Given that the Templars were supposed to be a chaste, monastic order, having no physical contact with any woman, proving that one is a direct descendant of any individual one of them seems difficult. And the assets weren't supposed to be held by any individual Templar, but by the Order.

oh dear lord the great waste of time to delay bathtime will eventually be the death of me. I need another person in the house just for this.

JZ-- I don't know if you saw my post in Music, but Hec was really wonderful yesterday. The bus tour was not only fascinating, it was way wicked fun. It was a perfect combination of cool rock and LA history, intriguing and funny personal anecdotes, well-chosen video (we got to listen to "On the Nickel" while actually cruising up 5th--it was magical!) cool scenery and enthusiastic geekitude. And thank you so much for the bath oil--it should make my winter baths quite luxurious!

Awww, thank you Scrappy. It was fantastic having you and Corwood there. Also, your friend was very cool and interesting.

Kim picked me up from the Bonaventure this morning and drove me to Union Station to catch the shuttle and she gave such an awesome impromptu tour of downtown LA. We saw the classic old post office building where Bukowski worked, the hotel where Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker) stayed in, the Eastern Columbia Building (where Johnny Depp has a penthouse) and stuff like that.

Union Station is, of course, amazing, but Kim knew to show me the old Harvey Girls restaurant that's still intact and rented out for weddings and parties. Her tours are so fascinating.

Anyway, I had a blast seeing you and Cor and Sean and the tour was really fun for me to do.

David, I'm very sorry we missed you guys.

I'm watching my X-Files DVDs here at work--yay, Sunday!--and I stared at the display for a few minutes, wondering why it looked odd. Then I realized it was square, and I finally thought, "Oh! Before letterbox! How quaint!"

David, I'm very sorry we missed you guys.

It would've been lovely, but I really didn't expect you to do anything except rest and recuperate.

The tour was successful enough that they want me to repeat it. So sometime next year I'll do another one.

Me watching Corwood read.

msbelle, times like that make me glad we can tag team.

Owen just walked into the room where we are watching Family Guy and said, "They have a talking dog?"

"Can we get one?"

I want a talking dog! Also a cat with four ears!

I am so in awe of Msbelle. My mom was a single parent, but when I was little there were three other adults (of varying levels of sanity) in the household. Her parents weren't always the most stable, but at least if my uncle was awake (he worked nights) she cold count on a relatively sane person to watch me for awhile, and there was always someone home when I got out of school. Perhaps you should advertise for a mail order bride?!?

For no other reason than curiosity, I traced the Jacobite heirs through Wikipedia, all the way to the present-day heir presumptive who is a German princess in Bavaria.