The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Tracey S. Rosenberg:

Hmmm, it might actually be possible, though I'd probably have to come in on the Saturday. Any recommendations for youth hostels unlikely to be innudated with drunken British stag parties? (I get enough of that sort of thing in Britain....)

My knitting dropped to nearly zero when the semester started, thanks to a) those durn students and b) quinine-based antibiotics. (If I can't stand upright without wobbling, no way in hell am I holding pointy sticks.) Thank heavens for roleplaying and basic scarves - k2p2 is easy enough to interrupt when dice rolls are required!

One thing that I never understood about the 'I don't have to vaccinate my kid because the other kids are vaccinated' argument: your kid may one day decide to travel, yes? To a place where these diseases are still active, and vaccinations are not yet widespread? (See: 1250 cases of chicken pox reported in Delhi in the first three months of 2008.)

Perhaps 'travel' is just not part of the mindset here.

Oh, and I concur with the thumbs up for Ben Goldacre. Thanks to him (though IIRC it was one of his readers who actually went after her), one of these 'I'm a doctor, honest, and so what if my institution is a PO Box' people had to stop using her 'title'.

I'm going to be lying on the sofa, probably topped by a fuzzy blanket, undoubtedly topped by a cat, hoping the dizziness caused by my quinine-based antibiotics allow me to at least be sitting up so I can watch.

But if not, I'm sure I can still listen.

Dunno what British coverage will be like - BBC1 is giving it two hours, but ITV has Jon Snow over there so may give him more air time.

*valiantly resists the urge to type "There's an election?"*

*fails*

Meanwhile, here's an excellent yard sign:
http://betnoir.livejournal.com/1333584.html

But what if I love the smell of politicians?

(In the morning, natch.)

Oh, but the clothes aren't worth $150,000. (There goes Palin's post-campaign Louis Vuitton endorsement.) And most of the clothing never left the campaign plane. And no one said such mean things about Hillary EVER etc. etc.

But my favorite quote (from the LA Times blogs) is:

"It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign," said Tracey Schmitt of John McCain's campaign.

Schmitt also said: "With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it’s remarkable that we’re spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses."

You say pantsuits, I say Ayres....

Zombie!McCain:

BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS.....*confused*

And of course ramen is honored by Jorge Cham as part of the graduate student food pyramid, in the cheap foods you eat from a bowl tier.

I haven't been a graduate student for a while now, and yet the 'free food' urge has never left me. Kind of like my student loans....

John L@33 - because of a project I'm working on, I have a Google alert on Joseph Goebbels. Let's just say that the internet is making a hell of a lot of unflattering comparisons these days.

Michael@36 - I'm not sure what specifically you're referring to, but I just skimmed something online that pointed out that Palin's You Betchas etc. may be the result of some Minnesotans who moved to Alaska around the time of the Great Depression. Of course I now cannot pin down where I read this. Anyway - aha, there it is - I found that fascinating, and as an American who is occasionally (but ONLY occasionally) mistaken for Irish (??), I agree that accent changes aren't always a good indicator of anything important. I know plenty of expats whose accents change dramatically when they speak to their compatriots, and on many occasions I have been one of those expats, and I don't even notice when I do it.

Thanks, everyone! I went with pumpkin/tomato soup and roast pumpkin with other vegetables (and meanwhile baked three apple cakes from 2 pounds of apples), but I will note these recipes for the next pumpkin - which, if my friend's crop comes in, will be my task *next* weekend....

Anyone got any good pumpkin recipes? I just made soup (yum) and the seeds are drying in preparation for roasting, but I still have half the thing and my freezer is plenty full of soup for now.

Bonus points for a recipe that combines pumpkin with apple. Extra bonus points for a recipe that combines half a pumpkin with the entire contents of an apple tree....

I've been telling my students that anyone who gives me the flu flunks the course.

We'll see how that goes.

Michael @6 - I'm with you on missing the leaves turning. I can't say I miss the midwestern winters (ah, fond memories of Mom and Dad shoveling snow off the flat part of the roof...) but I do miss autumn.

I cut open a pumpkin today, though, and I smelled it a little.

And then there's Injun Summer. Anyone know if the Trib still runs it?

Many thanks to those who provided (and pointed me in better directions for) information about how race may be a factor in the election.

Now I, like Janet @25, will focus my worrying on the vote-counting....

Shinydan @4 -

A recent AP-Yahoo poll suggested that Obama would be polling as much as 6% higher were it not for racial prejudice.

Here's a recent AP article about it.

This is without taking into account the Bradley effect, which (if it exists here) we won't see until the returns come in.

There are other factors, of course, but race is not one to be underestimated.

Lizzy L @52: I'm toying with running a pool on a) when and b) for what reason Palin will be yanked out of her debate. Currently I'm thinking 816am on the day, for a family emergency involving her pregnant daughter.

Rymenhild @6 - I stick to grape juice, which I realize defeats the purpose.

Who Knows Thirteen? in one breath was my real party piece, but I do it in English which means I'm cutting out the singsong repetition of verse one, so it's much easier.

Good heavens, I suddenly I heard my dad talking. Thankfully, this is neither impending brain damage nor a surprise visit from Pa [not that I wouldn't be glad to see him], but a flashback to the Passover seder, in which this psalm is read.*

Now I have the urge to go sell that hamburger bun in the fridge to the nearest goy, and do all the verses of Chad Gadya in one breath.

*Rabbi Nathan Goldberg, Passover Haggadah: A New English Translation and Instructions for the Seder (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1966), p. 25.

Abi @3 - I'm with you. The older I get, the more I gratefully realize how much my family *didn't* screw me up.

(Well, except for when I was ten or eleven, and stayed home from school because I was running a fever, and my dad brought me a collection of Ray Bradbury stories and told me to read 'Fever Dream.')

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