Man, it’s always something. Moveable Type’s acting all wonky and pear-shaped.
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We were out the other night at one the local “Japanese steakhouse” restaurants. The kind where they grill the ingredients in front of you and make little choo-choo noises with smoking volcanoes made out of stacked onion slices. The party seated next to me included several women and one kid who I’d estimate was all of 16 – a very young 16 – and he was drinking a large beer with a sake cup plopped down inside it. As was his mother, or date, or whatever her relationship was to him. The waitress never blinked an eye or asked for…
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Why is it that some cigar smokers walk around with an unlit stogey in their mouths? Why do they do it in elevators and non-smoking buildings? It’s pretension, I tell ya. I rode up in the elevator just now with a guy who bore a slight resemblance to Jeffrey Tambor. He fiddled with and mouthed his tube of tobacco leaves in a disturbingly Freudian display. Why? He deigned to speak to me as we rode by mentioning that he’d pressed an extra floor button in error. Thanks. Whatever. He got off at his floor and immediately stuck the stogey back…
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Followup on a previous story/post: BBC NEWS | Africa>The only free hospital in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, has reopened, five weeks after it shut following threats to a doctor who removed a woman’s womb. An Islamic Sharia court brokered an agreement between the clan and the hospital, and fined the doctor $2000 for not consulting the family first. Would they have given permission to operate? I don’t know. I’ve been reading Nine Parts of Desire, and given what I’ve learned so far, it’s likely the family would have written off the woman as expendable if she was no longer capable…
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Someone I know might be interested in this little gadget – it’s called a HeadBlade. As Seen at BoingBoing.
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A catering college in the northern Algerian city of Tizi Ouzou has cooked the world’s largest couscous. The traditional north African dish was made from 2,600 kilos (5,732 lb) of dry semolina, meat from 100 sheep and 1.5 tonnes of vegetables. We love, love LOVE couscous around here. We don’t make it from scratch or anything, it’s very easily made using the Near East brand – takes 5 minutes once the small amount of water comes to a boil. And it can be jazzed up very easily – here’s a recipe for Apricot Ginger Couscous that we’ll try soon. However,…
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I’ll listen later to :NPR’scoverage of Reagan’s passing. I’m shedding no tears, mind. At the time of his election, I was toying with the idea of moving to Canada, just on general principle. It’s sad for his immediate family, of course. And, besides… I always thought the onset of his illness was late in his first term, and everyone around him was covering it up. Remember, this is the president that brought us Iran-Contra, the highest number of ethics violations by members of his administration in history, and a lot of very dirty “most favored corporation” deals. Oh, and he’s…
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He’s here to fix the… faucet! Yes, the one from last winter. And now to repair the even larger, but somewhat neater, hole in the drywall. Or maybe get some kind of access panel type-deal from Home Despot. The guy was from the same company that “fixed” the faucet the last time it froze (and that one took 2 trips). The work is being covered under warranty. This means a lot to us. Also on the list of prospective plumbing jobs: replace ejector pit, possibly install a utility sink in the laundry room. We’d previously gotten an estimate (rather high,…
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I get many complimentary reactions on the ring, from the sort of person — invariably female, thus far — who notices diamonds. Sometimes it’s like being accepted into an exclusive club. Women Who Wear Large Diamonds. The only thing that seems to confuse them is that I wear it on my right hand, not my left; the sapphire engagement ring over the wedding ring on my left hand being quite small by comparison. Diamonds come from men, in this particular sorority’s estimation, and are always worn on the left hand. I also am not a member of that sorority –…
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Bulldozer rage man kills himself>A shopkeeper, who went on the rampage in a bulldozer in the US state of Colorado to protest against local town planning policy, has killed himself. Not the first time this has happened. A bizarre trend in the making: Residents of Alma, in Park County southwest of Denver, are still rattled over what caused town native Thomas Leask to go on a deadly bulldozer rampage in February 1998. The first one was over town planning, the second one was operating on instructions from God. Both were crazier than bedbugs. Avoid all…