Out of my hat

Greetings!

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been posting here regularly, for several reasons. One is that I’ve been even more preoccupied than usual for a year or so; my being in a usually-long-distance relationship has generally meant that my communication efforts are channelled elsewhere than blogging. On top of that, what posting I’ve been doing has generally been elsewhere in a more private space, where I can feel freer when it comes to, say, complaining about my job and aspects thereof.

However, given that this space is still here, I feel a vague onus to do something useful (or at least, hopefully, interesting) with it. By happy coincidence, I’ve been thinking recently about taking a couple of my hobbies a little more seriously of late. These two great tastes taste great together in the following way: I’m going to start using this space as my notebook for hobby-related activities.

What does hobby-related mean? It means that I’m probably not going to spend a lot of time talking about my research or my teaching, since those fall very firmly within the category of my real job. I’m also not going to talk much about truly personal things, since as mentioned above I have an elsewhere for those. That leaves, well, everything else. Music. Food and drink, with particular emphasis on baking bread. Theatre, sometimes. If I’m particularly affected (or enraged) by a book, movie, or TV show then that might show up here as well.

As an experiment, I’ve also chosen to turn comments on here, on the off-chance that there’s anyone who hasn’t deleted this blog from their RSS feed already. If you’re reading this, then great! Feel free to let me know.

My last post here was four months ago. Hmm.

Anyhow, I’m here again, though who knows if anyone’s still got this bookmarked or whatever. Let’s see how long I can keep going this time.

Random note #1: Google Chrome exists for the Mac. A cursory examination reveals no obvious way to open a whole batch of bookmarks in tabs, which sad to say is a deal-breaker for me. I’ll stick with Safari and Firefox for now, thanks.

Random note #2: I’m really good at procrastinating on grading, it seems.

Random note #3: In roughly thirty-six hours I’m planning to be vacating my current temporary premises, packing up my room, random kitchen devices, and my office into my car and spending a couple of days(ish) driving. I am so not ready for this, and can’t wait to see how I pull it off. I suspect that tomorrow’s going to be very, very busy.

So I stopped by my local Suncoast today to pick up DVDs. If you’ve never met the store (and I’m not sure if they exist outside of the States), Suncoast sells DVDs and almost nothing but; the rest of their stock is fannish gear of various sorts (“Anime swords! $19.99 each!”) I don’t go in there often — it’s in The Mall, and I don’t go in there often either — but generally they’ve got a better selection than anyone else in town.

However! They seem to have a new corporate policy to make buying things as annoying as possible. I bring the DVDs up to the cash, and get asked in quick succession:

• Do I have a membership in their club? (No.)
• Would I like one? It costs $10/month and gives you a 10% discount here and at various other unspecified places. (No.)
• Damage insurance on the DVDs? (Um, no. Especially since they’ll be leaving the country shortly.)
• …any magazines that I’d like to subscribe to? (NO.)

I don’t know if I’m justified in resenting all of this, but it does seem weird that I spent more time refusing offers of upsells and side deals than I did actually entering the store, finding what I wanted, and waiting in line at the cash.

Yes, long time no post. My current theory is that I’ve got something of an upper limit when it comes to communicating with the world, and recently most of my communication energy has been directed elsewhere. But I’m making an effort to return to the on-line life; we’ll see how long it lasts.

Really, this is part of a broader effort on my part to shift around some habits. I’m going to be on sabbatical this coming year, which will give me the perfect opportunity to shake up a couple of things that want shaking. Maybe I’ll even develop a work ethic; who knows?

My, it’s been a while since I’ve posted here. Apparently I’ve been distracted for the last month and a half or so.

So consider this report:

A pilot alerted airport police when he saw a bike with a sticker that read “this bike is a pipe bomb” parked near the passenger ramps of Terminal C at Memphis International Airport, according to the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority.

This provoked airport security to clear out large portions of the terminal; it was later discovered that the bike was not in fact a pipe bomb. The explanation, apparently, is that “This bike is a pipe bomb” is the name of a band in Florida.

So my question, or possibly concern, is whether this is what one learns in airport security training: that explosives will typically be labelled with helpful signs reading “bomb”, “TNT”, etc. Even accepting the notion that an object can be simultaneously a bicycle and a pipe bomb — an assumption not without epistemological difficulties, I suspect — does it really seem likely that such a hybrid object would be clearly proclaiming this fact? Particularly if it is, in fact, being used in a subversive fashion to destroy portions of an airport?

I mean, really, which of the following seems more suspicious?

1. A bike with a sticker that reads “This bike is a pipe bomb”.
2. A bike with a sticker that reads “This bike is not a pipe bomb”.
3. A bike with a sticker that reads “Cthulhu ’08: why vote for the lesser evil?”

Maybe it’s just policy that any mention of the word “bomb” (or any other term on the No-Fly Words List) requires further investigation. But this seems like too much tempest in too small a teapot.

Just making sure the system’s working. Not much new here; I’ve been visiting family for the last week, and will be heading into southern Ontario shortly for another while. I’ve got a to-do list that I should really start dealing with one of these days.

…and that’s about it. More later.