2008 — 11 April: Friday
It's 00:44 or so, and just about time for bed. It's also been pouring with rain, briefly at least. Must be one of those April showers, I guess. Unreal and unbelievable though it still seems, today it's five months since Christa's death. And very nearly six since she was last in the house. Doesn't stop me talking to her, mind you. Strange Days, to quote the title of one of her favourite Doors albums. Which, I wryly note, is a little over 40 years old, too. Like me! G'night.
Up and atom
Apparently there's a morning radio show in Hamilton, New Zealandland, whose catchphrase on its ads is that it "wakes you up like a full bladder". Can't see that on the BBC, somehow. Anyway, it's now 09:32, the sun is shining as best it can through the clouds, it's not currently raining, and there are a set of domestic administrivia duties before I can meet up with Iris for a walk and lunch (order uncertain in both cases, as it were). I'm predicting boots and a river bank. But not before a cuppa with which to refill the bladder.
I'm made aware, by the state of my leg muscles, that there was a hill around yesterday, too. Good stuff.
The dot is me — you can tell by the hat.
Don't worry, he was only kidding — I think.
Long time since I visited Slate magazine...
I wonder if people actually get paid for writing stuff like this? Mind you, I know one or two folk who'll get a kick out of this NeSFW little graphic! (The "e" stands for "entirely".) It would be amusing to see it on the Presidential Seal, you hafta admit. Safer, on the whole, to stick to the Caped Crusader perhaps...
A Presidential seal, of course, "otter" take note:
Beyond these facts are a few comparisons that ought to arrest attention. One is that the total number of people killed worldwide by genuine al-Qaeda types and assorted wannabes outside of war zones since 9/11 averages about 300 per year. That is certainly 300 a year too many, but that number is smaller than the yearly number of bathtub drownings in the United States. Moreover, unless the terrorists are able somehow massively to increase their capacities, the likelihood that a person living outside a war zone will perish at the hands of an international terrorist over an eighty-year period is about one in 80,000. By comparison, an American's chance of dying in an auto accident over the same time interval is one in eighty.
Back, briefly
Enjoyed a nice tramp1 with Iris along the River Itchen from Brambridge as far as "The Bridge" at Shawford and back. We bumped into two further ex-IBMers at the half-way point, too. Now it's 16:00 and I need to nip out again, it seems, to pick up a small package2 that needed my signature. (Having neighbours away on holiday can be dashed unhandy.) And to stuff a drop more petrol into the tank (6,500+ miles and counting). And to get the bananas I forgot. And pay in that ERNIE I didn't have time for this morning. How does anyone ever get anything done? But the sun mostly shone brightly, and we were able to dodge the hail and rain entirely. Boots are muddy again, though.
(Racetrack) memories are made of this... dept.
How's this for a phrase? "properly timed, nanosecond long, spin-polarized current pulses" (More here.)