A Weblog About Bats

A little link:

Flying Fur is a new weblog about bats.

Uh

Andrea Harris's blog had an entry yesterday with the title: Doogie Howser Goes Goth. That's a hard thing to see first thing in the morning.

Turns out what she's referring to is a CNN article reporting that Neil Patrick Harris is playing the emcee role in a new production of Cabaret. (psst: look at the picture of him in the article.) Like I said, that's a hard thing to see first thing in the morning.

Oh Dear Drag Gods

Yow! I won first place in the philosophical drag queen naming contest on EveTushnet.com -- for contributing the existentialist drag queen name of Miss So There.

Well, knock me over with a feather boa!

An Infamous, Infamous Day

A post on Dr. Weevil's blog notes that not only is today the anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but it's also the anniversary of the day Cicero was murdered.

He quotes Livy's full gory description of it. Cicero's murder that is, not Pearl Harbor. Oh, I didn't really have to clarify that, now really, did I?

Come to think of it, though, an account of the attack on Pearl Harbor by Livy would be something, wouldn't it?

There's a Sphere Out There

I haven't really referenced other blogs in here as of yet because when I started this blog about a year ago, I hadn't really started reading any of them much. But as the months have passed, I've slowly and irrevocably been becoming addicted to reading quite a few blogs.

Still, though, as I've primarily considered my own blog/journal here to be more a supplement to my already-established online projects on Sepulchritude and my own Bat Cafe than a proper blog in the current customary way, I didn't really think about possibly redoing my blog here in the way it should be if I were going to try to actively participant in that thing now known as the "blogosphere."

But. Even without having a "proper" participatory blog, seems like I got minorly dragged into that sphere nevertheless by a side route. A couple weeks back, when I was reading Andrea Harris' often amusing Spleenville, I noticed she mentioned our "I, Claudius Drinking Game" in one of her entries. Cracked me up. I left the following comment there:

______________

Just thought I'd drop a note and say hello as I happen to be the co-author of the "I, Claudius Drinking Game." It kinda startled and amused me this morning -- when I just happened to be indulging my relatively recent secret addiction to perusing blogs -- to suddenly see a link to something old of mine (it's a piece from 1999, part of an online 'zine).

It's bad enough to have a secret addiction to blogs -- I mean, it started harmlessly enough some months ago. One, two blogs that I checked in on occasionally. Now, I'm up to a couple dozen that I regularly read a few times a week with frequent side trips to other ones when an intriguing link beckons. I knew it was getting bad. I was becoming a blog junkie. But I deluded myself it was okay -- I was only reading them. I hadn't actually left a comment anywhere, I hadn't participated, I hadn't actually gotten truly sucked into the blogosphere.

Uh-huh.

So, the full impact of my own doom hit me full force this morning when I saw this link when I thought I was only just doing "a little morning reading."

Thus, I thought I might as well give in and say hello. And mention that I've been enjoying your blog as well as many, many others for a while now.

Thanks much,
M Bat
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I also noticed one day not too long ago in reading our traffic logs for "Suffering is Hip" that the "I, Claudius Drinking Game" also was mentioned in Eve Tushnet's weblog in mid-September. I have read Eve Tushnet's interesting weblog from time to time, but the week she mentioned it, I must have been busy with mundane life maintenance matters and had neglected doing much reading online that week at all. Whatever the reason, I hadn't actually seen the reference in her blog when she'd made it and ended up only discovering it by seeing referrals from it in our own traffic logs a couple weeks or so later.

Today, I sent off an entry to Eve Tushnet's amusing little contest for coming up with philosopher drag queen names as well as sending off an email to my affable co-editors about it (as they're sure to find it amusing and I know they'd be good at coming up with some entries). But I'm a bit late referencing this contest as it was first posted a couple of weeks or so back, and the deadline for entries is next week.

See .... this is my quandary about attempting to cite things in other blogs -- even wonderfully bizarre things like this contest. I enjoy reading quite a few blogs regularly when I have the time and could probably link to noteworthy entries (or merely the random things that catch my fancy), but I know I do not have either the time nor inclination to be as attentive and as timely about citing links and articles as the serious bloggers are.

Still, I think I will when I have the time try to reference other blogs when I see something that particularly catches my fancy. Just I know I won't either be consistent nor thorough about it -- which is no reflection at all on what's out there but merely due to the limitation of my own time constraints.

____

(Also, I know I will have to explain what the hell I'm talking about for those who read my blog/journal thingie here who aren't actually familiar with the world of blogs out there and various bits of blog customs and jargon. I suspect from what I see in my traffic logs, that most of my audience might happen to be unfamiliar and unaware of all that. So, for their sake, I'll try to briefly explain a few relevant bits soon or perhaps find a link to a decent introductory explanation).

Masai Kindness

I took quite a few anthropology courses eons ago when I was in college. I don't know if it's the same now, but back in the early 80s, taking any of the prerequisite anthropology courses meant one got to read about and see a lot of little films about the Masai.

Many of the Masai still live today quite a bit like they have for centuries. A recent article in the NY Times mentions one Masai village that only just got electricity a year ago. But the article isn't really about that -- this June 3, 2002 article is about the Masai's reaction to the 9/11 attacks -- of which, apparently, quite a few of the Masai only learned of recently.

And they were so moved by hearing of the U.S.'s plight, they arranged to send the people of the U.S. a gift of 14 cows they have especially blessed.

I love the Masai.