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Lawyer Arrested for Wearing a 'Peace' T-Shirt: You know, I wouldn't be a peacenik if the War side were willing to treat American citizens like human beings. Freedom is Slavery.

Bureaucrats get EBay Fever: "So far, $16,281 has been made selling objects taken from passengers at Oakland and Sacramento airports."

Sophie's World: I'm about forty pages into it. It's not a novel, at least not yet; it's a very entertaining textbook on the history of philosophy. I'm enjoying it. The device of "Sophie reads a bit of philosophy, then Sophie thinks about it" may yet get irritating, but it hasn't so far. (And I will be extremely disappointed if "Sophie Amundsen" isn't a linguistic joke on "Wisdom, the son of Man." Please don't tell me if it isn't.)

That Awful DYNNE

So I went and made an Awful DYNNE just now. Yeah, that's right: I broke my cello out of three years' worth of mothballs and tried playing.
Some observations:

• Finger calluses are good. Strings hurt.
• I am at about the level of a third- or fourth-year student. Maybe worse.
• Playing is probably aggravating my right shoulder RSI-related problems.
• About half an hour of that was all I could take.

So I'm goofing off right now. Probably going to read some more, then play some more. Yeah.

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Bits that I forgot from My Spring Vacation:

Arlington. Potholes of DOOM. It's like, everywhere in NoVa there's a speedbump, they scraped asphalt out of the road in Arlington to make it.
There's one on Jackson Street that's exceptionally bad. For about two feet, the entire left 3/4 of the road is just gone-- about 6-8" deeper than the surface. And there's a longer (3-4') but not so deep hole covering the rest of the road. Gah.

K's house. Totally rockin. It's on about four different levels, and there's little narrow staircases in places for no reason (I'm thinking specifically here of the bit where stairs go up and come right back down, or you can turn and finish going up to the second floor). And the stuff. Good Lord, the stuff. There's just so much of it. It's so cool. Words fail me. I want a house like that. I couldn't design one-- my taste in floorplans runs to wide open spaces. But I'd love to live in one. (Although maybe with a little more space to put cars in.)

In other news, the Awful DYNNE didn't freak the cats out very much at all. And Monkeys on the Moon is pretty cool. "These monkeys have a MEGAPHONE! +5 Status!"

From Mr Steven Brust, by way of the Dragaera listserv:
If I tell you that I'll meet you at Joe's Coffee Shop at 8pm, and I do not show up until 9pm, I am telling you something: I am saying that my time is more important than yours. I am saying that I am more important that you. This is why, should that happen, I would rush to explain why the delay was unavoidable, or I would apologize for making you wait, or both. The action sends a message. If the message was unintended, it ought to be corrected. [emphasis mine]

And jude has a sweater of doom (scroll down to get pics).