cleolinda | They've got cars big as bars, they've got rivers of gold

Horoscope of Eerie Aptness: Like a pointillist painting by Seurat, your life is made up of many small details that add up to something lovely. But as with that painting, what you see when you focus closely is a bunch of unrelated pieces. Take a step back, and things will fall into place -- you'll see that the complete picture is distinctively beautiful. Try not to be too caught up in your life's details today, and congratulate yourself on the wonderful masterpiece that you're in the process of creating.

That was deep, yo.

Okay, so I know I said I hoped December would be better, but I didn't expect it to be immediately better... for a while. We'd gotten a metric shit-ton of packages this week, as a result of that Black Friday shopping online I mentioned, and my mother was opening what she thought was a case of pecans (what? We do a lot of Christmas baking) when it randomly turned out to be an early Christmas present for me. I missed out on the Dracula blends and the Glitter resurrection at BPAL, but then I remembered that I have all my Yule samples from last year, so I'm going to go pull those out in a little bit. I think we're getting our Christmas tree tomorrow, for God's sake--even though it's going to be a dry crisp by Christmas day, the tree is Christmas, as far as I'm concerned.

(Tannenbaum tangent: When I was little, we used to keep it in the living room, which had a hardwood floor and an oriental rug and a grand piano and kind of had that Southern parlor thing going. That way, the tree was visible from the front window, although we had to scrape between it and the sofa to get to the door, but there was no way in hell we'd have been able to fit it in the den. So the living room pretty much became the Christmas Room: my mother's miniature Christmas village houses on the mantel and on the back of the piano resting on their cotton batting snow, the stockings over the fireplace (which was real, and not just gas-log like our current one is), the garlands and the lights and the Nativity knick-knacks and all that. We didn't have a front hall; you walked in the door and you were in the living room, and you had to pass through to get to any other room. But despite that, we were almost never in it, so at night it would be completely quiet and still. The sitting area of the room was arranged around the oriental rug, but between the back of the sofa and the front windows, we had a space that passed for a front corridor, and there was a smaller rectangle of rug there. I used to pretend it was my flying carpet. Well, during Christmas, I could lie on that rug and imagine what it would be like to be very small, small enough to hop from branch to branch, as small as the ornaments themselves. My mother had a set of porcelain dolls she would hang up, and I had a little rag doll in a swing that I named Melissa, and we also had a little rubber Mountain-Climbing Santa, plus tons of animal and cartoon ornaments. Wish Bear, Strawberry Shortcake, Big Bird Whose Nose I Chewed Off [What? I Was Only Three], you name it. I was a strange child, but I wasn't communing with the ball ornaments. There was at least some anthropomorphization going on. Clara had a nutcracker; I had a tree.)

So that was nice. But then Sister Girl threw a grand mal fit du shit over--I don't even know. Something relationshippy. It involved tears and throwing things and scaring the dog. Let's just say that I was very much in the mood for "Fairytale of New York" at that point ("'Happy Christmas' your arse, I pray God it's our last").

U.S. gov't terror ratings draw outrage.

Court to decide case on Bush's faith initiative.

Radiation poison said found in 2nd man; former spy's wife positive for radiation.

Snowstorm leaves millions without power.

Big Easy recreates Capote's masked ball.

Bollywood actress Pooja Bhatt hurt in car crash at Indian film festival.

Jokes make Hilton spurn Billboard awards. Meanwhile, Lindsay Lohan attending AA meetings.

Towering Ancient Tsunami Devastated the Mediterranean. Note the past tense there. It's easy to skim over that and be like WAIT WHAT?

NY cracks down on illegal mystery meats.

Teen accused of nude drive-thru ordering.

Dewey the cat dies in librarian's arms.

One new pic each for The Other Boleyn Girl and Pirates 3 (yes, a real one).

Car modeled after Kate Winslet's body. "Winslet was moderately impressed with her first look at the new car, but insisted she would have made some changes if she had been involved. She adds, 'The headlights aren't big enough.'"

Alan Rickman to duet with Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd.

Bradbury defends Rowling.

The Jane Austen Tarot Deck.

A bracelet for the erudite rebel in your life.

For Kingdom of Loathing...ers: Save Uncle Crimbo!

More Whose Line: Hollywood Director: Zorro Movie; Action Replay: Bridal Suite; Pikachu!; Weird Newscasters: Crone and Cat Burglar; Hollywood Director: Riverdancing Vampires.

I'm not sure what's going on at Chaucer's blog, except that 1) it involves a rapper war, and 2) it's awesome.

Oh, and one more reminder: if you're a fugitive Snarkfester, or you know someone who is, the new board is here. We're still looking for... oh... about 1300 missing members. So. You know. We're over there.