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Book ’em, Danno



You’re Prufrock and Other Observations!
by T.S. Eliot
Though you are very short* and often overshadowed, your voice is poetic and lyrical. Dark and brooding, you see the world as a hopeless effort of people trying to impress other people. Though you make reference to almost everything, you’ve really heard enough about Michelangelo. You measure out your life with coffee spoons.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

*Though not as short as Bill, who is my inspiration (at least for this post).

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Off with their heads!


You’re the United Kingdom!
You’re a much weaker person than you used to be, but you still act like you did when everyone looked up to you.  Despite this, you’re probably a better person than you were when you had so much power over those around you.  Though you do have a strange fascination with jewels and monarchs, which lets you play in castles, but also end up leading a sort of tabloid lifestyle.
 You really like the Beatles, even more than you like Oasis.

Take the Country Quiz at the Blue Pyramid
Via Shatnerian

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Bush league advertising

Now that Kerry has clinched the Democratic nomination, the Republican party is gearing up for the campaign. There are three new ads to remind people what a great guy George W. is – two of which include images from 9/11, which the Bush league had promised not to use for political gain.
According to Alternet, on a CBS morning show, “Bush campaign manager Ken Mehlman told reporters that using images of Ground Zero was fair game because ‘9/11 was the defining moment of these times. Because of that day, America is at war and still is.'”
I’m not a fan of Bush (I know, the surprise is a little underwhelming), and I am not at all surprised that his campaign is exploiting the images of Ground Zero – but after watching the ads, I did wonder that no one has commented on the complete lack of Arab Americans in the ads. There are blacks, Asians, Latinos, whites (naturally), but not a single person of discernibly Middle Eastern heritage. Hmmm…
Anyway, as I said, I’m not surprised, or even particularly put off by the use of 9/11. After all, Mehlman is right; it was a defining moment in Bush’s first term, and arguably the catalyst for the current war. It’s certainly a more compelling argument for war than, say, going to war cuz Dad did first. Given the perceived American collective self-image as a country born on the battlefield, images of war are just part and parcel of any evocation of patriotism; as such, using images of the WTC devastation is no better or worse than relentlessly using the Star Spangled Banner in the ads (which they do, believe me).
On the other hand, if you promise that you’re not going to do something, don’t do it.

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My son is a cheap date

Colin and I are both enjoying our Spring Break, albeit without beaches or cabana boys. Yesterday we took the Metro all the way to the eastern end of the Green line, and today, we’re going all the way to Angrignon – and we’re stopping at every station along the way to get a transfer, just to show we’ve been there.
Have I mentioned that Colin is six?

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Math is hard

I noticed yesterday that my smoke-free counter was getting ahead of me – the original code would have made today the three-week mark, which it is not. I quit on Friday the 13th, so 21 days has to be another Friday, no?
Perhaps it has something to do with the leap year…
Anyway, this morning I went to Dynamic Drive and found a better code that seems able to count. While it would be nice to say it’s been three weeks, it hasn’t.

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And the connection is?

So far this morning I have received four spam* for Viagra. I’m not sure who’s spreading the rumour that I’m having problems keeping it up, but I’d like to go on record as saying that it’s as up as it ever was, given that I don’t have an it.
Which means, by the way, that my it doesn’t need to be any longer or wider.
Two of these spam, interestingly, employ what I assume is a filter-busting method: a long string of unrelated words in the subject line. To whit:
“elizabethan valois thermistor weiss aplomb crisis aileen clash eden quickie tallyho mcleod ogre onion ace proteolysis hollandaise”
Aplomb?
As in ‘he swallowed his Viagra with aplomb’?
And I don’t even want to think about ‘hollandaise’ in that context…
*Is this the correct plural form? There are enough technical writers and their ilk reading this – is it spam? spams? spumati?

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The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara Kingsolver
I enjoyed this book much more than I had expected to. It’s the story of a quartet of sisters who are uprooted from their life in Georgia to live in a small village in the Congo with their Baptist missionary father. The story is told in alternating chapters – each “book” of the Bible begins with a chapter told by the mother, then the sisters take turns telling the story.

Continue reading “The Poisonwood Bible”

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Countdown

Two days til Spring Break!!
This morning I feel like I really, really need a week off, believe me. I’m heading home after my afternoon class tomorrow – a class which I suspect will be curiously shorter than usual. Then I’m home for ten and a half days!!
I’m doing my best to wrap things up here, to minimize the homework. I have mid-term papers from all three classes, so there’s a lot of correcting to get through; for two of the classes, part of what I’m correcting is the students’ ability to use APA documentation, which is not particularly exciting, to say the least. Needless to say, I’m engaging in a lot of internal pep talks:
“You can do it, Maggie!”
“Yes, but I don’t want to.”
Thankfully the weather is encouraging – this morning, though still stupidly cold, is bright and sunny, and the forecast looks warmer.
And let’s face it – the world just looks better in widescreen. My new machine is wonderful – I’m impressed, Dr. T (who is, after all, a computer guy) is impressed, and the techie people at school, who took care of my new baby for a couple of hours yesterday, installing network thingies, are impressed.
Suffice it to say that I’m happy – if not for this perpetually growing stack of corrections. Grr.