Nilly, there are some pics of the results of our yardwork at the new house here: [link]

I am working on getting up some of the house itself.

For ita: 'Dancing With The Stars' Judge Naked! Bruno Tonioli Goes Nude For Cancer (PHOTO)

Worksafe.

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Madness! Madness, I tell you!

NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

What the fuck!

Happy birthday, Amy!

Happy birthday, Amy!!

Happy belated birthday, Stephanie!!

Boehner and his cronies are making me crazy.

Madness! Madness, I tell you!

I know, it's like New Coke all over again.

Rather, they are far more concerned with making sure that women--especially poor women--suffer consequences for daring to have sex unless they make sure to do it with a strong, powerful man who they know can provide for them--in other words, the medieval model of gender relations.

Ugh, I am SO GROSSED OUT by the patriarchy.

A Letter to Edgar Rice Burroughs

In 1931, a schoolboy wrote a fan letter to his favorite author, Edgar Rice Burroughs. It said, in part:

I am a fourteen year old boy and am a low Junior in High School. Today at school our teacher was discussing “good literature.” I asked if Edgar Rice Burroughs was all right for a book report. I knew she’d say “no” (teachers always do) but I didn’t expect her to lecture to the class for the whole period about how terrible your books were!

The author of the Tarzan novels wrote back, in part:

My stories will do you no harm. If they have helped to inculcate in you a love of books, they have done you much good. No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.

Which explains why I bought the Twilight books for my youngest daughter. The 14-year-old boy who wrote the letter was Forrest J. Ackerman, {wiki} who grew up to coin the term “sci-fi”. Ackerman was a film producer, actor, and the editor of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, and made a name as the biggest science fiction fan ever. Read both letters in full at Letters of Note.

Happy belated, Stephanie!

I hear that it's a good year for black Chevy Impalas, too.

You're too adorable, Scola.

but, but, that's AC/DC!

It's a thing. The car has its own song. The car goes to heaven with the boys. The car is magic.

Picture marked, tommy. Thanks.

I am totally ignoring the scrabble thing. That's lions lying down with lambs. It's the end of the world, and I'm never buying any of those sets or playing with those rules. What ridiculousness!

There are weird number of names and stuff already allowed in Scrabble, as I've learned from playing online.