Going gentle into that good night

In reference my previous Onion-beats-up-on-Bush post here:

After one more (Spiders Hatch in Bush's Brain), it's over.

I'm still not sure I completely get it.

I'm reading the Clarissa year!

That is, I'm reading the epistolary novel in "real time", reading the letters on the dates that they were "written". It should take until November.

And I'm not doing it alone. Follow us here.

The Onion's feud with Bush continues

A follow-up from a previous post about The Onion's series of satirical news stories detailing increasingly violent things happening to outgoing President Bush.

The latest:

Single-Engine Cessna Crashes Into Bush

It's like a morbid cross between fan-fiction and a snuff film, if said film was to be rendered as a newspaper article.

I would kill for -10C

Oh, come on.







You know, if Britons would only figure out central heating, this wouldn't be such a big deal. (That's right. Brits don't have central heating. Even in some newly built houses. Why? I don't know!)

Fine lines

Preparing to teach Pride and Prejudice this week and thinking about the careful ways that we define our social relationships. For example, this is how I recently explained to a friend of mine my relationship with another acquaintance:

"Let's put it this way: She knows I'm on Facebook. I know she's on Facebook. But neither of us has friended the other."

I'd like to see Facebook come up with a status for that.

Boots!

All I wanted was a pair of snow boots that satisfied the following conditions:

1. Warm
2. Dry
3. Rubber or rubberized sole to avoid slipping
4. With at least a one inch heel
5. Somewhat fashionable

I searched through two malls in Edmonton (including the Big One), wearing, incidentally, the damaged boots that had a hole in the right sole (thus, with a damp right foot). Finally, in another city, in a store where I'd never had much luck, I found:

YAY!

And it only took two weeks, lots of frustration, and many pretty pennies. But at least my feet will be warm and dry this winter.

P.S. Did you know there are thermal in-soles now? Technology is a marvelous thing.

It's a deep freeze—let's make them go outside

Western Canada experiences an unseasonably early cold snap and what happens? News channels send their meteorologists and reporters outside to somehow prove how cold is it. At the least the Saskatoon guy on the right is wearing a hat, but the poor woman in Winnipeg (who moved there from Vancouver last year) is visibly shivering!

As she noted, "minus 39 on exposed skin, like my face? It's numb."

Yes, it would be numb. So why don't you go inside!? Do Canadians not think it gets cold in Winnipeg? Will we doubt reporters unless we can see their breath on air? GAH!