He's Baaaaack.

Ah, I'm so freakin' relieved. Phew. I was beginning to wonder if he'd died and no one was going to tell us.

Go read this. And then this.

Now you understand why I wrote this, correct?

My surfing chi has been restored to balance.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:38 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Supposedly Microsquash can never quite seem to close all the holes in their Internet Explorer browser, and are constantly having to release security patches, but yet they think they're the ones best suited to handle the spyware problem?

And the market went down for Symantec and McAfee when this was announced---even though neither of these programs deals with spyware.

The market needs to get a frickin' clue.

Perhaps Bill Gates can buy them one.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:33 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I wouldn't put it past your dad to just hasten the birthday celebrations so he could eat cake, but he could be telling the truth. Just in case it's the latter...

Happy 1st Birthday, Satchel!

Gawd. This kid always makes my ovaries twitch.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Someone's suing Fear Factor.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Watching contestants eat dead rats on NBC's gross-out stunt show "Fear Factor" so disgusted a Cleveland man that he has sued NBC for $2.5 million, saying he could not stomach what he saw.

In a handwritten four-page lawsuit filed in federal court in Cleveland on Tuesday, paralegal Austin Aitken said, "To have the individuals on the show eat (yes) and drink dead rats was crazy and from a viewer's point of view made me throw-up as well an another in the house at the same time."

His suit added, "NBC is sending the wrong message to its TV watchers that cash can make or have people do just about anything beyond reasoning (sic) and in most cases against their will." {...}

Of course this is a bogus lawsuit and it's all about the money, because when this dude was contacted for a comment, he wouldn't say anything unless it was a "paid interview situation." But I applaud the sentiment, nonetheless.

He couldn't have found a more deserving target.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:40 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Allrighty then.

I finished Right Ho, Jeeves last night.

My conclusions---which I all know you've been waiting for with bated breath---can be found after the jump. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 02:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Plans for TV viewing this evening:

1. Lost.

2. Alias. SYDNEY'S BACK, BITCH! (And it's about frickin' time, too.)

3. West Wing. Which will be taped, of course.

See ya tomorrow!

Posted by: Kathy at 06:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Will need to console Mr. H. over this.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I've been harping for over a month now as to how people should start watching House, MD because I like it and I don't want it to be cancelled! Honestly, despite its loathsome network home, it's really a good show.

If you're interested yet haven't tuned in because you don't like coming in late on a series, well, know they're rerunning the pilot tonight. 9E/8C on your local Fox station. Neither is there going to be a new episode until that awful American Idol starts up at the end of the month and can provide a solid lead-in (although, I have to wonder how many people are going to watch both shows, American Idol fans being who they invariably are.), so you have the opportunity to catch up.

/plug

Posted by: Kathy at 03:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Rich has decided that the qualifier "seldom" should be removed from his title for the length of a week.

Will he be as wild a rover without being seldom sober?

Hmmmmm.

This should be interesting.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:00 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As in, right on the.

{...}It's so easy to be cynical. Mega stars stumping for a cause just gives my cynicism that bitter twinge. I get a bad taste in my mouth every time a group of celebrities (or psuedo celebrities) get together to try to get you, their fans, to donate to a cause. I think, instead of spending time getting all these people together, renting a studio, writing a song, recording the song, putting the album in stores, waiting for the constant airplay to kick in and, in essence, begging their public to send money to whatever they are singing about - why don't they all just reach into their pockets and donate a cool million each? Sondra did it. Leonardo did it. It seems a hell of lot more sensible, logistically and monetarily, to just cut a check and get the money where it's going. But, no. Rather than donate out of their own bank accounts, they'd rather reach out to you - you who buys their albums and t-shirts, you who probably has $24 in your bank account at the moment and no gas in your car - to put the dollars in the coffer because, hey, they are donating their time, man. They are donating their talents. And that should be enough. Right?

Any moment now Bruce Springsteen will hold a press conference, with Bono on one side and Sting on the other. They'll announce a huge show at some vast stadium, maybe two stadiums - one in the U.S. and one in the U.K. Bob Geldof will come out of obscurity to smile for the cameras and remind people that he was at the forefront of the pop-star-as-philanthropist movement. Tickets will be $50 and up. There will be t-shirts, water and food for sale at the show, as well as frisbees and beach balls imprinted with the TsunamiAid logo, which will be copyrighted and trademarked and perhaps drawn by a famous artists. The shows will be simulcast on Pay-per-View. The second the concert is over and the now broke fans have gone home, the DVD and CD will be for sale. Millions and millions of dollars will be raised. By the fans of these stars. Yet the stars will get the credit for raising the money.

We don't need overripe pop stars to get us to donate. How much has Amazon raised already? How much in private donations have been given? How many people have already volunteered to go over and help with the recovery efforts? We did this all without the benefit of some guy with a hit record telling us to.{...}

Posted by: Kathy at 12:19 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Now, I fully realize Tara Reid was probably stoned/drunk/coked-up when this photo was taken. I am also aware that this might have been a calculated move on her part, but...

...how do you wear a dress like that and not realize your tit is hanging out for all and sundry to see? Particularly when she can somehow manage the feat I always have issues with: hanging on to a stole. Yet, despite her stole-clenching abilities she's---somehow---COMPLETELY OBLIVIOUS that her BOOB is hanging out? One would think it would have felt a bit drafty at the very least.

What the hell?

Posted by: Kathy at 07:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Drew is an attention seeking whore.

Seriously.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:02 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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To keep my wallet and handbag cleaned out and presentable.

And that's it.

The Cake Eater Chronicles: We're All About Keeping That Bar Set Low!

Posted by: Kathy at 11:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Posted by: Kathy at 10:48 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Thank you very much! You're here either because you donated to the Cake Eater Chronicles, or you bought something from one of our online shops. Specific information is below in either event.

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Posted by: MRN aka "The Husband" at 07:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)

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