That sucks, msbelle.

The beautification engine: The woman on the right doesn't exist.

The slide show there is fascinating. I don't understand why they didn't open up James Franco's eyes more, though. Maybe that's a male/female thing -- aren't bigger eyes more "attractive"?

Well, what I noticed Jesse, was that a lot of the people with larger eyes, that was one of the features that was altered, making them smaller.

They did it with Michael Cera's picture and it really reduced one of his more distinguishable features, IMO. It also took the wideness of his mouth and reduced it considerably.

I like the program on heritage.com that takes a photograph and matches it to celebrities. You can also morph pictures.

the program on heritage.com that takes a photograph and matches it to celebrities.

link? I am looking on heritage.com and not finding anything.

eta - never mind, googled and found it: myheritage.com - can't get there from work.

What could have been a major screwup on my part was turned into a minor one by someone going out of their way. I filed a wrong form with the California tax board. Instead of mailing me, they phoned me to let me know, which gives me time to file the right one. It is pretty routine to mail notifications of this kind of screw-up, so I really give them a lot points for taking the trouble to call instead - especially since I downloaded the wrong form from the internet, so they were correcting my screwup, not theirs.

Huh. Someone in a gov't bureaucracy going out of their way to help someone... weird.

JZ was also the recipient of random kindness yesterday.

After collecting Matilda from daycare she did some shopping at Trader Joe's. All was well until she parked the car in our neighborhood and Matilda had a full on meltdown on the sidewalk, leaving JZ somewhat stranded since she couldn't carry a toddler and two bags of groceries across the street to our apartment.

A random skater dude volunteered to carry her groceries home, which offer she gratefully accepted.

In sum: Huzzah to the extra effort bureaucrat! Huzzah to the random skater dude!

Huzzah to skater guy.

first priority: file the right form. Second priority: thank you email so the FTB guy gets some brownie points from boss.

Incidentally, lots of government workers are good at their job and go out of their way to help people to extent possible. Neither virtue nor competence are exclusive to private sector.

From the "Duh!" department:

Hewitt’s book ‘How Sarah Palin Won the Election…and Saved Amerca’ bites the dust.»

The NY Observer reveals that right-wing radio host Hugh Hewitt’s next book, “How Sarah Palin Won the Election…and Saved America,” is unlikely to ever get published:

...

According to Yates, the plan was to finish the book “by a week after the election, and to have it out before the inauguration” and “obviously presumed” that McCain-Palin would win. “If they were to lose the election it would have just been How Sarah Palin Saved America,” Mr. Yates said.

Yeah, that would go over like a lead balloon... flying over a black hole....

The First Moments Of A Palin Presidency

(video)