tiny tuesday hangovers

Weather report: There's snow on the ground outside, only a dusting, but enough for George to lay flat as a fan and swoof the snow back and forth -- making George Angels.

Diary: If only he didn't want to do this at one a.m. on a school night, we'd be happy and scream delightedly "George Angels!" And in all fairness it was not that unpleasant standing outside in the blowing snow and nonbitter cold watching him, just terrible trying and failing to get back to sleep afterward.

Am I supposed to tell you what I ate now?

Kidding. These little things have been hanging out in tabs patiently.

1. The Spiral Arm reads Samantha Hunt's The Seas and really, really likes it.

2. I love that Syntax of Things is about, well, everything. No more talk about pulling the plug, mister.

3. Tito unearths the goods on Neko Case's fascination* with serial killers, as manifested by the amazing song "Deep Red Bells." *I do not mean fascination here in that ooky way that teenagers have when they watch Silence of the Lambs too many times in a row; I mean haunted by, disturbed by, present in the thoughts of due to having been in close proximity to the hunting grounds of one or more of these guys.

4. Mr McLaren keeps trying to warn you about awakening the old gods at your archeological digs and strange, suddenly present following the tsunami statues. But do you listen?

5. The Duchess of Northumberland's controversial poison garden has been officially opened. Cannabis, opium poppies, magic mushrooms and coca - the source of cocaine - all feature at the centuries-old Alnwick Garden. (Via Boing Boing.)

6. Jenny D links to Jenny Diski in the Guardian on snow and highly recommends her book Nothing Natural.

7. William Booth and Hank Stuever do do that voodoo at the after-Oscar parties: We arrive at "Elton" before midnight in our usual manner, by gray Chevy Cavalier, which we park near Beverly Boulevard and hike the rest of the way up to the enormous, Oz-like Pacific Design Center on Melrose Avenue, but not because of some shame or unresolved feelings of the rental-car underclass. (Hey: We always feel and behave like million-dollar babies, baby, despite our trailer-park backgrounds and the creepy feeling that Grandma watches everything we do from Heaven.)