Man pummels 'vampire' peacock

A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a Burger King in New York City was beaten by a man who insisted it was a vampire. Animal control officials in Staten Island say the bird was beaten so fiercely that most of its tail feathers fell out and it had to be euthanized. The seven-year-old male peacock wandered into the restaurant parking lot and perched on a car hood last week. Charmed employees had been feeding it bread when the man appeared. A restaurant worker says the man grabbed the bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started stomping it. She says when he was asked what he was doing, he responded, "'I'm killing a vampire!"'

I read this and thought: "I bet the guy who owned the car that idiot bird was ruining the paint of was secretly glad."

Holy shit! I'm in a magazine, Batman! I was interveiwed last month by SAP Netweaver Magazine, a publication for those in the SAP business. You know, that thing that you see every other billboard at the airport declaring the Germanic virtue of: "Lufthansa runs SAP", "The Body Shop runs SAP", "The Piggly Wiggly runs SAP". OK, I might have made that last one up. Anyway, I was interviewed about moving to Europe, and building an international team to support SAP at our work. And now that's me! On page 46! Being quoted! About things! That sounds not stupid! I've no idea who those bald guys on the cover are! This is fascinating material, people, and made it into a magazine published quarterly, with at least 3 or maybe even 4 subscribers who might make it to page 46. That doesn't count the copies I've ordered to send to every member of my family to read. Because they need to know what a COE is. And I enjoy torturing them. If you're desperate to learn more about how you can evolve your globally distributed ERP Center of Excellence into an agent of change, and would like to read the whole article, you can get it online here. Or just ask, and I'll send you a dozen copies of the magazine. Because I've got a stockpile of hundreds. I'm thinking of trying to convince my Bride to send it out as our Christmas card this year.

The Christmas season blurred right by again this year. The holiday itself was as magical as ever when you live with a four-year old. In her own little Christmas gift to us, she let us sleep in until after 9 that morning. Once up, and before we were allowed to open any presents or check the stocking, the Critter had to check and see if Father Christmas had eaten his cookies, and fed the reindeer the giant carrot we left out for him. (Why didn't you just put the carrot back in the fridge, our neighbor asked. Because the Critter has the memory of Deep Blue, and would recognize it. As it was, she spotted the roll of "Santa's" wrapping paper in the trunk of my car, and said that it was "very nice of him to leave us the extra wrapping paper".) Besides the beautiful hand-made quilt that my Bride made me, and a small forest's worth of wrapping paper left to clean up, the best thing Santa Claus brought to the 'Groove household is a refill on our supply of sleepless nights and wet-wipes. An extension on tuition bills. More stale milk and an endless mound of small jars filled with mashed food so unappetizing you wouldn't serve it to that mangy raccoon that roots through your garbage every week, leaving a trail of rotten leftovers and an embarrassing amount of diet coke cans strewn across your front lawn. It took a couple of tries for the Critter to believe us, but she's got the concept now. Come August or so, the Critter's going to have a little brother or sister. (She has already made her preference known. However, she hasn't decided which hair color she'd prefer, but will get back to us.) One of us is pregnant. I'll let you guess which one. Happy New Year, everyone.