It's Christmas Eve and Saturday. I get the feeling it will be a slow day in the blogosphere, don't you? It certainly feels slow from here, because my laptop is malfunctioning, and I'm using an old desktop, an iMac, which I remember thinking was so wonderful when I first unpacked it. Now, the curved screen seems insanely bulbous, and I'm hyperconscious of the high-pitched sound it emits. But I wrote the first two months of my blog on this -- with a dial-up connection -- and it was perfectly nice back then.
Yesterday, when I wasn't struggling to think up new ways to nudge my laptop back to life, I was checking my blog to see if I posted on Christmas last year (the blog's first Christmas). It turns out I did. But I was sensitive about the fact that I was doing it: here ("Blogging on Christmas?") and here ("She stops Christmas to blog"). Let's check the Christmas Eve blogging from last year. Ah! It's my favorite Christmas picture of me (and my sister Dell... and that guy):
I should dig up and scan some other Christmas nostalgia from the 1950s. Yeah, I know a couple that might make you laugh.
Anyway, is there anything in the news to blog about? I just paged through the NYT and found nothing that called out to me. Well, the crossword called out. Damn, it's hard today. I mean, even for a Saturday, it's hard -- especially in the southeast corner!
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28 comments:
Her name really is Dell. Not a nickname. We had a great grandmother, Grandma Dell. That one was a nickname (for Adela).
"So Santa, what is this squism you've been mentioning?"
The rumor mills say that Apple will announce a hot new iBook in the next few weeks. Indulge yourself and get one.
Oh, no! I have to wait to get the next laptop. I need one IMMEDIATELY.
Let me guess, it's one of the Flower Power iMacs!
I love this picture of you (I'm assuming you're the one on the guy's lap?). I actually remember seeing this picture in your son's Flickr album because I have a knack for remembering creepy Santas!
Just for contrast between the 50s and the dread 70s, here's a picture of me being traumatized by a far less kindly and savory looking Santa. I like the way both your photo and mine have that number thing at the bottom, and mine tries lamely to disguise it by calling it "Miles to North Pole" (1,232,514 miles is roughly 5 times further away from Earth as the moon. Way to start kids science education!). Bottom line: you're just a number to Santa, kids.
Ann, the puzzles progress in difficulty throughout the week. Saturday is the toughest!
Hey, I'm just seeing the dual laptop theme in this post! Damn, I could have had a better title, like: My two laptop problems. And, yeah, I am the one on Santa's lap. "Lap" is a funny word, isn't it? It's a body part but you only have it some of the time. I was going to say it's the only example of that, but then I thought of another one!
No, I don't have the flower power iMac. I think mine might be called "Snowflake" or something. It's all white.
Patca: Yeah, I know about the puzzle progression. Monday and Tuesday are scarcely worth doing. It only starts to get interesting on Thurday, which is the most enjoyable day, I think. But I love the extra hard days. And I did finally finish today's. The southeast corner would have been easy if I'd known the "Nobelist who proposed a League of Peace." I suppose I should know that sort of thing, but I don't! I did know the "1908 novel that helped produce widespread social reforms," which got the northwest corner off to a good start. And I got the "star of 2 of 1990's top 15 Nielsen-rated shows," which helped out in the northeast. And "needle holders" was a freebie for crossword regulars, pinning down the southwest.
Palladian: Ha, ha. Who's Santa looks drunker, yours or mine?
Ann:
Have a happy, blessed Christmas!
Mark Daniels
Well, now you've tempted me with the Saturday puzzle! I still can't do the Sunday ones, though, without occasionally resorting to Google, so perhaps I need a bit more training.
And
Merry Christmas and Seasons Greetings to all!
Ended up getting a new laptop about 3 weeks ago. Thought the older one was kaput, and had already replaced the hard drive once before.
We discovered there had been problems with the manufacture of some of that particular model. So on a whim, we took the older one to a local (and locally owned) place authorized by Apple to verify the issue. Even though it turned out that it was a few days out of the extended warranty, Apple authorized a fix of the original problem, so te place did the fix, put in another new harddrive, plus replaced the keyboard and put in a brand new (longer length) battery. Net cost? -0-
Had it back in 3 days.
I still got to keep the new one--and "handed down" the older one to DH, whose ancient Powerbook is practically in a nursing home. A nice little Christmas surprise!
Maybe you'll get lucky ...
Ann, It's a toss-up! Your Santa looks like an old fashioned Wild Turkey drinker, I think mine was more Miller High Life and Seconal...
Hey, Santa, pass us that bottle, will ya?
(wonder if anyone will get that reference)
SippicanCottage, The medication is working fine. You're right about the Santa. I think I remember he whispered in my ear: "It rubs the lotion on its skin..."
Palladian: Wild Turkey drinker
Haahaha!
Once, as a little girl, I complained to my mommy that I didn't like the Santa's aftershave.
Years later, I realized it was whiskey or bourbon (no clue what brand, though).
Btw, did you see the weird story a few days back about 40 drunken santas storming a town center in Aukland, NZ, to protest the commercialization of Christmas?
Ain't people grand?
That high pitched whine is probably a cheap flyback transformer for the monitor. The flyback transformer moves the raster from the bottom right of the screen to the top left for each screen refresh -- 60 per second. The whine sound comes from the transformer core vibrating within the wire yoke. It IS a damn awful sound.
Ruth Anne Adams: I'm not sure why you want this, but I've nothing else to do, so here's a red-headed Ann. I hope Ann isn't mad about being (respectfully) photoshopped! (I'm sure she'll tell me if she is!)
Palladian: LOL. Not quite my original color -- which wasn't carroty, but closer to auburn -- actually a very unusual shade that people always commented on. As to what my hair was like when I was first born, I can't tell you because you would think... well, Lord knows what you would think!
PatCa: The Sunday puzzle is not harder than Saturday. It's just larger. It's really on a Thursday or even Wednesday level.
ReaderIam: I blogged about the NZ Santas.
Ruth Anne: Those French café pictures my son did were made with color photos. They aren't colorized b&w pictures.
My laptop is officially dead. I had been wanting to replace it anyway, but this isn't a convenient time to do it. At least I managed to copy all my documents over to an external drive. As to old email messages... I sometimes wonder why I've saved them, but they're gone.
All:
Have a wonderful Christmas, wherever you are.
And Ann, thanks for doing this. You are a good person and a true blogress diva.
Jeff
Ruth Anne, you're welcome! Yes, she looks great.
I'm amazed that no one noticed the other element I added to that photo of Ann! Look again!
Ann, I guess I got carried away by the word "carroty"! I remember thinking about your unusual hair color when I looked through that Flickr album I mentioned, as it seems you retain it in some of those vintage Ann shots (which are beautiful, btw. Hands down fabulous diva!). Actually, I recall that several members of the Althouse family seemed to have had "adventures in hair color" at one point or the other.
I'm not one to snicker, as I started blonde, mellowed to brown, let it grow shoulder length, had brief periods of green and purple until nature and nature's God decided to make sure that future hair-related mistakes could not occur.
Oh my God, the religious people who gather on my Brooklyn streetcorner every Saturday to sing and scream about Jesus just started singing "Feliz Navidad" which then segued into "So this is Christmas" with the "war is ov-er, if you want it" lyric replaced by what sounds like "Wel-come Jesus, if you want him". And I thought I hated the Lennon version of that song!
Palladian: LOL!!!!!
That photo explains so much, it's been a life long crusade against drunken Santas and squirrel terrorism (squirrorism?)(have to differentiate from squismTM after all).
No wonder Prof. Althouse ended up in law.
And a Happy, Merry, Joyous, Gay, Wonderful, Felicitous Christmas to everyone.
I've been watching the Roman Christmas ceremony. I'm not Catholic, but especially with all the churches cancelling Christmas services this year because it's on Sunday, I have to say that I respect the Catholics in this regard-- they obviously remember what Christmas is about.
As for what to blog about on Christmas, there is one international topic that is probably the most necessary, but also about which people are the most weary of thinking about, which it is a good time to look at, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I did put up a board on it on my own blog: http://tiodt.blogspot.com/2005/12/abraham-had-two-sons.html if anyone is inclined to comment on it.
I won't be back to check though until after midnight tomorrow, we have rules about keeping the computer and TV off on Sunday at our house (although right now I still have twenty minutes, MST).
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