Drinking My Tea in Style

...with my new Foucault mug from Philosophy is Dangerous. Nobody has positively ID-ed the man himself yet, but I'm just waiting for the comments around the office to begin....

It was a tough decision--I could happily have bought the Swift mug ("I like babies"), or the Arendt ("Perfection is Not"), or even the Cixous ("Got Milk?"), even though she drives me batty.

And yes, delighted as I am by my new mug, this post is also a shameless plug for my friend Alexis's attempt to fund her graduate school applications by selling philosopher goodies.  So in the immortal words of Mrs. Doyle, g'wan, g'wan, g'wan, g'wan, G'WAN!

GI Joe PSA Parodies

J discovered these the other day, and we've been getting a huge kick out of them. Definitely bizarro, and some are definitely not safe for work....





There are lots more on YouTube, as well as the original PSAs.

Even Funnier than Garfield Minus Garfield

The other day, Rob posted what I thought would be the funniest thing of the week: the Garfield comic strip with the cat himself erased. It's brilliant--go have a look.

But then today, Qwags sent me this link to the Acephalous blog. I am still chortling. So, so true....

In other news, I've been cutting my work with rereading those volumes of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series that the Jesus College light reading room offers...or perhaps I should say I have been cutting my novel-reading with a little work! I first discovered these books 22 years ago: at the time, they gave me a different and much-needed world to escape to in the overwhelming family-wide vortex of confusion, grief, and guilt that surrounded the death of my grandmother. Reading them now, I still adore the world of the dragonriders, but am struck at how conventional and limiting it could be for women. I guess the idea that a woman could be a harper or a gold dragon's rider was exciting to me at 12, but now I wonder why no women are Masterharpers or riders of bronzes.... (The easy answer is "Because Anne McCaffrey said so," and that is, of course, the answer I'll have to accept. But still. I do appreciate the way that she--even in the 60s when the first novels were published--wrote in gay men as a very normal part of Pernese life, though there's not a lesbian to be found in the novels so far as I can tell.)

The [academic] Book I'm Not Reading: Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism.

Another Bill Bailey

Again, thanks to Sophie for sending this along--

More Bill Bailey

Oh, the lapsed English major in me loves this one!

So Second-Wave...

...and so lesbionic!



Thanks to Cleek for sending this on!

Whoa. Too Funny.

and another:



I'll post for real soon. I promise.

My Daemon!

Thanks to Lauren for pointing this site out. You guys can take a mini-questionnaire here to see if you agree with my daemon assignment (apologies to anyone who hasn't read the Philip Pullman books--and if you haven't, you SHOULD!)

Addendum #2, from Jenny's Comment

Jenny's additions can't just stay buried in the comments, so here they are:

Five things I must add, darling:

1) The NYU party being broken up, cuz we're all a buncha derelicts;

2) Allen's belt buckle that opened all our beers (please, Santa, can I have one for Christmas??);

3) Me getting in a fight with the hotel bartender;

4) Cleen's nickname for the weekend: Dirty Schrey;

5) Many awesome intomollectual conversations in our hotel room, over pints stolen from the hotel bar.

Good times.

We also had fun brushing our teeth:


...and saw this BIZARRO poster advertising the "Chocolate Nutcracker" in Columbus in November:

Hack, Hack

Luckily this post is all about me and not about the kitty, since "hack hack cough cough" was Garfield's signature hairball noise, if memory serves. And actually, I'm not coughing, though I've finally gotten the cold that has been going around. Just as long as I can make it to a few appointments tomorrow and Wednesday, and am in form for my trip down South at the weekend, I don't mind some congestion.

Anyway, all the gratuitous info about my cold is only to introduce what I've been *doing* in my current dragged-out, brain-dead state: revisiting Hack (Nethack), a favorite game from my teenage years that I rediscovered online a couple of years ago. And by now, there's a Wiki that goes along with it. I'm sure some of you have known about this game for years, and also whiled away countless hours as a 15-year-old at it, in that year before the driver's license changed everything (in my case, it made sneaking out of the house with friends for 2am trips to Dunkin' Donuts de rigeur).



Lately, J and I have also been revisiting another fun thing from my past: repeated watchings of Broadcast News. She's got a knack for remembering William Hurt's character's lines, which is nice, since I'm best at Holly Hunter's, with Albert Brooks' a fairly close second. But--as Ann will be happy to hear--we have not gotten up to any related antics, like putting Barbie dolls in Mason jars and labeling them "Paul canned me"! Now we're wondering if there's a Facebook group for BN fans--but I'm too busy procrastinating in other ways to join it, even though several folks have 'invited' me to.



You would think from all this that I'm not doing any schoolwork at all at all--but in fact, I have been working on a new draft of my dissertation proposal, and cold willing, have a meeting about that tomorrow. I've also been reading Hayden White's Metahistory, though I doubt I'll bother with the whole thing.

A Need for Bookends--The Non-Metaphorical Kind

Now we know what Art Garfunkel was buying at Scarborough Fair--never mind the parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme: he was buying the old classics. The funny thing is that he and I were reading some of the same books at the same time--I guess he was a late bloomer.

Thanks to "Little Friend" for sending along these links--Garfunkel's favorite books, and his library.

Sexy Abe Lincoln!

One-stop Halloween shopping: watch the video here.

...and this old favorite, the Starbucks Guy. "Whaddathey think they're selling over there? Fuckin' liquid gold?"

Good Job, Tom Cruise

(Top Gun was on tv this morning...I couldn't help but think of this video....)

I Thought My Life Was Complete...

...and then I saw this:

Kitty Strategy

I think someone else is getting hooked on the train game....


(n.b. We weren't actually watching football--this was a commercial during, I believe, an episode of Survivorman!)


This was right before Maddie swatted my piece off the board, I believe.

All Sorted

I'm in Gryffindor. I was a little surprised--I was suspecting Ravenclaw, but oh, well!

Get sorted by the Hogwarts Sorting Hat here.

Now I really am going to do my taxes, finally.

The Train Game!

I just ordered a copy of

with an Amazon gift certificate.

Rob and Mike know what this game means to me, since we played a few times back when I was in DC, but I have more associations of it from college days, when a few of us sat around drinking endless cups of tea and playing it. Strangely addictive, it's like Monopoly, but with a point. And it involves crayons.

Brilliant altogether.

Freakin' Out the Kitty Cat

J & I just decided we needed a good laugh, so watched the Kitty Cat Dance for what must have been the hundredth time--and in the spirit of killing time, we clicked on a few more links, ranging from the hilarious to the truly bizarro. Maddie didn't enjoy these nearly as much as we did, though.

Listen to Tiresias (at the end)...



Gizmo Flushes...



Homage to Gizmo...



and--Creepy. Too Creepy, Man, Too Creepy.



I know some of you out there are waiting for me to write more about Ireland--somehow, I haven't had the energy for much of that (though plenty of energy for other things). But never fear--one of these days....

Done!

This calls for a celebration:


I turned in my paper around 3pm today. It's not the best thing ever, but it's a start toward my dissertation proposal--so, as they say in Irish, ceart go leor! (Right enough.)

Next we're off to meet J's family for her birthday dinner--and then sleep, glorious sleep--something that's been in short supply lately.

Less Than Three Days...

...'til the Kentucky Derby.

Has anyone picked a favorite yet?

(Street Sense beats Any Given Saturday by a nose in the Tampa Bay Derby. Both horses are in Saturday's race.)