As if you needed one more reason to be weirded out by burkas, the Philadelphia Daily News reported yesterday that a team of thieves have been dressing in the women’s Muslim garb to rob local convenience stores and banks. Police estimate that there are four to five people in the ring, including a couple males, and they carry silver, sawed-off shotguns under their black dresses.

I suspect that the reason for all this tomfoolery might just be that the bandits have been listening to sultry lyrics of the one, the only, John Legend — specifically, to the lyric, “maybe, I should, rob somebody.” Personally, though, I feel that wearing burkas undermines the stylish authority of Mr. Legend. Maybe that beekeeper lady’s outfit would be a better alternative.

I got my first digital camera, “Cammy” the Cannon Elph, two Christmases ago, and ever since I’ve been on a search for the perfect online photo store. Early in ’03 I hit upon Snapfish.com, which at 19 cents-a-print was a bargain — by far and away the cheapest. The 4x6s looked decent and always arrived within a week, so I was happy. But as time wore on, I began to question my initial decision. After all, the only reason I was drawn to Snapfish was because a colorful internet ad. Nobody I knew could vouch for the site, and surely paying half the price of other stores must involve some trade-off. Besides, everyone else I knew was using Ofoto and Shutterfly.

The blog police are on to me, pointing out that I haven’t posted in over a week. But po-po, I have an excuse–the same one I’ll keep returning to for, oh, the next two years. I’m planning a wedding!

I mean, the event is over and done, but that doesn’t mean we’re not still working. Thank-you cards, albums for the parents, prints for friends and family. Come on, we all know that the planning and holding the event is only half the work. I’m not even sure we’re really over the hump yet.

Please don’t be disappointed, fair blog readers, if the only thing you get from us this holiday season is a 4×6 or 5×7 glossy. If it doesn’t arrive in time for Xmas, the joint holiday/thank-you card should be waiting for you by New Year’s at the latest.

On the topic of gift-giving, one quick question: Do any of you Jesus-goers out there find that Christmas has morphed into a two-week marathon of mini Christmases? In my recent experience, especially last year and this, I find that I’m hopping from house to house every other night to open presents with a different branch of the family tree. My parents’ divorce and the addition of Ana’s family to the holiday lineup have certainly added to this strange phenomena–not that I’m complaining (though I may well start if my wish for an Omnibot goes unfulfilled for the 27th year in a row).

Pity the poor Pontiac Vibe that has shuttle us around on this most unholy itinerary: Last Saturday we were at my dad’s house, ogling Winifred, Frances, and Owen, and unwrapping a plethora of knock-off watches, purses and pens that my father bought on a business trip to Hong Kong. This Thursday we’ll be dining with Ana’s godparents; the night after that we’re visiting the Portuguese church in Elizabeth and more relatives; then we’ve penciled in Ana’s brother’s family for Dec. 25; and after that it’s up to White Plains for Xmas all over again with my mom and siblings’ families.

We haven’t quite made it to eight days of present-opening yet, but I’m sure that with a little hard work, we’ll be able to find three more families to hang with and goose presents from in 2005. Then my transformation from Episcopal to Catholic to Jew will be complete. Now, if only we could start marrying off those triplets …

About a year ago I read about Wikipedia, the open source encyclopedia that had just eclipsed Britannica.com in popularity. The secret to Wikipedia’s success is that all of the entries are open to the general public to edit. You can write entries on just about any topic–though turkeymonkey has yet to be added–and factcheck the work of others. Now the folks at the Wikimedia Foundation, the site’s parent organization, have taken the idea one step further, with a site called Wikinews. The idea is really quite simple: to make journalism into a truly collaborative and egalitarian medium, written and edited by the masses.

Noble and exciting as this goal is, there are two main problems: One, most “wiki” writing–or, collectively authored web documents–reads like it was written by 7th graders obsessed with every possible half-point deduction to their history papers. Which isn’t to say that all of the authors are terrible; it’s just that editing by committee, especially one in the tens of thousands, often results in prose that’s overstuffed with facts and bled dry of any personality. Lucky for wiki devotees, there’s Wikibooks, where textbook writers have finally found a cozy home.

The second problem with Wikinews–feel free to call me Mr. Obvious, here–is that there is no fact-checking component before articles go live. Not that fact-checking is all that and a bag of chips. But in the case of breaking news stories, what’s to prevent Wikinews entries from becoming runaway games of telephone? And even if the stories do eventually morph to fit the facts, as printed in newspapers and magazines, why would anyone turn to Wikinews first? If a media outlet broadcasts unreliable facts and biased opinions, well, we have a name for that: Fox News.

After canceling my Philadelphia Inquirer subscription last month, the one thing that I miss desperately is Inga Saffron’s column. Every once in a while I’d get a kick out of Tom Ferrick or Tanya Barrientos, or I’d read the latest on the City Hall corruption probe, but Inga was the only staff writer that had my undivided attention, week in and week out.

I set up an RSS feed of the paper to My Yahoo, but because they don’t attach bylines to the excerpts, I usually miss her stories now. So, muchas gracias to Philebrity.com for pointing out Inga’s latest withering attack on Philly architecture. Specifically, the six or so massive civic projects that have been built in the last five years: Kimmel Center, Linc, Constitution center, the ballpark, etc. While every Philadelphian is delighted to have snazzy new concert halls and football stadiums, all of these constructions are, aesthetically speaking, uninspired heaps of concrete and red brick. Philebrity sums up the critique this way: “Even though Ed Rendell was all like Mr. Bold when it came to greenlighting big new buildings, the fact of the matter is, they all pretty much look like university cafeterias.” Not quite as elegant as the Pulitzer prose of Ms. Saffron, but well said nonetheless.