I got this meme from joyeous:

Please reply to this post with three boring things about you. [If you feel like it.]

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1. I am nearsighted, but I wear glasses or contact lenses, so I can see.
2. In the winter, I get cold sometimes.
3. Sometimes I put twist-ties on my desk, because I think I might need to use them soon. But usually I don’t need to use them soon.

Yanked from plumtreeblossom

Empire Magazine has revealed its list of the 50 Greatest TV Shows ever:

[As mentioned in plumtreeblossom’s thread, this is a very idiosyncratic list. Empire is a UK magazine, so maybe some of the shows we Americans loved weren’t distributed over there.]

1. Bold the shows you watch/used to watch.
2. Italic the shows you've seen at least one episode of.
3. Post your answers.

( The list. )

plumtreeblossom writes:

So this best 50 of all possible TV shows? Where is 60 Minutes? Where is Nova? Where is Masterpiece Theater?

and I agree. And a commenter also asks about M*A*S*H and All in the Family. My own personal list of the ten greatest TV shows (I don’t think I’ve seen enough TV to get to 50) would definitely include M*A*S*H and All in the Family, and probably also Hill Street Blues. [EDIT:Oh, and The Twilight Zone, and maybe The Mary Tyler Moore Show.]

Yeah, yeah, according to the political spectrum quiz all the cool kids are doing these days, I’m a left-libertarian¹ non-interventionist cultural liberal. We all knew that.

I agree with the criticism somebody on my Friends-list (not identified because s/he posted it in a locked post) made: A lot of the questions were in two parts, like “22. Laws regulating private behavior are put forth by the weak, who prefer security to freedom.” Well, what if you think that laws regulating private behaviour are put forth by the strong, who prefer security to freedom? Or that they’re put forth by the weak, who prefer Cocoa Puffs to freedom? Or that they’re put forward by the strong, despite preferring freedom to security, but that they are still an Abomination in the sight of the majes? There were a lot of two-part questions like that where the answer I had to give probably obscured rather than clarified my actual political beliefs. (And of course there were a lot of “No, really, it’s an awful lot more complicated than that” questions, but that’s sort of unavoidable.)

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¹ I originally mistyped that as “libertartian”; I think that’s actually a better description of me.

Found via omegabeth:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open the book to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the next few sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST

 ‘What about if it’s got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?’ said Nobby.
 ‘Have you got one in mind, Nobby?’ said Colon suspiciously.
 ‘Yes. The Goddess Anoia* Arising from the Cutlery,’ said Nobby. ‘They’ve got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i’s in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.’

That’s watchmen Nobby Nobbs and Fred Colon in a museum discussing when pictures of nude women are Art, and when they’re just dirty pictures, in Terry Pratchett’s Thud. The footnote explains that “Anoia is the Ankh-Morpork Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.”

I haven’t done one of these in a long time, but coraline encouraged people on her F’list to, so I decided I would. I had been planning on taking a new picture with the wonderful new camera plumtreeblossom, eisa, beetiger, docorion, mrpet, nex0s, and angeltigriss got me for my birthday (THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH! IT ROCKS!), but it’s late and I have a very big day ahead of me tomorrow, so I’m just going to reuse an old picture from the mid ’90s or so of me swimming at the Ledges in Vermont. It shows off my best assets: my smile, and my joy in being among people I love. (sionnagh, zzbottom, and his then-wife whose LJ name I’ve spaced on were there with me.)

Me at the Ledges Me in the water at the Ledges (Harriman Reservoir, Vermont), probably mid-’90s.

Hmmmm. I look a lot different now, but I think I’m still that happy pretty often.

First picture I’ve ever taken with my laptop camera. Sorry about the poor lighting; the walls and ceiling are better lit than I am.

( Photo here. )

I love my sweetie, and I love writing about her! I confess I had quite a bit of trouble with some of these questions, but here goes...

1. They are watching TV. What are they watching?

If this means actual broadcast or cable TV, then either Barack Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver at a bar in East Somerville tomorrow, or election returns on election night, or news of some major event like 9/11. She’s not a TV-watcher.

If this means looking at moving pictures on a TV set, then a movie on DVD.

If this means “video”, then most likely something funny on YouTube, with a political speech on YouTube a close second overall (but maybe first during election season).

( 21 more questions and answers. )

Arrr! I ain’t got time to do today th’ justice it desarves, but I been meanin’ to post a link to this 'ere post on Mongolia, so I reckon as that’ll have to do. If’n that post grabs yer interest, ye may wish to check out th’ rest o’ Team Alala’s swashbucklin’ jarney ’crost Eurasia.

sparkymonster and several other wonderful people on my Flist have called my attention to International Blog Against Racism Week. From starkeymonster’s post:

It's International Blog Against Racism Week! YAY!

How to participate? oyceter says...
1. Announce the week in your blog.

2. Switch your default icon to either an official IBAR week icon, or one which you feel is appropriate. To get an official IBAR week icon, you may modify one of yours yourself or ask someone to do so. Here's a round up of IBARW icons.

3. Post about race and/or racism: in media, in life, in the news, personal experiences, writing characters of a race that isn't yours, portrayals of race in fiction, review a book on the subject, etc. (Linking back here (ibarw) is highly appreciated!)

For inspiration, here are last year's IBARW posts. You can also check out this post for further resources.
...

PSST: It will help a lot on del.icio.us if you title your entry something topical, as opposed to just "Intl. Blog Against Racism Week."

I’m unlikely to manage to actually manage to post anything appropriate, since I’ve been busy enough lately that I haven’t even found time to post about the important stuff that’s happened to me personally¹, but I think it’s a great idea and I wanted to point people at it.

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¹ F’rinstance, I twisted my (other) ankle on Saturday and fell down in the middle of the street. Got an awesome bruise on my thigh from the curb. I’m fine, though; the nice drivers stopped and didn’t hit me, and I’m back to walking almost normally now.