, and artistically it's amazing. It's also strangely compelling. I'm half-tempted to go on to part 2 right now, but I think I'll probably save it for tomorrow.

But I Wonder What Happened to Rudolph?

I was just driving home from the video store[*] when I passed Santa Claus -- flowing white beard, red suit, and all -- coming the other way on a big-ass motorcycle. He waved.

Amusingly, I think this has done more to put my grinchy self into a happy holiday spirit than pretty much anything else this year so far.


[*] Yes, that's right, I've been renting movies! Details to follow. Probably.

Today's Complaint

I really wish my cats would stop hitting the "scan" button on my scanner.

I've Been Called That Before...

You Are a Fruitcake!

You taste like nothing else in this world. And get ready, you're about to get tossed!

What Crappy Gift Are You?