While it is important that February 11th, 2005 marks the 15th anniversary of Nelson Mandela being freed after 27 years in prison, I think it is noteworthy to report the lesser known fact, as reported on TNL.net, that today in history “After being in prison for 27 years, Nelson Mandella is fred” (emphasis mine)

Over at Kelly Sue Deconnick’s site she posted this link about her dog, Applejack, but it is oh so true about dogs in general. Very cute…scroll past the picture and read both parts of Hound and Poultry.

(You may have to move your cursor to the lower right corner of the picture to expand it to readable size)

I was playing around on the internet last night and stumbled across this Googlism site last night. I had heard of this before but never really checked it out. It was fun. I was able to find googlisms for ‘carl anderson’ and for ‘mary anderson’ but other times just had to use first names. The ones for my name that I found most amusing were: “carl anderson is currently the manager of the wyoming department of environmental quality’s hazardous waste permitting and corrective action program”; “…is insane”; “…is an officer charged with the responsibility of leading his unit on a scouting mission to capture prisoners from an experimental rocket”; “…is expecting to make some boats soon”; “…is arrested for her murder”; and “…is is so popular this time of year that people wait as long as four hours for at most a twominute appointment in his cozy”. Mary also had some interesting ones, like: “mary anderson is a well known melbourne harpist”; “…is recognized as the inventor of windshield wipers”; and the scandalous “mary anderson is the woman gave me a hard”….shocking!

Try out your names…may be first or last names only…and comment on the ones you enjoy.

For your education: today in history in 1897 the New York Times began using the slogan above, “all the news that’s fit to print”.

I want to take this space to wish Neil Gaiman’s site, www.neilgaiman.com, a happy 4th birthday!!! This is, of course, the blog site of my favorite author. The site has not only been a source of inspiration for some of the things that I want to do with my own site, but its been a source of great pleasure for the past 3 years that I’ve been reading it. Neil Gaiman is a very unique author in that he shares a great deal of himself with his fans through this site. Beyond that it is a place in which one can discover a myriad of books, music, television shows, movies, etc that may have remained just outside of the overall pop consciousness. I’ve discovered great artists, found interesting websites, read fascinating news articles, and learned all sorts of bizarre things from reading this site. I’ve also been inspired by Neil’s relationships with his children and his passion for sharing the wonders of the written word with them. I’m also thankful that a company like HarperCollins continues to fund and host this site…yes, its an investment for them, but the joy that the faithful get from this site is truly an investment back in us, the readers. If you’re not reading this site every day then you’re really missing out on an entertaining journey with one of the most gifted guides that the world of literature has to offer. Congratulations Neil, looking forward to many, many more birthdays.

This may sound a bit saccharine, but I’m really looking forward to this movie. The Newbery Honor awarded book that this movie is based on was written by Kate DiCamillo who wrote the excellent, Newbery Medal winning book, The Tale of Despereaux. I’ve read Tale and am in the process of reading another one of her books, The Tiger Rising. She is a very gifted writer and if this movie is anything like her books in tone then it is going to be a great family film.

Part of the reason I’m excited about this is that I’m a dog lover. The fact that the dog smiles (check out the movie trailer) excites me even more. Our beloved dog Razz, adopted from the Jimmy’s House family, is a smiler (not computer generated, mind you) and its a source of family pleasure to try to get him to smile. I also have to admit that I just really enjoy movies like this. My Dog Skip was another excellent dog movie based on a book, the memoirs of Willie Morris. (Willie Morris also wrote a cat book, My Cat Spit McGee, for you cat lovers).

There is a shortage of high quality, heartwarming family films on the market. In a letter to educators Kate DiCamillo talks about her hopes and aspirations for this movie and I’d have to say that they echo my sentiments exactly. I have to warn you, however, that the music in the trailer is downright awful.