Stupid and Evil

"We have a two-party system in America: The Evil Party, and the Stupid Party. And every once and a while the Evil Party and the Stupid Party get together to pass something really evil and stupid. That’s called ‘bipartisanship.’ " -- attributed to a Congressional staffer circa 1989

I'd say that each party is evil on some things, and stupid on some things, and there's some overlap.

DTP to the rescue

Sometime last night, Diana and Willa realized there was a mistake in the bulletin with the order of service for Mum's funeral. One entire hymn was wrong--the title was similar but everything else was different. The church office that did the bulletin is closed till Tuesday--Monday is St Jean Baptiste Day, which is a national holiday for Quebec--and Tuesday will be too late to fix it.
 
They have the file but it's PDF rather than the original. So...they send it to me because I know computer magic. I felt like saying "Yes, I'm a computer wizard...a first level computer wizard..." but one must rise to the occasion. After reading the bones and muttering mystic words, I passed it on to Barbra, who a) determined that it wasn't really editable without messing up the formatting, but b) got the fonts and pictures and send them to me. After that, it was just a matter of putting everything into a new document and fiddling with finicky formatting until the new document looked just like the old one. That was about two hours last night and four more this morning--but I've gotten three separate phone calls to say "Thank you so much!" and "That was awesome" and "You saved the day!"

Buffy

Buffy passed away a little before 1pm today. Willa was there with her.

Ciboney

It turns out the Caribbean islands weren't just inhabited by Arawaks and Caribs; the Ciboney people lived in caves and rock shelters on the northwest coasts of Hispaniola and Cuba.

Korean food

Josh brought home Korean food: beef bulgogi, barbecue chicken, rice, bean sprouts, garlic broccoli, and macaroni salad. I have no idea why macaroni salad is Korean, and neither does my Korean co-worker, but she says that it is typical of Korean restaurants. The beef was thin sliced beef, a bit gristly, no particularly unusual flavor. The barbecue chicken was barbecue chicken, a bit on hot side, but nothing distinctive (other than being overcooked and dry).

Josh wisely did not bring home kimchee.

Hurricane

In October 1780, the Great Hurricane hit. The storm surge was over 25 feet; the wind, estimated to be over 200mph, stripped the bark off trees and threw cannon into the air. It destroyed every house and tree on Barbados, dropped a ship on top of a port town's hospital, sank or wrecked ships across the Caribbean, and killed 20,000 - 24,000 people.

Cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is often called cynicism, by those who don't have it".

--George Bernard Shaw