We're The Boys In The Chorus

Can't get enough of those Bugs Bunny cartoons.

This one, called "What's Up Doc" has the same cliches that every celebrity insider interview has -- not much has changed in 50 years.

Bugs is lounging by the pool in Hollywood as the gossip columnist calls to interview him. He starts with his parents spotting early acting talent in their baby bunny. Then he goes through the whole bit of trying to break out of the chorusline. Even the tantrum throwing as he finally gives up and swears, "I'm not performing again until I get the right part," and he walks off the set.

Soon he's starving and trying to get any work at all. A starving out-of-work rabbit looks pretty pathetic.

Finally he teams with Elmer J. Fudd (for some reason my son calls him E.J. Fudd, like they are old pals) and they hit the vaudeville circuit (see steamer trunks with Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago stickers glued on) and accidentally stumble on the tagline "What's Up, Doc?" which drives crowds wild. They don't even know why it works, but they certainly know that it DOES work for some reason.

I won't tell you the end ... but if you know anything about show biz ... what goes up, must come down.

Werner's Back

Great to see Werner's back from Amsterdam. Don't miss all his pix. Congratulations on all the honors.

Jeneane Ready For Double Angel Round

Talk about killer apps! Jeneane goes two better than MeetUp.

Credit Due

In the post below, I linked to an artist I discovered from another blogger. So let me give credit where credit is due. First, thanks to Boris (who thanks Aaron) for the link to Sam Brown. of Exploding Dog. I think his stuff is terriifc. I like this and this and this and this.

Overwhelmed?

I suppose I could dig up some weird information on the net about how some planets are in some weird alignment and weird vibrations are putting us all in a weird place ... but I'll just go with my gut on this and say ... ARE THINGS A LITTLE WEIRD AND OVERWHELMING OR WHAT?!

So many of us are still out of work, out of favor, out of cash, out in the cold, but here's the thing.

We really are turning a corner. It's one helluva of a long endless corner, but it's happening.

So here's my thought for today -- very AA I admit -- but really, take it one day at a time here.

Notice the nice things about this day ... and it might simply be a cup of coffee that tastes great.

And let me send this along.

Margaret, You Rock

Margaret is working hard at her exams and I just wanted to say GO GIRL! Sounds like AKMA's committing the sin of pride -- but it's hard not to be proud of such a terrific wife and incredible kids. We'll forgive you this time, parson.

Last Year Brrrrr

It was a lot colder round about this time of year, last year.

Of Fame And Fortune

I've had the blessing of knowing a number of rather well-known, if not famous and rather fortunate people in my life. They run the range from business leaders to writers, actors, painters, directors, news reporters, poets and bloggers. Some are men, some are women.

One is them was Oprah. I got a chance to be on her show after writing a letter to the book club about how much I liked the book selection for that show. I didn't have an inside track, I just wrote a letter. I don't know her at all well, I just know her from this experience. She had one thing in common with all the other successful people I've known. It wasn't anything particularly mysterious. It wasn't a strategy open to a select few -- it's available to one and all. She worked her ass off to get where she was and she is still working very hard.

I've met people who were making millions of dollars, who were recognized by anyone walking down the street. To a one, they shared this same capacity for working very hard. None of them got where they were by luck alone. Most of them got there by getting up early, getting to the place they worked first, before everyone else, working an endless day and often as not, smiling through it and making it look easy. Yes, some had big tempers and some weren't as hard-working as others, but most of them simply faced the fact that in a pinch, hard work, execution and delivery carry the day. Were they lucky? I'd say they made their own luck by working hard. Many err on the side of being friendly and generous and that makes other people want to work with them and for them.

I think of it whenever I have an attack of "they have it better than me-itis" -- I think of the bloggers I know who are on the alleged "A list" and I think of the hours they spend writing, speaking, trekking across the country on airplanes, taking risks and chances with their careers, the time they miss with their families and friends, the way they put themselves on the line continuously by even HAVING an opinion and stating it. There's no mystery to their alleged fame and fortune -- they work for it.

Found The Halloween Candy

Just was talking to a girlfriend, Ruth, who I went to college with and love to chat with, we were going on and on. She's also a writer and a great one, so there's no end to stuff we can discuss.

But then ...

I found the leftover Halloween candy. I always hide it away from my son and suddenly find it some place strange.

I said, "I gotta go, I found the Halloween candy." She knows the drill. We're both moms. You have to steal the stuff before the kids get home and catch you with it.

It's been picked pretty clean. Kitkats -- gone. Twix -- gone. Plain Hershey Chocolate Bars -- gone.

Unfortunately, just a lot of Hershey's with Almonds. Not a favorite around here ... but they'll do in a pinch.

There Is A God

I found this post so poignant and endearing for some reason when it was published last week on Fleshbot. I found myself feeling slightly touched by it.

When we're all so busy shaving hair OFF these days, it's nice to know that some artist is laboring over a hot monitor cutting and pasting some pubic hair ON an unfortunate digital damsel without cover, just makes you feel like people still care about the little things. The little things that make us human. I can feel for her -- she just wanted to look like all the other girls in the locker room when it was time to put on her digital swimsuit.

Well, you know there is a God in Heaven when acts of selflessness, such as these, walk this world. Let's hope she doesn't get her hands on a digital Venus and waste the guy's hours of painstaking work.

When The Ice Cream Gets Whiskers

When you look into a box of old ice cream, that's been in the freezer too long -- say the quart size cartouche-shaped box of Neopolitan -- strawberry, chocolate and vanilla -- to find those white grandpa-ish ice whiskers sprouting, you must feel free to ditch the the whole box, when it gives you a wave of existential angst, as well it might. Just let it go. You just have to let some things go.

New York Snake Dance

Wonderful weekend in New York hooking up with a bunch of terrific bloggers but I have to describe this utterly mysterious thing that happened at dinner at The Oyster Bar.

First you have to visualize one section of the restaurant that has large horse-shoe-shaped counters -- about four of them. This is the most fun place to plop down and get a bowl of clam chowder or oyster stew. I like the UNSTUFFY feeling of the counter area, as opposed to the fancy-schmancy dining room seating. Each of these horse-shoe shaped counters holds about 12 people up one side and another 12 down the other. When the restaurant is in full swing, they are always packed and just like you would in any diner, you have to stand around patiently and HOPE to get a seat, or if you're really lucky, two seats together or if you're talking total miracle, three seats together.

I hadn't thought about this when I suggested dinner there on Saturday night with a bunch of bloggers. It was probably a dreadful choice as a venue, but I didn't really care, I just wanted to go there.

When we got there, there was one big problem right away. Out of the 4 counter areas -- 3 were closed. That meant we could only pray to sit in about 24 available seats and guess what, NOT ONE WAS AVAILABLE. Strangely, once we decided not to worry about it, everyone made a trip to the rest rooms and then returned, there were 2 seats available. Even more strangely, suddenly a few more seats opened up, exactly the number we needed and they opened up right next to our other 2 friends who'd snagged seats.

The plot thickens as three more bloggers arrive, I gulp ... and damned if three more seats didn't miraculously open at the far end of the snake chain of bloggers, just in the right place at the right time. Stranger and stranger.

Then one more blogger -- and this one on crutches -- so we really needed a seat, just one. And guess what -- yes, one more opened.

Two guys popped up towards the end of the meal, just as I was leaving and leaving two open seats. It was the most peculiar thing.

Great to see everyone. Thanks for coming down, up, over, across the river, over the border, wherever you hailed from. Sorry I couldn't stay long and late, but let's figure it was just a first meet-and-greet with many more to follow.

Monday Meeting Reschedule

To All Staff: The Monday Morning Editorial Meeting will NOT be at 9:00 today, but is rescheduled for 12:00 Noon EST to accomodate all those far-flung bloggers in Vegas for Comdex and those even further afield.

Kudos to Cory in the NYTimes Sunday Mag yesterday. All I want for Xmas is a roomba, oh yes.

And I did not appreciate hearing from the security guards at Mandalay Bay that three of you were being held for questioning after being chased naked through the lobby wearing a parrot , no wait, ... how did they put it, not a parrot, but "an extremely expensive rare cockatoo." BTW, the cost for letting the parrot escape is $2500, which the three of you can split. Try keeping your cockatoos locked up next time guys.

We have a new editorial assistant joining us as of today. Her name is Candy, now, folks be nice. She used to work at Penthouse and I know she can handle anything you throw at her. She'll be demonstrating how to load the lower paper tray in the new copier, with "the big paper" as you techy geniuses refer to it.

A brief reminder -- the deadlines on the Thanksgiving pieces are THIS FRIDAY, we try to publish these holiday treats BEFORE the actual holiday. I don't want to hear any excuses. I want to see rough drafts by this Thursday. Here's the list I have so far:

Locke: How Martha Stewart Killed Turkey Day
Ito: Remind Me Why I'm Giving Thanks Again
Weinberger: Why My Wife Wanted To Kill Me When I Invited 20,000 Dean Supporters To Dinner A Week Before Thanksgiving
Devine: Thanksgiving Feed: Dining on RSS and Politicoblogs For The Holidays
Doc: Holiday Rug Cleaning Tips

And feel free to stop asking me about my trip to NYC this weekend -- I'll be posting my trip report later today.

Flying High

Talk about windy! The things literally flying by in my backyard are making me laugh out loud. Like big plastic garbage can lids being chased by big plastic garbage cans and tumbling patio furniture being chased by falling leaves -- but wait, if they are falling horizontally at supersonic speed - I guess they are NOT falling leaves -- they seem to be leaves on a mission -- to end up in California or something. They are shooting by. And the noise -- a roaring wind noisy enough to feel as if it could eat us all in one bite. Ferocious!

Dean Event

David Weinberger's hosting a Dean event at his house next Tuesday night if I remember correctly. David, is it still on?

Big Snow Up North

Looks like our cold windy weather in Boston is piles of snow in Killington and Stowe. Terrific.

Gary Turner's Two

Wow! It's Gary's 2-year-old blog birthday. Mine's coming up soon(ish) too. Last year's 1-year-old party at Yenching in Harvard Square seems about 15 years ago.

AKMA And Margaret's Christmas List

Nice to know the priest and his terrific wife are making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who's naughty and nice, all for me. So what can I expect under the tree again -- the book, or an absolute male -- for research purposes only of course.

Hot Babe, Age 60?

Hey Fleshbot, help me out here. That lovely blonde babe on your site named Chloe has a link to a profile that mentions this pussycat was born in 1943. I mean, yes, plastic surgery is miraculous, but surely this is a typo?

I guess whoever said 60 is the new 35 had a point.

Roast That Bird

Hey, check this out. Early Bird, yup. It got me thinking.

I know so many moms who are NOT doing the bird thing this year. And I mean married moms, not divorced moms, but obviously I know a number of those too.

It makes me think about how many women are NOT living their mother's lives.

If my mom had said she wasn't cooking turkey and doing the slave thing in the kitchen at Thanksgiving all of us and especially my dad would have thought she had lost her marbles. Even the notion that all women like to cook or know how to cook seems to be going out the window.

I know a lot of women who are wonderful cooks -- hey, Nell, I was thinking of you. But I know a lot of women who would rather do anything else.

Sometimes I think we're watching the De-Norman-Rockwellification of America.

This is a time of extremes, the Bush administration with it's 1950's conservativism (and 1950's ancient leaders) against a backdrop of very modern non-traditional life.

Happy Holiday Stuff

All the catalogues full of holiday stuff are cramming the mailbox. Some are really lovely I must say, but what do we really need for the holidays? Check your list.

1. People who love us;

2. People to love back;

3. Warm place to live;

4. A little family or friendly fun.

End of list. Some candles are also nice.

Ratcliffe Relo

Mitch's site has relocated to http:// www.ratcliffeblog.com for your reading and listening pleasure. Updating blogroll links is really a pain in the neck, isn't it? It's a road to hell paved with good intentions to be sure. I always expect to get the thing done and find I've forgotten to bother.

So Mitch, thanks for the email to set me straight. BTW, can you post about all your blogs and which are which and which are dead and which are alive ... I'm still confused.

Just got lost reading all your great writing over there. The thing about the WSJ piece on Canadian Healthcare was particularly good.

Like The Weather

-- Natalie Merchant, 10,000 Maniacs

The color of the sky as far as I can see is coal grey.
Lift my head from the pillow and then fall again.
With a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.
A quiver in my lips as if I might cry.

Well by the force of will my lungs are filled and so I breathe.
Lately it seems this big bed is where I never leave.
Shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.
Quiver in my voice as I cry,

"What a cold and rainy day. Where on earth is the sun hid away."

I hear the sound of a noon bell chime.
Now I`m far behind.
You`ve put in `bout half a day
while here I lie
with a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.
A quiver in my lip as if I might cry,

"What a cold and rainy day. Where on earth is the sun hid away?"

Do I need someone here to scold me
or do I need someone who`ll grab and pull me out of this four poster dull torpor pulling downward.
For it is such a long time since my better days.
I say my prayers nightly this will pass away.

The color of the sky is grey as I can see through the blinds.
Lift my head from the pillow and then fall again
with a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather.
A quiver in my voice as I cry,

"What a cold and rainy day. Where on earth is the sun hid away?"
I shiver, quiver, and try to wake.

Heading To New York

Going down to New York tomorrow on the Acela train for the weekend. The temperature today in Boston dropped like a stone from a warmish morning to freezing WINDY cold evening here.

I guess it is November, but holy heck, did they have to schedule a full-on autumn-to-winter transistion in a supersonic 5 hours?!

Halley What?

In case you wondered. My name is Halley (rhymes w/Sally) and Suitt (should have only one "T" like a law suit or suit of clothes or bathing suit).

Some mystery man just emailed me about that, so I thought I'd just post an answer.

If you switch the first letters of my first and last name, you get

Sally Hoot -- got it?

"I Like You, But Just As A Friend."

Poor geek guys have it tough. Here's one that tells you why girls always fall for the jerky macho man heartbreakers ... but then one day, the window of opportunity opens a sliver,

"Imagine for a moment that our hero has been friends with his dreamboat for months, perhaps even years. they've gotten to know each other pretty well. She's probably figured out that he's kind, smart, compassionate, etc. He's probably seen her go through a couple of relationships with jerks, and shared in her initial happiness and final misery. And he has probably fallen hopelessly in love with her. So imagine that there comes a time when she's not seeing anyone, and he manages, somehow, to convey to her that he thinks they could really be happy together without scaring her off or seeming to be other than he is. Imagine all that. What's the geek boy likely to get as a response? A rejection that involves, somewhere, the words "I like you, but as a friend."

Check out the other good advice.

I like to research these other Phd candidates in Early American Alpha Male History. They shed light on so many aspects of the alpha male experience.

Geek Makeover

Yes, there is help available. I disagree about losing the glasses. Looking not so cool or walking into walls? Go with looking a little less cool.

Geek Dating Tips

I see the book has already been written. This writer brings up one point that is PARAMOUNT. Get used to the idea boys that you are the initiator (she says pursuer) and everything will go better. It's like dancing in the old days. Someone needs to lead or you both stand there looking like idiots.

It's always better for a guy to be too pushy than too shy. We're good at slowing you down. Trust me.

Rock Book

Daniel Okrent has written a new book called Great Fortune: The History of Rockefeller Center. Here's the first chapter. Wish I had some of the pictures to show you.

The newest Land's End Christmas catalogue of all things, features a big spread about the book, with great pictures of sailors ice skating at the Rockefeller Center rink during the war, Rockettes doing their thing and the Christmas tree all lit up. It is a great place to get in a holiday mood.

I didn't need Land's End to remind me. I have been there many times before Christmas. New York's a perfect Christmas town.

Rockefeller Center

There's a lot to do there. You can eat. You can skate. You can snag champagne truffles at Teuscher's Chocolates. A favorite of mine.

It's Called Love

I wanna write about this, but I'm not sure how to exactly. It seems to touch on the sacred and the profane, the sacrum and the patella, the salacious and propitious.

Here's the simple version. A sexy guy writes a sexy blog about a million other sexy strangers. It's a great blog. You gotta like it.

But then ...

It happens ...

He finds a real live girl, that he really likes. And what's he do? Well, it's a simple story -- but it's the best story there is.

It's not wild. It's not weird. It's not sex super-sized. It's simple.

He falls in love.

And boy is that HOT!

And he is going to meet her -- he's only met her on the phone and email so far.

And we're REALLY turned on by THAT story.

And we wish him the best. And we wish her the best. And we're really okay if it doesn't happen. We want them to know it might be that Magic Moment. Or it might be Just One of Those Things.

But we love it. It's called love.

This Magic Moment

This magic moment,
so different and so new
Was like any other until I kissed you
And then it happened,
it took me by surprise
I knew that you felt it too,
by the look in your eyes

Sweeter than wine
Softer than the summer night
Everything I want, I have
Whenever I hold you tight

This magic moment
while your lips are close to mine
Will last forever,
forever till the end of time

Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh
Mm-mm-mm-mm-mm

Sweeter than wine
Softer than the summer night
Everything I want, I have
Whenever I hold you tight

This magic moment
while your lips are close to mine
Will last forever,
forever till the end of time

Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh
Magic moment
Magic moment
Magic moment

-- Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman

Great Fun, But It Was Just One Of Those Things

It was just one of those things, just one of those crazy flings.
One of those bells that now and then rings, just one of those things.
It was just one of those nights, just one of those fabulous flights.
A trip to the moon on gossamer wings, just one of those things.
If we´d thought of it, ´bout the end of it, when we started painting the town,
We´d have been aware that our love affair was too hot not to cool down.
So goodbye, dear, and Amen, here´s hoping we´ll meet now and then.
It was great fun but it was just one of those things.

Just Keep Saying It

Dow closes up over 100 points. Jeff Immelt at GE is saying the economy is coming back big time. Hope he's right.

Dow's Up After 3 Days Down

Maria Bartiromo is a babe. She just is. She's a babe and she's smart and so ... do men take her LESS seriously because she looks good?! Probably not. Do we take a man less seriously if he's handsome. I don't think so. Actually I think there's gonna be more and more pressure on MEN to look good.

But surely, oh yes, I digress.

Markets are up and I'm watching CNBC to hear what they think is behind it. I figure it's just Chris Locke's birthday which always affects the markets positively.

Bulls, according to CNBC, think this is a good market because of the "seasonal long trade" -- good time of year.

Bears, according to CNBC, it all depends on the "rate of change of company earnings into 2004" in other words, they worry there will be bad earnings announcements coming.

So which is it? It's a good game this stock market game -- you can read the tea leaves any which way.

Whatever you figure, the markets up and that's good.

Clean-up

Cleaned out my email address book. So many names at the wrong address (thanks to job changes, companies disappearing, etc.) but now the thing is much more lean and mean. I can't believe how many multiple and WRONG email addresses I had for friends and family. Feels nice to have it up-to-date. And sadly, some of the people are no longer even alive. Holy mackerel. Change, change, change.

Wild Foody Travel Blog

Watch out Zagats. A new friend has started a travel and food blog, that gets me so worked up, it's a bit like culinary porno. Don't miss THE WILD RIDE. If you forget its destination on the Net -- go look at my blogroll, I'm adding it.

Great hints here on a quick and fun way to visit London. His commentary on the hotels in London is especially helpful, as my experience with London is so hit or miss, I often find myself in a terrific hotel which I want to rave to all my friends about one visit and in a dangerous, dingy dump the next.

Have A Very Merry LEGO Mind Storm Robotics Christmas

Okay, I'm sold and I know my kid will flip for this. This mom of six gave me all the inside dope:

"As a mother of six kids- ages 5 to 15- and a home schooling mom, I asked for this set for my own birthday, and the whole family has had a blast! We have Windows XP and have not had a single problem with conflicts. My 10 year old has built and programmed a bunch of very cool robots, and is now checking out books from the library to learn more about robotics. We spend hours building and programming. The robots can be built like you would build any Lego system. The constructopedia is easy to follow if you're used to larger Lego projects. (Think Hogwarts castle complexity with gears and motors thrown in.) The programming is set up to work like Lego construction. Different parts of the programs are in different "bricks". You select the bricks you want on the computer screen, drag and clik them into place. Then you download the program to your robot and hit run! Totally simple, lots of fun, and an awsome introduction to building REAL Robots-- not remote controled vehicles. The set includes membership to an online community of robot builders. I was amazed to see some of the robots built with this set. Robots to climb stairs, draw pictures and make peanut butter sandwiches (must wash the Legos afterwards.) I recomend this set to anyone ages 10 and older interested in constructing real robots without needing extensive programming knowledge. =) "

Backing Up

Last week a friend was helping me install some new software and he asked me that ominous question, "When did you do a back-up last?" I won't tell you the answer -- it wasn't good. We went ahead and did one but the thing I found most interesting was how little I keep on my computer now and how much is network-based.

My email is not on my machine (since it's Yahoo email) and I like it being on their server both for the reason that if I travel I can get at it anywhere anytime and if my machine crashes I lose nothing. If my machine won't work -- I can walk into any Kinko's and be as productive (if not more) than I would be with my own machine.

And then the other app I use every day is this -- Blogger. And again, all my words are resident on their server, not my computer. I know many people argue against that and find that perilous, but I can guarantee you, they are better at maintaining my words than I ever would be. Blogger also gives me that same flexibility as Yahoo Mail, in terms of being able to blog anywhere I can get on the Net. I can be in Connecticut, Kansas, Calcutta or Katmandu and get online ... actually, not sure about Katmandu, but I wouldn't be surprised if I could.

So when it came down to it there were very few documents that I needed to back-up. I'm in the habit too of looking for my most recent CV or copy of a story as an attachment to email that I may have sent someone and even the act of attaching and sending, is in a way, a form of back-up. Again, if I'm out and need to get a CV to someone, I can go into Kinko's, use their computer, go to my Yahoo email, check my sent documents, get the attachment that was my most recent CV and print it. Even my bio with my picture is available on the web and I only have to send someone a link if they wanted to find out who I am.

Compared with a few years ago, when backing up daily was crucial, we've started to be much more embedded in the network in all our computing. It 's happened almost without us noticing.

Civilization

I've been talking with David Weinberger about civilization and good manners. He's very civilized and has very good manners.

Sometimes I take the notion of civilization too far. I was thinking about the fact that when I'm alone -- no one around -- and I make dinner for myself, I really actually set the table and put the food in big dishes and later serve myself, scooping stuff from the big bowl to my plate, and I was wondering if this is what normal people do when they are alone. I've given up long ago on the concept that I'm normal.

I mean ... I actually make my bed in hotels. Just makes me feel better.

100 Greatest Novels Of All Time

Dervala blogs this morning about the Observer's list of the 100 Greatest Novels (with a link from the Guardian actually) and the crazy girl has read an impressive 49 out of 100. Here's the list for you if you feel like counting. Honestly, I think Pilgrim's Progress is the dirty little secret of English Literature -- NOBODY has ever read it and nobody ever should be forced to.

I won't say how many I've read. I've read a lot because I was an English major and even in America, that means these books are your solid diet for four years of college. Don't even ask me how FEW American novels I've read -- it's embarrassing. When I was in grad school at Columbia University in NYC, I signed up for a Kamikazi LIterature for Lunatics type class where we were supposed to read one VERY THICK novel a week (500 + pages) -- Anna Karenina this week, Madame Bovary next week, Great Expectations the week after, Moby Dick for week four. It was brutal. But of course wonderful too. The teacher was John Romano. I heard he ended up out in Hollywood writing drama shows like Law & Order. Wonder what he's doing now He was a terrific professor and the course was incredible.

[Well, one more big score for the web and how it never lets you lose track of anyone. Here's an update on my old Columbia professor. John Romano did end up writing for TV in Hollywood. Bravo, man. Way to go.]

Girlism Revisited Again

Girlism revisted and revisited and revisited. Don't miss the piece on the end of feminist fashions. Power women want to look like girls. Why am I not surprised?

Discussion of Dean's Fundraising

Interesting conversation on WGBH about Dean's choice to turn down federal matching funds on the show formerly known as MacNeil Lehrer News Hour -- what's it called now? Oh, yeah, News Hour. Elaine Kamarck from Harvard University is informative. Larry Noble from Center for Responsive Politics is interesting too.

Sexy Words

I love when Doc uses sexy words like opprobrium. Mmmmm ... interesting post.

Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy

This book looks pretty incredible. Can't wait to read it

"Social critics Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) and Hochschild (The Time Bind) point out that in previous centuries the developed world imported natural resources, and now the import du jour is women, ideally, "happy peasant" women who can care for the elderly and disabled, lovingly raise children and provide sexual services for men."

-- Publishers Weekly

Another link, with the back cover blurbs.

Gary, Love Your Knees, Man

Gary Turner's strutting his stuff in his kilt again... whoa .... very hot! All my Scot friends are giving me hell for my anti-men-in-skirts posts around here. Like I said, kilts and kimonos are kewl. It's the girly skirts on guys I can't get into. Or don't want to ... Don't miss his "License To Kilt"

Real Reality TV

I really think it's sick that last night's big TV was a choice between a girl being abducted by lunatics and a girl soldier being abducted by lunatics.

If TV can't think up anything better than making money off of young girls being abducted, I say, let's take the gloves off and do a really exciting new reality TV show. It will save tons of money for our penal system.

Let's have a reality show starring different charmers like Gary Ridgway who's more than qualified as a media star having murdered 48 women.

Let's put 48 live women on an island with him and see how long he survives. I'm happy to be one of the lucky ladies. Of course, the show should be topless, one must always consider the ratings.

I'm sewing my grass skirt as we speak. I've got a nice piece of strong fishing line top-stitched loosely into the waistband that is easy to pull out quickly and slip right around his neck.

I Really Didn't Do What I Can't Tell You I Didn't Do

Prince Charles needs to do a lot more wild stuff if he's going to get blamed for everything anyway. Doesn't he know that?

I think we need to give him a top ten list of really bad rumors of things he hasn't done, but people think he might have done, but we know he didn't really do and if we mentioned them, we might get sued, so we won't mention them or maybe we will after we explain that he never did any of these things.

1. Prince Charles really didn't pinch his nanny on the ass.

2. Prince Charles really didn't make George Bush pay him $87 billion for a blow job and a visit to Buckingham Palace next week.

3. Prince Charles really never ever wished he were a Tampax brand tampon.

4. Prince Charles really didn't want to play Nancy Reagan in the "The Reagans" and then when they turned him down, had a tantrum and broke three vases in the observatory with a lead pipe.

5. Prince Charles really didn't offer to be guest editor next week on Erosblog.

6. Prince Charles really, really didn't beg J.K. Rowling to read him Harry Potter in bed while he cuddled with his blankie.

7. Prince Charles really doesn't wear a camo thong under his fishing waders.

8. Prince Charles really isn't French. I think.

9. Prince Charles really isn't John Cleese, famed Monty Python cross-dressing British actor.

10. Prince Charles really doesn't need a new public relations consultant.

Halley's Best of Boston -- Submarines

I think I'm going to start writing my own Best of Boston. I just got a Turkey Sub at D'Agostino's Deli in Arlington Heights. The place is so good. The subs are a foot long, overstuffed with a different kind of deli meat each day -- Roast Beef Sub or Turkey Sub, or Meatball Sub or Pastrami Sub -- it's different every day. The price for the daily special is $3.89. All the other subs are available too, they just cost a bit more if they aren't the daily special. They are all terrific.

I was really really trying to resist and NOT stop there. I made a silent bet with myself that I would ONLY stop if it were a TURKEY SUB day -- subs aren't exactly on my diet. I figured I had it covered -- what was the chance today's sub was turkey?!

Well, of course, it was TURKEY SUB SPECIAL today. And it is so terrific! Or to use the common Boston parlance -- wicked good!

Spelling Bee

Did you ever notice how in elementary school, it's usually girls who win the spelling bees and that we are pretty good spellers? But in relationships, did you ever notice how women don't like to spell things out. We leave hints and if a man doesn't pick up on it, there can be hell to pay. Just talking to a girlfriend on email about that. She does not plan to clue the guy in. He's about to get whacked. He'll never see it coming.

Endure

On a cold Monday, with work to do, things to worry about, gloves to search for and all the rest, I remind myself that all you have to do on Mondays is endure. Just last. Just live. Before you know it, you'll have turned the thing into Tuesday and that's always easier to deal with.

Yo Jonno!

Fleshbot posted a placemarker for the last few weeks that simply read "Coming Soon" and believe me, when a guy says something like that and is STILL saying that a week later ... well, one must be sensitive to this kind of situation, but one can only be so patient for so long.

Therefore, I'm happy to announce, Fleshbot finally came last night, .... that is, came together. And best of all, the new editor is Jonno previously praised here for his terrific blog project of last spring.

Best of luck to you Jonno, Carly, Nick. I'm sending a digital potted palm to your new offices. Paste it anywhere you like.

Fleshbot looks great. It's a veritable Instapundit of porn.

Let me predict some incoming PR that we know is cooking in some big J journalist's brain, if not already written and ready to hit the presses. Some seemingly sober and serious businessy profile of Nick Denton is about to appear, all a cloaking device to really write about Fleshbot. I'll put my money on the Wall Street Journal or did it already appear and I missed it?

Fishing For Sound Bites

Glenn nails it here with a great post about the lazy-ass methods of many journalists. Writing is too hard and too much work and really good writing requires too much thought for most people -- readers included. Fast food and junk journalism have a lot in common. One makes you fat, the other makes your brain flabby.

Build Your Own Blogflex

You can see with Blogflex, those of you with bigger muscles and higher IQ's will want to go beyond the Blogflex Motivator, even the Blogflex Power Pro won't do it for you, you need to go straight to the Ultimate Blogflex.

Blogging Hardware For T2T Fitness

Okay, just call me Ms. Innovation. I finally figured it out. We need a blogging treadmill where you can work-out and blog-out at the same time. Adam Curry spilled the beans at BloggerCon when he said that maybe this blogging thing is some early stage of connecting all our brains, the very beginning of being able to converse sans words, just thought-to-thought, (T2T), so surely someone like Dean Kamen who gave us the Segway can create a Nautilus Weightlifting Treadmill Combo Brain-Scanner that gives you a buff body and a bucket full of blog after an hour's workout. That would be time well spent.

Call it Blog-Flex, but no infomercials please. I guess you'd also have to sign-up for a little surgery to put a tiny switch on the side of your head, above your ear, to enable/disable brain spam or any incoming messages or blog posts when you just wanted to turn it all off.

Ever Notice

I love getting inboxes and inboxes full of email, but once you get replying to it, ever notice the DIRECT correlation between replying to email and not getting any blogging done? Same with exercise. The more exercise, the less blogging. Always a tricky trade-off.

Love Actually

Saw the movie Love Actually tonight, which I loved actually.

A must-see before Christmas, as it follows the very mixed-up lovelives of a wide range of characters from 6 weeks before Christmas up to a lovely Christmas eve with lots of happy endings.

Just to see Hugh Grant as the new Prime Minister of England unable to get a date -- worth the price of admission, to be sure. You'd think a guy with such a nice house and such a great car and such a cool job could get a date, but even this Alpha Male comes up empty-handed throughout most of the movie ... but then omnia vincit amor.

Sign of Sunday

Netwoman blogged about this killer app and I figured I should post it over at Misbehaving. Net. It's so much fun to glue the little letters on the church sign.

Amster Amster Dam Dam Damn!

Werner's over in Amsterdam to get a big academic award and they don't do a little event over there. It's A BIG CEREMONY with tux and tails and very la-di-da! Wish I were there to see it. Best of luck.

He's got an interesting post today on drug use in Holland.

Matrix Has Killer $240M Opening Worldwide

Most interesting thing about this opening was the fact that they did NOT stagger the opening throughout the world. They opened it in theaters in the US, Japan and Europe at the same time. This was to meet piracy and copyright problems head-on allegedly, but it's a great PR stunt too.

Blue Hair Troupe

If you're in Boston, you've got to go see Blue Hair Troupe. It's a play full of musical skits about being old. They do a medley of 60's and 70's songs that is absolutely riotous -- all dressed in funny hippy and disco outfits.

They kick it off by reminding everyone that the stars of the 60's and 70's are in their sixites and seventies now!

Sorry, Mick!

They take very popular songs like the Beatles "All We Are Saying ... Is Give Peace A Chance" and turn it into a song for an old guy singing plaintively, "All We Are Saying ... Is Give My Hairpiece A Chance."

Most of the songs are so funny.

They rewrite the super sexy "Lady Marmalade" into the more tame "Voulez-vous Crochet Avec Moi Ce Soir" which brought the house down as three hip grandmas strutted their stuff along with their crocheted afghans and crochet hooks.

And then their remake of YMCA ... about joining the AARP is to die for. Whoops. I mean is great.

Good Lord

Looking forward to meeting up with Dervala in New York, but I think she's looking forward even more to simply making it back to civilization. Canada is a little more uncivilized than I imagined. She's living in a log cabin with no running water and the temperature is 20 below CELSIUS!

"As for personal dirt, it’ll freeze on my skin and chip off nicely. I only have to manage until Tuesday, when I hop the Greyhound to New York and temporarily resume my glamourpuss life, complete with glamorous indoor plumbing."

I think we better hold her hostage in the Big Apple and not let her return to the wilds of Ottawa, sorry, I mean Ontario. It's one thing to rough it in Thailand, but surely parts of Canada have running water, maybe even bathtubs.

Just teasing -- wanted to get a rise out of our Canadian bloggers -- hey, Boris, hey, Accordian Guy, what gives?!

Heading Out

Heading out to do errands and later going to the movies. I took a two-hour walk this morning in the delightful 18 degree weather. That exercise, together with yesterday's intense weight-lifting and all surely qualifies me to sit in a movie theatre stuffing my face with popcorn and Raisinets. I reorganized the linens today -- put the beach towels away :( for a long stretch of months. I have my silver down parka and heavy boots ready by the door now. I think they call it W-I-N-T-E-R.

Goodbye

A special song for a special friend. Martina McBride is really an amazing singer. I love her new song "For The Girls" and the video is terrific too.

Goodbye -- Martina McBride

Occurred to me the other day
You been gone now a couple years
Well I guess it takes a while
For someone to really disappear
And I remember where I was
When the word came about you
It was a day much like today
The sky was bright and wide and blue

And I wonder where you are
And if the pains ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say good - bye

Today my heart is big and sore
It's trying to push right through my skin
Won't see you anymore
I guess that's finally sinking in
Cause you can't make somebody see
With the simple words you say
All their beauty from within
Sometimes they just look away

And I wonder where you are
And if the pains ends when you die
And I wonder if there was
Some better way to say good - bye

Sex And The Single Older Woman

Great piece from The New York Times today about the movie, "Something's Gotta Give" -- here's an excerpt:

Sex and the Single Older Woman
By NANCY MEYERS as told to AMY BARRETT

This is the first time I've written an original screenplay by myself. If I'm not ready at 53, I'll never be. I used to work in collaboration with my now ex-husband, Charles Shyer. We would talk for months, and when we hit on something, we'd write it down. ''Private Benjamin'' came out in 1980. I wrote that with Charles and Harvey Miller. After that, I wrote ''Irreconcilable Differences'' with Charles, and then we wrote the ''Father of the Bride'' movies and ''The Parent Trap.'' Collaboration is great for screenwriting. It's not as simple as two heads are better than one, but if you find the right person, you can feed off each other. But I don't think I could have collaborated on my latest film, ''Something's Gotta Give.'' I had an idea about a man who chronically dates younger women, who meets the mother of a girl he's dating. This was more personal than other films I've written. I don't think I would have been that open.

...

What interested me about my friend was that his wanting a young woman was as much about him not wanting a woman his own age. He's gone through his 40's and 50's, but the girls stay the same age -- that's the history I gave to Jack Nicholson in ''Something's Gotta Give.'' He and his current flame go to the Hamptons to consummate their relationship. Just as they arrive at her family's beach house, her mother, played by Diane Keaton, comes in the back door. Neither knew that the other would be there. After dinner, Jack goes to the guest room with the daughter, and the mother and the aunt are talking about them in the kitchen. At first, they think they hear screams of passion. Then her daughter cries, ''Mom!'' They run in, and Jack's character is having a heart attack. Later, he recuperates at her house after getting out of the hospital. The daughter has gone back to work; the aunt has, too. So the mother is the only game in town. It's just the two of them, and they have an affair. I always thought, What if a guy like this was stranded on a desert island with me? Would I let him get to know me?

...

I won't go so far as to say this movie is a fantasy, except I have Keanu Reeves, who is the emergency-room doctor, and Jack Nicholson both fall in love with a 55-year-old woman. The man played by Jack finds himself drawn to her romantically and sexually, but later he questions it. He has just had a heart attack; he's not sure if his feelings are sort of like falling in love with your nurse. Would he really be interested under normal circumstances? All that is real. But the fact that the E.R. doctor comes along at the same time and is utterly taken with her and loves that he's drawn to her -- personally I haven't experienced that in a 36-year-old man. Do I think somebody could be drawn to the Diane Keaton character? Yeah. Is it a fantasy that he's being played by Keanu? Yes. And the fact that Jack's character comes around at the end -- is that a fantasy? I hope not.

I attended group sessions with heart-attack survivors and asked the guys what it's like. Some would go buy a Porsche or sell their businesses -- hearing how they changed their lives made me believe Jack's character could surprise himself and fall for a woman his own age. I'm aware that my movie is very hopeful. But all I know is since I made ''Something's Gotta Give,'' men on the crew and others have told me that they are now dating women their age -- not because of the movie but perhaps coincidentally. They say it's nothing like they have ever felt -- something about it is pretty great. It's probably very relaxing for them to not have to be 35 in bed when they are 55, you know?

Jack and Diane

A little story about Jack and Diane. Of course he is the prototypical Alpha Male.

Endorphin Gratification

I've been working out more lately after being really undisciplined and lazy as heck there for a while. I had a great workout yesterday and I was thinking about why it always feels so good to work out and so great AFTER working out, but it's also so easy to talk yourself out of doing it at all.

To get back into exercise after I've been avoiding it, I play a game with myself that I can do it as badly as I want. I work out to videotapes, so I make a deal with myself that I can skip sections of the tape, I can do half as many push-ups as the mean teacher lady makes everyone else do, I can do whatever, as long as I put the tape in and start.

Of course, the game works because when I start, it feels good to work out and I pretty much know that even if I do only 1/2 the tape, I'm already better off than not exercising at all. Most of the time, I find I just do the whole tape. But I really don't get down on myself if I do next to nothing. It's about getting back into it. You know you'll do better the next time.

I'm not one for delayed gratification in most aspects of my life, so I was wondering why I'm so hooked on exercise. I really am willing to get down on the floor and do those push-ups, those hellish abdominal crunches, those often painful glute, thigh and leg exercises. I can really do an excellent lunge and my squatting with weights -- well, I'm not a bad squatter. You really do delay gratification with exercise. You work out day after day and only see the results long after. So, it must be the endorphins that keep me going during the tough parts.

The other boneheaded thing about working out that I always forget is how good it is for my mind, almost better than for my body. It's a great time to think. My body's in motion and moving in every direction and my mind is slowing down into a very quiet peaceful place. It's all drugs -- endorphins washing through me -- and they really do make you feel high.

Sunday New York Times Mag All About Movies

And there's my buddy George Clooney on the cover buying us tickets for Something's Gotta Give at the box office, as a light dusting of snow falls on the handsome shoulders of his expensive grey cashmere overcoat.

"George can we can popcorn with butter?"

"You betcha, little lady."

I love going to the movies with George. And a movie with Jack Nicholson and Keanu Reeves fighting for the heart of Diane Keaton. That's as good as it gets.

Don't Go Getting SAD

The first winter I was in Boston after moving here from LA (2000-2001) it was brutally cold. Even the most upbeat of all of us (and I would qualify in that category being a ruthless optimist and generaly go-go gung-ho girl) were a little bummed out by April or so, when it was STILL snowing and had been snowing since October.

So in case you're tempted to get SAD this winter -- Seasonal Affective Disorder -- read this and try to avoid it.

Simple cure -- take an hour walk OUTSIDE every day, even if it 's really cold.

Happy Saturday Night

Have a good one. It's a chilly night here, best spent under the covers.

Trippi's A Trip

Andrew Sullivan points to this very funny piece by Noam Scheiber in The New Republic Online about Joe Trippi's guerilla tactics. Quite the innovator.

Follow The Oil

Follow the oil, it leaves a dirty black trail. Glad people are finally calling this the Oil War.

Dean And The Networks

Everything about this campaign is unprecedented and more exciting by the minute. When Dean polled his supporters -- wasn't it all about demonstrating the amazing network of support he's built, not about the money he needs to raise to put commercials on network TV?

Watch the battle royale play out this Christmas. Bush will play Santa by bringing home all the swiss cheese half-shot up soldiers (the ones that are still alive) and flooding the TV networks with sentimental family photos. When we're not being served up a platter of that schmaltz, we'll be hearing about how great his economy is.

If you build a network like Dean has built and create momentum like he has created, I expect you don't need to spend every last dime trying to buy votes with expensive ads on TV. Dean supporters need to start the TURN OFF YOUR TV campaign. We're sick of those networks and all their lies, we're building one of our own.

South End

Heading down to the South End today to catch some rock and roll and also catch pneumonia if I don't bundle up. It's cold in Boston today.

Pull-Down Menus

I had friends who were painters in New York City and when they were really bored and wanted to yuck it up, they used to go take the civil service exams for being a graphic artist for the State of New York. It was free. They gave you a bunch of pencils, paint, pastels and you spent the day in a big room drawing pictures of fire hydrants and stuff and they used to have a blast doing this and had no intention whatsoever of getting a job, but they liked to do stuff like this. This is like a bunch of us bloggers taking the exam to become police officers -- it would be fun, wouldn't it? You have to admit it would.

Very few people think taking tests which you don't need to take and don't care if you pass is a lark, but I do! Fewer still think going on job interviews is their idea of a party, but again, I do!

So ... this is a rather long story. It ends up that a particularly terrific blogger friend of mine is probably relocating to Boston and she needs to find work, so I thought it would be cool to go downtown and register with a temp agency and find out the routine, both for her, but also for me. Run reconnaissance for her. Also I have no pride or attitude about temp work. My ex started as a temp at Sony Pictures Entertainment in LA when we first moved there, and within a few months was in the Finance Dept doing very interesting and important work and then within a few years was Manager of International Finance, trading billions of dollars of Sony's foreign exchange monies and buying hedge fund contracts. No slouch. All because he knew how to use a computer.

So, afer they interviewed me, there were a bunch of tests I had to take.

I had to take a test for Microsoft Word.

I had to take a test for Microsoft Powerpoint.

I had to take a test for Microsoft Excel.

I had to take a test for Microsoft Access.

I had to take a typing test for speed and accuracy.

The funny thing was with all the Microsoft apps tests, you had to do the functions (cut, paste, move, copy, SUM, etc.) with the pull-down menus. No shortcuts. You flunked if you did them with shortcuts or the right-mouse button. They were pretty cool tests. They were computer-based tests with questions like, "Open the excel spreadsheet called SALE.xls. Copy the formula from cell A3 into cells A4, A5, A6" and then if you did it correctly they asked "REPEAT QUESTION of CONTINUE TO NEXT QUESTION" so you got a chance to try it again if you totally blew it the first time.

They had me doing Powerpoint slides with 5 second transitions, fly out from the left, embedded with bar charts, you name it.

I was creating records in M/S Access database software and defining required fields and all this crazy shit. Crazy because I really had never even used Access more than about 5 minutes. Still, it was straight-forward and reasonable in the assumptions it made about databases and I have used Foxpro and dbase.

I was thinking of you Scoble and you Porcaro,and you Beth, and laughing quietly to myself. It was like I was visiting the inside of a Microsoft developer's mind. Since I was using some apps I'd never used and other features of apps I knew well (but never used w/pull-down menus), it gave me a whole new insight into how you design something and try to make it simple and obvious. Of course, there were lots of simple, useful design aspects I felt kind of happy and thankful for. But then there were some insanely complicated ways of doing things -- especially because I've learned the bad habits of a zillion shortcutting friends who've taught me how to do everything ad hoc and nothing by the book.

I was thinking about people in the cubicles next to me, sweating the tests, really really needing the work and the money. I was thinking about how learning Microsoft software could make a living for a person, put bread on their table, shoes on their kids' feet. Say what you will, Microsoft is deeply embedded in this society, for good or ill, depending on how you see it. But yesterday, I saw it as good.

I actually aced the tests and got great scores -- which cracked me up. I undoubtedly did well because I didn't feel there was a lot riding on it. Since I happened to have both my license and my passport on me, the temp lady was able to W-2 me and INS me, to prove I wasn't an illegal alien, and then signed me up and wants to send me out next week! I do clean up good, I must say. I had my black suit on, pumps, black stockings. Dippy Angie Dickensen 60's blond hairdo.

The ironic part of the whole thing was how much fun it was. And now I have all the inside dirt to share with my friend when she gets here.

Cup of Tea

I'm making a pot of Irish Breakfast to go with my Irish Oatmeal. Come by any time and I'll pour you a cup and I can put cookies on a plate too, help yourself.

Blog Integration

Back to that notion of blog integration. Can you be everything on one site or do you need to create a few brands for your shelf, as Boris suggests in this post.

I'm sitting next to a copy of Penthouse -- an advance copy -- I got yesterday in the mail. I have a short story in it. It's exciting as heck. It's a story I wrote about a guy who's widowed and despite all his good intentions (and those of his friends and neighbors) to get hooked up with a nice girl in the neighborhood (a neurosurgeon, a lawyer, a CEO of a high tech firm) he finds they just don't turn him on. Au contraire. He's finding they leave him a little limp, so to speak. The guy is an expert on robots and does a lot of speaking gigs on the circuit, attending a lot of high tech conferences. One thing does turn him on a lot. Here's the opening of my story, which I posted here last year and the editor of Penthouse read and bought:

He liked to make it with the maids at turn-down time. In one expensive hotel after another, at one fancy conference after another, he was finding the maids were a big turn-on and more than willing. And what he liked best was that they never really wanted anything from him. Everyone else did. He was getting to be rather famous in his field of robotics and so many women – educated, intelligent, well-dressed women of business -- were simply after his ass. It was really shocking to him. They had all read his book, or at least said so and obviously had read his bio and they scanned the interviews and they knew a lot about him – certain details would come up in conversation that showed these girls had done their homework. It was flattering at first, but now was alarming.

So can I integrate the person who writes erotic fiction with the person who makes lunch for her 8-year-old son, who writes about technology, who writes about the death of her father, who serves wine and wafers at communion in a mid-calf grey pleated wool skirt, white "good girl" blouse and school marmish grey cardigan with the woman who plays Scrabble with her 95-year-old shut-in lady and the same woman who gives speeches at Harvard and sometimes appears in photographs half-clothed and publishes case studies in The Harvard Business Review?

Is there a benefit to having all those personas live here at Halley's Comment?

Is there something wrong about wanting to hide one or the other of them?

As for Penthouse, I'm thrilled to have my story published there. Buy one. They went bankrupt last month and are just getting back on their feet. They need your money. There's an awesome pictorial of a menage-a-trois right before my story -- two guys and a girl. Much hotter than my fiction. I have to remember to make my characters do it naked with sunglasses and hats on next time. Classic but always cool.

Sticky Stuff

There may be a whole new product category of "sticky stuff" and two big items in this category are Clorox SoftScrub and Gulden's Mustard.

Here's the trick. They come in handy squeeze bottles now and truth be told, by the time you're about 1/2 way through the bottle, you have to be a muscle man to squeeze the damned thing to get anything out of it.

So you end up buying 16 ounces and probably tossing out 4 or 5 ounces as you get near the end. The damned bottle makes the sticky stuff nearly impossible to get out of there. These products go from convenient to hair-tearingly annoying.

"Handy Squeeze Bottle" oh yeah sure.

Blog Thoughts

Thinking about a bunch of blog posts while I clean my house. My towels are not organized and this is bugging me. I'm trying to think of a new way of putting them on the shelves in each bathroom.

One post I'm thinking about is Boris talking about having a "dressed up" weblog and a kindof "let your hair down" blog.

I have that good intention too, but always run into a problem with it. Another blogger told me there's nothing good that lies down that road. We should be able to integrate our work, our lives, our blogs.

Thinking about that. Easy to say, hard to do.

Also thinking about how funny Gary Turner is and how I can never get over how funny he is.

Cleaning the bathroom sinks and tub next.

Blogroll

More housekeeping this morning as I knock off my errands. I notice for some weird reason, I don't have Clay Shirky or Nick Denton on my blogroll, whoops, sorry, let me go fix that.

Oatmeal just made a click noise, maybe it's ready.

Irish Oatmeal

Rice cooker from the other night sitting in the dish rack. Still one of my favorite appliances. Makes perfect rice. Thanks again to my Chinese mother-in-law (does she become an ex when my husband becomes an ex?) for the useful gift. It's called a Comet Rice Cooker, perfect for someone named Halley.

Best kept secret. It makes great oatmeal. That thick nutty kind of Irish Oatmeal in a metal can.

I am finally meeting Dervala next week, so I should celebrate. Pull out the oatmeal, measure out a 1/2 cup, toss it in the rice cooker with the right amount of water. Flip the switch. It cooks, I keep cleaning my house.

Prescription

Need a refill on my thryoid meds. Call the auto-refill line. Punch in the numbers. "Your prescription will be read at ... ROBOT GIRL VOICE ... 4:00pm on Sunday Afternoon." Check that off the list.

Clorox

Laundry sorted. I notice ... I have a lot of red and pink laundry. Toss in the whites first. Turn the knob to hot water. Clorox Bleach. Hello Saturday morning. House smells bleachy clean.

More Men In Skirts?!

More men in skirts in today's New York Times ... christ ... what gives?

Kilt okay, kimono, okay but ... I don't know -- plain old girly skirts -- and this guy featured today is in a full-length denim jeans skirt -- I don't think American men can carry it off.

Roast Chicken

Wow, I forgot to mention my mother-in-law when I wrote that post about great cooks below. She is one helluva great cook -- and a Chinese cook to boot, which means she it enormously resourceful and knows her way around a kitchen like nobody's business.

She taught me how to roast a chicken the Chinese way -- with a generous shake of garlic salt on the skin, but otherwise no other preparations (just be sure the chicken is clean, all parts removed from the cavity -- believe it or not I left them in the first time I ever cooked one). Oven very hot at 450. Cook for about an hour. The chicken has a very crunchy skin and great soft, self-basted meat. Delish!

Dishing It Out

With the cooler weather and a lot more cooking going on in my kitchen, there are a lot more dishes to do. Just the way it works. No avoiding it.

But I had forgotten what a nice meditation a sink of soapy dishes can be.

Something about keeping my hands busy that frees my mind to wander. I get a lot done washing dishes - much more than just the dishes.

Don't Mind My Foot

I just love to impress guys on job interviews. I met the head of operations for a great company this week -- a second meeting -- and after an interesting hour or so discussion, and I mean it really really really really was interesting, I got up to leave and my foot was asleep.

No other part of me was asleep -- I swear.

But when I got up and put weight on my needles and pins foot, it turned and I stumbled backwards and nearly fell on my ass.

Embarrassing?!

Yep!!!!

I caught myself and only fell into the chair I'd been in.

But I'm cursed wth a Pollyanna Attitude -- I have to admit, better to fall backwards while attempting to shake the guy's hand, that fall forward and knock him over. (DEF CON 1: INCOMING BLONDE.)

A Number Of Sisters

A number of sisters of mine left me messages the other day to ask if I'd had my other eye surgery done last week and how it was going. They were kind to remember the date. No, I actually had to put it off and reschedule it because so much is going on right now and though I feel like a woman with one short leg and one long leg -- what with one eye working so well and the other useless -- I just couldn't take the recovery time (even though it's short) this past week, expecially with a lot of writing to do, job interviews and a lot of other things going on. I really did NOT want to postpone it, but I had to.

As great as Dr. Shingleton is -- and let me say it DR. SHINGLETON AND HIS WHOLE TEAM ARE SO GREAT -- there's a lot of weird adjustments your eyes and BRAIN have to make after the surgery. It's just too hectic now. It really can slow you down in the writing and reading department as one eye gets synched with the other.

For you geeks, it's like buying a new computer and setting up all your software again. Better to make do with your old machine, unless its really on its last legs than take the time to upgrade.

The Big Conversation

I knew it was coming. There's just too much out there for it not to grab his attention. My 8-year old son wanted to know about sex yesterday. Actually he wanted to know if something a kid at school had told him about what "sex" was right.

We'd been talking about a lady with a baby we saw on the street. I said something about when a mom and a dad decide to have a baby.

He asked me, "How do you just DECIDE to have a baby?"

"Well," I started.

"A kid at school told me something really weird about it," he said.

There was no going back. We were on our way to buy ice skates.

I find you can discuss a lot of heavy things in a car -- especially if you're the driver because you are forced to look at the road and that just makes it easier on everyone.

Job Lob

After a pretty dry period, I'm suddenly getting a lot of jobs lobbed at me. Keeping them in play over the net with a few well-placed backhand strokes. Had a second interview with some folks in Cambridge about a gig. Have a meeting this morning downtown for another job. Got a great opportunity for a writing gig over the e-transom this week. Working on my own book. Maybe the economy IS coming back for real, not just in George Bush's mind.

Used to be absolutely allergic to being in an office -- loved to be the free agent -- but I'm beginning to change my mind on that front. It's generally healthier to have a bunch of people to care about every day (and have care about you) than being on your own too much. They have cool things in offices like water coolers and paper clips and pizza lunches. And there's so much great gossip and histrionics. People in a huff. People slamming doors. People telling secrets. Pretty exciting stuff for a writer like me.

Oyster Bars

I was doing some digging on Google -- reading up on oyster bars. I love the one in Grand Central Station -- but their site is definately not up and running.

Then came across Bibendum in London -- also home to an oyster bar, and a great place which brings back many fond memories. How can you go wrong with a place called "bibendum" which features a stained-glass window of the Michelin man? It's like Notre Dame de Michelin for Christ's sake.

Loch Fyne looks good too.

And then there was that French guy who liked to feed me oysters -- lots of them -- in that place by the metro Vavin. What was the name of that joint.? It had a big sign that said, "Fruits de Mer" ... was it the Cafe Deux Magots? No, it was ... La Couple on the Boulevard Montparnasse.

Feedster Feeding

Having lunch with Scott Johnson and Betsy Devine of Feedster today. Secretly invited a surprise guest who also lives over there. I'm dressing just like him in case he shows up. Plaid shirt, jeans, Timberland boots.

Do You Like Classic Battleship?

My son asks me if I like Classic Battleship or Battleship Advanced Mission, as the onslaught of Christmas toy commercials wash over us as he watches Nickelodeon.

It takes me a minute to realize both of these choices are boxed games with pieces of plastic to play a game we use to play on graph paper with a pencil. This makes me crazy. This makes me a little less crazy than the boxed versions of Charades or Dictionary -- perfectly wonderful games that require no more technology than ... yes, again, that tried-and-true ... PAPER AND PENCIL.

I tell him I like REALLY CLASSIC Battleship -- the kind you do yourself on paper. He looks at me strangely.

Lost art ...

I remember how we used to play. I still know how to make a damned fine house in the dirt with sticks. I have a good eye for finding little sticks with forked branches that support a tiny ceiling which I like to cover with leaves and grass for a thatched effect.

Read It And Weep

I keep reading statistics about how there are more and more blogs being written and no one is READING blogs. I think that's completely silly and not true. I read a lot of blogs. I read links to a lot of other blogs when I go off to read my usual blogs. Tonight I went over to read Doc and loved his pointer to Eric Raymond's blog. I love Eric's writing, and to my mind, being one of the sexiest men I've ever met, he can write about porn and how he feels about it anytime. I loved what he wrote. I read most of the blogs on my blogroll. I read blogs that those blogs link to. I google things that those blogs refer to and run into other blogs in that way. I do regular ordinary google searches and find new blogs in the results. I often look at my referrer log and go read blogs that are listed there. I read blogs to keep up with friends -- to know who's moving to Boston, who's travelling to Florida, who's relocated to LA, who's kid is sick, who's site's been redesigned and so on.

So what's with all this "nobody reads blogs" baloney? I don't believe it for one minute.

Ouch -- More Job Melt-down

So job cuts in October were twice that of September. When they make announcements like this, most working people don't find it a revelation -- they are MORE than feeling the pinch.

Getting Along Swimmingly

I just went swimming and followed it with hot tub, sauna, shower. Feel so good. My son and I were talking the other day about how you really can't feel bad after swimming, it's always the greatest thing.

So I'm in the sauna and some older lady comes in and asks if it's okay if she sits in the corner, "will it bother you?"
The sauna is shaped like an "L". I'm stretched out the length of one side of the "L" -- say the vertical part of the L with my head at the top of the "L" and my feet where the two lines of the "L" come together.

So why doesn't she leave me alone and go put her head at the other end of the L and then yes, maybe our feet would be nearby one another, but no big deal.

No, she has to sit like some idiot, right next to me.

Why?

This is like the friendly jerk who has to come and sit near me in an empty movie theatre, or the annoying moron who has to sit right opposite me, so I can't put my feet up in a fairly empty train car, or the jerk in the restaurant on the cell phone who has to sit at the next table, when all the other tables are open -- like try one on the OTHER side of the restaurant, buddy.

Anyway, she couldn't stand the heat after awhile and left the sauna.

"Will it bother you?"

What kind of dumb question is that?

YES, YOU JERK, OF COURSE IT WILL BOTHER ME.

What did I actually answer?

"Oh, no ... no problem."

I knew I could outlast her.

And the swimming was wonderful and mostly the whole day has been.

Social Software's Substrate Of Love

I had two very interesting conversations recently about community - one with Joi Ito and one with Ray Ozzie. Joi and I were talking about connecting with people and what was the underlying motivation of this need to connect, tell the stories of our lives, reach out to a community. We knocked around the idea that many people are simply lonely and the new technologies of social software like LinkedIn and Friendster, and the hardware that enables them, have a killer emotional app aspect -- that they can turn lonely into ... well, in some cases, literally love, and in other cases, a warm community connection.

With Ray, I was praising all the wonderful friends and parents in our community who have reached out to both me and my husband as we have gone through separation and divorce. They are true innovators in their ways of NOT chosing sides, creating a resilient network for my son, whether it be at school, little league or cub scouts. Ray was recounting how his (fortunately) intact family had also supported other friends and family members through divorces and other social ups and downs. It was a deep conversation about what "community" means.

During my dad's illness and death in April 2002, my online friends were there in myraid ways. They were there in ways that technology facilitated. They could not have been there EXCEPT for technology. I wouldn't even have known them if it weren't for technology, since many were bloggers. Many were there for me via email or IM.

It made me think about what is happening to all our relationships. The divorce rate is high. This means people living apart. The unemployment rate (the the US) is high. This means people working (or not working) apart. Many people spend a lot of time apart and alone. They long for experiences and they long for community. They simply want to connect.

With the recent news of Friendster being funded by prominent VC's, after turning down an offer by Google to buy them, I think we have to admit that we've got something serious going on here in the social software space. As I mentioned recently, describing the business "Build-A-Bear" -- (see post) -- they have built a business on an "experience" and as the book "The Experience Economy" discussed rather presciently, we will see this more and more. Build-A-Bear is built on love -- and the act of taking a child or loved one to a store in the mall and making a very special teddy bear for that person to hug. It sounds corny and schmaltzy to be sure, but when you throw in the layer of love underneath the experience, you've got a powerful substrate driving social software. We'll be seeing more and more infrastructure built out to support our new ways of relating to one another.

What Is It About Oil?

These oil billionaires just have so muh more fun than the rest of us. Some more background on our friend Mikhail Khodorkovsky -- he's got friends in high places. The question is ... how high? More background from FRONTLINE on PBS:

Khodorkovsky lives with his wife and four children in Moscow. He frequently travels to the United States. He reportedly dined with Condoleezza Rice last year and recently was a guest at Herb Allen's Idaho ranch, along with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and other luminaries, for an annual telecommunications executives meeting.

After a series of dubious business practices, Khodorkovsy has struggled with a poor public image. In 1998, his bank Menatep collapsed, yet Khodorkovsky managed to protect himself, despite damage to his depositors and creditors. (The bank also defaulted on a $236 million loan from Western banks.) In 1999, he moved the location of a Yukos shareholders meeting 160 miles from Moscow without advance notice to minority stockholders, keeping them from voting against the sale of Yukos's assets to an offshore company. That same year, he prepared a large issue of new shares that diluted the stake of American investor Kenneth Dart, who claimed Khodorkovsky defrauded him of millions of dollars. Recently, however, Khodorkovsky hired a Washington, D.C., public relations firm, and he is presenting himself as a crusader for stockholder and investor rights. Khodorkovsky donated $1 million of Yukos profits to the U.S. Library of Congress, and he set up the Open Russian Foundation, with Henry Kissinger as a member of its board of trustees, to donate to museums, hospitals and universities. In 2001 and 2002, Khodorkovsky's net worth increased fourfold.

Run that by me again. Dined with whom?

He reportedly dined with Condoleezza Rice last year ...

Wait. That last line. Did you say fourfold!?

In 2001 and 2002, Khodorkovsky's net worth increased fourfold.

YUKOS Chief Resigns

Here's a bio of YUKOS Chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky and a link to recent news about his resignation. Frontline did an interview with him here, prior to his arrest.

Weird Word

The term for weblog in French is "joueb" and comes from "journal" and "Web" being glued together. It always sounds funny to me, especially since the verb in French, "jouer" means to play and so it has that resonance -- a good one to be sure -- a certain playfulness embedded in it.

Boston Goes Bangalore

This piece from today's Boston Globe by Chris Gaither "US workers see hard times -- High-tech firms tout outsourcing as crucial to survival" is certainly depressing. It poses the disturbing question, "Why pay software programmers a decent wage, when you can outsource their work to India or China and pay the suckers over there 1/10th the salary?"

When you read it, you are tempted to think of it personally and if you're in high-tech, your mind scrambles to come up with a "work-around" -- to imagine a new way to find work. But even if you can come up with one, what it means to the ENTIRE economy long-term is pretty upsetting. The post I did about the "Neutron Bomb Economy" below might be more accurate than even I wanted to believe when I wrote it.

Misbehaving All Over The Place

I threw an email out to my eight co-bloggers over at Misbehaving.Net, suggesting we all meet in the flesh soon. As I get to know them online, I really find I'm liking them and I want to meet in person. I didn't realize how far flung we are. Jill reminded me she's in Norway! And then Danah gave us the comprehensive cheat sheet on where we all are.
Seems like we've got a woman in every port and a few of towns in between:

New York, NY (2)
Rochester, NY (1)
Boston, MA (1)
Madison, WI (1)
San Francisco, CA (1)
Canada (1)
Norway (1)

Go over and match the woman with her town. The word "Harvard" in my bio might give you a clue, but I just realized I didn't actually say where I live. Whoops!

I'll Take Two

I'll take two. With hardware like this, you ever know when you might have one in the shop for repairs.

Sexy Scots In Skirts ... I Mean KILTS

Martin Little takes me to task for my dumb remarks about men in skirts (see below) and the piece in the NYTimes about that. I definately stand corrected that a Scot in a skirt, I mean a KILT, can be very sexy. Hell, just the weird way they talk is sexy enough, since to my ear it's impossible to know what the hell they're saying, I give them the benefit of the doubt and figure it must be something hot.

In case you wondered why the Victorians started wearing their furry sporran in the front, check this out. I think they spelled "bulge" wrong, but maybe the Scots need a bigger, longer word to describe the bulge under their kilts.

What's Your Nationality?

A certain young man of eight years old I know, who happens to be my son, and later, when he's big and reads this post, will happen to hate my guts, told me the following key insight this morning while watching a favorite cartoon show on Nickelodeon.

"Mom, I love this show because they have guys from every nationality!" he said.

The show didn't seem too long on diversity to me.

"What do you mean every nationality?" I asked him. Maybe I was missing something.

"You know -- BOSSY, MEAN, NICE, STUPID AND SMART," he explained.

I didn't laugh -- that's not fair.

"Honey, actually, I think you mean ... they have characters with every kind of personality, right?" I said.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he said, taking it in stride. "My favorite shows have people that are really different and fight all the time."

"Yep," I said.

That's my kid, he's obviously got the key to a successful narrative nailed -- conflict, conflict, conflict.

Don't Forget To Call Me On My 487th Birthday

There was a write-up in yesterday's New York Times of the Pop!Tech conference that took place in mid-October, making reference to Aubrey de Grey's presentation about immortality. The notion that we might be able to live 1000 years or longer has gotten me and my son laughing like idiots all day. We've been having a lot of fun with it. He's worried he'll still have spelling homework when he's 100. And I'll still be bugging him about it.

I keep playing with it in the back of my mind -- I feel like I have a little stand-up comedian's stage and open mike back there in my twisty brain. I mean, I am going to need a helluva lot of moisturizer to keep looking young, at say ... 850 or so.

And all jokes aside, can you imagine holding a grudge, not for 20 or 30 years, but try 750?

I had tea last week with my 95-year-old friend. She is still bright as a tack. If we start lasting 1000 years, she's barely a teenager at this point.

Very Scary Catholic School Girl Gang

Wonder if women are feeling more empowered ... check this out.

Corporate Blogging Manifesto Redux

Robert Scoble at Microsoft has some wise things to add to his original "Corporate Blogging Manifesto" blog post about how to work for a corporation and keep writing a personal blog. Just as I tried to imagine all the difficulties this would present in my case study in Harvard Business Review, Robert has the real world version of how to walk that fine line.

I like this in particular:

"Always write like you are speaking on behalf of your company. Why? Because despite the disclaimers, you really are."

This comes in the same week that a blogger at Microsoft was fired ... and I leave it to all of you to suss out whether he was fired for blogging per se or if there were other extenuating circumstances.

Only Mike Myers

Only Mike Myers could play The Cat In The Hat and weirdly still look so Mike Myers-ish. I can't wait to see this movie. I think he's the best.

Neutron Bomb Economy

I want to believe The New York Times. I want to believe The Wall Street Journal. I want to believe all the news coming down about how we've gone from a in-the-crapper, oh, excuse me, I mean, how we've gone from a toilet economy last Thursday to a gung-ho, can't-be-held-back, go-go growth economy on Friday.

But when I read all these great happy-days-are-here-again earnings announcements -- I can't help but think of the line in Repo Man about the neutron bomb -- it destroys people but leaves buidlings standing. This is a the neutron bomb economy -- easy to look profitable when your building is still standing but you've nuked your entire workforce. Soon we'll be forced to hail the new worker-less enterprise, it's sure to be the Next Big Thing.

How To Knit

I've been thinking about knitting again. I used to knit when I was a kid -- my mom taught me. Here's a French site that tells you how to knit and comes complete with peppy music to knit by. The French are such good knitters. Here are some old French knits for kids.

Guy In A Skirt -- I Don't Think So

This piece in The New York Times about a guy in a skirt ... I don't know. Just kindof grosses me out. I mean, isn't a big part of the skirt thing looking at sexy legs ... are men going to start shaving their legs too? No offense, but men's hairy legs under the hem of a skirt ... not exactly eye candy.

Hershey Kisses Hangover

Halloween was really really fun, but I am really really tired. Naptime.

Speaking of Pirates -- What's Up In Russia?

The stories on the front page of The New York Times today and yesterday about the Russians putting oil billionaire and YUKOS boss Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail and ultimately on trial, look like strange anecdotes that won't have much to do with our lives -- WRONG.

The Piratization of Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry by Marshall Goldman is a must read. Economics Professor Marshall Goldman at Wellesley spoke earlier this year on CSPAN about his new book, and I found his presentation absolutely riveting. If you thought the Enron boys were a bunch of crooks, you won't believe what's going on in Russia. Take a peek at this synopsis of the book from Amazon.

In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union claiming ownership some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires. These self-styled oligarchs were accused of using guile, intimidation, and occasionally violence to reap these rewards. This revelatory work examines the structure of the Russian economy and considers why it collapsed in 1998 and why it began its recovery in 1999. It also provides a close examination of the Russian oil industry and the oligarchs who control it and who have now decided to go "legitimate".

It's hard to imagine a few nobodies, or should I say, thugs, going from rags to the Forbes 400 list in six years. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more about this.