In a belated response to ces in my Thanksgiving journal:

Krauts don't do pie? You are kidding right? The poor bastards don't know what they are missing. I know pie isn't unknown in Europe, heck my two pie plates were made in France and Belgium.

There isn't even an exact word to translate "pie" into German. (Seriously.) While German-English dictionaries list translations for "pie", none of them are really correct -- Pastete is what we'd call a pasty, Obstkuchen is literally "fruitcake", Torte is (what else) a torte (i.e. a kind of cake), and so on. It's also always a chore trying to explain to Germans what pie is, because they just don't have anything similar. Worse, some are aware of McDonald's "pie" -- and think that's what pie is. Even so-called American restaurants (yes, they exist) rarely have pie, at least not that I've ever seen (what they do have is burgers, hot dogs, various sandwiches, and fries, which strikes me as an oddly limited idea of "American" food).

Usually only those who have been to America, Britain or downunder for some time will know what pie is. Others don't have the foggiest. So any pie-making equipment -- pie tins and pastry cutters especially -- has to be imported or improvised.

OTOH German baked goods are a wonder to behold (no pun intended, honest). Their bread is incredible. One of the first things I miss when in America is German bread, whether it's Brötchen or any of the bazillion kinds of Vollkornbrot (whole-grain bread). Trust me, bread like this is a true rarity in America (so-called pumpernickel is a joke in comparison), and here it's on every street corner and in every grocery store.

Since Short Circuit caved on MySpace (something which I have yet to do), I did cave yesterday on something else.

I finally own an iPod.

As it happens I have to make a trip to Karlsruhe tomorrow that I'm really not looking forward to (visiting a "potential" new client who's been "potential" for months and who is very shall we say old-fashioned, and who insists on meeting face-to-face before proceeding). The train ride is four and a half hours one-way (don't even ask about a car ride -- more like six hours through some of Germany's worst traffic), so I probably won't be home until midnight. So I decided it was time to finally ditch the old Sony CD player (which is now hooked up to our old stereo anyway) and get an iPod -- and to provide me with something to cheer me up at having to go on this trip.

I'll also have to wear a tie again. Yecch. I hate ties (comes from having been at a boarding school where they were mandatory, I suppose). Except for my cherished Bugs Bunny one. So I'm wearing it.

So I zoomed off to the store yesterday (ah, it's nice to live within five minutes of downtown by bike) and got one.

It's the smallest one (2 GB nano aluminum) save the Shuffle, though I did consider just getting the Shuffle. I ended up getting the nano instead because I figured it is nice to at least be able to choose songs if I'm in the mood for something, but the nano's still small enough that I can clip it to my clothing (OK, so I have to buy the clip or armband). And it's relatively cheap, at a "mere" €149.

2 GB also happens to be just big enough for my Top Rated library.

Besides, the things are practically throwaways. They last two years, the battery dies and you get a new one. So why buy the bigger ones? :-P

First complaint: Jesus, do the headphones suck. I expected a lot more out of them. (I do have others that I can use, though, and I suppose it's better using them than the "HEY YOU, MUG ME" white iPod ones.) But the display is very nice, and I (surprise) really like the scroll wheel. It's also striking how tiny it is compared to the older iPods...

But hey, I am finally an iPod owner. Yay me. Or I suck. Not sure which. (Probably the latter.)

Turkey Day Ethelred style is now over. Though this year we left out the parades, the hordes of court jesters, the gladiatorial battles in the Imperial Colosseum and can-can dancers, and just had a quiet dinner with the kids, Gloriana's godmothers and a new American friend who babysat the kids the other day.

Our guests really enjoyed my cookin'. We had:

• Roasted turkey breast with thyme, sage, and pepper, and wrapped in bacon strips, basted with melted butter
• Creamed corn Southern style (with milk and grits)
• Candied carrots
• New potatoes
• Cranberry sauce in its proper form (i.e. shaped like a can, extra imported from America for the occasion...can't get cranberry sauce over here)
• STUFFING!

As always, it was...interesting...trying to get and/or improvise the necessary ingredients, as the heathen running-dog Krauts are such infidels that they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, nor do they provide all the stuff needed in convenient pre-packaged consumerist bliss. Thus everything...and I mean everything...is from scratch, not because we're Ultra Gourmets, but because we have no choice. (Tuxette, stop sniggering.)

For dessert, BoE made a pumpkin pie from scratch -- from Hokkaido squash (we couldn't find "regular" pumpkins). Turned out pretty well, though the one pumpkin was still a bit green. (The pie was done on our pie pans imported from America, using English units measuring cups and spoons from America, with Crisco shortening from a foreign food import store. See, Germans don't do pie. Infidels!)

One of Gloriana's godmothers spent some time in Ohio and was thus familiar with Thanksgiving. When I invited her, she said she would happily come late, but just in time for the pie. As it was, she came on time and loved the turkey.

The new American friend, oddly enough, is from Ohio, and is a Fulbright scholar (wooo!). Nice person, and good with the kids -- especially with Gloriana. Meanwhile, when asked for her impression of the Confessor, she responded, "Wild."

Meanwhile the House of Unraed discontinued two of its annual Thanksgiving traditions. One was the "hunt for the meat thermometer and go out and buy a new one" tradition, as I actually found it without having to search around. The other was the "Ethelred prepares far too much food, as in two to three times too much" tradition. Amazingly we only had a bit of carrots left over, but everyone was top full (though I got lucky, because the other godmother ended up not bringing her son -- otherwise we probably would have had too little). Success!

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all. As a small bit to lighten your day, I give you this picture, which has nothing to do with Thanksgiving whatsoever, but is strangely amusing in a guffaw sort of way.

As the subject of this JE says, I'm looking around for a video conferencing software exists (preferably free-as-in-beer) that can be used for a three-way conference between Macs and Windows XP compies.

iChat AV works with AIM on Windows, but AFAIK only for two-way conferences.

Anyone? Buehler?

Leave Christmas alone, say Muslims

Muslim leaders joined their Christian counterparts yesterday to launch a powerful attack on politicians and town halls that play down Christmas.

They warned that attempts to remove religion from the festival were fuelling Right-wing extremism.

A number of town halls have tried to excise references to Christianity from Christmas, in one case by renaming their municipal celebrations "Winterval".

They have often justified their actions by saying Britain is now a multi-faith society and they are anxious to avoid offending minority groups.

But the Muslim leaders said they honoured Christmas and that local authorities were playing into the hands of extremists who were able to blame Muslim communities for undermining Britain's Christian culture.

The unprecedented broadside was delivered by the Christian Muslim Forum, which was launched this year by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, with the support of Tony Blair.

The forum's reaction reflects growing anger among Christians and other faiths about the efforts of secularists to push religion to the margins of public life.

In 1998 Birmingham renamed its celebrations "Winterval", and in 2001 Luton described its Christmas lights as "luminos", taken from Harry Potter.

Last week, the Church of England criticised Royal Mail for issuing Christmas stamps with no Christian theme.

The forum, which draws half its membership from senior members of the Muslim community, said in a statement that "as Muslims and Christians together" it was "wholeheartedly committed" to the religious recognition of Christian festivals.

"Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Jesus and we wish this significant part of the Christian heritage of this country to remain an acknowledged part of national life.

"The desire to secularise religious festivals is offensive to both of our communities."

The statement, signed by the forum's chairman, the Bishop of Bolton, the Rt Rev David Gillett, and its vice-chairman, Dr Ataullah Siddiqui, urged society to promote religious freedom.

"Those who use the fact of religious pluralism as an excuse to de-Christianise British society unthinkingly become recruiting agents for the extreme Right. They provoke antagonism towards Muslims and others by foisting on them an anti-Christian agenda they do not hold."

Bishop Gillett said in a separate article that it was strange that so many public bodies were nervous or dismissive about Christmas when 72 per cent of Britons described themselves as Christian in the 2001 Census.

Any repetition by councils to rename Christmas so as not to offend other faith communities will "backfire badly" on the Muslim community, he said. "Sadly it is they who get the blame -- and for something they are not saying."

I vote mainly for Democrats because their loonies are slightly less unpalatable to me than the loonies on the other side.

'Nuff said.

...

Unraed-Dragon in '08! Cast your vote, seal your fate! Burnination shall turn the tide, vote for us or we'll have your hide!

POLL:

I would marry this woman.

5) In a heartbeat!
H) Yes, and I voted for her in the New York Senate election.
pi) *sigh*
q) I am married to that woman. w00t!
?) I am that woman. Worship me!

PS: As a reminder, here is an alternate theory. Er, something along those lines.

Well, this has to be one of the stranger bugs I've seen on Slashdot in a while: When trying to reply to someone's post, I discovered that the "Reply to this" button had magically disappeared. In all views.

At first I thought maybe someone had foed me and the JE was "Friends Only" or something, but no, nothing of the sort. Oddly, the "Reply" button at the top was still there. But no "Reply to this" buttons anywhere.

I tried various views, tried turning the new-fangled discussion mode on and off, and so on, to no avail.

I do suddenly have mod points (not that I intend to use them). Maybe it's that, though it never prevented me from posting before.

I did, however, discover a workaround, which I generously present here to prove what a swell guy I am:

1. Click on the comment ID number (the longish number starting with a pound sign # at the right of the grey bar about the post).
2. You should just see that one comment (along with any child comments). Now click on the "Reply" button at the top right of the screen in the green bar.
3. ???
4. PROFIT!*

Interestingly, the two-minute limit on posting comments also seems to be disabled all of a sudden. Go figure.

* - The use of the Dilbert PROFIT! joke is henceforth mandatory for all bullet and numbered lists. Failure to comply will be punished by being forced into Jell-O wrestling with a nubile Scarlett Johansson. You have been warned.

A friend who is also a graphic designer sent me a small graphic to identify the font. She was a bit stumped and needed me to have a look.

Of course, graphic designers need to be able to identify fonts, at least a fair number of them. Most can identify quite a few at a glance, though with the sheer thousands of fonts that have come out in recent years, that's becoming increasingly difficult -- in particular because there are a lot of knock-off and imitation fonts.

Well, I now have plentiful evidence that my friend needs a vacation. The font she couldn't identify was...wait for it...Times New Roman in bold italic. I double-checked to be sure, because I thought that maybe it was some similar font or that I might have been missing something, but sure enough, it's an exact match.

Ouch.

Slowly but surely, the Unraed-Dragon '08 shadow cabinet is forming.

(For those of you who would be so impertinent to claim that "shadow cabinets" are not a feature of American democracy, but of parliamentary ones, may I remind you that the Unraed-Dragon dungeons are always open for business 24/7 and are ready to welcome you with their full service package.)

EXECUTIVE

Supreme Executive and Tim Curry Lookalike (formerly known as "President")
His Imperial Stupendousness God-Emperor Ethelred "Atreides Are My Bitches" Unraed

Tiara-Bearing Viceroy (formerly known as "Vice President")
Her Sulfurous Majesty SolemnDragon

CABINET

Department of Imperial Security
HokieSeas

Minister of Medicinal Magick (a.k.a. 3M, formerly known as "FDA Director")
janeowit

Minister of Sychophancy
TechnoLust (voted Most Likely to End First Cabinet Reshuffle in a Dungeon)

Minister of Impalement on Flying Pointy Things
johndiii

Minister of Education at Sea
jawtheshark

Minister of Ikea and Squirrels
Some Woman

minister without portfolio (will sit quietly in the corner)
subgeek

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

Cigar-Chomping Field-Marshall and Generalissimo
Em Emalb (with six stars on his epaulets)

Admiral of the Red Banner Fleet
aridhol (with stripes all up his sleeves)

Court Jester to the Blind (i.e. chief of the Air Force)
nizo

NASA Director and Space Command
rk (where the "k" stands for "kirk")

OTHER IMPERIAL COMMISSIONS OF NOTE

Ambassador to the Solar Federation
gmhowell

Ambassador to Kellogg's
RevMike

Imperial BOFH
Timex

Governor of New York and the Lands Formerly Known as Connecticut
ellem

Warden of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
FortKnox

Baseball Commissioner (after the Twins are granted World Series victories in advance for the next 100,000 years)
RailGunner

Special Ambassador to Latex-Producing Nations
btlzu2

Warden of the Imperial Archives
Tet

First in line for the dungeons
Keith Russell

Test Run for Unperson Program and Memory Holes
eglamkowski

Now that my running mate has selected a number of slogans, I have had the pleasure of receiving some photos from the campaign trail.

Your future leader

Some of our thralls

Don't forget the campaign poster

I tell you, McCain, Hillary, Kerry, Gore and all the others ain't got nothin' on Unraed-Dragon.

ETHELRED OR DEAD! IT'S YOUR FATE IN 2008!

rk mentioned the MyHeritage face recognition widget here. So I of course gave it a whirl with the only photo of me, the Confessor and Gloriana that I could find quickly (I'm sure I have others, but unfortunately in this one the Confessor has his eyes closed).

The results, however, are hilarious.

For Gloriana, though, the results are fairly normal:

Dakota Fanning 74%
Kate Bosworth 73%
Martine McCutcheon 66%
Candace Cameron 64%
Brandy Norwood (?!) 64%
Judy Garland 63%
Kirsten Dunst 62%
Marianne Faithfull 62%
Kylie Minogue 59%
Rachael Leigh Cook 59%

I mean, I know Gloriana's cute and all, but damn. ('Course, it is a bit of a cruel joke from the big dude upstairs that this bundle of hotness is my daughter.)

For Ethelred (brace yourselves):

Tim Curry 60%
J. Edgar Hoover 55%
James Coburn 55%
Aidan Quinn 54%
Francis Ford Coppola 53%
Steven Spielberg 52%
Goldie Hawn 51%
Lothar Matthäus (German soccer star) 50%

And the kickers:

Fidel Castro 48%
Beyoncé Knowles (WTF?!) 47%

For the Confessor:

William Moseley 73%
Ai Otsuka (WTF?!?!?!) 73%
Serena Williams (WTWTF?!?!?!) 71%
Alison Lohman 68%
Patricia Arquette 67%
Rachael Leigh Cook (interesting, since she showed up for Gloriana, too) 66%
Veronica Ferres (German actress) 66%
Tiiu Kuik (supermodel) 64%
Pete Doherty 64%
Eva Herzigova 63%

So basically the Confessor, according to this thing, looks like a bunch of hawttt women and one man who looks like he's used too much cocaine. They will probably be the first ones up against the wall when his time to seize power comes.

Meanwhile, these other results for Gloriana reinforce her cuteness factor. :-)

And this other set of results for yours truly is so funny that I'll just let you click through them yourselves.

And the results on this one are also a riot...especially the Confessor's. Check out what numbers 3 and 7 are for him.

But the ultimate result? This photo of me and the Confessor as a baby -- check out #3 for the Confessor.

I rest my case.

After long and intensive discussions to sound out the electorate, I have decided to throw my Pickelhaube into the ring and declare my candidacy for President of the United States in 2008.

My first choice for running mate, I am delighted to say, has accepted my offer -- so we can announce the Dream Ticket:

Vote Ethelred-Dragon in 2008!

We promise wanton destruction; eternal unremitting servitude; occasional annihilation of small villages by flying reptiles to serve as an example; and a chicken in every pot (in our kitchen). We also promise to rename the United States of America to Ulterior Motive of Ethelredia, with the District of Columbia destroyed in a concerted dragon burnination and then renamed Crater of Solemn, where the Hoard of Ethelred (the new name of our Treasury) will reside (in the form of a big pile of loot). All shiny objects will henceforth be the property of SolemnDragon, unless they emit lasers or projectiles, in which case I got dibs. Oh yes, and all politicians from before our regime will be enslaved in our Imperial Coliseum for various new kinds of bloodsports, to be invented by our Minister of Sport (see below).

I nominate Em Emalb to be our cigar-chomping Minister of Defense (secretaries are soooo 20th century) and Field-Marshall for our conquests (but not too much, lest it go to his head), FortKnox to run Fort Knox, Some Woman to be Minister of Ikea, Smoochy-Bear to Warden of the Privy Council (if I ever have to take a leak), and arb to be Minister of Sport (with footie to be the new national sport).

All other applicants for positions in our Administration (to be posted below) must have the following qualifications:

1. Simpering acquiescence
2. Willingness to take a bullet for us (maybe even from us on a whim)
3. Blatant sycophancy
4. Lack of imagination beyond tying shoelaces in interesting ways
5. Suicidal dedication to our cause

Vote Ethelred for God-Emperor (formerly known as President) and SolemnDragon for Tiara-Wearing Burninator-in-Chief (formerly known as Dick Cheney)! Victory will be ours! As my esteemed colleague and running-mate has said:

If you can't beat em, burn 'em, yeah THAT will learn 'em!

I was subjected to some kind of Slashdot hit job, so I will respond vigorously here.

OK, let's talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.

I'm being asked this on Slashdot. Digg just had a geek run in their little "Dictators On Hold" blog falsely claiming it was based on the book "Dictatorships for Dummies", with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the "Dictatorships for Dummies" book.

And I think it's very interesting that all the Slashdot readers, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with planning to seize power. All of those slashbots thought I was too obsessed with planning. They had no meetings on becoming my minions for nine months after I wrote my first journal. All the Slashdotters who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much -- same people.

They were all trying to get me to stop playing Risk in 2003 the next day after I lost Siam, and I refused to do it and stayed six months and conquered Australia.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms: Smoochy-Bear, FotoKon. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that my photo had anything to do with Smoochy-Bear shaving his head or was paying any attention to it or even knew Smoochy-Bear's hair was a growing concern in October of 2003.

But it would've shown the weirdness if we'd left him bald right then, but I wasn't involved in that. That's just a bunch of bull. That was about Some Woman, a feminist warlord, hijacking 22 of my journals. I was writing as a humanitarian mission. I had no mission, none, to establish a certain kind of discussion or to keep anybody out.

Now, if you want to criticize me for one thing, you can criticize me for this: After the Confessor was born, I had battle plans drawn to go into Washington, overthrow the government, and launch a full-scale attack on the rest of the world.

But I needed henchmen, minions, in Uzbekistan, which I still haven't got.

But at least I tried. That's the difference in me and some, including all the Slashdotters who are attacking me now. They ridiculed me for trying. They had eight months to try. They did not try. I tried.

So you did Slashdot's bidding on this journal. You did your nice little Slashdot hit job on me. I want to know how many other would-be dictators you've asked that question.

And you've got that little smirk on your face and you think you're so clever. But I had the thirst for conquering this country. I tried and I failed to get Smoochy-Bear a wig. I regret it. But I did try. And I did everything I thought I responsibly could.

...

(For those living under a rock, this is based on this.)

This began as a response to NeMon'ess' journal, but took on a life of its own:

...

The cynic in me wants the Democrats to lose, maybe by only a hair.

Think about it. Two more years of this sort of thing...and then what happens? The Republican Party would practically collapse. Who knows, maybe the Libertarian Party (or some other movement, say the Greens) would even become a major third force (or at least the more libertarian types in the GOP would say "screw this, we're leaving"). I'm not really a fan of American Libertarianism, but it's a damned sight better than the B.S. ideology that the Bush Administration has been pushing for six years.

OTOH I'm not too sure the country can take two more years of said B.S. ideology.

Even so, if the Democrats win big, it pretty much means a Republican in the White House again in 2008 (Americans usually don't like to have the same party control both the legislative and executive branches) -- one who will probably be an improvement over Bush, but one who will also likely be just as beholden to the same groups as Bush is now: fundamentalist Christians, neo-conservatives, know-nothing nationalists and energy companies.

And I'm not sure the Democrats are even ready. I'm singularly unimpressed by their current leadership: Their impending victory (if polls are to be believed, which they probably shouldn't be) isn't the result of their own skill or ability, but because of the spectacular political failures of the Bush Administration. Warner would have been halfway interesting, but the rest are just talking heads (including Hillary). Edwards is the closest thing, but after his horrendous performance against Cheney in the debate in 2004, I've lost patience with him. None (except perhaps Hillary) are remotely as talented as Bill Clinton was (is!), and none really have any interesting ideas except to bash Bush.

Thus two more years in the wilderness could actually help them until a new leader emerges (Obama? Warner again? Clark? Someone else not even on the radar yet? Maybe even a crossover from the Republicans, such as Chaffee or Bloomberg or -- if things got weird enough -- Giuliani?). And as a leftish kinda guy who likes to think more long-term, that sounds like a better idea to me.

Thus I'm not really looking forward to a big win for the Democrats. In fact, none of the current options looks terribly good to me.

So my absentee ballot sits awaiting sufficient postage. And I wasn't too pleased picking though the ugly options. *sigh*

Oh well. At least it is an optical ballot, for fsck's sake. Diebold and pals can shove their touchscreens right up their ungreased asses.