Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

I got quite the haul: Some DVDs (another volume of Loony Tunes, Galaxy Quest, Dark Knight)

Volume 3 of The Absolute Sandman (Neil Gaiman's Sandman is a comic published several years ago that, along with Frank Miller's work, basically reinvigorated the entire medium.)

http://www.amazon.com/Absolute-Sandman-Vol-3/dp/1401210848/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230658642&sr=8-3

A limited edition print of a Neil Gaiman story called "The Day the Saucers Came"

http://www.neverwear.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=27

A Bladestar Flier by Wow-wee. (It's a remote controlled helicopter like contraption. The cats hate it.)

http://www.wowwee.com/en/products/toys/flight/flytech/bladestar

And we got each other an amazingly fabulous quilt that I don't have pictures of yet.
 

Very cool. Especiall the cat distractor!

Can you believe I lived for so long without an olive spoon? Can you believe I didn't know such a thing existed? ... Do you have any suggestions for the anchovy-stuffed olivesd? I like anchovioes and I like olives, but they ain't gonna go in a martini.
 

I GOTTA GET ONE OF THOSE BLADESTARS THINGS!
 

1. I have to confess, with much embarrassment, that I'd never heard of an olive spoon. I do have an olive boat, two actually, but I have to use just a plain old ordinary spoon in order to dig the olives out of the jar and place them in the olive boat. Clearly my life cannot continue this way and I must find an olive spoon right this minute.

2. Anchovies are fish and therefore I never ever ever never ever eat them or put them in my martinis, so I have no suggestions. Oh wait, now that I've written that, I imagine that you could chop them up and throw them in a nice puttanesca sauce:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puttanesca

for a nice spaghetti alla puttanesca.

3. The Bladestar does pretty much kick butt. It has sensors to keep it from bumping into things on AutoPilot mode. Sensors! In that tiny little contraption! It only flies for about 5 minutes on a charge, but given that I can't yet accurately control it for more than about 30 seconds without flying into someone, that hasn't bothered me.

It is even cooler than the BIOBug I got a few years ago, a remote controlled walking-around robotic insect about 10 inches long that also had sensors that allowed it to figure out when it was bumping into things and go around them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIFnYWR-3Ng

(mine was a different species from the one in the video.)

If you had two BIOBugs, they would fight each other until one "killed" the other. Pretty cool, but it didn't fly, and wasn't capable of decapitation, which is one of the prerequisites for a great toy.
 

My cousin in Georgia shipped me a crystal bowl that had belonged to our great aunt.

My aunt and uncle (her parents) sent me a shipment of Harry and David pears and apples.
 

Very cool. Dr. ER gave our Bird a Fiestaware pitcher from the '40s-'50s that had belonged to Dr. ER's grandmother -- complete with a piece of masking tape on the bottom with the grandmother's name, in her own hand, from constant use at church functions. :-) Very special gift for Bird. :-)
 

It wasn't the radioactive Fiestaware, was it?
 

Just a little bit.
 

Uh oh. I don't actually know how radioactive it is, but it's probably best not to use it for food prep.
 

Bird said it will be treated like a museum piece. ... She has a newer Fiestware pitcher.

But Dr. ER and I have a mix of Fiestaware, including some stuff that makes light bulbs come on dimly.
 

Maybe I dreamed that last part. ... But we do have some radioactive stuff.
 

Just don't put the Fiestaware next to the iguana cage. Can you say "Godzilla!!!!!"?
 

Season 6 of Seinfeld; Season 8 of CSI. THe six-CD set of music from Ken Burns' Jazz. Socks. Underwear. A Best Buy gift card that is already spent.

The joy of the day. More than anything, just that.

Alan, we got Galaxy Quest a few years back, and may I just say, you will love it. Also, Lisa got The Dark Knight and I still have no interest in seeing it (she ordered it, and I wrapped it for her).
 

I refuse to list them because you do not need to know what the 2008 flannel item from my mother was. She still thinks I must get impossibly cold up here.

But I have to mention two books that have proven devastatingly rich and interesting:

Robert Bolaño's novel, "2666."

Annette Lareau's study, "Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life."
 

Bless your sweet mama's heart.

Would you narrow down where you are "up there" a bit? The state maybe?
 

Brooklyn.

Are you wearing your tie and wielding your hammer in front of the television right now?
 

LOL! The tie is off, the hammer at the ready!
 

And may I add:

GO POKES!
 

A basket full of homemade jellies from my sister-in-law, soft fluffy socks, a good shiatsu massage machine that actually works. A Tai Chi sword so I can stop borrowing the DaiSi Hing's spare, several jars of home-made sourkraut, a really really nice squash from my sister's garden, which I will cook for the party tomorrow, and a pair of snowshoes, Mulan on DVD, and a pile of cash to spend on any books I want over the next year! I suspect I will begin with a beutiful set of _His Dark Materials_ from The Folio Society, followed by _Death From the Skies!!_ by Phil Plait. I'm behind in my reading, however.
 

I love sauerkraut bit I've never had any homemade!

And I'm jealous of yer snowshoes! Had we wound up moving to Boulder-Denver, I'd planned on owning a pair!
 

Feodor: Brooklyn. How far from where you sit to the nearest live cow? That's one of the ways I judge whether I could stand to live somewhere.
 

ER, making sourkraut is a family activity. Nearly every fall saw a five-gallon pail sat in the corner of the diningroom with a cover on it, fermenting cabbage. :-) Evidently, my sister and her husband have picked up the tradition.

The snowshoes are awesome. I can't wait to hit the trails around here.
 

Got an autographed football from my favorite NFL team.

Got a flashlight.

Got a book about my favorite college football team.

And last, but not least, born at 8:40 a.m. Dec. 1, 2008, my littlist little girl.
 

Distance to a cow:

Two miles to a zoo.

Something like ten to fifteen miles to a farm - West to NJ or NE up Long Island - Long Island has lots of farming land. New Jersey, of course, is the Garden State except where it is not, and then it is really, really not.
 

:-)

I lived for four months in D.C. as an intern 20 years ago. My brother drove out to haul me back, and somewhere in Virginia I saw some cattle and realized I had just spent longer not seeing cattle than ever before.
 

Yes, but you could have smothered in bullshit at any time.
 

Dude, I had some close calls. I was a press intern for a GOP Reagan-coattail Congresscritter from Georgia. That experience is what made me the Dem I am today.
 

Got me a brand new red Chevy pick-em-up truck. (2008 model with 8 miles on it (been on the lot 11 months))

I said something while I was inside my 83 Chevy about it had over 320,000 miles on it and was 25years old. Never tease a Vagan-Geist. Next day brakes failed and transmission went south. Couldn't go and couldn't stop, both pre-requisits for a viable transport.


New Red truck is a real basic model work truck. It has crank up windows, manual heater/air and manual locks. Everything after page two of the manual doesn't apply to my truck (When the book says: "If Equipped", it means I ain't got it)

Now as an clue as to why General Motors et. al. ain't doing worth shit: This ultra basic work truck came equipped with "On Star" emergency services, an "On Star" "satellite" phone, and an XM Satellite Radio, as standard equipment.

Standard equipment what the hell?

Merry xmas, I got me a little red truck!
 

Very cool. I think they call those the "Texas-Oklahoma special."
 

Yep, say the part I loved about the "On Star start up" was when the lady from On Star aked me to lock the doors so she could demostrate how they could unlock them in an emergency or if I lost my key. I did, she couldn't undo the manual locks, and she got real snippy cause I was laughing so hard.
 

Hoo hoo! ... I must admit I'm gettin' used to the power windows in Baby Car, but the power locks are more dang trouble than they're worth. The Dodge pickup, now cigar friendly, is my refuge.
 

A man and his truck are a beautiful thing!