Sigh.

A while back I realised I was drowning in the number of feeds I was subscribed to on Bloglines. (Opening it up and seeing 1,500 unread items is a wee bit on the brain-busting side of the fence.)

So I sucked it up and did a massive cull, eliminating the feeds that were boring me and the feeds that were stressing me out. The stress-out feeds were the ones that were piling up too fast for me to keep up with and would usually just result in me clearing out the unread items en masse, just in an effort to relieve the pressure.

Things seemed to be well under control — I no longer felt like a slave to Bloglines.

But recently, I noticed that I wasn’t actually getting any news. We’re talking headlines here — news of the world, “Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” sort of stuff. I was first off the block if someone released, say, an MP3 player in the shape of a chipmunk that would also vacuum your floor while you slept, but God help me if I actually wanted to know something newsworthy — like, say, the US VP shooting his hunting partner. (Days behind on that one, I was.)

So, I subscribed to the Google News feed.

And now… I’m drowning again.

So this is my call to my peeps — can anyone recommend a good news feed that gives a good spread of world news (not US-centric), but one that doesn’t just throw everything out there. I’m looking for a wheelbarrow’s worth of news here, not a dump truck.

Suggestions?

(I’m a day late with this… but they’re down in balmy North Carolina, so they might be too busy drinking mint julips on the porch, or eating grits, or… I don’t know… Civil War re-enacting or something to have noticed the lateness. I don’t know what they do down there. Whatever it is, it ain’t shovelling snow. Bastards.)

To my father and step-mother, I wish you the happiest of anniversaries. I really don’t know two people that are more right together than the two of you.

(Well. There is My Lovely Wife and me, but I may be a wee bit biased there. But besides us… you’re pretty cool together.)

Dad — I’ve talked about you before . So relax. Go read a book. Heat up your coffee. Let me talk to Brenda.

Bren — on this anniversary of you “legally” joining our family — in a surprise ceremony in another country that we didn’t get to hear about until it was too late to actually consider travelling to but we won’t get into that right now because I’m not bitter or anything and I don’t expect you to make it up to me by sending me cookies or Star Wars action figures or anything — I want to remind you… you were really a part of our family a long, long time ago.

Remember, if people ask you who the strange man is posting about zombies and kitty-cats while giggling like a small child that just said “fart”, you tell them, “That’s Jason. He’s my son.”

You don’t have a choice. You married my Dad. Now you’re trapped! TRAPPED! MWUHAHAHAHAHA!

Why did this take me so long? It seems so natural — like peanut butter and chocolate. Or zombies and brains. Me and cookies.

(pictures by kazzie — found on flickr)

• The Daily Monkey (via Boing Boing)

A new monkey every day.

Do you need a reason? Besides this one?

Really? Because if you do, I guess I can supply a few.

Umm… just let me know.

(This one was veeeeery familiar to me… for some reason…)

• Church Marketing Sucks: “Letting Satan Speak For Your Church” (via Consumerist)

St. James United Church of Christ in Limerick, Penn. has the following Bible verse as a slogan on their web site:

“If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” Luke 4:7

Sound familiar? Those would be the words of one Prince of Darkness while tempting Jesus Christ.

Sounds like a joke, eh?

It’s not.

Was it hackers?

Nope.

This boo-boo was all them.

(Don’t go looking for the page. They’ve changed it. Very quickly, in fact.)

Hee hee hee.