Juliana, I'm so sorry for your loss.

So, it's 6.23am and I've been up since 5am or so, but I think that's pretty good going, on the whole - yesterday I spent I don't know how long, 14 hours or something, flying from Bangkok to Abu Dhabi, and then from there to Manchester. I can haz family and home! And central heating! A world where A/C does not exist - I'm wearing two pairs of socks and a fake fur coat as I type. Which is probably overkill. (Oh, and other things also, I hasten to add, PJ type things.) Still - England: it's not the Tropics.

On the flight I watched various movies. I was particularly amused by the realisation that, whilst I was avidly watching Master and Commander for the first time, the huge strapping fella next to me in the muscle shirt was watching.... Mamma Mia. And tapping his feet. Take that, stereotyping! I also watched the X Files movie, which was bafflingly rubbish and pointless (but scored a couple of points for nostalgia value, I suppose, especially when Skinner turned up. And frankly, I'd pretty much watch Gillian Anderson read the phone book. And I do love Billy Connolly, and always will*, even though his US acting career continues to be a bit of a puzzlement.) And then I watched The Mummy Strikes Back: This Time With Jet Li, or whatever it was called, and enjoyed the hell out of it. Also an episode of Bones I hadn't happened across.

I do like that whole movie-watching element of modern airflight. Although I wish the screen wasn't three inches from my nose. Ah, business class, if only I could afford you...

*Billy Connolly was Eddie Izzard, or possibly Robin Williams, only a generation earlier. Only with this whole barely-leashed wild and hairy Scotsman thing going on, rather than impeccable makeup and Euro-friendly Englishness. If you haven't happened across any of the classic standup stuff, it is WELL worth seeking out. Funny, funny, funny man.

Home for the holidays sounds nice, Fay.

Interesting article in the Times. Not exactly a "feel-good" article, but maybe a "at least something good came out of it" article? The mother of one of the people killed on Pan Am Flight 103 left her estate to the schools he went to: Harvard, Choate, and a middle school in NYC that serves "academically talented, economically disadvantaged boys and girls." The last of the settlement money just came in, and it's a total of over $2,000,000 to the school -- practically their entire endowment. [link]

Shir, first I order you to bed. Then you order me to bed. Ya know, this is how rumors get started.

I find nothing wrong with rumors beds.

Heh heh heh.

The Shir and omnis audis Show is so much fun to watch.

Hmmm. That type of banter looks eerily familiar, doesn't it, Andi?

heh! Xposty.

And Fay, I'm glad you made it home safe and sound.

Well, safe anyway.

*Billy Connolly was Eddie Izzard, or possibly Robin Williams, only a generation earlier.

I remember a special he had in which he had a skit of an exchange of money between him and his wife that left him cleaned out.

Billy replaced Howard Hesserman in the final year of "Head of the Class." I only saw a few bits of him doing it, as I had tired of the show by that time.

Comedy Central used to show his standup bits in the '80's.

I had a bit of a crush on him when he was in Billy, the short-lived green-card-marriage sit-com, and didn't realize it was a spin-off of Head of the Class. But then, I didn't exactly follow Head of the Class closely.