PoW would Also Like to Take Note
Today is the Natal Anniversary of the better half of the Enigmatic Misanthrope. Happy Birthday and a white stone to mark the day for Missus M!

PoW Welcomes Rachel Lucas Back
Blue-Eyed Infidel is ready to rock'n'roll. We are a better nation for it.

All I Want For Christmas
One of the things I have lost in the season is, thankfully, avarice. I don't want with that ravening, unquenchable desire of youth. There is one thing - an iPod add on - that I would like very much. And if history is any indication, I have told the right people that I want it. But I get more difficult to buy for. Anything I really want, I've usually acquired for myself leaving only high ticket items that I would never ask anyone to get for me. If it matters, this year I could use a new oven, range and a microwave hood for the kitchen to replace the old electric range, over-under ovens that came with the place. But I say that by way of explanation only.
Send me a card. That'll make me happy.

One Of Those Essentially Cool Things
CafePress. I created an image for my company. I've now ordered a mouse pad and coffee mugs. Look for yours in the mail soon.
Tip of the lid to Paul for his gumption to order something which leads me to take action. You rock.

Obey the Pug!

Mannheim Steamroller After All
Despite the lack of response (self pity is so unattractive - Ed.), I went ahead and bid on Christmas In The Aire on eBay. The link is to Amazon since the Big A has more info. It's hard to pass up when the starting bid is $4.00 and with half an hour to go, I'm the only bidder. I may make an early visit to eBay my regular stop for my yearly addition to the Christmas music list.

Also, the newspaper insert "American Profile" magazine had an interesting article on Chip Davis who is the animus deus behind Mannheim Steamroller (which name, for the trivial minded, comes from the classical music term Mannheim crescendo). The most surprising thing is that he was also the man behind the music of CB-radio driven phenom C.W. McCall of "Convoy" fame. As the article says: "Davis' (sic) career began when he wrote advertising jingles for a bread company that starred a fictional truck driver named C.W. McCall."
I congratulate Mr. Davis for transcending his start in the business and producing something of lasting value. Good on you.

UPDATE: $4.00 - got it. As soon as I know the shipping, oh yes! It will be mine.

In Today's News
I present you with an AP report out of Port St. Lucie, Florida:

A woman accused of strangling her neighbor's Rottweiler after it attacked her Yorkshire terrier is under investigation by the State Attorney's Office on a possible animal cruelty charge.
Robin Bush said she grabbed the 130-pound unleashed Rottweiler firmly by its collar Wednesday night because she feared for her life. She said the dog had escaped from its yard, run into her back yard and attacked her 8-pound Yorkie.
But Rebecca Hartley, owner of the Rottweiler named Rox, told police her dog only wanted to play with the Yorkie, named Tandy, which she said was "about the size of one of Rox's chew toys." "My neighbor came running out of her house throwing things at Rox," Hartley said. "I had my dog by the collar, and she grabbed it. She twisted the collar until the dog suffocated, and I had my hand on the dog the whole time trying to calm her down and tell the woman to stop."Hartley told police that Bush also threw a beer bottle at her dog and strangled it while bashing its head against a wall.
Bush said she was fearful because she recently learned she was pregnant and her two young children were just feet away.
"I'm so sick to my stomach over all of this," she said. "I didn't know I was choking the dog. I was just holding it by its collar and trying to keep it away from me, and I was yelling for someone to call 911."Both women said Rox stopped breathing after a few minutes, and Bush tried to perform CPR on the dog but was unsuccessful.
Tandy was being treated for a dozen deep scratches at a local animal hospital Thursday, Bush said.
Police were investigating the statements from both women and other witnesses.

Comment would almost be superfluous. However, how many elements of this story beg for comment? First of all, if you have a bite-sized dog you might expect it to be a snack someday. I can just see it - Tandy with the usual Yorkie bow in the fur between the ears and Rox takes a look and thinks, "Nice presentation. Almost a shame to eat it. But I could use a treat about now." Also, given that her name is Robin Bush, how much grief did this woman have to go through in her life?
I'm impressed that she had the grit to go in and rescue her dog because Rotties, which are actually quite sweet-natured, are incredibly strong and tenacious dogs. Heck, I'm a charter member of the Big man's Club and I'd have severe reseervations about going after a Rottie. But then, if my dog were in the Rottie's mouth, I'd probably do something. Something along the line of a triple tap with a 9mm kurtz. But that's just me. I've seen too many of my animals killed by pack dogs.
Now as for the moron who owns Rox, I don't care if dogs play fight. If my dog is in the mouth of another dog, a dog that outmasses mine by several times, I'm going to see it as an attack, not play. And I applaud Miss Bush for doing what needed to be done to protect Tandy. And she was "trying to calm her dog down." Is there any doubt about why Miss Bush did what she did?
Finally, if the police do anything to her, I hope she sues them for unwarranted prosecution. The Rottweiler was 1) unleashed and 2) came onto her property. Case closed.
I'm sorry Rox had to be killed but better the attacker than the attacked.

Help Me Out Here
I appeal to the vast (are you high? -Ed.) PoW readership for suggestions. I have been listening to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve and Other Stories" to get myself in the Christmas mood. And I find that it helps. I want to buy myself another Christmas album and am soliciting suggestions as to what might be best to buy. I have all the late John Fahey's Christmas discs and the aforementioned Trans-Siberian Orchestra disc. I am thinking it might be time to buy a Mannheim Steamroller disc. So, is there a best one to get? Is there some other Christmas disc that I should be considering? Leave me a comment, e-mail me. I'd really like to know what you think.
And Merry Christmas to those I can no longer reach.

UPDATE: It seems the whole stack of Mannheim Steamroller plastic is available at one big old Christmas bolus. That might just be the way to go. But then what do I buy next year? Anyone suggesting Mariah Carey will be terminated with extreme and grotesque prejudice.

Forcing Christmas
In my old family house, there was a bathroom downstairs that had a most remarkable bathing place. It was designed by my late father with Japanese o-furo in mind. It had a tap at a height of about three feet from the floor. It had a showerhead at about seven feet up. And half of the entire room was a tiled area in which to bathe. The exterior wall was one side, the front and back walls were floor to ceiling and the interior wall was about four feet up from the floor inside and about three feet up from the floor of the rest of the room. Tiled steps got us in and out.
We didn't fill that tub too often since it would have taken all the hot water our water heater could produce to fill it even partially but we did sometimes take advantage of all that bathing space. I learned to swim in that pool when I was a wee doggy. But my mother, in later years, put that space to very good use by bringing cut forsythia and dogwood branches in and putting them in jars of water. The heat and steam of showering with the shrubbery would make the cutting bloom out in no time at all. So she could force these blooms without a greenhouse and in the natural course of daily life. Mom knew her plants.
It seems natural, too, in the holiday season to remember those we used to have with us who made Christmas what it was. It hasn't felt like real Christmas for me since my parents passed away. All the family traditions, all the little things that made it really seem like Christmas just don't exist anymore. I still buy presents. I still send cards. I still try to force Christmas like my mother forced those spring blooms. But it doesn't seem to much work. I have the last pictures I took of mom and dad. I was going to use them for their Christmas cards the next year. I don't really look at those pictures though. I can see now the premonitions of cancer that we never saw in mom at the time. I see dad looking pretty fit, all things considered, and hopeful for the planned hip-replacement surgery from which he never awoke.
I have lost something out of Christmas with them. There is little to build enthusiasm on or for. I buy a wreath and even as I'm putting it up I think only of the annoyance of having to take it down again. I buy a small tree that I can set up on a tabletop because my collection of ornaments has been winnowed down to a set that single man can deal with. Nice ornaments but not too many. An old white sheet is wound around the base of the tree to simulate snowy ground and I think back to the old orange cardboard blocks we used to used to build a base around the washtub in which the balled-in-burlap live tree stood. I could point out four trees visible from the kitchen window that had once been in the house as Christmas trees. But it's not my kitchen.
Melancholy is not a good ride into holidays. I should hitch a ride on Santa's sleigh. I should put all the Christmas music I have into an iTunes play list and run it 20 hours a day for the rest of the year. But it would be just too much.
Instead, I will breathe a heavy sigh, work tonight on getting the rest of my Christmas cards ready for mailing tomorrow, look over my presents list and see if there is something I can buy for someone else that will bring some measure of Christmas back to me. Back to my heart, back to my soul. I long for that Christmas shagged with snow, even if we rarely had Christmas snow. I recall a Christmas spent in the middle of the Indian Ocean and remember how little it felt like Christmas. It seems much more like that these days than the tinkling of angel chimes and the resinous smell of pine wood waiting for the fire. I'm not sure Christmas can be forced.

Another Ad
Ross has an ad with a little black girl and a little white boy who may as well be an albino he so white. (dialect - learn it, live it, love it) But damn they cute! Absolutely adorable. Full marks to Ross for finding such tykes.

Still "Lost"
OK, you saved the hobbit. Congratulations. Now where the hell is Mira Furlan?

Ooooh! Goody!
Kim du Toit is audioblogging! Hooray yay!

Movie Dog At Home
I rented "Van Helsing." First, let me just say this - that Hugh Jackman is one pretty, pretty man. Now I can move on to drooling over Kate Beckinsale. The first time my jaw hit the floor about Ms. Beckinsale was the movie "Underworld." You will understand why I'm Movie Dog when I say that what made me, forced me to see that movie was the online trailer which rather seemed to feature her amazing backside in tight leather. Double you oh double you. In "Van Helsing" she is, if possible, even more heart-stopping than she was the year before. First, her hair is the most stunning foam of dark curls, though there is one scene where I couldn't help but wonder how a 19th century babe gets such perfect chestnut highlights. But that would be breaking the mood, wouldn't it?
It's not just hair. She is a flat out beautiful woman. Gorgeous face. Fabulous eyes. And she has one thing that just does it for me. It's what I call fat teeth. Her two front, upper incisors seem just noticably larger than they might be which leads to her upper lip being fuller, dare I say more sensuous. Pat Benatar has the same look. And yes she has a helluva body too. I read somewhere that there's a controversy about her having implants. It was alleged that in some movie it was part of her contract that she couldn't be filmed bent over at a 45 degree angle because the implants would visibly shift. Well, despite the vast amount of action involving her character, the scene where she dances with Dracula, I think, clearly shows that she does have implants.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
So what's the bottom line on the movie? A very good action adventure flick. The CGI on several characters is too obvious but it's one of the things you just accept if you're going to be seeing a movie about vampires and werewolves. A nicely imagined script to tie all the slam-bang together. The motivations of the characters are believable. And that's as much as can be asked for action adventure. If you haven't seen it, definitely worth the rental.

Reproduction
I don't have offspring. I've been pretty convinced that I have no desire for offspring. Put aside the fact that I'm getting too aged and infirm to deal with the springing off of hemigenetic clones, the fact that I'm single and will not reproduce outside the honorable institution of wedlock, and the possiblity of my having a child is between slim and none with slim saddling up to leave town.
I don't think much of having children but every now and again I see what the point of it all is. Today's "Bleat" is that case in point. The tales of Gnat Lileks make my heart misty with small joys:

Eventually the car was ready and we walked hand in hand back to the garage. “This is the best day ever Daddy,” she said. I couldn’t argue. You never argue with that, no matter what else happens.

Bless you, child for your moment of pure grace and bless you her daddy for bringing that moment to me. If Jeebus gave me a solid guarantee that I could have such child as this, I would immediately work to ensure it happening.

AOL
In the news today are reports of "massive" layoffs at AOL. I am sorry for those who are losing their jobs on the eve of the holiday season, well, in the early morning hours of the holiday season. But I am left to wonder what the advantage of using AOL is. I was once a member of the esteemed service and I kept my account longer than I really used it because "bring your own service" (I logged on via my Erols account and entered AOL via the internet, not vice versa) was available for just a few bucks a month. When the rate for BYOS was raised, I bailed.
I know that AOL develops its own content but is such content really worth the price? I'm not criticizing it because I don't know. I'm asking.
Creative destruction is the watch phrase I suppose.

It Pays to Advertise
Two items in the ad file today.
First, screw ANY product that has someone in an ad say in a faux get-toe voice, "Dass what I'm talkin' bout!" The point at which this phrase became further unuseable was when the squeaky brunette who does the Glad bag ads said it in an ad featuring Sugar Ray Leonard. Oh, Ray. Say it ain't so.
And just in time for the holidays, it is no longer acceptable to use a chorus singing Christmas carol-type songs to pitch any thing. This means you Old Navy.

November In the Rearview
It is with no small degree of sadness that I bid adieu to the Month of Atoosa. I posted a brief review of her wonderful "Night of the Deep Bloom" over on CD Baby. I'll be listening to it still but I'll move on to other music for the Decembral season.
Actually, I have nothing to put in the "longings" section for the moment, sad to say. I recently put two Alison Krauss and Union Station CDs on my Amazon wish list but, given the necessity of buying for others, I have no plans to buy music this month. So "longings' are unrequited this month. I'll see if I can't pull something interesting out of my bloggy doggy butt for the new year.
However, I have added a new link to the "listens" section. "Floor Creak" (clever) is Dave Shifflett's band which seems to have broken up. That's a pity because "Time Goes Rushing By" is a fantastic album. Not to everyone's taste I hasten to say but it still deserves at least as listen from any music aficionado. As Glenn Reynolds posted:

I'M CURRENTLY LISTENING TO A GREAT CD BY FLOOR CREAK, a band featuring Dave Shiflett, best known to most InstaPundit readers for his writing at National Review Online, but a hell of an acoustic guitar player, too. (Dave plays acoustic through a Fender Super Reverb, which is the secret to the Nebraska Guitar Militia's sound, too -- though the Super Reverb used by NGM usually has the tremolo controls set on "11"). Very nice stuff.
Posted by Glenn Reynolds at August 25, 2002 03:21 PM

Indeed.

I'll just add one thing. There is a song on this disc, "Rules of Goodbye," that is not good, not even very good. It is great. Classic of all time great. It is as perfect an expression of the lyrics (which I'm not going to quote because I want you to listen to the song) and there is a guitar riff that is just amazing.

At the Movies
MovieDog took the afternoon to go see "National Treasure" starring Nicolas Cage playing Nicolas Cage and a bunch of other people playing a bunch of other people including the ever-ominous Sean Bean playing the ever-ominous bad guy. I especially like the part where they sent Sandy Berger in to swipe the Declaration of Independence. That about wraps it up. Goodnight everyone! Oh, don't bother. It's a renter at best.

I DON'T Think So!


You are Lord Byron! Quite the Ladies' man, Byron
wrote during the early 19th century. He was
born with a deformity, and much of his life was
spent with a sense of urgency, trying to suck
up as much life as he could to make up for his
own insecurities. He was a bisexual and died
very young of fever.


Which famous poet are you? (pictures and many outcomes)
brought to you by Quizilla

If Scientists Are So Got Dam Smart
Why can't the genetic engineers take the flesh-eating bacteria and turn it into a fat-eating bacteria?

America's Newest Darwin Award Nominee
Shamelessly stolen from the Seattle Times and presented here to save you the agony of clicking a link and waiting for a page to load:

Shard of glass kills man as lava lamp explodes

A 24-year-old man who placed a lava lamp on a hot stove top was killed when the lamp exploded and sent a shard of glass into his heart, police said.
"Why on earth he was heating a lava lamp on the stove, we don't know," Kent police spokesman Paul Petersen said yesterday.
Phillip Quinn's parents found his body in his Kent trailer home about 8 p.m. Sunday. They went to check on him after his girlfriend reported that she couldn't get in touch with him.
The King County Medical Examiner's Office estimated the time of death at 2 p.m. Sunday.
After the lamp exploded, Quinn apparently stumbled into his bedroom, where he died, Petersen said.

So is it any surprise that his body was found in a trailer? And isn't this a real-world expression of the old joke: What is the last thing a redneck hears? - "Hey! Look at this!"
Not only that, I firmly believe that my All Purpose Explanation For Anything™ is the best explanantion for what the police spokeman doesn't know: It seemed like a good idea at the time.