In the late 60's early 70's there was a comedy troupe (something like 7/8 people) - that was brilliant. They put out maybe 3 or 4 albums that went the 70's equivalent of viral - everybody who was anybody knew about them and loved them. I have read in the past decade about they (an historical report) and learned that they were either based in Seattle originally or most of the surviving members live here now.

Who were they???!!!

Somehow in the middle of the day today I lost my e-mail again (the inbox folder somehow got screwed up and I hadn't backed it up recently....) It always happens to me when I am working from home.

Sadly my computer runs better when there under 100 e-mails in the inbox when it has under 10,000 :( I really need to backup and delete more often.

If you're still not watching the lj_maintenance community, you should be. It will tell you things like how poor notifications are down right now. (See http://community.livejournal.com/lj_maintenance/126582.html ) The Operations guys work really hard to make sure that the site runs properly and that all us users are in the loop, but sometimes just everything else goes wrong :(

Also, thanks so much to devildoll, an anonymous friend, and sunbrae for the snowflake cookie vgift. It makes me happy to see how many people are being cheered up by them :D

It seems that nothing is coming through from LJ to my inbox.

I allowed myself to look at the comments on a news story about someone of low means getting scooped up into Kafka land, and it is really fucking amazing how many people are there to blame the victim. How many will jump and point and scream and hate a person for falling down, even when they are pushed by someone much bigger than them. We are a nation of wolves. I have yet another reason to cheer for the eruption of that volcano under Yellowstone.

Boing Boing readers' charitable giving guide - the best of your picks

Two anonymous posters mentioned Child's Play: "the charity run by Penny Arcade to donate games to children in hospitals." Another anonymous reader says: The purpose of the Afghanistan Women's Clinic (which is just starting to get off the ground) is to improve the health of women and children in the remote provinces of Afghanistan. The site has tons of info about the plight and difficulty of women's healthcare in that country. Currently they are trying to raise enough money to provide training for midwives.
From MrsBug: "Sustainable Harvest: Teaches poor (mostly) Central American farmers how to farm sustainably and organically, while helping them with low-tech solutions to feed their families (wood-conserving stoves, more diverse crop selections, etc)."
From DloPwop: "My favorite charity is Clean Water for Haiti, of which I am the director. We are a small, volunteer run NGO that sells Biosand water filters at a subsidized price. Our budget is only about $200,000 per year but virtually all of it goes to help the Haitian people find access to drinking water. If you want a more intimate picture of what we do in Haiti you can look at my wife's blog.
Dan Schnitzer adds, "Please consider giving to EarthSpark International, which develops local businesses to provide access to clean energy technologies. We are presently focused on Haiti. Full disclosure: I'm Co-Director of EarthSpark. You can also see what I've been up to here.
EMJ recommends Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF): "Our mandate concerns emergency relief, and the principles we honour while carrying out our work are contained in the MSF Charter. We launch our operations in areas where there is no medical infrastructure or where the existing one cannot withstand the pressure to which it is subjected. In most cases, relief programs change to rehabilitation projects that may run for several years after the most urgent needs have been met."
Another anonymous reader says, "A vote for the Office of Letters and Light, the group behind National Novel Writing Month, Script Frenzy, and the corresponding Young Writers Programs. They're working towards creative expression, literacy, and literary appreciation - and they're the people who keep us going every November and April.
wackyxaky testifies: "I've always found particular inspiration from Partners In Health (pih.org). They do comprehensive medical care in the most extreme poverty areas, such as the upper plateau of Hati, Malawi, Peru, and more. PIH is very highly rated in efficiency and success rates. I'm a little biased, because it was established in part by Paul Farmer, my idol. Part of what has made them so successful in providing healthcare is that they take a holistic view of healthcare, reforming and educating the way people think about health, improving hygiene and access to clean water, employing locals to do a tremendous amount of follow up work, etc. I can't recommend them enough."
Our Maggie has a bushel-load:

Harlem Children's Zone is an innovative non-profit that seems to be developing a new, actually effective model for improving the lives of underprivileged children over the long haul and breaking the cycle of poverty. You can read more about them in this Washington Post article. Scholarship America strives to make post-secondary education available to all.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters, you know what they do. I'm a Big and this is a great program.
National Alliance to End Homelessness is just what it sounds like and their mission is particularly important today, when homelessness rates are at a recent high.
The Salk Institute is doing the basic lab research necessary to find cures for a whole host of human diseases.
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria does important work getting preventative treatment and affordable medications to all parts of the world.

michaelocc says, "I'd ask any Torontonians interested in helping a worthy cause at http://hohoto.ca. The most mind-blowing holiday party ever to check out - our Twitter-powered giant Seasonal love-in for the geek, creative and marketing crowd in the GTA. Last year's event (recap) raised $25K for the Daily Bread Food Bank. Food bank use is up 18% this year - they desperately need our help. Tickets are dirt cheap and the party is just phenomenal. Trying to raise $40K this year. Help the world suck a little less and party your ya-yas off while you're at it."

I finally did manage to finish that one ear!

The Seattle Men's Chorus Christmas program this year was the very best ever. I think I've been to about 10 of them over the past 18 years and this one was hands down the best. The music was beautiful and beautifully done. The jokes were good and mostly not overdone. Kevin, the sign language interpreter, did a Do You Hear What I Hear that gave new meaning to the song I've heard a million times.

They always* do Silent Night. One verse with full signing. Kevin and the chorus sign the words. Then they all sign the words while a clarinet (oboe?) plays the tune then they sign the words in total, dead, don't even breathe silence. It is the most wonderful experience every time even knowing what is going to happen. *One year (last year?) they left it out of the program. I'm pretty sure blood was spilt. And I'm sure it won't happen again.

There was a Hanukkah song from Spain that was wonderful. And a bollywood number that was lively and colorful and fun.

It was all just wonderful except maybe the very very end when they turned up the lights and some bozo in one of the balconies dropped his iPhone on my head. Ouch. But, even that was fun because the text message that had just come in to it before it dropped said "Not now, David, but I do still love you." This cracked us up.

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Tomorrow is probably Ride the Ducks and had better be Get Gas into the car!

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Oh for you Seattlites who have been considering trying the new (well, not so new) Seattle Art Museum Cafe... We tried it. Fail on nearly all counts. The service was excruciating slow and very surly. I asked for ice in my water and the surly waiter nearly threw it at me. The food was ok and very pricey. We don't have to go there again.

Listening to Marillion - the 80's stuff sounds like Genesis of that era - probably a good thing but also a bad thing (perhaps why it didn't make it to the USA).

Alan had a cold this weekend, took it easy. I also had toothaches - went to the dentist today - 2 cavities but have to go back tommorrow at 2 to get them filled (dentist was busy). Plus lots of work stress this week with deadlines :(

Alan has developed a liking for football. He won't watch a whole game and I'm trying to explain it to him - but he likes the action and the moves when people get tackled or make good catches. We got to see the Giants run a punt back for a touchdown today which was nice. (The Giants won, which was good). The Giants played the Dallas Cowboys. I remember watching them play with my mom (a Giants fan) when Tom Landry coached the Cowboys. He never smiled and always wore a hat. I tried to explain him to Alan, but he didn't get the never smiled bit.

Anyway off to do some house looking (investments?).

Snow! It looks like snow is coming, and that's all right; our annual caroling party is Saturday night and there should be some snow. So far I have escaped the normal Fall cold (knock wood) so I might be able to actually sing this year.

This quarter has started with a bang; I have three classes, which is pretty normal. But during the Fall quarter I discovered that one of these courses is not correctly targeted. It has a very specific purpose, in readying students for other courses in the field, and during the Fall I had some experience with students taking those later courses. I think my course could be better, so I'm rewriting it as I go, and I mean that I'm about a week ahead of the kids. It's an awful lot of work. I hate to say it, but I'm looking forward to Christmas break so that I have time to get ahead.

Spring quarter, though... ahhhh. I will have my left shoulder surged upon in late February or early March, and I will be out of work for the entire quarter. I shouldn't say this, but I'm looking forward to it. It's painful surgery, and recovery takes some time. Six weeks not driving! Yikes! But it'll work out.

In other news, I'm keeping up at the gym, since July. This is a record for me. My weight is a problem, it's fluctuating. I need to pay attention to what I eat. We're still almost entirely vegetarian. Meat makes an appearance maybe once a month, and not very much at that. We don't eat cheese anymore, and have pretty much cut dairy entirely other than a little cream in my coffee and a little sour cream in the bean soup. But sugar got its hooks in me again at Halloween. That's OK, I'm almost weaned again. But we're eating out too much, and I'm not eating enough salad.

Bah. I'll do my best and in January when things settle down I'll start cooking on the weekends again.

I wish I had more to say. Lately I've just been keeping my head down and forging on ahead, with nothing interesting to share, but let's see if I can do better.

goingferal came by today, bringing Zille's younger half-brother, Lynx. You may recall him as the adorable little puppy who shared cookies with Tink and was, in fact, the first strange dog she ever shared cookies with, back in June.

Well, he is all grown up! Mostly.


Zille and Lynx not only played like mad out in the yard, but also played BiteyFace King of the Futon. And then they pretended to be good dogs.


Just look at all the family togetherness!

We've had another good day... Bill got his good walk in. We had a great Skylark brunch and then drove around to see the sights, Wallingford, Fremont troll, Queen Anne upper and lower, Belltown and all bits in between including my favorite car view from 6th and Yesler where you look down onto Elliott Bay with the snow capped mountains in the background.

Then home where Bill took a nap and Dana went to her shop and I finished the monkey's ear and did some work in my desktop computer. The Bill went down to meet Dana cause she wanted to go back to Pike Place Market and poke around. That's what they are doing now and in a bit, I'll go catch up with them for dinner. Dana's cousin or some relative gave her $40 to get 'the finest meal for you and your friends' at Cutters which is - in my opinion - an overpriced tourist restaurant located very near some really excellent restaurants. And $40 will probably buy about 1 and a half drinks. But... whatever... they are my guests, they don't get here often, if they want to go to Cutters, we'll go.

Then on to the concert.

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Oh the Seahawks must have won - fireworks that sent the cats under the bed.

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My brother and I are still fucking around with streaming and failing at it. We have two programs and they both fail in different ways. He got one running once but then I had to close it down and it never worked again. It's driving us buggy. We think now we're pretty sure it's a router issue but we've forwarded ports and it won't even work without any firewall at all. It's a mystery.

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Fun to have someone to computer futz with, tho.

Same old, same old... no knitting time while guests are here...

The shawl pattern is now posted at http://community.livejournal.com/crochetcrochet/1138498.html .

1. I wanted to let you know that back in November I finished the core vocabulary lists for the four ET languages that some of you were interested in, but that I haven't been able to reach my SFWA webperson to get them posted at my website. I'm working on that problem and assume that it will be straightened out soon.


2. This is truly off-topic; still, I wanted to tell you about it. The past two winters I've had to wear extra layers of clothing to stay warm, and this winter has been cold enough that I've had no luck keeping the temperature in our house at the 70 degrees it takes for elderly-lady comfort. But this year, because I serendipitously stumbled over a pattern for a Magic Shawl, I've been comfortable without any need for extra layers, even with the house at only 68 degrees most of the time. I don't understand why this particular shawl is magically warm, but I can vouch for the fact that it is. So I'm going to post the pattern for that shawl at the crochetcrochet community page, in case any of you might want to make one for yourself. Once that's done, I'll post the link for the pattern here.

This, I can do without any help from my SFWA webperson.

Transcript:
Me: *holding snowball in front of camera* Hilarious games to play with your fetchy dog, #10051: Snowball fetch.
Zille: A BALL. THROW IT.
Me: *throws snowball*
Zille: *zooms after snowball*
Tink: WHEE! *zooms randomly across the frame*
Snowball: *hits ground, goes poof*
Zille: THE BALL. I HEARD IT HIT THE GROUND. WHERE IS FETCHYBALL?
Me: Where'd it go, Zill? Zille, find it!
Zille: WHAT DID YOU DO WITH FETCHYBALL?!
Me: Get your ball!
Zille: YOU STILL HAVE FETCHYBALL, DON'T YOU.
Tink: WHEE! *zooms*
Me: Did you lose your ball? Do we need another ball? OK.
Me: *makes new snowball* Here we go. Try not to lose this one, ok?
Zille: A BALL! THROW THE BALL THIS TIME FOR REALS.
Me: Ready? *throws ball*
Tink: WHEEE! *zooms*
Zille: I WILL GET YOU THIS TIME, FETCHYBALL! *zooms faster*
Snowball: *hits ground, goes poof*
Zille: *skids to halt* FETCHYBALL WHERE ARE YOOOUUU?
Me: Where'd it go, Zille?
Tink: WHEEEEE! *zooms*
Me: Where'd it go? Get it!
Zille: WHERE IS FETCHYBALL. I HEARD IT HIT THE GROUND.
Me: Get it, Zille! Find it!
Zille: FETCHYBALL, WHERE ARE YOU?
Tink: What are we sniffing for? I WANT TO SNIFF FOR THINGS!
Zille: MOM, FETCHYBALL IS GONE.
Me: Zille, where's your fetchyball?
Zille: IT IS NOT THERE. I CANNOT FIND FETCHYBALL.
Me: Where's fetchy?!
Zille: I WILL LOOK AGAIN!
Tink: WHEE! *zooms*
Zille: Maybe it's over here...?

ETA: As I watch this for the thousandth time, I am struck by the way Tink is using Zille for her behavioral cues. Tink tends to do that when she is in a strange place, or a familiar place has become strange: hang out in the vicinity of a trusted being and let them show her where it's safe to zoom around and stuff. That she's doing it with Zille is sweet and says good things about Zille's integration into the family.

This morning my brother made an omelet for the three of us using the left over steak from last night's dinner and some left over Chinese from the night before and it was delicious!! I really had forgotten what a creative and excellent cook he is.

Dana (sister-in-law) had made arrangements with her brother (who lives about 2.5 hours from here) to come down and see her today. So while we waited for him, my brother unhooked my main desktop and blew out the insides of all the dust, removed RAID and added a drive to give me three hard drives and then did a fresh format install of Windows 7. Nice nice.

He had set up the living room cam to stream but somehow it got hosed today and neither one of us can get the streaming back. It's making me a little crazy. I'll get back on the case next week.

Once Dana's brother and his girlfriend arrived we went down to the square to take the Underground Tour. I had not been on the tour for at least a dozen years and they've changed it for the better. It was fun and interesting. We got lunch and Dana and her brother and his girlfriend got a nice visit at one table while Bill and I did the same at another. Dana's brother is a little strange and Bill is not wild about him and Dana didn't seem too comfortable either. It was a weird situation but finally they left.

Bill and Dana and I had a drink and then went to Lark - a small plate place I'd been wanting to try - it was wonderful. Absolutely delicious. We had wonderful cheeses and a heavenly potato and cream dish, steak tartare, procuitto with pickled endive, and a shrimp salad. Just perfect. Oh and topped off with the most delightful chocolate madelines.

Tomorrow Bill wants to take a long walk by himself. Dana wants to go to this one shop she saw by herself. We have brunch to do and I thought we'd drive around and see some of the neighborhoods and then we'll end up at the Seattle Mens Chorus Christmas concert. It should be a fun, good day.

Monday we are going to do the duck tour and whatever else we haven't done yet. And they leave early Tuesday morning.

Now I think I'll go to sleep...

1) Yes, there is video of snowball fetch. Will upload it tomorrow when hopefully I have a stable internet connection. Of course, will also spend a chunk of tomorrow sitting around while the car gets worked on, and also hopefully there will be Fun With goingferal! And Zilledog can tell her all about what a terrible person I am who does mean, mean things like make her wear bobbly bats on her head for Halloween and not let her lick cats.

2) I hereby challenge all of you who claim to do dramatic readings of Manor of Mixed Blessings dialogues to make voice posts doing exactly that.

3) I did not break my arm at any point today while clearing snow off my internets satellite dish, so go me.

4) I may have finally triumphed in an important area so GO ME YAY.

I was helping my husband with a spreadsheet problem - he needed some e-mails formatted a special way - there were 1500 plus in a column.

I posted queries to two excel forums I found on the internet - excelforum.com and mrexcel.com. Within minutes I got an answer and the data's been formatted to my husband needs.

Love it when friendly helpful people are out there :)