interdictor

Ever wonder why so many people in the Commonwealth countries are scared by the thought of their neighbor owning a gun?

To my knowledge, there aren't many BBC outdoors shooting shows...but there's "news" like this.

I give you an interview with Mark 'Chopper' Read c. early-90s, also picked up by our own bastion of journalistic integrity, Hard Copy.

Note the terrifying 10/22. Sweet JEsus!



One example? Sure. Moreover, I haven't watched Commonwealth television in more than a decade.

Regardless, we all owe Tom Knapp and his bunch a great debt of gratitude. Never let anyone tell you what gets broadcast doesnt really effect what people think.

I may have missed doing this last year ... perhaps I need to get caught up on that. Anyway, I just finished one book today and started on a fairly substantial one that I'm pretty sure I'm not going to finish in the next four days, so, behind the cut (ain't I a swell guy), is my "BOOKS READ IN 2009 LIST" ...

( Clicky-clicky ... you know you want to! )

I only just topped my target of 72 books read this year (with 74), but at least I made that. With most of this year spent home cranking out resumes, I've had less time for reading than I did when I was commuting up to Evanston for work. If I get this gig that I interviewed for a week or so back, I'll be taking the Metra out to the west 'burbs so my reading total will no doubt go back up to where it had been the past couple of years! As always, more details are over at my LibraryThing catalog.

Anyone know of a furniture store that carries coat racks? Apparently, neither Wal-Mart nor Target carries them in store, but I can order it off their web site.

Why did nobody tell me about this?

You really have to sit down and read the whole thing, even the comments from the Portland haters, to get the benefit. These are like das ubergroupies. You'd think, no, das ubergroupies would have to be sleeping with actual rock stars, not guys who play in a Southern Oregon 80s cover band. But you would be wrong. I can't explain why, probably because I just spent an hour reading the site. Also THEY GOT FREAKING ARRESTED FOR RUNNING THE THING.

Now that's more like it. A lil under half a half marathon, not even winded. Average pace a bit faster than my usual leisurely 10-min-mile clomp. I was dressed exactly like I am in that icon, so if you flood fill the background black to make it look like nighttime, you have a pretty good visual.

I am coming for you, half marathon!

I just officially registered for the So Cal Half Marathon, my first such race. The winds of (the good kind of) peer pressure are verily pushing my sails towards new shores! I was a bit concerned that I might not be able to participate due to my recent sick spell, but FUCK THAT. Sure I lost a week or two of training, but I've already done a 10 mile run. The race isn't til the 9th, so there's still time to compensate for lost momentum. (Literally and metaphorically.)

People getting kicked out of the Nutcracker for fighting?

Who knew radio was so exhausting? Well, not really, but I did spend most of the afternoon napping after having gotten back from WGN-AM today and the Chicago Now show.

Once again, had a great time ... they paired me up with Ron Culp, who writes the Hire Learning blog, and it went quite well. Clicky-clicky on the graphic for the whole run-down and the link to the podcast of our segment ===>. Once again, I'm reminded how much I enjoyed being behind a microphone ... if this keeps up I might start having delusions of possible returns to radio!

I'm getting frustrated with my not having made any headway on getting caught up with writing book reviews ... as noted, I'm behind on 3 at this point, and should have been caught up if not for the whole napping thing (both this afternoon when trying to read and tonight while working on the computer)!. I'm hoping to maybe get one knocked down still tonight, but unlike general blithering like this, I find it harder to just "extract from the proverbial bodily orifice" something like a review. I certainly don't want to get back to a situation like I was in a while ago when I'd ended up with a big stack of books awaiting my commentary!

Sounds like we're going off to see Sherlock Holmes tomorrow ... the Trib didn't much like it in its review, but the folks I'm hearing weigh in on it over on Twitter have been generally complimentary. I'm sure that we'll get out to see Avatar at some point as well, but it sounds like that might be worth going the IMAX route if we're going to pay for a 3D showing (as opposed to a discount matinee).

Urban Meyer steps down as Florida coach.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP)—Urban Meyer resigned Saturday as Florida’s football coach after five seasons and two national titles because of health concerns that came to light when he suffered chest pains following the SEC championship game earlier this month.

The 45-year-old Meyer will coach his final game at the Sugar Bowl against Cincinnati on New Year’s Day

Poll #1503810
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 12

Should I move back?

Tonight, upstairs at the Rubyfruit Jungle! Corrosion presents the crown jewel of the New Orleans Gothic Empire...



Featuring two floors of Goth, industrial, and ethereal music in an upscale, cocktail lounge atmosphere
We even have a dance floor now!
Doors at 10 p.m.
Upstairs at the Rubyfruit Jungle at 1135 Decatur
$3 cover
Bring a book to donate to Louisiana Books 2 Prisoners and you get in for free!

Does anyone here besides our resident Republican,volkris, want to rise in support of this new TSA policy?

Less than 24 hours after the terrorist attempt, travelers at airports around the world, from Frankfurt to Rochester, N.Y., began experiencing heightened screening in security lines. Even as airlines began limiting United States-bound passengers to just one carry-on bag, travelers will feel the most significant changes during the actual flights.

According to a statement posted Saturday morning on Air Canada’s Web site, the Transportation Security Administration will severely limit the behavior of both passengers and crew during flights in United States airspace — restricting movement in the final hour of flight. Late Saturday morning, the T.S.A. had not yet included this new information on its own Web site.

“Among other things,” the statement in Air Canada’s Web site read, “during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps.”

If you stay in the United States, you deserve everything that's coming your way.

Where Did The More Than $500 Billion Come From?

Half a trillion dollars worth of new debt isn't accounted for. Nobody knows—or if they do, they're not telling—who loaned us the money.

To our surprise, the only group to actually substantially increase their purchases in 2009 is defined in the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Report as the "Household Sector". This category of buyers bought $15 billion worth of treasuries in 2008, but by Q3 2009 had purchased a whopping $528.7 billion worth. At the end of Q3 this Household Sector category now owns more treasuries than the Federal Reserve itself.

Oh-kaaaay...

This leaves a very important question - who makes up this Household Sector?

Amazingly, we discovered that the Household Sector is actually just a catch-all category. It represents the buyers left over who can’t be slotted into the other group headings. For most categories of financial assets and liabilities, the values for the Household Sector are calculated as residuals. That is, amounts held or owed by the other sectors are subtracted from known totals, and the remainders are assumed to be the amounts held or owed by the Household Sector.

It isn't foreign governments. It isn't any of the usual large buyers, who all have their own categories. It's as though the U.S. government, having maxed out all its other cards, is now wielding a credit card made out of construction paper and crayon, issued by the bank of unintelligible scrawl. And because nobody looked too carefully, they've already managed to charge half a trillion bucks on it.

I thought 2010 would be the year the scam falls apart, but it looks like it already did, and 2010 may just be the year our other creditors notice.

Merry Christmas, all.

Trying to get to bed relatively early tonight as I have to get up to do the Chicago Now radio show over at WGN-AM ... looking forward to it, but I'm nervous because I'm "a day off" this week, I keep finding myself thinking it's one day back from the actual day.

Got another The Job Stalker post up, figuring that Xmas shouldn't prevent me doing the "data dump" of links. I also have Monday's "author interview" good to go, so I've got a leg up on next week.

Did I mention that I got mistaken for Santa Claus yesterday? Coming back from the Loop, we were crossing the street and there was some toddler staring at me ... now, I did have a Santa hat on, but was otherwise not "Santa-esque" with a brown leather bomber jacket over jeans. Maybe the hat, glasses, white beard, and, uh, girth were enough signals. Both of The Girls agreed that the little kid was obviously processing me as Santa "off duty" or something!

I'm trying to get a book review knocked down, but am having a hard time "pulling the trigger" on that (and I'm backed up a bit again on reviews, which is irritating me). Hopefully I'll wrest one out of my brain before going to bed.

Anyway, if you want to catch up on what I've been doing otherwise, clicky-clicky on the graphic over there ===>

I got Pixies sneakers.

But I don't think even that can compare to watching an eight-year-old kid experiment with Snap Circuits. Just... amazing.