Dang! And I thought I had the reasons to not celebrate Christmas (the Americanized version, at least) down pat. Check out Steve's Liberal Reasons Not to Celebrate Christmas (Oh, and you'll notice that I borrowed his "made in china" image yesterday. *embarassed smile*)

Straight outta the NYT, one more reason to buy American. If you don't have time to read the whole article, at least read this -->

"Migrant workers are China's untouchables. They are assumed to be behind every unsolved crime. They are the yokels on the street corners of every city, barely able to speak Mandarin Chinese, wide-eyed with fascination or fear.

They are also the dark underside of China's economic success, which has been marked by annual growth of 8 percent for more than a decade and exports to the United States growing so fast that they have surpassed Japan's. In general these people are vulnerable, pliable, cheap to employ and easy to suppress.

The migrant workers number well over 100 million, staffing the factories of Asia's export powerhouse. They work long hours in dangerous jobs for low salaries and no benefits. They are barred from forming unions "

Twenty-four bounced emails today coming to me thanks to SoBig.F

If I'm just getting the bounced ones, imagine how many of those bad boys are actually getting passed around out there!

I haven't been able to pin-point any friends who's computers are sending these with my name attached (with the possible exception of a guy in Russia who's computer may be infected). Sigh. Wish people would keep their security systems up to date (or just switch to using Macs... of course, if too many switch we'd probably be the next target, eh?)

Lately I've been getting lots of bounced emails sent by SoBig.F from some friends' computers to mine. (Thank you to all the friends who list me in their address books but don't keep their computer protected.) In all the hubbub about computer viruses, there's one comment that I have yet to hear... Apple computers are rarely affected by viruses. I doubt that its because they're inpenatrable, its just that no one bothers.

Just one more reason Why Apple is So Tempting.

samson (a former student of mine from san francisco) visited recently and brought a van load of food with him (two roasted ducks (whole), cooked pork, a bag of super spicey not-ramen, lots of asian-type snacks (sticks of bread with chocolate inside. sticks of bread with chocolate outside. sticks of bread that you dip into chocolate), and...

dried mangoes.

i hadn't even realized that he knew i liked them. they're the philippine brand and they're soooooooooooooooooo much better than the dried mangoes you get around here (which are like semi-sweet hardened cardboard.)

when we collectively ripped through two bags of mangoes and the girls were getting mad at me that there wasn't any more, i realized that i should head for the internet. perhaps i could buy the stuff online.

i can. but at twice the price samson shelled out in SF. (bummer)

but while i was searching, i came across another philippine brand dried mango fan.

be forwarned, his analogies are a little... well, gross. but i think that all in all, he's captured the philippine dried mango experience pretty well.

so i thought i'd share.

ps: i can't exactly say that i've experienced the, uh, negative side affects that he claims to have experienced. ... just thought you should know.

A whole article in the Denver Post on a cure for hepatitis C and no where a mention of what that cure is!!!! THIS is why we get the New York Times.

Finally! Someone who understands!!! Michael Laird (a fellow introvert) sent me this article today from the Atlantic Monthly called Caring for Your Introvert. I should print out copies of this article and everytime someone says that oft repeated phrase, "Meg I just don't understand you," I'll just hand them one. (Or better yet, when they're trying to get me to step out of my "shell" or accusing me of being stand-off-ish....)