Merry Christmas
Hopefully your Christmas was merry. Mine was, spend with family, as usual. (As usual not being a complaint but rather the opposite: change isn't always a good thing.)
Hopefully your Christmas was merry. Mine was, spend with family, as usual. (As usual not being a complaint but rather the opposite: change isn't always a good thing.)
Min Jung has the info on when, during the year, people are at their horniest: #1—for reasons that are none of your damn business—is my fave: “Folks hate the notion of going home for the holidays, being asked if they're single/seeing anyone and what must be the horrific traumatizing reason why're they're not seeing anyone right now. It's a high grade of guilt/neurosis and judgement. That's the "holidays trip home" bleah to address.”
AccordionGuy has raised the bar for all of us. Especially me, who's participating in the Carnival of the Canucks, my turn being tentatively scheduled for January 6th. All links will be to Canadian weblogs, hopefully with an emphasis on Vancouver weblogs, some of which you can here (not by any means a comprehensive list, it being both opt-in and opt-out).
Lisa Rein lets her partisanship get the better of her. Partisanship gets the better of everybody, even Josh Marshall, but at least he's skeptical when he reads information that would tend to confirm his partisan leanings. It bothers me when people read news that confirms their already-held beliefs (e.g.
Mark: "carb-counting" bagels “are a most evil creation, vile and bland, an affront against nature and taste buds and most likely God and so forth.”
Transit bus. SkyTrain. Another SkyTrain. Wait. Coach bus. Ferry. Coach bus. Another coach bus. Ride from Dad.
Such are the methods of transportation taken to get from Vancouver to home—Courtenay (just because I don't live there, doesn't mean it's not home)—when one doesn't have a car.
Sunday—which just happens to be today—is a travel day, and will be followed by hanging out at my parents' place...Sunday—which just happens to be today—is a travel day, and will be followed by hanging out at my parents' place for a week. It will also involve such fun things as Christmas shopping and cross-country (!) skiing.
Lisa Williams has some questions for those (and about those) who ask to be includied in things, in the context of having to ask to be on someone's blogroll:
Scoble: “how do I meet such interesting people? Be observant! Ask questions. Introduce yourself. Look in their eyes. If they are interested in talking to you, their eyes will tell you. If not, move on.”
Lance Arthur: “Tolerance is an ugly, horrid, hateful word. Tolerance means, "I tolerate you." It means that I am allowed to continue to believe the wrong, ignorant, backwards lies I have always been told about you but that I can manage to sit here across the table from you and not take my steak knife and plunge it into your heart”
Henry: “Professors tend to sing the praises even of their most mediocre students, and it takes skilled parsing of language to figure out who are the likely stars, and who are less suited to the rigors of a Ph.D. program. When the student himself or herself is writing the bulk of the letter, and choosing the language, the information content of the letter of reference is close to zero. You simply don’t know what to think when reading it.”
Thomas H. Benton: “Be wary of people who claim that grad school is a 'wonderful' experience, a means of acquiring the polish of culture -- a kind of 'grand tour' -- before entering the 'real' world. Professionalism obligates people to speak positively about their alma mater in public. Grad school is not all fun and personal enrichment for many people.
The last one two three four entries were the result of checking out this weblog's entire—excellent!—blogroll.
As if the weblog itself isn't good enough.
Karl: “je n'ai pas le temps de travailler sérieusement mon chinois. Il faut que je trouve un moyen souple de le pratiquer. Un professeur pas trop proche personnellement et qui puisse s'arranger de mes horaires un peu chaotique et de mes voyages surtout.” A problem I also face. I have the resources to return to studying Chinese, just not the discipline that comes with a teacher, assignments and tests.
Mathieu: “Avez-vous déjà remarqué qu'en réalité on n’est pas seulement la somme de nos actions, mais aussi la somme de nos ambitions?”
Patrick has said what I said regarding the article about how we are all "nerds" now, only better (and three days earlier no less):
Barnaby on why reading a book is easier than having a conversation: