A good friend of this site who switched from Dean to Clark awhile back--mirroring my own dalliance, they I came out on the other end--wrote me several weeks back about an ex deaniacs for clark site he was building.

Sounded intersesting and I intended to plug the finished product, but I didn't find the message again in my ever-exploding inbox again until tonight. (A fringe benefit of sickness is all this time on your hands with no ability to go out an play or do anything too taxing. So you clean out your inbox, at least I did.)

Hennyway, what a sad coincidence that I read it just after publicly declaring my unabashed love for Dean, all the way. So I just didn't feel right linking to a site trying to persuade you guys away from him.

But here's the thing. I like this site. (At least as far as I've gone, which I admit it only moderately far.)  It's actually a really nice example of a way Democrats can disagree on their candidates without ripping each other--or the potential nominee--a new one.

This is especially important now that we have gotten to the point where there is about a 95% chance that either Dean or Clark will be the nominee (with the bulk of those odds going to Dean. But there will be a period where the opposition clusters around one opposing candidate, and it's hard to see it being anyone other than Clark. So there you go.)

The site in question is thoughtful and tasteful and non attacking. And I really enjoy the big graphic it starts with, even if I don't agree with it. No smearing involved, because no smearing is required.

Refreshing, actually. So here's the link.

Update: I screwed up the link. Fixed it Saturday night. Sorry.

So I hope you've been watching The Forsyte Saga on Materpiece Theatre. They're replaying it from about a year ago, and I really relished it.

It's a remake of the series that started Masterpiece Theatre a generation ago. It was just intended as one short-run series of a handful of episodes, but it did so well, they decided to keep going with other things, and it's still there today. Bit of a soap, definitely, but I enjoy a well-made soap.

So finally, this February, they do the sequel, based on the sequel book.

The trouble with PBS is they have nothing but PBS shows to preview their upcoming shows, so it's hard to know what lies ahead. So I'll dump the info from their email here:

I can lay money I'm not going to like it a whole lot. Anthony Minghella? The English Patient had its moments, but only a handful. Through hours felt like three relentless years in that cave. Stephanie Zacharek calls him "romance-of-the-living-dead director" in her witty little Cold Mountain review in Salon.

That's really the  main reason I popped in here to chat. I started to wonder about that whole year-end need to see the damn big pix, so I can have something to say in all the best-of discussions which I like to wrap myself into horrible frustration with. Who knows--I may love Cold Mountain. Gotta see it to find out. But meanwhile, I really enjoyed Stephanie's heckling review.

My favorite moment (referring to the Nicole Kidman and Jude Law characters):

Ada, for her part, is devastated by Inman's absence. We know this because she stops combing her hair.

Heeheehee. That was worth the whole read right there. And she has a little followup in the next parapragh:

Suddenly, a sparkplug by the name of Ruby (Renée Zellweger), a drifter from who knows where, jolts Ada back to life and helps her find her inner comb.

Very interesting piece this week from Eric Alterman:

In its self-appointed role as semiofficial punditocracy politburo, the Washington Post editorial board issued what ABC News's The Note properly termed "a button-popping, eye-bugging anti-Dean editorial" that it undoubtedly hoped would serve as Dean's political death sentence. Expressing editorial shock and awe over Dean's unarguably accurate observation that Saddam Hussein's capture left the United States no safer than before, Post editors termed the candidate's views to be "not just unfounded but ludicrous" and complained of his "departure from the Democratic mainstream."

The Note observed that "history might record that this piece stops The Doctor from being his party's nominee" . . .

I was bracing for a rocky Christmas, but did not forsee poioning. Food poisoning, apparently.

Nice timing. Messed with my sleep all night, woke with exploding intestines Christmas morning.

Spent the first half the day in bed, the rest on the couch. Thank God for the Trading Spaces marathon. If I see Paige do that commercial for their year-end best-of special one more time . . .

They must have played it four times per episode, so I saw it about 40 times. Made me want to wretch.

So I missed another holiday fambly gathering. Kind of sad. Was feeling a lot better by the late evening, and my sister and her hubby and kids came over late last night and we opened a few gifts together. I wasn't completely sure whether it was food poisoning or stomach flu, so I was a bit worried about infecting them.

Much better today. Almost normal again, just kinda weak. Just one day. Nice choice of days.

Been kind of a rough year. The last half of it, anyway. Kinda rollercoaster. And I can't tell you how lonely yesterday made me feel. Yes, I have family, but most of them have their own families now. Or something. Feel so disconnected from them. And not enough good friends nearby. Need to settle down and find a nice boy. Maybe in NY.

Am really starting to hunger for a NY move. The New Years plans in NY fell through. My friend up there committed to ptown. Did some research on it and found it is a ghost town this type of year. That would just be too depressing. So I'm staying in Chicago, hoping to plan a NY trip soon.