Quote of the Day

"Common sense and a sense of humor are the same thing, moving at different speeds. A sense of humor is just common sense, dancing."

-William James

Happy Birthday, Mister Hamilton

From today's Writer's Almanac

It's the birthday of one of the founding fathers of our country, Alexander Hamilton, born in the British West Indies (1755, some sources say 1757). He's the man on the $10 bill.

He grew up on the tiny island of Nevis, where his father abandoned the family and his mother died when he was just a boy. He was taken in by a local merchant who gave him a job at a general store. He turned out to be quite good at accounting, so when he was thirteen, his boss took a trip to Europe and left young Alexander in charge of the store. He started writing on the side, and an article about a recent hurricane so impressed the adults around him that they all pitched in to pay for his passage to New York, where he could attend school.

He arrived in America just as rebellion against Great Britain was brewing, and he immediately began to write for New York newspapers in support of the colonies' rights. He impressed George Washington so much that he became Washington's right hand man when he was barely twenty-years old. After the revolution, when many American politicians believed that the colonies should remain mostly independent of each other, Hamilton was one of the earliest supporters of a strong central government.

In just three years, between 1787 and 1790, he served on the constitutional convention, wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, (which helped garner support for the new constitution) became the first secretary of the treasury, and set up the U.S. National Bank.

While serving on Washington's cabinet, Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson became bitter enemies, and set out to undermine each other with gossip about each other's scandalous private lives. Hamilton was having an affair at the time, and there were rumors that Jefferson had had children with one of his slaves. But despite their bitter rivalry, Hamilton later spoke in favor of Jefferson as president over Aaron Burr, whom he considered a scoundrel.

Four years later, Burr challenged him to a duel. They met at sunrise in a wooded area of Weehawken, New Jersey, above the Hudson River. Hamilton showed up for the duel to prove his courage, but he purposely fired his gun straight up into the air. Burr aimed at him anyway, and Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day.

He hasn't been as well remembered as Washington or Jefferson, but by setting up the national treasury, the national bank, the first budgetary and tax systems, and most of all by helping gather support for the U.S. constitution, he did more to design the system of government we now live under than almost any other man.

The columnist George F. Will said, "We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country."

Alexander Hamilton wrote, "The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature by the hand of the divinity itself and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

It's also William James's birthday. He was Henry James's philosopher/early psyschologist brother who wrote better than his more famous sibling. He's also the man responsible for the concept of "stream of consciousness" writing.

*whistling into the wind*

HAPPY (belated) BIRTHDAY, MAGGIE

Sorry I didn't get to send you your present in time, but it's stuck in Japan, keeping ET's Christmas and birthday presents company.

Hope you had a groovalicious birthday....

~sugarkat
*slinks into corner*
*guilt*
*guilt*
*guilt*

Bwa-hahahahahahaha!

From Associated Press on Yahoo! News - CNN Lets 'Crossfire' Host Carlson Go:

"I guess I come down more firmly in the Jon Stewart camp," Klein told The Associated Press.

Random Whedon Quote

People who are prettier than me are not supposed to be funnier than me.

- on Nathan Fillion

Now Blogging This

As stated in a previous entry, I was considering not continuing this blog. But since Maggie asked me to do otherwise and as Maggie is cool, I've decided to post my annual Xmas Booty post to commemorate the continuation of the blogness.

whut i dun got

• From my elder sister, E-- and her little tribelet:
  THE box set: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Platinum Series Special Extended Edition Collector's Gift Set)
  yee-haw!




• [edit 1/2/05] from my sister E--:
  Orlando Bloom 2004 calendar, featuring pics of him looking all snuggly in bed
  silly big sister




• from my sister E--'s two boys:
  Muppet Show: Music Mayhem & More - 25th Anniversary Collection CD




• [edit 1/2/05] from my sister E--'s eldest, J--:
  a very nasty cold
  gee, thanks, kid




• from my little brother, D--:
  Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy DVD
  Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, David Sedaris
  le yay




• from my eldest sister, J-- and her tribe en France:
  ...dunno, as whichever company she ordered it from is taking their own sweet time in getting the package to me
  
  [edit 1/2/05] Actually, it got here in plenty of time. Mom just couldn't be bothered to check with J-- who was supposed to get what. Nice, huh?
  I got a very pretty red scarf, the type you wear decoratively, not the warm kind




• from mes parents:
  ticket to go see Democracy the new play by the fellow who wrote Copenhagen...neither of which any of you know and/or give a damn about




• from friend Danielle:
  Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow ... Right! CD




• from friend Lorin:
  Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl DVD




• from friend Mitsuki-chan:
  Chinatown versions of Kerokerokeroppi wallet, coinpurse, and drawstring bag to make up for my (legit) Kerokerokeroppi wallet being stolen the week before Christmas
  ...aww, how sweet! yay!

Where's it at, Sugar Kat?

Um, nowhere, lil' bear.

I will not be making further updates to this blog until I hear from those who have been reading the blog. I'm assuming no one is at the moment, so, really, what's the point?

Anyway, I've been too busy failing my classes since Grandma's funeral to maintain this thing.

If you're actually reading and want updates, please post a comment. Or e-mail me. If not, well, there we go.

Should be illegal, considering you have to PAY for incoming calls..

From a forwarded e-mail my family received from my techie brother-in-law:

In a few weeks, cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls on cell phones. Go to this link to put your cell number on the national Do Not Call list. It blocks your number for 5 years.

Here is online form

https://www.donotcall.gov/register/reg.aspx

Why I read The Pinstriped Bible

And so we wait through another Thanksgiving. Another tasteless American butterball turkey, as appetizing as one of Don Zimmer's old socks stuffed with sawdust, is placed before us by a relative we secretly don't like. Honey, how soon can we get out of here — and why, at the very least, isn't there some baseball news to distract me from the gloomy business of being thankful?

The Onion | Nation's Poor Win Election For Nation's Rich

"The Republican party—the party of industrial mega-capitalists, corporate financiers, power brokers, and the moneyed elite—would like to thank the undereducated rural poor, the struggling blue-collar workers in Middle America, and the God-fearing underpriviledged minorities who voted George W. Bush back into office," Karl Rove, senior advisor to Bush, told reporters at a press conference Monday. "You have selflessly sacrificed your well-being and voted against your own economic interest. For this, we humbly thank you."

What number are you?

You Are the Individualist

4 You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable. You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel.

fun with fetuses

I adopted a cute lil' ninja fetus
from Fetusmart! Hooray fetus!

Oh my lord, I must have this!

Totoro DX Plush Backpack -- Large.

GAH!

Faith quiz

Intersting results, considering I don't consider myself to be any of the top ten (or any of the rest of them, either) and was raised Catholic. I wonder what my mother would think of the number one group. Or my grandmother. I don't think Grandma would be pleased that I'm only 48% Roman Catholic. (Look how Quakery I am! Two Quaker groups in the top ten! ...Neo-Pagan...and New Age? The fuck? Usually whenever I'm talking about either of those groups, it's to mock them. And what the hell is Bahá'í, anyway?) 'Course, it's just a freakin' internet quiz, which means the results are flawed due to the nature of the limited and biased questioning. Still, I found it interesting, especially after hearing the first pleasant sermon at a Catholic church in decades this past Friday. Why does death bring out the best in priests? (Then again, he was young and enthusiastic with a very pleasant voice, which is persuasive in nearly any profession.)

Your Results:

The top score on the list below represents the faith that Belief-O-Matic, in its less than infinite wisdom, thinks most closely matches your beliefs. However, even a score of 100% does not mean that your views are all shared by this faith, or vice versa.

Belief-O-Matic then lists another 26 faiths in order of how much they have in common with your professed beliefs. The higher a faith appears on this list, the more closely it aligns with your thinking.

1. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (100%)
2. Liberal Quakers (95%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (83%)
4. Neo-Pagan (77%)
5. Orthodox Quaker (73%)
6. Reform Judaism (73%)
7. Bahá'í Faith (72%)
8. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (70%)
9. Sikhism (68%)
10. New Age (62%)
11. Jehovah's Witness (62%)
12. Secular Humanism (61%)
13. Mahayana Buddhism (60%)
14. Theravada Buddhism (58%)
15. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (58%)
16. Orthodox Judaism (55%)
17. Jainism (50%)
18. Taoism (49%)
19. Eastern Orthodox (48%)
20. Roman Catholic (48%)
21. Hinduism (47%)
22. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (47%)
23. Seventh Day Adventist (46%)
24. Islam (44%)
25. New Thought (39%)
26. Scientology (37%)
27. Nontheist (31%)

The Belief-O-Matic quiz can be taken here.

Which Clow Card are you?

You are "The Watery"


brought to you by Quizilla

That's hilarious

Immaturity Test

Your score is 9

6-10:
You act 19. Look, college was fun. But unless you're still studying at a university, it might be time to grow up a little.

snort Yeah, right.

So fucking appropriate after this weekend from hell

little trooper sugar kat may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

---

And because I simply couldn't resist entering them for myself:

PARENTAL

ADVISORY

ANGRY RABBIT CONTAINS EXPLICIT LYRICS

UCAUTION

IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP SHEEP BOY AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES.

WARNING

halifaxslasher is radioactive. Wear protective clothing at all times.

Don't touch!

Keep your hands away from your naughty bits, you kitten killer.

From The Writer's Almanac

Because if today's an unpleasant day, you can always find neat in the annals of history.

Poor Emerson. He was so disappointed. Peabody had a time of it keeping his spirits up. (Ahem.)

It was on this day in 1922 that a British man named Howard Carter made one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time by discovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen. It was the first fully intact pharaoh's tomb ever found by an archaeologist.

King Tut's tomb was located in the Valley of the Kings. Egyptians had hoped that by hiding the tombs in among the rocky hills of the valley, they would prevent robbers from stealing the valuable contents of the burial chambers. The robbers were persistent, though, and by the time Howard Carter first joined the archaeological survey of Egypt, as a seventeen year old in 1893, most of the tombs had been emptied of anything of value.

Carter was an amateur artist, and he got a job copying ancient Egyptian paintings and inscriptions so that they could be studied by scholars around the world. He worked his way up to supervising excavations. Most archaeologists at the time believed that there wasn't much left to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings, but Carter had found references to a little known pharaoh whose tomb had never been found. He got the wealthy investor Lord Carnarvon to fund a series of exploratory excavations, but he turned up almost nothing. Carnarvon finally told him that he couldn't spend any more money on the search, but Carter persuaded him to fund one more excavation.

The dig began on the first of November. Three days later, on this day in 1922, one of the site workers needed to set down his water jar, so he kicked some rocks off a flat spot on the ground and noticed that it looked like part of a staircase. By the end of the day, Carter had uncovered a series of steps that led to a sealed door. Carter sent a telegram to Lord Carnarvon, and a few weeks later they entered the tomb together.

A long corridor led to wall of stones that blocked the entrance to the antechamber. Carter carefully removed enough stones to make a hole in the door, and then extended his candle through the hole. Carnarvon asked if he could see anything, and Carter replied, "Yes...Wonderful things!"

Carter later said, "At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues and gold...everywhere the glint of gold."

Egyptians believed that they should be buried with all the objects they would need in the afterlife, and Carter found more than five thousand such objects in the tomb, including boomerangs, shields, eye makeup, and 116 baskets of food. It took him ten years to extract and catalogue everything.

It turned out to be the tomb of a pharaoh who had come to the throne as a young boy and died when he was only a teenager. The tomb probably wasn't ever found by robbers because it was a smaller than average chamber. And Carter was surprised to find how hastily the tomb had been decorated. The objects were all jumbled together, and the wall paintings were sloppy, with splashes of paint in the corners that no one had cleaned up.

Many people have speculated that King Tut's hasty burial is evidence that he was murdered. In 1968, a researcher from Liverpool X-rayed the mummy and discovered that there was evidence King Tut had died from a blow to the head.

There has long been speculation about King Tut's curse. Lord Carnarvon died of an unknown illness a few months after exploring King Tut's tomb. That same day, the electricity went out in the city of Cairo, and back in England, Carnarvon's dog, Susie, suddenly howled and died. Some scientists believe that Carnarvon might have inhaled an ancient fungus or microbe that overwhelmed his immune system. As for the electricity, it was pretty unreliable in Cairo at the time. Nobody has any theories about the dog.

The election

What she said.