Take the jump for a Friday treat.

(Mom, skip right past this one, eh?) more...

Posted by: Kathy at 12:31 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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That would be the sound of my head hitting the desk repeatedly.

{...}Nor does the 37-year-old share Bond's love of Martinis shaken and stirred.

"I love a Martini straight up. I don't think anybody makes a Martini stirred any more," he said. {...}

It's shaken not stirred, you flipping idiot! NOT shaken and stirred.

(Hat Tip: Ith, who pretty much wrote the same damn post, but it was such an egregious error that I feel the need to pile on.}

Posted by: Kathy at 10:45 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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1 LOL! A pile on is well deserved.

Posted by: Ith at October 27, 2005 11:02 PM (P/TlQ)

2 Do you suppose gnat for brains (and that's a concession to the Cake Eater Mom) will pull a Miers and withdraw his name?? Nah, he's too flippin' stoopid. Personally, I'd like to see Adrian Paul (Highlander TV series) take the role...after all, there can be only ONE. He's hot! {{swoon}}

Posted by: Chrissy at October 28, 2005 08:15 AM (zJsUT)

3 I think Clive Owen would have been perfect, but he's too highbrow or whatever for the role. Daniel isn't a bad actor, per se. I would highly recommend Layer Cake. V.V.Good as Bridget Jones would say. And he's a nice piece of eye candy.

Posted by: Kathy at October 28, 2005 08:34 AM (kZ6IS)

4 I also see that he's phobic about firearms. I don't have the link, but he made a comment recently about how guns frighten him, and he's convinced that guns do nothing but hurt people. Great, the new James Bond is a disciple of Sarah Brady. I guess he's going to grow a mullet and start playing hockey in the next Bond movie. Geez, if they're going to go this way with the character, they might as well hire Richard Dean Anderson to play the part.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at October 28, 2005 11:17 AM (M7kiy)

5 AIEEEEEEE! He's alive! Where have you been, Russ? I was starting to get worried about you!

Posted by: Kathy at October 28, 2005 11:40 AM (kZ6IS)

6 Yes, I cringed when I saw that article too, but didn't get around to mocking it. Thank you for saving me the trouble.

Posted by: andy at October 28, 2005 11:56 AM (vX6Is)

7 Am I the only one disturbed by the fact that this asshat confuses the whole "straight up" versus "on the rocks" issue with the "shaken" versus "stirred" issue? Sweet Jeebus, this can NOT be the new Bond.

Posted by: Doug at October 28, 2005 12:54 PM (b+3Ky)

8 I got a part time job hiding under Scooter Libby's porch to pull cable for the wiretaps. Mr. Fitzgerald paid me double to work nights and weekends, and I figured "Hey, I can use the money to fix my broken motorcycle". Yes, you heard that right. Broken. And sitting at a shop in State College PA. At $50 a pint, I figure that I'll need to sell around 20 pints of blood plasma to make the repairs.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at October 28, 2005 08:02 PM (ywZa8)

9 Wow, I'm losing it. Make that 40 pints of plasma. Usually I'm good with calculations in my head.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at October 28, 2005 09:19 PM (ywZa8)

10 Oh, ouch! What's the matter with it?

Posted by: Kathy at October 28, 2005 10:04 PM (kZ6IS)

11 Overheated & busted a connecting rod. The pieces of the broken con rod played havoc in the crankcase, so they're taking it apart right now to see which parts need to be replaced.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at October 29, 2005 07:50 AM (M7kiy)

12 Oh, maaan. I'm sorry. Is it deer season yet? If it is go and kill bambi a few dozen times---that'll help with the frustration.

Posted by: Kathy at October 29, 2005 11:09 AM (kZ6IS)

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Well, Chrissy claims she's no longer feisty, but I'm not believing her. But that's irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is that Chrissy is blogging again. And has a new moo knewvian home

New title, new mantra, same great woman! Run along and thank your lucky stars that she's baaaaaaaaaaaack!

Posted by: Kathy at 09:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 Heh. The secret's out.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at October 26, 2005 09:38 AM (QriEg)

2 Oh, thank you, girlfriend! A warmer welcome home I could not have dreamed or wished for. ; )

Posted by: Chrissy at October 26, 2005 10:33 AM (hbYbX)

3 well, I'm just stating the obvious, but you're very welcome.

Posted by: Kathy at October 26, 2005 11:00 AM (kZ6IS)

4 It is a cause for great rejoicing!

Posted by: RP at October 27, 2005 12:49 PM (LlPKh)

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Posted by: Kathy at 10:51 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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1 My kind of post Thank you from coloured leaf free CA. I wish I lived smewhere with an actual autumn.

Posted by: Ith at October 24, 2005 05:17 PM (IHVEd)

2 Ah, but you don't want the actual winter that follows. I guarantee it

Posted by: Kathy at October 24, 2005 08:21 PM (kZ6IS)

3 I actually miss winter. Strange, but true

Posted by: Ith at October 24, 2005 11:36 PM (P/TlQ)

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The husband complains every now and again about my magazine habit. Not about the fact that I read them, but about the fact that I save them. Now, I fully admit I'm weird this way. While some people would be content to keep a file full of articles they'd liked and had ripped out of magazines, that's not my m.o. I like to keep the entire magazine itself because it provides a frame of reference for the article. For instance, somewhere in the vast collection of junk that one could identify as my belongings, there is a Life magazine from July 1969. That was back when Life still published weekly and was huge---and this particular issue covered the first moon landing. Now, I hadn't even been born yet when this was published, but I found this particular issue, of course, to be very, very cool when I came across it in the Cake Eater folks' assorted clobber. Not only did you have cool moon landing photographs, but you had ads for portable radios. And for cigarettes and for brands of cheap whiskey that don't even exist any more. Pretty cool, no?

Yeah. Go ahead and call me Lileks if you must. I can take it.

But the husband isn't wild about this magazine habit. Because I like to keep a lot of magazines. For many different and varied reasons. And they have a tendency to pile up. This annoys him, and, of course, he wants me to throw them out. I refuse and say, "Gee, honey, you'll never know when they'll come in handy!" Like today. When dearest Jonathan mentioned an article on Sarah Silverman from the March 1999 GQ in this post, I was able to email and inform him that I had that issue of GQ lying around. I asked him if he would like me to scan the article for him. He responded in the affirmative and so I present the scanned copy of Michael MacCambridge's Sarah Silverman Has The Cleanest Breasts in America.

Which I never would have been able to post if I wasn't a packrat!

Take the jump if you're interested in actually reading the article. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 03:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Since today's the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar, I have yet another excuse to post this picture, taken by yours truly in a moment of daring in the crypt at St. Paul's in London, where you're not supposed to take pictures because it's a. either disrespectful to the people who are buried there or b. because flash photography will hurt the tombstones or something to that effect.

If you couldn't already tell, I'm pretty proud of this picture.

Anyhoo...

Of course, if you want to know what actually happened during the battle, go here for Robbo's account. The Big Hominid has chimed in as well.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:30 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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About the probabilities of Monopoly.

Just in case you're curious---the Reds give you the best bang for your buck.

Personally, I prefer the Greens, but to each their own. If nothing else, this gives credence to my theory that Park Place and Boardwalk are chump investments.

Posted by: Kathy at 04:06 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Ahem.

A bunch of football players decided to have a party wherein they got drunk, laid and treated everyone below them on the social strata like crap.

And this is different from high school, how?

Seriously. John Hughes could make a decent movie from this one.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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But I really can't quite resist.

You see, I have this photo of the Cake Eater Mom from when I was a little girl. It was taken in our dining room at our old house while she was working on some sewing project back in the day before she went pro and converted the basement into sewing central. Whomever took this particular photograph caught her completely by surprise. I'm assuming the photographer was Dad, but you never know: we had a surplus of people hanging about in those days.

Now, Mom hates this picture. I know for a fact that she despises this picture. She, I'm sure, thought this picture had disappeared into the ether somewhere. That it had been destroyed or lost or whatever. I sure she thought she was safe from this picture ever being seen again.

Well, not so.

The reason I'm posting a thirty-some-odd-year-old photo of my mother is because it's her birthday today!

Don't you wish you had a child like me?

{Insert evil chuckle here}

UPDATE: Hey Mom, did you know you share a birthday with Maggie Thatcher? Cooo-el.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:12 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Because then we will know who will play James Bond now that Pierce has hung it up.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, the Hollywood studio backing new Bond film "Casino Royale,"said on Wednesday that the actor who will portray the suave secret agent with a license to kill would be named at a news conference in London on October 14.

No further details were disclosed, and the mystery remains over who will star in the film franchise that has grossed nearly $4 billion at global box offices since the first Bond flick, "Dr. No," hit the silver screen in 1962.

Reports in London have identified English actor
Daniel Craig, who recently starred in the gangster film, "Layer Cake," as the new Bond, but that could not be confirmed.{...}

Daniel Craig, eh?

Curious. We shall see if shagging Sienna on the side was a good career move.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Born to Run sucks. It is loaded with cheesy innuendo, hence it is not great poetry, nor is it even the best song in Springsteen's catalogue, let alone the best rock song ever. However, if you're doomed to sticking with the Springsteen catalogue, Thunder Road, is great poetry. It wins. Hands down. It kicks Born to Run's ass every day of the week and twice on Sundays. I wouldn't say Thunder Road was the greatest rock song ever, either. But it's pretty damn good.

Lyrics can be found after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 10:38 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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But instead, they committed Smurf genocide.

Putting aside the very unsmurfy genocide for a brief moment, you just know Gargamel is just pissed off right now. UNICEF---freakin' UNICEF---succeeded where he's failed too many times to count. He's probably drunk in his cottage right now, and is trying to come up with fun and interesting ways of torturing the cat.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:17 AM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 Can I just say this REALLY pisses me off? Where does UNICEF get off, huh? They murder and maim a beloved icon from my childhood, and this is supposed to get me to want to donate? Screw that! That is so freakin' unlikely now, I can't even begin to express it. What's next? Strawberry Shortcake and Huckleberry Finn become landmine victims on their way to Porcupine Peak? Barbie gets gang-raped in her Malibu beach house? Or perhaps, the Bratz girls will get sold as sex slaves to unsavory UN peacekeepers. This is disgusting. It is desperate, reaching, and wholly without merit. I find the entire thing reprehensible. Blech! What some people won't do to get attention.

Posted by: Phoenix at October 12, 2005 11:06 AM (4N2f4)

2 And you're worried that villains vanquished has become pussified????? have no fear, m'dear.

Posted by: Kathy at October 12, 2005 11:15 AM (boYqP)

3 Curiously, that's not the first time we've seen Smurfette at less than her best.

Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at October 12, 2005 09:45 PM (boYqP)

4 Glenn Beck had the same thoughts as you and did another blurb on the smurfs. I don't know if it is on his website or not. VERY funny. Christi

Posted by: Christi at October 12, 2005 10:11 PM (h6L+r)

5 Uh gee....not to put too fine a point on it....but did some of you folks MISS the entire intent of the UNICEF use of Smurfs? The campaign is DESIGNED to get YOU to REACT to the problem of war and specifically, CHILDREN in war. Yes, the images of our beloved Smurfs being subjected to so cruel a fate DOES upset us, and rightly so. Perhaps if YOU can now SEE the same fate happening to so many REAL children, you might be induced to: 1.) Question the "neccessity excuses" to go to war. 2.) Question the leadership ability of those who continually tell us we must sacrifice the lives of our children, and the children of others, so we can "maintain our way of life". 3.) Understand that we are ALL children of someone, and that none of us are "disposable". If the campaign can accomplish that...then maybe it has accomplished its goal.

Posted by: L2T at October 13, 2005 09:35 AM (aBJmJ)

6 And all that preaching from a person with the email address, "love2torture@yahoo.com"? One must really love the age of post-modernism if for no other reason than that it really does produce some first class absurdism.

Posted by: Kathy at October 13, 2005 09:59 AM (boYqP)

7 love2torture? Torture what, puppies? His own nipples? Hell, this campaign doesn't work primarily because most sane people get a chuckle out of seeing the damn blue menaces in a most un-smurfy predicament. ;p

Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at October 13, 2005 11:00 PM (boYqP)

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...as in, Murphy's Law seemed to rule over Robbo's Saturday with the Llama-ettes.

Go read and be enlightened about everything that could possibly go wrong when visiting the mall on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:26 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As in this is guaranteed to do three things.

1. It is guaranteed to make the husband laugh long and hard
2. It is guaranteed to make his sister blow a freakin' gasket because she's a die hard creationist.
3. It is guaranteed to make sure much amusement is had by me while watching the two of them slug it out. (No pun intended, but am appreciating the one that sprung up there, thankyouverymuch.)

{One HUGE tip of the hat to Sheila)

Posted by: Kathy at 10:01 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Just for you my lovelies, here's an interesting article on how to get around 0870 numbers.

Enjoy, and don't say I never did anything for you.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:07 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Just typical.. I read this after I've stuck the phone down and spent 10 minutes on hold )

Posted by: Nugget at October 10, 2005 08:47 AM (U9kHN)

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Yes, please.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:09 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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It was 88 degrees and very muggy on Monday.

Of course we turned the AC on, not being the kind of people who enjoy sweating for the heck of it.

Yesterday---Tuesday---it started raining. We had several typhoon strength thunderstorms last night, and it's kept on through this morning. But, fortunately, it was still warm when I woke up this morning. As in it was sixty-eight degrees. Which is nice for this time of the year. It was also still raining.

But the rain has stopped for the time being. The wind has picked up. And the temperature is dropping: it's currently fifty-seven.

Now my little weather bar on my browser is telling me that the low for today will be thirty-six degrees with a chance of a snow or rain shower later on this evening.

Only in the midwest can you go from using the AC to using the furnace within a span of forty-eight hours!

My mother, who is currently on her yearly Florida jaunt with my father, is undoubtedly laughing her head off as she reads this.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:28 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I think Don Cheadle should be added to this list, and Emily Watson and Emma Thompson should be added to this one.

But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:09 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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And the answer to that question is NicoShot:

A German company has come up with a novel way of beating bans on smoking in pubs - put the nicotine in the beer.

A new beer, known as NicoShot, is undergoing testing in Germany with hopes it can be moved toward approval in the next few months.

Each beer contains three milligrams of nicotine and a 6.3% alcohol reading.

Its German maker, Nautilus, claims the beer is designed to help smokers quit the habit rather than make the drink addictive.

"While NicoShot can lessen cravings, it is not a 'cure' for smoking," Nautilus said.

"But it can help you make changes in your lifestyle without having to walk out of the bar for a quick smoke to deal with sudden withdrawal symptoms.

"Over time, when you are more comfortable being a non-smoker, the use of nicotine beer can be reduced and then stopped."

What I want to know is this: will QuitPlan start sending this stuff out in lieu of patches? Because it serves, essentially, the same function as the patch, only it has the added benefit of helping you to get blitzed in the meanwhile. That should help with the nic fits, shouldn't it?

Furthermore, as a taxpaying citizen of the State of Minnesota, I demand that the State Legislature enact a law---maybe Pawlenty can do it if he's not too busy having to pay off Big Tobacco for lying about the "health impact fee"---that dictates all bars in the affected smoking ban area shoud be required by law to keep this stuff on tap to supply the smokers who would normally have to go out into the deep freeze that is Minnesota to smoke. It's the humane thing to do---and the State should have to pay for it, too. They'll pay for patches: they should have to pay for NicoShot too. Since bars and restaurants are the logical outlet for this product, it seems only fair that they should have to compensate bar owners for the expense of such an alternative to smoking.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:46 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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God help us, the social conservatives are cheesed over the nomination of Harriet Miers. There are some good roundups of blogosphere opinions here, here, and here.

I have a few points to make, but I can't be bothered with the fuss of putting them in essay format, so I shall enumerate them and you, my devoted Cake Eater Readers, can be relieved that, for once, I tried to be a champion of brevity.

1. I find it interesting that Miers nomination is being seen, mainly, as a betrayal of social conservatives in favor of cronyism, rather than what it actually is: a bone thrown to the moderates and swing voters. This is GDub setting up the party for the 2008 Presidential Elections by giving the moderates a reason to stick around after all the homage he's paid to the social conservative agenda.

And all of this is only dependent upon finding out that Miers is not, indeed, a far-right candidate. Which, I hasten to add, we don't know. One check written to Lloyd Bentsen's campaign does not a NARAL member make.

2. It could, perhaps, be a good thing to have a Supreme Court Justice who's never been a judge before.

Given the fabulous ruling we had with Kelo this summer, do you think that, perhaps, someone other than a legal scholar who's done nothing but clerked, written opinions on this that or the other and has pretty much done everything the way they were supposed to could read the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and decide that property rights are inviolable? Or do you really need a legal pedigree a mile long to decide such things?

3. So what if she's almost sixty. Who cares? I hesitate to point this out, but conservatives near and far bluntly rejected any criticism that Justice Roberts was too young to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. They claimed he should be judged on his ability to judge issues fairly with respect to the Constitution; that the age and experience card held no value as far as they were concerned.. Why, now that the shoe is on the other foot, is it not about abilities but rather about the tyranny of a life-time appointment and the threat that that lifetime might be too short?

In short, everyone is caterwauling over nothing right now. Just like with John Roberts we know squat about this nominee. But we'll find out more about her when she goes up for confirmation hearings, won't we? Which is how the system is supposed to work. Remember?

Honestly, I can't figure out if the caterwaulers are cheesed that Bush nominated a supposed moderate conservative or if it's because he's not playing the game the way they think he should.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:38 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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