Thursday stuff -- exhaustion sets in.

In case anyone's wondering if my increased posting rate is in any way indicative of a slowdown at work, no. Not one bit. Just a need for more stress releasing. Frankly, what I really need is a good punching bag set up here. That, or a soundproof room for primal scream therapy*. Or a machete.

TV: Watched episode 5 of Slings and Arrows. The show keeps getting better. I almost don't want episode 6 to arrive, as then I'll have nothing to look forward to. I don't suppose anyone up North has season 2 recorded, by any chance?

Also watched the second episode of Rome, which, setting aside, doesn't get to claim to be any sort of high-brow cultural show. But it is a lot of fun. I really like this interpretation of Marc Antony.

Finished reading this week's comics. I suspect I accomplished something else, but I can't recall it for the life of me. Suffice to say, closing time on Friday will be a very good feeling.

*By which I mean yelling as loud as I can, not playing a Motley Crüe song.

New Directors Label DVDs!

Directors Label vol 4-7!

Woohoo! This time they've got Anton Corbijn, Jonathan Glazer, Mark Romanek, and Stéphane Sednaoui. The official site has clips from one video each (including Bjork, Jay Z, and Nirvana), the full tracklisting, and other nifty stuff.

Katrina: Where to give

I've seen more than a few folks who have issues with The Red Cross or The Salvation Army, and would rather send their money through a different organization. I totally get that -- even though I'm pretty sure they're no longer letting top execs embezzle money, I still can't bring myself to give to The United Way, so I understand where people are coming from.

That said, it's worth remembering that even in a time like this, there are people and organizations that aren't above taking money that should go to the needy. In some cases, it's outright theft. In others, it's gross mismanagement. Either way, it's worth being careful.

Perhaps the best resource is Give.org's list of major Katrina charities. Give.org is run by the Better Business Bureau, and maintains report cards on most significant charities. Remember that just because someone is on that list, doesn't mean that they're legit -- read the report cards.

Give.org also has a nice page of tips for giving in the wake of a disaster that everyone should read.

And they've got a full report card of charities, disaster-oriented and otherwise, that's also incredibly valuable.

You certainly won't find every charity on here (hospitals and other groups are omitted), but it's a great starting point.

ETA: Local charities are more likely to show up in the regional databases -- http://search.bbb.org/ to look 'em up.

Veruca Salt said it so well

"A million miles of running and I hit the wall.
I bounce back and I run some more." -- "Volcano Girls"

That's today in a nutshell. Notice that "nutshell," a compound word, contains "nuts" and "hell."* Not a coincidence.

*Yes, I know that most "reputable" dictionaries will claim that the word is formed of "nut" and "shell," but that's just part of the great conspiracy. The same one that causes the OED entry for "set" to be 38 pages long and secretly written in iambic pentameter.