I hear people all the time talking about the Central Valley, and I thought I had a pretty clear idea of where and what it is — inland of here, a big area where there are a lot of farms plus some of the major inland cities, the nation’s major supplier of various fruit and […]
A cooler title
I really enjoy being a bona fide professional linguist, with said title on my business card, but I have found a title that is, I think, even cooler, belonging to Jesse Sheidlower (whose surname I would dearly love to know how to pronounce). Jesse is, according to his byline on this Slate article about Sarah […]
And: tax cuts? are you kidding?
Say what you like about the original bailout bill, it did not get better with the addition of tax cuts (yes, tax cuts at a time the government is proposing to give away $700B it doesn’t have anyway) and unrelated items. Write or call and urge your rep to vote against it. Strangely, those of […]
Hyperbolicity
It’s sort of unfortunate when people who may have a point undermine themselves with hyperbole, hand-wringing, and inaccuracy. I got pointed via BoingBoing to what should have been an interesting article about the people behind the sources of Facebook’s funding. I’m no particular fan of Facebook, especially because it just seems to get more and […]
Would you rather stupid or arbitrary?
Some time back, I wrote about the TSA’s policies on knitting needles. Not surprisingly, it isn’t just the TSA which seems to have trouble defining what or why the issue is with knitting needles. On my way back from London yesterday, the guy at the Continental counter — not an airport screener — asked me […]
Edinburgh!
A sunny afternoon in the Botanic Gardens today with friends, plus Calton Hill, Holyrood Park, and a terrific Highland dress wedding in previous days. I’m loving being back, and sad I have to leave again so soon.
Waves to Wine 2008
Waves to Wine 2008 is complete! September 13 and 14 I joined my Team Slowpoke teammates to ride 150 miles from San Francisco to Lake Sonoma. All of us rode all 150 miles (in one case 175!) without any major mishaps, just some (very) sore muscles and (hopefully soon to mend) joints. Not even a […]
Mixed messages
June is apparently National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month. It’s also National Candy Month. Mixed messages, anyone? And…National Crab-Stuffed Flounder Day? Are you kidding me?
Tasty words
Well, I must eat some of my words at least — there actually are turn-by-turn directions for the W2W routes on the site. Of course, they’ve nicely spelled “bear” in “bear right” as “bare”. Naked rights? I hope not. And both days are listed as Saturday! Several thoughtful people even put them into Bikely. Day […]
WANT.
The first e-book reader I’ve ever seen that I actually want. The content doesn’t sound very interesting (I prefer books to newspapers and magazines, so an e-book reader without a book supplier is less than exciting — and I want to be able to load my own stuff on, so no/minimal DRM and other nonsense) […]