Muxtape!

Muxtape

So, that's what book reviews are like, huh?

Jerry Fodor reviews Kripke: Names, Necessity and Identity by Christopher Hughes.

This is the sort of thing that I am only moderately qualified to read, and not at all qualified to write, though I do like the ever-present pull of questions against "truths" in philosophy. Via Metafilter.

Story ending prompted by O. Henry Prize winners anthology

A man jumps out and yells, "Gotcha!" Then everything is the opposite.

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Originally uploaded by joshsteich

Crystal antlers. On a hill.

BASEBALL!

After watching this movie from Thomas Jefferson (from this Metafilter thread), I got curious about the defunct league that was playing (the Atlantic League's Newark Colts, though I can't tell who they were playing against), and stumbled onto this explication of minor-league baseball in Danbury, Connecticut (the one state that I always have trouble spelling). Or "Hat-town" as it was apparently known, in that time before catchy nicknames.
There's also this neat chronology of the year that Edison filmed the game, which briefly mentions Lizzie (Arlington) Stroud, who was the first woman to play professional baseball, albeit only for one game (she pitched).

And if the focus isn't narrowed enough, there's the Minor League Baseball Researcher, which has a bunch of California League stats and some interesting descriptions. Too bad it's not regularly updated, but we're all in the long tail here.

AskMe?

Questions I have:

How best to stream radio from my computer to my office without it raising the suspicions of the IT department or costing me money.

What was the Arab world like immediately prior to Mohamed?

Party at Cohn's

And it was all Michigan folk. Tasty dip, good easter egg hunt. Stepped out to go to dinner at Sky's Tacos, was delicious. Had a vegetarian torta, Amy had burrito. Both failed qua generis (open-face burrito, sandwich needed fork) but were DEL-ICIO-US on their own merits.

50000

50000 songs on Last.fm.

Foursquare!

We're starting to bandy about some sort of scorekeeping, Amy and I, so we can finally know that I'm better.

Meetup!

Then we did this too. As Amber cals 'em, my internerd friends.

Then the parents came

And this is what we did:

My folks: Beach, Thai Boom, Tacos La Flama, Broad, Hammer (Kara Walker makes me racist), Gemini printers, pool, big breakfasts. Wrote up a review for LARECORD.com. Stressed out.

Her folks: Hiking in Temicula or something. Temescal? Some canyon and state park. I enjoyed the walk, but I kinda ran out of things to say. Long Beach Aquarium was OK. If I'd paid, I woulda been annoyed. They had a Prius and didn't get it at all. Couldn't get the doors to stay locked. Number one reason to not get a Prius? While at a stoplight, I somehow managed to screw around with the dash computer and it froze, then rebooted, leaving us stalled. Ate at some Italian Place (Maria's?) in Westwood, and it was the damned dullest Italian food possible. Too sweet, too much. We also ate at the Boston Pizza Company in Long Beach.

I note Boston is not known for their pizza.

Mariachis?

We went, a couple weekends ago, down to Mariachi Plaza, in the Boyle Park neighborhood, to see if we could find mariachis to photograph. It had been described, third-hand, as a place where mariachis gathered in huge flocks, like parrots. Instead, it was, like, three guys. I was hoping for more festive photos, but instead (especially with the construction for a new train line and station) it was kind of squalid and gray. Luckily, we met up with my then-coworker Justin (on to better things now, I hope) at La Serenada de Garibaldi (spelling?) for dinner.

I went with the potato tacos, which were light and pretty tasty, though kind of monotextural. Amy went with the gorditas with mixed vegetables, which were better. They were one of those restaurants that, guessing purely, seemed like they'd do seafood well. I mean, they seemed to do well with crisp, delicate textures and I'd bet that fish works well with that, at least the tacos. The gorditas seemed less incomplete.

I will say that the chili sauce there was really excellent, and some of the best I've ever had.

We also got to see a bit more of the neighborhood. There was a housing development htat really reminded me of Arrowwood. Too bad the commute would kill me.

SAFETY!

While reading this question on Ask Metafilter, in which the asker refers to some putative "Paul Reiser Effect," I remembered being in elementary school and how after you farted, you had to yell "Lou Rawls!" first, otherwise someone could hit you.

I have no fucking idea why.

I remember asking my dad "Why Lou Rawls?" when I was a kid, and while he hadn't heard of it, he speculated that Lou Rawls' rich baritone was some talisman.

Anyway, I think we just kind of misheard something or other and it caught on because elementary school boys are prone to adhering to arbitrary rules about farting enforced with violence.

I think the "Paul Reiser effect" is likely similar—something that sounded good at the moment, totally detached from any coherent meaning.