I'm going to be very busy today and I've been slacking on the content here, so I thought I'd do something lazy. It's not quite LOLBeatles, but it's the next best thing: LOLWho. And because it's a cheeseball (cheezball?) ripoff of something I already did, I made a picture:



Have fun.

Got this from kyaraelf. I should probably fill out an answer key and put it in comments. And I'll be very upset if no one plays along. I might even be mad enough to post another Hodor story.

Comments are screened for 24 hours. Then I'll let you know who got the most points and the correct answers.

(1 Point) My first name:
(2 Points) My last name:
(3 Points) Take a stab at my middle name:
(1 Point) Which Hogwarts house would I be sorted into?:
(1 Point) What is my hair color?:
(3 Points) Name my celeb-crush (If you don't know this one, just stop now):
(1 Points) Do I have any children?:
(2 Points) What work do I do?:
(3 Points) What am I afraid of?:
(2 Points) Do I smoke?:
(2 Points) Do I drink?:
(2 Points) If I drink, what do I order?:
(2 Points) Do I have any siblings?:
(2 Points) How many?:
(4 Points) What's one of my favorite things to do?:
(2 Points) How many piercings do I have?:
(3 Points) What's my astrological sign?:
(2 Points) What's my favorite way to relax?:
(2 Points) Who is my favorite band/artist?:
(3 Points) Am I shy or outgoing?:
(4 Points) What is my secret 'if I could do anything, money/reality no object' dream?:
(2 Points) What is my favorite color?:
(2 Points) Name something I hate:
(2 Points) Name a talent I have:
(2 Points) What's my fave place to shop?
(4 Points) What kind of shoes do I wear?:
(2 Points) Do I have any pets?:
(1 Point) Am I married?:
(3 Points) What is/was my field of study?:
(3 Points) Name something I collect:
(5 Points) What is the color of my bedroom?:
(5 Points) What is my worst habit?:
(5 Points on creativeness) If I were stranded on a desert island/desolate mountaintop, what would I bring:
(6 Points) What's the biggest secret I keep from most people?

Check out this sentence from a McCain staffer:

"The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain, a former prisoner of war, cheated is outrageous," Ms. Wallace said.

The context is... well, the context is unimportant. The two facts are unconnected. (Especially considering he admitted to cheating on his first wife, which is unimportant except in that it's... y'know, cheating, by a.... wait for it, a POW.)

Of course, this might actually be a good sign for Obama, since McCain's entire campaign seems to have devolved to, "But I know, because I was a POW." I wonder if he's taking advice from Rudy "A Noun, a verb, and 9/11" Giuliani.

Amusing thought for the day: Some right-wing nutbar referred to Rick Santorum as a religious leader. I'm curious as to what religion he leads, and so I suspect is the bishop of whatever diocese he lives in, since he's nominally Roman Catholic, and if there's one thing Catholicism has, it's a surfeit of official "leaders."

On the other hand, I think he is a leader in the "name stolen and used as a descriptive term for something disgusting" category. If I'm wrong, don't tell me.

While I come up with someone else to call an asshat (or even *gasp* do my job), check this out: Best. LOLcat. Evar.

Also, I'm listening to the best song ever about Curt Flood. He's not quite Jackie Robinson, but the list of professional athletes who gave up their career for a principle is a short one, and Curt Flood's name is right at the top of the list.

Today's Asshat once again is me. I promised, Promised, PROMISED myself I wouldn't read Gregg Easterbrook's Tuesday Morning Quarterback column at ESPN this year, but as soon as it was there, I broke down and read it. I did have an interesting revelation, though.

In his columns, Easterbrook often combines dazzling insight with remarkable shortsightedness—sometimes in the same sentence. I think I've figured out why. Most people, it's fair to say, think in only one dimension. (This isn't really accurate, but it's close enough for horseshoes.) They just think about single causes and their effects. Easterbrook often thinks in two, examining multiple causes or looking at effects outside what would seem like a closed system.

A good example from this week's column is his talking about a publishing scandal, where Penguin got caught out for publishing a "memoir" of a woman's struggle growing up on the streets. Only problem: it was fiction from start to finish. It had as much relationship to truth as a Kobe Bryant press release. So Penguin, the author, and a bunch of reviewers looked stupid. Easterbrook was right to point out that the reason Penguin didn't fact check was because they didn't care: True life stories are all the rage while novels (what this woman wrote) mostly sell like crap. Where he's wrong is this sentence:

Penguin asserts with a straight face that the company never noticed a woman claiming to have experienced a traumatic inner-city childhood in foster homes had the mannerisms of a private prep school.

Which gets to the problem Easterbrook has, and why he pisses me off so much. He never examines his own conclusions or looks at the causes that affect the forces he notices. There are a bunch of reasons why a developmental editor wouldn't notice "private school mannerisms": starting with the fact that lots of people in publishing (like me, for example) don't know anyone with a posh prep school education. Why would they notice? And it's not hard to affect mannerisms. So this thing he fixates on is the least interesting thing about the story, but he acts like it's some kind of huge revelation, because he never stopped to examine his own logic.

Now, he's hardly the only person to do that, but he's a little more self congratulatory about his insight, such as it is, than most of us. It's fine that he's a little more observant than your average journo, but it ain't all that impressive. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but he still can't see as far as someone with two good eyes and the will to use them. And that gives me an idea for a nickname. I may start referring to Easterbrook as One-Eye (with apologies to Glen Cook).

Oh, and Britney on the cover of Atlantic Monthly isn't the end of the world, Gregg. It just means that despite the fact that you've written for it, Atlantic Monthly isn't all that and a bag of chips. Maybe you should flog some other rag in your bio.

There's been a lot of really interesting writing on the 'net in the wake of John Edwards confession of his affair. I'm not going to link to any of it, I'm simply going to say this:

John Edwards is a dumbass!

There's one thing that's always forgotten in all the writing about media bias and what should be appropriate and what really matters. You can only control your own actions. In the wake of the Lewinski scandal, every politician has to know that however they feel about it, or no matter who is getting away with it, they're likely to get caught if they have an affair.

For John Edwards, who had essentially been running for President in 2008 since November 3, 2004, to start an affair while on the campaign trail shows a startling lack of judgment and self-control. To steal a (bad) line from Al Gore: I'm not going to question his heart, but I sure as shit will question his judgment. And that's why he's a dumbass, and why the bunny is getting way cynical.

How did today suck. Let me count the ways:

1. Had to go into the office.
2. Didn't get anything done in the office.
3. Went to library, which wasn't open.
4. Got caught in rainstorm.
5. Tried to wait rainstorm out in bar, but their satellite TV was out.
6. Tried to get a cab from the bar and couldn't.
7. Ended up walking home in the rain, at one point crossing a street flooded above my knees.
8. The fire alarm in my building went off, for no particular reason. This is a common occurrence, and it's very loud.
9. The Yankees lost a winnable game in the ninth.

So that's nine, nine ways today sucked. I'm going to bed and when I wake up, I'm going to hope tomorrow doesn't suck.

So I just started the second Harry Dresden book, Full Moon. These books are in a subgenre I'd call "Hardboiled Fantasy Mystery" or even noir, since they all come off like "Raymond Chandler with X," where X is magic and other stuff. The other inhabitants I know of are Glen Cook's "Garrett, P.I." books, and the Vlad books.

I've only read one Garrett, while I've read all eleven Vlad books (as anyone who has read this LJ knows), and I wasn't that impressed. Of course the Vlad books get better as they go along, so maybe Harry and Garrett do too. My problem with Harry so far is ( A secret, unless you want minor spoilers. )

Oh, well. It's not like Storm Front was bad. It just wasn't all that and a bag of chips. But then neither was the first Potter book. And I kept going with that.

So I haven't been posting here much because frankly I haven't had the energy. There're some very long posts bashing around the back of my head that need to come out (for my own peace of mind, if no other reason), but I've also been ignoring leisure writing for the last couple of weeks. So I'm going to make this a story day. And sometime during the week, I'll try to find the space between work, meetings, stress, the sulks, and all the other things that fill my days to talk about some serious stuff here.

I love that Neil Patrick Harris (formerly only of Doogie Howser fame) is such a major pop culture figure these days. It just makes me laugh and laugh. Between Harold and Kumar and Dr. Horrible, he's so much bigger than just his role on How I Met Your Mother would have you believe.

Here he is on Sesame Street. It's all good.

In case of a zombie emergency, I'm going to do my best to spy on the zombie threat. First, I'll tune in to Fox News to intercept the zombies' instructions. Then.... okay, then I'll wing it.

I got Rickrolled... by AOL. If you search on "Leaked Half-Blood Prince Trailer," you will too. The real trailer hits tomorrow.

Not sure what it all means, but I was deeply amused, which I suppose is enough meaning for now.

So I spent the weekend canoeing down the Saco River in Maine—more fool I. Actually, most of the trip was incredibly pleasant and fun, but I'm not the camping type. I hated putting up the tent. I hated taking down the tent. I hated sleeping in the tent. ( TMI warning. )

What I loved was floating down the river. The river was high and the current was fast, which supposedly meant it was more dangerous, but actually meant less effort. So really, all we did was sit in the sun, drinking beer, smoking cigars, and enjoying the scenery and each other's company. We'd occasionally paddle to keep from hitting trees and things, but for the most part, we just floated. It's a wonderful feeling. I could do without the sleeping on the ground part, though.

One downside to the sitting in the sun part was the inevitable sunburn. I put some lotion on my legs and arms, so they aren't too bad, except for the red knee syndrome (ladybird97, I feel your pain). I chose not to put lotion on my face, reasoning that this is well past the point in the season for sunburning my face. This is true. My face is not sunburned. The back of my neck, on the other hand.... let's just say I could be a color swatch for a fire truck. Not good.

On the way home, we stopped for barbecue, which was also awesome. Also, I don't know if you've ever heard the famous saying, "Where there's smoke, there's a Napa Auto Parts store." I can only say that in my experience it's true. Anyway, I had a good time, I'm glad to be home, and I hope next year we stay at a B&B or something.

So I just realized something this evening. One of the trivia questions tonight was about the movie Vacation. Thinking about that movie, I realized that Randy Quaid is the angel of death for comedy sequels. Seriously.

It's sad, because I like Randy Quaid. He's a very good actor, and in the right role, he's funny as hell. But we have to face facts. Pretty much all the Vacation sequels sucked. The connecting factor: increasing amounts of Randy Quaid. Caddyshack II: littered with Randy Quaid. Same thing with Major League II. The only one he missed, as far as I can see, was Ghostbusters II (and I'll bet he had a cameo or something).

So the lesson here is if you're calling in Randy Quaid to cast for a comedy sequel, give back the money and go home, because it's going to be all sorts of lousy.

So I saw The Dark Knight last weekend and I am seriously put out with Heath Ledger. Not only are we going to miss out on dozens of brilliant performances in other movies, but he's totally ruined the Joker for anyone else.

So I guess we'll just have to watch The Dark Knight over and over again. If there's anyone in the Western world who hasn't seen the movie already, what are you waiting for? (I assume in most cases the answer is babysitting. Still, go see it as soon as you can.)

So if Pluto is a dwarf planet now, does that mean that it's not allowed to go on amusement park rides?

I'm gonna miss Pluto as a planet, not only for itself, but because there are about a half dozen other dwarf planets near the Kuiper Belt, one of which is called Xena. If Pluto had maintained its status as a planet, Xena would have become one too, and planet Xena would be awesome.

You may know that Barack Obama is giving a major speech in Berlin tonight. You may not know that John McCain is giving a major speech on an oil rig.

I understand that McCain thinks offshore drilling is a winning issue for him, but giving a speech from an oil rig just makes it seem like Dick Dastardly and Snidely Whiplash are running his campaign.

I'll bet you thought I was giving up LJ after last Friday's LOLBeatle commentpalooza. You should be so lucky. I'll probably just get bored and do LOLWho in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Joe Lieberman is still a douchewaffle.

John Hagee, the anti-Catholic, antigay pastor who supposed the state of Israel because without it the world can't end, is back in the news. He's specifically back in the news for being Lieberman's BFF. Lieberman yesterday compared Hagee—whose persecution includes... um, not nearly enough of the media calling him out for saying who deserves to live and who deserves to die—to Moses.

I think I'd like to declare a moratorium on Joe Lieberman. Dude, Hagee's a maniac. Why on earth would you be hanging out with this guy. Lois Bujold (through Ekaterine) states in A Civil Campaign that the principal difference between Heaven and Hell is the company you keep. I can't imagine Joe, John, and their respective self-righteousness have such a good time together.

The combination of stress and exhaustion brings out some interesting reactions in me. For example, I want to play Beatles LOLcats. Here's mine:

DA SUN: HERE IT COMS!

Whoever else is game should leave a comment. If no one else is game, I'll just feel silly for awhile (and then probably post more LOLcats.