Happy Holidays, everyone! Thanks to all our friends who so thoughtfully sent out beautiful cards. We'll be mailing our annual letter soon, so watch for it! In the meantime, I thought it would be simply thrilling to let everyone know what I've been up to during this relaxing holiday season.

1. Making a website. Many years ago my buddy from ETAN Tom Foley asked me to make a website for his woodworking business. He made this wicked-cool workbench and also sculpts some incredible musical instruments, and it makes sense to make these available online. We're still polishing the thing, but I'll be linking to it when it's all done, so keep yer pants on.
   
   
2. Dragging Eileen through the snow. We're not sure if it's the cold weather or age or what, but the shnozz has been pretty languid lately. A ten-minute walk around the block has become a thirty-minute ordeal as she mopes around, digging into the frozen sidewalk every thirty seconds. We took her to the vet but everything appears to be normal. We're going to take her to a dog therapist next.
   
   
3. Shopping for tile and furniture. Diane's latest stop on her Make Our House Lovely Tour is to refinish the backsplash in the kitchen with mosaic tiles. The people at the tile place were very nice, but it looks like it'll be a few weeks before she actually gets the supplies. (Annoying, since she planned to get it done during the break.)
   
   We've also decided to get some decent furniture for the living room, since the broken-down Goodwill matching set is losing its charm. After visiting six local showrooms, however, we've come to the conclusion that there's a painful lack of affordable yet intriguingly-designed furniture out there. Everything is either bland middle-American grey stuff, or outrageously-priced Scandinavian art. We're still weighing our options.
   
   We will most certainly not be buying furniture with drink holders. Have you seen this abomination? Idiot Americans don't get enough time riding around in their SUVs, now they need drink holders in their couches. [vomit noises] If you ever see me sitting on a couch with a drink holder built into it, please smack me with a rotten fish.
   
   
4. Playing some games. I finally got World at War today. It's way fun, but — as others have pointed out — it's just COD4 set in WWII. Which is stupid for two reasons:
   1. They didn't have laser-sight equipment in WWII, and
      
   2. TPCQ: "Yeah, that's a good idea, Homer, but they've already made some movies about World War 2." "Aw, nuts. Well, what about Dracula?"
   I've also been playing an unhealthy amount of the superb zombie-apocalypse game Left 4 Dead, which is one of the first games to really require co-operative play. So the idiotic shenanigans that define most XBox Live interactions really don't work for this game. And if you can get three buddies to play with, it's really fantastic.
   
   I also recently gained acceptance into the League of Amateur Gamers, which is a loose-knit group of people like me who don't take their games too seriously. I've only been in for a couple of days, but they seem like a decent bunch.

I have a big stack of papers to grade before heading back into The Jungle, but as always I've got a brilliant plan to get them all done on the Sunday before school starts. What could go wrong?

I think that image there is from one of those insipid Bratz dolls, but I'm really not sure. And I have no desire at all to check. If anyone knows, please keep it to yourself.

TimeWaster™

FlyGuy is a pleasant bit of abstract fun. Yes, there is an ending. Find it.

Today I'm listening to: Rob Viktum!