Today I am....
Contemplating a conundrum.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Man trapped in elevator for over 40 hours
Boxed In
Watch some time-lapse video of a man trapped in an elevator for over 40 hours: Trapped in Car 30. A claustrophobic nightmare.
There's an article about this incident in The New Yorker.
Watch some time-lapse video of a man trapped in an elevator for over 40 hours: Trapped in Car 30. A claustrophobic nightmare.
There's an article about this incident in The New Yorker.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel: Queasy
The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Way I Feel
Lot's of religion in the news these days. The Pope is visiting and meeting with sex-abuse victims. CNN is obsessed with a bizarre polygamist religious cult. Hillary and Barack are talking about their "faith" in a "Compassion Forum". It all makes me feel like I've eaten something that doesn't quite agree with me. Queasy.
Lot's of religion in the news these days. The Pope is visiting and meeting with sex-abuse victims. CNN is obsessed with a bizarre polygamist religious cult. Hillary and Barack are talking about their "faith" in a "Compassion Forum". It all makes me feel like I've eaten something that doesn't quite agree with me. Queasy.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
"I can't think of any sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn't help, just a little bit."
--Susan Glasee
"I can't think of any sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn't help, just a little bit."
--Susan Glasee
Monday, April 07, 2008
Word of the Day: tourbillon
Word of the Day
tourbillon (n)
A whirlwind or vortex.
"In this state of things, had I accepted and returned home, do you think that a seat upon the bench would have removed me from the tourbillon of politics?"
--John Quincy Adams
These days, in English, a tourbillon most often refers to a type of watch. My watch is an L.L. Bean field watch. When the battery went dead recently, and I didn't have time to replace it for a week, I took it off - and felt naked for a few days.
tourbillon (n)
A whirlwind or vortex.
"In this state of things, had I accepted and returned home, do you think that a seat upon the bench would have removed me from the tourbillon of politics?"
--John Quincy Adams
These days, in English, a tourbillon most often refers to a type of watch. My watch is an L.L. Bean field watch. When the battery went dead recently, and I didn't have time to replace it for a week, I took it off - and felt naked for a few days.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
DarkCopy - Simple, full screen text editing
Just Your Type?
DarkCopy is a simple, full-screen text editor with no distractions. All you can do with it is ... write. There's no formating -- you just see green text in a typewriter font on a black background. You can save what you write as a text file, or copy and paste into another program. And it's free. Whoever created it doesn't even ask for a donation. Too good and yet true.
DarkCopy is a simple, full-screen text editor with no distractions. All you can do with it is ... write. There's no formating -- you just see green text in a typewriter font on a black background. You can save what you write as a text file, or copy and paste into another program. And it's free. Whoever created it doesn't even ask for a donation. Too good and yet true.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Truck Spills - Whale
Whale of a Tale
Truck Spills is "The website of odd, strange, interesting, and unbelievable things spilled on the road by trucks." It currently features a whale on a flatbed and a rather disgusting accident. "Thar she blows," indeed.
Truck Spills is "The website of odd, strange, interesting, and unbelievable things spilled on the road by trucks." It currently features a whale on a flatbed and a rather disgusting accident. "Thar she blows," indeed.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Micro fiction: Scattered to the Winds
Scattered to the Winds
If there was anyplace Marcus disliked visiting more than a graveyard, he couldn't think of one. But it was Memorial Day, a hot, muggy Memorial Day, and grandma needed tending.
He was the only one around anymore who could do it -- take the geranium to the cemetery, clip the crabgrass around her headstone, spade up the mushy soil and make a little green and red garden on her plot. It was what she would have wanted. She always did have a green thumb; she loved gardening.
"That's probably why, instead of being cremated like grandpa, and scattered to the winds like he had been, she'd wanted herself, well, planted," Marcus thought.
He'd had to steal himself to do his duty, though -- he'd stopped in for a beer at the dive down the street first, wanting to have a slight buzz on before walking through those rusty cemetery gates.
He hated walking across the grass-covered graves, always wondering what was down there beneath his sneakers. The stone angels and ancient obelisks gave him the creeps. So did the eerie silence of the place.
Grandma's stone was plain and simple -- a granite rectangle with "Alice" carved in sans-serif letters. Marcus could still remember her face; she'd died less than a decade ago. Grandpa had died earlier, when Marcus was a toddler, and that face was lost to him.
He started to clip the cowlicks of grass from around the stone's edges, looking up from time to time to observe other people tending the graves of their own dearly departeds -- all of them silent, or muttering softly about the time their Uncle Harry said such and such, or the what their Aunt Vicky thought about so and so.
"I should NOT have had that beer," Marcus muttered, as he dropped the geranium into the hole he'd dug in front of grandma's stone. He had to pee, bad, and there were no restrooms in this garden of eternal rest. There were no restrooms anywhere nearby.
As he got to his feet, he noticed someone standing a few feet away, on the edge of the path that split the cemetery in half. It was an old guy in overalls and a flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows. A fringe of gray hair was visible around the edges of his baseball cap, and he was smiling as he gazed off toward the horizon, where some dark clouds were massing. "Must be the caretaker," Marcus thought.
"Gonna rain soon, I'm afraid," the man said in a wistful voice, to no one in particular, though Marcus was the only person nearby. Then he turned and spoke to Marcus directly: "Gonna get wet," he said.
It was the wrong thing to say to someone who had to urinate. Marcus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm not sticking around to get wet," he said. "I gotta go. My bladder's screaming. Gotta find a bathroom."
The man smiled. He had a kind, crinkly face. "You know what they say," he said.
"No. What do they say?" Marcus asked.
"All the world is a man's urinal." He pointed toward a thick clump of bushes and trees at the edge of the graveyard.
Marcus took the hint and trotted off to relieve himself. "Watering the garden," he thought, as he did so. He looked back toward where the man had been standing, but he was gone -- scattered to the winds, perhaps, just like grandpa.
If there was anyplace Marcus disliked visiting more than a graveyard, he couldn't think of one. But it was Memorial Day, a hot, muggy Memorial Day, and grandma needed tending.
He was the only one around anymore who could do it -- take the geranium to the cemetery, clip the crabgrass around her headstone, spade up the mushy soil and make a little green and red garden on her plot. It was what she would have wanted. She always did have a green thumb; she loved gardening.
"That's probably why, instead of being cremated like grandpa, and scattered to the winds like he had been, she'd wanted herself, well, planted," Marcus thought.
He'd had to steal himself to do his duty, though -- he'd stopped in for a beer at the dive down the street first, wanting to have a slight buzz on before walking through those rusty cemetery gates.
He hated walking across the grass-covered graves, always wondering what was down there beneath his sneakers. The stone angels and ancient obelisks gave him the creeps. So did the eerie silence of the place.
Grandma's stone was plain and simple -- a granite rectangle with "Alice" carved in sans-serif letters. Marcus could still remember her face; she'd died less than a decade ago. Grandpa had died earlier, when Marcus was a toddler, and that face was lost to him.
He started to clip the cowlicks of grass from around the stone's edges, looking up from time to time to observe other people tending the graves of their own dearly departeds -- all of them silent, or muttering softly about the time their Uncle Harry said such and such, or the what their Aunt Vicky thought about so and so.
"I should NOT have had that beer," Marcus muttered, as he dropped the geranium into the hole he'd dug in front of grandma's stone. He had to pee, bad, and there were no restrooms in this garden of eternal rest. There were no restrooms anywhere nearby.
As he got to his feet, he noticed someone standing a few feet away, on the edge of the path that split the cemetery in half. It was an old guy in overalls and a flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows. A fringe of gray hair was visible around the edges of his baseball cap, and he was smiling as he gazed off toward the horizon, where some dark clouds were massing. "Must be the caretaker," Marcus thought.
"Gonna rain soon, I'm afraid," the man said in a wistful voice, to no one in particular, though Marcus was the only person nearby. Then he turned and spoke to Marcus directly: "Gonna get wet," he said.
It was the wrong thing to say to someone who had to urinate. Marcus shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "I'm not sticking around to get wet," he said. "I gotta go. My bladder's screaming. Gotta find a bathroom."
The man smiled. He had a kind, crinkly face. "You know what they say," he said.
"No. What do they say?" Marcus asked.
"All the world is a man's urinal." He pointed toward a thick clump of bushes and trees at the edge of the graveyard.
Marcus took the hint and trotted off to relieve himself. "Watering the garden," he thought, as he did so. He looked back toward where the man had been standing, but he was gone -- scattered to the winds, perhaps, just like grandpa.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Word of the Day: Ampullosity
Word of the Day
ampullosity (n)
Pretentious inanity or bombast
"In reading, we also 'cruze about the coast,' but that is where the variety, richness, and fabled ampullosity of the text reside in fractals of renewed delight."
--David Solway, Random Walks
I am full of fractals of renewed delight this evening.
ampullosity (n)
Pretentious inanity or bombast
"In reading, we also 'cruze about the coast,' but that is where the variety, richness, and fabled ampullosity of the text reside in fractals of renewed delight."
--David Solway, Random Walks
I am full of fractals of renewed delight this evening.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Eyelid Twitch
Life's a Twitch
My left eyelid has been twitching a lot lately. It's an annoying "fluttering" feeling that occurs most often when I'm working at the computer. (It just happened actually.) A Google search reveals that its technical name is "blepharospasm" and it's probably nothing serious. The twitching is usually caused by stress, lack of sleep, too much caffeine or prolonged staring at a screen -- or some combination. Given that list, I guess it's not too surprising that my eyelid is twitching. I'm not living a decaf life lately.
My left eyelid has been twitching a lot lately. It's an annoying "fluttering" feeling that occurs most often when I'm working at the computer. (It just happened actually.) A Google search reveals that its technical name is "blepharospasm" and it's probably nothing serious. The twitching is usually caused by stress, lack of sleep, too much caffeine or prolonged staring at a screen -- or some combination. Given that list, I guess it's not too surprising that my eyelid is twitching. I'm not living a decaf life lately.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Philosofish: Immanuel Kant
Here's my attempt at a comic "strip"/philosophical quotation venue. I hope to include more thought-provoking (or just provoking) quotations in the future, not necessarily from big-name philosophers. But the graphic will remain the same, at least for now.
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