Thursday, May 30, 02002
Open Letter to Saint Nick:
- Get out of the toy business. Your handmade toys can't compete with that branded assembly line crap every kids wants. Nothing says daddy and mommy hate you more than an elf-crafted wooden caboose.
- Sell the sleigh, divest in your factories and invest in security cameras. Lots and lots and lots of security cameras. Put them everywhere, and train the elves on how to use them. They already know how to pick out the Naughty from the Nice.
- Put out a press conference. Let it be known all the cameras are hooked together into a massive system called something like the Security And National Threat Assessment System aka. the S.A.N.T.A. System. Everybody loves a catchy acronym. You can probably come up with a better one. It doesn't even matter if all the cameras aren't really networked together. Who's gonna check, after all ?
- Work that 'keeping a list and checking it twice' angle. People expect you to be watching. Everyone's ready for you to take on this role. They've had it drilled into them since childhood. They need you to take up this role. It'll make everyone feel safer knowing you and the elves are keeping an eye on things.
- Finally, let it slip that Rudolph and his buddies will come 'rein anyone in' who strays too far from the straight and narrow. Remember, you won't have that 'piece of coal' threat to fall back on, and some troublemakers, well they just need to kept in line.
Really who else is going to step up and be our new mythological Big Brother ? The Easter Bunny ? She has no minions to tend the cameras. As if the chickens could do it ! That perv Cupid ? He'll just watch for hotties the whole day long. No security there at all. Punxsutawney Phil ? I don't think anyone outside Pennsylvania even know who he is. Anyway, he'll be asleep at the controls constantly. Then he'd wake up see his shadow and trigger a national emergency.
Damn it Claus, you're the only one available. Get to it already !
Posted at 10:44 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Wednesday, May 29, 02002
There's a must-read Mildred Wirt Benson post over at Utopia With Cheese. I read a lot of my mom's Nancy Drew books growing up. I assume they all featured the despunked Nancy. It's pretty disturbing book could be rewritten like this. Don't miss that Benson got paid $125.00 per book with no royalties
For the library angle check out The Ghost of Nancy Drew. Seems at least some of the CNN orbit was cribbed from here.
There's also a worthwhile Salon article that covers some other reasons for rewriting.
Posted at 11:02 PM EST [Link][Comment]
(The leasing office sent a copy of the general non-specific threat to everyone in the building today. Trickle down ass-coverage in action. Still, keeping an extra pair of boxers in my satchel might not be so bad an idea.)
Posted at 09:03 PM EST [Link][Comment]
Monday, May 27, 02002
The Guide Horse Foundation
A non-profit charity dedicated to providing free guides for visually impaired individuals.
They also have the goal of helping tiny horses by providing them with a higher-purpose in life.
Posted at 11:16 AM EST [Link][Comment]
Sunday, May 26, 02002
I just lost a scrabble game because I couldn't convince my opponents 'quine' was a word...
Next time I'm going to try and get them to use dictionary.com as the official dictionary.
It even lists cdr.
Screw succinctness, I'll whip out my poetic license and judge Lisp purely on what it offers wordplay. Anyway, I'm still waiting for Haskell to catch on. Sigh.
BTW, I just love Joey deVilla's sidebar graphic.
Posted at 09:40 PM EST [Link][Comment]
