Oh, I know some of you will appreciate this.

We were at the library. The nieces were listening to stories, and I was picking out books. I passed by a table where the kid - eightish? - was clearly picking out a book report book. He'd chosen Number the Stars, and his mother was talking to him about it, so I piped up that, as Holocaust fiction for kids goes, that one's not too bad. It's not overly scary and depressing, but neither does it excessively play down the Holocaust. (I read a surprising amount of Holocaust-fiction-for-kids in my childhood. After a while, they start to blur together, though. I mean, it's the Holocaust. It sucked, and people died, and after you've stated that there's not much left to say, especially if you want to keep it child appropriate.)

At any rate, this little conversation isn't what was interesting (see my above comment on how similar Holocaust-fiction-for-kids all tends to be. Restrictions of the genre, can't get around 'em). No, no. What was interesting is that this woman looked just like Gwen from Torchwood. Except no accent, and slightly older. And, uh, with a kid.

It was creepy. I felt like asking her, but I doubted she'd know what I was talking about, so... yeah.

Wikipedia says that Keep Away is the same as Monkey in the Middle.

But that doesn't make much sense to me. As far as I've ever used it, Keep Away is bullying, and Monkey in the Middle is more of an organized game with three people, where (hopefully) everybody is evenly matched and the monkey keeps switching around, and all three got together and said "Hey, let's play Monkey in the Middle!" and counted out who'd be it first and whatever. (Plus, Monkey in the Middle is limited to three people, and Keep Away isn't, you know?)

What say you?

I've often heard it said that the beauty of cell phones is their untethered nature.

So if, say, you're on the phone, and you realize you need to boil some potatoes - as you promised to do already - you can just go down the stairs and do so.

Also? Library books. NOT BUG SWATTERS. In fact, books don't swat bugs. Use something else - and no, I don't care where it was placed. Hell, I can't convince my sister to put library books on the bookshelf so they don't get lost, so in that situation, does anybody think I care if it's on the counter instead?

This entry has been brought to you by the fact that my sister needs to fuck off. You're not gonna do what you agreed to do, don't agree to do it in the first place.