Archives for September 2007
Top 75th percentile
September 2, 2007 at 8:44 pm | Reading | 3 Comments
Surely you’ve heard the news? One in four Americans read no books last year. I am not one of those Americans. I read plenty of books last year, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the stack by my bed.
I have a special rule for myself. I am only allowed to read one book at [...]
Frankentoys
September 4, 2007 at 5:05 pm | El Perro, Internerd | 1 Comment
We gave up a long time ago on buying Gus stuffed animal toys with squeakers inside. He eviscerates them at an alarmingly lightening-like speed in order to get at the stuffing, and that gets to be an expensive hobby.
My friend Alice buys already-loved stuffed toys for her chocolate lab by the bagful at the thrift [...]
A woman of many names
September 5, 2007 at 4:22 pm | Reading | No Comments
MariJane Meaker began her professional writing career by posing as a literary agent, whose “clients” consisted of her own pen names.
In the early 1950s, she and her lover, Patricia Highsmith (author of “The Talented Mr. Ripley), were writing lesbian pulp fiction novels before either lesbians or pulp fiction were cool.
Oh, in case you were wondering, [...]
Picture this
September 6, 2007 at 9:06 am | Photo Album | No Comments
A picture I took in Norway last spring is now being featured on an online map of Oslo.
It’s Fun to Collect Cameras
September 7, 2007 at 11:09 pm | Everything else | No Comments
There it was! A very dingy looking camera case with a VERY hard opening zipper. When I tried the zipper, I could tell the case hadn’t been opened in years. When I finally got the thing open, I could see it had a rangefinder camera inside. At the time I didn’t really know to [...]
About that big test I took this weekend
September 11, 2007 at 10:11 pm | Below The 38th Parallel | 1 Comment
The leg is the longest and strongest weapon a martial artist has.
I won’t know for about two weeks or so whether or not I passed, and I still have to break my five boards, but I think I did pretty well. The gory details are inside.
When you’re all dressed up like The Cure
September 12, 2007 at 9:56 pm | Internerd | 1 Comment
To add to my obsession with the dark side of fame, I was extremely fascinated by this list of famous people who’ve considered suicide.
Bad bad bad bad day
September 19, 2007 at 10:44 am | Below The 38th Parallel | 4 Comments
I did not pass my test.
Whatcha gonna do when you get outta jail?
September 20, 2007 at 9:50 am | Watching | 3 Comments
It’s pretty hard to wallow in self-pity when someone over at MetaFilter is linking to a video of pre-teen Cousin Carlton Banks breakin’ and poppin’. I always thought he did a swell Watusi — turns out he’s actually trained as a dancer.
Fingertips orange
September 27, 2007 at 10:31 am | Writing | 4 Comments
For several summers in a row when I was a kid, my little brother and I spent spent every afternoon in the swimming pool in our grandparents’ backyard. My mother, who was single and working to support two kids, couldn’t afford day care, and so during the school year my grandparents would drive us to [...]
Je suis Francophile!
September 28, 2007 at 4:54 pm | Watching | 2 Comments
I stopped watching television at the start of the year and I haven’t lived in the United States for 30 months now, so I am completely and totally out of touch with popular American culture.
So, I don’t know who these Flight of the Conchord guys are (except that that name always reminds me of this [...]
Note to self
5:35 pm | Watching | No Comments
It is I that go to tell you a joke. A lady sends her husband to the market to buy three shirts, six pairs of handkerchiefs and then… how is that called? For the women… bra. Our man leaves, and then on the way, he drinks and forget all. When he goes back, his mistress… [...]