Day: November 8, 2004

Brother Jerome sent me this. I don’t think it should be called Jesusland, though. That would make it sound like a theme park, rather than a (deleted.) It should be called One Nation Under God, or ONUG for short. I don’t know who to credit. I sure as heck wouldn’t mind being able to go to Seattle or Eugene or SF without a passport handy. And this will happen the twelfth of never, folks, because about half of the military industrial complex in the US is in California, and the National Governing Party of the US would never let them go. Oh, and as for that constitutional amendment about the foreign born not being able to be president? Consider it passed.

Does anybody reading this do Flash Animation? I just had a great idea for an extremely brief, funny, musical flash animation and I need a super genius to help me for free. It has kitties!!! It has opportunities to make kitties do stupid things! In context! It will be a hit!

Just in case your mammal identification skills are rusty, these are THREE TORPID DORMICE. They are not the blind mice of song and legend, because you can see they still have their tails.

I’ve felt like that, haven’t you? Look how hard they are sleeping! Why, they are sleeping as if their lives depended on it, or something. Like humans, these critters are an endangered species. Credit goes to REUTERS/Steven Robinson/BBC/Handout. Please do not copy without attribution.

Kate’s school chum Larry was killed yesterday at 6th and 11th here in Burnaby. Don’t jaywalk especially without conspicuity garments. Kate got home from the spontaneous Memorial for Larry yesterday and told me something that made my blood run cold. Larry’s father lost his wife, daughter and another male relative in a car accident fairly recently. He has one son left. Can you imagine what this guy is going through right now? It’s crushing to think of it, let alone imagine what it’s like to be in his shoes. He came down to the spontaneous memorial too. The funeral is Wednesday and Katie’s going. For some of the kids in Katie’s circle this is the second chum to die in six months, the first one committed suicide. I light a candle for Larry, Larry’s dad and surviving sibling, and the driver of the car, who, unless a complete sociopath, is probably having a very hard time right now. Even if you were just going the speed limit, if you’re coming over the hill at that intersection it would be very easy to paste somebody. And a block from a crosswalk too. Katie says she’s never ever going to jaywalk again.

Not much to report. Certain aspects of family life at the moment are supremely icky, but my end of the universe is holding up quite nicely, and I just put a roast beast in the oven. The Spit yesterday was divine… Keith came along for part of it. Scored the Curse of Chalion first edition in hardcover for 16 bucks (I’ve read it already. Very entertaining.) Tom Reamy’s Blind Voices, which I have been looking for for years, a book on Survival Japanese for Keith, and also for Keith the second of Turtledove’s Videssos sequence. The food at Tomato was great and I really want some more of those low fat turkey sausages, they were fabulous. There was some dessert place out in the wilds that had pear almond chocolate torte, and yes, it was precisely as good as it sounds. Church was okay. 3 down, 6 to go. Have to collect the keys off Noel (he closed for me after I put stuff away) on Wednesday at the next and possibly my last board meeting… they’re still trying to figure on whether we want to have a meeting in December. Must go vacuum things, Glen is coming. John, bless his soul, is going to go pick Paul up for me so I can cook etc. Talked to Tammy this morning but not for long enough. I’m bagged. The vegetable I most closely resemble at the moment is a cabbage.