Is it already the end of December? It feels like it's been three days since Thanksgiving. Between late nights at work, holiday parties, and shopping for the big day, this month has been a blur. Lord help me if I ever have a kid. :-P

I have a brand-new four-day weekend to enjoy, and three of those days are devoted to this site. One change won't be popular, but I'm also going to fix some things around here that need improvements, and I hope to put up some better goos than the scattershot ones that I barely managed to get up in the last few days. Stay tuned.

I'll say to you the non-holiday message I've been saying to everyone else: Have a wonderful long weekend.


Two Replies to Back in Black

Jackie Mason | December 24, 2006
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Scott Hardie | December 24, 2006
There are certain traditions that I'm happy to join, such as the trading of gifts and the taking of a day off from work. :-) Aimee Mann has a great new Christmas album out, but I bought it because it was a new Aimee Mann album.


Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

The Business of Busyness

My mother has Alzheimer's and dementia. She'll be 80 in a few months. For the last decade or so, her partner Andy has been taking care of her, but he's 85 himself and not able to continue. Go »

The Little Ship

Our cat Sweetie Pie passed away in her sleep on Thursday night after a very long illness. We don't know how old she was -- she was my mother's cat before mine, and my grandmother's cat before that, and belonged to some other lady in my grandmother's nursing home before then. We have that stranger to thank for giving her the old-fashioned name, but it was appropriate: Sweetie Pie was a friendly cat, who was happy when company came over (especially if they fed her treats!) Go »

His Name is Bond

[Spoilers for Casino Royale.] One of my favorite bits of any fan-invented mythology is the identity of 007: It is held by some series fans (and me) that "James Bond" is merely a codename. When one Bond is killed or retires, another one takes his place and assumes the same name, which is why you see a different actor every decade and the man doesn't age despite having been around since the Kennedy administration. Go »

Upsetting the Pace

Gen. Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on homosexuality (link): "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts... I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way." Go »

Scott's Pet Peeve #2519

Why do some microwaves have a convenient quick-start option if you press 1 or 2 or 3, so that they instantly start cooking with 1:00 or 2:00 or 3:00 on the clock... but DON'T have this same functionality programmed into 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9, which do nothing when pressed alone? How does an engineer possess both the vision to provide the former and the lack of imagination that results in the latter? Go »

Members of an Elite Squad

When I started watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit a year ago (!!), I predicted that I would never write about its good episodes because it was a mediocre series. Along the way, it turned out to have plenty of mediocre hours and some lousy ones, but it had a lot more good or even great hours than I expected. Go »