(Thanks, Diane.)

We're not the only ones who know what a female Soloman Island Eclectus looks like.

Needs work on the beak.

(Thanks, Ms. Althouse.)

That little boy has beets on his plate.

(I love pickled beets, and I never think to buy them. Both my grandmothers canned them.)

I wonder if Batman won that battle, too?

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all!

Since I'm all butch, let's talk about my new kitchen knife.

I now have one of these, on Chef Tony's recommendation, supplemented by good opinions from Cook's Illustrated.

Mine came from Amazon, at just below $22, last week.

It's a light knife for its size, but with a sharper blade out of the box than the expensive Henckels set we bought years ago. The Calphalon was a good looking knife, and sharpened all right, but was some heavy over time.

If you'd like to try a large knife, it's a good way to go.

And as I'm so masculine, I used the Dremel to widen the the upper portion of the slot in our wooden knife block to accommodate its width.

Yeah, yeah, I'm gnarly.

I've been picking up books by Ed Gorman at the library.

The ones I've read are in the mystery/crime genre. His books are unapologetically short, good reads.

But I bring him up because his blog offers plenty of recommendations of television shows, films and books by other authors that he likes.

The political novel, Sleeping Dogs, on the home page of his site intrigues me.

Now that's interesting.

How did they ever come up with that analysis?

(Thanks, Tim Blair, who comes up 73% female.)

UPDATE: Maybe I was stuck in a time warp. Now they're saying my blog has a 58% probability of being written by a woman. That sounds about right. If you hadn't seen this before, it was estimated at 93% male written.

For the bird watchers who come here:

Bird Dance-Off videos from birdchannel.com

A little off-color Christmas humor from Mostly Cajun.

I am still a member of the Nail-Patella Syndrome message board. Amidst a lot of serious talk about DIY dialysis and surgeries to help children walk, a young woman was inquiring about a cosmetic fix for her legs. She doesn't like having ugly legs. Who does?

But it brought to mind this old song, which I posted to the board:



Lyman said he doesn't remember it. I said I do, because I've always had skinny legs.

He says I'm paranoid.

The maker told me some people use these as placecard holders for holiday parties, then "happies" for the guests when they leave.

Silly turkeys. Kids would love them.