Is this my lucky day or what?

1.  Ninety minutes of Grant from Ghost Hunters!

2.  The Butcher is going to make his first batch of chili tomorrow!

3.  Antioch Auto Center has a commercial in which they announce that they are serving us in Jesus’ name.  I must be misremembering that He was a carpenter.

4.  Dan Savage answers questions about my favorite topic.  Here’s my opinion, though I’m willing to be wrong: I don’t think it works very well for one person to ask his primary partner to do that for him.  I think that probably ends up with the primary partner feeling jealous and maybe like he’s looking to have his cake and eat it, too.  But I think if the two people already together view it as a chance to seduce the third party as a couple, well, good times for everyone.

Are Alabama Libertarians the Best Kind or What?

You may remember Alabaman libertarian gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall.  Well, she’s up to amusing no-good again, this time coming to the defense of folks who sell sex toys.

She’s sending, and encouraging her readers to do likewise, sex toys to busybody politicians.

I do hope that Troy likes his pink, inflatable, penetratable pig. I would have sent a regular blow up doll….but I wanted to encourage him to breed only within his species…hence the pig. I’ve also considered dressing up in a penis costume and attending the next press conference on this issue….however, I am afraid that in such a costume I might be mistaken for Troy King or any of the many dickheads that inhabit Montgomery, AL.

Awesome.

As we say here in the land of Hee-Haw, Loretta Nall, Say-lute!

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It does make me wonder whether it would be effective to send single cans of beer to Erica Gilmore?

And Then What Will We Need Libraries For?

We’ve talked about the ridiculousness of Google approaching university libraries about digitizing their books and what an enormous copyright violation that is.

But here’s something else I wonder.  Have the libraries really thought this through?

Every week, we get a report from Google that shows us how many hits and to which books those hits are attributed we’ve gotten from our books that are in one of their programs.  Since the start of the fall semester, we’ve seen massive increases in the numbers of hits our books have received.  It seems as if people are finally aware that you can search books and even read chunks of them online.

Right now, we need libraries to select and collect books we otherwise couldn’t afford that are considered important in their fields.

If all books exist in a searchable format online and, if Google can either instantly make the text available or point readers to where the text would be instantly available, what becomes of libraries?

Are they reduced to books with problematic permissions, art books, and rare books?

Do librarians become untethered from buildings?

Do we search in seedy parts of town, in cramped offices, to find ex-librarians who have the knowledge and skillsets to do searches that we’re not capable or comfortable doing?  Will they spend their days drinking and calling women “broads” and “dames”?  Smoking cigarettes and nursing hangovers, remembering how it used to be in their glory days on the force?

Will future writers write “librarian noir”?

And, if so, will those books ever make their way into a physical library?

“…like that time Batman taught us all to bellydance.”

Was there anything funnier than the South Park episode that lampooned Family Guy?  As the Butcher pointed out, it single-handedly ruined Family Guy for everyone in our house.

I can’t tell if Fox’s completing episodes without Seth MacFarlane is going to be the most hilarious thing to happen to that show or the least.

A Poem For Your Birthday

Litany  

by Billy Collins 

You are the bread and the knife,

The crystal goblet and the wine…

-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,

the crystal goblet and the wine.

You are the dew on the morning grass

and the burning wheel of the sun.

You are the white apron of the baker,

and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,

the plums on the counter,

or the house of cards.

And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.

There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,

maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,

but you are not even close

to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show

that you are neither the boots in the corner

nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,

speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,

that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,

the evening paper blowing down an alley

and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees

and the blind woman’s tea cup.

But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.

You will always be the bread and the knife,

not to mention the crystal goblet and-somehow-the wine.