Thursday, September 13, 2007

Revisions, Redactions, Recriminations

Regarding the Thursday Quiz

Rex Parker nailed the quiz with a perfect store, and has now completed the coveted Thursday Quiz trifecta, adding a gold star to his previous silver and blue.

Blythe, in addition to recently being nominated as Oklahoma's most amusing blogger, can now add a Thursday Quiz silver star to her trophy case. She's kind of a big deal.

Newcomer Heather swept down at the last hour to claim the blue star for South Korea, where she is newly in residence.


Regarding the Book List

After reading sweet eulogies to the late Madeline L'Engle by both the aforementioned Blythe and occasional L&TM5K commenter Boo, I've added A Wrinkle in Time to the reading list. To tell the truth, I had been very, very fuzzy on the distinction between Madeline L'Engle and Ursula LeGuin, probably because both of their names start with the letters "L" and "E". This might be a good time to sort that out.


Regarding How I'm Shameless

The Special L&TM5K award for Best Personal Blog I Never Looked at Until Today, But Then Was Totally Wowed By, as it is Quirky, Witty, and Thoughtful, and Really I Couldn't Get it on Google Reader Fast Enough goes to dmbmeg's I am Quietly Judging You.


Regarding How I'm a Big Jerk

Point #3: In consideration of MyDogisChelsea's point's in the comments, a long conversation with Mrs. 5000 regarding the ADA in architectural practice, and watching a member of the UC-Davis marching band take part in halftime formations, in his wheelchair, at last week's football game, I am formally dropping my opposition to legally-mandated access considerations for people with disabilities. Stop the presses.

Point #7: Anything I say about the relative importance of cultural diversity, comes from a guy who works in an office where more than 30 languages are spoken. In other words, I can be careless about the value of diversity the same way that Bill Gates can be careless with his spending money.


Regarding Positive Things About President George W. Bush

Occasional L&TM5K commentor Austin pointed out something to add to my list of things I like about the President: under his administration, Daylight Savings Time has been extended by three weeks. Now, I actually feel that as a concept, DST is pretty dumb. But in practice, I love it as much as you do. Thanks, Mr. Bush!


Regarding the Decemberists Tale

Having found that the Decemberists' concert video opened with footage of Mrs. 5000 and myself, I naturally bought us a copy. The concert -- one of the best we've ever been to, by the by -- ends with a rave-up reading of "I Was Meant for the Stage," after which the camera makes a long, slow pan left-to-right across the crowd. In the very last four or five frames of the video, with ghostly briefness, enters the screen from the right side none other than -- Mrs. 5000. We have been thinking a lot about why the filmmaker chose to frame the concert film with images of us. No firm conclusions yet. Really, generations of graduate students in Film Studies may be wrestling with this.




Regarding those Interesting Blogs I was Talking About

I should get them on the blogroll. I know. I've been busy.

Regarding that Job Interview

It went really well. She talked to me for two hours. And I loved the place. But they are interviewing twelve candidates, so I'm going to have to ask y'all for sustained good mojo here. And, again, discretion if you happen to know people in my workplace.

9 comments:

blythe said...

yay me! i guess it pays to have a mother who's completely obsessed with the history of england. i mean totally. from start to now. e.g. she is holding out for me to marry prince william. who am i kidding, so am i.

i hope you enjoy a wrinkle in time. i don't know what it would be like to initially read it as an adult, but it was seriously life changing for me in terms of the powers of imagination. totally thinking outside the box.

Anonymous said...

You (among others) have now inspired me to add "Wrinkle in Time" to my reading list, and to leave it around the house for my daughter to find. I read a lot of LeGuinn, so not sure why L'Engle didn't make it into my childhood. Actually, I don't have a reading list, because I find them sort of oppressive. I just write down author's names on little scraps of paper when I'm listening to book reviews, and then I try to find the scraps when I'm heading into the library or the bookstore. Not very efficient.

I used to Love Daylight Savings Time. Now I have to be at work everyday, and getting up in the dark is starting to be bothersome.

Anonymous said...

So when are you going to have a quiz that I'll actually pass? Like.... Is it or isn't it an ultimate frisbee term??

Actually--maybe I'll steal your idea and put that one on my blog.

Anyway, I appreciate your retraction of #3. Growing up with a sibling in a wheelchair made me acutely aware of the necessities of equal access. Although I do agree that sometimes the law can be absurd--for instance, at my summer camp, they built a new dining room and the law required it to be accessible, which means that it has a big handicapped bathroom stall and a ramp and things like that. Which is great, except that a person in a wheelchair would have to trek a quarter-mile over woodchips, gravel, hills, exposed tree roots and rocks to get to this new dining room. Buildings in places that cannot feasibly made accessible should not fall under the same rule as, say, the Best Buy at the mall.

Rebel said...

I'm glad you'll be reading A Wrinkle in Time. I loved that book as a kid, and have actually reread the series a few times. It is sad that she's gone now... but her books remain. I guess that's one road to immortality.

chuckdaddy2000 said...

My favorite thing about time zones and DST, is how before trains there'd be like 30 time zones per state (not called that of course). But isn't that a really crazy idea?

Jenny! said...

I am sending good vibes your way...I hope you get the job!

Jessica said...

No! I should have checked in on Thursday... :-( And, sheesh, Dr. Forsyth was a no-show on this quiz?! :-P

Michael5000 said...

@Blythe: You and Prince William would be totally cute together.

@Sandy: Yeah, I'm finding my reading list pretty oppressive too. But I must be strong!

@mydog: Pop Quiz: Is it, or is it not, an enthusiasm of mydogischelsea!

1. Beer
2. Ultimate Frisbee
3. Safety Reports
4. Writing
5. Epic-length poetry
6. Bible Study

@Chuck: It's a whole different conception of time. Noon is simply when the sun is directly overhead. By organizing time into large zones, you could argue they pushed us into an arbitrary abstraction that divorced us from "real" time. But whatever.

@jenny!: Thanks! You've definitely got the new job mojo goin', so I appreciate the help.

@jessica: Got to get it on your calendar. I think what happened was, Dr. Forsyth was trying to look Shakespeare up in the World Book, but couldn't remember how to spell "Shakespeare", and by then the quiz was already over.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the links to these blogs. I will check them out.

You will be able to read Wrinkle in less than a day. It is a first time read alone for kids. I also wondered what it would be like to read it for the first time as an adult and worry that it might be boring.

Your #7 reminds me of where I work too. We are all very comfortable with each other and in speaking of differences that when I use the same comfort level with language to others they seem to raise and eyebrow. "It's a black thing." That's one running line, but it isn't appreciated in too many places by white people.