Back in the office

As in: Flotsam

Am back in the office now, with its fresh new wall. When I'm in my office, I regularly imagine that the message light on my phone blinks at me, even when there's no message. At least once per work day, I imagine that I see the light blink and redirect my attention to it, only to find it staring back at me unblinkingly. Such was my experience a moment ago. Welcome back, Cotter.

Naps

As in: Flotsam

At home on a Sunday afternoon. Dog is sleeping. Cat is sleeping. Baby is sleeping. Wife's away. Have a pile of grading as high as my digital eye.

:(

Spam Poetry 2

As in: Flotsam

Another email poem:

Subject: Save 82% Ambieen, U1tram, Va1iu*, Xana*, Levitr*, Viagr*, Cia111is & Many More arms
evil added might easy proud. met free am work dare meeting.
know mentioned bread shining knew, favorite forth planning how.
if supposedto happened.
whos night learned.
promised yellow rich benefit. gray tomorrow not i, number given hearing street fill?

Trippy, man!

Groceries

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The man in front of me at the grocery store bought these three things:

Saturday Morning: 4 Thoughts and a Question

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1. There are nine William Gibsons with entries in Wikipedia. The author of "The Miracle Worker" (a play about Hellen Keller) and the author of Neuromancer (one of the premiere cyberpunk novels) are both named William Gibson.

Seems to me that MUST be significant.

2. Leo Kottke has a song called "Pamela Brown" that catches my attention every time it plays on my iTunes shuffle. It's interesting because the singer is thanking a woman for not loving him, because if she had he'd have married her and he'd never become the rambling musician he did. Catchy and weird.

3. I enjoy pharyngula more and more each day. The term bozo isn't as easy to use as we think it might be. And who knew Scott Adams (of Dilbert) was a creationist?

4. The five hundred bucks I gave the heating guy yesterday was worth it--our room and the soon-to-be-baby's room are toasty now. Mmmm, working radiators.

5. Quick, what's the one food you musn't go without on Thanksgiving? Mine's mashed potatoes.

5 minute break

As in: Flotsam

When my cat crawls under my desk/cabinet after strutting around on my lap for a few moments, his purrs reverberate ominously near my feet, humming like some high voltage cold-war machine.

Spam Poetry

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A spam I got today:

Subject: High Prestige Watches At Only $250 bought

off shining reference wife few corner development not added gym
did reading my purpose side gym sugar suddenly you nothing
she bad shining anybody companion being the
social across drew added music purpose somewhere
goes servants black goes edge window use miserable

I snap my fingers at you, Lashay Bulah.

On the way to work today...

As in: Flotsam

• The conductor stopped the train for longer than usual and announced: "Your attention please: we're currently waiting while we experience a security sweep." They usually say conduct rather than experience.
• I sat in the tiny seat at the front of the car perpendicular to the door. Cramped but you don't have to share.
• A man crossed the street against the light, glancing to make sure there was no traffic coming. A young woman, perhaps twenty feet behind him, crossed without looking and, striding forth from behind a parked bus, narrowly avoided getting run over by a car. She didn't look bothered by it.
• I politely refused a Chinese takeout menu.
• Watching the light change from yellow to red, I saw a man sprint into the crosswalk, only to get stranded in the middle. As the bumper-to-bumper traffic surged past, a woman in a sporty silver car tried to merge and dial her cell phone at the same time.

Just what I needed!

As in: Flotsam

From my inbox:

Hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, Cheap Shoes!, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane, hurricane.

How to tell when your credit rating far exceeds your means...

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You receive this kind of thing in the mail:

A fun trip to Niagara

As in: Flotsam

We took a fun trip to Niagara Falls and Upstate New York during the last couple weeks. Here are three amusing photos:

Turkeys are as slippery as bananna peels.

As commercial as it is, the illumination of the falls is pretty cool.

Skunks like garbage. And they come out early.

What amazed me most about the trip was how commercial the Canada side of the falls are. My impression has always been that Americans are the crass ones, what with our affinity for yard butts and Fear Factor. Niagara Falls presents a counterexample. The American side is a park, with a big tent, lots of grassy space, and a few hotels in the distance. The Canadian side teems with touristy goodness: hotels and shops butt right up against the gorge overlooking the falls, souvenir stands and price gouging services abound. Unexpected.

Fun fact for the day

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Apparently when penicillin was first discovered, it was difficult to produce in large quantities, thus making it necessary for people to spend lots of time procuring it. Those in charge of manufacturing and getting penicillin were often dubbed "penicillin czar."

Thanks to Courtney for this interesting fact!

Too much multitasking

As in: Flotsam

When I was out walking Loki today, we saw another man walking his dog. Strangely, he was holding the leash with his left hand and holding his other hand to his face. As we got closer, I realized he had his electric shaver and was shaving while he walked his dog. It's a strange world.

Today's inanity

As in: Flotsam

So I recently ordered some printer cartridges from Dell, because I'm a sucker for printing, and they sent me a couple emails notifying me that my order had a) been received, b) been acknowledged, c) been processed, and most recently, d) shipped. Check out their email:

Hilariously, I seem to have had some remarkable influence on this process: That's the epitome of consumer culture right there, where the very act of ordering something online deserves not just thanks but congratulations.

Wow! Money!

As in: Flotsam

Apparently, I won the lottery:

The Award Department
Barnby Worldwide Business Information
9 Leapal Road,
Guildford, Surrey, GU1 4JX

Dear Sir/Madam,

This is to inform you that have been selected for a
cash prize of £2,600,000.00 (Two Million, Six Hundred Thousand GBP)
This is in line with our promotional lottery for our
products. We specialize in the sales of cd-roms that
enhance your business growth.

The selection process was carried out through random
selection in ourcomputerized email selection system(ESS) from a
database of over 250,000 email addresses drawn from
all the continents of the world.

This promotional lottery is the first of its kind and
we intend to usethis medium to sensitize the public about our
products.

To begin the processing of your prize we have
contracted the services of a reputable finance house, you are advised
to
contact their Client Services Manager on how to claim your prize:

SIR. WELLA WASHINGTON
Net Gold Services Limited
Electron House
43 TRAFORD Road
Reigate, Surrey RH2 9PW
United Kingdom
Tel: +: +44-703-194-0610
Fax: +44-870-120-7133
EMAIL: wallawashington@web-mail.com.ar

When you contact him, please provide him with your
secret pin code Gdt4m7imcn2005 and your reference number
BWBI:5392976086/08.

You are also advised to provide him with the under
listed information
as soon as possible:
1. Name in full
2. Address
3. Nationality
4. Age
5. Occupation
6. Phone/Fax

If you do not contact your claims agent within 10
working days of this notification, your winnings would be revoked.
Winners
are advised tokeep their winning details/information from the public
to avoid fraudulent claim (IMPORTANT) pending the
transfer/claim by Winner.
Accept my hearty congratulations once again!

Regards
SIR. WELLA WASHINGTON
Promotions Manager

Note: This lottery is for all residents, if you are
resident in the UK and you receive this notification
please you can as well partcipate in the email ballot lottery.

Summer break thoughts

As in: Flotsam

Thoughts as I near the end of my one-week break between spring and summer terms:

• What does Huck Finn have to do with donuts?
• Which is the best They Might Be Giants song? Ana Ng? Snowball in Hell? My favorite might be Till My Head Falls Off. [Update: don't forget Meet James Ansor: "Meet James Ansor ... Belgium's Famous Painter ... Dig him up and shake his hand; understand the man."]
• I love the way this guy barrages "Intelligent Design" with wicked rhetoric and cruel taunts.
• I'm working on a comicblog entry about Creative Commons. Coming soon!
• Tech projects for the summer: Finish Random comic archive feature; Roll up drupal or something similar; Linux at home.
• Writing projects for summer: Random comic article; finish Angel / Detective article; bust out the diss and see how much of it I need to throw away to get the bones of a book out of it. My guess: 60%.
Posted by briley at 7:45 PM

All those years wasted...

As in: Flotsam

To think, I could have been a phud in 2 weeks.

Junk music

As in: Flotsam , Photos

I found this piano in an alley near a park we like. I makes me sad.

Night Life: A compilation

As in: ComicBlog , Flotsam

Of All the Cockamamie ...

As in: Flotsam

So I just bought a new notebook computer. Yay.

After I got the wireless working, I logged on to my preferred web security firm's website, McAfee.com. After rooting around for a while, it becomes more and more clear that I cannot buy a second subscription for my second computer. In fact, their whole setup encourages me to download it to my new computer. Here's the "my account" screen:

Notice that there's no "add another computer" option. In fact, there's no option like that anywhere on the site.

Most people would probably just download the program to their new computer. After all, it's right there. I used the help box instead, thinking I might have missed a screen somewhere:

I just bought a second computer and would like to put McAfee on it. I presume that my subscription for my first computer does not cover my second, but I cannot figure out how to subscribe for a second computer. Does my one subscription cover more than one computer?

Their response? (Boldface added by me)

Brendan Riley,

Thank you for contacting McAfee.

Please be informed that you can only install your subscription/license on one computer at a time. If you are interested in putting a McAfee product on an additional computer, you would need to purchase a new subscription/license and register under a different email address.

Please go to us.mcafee.com to purchase.

For all of your Customer Service and Technical Support needs, please visit http://www.mcafeehelp.com.

Sincerely,

Katrina C.
McAfee CS - Tier1

Grumble. I wrote back:

I need to register under a different email address? That's hardly customer-friendly. In an age of multiplying userids, trying to manage even one login/account is hard enough, but having to manage an entirely different email address is ludicrous.

I suspected I would need to buy a second subscription, but you make it difficult to be the ethical netizen by requiring that I open a second account. It would seem the whole point of having an account is to manage multiple software subscriptions.

Frustratedly,
Brendan Riley

If their response doesn't include "here's how you can add a second account," I'm finding a different security company. Suggestions? Has anyone tried ZoneAlarm's Virus protection? I like their firewall, so the package might be a good'un. I've also heard good things about Avest. Other suggestions?

Addendum: After some comparison shopping, I've decided to go with ZoneAlarm. I like their philosophy anyway, and they have a $30 rebate if you switch from McAffee. Plus, they have a two-user license. Linked right from their front page. (To be fair, I discovered that McAfee has a three-user license on its front page.)

The Mysterious Nature of Cats

As in: ComicBlog , Flotsam

Now that's damn good T.V.

As in: Flotsam , Media

I'm hooked. On my office-mate's advice, we watched The Amazing Race this time around and dang! That's good T.V. Most of the episodes are intense, and the down-to-the-wire breaks are awesome. We're very happy that Uchenna and Joyce won.

The only dubious moment on the race—what are the odds that a pilot would let the jetway be put back on the plane for two more passengers? Nonetheless, priceless payback for the moment Rob & Amber pulled a similar coup in episode 3 or 4.	It couldn't have gone to a more deserving team. Always positive, always about being nice to one another and competitive without being unethical (or even cutthroat).

I predict that in the next race, we'll see two tactics that people will have learned from Rob and Amber: there will be a lot more "bribing" of locals to not help other teams in one way or another; everyone will be jockeying for any airplane advantage they can find. Rob and Amber made significant strides in this race because they always sought a better flight, at a faster time. Doug adds that he thinks the hidden rules (which we all agree must be there) will now include a stricture against hiring "guides" to help with tasks—the other R/A innovation that gave them a serious edge.

The Mysteries of Mailing lists

As in: Flotsam , Media

As I've mentioned before, I'm hooked on The Current, which I listen to over the internet. It's a Minnesota Public Radio operation that plays a very wide range of music from a variety of genres and eras. I knew it would be the right station for me during my first listening session. Within two hours, I heard a deep track from They Might Be Giants' Apollo 18 and a bit of Soul Coughing.

Because I support the idea of public radio and my listening costs the station real resources (I'm pulling bandwidth, rather than grabbing already-distributed airwaves), I pitched in a little bit during the last pledge drive. Apparently, MPR sells its member lists to organizations like the Walker Art Center—I expect this package I got is the first of many Minnesota-centered publicity I will receive in Illinois:

What I don't get is how they got my name wrong. I paid by Credit Card online, so it must have been right (the CC company wouldn't have processed the charge if I had mistyped my name). So how did my name get mis-typed on the Walker mailing list? I would assume they could just transfer the names digitally.

An anecdote from my days as a temp: I had a two-week stint working for Microsoft (this would have been in, say, the summer of 1996 or 97) in which my job was to take data from one spreadsheet (all typed) and enter it into another database. I spent the whole two weeks of data entry pondering why Microsoft hadn't worked out a way to transfer the data without a bunch of keyboard monkeys like myself as intermediaries.

The mysteries of menswear

As in: Flotsam

There's a strange reaction when I combine my black belt (not martial arts related) with my grey pants. After a couple hours of wear, the buckle has crept left as far as the first beltloop, where its gets stuck.

• Why does my belt creep to the left?


• If I had no belt loops, somehow, would it creep forever and, if so, how long would it take to do a full revolution?

World leader bands

As in: Flotsam , Media

So what with the popularity of Franz Ferdinand, I'm not surprised to be listening to something on The Current right now by a band called "Louis XIV." It seems like only a matter of time before other bands come out with world-leader names (excepting those who already have them, like the Boxing Gandhis). So, I give you bands named after world leaders that I'd like to see:

• Sadat
• The Nevilles Chamberlain
• Anwar
• The Mondale Exposition
• Imelda's Shoes

Construction

As in: Flotsam

Oddly enough, when I searched for a wrecking ball image for this post, I found this one, of "Tim Riley's Bar" being demolished.

Walking from the train to my office today, I stopped to watch a demolition team using a wrecking ball to destroy a parking garage. They were working on some reinforced horizontal beam, and everytime the huge metal ball dropped on the beam, the entire building shook visibly, bits of plaster and concrete flaking off and dust billowing out. Most interesting to me, though, was the thunderous booming that reverberated through the ground with each drop. I felt a bit like Jeff Goldblum looking at that glass of water in Jurassic Park.

RAM

As in: Flotsam

Things I know only because I was in nerd bowl:

• Guiteau shot Garfield (helpful mnemonic: Garfield played the Guitar, thought Guiteau).
• The Autobiography of Gertrude Stein was written by Alice B. Toklas.
• Marijuana is the United States' biggest cash crop.

A crossword clue I got yesterday because I enjoy Monty Python's Flying Circus:

• 5-letter word for "Deciduous conifer": LARCH

Cooler

As in: Flotsam

So this came in the OED daily email on 3 March (read the extended entry for the full definition):

cooler SECOND EDITION 1989

({sm}ku{lm}l{schwa}(r)) [f. as prec. + -ER. Cf. KEELER.]

1. Anything that cools or makes cool.

1575 LANEHAM Lett. (1871) 53 But whoo so was found so hot in desyre, with the wreast of a Cok was sure of a coolar. 1686 GOAD Celest. Bodies I. ii. 6 Wind is a Dryer, even as Frost a Cooler. 1797 HOLCROFT Stolberg's Trav. (ed. 2) IV. xcii. 235 They do not use ice as a cooler, but snow.

. . .

3. A cooling medicine or agent; a refrigerant.

1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. II. ii. II. (1651) That the liver be outwardly anointed with some coolers that it be not over~heated. 1671 SALMON Sign. Med. III. xxii. Citruls, the seeds are great coolers in Feavers. 1744 BERKELEY Siris §7 An admirable febrifuge, at once the safest cooler and cordial. 1766 PENNANT Zool., Goat (1812) I. 46 In..cases, where coolers and restoratives are necessary.

Since I'm teaching from Writing About Cool this semester, I thought I'd play with these a bit this morning.

Having read The Professor and the Madman, I'm aware that OED sought, for their examples, the earliest use of each word available. So it becomes marginally reasonable to say 1575 is the year "cooler" emerged as a noun. Using one of my favorite techniques from the book, let's see what else was going on in 1575...

The music industry was already consolidating.

Jan 22, English queen Elizabeth I granted Thomas Tallis and William Byrd a music press monopoly. (link)

 

I'm not sure what this has to do with "cooler," but I find it odd that the dumb didn't have rights to progeniture, which I take to mean the right to have children. Perhaps you'd use a cooler to enforce that restriction (as defn 3 or 4)?

Lasso, a Spanish lawyer, concluded that those who learn to speak are no longer dumb and should have rights to progeniture.(link)

 

From a confusing entry on Answers.com, it seems a whole tribe of celts won the world Chess championship. I include this link mostly because I got a cool circular irish chess set for Christmas this year.

Boi and Leonardo da Cutri (link)

 

How does someone decide to make a "history of the world" list, and why include this? The battle served as a cooler in the arms race.

In Japan two armies meet. The side with guns wins for the first time, yet by mutual agreement, guns are outlawed 100 years later.(link)

 

The beginnings of psychology? The sixteenth century's answer to Freud.

In his book Catalogue of Common Places, Johannes Thomas Freigius [b. (Switzerland), 1543, d. 1583] uses the term psychologia ("mind study"). He reintroduces the term in another book in 1579.(link)

For you philophiles, here's the whole entry:

cooler SECOND EDITION 1989

({sm}ku{lm}l{schwa}(r)) [f. as prec. + -ER. Cf. KEELER.]

1. Anything that cools or makes cool.

1575 LANEHAM Lett. (1871) 53 But whoo so was found so hot in desyre, with the wreast of a Cok was sure of a coolar. 1686 GOAD Celest. Bodies I. ii. 6 Wind is a Dryer, even as Frost a Cooler. 1797 HOLCROFT Stolberg's Trav. (ed. 2) IV. xcii. 235 They do not use ice as a cooler, but snow.

2. a. A vessel in which anything is cooled or set to cool; esp. one used for cooling the wort in brewing, or for similar purposes in other manufacturing processes.

1616 SURFL. & MARKH. Country Farme 589 Boile it very well the second time with the hops, then..put it into the coolers and coole it. 1641 FRENCH Distill. i. (1651) 34 A great Alembick, with its cooler or Copper Still. 1741 Compl. Fam. Piece I. vi. 279 Shift your first Wort out of the Coolers into a Working-Tun. 1798 BLOOMFIELD Farmer's Boy, Spring 217 Streams of new milk thro' flowing coolers stray. 1820 W. SCORESBY Arctic Regions II. 398 On a little lower level than..the copper, is fixed a square or oblong back or cooler..capable of containing from 10 to 20 tons of oil. 1861 WYNTER Soc. Bees 211 The boiling beer is now pumped up to the coolers.

b. spec. A vessel into which syrup is poured to crystallize into sugar, a crystallizer.

1790 Penn. Packet 6 Jan. 4/2 Two large copper coolers, and two Boilers for Sugar-Bakers. 1819 BRANDE Chem. 355 The fire is instantly damped, and the boiling sugar carried off in basins to the coolers. 1853 URE Dict. Arts (ed. 4) II. 766 From the..cooler, the syrup is transferred into wooden chests or boxes,..also called coolers, but which are more properly crystallizers or granulators. 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §449 Heater man (sugar refining); cooler hand, cooler man.., adds water to heaters, receivers, coolers or crystallisers.

c. A water-cooler; a place where cool drinking water is available. U.S.

1838 N.Y. Mirror 13 Jan. 229/1 The peculiar philosophical effect of this cooler..we are unable to explain. 1905 F. H. SMITH At Close Range 250 ‘I'll go to the cooler and wash up what I can,’..she said. 1947 S. BELLOW Victim i. 6 He walked out of the office..halting in the anteroom to draw a drink from the glass cooler.

d. U.S. An insulated picnic-box; an insulated jug or similar container for keeping beverages cool.

1958 Ward & Co. Catal. Spring/Summer 806 Portable coolers{em}keep food fresh on outings. 1959 N.Y. Times Mag. 21 June 35/3 Capacious cooler, an insulated oak barrel..holds two gallons of beverage. 1962 Ibid. 1 July 33/2 (caption) Coolers, shown from left to right are: wicker and leather-trimmed basket with plastic liner..; large vacuum bottle with a shoulder-strap handle..; insulated metal ice chest. 1976 Mechanix Illustr. June 8/2 Spigoted coolers allow you to make beverages like iced tea right inside them. 1985 New Yorker 14 Oct. 69/1 On the table a cooler and provisions.

3. A cooling medicine or agent; a refrigerant.

1621 BURTON Anat. Mel. II. ii. II. (1651) That the liver be outwardly anointed with some coolers that it be not over~heated. 1671 SALMON Sign. Med. III. xxii. Citruls, the seeds are great coolers in Feavers. 1744 BERKELEY Siris §7 An admirable febrifuge, at once the safest cooler and cordial. 1766 PENNANT Zool., Goat (1812) I. 46 In..cases, where coolers and restoratives are necessary.

4. fig. Anything that cools emotion, excitement, or ardour, or damps the spirits.

1592 BP. ANDREWES Serm. (1843) V. 527 The Law, we know, is a great cooler to presumption. 1600 ABP. ABBOT Exp. Jonah 27 This is a cooler both to the Pharisees and Novatians, who were wont to despise sinners. 1608 HIERON Wks. I. 718 What coolers of zeale, what clogges in the way that leadeth vnto life. 1781 CRABBE Library 58 See coolers here, that damp the fire of rage. 1824 ‘P. QUIZ’ (title) Fashionable Bores, or Coolers in High Life.

5. A prison or gaol. slang (orig. U.S.). Also, a prison cell (see quots.).

1884 Milnor (Dakota) Teller 8 Aug., Arrested on the charge of drunkenness, lodged in the cooler over night and then fined $5 in the morning. 1884 C. B. LEWIS Sawed-off Sketches 117 If you utter one profane word..I'll put you behind the cross-bars of the cooler. 1885 Milnor 25 Apr., Now, then, I'll give you a chance to keep out of the cooler! 1899 ‘J. FLYNT’ Tramping with Tramps (1950) 392 Cooler, a dark cell. 1909 W. H. DAVIES Beggars vii. 52 We wanted a night's lodging at the police station. ‘What!’ he cried in amazement; ‘what: not in the cooler?’ 1919 DOWNING Digger Dial. 17 Cooler, prison or guard-room. 1926 J. BLACK You can't Win ix. 114 The cooler or dark cell was the same as other cells, except that there was nothing in it and the door was solid, admitting no light. 1943 ‘C. DICKSON’ She died a Lady ix. 73, I am not at a time of life when one enjoys being chucked in the cooler for telling truths. 1946 G. MILLAR Horned Pigeon vii. 81 Next day I was sent to the ‘cooler’. 1962 John O'London's 25 Jan. 82/2 The police station..is sometimes called the cooler, although the last word is also applied to a cell inside the nick.

6. One who uses the rhetoric of cool to write hypertext in new ways.

Sunday Morning Silliness

As in: Flotsam

• In my effort to stop sucking eggs at Age of Mythology, I've been playing against the computer, which means I can quit when I'm losing. After soundly whumping Isis on "Hard" mode yesterday, I swtiched to playing against Poseidon and learned a wholly new way to suck. The battle continues.
• Get Fuzzy gets funnier by the day.
  
  
• All Moby and Fatboy Slim today.
• I'm not excited about the Oscars tonight. Meg Norcia, I miss your parites.
• I'm playing with PERL again for my random comic, and I'm loving it.
• Currently Reading:
  Lynch, The Image of the City
  Rucka, Queen and Country, vol 6
  Standage, The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth Century Chess-Playing Machine
  PC Gamer, newest issue

Feed the Idiot Box

As in: Flotsam

A list of television-y things:

• Numb3rs: It's like Pi meets L&O: Criminal Intent. I like it. Rob Morrow, Judd Hersh, Sabrina Lloyd, and I even like David Krumholtz. Whee!
• Murder, She Wrote: everyone knows I love this show. (My secret fantasy: Jessica is a master hypnotist and serial killer. What a twist ending that would have been!) I finally saw the first episode, "The Death of Sherlock Holmes"—very "meta." Jessica investigates the costume-party murder of an acquaintance. Also, we see her first book published.
• Alias: I still think Jack's the best character.
• Murder, She Wrote, part 2: Apparently they're releasing the first season (23eps) on DVD for $60. Who's gonna pay $60 for that? I might pay $20, but $60? The commercial was ultra-cheesy, btw.
• The Simpsons: still funny.
• The Daily Show: have you seen the crossfire clip?
• Boston Legal: I love the first season or two of any David Kelly show. I miss Keen Eddie—Mark Varney was far more interesting on that show.
• Arrested Development: I know I should be watching this.
• The Office: apparently they're producing an American version of this show, with Steve Karrel as the oafish boss. I wish they wouldn't do that. Just re-broadcast the British show. Was awesome.

Dang, that's a lot of TV.

The Wisdom of Python

As in: Flotsam

"Quite frankly I'm against people who give vent to their loquacity by extraneous bombastic circumlocution."
— Monty Python's Flying Circus, "It's the Arts!"

Isn't that a fantastic description of blogs?

Death, disease, and the Irish?

As in: Flotsam , Reading

My favorite passage from How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier:

Similarly, black might connote mourning, death, or heaviness, whereas blue can suggest coldness, depression, aristocracy, or submissive faith. White might suggest cleanliness or sickness, and green can relate to envy, compassion, or the Irish (154).

I don't know why I think that's so funny, but I do.

Push Butt**

As in: Flotsam

Two amusing things from a local restaurant in Oak Park:
1. They had a handblower with written instructions instead of pictures. The instructions were marred in all three expected ways:

1. Press Butt
2. Rub hands under arm hair
3. Stop atomically
4. Wipe hands on pants

It was sort of a thrill to see these scratchings (including the fourth step, which is added to the machine), since the newer icon-based instructions don't allow for this kind of play (wrong-o, Brendan!). Apparently, I'm not the only person to notice this phenomenon.

2. This particular restaurant offers trivia cards for its patrons to read. At the table behind us, two teenage daughters and their father were eating dinner. The older (probably a sophomore or junior in high school) asked, "In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy led congressional hearings looking for what?"
There was a pause and then the father said, "Communists."
After another short pause, the younger sister (perhaps eighth grade) said "Red Scare, baby."
I couldn't stop laughing.

That's too funny.

As in: Flotsam

Wiener wagon hotbed of sin

Two women who sold hot dogs from this camper in Levittown, L.I., also allegedly used the wiener wagon to perform sex acts.

...Skorgy and Scalia lashed out at reporters who tried to interview them outside the Eighth Precinct stationhouse in Levittown last night.

"Oh, be quiet," Skorgy hollered, kicking at a photographer. When asked about her scheme, she countered, "Your mother sells hot dogs."

Gave Thanks

As in: Flotsam

Mmm. Fun trip home.

Most interesting food: Rum-baked yams.

Four kinds of pie: Pumpkin, Pecan, Apple, and Mexican Chocolate. My cousin's fiancee said the pumpkin was the "best pumpkin pie she'd ever had." It was pretty damn good.

Started Gunther Kress' Literacy in the New Media Age. Comments on it soon.