Month: February 2010

Tuesday’s almost done

Today was a pretty good day, if only because I managed to accomplish more at work than I expected to. I wound up having to buy a new umbrella — and Duane Reade and I are just going to have to agree to disagree about our definition a of “full-size” umbrella — when my old one fell apart in the wind and rain during the walk from Penn Station. Luckily it wasn’t raining enough to get me drenched, and I was wearing a hat, but if the entire day had been like my morning, I don’t think I’d have been too happy about it now.

But it wasn’t. It was actually a pretty decent, if not altogether remarkable day. Now, I think I’m going to maybe watch tonight’s episode of Lost, then go to bed, almost certainly in that order.

Tuesday various

  • Will singing “My Way” in the Philippines get you killed?

    Still, the odds of getting killed during karaoke may be higher in the Philippines, if only because of the ubiquity of the pastime. Social get-togethers invariably involve karaoke. Stand-alone karaoke machines can be found in the unlikeliest settings, including outdoors in rural areas where men can sometimes be seen singing early in the morning. And Filipinos, who pride themselves on their singing, may have a lower tolerance for bad singers. [via]

  • Salon.com on Kevin Smith: The face of flying while fat:

    And then I read Southwest’s apology to Smith, which includes such gems as “If a Customer cannot comfortably lower the armrest and infringes on a portion of another seat, a Customer seated adjacent would be very uncomfortable and a timely exit from the aircraft in the event of an emergency might be compromised if we allow a cramped, restricted seating arrangement.” And I think, first, “If we allowed a cramped, restricted seating arrangement? Because ‘The Greyhound of the Skies’ is positively roomy when there are no fat people on board?” And second, I think, “Translation: Fat paying customers’ fully expected discomfort only becomes a problem for us if it also makes the paying customers we care about uncomfortable.” [via]

  • Speaking of apologies, does Tiger Woods owe you one? Probably not. [via]
  • A neat, albeit a little disturbing, H.R. Giger cake [via]
  • And finally, the truth behind elephant brain power:

    “We are a bit limited by how little we know about elephants, but the odd glimmers we get seem to be rather remarkable.”

    Incidentally, today is your last day to listen to Inside the Elephant Mind on the BBC player. [via]

Pegging away

According to the trusty desk calendar, today’s bit of Forgotten English is “peg away,” meaning “to continue determinedly on one’s course.” That seems like an apt enough metaphor for today, which was mostly just your typical Mondayish Monday.

I didn’t sleep so well last night, so I got a later train this morning. And then I spent most of the day working on a counseling book I really need to get into production by the end of the month. Which, now that I look again at the calendar and exactly how much is left of said month, I don’t think I’m actually going to manage. The author still owes me a good five or six revised chapters, and I still have to read through them and make sure there’s no problem with the changes. It’s nothing I can force, and the author’s been really good about getting the work done, but it’s at times like this that I wish there were a few more weeks left in February.

I spent my lunch hour listening to this week’s Radiolab podcast — which I actually heard as the second half of this week’s This American Life — and I have to say, it left me a little shaken up. The whole TAL episode was great stuff, but Lucy’s story was particularly powerful and sad. It’s worth a listen, but don’t expect light and frothy fun.

In other news, my father had a procedure to hopefully fix the blurred vision he’s been having lately. I’d actually managed to forget that today was the day, so it was a little disconcerting to come home this evening and find him lying on the couch, in the dark, with a patch over one eye. He seems okay, though I don’t think the procedure was much fun, and there’s still the worry that it won’t have the desired effect. I’m not sure if he’s planning on going to work tomorrow, but at least the eye patch only has to stay on for a day.

And now, I think, it’s time for bed.

Monday various

  • Play any website as music using CodeOrgan. For what it’s worth, here’s what this site supposedly sounds like. [via]

  • “Sealed with a righteous kiss and something something death.” Very funny subtitles from Cambodian Twilight and Avatar DVDs. [via]

  • Meanwhile, here’s a neat infographic outlining just what you get as a DVD pirate versus as a paying customer. Of course, it seems to be missing one of those full-length anti-piracy ads — also often unskippable — that play at the start of many DVDs.

  • Here’s a horrific and “little-told story of how the U.S. government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition with deadly consequences.”

    Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people. [via]

  • And finally, on a slightly happier note: the headline reads: Rapper says politician used Vulcan grip on him in airplane fight.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Well, that was Sunday.

It wasn’t a particularly exciting day. I spent it mostly watching some television and working on the New York Times crossword puzzle. My sister and her husband drove back to Maryland this evening, and I’m getting ready to turn in for the night. And beyond that, there really isn’t a whole lot to say about today.