My day's been a morningsworth of upbeat energy swirling in a steadily-narrowing snowstorm of corporate jargon and project performance analyses. New team leader = new assessment metrics = piles of spreadsheets.

This video makes it all better.

Click to view

Hey, I'm a beer!


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* The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, passed down to me from my lovely Lady's travel reading. What a gift! I'm usually pretty self-contained when reading in public, though grinning like a fool through the pretty parts, but yesterday I reached a well-prepared situation that made me bark out a laugh on the red line. People looked at me. Also? It ( Read more... )

* According to our friends at the USN Observatory, there will be a total Lunar Eclipse on the evening of March 3, at what looks to be a 88.9 azimuth. *crosses fingers for clear skies*
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* Zazarac: Fill a martini glass with shaved ice. Stir brown sugar syrup laced with bitters into cognac until the sugar has dissipated. Dump the ice. Rinse the martini glass with Absinthe. Strain cognac into rinsed glass. Serve.

* Peter Callesen's A4 cutout paper sculpture (by way of Andii) features several crawly beasties, which are on my mind ( Read more... )

* The Berkshires are still there. Our hosts at the 1886 House impressed with cozy lodging and tasty breakfasts. Over the weekend we stumbled on (and right through) Northampton Pride, plenished our kitchen with widgets at Thornes, hot-tubbed at East Heaven, sushi'd at Teapot, and refilled our lungs with their proper supply of greenery and pine on ( Read more... )

...In which a deaf man fitted with a cochlear implant badgers researchers until he finds implant software that will allow him to hear -- and enjoy -- his beloved Bolero. And then?

Chorost, Michael. "My Bionic Quest for Bolero." Wired November. 2005: 144-158.

"And some music just leaves me cold: I can't even get through Kraftwerk's Tour de France. ( Read more... )

* Once more with feeling: ginger-infused vodka with plum wine, the veggie kebab, babaganough dip plate, and olives. Mmmm ( Read more... )

Some so nice they had to be mentioned twice...

* Seven Times Salt last night performed their set called Sufficient Grounds which, it turns out, really is. The concert featured examples of "...the Renaissance art of "divisions on a ground"--the playing of elaborate instrumental lines, either composed or improvised, over a repeating melodic or ( Read more... )

* Crypto Security Boxes found while googling "Vitruvian". Neat! It's not very secure; you have to tell the artist what the password is at commission, and then you can't change it. It's awfully pretty, though. What could you keep in there? Sterling D&D dice? (Oh, wait... kids these days just use a d20. Better make that 24k.)

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