Just for fun, here’s a picture of Zoe Christmas morning, getting the present she wanted the most:

I just read the book The Google Story, so I’ve got Google on the brain lately and I’ve been playing with all their toys. Here’s what Googlism thinks about Pie:

pie is on your plate
pie is an awesome site
pie is from mars
pie is an instant hi
pie is the stuff of legends
pie is an old favorite with a
pie is special 07/17/02
pie is a great way to use season’s last tomatoes
pie is speedy comfort food
pie is based on the fault/failure model
pie is way overdone
pie is gooood
pie is sliced
pie is the best pie?
pie is dan
pie is not a crime
pie is goooood
pie is proof
pie is worth one million hryvnyas?
pie is rich and nutty
pie is kosher
pie is numero uno
pie is the real thing
pie is left ever so humble
pie is the limit
pie is speccie
pie is good
pie is supposed to look like
pie is perfect with citrus at its peak
pie is sliced america’s growing concentration of wealth by edward n
pie is precision interface electronics
pie is brimmin’ with lemon flavor
pie is cherry by rex
pie is an instant hit
pie is the stuff of legends desserts at katie?s cafe are good enough to make a grown man cry
pie is the staff of life
pie is lean on fat
pie is an old favorite with a new twist the traditional thanksgiving meal
pie is missing
pie is hot and sweet
pie is completely baked
pie is special by the culinary institute
pie is a great way to use season’s last tomatoes thursday
pie is speedy comfort food thursday
pie is a winner
pie is sliced” the american prospect no
pie is a file renaming utility that extracts the camera information from the raw
pie is sliced>
pie is irrational
pie is about miss america
pie is a squar
pie is the best pie?
pie is shrinking
pie is good i am feeling so loved right now
pie is really made of
pie is worth one million hryvnyas?
pie is never free
pie is great
pie is truly a universal pleasure to be savored and enjoyed by people from all walks of life
pie is an unoffical off
pie is a dessert delicacy
pie is delicious warm
pie is chilled and served with fresh rasp
pie is out before disposing of properly eventually
pie is a rather straightforward technique
pie is the real thing by melissa castleman for the camera
pie is a berry worth winner
pie is a lattice
pie is a 10″ two crust pie made with iqf northern spy apples blended with a sugar
pie is a quality pan our heavy duty aluminum pie pans are commercial quality pans guaranteed to provide
pie is the bomb because
pie is a delightful lighthearted gross
pie is a dirty whore
pie is never pretty; the writer may have been referring to the wrinkles
pie is different things to different people
pie is usually reconstructed as having had three series of stop consonants
pie is baked
pie is connected to the following things
pie is connected to because
pie is approximately equal to 3
pie is intended for importing a list of scattered points
pie is an american classic by annette gooch with cherry pie commemorating his reputation for honesty and the “george washington pie” his
pie is as high as an elephant’s eye the pie is as high as an elephant’s eye $9
pie is lisa loeb’s best work to date
pie is done when the pie is bubbling around edges and it rises
pie is an expression
pie is a special place
pie is an outstanding restaurant
pie is certainly worth another look

I’ve had a Harley at the top of my Christmas list for years now. Anytime someone asks me what I want for Christmas, the answer is simple: “Harley. Road King Classic. Vivid Black. Leather Tour Pak. Thanks.” This year I even started telling people that giving me a Road King for Christmas would earn them a “get out of jail free” no-gift card from me for life — they’d never have to give me another gift for the rest of their lives.

So me wanting a Road King is a Christmas tradition. But you already know that, you remember two years ago when my family actually gave me a Harley for Christmas — a Harley telephone. It’s in Zoe’s room now. She loves it. Me? Still riding the Yamaha Road Star.

Well, guess what? This year the family heard me. This time they knew I really wanted a Harley and that while the Harley telephone was funny, it wasn’t what I really wanted. So this year it’s Harley time. Literally:

Sigh…

“And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the lord shone round about them, and they were so afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring unto you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the City of Bethlehem, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel, a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men'”. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.

— Linus van Pelt

This time last year I wrote about how Santa was on his last legs around here and posted what I said was Zoe’s last letter to him. Well, the jolly old elf is resilient as hell and we’ve gotten one more year out of him. Here’s Zoe’s note to him this year:

I’m pretty sure she’s onto him, though, and is playing along for one last year, either out of nostalgia and not wanting to grow up (let’s face it — believing in Santa is better than not) or to work us for more and better gifts. I think she knows because of the tags she put on the presents she wrapped for two of our pets tonight:

and

Notice in both cases that she’s signed them from “Santa.” This from a kid who still believes in Santa. Yeah, right.

We went over to Beth’s dad’s house tonight for our traditional Jewish Christmas celebration (lox & bagels and Christmas presents). He lives in Santa Monica overlooking the beach. Here’s a picture of Zoe on the bluff across the street from his condo with the Pacific Ocean in the background. (I know it’s pitch black — trust me, it’s there.) This is one of the perks of living in Southern California: shirtsleeves on the beach on Christmas Eve.

Oh, and just so you know: “Santa” is bringing her the I-Dog she asked for.

Christmas came early for young Chuckie. My job just gave me a new cell phone, the spanky Treo 650, which is an electronic wet dream for a techno-geek like me. It’s a combination cell phone/PDA that does just about everything but laundry. Fortunately, we just got a new washer and dryer, so I’m covered there, too.

In addition to doing duty as a cell phone, the Treo also has a calculator, a calendaring function, chat via Google Talk and Jabber, contacts, tasks, memos, email, web surfing, plays mp3s, and it has a camera. And that’s just what’s installed on it now; there are dozens of other utilities I can download to it. I’m playing with it already. Here’s a picture I took with it of Zoe torturing her cat Nina:

And best of all, the company’s paying for it. So now, for free (for me), I can play with a gadget and be reachable by phone and email anywhere and everywhere at any time.

Uh, wait a second. Maybe that’s not so great after all.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — “Intelligent design” cannot be mentioned in biology classes in a Pennsylvania public school district, a federal judge said Tuesday, ruling in one of the biggest courtroom clashes on evolution since the 1925 Scopes trial.

Dover Area School Board members violated the Constitution when they ordered that its biology curriculum include the notion that life on Earth was produced by an unidentified intelligent cause, U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III said. Several members repeatedly lied to cover their motives, he said.

Now that’s intelligent. But how will kids learn about the Flying Spaghetti Monster now?

Beth’s excited voice rang out across the house Sunday morning: “They’re here! They’re here! Honey, they’re here!!!”

“They” were the delivery guys from Great Indoors, delivering Beth’s new washer and dryer. She’d been shopping and coveting and obsessing and thinking and talking and planning and wishing and dreaming and wanting a new washer and dryer for months, and we had finally pulled the trigger and bought them. And Sunday was D-Day: Delivery Day. She was so excited she was fairly squealing.

Of course there was a problem, though. Doesn’t there always have to be for any dream that comes true, some little bit of tarnish on the gleam of heavenly perfection? Our glitch was that they’d brought the wrong dryer. We ordered the gas model, they delivered the electric model. So back to the store with the wrong one and re-deliver the right one — today, if they are to be believed.

But Beth had been waiting for this day too long to be denied. She may not have had the new dryer, but by God she had a brand new washing machine and she was going to do laundry! (Cue snowstorms in Hell.) And so she did. This is Beth and Suki watching the magic of the new front-loading washer through the handy front-loading viewing port. Beth’s only regret is that it doesn’t have an internal light. Fortunately, she had a flashlight.

It’s a Girl and Her Dog … and Her Washing Machine.

Jack Cafferty of CNN said, in a recent on-air column, what I’ve been thinking so much better than I could have:

Who cares about whether the Patriot Act gets renewed? Want to abuse our civil liberties? Just do it.

Who cares about the the Geneva Convention? Want to torture prisoners? Just do it.

Who cares about rules concerning the identity of CIA agents? Want to reveal the name of a covert operative? Just do it.

Who cares about whether the intelligence concerning WMDs is accurate? Want to invade Iraq? Just do it.

Who cares about qualifications to serve on the nation’s highest court? Want to nominate a personal friend with no qualifications? Just do it.

And the latest outrage, which I read about in the New York Times this morning: Who cares about needing a court order to eavesdrop on American citizens? Want to wiretap their phone conversations? Just do it.

What a joke. A very cruel, very sad joke.

George Bush and his White House have been running roughshod over our rights from the moment he was “elected.” Now, that’s not news to the people on my side of the W issue — those of us with brains, in other words — we’ve been saying it from Day One. But it’s surprising even to me just how far they’ve taken it and with how much hubris, given the recent revelations about secret prisons and torture and, now, domestic spying by the NSA. I don’t know why it surprises me — I put nothing past those chowderheads — and yet it does. Even when they’re getting every little thing they want to go their way, they still find a way to fuck it up. Truly, they are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight.

But I find myself insanely wishing that Bush had more time left in office before his term runs out. With just a little more time, we surely would see him impeached.