First, we need to make sure you understand the concept of a ‘bespoke’ item. This is one that I had to go to the dictionary for when I first ran across it in some British fiction a few years back, so I shall arrogantly assume that not everyone is familiar with it, rather than assuming this just another one of… Read more →
Year: 2006
Worth A Thousand Words…
So, what does it say about your poker skills if you place further back in the tournament ranks than this guy? Someone who is clearly approaching the lethal dose of marijuana? Actually, I had a good time at the tournament on Saturday night, not least because of the not-poker-in-any-way antics with the rubber stamps. Sunday was also fun, with the… Read more →
It’s been a long time.
Veisalgia: The sober medical term for a hangover. “There is no consensus definition of veisalgia (‘alcohol hangover’….)” (Ann Int Med, 2000) From the Norwegian kveis (uneasiness following debauchery) + the Greek algia (pain). Yes, it has been a very long time now since I’ve experienced the pain from uneasieness following debauchery. The last time I actually drank enough to put… Read more →
Right out of a movie
This story on its own is just a kind of amusing “life imitates cliche” thing: Man Says Bibles in Pocket Stopped Bullet, Florida Man Says Two Small Bibles in His Shirt Pocket Stopped Bullet, Saving His Life – CBS News A 54-year-old Orange Park man credits two small Bibles in his shirt pocket for saving his life when they stopped… Read more →
Election Results: Pissing On Your Parade
If you see a crazy guy in the street punching himself in the face with both fists, how does it make you feel? What if he’s got a big nuclear bomb strapped to his chest? Now, how would you feel if after watching this for SIX YEARS, the man stopped punching himself in the face WITH ONE HAND? Yeah, that’s… Read more →
Playing catch-up
A little link-blogging of some things that have caught my attention over the past week… Benjamin Franklin explains why men should take old women as mistresses: Because in every Animal that walks upright, the Deficiency of the Fluids that fill the Muscles appears first in the highest Part: The Face first grows lank and wrinkled; then the Neck; then the… Read more →
While You Were Out…
So, I’m back. A great vacation. Seeing the various aquariums, zoos, museums, etc through the eyes of a two-year old really brightens them up. Hell, just riding the Red Line from Alewife into downtown Boston suddenly becomes an adventure. As I’m catching up on all this stuff that happened while I was away, I see that my friends have had… Read more →
Not Eligible, But Qualified
A stunning 100%, although I admit that I don’t really know what Feinstein, Boxer, and Pelosi all look like, so that one was a guess. Read more →
Vacation Note #2: Tower Records Going Out Of Business Sale, &c
I’ve been coming to Boston several times a year for work for something like 13 years now. There are several pockets of the greater Boston area that I know really, really well. One such pocket is the area between exits 27 (Waltham) and 32b (Burlington) on I-95 (or “the 128” when you talk to natives.) In the 13 years I’ve… Read more →
Vacation Note #1: Double-check Manny’s work.
While Manny may seem like a very nice guy, especially after you’ve been driving for 12 hours and just want a hotel room to lie down in, you should really take the time to double check his work. For example, when you say “Hubley, Nova Scotia”, Manny apparently hears “Monterey, California”. And, perhaps more importantly, when you say “King, No… Read more →
On Vacation
OK, not really fishing, but spending a lot of time with the family this week, and not thinking about work AT ALL. I may have time to blog in the evenings, or I may be too exhausted from family fun. Don’t expect much, and it will be a (pleasant?) surprise if I have time to post something. Read more →
A More Explicit Punctuation?
That’s the “irony mark“, one of a set of proposed additions to punctuation. Others proposed include the doubt point (), certitude point (), acclamation point (), authority point (), indignation point (, essentially ยก), and love point ( or ). On the one hand, I think the idea of punctuation that can be used to explicitly distinguish some “attitude” aspects… Read more →
A congeries of iridescent globes
(Pi, originally uploaded by [P!]Wack.) This graphical representation of pi sure looks like an autostereogram to me. If you click through and look at the large version, and then sort of relax your eyes, you can faintly start to hear a soft chanting of “Y’Ai’Ng’Ngah Yog-Sothot H’Ee-L’Geb F’Ai Trhodog Uaaaah“. If at that point an image of a veil parting… Read more →
A Gentle Madness
Books are coming into my house much faster than I am reading them. Books very rarely go out of my house–I really, really try not to take in stuff that I won’t like well enough to keep, so it’s rare that something is inside that I am willing to part with. Obviously if things are coming in at a greater… Read more →
No longer a green shoot
In a folder in my office are a bunch of pieces of paper, each of which has a nicely formatted poem or quotation. At some point they were either posted in my cubicle, back in the days when I worked outside the house, or else they were framed and displayed in my house during the days before I had art.… Read more →
