Came home from a morning out to discover a gecko had made its way through the pet veranda and was running around the office trying to escape the claws of Princess Leia, who can be quite lethal when she wants to be. I put her out of the office, beseeched the gecko to make its escape while it could, and sat down with Leia to reiterate the Buddhist tenets of the household, basically, that every little creature has a right to live, and we are all fellow travelers on this great green earth, and could she please not kill the gecko.

Woke up from my nap a half hour ago to find a headless gecko on my bedroom floor, sprawled in its death agony. I am waiting in vain for Jensen Ackles to come over and take care of the poor little corpse, but his agent isn't returning my calls.

Another tenet of the household is that we are big fans of Ira Glass and This American Life. I was intrigued therefore when burger_eater recently linked to this video of Ira talking about how long it can take for creative people to bridge the gap between where they are with their art and where they want to be with it. Or, more specifically, how long it took him to become a great broadcaster - decades. I enjoyed him pointing out all the flaws in a piece of his work made when he'd already been on the job for eight years.



On youtube there are other Ira Glass clips, including a funny one of him on Letterman talking about how he became a vegetarian. Or you can read about it here. I tried to get Princess Leia to pay attention, but she's too busy being on the alert for more unfortunate geckos.