Latest Horror Update

Hank at Dangerous Intersection reports on an investigatory mission relating to one of the many gathering threats that menace our fair world: killer robots. The intriguing title, In Which I Render God Speechless, gives a certain optimistic tone not borne out by the remainder of the piece.

While God (the name of a robot with whom the author exchanges words) may be speechless now, surely its descendants will only use the information gleaned from the post to design better, more lethal conversational ploys.

What makes it especially alarming is that Hank convincingly argues that the zombie invasion, which we all assumed would be bad enough, will be only a prelude to the super-intelligent robot attacks!

Buckle up*, everyone. It just gets more exciting from here.

*Your belts. Because the middle of a zombie and/or robot crisis is the last place you want to be distracted by ill-fitting trousers.

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Things That Haunt Me

That pile of loose, jumbled pennies on the mini-dresser beside my bed, waiting for me to bundle them up into one of those paper tubes and take them to the bank.

Also, the fact that I can't think of a good word for that mini-dresser. End table? No, it's not a table, it's a little thing with drawers, the right size to sit next to the head of a bed and hold sleep-related knick-knacks. Like my night guard.

Also, the fact that I've chewed big dents into that night guard. I didn't know I grind my teeth, but apparently the dentist was not making it up when she said there were 'signs of wear.' So, fine, I guess I'm OK with the fact that I now sleep with a mouthful of plastic. Should I be worried about whether it has BPAs in it?

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Benefits of Magazine-Reading

I was reading my American Libraries on the train on the way home from work this evening, and the woman next to me, noticing, asked where I was a librarian. It turns out she's a librarian at the university one stop down the line.

Then the man sitting across from us turned out to be a librarian at the university a bit over. It was the academic librarian car! Or, as another woman said, "the smart peoples' car." (I much appreciate that characterization of librarians, ma'am.)

This seemed like the right point for a rousing musical number, so we'll keep that in mind for the dramatization.

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11-11

Today I'll hail my grandfather, whose heavy wool coat from the Marines I proudly wore for a few years (until it started to look a little fragile), and still have in my closet.

I also like this post by meloukhia on this ain't livin', which nicely expresses the way we honor military veterans for their service, regardless of how we feel about any given conflict.

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Letters Aloud

For some reason I was thinking this afternoon about the way that it absolutely did not compute, when I was younger, that in some places the letter Z is pronounced 'zed.'

I grew up pronouncing it 'zee,' and then we spent some time in Canada, and it just made no sense. How can you call it something besides 'zee'? That's its name! You can't just change the names of things!

I was aware that people spoke different languages, and sometimes had different accents even when speaking the same language, but for some reason the names of letters were non-negotiable.

That thing is a 'zee,' damn it, that's part of its essential nature, and I will brook no opposition. I mean, I will concede that in Nova Scotia people call it 'zed' for some unfathomable reason, but they're wrong.

Not necessarily wrong in a malicious way, you know, just horribly, horribly mistaken.

It made me think about how we attribute characteristics to things, and can come out of habit to see these characteristics as immutable, even if they actually look quite different from another angle.

Yeah, there really wasn't a moral there, I was just musing.

I would like to note that I've matured somewhat since then (getting older than nine will do that for you), and I currently have no objection to alternate pronunciations of the letter Z. Call it what you will, good people. The important thing is that we all use it to spell 'zebra.'

Now if you want to introduce an alternate spelling of zebra?--oh, you're wrong.

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Peeking Over Walls

I was a callow youth 20 years ago, so while I remember the news when the Berlin Wall came down, I didn't really know what it meant. Berlin Wall?

What the hell is that, some kind of Wall in Berlin?

Jeff Fecke gives a nice summary of the historical background, and some personal perspective, on Blog of the Moderate Left.

I definitely remember the sense of unease he describes, of Us and Them dividing up the world, and what if They send bombs? It was no more than a vague backdrop for me, being callow and young and with no real understanding of history or politics, but it was there.

Interesting times. But then, all times are interesting, aren't they?

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This You Must See

The Slate review of the movie The Box includes this intriguing sentence:

There's also a very frightening sequence in the Richmond Public Library (played ably by the Boston Public Library), in which Arthur is pursued by Steward's slack-jawed henchmen as he desperately tries to remember how the Dewey Decimal System works.

Well, gee, I might just have to go see this movie now. Dewey Decimal Classification as a plot point? Filmed in a library I know?

That's a hard thing to resist. At the very least, it will have to go on my Netflix queue.

Besides, I do enjoy me some slack-jawed henchmen. It's actually a long-held dream of mine to have several of my own. I would also like some hired goons, for that personal touch.

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