Wherein our narrator finishes his chapter before rescuing drowning men:
I've taken to reading on the pond. It's deeply relaxing. I was floating in more or less the middle, between the island and the highway, getting irritated that the fisherman on shore are shouting so much. I finish the chapter, and decide to head back somewhere more peaceful. I notice some shouting seems to be coming from the island. There seems to be some sort of dialog between them. Odd. As I head back I realize that in fact they aren't on the island, and are in fact a capsized canoe, at which point I became a bit more focused in my paddling. I'm the first one there, it's the two who have been sitting fishing. I throw one of them my life jacket, and by then another canoe has arrived. I have the one without the jacket grab onto the back handle of the kayak, and the other clings to the canoe. We gradually make our way to shore, by the time we get there, there are two ambulances and a police car, including someone in a wet suit, who immediately make sure there were only 2 people involved. At this point various boats that left shore when they heard the cries for help have arrived, and start rounding up the canoe. I go and help round up the plentiful cans of budweiser and some of the cigarettes and wrappers.
The moral is that when I hear people shouting, I should look around, and generally be more aware of my surroundings. Had I not been so close to the end of a chapter, well, I'd rather not think about it. They probably would have been okay, but still. Also, yay police!
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08:20:39 PM,
Saturday 21 July 2007
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Ugh. That's why the milk has been going off and the strawberries haven't been keeping. Our refrigerater is running at 45 degrees, and the freezer looks to be around 25.
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(12)
12:51:01 PM,
Saturday 21 July 2007
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They are making my backpack again! I lost mine sometime last year, after having it since college. The straps never even wore, and the main compartment doesn't have a zipper, and those that it does have are gigantic and indestructable. Best of all, it doesn't suffer from the plague of pockets that seems to have afflicted bag design recently. I have enough diffuculty finding things as it is.
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01:47:02 AM,
Saturday 21 July 2007
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Draco and the Malfoys are actually pretty good. The highlight was "My dad is rich and your dad is dead". The Hungarian Horntails are the worst thing I've ever heard, but in their defence, they're 8 or so. Harry and the Potters don't have that excuse. But they're enthusiastic, you have to give them that. Lack of shame in sufficient quantities is it's own sort of greatness. We fled in search of food fairly early in their set. Also, the Harry Potter Alliance, which is a, um, Harry Potter themed social action group trying to, um, defeat the Dark Lord in Darfur... I think they may be oversimplifying things a bit.
The best costume would have to be the woman dressed up as the golden snitch, though some of the children were adorable. One Voldemort with a stocking over his head, which impressed me, and a couple good Dracos.
And the lines to buy the book as soon as it came out must make theoretical economists twitch. Crazy lines at all the bookstores. Erika picked up Book 3 in German. The german cover art is something.
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(1)
01:26:58 AM,
Saturday 21 July 2007
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Wait wait wait: they dubbed over David Attenborough?
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10:53:51 AM,
Friday 20 July 2007
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Obama's speech about urban poverty. I'm rather ashamed how little I know about the history and politics of poverty. Here's the Post discussing the difference between Obama's and Edward's plans.
One thing in Obama's speech is the notion that if something doesn't work, you stop and try something else. A government that worked that way, rather than just becoming entrenched in it's senselessness, both at home and abroad, as they say, that would really be something. That notion, that we can acknowledge government waste, corruption and stupidity, without sliding down into the pit of libertarianism, callousness and fatalism; that I don't need to embrace either alternative, that it's a false choice, it's heartening. I'm not sure I believe it. It's that whole hope thing.
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09:44:28 PM,
Thursday 19 July 2007
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I'm now halfway through book 3. I'm pretty appalled by how badly my bloomsbury books have held up. We've got english hardcovers for the first 4, to avoid translations. But they're printed on trash paper. They already look like 1970's trade paperbacks. The best explanation I've seen for this is that rationing got people used to it, and because of copyright, publishing houses don't compete on actual book quality. It's bizarre. Though there is one thing to be said for decay; They smell nice.
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(2)
01:47:21 PM,
Thursday 19 July 2007
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They are expecting ten to twenty thousand people to show up for the Harry and the Potters concert at Harvard Square on friday, which gives it a fair shot at being one of the geekiest things ever to have happened. I may need to go.
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(4)
05:18:43 PM,
Wednesday 18 July 2007
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Animator vs Animation: original and the sequel.
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02:45:26 PM,
Wednesday 18 July 2007
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The end of socialized auto insurance? Massachusetts set auto insurance prices, but may stop soon. It's a fairly awful system. The practical effect has been to subsidize urban drivers and bad drivers, keeping the city streets crowded, and keeping reckless drivers on the road, and, because of a reinsurance pool, to encourage insurers to ignore fraud. The globe routinely defends the system, because they don't think people should be punished for living in the city, and they seem to think there is some sort of right to drive.
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(1)
01:44:13 PM,
Tuesday 17 July 2007
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respond? (1)
09:52:43 PM, Monday 16 July 2007
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respond? (3)
09:52:22 PM, Monday 16 July 2007
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