Dear Santa, thank you for the dolls and pencils and the fish. It's Easter now, so I hope I didn't wake you but... honest, it is an emergency. There's a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it's just an ordinary crack, but I know its not cause at night there's voices so... please please can you send someone to fix it? Or a policeman, or...
Back in a moment.
Thank you Santa.

Blogfonte

Since I'm in the middle of Busy Busy Week (albeit the quietest, smoothest Busy Busy Week to date, were it not for the fact that our supplier has not, um, supplied), my brain is fried and I am unable to think of anything to post. [So what's new? — Ed. Quiet, you.]

Which means that it's time for Blog of the Day, that regular feature at Ambient Irony where someone else gets to do all the work.

Today, it's one of my regular - or at least semi-regular - readers and commenters, so this time I'm going in knowing that he has me blogrolled (under "Folk's I'm Reading", which is about the highest compliment one can give a blog). It's Mitch H., folks, of Blogfonte, and he's not happy:

It left me in a very sulfurous, torch-waving mood of irritation...

Either he's been in for a root-canal, or he's been dealing with idiotarians:

...irritation at academic historians. I'll try and get into more detail later; suffice it currently to say that I may not believe in Truth, but I hate lies. Such as the one's we've been told, and are still being told, about the mythical innocence of the Rosenburgs, Alger Hiss, and all the rotten rest of the CPUSA.

Maybe you should just have gone for the root canal, Mitch.

As are the majority of right-thinking people (me, for example; Steven den Beste; Nowhere's Jeff Lawson) Mitch is an anime fan; he also reads U.S.S. Clueless. So I'm particularly glad to see him taking up a point that bothered me in one of SDB's recent anime posts:

It would be a period of a couple of years around the time of the Berlin Olympics, and it could also be seen in about the way these series' see 1925 Japan. No one does that for 1936 Germany, because they understand how monstrous it really was.

This belief, that mid-20s Japan was the same chaotic, oppressive hell that the late 20s and early 30s were, is a misunderstanding of the period. It isn't true. The early and mid 20s represented a "bubble economy" between the end of World War I and the social/political collapse into full-bore militarism of the late 20s. This brief period - the second half of the Taisho era in which both Steel Angel Kurumi and Sakura Wars are set - was the closest Japan ever got to European-style bourgeois prosperity. The Japanese of the period were still uniform-addled, regimented, prone to let paramilitary organizations take the place of private society, and poor by European standards - but it still was a sort of calm before the Showa storm.

Indeed, we have a propensity to glamourise the past, particularly any era that seems a bit colourful to us now, and the twenties certainly were that. I was watching Bottle Fairy the other day, and one of the little fairies was dressed up as a gangster complete with machine gun (they have these odd little shared daydream sequences), with another of the fairies as a flapper girl swooning at his (well, her, really, but I'm trying not to confuse you) coolness. The twenties are long enough ago that hardly anyone can remember them now, so we get to use the soft-focus and the peach-coloured filter. Mitch takes the historical analysis further, and I'll let you wander over there and read it rather than stealing quoting the whole essay here.

He's been home for Thanksgiving, too, and reminds us:

Ah, family. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Mitch H. and Blogfonte He does the in-depth analysis, so that I you don't have to.

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Captain's Quarters

It's Busy Busy Week for me again, on top of a Busy Busy Month. And that's on top of the Great Disk Drive Debacle. So although Busy Busy Week runs rather smoother today than when I took the job on back in March, I'm still running the Red Queen's Race.

Which is completely irrelevant to my choice for today's Blog of the Day, but is a handy-dandy excuse for my current poor blogging standards. Um, and if either of the people waiting for new Mu.Nu blogs are reading this, um, sorry, I haven't forgotten you, it's just that my homework ate the dog.*

In any case, today's Blog of the Day is Captain's Quarters, who reports in on a fascinating interview with Gollum:

The New Zealand Herald manages to scoop the rest of the world media in its exclusive interview with the ever-reclusive, ever-controversial Gollum:

The first thing you notice when meeting Gollum in the flesh (so to speak) is how much shorter he is in real life than he even appears on screen. Hobbits must tower over him. We're talking Kylie Minogue short. I reach down, we shake hands. The second thing you notice about Gollum is the smell of fish.

And on The Patriette's snow aversion:

I just have to say that as someone looking into their programs and currently living in Texas, THAT PHOTO DOES NOT MAKE ME WANT TO ATTEND THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA! It makes every person who's told me that I am insane for wanting to move north because it gets so cold up there seem correct.

Kelly, don't worry about this picture. It's designed to keep out all of the riff-raff from the Paradise that is the Upper Midwest. Just because you can drive pick-ups across our lakes in the wintertime does not mean that Minnesota is unfit for human habitation. I moved from Southern California to live here six years ago, and I've only lost two fingers since then. No, just kidding! Fortunately for my vocabulary, I still have all of my fingers.

He also reported on the map of the Blogosphere last Friday, just to show me up.

And in an illustration of impeccable taste, he's blogrolled Jennifer's History Stuff. So I'll forgive him his minor slip in also listing, well, me.

(Yes, another one. "Looks like Blog of the Day material", I says. "Pick a few items to quote", I says. "Now check to see if he's blogrolled any Munuvi - woops."

Blogrolling Ambient Irony is not a surefire way to make Blog of the Day. The only thing that can do that is large sums of cash. And trust me, it ain't worth it.)

* As the genetic engineering student said to his parents.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:15 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Trying to Grok

Don't you hate it when you lose a web site? You visited it just the other day - maybe even just a few hours ago - but now it's not in your browser's history any more. You can't remember the site's name, and the few phrases you can remember and feed into Google throw up 3,560 unrelated hits. But you know you got there from a link, and the link was on a site you visit regularly... Or maybe on a site linked from a site that you visit regularly. So all you have to do is visit all the usual suspects and see what shakes loose.

And there it is! From behind the sofa cushions comes trying to grok:

I've been sitting here for two and a half hours, and I haven't even made it through reading all of my Heroes yet. Nor have I showered, brushed my teeth, or paid any attention to my husband as he got ready for work. Sigh. The sphere grows every day.

This is no great surprise, for her Heroes are:

• USS Clueless
• Eject! Eject! Eject!
• Andrew Sullivan
• Little Green Footballs
• Instapundit
• Vodkapundit
• Merde in France
• The Dissident Frogman
• Amaravati Abode of Amritas
• Europundits
• The Bleat
• Scrappleface

Hey! Mozilla has this "View Selection Source" thingy which lets you see the HTML for part of a web page! That's so cool!

Um, anyway, most of those are daily reads for me too... I wonder where my time goes? But it's not just those Sarah honours that set her apart; any right-thinking person can put up a blogroll like that. There's a hint in the description of her blog:

if you're not angry, you're not paying attention

And Sarah, though not given to ranting, is angry. A cold, focused, laser-like anger:

It sounds better to say that you're for peace instead of war, as if that were a true dichotomy. But sometimes we get the distinct feeling that the Left sees it that way, that if you're not out marching for peace, you are some sort of bloodthirsty raving lunatic. We who back the war back it as a last resort. We were attacked two years ago, and we've had to get tough so that we're never attacked again. Yes, that means war. Yes, that means no "heaven on earth." But it also means less burning buildings and shoe bombs. It means less mass graves and plastic shredders. It means looking realistically at the world and trying to do what's right. We may not have a catchy slogan like No Blood For Oil, but we're on the side of good.

There's so much good stuff there... But it would be rude to cut and paste the whole thing, so I'll leave you with one choice quote:

Cake mixes and frosting, on sale: $6
Time spent mixing and baking: 3 hours
Delivering 75 cupcakes to stinky boys who have been living in a tent for a month: priceless

The husband is officially back, though I have no proof of this yet. He tried to call my cell phone, which was in my bag inside a desk drawer. I was sitting here and thought, "Huh, something sounds like it's buzzing. It sorta sounds like a cell phone. Oh crap, it's mine." And by the time I got to it, he was gone. But at least that means he's here.

Ack. Phone...ringing...again!

He's at the unit, cleaning up. No one is allowed to touch any of the food or cupcakes until all of their inventory is accounted for. So 70 guys are staring at 70 cupcakes and can't have any. Poor things. But I'll get to see him in about two hours. Yay.

Yay! trying to grok is Blog of the Day.

And - I swear this is true - I wrote the whole post, and published it, and went back to leave a comment to let Sarah know, and then I discovered that she has me blogrolled:

My Comrades

• Deskmerc
• The CounterRevolutionary
• The Volokh Conspiracy
• The Genius I Was
• Ambient Irony
• Parkway Rest Stop
• Cavalier's Guardian WatchBlog
• Davids Medienkritik
• Right Wing News
• Porphyrogenitus
• Kalroy Was Here

But dammit, she's married!

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Nowhere

As my long-time readers will know (hi Susie!), I have this thing I do called Blog of the Day. Every day I find a blog, a good blog, but generally not a big or famous one, a blog I think my readers might be interested in, but might not have run across themselves. There are, after all, something like three million blogs out there, and there are thousands that I would find interesting and worth my time if I only knew where to find them.

That's why blogrolls tend to grow without bound: There really are that many good blogs. Blog of the Day is my attempt to push some of the shy bloggers out into the light. Of course, many of them have their own circle of fans, indeed, probably have more readers than I do. But I don't think it will hurt anyone's feelings to be told that, yes, here is another person who appreciates what they are doing.

My last Blog of the Day was The Patriette on September 6. Shortly after that, as - again - long-time readers will know, the Earth opened up and swallowed me. Yes, I posted something, somehow, every day, but really I was down there somewhere in the Mohorovic Discontinuity desperately trying to find my way home.

Well, I'm back.

And the Blog of the Day is Nowhere. There's not that much on the main page, because Jeff posts when he has something to say, not when he feels he should say something. But look at the archives. Look at that! Four years.

So:

Simple, classic layout: Check.
Elegant photographs: Check.
Anti-Idiotarian: Check.

This is important to me, these days, more important than it would have been had I been blogging at the start of this year, before the Idiotarians truly forced themselves into my (then) largely apolitical worldview. Now, I can't even link to a blog for an anime review without asking myself What if this person, seemingly sane, is in fact a member of Democratic Underground or (shudder) Indymedia? What am I, really, linking to?

So, to the blogroll, which is a window to the blogger's soul: Most of those here are unfamiliar to me, though my first click takes me to Radical Bender proclaiming the wonder that is Kiki's Delivery Service. Since Kiki is my second-favourite anime film of all time, that's encouraging.

Further down, yes, we find USS Clueless, Sgt. Stryker, Instapundit. No Lileks, true, but solid evidence that this is someone with their head on their shoulders, facing forwards. Is it right to judge someone this way? If a person never says a word about politics, should I judge them by their politics at all? I don't know; I've become politicised by events this year, and it doesn't seem to be wearing off. And even before that I was finding that a person's political views were often bound inextricably into their wider worldview...

But I'm getting off the topic.

The Matrix Revolutions was a steaming pile of you know what.

There. Now where the heck was I?

Anime fan: Check. And then some.

Take a look at these little reviews of the highlights of some series: Bottle Fairy, Scrapped Princess, Popotan, Stellvia of the Universe. They're all done blog-fashion, with the most recent entry at the top, so you'll need to start reading from the bottom to avoid spoilage.

Attack of the space station snatching jellyfish!

Curse him for being ahead of me in watching these shows! Given my copious lack of free time (CLFT) of late, it's no surprise, really; except that it's the same shows I'm watching!

You know, this show makes me feel like a perv. Really cute episode, though. I mean, when everyone bowed to the ferret...classic.

I haven't had the time to do justice to the anime I love, so it's good to find someone who has - or makes - the time, and does a damn fine job of it too.

Who put Kururu in charge? After all, Sarara's smarter and Chiriri's cuter.

Nowhere - a love song halfway sung, and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Nowhere - anime blog, are thoroughly deserving of attention and a worthy addition to Blog of the Day.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:13 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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In Good Company

Tiger's first Blogotarian Awards go to:

Dean Esmay for the Blogspot Jihad
Kevin Aylward (that's Wizbang Kevin) for general helpingness
NZ Bear for the Blogosphere Ecosystem

and...

Meee!

And look! I get a shiny thing!

I've been slack lately, due to an acute case of bleckyitis, but I have some pills for that and expect it to clear up soon.

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This Is The Title Of This Entry

This entry no verb.

Hmm.

Colourless green entries sleep furiously.

Maybe -

The entry distims the doshes.

Sorry, it's been a long week.

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Ahem

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Can't Think Of Anything

So I'll answer some questions from CheddarX:

1. What good did you do in the world today?

I explained the difference between the 8KNXP and the 8PENXP, thus increasing the sum total of human knowledge.

That's about it, really. Today sucked.

2. What fashion trend are you glad that's gone away? Or what trend are you waiting to go away?

I'm waiting for flares to go away. Or maybe to come back. I'm not sure.

3. What's your greatest sports moment, your own or one you've witnessed?

...

Do WWE bikini contests count as "sports moments"?

4. Who would you nominate for the most annoying person award?

This guy I know.

5. What do you do to get yourself ready to write? Either blogging or other writing? (I.e. I'm a whiskey drinker and like to have a tumbler to sip from when I write fiction).

Find something to write with. A working computer. A pen and a piece of paper. Crayon and a blank wall. Charcoal on a light-coloured carpet.

6. Mac or PC or Linux? Why? (I'm curious about this because it seems like the majority of bloggers I know are Mac folks but maybe I'm just wishfully thinking).

Tandy Colour Computer, Amiga 1000 or SGI O2. Unified memory architecture, baby!

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Promises

I promise that I will get back to blogging about things other than my dead and dying computers as soon as I have computers that are not dead and dying.

Meanwhile, I think I killed my DSL modem. I tweaked my MTU, and now it doesn't love me anymore.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 01:22 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Newblog Showcase

Oops, another week, another showcase. Since I'm in the middle of dealing with an omnidirectional computer meltdown, I'll just note that our own Daniel David Darren Daniel (I was right the first time!) has an entry in the contest, not for his MuNu blog, but for Bsurot Tovot, a blog dedicated to bringing the good news from Israel. Including - ahem - two articles on the new 8 teraflop optical DSP from Lenslet.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:17 PM | No Comments | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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