Interesting Blogs

Semicolons frighten most people I know. People can get real emotional if you ask them to use one. Native German speakers seem to harbor an inherent distrust of them; as if they were contagious, or could somehow taint the sentence around them.

I find them nice. They look friendly and important. They’re not quite as serious as a colon, and not quite as frivolous as a comma. They’re a bit of a compromise, in a diplomatic sort of way.

By chance I read this in the New York Times. Seems the semicolon is celebrating a resurrection of sorts.
A current poster in the New York subway reminds passengers not to leave their newspapers behind when they get off the train.
Please put it in a trash can, read the sign, until Neil Neches, a transit’s marketing agency employee, added the now-famous semicolon and finished the sentence to read,  that’s good news for everyone.

This did not (how could it in New York) go unnoticed. Even cult grammarian Lynne Truss, author of the popular punctuation book “Eats, shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation.” saw the sign and called it a “lovely example” of proper punctuation. (note to self: return borrowed book to Justi)

But that’s not all.

The semicolon has become The Topic of the blogsphere. Our Bold Hero, a reactionary proof-reader blogging unflinchingly against prescriptive grammar, fills in his two cents worth here.

Long live the semicolon! - And if you get time, buy the punctuation book. It’s worth the read, even if you don’t care about punctuation.

semicolon lynne truss New York subway Neil Neches punctuation

I was out riding with my good friend Justi this morning and we got to talking about our usual topics.
We started talking about horses (naturally) and how incredibly wonderful they are (especially ours) and how unbelievably lucky we are to be able to ride out on such wonderful mounts (sigh) on such a sunny morning (sigh again).
After we killed that subject (it took a while) we got into English and whether the word healthily exists or not (I couldn’t find it in Websters on-line, but I did find it in dictionary.com, and I googled it with lots of references, so it is used, but I don’t think I personally have ever used it. I suppose I would say in a healthy way, or just healthy, and forget the adverb.)
Talking about English lead directly to how hard it is to learn Slovene (which it is) and all the problems associated with body parts and language.

Then we slid directly into the American presidential election and how entertaining it is - much more so than any other presidential election before. But how often do you get a black and a woman running for the oval office. Just too exciting, if you ask me.

I’m sure that most interested Americans and non-Americans alike already have “favorites” in the race. We’ve all compared (more or less) the candidate’s standpoint on the various issues, for example here from your’s truly, or here from CNN, or  here is a summary of the issues for the major candidates Hillary, Obama, Huckabee (sorry, it’s always wikipedia, but it’s so darn quick, even if it’s not always as consistent and correct as we might like - you can find the rest there too, if you’re interested). And we’ve all found that the one or other candidate is closest to our own views.

But will we actually vote for that candidate? Just because he or she holds beliefs that are closest to our own? Oh, I doubt it.

We’ll vote for the candidate we like best - for whatever reason that might be. Accept it. Life’s a popularity contest. When you’re hot, you’re hot. When you’re not, you’re not.

Have you taken the Implicit Association Test yet?

Give it a try, you may prefer a different candidate from the one you actively endorse. Who knows how that will reflect on your voting behaviour, but it’s a great way to waste some time in internet.

I found the link all over the place. Here at Bitch, PhD (who, by the way, is generally an interesting read), and then again at Pandagon (a well-read blog), and yet again here at Blog of the Moderate Left (and for you German speakers, go one post higher and you can see the German word Schadenfreude used in English - so I wasn’t lying when I said that we do that some times) and again at Utne blogs.

I won’t tell you who I prefer, but the test came out like I thought it would - but not like I thought it would 6 months ago.

Hillary Clinton Barack Obama Mike Huckabee Implicit Association Test Presidential election 2008

I went to the barcamp in Klagenfurt with Werner yesterday. We had to leave early because yesterday was Faschingssamstag and, you surely understand, you can’t miss the Fasching parade in Villach. I promised myself I’d go back on Sunday.

But I didn’t go back. I couldn’t go back. I just simply didn’t have time to go back, I was busy. I had some serious thinking to do.

My head was reeling from my one and only session on Saturday, Time and Ideas for Blogging (Monika Meuter, soisses and Bindestrich). 

Monika slapped me around and battered my head. She was ruthless and unrelenting. She told me terrible things and was adamant that I listen. She out and out told me some truths (don’t you sometimes just hate that?).

She told me that blogging had to do with establishing rituals and routines. She said she had noticed that I seriously lack both. (But she did not mention my lack of self-discipline, for which I was grateful).

She urged me to turn over a new leaf and become the blogger I was, perhaps, meant to be.

Hmmm. Let me put this together a bit in my own head.
Routines have to do with rituals, rituals have to do with self discipline (I got that), self discipline has to do with planning, planning has to do with organization (there’s a tough one), organization has to do with less work (I’m beginning to like this), less work has to do with effectiveness, effectiveness has to do with success, success has to do with lots of money, lots of money has to do with more leisure time (there just might be something to this), more leisure time has to do with, well uhhh, me.

Okay, okay, okay.
Monika, you win. I’ll do it. I’ll change my slovenly ways. I’ll pull myself together. I’ll get, and stay, organized, routined and ritualized.

My blog shall reflect these personal changes.

1) Every Sunday I will post about current affairs, off-topic items that catch my attention, bring video clips, poke fun at politicians, go on and on about my marvelous horses, or something completely different.

2) Every Wednesday I will post about communication and language.

3) Every Friday I will post about jobs, head hunting and things of that nature.

I am going public with this moment of personal growth, so be supportive here. I am putting myself under immense peer pressure to stick to my new and modified blogging behaviour (and that while living out of boxes, eating corn flakes out of kitty-dishes - figuratively speaking, of course).

Watch me, help me, keep me in line. If I start becoming lax and far too casual then please yell at me (or post appropriate comments) and get me back on track.

I can do it, I know I can.

Here, in case you’d like to read about it, are some posts about some of the other sessions, and here, here, here, here …

barcampsenzaconfini klagenfurt monika meuter blogging routine ritual self discipline

Several months ago I found a funny video clip here .  Ha ha, I thought to myself. Isn’t that funny. Ha ha.

Well, yes. It is funny.
But not quite as funny today as it was back then. Sigh.

Ain’t that the truth.

Good god, I’m going to be rich.

I was perusing one of my favorite blogs this morning, tea in hand, and I saw this post which really got me thinking. Since the blog is called The Thinking Blog, I also assume that that was the point. But somehow I have the feeling that Craig Kohler had a different goal in mind with this post, being as it has to do with science, cosmology and philosophy.

I think he was hoping to awaken a profound cognitive experience by showing some of the scientific thought experiments which have brought quantum  leaps (excuse the pun) to scientific understanding, including, naturally, Einstein and his oh-so-celebrated-brain (I am not being sarcastic, much to the contrary. We all wish we could get our hands on some of his grey matter.) Not being one-sided, Craig also brought forward several examples of thinking experiments in the area of cosmology and philosophy, hoping (I suppose) to induce productive analytical activity in the grey cells of his readers.

Hmmm. As I read I could hear the rusty wheels creaking to life in my head. Hmmmm. I was having a cognitive experience. I was forming an idea - nay, a plan.

I’m going to be rich.

I’m going to take an active role in scientific thought development. I’m going to help make a difference. I’m going to help answer some age-old questions.

I’m going to make the Cat apply for a job as Schrödinger’s Cat.

Don’t look at me like that. It’s not hard. And it’s about time she takes on an active role in the economic well-being of our household. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, you know. We all have to do our part. The damn Cat just has to sit in a steel chamber, or maybe a bowling-ball bag, and do nothing. The only hard part is not eating the very old Kraft macaroni and cheese. But we all have to test the limits of our abilities at one point, don’t we.

I’m going to be rich - as soon as I can catch that damn Cat …

science cosmology philosophy schrödingers cat

I found the cutest video on Possums Welt (this one’s in German, so steel yourselves). It’s a commercial for razor blades. I don’t usually like ads with babies in them (never been the softy type) but the fight for kisses commercial is a scream. Boy oh boy, don’t feed this baby late.

[strong baby]