Today is Mother's Day in the US. It snuck up on me this year. I was busy enough at work and dealing with enough other bullshit that it didn't occur to me to worry about today until I started hearing WBUR -- the local NPR station -- hawking Mother's Day flowers. The last few years before my mom died, I got her the "live plant" option. Each year, they sent her an azalea that died before she got it in the ground. She loved them, though, or said she did at least, which is what I wanted.

It's not over yet. Keep reading...

The Fun Fun Challenge (FFC) aka the Late Fun Challenge, or the Summer Fun Challenge.

Update [2009-4-27 16:16:20 by ana]: Now with upload site link!

It's been an eventfull couple of days.

We're now running on a new server. Google adverts are gone.

I need to find a new host for hulver.com as soon as possible.

What makes you hot? Time to VOTE!

It's time for the next Photography Fun Challenge folks and I'm looking for HEEEEAAAAAATTTTT!!

[UPDATE@18:11] - multiple selections now available for poll, sorry, thought I clicked that!

Yesterday I posted what I thought was a great link. It was a place you could adopt a pig.

Then when the pig was old enough, you got to eat it.

But Yicky Yacky came up with a good idea. If enough people chipped in, you could all buy me a pig to eat.

Then I thought, why don't we all eat it?

As described elsewhere and elsewhere (and a few other elsewheres that I'm not going to bother with), Cheeseburger and Kellnerin and I have been working on a little book for a long time. I wrote it, Cheeseburger illustrated it, and Kellnerin provided wonderful editorial services.

Well, it's ready.

UPDATE The book is still at the printer, sorry for the delay. Another string of horrible events delayed the final preparation of this book, but I do expect to have copies in hand on January 31, and to post them the same day to those who have ordered them. So, the bad news is that the book is running late. Good news is that Younger Daughter was not killed in that car wreck, and that (in separate incident) Wife's shoulder was the only thing broken -- her skull is intact. But tending to these two women, among other things, really cut into Pains production schedule. Sigh.

t's just over a week before Election Day, here in the United States. For many people (myself included), this is the most important election we have an opportunity to vote in, for many reasons, both practical and symbolic.

This story, though, isn't about "many people." This story isn't about that tightness I get in my chest -- that pride in my country, bittersweet and magnificent -- that threatens to overwhelm me with emotion when I think about casting my vote for Barack Obama.

This story is about the last conversation I had with my grandfather, only a few weeks before he died in April, 2007.


Cross-posted to Facebook for my friends list, especially the right-wingers.

We were playing pool. A lazy game, where no one is quite paying attention. We were chatting, taking random shots between bursts. A quiet Tuesday afternoon in the office, swigging beers and idly chewing the fat.

...Which is why it was so disconcerting when someone stood up from a bank of cubicles we'd assumed were abandoned, and declared:

"It's a fact: I have a clinically tight pussy."

This is the story of the worst production assistant ever.