Via MeFi, a collection of accents and dialects. My favorite so far is the sheep farmer. “The bigger sheep usually, they’re what you call lowdown [?] sheep…” It’s like a whole nother language, really.
two interesting things
Apparently marinara is named after mariners. Something about being able to keep on long sea voyages. At least according to my southern Italian cookbook.
From A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius:
After graduating he tried Chicago first, but was tired of constantly running into people from Champaign. They were all there, the whole school — so few make it out of the state. To most, Chicago was Oz, anything beyond it was China, the moon.
doom to the ants
Our bathroom is suffering from an infestation of tiny ants, the smallest ants I’ve seen. I suppose you might call my actions this morning “infanticide.”
pizza
etymology lesson I
From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
bunny – 1690, dim. of Scottish dialectal bun, pet name for “rabbit,” previously (1587) for “squirrel,” and also a term of endearment for a young attractive woman or child (1606). Ultimately could be from Scottish bun “tail of a hare” (1538), or from Fr. bon, or from a Scand. source. The Playboy Club hostess sense is from 1960. The Bunny Hug (1912), along with the foxtrot and the Wilson glide, were among the popular/scandalous dances of the ragtime era.
Thanks to Adrienne for making me look this up.
the animals like john edwards
We are bunny-sitting our landlord’s bunny. I have named her Ms. Floppity Hop. After spending much of the early evening hiding in corners or in her cage, Ms. Hop (or should I call her Floppity?) started roaming around the room as soon as John Edwards started talking about living week to week on our paycheck. I take this as a sign that Edwards has truly reached out to the bunny community — they too want One America.
a politics of hope
Obama’s speech. Read it. I can’t find the real audio link or I’d put it here.
ego-boost
A conversation I had today in Brewed Awakening while reading research papers:
ANDREI: So what do you work on anyway?
ME: Well, I do information theory, which is…
ANDREI: Really? That’s so cool!
I think this is the first and last time I will have a conversation like this. But it’s amazing how happy it made me that someone thinks what I do is cool.
parallel readings
Things (books, papers) I am trying to read in parallel:
Continue reading
jerky
My friend Paul’s uncle has a meat shop in Elburn, IL, which has the best damn beef jerky I’ve ever eaten, and now they have a homepage. Perhaps I’ll order some jerky for the long autumn days out on the range with my laptop and… um… wireless internet… and…
An Ergodic Walk 