Officially I’ve only been at work for five minutes, and things are already going badly.

ADDENDUM the First:
Okay, so it’s been up and down all day, but (knock on wood) the worst of it seems to be over.

Having lunch from the Flying Fish helped too.

Check out today’s (21 July 2005) Marquee in the Dominion Post. There’s a lovely article on Wayne Rowand, classical guitarist and all around good guy.

The Word of the Day for July 21 is:

emissary \EM-uh-sair-ee\ noun
*1 : one designated as the agent of another : representative
2 : a secret agent

Jeesh! They forgot the most important definition!
(more…)

a direct english translation of the chinese interpretation of what the script (‘Revenge of the Sith’) was saying

“I was just made by the Presbyterian Church”

(via Language Log)

I told you so:

Drivers using cellphones have four times the risk of being involved in car accidents that result in hospital visits, according to a new study in the British Medical Journal. And those hands-free devices? They won’t lower your risk of a crash.

Of course there’s nothing that can be done to stop people using hands free devices, or else we’d have to stop every person singing along with the radio or talking to a small child in the back seat to make sure they weren’t using a hands free device.

And of course I can’t understand why anyone would WANT to talk on the phone while driving. I don’t even want to talk on the phone at home, at least when I’m driving I have an good excuse not to talk to the caller. Oh, wait. That’s right. No one ever calls me because I hate to talk on the phone.

But still, what on earth could possibly be so important that you want to divide your attention from the ton (or more) of metal hurtling down the road at upwards of 25mph? Basic physics here folks. Force equals mass times acceleration, means if you lose your control, nothing good can come of it.

I would think that anyone who has ever been in a car accident–for any reason–would have reason to be careful. Watching the scenery go past as you do a 180, wondering whether you’ll stay on the road or go hurtling into a ravine was enough to make me pay attention to my driving. Why would I want to do something that would make me more likely to go through such an experience again? (And then there were the deer. Despite paying attention and being on the lookout for them, I’ve managed to hit two deer. Distraction would have made it even worse.)

If you talk and drive, you’re putting yourself at risk. That’s the bottom line.

Though perhaps I should look at this as a good thing. At the rate people talk on their phones while driving, maybe we’ll get more stupid people out of the gene pool.

Avery’s post on BSV (Black Standard Vernacular) got me thinking about speech and accents, which lead me down another path entirely, thinking about poverty, and the things that are associated with it.

Raised in West Virginia, I grew up associating a drawl with poverty. Not everyone who had a drawl was poor, and not every who was poor had a drawl, but still, there was a major association.

And I have stories from my grandmother, how her father came here at 18 speaking no English, but worked to become a fluent speaker. How when she took my aunt to school, the teacher refused to believe that they were from Baltimore, because my aunt didn’t have the local accent. (The one that turns Baltimore into Bawlm’r.)

All of this lead to my impression that speaking well was very important.

Dress had similar associations. Clothes with holes, clothes that were too big or too small, clothes that looked worn and dirty–all those things are associated in my mind with poverty.

So I speak without an accent. And I get upset when I spill something on myself. And I’m embarassed to be seen in worn and ill fitting clothes. Because those things signify poverty, and poverty means you have no power in society.

And so I stare in incredulity at those who choose to dress in ill-fitting clothes. Who wear clothes that are torn and ragged by design. Who wear clothes that look permamently dirty by design.

I can’t understand choosing to look and sound powerless.

The Word of the Day for July 19 is:

verboten \ver-BOH-tun\ adjective
: forbidden; especially : prohibited by dictate

Example sentence:
During the era of prohibition in the United States, when the sale of alcohol was verboten, speakeasies were routinely raided by the authorities and shut down.

For absolutely no reason, this is another of my favorite words.

Burn Marks (1990) Sara Paretsky

V.I.’s aunt Elena shows up on her doorstop at 3 in the morning after escaping the fire that burned down the hotel where she was living. As an alcoholic deadbeat aunt is not the idea roomate, V.I. gives her 24 hours to find a new place and get out, but of course that isn’t the end of the story, and V.I. ends up investigating the arson.

Read More about Burn Marks

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2005) J.K. Rowling

Finished.

And grr…

I liked the book up through the last couple chapters. Then it went exactly where I thought it was going to go. And I’m not happy about it.

Also, this had all the feel of a second book in a trilogy–minor points are resolved, but for the most part everything is left hanging, waiting for the final book.

I hate that.

Everything else I have to say is going to contain spoilers, so don’t read on if you haven’t already read the book and don’t want to know important plot points.

Read More about Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Blood Shot (1988) Sara Paretsky

V.I. Warshawski reluctantly heads back to the old neighborhood–her childhood next door neighbor wants her help in solving the mystery of her past. V.I.’s mother had befriended the single mother next door, and made V.I. take care of Caroline, the little girl. Now, as her mother lies dying, Caroline begs V.I. to look into the past.

Read More about Blood Shot

At dinner this evening I was finally able to put my finger on what bugged me so much about ‘Revenge of the Sith’.

R2D2.

I love R2D2. When ‘Star Wars’ came out, when everyone was drooling over Mark Hammil and Harrison Ford, I had a crush on R2D2.

Yeah, I know. I’m weird. Always have been.

But the point is that they took an established character and then out of nowhere gave him all these bizarre powers he’d never had before–and more importantly–never had later. It made no sense.

They took my favorite character, randomly made giant and unexplained (and unexplainable) changes, and we were supposed to accept it without question.

Bah!

Good grief. I didn’t think that kittens were allowed to be this cute.

If I were Tom I would find myself unable to concentrate in the face of such overwhelming adorableness.

Saw the Fantatic Four today. I liked it–not as much as I liked Batman Begins–but I liked it.

Unfortunately, I realized why people pay extra to go to the movies in the evening. There were a LOT of children. In fact, there were a lot of YOUNG children, including one child, who couldn’t have been more than four or five, who started screaming and yelling about two thirds of the way through the movie. And of course her mother waited for quite some time before removing her from the theater.

Do people not READ ratings any more? This movie is PG-13. It was loud. There were explosions and scary bad people. When I was four I remember the Wicked Queen in Snow White scaring the crap outta me. I can’t see someting like this being LESS scary. Yet the mother seemed irritated at the kid more than concerned as she (finally) took her out of the room.

Jeesh.

But back to the movie: I liked it. It was cute and fun and not annoying. I didn’t even mind how obnoxious Johnny Storm was. (Though if I was his sister I probably would have attempted to kill him long before then.) I’d go see it again if someone else wanted to go, because it was fun. But I don’t think I’d talk Michael into going again all on my own.

I’m curious, did it follow the original story? Is that how they got their super powers in the comics? And couldn’t they put other people in the machine Reed made? Or would it only work for them because they’d gone through the space storm?

Just wondering.

Next movie to see: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But it’ll probably be a couple of weeks. I have no desire to sit through a sold out show. And I may be willing to pay full price and go at night, to avoid the throngs of kids. Maybe.

Okay. You’re right. I admit it. The wicked queen in Snow White STILL scares me.

I laughed out loud listening to the radio this morning (I’m paraphrasing here):

Scott Simon was interviewing a band called Brazilian Girls. One of his first questions was, none of you are Brazilian and only one of you are a girl. Why the name Brazilian Girls?

One guy responded: Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copland were not policemen. None of the Rolling Stones were actual rocks.