Information about the Civil War Draft Riots; the back story of the movie Gangs of New York:
Salon Magazine’s Review of Gangs of New York
A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF THE DRAFT RIOTS
New York City Draft Riots: A Result of Mounting Tensions
New York City Draft Riots
New York Draft Riots (July 11-13, 1863)
N.Y. Draft Riots
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This was one of my favorite encyclopedia entries as a kid. I was also fascinated by the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Easter Island, And the Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
My friend Rich just sent this link to a funny flash video to me… “Just Horsing Around.” Click on the horses to get them to sing. It’s best when you start with the horse on the far left first, then the second horse from the right. Once you get them going, throw in the horse on the far right and then the horse that’s second from left.
The weekend was fun — Kathy took me on a date to the Morris-Butler House for the Victorian Xmas Celebration — it was cool. The have people in period clothes singing Christmas carols, and you see what dinner would have been like, and then they do a reading of “Twas the Night Before Xmas.” You get to make a traditional victorian Xmas ornament, and help bake some sugar cookies on the authentic stove, then you go to the outside stove for some hot apple cider that was really really good, so I had seconds. The house is nice, and it’s nice to know they’re still working on restoring it. I don’t feel so bad about mine, then. 🙂 It was really nice to spend time with her, too.
I also when to Xmas at my Dad’s house on Sunday, which was also cool. I got a flannel shirt (!) a sweater, a home repair book, a perennials book (which is fantastic!) and some moola. And Spike got a present of some doggie treats from Bruiser, my Dad and stepmom’s dog.
A great flash video on the soon-to-be-war with Iraq.
Interesting… Ray Carney, film critic, has this very interesting website about Film and American Studies. I know very little about the classics of cinema and the art of filmmaking, and want to learn more.
Okay, we just had a paper airplane flying contest at work… from the third floor balcony down into the lobby, with the object to hit the center pole on the revolving doors, a distance of about 60 feet. AND I WON. Me! I won! All the guys were busy aerodynamically designing their planes and test flying them… and I just folded mine, threw it, and hit center pole exactly — no one else was even CLOSE! And I won the sum of all the entry fees, plus $100. That is so cool. Check out the winning design.
Also, we finally located a fake cardboard fireplace for the end of our hall, so now we have the warm and cozy thing going on at work. We even made a fake chimney and santa is jumping down it. Monday we’ll decorate and hang our stockings.
Be sure to go and vote for Barbie to be an architect on the Barbie.com site. I need a architect for my Barbie collection.
I went home at lunch to play with Spike. He’s so cute. He’s the cutest doggie ever. I miss Idgie, still, but I can’t get over how big a dog person I’ve turned into.
If only I could get away with putting one of these in my yard….
And, have you ever been taking a photo and had a stranger jump in the shot? Now you can post photos of those losers and maybe find out who they are.
I read this article by Keith Olberman in Salon Magazine, and I had a quite a bit to say about it. So I wrote the following letter back to him, through Salon’s “Letter’s to the Editor”.