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Melissa has amused disdain for my sloppy gift wrapping style, foregoing bows and tags (that are just going to fall off anyway, safer to just write a cute to/from on sharpie right on the paper) but it turns out science is on my side: The science of gift wrapping explains why sloppy is better

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Tom Whitwell's 52 things I learned in 2023

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I was thinking about how 'Grinch' and 'Scrooge' are words for people who hate Christmas but aren't exact synonyms and then this chart happened.

via

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JP Honk via JP Gazette

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so, the patriots bumbled another game but look at the bright side - it was a scorigami!!! never before was there an NFL game that was 22-18
https://nflscorigami.com/

Nicholas was older than sin, and his beard could grow no whiter. He wanted to die.

The dwarfish natives of the Arctic caverns did not speak his language, but conversed in their own, twittering tongue, conducted incomprehensible rituals, when they were not actually working in the factories.

Once every year they forced him, sobbing and protesting, into Endless Night. During the journey he would stand near every child in the world, leave one of the dwarves' invisible gifts by its bedside. The children slept, frozen into time.

He envied Prometheus and Loki, Sisyphus and Judas. His punishment was harsher.

Ho.
Ho.
Ho.

(Repost from 15(!) Years Ago...)

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My philosophy is if you can't say something nice about someone, kill them.

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Created using still images taken by the Cassini spacecraft during it's flyby of Jupiter and while at Saturn. Shown is Io and Europa over Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill

via

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Internal resistance is an attempt to avoid the pain we associate with successfully doing the thing.

So in I liked a lot about this article except this quote... I think for me, internal resistance is more "to avoid the risk of pain if the thing we do turns out to harder than we thought and/or might make us look less competent than we tell ourselves and others."

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Yikes. I love small cars-- easy to park in the city, can still carry a tuba. But 2 of the most
logical replacements for my old 2004 Scion xA, the Honda Fit and the Toyota Yaris, are going away...
it's so stupid how low gas prices gas prices means everyone only cares about oversized vehicles. Petition to have Barbara Walters ring in the new year saying "I am Barbara Walters, and this is 2020 - the vision we need!

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What scientists figure out about the chewer of a 5700 year old piece of gum.

Well I'll tell you one thing *I* figured out - gum technology has come a long way! I mean... birch pitch, really? What kind of mint-tastic tastebud explosion could that provide? Actually I think gum technology may be regressing. I can't find "Dessert Delights" mint chocolate chip gum anywhere, and that was a pretty good diet helper. [This link sponsored by the Aggressive Point Missers of America]

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Decided to double up on the day I saw Star Wars Movie Number 9 by playing through Rogue Squadron / Rogue Leader on Gamecube, which remains my favorite Star Wars games. You know, if I ever have the need or the chutzpah to really go full on "I'm Creative!!!!" like at a job. I could do worse than the "band half jacket over a graphic T" look I had for a JP Honk gig the other night....

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The brain is just 8 lbs of meat that sits in complete darkness and plays a video game of what it thinks is the most realistic thing ever.

(but it should probably be 3 lbs)

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An apparition appears in your room, alongside a more successful looking doppelganger of yourself.

Apparition: " - and THIS is what you would be!"

Doppelganger: "Oh my god! Spare me these twisted visions, specter! I've learned my lesson!"

(both vanish)

You: Hey what the fuck

asssteroidsss

advent day 24
advent day 24

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Gas for $1.68. Kind of obscene. To quote Vonnegut, "Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum."

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Y'know iPhone's panorama can be really nice

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I enjoyed skimming through the book "The ESL Miscellany". Stuff like "List 8: Human Relationships": Nouns (admiration, affection, antagonism...), Verbs (admire, befriend, cooperate...) People (acquaintance, antagonist, associate...), Human Qualities and Stages (aloof, artistic, attractive...), Stages (adolescent, age, aged...), Idioms and Expressions (have an affair, blind date, breaking up...)

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To give you a sense of size, think of one of your own trillions of human cells, or a solitary amoeba or single-celled alga, as the size of a small city. Then a typical bacterium or archaean would be the size of a football field and a virus the size of a football.

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Parasites, in a phrase, are predators that eat prey in units of less than one.

advent day 24

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Chief O'Brien at Work - kind of a "Chris Ware"-ish take on life on the good ship Enterprise.
advent day 24

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If you spent $1 million every day since the time Christ was born until now, you will have spent $735 billion. Think about that.

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You can know everything about a person by whether they refer to 4AM as '4 in the morning' or '4 at night'

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It's weird how the group that wants arms to protect us from tyrannical government also wants more armed government officers.

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My dad did needlepoint at a national competition level. I just found out he was inspired by ex-NFL player Rosey Grier and his "Needlepoint for Men". It took me a while to realize needlepoint is basically pixel art as a handicraft.

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You can stop running that response to Virginia's letter about Santa. She's probably dead by now.

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The Atlantic on what a decade has meant for gadgets. (They kind of mess up the specifics of Mario, FWIW)

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The way audiophiles feel about vinyl and headphones, I feel about getting online with ethernet instead of wifi.

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Enjoying Christmas prep with the family in Ocean Grove NJ, but missing Amber and kind of longing for a catch-up staycation... Is it Christmas yet?

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Video of the Moment

--Heheh, they got some of the weapons wrong but like Doktor Puppykicker says on mighty god king where I got it, "More pranks should end with police intervention."

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Quote of the Moment

The winter sky of southeastern Alaska is a Talmud of gray, an inexhaustible commentary on a Torah of rain clouds and dying light.

Very good read. An appealing mix of Yiddish culture and Noir detective work, set in a present day that followed an alternate history where Israel didn't survive 1948, and the primary Jewish homeland is a special set aside in Alaska, due to revert back to USA control. It doesn't quite sustain through the whole thing, gets a little overwhelmed with the action elements, but still, one of the best things I read this year.

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Doodle of the Moment

--"Didn't have enough coloring books as a kid?" asks my Aunt. Feh!

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bad telemarketing: "Well what *part* of our resort literature weren't you interested in?" / "Next time you're having dinner, don't pick up!"

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A ticking clock has a huge physical and metaphysical loudness, especially when you're trying to get to sleep.

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Hoo-goddam-ray for the moneybag yankees. Hope the recession makes them choke on their stadium and their payroll.

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caption removed from Young Astronauts in Love: "*burp*. oy, that's the thing about being a spaceman. you burp, you remember it for a while"

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Man, I hate those OS / Graphics Card / Chipset / Energy Star stickers they slap on laptop wristrests, like a damn NASCAR racer wannabe.

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Things I would not know about if not for daytime TV: the "Snuggie", a blanket with sleeves. Looks like robes for really, really lazy monks.

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I think the real benefit to working on a PC rather than a laptop at a desk is less angsty walking to think about the next bit. So, in Nyack or thereabouts for Family Christmas. (It's where my mom lives (in Salvation Army parlance "is currently stationed") but not really our hometown.)

This wind and rain is something else! I'm worried about an ice-slick future, but I'm grateful this wasn't some kind of major blizzard.

My mom's place has a sump pump which has been working overtime, sounding like a garage door opening every few minutes. Turns out the output of the sump pump probably isn't set far enough away from the house and it's likely repumping much of the same water over and over.

It's kind of tragic heroic in its own futile way, the Sisyphus of Sump.

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Scandalized Childhood of the Moment

mouse over to pull string

This is a Santa Advent Calendar my family got when I was a kid, little scenes under the 24 windows. You pull the string and Santa does a little leap. My parents rehung it every year, even though obviously all the doors had been opened. For years I thought it was just a cute family tradition, but I was shocked, SHOCKED to find out that my parents fondness for it was based on their amusment on the idea of "pull Santa's dingdong and he jumps".

When I found out, I felt so dirty! But now my former shock is just part of the tradition. And through the magic of Javascript I can share it with you. Move the mouse over Santa to pull his dingle! So last night I went to the S+S with Miller, Kate, and Tammy. We decided to do a round of "Mr. Snowman", a game Mr. Ibis independently taught to both Miller and me. "Mr. Snowman" is a collaborative kind of game for 2 or more players, where half the people draw attacks (melting or otherwise) of the snowman that has been drawn, and the other half draw defenses to counter the various attacks. (At that point, the attacking team can try a new attack, or draw a counter to the counter, and so on and so forth.)

We made a 4-player variant, with Kate and I defending the attacks drawn by Tammy and Miller. Ideally this game is played at one of those restaurants with paper tablecloths and crayons, or at least paper placemats, but I suppose sticking with the napkin at hand made for some easier scanning.

This was the result of the first round:


I started by drawing the hapless Snowman. Miller quickly drew a basic bonfire underneath for insidious melting purposes. Kate countered with rain above to douse the flames.

At this point there was a fork... a bit later in the game, Miller drew an umbrella to let the flames continue their nefarious work, to which Kate had no choice but to draw a helpful dog on mailbox pushing a bucket of water to extinguish that damn bonfire. A bit later Miller invoked the "it's ok to make fun of your own culture" rule and drew a Filipino restaurant (top right) to turn the poor dog into lunch. Kate then drew a health inspector to close the restaurant and that was the end of that thread.

The other fork was Tammy upgrading the storm with thunder and lightning, there on the left. I deftly drew Benjamin Franklin to bring the fearsome electrical energies into his famous kite and key. I believe Miller than drew a large quantity of butter to lure Ol' Ben to an early coronary grave. Kate decided to fight butter with more fire to melt it. Miller thought this could be the perfect time to draw in some lobster, but Kate argued that it didn't seem like a single lobster would be that unhealthy of a food, and so this thread ended, and the Snowman lived on!

At some point Tammy drew a stick of dynamite (ignominiously jammed into the Snowman's side) with a trailing fuse wire and plunger box, and arrows showing the plunger being pressed. I ignored Miller's suggestion to merely redraw the arrows going the other way, and instead drew how the plunger was being operated by (a very, very poorly drawn version of) Wile E. Coyote. Mr. Snowman is a bit loose with temporal issues, so I felt ok showing both Wile E before pressing the plunger, and after, where he's a big exploded mess holding a sign saying "OUCH".

Tammy drew a very lovely dragon, slain by my less lovely St. George. She also drew an oncoming train. I drew a damsel in distress, tied to the rails, and then a hero to throw the switch that would divert the train. In a nod to the non-hetero-normative make up of our group, I decided the hero(ine) was actually Delila Do-Right, said Damsel's girlfriend. It may have been at this point that Tammy bemoaned about being seated right before me in the rotation, given my MAD THWARTING SKILLZ, though admittedly I seem to have more than my fair share of celebrities fighting for my cause.

When Tammy later drew a letter from the hospital informing Mr. Snowman that he had Cancer, I had to counter with an IV drip for chemotherapy, and would have made our survivor snowman bald, except that he was already. (There was some talk of drawing a phonecall indicating that the letter was a prank, but that seemed a little abstract to me.)

The other long thread was Tammy realizing that the poor beleaguered snowman was despondent, and suicidal, and firing a gun into his own head! I was able to draw the bottle of booze responsible for both this rash decision and for causing the snowman to miss. However, Miller pointed out that it wasn't a bottle of booze, but non-alcoholic swill of some sort, possibly O'Doules. Kate then drew the box of blanks that the gun had actually been loaded with. (I think, chronologically, this may have been when the cancer letter occurred, with the idea that the letter may have provoked the suicidal thoughts.) Later Miller drew a newspaper with a story telling of how those blanks were being recalled...for being live ammunition after all! Kate then drew a blowtorch to sever the snowman's gun arm entirely. The rest of the table thought this was a pyrrhic victory, but what the hell, it's just a snowman, and it shouldn't be that hard to find a replacement stick anyway.

But, alas, the endgame was nigh. Tammy drew a large firecracker going, as she said, "up his butt". My lack of attention proved sadly fatal, as I didn't look at what she had placed new on the page and, based on her comment, thought she was talking about the dynamite sticking into his side (with the Wile E. defense, I had been more focused on the plunger.) So my not-so-clever scissors snipping the fuse was for naught, and given how we had pretty much filled the napkin anyway, we decided that that was the end of poor Mr. Snowman. I have to believe that he's in a better place.

Anyway, I heartily recommend this game as a great accompaniment to nearly any restaurant meal.

Photo of the Moment
--I saved this picture of Bronson Arroyo for posting in September 2004 but never got around to it... but since I've been on a small kick of sports-related photos lately, I thought it would be a good time for it. I just want to say...damn! It looks like someone has been photoshopping, but I'm pretty sure it's the real deal. I like how is attention is nowhere near the amazing thing his leg is doing.

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Link of the Moment
A kind of cousin to last week's CuteOverload site, it's Rose Colored News..."good news for progressives about politics, the environment, health, and more."

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Quote of the Moment

There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.

So one thing I learned is that Russians like having dried fish with their beer, but then I find out that's not unique to Russia. A lot of cultures enjoy that combination, but I hadn't heard of it before. So on a whim I bought some "salmon fillet jerky" from Trader Joe's, and then yesterday the only beverage I had in the house was some Sam Adams Lite. And the two were very good together. In fact, in a very striking way, it evoked some sense memories of the Jersey Shore, the salty marshy smell, and something more I couldn't quite put my finger on. But in a pleasant way. I wonder if that would happen with most beers, or if other people made the same association.

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Christmas Card of the Moment
A Christmas Card for you...handcrafted by me thanks to the fine folk at zefrank. (A lot of cool stuff on that site, I keep meaning to go through it and blog the place properly.)

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Mad Cow in Review
So Mad Cow is in the News, this time in the USA. The little cartoon on the right is from one of my first kisrael.com updates, which was all about Mad Cow Disease. Also, you might be interested in this update that talks about the book "The Electric Meme" and how Prions might be the correct metaphor for getting memes from vaguue wishy-washy ideas to testible theories.

And of course, an old classic, How to identify if your cow has mad cow disease...still makes me giggle.

Man, between the flu, the California quake, and this...those terrorists are attacking us on all fronts!

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News Quote of the Moment

Go to the restaurants, see the shows; there's no more exciting or better place to be.

It's all well and good to encourage people to not stop appreciate what New York has to offer, but he really needs to acknowledge the difference between "good excitement" and "bad excitement"... So Mo found my keys which has been missing since mid-Sunday or so. I swear I did check my car...but what kind of dork would leave them hanging out of the lock of the trunk for 2 days straight?

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Game of the Moment
About the oddest 'educational' game I've ever seen, it's Journey to Planet Prostate. Guide this little fella, Sammy Sperm, through 5 levels, from Arousal Nebula to Planet Prostate. All I can think of was my old chemistry teacher's old joke, "there is a Vas Deferens between men and women".

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Grumble of the Moment
I swear I installed my holiday header before memepool did.

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Quote of the Moment

The Tedium Is The Message

But their current favorite slogan seems to be "Please Don't Start World War III". So the good news is alienbill came back. The problem is that it has been restored from a months old archive. My webhost had a security breach. Pretty much anyone whose home directory began with "a" or "b" got screwed over. Apparently, the webhost I use for that is unfamiliar with the idea that backup files shouldn't always be reachable online. Man, hackers are such assholes. I don't think this effects the main public content of it too much, but I've a lost a lot of updates to my homepage.

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Silver Lining of the Grey Cloud of Suck of the Moment
When I was looking for possible archives of my site, Ranjit pointed out the wonder of archive.org. They have snapshots of websites going all the way back to 1996. It was interesting to see my homepage circa 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999

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Quote of the Moment

Imperfect Web Design For An Imperfect World

I think it's a useful construction for a lot of circumstances. It could be used for expressing the "sometimes 'just good enough' is best" kind of attitude...