I got it a couple of days ago, not used to its thinness and chiclet attributes. But a forkful of turkey dredged in candied yams landed on the x, c and command keys and part of the spacebar. At least, that’s over with, and I can relax.

A more contemporary view of the heroine and her adventures.

Just in time for the Christmas shopping season. Before you rush to buy a few, ask yourself, ‘Do I have man breasts?’. Although judging from the video, this is not a prerequisite.

This begs the question then, do women wear jockstraps? Somewhere, someone might be working on just that, and getting set to offer them at Etsy.

Do you find Netflix’s suggestions to be less than satisfactory? Have you quit looking at the recommendations because they fall short of the mark most of the time/all of the time? For example, if I liked Foyle’s War, I will also like Ghosts of Rwanda: Frontline. Or I will love Reservoir Dogs since I rated Raising Arizona highly.

If you can make Netflix recommendations more accurate, you could win a cool million. Quite a few programmers, computer scientists and psychologists are trying to do just that. Because the problem involves very high math skills, some tap into their offspring’s calculus abilities.

For a few weeks now, I’ve had a feeding station here by the window where I work. Every day, the dark-eyed juncos and chickadees visit. As they got more used to seeing a human, I brought the table closer. Currently, they eat less than two feet away, and don’t startle when I move around, or crank up the music.

The juncos aren’t particular about their food, but they do bully the chickadees, which outnumber them. Seldom do the chickadees eat on the spot, they take their food elsewhere, frequently dropping it, necessitating more visits. I haven’t had time to take pictures lately. Some days I forget to put out fresh seeds, seeing all the leftovers.

This bothers the chickadees no end. If I don’t get sunflower seeds or peanut bits out there, they take to flinging the more common birdseed about, aiming, it seems, directly against the window. Naturally, this gets my attention, and I go put more stuff out. Sometimes they hang around very close by, watching.

In this way, they have trained me very quickly.

note: most of the photos that appear here are low-res. One day, I will put up a photo site, but meantime, if you want to purchase anything, please contact me.

From time to time, we have breakfast for dinner. Pancakes, link sausages, eggs, sometimes fried potatoes. No potatoes this time due to work. A family member cuts up everything and mixes it all together in a disgusting mass with syrup. I can’t watch, hence the handiness of a dinner movie.

The film is a charmer. After recently seeing State of Play, it was fascinating to see two stars from that series in different roles. If The Band’s Visit dealt with awkwardness, The Girl in the Cafe is a study in different sorts of vexing situations. But wonderfully realized and acted.

For a few days now, a squirrel has been dining grandly in the yard. At first, it looked as if it were holding up a big battle shield. Then I realized it was nibbling at the top of it. Since I am a great believer in composting, I figured perhaps it had dug up a baked potato skin. Wonderful, I thought. Now squirrels are eating potatoes. As if they haven’t buried 1700 lbs of acorns in my various raised beds and lawn.

We had a substantial rainfall over a week ago. Steady, minor flooding here and there, typical for the first decent rain of the season. Almost overnight, the hills began turning green. And bingo, my lawn became a minefield of big mushrooms. Last year, I found a fine specimen, and after consulting with my sources at the California Academy of Sciences, it turned out to be in the bolete family. Big and meaty. I took a few photos and hoped that there would be more in the future.

There is. This one appears to have eaten a grilled eel.

If I go out looking for hawks in the redwood and start walking backward on the grass, I stumble over these giants. Not all seem to be boletes. (And please don’t go eating wild mushrooms unless you or someone standing next to you is an expert at identifying them. It is not a good death.) Some are small clusters, easily knocked over. There was a patch I was watching carefully for its photogenic properties and bright future as a two or three pound clump.

My hopes were dashed today when I looked through the long lens and saw the squirrel trying to drag away one of the lesser stalks, a three-inch one. I am confident that in the next few days, my little friend will return.

Twice a year, the waste management company offers a pickup service of bulky items such as water heaters, sofas and such. When I took evening walks, I marveled at the things people considered junk. It didn’t take long before collectors heard about it. When we put out old bunk beds and some of the kids’ college apartment furniture, they were gone before morning.

The movie is a celebration of such collectors, and those who move in after the major harvest is over. Set in France, it covers the historic aspects of gleaning, features paintings in which gleaning is the subject and the range of individuals who come with their bags, baskets and bikes. The filmmaker inserts herself into the activities, sometimes in a poignant way, sometimes a bit annoyingly. But these instances serve to enrich the documentary by giving us glimpses into her attitude about aging.

A family member, skeptical of the subject, was reluctant to watch, but was mesmerized throughout. What did we eat. Hmm. Fried chicken livers, baked yams, spinach salad. Chili. Part of a sausage/potato casserole. It was leftovers night.

Some of us have more time to spend on a costume than others.

Using photographs, Callaghan blends mundane objects such as utility boxes into their environment.

Clam-shell packaging, while an effective deterrent against thieves, works equally well against buyers. Now, Amazon, Sony, Best Buy and Microsoft, among others, will be offering less intimidating containers, and consumers can begin to put away their pliers, screwdrivers, wire cutters, table saws, drills and other tools necessary to get at the goods. But keep them nearby, not all companies are following suit.

Now, if only the food industry will come up with more friendly ways to present blueberries, tomatoes, and other produce, plus bakery items.

Some of his work can be seen here. Click on the word ‘bildwerk’.

The leftover oxtail soup was perfect for a damp and chilly night. I haven’t seen Sigourney Weaver in anything for such a long time, and she is amazing to watch in a truly engrossing and excellent film.

The concept was a good one: get new toilets and have them installed by Thanksgiving when more family members arrive. Long-suffering people who know how to use a plunger, and who can also get out of the way fast when unexpected overflows develop.

Both toilets are old and temperamental. One, the flooder, has been intermittently flushing itself for some time now. The other began doing the same, except in the middle of the night, not stopping till I go and fiddle inside the tank.

There we were at Lowe’s, having picked out the right color, price range and height. We thought we could pay and then take them home. Such naivete. Because toilets are heavy, and the accompanying family member threw out his back not long ago, we asked about delivery.

Clerk: Sure, we can do that, the fee is $85.
Us (silence)
Clerk: Uh, but if you plan to buy an appliance, we could waive that fee for you.
Us: What?
Clerk: There’s a rebate on the fee if you buy something big - then we would deliver the big item basically for free, and we could put the toilets on the same truck.
Us: By big, you mean . . .
Clerk: A refrigerator? Or a washer?

We headed over to Home Depot. The delivery fee there is $90.

For $90, I could actually buy another toilet, albeit a rather inferior one.

To be continued.

Late at night when I do my fun reading, in the minutes before the book flips out of my hand when I fall into a dead sleep, few things strike me as truly funny. Serve the People, a Stir-Fried Journey Through China is an exception, and I highly recommend it, especially if you haven’t had a good laugh the entire day, and will settle for one as you are losing consciousness.

Oh, and if you like real Chinese food, there are recipes.

Last night around 8:30, one of the neighbors was having a fine time setting off one after another.

A family member was searching online for unique plates and other dinnerware for his apartment over the weekend. While looking for completely unrelated material, I found this edgy solution for the well-appointed urbanite.

For patients in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, a drug usually used in leukemia treatment stops and reverses the effects of the disease.

In drug trials, Alemtuzumab has been shown to actually enlarge the brains of patients, which means that tissue lost to MS is being repaired.

Researchers are addressing side effect issues, but there is hope that the drug will be available by 2010.

I bought seven bags of candy. Why, when we seldom get more than 15 or so kids? Maybe due to the crowd at Target, who were buying as if candy were $2.95/gallon. Wait. I have a sugar buzz on.

We had seven kids drop by, all little. There was a fairy in a summery frock, which the humid, mild yet scarily gusty night allowed. Then a tiny figure in a soft, black insect costume who revealed the red hearts all over the wings when she turned to tell her dad she got really ‘yummy things’.

I should have given each a whole bag.