Alpha naked at Raising Hell.

Help Feral Living dominate the world by clicking on the map.
Repeatedly.
But not faster than once a second.
You will be richly rewarded.

[Via Uren.Dagen.Nachten, from whom I am in the process of retaking Austria.]

We had lunch at the in-laws, who are wonderful people. Then my wife and daughters went to her cousin’s for her cousin’s daughter’s birthday party. She is one of the unfortunate ones with a birthday on or about Christmas. I don’t feel sorry for her, though, because she is, at three, a towering monster child, a blonde Frankenstein with feet nearly the size of my wife’s (who is an adult) (Gamma, who is more than two years older, wears her hand-me-downs); size doesn’t matter, of course, except she has what I think is a mean streak. And their family is outrageously dysfunctional, which can be entertaining provided one can maintain ironic distance; around the holidays, though, it is hard for me to be ironic, so I worked out instead. The tattooed shaved-headed guy from the tanning salon was there. Woet for Christmas.

I missed the first wave of postings dismayed at the recent tragic loss of Joe Strummer, and would like to make up for that by pointing out to whatever powers are in charge of selecting which rock stars die next that the following are, to the best of my knowledge, still available:

• Leo Sayer

• Barry Manilow
• Mick Jagger
• Keith Richards [maybe]
• The guy from Nickelback

Who did I forget?

Happy Holidays to all of you, and may the New Year be a good one for all of us. Or at least a learning experience.

by Ludwig Wittgenstein

Mig is busy with Christmas stuff right now, and therefore has invited me to briefly outline my feelings about the holiday season.

1. This time of year is colder than I prefer; despite my plaid woolen shirts, long strolls on the beach surrounded by screeching, swooping seagulls are uncharacteristically unpleasant.
2. Being a solitary individual I do my best to avoid the swarming crowds of shopping centers. Besides, I’m dead and they would all freak out over that.
3. I would rather have my body waxed from head to toe before each meal than read another “Christmas Letter” from an acquaintance in which they detail at penetratingly stultifying length every last non-event of their past year, pretending to be their children writing it. If, at any point during the rest of my existence I read another sentence along the lines of, “And then mom and dad took us to the lake on summer vacation like they do every year,” I shall without a doubt shit hornets on the spot.

Happy holidays and have a wonderful 2002.
Yrs,
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Why is it that since the more or less collapse of the USSR and related totalitarian states, the United States has gradually grown more totalitarian? I don’t know who that guy is who wrote that, but for me it’s just another stone in the mosaic. From the use of language to treatment in the courts, the United States reminds me increasingly of the former Soviet bloc.