Kablammo!

Go figure, I set five alarms for this morning because I absolutely had to get up, and I was out of bed with the first one. Not that I’m complaining.

An hour from now, I will be at my job. (Whatever that means.)

Pat Robertson’s Age-Defying Shake

Do you wish you could leg-press 2000 lbs, just like your hero, Pat Robertson? Just click on the link above to get access to the secret recipe for his age-defying protein shake! With legs like that, you’ll really be able to kick some smarmy Darwinist ass!

• candor / candid
• splendor / splendid
• pallor / pallid
• squalor / squalid
• valor / valid ?
• liquor / liquid ?

Or just read this for more of the same.

Two weeks from today, I sign a lease and move into my new apartment. Less than a week after that, I start my new job, which will be my first “real” job.

People keep asking me if I’m excited.

I’m not.

» » Continue reading . . .

So not only have I taken up running recently, but today I finally got around to getting a new inner tube and fixing up the bicycle that’s needed fixing up for the past two years.

Quite strange, and I don’t know what to make of it.

This is just too funny.

The National Flag established by the Congress of the CSA on March 4, 1865, is as follows:

The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That the Flag of the Confederate States shall be as follows: The width, two-thirds of its length, with the union (now used as the Battle Flag) to be in width three-fifths of the width of the flag, and so proportioned as to leave the length of the field on the side of the union twice the width of the field below it; to have the ground red and a broad, blue saltier thereon, bordered with white and emblazoned with mullets or five pointed stars, corresponding in number to that of the Confederate States; the field to be white except the outer half from the union to be a red bar extending the width of the flag.

Emphasis mine. (This is what that flag looks like, by the way.)

Wood chipper breaks free in Pa., kills 3

That’s a news story about a father and two of his four-year-old sons dying when their minivan collided with a 5000-pound piece of heavy machinery that was improperly secured to the dump truck towing it, which is pretty fucking depressing.

You wouldn’t know it from the headline, where the verb choice combined with the active voice gives the wood chipper an air of malevolent sentience. You might imagine a renegade wood chipper imprisoned, possibly awaiting trial, waiting patiently for his girlfriend to mail him a hacksaw or file baked into a cake. But then he remembers that he’s a 5000-pound wood chipper, so he just smashes through the bars and starts chipping the Sheriff and his deputies, Fargo-style, until the National Guard shows up and subdues him. Or something.

“Broke free” and “bounded across a highway”, in particular, really seem incongruous when applied to a big hunk of metal.

The nice thing about Daylight Saving time is that I no longer have to mentally subtract an hour from my clocks. Go me!

Two things:

1. Manu Chao’s Radio Bemba Sound System would be a damn good candidate for the official album of the vernal equinox. Just saying. And, of course, “La Primavera” from that album would be an extra-good candidate for the official theme song of the vernal equinox.
2. Finnish and Japanese are related. I can’t prove it, but goddamn it I know it’s true. There’s too many freaky similarities for it to be a concidence, including:
   • ‘k’ particles for turning verbs into questions.
     Finnish: -ko/-kö
     e.g. on (is) becomes onko (is?)
     Japanese: か -ka
     e.g. です desu (is) becomes ですか desuka (is?)
   • ‘n’ suffixes for indicating possession.
     Finnish: -n
     e.g. lääkäri (doctor) becomes lääkärin (doctor’s)
     Japanese: の -no
     e.g. ホチキス hochikisu (stapler) becomes ホチキス の hochikisu no (stapler’s)
   • That reminds me, neither has a definite (or an indefinite) article.
   • They have similar rules for astmevaheldus and the like.

   Obviously there are huge differences in vocabulary and grammar, and one’s writing system was based on Swedish and German while the other’s was based on Chinese. But I’m not talking about that.

Spring is in the air. Birds are chirping, it’s 57° outside, and tomorrow it’s supposed to get up to 65°. The day after tomorrow, though, temperatures will range from -4° to -23° or so and it’ll be snowing.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Am I that desperate for a proper winter?