http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/19/pope-passes-special.html

Oh, boy, the first time parodists and critiquers come up against this, it's going to be fun to watch.

• 07:59 It is a sweet day!/I got my $3K back, man!/Being a pest rules! #
• 08:09 today i will write me the shit out of some words. #
• 08:19 Bye, bye, Saab. Millions of hippies, doctors & fancy pants will miss you. So will @dasmart for not getting to flip over one more time. :) #
• 09:08 It's the time of Sat. morning here all the sites have no news & I should either get on with the day or whip out some varsity catwaxing... #
• 10:40 1 chair, 2 humans, 1 dog. #furnituretest tweetphoto.com/6743318 #
• 10:55 twitpic.com/u6mfz - Writing is done for the day. #TiltShiftGen #
• 14:44 twitpic.com/u7sdv - Nirvana on the left & cheese on the right. Late lunch w/ @somavinyasayoga & @aperdupper. #TiltShiftGen #
• 16:03 @madge707 about a half hour or so. Visiting? #
• 18:47 Dinner with yogis Roberto & Megu. #bestbirthdayever tweetphoto.com/6779234 #
• 20:31 twitpic.com/u9o7e - After the storm. #TiltShiftGen #

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• 07:01 Damn. It happened again. I'm one year older! www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq9_78CcOoY #
• 07:30 Ungh. Gotta register the Xterra today. The excise tax is gonna be murder. "All I got was clothes for Christmas!" #
• 08:55 Hapy Birthday to Me: on phone with TD Bank to locate $3,110. Yee. #
• 08:56 Well, I was going to go to yoga until this happened... #
• 09:00 Hell on Earth> TD BANK's hold music with accompanying static. Horrid. Horrid. 'Orrid. #
• 13:34 At the RMV getting the truck registramated! #bestbirthdayever tweetphoto.com/6674105 #
• 17:39 Chilling with fam before kids choral concert. tweetphoto.com/6689576 #

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• 05:56 it is a sweet day! coffee helps the cold blood flow! so does some yoga! #
• 18:05 For my birthday I'm seeing AVATAR @ 12PM in Westbrook tomorrow. Who's joining me?! :) #
• 18:06 Interestingly, eating all the potato chips and some Lake Champlain chocolate does not help one write a novel. #
• 18:34 Quasiparticles, have you a chitinous covering to spare? tweetphoto.com/6618820 #
• 18:35 @ValerieReiss life is empty & meaningless & there are no coincidences. #
• 19:46 Does 2 pgs of writing + 2 pgs of sketches = 4 pgs of writing for the day? tweetphoto.com/6622977 #
• 19:47 @matociquala they would not be eaten by me. Could also b the cupcakes that destroy the world. #
• 20:18 Who's this handsome fellow? tweetphoto.com/6625124 #

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I'm trying to make a list of child detectives for some projects which have been percolating in my head for sometime. I'm limiting this to the printed word (maybe comics, but then that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms) and to child detectives who are at the core of their series/story. So Turtle Wexler counts for The Westing Game (because she's part of the emotional core of the book and the character closest in age to the intended audience) while Ramses Emerson does not (because the series is primarily about his mother, Amelia, and Ramses' view doesn't come into play until nearly adulthood.)

Some kids I'm on the fence about, as some are part-time shit-stirrers as well as indulging in the occasional spot of detection, a la the Mad Scientist Club. Likewise, Harriet the Spy, while not technically a detective, keeps a notebook, and solves human interest problems.

Nancy Drew
The Hardy Boys
Trixie Belden
The Three Investigators (Jupiter Jones, Bob Andrews, and Pete Crenshaw)
Brains Benton and Operative Three
Encylopedia Brown
Cam Jansen
Jack McGurk (and his Organisation)
T.A.C.K. (Tori, Abby, Charles and Will, I think were the characters, although I can't find any info on this series anywhere online, let alone who wrote it.)
Alvin Fernald, Shoie, and The Pest
Turtle Wexler
Harriet the Spy
The Mad Scientists' Club
Homer Price (he figures out how to find a diamond bracelet for Miss Terwilliger and where her ancestor's recipe is, that should count, right?)
The Bobbsey Twins
The Boxcar Children (?)
The Great Brain (or is he just a ne'er-do-well?)
Emil and Dienstag and their bazillion friends
Danny Dunn
ETA: Abby Jones of Have You Seen Hyacinth Macaw?


Firmly in the Ne'er-Do-Well category:
Boots and Bruno from Macdonald Hall


ETA: I'm also trying to recall the name of a children's mystery series starring a brother and a sister, named Will and Liz. Googling this turns up a LOT of Pirates of the Caribbean fan fic, but no children's mysteries. Anyone else recall this series?

• 05:56 Dog has finally betrayed me. Didn't get up with me @ 5:39AM then when he did rise he took time to bark @ newspaper. Where'd I go wrong... #
• 05:57 It is a sweet day!/Must birthday shop this AM!/Wife's is tomorrow! #
• 09:37 Breakfast time, you suckers!!! #
• 15:01 twitpic.com/ts2ah - I gots my hairs did @ O2 salon!!! #TiltShiftGen #
• 15:11 @alexirvine you know what @scalzi says about writing in coffee shops #
• 17:30 Damn that was a long nap. #

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I admit, I've been guilty of this, but it struck me today, while reading the one or two star reviews of Dawkin's Greatest Show on Earth, that some reviewers don't know how to do the math. Or they arrived at a number they liked and broke it down arbitrarily without thinking about the values involved.

I'm talking about the "I give it one star for content and two for style, so let's call that three altogether."

Presumably you'd be giving one star out of five for content and two out of five for style, so that should be 1.5 stars, maybe 2 in a system that doesn't allow for fractions. Otherwise, you could end up with reviews like "one star for bad sound, one star for crappy restrooms, one star for uncomfortable seats, one star for service, and one star for too-expensive drinks--let's call that five stars!" Yeah....probably not the impression you were trying to convey.

(I admit to pulling this sloppy phrasing myself with some of my Yelp reviews. I'll try to keep that in mind. Bad Lis!)

• 07:34 twitpic.com/tlyd8 - It is a sweet day/ Tony Bennett & sunrise! / winter wonderland! #TiltShiftGen #
• 07:35 @stephaniekenan It's an app on the iPhone. Tiltshift Generator. I suspect your can do the same in Photoshop. It is cool, tho, huh? ;) #
• 14:04 Snoop & Ripley!!! RT @snoopdogg: twitpic.com/tn43z - what ya know about Sigourney Weaver?!?!?! get up on that level #
• 14:24 Sweet truck. Dead battery. tweetphoto.com/6486678 #
• 14:25 All this shit there's gotta be a pony bit.ly/7RsaIw #
• 14:42 My wife/knight in shining vovlvo! tweetphoto.com/6487320 #
• 14:58 This has once again not been my week. It's only Tuesday. God, I hope 41 sucks less than 40 has. #
• 15:01 Waiting for AAA. Lots of time to revise novel. But no coffee. #
• 21:18 twitpic.com/tozj1 - Xmas puppy dog. #TiltShiftGen #

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• 05:50 It is a sweet day!/Cain't see no meteors, man!/Sky black as coffee #
• 14:46 @kateghiloni wow your every tweet is gospel. ;) #
• 14:49 I want a tuna melt. With cheese. On panini. With a snapple. #
• 19:18 twitpic.com/tjus8 - "set a course for Christmas, mr. Sulu!" #TiltShiftGen #
• 19:20 twitpic.com/tjv6w - "this Christmas I'm giving the gift of Cardassiam love pants to Dr. Crusher." #TiltShiftGen #
• 19:31 twitpic.com/tjwvk - Hiding from the Romulans this Christmas #TiltShiftGen #
• 20:00 twitpic.com/tk1af - Ladies & germs, the tree is topped!!' #TiltShiftGen #

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The last few days, we'd been letting things slip. Dishes piled up in the sink, there were small piles of clothes in the bathroom and by the foot of the bed. But no more! We took about an hour today and got the place back to the shiny cleanness that we had at T-day. T-day being the benchmark because it was the first time the apartment was not just clean but unpacked too.

John got all the dishes cleaned up, and folded clothes, while I acquired a dusting apparatus and dusted the bedroom, office, and living room and then vaccuumed. We are mighty!

Then we sat down and played a little WoW. We did Heroic Trial of the Champions and I got a number of upgrades. So then we went and skibbled through Forge of Souls and the Pit of Saron. I upgraded about three items by the end of our run.

And then, as if all that wasn't enough, I ended up attacking two of the four storage boxes in the closet and got them unpacked with the contents appropriately stowed. Now we have two boxes left to go. (One of which is primarily candles, candle holders, and picture frames.)

With my life approaching real order, maybe I can focus that energy more creatively, without feeling like I should be doing something else.

• 16:46 Best SF story ever? "The Janitor of Mars" by Martin Amis. Shit you not. #
• 18:02 @dalaixerces It really is. I'm re-reading it for the 5th time. I think you'll like it. #
• 18:16 @dasmart Congratulations!!! #
• 18:16 @rosascarcelli Happy Birthday, Governelli! #
• 18:22 Another sunday night, researching how ants have sex. #
• 18:29 Listening to Loscil. IT makes me calm & prepares me for a walk in the rain with the dog. #
• 19:27 @MaryRobinette that sounds like a euphimism for something. Don't know what but... #

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http://sylviasproblem.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/what-happened-to-hope-witsell/

I read this story, and of course, I'm appalled that her parents and school let the situation escalate as they did. Horrified that she was treated as the problem, and not the victim of assault as her privacy was violated repeatedly. Filled with rage that any girl (any person really) on the cusp of figuring out her own sexuality is treated so vilely.

And then there's the flashbacks to how a similar situation played out in my own life. The long and the short of it goes like this:

In third grade, my teacher launched a science experiment involving us watching our germs grow in petri dishes. And while mine were not ultimately any worse than most of the other students, they grew quickly enough in the first few days that some students thought it would be funny to tease me about my germs. I couldn't walk anywhere without anybody screaming or ducking or flinching or calling me names. I couldn't TOUCH anybody or anything without setting off a chain reaction. I was the socially approved leper. It was okay to lock me out of classrooms, to hide my books, steal my food or lunch money, copy my homework or claim it as yours, trip me, push me into the boys restroom, play practical jokes, and malign me publically in any way possible. Any elaborate and inventive torture a pack of children can devise, I was subjected to. The only saving grace in the situation was that the GERMS kept physical hazing from actually occuring. I'm sure the teachers and most of the adults who knew about the situation thought it was just a phase, a brief fad, and that the kids would forget it. But they were wrong, and I got to pay the price by being the school leper for three years until my parents pulled me from that school and sent me to a gifted child program in a different school. (Meanwhile, my sibs got to still deal with some of the fallout, as the meme perpetuated itself. I don't know how bad they had it, but I do know that my parents eventually sent my brothers to a THIRD school in the next district over.)

I felt utterly abandoned by the adults in that school, partly because the half-hearted attempts they made to change the situation were never followed through, and generally adult interference usually made my situation worse. (The lesson I learned: You can't expect adults to fix the situation. Much later, when I was sexually harrassed in ninth grade and finally went to an adult to get the situation changed, I begged that they devise a way of separating me from my harrasser without alerting the class to the situation. My harrasser was popular and it would not have gone well with me if his friends had decided to take retribution.)

Adults owe it to the people in their care to make sure they aren't making the situation worse. It pisses me off to see Hope Witsell's parents and school punishing her for circumstances far beyond her control, circumstances that were already hurting her.

(Like Hope, I did have a core group of friends who stood by me during this time. Friends from my ward, and a few others. Incidentally, a number of people from my past have apologised to me for stuff that went on in grade school. Which is nice, but these days I think it wasn't a failure on their part so much as the adults who ran the system. I mean, kids often act like little pack animals, and adults are supposed to be teaching us how to be civilised and mature. The kids were often acting according to internalised pressure while the adults actually had power to change things...and didn't. I know they thought it would go away if they ignored it, or maybe they were trying to do stuff behind the scenes, but if so, they never once thought to throw me a lifeline.)

The kids in Hope Witsell's case are a bit different. They were older--in junior high--and should have had the rudiments of civilized behaviour. But the adults are still culpable for reinforcing the dynamic and perpetuating the idea that punishment was somehow deserved. Their reaction towards Hope was entirely out of proportion to any perceived offense (if you could even think an act that was meant to be a private display of sexuality could be offensive). Poor kid didn't do anything wrong, and retribution dropped on her like a tonne of bricks.

• 11:44 At O2 Salon while the kid gets her hair did. bit.ly/4DkF8b #
• 14:07 Awaiting the Musica de Filia concert!!! bit.ly/8YAZMp tweetphoto.com/6302009 #

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We're about to go see Princess and the Frog for work. (I worked on the video game for the Wii, so work is treating the teams to a movie outing.)

I'm percolating on my short "Enoch is Fled" aka The New Nuclear. (I miss the title The New Nuclear, but Enoch is Fled works better for this iteration.)

• 08:45 It is a sweet day/It is damn cold outside, man!/No run today, bitch! #
• 08:49 @MarkH_B Isn't that awesome?! I so want to see it! "Wanker! Wanker!" #
• 10:04 Kid strained her ankle and is laid up on the couch. Too bad she's got 2 choral concerts this weekend. Crutches much? :( #
• 10:05 @tiffaniangus It's so god. damn. cold. Plus kid has a strained tendon so I'm on butler duty. :( #
• 10:06 Damn. Can't seem to help checking LOST spoilers on Wikipedia. Must not look. #
• 13:20 WTF?! RT @BoingBoing: Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border bit.ly/6jGrrw #
• 13:20 RT @BoingBoing: Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and arrested at US border bit.ly/6jGrrw #
• 13:21 Shheeeit but it's cold out. #
• 14:18 The frigging ER again?! This time kid fell during dance class. Praying it's just a sprain but she can't walk on it. #
• 14:20 Kid in the ER. Cool customer filled out own paperwork. tweetphoto.com/6235503 #
• 14:22 Le sigh. I feel surprisngly calm now here @ the ER. Is tha good or bad? #
• 15:04 @catvalente "when you wish upon a stat, doesn't make the data flat...". Sorry. Hard to rhyme in the ER. #
• 16:25 @catvalente I'm fine. Sophia has Poss sprain/fracture. She's psyched. Not. tweetphoto.com/6241797 #
• 16:26 @Stonekettle tonight I will drink like a warrior. #
• 17:08 @baratunde uh, for white guy, could you define "very black." cuz Q-tip says black is black. #
• 20:26 @catvalente talk to my boy @markokloos. He's the Scrivener guru. #
• 20:44 @warrenellis @neilhimself was it the thing about the vocals? The three mica? #

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This is my friend, Peter Watts. (I think he'll let me claim him as a friend, even if I only see him once a year.) He's given me writing advice, and he's a funny, generous, and unabashed guy who is willing to stand on principles.

Anyway, you can read the whole story at his site, or Boing Boing, but the long and short of it is, he was stopped at the US border so his car could be searched. He asked why but wasn't given an answer and was told to get back in his vehicle. He asked a second time and was pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, and spent a number of hours in a cold jail cell, while all his belongings were confiscated.

His side of the story:
http://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=932

Boing Boing's coverage:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html

...Oh, and if you are thinking of saying that he somehow deserves this, or wasn't entirely innocent in his behaviour, or could have modified his tone, or maybe made an inappropriate joke, or something that isn't in the actual narrative as Peter has described it....please rethink that.

(I'm already having this argument with John, and my point is that even if he took ten extra seconds to restate the question instead of dutifully shambling back to his car, what happened to Peter at the border was fucking disproportionate. I am aware that certain rights are waived during border crossings, and the right to refuse a car search is one, but they should explain that, and as far as I know, you can still ask questions about why you are being detained.)

I've crossed the border dozens of times, and every time I'm on tenterhooks. I have no reason to be, but I know all the shit that can go wrong, if somebody mistakes something completely innocent for something less so. Like once, when I was asked if I was fingerprinted, I said yes, because I had been for child safety reasons and because I went through MEPS--the military entrance process stuff. Well, "fingerprinted" is code for "Have you been arrested?" which I have not been, and we were delayed for a little bit sorting that out. I fortunately did not have a bone-head for a border guard, but there is no way you can guarantee that stuff. I have been escorted into a little office at the airport (once, flying into Calgary) and grilled repeatedly. God forbid you accidentally get your addresses confused or forget the exact name of your hotel.

• 05:59 it is a sweet day!/never buy a cat named george/leg humping all night #
• 06:03 @sparCKL Oh, I'm so sorry. It's so hard to lose our 4 legged masters. #
• 10:55 Just completed a 2.39 mi run with @runkeeper, check it out bit.ly/4XKlHJ #RunKeeper #
• 12:37 ESPN & Guiness: it's what for lunch: tweetphoto.com/6172074 #
• 12:41 Oh I'm at The Front Room for lunch. Join me? bit.ly/5sdsjV #
• 13:21 @RedQueenPoet Yep. I'm friends with several staff members. I miss Colleen. Gotta represent!!! #
• 13:21 @RedQueenPoet Hey, you work at Rosemont, right? #

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Somewhere in Washington is a Grinchy asshole who deserves coal in their stocking. Somebody cut down a rare 7 foot conifer in the Seattle Arboretum, presumably because they wanted a nice Xmas tree. It's a supremely dickish thing to do, stealing from the community like that.

http://treesandshrubs.about.com/b/2009/12/10/arboretum-in-seattle-mourns-theft-of-rare-tree.htm

and

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010468121_tree10m.html

Hopefully they'll find the assholes who did this and give them some hefty community service.

Dear Older Generations:

I am grateful you guys came before us--primarily because I get to reap the fruits of your labours--but I don't actually think things were better in the old days. For one thing, you only had like four kinds of salad dressing in the grocery store: ranch, thousand island, blue cheese, and vinaigrette, while I have two dozen to choose from. I have pear and gorgonzola AND balsamic maple in my fridge, for instance.

But forget the salad dressing. I've heard you bemoan the lack of community feeling, politeness, and social discourse in today's society, and I can kinda see your point. Right up until I open my email account, see an email from you, get all excited to hear about your doings, and open it up to see forwarded pictures of Seven Highlarious Church Message Boards or the woeful tale of an Apocryphal Child Fighting Horrible Cancer Who Wants You To Send This To Seven of Your Friends. If I am really lucky, I might get Tips That Just Might Save Your Life If You Drive Late At Night! Or a jeremiad on the lauryl sulfates in my shampoo. Possibly you might serve up a homily on the fleeting nature of life and advise me (a hypochondriac!) to live every day as if it were my last.

I know this will come as a shock to you, dear older generation, but I actually would like to hear about your life. About you! And your life! Possibly about that hot older widow/widower you are seeing. What books you recently read. Your kids, and their kids, provided I know them. The genealogy work you are doing in Scotland. This awesome recipe you have for real root beer. Where you were when Pearl Harbour was bombed/JFK was shot/when you heard Buddy Holly or Elvis had died. The stuff you suspected oldsters were bullshitting you on when you were my age. How you tried Wii Bowling the other day and scored 150! How you went to Venice. How you went to South America and built houses and water filtration tanks in a tiny village in the Amazon. How you went to Vegas and saw Celine Dion, if that's your thing. Please, share! Post pictures of you under the cherry trees in Japan! Post pictures of your latest grandchild! I like this stuff. (Within reason.)

But please, please, please, please. For the love of everything holy, please stop forwarding me tips on how to make a humourous Thanksgiving Turkey with tan lines.



Dear Younger Generation:

I'm sure you can shoot that nice enforcer from Mafia Wars by yourself.




Love, Lis

• 07:40 IT IS A SWEET DAY!/BLIZZARDING IN THE HIZZLE!!!/I STAY HOME GET DRUNK? #
• 08:07 Bob Dylan Christmas Album: Sweet, Fun, Spiritual & Horrifying for his gravely voice. #
• 08:10 @jmacfee HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! GET DRUNK FIRE A GUN IN THE AIR AND THEN PASS OUT! S'HOW WE DO IT IN MAINE!!! #
• 08:18 @markokloos @jmacfee It's how they say hello in Bremen, right? #
• 10:04 Crap. The kid turned on MYTHBUSTERS. Now I won't get shit done on this snow day. #
• 10:06 Darn telecommuting. I can't has snow day. I can has work from home. Now I has the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! #
• 10:17 Sayyyyy, who's the new gal on MYTHBUSTERS? She's kinda cute. Not Kari cute, but... #
• 10:31 @ColleenLindsay Feel better! Wish I had something good for you to read while recovering. Maybe in February. :) #
• 11:26 @the_real_mkb that's the one!!! #
• 11:33 @alienistcog Nah, got power back and watching while adding 6K+ emails to studio mailing list! #
• 13:20 Wait, did I imagine the fairy tale "The little man who lives in your bowels?". I thought it was on Reading Rainbow! #
• 14:13 @matociquala but teh space opera muzt have teh hard sciences!!! just like teh pornz do! #
• 14:57 Ah, the world is write again: Heart of Darkness, made by Noodlers Ink, has arrived. Now my work shall be immortal but 4 the last 3 pgs. #
• 15:17 twitpic.com/stwk5 - Modeling the latest in hipster doofus facial hair: #
• 15:34 @alexirvine IS it the gay golems one? It'll never fly. #
• 16:07 This is Tinkerbell. She's lost: tweetphoto.com/6126593 #
• 16:13 Yay!!! Tinkerbell's owner just came to get her! Lost dog story ends well!!! #
• 19:17 twitpic.com/suwwx - Work continues apace on my monstrous scifi gardening book #TiltShiftGen #
• 21:52 @leroy77 True that. Very good film. #
• 21:54 I can hear the cat snoring from ten feet away. That's some cat. #

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