Bea Arthur, dead at 86.

Colbert turns his attention to Glenn Beck, again:

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Glenn Beck's War Room

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The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Doom Bunker - Jack Jacobs and Stephen Moore

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Kittens!

I think Glenn Beck is seriously mentally ill:

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Pretty sad when Colbert's on-air colonoscopy is overshadowed by the real-life crazy.

George "King" Stahlman, dead at 85.

You know, some people would say spending Saturday night sorting through your RSS feeds is a colossal waste of time. But lo and behold, that's how I discovered that tomorrow, MTV will be premiering a new television news program based on the brilliant documentary How's Your News? Thanks, BoingBoing, for breaking the news to me.

I miss Ron, of course, but apparently he'll be doing the narration. He's been sick, but apparently is improving.

Those not familiar with How's Your News might be wondering if this is in questionable taste. I certainly had the same question before seeing the documentary, and approached it with some trepidation. I'll simply refer you to my earlier post on the matter, and assure you that my misgivings were misplaced. I don't know if the success of the feature-length documentary will translate to a half-hour format, as I don't know if you can really develop the sense of shared community between the viewer and the How's Your News team in such a short time, but I must admit I'm very excited to see if they pull it off. The reviews suggest they succeeded.

This American Life featured How's Your News back in 2002. YouTube also has quite a bit of How's Your News material.

The Big Bang Theory: The first Asperger's Syndrome sitcom?

A happy 2009 to you all! Sorry it took nearly half of January before I shared my good will with you all, but I've been too busy and too sick to bother. In fact, I've been sick pretty much since I started at the library, which stinks, since I had lots of sick leave left at my old job and none yet at the library, so I've had to drag my sorry carcass in day after day. I suppose if it came to it, I could have called in sick; after all, I think they would assume no one would call in sick the first week of work unless they absolutely had to. But I've mostly been functional, and made it in to work daily. I even made it in this Thursday, despite barely being able to move Wednesday night and being feverish and delusional most of the night. I went to bed around seven, as soon as I got home from work Wednesday, and didn't get out of bed until 8 the next morning, except a brief effort around midnight to eat some udon soup and use the restroom.

The nice thing about being sick on the new job is that I get to try out the new health insurance. I have Kaiser now, and had heard a lot of things, both good and bad. And I must admit, I'm impressed. I called Friday around 9:30, and got an appointment that day at 2:10. With my old doctor, I would never get in the same day, especially not for something as trivial as a cold. So a few hours later, I went down to their La Mesa offices, which I've driven by many times, but never actually seen up close. It's a big building, with lots of services available. I used the self-check-in kiosk on the first floor, and by the time I made it to the second floor, they were calling my name to see the doctor. The nurse took my vitals, put me in a room, and in about five minutes, I was chatting with the doctor. He didn't do much for me, but it's a cold, there's not much he could do (I only went because it's lasted so long, I wanted to make sure I wasn't developing pneumonia or anything). But he examined me and sent me on my way with a prescription and the latest propaganda from the fluids and rest industry. I waited about 35 minutes to fill my prescription, but that's reasonable enough during cold and flu season. I waited about the same amount of time yesterday when I got my blood work done, but I've already gotten the results of most of those tests (my cholesterol and blood sugar are normal). In fact, I've gotten about all the results except for my white blood count, which is the one that seems most relevant to my illness. So if any good came from my illness, I got to be somewhat reassured about having Kaiser, after being on Blue Cross for many years. I do feel foolish for not putting even the minimum amount in my health-care cafeteria plan at work, since I've already spent half of the minimum, and it's still January (my plan was to track my spending in '09 to see if it was worth signing up next year).

So up to now, 2009's been pretty unproductive; I go to work, and I take it easy the rest of the time. I have my resolutions for the new year, but the old stand-by, fitness, has had to go on the back-burner; I ran a few times right after the new year, when I was starting to feel better, but it's been awhile since I've had the energy to do that. My hope is I'll be healthy enough to run by this weekend, but time will tell. But I did a good job last year of getting back into a regular fitness regimen, and I intend to build on that progress in 2009, as soon as I'm feeling better. I'm being a bit unfocused this year, not aiming to run a marathon or anything, just to gain fitness and lose weight; to get myself into a position where I can set loftier goals in 2010. But to keep myself somewhat accountable, I'll say I intend to run an average of a mile a day. To run 365 miles in 2009. I don't have my log books in front of me right now, but I'm pretty sure I ran that far in 2004 or 2005. So that would basically be a return to when I was a regular runner. I'm quite confident I can pull that off.

I think my main resolution for 2009 is to get my financial house in order. Working part-time for a lot longer than I originally planned, things have gotten out of hand. I'm making good money now, but I'll still have to accept that I'll have to watch my pennies for a few months, at least, as I undo some of the damage. But this, too, should be a very easy resolution to keep. By June, I except my balance sheet to look much stronger than it does now. Especially if I keep my final resolution for the year: Get rid of my storage locker. That's just flushing money down the toilet. I spend $130 a month to store shit I don't want. I just have to box up all the little crap, then get some help taking the furniture to Goodwill (anyone know if AmVets will pick up from a storage locker?). That will probably be the hardest resolution to keep, but since it's just such a waste of money, I think I'll find the motivation to take care of it.

Bettie Page, dead at 85.

Hi, everybody! I'm still around, just been lazy. Unemployed at the moment, waiting for the results of my drug testing and physical, so while I've had plenty of free time, I also haven't been paid to sit in front of a computer for eight hours, so I imagine that's to be blamed for my non-blogging. I've been running regularly (even drove up to San Marcos to check out some of the running trails up there), I've been cleaning out my storage locker (I've meant to do this for about a year, but am now doubly motivated knowing that the owner of A-1 Self-Storage was a leading supporter of Proposition 8) and I've been using the hell out of my Netflix subscription. For two reasons.

First, Netflix is finally dropping HD-DVD on December 15th. Can't blame them, they announced they were going to phase it out in January. But I have about thirty movies in my queue in HD-DVD, so I'm trying to get through as many as possible. Which is difficult, since I spent a week and a half trying to get a copy of The Wild Bunch that works. I got two defective discs in a row, and today I received another replacement disc, which was cracked in half. So I gave up; The Wild Bunch is available on their Watch Instantly service, so I'll watch it that way, high-def be damned. I should say, I don't blame Netflix, I imagine problems with the condition of their remaining HD-DVD stock drove their decision to finally drop the format completely. I can't expect them to last forever.

The second reason Netflix has been dominating my attention is that the new xbox update, with streaming movies from Netflix Watch Instantly, is now live. I'd been watching Netflix movies on the Xbox via unofficial software and Vista Media Center, but that stopped working a few weeks ago (since I knew the official solution would soon be available, I didn't bother trying to fix it). But now I have a simple, smooth means of watching streaming movies on my HDTV. And I've been very happy with the final product, mostly. I know the selection could be better, but I have 500 items on my Watch Instantly queue, so I can't complain. I like the focus on indie film and documentaries, and the addition of Starz content is a nice plus. Picture quality, under ideal conditions, is great. There are even a small number of films available in high-def, including a few films that were already near the top of my list, like the new John Sayles movie Honeydripper. No one would confuse the picture quality with Blu-Ray, but I was impressed. But again, that's under ideal circumstances. Which means before 6 PM or after midnight. During the peak evening movie-viewing window, I go from four-bars quality (the best), to three or two bars. I stopped watching one movie, the quality was so bad. I don't know if this is because my cable internet connection is slowing down on my end or if Netflix's servers are being hammered (I suspect the former), but it's disappointing. But for the most part, even the lower-quality streams are acceptable, and when all goes well, it's DVD quality or better. And it looks like Netflix just renewed it's deal with the BBC, a lot of their stuff that was scheduled to expire at the end of the month no longer is, so that's a plus; it looks like I'll still have time to watch Yes, Prime Minister once I finally finish watching Yes, Minister.

Fire: The Next Sharp Stick?

Majority of Americans never use physical education after high school.

So, it's been an exciting week for me, and not just due to the epochal election results. I put in my notice at work, and accepted a full-time position with the county library. I've been volunteering with the library for over a year now, and have been eager to get started with them in a paying position, so I'm very excited to have finally gotten my foot in the door. The bad news is, despite being eager to leave my current position because of the commute to La Jolla, I accepted a position in San Marcos. Which extends my commute about fifteen miles each way, and subjects me to I-15 traffic. But I made the drive Saturday, for research purposes, and it only took 35 minutes. And I think I'll mostly be driving against traffic, so it shouldn't be too bad. And I'm willing to put up with it to get myself established with the county. And the drive will give me a chance to work my way through my This American Life podcast backlog.

So, my last day at the aquarium is a week from tomorrow, and I'm supposed to start at the library that Friday. I don't know my schedule yet, I have to go through the background check and physical and all that before they talk to me about my schedule. But it's a full-time position, so I look forward to actually having an expendable income again, and not having to feel quite as guilty when I buy stupid crap I don't need. And like I said, I scouted out the commute this weekend, and checked out the library, it's very nice. And San Marcos isn't quite what I expected, less developed, pretty. So while the commute makes me a bit nervous, overall I'm very excited by this new opportunity. I will miss the aquarium, but it's nice to again have a job I can consider a career.

Oh, crap. Yma Sumac, dead at 86. Studs, Yma...they say these things come in threes, and two people I admire as immensely at these two makes me scared to think just who might be next.

Last.fm has a good selection of her music. She also has her official web presence. And, of course, there's YouTube:

Studs Terkel, dead at 96. On Oral History: "When the Chinese Wall was built, where did the masons go for lunch? When Caesar conquered Gall, was there not even a cook in the army? And here's the big one, when the Armada sank, you read that King Philip wept. Were there no other tears? And that's what I believe oral history is about. It's about those who shed those other tears, who on rare occasions of triumph laugh that other laugh."

I remember the epigraph that opened Coming of Age, taken from A. A. Milne, which stuck to me at the time and seems well-suited to Terkel (I'm going from memory, so don't quote me here):

Sometimes when the fight begins,
I think I'll let the dragons win.
But then again, perhaps I won't,
Because they're dragons, so I don't.

The latest Japanese technology for escaped rhino attacks: Rope netting and wooden sticks.

God Hates Signs.

With Intelligent Design's reputation in tatters, creationists seem to have a new strategy: revive Cartesian dualism.

Opie endorses Barack Obama:

Unemployed, inebriated, wife-beating couch potato concerned about Obama's judgement.