This is how birthdays go at age 38. Thanksgiving is a week before my birthday, so since I see my family for the turkey, I get stuff too (Bluetooth headset for the iPod/'puter, and a power washer, for the record). That means there's no reason to look forward to Dec. 2. But I think next week I'll make myself a cake. Something I'd want to day any weekend, really. I like cake.

Stuff I'm thankful for today, and in most cases, year round:

1. My iPod and audiobooks from Audible.com (and the occasional iTunes purchase). Even when I forget to listen to them.
2. Real-life honest-to-gorsh books with paper pages, 1,353 of which I have cataloged at LibraryThing.com. No Kindle in my future.
3. My healthy but aging dogs who do what they're told (mostly) and don't throw up all the time (mostly).
4. Pushing Daisies. Two episodes to go? Crap... stupid strike! But it's no wonder I love it, creator Bryan Fuller it was also behind the marvelous WonderFalls and used to write for DS9.
5. My job at PC Magazine. I haven't had this much fun at work in years. The people are great, the stuff I write is interesting. My favorite story yet: interviewing all the guys who make my favorite YouTube videos. I actually tell my wife about my day when she comes home now.
6. Viable Paradise. It was over six weeks ago, but I still think about that week every day when I'm writing (and perhaps more when I'm NOT).
7. Hamburgers.
8. Doctor Who. While Battlestar Galactica proves you can revamp anything and make it great, the folks at Doctor Who prove you can do it and still make it fit with what went before. (Tho in BG's case, I can't blame them for jettisoning the 1970's. Ray Bolger as a robot? Please.) I can't wait to see the Doctor on the Titanic next month...
9. My new QuadCore PC. I never thought a Gateway computer would be my savior, but it's done the job magnificently since the somewhat impulsive purchase. And I still like Windows Vista, despite its quirks.
10. Our new $150 per person spending limit for my family's Xmas this year. Maybe I can pay off the Quadcore...
11. Perry's White Lightning Ice Cream in half gallon containers at Tops. When I can find them.
12. Halo 3. Bungie/Microsoft finally perfected playing through the campaign cooperatively.
13. Toyota Prius. With GPS.

14. Hayden Panettiere turning 18. It makes me feel just a little less creepy. But not much. (My god... she was born when I was in college!)
15. My dad. He calls me many mornings, always thinks he's interrupting my work (he never has), frequently with a question about his computer or the web that he can't master. I look forward to these calls more than I usually admit.
    
16. Wikipedia. I know, half of it is supposedly inaccurate and filled with vicious lies, but if you've got an accurate bullshit detector, it's amazing what it can tell you. Everything from the characters on Ben10 to the release dates of MacOS X updates. And when you write fiction, it's nice to have it to base stuff on that you later make up.
    
17. The Writer's strike. I need a break. Plus I think the writers in Hollywood are going to come back after this energized and making amazing new stuff on TV. (Movies will probably still all suck though.)
    
18. My wife -- whom I call Squanto! -- and her obsession with Second Life. She likes it more than her first life just enough to give me all the free time a guy could want to write, which I squander aimlessly. But I still love her for it, among other things.

First, a caveat: I like kids. A lot. They're great with barbecue sauce.

Sorry, actually, what I mean to say is, I like other people's kids. Usually a lot. I can relate to them easily, as I'm a fan of childhood. I wish I was one still. I really do, as I would prefer having no responsibility at all. Life was better when my dad bought all my comic books, believe me.

What I don't like, however are the kid- zealots, the new parents who have found the parenting religion and feel compelled to push it upon all us so-sorry bastards who "just haven't got around to procreating." Cause that's what life is all about isn't it? Spencer's "survival of the fittest" is actually saying you're fittest if you spit out the most kids, not "the strongest wins," as most people believe.

Which means I'm fit as an end-stage cancer patient. Meanwhile, my friend Bill, who has eight children, is like a God of fitness.

But despite the fact that no one has the baby-making fever and mad skillz like my buddy Bill, he's also not a complete DICK about it to people who don't have kids.

Guess what, breeders? Not everyone shares your endorphin rush at the site of little feet and green pea vomit!

Why bring it up? A couple of incidents this week. The first was someone pontificating about the wonders of their children, who felt the need t spell out to us that "we learned how wonderful it is, and so did _____, and so did _____, and so did ______." He listed everyone in the room except the wife and me. I felt like I'd been made out to be a leper of some sort. How dare I? Every sperm is sacred!

Worse, some completely unknown ass-hat on Second Life (imagine that, a jerk online, of all places!) told my wife, who he'd never met and doesn't even know in real life, upon hearing that she doesn't have kids, that she should "really looking into babies. Hang out with some people with kids."

That's exactly how I pick my friends -- hang with those that have stuff I want, so I'll go out and radically change my life to get it. Luckily, my wife is made of sterner stuff.

I'm 38 years old in less than 2 weeks. There may have been a time in my life when I'd wanted a kid (singular), but my wife didn't, doesn't, and never will. I'm okay with that, especially as I get older. I like my life as it is, and I swear, the next jerk-off who tells me what I'm missing is going to get an earful about what I'm not missing and I might just throw in extra about how his kids probably ruined is life. Just for fun.

Of course, now that I've said all this, it'll be the perfect time for the condom to break, so to speak...

And please note, this does not go for my friends and (most of) family who have kids and don't care that I don't. I love your brats. Seriously. Even the kids who have punched me in the nads.

Sweet jesus, thank god there's no writer's strike in the United Kingdom!

This video, part of a special on the BBC called Children in Need, is the greatest thing I've seen since... well, since the return of the Master this summer.

He was my Doctor, too.

While I'm not exactly on the NaNoWriMo bandwagon anymore (after three days earlier this week of not writing; or I should say, not writing on the novel, since I did write a 3,500 word feature for work that will probably have to be radically cut just to fit the space alloted), I had a miraculous day today writing 3,402 words. My novel is now up to a respectable 20,306 words, and strangely enough that's I've hit the one-third point, making me think this little opus could come in well shorter than my first novel, which should have been much shorter than it is (at 104,00 words). Either I'm getting better at this, or there just isn't as much to this new book. Though it is fun getting to swear and have characters who get boners and stuff.

Number Portability Comes To VoIP, Vonage Worried? « via GigaOM

the FCC has approved “number portability” for VoIP services. ... A lot of consumers complained about the lack of number portablity when Sun Rocket shut down.

I got my first parking ticket in YEARS last week. My wife laughed and laughed at the time, even tho it was essentially her fault (that's my story and I'm sticking with it).

I planned to pay the $15 today but read this on the back: "The city of ithaca has adopted an automatic waiver policy for certain violations. YOUR FIRST TICKET FOR OVERTIME MEETER within past 18 months will be automatically dismissed."

I even called and confirmed, just in case it was some kind of trap. (Trust no one!) But the woman said, "throw it away." Wee!

Now, if I can just avoid getting another until May 2009, I'm golden. (I'm posting this to remind me in the future if I get another before then...

Suck it, skinny people! You're all doomed! Bwah-Ha-Ha!

Causes of Death Are Linked to a Person’s Weight - New York Times (Via Boing Boing)

...overweight people have a lower death rate because they are much less likely to die from a grab bag of diseases that includes Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, infections and lung disease.

I had my heart set on an iPod touch [sic on that lowercase t!] for Xmas....

But now I'm not so sure.

The early buzz on the Nokia N810 tablet is great. And I freely admit, the addition of a thumb-keyboard on it seems to make it worth it. Seriously, what does the iPod touch give me other than two finger zoom in and out on a Web page?

Still, I seriously like that two-finger zoom thing tho.

Then the rumor is out today about a new Apple tablet coming out "someday" that might incorporate the zooming of the touch with the computing goodness of a regular tablet PC (but smaller I assume). Dammit.

I think maybe I'll just ask for flannel-lined jeans for Xmas to keep me warm, and then buy whatever the hell I want after Apple makes it's next announcement. (The kicker of course is, I don't need ANY of these things. I have eight working or mostly working PCs in my house. Five right here in the basement with me right now. I'm just an addict.)

I hereby rescind my request for an iPod touch.

More searching found some updates on the situation for the staff at The Office and it's not good. So many of the actors are also writers, they basically are being forced to cross the picket lines to work on scripts that are already done.

Turns out the studios are also making showrunners -- the producers who run the shows day to day, the majority of which are also the head-writers (think Shonda Rhimes at Grey's Anatomy, or Joss Whedon on any of his old shows, David E. Kelley) -- show up to guide production. So even though Grey's and Office have enough scripts to shoot for a few more weeks, they may not have the boss there to get them done.

Poor Tina Fey... the star, the head writer, and the showrunner of 30 Rock all in one...

Multi-camera sitcoms (like Two and a Half Men) are probably going to shut down instantly. They write to much while they shoot. They're toast.

(via Variety)

The Writer Guilds' Strike is underway in L.A. and elsewhere. Woohoo! Go writers! Get them DVD/download residuals!

For those who just watch TV, well, the awful truth of the soon-to-come-lack of programming is upon us. No more Daily Show or Colbert Report for the time being. That's just for starters. Most shows work several weeks in advance, but certainly note an entire season for most.

There are exceptions. The Wire, one of the top ten television shows of ALL FRICKIN' TIME even tho I can't seem to convince anyone to watch it (for everyone I know is dumb as a sack of hammers, apparently), has completely shot and finished it's fifth and final season to start in January. Hallelujah! Sing it! w00t!

(The other greatest cop show of all time, The Sheild, has its final season all written, but not shot. Only FX knows when that'll air.)

But what of the other shows that were supposed to start in January? Like, oh, I dunno, a little program called LOST? According to the handy-dandy LA Times TV show strike Cheat-Sheet (requires registration to view), there's eight episodes in the can. Out of what was supposed to be a truncated 16 episode season 3. If we see eight we might be lucky.

24 only has about 8 eps done. Will they change the name of the show?

Scrubs is "expected to complete 12 of 18 episodes" and since it was the last season, if the strike goes long, that's probably going to be all we get.

Battlestar Galactica has a four hour prequel miniseries on SciFi this month, and was coming back next year for a final season. 10 episodes are done... will they end prematurely as well?

No word on Heroes or The Office or Grey's Anatomy or Pushing Daisies, tho. Bastards. PD might be in trouble, as it costs a lot and the ratings have been going down. The strike may kill it outright. Same with Bionic Woman.

The BBC reports that the next Bond flick and the Wolverine prequel will probably get held up, which means fewer summer popcorn blockbusters in 2009.

Not exchanges I've made at stores -- though I really should write up a bitter snipey post about dealing with the dumbkoff's of Verizon Wireless in trying to get my brother a new smartphone -- but instead some exchanges I overheard between people while out shopping recently...

Couple at the jewelry counter at the new Kohl's in town:
Man: I just want a watch I can wear, not jewelry.
Woman: Watches are like the only jewelry guys can wear.
Man: I want something I can just put on and never take off, and even wear in the shower.
Woman: You want something ugly, then.

Mother shopping for clothes at Macy's with teenage daughter:
Daughter: I'm so sick of coming in second.
Mom: That's nonsense.
Daughter: (Whining) I'm not even second. I'm more like eighth! Cause she's first and then second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh!
Mom: (not paying attention) That's nonsense.

In other news... I'll do anything to avoid writing. I mean, c'mon... I've put off learning anything about Google Notebook (which I thought was different from Google Bookmarks, but perhaps they've merged) until tonight, when I just HAD to screw about with it for an hour and learn every way I could use it in my daily life. (Which is quite a bit, but still. C'mon.) Pathetic.

I forget the term from VP that was banded about for this kind of time wasting. Cat flossing? Someone help me out. We really should start a VP glossary... maybe I'll go suggest that in our online forum. Yeah! That should eat up another few minutes...

I'm so glad there's going to be a writer's strike.

Not because I hate writers... uh, duh. In fact, I hope the Writer's Guild squeeze the bigshots dry for all they can get. You can bet your ass when every show on TV goes dark, the big-wigs will still make money. It's the writers who won't -- nor will any other poor schmuck who lives off TV and movies, from the craft services to the costumers to the camera men. I'm not usually a big believer in the unions, but they do good work for auto workers and in Hollywood, even though there's a lot of collaterally damaged folks.

No, I'm just tired of TV. There. I said it. It hurts to admit, but I'm just not into it this year. There's three shows I feel are "appointment TV" (The Office, Grey's Anatomy, and the absolutely delightful Pushing Daisies, which makes me just cackle with glee throughout). I'm just watching too many other shows through inertia. I can't stand starting a story and not seeing how it finishes. It's why I've got movies on my TiVo that are over a year old... I watched the first few minutes, surely I'll finish them at some point.

I'd almost like the TiVo to break, too.

Do I really think Reaper will reveal anything that might kill the contract with the Devil? Do I care if Kara gets her crystal back? Who gives a shit if the chick on Tell Me You Love Me is pregnant, that show only exists to show sex scenes!

At least South Park's recent trilogy was enjoyable.

In part, I feel this way because its November. That's writing month, as in, it's National Novel Writing Month. I participated the last two years, and it helped me focus on getting the writing done and allowing myself to suck (a tenet of what we were taught at Viable Paradise). I'm not participating officially this year, but I'm still planning to crank out my 50,000 words anyway. Cause my new novel needs the attention after I have let it languish for so long after VP while I deal melodramatically with being "blocked" (AKA, lazy).

Sadly, the strike's effects on viewers won't even kick in until after November -- Heroes is already refilming scenes to make a season ender for December, just in case -- but maybe that means I'll get even more written after Thanksgiving. Har.

My friend Josh has had a lot of physical ailments of late (detailed in excruciating pain at his Medical Mystery Tour entry), culminating in another surgery this past Monday. He was supposed to get a stone taken out of his kidney; instead, they ended up calling his wife at home and asking permission to remove the entire god-damn organ. Good things come in pairs, especially items that filter your blood to make glorious urine. I'm sure that's no consolation for him.

Anyway, knowing he has Internet access in the hospital, I thought I'd let Josh know here publicly my thoughts are with him. He's made me see clearly that my one instance of kidney stone pain could have been a lot, lot worse.

It's a hey-day of non-Winders-based Web surfing out there. (This from the guy who just bout a Vista desktop and has four other Windows XP systems in the house). Plus they'e all small and (relatively) inexpensive. Between the new EeePC ($400), the Nokia Interent Tablets (like the cool N810 coming in a couple weeks for $470), and, of course, iPhone/iPod Touch, I think we're that much closer to getting a plug in the neck so we can jack Web pages into our think-meat.

I'll settle for getting an iPod Touch, tho.

Yeah, that's a god-damn subtle hint to my family for Xmas.

The site of a coffin that looks like the photon torpedo they used to "bury" Spock almost makes me wish I didn't want to be cremated... and then I see they're also selling Star Trek inspired urns. Sweet. I just wish it looked more like Odo's bucket.

Star Trek themed ash urns and caskets - via Boing Boing

The new STAR TREK Urn will feature a bold design reminiscent of the 24th century styling of the United Federation of Planets and Starfleet. Urns will be available in late 2007.

The STAR TREK Casket styling has been inspired by the popular “Photon Torpedo” design seen in STAR TREK II: The Wrath of Kahn. Caskets will be available in 2008.