Wednesday Words

Let's start off with a review of last week's words:

Callan suggested that ""petsto" is a lovely dish composed of kittens and puppies, covered in a sauce of olive oil, basil, garlic, parmesan, and pine nuts," which even better than my thought it might be basil and parmesian flavored kitty and puppy food.

Silver Fox saw two possible uses for "notha:" "All I can think of when I see "notha" - It's a notha muckin funday," and "Either that or it's Not Funny (not ha!)." Dean Wormer weighed in authoritatively with the latter: ""Notha" is an Orwellian term for things that aren't funny." Actually, I think the first use evolved from the latter meaning: muckin' fundays are definitely notha.

I was thinking "tatimp" would be a small, irritating person with abundant artificially implanted skin pictures, and "facewr" would be textual skin images implanted, like billboards, on the forehead or cheeks. "Minessi" is either a very small town in Italy, or a tiny version of the Loch Ness Monster.

And so on with the show; here's todays words. Tune in next week for full disclosure, and thanks for playing!

You're Already There, You Idiot

...is what I was hoping Google would tell me when I asked for directions from my favorite coffee shop, to my favorite coffee shop, by car.
"These directions are for planning purposes only. You may find that construction projects, traffic, weather or other events may cause conditions to differ from the map results, and you should plan your route accordingly. You must obey all signs or notices regarding your route."

Well, I guess I should go check the ODOT website and make sure that the roads are all in shape, chain requirements and so on. Ahhh... but look, they also offer walking directions. "Stand up. Sit down." I'm not going to bother checking on how to get here using public transportation.

Oh, I couldn't help myself. Here's the result: "Your search for transit directions from 1563 NW Monroe Ave. Corvallis, OR 97330 to 1563 NW Monroe Ave, Corvallis, OR 97330 appears to be outside our current coverage area. Please consult our list of participating public transit agencies."

Interzone People: Katie

Up to the end of fall term, Katie was a barista here at my favorite coffee shop.
She's a psychology major, recently won "Undergraduate of the Year" recognition in her department, and has been working in a research lab there. Unfortunately for me, that became enough of a job that she no longer had time to work here. But she still hangs out and drinks coffee on a regular basis. Like most psych majors I've known, Katie is quite crazy. But in a good way. Crazy can be very interesting and entertaining. I should know...

Another One of Those Pesky Winter Memes

I caught it from Silver Fox, who caught it from ReBecca. Bold the places you've been; numbers are thought to be average annual visitors.

America's Top 25 Most-Visited Places:

1. Times Square, New York City, NY - 35 million
2. The Las Vegas Strip, Las Vegas, NV - 31 million
3. National Mall and Memorial Parks, Washington DC - 24 million
4. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, MA- 20 million- I visited Boston in the summer after 3rd grade, but I don't remember this, so I won't count it.
5. Disney World's Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, FL - 17.1 million
6. Disneyland Park, Anaheim, CA - 14.9 million
7. Fisherman's Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco, CA - 14 million
8. Niagara Falls, NY - 12 million
9. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, TN/NC - 9.4 million
10 Navy Pier, Chicago, IL - 8.6 million- I've been to Chicago a number of times, but I don't think I've been to this spot. Unless this is where the Field Museum is.
11. Lake Mead National Recreation Area, AZ/NV - 7.6 million
12. Universal Studios/ Islands of Adventure, Orlando, FL - 6.2 million
13. SeaWorld Florida, Orlando, FL - 6 million
14. San Antonio River Walk, TX - 5.1 million
15. Temple Square, Salt Lake City, UT - 5 million
16. Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area, PA/NJ - 4.8 million- possibly, but if so, a drive-by, and I don't remember it.
17. Universal Studios Hollywood, CA - 4.7 million
18. Metropolitan Museum, New York City, NY - 4.5 million
18. Waikiki Beach, Oahu, HI - 4.5 million
20. Grand Canyon, AZ - 4.41 million
21. Busch Gardens Africa, Tampa Bay, FL - 4.4 million
22. Cape Cod National Seashore, MA - 4.35 million- Plymouth, but I don't think we went out on the cape.
23. Sea World San Diego, CA - 4.26 million
24. American Museum of Natural History, New York City, NY - 4 million
25. Atlantic City Boardwalk, NJ - 4 million

I think it speaks volumes about Americans that the two museums on this list are in 18th and 24th places. I count 13, a bit more than half. 16, the other 18, and 22 are the ones I'd be interested in seeing, and maybe 4- I'd definitely like to go back and visit some of Boston's historical sites.

Oops, followup- didn't remove SF's comment on Waikiki; I've never been anywhere close to Hawaii.

Autonomous Drone Weapons...

...that weren't funded in this year's Defense Budget:

see more pictures

It Was 309 Years Ago Today

Almost missed this... chatting with fellow coffee-drinkers, reading LOL cats and news and so on. All the image work for the apophyllite post took longer than I expected, too. So I was just skimming over news from my RSS folder, "Oregon News and Blogs," and what should pop up but this little bit of trivia:

Scientific research in Oregon, Washington and Japan tells us that at 9 p.m. on Jan. 26, 1700 AD, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake, centered about 75 miles offshore, ruptured along a 600 mile long fault...

Via KATU, a press release from DOGAMI (Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries). So the actual moment of the anniversary will be about 2 hours from now.

Not to Worry

see Sarah Palin pictures

And the Republicans haven't gone away either... they're just not in charge any more.