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Don't have much today. Lots of work, no energy. The holiday's starting early in my mind, and not a moment too soon, actually.

Really, is any work going to get done this week? Is anybody's head into this? In three days, it's family, turkey, football, that string-bean-and-mushroom-soup-with-crunchy-onion-things casserole. Work? Don't care.

And it's no time for political rants or world affairs. It's time instead for the Traditional Holiday Stories:

In this one, the traditional turkey looks for help in hiding, and pleads with the traditional duck for said assistance.

After much violence involving stuffing the traditional turkey in unusual places, the traditional duck manages to fool the traditional hunting pig for a moment.

But the traditional hunting pig describes the traditional meal he'd planned, making the traditional duck a traditional devil.

Much traditional alleged hilarity ensues, culminating in the traditional turkey turning the tables and causing much bodily harm to the traditional duck. And everyone lived happily ever after. The end.

This story, of course, predated turducken.

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Last night, I really needed a laugh.

This made me laugh:

Sometimes, really stupid is exactly what you need.

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Are you the funniest person alive? Then we need you!

Just don't expect to be paid like the funniest person alive. It's radio.

[SYNDICATED SHOW NAME REDACTED] is searching for a Head Comedy Writer.

I can recall when people did radio shows without writers. (OK, they used prep sheets. I still shudder at the thought of jocks at one station where I worked perusing the Electric Weenie for jokes to use)

We don’t use any prep services - YOU will be our prep service.

You read the prep services and filter out the crap for us.

Must be able to think quickly and instantly make topics from politics to relationships laugh-out-loud FUNNY! This is an off-air position, with possible on-air expansion in the future for the right candidate.

Make us look good. Please. We'll hide you until you threaten to leave, then we'll put you on the air as a wacky stunt-boy and make sure you stay on that level forever.

Send package including 10 national news stories and original jokes pertaining to those stories

Tip: Just transcribe the stuff I write at All Access verbatim and pass it off as your own. Lots of people do that. Works for them.

Man, my attitude is getting really rank. This holiday can't come soon enough.

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It's the day before the holiday, and, of course, I am SO not motivated to do anything. I don't want to go shopping, I don't want to talk about medical stuff, I don't want to write or read or think. I've been writing and reading and thinking all day anyway, but I am ready to hang it up for the week.

But news on the personal front today got a little better. Very little, but it's at least moving in a better direction. No, not gonna say what, because, again, it's not my story to tell, but we'll take positive wherever we can get it. And with T.O. getting smoked in arbitration, with a long weekend and turkey and string bean casserole and football and basketball and sleeping later on the menu, I'm feeling a lot better at the moment. I'm not going to ruin the mood by hanging out in front of the computer.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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How was it?

Quite nice, actually. We were privileged to spend the day with great friends and great food. And we have a lot for which to be thankful, even as we enter another period of trial and uncertainty. And maybe that's why this is maybe my favorite holiday: it's a chance to recognize how lucky we are.

That, and the food. And that we're not the Detroit Lions.

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While everyone else was eating turkey and watching football and sitting in hopeless traffic on the 405, the Editorial Board, or some of it, of Open Source Media/Pajamas Media was doing a "blogjam" and trying to figure out what went wrong and what to do about it. Interesting to see some really sharp people floundering so miserably, and very interesting that they aren't really getting to the point of the matter, which is:

What the hell are you supposed to be?

The site as inaugurated is a sparse, incoherent blob. Is it a portal? Is it a news site? Is it a HuffPo-style group blog? WHAT IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE?

They don't seem to have an answer yet. That should have been determined before they launched, dontcha think?

Blogs by nature work best as the reflection of individuals and small groups of people (like Power Line). They don't NEED to be grouped together and fenced off from the hoi polloi. Want more opinions like the one you're reading? Try the links and blogrolls. Want a diversity of opinion? Go explore what's out there- Google is your friend, and you never know when you'll find something you really like. Pajamas Media is, by nature, restrictive- it's material from a privileged group of specially anointed blogs, as if the board wanted to create an exclusive club in which they were the only members. It's the He-Man Woman Haters Club for bloggers- a bunch of kids in a treehouse putting a sign up to keep the less prominent among them out.

Who needs THAT?

Nobody, which is why they're agonizing over what to do next. Here's my suggestion: dissolve. You can't launch a business without a coherent business plan, and I don't see a plan here. If they wanted to create an online news source based on their collective blogs, they needed to come up with something more akin to a real news site with actual bureaus and reporters, but that's not their forte- they're opinionistas- and they'll find out exactly what that costs to do soon enough. If they wanted a place to aggregate opinions, all they needed to do was set up links to their blogs or make it an RSS-feed-fest, but that's no business plan- it's unnecessary, and anyone can create that themselves- better- with a basic RSS reader. What they have is an unholy hybrid of news feed and opinion feed, wholly redundant with existing sources and even more unwieldy and pointless than the Huffington Mess. Unless there's a better idea- and judging by the "blogjam" entries, they're fishing now- cutting and running before this loses more money might be the best idea they can have.

If you're having meetings or "blogjams" to try and determine what you should be and what the vision is AFTER you've launched, you're toast. I'd like to see what this bunch can do, but for God's sake they ought to pull it off the web and sit down to craft a very specific plan with specific objectives before they put it back up.

But it's still astonishing that so many smart people signed up for something without a point or a plan. And when your fellow bloggers have already set up a death pool for your demise, it's only polite to oblige.

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"Walk the Line"- I keep thinking it's called "Ring of Fire"- is pretty good. It follows the Standard Biopic Instruction Book, which calls for:

a) Movie starts at important moment in subject's life.
b) Immediate flashback to youth, rapidly going to major trauma
c) Parental abuse of some sort is depicted
d) Narrative follows life back to important moment of part a), with small problems magnified to provide drama
e) Once script returns to point a), there's less than a half hour left, advancing the story a few years
f) The end.

And that's "Walk the Ring of Fire Line." It does this better- I think a lot better- than last year's "Ray," despite the facts that Ray Charles' life was more interesting than Johnny Cash's and, in this one, you never once buy Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash. I mean, he dresses like Johnny Cash and holds his guitar way up like Johnny Cash but he doesn't sound or look like the man. Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, sure. Robert Patrick- Agent Doggett!- and Shelby Lynne (!) as Johnny's parents are strong as well. The Phoenix boy- well, he IS a good actor, but you never buy him as the real thing, not like Jamie Foxx inhabited Ray Charles. Doesn't matter- the movie's stronger overall, despite borrowing from the Big Book of Biopic Cliches.

Yeah, it's worth a matinee, despite the fact that you'll have to put up with annoying people in the theater with you. The usual talkers and phone texters were joined in the back row of the Regal Avenue 13 today by someone who, as soon as the movie started, whipped out a huge sandwich loaded with onions, stinking up the theater. You wanna eat lunch? GO OUTSIDE THE THEATER, PINHEAD. Don't make me hurt you.

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