Blogging will be slow for a bit; must work on the book.  Still, something fun to share:

Psyched up for Oz’ first test against South Africa, which I’ll have on while working in a few hours.   Which reminds me:

I’ve been working my way through Pageant Of Cricket,
a 600-page tome on the game’s history filled with thousands of photos
of the games’ greatest players — all of whom seem to have died
tragically, usually after a long decline of addiction, mental problems,
and general dissolution.

Actual excerpts, chosen entirely at random from the last few pages (I’m up to the turn of the 20th century):

or

or

or

Yeesh.  Pretty damned dangerous sport, from the looks of it.

I’m not sure I’ve picked the right pastime after all.  And here after I’ve spent the last month learning to squeeze out a flipper.

How depressing.

Or at least, that’s what you guys say:

How the hell does Dick Cheney sleep?
In a coffin, wearing a cape
1415   49.3%
Halliburton spends $3 billion firing sheep over a nearby fence
678   23.6%
His midbrain and hindbrain take turns, just like sharks
522   18.2%
Lulled by a brightly-colored mobile constructed of innocent Iraqi civilians
253   8.8%

Today comes word of a new videotape from Osama Bin Laden.  But some analysts think it may actually be an old one, recycled.  Why?  New poll at left.

Panexa.

Although I would be a little worried about the risk of MSD.

Holy crap, there were three that I missed:

This is like one of those Highlights For Children spot-the-baseball-bat-in-the-tree things.  Frank, the original emailer, only saw 6.  I thought I was hot stuff for finding seven.  But reader Derek writes in to point out that there have actually been TEN uses of the word "Holiday" or "Holidays" on the page all along.

So, the score is now updated: Holidays 10, Christmas 0.

I wonder how many others are in there your eagle eyes might find.  Maybe there are a skillion little subliminal message "Holidays" all over the thing, the way people used to claim that the word "sex" was written in teeny print all over Ritz crackers.

Paging Vance Packard.  Paging Wilson Bryan Key.  Mr Packard, Mr Key, are you in the building?

Sheeesh.

UPDATE: It’s at least eleven.

There’s another one in there.  I wasn’t even looking.  It just kind of jumped out from the screen while I was doing other things.  I’m not even marking it.  I’ll let you have fun looking.

So the score is now 11-0.  This must be Canadian football.  I used to root for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats when I was a kid, watching the Global Network broadcasts on fuzzy UHF TV from Ohio.  And the Holiday team just kicked a ball through the end zone (but not through the goalposts) for a single.  (We called this a "rouge" when I was a kid, although nobody does that anymore.)

Christmas ball on their own 35.

PS: Since several of you have asked, the eleventh "holiday" is in the phrase "Be A Holiday Beauty" in black boldface headlining the top entry in the second column.

There are also at least three animal names hidden in the page, while you’re at it.  (Seriously, as accidents in other words.)  And probably at least one or two subliminal commands to vote Republican, send money to Pat Robertson, and give your children to Reverend Moon.  But those I haven’t actually found.  Yet.

Granted, the point has been made: Fox and O’Reilly are a bunch of damned hypocrites.  But this may be the best example I’ve seen.  Reader Frank emailed me a screengrab taken a few hours ago, and when I checked, this Fox News website page hadn’t changed, as of 8 pm PST 12 Dec 2005:

(image size reduced so you can see the whole page in one go.)

Seven, count ’em, seven uses of the word "holiday."

Not one use of the word "Christmas."  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Scroll down the whole page.  Zero.

So, to any remaining nutjobs who still don’t understand that "Happy Holidays" is just a nice thing to say (not to mention good business) in a society that welcomes people of all faiths, and who would prefer to feel angry and persecuted, despite the fact that virtually every aspect of Christmas save the Nativity has nothing to do with Jesus whatsoever anyway:

When Bill O’Reilly tells you not to patronize businesses that use the word "Holidays" instead of "Christmas"… change the damn channel.

PS — even the graphic in the upper right, the one you click to buy stuff from the Fox News store, contains only the name "fnshop_holidays2".  Geez.  It’s like Christmas just doesn’t even <i>exist</i> for these infidels.