The Beloved Leader

The Beloved Leader has met his doom! Mourning is mandatory!

(I tend to wonder how long he's actually been dead. I suspect a year or more, given that there seems to have been some sort of political maneuvering going on behind the scenes for about that long. It will be interesting to see if they display the body.)

In the Distance

So, a discussion of the ongoing contretemps in Canadia over changing their national mascot from a Beaver to a Polar Bear led me down a path of inquiry where I learned that the 101st Airborne's Eagle mascot is actually Abe the Battle Eagle, a famously ferocious Eagle of the Civil War. I hadn't known. Nor had I known, for that matter, that their black shield honours the Iron Brigade.

Wisconsin's state capitol seems prone to catching on fire as well.

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I put up a Christmas tree. It is a very small tree, the smallest one I own that I consider an actual tree, maybe 18" tall. It's made of red and silver mylar, and I decorated it with red lights and red ornaments. I even found a red star for the top. It's sitting on top of my vending machine (which is itself red, and contains red candy). I'm glad to have one, I guess. I've always been so enthusiastic about Christmas lights and decorations, and this year I just lack the energy.

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Physically I'm getting better. I was in a hurry yesterday, and ran up two flights of stairs with no distress, so I guess my heart's ejection volume is increasing.

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I recently took part in a discussion about drive-in theatres on Little Details. Columbus has a still-operating one on the south side. I drove down today just to look at the sign. I want to go when the weather is warm again. It's probably been 30 years or more since I've been to the drive-in.

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I got a bird book called iBird for my Android tablet. It's got recorded calls for each of the birds that you can play. These seem a good tool to help identify the various birds, but what took me by surprise is that the birds will actually come over and see what's going on in some cases if you play their calls. I had some Crows giving me this WTF look at lunch the other day.

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One of the things I picked out from Chris' possessions was a Sibley bird guide, a large, well-illustrated guide for identifying American and Canadian birds. It fell open to the Golden Eagle entry. One of my RP characters that I used to play with him a lot is a Golden Eagle.

(no subject)

You can buy the Beloved Leader's books on Amazon. On the Art of the Cinema has some magnificently snarky reviews.