Bring it to the public's awareness!

Yesterday, while driving through Atlanta on the Downtown Connector, I saw a large billboard that said, "Google this: puppy mills."
Enough said.

It makes me happy

When people who I like like each other. And there's been a good bit of that in recent weeks.

Super awesome dark chocolate also makes me happy. Yum.

A happy 2010 to all y'all!

Hodgepodge

Yesterday, I saw a car with Christmas lights -- lit up -- strung through and around the roof rack.

There was a flock of birds that looked like an amoeba, pulsing in and out as the fowl dodged about in the wind.

In the mailbox, there was a Christmas card from our mail carrier. Also, in Sunday's paper, one from the delivery person.

Holidays are a great time for real mail. And visitors who are returning to see family. Sometimes, those visitors even have boxes of awesomeness.

Business-class flights include free alcohol.

I've just finished the first 24 hours of what will be an amazing week of delicious Indian food and fantastic friends. And a fluffy dog.

Good tidings, y'all.

And then we eat it

See this house? It's a pretty impressive house, right?

Now... imagine it made out of candy.

All the more amazing, right?

I went to the Cleveland Botanical Garden with a friend today to see the gingerbread houses (I can't seem to find pictures from this year's, and neither of us brought a camera), and was expecting some impressive work -- like the gingerbread treehouse, for example, or some pretty cute gingerbread churches. But we also saw that house. And it was amazing.

Also exciting? My brand new hat (It's the Yeti, but in Monster blue).

Regret the error

When journalists make mistakes in their work, they're supposed to acknowledge and fix those mistakes at the next possible opportunity -- in the next day's paper, by fixing it in an online story, by announcing the mistake on-air. I can really only speak for newspapers, but most, if not all, have a space for those corrections, often on page two.

There's a great Web site that tracks corrections, called Regret the Error. It gets the name from the last sentence of many corrections, which is often the publication saying that it does, in fact, regret having made the error.

They're often entertaining and interesting reads. But I want to call your attention to the 2009 best-of list.

The funny doesn't really start until four screens down (skip the fact-checking part unless you're inherently interested in that sort of thing and start with the Correction of the Year).

I'll let you read the correction itself, which is most unfortunate. And a number of the corrections contained in the list (or more appropriately, the mistakes that were made that led to the corrections being on that list) were hysterical. But the thing that made me laugh out loud while sitting at work was a Twitter meme referring to that correction of the year. Its hashtag is #washingtonpostcorrections and in case they're off the screen by the time you search it, it includes such gems as:

• PamPF99 Please note that The Monkees are in fact believers, and not heretics as reported. The Post regrets the error. #washingtonpostcorrections
• mistabaka: Mo money does not, as was reported, bring mo problems, we regret the error. #washingtonpostcorrections
• cobrown: Snoop Dogg did not, as we reported, contract the plague. It was his chronic that was bubonic. #washingtonpostcorrections
• jsmooth995: George Clinton has assured us his roof remains intact, and he takes fire safety quite seriously. #washingtonpostcorrections
• sethlipkin There is, in fact, a mountain high enough. The Post regrets the error. #washingtonpostcorrections
• nolamomma Dr. Dre is IN Public Enemy. He is not considered by law enforcement to be A public enemy. #washingtonpostcorrections

You get the picture.

And some real corrections (from the best-of) to whet your palate:

Toronto Sun: A headline on page one of the Toronto Sun yesterday was both inaccurate and misleading. In fact, as the story reported, the mother of a boy involved in a high school fight in Keswick said her son “said something stupid.” She did not say nor imply he was stupid. The Sun regrets the error and apologizes to the boy and his family.

Los Angeles Times: Bear sighting: An item in the National Briefing in Sunday’s Section A said a bear wandered into a grocery story in Hayward, Wis., on Friday and headed for the beer cooler. It was Thursday.

On Dasher, on Dancer...

Better, even, than seeing a mounted policeman?

A mounted policeman whose horse is wearing a Santa cap.

And as an added bonus: a Prius with the license plate "MO MPG."

Text message from my brother

You should start wearing a wwjd bracelet and whenever you look at it think, what would Jared do? :)

Damaged goods

I got this from a local law firm, and had to share the first paragraph:

The Consignee Has a Duty to Accept a Damaged Shipment

If girls were like consignees, I would have had a lot more dates in high school. The reason being, a consignee has a duty to accept, and cannot reject, a damaged shipment from the carrier, unless the goods are considered to be worthless. As a skinny kid with acne, I was certainly a damaged shipment, but I would not have considered myself worthless. I mean, I was on the football team and I even had a short stint with a garage band.

I think that says it all.

Or, the start of the next Scream movie

I have stalkers. You can tell from two subsequent text messages I got yesterday afternoon.

The first, at 4:15 p.m. -- "I'm by your house!"

The second, at 4:25 p.m. -- "I'm in ur house!"

OK -- the first was from my sister, who was in the neighborhood for what must have been a late lunch. And the second was from a friend who is staying with me this week, and who was kind enough to let me know my keys didn't give her any trouble.

But I was mightily amused by the timing and content.