Telling it like it is

Hooray! . Common sense prevails. WalMart have announced that they're going to be using "Happy Christmas" this year instead of "Happy Holidays". It's probably because of pressure from religious groups, but frankly I'm glad they've come to their senses. After all, the name of the holiday is "Christmas". Fuck the people who are offended by that. If you're offended by the name of a holiday, you've got a mental problem.

I saw the coolest thing today. Russ, our resident astronomer, brought his telescope and solar filter in today and set it up on the grass outside the office. We were able to see Mercury transitting across the face of the sun. We could also see a giant sunspot that was bigger than Mercury, and probably bigger than earth. It was incredible. Made me remember how insignificant we really area. When you get some sort of scale and perspective like that, you realise how gigantic our ball of fire is that keeps us all warm and makes the planet work.

Wow! Things happen quickly in the Bush regime. The democrats took the House last night and it looks like they've got the Senate too. Fearing for his career, one of the four horsemen has "stepped down". That's right - Rumsfeld has legged it. That's an admission of guilt over the mess in Iraq if ever I saw one. Better yet, Bush has finally admitted that there are "problems" with his Iraq policy. Well - better late than never I suppose. Arrogant son of a bitch - it took losing the House to get him to admit his mistakes were 2000+ dead GI's wouldn't.

There's a track I've been listening to for some weeks now and today I went off to see what the lyrics actually were. The lyrics for the first verse are great and lovely and politically incorrect. Before you go and Leave this town I want to see you one more time Put your dirty angel face Between my legs And knicker lace 10 points if you can name the song and artist/band.

Well that was an adventure. I left for the UK on wednesday last week, arriving at Paula's mum and dad's house on thursday morning. I had a Ford Mundano for a rental car - a truly terrible piece of automotive machinery. The thing was underpowered, had terrible understeer and was an ergonomics nightmare. Why anyone would own one of those piles of shite is beyond me. On thursday I spent the day mostly asleep getting over the brunt of my jetlag and then on friday we went to visit some relatives. We put blind faith in the TomTom GPS and it took us right there, despite going a nice picturesque route that none of us knew about. On the way back we stopped at Paula's brother's house for a couple of hours to visit their family, and their new cat Elmo. On friday morning, I had to get up at 5:00 for a 7:00 flight to Holland. Gatwick hasn't changed - it's still a nightmare shopping mall with aircraft that land there. And as usual, none of the moving walkways were working, b...