Here's to hoping for a better 2012!

Upon reflection, I can't say 2011 was a bad year. My health has been stable, I'm still employed, and things aren't bad. I did lose two aunts last year to Alzheimer's, and a friend of mine finally passed away two weeks ago from ALS, which really is more of a relief than anything else. Things can always be better, the question is how much are we will to do to make them better.

This might explain a few things

"I can't do modern politics."
— Newt Gingrich

So what politics do you do? 1890? Reconstruction? Magna Carta? I'm sure I'm not the only one eager to find out.

Successful defense against onions!

I've always had problems with massive tearing while cutting onions. The most successful defense that I've found is to cut them next to a gas burner on high, the convection air current pulls in the escaped gas that causes tearing and incinerates it. But we have an electric range, so no can do. I've tried slightly freezing onions, and that improves things, but it's not a solution.

Today I found one.

Ski goggles.

:-)

I have considering buying a single burner camp stove sort of thing, which could also be useful in the event of a power outage, so maybe I'll still buy one. Today I'm making beef stew, and I went to cut my onion, and just cutting it in half almost wiped out my vision. Then it occurred to me that I have a pair of ski goggles in the car.

Worked a treat!

What is NOT entering the public domain this year due to copyright extensions

A very interesting list, including The Seven Year Itch and The Fellowship of the Rings.

*sigh* Will we ever again have something resembling rational copyright and patent protection rather than the mutated crap that we have now?

http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2012/pre-1976