memo

A couple of memos, actually.

to:  cyclists
from:  fox
re:  physics

Hi, guys.  Listen, it's pretty simple physics -- simple enough that I'm aware of it, so I'm saying, right? -- that two masses cannot occupy the same space.  Makes sense, yeah?  Now:  the sidewalks here in town are narrow enough that two pedestrians walking in opposite directions have to make way for each other so they can pass by without collision.  If one of those pedestrians is wheeling a bicycle, the situation is that much worse.  I've already had occasion to speak to people who walk two-abreast and force people coming the other direction to step into the road because they won't get out of the way.  What on earth makes you think it's a good idea to ride your bicycle on the sidewalk, you unspeakable moron?

Please correct this immediately.

cheers
Fox


to:  flowers
from:  fox
re:  pollen

Oh, flowers.  You are so pretty.  Why must you make me itchy and sneezy and groggy?

Bastards.

signed
Fox

i don't think i've mentioned this lately

I? love languagelog.  Oh my goodness, do I love this blog.  It is most of the wonderful things about what I do, all in one place.  Love love love.

I always enjoy when Geoff Pullum of UC Santa Cruz tees off on Dan Brown, but what's got me going this morning is today's post from Bill Poser of (at the moment, best I can tell) the University of British Columbia, about how (essentially) Joseph Greenberg and Merrit Ruhlen are a couple of hacks.

ack, no, this is no good!

Is it possible that I've been so much with the music lately, and tight harmonies, that I'm subconsciously training myself to be more spoiled than I have been previously?  Not that any choir I'm in at the moment is without blame, but here I am listening to this Chanticleer Ave Maria resonant8 sent me, and it's so beautiful that it's even more jarring when I feel like I can hear that they're very very occasionally ever so slightly a teeny tiny itsy bit flat.

[weeps]

identity crisis

I've been thinking for a long while of changing my LJ handle.  There's a particular name I like, which when I first thought of it had been deleted but not purged, so the name was still unavailable -- but now it has been purged, so I could switch to it if I ponied up the fifteen bucks! -- only today I thought of an even better name. ... which, tragically, has been deleted but not purged.  So until they do another purge (yeah, like that'll happen soon), I am either with the first name or remaining here.  Thoughts?

In other news:  does anyone know where I can get an animated icon of Kermit the Frog going "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!", the way he did, with his head thrown back?  I'm confident I saw just the other day that someone had one, and I was going to ask to borrow it, but I can't find it on any of your icon pages.  Gah!

jeezy creezy

People with the wanting to know about possible alternative handles, much?

(Choir is fun.  Fun choir.  One pint of beer and two or possibly three glasses of wine -- why am I so buzzy?  But the choir people are excellent.  Even though I'm on the Wrong Side.  I am the Representative of the Wrong Side among the Cool People!  heh.)

The deleted-and-purged handle, which I like a lot, is ceteris_paribus (which, I add because there has been some 'huh?', means 'other things being equal').  The deleted-and-not-purged-alas handle, which I like even better, is soi_disant.