You Know What I Just Remembered?

This:



I love this video.

The Return of the Weekly Extravaganza

For various reasons, unfortunately none involving surprise trips to some place non-Ohio or a spur-of-the-moment proposal from Chris Meloni, I haven't blogged much of anything lately, and am particularly behind in my self-imposed "weekly" blogging sentence. So, here is an extravaganza of links and news.

- Only ten more days left to enter the Six-Word Memoir Contest. May make up for failing miserably at NaNoWriMo.

- John Waters's Top Films of the Year. I have a hard time figuring out when John Waters is being ironic and when he isn't. Which is why everything he says is so fascinating to me. This time his one-liners include both the truest and most succinct review of The Departed - "The best-acted film of the year from America's coolest director. The final shot is beyond perfection." - and the sentiment that another film (Sherrybaby) "is so depressing and great that I wish I could see it with an all-female prison audience."

- Onion's AV Club Interview Maynard James Keenan of Tool. An intelligent and interesting guy. Plus, he has his own wine now.

- Children's Music Revives Spirit of Punk Rock. I heard this piece on NPR the other evening and determined to pick up many of these CD's, and not just necessarily because I have a little one. The clips they played were great regardless of target age. I also like the fact that blogger Stefan Shepherd included in his list of best 2006 music for kids Bruce Springsteen's Seeger Sessions album, which is an excellent call. Not just because it's kid-safe, but because the old narrative traditions of the Seeger Sessions' folk and old-time rock 'n' roll is definitely something kids don't hear much of today.

- Some times I still can't believe what I turn up in internet searches. This page from a llama farm website is a good example of that. I've now decided that I should write a novel that starts with the line: "What does a llama have that Colin Thibodeaux doesn't?"

- Bad Book Covers. Honorable mention to The Yul Brenner Cookbook. Hat tip to Dan for this, and for mentioning that not only does his mom own the Yul Brenner cookbook, she shares my bizarre fascination with said Yul Brenner. It's so nice to know I'm not the only one. It was starting to worry me.

- Website redesigns are rolling along ... I've created an upgrades page to keep up with the changes, past, present, and future. Oh, and sorry about any recent problems with the RSS feed. Bugs are being worked out.

[Image credit: XKCD.]

DysEnchanted

DysEnchanted.

Technorati tags: fairy tales, film

Holiday Charity

Helping out fellow human beings during the holiday season is a pretty good Christmas tradition. I think that for a lot of us, however, it's sometimes hard to do this, with time and financial pressures at hand. With this in mind, I recently created a donation drive that people could participate in with only a dollar or two and a few minutes of time - Child's Play Charity Drive 2006.

I decided to focus on the internationally-established Child's Play charity, an organization that gets video games and other toys into the hands of hospitalized children in a number of hospitals across the world. One of their partners is the Akron's Children's Hospital, which has their own Amazon wish list full of items their patients would like. I thought if some of us pitched in a few dollars, we could raise enough to buy a couple of games, DVDs, or books for the kids there.

Donations can be made via PayPal on my web page, or by other methods if preferred. I have also included a poll so everyone who contributes can vote on which items to buy. All other details can be found on the web page. Please check it out, and even if you're not interested in participating, feel free to pass the message along to anyone else you know who might be. The more the merrier!

Link: http://www.deliberatepixel.com/cpc/index.html.

Another recent cause that I believe might be worthy of our time and money is the sad loss of CNET editor James Kim, who passed away trying to find help for his family stranded in the snow. A website has also been set up by a family friend to accept donations for his surviving wife and two small daughters, and can be found at http://www.jamesandkati.com/.

If you absolutely, positively have no extra money to spare this holiday season ... I have been there before and I completely understand. That's why I thought this article, 10 Creative Ways To Help Charities for No Money, was such a good idea. There are a lot of little things we can do to make a difference without a huge financial strain on our part.

ADDENDUM: Since I'm on the topic, I thought it was worth highlighting the charitable accomplishments of my lovely and generous friend Vy, who suggested among her circle of friends that we "adopt" a needy family and buy gifts for them instead of each other. Above is a picture of (almost!) all of the gifts she collected. Thanks to everyone for pitching in, and to Vy for handling all of the organization and details!