Happy Birthday bon bon!!!

Of course, I am thinking-- Alaska! I actually love the cold, but Rochester, as Tom can attest, is just particularly nasty and gross.

Are you really thinking Alaska, Sophia?

If so, wheeeeeeeeeeeee, and I can personally attest that Juneau has much better weather than Rochester, at least if you don't hate rain. We also have a gorgeous but small college here (the University of Alaska Southeast). I would be happy to tell you more, and thrilled to have another localista!

If not, then it's not nice to get me all excited like that.

My niece lives near Rochester and doesn't have a car, and she finds it very difficult. She relies a lot on the kindness of Friends With Cars. Of course, her routes are probably different than yours.

Jackie Mackie Paisley Passey

Patrick and Teresa Nielsen-Hayden link to her with the comment: "Anyanka has a blog".

Which is really unfair to Anyanka.

Psst, Laura -- did you know that Sark actor David Ander's real last name is "Holt"?

No, no I did not. Excellent. Although I suspect he didn't sprout from the same gene pool as Brendon. Though I might be able to claim him as a relative.

I think I'm going to found a dating service with the sole goal of hooking JMPP up with the guy who wrote this article. (Warning - Forbes automatically starts the slide show when you load the page, so if you're like me and let things load in the background, by the time you get there, you may not be on the same article anymore.)

Are you really thinking Alaska, Sophia?

In a very nebulous way. I have no money now, so it is hard to think of moving, but I just love the thought of Alaska

My niece lives near Rochester and doesn't have a car, and she finds it very difficult.

I wouldn't seriously be thinking about it at all if I wasn't on, like one of the only good bus routes in the city. And, also, I am not young and don't "go out". I can always get to my pseudo-family stuff because my psuedo sister lives down the road. It would be almost impossible if I didn't live and work where I do. I also feel like I should support public transportation if I want it to get better. I mean, if no one every uses the bus, they are just going to keep cutting routes.

whether you choose to be fat and ugly or fit and attractive says at least as much about your character as it does about your genes

Or possibly about your rhetorical skills. Anybody who has ever looked at Richard Simmons can tell you that "fit" and "attractive" are not necessarily correlated.

Or possibly about your rhetorical skills. Anybody who has ever looked at Richard Simmons can tell you that "fit" and "attractive" are not necessarily correlated.

Silly silly Nutty. Thin = Hot no matter how weird someone might actually look. See: Paris Hilton.

I also feel like I should support public transportation if I want it to get better. I mean, if no one every uses the bus, they are just going to keep cutting routes.

I totally support this attitude.

Richard Simmons barely even looks fit anymore, even though I'm sure he is.

Also WRT JMPP-- I am poor and I totally get that a lot of why I am poor has been my poor choices. They are poor financial choices that wouldn't have mattered if I were more ambitious and had gotten better jobs, but they are poor nonetheless. Also, it leaves out the part where that if we really knew that our choices sucked, we obviously wouldn't make them!

But the thing is a) it doesn't magically get better and b) it really makes me appreciate how hard it is for really poor people. It is hard work just getting around in my city, unless you live and work where I do. It is incredibly hard to navigate the social services system, which is so overloaded that a case worker my mother called (my mother is a case worker in the next county) had a message on her answering machine saying "You can leave a message, but I may not call you back because I have 500 pending cases". I have, through my mother, helped college educated people navigate through the system, but I can't imagine someone who wasn't a confident person doing it without help.

Did you see that ep of Whose Line Is it Anyway where he was the guest? funniest. thing. ever.