Well, no sooner do I get home from Christmas vacation than it becomes all too apparent that I spend little or no time with children on a regular basis.

In other words one of my darling nieces or nephews got me sick.

Chest cold has morphed into a horrible sore throat and a head cold. Don't ask me why it went backwards, but it did. It's been quite the fortnight for the husband and myself as far as illness is concerned: he had a cold last week; he got a stomach bug earlier this week when we were in Omaha and I now have a cold. We can usually go all winter without seeing this much illness action. Alas, however, this winter is different as we're trying hard to have a life. It's a toss up, you know. You can either sign up for the patented Hermit Defense System (TM) and never get out and about. Or you can get out and about and pay the price for it.

Have no fear, my devoted Cake Eater readers, for I have goodies for you and I shall unload them right now whilst I'm feeling particularly alert.

• Leon Spinks, who beat Muhammed Ali and is now working as a janitor at the Columbus, Nebraska YMCA for $5.15/hr. and fighting off dementia and all other assorted ills tells you "it ain't what you do, it's how you do it."
• 0 to 60 in 2.5 seconds, 1001 horsepower, to bury the needle you have to go 253 mph, and it smokes its maker's grand prix model.

  Have I mentioned that you can actually purchase this fine automobile?

  If you have the means---one point two million before taxes---I highly recommend picking one up.

• Sheila---the lucky wench---got to see Notorious on the big screen. (I'm green with envy)
• Have I mentioned that I'm a grandma?--- a blog grandma.
• This game had some of the worst officiating I've ever seen.
• In one of my very few examples of follow-up, via this post from St. Patrick's Day it turns out Fausta was right when she postulated that The Manolo is Day By Day Jan's super fantastic papa.

  See here, here and here and tell me she's not right.

And there's your cheap thrills for the day, babycakes.

Posted by: Kathy at 06:07 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 393 words, total size 3 kb.

Two things for rabid commenter, and all around Cake Eater Fan, Russ from Winterset:

1. The husband and I looked south yesterday when we passed the sign demarcating the beginning of Madison County, IA, as if just by glancing to the southeast we could catch a glimpse of the MASSIVE Winterset skyline. We thought of you. Briefly. And then we kept going.

Sorry about that. Our bad.

2. When the hell is Iowa State playing? I'm too lazy to go looking and I know you'll know.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:12 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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I simply cannot believe y'all stuck around this long without any fresh content.

Either I'm really pathetic. Or....{insert drumroll here} you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, are pathetic.

And, really, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, do we really want to go there?

On either count.

I think not.

I'm freakin' exhausted right now, but blogging will resume shortly.

Like later in the day.

Cheap thrills will be available for all and sundry at that time.

In the meantime, I'm going to go and load some eggnog up with cheap brandy.

Cheers!

Posted by: Kathy at 12:05 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 99 words, total size 1 kb.

{ed. This post will stay at the top until the 25th}

I shall leave you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, with my smiling seven-year-old face to warm your heart with holiday cheer.

Yes, that's me. I already know I look like a boy, so you needn't tell me.

Anyway...we're on the road today, and I have a feeling the next couple of days will be inordinately busy so blogging will be light, if not non-existent, and I wanted to catch you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, while you're still stuck at the office, but before you get drunk. I know you're just waiting to be let loose on that vat of spiked eggnog that's sitting out by reception for the office Holiday party. I realize the siren song of the nog is tough to resist, so I will keep the holiday greetings short and sweet.

Ahem.

A very Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Cheery Saturnalia, Wonderful Winter Solstice, Krazy Kwanzaa, etc., to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:19 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Well, maybe you'll only laugh if you're from Minnesota, but I find this just freakin' hysterical.

Dealing a stunning blow to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature, a Ramsey County judge Tuesday struck down a tobacco fee that promised to raise $401 million over the next two years for the state.

Ramsey County District Judge Michael Fetsch ruled that the fee of 75 cents per pack violated a settlement between the government and tobacco companies that barred the state from seeking additional money from the firms to pay for health care costs related to smoking.

The ruling could jeopardize the comfortable budget surplus that the state has been counting on and pose a major embarrassment to Pawlenty and legislative incumbents just in time for a critical election year.{...}

Now that's funny. The part that's not so funny is this:

"We are very disappointed by the court's ruling and will ask for an immediate appeal directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court," Pawlenty said in a statement. He also is considering "using existing administrative authority" to apply the fee at retail outlets.{...}

{my emphasis}

Did you get that? Pawlenty wants to keep collecting the tax while he appeals it---even though it's not really clear that he can appeal it due to the terms of the settlement---and is considering using administrative authority to apply the tax fee. It's apparently so important to the Governor to keep collecting this tax fee that he's willing to violate the state's consitution to do so.

Can you say "illegal" boys and girls? The better question is can Governor Pawlenty say it?

I agree with Doug and David---it would be much better for Pawlenty in the long run to just drop this stupid tax fee and move on. There is another way to find $400 million dollars to balance the budget: it's called reduced spending. The guv didn't even have to cut spending. He just had to reduce it---you know, spend a little less than normal and he would never have had to start up this tax health impact fee business to begin with.

Pawlenty, in an effort to not piss people off, has pretty much pissed everyone off. There's a life lesson in all of this, if you're willing to look for it.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:14 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dearest Jonathan wants to know about our Top Ten Movies.

Twist my arm.

1. Casablanca I can't add anything remotely interesting to the discussion regarding this film. It simply is the best movie ever made and if you have issues with that, well, you're a nutter. Sorry, but you'll just have to live with your diagnosis.

2. Raiders of the Lost Ark How can you not love this movie? It is, yet again, proof that Lucas can come up with the story, but it's best left to the professionals, namely Lawrence Kasdan and Stephen Spielberg, to tell it. And boy can they tell a good story!

3. Rear Window Back when I was in eighth grade, this was one of five Hitchcock films---Rope, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Trouble with Harry and Vertigo---- that were re-released to movie theaters. This was the first Hitchcock film I ever saw and it will always be my favorite. I still want to be Grace Kelly when I grow up (and, more importantly, I want her clothes from that movie!).

This, of course, says nothing about how wonderful this film is in its own right.

4. Godfather II: You'll have noticed that The Godfather wasn't on this list. My, what sharp little eyes you've got. There's a reason and I can give it to you in one word, two syllables: De Niro.

5. The English Patient: I love this book and I love this movie. Although, it's not because of my well documented Colin Firth crush. No, I love this movie because of Ralph Fiennes eyes, Juliette Binoche's smile and Naveen Andrew's calm ("Comma.") I love the book because Ondaatje's one of the true masters of bringing a memory to life. You can smell a scene when he's done with it, and he's never tiresome in his description---which is a problem I have with much of literary fiction. Anthony Minghella brought this book to life---and it's wonderful.

6. It Happened One Night: If you've ever wondered what it is about Clark Gable that, once upon a time, drove women mad, this is the film to watch. Trust me on this one.

7. Grand Illusion: Most people won't be familiar with this movie, because not only is it old, but it's foreign. It's a masterwork of director Jean Renoir and it's well worth seeing.

8. Bridge Over the River Kwai and

9. Lawrence of Arabia

Oh, dear. I had a hard time narrowing it down which David Lean films are my favorites, because, quite frankly, I love this man's movies. First and foremost, I love how they look. I love how you get a sense of magisterial scope with Lean's films, but how the background never seems too unwieldy for the character's to manage, even when it is. All that breathtaking scenery that the characters seem impervious to, it's like it's a reminder to look around and see what sort of magisterial scope there is to your own surroundings. Second, these two films had the most memorable acting jobs. Alec Guinness especially, in Bridge Over the River Kwai was incredible, as was Peter O'Toole in Lawrence: they held up to the scenery.

I could go on, but I think we can move along.

10. L.A. Confidential: What's not to like about this movie? The story is incredible. The acting is phenomenal, particularly from Kim Basinger. Who knew? Surely 9 1/2 Weeks never tipped anyone off to her talents. Russell Crowe's Bud White strains at the leash; Guy Pearce's Ed Exley is so icily ambitious and controlled until he isn't, but James Cromwell's Dudley Smith, well, he takes the cake with that Irish accent and his casual acceptance of corruption.

Ahhhh....now that's a movie.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:01 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Hello all,

This is Christi, the Cake Eater Sister. I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season and you are not going too crazy getting ready. On that note, I just wanted you to know that I will be very busy in the next few days cleaning and baking for my sister, Kathy the Cake Eater. You see, she and the Cake Eater husband will be coming to stay with us for Christmas. There is much to get ready, since I have put off any cleaning for over three weeks. I just won't have the time to read this blog. So, Kathy, don't blog about anything exciting, as I don't want to miss much.

We are very excited to have the Cake Eaters to visit. It is not often that they are able to travel and we are so happy they chose to stay at our humble abode. We'll see how happy they are when the children wake them up nice and early on Christmas morning!

Merry Christmas!

Posted by: Kathy at 04:15 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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In Germany, apparently, when you're sentenced to life in prison for killing a US Navy diver and hijacking a TWA jet, you get out of prison after almost nineteen years.

Then you get to get on a plane and leave the country. Where you can then disappear.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - A Lebanese man serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jetliner and killing of a
U.S. Navy diver has returned to Lebanon after being paroled in Germany, security and guerrilla officials said Tuesday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi arrived in Beirut four days ago on a commercial flight from Germany, a Lebanese security official and a Hezbollah guerrilla group said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

It was not known where Hamadi, who spent 19 years in prison, went after entering Lebanon.

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut refused to comment on Hamadi's release or whether the United States will pursue his arrest. The slain diver's brother called the parole "absolutely disturbing."{...}

{my emphasis}

Oh, and there's this little bit that gets the eyebrows to rising:

{...}German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jaeger said there was no connection between Hamadi's release and the recent freeing of former hostage Susanne Osthoff, a German woman released over the weekend after spending more than three weeks as a captive in Iraq.{...}

Hamadi was released last Friday. Ostoff was released by her captors in Iraq over the weekend. He was allowed to leave the country, which is pretty unusual in any parole situation, no matter what country you're in.

You can draw your own conclusions.

Thanks Germany!

Posted by: Kathy at 12:41 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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And they said it couldn't be done! They said, "gee, those people don't have any historical experience with democracy; they won't know what to do with it. Should we really try and impose our western values on them?"

And the answer is, "Yep."

WASHINGTON - As the political battle intensifies over President Bush's efforts to spread democracy to Iraq and the Middle East, an influential human rights organization, Freedom House, has found that the past year brought significant improvements in personal and political rights across the region.

Reports of increased freedom emerged from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian territories, and observers attributed the results to the Bush administration's support of fledgling democracies worldwide.

The findings were released yesterday as part of Freedom House's Freedom in the World 2006 report, a global survey of political rights and civil liberties published annually by the organization since 1972. The report evaluates countries based largely on criteria drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and rates countries under the categories "political rights" and "civil liberties" on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 indicating the greatest level of freedom.

This year's Freedom in the World based its evaluations on events that took place between December 1, 2004, and November 30. During that time, according to the study, the number of electoral democracies increased from 119 to 122, the most in the report's 33-year history.

In the Middle East, the sweep of successful democratic elections was the decisive factor in improving the region's ratings, Freedom House's research director and a co-editor of Freedom in the World, Arch Puddington, said yesterday.

The most significant change, Mr. Puddington said, took place in Lebanon. Freedom House uses countries' numerical ratings to divide nations into three categories: "free," "partly free," and "not free." This year, Lebanon transitioned from "not free" to "partly free," largely owing to its "Cedar Revolution" in February and March, Mr. Puddington said.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

{Hat Tip: Fausta}

Posted by: Kathy at 10:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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You won't get this:

How can you tell your wife that you are popping out to play a match, and then not come home for five days?
Rafael Benitez, Liverpool's football manager - bewildered by cricket

Amen, brother!

One of these days I will get cricket. Until then, I remain bewildered and have occasion to wonder why they take breaks for tea.

More fun quotes here.

{Hat tip: Tim Worstall via Robbo}

Posted by: Kathy at 08:48 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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For Ith

Millionaire's Shortbread

Makes about three dozen squares or six dozen triangles

1 1/2 cups butter (three sticks), softened and divided
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 white rice flour*
1/2 cup granulated sugar
Cooking spray for baking
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup light corn syrup
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels

In a large bowl mix 1 cup butter, flours, and granulated sugar with a fork until crumbly (like you would a pie crust). Press mixture int a 15-x-10 inch jelly roll pan coated with cooking spray for baking.

Bake at 350 for 18-20 minutes or until light golden brown.

Stir together remaining 1/2cup butter, condensed milk and corn syrup in a 2-quart saucepan over low heat 4 minutes or until butter is melted and mixture is blended. Add brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, 25 to 30 minutes or until caramel colored and thickened. Pour evenly over baked cookie in pan and spread into an even layer. Chill 30 minutes or until caramel layer is set.

Microwave morsels in a small glass bowl at high 1 minute or until almost melted. Stir until smooth. Spread over caramel layer in pan. (The chocolate layer will be very thin.) Chill 15 minutes or until chocolate is firm. Cut into 2 inch squares; if desired, cut each square into 2 triangles.

*3/4 cup all-purpose flour may be substituted.

I would highly recommend cutting the squares into triangles---the squares would be too much.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:20 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 255 words, total size 2 kb.

1 Awww! Thanks, sweetie I'm printing as we 'speak'.

Posted by: Ith at December 19, 2005 01:20 PM (76QAm)

2 No booze in the ingredients?! What kind of millionaires are these supposed to be? Mormons? I recommend adding rum to this recipe on general principle.

Posted by: Doug at December 19, 2005 03:37 PM (pJ68I)

3 Huh. And I was thinking about trying to add a chocolate layer as I made this year's batch of shortbreads. I'd like to think that I would have realized that the next logical step would be to add caramel, but now you've given me a shortcut. Thanks! (The rice flour angle is interesting too...)

Posted by: Steve G. at December 19, 2005 04:21 PM (LZ2fB)

4 The rice flour, so I'm told, is what makes the shortbread extra crispety. All I really know is that it's expensive as hell. Something like two and a quarter for a half a pound. Ouchie!

Posted by: Kathy at December 19, 2005 10:13 PM (hbcMs)

5 Leave the rum in a glass and out of the shortbread!! in fact maybe a warm rum toddy would be lovley with the shortbreads

Posted by: cheri at December 19, 2005 10:45 PM (M7kiy)

6 Oooooh. These sound scrumptious!

Posted by: Sadie at December 20, 2005 12:07 AM (cP0Aq)

7 Oh! I've not tried these! Thank you, Ma'am!! ; )

Posted by: Chrissy at December 20, 2005 04:08 PM (FeV3/)

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The Crack Young Staff of the Hatemonger's Quarterly, we'll just call him "Chip," for the time being, has a new address.

A moo knew address.

Posted by: Kathy at 08:59 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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We have a full moon tonight. Well, maybe not a full moon, but just past the full moon. It think the astronomical term is "waning gibbous," meaning it's getting smaller rather than larger. Obviously this means it's finally clear outside because I can see the moon. For those of you lucky enough to be on an island in French Polynesia right now (Hello, my lone and devoted Cake Eater Reader out there in the middle of the Pacific. Have a Mai Tai for me. Please.) and may not be familiar with how it works here in the Great White North, when the clouds disappear, it gets quite cold. The way it was explained to me is that the clouds act as insulation, keeping the warm air in and the cold air in Canada. So, since it's clear outside, this, of course, means it's cold outside, too.

As in three degrees Fahrenheit.

Since our landscape is quite white right now, it's cold and there's a full moon, well, I'm reminded of Dr. Zhivago, when Omar Sharif's Yuri has brought Lara Antipova and Katya to Varikyno, to hide from the Reds.

That snowbound palace is something quite wonderful to behold. Derelict, unloved, everything is covered with snow and ice and looks like it's been frosted by the most creative and utterly mad of cake decorators. You can almost feel the nervousness they experience when they break through the boarded up main door to try and find a place to hide and finally lay eyes on the place, wondering if it will be suitable. Everything is covered in ice. It looks grand, like the ice was sprayed as the main decoration for a party, and you can almost feel their wonder and awe at how things look. Except they know they cannot stay in those rooms; they're uninhabitable. They find the two rooms unaffected by the ice palace, where they can stay warm. This is where Yuri writes his Lara poems and where they live waiting to be discovered.

I digress, as usual, but getting back to the point...it's nights like this, when the bare trees cast the most spartan shadows in the moonlight, onto the white snow that I think of Dr. Zhivago, and the scene where Yuri hears the wolves on the front lawn. He makes his way to the verandah and instead of clapping or shouting or whatever you expect him to do with the wolves gathered on his front lawn, he hisses loudly while flapping his arms once, sharply. The wolves whimper and run away. Yuri goes back into the house and settles down to write some poetry.

When I look out onto the front lawn, I see the moonlight, the dark sky, the stars, the shadows the tree branches make across the ethereally glowing snow...and I wonder when the wolves will show up. They're all that's missing from the scene.

Well, them and a massive Siberian retreat with onion domes and icy furniture, but, really, who's counting?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:35 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 519 words, total size 3 kb.

A random sample of things that are currently happening in my life/going through my brain:

• Memo to Mother Nature: you can quit with the snow, already. We've got enough, ok? I'd like to see the sun again.
• Speaking of sun, I cannot wait for December 21st to arrive. Why, you ask, can I not wait for the beginning of winter, when it goes against everything you know about me and my attitude toward that beastly season? Well, it's quite simple: winter may, technically speaking, begin on December 21st, but that day is also nature's starting point for the days to start getting longer. Meaning more daylight is in the offing after December 21st, not less. Currently the sun goes down around 4:25 p.m. CST. That's just way too damn early. I need more sunlight in my life, and that will turn around after the Winter Solstice occurs.
• We inadvertently hurt our new landlord's feelings by shoveling.

  For the six winters we've lived here, we've been in charge of snow removal. The Great White Hunter ex-landlord had a clause in the lease that shifted the responsibility of snow removal from him and Tweedledumb to his tenants. This wasn't a problem. We brought a snowblower with us when we moved here. As such, we've always pretty much taken care of snow removal---it's habit by now.

  But we've got a new landlord this winter. We had our first significant snow the day after Thanksgiving, when the landlord was out of town. The snow needed to be shoveled so we took care of it. No big deal. The habit started right back up again. Then it snowed again, and again, the husband took care of it. No big deal. Then it started up again on Tuesday night. By the same time Wednesday evening, we'd received six inches and had snowblowed twice (our snowblower is pretty small and it doesn't handle large amounts well). During the first round of snowblowing, first thing Wedsnesday morning, the landlord came out and told the husband that he was sorry he wasn't able to get to the shoveling right off the bat, but that he would get to it. The husband explained that it wasn't a comment on the landlord's abilities, per se, but rather habit, that he was more than happy to help out.

  I don't think the landlord bought it, however.

  We've had this light, sparse snow falling since Thursday morning. Slowly but surely it's been adding up. The husband snowblowed again yesterday afternoon, but, again, it's been adding up and there was more to take care of this morning---and this time the landlord was all over it.

  I don't want to fight his assumptions about his state of landlord worthiness over this. He's the best landlord we've ever had. Which, if you're a longtime reader of the Cake Eater Chronicles, you will know isn't saying much, since our standards of good lanlordom are LOW, but still, it's nice to know when you complain, your complaint will actually be heard the first time, instead of being ignored until you can't be ignored anymore, (i.e. sewers that have backed up; ice dams on the roof which lead to water coming down the walls, etc.). Our new landlord listens to our complaints. He wants to help when we have problems. That's refreshing. He's a good landlord. Hopefully the christmas present I'm planning will combat this, snow removal habits aside.

• I am in willful denial that Christmas is next week. It ain't. It's, technically speaking, two weeks away because Christmas is on a Sunday and Sunday is the beginning of another week, so it's two weeks away. So there. And don't try to tell me any different.
• I started a new workout plan last week so that I'm ahead of my New Year's regrets.
• We got two tins full of cookies from the obnoxious Cake Eater neighbor's nice wife. It's less than last year (no Chex mix, no caramel coated puffy stuff, no toffee), and nonetheless is a nice gesture and represents a lot of effort on her part....yet...it still grates on the nerves because a. she got the flippin' idea from me and b. she's stolen half my recipes! I have decided to get down and dirty and take the low road this year---I have decided to shake things up a bit. I'm adding date nut pinwheels to my repertoire, as well as homemade caramels and this fabulous caramel and chocolate layered shortbread. We shall see who wins when it's all said and done with.

  Hmmph.

And that's enough for now, my devoted Cake Eater Readers.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:10 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 779 words, total size 5 kb.

1 You wrote: I am in willful denial that Christmas is next week. It ain't. It's, technically speaking, two weeks away because Christmas is on a Sunday and Sunday is the beginning of another week, so it's two weeks away. So there. And don't try to tell me any different. I'm SO WITH YOU on this. Acck! And, damned my gestational diabetes because I'd love to be in the middle of Cookie War 2005. Hugs and love to you and MRN,

Posted by: Margi at December 16, 2005 12:37 PM (nwEQH)

2 Take care of yourself and next Christmas you'll not only have a new wee one to play Santa for, but you'll be able to eat all the damn cookies you want because you'll have earned them.

Posted by: Kathy at December 16, 2005 12:59 PM (aRC3x)

3 and this fabulous caramel and chocolate layered shortbread DROOOOL!!! You win! You win! (glad I'm not the only competitive cooker out there)

Posted by: Ith at December 16, 2005 05:38 PM (76QAm)

4 I'm with Ith. That's a competition I can really appreciate!! ; )

Posted by: Chrissy at December 17, 2005 10:59 AM (zJsUT)

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We have a fascinating article in this week's Forbes on Vivid Entertainment, which is one of the Southern California pr0n making giants. While Vivid makes a pretty penny on its products, it's the distribution of pr0n that's really a license to print money:

{...}Vivid's distributors played no role in making Sunny but will reap much of the upside: sales of, say, 20,000 DVDs at $12 to $15 a pop wholesale (distributed by Hustler publisher Larry Flynt's network) and sold for $30 to $40 at retail; up to $1.5 million in revenue for pay-per-view on cable systems and on DirecTV (each of which typically pockets up to a 90% cut); and several hundred thousand dollars more from viewings in hotel rooms (which is why, on the Sunny set the other day, a second, soft-core camera simultaneously shot the same nude scenes from the waist up).

At some point the new film will air on a Playboy-owned channel. Hugh Hefner's company paid Vivid $70 million in 2001 to acquire the Spice networks, hard-core pay channels that Playboy now programs with Vivid's explicit movies. Also, Vivid will resell Sunny in compilation DVDs as her library of performances builds. It also sells phone-sex ads that appear at the start of each DVD (spots that, it turns out, are impossible to skip). And it will add Sunny to the offerings on its Web site, vivid.com, with tens of thousands of subscribers paying $30 a month for access and unlimited streaming video, Hirsch says.

Vivid also hopes to begin beaming out cell phone videos in the U.S. in the next few months and to keep a much bigger share of the loot than the meager 10% it gets from the cable industry.

"The numbers on our cell phone business are just phenomenal,"Asher says--already at $10 million (in retail) a year in Europe. {...}

You always knew there was money to be made in pr0n, didn't you,you just didn't know how much?

Go read the whole thing.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:06 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 336 words, total size 2 kb.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

On the same wavelength as Jeff's post, but not so much that I'm going to toil and try to tie them together---I leave that to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers---Morgan Freeman has said some interesting things in a 60 Minutes interview that will air Sunday:

Morgan Freeman says the concept of a month dedicated to black history is "ridiculous." "You're going to relegate my history to a month?" {...}"I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history."

{...}Freeman notes there is no "white history month," and says the only way to get rid of racism is to "stop talking about it."

The actor says he believes the labels "black" and "white" are an obstacle to beating racism.

"I am going to stop calling you a white man and I'm going to ask you to stop calling me a black man," Freeman says.{...}

I can't wait to watch and see Mike Wallace lose it. That'll be worth whatever CBS' share of the DirecTV's bill actually is---which, if you do the math and take into consideration that we have 300+ channels with DirecTV, is somewhere around $0.20 per month.

Which is totally fair market value to see Mike Wallace sputter incoherently, if you ask me. I wouldn't pay a dime more.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:37 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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{Hat Tip: Cal Tech Girl}

Posted by: Kathy at 01:49 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Ever heard of someone being so stupid they actually fell for an exorcism con?

You have now.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Is there one of you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, who reads Russian and can tell me why I'm, apparently, getting a fair number of hits from this site?

I'm completely serious, too.

There's a four credit 'F' in Russian 101 on my college transcript for a reason, kids.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:08 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

...but I think I just found the Cake Eater Mother's Christmas present!

She'd seriously dig being able to have the computer power a ciggie lighter!

Kinda makes me wish I still smoked. That's coo-el.

Posted by: Kathy at 06:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 40 words, total size 1 kb.