Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

Woot has a short video editorial on the subject of Martinis, to which I say, as a confirmed Martini drinker, "A - freaking - men." Preach on, brother Beetle!

I admit it: I think the Isaiah Mustafa commercials for Old Spice are really funny and clever (can't escape those years in advertising). Wired had a link to a Sesame Street Parody that's pretty funny -- see below. Just in case you've been living under a rock for the last year, the original is here:

I like most things about my job (good co-workers, appreciative boss) except one: my daily commute takes me from south of downtown Fort Worth into Denton County. I-35W is an awful road, regardless of the direction. Best case: I can make the run to or from my office in about 25 minutes. Worst case: it has taken me over 2 hours. The official name of that system of roads known as the "Interstate" is the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways . Its construction was authorized by an act of Congress in 1956 and its passage reflected the post-war, cold war mindset of the time. These "superhighways" were seen as a means for moving heavy military equipment from one side of the country to the other quickly in time of emergency. These days that emergency better be prepared to wait, because those roads are often parking lots. After six year of slogging along at 10 mph, I finally decided to start exploring some alternative routes -- the back-r...

According to the news media (not always reliable, but there you are) we easily set a new record for snowfall yesterday -- 11.2 inches, easily breaking the old record of 7.8 inches set back in 1964. I'd decided before I went to bed last night I wasn't going into the office. I still got up at 6:00 AM (I'm a creature of habit), and went to check the school closings. Our DirectTV stopped working at one point yesterday, so I had to go online. It appears every school (including colleges) and school district is closed for the day. There are a few optimistic organizations that are bravely claiming they'll start at 10 AM or noon. We'll see.

Well, it managed to snow gently but continuously for most of the day. A neighbor told me we hit a new record for today: 7.9 inches. Dang! I've already decided to work from home again tomorrow (and have informed my boss of same). The school where my wife works has already announced they'll be closed tomorrow, primarily because all this wet, mushy stuff is going to re-freeze tonight, with predictably awful results. Here are a few more snow shots from around the house at various times of day. Above, looking towards the back porch from the studio. Above, looking towards the street from the front porch. Looking down the street from the sidewalk. By morning this will likely be ice. The sidewalk in front of the house.

I remember reading Margery Williams' classic The Velveteen Rabbit to my kids when they were little. They are now young adults. If you've never read the book, get a copy, and find a kid to read it to. It is a subtle and beautiful work. I still can't read it out loud without getting choked up. But that's just me. "What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?" "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt." "Does it hap...

Barack Obama and right-wing French President Nicholas Sarkosy find that if they look hard enough they can find common ground on at least some issues at the G-8 Conference. Well done, gentlemen.

Every July 4 th I wander down the street and watch the Ryan Place parade in the sweltering July heat. It's a neighborhood event that has more patriotism in its pinky finger than anything you'll seen on your HD TV from the comfort of your air-conditioned house. To hell with fireworks -- this is my favorite thing about the 4 th . Neighbors and friends from near and not so near gather for the fun. Differences are put aside and we share the sense of celebration. I love the description "the American Experiment," despite attempts to co-opt the term for narrow partisan purposes. The experiment fails when we stop recognizing that no one person or group has a monopoly on wisdom, virtue , common sense or love of country. Me and my good friend the Whited Sepulchre at the Ryan Place Parade.

It's been a rough week for celebrity deaths: first Ed McMahon, then Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Now comes the most shocking of them all: William D. Mays, Jr., better known as Billy Mays the infomercial king, has gone to that great toll-free number in the sky, dead at the age of 50 . If you watch any cable or satellite TV you've seen him hawking all manner of amazing products, including OxiClean, Orange Glo and god knows how many other household goods. Best known for his in-your-face braying delivery (" Billy Mays here! ") and take-no-prisoners style, Mays has in recent years become America's most successful product hawker. In April 2009 he was featured in Discovery Channels documentary Pitchmen . Despite the slight air of sleeziness that exudes from "as seen on television" commercials, the products we've bought (they're in stores, too) have (mostly) lived up to the pitch. If Billy promoted it, you knew it would be worth the price (" ...

Youngest son just came down to my room a little while ago and scooped up my entire collection of Doonesbury books. This included "Still A Few Bugs In The System," Gary Trudeau's first collection, published in 1970. "They rock," said he (or something similarly positive), before disappearing into the void. I'm now no longer so worried about the effects of the campus Libertarians at George Mason University on his little heart and soul.

Indulge me for a few paragraphs...I've put off writing this for 6 months. He's been gone that long. He arrived on the scene about a year after the last of my two old cats went to whatever passes for cat heaven (slow mice, flightless birds). I went out in my bathrobe to get the paper one morning and a little gray tabby-striped kitten, no bigger than my hand, popped up and said "Pet me! Pet me!" Well, he didn't actually talk, but he did rub up against my bare leg and purr louder than I've ever heard a cat purr. I obliged and he followed me up on the porch and into the house, still purring like a fiend. I picked him up and tossed him on the bed where my spouse lay sleeping. She was not the cat person in the household ("how long do cats live, anyway," she once asked). She pulled the covers down from her face and frowned. "Get that cat out of here. You don't know where it's been." Within a month she was letting him sleep on her hea...

As we approach the 4th of July (also known as National Blow a Finger and Thumb Off Day ) I grow reflective. Despite my Liberal (whatever that means in this day and age) leanings, I too am capable of feeling the pangs of patriotism, though maybe not for the same things other folks do. America is a constant experiment, sometimes getting it right, sometimes getting it very wrong. Denying we fuck up sometimes does not make you more of a patriot, since if you deny it, you can't fix it. And though it takes a while as a society, I honestly believe we tend to stumble more or less in the right direction. I don't think we have a monopoly on virtue, nor do I think we have one on vice. We have our share of heroic people, doing brave, selfless things, as well as venal, mean-spirited, self-serving assholes. I guess it takes all kinds. But I digress. This may sound dumb but one of my favorite things about this holiday, and one that makes me feel most American, is that hallowed tradition of th...

As a followup to my own adventure in making limoncello, here's a great site on that subject, http://www.limoncelloquest.com , written by someone who obviously suffers from a form of divine madness. If the idea of making your own appeals to you, this site is a must see. I will absolutely be consulting it as I continue this experiment. I found it because Ben, the maintainer, put a comment in my original post. Ben has a scientist's approach. He has suffered so you will not have to, with inferior results and the rigors of testing. I salute you, sir!

I have come to the belated realization that there are few things sweeter this side of heaven that the three day weekend. The two day weekend is far too short. The first day of it you are haunted by the horrors of the previous work week, and the second day you find yourself dreading the horrors to come. Four days is really too many. Returning to the workplace after that much time off is just too painful. The intoxicating freedom that felt so good slams you with a hell of a hangover. Three days is just about perfect in every possible way.

I'm beginning to worry a little about myself: I've decided I actually like Kashi cereal. Of course I had to choke down a box of Safeway granola first. My God is that stuff awful.

Inching along as part of the angry red snake of tail lights stretching for miles that is my the daily commute, I looked to the east and saw a rainbow arcing up from the countryside, fading into the clouds. It made me wonder: are there rainbows in hell, too?

Bumper sticker seen on the way home: "If you're not appalled yet, you're not paying attention."

Got back from Long Island last Friday after spending the week tucked inside a tiny training room surrounded by a dozen aging computers. My one fellow classmate was a young (to my aging eyes, anyway) woman about to start working for the NY Times who would be using the same software system I'm overseeing. Boy, was she smart. Don't believe all that crap you hear about boys being the UberGeeks of the world. I allowed myself to get pleasantly lost a couple of times in the evening so I did a little sight-seeing. Not the touristy stuff like Oyster Bay, Teddy Roosevelt's old digs and the like, but neighborhoods. Interestingly enough, Long Island is much more wooded than I would have guessed. I wandered in a shopping mall build on the site of Roosevelt Field, where Charles Lindbergh set off for Paris and history. While there I made reasonably good progress on The Novel; I don't think I turned on the TV once during the six days I was there. I did watch a movie on my laptop, but I...

I've been in Boston (or Bahston, as the natives pronounce it) since Monday evening, attending a training class at the elegant Wyndham Hotel, in what I'm told is the Financial district. One never knows about some of these classes, but this has turned out to be very good. The class has covered Information Architecture and Taxonomy (but why are they teaching you to stuff dead animals, as someone joked this morning). I may cover the topic on a separate blog; this one is just about my trip. The weather in Boston is brisk; just above freezing. Tonight/tomorrow morning we are supposed to get 2 to 4 inches of snow. Whoopee. But it hasn't been awful. I've gone on several walking trips since arriving; the wind is bracing, not freezing. I get back to the hotel rosy-cheeked. Yesterday went to Faneuil Hall, wandered about and bought t-shirts for the boy-os. This evening I hiked over to Boston Commons and went for a walk until just after dark. Being in a really old city (well compare...

Last night we (some of we, anyway) went to a gingerbread house building party. This was hosted by a good friend, a woman (hospitality minister at our church) and her husband. She supplied pre-baked gingerbread walls and roof slabs, and the builders stuck these together and decorated the heck out of them with candy and goo. I know a lot of subdivisions that operate on this principle. The first step is always to cement the pre-baked parts together. This is accomplished by using a substance made from marshmallow cream and God knows what else. All I can tell you is that it is gooey when first made and like mortar when dry. Getting the walls and roof to stay together is a bit of a feat, since the goo takes a while to set up, and the would-be gingerbread contractor is usually eager to get on to the real task: globbing as much candy and stuff on the house as is possible. Adding all this of course makes the pieces heavier, so it is a fairly common event to have the house collapse under it own ...