Spam Lacks Punctuation; Purpose Unclear to Recipient

This is the best subject line I’ve yet received in the new Spam-enabled e-mail client we have at work (apart from the Dr. Seussian ones that use “bigger” as a verb - those are tough to beat):

Subject: Milk Car Circle Pants Bathroom Coffee-shop Gloves

It’s clear they forgot to punctuate. Let me help:

Milk Car: A car that emits no simple carbon compounds, but only milk. This trumps Honda’s new fuel cell car, which is said to emit only water. Especially for families with young children who travel near breakfast time. No word on where the cereal is supposed to come from.

Circle Pants: How do you put them on?

Here’s where I get confused. Three terms remain - how are they grouped?

“Bathroom Coffee-shop”? No, thanks.

Coffee-shop Gloves? Better. Do those replace the little cardboard rings that Caribou puts around the paper cups? Are they disposable, or do you return them for re-use when you’re finished? Will they tell me how much more eco-friendly they are than would be using a second cup?

After figuring out the subject, the body of the message was pretty disappointing. I don’t remember what it said.

More Washington, DC Photos at Flickr

My little Flickr sidebar thing hasn’t seemed to notice them, so here’s a link.

We went to Washington, DC the week before Veterans’ Day. I have several hundred pictures, but only posted a few. If you’re interested.

In Washington DC, This Reminded Me of mis_nomer

If you don’t know mis_nomer, she’s the one who wants to drive a little Coke van (look in the header image).

Well, in Washington, DC, there’s a little McDonald’s van, and it gets to drive on the sidewalk.

edit: Sheesh. WordPress is so smart, it capitalizes names that have no capital letters in them. Sorry, m i s _ n o m e r.

I give myself a B

The new hard drive’s in and working, and the OS is reinstalled & updated, but I broke the trackpad. Or didn’t reconnect it correctly. Or something. I’ll have to take it all apart again to see.

Still - that’s a B. I usually use a mouse anyhow.

Update: Grade revised to an A. The trackpad is fixed - I just didn’t line the plug up quite right. All’s well. 108.9Gig free. Very nice.

Wish me Luck

Saturday, I’m going to replace the hard drive in my iBook. Going from 30Gig (with 200Meg free) to 120Gig. (Here’s where I resist talking about how my first Mac had *no* hard drive, and 0.0004Gig floppies were fine for everything).

I understand it’s an involved process.

Wish me luck.

We Dine Well, Here in Camelot

Spamalot is coming to Columbus in November!

iPod Touch’s iCal is read-only

Edit :This is fixed. You can now add events to iCal on the Touch! There goes my excuse not to buy … Steve’s calling my bluff… Original post follows:

That sucks. That’s what my current iPod does. The one with the black & white screen & no video. The really old one.

Everything else about the Touch (except its name, come to think of it) sounds great, but if I can’t add events, then it can’t take the place of my aging Palm. And I’m not going to carry *another* gadget around with me. Even if it’s pretty and skinny and has built-in WiFi.

I had myself all convinced it was worth the price until this.

Oh, well. I think I’ll survive.

Why North-South is OK, but East-West is Problematic

Ever since leaving Chicago, I have a hard time telling east from west. Anyone who’s lived near a Great Lake can sense where the lake is when they’re within, say, 50 miles, and they know in what direction it lies. (When I lived in northern PA for a summer, I could sense where Lake Erie was, and was constantly 90 degrees off in my sense of direction. Lake Erie is north of PA, Lake Michigan is east of IL.)

In the middle of Ohio, all we have is north-south rivers. I am grateful that they’re at least uniform that way, but I have no trouble telling north from south. East from west, I have to think about.

To do it here in Ohio, I have to picture which direction the Atlantic ocean is, and then I know east. When I go home from work, for example, I’m heading toward the ocean, but I stop 500 miles short.

Why do I need a body of water to tell east from west, but I just know north from south?

I think I know.

We process written information and pictures mainly left-to-right. So the default “directionality” of things is left-to-right. But the way people talk about things on maps is “east-west,” as in, “that road goes east-west.” Nobody (that I know) says “west-east.” (Maybe because the US was settled east to west? Is this an American thing?)

Anyhow, it’s one direction for maps, another for everything else. This is why up & down is no problem, but if I have to go sideways, I’m likely as not to go the wrong way sideways.

I know you were curious. Now you know.

Hobbit Finished

Only took two weeks to read the last 100 pages. Too much going on! I want to keep going with the other three books, but at this pace I’ll just annoy myself.

(If you haven’t read The Hobbit, and plan to, don’t read any mroe of this post. There’s a spoiler coming.)

But wow - quite a lot happens in that last 100 pages. The last 20 even. I’d forgotten how Thorin’s desire for the gold threatened so much trouble, and how the trouble they all got was different from what they’d expected.

A quick quote, from when Bilbo warns of the coming of Dain and his army:

“…when they arrive there may be serious trouble.”

“Why do you tell us this? Are you betraying your friends, or are you threatening us?” asked Bard grimly.

“My dear Bard!” squeaked Bilbo. “Don’t be so hasty! I never met such suspicious folk! I am merely trying to avoid trouble for all concerned. …”

Lately, I know what he’s talking about.

In two months, my term as HOA trustee expires, and I will not seek reelection. Tomorrow, I will resign as President, so that a person whose term runs beyond the annual meeting can run that meeting.

Time for someone else to give it a try. I wish we had more hobbits. We are awash in men and dwarves.

Baby Squirrel!

In a glass.