Jessica's Fault

Dallas Cowboys (American football) fans have, on average, the same number of brain cells afforded your legendary Big Haired Texas Wummun. Thus, today they're seeking a single source for their frustration at losing in the first round of the playoffs to a team (New York Giants) they'd already beaten twice this year.

That target is Jessica Simpson.

And thus, I am amused. You see, the Star Quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys - Tony Romo - was doing just fine thankyouverymuch until he and Jessica hooked up a few months ago. Then, his performance (onfield) started nose-diving. The local wimmin who would've been happy to Have His Baby weren't as fixated anymore. Now, the season is over and the city (well, not all of us) is in a state of complete, utter shock. We're talking catatonic stupor. I won't be surprised if there's no mail delivery, the stores all close at noon, and people start wearing black armbands until pre-season.

Rumor has is that the TSA folks at DFW airport have been given orders to turn back any plane with Jessica Simpson onboard. Her posters have been removed from the local stores, and parents who named their daughters "Jessica" are queued up -- blocks long -- at the courthouse, seeking NAME CHANGE PETITIONS.

Oh, the humanity.

Tuesday morning update: worth noting that the US Mail delivery was the latest I can ever remember: sometime after sunset, but before 8:30pm when I checked the mailbox "one last time". Coincidence? Not a chance.

Revenge of the Gregorians

I don't recall ever meeting a Gregorian in person.

Many of us have spent our entire lives assuming that everyone in the world uses the same calendar -- not so. Turns out there are a LOT of calendars used worldwide. I probably learned about The Gregorian Calendar in first grade history class (!). The Jews use the Hebrew Calendar; Muslims use the Islamic (Hijri) Calendar; Iranians use the (modern) Persian calendar, and the Chinese use the Chinese Yin Calendar (not to be confused with the Chinese Yang Calendar).

our New Year's Day

	day	month	year	calendar adopted in
Chinese	23	Eleventh	4705 (rat)
Gregorian	1	January	2008 C.E.	1752 CE
Hebrew	23	Tevet	5768 A.M.
Hindu				78 CE
Islam	22	Dhu al-Hijjah	1428 A.H.
Persian	11	Dey	1386	1925 CE

For simplicity sake, I'm avoiding an explanation of the Chinese Lunar and Solar calendars, which are based on the ruling dynasty, among other things.

their New Year's Day (sorted chronologically)

	Gregorian
Christian Era 2008	1 January 2008
Islam 1429 (Muharram)	10 January 2008
Chinese 4705	7 February 2008
Persian 1386 (Norouz)	21 March 2008
Hindu 1929 (Ugadi)	6 April 2008
Hebrew 5769 (Rosh Hashanah)	29 September 2008

I like using the ISO-8601 calendar for embedding into filenames, so that Untitled.txt becomes 2008-01-01-Untitled.txt -- that way, it's always obvious when the file was created, even if it's been emailed or copied. There's a nice Calendar Converter on Fourmilab which I used to generate this data.

Example: using this converter, I can see that Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 took place on Day 1, Fifth Month, Ji Si Year (Republic Dynasty). To me, it's still 4 June 1989.

batting 4 for 5

Sensing the need to continue enriching the pockets of them wild-haired Hollywood Libberuls, I waddled over to the local AMC megaplex today to see Juno (2007), which is about as close as I'll come to seeing a Chick Flick in 2007. I was mildly surprised to find that the lead actress (Ellen Page) has 20+ films under her belt. Verdict: good, not great. Mostly predictable.

Hmm .. what to see tomorrow - New Year's Day? Hmmm ...

3 for 3

Daniel-Bob recommended that I see No Country for Old Men (2007) so I did that yesterday, making it 3 movies in 3 days.

Old Men was certainly a warm, caring movie; I wasn't expecting a chick flick.

a movie a day keeps the doctor away?

Second movie in two days .. I waddled down to The Angelika to screen The Rape of Europa (2007) .. a documentary about the treatment (theft and destruction) of art during World War II.

Daniel-Bob wants me to see another movie tomorrow. Hmmm.

Payback's a bitch

In today's (New York Times) ON THIS DAY:

"On Dec. 27, 1979, Soviet forces seized control of Afghanistan. President Hafizullah Amin, who was overthrown and executed, was replaced by Babrak Karmal."

and then there's an Associated Press story yesterday:

(ARTICLE DELETED)

With those items in mind, I suspect Vlad Putin (the one who Dubya looked into his soul) is hoping to shoot down a few hundred US missiles/helicopters/aircraft that will be launched against Iran's nucular [sic] bomb factories. Payback's a bitch, ya see.

This afternoon, I waddled down to The Angelika to watch Charlie Wilson's War (2007) which explores the events of 1982-1983 when the US (covertly) armed the Afghans with enough firepower to drive the Soviet Union out of their country. Mild surprise: there was no mention of Osama bin Laden's role in that conflict. Oscar prediction: they should just give Best Supporting Actor to Philip Seymour Hoffman now, and avoid any pretense that anyone did any better in 2007.

Christmas musings

Why is the Christian religion the only one that gets a US Postal holiday all year? Can't they staff enough Heathens on the 25th of December to make deliveries, or is this like the periodic addition of "In God We Trust" to our currency, that would've left Our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves? And .. if today's holiday is that important, why is there a newspaper delivery?

Alas, it's now past noon and time to investigate which retailers have reopened after yesterday's partial holiday, when most closed early. Hmmm. To be fair, I must take the same route as last night, right?

4:30pm update

Okay, here's what was different: some (not all) of the groceries reopened; El Rancho and Tom Thumb were doing a brisk business. The church parking lots that were overflowing for Christmas Eve (during the daylight I can see the signs advertising their multiple services) are empty, as are the Finer Steak Houses (Rick Stein's; III Forks; Ruth's Chris; Del Frisco's). A few restaurants that were open last night (Blackfinn; Burger Street) are closed, while others (Humperdink's; Sonic Drive-In; Furr's) have opened - mostly the Asian ones - Thai, Chinese. Some Starbucks locations are open while others remain closed. The movie theatres are open. Blockbuster and Hollywood Video are open - presumably to put something inside all the Shiny New DVD players that were under "the tree" this morning. It was warmer (14-15C). Gas prices $2.75 unleaded, $3.28 diesel.