Reasons to be of good cheer

Back before the big Treo disaster I used to keep a file on my PDA called "Reasons to be of good cheer" which I would update from time to time. I needed it to help during the difficult times encountered during self-employment, to remind me now and then about the little things that would make life worth living.

Now Pam and I are out here outside of San Francisco for a few days of vacation, which is normally a happy kind of thing, but found ourselves dealing with some heavy issues involving some elderly family members, which was starting to lay a bring-down on the two of us. It was cold and drizzly as we drove around searching for a place to have a bit of solace one dinnertime when at length we happened upon the Nayeb Restaurant (aka Luxor) in South San Francisco.

The food was tasty, but that turned out not to be the point, when the background music suddenly was turned up a dozen decibels and the waitress announced the arrival of the Belly Dancer.
IMAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE
The young lady had long red hair and was several percent beyond the state of half-nakedness, I would estimate.

IMAGE NO LONGER AVAILABLE

She was generous in the way she bestowed her attention to the various tables, and the diners reciprocated in turn, tucking folding currency into the waistband of her garb. I learned that this operation was more difficult than it appeared, both because of the motion of the target and the way acute embarrassment affected performance. Ah well, I did only what was right. (No picture available.)

At last a reason to be of good cheer which I'd completely overlooked: the existence of belly dancing. Surely the only way one could grow tired of belly dancing would be to grow tired of life itself.

Christmas eve 2007

The process of producing the Christmas concert and Mass at St. Thérèse's in Cresskill is never quite the same for us. This year, we had our regular keyboard/organ player drop out of action two weeks before the big day due to health problems, our choir director took a bad spill on the ice this last weekend, and a family of our best singers come down with respiratory issues causing them to drop out at the last minute too. But happily we were able to roll with the punches, call in a few favors, and make it all happen again.

And I had a solo!

Choral preludes

1. Nativity Carol, O’Brien (Erin Calev, soprano, and Colleen Crooker, alto)


2. Be Born in Us Today, Haas (Rich Magahiz, baritone)


3. O Little Town of Bethlehem, Redner (Don Mulry, tenor)


4. Still is the Night, traditional (Choir)


5. Carols Around and A Round, traditional, arranged by Carl Nygard (Choir)


6. O Holy Night, Adam (Choir)

Christmas Eve Mass (all pieces performed by full choir)

1. Entrance: O Come All Ye Faithful, Wade


2. Gloria: A Christmas Gloria, Gibson


3. Psalm: A Child is Born, Deiss


4. Alleluia: Christmas Alleluia, Dean


5. Offertory: He Shall Be Called, Callaway


6. Sanctus: Mass of Creation, Haugen


7. Profession of Faith: Mass of Creation


8. Amen: Mass of Creation


9. Lamb of God: Mass of Creation


10. Communion: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Bach (violin and organ duet)


11. Recessional: Joy to the World, Händel

And by the end I couldn't hear my own voice, which is as it should be, I guess. I'll have to see whether my digital recorder was able to pick up anything worth listening to.

No cupcakes this year because of time constraints, but I did get to preside over the presentation of our Christmas gifts to our director and to our replacement keyboard player.

I'll get right on it too

I just wanted to post this list of top searches at eHow as a sort of time capsule to the archaeologists of the future who might want to know what the average Net-savvy person's concerns were as we come close to the end of the Year of Our Lord 2007.

Though one should be forewarned that certain commercial entities might just have engaged in gaming the list. Just possibly.

Unstoppable

Honorable once more, owing to my meta strategy.

Then as it was, then again it will be

My buddy Shinichi came up with a critical insight just the other day: has anyone noticed that men of music Seiji Ozawa and Jimmy Page are visually to a high degree of approximation the same person? They were born ten years apart, which used to account for a large degree of difference in times past (there were other reasons), but now that they're getting on in years the percentage that that represents is quite modest, bringing out the similarity.

Now I'm wondering whether the two have ever met. Worked together? Has anyone actually seen them in the same room at the same time?

Until now, it appears that this point of correspondence has not been fully appreciated, or else anyone making the observation has refrained from posting the evidence to the World Wide Web.

Update: Removed the link to morphthing which seems to have lost my submission in its database. Here are the original pictures I used:

I've seldom meta caption I couldn't twist into a Star Wars ref

Always pleasant to get some Honorable Mention action at the Anti-Caption Contest.

Baby-shaped bath oil beads

Oily Beads,
originally uploaded by gorgeosity made flesh.

Yes, little squishy beads in the shape of little babies that you throw into your hot bathwater, just so that you can say that you did in fact just now throw out a couple of babies out with your bathwater, ha-ha. A sure-fire gift idea, not only for Christmas gifts but throughout the year for baby showers, with only one problem: it seems impossible to find the thing ready-made anywhere. On the net I can find heart-shaped beads, duck-shaped beads, rounds and ovals, stars, even bath oil beads shaped like frogs, but not those shaped like infants for some reason.

And that, friends, is why I started this idea blog: so nobody else need ever be disappointed in this way again.

(Last year's holiday gift ideas)