What Would Jane Austen Do?

Watching "It's a perfect cross between Scarecrow and Mrs. King and The Forty Year Old Virgin ." [Yeah, except that Chuck dude isn't 1/10th as hot as Bruce Boxleitner in his prime.] Playing

I never had the chance to blog about a recent project: birthday presents for Luke and Toby, who were turning four; and Dagny, who was turning seven. Possibly my favorite thing in the world is buying presents for people, and I really had fun with these. I asked Luke what he wanted for his birthday. His reply? "Gum." Okaaaay. As it happens, the fourth birthday is pretty big for a lot of little kids I know -- it's when they are Officially Allowed to chew gum. So for Luke and Toby, I put together these tin lunchboxes full of the sticky stuff. That's Big League Chew, Fruit Stripe, Bubble Tape -- all the classics -- and more. For Dagny's seventh birthday, I found this cute little bag at crewcuts and had it monogrammed for her. I think she likes it -- I've seen her carrying it a lot. That's my big tip for buying kid presents -- they love almost anything with their names on it. God, I love crewcuts. I wish I could just order the adorable, mute little chi...

Words cannot even describe how much I hate Bill Simmons.* *For those of you who don't know: he is the illiterate, misogynist, juvenile, preppy douchebag columnist and would-be President of Red Sox Nation who embodies everything there is to hate about all of eastern Massachusetts.

I saw her turn counterclockwise ! And now when I look she seems to switch at random. I just had to look at her longer. BTW, Uncle Miles, in response to your comment: check out the comments on the post at Freakonomics . People list their education, profession, and which way the dancer turns for them. Marketers see her going counterclockwise; economists see her going clockwise -- it's chaos I tell you.

Today is the day we all write on our blogs about what we’re doing to help the environment. You know I love me some meme, so I wanted to contribute with Eleven Things I Do for the Environment: 1. Instead of turning out the lights when I leave a room, I never turn on lights at all. I have night vision eyes. 2. I don’t drive a car; I don’t even ride a bicycle. I levitate to get from place to place. Suck it, DiCaprio. 3. I don’t use any packaging materials – at all. In fact, I use telekinesis to buy books from Amazon. 4. I have no carbon footprint. I created global warming all by myself, with my intensely hot body, but I am so cool that I’m chilling it down as we speak. 5. I don’t have to recycle – I incinerate garbage with laser beams from my eyes 6. I make love not war. 7. I wear fair trade, sustainably harvested edible panties. 8. I’m not just donating today’s profits from my blog to an environmental charity – I will...

Reading Watching Listening to (soundtrack)

The Diamondbacks are trying to make my head explode.

Have you seen this yet? You look at this image of a spinning silhouette and, depending on how you see the image, you can determine whether your right-brain or left-brain is dominant. Which you probably already know at this point in your life, but it's cool anyway. I'm so right-brained that I can't even see it the other way when I try. via Kottke , Graphic Design Bar and others

So, for the Fall Festival I needed some information from each of the teachers. I discovered yesterday that I only had this information from about 1/3 of them. Now, I am not supposed to email the teachers directly -- the Communications Chair does that. So I sent the Communications Chair an email asking her to email the teachers (again) for the necessary information. Follow that? Anyway, the subject line of the email I sent was " Recalcitrant Teachers." So the Communications Chair forwarded that exact email to the teachers. Holy shit am I in trouble.

bitching about today: I can't believe it's been so long since I posted. What the hell is going on? Let’s see – I’ve been working out. My friends are kicking my ass around the gym. It’s my goal to one day get on a weight machine after an old lady and not have to move to a lighter weight. In the meantime, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. (But it’s a good hit-by-a-truck.) I expend all of my mental energy during the day scanning my immediate vicinity for a place to lie down. Still working on the Fall Festival. It’s in two and a half weeks. I’m starting to get phone calls from crazies (“Can I set up a booth to paint henna on kids? And then you can just pay me in cash for whatever tickets I collect?” Um, no.) Everyone falls into two camps these days: people who won’t fucking leave me alone, and people who won’t return my calls. I hate them all. Also due before the end of the month: hosting a Halloween party at our house for a hundred or so...

I was so excited when Book Burro turned up with Jenna Jameson's book at the Houston library. However, of the six copies, four are missing. Fucking degenerates in this town.

Reading Playing Listening to Isn't New Wave the proto-Emo? You'll never have the bangs for it, Papi.

Okay, I went looking for an image of a smurf to use in the last post, and this one cracked me up. Meet Gangsta Smurf: And his pals . Those wacky students.

The First Time News Was Fit To Print , at Mental Floss , documents the first mention in The New York Times of phenomena such as the Smurfs, the War on Terror, and microwave ovens. via Kottke .

Reading Running away to one day Listening to