critters from the ocean in Savannah

Danny and I went to Savannah on our annual holiday-time excursion and we ate lots of good stuff. Unfortunately we were denied entry to Paula Deen's restaurant this year due to massive crowds but we managed to eat quite well anyway. We had a low country shrimp boil for lunch, outstanding oysters for a snack, and then a very good meal at the Bistro Savannah which included clams for me and escargot for Danny.

saving white boy hip-hop DOUBLE TRUE

so I laughed and laughed over this digital short on SNL a few weeks ago: The Chronic(les) of Narnia.

as a massive hip-hop fan, I really think that this article is very detailed on the true meaning of The Chronic(les) of Narnia. Be sure to note the Beastie Boys shout out in the article.

lorelai, rory, maggie, and mozart

so I finished the first season of the Gilmore Girls and I have to admit that I am fully hooked. Damn you, Fran Green! I couldn't believe it that Max sent Lorelai 1000 yellow daisies and Dean and Rory got back together and that Lane found a nice Korean boy at a party. I wish my high school parties were quite like those.

Maggie and Mozart the basset hounds are visiting, they have been fine houseguests but I forgot that Maggie gets up early to eat breakfast. Lucy has done a good job of ignoring her and Oliver is clueless as always.

commentary about Disney television

so for my tv-ignorant friends, this will bore you even more than the rest of my blog.

Of course staying at a Disney resort adds Disney-ness to the experience, including the Mickey soap in the shower, the Mickey butter pats at the luncheon, the sorcerer-hat chocolate on the dessert at the luncheon just to name a few.

But you know TV is my closest friend so I am watching it at Disney and I am amused at the channel lineup. The beginning channels are standard networks; then there is a Radio Disney channel with a children's program with words captioning it (about Toy Story characters, of course, right now); a cartoon Disney channel; regular Disney channel (the network); a TV guide channel just for Disney tv; a WDW tour channel; a listing channel of all Disney activities; another Disney channel of informercials; another Disney channel showing "Disney vacation secrets revealed"; a regular Disney vacation channel; a channel showing Disney "company clips"; then more regular cable channels; then the networks, ESPN, PBS with closed captioning channels separate from regular channels; the Disney tour channel with CC; the Disney tour channel in Spanish; The Disney Vacation Club in Spanish; then two channels in Spanish; a German channel DW-TE; ESPN in Spanish (the Spanish language version); TV Japan; A China channel.

One of the Spanish channels, Telemundo, was talking about Matt Damon getting married yesterday. No escape.

they call it a convention

I am at the Florida Democratic Party Convention at Disney this weekend. It's a lot of rah-rah speeches mostly and then some parties. Truthfully most of it would totally bore the socks off of you but I'll give you some of the better highlights.

Probably the best thing that has happened so far is that I volunteered to help out briefly holding a "Stop Alito!" sign for those who were attending the luncheon to see, including Sen. Bill Nelson who will probably vote "yes." First a woman who I recognized as being important comes up and says "thank you for doing this! it's very important!" Of course I have no clue who she is. So I introduce myself and she says "I'm Pat Schroeder." I found out later that she is the longest-serving woman in the House of Representatives, from 1973-97.

Then someone comes by and says to me and a student I was talking to, "Hey do you need tickets for the luncheon?" and I say "uh sure" as they were $100 and I was not going to pay it. So I got in for free then there were no seats at all in the regular area and somehow the AFL-CIO table at the front has seats in its reserved table and they let us sit there, I was in the second row of tables from the front. John Edwards, former VP nominee and Senator from North Carolina, gave a great speech about poverty (he is now the director of a center about poverty at UNC).

Here is a link to a pretty good Florida politics website that has been doing blogging about the entire conference. Truthfully I have no better stories than that, it's been pretty standard fare other than having fireworks out my window every evening because it's Disney.

buying a goat

so I was bullied into hosting poker and the money collected in donations goes towards a charity each time. so...we bought a goat. yes, a goat, through World Vision Gifts. The usuals were involved in the cheating, eating, and smoking. no names revealed.