Today, the lovely and ingenious “Zorkmidden” turned 29 years young. A Grecian immigrant, Zorkie conquered the… well, whatever it was she conquered, she is now the proprietrix of Pixelatrix Games and cofoundress of Discarded Lies, where the “Celebrate zorkmidden” tribute will give you some inkling of how many lives she has touched. Unless those are all sock puppets.

It was eight years ago this very day, Dec. 17, 1998 — around lunch time — that I fell in love. Eight years is not so very long ago, and yet I can no longer remember what it was like not to be in love, except for a vague impression that life was less pleasant. Good thing I wrote it all down.

The Oklahoma City Museum of Art will present the Holiday Print Show for one month, Dec. 14 to Jan. 14. The exhibit will feature more than 100 prints by seven artists: Thomas Nast, Winslow Homer, Honoré Daumier, Claude Lorraine, Leonard Baskin, Josef Albers, and Robert Natkin.

I was just looking at the roster of 2006 Weblog Awards finalists, and was pleasantly surprised to see my own name among them! (Way, way down the list, in the “Best of the Top 5001 - 6750 Blogs” category.) I’ll try to put some pertinent content on my blog in the coming days, along with instructions on how to cast your vote for me. Meanwhile, I am very honored to be a finalist. Thanks, guys.

Milton Friedman, Nobel laureate, author of Capitalism and Freedom and the greatest economist in the world since Adam Smith, died today at 94. Michelle Malkin has an assembalge of tributes.

Bloggers, start your engines. Nominations are now being taken, for the 2006 Weblog Awards. Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.