Photo of the Week (by me): Ganesha

Guess who/what? Click for a closer view. You know you want to.

Word of the Day: xylology

What's the word I'm thinking of? Today, it's...

xylology (noun) [TWITO, page 165]

The study of wood

Dale was impressed by the lumber mill. "I see you're a real expert in xylology," he said after the tour. "Nah, I just know a lot about wood," Pete said.

(Photo by me. Somebody likes wood.)

Link Mania: Can you say "quockerwodger"?

Random Sequence: exsufflicate

"Exchange me for a goat
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blowed surmises,
Matching thy inference."
--William Shakespeare, Othello, Act 3, Scene 3

exsufflicate (adjective) = inflated, empty or full of nothing but air

I think most surmises are exsufflicate, don't you? Still, being exchanged for a goat seems excessive.

Link Mania: Are You an "Internaut"?

Photo of the Week (by me): Buddha Stone

Inspired by a meditation class I'm taking. Stare at it while you concentrate on your breathing. You know you want to.

Story Cubes 14: Shooting (fiction)

I was his guardian now, after the shooting. We would talk about anything, little Thaddeus and I, while we sat on the living room rug, in the dark, with a flashlight. Thaddeus thought of it as a sort of magic wand. We would sometimes make shadows on the wall, but most often he would draw with the beam, and I would try to guess what he depicted.

That night, one of them was a swooping U shape -- a horseshoe? A rainbow? No, a magnet he said. That led to a discussion of electromagnetism. He wondered if it would be possible to build an electromagnetic weapon, a gun that would shoot a beam, like a tiny lightning bolt, through a keyhole.

"Maybe," I said. "But why would you want to do that?"

"To stun people. Not kill them."

"And why would you want to do that?"

"So nobody would ever need bullets again."

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(The bold-faced words are interpreted from the images on Rory's Story Cubes)