Yesterday I held a check for $1.2 million. In my hands. A real check. Wasn’t made out to me, of course…

I was going to post something snarky about the “iPod’s dirty little secret” guys and warn y’all not to give any credit to their assertions, when Daring Fireball beat me to it. Ha!

Where is Bill Watterson? Great article about the famous cartoonist behind Calvin & Hobbes who abrupty retired in 1995. Rodd and I have a few of the books and quote them fairly regularly. I always identified with that Susie Derkins…

Knitted fractals and mathematical formulae. Those are so cool. I feel a major nerd sweater coming on… (Link courtesy of Kirsty.)

I know she hasn’t updated her training page in a while, but my sister is less than two weeks away from her marathon and I think she’s just about ready. She’s run two half-marathons already in preparation. Recently she organized a phenomenally successful “bachelor auction” that put her within $1500 of her fundraising goal. If you haven’t donated – and you feel like doing a Christmas good deed – please consider sponsoring her. (You can donate money through her training page.) It’s all for cancer research. At the very least, please join me in being proud as hell of her. I can’t believe she’s gotten this far!

The Australian Labor Party (which is pretty much equivalent to the Democratic Party in the US) have finally chosen a new leader: Mark Latham. This is the guy who called John Howard an “arse-licker”. Awesome. Now I only wish I could vote in the next general election.

Survivor was awesome last night. Right now I’m hoping for Burton to win, simply because I believe he’s playing the game the best. (It doesn’t hurt that he’s cute either.) Thoughts on the episode:

• Sandra has plummeted on my list of favorites. Her little maneuver with the fish was really pretty low. (Not the low point of the night, of course, but down there.) I’m not against a little sabotage within the context of the game – Mick did it extremely well on the first UK series – but she dumped the fish out of pure spite. It’s not the fault of the other contestants that she never formulated a strategy beyond “coast along with Rupert”. How childish.
• I really did feel bad for Christa that she got blamed. It was harsh to see her get attacked once you knew she didn’t do it. She should’ve pointed out that Sandra had at least as much motive and opportunity that she did.
• As much as I think Jon’s a dick, I have to admit that he’s been growing on me the last few episodes. I always like an unapologetic villain. He’s playing the game the only way he can. I think his strategy is really interesting, too. He’s basically ensured that everybody left wants to take him to the final two, reckoning that he’s more repulsive than them. Juries have a way of rewarding the snakes for their ingenuity, so I don’t think it’s a bad plan. And bravo for the dead grandmother bit! The Snook and I were speechless. I was hoping Jeff would somehow reveal it, but I’m guessing that he’s not allowed to influence the game in any way. Reward challenge aside, it was a great way to ensure some sympathy with future jurors. I’ve got to hand it to the jerk.
• I didn’t notice the “liaison” mispelling either. I must be slipping in my old age.
• Nobody knows how to wear the damn cutlass but Burton. That annoys me. If pirates wore it on their front, they’d cut their throats the first time they tried to pull it out!
• Sandra and Christa screwed up badly. They turned down an alliance of four – all girls – for an alliance of five – with two boys. They failed to boot the strongest player left. They bought into Jon’s bullshit yet again. (As the Snook put it, “How many times are they gonna let him pull the football away?”) They deserve to go soon.

I can’t wait for the last episodes. It’s no Amazing Race but it’s pretty darn good. And yay! I saw a preview for the upcoming Big Brother audition special. Bring it on, Gretel.

How Lemonheads Are Made. Neat!

Netdecider-spotting! Christian Heilmann’s got an article up on A List Apart.

Wisdom for a Monday morning…

the way I see it, as hard as it is to find someone to like that also likes you back, you’d have to be fundamentally evil or ignorant to stand in the way of any kind of loving relationship. — mcsweetie

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