The Washington Post answers one of the great questions of our time: Who Was General Tso and Why Are We Eating His Chicken?

[use bugmenot if you are prompted to register]

Ladies and Gentlemen: On the left, Vardaman, the Thinkpad. On the right, Issy, the little grey princess I adopted a week ago. (Does this mean I have to start reading John Carroll's cat columns?)

The mahnamahna.net photo gallery is now open over in the museyroom.

First exhibition: Amsterdam, June 2004

Leon Russell sang to me tonight the words of prophet George:

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness more...

Tonight I was out for dinner at a fine restaurant within walking distance of my house. I was sharing table with a woman whose presence in my life I cherish. Just as my duck confit was arriving, a woman at the table behind us slipped into some sort of seizure: Her eyes rolled back in her head; she became entirely non-responsive. Her dining companions began to freak out, and a woman at another table who turned out to be a nurse rushed to the victim's aid. more...

With logic like this on their side, how can they lose?

"It does not affect your daily life very much if your neighbor marries a box turtle. But that does not mean it is right. . . . Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife." — Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), advocating a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage in a speech Thursday to the Heritage Foundation. (source)

[spotted at The Morning News]

Things are quiet around here cuz I'm struggling to get some proper photo gallery functionality up and running. I haven't liked any of the scripts I've tried thus far, and am probably going to have to learn a bit of PHP so I can hack a bit on the one that's closest to what I want. More content — including pics from my recent trip overseas — shall spill forth once this bit of site tinkering is done.

After a week overseas, I am back on American soil.

Things to do today:

1. See Fahrenheit 9/11.
2. Get a David Letterman fix.
3. Get at least half the unpacking done.
4. Sort out all gifts I brought back.
5. Reflect on a splendid journey.
6. Enjoy being back home again.