Email: Netflix Support

Title request: White Nights

Email: Eharmony is a shining light [F]

I think eharmony is a good value for the scientific approach it takes; every other [online dating] service is just a [repository for] sloppy drivel people write that you have to slog through, and some services won't even let you eliminate nonsmokers--or keep sending "matches" that are nonsmokers, too young, or clearly contradict the personal settings they insist they are following. True[.com] claims to screen for married people but I know they don't, and their ads and others have gone to soft porn. I [recommend eharmony as] a service that has ethics, not a sleazy profit motive, at heart.

Musings: Broncos and paintballs

From O.J. Simpson in the white Ford Bronco to another car chase this week in Denton, Texas, idiots behind wheels often drive wrecklessly, fleeing from police cars on busy highways.

Why don't the police just shoot the car windows with paintballs, so the idiots can't see their way to drive, and are forced to pull over?

Words: shrive, shrift, short shrift [MW]

Main Entry: shrive
Pronunciation: 'shrIv, esp Southern 'srIv
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): shrived or shrove /'shrOv, 'srOv/; shriv·en /'shri-v&n, 'sri-/; or shrived; shriv·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English scrIfan to shrive, prescribe (akin to Old High German scrIban to write), from Latin scribere to write -- more at SCRIBE
transitive senses
1 : to administer the sacrament of reconciliation to
2 : to free from guilt
intransitive senses, archaic : to confess one's sins especially to a priest

Main Entry: shrift
Pronunciation: 'shrift, esp Southern 'srift
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English scrift, from scrIfan to shrive -- more at SHRIVE
1 archaic a : a remission of sins pronounced by a priest in the sacrament of reconciliation b : the act of shriving : CONFESSION
2 obsolete : CONFESSIONAL

Main Entry: short shrift
Function: noun
1 : barely adequate time for confession before execution
2 a : little or no attention or consideration b : quick work -- usually used in the phrase make short shrift of

Email: Tech support slips [DS]

You'd be amazed at how many tech support emails I send with the question in the subject line where they write back asking what my question was.

History: From Denton to Minneapolis

(via MG) John Philip Sousa was approached following an Oct. 19, 1928 concert in Denton by several representatives of what then was the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Women's University). They presented him with a petition signed by 1,700 young women who wanted him to compose a march for their school. Sousa complied with the request, composing "The Daughters of Texas." Before he could send the march to the students, however, the Sousa Band received a lucrative offer from Minneapolis to play at the dedication of the skyscraper known as the Foshay Tower. Sousa, who apparently didn't have time to create a new march for the dedication, used "The Daughters of Texas," retitling it "Foshay Tower Washington Memorial." The girls, however, received a new march, which again was titled "The Daughters of Texas."