I have spent the day watching the Firefly marathon on the SciFi Channel, despite recently watching the series on (borrowed) DVD. It's even better the second time around. And I suppose I'm enjoying seeing the ads for Doctor Who.

I've got (and have had for a little while now) the Crud that's been going around this area. From what I hear, it's hit some of the schools hard. Anyway, I feel like crap, and couldn't dig up enough energy to even linkblog today. Come back tomorrow and I'll try to have something worth reading.

Presented without further commentary:

If you have a little cash to spare (as little as $25) then consider making a Kiva loan to help a business in a place where the US dollar goes a lot farther. Not only will you likely get your investment back, you will be helping somebody out of poverty.

Asperger's Syndrome as the Next Step Forward. I, too, am certain I have this syndrome (in a mild form) and found this article interesting.

Anti-Griddle. Just don't accidently put your hand on it, or you might have a problem.

Diane Duane has found a button that will tell you whether or not the earth has been destroyed.

Don't want your luggage to be searched? Try this nifty Fourth Amendment Tape, and see it not work at all! Eh, I'd still like some of this tape. Not sure what I'd use it for, though.

Kaja Foglio gets a nasty e-mail, then she has to calm the fans down.

Comics Should Be Good does a great rundown of licensed comics.

Colleen Doran is excited to see Aquaman on TV. Yay!

Boing Boing's being blocked for nudity has made the NY Times.

Dogs in elk. Words fail to describe this wonderful exchange. via.

Remember those idiot kids that drove the speed limit in a blocking line? Well, a spokesman for their state department of transportation said "they didn't do a thing wrong." But Alex at the Museum of Hoaxes still doubts that.

The $39 Experiment. A guy writes to various companies asking for free stuff and charts the results. Interesting because of the doofusy quality of the letters he wrote, and the very nice charted results. Via MeFi

The Stray Shopping Cart Project. How to identify stray carts.

There's a new visible comet out there, for you early risers.

As I was cleaning up yesterday for the Doctor Who party (which had been ... cut a little short last month because of a power outage, so we were trying again a month later) I noticed a patch of sunlight where no sunlight ought to be. Disturbed, I examined the spot and discovered to my horror that there was a hole going clear through from the inside corner of our living room to the outside.

I waited until poor hubby-Eric got home, then showed him the hole. After a discussion, it was decided that one of us needed to go down to the hardware store to get a nice plank to cover the hole until we could get an expert out to look at us and tell us how much money we're going to have to spend to get the thing fixed.

Initially, Eric was going to go to the store, but I needed to get out of the house and he was tired and completely unenthusiastic about leaving, so I took the chore.

I arrived at Home Depot and found a person with an orange apron and told them my tale of woe. The recent rains had rotted the wood, and a critter (racoon or possum) had done the rest of the damage. The hole wasn't big enough for a large critter to get through, but we needed to block it off. The first orange apron, a woman, was utterly bewildered as to what to do, so she found me a teenage orange apron to chat with.

Teenage orange apron listened to my tale of woe and enthusiastically hunted down a plank for me. It would need to be cut, but I'd thoughtfully figured out the dimensions ahead of time. Before he actually cut the board, he got his supervisor, who approved of the plan Eric and I had thought up, and approved of the cutting of the board. Lovely.

Next I got nails. Again I told my story to yet another orange apron. He looked at my plank, asked if we knew where the studs were, then found nails that he was sure would work for the job.

Then I took the lot home and handed it over to hubby-Eric, who spent the final few minutes before guests arrived nailing a plank over the hole.

...there's no longer a hole.

Update: I went outside to check on the emergency repair job after writing this blog entry, and noticed a bit of dirt scratched along the board. Last night I thought I heard scratching along that wall. Apparently, if we hadn't have made the repairs, we might have woke up to a racoon in the living room watching our tv and drinking up Eric's cherry coke. I'm glad we repaired it.