No jokes here; just a simple guide to donating 100 lbs of food to the Greater Boston Food Bank, for free.
Go to this post, read it and leave a comment and Tyson Foods will donate 100 lbs of food to the food bank for each comment received. No strings, no coupons, no mailing lists.
Thanks to Beth Kanter for passing this along. I’m cross-posting this at all my blogs today and suggest you do the same.
So there it was.
White. Bright. Practically dewy with freshness, dated Monday, December 8 2008 (I quadruple-checked the year)(which the literal-minded will note was not even technically the case in my time zone when I encountered it) sitting there on my monitor for all the world as if it were a regular article waiting patiently to be read, with a perky, amusing author bio in the sidebar looking as normal as all get out.
TMN Contributing Writer Leslie Harpold is a writer and designer with a long list of publications she’s marred with her work. She is working on a novel and dreams alternately of an über urban or ultra rural future, as she is not one to do things by halves. After misspending her 20s in New York City, Leslie now lives in Grosse Pointe, Mich. She makes pie crust from scratch.
Only, it wasn’t.
Normal.
Leslie Harpold, you see, has been dead for exactly two years today. [thanks to Wendie for the correction; I had it at one year. Freakouts are so fresh!] I remember her death particularly, because for several years friends had been telling me how much I, the Christmas nut, would love her annual online Advent Calendar. Which I’m sure I would have, only by the time I finally clicked around to it December 14th of 2006, it was frozen at the 7th. Which date it has been frozen on ever since, because December 7th was the last full day she was alive. She was found by friends several days after her death, in part because of curiosity generated by the failure to update her famous Advent Calendar.
So, naturally, the appearance of a brand-new and highly chipper-sounding article by the aforesaid deceased, most particularly exactly two years after her death and seasonal at that, rather freaked me out.
Mind you, it’s not the first time someone has blogged from beyond the grave.
I just wish they could manage it without:
You just can’t keep a bad ex-candidate down. Yes, the Dan Quayle of Alaska is back, with a retro holiday special sure to bring a tear to the eye.
from Jimmy Kimmel via SeriouslyOMG
Not exactly sure what’s been going on, but all of a sudden WordPress didn’t like my password. In fact, they refused to accept it and let me into my own blog, no matter how many times I batted the monitor and screamed.
Imagine!
In any case, whether it was a password hack or technical difficulty, either on their end or on mine, all is now back to normal except that I’m too tired to post anything meaningful today, so here are two gay Christmas trees; you tell me which is gayer:
From our Utah correspondent:
The Rainbow Christmas Tree. All it needs is one of those spinning tree bases and the Barry Manilow Christmas Album (you may substitute Ricky Martin or anything from High School Musical if you’re of a youthfuller generation)
And this tree, spotted today up on Main Street in Vancouver:
Oops, removed! It didn’t work so good, sorry
The Pink Pine of Main Street. This was so awe-inspiring that the bus driver stopped right beside it and opened the doors so I could take a clear shot. Since I was doing bus rider surveys all up and down Main Street and the buses here don’t normally stop in the middle of a block for photo-ops, I had the attention of the entire bus. And I must say, the photo has much more detail than I thought and a lovely Seventies hypercolour flat feel to it, just freaky enough. Believe me, it was plenty freaky in real (plastic) life, especially in the early part of November.
So, after I did the picture-snapping thing I continued with the bus rider surveys and one woman was clearly bursting to talk with me. Turns out she knows the guy in the house. She told me he starts this early every year, and we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet, because by early December the entire yard is a Nativity scene and the entire house is covered with lights. Now, given the neighborhood and all the fellow is probably straight, but in the way one looks at the prodigal son and thinks “some day his parents are going to realize…” I think it fair to conclude that this Christmas tree is, if not actually gay, at least significantly bi-curious. We all want to know what you bought us for Christmas, don’t we?
Oh, why did I not find this heartwarming seasonal slideshow in time for Christmas last year? Alas, it is too late to make it part of my past traditions, but there’s no reason not to post it now and make viewing it a yearly thing from this point forward. It really sets the perfect tone for the celebration of The Saviour‘s glorious birth, with its joyous celebration of family life, Charlie Brown, seasonally appropriate decorating schemes, and steak knives.
Amelia:
(Written by Richard Matheson, based on his short story Prey)Amelia is a single working woman who lives in a high rise in the big city. She has just arrived home for the day with a gift for a man she’s been seeing…it’s a genuine Zuni hunting fetish doll.
Packaged with the doll is a scroll which reads “he who kills…he is a deadly hunter.” He who kills…he is a deadly hunter…
Naturally, the moral leaning of one’s Zuni fetish doll is an important factor in that whole sleeping-peacefully-at-night-versus-lying-awake-screaming thang, and we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have located a handy-dandy test to determine the evil-ality of your ventriloquist dummy once and for all. Presumably, like a virus scanner that detects attacks on IE but ALSO on email, it will also determine the malevolentosity of your Zuni Fetish or Tiki doll as well. At least, we’ve found no reports to the contrary.
From the Tiki Central Forums:
1.Make a large, roaring fire.
2.Within earshot of the doll say “Well, I think it’s about time I get rid of this ventriloquist doll … it’s not doing me any good no more”.
3.Pick up the doll and say “I think this will burn up real good in the fire”
4.Walk towards the fire.
5.Make like you’re going to throw the doll into the fire on the count of 3.
At this point, if your doll is evil, you’ll feel a bite on your arm, or a punch, or some other violent reaction. The doll will try to get out of your grasp, and, if successful, will run away, most likely with an evil cackle out of it’s smiling mouth. Be careful … he’s not fleeing from you; he’s only looking for a place to hide in order to attack you later.
If nothing happens, your doll is probably not evil. You now have 2 choices: Throw it into the fire anyway, or put it away. Warning: If you do not throw the doll in the fire, it is suggested that you take a knife with you to bed. It’s possible the doll IS evil but knew you were testing it, and is waiting for you to go to sleep before attempting to strangle you.
~Hanford
Tiki Socialite purple jade, however, raises a disturbing point.
This is a moot argument…everyone knows all ventriloquist’s dummies are evil, as are their cousins, clowns.
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raincoaster 