Category: General

It seems that B.C. has a political party that probably has In Praise Of Idleness as part of their required reading. I wonder why they haven’t taken off–it seems like a pretty big no-brainer for most people to be in favour of a shorter work week, doesn’t it? Policy – Work Less Party Unemployment today is now double what it… Read more →

Anyone got a spare $3,000,000 (Canadian) kicking around? See, I spent a lot of time tonight shopping for castles. It’s not insane–I need more shelf space for my books, and nothing says “lots of shelf space” like a nice castle; especially a castle with a tower. While I was doing that, I ran across this lovely manor house in Ireland.… Read more →

…can be found here. I especially love the “take advantage of [his] position” bit. Heh. Read more →

I got a kick out of the “Top Ten Signs You’re a Fundamentalist Christian” list from EvilBible.com. A couple of examples: 9 – You feel insulted and “dehumanized” when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt. 6 – You laugh at Hindu beliefs… Read more →

At the risk of showing some people how a certain trick was done, I present some lovely new words I learned today from “A Few of My Favorite Words” page at andreas.com: Wabi: Japanese noun. A flaw that gives elegance and uniqueness to the whole. Western culture sees beauty in mass produced technical symmetry, such as a Porsche Boxster. Japanese… Read more →

How else to explain how much pleasure I got from this piece on that important question: Who would win in a fight between Cthulhu and Godzilla? Just in case you don’t click through for the metatextual analysis, here’s the best sentence from it: “He’d eat a few thousand people, make a giant throne of their bones, and just generally do… Read more →

FARTHER/FURTHER: according to the AP style guide you use “farther” to refer to physical distance and on “further” to refer to an extent of time or degree. So you had to wait a further two hours past the appointed time because I had hiked 10km farther than I expected. So, what happens if the extent of degree is also a… Read more →

OK, before I get on to mocking the whole Sri Lanka time change thing, let’s take a moment to enjoy what is possibly the best picture in the history of science fiction fandom: Yes, that is a picture of Sir Arthur C. Clarke wearing a t-shirt that says I INVENTED THE SATELLITE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT.… Read more →

I’m not sure I can generalize this to all men and all women, but I’m sure that this will at least illustrate one of the fundamental differences between my wife and I. Were my wife to look at this: I bet her reaction would be something along the lines of a cross between “Get that away from me!” and “My… Read more →

A lovely neologism that I had my first encounter with today: Pajamahadeen Read more →

This year was pretty clearly the worst St. Paddy’s Day of the decade for me. I was already mocking myself on Thursday night because my plans for celebrating were basically: 1) dress Sarah in a green shirt 2) go see V For Vendetta which is a much less rambunctious celebration than it has been for most of the last decade.… Read more →

This week I am suffering from some academic jealousy. First, we found out last week that Trish has been accepted into the highly competitive management PhD program at SMU. While I can’t imagine being interested in the subjects she’s studying, I am a little jealous of her going back to school. Not that I would actually give up any of… Read more →

I just want to say that while I work from home, I have never worked in the nude. 10% of telecommuters are nude – Wikinews A survey by SonicWALL, a Sunnyvale, CA, based company, reports that 10% of worldwide telecommuters are nude while working, finding 12% for men and 7% for women, respectively. A gender gap also exists for showering… Read more →