I need to find a way to support programs like this because for so many kids like her and her peers here in city schools, college is so much not even an option they don't even dream about it. And she's one of the lucky ones because she's got a dad who is determined she'll go to college because he didn't.

I've worked for places that do college prep stuff like this, and the way I always explained it to people is it's all the stuff that middle-class college educated parents would do as a matter of course, but these kids don't have those parents, so they need these programs.

ION, I keep meaning to go to my local live chicken place, but I never think of it when I want to cook a whole chicken!

Judy Heiblum, a literary agent at Sterling Lord Literistic, shudders at the memory of some attempted date-talk about Robert Pirsig’s 1974 cult classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” beloved of searching young men. “When a guy tells me it changed his life, I wish he’d saved us both the embarrassment,” Heiblum said, adding that “life-changing experiences” are a “tedious conversational topic at best.”

I hear her. I think I retroactively bitchslapped someone when I finally read that book.

Break up? I think if I really liked him, and liked him basically on topics the book might have to do with, it would be strange to break up with him over one. If he thought The Da Vinci Code was 42, how did I not notice this until just now?

In which case, he must be very good in bed, so I might have to keep him around.

As for food, oh that would be hard. I'd like to think that if they could take care of their own food that would be just fine--don't let their choices cut into my social life.

Practically it would never work with a vegan, but probably could with a vegetarian. Raw foodists need not even consider applying.

If you DIDN'T like the Beatles and found some fellow freak that didn't like the Beatles that might be something.

This is how I'll know.

it would have been less controversial if they'd let ita kill it.

I like to help where I can. I'll never be Nelson Mandela, but I'll do my bit.

Polgara! I have to cook and eat now and then go to bed for the night. It's way too late other way round.

T. Rex discusses how tattoos are made of awesome: [link]

That one is awesome! The last panel especially cracked me up....

I need to find a way to support programs like this because for so many kids like her and her peers here in city schools, college is so much not even an option they don't even dream about it. And she's one of the lucky ones because she's got a dad who is determined she'll go to college because he didn't.

That just about killed me when I taught high school in the East Village (Ukranian and Polish immigrants, or kids of) and they had no idea that college was even a possibility. I was so happy when I ran into one of them working years later in one of the research rooms at the NYPL.

T. Rex discusses how tattoos are made of awesome: [link]

That one is awesome! The last panel especially cracked me up....

Sir! I promise nothing!

Is that Tivo deal for current subscribers?

it's all the stuff that middle-class college educated parents would do as a matter of course, but these kids don't have those parents, so they need these programs.

And even for the parents who do have that dream, but no experience and few means or connections, it is daunting. I mean, they borrow gas money from me sometimes between paychecks. Without those programs, it would seem even more elusive.

It amazes me the expectations I took for granted, and I grew up in a pretty limited place in some respects. And the experiences. But the whole east coast public education and opportunities status was a big shocker to me. Naive of me, sure. But I got lucky in the sense that as poor as my community was, we had fucking awesome public ed.

And even for the parents who do have that dream, but no experience and few means or connections, it is daunting.

Yeah, absolutely. It's a matter of, here's when you need to sign up for the SATs and here's how you need to prepare to take them, and did you know about all of these different kinds of colleges, and let's go visit them, and do you need someone to review your application essays, and -- I mean, the stuff my parents did just as a matter of course goes on and on. Because they knew the system!

Actually, I was thinking about some of this recently, listening to some really impressive high school kids -- I hope someone is telling them to apply to expensive private schools, because they would get a lot of financial aid, but they might only be looking at the price tag and writing them off.

Schechting an animal is complicated. It's got to be done with a very sharp knife, and just one cut at the neck. And it has to be done with the knife held in such a way that the animal can't see it coming. And a whole bunch of other rules that I don't really know since I never really studied that side of the kosher meat process much. (Given a properly-killed and cleaned chicken, though, I do know how to do the salting and stuff to make it kosher. But that's much simpler. And it's a largely impractical skill nowadays, since, aside from the whole being-vegetarian thing, most kosher butchers will do that for you. You only needed to do it yourself back in the days when you were buying a chicken with feathers still on it.)

I just have to post these awesome lyrics by The Handsome Family for the song "So Long." The music is country and slow:

So long to my dog Stickers who ate Christmas tinsel
So long to Mr Whiskers who jumped out of a window
And to the family of gerbils who chewed out of their cage
And the little brown rabbit I ran over by mistake

So long, so long, I'll see you on the other side

So long to the goldfish who ate each others' tails
So long to the chipmunk trapped under the stairs
So long to the rosebush I never watered
And to whatever was inside that hole that I bricked over

So long, so long, I'll see you on the other side

So long to the seagull I hit with a rock
So long to the squirrel I accidentally shot
And to everything I burned with a magnifying lens
That long lonely summer when I was only ten

So long, so long, I'll see you on the other side

Funny and sad can go well together....