Facilities replaced a bunch of lights at work, at the request of some higher ups who thought the old lights made it a bit dim and dreary here (they were right). Unfortunately, the new bright lights make the ratty carpet and worn desks that much more apparent. Oh well.
Improving Reading
You should totally read Jason’s essay on various Georges.
Which will feature jokes about the kid eating wool
Start the countdown to a House, M.D. episode featuring Mothball Huffing.
So why don't they smile more?
Maybe it was just because we were strangers, but, for being the 4th happiest population, Icelanders sure weren’t very personable. Or maybe I’m simply in error imagining that happy people are personable.
Update: See the Original data (and an interactive map if you’re running Flash).
The Kid With the Snake on His Face
Today I saw a kid with a snake painted across his face, though it was a rather simple snake: at first I thought someone had just drawn a line across his face with a fat-tipped dark green marker. But then I saw the little red tongue sticking out of one end (the “business” end?). I was reminded of John Candy’s SCTV character, Harry, the Man with the Snake on His Face. His snake was more elaborate, though.
Applied Science
Here at FP, we do science so you don’t have to!
Experiment 1, Field: Economics.
Can you pay for purchases at the Fred Meyer self-serve checkout only using pennies?
Answer: sort of. I got through $2.00 in pennies (buying a soaker hose, toothpaste and two baking pans) when the attendant asked if I was really going to pay with all those pennies. I indicated that I was. She suggested that I just give her the rolled pennies, since putting them in one at a time would take all day (a good inference, since it was taking quite a while to feed in all those pennies). So she took the rolled pennies and credited them to my purchase. I paid for the rest with paper money. My recommendation is to only buy small things with pennies, and avoid any time when there is a line.
Experiment 2, Field: Physics
Can you make an air conditioner with a fan and some ice?
Answer: yes! I used an Archie McPhee Sumo Fan and a metal mixing bowl filled with ice cubes. I placed one before the other, and turned the fan on. I was immediately more comfortable.
Cars in FP
Some of these forced perspective photos of cars are good, though very few of them make any attempt to sustain the illusion.
the accidental Review
the accidental, Smith. Yes. This is Ali Smith, not Zadie Smith of On Beauty, though this book, too, performed well (this one took first place) in the Tournament of Books. There is much I might have disliked about this book: the narrative style is flashy, there are not-infrequent somewhat extended passages where a narrative voice becomes fascinated with words, the structure does not lend itself to inattentive reading, those sorts of things. But the only features of the novel that bothered me were the typesetting (I never before realized how much easier to read a fully justified line of text is than ragged-right) and the title (for reasons I can’t possibly discover, I could not think of the title without starting to compose a song to the tune of “The Carioca” (“oh, have you read the accidental? It’s really very continental…” or “It’s only somewhat sentimental…”); ugh).
Update: To clarify somewhat, I’m a big fan of flashy narrative and am frequently myself fascinated with words to the point of distraction, but it’s been so long since I’ve read an author who could do those things in service of the story and the characters, rather than as an intrusive plea for attention, that I’ve taken to looking for simplicity. I suspect it may be easier for attention-seeking works to get published, so I have a notion that a simply written work that made it to my library shelves is more likely to be well crafted. Ali Smith’s verbal and structural games proved to be a delightful surprise.
June reading
I’ll only preface this list by saying that I read a lot of magazines last month.
On Beauty Review
On Beauty, Smith. No. I chose this due to its performance in the Tournament of Books. I started to hate it with the first sentence, but forced myself to give it more of a look. It finally defeated me ten pages in with its power of making me not give a rat’s ass about any of the characters. Oddly (since the author is from London), I found the idiomatic English overdone, as though she is writing for an American audience of hyper-Anglophiles. Even the American character speaks like a Brit—"How am I meant to react?"—though this is not consistent, as she later says "ass", which her husband re-figures to "arse". All in all, very distracting.