1. A Hope in the Unseen, Ron Suskind
2. City of Djinns, William Dalrymple
3. Dragon Prince, Melanie Rawn
4. Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World's Fastest Human Being, Todd Balf
5. Stardust, Robert Parker
6. Inside Teaching, Mary Kennedy
7. The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult
8. Latin: How to Read it Fluently, Dexter Hoyos
9. The Spanish Bow, Andromeda Romano-Lax
10. Casualties of Privilege: Essays on Prep Schools' Hidden Culture, Ed. Louis M. Crosier
11. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
12. Courtroom 302, Steven Bogira
13. Saving Fish from Drowning, Amy Tan

Lest people be interested:

I have, after five years, left my teaching job. I remain rabidly interested in educational issues from a wide variety of angles, but, while I am profoundly grateful for having done it, the job is not really suited to my temperament. I will be starting library school in the fall (part-time, likely to finish in two years), tentatively to head into university reference.

This doesn't pertain to any immediate plans, but I'm about to run out of paid account, so gather ye poll answers while ye may...

Anyway, nonnihil's parents, paying forward a favor their parents did for them when nonnihil was small, once said they'd babysit for us for a week so we could go...elsewhere. This week is obviously not any time soon -- V is too small -- but, uh, whenever it is, where should we go?

nonnihil has a moderate, but not insurmountable, preference for English-speaking places. (Both of us are fairly strong in a foreign language, but that foreign language is Latin, so, uh, yeah.) I have a strong preference for places with interesting history and cultural attractions, and am willing to treat non-English-speakingness as an excuse to dabble in a new language. (nonnihil would probably also be willing to do this for the right language, but my tastes are more catholic than his -- basically, anything except "a language with an extremely large character set" or "French" is fine with me.)

He's been to western Canada, England, and Scotland, and doesn't mind going places he's already been. I've been to Canada (Ottawa-ish), England, Ireland, France, Switzerland, and Germany-but-not-the-famous-bits (which sounds much awesomer and more cosmopolitan when you write it out than I actually feel), and have no particular preference between returning and going somewhere new. A trip which provides an excuse to visit chrysaphi and knell in Oxford is a fine thing, but I imagine there are excellent places which are not near Oxford, too.

ETA: And I totally forgot we've both been to Iceland! But only for a day.

Preliminaries over...

Poll #1162494 leaving on a jet plane
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Where should we go?

Why?

Dear internet: It is kind of silly that I am using nonnihil's backpack from 3095829 years ago. Also, the zipper is kind of falling apart. But amazon has 905383953185382958230 backpacks and I am intimidated. What do I want? It should...

* Have a laptop compartment suitable for my 14-inch iBook
* Have enough space for several books besides, but it doesn't need to be vast (if it is I will be tempted to fill it with black-hole-like accretions of stuff)
* Be pretty waterproof, since I go biking in strange conditions
* Be comfortable for me to wear (in practice this means a backpack and not a messenger bag)
* Not be hideous; bonus points if it actually looks cool
* Not cost an insane amount

And this, people, is why my town is awesome.

Well, it's not the only reason my town is awesome. But it is surely among them. Just go read it. I can't briefly explain how a middle-aged city official ends up with an internet cult of personality. With haiku. And lolcats. Actually, I was there all along and I still can't explain it...

Look, it's bacon. It's robots. It's the internet. What more is there to say?

(P.S. Good job, internet -- it was schedule E, and I'm disturbed how many of you like doing taxes.)

Hey, internet, do my taxes for me! (You may complain that you have no idea why I am even deliberating between these two forms. That's OK. The instructions don't have anything helpful to say anyway.)

Poll #1140366 Do my taxes for me!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Which one do I need to fill out?

How much will it suck?

Thanks, internet!

You were little.



And now you are big.




Happy birthday, sweetie.

Been keeping track this year, since I never get around to actually reviewing (can you tell about when I had the baby by the links?). Anyway, here's what I read, not counting a million renditions of various board books, and I think forgetting a book or two, but blissfully inflating my numbers with comic books (I gotta do something, right?).

Of these, the best book of the year remains the first, where by "best" I mean "stuck with me the longest and most influenced my thinking and inserted itself into my conversation and colored my view of the world." A very close second to Mr. Obama. Honorable mentions (hence recommendations) go to The Blind Side, the Bob Ryan and the David Valdes Greenwood if the topics are your thing, all of the Octavia Butler (which is actually kinda interchangeable, so start wherever), Girl Genius, Into Thin Air, Brainiac, Travels with Herodotus (you already know by the title if you want to read it, although if you have actually read much Herodotus it gets wearing after a while since you already know half of what he's talking about, so maybe you would enjoy the book more if you *don't* already know if you want to read it), and How Buildings Learn, which I did finally return to zmook just under the wire for 2007.

ETA: This isn't a ranking! It's just roughly the order in which I read them.

1. Off the Books, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
2. The Blind Side, Michael Lewis
3. Seabiscuit: An American Legend, Laura Hillenbrand
4. Bloodchild, Octavia Butler
5. When Boston Won the World Series, Bob Ryan
6. Homo Domesticus: Notes from a Same-Sex Marriage, David Valdes Greenwood
7-11. Girl Genius Vols. 1-5
12. Strangled, Brian McGrory
13. Polly and the Pirates, Ted Naifeh
14-18. Hugger Mugger, Pot Shot, Widow's Walk, Bad Business, School Days, plus assorted rereads I won't count here, Robert Parker
19. Cities and the Wealth of Nations, Jane Jacobs
20. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
21. Dreams of my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama
22. A Cheater's Guide to Baseball, Derek Zumsteg
23. Death in Paradise, Robert Parker
24-26. Xenogenesis trilogy (published in one volume, Lilith's Brood, but I'll count it as the three separate novels: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago), Octavia Butler
27. 1602, Neil Gaiman et alii (graphic novel)
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
29. Brainiac, Ken Jennings
30. Girl Genius Vol. 6
31-32. Ultimate Spiderman 17 and 18, Brian Michael Bendis et alii
33. Travels with Herodotus, Ryszard Kapuscinski
34. Last Harvest, Witold Rybczynski
35. How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built, Stewart Brand
36. All Seated on the Ground, Connie Willis
37. Serve it Forth, M. F. K. Fisher
38. The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

dolohov's planet also contains video made of awesome.

Linkies:

Hat tip nonnihil: These people are fabulous. I'm pretty sure there's no way in which they don't represent my ideals.

And from tiurin:

Our first stop is a 70s Euro disco ode to Moscow.

Now if that didn't say "made of awesome" to you, your planet must be woefully short of awesome -- but wait! There's more! You could see the same song, transliterated into English! Yes, I said transliterated, not translated. This is key. I recommend you drink some water before clicking on this link. Or, I dunno, drink something.

You know, it's too bad I don't agree with Mike Huckabee pretty much at all, because I find him personally quite likable, and his ad is made of awesome.

By way of nonnihil, for moominmolly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0E-0ntoNWo

It's a minute thirty-five of totally unnecessary, brain-destroying sums of cuteness.

I guess you can watch it if you're not moominmolly, too.

Wow, there are a lot more people running for president than I'd thought!

Since it's a long list, I'll spare you the trouble and tell you about the candidates you really care about:

Back from the dead, it's Grover Cleveland Mullins Jr. (Democrat); Prince Michael (Republican); Jesus Bilal Islam Allah 'Alfred Lawrence Patterson' Muhammed (Republican); Yehanna Joan/Mary Malone (Republican, and her religion is "Baptish Christianity" -- now tell me, couldn't the world use more Baptishes?); Ole' Savior (Democrat); Da Vid (The Light Party -- nothing says presidential like the inability to spell "holistic"); HRM Caesar St Augustine De Buonaparte Emperor (Other, and he's from Malibu); Emperor Caesar (Democrat).

Now you can quit wasting time with your unelectable Obama and Giuliani and Clinton and Romney wackos. Yup, that's me, doing the political research so you don't have to. Personally I don't get why anyone else is bothering to run with Caesar in the house. Avete, y'all.

ETA: OMG, I cannot overstate how worth your time it is to click on that Light Party link.

Poll #1066939
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Cold pizza?

Hat tip to zmook: Best. Abstract. Ever.

I am unreasonably in love with this link that fanw sent me today. Sodium + water, folks. BLAM!

Dear Mythbusters fans of the internet, zmook and I are in disagreement. Arbitrate.

Poll #1049605 Who's hotter?
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Well, who?

Hey, Internet! You totally wanted to waste your time on addictive links, right? Then you're so lucky you know me!

Google Image Labeler
Boggle versus the Internet

Go forth and turn to sludge now.