...I can't quite bring myself to jettison my LJ entirely, having accumulated a body of reference and correspondence that I want to retain; that said, my present and future online homebase is:

http://full-metal-ox.dreamwidth.org/profile

From Froborr on My Little Po-MO:

The other night, I was rereading Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, and I wondered: would Ferguson be as bad as it is if all cops were required to read the Watch books?

And the answer is, of course, yes, because the human ability to compartmentalize and justify via special pleading is infinite, but still, I can't help but think that things might be slightly better if the prevailing cultural image of cop-as-hero was more Vimes and less Dirty Harry.

...Thank you for (among a thousand-and-three other things) being exactly the person I want at my side during Pulpfest; it's curiously validating to know I'm not the only one snickering at a New Pulp author's cameos by old Shaw Brothers characters or speculating about Kato's nationality.

A birthday gift of cyberflotsam: Emily Asher-Perrin on the subconscious intent (and perhaps karma) underlying the Doctor's metamorphoses: http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/08/not-some-new-man-the-hidden-pattern-behind-the-doctors-regenerations

The following passage comes from page 138 of Proofiness: How You're Being Fooled By the Numbers by Charles Seife. The source is an anonymous statistician, the context is a discussion of disputed elections, and the formatting is my own.

Humans counting things:
I don't care what the things are--
They're going to be off.

In the process of looking for something completely unrelated, I happened upon woogledesigns' thoughts upon the nature (and, indeed existence [or rather non-]) of Doctor Who canon:

Here's what I think: The Doctor remembers every Doctor Who story ever told. Every episode, target book, comic strip and every game of companions and TARDISes you played as a kid. The universe he lives in has no record of it, because paradoxes and divergent dimensions and the time war have reset things. But the Doctor remembers and sometimes when he is sad it's because you've stopped being 8 years old and he can't run around the school playground with you anymore.

(And the comments proceed to kick around the Timey-Wimey Calvinball.)

...on a day that makes the distinction between icing and frosting moot, both being in devastating abundance.

Your virtual birthday present: could I interest you in some strapping young military men (not Israeli, regrettably) performing an energetic Broadway musical number?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbLwmUdee64

Brithday links will follow; I just wanted to get this in on time.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.


http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/171/8/3/big_bear__water_snake_by_xuniquelyxweirdx-d546s5i.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNS3gibU9qA
http://www.artsycraftsy.com/dore/mariner_watersnakes.jpg
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/pogany/16.html
http://www.travelblog.org/Photos/5810333

Your own faith's chief winter holiday may fall a month or two after most people's, but I won't allow it to go overlooked; Happy New Year to kosaginolegion!