Monthly Archives: December 2005


All I Want For Christmas

Vicki’s story:

And here is what Santa said to me, speaking ever so softly and near enough to my ear that his beard tickled:
“And what would you like for Christmas, my little billionaire?”
I thought ‘how strange’, at least in the sense that a three year old can think ‘how strange’ but I answered, “Santa, a bride doll, please.”
And Santa responded, “Well, little B, you would be wiser to want an Operating Manual for the Spaceship Earth. It will teach you that through ephemeralization and synergetics we can waste not and want not and the worldaround will be populated by 4 billion billionaires, each able to enjoy Susie Q’s fish and chips whenever they wish. You will come to understand that less is more and cooperation is the optimal survival strategy. This manual explains how selfishness is unnecessary and irrational, and war is obsolete. It explains how we can recycle both our knowledge and our materials to live ever more fulfilling lives. Wouldn’t you rather have that for Christmas instead?”
I considered a minute, as much as a three year old can consider, and said, “Ummm, no thank you, Santa. I think my brother wants a spaceship but I would like a bride doll.”

Read the whole story.
And then go read the Operating Manual.


Friday Ark #66

Merry Christmas
and
Happy New Year

We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….?
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Of course, if our staff goes on strike then we will link only those posts someone tells us about.
Visit each border and come back regularly Friday-Sunday to visit new boarders. And do link to the Friday Ark whether you use trackbacks or not.

Extra, Extra: All Ark boarders are invited to shout out at the Friday Ark Frapper Map.(39 shouts as of 12/15)
Dog folks:
remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Dogs hosted by Mickey’s Musings.

Cat folks:
remember to submit your links to the Carnival of the Cats which goes up every Sunday and the 92nd edition will be hosted this week by Watermark. There are more weekly cats at eatstuff’s Weekend Cat Blogging which has many participants who may not be familiar to Ark or Carnival participants.

Bird folks: I and the Bird: A Blog Carnival for Bird Lovers is published every 2 weeks. Send your links for the 13th edition edition is up and hosted by Wood Song.
New for the spineless: Circus of the Spineless. A monthly celebration of Insects, Arachnids, Molluscs, Crustaceans, Worms and most anything else that wiggles. The third edition is up at Urban Dragon Hunters.
The 4th edition is scheduled for December 31 and will be hosted by bootstrap analysis. Mail submissions to nannothemis AT gmail.com
Arkive editions of the Friday Ark.
NB: Trackbacks to Typepad sites seem to be completely throttled today.
Cats

InvertebratesDogsBirdsOther VertebratesIn Memoriam
Didn’t Make ItExceptions (inclusion not guaranteed)For other current carnivals check out The Conservative Cat’s Carnival Page and The TTLB Uber Carnival
Note for Haloscan Users: Haloscan started (the end of July) rejecting trackbacks if they were submitted “too rapidly” by the same host. I don’t know what the timer is but it is long enough so that it was very difficult to ping everyone that is using Haloscan for trackbacks. I’m sure that they are doing this to try to hold back the tide of trackback spam but it makes the service pretty useless for carnival type posts. Perhaps you can contact them and urge some different solution. Update: Typepad appears to be doing the same thing. Everytime I update the Ark it appears the timers are reset and the long list of MT autogenerated pings fail. Yecchhhh….


Body Language

The doc was late as is the case more often than not. I worked through all the year old magazines on the side table and then started on the walls. Ahh, there’s a sign I hadn’t noticed before:

DEFIBRILATOR AVAILABLE
Ask for Help
I suppose falling to the floor unconscious would constitute asking for help.