1. In the United States, the word that precedes 'historic' is 'a,' not 'an.' 'An' precedes a vowel sound, and the 'h' is not silent. If you have thought enough about it to decide to use 'an,' you will probably also think enough about it to not pronounce it like a bad Shaw character. It ain't none of mine if you want to do that on (e:strip), but if you're someone who writes for a newspaper, you and your editor should both maybe have half a clue.

2. The last time I went grocery shopping I saw the potatoes labelled as 'pommes de terre,' and I thought that was kind of funny and evocative. Then my brain took a left-hand turn at 'noms de guerre' and ended up at 'pommes de guerre,' which sounds mischievous and awesome.

3. When I was a kid we had three pear trees and more pears than we knew what to do with. If you were on our shit list, we'd ring your doorbell and run away, leaving a grocery bag of like fifty pears on your porch. The ones that fell off the tree and rotted, we would dispose of by playing pearball ['poires de guerre?']. A soft underhand lob, an aluminum baseball bat, a spray of sticky mess. I wonder why I was always the pitcher?

4. We also had an apple tree that never produced any fruit worth eating for as long as I can remember. This summer - with my mom in San Diego and me mowing her lawn - it's apple armageddon.

...ramble on-

- Z

It happens to me too. Today is the second day of football practice:



Notice the situation: has parked illegally across my driveway to avoid parking illegally next to a fire hydrant. Had furthermore left the car unattended for several minutes, which was what seriously irked me. Had enough sense to pull away when I pulled out the camera.

Earlier this morning they ticketed a station wagon for, boringly, parking in front of that self same hydrant. If I start calling these in, I wonder if the town will start paying me commission?

- Z

She sends me a photo, and some commentary.



But this is not the commentary of any Earth being:

'I don't even know how you'd process a photo to get it to look like that ... Grooviest is how the light fixture is hanging off-center.'

- Z

I had started this project a while ago (e:zobar,39008) but then my hard drive crashed and other things came up. I had some free time to myself this week [go figure] and so I started again.



Here's a demo that doesn't do anything except look pretty. Er, ugly. It's weird enough seeing it in Mac OS X; bringing it up in Windows is more like: that isn't supposed to be there.

<geeky>I've switched from Java to Flex 3; the screenshot is the AIR app, and the link is the Flash app. I've had to build my own xp/Luna skin for Flex, since Flex only comes with the Halo skin. The Luna skin can be separated out for another project - not that there's any reason for it - but it's only as complete as I need it.</geeky>

- Z

Holy schlamoly! Woke up at 4am to the sound of a half-dozen sirens screaming down the street. Normally I would roll over and go back to sleep, except for the strong smell of smoke all up in here. Went to the window and saw a rising cloud not too far away, and I thought I heard walkie talkies. Shit man! I'm not proud, I'm a gawker. Put on some clothes and went to see what was going on.

The smoke was like a fog blowing down Kenmore Ave, which was impressive since it turns out the fire was almost a mile away. They'd blocked off the street and though the second floor was still on fire, they seemed to have it under control by the time I got there. I was right across the street but the smoke was so thick I still couldn't see the building - I only found out just now which one it was. Some residents within eyeshot of the fire said they saw crazy high flames coming out of the thing when it started.

Anyway, if this is yours, um.

Here's the report from WIVB - they say the building may have been struck by lightning, dang.

- Z