• ITEM: James Joyce gets namechecked in this lovely report of snow falling in Baghdad for the first time in living memory.
• ITEM: How to Read The New Yorker in 10 Easy Steps
• ITEM: Best Blogs of 2007 That You (Maybe) Aren't Reading (this list introduced me to the wonderful bookforum)
• ITEM: I wish this Ask MetaFilter thread on cooking for one were longer, but it's got some nice ideas.
• ITEM: Answers to the questions Cecil Adams refuses to answer. (Not bad!)
• ITEM: For the geeks: Richard Stallman gets flamed. From the comments: "On the whole, RMS comes off as the most reasonable participant in the discussion. For all his reputation of extremist dogmatism, he's not the one slinging ad hominems and resorting to hyperbolic fallacies. Indeed, his patience in the face of such is almost eerie." I would say "zen-like."
• ITEM: For the geeks #2: Mark Pilgrim switches his parents to Linux. (My parents are scheduled for a similar conversion this year...)

• ITEM: News so happy, I'm verklempt: New York's 2nd Avenue Deli finally reopens next week (just off 2nd Ave). Time to book a flight!
• ITEM: Jon Carroll's yearly pitch: This holiday season, won't you volunteer for the Untied Way?
• ITEM: Fan reviews of Tuesday night's Tool concert at the Civic Auditorium. It was, of course, an absolutely transcendent experience. We should be erecting statues of Maynard James Keenan in all the major cities. :)
• ITEM: You know how there's that stretch of road in our beloved East Bay that is both I-80 East and I-580 West, while the other side of the road is both I-80 West and I-580 East (all this despite the fact that the road runs mostly north-south)? Turns out there's a cracktastic term for this.
• ITEM: I worked a fifteen hour shift yesterday to help launch this ... the new Macworld.com!

• ITEM: I ordered an XO laptop and cannot wait for it to arrive. Are you a geek? Perhaps one with a child in your life? Here's why you should follow suit (the Give 1 Get 1 program has been extended till 12/31).
• ITEM: John Carroll wrote two amazing columns this week. First up, his take on the rich fucktards in Seadrift who think they own the beach. (Are you a transplant to California? Then listen the fuck up: In this state, the people own the beach.)
• ITEM: John Carroll #2: At his funniest, on what can happen come a Tuesday.
• ITEM: Just another lie: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad never said "Israel must be wiped off the map."
• ITEM: Stanfurd 13-point favorites for tomorrow's Big Game. "I have a bad feeling about this." GO BEARS!

• ITEM: Blade Runner: The Final Cut, now showing in LA and NYC, arrives in San Francisco November 30.
• ITEM: Douglass Rushkoff on 9/11 "Truthers." I have just about had it with these people. (Seems Bill Clinton feels similarly.)
• ITEM: Mark Morford on the danger of progressive extremists. (He's absolutely right, and, happily, this piece is less shrill than most Morford screeds.)
• ITEM: Elementary school science: Nearly extinct. This is so depressing. By the time I have a school-aged child, will there be any public schools left worth sending him or her to?
• ITEM: New Orleans, two years after Katrina, in pictures. Heartbreaking.

• ITEM: "Animals at Play" (short video): I cannot shake the sense that the bear and the dog recognized each other as old friends from a previous existence and were just overjoyed to have encountered each other again.
• ITEM: "School Cheating Scandal Divides N.H. Town": We had a similar, far more widespread situation at my own high school during my years there; the kids involved were never punished and happily moved on to schools like Princeton and Stanfurd. Sounds like things work differently in New Hampshire.
• ITEM: The Solano Drive-In: I had no idea there was an extant drive-in movie theater in the Bay Area! Gotta go!
• ITEM: H.L. Mencken, writing in 1920: "On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
• ITEM: Sanity prevails...or does it? Southwest Airlines will modify its boarding procedure. Still no assigned seats; instead, assigned positions in line.
• ITEM: The Lateral Coital Position: A step-by-step (five steps!) guide for assuming it. Hmm... Gotta get a girlfriend into my life again!

• ITEM: Alphablogger J-Walk goes to Amsterdam, can't believe all the bikes.
• ITEM: "How To Be Happier By the End of the Day" — not bad, actually.
• ITEM: "Chick flicks?" Sure, they exist, admits Gloria Steinem. But then, so do "prick flicks." Brilliant!
• ITEM: "Brain Scans Reveal Why Meditation Works" — this is great and all, but I remain convinced that meditation's power is lessened the moment a scientist starts trying to measure it. (The same goes for the power of prayer.)
• ITEM: Public elementary school students right here in Oakland are receiving mindfulness training. Right on!

I mean, come on, it's New York. It's the city that never sleeps because people are up all night thinking and fantasizing and making plans. I know where my home is, but I also know where New York is. Being there was like spending time with an old friend.

• Murray visited Amsterdam (for my money, the most beautiful and civilized city on the planet), and has some insightful comments about what makes the place so damned inviting and livable: "I had no idea that such a vast amount of the old city exists and in such a perfect state. There's a functional found beauty to the rows of high narrow canal houses and repurposed warehouses. . . . The streets are an obstacle to cars, to the benefit of pedestrians, bicycles, and general well-being."
  
  
• Jamin sings the praises of sardines. "Sardines are amazing. They are cheap (75-85 cents a can where I shop), have a shelf life of several years, are high in protein, and taste great (if you like fish)." Hell yeah. A tin of sardines always hits the spot for me. And, if eaten at home, always makes the cat insanely jealous.

• ITEM: A very selfless bird tried to make the world a better place today, and, sadly, failed.
• ITEM: Was not aware, am very glad to hear: There is a movement afoot to lower the drinking age in this country to 18. (I'm always shocked when older folks don't realize that most college drinking these days is illegal because of the stupid age-21 laws.)
• ITEM: On eHarmony, folks are asked to name the last book they read and enjoyed. I close the match anytime a person responds with an Ayn Rand novel or The Da Vinci Code (which happens more often that you'd expect). I'm three years late finding this, but someone took the time to explain (better than I ever could) why Dan Brown's book is such a dreadful POS. [spotted at kottke.org]

• ITEM: British children are unhappy.
• ITEM: Dutch children are happy.
• ITEM: PARENTS: Want your children to be happy? Don't praise them for being smart. (Revelatory reading here. For me, anyway.)

• ITEM: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Read it before it disappears: NYT piece on eating by the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma (currently on my nightstand).
• ITEM: Here's just one reason why ethanol sucks: It makes corn tortillas too expensive for poor Mexicans who depend on them. Repeat after me: Don't burn food!
• ITEM: Rolling Stone: "Why Gore Should Run — And How He Can Win"
• ITEM: "Cineplex Drove Me to Piracy": The best breakdown I've read about how much modern multiplexes suck.

• ITEM: Good news from NYC: The 2nd Avenue Deli may rise again.
• ITEM: The Candy Desk of the United States Senate.
• ITEM: Jon Carroll waxes eloquent on winter, diabetes, and bakeries.
• ITEM: I could watch this baby panda sneeze over and over all afternoon.

. . . I was thinking about the masks we all wear when we go to work. The masks correspond to the roles we are asked to play, and also to the ambitions we may have for eventual advancement. For some people, their mask is heavy because there is a chasm between what they do and who they are. They are not actually smiling and subservient, and they do not believe that the customer is always right, and they do not believe that the person above them is by definition more competent than they are, but they pretend. They play the role. If they want a check at the end of the week, they have to play the role.

If you've been playing the role for a long time, you are a "professional." "She's a real pro," people will say, meaning: She acts the way I expect her to act, and she knows how to do her job. Being a "real pro" means squelching the urge to scream. Real pros have a lot of revenge fantasies. . . .

• ITEM: "10 tangible things each of YOU can do to make traffic better" — preach it, brother!
• ITEM: Most "how to be productive" tips are shite; these are not (a similar approach works for me, anyway, when I'm of a mind to be productive)
• ITEM: Salma Hayek is shameless. And why shouldn't she be? (technically SFW but perhaps not advised)

• ITEM: Souvenirs
• ITEM: How to fix shows (like Lost) that suffer from Twin Peaks syndrome
• ITEM: Now different, not as good: Best Foods mayonnaise
• ITEM: The newest attraction in NYC's Times Square
• ITEM: Episode 1 (of 8) of David Lynch's Rabbits (6 minute video)

"The reason I'm here today, the reason I own a brand new Harley-Davidson motorcycle and the reason I have a big log cabin and I got cars and all kinds of stuff is because I'm a writer and writers own everything." — Dan Aykroyd [emphasis mine]

• ITEM: Mistaken Identity: Innocent 17-year-old girl jailed for a week (don't-miss pictures!)
• ITEM: Breathtaking pictures of New York City by night. [spotted at planet.gnome.org]
• ITEM: The best Onion article ever written . . . by a goat. [spotted at reddit]

• ITEM: "The wave" that sports event crowds do — a Bay Area creation?
• ITEM: Supreme Court lets stand California ruling that municipalities may respond to the discriminatory ways of the Boy Scouts of America (covered previously)
• ITEM: "Results-Only Work Environment" — corporate speak for compassionate employment? (I need a ROWE job!)
• ITEM: Correlation is not causation, yadda yadda, but: Does TV trigger autism?
• ITEM: Neat! the_lucky_duck compares Scorsese's The Departed with Infernal Affairs (the Hong Kong flick that inspired it)

• ITEM: The neatest photograph you'll see on the Web today.
• ITEM: "American Buddhism on the rise" sez the Christian Science Monitor.
• ITEM: It made me cry: Brother-sister Holocaust survivors find each other after 65 years. (Thanks, KW!)
• ITEM: A good take on the disgusting torture debate in Washington. "Who would Jesus attack with dogs?"
• ITEM: Heard on the radio this morning: A rockin', twangy country remake of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice" by The Gourds. (Thanks, KALX!)
• ITEM: The Knack is suing Run DMC for sampling "My Sharona" in "It's Tricky" — 20 years ago.
• ITEM: I don't remember this at all: The original video for "It's Tricky" features Penn and Teller!