Gallimaufry

Shiny!

The first 2 items came from Boing Boing so you've probably already seen them, but

Nostalgic Chrismas decor

Toy robots

More shiny Christmas stuff

Snowflakes

LED Christmas lights

Mardi Gras santa

From my Live Journal friends list

Fashion Color Database.  It ought to have samples, but hey, cool color names!

Knitted digestive tract -- REALLY cool pictures

Fabric that lights up -- I love living in a science fictional universe

The One Ring -- in non-traditional material

Not only did I buy a pair of these, I talked my friend Kate into it too!

Chinese dragon bead!

I should probably delete iPodLounge from my RSS aggregator.  I don't even HAVE an iPod Nano.

This year's most adorable TV geeks.

Spread the Light

One of the people on my LJ Friends List has informed me it's the first day of the Indian festival of Diwali.  As it turns out, today is a very cold grey damp day in Seattle and I had just lit some candles as well as all the lamps in the living room before reading her post.  I commend Diwali to you.

    The Diwali illuminations with lighted diyas bring the supernatural brightness     and joy with the hope of finding light in darkness, achieving knowledge where     there is ignorance, and spreading love amidst hatred.

This meshes nicely with a post from another direction entirely about ritual.  I see the destruction of a lot of candles in my future.  Most religious traditions have some sort of fesitval of light for when the days turn grey and short.  There's undoubtedly a sound psychological reason for that.  Candles and light box R us for a while.

What's Going On

Regular readers of this blog may remember that I have neurochemical problems.  (You know that blog entry attracts more comment spam than all the others combined.  I wonder why that is.) My brain doesn't regulate its neurotransmitters properly and, for reasons no one really understands, this causes depression.  Quite serious depression.  I take medication for it but the medication has a pattern, with me, of working for a couple of years and then gradually losing effectiveness. 

Scanning of my blog and Live Journal suggests this began to happen this year around May or June.  Of course, I visited my family in June so it was hard to notice.  But depression is always insidious, sneaking up gradually and quietly. (I'm not sure I ever really recovered from the 2004 election actually.) I began to notice in late summer and was working at coping and defeating.  I knew I needed to see the doctor, but part of depression is immobilization, lethargy, and inertia. 

A crisis occurred last month.  I survived and am seeing a doctor now.  Working on some med changes, and struggling to climb out of the pit.  It's being really hard this time.  Anyway.  So that's what's been going on.  I may or may not write or post more.  I don't know; I can't say.  Especially since I'm not really sure why I do this anyway.

Zogby Polls

I've been participating in Zogby polls since sometime in 2004.  I'm not sure just how I got on their list, but I get regular emails asking me to go to a specific URL and answer the questions.  It's usually pretty interesting so see the questions and how they change, but today's was a winner.  They're polling on the West Wing presidential race as if it were real.  I wish it were easier to leave comments.  I'd like to explain that while I don't think West Wing has actually changed real life politics (a poll question), I consider that a bad thing.  (While looking at their site for the appropriate link, I discovered how you too can sign up to participate.  Go here.) 

One of the little thank yous the give is a link to read the results of recent polls.  In today's reading, I discovered that liberals and Kerry voters are more likely to own and wear dresses than conservative voters.  Huh.