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2008

Birthdays and stuff

A big happy birthday to my dad, who turned 83 today. As is his custom, there was dinner at the cafeteria followed by cake at home and no further fuss.

While I’m at it, a big happy birthday to me, who turned 44 last Sunday. I allowed slightly more fuss: dinner at Anton’s on Saturday night (as is my custom) and then a lovely day hanging out with my boy (which is something I don’t get to do enough of) on Sunday.

I got lots of cool stuff, much of it books:

  • Motoring by John Jakle and Keith Sculle. These are two of my favorite authors: geographers with a road culture and history perspective. When I write my book on the history of the American supermarket, the format will be based on their books on motels, gas stations, and chain restuarants.
  • The Five Laws of Library Science by S.R. Ranganathan. Ranganathan is the Jane Jacobs of Library Science, or so I tried to demonstrate in a paper last semester. He described a common sense approach with a rather dry humor. I love this 75-year-old book.
  • Atlanta: An Illustrated History by Andy Ambrose. It is what it says it is, but I haven’t read it yet.
  • Books on Fire by Lucien Polastron. Again, I haven’t read it yet, but it looks fascinating, touching on historical and current issues surrounding both preservation of and free access to information.
  • Popular Culture in the Age of White Flight by Eric Avila. Suburbs, politics, and the restructuring of urban space in postwar Los Angeles, which is, of course, a metaphor for the postward United States.

And then there was my new puppy:

I love having a boy who understands that a big stuffed puppy and an Elmo piñata are absolutely appropriate gifts for a bitter, cynical 44-year-old.

Don’t want them aliens more educated than we are

Way to go, State Board of Community Colleges (along with both NC gubernatorial candidates). Let’s make sure we do all we can to guarantee there will be a persistent, dependent underclass in North Carolina for years to come.

Denying undocumented immigrants a means of getting an education that might help them support themselves is probably not the most efficient way to avoid having your tax dollars support them. Keep in mind that these people were paying out of state tuition rates which covered more than the cost of their education, so they weren’t exactly suckling at the public teat to begin with. However, without access to job training, it’s pretty much a given that they (or their children) will eventually be doing so.

For worse. Much worse.

With Grandpa predictably having another heart attack just in time for Elizabeth’s wedding day, Lyn Johnnston has changed her mind about the future of For Better of for Worse (a/k/a FOOB) for the 413th time. Apparently the mix of old to new content will now be 50-50, and she will be returning to her old drawing style to match the old strips. Apparently she wants to make Ellie’s nose smaller, and “fix” some of the mistakes she made over the years.

That said, I’d like to announce that I will be re-launching Planet SOMA later this year. In the process, I will be increasing the size of my penis and correcting mistakes and mishaps like this one, this one, and this one.

Those of you ho have been following this FOOB saga over the past few years will probably agree with me when I say that I fully excpect Lyn Johnston’s next announcement to be that she will be re-launching her strip again in October using discarded artwork from Gasoline Alley and Snuffy Smith and recycled storylines from The Katzenjammer Kids.

Robert Plant’s crotch

The Song Remains the Same is on VH1 Classic tonight. Again. Is it there for all us old guys who were still just a little too young to have seen it at the midnight movies as teenagers, or are they trying to force yet another generation to be mesmerized by Robert Plant’s crotch? Robert Plant is kind of gross, and his crotch is not someplace I’d ever really want to be, but the damned thing is almost the primary theme of the whole movie. It’s really quite distracting.

My concentration is shot tonight. I need to make up for lost sleep. I also need to spend tomorrow making up for lost time not spent on work this week. We’ll see how that works out.

One final thought: did the world really need cinnamon-flavored margarine?

Cool stuff

This has been a very good week for getting cool stuff in the mail from people I’ve never met. I received a Finast Supermarkets promotional yardstick (yes, such a thing exists) and about 400 vintage photos from two different Groceteria fans, plus two CDs of last Friday night’s show from someone who was friends with someone else who happened to record it. And none of it was birthday-related.

Another quick road trip this week (I haven’t been home a lot lately), not to mention my birthday festivities will be covered at some later date. Screw this internet stuff. I’m going to bed.