Gawker and the NY Post are both reporting the latest in Cougar news.  Women are not actually hunting down young men in huge numbers.  I know, all of you cougar-istas are surprised by this finding, and I’m sure your age-appropriate SO is sighing in relief, and yet, we consider to be surprised that all of humanity is not exactly alike.

Drudge is reporting that 25% of Americans believe Obama is a Muslim. I believe 20% of earthly residents believe that aliens (space, not the other kind that make Lou Dobb’s head explode) have actually landed on earth and walk amongst us.  73% of Americans are unable to believe this S&IT, which has gone on to become a best-seller, 73% of All Americans Unable to Believe this SH&T My Father Says.  And 89% of all Americans believe politicians are corrupt (I just made that one up, but I bet it’s true).

Also, in other news, both Wired and Newsweek are reporting that the Internet is dead, although NPR and BNET both say that the reports of the Internet death (by both Wired and Newsweek) have been greatly exaggerated.  I say that you are not actually reading this post on the Internet, instead it is being channeled through your computer via the Psychic Friends Network (which actually died in the 1980s, but nobody knew, because DUH!).

Also, the New York Times is reporting that John Lenin is still dead.

Fiction is not dead.  On the Internet, nothing will ever die.

I love this opening line from a gawker article:

A Harlem man who dresses up in Times Square as the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz yesterday stabbed a tour bus ticket seller with a screwdriver in what police described to the Daily News as “a turf beef.”

I could put this in a book, and my ed would say: now, kathleen, really?  Really? And I would strike it out because it could NEVER HAPPEN.

The NY Daily News is reporting that according to an Australian survey, half said that the happy endings of rom-com have ruined their view of an ideal relationship.  From the article:

One in four Australians said they were now expected to know what their
partner was thinking while one in five respondents said it made their
partners expect gifts and flowers ‘just because’.

I’m blogging at  WhineSisters today for all those female world Cup fans out there.

Simao of Portugal

From the Chicago Tribune, a quote from Garrison Keillor on the future of publishing:

Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea. We live in a literate time, and our children are writing up a storm, often combining letters and numerals (U R 2 1derful), blogging like crazy, reading for hours off their little screens, surfing around from Henry James to Jesse James to the epistle of James to pajamas to Obama to Alabama to Al-Anon to non-sequiturs, sequins, penguins, penal institutions, and it’s all free, and you read freely, you’re not committed to anything the way you are when you shell out $30 for a book, you’re like a hummingbird in an endless meadow of flowers.

And if you want to write, you just write and publish yourself. No need to ask permission, just open a Web site. And if you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you’ve got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing: 18 million authors in America, each with an average of 14 readers, eight of whom are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75.

From Kathleen O’Reilly, quoted to nowhere in particular:

It should be noted that publishing is not going to slide into Lake Wobegone, where all authors are above average.

I couldn’t resist.

Not only is this a high-dollar Scrabble word, but it sounds vaguely naughty, sort of like pedagogic, which everybody thinks means something *bad*, but actually means something very high-brow. 

The Onion has a great article on this one, South African Vuvuzela Philharmonic Angered by Soccer Games Breaking Out During Concerts.

Just needed to share.

In other news, Kathleen has finished Book 1 of Seven and is Moving onto Book 2.  Sanity is completely overrated. 

As a romance writer who has also penned computer programming manuals, I am always pleased to see geeky love things. Saw this on Wired, and needed to repost. My fav is buried in the comments: “You autocomplete me.” ROFL.

Top 10 Geeky Ways to Say “I Love You”

Posted using ShareThis

OK, now they’ve done it.  First it was the shoes, then it was the water, now it’s NO BOOKS in the last hour of flight.  AAGGHHHH!!!  It’s not Al Quidditch that’s going to kill me, it’s the TSA.  MSNBC is saying that flyers might not expect the same thing at all airports, which cracks me up.  “Uh, Fran, what do you think the regs should be at LGA today?  No bathroom usage?  No food?  Maybe everyone needs to stand up during the last three minutes of the flight.”  Air Canada is saying nothing in the lap during the last hour.    So, I’m thinking to myself.  If I hold my Kindle at arm’s length, and my lap is clear, am I OK?  Am I a TSA violator?

Thankfully, there is already backtracking, so we’ll see what finally pans out.

From a Charlie Brown Christmas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4Hv9YmhGpw

Happy Christmas, Merry Hanukkah…