Monthly Archives: January 2004

‘Way back in the early 1800’s, a bunch of otherwise nice folks took a look at what technology and industrialization was doing to the job market and decided that the best way to stay employed was to smash the machines that made it easier for less skilled people to do the same sort of work that they’d been doing. Ever since then, people who fear or distrust technology have been given the name “Luddite“, even if they don’t have the same sort of motivations.

I’ve got a sort of reverse Midas Touch going on. Everything I touch turns to junk. It’s not an instantaneous effect, obviously, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. I’m just starting to worry that, if things don’t change pretty soon, someone will coin the term “Mattite” and apply it to people whose presence causes technology to spontaneously smash itself.
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More and more construction around the Hospital these days. It’s tough to get from one side to the other, and the parking lots that have been devoured or blocked off have added a hint of desperation to the normal morning commute. I’m lucky. My Wife can drop me off in the morning and take the car away to the law school, where the parking is much more abundant. I’m sure when construction begins on the new annex they’ve got planned, our situations will reverse.

Either that, or there’ll be no parking at either place.
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Could an ecstatic athletic ascetic be enthusiastic about aesthetic elastic?

Or would that be too eccentric?

Sometimes I think the English language has too many ways to say the same thing. It can be something of a barrier to folks who are trying to learn English as a second language. Imagine all of the different phrases you’d need be taught, simply to ask someone for directions…

There’s two that stick in my head immediately:

“Do you know the way to San Jose?”
“Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?”

And if you’re at all musically inclined, you’ve now got both those tunes warring for simultaneous space in your brain… You’re welcome.
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Low twenties and snow! That’s more like it! Now I can get down to the serious business of complaining about how people down here can’t drive on snow. Heck, some of them can’t seem to drive at all.
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Did a lot of wandering about today. First off it was over to my sis’s house to take care of her mail and douse her houseplants, then we walked over to Cody’s in Ypsi’s depot town for lunch. It’s been unseasonably warm here, so we didn’t even need to bother with gloves and hats. Fifty degrees in January! It’s disgusting. But it does make it easier to get some exercise in by walking.
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