World Series night games

Nationally televised World Series night games have rendered the out-of-town newspapers useless, at least with regard to reporting on the game. Fox Sports has scheduled the night games to start at 8:30-ish Eastern. That means that a typical game will finish some time after 11PM, often later. The Boston Globe, New York Times, and others have to put their early editions to bed so that folks in the exurbs can have a morning paper. As a result, most of the content was written before the game started. We might, if we're lucky, get a partial score from the 5th inning.

Back in the day, a kid could get off of the school bus, hurry home, and watch the rest of a World Series game. You could watch Bill Mazeroski's walk-off home run in the 1960 series before it was even time for supper.

Off in the hills when the ship comes in

As I've mentioned before, I still receive email notices about jobs in my field, even though I'm not able to work right now. This morning, I saw one that was close to an ideal match (documentation tools engineer). I probably should unsubscribe to these mailing lists until I'm ready to work again. I often underestimate how much I miss work.

Prenuptials we never read

Another link we didn't click

Happy Birthday, Earth

WorldNetDaily: Everything that is was created 6,010 years ago TODAY!

Some of you might be following a different calendar or might have a differing view of the age of life, the universe, and everything.

It's more than we can stand

It's a struggle that we'll probably lose, but still cannot walk away from the fight. The struggle, of course, is the struggle from sane grammatical usage. English speakers on both sides of pond have tried raise the alarm regarding improper use of apostrophes. There is a Facebook group called If You Can't Differentiate Between "Your" and "You're" You Deserve To Die. (Thanks to Nancy D.) I'm not sure that apostrophe abuse is a capital offense, but I know that I stop reading almost everything that has an it's where an its is the proper choice.

Even German writers are facing the enemy within. BTW, Google translates the phrase in the middle of the page, "Der größte anzunehmende Idiot," to be "The largest idiot who can be accepted".

The Book of SPAM: a SPAM-TASTIC Guide to Absolutely Everything Related to SPAM!

'Nuff said.

Neatorama » Blog Archive » The Book of SPAM: a SPAM-TASTIC Guide to Absolutely Everything Related to SPAM!

Penn researchers find emotional well-being has no influence on cancer survival

This article - Penn researchers find emotional well-being has no influence on cancer survival - runs counter to what we've wanted to believe, that improving our mood or attitude will help us get better faster. I still believe that, with a positive attitude, one can be a better patient, more willing to do the things necessary to get well. It's important for me to remember, however, that a good attitude is a support for, not a replacement for, good medicine.

A what from whose what?

There are a lot of questions that I didn't ask of my parents and, probably, an equal number of answers to which I did not pay attention.

I found this in a box of papers that we'd collected from my father's house. The box included my grandparents' citizenship papers, birth and marriage certificates, and passports.

The receipt is for the cost of administering ether as an anesthetic while my uncle was having a bullet removed from his arm.

Getting ready for Halloween

Basic Instructions: How to Deal with Trick-or-Treaters

What the cool morning brings

We have another frost this morning, a bit more widespread than Friday's. The bird bath has a skim coat of ice. As I lit the stove, I wondered when it was that we had to start buying book matches. Long after we quit smoking, we could still find free matches in hotels and restaurants. We still have a book from Old Ebbitt Grill in Washington DC, where we met after my mother's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery. The wood, strike-anywhere matches, of course, are more fun. You can light them on your teeth (although hazardous if you have a droopy mustache), on your belt buckle, on the back of your pant leg (denim is best), and just about any coarse surface where you're sure to leave a mark.

I couldn't remember the Finnish word for matches and tried a couple of online dictionaries:

On the next site, I found a term, tulitikkulaatikko, which means a box of matches. The home page of this site shows a list of popular searches.

English-speakers are looking for Finnish equivalents of "i love you" and such.
Meanwhile, the Finns are looking for the English words for VoIP, booze, marry (or more colloquial descriptions of marital activities), and Happy Easter (!?).

Marley's unsettled by the gunshots from the hunters in a nearby pond. They're hunting geese, I suspect. Last week's police log had another report of gunshots in the area. It turned out that a farmer in the neighborhood was putting down some of the farm animals.

Dictionary

More than 10 years ago, the CEO of our small company asked to borrow my dictionary. I told him that I didn't have one, that I looked up definitions and spelling on the web. "That's crazy," he said. "A writer should have a dictionary on his desk."

In the meantime, the dictionary that I don't have on my desk keeps getting smaller: Webster's USB New World Dictionary - Gizmodo.

Goings-on in and around the family

• On Thursday, we celebrated Adam's promotion to Sergeant. The ceremony was held at the State Police Headquarters in Framingham, after which we went out to dinner. We were all very proud and very happy.
• Last weekend, we visited our friends, Pete and Mildred, in Maine. They have a flock of sheep - several ewes and one ram who's looking forward to mid-November when it will be time to frolic. (It's best when lambs are born in the spring.) We stayed overnight at their house and went to the Fryeburg Fair the next day.
• On Sunday, our friends, Dan and Gay, came to our house. Gay had been at a chaplains' conference in Boston. On Saturday, they climbed Mt. Katahdin. We went to Mike and Lynn's for the evening. After dinner, we listened to Michael and Krista play the piano and, then, Lynn and Jennie sang with Dan accompanying.
  
• Last night, we went to Mike's football game. The high school has a new football field with artificial turf. Mike's team lost.
• Sandra's parents will be returning from PEI this week. Their 65^th wedding anniversary is coming up in a month.
  
• This morning, we had our first frost, just a light coating on the back deck.
  

ConsumerReports.org - Is it really decaf?

Some of our friends have reported that, in order to avoid the unwanted buzz, they have to stay away from coffee altogether. They have noticed, and ConsumerReports has confirmed, that the stuff sold as decaf still has quite a bit of caffeine.

The Psychiatrist Sketch

Via At Last, the 1967 "At Last, the 1948 Show" Show

67% Geek

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

Good luck, AJH

• So why do you think we have an appendix? | MetaFilter
• Appendix Isn't Useless At All: It's A Safe House For Good Bacteria

NEJM -- More on Thunderstorms and iPods

NEJM -- More on Thunderstorms and iPods

Playing a C on the world's tiniest violin

UMass student takes his C to federal court - The Boston Globe

Suffer Not the Trick-or-Treaters

Suffer Not the Trick-or-Treaters: "Did you ever wonder why Halloween seems to primarily feed off of a market of 3-13 year olds? This is a Satanic ploy for our children. I don't think that Christian children should completely abstain from the festivities of costumes and candy, because they can be a light through their alternative behavior. [I personally plan on dressing my children up in Biblical and God-honoring characters that will draw people to ask questions.]