Update on the Harry Potter clue auction. The Leaky Cauldron raised enough for a $24,000 bid, but was beat out by an anonymous American bidder who pledged $45,231. The good news is that between the winning bid and the $24,000 the Leaky Cauldron raised, somewhere north of $60,000 is going to buy books for kids in Eritrea. But the elusive Potter clue is still secret...

Sorry I've been so quiet lately. Lots going on at work, and all sorts of end-of-the-semester madness with my classes. Two finals in the next few days, then I'm done. (And can start thinking about all the other stuff I've been ignoring lately...)

The Leaky Cauldron, a Harry Potter fan blog, is raising money to bid on J.K. Rowling's 93-word clue to what's going to be in the next Harry Potter book. If successful, the clue will be posted on the site for all to see -- their worst fear is that some rich collector will score the note and keep it secret.

Sotheby's has estimated that the note may go for as much as $9,400 in the auction next week. It's all for a good cause, though. The proceeds are being donated to Book Aid International, a charity that distributes books in third-world countries. And Leaky, Inc.(as the newly-incorporated Blog is now known) will donate the proceeds of its drive to charity whether or not it is successful in getting the note.

Some guy tried to FedEx a letter to Santa, and according to the company's online tracking system they delivered it to a ski resort in Colorado. With the big day coming up in less than three weeks, you wouldn't think the sleighmeister would have time for a snowboarding jaunt in the Rockies! Shouldn't he be making a list, checking it twice, and finding out who's naughty and nice? Not to mention figuring out how to get lumps of coal and sugarplums through airport security. What a slacker.

Then again, maybe he's just attending a Santa Convention.

Or he could be on the lam because of his criminal record.

We had a charity auction at work today, and I picked up a bunch of books including Dreamland, The Map That Changed the World, Gumbo, The Ford Century and German for Travelers. Not that I need any more reading material -- I already have books stacked on every available surface. In fact, I really need to get more shelves or I'm going to run out of living space.

I also had the winning bid on a Mr. Coffee Espresso machine. (I can sense the coffee purists turning up their noses, but I figured for $8.50, what the heck?) Tried making my first shot tonight, but I still have some kinks to work out in my technique. While looking for tips, I came across this site. I had no idea you could actually buy a $1800 coffee machine!

This weekend is all about finishing up a paper and getting ready for two finals. Plus laundry and grocery shopping. All sorts of fun.

The tree in front of my house was coated with ice this morning. It was beautiful, but since I am unfortunately lacking in the digital camera department, you don't get to see it. I've got to do something about that.

As of 1:00 this morning, I have consumed 34 of the requisite 200 beers to get my own plate on the wall at The Flying Saucer. According to their patented BrewTron computer, if I continue my current rate of alcoholic beverage consumption my name should go up in tableware sometime roudabout 2013. Luckily the bar is strategically located not too far from my office, and has comfy couches. We've tossed around the idea of setting up a wireless network and actually conducting business over there.

I think I'm finally telling the folks from the out-of-town job to take my name out of the running. They wanted me to give them references, and ironically one of the folks I called to set up as a reference ended up helping convince me to turn down the job.It just didn't seem like a good fit for me career-wise or company-wise. I'm still not sure I won't up and move out of Nashville one of these days, but I'm staying put for the moment.

The rest of Thanksgiving weekend was fun. We went and got a load of firewood for the newly-reconstituted fireplace, and then my brothers and I spent the afternoon playing lumberjack and splitting it with a sledgehammer and wedge. Amazingly there was only one incident involving blood.

The Salvadoran restaurant turned out to be really good -- it's one of those little holes in the wall you might not think to try.

My parents gave me a framed 1930s Fortune magazine cover as a belated birthday present -- which is very cool. I've been into these ever since I came across one in an antique shop on vacation. The depression hit soon after the magazine lauched in the late 20's, and they were able to hire first rate artists for dirt cheap. So they published all sorts of nifty art-deco design. Here are some examples, although I don't think they're the best ones.

Got a call from a recording of the "Rockin' DJ" at work, who it seems was trying to pitch some sort of voice mail service. I hit the button like I was going to order, and then gave the telemarketer a hard time until she disconnected me. Then I used the web to track down the company in Texas and file a complaint with their local better business bureau. I know these little crusades I go on every so often are futile, but they help break up the monotony.

You should read this Thanksgiving post by Media Minded about why, despite its blemishes, America is still a great place to live.

I'm at my parents' in DC for the next two days, and my two brothers are also visiting. Today we did all the the typical Thanksgiving things. We also -- for the first time in at least a quarter century -- lit a fire in the fireplace. The damper broke sometime roundabout 1974, and they just now got around to having it fixed. So we got to play with fire 'n stuff.

The other strange thing is that my mother has continued her longterm slow-motion campaign to convert my old room into a guest room. This started out slow, but has picked up momentum and has proceeded to the point where it no longer feels like my room. (I think this happened when I got home and realized that my old penants had been removed from the wall, flowered wallpaper had been applied, and an antique china shelf had taken up residence in the corner. My middle brother's room has become my mom's office, and I think my dad is circling like a vulture over my youngest brother's bedroom when he officially moves out. (He's graduating from college in May, but is pretty vague about his plans after that. They may involve going to seminary and/or doing some sort of service program for a couple of years. Earlier he was talking about moving to Salt Lake City. )

Tomorrow we're having a very belated celebration of my birthday and my brother's birthday by going out to a nearby Salvadoran restaurant that my parents apparently begun frequenting. This should be interesting -- I'm not sure I've ever had Salvadoran food before.

Unfortunately I have to go back to Nashville on Saturday night. I used a frequent flyer award to come up for free, but the tradeoff was that I had to travel today and Saturday to avoid the holiday blackout periods. Oh, well. I think I'm going to drive up and take more time around Christmas.

I should be working on schoolwork, but I figure I'm exempt since this is a holiday. Am going to try to be good about this tomorrow.

Seen on the back of a new keyboard:

WARNING: Feeling the discomfort, Repetitive Stress Injuries (RSI) caused by the long periods had habits & repetitive motion at improper working environment. Please cease to use consult your professional immediately.

Q: What skitters and scurries and makes strange noises in the early morning?

I don't know either, but I think it may be living in my attic.

Living, on a Jet Plane

Max Power Aerospace, a company in nearby Smyrna, TN is apparently selling "Airplane Homes." They are made of out decommissioned Boeing 727 aircraft mounted on pedestals, and can even be mounted to swivel in the wind!

The best part? You can bid on one on E-Bay.

Profiles in Frustration

Today has been a very strange day. First I got roped into a last-minute project that would have waited until tomorrow if I worked in a democracy. Unfortunately, it seems I actually work in a dictatorship, and the work had to be done tonight.

When I finally escaped, I headed over to a party a work friend was throwing for some of the college kids I spoke to last week. (They followed me back and are visiting our office this week.) Hung out there for a while, then headed home. I managed to scatter the contents of my CD case all over the interior of my truck while I was driving, so I was a bit preoccupied when I pulled up in front of my house. Which is my excuse for why I locked the truck up with my keys sitting on the front seat.

I had another key to the truck in the house, but it was utterly useless since the house key was in the truck. So I started evaluating my options. I thought about knocking on my neighbors' door. But since it was around midnight and they have small kids, I felt really bad doing this, especially since I'm not 100% positive they have a current key.

So then it occurred to me that I keep a spare house key in my desk drawer at work just for situations like this. SoI grabbed a cab and headed across town to my office. When I got there, I ran in, figuring that I could just grab the key and be out in two minutes. But I had forgotten one thing: the door to my office was also locked, and the key was... in my truck. So then I had to tear around the building to find a cleaning person with the right key to get into my office, grab the key. That probably ate up ten minutes or so on the taxi meter.

Then I headed back across town, opened up the house, found my spare truck key, and retrieved my key ring. Total cost: 45 minutes and $15. Better than the hour and $60 I would have spent calling a locksmith, but still not exactly what you'd call a good use of time or money.

And now I'm compounding the damage by blogging about this instead of working on my class project that's due tomorrow...

Hometown in the news

My hometown got a big story in the Washington Post because of its decision set up a corn silo to support residential corn stoves. You heard that right: corn stoves! Apparently corn makes a great environmentally-friendly heating fuel.

Takoma Park, a town of about 17,000 people on the outskirts of Washington, DC, has also been a nuclear free zone since the mid-1980s. And unlike Nashville, they've had a well-run mandatory recycling program for years. (Don't get me started on Nashville's expensive new program that only picks up once a month, requires the use of minivan-sized 100 gallon drums, and doesn't even take glass or plastic!)

I have heat now, although I'm not convinced it's not going to cut out again the next time it rains. But at least it's toasty inside.

Margaret over at MightyGirl linked to BlackPeopleLoveUs.com, a highly (but subtly) satirical website making fund of various racist attitudes. Reading the letters received by the site, it seems that about half of the people get the joke, and the other half are utterly outraged by the whole thing. I was curious as to who the prankster was, so I did a whois on the domain and found out that it was owned by one "Jonah Peretti." I then did a google search on this name and hit paydirt. It seems that Peretti is the guy who tried to order customized sneakers from Nike with the word "sweatshop" stitched on them, and set up a "rejection hotline" in New York City as an experiment in spreading news by word of mouth.

He's was talking about the rejection line phenomenon when he made the following statement in this article:

People think of media as this monolithic thing that chooses to cover one thing or another. But really, it's people who make media, and they hear stories from friends of theirs. Social networks tie into the way mass media works.

The subplot is I'm trying to demonstrate that the Internet hasn't become totally corporate. Individuals with very little money can still reach millions of people.

This is along the lines of the point I was trying to get at with my little "media" diatribe a few months back (here and here).

(Argh! In looking for those last two links, I discovered that Blogger had shredded all but two weeks worth of my archive! One of these days I gotta move this sucker off to a better publishing system. All the cool kids seems to be using Movable Type these days, so maybe that's the way to go.)

Update: The repair guy they sent this time isn't exactly what you'd call "articulate." He just wandered through my living room and said something along the lines of "ahbeleete module gwetijh ahnf." I just nodded -- it sounded like furnace-fixin talk to me...

Cold house update: Gas logs in fireplace have provided some heat, and repair guy is now poking around in the furnace. Am temporarily holding off mailing box of spiders to landlord.

It's very cold in my house. Am comtemplating torturous deaths for my landlord.

Random Snippets

The small college town where I just spent the week had a number of cable access channels -- including two for local high schools, one for the college, one for the city, one for the county, etc. One was apparently the "Error reading drive A" channel. This error message on screen for the entire week. I watched it for a while, figuring that something had to happen eventually. I probably doubled their audience.

I was apparently outside of the coverage area for both my pager and my cell phone. Which was great until my office fedexed me a replacement phone on Wednesday. So much for escaping the leash.

Took an unplanned side trip to the quilt museum in Paducah, Ky. Which I have to say was pretty incredible, despite what you might think. Quilting is apparently big business there -- not only do they have the museum, but they have quilting magazines, quilting suppliers, and an internationally-known quilting show. Also got to see the confluence of the Ohio and Tennessee rivers, and got a quick look at the nifty historical murals on the flood walls along the river.

Got home to find my heat broken again, for the third time this fall. My landlord is not my favorite person right now.

It's cold and rainy. The guy at the little health food market seemed amazed that I had left the house -- apparently he heard a rumor of a possible snowflake this weekend. In Tennessee, it's customary to hole up for a week whenever someone uses the "S" word. Once again, I'm just not fitting in...

An old friend from high school pointed out this great site.

Ugh. 8:00 AM classes were bad enough in college. And back then I could always stagger in at 8:05 and settle in the back with an emergency coffee ration!

Now they're expecting me to get up and talk coherently to dozens of students at that hour. It's inhuman, I tell ya!