Get a new company harassment policy in the mail. There’s a list of NOs, kind of like you’d see at a hotel pool. I’ve only had the list in my possession for a second but No. 5 is already my favorite: No Taunting.

Man. That’s going to be tough.

Not a lot happenning today… Dale’s back, and Sappho’s out and about, so I’m sort of chugging steadily along, wrapped a few holiday presents, even! I suspect that come 5pm, things are going to get tricky.

Ol’ Dirty Bastard is on the radio. “It’s all good,” he says.

An absolutely exhaustive list of articles on social criticism. The very last section on the page is called “Achieving goodness in a complex world”.

Hooray for online shopping!

Now, I just need to grab some tape from work, and wrap some of these lovely local ones are….(and I have to get Blackie a new toy, since some naughty orange cat who will go nameless (see icon) got into my goodybag and played with it to the point where it’s not fit to give away, now.)

Holiday cards are winging to folks today… huzzah!

I think that toys are coming in more and more weirdly-shaped packages these days. What ever happened to tossing it in a cardboard box, with a little cellophane window on it? Why the huge thick semi-laminate vaccuum formed on there?

refractory (rih-FRAK-tuh-ree), adjective:
1. Stubbornly disobedient; unmanageable.
2. Resisting ordinary treatment or cure.
3. Difficult to melt or work; capable of enduring high temperature.

Refractory comes from Latin refractarius, “stubborn,” from refragari, “to oppose, to withstand, to thwart.”

occiput (OK-suh-put) noun, plural occipita (ok-SIP-i-tah) or occiputs

The back part of the head or skull.

[From Middle English, from Latin occipit, from oc-, from ob- (against) + ciput, from caput (head).]

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)
Is planning a ban on smut.
Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.
And his reverend occiput.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
Grit your molars and do your dut.,
Gird up your l–ns,
Smite h-p and th-gh,
We’ll all be Kansas
By and by.

Opening para of Ogden Nash’s 1931 poem on Sen. Reed Smoot whose anti-porn stance led to a newspaper headline “Smoot Smites Smut”.

refractory (rih-FRAK-tuh-ree), adjective:
1. Stubbornly disobedient; unmanageable.
2. Resisting ordinary treatment or cure.
3. Difficult to melt or work; capable of enduring high temperature.

Refractory comes from Latin refractarius, “stubborn,” from refragari, “to oppose, to withstand, to thwart.”

occiput (OK-suh-put) noun, plural occipita (ok-SIP-i-tah) or occiputs

The back part of the head or skull.

[From Middle English, from Latin occipit, from oc-, from ob- (against) + ciput, from caput (head).]

Senator Smoot (Republican, Ut.)
Is planning a ban on smut.
Oh rooti-ti-toot for Smoot of Ut.
And his reverend occiput.
Smite, Smoot, smite for Ut.,
Grit your molars and do your dut.,
Gird up your l–ns,
Smite h-p and th-gh,
We’ll all be Kansas
By and by.

Opening para of Ogden Nash’s 1931 poem on Sen. Reed Smoot whose anti-porn stance led to a newspaper headline “Smoot Smites Smut”.

The Three Laws of Robotics are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I’m craving astronaut ice cream. Pre-lit Christmas trees *rock* the house. I want to be face-down in a pizza-pie, eating my way to freedom!

The Three Laws of Robotics are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

I’m craving astronaut ice cream. Pre-lit Christmas trees *rock* the house. I want to be face-down in a pizza-pie, eating my way to freedom!

Burglars caught on webcam – http://www.austin360.com/aas/metro/121401/14webcam.html

“The pair made what could prove to be a major slip-up when they wandered into an Avenue F home on Nov. 20. The two men tripped Dan Littlejohn’s motion-activated Web camera, and the computer recorded the entire escapade on a Zip disk.”

Why didn’t they take the computer?

“The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit — this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.”

– Goethe

HITLER SPANKED

If you had captured Hitler & Hirohito, what would you do with them?

Modern Ruins… some beautiful places to look at, weirdly crumbling. I remember roaming through the bones of what was to be eventually the boynton beach mall, and some of the bigger buildings in homestaed after the hurricane that remind me a lot of these.

The subject of these photographs is as much about what is absent in the images as what is present. They are as much about the people who once inhabited these spaces as it is about the wreck and ruin that is left behind. There is a tension developed in the photographs between what we see in the images and what we imagine the place was once like. The stark absence of people in the images is magnified by the peeling and decay, and the peeling and decay make the absence of people, and their possible stories, that much more poignant.

The asylum, with it’s peeling paint reminds me a lot of Gilman’s story of the Yellow Wallpaper.

excrescence ik-SKRESS-uhn(t)s, noun:
1. Something (especially something abnormal) growing out from something else.

2. A disfiguring or unwanted mark, part, or addition.

Excrescence is from Latin excrescentia, “excrescences,” from excrescere, “to grow out,” from ex-, “out” + crescere, “to grow.”

So many of the people I care about are suffering from one form of depression or another, especially at this time of year… myself included to an extent. Decreased appetite, some free-floating gloom, mostly just catching myself with sometime despair. Once I recognise the problem for what it is, I can take steps to counter it, either by thinking about the counter to the source of whatever is causing my dark mood… for a lot of people it isn’t that simple. I have a very real desire to help folks ride out the storm, to be supportive and give aid wherever I can… I understand that all sunshine makes a desert, and I’m no fair-weather friend, anyhow, to stretch the metaphor a bit more.

My goal is simply to be there for those that can benefit by it. I feel better when I know I’m of aid.

finished my shopping today, and am now addressing all my holiday cards for launch on Monday.

Dave and I went a broad assortment of places, and I got a clasp that I needed to finish a project I’ve been sitting on for a while.

While shopping, I felt a rush of melancholia and bittersweet… weird mix of holiday feelings. I did find some lovely gifties, though, and the traffic was not too bad.

Dave’s realising the work involved with raising a baby…I’m very happy for him and Cathi.

Monday, (or tomorrow, if times are slow) I finish wrapping some of these prezzies and send them winging on the way to some trees and stockings…

Well, I’ve been putting off this other thing off too long.. back to work.

(I didn’t write this, but admire the author.)

Wear sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now …

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy.

Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.