A local woman who is under investigation in connection with several suspicious fires (including the one that destroyed her own house) is apparently possessed of a robust entrepreneurial spirit. She has started her own business – selling bundled kindling.

Several evenings ago, fiercely cold in the street, I am warming myself in The Old Town Bar when a group from the land of my birth walks in. Most are reasonably dressed, and those nearest to me have South East accents. One, however, out of my earshot, was wearing no more than a tee-shirt and jeans. And shoes, I expect.

I knew immediately that he was not from the South East but from a city in a different region. Eavesdropping confirmed my guess.

I think any MFer of UK origin will guess that English city in one.

a sign on a local lebanese restaurant:

"best glogg in town"

Newcastle. Where the chicks go out on new years eve in crop tops and mini-skirts and no coats.

Holiday wishes!

http://www.worldcaninefreestyle.org/index.html

Meanwhile, around 49th street and 6th Avenue:

Signs people regret paying for: the street-cart offering "Philly Cheewesteaks".

Questions people regret asking: "Do you know where Radio City Music Hall is?" No, but why not ask someone in that fucking huge building which says Radio City Music Hall all over it?

Mistakes people regret making: Japanese tourists, perhaps behind with the news, trying to find which entrance to the subway is open.

" David Letterman has been temporarily restrained by a woman who believes that he torments her over the airwaves using a secret code."

Sheehan's review in Westword of the Aquarium in Denver.

Watching "Working Girl" on the BBC. (I love this movie).

They've just done a panorama on the city. The TT's are still there. Slightly freaky.

Going to Whole Foods in Arlington, VA and discovering that they offer....valet parking.

Two Chinese guys at the corner noodle shop spinning dreidels while I waited for my take-away.

Someone just turned off all the office lights.

You know how you have to enter the text shown to submit certain information to sites? At GeekTools, where I'm doing a WHOIS, the codeword is "clit."

I found this gut-busting hilarious:

D.C. Council member Marion Barry reported to police last night that he was robbed at gunpoint inside his home by youths who had earlier volunteered to help him carry in his groceries.

Marion Barry gets robbed

I'm sure they were there to 'help with the groceries.' Someone has to deliver the 'powdered sugar' or maybe the 'salad greens'. OK, I'm not too clever with the subtleties: I meant his coke and his weed.

Washington Post/Marion Barry

Hope this sticks!

Finally opened a jar of tomato sauce that Paul brought back from Samara, Russia, last April. All the while I kept thinking how pale it looked, but assumed maybe it was just a different kind of tomato. Anyway, upon opening I found out why it was that color: instead of tomato sauce, it was filled with honey.

A honey of a story.

Don't hit your head on this sign warning you not to hit your head on this sign.

Woman marries dolphin.

A boy named Sue don't have nothing on a dolphin/husband named Cindy.

At Amphora winery, Dry Creek Valley, as you enter the underground tasting room there is a duck over the doorway. Some folks get it and some sadly do not.

Headline from the Washington Post:

LOHAN HAS ASTHMA ATTACK

This is the Washington Post, people! Has journalism sunk to this?

Today on Freecycle, someone actually posted this:

OFFER: Escargot

(Body of e-mail) "An abundance of organically raised, grassfed escargot. Come over some morning and pick 'em off my plants. Free slugs, too."

Yesterday I had what I called a "ridiculously Bugs Bunny moment" in which I actually ran head first into a brick wall (see the Annoyances thread) on the way to my old office to pick up some personal mail. Today I opened the card that was the object of that particular trip. It was a Good Luck card from some of my former co-workers -- with Bugs Bunny on it.

Fly

The apples in my work cafetieria have assorted holiday designs waxed onto them (or painted on with edible paint? However they do it, it's gross.)

We were walking this morning and we saw a checker cab painted with the HSBC logo all over it, and we stopped to talk to the driver to find out what it was all about. This is a free cab service - if you can show your HSBC check or bank card or whatever, you can hop in this checker cab and go wherever you want for free in Manhattan. So we hopped on in and rode across town. The driver was very entertaining, and it was great to be inside a checker.

(When I was a kid, for a number of years our family car was a checker marathon station wagon).

Ms 9 has made the acquaintance of this woman; after meeting in her shoe store..and meeting for drinks a few times.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-...G=Google+Search

No inside story, but kind of bizarre..lot of recent media exposure. Seems like a nice girl, but I'm reluctant to take her for a boat ride

A surprise visit in the Hospital with some friends from San Diego, Fresno and Martinez, with an enormous card signed by all my friends attending Emperor Norton birthday party at the Cemetery. http://www.knauer.org/mike/discordia/norton.php

While reading real estate ads for Boston condominiums I came across this:

.......pets allowed, self manged

Those Boston pets are certainly independent.

Leaving aside the subject matter, I thought Chris Mathews made a bold contribution to the language when he described the Abramoff business as an "octopus of mayhem".

Sounds silly at first, but the more you think about it... What a useful phrase.

My 2 1/2 year old nephew taught me how to use one of the features on my new camera.

Did you read the story today about the mouse who got revenge on the homeowner? Said homeowner found a mouse in his house, got rid of it by throwing it into a pile of leaves he was burning outside his house. The blazing mouse then ran back into his house and caught the home on fire. Fortunately the homeowner escaped uninjured, but his home was destroyed in the fire.