...and it's good enough for me

This one's for you, MFH: Greta Christina's Blog has been doing some thinking about the song "Old Time Religion" --

Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
It's good enough for me

-- which sits in need of further expansion. (As if it wasn't already pretty, um, expanded by the various communities of belief / random acts of filk / Usenet community who've taken up the singalong over the years, but one craves the acknowledgment of His Noodly Appendage.) Her reader community came through and how; I'd direct your attention to the first comment, but I'm fairly sure you're going to read them all anyway. And then the song will be stuck in your head for hours and you'll never view the opening of Inherit the Wind quite right again. FTW!

Pattern (and procrastination) recognition

The last thing I need to do with my eight remaining brain cells is to play Wiclimo. Needless to say, that's all I'm doing for a while. It's an absolutely nonverbal pattern-discernment game, which ought to warm the hearts of those among us who like logic puzzles; gameplay's a little tetchy if your mouse isn't behaving well, but it's great to see some unapologetically weird thinking going on in the casual-gaming space.

Less romantic (unless you're a turbo-nerd)

Or, you know, not: It could be said that on that now-famous sort-of-first-date, Barack took Michelle out for igneous rocks. Or he would have if those two were geo dweebs* rather than the law geeks they obviously are.

* I can use the most fraught word in the geek-nerd-dweeb label continuum here because everyone knows that next to astronomers, geologists are some of the most blissed-out folk in science. So I'm saying it with either affection or envy. When I know which I'll report back.

...and repent in leisure

Oh, for god's sake:

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, the eldest child of the late Robert F. Kennedy and a former lieutenant governor of Maryland, said the animosity that some Clinton delegates feel toward Obama "is getting worse."

Townsend, a Maryland delegate, was a strong Clinton supporter but now is fully behind Obama. She said she partly understands why some of her colleagues have not joined her yet.

"There's a moment that you want to enjoy your bitterness," she said.

Yes, and if the Dems don't pull it together that "moment" will be 4-8 years long, plus whatever happens with the Supremes. I realize I'm a bit obsessed about this right now, but I have a sick feeling that this election cycle could prove the acme of boomer self-involvement-at-the-expense-of-all-others behavior. I just bought a frickin' house; I am gonna be so pissed if I have to leave it and move to Canada...

In which Chris Matthews entertains the crowd

I'd say words can't describe the concentrated crazy that is Cristi Adkins on MSNBC this afternoon, but in fact, there is a word to describe the part where Nurse Ratchett here mistakes Chris Matthews for a child with dirty ears. And that word is HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I doubted Matthews' sense for doing a segment down on the PUMA protest line, but I was wrong -- this is great television, and a great glimpse into the bunny-boiling mindset that seems to be driving "these ladies," as Chris called them with such arch joy. God, I do love me some convention coverage.

We love you too, Mr. Ebert

From Roger Ebert's blog, a lovely and full-throated appreciation of the positive side of blogging. As you may well expect, it involves commenters. Aww. Let's all be sure not to tell him about the color-coded burnout level alerts.

Tramp the dirt down

Attention Gen X: If what we all wished for back in the day is any indication, it appears that dementia is the most gruesome imaginable way to die, at least of the ordinary ways to die: First Reagan, now Thatcher.

I'll buy that. Something that simply smites your elderly ass isn't nearly as horrifying to face as something that steals your mind, your memories, your dignity, and your personal relationships -- my father couldn't visit my grandmother for the last year of his life, as it was just too traumatic to his own dying system -- and leaves you locked inside your own body to witness it. (I asked my grandmother about her awareness of her decline, while she could still be asked. She was "still in there," she told me, and it was awful to see the disconnections. Like being fogged in, she said, and knowing that the signals you were sending out were coming through fuzzed and wrong. Beyond frustrating. Often beyond humiliating.)

So there's that, and the families of Mr. Reagan and Ms. Thatcher will have their own thoughts on who suffers now and how splattery karma can be when it comes around. But I have to confess that though we really did think that Maggie and Ronnie were about the evilest damn things we ever saw back then, I'm hoping that fate has something more... gratifying... in store for Dick Cheney in the full measure of his years.

Tastier blogging treat (the stocked shelf)

Hey, check this out -- Tyson Foods (you know, chickens and whatnot) has a clever fundraiser going on their site, and all you have to do to help out is read a blog post about Austin, TX and leave a comment indicating that you did so. For each comment, the company will donate 100 pounds (!) of food to a fundraiser in the Austin area, and they'll go as high as 35,000 pounds.

This could be a true Net phenomenon; the fundraiser is called the HAM-Up Tweet-Up, and it was conceived (and news has been propagating) up in the Twitstream. It launched today, and wouldn't you just love to hear that Twitter had caused 17.5 tons of food to appear along with the usual 8.3 cubic feet of virtual guano?

Tasty blogging treat (or, a truly splendid table)

From Very Good Taste via the legendary Mike Gundleroy, a blogmeme I'm actually happy to pass along. I may not answer questions that reveal my age or my taste in music or what I want out of life, but honey, I will talk food with you all the livelong day. (This post goes out to RCS, who needs to return to his destiny of Cheese Blogging.) Simple really: Look at the list and mark the ones you've eaten. The VGT instructions:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

and

4a) Let me (AG) know so I can go see what you said.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (notice how no one does this nonsense with gin?)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal (not gonna count one tiny head-fracturing taste)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (it wasn't called Immort Ale for nothing)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (I'll just turn in my trailer-trash card at the door here)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

82/100. I am so enjoying my time on this planet.

Not better late than never, actually

(an open letter)

Dear Lady at the Polling Station Who Shushed Everyone So She Could Read Her Ballot: I'm sorry the stick up your ass was interfering with your concentration, but come on, sweetheart -- if you didn't sit down to read through Seattle's lone ballot initiative in the months you had to do so before today, grumbling over it while standing at the polling booth isn't going to do you a whit of good, as there are about four words' difference between the two versions.

More than this, though, I want to know -- really, you're just now looking at this stuff? Months of campaign info, endorsement slates from every publication in town, an entire Comcast channel of information, and you walk in for a first read? And sweet sticky Jesus, your vote will count as much as mine? Bad enough that you're the sort of person who doesn't just shush but feels compelled to deliver a 45-second lecture to a roomful of people who feel so much civic duty they volunteer to sit there and not mock your ass (hey, that's my job); there's absolutely no way in hell you could be voting an informed ticket. Maybe you're a straight-Dem or straight-GOP voter; that'll get you halfway through the process, maybe. The uncontested races will take you two or three closer to the finish line. But when you hit the judicial slate? God help you. Better yet, God help me, as I have indeed helped myself as per custom and aphorism.

Here's the deal, lady. I know you're busy. We are all very, very busy. We're all sick unto death of this campaign season; we're all a little perplexed by Seattle's new primary system; we're all trying to check the to-do list item that hauls us through the parking-challenged streets of Wallingford to the odd little room in the church. But voting is one of those things that requires that one do one's homework before the exam. If you can't be bothered, understand that you are quite possibly doing more harm than good -- and not only to the cheerful spirits of those who care more than you do about the republic.