Thursday, January 01, 2009

Happy New Year! (Odds And Ends)

...On this first day of 2009. Here's hoping for plenty more!

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I also hope you're not too hung over: My TV clicked on way too early today, right in the middle of a commercial from some car lot, featuring a flatulent-looking spokesd00d offering to, zomg, "buy your gas for an entire year!" Dang and ew. These guys are serious about methane. Or perhaps I have misunderstood his choice of word.

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In the "Indiana" section of a used-book shop, I flash-read the title of a sociologic book: "Forging A Community" and, thinking of the Jukes and Kallikaks* and other flawed, faked or over-interpreted studies done in the past, I assumed it was an expose of another such. Nope, wrong sense of "forge;" it's a straightforward report or study. I guess snark really is my default assumption! (Also? Eugenics is total buncombe).

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Great name for a heavyset, hard-luck film noir detective, maybe set in New Orleans: Chance Gras. "The cafe was the worst sort of greasy spoon but at least it was cheap. I buttered my toast and set it on the plate. Reaching for my coffee cup, I bumped the wobbly table and the toast fell. I didn't even have to look -- I knew it was butter side down..." --Chance Gras And The Defective Subway Token, (c) 1947, Avenue & Farrier. Dang, I am so gonna hafta rough out chapters & outline...!
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* Henry H. Goddard, the man who gave us the "Kallikaks" and introduced America to the word "moron" is quoted in the linked article uttering this gem: "democracy means that the people rule by selecting the wisest, most intelligent and most human to tell them what to do to be happy." Unh, wroooooong! But thanks for playing; or not. Gosh, somehow it just makes me want to scub his widdle brain out with soap. Moron!

7 comments:

alan said...

Happy New Year, Roberta!

Anonymous said...

Happy new year!!



Avenue and Farrier. Snort.

Roberta X said...

...I wondered if anyone would pick up on that. Now I wonder if anyone else will!

Arcadia Iris said...

Happy New Year, Roberta X!

I hope your 2009 is as good as my 2008 was.

(2008 revealed that I CAN understand at least the basics of quantum physics. I haven't come down from the high yet. I hope everybody's 2009 is that damn good!)

Roberta X said...

...Just be nice to Schrodinger's cat, please. Poor thing still suffers claustrophobia.

(Study hard and you can be a starship Navs boffin! Oh what fun). ;)

Arcadia Iris said...

I'm going to be laughing about Schrodinger's cat having claustrophobia all day!

That cat was actually what led me to the subject. That, and an overdose of reading xkcd.

Anonymous said...

When you get rich and famous and they start casting for this book, I'm going to be VERY cross with you if I don't get to read for the part of Fat Chance.