It consists of Benedictine, Polish vodka, champagne, and a cherry.

They call it a Ratzlinger.

(Heard in e-mail….)

Here’s a post Jane found, about what fathers contribute to their families. It certainly tallies with my experience.

The May Issue of Ex Libris Reviews is now on-line.

There have been no posts at Banana Oil since the 25th; in addition, Ian hasn’t responded to a Miyazaki-related e-mail I sent him at about that time. He’s been experimenting with Linux, and I wonder if he shot himself in the foot.

I agree with Lileks. Our house is and will remain a Bratz-free zone.

When I’m feeling sick and mostly brain-dead, I turn to one of two kinds
of book: either a rather shallow series that I can chain-read without
much effort, or an old favorite that I know so well that reading it is
more likely reminiscing with a friend. Watership Down is
one of the latter. I first read it when I was in junior high school (what
they call “middle school” around here these days), and the copy I have now
I got in England when I was 14. I was on a trip with my parents; it’s
the only time I’ve ever been to Europe. I’ve got copies of
James Herriot’s first four books from that trip as well,
though you likely wouldn’t recognize the titles–they were repackaged for
American publication as All Creatures Great And Small and
All Things Bright And Beautiful.

But I digress.

Are any of my readers unfamiliar with Watership Down? It’s
a tale of adventure and romance, of resourcefulness and steadfastness, of
courage and honor and integrity, of causes and things worth fighting for,
of grace under pressure.

And, of course, it’s about rabbits. Not country bumpkins in rabbit-form,
not talking beasts with waistcoats and pocketwatches, but rabbits. Real
rabbits, with the concerns, problems, and enemies of rabbits. They talk,
certainly, and tell stories, and they are a degree smarter than real
rabbits, but they remain rabbits. They do not build towns or plant
gardens or write books; instead, they dig warrens and eat grass and bear young
and keep a watchful eye for the thousand enemies that beset them.

It’s a remarkable achievement, and I don’t believe it has ever been
matched. The closest book I can think of is William Horwood’s
Duncton Wood, which seems clearly patterned
after Watership Down (it was published eight years later).
It’s about moles, who at first mostly seem to have the concerns of moles;
there’s even a General Woundwort figure named Mandrake (of all things).
But as the book progresses it emerges that these moles aren’t real moles.
Some of them write books; and there are even pseudo-Buddhist enlightened
monk moles. In other words, Watership Down is a mainstream
novel that appeals to lovers of fantasy, Duncton Wood is
unequivocally a fantasy novel whose characters happen to be moles.

In any event, I re-read the book with great pleasure; and the ending
has become only more moving with time and familiarity rather than less.
I always have to have a box of kleenex handy for the last ten pages or so.
Fortunately, given that I’m sick no one’s surprised that my eyes are
watering.

I’m at home, sick with some kind of strangulating throat malaise, and have been since yesterday morning. And the fact is, I’m bored stiff. I haven’t enough mental horsepower to do anything worthwhile, and my attention span is on the order of fifteen minutes max. What to do? Read blogs!

Of course, it doesn’t take all that long to make the rounds of the blogs I usually read–at least, not when you’re making a day of it–so I’ve been trawling through the blogrolls. The only blog that I’ve seen so far that’s new to me that I feel like linking to is this one.

I realize that under the circumstances, this probably doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement. Oh, well. I feel rather like Marvin the Paranoid Android this morning– “Don’t bother trying to engage my enthusiasm, because I haven’t got one.”

I’ve just released Notebook V2.1.2. You can get the whole scoop at the Notebook Wiki.

Oh, the wild and wonderful things you find in the rain forests of Peru:

Martin’s quarry is an un-catalogued species. It is called the Chicken Eating spider because eye witnesses claim to have seen it dragging chickens into its burrow on the edge of jungle clearings. Estimates put it at around 10 inches from one hairy foot to another.



And he found it: a tarantula as big as a dinner plate. And a very odd tarantula, too. Known tarantulas are solitary; after a brood hatches, the “spiderlings” need to scatter PDQ, because Ol’ Mom gets mighty hungry while gestating, and the young’uns are fair game. The Chicken Eating spider, on the other hand, shares its burrow with several generations of its offspring.

Don’t miss the pictures; it really has to be seen to be believed.

Update: Here’s another link. Oh, and I was alerted to this by my friend Dave Jaffe.

Well, increased freedom, anyway.

Jane talked to my doctor yesterday, and given my weight loss to date and my improved cholesterol numbers my doctor is now allowing me to eat a wider range of foods. Apparently she hasn’t generally had to deal with this issue before; relatively few patients stick to the diet she gives them for this long. Anyway, I’m still mostly off carbohydrates, which I’ve mostly gotten used to; but I can now add lean beef and pork, eggs, and the occasional bit of bacon or regular (as opposed to low-fat) cheese is OK too, so long as I don’t overdo it. On the other hand, I need to keep eating the green leafies at every meal, which, again, I’ve mostly gotten used to.

So this is a very good thing. I intend to celebrate this evening by going to Pepe’s and having their all-pork burrito with verde sauce, sans tortilla.