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I got marbles! After all the tramping about yesterday, I ended up finding them at “Eastern Flair”, the weird-ass patchouli-smellin’ hippie store a few blocks from our house (where I got the Snook’s zen garden a few months back). I couldn’t believe it. Now I’m ready to make some magnets!

(I’m not going to use magazine pictures. I’ve got a different plan, a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. I’ll let you know how it turns out.)

I am roasting a turkey for Thanksgiving this year, Moby be damned.

Moire found this Ideal Weight Calculator that tells you not only what your medically recommended ideal weight should be, but also what other people of your age, height, weight, and gender think your ideal weight should be. It’s interesting. The suggested range for my age and height is 60-79 kgs (that’s 132-174 lbs), but apparently all the other chunkers think I should aim for 74 kgs (163 lbs). But get this: if I change my weight to 163 lbs, the perceived ideal weight drops to 147. In other words, one woman’s ideal is another woman’s hell. Heavier people set a heavier ideal weight for themselves (presumably to make themselves feel better about not being at it), but everybody always wants to be skinnier. Hmmm. At any rate, I’ve still got a ways to go to reach my goal, so I should probably hit the gym.

The Coraline discussion seems rather stagnant, but I’m not too surprised. It’s just a good story, you know? Not a lot to discuss there. We need to get started on the next book though. We’re supposed to be reading Will Self’s Great Apes, but I’m going to suggest we skip over it to the next one. The reason being, I looked for Apes at the library today and as far as I can tell, it isn’t available at all in Australia. So unless there are any objections, I think we should move on to Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey.

(Unless, of course, you’re all tired of the project by now. Are you? Now I’m worried. Should we have another round of book suggestions? Maybe we should scrap the idea of a scheduled list and have monthly votes to pick? Gimme some feedback here, please.)

The results are in, and the Republicans have won control of both Houses. Looks like two more years in Oz for me!

Everybody’s making marble magnets, so I thought I would too. I headed into the city today with a simple list: silicon glue, magnets, and glass marbles. Items #1 and #2 were fairly easy to come by, but #3 was the killer. THERE ARE NO CLEAR FLAT GLASS MARBLES IN ALL OF SYDNEY. I went to every arts, craft, and homewares store in the CBD. I’m not exaggerating; I went to at least 12 stores and it took me almost three hours. Lincraft (our version of Micheal’s) had them, but only as part of these silly Christmas gift packs with a big-ass vase and a candle. Grace Brothers had spherical pink ones. Nobody had the clear flat ones. Everyone I asked was convinced that somebody else was selling them. Nobody sells them! I get so lulled into thinking that I can get everything I could get in America here – I mean, we’ve got Taco Bell and Borders! But then every now and then I enter the Twilight Zone and discover some item that is just unknown in Australia. (Remind me to tell you about my spaghetti squash misadventures sometime.) So now I’m tapped. I’ve got magnets and glue, but no damn marbles. Where else can I look? There’s no worse feeling than heading out all ready to buy something and then being DENIED.

Foxtrot rocks. I laughed my ass off when I saw today’s Ellen Feiss parody.

Fun Flash Game O’ The Day: Toboggan Jump 2001. I made it up to the bonus round but I kept setting my team on fire. How well do you do?

Hey Hoosiers! Fort Wayne got mentioned on Slashdot! They’re reporting on how DeBrand’s chocolate company is fighting back against an unscrupulous e-commerce patent lawsuit. They even linked to the News-Sentinel‘s story. My sister writes the obituaries for them! I’m two degrees from the Slashdot front page! (Hey, it’s closer than I ever got before.)