Hodge Podge

In this house hodge podge is a meal that is summarized as “I put a bunch of stuff together and hope it tastes good”. Typically it’s a pasta, a vegetable, a meat and some sort of sauce. (My favorite so far has been bowties, peas and carrots, chicken and ranch dressing. But the left over sloppy joe meat, egg noodles, salsa and corn and black beans mix was yummy too.)

But for the purposes of the blog a hodge podge is a bunch of things that I found that I want to pass on for various reasons. So here’s a steaming bowl of fresh hodge podge. I hope it’s good.

• Feel like splurging on a second gift for that mystery or police procedural fan that you already bought a book for? How about a scarf that looks like crime scene tape? They also have a nose shaped shower gel dispenser and naughty elf garden gnomes. (And lots more.)
  
• Are you on a really tight budget, or possessed by Scrooge? BookCloseouts.com has books for real cheap. REAL CHEAP. Watch your excuses for not buying books this holiday flutter away. Fly excuses, fly. Be freebie!
• Want more recommendations? Apparently there’s a whole blog devoted to telling shoppers all about the books sitting out there just waiting to be bought. And since it’s run by multiple people it has more content than I can manage.
• Someone finally made Fred Phelps (you know, the God Hates Fags asshole) useful. Driving Equality, a GLBT equal right group is holding a Phelps-A-Thon. You can pledge by the minute or a lump sum for the whole even and for every minute the Phelps clan protests money will be raised for GLBT advocacy. Even better they’ll have a large sign out in front of the Phelps folks tallying how much they’ve raised for the cause.
• And last, some sad news. After weeks of rough going and constant resentment and arguing I have to be honest with myself and admit that this just isn’t healthy for either one of us. Yes, maybe it was the absinthe. I mean, it was great fun at first, but we had too much and a night of vomiting puts everyone in a poor mood. Or maybe it was that horrible thing that happened with Hiro. It’s not just one thing, and honestly the cons are overpowering the pros at this point. So it is with some regret, but more relief, that I announce that today I broke up with Heroes.