Just wanted to wish you all a very happy New Year.

Enjoy the evening and I'll see ya soon.

Posted by: Kathy at 05:42 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 25 words, total size 1 kb.

I don't generally do public service announcements.

I might ask you to consider donating money to a charitable cause, but I understand if you choose not to do so. I try to be a live and let live type of gal.

Today, however, is not one of those days when I'm going to live and let live. I will fully expect you to do what I say, or you will suffer my wrath. Which, along with the consequences of your actions, will make for one hell of a one-two punch.

Tonight is New Year's Eve. The night when there is actually something to celebrate at midnight. This is also night when people who don't normally frequent parties and bars go out and binge like a frat boy performing a keg stand.

They hire babysitters or corrall family members to look after their wee ones. They made dinner reservations months ago. They look forward to parties they've been invited to, wondering what sort of liquor they should take as a host present. They get worked up over the prospect of a night out, sans children, sans responsibility, sans any sort of sense they usually let run their lives. This is the night they let loose.

In other words, tonight, as the husband so aptly phrases it, is Amateur's Night.

And it is the night when he, as a former professional drunk driver with the resume to prove it, absolutely refuses to go out.

Ever since I started this blog I have danced around the edges of the husband's woes. A wee bit of disclosure here, a wee bit there. But never have I unloaded the whole story. No more. To get you to do what I want, full disclosure is necessary.

I will aim for brevity. I don't think it's possible, though. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 01:48 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 2102 words, total size 12 kb.

Just give the goldigging bitch the money, you dork.

If Anna-Nicole has money, she won't have to work for a living. She will be absent from our lives and we won't have to deal with her any more than we already do, ya dig?

Take one for the team. I'm sure humanity will thank you for your brave sacrifice.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:30 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 63 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Nah, she'd still be trying to catch the limelight.

Posted by: Fausta at December 31, 2004 08:25 AM (/qQXk)

2 I was only thinking in terms of keeping her up to date with her dealer. If she's really short and can't pay the dude, well, we'll be subjected to more of "The Anna Nicole Smith Show." When she has money, well, she's conspicuously absent most of the time. It's all about keeping her in coke. If we can do that, well, we're golden.

Posted by: Kathy at December 31, 2004 10:09 AM (E0v6D)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

The Great German poet, Goethe, who also lived through a crisis of freedom, said to his generation: "What you have inherited from your fathers, earn over again for yourselves or it will not be yours." We inherited freedom. We seem unaware that freedom has to be remade and re-earned in each generation of man.

---Adlai Stevenson

We support you.

Posted by: Kathy at 05:50 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 63 words, total size 1 kb.

Ok, Robbo.

Just picked up Right Ho, Jeeves from el biblioteca de Hennepin County.

We shall see what we shall see.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 31 words, total size 1 kb.

Just got a phone call from Tweedledumb, our apartment manager, who had some news to share.

Ahem.

The Cake Eater Duplex will be going up on the market after the first of the year.

Oh, Joy!

Apparently, the Great White Hunter landlord has had it with renting properties out and wants done with all of this nonsense of pesky tenants asking him to do stuff. All of his properties are going up for sale, and I think he has five or six in the nearby vicinity.

Sigh.

Tweedledumb told me not to worry; that whomever buys this place has to honor our lease. Well, I'm not in full-on fret mode...yet. The problem is, if the house sells quickly, we're screwed because our lease is up at the end of February. Which would be a perfect situation for the new owner: they'd either be able to up the rent to an insane level or they'd be able to tell us, hey, we're not going to renew your lease because we want someone new---which is completely within their rights once GWH has sold the place. While I'm not discounting the theory that tenants who are already firmly ensconced and who pay their rent on time have something of value to offer these new potential owners, you just never know what people want to do. Never mind that a new landlord adds all sorts of potentially uncomfortable new variables we've never had to deal with in the past simply because our landlord ignores us (except on the first of the month). That is absolutely the least of our problems right now.

All, however is not lost. We have a few items in our favor:

1. GWH is asking an extorbitant sum for the building. And when I mean extorbitant, I mean obscenely extorbitant. As in, I think a snowball has a better chance of surviving hell than he has of getting his asking price. And knowing the man and his money habits, he's not going to settle for what I think someone would be willing pay for this place, which is about half of what he's asking. He may want out of the slumloard racket, but he's not going to take less than he thinks this place is worth and if that means keeping it on the market for years, he'll do it.

Mr. H., who is now Mr. Real Estate, has said that the market in town has gone from being a seller's market to a buyer's. Let's hope he's right and that GWH has put the building up for sale at the wrong time.

2. The place is a wreck. And I mean that. A wreck. There is mold in the basement. (Our former neighbors from downstairs were, at one time, considering suing GWH because their son's doctor swore the mold was the reason their son contracted Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.) The sewer line to the street needs to be completely redone because it's tangled in tree roots. (If I really wanted to screw GWH over, well, I could also tell the new owner that the sewer line backed up in the basement a few years ago and GWH wouldn't pay to have the place cleaned professionally. Because he didn't. A mop and a bucket was adequate enough for his purposes.) The building is not plumb, meaning the foundation is shoddy. Tweedledumb, when tearing out the old concrete in our little parking spot, hit the garage with the Bobcat he was driving and tore out a good chunk of the garage foundation. How the garage is still standing, I don't know. Have no clue, but that thing is going to fall down sooner rather than later, because there also happens to be a leak in the garage roof (which used to double as our deck) and it's rotting from the inside out.

If this place passes inspection, I'll be really surprised.

But the place has a new roof. It also has a fresh coat of insulation in the attic. And two years ago GWH spent a boatload of cash putting in new furnaces, new windows and new carpeting, but these were completely superficial repairs. (He would have left the old boiler in if he hadn't been mandated by law to replace it. We have laws here in Minnesota about working furnaces.) He hasn't been forced to upgrade the place seriously because he's owned this building for thirty some odd years. Meaning, he's grandfathered in on certain codes. This is the reason he hasn't authorized Tweedledumb to fix the garage. It would have to be torn down and started over from scratch. This would be a problem for the new onwer because garages have to be bigger nowadays and there's no way they could put a new garage, with lots of space, on the current lot because it's too small for it to fit.

This could be good for us. The building would have to be brought up to code, which would be pricey for whomever bought it. On top of the purchase price, I don't think there would be many takers.

Of course, all of this is moot if someone just decides they want to buy the lot because of the established trees, raze the house and start over. Which is a popular option around here. There was some sort of Cake Eater City legislation pending about our neighborhood in particular where they were trying to outlaw that sort of behavior, but I don't know if it went through or not. I suppose I'll have to go and find out.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for us, kids. All I want right now is to make it through to the end of January without an offer on this place. I just need the new lease to make its way here from GWH so we can sign it and Fed Ex it back. Because...

I really don't want to move!

Posted by: Kathy at 12:38 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 990 words, total size 5 kb.

1 Yuch! Hope things work out for you. I was in a similar situation a few years ago. My original landlord, who was a wonderfull and kind man, sold the duplex I was renting to a complete nutcase who refused to honor things explicitly in my rental aggreement: like mowing the grass. His equally loony wife would call at 2 am to inquire if the water was running since they had to pay the water bill. Finally, they refused to renew my lease and kicked me out with a 10 day notice so they could move a cousin in! On the upside, I found a MUCH nicer house to rent and have lived here very happily for several years. In retrospect, it was actually a positive thing, although it would have been nice to have gotten my deposit back........ Best of luck to you!

Posted by: George at December 30, 2004 01:22 PM (IZNUO)

2 Thanks The husband just looked up the county's assessment of the property online and it's valued at $120K less than the asking price. Keep your fingers crossed. And on a side note---how'd the turkey turn out on Christmas?

Posted by: Kathy at December 30, 2004 01:40 PM (E0v6D)

3 I hope that all will work out best for you. But I must admit I am concerned. Mold in the basement? That is not a good thing. I've personally known three people who have had their houses condemned by the EPA for mold. (It was a scary thing for them to have to get into a space suit and go in - with supervision - to get personal effects.) Now I know not all mold is the bad kind, but if GWH isn't anxious to address the problem now it will just get worse.

Posted by: The Maximum Leader at December 30, 2004 02:10 PM (jmfvP)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

What the fuck is a duchy, and why would you want to pass it on the left hand side?

Is passing it on the left hand side integral?

Or could you, conceivably, pass it on the right hand side without serious consequences being handed down?

Posted by: Kathy at 08:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 55 words, total size 1 kb.

Really and truly happy that I let my subscription to the Star Tribune lapse.

I don't want to be held responsible for paying this guy's salary. Read the whole thing. If for no other reason than the novelty of having your eyebrows hit your hairline.

I find it absolutely breathtaking that a columnist of Coleman's (supposed) lofty reputation gets to vent his spleen in such an incontinent way across the Strib's Metro section. Think about it. If it had been a conservative columnist (like the Strib would employ one of those, but work with me here) who'd ragged on Kos like Coleman ragged on Powerline, I bet that column would have been in the bin before the ink was dry.

Where were the freakin' editors? Probably giggling and snorting with glee over the conference room table, not realizing that it's probably not a good idea to piss these guys off. After all, what's a law degree for if not to provide a really good reason to sue the pants off a newspaper for libel. (further footnote can be found here) I compliment the Powerline guys for handling this in such a classy way. I don't know that if I were baselessly accused of the same things that I'd be able to hold my temper.

Although, I do kind of wish they'd get ticked off and do something to hold Coleman accountable. And I think I have an idea of how to do that, provided I may be so bold. When I first moved to the Twin Cities, I worked for a large law firm downtown. I had flexible hours and late one night, I was walking back from the office to my car and had to pass by the Lutheran Brotherhood building. I was surprised to see five separate camera banks set up on the sidewalks outside the building in what was a deserted downtown. I wondered what was going on, and hurried home to catch the news.

Turns out that before I'd even moved here, WCCO-TV---the local CBS affiliate---had produced a series of investigative reports about Northwest Airlines safety practices. NWA had thought these reports painted a distorted picture and had sued. Instead of taking it through the worst of the court system, the case wound up at the Minnesota News Council. The News Council takes complaints from ordinary citizens who feel wronged by the press. They hold hearings and decide whether or not the news organization is at fault. While essentially a shortcut around libel laws it nonetheless lets displeasure with a media outlet be known. In the NWA case, while financial damages were now off the table, some big journalistic poobahs were rolled out to rule on what were, effectively, purposefully distorted camera shots in the promos that gave the wrong impression to the viewer. If this sounds familiar it's probably because Mike Wallace flew in for the hearing and reported on it for 60 Minutes. While WCCO was found to be less than honest in its reporting and the station did win an Emmy for the series, WCCO's golden reputation was tarnished nonetheless.

It would be nice to see the same thing happen to Coleman. If for no other reason than he would be forced to retract his statements or at the very least be held accountable for them.

I hope they file a complaint.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:06 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 563 words, total size 3 kb.

Jerry Orbach has died of prostate cancer at age 69.

I enjoyed his work on Law and Order. Lennie Briscoe was quite a character and Orbach made the most of him. Given Orbach's dramatic chops, it was quite a surprise to find out, years after the fact, that he provided the voice for a candlestick named Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast, and, more importantly, that he'd been a big star on Broadway for years.

Mr. Orbach, it appears from my desk in Minneapolis, where we don't get Broadway shows all that often (and when we do, well, Sebastian Bach is in them), was truly an entertainer, in the broadest sense of the word. We don't get too many of those nowadays, hence it's very sad that he's passed on.

My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

{For more: Fausta}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:24 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 147 words, total size 1 kb.

Bizarre.

{...}Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA (news - web sites)'s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or one millionth of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch (2.5 cm) on its axis.

When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge of another "it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spinning faster," Gross said.

Gross said changes predicted by his model probably are too minuscule to be detected by a global positioning satellite network that routinely measures changes in Earth's spin, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble.

The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 33 feet, so an added wobble of an inch (2.5 cm) is unlikely to cause long-term effects, he said.

Wow.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:06 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 159 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Many years ago, I worked on the ground based software for the space shuttle program. The trajectory calculations involved taking into consideration precession and nutation. Precession means that the north pole moves in a little circle, and nutation means that while it's moving in a bigger circle, it's also moving in a smaller circle. Most people think of the north pole as relatively fixed, but the reality is more complex.

Posted by: Douglas at December 30, 2004 02:46 AM (/XmMl)

2 Wow. Smart people are reading my blog I would have thought the north pole was static, too, but since it is just a big hunk of ice, I suppose it would be susceptible to movement. Interesting stuff. Thanks for chiming in.

Posted by: Kathy at December 30, 2004 01:25 PM (E0v6D)

3 Ok, the husband just explained what you meant to me. Meaning my previous statement about the pole being a big chunk of ice is completely wrong. But it's still interesting.

Posted by: Kathy at December 30, 2004 01:29 PM (E0v6D)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

...the Clones should win the Independence Bowl this fine, fine evening.

Woohoo!

And you wanna know what makes our win even more satisfying?

The college team I grew up rooting for, but whose school I wouldn't even think of attending, The Nebraska Cornhuskers didn't even get invited to a bowl game this year. What's even funnier is that when they played in the Independence Bowl two years ago they lost. Before the game, everyone in the state was ashamed that their beloved Huskers were playing at such a lame bowl in the first place. Then to lose that game... weeeel.

This year, the UNL AD fired Frank Solich because (and I paraphrase bady) Nebraska Football wasn't mediocre. Solich, in his opinion, was mediocre, hence worth firing. Solich had much to overcome when Osborne left and was, in my humble opinion, remodeling the football program into one that would serve the school well in the years to come. More speed. More passing. That sort of thing. This is no longer the Big 8, but rather the Big XII---with different schools who had different ways of playing the game. The Blackshirts can only do so much: you must have an actual offense that doesn't revolve solely around that dolt Eric Crouch. An I-formation offense is outdated these days. Solich knew this, recruited differently and arranged the program around his ideas--and was shitcanned for his trouble. It was taking too much time. They needed to win!

Ever since they won back-to-back National Championships, Nebraska fans have morphed from humble fans who simply wanted their team to win to the greediest and most demanding fans in college football. Excepting the southern schools, of course.

Like I wrote in the "about me" thingy over on the side, I have a love/hate thing going with Husker football. I was a fan for many years for the simple fact there is nothing else worth rooting for in Nebraska other than the Huskers. That's just who you root for and you get used to it over the span of your young life. Besides it was fun being a Husker fan. You got to bitch about Osborne never passing on a first down. You got to whine and moan about Oklahoma and compare Barry Switzer to the anti-Christ. And it was very satisfying when they actually made it to the Orange Bowl to compete for the National Championship after so many years of being shut out by the AP Poll. Of course it sucked when pass interference wasn't called on Miami (FL) on a two-point conversion that would have allowed us to win, but hey...that's just a part of the game, eh?

While I adored the Huskers while I was growing up, and will still root for them today (providing they're not playing the Clones), it was nonetheless a tough transition when I started school at Iowa State. I went from rooting for the best team in the Big Eight to rooting for the worst. It was very confusing. "Losing? What's losing?" "Whaddya mean the field goal kicker blew it? He only had twenty yards to overcome? And the wind was at his back!" "How is it possible to fumble on the snap? Twice in two frickin' plays?" This says nothing of how I was treated---being a Nebraskan in Iowa. Some of it I brought on myself: I earned serious glares of contempt and wore a very red face when I was in the student stands at Ames and, not thinking, let the words, "Go Huskers!" slip out of my mouth during the Iowa State-Nebraska game. But most of it was undeserved. After all, if Iowa State wanted a winning football program, it was apparent to everyone and their red-headed-stepbrother that what was needed was a new coach. Walden had to be fired. He sucked. There was no getting around it. It wasn't my fault that the Athletic Department couldn't get their shit together in this respect and the Huskers kept beating them as a result.

But I survived, and when, in 1993, Iowa State finally beat the Huskers for the first time in God-only-knows how long, I cheered right along with my fellow Clones' fans. (I still regret not partaking in the festivities. Sigh. Where was I that weekend, you ask? In Omaha, of course.) And then the miracle happened: Walden was fired, and Iowa State finally started competing. Now it's, indeed, a ball game between the two schools. I will always root for the Clones, because it's my alma mater. Yet, like I wrote, I have a love/hate thing going with Nebraska football. I love Nebraska's program, the tradition, the willingness to shoot for the stars. Yet I hate how damn greedy everyone has become in Nebraska since they tasted success.

Of course I catch shit to this very day for having jumped ship. So does my sister, another Iowa State graduate. Our family gives us crap: our brothers in particular, which is ironic as only one of the four attended UNL and the most rabid fan in the lot graduated from Creighton. My Dad stays silent on the issue, but I know where his loyalties lie and it's not in Ames. Mom cheers on the Clones most of the time, only because she's Mom and no one dares to criticize her on her football picks other than my father. And we all know he's biased, so...

So, knowing all of this, can you honestly blame me for being very happy the Clones won this night? And that, for this season, completely put the Huskers in the shade? Nope. Revenge is sweet. It may have been a hard fought victory tonight, and the entire season for that matter. As I see it, Nebraska's greediness has been their downfall. As one who's been rooting for a struggling team for fifteen years and who has noted that said team did the work to get better, instead of simply expecting the best to be served to them on a silver platter, well, it's pretty darn sweet that the Clones topped off their season with a bowl win.

/chortles of glee.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:17 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1030 words, total size 6 kb.

Lionel Shriver in today's Opinion Journal:

{...}Freedom of speech that does not embrace the right to offend is a farce. The stipulation that you may say whatever you like so long as you don't hurt anyone's feelings canonizes the milquetoast homily, "If you can't say anything nice. . . ." Since rare is the sentiment that does not incense someone, rest assured that in that instance you don't say anything at all.
The concept of religious "tolerance" seems to be warping apace these days, and we appear to forget that commonly one tolerates through gritted teeth. It is rapidly becoming accepted social cant that to "tolerate" other people's religions is to accord them respect. In fact, respect for one's beliefs is gradually achieving the status of a hallowed "human right."

I am under no obligation to respect your beliefs. Respect is earned; it is not an entitlement. I may regard creationists as plain wrong, which would make holding their beliefs in high regard nonsensical. In kind, if I proclaim on a street corner that a certain Japanese beetle in my back garden is the new Messiah, you are also within your rights to ridicule me as a fruitcake.

The fact that we have to be free to outrage one another is potentially in conflict with a law that soon will be put to the Commons that would add "incitement to religious hatred"--punishable by seven years in prison--to the equally dubious legislation already on the British books banning "incitement to racial hatred." Laws that prohibit incitement to illegal action seem defensible enough. But with this and similar "hate crime" legislation, are we not on the way to classifying hatred itself as a crime? And while we are at it, should we not then criminalize envy and narcissism for also being antisocial states of mind? Moreover, what is the difference between "incitement to hatred" and "incitement to fierce dislike"? Or "incitement to mockery"?

{...}Apparently contemporary "tolerance" does not merely allow others to practice whatever goofy or incomprehensible religion they like--and sometimes with a rolled eye--but surrounds any faith with a hands-off halo of sanctity, so that whatever is sacred to you must also be sacred to me. Disquietingly, this halo in Britain may be enshrined into law. Worse, today's exaggeratedly deferent brand of tolerance is driven by a darker force than mere let's-all-get-along multiculturalism, and that is fear. In the post-9/11 world, we are arriving at an unspoken understanding that zealots in our midst must not be offended, lest in their indignation they do something horrible.{...}

(my emphasis)

Can I get an "Amen"?

While I'm generally a believer in keeping one's mouth shut when one has nothing nice to say, Shriver's got a point that this inclination should not be legislated, but rather personally regulated. I find it incredibly interesting that, of all the places to experience the vast depths of turmoil due to religion, the English appear to have forgotten their history. One can only hope that this bill that's being presented to Commons will go down in a blaze of secularist glory.

After all, what would Henry VIII think of such rubbish legislation?

Posted by: Kathy at 02:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 531 words, total size 3 kb.

My beloved Iowa State University Cyclones are playing in the Independence Bowl tonight. (ESPN at 5:30 CST)

I confidently predict they're going to beat the crap out of the University of Miami (Ohio).

Posted by: Kathy at 01:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 37 words, total size 1 kb.

Susan Sontag, dead at age 71.

I'm not going to say anything nasty about this woman because I believe it's wrong to speak ill of the dead---particularly when they've just died, but...

...is it too much to hope that Chomsky's on his last legs, too?

I'm an awful, awful person. I know this already.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:21 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 58 words, total size 1 kb.

Forbes seems to be a bit worried about RSS Feeds. (registration required)

{...}By Internet standards RSS is ancient, invented circa 1997, but it is just now catching on, in part because of the millions of blogs constantly generating new content and in part because of new RSS search services like Feedster.com that sort through the missives like an e-mail reader. Technorati.com is now monitoring more than 5 million RSS-enabled blogs. Yahoo's free MyYahoo service, revamped in September, offers a built-in RSS reader. Microsoft is tinkering with its own. Google is pushing a similar syndication technology called Atom. Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li guesses that 2 million people are reading RSS deliveries regularly. (Forbes.com broadcasts 43 different feeds.)

You need a Web service or reader software to grab an RSS feed. Point one to a Web site and you're done. Much hype has swirled around RSS' presumed ability to allow blogs to subvert big media. That's a romantic presumption. The likelier disruption will come in areas such as classifieds, search and e-commerce. RSS lets big companies increase their reach-Amazon.com now streams catalog updates to its Web resellers-while letting little guys into the game. LiveDeal, a new Ebay competitor, touts its use of RSS as its differentiating factor. Users don't have to keep coming back to its site to check for new items.

RSS-based searchers Technorati, Topix, Feedster and DayPop look for instantly updated material, thus providing a different slice of the Web than Google does, one based on freshness rather than relevancy. Down the road, online advertising might mutate into something wrapped around RSS streams-if fewer people surf news sites or use traditional search services. Feedster has already started incorporating sponsored links with its RSS headlines.{...}

Well, geez, Forbes. Maybe if I didn't have to register to read your content and then get nailed with three popups, I wouldn't be thinking about switching over to RSS. This, of course, doesn't mention my travails in having to find the small "skip ad" button on the full page ad you forced on me before I could register, or the annoying ad on the page which, without my consent, started playing some very loud chatter hocking Sybase's wares. But I'm not really bothered by the ads. I can deal with them. What does bother me is that I'm still using Internet Explorer (despite the husband's desperate pleas for me to switch to Mozilla), and as such, there are holes in my browser. Through these holes your advertisements tried to insert spyware onto my machine. Fortunately, I have Spybot running on my machine and it blocked the insertion of two data mining cookies. Malware bothers me greatly. And it is through sites like yours---ones with an overwhelming amount of advertising---that most people's machines become overloaded with data mining cookies, that not only invade their privacy in the name of market research, but also cause machines to crash and burn.

I opened myself up to all of this abuse because I wanted to link to one lousy article that I found interesting and that I'd originally read in the dead-tree edition of your magazine.

RSS skips right past all of this and gets to the good stuff. And you're worried about how it might affect e-commerce? Well, might I suggest if you dialed down your advertising to a state less resembling a forcefully inserted anal probe, perhaps you wouldn't have to be worried about how RSS feeds could screw with the current e-commerce model?

Posted by: Kathy at 10:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 584 words, total size 4 kb.

Michele has an exhaustive list of ways you can help.

While I'm sure these are all reputable organizations, who want to help, I prefer to link to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. They know what they are doing because, sadly, they've done it before and it's very likely that your money will go to helping those most in need and will get there quickly.

The infrastructure is in place---use it.

C'mon people. I realize Christmas was hard on everyone's budget, but we're talking about one of the worst natural disasters to strike in our lifetimes. The bodies are washing up on the beach faster than they can count them. That this earthquake affected some of the poorest people on the planet makes the situation worse than it already is.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:00 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 138 words, total size 1 kb.

Robert's on the verge of despair with my view of Ring for Jeeves.

The hallmark of the Bertie and Jeeves stories is the fact that they're told as first person narratives - as related by Bertie. (Ring for Jeeves and one short story are the sole exceptions.) The joy of the writing is the way in which Plum unfolds the plots in Bertie's particular jargon, which is a collection of half-remembered quotes from school, advertising jingles, news headlines, catch-phrases and slang, and also the way in which he manages to maintain Bertie's half-witted but sympathetic point of view. Jeeves, bless him, is a prop, not a character, whose chief function, aside from serving as the deus ex machina of the plot, is to provide a linguistic foil to Bertie's blather.

The other thing to bear in mind is that Wodehouse's work is light comedy fluff. Exquisitely crafted fluff, but fluff nonetheless, a kind of musical without the music. Searching too deeply for meaning or motive, or trying to judge any of the characters in real world terms, is the equivalent of poking holes in a souffle to find out what's inside. Poof!

(The business about the language, by the way, is why I dislike the Jeeves and Wooster tee-vee series so much. It is impossible to translate a written first person narrative to the screen, especially one in which the way the story is told is often funnier than the actual story itself.)

Have no fear, Robbo. I'm not giving up. I've requested that, in addition to the other novels, that The Code of the Woosters and Right Ho, Jeeves be delivered as well. I think a first-person narrative would serve to put Jeeves in the proper light and I look forward to hearing from Bertie. Hopefully I won't find these storylines to be as boring and predictable as Ring for Jeeves. Anyone who can craft prose as cleverly as Wodehouse surely cannot be lacking in the plot department all the blasted time.

At least, that would be my hope.

Nonetheless, I was curious to see if anyone else had blasphemed Wodehouse like myself. I'm always looking for like-minded people. Yet, while I came up short on the blasphemy (What? Am I the only one to think this way? Good Grief! My one original thought and it disses a much-beloved author? I'm going straight to hell!) what should I come across when I Googled? An article, written by the estimable Hugh Laurie, who played Bertie in the TV series (and who also plays this guy! He's everywhere! Aieeee!) and who, it appears, actually agrees with Robbo about the TV series:

{...}A man came to us - to me and to my comedy partner, Stephen Fry - with a proposition. He asked me if I would like to play Bertram W. Wooster in 23 hours of televised drama, opposite the internationally tall Fry in the role of Jeeves.

"Fiddle," one of us said. I forget which.

"Sticks," said the other. "Wodehouse on television? It's lunacy. A disaster in kit form. Get a grip, man."

The man, a television producer, pressed home his argument with skill and determination.

"All right," he said, shrugging on his coat. "I'll ask someone else."

"Whoa, hold up," said one of us, shooting a startled look at the other.

"Steady," said the other, returning the S. L. with top-spin.

There was a pause.

"You'll never get a cab in this weather," we said, in unison.

And so it was that, a few months later, I found myself slipping into a double-breasted suit in a Prince of Wales check while my colleague made himself at home inside an enormous bowler hat, and the two of us embarked on our separate disciplines. Him for the noiseless opening of decanters, me for the twirling of the whangee.

So the great P. G. was making his presence felt in my life once more. And I soon learnt that I still had much to learn. How to smoke plain cigarettes, how to drive a 1927 Aston Martin, how to mix a Martini with five parts water and one part water (for filming purposes only), how to attach a pair of spats in less than a day and a half, and so on.

But the thing that really worried us, that had us saying "crikey" for weeks on end, was this business of The Words. Let me give you an example. Bertie is leaving in a huff: " 'Tinkerty tonk,' I said, and I meant it to sting." I ask you: how is one to do justice of even the roughest sort to a line like that? How can any human actor, with his clumsily attached ears, and his irritating voice, and his completely misguided hair, hope to deliver a line as pure as that? It cannot be done. You begin with a diamond on the page, and you end up with a blob of Pritt, The Non-Sticky Sticky Stuff, on the screen.

Wodehouse on the page can be taken in the reader's own time; on the screen, the beautiful sentence often seems to whip by, like an attractive member of the opposite sex glimpsed from the back of a cab. You, as the viewer, try desperately to fix the image in your mind - but it is too late, because suddenly you're into a commercial break and someone is telling you how your home may be at risk if you eat the wrong breakast cereal.

Naturally, one hopes there were compensations in watching Wodehouse on the screen - pleasant scenery, amusing clothes, a particular actor's eyebrows - but it can never replicate the experience of reading him. If I may go slightly culinary for a moment: a dish of foie gras nestling on a bed of truffles, with a side-order of lobster and caviar may provide you with a wonderful sensation; but no matter how wonderful, you simply don't want to be spoon-fed the stuff by a perfect stranger. You need to hold the spoon, and decide for yourself when to wolf and when to nibble. {...}

While I'm a ways off from watching the TV series (Whenever something like this hits the small or silver screen, I like to have read the source material beforehand. This way I can slam it with an unholy glee if I find it lacking. Good fun all around!), I find it interesting that the man who played Bertie is enough of a Wodehouse fan that he doesn't think he did a good enough job, and, in his view, that no one ever could.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1106 words, total size 6 kb.

The husband really is a geek.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:09 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 8 words, total size 1 kb.

Margi wants to know what everyone got for Christmas.

Okedokey.

From the husband:

• movie theater gift certificates


• pastry brushes and a pair of whopper tongs for bbq-ing


• a very nice watch

From Mom and Dad:

• a very nice plaid wool blanket that I believe Mom made. Now if we only had football games to go to...


• DVD's of The Godfather and The Princess Bride! YAY Mom!Thanks for resisting the urge to buy me a poncho! I hear it was near thing. Thank you! I love them. And I will get much more use out of them than I would a poncho.

From Mr. H.:

• a Houdini wine opener so I can get to my Chardonnay that much quicker

From the In-Laws:

• A big Oral B Electric toothbrush set
  
• The Griffin and Sabine boxed set. Yipppee! Picture books for grownups!

From the Brother-in-Law (my side):

• a gorgeous antique broach, set with a big pink stone in the middle, and small pink and white stones around the outside. Lovely.

From the husband's sister's family:

• The SNL edition of Trivial Pursuit


• homemade ornaments from the kiddies

From Santa (or Jolly old St. Nick if you prefer) into my stocking, which I hung by the fire with care:

• A Caribou Card for my Sunday morning gab fests with Mr. H.


• An envelope of Ginger Milk bath salts! (See, kids, Santa really does read your blog!)


• Cinnamon Hoof Mints


• A big fat Vanity Fair with Ahhhhnuld and Maria on the cover

From my Godbaby:

• a neato Christmas ornament he made himself, replete with school picture

From my sister, Christi, and her husband:

• The 80's Trivia Game
. Oh yeah. This one sucks bigtime! We'll never play it. /sarcasm.

Reportedly, a very nice bottle of Chardonnay is winging its way here from Northern California as I write this, as well.

Everyone's generosity, as usual, is overwhelming and I am indeed a lucky, lucky girl.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:35 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 323 words, total size 2 kb.

Previous entries can be found here and here.

Upon my request, the Hennepin County Library system delivered Ring for Jeeves to our local branch and I retrieved it before they shut down for the holiday. While I'm still reading this, and enjoying it tremendously, I wanted something a little frothier to read over the holiday. Of which I do rather a lot as we have no wee ones, who, like a full-powered, freshly bagged Hoover, can be something of a time sucker around this time of year. Or so I'm told.

I finished it last night and it was indeed frothy. Yet...

Well, if you're interested, take the Plum Plunge and read on after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 06:11 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 702 words, total size 5 kb.