I haven't really blogged since being home, but a few Christmas highlights:

Christmas Eve -- 17 people here, and one ravenous dog, overfed by the Tharp sisters

Anne Marie not on her medication -- you wanna talk a one woman circus

MUCH discussion of Naked Regis

The Telling of the Embarassing Stories about my cousin(ish) Brock

Christmas Crackers -- Think of 4 K.'s and 5 Schwincks in colorful paper crowns. That came out of exploding things.

Mom's Christmas Muffins -- Completely raw after first baking, decapitated, then baked again. Yum...

Grandpa's Danish Christmas Cookies -- The Puttieglimpa and Minelstrom. Not making up the names. It's fun to do that though. Flinkenmaffers. Schmarphengronk. Etc.

Jane Berg singing "O Holy Night" at church -- Vibrato you could drive a Mack truck through and no possible way to understand the words.

Festive Holiday Matching Pajamas

Dad sending me to Judy's house with the wrong presents...

Stollen. Lots of Stollen. Drier than you can imagine.

Lots of ickle marzipanzes.

Lots of new silicon bakeware for me. A collapsible bundt!

Bunko bread. Yumm...

Susan and Holly, check out this Get Fuzzy...

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Joe's Whiteboard Sez:

"Joe has gone to bed and won't answer unless you make catcalls and claw at the door."

If you haven't checked out this year's Dave Barry Gift Guide, you really should.

I am a cheese nepot.

Quote of the Cheese and Nog Party:

"Are you shaving me?" -- Me, to Holly who was making odd gestures at my hairy ankles with a paring knife

Motto of the Evening:

"Give the gift of Cheese"

We had a cheese and nog party tonight. Good times.

Quote of the Evening:

"You tangoed with a man who has another duck?"

-Amy

Delusional Statement of the Day:

"If I'd been president, I would have had Osama bin Laden by this time."

-Wesley Clark


Easy for you to say, Wes...

Another Great Comeback: (from the Guardian: )

In the same northern Iraqi town yesterday, about 700 people rallied, chanting: "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood." US soldiers and Iraqi policemen shouted back: "Saddam is in our jail."

Word of the day:

'extrapigskinnial' -- from Slate, in reference to a non-football comment on a football show.

Ambiguous Quote of the Evening:

"IT'S A FAIRLY SAFE GUESS that no one in Iowa is backing Richard Gephardt for president because otherwise he'd be lying half-naked in a fetal position mourning a lost girlfriend." -- From the Weekly Standard

Great Comeback: (from CNN.com)

Soldiers who participated in the raid told CNN they were preparing to toss a grenade or fire a rifle into a hole -- a standard procedure -- when a pair of upraised hands popped out.

"I am Saddam Hussein," he said, according to military officials. "I am the president of Iraq and I want to negotiate."

The U.S. soldiers reportedly responded: "President Bush sends his regards."

Great Insults from the Economist:

"Ferret-frying socialist"
"Kitten-eating alien"
"Cucumber-obsessed psychopath"
"Wife-beating numbskull"

One of these four terms is used by critics of Dalton McGuinty, leader of the Liberal party in Ontario. Which one is it? Points to the first right answer.

If you don't already play Infrequently Asked Questions, you're really missing out.

Ambiguous Statement of the Day:
"Being the most recognized actor in the world certainly has power," Professor Hodson said, "but there has to be a there there, and Schwarzenegger has demonstrated there is there there."

A professor, no less.

Greek dance music is strangely addictive. I'm listening right now to "Alla les kai alla kaneis" by Xristos Pazis. It really just makes you want to get up and bellydance. As far as I can tell, it's a breakup song, to the effect of "whatever you say and whatever you do, I'm leaving." I think. I could be very very wrong.

This song, by the way, has the best use of backup singers I've ever heard.

Spray on Stockings!
Money Quote: "While it does not come in fishnet or plaid, Air Stocking is available in Terra Cotta, Bronze and Natural. (Yes, it is possible now to spray something on your legs and look as if you have sprayed nothing on your legs.) "

Just in case you were wondering what I want for Christmas...

Situational Haiku of the Morning:

Something must be said
Or else I will go berzerk.
Tuesday morning looms.

Good Name for a Rock Band:

'Indigenous Rounding Object'

gotta love Max/MSP

Quote of Lunch:

"Did you just say that Shakespeare was a no-talent ass-clown?"

-Tim

In case you were wondering...

My best friend Susan has a sister who is also named Katie. Thus, all comment posts that either say Katie (Not your sister) and Katie (your sister) are in reference to her, which would lead one to the unfortunate conclusion that perhaps the world DOES revolve around her.

Good Name for a Rock Band:

Residual Duck

Quote of the Moment

"Considering that there's a banana-nut-brick at the bottom of that trashcan..." -- Holly

Incidentally... 'Banana Nut Brick' wouldn't be a bad name for a rock band.

Just in case anyone has ever disputed my contention that Springfield is indeed south... lookee here.

Tuesday is D-Day. Ack!

Secondary Life Lesson:
It is also challenging to review the work of someone who is giving you a grade.

Quote of the Moment:

"Put a toggle on that bi-atch!" -- Kara

Good name for a rock band:

'Reconstituted Lemming'

Life lesson of the day:
It's difficult to objectively review the work of someone with whom you either may be in love or violently angry.

Good Name for a Rock Album:

"Authentically Cheese"
(hat tip to Holly)

I feel like I'm living in an M.C. Escher drawing.

Good op-ed on Dean. From the Times, no less!

Enough is enough. We need a new system that will allow us to catch people who are pulling fire alarms. My proposal -- alarms with card readers, so you have to swipe your M-card to pull the alarm. I know this has some drawbacks, but after our third consecutive night/morning of this, I don't really care. Sunday morning, the alarm was pulled at 11AM. Monday morning, at about 8AM. This morning, 5:45. All I know is that if they ever catch this person, it would be far better for them to be thrown out of the dorms and fined or jail than to be handed over to the residents...

Good name for a rock band:

'Congratulatory Amaryllis'

So apparently, according to my mother, my (robed) father had a long conversation with a naked Regis Philbin in a Disneyworld spa the other day...

In the immortal words of Ford Prefect:

"Get to the ship," shouted Ford. "I don't want to know, just get to the ship." He started to run. "I don't want to know, I don't want to see, I don't want to hear," he yelled as he ran, "this is not my planet, I didn't choose to be here, I don't want to get involved, just get me out of here, and get me to a party with people I can relate to!"
Smoke and flame billowed from the pitch.
"Well, the supernatural brigade certainly seems to be out in force here today..." burbled a radio happily to itself.
"What I need," shouted Ford, by way of clarifying his previous remarks, "is a strong drink and a peer group."

Ten points to the first person to identify the source, and double if it includes a page number.

I confess. I care strongly about punctuation. I want to be a member of the Apostrophe Liberation Front. Actually, I want to be a member of the Quotation Mark Liberation Front. Few things raise my blood pressure like over-used quotations. They're everywhere, but my least favorite is a large yellow banner that hangs in many airports, declaring, "Thank you for Travelling." In quotation marks. I have no idea who's actually saying it. There's an American flag on the banner, maybe the flag's saying it. Or maybe it's the banner itself. But we'll never know. EVERY time I fly that bothers me.

East Quad Moment:

A guy was rolling himself down the hallway on an office chair, acknowledged me, then threw himself and the chair down the stairs, then acknowledged me again. I then resumed my quest for the bathroom.

Term of the day:

'institutionalized platformism' -- Ed Baskerville, on anti-Mac chauvinism.

More Creepy Nutcracker things:

1) While Christian and Marie are having a moment, Fritz and Drosselmeier are also having a moment.
2) Does Drosselmeier come back as Christian? Cuz if he does, that makes it way sketchier than it already is, and that's saying something.

Word of the Day:

syzygy

As in : "This barefoot guy in a parking lot talking to me about Santeria and Norwegian mental institutions inhabits a realm far, far outside the one most people think of when they think of Hollywood actors, yet he is fast approaching a celestial syzygy of fame." - Alex Kuczynski on Viggo Mortensen

Now aside from being perhaps the best scrabble word ever, I don't quite get how this works. It comes from the Greek syzygos, which means literally "yoked," but is used for "spouse." It also seems to mean trajectory, which makes sense here, although I'm shady on how you get from "yoked" to "trajectory." Creative explainations welcomed.

Incidentally, the 'Unctuous Majordomos" would be a good name for a rock band as well.

Here's a review of my show. If you're in town and aren't already coming, you should.

The Sayings Of John-Neville Andrews:

1) At the risk of tampering with perfection, let's do that again.
2) Once more, with feeling.
3) Close enough for government work.
4) Once more for posterity.
5) Fear the paper ball...

Not extrordinarily funny on their own, but with a nice British accent and significant repetition, they grow on you.

So last night went fairly well. Only slight drawbacks were some serious mic problems and one dreadful little moment when the fly people brought in the wrong wall during the Transition. Fortunately, that is a really trippy dream sequence anyway, so it looked like perhaps we meant to. And John Hill even did something spontaneous, which is fairly shocking.

Creepy Nutcracker things (part 1):

1) Christian and Marie's relationship -- He's at least 25, she's 12ish... eww
2) A forced marriage of a girl and a three-headed mouse... eww
3) Dr. Stalhbaum and Clara being brother and sister.... John's 30ish, Phyllis is 86... weird
4) John Hill in general
5) Leta grabbing John's butt

An appropriate time for a director to decide he needs an Entracte: 2 Months before the show.
An inappropriate time for a director to decide he needs an Entracte: Less than 2 days before opening night.

AHHHH

Quote of the Moment"Is Joe talking to you about carnal pleasures again?!? (sigh)" -- Holly