Sometimes people ask me what I’m reading right now. I usually pick something interesting that I’ve finished recently and talk about that. This is primarily because I am always loathe to commit much of an opinion to a work until I finish it–if it’s terrible enough that I don’t want to read it, I can comment on why I stopped,… Read more →
Month: September 2007
Lachryma Dolti
(image from Gallery Of The Absurd) Look, I’m not sure I can add much to this–it would be gilding the lily. Blue Bush does ‘a lot of crying’ WASHINGTON – President George W. Bush is prone to bouts of crying caused by the stress of his job and claims to have seen ghosts emerge from the Lincoln Bedroom in the… Read more →
Bertrand Russell Essays
For your edification tonight, I present three essays by old Bertie, in audio form. A couple of hours of listening that might expand your mind. (It’s not him doing the reading–his voice, which I may share with you later–was not nearly as appealing as this reader’s.) The essays are: What I Believe: This is the big one–Russell outlines what he… Read more →
Whether you believe it or not, you should be jealous
Why? Why should you be jealous? Not because I just spent 9PM-midnight on the phone in conference calls with Australia for work. I am jealous of you all because you didn’t have to do that, and don’t have to do it every Thursday. No, you should be jealous of me because I have just finished these calls, and now I… Read more →
Punting
Since my blogging time today got subsumed into a lengthy debate about the gender-neutral pronoun in English, the use of “man” to mean homo sapiens and not “a single male human”, and related matters, I have to punt on blogging tonight. (Although the discussion should be the seed of a good post later.) So, for your entertainment tonight, I turn… Read more →
Last Call
And so we’ve had another night Of poetry and poses And each man knows he’ll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes. And so we’ll drink the final glass Each to his joy and sorrow And hope the numbing drink will last ‘Till opening tomorrow. And when we stumble back again Like paralytic dancers Each knows the question he must… Read more →
A Targeted Miscellany
A Sunday link list, of things that made me think of specific people. For my lovely wife, to share with her radical feminist associates, is the story of the most famous pirate of all time. Especially the bits about the pirate laws governing female prisoners. And the end of the story. Also for her yet another story about people who… Read more →
Sic transit gloria mundi
I was a bit too enervated to worry about blogging, or reading blogs, last night, so I woke this morning to find the entire Internet plastered with the news that Madeleine L’Engle had died. (See link list below). I know exactly when I read my first L’Engle book: it was A Wrinkle In Time, in the enrichment program in Grade… Read more →
For the discerning individual
If you are a fan of Tom Waits, or of the fine television program The Wire, you will thank me for this. First, go to the Kronos Quartet page. Over at the left, click on the “Kronos Quartet plays Sigur Ros” graphic. This will popup a window with a Quicktime player in it. It will be playing Flugufrelsarinn by default.… Read more →
Miscellany: Your lab fees at work.
For a long time now I’ve been asking to be cremated and buried or scattered, rather than being embalmed and buried whole. This is primarily because I find the whole embalming thing a bit icky and unnatural, and secondarily because as an engineer I realize that the conventional burial model doesn’t scale with geometrically expanding population. However, I think I’ve… Read more →
Apparently I need to move back to Ontario…
… just to slap argue some sense into some people. Look at this: Creationism raised as Ont. election issue TORONTO — Publicly-funded religious schools would be allowed to teach creationism and other theories, says Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory. Speaking to reporters at the a Jewish day school in Thornhill, Ont., on Wednesday, Mr. Tory defended his plan to bring… Read more →
