Thursday, March 08, 2007

Peeves: Wrongside buttons and ports

OK I would like to know what brightwad designed an uninterruptible power supply with a reset button on the front. I just pushed mine back to plug in a lamp and promptly made my UPS an IPS: an interruptible power supply. Lost some unsaved work too.

Meanwhile Dell and others are putting speaker ports on the front that should only be in the back. Now my headphone cable dangles down the front of my desk, piling on the floor where it can be stepped on or run over with a rogue caster.

The only thing that should be on the front of a system -- though covered with a Dell-like flap, mind you -- is the serial number. I'm tired of pulling equipment out of its stack or cable nest then upending hardware (fighting cables that won't reach that far) so I can read tiny serial numbers upside-down in the dark -- all one-handed or while clamping a phone between shoulder and ear.

Neologisms: didge, didgy

A dope, dopy. (The word just popped onto my tongue as I was commenting on how President Bush had given an impromptu and unwelcome shoulder rub to another head of state. "There's a protocol. That was too folksy. He was a didge.")

Neologisms: deasteriskicize

To remove the asterisk from a word or phrase.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Books: Samurai Cat - Mark E. Rogers

"Samurai Cat (aka Miaowara Tomokato) is the main character in a series of books by Mark E. Rogers. In addition to the detailed writing, almost every page in each book has a picture painted by Rogers, depicting the events described on that page. Each chapter is a bizarre parody of some historical or pop culture event, but it is always treated as entirely serious. For example, no one finds it at all unusual that Tomokato is a walking, talking, sword wielding cat."

(Here is something for my must-collect list.)

Words: runcible [AHED]

NOUN: A three-pronged fork, such as a pickle fork, curved like a spoon and having a cutting edge.
ETYMOLOGY: Coined by Edward Lear, perhaps alteration of rounceval, big woman, large pea, wart, monster, huge, from Roncevaux (Roncesvalles), site where giant bones were found.

Words: bollard [MW]

Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from bole
Date: circa 1775
1: a post of metal or wood on a wharf around which to fasten mooring lines2: bitt 13chiefly British : any of a series of short posts set at intervals to delimit an area (as a traffic island) or to exclude vehicles

(A word I didn't know!)

Monday, March 05, 2007

Web: Name all 50 states in 10 minutes

It's hard! I almost finished but forgot one state that starts with an I.

Weather: Frost o' the morning

We still had frost on the vacant lot grass this morning at 8 a.m. Cool...!

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Fauna: Mission im-possum-ble

Last night Molley and I found a possum standing on our front stoop. We came out slowly as it backed up to the sidewalk, then paused until it decided to escape north along the walkway.

Flora: First azaleas

The first azaleas broke into bloom yesterday.