Month: June 2008

  • Details of my September Europe trip.

    I’ll be leaving Thursday night from Houston and meeting a Ukrainian student friend of mine  in Stuttgart Germany Friday night. I’ll stay in Germany for 3 days, go to Ireland for 8 days, return to Stuttgart to catch a plane to Tirana (where I’ll spend 8 or 9 days). I plan to visit friends in…

  • Unclear Instructions (and other Pet Peeves)

    I received an email from a friend about the date of an event.  the date is July 25, 2008. Phrasing that way is unhelpful. Is this a Monday or Tuesday or Friday or what?  I cannot understand why people don’t use both bits of data. I don’t remember dates. I remember days of the week. …

  • Natural Curiosity

    There is really only one legitimate reason for putting Google Adsense on this blog; to see what kinds of businesses will pop up as a result of keyword buys. Honestly, I have no idea. Ebooks? Sexual aids? Dating Services? SEO consulting? Really, your guess is as good as mine.

  • Sweeping landslides of indifference

    From Jim Hightower’s book, If the Gods had meant us to vote, they would have given us candidates: In 1994, the year of the Republicans’ “Big Sweep,” 22% of eligible voters voted Republican and 19% voted for Democrats. In 1998, they reported a “Democratic Party Comeback” when the Republicans dropped to 18% of eligible voters…

  • E-rotic Europop: Mindless, Sexy and Embarrassing (and very fun!)

    I lived in Albania for 2 years during which I sat in many a bus travelling for hours from one city to another. We were at the mercy of the bus driver’s musical tastes. I remember vividly hearing La Macarena all the time (it was an incessant  banality even in Albania ).  Every bus driver…

  • Perils of Mandatory Arbitration

    I am currently embroiled in a minor dispute about HSBC credit card. They treated me shabbily and then continued to assess fees. And I continue to protest and am willing to bring it to small claims or mandatory arbitration. I am a stubborn SOB when I am in the right. Here’s a news-breaking article in…

  • Does Socializing Help the Elderly (or Does Reading)?

    Tara Parker-Pope on whether socializing helps elderly people healthwise. Actually the comments are much more interesting that the blog post itself: One Barbara writes: I am growing weary of these studies and how valid the results are. There is a huge bias in our society that being social is better than being a loner. I…

  • Totally Random Cory (and Danah)

    While googling for something else, I came across a great disclaimer SIG written by Cory Doctorow (recorded on Danah Boyd’s weblog–here’s some Best Of here ). I don’t read either person anymore, a fact which is both shocking and inexcusable. (One reason for this is that their thoughts usually are captured by another blogger’s flyswatter).…

  • Things to say (which I will not say)

    Over the past week or two I’ve made mental notes to blog about a few things. Whenever I have free time to do so,  I have absolutely no desire. Blogging is something you have to do on a whim. I become a little worried when bloggers spend a lot of time constructing their thoughts. I…

  • To hell with Interactivity

    I have an online fiction site (under a pseudonym, sorry) which I plan to do a complete makeover for. I am flirting with the idea of making the site completely non-interactive. My original plan was to run it using a content management system (wordpress or something like that).  I was going to write my stories…

  • Back in the Saddle Again

    Wow, my entire blogging empire has been offline for 4 days. The data center for our hosting service had a major fire, causing a million domains to go offline. We are 90% restored (and I might say more later), but for the time being, check out my teleread essay Reading and Romance: Why Book Titles…