The long march of holiday-related parties, lunches, dinners, and other obligations begins today. Actually, not all of them are holiday-related, but today is the first that is explicitly a holiday activity. I’m not exactly complaining about having enough people wanting me at things that I have a busy two weeks ahead of me, but I find myself thinking that for the boom in social activities now, there’s going to be a matching bust in January. So I’m tentatively planning a party for Saturday January 29. More information when I figure out the details.
Yesterday felt productive. Until this morning, when I looked back and realized that I’d spent a lot of time spinning my wheels. I wanted to get the Christmas cards into the mail yesterday, which meant I spent most of the morning digging through boxes, trying to find the rest of the cards that I know I have somewhere, while Jon from Finer Surroundings was installing my new windows. As it turns out, I never did find the cards, and made a quick Target run over lunch. The cards are mailed (except for those folks I inevitably missed because I’m a moron), laundry got done, and I’ve got new weathertight windows on the ground floor, plus Jon changed the lightbulb over the front door (he had a ladder long enough to reach it) so the pizza guy might be able to find me, but the actual work part of the day wasn’t as much as it should have been.
We’ve finally seen some wintry weather. The temperature got into the teens yesterday, but with the wind it felt like winter out there. My parsley plant in the garden, which was still green on Saturday, finally succumbed to the cold on Sunday night. It’s done for the year now, but I’m impressed by how tough it proved to be.
Next up on the holiday list: wrapping presents. At least I bought all the paper and tape I should need while I was at Target yesterday so I won’t have to make a special trip for that later in the week.
- An Albany Woman Forcibly Injected With Drugs After Protesting Regulations of DMV in New York. I’m with Bill on this one that the people who did this to her need to pay (first degree murder charges sound about right), since the mix of anti-psychotics she was given for nearly 60 days was a
toxic cocktail actually equivalent to attempted murder
. Her alleged crime? Displaying fake license plates on her car that was parked on private property. And pissing off the local chief of police, apparently. [endwar] - John Perry Barlow got A Taste of the System last September, and is talking about it now. He was flying and the TSA found some plants and chemicals that the government has outlawed in his luggage. Or rather in the bottom of bottle of ibuprofen, still containing ¾ of its original contents. But they’re only allowed to search for threats to the aircraft, so the search was probably illegal. (Then again, I guess marijuana could be seen as a threat to the food-cart). Documents on the case are at “The Man” vs. John Perry Barlow. [boing boing]
- In Oklahoma, Companies that ban guns put on defensive as they’re trying to fight a law that allows gun-owners to keep guns locked in their cars while parked at work.
- Over at Alternet, Bush’s Posse Roundup details the current administration’s violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits any involvement of the U.S. military with domestic law enforcement. [claire]
- Burnsville Pistol range seeks expansion. It’s a nice club, but I’m hoping the expansion will happen, since it does sometimes get pretty crowded out there. [press-patch]