Email: Netflix Support

Title request: Eloise at Christmastime (2003)

Email: Houston traffic [MD]

Just so you know how bad traffic is in Houston esp. during the holidays, it took me an hour to drive 2 miles to the post office and back to see if they were possibly open past 5 pm during the busiest time of their year. Answer: Nah.

Books: Street Saints by Barbara Elliott

Neologisms: d'u-d'u-d'u, dyu-dyu-dyu, du-du-du

For 14 years now we've endured the World Wide Mouthful when giving Web addresses orally: www..., that is, double-u-double-u-double-u...

I once heard someone try to promote the truncated dub-dub-dub... but it never caught on.

So how about truncating double-u as double-u (pronounced dyoo)? So www.npr.org becomes dyu-dyu-dyu-dot-n-p-r-dot-org. For all who weblog or publish Web pages, and those who talk about it, this would make pronouncing our Web hash much, much easier on the lips, teeth, and tip of the tongue.

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The X's (TV) (2005)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The Wild Thornberrys (TV) (1998-2001)

Words: frivol [MW]

Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): friv·oled or friv·olled; friv·ol·ing or friv·ol·ling
Etymology: back-formation from frivolous
Date: 1866
: to act frivolously : trifle
— friv·ol·er or friv·ol·ler noun

(Frivol is a verb! I frivoled, you frivoled, we frivoled. Frivol -- it's a word that rocks!)

Trivia: Holiday tchotckes

A client/employer gave me a holiday goodie bag to say "We appreciate you!"

A mug. Four pencils. A notepad. A dozen mints. Two candy canes. A thumb-sized tub of Play-Doh. All in neon colors with their name on it.

And a glittery snowflake tree ornament. So I am set.

Web: Hillary in '1984' video

TIME magazine names as fourth most popular “viral video” on YouTube a mashup of Hillary Clinton’s speeches spliced into Apple’s “1984” Macintosh commercial.

It’s funny how those who say they are for “less government” nevertheless apply “more government” to forbid the things that those who are truly for “less government” would choose to do (social liberalism) and then try to color those same liberals as the ones who are somehow to blame for “more government” (economic liberalism, no doubt).

It is probably a key truism to keep in mind when trying to discern the real motives of liberals and conservatives: The former are for fewer controls of social mores but greater control of the economic engines while the latter are for greater control of social mores but fewer (or no) control of the economic engines. The more either side can muddy those waters, the more they appeal to rank-and-file followers (as opposed to individuated thinkers that compose the ideal “informed citizenry”).

Of course, the one great truism of human affairs is that neither “side” has all the answers and (all things being equal) the best path generally lies up the middle.

News: Farewell, Dan Fogelberg

Singer Dan Fogelberg Dies of Cancer - MSN Music News: "Dan Fogelberg, the singer and songwriter whose hits 'Leader of the Band' and 'Same Old Lang Syne' helped define the soft-rock era, died Sunday at his home in Maine after battling prostate cancer. He was 56."

(Elton John, Dan Fogelberg, and Tim Weisberg were the troika of sensitive troubadours who meant the most to my teen years.)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: The Bumblebee Flies Anyway (1999)

Email: Netflix Support

Title request: George of the Jungle (TV) (1967)

Weather: 35 for 35 degrees

We got a cold snap yesterday, so this morning, while walking Molley along the vacant lot (which they've recently torn up to begin construction of something) in my shorts and flip-flops, I decided immediately that it felt like 36 degrees, but before we turned around, I opted for 35 degrees. As we reentered my building, I thought, "It feels just like that cold snap in February 1993 in Fort Myers, when I stood outside in shorts and a windbreaker and it was 35 degrees."

I came in and checked weather.com for my zip code: 35 degrees.