The big news at F&D is the discontinuing of the Mortal Enemy of the Week, since I simply don't have a new Mortal Enemy every single week. What I can do instead is offer you something great to do every week, and this week, it's a visit to one of the many sites that are trying to provide tsunami relief. Give till it hurts, kids.

Paul B: Sweet... Ms. Ali (like Muhammad Ali) could have been King Rama Das's best kept secret in ... [read]

Keith H: With the current heat wave in Minn. I couldn't read a newspaper let alone write for one... <... [read]

GumbyProf: Regardless of anything else in the post, the quality of the apple pancake at the original pancake... [read]

Wayne : The link doesn't seem to go anywhere.... [read]

Linda: Dammit. It goes somewhere, but my stinking hosting company sucks rocks, and I'm probably going to... [read]

lorie: I'd love to hear more about your experience with BlueHost as you settle in there. I'm one of tho... [read]

Linda: So far (knock wood), BlueHost has had a great first... day or so. And the people knocking around ... [read]

Okay, Now We're Really Ready
New Project Update
New Project! New Project!
MTV
I Bet You Didn't Know I Was On "Dynasty"
Best. Weekend. Ever.
The Devil And Rebecca Traister
Just Like The Famous Thingamabob Says!
Expat Mike
Things I Learned This Weekend

Diversions (1)
Girlhood (3)
Journal entries (2)
Losing The Cow (2)
Movies (4)
News Of The Whatever (14)
Not Even Sporting (14)
Politics (8)
Roundups (4)
Site news (9)
TV And So Forth (7)
The Excellent (10)
Things That Happened (14)
Yucky Love Stuff (1)


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reading
Which Brings Me To You, The Wal-Mart Effect, Desperate Networks
reading
Adem, Bruce Springsteen, Harvey Danger, Sweet Honey In The Rock
reading
NewsRadio Season Three, assorted season finales, The People's Court
reading
They're very cool over at movabletype

and, of course, everyone at
The Damn Hell Ass Kings

Design and skinning by
this blog's got moxie!
August 28, 2006
Okay, Now We're Really Ready

Everything is good to go over at the new site, and last night brought Emmy blogging. I apologize for the confusion over the stinkin' hosting problem.

06:35 AM | comment (0) | The Excellent | view »
June 15, 2006
Expat Mike

The first person to ever put my writing on the internet was my friend Michael, who took movie reviews I was emailing around in 1995 (I know this, because the first one I ever wrote was A Walk In The Clouds) and put them on a separate part of his own home page, where I was represented by the Dilbert lady with the triangle-shaped head. Good times. I later put them on a site so that Michael wouldn't have to put them up for me (the first version of which was hosted at Chickclick, which for trivia buffs also hosted Dawson's Wrap and other classic destinations). Anyway, first it was Ms. Linda's Is-It-Worth-It Movie Reviews, and then it was Popcorn Lobby, and neither would ever have existed without Michael. (It was, in all incarnations, read by approximately four people outside my immediate family, one of whom I briefly semi-dated years later. Because my life is... like that, sort of.)

Aaaanyway, Michael is currently in Amsterdam, and he has started a blog about it that has at least five solid belly laughs in each of the first two real entries ("Mike Learns How To Use The Dryer" and "Mike Witnesses The World's Crappiest Parade"), so I can't not send you over to look. He's calling it Mike In Amsterdam, but I am calling it by its saucy Blogspot handle, Expat Mike.

02:37 PM | comment (1) | The Excellent | view »
September 16, 2004
Matt Escapes Blogger

Matt has gotten himself a real domain, gotten out of Blogger, and set up a pretty new blog. Politics, sports, law, and Portland -- all excellent subjects you should care about deeply, plus he bitches about people I can't stand, like Instapundit. Go see Matt.

06:28 AM | comment (1) | trackback (66) | The Excellent | view »
September 03, 2004
I'll Take The Alec

This
is the path to salvation that you only have dared to dream of. Until now.

Link via Jack.

09:39 AM | comment (0) | trackback (247) | The Excellent | view »
September 02, 2004
"Fugly Is The New Pretty"

The Fug Blog is one of those brilliant things that makes you kick yourself for not thinking of it, and then kick yourself again for being one of those dumb people who sees other people being brilliantly funny and forgets that they're being brilliantly funny and only making it look easy. They don't have all the kinks worked out of image use and stuff, so some of the images vanish from time to time, but there's plenty there to keep you entertained all day. It's hilarious, it's unexpectedly insightful, and it has a wonderful "The Emperor Has No (Acceptable) Clothes" quality. Like . . . who is telling these people to wear this stuff?

06:09 AM | comment (2) | trackback (96) | The Excellent | view »
July 20, 2004
Here's A Game For You

My sister S was visiting this week, and she and I got talking about the famous Mix Tape. This would be the Mix Tape that she and I listened to during the family's six-week camping trip around the United States in the summer of 1981, when she was thirteen and I was ten.

Of course, the way we made mix tapes then was to hold the tape recorder up to the radio, so we're not talking about high-quality stuff. And how did we get a lot of songs? Well, we listened to the Dick Clark National Music Survey on one particular Sunday night, and we taped whatever songs we wanted.

We have ascertained by process of elimination and what we all remember was on this tape (which we played approximately forty-six thousand times over that six-week period) that the week we listened and taped was the week represented by this chart. So those are the songs we chose from.

Any guesses as to what we selected? There was about an hour of music. I'll be back to fill you in.

07:13 AM | comment (19) | trackback (45) | The Excellent | view »
June 20, 2004
Happy Father's Day!

I took Income Tax from Jack, and here's his picture from Father's Day. My own dad is out of town at the moment and unable to receive a Father's Day greeting (Mom and Dad are cruising the Pacific, don'tcha know), so this was the cheeriest thing I've seen all day.

(As I've mentioned before, I believe, Jack also does a mean "Magic Carpet Ride." How many tax professors can say the same, hmmmmmm?)

05:39 PM | comment (1) | trackback (27) | The Excellent | view »
June 11, 2004
The Coolest Of The Coolest Of The Cool

I actually gasped when they said on NPR yesterday afternoon that Ray Charles had died.

It's not like it's that big of a shock, given the age and the health issues and such, neither of which were a secret. But that's one where you just feel, as with Johnny Cash, that something has evaporated that's never coming back in any form, ever.

My musical attachment to Ray Charles is partly the same as everyone else's. And it's got a lot to do with the number of different things that the guy could do. "Hit The Road, Jack" is almost a novelty song, "Georgia On My Mind" is a love song rendition so evocative that it might get Atlanta into heaven in spite of Ted Turner, and "Unchain My Heart" is sexy and angry and likely to inspire ass-wiggling in the most reluctant of prospects.

But there's also the fact that when I was growing up, Ray Charles was pegged to several different other substantially less highbrow things that I liked, which makes the sentimental attachment even a little sharper. For one thing, the singer-songwriter of my youth, whose stuff I listened to more than probably anything else between the ages of about twelve and eighteen, was Billy Joel. And, fairly late in the game, they did a song together, which wasn't setting the world on fire, quality-of-song-wise, but it was a fun listen, because . . . well, Ray Charles.

And you know what else? My first favorite movie ever was The Sure Thing, a 1985 Rob Reiner confection (I loved John Cusack way before it was cool). At the end of that movie, when there's finally the big smooch, and the camera pans up to the stars, the voice that comes on is . . . Ray Charles. Again, not a brilliant song. But it's Ray Charles.

And you know what else else? My first favorite TV show ever was Moonlighting (from which I learned everything I know about banter, thankyouverymuch). Would you like to guess who once showed up in a fantasy sequence, complete with piano and girls? Mm-hmm.

Of course, I'm not going to be the first or last person to mention it, but there's something about Ray Charles dying when we're in the middle of All Dead Reagan All The Time Week. And everybody's going to note "America the Beautiful," and the fact that perhaps that's a more genuine outbreak of patriotism than caskets and flags are ever going to convey. And yes, there's something to that.

But it isn't just about "America The Beautiful." That's kind of obvious and easy, I think. It's about . . . I don't know, remembering to love your country not only for the things that scream that they are all about loving your country -- not that there's anything wrong with those things. I have no objection to flags and ceremonies and white-gloved Marines and state funerals, and I don't chafe at those things. I just don't like it when they seem to be all there is to patriotism, because to my eye, you have to go beyond those things to have a reason to care about the flags and the Marines in the first place.

And I'll take the example of a guy who crossed up genres, rose up out of poverty, sang about God AND sex AND sadness AND happiness, and crisscrossed popular culture without losing a single ounce of authenticity, as the sort of thing I like about being here.

Rest in peace, sir. Hearts are breaking and asses are wiggling in your honor all over the world.

07:58 AM | comment (6) | trackback (24) | The Excellent | view »
June 09, 2004
Three On A Match

I have no reason, really, for linking to this, except that I was thinking about it today, and it's a healthy thing to read from time to time. It strikes me a little bit differently every time I read it.

So that made me think I'd do two other ones I love as well -- probably the two that I am closest to being able to rattle off the top of my head, which would be this one, and this one. With apologies for the scandalously illegitimate links, I suppose, but . . . read 'em, and just try to be mad at me.

09:04 PM | comment (9) | trackback (4) | The Excellent | view »
May 28, 2004
Moxie

I have been totally remiss in not writing a lengthy entry in praise of Joelle at BlogMoxie until now, but I'm sort of just getting around to it.

As I did say previously in very brief terms, Joelle is the lovely soul who redesigned this place so that it (1) doesn't look like ass; and (2) more importantly, doesn't work like ass. I had cobbled it together originally from quite a hodgepodge of improvised coding, which was okay, but which had crap all over the place such that I could work it, but just barely.

Now, it is a breeze. When Pool Boy suggested Simers for M.E. of the W. the other night, I was able to pop that in there in under three minutes, so very breezy is the interface these days. Same with updating what I'm reading, watching, and so forth.

You don't know how much a good designer can do for you until you get one. You can't see most of what Joelle did, but I see it every day, and it a superb improvement to the environment on my end as much as yours.

And look how pretty it is, seriously. Come on. So if you're a person who wants a site or thinks you want a site and you think you care about it enough to want it to be pretty and easy to operate, consider it. It's a very worthwhile investment, I personally think, and even if you have the visual creativity of an unripe tomato, like I do, you can get something that makes you look like that isn't the case.

Also, the company has "Moxie" in the name.

08:05 PM | comment (4) | trackback (34) | The Excellent | view »