The red lily beetle has quite the striking appearance, and this one had quite the appetite today. It didn’t mind sitting for a few closeups. Another photo is in my Flickr photostream. Enjoy the smorgasbord while it lasts, bug. Tomorrow I mix up the neem oil.

I have to get all 4 cats in my test posts. Here’s Boris, not far from the cat treats jar.

I’ve also spent the day working on my blog renovations. There are so many plugins and options. Apparently all the sites I use (at least the non-porn ones) and all the content I maintain can know what each other is doing. Theoretically (now or at some point in the near future), all this stuff should be happening:

• my recent tweets should appear on the blog (check)
• my recent tweets should post on Facebook (check)
• new blog posts are announced on Facebook (check)
• new blog posts are announced on Twitter (check)
• Flickr photos show up on the blog (check)
• Flickr photos show up on Facebook (investigating this)
• post mobile photos to Flickr (check)
• post mobile photos to the blog via Flickr (check)
• posting to Flickr will alert Twitter via Twitterfeed (check)

I don’t know about you, but I almost need a diagram to figure out what the heck is going on. Am I unleashing a continuous loop where my updates are just updating about the fact that something has been updated? On the other hand, I’m a completist and I have the nagging feeling I’m missing something — that crucial missing link that I just know I’ll need someday when I want to twitter about a flickr post that I tried to blog when I was stuck on the subway with someone I met on Facebook.

UPDATE: I just discovered (and installed) a plugin for Aperture, Apple’s photo management studio that I use, that allows me to export directly from Aperture to Flickr. Total geekfest getting all this stuff working!

Another creative outlet in recent weeks has been learning how to bake bread. From scratch. I’ve made plain old white bread (I made a very tasty loaf with fresh thyme) and wheat bread (I made a honey wheat, but it turned out a bit dense so I need to work that recipe a bit more). Last weekend, I began a sourdough starter from King Arthur Flour and today, with lots of ripe starter, I baked my first two loaves of sourdough (in this case, a very sesame-heavy sourdough).

I’m very happy with the results. Photo below. Another part of the blog redesign/upgrade is moving all my photos. I’ve broken my Gallery application beyond repair, so hello Flickr. My first upload was sourdough loaves, and the remainder of my 818 photos will be moved soon.

And yes, I’ve been away from the blog too long. I feel that’s about to change.

Worst president ever?

I’m watching on CNN as I type. They’re wheeling Dick Cheney out of the White House in a wheelchair. It’s a striking parallel to the state of this country — the US is essentially in a wheelchair, and will be dumped into the lap of Barack Obama in an hour or so. We’ve survived the Bush years. Barely.

On election night, when Obama was projected as the winner, I turned to Marlin and started singing the Grateful Dead (from “Truckin”): “What a long, strange trip it’s been” before giving him a big hug. I had also been working on my own take of the iconic Obama poster (above), which I never got around to posting.

And while I’m posting the Obama related pics, here was our 2008 ornament for the Christmas tree (below). I hand-painted it — picked up a plain ornament and paints at Michael’s crafts for less than $5. I probably could have made a nice chunk of money for it on eBay, but it will be fun to hang it on the tree every year (and hopefully add 2012 to the 2008 I painted on the reverse).

Today it’s a celebration here. Marlin and I both took the day off work (we briefly considered going to Washington, but we reconsidered within days). Instead, we are watching the ceremonies on television and shortly after we have a new president, we’ll hit the kitchen for our inaugural dinner preparations. We’ll be eating what the Obama’s are eating at their inaugural luncheon today, thanks to the Inaugural Committee’s decision to post menus and recipes on the web. http://inaugural.senate.gov/documents/doc-2009-recipes.pdf Our menu includes some of Lincoln’s favorites: duck breast with cherry chutney, molasses whipped sweet potatoes, winter vegetables (asparagus, baby brussel sprouts, wax beans, carrots), and cinnamon apple sponge cake. It’s good hearty American food, especially if you’ve got a deep hunger for real change. Celebrate!

Crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter early Monday evening. I knew this was coming, but I didn’t pay much attention to when. I stepped onto the side porch Monday shortly after 5pm, and this is what I saw in the southwest sky. And yes, it gets that dark outside here by 5pm this time of year in eastern Massachusetts. Full size pic in the gallery.

Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can’t authenticate the registration, or it’s incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic (“fraudulent”, “incomplete”, et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you’ve heard about fraud by Acorn, it’s because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that’s been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming “Acorn is committing fraud” know all of the above but don’t bother to share those facts with the media they’ve run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it’s voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.

You’ll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That’s true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.

What you won’t hear is that federal law requires anybody who does not register to vote in person at the county office to show an ID when they go to vote the first time. So, unless Donald Duck shows up with his ID, he won’t be voting this November.

When you pay people to register voters, as both major political parties do, you are going to get some fraudulent registrations. ACORN is aware of this and follows the law as required. There really is no story here, outside of these rogue canvassers turning in registrations that will never result in a vote.

Today’s fun link: Palin as President. Absolutely hysterical until you click the red phone.

Via Huffington Post