Matt, I'm so sorry to hear about your mother. Strength to all your family.

Pix, you did the good thing. It doesn't feel good, but it was the right thing to do.

Okay, I can't decide between PJ bottoms. These, or these?

Okay, watching Graham Norton with Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas. Smoking Spanish accents here. OMG. And Salma's outfit! Mrrowr.

I like Graham Norton more than most any talk show host, because he can make just about any group of people work entertainingly together, no matter how weird. I don't worry about if I like his guests, or if I've heard of them. I trust him.

Except last week. Robin Williams. Graham either can't or won't exercise control over that dynamic, and Robin's everywhere and I HATE HIM. He ruins the good things. Hmmph.

Okay, watching Graham Norton with Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas. Smoking Spanish accents here. OMG. And Salma's outfit! Mrrowr.

Yes! And they kept arguing like an old married couple. It was hilarious!

Oh, that reminds me -- remember over the summer or something when there were pictures of Justin Bieber with a John Waters mustache? They had been on Graham Norton together that day, and Waters always carries eyeliners around to give to people who admire his mustache. Apparently the Bieb told Waters his "'stache is the jam."

And I love Jimmy Carr. He just looks so concerned all the time, and it's always something patently ludicrous.

I never saw the GN with Bieber, but I bet I wouldn't have hated it.

Jimmy Carr teaching Banderas and Hayek how to speak with a Liverpool accent nearly made me hurt myself laughing.

plagiarism update:

I wrote a formal memo to the student and sent it off to various associate deans, department chairs and the student's advisor. I included the highlighted portions of the paper that I found as uncredited, and included references for the passages that did not appear in the reference list.

So I ended up giving her a zero on the final paper, so this puts her in the "D" range for the course. At the graduate level you need a "C" or better for the course to count towards degree.

ND, Pix - so sorry to hear about Byron.

Matt - so sorry for your loss.

I just got back from knitting group - got a ride back with the other half-Japanese woman in our group and found out that Rockford has an internment camp. And that there are these little houses in Kirkland (kind of midway between here and Rockford) where Japanese men who were able lived during the week - while they worked at local farms because most of the local farmboys were at war. Then during the weekend they went back to the camp where the women and children were.

Still a few of those building left - and there are still people living in them despite the smallness.

I had no idea.

It just occurred to me when Jimmy brought it up--Scouse, Geordie, and Cockney accents: it's not like they give you any idea where they're actually from or anything. If you don't know they refer to Liverpool, Newcastle, and that wee bit of London, you'd have no idea. Does the US have accent names like that?

Salma is enough to make on believe in miracles before you even get to her origin story.

LeN, that sound plenty reasonable, and perhaps a lot less meaner than I'd ahve been tempted to be.

Does the US have accent names like that?

Not that I can think of.

Dear DirecTV. If I lose my job, I will no longer be able to pay your exorbitant monthly fees.

Therefore, please to stop running back to back episodes of The Wire late Sunday nights.

Ta, me.