Well there you have it...at 3:17 pm Central Time on December 23, 2009, Peo came up with the oh-so-original notion of getting up when she should be asleep to ask for a drink of water.

I was watching the Biscuit Brothers' Christmas special with Peo today and kind of wishing our non-local friends could see it too, and it turns out some of the videos are on their website:

http://www.biscuitbiz.com/video/12days.php

http://www.biscuitbiz.com/video/soundsxmas.php


And of the ones they've got, my favourite because it's both funny and sweet:

http://www.biscuitbiz.com/video/bce.php

Although Peo and I agree that the best song on their Christmas album is the chicken, cow, pig, and lamb doing Carol of the Bells. But that's because everything done by the Livestock Corral is awesome and amuses me greatly.

Since we let Peo see Shrek about a month ago, she's been obsessed, turning all of her toys into the characters and acting out scenes and her own scenes as well.

Through this I've noticed that she calls the dragon Slay, because she thinks that's the dragon's name. After all, people in the show are constantly saying, "Slay the dragon!"

But as of this morning I realized I had it slightly wrong when she started incorporating the dragon into Christmas carols. She thinks it's "Sleigh the dragon."

I am amused and letting her go with it.



(PS I'm such a nerd that I keep wondering what Buffy is doing in so many Christmas carols.)


eta She's also into calling people a two-faced son of a jackal since I let her see Aladdin. She's calling herself that in the bathroom mirror right now while washing her hands.

During our craft session today, Peo announced, "All I really want for Christmas is a sister."

Me: "That's all you want, huh?"

Peo: "Yep, you can skip all the other gifts. A sister would be enough."


I then explained the basics of why that's highly implausible.

Plus, last week, she only wanted a brother, because that's what her friend at school has.

What I've been making for Peo (and Corran's work Christmas party, despite his inability to attend since he's in Oz, but Peo still wants to go) for the past day and a half:

( large pics under the cut )

Gacked from noiseinmyhead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

In case there's anyone left who would be willing to pay any attention to me and still thinks HFCS is perfectly safe:

Child diabetes blamed on food sweetener - "Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a strictly controlled diet, including high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems."

Actual study is here.

Okay, you can criticize this for being a small sample, for being fructose vs glucose and not involving sucrose, or probably other reasons. But it comes down to this yet again: if HFCS *might* be a health risk, proven or not but just *MIGHT* be one, why would you willingly eat it and serve it to your kids?

Again, I don't mean the two-or-three-times-a-year indulgence. It's in the bread (even the bakery bread), the condiments, the soda, the fake juices, the deli meats, the yogurt, and yes even in some products with organic labels (it just has to be made with organic corn). If you buy normal US processed food products, you are eating this stuff at every meal. Canadians, it's crept into your supply too, so go back to checking labels (you're usually going to find it as something like "glucose-fructose syrup") and check known foods periodically to see if they've changed.

We are never going to get this stuff legislated away. BPA is an actual poison and we can't get it legislated out of everything (some smarter countries like Canada are banning it from baby bottles, but not from food cans and bags), so there's no hope of battling the corn industry to get HFCS out of food. The only way it'll stop being added to everything is by consumer revolt. When HFCS-free foods outsell HFCS-laden ones, it becomes worth their while to take it out. It's already happening with some products, which is why the corn industry is spooked and putting out such stupid ads.

*Yawn*! I usually wake up bright and cheerful ... but not today:

Found out this past weekend that the magazine I was publicizing in London just before I succumbed to meningitis, and lost my hearing, over two years ago, is *finally* going to be published.

However, some of the article we had done for the sample issue are no longer up to date, and so, I was asked to write a couple new pieces.

Earlier this week, I wrote a sidebar about the political/economic context of the "Reinheitsgebot", the Bavarian "Beer Purity Law" (which involved not only trade protectionism, but also an implicit grant of monopoly to the one brewery that was allowed to make wheat beer).

Last night, it took me a couple hours or so, and kept me up until late, writing an editorial addressing the weighty question: what did the choice of beer of each of the people who participated in the "Beer Summit" say about them? (I suggested that, merely examining it in that regard, Sgt. Crowley's choice exceeded the others as a beer for someone who appreciated subtlety, nuance, and complexity).

Still, now, I think I'm going to have to steadily ingest my other favorite drug of choice -- coffee -- to get through the day!

In related news, the issue of Sacred History magazine, with my article about the competency trial of Mary Baker Eddy, is finally being distributed.

I've gone two years or so without having anything published ... so its nice to know my writing is finally going to be getting out there, again!

Cooooolness:

http://www.skytopia.com/project/fractal/mandelbulb.html#renders

In the last 48 hours, my watch band has broken, my beaded lip-balm-holder-keychain fell off my keys, a rock chipped my windshield, my passport photos were rejected, one of the four pack of outdoor bulbs I put into the new fixtures blew as soon as I turned it on, one of the two lights on the new range hood failed to turn on at all, the big toe of my "good" foot has turned into an ingrown-nail ball of pain, and a potential $3800 error regarding my foot surgery has cropped up.

Know why?

Because I was counting on getting lots done on my show cake this last week of Peo's school, and Corran is out of town until December 28 (family emergency), so as many possible things to cause havoc in my life appear to be piling up.

So today I took Peo to school, went and got new passport photos taken (it wasn't the photographer's fault, it was because I was wearing a white shirt, but the photographer offered me free replacements which was nice, but I paid anyway since it wasn't their fault...and I've heard they're the only place in Austin that does Canadian passport photos right), got home, inhaled a quick breakfast just as the range hood installers arrived, listened to them complain and work for about half an hour because it turns out this fancy new hood is "professional class" which is translation for "does not fit into the standard hole cut into the underside of the cabinet", then called the podiatrist's office to discuss the weird billing error stuff that came from the insurance company (they think it's an error too but can't be sure until they see their version come in), then went outside to plant the replacement trees the Arbor Foundation sent since the last ten died (they arrived on Saturday so I really had to get them in the ground today or tomorrow), then weeded the garden since the weeds were killing my plants and I haven't been able to weed since the surgery, then sprayed not-very-eco-friendly RoundUp on the weeds that have taken over the xeriscape and swallowed Peo's sandbox, then cleaned up all that stuff, then removed the good and bad bulbs from their fixtures and put them back in the box to return, then had a shower, then had lunch, then put together the package with the passport photos, then got in a WHOLE 45 MINUTES of sugar work, then went and stood in line at the post office for 45 minutes (which is why I bloody well avoid the place in December and had been oh so sensible in sending out Christmas packages weeks ago), then realized it was too late for me to make it to the podiatrist's office to pay them the remaining deductible they've been waiting for pending the resolution of the previous insurance error (I told them I'd be in today or tomorrow), then picked Peo up from school, then battled insane stupid-people-cutting-me-off traffic for 40 minutes back, then returned the box of light bulbs to Costco, then did Costco shopping and almost forgot to get more bulbs, then got home and put the new bulbs all in (they all work, yay), then put the groceries away, then made dinner with Peo (hot dogs wrapped in store-brand crescent roll dough, but I let her cut out Christmas cookie shapes...only as I opened the dough did I notice that there was some crusty dough on the outside of the can so I went with the theory that it was from something else and cut off a bit from that end of the roll just to be safe and we're all just going to assume it's fine because I was so not up to dealing with her mega-angst if the promised special dinner didn't happen), and now...

*wilt*
*droop*

I still need to make cookie dough tonight, though, because it has to chill for tomorrow night Peo can make cookies for her teacher so we can take them to school on Thursday, which is her last day before the holiday.

And my feet hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt....*whine*

Did I mention that I got in a whole 45 minutes of sugar work? Yay me. I learned that with certain spherical objects that have an indentation on one side, when you're making the line that goes around the middle, you have to turn the sphere against the knife and not the other way around or else the indentation makes your eye want to slope the line and then it looks all wrong and you have to do it over again.

At least Peo is funny...she keeps singing Christmas carols with entirely mangled lyrics. I don't mean Jingle Bells, Batman Smells, either (although I sang that to her and she was amused)...I mean like "a faybe is worn" for "a babe is born" and "you'll go down in this tree" for "you'll go down in history". She only believes my corrections about half the time...

And the Lion King is over now so someone is demanding her stories before bed...


eta Forgot to mention the wonky iPod...first it got stuck on shuffle driving home from the overlapping Christmas parties I had on Sunday and Peo was in tears because she only likes the songs, "IN THE RIGHT ORDER!" Since then, it has developed a habit of the music player crashing out at the worst times...like the wee hours of the morning when it's on as a white noise machine so I get woken up by the ticking of the fan, or when I was in the middle of doing the gardening today, or when driving on the highway with Peo and she's finally happy that the songs aren't shuffling...

Not news to me because I've watched food-dressing competitions and I know just how much non-edible content can go into advertising sometimes, but in case you're curious to see what is done to a burger to make it ad ready:

Mmmkay, that's the THIRD G-rated Christmas special so far with an ad for the Sherlock Holmes movie.

SO.
NOT.
COOL.

When I put on a show for my child that is G rated, I expect the ads to be G rated, and not full of sex and violence.

And the networks wonder why we hardly watch anymore...sheesh.


eta Actually, all three are on ABC or ABC Family. I guess I know to whom I should complain...

First I saw this really cool photo on the Consumerist Friday Flickr post (the second one from the bottom): http://consumerist.com/2009/12/consumerist-friday-flickr-finds-31.html

Then someone in comments directed me to this video that uses the same sort of technology to make real-size things appear to be miniature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkrtYRxGyuo

And watching that led me to the creator of that video's website, where he's got more cool videos: http://keithloutit.com/

And then I noticed the Consumerist commenter had also linked to this guide on how to make these kinds of photos yourself in Photoshop, including lots more cool examples: http://www.visualphotoguide.com/tilt-shift-photoshop-tutorial-how-to-make-fake-miniature-scenes/

And that's about when I realized, holy crap, I meant to go to bed half an hour ago...so I'm posting it now as a break between cookie-making and Peo-wrangling.

Now we can all sing together: She's actual size but she seems much bigger smaller to meeeeee!

Here's an amusing set of ads as picked by Time Magazine:

Top 10 TV Ads

And the spoofs of the GM ad are better than the real one. Here are two:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts_fZStHYbA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFV1vQ

If you're pregnant, here's something to consider before using insect repellents:

Repellents and insecticides linked to birth defects in baby boys

They're very clear that there's no clear causation, just a statistical link. But if you're pregnant and not in an area where a bite risks other health problems, you might want to consider skipping the repellent and use other avoidance measures, just to be on the safe side.

Does anyone remember .... the future? By that, I mean, how popular culture used to anticipate the future as a wondrous time to look forward to? When there were exhibits of "the living room of the future", and popular media anticipated all the advances in comfort and leisure that would be provided for us by technological developments?

Yet, now, if you go to the "World of the Future" in Disneyland, they have a spokesman talking about *current*day technology. Our science fiction movies and TV, when they are set in the future, are often different shades of dystopia.

We live in an age of wonders which could not be anticipated 20 years ago -- the internet, cell phones, global communications -- and yet, our cultural representations of the future seem *anything* but optimistic.

I wonder why that is?