A particularly fascinating Supreme Court dispatch about from the incomparable Dahlia Lithwick. I would have thought the argument would have been that smoke entering the non-smoking section was an accident. That's definitely exterior to the passenger, and it should be unexpected; clearly the poor man who died didn't expect it. The fact that it's an accident that happens regularly, and doesn't kill most people shouldn't matter. The evil stewardess is a distraction. I love the hypothetical about coffee throwing stewardesses. But you can't trick me into becoming a lawyer this easily; I know that they have to write papers on a deadline. Sometimes I think that maybe they'd be easier papers to write than say, essays on Pride and Prejudice, but still, it would be writing papers for a living.
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08:56:26 AM,
Thursday 13 November 2003
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The night before last I had a dream where I was reading a Sony-style instruction manual, which gave me instructions on how to breathe. I then woke up, having difficulty breathing because of a swollen throat and stuffy nose. Later that night I had a recurring dream involving gears and latches, which had to be set a certain way, the sense and importance of which was proportional to how sleepy I was. As I drifted to sleep, I started understanding it, then I'd have to swallow, and I'd wake up, and it was all gibberish again. I spent yesterday with a fever, during which I was extremely worried that I wasn't bored. I felt I should be bored, but I couldn't be bothered to do anything.
If it weren't for the construction workers, I'd take a series of pictures showing how a highway bridge is built from underneath, but I'm still unable to expose my film in public.
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05:13:36 PM,
Wednesday 12 November 2003
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The cat was running around, lost to reason, when there was suddenly a yowl, followed by a loud bang, and I haven't seen him since. Well, that's a lie, he's under the bed, but I'm still pleased with the idea; perhaps he encountered an anti-cat, or reached 88 scale miles per hour.
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(3)
06:12:46 PM,
Monday 10 November 2003
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At last, the new Matrix movie is out! Now I can read lots of snarky reviews for a film I have no intention of watching. Unless they make a Matrix adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's The Futurological Congress, were realities keep peeling away like onion skins, getting sillier and sillier, I ain't interested. Not that I didn't enjoy the Matrix. The Energizer scene was the biggest camp chuckle in a film I can remember; but that kind of enjoyment drains away quickly, making me feel that there should be good, beautiful things I could be watching instead. Reading reviews of bad films strikes a balance for me; I can still snicker, but it's mediated through the someone elses wit, which makes it a slightly more positive experience.
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12:14:59 PM,
Thursday 6 November 2003
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If anyone happens to be looking for a way to spend two dollars on iTunes, may I humbly suggest "Losing Your Affection" by the Future Bible Heroes, and "A New England" by Billy Bragg.
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(3)
11:38:13 AM,
Wednesday 5 November 2003
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Some have been caught sneaking from their tanks at night into other exhibits, gobbling up fish, then sneaking back to their tanks, damp trails along walls and floors giving them away.. Never trust an Octopus.
As heard on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
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(6)
02:47:12 PM,
Tuesday 4 November 2003
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Dry, mediocre brownies are depressing; neither virteous nor pleasant, yet not unpleasant enough to make them easy to resist.
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(1)
01:43:38 PM,
Tuesday 4 November 2003
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An article on the forces of the counter-reformation inside the American Catholic Church, including an adorable photo of Mr. Monaghan, looking like the grown up pizza-delivery boy he is. I'm continually amazed that the world, with so many irrecouncilable articles of faith, gets by as well as it does. Also, I'm somehow relieved to find these people are out there, who take their faith and its political implications seriously; I suppose the same way they'd be glad for confirmation that the devil is out there.
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10:55:12 AM,
Monday 3 November 2003
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This editing my sidebar is draining my bloglet entry resevoir rapidly.
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(3)
03:05:38 PM,
Sunday 2 November 2003
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the Book Rack is a lovely used paperback store in town. However, it threw me into a crisis. I'm trying to be frugal, so the new Terry Pratchett or expanding my Patrick O'Brien collection were out (about the only new books they had). My reading has reached so many dead ends; books I started and didn't finish, series I read but haven't kept up with. I lack the motive force to start on arbitrarily selected new authors, and my old authors are largely obstructed by books I've started but haven't finished. I went in looking for something pleasant, light, that I'd look forward to reading. I ended up getting the Mill and the Floss and Shogun. Shogun, I ask you. I nearly ended up with Pohl's Heechee saga, but I couldn't because I've read some of it, but I couldn't remember which ones. Maybe I should have just got something really pulp, random Sprague de Camp or Harry Harrison, but I've been burnt by them before. Fortunately, Erika got The Once and Future King, so I can just read that and put my acquisitions on the Guilt shelf, along with that inexplicable History of Canada I bought once, to read on an airplane no less. Ah, and if anyone is avoiding Helen Fielding's pre-Bridget novel Cause Celeb because of the back, don't worry, she can be trusted with the delicate trick of writing a farce about famine.
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(3)
02:56:00 PM,
Sunday 2 November 2003
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Since this is now serving as my default webpage, I've started putting links on it, entirely for my own convenience, but you may follow them if you wish.
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(2)
02:20:16 PM,
Sunday 2 November 2003
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World Beard and Mustache Championships Gallery
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09:01:33 PM,
Saturday 1 November 2003
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site & script courtesy of Moss