Lighten up, Dude!

It's been an interesting week. I'm still getting email practically busting the old virtual mailbox thanks to LDEP. Still no rousing rebuttals, although a few cavils plus some different little peccadillos bothering others of the assembled multitude. As I said, I'll try to sort it out this weekend.

Somehow in all of this, I forgot to point out that in my once-a-semester trip to the debate mailbox last week, I managed to pick up, along with the usual copies of Rostrum bound together by plastic tape so strong no amount of postal sabotage could ever separate them, a Christmas card. Hey, man. Happy Holidays, as they say in Secularia. And guess who it was from? Why, my buddies at WTF, of course. Needless to say, I was taken aback, and then some. Whoa, said I to myself, and I was going to buy them a tie or a sweater or something really useful, and then it just slipped my mind... Sorry guys. You all have a happy new year and whatnot. Now that the website has practically granulated itself out of existence, you've gotta wonder what's going on there at Hell in a Handbasket. Then again, they aren't the first souls to screw up a site. My home planet has been through about two thousand websites before finally getting it right, plus about two thousand web designers and web marketers and all manner of job descriptions beginning with web. So a false step or two by amateurs (meant literally and not as a pejorative) is understandable. O'C says I should buzz HIAH HQ immediately to set them straight. Sure. I know they're waiting for my call. But then again, they did send me that nice card... Na'ah. Forget about it. I'll send them the sweater I should have sent them in the first place.

I need to revise the podcast list over there on the right. At the moment I'm evaluating Penn Jillette. I like him in many situations, but I'm not quite sure how they're cutting the podcast. Apparently he has a commercial radio show in LV and they just grab some piece at random. If it were a little more directed... And I got tired of the Supreme Court Watch whining about Alito. Not that I became enamored of Sammy the A or anything, but a little whining goes a long way. I'd be more interested in analysis of cases as they're presented, the way NPR does it (Go, Nina T!). I'll keep the subscription for after-the-inevitable and see what happens then. TWIT, Coaster.com and Leonard Lopate remain my main favorites, depending on my mood. Maybe I'll start podcasting this blog. That would be a hit. It's bad enough you're ruining your eyesite reading it; imagine if you had to listen to it.

And speaking of ruining one's senses, I've finally heard from the Nostrumite again after lo these many weeks. His blog had stopped for some reason, even though he wasn't even writing it anymore, and I didn't have a chance to catch up with him over the holidays, and he never showed at Bigle X (or more to the point, we were never in the same building at the same time), so I assumed there was lots of news to report. But there isn't. The lad is in a state of permanent get-me-to-the-birthery-on-time what with Odelie entering her third trimester, but the TWHS team hasn't been disbanded, the school hasn't gone into lockdown, everyone is still on the team that was on the team, but what has happened is that the Mite has felt that too much time was spent creating the aura of having a forensics team rather than having a forensics team (and I have to admit, I didn't like the look in his eye when he said that to me, even though it was in an email). So he has clamped down on everything but working on cases and research. He's even making everyone do Pffft before the school year ends, although he's not too happy about the Feb topic because, as he puts it, this one really requires work. Oy. I know the feeling. Most of us prefer to argue whether b-ball players should have to wear long pants. Anyhow, the Mite does say that he may allow the team back online soon, but told me not to hold my breath. So, I won't. And he wouldn't give me even a clue as to what names they might have chosen for the Son (or Daughter) of Mite. Maybe we should offer a prize for the best suggestion. A crappy prize. A really good crappy prize (if you can wade through the oxymoron of it all). Start sending in those cards and letters now!