From the description of the book Transcendent Sex: When Lovemaking Opens the Veil:
"A spiritual approach to human sexuality looks at the power of sex to bring readers to the highest spiritual states described in various world religions, detailing lovers who have experienced possession, channeling supernatural entities, visions, past lives, paranormal abilities, shapeshifting, nirvana, and more."
I'm pretty sure those are among the last things I need. All I really need is someone to bring me to a sandwich after.
No news from the bottling folks. I suspect I'll have to walk over there to get anybody's attention. A delightful loyal reader made me aware of this report from a couple years ago (well, okay, the reader actually pointed me at this), so maybe I shouldn't even bother trying to find it, if they're that sloppy with preparation.I do enjoy the FDA enforcement reports, in any event.
An excerpt from a confirmation email sent to me by a hotel chain: "We're sending you this confirmation notice electronically for your convenience. [Chain] keeps an official record of all electronic reservations. We honor our official record only and will disregard any alternations to this confirmation that may have been made after we sent it to you." Well, what if I correct the spelling of "alterations," huh? What about that?
If this is true, how do you explain this? Yes, they considered the bird feathers contamination, but if they're producing the stuff in a "secure facility," how does that happen?
Me: "I'm trying to find retailers in this area who carry caffeine-free Barq's."
Receptionist at my local Coca-Cola® bottling plant: "I think all Barq's is caffeine-free; root beer usually doesn't have caffeine in it."
Me: "Well, it turns out most Barq's does have caffeine; the only place I've seen it not have caffeine is in Richland."
Her: "Richland...?"
Me: "Washington."
She forwards me to somebody in the sales department (or to his voice mail, rather), where I leave a message with my name, phone number, and question. Stay tuned for further developments.
And just by the way, wouldn't you think you'd want a little better product knowledge in the public face of the company? Sure, they have lots of brands (and note "Caffeine-free Barq's" on that list), but still....
From IRS Publication 529:
"You cannot deduct the cost of a wristwatch, even if there is a job requirement that you know the correct time to properly perform your duties."
A dear friend pointed me at this cool language comparison survey. I haven't fired up IE (which it says it requires) to try it out yet, so I don't know whether Icelandic is one of the languages they're measuring.
I finally used a Gazeteer to answer an actual reference question! Which is a little like finally being able to use algebra in everyday life. You spent an awful lot of time learning it, but almost no time using it.
And from yesterday (shame, Craig, shame!): no matter how much you argue with me, I will not keep your mysterious lumpy package for your friend to pick up later in the day.
Sorry for yesterday's outage. I'm a lamentably tardy bill-payer, but steps have been taken so that it won't happen again.
You haven't seen puppets until you've seen Folkmanis puppets. If you're not going to make your own artisan puppets, these are really the way to go. I really do think that there is some deep-down monkey brain connection to puppets. It's amazing how quickly you can get someone to talk to or react to a puppet, even if they know how one works.
I've seen news about John Gottman's Relationship Research Institute for a while now. This week's This American Life is about marriage, and includes a lengthy segment where he talks about his research into what makes happy couples different from unhappy couples. Once the stream is available, I hope somebody remembers to put a link to it here. It is, as Ira points out, very difficult to hear the discussions of and about happy couples without reflecting on one's own relationships.
Artoyz products look really cool, but the site is taxing my French vocab. They're expensive for toys, but cheap for art.
The Food Guide Pyramid is a good starting place for healthy eating, but the US Pyramid does not reflect other possible healthy eating patterns. Another flaw with many healthy diet outlines is the problem of confusing serving sizes, an issue which the Fillipinos have sidestepped nicely.
One of these days, the Elgin Marbles are probably going to be gone from the British Museum, but it's seemed like that for a long time now. Everything old is new again.
A fridge for off-the-grid, or even for when you need a littler fridge than is available. I wonder if it works in humid places? Commentary on BoingBoing points out some Quaker and Amish predecessors.
I looked up two words today:
Modal: a sort of fabric which I had never heard of before I bought my new shirt and
Spinel: I got a reproduction of a ring that's in the Museum of London. The ring originally set with a spinel, mine is set with a garnet.
In 1999, there was some momentum to call a Kuiper-Belt object a Kuiper-Belt object, but sentiment prevailed. Not even a compromise was accepted. At least one renegade flouted the IAU's ruling.
Now, the discovery of Sedna, beyond even the Kuiper Belt, again highlights the silliness of calling Pluto a planet, and gives us another chance to use consistent criteria for determining planet status.
A little reverse web stalking shout-out to Jamie Jamison AKA niteowl ("That's NITEOWL, dammit!") for all his great writing back in the oldy moldy days of UWbb. Thanks to you and some other gun-friendly pals, I'm finally going to use a firearm this weekend. If I don't break my ass from the kick of a rifle, thanks, man!
Not just because your socks will go all green, but you may find something extra in your luggage. Yikes!
All web users enjoy the number 404, and there are plenty of interesting 404 error messages out there. The kind folks at the 404 research lab have given us Area 404, where you can see many of the best, categorized for easier browsing. There is also 404 Headlines, where I found pointers to a cellphone-originated blog and creamedpeas, which seem to be creations of the same person. The most recent creamedpeas project was Confidential To:. A fair sample is this letter from an engaged woman to her chicken-shit best-friend who, it turns out, has wanted her all these years. But I recommend starting at the beginning and reading until you can't take any more.
Update: this one cracked me up.
A Wiki cataloging of TV molecules. Okay, "Television Tropes, Idioms and Devices." Among them, Phlebotinum, which I am under the impression was coined by the Buffy the Vampire Slayer writing staff.
(later: sorry, I'm dumb, lots of this stuff is from the Jossverse- it's from Buffista org people.)
I must say, I know more than one person who will read this who could probably write a pretty definitive guide just on their own. And perhaps should. I'll help with the research and footnotes.
It doesn't take Inspector Morse to smell something funny about this Masonic Initiation mishap.
BC serial killer/pig farmer – sorry, accused serial killer/pig farmer – Robert Pickton may have mixed business with hobby.
Wow, O'Reilly's Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks looks like super fun! Also, it's got the first Internet-enabled kitchen appliances that actually make sense- a toaster that tells you about the weather, on your toast!
Okay, confession time: I'm dipping into self-help books again. The last foray was into the works of Albert Ellis, especially A Guide to Rational Living. This time it's FlyLady's Sink Reflections. Interestingly enough (not really) they both touch on the same bad habits of thought that can keep a person in a non-productive cycle in life. Next up, Richard Wiseman's* The Luck Factor: changing your luck, changing your life, the four essential principles.
*Hey, it looks like the other work he's done has more than once been featured in FP. He also did a show with science superstar Simon Singh performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival!
Religious political extremists the American Family Association are running another poll, possibly just to find out how badly tainted their mailing list got from that gay marriage poll a while back. Based on the fact that Kerry had something like 93% of the votes in the poll, I'm guessing they are mailing to a lot of folks who don't agree with much of their agenda.
Gizmodo gets Cory Doctorow to empty his pockets and now I have gadget envy. I went purse shopping this morning to find something big, sturdy and butch to put all my toys in but was unable to find what I needed. I may have to grow my own...
Why read Shakespeare's words when you can get a better idea of what's happening in the play by reading updated language? If I even begin to enumerate the ways in which this misses the point, I'll be here all day.
Knitter's Review has recommended assorted ways to stash your yarn that sound alarmingly like ways to disguise another problem. On the plus side, yarn hoarding does not cause blackouts. As far as we know.