Ramblin' with Roger

And spooky that his character on the West Wing , Leo McGarry, should suffer a heart attack, then John should die of one just shy of his 59th birthday.

1. Tell Me What You Want, What You Really, Really Want for Christmas
(Oh, no! I’ve been posssessed by 90’s female singers. It’s a week before Christmas. I need HELP!)

2. Tell Me What You Realy Are Most Looking Forward to Giving This Year

3. A favorite holiday memory.

My answers in the response section.

Superdickery: A site dedicated to the proposition that a certain Man of Steel is a… – includes comic covers that I find often rather funny in the “what were they thinking?” way.

Liberal Coalition Lefty, who is a member, turned me onto this blog some time ago. From there I found Neural Gourmet, which is currently doing a Carnival of Bad History 4 Call For Submissions

What is bad history? From the home site of the CoBH, it’s bad history whenever:

History is badly presented. This is usually in TV, movies or books. For instance, if you see a Roman soldier wearing a digital watch then you can be pretty sure it’s bad history.
History is badly used. Ever known a politician to draw unjustified historical parallels or even outright lie about a historical event? No? Your cable TV must be out! You need to be reading the Carnival of Bad History more.
Historians behave badly. While it’s unlikely you’re ever going to see a Historians Gone Wild! video, historians are all too human. Plagiarism, corporate sell-outs, frequent appearances on TV talking head shows… All bad history for the most part.
Deadline 12/22
Greg and other historians, submit! (I mean “submit ideas”.)

Golems of light endlessly toil and play,
waiting for instructions for another day.
Reminds me of what I think goes on this time of year at the North Pole.

Are electronic voting machines with proprietary software are inherently fraudulent? Probably.

Someone sent me this nearly year-old link about biometric payments only recently. The somewhat creepy animation got me thinking, though: How is

Piggly Wiggly different from

Porky Pig? It’s in the eyes, or more specifically, in the shape of the eyes, the eyeballs, and the thickness of the lines around the eyes. They both like bowties, though.

How Swearing Works, dammit!

Friend Bill writes: They Might Be Giants wrote and performed songs specifically about each venue they played on their last tour. Click on the Albany link for something I hope you’ll all get a kick out of. LINK. (As a bonus for all comix fans, check out the Dallas link for some Kim Deitch animation.)

The Official Reality Dot Appreciation Page

“You’re ruining your reputation/ And I can give two reasons why…” Indeed.
Hope y’all can play an mp3:
Worst song ever– I swear I posted this before, but I searched for it and could not find it.

Really liked your story about you killing Ted Baxter. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is one of my two favorite sitcoms, along with the Dick van Dyke Show, another one of your favorites as well. (What is the commonality there?) But did you know that Ted Knight got started on television right here in the Capital Region, where you used to live, and where I still do? Check out this story.

I must admit, though, that I’ve NEVER seen the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show! Now, I’ve seen clips – the Kleenex scene, for instance – but not the whole program. I’ve managed to miss it in reruns, even though it was on TV Land or Nick at Nite on New Year’s Eve for a number of years. If you see it on the cable schedule, please let me know, O.K.?

Another confession: there was a period when I would confuse Ted Knight with another silver-haired fellow, Jack Cassidy, who was married to Shirley Jones. (Did you know that the Partridge Family was Gordon’s guilty pleasure?) Jack was David’s father, and Shirley was David’s step-mom. Of course, a cultural maven such as yourself would NEVER make such a mistake, would you?

Glad that your reduced blogging schedule is working for you, though I miss those daily words of wisdom.

And where’s the Macca review?

One of the things some new parents don’t know are nuanced ways to accomplish certain goals in a manner less stressful for all concerned. For instance, we were told to put eye drops in her eyes four times a day, two drops in each side. Insanely, we took this to mean actually trying to get drops IN her open eyes, which involved sometimes 10 minutes and two of us holding down a 30-pound baby – she is VERY strong – before mentioning this difficulty to a couple people, who suggested putting drops in the CORNER of the eyes and working in the drops. This I can do myself in less than a minute, and it’s much less onerous for all concerned.

Truth is, in terms of available sick time, I should take off all of the occasions that Lydia is ill. Because I’ve been in the job so long, my sick days number something like 140, no exaggeration. But in terms of the effect of trying to keep up with our respective jobs, we try to be more equitable. So Monday and Tuesday, I was at home with Lydia, Wednesday, Carol was, and Lydia was back in day care on Thursday.

When we were in the doctor’s office, Lydia was playing with the toys in the waiting room. A white girl, about seven, went over to play in the same area. Her father whispered across the room, “Come here!” He told his child, “You shouldn’t play over there! Over there they have,” and a slight pause. So what’s the punch line? “Sick children play over there.” Well, yes, they do. So maybe I was being paranoid.