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.

Panexa.

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

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.

After this post,
where I wondered if server logs showing a constant stream of visits from the "Unknown
Country" might be visitors from beyond the grave, I got a flood of
emails from people certain that they themselves were writing from the
Unknown Country.  I’m not sure this speaks well of one’s civic pride, but I appreciate the tips nonetheless.

So far, this claim has been made by people who live
in Ireland, Northern Ireland, South Africa, China, Ireland yet again,
and Canada, although I think this last one was kidding.

To all of you kind writers, thanks — but I don’t think it’s you.  And Ireland must be pretty damn depressing this time of year, since the island accounts for fully half of emailers who consider their own
land as a better candidate for the Unknown Country than death itself.

Even more puzzling, however, is this newer graphic, creating a new, even more delightfully ambiguous category of visitors:

Hello, visitors from the land of Miscellany!

You guys were nine
percent of our traffic for a while.  And yet you’re from places
apparently even more miscellaneous than Cyprus, Denmark, the United
Arab Emirates, and (of course) Ireland and the Unknown Country.

I greet you with miscellaneous body gestures, and welcome you with
miscellaneous words!  I hope someday to learn your miscellaneous
customs, eat your miscellaneous food, and do miscellaneous things in a
most miscellaneous way.

That all said, I am highly disturbed by news of your growing border
tensions with the Nondescript.  And I frankly question your treatment
of the Higgledy-Piggledy among you.

We all know that terror strikes are Random events.  It is unfair to slur the Higgledy-Piggledy and Nondescript by association.

Unless peace initiatives work, this could lead to many of you having to log in from the Unknown Country.

So weird it has to be true.

The Carlyle Group is the Bush family’s favorite international oil, defense, and media investment cartel.  Even better-connected
than Halliburton, Carlyle’s payroll over the years has included both George H.W. and George W.
Bush, family consigliere James Baker, Colin Powell, Frank Carlucci,
and former British PM John Major.

They’re not quite as shadowy as a lot of people make them out to be; in fact, just by checking their website, you can find a list of their many investments in things that go pump, boom, and yak. 
(And I personally find their growing ownership of media companies as
least as creepy as all the military and oil stuff.  Obvious reasons.)

Poke around, and pretty soon you might get the feeling that Carlyle’s
ad slogan, if they ever bothered talking with mere civilians, would be
a riff on the old BASF campaign: "At Carlyle, we don’t make the wars…
we make the people who make the wars wealthier."

Now comes news that Carlyle is trying to augment their portfolio of 400
explody-kaboom companies by buying — of all things — the Togo’s,
Dunkin
Donuts, and Baskin-Robbins food chains.

I dunno.  Maybe they just heard Togo’s makes submarines, and got all excited.

It’s sandwiches, guys.  Just sandwiches.