“Donations are starting to come in,” I boasted to my dear close personal lady friend, Miss Christina Hendricks.

“What?”

“At least according to some comments from yesterday’s post and some emails I’ve received, people are really starting to give some much-needed money to Soldiers’ Angels.”

“Do you know who I am?” asked the little girl voice on the other end.

That’s when I realized I’d pulled up the wrong Christina on my speed dial.

“Miss Christina Ricci, my dear close personal lady friend,” I pleaded. “I’m sorry.”

“You do this to me all the time. Whenever you drunk dial that… redheaded hussy… you’re infatuated with.”

I told her, “I know things aren’t the same. But I’m doing good work now, trying to help Soldiers’ Angels deliver more than 150,000 care packages to our troops overseas, and all in time for Christmas.”

“In time for Christmas?” Miss Christina Ricci perked up. “That’s a tall order. I bet it takes a lot of money.”

“It does. And they really need to get moving. So do I — I’m going to make another donation.”

“If you do,” said my dear close personal lady friend Miss Christina Ricci, “then I’ll forgive you all those drunk dials. And maybe we could meet for a drink, or something, sometime. Sometime soon.”

She clicked off, and I clicked over to SoldiersAngels.org and made another donation. You should, too.

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I’ll tell you why the Democrats (and their enablers in the MSM) are trying to convince people that Blago is insane. It’s the same reason the Soviets used to put dissidents in the looney bin: anyone who doesn’t toe the party line is obviously insane, and should be dealt with accordingly. In this case, the party line is that the Democrats are all angels and only Republicans can be evil.

Next up: Laced-sleeve coats for Chris Dodd and Barney Frank.

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James Joyner will blogdebate Bernard Finel on the proposition that the US should disengage from the Middle East. Should be interesting.

CORRECTION: Dave Schuler will be playing the role of James Joyner in tonight’s performance. Kidding — James is doing most of his stuff at the Atlantic Council, but OTB is still alive and well.

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Most years, I’ll get Melissa a pair of slacks or three for work. Maybe Victoria’s Secret, maybe Ann Taylor — nothing too fancy or dressy, but comfy and sharp. This year, the poor catalog models mostly look like they were forced to put on the bottom half of David Byrne’s Big Suit from “Stop Making Sense.”

What is it about the Seventies — the ugliest decade in American history — that they keep coming back? It’s the Dracula Decade, I swear. Well, call me Van Helsing (the Peter Cushing version, please) because I refuse to play. I will not be buying any big pants, this year or ever.

Please, for the sake of everything that is pretty and good, you should do the same.

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Heard from Air Force friends stationed South Korea that last month their house cost them two grand in gas & power.

Anyone else overseas have similar horror stories?

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My close dear personal lady friend Miss Christina Hendricks called me late Saturday night. “Steve,” she whispered to me in her best Marilyn, “what have you done for Soldiers’ Angels and their efforts to send 150,000-plus Christmas packages to our troops deployed overseas?”

“Well, I’ve posted a couple items asking people for help…”

“No, silly — what have you done?” my darling Miss Christina Hendricks asked.

“I’ve put up some really nice pictures of you, too,” I protested. “To try and bribe others into donating some money.”

“Stephen. My dear. What have you done for Soldiers’ Angels. Do something for them, for me, and I’ll let you call me back later tonight. After I’ve changed into something a little less…”

As she started to hang up the phone, I could hear the faint silk rustle of a bra clasp being unhooked.

So I clicked over to Soldiers’ Angels and put fifty bucks in the kitty. It was the least I could do, after everything Miss Christina Hendricks had done for me. If you can’t spare fifty, then twenty bucks will still get Christmas packages to two soldiers overseas.

And it would make Miss Christina Hendricks very appreciative. Trust me on this.

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I’ll admit right up front that Michele Catalano was my second blog crush, back in the early days of 2002. She’d come and go under various guises (and various blogs, too, I think) and somehow I’d always find out where she was writing.

Now, she tells me — we caught up again, this time via Twitter — that she’s started a music blog. Capsule album reviews. Deeply personal. Hysterically, often coarsely, funny. In other words, exactly what you’d expect if Michele were writing album reviews. Which she is. And thank goodness for that.

I read a couple last night, then scrolled down to read more. Then clicked back to read even older reviews. Ended up staying awake past midnight (a rare hour for the parent of a two-year-old) until I quite literally ran out of stuff to read.

Yeah, I’ve got another blog crush. Same girl, new blog. Check it out.

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This is the new BMW Z4. It’s bigger than the old Z4 it replaces, which was a joke version of the Z3 it replaced.

As for the latest, couldn’t they have made it creasier? That thing’s got more folds in it than an contortionist doing an impersonation of an origami Hellraiser box, fresh after being broken on the rack.

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On this week’s PJM Political, it’s Blago-A-Go-Go!

And check out this roster of A-list talent we’ve got on the show: Joe Hicks, Rick Moran, James Lileks, Michelle Malkin, Glenn Reynolds, Charles Johnson, and Oscar nominee Roger L. Simon. Even better, Ed Driscoll and I do our usual thing, which just that is worth the price of admission.

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I’ve been told stories of women (it’s always women for some reason) who can wrap a package using only three pieces of tape. I’ve even heard a version where she could wrap a gift using just a single piece.

Don’t believe them. These stories are all lies, designed to make men feel bad for the way we wrap gifts.

I did the math this afternoon, tested on several boxes. Each present, properly wrapped, requires exactly 24 pieces of double-sided Scotch Tape. Bigger packages might need more. (Your results may vary. Professional driver, closed course.)

You may also need a T-square, a spirit level, and in a few rare instances a claw hammer.

And if you’re unwrapping a present from your buddy Ed, you might need a circular saw to get it open.

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I’m not sure if today’s example explains everything or nothing.

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There’s a good reason the best pinup art is painted — most photos of girls in those poses look just plain silly. It takes the virtual perfection of oil to make the ideal seem plausible. A photograph usually reveals the inherent weirdness of a girl holding her body at impossible angles while smiling broadly.

But not when the subject was Bettie Page.

Page was an ideal all her own, a perfect mix of naughtiness, playfulness and innocence all wrapped up in cherub’s face and a smokin’ hot bod.

And in the disposable world of getting turned on by naughty pictures, we’re still looking at Bettie fifty years later. Assuming I live that long, I’ll still be looking at her 50 years from now. Even if I’m not around to look, the rest of the world will still be peeking at Bettie. And they’ll still be feeling all funny inside.

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Blog Week in Review — starring ME! (yeah, whatever, it’s still pretty good) — is free to non-subscribers this week.

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I’ve been nominated for a Shorty Award. Of course, in some cultures I think those are fighting words.

What did I do? I “tweeted” 17 excuses throughout the day for not shoveling snow. Here they are, in reverse order, just like real live blogging:

is out of excuses not to shovel the driveway, but still has plenty of scotch. There’s a lesson in there somewhere. If you really look. 8:50 PM Dec 9th from web

figures that after all this wine, it would be dangerous to shovel the driveway. He could slip and fall on the ice. Think of the children! 6:41 PM Dec 9th from web

has come to the sad conclusion that if he goes outside to shovel now, then his glass of wine will open up too much. 5:40 PM Dec 9th from web

figures it’s nearly dark enough already that hardly anyone can tell if the driveway is shoveled or not. 4:48 PM Dec 9th from web

is fairly certain the parakeet requires too much attention today for me to be stuck outside shoveling. Or would be, if we had a parakeet. 3:26 PM Dec 9th from web

is pretty sure his old college football injury is acting up too much to allow him to do any shoveling this afternoon. 2:50 PM Dec 9th from web

claims that his seasonal snow and shovel allergies have returned — and darn the lousy timing. 2:12 PM Dec 9th from web

likes to keep his friends close and his shovel closer. 1:10 PM Dec 9th from web

still wakes up sometimes. Still wakes up in the dark and hears the screaming of the driveway. 12:35 PM Dec 9th from web

just finished watching a scary news report about a man who was shoveling his driveway–and was mauled by a pack of wild dogs! And kitties! 12:00 PM Dec 9th from web

has it on good authority that “the soft, fluffy kind of snow doesn’t even require any shoveling.” 11:12 AM Dec 9th from web

thinks it would be best not to shovel the driveway “so as not to reduce the potential polar bear habitats.” 10:22 AM Dec 9th from web

would rather not shovel the driveway “so that Santa will feel more welcome.” 9:57 AM Dec 9th from web

thinks he shouldn’t have to shovel the driveway today “on account of inclement weather.” 9:32 AM Dec 9th from web

has, once again, put off snow shoveling until he can get his boot laces “not quite so criss-crossy.” 8:57 AM Dec 9th from web

has decided to further delay shoveling the snow, as on closer inspection it turns out the all the flakes look suspiciously unalike. 8:28 AM Dec 9th from web

has decided not to shovel snow yet because “it’s too white.” 8:08 AM Dec 9th from web

I don’t know how to vote for me, but maybe you do.

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Is China’s SAIC gearing up to buy Saturn from GM?

The deal would make sense for a foreign automaker looking to buy into a US dealer/distribution stream, without having to take on the responsibility of owning an automaker that actually makes cars. SAIC could ditch the UAW by continuing the fine GM tradition of using its “import fighter” brand to sell rebadged imports. Only instead of selling rebadged Opels from Europe, SAIC would sell their own rebadged Chinese cars.

Would many Americans notice the difference?

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More trouble for Sony:

Alone among the three major videogame consoles, sales of the PS3 are down about 19% from November 2007, according to the latest stats from the NPD Group. Sony was only able to sell 378,000 PS3s this November, compared to 466,000 last year.

And the problem for Sony isn’t the recession, it’s the PS3. Microsoft (MSFT) put up respectable numbers with its Xbox 360, selling 836,000 units vs 777,000 in November 2007. And Nintendo’s (NTDOY) Wii continues to dominate the market, more than doubling sales from 981,000 to 2.04 million.

Less fun than the Wii, twice as expensive as the Xbox 360. That’s why Playstation 3 isn’t selling.

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Transcript from Fox News:

BILL SAMMON: But it raises the question about whether somebody from the Obama team might have been on that, because as soon as the conference call ended, it was a two-hour conference call, and in that conference call, Blagojevich basically said — OK, well, if, you know, Valerie Jarrett, if, you know, I’m going to appoint Obama’s favorite person, Valerie Jarrett, to that Senate seat and Obama’s not going to pay me off for it, the heck with her, I’m not going to do it.

Of course, he used a little saltier language. But as soon as that conference call ended, within a matter of hours, Obama aides were leaking to reporters that Valerie Jarrett had taken herself out of the running for that seat.

MACCALLUM: Right.

SAMMON: So, either someone who was in on that call, or got briefed by a participant in the call, someone from the Obama camp, and the question is who.

Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the possibilities of what Obama knew and when.

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You smell bacon?

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David Harsanyi: “Read this *!($@’n column.”

Um, yeah, OK.

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So I was talking to my good close personal lady friend, Miss Christina Hendricks, the other day. And she asked me, “Did you know that Soldiers’ Angels plans to deliver more than 100,000 care packages to our troops overseas?

“I had no idea. That must cost a lot of money.”

“It does,” she said, spilling out of her dress just a bit. “The packages cost big money just to put together, and then there are all those shipping fees…”

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked my dear friend, Miss Christina Hendricks.

“Give them some money, silly,” she purred in my ear.

I tell you, it’s tough to be a blogger sometimes. But it’s even tougher to be deployed overseas — especially this time of year. So do what my good friend Miss Christina Hendricks wants you to do, and donate a little money to Soldiers’ Angels. Just click right here. It will only take a minute or two.

*Not actually endorsed by Miss Christina Hendricks, although I’m sure she’s a lovely person and would be happy to help if she knew about Soldiers’ Angels.

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No more Amazon Tip Jar?

The good folks at Amazon are about to experience the full wrath of the blogosphere. This ought to make the Sitemeter fiasco look like tender kisses on the beach.

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The mainstream media is so desperate to help the Democrats who run Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae, that Newsweek is now blaming the Wall Street meltdown on a woman who’s been dead for almost 30 years.

Tell me again why Newsweek is cutting pages and slashing print runs.

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On the most recent Blogger Roundtable, Redstate’s Jeff Emanuel, National Review’s Mark Hemingway, and VodkaPundit’s Steve Green (hey, that’s me!) talk about below-the-fold news stories, Republican whipping boy Karl Rove, and — of course — Blagoramagate.

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It’s true — Santa is a Democrat.

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My favorite part of being a Twitterer is getting daily updates from Chakapedia. Well, that and the constant updates from Mr. Lileks. (Since having had a real actual lunch with him last summer, he sometimes lets me call him Mr. James Lileks.) Anyway, even if you’re not a fellow or sister Twit, you should read this delightful interview with Chaka.

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I’d call in fabulous, but then they’d just want me more.

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Soldiers’ Angels needs your help getting 181,000 care packages delivered to our deployed troops in time for the holidays.

I’m going to keep bugging you about this one for the next week or so. But every time I do, I’ll post a free pic of Christina Hendricks. So you might as well make it up to me by making even just a small donation. Click over already.

And now, Miss Hendricks.

Give a little. You know you want to.

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